Could they even help me? They seemed far too small to fly and I didn’t want them to be encapsulated and stuck like I was.Shit.
The slush began to harden, becoming immovable blocks of ice encompassing my entire lower body. I slapped my hands on the slick top of it as I desperately tried to lift my feet but felt the strain of the tendons running down my hips to my knees. If I pulled any harder, I was going to seriously injure myself.
Stay calm. Panicking won’t help you.
It was easier to tell myself that than to actually force myself to practice it, and after all of a few seconds of forced deep breaths, I gave up. My heart slammed wildly in my chest, as if it was trying to escape from me, the same way I was trying to break free from my prison of ice.
A roar echoed loudly through the air, and my head swung around, trying to place what direction it had come from.
That was no baby dragon.
I saw death coming for me as the snow parted and large jaws opened just twenty feet away. A maw filled with rows of razor sharp teeth promised to make it a painful, albeit quick, passing into the afterlife.
I didn’t want it to end like this. Sure, I wasn’t aware of who I was or what my aspirations and dreams were, but I had to have some, right? Had I had enough time to accomplish them? Did anyone out there love me enough to miss me when they realized I was gone and never coming back?
As the shimmering metallic blue of the dragon’s massive body became clear, I knew I only had seconds left. If their jaws alone weren’t the cause of my death, surely my end would come from the curled talons–that seemed to be the size of at least half my body–that were hanging eye-level with me. The dragon’s wingspan took my breath away, and as the shadow of their body cast over me, I shut my eyes, prepared to say goodbye.
Shockwaves rolled through my body as a large crack rang out and the ice around my body splintered. My eyes snapped open just in time to see the large dragon lift back off of the icebefore pulling their wings in and dropping like a stone. Their weight shattered the ice around me with finality, and I just lifted my hands in time to block the shards from gouging my eyes out, though searing pain in my cheek and jaw signaled I hadn’t escaped unscathed.
“You’re injured. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t sure how else to help you escape. This body feels foreign to me, and I don’t know how to use all of the magical energy I feel racing through me. I didn’t want to risk tapping into that right now.”
My hands shot down to my sides as I glanced up at the only other creature near me.
“Did you…” I stuttered before taking a moment to blink and wipe away the blood trickling down my face and neck with the sleeve of my coat. “Did you just talk to me?”
Their large head lifted up and down before craning down to my height. Familiar milky-white eyes stared deep into my soul, and it clicked. This was my friend from earlier, but how was that even possible?
“Yes. I couldn’t speak to you earlier, but somehow by the time I’d realized we’d been separated and I found you, the ability seemed to open like a bridge between our minds.”
I stood there, in complete stupor, staring at the dragon. The voice was distinctly male, but the deep timber of it was jarring when I thought of the small baby he was what felt like mere minutes ago.
The dragon blinked those two large eyes at me, and I noticed a film that passed across their slitted pupils like a second shield beneath the lid. How fascinating. Even more so, I realized how quickly my fear had been replaced by tranquility when my brain connected this large dragon to our small friend.
Why did I trust him so implicitly?
“What’s your name?”
“Kaida, and you can speak back to me with your mind, instead of trying to yell through the wind.”
The thought of speaking into a dragon's mind seemed unreal, but I couldn’t recall if I’d ever even met a dragon before Kaida. Perhaps this was normal and I was severely behind the curve with my lack of knowledge.
I brushed off the ice that stuck to my coats and stomped my feet to try to get the blood flowing back through them as I attempted to project my thoughts to him.“So, Kaida, do you know where we are, or better yet, who I am?”
His head swung from side to side.“Please don’t yell.”
I grimaced and lowered my mental projection–well, at least I hoped I had.“Sorry.”
He seemed to settle as he gazed down at me with unblinking eyes. It occurred to me that perhaps I should have found Kaida’s gaze unnerving, considering I had no ideawhyI trusted him.“That’s better, and no, I don’t know either of those things. I do, however, feel a draw toward that castle. Perhaps we will find an answer there.”
My legs seemed to burn as tingles ran from my feet all the way up to my hips. Stepping forward gingerly, I was able to keep my balance, but a shuddering tremble passed through my limbs from the exertion demanded by our harsh environment.
“I don’t think I will be able to walk there until I find a way to warm myself. I don’t know how long I was walking through the slush before it turned to ice. Time seems like an odd construct here, like something that I can’t wrap my mind around.”
Steam puffed from his snout as he breathed.“Can you climb up my tail to my back? You can use the spikes to pull yourself up. I can carry us to the castle if so.”
My eyes traveled across his tail and up toward his back, a sense of déjà vu enveloping me. A part of me felt like I’d taken that exact path before and the memory of holding onto silver spikes hit me hard.
So I had been around dragons before. Why couldn’t I recall this?
