Story
I had never gotten the hang of meditating - of clearing the mind. I was still considering the final composition of my spell.
Our quarry had lived in these mountains for years, so I knew its recent diet, but its prior nesting locations needed to be considered as well. I had already done all the research I could on the matter, all the preparation and memorization, and now, at the mouth of the smoking cave, I double-checked everything.
Next to me, still as a statue, the boss sat on a small rug. Meditating.
“I’m ready,” I said.
The boss did not flinch. He simply opened his eyes, stood up, and retrieved his spear from the saddlebags we had set down nearby. Stowing it over a shoulder, he looked at me and nodded towards the cave, so we headed in.
I followed close behind him. His hard shoes clicked on the hard stone, the noise echoing up and down the lava tube. There was no need to be stealthy, but I kept my own hoof-falls quiet out of habit as we approached the central chamber.
Inside, the air was warmer. Only that and the lingering smell of sulphur told us there was a living creature here. The deep purple expanse of its back, green spines, a great membranous wing, and one claw was visible from where we stood, the rest coiled and hidden. It was massive, but stout - perhaps only two or three hundred meters long. More of a wyvern than a wyrm.
This would only work if we had a target. I wondered aloud, “Where is its head?”
“It will show us,” the boss said, before kicking the floor sharply with his back hooves.
After the noise echoed and settled, nothing happened. The boss tilted his head curiously and kicked the floor again - still nothing. I thought for a moment that the dragon really was dead, that our task had been completed before we had even arrived, but a response came after the third attempt.
A low groan rumbled the air in my lungs and the ground under my hooves. The dragon stirred, uncoiled itself, raised its head into the high reaches of the cavern, and peered down at us.
The look in its eyes was disconcerting. I was used to seeing anger and rage. Fear was not unfamiliar either. What I got from this one was cold and detached. Complicated. Why? - I thought briefly.
But it was no matter. Not for long.
The boss reached back to take his spear in his mouth, committing us to battle, and charged towards the dragon’s nearest leg. He annoyed it by leaping at the last moment and kicking its leg with all his weight and momentum focused through a single hoof, before jumping away and into a safe position. The dragon responded sluggishly, swiping its left claw down to where the stallion had been, rather than where he was going, leaving deep channels in the cave floor.
Unfazed, the boss went in for another round, now aiming for the arm that had just come down. The dragon was faster this time, moving to slam its right foreclaw on top of him before he could make his second attack, but the boss simply dug his hooves into the cave floor and, with an unexpected burst of speed, lunged beneath the incoming claw and slammed into the left arm, around where the fetlock would be on a pony. The dragon grunted, shooting a burst of green flame from its nostrils.
The boss took this as his chance to get out of close range, nodding to me as he did so. I prepared my spell. The dragon had stood up fully and was trying to reach out to grab the boss - even better. It was not in a stable position.
It was originally a mining spell, meant to reduce the weight of ores to make them easier to transport. My contribution had been two-fold: first, to reverse the effect of the spell, to increase the weight of the ores significantly; and second, to apply this effect to an arbitrary material. Knowing the composition of the material ahead of time, from my research, it was easy to target and cast. Less than two seconds. More than enough time for the boss to get to a safe distance.
The yellow chroma of my magic surrounded the dragon for only an instant before its legs splayed out from under it and it slammed into the cavern floor. A gust of displaced air hit me, some squealing shrapnel flew by. After that, there was silence, followed by sharp, calm steps.
The boss aimed his spear carefully, its tungsten tip shining in the dim light. The dragon could not breathe in this state, and its emerald eyes bulged out, making them easy targets. I looked at its face one last time, and saw the familiar fear, and some anger and cold rage, but, mostly, resignation.
For all my study of dragons, I did not learn how they communicated with each other, or if they ever found occasion to. But when I saw this final dragon die, and thought back to all the others we had slain, I realized they must all have known, somehow, that their race was coming to an end.
The hoards were often damaged by this method, but that was hardly a concern in this case: its “hoard” was pitiful, the smallest we had ever seen while on contract. An iron ring pierced one of its spines and held a knot of rope - a monkey’s fist, the boss told me - which, when cut open, revealed the white horn of a unicorn, weathered by extreme age. It possessed nothing else.
“Disappointing,” the boss said.
I wasn’t so sure. Holding the horn to my chest, I looked up at the enormous corpse - all cracked spines and scales, and dark, shattered eyes - and imagined that it must have been a great treasure, so long ago, when dragons still roamed the world.
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Ok, I guess. It's fine. Not remarkable, but not bad. I suppose it's difficult to do very much in only 1000 words, and the ending does communicate what I think you're trying to say, but overall this feels a little undeveloped.
One thing that stands out though:
Ponies don't have wrists. I think the word you're looking for is fetlock.
11205851
Thanks for the feedback, and good catch on the anatomy. That's fixed.
I mostly avoid thinking too hard about pony anatomy because MLP ponies are clearly not anatomical equivalents to actual horses/ponies, even disregarding the horns and wings, but that can lead to cases like this where I'm simply missing the proper vocabulary.
As for the lack of development, well, that's not very useful, but I get it. A 1000 word limit is as stifling as it is stimulating. Maybe in the future I'll give this idea the wordcount it deserves.
Damn, Spike barely cared that he was about to be culled. Guess he missed Rarity so much that no amount of gold or treasure could be worth more than her memory and her horn. Which is understandable.
11205851
11205881
Personally, I once tried using "pastern", but my editor suggested changing it to something simpler and more instantly recognizable like "wrist" or "fetlock". I wound up choosing the latter, but in the end, I reckon it's just one of those things where it comes down to the author's preference more than anything.
As for the story itself, I enjoyed it! To echo Bucket's concerns, I do believe it would've been better off with a larger wordcount and some additional development therein — disregarding the contest requirements, that is — but I still found plenty to like. Kudos!
11205927
Thank you! And it may seem a bit trivial, but I'll definitely keep this anatomy stuff in mind for future projects.
I intend to submit a story to all 5 categories of the Thousand Words Contest, so maybe I'll get better at selecting and condensing story ideas into the format as I do more of them.
11205894
I imagine, with this version of Spike, something awful happened to Rarity that meant he could never get over her. So basically hfw no mares
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/297/373/9b2.gif
Eh.
The next day, an immense ball of flaming gas appeared over the horizon.
And there was no more magic.
In the story two random ponies kill a random dragon. It's probably due the the word limit, but the characters are complete strangers here. They may live, they may die, it is the same. I only got from the comments that the dragon is Spike. And as he is the last dragon it probably doesn't matter will he die now or later.
The word limit was definitely working against you this time. No relics of his life among ponies? No attempts to communicate? No rumination by the ponies on the significance of slaying the last dragon? I mean, yeah, no one's at their best so soon after being woken up, and they may not have realized they were rendering the species extinct at the time, but still. There's a strong idea here, but not enough space to explore it adequately.
Still, thank you for it. Best of luck in the judging.
11263036
Hahaha, I'll be honest, I didn't think about whether Spike would try to speak, or what he would say if he did. And any theoretical justification I could give would be unsupported by the story, light as it is on details. Woe and alas. A full exploration of this idea is certainly somewhere on my glacial to-do list.
Anyway, thanks for the kind words.
ah, love this introduction! i mean, if a pony story is about a singular dragon, it's easy to guess which one it would be about, but still! very cool to imagine the wyrm that Spike eventually becomes, though the fic's title and Spike's status as something to be hunted raises a lot of questions
there is just so much mileage to get out of manipulating pony magic with a bit of cleverness. unicorns can really become overpowered really quick!
oof! and a twisted irony there, in Rarity's horn taking the place of the dragon's hoarded gems that she coveted in life
definitely a haunting image of what Spike's last days could have been, with the fact of dragons having been a sapient and equal species to ponies long lost to the mists of time. so many questions about how the world got to this point! and of course, to the dragon hunters this is just another job, with none of these details resonating with them as they do with us, who know who Spike and Rarity and all the other dragon characters are or once were.
the prose here is solid, executing its action and tension well, and i love the premise! and the idea of Spike, old and alone, being resigned to his fate and all dragons' fates is powerful, especially since it has to be filled in the gaps in the viewpoint character's perspective. agh, there's just so much potential here for more story beyond the one thousand words that we got, i am really feeling the pain of that limitation!
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Thank you for all the thoughtful feedback! This type of long-form comment is really the best sort of feedback I could ask for.
At the same time, it kinda makes me feel bad, since you note that you have so many unanswered questions and are feeling the pain of the 1k word limit... I desperately want to fully explore this concept with a multi-chapter story, but I've got so much other stuff that's higher priority and it all takes so long to write as it is!!! Ahhh!
Oh well. Maybe I'll have something done by the time G6 comes out.
11299022
aww, it was still fun to ponder the unanswered questions, and the fic had a great vibe. glad you liked the comment!