Chapter Text
“Excited for high school?” Jack asks, trying to interject as much cheer into this voice as possible. He rains down a few snowflakes for some festivity, cold confetti from his hands. Jamie groans, falling onto his bed with a whoosh of his blankets around him.
“No. Caleb and Claude are going to the high school on the other side of town, and I only have a few classes with Pippa and Monty. And Cupcake and I are the only ones who have the same free period,” Jamie complains, his arms spread out at his sides. Everything about him seems to say go on without me. “I wish you could come. I bet all of the teachers would hate you, though.”
Jack laughs, perching himself on Jamie’s bedpost. “Sounds about right. Pretty sure the only class you’d have with me is after school detention.”
“We’d be in different years anyways,” Jamie tells Jack, but there’s a hint of a smile on his face that wasn’t there before. “Pretty sure everyone would be wondering why you’d be hanging out with me.”
“No way,” Jack says, “I bet they’d be wondering why you’d be hanging out with me. Lighten up, cool kid,” he continues, tracing patterns in the air that crystallize into form. “High school is a pretty small part of your life, you know?”
Jamie’s smile falls again, a shadow falling over his eyes. “Yeah…” he says, softly. “What if… what if I stop seeing you?”
Jack freezes. He gently moves himself from the bedpost to sit hesitantly on Jamie’s bed, watching his face.
“You know I’m always going to be here even if you stop seeing me, right?” Jack asks. Jamie purses his lips, looking up at the ceiling, unable to face Jack. “Even if you stop believing. I’m always going to be your friend.”
“But that’s so sad!” Jamie lets out, sitting up to look at Jack. “I don’t… I don’t want you to get left behind.”
“You’re not leaving me behind by growing up, Jamie,” Jack tells him, smile soft. It is sad, he thinks, but… “That’s what Guardians do. We want you to leave childhood… knowing you were never alone.”
Jamie looks at Jack, studying his face. “I don’t want you to be alone.”
Jack gives him half a smile, a crooked thing that doesn’t quite touch his eyes, before ruffling Jamie’s hair into a mess.
“I’ll be fine.”
—
It’s taking later in the autumn months to get the right kind of cold. Specifically, the kind of cold that he brings, the chill on your neck and the first leaves falling to a future of mush on the pavement. He’s just bringing his touch to those leaves somewhere in the woods of Maine when Baby Tooth finds him.
“Hey there,” he says, his attention drawn away. He can probably get away with putting this off for another few weeks. “What’s the word, Baby Tooth? You didn’t come all this way to see little old me, did you?”
It’s been just under 4 years since his official appointment as Guardian, and the time has flown a lot faster than the last couple hundred have. It’s been nice, he thinks, having his own people; ones he can talk to and spend time with. Really nice.
The kids in particular bring him a special kind of joy, memories of his sister both new enough to sting and faint enough to be only a distant sort of melancholy. They are getting older, his visit with Jamie keeps that knowledge on the surface of his mind. He always tries to visit Burgess a couple of times a month in between his other responsibilities, watching the kids grow up, and if Burgess has a few cold snaps during the summer months, well, the weather reports can just stay confused.
Baby Tooth’s chirping has him more alert, drifting from flight down to the forest floor, staff tight in hand.
“Manny’s calling a meeting, is that right? Guess we better see what’s up. North Pole, right?” he asks, and Baby Tooth chirps the affirmative. He opens his hood a touch, and Baby Tooth takes the opportunity to fly inside and hitch a ride. “To the North we go,” he says, and kicks off.
—
There’s a whole lot of silence when he makes it into the workshop, and he’d almost think no one was there if he couldn’t see the other Guardians gathered together, looking haunted. What they’re gathered around is the globe— currently glowing a single light at a single point, pulsing like a heart.
“Did you start without me?” he asks as his feet touch ground. “I didn’t take that long.”
Not totally true. The wind must have been feeling funny today, because he crashed into a snowdrift somewhere in Nunavut. He’s still shaking snow from his front pocket when Baby Tooth darts out and heads for Toothiana.
“Jack,” Tooth starts, “we’re glad you’re here.”
“Yeah, we’ve really got the whole gang together. Does someone want to fill me in?” he asks, getting closer to the group and, by extension, the globe. He really wants to know what that light is— it can’t be a lone believer, it’s not like the whole world has stopped believing. He wryly thinks that if any believer were going to have a light like that it would be Jamie, but dismisses all of this because none of it explains why the room is so tense.
“Man in Moon called us together because Pitch is trying something… very dangerous,” North says, his hand on his chin and his brows furrowed. He sounds more serious than Jack has ever heard him, and he very abruptly feels the tension in the room on him as well.
“Practically unheard of is what it is,” Bunny growls, starting to pace in circles. Nothing was getting less confusing.
“What exactly is he doing?” Jack asks, “He’s been dead silent for years.” Thankfully Sandy comes to Jack’s side, full of symbols to decipher.
The moon. A tree. A clock. Nightmares, easy enough to recognize. But again, the tree.
“Yggdrasil,” Tooth says from Jack’s side. “The tree that reaches through time and space.”
“Pitch wants to cut it open and send fear through it— make himself more powerful in the present,” Bunny continues. “Bloody crazy is what it is.”
“He sends fear to the past and it accumulates where we can’t stop it,” Jack feels something cold rush through him. Not the comforting kind of cold that he knows, but the grip of something unknown. “I thought Yggdrasil was a myth.”
Somehow, this gets a laugh out of North, albeit far more subdued than his usual. “Boy,” he says, “we are myths.”
“Time magic is… well, unstable, to put it lightly,” Tooth says, worrying her hands together. “Cut open the tree? Pitch might think he knows what he’s doing, but…”
Jack frowns. “Speaking of time, aren't we wasting it? What do we do?”
“That’s the thing,” Tooth says, all of her movements nervous, “we’re not sure what we can do.”
“I’m not following,” Jack says, his brow furrowed.
“Yggdrasil is protected,” Bunny says, his pacing stopped and his arms folded. His ears remain twitching, a nervous tic. “Well, it’s supposed to be. It’s a right wonder we’re even allowed to know where it is.”
“Is Father Time’s jurisdiction,” North says quietly, his eyes still on the light. Jack feels close to waving his arms in front of him in the hopes that he’ll snap out of… whatever this is. “We can fight Pitch off, who knows for how long, but the magic that protects it— all Father Time.”
Sandy moves his sand through the air, again the tree, an old man? A swirl of sand that could mean magic.
“The problem,” Tooth translates for Sandy, “is that Pitch is weakening the wards, and we don’t have the power to restore them. Only Father Time does.”
“So where is he?” he asks, twisting his staff in his hands. “I’m pretty sure if we ask him for a magical top up he’s not going to say no.” Sandy gives a sigh, and a lone question mark appears over his head while he throws up his hands. “We don’t know?” Jack asks.
“It’s why Manny wants our help,” Tooth says, “we have experience with Pitch, and are powerful enough to protect the tree with Father Time’s whereabouts unknown and the wards weak. The problem is…”
“We have to divvy up,” Bunny says. “We need people to make sure Pitch doesn’t reach the tree, and another crew to search for Father Time.”
Jack’s hands tighten on his staff. “I’ll protect the tree,” he says, the words immediate. The others glance between themselves.
“Jack,” Tooth says gently, “it might be best if you help with the search. There’s no telling how much more dangerous Pitch will be now. This is his first time trying anything since the last battle, and…”
“She’s right,” Bunny says, “a wounded animal is more likely to bite.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Jack admits before steeling himself, “but I still think it’s where I need to be. Besides,” he says with a smile, “we took him down before, right?”
The others exchange nervous looks, but seem to reach some sort of unspoken agreement. It’s more than Pitch, though, for him. Ever since coming into the workshop his eyes have been drawn to that light, like some kind of pull inside of him. The pulse of it seems to settle inside of his chest, a lull where his heartbeat would be, if he still had one. He shakes his head, tries to rattle his thoughts clear.
“Right,” North seems to come back into himself with plans more laid. “Bunny, Tooth, and myself, we search for Father Time. We cover more distance together, while Jack and Sandy protect tree.”
“He might not have broken the outer ward,” Bunny says, “might buy you more time to get on the defense.”
Jack nods. They all take a moment to look at each other. North seems firm again, holding his head high, and Bunny, still tense, seems itching to get to work. Sandy, shoulders pulled back, has a determined set to his face. Only Tooth seems to still look unsure.
“We head out,” North says, and they begin to disperse, North and Bunny looking towards the globe to divide sections to search. Tooth hangs back, grabbing Jack by the sleeve.
“I can’t really explain it, but I have this bad feeling,” she says, her eyes heavy with worry. “Please be careful, Jack.”
“Aren’t I always?” Jack reassures with a smile. Tooth doesn’t look convinced, but lets him go nonetheless. He turns to leave, but honestly, he can kind of feel what she’s saying. The creeping dread of something bad on its way almost keeps his feet rooted, but he manages to move even so.
Meeting Sandy by the window, he asks, “Where exactly are we headed?” Sandy responds with a map, slowly zeroing in on a shimmering gold image of…
“… Norway?” he asks. Sandy tilts his head in question. “I mean, Norway, of course. Yggdrasil, obviously,” Jack says. He gives his staff a light toss, catches it, and kicks up into the air. “Guess we head out.”
They fly through the window in streams of gold and the catches of light on frost in the air, making their way to Yggdrasil.
—
“This is a hole in the ground.”
They’ve been flying at the height of their limits, shaving their landing by a precious few hours. They touched down in rocky wilderness, the sky a grey cast above them. Jack, obviously, didn’t have any idea what they were supposed to be looking for, and felt extremely lucky that Sandy took the helm, steering them in the right direction with little complaint. That is, if he was complaining, Jack couldn’t tell.
Jack stands at the edge of the hole, peering warily down. It’s several feet wide, enough to drop down easily enough, and if he squints he can see some sort of shine around it. A ward, clearly, something to make the eye pass over it. When he looks inside he can’t see much of anything, so there’s no telling how deep it goes. His experience with holes in the ground has… not been great. Jack looks to Sandy in question.
“So we just stand guard out here?” he asks, not really expecting that to be the case. Sandy rolls his eyes and makes a shooing motion with his hands, clearly expecting them to go down. “I’m just saying, this seems like an easily defensible spot—“ and then Sandy pushes his knees out from under him, and Jack is dropping.
“That was uncalled for!” he shouts upward, the words echoing against the rocky cavern. He can see Sandy begin to float downward, feather light, abruptly reminding Jack that he should be slowing his own fall. The fall feels as if it lasts an age, like when he flies back out again the world will be changed. He can’t get a feel for how deep they’ve gone below the earth.
Jack manages to right himself and turns fall into flight, moving faster downwards until he lands smoothly on his feet, staff out to his side.
As soon as his feet touch ground he can feel the thrumming of life moving through him, starting at his feet and crawling up his legs until it catches in his throat. The ground is so much more green than he expected where sunlight doesn’t reach, covered in bioluminescent moss, casting a glow up to the impossibly high stone cover of a ceiling.
Even more impressive, though, are the roots. They stretch in every possible direction, some raised high enough to crawl under, set like veins below dirt skin. He can see more light crawl through them, thin streams of white and green below the surface of bark.
Jack starts to move forward because he can’t make himself stop, the pull of something in his chest dragging him forward, his feet just barely able to catch up. He has a distant awareness of Sandy in his peripheral vision, trying to get his attention, make him stop. Every step feels like wading through a current, trying to move upstream.
The tree should be impossible. The tree is impossible, stretching so high upwards that it should break through the stone and touch the sky. There’s obviously a magic to that, and when he looks past the uppermost branches he thinks he can see stars. The trunk of it is like a tower, and around its base are four white stags, glowing in the light of the moss. They’re eating the leaves within their reach, and branches seem to almost lower around them, as if the tree is caring for its pets.
He can just reach his hand out now, push it forward through the pressure in the air to touch the white bark, when—
“I think you’ll find that’s mine.”
The stags scatter.
Shadows pull Jack backwards, knocking him to his knees enough to drag him on the ground to Pitch’s feet, standing among the roots. He can see Sandy just past him, struggling with shadows, golden streams of sand in each hand that melt when they hit darkness. Jack can’t believe he was so easily caught off guard, not noticing Sandy fighting for his life, much less Pitch—
— who catches him by the front, pulling him upwards, until they’re face to face.
“We never had to reach this point, you know,” Pitch says, almost delicately in spite of his grip beginning to tear into Jack’s hoodie. “But I won’t be spending the rest of our encounter still trying to convince you.”
“Good,” Jack grits out, pained as he tries to pull himself free from Pitch’s hold. “Might as well save your breath.”
“From what I hear, you lost your breath some time ago,” Pitch grins something ugly and throws Jack away from him in a way that would have been painful if he hadn’t caught himself in the wind, backflipping to stand carefully on a root. “Not like the others, are you? You know what death is like.”
He doesn’t take the bait, but he can feel something in his stomach drop. He tightens his grip on his staff and brings it in front of him defensively, both in protection and a silent dare for Pitch to come forward.
He does, his scythe materializing as he surges, the staff end meeting Jack’s crook with enough force to knock Jack backwards once more.
Just hold him off, Jack thinks, we just need to find Father Time, and…
The blade cuts through the air just before his face as Pitch moves forward and forward, every new attack bringing him closer to the tree. Jack swings his staff into Pitch’s legs, briefly making him disappear into the underground darkness, but he’s only on Jack again moments later.
What did Bunny say again? Something about wounded animals. And biting.
His back hits the tree hard, enough to make his teeth crash together and his vision spin as his head makes contact, his staff falling from his grip to clatter against the roots at his feet. Pitch’s blade touches his throat and he freezes, looking at Pitch’s face. There’s a sort of resignation in it.
“Maybe in another life I would regret this,” Pitch says, contemplative, “but alas, you’re in my way.”
He can feel when the blade starts to cut, cold blood dripping down his throat, catching on the neck of his hoodie. His hands come up to grab the sharp edge of the scythe, doing anything to get it away. The blade digs into his palms, and he drops one away in an attempt to spare himself the pain.
“What’s the matter, Jack?” Pitch asks. “You’ve done this before. Just let go.”
Jack slams his free palm against the tree, blood sinking into the wood, staining it red.
That’s when the whole cavern burns white.
—
“Jack, I’m scared.”
He knows this moment. Of course he does, he thinks about it all the time. If he could sleep he knows he would see it all through his dreams.
“I— I know, but you’re gonna be alright, you’re not gonna fall in—“
He can feel himself saying the words, can feel every part of his body, but it’s like he’s watching it from far away, unable to control what he does or says, can’t change his movements in any way that matters.
Jack can feel the cold air on his face and the sun trying to warm it. He can feel the ice and snow under his feet in a way that hasn’t registered in 300 years.
“— we’re gonna have a little fun instead.”
He feels like a puppet on strings, an actor following a script. He can see the fear in his sister’s eyes, her shaky breath, and can see the exact spaces that each of them will move to, like blocking on the stage of a theater.
“We’re gonna play hopscotch, like we play every day!”
Jack thinks he can be okay with watching this. He knows what happens, knows she gets out okay, and isn’t that the important part? Even when he knows what happens— where he ends up, he can relive it. She’s safe. She’s okay.
He’s in the center of the ice now, and she’s smiling at him, safe as can be, and then her smile drops.
“Jack, you’re bleeding.”
The script is in the wind, the strings cut, and he can look down at his hands, dripping onto the ice from their attempt to stop Pitch’s blade. He brings his fingers to his neck and feels the same wound, the long drag across his throat. This isn't what happens. This isn’t how this scene goes.
“What—“
And then the ice cracks.
“Jack!”
He’s falling, falling, the sun so far away through the water. He falls impossibly slowly, and he can’t remember drowning feeling this long. Actually, what did feel this long was…
The cavern. Like a lifetime ago. It was a lifetime ago— more than that.
Centuries. But at the same time, hours.
What happens now? Jack wonders. I lived this once. Do I really die this time? Is this it?
His back hits the pond floor, but instead of resting on the mud and silt, his final resting place, the ground cracks and shatters like glass, and he falls further, further, until he sees an ocean below him, feels freezing air.
The last thing he registers is the sky wrapping itself like a cloak around him— the cold rush of passing through a cloud—
I didn’t get to say goodbye.
— before consciousness leaves his mind black.
—
“You know I said we would be gone for an hour, tops.”
Toothless makes a noise below him, clearly an acknowledgement and a dismissal in one. This was just supposed to be a quick flight, give Toothless a chance to stretch his wings, and, in all honesty, a chance for Hiccup to take a little break.
It’s a nice night, the air chilled against his face at the high altitude but clear enough weather for the whole sea to be visible, with open skies above to match. The moon is full, and surrounded by the dotting of stars.
They weren’t supposed to be gone this long, however, and Toothless was resisting any effort he made to turn around.
“Okay, I’m gonna give you to the count of 5 before we have to turn around or—“ Hiccup cuts himself off when Toothless darts sharply forward and Hiccup looks up in the direction he’s heading, just in time to see a small shadow fall over the visible moon. “What in Hel’s name… is that a dragon?”
He says that, but the closer they get the less likely it is. It’s falling fast, and if they don’t make it in time it probably won’t survive hitting the ocean. Toothless could be breaking records now, and manages to place them directly underneath… whatever it is— enough that Hiccup can catch it, albeit with some difficulty.
It— he isn’t heavy, is the thing. Hiccup becomes very aware that he’s just caught a boy who was apparently falling from the sky, with no dragon in sight.
“Don’t suppose you want to explain this one, huh bud?” he asks Toothless. He only gets a rumble in response, but Toothless is turning them around, seemingly ready to go back to Berk now that his self imposed mission is complete. He takes a look at the boy in his arms.
The first thing he sees is blood.
“Oh gods. Uh, bud, we need to high tail it or he might not make it,” he tells Toothless, moving a hand to the boy’s neck to apply pressure. Pressure to the wound, pressure to the…
Hiccup can see more blood on the boy’s hands where it had seeped into his clothes, a white shirt bloodied at the sleeves and a brown cloak over top. He’s both very pale and very cold, but both of those things could be due to the blood loss. The boy is almost completely frozen; he can see where his once wet clothes have become covered in frost at the high altitude. There are still some places under Hiccup’s hands that are heavy with water.
Maybe the most unusual thing about him is that he looks… surprisingly normal. He’s very pretty, which isn’t something Hiccup says about a lot of people, with wide set eyes and warm brown hair that looks like it could be soft to the touch, if not for the frost. He takes his eyes away from the boy’s face, still with sleep. Hopefully just sleep.
He focuses on tearing off pieces of the boy’s cloak with his knife while maintaining a careful hold on him, and then uses those pieces to tie makeshift bandages. He hopes he doesn’t die before they reach Gothi’s.
“Alright, Toothless, bring us home.”
—
Hiccup takes them directly to Gothi’s landing pad, saving himself both time and a long, long climb. He tries to dismount Toothless as gently as possible while still holding the boy, hopefully avoiding aggravating his wounds. Toothless is thankfully very accomodating, and leans himself gently to one side to better allow him off.
When Gothi makes her way out of the hut, drawn to the noise, she doesn’t look terribly surprised to see him. Nor surprised to see the boy in his arms, either. He distantly registers that this has been a very strange night.
“Please, can you— can you help him?” he asks her. It feels very important, somehow, that this boy survives, but he has no idea where this feeling comes from. It almost feels bestowed upon him, an instinct he could either cling to or reject, and he’s choosing to follow the future where he lives, if only to see what happens.
Gothi nods and gestures him inside with her staff, Hiccup following at her heels. A bedroll is already prepared, and he doesn’t waste any time placing the boy down, a literal weight lifted from him. Gothi is already getting to work, preparing medical supplies and herbs that Hiccup doesn’t recognize.
“How did you know to expect us?” he asks, to which Gothi only shrugs. She can’t really explain much with her hands too busy to write on the floor, but for one moment she looks behind him to the window, and points a finger to the sky. He has no idea what she could be trying to tell him. All he sees is the moon.
He must be hovering uncomfortably, because around the time she starts to peel off the makeshift bandages from the boy’s neck and hands she shoos him out, and he forces himself back outside to meet Toothless.
“Sometimes I really wish I knew what you were thinking,” he muses, scratching behind Toothless’ ear plates. Toothless only rumbles and cocks his head to give him better access.
A shout coming up the side of the hill, becoming more clear as it came closer, distracts him from Toothless.
“Hiccup!” Astrid stops at the landing, panting from the long trek at high speeds. “Odin’s beard, where have you been? We were worried sick!”
“Alright, I can explain, I know we were just supposed to be an hour, but—“
“An hour? Hiccup, you were gone all night!”
He stops, shocked, but looking out from the landing, he can see the very beginning of the sun’s rise, the horizon melting blue into soft yellows. He feels his jaw drop.
“What… I knew we were late but I swear it couldn’t have been the whole night,” Hiccup tells Astrid, unable to take his eyes away from the edge of the sky. He can’t make sense of it. He knew how far they had flown, knew the surrounding areas and could pick them out from his map. There was simply no way that flying to the point of the boy’s fall and back could have taken longer than 2 hours at most. Astrid watches him, frustrated, but her face soon falls to exasperation.
“You’re hopeless,” she says, reaching out to give him a punch to the arm, which he winces at, but he smiles apologetically still. “You’re lucky we don’t train today. What gives, what were you even doing?”
He reaches up and absently scratches at his cheek. “Well, about that…” he starts, but Astrid’s hand reaches back to him, grabbing his wrist and pulling his hand in front of her.
“Is this blood? What did you do? Are you hurt?”
“Okay, first, yes it is. Second, I didn’t do anything, you could really say it was all Toothless. Third, I’m completely fine. Promise,” Hiccup tells her. She doesn’t relax, her brows still drawn together tightly.
Astrid says, “Start from the beginning.”
—
He tells her all of it, but really, there isn’t a lot to tell. Toothless acting strange, a boy falling from the sky, Hiccup bringing him back to Berk in an effort to save his life. Astrid looks more pensive the longer he talks.
“And you didn’t see any dragon around that he could have fallen from?” she asks, arms crossed loosely in front of her. They’ve long since made their way back to the lower village, Toothless beside them, walking through the market area just starting to come alive in the cool dawn air. He’s starting to feel the night, suddenly, and he desperately wants to go home to clean his hands, feed Toothless, and sleep, in that order.
“The skies were clear in every direction, I didn’t see anything but him. It was like he came from nowhere. And he was frozen, like he’d been dunked underwater and the fall froze it on him. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says, sighing, frustrated. “I guess we won’t know anything until he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up,” Astrid murmurs, looking at their feet as they walk.
He will, he thinks. He can’t explain it, but Hiccup knows he didn’t bring him all this way just for him to die. But he doesn’t say anything. Toothless gives him a nudge to his side with his head, and he looks down to see him looking like he knows exactly what Hiccup is thinking. He smiles at Toothless tiredly.
Astrid casts him a sidelong look. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like a mess. Go home, and I’ll try to keep anyone from bothering you for a few hours.”
He smiles at her, thankful. “I would really, really appreciate that.” He stops for a second, thinking. “Hey, you were up pretty early too. You weren’t waiting for me, were you?”
Astrid’s face abruptly gets redder as she says “No, I was with—“ before her eyes widen and she clamps her mouth shut. Hiccup gets much, much more curious. “If you make me answer that I’ll make sure the twins find something very loud to occupy themselves with.”
Hiccup grimaces, and says, “Okay, it can wait. I’ll see you later, Astrid.”
She smiles and gives him a light push as she leaves, so it’s just him and Toothless again. The rest of the walk isn’t too far, and he tries his best to not think of anything while they make their way home. They’re just passing through the shadow of a house when an aged hand reaches out to hold onto his arm.
He nearly falls over in surprise— the holder is an old man, a long beard nearly trailing to his feet and a staff much taller than him gripped in his free hand. He has kindly eyes set in a deep lined face, and there must be something very strange about looking into those eyes, because Hiccup finds himself forgetting that he’s never seen this man on Berk in his life. Toothless doesn’t give any sort of warning growl, and seems to be content just to look at the man with a slightly tilted head.
“A gift, for you,” the old man says with a smile, the gummy sort that it wouldn’t be surprising to see him give a child. Hiccup feels sort of dumbstruck around him, and only watches as the man rummages in the pocket of his long cloak until he comes away with what appears to be…
“A compass?” Hiccup asks. He accepts it with both hands, examining it in confusion. There isn’t anything obviously different about it to set it apart from any other compass. However, as he brings it closer to his face to better look at it, he finds he can hear a faint tick, tick, tick.
“That and more, much more, much more,” the old man says, smiling that same smile. “You will find it useful, when the time comes.”
“Uh… thanks?” Hiccup says. What time? he wonders, but his mouth feels confused around the words. The old man wraps both hands around his staff and nods, then taps it against Hiccup’s side harder than expected from such a wiry old man, who already begins to shuffle away.
“Get some sleep, boy. Sleep always brings new surprises,” he tells Hiccup, tapping his nose. Hiccup, nodding, turns away, the ticking compass in hand and his home ahead of him. He thinks he’ll probably have more thoughts on this later, when he’s awake, but for now the meeting passes through his mind like a hazy dream.
When he successfully gets home, he’s able to wash his hands and make sure Toothless is fed and comfortable, before passing out in bed and sleeping like the dead.