Glacier

Long ago, Tundras, created by the Icewarden, held their home only in the Southern Icefield. Generations went by. Some left the Icefield to explore the rest of the world. However, it would always be their ancestral home.

Some generations ago, one family of Tundras who lived in the Southern Icefield came upon terrifying developments. Members of their family were beginning to physically deteriorate, and no one could figure out why. They were quarantined for a while out of fear of contagion, but it never spread to anyone outside of their family. Those who were kept in a warm place found their symptoms lessening or even reverting. And so it was revealed that this was an unfortunate genetic disease which destroyed the afflicted's body if it was exposed to especially low temperatures. The family would have to leave the Southern Icefield.

It was a sad thing. The family loved their homeland...but for the sake of their family, they left. They never lost their love for their home, however. It was tradition in that family to name their children after wintry elements, and the majority of the family lived just on the border between the Starfall Isles and the Southern Icefield. The snowy place was always in sight, and so they stayed close to their ancestral home.

---

On the border of the Starfall Isles and the Southern Icefield was a quiet, little-known resort. It wasn't tropical at all -- in fact, it was usually fairly chilly -- but it was a dream for stargazers and night photographers. Dragons came to the floating, crystal islet to see its spectacular views of clear night skies, meteor showers, and the aurora which played among these heavenly features. Dragons would come and either rent cabins in the lodging area, or set up their own tents.

The islet wasn't without its residents, however. Glacier, a Tundra with the pink eyes which denoted his inborn Arcane element, was a lifelong inhabitant. While most visitors to the quiet floating island looked to the sky, however, the young dragon's eyes had often rested down below, to the glittering and glistening ice, spreading into the distance: to the great, frozen mass of the Southern Icefield.

It had always drawn on his curiosity, filled his mind with daydreams of what the frozen land was like. It was like something out of a fantasy tale, and as time went by, the pull from that place grew stronger and stronger. He was a Tundra, and that place was the homeland of his kind. Why did his family leave? What did they leave behind? What would he find if he returned? It wasn't as though he could ask them. He'd been orphaned at a young age.

With no other biological family left that he knew of, the other residents of the island took care of him as he grew, and he did appreciate that. However, they simply could not answer his questions. No one could. And over time, imaginings of what lay in this fantasy land of the Southern Icefield became plans. He would return. To that mysterious place, the object of his dreams... He would go to the Southern Icefield.

---

Glacier awoke to a terrible cracking and burning sensation on his face. He felt cold otherwise. So cold... It was dark. After he'd managed to get past the burning sensation -- this took a very long while -- he was able to ascertain his surroundings. The last thing he remembered, he'd crossed the foes leading to the Southern Icefield. Then, as he was exploring, some sort of huge shape had rushed in the corner of his vision. There had been an impact. He didn't remember anything else.

He didn't remember that it had been a Gaoler of the Southern Icefield that had attacked him. He didn't remember being dragged through the snow to the caves under the ice in which this territorial tribe lived. He didn't remember being put into an alcove in an ice tunnel and frozen in. He'd been an intruder in their territory.

Their solution, as per their instincts, was to entrap perceived threats in icy prisons. This tribe, having awoken from the surge of the elements, remembering all too vividly the losses suffered in the war against the fiery Banescales, rejected the notion that now they were to accept all the other elements and breeds out there -- to live alongside them as though nothing had happened. Instead, they broke off from the rest of their society, dug their own tunnels, and trapped any who wandered into their territory. All this, to find a way to live in some semblance of peace.

It was a peace which Glacier had unknowingly disturbed...and he'd become their prisoner.

---

The Gaolers were not cruel. They delivered food to their prisoners, but otherwise would not interact. No matter what or how he asked, they wouldn't acknowledge him. And in the cold, his condition grew worse and worse.

A very long time passed. However, one day, there was a deep rumbling. Distant roars and cries. Quite suddenly, and to Glacier's surprise, the wall of his prison cracked. Glacier attacked it again and again, trying to break free. And then, he did.

Unbeknownst to Glacier, the Gaolers had trapped a dragon with quite a few loyal friends. Those friends had searched and searched, until they'd discovered the dragon's location. They planned their efforts...and launched a rescue operation. They broke their friend out of the cell the dragon had been trapped in. The Gaolers had rallied their strength and surged into battle against the intruders. It was a horrible rash of violence...which ended with the eradication of the Gaoler tribe. Those among the Interlopers who had survived the clash left the tunnels behind, never even learning of Glacier's existence.

Glacier broke out of his cell to find the abandoned tunnels...and became lost in the maze of them.

---

Time became meaningless. Day in and day out is was nothing but cold, winding tunnels of ice. Of light filtering in only to fade away. It was difficult to scavenge for food, but occasionally, Glacier came across scattered supplies. When he found something to dress in, to stave off the harsh cold, he did so. Otherwise, the venture was quiet and unending, with only the silent passing of light and shadow, and the deep, distant creaking of the ice.

---

When it happened, Glacier thought he may have been hallucinating...but he did eventually find an exit to the tunnels. The sky was so bright. The snow was so bright. It took much longer than he wanted it to before his eyes adjusted well enough that he could truly find himself free. He tried to spread his wings in the open air...only to remember that, over time in the tunnels, he'd lost feeling in them. They hardened with ice on his back, and had become a sort of carapace. Even when bits of ice crumbled overhead and bounced off of his frozen wings, he hardly felt it. Now, however, he only had one goal in mind: to find someplace where he could be treated.

Glacier did find such a place. It was a town of various kinds of dragons, and their medical facility took him in immediately. He'd suffered what appeared to be terrible frostbite. They began to try to treat him...but it burned.

Glacier howled, he roared, he screamed as the medical team tried to warm his body again. His unknown, inborn disease had progressed too far. He'd been trapped in the cold for too long. His face sloughed off its skull. His enlivening nervous system, previously numb from the cold, was aflame. It was too much. It was too painful. The dead parts of him would have to be removed, but even this preliminary treatment to revitalize his healthy parts was too painful, and it was removing the ice which held his body intact.

Glacier escaped. He fled the medical facility, the alarmed and pitying dragons who worked there... Glacier escaped into the cold. It would continue to consume him, but it also ushered the pain away. Finally, panting in the stinging, near-frozen air, his body calming down once again...Glacier realized all of this. For whatever reason, the cold was killing him. However, treatment was too much.

His heart, only just previously rushing with hope, was suddenly drained. There was nothing left for him. He could live a while longer, whole and numb, if only he remained in the cold. The ice would keep his body from falling apart. He hadn't escaped the ice tunnels. They were his only future.

And so, head hanging, Glacier trudged back to what would forever be his home. This frozen land, which he had dreamed of since he was small, had become a place he now could never leave.