Shrike dreamt about them, often.
It wasn’t vivid flashbacks or scenes that played out in her head; it was something softer, sadder. She would come half-awake thinking that Splinter and Snare were rousing her for a hunt, or her paws would twitch in her sleep as she imagined herself running with skill and grace across the frozen world, moving as she was meant to. Sometimes – these were the worst – she would dream that she heard her father’s voice calling out, distressed, not knowing where she was.
She would awake with a jolt, horribly disoriented – why did her wings feel so strange? Why were her limbs so light and brittle? – until, after a moment, she remembered what had happened to her. She could only hope that Clementine didn’t notice her brief late-night panics; if she did, the young tundra never said anything.
During the day, she always felt all right – maybe she didn’t particularly like spending her days caring for a young tundra and a strange bird, but at least she was used to it by now. At night, though, all she could feel was the steady anxiety that with each moment she idled, her family was getting further and further out of her reach. She might feel reasonably secure in each little den they found or carved out for themselves, but it was never
home, and what she had now would never be her
family. Home is where the pack is, as the saying went. Right now, Shrike had no place to belong.
Clementine wasn’t blind; she could tell that something was troubling the older dragon. They slept close together at night in whatever little den they came across, often back to back for warmth, so the young tundra couldn’t really miss the tossing and turning of Shrike’s uneasy sleep. It was after a particularly restless night that Clementine approached her hesitantly; the mirror looked awful and was moving stiffly, with dark circles under her eyes to match the bruises on the rest of her body. “Shrike,” Clementine began softly, as her protector glanced over at her. “Let me come with you today. I’m old enough – I can handle myself. You shouldn’t have to get all the food for both of us. Let me help.”
I’m worried about you, she wanted to add. You’re working yourself to death. But Shrike was a proud creature and might deny help if Clementine suggested that she needed it.
She saw the older dragon balk a little. “Come…with me? You’re barely an adolescent, Clem. You’d get yourself killed.”
“I think I’m big enough,” Clementine replied, amused. She was easily twice Shrike’s length, and had finally exceeded her in wingspan. “And besides, I’ve been practicing a little.” The last line came out with a little bit of guilt, as she hadn’t been sure if Shrike would approve. Without waiting for a response, she closed her eyes and focused for a minute before letting out a magic-laden breath, which neatly shattered the chunk of ice she’d been aiming at.
Shrike raised an eyebrow, and Clementine hoped it was because she was impressed. “All right,” the older dragon said, after a long pause. “You do have to learn sometime. But if we come across something you’re not ready to handle, and I tell you to run, you run. Ok? No matter what the circumstances are.”
“Sure,” she agreed quickly, and she saw Shrike’s fans flicker with something that might have been relief. It was hard to tell sometimes.
A few minutes later, they were setting off across the ice together, and Clementine couldn’t help humming to herself a little. It felt so good to be out here with her friend, finally helping. “What’s the plan?”
“The plan? We’re going to scavenge for a little before we start hunting. I know it doesn’t look like much, but you can find a lot of things in the ice. You’d be amazed at the stuff that gets dropped in the water; since the floes are moving around all the time, a lot of it ends up out here. And there shouldn’t be anything dangerous so close to the lair, but you make sure you stay where I can get to you quickly, all right?”
“Sure!” Clementine agreed again, barely able to contain her excitement as she scampered off. There was a
whoosh of air as her storm seeker shot past her, caught up in the mood. She smiled up at the bird, grateful for its presence; it was never very far away, and had kept her company during the long hours Shrike was out hunting.
Scavenging, scavenging…she slowed down to a walk, squinting around at the bright ice to see if anything stuck out. There were a couple dark spots on the edge of a great ripple of ice ahead of her, so she half-ran, half-glided towards them. The frigid air rushing under her wings was a thrill; Shrike had told her that when she was old enough, she’d be able to soar as high as her bird did.
The dark patches turned out to be a couple scraps of leather wedged in the ice; they’d probably been stuck there a long time, but they still looked sturdy enough, so she worked them free. As she turned to make her way back towards her friend, she pulled up short. Her seeker had returned, and it wasn’t alone. “Uhh…Shrike?”
The mirror appeared at a run, gliding over the ice bank with a ferocious snarl and extended claws. “Wait!” Clementine shouted before the little dragon flung herself at the perceived attacker. “I don’t think…I don’t think they’re trying to hurt us.” Shrike reigned herself in with a visible effort, crossing the rest of the distance warily to place herself in between Clementine and the strange gathering of birds. There were four storm seekers where there had been one before, arranged in a little flock and peering curiously up at the dragons. Clementine’s seeker – she could tell it apart easily – flew up to land on her shoulder. Shrike flinched at the movement but didn’t try to knock the bird out of the air or anything, which Clementine took to be a good sign.
“It doesn’t look like it,” the small dragon eventually agreed, moving toward the other three seekers until she stood in between them – a bold move, since she was not much larger. The birds made no move, except one who turned to peck at the ice, disinterested in the dragon. “So odd,” Shrike murmured, mostly to herself. “You some kind of storm or something, Clem? They seem to like you.”
Since the birds seemed harmless enough, the two of them set off again with a small flock wheeling far above their heads. Shrike’s posture had changed to something more watchful, and Clementine guessed that they were hunting now. Her very first; she wasn’t sure whether to feel scared or excited. A bit of both, she thought.
“
There,” she heard Shrike breathe as she nodded at a couple dark shapes before them. “Moths, probably blown in off the mainland. Think you can handle them?”
Clementine could only nod mutely, and then follow the mirror’s charge a moment later. The moths buzzed angrily into flight as they noticed them, waving their fuzzy antennae. She could do this – they didn’t look so tough. Confident that Shrike would protect her, she quickly stilled, reaching for that core of her mind where she could access her magic. She heard rather than saw the smaller dragon standing in front of her, lashing out at the moths with punishing blows. When Clementine released her magic, she finished one of them off, and after a brief struggle Shrike took out the second.
Shrike had told her that mirrors were a proud, warlike race, hunters that were feared and respected across the land. Given her size, Clementine had wondered at that – but seeing the little dragon here now, with bloody claws and a fierce light in her eyes, it made sense. This was what she lived for, chasing her hapless quarry across the ice. “Well done!” Shrike laughed, sounding a little out of breath. “That went much better than I was expecting. You’re a natural with the whole magic thing.”
Clementine beamed back at her. The two of them collected what they could from the slain moths, and the tundra nodded at the insects in respect before they moved off, seeking more game. They came across several more adversaries, and defeated them all with hardly more than scratches. Clementine knew that Shrike was seeking out weaker opponents for her, but still, it was a good feeling. The two of them made a good team – working together, they were beginning to get a feel for who needed to cover who, and what attacks worked well in tandem.
After fighting a couple of angry sparrowmice, who unfortunately ran off without leaving anything useful behind, Shrike felt a familiar weight on her shoulder. But this was no peaceful visit; her storm seeker’s talons were digging into her fur with urgency. Glancing up, she noticed that the newcomers were flying in a strange, erratic pattern. “Shrike? What are they doing?”
The smaller dragon glanced up, and her face quickly became as cloudy as the sky. “Ah, crap. Storm must be coming in – I’m sorry, I should have noticed sooner.” Indeed, the wind had picked up and looked to be bringing some low-hanging clouds with it.
“It’s ok. Should we go back to the den?”
Shrike shook her head. “We’re too far out. Let’s see if we can find somewhere else.”
The wind began to sound as they made their way across the now-unfamiliar ice, moaning ominously as if to warn them. Soon they were battling against it, heads bowed against the brunt. It was cold enough to make tears leak out of Clementine’s eyes. “Over here!” she heard Shrike shout over the howl, angling toward what looked like a craggy valley in the thick icepack. She saw the smaller dragon poke her head out over the lip of the valley before stilling in surprise. Clementine quickly caught up.
“What…
is that?”
“I don’t know,” Shrike replied softly. Her frills were very still. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Wedged into solid ice on the side of the valley was…a thing. A very large thing, made of wooden planks that were black with age. It was roughly oval-shaped, pointed at both ends, with some snapped-off pillars that jutted from its middle into the sky. Streaks of rust stained here and there. It was an eerie structure, ancient and ominous, and Shrike was already climbing into the valley to investigate.
“Don’t…” Clementine started to say, but thought better of it and began to follow her. Once the older dragon made up her mind about something, it was difficult to stop her. They cautiously approached the thing’s belly, where a jagged hole had been torn. “This is…this is
old,” Shrike murmured. “Maybe it’s been here for centuries, just stuck in the ice, going around and around. Very weird, yeah?” The mirror hesitated a moment. “We could maybe shelter here until the storm passes. I’m going to go in and scout around. Do
not follow me until I say it’s okay.”
Shrike crept through the yawning opening in the wood, and Clementine at least gave her thirty seconds before following. It was very dark inside; the old boards creaked under her feet but stayed firm, held together by some kind of clear caulking. Something smelled odd; there was mostly just the scent of ice and musty wood, but there was a faint hint of something
else that made the fur on the back of her neck stand up.
Shrike had turned a corner and was somewhere up ahead; Clementine could hear her rummaging around for a few minutes and then, suddenly, nothing but silence. “Shrike? Are you all right?”
There was a pause, and then suddenly her protector appeared, barely pausing to grab Clementine and pull them both back out of the ship. Clementine opened her mouth to argue, but the words died on her lips as she noticed how pale Shrike had turned. Her frills fluttered in more distress than Clementine had ever seen, and…was she
trembling? “Shrike, what is it?”
Shrike made a visible effort to speak. “We can’t stay there. It’s not a good place, Clem. Let’s just get out of here.” The mirror began climbing out of the valley without another word, Clementine close on her heels. She had never seen Shrike even remotely afraid before, and she glanced back at the looming wooden beast in discomfort.
What could she have possibly seen in there?
Knowing that she wouldn't receive an answer, she didn't ask, following in silence. They battled their way out of the valley, against the wind, walking on and on until the black scar on the ice was swallowed up by whiteness behind them, as if it were never there.
