Celia scanned the white land below her for any sign of movement or settlement over Verbena's shoulders, but after two nights, they had not found an inhabited site. "I remember why this place is called the wasteland," she frowned at the endless empty expanse.

'There are a few nomadic tribes that live on the ice in the north,' Irin warned. 'The humans in the tribes tend to eat any creature they find. We should avoid them. If we get hungry and cannot find anything in the snow, there are also fish underneath the ice if we have the energy to get to them, so we will not go hungry.'

Xan suddenly exclaimed in surprise and waved to Celia. Once he had her and everyone else's attention, he pointed to the northeastern horizon. Though Celia could not hear the words over the wind, when she saw the mounds on the horizon, she knew the meaning behind his words.

Near the northern horizon, a group of strange hills in the shadow of a massive snow dune. The smaller mounds seemed to be organized in an unnatural circular formation. Through the haze, a few small wisps of smoke seemed to drift from the top of the small mounds.

'That is definitely a camp,' Irin noted, 'let's carefully scout it out to see if the woman's cart is there before we attempt to descend. Stay high and hopefully, we will be out of range of their weapons if they spot us.' He adjusted his course and flapped hi sings a few times.

Verbena swiftly followed him as she kept an eye on the settlement. 'It is still hard to believe that humans live out here.' She glanced around to the white wasteland below her, 'dragons can fly long distances and go a long time without food when they need to, but humans can't travel all that far and need to eat more often. How can they live out here? It seems almost impossible.'

'Humans are resourceful,' Irin replied, 'but I do admit they often surprise me.' He looked down and studied the town as the four of them approached it.

Smoke slowly rose from small holes atop the mounds, and small holes on the sides at the end of short tunnels acted as entrances to the dwellings. Snow covered the exterior and disguised the constructions as small dunes, but a careful watch easily spotted them among the larger mounds of snow and flat stretches of land.

'I do not see any carts,' Verbena noted, 'I guess the magic person is not here. We will have to keep looking.'

'Correct,' Irin nodded and scanned the horizon, 'for now, let's just keep flying north.' He shifted his path again, and Verbena followed. 'Eventually,' he stated, 'we will find what we are looking for. Then we will be one step closer to completing this quest.' He purred a bit in pleasure in the thought of the return of the sun.

The four traveled for another half a night before they spotted a second possible settlement. The near-identical arrangement of structures sat in a wide pit of flat land between the snow dunes. However, unlike the last place they checked, no smoke rose from the ice structures of this encampment.

"I think this one is empty," Celia frowned slightly.

'Wait! Is that the cart? It is made out of ice!' Verbena roared as a display of her excitement. 'I think we found it!'

'You may be right,' Irin swiftly spotted the object in question. 'based on the lack of signs of other people, I think it is safe to land in the camp, but we should do a lower fly-by first.'

Verbena nodded, then took the lead as she dove in a slight downslope. Celia gripped the dragonet's harness as they decreased in altitude. They could feel each other's excitement at the accomplishment of finally making progress.

Since Irin did not have a harness, he had to be a bit more careful with his decent. His nostrils flared as he took in the scents of the mounds of snow. 'Be careful, I am sensing other people. The scents may or may not be old, I cannot tell. We should be cautious for now.' Verbena silently nodded at his point and decreased her speed and leveled off a bit as she flew in a circle around the town.

Something whizzed by Celia's ear as Verbena screeched in surprise. 'I was nearly hit!' Verbena pumped her wings several times and regained altitude. 'What hit me!?' She looked down to the town.

Celia did the same and saw a figure with a bow aimed straight at Verbena. "Hey!" She screamed.

The man startled and loosed his ice arrow, which sailed in a wide arc and missed Verbena. He paused and searched for the voice as if it had come from the ground, but muttered to himself when he could not locate the source of the outcry. He notched another arrow from the quiver on his back and refocused his aim at the sky. Thankfully, he seemed to struggle to locate the white shape of the dragon among the swirling white clouds in the sky.

Irin released a soft growl as he halted his decent and leveled out, 'We will have to let you down a distance away—' His voice cracks and he gasps in pain, then begins to plummet to the ground.

"Irin!" Xan screamed as he desperately clung to the dragon's ice-coated fur. Under his gloves, his knuckles turned white and he clenched his teeth.

The dragon managed to gain some control over his descent, but he still hit the ground with a heavy thump harmonized by the crunch of the snow beneath his weight. However, Irin still had plenty of momentum after he slammed into the snow and carved a deep ditch as he slowly slid to a stop. Lucky for him, Irin landed on his stomach so neither of his wings received much of the force of his fall.

In the initial impact, Xan lost his grip and violently fell off the dragon. He was flung forward but intelligently kept his body low to the ground as Irin's wings passed just over his head. Once the dragon had passed by him, the human boy stood and sprinted through the snow to the aid of his draconic friend. "Irin!" He called out, "Are you all right?" In his worry, he was blind to the attacker's approach.

As Irin groaned in pain from the ground, Verbena growled when she saw the armed men exit out of their homes She watched from the air as they ran to Irin as fast as the deep snow allowed.

"We have to do something!" Celia yelled, "can you distract them while I get the sheep pellets out? I need more time!"

In response to Celia's plea, the airborne dragonet threw her head back and built up her fury-fueled fire breath in the back of her throat. She flew in a tight circle around Irin and breathed a stream of flame onto the ground to act as a wall between the men and the downed dragon.

One of the men attempted to blast ice from his hands onto the fire in a magical spell, but the ryume pooled at the base of the flames would not be put out by simple ice magic. Some of the men attempted to bury the fire in the snow, but the tactic only lasted a brief second before the heat returned with a vengeance.

While Verbena continued to maneuver in the air, Celia tightly gripped Verbena's harness with one hand as she reached into the saddlebags with her other hand. After several moments of digging, her hand grasped the box and withdrew it from its compartment. Celia's fingers briefly fumbled with the string holding the box closed, but then she managed to untie the twine with one hand.

While Celia opened the box, Verbena watched as her wall of flames began to die back as they ryume burned away. She glanced to Irin as the older dragon struggled to stand, then back to the humans with red-tinged vision. She felt her fire sacks swell slightly just before she released a second stream of fire.

The men took a nervous step back as the flames jumped in height, but they were not as high as the previous batch. For some reason, their hesitancy to approach Irin from being through the flames gave her pleasure. The humans also did not attempt to go around the flames in case Verbena decided to attack instead of only giving a warning. If Verbena thought honestly about herself, she would attack the humans if it meant she would protect Irin.

While Verbena turned around the men, Celia spilled the box of pellets onto them. She tried to save some of the pellets, but she only had one free hand to hold the box. It slipped in her glove and tilted at a steep angle.

The contents in their entirety rained down on the men. Whenever the pellets hit something solid. Whether it be the men or the ground, they exploded into a mist of fine powder that engulfed and obscured them from sight.

"Oops." Celia breathed as she watched the grey cloud spread and grow like a monster until it engulfed all of the men. "Verbena, we should keep the sleeping powder away from Xan and Irin so they do not fall asleep as well."

The female dragonet nodded in agreement, "hold on tight, I am going to try something." She changed directions and flew away from the cloud and over Irin. After a tight u-turn, she increased her velocity and sped towards the plume of airborne powder in a slight dive. Once she deemed herself close enough, she braked in the air with a few flaps of her wings.

The displaced air caused by her sudden movements caused a breeze to waft in the direction opposite of Irin. She flapped a few more times to stabilize her flight with the added effect of further spreading the smoke away from Irin, the female dragonet landed on the ground and looked back to the male dragon. Since the wall of flames had died a few minutes prior, she approached without fear of burning Celia in the flames.

'Irin?' Verbena softly cooed in worry as she walked over to her downed and hurt companion.

"Xan, will Irin be all right?" Celia inquired as she dismounted from Verbena's back, "how badly is he hurt? Is he able to fly?"

Xan sighed as he clenched a bloody spear in his hands, then gritted his teeth and threw the weapon as far as he could like a javelin. "The weapon is magical," he growled to himself as he looked to Irin as the dragon licked the wound clean, "Charmed to hit a weak point on whatever it is thrown at. It hit him just under his wing where the snow armor is not as thick."

'Thankfully it did not go too deep, but I will not be able to fly until the wound heals,' Irin said with a tinge of pain in his voice. He attempted to stand but found the shoulder for his leg under the wound too painful to use. Eventually, he managed to stand on his three other legs with a soft groan.

"Irin," Xan frowned deeply and worriedly put a hand on Irin's neck, then blinked away tears and grabbed the dragon in a hug.

Irin released a gentle sigh and wrapped his head around Xan in a gentle hug and nuzzled Xan. 'I will be fine,' Irin assured his rider.

"Well," a new, unfamiliar voice suddenly interjected from behind the dragons and their riders, "This is not something you see every day."

Author Notes:

Welcome back!
Who is the owner of the voice?
I would love to see your theories in the comments!
See you next week!