Of Sand and Snow

Chapter 4: Do Animus Dream of Magic Sheep?

(The songs for this chapter are Seventeen Forever by Metro Station... and Enemy by Imagine Dragons)

Winter's eyes fluttered open, and he let out a yawn. Stretching out his legs, he trotted out into the small clearing and started rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Looking over nearby, he saw two dark outlines sleeping soundly. He began doing his usual routine of scale care and reflected on the events of yesterday. The strange but enthralling Nightshade and this "scary place" that she continued to reference. Perhaps a leftover from the Kingdom of Night or another one of Darkstalker's personal pet projects. Whatever the case may be, just thinking about it just gave him the heebie jeebies. At least he wasn't plagued by another "interesting" dream last night. He hoped that it would stay that way. The last thing that he needed was to be fantasizing both awake and in his slumber.

At least it's all in my mind, Winter acknowledged.

Over long stretches of flight, a dragon's mind just tends to wander a bit. Especially if one was flying through familiar terrain that has been familiarized through hundreds of flights. Everyone had their own way of passing time, and Winter's was fantasizing. Whether that be heroic bouts of adventure or the slaying of evil mind reading animus. Sometimes it would even be something as simple as imagining himself as a world class chef, an architect, an interior decorator for some of the awful looking palaces he's visited. Then, sometimes, the mind just tends to enter a certain mode and Winter would fantasize about... other things. Almost like alternate timelines, imagining what would happen if this and that was just a tad bit different. What if he and Moon switched places, if he was born an animus, if Turtle turned evil, if Kinkajou was secretly a highly trained assassin.

That also happened to include... what would happen if Winter romanced X dragon. He would never admit it, but far too often he'd indulge himself in creating these little fictional universes in his mind. Most often, what would happen if Moon chose him over Qibli and the like. That was not all though, he had imagined himself with Kinkajou, Peril... Turtle, and Qibli of course. Winter had always thought these feelings were just fleeting jests, and that he was still "straight" but just had an odd fantasy here and there. Now that he'd spent this time with Qibli, he was now questioning how true that really was. Not that it would be the end of the world or anything but being stuck in one mindset for so long made it quite the pill to swallow. At this point, with how much he had fantasized about Qibli in the last week or so, he would be lying if he still considered himself completely straight.

"Morning Winter!" A voice called out from behind.

A bolt of electricity went through his body, and he nearly leapt out of his scales. He blushed furiously and turned to meet the smiling face of Nightshade.

"Why would you do that? You nearly scared me half to death!" Winter scolded, making sure to keep his voice low as to not wake Qibli.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Just thought you looked lonely," Nightshade replied, stepping over to sit nearby.

"I'm fine, thank you, just don't do that again," Winter responded, his heart slowing back to a normal pace.

Nightshade performed a laxer version of his scale routine, and he was able to appreciate just how detailed her skeletal appearance was. She had not only clearly outlined every bone in a pale white but also had joined some sections, kept others apart, and had proper spacing between them. Now that he's gotten acquainted with her appearance, he could more than understand why an average dragon would see her as a figure of death. Not to mention the fixation on the dead and her macabre style of artwork. Horrifying in some ways, beautiful in others.

"You excited for today?" She asked. The rainwing started popping her joints as she spoke, twisting her neck and body all around.

"As excited as I'll ever be. It's not every day you get to explore a mysterious and definitely deadly place that will most likely end in one or all of us being decapitated or disemboweled," Winter answered sarcastically.