When faced with a dragon the size of a bison, Jaune opted to remain very, very still, and to do his level best to look as non-threatening as possible. He wasn't sure if the fact that Weiss, who was happily chattering away at the new arrival, was still perched on his shoulder made the situation better or worse. Then, the larger dragoness reached out with her foreleg, and with consummate care, plucked Weiss off of his shoulder, making sure not to cut her with her long, glistening, razor-sharp talons that were terrifyingly-close to Jaune's neck. The small dragoness went limp, like a kitten picked up by the scruff of her neck, falling silent until the older one had deposited her on a nearby rock.

With Weiss out of the way, the dragoness turned her attention back to the interloper. "Human," she repeated. "Why are you here?" Her blue, forked tongue flicked out for a moment, tasting the air. "And…why do you smell like…like a dragon?"

Jaune went white as a sheet as he remembered the family shield that he carried on him. The ancestral heirloom of the Arc family.

A shield made of the bones of a dragon.

Whelp. He was a dead man. Unable to see any way out of his predicament - he had exactly no chance of drawing his sword and killing the dragoness before she ripped him apart - Jaune fell back onto the habits that his mother had instilled in him growing up. After all, strangers are just friends that he hadn't met yet, and when you're talking with friends, honesty is the best policy.

With hands shaking violently from his sheer terror, Jaune slowly, cautiously, reached up to his shoulder. "I-I have this," he said, his voice cracking. "It was made a long, long time ago." Then, cursing himself for still lacking the sense that the Gods granted a turkey, Jaune pulled the shield off of his back and held it out in front of him.

Winter Winds stilled as she saw the object that the human had presented to her. It was made of bone, dragon bone clearly, and yet, it had somehow been…changed. Carved. Shaped, to suit the whims of the filthy primates that had taken it. Tentatively, her tongue flicked out, stopping just shy of the object.

A flood of memories rushed through her, impressions dulled after two hundred long and difficult years. Torches flickering in the night. The stomping of human boots, shrieks, frost and fire and the flashing of steel. Her hot blood steaming in the cold of night, as the wicked-sharp tip of a human spear had slipped under her scales, to rake painfully across her snout.

Winter Winds remembered the pain and fear and grief. She remembered that absolute necessity, the overwhelming need to hide that had unlocked her ability, how she had staggered, off-balance in the weak, wingless, bloodied form of a naked young human woman, clutching to her chest the egg that would one day hatch into The Peaceful Stillness of Moonlight Spilling Across the Fresh-Fallen White Snow.

She remembered the scent of The Gentle Rustling of Willow Leaves in the Breeze. Winter Winds had only been four-hundred years old when the humans had come for her mother, still a sub-adult. She had barely been able to fend for herself, let alone a hatchling.

Winter Winds had fled far, far to the north, where the snows never melted, and the long nights sometimes lasted half-a-year at a time. The distance, and bitter, biting cold had kept her safe from the humans, but at the expense of their new home having but few, sparse game for the hunt. There were entire years that passed with the two sisters huddled together, hibernating in a cave as they waited out great blizzards.

Mother dragons fed their young by partially-digesting meat and then regurgitating it for the hatchlings; during this process, the meat would be soaked in special enzymes that enabled the half-developed hatchlings to digest their food. Winter Winds had been too young to develop those enzymes, and had had to hunt twice as much to keep the little hatchling alive, her sister sometimes screaming in pain and hunger. She had been certain that one day, she would return to their nest from a hunt to find the little hatchling laying still and dead.

Sometimes, when the land lay bare and lifeless in the bitter winter nights, when Winter Winds had been obliged to dive beneath the ice to try to find marine life to keep them fed, when her tail had grown perilously thin from hunger, she had contemplated eating her younger sister. She would have made it quick and painless - the hatchling would never have seen it coming - and she would have been safe to move freely in the hunt. But then her sister would gaze at her with complete and utter trust and unconditional adoration, and Winter Winds was unable to do it.

For a hundred and fifty years, the sisters had eked out their survival in the northern wastes, until finally, White Snow had grown sufficiently to digest meat unaided and hunt small game for herself. With the passage of time, the humans that had slain Willow Leaves would have been long-dead, and it would be safer to bring White Snow to lands further south, to learn, hunt, and grow on her own. The burden had eased, but it had been a close thing, a razor-thin margin for more than a century.

White Snow, as a second hatchling, should have had the easy youth that came from an experienced mother, and Winter Winds should have been able to come into her own without the century of privation and hardship. That had been taken from her, taken from them both, by the humans, who, not being satisfied with having murdered The Gentle Rustling of Willow Leaves in the Breeze, had then butchered her like a dumb animal, making trophies of her corpse!

"What is it?"

Winter Winds looked down to see White Snow standing by her feet, nudging one of her claws with one of her much-smaller talons and peering up curiously at the bone. At some point, Winter Winds had swiped the object from the human boy, who was now pressed against the rocky wall of the cave entrance, doing his best impression of a statue. She could hear his heart thudding in his chest. Apparently, there had been some roaring and frost breath involved, as the stone wall a few feet to the right of the human was frozen over with a thick layer of ice.

Gently, Winter Winds placed the bone object on the floor, to lean against the wall. "Take in the scent," she instructed her younger sister. "Learn the scent of our mother."

[/]

When Jaune Arc was seven years old, he had nearly drowned when he'd swam into the lake, searching for the lost city that was said to lay at its bottom. He hadn't understood just how the cold could sap the strength from his body, leaving him helpless in the frigid, dark waters. If Ruby Rose hadn't gone to get an adult, he would have died. That would have been the end of him; Jaune Arc, killed by his own stupidity before he reached double-digit age.

There had been a great deal of fussing over him, of course, with his mother and seven sisters all alternating between clinging to him and struggling to keep from strangling him to death. Eventually, his father had waved them off. Jaune had been sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket, when the grizzled woodsman had sat down next to him.

"Boy," he'd said. "One day, those damn fool notions of yours are gonna get you into trouble that no one'll be able to pull you out of."

Well, it looked like his father's words had been prophetic, as Jaune was absolutely sure that he was dead. Very dead. Whole new realms of death had been unlocked for him, as he might as well have died, been resurrected, then killed again, and that still wouldn't amount to just how dead he was at that moment.

Yeah, so offering the dragon the shield made out of a dragon's bones was perhaps not one of his brightest moments. Then the dragoness had thrown a fit, complete with bone-rattling roars and a torrent of ice breath that had splashed against the wall of the cavern. The only reason he had not taken off at a full-tilt sprint for his life was his absolute certainty that drawing the dragoness' attention at the moment would end in swift and bloodily-fatal fashion.

Now, the bossy little dragon that he'd met earlier had scrabbled into the cave, to stand by the terrifying older one, her small blue tongue flickering out over the shield.

"But…how is this our mother?" Weiss asked. "It's not a dragon."

"It's what's left of her. The humans killed her, carved her up, and turned her bones into this…object."

Weiss swung her neck to look back and up at Winter Winds. "They…killed her? But she was a dragon! Dragons don't die, prey dies, and dragons aren't prey!"

The elder dragoness slumped, her anger seemingly spent. "Everything dies, fledgeling. We live much longer than humans, dwarves, or elves, true, but in time, we too will perish."

With her ice blue eyes, Weiss stared at her sister, then back to the shield.

"I'm sorry."

Jaune had startled everyone, even himself, by speaking up, drawing the attention of the two dragons back onto him.

Why did he do things?

"Oh, so you're sorry, are you?" Winter Winds asked, disdain practically dripping from her tone. "Tell me, how old are you?"

"S-seventeen, uh…ma'am."

"Ma'am?" echoed Winter, amused. She shook her head. "A whole seventeen years." With a snort, she nudged Weiss. "The Peaceful Stillness of Moonlight Spilling Over the Fresh-Fallen White Snow is two hundred years old. I am three times her age. Our mother?" The dragoness gazed at the shield.

"The Gentle Rustling of Willow Leaves in the Breeze was fifteen-hundred years old at the time of her death, human. A millennia and a half of memories, wisdom and knowledge, all lost at the hands of you humans, pitiful creatures who cannot hope to live a fraction of our lives. And you're sorry?"

"Well, yeah," said Jaune. "I mean, I don't know what happened, because, you know, it was a long, long time ago, but now that I've actually met dragons, and spoken with them, I mean…it doesn't seem right, you know? The shield. It's not…civilized, I guess."

A silence fell over the cave as the dragoness stared at the human youth.

"You are literally too young and foolish to kill," deadpanned Winter Winds, shaking her head.

"That is a fantastic point, ma'am," Jaune quickly agreed.

Winter Winds looked down as White Snow nudged her. "You can't kill him," the younger dragoness declared. "I claimed him as my treasure."

"Oh you have, have you? And what brought this on?"

"His clever primate hands are remarkable for the swift eradication of itchies," said Weiss.

"I see." Winter Winds made a long and pointed look towards the back of the cavern. "And how do you plan on keeping the human alive? There is not much room in your cave, and there will be less as you grow. Humans lack scales, and need to bathe in water frequently, or else their soft, fragile skin will suffer rashes."

"I'll just find a new cave, a larger cave, near a river!"

"And just where is this magic cave that is larger than this one, close to fresh water, and yet far enough from humans that his kind would not take umbrage to you keeping him as a pet?"

"We do tend to frown on that sort of thing," Jaune added. "It's probably more trouble than I'm worth, soooooo I'll just be going-"

"I'm not just going to give up my itchy remover!" argued Weiss, ignoring Jaune entirely. She scrambled over to him and ran up his leg to drape herself back over his shoulders. "He came out here because something burned down a human nest, and the dolt thought it was a dragon. Obviously, he's wrong, but something attacked the humans. I'll go with him to find out what it was, and look for a place better suited to keep him while I'm at it!"

The elder dragoness' response was blunt. "The humans would kill you. They would kill you to harvest your body."

"No they wouldn't" argued Jaune. "At least, once they know that you're sentient people, they wouldn't, and when I tell them that it wasn't you who burned Lonelywood, they won't be looking to attack for our safety."

Winter Winds fixed Jaune with a searching gaze. "You are very young, aren't you? Both of you are." She shook her head, then scooped up the shield in her claw. She carried the shield into the back of the cave. "You'll learn. You won't have the option not to."

[/]

That night, Winter Winds lay curled around the shield made from her mother. The human had used his primate hands and tools to start a small fire which was, she had to admit, a very useful trick. The cave was both illuminated with flickering orange light and cozily warm. Winter and White Snow had both feasted upon the reindeer that she had brought, and were resting happily with full bellies. The human, for some reason, hadn't wanted any of the kill, instead eating some kind of human-kibble from his carrying bag, and only then, after Winter Winds had cleared the leftover offal away from the cave.

Humans were so delicate. White Snow had her work cut out for her.

She could have demanded that White Snow release the human, and retreat with her further north. It would keep her safer from the humans, sure, but at what cost? Winter feared that her inadequate efforts with the younger dragoness had stunted her growth; at her age, she had been twice her sister's size.

It would be dangerous, to be sure, but White Snow would learn a great deal, provided she could survive the experience. It would be a great boon to her growth, possibly enough to get her back on a healthy rate for their kind.

The danger was real, but the alternative would absolutely be worse for her sister in the long run. There was more to discerning what was best for someone than strictly their physical security.

White Snow was curled up on the human's chest as he rested on some kind of padding made of stitched-together hides. Her sister purred happily with the rise and fall of her new human's chest, the very picture of a dragon sleeping on her treasure.

Winter Winds hadn't lied when she'd told the human that he was too young and foolish to kill. But that wasn't the entire truth. Among the rush of memories brought back when she'd tasted her mother's scent for the first time in centuries, was another memory, one brought to mind by the scent of the human boy himself.

That night, that horrible, horrible night, Winter Winds had, by necessity, learned to shapeshift. A naked, bloodied young maiden had staggered from the mountains, clutching an egg to her chest. And a human woman had found her.

Winter never knew if the human woman had known her true nature. She never dared to ask. But she had taken her in, hidden her in her own dwelling. When Winter Winds had awoken, the painful gash across the bridge of her nose had been stitched closed by clever human fingers, and at Winter's urging, she had even hidden her in the back of her hay-laden wagon and driven it far from the human village.

That woman had come to her aid, never once asking anything in turn from Winter Winds. Centuries later, her descendant - perhaps a half-dozen generations removed - still bore traces of her scent. So, she would let the human go, to travel where he would, and even allow him to take White Snow with him, since that seemed to be her wish. The boy was foolish, and almost painfully young, but he was kind, and that would be enough.

Of course, she had no intention of staying at White Snow's cave once the pair set out for the human village in the morning. The human boy might be kind, but Winter Winds held no such faith in his fellows. She would be gone shortly after they departed.

The dragoness clutched the shield to her chest. She would have to find a place of honor for it at her own lair. At least White Snow had been able to taste the scent of her own mother. It wasn't enough, not nearly enough, but it would have to do.

With a last look towards her sister and her treasure, Winter Winds shuffled and went to sleep.

[/]

Author's Notes:

Q&A

Q: Where the hell have you been?

A: Playing video games, mostly. Cyberpunk, then all the Armored Core games, then Cyberpunk again, then Mechwarrior 5. Also, reading a whole lot of other peoples' fics.

Q: What about (Insert Fic Name Here)
A: Okay. I've got about 9200 words of the next chapter of The White Knight done, so the whole chapter should hit somewhere between 18-20k words. I've got a few scenes for the next chapter of Reign of Steel written, I just need to tie them together. The Star Wars Crossover chapter is about ⅓ done. Falling Snow was following canon closely and…I just…ugh. Canon. Ew. I just…Atlas was such a huge mess. I actually have a big chunk done of Across Worlds' next chapter. Why didn't I finish it? I don't know. Don't judge me!

Q: Literally what is wrong with you?
A: *shrugs* Like, alphabetically? We could be here a while, you know.

Q: So what about (insert character here) for this story?

A: We have Jaune, Weiss, Winter, and a mention of Ruby as a village girl. That's all that's set in stone, and even then, that isn't the whole story. I have some ideas, but a lot of them, like Ren or Blake, aren't set in stone. Others, like Yang, Summer Rose, and Pyrrha Nikos, I have pretty well nailed down.

'Kay, bye!

-Mahina Fable