//------------------------------//
// MD-N-HVN 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
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It was raining. Hard. The grass in the fields bent under the weight of the pouring water, and the frantic drumming sound as each drop hit the ground was impossible to ignore. 
Weather, after the Behemoth's arrival and especially near the Everfree Forest, had grown to be a bit unstable. Pegasi could still control it, of course, but something had changed. Things didn't exactly respond they way they had used to, and particularly in the first months it had taken a while before they'd finally gotten the hang of things again.
Not that anyone was particularly to blame for that specific storm. It looked like it was natural, or at least as natural as anything coming from the Everfree could be, and had simply wandered out there on its own. That might have been a problem had it gone towards Ponyville, but it had instead headed towards a mostly empty strip of land.
Lyra didn't particularly mind the rain. Not when it wasn't hitting her, at least, and thankfully enough she'd found shelter. A small, somewhat worn-out wooden shed in the middle of the fields, the door unlocked and the inside well isolated. No water falling in, nor creeping up from the ground or sides, not too cold and not at all dirty. It was clearly still used and cleaned from time to time, but she had doubts the owner would object to her staying in it for a while. There was nothing there one could steal, anyway.
It was almost empty. A single room with windows on two sides, a pavement built out of bricks and a bench built into the wall opposite of the entrance. Nails on the walls and hooks on the ceiling were clearly there to hang tools or other things, but it appeared nothing was actually being kept there for the time being, likely explaining why it was left unlocked.
Almost empty. The first other thing in the room was a large bag of seeds in a corner. Different kinds mixed together, some of the larger ones broken, all of them dry. Going by the faded decal on the side of the bag, it was probably bird food. After giving it a look, Lyra had assumed the owner of the shed used it for birdwatching during autumn. It was a good explanation for why the place seemed to be regularly used even when no one would be working there.
The second other thing in the room wasn't really a thing. It was more like a creature. In fact it probably was a creature. Lying on the bench at the end of the room, its back turned towards the door. A long, black body with hints of green around the torso, translucent wings resting over it partly hidden by a tattered dark blue mane that was matched by a tail on the other end, and visible holes near the hooves.
It was also sleeping. Or pretending to sleep, but Lyra had no intention of finding out which one of the two it was. She just stood near the door, watching the rain pour down outside and waiting for it to end so she could leave.