Summary: In the middle of winter, Zephyr doesn't come back from a walk in the forest so Hiccup goes after her just before a snowstorm hit the island. When Hiccup thinks he's lost, something unexpected come to his aid. One-shot.

Note: The cover image was a drawing I made for any Hiccup-Zephyr story I might do in the future, so it's not a scene from this fic, even though it might seem at some point.

Finding Zephyr

Hiccup smiled watching Zephyr and Nuffink play with other children in the snow. They were in the middle of winter and because Hiccup had to constantly check the food stock, when he had some free time, he liked to watch his kids.

Both had grown a lot since that family trip to find the Hidden World. Three years had gone by and now Zephyr was nearly ten and Nuffink was seven.

He passed by them and entered home. Astrid wasn't there, so he guessed she was still training, as New Berk's general, she sometimes was a little overboard in training their people, which was good since they didn't have the dragons' help anymore…

He sat on the table and began reviewing all the documents he had brought. When he was done with them, he put everything away just before Astrid arrived.

"Busy day, Milady?" He stood up and went to embrace his wife.

"Always." She laughed and kissed him. "What about yours?"

"Just the usual…" He shrugged and she leaned more onto his chest. "And Bucket said there was a storm coming tonight, so I made some extra preparations… I don't want to underestimate his premonition powers again…"

"Don't tell me about it… We almost froze to death, if it weren't for the dragons… Gods, I miss them so much…" Astrid looked around. "Where's Zephyr?"

"She was outside with Nuffink and the other kids."

"No, I didn't see her… Nuffink was there, but not her… I thought she was here with you…" After all, the girl loved to spend time with her daddy.

"Maybe she's at my mom's? Or at your parents?" Hiccup wondered out loud.

"Hum… Let me check something…" She opened the door again and yelled. "Finn! Come here!"

Nuffink heard his mother and said goodbye to his friends before he ran towards his house. It was getting late anyway, so he knew his parents would call him soon.

"Yes, mommy?"

"Have you seen Zephyr?"

"She was playing with us earlier, but she wanted to explore, so she left."

"What?" Both parents said at the same time. Of course they knew she liked to do that from time to time, but rarely alone and definitely not without telling them.

Hiccup and Astrid exchanged worried looks.

"Do you know the direction she went?" Hiccup asked and his son pointed to a general direction towards the woods. "Okay, I'll go search for her." He kissed Astrid's head and ruffled the boy's hair quickly before he rushed outside.

At that moment, Hiccup and Astrid were a little worried, normal parents behavior, mostly because Zephyr hadn't told them anything. But as the minutes passed, their concern only grew without the girl.

If it weren't for Bucket's warnings, Hiccup wouldn't be so eager to find her. Zephyr might be young and it was winter, but she was as smart and adventurous as her father, so she usually could handle herself pretty well.

Eventually he found some tracks that matched hers, however, it soon started snowing and he lost them in a matter of minutes. His heart became heavy and he forced himself to go even faster while shouting out her name. He regretted not calling people to help searching, but then, he didn't imagine it would take so long… He had been looking for hours now.

Hiccup continued shouting her name, his despair growing until… "Daddy?" A soft yell reached his ears despite the howling wind.

Ignoring the pain on his stump for walking for so long in the cold, he pushed himself to go faster in the direction the voice came. Soon, he found a place where the ground descended. As he expected, Zephyr was downhill.

"Are you okay, Sweetie?"

"No…" She embraced herself. "I hurt my ankle… I think I twisted it… I can't walk…"

Hiccup carefully went down and hugged the girl. He didn't like the fact that she was so cold.

"What were you doing here?"

"Sorry… I just kept going and then I slipped and fell… Daddy, it hurts…"

"Never wander in the forest again without telling me or your mom, do you hear me? Especially in the winter!" He held her tight and stood up.

"I'm sorry…"

Hiccup tried climbing, but with a metal leg and a nine-year-old girl in his arms it was impossible. He tried climbing in different places and even putting her on his back so he could use his hands, still with no success; the snowy ground was too slippery.

"Daddy… What are we gonna do?" She asked softly, her teeth chattering.

Hiccup looked up. The weather was getting worse, more snow was falling and the winds were getting stronger. They wouldn't have time to come back to the village.

He sighed. "We find somewhere to spend the night."

In a few minutes, they found the closest place to a shelter around; a fallen tree near the descending hill, creating a nice cavern-like structure that would help protecting them from the snowstorm. Hiccup put Zephyr there and got some branches to light a fire, once it was done, he embraced her, covering both with his fur cloak.

"Don't worry, Sweetie… We're gonna be alright." He reassured his daughter while clenching her against his chest.

It was hard to stay awake, not only because he was tired, but also because it was so easy to close his eyes and drift off to sleep, where the coldness wouldn't bother him so much. But he couldn't. He had to stay awake to make sure Zephyr and him would be fine throughout the night.

His heavy eyelids were so heavy it was hard to keep them open; therefore he nearly missed a dark shadow coming towards them. The familiar black mass was hard to see through the thick falling snow, but unmistakable nonetheless. Hiccup could recognize his best friend's green eyes anywhere.

"Toothless?" It was so freezing cold that his voice cracked. The dragon warbled and got close enough to nuzzle his human friend. "I missed you, too…" Toothless moved closer, lifting a wing to block the wind with his body. The dragon also breathed fire to light up more the one they had. Instantly, Hiccup felt warmer. "Thanks, Bud. You're always with me when I need you."

Hiccup lifted a hand to touch the Night Fury's snout. Toothless leaned in closer, nudging him.

The cozy warmth let the Hooligan Chief relax and he gave in to his heavy eyelids, finally shutting them down.

Hiccup raised a hand to shield his eyes from the bright daylight as he woke up. There was only white everywhere, the snowstorm was quite strong, despite that it wasn't devastating winter, yet.

A small smoke showed the fire had died down recently. Hiccup was still a bit numb from the rough night, but as soon as he noticed the weight on his right side, he was shot awake, checking on his daughter.

She stirred as he gently shook her and he sighed in relief.

Zephyr rubbed her tired eyes. "Daddy… It still hurts…"

"It's okay, my dear. You're going to be fine. I'll take you to the healer." He said and looked around again.

Had he imagined Toothless with them? What would he be doing there, anyway? And why wouldn't he be there in the morning?

Hiccup sighed sadly, touching the snow by his side where Toothless had supposedly stood all night. His fingers brushed on something partly buried in the snow. He grabbed it and put in in his small bag attached to his belt before he stood up, then he put Zephyr in his arms and proceeded their way back to the village.

When he was getting close, both heard their names being called by the former dragon riders. They answered the calls and soon their friends came into view, running towards them.

The closest ones were Snotlout and Fishlegs, so they reached father and daughter sooner. The raven-haired one quickly tried to help his chief by grabbing the girl from Hiccup's tired arms; the blond man, on the other hand, hugged his friend. "We were so worried!"

"We're fine…" He answered nearly out of breath from the tight embrace.

"As soon as the storm broke, Astrid told us what happened. We've been searching for you two for hours!" Snotlout exclaimed.

"How did you survive that storm, it was pretty bad for a winter one…" Fishlegs finally let go of his chief so he could breath.

"We found a shelter and we spent the night… I'll tell you the details later. Snotlout, take Zephyr to the healer, please. She hurt her ankle."

"On it, chief!"

"Hiccup! Zeph!" Astrid came running. First she checked on her daughter and once she was sure the girl was in one piece, she let Snotlout take her away then hugged her husband. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, just tired… and a bit sore. I think I'm getting too old to sleep on the wild…" He joked.

"Oh, Babe…" She quickly kissed his lips then side hugged him so he could support himself on her to walk back. "I was worried, but somehow I knew you'd bring our daughter back."

Fishlegs laughed. "She says that now, but she was definitely freaking…" His voice slowly died down at her death glare. "I think I'm going ahead to tell the rest you were found…" So he hurried away.

Hiccup laughed, resting a hand on Astrid's waist, leaning on her to feel her close to him.

"We found a place to make a shelter just before the storm kicked in… But I think…" He sighed and grabbed the object he had gotten in the middle of the snow and showed her. It was a dark scale. "I think I have a dragon guardian… If he weren't there, I don't know if we would've survived."

Her mouth was agape. "But… How? And where is he, then? Why would he vanish? We haven't seen him."

"Maybe he just wanted to check if I was okay, or maybe somehow he sensed, after all, animals can sense things we can't, some sort of instinct… And I guess he didn't want to be seen at all, just in case he was spotted by the wrong people." He put the scale away again. "I was actually doubting if it was true or just an illusion until I saw the scale on the ground."

"I guess Toothless will always be watching over you, your own dragon guardian." She chuckled.

"Yes. We'll always be friends, even from afar." He pushed her closer and kissed the top of her head. "I miss them so much…"

"I do to… But right now, I'm just glad you and Zephyr are back home." She said as they kept walking towards New Berk.

I hope you all liked this short and sweet father-daughter moment! Please leave a comment on your way out, it'll mean the world to me! :D

And just to explain a few things, I really intended on Toothless to have an instinct that Hiccup needed his help; because for me, Toothless would never forget Hiccup, but the characters couldn't know for sure, so if you want to, you can interpret it in any way you'd like.

I really hope I'll have more ideas for similar stuff and I really wanted one to focus on the mother-son relationship of Astrid and Hiccup, but for now I'm out of ideas, so if you have requests, please review or PM me, they might inspire me to do something (though I can't guarantee I'll make it).