It was time, again, to help Mother along.

Each day Bone happily did her part: she offered the gift of Mother to the Lessers, and joyously watched as they became part of the family. She caught others, returning them to the nest for Mother to feed upon.

Today was no different.

She hauled herself from her den--one of several that she kept dry and padded with bedding--and stretched her wings with a yawn. She quickly drew them back in again with a wince--it was cold out here, today. Ahh, well. The light was dim--aurora only--and she knew better than to rely on its glow alone for prey. A wisp, kept lower to the ground, served the dual purpose of providing both illumination and a lure to curious Lessers--so she focused, intending to begin with that.

Nothing came of it, and Bone grunted with irritation.

The heat-? It was probably that; when she was bitterly cold, she found it hard to focus on her magic.

The white dragon grumbled to herself, then opened her jaws, plodding forward whilel exhaling hot air--hoping to warm herself up, then, first. The air that blasted from her mouth was near-boiling, and she relaxed a little in its pleasant drift.

Right--and now it was time for a wisp.

Bone basked for only a moment in the heat that she'd created; it was time to get moving. Mother loved her; she loved Mother, and her days were spent happily serving... and preparing for the time when Mother might need Bone's protection. But that aside-!

The wisp she formed was weak, but it would do, for now. She took flight with heavy wingbeats, taking to the wind at a slow and steady climb.

Then she began her long search, the wisp dipped lower, her gaze scouring the mountainside for prey.

Now that she was on the wing, she began to soar.

Bone was not lightly-built, like her sibling or her father. Hours of circling, of coasting, weren't her thing: flight wasn't super easy to maintain. It wasn't hard, but after half an hour or so her wings would be tired, and after an hour they were trembling so badly she had to land. And she would never be as agile as Dread or Svartis in the air. Her thicker muscles and natural armor made up for it in a physical fight--she could probably take more damage than either of them, though she'd never really tested it. But it meant that now that she was in the air, she had a limited time to find some prey.

Pale eyes scoured the snow, peering into the open mouths of the few caves she knew as she went.

It was quite by luck that she spotted the Frostbiter: her wisplight danced across something shining in one of the little caves, so that she circled around for a second look. There, she found its slender body coiled in the back, resting or hiding from the elements.

Bone peered inside, hovering with slow and heavy wingbeats. She was pondering what to do.

This one could make a meal, at least--for herself or for a Praetor. It was thin, but ten or so feet long, with a decent amount of meat. But it would also make a useful--and formidable--foe for Mother! She reached along the link, but she already knew that either would be suitable.

I'll try to lure it out, first. And if it doesn't come, I'll kill it, and eat it, she decided. Though she was hungry, she hoped it took the bait: she didn't like killing things, really, even though she had to eat.

Bone summoned up a small banana, and took a few moments--hovering there, and glad that she had forelimbs, unlike her father--to slice a couple small gaps in the peel. Then she tore free the tiniest bit of barely-visible threads of white fungus sprouted from between the scales (left there for moments just like this) on her abdomen to infect the banana.

This she tossed down, so that it bounced, and rolled, a little ways into the cave.

The snake didn't notice her, or it probably did and didn't care. Moreso, the movement of the banana drew it--it was uncoiled in an instant, to her surprise, lunging for the banana and biting it.

That was enough; it might swallow the thing (it was magic, and tended to taste good to just about anyone), but more importantly, it was almost certainly infected already.

It was closing jaws around the banana's end when Bone turned and started off again. She tried to blast a bit of hot air out ahead again, to keep herself warm, but the breath was lukewarm; and the icy air of Ursa was always bitter cold.

Eugh.

Next stop: the Drowned Forest.

This wasn't somewhere she spent a lot of time, but in a pinch she could usually wait by the shoreline until a fish came high enough to snag.

It took her time to cross the cave, to soar the bitter winds higher and higher--between the gap in the mountains and to the plateau behind, and the elevated lake nestled into it. The skeletal branches protruding higher were eerily beautiful, but familiar to the dragon, now.

She set down on the shoreline, careful that her weight wouldn't overload the bank and send her pitching into the lake. She fought with her magic, again, but once again it would not come, and with a sigh she chalked this up to the cold.

With a soft growl she focused on her magic, again, wings now tight around her against the chill of Ursa's wind.

For a moment, she couldn't remember why she'd come here. Why live in the cold, when she could live in the warmth-? She was always cold, always miserable. Surely she and Catalyst could help Mother in warmer places-?

...This faded, this thought, though she couldn't have quite said why. No; she was content enough; it was just a bit of cold. And she had the heat to keep herself warm, in any case.

I have the heat to keep myself warm, she thought blankly, as if in echo of a more foreign idea.

Then her jaws parted, and almost dreamily she blasted hot air about her. The faint shivering ceased as she stepped forward into the short-lived warmth, and then she turned her attention to the water below.

Now warm, she set to the final task: feeding the fish.

This was something she did now and again, and it wasn't exactly a benevolent act, though she herself enjoyed watching them eat their fill--and it was useful, knowing which had eaten by the sparkles they sported afterward.

She focused, now once again warm, on a bit of bait.

This banana was small, but that didn't matter. It was peeled, and the fruit itself split into pieces; Bone took her time, knowing her massive claws weren't exactly well-suited to these delicate tasks.

But the banana was, eventually, part frozen (not her intention) and had bits of fungus clinging to every little chunk. When she was done, she lifted her hand and scattered the infected piece into the water.

The fish--many familiar with her presence and her feeding, by now--swam up to the surface, nabbing bits of Mother's "gift" and the food that carried it--a little, silver feeding frenzy, of sorts.

Fish: fed. Mission sort of complete.

But there was still the issue of hunger, and Bone was hungry.

She took a breath, inhaling, and chose a larger fish on the outskirts of the school--a hesitant one, an older one and of a large enough size to serve as a meal. Sorry about this, she thought, before a stream of flame buffeted out from her jaws.

The fish jerked, a flash of silver lit by flame, and then Bone snagged it a second later when it lay briefly stunned at the surface. Her jaws plummeted into the warm water--surrounded by icy depths--and drew back, quickly crushing the life from the fish.

She tore it up, gulped it down.

Then, she looked around, feeling the weight of the meal now settling in her stomach.

She'd brought a few fish and a Frostbiter over to Mother; she'd eaten. This was productivity, and that was good! Feeling warm, accomplished--revelling in Mother's soft praise along the link--Bone took flight again, laboriously winging her way back toward home.

exit