Molfri

It had been snowing for days. Weeks, months, Molfri wasn't even sure. The days had passed in a strange haze, day flowing into night in the flurries that surrounded them. The cold hadn't bothered her, but her mind felt as though it was as wrapped in a blizzard as her body.

Sometimes, in the midst of it, she had moments of awareness. Eggs, hatchlings. Those, she felt a warmth towards, even if Susurrus had seemed utterly disinterested. Though it seemed far away, the smell of them brought back memories of something that felt to be a lifetime away. A feeling of belonging, of love.

But it was such a small memory. Too small.

So she trudged on, aware of little except scenting the magic trail they had picked up so long ago. The only sign that they were approaching what they sought was the way her companion picked up, the glint in his pale eyes, eagerness washing from his sickly frame in waves. Deep in the pit of her gut, something quaked, uneasy. Afraid.

What was going to happen when they found what they needed? She had seen hunger in the gaze of the Coatl. She hadn't minded that, not in the slightest - it was something. It was more than snow and cold and solitude. Then, sometimes, there would be eggs and hatchlings. They didn't stay with her long, instead leaving with the few clans they came across, but for those brief times, she felt she could breathe.

But then, again, they would resume their search.

Sometimes, in the night, Molfri would stir from sleep, raising her head to find Susurrus sitting away from her, speaking quietly in the syllabant tones of his breed - what he spoke to, she didn't know. But his tone was frenzied, and she knew that whatever demons lived in him were growing.

Once, she had heard that Coatls with pale coats were considered sickly. Her companion seemed whole and hale, but in these moments, she could tell it was wrong.

In their travels, she sometimes heard hushed whispers about creatures called by a single word - Wendigo. She knew that was wrong. It was clearly what they sought to find. Not only that, they were getting closer. There was a fever in Susurrus's eyes, and he would whisper to her that she was perfect, that this was the destiny that the Icewarden had chosen her for. That her magics - with him, of course - would shape the future of Sorineth as it was known.

Perhaps Molfri should have felt fear, but instead, she only knew the blizzard that surrounded her, growing in intensity each day. Her mind seemed to separate from her, to meld into that blizzard. On the outskirts of it, she felt things. Other dragons, beastclans, all taking shelter from the storm. She could trace it, to the edges, where the snowfall resumed its normal levels.

When they stopped for her to nest, in those moments of warmth, she realized that she was at the dead center of it. She could feel a slight reduction of it, around herself and her babies. That was when she knew that she was the blizzard, that where it stopped and she began she could no longer feel. In herself, she found the kernel of magic, centering her focus on it to pull it in.

But it only flared, and when her eyes opened, she found the white-steel gaze of Susurrus meeting hers, the instability of his own power flooding her. The blizzard raged, closing in so suddenly it almost took the air from her, her hatchlings mewling pathetically and pressing close to her for the meager warmth she could provide. The Coatl turned from her then, and the cold began to creep away, though the small bodies continued to shiver.

"We are too close for you to stop now." he murmured, barely audible over the raging of the storm. Deep in her bones, she felt the thrum of his magic, pushing her own to the border of instability. She pushed her nose into the midst of her crying hatchlings, enfolding them in the thick folds of her cloak so they could settle into her fur.

When she closed her eyes and breathed in their smell, letting that feeling of familial warmth tingle through her, she suddenly understood.

If they continued on, they would find what they were looking for. Her own magic, powerful and untrained, was a conduit. Through it, he had sent feelers, probing and seeking. The power they were looking for, this Wendigo, was going to be pulled in to the two of them.

Either it would consume them, or he would consume it - and Molfri along with it. His hunger for power was all that was left of him. She breathed again, and this time, she remembered.

Her mother. Dedicated, patient, kind, soft - an echo of her grandmother, a Coatl of peace and strength. Her father. Power, fully embodied, a true son of the Icewarden, opposite of her perversion she nested alongside. Her siblings: loved, conflicted, perfect.

This could not be. She needed her home. She needed her family. Thoughts flooded her, a surge of emotions so unfamiliar that it nearly sent her reeling. She stumbled to her feet, clinging to that sense of understanding. This search, this quest, it would destroy a world she had forgotten she'd had before she could reclaim it. This could not be.

"Susurrus," she whispered, voice rough with disuse and entirely too quiet. Again, this time louder, forceful: "Susurrus." Clearly surprised, the Coatl turned to her. His gaze met hers, and in an instant, she grasped that tendril of magic that he had extended to her, gripped it tight. Then, without fully knowing what she was doing or the consequences of it, a wracked sob escaping her, she pulled.

The Coatl screamed, wordless rage and surprise slipping from the external world in a brutal flash of cold. Pain ripped through Molfri, but still, she held tight, grasped that power, brought it into herself. His thoughts suddenly became hers, that power surging through her, utterly uncontrolled. Trees shattered under the sudden snap of cold, the world seeming to shudder and quake. Her eyes locked on his, and the harder she pulled, the more she watched his form somehow waver, shimmer around him as though he was insubstantial, unreal. Another flash, and her vision whited out. In an instant, her hatchlings froze, their lives snatched in a blast of magic so strong that it could only have been born from their combined efforts. Where she ended, the stupid, obeisant, powerful pawn; a tool, his pet, his his his --

Molfri.

She was Molfri. Daughter of Kylar and Riannon, sister of Duncan and Flint. Mother of Melliny. Of Oberyn.

Of the infants still frozen to her side, their lives snatched from her before she could even name them, show them the beauty of the world. She was Molfri, loved, lost, and finally -- finally -- redeemed by her own power. In a flash of clarity, she understood that if she died here, at least she died trying to save something rather than become a part of the plan of a megalomaniacal monster.

She roared, ripping her magic into her body with an effort that shattered the ice that had formed around her and Susurrus. His scream was a part of it, high, keening: pained. She pulled, blind to the devastation that surrounded her, pulled until her mind was pushed to a deep part of her, pulled until her body seemed to come apart at the seams, too full of power to exist, reknitting itself around her power and his. She felt his rage, felt his fear. She consumed it, all of it, until there was nothing more.

The blizzard ended.

Molfri's eyes fluttered open. Snow, gentle and quiet, drifted around her. She raised her head, took a breath to let her nose guide her, found it told her so little. Deep in the back of her mind, she felt the need to let her tongue give her that information.

Around her, there was a blast zone that seemed to stretch for almost a kilometer in every direction. Trees were toppled, their bare roots exposed to the powder that fell quiet around her. Uneasily, she found her feet, shook herself. Snow fell from her wings. From her feathers. Somehow, she couldn't find the energy even to feel surprise. Deep in her, she felt a dark kernel, but it was so easy to push aside. She felt numb.

First, she nosed at the bodies of the three infants she had barely known. Azizi, she thought, using a small forepaw to pull the snow over one. Erasmus. Under the snow, the second small body disappeared. Maite. For a moment, she faltered. Then the girl, too, was buried. Taking a moment to breathe, Molfri stood, her head lowered. Then she reached inside of herself, finding the kernel of power. It was like a storm inside of her, raging. But when she called it forward, she did so with gentle precision, raising a pillar of ice to remember the children she had never had the chance to know.

Then she turned to the fourth body in the clearing. Drained of color, of essence, Susurrus's form was still. His eyes were still opened wide, but there was no color there. A dragon's magic was their soul, she considered, and his magic was her own. Perhaps that was his ambition towards her.

She didn't know what to feel. Once, she remembered, she had followed him with admiration. He taught her, patiently, to hone in her magic. He cared for her. Did he love her? She couldn't say. Perhaps she could have looked into that dark pit in herself, found out. She didn't.

It didn't matter.

Dispassionately, she lowered her head to one of the bleached-white wings and tore free some of the feathers, tucking them into her own white-blotched feathers.

Then, Molfri turned from the body. The Wendigo - whatever creature that might have been - was still there. Now, with the knowledge of the diseased Coatl a part of herself, she knew that creature needed to be saved. She needed her father to do it.

Her head held high, Molfri turned to the East, to where she knew she had come. Her tongue tasted the air, her wings spread to feel the breeze. With a flap that disturbed the snow and left an imprint of four feathery wings, Molfri took to the skies.

In the clearing, the snow continued to fall. Only the ice spire she had built would remain, in the end.


Courtesy of ThirtyOne