Once her adrenaline had passed, Frosti took a careful look at the people who greeted her at the gate. Much like herself, they were covered from head to toe in scales. But they walked on two legs, and many of them were thin and wiry. The tallest among them met Frosti at eye level, but probably weighed a tenth as much as she did.
Each and every one of them was adorned in some form of metal. In addition to their armor, which was made of steel and silver, they brandished jewelry of all sorts of precious metals and gems in every color.
Oh how she wished to have some jewels of her own. Frostbite had one. Frostbite had her gem, even.
When she opened her mouth again to ask for some jewelry, no noise came out. Only wet. Frosti looked down to see what it was. Blood. Dripping out of her stomach where the monster's spines had pierced her, and also coming out of her mouth. She choked. Then fainted.
When Frosti came to, her entire abdomen was wrapped up; it was tightly bound with bandages. She felt much cleaner, too, like all the grime and ash from her adventure in the forest had been painstakingly scraped from underneath her scales.
Frosti didn't recognize the room where she woke up. It was brightly lit compared to everything else in the underworld. Which is to say, not that bright at all. Just bright enough to make out white bandages against her scales, and that her scales were, in fact, sparkling and blue once again.
Someone came in once she started to stir. A stout fellow with a necklace made of puffy fur and wide leaves. He carried with him a knobbled wooden staff covered in bells, with a large crystal in the crook at the top which illuminated the room in a deep purple.
"Are you okay?"
"I feel okay... Where...?"
"You're in the Wall-burg ward. The guards brought you in earlier today, said you got in a scrap with a quill rat."
"Yes. Well, that was the second monster. I outran the first one."
"I'd like to make sure you're in good shape before seeing you on your way. Are you perhaps one of Frostbite's children?"
"Frostbite is my brother."
The elder spoke to himself next, under his breath, "He would name his kid after himself..."
Then, he went about double checking Frosti's wounds, brought her some water, and told her about the goings on of the city of Wall-burg. It took some pestering before he opened up, but once Frosti remembered she was at the miraculous "secret city of the rats" it was practically impossible to stop the flow of questions.
"We are not 'rats', Miss Frosti. We are kobolds. Our tribe has been your family's ever faithful servants for centuries! It's surprising you hadn't already been told about us."
"Mom spends most of the time asleep. And dad's always out hunting."
"If you're away for too long she'll have quite a fright. I'll send a messenger so she knows you're in good hands..."
He was writing as he spoke, and many times paused for a minute or more before continuing.
"...One more thing before you go: some of the children saw you being carried in. I sent them away so you could rest, but when you go out to the city you might find yourself with a lot of admirers!"
"Admirers?"
"It has been a while since we've hosted a dragon. Your father isn't fond of us like your mother is, and sent us to the lower world where we might not disturb him. And of course your mother has been busy with you! I'm sure there will be a celebration tonight, if the masses decided your presence is an omen of good fortune," the doctor laughed, "please, enjoy the revelry before you return to the surface!"
Frosti was ushered out of the ward shortly after. The front door of the building led out to a wide street. Wide enough for an adult dragon, and comically oversized for the kobolds parading around town.
Wherever she looked, there were kobolds staring and smiling. Some smaller ones came up and offered her a bundle of jerky. Frosti didn't know what to do in return, but they seemed happy enough when she started gnawing on the tough meat. They returned to their family before she could offer to play. She relegated herself to snacking on the gift and wandering around the city.
There were multiple layers of roads, each one build atop the previous level. At the back, there were walls with intricate carvings on their surface, in addition to the many doorways leading to various shops and houses. In the front, she could stare down to another assortment of kobolds who would cheer whenever they first saw her. The children would cheer every time, which turned into a game of peek-a-boo.
The greetings eventually bored Frosti, as very few of them came with gifts. As the novelty of the city wore off, she eventually found herself cataloging the shops as she passed by: A grocer, a library, a clothier... a magician's tower...!
Magic had inspired Frosti ever since she witnessed her mother's sigil of light. But she had little luck reproducing the effect. Mom had tried to tutor her whenever she had time, but many of the lessons were cut short by shenanigans between Snowfall and Frostbite.
She pressed her face in through the strings of beads that composed the doorway to the "tower". It wasn't much of a tower considering it was built into a wall, but that probably didn't affect the quality of the artifacts held inside.
"Hello Miss!" two kobolds called from inside; they were out of sight, working on something on the other side of a shelf.
"Hello! I want to use magic," Frosti responded.
The kobolds revealed themselves from behind the bookshelves where they were working. Revealed... themself? Two heads were conjoined at the ribs, not quite splitting low enough for the central shoulders to become a central pair of arms. By the time you got to the hips, there was a single body. Two tails and two heads on a single pair of legs and one and a half torsos.
"It's rude to stare," said the left head.
"Hush, Armando. She isn't the first one to stare, and she won't be the last," said the other, "My name is Alex, and my partner here is Armando. Welcome to the Wall-burg school of Transmutation!"
"And conjuration!" said Armando.
"And conjuration... yes. How can we be of assistance young dragon?"
"You... how are you alive?"
"It was a magical mishap. We lost our other legs... But we kept our individual tails!" said Alex.
"And we still have four-"
Alex snapped his brother's maw shut with his hand, "Eyes. We have four eyes. I presume you're here as a student?"
"I would like to learn magic. Like my mother."
Armando responded first, spitting the words out through his clamped jaw, "You don't need our help! Dragons are creatures of magic, and you will grow into your element in due time..."
But Alex hushed him again, "Anyone can learn arcana, even those that have access to other powers. And we would not like to turn down an eager student; especially not one of such status!"
Then Alex turned to focus on Frosti, still holding his brother's face, "No need to stand in the doorway miss..."
"Frosti"
"...Miss Frosti. Come inside and we might make arrangements for your attendance!"
The three of them took seats in an office just in view of the door. Armando watched the door while Alex tended to Frosti's questions; the first of which was trying to explain the sigil her mother made, and if the brothers could teach it to her.
"It sounds like evocation to me. That's not something you can learn, elemental magic is either in your blood or it isn't," Armando said.
"It could have been an enchantment if it lasted for as long as Miss Frosti claimed. Bursts of light from evocation are more like bombs... without the fire."
Frosti wouldn't have to pay a tuition because the kobolds were her mother's servants. All she needed was permission and to decide what kind of magic she wanted to learn!
"Each of the schools of magic are quite different in practice and application, so it's unlikely you'll learn as much if you have to divide your practice among both kinds.
Unfortunately, the brothers didn't offer a course in enchantment. So Frosti's first choice was off the table. Instead, the brothers offered to demonstrate a few spells to help explain the differences between the kinds of magic they did know how to teach.
Alex brought out a slab of meat. It was raw, practically fresh with blood.
"Have you ever had cooked steak, Frosti?"
She had not. Meat is best raw, Frosti thought.
Alex waited for her to respond, "I'll take your silence as a no."
Then he dusted the meat with spices while chanting, and the meat began to darken. It didn't sizzle. There was no fire. It was as if the steak simply got bored of existing and went about solving that problem by becoming cooked.
"Normally you can't get this effect without a lot of heat, so most people don't have a taste for cold steak," Alex continued, "you're welcome to have it nonetheless."
It wasn't cold so much as just room-temperature. It was softer than what she was used to. The whole thing was practically falling apart in her mouth, even before she dug her teeth into it!
"In addition to transmuting materials, it's also possible to transform things, and people, into one another. Although the details will be a lot less refined than doing it by hand... For example, you can turn a book into an apple..."
He did so on a tattered book he pulled out of the corner.
"...but you can't really go the other way..."
After the morphing mass that was briefly an apple stopped shifting, Alex held it up to show the now empty pages.
"Not unless you could put a whole story in your head at the same time!"
Armando took over once Frosti seemed to understand the basics.
"Conjuration is about getting from one place to another. Normally, this is used to summon things, like so."
Armando held out his arm. The now-empty book that was sitting on the table was in his hand. It didn't move. He didn't pick it up. It felt like Frosti blinked and missed it!
Armando didn't let up, leading Frosti to the center of the room where a large compass rose was embedded into the floor, "You can make more permanent effects as well."
"This teleportation circle connects the floors of the tower together. We had some help from an enchanter to make it easier to use, just say up while you're standing on the picture!"
Frosti stepped into the circle. The magic here pulled on her body like a magnet might pull an iron jelly.
"It's pulling on me!" she said.
"Is it? There's a lot of magic coiled up in one spot here so I'm not surprised. We've never been able to feel it, but some of us are more sensitive to magic than others. If it's bothering you, we can use the portal and you can take the stairs."
"No, I want to try. Up!"
The magic was practically instant. For a second it felt like the world was squished until the upstairs and downstairs were in the same place, but it all happened too fast to be sure. All that was certain is that Alex and Armando were not standing in front of her anymore, and all the shelves were in different places now.
It didn't take long before they popped up from the stairwell, preceded by the sound of scampering claws.
Frosti wish she knew about all this when she was being chased by the quill rat. Being able to zip away and back to the safety of her egg shelf in an instant was all she could think about!
"That's all we have to show you Miss Frosti. Have you made up your mind?"
"Yes."
Frosti was given a book on Conjuration, and a small back to hold it in. She wore the bag proudly around her neck as she paraded around the city once again. There was nothing more to be done at the magic tower for today, but the brothers did tell her where to find the evening feast.
Frosti located the town square with several hours to spare. Kobolds were still cooking and setting up tables, and Frosti proved too distractable to be of any help, so she was eventually shooed off the premises along with the other children.
The group of young kobolds stayed close to Frosti after getting kicked off the only good football field on this level of the city. They were clearly more excited about having a dragon around than they were about trying to find another spot for their game. Even when Frosti found a quiet corner to open her book, an assortment of them accompanied her, reading over her shoulder or nonchalantly sitting at a neighboring bench.
It didn't bother her too much. More concerning was the inscrutable nature of the pages sat before her. Frosti had seen books in her mother's memories before, and in those the pages seemed to have overwhelming knowledge about something or another. But staring at these squiggles, nothing especially seemed to pop out.
Frosti closed the book and opened it again. Then turned it upside-down, just to be sure.
After a while of showing 100 novel ways to use a novel, the eldest member of her new entourage poked her on the shoulder, "Do you need some help? I learned how to read already, I can read it to you."
Frosti and the entourage spent the rest of the afternoon listening to the basics of conjuration. Though, none of them were able to pull it off before dinner.
Frosti was distracted for the second half of the impromptu lecture. There was an additional guest listening in. Not another kobold, but another dragon-shape hiding in the alley between two buildings. When it noticed her staring, it scampered off. The same shadowy figure that tricked her into falling down here in the first place? If it was, then it was her brother. And if it was, she wanted to meet him!
She got up with a start, spilling several kobolds to the ground who had gotten comfortable and curled up against her body.
"Wait, where are you going?" Asked the eldest, still holding the book.
"My brother might be here!" she said.
The last thing Frosti heard before folding her ears back and sprinting was, "At least take your book!"
But her injuries were still too new. Frosti had barely gotten around the first corner that her brother fled to before feeling her stomach twist, and she had to lay down.
She was at once surrounded by the entourage. The older members of which directed the other to get an adult, and began to re-tie the bandages that had come loose in her fit.
It took several minutes before Frosti caught her breath again. When she looked at the bench where she had taken off, an adult was tending to the wounds of the boy Frosti had knocked off the bench.
When an adult finally did show up for her, it turned out to be the very same doctor that took care of her in the ward. First, he looked over her injuries again, but then he took a stern look at her.
" I saw the whole thing from the upper level. I think you owe a good few apologies, Miss Frosti," said the doctor, "Of course, you don't have to. Technically you outrank me, too. But you should probably show the other children that you didn't mean to hurt them."
"But what about my brother? Is he here?"
"Yes, I saw that too. Let me take care of finding him. He might not have a guardian yet, seeing as he thinks he's sneaking about town. You go focus on making friends."
The apology was fairly brief. At first Frosti's head was spinning with what-ifs about having all the kobolds hate her and getting kicked out of Wall-burg, but it ended with the youngest climbing aboard for a 'pony ride' much to Frosti's embarrassment.
She dropped off her passenger well before arriving to the feast. Frosti didn't want to be seen as a steed. The rest of the entourage returned to their families to get ready as well, so Frosti made her way to the town square once again.
When the meal started, a parade of servants brought food around the tables, placing main courses and side dishes wherever there was room. Even as the tables were filling up, people were filling their plates. Frosti, not having a bespoke set of hands, was offered assistance by her neighbors. The doctor sat on one side of her, commenting about whether or not her choice of food was healthy. One of the children from before sat on her other side, moving almost exclusively desserts onto Frosti's plate. At least until her mother stopped her.
The celebration went on for several hours, in which time the local theater group put on a play, and many independent performers tried their hand at music! By the end, when the food was mostly eaten, the party fractured from watching performances to localized conversation.
"I got word on your brother just before I came to the feast. Frosti. No one knew he was in town. Well, a few people had seen him, but they assumed the council already knew about his presence. We scheduled a few search parties for after the celebration."
"Can I meet him?"
"I suppose that's the question on all our minds in the council, too! Not the only question, though. You said your brother's name was Frostbite. But one witness said the dragon called himself Hale?"
"I have three brothers."
"Three? I thought your father insisted on letting his sons fight to the death? He calls it traditional. I would call it barbaric."
"My mother saved Snowfall when she saw she only had one daughter. And another one escaped, I think dad didn't see him."
"That explains why he would be sneaking about then."
Frosti and the doctor talked about magic for a little while. He explained that he focused more on medicine than healing magic, but did dabble in necromancy just in case his patients needed urgent healing.
The doctor also showed Frosti where she could spend the night, in a relatively lavish, if small, hotel room that Frosti preferred to the adult-dragon-sized one whose bed she couldn't even climb up to yet.
It was here that Frosti got her first taste of civilized sleep. Not in the dirt in a cave. Not tied up in bandages and recovering from injuries. Not on the hard stone of the egg shelf. In a fluffy bed with a comforter. Second only to being tucked under her mother's wing, which was still objectively the best way to sleep.