The Ice Dragon

Bryson and Florence stared at the massive slumbering dragon in disbelief. They stood deathly still, neither sure what to do as they saw the dragon’s nostril slowly flare as it breathed out the cold air. Bryson slowly turned over to Florence wide-eyed asking with only a look of what they should do. She looked back at him equally as clueless.

As they were coming up with some type of action, the dragon stirred. It slowly, groggily opened its eyes and looked over to them. The three of them stared at one another for another second trying to process and understand the situation they were all in.

Florence acted first, immediately she whipped out her firearm and pointed it at the ice dragon. Bryson acted second, creating a one-way barrier between them and the dragon.

Right before Florence was about to fire however, the dragon reacted. In way that caused both Bryson and Florence to take pause. It began to beg.

“Wait! No! No! No! Please don’t hurt me!” It wailed as it shrank back to the corner of the den.

Florence was so taken aback that her usual stoic look of neutrality was replaced with one of complete dumbfound. Bryson would have found this state of Florence amusing if he wasn’t just as dumbfounded as her.

This was an ice dragon, a massive powerful creature known to terrorize entire nations and bring them to their knees, was currently cowering in fear in front of two preteens.

“What?” Bryson said loudly, sounding upset that this monster of legends was actually scared of him.

“Please! Spare me! I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!” It cried out as it tried to make itself as small as possible.

Bryson simply stared at the mewling ice dragon at a loss, he looked over to Florence, “What do you make of this?”

“I’m not… sure.” Florence muttered never keeping her eyes from the dragon and her finger off the trigger. Though she did now lower her weapon, still she wondered is this was all some sort of trick. She quietly stared at the dragon and tried to come up with any conclusions.

“Why are you hiding here?” Bryson said angrily.

“Eep!” It yelped as it tried to bury its head into the snow.

“Answer the question!” Bryson practically yelled.

“Lord Bryson.” Florence interrupted.

“What?” Bryson snapped.

“You’re scaring her.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“The dragon. She’s scared.” Florence said calmly.

“I-I have a name.” The ice dragon said meekly.

Bryson looked over to the ice dragon with a tired look, “You have a name?”

“Y-yes. It’s Eimra.” She said looking down at the ground.

Bryson simply stared at the quivering dragon, then to Florence and then back at the dragon. He then looked up at the ceiling of the cave with a slight shake of the head before looking down at his boots.

“Okay. Clearly there seems to be a disconnect between the three of us.” Bryson said looking back at the dragon, “Let’s start from the beginning.”

“Greetings, I am Lord Bryson Coldwater and this is Florence Marsh.” Bryson said introducing the two of them. He honestly had no idea what he was doing but is seemed to be working as the ice dragon perked up a little.

“Oh. Nice to meet you, I am Eimra, ruler of these mountains.” She said trying to puff up her chest and display her wings. Not very easy inside this cave. As she tried to stretch out a wing she immediately winced and recoiled, “Ouch.”

“What’s wrong?” Florence said immediately.

“O-oh it’s nothing.” The dragon said trying to play it off.

“What is wrong.” Florence said stashing away her weapon and aggressively approached the dragon.

“Eep!” She cried out curling back up into a massive ball.

“You’re hurt. Show me.” She commanded as she loomed over the cowering dragon many times her size. Her order was not heeded as Bryson could actually see the fear in the eyes of the dragon.

“Don’t worry she knows what she’s doing.” Bryson assured.

Eimra’s reptilian eyes darted from Bryson to an admittedly rather intimidating, scarlet-eyed Florence. Still not completely convinced.

“Would you rather keep having it hurt?” Bryson asked.

Eimra seemed to ponder for a moment before finally reluctantly uncurled herself and showed Florence her side.

“How did this happen?” Florence asked as she studied.

“I, uh think, it was from those cannons that you shot at me before.” She said meekly.

“Your muscles have been torn. You won’t be able to fly. It’s outstanding that you were able to get away earlier.” Florence said studying the dragon’s side. An unnatural purple hue could be seen.

“What can I say? I’m pretty tough.” She said before giving a yelp of pain as Florence put a hand on the wound.

“Hmm.” Florence said as she dug through her bag to fish something out.

“I didn’t think those cannons could do that much. You were only hit a few times and they weren’t meant to take down dragons.” Bryson said.

“Well… those big ice giants also hurt me earlier.”

“Well you don’t need to worry about them anymore, I think.” Bryson said. He wasn’t sure, but he was confident that the avalanche probably dealt with the ice giants.

“Wait really?” Eimra said perking up and looking over to Bryson.

“Yes, we dealt with the ice giants.”

“So that means I can go home!” Eimra said excitedly as her tail began to swivel back and forth.

“What even happened with those ice giants? How did they get here?” Bryson asked watching the tail brush across the cave wall.

“I don’t know, they came- Mmmm~!” Eimra said before stopping and moaned as Florence rubbed some ointment on her.

It was a strange noise that caused both Bryson and Florence to take pause and simply stare at her. Eimra realizing the strange noise she made and sheepishly lowered her massive head, “T-that felt good.” She said quietly.

“Just continue…” Bryson said.

“Oh, right. Uh, so they appeared suddenly and kicked me out of my home. There were so many of them and they were angry.” Eimra said.

“When was this?”

“A number weeks ago now.” She said trying to remember, “I was living so peacefully too before this.”

“Wait how long have you been in this area?”

“Mmm. A number of years now. It’s nice I was happy here. It was nice and peaceful and I had all the giagantahorn I wanted. Never needed to travel down these mountains for food until those giants came.” She said.

“How did you wind up here?”

“Oh… I was kicked out of my clan. It’s common, but I had to leave the Fairy Realm.” She said looking rather sheepish.

“So you’ve lived here for the last number of years. Living off the sheep herds when the giants came and forced you out.”

“Yes.”

“Then you began attacking the villages.”

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone! I like people! But I needed to eat. I did my best to just try to scare them!” She whined.

“There were reports of no deaths. Only injuries.” Florence said as she stuck a massive bandage around the spot where she had applied the ointment.

“Huh.” Bryson said. I suppose it was an act of desperation. Bryson thought as he looked over to Florence, “How’s the wound?”

“She’s lucky we’re here. She took so much damage that unless it was properly treated, she wouldn’t recover naturally.” Florence said, “But being that she’s a dragon with that ointment it should heal in a few weeks. I don’t recommend flying though.”

“Aw, but travelling is going to be impossible! How am I supposed to eat?”

“We can quicken up the process.”

“Really? How?”

“I’ll need your help.”

“With what?” Bryson asked.

“The ointment’s effectiveness can be amplified with the use of magic. I’m no good at being precise when it come to casting it so it would require your help.”

“Okay. What do I do?” Bryson said moving over to the bandaged-up wound.

“Just enhance it like you would do with any enhancement spell.”

“Hmm.” Bryson grunted as he placed a hand on the bandage and concentrated. Allowing magic to flow through the ointment and activating it. He could feel the particles inside the substance began to move and vibrate, quickly disappearing and embedding itself into the skin of the dragon.

A sudden pop could be heard and Eimra yelped out in pain, “Ow!” She cried out backing up.

“That hurt!” She complained before pausing, and flexing her wing, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.” She said in astonishment.

“You’re welcome.” Bryson said, “Woah.” Bryson said as he and Florence quickly dove to the side as Eimra’s massive frame crawled its way out of cave and out to the surface.

“Couldn’t even say thanks.” Bryson grumbled as the two humans followed the dragon out of the cave and watched as she took flight.

Eimra flew up into the air and flew in a circle few times before landing right before them, “Thank you!” She said happily nuzzling her snout all over Bryson.

“Gah! Personal space.” Bryson complained as Eimra’s scaly snout pressed onto his entire upper body.

“Your wound still isn’t completely healed. So try not to get into any fights for at least a week.” Florence advised as she watched the interaction.

“Of course! Oh, is there anything I can help you with? I owe you.” She said as her tail tapped the ground rapidly in joy.

“Yeah.” Bryson said, “Can you take us back to our airship?”