It’s hard to be alone. There’s no one to tell you simple things, like why dragons don’t like the snow. It’s not that we have anything against snow—it’s pretty, all shiny white, and it makes the neatest crunching sounds under our feet. It’s that the shit is cold. And dragons don’t do well in the cold. I learned that the hard way.

It was autumn when I crossed the mountains. I think that’s the only reason I survived. The snow had receded to the highest peaks and the shadiest valleys, and I was at the crest before I discovered my error. I stood, staring down into a beautiful, green valley, full of rivers and trees and small villages, and—most importantly—no sign of another dragon. It was paradise. And the only thing between me and the respite I desperately needed, was a north-facing slope covered in deep snow and broken ice fields.

The ice was easy enough to navigate. My talons pierced the glassy surface and kept me from sliding, but the cold burned up through the scales of my feet, stealing the heat out of my legs. My muscles began to cramp. Then I hit the snow, my feet breaking through the icy crust and plunging into the wet slush beneath. I could literally feel the warmth bleeding out of my body, each step slower and more laborious than the last, my heart rate dropping to one or two beats a minute.

It was all I could do to keep moving. I just wanted to lie down and sleep, but I knew if I did, I’d never wake up again. Old dragons sometimes bruminate in ice caves, their body temperature dropping to just a few degrees above freezing, sleeping for a hundred years or more, but I was not nearly big enough to withstand something like that. So I pushed on, slogging through the melting snow and icy mud until I reached the treeline. I found a large, flat rock and curled up on it like a cat, basking until my temperature returned to normal.

Of course, once it did, the full force of my rut returned, the desire to mate singing through my blood. My cock hardened, making it uncomfortable to walk as I struggled to keep it from emerging from my body. The last thing I wanted was to get my dick caught in a blackberry bramble.

Slinking …