//------------------------------// // Setting a bitch straight // Story: Dogged Determination // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// The big dragon was sitting on his haunches too, but Conifer remained upon his hooves. An open book waved one page in the wind as if inviting someone to come over and have a read. It was pleasant, a welcome, wonderful change for Shēdo, who was quite enjoying it. The dragon gave off the pleasing scent of rotten eggs and woodsmoke with each breath it drew. “If you help me, I will give you something very dear to me,” Chromium offered. “I shall give you my zebra.” “What?” Shēdo’s eyes first went wide, then narrowed. It seemed the peace was not meant to last. “Say again?” “My zebra,” the dragon repeated. “I will give you Conifer if you fetch for me my seeing stone.” “Now you die.” With Shēdo’s announcement, she stood up, and one paw came to rest upon Limey’s grip. “I kill you dead, somehow. That head is coming off.” “Wait!” Chromium said, sounding excited, and justifiably so after the threat of decapitation. With her paw on her sword, Shēdo waited, though she was not sure why. She remained in a low, ready crouch, not much caring that the dragon could end her in a single, fiery belch. An unsettling feeling of hatred bubbled up inside of her, it was like bad meat trapped in the bowels doing whatever it was that bad meat did to cause a hasty exit. “You would fight me because of my ownership of Conifer?” Chromium asked. “Yes.” Shēdo’s voice was little more than a hiss. “Pay attention, Conifer, there is a lesson to be learned here.” Leaning his head down, Chromium placed his armored, metallic snout next to Shēdo. “You are very brave, Shēdo. Let us do battle, but not with sword and claw. Let us discuss this rationally, shall we? I challenge thee to moral combat!” Was this a fight? Shēdo didn’t know how to respond, how to answer. She could strike right now, the dragon’s throat was within reach, but that didn’t feel very honourable. Of course, she had never really contemplated honour very much before, but it seemed very important now. Killing the dragon would mean that she would never learn his reasons. Plus, she didn’t like how Conifer was looking at her, something about it bothered her but she couldn’t say what it was. “Conifer is mine. I took him from your kind after I slew them and rightfully claimed their possessions. I named him ‘Conifer’ because valuable, living breathing possessions must be named. I fed him, I cleaned up after him, and I brushed him. His outward appearance is a reflection of the pride I take in him as one of my treasures. I taught him how to read, how to think, I taught him reason, logic, and understanding. All of this reflects upon me as his owner.” Squinting, Shēdo pulled her paw away from her sword and then rubbed her jowls with it. “When my seeing stone was being stolen by the thieves in yonder cave, a gemstone of incalculable value, I opted to keep Conifer safe from harm. Due to the choice I made, the thieves escaped with my seeing stone as a result of this. Who are you, little dog, to tell me that my ownership of Conifer is wrong?” Blinking once, Chromium waited for Shēdo to reply. “It just wrong to own another.” Shēdo was having a hard time making an argument, but she was going to do her best. “Conifer is happy, well cared for, educated by dragon standards, and all of this reflects the pride I take in having him as a possession.” Chromium flexed his massive claws and moved his snout a little closer to Shēdo. “Have I done wrong?” “Yes.” Shēdo couldn’t say why this wrong, but she knew that it was wrong. “Why you give Conifer to me?” “Because, it is time for us to part ways,” Chromium replied. “I would be a very irresponsible owner if I just left him to fend for himself. Conifer has reached the age of sexual maturity for his species… I think. His life is so short and it is hard to tell. I am guessing that he is around ten years of age… a few brief seconds of my life. Your years are so confusing and hard to process. It is amazing that you lot get anything done at all with your lives being so short.” Shēdo blinked in astonishment. “Conifer wishes to continue seeing Equestria and I wish to go home. It would not be safe for Conifer to come home with me. He needs an owner to look after him and keep him safe. Something that will brush him, feed him, protect him, and look after his needs.” “Why you go home?” Shēdo asked, intrigued. “It isn’t safe for me here, in Equestria,” Chromium replied. “Too many of the wrong sorts are tempted by my body. My scales are made from precious silver, steel, white gold, and platinum. I have no desire to harm anyone, nor do I wish to be chopped up and butchered to be somebody’s fortune.” “Hmm.” Still rubbing her jowls, Shēdo was no longer certain of her own position on the issue. Perhaps she had the wrong idea about slavery. Perhaps Dig Dag had made slavery bad, like he made everything else bad. Maybe there was good slavery that she had never heard about, but she had her doubts. It still felt wrong to own another creature. “I will confess, dragons have a very different concept of ‘ownership’ than you other creatures. When we add something to our hoard, a living thing, it is there for boasting purposes, for bragging, it is a means for us to show off our wealth, our real wealth, which is our learning and our knowledge. I have imparted a great deal of my learning, my wealth into Conifer. I am pleased with him as a project. I am proud to put him on display. He is one of my finest achievements, perhaps my greatest achievement. I’ve owned ponies, griffons, and even a diamond dog, whose loyalty knew no bounds.” “Shēdo very confused.” She held out her paw with one diggy-diggy claw extended. “Ownership different than slavery?” “In my opinion, yes,” Chromium replied. “Slaves have no free agency, no say in their care, and are powerless to those who oppress them. Conifer has free agency, he is free to voice his opinions, make complaints, and after much discussion, he and I worked together on the plan to get him a new owner so that he might see Equestria, as is his wont. I want him to be free and happy. I want him to go around boasting, ‘I was educated by Chromium the Dragon.’ What I don’t want is a bunch of savages butchering him for dinner and destroying all of my hard work. As his owner, I have a right to protect my investment, and transfer my ownership and interest to another.” “But why Shēdo?” “Well, to start,” Chromium replied, “you were willing to draw steel against a dragon to enforce what you think is right. You watched and waited in a tree to study me, rather than just come charging in an assuming that I was the one responsible for what those poor ponies lost. As a diamond dog, you haven’t lost your shine… there is still honour about you, and I trust in that honour because of previous experience with one of my possessions.” Whimpering a bit, Shēdo had trouble making words happen. “I… I… I am… confused.” She felt a rising shudder in her girth and her hind legs felt too weak so she sat down, mindful to not sit on her tail. “Nothing makes sense. Right and wrong all upside down and wonky. What do?” “I suppose this means I won,” Chromium said, and the dragon didn’t sound all that happy about his victory. Reaching down, he gave Shēdo a pat on the back. “There there… had I any interest in staying, I think I would take you into my hoard. You would make a very fine possession.” “That no make sense.” Shēdo tilted her head back and looked up at the dragon. “You say you trust in Shēdo, but you take Conifer from bad diamond dogs. I cannot understand.” Sitting on the soft loam, she tried to make her mind work, she tried to recall all Minori’s lessons, and cursed the fact that she had not sat still, had not paid attention, and had not pushed herself harder like Long Ears and Kabuki. Not only was Shēdo worried about her status as a good dog, she now worried if she was a dumb dog. Dig Dag was both bad and dumb, a big mean stupid head. There was too much inside of her own head. She still hadn’t howled for those she had lost and her grief was heavy upon her heart. None of this made sense. She felt the dragon patting her on the back with one enormous claw and Conifer was now sitting beside her, studying her face, which she found annoying. “Behold, Conifer, the struggle of being a good dog in a land terrified of canine-kind.” The dragon’s voice was a comforting, smouldering rumble. “This is why we assume that a creature is good, until they give us sufficient evidence that they are not. Do you understand, Conifer?” The zebra colt nodded. “Yes, Chromium, I understand.” “Elucidate,” Chromium demanded. Put on the spot, the zebra colt just sat there, staring at Shēdo, and his face contorted with concentration. He looked up at the dragon, then back at Shēdo. “I understand it, but I’m having trouble expressing it. She’s a diamond dog, so it is safe to make certain, reasonable assumptions, made in the interest of one’s own safety, but it is not really fair to do, because the factors that I use to make those assumptions are based upon how diamond dogs are viewed as a whole group, and not the individual…” The colt’s words trailed off and a pained expression crossed his face. Reaching out, he touched Shēdo with a hoof. “Continue. Now.” Looking up at Chromium, Conifer appeared as though he had a bad taste in his mouth. “The assumptions are valid though, or valid enough, given my own circumstances and how I came to be in your care. I was a slave to the diamond dogs. But having given Shēdo a chance to express herself, to get to know her, I guess we are left with a conundrum of safety versus self-enrichment. I could be safe and assume that as a diamond dog, she is dangerous, or, I could assume that she is good, put my potential safety at risk, and be rewarded… is that right?” “Right enough,” Chromium replied, waving his claws at Conifer. “Now Shēdo very confused.” Leaning into the dragon’s claw, she tried to get it to rub in the right places. She was worried, Limey was quiet, too quiet, and this bothered her. “Shēdo faces this same conundrum, I think,” Conifer added, and he looked the diamond dog in the eye for a moment before turning away to look at the ground. “I think she assumed that all forms of ownership were wrong, perhaps because of her own experiences, given how diamond dogs like to take slaves and abuse them. She faces the same conflict that I do, but she is on the other side of it. Chromium, I do not know how I feel about having a diamond dog owner again.” “Thanks in part to serendipitous circumstances, it is my final lesson to you.” Chromium smiled, and he scratched Shēdo’s back. “Of course, there is still the issue of retrieving my seeing stone and dealing with those horrendous creatures in the cave before she takes possession of you…” A warrior’s measure is in their confidence, and I fear Shēdo’s confidence is shaken. All that mumbo-jumbo being spouted by that self righteous twit of a silver dragon. All that talk of safety versus self-enrichment. He’s the one leaving Equestria to save his own precious, silver scales. He’s a coward, plain and simple. Even worse, his words have shaken Shēdo’s confidence and there is something awful in that cave. I can’t tell what it is, but I can sense it. Some very big rats await us in the cellar, so to speak. It’s going to take me forever to set Shēdo’s thinking straight, to make her thinking right. There is no right or wrong, there is only what you make right and force others to believe. Just like those insufferable, self-righteous alicorns and their morals. Sure, life is great if you share their morals, but if you don’t, expect banishment. Or to be cast into a sword. That big, dopey silver dragon can afford to be self-righteous and smarmy, he’s a silver dragon! Why, they’re practically alicorns unto themselves… yes, yes the silver and golden dragons are the smarmy, loquacious alicorns of dragonkind, always telling others what to do, how to think, and what right and wrong is, then enforcing it with unspeakable brutality! Ugh! And poor Shēdo ran afoul of one of those wretched beasts before I had the chance to properly fortify her mind. Now, she’s all confused with this talk of morality. The last thing we need is a moral Warlord. What we need is the chaos of war, the driving force for change. And maybe a little friendship—GAH! What am I saying? What did that snotty little filly do to me? Still, it might be nice to have a zebra around. Shēdo needs a pack mule and if worst comes to worst, we can sell him or trade him for things we might need. That is, if we don’t just take what we need from the weak. We are the Warlord, after all. Conifer can be our minion, I suppose, for a time. Perhaps he can be exploited somehow.