Pocket Dragons

Chapter 3: The Fire of the North

Frida Frostfire perched on the windowsill of the log cabin, staring out at the snowy white land around them. Evergreen trees stubbornly retained their leaves despite the cold, and some few hundred feet ahead lay a great frozen forest of them.

She didn't like the forest.

A wolf's howl pierced the air from somewhere within the mass of trees.

That was just one of the many reasons.

The forest was dangerous and massive... She could think of so many different ways that she could die out there... Eaten by wolves... Frozen into ice... Lost... Forever, eternally lost...

She felt cold fear sink into her stomach at the thought, and so she turned away to look back inside the window, to a far more comforting scene. The cabin was a simple one-room building, with a couple of chairs and a table and a bed and a roaring fire that kept the entire place warm.

It wasn't much, but it was home.

Inside, an old man was sitting in one of the chairs, a book cradled in his hands. She looked at him through the glass with something like fondness. The man's name was Kostya, and he was the only parent she had ever known.

He had told her the story many a time, regardless of knowing whether or not she actually understood. After a long day, he would invite her to lay down in his lap as he sat before the fire as he told the tale. "My dear Frida..." He would say. He had given her that name, for in one of the human tongues, it meant light. Frida had never really understood this name, for other than being a breather of fire, she did not know how she was light.

Kostya would tell her the tale as she would fall asleep. "I remember when I found you... Just an egg in the snow, no parents in sight... I carried your egg in my pocket, thinking you had surely died..." He would recall with a smile. "When I finally found this place, I got a fire going in the fireplace and started cleaning it up... I had set your egg down atop the mantle, as an ornament, the first to my new home." The edges of his eyes always crinkled when he recalled the next thought. "And then I heard this crack! I was so startled that I raced to the mantle, worried that the egg had fallen. But instead, I saw you, just staring right back at me! I'll never forget being shocked at the beautiful color of your eyes, the brilliant shine of your scales..." At that point, she had usually fallen asleep.

She let her vision zone out so that she could see herself in the glass. She looked at herself, still not sure how he had seen her as beautiful. She had scales the color of ice and snow with hints of lavender, nothing impressive. The membrane of her wings was white and gray, also not very stunning. Her talons where white, nothing fascinating there... Her slightly curved horns were white with hints of indigo- again, nothing interesting. Her chestplates were of a similar coloring as her horns.

It was hard to bring herself to look into her own eyes.

She despised her eyes.

She always tried to look down, or away, to keep others from looking at them as well. She really had no clue how Kostya had seen them as beautiful, either.

By the snow, they weren't even the same color. One was a faded cobalt color with flecks of silvery light gray, as if looking at a gem through a blizzard. The other was a soft amber tinged with red and yellow. She turned away from the glass, not wanting to stare at her own pitiful appearance any longer.

This cabin wasn't the only one in the frozen woods of Siberia. It was part of a small village composed of mainly half a dozen other cabins and some sheds all circling a large bonfire that they always kept going.

Or rather, that she always kept going. Deciding to stretch her wings, she jumped off the windowsill and glided towards the fire. She landed close by it, feeling the heat on her scales, watching the dancing flames. She took a moment, steadying herself, taking in a long, deep breath.... She felt fire forming in her core, sparking out of the magic in her blood... She unclenched her jaw and let the fire come rolling out, feeding the flame of the bonfire and keeping it strong. Dragonfire was hotter than any fire a human could craft, and so with her fires heating the village, burning in every fireplace, she kept the deadly cold of the north at bay.

It wasn't much. It was all she could do. She wasn't skilled at anything, she couldn't hunt or fight... Luckily for her, it was enough for the villagers, who in turn for keeping their cabins warm gave her small scraps of the game that they caught. Kostya would always feed her anyway, always saying that she was too skinny, but she was never all that hungry.

So she just fed the fires and watched the humans. Day after day. She would listen to them read and talk and watch them build and craft and go about their day.

She turned away from the bonfire and flew down the little path through the snow that led out to the woods. It was the path that the villagers would take to go out and hunt, and she often liked to perch atop a lone fence post marking the end of the village beside the path, and wait for the hunters to return. She landed herself on the frozen wooden post and watched, wondering what the hunters would bring back this time. She hoped it would be a caribou- she liked caribou.

She waited, listening to the silence of the snowy lands. The one nice thing about this place was the utter silence. She always had more than enough time to sit and think, and here there was rarely any noise to distract one from their thoughts. Occasionally a wolf howl would pierce the air, or the wind would howl or the trees would rustle, but never more than that.

Which was why it was so strange when she heard... A call. A dragon's call.

Frida was the only pocket dragon in the village. She had never even seen another of her kind before, though from Kostya's stories, she knew there were more of them out there.

Her ears flicked to attention, trying to pinpoint the sound. "Grrrrhrhhhhhh...." The distant dragon moaned. It was definitely a call for help.

Frida felt rooted to the spot. The sound was coming from the forest. The forest was dangerous. She recalled from earlier that day all of the possible things that could kill her.

All of the things that could be killing that dragon in the woods.

I am no hero... She stuttered in her mind. I can't fight off beasts or save creatures... I'm useless... All I'll do is get myself killed...

She glanced back at the cabin, towards where Kostya would still be happily reading his book by her fire. She considered going back, to get help... But I don't want to put Kostya in danger. I couldn't bear it if he got hurt.

Another distant groan met her ear. If I die... I suppose I'll have died at least trying to be brave... She tried to tell herself. She spread her wings and pushed herself off the post and into the air, gliding for the forest. She tried to quell the rising fear in her belly, but to little avail.

She tried not to think about how far back the safe, warm cabin was. She tried not to think about the trees now towering over her, their boughs laden with snow. She just kept flying towards the sound of the distressed dragon.

She flew until she reached a mound of snow-covered boulders, beneath which she saw a dark tunnel. Oh no... Not a dark tunnel... Not a dark tunnel... Why does there have to be a dark tunnel...

Another dragon's cry echoed out of the tunnel, and she forced herself to walk towards it. I must be brave, I must be brave... She didn't feel half as confident as she told herself she was, but she continued on anyway. It's just the dark... There's nothing to fear but fear itself...

And so she stepped into the tunnel.

Then with a mechanical snap, she was swallowed by the darkness. 

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[Thanks for reading so far! I promise you the action picks up in the next chapter...]