A deathly contingent of drakes stamped through the snow. Their giant size accentuated by sweeping tails puffing up powdery white and thick claws digging into the hill. The wind seemed to part when it drifted against them. Afraid of the terror their razor teeth and gnashing maws would bring.

A thrusting cold penetrated her robes and wove in between her feathers and fur. Sprouting tiny icicles in her skin that chattered her beak. The glacier's freezing air became deadly when accompanied with fear. Sharpened it's bite like a whet stone sharpens a spear. The breeze flittered strong against her cowl. She shivered, pulling it tight over her feathery face. Her beak protruded from it like a crescent hook.

Drakes, much smaller, skulking in the misty distance had come to watch. Their glowing eyes slightly illuminated the mist in a multi-coloured haze. Dots of colour pricked into the snowy flutter.

The sea of staring eyes made her recoil. She backed against the tree. Its bark was old, prickling her exposed paws. It almost seemed warm with a knowing caress. Then the wintry howl broke the feeling and her pads clenched with cold. The honey smell of sap and lime tickled her beak, then that too morphed into the dead scent of papery parchment.

The dragons reached the foot of her outcropping and halted. An almost telepathic message bouncing between them. She knew what that message was. How should they kill her? Simply lunge and rend her apart, snapping tendons and splintering bones. Their huge muscles and thick talons could wrench her legs off like a boy pulling the legs off an ant. She whimpered as these viscous images flashed before her. Eroding her sanity and replacing it with a fearful desire for flight. But they were stronger, and they would catch her.

The mist began to thicken as it swirled around their island of snow. A tiny outcropping bobbing out of the fog. Beyond it laid the glacial wastes. A great disk of ice that flawlessly reflected the gunmetal sky above it. The ice plane stretched endlessly to the thin horizon where the looking glass land and its reflection combined into a strange mashing of images. To her eagle eyes they meshed together like forced puzzle pieces. To the drakes and their weaker eyes, it appeared only a sun-spotted band of light.

Soon the perfect ice shelf would be blemished by a single red streak drawn by a limping bird.

Only a frightful whimper escaped her throat, which was closed and clawing for air. Her inner voice squealed for mercy and safety, but the spectres only circled. The dragons skulked, forming an oval like a rope around her hill. They stood steadfast in their positions, their tails were kinked and still. Some crouched low. Her head snapped backed to and fro as she followed them. Surrounded with her escape cut off. There would be no exile this time.

Her back pressed against the prickly shavings of the tree. Her chest rose and fell as she wheezed. Only the sound of a soft, breezy hum and a rasping wheeze floated around the Red Griffon and the dragon brothers. That's when she saw him.

He was the biggest, yet his form was hunched, and his neck slouched forward. His tail was twitching with unease. Her eyes spied the sharp exhale of his foggy breath. The lengthy cowl could not conceal his darting eyes and frowning muzzle. There was no humility left for her, a cowering animal surrounding by rows of razor teeth.

'Lusik.' She said, terror almost heightening her voice to a hysterical squeak.

The wind snatched her plea and tossed it into the mist, cackling.

The dragon called Lusik dipped his head, his tail coiling under his hindlegs. He averted his eyes.

Brothers waited for their errant runt to make his decision.

Silence.

Puffs of snow erupted as the dragons leapt. They bounded up floating like wraiths. The Red Griffon stood petrified, her stomach knotted, and her breath became trapped in her lungs. Her eyes widened and she thought blinking would zip her back into her hut, under snuggly covers with a cushy bed. But when she blinked, a dragon had landed in front.

Snow splashed over her and her tail caught under her hindlegs. She came down on a root and slammed her haunches. A caw cried out from her beak as she raised her foreleg in meek protection. She screamed as the caged shadow of a great claw swallowed her body and the sun.

It sliced the air, then her cloth, then her feathers and finally her flesh.

At first, the feeling was strange, like it was happening in another world. And she was merely an onlooker. Gasping at the poor griffon she was watching. How I wouldn't want to be her, she thought. This brief insanity of denial boiled away.

What broke the trance was not her squeal of pain, but rather the thundering roar of her assailant. He retreated, rearing up to his hindlegs. A crimson wave spurted out of his foreleg, he clutched it as the roar was cut short. His head slammed against a branch, shaking free lisps of snow. His voice cracked into a squeal as he collapsed. Writhing and moaning with pain, his tail thrashing up wisps of white.

A warmth travelled down her foreleg. It was watery, but thicker, like soup. Her robe hung in tatters over her wound and lacerated feathers twirled off into the breeze. An oozing wound parted her fur like two great, bloody canyons. Blood flowed freely down her leg and into her lap. It dampened her robe, and it clung to her as if she'd been swimming. Which she had never.

A claw whipped her back, slamming her forward into the ground.

The world was muffled and bloody. She laid there as roars and cries and the thumping of panicked tails danced around her. A searing pain screamed at her senses. Frying her nerves and burning her mind. Streams of blood tumbled down her back and dripped off her tail. Peppering the snow red.

She expected a claw to come down from above and end her miserable story. But no such thing happened. A puddle of copper tinged her tongue. Straining her muscles, she lifted her weight. Her left foreleg was numbed and weak, it faltered, and she fell again.

Clenching her eyes, the muscles protested in a cacophony of pain. Adrenaline sloshed in her veins, propelling her up from the rut. The Red Griffon heaved and spat a glob of bloody saliva into her beak print. A shaky breath came from her as she rose like a zombie clawing out of its haphazard grave.

A subtle ringing bounced in her skull.

She stumbled forward, every movement stinging like little pins in her back. The dragons surrounded their brothers, spatters of blood tinging their cloaks red. The wounded groaned and roared until their voices cracked into dry wasps. Her mind swam like a drunkard as she wobbled on three legs. A simple instinct drove her forward.

Hurt, get away.

A melancholy moan left her. It was tragic and sad, like the moan of a lost child with no mother or father.

She tripped and wobbled as she staggered down the hill. Miniature avalanches cascaded with her. Leading her away. She slid along, falling and sinking and writhing. The world was so far away, her talons were the talons of another.

The bottom tapered off and the Red Griffon flew off into the gasping mist. An ugly, red streak with crimson paw and talon prints painted her path. A trail like a map, with her being the X that marks the spot.

<<>>

The world swam around her. She felt twirling and sinking in a deep current. The current of blood still flowed freely out of her body. Black phantoms darted in the mist, shadows just sitting on the edges of her vision. A force powered her forward. The foggy fear of stamping snow behind her kept her moving.

The wounds were teeth digging into her foreleg and back. She was clamped in the jaws of pain. She recalled it perfectly now, the splitting of her skin like it was a zipper being opened. A cut precise and perfect, but slightly jagged with rage.

Her beak was scrunched up in a mask of agony. Her eyes were squinted into hazy slits, her cowl hung listlessly over her neck.

There was a faint draining sensation, she was slowly emptying like a leaking pipe.

Time sparked and broke and flowed broken into stringy wires. The cold massaged her talons and paws, soon they were numb, and her shivering turned to shuddering. The numbness crept up her legs, snuffing out the fires of pain. A shuddering sigh clacked out of her beak. It had turned from a peppy orange to deep purple.

Marching onward, her stamps became irregular. Her bloody smacks on the ice turned strange. The red path she was tracing appeared drunk. Lolling and wandering off to the side before righting in a wide crescent.

A coppery metal taste twinged on the sides of her tongue. The mist began to part, and it reared back from her as it slowly receded. Only revealing ice, unblemished and dizzyingly perfect into its reflection of the sky. It was a slice of reflective glass, infinite, and floating atop a black dipping maw. Where only tiny rays broke through the thick shelf.

The clicking of her talons echoed out like it was in a great, acoustic hall. The biting cold began to subside into a licking breeze. The hot ice soon drifted away into the web of her dead nerves. Relief. Soon, the shuddering of her body halted.

Another two sounds accompanied the desolate silence of the ice shelf. A slipping sound like feet squealing on clean tiles. Then a stony thwampf.

The sky above the ice shelf gazed down and saw a perfect image of itself. Towering citadels stacked with clouds swirled and puffy, streaks of grey lightning zipped. Their distant thundering booms as quiet as a blooming flower. In this brilliant looking-glass image, a single horrid streak vandalised it all.

A great paint stroke of crimson ran from a snowy shore deep into the reflection. At its conclusion sat a red dot.

A sullen tide of red bloomed from her still body. A gentle breeze caressed her, the only movement her flapping cowl. Her breaths became winding and haggard, her lungs filled with glacial air. Strands of ruby saliva swinging from her open beak soon stilled and sprouted tiny, ice crystals. Her eyelids drooped and her eyes spread apart and rolled up into misty dreams.

Roars of a powerful, white fire reverberated through her subconscious. Its blinding heat swept her in its embrace. Her purple beak warmed as splotches of healthy orange recoloured it. The burning sting of ice made her leap into the fire's heart. Her clothes exploded in flame and she cooed in satisfaction as her wounds cauterised and sizzled away. The fire bellowed through her veins. She laughed as it wrapped her up and hugged her tight in its hot grasp.

It was then that her coma was one of comfort. The gaps between each of the Red Griffon's breaths became longer and longer. Her paws twitched in resistance, clenched then finally began to open slowly. The puddle of blood under her was flawlessly reflected. It appeared as if there were two frozen Red Griffons clasped against a pane of glass.

How long would her bones remain there? Perhaps, forever. But this wasn't true. Death flew overhead like a vulture. But just as it descended upon her, a figure on the ice came into view. A dark figure, with an enormous reflection. His tail skated on the ice behind him.