[Gift] FOTN | Snow Globe

In the dream, there was a dome of glass.

Hooves moved as if running on the ground as the dragon glided smoothly through the air. The gleam of its nose always told it when it was too close; the glass distorted the glow and its own faint reflection, twisted, elongated in nearly the same way no matter where it approached.

Its ears pinned back, and it tipped its head forward, tapped its velvet-covered antlers against the glass. The noise was soft, high, short — surely fragile, but something told the dragon that shattering the glass would be as dangerous as approaching the village below.

The houses were warm and glowed with yellow light, and they were much too small. The dragon felt like a giant among them, dangerously so, as if one misplaced step would tear the village in half.

It did not know much, but it knew that there was something off about this place, that it was a cocoon away from the rest of the real world. The snow was not cold, and it swirled in the air with no wind to guide it. The trees were hard, the bristles stiff against its legs.

The dragon did not grow hungry or tired or bored.

Well, mostly not bored.

When boredom came too close, things would move, melt, reshape. Shadows of people moved among the village, a whisper of chatter rising to the dragon’s ears. Sometimes it would see the shape of a sledge moving through the woods, a smaller version of itself pulling through the snow.

These silhouettes of life were diverting enough for a time, and they changed enough to draw the dragon’s attention.

It landed outside the village and folded its many legs, laying and watching the facsimile of life playing out before it.

This was its dream, and one day, it would wake. Until then, like clockwork, these things would continue, and it would be content.