A Timberwolf For Forrester

by Schattendrache

The Story of the Black Pack

The Blighted Wastes was a location deep in the unclaimed lands far to the southwest of what was known as Equestria. It was a sun-scorched and mesa strewn Tartarus-scape of a desert with such immense natural danger that to most, it made the Badlands that bordered Equestria look like a day at the spa. The only things living that could be seen in this part of the world were the few plants too stubborn to die and the few animals that had the misfortune to have ancestors that refused to leave when the territory experienced its worst catastrophe.

Becoming the largest territory of feral dragons.

On Equis, dragons can widely be considered to fall into two species; Equestrian dragons and feral dragons, though the moniker of “feral” is quite misleading. In actuality, feral dragons are simply quadrupedal dragons that lack the ability to speak Ponish, tend to live individually, and lacked the presence of a “dragon lord”. While many think that such differences make these dragons less intelligent and would simply think of them as mindless killers, they would be terribly wrong. While feral dragons are indeed more physically capable than their equestrian counterparts, they do possess the capacity to communicate with each other using a simple language of growls and physical movements.

The territory was originally just another desert, with many mammals, reptiles, and birds that were all well adapted to the heat and lack of water. There was even a population of tatzlwurms and amphisbaena that had migrated there. The issue is, feral dragons sat at the very top of most any food chain. They existed without any natural predators after they entered adulthood, able to hunt and kill whatever they pleased, even other dragons.

When the first feral dragons had arrived the entire ecosystem was upset. Because they were able to hunt anything they pleased, the first few years almost caused the total collapse of the environment. So often, too many prey were killed by the dragons, leading to most of the other predators starving, or too many predators being taken out, causing an explosion of the prey and the subsequent loss of the plant life. Eventually, the animals adapted, reproducing faster and with larger litters.

The problem is, dragons also breed. It happened slowly, but in the six hundred years since the first few dragons made their home here, the population had increased drastically. What started off as a population of ten dragons had become a population of almost seven hundred, and due to feral dragons’ tendency for cannibalism, the numbers were unlikely to go any higher. While over two of the three million square kilometers of the desert were the small territories of young feral dragons, older feral dragons tended to have territories large enough to be their own nations.

One such feral dragon to live in this barren desert is Senthorix, the only feral shadow dragon to be born. The reason for his uniqueness was due to the actions of one Sombra, imbuing the essence of darkness into the egg of a feral dragon. He had done this in an attempt to create a being of immense power, so great in fact that it would be able to best Celestia and Luna when he would inevitably send it after them. And to an extent, he had succeeded, but not before the sisters could confront him before banishing him into the northern glaciers, all before he had a chance to hatch.

But that is a story best saved for another day.

Today, Senthorix was resting near the back of a shallow cave, doing his best to hide his body and eyes from the harsh and oppressive rays of the sun until the night came and he could hunt. While many creatures of the Blighted Wastes were nocturnal to avoid the scorching heat the sun brought during the day, Senthorix was nocturnal by necessity. His scales were a deep black, almost perfectly resembling obsidian in their color and luster. Additionally, being magically imbued with such a great deal of pure darkness while he was still developing in the egg had caused both his body to grow significantly larger than a normal feral dragon and his need to warm himself in the sun to properly function to be eliminated.

Being larger than usual and covered in black scales, he had learned early on that he would take on heat far faster than a dragon should. Added on to this, the magic that had been used on him as an egg had lowered the temperature his body needed to be at to properly function by a considerable amount. While this came with the advantage of being able to hunt and fight far better at night and in cold weather, it came with the drawback of if he were to stay in the sun for more than a few hours, depending on the ambient temperature, he would overheat and die.

Those reasons were why he was currently huddled in the back of a shallow cave in the middle of the day. He actually had his own cave not too far from here that was far deeper, allowing him to comfortably sleep without risking overheating, but he had stayed out too long last night. He had found out that another dragon had moved into his territory and that was something he could not permit. He left his den last night and attempted to hunt the dragon down, attempted being the operative word.

He had left his den as soon as the sun had dropped below the horizon but hadn’t tracked down the intruding dragon until the night was almost finished. When he found the sleeping dragon, he discovered it was a fledgling, not even large enough to pose a risk to him if they were to fight. Among feral dragons, the only language that really mattered, the only way to earn respect, was though shows of force. If he were to permit this newcomer to invade his territory without repercussion, it would be a sign of weakness. If he were to show up and use his size to intimidate the fledgling and just ask it to leave, he knew he would have to deal with larger dragons attempting to take his territory as he had displayed that he was hesitant to use violence. And he was more than willing to show this juvenile how violent he could be.

He had released a massive roar, challenging the fledgling, when he felt he had closed enough distance between them. He saw the fledgling immediately wake up from the loud noise before shrinking back in fear at his threat upon seeing him, taking to the air to run from him shortly after. While he was still over two kilometers away from the intruder the fact that he was far bigger than the other dragon and closing the distance quite quickly was all the motivation the youngling needed to clear out. Unfortunately for the young dragon, Senthorix needed to hunt him to prove that this was his territory and to make an example for other dragons that tried to take what was his.

Senthorix closed the distance and opened his jaws, preparing for when he reached the fledgling, to end the chase quickly by biting down on its neck. He had every intention of killing the other dragon, he had learned over his life the ideal way too. If he could do that, then he would be able to make it back to his cave before the sun crested the horizon. However, just as he had reached the dragon and was about to attack, the other dragon dove down.

Senthorix mentally kicked himself for forgetting that what fledglings lacked in power, speed, and experience, they made up for in maneuverability. While he could best this dragon at combat or in a race, his size prevented him from being able to outmaneuver the smaller dragon. Looking down he could see that the dragon was now only a few meters off the ground and headed north-west. He would prefer to just let the dragon fly off but he knew that if he did that he would be forfeiting several kilometers of territory, so he had to chase.

Shifting his weight and position of his wings he banked right and decreased his altitude. He knew he couldn’t attempt another attack like last time because if he were to miss again there was a high likelihood that he would end up crashing into the ground. It was better to wait for the other dragon to try to gain some altitude than to risk hurting himself and losing his challenge in the eyes of the other dragons. If he lost this challenge, he wouldn’t just lose a portion of his territory, he would lose it all.

Coming up behind the dragon he let out another roar, this time one of dominance. Both of them knew this was his territory and now all that was left was the formality of removing the other dragon from it. Strangely, after he had released his roar, the other dragon made a hard turn to the left, pointing it due south, away from the closest border and deeper into his territory. Senthorix growled in appreciation of this development. This fledgling was still too young to have properly learned that when you were being chased from a territory, you must never change your direction too drastically. He loved it when he could torment his prey for hours as he hunted them. It looks like he would be able to indulge in that entertainment tonight.

The next few hours were spent hounding this youngling, trying to keep it from going in a single direction. He eventually figured out that if he were to spray his fire in the direction that the fledgling was thinking about going he could corral it into reversing its direction. They were heading east, and the sun was about to crest the horizon. He could tell that his internal temperature was nearing its healthy limit after having to chase something for this long. What was worse was that the youngling was about at its limit. Its movements had become sloppier, and it had slowed down considerably, making it so that even when he flew as slow as he could, he was still causing the young dragon to exert itself to stay ahead of him.

Suddenly, he found himself flying directly into the first light of the day and his body began to warm up. Senthorix raised the defensive scales he had on his back in an attempt to bleed off some heat, but he knew that was only a temporary fix. He had entertained himself for too long and had lost track of time. If he kept with the pursuit, he would likely overheat on his way back to his den. He needed to make a snap decision.

Ultimately, he chose to end the chase now, but not without sending one last blast of fire at the juvenile, and headed back to his den as fast as he could. While the decision might cost him some territory it was possible that no other dragon would capitalize on his choice to not continue the chase to his true borders. Besides, the possible consequences were nothing when compared to death.

The only problem now was making it back to his den before the heat got to him. He could already feel his body heating up as he flew. Because his temperature had already been elevated from the chase, he could tell he probably wouldn’t be able to make it to his den in time. He began to frantically look around for somewhere he could go to hide from the sun. After almost an hour, he finally found what looked to be a south facing cave along the base of one of the many mesas and pushed himself to fly as fast as possible towards its entrance.

He barely gave himself enough time to slow his decent before he landed on the hard earth, causing a minor tremor in the surrounding dirt. He looked into the cave and his heart almost dropped. While the cave was deep enough to stop the sun from touching most of it, he would need to cram himself along the back to avoid the light of the sun from coming into contact with him while he slept. The cruel sun, however, had made the choice for him. He had begun to pant, the front of his throat expanding and contracting rapidly to push as much air through it as possible.

He practically dove into the cave before his symptoms could get any worse, hurling himself against the icy walls at the back. He couldn’t help but release a moan of satisfaction as he could feel heat leaving his body. He was still panting, and the defensive scales on his back were still raised to lower his core temperature, but now he could take his mind off his mortal enemy. He would just need to be careful he didn’t accidentally release the chemicals in his mouth he used to breathe fire. The last thing he needed was to start a fire in his lungs.

He waited two hours to finally stop panting. When he did though he slipped into a deep sleep. He remembered the last time this had happened to him, he had been going through puberty and had wanted to prove to his adoptive mother that he could look after himself and didn’t need her help. He had been found three hours later, slipping in and out of consciousness and barely alive, by a pony in the city he had been living in.

He dreamt of the old days, back before he had run away from his adoptive mother, before he had claimed this territory as his own. He hated those days. His mother never understood him, always viewing him as the product of Sombra and Nightmare Moon and not as his own dragon. It didn’t help that she was also a pony. She never made him feel comfortable for being himself around her, she would never let him indulge in his instincts and he never felt comfortable eating meat around her. Her insistence on teaching him the value of friendship never failed to sicken him either.

He was in the middle of reliving one those terrible memories when some infernal noise roused him from his slumber. Cracking his left eye open he could see that he had only been asleep for a couple of hours as the sun was still very much in the sky, but was now well on its way to dropping below the western horizon. However, the thing that really drew his eye were the three animals that were either playing or fighting at the mouth of the cave.

Looking at them he recognized that each of them was a member of that strange race of dogs that were entirely composed of trees. He had seen them before in his territory but had never seen fit to learn more about them as they were small and didn’t pose a threat to him and he was fairly certain he couldn’t eat them. As he watched them he saw that it wasn’t just the three, as two more had joined them at the mouth of the cave, each of them being about the same size.

Suddenly, one of the strange dogs broke away from the others and ran straight towards him. He watched as one after another the dogs quit going after each other and instead opted to chase after the one that had broken away. They eventually caught up to the dog they were chasing, and they resumed the action he now realized was play behavior, not but a few meters from him. As he watched them play, he couldn’t help but think that these dogs that had come into his cave were in all likelihood not even adolescents. Not only that, but by the looks of it, none of the pups looked to be larger than one of the digits on his claws. He knew he was large, being over sixty meters long and twenty meters tall, but he had to admit the size of these wooden dogs was almost certainly due to them being juveniles. He figured that their parents would be around shortly to usher them to their den. Besides, the longer it took the parents to arrive the more he would get to observe these strange creatures made of wood.

Looking at the playing dogs he was noticing that the pieces of wood that made up their bodies were quite different from any wood he had ever seen. The wood of their torsos looked similar to the scales of dragons or other such creatures while their legs, heads, and tails all looked to be made of a more common wood as they were a brown, almost red, color.

Eventually one of the pups chased one of its siblings right into the side of his tail near its tip. The two pups then began to wrestle with each other, colliding with his tail occasionally. Watching them play around was reminding Senthorix of when he was still a hatchling and went hunting. Granted, he had only ever fought another animal with the intention of killing it, but the tactics that the pups were using reminded him of his own inexperience when he was still a hatchling.

Remembering those days Senthorix unconsciously flicked the tip of his tail. This slight action was all it took for the pups that had been playing around it to actually notice that the large black object they had been ramming into wasn't just another part of the cave, but something living. As soon as they saw this, their first thoughts must have been to hunt whatever had just moved because they immediately began to pounce on his tail and bite it.

Senthorix wasn't too worried about them attacking his tail. Even if he didn't have scales he highly doubted that the pups had enough jaw strength to actually damage him. It wasn't even that he could feel it, as he had realized fairly early in life that the only sense of touch he had was on his wings. But the fact they were trying to attack him was starting to get on his nerves. It was mostly out of pride that he wanted them to stop, as he found it to be an insult for anything to attack him. While he would usually consider killing anything that would dare try to attack him, his upbringing had somewhat instilled in him a personal code to not attack and kill something that wasn’t even old enough to mate. So he decided to try his best to dissuade them from continuing their attack.

When one of the pups had bit down on the end of his tail and the other one had decided to try to bite onto one of his scales he flicked his tail as gently as he could to toss them away. When the pups recovered from being tossed from his tail they began barking and coming back to continue their attack. The barking alerted the other pups to his presence and in no time the end of his tail was being assaulted by five of the pups.

Time after time, he would end up flicking his tail and tossing several of the pups away from himself, only to watch as they leapt back up and went right back to biting and scratching at his tail. He was debating with himself whether these pups were simply too dumb to realize they wouldn’t be able to hurt him, if they were just too persistent for their own good, or if they thought that this was just another game. Eventually, he decided to just stop moving his tail, it obviously wasn't having any effect on them. This resulted in the pups all glomping onto the end of it and doing their best to most likely kill it.

The pups went after his unmoving tail for several minutes before either out of boredom, the realisation of how useless their attacks were, or from thinking they had killed it, they began to play amongst themselves again in the middle of the cave. He watched them play for some time, eventually seeing them all wind down as they collapsed onto the floor of the cave, panting. It was after he saw the last of the pups drop to the ground panting and curl up next to its kin that he realized these pups might have lost their parents. It was the only reason he could think of as to why an animal that he figured was quite social to not have its parents around.

In all likelihood, the pups’ parents had been killed, by what he couldn’t be sure, and in their confusion, the pups had wandered off and away from their den. He felt sympathy for the orphaned pups; he knew better than most animals how harsh these lands could be. He was confident that if he were to let these pups leave the cave and continue on their way, they would surely be killed themselves or die of starvation or dehydration. They were much too small and young to make it in the desert by themselves. While he would have usually felt some enjoyment in watching the plight of others, the decades he had spent with his adoptive mother had rubbed off on him a little.

Knowing this, Senthorix figured that the best thing he could do to was to prevent them from experiencing a cruel fate… was to kill them. He knew it was cruel, but allowing them to leave only for them to slowly wither away as they watched each other perish seemed like a much crueler fate. Ever so slowly so as not to wake the pups, he shifted his neck and head until he was looking over the group of pups. He then opened his jaws and prepared the muscles that surrounded the glands that held the fluids that allowed him to breathe his fire. He was ready to burn these pups to ashes by maintaining his flame as long as it took to finish the job.

Only, no fluids came forth from his mouth to engulf the wooden pups in dragon fire.

Senthorix had frozen. Looking at these pups he couldn’t help but see himself in them. They were all orphans, like him. When he had hatched, many ponies had wished for his death, saying that Nightmare Moon had corrupted him and that even if she hadn’t, he was still a dragon and couldn’t be trusted to not hunt them. For all her faults, if his adoptive mother had not stood up for him he feared he would not be here right now making this decision.

He slowly shook his head in an attempt to clear out his thoughts. He was a killer, he had never hesitated to kill another animal once he had decided on it. He had only ever failed to kill two creatures in his life, a phoenix, and a pegasus, and he would have killed the pegasus if he wouldn't have been caught. So why was it that he hesitated to kill these pups? He knew that they would surely die if they were left on their own, if he were to kill them now he would be giving them mercy.

He decided to try again, this time inhaling the same way he always did when he used his fire against a creature when he hunted. This way, he was confident he would engulf them in flames simply out of habit. After finishing his inhalation he closed his third eyelid in preparation for the fire to come…. only for nothing to happen. His lungs refused to release the air he taken in and it felt as if he had lost control of a portion of his throat.

Why had he hesitated again? Did he actually want these dogs to suffer? Granted, they had attacked him, but he couldn't see why they would deserve such a fate, they barely seemed like they even understood the concept of combat.

He closed his jaws and eyes and pulled back from the pups. He couldn’t bring himself to kill the pups, despite the fate that would in all likelihood befall them. Why was he so hesitant to kill them? What other options were there to try to stop these pups from ending up as just more corpses in the desert?

All of these thoughts were swirling around in his head as one of the pups began to wake up after hearing the noise he had made by moving around. When its eyes, or what he assumed were its eyes, opened it was staring directly at him. Without the distraction of its siblings trying to play with it, the pup was able to take in that what it and its siblings had been playing with was more than a large black tube. It stared at him while he stared back.

He carefully lowered his head onto the ground, making sure he lowered his head right so he didn’t put too much weight on the scales that formed a sort of beard on him. He needed to sort through his thoughts on these dogs and continuing to watch them seemed to be the best way to do that. It wasn’t too long after he had lowered his head and neck to the ground that the pup barked at him and ran over its siblings to get to him. By doing this, the pup had woken its siblings and the entire little pack was now realizing they weren’t alone in the cave.

Other than the pup that had woken up first, none of the pups were attempting to get closer to him. The one that was though had just reached his neck and was now smelling him. It didn’t take long though for the pups to figure out that he was not a threat to them after seeing their sibling examine him without issue. One after another, the rest of the pups began to run up to him and try to figure out just what he was.

The first pup was still examining his neck and had recently jumped onto the side of it to try to sniff at the higher parts of his neck. Another pup was examining his left wing, most likely trying to figure out what it was exactly. He didn’t know why but he slowly extended the wing to give the pup better access to examining it, only for the pup to bite down on the membrane of his wing when it had cleared his torso. While the bite wasn’t too hard, and he did have scales on them that gave him some protection, his wings were very sensitive, so the bite stung like all Tartarus. He would have bitten the pup back for what it had done but he knew the pup didn’t know any better, so he was willing to let it slide. He just wished it would just let go though and not keep gnawing on it like he was a damn piece of meat.

Two of the pups had worked their way back to his vent, trying to figure out what they were smelling back there. It was rather strange to have these pups sniffing at his ass and genitals. But, due to the scent glands he had back there, he could hardly blame their curiosity. The final pup had worked itself to his muzzle and was sniffing at his mouth, every now and then licking his lips, most likely having found some dried blood he hadn’t fully cleaned off. At least now he knew what they ate.

When the pup reached the front of his muzzle, it seemed to take a keen interest in his heat pits. Perhaps it thought that he had multiple nostrils. He was treated to the strange sensation of feeling something touching his heat pits that he couldn’t actually sense with them. The strange sensation was starting to make him feel like he needed to sneeze but it wasn’t too strong yet. It wasn’t until the pup had moved over to his actual nostrils that things got bad.

The pup had decided to jump at the outside of his nostril and begin licking at it. This normally wouldn’t be a concern, but after having his heat pits stimulated he couldn’t help but need to sneeze. He didn’t want to send the pup on his muzzle flying so he carefully lifted his head away from it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t used to holding in a sneeze, nor at catering to the presence of others. So almost immediately after he had lifted his head away from the ground he instinctively pointed it back down, opened his mouth, and sneezed, accidentally releasing a fine mist of the chemicals responsible for his fire.

The aerosolized chemicals quickly mixed in the air in front of his muzzle, and combined with the force of the sneeze, created a fiery explosion. This wasn’t an issue for him as this had happened before, and even though he disliked the heat, it didn’t pose a threat to him. This wasn’t the case for the pup. The sneeze had coated it in in a fine layer of his chemicals that quickly ignited, and with the help of the air he had expelled, sent the pup flying away from him as a ball of fire.

When he saw the pup fly several meters away from him, burning, through his third eyelid he felt an emotion he never thought he would ever feel: sorrow. In all his life he had never felt any attachment to another living thing, mostly viewing them as either food or entertainment. But after watching these wooden dogs play and seeing how innocent they were something inside him just… clicked.

Laying his head and neck back down, this time pointing his head away from the corpse of the pup he had killed, he closed his eyes and felt tears begin to form. Seven hundred forty-eight years, seven hundred forty-eight years he had not shed a single tear. Seven hundred forty-eight years he felt nothing when he killed another animal other than joy. Seven hundred forty-eight years, and he could honestly say there wasn’t a single living thing he had come to care about other than himself. And in less than an hour, he had become invested in these pups’ wellbeing.

Eventually, he began to feel several paws jump against his muzzle and could hear them barking. He was halfway tempted to open his eyes to see what the pups were doing. But he couldn’t bring himself to look at them just yet, not after what he had done. Instead, he opted to just keep his eyes closed and keep track of what they were doing to his muzzle.

He could sense two of the pups along the left side of his muzzle, fighting each other to be the one examining that part of his face. Another pup had worked itself onto his foreleg and was trying to use it to climb onto the back of his head. Finally, he could feel two pups sniffing at his the heat pits on his left side again.

Wait!

He opened his left eye and looked at each of the pups. Sure enough, there were five pups, two fighting right below his eye, two examining his heat pits, and at the edge of his vision he could just barely make out the shape of another pup trying to position itself to make an attempt at jumping onto his neck. It eventually tried to make the leap, only for its back legs to slip on his scales and tumble off his foreleg. When it finally got back up, it ran over towards its siblings. Now that it wasn’t at the edge of his field of view he could see that this must be the pup he thought that he had killed, due to its body being significantly darker now with several portions that were actually black.

A well of emotions began to stir in him: surprise, relief, but most of all, joy. He had not accidentally killed one of the pups due to his carelessness, but had instead simply charred them. He happily watched as the pups began playing with each other again, abandoning his muzzle in the process. He lifted his head up and turned it to better face the pups as they played. They tended to chase each other, occasionally ramming into his side in an attempt to get away. He watched the pups play like this until he could tell from the light in the cave that the sun was just barely above the horizon. As he watched the pups play again, and remembering how he had felt when he had thought he had killed one a thought came to his head.

He cared about them.

He didn't know why he did, only that he did. Perhaps it was due to his mother's influence, perhaps due to seeing them as similar to himself, whatever the reason was that he had grown to care about their well being it all culminated in one thought.

He could adopt the five pups and make them his kids.

The idea seemed so simple, but it held its own complications. First off, he knew nothing about caring for a juvenile, let alone one of another species. In the over seven hundred years he had been alive he had yet to sire his own offspring, so the idea of caring for children that weren’t even his own was not the most logical of choices, nor was it something he was looking forward to. The second problem was that he had no idea what these pups needed to eat. If they were like regular dogs, he could just let them eat what he could hunt, but if they had yet to be weaned or couldn’t eat what he could it would create complications. And finally, would they accept him as their new family in the first place?

Eventually the pups ran out of energy again and began collapsing around him. When the last of the pups collapsed, as carefully as he could, he began lifting them up with his jaws and depositing them against his side. When the last of the pups were placed against him he curled his tail and neck around them to form a protective barrier and began to release a satisfied purr as he too began to drift off into sleep. The irony of the situation was not lost on him. Here he was, possibly one of the world’s largest dragon, the embodiment of darkness and cruelty, purring like some overgrown house cat while he held five wooden pups next to his underbelly. Pups that he had almost set on fire due to his negligence. Hopefully, he would be able to control his fire better while he was around them, especially when he slept.

But for now, all that he cared about were the five pups curled up against him as they slept. Right before the massive purring lizard joined what mighty son be his children in the realm of sleep, the barest hint of a content smile crossed over his lips. His first such smile in over seven hundred years.