~ CHAPTER 17 ~

Barb diligently followed the trail of blood left by the bear, while Snow waddled behind her. The green and brown of the forest floor made it easy to distinguish the red of the blood, as its bright and fluid form contrasted with the soft earth. Snow looked away from the blood.

She's really committed to hunting that bear, Snow thought. His eyes drifted to the bite mark on her shoulder. But she could get hurt again.

"Is there anything I can say to convince you not to go after that bear?" Snow tried.

"Nope."

He sighed. She's so stubborn. I wish I was more convincing. I bet Cliff would've been able to persuade her.

Maybe instead of trying to convince her with words, I have to do something else…

"What if I caught something instead?" Snow suggested. "Log said we only needed one piece of prey between the two of us. So… if I caught us another creature, you'd have no reason to go after the bear, right?"

Barb laughed her gravelly laugh. "All right. That sounds like it'd be entertaining to watch," she said. "But you have to stay near me. Don't want a repeat of the bear incident."

Snow nodded resolutely, and started looking around for some prey to catch. I may be a terrible hunter, but that doesn't matter. I just need to catch one thing for us to be able to go back to school safely.

But he was having trouble finding any prey to begin with. I guess being a stark white IceWing in the middle of a forest kinda makes me stick out… I'll just have to be extra sneaky then.

Eventually, Green tapped on Snow's back through the bag and said, "I see a large bird up on that branch to the left."

"Thanks Green," Snow whispered back. The one advantage he had in hunting was the extra set of eyes on his back.

He crouched low to the ground, walking as silently as he could to the tree where the large bird was perched. I'll have to jump and fly up in one swift motion and grab it before it notices me.

Waiting for the perfect opportunity, he readied himself for a pounce. Not yet… Not yet… Now!

He jumped up towards the branch, talons outstretched as he attempted to grab at the bird. However, he failed to anticipate just how many branches were in the way. His appendages got caught on several of them, and his talons couldn't even reach the bird, uselessly swatting at the air in front of it.

The bird looked down at him with a cocked head and squawked smugly before flying away.

Snow hung limply in the air, still tangled up by the branches, as one of the feathers left by the bird's getaway landed softly on the tip of his snout. He could hear Barb laughing from below.

"Wow, I was right. That was entertaining to watch," she said.

Snow felt his face become flush with embarrassment and humiliation. It didn't help that he was having trouble untangling himself from the labyrinth of branches he found himself in.

To Snow's surprise, Barb flew up and helped cut him down.

"How are you so bad at hunting?" she asked as they both descended back down to the earthy floor. "Didn't you live alone or something?"

"I lived with my sister. She did all the hunting. I was never any good at it… and I'm starting to think that I'll probably never get better." He looked to the ground with shame. Some dragon I am.

Barb looked at Snow for a while before sighing. "Three moons, your face is so pitiful. Let me give you some hunting advice so you stop looking so depressed."

"Okay…" Snow responded, still feeling disheartened, but also somewhat fascinated that Barb wanted to help.

"Listen, you're really good at hiding your presence. Sometimes I barely even notice you're there at all. It's kind of creepy. You should use that to your advantage and sneak up on your prey instead of trying to catch them with an attack."

Well I do try to hide from dragons every day, Snow mused. Masking my presence is sort of second nature now. She might be onto something…

"Look over there," Barb whispered, pointing her tail towards an unassuming rabbit in the distance. "Give it a shot."

Bewildered that Barb was being so encouraging, Snow nodded and focused his attention on the prey. He took in a deep breath, and exhaled. Just imagine it's a scary looking dragon in the hallway, and I'm trying to walk by without being noticed.

It was troublingly easy to visualize the cute rabbit as a dragon. Its white fur reminded him of the scales of an IceWing, which was apparently all his brain needed to turn on his sneaking switch.

He crawled ever so slowly towards it, making sure he was in its blind spot the whole way through. Closer and closer he got, until he finally was right behind it.

Snow was amazed that it hadn't noticed him yet. He was inches away from it, and it continued to munch on the green grass in front of it as if it was completely safe. I could probably just reach out and grab it…

He extended a talon and unceremoniously picked up the small creature. It gave a jolt in his talon as it finally acknowledged Snow's existence.

"I did it!" Snow chirped. He turned around to face Barb, a large smile plastered across his snout. "Barb, look! I caught it! I actually caught it!"

"I can see that," Barb responded dully. "I guess we can just take that back to Log instead of the bear." She sounded disappointed to let the bear go, but it looked like she was committed to keeping her end of the agreement.

Yes! I did everything right for once! I managed to hunt something, and now Barb doesn't have to fight the bear, Snow thought to himself with the rare and unfamiliar feeling of pride.

"Well go on then," Barb said. "Kill it already."

Snow's exhilaration quickly faded. "You want me to… kill it?"

"Yes?" Barb answered, confused as to why he'd ask such an obvious question. "It's kinda cruel to just leave it trembling in your talon like that for so long. Put it out of its misery already."

Snow looked back to the rabbit and finally noticed that it was indeed trembling. It looked up at him with terrified, beady eyes. He could hear it making soft squeaking noises as its chest rapidly rose and fell with each fearful breath.

Come on Snow, you're a dragon. Kill it and be done with it, he tried to persuade himself. It would not be very hard. I just need to drag one claw across its neck, or I could just keep squeezing it until it stops breathing, or…

Somehow, in trying to convince himself to end its life, he managed to do the opposite. I can't kill you, Snow thought.

He brought his other talon closer to the rabbit, which caused it to wince in fear, closing both its eyes and preparing for death. But Snow simply stroked its fur as gently as he could.

The rabbit looked back up, trembling a little less. It reminds me of me, Snow realized, its stark white fur matching the color of the talon he was holding it with.

He smiled at it sadly, and then lowered it to the ground and let it go. It gave him one final look, before darting into the thickets with impressive speed.

"Hey! Why'd you do that for?" Barb asked. "Don't tell me you don't know how to kill a rabbit."

"I wish I could say that I didn't know…" Snow mumbled despondently. "But no, of course I know how to kill a rabbit. I just couldn't bring myself to do it."

"…All right. That's a little weird, but you don't have to look so depressed about it," Barb said. "So what if you don't want to kill a rabbit."

'To abandon hunting… It would be no different than losing part of what makes us dragons,' he remembered Log saying.

"It means I'm a failure, Barb. I'm such a sorry excuse for a dragon," he said miserably.

"Never let your self-worth be decided by something others expect of you," she said with a more serious expression than Snow had ever seen come from Barb. "That's how they get you."

"O-okay," Snow nodded, a little startled by her sudden change in tone.

"…Just leave the hunting to me, all right?" she eventually said.

"But because I was too weak to kill that rabbit, you're gonna fight the bear and get hurt again."

Barb gave him a surprised look. "Is that why you were trying so hard to hunt something else?"

Snow nodded dejectedly.

"…You're a really weird dragon. If it makes you feel better, I wasn't planning on fighting it. I'll sneak up on it and kill it before it even realizes I'm there. That's generally how hunting works."

"So you're not gonna get injured again?"

"I wouldn't bet on it," Barb said, confidently displaying her barbed tail.

"…Okay, I can live with that."

"Good. Now stop dillydallying and let's get back on the blood trail."

Snow picked himself up, feeling better about the situation, though still a little depressed about the fact that he could relate more to a rabbit than a dragon. He continued to follow Barb as she tracked the trail of blood, getting closer and closer to their prey.

Snow tried to make casual conversation to pass the time, but had little success.

"You're suddenly a lot more talkative," Barb pointed out grouchily, somewhere around Snow's third attempt. "What happened to the IceWing that was quiet and afraid?"

"That was back when I thought you were super evil and going to kill me," Snow answered.

"Heh. That is the look I'm trying to go for," Barb said with a satisfied smile.

"Why do you say mean things all the time?" Snow asked, genuinely curious.

"I just say whatever's on my mind. I don't care what others think."

"Well did you really have to say you were going to claw Cliff's snout off back during class?"

She shrugged. "He was being annoying."

"What about that time you threatened to eat my scavenger?" Snow asked. He still hadn't forgotten the awful anger that bubbled up inside him that day, even though he'd been trying to.

Barb made a strange, undecipherable expression when Snow brought it up. "…Like I said, I just say whatever's on my mind."

Pretty lousy thing to have in your mind in the first place, Snow thought to himself.

"I wasn't going to eat your pet," she continued after a brief bout of silence. "I just… don't like scavengers."

"Why not?" Snow huffed, feeling mildly offended on their behalf.

"They always look so… knowing. It's creepy," she said with a sour expression. "And they're more cunning than you might think. A couple of scavengers managed to kill my grandmother."

"Oh… I'm so sorry," Snow said. How in the world did they manage to do that? he thought privately.

"Don't be," Barb said. "That was over twenty years ago, and she was apparently an awful dragon, so the scavengers might've done us a favor. But my mother has always despised scavengers since." Her voice was becoming gruffer as the conversation continued.

"But that's like hating all dragons because one of them did something bad," said Snow.

"My mother is a strange dragon. Trying to use rational thinking isn't going to work. Honestly I'm pretty sure she doesn't even mind that they killed her mother. She probably just hates them because they're not cute."

"They so are cute!" Snow defended. "…But that's a terrible reason to hate something."

"You're telling me," Barb said bitterly. "She is so obsessed with looks that she hates her own child. Her favorite thing to tell me was 'you're not pretty enough to be my daughter.'"

What an awful thing to say, Snow thought. "She really said that? Is she blind?"

Barb barked out a gruff laugh. "Flattery will get you nowhere with me, IceWing."

"I can't imagine what it would be like if my family was that cruel to me." I should be more thankful that Cactus was the one who found my egg.

"It wasn't all bad. There was one dragon who was always nice to me, even though I was a huge jerk to him." Her expression very slightly softened. "My uncle."

"That's great!" Snow beamed. "What was he like?"

Barb looked back at Snow with a perplexed expression, as though she couldn't figure out what he could be plotting. "…Well, he was always kind of sarcastic, and he made too many jokes for my liking. But he always made time for me, despite being a, uh, very important dragon."

A very important dragon… Snow wondered what she meant by that.

"And also he had a pet scavenger too," Barb finished.

"Oh!" Snow perked up, strangely delighted to hear that. "What was his scavenger like?" And why do so many uncles own a scavenger?

"She was weird. Sometimes she made drawings that were eerily good. I think he called her Flower or something."

"Wow…" Snow said, enthralled by Barb's tale. I want to meet her…

"And here I thought my uncle was the only weirdo who cared about scavengers so much," Barb remarked. "You know, you kinda remind me of him. And not just because you're both obsessed with scavengers."

"I do?" Snow cocked his head curiously.

"Yeah. You're being nice to me despite all the… less-than-nice things I've done to you."

"You saved me from a bear, and you untangled me from the trees, and also you taught me how to hunt a little," Snow listed. "You're not as bad as I thought you were, and you're not as bad as you seem to think you are either."

Barb was silent as they kept moving forward. He couldn't get a good look at her expression from where he was trailing behind her. What is she thinking right now? Snow wondered.

Finally, she spoke. "Others usually don't like me after they get to know me, so I guess at some point I just stopped giving them the chance."

Snow felt a pang of sorrow in his chest. She must not have very many friends. I don't know what I'd do without my friends… It must be miserable for her.

"If it helps," Snow started quietly, "I liked you a lot more after I got to know you."

Barb stopped and looked back at him with a snarl in her throat. "Will you shut up already?" she barked, louder than Snow was expecting. "I don't want your pity. You don't know me at all. We've had one conversation and you're acting like we're best friends. I don't know where you got this idea that I even want friends to begin with. I'm fine on my own. Always have been."

The sudden outburst made Snow recoil with terror. He had never been yelled at before. It was loud and alarming and made him want to run away. He tried not to look too terrified as he instinctively stepped backward, though he suspected that his trembling wings held tightly at his side gave him away.

Barb stared at Snow for a few frightening moments – smoke billowing out of her nostrils – before clicking her tongue and turning back towards the trail. "Come on," she said gruffly.

Snow silently followed her, not daring to say anything else. Way to go Snow. You were making progress, and then you blew it, he reprimanded himself. I hope I didn't make her too mad.

They walked in heavy silence for a short while, until the two dragons finally reached the end of the blood trail, and their prey awaited them at the edge of a lake.

"Stay here," Barb commanded. "Let me show you what real hunting looks like."

Snow nodded obediently and hid himself in a bush, praying that the bear wouldn't notice and hurt Barb again. But his fears began to subside as he saw Barb get low to the ground and inch closer to the bear, making almost no sound in her footfalls.

Barb was directly behind the bear now, with her uncoiled tail hanging in the air. In an instant, the barbed tail struck the back of its neck, and the bear dropped to the ground, no longer moving.

Whoa, Snow admired. No fighting, no noise, and almost no blood.

Barb checked the bear a few times (presumably making sure it was unquestionably dead), before calling out to Snow. "All right, you can come out now. It's dead."

"That was amazing!" Snow said, poking his head out from the bushes. "It was so quick and painless. I bet it didn't even feel anything!

"It's not that impressive," Barb said, entirely unaffected by Snow's praise. "It's bigger than I thought though… I'm gonna have a rough time carrying this back in one piece. We should chop it up and take only the edible parts back to class, so there's less weight to carry."

Snow went pale at the thought of watching Barb dismember the corpse.

It's fine Snow, he tried to convince himself. There's no reason to feel ill. Even though there's probably gonna be… a lot of blood…

"You know what?" Barb said, just as she was about to make an incision into the bear's neck. "You're an IceWing, right?"

"Yep," responded Snow curtly, trying desperately not to think of the upcoming sight of oozing blood and gore.

"Your claws are sharper than mine. Why don't you come over here and cut it apart for me? It'll be faster."

"O-oh. You want me to… dissect… the bear corpse." He was starting to feel faint.

"Oh don't be a wimp. It's not that hard. I'll show you where to cut."

Snow stared at the body for a while. He wasn't sure how long, but it felt like an eternity.

Barb looked at him with confusion. "Uh, you look like you're gonna pass out."

"Please don't make me cut it up!" Snow cried out suddenly. "I can't do it. I'm sorry! I'm a coward and very squeamish and I don't like blood and –"

"Whoa, relax," Barb interrupted. "You don't have to do it."

"…Really?"

"Yes. Just calm down, okay?"

"Okay…" Snow looked to the ground, a little embarrassed by his involuntary outburst, but mostly relieved that he didn't have to go through with Barb's request.

Barb regarded him for a moment. "Help me get this bear on my back."

"You're not gonna dismember it?"

"It's fine. That wasn't part of Log's requirements anyway. I'll just carry the whole body back."

Did she change her mind for my sake? Snow wondered. He helped heave the large bear up and onto her back, resting comfortably between her wings.

It looks heavy, Snow thought as Barb launched into the air with a stagger, and they started flying towards the mountain. He could tell that she'd be struggling with it all the way throughout the flight back.

"Hey Barb. I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For a lot of things," Snow said. "But mostly for being so scared of you."

"…You apologize too much," she said, and then said nothing else for the remainder of the flight back to class.

Snow didn't mind the silence this time. It was different than the silence that hung over them on the flight to the forest. A lot of things felt different now.

Eventually, the two dragons arrived back at Jade Mountain academy, flying into the open-faced cave where their class had started.

"Snow!" called out a voice, followed by a deep red figure galloping towards him.

"Hey Cliff," Snow said, happy to see his friend.

"Are you hurt? Did you get injured? Did Barb do something to you?" he rambled, circling around Snow and inspecting his body for any harm.

"No, I'm fine," chuckled Snow. Though apparently that wasn't convincing enough for Cliff, who continued his inspection, lifting Snow's wings and checking both sides of them.

Cliff turned his attention to Barb, glaring at the SandWing. "Did you do anything to him?" he said with a growl.

Barb opened her mouth to reply but Snow quickly interjected and said, "No, she didn't. She actually saved me from getting seriously injured."

"Oh," Cliff said, somewhat in disbelief. "Well, uh, thank you for that Barb."

"What are you, his mom?" said Barb.

Cliff frowned. "I guess the concept of caring about someone else is foreign to you," he shot back.

"Okay, break it up guys," Snow said, stepping in between the snarling dragons.

Barb clicked her tongue and said, "I'm going to Log to hand over the bear."

"Wha– did you say bear?" Cliff said, earning a smug smirk out of Barb as she walked away towards the teacher. "Geez, must've been a wild trip."

"You could say that," Snow said.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Cliff asked once more now that Barb was gone.

"I'm totally fine, Cliff. It was scary for a while, but it turns out that most of the things I was worried about were all in my head. Like they usually are."

Cliff let out a breath of relief. "That's good."

"You don't have to worry about me." Snow puffed his chest out in a meager attempt to display his self-confidence. "I can handle myself."

Unexpectedly, Cliff began laughing. "Sorry," he said when Snow frowned at him. "That was just… very unconvincing."

"Yeah, I know," Snow said with a sigh. "I just wish I was confident enough that nobody had to worry about me."

Cliff brushed his wing against Snow's sympathetically. "You'll get there one day, I promise. And hey, you made great progress today. You just spent an entire hour in the forest with a scary SandWing."

"She's not so bad, you know," Snow defended. "I think deep down, she's a nice dragon. Uh, very deep down," Snow added quickly when he saw Cliff looking at him with skepticism.

"Well, if anyone can find kindness in a dragon like Barb, it'd be you."

That thought rang in Snow's mind as he continued on with the rest of his day. Barb is a little rough around the edges, but I think she's good on the inside. I've been scared of her this whole time because of how she acted on the outside. Shouldn't I have given her the benefit of the doubt?

When I see a stranger, I get nervous because I assume the worst. But don't they deserve the benefit of the doubt too?

There's kindness in every dragon, Snow thought to himself. I just have to find it.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

I've gotten some people asking about my update schedule, so I thought I'd address those queries here. I try to get a chapter out once every 2 weeks, because that's usually how long it takes me to plan, write, and edit a single chapter.

That being said, if I ever have a little more time and I'm able to finish a chapter in 1 week instead, then I'll upload it that week. And I've found myself having some extra writing time recently, so that's why I've been uploading once a week. Don't get used to it though!

Sorry for all the confusion (I didn't even think most people actually paid attention to the schedule… so my bad on that). I hope you're all okay with having a bit of a fluctuating schedule for a little while. Thanks again for your support!