Fluttershy was awake by the time the sun rose over the mountains, hemming the Vale in. It appeared slowly, almost regretfully, as though it didn’t want to get up today. ‘That is like me sometimes,’ Fluttershy mused as she watched it rise from her place at the top of the mountain. The Unicorn Range, and in particular the Vale of the Lost, seemed to glow golden in its sunlight, making it all the more brighter and even more cheery.
Yet Fluttershy could not be dazzled or amazed by the land around her today. Her friends were out there, separated and as lost as she was. She needed to get moving and find them alive and well. If she didn’t… She shook her head quickly. She didn’t want to dwell on the possibility that they all might be dead now. ‘They are strong and determined. All of them are,’ Fluttershy thought to herself. ‘They can all survive a night out alone. I did, barely.’ She quickly hoped she could believe that.
Not wanting to waste anymore time, she set off from the top of the mountain back down the spiralling path. As she walked, her eyes focused on the ground below her in case she could see some or all of her friends. Her mind drifted back to yesterday evening when she had declared war on the creature or things responsible for the slow, but escalating, destruction of Equestria.
As she had finally settled down on her side and drifted off to sleep, it quickly dawned on her about how selfish she had sounded. She didn’t see herself as selfish; a bit clingy in places and greedy when faced with a monstrous appetite and a beautiful dish before her, but that moment proved to her of just how selfish she could be. ‘I can’t go to war. Not yet,’ she had realised.
The reason was her friends.
If she dragged them with her across Equestria to find out for themselves what was going on, then she would be breaking the promise she made to Vidarr about getting them safely to Horsca. As a simple pony, she had always kept her promises, or at least had tried to keep them. As a Dragonlord, her promises were now more important than ever. “I need to find my friends, get them out of this place, see them to Horsca, and when they are asleep one night, quietly leave and make my way back into Equestria,” she whispered to herself. ‘I made a promise to get them to safety, and I promised my father that I would save them.’
She could not hide away in the land of the horses now, not if it meant condemning not just Equestria but Paradise as well to oblivion. Her father and mother, the very ponies who conceived her, would die for good if she did not do something; her father, her friends, everypony she knew would try something if she was the one living on the other side.
But what if she failed? The question sent a violent shudder down Fluttershy’s spine as she felt tiredness take her. She felt most vulnerable and afraid when alone, and without friends to help and support her, then she did not know if she could defeat her new foe.
She flicked her head up rapidly, clearing the thought from her head. ‘Try not to think like that,’ she chastised herself. ‘I will do my best, and I will find a way to defeat this new opponent, alone or otherwise.’ Her hooves gripped into the dirt as anger boiled its way forward again. “Besides, nopony threatens my parents and gets away with it,” she hissed.
She broke out of her reflection of last night when her mind told her that she should stop. She suddenly halted, and noticed that she had made it to the bottom of the mountain, with one path directly ahead of her, and two other paths angling away on either side.
She looked down all three roads quickly, and looked back when she saw a large hole in an otherwise lifeless tree – perfect size for a squirrel, grey or red. A sudden thought came to the front of her mind. ‘I wonder if any of the wildlife here have seen my friends, or anything strange, at least?’
She hesitantly walked closer to the tree, but stopped when a small part of her said that it would be rude to interfere; whoever’s in there might be eating their breakfast, or worse if there is a pair in there... mating. After a moment of hesitation, Fluttershy ignored the thought and carried on, her concern over her friends greater than any other worry.
She stopped just before the tree, craning her neck as far as it could go so she could whisper. “Um, excuse me?” she called tentatively. Her ears flicked up, hoping to hear a sound, but there was nothing. Not even a squeak. ‘They might be still asleep,’ she thought.
‘Asleep? Don’t be so daft. A squirrel would most likely be up and about by now and munching on a nut,’ her mind replied.
Fluttershy tilted her head a little, finding sense in her mind’s – or her own – logic. She took a step closer and said, “Um, I hope I’m not interrupting anything, and I am really sorry about that if I am, but this won’t take too long, I promise. I was just hoping if you could tell me whether you had seen any other ponies come through here?”
Again, there wasn’t a sound from the tree. Curious, and slightly, worried, Fluttershy took another step closer, and reared up and peered into the hole. “Hello?” she called.
The only thing in there was one dead grey squirrel.
Fluttershy flung her head out of the hole and away, her eyes staring at the ground in horror at what she had just seen. “What… what could have done that?” she asked aloud. She looked into the tree again, and brought her hooves in and delicately picked up the dead squirrel. Once she was sure it wouldn’t fall apart in her hooves, she carried it outside and gently set it onto the ground by the tree.
The Dragonlord gulped back the bile she could feel crawling up her throat as she stared at the two large wounds puncturing the poor thing’s chest and belly. She closed her eyes and tried to remember any animal with such teeth, yet nothing, not even a fox, came to mind. ‘Other than a fox, no other animal I know would kill and leave a squirrel, so that would mean this was… oh no. Why?’
Though she felt upset, she swallowed the anger she could feel rising in her chest as the truth showed itself to her. This attack was no mere kill and eat later hunt. This was just sport. No eagle or any predator she knew would just kill an animal like this and leave it in its home without eating some of it first.
Just as she figured out the truth, she remembered something else, sending her ears on high and sending shivers across her coat. ‘Whatever did this, it’s in the Vale with us,’ she realised, her eyes bulging at the thought. She picked up the squirrel once more, her eyes shooting from one corner to the next. ‘I have to find my friends now. If this thing is still out there, then it might not be long before we are on the menu.’
She daintily put the dead squirrel back into its home, and then backed away, bowing her head in respect. “I’m so sorry, little one. I hope you find a better place elsewhere,” she whispered, before turning away and following her tracks back to where she had seen her friends’ hoofprints last.
As she wandered down the road, she began to realise just how quiet it was; there was no morning bird song to greet the sun as it rose, and apart from the one dead squirrel, she thought she would see more of them by now.
She slowed down her trot, crouching frighteningly as she listened for any familiar sound. The last time it had gone this silent, a dragon, possessed by Heimdallr, had attacked her father and her, and chased them through the Horscan Highlands.
It was the same day her father died, too.
“No!” she hissed at herself. “That will not happen again. Not while I live!” She raised herself to full height and broke into a canter, her ears pinned up as high as they could, and her eyes wide and scrutinising for anything out of the ordinary.
This, in her mind, was not hard since everything was out of the ordinary.
Further down the road, she wondered what could have caused all the animals that lived in the Vale to either disappear, or run away. She froze as fear gripped her legs like shackles were attached to them, forbidding her to move. ‘If this creature was enough to send every animal here and two Princesses running for their lives, then what’s to stop me from running for the hills?’
Her answer was simple. Her friends. They were alone, possibly frightened and exhausted, and needed help in getting back together. Moreover, she had promised Vidarr to keep them safe, and she was not going to back down on that promise just because she was afraid. ‘Going back on that vow will be going against my honour as a Dragonlord,’ she thought to herself, just as that fear faded to the back of her mind, freeing her legs from their invisible shackles. ‘I will find them again.’
She moved into a graceful trot.
She continued to trot down the thin, dirty path, humming a little tune to calm her nerves, even though she found it to be barely working. She was scared, very much so, but her mind told her to keep going, reminding her that if she didn’t continue, her friends would almost surely die. ‘They could be dead already, for all I know,’ Fluttershy thought, looking at the cluster of trees around her.
She shook her head. ‘No. They are alive.’ She didn’t know why she thought they were, she just knew.
Her right ear twitched suddenly as the sound of a twig snapping entered her ears. She froze and turned on the spot to face the source of the noise, bringing up her right leg and drawing Drage Bane from its bracelet. ‘Should I call out?’ she pondered, her mouth open ready to neigh or shout a name. Yet something told her to stay silent and continue, for her sake.
Just as she considered moving on, her coat began to stick up as she felt an icy chill pass from the tip of her muzzle to her rump. It was a cold, unearthly chill, as though winter had come early and had frozen the world in its icy clutches.
She looked down at her muzzle, breathed out, and saw her breath turn to smoke. She spread her wings out in the hope that would keep her warmer, but it did no good. If anything, she could feel her feathers beginning to freeze up. ‘I’m not staying here anymore,’ she decided. Not daring to look back, Fluttershy galloped down the path as fast as her legs could take her, not noticing the eyes of hate emerging from the trees.
She ran for a few minutes, but it felt to her like hours. Her breathing was ragged; despite the chill she could feel chasing her like a shadow, she felt hotter than a furnace. Her mind told her to stop, but she kept on running, focused only on getting away from whatever was chasing her.
Once her legs started to ache and she could feel a mild stitch in her side, she slowed down until finally she was in a calming trot. She stopped for breath and looked around, panting heavily. By now the freezing temperature had gone, her coat had flattened itself once more, and her wings didn’t feel like large blocks of ice. She folded her wings back to her sides and looked up at the sky, only for her gaze to turn perplexed. ‘How was that possible?’
The weather was a bright blue with a ray of sunlight soaring over her and behind one of the mountains in this large Vale she was in, and there wasn’t a breath of wind whistling through the trees. If the day is supposed to be a normal summer’s day, then why did it turn so cold?
She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. ‘I will ask Luna about it when I find her.’ She fell into a brisk trot once more, continuing her humming to calm herself and spirit herself forward.
Eventually, much to the relief of the Dragonlord, she found herself back at the crossroads where she had last seen the tracks of her friends. She walked cautiously over to the centre of the crossroads, and sighed in relief when she saw the mesh of tracks still on the ground, undamaged and unhindering to her chances to track them down.
“Okay, time to see if my tracking skills haven’t diminished,” Fluttershy said to herself. With that, she slammed her nose to the ground and began to sniff at the tracks in front and around her carefully like a dog. She had always believed that dogs were the best trackers on Terra, and if anypony wanted to be a good a tracker as they were, then you would have to track like a dog.
After a moment sniffing at the ground, she raised her head a little as she looked at a particular hoofprint on the ground before her, then sniffed it again. The scent smelt much like a rose, which she perceived as belonging to Cadence. She followed the scent around the crossroads as the hoofprints went one way then another, until they straightened out and moved slowly northward.
She gingerly followed the prints until she reached just beyond the tree line, and stopped when saw them veer sharply to the left.
“Okay, so Cadence ran that way,” she said to herself, pointing. She backed out of the trees, picked up a stick from the ground and pointed it in the direction of Cadence’s trail, while using another stick bent into the shape of a C to mark it.
With Cadence’s direction marked out, she turned back to the other prints. She quickly found Spike’s footprints next to what she figured as hoofprints belonging to Trixie. She sniffed the footprints to be sure they were Spike’s, and though she couldn’t get a scent, she was almost certain they belonged to him; it’s not often you find a footprint belonging to a baby dragon.
Cautiously, she followed Spike and Trixie’s tracks from the crossroads and eastward into the trees. About halfway through the woods, the two had split up and had gone separate ways: Trixie heading left and north, and Spike running right and northeast.
Fluttershy felt anger course through her for just a brief moment. ‘Why did Trixie leave Spike alone? I know those two don’t see eye to eye, but I thought she would have better sense then that! And Spike for that matter!’ she thought irately as she looked from one set of tracks to the next. ‘I hope she had a really good reason, or else.’
She set a few twigs down that spelled out S and T for each direction, and headed back to the crossroads to locate the tracks of the last member of their party – Luna. As soon as she was in the centre, she began sniffing the ground again, seeking any trace of where Luna went. When she got to the corner of the crossroads, she stopped suddenly, and sniffed at the ground once more to be sure. There was a faint smell of nightshade coming from the hoofprints.
“This must be Luna’s,” she said to herself.
She followed them slowly so she wouldn’t miss anything, and eventually stopped on the other side of the trees, on the edge of a long and wide clearing with a small pond full of water lilies and lily pads near her. She followed the tracks until they reached the edge of the pond, where they disappeared. “Luna must have jumped in and hid in there to lose her pursuers,” Fluttershy said to herself.
She marked the direction the tracks seemed to go with her hoof, spelling out L with an arrow mark next to it. Satisfied, she cantered back to the crossroads.
When she got there, she began to think deeply about the situation her friends had been put in. It appeared that all of them separated madly and went in different directions without much thought other than their own survival. There were no other prints on the ground for Fluttershy to suggest that there were things here. Neither was there any trace of blood or otherwise to tell her that there was an attack of some sort, for which she was slightly relieved about.
But it still didn’t give her any clue to figure out what happened to cause them to separate. She wanted something, anything, to tell her what had happened, to give her a peace of mind and let her know their reasons for separating was not too serious. No matter what it was, however, her mind always told her that it was serious. ‘They wouldn’t have all sounded so desperate to get away from each other if it wasn’t serious,’ she reminded herself.
As she tried to think about it, another question sprouted up in her mind like a flower. ‘Whose tracks do I follow?’ she wondered, looking at each of them. She knew she could follow any one of them, but the choice seemed a bit more difficult than that. Namely because they were her friends, and to her it felt wrong to treat one better than the other. Secondly, they were all smart; if they knew they were being pursued they would cover their tracks and avoid anything that would give their direction away. She knew if she followed the wrong one, she would get lost herself. The place she was in was not called the Vale of the Lost for nothing.
‘Oh,’ she moaned in thought. ‘I wish I had Rainbow Dash here. She could fly up high and find them all easily.’ She knew Rainbow Dash would also be able to fly around the entire Vale without breaking sweat, and would not stop until all her friends were safe and sound. Fluttershy loved that about her. Even though the rainbow-maned pegasus could be an annoying, stuck-up arrogant slob sometimes, she was always strong, loyal and brave.
She threw out her thoughts on Rainbow Dash, and quickly darted her head between the tracks as she tried to make up her mind on who’s to follow. After a moment, she decided to knock down her choices until she saw the most reasonable. She immediately ruled out Cadence and Luna. They were former Princesses of Equestria; they could easily manage themselves. Trixie was not as strong, weakened by the events happening across Equestria, but she was cunning, and certainly had a few tricks up her hooves to lose her pursues, so she was out. That only left Spike. He was just a baby dragon, and Fluttershy knew she needed to protect him if nopony else could.
With that in mind, she followed Spike and Trixie’s trail into the trees, and once she made it to their divide, split away from Trixie’s trail and followed Spike’s deeper into the woods.
The more she followed them, the more the tracks became sporadic. One minute they were straight, the next they were zigzagging this way and that as though trying to avoid something behind him. Fluttershy’s heart thumped loudly in her chest at the images she was thinking up. She tried not to imagine herself coming out of the woods and find herself gazing on Spike’s torn up corpse. She didn’t know what she would do if that happened. She didn’t know whether she would hold Spike’s body and scream, cry, rage, or find and beat the stuffing out of the creature that did it.
Thankfully, that choice was taken from her, as she emerged from the tree line and found herself at the edge of a thin dirt road situated in a thin cutting and leading downhill at a gentle slope, and with not a sign of Spike anywhere, save for his tracks. She saw Spike’s tracks follow the road downhill, and trotted cautiously after them, her eyes wide and her ears listening out for anything that could give the little dragon away.
When she arrived at the bottom, she found herself standing on a wide, circular ledge roughly the size of her chicken coop back home. To her left and right were two paths, with the one on the right flat and heading through the woods on that side, and the one on the left zigzagging its way up the hill and in a different direction, and directly ahead of her was the edge. She walked up to it, and looked down to see that it went down a sheer drop, before angling out at a steep grade to an open plateau with a set of large rocks decorating one end, and a steep slope leading away to another plain.
She looked around once more, wishing to continue with her search, but found to her horror that the tracks were gone. “Oh no,” she whispered. She spun around frantically to look for them, but saw nothing. “Where have they gone? How can they be gone?”
Before she could panic, she remembered the calming technique she had used a few days ago, and quickly took a deep breath in and after a few seconds, let it out again. “That feels a little bit better,” she said as she set her hoof back down. “Okay, Fluttershy, don’t panic, there’s probably a good explanation as to why Spike’s tracks disappeared like that, one that doesn’t end up with him in a predator’s belly.” She shuddered at the thought.
She looked around for anything that could help her track down Spike again, but before she could get any further, a faint hissing sound came from the trees behind her. Fluttershy stopped and listened, then looked up and around her. The day was quiet once more, with not even a bird song to grace her ears. She shrugged it off, and set her nose back down to the ground and sniffed, hoping she would pick up the trail once more.
The hissing sound whistled through her ears once again, forcing her to stop and turn around in fright. Her heart pounded rapidly, and she swore she felt her ribcage starting to break from where her heart had hit it enough times. “Hello?” she called out. She edged forward, hope coursing through her. “Spike? Is that you?”
The hissing sound came from the trees again, beckoning Fluttershy closer. She was now certain it was not Spike, but it could be some poor snake needing help. She started to walk closer to the trees. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “I won’t hurt you, whatever you are.” She stopped just at the edge of the trees, bent over and smiled calmingly. “You can come out now.”
The creature complied with her request, and strode menacingly out of the bushes, hissing threateningly at the Dragonlord. Fluttershy’s eyes widened in terror and she slowly backed from it, her heart thumping harder as if now trying to escape. ‘Wha… what is that thing?’ she thought, looking at it with fear and dread.
The creature was roughly the same height as the average pony, and its body shape looked roughly like a pony’s with a dark skin that looked rougher than bark, and unearthly. Two appendages that looked like arms stretched out from its sides like outstretched wings. Attached to the end of each were long, angular blades that looked like a scythe’s and were the same colour as the creature; both were held low and pointing at the increasingly terrified pegasus. Its head was that of a rotting rat’s with white, soulless eyes, with a silver mane that dangled from the back of its neck like ruined spider’s silk, and four ferocious fangs like a sabre’s teeth gnashed out hungrily at the pegasus. Its paws were that of a large cat’s with long, dagger-like claws, and its tail was as long as a lion’s but with a whip-like end.
Fluttershy tried looking through her memories like a book to know what the thing before her was. However, she could not think straight; her mind was fogged with terror, alerting her other senses to their full potential, and forcing her stomach to twist violently in fear.
She spun away when she heard something behind her, and saw to her horror that more of the creatures were behind her, each hissing threateningly at her or revealing their teeth. Fluttershy could see that some of them had their teeth stained with blood. ‘I seriously hope that blood didn’t come from one of my friends,’ she thought as she looked around her, only to see she was surrounded on all sides by at least twenty of these beasts. All of them looked similar in appearance, except some were shorter and others were slightly taller than her, but their dark colours separated each of them: dark grey, grey, black, dark brown, dark red, golden, silver, dark green, tan, dark purple and dark blue and several other foreboding colours.
Fluttershy noticed through her terror that the world went cold all of a sudden; the same was as it did an hour or so before. Her coat stood up on end, and she flared her wings out instinctively to keep her warm. Yet like before, she felt her wings freeze up again, causing her to shake as though she was standing in a blizzard. It made her feel as though these things that were now surrounding her were winter incarnate. ‘But that’s impossible. Surely windigoes are winter incarnate, and these aren’t windigoes.’
She didn’t know what they were, but she could easily guarantee that they were certainly not friendly. Their monstrous eyes yelled for her death, and their claws and other weapons were ready to subject her to many agonies. ‘Why, though?’ she wondered fearfully as she watched them crawl into positions around her. ‘Why would they want to kill me? I haven’t done anything to them.’ She straightened up as best she could, trying to keep her legs from trembling.
She didn’t want to fight them; she had no reason to fight them. They never threatened her as far as she knew, nor had she any hatred towards them. ‘If I fight these things, then that would show that Trixie was right and I am a hypocrite. What kind of a leader always turns to violence first?’ She decided to try to talk to them, and – she hoped – if she managed to show she meant them no harm, she could try to persuade them into helping her in find the others.
If they hadn’t found them already.
“Um… hello,” she said as warmly as she could manage, but to her it sounded strained. She looked through the hateful gazes, seeing which one looked to be the leader, yet not one of them appeared to be who she was looking for. “Um, which one of you is the leader here? Mind if I speak to her – or him, of course. I’m not sexist or anything, it’s just not normal where I come from for a male leader.”
Two of the creatures – a dark blue one and the black one that first surprised Fluttershy – looked at each other for a long second. They suddenly began talking to each other in a coarse language, ancient yet indescribable to her. Despite the terror she could feel in her chest and stomach, she couldn’t help but be fascinated by what was happening before her. ‘I wonder what they’re saying to each other. It’s a shame that I can’t understand all languages,’ she thought, her eyes flicking between the two creatures.
After a moment, the blue one said something, and nodded. The black one nodded in response then looked back to the trees behind it and screeched something that made Fluttershy’s ears ring with pain. She rubbed her ears soothingly until she could hear again, then looked around and felt herself pale as the leader of this group stepped out of the trees.
The creature looked much like the others, with only a few differences. It was a dark, earthly brown in colour, and was a lot taller than all of them, about the same height as a horse. A long, dark red mane dripped down the side of its long neck like blood, covering one of its white eyes. Teeth like a wolf’s grinned at her, and instead of scythe like weapons on its sides, it had two large minotaur-like arms sticking out from its shoulders. In its right hand was a long, two-ended glaive with slightly curved blades that seemed to be carved from icicles, while its left was clenched into an angry fist.
Fluttershy had to fight to keep herself from loosening her bladder. She was terrified of this thing, and the creatures around it, yet she knew she had to try and negotiate a more peaceful route. What good a leader would she be if she went down a route of violence every time, she reminded herself?
“Um… h-h-h-he-hello,” she stammered, feeling herself shrink as she gazed into the creature’s emotionless gaze. Fluttershy realised her nerves were getting the better of her, and decided to speak a bit quicker. “Um, I never knew there was anything living here,” she said as she looked around at all the threatening faces. “How did you all manage to hide yourselves out here for so long?”
The horse-like creature thrust its glaive into the ground, and hissed vehemently at her as it stepped forward. The other creatures followed suit, making Fluttershy cringe in on herself. “Please, I mean no disrespect,” she begged, holding her hooves up and bowing her head in the hope it would calm them down. “I have no quarrel with any of you; I just want to find my friends, and get out of here.” She looked up, stifling the urge to scream in fear as the beast was now directly in front of her, gazing down with malice and curiosity. “Ha… have you seen any other ponies around here, and a little baby dragon?” she asked shakily, trembling in terror.
The creature in front of her lowered its head so that its eyes were level with Fluttershy’s, and sniffed loudly, as though smelling the fear oozing from her body. The Dragonlord swallowed back the urge to gag at the smell of its breath, which smelt of ancient decay. The creature continued to stare at her silently, inspecting, judging, testing, as though seeing if she was ripe for the kill. Fluttershy turned her gaze away, trembling under the crippling fear that crawled across her. “Please… stop that,” she asked as politely as she could.
The beast snorted in distaste, then looked up at the black creature and spoke with it in the same language as before. Unlike the others, which spoke with a crackle, the larger creature had a sound of nobility to its voice, though it wasn’t any less coarse than the rest. After a minute, the two creatures nodded at each other, and the larger creature picked up its glaive once more and pointed the sharp end at Fluttershy, who backed away from it in fright. The other jumped around her silently; its scythes poised and ready to strike.
The creature said something to all of them around her, and although Fluttershy didn’t know what it said, she could tell by the tone of its voice that it did not say, “Give that adorable pony a hug.”
Fluttershy closed her eyes for a quick second, lowered her head and took a deep breath to calm her damaged nerves. She had tried talking to them, she couldn’t run away from them, and she knew they would catch her quickly if she flew away, as she had no clouds above her to hide on, and she would be almost certainly too tired to fight when they did find her again. There was only one option left open to her, and she hated herself and them for bringing her to this.
She had to fight her way through.
Silently, like an owl catching its prey in the setting sun, she spun around, Drage Bane shooting out from its bracelet, and thrust it deep through the mouth of the first one she had met as it came from behind her. The creature screamed like a pig in agony, before it suddenly exploded in a cloud of dust.
Fluttershy didn’t have time to rest, for another one – a dark red one – charged at her. It reached the flat and leapt into the air, intending to strike her down with its foreclaws. Fluttershy rolled out of the way, letting it slash at the air and slamming into the ground. She slashed out with Drage Bane, but the creature jumped, missing the strike. Fluttershy ducked when the creature pivoted and swung one of its scythe-like weapons at her, and reared and jumped back when it lashed with its claws. Both missed her by inches.
The creature jumped forward, reared up and made itself ready to slash its claws into her skin again. She lifted her left leg up, drew out Firewing, and blocked the attack while ripping the creature’s chest and back open with Drage Bane. The creature screamed as the contents of its insides spilled out – ash; the stuff came out of the thing like it was sprouting from the top of a volcano. The final screams of the creature died away as the rest of it broke up and disintegrated into dust.
Fluttershy looked stunned at the pile of ash for a moment, before she felt the air blown out of her lungs as something slammed into her side. She yelped as she felt herself hit the ground, and saw from the corner of her eye one of the creatures getting up after recovering from its strike. It jumped on top of her, snapping its teeth towards her neck. She hastily rolled onto her back and held the creature’s head back with a leg under its neck, fighting hard to keep its vicious fangs away from her face. The beast lunged a scythe at her, but Fluttershy shot her head to the side, missing the strike.
The beast let out a growl of frustration, and pushed its head forward in the hope its teeth could rip off Fluttershy’s face. The Dragonlord pushed back with all her might. She felt a drop of chilling drool fall from the creature’s lips and land on her cheek with a plop. Disgusted, she slowly moved her right leg into position, then, with a grunt, she thrust Drage Bane through the lower jaw and nose of the beast. It backed away, screaming in pain, giving Fluttershy the chance to finish it with a thrust through the chest from Firewing. The beast disappeared in a cloud of dusty fog, and became a pile of dust on the ground.
Another one coming up from behind jumped onto Fluttershy’s back, and bit hard into her exposed neck. Fluttershy shrieked in pain as she felt its teeth dig deep into her, and could feel the blood staining her mane and dripping down her neck. Before she subjected herself to panic and shock, she jumped into the air and threw herself onto the ground, throwing the creature off. She jumped up before it could recover and swung Firewing into its side, tearing it almost in half.
She pulled Firewing away, spun around and with Drage Bane slashed across the chest of another as it charged her. It tumbled over and went down, screaming and writhing even as it disintegrated into dust. Another came at her, thrusting it scythe-like weapons at her. She rolled around it and slashed off one scythe with Drage Bane, and then stabbed it with Firewing. Another one came from her side with its teeth bared, but she opened up her wing, and impaled the creature with her wing blades, cutting open its chest, face and destroying an eye. She pulled it out, and swung herself around to face the next one, positioning her hind-hooves apart and using her wings to keep her balance, as she had taught herself.
This one – a dark, glittery yellow – didn’t just charge at her; it circled her like a wolf, waiting for the right moment to strike. Fluttershy knew it was useless for it to think it could defeat her – she had already killed seven of them easily. These creatures were like predators, except that they didn’t work together as a group. They worked as individuals, where each one was vying for the kill, and they did not seem to care that a single pony had just slaughtered their comrades.
Such foolishness would be their downfall.
Fluttershy looked into the yellow beast’s eyes, and saw no fear of anything. She envied them for that. She shook herself out of her thoughts when the creature sensed her quick lapse in concentration and charged her with teeth, scythes and claws bared. Fluttershy missed the bite of its fangs by only a margin, and ducked low from its claws slashing at her. She wasn’t lucky to miss the scythes on its side, though, for one lunged a bit too far and grazed her left shoulder. She gritted her teeth to ignore the pain, and moved away before it could do anything else.
The beast lunged at her again with its fanged teeth, but this time she was ready. Fluttershy leapt forward and rolled herself into the air with her back to the ground, then slashed the beast’s chest and belly open with Drage Bane. The creature went down in a crumpled mess.
She rolled around, landed on three legs, and thrust Drage Bane into another creature’s neck before it could react. She reared up and slashed across the face of another coming from her left with Firewing. She pulled Drage Bane out of the first beast, spun around and slashed from the chest up to the top of the neck. She pulled out Firewing and slashed it across another creature that tried to come from behind her.
She thrust her wings out and impaled two more that came at her from the sides, thinking she was too busy with their dead comrades. They paid for that mistake with their lives. She yanked her wing blades out and let the creatures fall dead on their backs. She turned and looked around, gasping for air.
Fourteen of the creatures were dead, disintegrated into dust, while around six remained. There was no sign of where the large beast with the glaive was, but she knew it would emerge soon. ‘I’m ready for it,’ she thought, circling the remains of her attackers slowly, smirking to herself. ‘I can take on anything.’
Fluttershy’s blood was pumping around her body at a rate she had rarely felt before, increasing her senses, and dulling any pain she felt from the wounds she received from these monsters. She thought for a moment she was frightened, for the pain and for life as she faced these beasts, but she quickly saw the truth. She was excited. She was having the time of her life and, if she was honest to herself, she did not regret it. She didn’t want this fight, true, but this was what her Dragonlord blood wanted, no, needed.
With a cry leaving her lips, she charged the remaining monsters, which froze in uncertainty of what to do. ‘Probably used to their prey running from them, not charging at them.’ Their hesitance cost them two more of their comrades; ripped open by Fluttershy’s wing blades as she galloped past them. A dark lavender one charged her and swiped a claw at her. Fluttershy veered away from it, then slashed upwards and cut off one leg with Drage Bane. As the creature screamed into death, the Dragonlord spun around, taking a step back, and beheaded another as it tried to charge her from the side.
She spun around again and faced the two remaining creatures. This time, both started to move together, and started circling her with their heads low and mouths hissing with hunger and rage. Fluttershy’s eyes darted between each of them quickly. She knew their game. It was the same wolves as well as a few other predators played. They wanted her attention divided so she would have to take on one while the other killed her. Her Dragonlord mind thought fast, and quickly came up with a plan.
The one to the right of her sprung forward and leapt at her. Fluttershy turned to face it with her head raised high and her swords in a defence pose. She heard the other creature behind her leap into the air to bite into her neck and claw at her back, while the other aimed for her head.
The Dragonlord was ready for them both.
Just before the two creatures could sink their teeth into her, Fluttershy ducked at the last second. The two beasts’ faces smashed into each other, breaking teeth and jaws as they collided. Before they could hit the ground, Fluttershy stood up on her hind legs and impaled their jaws on her swords as they descended from the air. The creatures screamed in pain, which caused Fluttershy to wince regretfully at the sound. “I’m sorry, but you left me no choice,” she whispered, just as the last one crumpled up into dust.
As soon as the last echoes of the last of the creatures she had killed faded, the world returned to its eerie silence. Fluttershy set herself back on all fours, and took deep, heavy breaths to calm her nerves and excitement. The fight felt as though it had gone on for hours, yet it all took was only a matter of minutes. All that remained of the twenty or so creatures were piles of dust and ash that had poured out of their wounds.
A few splotches of red were dotted here and there, but were small and not very easy to spot to the untrained eye. Fluttershy, however, thanks to her dragon eyes, spotted them easily, and felt like panicking. ‘What did those things do to me?’
Fluttershy sat on her haunches and checked the back of her neck with a hoof. She felt the large wound had closed, thankfully, then put it back and saw her hoof was covered in dried blood from her wound. ‘My whole body must be covered,’ she thought. She glanced at her shoulder and saw the wound had sealed itself up as well, and had become a fleshy pink, but the blood that leaked from it now stained her chest and shoulder. When she felt calm once more, she got up on all fours and prepared herself to move and continue to find her friends.
She turned around to follow the path again and get away from this place, when she felt the air blasted out of her lungs again. Her mind barely had time to figure out what had happened as she felt herself fly through the air, and when she did, she cried out in alarm before landing in a crumpled heap against a tree. She yelped in pain as her back slammed into the tree, grinding against it as she fell onto her rump, and her mind went fuzzy and disorientated. ‘What did that? What the heck just happened?’ she thought erratically.
With her mind cleared, she looked to where she had stood previously, only for her eyes to widen in terror as the bigger creature had appeared, and was striding towards her with its glaive raised in both hands and pointing at her, ready to split open her belly.
At the last second before it could rip out her insides, Fluttershy leapt out of the way, missing the weapon by inches as it embedded itself deep into the tree. With the beast busy trying to pull it out, Fluttershy got up, lifted her left leg, drawing out Firewing, and walked slowly forward and prepared herself to kill this thing before it freed its weapon. ‘If I let that thing get its weapon out, then it will kill me,’ she reasoned to herself.
She knew she couldn’t run, for she would be chased down quickly, nor could she fly for she was tired after her fight, and her wings ached from what they had been made to do. It was a kill or be killed moment, and if she was ever to see her friends again, she had no choice but to go with the former.
Before she could land the killing blow, however, the creature tore its weapon free from the tree, and swung it around in a decapitating swing. Fluttershy widened her eyes in horror before she ducked and missed the attack. She could feel the blade take a few hairs of her mane, though.
The beast took the glaive with both hands, spun it over its head, and thrust the other end forward towards her chest. Fluttershy hastily stepped to the side, dodging the attack, and thrust Drage Bane forward. The creature deflected her attack with the other end of the glaive, and then pushed her backwards by a kick in the chest.
Fluttershy felt winded, but otherwise was okay. She looked up again, and quickly deflected another thrust from the glaive. Fluttershy pushed it away with Firewing, and then thrust Drage Bane forward once more. The beast saw it and caught it with the other end, frustrating Fluttershy. With the glaive busy, she pulled Drage Bane back, then thrust it forward once more and stabbed the thing in the shoulder.
The beast cried out, then shot its head down and bit into Fluttershy’s stretched out leg. Fluttershy screamed as she felt its teeth embed themselves into her leg. She punched the creature’s head with her free hoof, tearing off its hold on her leg, and she pulled it back and took a step back from it, examining the heavily bleeding leg. She wiggled it about a bit to make sure she could still use it, which she could. With that, she let out a war cry and furiously slashed, hacked and stabbed at the creature in rapid succession. But the creature was too strong, too quick, and too experienced, deflecting every blow with its glaive.
When she saw to her frustration that she wasn’t doing anything, she realised she needed to try a different tactic, and go on the defence. She spun away from the beast and took a few steps back from it. The beast saw she wasn’t planning to attack again, so with a scream of rage it attacked her with a savagery she hadn’t seen in her life. It hacked at her, slashed, stabbed, lashed out with its claws and tried to bite her with its teeth. Every time, though with a few minor scrapes, Fluttershy was able to avoid, duck, spin away, deflect, or block every attack.
Fluttershy ducked under another swing at her, but she was too slow for the second attack, which grazed her left shoulder. Fluttershy winced and screamed through gritted teeth at the pain she felt from her chest, shoulder, and leg. She screamed once more as the beast suddenly leapt forward and gripped her neck tightly with its teeth. She screamed even louder as she slowly felt her hooves leave the ground and send her into the air, all the while feeling the beast bite down harder into her neck, splitting open and widening the wound that had just closed before.
Quickly thinking, she thrust her right wing out and stabbed the beast in the face, taking out one of its eyes. The creature screamed, then hurled Fluttershy out of its hold and sent her down the hillside. Fluttershy felt her world spin for a long while, her vision between bright blue sky, rough, uneven dirt and pointy rocks before she came to a stop at the bottom of the hill. She groaned and hissed in pain and dizziness as she got up on shaky legs, and tried to move away from the hill as the beast came down the hill after her.
She staggered forward, and once she stopped she turned around to face it. She only saw the beast spin around and buck her hard in the chest with its hind legs, sending her flying back across the land. Her back smashed against the rock, forcing her to scream in pain as she slid back down to the earth. When she felt the ground beneath her hooves, she fell forward and landed on her stomach, exhausted, broken, and unable to fight on.
Fluttershy looked up, and her eyes widened in horror once more as the creature moved slowly towards her, its weapon in both hands, ready to bring down and finish her. At that moment, she felt the true terror of death. ‘No!’ she screamed in thought as she tried to push herself up and face this monster. ‘I don’t want to die! Oh gosh, I don’t want to die! Not yet! Not here! Please!’
She was halfway up on her hooves when she was savagely shoved down to the ground by one of the creature’s feet on her back. She looked up with terrified and pleading eyes at the beast, hoping it would have a sense of compassion. She saw nothing, only a lust for death in the creature’s eyes. Her death. “Please…” she begged, as tears streamed down her face.
The beast raised its other paw and shoved it down onto Fluttershy’s muzzle, silencing her pleas and cutting off her breathing. Her eyes bulged as she tried to free her head from its grip, but the beast was too strong. Fluttershy began to shake violently with terror and whimpered as the beast brought the point of its glaive to her bleeding neck, then slowly lifted it up, ready to thrust it down and end Fluttershy’s life.
The Dragonlord closed her eyes and prepared herself for the end.
She waited for the whistle of the blade as it swooped down and ripped through her bleeding neck, but all she heard was the faint whistle of an arrow soaring through the air, then the heavy impact against flesh. The creature screamed in agony, rearing up and snorting with rage as it tried to find its new attacker. Fluttershy opened her eyes and looked up, and saw the large arrowhead pointing out from its left shoulder. Free from the beast’s hold, she instantly crawled away from the beast, her eyes wide as they fixed themselves onto her saviour.
“Hey!” Cadence cried out as she skidded down the slope as if she was on a snowboard, preparing to loosen another arrow. She leapt the rest of the jump, and walked along the plateau towards the beast, stopping to aim her bow at the beast’s head. “Why don’t you pick on somepony closer to your own size!”
The beast turned to face her entirely, and growled at her. It suddenly charged forward with its weapon lowered and pointing at Cadence. The former Princess loosed her arrow, and hit the beast in the chest, just below the neck. The beast yelped in pain, but stopped, pulled out the arrow, and threw it at her. Cadence didn’t flinch as the piece of arrow landed at her hooves. Her eyes narrow with hate, Cadence released the bow from her magic, letting it fall to the ground, and unsheathed her sword.
The beast grinned as if it knew she would be a worthy challenger, then burst forward and thrust its glaive at her. Cadence stepped to the side, blocked, pushed back, and countered with a swing of her own sword. The beast blocked it with the other end, spun round so he was behind her, and then thrust low in the hope to cut her open from groin to neck. Cadence spun away from the attack, then steadied herself and prepared for the next attack. She wasn’t left waiting for long.
The beast came forward and swung one end at her, making her block the first attack, and then it swung the other end low to cut her open. Cadence stepped back and blocked the attack easily. She swept the glaive away with her sword, then swung it right to go at its neck. The creature was quick and caught it with the other end of the glaive.
Cadence jumped back and began to stare and pace before the creature, waiting for it to make the next move. She didn’t have to wait too long, as the creature charged forward with its glaive raised above its head, and once he was in range swung it down towards her skull. Cadence raised her sword and blocked the blow, but it was so strong that it pushed her sword to the ground, forcing Cadence to back away a bit. The beast raised its glaive and swung it again, aiming for her shoulder.
Cadence deflected the strike and swung away, reeling in her sword once more and slashing it across the beast’s shoulder. The creature grunted in pain, then swung about to face her and thrust its weapon at her. Cadence stepped to the side, dodging the strike, and then thrust her own sword at the creature’s chest.
The creature dodged the strike with a graceful roll unbefitting of its kind. Once it was on its paws again it swung its glaive at a wide and rapid angle, forcing Cadence to duck at the last second. Cadence leapt forward and swung her sword down on the side of her opponent’s neck. The beast deflected it with its glaive, prompting Cadence to swing it back, and swing again, forcing the glaive out of the beast’s arms. Before it could pick the weapon up she pushed the creature back with her body, and then jumped back and thrust her sword at the creature’s chest.
The creature wailed in pain and pressed its arms right against its shoulders, collapsing onto its knees in its final moment. Cadence grinned with triumph, as did Fluttershy – albeit weakly – but that grin turned to a look of horror as the creature’s look of pain turned into a sneer as it stared up at her. It removed its arms from its sides, revealing that the blade had been tucked in between.
Before Cadence could react, the creature reached out and grabbed the alicorn by the neck with its large hand. Cadence gasped for air and used her magic to get her sword through the beast’s neck. The monster, however, simply grabbed hold of the sword’s hilt, breaking the alicorn’s magic hold of it, and threw it out of Cadence’s reach.
“You should work on your aim, equine filth,” the creature said in a very rough version of the equestrian language, before bringing up his free hand, clenching it into a fist, and thrust it into the Princess’s face.
Fluttershy turned away at the sound of Cadence’s cry of pain, and then winced as she was hit again, and again, and again, and again, with the alicorn’s cry of pain following every punch. ‘I need to get up,’ she thought to herself, wincing as another sickening sound of a fist meeting a boned cheek flew through her ears. ‘I need to help her.’ Grimacing and shaking violently, she tried to stand up and keep herself supported. Just as she made it halfway, her legs gave out once more and she collapsed onto her stomach, whimpering at her weakness. ‘I’m so sorry, Cadence,’ she thought despairingly.
The creature finally stopped punching Cadence, and threw her away from her sword and any help from Fluttershy if she could give any. The alicorn spat out some blood and stared at the beast with a bloodied mouth and a heavily bruised face. The beast turned away, picked up his glaive, then spun around and threw it at her like a javelin.
Cadence’s horn lit up before the glaive could find its mark and disappeared in a flash, appearing beside the creature. She kicked out with her hind legs, throwing the beast to the ground, before running to her fallen sword and reclaiming it. She stared with one good eye at the beast as it picked itself from the ground and retrieved its weapon. As the two stared each other down, Cadence’s eye looked at Fluttershy, who was watching the whole fight with fear.
“Fluttershy, I need your help!” Cadence called as the pair began to circle one another.
“I can’t, I don’t think I have the strength to get up!” Fluttershy replied regretfully, her eyes clenched shut as she could not bear to watch any longer.
“Sometimes I don’t either, but you know what I do when I feel like that? I push it all to the back of my mind and think on what I have to do! The pain and exhaustion comes later!” Cadence replied encouragingly. She stepped back as the creature feinted a lunge at her. “Please, Fluttershy, I need your help to kill this beast! I can’t take it alone!”
Fluttershy clenched her eyes shut as she tried to clear the pain and exhaustion she felt to the back of her mind. She looked up again to see Cadence blocking another attack from the creature, though her face told the pegasus that she was struggling to keep it together. ‘She’s not going to last much longer,’ she realised.
The thought, the very possibility, of watching one of her friends dying seemed to do something to her, much like when she faced Heimdallr for the first time. It sent a fiery rage through her that pushed all thoughts of pain and exhaustion away from her like a pegasus pushing away a rain cloud.
“Fluttershy!” Cadence cried as the creature swung its glaive from over its head again, and again, and again, and the alicorn was almost powerless to stop it. “Help me!”
A plea of help was the final piece of medicine for the Dragonlord. Gritting her teeth together, Fluttershy slowly stood up on all fours and spread them out a bit until she felt stable on her hooves. ‘Alone, we can be defeated. Together, we are unstoppable.’
“Cadence! Take it from the air, I’ll take it from below!” Fluttershy called. With a defiant neigh leaving her lips, she charged forward with her head low.
Cadence nodded, then jumped back and quickly sheathed her sword and picked up her bow, before taking to the air. The beast was too busy looking at Cadence with incredulous eyes, it failed to notice Fluttershy charging at it.
Fluttershy leapt into the air, and smashed into its side; slamming it to the ground and making it drop its weapon. As it landed, Fluttershy rolled forward, then spun around and let Drage Bane shoot out of its bracelet.
The creature screamed in rage at her, then slowly got up. Before it made it halfway, Cadence loosed another arrow from her bow, embedding it into the creature’s back. The beast grunted in pain and briskly picked up its weapon, but that was all it could do before Fluttershy slashed its side with Firewing, and then spun around and stabbed it with Drage Bane.
The beast turned and swung its glaive with a claw, but Fluttershy danced away from it, allowing Cadence to loose another shot, hitting it at the back of the neck. The creature, however, was patient, and charged after Fluttershy, who had turned around and waited for it.
At the last second, Fluttershy rolled out of the way, using her wing blades to graze the side of the beast, and let it slam into a tree behind her. “That’s what you get for hurting my friends, you meanie!” Fluttershy yelled.
The monster heaved itself from the ground, and flung itself at the pegasus with bared teeth. Fluttershy swung about, crouched low and bucked it in the teeth, smashing them into pieces and sending the creature rolling through the air. Once it landed, Cadence sent another arrow soaring from her bow, and sent it into the back of the beast.
The beast cried out in pain, then reached up and ripped the arrow from its back. Fluttershy quickly looked up at Cadence and nodded to her. Cadence nodded confidently back, then sheathed her bow, drew her sword, and dived straight down towards the creature. The beast looked up and sneered with the remnants of its teeth, and prepared itself for Cadence’s attack.
Fluttershy smirked as she saw its gaze attach itself to Cadence, and charged towards it. The beast didn’t notice Fluttershy until it was too late. The pegasus leapt onto its back, and started stabbing it between the shoulder blades with both her swords. The creature howled in pain and reared up with its arms fraying about. Cadence swooped low, and slashed its stomach open with her sword, before heading back up into the sky and out of harm’s way.
The creature howled once more, and tried to grab Fluttershy, who stabbed it one more time, before jumping through the air and gliding towards the centre of the circle. The beast, in a spat of rage, tore across the ground, spewing up mud and blood as it hurtled towards Fluttershy.
The pegasus, however, was prepared. Just before the creature smashed into her, she surged forward and leapt over it, barely missing its remaining teeth, and slashed lightly across the back of the beast, while Cadence sent another arrow whizzing from her bow, and impaling one of its eyes.
The beast roared in frustration, then spun around and threw its glaive at Cadence. The Princess casually dodged it by swerving to the right. “Time to finish this!” Cadence declared. She shot to the ground, landed, then spun around and bucked the beast hard, sending it flying across the land before smashing into the rock where Fluttershy had previously fell.
Cadence holstered her bow back at her side, and drew her sword again as she walked casually to the downed beast. The thing tried to get back up, but before it could, Cadence brought her sword around till its point aimed at the ground then thrust it into the beast’s skull. The creature’s eyes went wide with pain, and the whole body shook violently as it died. Cadence pushed the sword even deeper, until the whole point was through the head and breaking out on the other side.
Eventually, the creature went entirely still, and the world went silent once more.
Cadence pulled the sword out, and then stepped back till she collapsed on her haunches, her teeth gritted together in pain as she set her wings back to her sides. Fluttershy breathed a heavy sigh of relief, then felt herself fall over and land on her side. She saw through her blurring vision Cadence look over to her. “Fluttershy?” she called. The Princess got up and staggered towards her. “Fluttershy, can you hear me?”
Fluttershy nodded wearily, her breathing heavy. “You came,” she whispered, smiling weakly at the sight of a friend. “You found me.”
Cadence grinned. “Of course I did.” She wrapped Fluttershy in her magic, and gently set the pegasus on her back. “Come, let’s get away from here,” she said. She turned around, picked up the arrows she could use from the dead beast, and walked away with her friend.
Cadence and Fluttershy eventually found a small lake a few minutes or so from where they had found each other. It was shaped as though two circles had collided together, with strips of land wedged between the two. Lilies and tall grass covered the banks of the lake, while trees taller then houses surrounded it and obscuring it from hostile eyes.
When Cadence arrived at the bank of the lake, she slowly set herself down on her stomach, and let Fluttershy crawl off and fall unceremoniously onto her side. The pegasus felt exhausted. Her right leg pained a bit from where the creature had bitten her, and her whole body ached from exhaustion. “I must look terrible,” she said, her voice strained and heavy with fatigue.
“Oh, believe me, I have seen much worse. Here, sit up and let me clean off the blood on you,” Cadence said gently. Fluttershy groaned and lifted herself onto her rump, too exhausted to move any more. Seeing she was not going to move anymore, Cadence dipped her hoof into the pond, took it out again, then turned around and began cleaning off the blood that stained Fluttershy’s back and neck.
“You know, you are very lucky to still be alive, especially with those marks on your neck – anypony else would be dead by now.” Cadence gently rubbed a hoof over the wounds, and was visibly shocked once she saw that they had closed. “They’ve sealed up.”
Fluttershy puffed a quiet sigh of relief. “Dragonlords have a faster healing rate than most ponies, Cadence. Wounds on us take seconds to close up, except the most fatal ones, of course. It is a relief that they have closed up, though. I really thought the one on my neck would be my end.”
“Heh, I doubt it. If a giant, lake-faring monster can’t kill you, then I doubt anything else could,” Cadence offered. The pair fell silent for a while as Cadence wiped off the blood staining Fluttershy’s back.
“There, all squeaky clean,” Cadence announced a few minutes later, staring at her hoof work like a mother would after cleaning their foal. “Turn around so I can clean your face and chest up.” Fluttershy did as she was told, and shifted about till she was facing Cadence. She looked down and saw her chest was stained with blood from her shoulder wounds. She nearly fainted from the amount she saw. She looked away as Cadence started wiping the blood off, wincing and flinching every time as Cadence wiped a bit off with her magic and her hoof. “You need to stop flinching, Fluttershy, or else I might miss a bit and this will take longer,” Cadence warned playfully.
Fluttershy smiled sheepishly, though she could feel it straining to stay in place. “Sorry. I just get really jumpy when being touched by another pony,” she said. She giggled when she heard Cadence’s tone. “You know, you would make a great mother someday.”
From the corner of Fluttershy’s eye, she could see Cadence smile wryly, though it was certainly pained. “Thanks, sweetie. I wish I could say the same about you, as well.”
Fluttershy giggled. “It’s all right. I’ve accepted it long ago.” The two fell into a comfortable silence for a bit. “How did you find me?” she whispered after a while.
“I heard your screams,” Cadence replied grimly as she wiped off a trail of dried blood down the front of her neck. At Fluttershy’s imploring look, she explained. “I was making my way back along the road and towards the crossroads when I heard you cry out. I broke into a canter, but slowed down after thinking that I might have been hearing things, but I heard your screams again so I started galloping as fast as I could along the road to find you.”
She paused to start working on Fluttershy’s chest. “When it went quiet, I thought that I really had heard things, so I slowed down and continued to look for you and the others. When I picked up your screaming again, this time more pained, I galloped as hard and as fast as my legs could go. The rest I think you know.”
At that moment, Fluttershy realised just how close she was to death. There had been many times where she had nearly died, but those moments were with close friends, which made them seem more comforting. This time, however, she had been alone, with nopony to say goodbye to and a creature she had done no wrong to staring at her with the joy of her torment in its eyes.
Fluttershy felt tears begin to build up as the emotional toll of what had just happened began to come to the forefront. “Cadence, I don’t think I could ever thank you enough for saving my life.”
Cadence used a hoof to move Fluttershy’s face to stare at her in the eyes, a warm, kind smile on her face. “Hey, now, you would do the same for any of us,” she said gently, not slowing down on cleaning Fluttershy’s bloodied chest.
Fluttershy shook her head, just as the tears began to fall. “No, Cadence, I really mean it. Thank you.” She leapt forward and wrapped the alicorn in a tight hug. She could no longer control her emotions, so she let them out in her tears. “I thought I was going to die back there,” she sobbed as she held Cadence close. Cadence instantly wrapped her forelegs around the pegasus in comfort, obviously knowing where this was going. “I thought I wasn’t scared of dying, but when that creature was towering over me with death in its hands I was scared, so scared. I didn’t want to die like that, alone and without any friends beside me. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to die…”
“Shh, hey, now, shh, shh, shh, shh, it’ll be okay,” Cadence cooed softly, rubbing her back in gentle strokes. “It’s all right, now, Fluttershy. It’s gone.” Her eyes suddenly narrowed, her ears falling flat in dismay. “Well, that one, at least,” she added darkly.
Fluttershy abruptly stopped crying at Cadence’s words, and pulled her head away from the alicorn’s chest, her cheeks glistening in the low sunlight. “That one, at least?” she repeated fearfully. “You mean, there’s more of them out there?”
Cadence nodded, her head shifting as she looked around her for signs of more of them. “Yes. Many more, possibly hundreds, are out there right now hunting for our friends and us. Now, we might be re-united, but our friends and my auntie are not.”
She paused for breath, while using a hoof to dry Fluttershy’s wet cheeks. “Are you scared, Fluttershy?” she asked.
Fluttershy didn’t need long to answer the question; she thought it was pointless to be asked it in the first place. “Of course I am scared, Cadence. More scared than I have ever been.”
“Then you can imagine how scared the others must be,” Cadence said, breaking her hold on Fluttershy. “They are alone right now, with nopony beside them to keep them safe. We need to find them now, and fast, before those creatures find them or us. They thought separating us would break us, keep us from fighting and allowing us to fall into despair. But they were wrong. It has made me more determined to fight on and see us all out of here alive, and I am sure in that heart of yours you think the same.”
Cadence stood up, and held out a hoof for Fluttershy to take. “Are you with me, Dragonlord?”
Fluttershy looked at her for a long time, before she stared at her shaking hooves. She was terrified of these things and the death they promised to her should they catch her, yet she knew she could not let that fear hold her in place. Cadence was right. Her friends were out there and in a far worse position than she was. She had a friend to back her up, and as far as Cadence and herself knew, Luna, Trixie and Spike didn’t. She needed to toughen up, if not for herself but for them.
She wiped her eyes with her hooves, then looked up at Cadence and nodded determinedly while reaching out and taking Cadence’s outstretched hoof. “I’m with you, Cadence. Always.”
Cadence smiled. “I knew you would be.” She helped Fluttershy up on all fours, and then looked around. “Right then, how should we go about this?”
Fluttershy tapped her chin in thought, while her eyes constantly wandered about the clearing, searching for any sign of the creatures that had so mercilessly attacked them. She quickly looked to the air, then back at Cadence. “How are you for flying?” she asked.
Cadence nodded as she slowly spread her wings. “I think I can fly for a little whi– ah!” she hissed as her body seized up in pain. She suddenly set one wing back to her side and collapsed onto her rump, gritting her teeth.
Fluttershy rushed to her side in an instant, instantly regretting the thought of flying. “Oh gosh, I am so sorry, I didn’t know you were badly injured!” she cried as she looked to the wing in question. She brushed aside a few of the feathers upon seeing Cadence’s face contort further in pain, and saw to her horror a large bite wound along the wing’s ulna. She instantly set the feathers back the way they were, relieving Cadence of any further pain. “What happened?”
“One of those smaller beasts managed to latch onto my wing with its teeth when I tried to fly away yesterday,” Cadence replied, her breaths quick and shallow as the pain receded away from her face. “If I fly for longer than half an hour, then it starts to play up, and I’ve already used my wings to the point of death today. I don’t think I’ll be able to fly properly for a long time now.”
Fluttershy’s gaze fell in shame of herself. “I’m sorry, Cadence. I didn’t mean to–”
“Hey, it’s all right. You didn’t know I was injured,” Cadence said kindly, looking back at her with a smile. She flicked her head to throw some of her mane out of her face. “And the pain was worth it just to see that vile beast defeated.”
“But you must have been in agony,” Fluttershy pointed out, her gaze now fixed on the shoulder hidden by Cadence’s mane. ‘Cadence doesn’t usually have her mane like that. Unless she’s hiding something,’ she thought.
“Oh, yes, constantly,” Cadence replied, grinning assuredly, “but like I said before, I ignored the pain as best as I could and focused on seeing that thing dead and you safe and sound, and it worked.” She noticed Fluttershy staring at her shoulder, and her grin faded. “What’s wrong?” Fluttershy simply stepped forward, and briskly lifted a hoof and brushed Cadence’s mane off her shoulder. “No, Fluttershy, don–” The words died on Cadence’s lips as the Dragonlord stared in horror at the large gash running along Cadence’s shoulder and her upper chest, surrounded by a pool of dried blood.
Fluttershy swallowed, then stared at Cadence with narrow, yet concerned eyes. “Don’t you, ‘don’t look at it’, me, missy,” she said sternly, causing the Crystal Princess to wince on herself in shame. She rushed over to the pool, got hold of a lily pad, and raced back to Cadence’s side. “That wound needs to be cleared up before it gets infected.” With that, she began rubbing the wet lily pad over Cadence’s injury. Cadence flinched and hissed in pain, but other than that, she stayed still and made no moves to stop her from cleaning it up.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Cadence whispered.
Fluttershy briefly glanced at her, before attending to the wound once more. “I know I don’t, but I want to. You’re my friend, Cadence. It would be wrong of me to just leave this alone.”
Cadence stayed silent for a few seconds, allowing Fluttershy to continue, before asking, “Are we friends?”
Fluttershy stopped her work, and turned to face Cadence with a friendly smile. “Of course we are. We might barely know each other, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get to know each other better from now on. And we need one another for support, so that helps our friendship to grow.” She quickly returned to cleaning Cadence’s wound.
Cadence merely smiled. “Thank you, Fluttershy. And I see you as a friend, too,” she said quietly. Fluttershy did not reply but her smile simply grew wider.
After a while, Fluttershy pulled herself back from the wound, and threw her used lily pad back into the pool. “There. Clean as a whistle now,” she announced motherly.
Cadence smiled and threw her mane back over it to cover it up. “Thanks, Fluttershy,” she said as she stood up, rolling her shoulder to see how it felt. “That actually feels a lot better now. You are a natural when it comes to stuff like this.”
Fluttershy looked to the ground with a bashful gaze. “Ah, it was nothing, really. I just cleaned it up.”
Cadence giggled. “Nope, your hooves are miracle workers, I just know it.” She turned away from the pegasus to stare at the clearing around them, her smile turning to a frown. “Okay, so with flying out of the question, which way do we go from here?”
Fluttershy looked back the way they had come. “I wouldn’t go back that way–” She was cut off when screeches unlike anypony she had heard before reached her ears, paling her coat considerably.
Cadence spun around as the sounds grew closer, her eyes widening with fright. “More of those things!” she cried.
Fluttershy spun in place, looking for a place to hide, yet they were in the open, with no bushes close by to cover them. The Dragonlord began to sweat in fear. “Where can we go? Where can we hide?” she squeaked in terror.
“Fluttershy!” The pegasus stopped spinning around and turned to face Cadence, who gestured with her head to the pond. She nodded understandably, and as one, the pair jumped into the pond and dived till nothing of their bodies was visible above water. It was quite deep and clear with no fish to speak of, thankfully, and leaving enough space for the two to spread out and hide.
Fluttershy looked over to Cadence and gave her a look that said, “I hope this works.”
Cadence seemed to understand what she was saying, for her look was sympathetic and seemed to say, “Me too.”
The two stopped conversing with their eyes to look up and see one of the things standing before the waterline, gazing at the land before it with lidless eyes. Fluttershy felt her heart stop as the creature’s head lowered, staring not just at the water, but also into it, as though it was staring right at them. She felt something crawl along her hoof, and she looked down to see Cadence’s hoof on top of her own. Without looking up, the pegasus comfortingly brought her hoof up and wound it around Cadence’s so that they were holding hooves.
After a moment, bringing the Dragonlord to the conclusion that they had found them and were now waiting for them to come out to breathe, the creature turned away and disappeared from the bank. Carefully, so not to make to much noise, the two ponies lifted themselves past the waterline so that only the top of their heads and their nostrils were visible.
Quickly and quietly, Cadence lifted two lily pads over and covered their faces with them to make them more discreet. To Fluttershy, however, it just made their hiding place more obvious, especially with Cadence’s horn getting in the way. ‘What if they come back? What if they see two lumps sticking out the water and realise it is us? Oh, we’re going to be caught and killed fo–’ The dark yellow creature returned to view once again, cutting off Fluttershy’s thoughts as though she had been saying them aloud.
She lowered her head a bit more when seven more appeared, followed by another of the horse-like beasts. Unlike the other one, however, this one had a black mane and carried a long staff balancing across its shoulders. A few of the smaller creatures ran around it, sniffing at the ground, while those that weren’t doing anything were directed by the larger creature to go elsewhere. ‘It’s almost like that one is herding them, like a… shepherd,’ she figured, as the larger beast spun its staff around and pointed it to the south. At once, the smaller creatures leapt away from the pond and galloped into the direction of the pointing staff, the shepherd following them at a canter.
Fluttershy craned her neck to be sure that the creatures were leaving through the forest on the other side of the clearing, and sighed with relief as they disappeared through the trees, never coming back. She turned to Cadence, who stayed low and shivered in fear. “It’s all right, Cadence. They’ve gone,” she said calmly.
Cadence closed her eyes in relief, and quickly jumped out of the pond and shook off any excess water. “Phew, that was too close for comfort,” she said, gazing at the direction they had gone with concern.
“Yes, it was,” Fluttershy agreed flatly as she threw off her new hat. She staggered out of the lake and onto dry land once more, shaking her body and ridding it of any excess water that stained it. She looked over to Cadence, only to look away sheepishly to see Cadence was wet once more. “Sorry.”
Cadence shook off the water, smiling disarmingly at her. “It’s fine. It’s not easy for other ponies to make me wet.” She turned away from the pegasus, leaving Fluttershy confused and pondering deeply as to what she meant; when she did, her face contorted into disgust and embarrassment. “Now then, if those things went that way,” she pointed in the general direction their pursuers had gone, “then I suggest we take the opposite route instead.”
Fluttershy shook her head. “That would take us back the way we came, right to where we fought and killed all of those beasts,” the Dragonlord objected. She turned on the spot, her eyes narrow as she searched for way out, only to stop and grin when she saw a narrow space through the trees, on the other side of the lake. “We go that way,” she declared, pointing.
Cadence stared worriedly at the way Fluttershy was pointing. “Are you sure about this? We could be pushing ourselves deeper and deeper into a place we have no idea about, with these things everywhere.”
Fluttershy shrugged. “I’m not sure, no,” she admitted. “But we can’t stay here. We need to find our friends as soon as possible.” She looked ahead again, and gently rubbed the side of her face. “If we stick to the larger roads rather than the smaller ones, then we could make our way around the Vale better.”
Cadence sighed, as though the idea didn’t sit well with her. “I have to admit that it’s not the best plan in the world, walking around like headless chickens.” Fluttershy’s ears flopped as she briefly remembered watching poor Beaky running around headless for a few seconds before dying; to this day, she was still unsure how the chicken lost its head in the first place.
“However,” Cadence continued, drawing the pegasus back to reality, “I haven’t got any better ideas, so we’ll have to stick to that one. Lead on, please,” she said, gesturing with a hoof for the Dragonlord to start walking.
Fluttershy nodded her thanks for the support, and with Cadence close behind began trotting warily around the lake, through the woods, and towards wherever her road led.
‘We’re coming to find you, my friends,’ she thought as the pair broke into a gallop. ‘Just stay safe till we meet again.’