White.

Pure white.

When I peeked outside my cave, blinking to adjust to the brightness, all I could see was that scene. Every step of the ground around my lair, the branches on the trees, as well as the stretching forest behind them… As far as I could see was white.

Like a bright, smooth layer of the softest clouds had fallen from the skies.

It was snow.

It must have started snowing heavily during the night—because there was nothing on the ground the day before—but as I stood at the dawn of the day, there were only small floating particles left in the air. There was also this brightness all around. The world had found its light again after the dark, broody days of winter, even though there was no sign of the sun as always.

What a rare sight it was!

The rare part was not the snow itself, of course. I've had plenty of experience with snow on high mountain tops before. Like magic, the colors of the mountains changed the higher you flew up, from lush green to stark white.

From time to time, my friend and I used to gather a group of younglings—the ones who had learned to fly and strong enough to reach a decent distance—and guide them through the harsh winds at the top of the mountains to reach their snowy peaks.

It was a little trip of fun for the little ones, to wallow in the soft powdery snow until it turned to mushy puddles. For us, both for me and my friend, it was a thrill, an adventure—since the Elders weren't exactly aware of our little escapades.

Not that we were disobeying or anything...

We just repeatedly forgot to notify them about our trips. Coincidentally.

Anyway.

The rare thing about this snow was the place. Because, why would there be snow here? A place this low didn’t—shouldn’t—have any snow. Because, even though the cave I had chosen to move to was one of the highest mountains compared to those around it, it was still only a small hill compared to the other mountains I had been to. And seen snow on.

Just when I thought the winter had revealed all its surprises… At least this is a pleasant one.

But then, it made sense, didn't it? The only place snow could exist during the rest of the year was the frozen peaks of the highest mountains.

But the winter was different. This tricky time of the year was cold—cold enough to let the snow live and thrive even on these low-lying hills.

Crunch.

I took a step on the smooth clearing. The usual sounds of the forest were muted, and the whole world seemed to hold its breath, making my steps on the snow sound even louder. There weren’t any human sounds around either, which was always a good sign.

After the ‘incident’ on the shore a few days before, I hadn't sensed any humans near my cave again, nor had I felt ready to leave my lair to go near their village. What had happened on that windy day was still too fresh in my memory, and I didn't want a repeat of it so soon.

The only reason I had gone out was for hunting, which I had flown to the back side of the hills for, the exact opposite way from the human village. Finding prey was taking longer and longer every day, but all I had was time with little else to do, so it wasn’t really a problem.

I wondered absentmindedly as I moved farther into the clearing. What would the woods be like with the added snow? Would there be any prey to hunt in the open, or would they go into hiding in this bitter cold? Or would they simply freeze to death, as small creatures were weak against harsh temperatures?

My feet were leaving a dark, soggy pattern on the snow behind me, the melted parts revealing the brown earth underneath. The heat spreading from the unscaled parts of my skin was too high for the sensitive frost, yet for me it was only a tingling sensation under my palms and my feet.

Like this, I started strolling around the clearing, stretching my wings occasionally, and enjoying the crunchy surface. My tail swept the flakes left and right, and after some time, I could tell my heart felt significantly lighter compared to the last few days. I hadn’t realized I had been in such low spirits since then.

Now that I think about it, I hadn’t even gone to check on my treasure lately… another sign of my depressed state. What would the snow do to my sleeping treasure? Would anything happen to a giant body of water? I hadn't thought of that. Any of it.

A shiver trailed from my head to my tail, clearing my head from the fog. I had been very irresponsible with my treasure. A mistake I should be fixing as soon as possible.

With a flurry of white flakes, I opened my wings wide and pushed the ground with a renewed vigour. The strong wind below my wings cleared a bunch of trees from the snow lumps on their branches, and I almost knocked a few of them off their roots.

My tail was tense and straight behind me while I hurried off to the shore, as I passed the smoky air of the human village, and until I could see the surface of the sea.

It looked… exactly the same. Just as I left it a few days ago.

Relief filled my veins, along with a silly feeling. I should have known a mere snow couldn't have hurt my vast treasure. The tiny particles of snow were disappearing the moment they touched the surface.

I drew circles in the air above the water to wear off the awkward panic, and to check the latest state of my most precious possession. I wasn't surprised to find it unchanged, as the sun was still hiding, it didn't matter that the snow covering the ground had brightened the world noticeably.

Instead, I saw humans that sometimes stayed in shells and hunted fish from the sea, a distance away from the shore. And I flew higher and higher above them so that they wouldn't see me.

Was I scared of them? No.

I only happened to remember the last time I met them and how it went. They had gone ballistic and started to throw away their food, and I had to be the one who made sure all that prey didn't go to waste! All those fish with their slippery skin and crunchy bones… perfect for a snack.

Grooowl. A noise rose from the depths of my belly.

Ah, I forgot to eat breakfast.

It wasn't that surprising with all the rush in the morning. My stomach could only make its voice heard after my mind was silenced, and now all I could think was finding a prey.

High in the sky, I watched the humans catch their own prey, their little shells slowly filling with the slimy, struggling heap of fish.

That's when an idea popped into my head, and before I could think otherwise, my stomach had decided the fish were my prey now, and a hunt was overdue.

This time it wasn't the mountains or the forest where I would hunt in, I decided, it was the sea. I had never been in the sea before, it was where the sea serpents lived and hunted, but it wasn't like this was any other ordinary sea. This was my sea, my treasure, and if there was anyone who had the permission to be in it, it was me.

And if I was letting humans hunt for food on my treasure—since I wasn't cruel enough to not allow them, after all, how would those feeble creatures find enough food to survive in winter otherwise?—then I was free to do whatever I wanted with my treasure.

With these confident feelings, I started to descend from my high spot in the cloudy sky where I soared. Tucking my wings close against my body, there was nothing to slow my fast dive towards the water. The black surface became closer and closer, and with a large breath, I dived under the sea.

It stung my eyes to search for the fish underwater, but I was more concerned with my hunger than this small discomfort. As my eyes got used to the darkness underneath, I moved with the help of my arms, legs, and my tail, pushing myself forward with strong pushes.

It was similar to flying, only with less of my weight and more force around my body, but I was still glad to have gathered some experience with swimming in the lake near our Hive. Although that lake wasn't as deep as this sea, I wasn't as helpless as I would be if I hadn't dived into any body of water before.

Now, where are all the fish?

I saw a large pack of them somewhere near humans, where the bottom of their shells shook side to side underwater. All swarmed close to each other, like they were waiting to be hunted and gobbled up.

I shot forward, fast and hungry, with my jaws closing on the crowd of fish.

Or where the fish had been a moment before.

They managed to escape? From me?

I found them quite a distance away, gathering slowly after being scattered in every direction because of my attack. I had to give it to them, they were fast. But they couldn't possibly be a match to me. I was faster than any measly prey.

I prepared myself for another attack, and charged—

Slightly missed. Only by a claw. No, a tooth.

I resurfaced to take a lungful of fresh breath, and scared a bunch of birds gathered above the water. I realized I had many competitors for those small, slippery scoundrels. Huh. Like I would lose to the likes of birds, which held no more importance than flies for me.

I dived into the waters again.

Just a little more.

…

Ah, I almost had that one.

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...

How do the sea serpents do this? How do humans do this?!

…

It can't be that hard. I just have to be a little faster.

...

Almost there.

…

Oh, I think I got one.

…

No, it's just some weird weed.

.

.

.

.

.

This is harder than I thought.

Sigh.

I don't really want to talk about what happened during that time, and for how long I kept doing what I did… I can only say that some time later, I was flying back to the shore, empty-handed.

I was spent.

Without.

A single fish.

In my stomach.

And to think that I was defeated by those flying rats! They kept snatching delicious prey from humans' hunting strings—one from here, two from there—and eventually filled their bellies, then took off! Those filthy thieves! They have no shame.

I dropped my drenched body on the snowy shore with a puff, raising a small cloud of fresh snow from the ground.

My breathing was heavy with anger, and humiliation burned hot in my chest—on top of all, I was still hungry. It was like I was back to being a two-year-old youngling, struggling to find food in the mountains with weak wings, weak claws and a weak body.

I can't even hunt a measly fish. What kind of a dragon am I?

The wind blew from the sea, causing a gust of snow to fly into my face. Just what I had needed. At least my scales and wings were drying quickly with the strong bursts of wind. The heat emanating from where scales were replaced with thick skin that covered the lower parts of my body was enough to evaporate the remaining moisture. I didn't need to do much else than sitting here and waiting for a while… Wait, what is this?!

Some sort of white thing started to appear on my body. Something flaky and horrible looking—my glorious dark scales were turning into an ugly muddy color!

With a renewed panic, I spun around myself to examine this assailant better.

What had ruined my beautiful scales was salt. After the seawater dried, it had left a layer of itchy, murky colored salt behind. Immediately, I tried to clean a portion of it with a large swipe of my tongue.

Blergh.

Ewww.

It tasted like pure bitterness. I could almost feel my empty stomach trying to crawl out of my throat.

After that, I gave up on licking my scales to clean them.

But I couldn't possibly stand to stay as I was, waiting until the salt flaked out with time and left my body eventually. That would take forever! I needed water, be it rain, or a lake, or a small creek, I didn't care. I needed an emergency bath.

It took me an embarrassingly long while to see the obvious solution. There was water in a close distance—normal water—and it wouldn't even take a breath's worth of time to get there. Because it was everywhere around me.

After all, snow was just water, waiting to be melt.

And when it came to melting things, I could confidently say I was very good at it.

With little effort, pure fire climbed up from my throat, the temperature of it making the surrounding air seem wobbly. Bright reds and yellows spread out from a glowing blue, and the white surface of the shore sizzled, breaking under the heat. Before my eyes, a pool of molten snow appeared, steam rising from it, and it was about the size of my body from head to tail. But even so, I didn't stop breathing out the flames.

Was I really taking my frustration out of a helpless pile of snow?

Maybe.

Was it petty to melt more snow than I would ever need to wash myself off?

One could argue so.

But the important thing is that I was very good at it, and—listen, there should be nothing wrong with wanting to have some wins for yourself sometimes. Even if it's against a pile of fragile snow.

When I decided my own personal lake had reached ample proportions, I jumped right into it. Of course, it wasn't anything deep, the water didn't even pass my legs as I stood up, but if I were to roll in it just like this... There we go.

Ah, bliss.

The drops flew all around as my tail joined in on the comfort, splashing water left and right. I focused on my scales and my wings especially as I curled and twisted in the clean water, since they took the most damage to their glory after being tainted by the sly salt.

I could feel it dissolving with the water and leaving the nooks and crannies of my body. It was a delight.

I was in the middle of rolling on my back in the soothing waters when I heard its voice.

The human youngling. It had found me again.

"Oh, thank God you're here. I've been waiting for you for days!"

It was breathing fast and talking at the same time, all the while running towards me. It was loud as always, but this time I could smell more than just its own smell. Several other humans were following behind, even though they were nowhere in sight. Well, I was almost done with my bath anyway.

“What are you doing there?” it spoke. And continued after making a breathy sound, “Are you having some fun in the… uhh...your puddle?”

There was another smell in the air that the young one carried with it. Something nice—something delicious!

The next moment, I found myself scurrying away from my personal lake swiftly, and then I was right in front of the small human. A deep sniff confirmed my suspicions, there was food here somewhere. Was it behind the young one?

"Oh-okay, okay! Not too close, please! Just-I'll give it to you, don't worry!"

And then I was presented yet another gift, in the form of a prey. It wasn't the same thing from the last time, sadly, this one was much smaller.

"What do you think? I caught this all by myself. I've been trying to find something in the woods, day after day—although Thorn helped me a lot—but I finally managed to catch this!"

It was holding a rabbit from its ears, a gray little thing, with a strange expression on its face. The small human's mouth was wide and its eyes were pinched from the sides, and I sensed it was in a good mood. I felt a ping of pity in my heart—was a prey this little enough to make the young one so satisfied? I watched as it lowered the rabbit on the ground, then retreated.

This is nothing to be happy about, young human! Your last prey was much larger than this.

Nonetheless, I had to act like I was delighted by this gift of inadequate size, since it was the duty of the adults to encourage the young ones.

I accepted the rabbit that was put in front of me, and barely felt it crunch between my teeth as I ate it as slowly as I could. Whatever the amount, prey was prey, and I was hungry enough to be glad to have any food in my mouth.

"Did you like it? I'm sorry I couldn't get you something bigger… Thorn said I had to work for months before I caught anything larger than a rabbit. But I'll try harder, and I-I'll keep my promise to you. So, maybe… you'll keep your part of the deal as well?"

The young human kept talking and talking, even after I swallowed the last bits of the measly rabbit. It disappeared somewhere around my throat, the amount so insignificant that I didn't even feel the meat reach my stomach.

Maybe that's why I was late to recognize the other humans trying to hide, some distance behind the young human—and failing so miserably to keep their voices down that it couldn't possibly be called hiding.

"Shh! He's gonna hear us."

"Don't push me, then!"

"I want to see too! Did he take the rabbit yet?"

"He already ate it, Edith."

"But I wanted to see!"

"Tom, your sister is being loud!"

Their commotion finally put a stop to the young human's gibberish, and he turned around.

"Guys, what did I tell you? You were supposed to be very silent and near invisible! Your parents would kill me if they learned I let you come with me!"

"But Henry's pushing me!"

"No, I'm not!"

Behind a small heap of snow, four tiny human heads appeared one by one… All of them were staring at me with their tiny human eyes.

"Yes, you are. You pushed me, too. And stop yelling, kids. You'll agitate the dragon. Tom said he doesn't like being crowded."

"I'll just watch from here, Tommy. Please tell him not to get sad, okay?"

So small!

I couldn't believe my eyes. For some reason, my idea of a human youngling was something about the size of the small one I had been seeing all this time. But these ones… they were even smaller! If that one was a youngling, then these could—these could only be called hatchlings!

"Oh guys, guys, he's looking at us!"

"Quick, hide. My dad says if you look into his eyes for more than five seconds, you would burst into flames!"

"I looked, Henry, but nothing happened."

"Are you an idiot? Stop looking!"

The young human—the older young human—waved its hands and made several noises towards the tiny young humans, and got them to put their heads back down again.

I think I knew what was happening now, the meaning behind all the attempted hiding and the sudden appearance of the tiny younglings.

This had to be their hunting training. The older one was teaching them how to stalk and hide from their prey, and the patience to wait for the opportune moment to strike. It was one of the most important lessons that a youngling could learn.

Judging by their skills, I guessed this was their first lesson.

Hopefully, the young human was a good teacher, because they wouldn't even be able to catch an old, dying tree bear as they were. Actually, I think the tree bear would be the one to hunt them instead.

These hatchlings are way too small, they shouldn't even be allowed out their lairs yet!

Maybe it was unfair to compare them with the young members of my own hive… After all, the older humans weren't that large either.

Still, this weather wasn't suitable for creatures that small. All this snow and cold, harsh winds—

Grooowl.

Oh, right. I still need to eat a proper meal.

My mind was engrossed with the vast space inside my stomach once again, wiping away all the intrusive thoughts and my worry, because the mountains were calling me with the promise of food.

I took one last look at the sea, my precious treasure filled with fish and stinging memories, and made a promise to myself.

This is not finished here.

So, I moved away from the young one and the hatchlings as far as possible—to spread my wings wide and shake away the remaining drops of water on my body—and took flight where I could find something to eat, along with the rising voices of the small bodies below me.

"Oh no, he's leaving already."

"Come back Birdie!"

"Birdie? You named him-Edith, that's not a bird, that's a giant dragon!"

"But he can fly really high!"

Eventually, I managed to find a prey adequate for my appetite towards the end of the day. It was satisfying to say the least—my stomach was finally content.

After the passing of days and nights, and numerous encounters with the small humans, I started to ease into another routine—something less nerve-wracking and erratic. I was almost comfortable, as much as I could be in this season of misery and unwelcome surprises.

Needless to say, when a day with heavy snowfall—and a seemingly normal one—arrived, I wasn't expecting to be attacked by the hatchlings. Let alone with a flying snow orb.