Frigid & Warm

Rhaedra craned her neck and let a small belch rise from her overstuffed belly. The charbroiled scent wafted around her. She pushed the last of it through her nose in a great sigh.

Bovine? This far north? A slight smile curled her lips as she picked at her teeth, two affectations she had picked up from her uncle, Candor. Rhaedra had not eaten this well in months, and she could feel her body sag under the weight of flesh as new life coursed through her veins. She stretched to her utmost, casting a long shadow across the taiga’s floor and relaxed against a moss covered tree that creaked as she sidled up to it.

She still could not believe her luck. Hunting parties hadn’t found much more than a ferret, turkey, or wild pheasants since the last rainy season. The squash, roots, and mud that Rhaedra and her kin had subsisted on for months rang fresh in her mouth; a bitter taste she could not have washed away if she wished. Another belch escaped her lips, she had lost all ceremony whilst eating.

To encounter a cow in the frigidlands was rare enough but to happen upon two? This was unheard of, even in times of plenty. Rhaedra remembered the last time she had seen one: she had been nine-years-old. Her uncle Candor had just returned from an unprecedented conflict, her people had not participated in war for millenia, but a rising nation to the east had usurped many an ally’s throne and brought those newly acquisitioned kingdoms & resources to bear against her home. A few cows had been brought home as prizes.

She remembered seeing her uncle hop down from one of the war balloons, only to raise his hand, palm forward, and shake it back and forth in a foreign gesture she had never seen before. She’d recognize her uncle anywhere, but the red and blackened edges on the left of his body drew her attention. “What’s this?” Rheadra mimed as she circled her uncle, welcoming him back home like the rest of her family.

“Battle Scars.” croaked Candor, curling his lips in what she would soon come to know as a “smile.” Rhaedra felt as if she had missed something, how could her genius uncle be so nonplussed over such a wound? She reached out to tap the side of his body, bits of parchment and what looked like clothing wrapped up against where the damage appeared to be at its greatest, but his wince made it apparent the wound need be left alone.

“It hurts, uncle?” Rhaedra sounded as he playfully pinned her twin younger brother and sister against the wall.

“‘Course it hurts! But I don’t have to worry about myself now, do I? The time remains, but my hours change. Now to simply rest and recuperate.” Candor gave Rhaedra a small and sweet knuckle to the chin as he continued to entertain the twins with his other arm. Once again, her uncle curved his lips upward in that peculiar way.

“Well... I’m glad you’re back, uncle. The Ice Games have been a bore without your flame.”

“We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we!” With his last exclamation Candor bared his teeth and began outright wrestling the twins, knocking over hammocks and making a mess as they went. It was raucous, even ridiculous, but Rhaedra couldn’t help but laugh as she saw the twins light up and enjoy themselves like she hadn’t seen them do in so many years. She even tried to curl her lips upward as she had seen her uncle do.

Setting down the twins, Cara & Romanin, Candor stretched to his side. Rhaedra flinched when the hip he was leaning into made a sickening pop, and it even caused the twins to look up, confused.

“Are you sure you’re alright uncle?” He clapped her on the forehead as he shook his leg and hip, sighing in relief.

“A-okay ‘lil Ray-ray. Your hips might make that sound one day too... You can thank gran for that.” He let out another great sigh and turned back towards the landing. Rhaedra took it in as well. The valley was sprawling with people and activity. Heart felt reunions and shouts of recognition rang out from every direction. Some twenty-seven war-balloons had made the journey back to Frigidat, when three short years ago she had remembered thirty leaving.

“Uncle… Where are the three other war balloons?”

“That’s war Ray. Not everything, let alone everywing, will come back.”

Rheadra hung her head. She knew there would be a cost when they all had left, but she had not expected it to be so great.

Only now did Rhaedra notice her peer Calico. Just down the hill from her clutch, Calico was obviously searching for someone. Fidgeting back and forth as he reared back to look through soldier after soldier that had descended from the war balloons.

“Where is Renst-”

Before Rhaedra could finish her sentence, Candor’s hand was on her mouth.

Without any words from her uncle… she knew. She knew that Calico would spend all night looking for his brother. Asking after him. Inquiring with the rest of the balloon guards as to his whereabouts. And Rhaedra knew that she, like the rest of them, would never say his name again: Renstadra. She watched Calico become more frustrated and bound towards the landing, a strange new emotion and feeling filling her throat…

At present, Rhaedra had dozed off. Memories of home, the end of the false war, and the delicious steak she ate had served as a better bed than anything she had ever slept on. She let out a yawn, and leaned more forcefully into the moss ridden tree, stretching deeply. The tree gave a small pop, barely impressed, and Rhaedra dropped to the floor once again yawning.

The northern sun was beginning to dip below the ridgeline and Rhaedra could feel the cold nip at her heels and unprotected belly. She stood, leaned back and splayed her arms wide with another yawn. While she had much news to deliver, the quorum would want to know more about her meal; there was no way how flush and full she looked would go unnoticed.

She rifled through her bag and took out something her uncle had given her many years ago. While she did not understand the cylinder she now held, she knew it was helpful. Uncorking a small bottle she filled separate chambers of the cylinder with water, and then warmed the frontmost with her breath. Raising the cylinder to her right eye, she scanned the horizon and shore line for as far as she could. Nothing.

She knew she would have to return home shortly but wanted something, anything to report. A ship, a war balloon, a flight scout, any sign of recon or movement, but still her two month long journey down the coast had provided little evidence of what she was looking for. Realizing she needed a better vantage point, she packed up her things and brushed off her legs as she readied to take to the sky.

Thwack. Rhaedra reeled and reared, turning on the spot and roaring in the direction the sound had come from. But she found nothing. Thwack. This time she saw it. A small branch had appeared on the very same tree she had been lazing about earlier, not much higher than it an identical twig had appeared. Rhaedra smelled the tree and newly sprouted twigs, she could tell the twigs were not made of the same hardy pine of the tree that had offered her respite. Placing her hand beneath the arrows, she squeezed the bark, hoping more of the strange branches would extrude as the two previous had. Thwung. Right between her middle and fore-talon another twig had appeared. Only this time, Rheadra saw that it had not sprouted from the tree. It had in fact arrived at the tree, coming from the opposite direction. She turned around, roaring, once again scanning the horizon only to find nothing.

It was then that a bush about twenty strides from her began to move. She instinctively drew breath, but caught herself as the bush transformed. The mess of brittle and dead crab grass that had topped the bush quickly fell to the side and revealed a bright red tousle of hair.

A human? This was the first time Rhaedra had seen one of the beasts with her own eyes. She felt as if this one were small, but kept her breath drawn and then plucked the three twigs from the tree behind her without looking. With one great bound and flap of her wings, Rhaedra closed the distance between herself and the small human.

The girl, no older than nine, flinched and lost her footing as the shockwave of Rheadra’s landing sent her stumbling. Now on her knees, the small human looked up at what she assumed to be the last thing she would ever see. Tears streaming down her face, she screamed.

For a moment, Rheadra thought the human was about to spew fire towards her. But she quickly remembered the beasts had no such ability. The shriek the human let out was paltry compared to a cry of Rheadra’s own but it still spoke to her. She had only heard a sound like it once before, and the pain was unmistakable. Finally letting her enlarged and especially muscular diaphragm relax, Rheadra sounded a small, polite grunt.

She took each of the three twigs (for Rheadra did not know these were called arrows) and placed them tip first down into the ground in front of the human. Celeste, the girl, grabbed at her arrows but not before Rhaedra blocked the girl with her hand. Celeste tried to get past her hand in what became an awkward but desperate game of keep away. Exhausted, Celeste lost her patience and let out another, smaller scream.

Finally Rheadra relented. It was obvious the small human wanted her sticks back, and who was she to keep such a small creature from its sticks? The human was obviously lost, or had wandered quite some way and as it sat on the ground to stuff its sticks back into a sack Rheadra was reminded of Candor.

She quickly curved her lips upward and nodded her snout and head up and down multiple times. Rheadra felt like an absolute ass in the moment, but she knew the body language would at least communicate familiarity to the small creature or what she hoped: non-hostility.

It took a moment for the girl to notice as she went about examining and repacking her arrows. Celeste did a double take and rose to her feet. “Can you hear me? Do you understand me? Where are we?”

The squeaky sounds the small creature began to make grated on Rhaedra’s nerves, and she almost regretted the attempt at communication. “Humans, they’re great for songs and such but not actually saying much of anything.” A line she remembered from one of her uncle’s many war friends, after sneaking by the yule on the second night of their victory feast.

Rhaedra, now relaxed, came down to her haunches and began to mime as best she could.

“I must survey this valley.” Rhaedra used far more body language than her kind typically does and pointed to herself with both hands and then gestured to the horizon all around her and Celeste.

The deep grumble the dragon emitted, shook Celeste’s very bones. At first she flinched away, but sneaking a glance with one eye, Celeste realized that the dragon was very much trying to tell her something. Celeste began to smile and nod her head exaggeratedly. She could not understand the beast, but that it wanted to communicate at all was a wonderful sign.

After Rhaedra’s explanation, the small creature had launched into a tirade of sing-songy sounds that neither stopped nor seemed to abate. Watching the sun sink lower behind the ridges, and desperately wanting to be free of the squeaking, Rhaedra mimed her best “stay” to the human and took to the sky. A minute away was a peak on which she rested. Once settled, she once again filled her rudimentary spy-glass to scan the horizon. Much of the valley was still the same, but behind a small mountain to the south, close and near the shore she finally found what she was looking for: a mast.

Rhaedra did not know what to call it, she had only seen drawings made by soldiers who had returned from the false war. But she knew the bald and strange tree with ropes and cloth attached did not mean anything good for her or her people. It did however, help explain the presence of the small human she had left down in the valley, let alone the two cows she had encountered earlier. Rheadra noted her position, and took out her cartographer to best approximate where she and the ship were.

Once again she stretched her neck, trying to see as much as she could with the spyglass, when out of the corner of her eye, she saw a silver blur dash in from the shore. Then another, and another. The silver mist dashed directly for where she had left Celeste not five minutes earlier. Rhaedra was not fond of ice fiends, she had lost a peer to them in her early years. But with that experience she knew what quick work the fiends would make of her new found charge down in the valley. She sighed, sprawled out her wings and headed straight to Celeste.

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The Masquorian Horned Owl finally bobbed its head. Trained for stealth, the owl had immediately ducked into the tree line when it had sensed the dragon come over the Northern mountain ridge. Up until that moment it had remained completely still except for the tracking of Rheadra, which it had silently and desperately kept in its vision.

Only now, with both the human and the dragon removed and heading north, could it continue its mission south with the hopes of delivering its all important message.