ｓｉｘ ° ᴀᴜᴅɪᴏ.

[wolfchild]

Has anyone seen an ice dragon?

[ musing, seemingly to herself, atop her bed. nymeria's head and forepaws are pillowed on arya's thighs and belly. she brushes the sleeping direwolf's neck. ]

There’s a story of a girl who was born during winter. The cold was so terrible it stole into the house and past the great fire her father had built and it crept under the blankets piled high on the birthing bed. It killed her mother, but not her. She was born blue and cold but alive and winter was inside her.

[ children of winter. a fairy story. but arya is a northern girl — no, a woman, now — and though she has not seen winter yet, it lives in her bones. ]

She loved everything about winter. The cold and the grey skies. Making enormous snow castles that turned to hardest ice overnight and playing with the ice lizards that swarmed out of the snow, but she loved nothing half as much as she did the ice dragon.

It came to her when she was very young. She could pet it without burning her hands from the cold. And one day, she got to ride it.

She didn't tell anyone, though. No one had ever tamed an ice dragon, you see. Anyone who'd gone close would be found the next day a block of ice. And it was her secret anyway.

One day, when summer had come and winter was still a long ways away, other dragons, fire breathing ones, came with their riders. She hid and she thought she would die but her ice dragon came to her even though it was summer and ice dragons never come in summer. Even though she wanted to leave and be with her ice dragon in a place where it's always winter, she couldn't leave her family to die. And the ice dragon loved her so much it stayed and battled the other dragons and their riders and it froze them all and it won — but its wings were melted and it was felled.

[ arya takes her time running her fingers through her wolf's long warm fur. nymeria continues to nap, and arya finishes her story. ]

She ran inside the house and freed her family, but when she went back outside, where her ice dragon had been was only a pond of always cold water. She saved her family, but no one believed her. No one had ever tamed an ice dragon, after all.

It's only a story, [ she continues, her tone as even as it had been through the narrative, ] but I always hear of weird animals in other places. Mayhaps someone knows of one like it. The only true ice dragon we have is a bunch of stars: follow the tail and you'll go south but if you chase its blue eye, you'll find north.

[ find home, she means. but there is no ice dragon here either. perhaps it is only meant to live inside the stories old nan spoke in winterfell. ]

Comments

video;

[hellunbounded]

[ Is that a wolf? That definitely...looks like a wolf. But Sam keeps his mouth shut about it for now. ]

Unfortunately, the only dragons I know of aren't so...grandiose. They mostly take the form of humans.

perma-audio because lazy day.

[wolfchild]

[ arya's screen remains stubbornly dark. but the familiar voice is enough to make her turn her head to find her comm discarded somewhere past her head.

sam! her friend! who spoke to her of supernatural creatures and taught her how to throw a good punch.

she speaks before she remembers that he won't. ]

Sam?

video;

[bullshead]

Did you make that up?

perma-audio BECAUSE HE DOESN'T DESERVE VIDEO.

[wolfchild]

No.

[ something to be said about gendry: no one annoys her quite like he does, and no one can snap her back to her usual feisty self as easily as he can.

annoyance bleeds into her voice, discarding the even ( lifeless ) tone she had adopted. ]

It's one of Old Nan's stories. [ because gendry will know who old nan is. nan, at least, is not an unfamiliar name for him. ] She had a lot of them, a few about ice dragons.

video;

[longestnose]

We have stories like that where I come from, as well.

perma-audio.

[wolfchild]

About — animals helping?

[ she almost asked "about dragons?" but from what stories she has heard, the dragons of arda were terrible. more so than the targaryen dragons ever were. arya only need remember how the elves react to little glaurung who has never done anything worse than hide her knives and comm. but glaurung is a baby still; he will be fearful when he grows. arya is not so naive to believe otherwise. ]

video

[elvenking]

Cold drakes are a thing long past, to us. But they were different, called so because they had no fire in their breath.

perma-audio.

[wolfchild]

So they were really big lizards?

[ like still adorably small glaurung. ]

text;

[vindictam]

[ he likes the story only -- ]

What are dragons?

[wolfchild]

[ it takes her a while to look at her comm to read anything there. a few hours, in fact. she's just not in the mood. arya considers ignoring it entirely but finally types back: ]

if you were any sort of guard you would know
Glaurung is one and he is mine own.

[Video]

[the_other_eight]

I can't say there have ever been any dragons in my world, but your story is fantastic.

[Private to Arya]

Are you free at all?

private. perma-audio.

[wolfchild]

Why?

[ for pepper, she makes the effort of grabbing her comm and checking the line is secure -- or as secure as anything on this ship can be. ]

Something happen?

( voice. )

[carbonite]

Maybe the dragon didn't like the fact that it was being treated like a pet when it could have easily been another species that hated all of you.

[wolfchild]

Dragons aren't pets. If it hadn't wanted to stay with her, no one could have made it.

[ see: direwolves and starks. ]

i'm actioning you there is nothing you can do to stop me

[wolfdreamer]

You tell it nearly as good as Old Nan.

[Nearly. Bran had grown so tired of Old Nan's tales, and her voice, and her company--but sometimes, now, he misses her. Or maybe he only misses Winterfell, and Old Nan was a part of Winterfell.

In the other bed, in their room (and maybe we're bending time so he's not overhearing sensitive conversations or anything ok), Bran sits up a little. Summer is laying between him and the edge of the bed, so he has to prop himself up on his elbow so he can look at his sister over the ridge of his direwolf's shoulder. He had been so quiet he might have seemed asleep, but he was listening, even though Arya's voice was very quiet.]

But she told better ones than that one.

pushes you out of this post

[wolfchild]

[ defensively: ] I like it.

[ arya remembers to shut off her comm, a task that requires much fumbling and a few curse words as she tries to grab it. she drops the comm back on her bed with a sigh. ]

She had a lot more stories.

[voice]

[yardbird]

Are dragons a... actually a thing, where you come from?

[He sounds so casual about it now. But spend a couple years in a crazy ship with aliens and people varying from the future to alternate realities to fantasy worlds, it's not a stretch that Murphy can suspend his disbelief these days. And whether or not the tale the girl spins sounds much like old fairytales he used to read as that orphan boy he once was, he's pretty sure that her initial question is sincere.]

[wolfchild]

Not anymore. [ her answer is simple because it's a simple question to answer unless you ask a targaryen. ] The last dragon died over a hundred years ago.

audio.

[lightmagic]

There are many types of dragons where I'm from, but no ice dragons that I can recall.

I like your story very much, though.

[wolfchild]

Thank you. [ occasionally she remembers she's the daughter of a lord.

curiosity has her tilting her head up so she can see the comm behind her. ]

What sort of dragons do you have?

[Audio]

[sophically]

Dragons are numerous in my world. I've seen five: two Norwegian Ridgebacks, one Swedish Short-Snout, one Chinese Fireball and one Common Welsh Green.

Does your world have various species too?

[wolfchild]

All the dragons are dead.

[ a beat. ]

Is that a type of green?

auggielocked;

[altercate]

Did she stay blue?

[ important questions. ]

forever!

[wolfchild]

[ derek hale with the tough questions. ]

Mm...I don't think so. I think that was just when she was born.

voice;

[northerner]

When you've finished your conversations, I would visit with you. I've a gift to give.

[wolfchild]

[ a gift? she gets a gift? fuck conversation then, gifts. ]

You can come when you like.

[ she'll kick bran out so he doesn't get jealous if she has to. ]

[kutte]

Must have been a hell of a battle. You got more stories like that you've been holding out?

[wolfchild]

Mayhaps. What would you give for them?

[voice]

[coldhardy]

[It's a young woman with a low, dry voice, a little bit like cracking frost, but more musical.]

Are there any other stories about the girl?

["Winter was inside her" -- that means something to Elsa. And the story makes her wonder whether there are things she haven't tried that she might be capable of.]

[wolfchild]

No. Guess nothing else happened and then she died.

[ she doesn't sound too bothered by her assumptions. ]

video;

[skjalf]

In my land, dragons exist for knights to slay. In so doing they perform a great deed.

I have never heard of one bearing such loyalty for a person before this tale.

perma-audio.

[wolfchild]

One knight can't kill a dragon.

[ everyone knows that. ]

video;

[ex_halberd259]

I do. Jörmungandr, the world serpent. Have you heard of it?

[ there is something wild about this girl. yet she bears a sort of quiet wisdom. such a paradox. ]

Do you believe your tale to be true?

perma-audio.

[wolfchild]

No.

[ to both. ]