I Don't Want to Talk About It

A/N: Horrible chapter ending. Shush. I don't know where the story's going now, but at least Flynn is coming in. Punzie's coming next, so that should be fun. I love writing in her POV.

- Jack –

I had no idea Toothless could move that fast!

One second, Hiccup's angling his dragon closer to a rooftop to talk to North, and the next he and Merida are zipping around at the speed of light, wearing identical, mischievous grins on their faces. Still, it's good to see Hiccup loosening up and having fun, even though I'm ninety percent sure he's gotten more teeth in the last ten seconds than I have all night. I rattle my own red bag of teeth a little, struggling to remember how many are in there. I didn't exactly keep count, see, but if I had to guess, I'd say there are about twenty or thirty in the bag.

I'm also pretty sure Bunny has more than that, too, and I can just about stand losing to Hiccup, but losing to Peter Cottontail at the same time is too much. I turn my eyes to the open sea, waves crashing hard against the rocks, a new horizon spreading out before me. All I want is to zoom off and explore it, collect teeth there, but Rapunzel is currently flying with me. I'm unused to having a passenger, and I turn to her, the question on my lips.

She doesn't need me to ask it; she's got her eyes on the same area, and when I look at her she just smiles and nods enthusiastically, bobbing her head so hard that her hair tumbles down ever farther below us, dangling a bit above the street like a huge golden flag. I wonder what the people down there think of us, if they can even see Rapunzel right now, being held up by nothing but air.

When we're out over the open ocean, Rapunzel starts giggling. I mean, for no reason at all. It's not like either one of us is saying something funny, or even talking at all. We're just flying in silence. So I give her a kind of strange look, and she's instantly sobering again, but a smile lingers on her lips, making her big green eyes sparkle. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just…it's a lot of fun. Tonight, I mean. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you."

"It'll be even more fun when we see the look on Bunny's face when he realizes we've beaten him," I tell her, and this makes her laugh again, which makes me grin in delight. I've already come to know her as anxious and scared, so making her laugh is rare. And even rarer with what happened today…

My brows draw down at the memory, and I give her hand a squeeze. "Are you okay?"

"Yes!" She nods delightedly, her hair bobbing again. "Yes, of course. Why?"

"Uh…" I hesitate for a second, wondering if I should remind her. She must see the answer in my face, because her expression changes. Instantly, she's closed off, turning away from me as if to physically represent the sudden distance between us, when before she was so happy. I wish I had never brought it up.

I want to cheer her up again, but I don't think a snowball fight is the way to go, especially not in midair, so we fly in silence for a bit until a voice breaks us out of our separate reveries. "Not trying to get away from us, are you?"

I glance up, startled, instantly deflating again when I realize it's only Hiccup, looking maddeningly smug as Toothless swoops over us.

I muster up the scariest glare I can, clenching my hand tighter around my staff. "Go away. This is our turf."

"Make us," Merida replies, saving Hiccup the trouble. "'Sides, Frost, don't get your staff in a knot. What on earth makes you think we actually want to fly with you, anyway?"

Just Merida's tone of voice makes me feel stupid, and as heat rises to my cheeks, I struggle to think of a good comeback. "Let me guess – you're coming here to brag?"

"Well…" Hiccup sing-songs, swerving suddenly so he's flying upside down, gripping Toothless with one hand and dangling the other out in front of us, clenched in a fist and clutching a red sack clearly full of teeth. "I wouldn't say bragging, exactly, but there you are."

I make a wild grab for him, maybe to punch or freeze him or pull him out of the saddle, but whatever I was planning to do, I can't now because he's gone again, swooping upward. For a moment, he disappears into the black sky, and then, just as I begin getting concerned that I accidentally caught him and did freeze his arm or something – and the weird fog settling in all around us is not helping – he appears again, grinning.

"I bet I've got more than you!" I call up to him, even though I don't bet this at all – I just want to wipe the cocky smirk off his face.

"If you did, you'd be showing them off by now!"

"Can you two please cut it out for a second?" Merida sounds annoyed. "I can hardly get a shooftie through this fog!"

"It is a bit strange," Rapunzel admits, "it just seemed to come up out of nowhere."

"We could turn back, if it gets too thick," Hiccup suggests.

"Nah, Bunny was nearly catching up to me when I left. I at least need to get a look around and see if there's any kids here he hasn't already gotten to."

"You're risking flying into fog and—

"Hey, look, there's land!"

"What? Where?"

"I can't see anything!"

"Shut up, maybe your mouth's creating a wind tunnel and preventing you!"

"I know you didn't just say that! Hiccup! Give me back my bow, I gotta teach that scunner a lesson—

"Shut up!" When the fog clears enough, I see that Hiccup has actually clamped a hand over Merida's mouth to prevent her from speaking, and with his other hand, he's clutching her bow, a safe distance away from her hands.

He slowly releases her, letting her bow slide out of his grip. "I…I thought I heard something," he says, obviously disconcerted. "It was…it was coming from up ahead…"

When I squint into the fog, I see the land I glimpsed earlier: a great curving, conical structure, a mountain peak gone wrong, turning nearly inward upon itself, mist still obscuring the very top.

I can finally hear what Hiccup was hearing: a great howling din, as though a thousand wolves are below us. It's not coming from the island in front of us, though; it's coming from somewhere to the east. I tilt my head, beginning to swoop down to hear better before Rapunzel startles me back into reality. "Jack!"

"What?" I spin around in midair, glancing up at her. Like I said, I keep forgetting I have someone else with me; I'm so used to being alone, it's just natural for me to go wherever I want to without thinking of her. I slowly ease up again, cutting my eyes to the ocean. I can still hear the howling. "Sorry."

"It's okay. I just…I don't want to go down there. I don't want you going down there. Something's off about that place."

"Right." I nod a little, but as I turn to go back, I see Hiccup is frozen in place. Toothless seems to have registered his rider's feelings, because he's not going anywhere, just hovering, glancing up at Hiccup every now and then, waiting for the boy to decide where he wants to go.

"Hiccup." Rapunzel puts a hand on his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go."

"Yeah, that howling is creeping me out," Merida replies frankly.

I can see Hiccup, can see him leaning forward in Toothless' saddle, tilting his head to hear those howls, and there's this look of longing in his eyes, like he's hearing everything he wants to hear with that howling. He seems barely aware of his actions, but he's drawing closer and closer to the island directly in front of us, not the one with the howling. The island in front of us is dead quiet.

"Hiccup." Rapunzel's voice becomes harder, firmer, her grip on his shoulder tight. "Please come away with us – I don't like that howling."

Hiccup's mouth opens, but no sound comes out – it's like he's forgotten how to speak. I start to get worried for a second, but just as suddenly, Hiccup slams down on the pedals controlling Toothless' tailfin, and he's turned around, riding faster even than he did while collecting teeth. He's flying away from us. Rapunzel and I exchange glances, and she gives me a helpless shrug.

I wonder what more could possibly top off this crazy day of apparently being chosen for Guardianship (as if), being told I was once a human, (because Man in the Moon couldn't possibly have dropped by and mentioned that before all the teeth were stolen) and now Hiccup just flying away from us. When I catch up to him again, I'm surprised to see him, rigid in the saddle, sitting very upright on Toothless' back, his movements robotic and jerky as he flies away.

I angle myself closer, surprised to hear Rapunzel's squeak of surprise. Whoops, I forgot her again. I turn back to check if she's okay, but she seems fine, so I give Hiccup a gentle swat on the head to get his attention. "You okay?"

"Yes." Even his voice, his tone, sounds jerky and emotionless, his fingers shaking as he fiddles with the numerous buckles and clasps on his dragon's saddle. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Why did you—

"I don't want to talk about it, Jack." He cuts through my words as easily as a knife through butter, and he doesn't sound emotionless anymore; his tone is very obviously colored with anger. He speeds up again, as if he thinks he can outfly me or something. Nonetheless, it's clear the guy's pissed, so I decide to give him his space. But when I pull back to let him do just that, Rapunzel gives me this look, like I'm being a horrible friend or something.

"What?"

"Talk to him," she mouths.

"Why?" I drop my voice to a whisper, even though, with the wind whipping in our ears and stealing our words, it's impossible for Hiccup to hear us from this distance, anyway.

"Because he's upset, and he needs someone to talk to!"

"He just told me he didn't want to talk about it."

"That's code for 'yes, I do'."

"Okay, look, Punzie, maybe it works that way with girls, but when I say I don't want to talk about something, I mean it."

She gives a little sigh, like she thinks saying something and actually meaning it is dumb. I feel more than ever like I need my space right now, but with Punzie clinging to my hand, depending on me to keep her in the air, I can't have that. The wind blows back my hair, calming me, soothing me. It's the only thing that can right now.