> The Dragon in the Mountain
>  by ShouldNotExist
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> It Should Have Been Me
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

-It Should Have Been Me-



We live in a village called Ponyville. A surprisingly large village, about twenty or so families living here. It sits inside of a protected valley, the mountains on each side making it almost impossible to see our houses or our fields from the air. There’s only one way into the village too; a skinny trail that snakes its way up the side of the Everfree mountain to a snowy pass.

We’re actually very lucky, with all the chaos in the world around us, we seem free from it. Where other villages and cities have to live in servitude, we don’t. Our village lives peacefully and ignorantly in our little valley. Not that we aren’t afraid like the rest of the world anyway.

Fear keeps us from being found. Fear keeps us alive. Fear keeps us on the tips of our hooves. Fear means no parties, no lights lit after dark unless all the windows have been blacked out, and absolutely no leaving the houses after the sun touches the horizon. Fear is the norm for our entire village, if you’re not at least somewhat scared you’re seen as stupid here.

Rules. Regulations. Expectations.

That’s been the story of my life for as long as I can remember. The Heartstrings family lives in fear just like everypony else in Ponyville. There are days when I just sit shaking in fear of what could happen. Everyone has their own personal fears. Me, I just don’t want to be treated as property one day, that’s my biggest fear.

I’m afraid that a gryphon raiding party could swoop in and burn down all our houses. That they’ll make all of us watch as they kill the stallions and then they’ll rape us and leave us to die in the valley. I’m afraid that a minotaur slaver will find us and sell us to the highest bidder. And that I’ll become a slave to some nasty, fat, old bureaucrat in a province far away from here.

But all of us are afraid of one thing in particular: the dragons.

Nopony knows exactly how it happened. Some blame it on Tiamat, the mother goddess of monsters. Others say that they’d just been sleeping in the middle of the earth until some Diamond Dog miners accidentally woke them up. Whatever reason, they’re here, and they’re the ones that rule the provinces. The dragons call the places that they own provinces in some sort of resemblance of government, not that there’s much of one.

Most of the dragons are actually pretty passive, and it’s rare for them to fight openly: As in fire and claws and such. Most of the time they use the ponies in their provinces as political playing cards. Espionage, cloak and dagger, that stuff. We’re the pawns in their big chess game. They make deals with ponies for fun too, ones that usually end with a pony in servitude or dead in some gruesome way.

But some are downright evil. I’ve heard stories that a dragon a few provinces to the South eats virgin mares, takes them as sacrifice in return for not destroying everything in its province. Another one, a couple provinces to the West, makes the ponies toil in an iron mine so that he can eat the metal. I don’t know why they need to do that stuff. As far as I can tell they do it for fun.

Thankfully, we usually don’t have to worry about that. One time a Manta flew over, though. It took an entire day for it to pass, and the entire village was petrified for weeks. A Manta is a type of massive, ray shaped dragon. They’re big and really slow flyers, but its tail could probably tear another dragon in half. 

I don’t know all of them, but those aren’t the only kind of dragon. I know there are Drakes, which are the size of a one room cabin. There are Wyverns, those are about the size of a wagon. There are the Dragons, they’re about the size of what we’d consider a mansion, but more like the size of a two or three roomed house. Then there’s Wyrms, they’re these long bulky things that eat their way through rocks.

Those are about all the ones I know about, but I think that gets the idea across. There are lots of dragons, lots of provinces ruled by their own dragon, and each one run differently by the dragon that owns it.

Of course, knowing all of that doesn’t help me right now.

Right now, I’m sitting inside my best friends house, holding her hoof and trying to make her comfortable. She’s sick, and practically comatose. She can’t move and she can barely even talk, she gets chills and her fever is boiling. And there isn’t a fucking thing I can do.

They don’t call it ‘Death’s Kiss’ for nothing.

The cabin is mostly dark. Most of the houses are built without windows at all. But it’s a good kind of dark, it’s respectful. A few candles burn in the corner, a bucket of mostly clean water reflects back the flickering light in a strange sort of starscape. There are three beds in the cabin, one for her parents, one for her sister and her grandmother, and the one that they moved in for her when she got sick. There really isn’t much else to say about the place. There’s a rug that’s probably been in their family for generations, a rusty sword hanging over the door, and a trap door leading to their pantry.

Outside, I can hear the sounds of the village going about their businesses. I can hear the ringing of the blacksmith’s hammer on his anvil. He’s one of the only ponies in town with an actual hearth that’s normally lit. I can hear a couple of ponies discussing a trade of some sort as they pass, I think it had to do with some sheep’s wool and some butter or something. I heard a few foals running past earlier, yelling and chasing each other as they played.

But Bon-Bon is dead silent. We’ve been best friends since we were foals, even though I’m a unicorn and she’s an earth pony. We always looked out for each other, and we always found a way to help each other no matter what. It was love, in a way. We loved each other a lot, we were practically family in all but blood.

That red mark on her cheek sealed her fate, though. And there was nothing I could do about it. That rose shaped mark on her fair fur, it was Death’s Kiss, there was no mistaking. And as far as we knew, the only ones who knew the cure for it were the dragons, and there weren’t any around here. I don’t even know how a pony gets Death’s Kiss, it just shows up.

Eventually, I let go of her hoof. Not that she cared, she was mostly asleep. I reached into the bucket of water, pulling out the soaked rag with my hooves. It would have felt wrong to use my magic to comfort her. I wrung it out into the bucket, watching the water splash back and create all new constellations in it.

With a short sigh, I used the wet rag to wipe away some of the sweat from Bon-Bon’s brow. I used it to wet her eyelids as well, not wanting them to get too dry by themselves. Even though they were closed, her eyes could still get dry. It was just another one of the ways that Death’s Kiss made you miserable before you died.

But Bon-Bon was always a stubborn mare. A few days ago she wasn’t as tired and was a little more active. She would deny that she was sick at all, even as she tried to hack up a lung. It was going to work against her however, she’d suffer for a long time with it. The village doctor called her a fighter, said that if anypony could fight it that it would be her. But he was just saying that, a little white lie to make Bon-Bon’s little sister, and me, happy.

She groaned quietly as the water dripped near her ear, trying to turn her head away from the cool water. “Sorry, Bon-Bon. Go back to sleep,” I said, putting a gentle hoof on her shoulder as I wiped away some of the sweat under her chin. She groaned again, probably some rebuttal that would have been clever if she weren’t so sick and exhausted.

I should be the one that’s sick, not her.

She’s a hard worker, and she never complains about it either. Sometimes I think that she likes all the work that she does, she’s always so happy and level-headed. She even does more work outside the fields, helping make treats for the foals. Not like me, the lazy unicorn that once let half a flock of our sheep wander off while she plucked at a beat up old lyre. I’ll never live that day down. 

If anypony had to get sick, it should have been me.

I dropped the rag back into the bucket, swirling it around and soaking in more water to it. I wished that I could help her, more than just washing her off and sitting next to her. Maybe I could talk to the village doctor, Redheart being the only pony here who knew anything about taking care of hurt ponies. But I probably couldn’t take care of her that well anyway.

But, honestly, what could I do? There aren’t any spells that could just pop the sick out of her and put it somewhere else, at least none that anypony in this village knew of. I just wish there was something I could do. Sometimes I just wanted to curl up and cry. There was no future here, for the sick or the healthy.

Ponies still talk about cutie marks and destiny like they’ll actually do something significant beyond getting the next harvest done on time. But there’s no destiny here that anypony could be proud of. And at this point the only thing that I think would possibly be worth doing is if I could somehow find out how to help her. But I’m not smart enough to do that kind of stuff, curing diseases is a practice that has long since been lost.

It should be me there suffering, not her.

The creaky wooden door opened to my right, shining blasphemous rays of sunshine into the corners of my vision. Golden Drops walked in, quickly closing the door and reinstating the gloom of the one room house. Golden Drops is Bon-Bon’s grandmother, although she’s never looked as old as she’s claimed to be. Bon-Bon’s real name is Sweetie Drops, I started calling her Bon-Bon as a joke and it kinda stuck. 

“You should go home, Lyra,” she said, setting down a fresh bucket of cold water. She has one of those classic old lady voices, and it throws off the idea that she could be younger. She smiled gently at me when I stood, me nodding in return but not really saying anything. “It’s alright, dear. I’ll look after her. You look tired, you should go home,” she said again, nodding to me as I passed her toward the door.

“Take care,” I said half-heartedly as I got to the door. I slipped out as quickly as I could so that there wouldn’t be too much light inside. I squinted as the sunlight met my tired eyes, shivering slightly as the cool air cut through my fur.

If I could take Bon-Bon’s place, I would have in a heartbeat.

The Drop’s house is probably one of the more humble houses in the village. A simple thatched roof with a few flowers braided into it for luck, and warm wood-framed walls. Its pantry is only partly underground, a small wall of tightly packed wood sealed with black tar shows underneath the house’s stilts. A small porch stands as the entrance to the house, a small set of stairs connects it to the path on the ground.

I stepped down those creaky stairs, feeding a familiarly tiny tendril of magic into my horn and lifting the old, beaten wood of my lyre. It slid into its respective pocket in my saddlebags almost instinctually, I’d never removed them when I came to visit Bon-Bon. My hooves felt too heavy as I started down the old dusty path, a small spattering of snow and slush decorating the sides. It was getting too close to winter, and I still hadn’t gotten a new scarf after I lost my last one.

All the paths are covered overhead with the branches of trees so that they’re even harder to spot from the sky, even the fields are mostly covered thinly with a few trees. The five pegasi families are mainly in charge of making sure that there is a constant minimum coverage of clouds over the village. We’re all so clever with how we hide ourselves, and we all take such pride in how well it’s done.

Which made it all the more surprising for me when I found everypony in the village center. With all the regulations and careful planning involved to keep us all hidden, large gatherings were practically a taboo. There couldn’t be anything wrong with the well, so this had to be something pretty darn big for them to abandon that policy.

I walked forward carefully, gently pushing myself through the ponies there. I mumbled a few ‘Excuse me’s and some ‘Sorry’s as I did, trying to find a glance at what was so enrapturing. The crowd grew more and more rowdy as I got closer to its center, the item of attention becoming closer with every pony I pushed past.

When I pushed past the last pony, I saw something even more surprising than a crowd in Ponyville; a stranger in Ponyville. He was a dark blue unicorn, the sweaty mane and tail that clung to him was a much lighter blue. He looked exhausted, starved, and half mad with shivering. Underneath a thick coat I could see a pair of saddlebags lined with chainmail, but most of his body was hidden from view. Somepony had brought him a mug of hot water, and he sipped at it shakily without responding to anypony.

Everypony talked a once, making it impossible to tell who asked what or what they asked at all. It seemed that for every pony gathered around him, each had a hundred completely different questions about him. His ears were pressed flat to his blue-white mane, he ignored them and continued scowling into the warm water.

“What in tarnation is goin’ on out here?” a distinctive voice demanded, slicing through the din and drawing everypony there to a pause. “Don’t ya’ll realize the racket yer makin’?” she asked, the crowd parting as she approached. Applejack strode through the ponies, glaring at them as she passed.

Her stetson hat, passed down from her parents who both died from pneumonia a few years back, sat duly on her head. Her piercing green gaze was one that was respected with a heavy weight around here. She was the strongest mare in Ponyville next to Rainbow Dash and held it with a certain pride as she walked, whether or not she would admit it.

“It’s a stranger, Applejack,” somepony said, their voice followed by a  murmuring agreement. That statement was able to draw her to a pause, making her normally steady hoofsteps falter.

She passed in front of me as she approached the stranger, waiting for him to look up at her. I don’t know why he suddenly decided to be more responsive. Maybe he thought that Applejack was our leader, or maybe he thought he could make more headway by talking to her instead of trying to answer all of our questions at once.

“Alright, pardner,” she said, keeping a stoic expression on her face as she did. She looked the part of a sheriff taking an outlaw to the jailhouse, not that we had one. “Why don’t ya’ll come with me, and yah can answer a few questions while Ah get something proper for yah ta eat,” she said, nodding kindly to the stranger. Her words were enough to make most of the ponies around us start to wander off.

That was one of the funny things about our village; everypony would make a fuss over something, but if it didn’t involve them and somepony said they would take care of it, they lost interest. That’s mostly because here, when somepony says they’ll do something, it gets done. Especially if an Apple says that it’ll get done.

If my local history is right, then the Apples were the first real settlers here. Once they’d established a farm here, and an apple orchard too, other ponies had come. And as it were, the Apple family was still sort of the unsung leaders of the village. Even though we didn’t really have a mayor or a leader or anything, an Apple was about as close as it got to that around here. 

Applejack in particular was a pony that got things done, and did it well. It was no real surprise that she’d taken charge of the situation. “Lyra, ya’ll come with me,” Applejack said, the stranger starting to stand so that he could follow. “And somepony go get Rainbow Dash, too,” she ordered toward the crowd, already turning back down the road leading to a different end of the village proper.

Applejack must think that this is pretty big if she’s getting Rainbow Dash. She’s the pegasus in charge of keeping the weather normal and keeping the cloud cover so that we’re constantly hidden from the air. She and the rest of the pegasi who help her are doing what’s considered the most dangerous job in our village, and the one we rely on the most.

But I think that the only reason that Applejack wants me to come is because I’m one of the only unicorns here even vaguely versed in more than basic magic. The Belle’s are the only other talented unicorns in the village, and they work the textile mill by the river. Our family has an extremely small library of magical texts, only about ten or so books of varying degrees of knowledge in them, some of the only knowledge of magic we have.

I sighed inwardly, falling into step behind them as Applejack led us toward town center. The stallion, who still remained absent of an introduction, walked with a slight limp, exhaustion hanging on him like a heavy, wet blanket. I should have been worried, scared out of my wits about the prospects of how the stranger got here.

How had he even found his way here in the first place? The path was supposed to be so well hidden that nothing could find it. If he found it, could somepony else find it? And what happened when he left, which he more than likely would once he was rested and restocked, would he spread the word about our little haven? If he told somepony who wanted to make a deal with a dragon, they could trade the information and give us away.

But I was still overwhelmed by Bon-Bon’s sickness, I was simply exhausted. Emotionally and physically drained. I simply followed robotically behind them, waiting for us to reach the town hall. It was more of a mead hall in the way it was built, meant to be a stronghold and a place for ponies to sleep and eat together. Unlike in ancient days though, when ponies sang poems and drank until their tongues were loose enough to move each other’s hearts, it was a silent place for ponies to try and forget the world outside.

The sloped roof came into view only a few moments later, the well not being far from the hall anyway. Swirling decorations that were meant to have been painted bright colors to resemble sweets and happy thoughts were simply stained a dark color, while still beautiful in their own right, the lack of color made it slightly depressing. We stepped through the doors, leaving the bright overcast outside and stepping into the warmth of the sloped ceiling.

The ceiling was high above us, rafters carved with various bubbly designs but still dyed with that dark stain. Candles burned on various tables or on the walls, spreading yellow light in small circles around the room. It felt … orange to me, like the room was in a haze of dim, lazy orange.

“Take a seat, pard’ner,” Applejack said tiredly, she was still friendly toward the stranger, but seemed already done dealing with him. I knew that she was worried, all the concerns I’d ignored raging through her. It was up to her to make a decision that would be both fair to the stranger and beneficial to the village. 

It was a hard job. I wasn’t jealous of her.

“While we wait fer Rainbow, why not tell us yer name there fella,” she continued, taking a seat at one of the many long tables. The stallion sat next to her and I walked around to sit across from them, something told me that I’d prefer to be in a place where I could back away fast from him.

“Pokey Pierce,” he stated simply, his eyes turning to us with a tired, examining gaze. His dull golden eyes seemed to take in everything, cold and examining. I had the very sudden feeling that something was squeezing my chest, and not in a good way. It was a sort of fear, one that shook me to my core. There was something very … dangerous about him, it scared me like anything else, only it was staring me in the face.

“Have something to warm you up, AJ!” a chipper voice interrupted, shaking me out of the frozen state I’d found myself in. Pinkie Pie, probably the only truly happy pony in all of Ponyville, slid a mug of something bubbly in front of Applejack.

Pinkie’s classically too-bright colors nearly glowed in the low light of the candles spread randomly among the tables. She was one of the only things keeping this town from pulling itself apart, her cheer easily infectious. Her mood had always been the thing keeping everypony from turning into babbling messes in their homes at night.

“What about you, Lyra? Anything you want?” Pinkie asked, turning her beaming smile onto me now. She was wearing a dirty apron, thick material that one wouldn’t normally use as clothing. Yet, there it was.

“Do we still have any coffee?” I asked, hoping desperately that there was still some of the precious plant left from the harvest months ago. It was a crop that wasn’t grown much here; next to the more necessary crops there just wasn’t any room. Ponies scrambled to get some every year when the plants flowered.

“I think the cakes have a teensy bit left, but... I know we have hot cocoa though! And how about you mister strange stranger pony? Do you want something to drink, or a snack?” she asked, her smile never wavering. She still managed to display an extremely chipper attitude while remaining at the respectful amount of caution that had been drilled into everypony here from birth. I didn’t understand how she could possibly still be cheerful next to this pony, something was just … wrong about him.

“Any tea?” he asked calmly, emotion gone from his voice altogether. He spoke like a robot.

“Sorry, tea doesn’t grow so good out here. Not the right type of soil, you know? Uhm … We do have some honey mead if that’s any better,” she tried, breaking out into a fit of giggles. The stranger gave a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, nodding his approval of the offered drink. Pinkie gave another laugh before hopping off to the back of the hall.

“Why are yah all the way out here, Mister Pierce,” Applejack continued, taking a sip from her own mug of mead. She kept her voice calm, something that a stranger wouldn’t be able to tell though, was that she was watching every move he made. Applejack could be as cold and as fast as anypony’s blade.

“It was not my intention to find you’re little hideaway, let me make that clear first,” Pokey Pierce said flatly, turning his slicing gaze onto Applejack now. The room suddenly felt cold, and for some reason I knew that things could get very ugly if we got on his bad side. I only had to look at his neck to know it.

Muscle, thick and chorded with years of labor swelled under his hide. But I could see the snap that was behind it, it wasn’t the slow muscle of a workhorse, like Applejack. That kind of muscle moved fast, the kind of muscle that could knock a tree down, and three others before you even realized that he’d started kicking.

Whoever this stallion was, he could be a better fighter than Applejack was. And that was a scary thought, considering she was one of the strongest ponies in Ponyville.

“I was chased here … It drove me up the mountain and that’s where I found your pass. I lost it sometime after starting down that mountain,” he hissed, eyes narrowing in the only indication of emotion that I’d seen from him so far. It made a soreness crawl up my spine, like I’d somehow pinched a nerve in every vertebrae. “I think you have a dragon problem, ma’am,” he said quietly, barely loud enough for anypony to hear at all.

I froze up, eyes widening as his words hit me. A dragon. He’d been chased here by a dragon. There weren’t supposed to be any dragons around here, that was the whole point of hiding here! But according to him there was one prowling around the mountains! 

A cup had appeared in front of me, half filled with black coffee and steaming. How Pinkie had dropped it off without me noticing wasn’t actually surprising, I think that my brain had stopped working at the word dragon. My hooves shot to it immediately, picking it up and pressing the cup to my lips. Without even thinking about the hot liquid, I tilted the cup back and swallowed a mouthful of the coffee. It was hot, and burned my tongue and my throat. But I needed it to shock me out of the fear that had stopped my heart.

“This had better be some sorta joke, pard’ner,” Applejack said coldly, any sort of calm or collectiveness gone from her voice. Anger simmered in her words, and I swear her eyes could have cut holes in steel.

“It’s not,” Pokey said, his voice flat again. I could only barely make out a sense of hate radiating off his next words. “He thinks I’ll forget. He thinks that I don’t realize like you haven’t, but I do. Nothing gets past me for long. He thinks his Mask will protect him, but I know where to look now,” he said, a sort of madness echoing off his words. I could feel it in the air around him.

“What do you mean, mask?” I asked, the words coming from my breathless lips without even a thought. I’d just said it, I hadn’t even realized I was speaking until the words had already jumped from me into the world.

“Majesty. Terror. Sagacity. Divine. Unholy. Masked,” he listed, instantly rounding on me with those ice cold, metal eyes. “These are the powers that dragons have, only one each. The Mask lets the dragon come and go, and be forgotten. But I won’t forget him, oh no. I know how to remember,” he said, moving one of his arms under his coat.

Suddenly, the material snapped into clarity to me. He was wearing a fur coat, actual fur. And if Fluttershy’s friend was any indication, it was a bear’s skin. But what he pulled out next made it seem all the more gruesome.

He slammed it into the table, the razor-sharpened blade impaling itself into the thick wood and displaying his gruesome prize. It was a toe, the severed claw of a dragon. It was huge and green scaled, the claw as long as my hoof was wide. The blade was pushed through a joint in the toe and came out underneath the claw itself, sticking it like some sort of unholy kebab. The other joint had been sliced off, a clean cut that almost made it look fake.

But the blood that still steamed as it rolled off told me it wasn’t.

“Holy mackerel!” Applejack shouted, jumping up and knocking over both their drinks. She stared wide-eyed at it, the same as me. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, it was hypnotizing and absolutely terrifying. Here, horribly and explicitly presented in front of me like some sort of vulgar decoration, was proof that our valley was on the verge of being discovered by the dragons.

I couldn’t move. Maybe I felt the cup shatter in my hooves but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t even tell if the precious coffee I’d just wasted had burned my legs as it fell to the floor. I knew I was shaking. I couldn’t stop. I could only stare at the huge green claw that was staring me in the face.

A rainbow tinged blur tackled Pokey Pierce to the ground in the silence. He made no move to defend himself as he fell and a rough copper blade pressed up against his horn. “You’ve got ten fucking seconds to tell me why you have a fake dragon’s claw,” Rainbow hissed, digging the tip into the base of his horn. Blue fur bristled with well trained muscle as she held him down, the stallion not making much of a move to stop her so much as to lay properly on the floor.

“It’s not fake,” I murmured, my lips trembling as I continued to stare at the claw. And it was true, I didn’t even need to look at the blood to know for certain. It was the feel of the thing, the magic in the air. He was right, it was an illusion matrix flowing weakly around it, making its displacement in the world’s fabric … almost not exist.

Everything took a place in the world, especially dragons. The world is a fabric, like a huge net stretched flat. When something sits on the fabric, when it exists in the world, it makes a dip in the fabric where gravity pulls it down. The older it is, the more powerful it is, the more ‘dip’ in the fabric. But the dragon’s claw seemed to shake in and out of its place, like somepony was trying vainly to hold it above, just barely touching the fabric in a shaky grasp.

The claw, and the dragon it came from, was enchanted so that nopony could remember it after they’d seen it. For all I knew, it could have walked past me on our way here.

“Whaddya mean it’s not fake, sugarcube? It’s gotta be, nothin’ can cut a dragon, you know that,” Applejack argued, standing up so that she could look down at the stranger. “You heard the mare, you got ten seconds to live, fill it with words,” she said, motioning for Rainbow to put more pressure on his horn.

He should have been in pain, massive pain with a cut like that near his horn. The base of the horn was extremely sensitive, nerves meant to help detect and control the flow of magic expanded out from the base of the horn there. But he didn’t seem to react at all to the gouge being carved out at the base of his horn. All he did was go back to that horribly detached expression.

“But a dragon can,” he said, pointing with a hoof to his saddlebag that was pinned under him. He didn’t even bother to look away from Rainbow as she pressed her knife into his horn harder.

Applejack was the one who moved, taking it upon herself to open the bag. The chain-link lined fabric fell away, and something equally as sick as what was pinned to the table rolled out. Another dragon’s claw, this one mounted and polished on top of a dagger's hilt. It was a knife made from a part of a dragon, that he’d used to cut off a part of a dragon.

“... How?” Applejack finally decided to ask. Rainbow’s knife fell from her hoof as she stared at it, finally freeing the other unicorn from the forced torture. “How did you get this?” Applejack repeated, fear seeping into her voice. I could hear it stretching her throat, it had already wrapped itself around mine.

“A Manta and a Steel dragon fought in the sky, the Manta cut the tip of the other dragon’s tail off and it fell into our village,” he said, a crazy glint in his eye. He turned them, the empty brass color glinting in the light, back to Applejack in that same, horribly detached way. “It was a sign, from Celestia herself. It came through my roof, impaling my dinner to the floor. I knew it meant that I was supposed to rid the world of as many of these demons as possible, so I have. I’ve killed three dragons already, and learned things that most ponies could only dream about,” he said, his voice distant, as if he were lost in the memory.

“No, it was a stroke of luck!” Rainbow protested, taking to the air with a defiant scowl on her face. “Everypony knows that the first thing the dragons did was kill both of the Princesses, anything else is just a stupid attempt to hold onto them,” she said angrily, expressing the common belief among pegasi.

“Of course you would say that,” he snapped, turning his steely glare to her as he sat back up. Blood, red and thick ran down his face, tracing a curve around his muzzle before disappearing under his chin. “And I suppose the head mare here is going to tell me that they couldn’t have done that because they’re too busy getting ready for a revolt to wipe out the dragon scum,” he sneered, turning a sickly grin to Applejack. 

“Ah think we’ve heard enough outa yer foul mouth,” Applejack said, looking toward a pair of stallions sitting across the hall. She summoned them with a nod toward the stranger, both of the burly workhorses standing to come collect him. “We’ll keep yah overnight in tha blacksmith, but don’t be mistakin’ it as fergiveness. First light, yer outta here,” she said, her voice returning to a shakily placed harshness.

The stallions grabbed onto the stranger, standing him up and pressing into his sides so that he had no place to move. He was completely silent, a satisfied smirk on his face. I don’t know why, if he hadn’t started yelling about dragons Applejack might have let him stay in the mead hall and let him leave in the morning, now he had to sleep in the cold floor of the blacksmith’s shop for the night, most likely tied down with chains in a clear corner. For some reason, I felt like if he had wanted to, he could have easily killed both of them and left whenever he wanted.

My eyes flashed back to the sick trophy he had so proudly presented to us, his words suddenly shifting up through my mind. ‘I know how to remember.’ The claw. He’d taken it so that the illusion spell couldn’t hold onto him for more than a few fleeting moments, a reminder for whenever it tried to take hold on his perception of the world.

In a flash, without thought or care, I reached into my saddlebag and pulled out a small kerchief that I usually kept. The soft white cloth soaked in the dark, still hot blood of the talon. And before I knew it, it was back in my bag with none the wiser. A plan had already sprung into my mind, a headache edging in with the racing thoughts that were producing it.

You can make deals with dragons. Not very good ones, but they always keep their word. It’s some sort of curse on them; if they make a promise, they keep it. Or maybe that’s just a myth that seems very appealing. Either way, dragon’s know how to cure Death’s Kiss.

I already knew what I was going to do tonight, the book I needed already plastered to the back of my vision. I followed them out as they took the stallion away, turning away toward my house in the darkening light. I might have given Applejack a wave as I left, some warning about the curfew following me as I tried to make myself seem as inconspicuous as possible. But I didn’t really have the mindset to listen.

I was about to break the rules, big time ...


> It's Just a Forest ...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

-It’s Just a Forest ...-



I scrambled through my empty house in flurry of nervous activity. My parents wouldn’t be back until at least sundown, so I had a little time. We had a two room house, fairly large for our village. The first room was where I slept, my bed and everything I owned on shelves and in the one dresser beside my bed. The library was there too, a shelf with books sloppily piled onto it. The second room was my parents’, and where we kept things that were less necessary, like clothes.

I emptied my saddlebags over my bed, the tight sheets catching the contents soundlessly. I put my coinpurse back into my bags, the small sack jingling slightly with the few bits actually in it. The kerchief went back as well; I’d need it to perform one of the spells. I’d bring my lyre of course; I honestly would feel naked without it.

I ran to the library shelf, counting books off before finding the one I was looking for. It was thinly bound, the pages not counting nearly as many as some of the others. But I’d read it before, so I knew there was a spell for finding lost things in here, so long as you had a piece of what was lost. Like a button from a coat, or the shavings from a favourite pencil. But it worked on ponies too; a hair or something and you could find them. I had to hope it would work on a dragon as well.

I threw it into my bag. I’d perform the spell on my way out of town. The next one I needed was at the other end of the shelf and I danced nervously over to it. It wasn’t actually the subject of the book I was interested in, but written within the cover page of the book was a spell that I’d stitched together to let me see in the dark. It was mostly so that I could read late at night, but if I cranked it up a little, it would work perfectly for sneaking out in the dark.

I memorised the series of numbers and symbols I’d used to work the spell, it had taken weeks to narrow down the right frequencies when I’d first made it. I really only needed a refresher since I’ve used it so often, just to make sure I would remember it. I replaced the thick tome back on the shelf, resuming my shuffling about the cabin.

I pulled open the trapdoor in the corner, hopping down the steep stairs to the pantry. I pocketed a loaf of bread, a small wedge of cheese following it. I wouldn’t be able to carry a clay water bottle, but thankfully we had some extra magically watertight bags that I was able to fill. I also snatched a tiny bag of strawberries. I couldn’t help it.

It did make me feel guilty, if that’s any consolation.

I put them into the saddlebags, shuffling them around to make sure they fit correctly. I panicked slightly when I thought I heard somepony coming up the steps to the door, but they passed by the house without coming up. I breathed in relief, and looked over my bags again. 

I have no idea if I had what I would need, or even what was remotely required for something like this. I was just throwing things in that I thought I might want, and hoped I’d be back by morning, in all honesty. I think a part of me really wanted me to forget about all this as soon as possible, or for somepony to talk me out of it. But every time I got close to giving up on the whole thing I remembered Bon-Bon, burning up from the inside.

At this point I wasn’t sure what else I could need, just a few things to make what I assumed to be a long walk more comfortable. I’m fairly confident that I knew enough about the local flora that I won’t eat anything poisonous. At least I hoped that was true, it was all I really had left: Hope.

I wrapped my mother’s coat around me tightly, finding the deep purple garment folded underneath her bed where it usually was. I threw my saddlebags over my back and used my magic to tighten the straps, perhaps a bit too much as I felt my breath get squeezed out. But I was in a hurry and didn’t want to wait around any longer; my parents would be back before sunset.

I blew out the candles that I’d lit, dropping the tiny cottage into a twilight that was only maintained by the slowly dying sunlight coming in from under the door. I sneaked toward it as quietly as I could, slowly opening it on sparingly oiled hinges. When I peaked out the street was nearly empty; only one of the older ponies in town giving their dog a walk going in the opposite direction.

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I stepped out quietly, the door creaking ever so quietly on its neglected hinges. I made my way down the street quickly and stayed low to the ground and stuck to lesser used streets. I must have looked a little silly but the sun was setting fast now, its orange glow ready to set behind the mountains to the West, and ponies would be going home soon. I needed a hiding spot.

I could hide by the waterwheels. All the noise from them would stop anypony from hearing me, plus the spinning would make it harder for anypony to see me behind them in the dark. It was as good as I was going to get, though not the closest to the path leading into the Everfree.

It only took a few more turns for me to reach the edge of town where the water wheels spread out along the river that flowed out of the Everfree. The only ponies I would have to worry about at this point would be the Belles; their cottage was only a short distance from the furthest one, where I wanted to hide. I’d have to be especially careful of the youngest of them: Sweetie Belle.

Sweetie Belle and her two friends always had a way of being in just the right place at just the right time to get into amounts of mischief that shouldn’t even be possible for anypony so young. And it had been more than one occasion where I’d gotten dragged into it. But, come on, who could resist the temptation of trying to confuse Pinkie Pie? It was like an unspoken challenge that had been staring me in the face ever since I’d met the former rock farmer.

I was never sure how that particular activity could have ever been associated with cutie marks, but it had been fun until we’d been caught. Apparently Pinkie was more aware of what was going on around her than I had originally given her credit for, and sugar is painful when it gets in your eyes.

As I neared the water wheel that ran the textile mill, the sound of its axle turning on huge bearings became the only thing I could hear. It towered over me, the slope of the river’s edge giving me enough room to hide under the platform that held it over the water and lead its axle into the enclosed textile mill.

I shuffled underneath as quietly as I could, hoping that nopony was actually inside at the moment. If any of the Belles were nearby they might actually be able to feel my magic as I prepared to leave. My magic had never been very … tidy. When I cast a spell, random magic always ended up getting wasted and just causing a flux in the ambient magic in the air. When I was a filly it was even worse, even pegasi could feel it when I tried to cast a spell. I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong, I just end up winding myself with anything moderately taxing.

“Lyra?”

I froze. Jinxed it, harp-butt, I mentally berated myself. Slowly, I turned my head to look behind me. In the fading light I could just make out the shape of a filly standing under the floor.

“Hi, Sweetie Belle,” I said nervously, trying my best to give her an innocent looking smile. I think it came out as more of a nervous grimace. Sweetie merely turned her head to the side as she looked at me, young and innocent confusion showing in a tight frown on her face.

“What are you doing under the mill, Lyra? Are you looking for something?” she asked, taking a few steps closer to me so that we could see each other better. “All you’re going to find down here is a few bent needles and maybe some bits of thread,” she said innocently, leaning up to pull on a short piece of thread that was hanging from between a couple of boards above us with her mouth.

“I could ask you the same thing, isn’t it past your bedtime?” I said, trying to change the subject and maybe get her to leave. I’m not sure if she’d be able to tell what kind of spell I was going to use, but she would probably still ask too many questions.

“I’m too old for a bedtime anymore, Lyra,” she protested as she spat out the thread, a defiant crease in her muzzle appearing as she spoke. “And I dropped a mane-clip earlier and I’ve been looking for it all day, I thought that it might have fallen down here while I was … helping my sister,” she said, pausing to consider her words for a moment. Something told me that she hadn’t actually been helping, or that she’d been turned into a living ponnequin by the fussy unicorn.

I paused, watching nervously as Sweetie Belle started to examine the ground in the dark. “Here, I betcha I can you find it. Give me some of your mane,” I said, pulling out the thin book from my saddlebags. Without waiting for her to question it, I plucked a hair from her mane, eliciting a small yelp of protest from her. In the glow of my horn I was able to read the tattered old book. 

The spell floated in front of me, Sweetie’s hair weaving around a small pebble that I picked up off of the ground. My horn gave a small flash, the hair tying around the smooth pebble to let it hang from it like a pendant. I concentrated on the equation before me, an enchanting variant of the spell that can find lost things. Her hair should have a small connection to the mane-clip since it had been in her mane.

I felt small trails start stretching out from the stone, a very strong one pointing directly at Sweetie Belle and another two stretching toward her house away from the river. Another trail pointed right underneath me, and I propped myself up slightly to find that I’d been sitting on top of a little pink mane clip.

“There it is!” Sweetie Belle chimed, her voice squeaked as she spoke. She hopped in place, nearly bumping her horn against the floor above us. I picked it up and tucked it into her mane for her and she beamed up at me in the light of my horn. “Thanks, Miss Lyra. What were you doing down here anyway?” she asked, unfortunately quickly latching back onto that subject.

“Finding your junk, apparently,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her. It got her to laugh, and I surprised myself with how calm and friendly I’d just sounded despite the fact that my heart was pounding at the inside of my chest.

“Hey! Tomorrow the other crusaders and I are going to go and try and get our cutie marks in kite flying. Wanna come?” she asked, happily starting to back out from underneath the mill. I followed her on my knees, hoping that by following her it wouldn’t bring up the question as to why I was staying underneath the mill.

“That sounds surprisingly tame for you three,” I noted, smiling suspiciously at her. Who knew how they would get this one to go wrong. “I’ll see what I can do, see you then,” I said turning to walk around the mill. Sweetie gave me a final wave goodbye before finally running off down the path toward the few houses situated out here.

I sighed in relief as the danger of being found out finally had run off. I went around to the other side of the mill and waited for her to get out of sight on the darkening path. Sunlight was barely here anymore, only the faintest amount of orange still showing on the clouds and quickly fading. I would need my spell soon.

I focussed, trying to recall the numbers I would need to be able to cast the spell. It worked by placing a magical light filter inside my retinas, and by casting an infrared light from my horn. Nopony would be able to see the light, and the filters would expand the light into a sort of red hue for me. That way, I could read at night without even having to light a single candle. It would be perfect; I wouldn’t be announcing my position with a lantern or something using this.

I felt a small pinch at the base of my horn as I weaved the magic into the translations. The world suddenly shifted from the darkness to a dull red hue, the path in front of me lit up with the otherwise now invisible glow of my horn. I let out a huff as I started walking down the path. My saddlebags suddenly felt a whole lot heavier.

The border of the Everfree was not something easily missed, even among the trees that lined the paths. It was a wall of vegetation that suddenly choked the path, and even in the light of my horn was as dark as the sky. I felt another lump growing in my throat as I looked into the undergrowth, and hoped dearly that I wasn’t shaking as much as I thought I was.

I took a deep breath and pulled out the book again, this time dragging along the stained kerchief as well. I could see the black mark where the dragon’s blood had soaked in, and I swear that it was still glistening with moisture. I have no idea if dragon blood doesn’t evaporate or something, but I knew that it was still wet on the kerchief.

This was going to be more difficult. The enchantment version of the spell relied on the object that would be finding the other, the simpler the better. A crystal was best because it was all one uniform structure. But with the amount of distance that this was going to cover, I would need to cast it over and over again, and that would simply burn out anything I tried to use. So I would just have to cast it without that, and that was a bit more complicated.

I concentrated on the kerchief, and the blood soaked into it. My magic closed in on the blood itself, and stuck to it in a way I didn’t expect it to. Rather than being slippery and hard to concentrate on, like anything else with an illusion matrix should have had, it was so easy to find and grasp onto that it almost felt like it was trying to grab my magic. I shook off the strange idea and continued with the spell.

I pictured a dragon in my head; green scales like the toe had had, and as big as a house. I swallowed the fear that it produced in myself from the image, I could practically feel it looming over me already. And at that moment a line of light appeared in my vision, pointing up into the clouds in the direction of the mountain.

I sighed shakily as I memorized the direction, rolling up the kerchief and slipping it into the pocket of the coat. I found myself wishing for a compass as I took my first step. The line connected to the kerchief wobbled as I moved it and slowly faded into nothing more than a few points of light that flickered out of existence.

My eyes fell back onto the black trees, their darkness yawning in front of me. They looked awfully threatening in the red light of my horn, and I wondered vaguely if I could stop and find a way to change the color. Maybe a calming green instead … No. If I do that I might not be able to make myself go in. The path was literally right in front of me, but for some reason it seemed even more devious than wandering through the forest without it would be.

After all, that would be the first place I’d look if I was searching for somepony trying to leave the town. I took a nervous glance behind me, biting my lip in nervousness as I forced myself to start walking into the forest. As soon as I was across the unnaturally neat border between the forest and the town, it was like I’d been swallowed by shadows.

My light still worked fine, sure, but that wasn’t the problem. The trees and bushes around glowed the same dull red that let me see, but beyond that was a wall of shifting darkness as the light moved with me. When a stray leaf would catch my light and poke itself out from the darkness anyway, it felt like eyes were watching me.

My legs shook as I continued to force myself to put one hoof in front of the other, and walk. Tall grasses and ferns brushed against my fetlocks, feeling like little creepy crawly...things reaching out and grabbing at my hooves. The air was stuffy, heavy with humidity even this late into autumn. It was oppressive. I could barely breath. 

And that might not have even been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that it was dead silent.

I hadn’t noticed the little sounds in the night before. The occasional chirp of a grasshopper, a toad croaking absentmindedly by the river. The sound of the breeze going over the grass and stirring the leaves of trees gently. Even the sound of the river bubbling along, I should have been able to hear that. But there was nothing but the sound of my breathing and of my hooves brushing through the undergrowth.

An owl hooted behind me suddenly, shattering the silence for just a brief moment.

I didn’t scream, at all. Nor did I start running as fast as my legs could carry me, it was more of a … very fast walk. Yeah, walking …

Okay, I screamed like a little filly and ran like my life depended on it. I don’t know how long I ended up running, but whenever I ran out of breath I just gulped down another mouthful of air and continued screaming. If nothing had known I was in the forest before, it certainly would know about it now. Eventually, my legs started burning and I had to stop to catch my breath and calm the very violent drum solo in my chest.

I collapsed against a tree, clinging to it with my hooves to keep myself from falling onto the ground. I hadn’t noticed how cold my hooves were until now, they were practically numb against the smooth bark of the slender tree I leaned against. The inside of my throat was on fire from all the hysterical screaming, and my legs shook slightly from the sudden exertion. Even my back ached a bit from where my saddlebags had mercilessly been bouncing around.

I finally managed to catch my breath and was more than content to simply slide down the tree and sit on the forest floor for a moment. My heart was calming, though my ribs felt like they’d taken a beating from the inside.

I hate birds.

“Oh come on, Lyra,” a voice called from the back of my thoughts, bringing me to pause in my fear induced hyperventilation. “It’s just a bunch of birds! And I bet they won’t even peck at us or anything,” Bon-Bon’s voice called to me, a memory stirring even as my eyes searched the shifting darkness around me. For a moment I stopped, just listening in hopes of hearing more. Just waiting to try and remember better days, days spent with Bon-Bon.

Another fucking owl hooted above me, passing on silent wings. I let out high pitched squeal as it did, quickly covering my mouth with a hoof to stifle myself. But it passed quickly and I let out a shaky breath. I hope that it wasn’t going to come back to torment me any longer. I almost didn’t know why I was so scared. I knew that Fluttershy was always going into the forest, despite her ironically shy and skittish nature. Yet here I was, one who considered herself made of something a bit tougher than the butter yellow pegasus was, scared to death of an owl.

But despite that, the choking darkness still shifted around me. I knew it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, looking for things that weren’t actually there. But I still felt a tightness in my throat, and the crippling thought in the back of my head that if I turned around fast enough that something with sharp teeth would meet my gaze. My heart was still trying to play a fast-paced tune on my ribs, and my breath was coming in short shallow gasps.

I tried to think, to logically work my way around the fear. If I stopped concentrating on the darkness, and stopped thinking about Bon-Bon, I might be able to make it up the mountain without having a heart attack. I was never very good at that however, and the creaking of the branches above me making me jump suddenly didn’t help. My eyes shot up so fast I felt my neck crack just from the momentum alone. An owl stared down at me from the branches; for all I knew, the exact same one that had scared me earlier.

“Dumb bird,” I grumbled, his large eyes reflecting back the glow from my horn like two big saucers of silver-red. A quiet hoot left its tiny beak, the tiny line of bone returning to its place in its downy face as it just stared at me. “What am I doing?” I asked myself, slumping further against the tree.

“Hoo,” the owl responded.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I grumbled back I frowned hard up at the bird to make my dissatisfaction clear. It simply stared back, blissfully silent.

Wait, wait, wait. There was something that Pinkie did once. There was a colt, Pip... something, who’d gotten scared that day that the manta had flown over. He’d hidden underneath one of the mills in a place that nopony else could fit in to get him out. And nopony was able to calm him down enough to get him to come out on his own. Until Pinkie had done something ...

That’s right, she sang a song for him. And she’d made him sing it too. It was something bubbly and happy, about laughing it off … or something. I can’t remember exactly what it was. But it had worked, after the song the colt wasn’t as scared and Pinkie was able to convince him to come out.

Maybe if I just sing a song, I’ll be able to distract myself from the black-on-red darkness that I’d willingly subjected myself to. I always liked to play songs, I could just whip out my lyre and start walking. That was it, I’d just sing myself a song, and keep going. Hopefully there’s something to this or I’m going to feel awfully awkward while I’m being eaten. 

I felt for my lyre with my magic, the glow around me slightly brightening as I put the light source to some amount of use. The short length of bent wood greeted me with its worn smooth texture, the strings strung tight in their places. With a tiny pluck of my magic, a single note pierced the dark. And surprisingly, I felt immediately calmer. I don’t know if it was just the fact that there was something beside just the stuffy silence all around me that did it, or if it was the fact that it was some sort of a security blanket or something for me. Either way, I felt a little less silly about the idea now.

Now just to pick something to sing. I could do something silly, like what Pinkie did for that colt. But I wasn’t so sure I had the confidence to sing something like that. Maybe just something happy? A song that brings hope … It would have to do.

My magic plucked the strings rapidly, quickly quieting them in short bursts. A cheerful beat slowly formed together, and I allowed myself a moment to simply fall into the rhythm. After a bit of just letting the tune of my lyre fill my ears, I was able to keep it playing without so much as a second thought.

It was already working wonders, and I was able to peel myself off the tree and start walking down the path again. My breathing was shakily slowing as I started to concentrate on the music, I could already almost forget that I was in the one place that had a reason to be avoided besides revealing the town. The trees and plants even seemed slightly less intimidating and encroaching, though the red lighting was still freaky.

“As you go through life you shall see,” I started, my voice still shaky as I maintained a slow pace up the path. “There is so much that we, don’t understand,” I sang, being careful to keep with the cadence of the song. I felt slightly more confident in my steps, my hooves finding their places among the roots and weeds smoothly as I played. “And the only thing we know, is things don’t always go, the way we planned.”

I almost didn’t notice when I started to walk faster, the music becoming the only thing I could concentrate on. My legs did the walking, my mouth the singing, and my eyes did little other than staring blankly at the path before me. The forest was silent, listening to me play. An ancient and sleepy audience, turning its tired old ears to my song. I vaguely wondered if the forest could hear me, and now that I wasn’t just trespassing amongst its trunks and leaves, it was almost happy to have me here.

“But you will see every day, that we’ll never turn away.” My lyre sang with me, something I always loved to feel. The wood vibrating so softly in my magic’s touch, the cool strings biting into it as I plucked and muted and strummed. Even if it was a bit old and beat up, it still knew how to play. Even when I was a filly, it was like it knew how to teach me.

“When it seems all your dreams come undone. We will stand by your side, filled with hope and filled with pride.” My bags felt lighter, my hooves no longer ached. I was breathing calmly now, not even a tremor in my chest to disturb the lyrics filling my ears. It was like the music alone was enough to fill me with strength and energy.

“We are more than we are, we are one,” I sang, a happy little sway growing in my steps. I still felt the creepers and the weeds on my legs, but now they no longer felt like little legs crawling on me, instead they sort of felt … soft. It was like I was walking through soft young grain. Like when Bon-Bon and I used to just run through the fields together.

I swallowed, the next line catching in my throat as a bittersweet memory came back to me suddenly. We were just blank-flanked foals then, out playing tag in the fields. The green stems of the grains whistled past us, dashing our cheeks as if to protest to being bothered from their quiet growing. The clouds were particularly thin that day over the fields, giving everything a warm golden glow that I had never even seen before that day. There were only a few days like that that I could remember, where I was unflinchingly, unwaveringly happy.

“If there’s so much I must be, can I still just be me … The way I am?” I sang halfheartedly. My strumming had become less enthusiastic as I’d lost myself in the flash of a memory, my pace slowing back down to a slow walk. “Can I trust in my own heart, or am I just one part  of some big plan?” I asked myself, slowing to a stop to lift a hoof to my eyes.

My eyes were watering. When had that even started? I sniffed to clear my nose, a hiccup shaking me as I forced myself to stop. I just had to stop thinking for a moment.

That must have been the wrong song, and I hadn’t even gotten to the ending.

I remembered a lot of days like that one; just me and Bon-Bon, living in our little village. We’d cheer each other up when one of us was down. We ran, we played, we were just happy together. We forgot about the horrible world that was looming just above the clouds, just beyond these mountains. We did that together, for each other.

But now that might never happen again. Not with one of us withering away in the dark, like a flower that’s been potted in the wrong soil and cut off from the light. Dying slowly, hanging onto her life despite the circumstances.

And the thing was, no one could help her. Nopony would really care to either: Sickness as bad as Bon-Bon’s? It wouldn’t help her to prolong her suffering. Nopony would want to do that to her, help her. No one, except for me.

Therein lay the problem; I was the only one who’d want to help her. Whether it would be in vain was up to me. Even if I did find what I needed to help Bon-Bon, I could be too late and she’d be dead by the time I came back. If I didn’t find that cure though, she’d still die. If I gave up, she would die.

A life rested on my shoulders, and it was too heavy for me to carry.

My knees shook before I found myself once more on the ground amongst the greenery. My magic flickered and faded, dropping me into darkness. The red light that had made up my world left me, and I let myself cry in the darkness. The grass pressed up against me through the coat, my cold hooves shaking against the leaves. I must have wandered off the path slightly, otherwise I’d be sitting in bare dirt.

I just sat there, nose running and tears rolling down my cheeks. I felt so useless, like nothing I could do would help Bon-Bon. I was going to lose her, and nopony else was doing anything about it. I let myself get lost in it, mind drawing to a blank. Almost like meditating, if it weren’t for the crying that is.

Gradually the flow of tears slowed, my hiccuping sobs came to a halt. I sniffed to clear my nose, rubbing a hoof I could only barely see over my muzzle to wipe away the wet and snot. I let myself sit in the silence, willing myself not to think. Not even a whisper of wind resisted me.

Nothing. A blissful idea. Almost like being at an empty kind of peace. But I knew that it had to end eventually, I just didn’t want it to. My heart and my hooves were tired, it felt like the world was looming over me. An overpowering part of me simply wanted to lay here and simply stop being, to become one with the silence and darkness.

So it came to a surprise to me when the subtlest of lights edged into the bottom of my vision. My eyes followed the sudden presence of light reflexively, almost hungry for something to look at after all the darkness I’d been festering in. The softest of silver-blue glows put one of my hooves in silhouette, and when I lifted it I found a flower.

It was a closed bud, tall and curled at the tips of its star shaped fold, the same color as the tiny glow coming from its withered petals. I’d stepped on it and now it was squashed slightly. The petals quivered as they tried to open, and the glow grew. The gentle light lit other buds whose own glows began to grow inside them, each waking the other with their tiny radiance. 

With a shudder the flower I’d stepped on spread open, wide and then wider until it was a large white swath pointed skyward. The light flared from its pollen, spreading like little stars as it gave a shiver. Following their sister’s lead, more flowers opened, their glows twinkling like bright stars as they too flicked out their baby stars to drift in the cool air.

They spread around me, slowly filling the clearing in a grey light with only the smallest hint of blue. They stretched wide around me, vines of the flowers stretching up the sides of trees and aiming their pale white faces upwards. And as I followed them, I saw what had woken them up.

The trees limbs parted here, a tiny clearing. And peeking past the thinning clouds and canopy was the mare in the moon. Her cratered surface stared down through the clouds, a sad tilt to the details that made her eye. As if she was saying “Why are you crying?” I could almost imagine a soft voice, motherly, comforting, and wise with the millenias that she had lived through. It was enough to start the tears again.

The flowers felt warm, not like the cold ground and grass underneath them that I felt. They hugged my hooves and my sides, an embrace so gentle that I had barely noticed it. The moon flower’s twinkling pollen drifted up through the trees, my own shaky breathing making them dance as they passed me by.

The Princess’s moon looked down on me, respectfully keeping her silence for me. Like a good friend she held me close with her gentle presence, and that was enough. After a while, my tears ran dry and I was able to compose myself again.

“Okay, Princess Luna,” I whispered hoarsely up to her, a sliver of strength returning to my cold chest. “Okay. Thank you.” I stood slowly, carefully removing myself from the flowers’ friendly touch. With Luna looking over me, a comforting shimmer in the light she cast, I knew I could keep going.

I lit my horn again, only enough to lift my lyre back over to me. I traced the magic link again, its arc slightly shallower now than before, and started walking down the path again. A slow, comforting hum coming from my lips as I continued the song I’d started.

And I walked …

And walked …

And walked ...

> It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

-It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time-



“This ain’t the same unicorn, bush-brains! Its coat’s the wrong color!”

“How am I supposed to know what it looked like? All I know is it was a unicorn!”

I snapped open the eye that wasn’t against the ground but was careful not to move so I wouldn’t alert the two new presences on the path. It was daylight now and light streamed in through the canopy in wide rays. It was completely quiet save for the two voices bickering just outside of my vision.

“I heard it was a blue unicorn from Maple, this one is green,” the first voice said. His voice was light and with the pitch of a younger pony, but an accent I was unfamiliar with gave all of his words a strange sing-song feel to them. I shut my eyes tightly again, afraid they would notice I was actually awake.

“You can’t trust anything Maple’s said after last year’s rut where he got his rack knocked off!” the second voice replied, a scoff escaping him. This voice was once again obviously from a younger pony, though his was much deeper than his friend’s. Again the strange accent made all of his words simply slip around and just start to blend together. “Maple might as well have told you that he saw a hippogriff too, Fern. Don’t listen to that guy.”

“Yeah, well this one is obviously a travelling performer, not a knight,” Fern’s voice replied defiantly. “Just look at its lyre, and there ain’t nothing but food and books written in Pony words in the bags! This ain’t the unicorn we want,” he said again, a frustrated grunt in his words.

“We still gotta bring it in! The master says we’re either supposed to bring in every pony coming through here or to scare ‘em off,” the still unnamed voice put in.

“Well I don’t want to carry her,” Fern argued, and it seemed like he might have continued if an annoyed huff hadn’t cut him off directly on the other side of me.

The annoyed sound was close enough that I felt my mane moving from the breath. “Would you two knot-heads shut up!” a harsh feminine voice cut, drawing both of the bickering voices to a dead halt. “It’s already awake anyway. Get up pony,” she said, finishing by nudging me with a surprisingly small hoof.

I opened my eyes quickly, swiveling my head around to get a look at my unwanted visitors. However I was struck dumb when I was not met with the faces of some angry ponies.

“You’re … deer?” I said intelligently, garnering another annoyed huff from the doe standing over me. The two young stags gave each other a look as if they were just realizing the same thing I had, their small sets of horns pointing skyward.

“Yes, and you are pony. Now get up,” the doe commanded, her hoof pushing against my shoulder with slightly more force. I did as I was told this time, though not without letting my confusion paint obviously on my face. “Good, now that it’s awake you don’t have to carry it. You can walk, yeah?” she asked me flatly. She looked at me the way a pony might look at a withered plant or a weed, upset that I existed.

“Yes … ?” I replied. Without waiting for me to continue with a follow up question, the doe lowered her head and began pushing me up the path with her two companions moving in to walk beside me. “Hey! Wai- Where are we going?” I sputtered, prancing about on suddenly nervous hooves as the doe continued to headbutt my flank to keep me moving.

“Stop talking!” the doe grunted, giving one last shove that sent me staggering several steps in front of her. I was able to recover my footing fast enough, and thankfully that was where she ended her shoving. 

“You broke the rules, now Master will decide your punishment,” Fern said as an aside to me, making an effort for the doe not to hear. I flinched in surprise when I found his face right next me and nearly bowled into the other young buck standing on my other side.

They looked a lot like ponies, but it was like everything had been stretched up and slimmed out so thin that they were practically walking on toothpicks compared to pony hooves. Not to mention the huge ears and rather prominent protrusions of bone from the tops of the two young stags’ heads.

“Who’s your master?” I asked him quietly after I’d recovered, moving quickly to avoid another headbutt from the doe behind me.

“He lives in the castle just that way, up the mountain,” Fern stated while nodding up the mountain, as if it were something that any foal should have known. And he simply left it at that, continuing to walk without looking toward me again.

The walk was long, and rather boring once Fern had decided that he was done talking to me. I’d tried asking a few more questions just to start a conversation, even offered to play a song. While the song offer had garnered some amount of a reaction out of the two stags, a surprisingly loud snort from the doe quickly made them go back to completely ignoring me.

As we climbed the path became steeper and steeper, beginning to wind back and forth up the mountain constantly. The trees only became taller and thicker as we went, the darker pines and deciduous trees mixing in with the thin wiry trees. Some of the smaller trees even looked like they’d grown up the thicker trees, like big bark covered vines. Never did we leave the dappled shadows of the forest, even though the light streamed through generously here.

Fern suddenly bumped into my side, steering me into the bushes as we reached a place where the path leveled out slightly. The other deer followed as if nothing had happened, forcing me through the thick brambles and off the path.

I sputtered out a protest but was effectively smothered by the bush I’d suddenly found myself swimming through. A thin pair of hooves wrapped around mine, thin bands of iron pulling me through the rest of the way to collapse on the other side in an inelegant heap. I looked up only to see the doe roll her eyes before stepping back to let me stand.

Somehow all three of the deer had made it through the bush before me, whether or not it was simply because I ended up stuck or because of some innate ability of theirs to traverse the undergrowth, I’d never know. 

This was no longer the unkempt path of the Everfree, the ground below my hooves was packed hard and devoid of anything more than a stray leaf that had fallen on it. It was a thin well used path, far more than the previous one had appeared anyway.

“Where-” I tried, only to be silenced by a small hoof suddenly jammed into my mouth by the doe. She glared hard at me, an obvious sign that if I didn’t take the hint she’d personally make me regret it. I clammed up fast despite the tinge of irritation toward her making my hooves feel hot and my horn give off an errant spark.

“No talking, no magic!” the doe barked at me, moving up to press her face into mine. I hadn’t really realized how much taller she was than me until now. “Or I could have Vines gag you, I don’t really care which one.” she growled, and I flinched back despite myself. The other stag, Vines it would seem, tilted his head to wave his horns in my direction.

Fern stepped in, taking the space where the doe had been only a moment ago. “When we take you inside, you need to be on your best behaviour,” he said, his words calm and flat. There was none of that carefree tone I’d heard before, he was all business now. “Don’t speak unless spoken to. Don’t look in the Master’s eyes. Don’t ask questions about where you are. And for the love of everything that is green and growing, do not mention the sky,” he said, giving a nervous glance upwards as if he expected something to drop down on him.

“Let’s get moving, the master will not be patient with us over something like this,” the doe said, turning swiftly and bounding down the trail through the forest. Vines snorted derisively toward Fern, nodding toward me before following the doe.

“Don’t mind Moonstone, she’s had a tough summer,” Fern said gently, gesturing that I should follow. He began walking at a fast pace and I was forced to keep up. “Try to keep quiet though, if you upset the master the consequences will not be pretty,” he said ominously, and any sense of companionship I’d started to find in him disappeared.

I couldn’t help but notice how daintily the deer walked, as if they were always dancing. Same with how they spoke, it was as if they put a cadence to their words. Almost like a song with no rhyme or reason, just bits of lines smacked together.

The moment we emerged from the foliage my train of thought derailed, hit a berm, and flipped into a lake. What was revealed when the foliage fell away was something I’d never think I’d see outside of a book: A castle hidden in the clouds.

It towered over us the tiny path, huge tumbling spires reaching to the sky as if to grasp it. Sweeping parapets dominated its outward face, I could clearly see where ponies would stand to keep watch over the lands that the castle overlooked. The intricately woven portcullis lay closed, both beautiful and shielding. It hung from the mountain as if placed there by the hoof of Celestia herself, impossibly pressed against the side of the mountain and surpassing the peaks with its towers. And all the while the clouds shifted like fog around it, caressing its edges like a soft blanket.

But the longer I looked, the more I realized just how ancient this place was. And dead.

Grasses and clover hung within the cracks between the stones. Creeping vines dominated the tall towers and filled their tops with greenery. A tree had punctured through what I could only guess was the either the throne room or a ball room, its branches pushing up what had once probably been a beautiful glass ceiling. As much as it dominated the mountain, nature ruled its halls.

“Welcome to Cottenhorn Castle, little pony,” Fern said, breaking into a gallop toward the monolith.


~~~~~~~~~ __/v \/v v\___/v VVv V\_____/Vv\__ ~~~~~~~~


Birds of colors and shapes I’d never imagined existed before flitted from nest to woven nest along the sides of parapets, their calls echoing off unseen mountainsides. The portcullis loomed within its gatehouse, vines creeping up its borders toward the pointed keystones in its arches. I could see shapes and symbols of all kinds woven into the metal as if it was nothing more than a crochet project.

It was difficult for me to keep looking at the ancient architecture, my own laboured breathing from the hard run up the mountain cast clouds over my muzzle. And the gatehouse’s roof soon overtook my view of the castle, replacing it with the ominous sight of flumes where boiling oil would have been poured. The tall deer rolled their eyes at me, hardly even noticing the climb.

Thin arrow slits surrounded us, and if it weren’t for the fact that this castle was obviously so old that they had not been used for centuries I would have thought that guards were peering through them at this very moment. Old wooden boards creaked under my hooves, a feeble barrier between me and whatever lay at the bottom of the death holes that I now walked over.

It sent a shiver of fear through me. And it finally sank in that I was not a guest here, I was no better than a prisoner with these deer. I was to meet with whoever this ‘Master’ was, and he would decide my fate. Perhaps I could convince him to help me, even if there is no dragon up here. Perhaps whoever this deer was, he could be reasoned with?

Without another word, Vines turned toward the gate and lifted his head high. A piercing whistle split the air, and it took me a moment to realize that it was Vines making the sound. He stretched the whistle out for the longest time, until I was sure he’d used the last of his breath. But by the time he finished another whistle joined his, and another, and another.

And with that the gate moved. It did not rise, or even sink into the ground as I had expected a portcullis to. Though this one obviously had not moved in a very long time, I quickly found out why. The metal itself twisted and writhed, as if a thousand slumbering metal snakes had suddenly woken. Rings of metal spun around, some cutting through stray creepers that had gotten too close to their paths. Before my eyes a circular doorway had opened in the portcullis, just big enough for a pony to walk through.

Vines ducked his head to fit his antlers through and disappeared through it, then Moonstone as well. Before I had time to truly appreciate the ancient and invisible magics that I’d just witnessed Fern pushed at my flank to move me toward the door.

And before I knew it I was facing down the smashed wooden door to the main hall. I stared into the dark entrance dumbly, the darkness where the once great wooden doors had occupied gaped like the maw of a huge stone beast. Intricate carvings surrounded the doorway, ancient images of forests, flowers, ponies, deer, birds and everything in between climbed upwards in a perfect arc.

When I looked back the gate had returned to its impenetrable sculpture, and the deer were gone. The door was the only place I could go, the overgrown courtyard was devoid of decoration and whatever doors lined its walls were sealed tightly. 

When I stepped into the darkness the temperature of the air instantly climbed. It was like stepping into the warm mead hall after having been caught in the first freeze of fall. All around me, the greenery spread. This castle was theirs, and it had been that way for so long that there was hardly any stone left untouched by the forest. Vines and grasses, bristling with summer flowers hung from the arching roofs. And the castle was all the more beautiful for it.

Late afternoon light streamed through the shattered windows, dust danced in its warmth through the air. What had once been a chandelier lay fallen and rusted atop what was once a fountain, bushes of bright berries bristled from their shared grave. Tattered tapestries and moldy murals lined the walls, telling stories with their pictures. I was certain I could see a pictogram of the Princesses on one of them.

At the end of the entrance hall was a gigantic doorway, one that should have lead into the throne room. But huge choking roots had burst through the door, the snaking trees beyond climbing the walls and much of the center. Steaming water rolled over them, taking a sharp turn toward a set of stairs that twisted downward farther into the castle’s bowels.

My hoofsteps echoed off the walls as I approached the throne room, it seemed the logical place to look first for the deer’s master. Within I found the roof strained under the relentless growth of the trees, cracks and missing panels let golden light streak through and paint itself on the green and brown.

The throne itself was overtaken by the largest tree in the room, having grown directly from the seat itself. Its roots spread out like a hill around the tall backed chair, whether a staircase had been there before or not was impossible for me to tell past them. Its branches were holding up the ceiling as much as they were shredding it. I looked at it with a mixture of awe and disappointment that something that had once probably been beautifully crafted had been destroyed.

The water I’d seen coming in was bubbling out of an alcove and into a pool behind the throne, many of the roots fighting for space inside it. I took a step around the wide base of the throne to get a closer look, it almost looked like the water was tinged slightly red for some reason.

And that’s when one of the trees moved. The water in the pool rippled suddenly, a large root suddenly disappearing from its edge. What I had taken as a large wall of leaves draping down from the branches suddenly vanished, and a huge lump of roots was no longer where I’d thought it was before.

The shadows at the edges of the throne room suddenly seemed much darker, the rustling of leaves darting around and around the room as something large circled me.

My legs locked up, refusing to heed my want to turn and run. I was stuck with my head on a swivel, desperately trying to keep whatever was hiding in the greenery in sight. But it moved too fast, all I ever caught was a shifting shadow or shifting set of leaves. I couldn’t breath, my heart and my lungs were fighting for space in my chest.

A voice like thunder rose from the darkness, echoing off all the walls and shaking shattered bits of the ceiling down: “Who dares walk through my forest and intrude on my sleep?” it said. My knees gave out under me in fear.

I stared into the dark corners of the throne room in a panic, unable to speak. Even if I could have formed words I wouldn’t know what to say.

“SPEAK, PONY!” the voice bellowed, more tiles of the ceiling falling. A choked yelp escaped me, my legs suddenly pedaling my back up against the roots around the throne and I started babbling.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to wake you up! I just wanted to help my friend!” I choked out, still desperately trying to find the source of the voice. “I just need to find somep- someone! I promise as soon as I find them I’ll leave the forest and never come back!” A tree rocked back, something heavy thudding against it and disappearing before I could see it.

“You will find no one here to help you pony, leave and do not return.”

“Please! All I need is somepony to show me where to go. I’ll get what I need and leave! That’s all I ask!” I pleaded, looking toward the tree that had shaken with tearful eyes. Once again I felt hopeless, helpless. If I didn’t come back with something to help Bon-Bon she would die.

“What you ask for is too much,” the voice rumbled, the shaking around the room returning as whoever it belonged to continued to circle me. Like a cat sneaking up on its prey.

“Please, I-”

“THIS IS NO PLACE FOR PONIES, LEAVE AND LIVE OUT YOUR SHORT LIFE AMONG YOUR OWN KIND!” it yelled, leaves and tiles alike falling from the ceiling.

“SHE’S DYING!” I yelled desperately, tears now streaming down my face. Surprisingly the rustling stopped, and the entire room fell silent. I heard a sound like a rattlesnake’s sneaking its way through the trees. “Please, there’s a rosebud on her cheek. I’ll do anything!” I cried, a slow rustling building up behind me.

I turned my head slowly, squinting through the tears in my eyes … and screamed.

A dragon’s head snaked around the throne, looking down at me past its long scaly snout. It’s head was nearly as large as I was, scales of all shades of green spreading out from its long crystalline purple horns. Piercing purple spheres stared back at me, no pupil reflecting back my image. A wing’s claws wrapped around the other side of the trunk, it’s huge spiked tail waved in the air behind it like a huge cat’s.

“I cannot save your friend, no one for thousands of miles can save a mortal who has shared a kiss with Death,” it said, it’s huge maw barely moving in order to form the words. “And my price to find you a cure would be too high for you. Leave,” the dragon ordered, turning away from me and stalking through the trees toward the throne room’s doors. 

It’s uneven steps barely made a sound on the roots. It was a wyvern, a dragon with two legs and muscular wings that it employed as another set of legs. The wings claws gripped the ground, pulling him forward before his limping rear legs followed. 

I scrambled to my hooves, a singular thought in my head: A line from a book written thousands of years ago by a great unicorn. I just hoped it was true.



Dragons are creatures of magic, to them word is law and an agreement is a pact written in blood.



“Wait, please!” I called, stumbling over the uneven roots. I sprinted through the door after the dragon, nearly slipping on a slick puddle before I was able to run in front of it. Mercifully it stopped, looking down at me with a raised eye ridge that bristled with spikey scales. “I’ll do anything, please,” I begged, trying to make myself look as pitiful and groveling as possible. Dragon’s liked it when ponies groveled didn’t they? “I- I don’t have any gold, but- I have to do something to save my friend. Please! Nopony else in my village can help her, I’m the only one!”

The dragon stared at me for a moment, or through me, I couldn’t tell with his pupil-less eyes. The only indication of where he was looking were the lines in his irises that took up his entire eye, two shining purple marbles. His eyebrow lowered and a scowl formed on his face, I could tell I’d upset him.

I looked down from his face, only to notice that he was favouring one back leg. The scaly muscular legs were held close to one another, three dexterous toes spreading his weight in the front and two thicker toes supporting the heel of his claw. But his left leg was missing one of the back toes.

The green toe that Pierce had … it came from this dragon.

I knew what I could offer that the dragon would want:

“I- I could bring you back your missing toe!” I said suddenly, looking back up at the dragon. It’s only reaction was its widened eyes, so I went on. “A pony! He came to our village bragging about it, it’s probably still where he left it when they took him to lock him up! It would only take me a little while to-”

“You will tell me where, it will be quicker for me to go … And then I will consider your request,” it said, his surprised look returning to a scowl. And panic filled me again.

“No! You can’t go to the village! Please! I-” I started to say, hoping I could convince the dragon to let me leave and come back with his missing toe. The thought of touching the dismembered, scaly, sharp, still bleeding, claw again made me shiver, but it would be better than letting Bon-Bon die.

However, the dragon cut me off sharply: “KNOW YOUR PLACE!” it bellowed, making the castle shudder again. “I hold power here, not you-” it paused, a smoky snort from its nostrils lessening the scowl on its face. “How dare you presume you can tell me what I can and cannot do! This is my kingdom! Everything from the horizon to this mountain belongs to me! Even that which hides below the clouds is mine! That pony has stolen something of mine, and the punishment for thievery is DEATH!” it bellowed, taking a heavy step forward with its huge wing.

Its claw slammed into the stones, shaking them enough to knock my hooves out from under my crouched and cowering form. I let out a desperate cry, trying to back away from the dragon. Its tail twisted around, the heavily armored arrowhead shaped end slamming into the stones behind me as it reared up on its rear legs.

It slammed back down onto the mossy cobbles, now crouched threateningly over me. Its neck coiled back like a snake ready to strike, its head aimed straight down toward me. Its scales flexed up and down its body, suddenly making it seem almost twice as large and all the more bristling with spikes.

And then, in a voice surprisingly quiet, it spoke again: “As punishment for your resistance and your trespass, you will be my slave. You belong to me. And until you tell me where this thief has taken what is mine, I will make sure that your friend never receives what she needs,” the dragon hissed, its armored nose nearly brushing against my horn. 

It pulled away slowly, scales sliding and shaking against each other in that rattlesnake sound I’d heard before. Its tail slid away from me, digging a furrow through the invading clover and grass as he turned away. One of his wings swung over me, a wall of air knocking me over again as he made his way to the stairwell that the water went through.

Its nimble claws used the wall of the tower to span a gap in the stairs where they had fallen going downward. And then it was gone.

I felt the dam break, whatever shock or pride or fear that had kept me from totally breaking down was gone now, and I sobbed like a foal.

Everything had amounted to nothing, anything the village had done amounted to nothing. Bon-Bon would die, sweating and choking in her sweaty sheets on that uncomfortable cot. A dragon knew where our village was, and perhaps had known from the very beginning. I’d angered that dragon, and for all I knew it was ready to fly out and burn it down all because I’d opened my stupid mouth.

And I’d lost the only thing I’d ever truly called my own; me. Just like that I was a slave. My future, as dull as it might have been, had at least been mine. But now it was whatever cruel yoke that this dragon fixed on me.

I’d thought, so stupidly, that if I just gave him something he would want he might agree. But I should have known he would never trust a pony to bring back his toe. Why did I have to be so stupid?

I took a shot in the dark, and shot my own hooves for the effort.

I’m not really sure how long I just sat there in the drafty entrance hall of the castle I’d once looked at as fantastical. But after a while I heard soft hoofsteps making their way toward me through the green floor. I could feel them stop next to me, four slender hooves making deliberate sound as they scuffed at the moss and silt.

I felt the tears coming again, I didn’t want anypony to see me like this. But the hooves never moved, and suddenly I felt gentle, warm breath stirring the mane around my folded ears. The deer didn’t say anything, simply pressing their nose into my mane in a comforting embrace and letting me cry. 

But not for much longer. “Come with me pony, I will find you a place to rest. Heavy days ahead,” Fern’s voice said gently, his breath blowing warmly over my head. Slowly, he guided me up onto my legs with a gentle slender hoof. I held tightly to his slender frame, almost afraid that I might break him but at the same time not caring.

He guided me forward gradually, making sure I wouldn’t trip on the uneven ground. But when I realized he was guiding my toward the staircase I balked. I wanted to wait for as long as possible before I had to be anywhere near it again.

“It’s okay, we go up the stairs,” Fern said quietly, lifting his other hoof to stroke one of my hooves. “Only the Master goes into the dungeons. Where the forest does not follow we do not follow,” he said, again leading me toward the stairs. “Tomorrow is a new day, I show you the castle and how to care for it. The Big Horn will give you jobs, then I show you how,” he said gently, slowly leading my up the stairs.

And for a while I climbed beside Fern, taking slow steps and listening to the wind whistle through the towers. But after awhile I realized that Fern had almost silently started singing, something melancholy and bit sad. For once I was content to simply listen, even if my lyre was right there and I already knew the notes that would make the song truly flow.

“Thoul’t aye be dear to me,” he whispered, still leading me up the stairs. “Entwin'd thou art wi' mony ties, O' hame and infancy. Thy leaves were aye the first o spring, Thy flowr's the simmer's pride: There was na sic a bonnie tree, In all the country side. Oh rowan tree,” His voice rose and fell in pitch, he was a good singer.

We passed several landings, going higher and higher. Twice we passed other deer, both the other young stags raised their heads to expose their necks and Fern paused shortly to raise his head as well. But he always continued.

“How fair wert thou in simmer time, Wi' all thy clusters white. How rich and gay thy autumn dress, Wi' berries red and bright.” Climbing this staircase was like climbing a tree. Within the tower greenery lined the walls, but outside the leaves spread out wide like the branches of a tree. Only the strong ivy grew outside where the most sunlight was. “Oh thy fair stem were mony names Which now nae mair I see, But there engraven on my heart, Forgot they ne'er can be. Oh rowan tree.”

Eventually we came to the last landing, emerging into the tower’s topmost room. Inside the leaves made the walls look like they’d grown fur, or were made from green clouds. Flowers and berries hung from the walls and ceiling in fragrant bundles. And huddled on the floor among a large clover patch were many deer; all pressed against each other, many asleep.

Fern led me to the pile, motioning for me to lay down as he kept quietly singing. “We sat aneath thy spreading shade, The bairnies round thee ran, They pu'd thy bonnie berries red And necklaces they strang,” he whispered. The doe I’d lain next to shifted and laid her warm neck over my barrel, gently pushing my saddlebags off me. And she sang too. Slowly Fern was quietly joined by many of the deer.

“My mither oh, I see her still, She smil'd our sports to see, Wi' little Weadie on her lap, Wi' Jahmie at her knee. Oh rowan tree.” Despite the awkwardness I felt as Fern laid down beside me and laid his head over my flanks, still singing, I found myself being sung to sleep. My head rested across another deer’s forelegs, but they didn’t seem to mind. 

“Oh, there arose my father's pray'r In holly evening's calm, How sweet was then my mither's voice In the martyr's psalm; Now a' are gan! We meet nae mair Aneath the rowan tree, But hallowed thoughts around tee twine O' hame and infancy.” They sang, and the light became less and less through the windows. Where had the day gone? Had it really been that long walking, and then trying to talk with the dragon? Maybe I’d been crying longer than I thought, there were so many reasons to cry now.

“Don’t worry, you are one of us now, Pony,” Fern said gently, his chest pressing against my barrel as he yawned. “We are all servants to the Master, little Pony, that makes us equals.”

“Lyra,” I said weakly, my throat strained. “My name is Lyra.”

“Goodnight, Lyra,” Fern said gently, the doe draped across my back humming approvingly. “Dream of forests tonight.”

And I did.

> It Could Have Been Worse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

-It Could Have Been Worse-



I felt like I’d only just put my head down when one of the does woke me to an empty tower. She helped me to my hooves when I realized that I was too sore to walk comfortably on my own. She never said a word other than a few murmurs of encouragement back down the stairs.

I wasn’t really fully awake until she pushed me into the freezing water. I shouted in surprise, but any further protests died on my tongue as the doe started to scrub with a frenzy at my coat with a worn piece of soaked cloth. After a few seconds of scrubbing with no sign of ending I simply didn’t bother to struggle.

It was to my great surprise then, when the doe did stop and backed away from the shallow pool. I turned, shivering, to look in the direction that the doe had. Fern stood under the entryway with a strange look aimed at me.

“W- What?” I croaked through a wave of shivers from the cold.

Fern took a deep breath and sagged slightly. “I‘m in charge of ye now,” he said, somewhat reluctant.

“W- What does that mean?” That was a stupid question, really. I was a slave, somepony had to ‘keep me in line.’

“Their exact words were: Keep the Master’s new pet busy,” Fern admitted. He had the decency to blush. “We’re going to the library, and the Big Horn wants to talk to ye tonight,” he said.

“Why the library?” I asked reflexively. 

Fern turned around and pulled something off his back. My magic book thumped to the damp floor unceremoniously. “Ye can read ‘em, so ye can organize ‘em. The Master doesn’t have the time to do it himself, but not many of us can speak pony words and none of us can read, so yer going to help me put the books in order.”

“You can’t read? I would think a dragon would have the time to at least show one of you how to read his books if you’re supposed organize them,” I grumbled.

Fern nodded to the doe and I suddenly had a bucket of icy water dumped over my head. My mane clung down over my eyes and I gave a shivering glare toward him, I swear I saw the ghost of a grin. The scrubbing resumed.


~~~  ___/v                V                  VvV         V\___ ~~~


“We’ll start from the back and move forward,” Fern said. His delicate hoofsteps echoed slightly off the spotless library floor as he walked. “We should be able to finish in a few weeks if we work through midday meals,” he said with a sigh and continued down the room without me.

I simply stood in the door and stared. It wasn’t because this was a larger room than I even expected to find on the mountain keep. It wasn’t even because I had to organize every single book in this surprisingly large room. It was because this was not only the largest collection of books I’d ever imagined, but more than I ever considered could possibly exist.

The towering shelves drew my eyes up to a support system that had a beauty to it even in its function. Crossing beams carved into intricate depictions of stars and leafy branches webbed across the ceiling in domes that repeated all the down the length, I could make out more creatures than I could name among them.

The tall hall went on so long that the end was hidden in gloom. The distinct lack of vegetation which had seemed so prevalent in the rest of the keep was startling. Dust hung in the air and caught the mangled streams of sunlight from the few windows that still let in light. I could just barely make out the green of leaves hanging in front of the windows, but half of the others seemed to be buried in rock.

A sharp whistle brought me back to myself. Fern tapped his slender hoof impatiently and glared at me with a disapproving frown. I scrambled to catch up, I had to stay at a canter with his fast pace.

“Keeping anyone, especially the Master, waiting is a good way to get beat’n, Lyra-pony,” he said in hushed tone, his voice echoed across the walls but the words were muffled by the shelves.

“Can you really blame me? Even though I know this place belongs to a horrible dragon, it’s amazing,” I said. I spun to walk backwards as we passed a carved pillar that seemed to depict some sort of battle all along its impossible length. “How did this place ever get built?!” My voice bounced from wall to wall, “place” and “built” fought for dominance to be heard.

“Shut it!” Fern hissed, his hoof slid around one of mine and spun me back down the hall. He dragged me forward at an even faster pace as he spoke. “First off, if the Master catches ye calling him that he’ll punish ye. And second: We have a job to do, and if the Big Horn catches us not doin' it, then we’ll both be missing meals on sprint patrols,” he grunted, he dropped my hoof as we came to the end of the hall.

The rear wall was an intricate marble flower sculpture, leaves and petals spread out and almost looked like fire once it reached its border. Here a large space of smooth petrified wood dipped down, and the large scratches on the floor gave me the hint that this was where the dragon came to read his collection. A pile of books towered in the corners, perilously high and thin.

“Where am I even supposed to start? This isn’t a library, it’s a … an archive!” I voiced, but Fern’s bad mood only seemed to grow at my outburst.

He walked forcefully toward me, head lowered. He pushed his short horns right into my face to look me in the eye with a glare, I’d never noticed how sharp the tines were until now. “The Master tells the Big Horn what needs to be done, he tells us what to do, I tell you what to do. If I say ye need to balance every book in the ‘archive’ on yer horn at the same time, ye’ll do it,” he growled, his horns pressed against mine with a clack. “Trust me, the punishment is always worse than the order.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat before I spoke. “Got it. Yeah, okay. Let’s organize the books,” I consented, afraid to say anything else with the sharp tines of his horns jabbed into my forehead.

He gave a forceful snort before he backed away, though the glare never left his face. He turned toward one of the many piles in the corners of the open space and leaned over to pick one up.

I sighed. Not only was this going to take years, but it seemed like I’d gotten on the bad side of the only decent deer here.

Fern let out a grunt, and quite surprisingly the top half of the pile began to move. I jumped up, a yell ready to warn him that the pile was falling. I froze though, because when Fern looked up his tines glowed a pale yellow and the books lifted a foot away from the rest. He grunted and swung his head, the pile moved in his ethereal grip to land with a thud to the side of the wide walkway between the shelves.

“We start with these,” Fern huffed once his horns stopped glowing. “I think that if we split it up somehow, and then organize them again, we can have sections done every week,” he said as he peered down at a few of the books lying open where they’d fallen. When I gave no response he looked back up at me in confusion. “What is it? Let’s go.”

“Deer use magic?!”

Fern sighed. “This is gonna be a long day, isn’t it?”


 \   \  _/Vv          ____      _           _     ____             V\_  /   /


“You’ll not want to play with that,” Pierce said in a bored tone. He watched the smith carefully turn the claw in his mittened hooves.

“I heard rumours ‘bout the properties a’ Dragon Bone,” the smith, Swift Shield, muttered as he ignored the stallion wrapped in the chains he’d forged for a new plow. It had been years since he’d forged a good blade for fighting instead of for farming, he wondered if he would have to carve the bone or if it acted like a metal and could be beaten into shape.

“The dust won’t heal ponies or cure diseases, but it holds and deflects magic easily. Tricky to enchant. Better for bows than for blades, they’re stiff but when they flex they always come back to shape even after centuries of use,” Pierce put in, sobered over the night. His spine ached from the uncomfortable position that that orange earth mare had forced him into, but he knew better than to fight his way out.

The plan had gone perfectly, it worked in all the villages and towns he’d visited before. Where small provinces lay, ponies directly loyal to the inhabiting dragon always existed. He wondered if he should attempt to enlighten the townsponies here of their traitor or if he should simply handle the dragon quietly.

For now, he had to convince the smith to loosen the chains. “I could help you turn it into a fine crossbow, it’s just big enough for that actually. And if you like, I know where some bones of a dragon lay, you could craft them into fine tools and sell them for high prices.” Smith’s were always interested in new selling materials.

“Nopony leaves the valley,” was the smith’s only response.

Pierce supposed he’d been wrong before, but he wouldn’t let this upset him. “My offer about the crossbow still stands,” he continued, his eyes locked on the bloody claw. “You could make the claw tip into tips for bolts, the bow would be stiff but it would shoot farther and faster than any other crossbow. You could defend this town well with a weapon like that.” That got the smith’s attention, Pierce could see it in the tilt of his ears.

Swift was getting too old to swing the shield hanging from his wall like he’d used to. He’d patrolled the village years ago when the Timberwolves had migrated through the valley, and it had been the sight of his shield that had scared the wooden cretins up the Everfree and out of the valley. A crossbow though, he could make a winch to pull back the string easily, even his old arms were strong enough to do that.

He looked carefully over Pierce, a considering gaze. The stallion had been complacent all through the night, nary a peep but a few grunts of discomfort at the chains. He acted civil, shouldn’t any decent pony return the favour. “You ain’t ta leave the shop floor, and ye go back ‘soon as the sun touches the mount’ns,” the smith finally said. He set the claw down on his workbench and removed his hoofmits.

“Of course,” Pierce replied agreeably, he shifted to present the chains more readily with his head to the side. The earth pony shuffled over to a set of keys and pulled them off their hook before he returned to Pierce. He leaned in carefully and dexterously unlocked the thick padlock on the chains around Pierce.

Pierce let out a sigh as the chains fell away and stretched his shoulders. Quickly, before the other stallion could pull away, Pierce snapped his head to the side. His dense horn caught the earth pony on the side of his head with a thick crack, and the smith slumped to the floor before he ever realized his mistake.

Pierce shook off the chains over his shoulder and twisted off the torturous ring over his horn as he stood. He rolled his eyes. Earth ponies, he mused, were too trusting. He quickly gathered his things and ignored the singing of his limbs from the awkward positions they’d been forced into for the night. The claw was returned to its place in his bags, his daggers slipped back into their hidden slots, and the chainmail fell back over him comfortably.

He let out a sigh and a smile returned to his face. It was always so much more fun to hunt the Scale Lickers on his own.


  |ß|                     )     \_    \  _|_  /    _/      (                      |ß|


I was in heaven. 

Alchemy. History. Biology. Chemistry. Ancient History, Pre-Dragon History. Thaumaturgy- All the -turgies! Dictionaries, encyclopedias, research journals.

It was all in this dragon’s library! As the hours had gone by, and my curiosity over deer magic had subsided, I’d found more than two hundred different subjects in learning and fictional pieces - almost all from before dragons. That was just in this pile, and we weren’t even halfway done yet!

Fern was beginning to tire though, and he seemed frustrated that he didn’t understand the way I had organized them. First he thought I would organize them by the first letter of each, which he could recognise easily enough. Then he thought I organized them by the subject of the pictogram on the cover of some of the books: Biology books had plants or animals on them, Physics usually had some sort of simple machine on it, and so on. The second time he was pretty close, but not quite since some books didn’t have pictograms and some of the fictional books had symbols that fell outside those categories.

Maybe he was frustrated because he couldn’t help the process go any faster. The most he’d done was either mess up the organization I’d already started by going off of what he knew, or just stood around and waited for me to ask him to do something. That I could sympathize with, I’d definitely need to teach him how to read. I could use the help.

However, before I could ask Fern about when we should do exactly that, the sounds of small hooves on the petrified wooden floor echoed down the library hall. Fern reacted instantly. He pulled me to my hooves from where I’d been crouched over a growing pile of chemistry textbooks.

“Stand tall, keep your rack pointing up and behind ye,” he hissed at me, his hoof stood me up beside him.

“My what?” I asked. I pulled my arm out of his grip forcefully and he snapped to attention.

“Yer horn, damnit!” he hissed at me and used a hoof to point my chin at the ceiling.

The hoofsteps grew louder and stopped a short distance in front of us. I could just barely see a few grey tips of antlers at the bottom edge of my vision. “Sut y caiff y llyfrgell yn dod ynghyd, un bach?” The stag spoke with a deep timber that vibrated through the air. With that voice I could instantly tell that he was someone had power and knew how to use it.

“Y gwaith yn araf, ond rwy'n ymddiried yn y merlyn i wybod beth mae hi'n ei wneud.” Fern replied, his voice shook slightly but the attempt to appear strong was not lost on me.

The stag grunted and I could see the tips of his horns bob in a nod. “Pony,” he said, and I stiffened. I wasn’t sure who this was, but if Fern was so nervous around him it might be a good idea to not get on his bad side. “You are to see the Master at his dinner tonight. Follow,” he commanded, the antlers turned away.

Fern had to give me a kick to get me to move, which is where I took the chance to look slightly down. The stag was big, bigger than any other deer I’d seen here. His fur was thick and greyed, and chorded muscles rippled in his neck as he walked. Even his antlers were greyed, like they were covered in frost.

This must be the Big Horn that Fern told me about.

He led me out of the clean Library and back into the overrun castle outside, I had nearly been able to forget this place was so decrepit. He bounded down the crumbling staircase and back into the main hall, I was forced to scramble down or be left behind. He walked through the myriad of roots and bushes with ease, comparatively I felt like I was a stumbling idiot.

He led me through a different portion of the castle this time, one I’m sure that in its prime was used to host guests. The vaulted ceiling was high and vines dangled down from where chandeliers once did. Several rooms branched off, but we passed all of them: Something I was certain was a smoking room or a lounge of some sort but was now mostly a pond; a smaller hall that may have once been a gallery, all I could see were rose bushes inside; even another staircase, but the water cascading down it looked treacherous for my hooves.

The Big Horn led me through to the end of the hall, and the room opened up into the dining hall. However, uncommon to the pattern that I had seen so far, the plant life here had not been allowed to grow wild. Instead, grass and moss were only allowed to grow so much out of the square tiles of stone, and ivy crawled up the walls and hugged several bas relief sculptures. But most surprising of all was the large, polished wood table along the length of the dining hall and the large braziers of smoldering coals that surrounded it. Light trailed in through the slats in the broken windows, scattered by the smoke and humidity in the air.

Again I found myself awestruck by this castle, despite my worst horror living - quite literally - under my hooves.

“Pony,” the Big Horn said, his deep baritone made me realize I had stopped in my tracks. I jumped back to attention only to see that he had walked to the opposite head of the table, an indication that I was supposed to be near him. I scrambled to catch up again, but it seems that the Big Horn was more patient than I realized as he simply waited. “Sit here, and do not move,” he said, and with that he left.

I was left with nothing to do but comply, and simply sat on the comfortable moss and grass on the stones. I expected the dragon to arrive shortly, but I was sadly disappointed when I was still alone in the dining hall an hour and a half later.

I examined the bas reliefs from afar, hard to do past the smoke and occasional cloud that passed through the windows. I couldn’t recognise the ponies in any of the sculptures by their races, but the imagery was incredible. In one I could see a pony lounging on a flowerbed, and around her more ponies looked like they bathed in a nearby stream. Another depicted a regal pony, dressed in what I can only assume is some ornate armour, and around her ships sailed, soldiers marched, and I’m sure I could see a castle on the side of a mountain behind her.

“A shame that so few of these survived the years.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It looks like a whole history was recorded right on these walls,” I remarked as I looked at another bas relief that instead showed two ponies that I’m sure either had a horn or wings at one point leaning against each other compassionately.

“Indeed. If I remember correctly the founding of the country that once stood here was recorded all throughout the castle.”

I blinked, a thought occurred to me just then - mostly the question of: Who the heck am I talking to?

I turned around and nearly choked on my heart as I realized the green dragon had come into the Dining Hall without a sound. He stood at the other end of the hall, a dominating form on that side of the room. His wings spread out from his shoulders and over his spiny back, head low as he looked past me to the sculptured wall. “Unfortunately the previous owner of this place had no respect for art or history,” he rumbled. I was frozen unsure how to reply.

His rear legs shifted as he hopped to wrap his body around the side of the table that was not facing the bas relief sculptures we had admired together. His huge, spade of a tail spike thumped heavily down beside the table, its stiletto-like tip pointed at me. His arrow shaped head remained at his head of the table. He breathed over one of the braziers and they all flared brighter at once.

Without an announcement deer streamed into the dining hall, platters and silverware balanced within their racks and on their flanks. A doe rushed up beside me, a simple placemat of woven thread was spread on the table. Quickly a set of simple, silver utensils laid themselves out on the mat, soon followed by several empty dishes and a simple clay cup. The cup was filled with a bubbly purple drink, and a covered platter was placed atop the plate.

Just as quickly as they had come, they froze. And contrary to what Fern had told me, all of the deer bowed to the dragon, their racks or foreheads nearly touched the floor. The dragon had also been presented with a much larger placeset in the rush. He did a strange thrust and rise motion with his horned nose and the deer rose. With a flourish my platter was uncovered to reveal a ceramic bowl filled with steamed vegetables. At the other end of the table a few of the dragon’s many platters were also uncovered in a cloud of steam.

As an afterthought the dragon used one of his wings to waft the steam toward himself and out the doors behind him, I flinched as I realized his large wing had actually begun a slight breeze that flowed out from the broken windows. The deer cleared out of the dining hall almost as quickly as they had entered, for all purposes simply a part of the decoration.

The dragon leaned down to his plates and began to eat, though I couldn't tell what it was. Demurely, I decided that that was my invitation to eat as well. The vegetables were incredibly delicious, which was surprising in a place like this. I'd never eaten food this good before. Before I knew what had happened I had already begun to drink what was left of the broth. The drink in the cup was sweet and contrasted the vegetables strangely but wasn't unpleasant.

It wasn't until I put down the cup that I realized the dragon had his eyes locked on me. It was difficult to tell with the solid purple orbs, but he definitely looked right at me. I froze under his gaze and he spoke.

"I will be having guests in a three days' time," he rumbled, steam billowed out of his nose. "A dragoness will be here, and if you are able to convince her to, she has the ability to help you with your friend," he said, the claws on his wing fiddled with one of the plates on the table.

I couldn't move, my breath caught in my throat and my heart felt like it was shivering in fear. More dragons?! It seems like I could ignore this one for the most part, especially if I just had to take care of his library. But more? I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Thankfully another, less terrifying thought came to me as my brain caught up to what he had said. "You- You'd let me leave? To help her?" I asked. It was a vain hope, but if I'd heard him right, he actually wanted to help me.

"No," he growled, his eyes narrowed and his tail plate twitched. "You belong to me. But I am a dragon, it is my nature to protect my horde," he said, his remaining talons scraped across the stones gently. I heard the rattlesnake sound again.

"We're a part of your horde?" I asked incredulously, mostly on reflex.

The dragon's tail slammed into the floor beside me, the entire table jumped with the force of the impact. "I already told you, little pony. This valley, and everything inside it belongs to me!" he bellowed, green smoke billowed out of his lips. "That includes your petty little town and every single pony in it!"

I scrambled back away from the table and the horrible spikes of his tail. His rumbling growl filled the hall, very nearly a roar in its own right. 

Just as quickly as he had risen to anger it melted away, I saw the snarl drop from his face and he visibly relaxed. "Return to your seat, little pony," he commanded gently. I'm not really sure how a command can be gentle, but he managed it well. I shakily sat back behind my empty bowl. He opened another platter on his side of the table, something that hissed with the remaining heat that it held. "Tell me what you think of my library," he said as he speared something hidden in the steam with the claw of his wing.

Emboldened by the subject, but no less uneasy around the dragon, I spoke eagerly. "The library is incredible! M- master," I stumbled to add, the dragon merely kept a blank expression as he ate something dripping. "You have an incredible collection. I've never even heard of some of the studies of magic that are in there. I could spend forever in there and never be wanting for something to study or to be entertained with." I did my best to lay on the praise, hopefully I could make up for the insult I must have given.

"I took great care in restoring each book, though I've yet to read them all," he remarked. "I collected them from all across the world, some are in dead languages others in no language at all. Be careful what you read however, some of these books hold great words of power." Whatever was on the plate disappeared down his throat. "You may leave. And treat yourself to the flowers growing near the library, they should be the best this time of year," the dragon said as he rang a metal dome of a shield to call in more food.

I hurriedly stood and walked around the table to leave through the door. I nearly tripped over my hooves as I passed by his plates, the smell finally hit me there. I'd never been subject to the smell of cooked meat, but if the ribs sticking up from one of the platters was any sort of hint, then the greasy scent that felt like it had coated the inside of my throat was definitely that. My fur stood on end as I fought the urge to vomit and quickly trotted from the room in as calm a manner as manageable.

Which really means I forced myself to lockstep out of there until I was out the door, at which point I bolted to the nearest stream of water to rinse the taste out from my throat and nose. That's right, I could taste it in the air. I heard the dragon chuckle in the dining hall.