The Tails of The Scribble Family

by Novi Zemog

Hi! I'm The Author and This Is: Poison Joke!

The forest grew dark, and the newly formed trio began to set up camp. There was no need for a fire once again seeing as Azazel had fur and feathers to keep him warm, Cerulean himself came from much colder climates, and Uther just gathered his heat from Cerulean.

"Cerulean, what's your favorite color?" Azazel asked randomly. Cerulean gave the gryphon a questioning look.

"White, what's yours?" Cerulean replied cautiously. Azazel gave a snort.

"Yellow, because it's the color of my brother's eyes. He saved me from a dragon when I was little, I owe him my life. But why would anyone like the color white it’s so...boring." Azazel said, and a pebbled hit the back of his head courtesy of a glaring white baby dragon. Azazel glared back and childishly stuck out his tongue.

"I thought the whole world was white, until I heard about Equestria being founded. White used to mean home to me." Cerulean said sagely. Azazel rolled his eyes at his friend’s tone and rolled to stare up at the canopy of the dense forest. Moon light peaked through the breaks in the tree tops.

“You know I just can’t imagine that, the world just being white. It would drive me insane.” Azazel said as his eyes roamed the forest. Suddenly he noticed the colors around him, and he wondered what the world would be without them.

“I couldn’t really go outside because it was so cold. So I read…a lot. I found out about plants that used to grow and what they could be used for. I used to picture the world green and warm. It was hard for me to do that, like it’s hard for you to imagine a world without.” He said and shifted a bit. Uther snuggled in closer to Cerulean and watched the two. The words they said were hard for him to understand but still easier than the day before.

“No, it’s hard to imagine the world without color. But I used to live in the mountains in the land of gryphons. I was the youngest of three sons, and was kept in the cave until the day I was to learn to fly. It was supposed to be a rite of passage, a coming of age thing, even though it happens when you’re really young.” Azazel said, his voice growing softer as he spoke.

“Was? What happened?” Cerulean asked shifting again to gain a better look at his friend.

“Well it started out normal enough. My father brought me from the cave, and both of my brothers stood next to him. We stood at the edge looking over the land, it was green. I was so awed by how the world looked beyond the mountains, but that wasn’t what I was there for. My father told me that we were kings of the sky and we must learn to fly with the wind. He said the wind was family to us, lifting us above where we were before. Making us strong, making us kings. He told me to close my eyes and spread my wings. When I did I could feel the wind blow through me, it felt so right. And then…” Azazel stopped and Cerulean was pulled into reality. He shot an irritated glare at the gryphon.

“Well, what happened next?” the pony asked impatiently, Azazel exhaled loudly.

“He pushed me off the edge.”

“What?” shouted the shocked Cerulean. Azazel rolled his eyes.

“That’s the reaction I was hoping to avoid. Yeah I know my old man ain’t the greatest but honestly that was actually a normal thing to do.”

“Oh and my father throwing bottles at me when I was a colt was our way of bonding.” scoffed the blue earth pony. Azazel raised an eyebrow at his pony friend.

“It’s tradition, you can’t coddle your cubs. They’ll never grow strong like that. We have to gather that strength in ourselves by ourselves. When your life is in danger you tend to have an easier time. Now let me finish my story.”

“Gryphons are crazy.”

“Moving on… I was hurtling toward the ground scared out of my mind. And then I heard voices. (I knew it!) I looked to my right and then my left, and saw my brothers. They were right next to me telling me that it would be okay and that I needed to spread my wings. I had tucked my wings in out of shock. They told me to trust them, and to trust the wind. So I took the leap of faith and opened my wings. Next thing I knew, I was flying.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Let me finish… Flying, I couldn’t believe it. I soared so high and started diving. I was pulling tricks I didn’t even know the names of, I was born to be in the air. (No, really?) My brothers flew with me but I didn’t even notice, but then I heard them shouting. They were telling me to fly away, I didn’t know what they were talking about so I stopped and looked at them. I’d never seen them so afraid. I turned around and behind me was this black dragon.

It was probably a young adult at the time, but to me it was huge. I turned tail and flew away as fast as I could but the dragon was right behind me, snapping his jaws. Dragons usually don’t eat meat but he seemed hungry, so I evaded him as much as I could. As I was flying I heard this crack, and I don’t what possessed me to do this but, I turned around. My oldest brother was standing on a cloud shooting lightning at the dragon, taunting it. The dragon still chased me and my second older brother went to go get help with my father. I still don’t know why he wasn’t the one fighting the dragon instead of my brother.

My brother saw that the lightning was just bouncing of the dragon’s scales so he flew to the dragon and began clawing at the dragon’s eyes. At that point I was more worried about my brother than myself and I was telling him to stop. My brother continued telling me to go back to the mountain and to trust him. I did, so I turned and flew away, not looking back. I wanted to turn around and help him but I just flew away, with my brother’s screams and the dragon’s roars in the background. I made it to the mountain where my brother told me my father and the other dragon slayers left to fight the dragon off. Several hours later only my father and three of the original seven slayers returned. After that day I couldn’t so much think of dragons without falling apart.

Eventually my father made me begin training as a dragon slayer, to make me stop being afraid. By the end of the training I was no less afraid than when I left. My father disowned me, my older brother cursed me and I lost everything.” He explained, his voice emotionless. Cerulean stared at Azazel with hard, determined eyes.

“Well just because you lost everything doesn’t mean you can’t gain something better.” Cerulean stated with an air of finality. Azazel looked back at the pony feeling lighter than he had in years.

“You’re right.” Azazel agreed, Cerulean smiled at him and turned to fall asleep. Azazel opened a wing and tucked his head underneath it in a bird like fashion. With the camp dark, Azazel too fell asleep.

*Thud* “Damnit!” *Crash* “Ouch!”*Thump* “Crap!”*Thud* “Again?”

Azazel stirred, the noise was waking him up. He opened his eyes and the sun attempted to blind him. Azazel threw an arm over his eyes and hissed. “Cerulean, tell the sun to shut up.” He groaned. Well, he tried at least. Azazel suddenly sat up and reached for his own throat in panic. His beak was open in a silent scream as he realized he couldn’t speak. He searched his body for any injuries but found something worse. His talons were small, his feathers were downy and his hide was spotted. He looked up to search for Cerulean but saw nothing. He began to panic until he heard a groan from a blue blob on the ground.

Said ‘blue blob’ was actually Cerulean, who was face down on the ground in a tangled mess of limbs. Azazel approached the fallen pony cautiously. He was surprised to see how large the world had gotten around him. He nudged the pony, which gave another groan but turned to him none the less. Cerulean’s large dark eyes stared at him confused, until Cerulean began to recognize the creature before him.

“Azazel?” he asked the small half bird half lion. The creature nodded rapidly with panic and relief flooding it’s bright green eyes. “What happened to you?” he asked as he tried to stand up, only to trip…again. The little gryphon watched with his beak opened in silent laughter leaving the pony confused. “What’s wrong with your voice?” he asked. The little gryphon opened his beak, but no sound was emitted. Cerulean finally realized that the cub in front of him wouldn’t be answering anytime soon and gave a groan again.

“Papa!” came the voice of a certain little dragon, who wasn’t so little anymore. He stood about a hoof taller that Cerulean with large wings sprouting from his back. With a burp a large stream of fire was emitted from the dragon’s toothy maw. Azazel gave a silent shriek of terror and hid behind the fallen form of Cerulean. The earth pony stared wide eyes at the dragon that stood before him. He sounded like Uther(despite his size), he looked like Uther( albeit a lot older), and he called Cerulean ‘Papa’. Uther gave another burp of flames causing Cerulean to give another groan and plant his face in the dirt.

Once the pony’s angst seemed to lessen he lifted his muzzle from the dirt and attempted to stand again. Before he could fall again Uther grabbed him with his claws. Azazel stared on in terror as he watched the dragon lift a full grown stallion like a toy. Uther looked down at the cub curiously before coming to a conclusion. “ ‘zazel.” The dragon chirped as it reached for the cub. Azazel gave a silent shriek of panic and flapped his downy wings in a sad attempt to fly. Uther gently picked up the struggling cub and cradled him in one scaled arm, while the other arm held an angsting pony.

“Just my luck! Things were going good! Now I have four left hooves, Uther went through puberty overnight, and Azazel is more useless than usual. OW!” Cerulean’s ranting stopped and he turned to see Uther struggling with one arm to hold the gryphon cub that now had his shortened tail in its beak. Ceruelan and Azazel glared at each other not noticing Uther rolling his eyes at the pair.

“Papa! ‘zazel!” Uther snapped. Though his voice hadn’t changed, the size of him was enough to intimidate the two creatures in his arms. Uther then gave Cerulean a pleading look asking him to say something.

“Let’s think about this rationally. We’ve drank the water, eaten the food, fought the monsters and basically came in contact with everything the forest has to offer. So what do you think caused this?” Cerulean asked. Azazel and Uther gave Cerulean a look. Cerulean blushed a deep purple. “Oh right, sorry.” Ceruelan cleared his throat trying to dispel the awkwardness.

“Well if we narrow it down to the last twenty four hours, we could say it was either the water or that blue flower we all touched.” He said. The two blinked back at him. Azazel struggled and Uther released him. The little gryphon walked over to where he slept the night before and picked up a flattened blue flower. “Bring it here!” Cerulean called. The little gryphon glared but walked over anyways. Uther set Cerulean down on the ground carefully and sat down as well.

“Papa?” he asked as he rested his chin on his knees and wrapped his tail around himself. Azazel gave Uther wary glances and handed Cerulean the flower. Cerulean studied the flower between his hooves. He honestly didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking for, but it obviously made his companions feel better, visibly at least.

Azazel stared at the pony and used his small talons to carve a message in the dirt. He tapped on the pony’s shoulder and Cerulean looked down at the message. “Well?” Cerulean smiled. Both Uther and Azazel perked up wondering what Cerulean discovered.

“I got nothing.” Cerulean said happily. Azazel collapsed into the ground in disappointment and Uther facepalmed.

“Papa!” the dragon groaned. Cerulean sighed and stared down at the flower.

“Well what do you expect me to do? I’ve never dealt with this plant before, I don’t even know for sure if this what caused everything.” He said.

“If you’re talking about that blue flower you have there, then yes. That flower’s the reason nopony goes into the forest, except for me of course.” said a voice from above.

Comments

[Emo Rainbow]

the poison joke symptoms are funnier than I imagined this is too funnyand who is that mystery pony? keep the chapters comin Novi!

[stotans]

A new character? Hmm, curious. I await the next chapter with much anticipation.