Things get a liiiittle--I have no word for it lol. Confusing? Yes. Confusing may be the only term for it haha.

The question is, what's wrong with Dracen...?

If you're NEW to this series, then I would suggest starting from the beginning, which is here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5918826

If you don't read through "The Dragon" and "The Mortal" you will miss out on many humorous things that are involved in this story AS WELL AS SPOILERS!!! SO MANY SPOILERS!! GO READ THOSE FIRST!

MINE.

~Angel~

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Was that an eye twitch? Yes, her eyelid was definitely twitching. She had no idea how very entertaining this was for him, and he couldn't just stop now! This may have been a nasty conversation, but it was conversing and slowly but surely he was wearing her down and taking away her real ability, the one to fight. Hopefully the more he lead her around the real issue, the more likely she was to just leave instead of baring his presence a moment longer. Most of the time he was kicked out of places for being probing and obnoxiously charming, why wouldn't it work to drive others away? Besides she really was trying to be direct, and he liked going around in circles.

“Well?” he asked when her maw hung open again, as if shocked that anyone would actually ask for her name. “Would it help if I told you my own first?”

“Why would you care what my name is?” she asked in an off guard tone.

“If you're going to kill me, I would like to at least know the name I can shout and curse when I am in the dragon heavens,” he answered. “And my name is Dracen the Stalking. Now common courtesy states you should give me yours.”

“Common courtesy between species who are known to just rip each other to shreds when in scenting distance?” She demanded in a bewildered manner.

“If you're planning on living in my lair, and a dragon shows up and tells you their name, then you will be expected to tell yours in return. Then you can have your battle to the death, or what not,” Dracen explained as he moved to get a little more comfortable. “Do you not have such things in the tundra or are you just a generally rude species?”

She seemed to ponder the thought, for the first time her rigid body became more calm and loose, her tail with the infernal crystal spire flicking snow this way and that.

“Sometimes, tribes have to announce where they're from if a quarrel arises,” she muttered, shaking her head and her silver-white mane. He was fascinated with the thin and airy quality of the strands, before he realized he was staring again and focused back on his task. “But it is not like this situation.”

“You have no territory quarrels there? That surprises me.”

“Its not that,” she growled at him, her muscles going rigid again. “Besides, this is between you and I, not a tribe battle.”

Tribes, the second time she used the word. Dracen had experience in fighting with very few ice breathers, two he could think of in fact and they certainly were by themselves. If she were used to fighting in a group, she definitely didn't show it. She could hold her own, even in her small form.

“How many tribe battles has such a little thing like you been in?” he questioned in honest inquiry. Her aggression came out full fold with no warning, the hearty growling as her teeth were bared making his own bull instincts trigger and stiffen up on crouched limbs.

“You have nerve to call me LITTLE!” she roared at him, apparently that was a sensitive subject. Dracen reigned in his own temper, realizing he had hit a small, tender spot in her ego. No pun intended. He settled back down on his side and tilted his head to show his neck to her, a sort of apologetic gesture for dragons and lowering his eyes.

“I did mean it as a compliment,” he muttered. “Your stature is quite—fooling. I learned not to under estimate you after the first time we met.”

“You sit there and trade barbs and words like they were important,” she sneered at him, her neck up straighter as she stood with her guards scales out, reflecting light like gems where the blast hadn't hit them. “This is all pointless chatter, you are trying to find something to use against me, or some way to avoid confrontation. Why?”

It seemed a very valid question, but telling her was was merely trying to annoy her away didn't bode well for his plan. Telling her he wanted to keep her around seemed a far easier way to drive her off.

“To only speak with such an exotic creature,” he answered her with a somewhat coy glance away from her face. Most females seemed to take that as an alluring gesture, and he was certain it would drive this dragoness to turn tail. “It is a very rare thing for me to be so—enthralled with someone else who can string two thoughts together and vocalize them.”

That gave her pause, her weight shifting an her front feet as she cast those lavender eyes back onto the snow bed. Her guard was falling, he watched as her attentions drifted away from the territory battle before her and onto his words alone.

“You think of me...as intelligent?” she asked with such an aghast tone he was the one taken aback.

“Others haven't seen you with proper eyes I take it,” Dracen answered. “None of your tribe sees your clever tongue or sharp mind.”

Ah, that was true. The cold glare coming from her now chilled him far more than her own spray of ice. What could he conclude, then? She had been cast out of her tribe because she was intelligent? That didn't seem right...or was the whole story with her.

“You mind your own, hot-head,” she growled.

“Dracen,” he repeated, “And I would still like to know your name. Unless you like me calling you ice-chomper.”

“They should have named you Dracen the Talking, hot-head,” she ignored his request this time, “Thus far your stalking skills are quite lacking.”

“I choose to use my skills on skilled opponents, or skill-needed situations,” Dracen responded in a droll manner. He noticed then where the blast of his flame had hit her, the scales had begun to flake and peel away. There was far more pink and new scaled flesh underneath appearing to be already healed.

He realized then that she wasn't unaware of his game but playing it in a very purposeful way. She was buying time, needed time to heal from his blast so when she did attack him, she wouldn't have any real weakness or injury for him to exploit. She was going to attack him, in only a matter of minutes from the look of the healing hide. What better way to ensure the time she needed than to keep playing the game? Clever little creature.

“Although I can give you a demonstration,” Dracen suggested before slipping back into his lair and disappearing from her eyes, knowing the places she knew about and the ones she didn't from where her scent lingered. He placed the next move into her claws, knowing she would have to enter the lair of she wanted it, and knowing she would have to find him on his own known turf before he took her down. What a stalk this could turn into...

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Thrice damn that dragon into all the hells! He was daring her, taunting her, trying and succeeding in getting the upper claw. He knew he had the high ground, so to speak, and he wasn't giving it up. The pain was more than bearable now! If only she had kept him speaking for a few more minutes she could have lead him into the open with her broken and exiled heart and just finished him off!

Most would consider his act one of cowardice, retreating into his lair but she knew better. She couldn't have the lair with him in it and she would be ambushed if she entered it now. The more intelligent thing to do was to do the same thing he had done to her, wait outside until he had to take his leave for food or otherwise and sneak back into her new home. How long could she do that though? Trading the lair with this male, waiting for one of them to really slip up. He clearly seemed amused with their current predicament, so why would he stop it if she traded places with him and occupied the lair merely because he left?

The least but also the most risky thing to do was leave, find another empty lair and territory to inhabit and let Dracen the Talking rot in his waiting game for her. For the life of her, pride wouldn't let her do that. Her pride told her that this was hers now and that fire breather was going to be thrown out, or die.

Of course her pride never thought of her own demise.

Against her logic, she moved forward towards the entrance, knowing all too well the attacker could be there ready to jump her when her guard was at its peak. He seemed more the type to let the psychological aspect of being hunted take its toll, either making his supposed prey crazed and jittery waiting for his next move, or watch their guard fall as time passed. She would stay focused but not let the quiet alarm her, as any patient predator should be.

The entrance to the lair was coated in dark rock and compressed crystals, glittering from no doubt the frozen sheen atop them from the white world outside. It was rounded like a tunnel more than an entrance, even the floor had a curve to it as it lead into a low-ceiling but large chamber, holes high and low to where many more corridors and caverns lead.

She slunk along the side-curve of the entrance tunnel to the main chamber, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness before her. There were magically enchanted torches here and there but calling to light them would have given her presence away. She saw very well in the shadows, the tundra sometimes lacking any sunlight for weeks at a time.

His scent was everywhere, strong-ashen and earthy smells all around her and clouding her nostrils of any new discernible trail. He was not in the entrance tunnel or the main chamber, but any of those other entrances? He could easily be crouched and waiting in the far distance and thicker darkness of twisted corridors.

She listened for any sign of the pounding heartbeat of her adversary, knowing last time he decided to try and sneak up on her, that excited, loud pounding had given him away. She heard the dripping of water, the cracking of thin planes of ice, creaking of movement and weight high above the ceiling above her. Everything seemed to be shifting as if on cue, her ears being flooded with unnamed sounds as her focus started to get lost in their own rhythmic beat. The time passing seemed to only magnify them, forcing her to become nervous, stimulated and unable to discern them from one another, as if a dozen ice storms were jumbling in her ears all vying for her attention.

Then a moment of clarity, everything that was once too loud had gone silent and now she knew what to listen for and not to listen too.

All too late.

She was broad sided by the black wings and blue scales of the male dragon, bodies tumbling in a tangle of white and blue colors towards the side of the main chamber. Her world for a moment was right-side up, then she was pinned hard as hot scaled hide pressed her down into the chilled floor. Claws pinned above her head, as well as her wings, held by black wing claws as a claw grasped around her neck just below her head, letting her breathe but barely so through her nostrils. She tried to find purchase of his underbelly with her back feet only to realize his own back feet had her calves pinned harshly open, his tail twisting around hers to keep it in check as well.

How had he done it? She knew she checked the chamber, she would and should have heard him creeping up along side her merely by his heart! But here she was, now going to die like a youngling, in foreign territory, by a big, blue scaled bastard!

She couldn't roar in frustration, she could barely swallow as pricks of pain traveled through her pinned limbs, staring into triumphant silver eyes and waited for the final blow. When it didn't come right away, she couldn't help but look away and around as if he were waiting for something. She frowned as much as she could at him, his heart beating wild against her own chest, his breathing heavy and quick.

“W-well?” she ground out of her throat with most of the air cut off. “Finish it, then.”

His triumphant look vanished, shifting into a scowl of confusion and bewilderment. She scowled back up at him, either he was going to kill her now or he was going to let her suffocate under him slowly, she would have preferred the quick and painless.

“Do it,” she strained, “Don't let me sit here and suffer.”

Then she suddenly felt her airway rush with new breath, heated scales gone and body free of any other pressures upon it. She coughed as she rolled onto her side, gasping in between them as she regained her legs and went to stand weakly. She cast a glance at Dracen, his body rigid, fearful, backing away from her like she had done something to nearly kill him versus the other way round. He was curled in a tight defensive way, his tail curved in front of him and his wings half out, sliding sideways away from her.

“What're—you—doing?” she coughed as she grasped at her bruised throat. “Don't you want—your—lair—back?”

His wild eyes fell from her to the floor at her feet, his mane expanded like a terrified cat tail as he fought instinctual thoughts, it looked as if internal bells were going off in his head, warnings, flashing through his eyes. He reached some sort of clarity, his mane falling flat once more as he unfurled his body but still backed away from her and towards the tunnel exit.

“Keep it,” he growled out, turning and slipping out of the lair in a flurry of rapid, honed muscle. ..What? Keep it? What did that mean? She had not earned it, she had faltered and lost under his attack. This, by all honorable purposes was his lair again and by all draconic instincts she should be a corpse! She looked around and then back towards where he retreated, growling and wanting answers to why she was still breathing.

She moved as if struck by lightning, blazing out of the tunnel and seeking out the dragon who had let her live. If this was another one of his games, she was not going to play! She would demand his answers, and be on her way to find somewhere else to inhabit! She broke out into the light and spotting him moving towards a clearing, wings expanded to take off into the sky.

“YOU!” she shouted at him as she almost galloped up to him and grabbed his tail harshly. “What the HELLS do you mean—'Keep It'?! I'm not some charity case!”

She tugged hard on his tail, forcing his back legs out from under him. He slowly turned his neck over his shoulder and wing to glare at her, the passion for hate in his once mischievous eyes. He deliberately got to his claws again, never looking away from her and yanking his tail free when her grip loosened. Her own primal warnings flared to life with that silver gaze, but she wasn't going to be handed his lair when it was clearly his now. She had been beaten, she had no claim to it. She would leave as soon as she knew why he hadn't decimated her face in flame.

“If you didn't grasp it, you WON in there,” she growled at him, trying not to be intimidated by his focused eyes, waiting for him to say something clever, or hurtful—just something! But after a few minutes of silence she grunted in frustration. “This moment, this is the time you choose not to say anything?! What happened to your incessant chatter?! Why are you running as if you had lost against me?!”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Dracen murmured in deliberate control as he twisted his gaze forward once more to attempt to leave her unanswered. She was shocked, confused and suddenly very, VERY angry, his refusal to do or answer anything she demanded making her snap!

He took off without looking behind him, and she took off right on his tail. His size made his flight strides hard to catch up with, but she only wanted to be within breathing range of him to get his attention, not right atop him. She may have been pushing her luck, probably should have turned around and gone back to the lair he had offered her, but she never took anything offered to her, she had to earn it and she hadn't earned that cave back.

She had no idea if he knew she was trailing behind him, or if he cared and was simply ignoring her, hoping to put distance between them rather than face her demands again. She inhaled sharply in the crisp, high winter air, focusing her breath into a large hunk of hail and holding it in her maw. She took in another large breath from her nostrils as she aimed, sending a hard, shivering blast of chilled spray outwards and launching the hail crystal! Watching its sharp momentum slam into the back of Dracen's skull just below his crown of horns! Oh it was a gratifying sound when it hit him at the base of bone, the impact made him fall forward and loose his height rapidly, but he adjusted his flight to land in an outcropping of skeletal looking trees. She dove and landed right behind him, no longer afraid of him trying to really harm her. Only the gods knew WHY apparently, and Dracen.

He turned with one claw on the now tender, large lump forming on the back of his head, growling in warning at her as she stepped up right into his personal space.

“And you have the nerve to call me UNBALANCED?!” he roared at her. “You could have cracked my skull open you crazed viper!”

“I know what I want,” she snapped back at him, “And I want ANSWERS! HOT-HEAD!”

“I TOLD you, I have nothing more to say to you,” he repeated with clenched teeth. “Now go back and STOP following me!”

She rumbled, baring teeth and nearly pressing her nostrils against his own, which made his warning growl far deeper and use his larger body to tower over her.

They both stopped the moment they heard the sharp, familiar sound of a dragon taking in breath, but neither of them had done it.

The flame that hit her was so powerful, she was blasted off of her feet, through several hibernating trees, across snow-covered grass and managed to be slammed into a low-lying rock face. Her skull slammed into the jagged surface and she blacked out completely.

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Dracen got to his feet slowly, the fire he may have been immune to but the blast behind it had sent him and the female thorn in his side into too many unforgiving objects. Dracen knew when to retreat from a fight, normally, and as the silver bull the size of his father came into view, he knew he should have taken to the skies and left the ice-chomper without a name to die.

But when the scent of charred fur and scales entered his nostrils and he looked over to the unconscious female embedded in small fallen rocks, something he had been reigning in started to snap. Her furred mane was singed, a whole patch on her spine burnt down bald to pale scales underneath. The fire breath hit her side and wing, the blast mark almost black with the heat it delivered, her former pristine sparkled hide covered in her, unforgiving burns. He had tried to shield her with his wing when he felt the heat build but he only seemed to keep her head from receiving the blow, there was no telling what damage she had endured.

“A little ice-chomper? Here?” The silver dragon questioned in a chipper murmur. Dracen's blood was beyond the boiling point, every possessive, primal instinct pounding in hit heart, heating his muscles with sheer hatred. He felt his vision grow red.

The silver bull probably twice his age began to say something else, but all Dracen could hear was the wheezing of the ice breather, the pounding rage in his veins and every bird within ten miles go honestly quiet. With a slow, determined turn Dracen faced the bull before him and unleashed the thin tether he had been desperately holding onto.

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Her whole body was coated in glorious cold snow and chips of ice, much like where she had been hatched, half-buried under her mother's belly and in a nest of cold metals. She sighed and wriggled deeper into the snow, only her head sticking out of it as she rested her chin on a smooth piece of ice. She felt the small stab of pain on her side, like her hide was tight or dry, then the pain flooded her whole side and wing. It was aching, pulsing with every pump of blood. A burn, and the burn was more than superficial this time.

She tried to move again but was rewarded with more pulsing pain, making a higher whimper. Where was she? Was she home again? Buried in deep snow flakes? Was she...dead? No, she hurt too much to be dead, that she was certain of.

“Stay still,” a male voice ordered, “You aren't in any condition to try and get up yet.”

Who was that? She frowned even with her eyes closed, the voice brought on anger and confusion but still no clarity to why those feelings appeared. Her eyes fluttered between open and closed for a few moments, finally blinking hard and focusing on shimmering snow and a brown rock wall.

“Where am I?” she croaked, her throat dry as she huffed out a deep breath, casting light crystals into the air.

“Really? Don't recognize the place?” the male voice questioned in a somewhat cheerful manner, “You have been living here for quite some time.”

Dracen, Dracen the Talking. The name and voice hit her almost physically, her head raising from the block of ice placed under another blanket of snow to where the placid tones came from. He stood just inside the mouth of the smaller cavern, the air around him steaming from his much more heated body. She knew this chamber, this was the coldest one she could find, the one she had coated in her icy spray to lower it even further and make it more comfortable while she slept.

The extra snow she was currently buried under was very new, however. New scented, freshly powdered. If she didn't know any better, she would call this snow newly fallen.

“...What happened? I remember...arguing then...being fileted alive,” she groaned, looking around her chamber and seeing his larger footprints here and there, along with something mortal made...crates? Wooden crates? In the far corner of the room. “What are those?”

“Food,” he answered, well that only one question and moved forward to one of them, his scales still steaming as well as his heavier breath. He pulled one of the crates from their pile and opened it in a loud creaking of breaking wood, pulling out something that could have once been beef. “The mortals preserve it with salt and spices. I wanted to make sure you had easy access to food.”

“Are you sure that's edible?” she grumbled, lying her head down onto the ice slab but kept her eyes on him. He bit into it and pulled the tougher meat a part, chewing and swallowing.

“Tastes good to me,” he answered and put the rest of it into his mouth to finish it, smacking the obviously chewy meat in between his jaws.

“What happened—to me?” she tried, motioning to her injured side with her eyes.

“Another dragon,” he answered as he moved back out of the cold chamber. “Your side and wing are very badly burned.”

“That, I gathered,” she snapped, before she closed her eyes and decided to change her attitude, “What happened to them?”

“Dead, I assure you,” he responded calmly, “Now, you will be better with a few days rest I take it. Please, don't follow me again.”

“You're—you're leaving?” she asked.

“I brought in fresh snow, preservable food,” he murmured as if annoyed with the fact he had done those things. “You seem capable of taking care of yourself from there.”

“You—saved my life,” she stated as she bowed her head up to look him in the eyes, “You don't kill me, you give me this lair and you—a fire element dragon got freshly powdered snow to cover my burns.”

“Is there a point to this?” he questioned, seeming to urgently want to change the subject.

“I...can't have you leave,” she muttered, shaking her head as she started to realize what her honor would make her do. “I owe you my life, I owe you a blood debt.”

“...A what, now?” Dracen questioned, shaking his mane slightly and tilting his ear towards her.

“A blood debt,” she repeated with some disdain, “My life belongs to you.”

His face turned panic-stricken, it wasn't the first time she had seen him like that but for some reason it brought her some satisfaction.

“I don't want your life, I want you to leave me alone,” Dracen responded as he tried to hide his fearful features behind a new mask of cleverness. “Which is what is going to happen. You will stay here, I will leave and we will never see each other again.”

“You would condemn me to hell, then,” she answered as her own panic set in. “I would be cast out of the heavens if I do not fulfill it and I don't want to be baked in fire for eternity. I don't plan on having that happen.”

“I won't hold you to anything,” he responded, “Your soul can go where ever it likes when it dies.”

“It has nothing to do with you,” she snapped at him, which made his neck arch back in confusion.

“Your—blood debt? Is to me.”

“Yes.”

“But it has nothing to do with me.”

“Finally you are beginning to understand something,” she groaned, rubbing her forehead with her claw. “It is my honor at stake, not your choices, wants or needs.”

“Ice breathers take life far too seriously,” Dracen concluded, shaking his mane again. “How do you want to settle this blood debt then?”

“Settle it?” she almost cackled, “I need to save your life in order to 'settle' it.”

“Ah, and I would have to be around for that to happen,” he huffed in a lowering, agitated manner. “Just what I wanted to do.”

“The feeling is mutual,” she whined as her head fell back down onto the ice.