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The Portal Games

Sergino of Astillea Promo

Sergino of Astillea - a dragon whose name was too long by two words for most that knew of him - stood on the bridge of the icebreaker assigned to him. The sheets of ice on either side of the ship threatened to come crashing down at any moment, and as much as the ship's task was to break a path, it must also maintain it.

"Breath on the walls! Port side, fifty feet!" Sergino shouted.

The other dragons available rushed to fulfill the order, several passing from two to four legs in a flash of frost. They leaped through the air, roaring with the shrieking hiss of the winter wind, and the cracks in the high 'bergs sealed. Another puff of frost, and several fliers fell again, dropping into the nets hanging off the side of the ship, if they were lucky. Most were. Those that weren't were fished out quickly enough.

Shaking his head, Sergino crossed his arms, the white dragon staring down the channel. The Eastern Current had been unsealed just last week, but whatever captain was responsible had done a poor job of it. Even though his icebreaker was meant more as a guide for larger ships, it was his responsibility to Astillea to open it again before one of the southern ships tried and failed to pass through. All it would take was one ship sinking bringing its goods north before the southerners would start rethinking any decision to come through the icy graveyard that barred most ship-travel to the northern cities.

And if that happened? Well, the royal family would find some way to blame him. They hadn't quite managed to find a way to blame him for the sterility of three of his cousins, or for the great snowstorm that had blanketed the palace two years ago and forced more intimacy than anyone was comfortable with, but they tried. And they'd try if trade failed, too.

"Keep a high eye," he called to the crew. "I don't want us split apart because someone missed a breaking icicle."

The crew nodded and grumbled, those that had fallen in the nets pulling themselves out, and the more powerful taking their time to circle back to the main deck. They landed just as they transformed, taking care to keep from landing with their greater size and risking further upset to the ship's deck. There was already enough damage across it, enough issues for them to deal with without having one of their own smash through.

With a flat deck and only a slight raise to the back where the pilot stood, the icebreakers were pointed ships with just one purpose: keep moving forward. Steering was secondary, and navigation all but pointless besides the pressure of the sea itself at one's back. Like a warrior, the icebreakers were made to be pointed in one direction and then just keep moving, smashing apart anything in their path.

Sergino admired them for that. They had a purpose that could not be doubted, and they were built to do it well. Would that most of his people were so well-inclined.

"Ain't right..."

The white dragon slowly turned, the icicles hanging from the horns on the back of his head scraping along his shoulders. One broke. The others remained. He fixed his eyes on the quartermaster of the ship.

"You said something?" Sergino asked.

"Ain't right keeping you here. Bad luck without a woman captain."

"Not on an icebreaker."

"Then we shouldn't have a Nirwaeth, either."

"..."

"..."

"Get back to work, quartermaster."

"Hmmph."

The smaller white dragon hopped down from the pilot's plinth, making his way to the central hatch. Like as not, he'd go down to the hold and start complaining to the other workers, fuming and stewing and spitting ice to make new holes and plug old ones. He'd complained ever since Sergino had been assigned. Wasn't the only one, but he was the loudest, and the most bitter.

The rest just worked with him. It was a job, and they did the job. None of it was particularly prestigious, and most of them were just working off a contract that they had with the royal navy. When that contract ran out, they'd probably head off for another ship, and he'd need to find another career. If the Queen and the other broodmothers didn't find one for him first.

He chuckled, getting a better grip on the wheel as they came to a narrower part of the Eastern Current. It was easy for the ship to slide from it here, and should an icebreaker lose the current, it was near-impossible to find it again in a narrow passage. They'd be relegated to hacking their way through until they found it again, and he did not put good odds on them finding it so easily. One wrong -

CRACK!

"Ice on the starboard side!"

Someone called from the front of the ship, but too late to stop it. Sergino whipped his head up to see the tree-sized chunk of death falling straight for their side. It was too late to turn, too late to strengthen it and keep it from falling.

Sergino leaped from the pilot's plinth, yanking his axe from over his shoulder. Calling the other warriors to him, the dragons of the icebreaker leaped into the air. They roared as one, axes and blades and claws chipping at it piece by piece. The crew ripped through the tips and sides, cutting off the dead ice, but the center still remained.

Until he reached it, that was.

Using its own gravity as it fell, Sergino swung his axe, the blade piercing the tip of the falling ice chunk. With all the strength that his axe gave him, with all the power that came from being a dragon of the ice, he swung, and the shrunken ice sheet snapped in two, with the majority of it still hanging off the side.

He grunted as he watched the chunks slide off the ship, standing up and turning on the spot. Leaning on the axe, he turned to the rest of the ship. He smiled.

"Not bad for a Nirwaeth, eh?"

There was no warning for the tendril that snuck across the deck to seize his ankle, nor was there any warning for the sudden pull that dragged him off his feet, through the air, and out of the ice. There was no warning, no fairness to his sudden departure, which was oddly fitting. The world of ice was cruel, unforgiving, and notoriously unfair.

But now, Sergino was no longer in Astillea, and the rules in the new place were quite different to the old.