Friendship in the Far South

Still, doggedly he kept beating his wings and pushing his way forward. Harkwin had to shake his wings to dislodge ice every few moments, but there was no alternative.

What finally changed his mind was when a hailstone whizzed by his head. They could keep trying to fight the wind, and maybe they could also fight the icing conditions, but attempting to fly through hail was suicidal. "Alright. Alright! Ryyyahhh!" Harkwin let out a long, angry roar, shouting at the clouds and the immense storm system. Slowing his wingbeats, he went into a glide and glanced back at Nacen. "We can't fly through the mountain pass, but there's nowhere else to go. What now?"

Trailing behind him, with that tow cable still connecting their flight harnesses, Nacen looked just as uncertain as him. "Back to the outpost?"

"The tents are so thin. We'll freeze to death," Harkwin muttered, but he turned around and flew back towards the summit crater. With this change in direction, the winds swept him forward without even needing to beat his wings, but Harkwin couldn't shake the terror that they were flying to their demise.

---

The weather closer to Outpost 20 was relatively calm. The sky was still heavily overcast with grey clouds which darkened the landscape, but at least the winds slowed down and became manageable. Harkwin was so tired that he just dropped all efforts to use his air magic to push them forward. What did it matter? The storm had trapped them here in the summit crater. With no way to leave they would eventually freeze to death as the temperature dropped over the next few hours or days and the true force of the storm arrived.

As the two dragons approached Outpost 20, Harkwin was tiredly resigned to his fate. Had it been a mistake to come here? Surely it couldn't have been a mistake to come and try to rescue a friend, yet now they faced mortal danger.

Flying into the outpost, Harkwin dropped out of the skies and touched down on his paws. Nacen landed just behind him, skipping a few steps to get rid of some excess speed. The tow rope was still connecting their harnesses—it should have been disconnected before landing for safety, but again, what did it matter?

Harkwin let his legs fold, lying down on all fours. He let out a slow, tired sigh, and his exhaled breath was barely visible as a misty cloud of white. The scout tilted his head to stare up at the sky, watching that grey, ominous shroud of cloud that covered the world. Right here at the outpost the weather seemed deceptively quiet. The wind was still blowing, but it felt more like a calm breeze. Instead of hail or freezing rain, there were only tiny snowflakes gently drifting down from the clouds. Tiny flakes of snow fell from above—minuscule crystals that were slowly painting a fresh coat of white on the world. However, he could feel the cold now—the temperature was dropping, and eventually it would overwhelm even his natural frost affinity.

Harkwin shivered. He wasn't cold yet, but fear was taking hold. "We're going to die," he muttered.

Suddenly a snowball smacked against his side, making the young grey-scaled dragon jump in surprise. Nacen was standing beside him, and she grabbed the tow rope that was still connecting them and used it to tug Harkwin to his feet. "Get up. And don't be so pessimistic."

"Why not? The storm has arrived, and the southern mountain pass is untraversable. We're stuck here." Sitting down again, Harkwin used his paws to gather up some loose snow. He began moulding the snow into a bowl shape, compacting it in a rough facsimile of the summit crater's terrain all around them. Carefully using one claw, he poked at one particular part of his snow model, roughly where the southern mountain pass was located.

Nacen walked over and pointed at a different part of Harkwin's little snow model of the summit crater. "We could try the eastern mountain pass," she suggested.

Looking up from his model, Harkwin turned his head to look across the relative flat terrain, in the direction of the actual eastern mountain pass which was visible through the low-level clouds. "If the winds are strong at the southern pass, the eastern one will be even windier. There'll be ice and hail and so much wind shear. We won't make it through."

Nacen's neck crest twitched. She stomped her paw down on the snow. "If that's the case, then... then we'll just have to hunker down here! Maybe the storm will be mild."

"Hahaha!" Harkwin let out a guffaw of laughter, though his voice sounded far more hysterical than joyous. "This storm is faster than the three other storms we've encountered previously. With no shelter, we're going to freeze to death."

Nacen clenched her paw, then she picked up another lump of snow to toss at Harkwin. He waved a wing to deflect the projectile, but Nacen missed anyway. "Can you stop that? Stop. Stop saying we're going to die." Nacen gestured about at the trio of orange, triangular tents that were just a short distance away. The tents fluttered in the breeze. "We have some shelter! We have tents here at the outpost."

"Tents aren't enough." Harkwin manipulated the snow with his paws, adding several tiny conical mounds to his snow model to imitate the tents. "We'd need proper shelter. Unless it turns out that your tents here have underground basements with adequate ground insulation or advanced heater units, then this outpost will be our death." Then Harkwin paused, as a sudden flash of inspiration struck him. "Wait, I don't suppose... You said this place is geologically active, right? So does this summit crater have any caves nearby? Maybe we could shelter there."

Nacen grit her teeth, and her crest fin drooped slightly. "No caves here, as far as we know."

"Oh. So I guess we are going to die after all." Reaching a wing out towards a nearby mound of snow, Harkwin swept it over his miniature model of the crater, completely destroying it. "Bwooosh. This is the storm, freezing us to death."

Nacen chuckled, then looked slightly irritated, but also amused—her facial expression was mixed. "Hey! I said stop it. We're not going to die. What about... uh... What about instead of flying through the mountain passes, we climb above the mountains and try to fly over the storm?"

Harkwin had already thought about that, and dismissed that idea. Mild weather systems could sometimes be at a low enough altitude for a dragon to fly above that turbulent weather, but not for the sorts of immense blizzards which the far polar south had a habit of creating every few weeks. "I saw the weather data from Outpost 3. This storm stretches all the way to the upper atmosphere. We're totally dead."

"We're not dead until we're actually dead, at which point then you are allowed to say we're dead!" Nacen clearly was not ready to recognize fate. She paced around Harkwin, partially entangling him in the tow rope, which neither of them had bothered to disconnect yet. "Let's just think about this logically and analyse what's going to happen. The storm is coming and the cold will kill us. So we have to leave—but the mountain passes are too windy, and we can't climb above the cloud layer. We can't fly through the storm and we can't fly over the storm, so we have to stay here, but the tents don't provide enough insulation from the cold."

Harkwin had seen the results from previous storms. "We'll end up frozen solid. Whenever the storm finally blows over, the scout team from Central will come here to these tents and find our dead bodies. We're so far away that I'm not sure they would carry our frozen corpses back to Central. We'll probably just end up cremated here."

Nacen made an annoyed noise. "Mnnnghhhaaa! How about you stop being so negative and start suggesting solutions? We're not dying here! That would be unacceptable, you hear me? Harkwin, we cannot die here, so help me figure out how to make that happen! Or not happen! You know what I mean. You're supposed to be the brave hero who flew out here to rescue me, so act more heroic!"

Nacen's irate look managed to crack through Harkwin's resigned indifference, and he felt a flash of embarrassment. "Sorry. I know I shouldn't be so negative, but... these storms have killed dragons before. Now we're stuck out here and... I'm scared," he admitted. "I'm scared to die. I don't want to go."

Nacen faltered for a moment, and Harkwin could see that she was as scared as he was, even if she masked it with bravado. "We'll make it somehow. We're not going to freeze inside those tents. So we have to stay here... What can we use for shelter to keep us warm?"

"There isn't much here." Harkwin glanced around, but there wasn't much to see. The entire summit crater was mostly bare rock covered by snow, without even trees to break up the monotonous environment.

"Could we... somehow stack the three tents together, making their walls triple-layered for more insulation?" Nacen suggested.

Harkwin stood up and walked the short distance over to the closest tent. He used a paw to poke at the tent wall, which was flapping slightly in the breeze. "We could try, though I don't think that would be enough. The cold is really cold. Also, the wind will probably just blow all these tents to tatters."

"What a waste of resources. What a waste of... of everything!" Nacen unfurled her wing and swung it forward angrily, slapping the leading edge of her limb against the side of a tent. There was a loud thwack sound, but neither wing nor tent was damaged. "I spent so many weeks here, taking water samples every few hours. Now it doesn't seem to matter. Mineral analysis, trace elements, acidity levels... What a stupid thing to die for, just learning a bit more about some hot springs!"

"Hm..." Harkwin perked up as a fresh idea blossomed in his mind. "Wait a moment. Hot springs?"

"Yeah?" Turning around, Nacen made eye contact with Harkwin.

Rearing up on his hindlegs, Harkwin peered over the tents and in the direction of the hot springs—the pools of bubbling water were still giving off wispy pillars of steam that slowly rose into the sky before gradually merging with the low clouds. "Hot springs! This outpost is meant to study hot springs! Why don't we just... swim or float in those hot springs? Since the water is warm, that should keep us from freezing through the storm!"

"Oh. Huh! Why didn't I think of that? I've spent so much time studying the pools that I didn't even think about using them." Nacen's crest fin perked up, then drooped slightly, then perked back up again. "It wouldn't work though. The water is boiling hot. We'd be cooked alive if we went inside the pools—frozen on one side, and boiled on the other. Unless..."

"Unless?" Harkwin prompted.

"I think I might have an idea." Nacen glanced up at the sky, looking at the snowflakes which were slowly drifting down from the clouds. "Let's hope we have enough time. Come on!" Jumping to her feet, she ran into the nearest tent.

---

"Carry this!" Nacen ordered, dragging a small, cubical wooden crate out of the tent that was tied up by rope.

Harkwin had been waiting outside, and he nudged the crate. "Uh... What's this?"

"Packed food rations." Disappearing back into the tent, Nacen dragged out several other smaller pouches of equipment, and then she rolled out several small metal barrels and all other sorts of things. "What do we need to survive? Food, water, maybe a first aid kit? Lamp, with extra fuel. Sleeping bags..." As Nacen called out the various items, she brought out more equipment. "Carry this, and that... Thank you. Very nice. Is that too heavy for you?"

"I'm a scout. We're used to carrying supplies around... though normally we're more about speed than quantity," Harkwin replied. He took the various equipment pouches and clipped them onto his flight harness, and he hefted the remaining oversized equipment onto his back, balanced between his wings.

Nacen another wooden crate and carried it by the rope, using her jaws, then she led the way out of the outpost. "Follow me, if you please!" Harkwin trotted after her obediently, carrying all the equipment and with that cubical crate precariously balanced on his back. "So here's the plan," Nacen said, her voice muffled from the rope. "We don't have shelter, so we need to make some, and that shelter somehow also needs to use the hot springs to stay warm."

"Yes?" Harkwin was following after Nacen, with that tow rope still connecting them. Occasionally he had to use his wings to adjust the miscellaneous equipment tossed on his back, keeping it balanced.

"The obvious approach is to dismantle a tent or two and drag them over to be right beside the hot springs. Except the tents might not be enough to stand up to the heavy winds of the storm," Nacen continued.

Harkwin nodded. "Makes sense. So what's your plan?"

"Easier to demonstrate than explain." Nacen walked over to one of the smaller hot springs and put down the crate. Harkwin followed her lead by putting down the sleeping bags, water barrel, and all the other equipment.

This hot spring in particular was a roughly circular pool of lightly bubbling water of about the same diameter as a dragon's stretched wingspan. In a small area around the pool, the smooth rock surface was completely exposed to the air, as any nearby snow had been melted by the steam and warmth coming from the spring.

Nacen was quiet for a moment, then she raised a paw and extended it towards the water. At first Harkwin thought that she was trying to feel the steam, but then thin, wispy tendrils of bluish-purple colour wrapped around her paw and shot towards the hot spring—magic in action. Ripples appeared in the pool, and then a sphere of water lifted out of the surface. Nacen was using her magic—whereas Harkwin had air affinity to control the wind, Nacen's magic let her manipulate water. "So here's my plan. I'll take water from the hot spring and do like so..."

Harkwin watched, transfixed, as Nacen controlled the sphere of water and floated it out of the hot spring. The water was mostly clear, but with plenty of bubbles and a very faint bluish tinge from dissolved minerals. Manipulated by Nacen's magic, the water sphere moved over towards the edge of the pool and then it flattened out into a rectangular shape.

Nacen nodded to Harkwin. "Ok, and now you freeze it."

Harkwin stared at the magically-suspended water, then he stared at Nacen. "What?"

Nacen's crest fin drooped slightly, and she rolled her eyes. "Freeze it! You've got frost affinity. Don't tell me you forgot how to use frostbreath?"

At that moment, something clicked in Harkwin's mind and he finally understood what Nacen was doing. Every dragon on this polar expedition had frost affinity, and that magic allowed for more than just resistance to low temperatures. They could also project out a blast of freezing cold air from their jaws, but this was a skill which didn't have much use out here in the far south—what could there possibly be to freeze, when everything was already frozen? Harkwin occasionally used it to cool down his beverages, but other than that frostbreath wasn't very useful. Or was it?

Harkwin took a deep, deep breath. He was so tired from flying all day, and it felt like he had hardly any magic left inside him, yet somehow he mustered the concentration to use his frost affinity. Billowing, frosty cold swept from his open jaws, catching the water and freezing it into a messy, roughly block shaped lump of ice crystals. Given that it was no longer liquid water, Nacen could no longer use her magic to control it, and the block dropped down onto the ground.

"Exactly like that. So my plan was that we use the water from the hot spring and freeze it into some sort of building material to create an ice or snow hut... thing... around this hot spring, and the steam will serve as heating source to keep us warm throughout the storm. Snow is supposedly a good insulator." Nacen looked at Harkwin. "Do you think that would work?"

Harkwin was no expert on architecture or construction, but anything was better than nothing. "Let's hope it works."

"It'll work," Nacen assured him. "Death is not an option. Let's get started."

---

The two dragons got to work, quickly getting into a steady process. Nacen would use her magic to draw up a quantity of water from the hot spring, which she would then levitate over for Harkwin to freeze solid with his frostbreath. Harkwin supposedly that technically Nacen could have used her own frost affinity and frozen the water into ice herself, but that would have been more than twice as slow. It was much easier for them to work together and focus on one type of magic each.

Bit by bit, minute by minute, they started to build. Quickly they decided to stop bothering with shaping the water into blocks—Nacen simply levitated out a stream of water, which she then directed into Harkwin's frostbreath. It looked almost like he was exhaling snow, as the water instantly misted up into a cloud of frozen white crystals. That icy, supercooled water then froze into place, building up more and more crystalline ice to form a solid snow structure.

Working in a circle around the hot spring, they constructed their makeshift snow hut. Harkwin lost track of time and he let himself get fully engrossed in the work. It was actually night time, but he fought back tiredness and kept going—until they had shelter, there could be no resting. No matter how exhausted he felt, he wasn't going to stop for even a single minute.

All the while as they worked, the storm continued to worsen. The weather in the summit crater advanced from a mild snowfall into a heavy downfall, with visibility dropping dramatically. This blocked out the sun even further, and the whole summit crater grew as dark as night should have been. Nacen switched on an oil lamp which threw out a small sphere of illumination into the heavy snow, but it was only enough to light up their singular hot spring and no further. The darkness all around had them completely cut off, as flight was impossible without light—they were fully committed now.

Gradually the snowfall intensified, with the snowflakes falling in clumps that stuck to scales and any exposed surface. The quiet, sombre silence of gentle snowfall gave way to the harsh whoosh of roaring wind, and Nacen and Harkwin had to shout to each other to communicate. Working up from the ground, the two dragons built up a circular wall of freshly-created snow.

As they storm continued to worsen, the temperature kept dropping. With snow billowing in the wind, Harkwin shivered from the cold. He tried to use his air affinity to still the winds around them, but he couldn't manage to use both types of magic at once, and he had to focus on building the shelter. Being cold was an incomparable experience. Harkwin could feel his muscles spasming and he shivered uncontrollably. His extremities felt the cold most of all, as his paws, tail, and wingtips grew painfully numb. The bitter cold bit against every scale on his body, leaving the comfort of warmth a distant memory. The storm had arrived and whipped up a frozen frenzy, sending snow and ice blasting everywhere in the icy tempest. There was no use even shaking himself—dislodging the snow that stuck to his scales would only last a few minutes before more snow covered his body.

Things got colder and colder... but then there came an inflection point. Once those walls of snowy ice had reached shoulder level, they were providing some protection from the wind. Gradually their makeshift shelter took shape—a dome of snowy white ice, flash-frozen by frostbreath and manipulated to completely surround the hot spring in a dome.

The very last step was to complete the roof with yet more flash-frozen ice. And then they were done. Their structure was complete—they finally had a roof and walls around them, and the loud howling of the wind quietened to a muffled rumble. Nacen drew up more water, but there was nothing left to build, so she let the liquid splash back into the hot spring.