A Light in the Snow

“So, can you explain to me how you find yourself up there?” 

Sol stood beneath the tallest tree in the valley, which wasn’t to say much. This was, after all, the only tree in the valley. He’d been on his way to the nearby mountain, where it was rumored that the Fountain of Youth existed. Always the skeptic, Sol had to see it for himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the youths when they spoke in frenzied whispers about it, he just wasn’t one to believe rumors and word of mouth.  So he had found himself on a journey. He lived very far to the south, and this was his second week of travel, nearing on the third. He could have made it here sooner if he’d flown faster, but he was in no rush. Ancient fountains didn’t tend to get up and wander off. 

He blinked up at the sprite in the tree. He was quite high up there, bright yellow limbs hugging the branch he found himself on as if for dear life. His long tail hung down, and Sol could just make out the long, lapine ears that trembled in fear. 

“I’d r-really rather not talk about it,” the sprite stammered back, his voice shaking with fear. 

The other sprite--a turquoise female with swept back ivory horns, fin-like ears and a long mane--leaned toward him and whispered loudly, “He thought he saw a pinecone. He’s always wanted to see one in person.” 

Sol had leaned down to listen to the smaller drakiri and blinked, surprised. “But this is an oak tree.” 

The turquoise sprite shrugged and shook her head, sighing in good-natured exasperation, it seemed. 

“Would you like help?” Sol asked, straightening back up to peer up at the drakiri. 

“No! No, I don’t need help,” the sprite said hurriedly. “I got up h-here, I can very well get myself down. Just…move aside so I don’t hurt you when you land.” 

The dracus, whose head was about the size of the sprite’s entire torso, stepped aside, folding his wings neatly behind himself and curling his tail around his paws. 

“I’m Meriadoc,” the other sprite said, extending her leg to him in greeting. “My friends call me Meri. That’s Pippin up there.” 

“Well met, Meriadoc, I’m Sol,” the dracus said pleasantly, reaching out to take the offered hoof and give it a light shake. “Is he your brother?” 

“First cousin,” Meri said wistfully. “Sometimes I wonder if his mother didn’t drop him on his head a few too many times.” 

“I’d think once was too many times, wouldn’t you?” Sol asked, watching Pippin struggle even to stand on the branch he’d previously clung to. 

“A few times isn’t so bad,” Meri said with a shrug, sitting and wrapping her tail around herself. As she gazed up at her cousin, a dark mist appeared around her shoulders, hovering like a cloud. “It doesn’t add to intelligence or wisdom but—” The deep crack of a branch cut her off, followed by a sharp gasp, and a hard thud as the sprite landed in front of them in the grass followed by a flurry of leaves that landed on him. “—a good fall builds character.” 

Pippin stared up at the sky, blinking in a daze until his cousin moved around behind him and started nosing him none too gently. 

“I just fell out of a tree, be easy,” he protested. 

“You fall out of things all the time, why’s a tree so different?” she asked cheerfully. 

Clearly Pippin had no response, as he picked himself up, and though he stumbled a little, managed to keep his hooves under him. He blinked a few times before giving himself a rough shake. Then he glanced at Sol, his head lowering slightly as he looked pointedly away. 

“Who’s he?” he asked Meri. 

“I ‘unno,” Meri said with another shrug. “He just showed up.” 

“My name is Sol,” the dracus said, giving a respectful nod of his head. “I heard shrieking and thought someone may be in trouble.” 

“I wasn’t in trouble,” Pippin said, his chest swelling with indignation. “I got out of the tree just fine all on my own!” 

“Certainly you did,” Sol acquiesced. “How wrong of me to assume otherwise, my apologies.” He stood and gave his legs a trembling stretch before he looked to the darkening sky. “It will be sunset before long, do you two have accommodations for the night?” 

“We’re on our way to the mountain, we thought we might find a nice cave to camp in,” Meri said, gesturing to the packs that were leaned against the trunk of the tree. Apparently they had been there long enough for Meri to tire of carrying hers. 

“The mountain is a long walk from here, even for a dracus,” he said thoughtfully. “I could fly you two to the mountain if you’d prefer. We would arrive before nightfall.” 

“Fly?” Pippin asked, his voice cracking in consternation. 

“Pippin doesn’t like heights,” Meri said, “but we appreciate the offer!” 

“It’s not that I don’t like heights, it’s that…I don’t like falling,” the colorful sprite defended himself. 

“Falling isn’t so bad, so long as you have a way to stop yourself,” Sol said with a smirk, opening his wings slightly as a demonstration. 

The dracus lingered with the sprites as they gathered up their belongings, helping each other strap their respective packs onto their backs. Sol admired how they interacted, thinking that they must be rather comfortable traveling together to have this level of familiarity. Then again, not every drakiri was as distant with their family as he was…he almost regretted his decision to leave home, but when he thought of the dysfunction in his family, he thought again that perhaps the decision was for the best. He hoped they were doing well, regardless of how difficult they were to deal with. 

“You’re certain you don’t want help getting up to the top of the mountain?” he asked, raising a brow as he stood, his tail moving smoothly over the grass behind him. 

“We’re sure,” Pippin said, glancing at him and then away as he started off in the direction of the foothills that lay under heavy mist in the distance. 

“There will likely be a storm tonight,” he warned as Meri followed her cousin away from him. 

“We have blankets!” Meri called over her shoulder, her head and tail held high. “Thanks for the warning though!” 

Sol watched as the sprites trotted along. At least they were confident, if a little misguided. Either way, he couldn’t force them to allow him to tag along, and he wasn’t fond of the idea of stalking them to make sure they were safe. So he spread his wings and stretched them until the feathers trembled before he ran forward a few paces and used that momentum to leap into the air, disturbing the grass and leaves on the ground with the powerful downdraft from each stroke of his wings until he climbed high enough into the sky. 

The closer he flew to the foothills, the less vegetation grew beneath him. He watched his shadow pass over grass that had wilted in the cold autumn winds, deciduous pine giving way to tall and proud evergreens. He liked this kind of environment, even if it was too cold for his liking. The dark pine needles against the snow when it lay thick on the ground was a lovely contrast. 

The sun had hardly reached the horizon before the clouds closed in overhead and snow began to fall. Flying had been hard enough without the pillars of warm air called thermals to help lift him into the air, he wasn’t about to strain himself fighting dead air to get enough lift to bring him to the summit of the mountain. So he found a cliff face that was sheltered from the wind and settled in to watch the snow. 

Before he knew it, Sol’s heavy eyelids drooped and his head lowered to rest on his hands as he fell into a light sleep, his ears twitching as a stray snowflake landed on the sensitive fur in them. 

He woke to the wind howling through narrow valleys around him and he lifted his head, looking around in confusion. Sol had expected to be greeted by darkness, but in fact the landscape was so bright that he had to squint his eyes to protect them. The snow reflected the light of the stars and moon, which shone brightly through clouds that looked to have been painted across the sky in thick clumps that broke apart to let through just enough light. 

The dracus looked down at himself, shivering as he realized he’d been coated in several inches of snow, shaking himself off as he stood and walked toward the edge of his cliff face. He frowned as he looked down at the trees he’d admired not so long ago, realizing how deep the snow was by how little of the boughs he could see now. This hadn’t just been a storm, it had been a blizzard. 

“Oh no,” Sol breathed, his words clouding in front of his mouth like clouds ready to join their brothers in the sky above. 

He leaped off the edge of the cliff, spreading his wings wide and beating them hard to keep himself in the air. It was a hard workout but he managed it as he flew back down the valley, picking out the path the sprites would have followed by the shadows in the snow. The deepest parts of the landscape would signal where the path lay, and he could see from the shadows cast by the light of the moon where the snow had been disturbed. 

After searching for what felt like an hour, Sol began to lose hope that he would find them, until he saw a familiar yellow and green head sticking out of the snow about 100 meters away from where the path lay, heading in the wrong direction. The sprite looked to be trying to swim in the snow, his hooves too small and narrow to gain any traction on the freshly fallen snow, but he was smart enough to at least try to compact the snow in front of him. His mane hung heavy with clumps of snow that clung to the strands, and he looked exhausted. 

Sol angled his wings, flying low to the ground so he could glide across the snow, and as he neared the sprite he reached out with both hands, plucking him right from the snow. 

Pippin let out an ear-piercing shriek of surprise, twisting in Sol’s hands until he could look over his shoulder and see the dracus, sagging with relief. 

“I thought you were going to eat me!” Pippin protested. 

“I prefer meals over snacks,” Sol chuckled. “Where is your cousin?” 

“Sh-she dug a cave in the snow and was w-waiting for me to get to the surface and try to f-find somewhere for us to get out onto dry land,” the sprite said through chattering teeth. 

“Was she far behind you?” 

“I d-didn’t make it far,” he said, shivering violently as the wind from Sol’s wings cut through his short fur. 

“I’ll find her, don’t worry,” the dracus reassured the sprite. The wind had begun to bite his own skin as he sweated from the exertion of flying, chilling him to the bone. But he had a duty to help these souls, he would not forgive himself if they froze to death when he had the ability to help them. 

He set Pippin on a ledge beside a boulder, clearing away the snow from it before setting the shivering sprite down. “I’ll be back with your cousin,” he said. “Stay here so I can find you again.” 

“You d-don’t have to tell me twice,” Pippin said, sinking gratefully down onto the ground. 

Sol left him there, cursing quietly to himself as the clouds began to gather overhead again, heavy with unshed snow. He didn’t have long to find Meri before she would be buried under even more snow. So despite his exhaustion, Sol pushed harder until he found the spot where he’d plucked the sprite out of the snow, tracking the disturbed surface until he saw light far below. 

The dracus took a deep breath and thrust his arms deep into the snow as he passed over as slowly as he dared, squeezing his eyes shut as his muzzle dipped into the snow. His left hand touched something under the snow but slipped, so he reached deeper with his right in the instant before he had to pull away or lose his forward momentum. He came away with an enormous pawful of snow and a startled turquoise sprite with lightning dancing around her shoulders dangling from it by one foreleg. She squeaked as the snow fell away and she tumbled toward the ground, but Sol’s tail swung forward as he beat his wings hard against the cold, dead air. The sprite hit his tail and rolled forward, so he curled it under her and passed her back up into his hands, pulling her close as he climbed slowly into the air again. 

“Woah,” he heard her breathe as he carried her across the frozen landscape, reaching the ledge where he’d placed her cousin as more snow began to fall. He stumbled as he landed, panting hard and shivering harder. 

“That was so cool!” Meri cheered, bouncing as she looked up at Sol, hardly seeming affected by the cold or her ordeal. 

“I am flattered you think so,” Sol said with a forced smile. His limbs trembled with exhaustion, but he didn’t want the sprites to worry. “Come, lay on me. The ground will steal any warmth your body manages to create.” 

“What about you?” Meri asked as she nudged Pippin onto his hooves. 

“I will be warm enough, don’t worry,” the dracus said as he sank onto the ground. He closed his eyes and murmured a word that sounded like more of a growl than any proper language. His skin tingled as warmth radiated from him, melting the snow on the ground that he’d missed when clearing it away. The sprites huddled close to him, and though he was sure Meri had a dozen questions she wanted to ask, they were blessedly silent. 

“Will you take us the rest of the way to the mountain?” Pippin asked, looking imploringly at the dracus.

Sol chuckled lightly and nodded. “In a while. Let’s rest for now. I think we could all use it.”