The larger male dragon landed on Verbena's side and prevented her from getting up, no matter how much she squirmed and struggled. Not only was the strange dragon much stronger than Verbena, but he was also twice her size and easily kept her pinned against the frozen snow.

While the dragon held Verbena down, a figure leaped off of his back and neared the pinned dragonet. "Don't worry young dragonet, we're here to help you," the attacker spoke in a soothing masculine voice as he reached across his body and retrieved a small metal blade from his belt.

Celia frantically sat up and saw the humanoid approach her friend with a weapon. Fueled by panic and urgency, the female rider scrambled around in the snow and rose to her feet. "Hey, get away from her!" Celia yelled as she stumbled through the deep snow towards Verbena's attacker.

When he Celia saw the blade in the figure's hand, she panicked and reacted by pure instinct. Instead of thinking more rationally, she felt as she had to counter it. She pulled out and unsheathed the one metal blade she had on her person. Although the thin knife was more for cutting food than as a real weapon, Celia still attempted to use it to force back whoever was approaching her friend to back away.

After the attacking humanoid cut one of Verbena's straps, he noticed Celia's approach and turned to counter her with his short dagger as she brandished her knife. The cold metal blades collided with a clang and Celia put all of her weight into the attack with determination to win and protect her friend.

The two stood, blade to blade, for a few moments in what seemed to be an even match between them. Suddenly, Celia's thin knife snapped under the pressure from the attacker's better-suited dagger and the attacker shoved her away. Despite all of Celia's strength and effort, the attacker still pushed the female rider away and back onto her rear in the deep white snow.

Celia could feel Verbena's panic and fear but felt useless and unable to stop it. Even though verbena was fair stronger than Celia, the dragon could not escape as she roared furiously, 'GET OFF OF ME!' She attempted to bite and claw her assailant but quickly had her head pinned under the dragon's paw before her jaws could make contact. 'YOU MEANIE! RELEASE ME!' Sadly, no matter how much she squirmed, the dragon never got off of her side.

Celia's mind raced as she looked up to the man looming over her with a blade. Her mind thought of all the things she could have done better. 'If I only had grabbed the sleeping magic things instead of thinking I had to match his blade with one of my own,' she mused to herself, 'I need to get smarter about facing danger, especially in using everything available to me.'

The humanoid pointed a short dagger to Celia, then spoke to the dragon without taking his eyes off of Celia, "Irin, keep this monster down while I finish removing those ropes from the young female. We will keep it alive, for now." He menacingly eyed Celia through the goggles covering his eyes. "I have some questions to ask later." The attacker's masculine voice sounded angry as he kept his blade dangerously close to Celia's face.

The dragon released a snort as it nodded, then jumped off of the still-struggling Verbena and landed with Celia's human form between his massive paws. Instead of pinning the girl with its massive paws, he simply trapped the human girl between his massive ice-covered paws. The ice-covered dragon looked down to her with a menacing grimace in a threat to keep her down with intimidation.

After a moment of being frozen in slight fear, Celia decided to follow her own mental advice and attempted to reach into her bag to retrieve the grey box that contained the sleep smoke pellets. She tried to move as slow as possible to avoid suspision. However, before she could blindly find them, the dragon looming above the human growled in warning and intimidated Celia enough that she froze and retreated her arm away from her bag.

Once freed, Verbena jumped to her paws and angrily tackled the larger dragon with enough force to knock him over and away from Celia. 'THAT'S MY RIDER!' She roared as she attempted to pin the larger dragon on his side in the snow, but the size and strength difference was too great for Verbena to overcome. As Verbena was being forced off of the dragon, she jumped off so she could land on her feet instead of being flung to the ground in a precarious position.

Verbena already recognized that the male humanoid and his dragon far outmatched her and Celia, so instead of risking their lives on further confrontation, the female dragonet used her tail to knock Celia's attacker away. While the dragon was momentarily distracted by his rider as he down the mountainside, Verbena used some of the time for an escape. The dragonet leaped into the air with a snow-scattering flap of her wings, then used her forelimbs to grab Celia by her shoulders before Verbena increased their altitude to a safer height to fly.

Once the duo was high in the air, Celia took a deep breath to calm herself. "I just have to get on Verbena's back so she can fly better. I did this a few days ago," Celia instructed herself as she reached up and gripped one of Verbena's straps in her hand. To her surprise, the human found it very loose and determined the strap's condition was because the attacker had sliced the main strap to which the one in her hand was connected. "Okay, this is a small hitch in the plan, but I can still do this," she whispered to herself as she looped her feet into the harness.

'You can release me,' Celia telepathically told the dragon through their mindlink, 'I have a grip on the harness.' Once Verbena removed her grip on the human, she climbed back onto the dragonet's back.

"See, I did it," Celia breathed in relief. Since the main front strap had been severed, the human instead grabbed Verbena's frosted fur with her gloved hands. Once she was safely situated on Verbena's back, Celia sighed in relief. "Now, let's get out of here and away from them. Once we are in a safer place I will try to fix your harness at least to the point it is more suited for flying," Celia noted how loose and unsafe she felt with one of the harness's main straps severed.

Verbena nodded and glanced back to Celia, "I didn't think that dragons could be mean," she briefly trembled and refocused on her swift getaway. "They're trying to follow us," she narrowed her eyes and attempted to fly faster by increasing frequency she by which she flapped her feathered wings.

Celia's eyes widened as she glanced behind her. Sure enough, the man who had cut Verbena's harness had also climbed onto his dragon in an attempt to follow them. "We have to get away from them so they can't attack us again," Celia leaned forward to limit wind resistance so the pair could fly even faster as she also attempted to calm the frantic thoughts in her mind.

They passed over mountains and occasionally followed valleys as they added more and more distance between Celia and Verbena and the two assailants. After quite a bit of distance formed between them, Celia looked to Verbena, "We need to find somewhere we can hide and loose them."

'Good idea,' Verbena nodded as she scanned the ground for a place to hide, such as a cave on the side of the mountain. After a moment, the dragonet noticed a small space in one of the mountains. 'I think I found somewhere, but how are we supposed to get to it without being seen?'

'Show me,' Celia pleaded as she glanced back to their pursuers, which were undeterred by the increasing distance between them. When Verbena swiftly complied, a new line of sight overrode Celia's standard field of vision.

Once she recovered from the disorientation, Celia noticed the spot Verbena mentioned with the dragonet's sharper and overall better eyesight. The place was a possible cave opening on the in the middle of a distant mountainside to the right of the valley they were following. Also, a seemingly small overhang of suspended snow hung above the depression. The snow frozen the air easily covered possible opening in the mountainside true depth from most aerial perspectives.

Celia paused as she came up with a plan. Eventually, she responded, 'How about we loop around so the mountain the cave so we can dive over it and hide in the cave. If  we fly lower, maybe we can coax him into diving at us again—'

'—and then we will dodge and dive into the cave while they are blinded and distracted after they slam into the snow!' Verbena finished for the human as she roared and cheered, 'That's a great plan, Celia! After we loop around, I'll make it even more realistic by pretending to be tired and letting them catch up,' she banked slightly to begin to get into position.

'I hope they don't catch on to our plan.' Celia glanced back to the pursuers as they continued to follow. 'Otherwise, you might tire before we can come up with a new plan. Then we would really be in trouble.'

Verbena nodded in understanding as she continued to make a wide turn around the circle. 'My wings are already beginning to feel sore,' she agreed.

The two sat in silence until they were in the proper positions. Verbena prepared herself, then glanced backwards without moving her head, 'ready?'

Celia nodded and used the mindlink to communicate in case their distant stalkers could still hear them speak, 'yes, let's do this.'

In response to her rider's confirmation, Verbena began to glide and slowly descend as if she had limited energy. Occasionally, she flapped her wings to pretend to retain their speed, but the man and his dragon began to visibly catch up to the female duo. 'So far, it's working,' the dragon mused as they continued to descend.

The male dragon and his rider stayed higher in the air than Celia and Verbena, but when Verbena pretended to move to land near the peak of their chosen mountain, the males began to dive towards them.

'Gullible,' Celia held on as Verbena rolled away, then dove over the ridge as the other two landed in a cloud of snow that obscured their vision just long enough for their quarry to make an escape.

Celia quickly maneuvered and dove into space they had picked out with the belief that the snow would cushion them when they dove into it. However, Verbena broke through the snow and ended up in an ice-laden cave system. 'Woah!' The dragonet exhaled as she looked around.

"It is a cave." Celia breathed, then panicked slightly as a rumbling sound surrounded them. Suddenly, a mass of opaque white powder fell over the entrance they had accidentally excavated, and they soon once again found themselves in darkness. Once the shock had faded, Celia emitted a whimper that echoed off of the walls and stalagmites of ice, "oh."

Author Notes:
Welcome Back!
I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and Happy Holidays!