Left In The Night

Chapter 15

"My Zyrah..." Ragnhild choked out, bringing in her long-lost daughter against her for a tight hug. The house was silent save for the crackling coals and wood in the firepit. Besides Halvar and Eðla, the only one who really understood all of this was Olsen, the eldest.

And while he could comprehend the earth-shattering news this was, he still felt compelled to take a stand. He approached his baby sister, tenderly placing a hand on her shoulder. She gazed up at him, and he couldn't read the emotions in her eyes, but he knew this was complicated and difficult for her.

"Zyrah... look at me." She fought back more tears as she pulled from Ragnhild's embrace, turning to her big brother, "I know this is a lot to deal with right now, but you're still our sister. We helped raise you. Where you came from doesn't change who you are to us."

Her gray eyes shifted back and forth, unable to think of a response. One part of her was confident about his words, but a new part of her awakened. She needed to know. She needed answers. Her heart was hurting in a way that she was unfamiliar with, it was frightening.

While she felt a pull back to the family that raised her and shaped her; this new part of her was clawing its way out.

Chest heavy and more tears spilling down her face, she ran out, not even thinking as she took Blueheart, mounted the saddle, and took off.

"Zyrah!!!" Ragnhild cried out, running outside after her, only to watch the silhouette of the Night Fury disappearing into the sky. Konall and Rurik stopped her.

"Don't. Don't go after her." The two boys hopped onto their dragons and went after her instead. Out of everyone on Firewind, they knew her the best, and they were going to help her sort this all out.

With the three dragons gone, the rest of the family and the group were left behind to deal with the aftermath of such an intense revelation. Eðla also felt similar complicated feelings that she couldn't quite describe, she, however, intended to handle it differently.

She and Halvar sent the riders away but asked Ragnhild and Einar to stay to talk.

That said, the riders determined to also track down Zyrah and the boys. Hiccup wanted to help her, as he could understand the feelings of such a reveal.

However, Astrid quickly stepped up to slow him down on that idea.

"Hiccup, I think it's best we leave Konall and Rurik to help her."

"I agree with Astrid, give her time. She needs to process this." Ana chimed in.

"In the meantime, let's go check out that ship! I wanna see what kinds of dangerous weapons they've got!" Tuffnut suggested with a devious grin. The riders paused for a moment to glare at him, but they couldn't disagree with the fact that they were also rather curious.

"That's trespassing!" Ana countered.

"Oh, like we haven't done that before?" Snotlout gloated with a cackle.

Ana turned to Hiccup, Astrid, and Fishlegs, since they were typically far more level-headed than Snotlout and the twins. But she could see the curiosity in Hiccup's eyes.

*sigh* "You wanna go check out the ship too..." Ana said. Hiccup just shrugged.

"Hey, we ought to make sure they're not going to harm Zyrah or Blueheart."

"That's a surprise coming from you," Astrid remarked.

"What'd you mean by that?"

"Usually you give people the benefit of the doubt."

"Yeah, well, Drago left a few scars behind. And Zyrah's a cool girl, I wouldn't want her getting hurt, and I know all of you feel the same." There were mumbles of agreement. That said, he didn't take further objections, leading the riders to the hunter's ship.

They made their way up the gangplank, taking it in. There were far fewer weapons than expected, though there was the shadow of what could be guessed was a crossbow-like contraption, a weapon they'd seen on Eret's old ship.

Not to mention, the ship itself had references to the Sámi culture. Especially in some of the carved designs on the wood.

"Do you think they're from the mainland?" Fishlegs asked.

"Maybe, that's where the Sámi people come from. They're nomadic if memory serves me well. Makes me wonder how they could've got caught up with Drago and his mess."

"Lots of questions with those two." Hiccup made his way into the hull, where there were makeshift beds and a separate room where a desk and chair sat, presumably an office. But the entire lower deck was filled and scattered with journals and loose paper.

"What a mess!" Ana exclaimed.

"No kidding." Fishlegs reacted, bending down to pick up a sheet, observing.

"Whatcha reading there?"

"Well, it's just a bunch of notes. Nothing too weird." Hiccup made his way to a pile of journals resting on the bed, thumbing through them. Like Fishlegs, he didn't find anything initially strange, but then he grabbed the largest of the pile, and as soon as he picked it up by the spine, a loose sheet slipped out from between the pages.

"Huh." He grabbed the paper, surprised to see it was a map of the archipelago... or at least the southern half, which included many of the islands Hiccup was already familiar with. This map however finally showed exactly where Firewind was in comparison to Berk.

South of Changewing Island, and located right between Legendary Wing and Scauldron Island.

"Hey, guys! Come look at this!" He called out. The riders clamored to his side and peeked over his shoulder.

"It's a map!"

"Of the southern part of the archipelago. Look! There's even the Island of Friga!" Fishlegs exclaimed.

"This is pretty extensive," Astrid remarked.

"What would they need this map for?" Snotlout asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Probably when they were still hunters, they likely needed it for locations to do their dirty work." Ana mused.

"It's a good guess, they probably have all sorts of maps and other resources." As the riders chatted behind him, Hiccup noticed some runes scrawled onto the parchment, next to a circle drawn below where Firewind was located.

The runes read something about Night Furies and a colony. He then looked back at the large journal the map fell out of. Immediately he saw it was full of drawings and notes about tracking down the last Night Fury colony. They'd spent months at work trying to locate this island, and they appeared to have gotten very close.

That wasn't good.