Oh dear, I have my work cut out for me, don't I? Hello; I am C F Winchester, Finalage. I hope you don't mind me spinning this yarn for you all to read, though it seems to be my boring duty to set records straight and formulate plans, and give opportunities. XD~.

DocX's seem to remove all formatting from chapters, so forgive me for this not having any. ~Finalage. (Dawnbreaker: I took the liberty of adding some xD)

~HTTYD Community Style~

Chapter Seven:

Sunlight streamed into Hiccup's bedroom from his window, making dust mites dance in the air as it crept slowly along the floor and finally alighted upon the form of Toothless, who was sprawled on top of Hiccup in a protective fashion as he snored.

In Hiccup's ears.

Loudly.

Hiccup lay there wide awake as he listened to his friend's unconscious attempts to deafen him in relative peace. It was understandable that Hiccup could not get anymore sleep last night after being woken up rudely by his nightmare, and the very least reason was the most obvious; the fact that a several hundred pound dragon was lying on top of him snoring away.

However, Hiccup's main reason for his sleepless night was his brain, which was buzzing away like an incessant fly with questions, questions and more questions...and not an answer in sight. Chief among these questions was the mystery of who those cloaked, cultist figures were, besides their claim of being servants to one moon goddess Diana.

Hiccup pushed against Toothess's head, seeking to make the dragon get up, and failing; miserably. He let himself fall back against his bed to continue to think, even as he watched a pool of dragon slobber on his shirt get bigger and stickier. Hiccup allowed himself one thought about this:

Gee, thanks Toothless, as if the situation I'm in wasn't sticky enough.

Ignoring the growing pool of slobber, Hiccup continued to brood.

The people, he decided instantly, were going to have to remain a mystery. He doubted anything in the (extremely) limited library Berk had would tell him anything about them. His father had already denounced them as heathens and no one seemed to know anything about another name for the goddess of the moon, much less that name being Diana. He rubbed his face in frustration and his eyes fell to the marks that still adorned Toothless's hide.

He could try to decipher those. It would keep his mind away from the dangerous other question in his mind, the one about Astrid and a certain few "boyfriend" comments that made his fake leg itch self consciously. Phantom pains, as Gobber called them. Hiccup rolled his eyes as his brain began to work.

Perhaps it was an actual marking from Toothless's own body, proving him to be this sealing agent that kept the moon goddess locked away? Oh wait! Maybe they were a spell designed to track him so that if they lost him they could...

...Oh no.

Hiccup tried getting up once more, pushing hard on Toothless's snout. The dragon merely grunted in his sleep. Rolling his eyes, Hiccup tried scratching him about the neck. This elicited some of his famous crooning, but he still remained stubbornly asleep. Hiccup sighed.

"I knew it was a bad idea to have you sleep in my house, the Viking spirit is rubbing off on you. Stubborn. Get up, you useless reptile. Come on!"

He pushed again against the snout, and Toothless grunted in his sleep, but again, nothing. Hiccup began to wonder why, just why, was Toothless sleeping so deeply. He paused in his efforts to get out from under him. Usually Toothless was ready when he was. Usually Toothless was a light sleeper if he was still snoring by the time Hiccup got up. So why so heavy on the lids today? Sure, yesterday had been exhausting for everyone but...maybe the shocks had hurt him more than he let on? He pushed harder against the snout.

"For Thor's sake, I never realized you were so heavy!"

After a few more minutes of struggling, Hiccup managed to squeeze his way out from underneath his slumbering prison, and took stock of the situation. Toothless was covered from head to tail in strange symbols and runes, all of them interlocking in a pattern similar to the interlocking bars of one of his own inventions, only these were curved and warped as if someone had pushed a cage into a black hole and then pulled it back out...that, or it was reminiscent of a magical circle, a spell of some kind.

Was it a spell to make Toothless snore? Because he didn't need one of those to be honest...and even as he thought it, the dragon let out an extra loud one. Hiccup's mind however, flashed out another thought...and the image of last night's nightmare, of the old man with his pupils gone controlling through his actions Toothless's body...dream?

His eyes zoomed the symbols again.

Or sorcery?

Hiccup bit his lower lip. He noticed the symbols seemed inter-layered, as if two spells had been laid on him at once...or one after the other, or even one complicated multi-layered one...Hiccup had to admit he knew little if anything about magic, if these even were spells. Hiccup's mind instantly reviewed the prior night. He supposed he could rule out the robed people, or at least put them on hold for being suspects for the moment. The marking had appeared on Toothless before he met them, but they had identified Toothless by them...he settled on the old man.

Had he set a spell on Toothless to show him what he really was, only to reveal that fact to the cultists?

Everything seemed to come back to the crazy old man with the wild blue eyes and his claim that Hiccup would lose everything dear to him as the world came to an end about him. Maybe the robed people and the old man knew each other? Or one served the other? It had been rather opportune, the way that they had so quickly zeroed in on Toothless once those symbols were revealed...

Hiccup groaned as he rubbed his face again. The only clue he had was a book from Ireland that had a vague poem about the sun being only unable to blind and burn, and that the cruel moon would get it's revenge on the guilty sun so that the dawn would never rise again...

In his minds eye, he again saw Toothless scamper away like a frightened puppy from the moon, loping off in the opposite direction only to get caught...

He could not risk a trip all the way to Ireland with people going after Toothless, and if he believed that the old man and the people in robes were in league with each other...it made even less sense than it did at first. Why would the old man repeatedly warn him in his dreams that he would lose Toothless and the the moon was a warning and the gods would kill them all if his friends were after Toothless to release the moon?

No, much as he hated to admit it, he had to grudgingly accept that, crazy or not, the old man was on his side...but might have his own agenda. He couldn't forget last night's nightmare...an unresponsive toothless controlled like a puppet by the old man...unless he was simply demonstrating what could happen?

Hiccup's stomach interrupted his pounding head, and he grimaced. It was only now that he realized he was sore! He grabbed his bed head, feeling his body protest his rough way of getting out of bed and the fire lancing everywhere from the shocks of the net. He looked over to the still sleeping Toothless and patted his snout awkwardly.

"I know one way to get to a dragon's heart and that's through his stomach. Let's see if a nice fish won't get you to wake up...and if that fails I'm going fishing for an eel."

Well hey; if good food didn't work, scare him awake was always another tactic.

Hiccup hobbled to his door and opened it to go down the steps painfully. He came to an empty house but a roaring hearth. He couldn't see Stoic anywhere, but there was evidence of him having eaten already. He guessed his father must have gone out then, but not too long ago; the hearth had yet to die down.

He busied himself with preparing breakfast for himself and was not paying too much attention as he found some fish already lain out on the breakfast table. The fish's rainbow skin reflected his face briefly as he grinned and picked them up. He thanked his father's thoughtfulness and only paused when he heard the door creak open.

"Hey Dad, thanks for getting Toothless some fish for me, it seems like he doesn't want to get up out of bed today-"

He looked up, and almost dropped the fish he was carrying. It wasn't his father standing by the door frame.

It was Astrid. The one person he was trying so very hard not to think about.

Sweet Odin's skivvies this is going to be a long day isn't it.

"Hi Hiccup."

Hiccup paused, and was suddenly very glad he had not eaten anything yet. His stomach was twisting itself into a bow tie.

"Hi."

Between them, a single fish from the pile fell and plopped unto the ground, a baleful eye looking up at them. Astrid opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, an all too familiar screech rent the air. Hiccup dropped his fish.

"Toothless!"

Ignoring the fish, Hiccup raced up the steps, as Astrid, having sailed over the pile in a single bound, was only a few steps behind him. His heart raced in his chest as he pounded up the steps, his previous limp worthy pain all but forgotten in the threat of what would have happened to his friend. That screech was one of fear.

He finally reached his door and tore it open with frantic strength he did not know he possessed. His eyes landed on the sight before him.

Well here we are! I've not much to say besides thanks to Dawnbreaker for letting me participate. Don't worry, this won't slow down my own HTTYD story. Tah tah~

Dawnbreaker note: Just wondering why aren't you guys reviewing? I mean, this story is meant to be a community fic where everyone gets to participate and give feedback to the other authors about their chaps, to make this community more united overall!

This chapter sums up things nicely, every important thing so far was mentioned here so it's a lot easier for the next writers. Well, of course you guys have to worry about the plot and this cliffhanger here!

Oh, right now I only have writers until chapter 12 and I'm almost desperately looking for more! Oh, mysticnightfury, did you get the account so you could participate?

-Dawnbreaker