“You know, I’ve never seen snow before in real life.” Eszter murmured as they drew close. Snowflakes drifted gently from the sky, vaporising to steam as they landed on Karakul’s scales. “Or… have I? No…”
The dragonkin rubbed her forehead gently, the throbbing ache in her head slowly subsiding but still present. She was Eszter. Not Karakul.
Eszter, Eszter, Eszter. It was like a little chant, something to keep her grounded. From the outside, Karakul grumbled a little.
“Snow is nothing special.”
“I guess not.” the demidragon mumbled, pouting a little. It was something special to her. Or, it would have been in any other situation, at any rate. Seeing it through her bond’s eyes from within her magma cocoon had a way of dampening the magic.
“Smaug moving out!” one of the crew shouted as they watched the smaller dragon take off from the next boat over, lazily heading towards the island’s defenders. With a silent acknowledgement between them, the reincarnations of Yucatan shelved their snow discussion and spread their wings, graciously giving the crew a moment to prepare for their takeoff.
“Karakul moving out!” the crew called over their radio. At the signal, the reforged dragon leapt into the air, chasing after Smaug to see who got the first kill. It took the dragons less than a minute to reach the landing, finding that the meager resistance was ready for them.
A barrage of icicles and rock-hard snowballs came flying at the pair of bonds, a wall of wintery death. It was unfortunate for the defenders that their opponents were a pair of dragons. Fire exploded from the maws of the beasts, melting the assault in a protective barrier of heat. What little material that managed to reach the two had been reduced to nothing but harmless slush, slightly wetting their scales and nothing more.
“Hah!” Karakul cackled. “A pathetic display!”
“Hmph. For once we agree.” Smaug snickered. “To bring ice to fight a dragon… simply idiotic.”
With that, the firedrake unleashed wave of flame over the defenders, immolating a number of living, angry snowmen. Karakul growled with frustration, realising that he had claimed the first kill, and dropped from the sky to catch up.
As the dragon descended, she fired a stream of starfire at one of the largest frozen monsters, a frost-bitten troll that was still barely thrice the size of a human, before plunging down on another like a fox pouncing on prey. Unexpectedly, however, as she smashed the troll into the ground, rather than being crushed into paste it simply fell through the ground. And so did she.
Karakul let out an uncharacteristic yelp as she fell through the snow until her front half was buried in the powder, with her hind legs and tail kicking furiously in the air. Eszter was stunned for a few second, unsure how to react, before she suddenly burst into a fit of giggles.
“Cease your laughter!” her bond shouted, her voice muffled by the snow. “I-I’m stuck.”
The reforged dragon writhed and squirmed for a few moments before finally managing to roll over and right herself, glancing over to make sure that Smaug hadn’t seen. Thankfully, he seemed too busy with laying waste to a battery of snowball cannons to notice her mistake.
“This is kinda fun.” Eszter said to her bond as they got to their feet, only to sink up to their breast in snow.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Karakul sniffed as she hopped forward to advance through the snow, almost like a gigantic bunny.
“We could totally nail Smaug with a huge snowball.”
“I…” the dragon paused for a moment, considering the proposition. It wasn’t like the defenders really posed any threat to them, and something like this was just what they needed after the nightmare they had just gone through.
Across the landing, Smaug was chasing after a living snowman, the animated ice sculpture fleeing from the dragon on legs made of twigs. Rapidly pumping limbs that had no right supporting it’s body, it dived for safety right as a pie of jaws snapped shut over it, melting the snowman instantly.
“That’s right!” the firedrake crowed to the helpless unmade beneath him. “Fear, run, d-”
Before he could finish, a gigantic snowball smashed into his face with a soft ‘poof’. Unharmed but stunned with disbelief for a moment, his head whipped around in search of the unmade titan who had thrown the colossal chunk of snow. Instead, he found Karakul doing her best to look nonchalant while buried halfway in snow, a massive gouge taken out of the ice in front of her.
“Unmade weather.” She coughed under his accusatory gaze. “Must have been.”
