Snowflake

Snowflake and Celestine were both hatched in the Lair by the Sea. Snowflake was older, but there was nothing special about her. Common colors, common genes. Celestine, however, had the newest gene, with colors that matched her eyes and pretty pastel wings. Of course, she and her brother and sister were snapped up even before their wings could dry.

Snowflake had been so jealous. She and her brother and sister had barely been glanced at. Nobody wanted to take them home, still wet and dewy from the shell.

But then, when the colorful pearlcatcher in armor had come back, to finalize the trade, she'd looked. Chert saw Snowflake's big brother's handsome black and white colors, then her sister's pretty ice wings, and then Snowflake, with her middling grey wings. And she picked Snowflake!

"Grey wings are perfect for a forge dragon," Chert told her, and that made her happy.

Then, they arrived at Chert's lair. Celestine cuddled up to Snowflake, happy to see a familiar face, and Snowflake wondered.

If grey wings were perfect for a forge dragon, then how did Celestine fit in, with her pretty rose wings?
****

The hardest part of the change was the goodbyes. They hadn't even moved, but people were leaving.

Spark could not leave his work as a priest of Flamecaller, so he was staying behind in the Fire lands. And Celestine was staying with him. For years, Snowflake and Celestine had plotted schemes together, protecting the lair from subtle threats while Flux and Chert and the other heavies beat the obvious ones.

Snowflake was sticking with Flux. The big galoot would still need somebody to watch his shiny back, after all.

And that meant staying goodbye to a dragon as close as a sister.

"We'll be at the markets," Celestine said.

"You'll be safer there," Snowflake replied.

They huddled together on a rock, and contemplated a future apart.