Wyvern

by PegasusKlondike

Brood Queen

The chilling polar wind rolled off the barren tundra, biting deep on the hide of the great serpentine creature that basked in the cold. She did not care how cold the wind was, for she craved the frost and snow. All of her species did. It kept her blood from boiling with the venom that was trademark of her species.

Her great serpentine form lay splayed out on a iceberg, one she had drug in from the frozen sea when her previous one had grown too small to accommodate her ever-growing bulk. The beast's mottled brown and grey scaly skin stood in stark contrast of the blue and white of the iceberg, but she did not need to be concealed. No creature would dare attack her, and though her appetite was always great, she almost never hunted for herself.

Above the sleeping form, a flock of her mates flew and squawked at one another. The smaller males all shared her territory, serving their purpose by hunting for their brood queen. A particularly loud squawk disturbed her slumber, and she lazily opened an eye to see that two of them were fighting again. The smaller, red striped males were picking on one of their brethren, and with the way he ducked and weaved his mouth to avoid losing his cargo to the thieving attempts of his fellows, he had probably just returned from a hunt with something good.

Landing clumsily in front of the brood mother, he dropped his offering and squawked. She raised her horned, triangular head, inspecting his offering with piercing yellow eyes. A measly snow fox sat bedraggled and bloody in front of her. She snorted at his pitiful attempt, flicking out her long snake-like tongue and inhaling the fox without chewing.

He gave a short and curt squawk, expecting her to allow his advances. Easily twice the cheapskate's size, she declined by laying her head back down. Standing back on his legs, he swelled his chest and gave the most powerful roar he could, flapping his large wings against his chest as a show of strength.

The brood queen raised her head, a serpentine hiss telling the small male that she did not want to bear his eggs. No meant no. Flustered, the male became more aggressive than usual, raising his long, whip-like tail over his head in a posture of battle. If he couldn't impress her into mating, he would intimidate her. He reared up onto his legs, spreading his winged forelegs to show the coercive and intimidating patterns on the underside. The male let out a hiss, hoping to cow her into submission.

The queen opened an eye to witness the spectacle, this was not her first attempted forced breeding, not by a long shot. In fact, the brood queen was old and wizened by battle, incredibly so for one of her species. Her scales were cracked in places, and the tip of a horn had broken off in a territory battle long ago with another female. The male continued his spectacle of flapping his wings against his chest and roaring.

Carefully she waited, then lashed out with her own tail. Lightning quick it struck him at the base of his throat, piercing the spot all her draconic kind sought to protect, their anti-venom gland. She injected her venom through her tail, paralyzing the attempted suitor. She opened her mouth and took in a lung full of polar air, letting it out as a stream of pure hoarfrost. The icy beam characteristic of her race began to freeze the male. He struggled with what strength he had left, fighting to get away, but with his source of anti-venom gone and his very bones freezing, he succumbed to his brood queen's relentless assault and his own venom filled blood.

She stopped her frost breath, rearing back her tail she whipped the icy statue, shattering it into dozens of meaty chunks. The chunks settled on the frozen ground, with her tail she speared a piece, placing it near her own head. Opening her great mouth she swallowed the meat, in his failure to feed and impress the brood queen, he had secured his place as her next meal. No matter, she had at least a dozen more males in her territory, all eager to try for her attention.

A roar came from the horizon, another male returned from hunting. But this one had been much more successful, and had taken on much larger game. He struggled to stay alight as he carried a young mammoth in his claws, having snatched it from the tundra plains. Blood coated his beakish muzzle, he had a little gory fun retrieving this one, the ice trolls that herded the tundra mammoths would be lucky if they had a herd left. The males typically hunted in packs, taking down large game on the tundra with their venomous tails and their frost breath. Only when the females were in season did they hunt alone.

He dropped his oversize load in front of the brood queen, she was obviously impressed with his offering. She lifted her muzzle closer to the mammoth, sniffing. Still alive, kept so by the paralyzing venom injected by her mate. They could switch venoms; either a paralyzing venom that they commonly used, or a deadly venom they typically used in combat with others. The brood queen tore into the mammoth's belly, gorging herself. The male took this distraction as his opportunity, quickly taking the position behind the queen. After a quick copulation he flew off to join his pack, satisfied that his offering had succeeded over his fellows.

The queen was also satisfied, the best meal bringer meant the best genes to pass on to her next brood, which would come soon enough. And all across the tundra, creatures cowered and hid, knowing that this most dreaded time of year had come again, wyvern mating season.

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The brood mother slept as usual, digesting her several meals with content. Besides her mammoth meal, several musk oxen and even a pair of trolls sat in her belly, providing sustenance to her and her growing clutch. In a few days she would lay her eggs in a suitable place, something she had done countless times. But then she would have to hunt for herself and defend her eggs simultaneously, as the idiotic males were more likely to destroy the eggs and eat the embryos rather than tolerate additional mouths to feed.

Males were indeed stupid, in fact wyverns as a species weren't too intelligent. They measured somewhere on the intelligence scale as much lower than a sentient being like a pony, but slightly higher than a predatory animal like a wolf. But that intellect was almost reserved exclusively for the larger and more powerful females.

Wyverns have an inborn hatred of heat and fire, and whenever the sun managed to poke its way through the arctic cloud cover, the males would hiss at it and try to breathe their frost breath at the annoyance. On occasion one would get the brilliant idea of flying up as high as he could to put out the infernal light. Many a wyvern male has since died from altitude sickness and falling injuries, having flown as high as the stratosphere before passing out and falling back to earth, never quite able to reach the sun to put it out.

Being that they hated heat and flame, they held a special hatred in their simple minds for their flame breathing cousins that lived to the south. They would try to come up here to the tundra sometimes, their powerful wings bearing them over the mountain range that separated the wyvern territory from the rest of the world. But the moment their scent hit the air, the flame breathers had filled out their own death warrants. Every wyvern within a hundred miles would descend on the flame breather, stinging with their deadly venom and breathing their terrible elemental breath. But even the largest flame breather had no chance against a female wyvern defending her eggs. No creature, magical or not, could stand against such fury. Nothing except an even more pissed off wyvern.

And the brood mother had just such a problem, to either side of her territory lay the territories of lesser females, controlling their own small packs of males. Each of those brood mothers desired her territory and her pack of males to add to their own. More territory meant more possibilities for prey in the sparsely populated tundra and every mile counted.

The brood mother was kind of lazy for one of such ripe hunting grounds, never really bothering to patrol her borders and oust any encroachers. She had her males to do that; so all she did was lay coiled up on her iceberg, only occasionally leaving to take care of various things.

The brood mother smelled something, something familiar. She opened her eyes and rose from her resting place, sniffing the air. Her whiplash tail lashed back and forth, angered by the scent of a rival female, the one to her west. Her coven of males roosted on the ice, sleeping off their various hunting practices from the day. She hissed at them, the males remained unresponsive, only shifting slightly in their rest. She growled at their laziness, stretching out her great wings to take to the sky.

Her expansive wings beat, powerful chest muscles forcing her higher. The brood mother scouted her territory, looking for signs of the intruder. Her rival seemed to be hiding somewhere, most likely waiting for the local brood mother to show weakness. The brood mother dropped down to the open tundra, her massive bulk landing hard on the frozen earth. She leaned off of her wings and beat against her chest with her wings, like the male had the day before. She gathered her breath and roared, her challenge resounding across the open tundra, daring her enemy to come out.

To 'ice' the cake, she spewed out a gout of her frost breath into the open sky. She got an answer almost instantly. Only a few miles away, a similar pillar of frost breath spewed from the ground, followed by a challenging roar. Her rival female flew up to meet her, much younger than the brood mother and much more agile.

But the brood mother had experience on her side, flapping her great wings she rose to meet the intruder. The intruder had the height advantage, she spread her wings out and aimed her clawed feet at the brood mother, who barrel-rolled to the side, unleashing a gout of ice as her enemy flew past.

The younger wyvern could not let up her momentum and slammed into the ground, scattering snow and ice. The ice blast had barely caught her on the back, freezing a few of her tough scales. The brood mother's claws slammed on the intruder from above, tearing great rends in her frozen flesh. The younger wyvern threw off her enemy, grabbing onto her with her own claws. The pair rolled across the ground, biting on each other's necks with their bone crushing teeth, ramming their horns and clawing with their feet and the claw on their wingtips.

They struggled to get the advantageous position, the position that would allow one or the other the strike with their venomous tails. Eventually the two broke their grapple, rolling to their feet to face off. They hissed at one another, wings fully spread to give the illusion of greater size. Though the brood mother was larger, she could not keep this up much longer. Blood dripped down her hide, splashing into crimson pools on the ground. She needed to end this quickly.

The brood mother lashed out with her tail, her rival dodged it easily, but the brood mother had her chance. Charging forward she unleashed a gout of ice straight into her rival's face. Though more resistant than other creatures to such an attack, a breath of frost to the face was deadly for any wyvern. Her rival's head stood frozen solid, the rest of her body flopping and flailing, not yet registering the fact that it had been killed. With a spin she whipped out with her tail and shattered the enemy wyvern's head.

Victory, but the brood mother had paid for it. Her neck now glistened with wet blood that froze in the arctic wind. Her muscles were sore and bruised from the tail clubbing and the hard landings from her fight. Several gaping wounds showed in her belly, rends from her rival's clawed feet. If she had taken much more punishment, she could have still-birthed her clutch of eggs prematurely. Leaving the normally appealing corpse to the scavengers, the brood mother winged her way back to her roost.

She was flying high overhead, just below the ever present cloud level when she heard the sound that brought rage into her mind. Another challenging roar, from her eastern rival. And it was on HER roost! Dipping low she spied her more dangerous rival laying her scent down on the brood mother's icy roost, violating her very resting place.

The wyvern queen to the east had always been an opportunistic bitch, crossing territories and stealing prey animals, even going so far as to abscond with her own males on occasion. And now she had apparently caught on about the commotion between the other two, taking the opportunity to expand her own territory. The brood mother wanted to tear out her rival's heart and feed it to her chicks. But her rival was different from the western upstart, the opportunist was almost as large as the brood mother herself, and nearly as experienced in battle.

She couldn't fight in this state, not without risking her eggs that still formed inside her belly. Shamefully the brood mother let out a wail of defeat, a sound rarely heard on the tundra. A wyvern willingly giving up its own territory was about as common as a unicorn with two horns. Banking on her wings she turned to a direction not many of her species ever went. South.

If she was to find a new territory, it would need plenty of fresh meat to accommodate the clutch she was ready to lay. And there always seemed to be an abundance of meat around the mountain range to the south.

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The wounded and egg laden wyvern queen flew through the territories of many of her sisters and cousins, all rivals and all screaming their challenges to the intruder. With a single track mind and the greatest type of shame she wailed her cry of defeat over every territory she passed through. A long day of flight had the brood mother facing her greatest challenge yet, the mountains that separated the tundra from the unknown. No matter how hard she searched, all the available and appealing places either had the scent of another wyvern about or she would receive the challenge call and fly off.

A thought entered her head, if all the territories were taken on this side of the mountain range, maybe there were open places on the other side! Climbing high on her wide wings she faced the southern exposure, flying straight between the gap between two mountain peaks. Almost instantly she was buffeted by extremely powerful winds coming off the mountainsides.

If it weren't for her lightning reflexes she would have been smashed on a cliff face. Dropping lower meant more meandering through mountain passes and valleys, but it was safer than being scrambled like an egg. She began to feel warm, that feeling that all wyverns hate was attacking her from all sides. Any one of the valleys she swooped over would do, after the first few all she smelled was residual scents left from her own species. But none of them had the amount of food her clutch would need, so the brood queen pressed onward.

Onward and through the night she flew, the oppressive heat closing in on all sides. Until the mountains began to gently slope off. Landing on a mountainside glacier to cool herself, the wyvern queen inspected this new land. The first thing noticed, it was covered in something that was rare on the tundra, trees. Lifting her muzzle she sniffed the air for any of the pungent pheromones of another wyvern. Not a single micron of the familiar scent or even the residue of another wyvern, not even a male, could be picked out by her strong sense of smell.

Rearing back on her legs she slammed her chest with her wings and gave the challenge roar. It resounded and echoed far in this strange land, but her call was not answered. Taking to the sky once again she began to search for the key element to her survival here, food. Swooping low over the treetops she sighted deer, goats, bears, moose, oxen and a smorgasbord of other delightful meals. With her tail hanging low she snagged a deer as she flew, injecting her venom to paralyze it and hopefully chill its warm blood. Stopping on another glacier, she feasted on the body of her kill, filling her belly and sustaining her young within her.

This glacier intrigued the worn out brood mother, and she investigated a crevasse that easily fit her massive bulk inside. The ice cave did appeal to her, here she could be cold, here she could lie safely while the hated sun burned overhead. Going back to the mouth of the cave, a flickering in the distance caught her eye, and activated instincts that turned her to instant rage.

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The two prospectors sat around their fire, awoken from their sleep by whatever was flying around, roaring at this time of night. After a long day seeking a good claim on the river the last thing they wanted was some monster driving them out at three in the morning. They were the standard fare around Snowreach, an earth pony and a unicorn, both migrated up far from Equestria to seek their fortunes panning for gold in the hostile and unforgiving territory known as Snowreach.

"What the buck do you think that was?" the unicorn asked, leaning up from his bedroll, using his telekinesis to pull out a sword.

"I don't know Chipper, maybe Obsidian is out tonight, looking for a fresh meal."

"You know that lazy dragon doesn't leave his cave very often. Not since we started feeding him."

"Yeah, but maybe he got tired of gems and gold. Maybe he wants some fresh meat tonight!" The earth pony grabbed his crossbow from his rucksack, pulling back the string with his teeth and placing a bolt in position.

"Even if it is Obsidian, he wouldn't attack us. That's a part of the agreement right? That's why we pay him off every month. Come on, let's get more wood on the fire; even if Obsidian will leave us alone, some bear or a troll might get some ideas."

"Good thinking." The pair reluctantly left their bedrolls for the bitter cold night air, trotting out to the darkness to grab some more driftwood from the stream they camped by. This was their claim, and they would defend it from bandits, trolls, bears, wolves and even Obsidian if they had to.

They gathered wood by the babbling stream, keeping an eye out for any sign of trouble. Chipper, the unicorn, picked up a piece of wood with his magic when a shape that blotted out the stars whooshed over his head. An odd spraying sound occurred, back in the direction of their camp. Chipper looked down at the creekside, the water flowing around the rocks was freezing in place. Chipper looked to his partner, then both ponies looked back at their camp. Dropping their wood they crept back to camp, something huge touched down and moved around, tearing their camp apart. Hiding in a small stand of trees, they got a look at the intruder.

"That's not Obsidian..." the unicorn whispered. The dragon-like monster was sniffing their possessions, rifling through their oddities with its muzzle. The creature was only illuminated by the moonlight bouncing of its scales, looking down the pair saw their fire, a icy sculpture of an actual fire, the flames frozen completely in place.

The beast stuck its nose into a particular bag, sniffing for the scent of a meal. The earth pony nearly flew off his handle. "That's the gold bag! That bastard is stealing our gold! HEY YOU! GET OUT OF THERE!" he shouted as he broke cover, hoping to scare off the obviously fearless monster.

The beast snapped its head to the source of the sound, seeing only a pony she raised her venomous tail and began to hiss.

"Yeah, that's right! Get out, scat!" the earth pony brazenly yelled to the creature.

The brood mother would not stand for any of this, with a whip crack her tail caught the pony square in the chest, hitting just hard enough to inject her venom. The pony began to foam at the mouth, eyes glazing over as he slumped to the ground. She wrapped her prehensile tail around the pony's torso, dragging him closer. Leaning down she began to sniff, then took a test bite. This creature was delicious! Grumbling her approval, she took to the air to take her latest meal back to her new cave home.

Back on the ground, the unicorn known as Chipper stared at the wreckage of his campsite, at the bloodstain that had been his friend and partner. At the fire that defied all logic by freezing in place. Chipper grabbed a torch and his sword, intending to make the perilous journey back to the town of Windshear in record time.

Comments

[moguera]

You have a good start here. I'm looking forward to how this story progresses.

[Detective Chmilewsky]

Any relation to the War of the Fallen Race universe?

[PegasusKlondike]

440151 It could be, but it is so far removed from the areas concerned with WotFR that any influence by the humans would be minimal. Can't decide whether to drop some hints about our existence or not.

[Detective Chmilewsky]

Ah, the reason I ask is that I am a major HiE buff.

[PegasusKlondike]

441262 I guess I could drop a few subliminal hints or something.

[Iron Sides]

Hmmm, sounds like an awesome story Klondike. Now we get into the prospectors and miners eh? They could be in Alaska but if your discription of Equestria's land holdings is still in effect then they would be a long ways off. I suppose they could be in northern Canada, that would be a hell of allot closer.

I look forward to reading this story, TRACKED!

[Subatomic Seal]

Hm... Pretty interesting.