Chapter Text
Hiccup dreamt of a blizzard.
It was a violent and dark haze of shifting shades of gray and ultramarine blue. The wind fought against him as he tried pushing through it, each tossed snowflake like a sharp needle against his skin.
There was no knowing where he was, it was all snow and wind all around him, as far as the eye could see.
The cold was nigh unbearable, freezing his limbs stiff and making his teeth clatter.
Among the harsh howling of the wind Hiccup swore he could hear the distant baying of something, long and drawn out, a mournful and hungry sound. Fear swelled in his chest and pushed him onward, legs sinking deep into the snow.
All he knew is that he had to get out, find a way out, find Toothless, find help.
That baying sound trailed after him, always a couple paces behind. But whenever he turned to look, there was nothing but the all encompassing blizzard surrounding.
What felt like hours and no time at all swept past him. Hiccup couldn't feel his limbs anymore, a numbness from the cold having spread through them. He had one of his arms up, shielding his vision from the snow, he had to keep going.
Eventually something in his mind screamed for him to stop, and despite the fear of whatever was following him, he did so.
A dark silhouette broke through the storm. It was just standing there, unmoving.
"H-hello? Can you help me?" his own voice was strange to him as it seemed to echo from him and all around him. "I n-need to get out of this blizzard, there's something i-in it, it's been following me!"
As he said that he kept pushing through the snow and the wind, inching closer and closer to the silhouette, and as he got closer he began making out more details of it. Whomever it was, was slim and shorter than him, and he could see some sort of fabric flapping wildly with the wind around their shoulders. The figure seemed to be standing on top of the snow, not at all sinking into it like Hiccup. They had their back to him, and he could see a long staff being held in one hand.
"Please, please you have to help me," he begged the figure again as the baying got louder and closer, like a wolf picking up the scent of an injured prey.
The figure turned towards him, and through the haze of snow he saw two brilliant blue eyes that seemed to pierce through it.
With a violent shudder he would wake up, chest rising and falling rapidly. Moonlight illuminated his bedroom through one of the open roof hatches, the moon hanging full and large over the night sky. The memory of the dream quickly slipping off his mind.
In hindsight, Hiccup should've realized something was up when Toothless started acting… strangely.
They had been soaring around the islands nearest to Berk, one of their many usual morning rounds that Toothless insisted on to stretch his wings. Not that Hiccup could, or would, complain, as the feeling of the crisp early winter wind on his face woke him right up like nothing else.
He knew these islands like the back of his hand, so he barely paid attention to them as they soared, simply enjoying the feeling of being up in the air, Toothless rumbling happily under him.
As they passed by one of the small islands north of Berk however, Hiccup had to do a double-take.
In surprise he craned his neck to look behind himself and make sure he was seeing what he thought he'd just spotted off the corner of his eye.
The first snow of winter hadn't yet arrived, the weather having been clear for a number of days. But sitting right there, the small island he'd spotted was covered in a blanket of snow. There were a few other even smaller islands scattered around the main one, each of them completely free of snow, as if whatever clouds had brought it in had chosen specifically the larger one to unload their cargo onto.
Hiccup tugged on the handles of Toothless' saddle, eliciting a curious rumble from the dragon who looked back at him.
"Slow down for a second, bud. Let's turn around, I want to check something out," he said, patting Toothless on the side of the neck.
Toothless smoothly U-turned as Hiccup shifted his tail-fin to accommodate the maneuver, and they descended in the direction of the island.
The temperature plummeted considerably as they neared its cliffs, and Hiccup could see that every inch of the island was truly covered in snow, as if an intense blizzard had passed through. Idly he wondered if this was the doing of a Snow Wraith, only to quickly reject the idea as they landed. A Snow Wraith's breath produced ice, not this powdery snow.
"Weird…" he mumbled, sliding off Toothless and looking around.
Despite the chill, the island looked… beautiful. The white snow reflected the morning sun, and seemed to almost glitter like thousands upon thousands of little gems. Ice clung to the branches of the trees and shone with the morning sun, refracting the light into rainbow hues, giving the forest an almost magical feel to it.
Winter had always been a harsh reality for Hiccup and the vikings that made the Barbaric Archipelago their home, Devastating Winter even more so, it was survival at it's most dire. But Hiccup had to admit that there was a beauty to the quiet moments during it, when the sky was clear and blue and the world fell into a reverent hush, the snow and ice seeming to encase everything into a quiet stasis. Like the world was just waiting to wake up from a prolonged sleep, and one could almost feel it dreaming.
This little piece of winter that had found its way on to this island, before it's time, reminded Hiccup of a time like that.
It still didn't explain why it looked like that in the first place.
He heard Toothless snuffling at the snow next to him, the dragon seeming curious about it as well.
"Let's take a look around," Hiccup said, patting Toothless' neck before rummaging the inside of the small saddle bag tied to Toothless side, getting his notebook and charcoal pencil out from it. "If we don't find anything we'll leave. But I think a small break before we get back to Berk won't hurt, what do you say, bud?"
Toothless let out a content little croon, and his best-friend's seemingly calm demeanor in the face of this strange little winter wonderland in the middle of the sea made Hiccup relax.
They circled the edges of the frozen forest for a little bit, not another dragon in sight. A slight breeze blew past them, ruffling the leaves still clinging to the trees.
He opened his notebook and started taking notes of his thoughts, idly sketching the icicles dangling from the tree branches, and how a fern like pattern of frost spread over the bark of the trunk. Absentmindedly he heard Toothless begin walking into the forest proper, and he spared a quick glance at him before returning to his sketching.
"Call if you see anything, bud," he called out loud, hearing an answering warble from Toothless.
For a while Hiccup's attention was mostly lost to his notes and sketches, but he still kept an ear out for the sounds of his friend trudging through the snow covered forest.
It was nice, just stopping for a moment to take in the scenery like this.
After a while, he began to hear the sounds of what seemed to be Toothless bounding somewhere deeper in the forest. It perked his curiosity, Toothless hadn't called for him so surely there was no danger, but it was definitely much more noise than what he'd expect from the dragon simply walking through the woods.
"Toothless? You ok?" Hiccup called out towards the forest. There was no answering call from Toothless, but he could still hear the unmistakable sounds of his dragon jumping around through the snow. A happy chortle that had certainly come from Toothless and that he could just barely hear had him raising an eyebrow and closing his notebook.
Maybe he had found another friendly dragon to play with? Toothless was often wary of strange wild dragons, but he had heard and seen Toothless play with the other rider's dragons often enough that he was fairly sure that whatever it was, Toothless was just having a bit of fun.
It didn't take long for him to spot the large black shape that was his best-friend among the trees as he entered the forest, following the path Toothless had carved into the soft snow with his body. As he approached, Hiccup could notice that Toothless seemed to be playfully swatting and hopping around something, almost as if he was carefully playing with a flitting Terrible Terror.
Hiccup couldn't help but quirk a smile as he stepped through the trees to the clearing Toothless had found himself in, "Found a friend there, bud?"
He stopped dead in his tracks as he saw Toothless stop and turn to him, a happy gummy smile on his face, before turning back around to bound and swat at… nothing?
A few loose snowflakes twirled in the wind around Toothless as the dragon hopped around the clearing, almost as if trying to playfully catch them. It was truly a puzzling sight, Toothless had always been a playful dragon but he usually preferred to play with other dragons or with Hiccup.
He stood still, a furrow in his brow as he watched Toothless.
Something about all of this felt… off… to Hiccup, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was. A feeling of being watched started spreading in his gut. It made him a bit ill at ease, and that prickling sensation started to creep up his spine.
"Uh, Toothless… we should probably head back," he called out again, an uncertain edge to his voice.
Toothless stopped and turned to him, and Hiccup swore there was a disappointed glimmer in his big green eyes. It was then that the strangest thing happened; with a little croon Toothless turned back towards the clearing and seems to nudge at the air, before turning back to Hiccup, loping back towards him.
They quickly took flight, a sudden chilly wind aiding in their lift off.
A few days passed, and while Hiccup was still puzzled by Toothless' strange behavior in that frozen island, he was quick to put it out of his mind as he became busy with the village's preparations for before the first snows of winter arrived. Stocking and cataloguing all of the food that would be stored for winter, making sure all of their animals were in good shape for the lean months as well as redoubling the tinder and firewood collection efforts took center stage in his mind.
The reminder of that strange island and of Toothless behavior would hit him again when they once again spotted it during one of their morning flights.
It still looked just as it had before. A frozen winter wonderland in the middle of the sea.
Curiosity got the best of Hiccup once again, and by the happy little warble Toothless made upon catching sight of the island it seemed that he remembered whatever it was he had played with back there.
As they circled the island, Toothless began looking around frantically from the air, clearly looking for something. What it was, Hiccup couldn't even begin to guess.
"There was nothing there, bud. I'm not sure what you're looking for," he muttered, still confused and once again a bit unsettled.
"D'you want to go down there or— woah!" he hardly had time to finish what he was saying when Toothless suddenly dove towards the ground. Thankfully by now he and Toothless were a well oiled machine in the air, so he only had to scramble a little bit to shift the tail-fin gear so that they wouldn't land in a heap on the ground.
"Could've given me a warning first, you know…" Hiccup shook his head as they landed on the soft snow. Toothless looked back at him with an apologetic squint and then turned towards the forest, beginning to bound into it with Hiccup still on the saddle.
He could feel the excitement radiating from his friend, and as endearing as it was, Hiccup still didn't know what it was that had gotten Toothless like that.
A cold wind rushed through the forest, ruffling his hair, and Toothless came to a stop in that same clearing he had played in when they had first arrived here. Toothless warbled and looked back at Hiccup with a gummy smile, his hindquarters wiggling like he was just waiting for the opportunity to jump onto the clearing.
With a huff Hiccup hopped off the saddle, still puzzled. This set off Toothless immediately into motion, as he began circling and playfully bounding around… something, nothing? Hiccup really didn't know. Once again a couple snowflakes twirling idly around Toothless was the only thing he could spot, but that couldn't be what Toothless was playing with, right? He wouldn't get this excited to play with some snowflakes.
Still at the edge of the clearing, Hiccup walked over to one of the frost and snow covered trees and slid down to sit in a dry patch of leaves and dirt with his back against the bark. With nothing much else to do, he pulled his notebook and began sketching Toothless as he played.
That eerie feeling was still lingering at the back of his mind, but not as strongly as during the first time. It was just an… awareness in the periphery of his brain that he couldn't quite explain. He made note of his surroundings, but they still looked much the same as before. However, as he sat there for a bit longer and really observed the clearing, he could see that those fern like frost patterns he'd seen in the edges of the forest were much more numerous here, deeper in the woods. They were beautiful and gave an even more magical feel to the scenery around him.
If only winter looked like this during all of the months it blanketed Berk, without the harsh blizzards and devastating winds that easily plucked the roof off homes and took the lives of any unfortunate soul to be caught unprepared in the worst of them.
He frowned down at the sketch he had been working on, tapping the wooden part of his charcoal pencil against the page, his train of thought making him remember all the winter preparations. Had he made sure to move the barrels of salted cod to the storage hut yesterday? Or had Snotlout done that? Maybe he had forgotten—
"Agh!" he yelped as he was suddenly rudely pulled from his musings when a lump (ball?) of snow hit him square in the forehead. With a frantic motion of his hand he shook off the snow that had fallen on top of his open notebook, before shaking it off his hair and looking around for the culprit.
Toothless let out what Hiccup could only surmise was a gurgling draconic laugh as his eyes landed on him. Surely it couldn't have been Toothless…
"Alright, very funny. Ruff, Tuff was that you?" he called out loud as he got up and looked around, half expecting to hear the twins telltale cackles behind one of the nearby trees.
Save for the breeze ruffling the leaves, and Toothless' curious rumble however, the forest remained silent.
That eerie feeling returned for but a moment, making his heart-rate pick up, before another snowball found its target; him, this time on the side of his face.
Spluttering Hiccup turned in the direction it had come from, turning to face where Toothless was sitting, watching him. That same dragon-y smile that's all gums and no teeth was etched on Toothless' face, eyes sparkling.
All of a sudden he felt a fluttering sensation rise up his sternum, and he blinked. A guffaw that he would have felt embarrassed by, if it wasn't just him and Toothless in this strange little clearing, escaped his lips and a smile split across his face.
"Did you…?" he chuckled, an incredulous grin on his face as he looked at Toothless. "How?" he was already leaning down to scoop a handful of snow on his hands even as he said this, eyes still locked with Toothless'.
"You know there will be payback for that, right?" he grinned when Toothless let out a joyful warbling rumble, the dragon crouching down and wiggling his hind legs playfully.
Hiccup never had much of a good throwing arm, that was always more Astrid's area of expertise, what with her penchant for throwing axes, and he was never really any good at the snowball fights that would occasionally break out during the milder winter days when they were younger, more used to being the central target of said snowballs than the one throwing them. But Toothless was certainly a much larger target than a scrawny viking child hiding behind a barrel or cart in the village's main square, so when he threw the snowball he had scooped into his hand, it easily hit one of Toothless folded wings.
With a yelp and a jump to the side, Toothless shook the affected appendage, watching in mild fascination as the snow slumped to the ground, returning from whence it came. There was a beat of silence, and then Toothless turned to Hiccup, pupils blown wide and playful. It was all the warning Hiccup got before Toothless swung his body sideways and with a flick of his tail launched a flurry of snow at Hiccup.
After that Hiccup momentarily forgets the eerie feeling that had been brewing in the air, and any worries about winter preparations, as the two of them launched into an impromptu snowball fight in the forest clearing. Or well, Hiccup fought with snowballs, while Toothless would just use his tail-fin to launch clumps of snow towards him, chasing him around the clearing.
Eventually all the running on soft snow would catch up to Hiccup, and winded and panting he fell backward on a small mound of snow by a tree.
"Alright, alright I yield, you win," he said amidst chuckles when Toothless appears in his vision, his big black scaly head peering down at him and blocking the morning sun. Raising his hands Hiccup gave him a good scratch on the sides of his head, earning a rumbling purr for his trouble.
A single long lick from Toothless spread a dollop of dragon saliva over the side of his face, making him cringe and groan. "Aw, c'mon, Toothless… I don't want frozen dragon drool on my hair this early in the morning."
Was it still early in the morning? He looked up trying to pinpoint the location of the sun. Damn, it looked like they had spent more time than he expected fooling around in the snow. They should probably head back to Berk.
With a sigh Hiccup began to sit up.
Toothless had rolled on to his back on the snow and was squirming around, letting out happy little warbles and making a large dent on the snow. Hiccup smiled with a quirk of an eyebrow.
"Enjoying yourself, bud?"
Shaking his head he got up, patting the snow off his clothes. Now that his mind wasn't distracted by playing with Toothless, the responsibilities of the day returned to him like a rushing tidal wave. As if serving as a sobering reminder of the encroaching harsher days of winter, he noticed that delicate little snowflakes had started to drift down around the clearing.
"Well, time to go." Hiccup called for Toothless, who looked up at him with a disappointed mumble. His smile turned apologetic as he nodded his chin up at the sky, "I know, but we still have a full day ahead of us. And I'm not too keen on getting an earful from my dad if we spend all day goofing off, c'mon."
As they launched into the sky, carried by a gust of winter wind and leaving this strange little island again, Hiccup for a moment swore he could hear a chuckle in the wind.
Hiccup woke up in the very early hours of morning the next day, when the sun had yet to crest the horizon properly, whatever tendrils of pale sunlight slowly pushing the night away, morose with winter.
The tail end of a dream filled with powdery snow, frozen icicles hanging like ornaments from trees and snowflakes dancing in a gentle wind was still fresh in his minds eye. It was cold in his room, colder than it should be considering the roaring hearth downstairs that would always warm up the wood under his bed and keep the interior of his and Stoick's hut cozy even in the worst of winters. Had he forgotten to close the roof hatches again?
Hiccup blearily blinked his eyes open, just a narrow slit really, still captured in that limbo between unconsciousness and fully awaken, his brain still not having caught up to reality.
There was a figure by the desk near his bed.
If he were a better viking he would have immediately pulled a dagger or small hand axe from under his stiff pillow to confront the stranger. But then again, he'd never been a model viking had he?
A rich deep blue half-cloak and a shock of moonlight white hair, wind tossed into messy spikes, registered in his vision. The figure was holding a long wooden staff, crooked at the top, close to their chest. They were looking down at the notebook Hiccup had left open on top of his desk the other night. Oh… that's right he'd almost fallen asleep on it yesterday, having spent long hours putting whatever had been crowding his brain onto paper to make space for whatever it was that needed be done the next day.
He wasn't still not fully awake, really. It felt almost like sleepwalking, without the walking part of course.
The figure seemed to be flipping through the pages of his notebook. Hiccup thought he noticed a smile on too pale skin and brilliant blue eyes crinkling with mirth at whatever they saw. Something about them was strangely familiar, like a faded memory.
Despite the obvious stranger in his bedroom, the scene had a relaxed, calm air to it. And Hiccup couldn't help but be lulled back to unconsciousness, his tiredness winning against his instincts.
For whoever knows how long Hiccup drifted in a dreamless haze, until his brain finally, finally, caught up to him and he woke up all at once, shooting upright on his bed with a gasp. With wild eyes he looked around, heart hammering in his chest.
But there was no one, other than Toothless, who still looked down for the count on his slab.
Was it just a weird dream? A conjured up vision of his sleep addled mind?
He shook his head to clear the last of his sleep. More cautiously he looked around again, squinting his eyes at the shadowed corners of his room, expecting to see someone lurking in them, or even some sign of a forced entry, or… something. But once again, there was nothing, the room was as it had been when he'd gone to sleep. The only sounds other than the rumbling deep breaths of Toothless was the snoring coming from his father downstairs.
It was still cold, but the hatches were closed.
Hiccup huffed, honestly if an intruder had entered their hut Toothless would've heard them before Hiccup could even wake up.
"Just a dream then," he sighed and ran a hand over his face. Toothless shifted and yawned on his slab, big eyes blinking open, promptly waking up at the soft sound of Hiccup's voice and proving his hypothesis.
Sending a smile Toothless' way he pushed the blankets off himself, feeling a shiver go up his body as the coldness of the room hit him more fully. The cold was quickly receding however, almost like it was being leeched out through the wood.
Putting on his prosthetic, Hiccup got up with a yawn of his own.
With a pull he opened the latch that closed the roof hatch just above his bed and pushed it properly open.
"Son of a—" he half cursed when a rush of cold winter air forced its way back inside and a dusting of fresh snow fell partially on his bed.
There were still a couple snowflakes idly falling through the open hatch as Hiccup took stock of the fact that, yep, that was the first snow of winter alright. He sighed and squinted up at the sky, it's still dark but gradually getting lighter.
Toothless by now had gotten up, and made a crooning sound pitched into a question. Hiccup looked over towards the sound, and found Toothless sniffing at his desk.
Wordlessly, Hiccup padded over to stand next to him, a hand automatically going to rest on top of Toothless' broad head. A confused furrow formed between his eyebrows when he saw what it was that had caught Toothless' attention.
Frost patterns, as delicate as they were intricate, spread over the wood of his desk in spiraling fractals. They were already starting to fade, melting minutely in the warmer interior of the hut, but they seemed to surround and almost cradle his open notebook, never quite touching it, the pages free from the thin layer of frost. The notebook was open on a silly sketch he'd made of Toothless chasing an overgrown snowflake, and for the life of him Hiccup couldn't remember if that was the page he had left his notebook open at last night.
He scratched the back of his head. None of this made sense, and that's what started making him feel jittery. There was no logical explanation.
With a start Hiccup was pulled from the creeping paranoia by the sounds of his father presumably waking up and going about his morning business downstairs. He sighed and shook his head, banishing the questions to the increasingly cluttered corner of his mind labeled 'To worry about later'.
Toothless nudged him into motion, and he chuckled fondly, "Right, can't be late for your breakfast, right you overgrown lizard?"
Putting on his warmer clothing they both made their way to the main floor of the hut, where Stoick was already heating up a large pot of stew on the hearth.
"Morning, dad."
"Morning, son," Stoick said over his shoulder, "First snow of winter must've arrived during the earliest hours of the morning, I'll head down to the docks to check with Bucket and Mulch whether the frost hit the boats too hard. You should probably gather the riders to make a sweep of the island from the air and see where the snowfall concentrated on."
And with that, the mystery of his notebook got pushed further down his mental list of things to worry about.
Two days later, it happened again.
Sleep slid off him like molasses as he slowly woke up, and he had half a mind to burrow deeper in his furs and blankets with a sigh at the prospect of leaving the warmth of his bed to start the day. When his mind blessedly reminded him that he had no pressing responsibilities that morning, he did just that, almost falling back asleep.
Until a large snout nudged him on the side, Toothless having already gotten up.
"Alright, alright," Hiccup mumbled under the heavy fur covering his head, before pulling it away and giving Toothless a weak squinting glare.
With a sigh, he pushed the rest of his blankets off himself and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The cold that had seeped into his prosthetic making him flinch and hiss as he put it on, but it was nothing he wasn't used to already. Toothless impatiently nudged him into a standing position, eliciting a grunt and a huff from him.
"I'll remember this next time you want to sleep into the morning and we have stuff to do," he said, a yawn escaping him at the end of it.
That's when he noticed it. Glinting in the little bits of morning light that filtered through the wooden slats of the roof hatches, and once again surrounding his notebook. Delicate frost patterns spreading on the wood.
Bewildered Hiccup stumbled towards it. The notebook was open on a sketch of some of the other riders dragons, and this time he was certain he had closed the journal the previous night.
The memory of the figure standing by the desk flooded back into his mind with the force of a Gronckle's tail swing, and a familiar chill crept up his spine.
He ran his hand through his hair, messing the sleep tangled locks even more and making them stick out in every direction. Toothless sniffed at the notebook and looked at Hiccup with a tilt of his head, utterly unbothered by the situation and seemingly oblivious to Hiccup's dread.
He had no idea what this was. He had no idea who was doing this.
It had to be some sort of prank, right? Some sort of joke someone was playing on him. The twins came to mind, but if it was them he still couldn't explain how in all the nine realms they had managed to produce these frost fractals that covered his desk, and besides… Hiccup was fairly sure that they would've made veiled nods at the prank by now, and as for strange and unpredictable that the twins behavior usually was, Hiccup had become quite proficient in reading them. That was all to say… it didn't look like their handiwork.
And the alternative was what sat heavy and cold on the pit of his stomach.
Toothless impatiently nudged him again, almost making him stumble.
Maybe Toothless had the right idea and going for a flight would help dispel this eerie feeling that had been building up in his gut.
Flying did help, as Hiccup had expected.
Especially since Toothless seemed to be in a particularly playful mood that morning as they swooped and rolled with the wind, easily gliding with the currents.
And as the trouble of the mystery frost got once again pushed to the back of his mind, he nudged Toothless into practicing their more frivolous flying tricks. The trickier maneuvers that were more for show than for any practical reason.
Hiccup laughed when Toothless crooned happily under him as they wove and twirled through the forest of sea-stacks around Berk, the chill of the winter wind pleasantly sharp against his skin. Focusing on switching the tail-fin gears Hiccup felt more than saw Toothless look at a spot next to him, feeling the dragon's neck muscles shift with the motion. For a moment, Hiccup followed his line of sight trying to see what Toothless had spotted. A sudden barrel roll by Toothless kicked a yelp of surprise out of him and then a chuckle that quickly pulled his mind from wondering what it was he had been looking at and he shrugged. It was likely something in the water, a fish of some sort or a Scauldron.
A soft and gleeful gurgling sound rumbled from Toothless, and Hiccup could feel his powerful muscles tense under his legs. It was a signal that he knew meant Toothless wanted to pick up their speed, and as soon as that thought crossed his mind Hiccup pushed the stirrup pedal, switching the tail-fin into the right position in response.
And pick up speed Toothless did, powerful wings pushing them to the limit of their speed. Hiccup let out a hoot, exhilarated, at the rush of adrenaline that filled his blood. The wind seemed to shift direction, a gust of icy winter air running parallel with them and helping push Toothless onward. When they finally breach through the sea-stacks and on to the air over open ocean Toothless does one last tight barrel roll before slowing down to a gentle glide with a content rumble deep in his chest.
"You're in a real good mood today aren't you, bud?" Hiccup laughed, a bit breathless, his cheeks twinging from smiling so hard. "What's gotten into you? Not that I'm complaining," he said as he playfully rubbed Toothless' cheeks with both hands, leaning forward to look at the dragon's bright green eyes.
Toothless squinted a smile at Hiccup, before looking briefly to the side with what would pass for a draconic smug look. Hiccup followed his line of sight once again, but there was nothing to see but Berk's cliffs. With a shake of his head he leaned back on to the saddle proper.
Something cold suddenly touched his cheek and got him to look up, seeing snowflakes begin to drift down over and around them.
"Alright, I guess that's our cue to head back," he sighed.
They quickly made their way back to the outskirts of Berk, landing down on top of a hill bordering the forest's edge and the village. Hiccup gazed fondly at the brightly colored houses covered in a thin sheet of snow, people and dragons milling about. It wasn't often anymore that he got to stop and appreciate how far Berk and his people had come.
Soft laughter trickled from nearby behind him making him jump and whirl around. Toothless was bounding around near the treeline, where the snow was thicker.
Toothless was playing again, with absolutely nothing. The source of that brief laughter nowhere to be seen.
It was with a cold twist in his gut that Hiccup started to wonder if he was losing his mind.