Ivoire

art by hellobird


art by Thiedo

Ivoire had never felt cold before.

Back home where her Clan was she had been a little sensation, their star. With her scales as white as snow and her eyes shining bright red like death itself, she could scare away everyone just by giving them a nasty look. A growl, a smirk and their bodies would already tense, their heads turn away, their tails curl nervously.
It was fun. She enjoyed it. Enjoyed the power she had.
Some thought she was sick. Her appearance didn't match those of the others at all, she appeared like she was from one of the Clans of the south, with their endless and merciless winters, with the snow and the frozen lakes and the icy wind.
Others worshipped her and her scales, celebrated how she was representing their Clan with basically embodying a giant blank scull.
She was so fond of that idea, that she decided to wear them as accessories. Skulls and bones and knuckles combined with feathers hanging from her wings and claws and her tail, clattering and rattling with every step. Others could hear her coming from miles away.
The Bone Princess.
What a cute name, she had thought, smirking, reveling in the boost of attention her change of appearance had caused.
No one was a match for her.
Or so she thought.

Ivoires cockiness was way over the top.
It was at a feast, at a hunt, asking of the Clans members to bring the fattest and juiciest piece of meat they could get their fangs on.
The white dragon believed she was better than everyone else. She snarled and snickered and tattled and pointed claws around.
One of the younger dragons had enough and challenged her. He dared her to kill one of the giant deers, located in the icy lands of the south to prove them she was as tough as she always claimed to be.
Proud as as she was she accepted. Promised to be back before nightfall or they could strip her of her title and bones otherwise and call her a commoner.
Ivoire never came back.

The female dragon with the pristine white scales and the blood red eyes was cold.
And lost.
The snowflakes danced around her, as they were mocking her for her cockiness themselves, blocking her vision and putting an unbearable weight on her shoulders – slowly but steadily.
Her bones didn't clatter anymore as she was dragging her own body through the deep snow, her wings too weak to carry her.
Little frozen clouds steamed out of her nostrils with every step and breath she took, curled and merged with the colour of the sky above her.
Ivoire would have never imagined these lands being like that. How could anyone even see where they were going? She missed the sun and her warmth, she missed the gravel and the hard, secure ground underneath her paws, and she missed hearing her bones rattle, reminding her that she was moving on.
Still here.
Right now she didn't even know if she was moving at all. The blizzard was too thick, too aggressive, the snowfall covered any footsteps made in seconds.
Ivoire was lost.
Ivoire was in panic.
And Ivoire was cold.
So cold.
The blizzard was brutal and unforgiving, drove her to her knees and buried her.
She was drowning in snow.
And she was drowning in desperation.
But she had to go back. The Clan and her status was everything she had, everything she was was hanging by a thread, she just couldn't give up.
Ivoire stretched her wings, her limps, caught the flames seething inside her body between her teeth, her jaws, until she unleashed them and let the fire melt the ice and snow she was stuck in. She moved her legs and body, licked the last sparks away with her long tongue, took a shaky breath and tried to leap out of her prison.
The first attempt failed.
As well as the next.
For the first time she felt powerless, like the cold was draining her, like there was something or someone watching her, observing her, punishing her for what she had done in the past.
Right then was when she heard it, saw it.
She had mistaken it for the howling and crying of the wind, but now she realized it was a voice. A rhyme, a song, carried to her ears by the storm.
It was familiar and bizarre at the same time, evoked memories. Suddenly she saw dragons, that resembled the ones from her Clan, dancing as wild as the flames of the fire in their mid in front of her eyes. To the music. To the rhythm.
“Hey, you!”
The ghosts vanished between the trees of the deep forest surrounding her.
Like they fled.
The music stopped.
Ivoire threw her head around, but everything she saw was white and bright and blinded her, the storm blowing the snow in her eyes, so she had to blink rapidly.
Maybe she was slowly going crazy.
Then she saw it. Two figures, two dragons, had approached her, pushed themselves through the blizzard like ghosts. She hadn't even noticed them before, was too mesmerized by her mind playing tricks on her and they blended in with their surroundings, this spectacle of nature, so perfectly.
The first thing she noticed about them were their eyes, she was drawn to them immediately; Bright red like her own and their scales as white as snow.
A spiral and a snapper, in perfect sync with the winter, like they belonged here.
Ivoire was vary, but she didn't back off. She was too weak, to desperate, even if she didn't want to admit it.
So she just observed them.
Silently.

“Aren't you cold?”

Ayran and Raki; That's how they introduced them to her. They seemed to be friendly, but the fact that there eyes identified them as members of the plague flight, Ivoire couldn't tell if they were allies or traitors.
But she decided to trust them for now.
Both didn't want to know anything about her. They noticed she needed help, shaking in the bone-chilling cold and they put her in their mid and pulled her with them through the snow, eventually carried her.
They seemed to know where they had to go right away, without even thinking much about it.
And Ivoire was about to feel comfortable.
Somewhere along the way she eventually drifted away, the soothing rhythm of claws in the snow and again a distant rhythm, a dull song, made her fall asleep.
As well as the clattering of bones.

The three dragons with the pristine white scales stood on the edge of a cliff, the blizzard gone, turned into a pleasant snowfall, but the air still chilly, looking down on an endless forest. The usual green caps of the trees were painted white.
In the distant Ivoire could see smoke. Another Clan. Ayran and Raki's Clan.
They had promised to take her there if she wanted to, so she could warm up.
She didn't refuse, she wanted to see. She wanted to see the other members, there was this distant feeling like she belonged, this distant feeling she was struggling with.
She remembered all the times the others accused her of not being a real member of the plague flight and she remembered all the times she had laughed about it, but now she couldn't get it out of her head anymore. Not after seeing Ayran and Raki.
What if it was true?
And what did that mean for her?
The moment her companions leaped off the ledge, spread their wings to fly across the winterwind, Ivoire hesitated.
A noise behind her forced her to spin around.
And a deer stared her down.
The exact deer she had been ordered to find. A big, majestic beast, the ice and snow clinging on it's deep black fur like it belonged, marked it as a true creature of the winter.
Time stopped.
The Dragon lady turned away, slowly, her body tensed for a second, before she leaped of the edge herself, let the wind take a grasp at her wings and carry her, following her new companions.
The bones and skulls clattered.
The deer vanished in the light snowfall.

Bio by Kyrisena