Short story: Human Hibernation Society

MC get caught by the leader of the serpent people with whom humans share the planet. In order to escape alives, she will have to turn the serpents' own deadly political games against them.

The world

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Humans took refuge in another world after a catastrophe happened on Earth. This world is plunged into total darkness for four months of the year, and so human society has to hibernate. They make powerful bunker underground to protect themselves during this time, as dangerous monsters are roaming outside in the dark and cold. There is also another sapient species living in this world, serpent-people with whom humans have tense relationships.

The Serpent-People

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Biology

Body: Serpent-people are humanoid beings who have the head, torso and arms or human and a gigantic snake tail. Since humans came to their world, they have developed magic that can change their tail into legs to blend in with humans if necessary - such as during a hunt. They have a splatter of small translucent scale on their temples and in their back over their spine.

Body temperature: They are colder-blooded than humans and cannot stand the winter cold.

Mouth: They are venomous and have fangs and a forked tongue. They speak a sibilant language that is impossible for human to replicate without using magic.

Health: They are very long-lived thanks to their strong healing magic, which allows them to become very knowledgeable and wise and to look down on humans for being ignorant children.

The serpents have elemental magic:

Water: Their main magics are all water-based, and a lot of serpent-people live in underwater lairs. The most powerful of them can control monsoon storms in the summer.

Earth: They use earth magic to create caves and tunnels and to make magnificent underground palaces.

Fire: They use fire magic in battles against each other or against monsters.

Air: Air magic is rarely used apart from in combination with water magic to make storms. However, some serpent-people use it to fly, although for this they also transform their body to gain wings and look like dragons.

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The serpents mostly hibernate underground during winter, but sometimes they stay awake or are pushed away by conflicts or monsters. In those cases, they often create tunnels to reach other serpents or human settlements, either to ask for help or to eat people. In summer, they sometimes make alliance with humans, but as often they will roam around and eat any humans they find, as many of them consider humans little better than animals.

The monsters

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The monsters are creatures that thrive in cold climate and during storms and that can use ice magic. Legends are that they were created by some serpents millennia ago to fight against each other, but that they ran out of control and killed their creators. After this, they would have learned how to reproduce and taken over the world during winter while surviving at the poles during summer.
They are not fully sapient and have no society, but they are clever enough to lay traps for their prey and to avoid those laid for them. They are great hunters and can also use the tools they find, occasionally even crafting basic ones themselves as part of their traps. Some of the monsters also knows how to use tunneling magic to try to find the serpents or humans to eat them.

Human settlement

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The story is set in a big human settlement. It has a section above ground and one underground that is just as big. In winter, the inhabitants take refuge underground to better protect themselves against the cold and the monsters, as even if the entire settlement is covered by powerful protective wards, the winter reinforced the monsters' magic and allows them to breach the wards.
In summer the region is tropical and the city is filled with lush vegetation. At this time of the year, humans can stay in their overground settlements with little worry, but exiting it is still dangerous as serpents occasionally roam around and cannot be trusted not to eat anyone who offends them.

The characters

MC

MC is a human. Her father is in charge of the protection of their settlement thanks to his powerful magic, making him one of the most important persons there. She is working alongside her father in maintaining and enhancing the wards over their settlement and wants to develop better protection magic, since contrary to many other humans, she does not believe they can convince the serpent people to share their secrets and that trying to force them will not end up well.
She likes science and research and making things better, especially as she is among the people benefitting for it. However, she is not above wishing a few people would not be covered by the wards of their settlements and would get killed. Especially all those politicians and other scientists disagreeing with her on how to deal with the wards...
She has strong ice magic, something she does not advertise as this is associated with monsters and people view this with suspicion.

Love interest

A serpent. He is a local leader of his people, equivalent to a king but without an official title. His goal as a leader is to expand his territory and influence and to also reward his supporters to increase their loyalty. This is generally done with loots (wealth and slaves) taken from human or serpent settlements, or with new scientific/magical discoveries, trade deals, and access to natural resources.
He is not a big fan of humans but is not among the serpents who think they are animals whose only use is as food. However, he is also not a big fan of them and will favoured attacking them over other serpents, as they are weaker prey.