Anyone who has played any Monster Hunter game will have probably noticed at some point that the ways these so called "monsters" act are strangely familiar, with their behavior being more animalistic than monstrous. This is without a doubt the thing...
The lower she goes, the more vigilant she becomes due to the drop in usable moonlight. Eventually, after a few tenuous moments, the elder dragon manages to land safely in a valley flanked by the titanic mountains, her last few wing beats pushing the snow out from beneath her. As she begins walking over the slippery terrain, the curved claws on her feet digging into the ground to give her more traction, she passes a series of strangely shaped ice formations, many of them covered in a layer of snow. Continuing to move forward, she steps over the frozen body of a Cortos, one of her many victims.
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Permafrost doesn't go looking for fights, and for the most part, she isn't forced to do so, as most know better than to provoke her, but whenever something approaches her nest, she won't hesitate to freeze them with the supercooled water produced by and contained in her fricoform sac, using the now frigid corpses both as an emergency food source and as warnings to other creatures. Moving deeper into the valley, the Velkhana ultimately arrives at a large cave and walks into it.
Nimbly moving over the icy surfaces of the cavern, her specialized claws performing their job perfectly, the Velkhana soon makes it to the massive chamber inside, the edges coated in ice and glacial spears. Positioning herself in the center of the cave, Permafrost calmly lays down and rests her head on the cold ground, quickly drifting off to sleep.
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By the time Permafrost awakens from her rest, the sun has already risen over the horizon, its rays causing ice and snow to sparkle under the bright light. As the Velkhana climbs out of her cave, she can feel just how much the temperature has dropped in the last few hours.
Even though the sun is out, the white surface of the snow reflects the rays and the heat it brings back into the sky, making it nearly impossible for the landscape to warm up. Despite this, Permafrost isn't bothered by the chilling temperatures, not because of her feather-like scales but rather because of a process known as countercurrent heat exchange. By having blood vessels packed tightly together, the opposing blood flows help keep her insides warm, and for her species this is so efficient that she barely loses any heat even when in direct contact with ice.
Looking at her surroundings, the valley has been completely transformed in the daylight, now appearing as a glistening domain of ice and frost. Icicles hang from the cave entrance and other surfaces while a frozen waterfall slides down from a cliffside, its movements completely stopped by the unrelenting cold. Even Permafrost's cadavers are shining in the sunlight, turning them into morbid ice statues.
Unfurling her wings, the Velkhana flies up to a ledge that's more exposed to the sun's rays and sits down on it, letting the light warm her body. Even though she's very comfortable in these glacial temperatures, exposing herself to some extra heat is still quite helpful. After basking in the sunlight for a little while longer, Permafrost stands up once again and takes to the air, the beating from her wings creating a cloud of snow that cascades over the edge in the process. As she rises higher into the sky, she's increasingly exposed to more of the sun's shining rays, her body enveloped in light as she flies across the mountains.
