The Third Child (HTTYD 4; A HTTYD Fanfiction)

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Zephyr

 As the island faded away into the night and silence fell, Zephyr felt her heart slow down to a normal pace. She exhaled heavily and glanced at Nuffink, who was looking at her nervously.

"What?" she asked irritably.

"What happened?" he pressed. "I thought it was supposed to be a stealth mission."

"Well, it was for most of the time," she argued. "But then I may have given a little sneeze."

Dart snorted below her.

"Okay, not a little one," she admitted reluctantly.

A slight smile played on Nuffink's lips. "Okay, Zephyr; let me teach you something. The first rule of spying is to be SILENT. That means no noise. NONE."

"Well, they were leaving anyway!" she said defensively. "I wasn't going to get any more information."

"So what information did you get?" he asked.

She recounted the situation, the cave, and the conversation, shuddering as she described the whatever-it-was-called chemical that entrapped her parents.

"Couldn't they just yank the chain out?" Nuffink asked.

Zephyr shook her head. "The bottom of the cave is solid rock, Nuff," she told him. "Plus, even if they do find a way to get out, they're isolated on that island."

"Then why are we leaving?" he wondered.

It was a fair question. Why were they leaving their parents to go help a sister who they had never met before?

"Well, we had to get away," Zephyr reasoned. "And we can't help them right now. The most productive thing we can do right now is go and let our sister know, so we don't have three people to rescue. Or four, counting her guardian." She paused, thinking. "Maybe they could help us, too."

Nuffink bobbed his head. "Help from an adult," he groaned wistfully. "What an alien concept."

"So let's continue on to Lightlark," she said decisively, "and then we can double back. This is only a slight detour." She was reassuring herself as much as him.

"Are we going the right way?" Nuffink tilted his head up to the stars.

"It's hard to tell," Zephyr said, thinking about the angle that they had taken off their original course and how long they had flown before sighting land. "Shift left a little bit, I think."

They flew in silence for a few minutes. "I'm tired," Nuffink said through a yawn.

Now that the adrenaline was out of her system and there was no reason for her brain to be working overtime, Zephyr had to admit to him that she was too. "Hopefully we'll be at Lightlark in an hour or so. It'll be, like, two in the morning. Maybe we can sleep there."

"What's to say we can't just sleep here?" Nuffink said tiredly, shifting his position on Pouncer.

"Because if you fall, you'll wake up screaming, dangling from Pouncer's talons... and you may break your back."

"Yeesh," he grimaced. "No need to be so morbid about it."

"I had to scare you," she shrugged, and silence fell once more.

Despite what she had said, Zephyr felt herself getting more and more tired. She'd had an active day, and there was nothing to do at the moment. She found herself drifting off more than once— and caught Nuffink and Dart doing the same on separate occasions. Multiple times, she had to shift their direction because the tired dragons were subconsciously listing to either side.