She was certain she was going to die.
Freezing winds whipped around the stranded woman, her pull sled only anchored in place by the sheer weight of snow pressing down on it. Visuals were nil - the blizzard that had spun up around her while crossing this field made certain of that. Snow flew, coating her entire body in a thick layer of sub-zero chill. It had come out of nowhere - one moment she had seen the clouds boiling on the horizon, and the very next moment an almost literal wall of ice and wind crashed into her and her cart. It was impossible to tell where she was going at this point, with how little visibility there was.
Thoughts raced through her mind. She had started this trek to prove herself - to show that she could manage to survive in the frigid winter on her own. She had always felt some deep connection to the cold winter nights, even if she knew how brutal it was. But she was prepared. Thick clothes, plenty of rations, a temporary shelter she could set up provided she found a tree or a rock…but she was caught in the one situation she hadn’t prepared for. How did the blizzard sneak up on her? It was baffling - but more than that, it was terrifying.
Was it magic? Was this a magic storm, manifested by some cruel wizard or hunter? She couldn’t tell - magic eternally eluded her, much to her chagrin. The sudden, extreme weather pointed to that, but it didn’t make sense to her. Why - or who - would do something like this? And did she even want to find the answer to that question?
The blizzard continued unabated. It had only been a few minutes, but she could feel the strength sapping from her very bones at this point. A creeping chill was settling into her body, through the layers and layers of protective clothing she had. Was she shivering? She couldn’t tell - the snow was so thick and the wind blowing so hard she could barely even see her hand in front of her face, and could barely feel how her body was moving.
Each step was a monumental, herculean task. By this point, her sled was totally buried to the point of immobility - and she knew abandoning it would ensure her death more than anything else. At the very least, if she hunkered down by it, it could offer some shelter for the wind. Maybe. She felt woozy at this point, the cold fully settling into her body at last.
It was almost…comforting. A gentle embrace that surrounded her, that felt welcoming. Her mind felt too foggy to focus on that. Was this what it was like to freeze to death? A pervasive, endless calm despite the dire straits she was in? A part of her felt like she should be panicking, running somewhere and hiding. Another part of her, though, just wanted to sleep.She was starting to feel hot under all of her clothes, even.
The logic in her brain kicked in. Despite how she felt - like a roaring fire had begun to light itself within her - taking off her clothes was a terrible idea. Paradoxical undressing. She had read about it in her preparations, the way that people freezing to death would often feel like they’re overheating. That feeling results in them undressing and freezing to death even faster. Was that what was happening to her, now? It matched with what she read after all. But something felt…off. Her clothes didn’t just feel hot - they felt constraining. Maybe it was the weight of the snow on her, though.
The wind blew harder. She focused hard, doing her best to not unconsciously throw her clothes to that howling gale, trying her damndest not to fall asleep and die. She hoped the storm would die down soon. It was impossible for her to tell how much longer she had left. The screeching, roaring storm winds kept blasting by her ears, and-
She paused. That wasn’t wind. That was something else. The roar - it was a deep, primal thing. Not primal in a storm’s way. No, this was the noise of some beast trying to find something. It cut through the sound of the storm like a knife, reaching her ears. The sound was alien to her, yet deeply familiar at the same time. She opened her mouth to respond.
ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
It caught her off guard. She made that noise. She roared just then. It didn’t make any sense to her - a noise that loud coming from her felt impossible. And yet, despite everything, that roar felt right. She was certain at this point she was hallucinating. After all, that didn’t make sense. Humans like her didn’t roar. And she was certain that’s what she was. Human.
Right?
The other roar pierced through the storm again, far closer this time. And, in turn, she roared again, less scared this time. If she was hallucinating, at least the figment of being saved by some creature would bring her comfort. And if she wasn’t…well, either the beast would kill her or save her life. One or the other. She craned her head towards where the other beastial cries came from, and squinted. She didn’t expect to see anything with how intense the blizzard was.
Instead, she saw a shape lumbering towards her. Massive. Far, far bigger than her. Some great, lumbering beast’s outline was making its way directly towards her. Her heart skipped a beat. This was something she read about, something everyone knew about. The ultimate predator.
A dragon.
The dragon let out another roar, loud enough to shake the snow around it. She covered her ears and winced - did the dragon even know she was here? With how it was looking around, it didn’t seem to. The snow was far too much to make out any details of the dragon - just the outline of its horns and wings. She felt like she should be utterly and completely terrified. Yet that fear didn’t manifest. All she felt was a sense of familiarity, that someone had come to help.
So she roared again. Her voice was weaker now, faltering, quieter. The dragon’s head snapped directly towards her location, and the great beast moved with a shocking amount of speed towards her. The great wings on their back furled out, surrounding the cart and her in a way that blocked at least some of the snow and wind. Enough, at least, for the frostbitten girl to see her would-be savior.
Silver-white scales covered the dragon in front of her, stark-white horns topping their head. The only spot of color on the entire dragon was their shimmering icy blue eyes, flecked with tiny points of silver. Even the mane of hair that they had was pure, solid white. Powerful talons dug into the snow, and the dragon’s expression was easy to read even to a human. They were concerned.
“My kin,” the dragon growled softly, “are you alright?”
The girl stared at the dragon quizzically, unsure if she heard right. She pulled her scarf down off her face for a moment, knocking a bunch of snow off of her as she did so. “I…kin? I don’t know…what you mean?”
The dragon tilted their head a bit more, their expression shifting softly from concern to confusion. “You are clearly kin. Humans can’t roar like that. Are you hurt? Are you…stuck? Is that why you’re stranded like this?”
The word stuck rang in her mind on repeat. Stuck. She was, come to think of it. There was no way to keep going forwards with her sled until this storm passed and she dug it out. That made sense to her. It made perfect, logical sense to her. And yet that flawless logic felt…wrong. She knew that wasn’t what the dragon was asking, but she knew what the answer still was.
It took until this moment for her to realize how the dragon wasn’t speaking in the common tongue. She knew that they could speak, of course - while dragons were apex predators, they were still people. She knew that some even elected to live among other humans, though she never met one before. All of that was in her story books. The dragons didn’t come out often to the lowlands, after all, especially not in winter. And yet, here one was. Talking to her in the dragon tongue, and she understood them perfectly.
She took a deep breath. “Y-yes. I’m…stuck. My sled won’t budge either. The storm came about suddenly, and…”
The dragon before her returned to looking concerned. “Ah…you haven’t realized. You’re safe now, though. I’m here, and you won’t be left stranded like this. What’s your name?”
The girl blinked a few times, frozen tears clinging to the edges of her eyelashes. When did she start crying? It didn’t matter - she felt it down to her core that this dragon was telling the truth. “Uh…Zennia. M-my name’s Zennia,” she whispers, the words feeling odd in her mouth. She understood them, she knew what she said - but that wasn’t the common tongue. She knew she wasn’t speaking that anymore.
The silver-scaled dragon nodded, slowly blinking in response. Zennia knew that was a sign of friendliness - why she knew that, it was hard to tell for her. She didn’t have time to process that though before the dragon spoke. “And my name is Valusi. A pleasure to meet another dragon like me,” they said, their voice a soft growl.
Another dragon. It felt so odd to hear that said to her - but it was true, wasn’t it? Zennia couldn’t deny it by now. A human couldn’t roar like that. A human wouldn’t speak and understand the tongue of dragons so effortlessly. She looked down at her left gloved hand, and tugged it off. Her clothes still felt so restrictive, so heavy and useless. And as she looked at her hand, it made perfect sense as to why.
Pure white scales peppered the back of her hand, slowly sweeping along it. As she turned her hand from side to side, she could see the faint purple iridescence of the scales - her scales - shimmer in the light. The appearance of scales was slow at first, but within moments it accelerated until her hand was covered. And it felt right. So right to her.
Valusi nodded slightly towards her hand. “It seems like you’re not really stuck now,” they said, the slightest hint of a smile in their voice. Zennia wasn’t paying attention though - she was too preoccupied shedding the rest of her clothes. The burning heat in her chest that had been there for so long finally clicked for her. Calling it a heat was wrong - it was cold, a suffusing cold that spread through her whole body. That comfort, that connection to the frigid winter nights had finally bloomed.
Valusi tucked their wings back. Zennia was confused, unsure of why the protective shelter would be pulled away. She looked up to Valusi as if to respond, but stopped. The sky was clear. Not just a perfect hole in the blizzard they were in, right on them. No, the sky was clear - the stars in the sky shimmering like frozen teardrops far above. An aurora - one she never would’ve been able to see with human eyes - danced overhead. The endless horizon above stretched out in all directions, a beautiful lightshow after such a wretched storm.
Talons impacted the ground. Zennia was too transfixed by the clearing of the storm and the aurora above her to notice how naturally she shifted to a quadrupedal stance. She hadn’t noticed her own wings unfurling from her back, catching the now-calm wind underneath them. She hadn’t even noticed her tail snaking out, touching down in the snow behind her. There was a dull ache in her mouth and at her brow as her teeth shifted and her horns came in, but it was hard to process that. Her eyes were fixed straight upwards at that clear, cloudless sky in all directions.
“It…the storm passed,” she whispered.
“It was rather nasty. Wizard weather always gets far too out of hand,” Valusi chuckled. “But you seem happy, now.”
Zennia was far more than just happy. She was alive. The storm didn’t kill her. The newly-realized dragoness reared her head back and let out a roar of triumph. Valusi followed suit, their cries echoing out over the empty field they found themselves in. And, soon enough, more roars echoed back. Far in the distance - a distance too far for a human to travel. But to a dragon? Zennia knew she could reach them with ease…once she learned how to fly. It wouldn’t be too hard with her kin there to help. Though her comfort was tinged with cold, it was still that - comfort. Comfort in her body, in knowing that she wasn’t alone, comfort in having a weight she never knew she was carrying finally lifted from her shoulders. It was a cold comfort for a dragon made for the cold.
She couldn’t be happier in this moment.
hi yeah i had to write this out after thinking about it this morning i blame @lorenziniforce for this. andréa's writing gave me brainworms and i had to act on them
