37 Small One, Acting Big

Grumble

Mmm

Rustle

Mmmhm....

Sophia turned her head, rubbing her mouth as she groggily sat up. Her sleepy eyes dooped as she left the warmth of her older sister's scales, only to find that she still hadn't woken up...

She rubbed the stickiness off her eyes, swaying a little as she got to her feet. She tried to nudge a tangle of curly hair out of her face as she dawdled forwards.

"Mmh..."

A sleepy moan left her throat as she bent down besides her sister's head, tapping the space besides her horn with both hands.

"Wake uppy."

But the young dragoness remained asleep, as always. Sophia watched her absently, then scrunched up her nose and turned downwards again, itching her face with her wrist.

She trudged across the dark cave and the chilly sand, grabbing the big water container that went up past her knees and dragging it with great effort towards her sister.

Mmh! Mm...mmmh...

Sophia shivered from the water that had splashed onto her legs and arms, trying wiping it off a little as she bent down in front of her sister again.

She frowned, pushing her sister's eyelids open, watching them unconsciously close back down the moment she left them.

"Sis?"

She pushed at her sister's big head, trying to turn her over, but only succeeded in raising a part of her lips a little so that her pointy teeth could be seen.

Sophia leaned over the dragon's head. She could see her nostrils flaring in and out as she slept, but she didn't seem to recognize Sophia's scent and wake up.

"Sis? Are you thirsty?"

She lugged the water container a little closer to her sister's mouth, but she neither smelled the water, nor opened her mouth. Sophia waited a while and then dawdled up to her sister's eye level again, where it would be easier to hear her.

"Sis? Are you thirsty?" She repeated. She sleepily rubbed her eyes, pushing Sonata's unconscious head to try and wake her up. "You gotta—mmh-" the pulled at her sister's horn "drink water."

She plopped down on the ground, catching her breath and watching her immobile sister. Just then, a frosted breeze flew into the cave with a COOOOO, sending shivers across her small, insufficiently wrapped body.

Sophia stood up, rubbing her arms, blinking out the grogginess as she squinted around her sister in the darkness for the places she'd dropped and discarded the real and makeshift blankets.

She tapped the side of her sister's stomach. "Are you cold, sis?" Of course, there was no response.

Sophia tried her best to throw the heavy cloak over her sister's body. It took more than two or three tries because even though Sonata was a little shorter in this form, she was much longer, and there was much more size to this form than there was to her comparatively petite humanoid form, which only had much longer legs and stood upright.

"Uuf!" Sonata half-coughed, bringing her arm up to her mouth a little late as she bent down and settled under the blanket with her back against her sister. It was a strange blanket...cloak, that seemed to get bigger once Sophia got it to cover more than half of her sister's body. Or maybe she'd just been asleep too long? Sophia tugged at the soft, muddied white underlining of the cloak, sticking her fingers into two separate sections of the bristles of fur and pulling.

'No, not stretchy' Sophia mouthed to herself, knitting her brows. Besides it being a very, very well built cloak that didn't lose the soft hairs even when she pulled, there was nothing to note.

Sophia settled onto the ground, feeling something cold rub against her skin. She crawled into the blanket, noticing the many, many white flowers that had suddenly sprouted up around her, when she'd suddenly woken up, feeling better.

She pushed the blanket off from over her, smelling one of the ones that hadn't been brushed by herself trampling over them.

Maybe they were magic flowers?

Sophia plucked them, gathering as many as she could into her hands until she couldn't hold more without crushing them, and hurried up to her sister's head.

"Sis!" She said, dropping the flowers down over her sister's head, watching some of them settle there while others tumbled down, settling on her snout or on the ground, by her arm. Sophia reached over, picking up the ones that had fallen and putting them over her sister's claws, on her head where the flowers had missed a spot. Or between her arms and her body, any where she could find. She hastened back to the flower patch, plucked more, and began putting them over wherever it looked like her sister got hurt. She carried whatever was left of the flowers in her arms to her sister's hurt arm, just sort of piling them on the ground, though the pile wasn't big enough to cover the stub where a thin, whitish layer of skin had nearly covered it.

Sophia's sleepy face was replaced by a sad, almost crying one. She hugged her sister's head, pressing her own forehead against Sonata's.

"Mmmhuh..." she sniffled and wiped her face, her lips trembling and pressing themselves back to a firm line a couple of times. She hit her sister a little harder than her usual pats. "Wake up." She slammed her head against her. "Whuh...mmmmh..." Sophia shook her head, rubbing the tears off on her sister's scales.

She murmured to herself, "I'm scared."

She looked up, pouting. "Sis, you've got to wake up."

She circled her sister again, crouching down by her eyes. "Sonata?" She hit her sister with one arm. She could feel the tears of a scared, more wild Sophia bubbling up in her again, but if she let it out and began screaming and hitting and talking her sister to try and wake her up like last time, she would just tire herself out again...and she was hungry.

She pressed her head against Sonata's eyelid, closing her eyes.

"Are you hungry? ...I'm hungry." Sophia sulked. She hugged her stomach, curling up against her sister again, her head resting on top of one of her horns. She looked around the cave, sifting through the sand absently. Maybe her sister had left her some other snacks like that tear of meat she'd left by her sleeping form. But maybe not. She looked up at her sister. More importantly, was she gonna be okay?

Sophia poured, looking at all the blood. Her voice wavered. "Sonata? Are you thirsty?" She remembered Sonata waking her up insistently, forcing her to take just a couple of sips before she fell back asleep. She patted her sister's head gently, wrapping the other blanket around herself and hurrying to the front of the cave.

The cold winter wind blew against her cheeks. The world outside was picturesque and snowy, just as it had been from behind the castle's windows. She really would have wanted to play in the snow, under different circumstances. She was always very weak and sick until long after the snow had melted, and her sister was the only one who got to come back to her soaked and giddy with a melting ball of what used to be some sort of shape or the other within her hands, or got to taunt her from beyond windows before Sophia learned she could just destroy her sister's stuff in retaliation. It had been a long time since either of them had done either of those things, though. Many snows ago had Sophia had grown bored of playing around with "mushy ice," and Sonata only came up to windows anymore to build little villagers and snow forts against them so Sophia could see inside. She was never well enough to ever play in the snow herself, but she was too cold and tired... and right now, that wasn't what she came for.

Sophia reached her hands high in the air, towards the icicles that lined the top of the cave, much too far for her to reach.

"Mmmh!" She hopped, still too short for that to make a difference.

She walked up and down the opening of the cave, watching the ice spikes get closer and further in some areas, but not close enough for a child dragon to reach.

"Kreee-" Sophia covered her lips, a little embarrassed and also amazed that she'd made that sound in her normal form, and then she was a tiny, snake like dragon.

"Kreee." She slithered her tail back and forth. The tiny, tiny little dragon hopped up onto a rock, then another, using the little crevices on the cave wall that were sufficiently big for this form of hers as footholds and body rests. Then the cave started to slant to the side, and Sophia climbed as high as she could before there were really no level footholds or rests to cling to. She looked back to the stalactites and icicles. She jumped.

Scratch scratch scratch...

Sophia slung to the first stalactite, her lungs heaving, but her tail switching back and forth in excitement. She looked down, and the cold ground was so far below. She'd never been this tall. It was scary, but it was also fun. She was safe as long as she didn't lose her grip, all the while she was in so much danger. She smacked her tongue, tasting the high altitude air. She wondered if this was how it felt to fly.

Sophia set her eyes upon the next stalactite. The adrenaline had drained the sleepiness away. She'd forgotten how nice it felt to feel her lungs open, how nice it felt to take deep breaths without coughing. The cold stung her scales as she hopped to the next stalactite over.

Scratch scratch scratch!

She scrambled to keep her grip a little longer this time, tiny arm-legs and legs flailing and clawing till her talons caught a good grip. "Kiiiiiiiii" she yawned.

Nearby was a big icicle. It was like a giant piece of solid glass, against which Sophia could see her body warped and reflected in different ways as stared, only tearing her eyes way to scurry to the other side of the stone stalactite. She looked back and forth against the barely-droplets and full sized stalactites much too big for her to carry down. Her arms would drag downwards with the pull of gravity and their growing tiredness, and she would scuttle back up the stalactite again to be safe.

There!

Sophia spotted a thin, long stalactite a little ways away—not too long. Sophia rounded the stalactite a little more, aiming her body and swishing her tail back and forth as she prepared to leap.

Scuttle scruttle—Hop!

Sophia scratched against the ice as much as she could, but it was way more slippery than she'd imagined, and there was nothin to hold—exactly like glass.

"Kyu?" The dragon watched the reflection of her own face with doom as she slipped lower and lower down the icicle.

Until, like magic, her body stopped dropping, with her legs tangling and just her front arms holding on. Sophia gripped her front arms as tightly as she could, wiggling her lower body to try and her it up and onto the icicle, but there was nowhere for her legs to go, and she wasn't strong enough to hold herself at an off angle for long.

The tiny dragon breathed fearfully, looking from one arm to the other, but she was losing strength quickly. Sophia sneezed, trying to move her left arm a little bit higher, just a quick glide up. But for some reason, her claw wouldn't move.

"Quii?"

She pushed harder, pulled, then slowly released her pressure on her arms, almost dangling, realizing they were stuck. The dragon let go entirely, small body just hanging from the top of the cave, on an icicle.

Hissss.

Sophia built up the strength to pull herself up again, biting at her claws to try and tip them free, talon by talon, licking the cold, sticky ice as one would a wound.

It was a light in the side of her eyes, then the sound of wings, this time, that Sophia hadn't heard last time. A fairy barely smaller than Sophia's head loomed besides her, the same one that she's seen before. The one from the field, and then again with the pointy eared one, who was about to hurt her sister.

A tiny fury filled Sophia's lungs. Despite being stuck and vulnerable, she hissed and bared her teeth, glaring down the fairy with every move it took.

The pixie flew back a little, but didn't seem scared by any of Sophia's hissing or growling, once she was out of snapping range. It looked much bigger to her, in this form, and she could see the glowing creature in much more detail than from her human form. It had dark hair, and it wore leaves and flower petals for clothes, messily but delicately sewn together with spiderweb-thin strings. Tinier, even more intricate details were painted onto her clothes in a shiny paint that could only be seen when light hit it a certain way. She had a human like body, but she also had a face that made vivid expressions that Sophia couldn't see before. Nonetheless,

HISSSSSSSSS!

The fairy put a hand on her cheek, tilting her head in thought as it fluttered a little bit higher and out of reach.

How Sophia wished she could do firebreathe, and cook the evil pixie crispy.

The fairy floated up the top of the icile, where Sophia couldn't reach, and placed its tiny hands onto it. Sophia's body was beginning to shiver uncontrollably from the cold. Unceremoniously, the icicle snapped, sending the small dragon into free fall.

KRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-

The pixie grabbed the tiny falling dragon by a leg, slowing her fall and then lifting her and the icicle up with all its strength. Sophia watched, wide eyed as the fairy carried her down towards safety. A gentle, upwards-blowing wind that Sophia hadn't even noticed ceased once her takings touched land. Sophia licked her front talons free of the ice, licked one hand free, then stopped and licked up. The pixie was standing there, simply staring at her.

Sophia didn't know if she was allowed to hiss at it anymore. Her tail swished back and forth a little. It wasn't as though the pixie had actually been the one with the knife, she figured.

Sophia finished licking her arms free and carried the ice in her mouth, carrying the icicle up to her sleeping sister. Sophia lifted the front of the stalactite and poked it into Sonata's mouth until it was firmly lodged in, managing to stick between her teeth and her cheek till it stayed on its own.

Grrrrr

Sophia stumbled backwards as the unconscious dragon snarled, spitting out the icicle. Then she grew alert.

"Kyuuuuuu!" Sis!!

She placed her front talons against her sister's chin, scratching and trying to wake her. "Kriiiiiiiiiiii!"

But her sister didn't wake up, despite the movement she'd just seen, and despite the snarl.

The fairy fluttered over to Sophia, and stopped a couple of feet away from the dragon. Sophia ignored it, curling up besides her sister again, to settle her shivering.