First, a note to everyone who read the last chapter:

There's all these little "awws" and "so cute" and all this other gag-worthy stuff. Like you all thought it was Fishlegs who put the blanket over her and bandaged her hand! And you all just had to coo and go crazy over something you couldn't prove. Those reviews were nauseating to read! Could it not have been someone else who wandered in and took care of her? Like Santa Claus or Human Toothless? You people and your assumptions! Geeze!

Kidding. You're all loved.

Next, Backroads, after pulling out her dragon game on her iphone whenever she was bored, finally achieved the Legendary Night Fury Secret Code only to realize it tragically did not apply to her phone game but to games on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. So... if you want 'em, say so so they can be put to good use.

Third, we dare any of you to watch "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and NOT think "Hiccup!". It will make the movie all the more amusing.

Fourth, to those of you who are weirdly "collecting" information, you're weird! *laugh evilly* Nah, here's another one for you in this chapter.

Last, this chapter is dedicated to all the little Boy Scouts trying to get the astronomy merit badge every summer who wouldn't shut up and listen to Counselor Emily or any other poor Astronomy merit badge instructor out there. You're the reason she switched to running the waterfront!

Okay, then. Now for an actual chapter. Is it too chatty?

"She's insane."

Tuffnut rolled his eyes as he pulled his knife-throwing hand back. "I know. At the beginning of my life I got to spend a whole fifteen minutes without her and then she was born and the rest is history. I know she's insane." He swung his arm forward and the knife zoomed across the Hall before completely missing the post and clattering to the ground.

"No, I don't think you do know," said Fishlegs. A thunderstorm had appeared out of nowhere half an hour before making any and all outdoor work impossible and Meade Hall suddenly the place to be. Usually he would have been perfectly happy to kick back and watch whatever drunken brawls or displays of weapon skills went on, but the sight of Tuffnut had unleashed something inside of him that rarely came out: The need to complain. Maybe his wife's brother wasn't the ideal one to whine to, but he would have the most experience with Ruffnut and Fishlegs was pretty confident he could take Tuff down if it came to a fight.

"Fishlegs, I'm pretty sure I know about her insanity."

"I mean, she's completely insane!" Fishlegs held his hands up in the air for emphasis. "Like a negative fifteen points off stability."

Tuffnut paused in retrieving his knife to shoot him the look that meant he had said something far too weird. "I am not even going to pretend to know what that means."

"It means she is not normal."

"Dude, I know!" Tuffnut picked up his knife, flipped into the air, and caught it in his other hand.

Fishlegs lowered his hands back to his lap. "I'm pretty sure she hates me. A lot. Like, with all the energy of the sun or something that if she could just channel it all together into some ball of hate energy and she could kill me with it. She already has your Zippleback against me."

Tuffnut laughed and threw the knife again, this time sending it whizzing over someone's head without drawing his attention. "That's pretty cool. Does it attack you?"

"It's going to one of these days!"

"Good old-fashioned dragon fighting. Those were the days. Now has Ruff actually attacked you? Because she will do that if she's mad at you."

"A couple of weeks ago."

He laughed again. "I would have loved to see that. But she doesn't hate you. Trust me. If she had said anything to me about hating you or you making her really upset, I would have killed you five seconds later."

The look on Tuffnut's face promised he wasn't kidding, and Fishlegs gulped. Was he so sure he could hold his own against an angry Tuffnut?

The look did not fade from Tuffnut's face. "Do you hate her?" It was a very good thing he had not gotten his knife back.

Fishlegs shook his head. "No! I just said she was insane! That's all I said."

Tuffnut continued his glare.

"I think she's pretty and a really good fighter." Despite thinking that was a decent response he squeezed his eyes shut against any following attack. "I don't hate her. I just think she hates me. Did you know that got herself purposely drunk for—"

"I really don't want hear about that," said Tuffnut, holding up a hand and clamping his fingers shut. Then he sighed and sat down. "Look. I'm trying to be sympathetic here. I really am. But at the same time I really don't care. Got that? As long as my sister is reasonably happy, I really don't care about anything you have to say. She's yours to deal with now. My dad even says the same thing. Though he'd kill you, too, if she were upset. Just letting you know. But, hey, I'm trying this whole nice-guy sympathy thing to see if there's anything to it. Believe it or not, she does like talking about as much as any other female. Have you tried…" He paused to search for the word. "… holding a conversation with her?"

"A few times. I'll try to tell her what I'm reading. Then she gives me this really weird look and walks off."

"Yeah… that's kind of the same thing everyone else does when you talk like that."

Fishlegs decided not to respond to that. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, because the last five days she's been falling asleep by sunset."

"Huh." Tuffnut picked at a splinter on the table as thunder blasted outside. "That's weird for her. She must be ignoring you."

"By going to sleep?"

"Yes. It's what girls do to avoid people. One of the things they do, anyway."

Fishlegs stared at Tuffnut for a long time. The guy discussed all of this like he was discussing the best way to catch a fish. Finally he said, "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Tuffnut shrugged. "I didn't realize I was supposed to be making you feel better. I thought you just wanted to talk about how insane Ruff is. And now I'm bored of that and it's still pouring out there." He stood up. "Wanna see if we can convince Snotlout to take more drinks than he can handle?"

Well, even talking about Ruffnut drove him nuts. "Sure."

The storm did not stop until after dark, but the clouds were already drifting away when Fishlegs left Meade Hall. There was a disgusting sensation of laziness that accompanied spending so many hours there but then again half the village had been there as well and it wasn't like they could build in the rain. He had just never liked being unoccupied. Probably what had prompted him to read the dragon manual seven times.

The air was still muggy with rain and the ground one giant mud pit. His dad's house was closer, and he considered going there for the night and seeing if Ruff would notice or care, but the concept of that was laughable. In fact, he did laugh at the idea.

Horrorcow was thrilled by all the mud. Fishlegs had never exactly made her a pet, but she did seem happy to stay around the new house. Now she burrowed and rolled in all the mud with all the delight of a puppy. At least the Zippleback wasn't there. He stroked her on her chin, which only caused her to roll and splash mud all over him.

"Great," he muttered, though maybe the action of tracking mud would irritate Ruffnut. If she were awake.

But true to recent form the first thing he saw when he opened the door was her curled up on her side of the bed, still in her clothes and unconscious.

"Ruff," he called loudly.

No response. So Tuffnut had said she was ignoring them? Did that mean she was pretending to be asleep or she was actually falling asleep for real on purpose just to avoid him? Either way, it was insulting. Was he that bad to be around? He carefully pushed her aside to pull the blanket out from under her body to put it over her; the nights were getting gradually colder and he could see her freezing one night and it being all his fault. She mumbled something in her sleep, but her eyes did not open. What would she do if he grabbed a piece of charcoal and drew on her face? Probably kill him. Would it be worth it? That was something to consider.

The pile of spun yarn in the corner was the biggest he had seen it, and all the wool was finally gone. Spinning was so weird. The most he had ever spun was rope, and that process had driven him nuts. He had heard enough from Ruffnut to know she detested it as well. But here it now was, a giant pile of wool finally spun into bundles of yarn, all her hard work and suffering over.

It was just too tempting. Now where could he possibly hide it all?

Under the bed? Too simple. Outside in the rain and mud? Too mean. Then he looked upwards. The rafters. Perfect.

He piled all the yarn onto the table, then placed a chair on top of it, just high enough that he could climb onto the lowest beam. He was not exactly small and light, but he had spent too many years building houses to have any qualms or problems with heaving himself up, a few yarn bundles in one hand, and making his way to the most frustrating places to tie up out of sight those very bundles. Twenty minutes was all it took to get everything up. He jumped back to the ground, tried to catch his breath, and admired his work. Marvelous. If one didn't know what to be looking for they wouldn't see a thing. At least he had for a short time spared her from that loom she hated.

Ruffnut had slept through all of it.

He next checked to see if she had cooked anything. Another oddity about her falling asleep so early was the inconsistency of cooking. Some nights something was laid out in varying states of lukewarm and other nights there was nothing. Truth be told he did not really care much either way and could cook circles around her, but she was getting slightly better and he did like food. Nothing that night. He glanced at the bed. What was she eating every night? She was eating, right? Maybe if she ate more she wouldn't be so tired.

Well, he wasn't tired even if she was. The task of hiding her yarn had left him rather exhilarated and somewhat nervous about being in the same house as her. Was that a normal sensation after pulling a prank?

The storm clouds were all but gone, judging from what he could see from the window and the roof's smoke hole. Awhile ago he had discovered a new interest in astronomy, had even been writing stuff down in a very Hiccup-like fashion. He grabbed the notebook and a candle and headed back outside.

The night was freezing, but the sky was perfectly clear, as if the storm had washed away any clouds and clutter from it. He sat down on the hill, a spot a good distance from the house, and began to scribble. The nice part about stars was that they required no drawing talent whatsoever. Plus comparing sky maps from different days rocked. It was thrilling just thinking about it. Not nearly as cool as dragons or anything else violent like that, but still thrilling in its own right.

"What are you doing?" Ruff stood outside the house, rubbing sleep from her eyes while her voice and face expressed that she clearly thought he was an idiot.

He stared at her, wondering if she had noticed her yarn was missing yet. "Um… I thought you were asleep?"

"And now obviously I'm not. Again, what are you doing out in the dark?" She started her way over the hillside.

"Mapping the stars?" Amazing how stupid it sounded out loud.

She nodded, yawned, and plopped down next to him. Loose hair was popping out every which way from her braids. The effect was very… frizzy. "Exactly why would you being doing that?"

"Um…"

She just shook her head. "You are so weird."

Fishlegs kind of wished she would just go back inside, but he didn't dare say that. "Well, all you do lately is sleep." Did that count as attempting a conversation?

"I know. It's really annoying. I'm wasting so much time, but it's all I want to do lately."

"You're not sick, are you?"

She laughed. "I've never been sick a day in my life. Maybe if I had something stimulating… let's see how this works out for me." She grabbed the notebook from him and flipped through the pages. "Wow. Dots. Amazing."

"They're stars," he shot back.

She just nodded. "Super. You're great at drawing dots." She flipped through a few more pages. "And circles."

"That's the moon!" He tried to grab the notebook, but she held it out of his reach. She had great reflexes for a girl who still looked half asleep.

"Fishlegs, why are you drawing the moon?"

He finally stood up and snatched the book back. "To record it. See?" He flipped open to a page, the need to show her suddenly overwhelming him. "This is a drawing of the new moon. Actually, there's nothing for it. Here it is at the waning crescent. This one is 40% to full, this one is a drawing of the moon at full. Here's 17% to full…"

It was working. She didn't care. Her eyes were blinking back sleep. He flipped to a fresh page and sketched the moon as it was. Thank goodness he only had to draw varying degrees of circles. "And this is the moon now at the waxing gibbous, it will be full in a few nights…"

"What?" Her eyes popped open as she stared up at the moon.

"Well, when the moon is waxing it's going toward full—"

She punched him in the shoulder. "I know that, idiot!" She took a deep breath and looked up at the moon again. "It… it is at… whatever you called it." She was now completely awake.

"Waxing—"

"I'm going back inside," she said quickly, interrupting him. She sounded very distracted. "Good night. Have fun drawing your dots." She bolted back to the house.

Fishlegs stared after her. That had been weird. She was completely insane.