She was the daughter of a fur trader, whose mother lived many miles to the south. Her dreams of travelling kept her from being sad. She loved her father, but he was always busy with his trapping, and hardly had time for a little girl's chatty needs. She was cared for, but she was lonely. She had many books, and grew up to be quite smart. But she longed for a companion.

Every winter, since she was a very small child, Solaire would wait until her father was asleep on the Solstice, and go outside to a very special place. In the Summer it was nothing but a dried up pond. But in winter the water collected there and froze forming a perfect circle - mirror-bright, reflecting the moon and the stars flawlessly.

There, she would pray and wish for something - anything - that could take her dull life and make it brighter...

She was the child of Winter and the Moon, whose distant kin dwelled in the forests beyond and clopped along on four hooves or burrowed in the snow. If anyone had ever asked her, she would have said her life was pleasant - but she would say it with a sigh, and she would look away distantly whenever she thought of the world beyond her woods.

Lunaire could breathe life into solid ice statues, she could cause a snowflake to dance in the air. But she did this listlessly, without passion. But there were nights that the barriers between her world and the other world, the mirrored world beyond every reflection, came down. One night she stole down to a brook-fed pool, which froze over at her touch.

There, she gazed longingly into the reflections she saw, and wondered if some day she might do more than merely wish...

Solaire knew it was going to be chilly, but she couldn't bear to bundle up, besides her father would wake hearing her bumping around in her closet. So she put on only what she'd stuck on her dresser earlier in the night - a scarf, her furry boots, gloves and a shawl, and her ear muffs. Her ears stuck out to the sides of her head, some said she was more elf than person. So she was always timid even though she deseperately wanted friendship and attention.

She snuck down and opened the kitchen door. It was easier to get out the kitchen and the back way, since her father's room was toward the other side of the house, and he wouldn't hear it shut gently. The front door, Solaire avoided because it was big and heavy and squeaked terribly on its old hinges. She made sure that the door wasn't locked, but was closed so that no snow or cold air would come in. Then, looking at the chilly, dark sky, she moved away from her home and toward the hills.

The trees had all lost their leaves, but higher up were the evergreens, one of which her father had cut and made into their holiday tree. There was little under it, Solaire was a bit disappointed that her mother or her aunties hadn't sent her at least something this year, at least - more than socks. Who wanted socks! Her father could give her those, which he did, in fact this year she knew he was pretending to give her the socks that her auntie had sent, and had been searching for something else to replace them just to make her happier.

But Solaire wasn't quite happy. She wasn't desperately sad, but she didn't feel right. The crisp air and the stunning stars - so bright - made her feel a little better. As she walked on, she was both numbed from the cold, and warmed from the effort of moving over the newly fallen snow.

Where had the snow come from? There were large clumps of snow falling, but the sky was cloudless. Well, sometimes it did that. There was probably a storm nearby and the winds kicked it over the hills, was all.

She made her way over the hill, and down toward her pond. She was positive that her father used this pond in Autumn, when the animals fur was starting to turn and he could trap many of them near the water. But now it was frozen, and it reflected the moon.

Only... Tonight was a new moon - the first time in her life that there had been no bright smiling face on the calendar on this special night (or near it anyway). So where was the moon coming from, exactly?

Lunaire saw movement on the reflection pool's surface. But that had to be an illusion, right? Nothing was out this time of night, at least, not on that side of things.

But there was something moving. It was a girl! Lunaire took in a breath, she couldn't be seen, could she? The Solstice was nigh, the borders between worlds had been broken. Her wings rustled, if she got caught...

It didn't matter! Now or never!

Lunaire reached her dark skinned hand into the frigid water, and grasped the first thing she felt. She pulled, but it wasn't a gentle pulling - this was much harder than she thought it would be!

On the other side, Solaire gasped - there was an arm sticking out of the pond?! She almost screamed but then curiosity got the better of her, and she reached out toward it. The hand was chilly, dark, and gripped her hard around the wrist!

"Oh - wait!" Solaire gasped, but it was too late. She took her other hand and grabbed the dark wrist herself, was she pulling, or being pulled?

It turned out they both pulled too hard. Solaire and Lunaire wound up butt-down on hard ice, both of them still gripping each other's wrists.

"You're - an angel!" Solaire gasped, looking at Lunaire's wings and pristine appearance.

"You're ... I'm not an angel," Lunaire said, blinking after a moment. "I'm not, really."

"But your wings!" Solaire pointed, "and your dress! I've always imagined angels like you!"

"But I'm not," the girl protested, "I'm as much an angel as you are, and you look like an angel to me, who else could break a barrier between worlds?"

With that, Solaire shut her mouth and looked around oddly. ".... Okay, I don't think I understand that. But... We're not angels, I get that much."

Lunaire laughed a little, but was nervous too. For something odd had happened. They were neither in her world, which was eternally shrouded in snow and moonlit in a way that only her father could shine; nor were they in Solaire's mirrored world of humans and sunlight and change.

They were sitting on a small pond, all right - but it was surrounded by healthy, fresh evergreens and a strange dryness to the air. Sounds came to their ears, men and women's voices. Some called out, telling them to stay where they were, while others encouraged them to skid back to the pond's side.

This pond, they both noticed about the same time, was much bigger than the one they'd both visited a moment before. Lunaire took Solaire's shoulders and whispered, "hold on to my waist," and began to flap her wings. She could fly, of course, but she'd never once had a person to carry. Lunaire didn't have to actually carry her, just make them glide enough off the middle of the frozen pond that they wouldn't break the ice and drown.

Not that either of them thought they'd let each other die in an embarrassing way like that! Not when they didn't even know each other's names!

They eventually learned who they were, and, oblivious to the others around them, how similar they were despite their visual opposition. They both stated how dull their lives were and how much they wanted to be able to move freely to where things were more interesting.

"Well you can have that chance here," someone spoke up. The group of people who had come to see what the matter was, had gone mostly, but there were two or three left in the ankle-deep snow. "This is a dragonry, after all, and our business is to provide companions to those in need... Won't you come in, it's chilly out here. It's been really cold this season."

"This is hardly cold," Lunaire muttered, and Solaire giggled. Neither of them thought much of this tiny amount of snow. If it wasn't snowing where they lived, it was raining, or sleeting, and then on the few days when it was really dry and clear, it was mid Summer already, and would quickly go back to being cold. For Lunaire, it was hardly ever sunny - as though the tilt of the world was so strong that it was always like the long, long sunless days of the far north where Solaire lived.

They followed the man into a large structure, was it a cave first? Or a building? Or both? When they looked around, both girls noticed that there weren't just people here. There were dragons. Like in books - Solaire pointed and gasped, and Lunaire tried to look sagely at the dragons but realized she too had never actually seen a dragon up close. They were far more likely to live in her world, than Solaire's.

But perhaps... since the barriers between worlds waxed and waned like this, maybe there had been dragons. And maybe that's why they were here now. They took him up on his offer, what would come, would come.

The girls wouldn't be separated, even by distant ideas like fairy realms and real worlds. Maybe they'd have to return home - to each home separately - but they would always now know they had a kindred soul waiting.

It wasn't snowing, and that actually kind of bothered both girls. There were pieces of ice here and there - strewn up like decorations though. "It's like pictures I have seen," Solaire commented, "where the weather won't snow - they have fake icicles and padding for snow!"

"What's the point of that!" Lunaire shrugged. "Well, there are eggs... Oh look, they're going to hatch! They're shaking!"

And the girls shook too - with anticipation, because they just felt something tingling inside. It wasn't hunger, it wasn't chill, it was excitement.

And joy! There were so many beautiful dragons - just enough to go around, it looked like. The pair waited, patiently but not for very long. Eventually, though there was only one or two more after them, a pair of pink and purple dragonets came barrelling out of their eggs toward them!

***from the hatching***

The two had been hidden close together, confusing the hatchlings about which limbs and wings were their own. Finally they sorted out who they were and two females, one pink and one purple emerged from the snow.
Both the bright kunzite pink and the soft tanzanite purple female headed to Solaire and Lunaire. Two very distinct girls with matching characters. The both of them had managed to break free of a life that had bored them and now they found themselves at the center of excitement. The two baby dragonesses seemed to be racing to reach them first. Both of them already knew which one would be their rider, but they still wanted to make that choice known first. It was the kunzite pink that won. Victoriously she called:
"Solaire! My name is Ferann Kalte." then she sat down panting trying to hide the sounds of hunger leaving her belly.
"Hmph." the tanzanite purple female said to Lunaire, "She doesn't know her limits. My name is Zenri Shnee by the way and I'm far smarter than her."
"Slowpoke." Ferann hissed.
"Overachiever." Zenri hissed back before both of them were shut up by the angry glances of adult dragons and their riders. There wasn't time to argue on a hatching day.

***

Because they knew it was magic, they trusted that they could remain at Lantessama for a bit. While their dragons grew up, learned to fly, learned many things! They were both very competitive, but eventually they developed a more teamwork approach to things, instead of competing against one another they would compete against everything else!

Zenri was indeed a bit smarter than her brighter clutchmate, but that was okay, because Ferann was definitely faster and stronger. So between the two of them, they would cause a good amount of trouble - and of course, their riders had to figure out how to talk their way out of it!

The girls weren't irresponsible though, they made sure that Zenri and Ferann went with them on their heavy water-carrying trips, helped clean up the dens, and did dishes. Nothing ever got broken, but people never quite knew when the pair of glimmering winter dragons would pop up!

And eventually, they knew they had to part ways. Lunaire would have to return to her wintery eternal twilight world, while Solaire would go back to her home with her father isolated from the cities.

What of their dragons! Well they'd have to come too - and be explained away as very different things indeed. Lunaire's world would accept a dragon in it, particularly one so beautiful. They almost decided that Ferann should stay on the twilight side, but eventually they knew that Solaire would be so lonely without her friends that she would be frantic for them. So ... Ferann would cling to her own rider, while Zenri to hers.

They headed to the pond, which by now was quite warm and full of fish - how would they ever explain how wet they were to be on the other side?

And how would they return?

Well - that didn't matter. The dragons and their girls flew over the pond, found around where the spot was they'd first appeared (by guesswork really) and dove in head first.

On either side of the mirror-smooth tiny pool, surrounded by permafrost or by flowers, the girls said their brief good byes, knowing that they would be able to visit each other now.