A white-hot strand burned across Rainbow Dash's left hindleg, and she grimaced. She didn't tell Spike that he'd missed one, for the distraction might cause him to miss more. His feet sat firmly in the stirrups, his hands grasped the saddle's horn as he hung on for dear life. He breathed his green flames frantically, as the pair swerved through the skies above Ponyville.
All around them, a thousand dragons filled the skies of Equestria, each dozens of pony-lengths from tip to tail. The mighty beasts' flames devoured the angry threads before they could flutter down through the sky and ruin the plant life below. Astride each dragon was a gold-clad unicorn in a harness. The guard unicorns' horns glowed, evidence that a military-grade Do-As-I-Think spell was overriding the dragons' wills.
This day's events would be considered an act of war perpetrated by Equestria upon the Migration. Princess Luna hoped the Canterlot Treasury held enough in its vaults to smooth over this fiasco. She put a wing around her elder sister, who silently sat with a hollow gaze watching the ruination wrought on their land by the glistening fibers that escaped the dragonsbreath.
"I didn't know," said Celestia, softly, "I didn't know. I only wanted a manecut on the balcony."