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--- Kami, The snow Dragon ---

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A sudden screech tore though my pleasant sleep, startling me awake and almost causing me to knock again the cramped walls of the room I was in. With a sigh I opened my eyes and in an instant an annoying feeling began to rise.

While I subdued the feeling, knowing that I couldn’t blame my fellow survivor for her grief, but could she at least refrain from grieving in the middle of the night. For a shriek to come out of her it must be one of the worse nights in quite a while, its not easy for a dragon to work their emotions up to such a level that all of our kind could hear it.

A mirror of ice lay against the far wall and I stared into the image it was showing me, a pure white, male, eastern dragon, from the land of the sunrise kingdom. With fleshy whiskers that emerged from underneath his chin and around his top lip, clearly masking him as a mature and wise dragon.

After a few moments spent staring at the handsome creature in the mirror I got up, slipping through the thin doorway and into the expansive network of tunnels made by our stone inclined friends. To think that it would take the end of the world for dragons and Dwarfs to get along.

It took a few minutes to walk through the hideout, past the stockpiles and fail-safes, incase the sun god found our little hiding place. It took flying to the end of this small world and burrowing into the bones of a giant to escape his fanatic collection-ism. If there was some sort of devious plan for hunting us remaining lesser dragons, some sort of plot, at least I would know that my kin did not die for nothing. But he just did it for the sport of it, added to a collection in his want to collect the ‘greatest fire breathers’, himself of course the self-proclaimed greatest of them all.

I arrived before my friends door before I knew it, sitting outside as I thought of some way to approach without making her feel awkward. The Imoogi, Miri, was a sweet little thing capable of trampling villages, but never on purpose. Her heart bled far to often for her own good, often compared to me, as the opposite to her grounded personality.

“Miri are you okay? I heard-” I started to ask, but was quickly barrelled over by a surprisingly excited dragon, pushing open the door with her pure bulk. In an instant I was pinned beneath her, given that her body vaguely resembled a giant salamander covered in brown scales, enlarged until it was ten metres tall, I had no chance.

“You heard it too! YOU HEARD IT TOO!” Miri excitedly exclaimed, immediately confusing me much more than her sitting on me ever could.

“Ge-… Get off me!” I protested, wheezing as she finally spared my lungs from the torment.

“That wasn’t you?” I asked her as soon as I could breathe again, the dragon nodding her head as she stomped around the room excitedly.

“Well… if it wasn’t you, than who?” I wondered out loud, the wingless dragon giving me the best approximation of a shrug that a dragon can give.

“Are you… sure you didn’t? I know you can get upset sometimes, and it’s not like Bruno could’ve?” I guessed, there were only three dragons left and Bruno, the bronze dragon from the west had been sleeping for the better part of a century.

“The cry is what woke me up, and Bronzy is still sleeping, I checked.” Miri corrected me, I still felt a lingering suspicion that she might’ve had another nightmare and didn’t want to admit it.

“So who are you saying could’ve done it?” I sarcastically asked, the dragon giving me a serious look, reminding me of a conversation we’ve had many times before.

“No! We are not having this conversation again, there aren’t any other dragons. We both know this.” I angrily shouted, immediately upsetting her, this topic a sore spot for the both of us.

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“I knew what you were going to say, I know that look.” I angrily muttered, Miri scoffing before stamping back inside her room.

“C’mon, there’s actually something to talk about here.” Miri said, and I followed her in, only feeling the slightest twinge of guilt. When will she learn that we’re a dying species? Not that I enjoy reminding her.

“Fine.” I acquiesced, sitting down in her... humble room while the giant lizard cosied up in her nest full of ‘comfortable’ rocks she’s collected over the centuries. She’s tried to explain the differences between rocks to me before, but I’ve never truly understood.

I much preferred my silks and pillows, much kinder on my scales than bare stone, though Miri has complained the inverse argument to me many many times. After some finagling I managed to create a semi-comfortable space to sit down, the earth dragon sitting on the other side of an earthen mound she uses as a table.

“So, what grand revelation do you have to share with me?” I sarcastically asked my friend, she barely let out an amused huff in response.

“Something that would actually make sense if you ever bothered to listen to me for once.” she poutily complained, earning her an eye-roll from myself.

“Than lay your wisdom on me, ‘o mighty dragon of mud.”

“Shut your chilly asshole of a mouth.” she angrily spat, and I wisely shut up, knowing that if I continued that she’d sit on me. After a few seconds of silence she huffed, and started speaking again.

“Do you remember when the Moon God visited us?” She reminded me, my mind immediately casted back to a fateful night about fifty years ago, when we’d both had the fight of our lives.

To this day I don’t know how they managed to find us, when even the Sun god had given up his search after a millennium of searching for the last of us, that asshole descended from the night sky and tried to talk with us. Back then they were still the servant of the sun, and naturally we’d immediately tried to fight them.

Emphasis on tried, while we were dragons, admittedly lesser ones compared to the great old ones that never came to this land, we’re no match for a god. For a few minutes we fought as hard as we could, even Bruno woke up and joined in the effort, staving off defeat for a few minutes, but in the end we were defeated thoroughly. After they let us catch our breath, they corrected our assumption that they’d been there to capture us, both about that and serving the Sun god.

They detailed some strange plan about using a network to share attributes and knowledge, to usurp the power imbalance created by the Sun god. What they wanted from us was a dragon to connect with this network, to make our ancestral knowledge accessible to others.

I happily agreed, the thought of doing something, anything to piss off the Sun god made me immensely happy. I was somewhat familiar with the magics involved, the use of loose mind melding to a central hub of information was revolutionary idea, for both providing and accessing information on a wide variety of topics. And I was able to, mostly, guarantee that it wasn’t a ploy to invade our minds in some way.

Though a part of the process of doing that involved giving a drop of blood to them. It did strike me as strange at the time, an unnecessary addition to the process.

“Yes, I do? What do you think they have to do with this?” I asked her, the dragon nodding her rather flat head.

“They did create a lot of chaos in the following decades, it wouldn’t be impossible if they made a new dragon with that drop of blood that you gave them.” Miri suggested, drawing a scoff out of me.

“It’s takes more than blood to make a dragon, sure, maybe a body, but you can’t manufacture a soul! That needs to be genuine!” I protested, Miri nodding like it was a sage comment.

“While the Moon god might’ve been the temporary caretaker of the dead, the Sun god was collecting the dragon souls, so they can’t just nab one to stick into a body.”

“But! Buuuuut!” She excitedly said while holding up a single claw like a wizened elder.

“Don’t you remember? His comment? ‘Our isolation is soon at an end’?” She reminded me, that absurd sentence from the god had gotten our hopes up for a while, a few decades before we realised that their imprisonment meant that it would never come.

“What of that empty promise? From the failed revolutionary.” I scoffed.

“Well, maybe we misunderstood. Maybe it wasn’t us returning to the original world, but people coming here from there?” She suggested and gave me a few moments to process the idea. It wouldn’t be that impossible, but why would it happen?

Only the Sun god could travel between worlds, as this worlds ‘administrator’, as the Moon god explained all those decades ago. So how would souls from the other side travel here?

“Why? We both know the Sun god wouldn’t summon in potential threats just for the entertainment of it, he’s far too paranoid for that.” I pointed out, Miri acknowledging my point with a nod.

“But what if he didn’t have a choice?” She whispered conspiratorially, The idea a tempting one to believe. But why? After all of these millennium why would those who stayed behind bother to do something now?

“It’s still too strange of a circumstantial guess to say that a dragon’s soul just happened to end up here. What exactly inspired this… creative idea of yours?” I asked her, my suspicion only rising as she gave me her signature guilty look.

“Weeell... I might be… “

“Spit it out you overgrown wyrm!”

“I’ve been chatting with the Dwarves! Through one of their crows!” she quickly admitted, earning her an exasperated scowl.

“How many times have I-”

“I know! But I don’t have as much bloody patience as you do! I need something to read!” She angrily pointed out, making me a tad guilty before I reminded myself that we were still being hunted by a god, and sending letters to people doesn’t help that in the slightest.

“Besides I need to finish the series.” She stated like it was obvious, almost shocking me more than the admission just before it, my eyes getting drawn to a bookshelf that seemed more fill than before.

“Seriously why-”

“Shh!”

“No don’t-”

“Shh, SHHH-” “-Shush me-” “-HHHHH”

“Why are you like this?”

“Well Eeeex-cuse me king under the snowy mountain, I don’t have the ability to just… Exist for decades without engagement, I used to have a social life, thank you very much!” She huffed.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help the situation! But just because you’re bored doesn’t mean that you can just… Order books via Crow!”

“The dwarves built this place for us, it’s not like they’re all of a sudden going to betray us! We can trust the people who currently know where we are.” She pointed out, and even though it was arguably a good point, it was still a risk.

“It’s still unneeded! We never know if someone is still looking for us, and if they intercepted that crow? Who knows what might’ve happened to us.” My valid line of question ending the conversation for a few minutes before Miri bothered to talk again.

“Well… back to why I brought it up, it’s when I got the latest delivery, there was a letter from Sigrid, my supplier, about a bunch of random humans showing up, and apparently a phoenix.” Miri casually said, leaving me absolutely gobsmacked, a phoenix? The last time I head of them was in the faint dream that was the land before here.

“A phoenix?! And you didn’t tell me?”

“Don’t you remember how you acted like five minutes ago?”

“…”

“Fine, But tell me about this supposed phoenix.” I acquiesced, putting aside my perfectly reasonable point to hear more about a phoenix. A phoenix was a rare and coveted creature even before here, I don’t believe a single one got trapped here, though none of the greater dragons did either.

“It was very strange circumstances from the brief mention in the letter, apparently it burst out of an ordinary looking egg a farmer found. When the creature was first brought before the dwarves to be inspected, they thought it might be a cockatrice. But it quickly changed from into what could only be called a phoenix, and started speaking after few days, insisting to be called Kai.” Miri quoted after pulling out the letter and holding the miniscule item in front of an eye.

“This is fascinating! But putting your dangerous actions aside-”

“Had to get the last word in.”

“-But I don’t see what this could possibly have to do with us? It’s not like we can leave here, it’s still far too dangerous!” I stated the obvious, Miri giving me a look that I knew could only mean trouble.

“Miri, you can’t possibly be thinking that we could leave? Do you really think he’s forgotten about us?” I asked her, feeling shocked that she would even consider it a possibility, after everything that has happened, to our people, to us.

“I don’t think you realise the amount of chaos going on out there at the moment. The city of the sun is currently scrambling everywhere, looking for these travellers from this other world. They won’t notice two random people with strange tattoos.” Miri argued.

“But if they’re out looking for someone, than there’s all the more chance that they’ll run into us.”

“It’s been centuries since we started hiding here, do you really think the generations of mortals since then can really remember how our markings look? I doubt you even can after all of this time in your dragon form!” Miri angrily said, and fine, she may have had a point, but why risk it? For a dragon, that we didn’t even know existed, or they might not even exist.

“It’s still too much risk for the chance of finding a dragon.” I reminded her.

“So you want to leave that dragon out there to die, by themselves in the hands of the Sun god. They must be a newborn, they can’t transform, they can’t hide, tell me why we shouldn’t get involved other than for the sake of saving our scaly hide?” Miri demanded of me, leaving us in a suffocating silence, there was no answer I could give her that would satisfy her.

“Well! If that’s all you have to say, so be it. But I won’t sit by while the first new-blood in a very long time gets slaughtered, because you. Were. Too. Scared.” She said with a surprising amount of vitriol, the earth dragon standing up from her bed and transforming with a puff of smoke that reminded me of those slimy ninja’s tricks.

From the smoke walked out Miri’s human form, by human standards it was a rather short form, with dark skin and a plump-! Big boned body that was adorned with a large clump of black frizzy hair on her head. I believe that it was the body she had before her dragon form had been returned to her, she has never explained the circumstances of her birth that lead her to having a human form before her dragon one. As she moved across the room I spotted the large, sweeping tattoo that occupied most of her back, a pattern that flowed down her back and wouldn’t make sense to most. I thought it looked like a river, a great expanse of water that could feed a nations crops and be a cradle of life.

With a few short and angry steps she disappeared inside a closet I’d forgotten was in this room, sorting through the clearly ancient stock pile as old moth bitten items of clothing were flung out.

“I’m not scared Miri, just cautious!”

“Whatever you say lord of the piss slushies.” she snarled from the closet, making me realise just how pissed off she was, it’s been a while since she last got this annoyed.

“Miri you can’t just leave, what about-”

“You made the bed and shit in it, so now go lay in the mess you made.” She continued, and I realised that she has made her choice, and even if I wanted to stop her, which I admit I don’t have the right to do, I couldn’t.

“Fine, but I’m not letting you-”

“Shuuuut up you Pomeranian of a dragon, all yap no action.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to-”

“Kami, I’m not interested in hearing any more excuses from a lizard shivering in fear in the loneliest corner of the world.” She continuously insulted me, leaving me with nothing to do but let out an exasperated grunt and leave, at least the surprise I’ll give her in a bit should make up for all of the creative insults.

…

I ran out of my room with a large suitcase full of clothes, a couple of them hanging out of the lid with how much was stuffed into the fine leather case. I ran through the bone caves until I reached Miri’s room, and realised that it was empty.

She must’ve already started moving towards the stairs off this bony mountain. Before I chased after her, I quickly stopped by Bruno’s sleeping den, and dropped off a hastily scribbled letter explaining what was going on, I would hate from him to wake up and assume the worst.

After sliding the piece of paper under the door I ran through the tight tunnels once again, my flawless memory guiding me through the hopelessly complex caves until I emerged from our hiding place.

Our tunnels were dug into the side of the thigh bone of a long dead giant, its resting place having been transported to these lands along with us. When they were still alive this giant must’ve been massive, because its remains, even lying on its back, were enough to form their own mountain range.

Even flying above it I couldn’t see the toes and skull at the same time, truly this giant must’ve been treated as a god when it was still alive.

But with a quick look around I spotted Miri’s human form trying to travel down the stairs carved into the bones side, obviously having trouble with the fact that they’d become damaged in the centuries since their making.

Given the fact that neither her dragon or human form can fly, she’s obvious having trouble getting down the mountain.

“Do you need a hand Miri?” I asked her with a sarcastic venom inserted into my tone.

“I don’t need a talon nor claw from a dick like you.” she spat back.

“You sure? Than I suppose my grandiose offer of carrying you down the mountain will have to go unheard.”

“What? So you plan on just helping me down? Is that all your capable of you shit fudge-icle.”

“Of course not, I plan on going with you, there’s no chance you’ll survive by yourself out there!”

“Seriously? You want to come with?”

“Well… no… I just-”

“Aww, I knew you weren’t that much of a heartless monster! I made sure to pack you a scarf!”

“*sigh*, why do I bother.”