Ya know they say never meet your heroes...

[ruffntumblenut]

Camp Kiesel was proud to play host to boy scouts, girl scouts and cub scouts from all across the state of Utah every summer. Even prouder of how many years they'd gone without a significant accident or injury. Sure there were always the little bumps and scrapes and cuts that came with being out in the wilderness teaching useful skills to kids. But nothing news worthy.

That could however change tonight.

Trembling with fear a pale young boy with thick rimmed glasses sat in the middle of a drifting canoe as it floated aimlessly across the placid lake. The bullies who had forced him into the canoe were laughing and jeering from the shore while the young victim was forced to confront the murky depths of the lake he had been too scared to swim in that afternoon.

Wrapping his arms around his knees he whimpered and clamped his eyes shut. His throat felt closed tight and he doubted that anyone in the cabins would hear him even if he screamed.

Not that he would allow himself to suffer such humiliation. Drowning would be better then that wouldn't it?

If only he were fearless. If only he could laugh at the things that hurt and scared him. Be a big brave viking! A might hero like...

"Where am I?"

The boy opened his eyes sharply hearing an all too familiar voice. Staring down at him in confusion was none other then Ruffnut Thorston, one half of the terrible twins from his favorite TV show and movie.

She squinted her eyes at him in confusion adding "And who are you?"

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Ruffnut had never been the smartest of Vikings, and honestly she liked it better that way. Let the big brains like Hiccup or the experienced leaders like Stoick lead the tribe. She'd be content to tipping over Yaks and blowing things up.

Still she wasn't sure even Hiccup could puzzle his head around this strange situation.

"So you just...let them throw you in this leaky boat without any oars?" She exclaimed in confusion and exasperation.

"W-well...they're bigger then me. " The boy whimpered confused as to why he'd gotten the girl twin instead of the boy. He wasn't about to let her know that though. Instead he was looking up at her with desperate eyes pleading for her help.

"Yeah well you're stuck now." She smirked in a cruel sort of way that broke his heart. "I gotta get back to Berk. If I'm gone for too long my brother puts all my stuff outside and tries to claim my half of the room."

"Y-you're not...you're not going to help me?!"

"What? You want me to throw you into the lake?" She grinned wickedly and stood up in the boat violating at least three rules of safe boat time fun at camp. No life jacket, no adult AND she was standing up in the boat making it rock and sway.

"S-stop it!!" The boy begged and cursed his unfortunately luck to have idolized a viking who apparently was almost as much of a bully as his bullies.

Meanwhile underneath the rocking boat, stirred by the child's fear...something loomed out of the depths of the lake. Something with long spindly limbs reaching for the surface.

Comments

[wherenoonegoes]

"Okay where should I start with this..."

You could start with how I can talk in people's heads now.

"We are not starting with...you sent that to her too, didn't you?" Hiccup facepalmed as he got a sense of massive amusement from Toothless. The dragon had telepathically spoken to Ruff. It was a rare thing for him to talk to anyone but Hiccup, but he couldn't resist having just a little fun with it.

"Basically, what's going on is that we've been pulled to another realm in order to fight an evil god named Kuk that feeds off of fear who is trying to destroy all of reality, and we got powers when we ended up here." Hiccup paced, with characteristic gesturing and shoulder jostling.

"How we got here? Apparently, stories travel through the realms easier than anything else, so children here have heard of us through those stories. And with reality starting to break down, they're starting to call on people from those stories in order to have someone to protect them from Kuk."

"Which begs the question," he said, giving the scout a bewildered look, "why Ruffnut?"

[ruffntumblenut]

"GAH!" Was her less then intelligible reaction to hearing a voice in her head other then the one that told her to burn things. She clutched at her head defensively, watching the pair with wide eyes while Hiccup explained.

The cub scout found this entirely amusing.

Once Hiccup was finished and Ruffnut had resigned herself to not understanding the situation any better (she should have known better then to have expected that) She turned on the boy as well.

"Yeah why me? I'm awesome sure but not exactly someone safe."

The boy smiled at them both, positively beaming in the darkness.

"I wanted someone who's not afraid. Someone who laughs at danger."

Hearing this, Ruffnut's chest puffed out and she stood a little taller, grinning smugly. Then after a moment he added, "I was trying for her brother though." He confessed in the honest way that children have.

Her face fell and she groaned bringing a hand to her face and rubbing it in frustration. Up until the last part she'd been feeling pretty good about this kid.

[wherenoonegoes]

"Don't worry if you aren't getting it all right now. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around all this." Which was a testament to just how confusing a mess this whole thing was.

"I can probably explain better once we get back to base. Which reminds me, we should start heading that way now. If we stick around here much longer, more things like that squid are going to show up looking for us. And while I know you would love to stick around and fight them, we've caused enough chaos around here tonight."

While Hiccup had given the Riders orders before, there was a certain element of command in his voice that Ruffnut had probably only heard coming from Stoick.

[ruffntumblenut]

She opened her mouth to protest, more out of habit then anything but there was a different feel to his words. Something she couldn't place her finger on just yet.

Glancing back to the kid for a moment she shrugged, "Yeah OK, sure. Let's get out of here. Stupid camp anyway." But despite her attempted indifference the boy didn't look bothered. He was smart enough to piece together his own reasoning for why she was willing to leave him in the dark.

She was protecting him, they all were.

Sauntering away from the kid she approached Toothless cautiously, eyeing him suspiciously like she half expected him to blast her for getting too close. It's not as though Toothless was every particularly mean to her, but he also had never spoken inside her brains before.

"Is base far from here? How'd you guys find me?"

[wherenoonegoes]

Hiccup sighed, not entirely believing he had to say the next phrase coming out of his mouth.

"There's a man who lives on the moon who told us where you were going to show up."

"As for where base is? Really, really far. You remember how Astrid's aunt kept coming back from the opposite direction when she was trying to find the end of the world? It turns out she wasn't actually lost, there just isn't an to end the world. It's like a massive ball. And the North Pole, where we're heading? Is at the top of it."

"Good news is, I have a magic glass globe that can take us right there. So we don't have to fly for hours and hours getting there."

Hooray!

[ruffntumblenut]

Ruffnut's look of confusion only got more and more dense as Hiccup explained the basics of their new situation. At the part about the world being a ball she snorted in derisive objection. By the end of it she threw her hands in the air.

"Yeah alright sure! Why not? Because clearly I've gone insane and you've tied me to a boat and sent me out to sea. This is all just some kind of weird crazy dream thing. There is no way I just heard the smartest guy I know tell me there's a man on the moon, the world is round, and that we have a magic globe."

Because the alternative was...what exactly?

"Is Astrid at the base? I need someone closer to my level." Which meant to say Hiccup was too smart for her to follow other then blindly.

[wherenoonegoes]

Why did you have to bring her up... Toothless whined. Sensing what was coming, he buried his head under his paws.

"Nope!" Hiccup said with false cheer.

"See, here's the best part," he continued, voiced loaded with enough sarcasm that even Ruffnut should've been able to pick up on it, "she was here. Except, apparently, we can all be magically sent back home without any idea or warning that it's going to happen. So, on top of getting dragged here in the first place, almost dying when I did show up, and nearly getting murdered by actual ghosts, I get to deal with that too."

[ruffntumblenut]

Ruffnut listened to his mini-rant with the same sort of attentiveness she usually lacked when Hiccup got going and once he finished she gave him a moments pause before pressing further.

"So basically she dumped you. Wow, guess I owe Tuffnut that eel jerky I was saving under my bed. We've had that bet going on for like...ever."

Completely misinterpreting the situation she seemed mildly disappointed that she had apparently opted to bet in Hiccup's favor for once.

[wherenoonegoes]

Hiccup stared, bewildered that she could interpret anything he'd said that way.

"That is not what happened. She didn't dump me, she got pulled back home by mysterious magic forces without any warning. Believe it or not, there's a difference Ruffnut. A very large, extremely obvious, difference."

[ruffntumblenut]

"If you say so. Just don't let it get you too bummed out." Ruffnut ignored him patting him on the shoulder "You've still got Toothless and me so that's better then being soul crushingly alone!"

Aren't you glad you came and got her Hiccup?

"Where's that magic glass globe?"

[wherenoonegoes]

He honestly wasn't.

"Right, globe." Hiccup pulled the snow globe out of Toothless's saddlebag.

"Here's the trick. Say the name of the place you want to go to into it. In this case, the North Pole, and throw it." Hiccup did so, and the sphere shattered, opening a portal.

"And there you go, one magic doorway for getting us the Hel out of here."

[ruffntumblenut]

"Whoa!" Her eyes lit up in delight at the display of this most useful magic and before she knew it the temperature had dropped because they had suddenly appeared at the farthest most Northern point in this world.

Even the incredibly chatty viking girl was left speechless when she saw the majesty and color of this workshop however.

"Whoa!"

[wherenoonegoes]

"Welcome to Santa's Workshop," Hiccup said, gesturing widely. "Currently run by an eight foot tall rabbit and Jokul Frosti. The Yeti, those big furry guys over there, build the toys, the elves, the short ones with the bells, test the toys and bake cookies. And then drool on them. And chew on things. And run around like crazy. If it wasn't for the lack of wings I'd swear they were a new breed of Terrible Terror."

[ruffntumblenut]

At Hiccups description Ruffnut finally managed to blink away her shock and her lips twisted into a crooked smile once more. The elves sounded like her kind of fun! Mildly chaotic, sometimes destructive and lots of energy.

"And this is the army we've got to fight evil and save the day?" She laughed. "Hope the rabbit comes with an axe or something."