So, here we are, the next chapter. I had a bit of struggle with this one; it was hard to determine whether or not Hiccup actually stayed in the cove for any amount of time after the 'splashdown', or if he headed straight for the village, seeing as he had dragon training. Eventually, as evident by you reading this author's note (the other alternative had a different one, as I'm actually, by the writing of this author's note you're reading right now, writing on both of the alternatives simultaneously), I decided on the latter.

Furthermore, this chapter utterly busted the kind-of-schedule I had unofficially been running up until now. The whole thing froze and I ended up getting distracted by more one-shots which are probably never going to reach completion. My apologies for the wait, but I will not make any promises – I cannot predict in advance when a writer's block or other distraction will slow me down. Also, this chapter was a pain to name – still don't think that the name turned out very well, but things can't always be perfect. Ah well, regardless of my naming skill (or lack thereof), here's the next chapter; I hope it turned out okay.

Chapter 5: An odd solution

Apparently, as it soon showed, the builder wasn't as close as he'd thought. Seemingly, somewhere between his most recent crash and, well, right now, the being in question had managed to disappear. Following its smell had led him back to the entrance it'd used, so it had most likely left again. Serves him right for not paying attention, he supposed, but it was still an unwelcome interruption in his plan.

Having learnt a whole lot of nothing, only one question remained: what now?

To be fair, there wasn't really all that much he could do. Trying to catch water-food without flight had already proved to be a waste of effort, and aside from that there was not much to do in the little hole in the ground that he was stuck in. Yes, stuck despite the recent... developments, all due to a highly uncooperative tailfin which, seemingly, had decided to close itself again somewhere along the line. At least it kept his tail's weight balanced, though, so there was always that; tearing it off would do no good.

Throwing one last, annoyed look at the builder's contraption, the Shadow Hunter trotted off, heading towards a cozy-looking spot in the sun, on top of a nearby rock, where he promptly lied down, resting both for the sake of trying to turn his day-night schedule back, as well as to let his stomach calmly process the food he'd previously consumed.

However, reality had something else in mind, it seemed, as it wasn't too long before his resting was interrupted by a persistent, recognizable noise; the buzzing of wings, rapidly beating in the air. Unless his ears were deceiving him, another dragon was nearby, and judging from how the noises sounded, the source seemed to be a Stonechewer. It was a bit of a strange name, seeing as there were, to his knowledge, quite a few different kinds of dragons which consumed rock on occasion, but as these commonly brown, sluggish yet rather tough ones were by far the most common in the Queen's domain, they had somehow gotten the designation regardless of the other ones' existence.

True enough, such a being showed up soon enough, passing over the southern side of the cove. It was small, however; but a mere hatchling, certainly too young to stand much chance of surviving alone. Whether its parents were nearby, had been killed or simply captured by the Queen, he didn't know, but-

Hold on, there's something different about that thought. Captured by the Queen... Strange, he was certain that, just a few days ago, he would've thought something like saved or rescued; something which would've sounded a lot less negative. The Queen wasn't bad, the very thought was ridiculous, but right now, she didn't really feel good, either.

...Was he starting to have negative thoughts about the Queen? Was that negative part of him, the one which despised the Queen, the bad part, taking control? Now that he wasn't near the perfection of the Queen, there was nobody there to keep the negative in control; would it grow until the point where it consumed him fully, filled him with an all-consuming evil? No, he couldn't let that happen. No matter what, he couldn't allow himself to become like the Que- it was happening already?! The Queen was most certainly not bad, in any way, shape or form. He had to get control of that evil side, before it destroyed everything else.

She did eat a lot of dragons, though...

'No! Snap out of it!' he told himself, forcing the doubts back where they belonged. He was not about to lose his mind like some lesser dragon. He was a Shadow Hunter, and would act as such.

Shaking his head in a physical effort to dislodge any stray thoughts, the black dragon finally managed to expel the treacherous ideas back to his mind's inner recesses. He'd keep sane at least a little bit longer.

The rest of the day was majorly eventless, as the Stonechewer had already vanished back out of sight by the time the Shadow Hunter broke out of his thought-path. Much to his satisfaction, he'd managed to catch a rather sizeable, lone piece of water-food from the lake, which he'd smugly consumed. He was getting better at this whole 'fish from the waterline' thing (he'd already concluded that trying to fish with his fire would not work; there was no way he'd risk swimming out there just to retrieve whatever stunned food the blast would procure, not to mention that he could be heard). Still, by the time the sun rose again the next day, the poor dragon was utterly bored out of his mind, and was yearning for something, anything to do. At this rate he felt like he'd go insane before nightfall; with the exception of nary a minute's time, he'd been staring at the cove's dull, grey, stone walls for what felt like ages, even though he knew very well that it wasn't more than a few days.

When the Builder-hatchling finally showed up, breaking the dreadful monotony, it was carrying something. Whatever it was, he didn't recognize it; he'd never seen anything like it, really. It was a big, flat, brown… thing, almost as long as the hatchling was tall. The other being came within a relatively short distance of the dragon, standing between him and the pool of water, and then held the thing up, as if showing it off. The impression was only amplified by the somewhat proud expression on the holder's face; it was definitively showing off the thing. Another one of its own creations? No food this time, though.

To be fair, at this point he was ready to try anything; it had already shown that the Builder could restore his flight. Albeit the fake tailfin did not yet heed the dragon's commands, but it was a start, and there wasn't a doubt in his mind that if the Builder could repair something as fundamental as his flight, it would be able to make it usable without having said Builder clinging to his tail.

Right now, though, he'd been in the same place for far too long and –by the Queen he couldn't help himself– he found himself adopting a somewhat playful stance, blurting out a challenge for the Builder to try and catch him. Then he turned to his right and started to half run half jump away, and he was met with the satisfying sound of a pair of running, light feet just moments later. Quite frankly, he was acting like a hatchling, which was far below a grown Shadow Hunter's pride and standards, but right now he just didn't care. This was just far too fun.

His path carried him around in a circle, passing by the side of the lake as he threw a glance backwards, tongue lolling out of his mouth as if he'd totally lost all resemblance of sanity, and indeed, his glance showed that the hatchling was chasing him, weird contraption held over its head.

Their game continued for a while longer, wherein the Shadow Hunter never once actually got caught. He'd ran around for a while, being continuously chased, until he'd managed to 'disappear' amongst a random collection of nearby rocks. Therefrom, he'd jumped out and grabbed the thing, running away with it in his mouth.

From there, the game practically ended, as he stopped a few steps away, dropping the thing to investigate what, exactly, said thing was. It was brown, mostly flat –both of which were pretty obvious- and smelt faintly of land-food with a slight, metallic hint. Tasted really strange, though. Then, before he got to investigating it any more, it vanished from his eyesight as the Builder snagged it back. Or, well, attempted to snag it back; the Shadow Hunter's quick reflexes caused the whole thing to end in a playful tug-of-war, which he, having far superior physical strength, predictably ended up 'winning' within a matter of seconds.

Wearing a self-satisfied expression, the dragon threw the hatchling a victorious look, taking far too much pride in the victory. Of course, the hatchling in question didn't exactly seem to share his satisfaction, judging by the look on its face, which would best compare to the look one would get when trying to figure out how to reach the food which is hiding where one does not fit. It was up to something, but what?

The answer gave itself away quite swiftly, as within seconds the Builder seemed to get an idea, bending down and grabbing something off the ground. A moment later, this something flew over the dragon's head, and as one would predict, his gaze followed it to see what it was, and where it had ended up.

A rock?

Indeed, what now lay on the ground's grassy covering, not too far behind him, was a small, gray and mostly round rock. Why in the world did it do that? How would moving a rock there serve any sort of… you know what? Never mind. Builders were odd.

Turning his head back around, planning to question the hatchling, he immediately found that something was different. As in, the thing had vanished. Where did it…?

Oh.

Of course. Why did he not see that coming? The rock had been a distraction, and a surprisingly effective one at that. The odd sleeping schedule must be getting to him; he hadn't even noticed the approach, which must obviously have taken place in order for the hatchling to get close enough to grab the thing in the first place. That's where it had gone – the Builder was holding the thing once more.

Most of his kin would probably have been quite upset at being fooled in such a simplistic manner, but unlike most of them, he'd been in a real flock; solitary life wasn't his only experience. Admittedly he'd only joined it in the first place when his mother met an early death in the spike-filled mouth of a Burrower (he'd never forgiven that dragon); being too young to have any big chance of survival alone, he ended up coming along with a flock he'd stumbled on a few days later. Of course, living with a group meant that one had to develop at least some manner of tolerance towards the others' mischief, and the whole ongoing episode with the marvelous Queen hadn't exactly changed that.

Still, that distraction really should not have worked.

The Builder just said something – if he heard it right, it was something like "If going to control "-and there came an unknown word which he supposed meant tailfin-" I am going to have to "-another odd word; he didn't recognize this one-" you". How typical that the key word in the whole sentence was an unknown. Still, it apparently was a necessity for getting the tailfin under control, so, somewhat uncertainly, he said yes. Regardless, it took a few more seconds before the Builder reacted, and even then it was in a somewhat uncertain manner; had it not heard his response?

A minute later, the Shadow Hunter really wished that he'd known what he'd said yes to. First, one of the Builders' snake-things had gotten stuck in his 'fake' fin, and then there was the thing which had been such a mystery – it was now on his back, just in front of his wings' front, bordering on the neck. He could feel it, but annoyingly enough, no matter how he turned his head, he couldn't see it. To make things worse, the hatchling was sitting on said thing and, by extension, the dragon himself. This had to be the most embarrassing moment of his entire life – needless to say, this was not anywhere near what he had in mind when he wanted the tailfin to be controlled without the Builder on his tail. He got his wish, but this was not the way he intended it. At all.

The Builder pulled at the snake in its paw, and that, in extension, caused the tailfin to open. Okay, so maybe this did work, but it was still not a solution he liked. Still, now that he already was in this ridiculous predicament, he might as well give flight a try.

His first impression was that carrying something on his back made flying feel a bit… off. His weight laid differently, throwing off his balance a bit. Secondly, he noticed that he wasn't actually crashing back to the ground; the tailfin was doing its job. For a few seconds, he flew steadily across the surface of the nearby pond as the hatchling directed the tailfin. Then, something happened. He didn't quite see, but as his course suddenly diverted to the side in a dive –without the hatchling, who flew on forwards– something must have gone wrong; the fin rebelled. Letting out a short, wordless roar of surprise, he rapidly descended.

With how close they were to the water, it didn't take long before his descent was replaced by a big splash. Water droplets flew out all over the place, showering the surface of the nearby water, and the dragon once more found himself in said collection of water. Wet again. Typical.

Yeah, I'm cutting it short there. This chapter has been delayed long enough (would have been even longer, had my attention not been drawn back in by the arrival of another review), and it seemed like a suitable place to stop. Hope you enjoyed.

Comments and reviews are appreciated.