//------------------------------// // Terrors of the East // Story: Tales of War // by Swift As Lightning //------------------------------// Twilight sat at a wooden table an unarmored Nightingale sitting across from her, she sipped her hot cider, it burned a bit on the way down but it kept the bite of winter away. They were holed up in a small cottage not far from the local tavern. Nightingale had a ‘drumstick’ as he called it sitting in front of him, having removed the boots from his front hooves he ate with as much grace as an angry gorilla looking for bananas, Twilight half stared as he voraciously attacked the helpless hunk of meat. He tore at it with ferocious bites, as though he had not eaten in days. Or maybe it was just really good chicken? “Why do you eat that?” she finally asked. “Tastes good, why don’t you?” he asked with a raised brow. “It would be an abomination where I come from.” she said trying to keep disgust out of her voice. “You mean the future,” she nodded in affirmative, “it wasn’t always like this, ponies started eating meat for survival purposes.” he said with a small shrug. “And what pray tell does meat have to do with surviving? Why not grow some crops.” “Well, Miss Sparkle, tell me. What is outside right now?” Twilight thought for a moment, “Snow?” “Yes, and what does snow do to crops?” “Well it kills them of course, but what does that have to do with the meat?” she raised an eyebrow at him. “That snow has been there since my father was a colt. We can’t grow normal crops, and the crops we do grow are normally only available to those with the bits to afford them. Except carrots.” he said with a grimace. “Why are carrots the exception? And how has it been winter for so long?” Twilight asked confused. “Because, the way we grow anything now is with magic, and carrots grow a lot faster when introduced to magic than other plants. They kinda go woosh~” said Nightingale extending his hooves like he would in flight. “Woosh?” Twilight was thrown for a loop by the simple word. “Woosh.” Nightingale nodded sagely like a master imparting wisdom to his student, “for example, I heard one farmer was crushed to death by his own carrot farm when he tried to grow them all at once.” “Oh...” was the only response that came to mind, “woosh.” For some reason Twilight thought she was missing something important. Something, urgent. She rubbed the side of her head feeling a lump that had formed there under the fur. Oh right, she had been knocked out without explanation. “What hit me?” she asked bluntly. “Ice, that mountain we were on top of is notorious for hail the size of a hoof,” he said holding up his own hoof, “from what Stormwind told me you were running around like a mad pony until he stopped you right as you got hit.” “Oh...” Twilight shrank inwardly. Why would she have reason to do such a thing? “Sooooo. That’s that! Time to move, we have to get you to the princess eh? Swift as a dragon and punctual like paper!” exclaimed Nightingale. Twilight jumped from her seat, “DRAGON!!!” Nightingale fell backwards out of his chair, performing a backwards somersault he vaulted back up with a knife in his teeth ready for an ambush. “What, dragon! where?!” He exclaimed. “The one, the big one! BIG! Dragon, big, campsite, Starswirl!” Twilight babbled gibberish unable to contain herself. “SILENCE!” yelled Nightingale shoving a hoof into Twilight’s mouth and momentarily. He slowly let the hoof down after she stopped flailing. “Now, let’s talk about this like two normal grown up ponies. Okay?” Twilight took a shuddering breath, “...but the dragon-” “There haven’t been any dragons anywhere near Equestria since the mighty Frostmane Iceborn locked The Brimstone away in a glacier under a powerful sleep spell never to wake again.” said Nightingale almost reverently. “N-no. It’s n-not.” stuttered Twilight “This dragon comes from the East. He is written to be the most terrifying of his kin, the bane of all who would meet his gaze, and if my history books are accurate he’s going to attack the very camp that we were just at!” “What?!” Nightingale’s face turned pale. Doing an about face throwing his armor on he bolted out the door headed for the tavern. “Hey! Wait for me!!!” shouted Twilight galloping after him. Meanwhile Luna contemplated the sunset before her. Readying a spell as old as time itself. Passed down from father to son, mother to daughter. In the tradition of the moon clan. Primal magic filled her horn writhing with archaic power. Eyes glowing the magic growled begging for release. Rearing back Luna unleashed the spell stomping both hooves into the granite floor with a loud cracking noise. Ancient blue light leapt forth from her horn and rocketed across the sky and over the east horizon to fetch it’s prey. The spell made contact with the moon biting, dragging, clawing, forcing it into a slow and unwilling ascent. “How long will you fight old one...” Luna mumbled to herself. As Luna was about to head to her nightly duties she noticed the sun had not yet sunk below the horizon. She sighed, it was like ‘Tia to get lazy with the sun sometimes and not wait for it to descend completely before heading off for rest. She looked disapprovingly at the imposing sun’s rays that lingered. After her second look something caught her eye, the sun never smoked. This was fire, a very large fire. Luna dashed over to her study ripping a map off the wall and several star charts, overturning furniture she eventually found her sextant. Bringing the articles to her balcony she adjusted her sextant in the direction of the fires and made several quick references to her maps and star charts she determined where the fire was. Ah. ‘tis just the mountain of Griffingaurd. The dismissive thought came flitting through her conscience. The mountain was unremarkable being the closest place of Equestrian territory anypony could be without being in griffin lands. An odd name considering no griffin had ever claimed it under their king. But the king has more important business to attend to than claiming every mountain in sight. After all, there was an invasion force headed his way bent on ending this war once and for all. On a whim Luna plucked the latest report of said force from her stacks of self same reports. The paper was crumpled and torn around the edges, the normally damp parchment had been dried out by cold weather. An officer’s seal made of wax that had once kept the letter closed now cracked open looked flaky, drooping, and overall disappointed. Strange considering the inanimate nature of wax. Taking her mind away from the sad life of the sealing wax Luna scanned the report. Taking note of the estimated arrival date and destination. Destination: Peak of Griffingaurd ETA: 4/17 But... that was two weeks ago?! Whatever was happening her stallions were in the middle of it. Casting out with magic in a seeking spell she found her scrying crystal and immediately fixed it toward the camp. Sure enough the mountain was ablaze, Luna was horror struck. The power of her crystal seeing every detail of the spewing fire like it was sort of... There was movement off to the left, Luna followed it heart dropping into her stomach at the sight. The silhouette of some monstrous lizard the only defining part of the mass of shadow was the long neck and horns atop his menacing head. A dragon... It rampaged through the camp tearing, smashing, and burning with cursed flame. She had to do something, she had to save her stallions.