Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Over the clouded skies of the Everfree Forest, there was a dragon in flight.
His scales were a bright, pristine crimson, and his plated underbelly was a thick, plated tan. Obsidian black claws and talons hung loosely from his form as he flew, his great draconic wings giving loud, audible flaps with each beat.
He was sent by the elders of his kind to befriend ponykind in hopes of shedding light on whether or not dragonkind and ponykind can or cannot coexist with one another. They're feared and hated by all else.
He, as an individual, was to represent the entirety of the dragon species.
'At least, those who would support.' he thought to himself. 'But in order for this to happen, I must start small and gain their trust. But where to start?' just as he asked himself this, his focused orange gaze met a small village just off of the edge of the Everfree, coming over the trees. Even from such a distance away, the crimson drake saw that it was small, but lively and colorful.
'Mmmm, this will suffice as a place to start. Now to take up a nearby residence.' he thought as his eyes wandered away from Ponyville to the Everfree as he flew over, searching for a place to land.
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Ever since the great dragon migration roughly a year ago, questions began popping into Spike's head as time went on, some old and some new, and this time, they refused to leave.
Who is he? Where did he come from? Why doesn't he have wings? These questions bounced around in Spike's young mind as he tended to keeping the library in one piece. Twilight, or should we say, Princess Twilight, had taken a visit to Canterlot today to visit the princesses, leaving the drake to watch over the library while she was away. After making sure the library was in tip top condition, with every nook and cranny dusted, every book arranged alphabetically, and the beds organized, Spike flunghimself down on the couch in the main room and let out a long, exhausted sigh, staring up at the ceiling.
The big questions plagued his mind now more than ever, and he has now way of answering them.
"What I'd give to have at least one of them answered." Spike said with a sigh before he pulled himself off of the couch and headed towards the door. Maybe a nice walk and seeing a friend will help him clear his thoughts. "Maybe they know more about dragons." Spike pondered out loud as he stopped just shy of the door, rubbing his chin. He listed off his friends and then pondered whether or not they'd know anything at all about dragons as he made his way out.
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"Hmmm. Rarity, no. Cheerilee, no. Lyra, no. Fluttershy... definitely not."
'Is there anyone?!' Spike thought in frustration. As he walked, he came to the conclusion that nopony in Ponyville would know of any dragons... other than himself, of course.
"So that leaves anypony outside of Ponyville, but who..." he muttered quietly as his mind went blank for a second before it hit him like a ton of bricks.
"Zecora!" he blurted out loud, attracting confused glances. Cracking under their gazes, he continued. "She must have the cure! I gotta find her!" and with that, he took off for the Everfree, the nearby ponies shrugging and returning to their business. Spike slowed to a walk, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Phew. That was a close one."
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Zecora was busy strolling through the Everfree forest, on her daily routine.
She had a basket clutched in her mouth, filled with various fruits, flowers, and vegetables freshly picked from the vast assortment of vegetation that made up the wild, unruly forest known as the Everfree. She had a cauldron of boiling soup back at her home, and her stomach growled openly at the thought.
"Mmmm, I cannot wait to get home. My mouth is already beginning to drool and foam." Zecora said, her voice muffled by the basket handle she was biting on, saliva threatening to make its way down the handle. With her hunger growing, she quickened her steady pace to a trot, anxious to return to her house. She could smell her still boiling soup from her home as she neared, but as she did, she felt her blood run cold at what was waiting outside of her door, apparently after her food as well.
Standing, pacing, and pawing at her home was a fully grown manticore, its maw drooling as it paced around, looking for a way to get inside to that delicious smelling cauldron of soup.
'This is not good, this is not good! A manticore has arrived in search of food!'(I know. Not a good rhyme.) Zecora panicked in her mind. She looked in her basket for anything that could repel or draw its ire long enough for her to escape danger.
Nothing.
With her heart thumping in her chest at the speed of sound, and her forehead beginning to perspire, the shamare lowered herself to the ground and began to slowly creep away, slowly putting distance between her in the mythical beast. As it continued to paw and groan in hunger, Zecora was almost far enough to make a break for it when the unthinkable happened.
She stepped on an unsuspecting twig, the snapping sound echoing through the area.
She froze.
She shakily looked up to see the manticore facing her, glaring deadly daggers at her, its teeth bared, drool from hunger dripping from its lips. The shamare's heart came to a grinding halt, any color on her face vanishing to a pure white, stricken with crippling fear. The manticore took an imposing step forward, its dramatically massive front paws kicking up considerable dirt with a loud, startling thud. That seemed to be enough to jolt Zecora back to the life as her face regained its color as she took off in the other direction as fast as her legs could carry her, the manticore giving a loud, earth-shaking roar as it gave chase, the primal urge to hunt and kill as strong as ever.
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Our drake was busying himself by looking for a suitable place to call his home for the time being.
Every cave or den he managed to find was occupied, too small, or smelled funny, one of them, and making one himself would require a full stomach.
Such he did not have at hand, given the fact he hasn't eaten for days.
However, before he could continue his search any longer, the drake's attention was drawn as his small, but sensitive ears caught the familiar roar of a dragon not far off. He looked in the direction of the sound to see birds flying to get away from the loud noise.
Tilting his head in curiosity, the crimson drake banked towards the source of the sound.
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Zecora was running for her life.
As she ran, she cut through brushes, trees, anything to put more distance between her and the manticore, but the beast, driven by hunger, would not give up so easily as it clawed, forced, and made its way through the forest, keeping ground with its prey.
Adrenaline and blood pumped through Zecora's body at a phenomenal rate, pushing, pumping, demanding that she keeps running to get away from danger. She had long dropped and forgotten her fruit basket during the chase for the need to get away. The soup will have to wait. That is, if she ever makes it back at all.
However, fate might not be as forgiving as she came to a dead end; a small clearing at the bottom of a cliff. The shamare desperately tried to climb up the rockface, but it too steep and too slippery to accomplish such a feat.
That left accepting her fate.
Turning with her back against the wall, she saw the manticore approach, the beast slowing down as it saw that its prey is trapped with nowhere to go. With its gaze locked onto its meal, it licked its lips for the meal to come.
Zecora was backed against the wall, nothing or nopony to save herself, and facing a ferocious manticore hellbent on eating her. That left only only one option. Facing upward, she cried out.
"H-help! Please! Anypony!" her cry for help breaches the canopies, carried by the wind, her rhyme dropped in this life and death situation. The manticore, after being put off by its prey's screech for a brief moment, shakes it off and closes in for the kill. There is nowhere to hide. Zecora curls up into a ball against the rockface, shutting her eyes so she won't see the coming end. But its the manticore who's fatally exposed as a monstrous roar echoed from the sky.
They are not alone.