"Psst! You! Yes you, the silly looking goblin. Come over here. I need your help." The voice emanated from a dark hole in the side of the snow covered hillside, stopping Pie in his tracks to look around until he saw the hole. Pie tried to see who was talking but they were too far back in the cave that must be behind that snow covered opening.
Pie looked over to the ghostly translucent form of Haleah, who was walking with him. Her form was partially translucent like an illusion, though in all other regards she looked like a young goblin adult woman. "I … You want me to go… in there?" he asked the ghostly form. The former shadow-monster-in-his-head turned ancient-goblin-goddess-on-the-wrong-plane nodded. "Oh. Oh… Kay. If you think I need to…" His breath made visible steam puffs in the cold air. The goblin looked dubiously at the dark opening just barely visible in the snow covered hillside and smacked the vines and branches half covering it to shake off some of the snow. With a sigh, he pulled some of those branches open wider, hoping to make an opening large enough for him to get in. It took some effort but he squeezed through.
Inside the cave it was completely dark, so he blinked several times until the filter membrane that amplified light slid into place in his eyes, and as he did , he caught sight of movement ahead. "This way! Come! Hurry!" A feminine voice came from around that corner. Leah thought he should go in, so shrugging and ignoring the likely dangers, he pushed ahead following the voice around the corner. He turned to ask her why, and saw that she was gone. Not surprising, she would come and go throughout the day, and her timing was not always convenient. On the up side, she seemed less try-to-tear-your-head-off-mad these days.
He went deeper and deeper following the just out of sight voice. With each corner he felt the cold deepen and deepen. He sensed that that was not just the fact that the path was angling downwards, but more from something supernatural. There was a hint and taste of magic in the air. Perhaps whoever was leading him downward was the source or perhaps it was some magical nature of where they were going. The ground was covered in patches of ice, though there was no other water this far in.
Pie rounded the corner and gasped at what he saw. On a shelf in an area that widened into a cave proper, one quaintly decorated with ice doilies and snow curtains and other such cold equivalents of a cozy home, lie a grizzly sight. The corpse of a small dragon, locked in a death embrace with a giant spider. Both were frozen solid with the spiders fangs locked in the gleaming pearl skinned dragon's throat. Both were missing a few pieces where the ice had broken.
In a corner, as far away from that scene as possible a snow woman stood. She had pale white skin that glittered, was wearing a soft blue dress, that sparkled as if it was made from ice crystals, well in fact it was made with ice crystals. She had a cute round face with azure lips, and big ice blue eyes and a head of snow white hair tied in a top bun, save for her bangs and some stray curls. The air around her, including where Pie now stood in the effective doorway of the room was very cold, he could feel ice crystals stiffening his hair even in the short time that he had caught up to her. She was gesturing frantically at the scene on the shelf.
"Well come on! Get to it, go help the wee one! There's nothing I can do. I am staying as far away as I can, but the cold is already getting to it. Please! Help it. It's poor parent is lost, and I didn't see the prize when I froze the nasty spider as it fed."
Pie stepped closer, wondering what she meant, for he could only see the obviously dead little dragon and the spider the size of a large watermelon frozen in its death feast. As he approached the supernatural coldness was replaced with normal underground cave in winter cold, but after being near her, it felt decidedly less freezing. He shivered, not from the cold, but from the grisly scene, the spiders fangs seemed so large where they pierced the dragons neck.
Then he saw the egg. Slightly behind the force frozen death scene, and partially under a frozen dragon wing, a pearly sparkling egg, the same size as perhaps a chicken egg, half buried in snow and frost. He gasped loudly, his small hand coming to cover his mouth in shock.
"Yes you see! Now get it and get out of here! Get it warm and save it! You have to help it. It's sad enough that my friend is gone, but her baby! Poor Poor Snookieflake. That's what I called her anyway. I don't speak that sylvan fey language. Why are you still here? Stop listening to me you over polite little green scamp! Get the egg and get out! Take it somewhere safe and keep it warm! It's got no one to take care of it now. Go! Go now! Git! Make yourself gone now!"
Pie reached out and took the egg, part of the parent dragon's thin butterfly wing breaking off unintentionally as his fingers brushed it while trying to reach under. He let out a gasp and almost swore. "Oh pu- Whoops sorry, I didn't mean to hurt them, oh the poor thing and it's wing! I don't-"
"Go! Don't worry about SnookieFlake, she's gone! You can still help her baby if you go now! Go quickly! Run like the frost of a banshees wail is behind you!" She was gesturing towards the door, frost and snow drifting off her hands as she wrung them and pointed.
The egg felt heavy and cold, so cold. It felt solid like a rock, and not fragile like the chicken eggs he sometimes collected with Miss Ashla. He tucked it into his vest, holding it against his skin next to his heart, even though it was painfully cold. He cupped both hands around it to cradle it and began running.
"Thanks for helping it lady, I'll take good care of it!" He shouted as he dashed into the cave passage again, running as carefully as he could to avoid crashing into the narrow walls and the occasional root snagging at him in the passage. When he got to the opening he carefully crawled through, shivering as the cold so close to his heart was pushing that cold all around his small body.
Haleahs ghostly goblin shape was waiting for him and she was already pointing. "There, some cover, a place for a fire." her voice was just as ghostly as her body, her words hauntingly floated on the air and in his head directly, both heard and thought simultaneously. She was pointing to a stand of trees still thick with their nettles, and under them a mostly dry spot. He ran there, and ducked under the lowest overhanging branch, and dropped down against the trunk. The smell of damp earth, the pines sharp scent, all filling his nose.
He needed warmth and he needed it fast. "Hello? Friends? Is anyone around that can help me warm up, or start a fire?" He called out from under the tree. No answer came. He heard the giggle of a frost pixie somewhere, mocking him for asking for something so unreasonable in the middle of the frozen forest. No help there. He put the egg in one of his fest pockets, near his armpit so it was close to his body heat and under both the vest and his cloak. He dug through his knapsack, until he found his tinder box. He put the dried woodshavings into the small box, thankful that his pack hadn't gotten wet. When they were in he began jabbing the metal striker onto the small piece of flint until it sparked and the spark caught on the wood shavings. As those began to fire up and smolder, he gathered some branches from the tree, they were not the driest but would have to do. He made a bowl in the dirt for the fire, arranged the twigs he had gathered and then dumped the glowing embers of the tinder box in, within a few moments the smaller twigs had caught alight and slowly begun to curl up as the flames began to grow.
Pie took a deep breath and began drawing symbols in the dirt, in the air, they gloves with power. Haleah joined him by walking through the branches and crouching, smiled as her unwilling student put what she had forcibly taught him to use. While he did so FuwaFuwa, his soft brown furred chinchilla familiar was pulling and dragging more twigs and nettles closer from under the nearby trees and arranging them in a long pile.
The connection between planes thinned and frayed, and when the small fire was burning as well as the damp wood could, success! A tiny fire sprite poked its head from the flames, its own body made of flames in the rough shape of a winged pixie.
"Yes!" Pie exclaimed with joy. "Please, I need some more heat. This little fire isn't going to be enough with how wet everything is. Do you think you can help? Please?" The little fire sprite nodded and pulled itself through the flames and over to this side of the boundary. It began dancing around the edges of the pile of flammable material until it was well alit. The magical fire burning off the and consuming the wood and nettles as if they weren't damp at all. The sprite kept the flames under control, and pie lay next to the fire, still being careful to cradle the egg carefully, keeping it warm as best he could without crushing it. It was still cold to the touch though despite all the heat that was now serving to keep pie mostly warm. Pie was frantically thinking about what to do next when another head poked its way through the fire.
"Qually!" A grin spread across his face. "I need a hug my friend!" He pulled the egg out and nestled it under his neck. Qually pulled himself through the now larger fire and waddled over to the goblin lying next to it and wrapped itself around his neck like a scarf. Qually was about two feet long, and looked like a red scaled lizard with bits of flame emanating from his body. And elemental creature of the fey realms. The warm salamanders heat was hot, but not too hot, and its fire did not burn, only a gentle high intensity warmth was given off. Pie wiggled in happiness as not only the egg, but he himself got the warmth directly applied through the close contact.
Between the fire and the salamander, Pie and the egg were soon both relieved of all of their chills. As the fire died down next to him, Pie lay in the glowing warmth of Quallys embrace, gently petting the fire lizard while still keeping a good grip on the egg to keep it from shifting. In the blanket of warmth he fell asleep, the egg still nestled safely in the crook of his neck and kept in place by both his hands and the salamander wrapped snugly around his neck. The egg pulsed warmly against his neck and after a little while as he drifted in and out of sleep, Pie hazily realized it was a baby dragons heartbeat he was feeling against his own pulse.
As the afternoon passed into evening Pie just lay with the egg, and Qually. The next morning he began traveling again, quietly talking to Miss Haleah as he walked, Qually still hanging around his neck most of the time. FuwaFuwa provide food, and Pie would draw her door on tree trunks and take out some BurBur Berry Jam or something like that to snack on while he walked. Some bread would have been nice, but fairies didn't bake that much in the wild, and FuwaFuwa's stockpile was collected in the fey.
He traveled and slept for two more days, building a fire at night so Qually had a nice place to sleep as well as they traveled through the snow covered woods. As he was sitting down on the third night, Qually was crawling into the fire to roll over and lay on his back when Pie felt it. The little egg was shaking and its pearly shell was starting to crack. He gasped in delight and held the egg in both his palms. Watching as the crack widened, and two tiny clawed feet plucked at the shell until a tiny light blue shimmering skinned head with two big lavender eyes poked its way through the shell. Pie squealed in delight, and the tiny fairy dragon, squealed out the cutest mini roar one could imagine.
"I'm a papa now!" Pie announced loudly to the snow quiet forest as the tiny dragon mewled and squeaked its first "words" as it continued to peel its shell off. Pie pulled Qually into a hug and also thanked the fire sprite for its help when he saw its tiny flame head peeking through the fire. "Thank you both for all your heat! We did it! We saved this little guy! His Momma was Snookieflake, so I think we'll call him Snookieflame! Or just Snookie for short. Happy Born day little guy!"
Someday, a year so so later, Pie would tell the little fairy dragon how he met its mother on that cold winter day.
Pie looked over to the ghostly translucent form of Haleah, who was walking with him. Her form was partially translucent like an illusion, though in all other regards she looked like a young goblin adult woman. "I … You want me to go… in there?" he asked the ghostly form. The former shadow-monster-in-his-head turned ancient-goblin-goddess-on-the-wrong-plane nodded. "Oh. Oh… Kay. If you think I need to…" His breath made visible steam puffs in the cold air. The goblin looked dubiously at the dark opening just barely visible in the snow covered hillside and smacked the vines and branches half covering it to shake off some of the snow. With a sigh, he pulled some of those branches open wider, hoping to make an opening large enough for him to get in. It took some effort but he squeezed through.
Inside the cave it was completely dark, so he blinked several times until the filter membrane that amplified light slid into place in his eyes, and as he did , he caught sight of movement ahead. "This way! Come! Hurry!" A feminine voice came from around that corner. Leah thought he should go in, so shrugging and ignoring the likely dangers, he pushed ahead following the voice around the corner. He turned to ask her why, and saw that she was gone. Not surprising, she would come and go throughout the day, and her timing was not always convenient. On the up side, she seemed less try-to-tear-your-head-off-mad these days.
He went deeper and deeper following the just out of sight voice. With each corner he felt the cold deepen and deepen. He sensed that that was not just the fact that the path was angling downwards, but more from something supernatural. There was a hint and taste of magic in the air. Perhaps whoever was leading him downward was the source or perhaps it was some magical nature of where they were going. The ground was covered in patches of ice, though there was no other water this far in.
Pie rounded the corner and gasped at what he saw. On a shelf in an area that widened into a cave proper, one quaintly decorated with ice doilies and snow curtains and other such cold equivalents of a cozy home, lie a grizzly sight. The corpse of a small dragon, locked in a death embrace with a giant spider. Both were frozen solid with the spiders fangs locked in the gleaming pearl skinned dragon's throat. Both were missing a few pieces where the ice had broken.
In a corner, as far away from that scene as possible a snow woman stood. She had pale white skin that glittered, was wearing a soft blue dress, that sparkled as if it was made from ice crystals, well in fact it was made with ice crystals. She had a cute round face with azure lips, and big ice blue eyes and a head of snow white hair tied in a top bun, save for her bangs and some stray curls. The air around her, including where Pie now stood in the effective doorway of the room was very cold, he could feel ice crystals stiffening his hair even in the short time that he had caught up to her. She was gesturing frantically at the scene on the shelf.
"Well come on! Get to it, go help the wee one! There's nothing I can do. I am staying as far away as I can, but the cold is already getting to it. Please! Help it. It's poor parent is lost, and I didn't see the prize when I froze the nasty spider as it fed."
Pie stepped closer, wondering what she meant, for he could only see the obviously dead little dragon and the spider the size of a large watermelon frozen in its death feast. As he approached the supernatural coldness was replaced with normal underground cave in winter cold, but after being near her, it felt decidedly less freezing. He shivered, not from the cold, but from the grisly scene, the spiders fangs seemed so large where they pierced the dragons neck.
Then he saw the egg. Slightly behind the force frozen death scene, and partially under a frozen dragon wing, a pearly sparkling egg, the same size as perhaps a chicken egg, half buried in snow and frost. He gasped loudly, his small hand coming to cover his mouth in shock.
"Yes you see! Now get it and get out of here! Get it warm and save it! You have to help it. It's sad enough that my friend is gone, but her baby! Poor Poor Snookieflake. That's what I called her anyway. I don't speak that sylvan fey language. Why are you still here? Stop listening to me you over polite little green scamp! Get the egg and get out! Take it somewhere safe and keep it warm! It's got no one to take care of it now. Go! Go now! Git! Make yourself gone now!"
Pie reached out and took the egg, part of the parent dragon's thin butterfly wing breaking off unintentionally as his fingers brushed it while trying to reach under. He let out a gasp and almost swore. "Oh pu- Whoops sorry, I didn't mean to hurt them, oh the poor thing and it's wing! I don't-"
"Go! Don't worry about SnookieFlake, she's gone! You can still help her baby if you go now! Go quickly! Run like the frost of a banshees wail is behind you!" She was gesturing towards the door, frost and snow drifting off her hands as she wrung them and pointed.
The egg felt heavy and cold, so cold. It felt solid like a rock, and not fragile like the chicken eggs he sometimes collected with Miss Ashla. He tucked it into his vest, holding it against his skin next to his heart, even though it was painfully cold. He cupped both hands around it to cradle it and began running.
"Thanks for helping it lady, I'll take good care of it!" He shouted as he dashed into the cave passage again, running as carefully as he could to avoid crashing into the narrow walls and the occasional root snagging at him in the passage. When he got to the opening he carefully crawled through, shivering as the cold so close to his heart was pushing that cold all around his small body.
Haleahs ghostly goblin shape was waiting for him and she was already pointing. "There, some cover, a place for a fire." her voice was just as ghostly as her body, her words hauntingly floated on the air and in his head directly, both heard and thought simultaneously. She was pointing to a stand of trees still thick with their nettles, and under them a mostly dry spot. He ran there, and ducked under the lowest overhanging branch, and dropped down against the trunk. The smell of damp earth, the pines sharp scent, all filling his nose.
He needed warmth and he needed it fast. "Hello? Friends? Is anyone around that can help me warm up, or start a fire?" He called out from under the tree. No answer came. He heard the giggle of a frost pixie somewhere, mocking him for asking for something so unreasonable in the middle of the frozen forest. No help there. He put the egg in one of his fest pockets, near his armpit so it was close to his body heat and under both the vest and his cloak. He dug through his knapsack, until he found his tinder box. He put the dried woodshavings into the small box, thankful that his pack hadn't gotten wet. When they were in he began jabbing the metal striker onto the small piece of flint until it sparked and the spark caught on the wood shavings. As those began to fire up and smolder, he gathered some branches from the tree, they were not the driest but would have to do. He made a bowl in the dirt for the fire, arranged the twigs he had gathered and then dumped the glowing embers of the tinder box in, within a few moments the smaller twigs had caught alight and slowly begun to curl up as the flames began to grow.
Pie took a deep breath and began drawing symbols in the dirt, in the air, they gloves with power. Haleah joined him by walking through the branches and crouching, smiled as her unwilling student put what she had forcibly taught him to use. While he did so FuwaFuwa, his soft brown furred chinchilla familiar was pulling and dragging more twigs and nettles closer from under the nearby trees and arranging them in a long pile.
The connection between planes thinned and frayed, and when the small fire was burning as well as the damp wood could, success! A tiny fire sprite poked its head from the flames, its own body made of flames in the rough shape of a winged pixie.
"Yes!" Pie exclaimed with joy. "Please, I need some more heat. This little fire isn't going to be enough with how wet everything is. Do you think you can help? Please?" The little fire sprite nodded and pulled itself through the flames and over to this side of the boundary. It began dancing around the edges of the pile of flammable material until it was well alit. The magical fire burning off the and consuming the wood and nettles as if they weren't damp at all. The sprite kept the flames under control, and pie lay next to the fire, still being careful to cradle the egg carefully, keeping it warm as best he could without crushing it. It was still cold to the touch though despite all the heat that was now serving to keep pie mostly warm. Pie was frantically thinking about what to do next when another head poked its way through the fire.
"Qually!" A grin spread across his face. "I need a hug my friend!" He pulled the egg out and nestled it under his neck. Qually pulled himself through the now larger fire and waddled over to the goblin lying next to it and wrapped itself around his neck like a scarf. Qually was about two feet long, and looked like a red scaled lizard with bits of flame emanating from his body. And elemental creature of the fey realms. The warm salamanders heat was hot, but not too hot, and its fire did not burn, only a gentle high intensity warmth was given off. Pie wiggled in happiness as not only the egg, but he himself got the warmth directly applied through the close contact.
Between the fire and the salamander, Pie and the egg were soon both relieved of all of their chills. As the fire died down next to him, Pie lay in the glowing warmth of Quallys embrace, gently petting the fire lizard while still keeping a good grip on the egg to keep it from shifting. In the blanket of warmth he fell asleep, the egg still nestled safely in the crook of his neck and kept in place by both his hands and the salamander wrapped snugly around his neck. The egg pulsed warmly against his neck and after a little while as he drifted in and out of sleep, Pie hazily realized it was a baby dragons heartbeat he was feeling against his own pulse.
As the afternoon passed into evening Pie just lay with the egg, and Qually. The next morning he began traveling again, quietly talking to Miss Haleah as he walked, Qually still hanging around his neck most of the time. FuwaFuwa provide food, and Pie would draw her door on tree trunks and take out some BurBur Berry Jam or something like that to snack on while he walked. Some bread would have been nice, but fairies didn't bake that much in the wild, and FuwaFuwa's stockpile was collected in the fey.
He traveled and slept for two more days, building a fire at night so Qually had a nice place to sleep as well as they traveled through the snow covered woods. As he was sitting down on the third night, Qually was crawling into the fire to roll over and lay on his back when Pie felt it. The little egg was shaking and its pearly shell was starting to crack. He gasped in delight and held the egg in both his palms. Watching as the crack widened, and two tiny clawed feet plucked at the shell until a tiny light blue shimmering skinned head with two big lavender eyes poked its way through the shell. Pie squealed in delight, and the tiny fairy dragon, squealed out the cutest mini roar one could imagine.
"I'm a papa now!" Pie announced loudly to the snow quiet forest as the tiny dragon mewled and squeaked its first "words" as it continued to peel its shell off. Pie pulled Qually into a hug and also thanked the fire sprite for its help when he saw its tiny flame head peeking through the fire. "Thank you both for all your heat! We did it! We saved this little guy! His Momma was Snookieflake, so I think we'll call him Snookieflame! Or just Snookie for short. Happy Born day little guy!"
Someday, a year so so later, Pie would tell the little fairy dragon how he met its mother on that cold winter day.