Cold. It seeped from every crevice. Every inch of barren, tainted soil. It coiled up from the ground in a mockery of heat, coiling around the feet of those who would tread the blighted land, snaking around their ankles and sinking into their bones with merciless, ruthless fangs of ice- bites that one wouldn't even feel until they stepped back into a warm environment where they would shake and battle for control of their limbs once more.
It made the breath leave the body as an ominous mist, and one could almost fancy it was the very essence of life that was being drained from their lungs as they watched it spiral upwards to the skies, careening away from the cold below. Cold. It was the wind, the sky, the ground, that were all wrapped in the slow quiet state of begrudging lethargy, taking its inhabitants into the same stupor. It was too easy to succumb to the bite and howl of the chilling winds and fall into the quiet slumber that teased and enticed at the back of the mind. Too hard to keep moving against the abrasive elements that tore at the skin, watered the eyes and tugged at morale.
The lean Sin'Dorei surveyed his new surroundings with a dispirited scowl on his thin mouth, and tugged at the fur lining that padded the chain mail armor protecting his hands. He drew the hood on his cloak and winced as the cloth aggravated his long ears made sensitive by the abrasive cold and relentless wind. He made a mental note to add more of the rich arctic fur to the hood of his cloak when he arrived at the Argent Tournament grounds; stopping here to modify his armor would require him to remove the cloak, leaving him exposed, not to mention it would mean getting off Mahes.
He hesitated at the thought, and glanced down at the proto-drake under him. The acid green dragonkin looked up at him with glowing yellow eyes filled with feral cunning. For perhaps the hundredth time that day, Lougaron Adramir Dawnwing feared his death by being thrown from the back of the proto-drake he had only just acquired.
Using his peripheral vision, not moving his gaze from the drake's, he saw the ground far below, and the multitudes of Scourge coiling on its surface. The gaping amber maw of his drake split even further in a toothy grin. Maintaining his cool composure- as if he could be anything but cool in frigid temperatures like these!- Lougaron frowned slightly at the drake as it sized him- and the straps of the saddle- up with a gaze full of what Lougaron could swear was malicious humor, as though the drake were amused by setting his master on edge.
Though nowhere near as intelligent as the drakes Lougaron had befriended, Mahes was definitely not as simple minded as most claimed. Proto-drakes in general were not as simple minded as one would think. It was a cruel and simple mind they possessed, but cruel and simple was the dangerous part. It was the cruel simplicity that made Lougaron regret choosing the proto-drake to fly across Icecrown. Shalozar Basin might have been a better place to break in the wily reptile- at least there was less room for the drake to perform aerial acrobatics to lose his rider.
Rider and mount stared each other down, hovering in the sky with lightning above, Scourge below. A critical moment, suspended in air. Lougaron willed his heart to slow; he knew that the damned drake could hear it. He continued to stare into Mahes' eyes, an alpha staring down another strong male, neither willing to back down.
A bellowing roar sounded in the air above them, and both looked up from their staring match to see a Frost Wyrm Matriarch come tearing from the bellies of the clouds. Her bones creaked and tattered flesh fluttered in her wake, her horrible skeletal maw brimming with the ichor of the Lich King that reanimated her. Eyes made whole in an unholy light gazed their way. She roared again and began steering her horrific corpse towards them.
Rider and drake looked at each other once more, then with a simple nudge, the drake powered his way through the frigid air, his rider laying low to minimize resistance as they flew for their lives. Survival was more important than hierarchy that moment. They would have their pissing match later.
If they lived to see later.