Chapter 7
New Life
“Wake up. It’s a new day, time to get up!” said Moonstone, as he was trying to shake Inn awake.
Inn slowly got up. She looked around and saw all the metal... she knew where she was. It wasn’t all a dream after all. She felt stiff all over. She thought the floor must be rough to make her feel so bad after only one night. Several of her joints popped as she moved. “Oh, my...” she began, trying to think of a body part to start complaining about first.
“Oh, was the floor rough on you? Maybe you should of taken the table.”
“I s-slept okay. It wasn’t tha-” began Inn, only to fall face first to the floor. “-t bad.” She could not stand on her own.
Moonstone laughs, “Look at that, you can’t stand. Do you want some help up stairs, little pony?”
Inn looked down and blushed, “Y-yeah.”
Moonstone lifted Inn onto his back and carried her to the kitchen table, he helped her into a seat, and went of to make some tea. This time when he was making tea, Inn noticed that there was more going on. Inn tried to turn her head to see what was the cause for the extra noise, but was quickly distracted by more popping from her neck.
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There is a loud whistle, and Inn wakes with a start. The tea was done, and there was already a pot in front of her. All she can think is that she fell asleep at the table for at least half an hour. Seconds later, another pot of tea is in front of Inn, being held by a very happy Moonstone.
“OH, your up! I have tea!”
Inn only has the strength to look back with an odd expression.
“I have a straw for you to drink your tea, if that helps. Being on the floor must be tough.” said Moonstone as he puts a straw into Inn’s cup for her. “It looks as though I’m out of apple cider, but that’s okay! Tea can help with getting you back to normal.”
Inn did not believe this, but she did need something to drink. In a few minutes, she felt much stronger, and a little more awake too. “See, it worked out all those kinks.”
Inn went for another cup. “Th-this tea, is better, this time than, last n-night.”
Inn and Moonstone spent the rest of the day talking and drinking tea.
“It sounds like you get to see a lot. I spend most of my time here studying,” commented Moonstone.
“Y- yes, I do. That may ch-change though, s-seeing that I have a P-place now.”
Moonstone’s eyes grew. “Do you think that you can look into what ponies are up to these days for me? I don’t care if it is as small as how they look, or as big as how the princes is doing.”
Inn was a little shocked by the question. She understood that he was not easy to approach and that his house was no different, however Moonstone seemed very social and had a deep urge to learn. Despite all that, this was a shock, a request for her to practically spy on other ponies and give Moonstone her findings.
But, what could be the harm?
“Y-yes. Okay.”
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Not long thereafter, Inn headed home. She decided to take a more casual walk back to the hut than the one she took to get to the shiny house.
On her slowed paced though, she starts to notice some things. There were some roads the she did not see before. This was both good and bad, for Inn had some ideas on how to sneak up on the monsters and the roads where made for the ponies that traveled in the forest. The only bad thing was that her not seeing this before meant that Inn still needed to work on her observation skills.
There where so many paths that Inn had not noticed before that she almost got lost a few times. Inn was enjoying the new sights and sounds. It seemed new, but all she had done was not pay attention.
She finally got to her hut, and found it looking... dirty. Had it rained? If it had there was no mud. Maybe the Everfree dries faster than in town. It was possible, everypony always said that the forest was different. When Inn got inside, she saw that the roof was drooping in slightly. It must not of been strong enough for the rain.
Well the white filly was tired from the long walk over and wanted a rest before getting some supplies to repair the damages. This would take almost a completely new build, with even stronger bones to hold up the fur this time.
Maybe she would slay a dragon?
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Moonstone had given her some bags of tea before she left, saying she should always have some. Inn drank some of the tea that night before going out to look for some building materials for her hut.
She had seen a cave on one of her previous hunts for materials, this could likely be the home of a dragon, she thought. She had seen some dragons in books before, so she could look like one herself. The only problem was, she did not have much to go on with variety, so she was nervous that the dragon would see through her disguise.
The red and blue dragon went into the cave to look around, but only finding gems she turns around. There was a larger green dragon blocking the exit. Oops.
“Did you think that you could steal my gems?” he growled.
Inn at first whimpered into the corner. But she tried to just stay focused on the fact that she had found a dragon. “No... In fact I was not looking for any boring rocks, I was looking for you!”
The larger dragon got a little bit frighted by that fact that Inn had just used his own voice to utter those words. “Who, what are you? That was my voice! How dare you say that to me with my own voice you!”
Inn just smiled and slowly walked toward him. “Oh, do you hate this? I love it. Come on big guy lets have some fun,” Inn continued to use his voice, sounding seductive and a little malevolent too.
He started to back up, this dragon was really starting to scare him.“W-What?” he said, his eyes narrowing.
Inn started to grow. “Oh come on, I was waiting for you after all. Let’s just have some fun.”
The sight of this other dragon growing made him realize that he had to act, and fast. He lunged forward and made his attack. A sharp spike on the male dragon’s head had hit Inn’s leg, the only place he could hit now, due to her size.
Inn pulled her leg up and whined. She then moved in a little closer, “Ah, what was that for big guy? Are you having a bad day?” Inn held her leg up to avoid putting her weight on it.
He was now unsure of what to do. It almost seemed as if his attack made her more irritated than injured. He knew that he could not fight such a monster, so he turned to fly away.
“Hey, where yea goin’? The fun hasn’t even started yet,” said Inn as she used her uninjured leg to pin the dragon to the cave wall. Inn winced as the sound of his wings braking could be heard echoing in the cave. The dragon coughed up a little blood. Inn shrank so that she was just a little taller than him. She moved to the dragon's side.
“Sorry about that, and this,” she said in her own voice.
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A dragon holding another dragon in its talons flew down by the crumbling hut made of monster parts. Inn set him down, being gentle as to be sure to not hit the small structure when laying down the dead dragon, then she changed back to normal.
Inn limped to her hut. Her leg still hurt from the fight. She was going to take a short break before fixing the place up. The pain had been almost to much for her to make it home to begin with.
But if she had looked down, she would have seen no blood, no hole, no injury.