Author's Note: Also no prompts. This chapter and the last one were experiments to help me develop Draca. Not actually "canon" to the series. (Although at the moment, I'm not sure the rest of these snippets are canon, since I haven't officially written these parts yet.)

This snippet takes place before Draca meets the Boogeyman, or his minions.


"But Bunnymund—"

"Not a chance, Sheila." The Easter Bunny's stern look quickly cut off her protests. "I'll take care of this."

"But don't you need help?" One glance at his scowl and Dracawanri corrected, "Don't you want help? You have an entire hemisphere to bring spring to! Don't you get tired?"

"Hardly." He grinned, thumping his foot to open one of his tunnels. "It's nice to stretch out my legs."

"As if they need any stretching—ow! Hey!" Massaging her temple, she called after him as he dived into the hole, "Can't I do something?"

His ears were all she could see, and they rotated towards her as he gave a very emphatic, "No." Hearing the rebellion in her groan, he sighed. "I dunno, just—keep an eye out for trouble, will ya? Last thing I need is for anyone to ruin my good work." Then the tunnel closed up, and she was left to fume in southeast North America.

"Don't see what the big deal is," she muttered to herself, moodily scuffing her feet into the dirt. "I'm not gonna set everything on fire." Feeling rebellious, she fiddled with her magic until her hands were scaly, flexing her claws with a grin. "I don't have to make fire with my magic."

Heaving a long sigh, she dropped to the ground and fell backwards with a thump to watch the Virginian night sky. Sleep had long begun for most children in the area, so there wasn't a chance of running into the Sandman and striking up another "conversation" about dreams. (She really just liked to watch the expressions and images he made as she rambled about everything she could think of.) Left alone by the Almighty Bringer of Spring, she honestly didn't know how she was going to entertain herself. Life had changed for her after discovering these beings of power; she felt loneliness even more now that she knew they were out there, somewhere.

She contemplated several things, one of which was visiting her nephew and his family. The twins were still very young, and the thought of playing jokes on them made her grin. But she remembered her resolution to let them believe what they will, and her sigh was regretful. Oh, well. There would hopefully come a time when she could converse with them as she pleased.

The rustling of fallen leaves brought Draca out of her musings, and she sat up to glance around the forest she had followed the Pooka into. The shadows were long, but her eyes were well-adjusted to see into the night. So she was surprised by the depth of the shade against a tree that swayed with the branches in the wind, making it impossible to perceive what may be hiding within arm's length. It took her several moments and the narrowing of her eyes, but eventually she realized why: The shadow was actually a creature.

She didn't move, staring into two glowing orbs that hovered just off the ground before her. It looked to be a pair of eyes, but they held such an unnatural shine that she wasn't sure it could be an animal. It didn't have much of a solid form, either; it seemed wraithlike, as wisps were falling towards the sky like tongues of fire. Was it a ghost? A spirit of the elements? Some intangible monster? Her heart quickened as her thoughts ran wild, but she contained herself to keep from spooking it—or convincing it to attack her.

It was difficult to see with what little light that filtered through the leaves, but the thing was laying on the ground in a way that suggested it was a quadruped. Bear? Panther? Wolf? None of these seemed to match. Too lean for a bear—too bulky for a feline—too long for a wolf. It was only when the orbs rose to reveal an elongated face as it sneezed that she pegged it as equine in nature.

A ghost-like horse in the middle of a forest? It didn't sound like a mere coincidence.

Staring straight into one glowing orb, Draca quietly asked, "What are you here for?"

She hadn't really expected it to speak words, so she wasn't surprised when it merely huffed at her question. But it was intelligent enough to understand her, as was made evident when it pointedly rested its neck against the tree and continued staring at her. It was a bit unnerving, but it didn't really look hostile, although it didn't appear to be resting either. If anything, it looked like it was standing guard.

The girl blinked slowly. Is that it? Its eyes were trained solely on her, ears not even flicking at the other evening sounds in the forest. She doubted it was protecting her, so she tried to deduce what it was warning her away from. She thought of the Guardian's words to her and wondered if this was a creature looking to ruin the blooming of hope that spread with the green of spring. If it was, what was it hanging around here for? The forest was already filled with new plant growth, so unless it was going to spread death and decay it wasn't going to accomplish much by sitting at the base of a tree and staring at her.

"…Oh." After thinking about it some more, she felt rather stupid. "Are you watching to make sure I don't do anything?"

The silence it employed this time was rather telling, and she couldn't hold back a sigh as she wondered at the impression she had made with the other beings of power. Why does everyone seem gung-ho on keeping me from doing anything? It was rather insulting, and she cast a glare at the horse which earned her what could have been an amused snort. It only took one gesture of getting up from the ground before it transformed into a growling beast of darkness, on its feet in the blink of an eye.

She flopped back onto her tail with a groan. This horse wasn't letting her go anywhere without a fight. I didn't even know horses could growl. A niggling sense of curiosity was all that stopped her from pushing her luck as she leaned forward to peer closer at the creature. She wanted to figure out what it was, but the dim light wasn't conducive to any sort of scientific study, and she could only ask yes-or-no questions if the beast was cooperative—which it wasn't. Stuck with nothing better to do, she merely tried to fake out the creature every so often, catching better glimpses of its form each time it made its stand against her.

When day broke across the east coast, she was startled to find that, sometime in the dwindling hours of the night, the creature had slunk off out of sight. Disoriented by the discovery, she rubbed at her eyes and stared at the tree she had sat beneath for the past couple of hours. Had she imagined the entire thing?

Knowing the true power of belief now, she highly doubted it.


-Dragon