The slightest bit of warmth had returned by the time Callum had returned to the cove with Ezran. Sunlight shooting across the water and melting the traces of ice that had begun to form along the lake's edge. Ezran thoroughly enjoyed the newfound lack of cold, with he and Zym racing about the cove, laughter echoing against the stone walls.
Sun shot through the overhead clouds, casting a golden light over them.
It was nice, peaceful.
Callum looked back to the sketchbook that lay open on his lap, the pages filled with small sketches of Azymondias and Ezran. Bait sat at his side, leaning against him and dozing off under the sunlight.
The air felt crisp and clean this particular morning, with dew instead of ice spread across leaves and the tips of the grass that sprung up stubbornly through the rocky ground.
Most of this vegetation would disappear in the next few weeks, being replaced by a thick layer of snow that wouldn't fade for countless long months.
His mind was filled with thoughts of possible saddles for Azymondias, along with the nagging dread of Rayla stumbling upon this cove at any given moment. His head hurt from the stress that clung to him.
And so, in an attempt to ward off the thoughts plaguing his mind, he drew.
Training that morning had gone well in comparison to previous days. Due to the amount of injuries acquired the day prior Gren opted to teach them general first aid that could easily be applied in the midst of battle, a lesson that others had protested immensely, craving violence instead of medicine.
Gren had to constantly remind them that a downed viking was as good as dead.
He turned to a clean page in his sketchbook, absentmindedly sketching out a figure on the pages as Bait shifted and turned into a new position beside him, humming a familiar tune under his breath as he worked.
The charcoal was dark and dusty on the page, a side effect of not sharpening the writing utensil he used any time in the past week. The lines were larger than he would've preferred, but it worked just fine. He wasn't currently working on any blueprints. He'd have to sharpen it before turning back to the designs of the new tailfins.
He still hadn't figured out how to connect the tailfin to the pedal in his designs. If he added some supports along Zym's tail that could work… but the question he had was how .
"Is that mom?"
Callum was startled out of his thoughts by the sudden presence of Ezran beside him, the boy peering over his shoulder and to the sketchbook in his hands. He followed his brother's gaze to where the rough sketch of a woman was spread out across the page.
"Yeah," he eventually replied, "it is."
Zym's head popped up behind Ezran, his body looming over the top of them. Without lingering for more than a few seconds, he bounded off into the overgrowth. The sound of leaves and breaking wood filling the air around them.
"What was she like?" Ezran asked, drawing Callum's gaze from the area Zym disappeared to.
He took in a deep breath, gazing over the drawing. It didn't do her any justice.
"She was the most amazing person ever," he confessed, "and I don't think I ever realized it then, but I don't think many people liked her."
"Why?"
"She didn't agree with most of their ideals."
Zym returned from the bushes suddenly, holding a long, thin tree. He ran off to the other side of the cove, making loud cries of excitement as he went.
Ezran settled himself next to Callum, picking up Bait and pulling the glow toad into his lap and looking out to where Zym had run off to, "Everyone says she was an amazing fighter, one of the best Katolis had ever seen."
Callum grinned as Ezran's presence created a small warmth next to him, "She never fought dragons though."
"Really?"
"She fought mostly in battles against other clans and outcasts. She only began attending the voyages when Amaya started to go."
Zym was dragging the tree across the ground, the upturned dirt visible from where they were seated.
Callum looked over his sketch once more, and began filling in smaller details. The beauty mark on her cheek, the stray hairs that framed her face and refused to stay in her braids.
"Mom was very against the war with dragons. She believed that the fighting could stop, that we could make peace with the creatures."
"Why didn't we?"
"She died before she could convince Harrow of that."
"Oh."
Azymondias paused in his movement, looked up at the two boys, and promptly went back to dragging his tree against the ground.
Ezran lifted up Bait, holding him close to his chest as he began to glow a soft color.
"I wish I'd gotten the chance to know her."
Callum gently shut the sketchbook, cutting off the drawing from view, "Yeah. I wish you could've too."
Azymondias continued his strange, sporadic movements across the ground before them.
"You know, I'd always expected the fabled Storm Fury to be more… ferocious than this? Scary? Moreso an unholy demon of lightning than this," Callum confessed.
"He's just a baby still, it's not surprising."
That caught Callum off-guard. Although he did seem to briefly recall Ezran mentioning it, "What do you mean?"
"He's a baby dragon. His parents were much bigger, more whale-sized than dragon-sized."
"How do you know that?"
"He told me."
"Right, dragon-speak." Callum set his sketchbook to the side, pulling his arms behind him and attempting to stretch away the lingering ache that was the result of constant dragon-fighting and long nights of fiddling with metals to create things for Azymondias. "So, about how old is Zym anyways?"
"A little older than a hundred."
Callum forced back the gentle shock that came with that revelation, "He's over a hundred? I would've thought he'd be bigger than that, if he was going to be as big as a whale someday."
"They grow slowly," Ezran explained, "he'll probably live several thousand more years, unless he's caught by vikings."
That made sense, he supposed. It wasn't so far-fetched when you took into account how little they actually knew about dragons.
Vikings tended to lean more on the kill-first-ask-questions-later strategy when it came to the creatures.
"What happened to his parents then?"
Ezran shrugged.
"I don't know," he confessed, "usually younger dragons stay in or around their nests until they're older. There's no huge dragon nest on our island though. Maybe it's different with larger dragons."
Azymondias looked up from where he sat across the cove, calling out to them.
Ezran stood, "He says he wants to show us something."
And that was it. Their conversation was officially over.
Callum tucked put his sketchbook away, forcing himself to his feet and helping Ezran up before heading across the cove, with Bait following closely behind, to where Zym sat expectantly.
Spread out before them was a wide variety of curling lines carved into the dirt.
"Zym drew us!" Ezran exclaimed.
Callum stared at the curling lines, "That's us?"
Zym let out a whine.
"Of course it's us!" Ezran exclaimed, "Look, there are our eyes, and our hair… Bait is over there, the smaller drawing."
Callum looked at the mess of churned up dirt.
"Yeah, I guess I see it."
He did not see it.
Callum made his way back to where he'd been seated before as Ezran stayed to play with the dragon, turning over his charcoal pencil in his hands and drawing the small dagger he always kept at his side from its sheath. He began to carefully slice off bits of the writing utensil, angling it in a way that he cut off as little as possible of the material whilst still allowing enough of a point to sketch out details.
The sounds of excitement and laughter halted from across the cove, and Callum looked up to see Zym intently focused on the ground not far from where he was seated.
He shot a confused glace at Ezran, who simply shrugged.
Callum moved to set the pencil to the side, and Zym suddenly shot across the cove, settling on a spot around ten feet away from where he previously stood. His clawed paws were settled on the tops of each other, as if he were a cat going after a small bug.
He stood, confused as to what the dragon was doing.
Zym moved once again, scrambling to a new position.
It took Callum several seconds to realize that the knife he held was reflecting the sun.
He crouched to the ground, a small smile on his face. He began to deliberately angle the knife against the sun, his eyes locked onto the small spot that shot across the ground as the dragon raced after it.
They were meant to be facing a Terrible Terror the next day.
He had the feeling that this small trick would be useful.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Callum found himself asking as he ducked under yet another line of branches that stuck out from a fallen tree. Moss and foliage were common in Katolis, with the frequent rains and musty conditions deeming it the perfect place for greenery to sprout up, but this specific part of the forest seemed to be completely untouched by the relentless frost that cut back most of the overgrowth.
It felt as if he was surrounded by walls of emeralds. It was strange, almost unnerving.
Ezran paid no mind to his concerns.
"Yeah. As long as we don't try to enter their actual dens they won't pay us any mind."
Callum felt he should be more concerned with how comfortable his brother was with approaching the Cursed Caldera. Sure, they weren't going anywhere near the actual cave entrances, but still .
"This should be close enough," Ezran declared, happily exiting the cover of trees.
Callum forced himself to push back the nagging feeling of wrong and followed him, finding his brother seated on a patch of moss a few yards away from where the ground cut off and the ocean spread out below them. The cliffs were still countless hundred yards away, yet the dragons suddenly seemed to be a million times larger. What was once nothing more than tiny specks dotting the cliff sides were now large, reptilian creatures with very, very defined teeth and flames spewing from their jaws.
"Yeah. Close enough."
He settled down next to his brother, his posture tense as he tried to think of anything other than the swarms of deadly, fire-breathing reptiles that resided on the cliff not far from where they sat.
"So," Callum began, trying to ignore the fear that threatened to bubble to the surface, "what exactly are we doing?"
"You said you wanted to draw more dragons, and what better way to do that than to meet more dragons?" Ezran responded. Bait grumped in agreement.
"And how exactly would this help?" Callum found himself asking.
"Terrible Terrors are notorious for seeking out trouble. If they see us sitting out here they'll probably want to investigate."
Callum bit back the remark that maybe counting on a "trouble seeking" dragon to find them wasn't the safest thing to do.
He sighed, resigning himself to an afternoon filled with drawing as he pulled out his sketchbook, with Ezran running off somewhere closer to the edge with Bait.
There was a small thump from somewhere in front of him, and Callum lazily lifted his gaze only to suddenly freeze at the sight before him.
A single Terrible Terror stood there, its head cocked to the side as it looked at Callum expectantly. He sat there awkwardly as the small dragon stood and began to quietly creep towards him, and Callum found himself looking back towards Ezran, who was completely oblivious to the Terrible Terror.
"Um, Ezran?" he called.
The boy looked back towards them, simply flashing his older brother a smile. "Good! Now you can draw them!"
A small, scaly head bumped against his knee. The dragon looked at him expectantly.
Callum found himself being reminded of a cat, if that made any sense. Its eyes held that familiar, feline shape that bordered on reptilian. They were reptiles, in a way. Scaly skin, lizard-like bodies…
Very large, very dangerous reptiles.
Except it was hard to see this particular Terrible Terror as anything but a harmless household pet.
He instinctively reached out his hand, and before he could quite comprehend what he was doing the small dragon bumped its head onto his palm, creating a sound that sounded suspiciously like a purr deep within its throat.
"How on Earth did we ever label you guys as dangerous?" he wondered aloud, even though the answer was all too obvious if he spent more than a few seconds pondering the thought.
Alone, one could simply be as harmless as a house cat, or a small dog. Just add a pair of wings. But in the flocks that they normally traversed within?
He'd witnessed first hand the damage one could cause. Shredded skin and features mauled to the point that they were unrecognizable.
It proved to be near impossible for him to connect the image of blood and carnage to the small creature before him. The dragon made a small noise in its throat, one that sounded far too similar to a meow, before curling up at Callum's side.
His focus returned to his sketchbook, and he carefully began to sketch out the dragon at his side, taking extra care to include the small details of the Terrible Terror's scales. Each and every tiny nook and scar. He found himself wondering how exactly the creature had obtained the small, barely noticeable injury remnants.
It wasn't until small droplets of water fell from his hair and onto his drawings did he realize it had begun to rain.
…or sleet?
Looking up and over the cliffside, it appeared to be a mix of both snow and water, melting midair and creating a gross slush that he was only now realizing both he and Ezran would be stuck walking home through.
Callum sighed, closing his book and standing, much to the annoyance of the small dragon at his side.
The walk home was quiet, the sleet around them hazy and cold as the thoughts of yet another day of dragon-training slowly approached.
It was only when they finally reached their house did Callum realize he'd completely forgotten to test the light-chasing trick on the Terrible Terror.