Rulan looked down at her chest in confusion, the crease forming between her eyes again, and she started shivering. “It’s so cold,” she said, as she hugged herself with both arms. Us Naga didn’t do very well in the cold. Luckily it was a warm day, so Rulan should warm up quickly. I had a closer look to try and figure out what it was, at my touch some flakes fell away and floated to the ground slowly. I suddenly remembered what this must be from something grandma had told me. In her younger days, she and some friends had tried to scale the bone tip mountain in the middle of the island. They had to turn back when little faces of snow had rained down on them, covering the ground, making it too cold for them to continue. What our stories had said was a jagged mountain covered in bone was actually this snow that was now slowly melting of off Rulan’s armor in front of me. Had someone climbed to the top to retrieve snow and ice to use as a weapon, the goblins maybe. How would you even keep it from melting long enough for it to be useful?

“I am a bit worried that you are not warming up quickly enough, do you think you could climb a tree so you can bask in some more direct sunlight?” I asked Rulan hopefully, if not I would have to start a fire, and that would take time. Whatever had thrown that ball of frost was still out there somewhere in the forest, and I wanted to go hunt it down as soon as possible, but Rulan was more important than some mysterious snowball right now.

“It should be doable. I just need to g-g-g-get this armor of me. It’s s-s-soaked through,” Rulan said through chattering teeth. I helped her get the leather of her as fast as I could, the ice and snow had melted, making it stick to her skin, now naked she started to slither up the nearest tree and disappeared among its branches. Meanwhile, I moved in the direction the attack had come from and flickered my forked tongue in the air. It smelled like more goblin, but only a single one this time. Then it hit me that this goblin must have been sent here after the one I let go warned the others of our presence. Unless it had been out on its own and stumbled upon us by sheer luck. I expected this one to jump out at me and attack me immediately, but either it was too dumb to notice me, or it was smart like the goblin who had argued with the screamer and was waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Maybe it had even fled, but the scent was strong, so if it had it couldn’t have gotten far.

I followed the scent until I came to a place where I could have sworn the goblin should be, it was as if I was standing next to it the scent was so intense. When I continued past that place, the smell disappeared, so I turned back. I became frustrated when I couldn’t find the goblin, but calmed myself and started to scan the area with my heat sense by turning my head back and forth. It can’t have just disappeared, it must be hiding somewhere, and indeed as I turned my head, I noticed that a part of the underbrush in front of a tree was unusually warm. Now that I was focusing on the spot I could hear slight chanting in what I thought was the goblin language, in other words, a lot of whispered grunting and what sounded like the gnashing of teeth. Unlike other goblins I had heard communicating, this one seemed very calm, and I thought I could make out the structure of different words in there somewhere.

Suddenly a goblin appeared as if out of thin air in the unusually warm place. It had on a blue robe and held a gnarled staff in one hand with feathers attached to its top. It was extraordinarily wrinkly and stood with its back bent. I had little time to take in its features though as a spike of ice appeared out of its staff and shot towards me. I got my shield up in time to block it, but the ice lodged itself deeply in the leather and pierced the bicep of my left arm. I could feel the cold spreading up my arm and towards my chest, and I had to drop my shield so I could pull the thing out of my arm. When I looked back to the place where the goblin had been, it had disappeared again. It was as if the goblin had merely flown away while I was distracted, it had made itself unseeable, and had somehow made ice appear from its staff so it could have other tricks that I didn’t know about. I decided not to follow it this time, instead choosing to head back to check on Rulan.

If the old goblin had chosen to shoot her with that spike of ice instead of that ball of frost, she might have died from it hitting her in the chest as the ball had done. It would have been entirely my fault for letting that one goblin go. It was my responsibility to keep her safe. Sure I let her take the lead sometimes, but only to see what she was capable of doing without my guidance. If she made a dangerous mistake I would have stopped her, but now it was I who had made a mistake, and there was no one to tell me I was taking a stupid risk. Who had ever heard of goblins throwing ice at someone before? No one that I knew of, this news had to be brought back to the tribe. Surely someone would know of something like this happening before. I thought of grandma than, she was the oldest Naga in our village if someone knew something it would be her.

I made my way back to the half butchered deer, and to my relief saw Rulan on the ground looking much healthier now that she had stopped shivering. She slithered towards me that little crease was appearing when she saw that I didn’t have my shield, the expression changed from confusion to surprise, to worry as her eyebrow shot up her forehead when she saw my wound. She rushed towards me and started examining it. I hadn’t paid much attention to it, but in my defense, the pain had dulled from the cold of the ice. The feeling was now seeping back into my arm as it became warmer together with the pain. That Rulan kept poking and pushing around the wound didn’t help either.

“This needs to be sewn shut, sit down here against a tree and I’ll get my needle and thread,” she said and started moving towards her discarded pack of supplies. She didn’t ask what had done this but assessed the damage and came up with a plan for what to do quickly, more points in her favor. She came back with what she needed, a needle and thread, some bandages, and a jar of green paste which would help speed up the healing process. “So what could have done this to you? Whatever it was it must have ruined your shield since you left it behind,” she asked while she worked on closing the wound in my arm, it stung a bit, but she worked quickly and was done with four clean stitches keeping me from bleeding all over the place.

“It was a goblin, believe it or not,” I said, and she looked at me in disbelief, her eyebrows rising even higher on her forehead than last time. I couldn’t keep my laughter in. She had such expressive eyebrows. You could almost see what she was thinking by just looking at them. She got an indignant look on her face, and the crease appeared between them again. I laughed even harder at this, my eyes tearing up slightly.

“Don’t forget who is patching you up, I would be glad to let you do this yourself if you’re just going to make jokes at my expense,” she said turning away from me. She must think that I was not serious about the goblin.

“No no, that’s not what I meant,” I said, and Rulan turned to look at me over her shoulder. “I’m laughing at your eyebrows. I can almost read your thoughts through them. They are kind of cute actually,” as I said this, she turned quickly away again. I was confused, ‘surely that hadn’t been insulting’ I thought until I saw her ears. They had turned bright pink, and I realized she must be blushing.

“So how did the goblin manage to injure you so badly?” Rulan asked hurriedly as if to distract me. Her back still turned towards me. I didn’t want to embarrass the girl more than necessary, so I played along.

“I had a hard time finding it at first. It could somehow hide from my eyes, but it could not disguise its smell or body heat. Once I located it, however, it appeared again and launched some sort of ice spike towards me. It went straight through my shield and into my arm,” she turned towards me then, the blush gone from her face, she picked up the jar of paste and started spreading it across my injury.

“You mean that it threw an ice spear at you?” Rulan asked, the crease back between her eyebrows.

“No, I mean that ice appeared in mid-air in front of its staff and shot towards me at great speed. Think about it. A goblin couldn’t throw anything that fast or hard enough to pierce one of our shields. They would be much more dangerous if they could,” I said trying to convince her. I was the only one who had actually seen the goblin call the ice, and convincing the elders would take much more than words.

“I believe you,” she said as she finished bandaging my arm, a thoughtful expression on her face. “You should go back for that shield, so you have something to show them when we get back,” she said, that was a great idea, and I raced off into the trees to retrieve it. I found it quickly and returned to Rulan, shield in hand. It had a big hole in it that would be hard to explain for the elders. Rulan had a nervous expression on her face when I returned, she kept looking down at the ground and away from me when I tried to look at her, she almost seemed ashamed for some reason. She steeled herself by taking a deep breath and looked me in the eyes before saying.

“Since this is probably the last time I will be alone together with you I have something to ask,” she said with conviction in her voice. I nodded for her to go on, and she did. “I have admired you from afar for some time now, you are so brave and strong, not to mention beautiful,” she paused there to see my reaction, I could guess where this was going, and when I didn’t answer or seem upset, she continued. “I wish to challenge you, no weapons or venom. The one who manages to bring the other to the ground and keep her there wins.”

“And what will be the price for this contest?” I asked already knowing the answer, she had proven herself an excellent hunter and had a caring personality, and she was cute, so I would probably agree.

“The winner gets to dominate the other during sex,” she got out quickly, covering her face with her hands to hide her blush that was probably spreading over her face. Naga law and tradition demanded that a challenge like this be taken seriously, and I had already come to a desition.

“I accept your challenge, Rulan,” I said, and she looked both happy and sad at the same time if that was even possible as she lowered her hands. We wrapped our tails around each other, and our wrestling match started. I used her braid to great advantage to bring her to the ground and keep her there.

“Eshanai!” she yelled my name as she was slammed into the ground, her hands pinned to her body by my coils and her hair in my hand. She was facing down with my full weight atop her. The tip of my tail appeared above her vagina, and I used it to make her scream my name many more times that night, but this time in pleasure. I found another use for her braid this time 'perhaps I have missed the whole point of these braids among the younglings after all' I thought as I pounded into Rulan, holding her braid tightly in my hand. We fell asleep in each other's arms our tails wrapped around the other keeping us warm.