Snow Day | Holiday Event Entry

A small fire crackled in the hearth of Leonidas’s comfortable cave home. He had never been a fan of ostentatious buildings or grand plazas like those he had served in the past. A nice hole in a mountainside with some ventilation for a fire and a couple of warm blankets were all he really needed to be happy.

The dracus sat peacefully beside the fire, a small but sharp knife in one hand and a chunk of birch branch in the other. Each pass of the knife over the wood carved a little more away, revealing the cheek of the greedy chipmunk he had seen skittering around the nearby forest. He could already see the acorns and beech nuts he would carve out at the base of the chipmunk’s stand, and he was excited to see how it turned out.

A few paces away, the young dracus who had been placed in his care lay on the floor on his belly, his chin on the floor as his golden eyes focused intently on the whittled carvings that Leonidas had made specifically for him. There were several birds, wings fanned open in flight that the boy enjoyed thrusting into the air in his small hand, mimicking the sounds that the birds might make. They were not the correct sounds, but that meant little to Leonidas. He enjoyed watching Azrinal play, imagining what was going on in the child’s head. That was where Azrinal seemed to spend most of his time, so it must be a very fun place to be.

Milarose had not given Leonidas a great amount of detail when they met together in the Tanglewoods. When he and Azrinal had returned from their adventure farther into the woods, they had found Milarose shaken and afraid, and though he would not state what had bothered him so deeply, they parted ways quickly so he could return home. Leonidas worried that he hadn’t been told everything he needed to know about Azrinal, and that this would hinder his ability to teach the child what he had to offer.

Azrinal reached out and picked up a starling that Leonidas had carved that spring, he had found oak leaves and soaked them in cool water to dye the water and then allowed the carving to soak in it for a few days to leech the color into the wood. It was now a lovely almost copper color even after Azrinal had played with it for months.

In the time they had been together, Leonidas had witnessed many strange behaviors from the child. Such as his unwillingness to communicate in a way that most people would understand. At first, Leonidas had thought the boy obstinate and stubborn for his refusal to speak. The patience required for him not to lose his temper had challenged the older dracus, having to draw on his training as an officer and commander to steel himself against the urge to shout at a child in frustration. Shouting would not help him communicate, and could only result in Azrinal associating him with fear. Fear was a destructive tool, not useful.

As he sat there carving in the quiet of his cave, Leonidas watched as Azrinal exhibited another of his odd behaviors. The child’s tall, dark olive toned ears twitched to the right and his head turned in kind, staring at nothing—or so it seemed. At first Leonidas had suspected the boy was mental, had something wrong with his mind that made him see visions. But now he wasn’t so sure. Azrinal never brought up what could suddenly draw his attention, and it didn’t seem to cause him distress. If the boy was unbothered, why try to change him?

There were a few reasons he could think of, if he was honest. The boy was inattentive and flighty, preferring to spend his days drifting through the clusters of birch trees and make hammocks out of the long, trailing willow branches. He didn’t know how he was meant to teach a dracus like this to fight, when he seemed to have no self-preservation instincts at all. He had even seen the child running circles around a black bear during the early fall, not understanding that he was in real danger.

The old commander sighed gently, setting his carving and knife aside as he came to his feet. His joints felt stiff with the cold outside the cave, and he wondered briefly if rain would come so soon after the snow. There would be ice and the nearby river could finally freeze over. That gave him reason to be nervous, if only slightly, as they relied so heavily on the river for their food. He would rather not have to leave the area, and if it was his own belly he had to worry about feeding he wouldn’t. But if the river froze over and they could not access the fish, he would bring them elsewhere for better hunting.

“Azrinal,” he said as he approached the child, standing a good distance away and keeping his voice low. He’d learned not to approach too quickly or speak too loudly, or the child would spook badly. Slow and quiet worked best—another reason he feared the child would never learn how to defend himself.

A long moment passed before Azrinal finally turned to look at him, his pupils moving ever so slightly to the left and right, almost a tick. Did it affect his vision? Did he feel unwell? There were so many questions Leonidas would want to ask the young dracus, if only he would get any answers.

“Let’s practice evasive flight,” the commander suggested, holding his hand out toward the child. “Come.”

Leonidas suspected it was less the words he said and more the action of holding his hand out that brought Azrinal to his feet to trot toward him, abandoning his toys. The child’s whiskers bobbed and weaved in the air, curling and uncurling out of sync with one another, going so far as to knot themselves together in strange and seemingly uncomfortable ways. It was just another odd behavior, one that Leonidas found oddly charming.

Together, they left the cave and the warmth of the small fireplace, crunching through the remains of last night’s snow. Leonidas had peeked outside during the heaviest of it before rolling down the deerskin door that he had made years ago to keep the cold wind out of the cave. It was the first snow of the season, which always seemed to be the coldest.

Azrinal leaped into the air, taking flight and spinning and twirling in the air, grinning from ear to ear. He laughed and weaved between tree trunks and branches, diving toward snow drifts before he angled back up right at the last moment to avoid crashing.

“Be careful,” Leonidas warned as he too took flight. “You must watch where you are going, or you will get hurt.” He watched the young dracus cartwheel through the air and shook his head a little, exasperated but glad the child was at least enjoying himself.

He shuffled his feet and settled on his haunches to watch Azrinal, admiring the fluid way he flew through the air, even if there was no tactical advantage to it. The child was certainly a free spirit, if nothing else.

No sooner had he decided they weren’t going to get any work done that day, did Azrinal turn too sharply and plow head-first into a tree. His half-grown horn stuck fast in the bark for a fraction of a second before the weight of his body pulled him free as he plummeted to the forest floor. A deep well of snow had collected under the tree, swallowing the young dracus whole.

Fear gripped Leonidas when the child didn’t immediately surface, and he leaped off the ground, flying quickly until he reached the tree where the child had struck. He knew what this was. The branches of the tree had sheltered the snow from compacting, resulting in a deep well of loose snow that would shift and settle, trapping anything that fell through a seemingly solid surface.

The commander reached into the snowdrift and fished around desperately for Azrinal. When he didn’t find the child immediately, he planted his back feet and began scooping great handfuls of snow out, dragging it between his legs until he had to move aside from how much snow he had displaced. His breath clouded in front of him as the temperature dropped and he growled in frustration as his right shoulder began to ache—an old wound that still had its claws in him.

“Where are you?” he breathed, desperately digging until his fingers felt utterly frozen as he used his hands like spades to scoop more snow out. How long had Azrinal been under the surface? Could he breathe? Where had he gone? The snow wasn’t that deep, was it?

He had his head and shoulders almost entirely under the surface of the snow before he pulled back, his tall, mohawk mane plastered flat with heavy snow that clung to the strands of blond hair in clods.

A high-pitched shout came from behind him and Leonidas leaped away, whip-like tail lashing as he let out a ferocious growl. He twisted as he landed, bringing his hand up as if to strike a threat, only to immediately drop it to the ground once more. His hackles smoothed over and he hung his head in disbelief. Azrinal sat there in the snow, tail neatly curled over his paws, golden eyes beaming and bright with mirth. The high-pitched sound came from him again, something between a laugh and a shout.

“I thought you were hurt,” Leonidas chided, though he hadn’t room enough in his heart to be both angry and grateful that Azrinal was safe. Then he raised a brow and asked, “How did you get out of there?”

Azrinal didn’t reply, but he did stand sharply, tail held high as he picked up a pawful of snow, compacted it between his hands and threw it as hard as he could at Leonidas. Then he turned and fled, unaware that the snowball had fallen back to the earth no more than six feet away from him.

A chuckle rumbled low in Leonidas’s throat as he lowered himself and stalked after Azrinal, following the veritable trench the child left in the snow, as he did not yet understand he should use magic to lighten his steps to travel quickly. He blinked in surprise when he saw that the trail ended and he looked up, surprised that he had neither seen nor heard Azrinal take off. The child was clumsy, he was sure he would have heard branches clattering together as he flew through them.

He peered closer and saw a hole in the snow, dug out by small, quick claws. Leonidas had only just stooped to sniff at the hole when he heard furious scratching under the snow to his left. He turned and saw Azrinal’s snout push through, but quickly looked back to the hole, intently sniffing and frowning in confusion. Small feet plunged noisily through the crunchy snow and a young, undisciplined tail raked across the ground like a dry straw broom sweeping across pavement. But Leonidas kept his ears utterly still.

Azrinal leaped with a triumphant shout and plowed into Leonidas’s side. The old commander gasped dramatically and fell over onto his side, roaring in feigned pain.

“You got me! I’m finished!” he called. “Azrinal the Mighty has slain Leonidas the Great.”

Azrinal stood on his upturned chest, planted his hands and feet wide, reared his head back and let out a fearsome howl for one so young. He’d shown more discipline than Leonidas had expected as he stalked across the snow, perhaps he could be taught after all.

“You may never be a warrior,” Leonidas said as he reached out to rest his hand on the child’s cold cheek. “But I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. You’re perfect for who you are.”