Nureih

_____________ NUREIH s c h o l a r Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla id tortor quam. Aenean ut mi nulla. Curabitur venenatis quam non nisi semper iaculis. Sed ut ex congue, pretium ex nec, dictum nunc. Quisque pulvinar metus ligula, eget blandit ex luctus eget. Duis ultricies pellentesque velit, faucibus placerat tortor molestie et. Vivamus ut malesuada elit, sed tincidunt massa. Curabitur est tortor, pellentesque a augue a, lobortis hendrerit nibh. Fusce quis suscipit odio. Cras mattis iaculis malesuada. Donec gravida lacus at erat condimentum rutrum. Sed pulvinar, nisl eget consequat suscipit, turpis urna dictum felis, pulvinar elementum magna erat id mi. Duis eu vehicula neque. Aliquam velit justo, rhoncus nec odio vel, euismod bibendum metus. Morbi hendrerit massa venenatis, convallis elit eget, tempus neque. Integer tristique diam vitae lectus interdum posuere.

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"Mum"

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"What is it you would like to know?"

He is not an enormous dragon and the way he slouches; the way he moves without hardly a sound makes him appear even more slight. He is unobtrusive, that's the word. Unobtrusive, but unapologetic at the same time. There is a stubborn square to his shoulders, as if to try out the idea that is alright he take up space in the world. And the more he has tried it, the more he seems to approve. So his shoulders are squared, his chin is held up. Just a touch.

Qail paces about him to the chilly crunch of her claws in the ice. He does not turn to circle with her, but he does arc his neck to watch her go. They are on the floes and it is empty. The air is still. "I want to know," she says again. "Where you have come from. Obviously not from the ice. Do you even know why the wind does not blow?" She asks him, rounding to his face again.

"A low pressure system preceding a predictable winter storm is pushing warm air in from over the bay. It will snow soon."

The queen's eyes narrow at him. It is, of course, the correct answer. And delivered in a matter-of-fact tone that brooks no argument. She leans in to have a sniff at his nape. He turns to look at her again, warding her off from another too-close sniff with a gaze sharp as knives.

"You're a bit weird, aren't you?"

"Perhaps." He turns to look at her nose-to-nose and then bends his head as he scrawls a shape in the snow. Qail recognizes the sigil before it is complete. An old symbol she carved in her youth on the inside of every cave and lair and den and canyon wall from the snow to the pitted wastes of the plaguelands. "The answer to your next question" he says before the final stroke. "Is, yes. I've come to find shelter in your lair."

"Why?" The word is out before the matriarch can stop it and with it a cruel touch of laughter. This is no warrior seeking to hide. No wildling at home in the world. The smell of cities and of books and masonry and safety in numbers hangs on his every scale. He is a city dragon. A tamed dragon. "What good are you to the floes?"

"I am a naturalist," he lies. "A scientist of the world. I understand the processes and habits of seasons and the plants and the animals and the beastclans - but only on paper. I want understand them the way you do. From experience."

Qail leans back on her old haunches to sit in the snow. Her tail curls around her hindlegs. She looks at the male again, more critically. He waits. Qail likes to think of herself as a good judge of character. Most dragons wear more on their scales than they think. This male though... For everything she believes to see in him, there is something else. He is a puzzle.

Finally she says: "Alright, then. Let me show you."