The horizon between the nearby peaks tells you that your pleasant trip is about to become a lot less pleasant, just as you catch just sight of something large and white between the snow-covered trees.  Why now?  Why, when it’s all going wrong, does the opportunity arrive just when you need to be evacuating for your life?  Screw it.  You’ll worry about the storm and the climbing later.  Right now, you grab the camera hanging at your side and give chase.

Through the trees, then over the tundra.  You dodge over a crevasse, blessing the ice beneath your feet.  Ahead of you, the snow’s been plowed in front of something big—bear sized but with three-toed clawed feet with scales.  Every time the trail disappears, you catch just a hint of it disappearing over the next ridge or through the next scattered copse of trees.

The trail ends at a crack in the mountainside.  There’s no doubt in your mind where your elusive prey has gone.

From out of the darkness comes a rumble.  A white-scaled head pushes into the light, followed by a sinuous body colored like pristine snow.  You lift your camera, but before you can pull the focus in, you find yourself face to face with the dragon: Skylar.  His name is whispered in nearby towns.  The ghost of the pines.  The angel of the mountain.  No one admits to having seen him, but everyone knows he’s there.  Claws fold around the sides of your camera, and you let go before they catch your fingers.

Skylar is gentle.  He holds the camera in the air patiently as you slowly pull its strap over your neck to disentangle yourself.  When he’s sure there’s no chance it’ll injure you, his claws close.  He maintains intense eye contact with you as glass, metal and plastic shower to the floor.  Your poor lens cap and half of your memory card are the only recognizable pieces of your camera left when the dragon stomps on its remains.

Seemingly content now that the lens isn’t pointed at him, Skylar rolls his eyes and bites carefully onto the front of your winter jacket and pulls you forward.  Inside the cave, the air is as warm as the taiga outside is freezing.  With your camera in pieces and the dragon blocking your exit, you decide it’s time to find out if the other half of the myth is true.

Skylar waits as you disrobe, then slips close to curl around you when you’ve stepped out of your polar fleece under-things.  His scales are warm to the touch and he smells faintly of cloves.  A scaled paw pushes you down to your knees, and find yourself face to face with the legend.

The dragon is drooping down from a slit between his hind legs, twitching and throbbing every few seconds.  He’s excited, with drips of his own excitement forming drops at each of his smooth ridges.  But seeing it was never going to be enough—not when he’s this close you can taste it.

While the girth pulsing between your lips is clear evidence he’s enjoying your mouth, a hand lifting you and turning you around suggests that he’s not happy with just some tongue.  He tugs you close, back to his belly.  He’s slick with your spit as he starts to spread you out.  Each ridge feels amazing as it slips through your resistance, until he’s pulled your smooth rump flush to his scales.  He’s gentle, moving slowly so you can enjoy the novel texture of his anatomy as it slides against your sensitive skin.  A rumble from Skylar is the only warning you have before a hot throb fills you to overflowing.  Then he eases his ridges free to finish across your back.  The slender snout swings around to engage you in an eager feral kiss.

Well your trip was still technically a failure, but as the storm blows in and the snow starts to fall in the distant entrance to the cave, you decide to call it a success anyway.  At least, it was worth the price of a camera.

Story by Kandrel