A/N: Written for the Digimon Bingo – the non-flash version Challenge, 899 – Seadramon, on the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's on my profile for anyone interested in writing challenges!)
Waiting, Hibernating
Seadramon was a coiled snake beneath the cold ice, waiting for the winter to pass.
He lived in the water, but the water shrunk with the sun and in the winter months was barely enough to blanket his body from the covering of ice. Above, far above, he could make out the shadow of the land wakers passing above the sheath: for them, the ice was not a prison but a bridge that allowed them to pass.
But to make the lake so small also meant to bring its entirety of inhabitants close. The Otamamon had begged him to curl his tail so they may huddle within and Seadramon had, in amusement, obeyed. He was young, too young yet to fly and reach the oceans beyond but not to know the cheer of those Otamamon. The tadpoles were young as well, young enough to chatter restlessly in the cold and refuse to sleep it away. Not all Digimon who lived in the lake were pleased with them; most preferred slumber to chatter and cold and hunger.
But Seadramon can't bring himself to mind; sleeping alone is lonely and only for so long can he watch the shadows of indistinguishable Digimon passing over, though it is enjoyable. They are Digimon he never sees in other months, when it is water that fills the lake to its entirety, when most of it hasn't turned into a solid and thick sheet of ice. They are Digimon he may never meet, never speak to, may see only once in his life as he migrates to the ocean spread. They are Digimon that never come to the water except when it has become solid like the earth.
And the Otamamon could; they could go above the surface for little bursts. They met other Digimon, the Digimon of the land, and the sky, whose shadows passed over the ice in winter and left shadows for the still awake water-dwellers beneath. And they told the Seadramon old, about all the little blobs they could tell apart: green ones that looked like little shrubs, the orange ones that had had a spike or a horn, the soft pink ones – one circular and with long thin ears, one a little more elongated and with four stubby feet, and a third still who was tall instead of long and had only hands. Then there was a darker pink one with too many feet to count (and a particularly naughty Otamamon had once tried, they said) and a head that looked like a plant full of Digi-nectar. And Seadramon listened to their tales with rapt attention, even when they repeated them several tales because they were young as well and only had so many stories to tell.
And the Otamamon kept themselves a little warmer curled and bundled together with Seadramon's tail and chatted to their heart's content until the ice began to melt, and then they weren't the last because their oxygen bubbles could do nothing to the ice and they had to wait, because the Seadramon's nose and tail were strong and his attack even stronger, and the hole he made was always big enough for the Otamamon too.
Until then, Seadramon conserved his energy, a coiled snake within the ice listening to the Otamamon's tales and watching the shadows of land-dwelling Digimon pass above.