//------------------------------// // Day 10: The Dragon of the Whitetail Woods -Part 1- // Story: NaPoWriMo 2014: A Compilation of Pony Tales // by Fluttercheer //------------------------------// “Pinkie Pie, wake up!” Pinkie rolled to the side and slowly opened her eyes. She smiled. Dinky was in front of her, excitedly bouncing up and down. “Let's play more!”, she exclaimed happily. Pinkie yawned and stretched out her limbs. She groaned softly. Then she rose to her feet. She looked up to the sun and saw that it has barely moved. She guessed that she and Dinky only slept for about two hours. It was still before noon. Pinkie looked at the little, energetic filly in front of her again and ruffled her mane. “So, what do we want to play now?”, she asked Dinky. Instead of answering her question, Dinky just jumped on Pinkie's back. She sat down on her and pulled on invisible reins. “Giddyup, my loyal war horse!”, she shouted out proudly. “We must defeat the evil dragon who wants to destroy this forest!” An ambitious expression appeared on her face. Pinkie Pie understood immediately. She let out a loud whinny, turned around and ran in full gallop deeper into the woods. When she underpassed a low hanging branch, Dinky reached up and broke up one of them. “Faster, my loyal Pinkie!”, Dinky shouted again. “The evil dragon waits to taste my sword!” She commanded Pinkie in different directions through the woods and suddenly, Pinkie saw that they were approaching a cave. Dinky commanded Pinkie to stop and jumped off of her back. “What's in this cave?”, Pinkie asked her curiously. “That's where the dragon lives”, Dinky whispered. “We must enter his lair and free the citizens of the forest.” She put the sword in her mouth and slowly entered the cave. They walked a few meters and then it became completely dark around them. They were too deep into it for the sun to lighten their way now. Dinky lit up her horn and a warm, yellow light, but different than the one from the sun, spread out around them. As they continued through the cave, they heard crackling sounds coming from all sides. “What is this?”, Pinkie whispered. “That's the minions of the dragon! They are everywhere in this cave! Look, there are some!” Dinky pointed ahead of them. There were deep, black holes in the walls and big, hairy spiders crawled out of them. Everyone of them was as big as Dinky and they had sharp fangs that were constantly dropping the deadliest poison that existed in Equestria. “Take care of it that they don't bite you!”, Dinky advised the pink mare at her side. “One bite and you're dead!” Pinkie shivered. Then the spiders began to attack. Dinky began to stab them with her sharp sword, while Pinkie Pie threw her hooves around to keep them at distance. It was a long and hard fight, but eventually, the spiders gave up. After they had taken enough hits they retreated back into their holes. As Dinky was sure that all of the spiders were gone, she slowly moved on through the deep, dark cave, keeping her sword ready in case of any additional dangers. Pinkie trotted after her, carefully cautious to not stomping on one of the last small arachnids around her who were still on their way back into their holes. After the path through the cave had taken some turns, they heard a massive-sounding growl in front of them. The dragon was not far away from them anymore. They came to another turn and Dinky suddenly stopped. She turned around to Pinkie and pointed over to a big boulder. The mare and the filly sneaked behind it to take cover. Pinkie carefully looked around the boulder, taking a peak into the big room of the cave that lied in front of them. In the middle of it, she saw a small construct of branches and stones, that closely resembled a dragon. Behind it stood some cages, made from the same branches and in them, small stick figures. She noticed some deers and several other animals before Dinky pulled her back. “Be careful, he will see you!”, the little unicorn warned her. “How we're gonna defeat the dragon?”, Pinkie asked her. “He's huge!” “Don't worry, I've got a plan!”, she whispered back. “Have you seen the shiny spot between the scales on his back?”, Dinky asked her. Pinkie nodded. “It's his weakpoint! If we stab him there, he is defeated!”, Dinky explained. “We just need to distract him a little!” Dinky slowly peaked over the boulder. Luckily, the dragon did pay more attention to his whimpering prisoners in the cages than on his guard, so he didn't see the filly. Dinky concentrated on her horn and fired off a spark of magic into the outer wall of the cavern. The dragon moved around. Dinky quickly hid behind the boulder again. “Who dares to sneak into my cave?” Dinky could hear his loud, intimidating voice. The whole cave shaked. Dinky could hear the dragon stomping over to the wall she just shot the spark at. She gave Pinkie a sign and then they left their hideout and approached the dragon in full gallop for a quick surprise attack. But the dragon heard them and turned around a bit too early. He put his head back for a moment and then attacked them with his fiery breath. Dinky could jump aside in the last moment before it hit her. She could feel the hot flames around her, greedily reaching out for her coat. As the dragon tried to attack her again, some stones hit him in the face. He turned angrily around and looked at the attacker. This was Dinky's chance! She jumped on his back and without hesitation, she rammed her sword into the glowy spot she just told Pinkie about. The dragon cried out in pain and dealed out blows right and left, but it was too late. The glow between his scales vanished and he felt dead to the ground. “Victory!”, Dinky shouted. She looked down to Pinkie, who let the stones in her hooves fall and answered the shout with a proud grin. Then she jumped off of the dead dragon's body and moved over to the cages. She opened the doors and let out all the animals he had captivated there. They thanked her and then stormed out of the cave, back into their beloved forest. Dinky looked after them. “Our work is done!”, she said heroically. Then she and Pinkie followed the animals out of the cave. Pinkie looked back for a moment, to the now collapsed dragon model, and then she left the cave with Dinky. Outside, Dinky took her sword and rammed it into the ground in front of the cave's entrance. She activated her horn again and murmured some mysterious words. Then she nodded satisfied. “What have you done?”, Pinkie asked her. “I've sealed the cave with my magic!”, Dinky answered. “The dangerous spiders are trapped in there forever now!” Pinkie Pie walked up to the entrance of the cave again, passing by the branch that stuck in the ground, and moved her hooves around in the air, like touching over an invisible barrier. “Wow, it's really closed!”, she answered, with a pretended surprise. “Sure!”, Dinky answered. “I'm Dinky the Dragon Slayer, doing that is just a cinch!” Then she and Dinky looked at each other and laughed. “So, how about we celebrate the defeat of the evil dragon with some cupcakes?”, Pinkie asked her. “It's already time for lunch anyway! We could make a picnic at the lake!” Dinky nodded excitedly. “Ooookay, then I go back to Sugarcube Corner to get some and you wait in the meanwhile at the lake, okay?” They headed back to the lake together and when they arrived there, they separated. Dinky sat down at the shore of the lake and flipped some stones over the water while she waited for Pinkie. To cut school today was really a good idea. If she wouldn't have done this, she would coming out of the schoolhouse at this moment, having to face a lot of homework. But now she was free from all of this and thanks to Pinkie, she had lots of fun. If she would have not met her and went alone into the woods, her day would be very boring. There aren't many things a filly like her can play alone and sooner or later, so she thought, she would probably have ended up with going back to Ponyville out of boredom and getting caught eventually. Which would only lead to it that she would get grounded and then she would have to spend even more time inside the house, while the weather was so beautiful. She flipped a last stone over the water and watched it creating small waves on the lake's surface and then she lied down on her back, crossing her hooves behind her head and resting it on them. She closed her eyes. Yeah, it was really good that she ran into Pinkie today. A light breeze came up and gently flowed over her face. Dinky smiled. The day was beautiful. Suddenly, she heard a shrill, happy voice. “Hey, wake up, sleepy head! I got cupcakes!” Dinky abruptly opened her eyes. Pinkie was standing beside her, grinning into her face. Dinky wondered. How did she made it so fast? And why did she not hear her coming? The little filly sat up. Pinkie Pie sat down beside her and opened the box she brought. Dinky could see the familiar logo of Sugarcube Corner on it. “I don't know which cupcakes you like, so I brought one of every flavor!”, she said. Dinky looked into the box. A mishmash of colors answered her look. There were red strawberry cupcakes, purple grape cupcakes, even white coconut cupcakes! And a lot of other flavors as well. Dinky saw never so many cupcakes at one spot, except behind the vitrine of Sugarcube Corner. She picked out the coconut one and bit greedily into it. From all the fun games she played with Pinkie Pie, she hadn't noticed how hungry she already was. Pinkie grabbed the strawberry cupcake and before she could bite into it, Dinky was already picking out the next one, grape flavor this time. As she had almost eaten it, a thought hit her. She let the remnants of the cupcake sink. Pinkie looked surprised at her. “Is something wrong?”, she asked. “You paid for all this cupcakes out of your own pocket, aren't you?” Pinkie nodded. Dinky felt slightly guilty over hearing that. She just wanted to have Pinkie as her playmate for today, but she did not want that Pinkie spent so much money to buy her something for lunch. “I'm sorry”, she said. “I can't repay you for the cupcakes I eat. I don't get much pocket money.....” She looked with hanging shoulders to the ground and her eyes trembled a little. Pinkie looked even more surprised now. “Repaying me? You don't need to repay me, silly!” She gave her a chummy pat on the back. Dinky looked up to her, a shy expression on her face. “I have enough money saved up and if some cupcakes are left, I just take them with me to the picnic with my friends later today! I would have bought some for the picnic anyway!” “Are you sure?”, Dinky answered. She didn't wanted to put Pinkie Pie out. “Sure!”, Pinkie answered happily. “You don't have to feel bad for it, it's okay! Here, eat another one!” She pulled out a pink one with orange sprinkles and placed it in Dinky's hooves. Dinky's eyes gleamed from joy. She took a bite from the cupcake and then leaned her head against Pinkie's side. “Thanks”, she said. “If I wouldn't have met you it would be a boring day and I would just sit around here! I wouldn't know what I should do without you!” “Oh, but I know!”, Pinkie bursted out, earning a surprised look from Dinky. “You could have gone to the mirror pool and creating a Dinky clone! Then you could play with yourself!” “The mirror pool?” Dinky got interested. “Yeah, it's in the Everfree Forest! My granny told me about it and when I needed a lot of Pinkies one day to have fun with all of my friends at the same time I went to it and created two Pinkie clones. But they got out of control and created even more clones! I thought that would be fine first, but they were so crazy, even crazier than I am, and they created so much chaos that even Discord would be jealous!” “And what happened then?”, Dinky asked, eagerly to hear the rest of the story. “Twilight found a spell to sent them back into the mirror pool! But we had a lot of trouble and my friends needed to find out first who the real Pinkie is! But luckily, they did, and when all of the Pinkie clones were gone, she sealed the entrance to the mirror pool to avoid that this happens again!” Dinky was fascinated. She did not know that Pinkie knew such exciting stories! “Can you tell me more stories like that?”, she asked her. “Of course!”, Pinkie answered. “But I know something even better. I'm not only telling you a story, I also show you something!” Pinkie pointed towards the lake in front of them. “My granny told me that a secret underwater cave is in this lake. She said that an evil unicorn imprisoned a sea dragon there a few hundred years ago and that he grants everypony who frees him a wish!” Dinky looked uncertain at her, not sure if this was just another game or if Pinkie was serious. “You mean, a real dragon? Not just one from my imagination?” “Yeah! My granny knew a lot of things, because she traveled around the whole world as a filly!” Dinky jumped up in suspense. “Can we dive down and search for the dragon?” “Well, d'uh! That's why I told you about it!” Dinky gave her a hug of pure joy. A pony could have even more fun with Pinkie than she thought! Pinkie ruffled her mane. “But let's eat more first! Granny said the cave is very deep and we don't want to get hungry down there!” Dinky nodded and sat down on the ground again, where she continued to eat her cupcake. In her thoughts, she was already down in the underwater cave, excitedly thinking about what adventures would await her and Pinkie down there.....