//------------------------------// // Dragons Fall // Story: High Tide, Low Company // by MacDragon //------------------------------// Blood oozed freely from his wounds, seeping from beneath the rents in his once gleaming armor. The fight had lasted many hours, the Dragon, like the Guardians themselves, had been saving its strength for many years. The beast was now subdued after the long fight, chained and held under spell to prevent him from breathing more of the molten fire from his toothy maw. This victory had come at great cost to the Guardians. Many of his brethren, brothers and sisters alike, lay still about the ruins of their ancient home. All sacrificed in order to stop the mad beast Quillweave now stood before. Its own wounds seeped blood as well. Many were small and insignificant to the monster. All but one, the final wound that had brought the creature to its current imprisonment. Inflicted at great cost by the last Guardian to fall in the titanic battle, giving her very life in order to bring the beast down before it destroyed them all. Her body was being carried now from the place of her fall, to be entombed in the great hall of the ruined city of their home. The first to be laid to rest in their home in nearly a century. The great dragon lay motionless, staring, unblinking into Quillweaves eyes. Quillweave stared back. Even with one wing severed at the elbow the dragons rage and hate could still be felt, burning in his eyes like the fire from his maw. The clacking of many armored hooves pulled Quillweave from his staring match. The remaining few Guardians approached carrying between them a relic of their past kingdom. The Great Lance. Originally designed to kill this very dragon in the old war. It was large, magically sharpened in order to pierce the armored hide of the monster before him. They had never had the chance to make use of it until now, so quickly had their kingdom fallen. They carried the lance to Quillweave, who joined his magic with theirs to help levitate its massive weight between them. The dragons eyes following its movement without fear. Their magic began to hum, the levitation of the heavy lance only possible with the help of them all. It moved slowly, rising higher and higher above the dragon, high enough so that when the magic was removed its great weight would carry it down fast enough to penetrate the dragons body and kill it. Even as the lance reached its zenith the dragon was silent. Watching as its own demise neared. Quillweave stepped up to the dragons head, its eyes fixing to him. Quillweave addressed it directly. "For your atrocities committed upon a peaceful nation..." One Guardian cut his magic and stepped away. "For the genocide committed against our people, our families, our friends..." Another Guardian severed his magic and stepped away. "For your forced transformation and perversion of our race into creatures of fear and hate..." The third Guardian relinquished his hold and stepped away. "For the destruction of our homes and theft of our magic..." The second to last Guardian cut his magic and stepped aside, leaving only Quillweave as the only Guardian supporting the lance. His wings mantled and body straining in a show of great power of will as he forced his stunted magic to obey him as it once had. "We find you guilty and sentence you." He finished. Quillweave broke his magical hold. The lance wavered for a split second before it plunged. Its great weight drove the lance deep into the ground, narrowly missing the dragons face, but coming close enough to tear a line through the scales of his cheek to the bottom of his jaw. There was a moment of quiet. Then a growing pressure in the air was soon reverberating all around them becoming a deep booming laugh that emanated from the monsters mouth before him. This lasted a minute, then its deep and powerful voice thundered into their ears. "Weakness!! You condemn me to death, yet cannot carry out the sentence. And you wonder why your armies perished, your cities burned, and your families sacrificed! I did your kind a favor and let you live as I saw fit, to serve me. You cannot defeat me. Even now. I will return to that land you took me from and finish my conquest. But now I shall slay them all. I will raise their cities to the ground with fire and claw. I'll take their magic and their flight! They will serve me before they die! They will know fear, and pain, after I finish here I will destroy them!" The dragon boomed. "Yes. You shall return to that place. You will. But not as you are. You are guilty. But we did not condemn you to death. We condemned you to life." Quillweave shouted over the noise of moving chains. "LIFE! You have failed to destroy me not once, but twice. And you claim that my punishment is to live! You are fools! You shall die as such! I will take great joy in slaughtering you all! HA-HA-HA!!" Replied the dragon. It's laughter echoing through the ruins of the city. "Yes, you shall live, as punishment. But not as you are." Quillweave replied. The remaining Guardians had surrounded the dragon. And as Quillweave took his place in the circle they conjured the last of their arsenal of spells and pushed their strength to the edge to make it happen. Their weekend magic making the spell difficult for so few of them to manage even together. A chain of magic encircled the beast, growing brighter and brighter as the spell grew in power. The dragons laughter was soon drowned out by the hum of powerful energy. Sparks began to crackle around them. Great dark clouds formed above them, lightning and thunder erupting from their blackness as heavy rain fell upon them, the drops crackling with magical energy. A bright flash of lightening and a tremendous explosion of thunder brought the spell to its end. All became quiet suddenly. Save for the maniacal cackling laughter that soon fell quiet as well. Quillweave stepped forward and faced the pony before him. A Draquus itself. He stood only slightly smaller than Quillweave. He looked just like the other Draquus, save that one wing was missing, stumped at the elbow. And his eyes burned with fear and rage. Smoke wisped from his nostrils as realization struck home. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!" Bellowed the Draquus, "You have turned me into a vileness of your likes! You are weakness! I shall destroy you all for this insult to me! Then I will use your blood and magic to right this insult. When I move on from your bodies I will return to the land beyond and flay the ponies of that kingdom as payment for your insolence!" The Draquus screamed at them, followed by his charge at Quillweave. In response Quillweave stomped one powerful hoof on the ground, sending the once dragon to the ground, where Quillweave then magically held him down as he struggled to rise. "We condemn you to live as us. We have taken your ability of flight. Used your own magic to transform you into what you made us into. You shall live like this the rest of your days. You shall know our pain, our sorrow, and our compassion. You are guilty." Quillweave leaned in close to the once dragons ear, " We condemn you to life." Quillweave finished, Now standing over the once dragon. The once dragons eyes were no longer filled with hate and rage, replaced instead with fear and sadness.