“Can’t catch me! I’m faster than a hare!”

Alika panted as she sprinted across the snow, cold air going in and out of the dragon cub’s lungs. Her paws skimmed across the glacier, leaving behind a trail of prints on the surface. The warm sun cast its rays down on her furred wings. The mountains further up the glacier were covered in the gentle white snow of the summer, while their rocky slopes had been laid gray and barren. To the north, further down the cliff marking the edge of the glacier, the green expanse of the Wulfwoods stretched out, the smaller peaks on their far side circled by the icy rings of Tasien.

“No fair, your legs are too long!” Tarka yelled back.

Alika stopped in her tracks, sticking her tongue out at her brother. A fresh flake fell on it. “Well, maybe you should grow up fast — ack!”

Alika’s taunt was cut short as Tarka leaped into the air, his forepaws landing on her back. She yelped as he knocked her over, tucking in her wings to protect them. She batted at him with a paw, trying to push him off as he growled menacingly, doing her best to keep her down. It wasn’t enough, of course — Alika was significantly larger, and it only took grabbing his tail with her hindlegs to knock him off balance, letting her flip him over.

“Hah!” she said as Tarka squirmed out from beneath her grasp. “I win again!”

Tarka snorted at her, a puff of smoke coming out from his snout. He stared cross-eyed at it as it dissipated.

“Smoke!” he announced. “I have smoke!”

“It looked a little like steam to me.” Alika shrugged her wings.

“No, it was smoke, I’m sure of it! I can still smell it. It’s tangy!” Tarka flicked his tail. “I’ll be able to make flame soon, and then Mom will let me go hunting with her!”

“It takes a while,” Alika responded. “It took me a whole Long Night to figure out how to make flame, and I practiced my smoke every day. By the time you get flame, it will be winter and mom won’t want us to leave the cave.”

“Really?” Tarka’s snout curled into a sour expression, his ears drooping. “I’ll have to wait until spring?”

Alika swished her tail along the snow. “Well … maybe if you try hard enough?” She didn’t believe herself. She’d tried every day, after all, and it had still taken that long.

Tarka tilted his head to look up at the sun, quickly shifting his eyes away from seeing it directly. It was positioned over the mountains, opposite from Tasien’s rings in the sky, its light refracting through them to create a myriad of crystalline colors.

“Do you think it’s going to set today?” Tarka asked.

Alika paused, thinking for a moment. “Well, obviously. That’s when the Long Day ends. When it sets.”

Tarka whipped his tail, sending a dollop of snow up into Alika’s snout. He snorted. “You know what I meant!”

Alika brushed the snow off with her paw. Even during the Long Day, when the sun never set, it would still sail along its path in the sky. “Well, it was pretty close to setting yesterday. I thought it was going to touch the mountains, but it didn’t. So yeah, probably.”

“Aww.” Tarka stamped the ground. “I don’t want summer to end. We don’t get to stay out for as long in autumn, and soon winter will come and we’ll be stuck in the cave forever with nothing to do. No more playing outside!”

“It is how it is,” Alika acknowledged sagely, carefully using a hindpaw to pack snow together while Tarka was distracted. “In that case … we just need to play harder now!” She curled her foreclaws around it with the precisest of motions, twisting her wings and flinging it at her brother.

Tarka yelped in alarm as the snowball whacked him in the side of his snout, immediately moving his legs into action and galloping across the glacier. Alika let out a terrifying roar, sprinting after him.

In truth, Alika's new burst of speed was less because of the length of her legs and more because Serka had been taking her hunting since she’d gotten her flame. Serka had taught Alika better form for running, and she had used it to chase after the plentiful summertime hares — though she hadn’t managed to catch any yet.

It was that newfound skill that she used to corral Tarka in their game, weaving from side to side and chasing him like a prey animal, forcing him along to take the narrow path along the snowy ridge like Serka had taught her. It wasn’t quite as easy as she made it seem: Tarka was small and swift, and whenever she tried to lunge at him he seemed to just barely slip from her grasp.

But eventually, his streak of luck had to come to an end. Alika managed to position herself so that he was right between her and the edge of the glacier, the cliffside on three sides of him. He was cornered, and now, he would have no choice but to go through her if he wanted to escape.

Tarka let out a pitiful blast of smoke as Alika charged, her paws lifting into the air one after the other. With a roar, she came barreling down on him, only for Tarka to roll out at the last moment.

“Tarka!” Alika screamed as he threw himself off the edge of the glacier. She ran to look over the edge, holding her breath as she peered down, terrified she would see her brother’s broken body at the bottom.

Instead, Tarka’s voice came up from the edge as a cackling laugh. What she’d thought was a cliff had actually been more of a slope, and Tarka was rolling down it. He slowed down as he reached the bottom, sliding into a pile of snow.

Alika cursed herself for not looking out for Tarka like she was supposed to — more of the opposite, given that she’d been the one to put him in danger. What had she been thinking, cornering him like that? Still, it seemed that all was well, and Tarka shook off white flakes from his fur as he trotted out from the pile, waving a wing up at Alika.

“Slide down here!” he yelled up at her. “C’mon, it’s fun!”

Alika nervously teetered over the edge. The slope was still pretty steep, and Tarka was a long way down. What if he’d just gotten lucky? She peered down, taking a step closer.

Suddenly, the edge of the snow beneath her paw broke free, and it seemed that she wouldn’t get a choice. Alika fell flat on her underbelly, skidding down in the path Tarka had rolled for her. She opened her wings and let out a roar of alarm, quickly closing them again when the winds beneath them only knocked her from side to side. Shutting her eyes tight, Alika sped down the slope, twisting as she reached the bottom and whacking into the snow pile.

Tarka laughed as Alika used her forepaws to dig herself out, pushing snow from side to side until she reached sunlight again.

“Alright, that was pretty fun,” Alika admitted, glancing up at the slope. Had it really been that tall and steep?

“Let’s go again!” Tarka shouted, prancing up to the slope and digging his talons in. Alika watched him struggle as he climbed, trying to grab the snow with one paw after the other. He managed to make it about Alika’s height before the snow inevitably broke off from beneath him, causing him to slide back down once more.

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Alika cast a pitying glance down as he ended up at her paws. “Let me try.”

She walked up to where he’d slid down from, digging her paws in the snow as deep as she could, trying to find the packed glacier beneath. Her talons grasped a hold of it and she began to climb: left forepaw, right forepaw, left hindpaw, right hindpaw. Just as she’d managed to get a quarter of the way up, a piece of ice cracked from under her claws, and she fell on her back, sliding back down again.

She looked up at Tarka, growling as he laughed above her.

“This is serious!” Alika exclaimed. “I don’t know how we’ll get back up.”

“You should fly me up,” Tarka suggested.

“You know I can’t fly yet,” Alika rumbled.

Tarka spread out his wings in an imitation of flight. “Mom says that dragons your age normally know how to fly.”

Alika bared her fangs. “Well, if you know so much about flying, why don’t you fly me up there yourself?”

“I’m going to learn to fly as soon as I can.” Tarka lifted his head proudly. “At this rate, maybe even before you do!”

For that, Alika whipped her tail against the ground, sending a patch of snow flying into his eyes. Tarka let out a snarl and leaped at her, skidding as Alika dodged out of the way, running away from the cliffside and towards the towering pine trees, their branches drooping from the weight of the fresh snow.

Alika panted as she weaved between them, only for Tarka to leap out and grab her backside, his claws tangling in her fur. She yelped as he pulled a chunk of it out, throwing her to the snow.

“Mom, mom!” she called out.

“She can’t save you!” Tarka grinned, jumping on top of Alika. “She’s out hunting.”

“I don’t need Mom to save me.” Alika twisted, knocking Tarka off balance, and pushed him off. She returned to her paws, shaking snow off and looking at the clump of blue fur on the ground. “But we need to be flown up the mountainside before it gets dark, or we’ll get in trouble.”

The sun had lowered somewhat in the sky, and Alika was pretty sure that it would set today. Serka had very clearly told them to be back in the den by sunset.

“It’ll barely get dark,” Tarka whined. “It’ll only be for a few moments anyway. We can just say that we didn’t realize it would set today.”

“You can meet Nigel if you want, but I’m going to be responsible. We’ll just have to find another way up.” Alika snorted. She looked back and forth along the cliffside they’d slid from. They’d wandered pretty far from the entrance to their den — it had been the Long Day, after all — but she had a pretty good idea of where they were. Unfortunately, the passage up to the glacier that she was familiar with was on the other side of their den, which meant a long walk through…

“The Wulfwoods!” Tarka shouted. “We need to walk through the Wulfwoods!” He moved his wings back, tilted his head up, and let out as loud a howl as he could, just like a wolf. “Awoo!”

“Shh!” Alika flicked her ears against her skull. “Mom doesn’t want us to go in there alone.”

“Awoo!” Tarka howled, running further into the woods, a tree quickly obscuring him from view. “Awoo!”

“Tarka, wait up!” Alika called as she chased him. The pine trees were so tall, and the forest so thick that she could barely see the rings in the distance. Though Tarka’s white fur made him difficult to see in the snow, his fresh tracks and scent made him easy to follow. “Make sure not to cross mom’s scent-line! It’s not our territory past it.”

After a few minutes, Alika caught up to him, panting as he slowed down. He took one look at her and let out a screeching howl again.

“There are so many trees here!” Tarka said. “There could be wolves behind any one of them!”

“I hope not,” Alika replied, her tail perked upright and alert. She hadn’t seen any wolf tracks around, nor smelled any. The wolves were supposed to stay on the other side of Serka’s scent-line. “Wolves are dangerous.”

“I’m even more dangerous than the wolves!” Tarka yelled. He placed his talons on a tree, scratching the bark. “When I grow up I’m going to be just like dad. I’m going to chase the rest of the wolves out of the woods like he did so that Mom has more room to hunt!”

“Wolves need to hunt too,” Alika commented, warily looking for any pairs of yellow eyes behind a tree or snowbank.

“I bet the wolves are hiding something secret in the center of their territory,” Tarka mused, pacing as he thought about it. “Like the map to the Emerald Isle! I bet that’s where it is!”

“What?” Alika cocked her head. “That’s stupid. Why would the wolves be guarding it? It’s not like they’d ever go there.”

“I’m going to find it!” Tarka exclaimed. He howled and took off once more.

Alika twitched her tail and ran after him, deeper into the woods. After a while, every tree seemed to look the same, but the sun above and the Irmiq Mountains behind guided them back home. Serka had told them not to go into the Wulfwoods without her, but she’d also told them to be back by sunset. Either way, it seemed that they were going to be punished. Maybe they should have just stayed back at the cliffs and hoped that Serka would fly overhead eventually. Eventually, she’d have to when she returned from hunting and found them missing.

As the day went on, Tarka led the two on a winding path through the forest, much to Alika’s annoyance. She almost ran into him when he came to a stop, staring out into the forest beyond.

“What?” Alika asked, following his gaze.

Odd rock formations seemed to have grown out of the ground in a small clearing beyond the two, parts of the rocks strangely upright, thin, or rectangular. Alika squinted. She’d never seen a natural formation like that. It was difficult to tell how much snow was piled on them, but it seemed like they’d been intentionally created. Alika breathed a puff of warm flame on part of one, melting the snow just enough to reveal that what they’d initially thought was a single large stone was actually made of a myriad of smaller stones stacked together. Alika looked around, seeing more of the odd stones of stones, some upright, others tilted and fallen.

“Ruins!” Tarka said, placing his paws on what might have once been a wall. His ears perked, and his tail swished back and forth in excitement. “We found ruins! The map has to be here!”

“They’re just ruins,” Alika replied. This wasn’t the first time she’d been here — Serka had taken her to hunt in this area before. She sniffed around for her mother’s scent. They were a bit deeper into the Wulfwoods than she’d thought.

Tarka climbed up the wall, his talons scraping on the rocks as he leaped from stone to stone. After a few jumps and slips, he managed to reach the peak of the ruins, a crumbling wall around three times Alika’s height.

The stone beneath him suddenly cracked, and he yelped as the wall collapsed, leaping away.

“Tarka!” Alika shouted.

Tarka’s wings opened instinctively, slowing him down as he tumbled into the center of the ruins, landing in a pile of snow and rubble. Alika rushed over.

“Ow,” Tarka rumbled, getting back to his paws.

Alika smelled a hint of blood, and saw a small gash in one of his forelegs, staining his white fur red. “You’re hurt!”

“Just a little.” Tarka lifted his paw and licked away the blood. It didn’t seem very serious, as a moment later he was sniffing around the ruins again. “Alika, I flew! Did you see me fly? I told you I could do it before you.”

“That was a graceful fall at best.” Alika sighed a puff of frosty air. “Stop messing around, okay? Mom will be angry at me if I let you get hurt.”

Tarka summarily ignored her, poking his head beneath an archway of crumbling stones. “Hey, look! It’s cub-sized!” He walked back and forth, with plenty of room above his head. “Adults must have built these for cubs like us to play on!”

Alika flicked her tail, walking beneath the archway and covering Tarka with a wing. “These are human ruins, silly. They’re not made for dragons.”

“Hoomans,” Tarka gasped, beginning to climb up another wall. Alika grabbed the end of his tail in her jaws, pulling him back from it. “That’s so cool! Where did they go?”

Alika pulled Tarka a bit further before letting him go, spitting out a few strands of fur. “I dunno. Mom said the ruins were abandoned when she and Father arrived. She said that humans don’t have fur or fire in their bellies, so when Nigel froze the world they all had to move north. So north, I guess.”

Tarka leaped on a small pile of snow-covered stones, getting on his hindlegs and spreading out his wings. He flailed his forepaws and tail around wildly, forcing Alika to take a step back to avoid getting hit. “Ermf! I’m a scary human guarding my castle! I’m going to hoard all the gold and throw books at you!”

“Humans don’t say ‘ermf,’ dummy.” Alika snorted. “Also, books aren’t weapons. They contain stories.”

“Ermf! Book attack!” Tarka shouted. He suddenly reached down one of his forepaws, flinging a clump of snow into Alika’s snout.

Alika snarled and playfully pounced at Tarka, causing him to screech and leap off the pile of rubble, weaving through an archway and running further into the woods. Alika sprinted after him, following his trail as she chased him between the trees.