Loss/To Touch Those Babyish Cheeks

WARNING: Gore. Skip this chapter if you're worried, you won't miss much.

Hah... Ha...Ahg...

A-Ah—.

Her throat produced a scream before she was even fully conscious, blindly opening her practically sightless eyes as she flailed around, trying to get away from the pain, thrashing her body painfully this way and that.

"Kh....ah....Aagh! Aaahh!!"

The first thing that came back to her wholly was the sense of weight, the contact of her body face-down in a cold, half melted away case.

She numbly recognized it to be slush and chunks of hard ice that she was only further battering herself into as she flailed. The dragon faced resistance as she forced enough control over herself to free her from the snow, like she was peeling off a perfectly fitting glove. The ice and snow on the surface fell on her, a good couple of feet of it, the newer ones like soft feathers that melted at her touch.

"Hah...Gh—...Hah...hah..."

It burned. Everything burned, everything was cold, but it felt hot. So hot. It had been a long time since she'd played in snow so long the cold got burned like coals.

"Hel...Help..." she rasped.

The wind was still blowing. It hurt against her drenched back, she wanted to duck back into the cover of the ground, but that was a cold akin to fire. It had been a long time since she'd played long enough in the cold to feel her body burn. But that was just pricks and needles on her fingertips. That was just play, and this was being trapped in a snowstorm.

It would have taken a long time for snow to not simply evaporate at the touch of a dragon. How long had she been there? How bad was her condition?

Sonata wiped the snow off her mouth. Cold, she was shrouded in a layer of cold, sticky ice water. It weighed down her clothes, it clumped in her hair. Trays of rocks and sticks clung to her fingers, and they were too sore to roughly brush off. She brought her hands up to her face to lick them warm.

Her...hand. She could only feel one set against her tongue. She knew she'd been injured, but she could still feel the other one. Maybe it had healed already.

She could feel it.

She could feel it.

But she couldn't feel it make contact against her mouth when she told it to move.

"...See...? My eyes... I can't..."

Sonata strained her eyes open wide until they stung in the dry, icy air, turning her head to try and glimpse something, any small graduation in contrast to tell her she hadn't gone blind. But everything was black.

Why can't I see? Is it night? Is it late at night?

Her arm hurt so much. She warmed her fingers in the hot air of her mouth as much as she could before she pulled them out and let them into the frigid air, tried to feel for the arm she could sense but not feel. But her fingers just searched plain air, groping clumsily for the arm she couldn't find, but was so sure she could still feel there.

Uha-

Sonata's head grazed the snow before she tumbled over. Her fingers tenderly clung to the soaked, roughly bound stub of what was apparently left of her elbow. She tried to steady her breaths. She only had one arm if she fell over, now. She really only had one arm...

The stumbling figure gingerly touched the stub of her arm where blood had already seeped it through.

It was wet. She couldn't tell where the blood soaking her bandages ended and the snow water began. It was wet, and she could feel how the remains of her arm beneath were unevenly severed from the wolves' bites.

"Mhum...mh..."

She tried to steady her breathing. She couldn't pass out. She couldn't pass out yet.

"Mmh...mwah...!"

She hoped she hadn't gone blind. She couldn't maneuver the forest as well without the use of her fourth limb. She was scared to shapeshift like this.

Her legs hurt, too. They'd bitten through her leg, and scraped her good arm. The shards of ice that had coated the tree had sliced through her hand like glass shards, when she'd been clinging for her life.

"He...heł... Ah.. Ma... Mamà..."

She shouldn't have made that girl go away. She needed help. She needed someone to just be there, to keep her awake, to see her if she passed out again and stumbled into a ditch, never to be found again.

"S-Sophia" she shivered.

"Agh" she choked, leaning forwards, her fingers scratching at her neck, against her collarbone.

She should have asked for help for Sophia. At least Sophia. Was the dwarf still around here? Was there any chance she'd hear her if she screamed? Could she make out her footsteps from the way she came, if she was careful enough?

She sifted her fingers through the snow as she stumbled blindly around, trying to gain a semblance of where she was, how to travel those last few meters to the cave where her sister was waiting.

She squinted around, the world around her flashing and gray, like her eyes couldn't pick up anything but the darkest, closest objects and the brightest pieces of snow. She could still hear the blizzard howling in her ear.

"There's no one here." She croaked.

Sonata squinted around helplessly into the wind as vague shades of sepia and brown began to seep into the color of the trees, the color in her skin.

Slowly, it happened slowly. And then when she put all her attention to it, it suddenly became too much.

The dragon let out a small screech, clutching her eyes and stumbling backwards when the snow flashed brighter and brighter, too much information overloading her sensory nerves.

When she braved opening her eyes again, only then was she able to see that the world was truly visible and her sight was completely bright, like she'd been squinting through a black veil all along.

She ducked her head in shadow, too scared to close her eyes for more than a small blink, still too strained to look directly at the snow. All the while, the pain from her broken arm came in merciless, dehabilitating waves.

"Sophia...Need to...my..."

She squeezed her injured side's shoulder, gritting her teeth.

"I'm coming...Sophia...h-hold on." she quivered.

One foot after the other, an internal battle against her body for every productive movement, starting anew with every new step. She fought the urge she had to curl up and let herself plummet into the cycle of torment until she eventually stopped waking up, the draw to let her instincts run wild and destroy everything within her sight, regardless of if it would fit her injure her in the process. It was like a flickering, uncontrollable flame at the back of her lungs. A rage that couldn't be controlled, that didn't give her strength. But feeling something was something. Having something to fight, at least, was probably keeping her from going mad.

They'd been seen. She'd been seen by at at least one other person. The girl didn't look like one of the travelers who went disheveled from town to town with as little as they could carry. Was there a town, nearby? If she wouldn't tell the world, would she tell her family members, in comment? Her neighbors in offhanded whispers. Word of mouth traveled. If there we're people nearby, it could spell danger. She was grateful she hadn't given out her name, in the chaos. It didn't seem like the dwarf knew who she was standing before.

But she still didn't know what they were running from, either. She still didn't know what their 'enemies' wanted from them. For all she knew, their deaths were a distance between the cave and the town's distance away.

She wasn't sure how long she'd walked for; how much progress she'd actually made.

It hurt more, but she could feel her body warming up, her half numb tissue coming back to life. That was good, probably. Terrible for her perseverance to stay conscious, but proof she wasn't fully gone.

She squinted her eyes as she walked, keeping the worst of the light and the cold away. The storm seemed to have died down, for the most part, but the snow that melted just enough to compress into ice at her touch was up above her legs, and she was too heavy to climb and stay on top of it for more than a couple of steps.

And what was with those wolves? How powerful was that dwarf, to be able to take out something that could take down a dragon? It seemed impossible. Had she really taken them out, had it been an illusion of her own making? But then, she couldn't come up with a reason as to why she'd do that.

They weren't safe, with the presence of other powerful beings, around. Perhaps she didn't have to worry about the dwarf exposing them; perhaps she could kill them both, on her own. Other dragons and large groups of people weren't their only possibility.

The soft, deathly wind kissed her frozen cheeks. Little by little, her lungs were thawing. She probably could have another strong burst of firepower in her, but it was still too soon to be safe, and there wasn't anywhere productive for her to put the fire, first.

And a fire would just melt the snow faster, slowing her down even more.

Maybe she was being too doubtful. She had to remember, she was desperate. If there was a village, there could be someone there who could help them. There was still their enemies weren't here. If it could save Sophia, concealing their identities at a little closer range was worth the risk.

...But part of her was still too scared to risk venturing any further. She just wanted to go back to her daily life of trying to hunt down enough food to scape by. She was getting better at that, before. Would she still be able to hunt without the use of her arm? How long would it be for? Did arms grow back when you broke them? Would they be able to stay alive if she couldn't hunt... Would Sophia be able to stay alive, if she couldn't hunt?

The pain hurt. Her slow walk seemed to go on for forever. Although it seemed she only had enough energy to stop to balance against the nearby trees and hills for support, she pulled herself up to carry on every time.

It was a dizzying eternity of stopping and going on, the dizziness clouding her ability to focus too hard on reality. Yet, eventually, she was standing at the top of a shallow hill, her destination below, within view.

Ngaa-

Her breaths quickened, she stumbled and slid down the snowy slope. She experienced the world through cuts and pieces of information with gaps in between that were only filled with herself, like her brain was continually backing out in between glances of attention where she tried to protect her body or regain her balance.

Somehow, she made it, shivering past the large, wet puddle that had formed at the entrance to the cave, going in and in and further in, to where the wind died down and the only light came from a fire.

Hah....hah....ha hah....

At last, she was back to where she began.

"Hah...hah....Sophia?" She whispered.

She practically fell those last few steps across the cave to where her little sister was, a small bundle of unconsciousness tucked under a dark blue coak.

Hah...hah hah....

She dropped.

Without lifting her head from the rock she'd unceremoniously smacked it against, she glanced about the cave. The almost-dead one fire, the sticks of wood under it more untouched than the other fire, that was still going strong.

The cave room was filled with smoke. She pulled the thin blanket up to cover her face, moving her eyes towards the tiny figure that had been trapped here.

Curly, dirty blond hair that had turned golden over the years splayed this way and that like she were some savage child come crawling out of the wild. Her applish baby cheeks were still reddened from fever. Somehow, her skin hadn't paled to make her look any weaker than Sonata had left her.

"Ba...by..."

She clutched Sophia's tiny, curled up hand in her slightly bigger one.

Ah... She couldn't fight her exhaustion much longer. It hurt too much, too much...she hoped it wouldn't be worse in the morning. She could barely keep her eyes open... She wanted to touch those babyish cheeks... She wanted to wipe the sweat off her face and neck...

The pain muted out, a great relief, as her subconscious finally blacked her senses out. She held her sister's hand a little tighter.

How much longer? How much longer would she be able to watch that small, fever weighed chest rise and fall in life, with how badly she was failing at keeping them safe, alive, and hidden?

She probably looked like a mess right now. As much as she willed Sophia to wake up, she hoped she didn't see her like this. She wished she could wipe off the blood, a little, and straighten herself off.

"Sorry..."

She was a terrible older sister. She couldn't even watch over her when she was sick and unconscious, and there was no one else to take care of her.

How long had they lasted, so far? Was it a late December Winter when it started, or an early February one? Sophia would be six in the Spring, in March. She was still so small, so tiny. She needed her, she needed someone to watch over her.

She would be twelve when Sophia turned six. She was born in January, in...

She could vaguely feel heat glide over her eyeball.

Mid-Winter.

The corner of her lip quivered upwards. Oh. She was probably already twelve.

....And

....then null.