Anri

"She's... Defeated. Each other retainer we have given her." The colony elder grumbled, a wrinkled old fae whom Anri believed had no place still being in charge after so long, but would never say to her face. "Theophania is far too dangerous to our ways to leave to her own devices. Would you rather she run rampant and draw attention of every potential enemy from here to the Fortress of Ends?" Anri's crest quivered.

"Of course not."

"Then you had best get to it, hadn't you?" The elder crawled back into her hollow at the very top of the tree, the thick bark door held open by pulleys and braided rope slamming shut in Anri's face. He held one of his notebooks up to his face, counted to ten, and held in a screech.

Why him?! He was a scholar, a dragon of science and magic and all things logical.

Theophania, the colony black sheep, was by no means logical. She was everything any good upstanding fae of the Southern Icefield wasn't, and then some. Surely she must have been shaken as an egg.

Anri leapt from the high branches of the tallest pine in the forest, drifting cautiously down to his pod of faeamber where he kept his belongings. He delicately placed his notebooks right where they belonged in an organized pile, and fetched himself a fresh one.

If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. Everything was once an unorganized mystery, until the advent of study. From study came understanding, and if the colony could understand why Theophania was... That. Then they could...

Well, he wasn't sure what would happen after that. But that was what the studying would be for! With a determined flap of his wings, disturbing his loose papers, he prepared himself for a long night.

...Now where was Theophania?

Rule one of studying a live specimen; Don't interfere with the subject.

As silly as Anri felt in his hastily homemade snow and pine needle ghillie suit, he knew that if Theophania knew he was there that she would give him just as hard of a time as her past retainers. So he sat in the snowy branches of a neighboring tree, peering into clear ice enchanted to be a magnifier by the finest magicians the colony had that he could afford for three Meal Moths and an Ice Crystal, watching and writing and waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting...

And waiti- Oh, there she was!

She was flying, completely carefree, through the branches near the trunk of the tree making up the common market of the colony, completely oblivious to the annoyed crests and hunched wings of the fae around her. She landed with an excessive flourish at the jeweler's stand, presenting a fair amount of treasure for a fae her size. Where had she gotten big-dragon money? Into the notebook that went. The jeweler balked at the coins practically the size of their heads, crest half pinned down but cocked on one side betraying that they were a little impressed by the feat. Not at all fazed or deterred, Theophania began the bartering process, mouth moving too fast for Anri to keep up with and crest bouncing too wildly to tell what she meant. If only he were better at reading mouths! The jeweler's crests wobbled angrily as they slowly told Theophania off, making the magenta fae pout and take her coins off the counter. She made one last comment with her crests cocked mockingly, and the jeweler turned beet red, flaring their crests and slamming the wood shutter of their stand shut. The rest of the shopkeepers and marketgoers made a point of ignoring her when she stuck her tongue out at the stand, childishly blowing a raspberry as she flew away, almost dropping her cargo. She flew away from the tree altogether, flying off to the edge of the forest where big dragons were known to pass.

Drat, he'd have to follow her out there.

Burdened by his writing supplies and stupid suit- Icewarden freeze this blasted thing!- Anri clumsily gave chase, only able to keep up thanks to his rather large wingspan. He dove into the closest hollow tree he could at the very last edge of the forest, open white expanse blinding before him. Theophania was sitting in a snowbank, head in her claws pouting. Then came the sound of softly crunching snow.

Big dragons.

Theophania dug a hole into the snowbank, covering herself in the powdery white to hide. Anri was suddenly thankful for his dumb bulky camouflage.

The big dragons trudged over the snowy hill, fluffy tundras in their full winter coats. It was a family unit, two adults and two hatchlings. The hatchlings were romping through the snow playfully, rolling about and play-wrestling. One started forming an oval of snow, their sibling using their inexperienced icy breath to harden it. Their parents, tired but loving, helped them make another to place on top in a vaguely dragon-ish shape. Theophania peeked out from her hole, positively enamored by their actions.

For a little fae, staying out of sight from big dragons was easy if they didn't know to look. Toting the coins of treasure, Theophania snuck around to the snowdragon while the parent tundras were warming up their younglings. She fluttered up to its head, crests cocked. They had poked holes where the eyes ought to be on the dragon's head, but the effect was a bit lost on the noncolored snow. With a happy wriggle of her crests and wings, Theophania took two coins of treasure and pushed them into the holes.

Those looked like eyes.

The rest of her coins made a simple row of spikes when pushed into the top of the snowdragon's head sideways, and Theophania giggled, darting out of Anri's sight. The noise drew the attention of the tundra family, the children of which gasped gleefully, shouting for their parents to look. Look they did, but not at the snowdragon, instead their heads whipped back and forth searching for who had done the act. Finding no one, they looked to eachother, bewildered. As they herded their children, they shouted out over the hills.

"Thanks for playing with us!"

And away they went.

Anri was going to need more notebooks.