Work Text:
“The weight of a dragon is the only truth that doesn't lie,” Grandpa Winters used to whisper, his voice sounding like dry parchment rubbing together.
At the time, Frost had thought it was just the rambling of an old IceWing who had spent too many decades staring at the frozen horizons of the tundra. He didn't realize that his grandfather was talking about a ledger.
For as long as Frost could remember, the summers were spent in the jagged, bitten valleys beneath the shadow of Shard Mountain. The farm was a sprawling expanse of hardy, silver-leafed crops and livestock that seemed to thrive in a climate that would freeze the blood of a RainWing. It was a place of rhythmic labor and pride. Frost recalled the visceral satisfaction of the chores: the rhythmic clink-slosh of milking the heavy-set cows, the pungent, oily scent of the sheep during the shearing season, and the way the horses’ hot breath clouded in the frigid air as he brushed the ice-crystals from their coats.
Grandpa Winters was a dragon of immense stature and frighteningly precise habits. He was revered across the valley, not for his lineage or his political standing, but for his product. The "Winters Beef" was a legend in the town nestled up the slopes of Shard Mountain. It was a culinary anomaly, meat that was impossibly tender, marbled with a sweetness that defied the harshness of the environment. The Farmer Coop competed for his shipments; aristocrats paid premiums for cuts of his livestock. It was this trade that had kept the household opulent, ensuring that Grandma Moon had lived in luxury and comfort long before the silence of death claimed her.
Frost remembered the taste of it, the savory, rich flavor of a burger patty seared over an open flame, the juice running down his chin as Grandpa Winters would let out a rare, rumbling chuckle and ruffle the sharp, crystalline spikes along Frost’s neck. "Eat up, little one," he would say. "Strength comes from the earth."
But as Frost grew older, a quiet, nagging dissonance began to hum in the back of his mind. He was an observant dragon, and he had begun to count.
He counted the cows in the north pasture. He counted the bulls in the south pen. He counted them every morning during the dawn feed and every evening as they were herded back into the warmth of the barns. The number never changed.
The herd was a static, frozen portrait. No matter how much beef was shipped up the road to the markets of Shard Mountain, the headcount remained exactly the same. Whenever Frost ventured a question, asking why the herd didn't dwindle or how the yield was so high, Grandpa Winter would offer a vague, dismissive wave of a claw. He claimed the livestock gave birth during the "in-between time," a certain lunar cycle that Frost had never seen mentioned in any naturalist's guide.
The dissonance turned into a scream the year Grandpa Winter passed away in his sleep.
The mourning period was a blur of grey skies and oppressive silence. After the funeral, while his mother was preoccupied with the legalities of the farm and the sorting of the linens, Frost found himself drawn to the master bedroom. The room smelled of old cedar, dried herbs, and the lingering, metallic scent of a cold forge.
He moved through the room like a ghost, his talons clicking softly on the old wooden floors. He felt a strange, magnetic pull toward the heavy oak dresser, a piece of furniture that had always been off-limits during his dragonethood. With a trembling claw, he reached out and slid open the bottom drawer. He had expected to find old gardening tools, perhaps some rusted shears or a collection of seed packets.
Instead, he found a library of horror.
Stacks upon stacks of parchment filled the drawer, neatly filed and chronologically ordered. Frost reached out, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, and pulled out a single sheet. It was a "Missing Dragon" poster, the kind that fluttered on the wind-swept poles of the town square.
The image stared back at him: Little Caribou.
Frost remembered her. She had been a clumsy, bright-eyed dragonet, a distant cousin's daughter who had vanished when Frost was barely five years old. The Middle Circle had searched for months; they had assumed a snow-leopard had taken her, or perhaps she had fallen into a glacial crevasse.
But the poster in the drawer had been modified.
A thick, jagged X had been drawn across Caribou’s face in aggressive red ink. Beside the marking, in Grandpa Winters’ precise, elegant calligraphy, was a set of figures. It wasn't a date or a location. It was a weight.
1,140 lbs.
Frost’s breath hitched. He pulled out another poster. Then another. A missing SkyWing traveler. A wayward MudWing merchant. A young IceWing from a disgraced noble house. Each one was marked with the same red ink. Each one had a weight recorded beside their face.
The "tender, sweet" flavor of the beef suddenly tasted like ash in his mouth. The "in-between time" wasn't a season of birth; it was a season of harvest.
“Frost! Frost!”
The voice of his mother shattered the silence, echoing from the hallway.
Panic surged through him. Frost slammed the drawer shut with a frantic crash, shoving the posters back into the dark void of the dresser. He scrambled out of the room, his mind racing, his heart thundering. As he ran toward her, he looked at his mother, her serene expression, her pride in her father’s self-made legacy, and a sickening question took root in his soul.
Did she know? Did she enjoy the taste of the missing?