A faint blue light crackled and streaked across the frozen sky, appearing to shine ever brighter as its draconic source flew closer and closer to the strange architecture. Sensing his destination was near, lightning built at the back of his folding wings, and was compressed into a tight space that was infused with a soft, red underglow as the beast tilted into a vicious nosedive, all of the accumulated energy blasting out behind him in a purplish explosion of heat.

Moving at close to sub-sonic speeds, Zucroas blazed a burning trail through the forest, melting the snow off branches, vaporizing the ice along the ground, and leaving a linear steam plume behind as he zipped toward the thing that had aroused his spirit. The cold air was no hindrance to his sharply pointed snout – as a creature that was not of the natural world, as a dragon whose breath was made of the second strongest force in the universe, he could smell spiritual foulness like a hound sniffing the bloodtrail of a corpse that had been dragged into the woods, and the critters flowing through [i]his[/i] blood ensured he felt the threat pulse through every cell in his body.

Such was the gift his new brother had given him.

Round eyes as deep as the ocean dilated wide to take in the palace, big, black pupils a stark contrast to his nearly pure white skin, with scales too smooth and flat to be seen without raising them. Twenty-foot wings folded downward like an umbrella to catch the wind, and a flexible tail, the latter swinging forward and the former opening up to slow him down just enough so that his momentum would land him on the vines. His long muscular arms reached out, the jagged crimson scar on his left, and the sapphire one on his right showing briefly as he used his claws to slice through the thorns in a violent, fast-paced ascent to the entrance, nostrils still flaring as the scent of danger intensified with each pull.

Growing ever more anxious, Zucroas wings flapped furiously, turning his scaling into aggressive leaps, viciously gouging plant flesh as he eagerly, violently rushed up to a massive horizontal split in the cliff-face. The ceiling was spaced a generous fifty feet from the floor, though narrowing considerably at the staircase leading up to the entrance. Zucroas threw himself over the edge, claws raking, and heels cracking the brittle ledge, his attention focused solely on the entrance that he instantly ran toward and up, even going so far as to grab the steps with his claws, and bounding his way into the atrium.

Upon finally making it in, the drake felt his spine tingle, muscles tense, like there was an entity trying its absolute best to fill him with dread and despair for having had the gall to step right into its jaws. What was Zucroas’ reaction to this? His claws on hands and feet alike clenched, neck craned and head swung, tail raised, and altogether at once, made all his joints crack, slammed his tail back down hard enough to break the ground he stood on. As his head finished its swing, Zucroas lurched forward, opened his mouth to a deadly width, and hissed a deep, nasty, [i]meaty[/i] hiss, fangs and molars glistening with spilling drool, greeting the supernatural threat with vicious, primal savagery.