❆❅Coming Winter: The Frozen Throne (Solo)❅❆

The morning sun was already well above the horizon in the Kingdom of Dragnof. It's warmth was burning off the morning dew, bringing a blanket of mist to the field young Arcadia now stood in. She rubbed sleep from her heavy-lidded deep green eyes, and turned them up to her adopted mother, the great ice dragon, Khione Glacier. Arcadia still wrestling with the demons of sleep, lodged protest, ”Mooom, why can't we just get a few more minutes of sleep?"

The way Khione Glacier's frozen body of living ice sparkled in the morning sun, Arcadia had to be about the only human who could read the disappointment in her mother's icy draconic features. Frosty breath  poured from nostrils in her disapproving snort. Khione Glacier rumbled to her comparatively tiny teenage ward, ”Have I been wasting my time, little one? Are you not the same child who was brought to me in tears after her family and village were destroyed by my more callous brethren? The same child who pleaded with me to teach her the secret of Ice Dragon Slayer magic, so that she could one day fight by my side, and bring Justice to those same callous siblings of mine? Do you think Acnologia complained to his guardian?”

Arcadia hung her head, her great mother being absolutely right. If she ever wanted to be as a great a hero as Acnologia and the other dragon slayers who made it possible for the dragons and humans of Dragnof to live side by side, then she had to stop whining about small things. She would never find  Justice for her fallen family that way either.

Closing her eyes, Arcadia centered herself, allowing the magic power of the land to flow through and awaken her senses. Her sharpened green gaze spotted a stack of two boulders with a crude face etched onto the side.  She sighed, glancing back up to Khione Glacier, ”Seriously, Mom? I know you're right about all that, and one day I WILL be a great hero like Acnologia. But how am I gonna be ready to do that just fighting rocks?”

Khione Glacier lowered her massive, icy head toward the ground, so she could be eye to eye with her ward. "First you must get a better handle on never staying in one place. The power of my ice will lend you its strength and durability, true. You should never depend on that power alone. Never leave the enemy time to focus in on you."

Arcadia shook her head, and rubbed at her temples. The dream demon, Bob, was getting bolder lately. She tried to push the artificially triggered memory aside, the young, barefoot slayer not having time for the dream demon's nonsense. On the word of her friends in the Rune Knights and the Fiore Royals, Arcadia had been personally recommended to be sent along to help reinforce the Prince of Fiore and the combined forces of Rose and Rune Knights that had gone to assist the Clan Leaders of Iceberg to stop the Ice King from unleashing the Ice Crown's power on all of Earthland. The leaders had sent  desperately for help throughout all of Ishgar. Though reinforcements from Midi had been rumored, no Samurai had been seen on the march yet.  So far only Fiore and its Magic Council had managed to answer the Clan Leaders' call for help.

WC:565/12,500

Arcadia really could not afford to let the dream demon, or the dark bits of her past it kept getting to dredge up, drag her down. In this upcoming job... This upcoming war, that she was expected to help end, more responsibility was resting squarely on her shoulders than ever. She had been on missions where countless lives were depending on her before. In those particular situations though, Arcadia had her guild family and allies to fall back on. Here she would be the linchpin.

In a way, the hundreds of thousands of troops she was going to help reinforce were her teammates in this. They would be fighting and supporting her as her guildmates often had. Yet in another way, they were just more of the lives depending on her not to fall them. With any of her guild family at her side, she could count on them to make sure the job still got done, even if she faltered. If she faltered this time, these troops and the whole rest of the world might pay for it. Alas, as the Frost Maiden of Dragnof and Daughter of Khione Glacier the Great Ice Dragoness, there was no one else better suited.

One ironic twist that gave her one more reason to remain vigilant against the dream demon's influence. Through her dreams, Bob, one of countless names the dream demon claims to go by, has often taunted Arcadia that she will one day bring about an Eternal Winter to one world or another. An unending ice age not unlike the one the Ice King will bring about if not stopped. Part of her had to wonder if Bob really manipulating her to unwittingly help the Ice King. That just seemed too indirect a causation for all the trouble the dream demon seemed to be going through to ensure Arcadia was the one to blame for a wintry end to the world. If she merely made it possible for the Ice King to succeed, she would not carry primary responsibility. If the dream demon's taunts could be believed, she would be in the Ice King's place, not his assistant.

To make matters worse, the train ride into Iceberg was not doing the young blonde slayer's stomach any favors. When she had gotten her dimensional scissors in top of being able to fly in dragon form, she thought her days of nauseating train rides was behind her. Unfortunately, Arcadia's planned role in ending the stalemate requires staying low key. The Prince and generals felt if the Ice King learned of Arcadia's arrival too soon, he might launch an all out assault before reinforcements were in place. The surprise element their whole plan depends on would be blown. Also, since Arcadia had never personally been to this party of Ishgar nor did she know more of the Ice King than the stories known to the general public. That meant her dimensional scissors would be dangerously unreliable to use for starting her mission. Getting there in secret meant getting there the old fashioned way. That's why she was one of a number of trains with the other reinforcements in the way there.

WC: 528
Arcadia WC: 1093/12,500