Secrets of the Everfree

by PaisleyPerson

Chapter 29: Dragon Debt

Author's Note:

A/N: I looked all over the internet for popular names/ideas for the rest of Garble’s gang, and found Fizzle to be a pretty widely accepted name for the white and pink teen. Clump and Vex came from peachiekeenie on Deviantart, and we all know Garble. Pierce and Soot just sort of happened.

Chapter 29
Dragon Debt

After the late night we’d pulled last night, I was prepared to sleep late the following morning. No one was about to argue with that plan. No one but our ambitious early-morning customers, that is. When one came knocking at eight, we were all torn from sleep. I pulled the sheets closer with an audible groan, hoping they’d leave. But when they continued to pound on the door, it became a matter of who’d volunteer to answer it.

“It’s your shop,” Torch finally yawned, rolling over.

“Our shop,” I grouchily corrected, sliding out of bed anyway. This early in the morning, I had no problem chasing customers away. The sooner I told them to scram, the sooner I could get back to sleep. The knocking finally stopped by the time I got down to the lobby, but by then I figured I might as well complete my journey to the door. If nothing else, I could still give them a piece of my mind for dragging me out of bed so early.

“We’re closed,” I snapped, poking my head out the door. At first I didn’t see anyone, and was about to give up and go back to bed. But at the last minute, a flash of red caught my eye, and I jerked awake. “Garble?!”

“Uh... hi.” The teen must’ve changed his mind at the last minute, because I caught him turning to leave. Now he almost reluctantly pivoted back.

“What, uh... what a surprise. Usually we have to come to you.”

“Yeah.” For some reason, the situation felt slightly awkward, though I wasn’t sure why. After all, it was just Garble. Outside my shop.

“So, Blaze is inside if you wanted to...”

“I actually needed to... to talk to you.”

“Is everything okay? Garble?” I completely exited the building, attempting to curl a motherly wing around him. He took a step back to reject it, which confused me even more. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at me. I wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed, ashamed or both.

“We’re in trouble.”

“We?” I repeated, eyebrow raised. His head hung as he weakly glanced around the hedge. I turned, and realized that the rest of his gang had accompanied him, but none of them looked very happy about it.

---

“Garble!” Blaze cheered, jumping to greet his brother.

“Hey, bro,” Garble finally cracked a smile upon seeing the hatchling.

“What’re you doing here?” he eagerly inquired.

“Well... that’s a long story.”

“One I’d very much like to hear,” Torchwood sternly stated, marching out. While he started out hard to wake up, he practically leapt out of bed upon hearing that Garble and his gang had arrived in need of help from ponies. I recognized that he was as scared and worried as I was, so he pretended he was angry to mask the fear. It made Garble wince. He returned to where his group had gathered in the grass, still refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Blaze tagged along behind. We almost brought Heckley out- Garble hadn’t seen our pet for a very long time, but with all the other dragons gathered as well, I decided the snake would be safer inside.

“Hey, look! Shrimp’s back!” the dark purple teen with shaggy yellow bangs I knew as Pierce jibed.

“I’m not a shrimp!” Blaze indignantly hissed, quite literally stomping in displeasure.

“Shrimp’s so small he had to go live with the ponies,” the plump brown dragon, Clump, went on.

“Knock it off, guys,” Garble glumly commanded, swatting Pierce with his tail.

“What’re we doin’ here, Garble?” Fizzle, the white and pink teen, whispered. “They’re ponies. What can they really do to help us?” I wasn’t exactly helping, pacing as frantically as I was from worry.

“Please tell me this is something easy, like... you had an argument, you lost something, or maybe... girl trouble?” The whole assembly froze at that one, including me. Then I shook my head and resumed pacing. “Scratch that. You’re not old enough for girls.”

“I rest my case,” Fizzle sarcastically turned back to his gang leader.

“Not helping,” Garble groaned.

“Right now, what we can do is listen,” Torchwood authoritatively spoke, using his wing to push me down to a sitting position. I finally got ahold of myself, and snapped out of it. A deep breath helped sooth my nerves. Torchwood’s wing curled around my body to tell me that everything would all be alright. With that, I was stable and ready to listen. “Go on, Garble. We’re all ears.” Garble parked himself at the back of his group, and Blaze clambered into his lap. Though that could be considered ‘uncool’ by their standards, no one dared say a thing.

“It started with this gryphon,” the red teen began. “She started coming to see us not long after Torchwood started bringing Blaze.”

“She? Oh Celestia, it is girl trouble!” I buried my face in my hooves.

“Acrylic, let him finish,” Torch chided. “Please continue, Garble.”

“She seemed pretty cool, so yeah, we let her hang with us.”

“Pretty slick, for a gryphon,” a gray dragon called Soot agreed.

“Yeah, slick is one way to put it,” Pierce resentfully snarled.

“We found out she’d been stealing from the hoard,” Vex, a heavyset periwinkle dragon put in.

“Gems were turning up missing, and no one knew where they were going,” Garble resumed. “We didn’t think anything of it; every so often some greedy dragon thinks he’s the only one that needs to eat and sneaks in a few extra rations. But when we caught her swiping them by the crate, we knew we found the thief.”

“She’d been playin’ us the whole time,” Fizzle angrily hissed.

“We got those jewels back, but she wouldn’t say where the rest of ‘em were. She finally told us that she’d gotten mixed up with a bad crowd. She owed them some money and she needed the gems to pay them back.”

“We tried to tell her that you can’t just take from the hoard. That’s about the quickest way to get banished I know.”

“But she wouldn’t listen. Next thing we know, she’s gone, and we thought we’d seen the last of her.”

“Until the ‘bad crowd’ she told us about came looking for their money.”

“They say that if they don’t get their money by the end of the week, they’ll make us work it off.”

“Believe me, working for rogue dragons is no walk in the park,” Pierce disdainfully shuddered.

“Rogue dragons?” I felt about ready to wilt. Rogues usually split off from the flock, whether of free will or by force, because of reckless, violent and/or overly-selfish behavior. Anyone with any sense would never mess with them in the first place.

“How much do they say you owe them?” Torch spoke, doing his best to remain neutral. Garble looked away in embarrassment, and my heart dropped.

“Ten grand.”

“Or at least the equivalent to that in gold and jewels. Dragons love adding to their hoard.”

“Ten thousand bits?!” My head spun. There was no possible way we’d be able to come up with that kind of money in one week. We didn’t have half that much in all our savings. I dizzily shook my head. “There’s just no way...”

“I don’t expect you to,” Garble quickly assured. “I just... didn’t know what else to do.”

“I’m glad you came to us, first,” Torch quietly commended, wrapping a wing around our boy. He stiffly allowed me to give him a hug, meant more to calm my nerves than his. Garble’s ‘friends’ in the back snorted laughter when they saw their tough gang leader accepting a hug from his adoptive pony mother. We both tried to ignore it.

“We’ll get this all sorted, I promise,” I sniffed. I’d wanted a way to prove I could be there for my family. I just didn’t want it to come up like this. Regardless of the impossible odds, though, I resolved that I would see this through to the end. No one was going to touch my boys.

“How? There’s no possible way to round up that much cash in one week,” Soot spoke, breaking us up.

“Gilda took off with the gems she did steal, so we can’t even use those.”

“If I ever get my claws on that gryphon, I’ll-”

“Wait!” I cut them off. “Did you just say Gilda?”

“That’s the gryphon,” Clump spat.

“White feathers with purple-dyed bangs?”

“I take it you know her,” Garble hopefully prompted.

“I’ve met her,” I gritted my teeth.

“I don’t remember any Gilda,” Torch said. I shook my head.

“This was before I met you.”

“So do you know where we can find her?” I finally had the attention of Garble’s whole assembly.

“No, but I know someone who might know. She was best friends with Dash before they had a falling out. She might know something.

“Sounds like we owe Rainbow Dash a visit,” Torch mused.

Comments

[00RaiserGundam]

First you bring Trixie back, and now Gilda?! This just keeps getting better and better.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

Who's up for Roasted Gyrphon?

[Ponykiller_V2]

hummm something about thisjust seems odd first Trixie now Gilda whats next Cheese Sandwich?