I looked down at my sister Koralin. She was rather large for sixteen, but that showed she was healthy. Mother had been rightfully worried when she laid Koralin’s clutch. Koralin was the only one who survived incubation. It was the first clutch my mother had to lay alone. She was preparing her third now, so she trusted me to teach Koralin to hunt ‘properly’.

  “Keep your eyes closed and feel the prey,” I instructed my sister before we left the lair. “The purple of our eyes stands out too much in the snow, while our scales blend in nicely.”

  That was hours ago and here we sat. Hunkered in the snow. The wind and sky both did their part in helping to keep us covered. We waited… and waited… and waited. I loathed ‘traditional’ hunting for this reason.

  The most ‘interesting’ occurrence in the first hour was me having to pull Koralin back with my wing when she was raring to go after small game that came near. It wasn’t even enough for her alone, but we mustn’t forget the wyrmlings and mother who we were also hunting for. It was likely hours until something worth eating came by, a yeti. To my shame I was fidgeting more than Koralin. I sensed it was strong. The easiest way to take down prey was to use my frost breath on them. Like most things that lived here, it wasn’t likely to kill it. Instead I tapped Koralin with my wing, letting her know to stay down. It was too big for her so a demonstration was needed. I primed my legs ready to strike from the snow bed.

  My mouth watered with every step in the snow the yeti took. Until finally my legs launched me up with my wings pushing me in the air to close this distance. It was bigger than I was? And it wasn’t close. I adjusted midair, it wouldn’t die from this strike. I bit hard into the Yeti’s neck. My jaw unable to fit around it, my teeth struggling to pierce its hide and muscle. My claws gripped into its thighs and back to hold it in place.

  The beast’s surprise didn’t last long. It grabbed my torso and tried to throw me off. My claws held firm in its flesh. It was my prey and I wouldn’t let go that easily. The yeti’s tactics began to change. The creature’s hands began to wrap around my neck and head as I angled for another bite. The beast was too late as I got another bite off before it held my head away. The yeti started moving, and me with it. It ran towards a rock that broke through the snow, wanting to slam me against it no doubt. I flapped my wings while tearing into its legs with my back claws to mess with its balance. When it wavered I tripped it backwards with my tail. I will feast well. It let go of my neck with one hand and punched at me. I took the hit. How weak. Its other hand dropped from my snout. It was dazed and desperate, giving me an opportunity as I gored open its throat. Its movement ceased.

  Koralin pranced out from the snowbed she’d been watching from. “Oh wow! That’s a big one!” She was looking for a meal. I tore off part of the arm. Enough to let her taste meat, but not enough for her to be full. She was still learning to hunt and had to catch her own prey afterall. I lorded over the kill so as not to give her more. Now wasn’t simply a time to eat, it was time for a lesson.

  “When hunting, lying in wait tends to be the best,” I recited as matter of fact. It was the same lesson I had received nearly sixty-five years ago when I was her age. I hated it though and never heeded it. I knew I was the odd one, so I’d pass along the wisdom my father gave me. “As you grow your body will become larger and slower. Powerful enough to end most fights quickly. Most beasts won’t pick a fight with a dragon. Which is why hiding and a sudden strike works best for us. Our purple eyes give us away and you can’t see covered in snow. So you’ll need to work on sensing the mana in your prey.”

  Koralin nodded along though still focused on gnawing on the arm piece I gave her.

  “I’ll be having my meal now. You’ll need to hunt for yours. Wait for something of a good size. It’s better than the tease for the stomach small game often is,” I nod at the arm, it was a lesson in disguise. “I’ll be watching.”

  “I got it!” She smiled before prancing to another snowbed a ways off. The blood might attract attention too strongly for her so it was a wise choice.

  Despite parts of the snow being as deep as she was tall, Koralin glided through it much faster than I could. Hopefully she enjoys that while she can. When I was that young I was fast enough that I didn’t need to lie in wait. By the time I was in my twenties I couldn’t move with the haste required.

  As I grew and as I hunted I would watch wolves and hawks in the distance. Watch them chance down or swoop after their prey. That was how hunting ought to be, not this dull mess. Though our kind wasn’t built for speed. I’d seen birds in flight who’d move in sudden dives to take out their query. I tried to emulate them but my lumbering form falling from the sky was painful and far from the gracefulness I had witnessed. Somehow I’ve gotten better at it with practice.

  What a laughable element ice was, large, slow, damaging, but brittle. How could I not be surprised we were the weakest of the dragons? What I would give to be fire, storm, or air dragon. Even a water or sludge dragon would’ve been better than this.

  Koralin for her credit seemed to have no problems. Laying in wait she snagged a stag. It was larger than her and a tastier meal than a yeti by far. I didn’t need to tell Koralin to eat her fill, she dug in right away. Less for us to carry back.

  The antlers mean it was a male right? I never understood why most races had two different forms. I remember being told once that those species could only mate with their opposite form. I don’t get it.

  The dragonkin that live in our domain are like that too, right? The few I’ve seen looked so similar I don’t understand how they can tell each other apart. What’s weirder still were the humans and elves. I haven’t met or seen a lot of them. Mother warned me they can be dangerous in groups despite them being rather small. One could stand at my height, but they were both lanky creatures. It would probably take twenty of them to equal my full size. There were a few that visited mother once with some dragonkin asking her for something. One of the dragonkin told me once you could tell humans, elves, and their sexes apart from their ears and their chests. I didn’t care to remember which meant which… Hrr, bipeds are strange creatures, mammoids even more so.

  My thoughts were interrupted by Koralin who flew over and playfully crashed into the snow in front of me. “We’re hunting for the flight now right?”

  “Yes.” I said nudging the scraps of uneaten Yeti over to her. She greedily devoured another quarter of it before being satisfied. I wasn’t sure how she managed to eat so much. We ‘hunted’ until well after nightfall, darkness meant little to our eyes. It was a good haul truth be told. Far too much for us to fly back with. So Koralin helped me pile the meat on my back, my wings helping to keep it all steady.

  When we made it home, the three wyrmlings flew out to greet us though I knew they wanted food. I left the little savages the last of the yeti to fight over as I kept going with Koralin and the rest of our hunt. The lair grew colder the deeper we moved into it. The floor was lined with furs collected from years of hunts.

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  Mother was resting when Koralin and I entered their chambers. Usually she’d store and manage food for us when the summer months made hunting harder. Though her weary look told me she’d be eating most of what we brought. Her body was clearly more gaunt than it should’ve been. Developing eggs on her own always took a lot. I grimaced a bit to myself. I would need to hunt more.

  I nodded forward to Koralin who showed mother her hunts: a pair of large horned-rabbits and a second deer.

  “Koralin, well done on your first hunt,” mother praised. “I trust Avella taught you well despite her quirks.” She gave me a wry look.

  “Yes! It was fun!” Koralin replied quite merrily.

  “I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it. If you’ve fed then rest up. I wish to have words with Avella.” Still beaming, Koralin trotted out. Mother looked over to me. “Tell me, did you teach that child your ways or the old ways of hunting?”

  I laid out the ogre I had caught and shook off some of the blood. “I taught her what I was taught and only that.”

  “Good. Did she take to it?” She asked, though I knew what she truly meant.

  “Don’t worry. She won’t be another daughter who enjoyed plummeting through the sky to crush her prey.”

  Mother let out a low growl. Both approving and annoyed at me. “Do you still plan on leaving the lair?”

  “When I am of age I do.”

  “I think you have the strength to be a mother,” She said, I grumbled to myself, not this again. “You’re one of the few I’ve raised that I firmly believe can establish a lair of her own. You're not as meek as the others have become. You hunger for more than a meal and crave combat like a true drake should.”

  “Hrr, I thought this would be another lecture about me wasting my potential?”

  “You are. Nevertheless you’re somehow plenty successful.” It looked to be a pained admission. “I want to prepare you.” She nudged over a wooden box of the golden and silver circles the dragonkin kept giving us for some reason whenever they wanted our help. A ‘sign of fidelity’ mother called it.

  “What do they want now?”

  “The mammoids have been causing them trouble. You should handle them. They’re crafty, numerous, and honorless creatures. You must be careful, but I believe you can handle this.”

  She wanted to send me even after what happened to father and my clutchmates? I looked over her, no I had to. She was clearly weakened and mustn’t lead them into thinking our lair was primed for attack. “So be it.”

  “It will be good for you. No doubt you’ll have to face them under far worse conditions once you leave. Remember, most are weak creatures, but every so often a few may hold outsized strength. You must learn to identify them and how to fight them.”

  “I… understand?” I didn’t.

  I left soon after, I didn’t need rest. It was the afternoon, but it was still light out. Plenty of rest was had while waiting in the snow. It was twenty miles from our lair to the village. It sat in between a large sprawling lake and the region of perpetual icy tundra our presence created.

  A number of them began to look up to the sky, many putting their tools away standing to join in welcoming me. Most I saw were ice descended white-scaled dragonkin; many other elements were represented, but not all. Though many covered themselves in metal as though they were metallic dragons and bore similar weapons of metal. They were unusually small and weak to be named after my kind. Though according to mother that was key to our relationship. We protected them, they provided food and goods to us when hunting was scarce.

  I landed and one of the ones wearing fur approached. He seemed frail. A product of age I believe? It was another strange quirk of bipeds I never understood; that they grew weaker with age.

  The frail man knelt and bowed his head. “Welcome, young drake. I am Frundi. Elder of this village. What do we owe the honor?”

  “I’m to hunt the mammoids attacking you?” Shouldn’t they know why I was here? No, these must be the ‘pleasantries’ the bipeds liked to engage in. “I am Avella and my mother entrusted your request with me.”

  “Ah hrm, of course. I hadn’t expected you to come so soon.” He cleared his throat. “They’ve been attacking carts and farms along the lake. They wear a green overcoat and march under a banner of a similar green and light blue diamond.” He continued on, to try and give me more details of what he knew about them.

  Other bipeds were gathering during this. I glared slightly when I saw some mammoids come to watch.

  “Hmh,” Frundi cleared his throat. “If you could please not attack any that aren’t part of the army. We do have good relationships with several traders. Do you wish for some of our warriors to aid you? Or to rest for the evening here? They have been noted to be quite formidable.”

  I glared at him. Was that a slight? “No, this is a trial for myself. I will have none of your charity.”

  I rested in a cove of the lake. Mother told me before I left that bipeds don’t see nearly as well at night. After sunset I patrolled the dragonkin’s roadways and the areas around them. It was quite a ways off, but the faint smell of smoke guided me to an opening. There was a single fire sitting around it was a human and elf… both male by their ears I believe.

  I landed in the snow a ways away, creeping closer slowly. Hph, there were more than two. They wore metal on them much like the dragonkin, with similar weapons at their waists. They were curious creatures. One smashed at wood with a wooden pole that had a metal tip. The tool split the log cleanly. I looked over to a tree, how well could I do that on my own?

  They sat laughing at jokes in a language I didn’t know. Their outfits lacked green. After sometime I withdrew into the shadows. I growled and it startled them as they drew their weapons. What went wrong to cause us to fear them? Their tools?

  I flew up and away, heading further westwards. A stronger smell of smoke wafted in the air. There was a larger camp in a cleared area of the woods with multiple fires. They set up a ring of spiked logs around their camp. Perhaps not considering the air to be a threat?

  They bore the banners I was told of: green with a light blue diamond. It was hard to tell how many of them there were since they rested under large cloths. The few who stayed up wore the all too familiar metal shells. They also kept beasts with them which would make for a good meal and something to bring back to the lair.

  Curling around in the sky to find an angle, I took notice of a pair around one of the fires. It was a good clearing. I descended quickly at the camp, my front claws readied and aiming at the two. I was spotted and one yelled out. They weren’t quick enough. With a thud I crashed into their camp. The two I was aiming for had their metal shells and bodies crushed under me.

  I let loose a bellowing roar. I was to remove pests, if fear could do that for me then so be it. Yelling ensued. Some were stunned, others drowsy. The few who stayed up in the night formed a wall of bodies, wood, and metal. They moved against me, stabbing at me with metal tipped poles, while others behind me swung their metal sticks at me. It hurt, slightly, I could feel some blood leaving me, but a yeti hit much harder. I swung my tail at the ones behind sending them flying. I unhinged my jaw and let my frost breath out at the wall in front of me. Many froze and shattered where they stood. My wings beat the ground, my tail swung. Those stabbing and slashing me were either crushed or pushed away.

  Why was I warned so much about these small creatures? A few began to flee. To their credit they got some hits and wounds against me. Mild as they were. That was until they used their contraptions. Some began yelling, others running in response. I didn’t know what they were doing, but I was curious to see. Suddenly, with a snapping sound large metal tipped branches flew at blistering speeds. I dodged one and deflected another, but a third pierced into my side. I craned my neck and tore the wood out. So this was their trick. I was overexerting myself from too much movement. My body was slowing, but their machines were slower. With a leap and push of my wings I landed and crushed one. My jaw closed around the creature who used the contraption against me. Their wills faltered and soon they all started running. I didn’t bother pursuing the ones that fled, not that I could if I wanted to.

  The wound on my side began to ice over. In the aftermath, I ate two of their beasts they left behind and took one of their banners.

  My body was cold, it had been a long day and I moved too much to keep going. I hunkered in the snow a short ways away from their camp. The annoying truth of ice dragons was our pitiful stamina, only worsened by how I used it. Laying in my snow bed, I only felt confused. I don’t get why we act so fearful of these creatures. Surely this wasn’t the prey I was after.

  I stare off into the middle distance and quietly whisper "too long... and no..."

  This is a joke... mostly