'CELIA!' Verbena's panicked mental scream burst Celia out of her nightmare. 'I'VE BEEN FOUND!"

Celia jumped out of the warm sack in a panic. 'I'm coming!' After she grabbed her bag, she ran to the desk and returned the key along with a random amount of crystals by slamming them onto the table. Before the innkeeper could say a word, Celia had already left the room and was sprinting towards the exit.

Despite the strange looks she earned from the locals she passed, Celia never ceased her sprint. When she emerged from the cave, she slammed into the back of a human figure she could not see while her eyes adjusted to the change in light. "Sorry," she apologized without looking up as she stood and wiped the snow off of her ungloved hands, "I did not see you there."

The man she ran into, who happened to be the first resident she had encountered when she arrived, turned to face her. "What are you doing back out here, especially with a dragon on the loose." He paused. "Wait..." he pointed his stone weapon at her.

Celia emitted a whimper, unsure of what he was about to say.

"You arrived shortly after the dragon arrived, and then when we discover it hiding on the other side of the ridge, you suddenly appear." He glowered and did not lower his spear, "your timing seems rather suspicious, doesn't it? It cannot be pure coincidence, especially since you came through the door fast enough to blindly run into me. So why are you back out here, especially without all of your protection on?" He allowed Celia time to give an answer.

"Um...," Celia was unsure what to say as she mentally pleaded to her dragon to come to rescue her, but also wanted her to stay away. The human girl feared for her dragon's safety since the stone weapons that would definitely be thrown at her would hurt Verbena if the throwers landed a hit.

'Celia?' Verbena was confused by the conflicting orders and moved to circle around the area high above the range of the weapons.

'I've got this.' Celia promised, but she felt vast amounts of uncertainty. 'There's no need for you to come down here.'

"Stop staring and answer me." The man ordered.

Before Celia could answer, a draconic roar came from above and pulled every pair of eyes towards it. The white dragon dove toward the stunned humans with her blue eyes focused on Celia's attacker.

The man moved his weapon away from Celia's throat and prepared to stab the dragonet as she passed. Before he could attack, Celia reacted to the threat on her friend and blindly tackled him in the back with her shoulder and knocked him into the snow without causing herself to fall over as well.

When Verbena passed over, she snatched Celia in her front paws and flapped her wings to regain the altitude she had lost in her dive. The rider reached over and grabbed the ventral strap on the top of Verbena's harness, then wove her feet into the side straps of the harness since she struggled to. With Verbena's assistance, Celia finally made it back onto the dragonet's back.

Celia ran out of breath and her heartbeat rang in her ears. Also, the human was shivering and numb, and desperately needed to get out of the wind coming from Verbena's movement. "W—we sh—should l—l—land," she sputtered, "so—o I c—can p—put the r—rest of my g—gear on."

Verbena whimpered, then swiftly descended and managed to make a semi-smooth landing by using her serrated claws to grip the snow and ice. 'Perfect landing!' The dragonet cheered and hopped in excitement, but accidentally threw her freezing rider off and into the snow.

Celia flinched and released a small yelp as she hit the dense ice hidden under the looser snow. "The amulet," she suddenly remembered, then slowly took off her bag with trembling hands and reached inside. After a few freezing seconds, he fumbled around the bag for a minute, then sighed in relief as her fingers felt the warm jewel. Warmth flushed through her face and she could feel her hands and face again. "Thank goodness," she sighed in relief.

Verbena looked to Celia once she realized it was not the time to celebrate, as she had displaced her rider. 'Are you okay?'

"I am fine now," Celia assured as she looped the amulet over her head. "I think this thing saved my life," she admitted and felt the discreetly carved symbols on the surface of the jewel with her fingertips.

Verbena sniffed the red crystal, then wrinkled her nose. 'It smells funny. Where did you get that?'

"I bought it in the town," Celia told the dragonet, "and I'm glad I did, is it uses magic to keep me warm." She tucked the necklace into her shirt, then retrieved her head wrapping and gloves. "Though I do not need these as much anymore, I'm going to put these back on as well, just in case."

Verbena nuzzled the human. 'We should look out for a cave with water and food, I'm getting kinda hungry.'

"That sounds like a good idea." Celia nodded. "But one without a town in it in case all humans hate dragons out here."

Verbena looked to the human. 'Are you ready to go?' She asked as she laid down next to Celia so the rider could easily climb onto the dragon's back.

"Yes, let's go." She nodded and swung her leg over Verbena's side.

Verbena looked back to her rider. 'This is an old frozen river, maybe if we follow it will lead to a cave source of water.'

"Let's try it. I'm ready to continue on now." Celia nodded and gripped Verbena's harness as the dragonet stood up and spread her wings.

With Celia's affirmation of readiness, Verbena launched herself back into the air and gained altitude. 'We can do this!' The dragon cheered' 'Look at how far we have come! The place with the ray of light has to be close! I just know it! I can feel it in my fur!' She let out a roar of excitement.

Celia glanced behind her to the mountain range the pair had just left as they entered the wide valley. Celia felt as if she had crossed an imaginary barrier, as she could no longer see the massive wasteland she and verbena had been crossing for days. As her experience in the town had shown her, even the people of the land and tier customs were strange and foreign to the dragon rider.

Despite Verbena's impressive sense of sight, she could only barely see the rest of the white mountain range against the black starlit sky on the other side of the vast valley. The serene landscape was calming to the pair as they flew across the expanse, though at the same time, its emptiness was unsettling to those who were used to the closeness of caves where life was prevalent.

Celia allowed herself to mentally doze off for a moment as she once again thought about the quest she and Verbena had started. Despite Verbena's endless confidence, the human half of the duo was still doubtful. They had had no luck so far in finding the second ray of sunlight, and Celia was beginning to feel homesick.

Her home had a constant supply of food, water, and warmth, whereas the expanse aboveground was empty and white. There was food in the furred animals that lived under the snow in a few select places where there was enough food around for them to eat. Water, however, was all frozen into ice or snow, and Celia had no way of melting it until Verbena finally gained her fire breath.

After a little while of doubting her choices, Celia snapped out of her pensiveness when Verbena spoke into her mind, 'Celia, do you see that?' The dragon sent the human a mental image of what she could see.

A golden light appeared in the distance and began to illuminate the mountains that made up the horizon. When Verbena's image faded, even Celia's human eyes could see the growing source of light.

The human recognized the warmth of the solid glow and its orangish yellow color as similar to that of the ray of light she had when it was fading. "That has to be it!" Celia cheered and a wide grin spread across her face and her faith and hope were renewed. "Let's go get it!" A wide grin formed on her face.

'Ray of light, here we come!' Verbena trumpeted and increased her speed with a few flaps of her wings. 'Let's return light to the world!' With their newfound hope, the pair raced off to the source of the light with the belief that nothing could stop them in their quest.

The distant town became closer and closer, and soon, they could see more than just the light. Unlike the other two towns Celia had seen, colossal structures rose high above ground. Massive towers poked out from behind the tall wall that surrounded the castle-like town, while the tallest tower sat in the center of the town. Every space facing the tall structure in the center was carpeted in green as if trying to reach the rays of light focused down on the town from the top of the tower.

"It's amazing." Celia awed as she stared at their destination. "The structures are so intriguing, and we finally found the second ray of light." A smile appeared on her face and she laughed softly in happiness. "I hope the people are also friendly to dragons so I can take you with me."

Verbena nodded in agreement and purred happily, then paused with upright ears and tensed as she glanced upward to the starry sky. 'Hang on,' she urgently instructed, then pulled in her wings a bit and rolled away as something seemingly invisible dove past where she had previously been.

Celia managed to keep her grip on Verbena's harness, but her heart was beating in surprise. Once she recovered from the dizzying experience, she glanced below her to see what had just attacked them.

The black void in the shape of a giant beast had recovered from its previous dive. It had wings, a long neck, and tail like a dragon, but it had a few differences. Unlike the dragons familiar to Celia, its wings were not covered in feather-like fur. Instead, the beast's wings appeared more like a sheet stretched across poles fanning out from the wing's wrist joint like fingers on a hand. Also, it's head was squarer and larger in proportion to its body when compared to Verbena's more triangular head.

Angered by the miss, the giant black creature swiftly looped back around and regained altitude. Despite its large size, the beast was quite fast and managed to be a bit faster than Verbena and soon caught up. With a sudden burst of speed, it lunged and tried to grab Verbena's tail in it's jaws.

'I hope you are still holding on as tight as you can,' Verbena folded her wings to her side as she rolled out of harm's way at the loss of a bit of altitude.

Celia had not released her grip in the slightest, 'I am not going to let go until we are far away from that thing.' Under her gloves, her knuckles turned white, and Eve Celia's teeth were clenched.

Since the beast now flew above the fleeing pair, it had decided to once again attempt to dive on them with gaping jaws large enough to eat half of Verbena in one bite.

Verbena glanced up just in time to see the creature once again diving onto her. In a panic, the green dragonet spewed a jet of flame into the beast's mouth before she tucked in her wings and dove out of the way again.

Blinded and distracted by the flame, the beast missed its target and nearly hits the ground. When it recovered, the creature was temporarily unable to find Verbena and Celia among the white cloudy sky. After a few moments, it spotted the two as thy fled south and toward the mountains. The monster growled, then increased its altitude in order to hide its black shape among the dark sky.

Verbena flew as fast as she could in order to escape. Once she reached the edge of the valley, she dove over the edge of the mountain in hope to find a cave entrance, but could not quickly locate a crevice to hide in. Despite their misfortune, luck seemed to be on their side, as the creature missed Verbena and Celia and slammed into the river valley side of the mountain.

In a flurry of snow, the black beast, revealed by the snow dust that coated it's hide, climbed to the top of the mountain and glared at them, but did not pursue them into the mountains as if it physically could not leave the river valley on the same side as the city with the light.

"Let's get out of here." Celia whimpered as her dragonet continued to fly deeper into the miles and miles of parallel mountains. "It does not seem to be following us for now, but I would rather be farther away in case that creature decides to hunt us down later." She shivered slightly as she finally relaxed her grip.

'Great idea,' Verbena whimpered and agreed as they continued to fly in a southwesterly direction.

After the pair had traveled quite a distance, they finally found a safe and secluded cave to take a rest in. However, before they entered, Verbena thoroughly sniffed every crevice of the space to ensure it's safety. Once they traveled deep enough to find liquid water and rock formations instead of a mass of ice coating every surface, they finally sat down to take a break after their exhausting experience with the light of the match-lit flame of a small ryume lamp.

Soon, the events of the previous trip washed over Celia's mind. "You breathed fire!" Celia exhaled in an excited tone, "You actually breathed fire!" She hugged the dragonet's wet neck, "I'm so proud of you Verbena! You are amazing!

Verbena nuzzled Celia's cheek. 'I'm not exactly sure how I did it, but I did!' She purred. 'I just felt like I had to do something,' her ears were upright in her enjoyment, 'and then fire erupted out of me and I protected you!'

Celia smiled and nodded to Verbena, then filled her water-skin with water flowing from a nearby waterfall as she sighed in relief. "I'm just glad to find a safe place underground for once. The land above is cold and unforgiving and I probably would not have survived without you to keep me warm." Once the water skin was full, she drank some of the nutrient-rich water, then tucked it into her cloak. As she retrieved a food ration, she looked to Verbena, "it seems like everything is out to get us." She took a bite of food, then broke off a small offered it to the dragonet.

Verbena curiously sniffed the food, then carefully took the food, without touching Celia's hand, and ate it. 'This is surprisingly good,' she purred, then swallowed and looked to Celia, 'where did you find this? It smells and tastes a lot different than the dried food you brought from home.'

"The town," the female rider replied as she finished the food, then looked to the dragonet. After a nervous pause, she spoke, "any idea what we do now? That monster is going to keep us away from the town, and now we are stuck here, as it is going to be impossible to get safely past that beast again to get home. We are stuck here," she teared up slightly, "we are going to die here and never go home, there's no way for us to get the rays of light or go home."

Verbena became extremely worried for her companion, 'Celia, we can do this,' the dragonet purred as she gently gave Celia a wet nuzzling. 'I believe in us. I believe in you.' Her bright purple eyes locked with Celia, 'no matter how much you doubt yourself, I will always believe in you.'

Celia paused and looked at where her hands rested in her lap in the comforting dimness of the cave. She thought about how much they had already acieved. After she released the breath she did not realize she was holding, she looked to the dragnet with tears in her eyes, "you're right, we can do this," she shuffled and used her glove to wipe away her tears, then embraced the young dragon.

"Thank you for always being the optimistic one out of the two of us," she sniffled again, then released the hug. "We should get some nice, long rest before we continue on our journey." The human smiled, then found a dry place to rest. The cool rock bed was not the most comfortable place in the world, but it was still better than the unforgiving chill of the aboveground environment.

After a few moments of laying in the semi-familiar surroundings, Celia succumbed to tiredness and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, temporarily unaware of what lay before them in their journey.

Author Notes!

Welcome to this cold December!
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See you next week!