Hey guys,

I'm sorry that it took me over a week to finish this chapter but I've been quite busy recently.

But here it is!

I hope you'll enjoy the latest chapter of this Community Style :)

Toothless and I had decided to ask Gobber about the poem and its story. We made our way through the village and straight towards the forge. Since being a chief means that whenever your villagers set their eyes on you they mouth tedious complaints and ask for help with their work, we made sure to remain unseen and unheard. Luckily both of us were pretty experienced when it came to being stealthy. We had managed to hide our friendship from the rest of the village for quite a while after all. The fire was still burning inside the forge when we finally approached. Apparently Gobber was working overtime as well. Small wonder with the Stoickfest being due in just a few days. I entered the forge and cleared my throat to gain the smith's attention. He spun around with a surprised outcry and hurriedly hid something behind his back.

"By Thor! If it isn't the chief himself!" he bellowed with an overly innocent expression on his grimy face. I sighed audibly. "How many times did I tell you to not call me chief, Gobber?"

He grinned and started rummaging inside the chest with his personal belongings. Whatever he tried to hide disappeared in said chest and was replaced by a little book. "Lemme see...ah, there it is. 134 times, which makes it 135 in total now." I chuckled "Honestly, I'm not sure what's more worrying, Gobber. That you just don't learn or that you actually keep track of the exact number."

The smith leisurely scratched his behind and fixed his gaze on me. "Anyway, whatcha doin here?"

I took the poem out of Toothless' saddlebag and handed it to him. "What do you make of this?"

It took Gobber quite a while to finish reading and he seemed to grow paler by the minute.

"Where did ya find this!?" he finally grunted his a stern look on his face.

"Below the boards at home, by accident," I replied bewildered. "What's the meaning of this peom, Gobber? Do I really have an uncle? And why was he banished from Berk?"

He waved away all those questions and firmly grabbed my shoulders, staring at me intently.

"Now listen up, Hiccup. For your own and everyone else's good. Put it back to where you found it and never speak about its existence to anyone, got it?"

I was kinda taken aback by Gobber's words but I nodded my head and consented to his demands. Or at least I made him believe I did.

After Toothless and I had left the forge we strolled down to the cove where my dragon had crash landed years ago. "Something's fishy," I murmured and got a guttural gurgling sound as a reply "Sorry bud, that's just a saying. I got no fish for you." We spent a few hours in the cove, content to keep one another company over and extended period of time. When I finally stretched and raised from the ground the first rays of the sun had already appeared on the horizon. "Hnngh, alright my friend, maybe we should head back. I need to make some sense of all this, or else I won't be able to concentrate on work."

We swooped down in front of the house and sneakily entered though the front door. It turned out my mother hadn't been back for the night and the house looked exactly like it had the evening before. That of course included the hole in the floor boards Toothless had caused. I took the old shield from the hole and got to work. Half an hour later the broken board had been replaced and nothing remained to even prove the shields existence. Except for the shield itself, which was strapped to my back by now. I wasn't about to just ignore the poem but the only other lead I had to solve this mystery was this old shield. I took it upstairs into my room to investigate it. It didn't take long for this task to annoy me deeply, because the shield seemed extremely ordinary. When I finally lost my temper, which happens rarely enough, although more often lately, I smashed by fist on the back of the shield and heard a metallic click. When I turned the shield I realized that the iron shield boss on the front had opened. I took a deep breath and reached inside, grasping some kind of paper. After closer inspection it turned out to be an old map, a big X in the very center. "This is big, Toothless," I said with a shaky voice. Shaky with excitement. This smelled of adventure. I decided to hide the map and both Toothless and I went to work like nothing had happened.

The both of us returned rather late that day, but we weren't tired in the least. I hurriedly fetched the map and some provisions and mounted Toothless. "Ready, bud? There's an adventure waiting for us." We soared into the night sky and I couldn't help myself but grin from ear to ear. Finally rid of all the work and responsibility, at least for a little while. My grin, however froze immediately when Stormfly suddenly appeared in front of us, hovering in mid air and blocking our way. On her back sat none else than Astrid herself, axe in hand and glaring at me. "And where might you two be going?" she asked suspiciously.

'Damn, I forgot that she's still taking guard shifts every now and then', I thought, while trying to smile as innocently as possible.

"Why hello there, Astrid. You look splendid tonight. We're just out for a little night flight, right Toothless?"

She sighed audibly "You have been and will always be a terrible liar, Hiccup."

"It's true, I swear."

"Well then you wouldn't mind if I accompany you on that flight, right?"

"Err... actually we wanted to spend some time alone, just the two of us, you know?"

Her eyes narrowed "You just want to shirk from duty, right? Sorry, I can't let that happen. Please go home now."

"I command you to let me pass!" I shouted in what I believed an authoritative manner.

"You what!?", she asked in amazement.

"I... c-command you? To let me p-pass? I'm chief... remember?"

She still scowled but eventually made way.

"Now don't get me wrong. I can't let you leave on your own. You always get into trouble when I'm not around. So tell me what you're up to and I might decide to help. Or restrain you by force if needed."

I gulped.

...

I love you; I miss you

All these miles away

May your dreams be sweet tonight

Safe upon your bed of moonlight

And know not of sadness, pain, or care

And when I dream, I'll fly away and meet you there

Sleep...

...

After I had finished reading the poem to Astrid she remained silent for a while, a brooding expression on the face.

"So? What do you make of this?" I eventually asked.

"Does that even matter? Even if it's true, you have no way of finding that island he'd been sent to. It sure doesn't sound like it's the island of the banished. Also Gobber told you to forget about it, right? Maybe you really shou-"

I showed her the map which immediately shut her up.

"Where...?"

"Inside this shield. See that mechanism here? It's really ingenious. Astrid, this uncle of mine might be extremely similar to me. Don't you see why I must find him?"

"I... guess," she said reluctantly, "but there's gotta be a reason why he was banished. This could be dangerous, Hiccup."

"So you won't let me pass?"

"Not without me at least," she said with a smile on her face.

I returned the smile, ignorant of the terrible things to come.

...

The storm had surprised us, lighting bolts forked their way towards the surface, rain whipped down on us and fierce gusts of wind tugged at our dragon's wings relentlessly.

"We need to find shelter!" Astrid shouted, barely audible against the deafening sound of the storm.

It was impossible to navigate with the eyes and I urged Toothless to send out some of his sonar roars. We eventually made out a distant island, but when I turned to tell Astrid she had disappeared.

"Astrid!?" I shouted and we kept battling against the elements, frantically looking for her and Stormfly. 'Gods no, please no...'

"Astrid where are you? ASTRID!"

Gone.

I'd like to thank Dawnbreaker for letting me take part in this project and I hope you enjoyed my little contribution.

If you did please feel free to leave a review for this project and all of its authors ^-^

Dawnbreaker notes: (Seriously, I keep writing 'Cloudhammer's notes' as I use that name frequently...)

Thank you Maexwell for the chapter!

Just like Hiccup... Going on an adventure to get away from his responsibilities for a while. Especially now that Stoickfest is coming. Also, just like Astrid to tag along :P But where did she disappear to? Did something really happen or is she just pulling a prank on Hiccup?
I also wonder why Gobber refused to tell Hiccup about Hiccup's uncle, what might have happened in the past?
Most importantly of course, what's with the map?

I've now randomly assigned chapters for all the writers that have entered this story so far, Here they are:
(These can be found on my profile as well)

Chapter:

3) david255
4) LittleZbot
5) erifetim
6) Suicide Forest
7) LE3 101
8) lauralkelley99
9) Dawn Lovix

I request the writers to tell me immediately if they have something to say about their chapter number or if they are unable to write after all.
Also: New writers are still VERY WELCOME! COME JOIN!