I, Valon, am frantically searching for my mother.

Little Daphne's budding, intelligent but fragile heart soon developed its first cracks under the biting winds of the icy plains and the gnawing of despair.

Perhaps it was from that moment on that, in order to protect herself from being overwhelmed by this extraordinary wisdom and the immense pain that followed, little Daphne began to subconsciously build high walls around her heart, burying her intelligent, sensitive, and tormented self deep within.

She began to imitate the behavior of other normal white dragon cubs, trying to make herself appear a little stupid, a little silly, and not think too much.

Little Daphne began to reduce complex thinking, relying more on instinct, and suppressing her desire to express herself, replacing language with simple babbling and silly giggles.

She shut herself off in a shell built of naivety and ignorance, as if this would protect her from the harshness of the outside world and soothe the storms within her heart.

However, even so, little Daphne still had one obsession.

Those are Dad and Mom.

The concept of these two words exists in Little Daphne's lineage, although she has never seen them in reality.

But little Daphne felt she should know why she was shivering in the freezing cold.

Because within the realm of inheritance, there is another cold, two-word phrase: abandonment.

Was I... abandoned by my father and mother?

That must be because... Daphne was extremely useless and a complete bad girl, which is why she was abandoned, right?

Little Daphne huddled in the cold wind, staring at her numb, frozen paws, silently and repeatedly thinking deep within her heart.

If that's the reason, then... I definitely wasn't abandoned by my parents.

Because Daphne is not a bad child.

Daphne is also... very useful.

Because it was always Daphne who led her older siblings to find the lemming burrows that were buried in snow and frozen solid.

It was always Daphne who could sense something was wrong in the wind beforehand, leading everyone to stumble and avoid the dangerous ice crevices, or to hide in advance and avoid the passing frost insects.

Everyone is being taken good care of by Daphne.

Daphne was able to find food, avoid danger, and help everyone survive.

Sure enough, Daphne was the most useful!

Daphne like this... shouldn't be abandoned by her parents, right?

Therefore, Daphne stubbornly believes that she was definitely not abandoned by her parents.

Perhaps, it was just that Dad and Mom had to separate from Daphne and the others for some very important and unavoidable reasons.

Perhaps they are fighting a terrible enemy to protect their unborn dragon eggs.

Perhaps they were trapped far away by the blizzard and cannot return for the time being.

Perhaps... right now, Dad and Mom are also anxiously searching for Daphne and the others who got separated?

It must be so.

And so, little Daphne waited.

On every cold, windy night, after each successful search for food and temporary hunger, after each escape from predators and collapses exhausted in a snowdrift... she waited.

Looking at the perpetually gray sky at the edge of the icy plain, and at the unchanging white snow, she always thought to herself:

Perhaps when the snowfields melt, when the vast expanse of white transforms into a lush grassland filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers, when the warm sunshine melts the ice...

Then, Mom and Dad will come to pick up little Daphne and take her home, their faces beaming with smiles as they wade through the melting snow.

Returning to a place with a warm nest, plenty of food, and safe shelter, where there's never any fear of being abandoned...

Family.

……

However, waiting does not always lead to good results.

Little Daphne never saw her imagined parents again, nor did she witness the miracle of the ice field turning into a grassland.

What she encountered first was the Frost Giant.

Those enormous humanoid creatures, resembling moving icebergs and exuding a chilling aura and malice, are the main and most terrifying enemies of the dragons on the snowfields.

The giants loathe all scaly creatures, especially dragons. Dragon cubs that fall into their hands often meet a fate worse than death.

They were either sacrificed to Tarros, the Lord of Storms, in excruciating torment, or shackled and reduced to perpetual enslavement as laborers or playthings.

Daphne no longer remembers the specific details of that day.

Memories were fragmented by fear, bloodshed, and extreme cold.

All she remembered was the deafening, violent roars of the giants, mixed with the wind and snow, as if they were about to tear the sky apart.

All I remember are the chaotic footsteps and flapping wings of everyone frantically fleeing for their lives, and the desperate cries.

All I remember are the mournful, abruptly stopped screams of my brothers and sisters.

All I remember are small, white bodies being smashed by the giant's club, pierced by icicles, and then falling silently into the snow.

The warm blood quickly froze, mixing with the pure white snow to form a glaring pink, and finally, along with its tiny body, it was sealed beneath the ice field by the eternal cold, becoming an insignificant footnote to this desolate land.

He died.

They're all dead.

Everyone... they're all dead.

Only Daphne, perhaps by luck, or perhaps because she was smarter than the other dragons, managed to slip into an extremely narrow ice crevice at the last moment, thus escaping the pursuit of the frost giants.

But something in her heart, along with those tiny white bodies, had died completely, frozen solid.

She huddled in the deepest part of the cold, dark, narrow crevice, her body stiff and without the strength to even tremble.

Outside, the giants' rude roars and heavy footsteps gradually faded into the distance.

The wind and snow continue.

A deathly silence descended once more.

A very, very long time passed.

A faint, almost inaudible voice, tinged with a sob, echoed from the ice crevice, bounced off the rock wall, and reverberated hollowly:

"As expected... Daphne is a useless, naughty girl..."

"Such a bad child...it's only natural that he/she would be abandoned, isn't it?"

……

From then on, Daphne wandered aimlessly.

She left the snowfield that held too many cold memories of death, and, driven by instinct, wandered aimlessly toward a relatively warmer place.

When they get hungry, they nibble on some moss, or if they're lucky, they catch some mice.

If you're thirsty, just lick the condensation on the stone.

When I get tired, I just find a crack in the rock that can block the wind and curl up there.

He doesn't speak, he doesn't think, he just lives, like a pale, empty shell whose soul has been taken away.

That naive and ignorant shell she had built to protect herself now seemed to have truly become her everything.

She had almost forgotten that she had once been smart, that she had once waited, that she had once... longed for her parents.

Until one day, when she encountered danger again, thinking that she would finally be free and go deep into the icy plains to accompany those frozen white figures...