Blooding

The Old Place

Shuffling woke the drake. His eyes snapped open and in a drowsy stupor he felt for the Red Griffon, sighing when she was still there. The dreary mist of dawn flowed over the land. Grey droplets of dew had frozen into little pricks on their hoods. He broke them off and flicked them away. The ember of the white pyre still flickered on the burner's top, unaffected by the passage of time. His maw opened and a great yawn bellowed forth. The blankets were no longer warm but stony and stiff as ice shavings clung to their frazzled hemming.

He laid her on the pack and climbed up, stretching his back and tail. The bones slid against one another and cracked, they released sleepy pressure. The lamp hitched to the pack had darkened, its flaming heart now stood shadowy and silent. Unhooking it from the top he stepped over to burner and lit the fuse on the bottom. A tiny snap of igniting air and the lamp wheezed into life casting a pale glow over the drake's face.

The blankets shuffled. The drake glanced at the edge. It was dishevelled and it appeared as if someone had been pulling at it. Two clumps rose up in mounds where something had gripped it. He scoured the wastes, now illuminated by a silvery glow from the platinum clouds. There was nothing but the infinite flawless reflection of ice. He could not see the snowy shore where they had come from. Panic began to bubble in his belly. How far had they truly come? He stared back.

The trail of blood he had followed to her was gone. He stepped over to the edge of the blankets, each footfall making a muffled thump on the ground beneath. The reflection stood before him. Unblemished, the long streak of scarlet had seemingly evaporated. His own dark reflection sat at the lids of his vision. He gazed down.

A gaping face stared back at him.

His muscles froze colder than the arctic climate. Its mouth was toothless and empty and gaping like a wide, black maw. The frills were plastered again its head and unnaturally papery. Its eyes were black sockets with two coins of white that looked through him. It drifted closer to the ice, as if trying to burst through. Its cracked claws were long and gnarled, spreading out like spiderwebs.

The drake screamed and slipped on his backside, scrambling back from the horror. His massive tail thrashed to the side, knocking the burner over and catching the blanket alight. The white pyre flame's roared in delight as more fuel fell into its jaws. The fire spread voraciously over the blankets, consuming them into ashy soot. The blinding heat began to sizzle his scales. The flames jumped toward the Red Griffon, who stirred groggily.

Gasping the drake took her up and threw her on his back before hurling his pack out onto the ice, the lamp nearly slipped off the hook and almost shattered, but it swung back into place. Hopping off the blankets just before the fire exploded over its entirety, he felt the ice prick onto his talons and claws. The flame crackled and echoed out endlessly, bouncing on the ice, sounding like an oak tree splintering into an endless fall. He stood there watching his blankets burn up in flames. The burner laid solitary inside the roaring fire, a dark silhouette buried in the folds of the flames. He glanced down with wide eyes. Preparing to leap away at his reflection. But only his frightened face and puffed out frills stared back. He turned away from the sight, cursing himself and his cowardly stupor. The white pyre's flames were especially gluttonous and began to shrink as only ashes on the ice remained.

He stepped over to the Red Griffon, whose breaths were snappy. She stirred and attempted to roll onto her side. He knelt beside and supported her neck. Her breathing began to slow, and her laboured movements ceased.

Her eyelids opened to a droopy slant. She gulped some shaky breaths before coughing, The Red Griffon's face was pale, and the lips of her beak were tinged blue. She sat saying nothing as the fire receded until all that remained was a field of ashes peppered around a toppled tower that was the burner. When strength had trickled into her, he spied a hateful flash spark in her eyes. Even in this pale stupor her anger radiated like a star's heat. Her beak moved to speak but only a croak left her. She sputtered into a fit. The drake removed a waterskin from the pack and held it to her. She took it in a weak grasp that immediately faltered. The drake propped the skin up into her beak where she took two deep gulps. The water easily was heard sloshing down her parched throat. She leant against the pack again as snowflakes whisked by between them.