White-Out

[Rehtul Orlouge]

Cold air whipped through the young mage’s hair as he looked out over the edge of the ox-hauled cart he had hitched a ride in. Hundreds of animal pelts, fashioned into beautiful fur blankets lined the floor of the cart and even stretched out in a makeshift cover for the occupants. The only other people with him on this trip, a merchant making his semi-annual rounds to the natives of Berevar and his family, seemed extremely uncomfortable with the wind.

The young elementalist did not share their discomfort. He watched with pity as they attempted their best to remain warm, cold puffs of mist issuing forth from between their lips as the huddled together in the corner while the merchant himself drove the oxen along from the wooden bench just behind them. Rehtul shook his head and removed his own blanket, a large and exceedingly warm number made of black bear fur, and tossed it on top of the family.

“But you’ll freeze,” the merchant’s wife, Sydna, said. She tried to give him back the blanket, but he merely held up his hand and shook his head with a halfhearted smile.

“The day I’m done in by cold weather will be the day that Berevar melts,” Rehtul said simply as he turned his back on the family and peered out the flaps on the back of the cart. He had heard of the severe weather of Berevar, but could scarcely believe that the stories were true, that it would even remain cold as ice during the hottest months of the years in other places. It was early spring, and the roads, if these small forest and mountain paths could indeed be called that, were still frozen over until very late in the day.

A stray thought entered his head as he considered his next move. He’d be moving further north and into the mountains. It’d be frozen all day up there, if what he’d seen so far was any indication. The low-lying forests were beginning to thaw. He could see the water dripping off of the pine needles and pooling on the ground. He’d never seen so many evergreens in his entire life, but he supposed it fit in a realm where it was cold year round, save for a few weeks during the height of summer.

He drew his cloak around himself a little tighter, more to get the loose clothing from allowing the wind to tickle his skin than to keep out the cold. With a smile, he turned back to the people who’d been kind enough to give him a ride this far north.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to hike this far up,” he said. “Thank you again for letting me ride along.”

“Still don’t know what yer thinkin’ you’ll be doing up here in the frozen north,” the merchant said from beyond the woman and child curled up beneath the blankets. “Nothin’ up this far except for tribes of natives and the northern mountain ranges. Whatch’a lookin’ fer?”

“I’m heading toward the mountains. There are some local legends that have been passed around about those peaks, and I’m curious... Let’s leave it at that,” the Mystic responded. A grunt from the front was his only answer.

A few hours later, passing through the thawing forests of the Berevar morning, Rehtul stood before the assembled family. He thanked them for their assistance in getting that far and pulled out a pouch of gold. He released a few of the gold into the man’s hand, double the market value of one of the thicker blankets, and rolled it up. He put it up in his bag and stood back up before looking up the mountain trail toward the tallest peak.

“That’s Snow Wing’s territory,” the merchant began before Rehtul held up a single hand.

“I’d really rather not talk about it in front of the child if that’s all the same to you,” he said. The merchant nodded and climbed back aboard his cart. With a flick of his wrist, the trio was off, leaving the young Orlouge to fend for himself in the Berevaran cold.

“So that’s what they call it around these parts. Thanks, Fellam. It was good getting to know your wife and kid during the trip. Hope I see you around,” he said to the thin air as he hiked his bag onto his shoulders and plodded up the worn dirt trail up toward the peaks. The unspoken words hung between the two men as they looked one another in the eyes.

Don’t die.

With a final look back at the evergreen forest, he whispered, “Thaynespeed,” to the disappearing dot at the edge of his vision. The time to meet the legendary creature was nigh, and the young Mystic was determined that he would either find this “Snow Wing” or perish in the attempt.

[Rehtul Orlouge]

It smelled like ice. That was the only thing the young mage could think as he continued to climb the wild path through the mountain to the lair of the dragon he sought. Each breath came out of the man’s lips in a white puff, and the air around him seemed to itself be frozen. A smile was plastered across his lips as he considered that this was exactly the kind of place he’d be perfectly happy setting up a summer retreat in.

He hoisted his pack and considered the fork in the path ahead of him, or what he could only think of as a fork anyway. The path didn’t exactly resemble the paths back in Corone. The paths were thin, covered in fallen stones, small patches of melting snow, and withered tan vines that were too stubborn to let the cold kill them. Both of the small natural roads seemed to lead toward the taller mountains in the range, but the elementalist was unsure whether one path was more dangerous than the other.

He looked down each of the two ways, but could not see anything that marked one as inherently better than the other. He pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and closed his eyes. With a shake of his head, he fished out a single gold piece from his pocket before flipping in the air. It fell into his open palm face up, and thus his decision was made. The way forward was to be to the left. If you couldn’t decide on something that had no obvious upside or downside, often a coin flip was the best idea.

At least, that’s what Rehtul had heard over the course of his life. This was one of the only times he’d ever had to resort to it, though, as he could often see the inherent good and bad in things without having to resort to chance to make his decision for him. He shrugged his shoulders and adjusted the weight of his pack before plodding off toward the not-so-distant peaks.

It wouldn’t be too terribly much longer before he would make his way up to meet with that legendary creature, Snow Wing, of whom some of the nomadic peoples who would pass through Berevar spoke. The real question wasn’t whether this dragon existed or not, Rehtul had no doubt that it did. The real question was whether it was capable of, and more importantly, willing to impart the knowledge of the magics of ice to a human, even a Mystic such as himself.

Will I be eaten... or will I become the student to a dragon?

[Rehtul Orlouge]

Snow shipped the stone landscape like a cat o’ nine tails. The young Mystic, even as used as he was to dealing with cold weather, shivered slightly as he pulled his bearskin blanket around himself. The wind whipped, snaked, roared, and wailed through the crevices of the mountain. The illusion of being surrounded by hundreds of monsters ready to rip him to shreds was not appreciated in the slightest by the young mage. There was bound to be at least one real creature making noises among the cacophony surrounding him, and he would never be able to tell which were real, and which were fake.

The sun was beginning to set. Of course, it was hard to tell anything in the storm that had suddenly hit the peaks. The only clue that it was getting late was the slow darkening of the surrounding area. Rehtul sighed and pulled a small ball of light from thin air. He could hear the gusts of wind echoing nearby, possibly in a cave.

“Definitely safer to hide in a cave than continue to brave this damned blizzard,” he said. He looked toward the source of the sound, or at least what he thought was the source, and began walking, poking around in the snow ahead of him with a stick he’d found earlier on the path. Despite his resistance to cold temperatures, he still didn’t want to end up buried in a snow drift or worse, bitten by one of the frost vipers he’d heard about on the trip over with the merchant’s family.

“So many dangers on this continent. No wonder so few humans have been foolhardy enough to even consider settling here,” he muttered under his breath as he finally found his makeshift staff striking hard stone again. With a quick sigh of relief, he stumbled into the cave and collapsed against one of the smoother parts of the wall.

“What a storm.”

The wind seemed to pick up for a moment, before it suddenly shifted in the opposite direction. A loud groan echoed throughout the cave, and Rehtul placed his hand squarely over his face.

“You...” a loud yawn echoed through the cave. “don’t know the half of it, son of man.”

[Rehtul Orlouge]

The young mage turned and was greeted by one large, sapphire eye, roughly as tall as the average dwarf. It looked at him, narrowed, and then blinked. A sigh echoed through the cave as the creature stretched, revealing it’s full length. It had to be as long as one of the Coronian great galleys, perhaps as large as the greatest of the Aleran airships, the young man thought as he slowly backed away from the giant creature.

The shadow that was the master of the cave came up on all fours and looked down at the small, oh so very small morsel of a human being that beheld it with a bemused smile, or what the young man could only assume was a smile.

“Come to slay the dragon, human?” Snow Wing asked, as it leaned down to look the young man dead in the eyes. The uncertainty in the boy’s face must have been at least amusing, as the dragon chuckled and sunk back down to lying on the cold floor of the cave. It rested its cheek on a single large hand and merely looked the young man over once more.

“No armor, no weapons, unless you count that splinter on your hip... And you’re supposed to be a dragon hunter?” The creature’s booming laughter echoed out into the frozen air like a drum. Rehtul shook his head and held up his hands hurriedly before the idea set itself too far in the ancient dragon’s mind.

“ No, master dragon, I am not here to slay you. That I can promise. I’m merely...” the boy stopped for a moment before he started to scratch the back of his head with one hand. “I... should start over, if I may?”

The dragon, still shrouded in shadow, merely nodded and motioned for him to continue, seemingly amused by his inability to keep his mind on track.

“Introductions first, I think. You may not care to know my name, but I was taught early on that it is the best of manners to introduce yourself to strangers...”

“Good advice,” the dragon said as he motioned for the young man to introduce himself.

“My name is Rehtul Orlouge. I’m... an aspiring Ice Mage,” he almost whispered the last part, but it echoed into the dragon’s ears nonetheless.

“I see,” was the dragon’s response. “Well, it is nice to meet you, young Orlouge. Most of the natives around these parts know me only as Snow Wing. I can only assume it was that legend that led you here... the legend of the ‘Dragon in the Blizzard,’ or so they say.”

The young man nodded.

“Speak up!” the dragon shouted.

The young Orlouge nearly jumped out of his skin and squeaked out, “Yes!”

The reaction was enough to cause the dragon to laugh uproariously one more time, slamming its free fist on the floor of the cave.

“You humans are so much fun to toy with. So... what do you want from me?” Snow Wing asked simply. Old age seemed to have a way of destroying any sense of guile a being had after such a number of years. To be this absolutely massive, the dragon would have had to be several thousands of years old, if not tens of thousands.

“I want to learn a more primal form of ice magic than the variety I currently use. I want to learn to wield this element... the way I’ve heard that only you know how to wield it,” Rehtul said simply.

“Is that so?” the dragon asked. It snapped its fingers together in a quick motion and brought light into the cavern, at last revealing its full appearance to the young man.

White, snow-encrusted scales covered the creature from head to toe, saving the very light, almost sky blue underbelly. Long, clear claws seemingly made of the purest ice adorned each fingertip of its large five fingered hand. It had a long, slender snout, thin, defined legs, and a wingspan that would blot out the sun if it ever took to the sky.

“You want to learn from the dragons?”

“Yes.”