Kyrie knew this was crazy, but it would be crazier to do nothing. She circled around the red dragon, looking up at the creature, as it circled in turn, to keep her in sight. She could feel her other form itching to take over, but she didn't think that would be the best of ideas. Because the dragon wasn't attacking her. Why wasn't the dragon attacking her?
Truth be told, from what she remembered, Red Dragon had been the least effectual of the triad members. Why would he be the one sent? Unless—she took a look at his shrunken arm—he was trying to avenge himself all on his own.
He opened his mouth and she tensed, ready to hit the snow and roll away from his breath. Instead he made a pitiful sound, low and mournful in his throat.
"What?" she said, as if she expected the creature to speak. Instead, it made the sound again, and then it coughed. The cough was just like Tom's when he was about to change. Or when he was about to flame, of course. She tensed and circled, watching. It moaned and circled in turn. Suddenly, it spasmed. Contorted.
It was changing. Kyrie, who'd thrown herself to the snow-covered ground, looked up to see the creature bend and fold in unnatural ways, seeming to collapse in on itself.
It was shifting. It was becoming human.
But why is he shifting? Wouldn't his dragon form give him the advantage? What could he gain by becoming human?
What he couldn't gain, clearly, was warmth, because in the next moment he stood there, looking like an instant popsicle in the shape of a young Asian male, skinny and very very naked in the howling storm. He covered his privates with one hand—the other arm being rather too short to allow him to reach that far, and he looked at her with pitiful eyes, even as his skin turned a shade of dusky violet.
"What do you want?" she asked, using all her will power to keep her teeth from chattering. "What do you want? What do you wish from me?"
He shook his head slowly, his eyes very wide. She wondered if he looked like that out of fear of her, and realized it was more likely that it was the cold. "I . . . Must speak. I was sent to speak. To you. I must protect . . . Him."
"Protect the Great Sky Dragon?" Kyrie asked.
Red Dragon shook his head. He had a crest of hair in the front—rumpled—probably a natural cowlick, and in human form, his eyes looked small and dark and confused. "No, not him. He sent me."
He did not speak with an accent so much as with the shadow of an accent—as if he felt obligated to sound Asian, even though he didn't. It made his words seem stilted. He talked while shivering and the words emerged through short panting breaths. "He sent me to redeem myself. The Great Sky Dragon. Sent me."
"To redeem yourself?" Kyrie yelled as the snow blew into her mouth. She looked at the snow-covered ground for a stone or something with which to hit the enemy. Nothing was visible under the snow, but she must find something. Because she now knew he had come to kill Tom.
And then Red Dragon wrapped his arms around himself, a curiously defenseless gesture. "He send me to protect the young dragon. He says I must prove I'm worthy before I'm trusted, and this is where he wants me to prove myself. I am to defend the young dragon from the Ancient Ones."
"Defend?" Kyrie asked, her voice a mere, surprised whisper as her mind arrested on the word she could not have anticipated. "Defend? Defend Tom?"