Ice Age
Seris sat on the porch, kicking her feet lightly as she watched Vergil move across the snow-covered yard.
Swoosh——!
For someone using nothing more than a wooden branch, he moved with surprising skill.
Each swing cut through the cold air that was hard to follow.
A turn here, a clean cut there. To Seris, it looked less like practice and more like some strange human dance.
She could even sense the faint trace of mana condensing into aura along the stick’s length.
Humans truly had the oddest ways of entertaining themselves.
Then, with a single strike, Vergil brought down an entire tree.
“Wow.”
Seris clapped her hands. Whatever he was doing, it was certainly entertaining.
“Looks like fun. Might I try it, Vergil?”
“Huh? Training?”
“Training? That was training?”
Seris was baffled.
Her idea of training had always been tied to her dragon form.
She remembered her instructors guiding her through basic flight, teaching her how to shape ice as if it were an extension of her will, drilling breath attacks in her head until she could freeze an entire cliffside without straining.
That was what training meant to her.
Yet here she was, watching a human swing a wooden stick around in the snow.
“Humans train by… playing with branches?”
“......”
Vergil’s brow twitched.
Of all the things she could have said, that one landed like a slap across the face.
The sword was the one constant in his life, the only thing that had never betrayed him.
Reducing his training to playing with branches felt like an insult to his pride.
“Have you never seen a sword in your life, Seris?”
“Oh, I have. Before the Dragonoids betrayed us, I would often watch them spar while flying from above. But I never saw anyone train with a stick. Is this a human thing?”
“It’s called practice. You don’t start with live steel unless you want to lose a limb.”
“Dragonoids used real weapons from the beginning.”
“And how many of them died during training?”
Seris shrugged.
“A few. It’s natural selection.”
Vergil let out a long, tired sigh. There was no point arguing with dragon logic.
He tossed her a wooden stick. She caught it with both hands, testing a few light swings.
“So, what now? Do I swing it at you?”
“No.”
“Ah. At the trees then?”
“No. Not the trees either.”
Seris frowned.
“Then what is left for me to strike?”
Vergil planted his stick into the snow and looked at her flatly.
“Nothing. You start by learning how to stand.”
Seris stared at him in pure disbelief, as if he had just told her the sky was square.
“Training begins with standing?”
“Correct.”
“My powers may be lacking at the moment, but even I would not do something so ridiculous. Draw your sword, Vergil. I will adapt as we go.”
“Have you forgotten who fended off the Dragonoids for you? I am much stronger than you think, Seris.”
“And you believe I fear that? A dragon does not hesitate before strength. We rise to meet it.”
“You can’t even take your draconic form. If I so much as tap you with a real blade, you’ll die.”
Seris clicked her tongue, feeling her pride heating up.
“Then restrain yourself. You humans love discipline, do you not? Use it.”
“...That is not how it works.”
Seris tightened her grip on the wooden stick he had given her.
She lowered into what she assumed was a stance, leaning forward like she might fall at any moment.
Vergil dragged a hand down his face.
“What stance is that?”
Seris’s lips pulled into a confident grin.
“A combat stance.”
“That is the stance of someone trying not to sneeze.”
Seris scowled.
“Then show me.”
Vergil stepped behind her and nudged her feet apart with the end of his stick.
“Wider.”
She adjusted.
“Wider.”
Another adjustment.
“Wider.”
Seris turned her head around.
“If you make me widen my legs any further, I will lose all dignity. I may be reduced to this now, but I was once royalty.”
“Your dignity died when you slurped soup out of a pot. Now lower your center of gravity.”
Seris obeyed with a grumble, transitioning into a proper stance for the first time.
Vergil assessed her without a word, then nodded.
“Good. Now hold that position.”
“For how long?”
“Until you stop asking.”
“....”
Seris pursed her lips together, clearly displeased, but she adjusted her stance without another word.
She knew she didn’t have to do this. Nothing about her current situation required learning human swordsmanship.
Yet life in the cabin was so painfully mundane that she somehow found herself indulging in Vergil’s ridiculous training methods.
She lowered her center of gravity a little more, trying to mimic what she had seen him do earlier
Vergil circled her once, evaluating her form with a seriousness that grated on her pride.
“Now swing.”
“Ah?”
“Down.”
Swoosh——!
The force of her swing sent a gale.
Before the blow even fully descended, the stick snapped in half.
“......”
Vergil’s eyebrow twitched.
Even weakened, a dragon was still a dragon. Her raw strength bordered on absurd.
Just one careless, amateur swing, and the force was astonishing.
Seris blinked at the broken stick.
“This is why we use real swords, Vergil.”
Vergil saw an opportunity.
For two years, he had swung his blade alone.
The village knights were earnest but lacking. No matter how hard they trained, none of them could give him even a fraction of the pressure he once felt on the battlefield.
But Seris… even weakened and clueless, was still a dragon.
And if she swung at him with real killing intent, then… it might prove to be a worthy challenge.
Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to test her. Even an amateur dragon could move his blood in ways no human opponent could.
“Seris.”
“What is it now?”
How sassy.
Vergil didn’t respond to the attitude, placing a real sword into her hand.
“Try this.”
Seris tested the weight with a few light swings, surprised by how naturally it moved with her arm.
Before she could comment, she noticed Vergil already standing ahead of her with a blade sheathed at his waist.
His posture smoothed into a stance at once, legs spread out, one hand on the hilt, and another on the scabbard.
It wasn’t the stance he taught her earlier.
Seris paused, finding it odd, but she soon adjusted her own footing.
She had seen Dragonoids spar countless times.
Even without proper human swordsmanship, she recognized the implications behind Vergil’s posture.
He intended to spar.
So she answered the only way she could, by moving into a stance of her own.
Vergil nodded once, acknowledging her resolve.
The atmosphere around them tensed. Snowflakes seemed to be drifting slowly.
A silent understanding formed between swordsman and dragon.
“....!”
In an instant, Seris felt her entire life flash before her eyes.
The killing intent emanating from Vergil was so intense it seemed to slice through the air itself.
For a heartbeat, he vanished from her sight. Every instinct in her dragon blood screamed at once, urging her to move, to survive.
She slashed toward the faintest tug of mana, only for her blade to be knocked aside with ease.
Vergil was already gone again, slipping past her senses as if he were the wind itself.
He appeared at her left, then he was gone.
Movement at her right, then gone.
Above, below, everywhere at once.
———!
Even with a dragon’s enhanced vision, she couldn’t keep up.
His speed seemed to twist the very space around him, leaving only faint afterimages that dissolved before she could react.
Seris swallowed, feeling cold sweat trace her spine despite the winter air.
In the rush of adrenaline, something inside her cracked open.
Voices resounded in her head.
——We’ll be safe, Seris. Mommy won’t let them take you.
‘Why… why did they kill Father…?’
——I don’t know. I never imagined our own kind would turn on us. But listen to me. You will be safe. I promise.
‘Mommy!’
They had feared the Ice Dragons, the most pacifistic among all dragon races, for reasons Seris could never understand.
By the time she was old enough to gain even a semblance of that cruel truth, the world she knew had frozen over like the birth of an ice age.
“Nooooo!”
In the next instant, the entire forest froze.
———!
Trees, soil, the distant river, even the breath inside the air itself turned to ice.
Vergil stopped in his tracks as he braced against the sudden burst of power.
The temperature plunged to a level that felt almost unreal.
Frost raced up the trunks of trees, covering them in white patterns.
Leaves that had been falling a moment ago now remained suspended.
Even the wind had gone still, trapped in the frozen moment Seris had created.
Vergil pushed forward, forcing himself through the growing haze of frost.
The cold gnawed at his skin until his fingers began turning pale blue, but he kept moving.
When he finally reached her, he seized both of Seris’s shoulders.
“Seris. Look at me.”
“Stop… stop… please…!”
“Seris!”
Her chest rose and fell too quickly as her eyes darted around the frozen world she had created.
She was falling into a full panic, unable to pull herself out of the memory that had dragged her under.
Vergil tightened his grip, letting the warmth in his hand leak into her through sheer stubbornness.
“Breathe. You’re here. Look at me.”
Seris trembled, the ice cracking under her feet as the magic wavered in response to her distress.
“Seris. Breathe.”
But she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her gaze was somewhere far beyond the frozen clearing.
“Mommy… take me with you… don’t leave me frozen… please…”
The air around them spiraled further.
Snow suspended mid-fall. Wind halted mid-gust. Even the trees seemed frozen mid-sway, caught inside her collapsing mind.
Vergil’s jaw tightened. He moved closer until his forehead almost brushed hers, forcing her focus onto him alone.
“Seris. You’re not there anymore.”
She let out a small gasp.
“You’re safe. You’re safe, okay?”
Seris pressed herself against him, clutching at his coat as if afraid the world would vanish if she loosened her grip.
Her breathing came ragged as she shut her eyes tightly.
Vergil held her close. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, anchoring her as the last waves of her magic faded.
When he lifted his head, he finally took in the sight around them.
The forest had been transformed into a frozen wasteland.
Trees were encased in layers of crystalline ice. The ground was a solid sheet of frost stretching into the distance, and even his cabin was rimed with veins of ice.
“…You really don’t do things halfway, do you?”
“......”
Seris remained buried against him.
Her fingers gripped him with a sense of desperation that made her seem smaller than she had ever appeared.
Vergil adjusted his hold, keeping her upright.
“It’s alright.”
Seris's grip tightened once more, but the frost around them continued to melt.
Vergil watched the ice dissolve as thought surfaced in his head.
This power… even in its unstable state, could freeze an entire battlefield.
Perhaps even freeze all those who had condemned him.
Seris was indeed worth nurturing.
