A/N: First off I'd like to say that, yes I know this is a crossover but I put this in the HTTYD only section simply because I just wanted people to read my story. That's not such a bad thing right? If you know what W.I.T.C.H is, great, read on and see what you think. If you don't, that's fine, but I would recommend at least looking it up so you understand what's going.
Grief.
It was all Hay Lin could feel as she lay on her bed. She could hear Will, Irma, Taranee, Elyon, and Cornelia quietly conversing outside her room, but she couldn't bring herself to care.
'Why did you have to leave me, Grandma?' Hay Lin thought, as more tears sprang to her eyes.
Yan Lin, former air guardian, friend, and grandmother, had died peacefully in her sleep two weeks ago, leaving Hay Lin absolutely heartbroken. The day after Yan Lin's funeral, her friends had convinced their parents that Hay Lin needed to get away for a while and since the summer had just started it was the perfect opportunity. So under the guise of going to Irma's family beach house for the summer, they had instead gone to Meridian to stay with Elyon in her palace.
Hay Lin knew her friends meant well and for the week they'd been on Meridian she had tried to lighten up and have fun, but today she couldn't bring herself to do much except mourn. So when her door opened she didn't even bother to look up to see who it was.
"Hey Hay," Will greeted softly as she sat down on the bed with a plate of food. "I brought you something to eat if you're hungry."
"No thanks Will," the air guardian replied.
Will said nothing for a while after that and just sat beside her in silence, waiting patiently.
"I miss her, Will," Hay Lin said finally.
"I know Hay Lin," the keeper said, placing a gentle hand on her friend's shoulder. "We all miss her too."
At that, Hay Lin felt a little guilty. She'd forgotten that her friends had practically been Yan Lin's five other granddaughters and loved her as much as Hay Lin did.
"I'm sorry if I'm being a total downer for you guys," she said, sitting up to face Will.
"Don't even worry about it. We know this is hard for you, but we also want to help you," Will said. "And we think we found a way to do it."
At Hay Lin's raised eyebrow she continued. "Elyon and Taranee found this book about the other worlds in the library yesterday and they found this one place that I think you would like."
"How so?"
The redhead smiled slightly. "Well, from what the book said it mostly just consists of ocean, dragons, islands, forests-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Hay Lin interrupted. "Did you just say dragons?!"
"You betcha," Will replied, her smile growing as she saw the excitement and curiosity on her friend's face. It wasn't much, given Hay Lin's current emotional state, but Will was just glad to see some light in her friend's eyes.
"Anything else?"
"We don't know. The book was written ages ago in this ancient form of the Meridian language. Julian was able to piece together a few sentences, but we couldn't get much else out of it," Will explained. "So what do you think?"
Honestly, the idea of seeing dragons was more than a little enticing to Hay Lin. They'd always been her favorite mythical creature, and now that she knew they were real, how could she say no?
"I'm in," she said. "When are we going?"
"Now," Will replied with a smirk.
"Wait right now?"
"Yep!"
"So the others are cool with it?" Hay Lin asked.
Will snorted. "I'm pretty sure Irma's already picked out names for any dragons she sees and Elyon thinks it would be a good diplomatic trip. Cornelia and Taranee are a little apprehensive since we hardly know anything about this world, but they're curious too. "
"Do you know what the world is called?"
Berk.
Hiccup smiled as he looked down at his home as he and Toothless soared through the air above it. He'd been the chief for almost a year now and he was proud of what he'd accomplished in that short time. Since the short lived war with Drago Bludvist, Hiccup and his friends had found a few small villages outside of Berk and the number of dragon riders was slowly, but steadily rising, becoming allies of Berk.
Hearing other dragons coming up behind him, Hiccup turned and saw Eret and Snoutlout on either side of him. After Eret had joined the Berkians, everyone was surprised to find that he and Snotlout made a pretty good team, and Hiccup had assigned them the task of patrolling the island and its surroundings.
"Morning chief!" Snoutlout greeted.
Hiccup nodded to his cousin, before turning to Eret. "You guys didn't happen to see anything strange on morning patrol, did you?"
"No, nothing out of the ordinary," the former dragon trapper responded. "Why do you ask?"
Hiccup shrugged. "I've just had this weird feeling all morning and it won't go away."
"Maybe it was your mom's cooking," Snoutlout said with snort. "No offense Hiccup, but the woman could kill ten dragons with that lamb stew of hers."
"No, it's nothing like that," the chief said. "I can't explain it really, I just feel like today's gonna be, I don't know, different somehow. Toothless feels it too, right bud?"
The Nightfury made a noise of agreement which earned him a good scratch behind his ears, much to his delight.
Eret's forehead creased slightly. "Do you think it could lead to fighting?"
"Man I hope so! I've been itching for a good fight!" Snoutlout cried before Hiccup could say anything.
"I doubt it, but if it does come to a fight, you'll be the first one I tell Snoutlout," Hiccup replied, rolling his eyes. "You guys can head back down if you want, Toothless and I are gonna keep flying for a while."
His cousin cringed slightly. "Well a certain someone is going to love that," he mumbled sarcastically before he and Eret headed back to the village.
Hiccup sighed, knowing exactly who his cousin was talking about. Astrid. Things between him and Astrid had become rocky in the past few months. She thought he spent too much time flying and needed to focus more on his duties as chief and become more serious about things. He thought that he balanced everything pretty well though and seeing how no one else was complaining about his lack of seriousness, Hiccup had made it clear to Astrid that he wasn't going to stop flying Toothless or adding to the map. He also may have mentioned that she should lighten up a little bit and he was fairly sure the entire village had heard that conversation.
A sharp smack to his face quickly brought him back to reality. Apparently he'd been thinking too hard and too long for Toothless' liking.
"Sorry bud, I'm just out of it today. What do you say we go to the cove?" Hiccup suggested. Toothless gave a semblance of a smile and a nod before he headed towards the island.
"Come on Cornelia, hurry up," Hay Lin called as they rushed through the forest.
When they'd folded into the forest of Berk, the guardians had decided to split up to explore the island on foot in human form, agreeing to meet up where they'd separated in a few hours. Hay Lin had taken the opportunity to go and look for dragons and had been doing so for about an hour.
"Uh Hay Lin I get that you're excited, but don't you think maybe you should be a bit more cautious?" Cornelia asked. "I mean these are dragons we're taking about. I think there's a pretty good chance that they'll be dangerous."
"Must you always be so logical?" Hay Lin asked with a small smirk. "It really takes the fun out of things like this."
The earth guardian rolled her eyes. "Well excuse me for wanting to stay alive."
"If you wanted to do that then you could have with Will, Elyon, or Taranee."
"And leave you and Irma to go dragon hunting?" Cornelia scoffed. "Please, knowing you two that would be a recipe for disaster."
Hay Lin laughed. "Fair enough. Do we really have to keep these cloaks on though? They itch like crazy," she added, picking at the brown wool cloak she wore.
"Think of it this way, the cloaks help us blend in more, so if we see a dragon from a distance, you'll get your wish and we have better chances of surviving."
"Yeah cause a piece of wool is gonna stop a fire breathing dragon," Hay Lin muttered sarcastically. Looking off to the side, she paused when she saw a path leading down between a rock wall. After a few second curiosity got the better of her. "Hey Corny let's go this way."
Without looking back to see if Cornelia was indeed following, Hay Lin made her way down the path and squeezed through the small opening onto a rock ledge. It was cove surrounded by high rock walls with a large pond.
"Wow, this is so cool," Hay Lin breathed.
"It's ok," Cornelia said. "Looks like a good spot to rest for a bit."
"You just wanna avoid seeing the dragons you big chicken," the air guardian said with a laugh as she began climbing down.
"Well excuse me for not wanting to get burned alive," the blonde retorted.
Kneeling beside the pond, Hay Lin looked down at the water. 'Grandma would have had so much fun if she were here. She'd be just as excited about the dragons as I am,' she thought sadly.
"You're thinking about Yan Lin aren't you?" Cornelia asked softly.
"Am I really that easy to read?" Hay Lin asked, not looking up from the water.
"It's not hard to tell with you. You wear your emotions on…"
Wondering why her friend had suddenly stopped talking Hay Lin looked up and saw that Cornelia had gone pale and was staring at something with wide, fear filled eyes. Slowly Hay Lin turned her head and her own eyes widened at what she saw.
A large, black reptilian creature was slowly making its way toward them, it's narrow green eyes making Hay Lin think of jaguar closing in on its pray. As it got closer she noticed the wings folded into its side and she gulped.
"Well… looks like we found a dragon."
END OF CHAPTER
A/N: Not a bad start right? I think it's pretty good. Please tell me what you think! Reviews are ambrosia to us authors