My Incident in the Krassartha Tundra

Even dragons get tired of lying around in our hoards, soaking in the endless praises of our beloved kobolds.

My jikhri wasn’t a problem today, either.

I just felt like seeing the world, flying off into the wild teal yonder. One of my favorite places to fly, from time to time, is the Krassartha Tundra. The way the light plays through the ice, the clarity of the night skies letting you see the stars brighter than anywhere else…

All in all, it’s nice to get out of your element, away from civilization (yeah, yeah, me, Mr. Lives-in-a-Mountain talking about being away from civilization).

After spending the day sightseeing, stopping to take a quick nap wherever I found shelter, and munching on just enough rations (read: Mr. Kindle bars and a thermos of homemade kobold egg soup, courtesy of my roomie Mikks) to refuel my fire, I stopped to get a drink from the river.

Big mistake.

What happened next was almost instantaneous; in that moment, a massive chunk of ice chipped off, and before my reflexes could let me dart away in time, it fell into the water, sending a huge wave of water right at me, freezing me in place as the water flash-froze.

My artistic impression of how I must've looked. Click here for full size.

Were I not a dragon, I would’ve died then and there; the cold was enough to stop a weaker being’s heart instantly. Thankfully, even a soft derg like me is hardier than that.

Even still, it was the fucking coldest I’ve ever felt in my life. I couldn’t move an inch in there, and, as I soon noticed, I couldn’t breathe either; the ice covered up my nostrils, and my jaw was frozen shut, so I couldn’t just belch out a big blast of fire to free myself.

In my panic, however, I realized something: even if my fire was sealed behind my teeth on both ends, I could still melt some of the ice with it.

Sending as much of the flame into my maw as I could, I let the heat escape through my nostrils, and sure enough, the intense concentration of heat began to melt the ice around that area in time to let me breathe again.

I drank in the sweet, sweet air, the smoke coming out of my nostrils a sign that I had air flow.
I began to slow down the fat burning to just enough to keep me from going into hypothermia. From there, it was all a waiting game.

And, with no one around to so much as tease me, a fucking boring one.

At least when you’re turned into a statue, your sense of time is fucked enough that you don’t notice how long a time you’re frozen. No such luck, with my ice encasement.

The agonizing cold gave way to numbness and a chill in the back of my mind. Mentally, I kept myself occupied as best I could, mulling over the thematic importance of Death of the Author in Nier: Automata (expect that post, sooner or later!), the idea of Spyro the Dragon being unintentional propaganda for a nonexistent culture (ditto), and the general Earth association of dragons with Imperialism (that one's more or less just an overarching theme, I think).

It could’ve been anywhere from an hour to ten hours; all I know is, the sun hadn’t set when I heard the muffled sound of snow crunching followed by a voice.

Telepathically, I called out to the source, and heard the voice I least expected. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite blueberry!” My friend, who we’ll call “Chuckles” to avoid landing him in hot water, came across my iced self, and, well, chuckled. “You look a little freezerburnt, there, chum. Not exactly the weather for a blueberry dergsicle.”

I laugh as best I can, in this state. You’re just in time. I was going nuts, stuck in here by myself!
Chuckles smiled. “Well, you won’t have to worry about being by yourself, anymore~” Shiiiiiiiit, I walked into that. “Don’t worry, I’ve got an ice place for you to chill out.”

Hey! At least let ME do the dad jokes!

He pulled out an ice pick, unstuck my feet from the snow, then hefted me onto a sleigh as a little snowman ran off.

Before long, I found myself surrounded by blue lights, ice sculptures, and… ice furniture?

He’d taken me to a friggin’ ice hotel!

“Like the new setup? Business is booming, heh-heh!”

Oh, Chuckles… I should explain a few things.

Chuckles is a puca who owns a business.

What that business is varies. Sometimes, it’s a boutique, sometimes it’s a bakery, and sometimes it’s a store that sells lingerie made of cookies.

Today, his business was an ice hotel, and I was going to be a decoration in it.

I tried telepathically calling out to the guests, but the space in this hotel was allllllll warped; everything was impossibly far apart, despite the apparent short distance. Basically, you were roughly 50 feet away from something that was seemingly right next to you, until you reached to touch it.

And, of course, there was a “Do Not Touch” sign right next to me. The thing had two sides, and Chuckles made sure I could see one of them.

So, because everyone was too far away, my telepathy wouldn’t work, and thus, I was muted.

Of course, he made sure sound traveled a lot farther than it normally would.
Several people came by, and immediately assumed I was some kind of prehistoric dragon, possibly even a missing link in draconic evolution.

I’m not sure I like what that implies about my personal appearance.

They theorized that my “excessive body hair” (no such thing as excessive fuzz on a dragon, buddy) and “thick layer of blubber” meant I had evolved to survive in the harsh tundra conditions, and speculated that my “massive overbite” might have been used in sexual selection.

You’re damned right it’s used in sexual selection!  There’s not a drake alive that wouldn’t want these chompers sinking into their shoulder while we’re makin’ whoopee!

Finally, after a while, I noticed I felt able to move my belly more.

Yes! I could feel my belly melting free, I was almost—

A sudden splash of cold on it shocked me out of my euphoria.

Chuckles had splashed a bucket of water on my belly, and it froze right back up. I’m not sure whether that would’ve happened normally, or if he just corrupted reality juuuust a little bit more to fuck with me.

Given the number of icicle spiders I saw crawl off, I think it was the latter.

Still, once I could pry my belly off the hardened surface of the ice, a plan formulated in my head.
Of course, it would have to wait until closing time.

This time, as the melting began anew, I let it progress to a certain point, then stopped burning my fat stores. I puffed out my belly as much as I could to conceal how much space I now had.

I just had to wait until the hotel closed.

Once that time came around, it was time to put my plan into motion.

I shifted into anthro form, taking care to put a little more of my flesh into the pocket-space than usual, and used a little flesh transmutation to unstick any parts that had a hard time getting into the cavity my belly had left.

Finally! Even in this cramped space, it felt so goddamned good to move around again. Taking a deep breath, burning up a huge store of my fat at once, and letting loose a roar of flame at the wall of ice my belly had spent so much time against, then focusing on the spaces my limbs had trapped in.

The sudden expansion in those spaces thanks to thermal shock caused them to crack, and shatter completely; the sudden drop caused the wall of the belly-space I’d weakened to also shatter.

Finally! I was free~!

I didn’t dare roar, but I did laugh with delight at my escape.

Now, it was time to get some revenge on Chuckles!

But not before refueling, of course; I ate out the whole concession, and since they were closed, I went ahead and just put whatever it all cost in the register, effectively checking myself out. I planned to get even with Chuckles, but I didn’t wanna rob him.

After a long flight back to my lair, I asked the bolds for a particular statue in my hoard, and they looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

Once I told them what I’d use it for, though, they snickered and gave me a thumbs up.

Now, as it happened, Beltane was coming, meaning that the fae would be dancing in a grove Chuckles had led me to, one time, and I instinctively remembered where exactly he’d taken me.
Sure enough, there they all were, dancing around, having the time of their lives. And there Chuckles was, playing the drums in the band.

This was all too perfect.

So, I shut my eyes, putting on the blindfold I’d packed with me for good measure, took the statue out of my satchel, then cast “Khaya zikhathiza!”, and established a telepathic link with the now-unfrozen basilisk I’d just unleashed on the whole party.

I saw through its eyes, as the guests began turning to stone the minute they met its gaze, their dances rapidly becoming stiff until they froze entirely, and my ears heard a hundred screams abruptly cut off.

Turning the basilisk back to gold, I stuffed it back into my satchel, wrapping a cloth around its frozen eyes before finally opening mine back up.

Not a single fae had been able to escape its gaze, though some were frozen with their eyes shut too late. All of them were in varying states of shock, some too stunned for their smiles to leave their faces, others frozen mid scream. Some of them looked flustered by their impending predicament.

I noted with delight that none of them seemed to be able to turn themselves back, nor even to make themselves mobile. A basilisk’s cursed sight is strong stuff.

Picking up Chuckles and stuffing his stone butt into my satchel, I flew away.

You might be thinking it’s a bit excessive, to subject all the guests to this fate over one person’s prank, but, let’s be real, isn’t it more exciting when vengeance is so wide-scale? Isn’t there a beauty in seeing all those bodies freeze in the midst of such graceful movement?

So, you understand why I had to do it the way I did. And those of you who don’t… well, I’m sure you’ll taste good with gravy.

I took them all to my lair (it took several trips), and there they’ll stay for… well, basilisk antivenom is so expensive and hard to acquire, nowadays, y’know, and they all make such lovely statues~ Chuckles in particular will stay there for the next 300 years.

His future self loves to stop by and admire him.