I’ve become awfully tired of snow.

I didn’t always harbor this opinion. Back when I lived in Varecia, snow was uncommon; a magical event that stirred wonder in even the staunchest of nobles. I would stand by the windows, giddy with excitement as I watched the first snowflakes of the season fall on the palace grounds. Some of my most endearing memories as a kit were made on those snow-filled days when the garden was buried under an unbroken blanket of powdery white.

Then some stuff happened, and I became a Dragon.

These days, snow is the enemy. Snow is my scourge. What the hell was kit Asha thinking? It’s cold, it causes prey to go into hibernation, and there’s far, far too much of it. In contrast to my upbringing in Ellyntide, snow is dreadfully common in Felra. I think it’s snowed every single day this entire season. Snow on my feathers, snow in my den… it makes me want to screech!

The latest fluffy white headache is the snowstorm we’re trying to navigate. After a late departure from White Mountain we encountered a sudden snow squall over a vast mountain range. Kuro and Enyll are with me on this flight, but currently, all I can see is an endless sea of white against the churning sky.

ROOAARH?

Kuro’s worried cry thunders over the gales. I peer down to where I last saw my friend, only to find she’s no longer there.

“Asha…?” Asha!!”

Kuro emerges from a cloud of snow and wings her way up beside me.

“Kuro, what’s wrong?”I ask.

“I lost sight of you! Your wings are covered in frost!”

I swivel my gaze and watch my wings rise and fall. Sure enough, the blue feathers on top of my wings have turned a pale shade of blue. No wonder Kuro lost track of me, I’ve become nearly as white as Tomcat.

Kuro yells past another powerful gust, “We have to find shelter and wait for the storm to pass!”

“Right!” I yell back.

SKREAAAK!

I call out to alert Enyll, and a few moments later, the copper drakon wings his way into formation. With the three of us reunited, we descend in altitude until we’re flying just above the peaks of a broad, snow-capped mountain range.

“There!” Enyll cries, flicking his ears towards a jagged peak to my right. “I see a cave against the mountain!”

Kuro gruffs in acknowledgment. “Quickly, let’s land!”

We circle down from the sky, fighting the unpredictable winds that often accompany the peaks of mountains. Kuro leads us, providing Enyll and I a calm wake to follow. We land on the side of the snow-packed cliff with barely enough room to fit and locate the entrance of the den beside a pair of wind-sculpted fir trees. Snow has blanketed the area, but the entrance of is conspicuously free of snow drifts.

I approach the den with my head held low, and my wings tensed. “I can’t smell anything.”

“Neither can I,” Enyll adds, standing behind me.

“Let’s be careful,” Kuro growls. “We’re in Loner territory. This den could still be occupied.”

I nod and allow Kuro to take the lead. Kin are not foolish enough to live past White Mountain, but a foolhardy Loner surely might. As I’ve previously discovered, entering another Dragon’s den can be deadly. But should we find ourselves in a fight, I have faith that three well-trained Kin can handle a single Loner. Who knows, maybe we could appeal to reason and avoid a fight altogether?

Kuro slinks her head past the entrance to gaze inside. She flicks her tail, signaling for Enyll and me to follow. The inside of the den is free of bedding, but an emberoot pit is present and recently used. The scent of a Lithan — male, middle-aged — is fresh in the air. Speaking without words, Kuro signals with her feathers to be prepared for a fight — the Loner may be deeper in the den. Me and Enyll nod and draw our wings open. This just became a lot more dangerous, but we have little choice but to press forward. It’ll be dark in a few hours, and this might be the only den we locate.

By the dim light shining through the entrance, we inspect the den in closer detail. As Kuro and Enyll smell around the entrance, I explore the back wall. The ash in the emberoot pit is fresh — a fire was burning here recently as yesterday. It’s hard to imagine that the owner of this den is still out hunting. Could he have moved onto a different one somewhere else? Come to think of it, I don’t know how—

Crk!

Beanth my talons, a twig snaps. I gaze down to spot a pile of oddly shapen sticks, stacked into a neatly organized pile with the utmost care. What is this…?

GRRRR….

A low growl rises from an unseen corner of the den. My feathers stand on end, and a heartbeat later, the tawny head of a drakon emerges from behind a stone wall.

SKREAAK

RARRAGH!!

Like a clap of thunder, the den erupts with rapid motion. I shriek in surprise, and the tawny drakon roars back in defiance. Kuro leaps forward to stand beside me and issue a savage roar of her own. Unfazed, the tawny drakon bounds into the den from another room and splays his wings wide, ready to attack!

“Who are you, and what are you doing in my den!?!” he shrieks.

“Wait!”

I cry out, hoping to prevent the fight that’s a feather’s edge away. To my relief, everyone present freezes with their wings splayed and fangs bared.

“Please don’t attack!” I plead. “We didn’t know this was your den! The snow masked your scent!”

“You couldn’t smell it?” The long-eared Dragon scoffs. “A jimbal could smell my den from Maki if it had wings. You must be here to steal my prey! Or my rocks!”

Kuro growls, “Your what?”

“My rocks! Those are what everyone is after. You must be too, to fly all this way in the middle of a snowstorm!”

The loner speaks in a stochastic voice, changing their intonation seemingly at random. Is something wrong with him? Disheveled and skinny, he has dirty feathers and long, tapered ears that trail off to a point. He’s undoubtedly a Lithan, but unlike any I’ve seen in the flock.

Confusion grows across Enyll’s face. “What are you babbling about, Loner?”

“Loner…?” he asks inquisitively. “Oh… oh, yes. I understand now! You three are from the flock, the flock of Kevura. Keuvra’s flock. Isn’t that right? The flock of snow?”

I give Kuro a sidelong glance. She and Enyll thought they had discovered a mad Loner after I confided I was from Ellyntide. It seems we’ve encountered a genuine specimen today.

I guess we better tell him who we are. “Yes, that’s right. We’re from—“

“Well, the answer is no!!” The mad loner jumps from his attack posture and throws his wings into the air. “Kevura desperately wants my rocks, but he can’t have them! Not now, not ever! NO. KEVURA!”

“You can keep the rocks,” Kuro growls gently. “We just need somewhere to rest until the storm passes.“

I nod to confirm and continue in a more gentle voice. “We’re… on a very important journey. One that doesn’t involve your rocks. Please, will you allow us to shelter here? We won’t ask you to share your prey.”

“Spend… time here?” the Loner’s long ears twitch in curiosity. He looks past us to the entrance and mumbles, “Yes, yes… heh.The snow sure is strong, is it not?”

Silence stretches through the hollow as neither of us can conjure a response to something so spectacularly obvious.

“Hmm. Well, I can be a civil Dragon. Yes, that much I can offer. It would be rude to do so otherwise, would it not? Helping a fellow Dragon in need is quite admirable. Yes, quite so. Very well, then. You may rest here, in this den, and this den only, until the time the snow stops.”

At once, the three of us collectively exhale.

“Thank you,” I say, dipping my head. “My name is Asha, Daughter-of-Kelani. What’s yours?”

The mad Loner ruffles slightly like the question caught him by surprise. “My name? Well, I’m afraid I forgot that many seasons ago. Names are not important when you live alone. Heh-ha!! The rocks are what’s important, you see.”

Kuro gazes around the den, trying to glean the significance of the rocks. “My name is Kuro, Daughter-Of-Mecali. We—“

The Loner cuts her off. “Yes, important business with the flock, I’m sure,” he stops to turn about and saunters towards the back of the den. “The flock is your business, and business… is good!”

The Loner lowers his head and begins to diligently tend to a pile of gnarled twigs. The three of us sane ones look between ourselves and come to an uncomfortable conclusion: This one has truly gone mad.

“I am Enyll, Son-of-Zuki,” he says, and an opportunistic grin grows across his muzzle. “And Asha is a Farlander.”

The Loner stops moving.

Slowly, he cranes his neck around and whispers in a voice free of madness, “What did you just say?”

“Um,” I say, suddenly anxious about his response. He sounded normal! “Before I joined the flock, I was a Lemur living in the Farlands. I was called Princess Asha Lordanou.”

There can’t be any harm in sharing that information, right? It’s not like he’ll understand it what it means. Likewise, the Loner’s face bulges in shock. His eyes lower to the floor, and he mumbles, “Daughter… Of…”

He turns around, shields his face from view, and ruffles into a big ball of fluff. “A Farlander, in my den... in Felra!! Hmm, well, yes! Yes, indeed! What an exciting STORY! That must be!!”

Is… he alright? I take a cautious step forward and ask, “Are you…?”

I squeak and recoil backward as the Loner spins around. “Fine?!” “Of course I’m okay! It’s not like…”

The words roll off his tongue, and an uncomfortable silence lingers in the den.

“Yes, well! We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?” He laughs maniacally and spins around, kicking a twig across the den with his back leg. “WON’T WE, INDEED!”

As the Loner flutters around the den, Enyll rears his head close to Kuro’s and whispers, “Can we really trust this fool?”

Kuro shakes her head and frowns. “We don’t have a choice…”

“Make yourself at home, Kuro, Daughter-Of-Mecali!” The Loaner suddenly blurts out. He approaches Kuro, and a look of concern builds across his face. “I… did offer you to spend some time here, yes? Feel free. Make yourself comfortable. Put those Ellyntide Lemur feet UP, Princess Asha Lordanou!!”

Kuro and Enyll exchange intent glances, their faces suddenly deathly serious. But Kuro shakes her head, and Enyll’s frown deepens. Slowly, he lowers his feathers.

This guy was already acting strange before, but something changed when Enyll told him I used to be a Farlander. He seems more… concerned. It’s like he was trying to impress us, but knew he was doing a terrible job. Could there be something more to this Loner? What else could a Loner be besides… a Loner? Then again, most Kin were anxious about me when I first landed in Felra, and many Kin still are. Some Kin are even more suspicious of me these days. Perhaps it’s not worth analyzing someone who is this stricken with madness.

The Loner trundles to the back of the den and slips behind an opening in the wall, passing into another room. With him out of our feathers, we can finally relax and talk openly about the unusual situation we find ourselves in.

Kuro whispers, “I don’t trust him. If we have to spend the night, then we’ll take turns watching him.”

“Right,” Enyll nods.

“Um, okay,” I say. The prospect of spending the night here fills me with a bit of dread.

This isn’t the best arrangement to wait out a snowstorm, but at least we’ll be safe… assuming the mental state of the Loner doesn’t degrade any further. If it comes down to a fight, I won’t have any issue taking care of him. And I know Kuro and Enyll won’t, either.

So, with that uncomfortable thought aside… what should we do now?

…

…I have the perfect idea.