His mother didn't tell him there are dragons in Icicle Isle. Gilgamesh has lived here his entire life and has never seen one until now -- perhaps this is the only dragon? Either way, it's here now, and it's between him and the bones he needs to be what he was always meant to be.
"Your father was a frost giant, you know," his mother coos down at her tiny colt. He's as fat and rolly polly as any she's ever had.
"Really?" the brown painted boy gasps, looking up at his dam with awe.
"Yes, really. Your father, and his father, and his father before that. You've got Giant's blood running through your veins. Who knows how big you'll get?"
The memory helps steel his courage. Gilgamesh swallows, working his tongue a little. How long as it been since he last spoke?
"It is not your cave," he finally rasps, voice terribly hoarse from disuse. "This is the first time," he pauses to swallow. "that I have seen you here. I have been ... in this cave more than you. Does that not make it mine, then?"
Of course, he has no idea he's speaking to the actual leader of the land, but his response may not change even if he did. The Isle horses very rarely, if ever, came up this far north. It's his home, and if he has to fight a dragon to defend it, he supposes that's what he'll have to do.
...Still. Gil doesn't really want to fight the dragon. It's less a lack of bravery and more a reasonable assumption that to do such a thing would be a suicide mission, and he doesn't want to die.
"I need a bone from inside," coughs Gilgamesh. "I have Giantsblood in my veins. I need to take it to the Mountain so the faerie can make me what I was destined to be."
@[Leilan]