Pearl

A soft snowflake drifted onto her nose. The little skydancer sneezed, pushing her back, and falling directly into the powdery white blanket that covered the ground. Her wings tingled strangely as the snow fell onto them, flake by flake, gently drifting from the pillowy clouds filling the sky.

"Pinky!"

Her head darted up to peer at whoever had called her. Oh, Crystal! One of the hatchling guardians - a lovely blue tundra who always smelled like lavender and pinecones. The skydancer heaved herself off the ground, letting the snow fall from her back, and delicately walked atop the snow in hopes it wouldn't collapse underneath her. While she leisurely strolled across the wintery ground, Crystal came running up on heavy footsteps, breath visible as she panted, enveloping the hatchling in her broad, fluffy wings.

"Mmph! Auntie Cryshtal, I shan't brth!" She muttered from beneath her muffling fur. Her little head popped up from Crystal's wings with a desperate gasp for air. "Silly, I was having fun in the snow! Why did you come over? You're not cold enough, I want to go hang out in the snowfall, it's everywhere! See, I made a snow noggle!" Pearl pointed to a toppling mound of snow-noodles packed one on top of the other.

"Dear, you'll freeze out here without anything on! The trip to the frigid floes wasn't supposed to end with you in an ice cube. That's why I'm here. Gosh, you're shivering in my arms, let me get you a scarf."

"I don't feel cold, auntie, I'm fine! I feel all warm and fuzzy and tingly and-"

"I know you don't feel cold, that's the problem." She grunted with a deep, heavy sigh, perching the now bundled up in a jacket skydancer on her back as they traveled. "You never feel cold, that's not a good thing, love. That tingly feeling isn't normal. It's called being numb, dear, that's what we're here to figure out." She took in a sharp, heavy breath, coughing as she inhaled the stagnant, near unbreathable air. "You weren't hatched prematurely, and both your parents and your grandparents never had anything wrong with them. Numb isn't good, you know, you'll never be able to feel pain, and we won't know when something's wrong, and you'll get hurt without knowing..."

"You're trying to make me feel things?" Pearl huffed stubbornly, crossing her delicate, tiny wings with ice biting at the tips. She had no idea of that either. "No! When we do that, I can't play in the snow by myself, I won't be able to go hunting with the zombies, all sorts of stuff!"

"You're not supposed to be able to do those things, not as such a young hatchling, Pearl." Crystal groaned as they kept walking, feet aching, wings drooping, nose covered in drifting snow. After a good deal of keeping up this trek, they finally arrived at the center of the Cloudscrape Crags. Snowsquall Tundra was far behind them, and the old hatchling nurse missed the slight warmth and greenery it possessed. She had been born so far from the Icefields that even as a tundra, the cold was a bother. Deep in the heart of the crags was another old tundra, except, one that had been living in the Icefields since his very birth. Once the ice-covered tusk he lived in was knocked on by the visitors, he slowly, with fragile bones, crawled from his desolate, towering home. He fixed his broken spectacles to sit evenly on his snout, peering out at the duo. He perked up at the sight of the fellow tundra, a face he obviously recognized.

"Ah! Crystal, you didn't tell me you were coming! Had you sent a message, I could have prepared a lovely goat dinner. Come in, come in!"

"It's always a pleasure, Baikal. See, I've got this hatchling here that hatched from ice-flight parents, but in a shadow nest, and then was raised in a plague environment. I've never heard of such a mix up in environments causing her... erm, condition, but you do know a good deal about ice history and their genes, so I figured you could take a look. Case of complete numbness, since hatching." Crystal set Pearl gently down on a blue, soft pillow that sat in the center of Baikal's old birch table. The skydancer flopped down happily, poking at the white tassels that tied the ends of the pillow together.

"Ah! Numbness, you say? I've seen it before, let me take a peak. Say, 'Ah', little skydancer!" Baikal grinned excitedly. He loved dealing with cases like these, any hatchling problems, as there were so many that were possible when you were related to or from the ice flight. Albeit, most weren't serious, but the frozen genes and souls of the dragons can always make quirks in hatchlings. He peered, cross-eyed, down the throat of the hatchling as she opened her jaw as far as it would go. Surprised, he pulled back, adjusting his glasses once more. "Huh! Well, have only got that once. You did check her throat before you brought her here, right?"

"...I didn't." Crystal admitted awkwardly. "I didn't think of it, we don't have many medically experienced dragons in our clan. Our only experienced doctor was gone on a collecting trip in the Labyrinth."

"I see... Well, take a look yourself. See that? It looks as though it's been frozen solid, that her mouth, esophagus, all of it has been touched by frostbite. Now, the problem is determining what it actually is." Baikal turned to a towering bookshelf off to the side, gingerly moving book spines one by one to find the title he was searching for. "Ice genes, ice genes... Ice genes raised in a different territory, where it can't be trained to survive icy conditions? I've seen this sort of thing before, but there are many things it could be. Numbness? Perhaps I have an idea, it may be wrong, but- ah! Here we go." He tapped a section of his 'ice magic effects' encyclopedia, setting the enormous book down on his table for Crystal to see. The tundra froze up, her heart skipping a beat as she saw the title Baikal had been hastily tapping, under which was an extensive article. From a mere skim, she could easily pick out the words 'Rare', 'Uncurable', 'Fatal to many', and 'Dangerous for others'. Frozen hearts.