Dragon Seasons

Winter looked at the three other dragons around her. "Wait. I'm supposed to live with these losers for the rest of my long, long life?"

Star glared at her. "They are not LOSERS, Winter. They are the other dragons in your storm," he scolded. Then his smile turned wry. "Have fun, Winter." Before the she-dragon could say anything, Star was far away with one beat of his sparkling wings.

Winter turned back to the other three. "Hello, I guess. My name is Winter Flame, and I'm not really pleased to meet you but I'm not supposed to say that, even though I just did. I come from Frostbite. I am a PRINCESS in the Frostbite royal family, thank you, and you should acknowledge that." She tilted her chin up and glared down her snout at the three dragons before her.

The small, bouncy golden dragon - or should it be dragonet? - grinned from ear to ear as she said, "Nice to meet you, Winter! I'm Xiatian Yang, or Xia for short. It means 'Summer Sun' in my language! I come from southern Weiguo!" Her voice was positively bursting with happiness.

Winter tried that out on her tongue silently. Xiatian. Xia. Ugh. "How exactly do you pronounce that?"

Xiatian shrugged, her aquamarine eyes wide. "I don't know.......just say 'Xia'? Like...uh...stick your tongue like this, and hiss between your teeth...yeah...just like tha--wait! Winter!"

Winter had turned her head away with a snort. "I'm not embarrassing myself by making such undignified noises." She realised what she had just said and almost said sorry. Then she realised she still had her pride, and bit back her apology.

A brownish-red dragon with jade green eyes quickly rushed to Xiatian's side, worry in his eyes. "Xiatian, Xia, are you alright?"

With a stab of jealousy, Winter realised that the dragon could pronounce "Xiatian" perfectly.

Xiatian nodded, her eyes steely. "Winter Flame," she hissed through her teeth, bright demeanor immediately vanishing, "you can insult me, but never my language." Her eyes were cold.

Not expecting this, Winter nodded silently, ice-blue eyes wide.

The brownish-red dragon sighed in relief. "Good, at least you didn't fight him..." he said. Then he seemed to remember something and started, sitting up. "Oh! I almost forgot! Hello, everyone," he said shyly, edging closer to Xiatian. "My name is Efteraret Blade. In my language, that means Autumn Leaves... I come from Konge... I'm glad to have met you all... Oh, also, you can call me Efter if you want..." He hurriedly ducked his head, an embarrassed smile blossoming across his face.

Winter nodded curtly, "Nice to meet you...Efteraret..."

Xiatian's happy aura had returned and she beamed at Efteraret. "Nice to meet you, Efter, though I already know you, but I don't care, introductions are always fun!" Then she glared at Winter. "Unless they insult your language, of course. Then it's a bit... unpleasant." Her blue eyes carried an unspoken threat.

Winter began to believe there was more to this "dragonet" than she thought.

The last dragon of them all stepped forwards. "Greetings. My name is Vesna Olen, and I hail from Vochya," he said carefully, his green scales glinting in the light.

"Hi, Vesna! What does your name mean?" Xiatian asked curiously.

Vesna gave her a strange look but said, "'Vesna' means 'spring' and 'olen' means 'stag'."

Xiatian's eyes widened in understanding and she nodded furiously. "Okay, so your name means 'Spring Stag', right?" When Vesna nodded, Xiatian beamed. "Cool!"

Winter then stepped forward. "I think, in battle, it would be easier if we called each other 'Winter', 'Spring', 'Autumn', and 'Summer'... That way it will be shorter and it will take the enemy a while to figure out who is attacking." She looked around.

Efter was nodding, a pleased look on his face. Xiatian frowned for a while, contemplating the plan, then nodded too, albeit a bit more coldly. Vesna seemed to be considering it as well. Finally, the big green dragon gave his consent.

"Good," Winter said, pleased.

"Can we still call each other our real names?" Efteraret ventured nervously.

Xiatian snorted, eyeing Winter. Then she turned to Efteraret, instantly beaming. "Of course! I wouldn't give up my name for anything," she said, turning back to Winter to glare at her.

Winter just tilted up her chin and refused to reply, glaring right back regally.

Vesna, in the background, stayed silent, watching the exchanges with a humorous glint in his golden eyes. When the glaring contest continued, the big emerald dragon sighed and stepped in between the two.

"Listen, Winter - you need to learn how to control your pride. As you mentioned before, we are indeed going to be together for the rest of our lives, so you might as well accept that and try to get along." His voice held no argument, and Winter shrank away, watching as he turned to Xiatian.

"Xiatian, I appreciate your desire to uphold your language's honor - but you must understand, I'm sure Winter didn't mean to insult your language. It was her pride that was the barrier to her trying further and to her not apologizing. Please forgive her," Vesna said. Then he gave a final nod and retreated into the shadows.

Winter gave the big Vochyan dragon an incredulous look as Xiatian growled but shrank back, settling down next to Efteraret, who gave all three of them weird looks of awe.

The rest of her life was going to be veeeery interesting with these three dragons...

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This was random, and now I have a whole new AU.