Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West au for Jack and Hiccup!
For my version of this au, I imagined Hiccup as a former Sky Clan Tenakth who now lives with the Oseram in the Forbidden West, while Jack is a Nora outcast (I couldn't decide between white or brown hair for Jack, so you get both.).
Jack is the one who finds a Focus first and then shares that knowledge with Hiccup. I love thinking about what connects characters and why they’re drawn together, and in my mind, Hiccup already sees machines and the old world differently from everyone else, but he’s missing information to truly understand it.
He sees that Jack is actually using the Focus rather than treating it like an accessory, and Jack chooses to share it with him, offering that missing piece of the puzzle that Hiccup needs to truly understand the metal world. This turns out to be what Jack needed, because while Jack is smart, Hiccup is able to piece things together that jack wouldn’t have been able to do on his own, so they quickly end up relying on each other. I really wanted that trope of working together because: “you have something I want” until that becomes: “you are what I need.”
So, together, they explore the metal ruins and uncover the truth behind the Old World. Hiccup gets a machine companion (Toothless), and Jack gets a glider.
I’m also playing with the idea that all machines have ai like gaia did, so they’re actually capable of feeling and learning (it would probably depend on the species though, I don’t imagine a thunderjaw would be very fun to try and domesticate…), because I want Toothless and Hiccup to have the same connection as they do in the movies.
As for the designs, I mixed and matched elements from the artbook and the game itself. I have so many thoughts written down from designing them and from all the differences I noticed between the clans, but it’s literally pages long. If anyone wants me to ramble about that and share some of my thoughts, let me know!
