Nieve

She had been a good, strong dragon once. She really had. She'd been steady, and kind to others around her, dragons and other creatures alike, and so in love with her mate it hurt to remember. She had been.

Now... What was she now? Frightened, like a new hatchling, shying away from her own shadow. Trembling overcame her sometimes, and at night she woke up screaming from nightmares. The sleeping sickness had ruined her.

For weeks, she had found it impossible to eat, even when hunger ate at her belly and food was right in front of her. The rest of the clan had been the same way, she knew. It had frightened her. She's been certain she would die. Then, one day, she had gone to sleep, not expecting to wake up ever again. Yet, she had. And the whole of Sornieth seemed to have changed. Months and months had passed her by, and now everything was different.

She had woken up fearful and emaciated, but still had checked up on her hatchlings first, scattered to the winds as they were. A few were fine, living happy lives in their new clans with hatchlings and mates of their own. Some had gone to serve the Gods in the war against the Shade, as honourable as she had always known they had it in themselves to be. But a few, she had found, had succumbed to the sleeping sickness as well, and so had their whole clans, and no matter how she shook them, how she screamed and cried for them, they simply would not wake.

That, as much as succumbing herself once more, was what gave her night terrors. She had looked for explanations, trying to figure out what had happened so she could wake her sleeping hatchlings and make sure none of this happened to any of them ever again, so she could finally be rid of this crippling fear.

The explanation she had found had frightened her. DannieU's clan was a mobile one, with dragons always coming and going. And Nix, her first mate, her first love, had been gone to visit an acquaintance in a Plague clan, returning just hours before everyone appetite had vanished. She didn't think he had done anything on purpose, of course. But it still chilled her down to her bones, the thought that he might have caused this. And so she shied away when he tried to touch her. Couldn't find it in herself to speak to him, for all that words had always come to her easily Before. She shouldn't blame him. It wasn't fair. She just couldn't help it.

And he was changing too, snapping at her, feathers snapping around his head, all sharpsharpsharp, and she knew it was her fault, but she couldn't handle it. She just wanted to find out what had happened and fix it. And if that wasn't possible, she wanted to start over, wanting something new, something different, somewhere she wasn't surrounded by sweet and terrible memories all day, where the fear and anger didn't bite at her every moment of every day.

She spent much time with Baldwin now, learning his craft, striving to find a cure. She may never succeed, but at least it gave her some purpose. And when a clan elder showed up one day, as she was brewing, to tell her she had been invited to live in another clan, she could have wept with joy.

Perhaps, for the first time since she woke up, things would get better.