Five
The first dragon bone she sees hangs permanently around the neck of her father. It's not much, a fragment of the wing of the Monstrous Nightmare, so small but brilliant white in color. The strength of this piece of a beast, the deadly association, is mesmerizing.
She holds it for a long time when her father shows it to her.
She wears it once or twice- without his permission- and she learns to love the way it feels against her skin.
One night, as she's curled up near the fire, listening eagerly to her brothers and sister and her uncles and her father's friends retelling the stories of their most fearsome kills, she listening to the snow storm raging outside and resolves she will be like that dragon bone.
Small but strong.
Ruthless as a whole.
Six
Her sister gives her an axe on the day all the men have gone. They've taken the boats and disappeared to sea and she is afraid her father and her uncle and her brothers won't return, and her sister takes her into the woods.
She doesn't understand why an axe is better than a sword- swords seem more heroic, more valiant, the Chief carries a sword- and her sister reminds her that she is not a maiden in need of rescuing. The axe is the weapon of their family, the weapon of a warrior, and she will carry that axe with the pride of her ancestry, off all the Hofferson women before her.
Her sister hurls her own axe and it sticks deeply in a tree on the opposite edge of the clearing. Her sister has killed countless dragons with that axe. Her sister has helped save the village many times.
They practice every day until she can do the same.
Seven
When her brother and her sister are killed, she thinks no one should be allowed to be happy any more. She certainly isn't, but her family aren't the only ones who are sending loved ones to Valhalla today. Chief gives a speech at a massive funeral, the largest one they've held since she can remember, and they light the boats on the water. She isn't allowed to shoot an arrow because she is too young, though she has amazing aim, so she stand in front of her uncle and watches her father and her mother and the only brother she has left let the fire fly, one for each family member they have lost, and she cries. She cries the most out of anyone in the whole crowd, she thinks.
The weird boy, the chief's son, watches her from his spot under his father's arm, and she pretends not to notice. He looks sad, he has tears running down his cheeks, and somewhere in the back of her muddled mind she remembers what her mother whispered about the weird boy, that the chief's son is weak.
She wipes her eyes furiously with the backs of her hands. She is not weak, not like him.
She is strong.
She is a Viking.
She has an enormous hole to fill.
She watches her brother and sister burn and silently she promises that she will make them proud.
Eight
Once a week (at least) she ditches lessons to watch the dragon training. The roars of the beasts are more enticing than letters and numbers and droning lectures.
Sometimes, after the older kids hobble off to treat their burns and bruises, Gobber calls her down and she helps him scrub the floor and organize the weapons rack and, when he's not paying too close of attention to her, she stands in front of the great iron cage doors and practices summoning all of her rage. She needs rage to kill dragons, that's what her sister used to say, and she has plenty of rage to spare. The Monstrous Nightmare lets out a primal and terrible sound that rattles the whole arena. Gobber says that it know she wants to fight. The dragon can feel it.
He gives her the book one night after they've closed down the arena, the Book of Dragons. Everything he learned about dragons is in the book, he tells her, and she knows that Gobber knows everything. The weird boy watches from the other side of the black smith shop as she flips through the pages.
She's not that great at reading, but if there was ever a reason to be better, the book is it. She will learn it all.
Nine
She pleads with her mother for weeks to let her help with the fighting. She's getting stronger, faster, tougher, smarter. She's ready to do something, anything, but her mother is firm in the answer.
It's safer for her to stay out of the way, her father echoes. She'll have her chance, her brother says, and then they all run out and leave her alone when the fires start.
Of course, she doesn't listen, follows after a few minutes, axe in hand.
The village is burning around her. Vikings and dragons tumble and spin in all directions and she runs at the first dragon she sees, a dust colored Gronkle pulling up the Ingerman's potatoes.
She's barely close enough to swing at it when the dragon's thick tail sends her flying, and then there's a voice asking if she's okay, telling her that she's bleeding. The weird boy, the weakling, the chiefs son stands over her looking concerned, offering his hand. She scowls and stands without taking it, aware of the throbbing in her shoulder and the sharp pains in her wrist. She is embarrassed that he saw, embarrassed at her weakness, and he looks as hurt as she feels when she runs back into the fight and leaves him alone again.
When her wrist is no longer broken and her mother is no longer angry, she starts training harder.
Ten
In lessons, she isn't the best. The weird boy is a weakling but he has a talent for numbers, letters make sense in his brain, and sometimes she envies that. Sometimes, when the sun falls down and she can't quite go to sleep, she thinks it wouldn't be too bad if reading was easier, if the words in the Book of Dragons weren't constantly mixing around and switching places, but when it's morning again and she leaves the house with her axe strapped to her back, she remembers that she was born to fight.
The weird boy has a wall in the black smith hut full of drawings and he's constantly adding more. After she helps Gobber at the arena and Gobber helps her with the book, she surveys his creations if he's not there, staring at her with his eyes that are too big. She doesn't know what these things do, these contraptions and machines he's thought up, and she'll never ask. Maybe one day he'll build one.
She shakes her head. She cannot be good at everything, but she is good at the things that matter. He may be smart, but she is a Viking, and no one can take that away from her.
Eleven
The Jorgenson boy tries to kiss her when they are gathering firewood together and she punches him so hard that she breaks his nose and three bones in her right hand. It's the closest he's ever gotten before, because he's tried many times, and she's angry at herself for her slow reaction speed. They hike back to the village, both covered in his blood, and her father shakes his head in disappointment, his father throws her something akin to disgust while he leads the boy to the healer, and she is sent to her room in punishment. Her hand hurts in waves of stabbing pain but she doesn't cry, she's too angry, and she summons all of rage into a well-placed, perfectly-techniqued kick at the wall.
It doesn't help much.
Her brother comes up hours later, gives her the news while he wraps her hand in a splint. The Jorgenson boy will be fine, a crooked nose never killed anyone, and the Chief laughed about the whole thing.
Maybe, she thinks, she should start wearing spikes so no one tries to get close to her again. Her brother tells her not to push everyone away, that it will be lonely on the top, but she tells her brother that it will be safer, too.
She doesn't do chores with the Jorgenson boy anymore. Next time she is sent into the woods, she sharpens her axe and goes alone.
Twelve
Her father gives her a present before he leaves again, wrapped in a small box at the end of her bed, and then he is gone again, her brother is gone again, her mother would like to be gone too but someone has to stay home and keep her out of trouble, no matter how many times she insists that isn't true.
The Chief leads the boats into the fog with hopes that this time will be different, this time will have results.
She opens the box after the sea has calmed behind them, sitting on the edge of the world, and a small metal object rolls out onto her palm. The skull has been meticulously and intricately carved, strung onto a thin strip of leather, and she ties it around her neck. It's no dragon bone, but it will do for now.
The chief returns with an armada of shattered ships and broken spirits and admittedly, she is relieved, but she buries this relief deep below her skin so now one else can feel it. Sitting on the edge of the world, watching the ships float in, she imagines how nice her little skull will look flanked by the bones of her first kill. A Zippleback, maybe. Or a Deadly Nader. Maybe, maybe she could even kill a Night Fury. She could be the first.
She is relieved that the nest has once again defeated them. This is not a war they are allowed to win before she gets to take her shot.
Thirteen
She is no longer a girl when she turns thirteen, her mother says, and wakes her that morning with a sharpened knife and a new skirt, complete with all the spikes she could ask for. Her mother spends the morning brushing out her hair, which has gotten quite long, and she watches in the dirty mirror as the knife slices it off in chunks. Two braids are for children, her mother says, and she is no longer a child.
One braid is for a woman.
One braid is for a warrior.
She cuts the bangs herself, a personal touch, and she thinks they make her look more dangerous. Her father laughs but he agrees, though he reminds her that she can't spend her whole life looking dangerous.
At dinner that night they feast, but she nearly chokes on her lamb when the word marriage is thrown into the conversation so casually. The Jorgenson boy is mentioned next and suddenly she's not hungry anymore, her insides squirming uncomfortably. She excuses herself quietly and returns upstairs, returns to the mirror, and in the candle light her face is so pale and afraid.
She is a warrior first, but she is also a woman, and she wishes desperately that it was one or the other, not both.
Fourteen
As the leader of the fire brigade, she gets to be outside during the fights now. No one can yell at her or push her into the house or tell her what to do, except the Chief, but she likes to think he trusts her and that's why he gave her this job.
It's hard to be a leader, especially with the rag tag mess of a team she was assigned, but it's not like there were many options. The Twins don't listen, the large one is afraid of everything, and the Jorgenson boy is so relentlessly single minded that it takes everything, every ounce of self-control she has, not to push him off the cliffs. But she's good at her job, and she's good at being the best, and being in the middle of the action is as terrifyingly magnificent as she always wanted it to be.
She's repairing her buckets in the black smith hut when the weird boy stumbles in, freezes when he sees her, and takes his customary place at the back table. The weird boy isn't on her team, isn't allowed to be because he has to man the hut during the fights, but she also knows that he's not allowed on her team because of the last time he got out, and the Boat Incident. The Chief is tired of cleaning up his messes.
He has new drawings stuck to his wall and she looks them over from afar, squints her eyes at the notes he's scribbled across the pages, but it's no use. The letters turn backwards and switch spots and she sighs, frustrated at her weakness.
It's a machine, Gobber says when he notices she's struggling, joins her and inspects the buckets, approves the careful handiwork.
He's building a machine so he can shoot the dragons down.
She's about to laugh but the weird boy turns around, his too big eyes staring right into her own. It'll work, he says, it'll work and then everyone will see.
Fifteen
She's laying upside-down on the hillside because that's the way she feels right now. Everything that was right was never right, and the new right things are lying beside her in the grass.
The first dragon she loves is electric blue and beautiful and feels like freedom and she can't explain how everything was opposite a few days ago, can't explain why this dragon would possibly have chosen her. Dragons can sense all the rage that boils in her blood, but Gobber never told her anything from the book about dragons being able to sense goodness and trust and love. She supposes it didn't matter before.
He's going on and on about something, the amazing boy, the chief's son, from his spot to her left. Something about his plans for the village and she wishes he would slow down, he's too excited and she her brain is too busy to keep up.
She is scared, desperately and embarrassingly afraid, of all the new right things, of the boy and her dragon and all the dragons and what if she's not good enough? What if she can't keep up? What if, deep down, she was really only meant to fight and now that nothing makes sense, she will be lost?
He pauses in his monologue to ask her what's wrong and she decides right then that she will won't let it stop her, when his too-big eyes meet hers she reminds herself she's no longer alone. It's hard to be as desperately and embarrassingly afraid when she has a friend.
She was thinking about the end, she says. That this is the end of everything they've ever known.
The amazing boy, the chief's son, her friend shrugs his shoulders, smiles, and throws his hands up in the air because it might be an end, but it's more than that.
This is only the beginning.