Bloodlust

A fully fledged blizzard waged war upon the once green mountains and valleys of the once familiar forest. Sharp, skeletal dark branches sliced through the wailing winds like the sounds of swords. The snow was fluffy and delicate, but it came down on thorns of cold powerful wind, and the icy water it left behind on Sonata's scales left her more and more vulnerable to the freezing wind as time went on.

Sonata's running slowed to a stop for third time in a row, her legs unwilling to carry her forwards no matter how much she thought she wanted them to. Her body hurt, her chest felt so cold, and she barely had anything to aim for to keep her going in this harsh storm.

She stood motionless for the third time in a row, squinting into the snow as her body mildly rocked against the wind. She tried to breathe in smaller gasps so the wind would suddenly blast snowflakes into her mouth. The tips of her minty hair was frozen stiffly into messy clumps, and she didn't even have the mental energy to try and comb it away. Her body was usually so hot that even the snow on her hair just would melt and evaporate eventually, especially when she was working this hard. Either today was just that much colder, or her body was losing more warmth than it was supposed to be. She would probably still be fine in a bit. She was a dragon, after all. But it wasn't an encouraging fact when her limbs were shivering and she was facing straight into the snow.

She couldn't keep going like this. Not that she really couldn't—she'd forced herself to keep going again the last few times this happened, and she could surely do it again. But there was the fact was that she could no longer recall how many times that'd been, and something in her dizzy, fuzzy mind stuck out to her that she should be feeling alarmed.

Huh. The snow was oddly close. That meant she wasn't standing upright anymore, right?

Sonata squinted dizzyingly at the snow beneath her hands, mildly disturbed at the delayed about of time it took her to realize she'd fallen and was supposed to be trying to get up. Her hands were already so numb, she barely noticed them being buried into the snow to keep her body upright. She could barely feel her body moving to stand up. She brushed herself off as more of a habit than a coordinated attempt at de-snowflaking. The snow was coming down quite hard, anyways. Sonata quintet up into the sky, almost falling back onto the ground from the exertion. It was a lot harder to stay balanced upright than she remembered it being. The wind was so strong and cold that the air was thin. It was hard to breathe.

Sonata rubbed the frosty feeling off her face, lowering her vision to the ground. Sure enough, she'd been heaving her way up a small slope. Hadn't even realized she was going uphill. How could she have been putting in all that extra effort to climb upwards without even realizing there was a hill?

Her body was exhausted, and her mind was clearly suffering. How on earth was she supposed to accomplish anything like this? Her senses were clearly failing her. Where was she so desperate to go, again?

...Oh.

That's right, Sophia was sick, and she needed to find her mom to help.

Sonata forced her legs to start moving again. This time, the wind had changed currents and seemed to push against her back, nudging her on. At least the memory of her goal was some sort of comfort.

She didn't have the luxury of waiting till the storm was over and she was functioning at the top of her capacity. Every second she spent in self doubt was another one slipping away.

Sonata caught herself just as her foot began to skid on some ice that had compressed under her feet. She took the next step more carefully, and once she was already walking, it became easier to force her pace to a strained run. Her legs hurt.

She didn't have any other choice. She had to find her mother, even if she has to do it without knowing where she was trying to go.

How could she have forgotten about her task, even if it was just for a short moment? All the while she was the only person who knew how sick Sophia was right now. She was the only one she could depend on right now. She was a terrible sister.

But at least she could try to keep going.

•••

The snowflakes were a little painful now, like tiny, annoying bug bites against her skin. She'd tried to get her scales to thicken against them, but somehow that made them more sensitive to the cold, like covering her body in sensitive teeth. It wasn't like she could encase her body in something she couldn't feel at will. That was why she wore clothes.

Sonata dug her claws into the snow, getting enough of a grip on the hillside she was sliding down on to turn and speed after the moving orange furball that was the object of her attention.

Of course, she didn't mean to intentionally divert her efforts. But they moment that small animal had dashed across her vision, instincts took hold of energy she didn't know she had, and her senses were suddenly filled with the ache of a hunger she hadn't known she had. It was probably good to grab a bite before resuming her quest, or that was what she told herself.

It wasn't like she'd eaten much, worrying over the sleeping Sophia who never left her side. She couldn't leave her, so she only ate when Sophia ate, which had dulled to a never. So she didn't really eat. Even though the food was right there in front of her, the entire time. The fear of losing Sophia suddenly was far too much even after hours of trying to coax the irrational fears out of her mind. It was a wonder she ended up leaving that cave, at all.

Sonata coughed as she collided into a pile of snow and bush at the base of the slope, shaking the snow off herself as she emerged shivering from a dragoness-sized hole in the waist-high pile.

Her green eyes flickered across the largely untouched frothy valley. It wasn't too hard to make out the lines of displaced snow where a small animal had scurried through.

Sonata licked her lips.

It was fine, this was fine. Eating a quick meal should replenish her energy, anyways. There was no way she was going to get very far on and empty stomach with this storm. She was making a small and very reasonable detour.

She held her hands up, letting her claws detract from her fingers a little, letting the warmth of her breath around her lips against the chill of the forest wake her senses.

The taste of fresh... Running blood and warm lively flesh would be incentive to keep going even longer. She would honestly prefer it properly cooked and seasoned, but that obviously wasn't an option right now. Fresh meat tasted so much better than a couple hours' old meat, though, if she had to have it plain anyways.

She stepped through the shadows, a darkened figure lurking after its prey among the clumps of trees that were her screens. Just within her line of vision, she caught a glimpse of that small orange smudge among the white woods. She tilted her head. How sad, it had no hope to blend into anything with the unmissable contrast of it's bright, almost beckoning orange coat against the colorless Winter forest. Nonetheless, its suffering would end soon.

Sonata lurched forwards, her body beginning to dissolve into a pale green light that extended outwards from her already shifted hand. When she reached it, her arms were claws and her hair was the shine on the horns that ran down her back.

The dragon's talon dug the furry fox's tail into the snow to hold it down as it's shadow approached.

It turned around in a small jump, shivering into itself for a few seconds as it registered the small drooling dragon looming over it. Then with another spasmic jitter, it flipped itself around, clawing madly at the snow with bared talons, mewing in panicked shirks that almost sounded human like. Then, maybe realizing it wasn't making progress, it suddenly stopped clawing, it's back heaving up and down quickly. All during which, the dragon did nothing, weirdly mesmerized, her head slightly tilted to the side.

EIIAAA

It hoarsely screeched in it's primal, humanoid noice, and then hissed at the dragon, baring its teeth are the giant lizard and jumping slightly, like it was tethering back and forth on the edge of an attack.

Slowly beginning to register the smaller carnivore's defiance, the dragon's expression settled back into a glare of determination.

That was, until the frisky creature lunged, making chirpy attack noises in between hisses as it clawed fiercely at the dragon and quickly pulled away, still breathing like it had to power a hurricane.

Sonata pulled her head away instinctively, her claw still firmly gripping the angry fox's tail.

When she realized she wasn't really hurt, she shook the snow off her face. Her eyes moved down to the frisky creature at her claw, and smoke began to dribble from her nostrils.

Had such a weak, inferior creature at her mercy just dared defy a dragon? The dragon's seething eyes trembled with indignance. How dare.

The forest shook with a horrible roar.

•••

In a secluded corner of the forest, a nymph sat among a pack of charcoal-colored wolves. Her eyes were closed in concentration, a soft, minty blue glow emitting from her pale skin as she subconsciously ran her fingers through the soft coat of the puppylike animal at her lap.

Another poked her arm with its wet nose, demanding attention as well. She tried to ignore it, her eyes squeezed shut with the faintest slither of golden light behind them, but eventually gave in. The teal-haired nymph reluctantly took to leaning against the wolf as an oversized pillow, an action it seemed to be willing to put up with so long as it got it's fair share of pets by the faint wag of its tail.

The wolves lounged at half-attention, four of them in total, one of them casually sniffing the forest air and another rolling in the grass. The small patch of forest around the nymph was alight with life. The branches of a tall, budding rose bush supported her back, and moss and flowers tickled her bare feet. The snow was locked away as though outside a bubble, even the clouds had parted a little to warm the air.

The Nymph's wavy teal hair was long enough to train generously behind her if she stood up, and was tucked back with an crescent of variously sized yellow roses. Tiny buds littered the length of her hair, almost as though they were growing out of it. She wore a thin blue-mint dress with so many folds it almost could have been drapery.

Much like her long hair spiraled out onto the forest floor, her consciousness dove into into the tendrils of magical forces and emotion that wove through the forest like branches and roots. Every now and then, she felt the faint pulsation of a life, the abstract form of something's emotions barely grazing the edge of her reach.

A wave of pixies had shifted their parade to flutter and dance around the nymph in reaction to her magical presence, like a long, singular tendril of many little twinkling yellow lights.

Her long, pointed ears twitched. She flinched in reaction to the noise, unsure if it was input from her mental or physical vicinity. She couldn't let herself snap back to reality and expect to find her place again if it hadn't been a physical sound.

She kept mentally forking through the many magic tendrils and life forces of the forest. Her brothers and sisters were silent; she couldn't tell the inputs of their shared consciousness apart from the rest of the woods, so either they'd detached themselves from the network, or they had nothing to share.

THA-DUP THA-DUP THA-DUP

Her mind neared it, the abnormal blotch of pain and suffering. She could feel emotions riddled with fear and desperation discharge into the forest in sparks that were probably bites and failures in attempts to get away. That in itself wasn't too abnormal. What had drawn her attention, however, was the large fiery presence she felt alongside it, the unmasked surge of danger and rage.

The nymph jolted slightly from within her stance, drawing the concern of the ashen wolf under her arm.

She'd sensed something. She sensed something too large to be a human or a forest creature. Something that's clearly didn't belong here that she somehow hadn't noticed coming in. The pixies buzzed in reaction to her unease.

The heck? She could forgive humans or dwarves for getting carried away with the occasional hunt, but something so big sneaking in without her knowing? Something that big didn't just sneak into the blindspots of an enchanted forest. It was a declaration of war, an imminent and intentional threat to her subjects and her authority. What's worse...

"Powerful." The nymph's cold voice pronounced as she woke from her trance. Not just malice, she sensed an overwhelming hunger for for death. The beast she sensed was emitting a powerful bloodlust. This was something she could not ignore. Her head-scratching fingers slowed to a stop.

The wolves could sense the change in aura and stirred slightly, their attention riled in to the teal-haired fae.

"I sense something large and dangerous...letting out a bloodlust..." her voice quivered with anger, her brows slowly rose "in my forest."

Concentrate.

Closer, she willed her consciousness closer to the epicenter of the disruption. She willed her concentration to solidify on that small section of forest, willed the half-dormant trees and grass and creatures nearby to lend her their senses. She pulled the blurry images they sent her crisper and crisper until she felt nauseous, but the forest was willing to bend to her will, and eventually subsided in lending her its magic until she was okay again.

A dragon, albeit a very small one, with gemlike eyes and pale green scales. It's size didn't diminish what it was, though. She could feel the bloodlust it emitted from so far away, the power behind those jaws with long, sharp teeth, the sharp claws that consciously held the small animal down as it drilled over it, ending it bite by bite. It was a little bit of a difference in the form of its bone structure and the orientation of its horns, but mostly it was the aura of a much larger thing in a body that would grow to be something fittingly large. It was a dragon. It didn't belong here.

Her eyes snapped open, and she released her wolves. The flowers on her head flashed blue, and the grass under her hands darkened and wilted. Mixed emotions bubbled up in her chest.

The wolves had long since risen to their feet, ears perked and awake.

"Go." She commanded, pointing. "Bring me the thing that dares threaten me upon my own domain."

She mentally send them the vision, and watched as they quickly left. The pixies, for the most part, has regathered, but threaded carefully as they passed the angry nymph, keeping to a few good inches away.

She sent a message to her fellow nymphs, but they received it passively. She could take care of this on her own. She was the most powerful among them in this part of the forest, after all.