A/N: Long time, no see. It's been a few years and I've gotten better at writing in the time since I went on hiatus, so I'm back with a new story and it's going to be the longest, hardest thing I've ever written.

Welcome to Mages Ascendant. It's a Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons Elemental AU, to put it simply. I've taken all the characters and put them in a realistic fanmade world that was heavily influenced by the settings of Tangled, Brave, Frozen, and HTTYD. There are two planned stories in the series, with a possible third one depending on the feedback I get, we'll just have to see :3 The story is also available on Tumblr, AO3 and DeviantArt if you would like to follow it there, as well! I have some fanart for the story on dA and I have author notes and answered questions on Tumblr. This will update rapidly as I have already published 8 chapters on the above 3 sites, and then it will update steadily with the others as I write the chapters. My planned update schedule is every two weeks ^.^ Gives enough people time to find and read it. So check it out, see if you like it, and go ahead and reblog/favorite/watch/comment/review/anything! XD The author notes will get shorter, I promise.

The moon was trying to speak.

The realization came to Nicholas St. North quite suddenly, as he bent over a map inside of his hideout tucked away in the isolated Eredon Mountains. His study was suddenly awash with white moonlight, shining through the glass-paned window.

North squinted and straightened, dusting his palms as he studied the sky. He was a ferocious sight to see, with a silvery beard that cascaded down the front of his scarlet tunic. His arms were thick and corded and he stood at nearly seven feet tall. But his face was ruddy and playful, and his blue eyes were as bright as jewels. North gazed at the moon for a second longer, then turned on his heel and stormed out of the study. This was huge. The moon was a mysterious, powerful well of magic that often had fitful insights into the future. Only rarely did it choose to share its foresight with the mages. North couldn't miss this attempt at contact. He thundered down a broad, wooden-paneled, dark-beamed hallway, every window streaming with silver radiance.

He ascended three, four, five staircases, higher and higher into the frames of his fortress-like abode. He passed thick tapestries hanging on gray stone walls, torches gone cold in their iron brackets, long, mazy hallways. Finally he came to his destination— a single hallway, a single door, bound with iron and oak. North strode forward and pushed it open briskly, entering the room beyond. The chamber was a perfect sphere with a flat bottom, engraved around its diameter with curved, archaic symbols. Moonlight refracted onto the walls from a transparent, faceted stone set into a pedestal at the center of the room. The shifting blue light came from a hole in the ceiling, through which the full moon could be seen. The Moonstone was its only mode of communication. When it called, the mages hastened to listen.

"All right, I am here," North said aloud in a thick Damai accent, tilting his head back to watch the sky. "What is big news?"

The light flared for an instant, brightening the room. A bright column began glowing above the Moonstone, inside of which formed an indistinct shape. He leaned forward in anticipation. The amorphous shape became more solid, tall and thin with a bushy top—a tree. But there was something more within its ghostly silhouette, the shape of a young girl. Her shining hair fell all the way to her knees and her eyes were big and soft. It was whisked away and replaced b a shimmering snowflake, surrounding the outline of a boy with spiky hair and a playful smile. It, too, disappeared and re-formed into a swath of blue flame around a round-faced, curly-haired girl, which blew away and settled into a short, plain boy with wind tearing at his clothes.

North was thoroughly amazed. The moon had just predicted the rise of four new mages, when never before had it warned them of one. this was beyond abnormal. "Why?" he asked, looking back at the moon. "What is coming?"

The moonlight flickered and a shadow was cast in the pillar of light, in the shape of a man. The room seemed to grow darker and colder and the shape only hovered for a moment before the moonlight suddenly dimmed and disappeared, plunging the room into semidarkness. Alarmed, North watched as a swath of clouds covered the moon in a silvery haze. Interference. It confirmed two of his worst fears: the leader of Kosmaria was rising, and he was becoming more powerful. He strode out of the room in a rush. He was going to call the Guardians.

And he could only hope desperately that no one else had seen the message.

But someone already had.

The fork in the road was practically invisible in the midnight storm that blanketed the countryside. In fact, being a stranger to the area, the dark, shadowy figure standing there nearly missed it. His eyes roved over the diverging muddy tracks in a flash of lightning that cracked across the sky. Beyond the path, he could see nothing, but he strode forward confidently into the blinding rain, pulling his sodden cloak tighter around his shoulders. In the rumble of thunder that followed, his mutter was drowned out to everyone but himself:

"Next stop, Berk."