Commissioned by  bacroomcomic55

Something was wrong.
He remembered taking the wrong door at his library, but he didn’t remember getting lost, or how he wound up in the room. In the echoing vault, he found and saw nothing. No windows, no lights-though he could see, and no doors. There was just an ever-present cold. He wandered, sometimes hitting a wall, but when he went to touch it, nothing returned his touch.

It was certainly cold and dark.

He wandered fruitlessly for what seemed like hours to no avail. His breath was white, and it seemed to hang in the air, far longer than it should. He shivered, and as he crossed his arms to keep the heat in, he heard an awful ripping sound. The fabric of his tee-shirt had split down the back, and he felt another rush of cold air overtake him.

Ice. It was as though it pumped through his veins, instead of blood. There it built up, tugging at his essence for release. Fear is what held it in. Fear of what letting go would mean, what he would become if that coldness got loose. This dark empty room would be the death of him, but until then, he had to hold it back. He had to keep it in. It had to be contained.

Get out.

Get out before you freeze to death. He continued to search for the door in the shapeless-void of a room, half-freezing to death. The cold was eating him alive. Why wouldn’t it stop? Why hold it back? With no way out and the temperature around him plummeting, the end would come sweeping in. Already his skin was flush blue, and was hardening by the second. The pressure was building alone in this icy room. It would break him unless he released it.

Finally, he gave in, and he opened his mouth and roared.

A shockwave erupted form his warping body, as he expanded into a monstrous reptile. Bluing skin turned to scales, wings and a tail tore from his small frame, as the cold poured out. His claws and new appendages shredded his clothing, and new instincts and powers flooded the arctic dragon’s mind.

Fly out of here, break through.

With a mighty surge of his leathery wings, the dragon flung himself upward into the dark. Pushing higher and higher, the dragon beat his wings furiously for his life and for his escape. He braced himself for impact.
He never came through a wall, never hit his head on a ceiling. Then he was out.

Above him he saw white and the world spun. Below him now, there was no void-room, only endless white, and mountains. An arctic paradise lay all around, his arctic paradise. He alighted on a crag and surveyed the crystalline realm before a half-shaped thought occurred. He made it, he changed. Smiling he glanced over his new powerful form, and thought—he wasn’t cold anymore.

His kingdom called.

——
Second entry of the Dragonsale, for  bacroomcomic55
This was the last colored one to survive the computer crash, and I reworked the file that i backed up through the sta.sh. There’s probably a reference I didn’t want to make in the story. These stories were not part of the commission, I added them as a way to make up for the serious delay in finishing them, and for fun.

Also a Reminder, this is the second in the sale series, not a continuation of the first image.

Photoshop
2014
~Age