The Age of Hunting

by SwordTune

The Solution

Riverfork's crowded markets groaned at its seems with customers and merchants bartering and haggling over countless goods. At the docks where Mezza Forte got off, she saw boats filled with lumber being traded to a warehouse owner. Candles holders, saws and hammers, belt buckles and nails, all manner of little things were similarly traded in the stores by the docks.

Just a little further in she smelled pony foods, like the rich scent of cereal grains, cheese, and other leafy vegetables. The cheese smelled really good. Clomp clomp, her hooves rapped against the wooden planks that made up the walkways and held everything just a little higher above ground.

"Keeps dry," Mezza noted. Riverfork experienced the spring's gentle floods when snow and ice from the much colder north melted into their southern river. Unlike Marblestop, which channelled the water away through their intricate waterways, Riverfork elevated its village with stilts of hardwood from its forests.

She stopped by a shop with a sign shaped like a wheel of cheese. The scents of the waxed ones, aged, were both pungent and alluring. Mezza couldn't help but investigate.

"Hey! So nice to see a new face!" cried out the pegasus at the counter. She swapped her cheese for coins from the ponies waiting in line while another pony, a stallion, came out to greet Mezza.

"Sorry for the shout," he said, "we get a lot of repeat customers, so Esilis gets pretty excited when some pony new comes. Anyway, is there something I can help you with?"

Mezza Forte felt her purse under her silk robes. She didn't have much currency, at least not the sort that Riverfork ponies accepted.

"I might be interested in buying that wheel right there," she pointed to one high up on one of the shelves. "But I need to find the bank first, or somewhere I can exchange my money."

"From out of the village, huh?" He looked up. "Well I'll keep that one on hold, you picked quite the old breed of cheese." Taking a step outside the store, he pointed up the village to the higher streets.

"Find Wholesale's Exchange on the west side of village's interior," he said. "Tell him Reiter sent you, he'll give you the best exchange rate in Riverfork."

"Really?"

The stallion nodded, then chuckled to himself. "Just don't let him pitch you an investment opportunity."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The long road of banks and exchange companies stunned Mezza. There were Riverfork banks, Marblestop banks, exchanges for grain and coin, even some places that would do trade in foreign currency. Give the backdrop of commercial success, Wholesale's Exchange didn't seem any more or less extraordinary than the other places.

She, of course, wasn't going to take a pony by his word. There wasn't any rush getting settled into Riverfork, so she took the afternoon to talk about the rates she'd get with a few other merchants. Some were better than others, but she could sense they were lying when they all said they'd give her the best deal in Riverfork.

But, Reiter was wasn't just telling the truth about Wholesale's generous rates. He was right about the investment pitch.

"Ridiculous is exactly why this business is going to explode with customers." Despite her resistance, he was still trying to get her to put some money into a balloon making guild. "Business with pegasi cities is going to be the next big thing, I promise you. They don't have farmland and they don't have mines, with hot air balloons the trade basically pays for itself!"

Behind her, the bell on the door rang as another stallion walked straight up to Wholesale's desk.

"Cedar, what are you doing here?" he asked the stallion. "I'm having a discussion with my client here."

Mezza stood up. "No you're not." She grabbed her purse of Riverfork coins and stepped away.

"The new carriage route we set up to the Marblestop settlement burned down," the stallion burst out. His breathing was heavy.

"What? When?"

"An hour ago," he answered. "One of the drivers fled the station and came to my door. Said it was a dragon."

The calm and friendly merchant Mezza was just talking to disappeared, and Wholesale bucked his chair into a basket of rolled up parchment. "Why in Equestria is there a dragon here? They never fly so far from their land."

"Well, it's here now," Cedar said.

He turned to Mezza, looking over her robes. "Sorry to bother you, but could you please leave us to talk?" No sooner did he his last word before the unicorn was galloping out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mezza Forte followed the trail of the first scent she could find. She had sensed it when she first entered the village but paid little attention to it then. Other Changelings on their hunts, they were expected occurrences.

But Halfwing cursed her bad luck as she moved about in the unicorn's body. What was a dragon doing here? She'd have time to find out, after it was taken care of, of course.

She found her way to the centre of the village's tradecraft market, a circle of workshops for ponies to practice their craft and sell their tooled goods. Mezza Forte turned her nose around and honed in on the scent wafting from a partially torn down smithing shop.

A sign had been ripped off and thrown onto the ground, reading "Quillion and Ricasso" across it, and had been replaced by a curled font, Marina's Forge. Hot irons and charred coals radiated a smell stronger than Marblestop's mines, but Halfwing could still smell the Changeling masquerading in there.

This was good. If they were skilled, they could fashion an iron spike, one long enough to go straight through a dragon's eye. Or a saw blade, and she could levitate it and spin it with magic, taking the animal's head in a single, if bloody, slash.

"Hello?" she called out to the young ponies working on the door frame. "Is it alright if I talk to some pony here? I have some questions if you aren't..." she glanced at the busted wall, "too busy."

"Go right ahead ma'am," said one colt. "We're just doing some renovating since Master Marina just bought this place."

Shelves greeted Mezza with copper and iron tools and decorations. Hammers and chisels made for shaping marble filled one side of the shelves. Candle holders, knives, wall fixtures, horseshoes, almost anything she could think of was made of metal in this shop.

Heading it all was a drone, and by the scent, one of Spectra's former pack members. Halfwing was surprised to smell her sister's scent now that she neared the drone. It was faint, like the mark a hound left to mark its territory, which relaxed her a little. Her sister wasn't here, not really, but she had hunted here. She laughed internally, her sister had been one village over, and it took her months to strike back at Marblestop.

She sensed that the drone had smelled her as she approached. Mezza levitated an iron knife and set it down on the counter to allay suspicions as they talked.

"A knife? We can make a customized one if you like."

"Marina, right?"

"The one and only," replied the drone, flashing a knowing smile. She levitated the knife and held it to her face, but kept her eyes on the door to the shop. "I expected to see Princess Spectra again. Does this mean she died in the end?"

Halfwing wished that was the case, it'd make getting a favour from the lieutenant so much easier. But it was pointless trying to lie to a Changeling.

"I don't know what she's doing now, I just came here for some help."

Marina sniffed the air. Ponies wouldn't smell it for a few more hours, but smoke was definitely in the air, coming from the west. It smelled strongly of flesh, not the savoury pine that forest fires gave off when they burned. The unicorn put down the knife and wrapped it in a piece of cloth.

"You were at Marblestop?" she asked.

Mezza paid for the knife and put it in the pocket inside her robe. "Marblestop's hardly relevant right now. There's a dragon coming."

"Not surprised, after that body count you created," she said, leaning closer to Mezza. "Smells like you've been through it. Princess Tenacity's scent is stuck to you like mud."

"We fought, I lived," Mezza replied, "and now there's a dragon raiding the border of the village."

Marina nodded somberly. "I was hoping it was just a wildfire that spread from your fighting. All it takes is one spark of magic on dry leaves to start one."

"I don't know where else to go, I have to stay here, which means that dragon is a threat. Don't you want it gone?"

Marina shrugged. "If Riverfork burns, I'll have an excuse to return to the hive without breaking cover. But, since I'm taking her place, I'm technically not part of Spectra's pack anymore. I'll help if you want me to."

Mezza felt her shoulders and neck relax, relieved that she still had command over the hunter-drones. "Good, then start making a weapon we can use against the dragon. It'll have to big."

Marina raised a brow. "You intend to fight like that? Princess, dragons hunt in the countrysides, it won't come here any time soon. My advice to you is to take a fortnight to recover your strength. Riverfork is full of ponies, you can afford to be picky."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Riverfork was a junction of nearly every kind of product in Equestria. And with it, came knowledge from all over Equestria. Tenacity was somewhere in the village, living a new life among the ponies and gathering more strength day by day. That fact, Halfwing was sure of.

She just needed to know how to do the same.

Nothing preserved pony culture better than books. Even the groundskeepers kept written records of ponies to train new hunter-drones. This store was small, but she was assured by Marina that it was the most trusted, and wealthy, bookstore in the village. The unicorn who owned the store was a writer by trade, with ink-stained hooves to show for all his hard work. Most of the books in the store had been copied by his apprentices, but they were each still worth double their weight in gold.

But coin was meaningless to Halfwing, a simple means to an end. Ponies could barter and talk over what they wanted, and never get anything in the deal. She was happy to spend what she had on a book; anything else she wanted she could take, by force or by trickery.

"Looking for something, miss?" asked the writer.

Mezza glanced at his collection. He had five shelves, possibly a hundred books in total, written by the levitation of talented unicorns with delicate, focused magical abilities.

"Just wanted something for heavy reading," she said. "Do you have anything about the local gods and spirits, by any chance?"

He nodded, leaving his desk and limping over to one of the shelves. "What for, might I ask? Are you a student?"

Mezza lifted her robes. "Came from the Range: Rangefield Academy, to be precise. They sent me out to explore the rest of Equestria to get a better understanding about our world, and I wanted to my Riverfork essay on the gods here, especially now that Marblestop has added its pantheon."

"Came across another student from the Range decades ago," he said, chuckling as he moved his hooves along the spines of his books. "You, uh, crazy up in your horn, too?"

"Excuse me?"

He mumbled something under his breath before replying. "Sorry if that sounded rude. The last student from the Range that came here turned one of the ships at the dock into a river monster. He left before it was killed, so the village militia had to spend ten lives to bring it down."

"No," Mezza shook her head, a little shocked, "I'm good, but, I don't think I'm that kind of crazy in my horn."

"'Good. Spent weeks picking up scraps of paper that monster left lying around. Aha!" He removed a wide-spined book bound in leather cut from different animals and sewn back together.

He walked back and set it on the counter for Mezza to look at. "This was commissioned by the late councilmember Blue Stripes. Doctors said it was measles that killed him, but I don't think his alcoholism helped either. He died before he had any kids, so I never knew who to pass it on to."

"It looks..." Mezza inspected the patchwork bindings.

"Wanted it like that," he shrugged. "It's called the Legends and Myths of Equestria, so he wanted it made from animals all over Equestria. I had to wait for months to get the hydra hide."

"All over Equestria? Even Riverfork?"

"Well of course," the owner said and flipped to the first story for her. "The first twenty stories are local favourites. The River Being, Fishfoxes and Water Spiders, even the Ram God's story is in here."

Mezza buzzed on the inside at the prospect of hunting anywhere in Equestria. There was really so much she didn't know about the villages and cities north of the river. This would change that, it would change all of that.

She laid out her coins on the counter and the owner counted it all up. His lips twitched as he thought it over. Books were not cheap to make. A shelf of twenty books could cost as much as the largest manses in Marblestop, Mezza knew that much at least. She herself wasn't sure if she had enough gold, but she really didn't want to steal it and risk damaging the book in the process.

"It's not as much as I hoped, but if you do me a favour, I'll be happy to part with this one." He grabbed a sealed letter from some box under his counter and gave it to her. "I don't imagine this will mean anything to you, but take this to the Pheonix temple in the Marblestop District and give it to Espera Voxa."

"She's a special mare, I presume?" Mezza feigned ignorance. The name Voxa had been thrown around so many times among the ponies in Marblestop. The Espera was their religious leader, and even though she supported their system of debt slavery, even the slaves admired whatever "spiritual" powers she possessed.

"A confession, of sorts," he said, "and once I know she has it, come back and this book will be waiting for you to read it. I'll even gift wrap it for you."

"Gift wrap?" Mezza smiled innocently and tucked the letter into her robe. She could smell deception on him, and even without her senses, the Espera was not a mare you wrote to on a whim. "Sounds fun. But it better be some damn good wrapping paper."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tenacity and her lieutenant locked the door behind them before lighting the torch. The pony they had captured, a young mare draped in an orange robe, was bound and gagged with thick corded rope in the corner of the barn.

"Wasn't easy on the other three, bringing her here," Lieu said, looking down at the mare's tear-streaked face. "One of them caught a kick to the eye, now he's half blind."

"Can he heal it?" she asked.

"Not easily. The kick lodged a fragment of bone somewhere in his eye. Even if he tries to transform, that bone will just stick with him until we get it out."

Tenacity walked up to the mare and tightened her bindings, thinking over the issue while she sampled the scent. "And I guess cutting out the eye completely will just leave him crippled like my sister, won't it?" Her lieutenant nodded.

"Then leave it for now, there's nothing we can do without a surgeon."

"As you say, princess." Her lieutenant took her leave and returned to the farmer's house that they had borrowed indefinitely. The stallion and his twin daughters were locked up too in the wine cellar below the house, food for the rest of the hunter-drones. Tenacity had wondered where their mother was, but a gravestone in the field answered that curiosity.

"I've seen one of your kind before," she finally said to the orange-robed mare. Tenacity grabbed her by the face. To call her a mare was a stretch, her skin and muscle were still soft, padded with remnants of fat that mammal infants were born with to stay warm. She was young, on the cusp of adulthood but not quite there.

Tenacity wiped the tears off her face. "What's this?" The tears were not clear but mixed with coloured pigments that clung to her coat as long as they were dry.

"Not happy with our original look, are we?" Tenacity laughed. "You paint your face with these things for what? So a stallion might look your way once in a while?"

She transformed into a stallion she had seen singing for one of the Marblestop choirs. Handsome by most pony standards, Tenacity added a few additional layers of musculature to the body to flare up the masculinity. The mare took one look and then turned away, shocked by the difference.

"Of course, why would a stallion like this ever stay with a mare who can't show her true face?" Tenacity's taunting laugh was deeper now, and in a voice that the mare could understand, it was even more demeaning. "Oh, you could be the kind that looks for quick romance, never sticking to one target for more than a few days. Now that, I can relate to."

The brewing emotions underneath the pony's terrified exterior made Tenacity salivate against her will. Angry, ashamed, and frightened, those sour and bitter emotions added complexity and spice to a deeper desire. There was some pony on her mind, a burst of love when her looks were mentioned. Insecure, Tenacity's mocking seeded wishes in the mare's mind.

"Your gallant love won't come for you," she said taunted more, biting the mare by her mane and pulling her head up. Tenacity felt her skin crawl from the pony's muffled screams and she returned to her original form to enjoy the sensation fully.

"Besides, even if he did," she got up and twirled around in the middle of the barn, "wouldn't I be a better choice?" Tenacity changed again, copying one of the older oranged-robed chanters she had seen walking around the Marblestop District. Her legs flexed into lean muscle, not as strong as a bulky stallion, but smooth and much more defined.

She grinned down at the pony. "After all, a painted face could never achieve this."

The mare's useless screams and her intoxicating sweat and emotions signalled Tenacity's instinct to pounce. A burst of green magic shot out and stunned the mare; Tenacity landed on top of her in her black, chitinous form. She went to work on extracting her emotions.

Her jaw broke free of its hinges and her knees compressed the mare's chest, squeezing both air and magic out like a chef squeezing lemons over a salad. The orange-robed mare coughed first, then rapidly began convulsing when she no could no longer stand the pressure on her chest. But more and more, Tenacity breathed in her magic.

It was only when her magic turned coldly bitter that Tenacity recognized that the mare was nearing her expiration. She broke the channel of magic and took her weight off of her, letting the pony breathe.

"That's it?" Tenacity clicked her tongue in disappointment. "You've got a lot of problems to get off your chest, girl. A lot of insecurities. Now, we're going to do this again, and again, until you learn to deal with your feelings."

The mare panicked and writhed like a maggot, but Tenacity was on her a second time, not hesitating for one moment before devouring more magic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The main road to the Marblestop District was charred black from dragon fire. But, already devoid of life, it wasn't unlikely that the dragon would come back for seconds. Whatever it had wanted, it certainly didn't care about leaving any evidence. Piles of ash could be bodies as easily as crates of gemstones.

"Princess," said her captain, "I don't see why you had to do this job for that pony. I could've replaced a banker or merchant and we could simply buy his books."

"I didn't realize you cared about getting money."

"I don't. But they're for real value that can make things like this easier."

Halfwing stepped over a burnt carriage wheel left on the side of the road. "True, but if something as valuable as a book can be bought with a simple favour, think about how important that favour might be. It's a letter to the Espera."

"You read it?"

Halfwing looked at her drone. "It's a wax-sealed letter."

"So," Carrier said, "what did it say?"

"Nothing I can make sense of. The letter is coherent in parts, together it doesn't make any sense."

Black crows and ravens and smaller brown birds gathered around one of the overturned carts. The dragon had left behind crates of dried fruits and vegetables for the animals to eat. It seemed everything but ponies benefitted from the chaos.

The Marblestop District, even in the day, glowed as they approached it. The caementine made from Riverfork's sand and soil was not pure white as the original recipe, it had a range of colours from eggshell to sandstone yellow. Rather than contrasting, the walls of their houses and markets seemed to blend with their fired clay roof tiles. It seemed like their new village had risen naturally from the earth itself.

The temple of the spirit Phoenix was the tallest building in the district, as expected of Marblestop custom. Disguised as one of Marina's apprentice smiths, Carrier followed Mezza Forte up until they reached the market. He was here to buy rare ingredients Marina needed to make a dragon-killing weapon, and from the market, he could keep a nose out for Tenacity or her drones.

Mezza let him go, taking herself into the temple of the Phoenix. It didn't have the same eye-catching charm, no intricate paintings on the wall, no glazed clay tiles that shined like water and glass, just caementine bricks. But the music was every bit as good as she remembered.

Twelve voices harmonized in a chant that Halfwing couldn't understand. The words were old, a language no longer spoken outside of their slow hymns to the guardian spirits. Even with dragon fire raining down around their district, Marblestop ponies seemed unfazed.

She was surprised. These were not slaves, they were masters of trade and building and mining and smithing, rich and skilled enough to buy and own the lives of their fellow citizens. She would've thought that a dragon would be the scariest thing for ponies like them. They sat upon wealth no different than the dragon that threatened them.

Mezza waited about an hour to let the chanters finish. Marblestop's caementine streets and walls left little that could be burned by the dragon, and under the roof of the Phoenix, she felt safe.

As the chanters divided up and returned to whatever lives chanters lived outside of the temple, Mezza noticed a tall and slender mare walking over to her.

"Are you well, dear?" she asked in a voice as smooth and powerful as liquid gold. "I make it a point to know the ponies who come into this temple. You're not from Marblestop, are you?"

Mezza found her legs weak under her presence, and she had to wet her lips before she could reply.

"No, I'm a student from Rangefield Academy," she answered. "I was buying a book from an associate of yours when he asked me to bring a letter for Espera Voxa."

"That would be me," she said.

Mezza quickly fumbled through her robes and levitated the sealed letter. Voxa held it in her hoof and inspected the wax.

"This seal is deformed," she said, eyeing Mezza.

She gulped but stood her ground. "I had to walk here, and the ashes of the countryside are still pretty hot, ma'am. I thought that would happen, but I tried my best to get here quickly."

Something puzzled Halfwing. Voxa had neither the scent of a pony convinced by a lie nor one who was suspicious. In fact, the only scent she had on her was a soft olive fragrance, the kind Marblestop ponies used in baths. That alone wasn't enough to put a veil over her emotions, especially at this range. But, as hard as she tried to focus, Voxa simply didn't have a scent.

"Damned dragon," Voxa swore under her breath. "Well, these things happen. Must be a pretty expensive book, if this is what you have to do to get it."

"It has a lot of cultural importance, which is what I'm here to study," she said.

"Well then, I should give you something so he knows you've brought it to me," said Voxa, patting around her robe. "Wouldn't want a slow messenger to stop you from getting your book, now do we? Ah ha!"

She produced a thin copper tube decorated with tight but rotatable gold rings around it. "He'll know what to do with this," she told her.

Mezza took the strange item and thanked her. She left reluctantly, still wanting to bask in the presence of a mare like the Espera, but there was nothing else they had to talk about. And, the longer she waited, the more likely it was that the dragon would return. Mezza trotted out the front door and went to rejoin with her captain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flip. Flip.

A long pause and then...

Flip.

Marina had provided a room for Halfwing and her captain while her other drones hunted among the ponies, but even just for the two of them, the apprentice's room was cosy. Carrier laid on the bed, bundled up in blankets, as Halfwing rocked back on forth in her reading chair.

Sir Grain and the Green Dragon

She read the story out loud. As old as she was, reading long passages of pony writing was still new to her. The quietest she could manage was mouthing the words under her breath.

In a village amidst the lonely mountain, a council was called on the seventh day of the seventh week of winter, discussing plans for the next years harvest. Trees of cones and candles of blaze brightened the streets as knights from all ponies gathered.

Sir Grain, a knight from the Earth Ponies, was the first of his kind at such meeting and much respect had he still to earn. But cold winds swept through the windows fast, beating roars from wings as wide as open plains and just as green. An emerald dragon who proclaimed himself a lord perched on top of the meeting hall and slithered his brilliant head into the door.

He offered a challenge: the knight who could pierce his scale would be rewarded with a mountain of emeralds from his personal hoard. But if the challenger failed, the dragon would be free to test the knight's armour with his teeth. All the knights, courteous and brave, claimed they would do it, but didn't want to take the glory from any pony, if another knight desired the challenge more. Only Sir Grain took the dragon's wager unabashedly.

"Sir Grain sounds like he was an idiot," Carrier said, sampling a bite of the cheese Halfwing had bought with the spare change she had left.

"Well the old stallion's notes at the beginning said it's a story of triumph, so he must have defeated the dragon somehow," Halfwing told him and flipped the page. "Also, go easy on the cheese. We're out of money so it's not like I can buy more."

"But it's strangely good," her captain stared at the piece he had taken, perplexed.

"I know, it's so strange," Halfwing agreed. "The magic aftertaste is what I really like." She returned to the story.

"No hide is too thick for a spear as sharp as mine," spoke the knight so proudly. The dragon obliged, lowering his head. Clutched in his hooves the spear went, but the iron's sharpness was truly spent. It flew and flung pieces all ways, scattered, battered, broken it lay.

"Knew it," commented Carrier. Halfwing ignored him, carrying on.

"I'll bite you now, you should agree, but not so cruel am I, to deny you your family. Rejoin them now and after harvest, find me waiting in the mountain farthest.

"Hold on, is it rhyming all of a sudden?" Carrier got out of the bed and leaned on the chair, reading the page. "I guess ponies change writing styles as often as we change bodies."

Halfwing flipped back to the front and read again the preface to the story. "The book pony wrote that this story had multiple authors. He combined their writing styles as a way to catch all the different versions." She returned to her page and continued to read.

It went on about his family and happiness for a few pages, then she read the five about Sir Grain hiking through a forest of orange trees to reach the mountain, then she read aloud the storminess of the weather while he scaled up the mountain.

"A dragon shows up in one page but a hike takes five?" Halfwing exclaimed to herself.

"It's really vivid imagery, I can feel the wind on my skin," Carrier told her. "You're doing great Princess, reading much quicker."

"That compliment sounded too good to not be sarcastic," she replied. "Are you making fun of me?"

Her captain looked down bashfully, his magic suddenly turning to the scent of confusion. "No, I don't think I can make fun of you, Princess."

Halfwing stared, feeling bad for blaming him for his compliment. She knew what hunter-drones were to the hive, weapons for hunting. Clever, thinking weapons, but still weapons nonetheless. But Carrier was not like the captains assigned to them on their first hunt. He was young, a hunter-drone born at the same time as her and her sisters to serve as their most loyal generation. Carrier was a leader, her family, and a strong pair of wings.

"Carrier, I didn't mean to sound unappreciative," she began to apologize.

"Oh no, Princess, I don't need your explanation," he suddenly said, unsure of what to do with his princess becoming sympathetic toward him. "I'm quite alright." As quickly as his confusion came it faded, replaced with the same simple pleasure of serving the royal daughter he had been assigned to.

Halfwing couldn't shake the sense of loneliness that somehow brought. Ponies, even Septarian, happily disagreed with her and offered different perspectives. Being the centre of attention for her drones, suddenly, made her feel very, very lonely. Halfwing shifted her mind off of herself and back to the book.

Bound by honour as a knight Grain climbed the mountain and took a right, into the cave atop the highest mountaintop. Withered, tired, no food to spare, he only had the deadly dare, and with more might than you or me he looked upon the dragon, green.

"I see you have come, not late, to the challenge which has sealed your fate." With jaws so strong and fangs that pointed, as deadly as a snake with venom anointed, the dragon bit hard and metal bent, though flying back the dragon went. "Arg, you fiend, you've bested my dare, you've brought sneeze pollen to a dragon's lair!"

Mezz furrowed her brow. "Sneeze pollen?"

The dragon, harmed by the flowering trees that Grain had taken such time to pass, exposed the soft joints under his arm. With his spear, Grain did aim true and dealt the death blow to the dragon's heart.

"Hm," she grumbled, "I'm starting to miss the rhyming now."

"Princess, do you think that will work?" Carrier studied the pictures opposite the text. "If the artist's depiction is right, I've seen those flowers before at the markets by the river. Ponies like to use it to decorate their homes."

"Flowers with dragon sneezing pollen? That explains why Riverfork is still standing with a dragon as its new neighbour."

"I'll have the drones replace the merchants who sell them," Carrier suggested. "We'll be able to get all the flowers you need to kill the dragon."

Kill a dragon, Halfwing thought. A flying, fire-spewing weapon of unparalleled natural destruction. A living forest fire, able to go anywhere and do anything. No Changeling had ever killed a dragon, which was why not even older captains knew how to transform into them. Halfwing smirked. Hopefully for her, that was about to change.

Comments

[Mysterious Wind]

Dark yet beautiful