Evelyn

Bael is walking to his death. She thought as she paced through the tundra. She had been downwind of his scent for days now, she had tracked him across the entirety of the globe, him staying only a few hundred miles upwind of her. He's either just as stupid as I remember, or he's very confident. Her cracked talons scraped the frozen earth as she pushed herself forward through the dry tundra. She was a Gaoler, the body passed down by her ancestors was well used to the freezing temperatures and solid ice. Bael is a Banescale, of all creatures why in the eleven realms would he bring me to the home of the Ice Warden? She twitched in anticipation. The clouds above her were the color of an angry sea, the storm of the Icewarden's eyes. She walked through the boundless tundra, stretching far into the horizon, passing under the shadows of watchful ice spires.

She repeated it over and over, the boiling, vile thoughts churning at the front of her mind in an endless loop

Snowflakes spiraled down, dancing in circles around her head like a crown of ice. They fell delicately on her scales, though each in her mind felt like hot needles piercing her skin. She sat shaking in the snow drifts.

She was quaking with anger - for six months she had been following Bael, sometimes only miles behind, and now he had stretched out his lead so far she could barely smell him. She knew in her gut that Bael was waiting in the heart of The Ice Warden's land. Why he would be there? She could only guess - maybe he was taunting her, drawing her back home to leave her at the mercy of her elders, her sisters, her kin, all of the family she had left behind so many years ago. Gaolers don't forget, they change as little as the frozen earth beneath their talons. She sighed, why couldn't he have died and made everything easier?

A small coo punctured the silent tundra, and Evelyn's familiar rustled from deep within her mane, fighting to get out of its tangled, ice-laden mass. The small creature poked its head out, wide, curious eyes staring deep into Evelyn's. It fiddled with the trinket in its hands, shaking it gently at first, then striking it against Evelyn's horns in a bout of childish frustration. A small coin wedged in the gears broke free and fell into the creature's hands. It offered the coin to Evelyn with a small peep.

She took the coin in her talons,

She flipped the coin, it sailed high in the air turning edge over edge, catching the light on its bronze surface. The creature on her shoulder shivered in anticipation, they both watched as the coin danced on the cracked earth, finally settling in the snow.

They stood there staring for a long time. The snow caught on Evelyn's mane, the individual flakes sticking to the thick hairs. Her familiar shivered and huddled deeper into Evelyn's neck. Again she sighed, closing her eyes and lifting her chin to the stormy sky in silent prayer. She picked up the coin from its place hidden in the snow and handed it back to her familiar. It accepted the coin in its tiny hands and burrowed back into the depths of her mane.

Evelyn continued the long, cold, and lonely walk towards the heart of the Icewarden.