COLD

by Shadow Spector

Episode 10: Treasure Hunt

“Shh, quiet,” Droll whispered to his backpack.
Jewell was still very young, but Droll knew that he could perfectly understand him. “Quiet” was the most common phrase he told the baby dragon. Even after the yak’s reprimands, Jewell continued to shuffle from within the small backpack. He never got used to traveling around, but Droll believed it was good for the dragon to get out every now and then instead of being kept hidden in his residence for his entire life.
“Yak and dragon nearly there,” Droll continued. “Dragon can get out then.”
Droll continued to march through the streets, coming close to a couple mares that were traveling opposite of him. When the shaking of the backpack began to wiggle more, the brown non-pony tapped the side of the bag, causing the motions to stop for just long enough for the mares to pass by him.
Droll sighed as he turned a corner to a familiar residence. As he marched to the backyard, the cyan head of the dragon peeked out of the top of the backpack, but since the two were out of any populated sections, the yak allowed it. The brown non-pony continued to pass by the outer exterior of the household, looking at the side entrances to see both the decorated sun and moon cutiemarks on the sides. Droll disregarded them though as he walked by so he could get to the main goal of the trip faster.
By the time he was fully in the backyard of the now-abandoned residence, he removed his backpack and set it down on the ground. From grass, he could see the small head of the dragon poke out, moving nothing except his neck, not even his own legs. Droll sighed at this, understanding that it must be that he couldn’t walk yet, so he reached his arms out to lift Jewell out of the bag before placing him down gently on the soft grass.
“Roll around,” Droll began, smiling down at Jewell’s motionless body before his eyes wandered over to the petunias sticking out of the backpack. “Yak must do something.”
After a brief breath, Droll leaned down to grab a hold of the aesthetic scenery, picking it up in great care as to keep it as perfect as the pony he was gifting it to. As a smile spread across his face, he traveled over to the flowerbed in the corner of the yard, gently placing the flowers just on the surface right beside the pink paddleball. It wasn’t long before a genuine smile spread across his face, despite the tragic display in front of him.
Droll took a deep breath to intake the moment. “Happy birthday, Lenia.”
He stopped for a moment to stare at the grave he had buried with his friends a month ago. He remained motionless, imagining what the look on the filly’s face would have been if she had ever gotten a chance to see her birthday gift. After a couple seconds, Droll could feel a teardrop land onto his cheek, but he kept his smile throughout every moment of his visit. This was the highlight of his day.
He wanted to stay there forever since this was the one place where he could still feel close to her, but reality was soon to enter back in his mind when he remembered his responsibilities for the day. After one last glance at the last thing he had of his friend, he turned back to his backpack that was on the ground.
“Time for home, Jewell,” Droll said.
He marched over to his pack that was hovering over the grass to notice the last thing he wanted to see that day: an empty case. 
Instantly, Droll flinched, adjusting his stance to view his every surrounding almost all at once. Somehow Jewell had been removed from the case, but according to the yak, that was impossible. The cyan colored non-pony was not yet able to walk yet, at least that’s what Droll thought. Every time until now, Jewell had needed constant transportation everywhere. 
The yak’s eyes darted every inch of his surroundings. He could feel his eyes beginning to dry out with all the strain. He stampeded across the backyard, checking in each of the little sections of the grass to make sure the little scamp wasn’t just closeby hiding from him. It was only until Droll heard the wagon from the front of the house slow down to a halt that he got an idea on where he might have gone to.
“Darnit!” a voice roared from the front, causing Droll to be on edge.
Without wasting a single second of time, the brown non-pony rushed at his max speed to the front of the property to get a grip on the full situation. His first sight was that of the chariot with a backload of boxes far ahead in the distance. In the middle of the street, Droll could see that a box had fallen out and tipped over onto the ground, and not far from the box whatsoever was the mischievous dragon crawling towards it. Without saying anything, Droll began rushing towards the opened box, but Jewell seemed to take delight in playing with the light blue materials that had dispensed from the wooden container. 
As Droll was just about to reach it, an orange aura glowed around the box as well as every item on the ground near it, including Jewell. Panicked, Droll rushed for the crate as each of the items on the ground along with Jewell were levitated into the box before it closed up. As the box hovered upwards in its orange glow, Droll tackled it, grabbing onto it in midair to pull it towards him. Before he could open it, a huge jerk of force pulled it from his grasp.
“What do you think you’re doing, Yak?” a strict voice asked.
Droll turned his gaze to see the crate with the orange glow hovering just above a gray colored unicorn that was dressed in full armor. In a heartbeat, the brown non-pony recognized him as a community guard, and he quickly realized this would be especially difficult to talk himself out of.
In the heat of the moment, Droll just said the first thing that came to his mind. “Yak need crate.”
“Sure you do,” the unicorn snorted. “And I need a kidney transplant. General Radiance and Leader Nightfall want all of the imports and none can be missing, especially not to a homeless yak.”
The unicorn marched away in disgust as the crate in his magical grasp shook slightly. Droll just knew what Jewell might've been thinking, and he couldn’t just let him go, especially not with the story he had heard when Opul lost someone close to her on her first visit to the palace. Abandonment was not an option to choose for him, so he traveled close behind as the unicorn packed the crate in with the others on the wagon that was connected to a luxurious chariot. As soon as the unicorn got to the front, the chariot took off again with the wagon bound to it.
The yak continued to pursue the vehicle, blending in with whatever creatures he could as he walked down the streets. He was keeping a close eye on the chariot without making it obvious that this was what he was setting his sights on. Throughout every bit of the journey, Droll was completely attentive, waiting for the right moment to sneak in and get his dragon back, but he worried if there would ever be such a moment.
“Sit tight, Jewell,” Droll muttered. “Yak no let nothing bad happen.”
He continued to march behind the chariot, decreasing the distance with every passing second. When Droll looked ahead of the vehicle, he could see the community palace right ahead, alerting him that he didn’t have much time before it would be too late to reclaim his little friend. Fortunately for him, by the time the chariot got to the palace, it stopped in front of a grand door, big enough for three chariots. Soon after, the armed unicorns began talking to three ponies guarding the front of the palace. Droll took his opportunity to jump onto the small opening in the back of the wagon that the chariot pulled, looking at all the boxes that were being transported. The yak did not have any time to waste. Any second the ponies would be done. 
He scanned all the crates with immense speed. He did not have enough time to check all of them so he had to choose which boxes to look through wisely. For a brief moment, he considered calling out to Jewell, but he knew this would alert the guards ahead of him and make him lose his position. He quietly picked up a single box, checking its weight to determine if this was the one he was looking after. He soon placed it down before continuing his search. After two crates, he began to see one of the boxes in the middle begin to rattle slightly, but before Droll could register it, he felt the enclosed wagon shift forward into motion again. He was out of time.
With a last ditch effort, he reached for the crate, scraping his cloven-hooves against it. As soon as he made contact though, he felt the two sets of strong hooves grip the side of him and yank him out of the wagon, throwing him on the ground on his back.
The sheathing sound of a spear sliced through the air, and all Droll could see was a freshly sharpened javelin hovering inches away from his snout.
“State your business!” a female voice demanded.
The brown non-pony was already trembling, but after a couple of seconds, he focused on the mare at the other end of the spear, seeing a purple pegasus in full body armor, giving the yak the most intimidating look he had ever seen. From behind the mare, to the left and right of the pony were two stallions, one red and one yellow, each with different degrees of skepticism at the non-pony.
“I said state your business!” the mare voice repeated, gripping the spear closer to Droll's chest.
Droll widened his eyes before stuttering. “Uh! Droll just needed something from wagon!”
From behind the mare, the yellow stallion's eyes flickered in recognition at the name before he spoke in nervous chuckles. “Woah woah, Mauve. We don’t want to do anything we can’t take back. He’s harmless. Let’s just let him go with a warning.”
“I say we take him out right now,” the red stallion suggested.
The purple mare snapped her neck back at the red pegasus. “Scarlet, as your superior, I’m ordering you to stand down.”
Scarlet sighed in disappointment before standing back and putting himself at ease. After a couple seconds of glares, Mauve returned her eyes to the yak.
“Tell us why you’re here.”
The brown non-pony carefully rose to a stance, nervously regarding the spear that was still outstretched towards his chest. “Belonging of Droll got mixed up in case.”
“Oh you’re not getting it back,” Mauve snorted. “Do you know how many times a day we get non-ponies like you trying to get their hooves on the palace items?”
The yellow pegasus stepped forward. “Well, I’m sure he’s telling the truth. I mean, we’ve never seen him come here before and ask for items, right?”
Mauve huffed. She rolled her eyes so far around her sockets that Droll could barely see them anymore. “What part of 'Job Promotion" do you not get? We aren't to take any chances without Radiance and Nightfall's supervision. We’re not disappointing them yet.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Scarlet stepped forward with a grin that spread far too much on his face. “Are we going to execute this creature now?”
The yellow pegasus tensed, but Mauve was quick to shut it down.
“Of course not. This isn’t a big enough violation for that.”
“Then how about the community dungeon, huh?”
The other stallion silently squealed from behind before speaking up. “This is his first offense, you two. The least we can do is let him off with a warning. Let’s just escort him away from the palace and forget about this.”
“We can’t leave our posts,” Mauve spoke up. “The second it's vacant, we'll be seeing dozens of stow-aways taking their revenge.”
“There’s three of us, boss. Surely one of us can leave temporarily while the other two hold down the fort.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
Scarlet scoffed. “Why not? We could use the peace and quiet, Mauve. We’ve earned it.”
Mauve rolled her eyes. “This is wasting more time than it’s saving. Fine, please escort our yak friend off the premises.”
The yellow pegasus smiled and nodded before putting a firm grip on Droll, pulling him roughly as Droll was forced to go in the direction of the pony. Throughout it, Droll was resisting. Normally he would be relieved to escape with his life intact, but he was still missing Jewell, and he meant everything to the brown non-pony. Through Droll’s efforts to be released from the stallion’s grasp, the pegasus kept pulling harder, getting more and more annoyed until the two finally passed a corner just out of both sight and audio range of the two other pegasus guards.
“Ugh!” the yellow pegasus groaned as he completely released his grip on the yak. “Why do you have to resist so much?”
Droll stood still, glaring at the yellow pegasus who was making his job a lot harder. “Yak without something important!”
“Yeah, I understand that,” the pegasus said as he massaged his arm that took a beating from the yak. “So you’re Droll?”
Instantly, the brown non-pony straightened himself in confusion. “Pony know yak?”
The stallion chuckled. “Yeah. Well, basically I do.”
Droll searched his mind for possibilities to this, but he could not think of anything. He had never seen this pony before, and he didn’t understand how he could know him until the pegasus spoke.
“Lenia always spoke of you. During the long and boring days when she came to the palace because Radiance and Nightfall were working, Radiance trusted me to stand guard over her and keep her company. Almost every time we spoke, she talked about you and how great of a friend you were. It’s cool to finally know who she was talking about.”
Droll felt a cloven-hoof to his heart. He wanted to break down right in front of the stallion and he didn’t care if he saw him or not, but deep down, he knew he had to maintain his calmness. His mind was completely focused on the friend he had lost long ago, but he then remembered of another friend he was going to lose if he waited any longer. Although the only thing he really wanted to do at the moment was remember Lenia, he was still on a mission to prevent someone else from ending up like her.
Droll’s mind went to work on how he was going to get his mission done when he thought of something that wasn’t full-proof. “What pony name?”
“You-you want to know my name?” the stallion asked.
Droll nodded. “Yak name Droll. What pony name?”
“Well, my name is Buff.”
The yak tilted his head at the words. “Buff? Like, muscles?”
“No . . . like the color. My parents weren’t really creative, I guess.”
Droll smiled to himself as he turned on the helplessness factor. “Buff, yak accidentally misplaced item in crate and crate was put inside palace. Droll really need item back, but ponies no help. Will stallion help?”
Buff slouched in front of Droll. “I don’t know. I’m not supposed to be sneaking anyone inside.”
Droll had a solution, but it made him feel guilty beyond belief. He just had to keep reminding himself of the tragic outcome that he still had the ability to change. “Yak sure Lenia would want Droll helped.”
As the words left his mouth, he flinched at using her as another bargaining chip, but he was aware that it was something he needed to do.
Buff’s eyebrows drooped in sadness. “Yeah . . . Okay. But just this once. Follow me, and I can help you get what’s yours back.”
As Buff led the way, Droll teared up. “Droll so sorry, Lenia . . .” After the yak wiped his eyes, he proceeded to follow the pegasus along the backside of the palace walls.

“There, you have your way in.” Buff glanced up to the second floor of the palace where a window was.
Droll’s eyes met the familiar level above. “Buff use this window?”
The pegasus nodded. “Yeah, I make sure to keep it open in the slight chance that I forget something inside when my shift is over. It’s incredible how nopony else knows about it.”
Droll gritted his teeth. “Yeah . . .”
When Buff turned to the yak and held out his hooves, the stallion's eyebrows immediately lowered in a narrowed gaze. “Okay, Droll. Please tell me you’re ready.”
The brown non-pony looked at him and then looked at the window above before glancing back at his helper in reluctance. After he nodded his head, Buff spread his wings to levitate himself above the yak, gripping the sides of him to lift him up. Immediately when he did so, he heaved with his chest puffed out, fighting through it to fly himself higher. Droll struggled to remain in the pony’s grasp, but after a couple of seconds, the two were at the second level. In a rush, Droll opened the window before crawling inside to get out of the painful grip of the pegasus.
The pony was panting as if he just ran a marathon. “You should lay off some weight there.”
Droll scoffed. “Droll was lifted by pegasus even younger than yak.”
With that memory refreshed, the yak immediately began focusing on the wall to blot out his thoughts. He had to keep his emotions at a standstill, and when he was successful, the yak finally looked around, listening to Buff join him to his right.
He recalled his previous time in this room and he listened for movements.
“What are you doing?” the pegasus asked from the other side of the room. “Let’s just go, and I can guide you to where the chariot and wagon are. If we can’t find it, we can just wait for Radiance to get back-.”
“No!” Droll firmly denied. “Radiance no like Droll. Yak need find crate before pony returns.”
“Okay, jeez. Let’s just go to the inventory room where the palace stores its resources. We can get back what’s yours, and then I can escort you out safely.”
Droll took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
The pegasus nodded before tilting his head in the direction of the door, gesturing for him to come along. After a deep breath Droll marched through, following close behind as the pony led the way to the destination. The yak was especially nervous after what happened the last time he was in that very hall, but he felt a bit more comfortable knowing that he had a guard to vouch for him in case things went wrong.
“I won’t vouch for you if things go wrong by the way.”
Droll widened his eyes. “What? Why?”
“I only agreed to sneak you in here and then escort you out when we’re done. But if my other guards see me with a yak, I’ll have to tell them I’m arresting you, and I’d have to put you in the community dungeon.”
Droll began to breathe heavily in fear before Buff continued.
“It’s okay. We just need to be careful. Now watch your step.” 
The two began traveling down a staircase, going down to the first floor where Buff claimed the storage room was. By the time they reached the door that led outwards, they found themselves in another dark hallway.
“Don’t worry, Droll. The room is right here. There are guards at work here, but I can go through and get your item. What was it you needed?”
Droll opened his mouth to speak before he realized his dilemma. “Instead,” he began, “yak go for item while pony take guards’ attention. Good plan.”
The guard's head shrank back. "What? Why make this any harder than it already is? You just wait where you are and I'll go grab it. Simple as that."
Droll stood firmly. "Yak go get item."
"Even if it means you'll probably get caught?"
"Worth risk."
Buff rolled his eyes before marching inside the room on the close opposite side of the narrow hallway. As he marched in, Droll approached the window of the door, watching as the stallion gathered the attention of the single female guard who was standing out in front of the wagon that had been brought in earlier that day. 
Droll steadied his breath, trying to hype himself up for what he was about to do. His plan was simple: sneak inside, quietly go to the storage unit, gather his friend by using the crate to hide him, and be out with Buff in time before Radiance returned to make his job impossible. Without wasting another second, he traveled through the doorway.
Droll tried his best at being quiet despite this apparently being the only things yaks weren’t best at. As he made his way over to the wagon in the center of the room, he could overhear Buff shooting the breeze with the guard who was apparently venting out all her frustrations.
“All of their break times are being spent on frivolous visits to the hospital,” the mare complained. “For high ranking members, they don’t seem to be here nearly enough.”
“Well you can’t fire them,” Buff said. “Not anymore.”
Droll traveled quietly while his friend was doing a great job with the mare, allowing him to fully climb inside the enclosed compartment that contained all the crates. The yak wasn’t so careful last time he looked through this very wagon, but now he had just a bit more time to spare. After calling out Jewell’s name quietly three times, he inspected more of the crates to make sure the dragon wasn’t dead. To his relief, there was no sign of it, but what he did see was a tipped over crate with half of its stuff gone.
Instantly, Droll knew what this meant, and he looked outside of the wagon at the opposite side of the room to see a trail of light blue objects leading outside. The brown non-pony instantly tensed up as his heart rate spiked, but at the last moment, he froze. The thought of Jewell being out on his own was the last thing he wanted but he knew that if he was going to help out the dragon in any way, he was going to have to make sure he himself wasn’t caught yet. With a steadied breath, the yak climbed out of the wagon.
“Wow,” Buff said with forced interest. “I never KNEW that . . .”
By this time, the pegasus was looking around before noticing Droll walking away, following the trace.
“Well,” the pegasus continued, “doesn’t this seem like a YAK of a conversation?”
Droll looked back at the stallion to notice him eying the brown non-pony. Instantly, Droll nodded in gratitude before flicking his cloven-hoof twice in a gesture that told him to go because he was done with his work. The pegasus exhaled before dismissing himself from the guard and getting out of the room. Although the stallion was not able to keep his promise of escorting the brown non-pony out of the palace, Droll was still thankful that he was yakking a boring conversation in order to buy him some time.
When Droll returned to the trail of discarded light blue items, he followed it with close attention, not letting anything be dismissed from his head. The dragon probably grabbed over ten tiny items and the trail only had about three items at the moment. And the fact that these items had not been seen yet informed Droll that the trail was fresh, but with not many items to drop, if he didn’t find his little friend fast enough, there wouldn’t be any items to follow anymore and he would lose the trail. If that happened, Jewell would be lost in the palace.
The trail led out of the storage room and into the hallway, but through the hallway, the trail seemed to falter. Surely Jewell would have grabbed more items than just the three that were scattered over the floor. He was a baby dragon after all, meaning he was going to take anything he could get his dull claws on. Droll received his next clue when he noticed the tiny hole in the broken window at the end of the hallway. With nopony in the hall, the yak stampeded down to the sight, staring out the window to see an additional blue item on the ground, causing Droll’s heart to sink when he realized that now Jewell would not be lost somewhere in the palace but rather in a random section of the entirety of the community.
Droll was not about to let this happen. With the trail still fresh, he knew there was a way he could still catch up to his little friend before he was gone for good, and Droll was going to save him no matter the costs, even if it meant having to break the window.
CRASH! Droll charged through the window, continuing to stampede before any guards could get to him. As long as nopony got a steady description on him, he was going to be alright, and since the sides of the palace had little to no guards on a daily basis, the yak believed he was fine. He didn’t stop. He continued running off the property of the palace, making sure that no one would be given enough time to recognize him.
Droll was puffing with his speed, but he continued to see the trail of light blue items leading him in the direction of his end goal. He stomped through the fortunately empty streets where the items lined up, but to Droll’s shock, they soon came to an end.
Instantly Droll stopped in his tracks. He glanced back at where his last trace had been and kept scanning everywhere for the next piece, but none could be found. There was not even a place that could hint at where Jewell had went. The trail was dead.
He fell to the ground and for a long while, he was immovable. Frozen in place, he could only find himself staring at the sky with nothing but the sound of his heart beats filling his ear. He had failed to do the one thing he knew he needed to succeed at. What was left for him?
"No," Droll said, focusing ahead of him. This could not happen. He couldn't afford for it to. He knew in this moment, he had to believe that it was all going to work out for him. Without knowing where he was heading for, he continued to follow the invisible path, assuming that Jewell had stayed going straight.
He was just starting to give up hope when he noticed a final light blue item in the side yard of a house. He felt the enormous weight of something getting lifted off of him, similar to when he was able to remove himself out from underneath the oversized throne from what felt like so long ago.
Droll slowly traveled through the side yard where the light blue item was, terrified of being proven wrong. As long as he didn’t know for sure if Jewell was there or not, he could still hope the cyan dragon was there. As Droll walked through the side yard, he turned his head to notice the sun and moon cutiemarks on the door, stinging the yak’s eyes in recognition. When Droll turned to face the backyard, he once again saw the flowerbed with the petunias on it, except there was a brightly colored dragon fiddling with the paddleball over the makeshift grave.
Droll gasped and ran over to Jewell with tears in his eyes, the greatest relief to know that he was okay and back with the yak again. Droll felt like he should be angry, but at the moment, he was way too happy that the dragon was safe. He couldn’t help himself when he picked up the dragon to hug him close against himself, causing Jewell to drop the undamaged paddle on the flowers again.
“Yak no want to lose another friend.”
As tears leaked down his face, Droll’s eyes landed back on the flowerbed where he pretended his other friend was also resting. At first, he was reluctant to make his next move, but after a moment, he determined it as only being right, and he turned Jewell to face the petunias.
“Look, Jewell,” Droll began, “Yak like dragon to meet someone. A bit of time ago, Droll met amazing pony who stopped at nothing to make yak and other friends feel welcome. Pony was shy, but she was deserving of all friendship, even though life no fair to her. Yak no treat her the way pony deserved either. Pony no ask for nothing. Droll asked too much in pony’s final moments. It’s yak’s fault . . . Droll just want her back. Yak miss Lenia.”
Jewell began stretching his mouth open before clumsily stumbling over sounds in a high pitched manner. “Lee. Knee. Uhh?”
Droll was surprised, but it wasn’t enough to divert his attention. He sniffled and wiped away the tear streaks on his cheeks before answering. “Yeah, Lenia. Yak only wish dragon got chance to see how amazing pony was.”
The two waited in silence, standing over Lenia’s flowerbed and honoring her in whatever way possible, but after a few minutes, Jewell began to fidget while in Droll’s grasp. When this was apparent to the yak, he turned to face the backpack that was still lying on the floor, walking over to it before tucking Jewell safely in and making sure he was comfortable.
“No worry, Jewell,” Droll reassured. “Yak never hurt dragon.”
After carefully putting the backpack on, he set out back for his house.