Zephyr sat at her family's table beside her brother and mother. They were talking, but not about anything interesting, or at least Zephyr hadn't heard anyone speak the word "dragon" yet. Or any mention of the attack. They were mostly talking about preparing for winter, and preparing for winter, and…preparing for winter.
It was obvious that her father had avoided talking about the attack until he hadn't had a choice earlier, and now her mother and grandmother weren't saying anything either. Would no one mention it? It would be reassuring if the adults who had experience with this stuff told everyone what they were going to do about it. Of course, her dad hadn't had a clue about how to handle the problem without dragons.
Zephyr looked to her brother on her right. He was listening intently; he always paid attention whenever topics about running the village came up. No one had even asked him how he was doing. He was the one who had gotten hurt after all. Of course, he would hate it if tons of people did ask, but no one had at all.
If her family kept avoiding even mentioning the attack, Zephyr was going to have to take action. She didn't want to listen to the number of sheep New Berk had for the fifth time. She would at least give them five minutes, wait, three minutes. Two? No three.
Zephyr counted quietly to 180, though it could have been 130. She wasn't paying much attention really. "So, with the attack and all yesterday, the town being destroyed, Nuffink getting hurt, and the Great Hall getting wrecked, if they come again, we do need a plan."
Her father and grandmother were obviously taken by surprise at her interruption. Her father looked more disappointed than anything, like he had been hoping Zephyr wouldn't bring up the subject. Her grandmother looked…sad? Zephyr didn't get a look at her mother before Nuffink distracted her by whispering in her ear.
"You have to turn every conversation into a war meeting, don't you?" he hissed.
"Well," her mother said, looking to Zephyr's dad. "We will have to discuss that. Your father will be discussing it all week in the Great Hall, and we'll have to call a meeting with all the villagers sometime soon."
Zephyr looked at her mom then to her father. Whether Zephyr's dad liked it or not, all the attention was on him now.
"I am going to have a meeting entirely devoted to the matter," he said hesitantly. With good reason. He was the chief, whatever he said went. "I'll send a message to Snoutlout if he can make it in time."
Zephyr knew Snotlout was one of the friends her father and mother had fought beside. Two others, Fishlegs and Ruffnut were Fourlegs' parents. Snoutlout had moved away from New Berk six years ago. Zephyr couldn't recall what had happened to Tuffnut though.
"Anyway," Zephyr's dad said. "I'll have to make sure we have enough fish for the winter without losing any more fishing ships. So—"
"Seriously?" Zephyr asked, interrupting him. "No one has anything else to say about what to do?"
"If you want to know what our scouts found today," her father said. "They found enemy equipment in the cave system and catapults in the mountains. They must have been planning an attack for a while. And I didn't notice it."
"It's not your fault," Zephyr's mom told her dad. "None of us were prepared."
"But we should have been," Zephyr's dad said. "I should have made sure the caves were empty months ago. I should have scouted out the mountains on a regular schedule. And I should have investigated our missing fishing ships. That must have been how they found out how to enter the cave system!"
"Let's just not talk about this anymore," Zephyr's grandmother said.
"Why?" Zephyr asked. "Why are you so skittish about the attack if you all lived in a time of war? Why don't you have anything more to say?
"It's not that we don't have anything to say about it," Zephyr's grandmother said. "It's just we would prefer not to. War is harsh and takes its tolls. I can't count how many of my friends lost their lives in battle…"
"That's part of the reason you left Old Berk, right?" Zephyr asked.
"Yes. I thought of returning countless times, but then I remembered the fighting. In the alpha's protection I was completely safe. Rescuing dragons from Drago was dangerous, but not as difficult as full out war. And if I did return, your grandfather would have killed Cloudjumper… And I was afraid if I did return, I'd find everyone else gone."
"But war is going to happen again," Zephyr said. "We all know it."
"Which is why we're having a war meeting soon," Zephyr's dad said.
"Fine," Zephyr said, not hiding her disappointment that the subject of war had come to an end.
After Zephyr's Grandmother left, everyone headed to bed. Zephyr crawled into bed after yawning. She closed her eyes but she couldn't sleep. She could slow down her breathing but she was restless. The news about war was unsettling, but interesting. She wanted to know more.
Zephyr finally got up and relit the candle on her desk. She dug into the boxes in the corner where various items lay scattered and pulled out a hidden book.
Zephyr blew dust off its cover and sat by her desk to read it. The book was called The Book of Dragons. Her grandfather had owned it. She flipped through the pages. Drawings of dragons massacring Vikings decorated the book except for one page—The Night Fury. Zephyr's mom had told her that before her grandfather died, her father was going to fill in the information. But once her grandfather had died, he decided to keep the page the way it was.
Zephyr read the page quietly out loud. "Night Fury. Speed unknown. Size unknown. The un-holy offspring of lightning and death. Your only chance is to hide and pray it does not find you."
She read other pages. The Deadly Nader was known for shooting spikes right through its victim's heart. The Zippleback emitted gas with one head then erupted it with the other. The Scoldren shot boiling water, enough to burn through flesh and bones.
Dragons were so awesome, but also scary. She couldn't imagine being chased by one. Her parents said that when she was little, she had been scared of dragons; she vaguely remembered that. Mostly what she remembered from her younger years was meeting a dragon for the first time, naming Shadow Streak, and seeing The Hidden World glow and come alive before her eyes.
Zephyr closed the book and secreted it back in the box. No wonder Vikings had killed all dragons on sight. It was also no wonder that Drago had wanted to control all dragons with an alpha. With that much power you could do anything.
Zephyr blew out the candle and slipped back into bed.
Then an idea stuck her.
With that many dragons you could do anything. And with one dragon you could do a lot. If you had a team of dragons, you could defend an entire island. In her parents' past, dragons had been involved in every war, mainly because other Vikings sought to control them. For this reason, her parents' generation had left the dragons in The Hidden World, but that didn't need to be permanent, did it? Especially in times of need.
Smiling, Zephyr closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Author's Note: Thanks to Lilly Dragneel for pointing out a previous issue. I have made adjustments accordingly!