Treasure—noun: 1) wealth or riches stored or accumulated, especially in the form of precious metals, money, jewels, or plate; 2) wealth, rich materials, or valuable things; 3) any thing or person greatly valued or highly prized.

Connor had lived amongst the human race longer than any other member of his eyrie.

Several others had adopted their human guises—carefully woven glamours of tightly-knitted magic and illusion glyphs—and ventured out into the worlds of men, keeping them informed of new inventions, new technologies, new weaponry, anything that might threaten their existence, but these outings only lasted a year or so, rarely more. The loneliness and aching for clan was too great for them to stay away much longer than that.

But then again, the Temple clan had always been different from others. They were notorious for their inherent curiosity of the human race, the desire to know and learn and understand more about the soft, squishy bipedal mammals that'd become the dominant species on the planet, sitting just below the dragons on the food chain. They were known for leaving their eyries to explore the world of men for years, even decades at a time. They were odd and eccentric and peculiar, amongst their own kind and doubly so amongst humans.

Connor was one such member. Unlike most dragons, his clan didn't establish their eyries in highlands or on mountain peaks. They liked to burrow. His eyrie was located about two miles underground in a cave system that humans hadn't yet found and weren't ever likely to, given the amount of protective magic woven around its borders. Heights actually made him a bit nervous. He could fly, just...not too high. As a dragonet, he was always wanting to go Upstairs to see the humans that wandered about the Yorkshire Dales, which lay directly above their cavernous home, always sneaking off to poke his nose curiously out of holes. By the time he was old enough to leave the eyrie on his own, in control enough of his magic to maintain a glamour, Mother knew that he had inherited the 'itch' of the Temple clan, the itch to go out and learn, just like his father had, just like his grandmother had.

And so he went. He lived in Bradford for a while. It was a decent sized city, not so large as to overwhelm him but not so small as to skew his perception of what human metropolises were. Several of his cousins lived there, and he'd stayed in their dens for some time, until he discovered the human seats of learning—university. Connor wanted to learn. What better place than that?

And yes, he missed his eyrie from time to time. Yes, he longed to curl up amongst his clan in his own skin and feel the earth wrap him up in great stone arms. But he had started making himself a new clan out of the humans that had somehow become his treasures.

Dragons were always peculiar about treasures. If something was theirs, then it was theirs and nobody had even dare to hurt it or take it away or threaten it at all, lest they find themselves on the toothy end of a very possessive, very pissed dragon. Connor had only a few treasures of his own—the heirlooms of his grandmother's that had become his, the beautiful coloured scales that he had collected from his family members, his baby sister's first milk teeth—but he kept them in a locked safe box under the floorboards beneath his bed in the loft, with protection glyphs imprinted on it.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do the same thing for this team of vulnerable, clumsy, foolish, brave humans. Connor wanted to, sometimes. He thought about it. More than once. Because they were his. They were his stupid humans and nobody else's. That didn't mean he didn't want to grab them and shake some sense into them from time to time.

Like about now.

Connor sat on a canvas stool, huddled down into his parka and glaring at the world in general. Dragons didn't like cold. It was instinctive. As reptiles and as creatures of fire, they weren't to be found in places of extreme cold, save only for the icemaker subspecies that actually became ill in high heat. The UK climate overall was a bit nippy, sure, but not too bad, especially not now in the age of central heating. But of course, there was no central heating out here, in the middle of sodding nowhere, studying an anomaly that had to appear in the middle of the night in winter.

They might've gone back to the ARC already—any creature with half a brain would poke its head through, say 'bugger this' and go back to its own warm climate—but no-ooo. Stephen just had to take a precautionary look on the other side of the anomaly and declared that the environment on the other side was probably mid-Ice Age. Which meant any creature that came through would be adapted to the cold and wouldn't tuck tail upon coming through.

Now why they all had to stay there was beyond him. Connor glanced down at his gear, which he had set up on a section of packed snow where it wouldn't get too wet and short out. The signal hadn't faded an inch. With a growl, he pulled his scarf up and his hat down until only his eyes were visible and called his fire. Not many dragons could do it, pull up their inner flame and use it to stay warm without either breaking their human guise or breathing fire to release it, but it was a skill that he had always excelled at.

Cutter and Stephen had gone through fifteen minutes ago, according to his inner chronometer, to see if there were any creatures near to the anomaly. They were due back in five. Abby, lucky girl, had been called back to the ARC by Lester himself because apparently, the mammoth was ill. The pachyderm had saved Lester from the predator, and it would never be said that Lester didn't show gratitude. Becker, the new bloke that was brought on after the whole raptors-in-a-shopping-centre bit, was standing a few feet away, occasionally talking into his radio and looking just as unpleased with this situation as anyone. Jenny was there, too, looking about ready to beat Cutter 'round the head with an icicle. Strictly speaking, they didn't need her there, but Cutter had somehow pulled a Jedi mind-trick on Lester to make her come with. The anomaly was on the private land of a sheep farmer, but it was only about fifty feet from the border of his property and on the opposite side of the land as the farmer's house and barn. Cutter had done it just to pull her pigtails, Connor knew it; the professor liked to provoke her something fierce, though whether or not it was because she looked like his semi-imaginary Claudia Brown or because he was just that kind of berk remained to be seen.

Connor exhaled slowly, breath catching in his scarf and warming his face, trying not to squirm. Working the job they did, he had to learn to control his possessive need to have his treasures either in sight or someplace safe at all times. But it was a lot harder to control when two of said treasures were quite literally a few thousand years away from him and alone in a hostile environment without backup.

"How much longer do they have?" Jenny demanded, stamping her feet to keep the blood flowing.

Becker glanced at his watch. "Three minutes."

Two minutes and forty-seven seconds. Nice try, soldier boy, Connor thought vindictively. He still wasn't sure about the new captain. Not that he was a bad bloke or anything, but it was Becker's job to protect the team, his team, and that was not a responsibility that Connor trusted to just anybody. He tipped his chin up slightly to look at the frozen stars in the gaps between clouds, then shivered as a fresh gust of frigid wind blew clean through him down to his bones, flinging flakes of snow in his face. Grumbling, he scrubbed them away and went still. The wind had changed. He could smell it.

Turning on his stool, Connor looked off to the sky again and the rate at which the snow fell. His back prickled, his flame shivered. Oh, bugger. He leapt off the stool and began packing up his equipment as quickly as possible with his mittens on. Bad, bad, bad. If Cutter and Stephen weren't back in...a minute and twelve seconds, he was going to pull them through by their parka hoods himself.

"What are you doing?" Becker demanded. He never just asked, he demanded. It made Connor get his back up every time.

"Weather's moving in. We need to get someplace sheltered," Connor answered, packing his equipment into its pack. "There's an old hunting cabin a mile up that way. We can wait it out there. The vehicles won't get back up here."

Becker stared at him for a moment, looking ready to argue, but then he glanced up at the sky and seemed to agree. Taking the radio from his jacket, he began relaying the new course of action to the rest of his men.

"What about Cutter and Stephen?" Jenny asked.

Just as Connor opened his mouth to answer, the two intrepid wanderers came back through, laughing as though they'd just shared some kind of joke. Any other time, Connor would've been glad to see they were starting to get on again after the Bitch Who Shall Not Be Named, but now he was just a touch pissed that it'd taken them this long to get back. Without preamble, he chucked a pack at Stephen, who caught it only out of reflex. "We've got a whiteout coming at us, we're going up to a cabin," he said shortly.

"We can't just leave the anomaly—" Cutter started to protest.

"Oh, yes, we can," Jenny and Stephen said in unison. In just the few moments it'd taken them to get back, visibility had gone down and the snow was coming down thicker and faster. The tracker knew bad weather when he saw it. They each took one of the professor's arms and just about frog-marched him after Becker, who was already moving. Connor trailed after them, keeping them in sight. Walking, difficult before, was now an active struggle, heads down against the wind, unable to see more than a few steps ahead of them.

Connor wished, not for the first time, that he could simply shed his glamour and fly. They'd be at the cabin in hardly more than a wingstroke and without the possibility of frostbite biting at them. He exhaled smoke and sparks, his fire so close to the surface he could feel it tickling the back of his throat. It was a dangerous thing to do, but he couldn't risk getting too cold now. Getting cold meant getting sluggish, and until all his treasures were safe, he would have to be aware and ready.

As they forced their way ahead, Connor began to hear a noise, a faint, high-pitched crackling that made him anxious for some reason he couldn't understand. It only grew louder and more frequent the further they walked. Just as he realised that the ground under his feet had changed, there was a crrrunch as loud as a rifle report, and Cutter dropped out of sight.

The abrupt fear that seized in his chest was sharp enough to make Connor nearly lose his grip on his glamour. Dropping his pack, he lay down on his belly and reached towards the hole in the ice none of them had seen or noticed under the snow. He had heard it begin to crack and fracture as they walked across it, and Cutter had stepped directly onto the convergence point of the cracks. Praying the ice was strong enough to hold them both, Connor plunged his hands into the water, so cold that his fire was almost instantly guttered out. He grasped Cutter's sodden parka and pulled with all the inhuman strength he possessed, dragging the man's sodden weight back to the surface.

Cutter sputtered and gasped, unable to do much more than grab at Connor. The professor wasn't exactly a small bloke, and his waterlogged clothes made him all the heavier, but Connor had the greater strength on his side, not to mention the fear. He dragged Cutter back out of the water and back to solid ground. Jenny, Stephen, and Becker had noticed their absence and were standing a few feet away but not coming any closer. The ice was still making the most foreboding noises, daring any one of them to take another step. Over the high keening of the wind, he could hear Jenny shouting Cutter's name.

Connor lurched to his feet, pulling Cutter up with him. "Nick! Nick, can you still hear me?" he demanded.

The professor was shaking with full-body tremors, his lips blue and teeth chattering, but he still nodded. Connor pulled the man's arm around his shoulder and started walking them, not directly forward, but several metres to the left, upstream of the breaking ice to where it was hopefully stable enough to cross. They had only a few minutes to get to the cabin and start getting Cutter warm again before hypothermia got to him. Connor knew it was a risk, but he tightened his arm around Cutter's waist and lifted the man off his feet, carrying him across the frozen creek much faster than he could've walked it. The calf-deep snow and flurrying wind kept the others from seeing, thankfully.

The moment they were on steady ground again, Jenny was at Cutter's other side, helping to hold him upright, and they began leading him along after Becker. Connor was counting the seconds again, his fear tightening further in his heart as the cold began to get to Cutter, his steps faltering, coordination failing him. Suddenly, though, he could smell faint scents of woodsmoke and strange humans, and the low, dark shape of the cabin was visible through the snow. It was hardly more than a hut, meant for one person, perhaps two. Certainly not all five of them, but they'd get over it. Becker shoved the door open with a squeal of rusted hinges, and then they were all spilling inside, grateful to be out of the snow and the frigid wind.

"Get him out of his clothes," Connor ordered, slinging off his knapsack of equipment into a corner. "Becker, look in the cupboard, see if there's blankets." Oh, he was blowing his cover big-time, but he didn't give two shakes of a siren's tail at the moment. One of his treasures was damaged. The instinct to nest and hoard and protect was so strong that he was trembling.

They were giving him odd looks but obeyed anyways, Stephen helping keep the professor upright as Jenny peeled him out of his sodden clothes. The tracker was murmuring in Cutter's ear, trying to keep him talking. If he was talking, he was awake and still alive.

Connor went to the fireplace, relieved to find there was a well-stocked woodpile beside the grate. He hastily stacked several smaller pieces of wood, then reached up onto the mantel, feeling for matches. There weren't any, but bugger it, he was a match. Leaning close to the kindling, as if trying to nurse a spark, he blew a thin tongue of flame. The dry kindling flared up sharply, and he blew lightly on it again, making sure it got going well before it should. He fed it several more pieces of wood and turned.

Tracker and PR had effectively stripped Cutter down to his skin and had him wrapped up in blankets. Jenny had taken off her own hat and pulled it down over his ears. It wouldn't do much good, given that his hair was still wet, but it was a start. Becker was rummaging through the kitchenette, muttering to himself. Connor scooted closer on his knees, hands shaking with the need to reach out and touch every inch of the professor, make sure he was unharmed, that his treasure was safe and secure.

"How many siblings do you have?" Jenny asked, vigorously rubbing a hand over Cutter's arms to create warmth from friction. Her other hand gripped his, rubbing his fingers to keep the circulation going; Stephen must've told her to do that.

"Six," Cutter mumbled back, his voice slow and sticky, as though there was something caught in his throat. Connor prayed he hadn't inhaled water and was developing pneumonia.

"Are they older or younger than you?"

"Older. Never let me forget it, either."

The professor's lips were still blue. "One of you needs to get in the blankets with him, share body heat," Connor said. "He's still too cold."

Jenny and Stephen both stared at him for a moment, neither leaping at the chance to strip and get cozy with the Scotsman. He was tempted to do it himself, but there was a distinct itching on his back and ribs that told him he'd started developing scales in his anxiety, and that wasn't something he could pass off as a skin condition. Finally, Stephen began to unzip his parka, but Jenny touched his arm. "It's alright, I got it," she muttered, high colour in her cheeks. She pulled off her mittens and began shedding clothes until she was down to just her slip. Both men glanced away as she shimmied out of her trousers and hastily burrowed into the blankets with Cutter. She hissed through her teeth as his chilled skin touched hers. "Bugger, you are cold."

Connor stirred the fire, a measure of calm beginning to inch back into him. Now bundled up against Cutter's back, Jenny kept up her questions. "You've got six siblings. Brothers or sisters?" she asked.

"Sisters, all of 'em. Near killed me."

Connor could relate to that feeling. He had only one blood-sibling, his baby sister, but he had plenty of older cousins that were as bad as any big brother or sister. Growing up in the eyrie was a bit like survival training.

Becker rejoined them, carrying a mug of tea that he pushed into Cutter's hands. It was an effort in restraint for Connor not to bite off the hands that dared come near his treasures, but there was nothing could be done about the low, almost inaudible growl that roiled in his throat. Mine, mine, mine! Can't have, stay away, my treasure, mine, get away!

Stephen, sitting closest and most able to hear, gave him a sideways look, and Connor tried not to think about the explaining he was going to have to do later on. Pushing to his feet, he gave the fire another prod before investigating the sofa. He lifted the cushions. To his delight, it was a sofa bed, which only made sense; what hunter was going to try to kip on an old sofa? He pulled at it hard, unfolding it with much squeaking and creaking. Finally indulging his instinct, just a little, Connor collected what blankets were left free and began to arrange them over the old mattress, unearthing two pillows from the bottom of the cupboard. All dragons, no matter the gender, had an instinct to nest, particularly when they were stressed or frightened. It was partly why he wore so many layers all the time—it felt a bit like being bundled up in a nest, wrapped in fabric and warmth. Even as dragonets, they would pull together little nests of moss and loess and bird feathers to sleep in.

"Think you can get him up here?" Connor asked once he was satisfied with his job. He could make it better once he had the blankets currently occupied by Jenny and Cutter.

Stephen and Becker helped the professor to his feet whilst Jenny made sure the blankets stayed quite securely wrapped around them for the sake of both their dignities. Connor watched Becker warily and subtly-yet-pointedly sidled between them, keeping the captain at a distance. He was aware of Becker glaring at his back but didn't care. He wasn't afraid of a human, soldier or no.

As Jenny situated them comfortably on the sofa bed, Cutter muttered, "C'n I stop talkin' an' go t'sleep now?"

"Yes, you can sleep," Connor reassured, smoothing the blankets down over them. If there had been room enough, he would've climbed up and lain there beside them, made sure that his stupid human was alright.

Cutter grumbled something else unintelligible, rolled over, and burrowed into Jenny like a dragonet into its Mother, curling close to her warmth. She blushed down her neck to her chest but didn't push him away.

He sat back on his haunches, suddenly exhausted. Connor bowed his head for a moment, taking deep, slow breaths to calm himself. Gods help him, he had so very nearly lost it tonight. Not because of a creature or the Bitch Who Shall Not Be Named, but because of some thin fucking ice. He curled his hands in fists, nails biting sharply into his palms as he again cursed humans for their softness, their inherent delicacy. Like isinglass sunspinners, they were; all it'd take was a clumsy claw to shatter them. How something so frail became so powerful in this world was beyond him at times. But then again, that was largely what drew him, their contradictory nature.

He pulled together the ragged edges where his glamour had begun to fray in his terror, hiding his scales and cooling his inner fire, settling his instincts. He breathed in the scent of his humans, his treasures, and willed himself to relax. They were here. He had them. They were safe. It would've been better if Abby was there, too, but three out of four would do for now.

But that didn't stop him from sitting awake, vigilant, until the eastern sky began to lighten.

It took the Landrover nearly an hour to get up to the cabin come full light, given the amount of snow that'd fallen during the whiteout. Becker had radioed to his men that Cutter would need a change of clothes, and it didn't surprise Connor in the least that it was Lieutenant Palmer that got out of the 4x4. She was better adapted to deep snow than the rest of them, given that most of her 6'5" frame was in her legs. She cleared away snow from the door so they could get out and shepherded the rest of them outside into the truck so she could give Cutter a brief examination in privacy.

Connor was only vaguely surprised when he opened the door of the Landrover and got an armful of Abby. "Hell, Temple, I leave you lot alone for a night, and you decide to throw Cutter in a frozen lake?" she burbled in his ear, hugging him tightly.

He pressed his nose into the soft hair behind her ear and inhaled the scent of her skin. "It was a creek, not a lake, and it was Stephen who pushed him first."

"Oi!" A hard fist slugged his shoulder, but only playfully. "Shove over, Abby, we're freezing our bits off."

"And wouldn't that just be a crying shame?" she laughed, but scooted back so they could get into the backseat. Becker got in the front. A moment later, Cutter emerged from the cabin in new clothes, pink to the ears, with Palmer following after. He got in the back next to Jenny and Palmer got into the driver's seat, pulling away from the cabin, heading back down the trail.

As they drove, Cutter shamelessly made himself good and comfortable next to Jenny, sliding an arm around her and pulling her close. When she gave him a pointed look, he only gave her a small grin and said, "What? Palmer said I might relapse. I need to keep warm."

Jenny rolled her eyes with supreme exasperation, but the faintest of smiles was playing in the corner of her mouth. Connor put his head back on the seat, listening to Palmer and Becker chatter about the anomaly in the front seat, to Abby busily ask Stephen about what they saw on the other side of the anomaly, to Cutter maybe or maybe not ask Jenny out to dinner by murmuring low in her ear. He felt his inner dragon stretch and purr in content, at last surrounded by all four of his precious human treasures, on their way back to their eyrie, to be surrounded by their clan.

Connor lazily cracked one eye to look at Captain Becker sitting in the front, still talking to Palmer.

Alright. All five of his human treasures.