The Desert Ponyby thesilentponyChaptersThe DesertTrain? Can I eat it?ReplaceableFlonaThe King's CaptureA Spider Sac BountyThe Desert“Come on!” I shouted jumping from the leg of the mountain spider onto it’s back and bucking a offspring, sending it over the side. I did a one hoof stand flipping over one as two charged hitting each other. I turned jumping into several bolder spiders, then started to beat the bolder spiders black and blue till they stopped attacking me. “NOW!” I shouted at them. “Ponies are not dinner! Remember that next time! If I so much as catch you coming by my cave again, I'll beat you up again!” One of them whined in a gurgle. After a while I understood their language. “I know you’re hungry, but you know I am not your food!” They huddled scared of me and I ran to the side jumping off flipping a few times before landing cracking the hard rock’s under my hooves. I ran sending up a huge plume of dust into the air behind me. I stopped after reaching my cave. I went and pulled out a bottle of sandy water from my cooler removing my desert scarf. I sat down at my table making a light metal clink from my armor. My whole body was covered in magic waived enhanced armor. I wore heavy tan clothes over my armor, including my helmet, which had rather sturdy glasses to protect my eyes in sand storms, which happen a lot. I got up after finishing the bottle and setting it back into the cooler, sighing as I hooked my scarf back. I had left home as a very young filly, I hadn’t even started school yet. I couldn’t stand my mother, it was just making me sick. I wanted to strangle her after a while just to taste her fresh bloody hide. She probably missed me after so many year. Though I would stop by once in a while in Apple Loosa dropping off a note in a mailbox, and then have it sent to her in Canterlot. She was still the best blacksmith in the entire city, no at this point the world. “What do we have here?” I looked at a black stallion unicorn in light black armor, it had my mother’s markings all over it, no one else besides me could make armor so well. I had even made the armor I was wearing, it wasn’t my talent, but I was still great at it. “I don’t take kindly to visitors whoever you are.” “No offense little one, but you don’t quite have the right to say that, since this land was bought not more than a few days ago.” I sighed. His armor was one of my mother’s normal cheap as dirt sets, probably a few hundred gold bits. An armor set like mine was worth more than several homes in Canterlot, plus enough to stay warm at night for years. “Oh and why would anyone pay gold to buy this place?” “Some rare minerals were found, we’re still surveying the area.” He looked me up and down. “And from your clothes, I’m guessing you’re a local from a nearby tribe. That’s going to be a huge headache.” “I believe that there has to be more than one pony to be in a tribe.” “You’re by yourself?!” He said a little too shocked. I groaned knowing what that meant, he wasn’t by himself, and I couldn’t just eat them without ponies coming to his aid, which would probably scare off dinner. “Yeah I have for years, I’ve spent most of my life here.” “Where do you come from? You don’t sound.” “Like a nitwit?” “I wasn’t going to say that.” “Yeah well I keep myself well read. Not that I found much out here, anyway get out of my home.” “How about a job?” I eyed him for a few moments. “What?” “Well we need a guide, if you’ve been out here for as long as you say, then you must know this area pretty well, as well as being able to defend yourself. If you help us survey, you could get paid a lot of bits of gold.” I chuckled. “Really gold, I have no use for gold, if I wanted gold I could just go mine it from Smokey Mountain. There are mounds of the stuff there, tons of it. There’s even this one solid gold piece larger than me. If it wasn’t for the fact I don’t need gold I would have brought it back home with me.” “What?!” “What do you mean what? I was over there to get some stupid metals, unlike there, this place doesn’t have any metal at all.” I sighed. “The trips are too long and after a while I just stopped going.” “Nothing here? Are you sure?” “Well I mean.” I pointed at light stones on the walls. “Other than those and some small deposits there, isn’t much here, and I’ve looked all over the place.” He swallowed. “Wait you mean you guys thought.” I started to laugh. “Are you sure?” “You do realize that there are some creatures out there that eat metals and gems right?” “I, I can’t believe this.” “What do you mean?” “You have no reason to lie to me right?” “Well other than to get you out of my home no.” “Wait why would you look for metals?” “To make my armor.” I flashed under my tan coat showing a golden weave. “I made this a long time ago though. I actually came out here first, because I thought there’d be stuff out here, but after the thrills of beating those monsters. Running for my life and so much more, I fell in love with this place. You can’t believe the dangers, it’s great.” “You should talk to my boss, he’ll want to hear this.” “And why should I do that? If I leave you be, you’ll all be dead by morning, that armor would only slow you down, they would open you up like you were covered in tissue paper. Hey even I could if I wanted to.” I chuckled. “I'll give you food and water.” I paused. “You have food and water?” “I’m guessing that’s hard to come by out here.” “Fresh water is, unless I go to the river, food is all over the place.” I chuckled hiding my razor sharp teeth a little. After the first few days here I was starving, and near death. I ended up eating some animal made out of meat, and ever since I loved eating them raw. “I'll give you a few bottles of water.” “Fine.” I followed him for a ways and we came upon a large camp at the bottom of the mountain. At least sixty ponies were doing things. A few looked at us as we went to a large stallion in black cotton making me giggle at him. He had a white coat under it covering his wings, was a pegasus. “Who’s this, and do not tell me that’s a tribe pony.” “She’s not from any tribe, but she’s a local.” He let out a sigh of relief. “She’s lived here for years.” “Hey I want the water first.” “What?” The stallion asked. “Oh I promised her water for information, she said she didn’t care about gold.” “There’s that much here?” “No in Smokey Mountain,” I started and the stallion in black armor gave me the glass bottles. “Plenty of gold in Smokey Mountain, but not much here, I’ve checked for a lot of things, I normally wouldn’t care for gold, but there’s very little here, or at least that I’ve ever found. Other than small deposits of minerals, nothing big.” “Are you.” “This water is so clean!” I said looking in the glass seeing it perfectly clear. “Even water from the Ghastly Gorge river wasn’t this clean. How did you do this?” He stared at me and I stared at him. He dropped a quill and his jaw dropped. “You’re serious.” Every pony around us stood frozen. “This isn’t a joke, you’re seriously telling me that there are no minerals anywhere!” “No I told you there are small ones, you’re sitting on one right now.” He looked at a gray rock under him. “What?” I sighed and went around. He moved. I punched the rock cracking it. I pulled ripping it open showing a ton of gems. “You’ll find a few deposits of gems like this all over the place.” I picked up a big gem, moving my scarf eating it. “They taste great, I always wondered why dragons loved the taste, I found out when I was trapped in a small cave, with three of those gem rocks. They taste really good to.” He swallowed picking other one up and biting it. “Oh, bucking.” He dropped holding his mouth. “You can eat real gem?!” A pony asked coming over to us. “I guess not every pony can.” I put my scarf back. “Anyway thank you for the water, if you need.” I paused seeing several bolder hatchlings in the center of a group of fifteen ponies. I growled jumping over the desk running over to them. “HEY I TOLD YOU, PONIES ARE NOT FOOD!” “Those are rocks.” A pony said. “GET OUT OF HERE NOW!” They whined getting up making every pony around them fall back shocked and scared. “And if I catch you in my territory hunting again I’m going to tell your mother!” A few ponies near other rocks backed away from them. “I swear those hatchlings are getting on my LAST NERVE!” I shouted after them. “Just because they have their first teeth set coming in doesn’t mean they can hunt in my hunting ground.” “Hunting ground?” I looked at the boss pony very uneased. “Hey if you guys die do you mind me taking your water?” I went up to him. “I mean you won’t need it, but that would be rude to do it without asking.” “What do you mean hunting ground?” “Well I got to eat something.” I chuckled. “You ponies act like you’ve never eaten meat before, I mean it’s funny.” Every pony around me backed up. “I mean you do eat meat right?” I looked around at them. “What’s wrong with you all?” I looked around unsure. “You eat meat?” The pony in black armor asked. “Yeah? Oh don’t worry I stopped eating ponies a long time ago, you guys just won’t stop complaining about getting eating, screaming attracting more creatures. I swear, you are just so ungrateful to the higher order.” They backed away from me further. “Okay now you’re pissing me off.” “So what other minerals have you found?” The boss pony asked. “Just some assorted minerals, nothing that great, I have to go all over the place to find the stuff I want. I stopped doing that after a while, going from one area to the next was almost too taxing, if there’s time to look for things, then there’s time to look for food. So, um about that water?” “How about this, you mark on this map all the locations of the minerals, what kinds and how much, and I'll give you as much as you can carry.” “Oh you got a deal.” I went around the desk scanning the maps. “Um, these maps are outdated and you don’t have any of the creature patterns on this map to take into account.” He paused. “That would be helpful, we’ll give you food as well.” “Alright.” I took off my scarf and started to write. I drew marking all over several maps as well as writing down details on several creatures taking almost the entire day. I yawned done and stretched a little. “Every pony we leave in twenty minutes.” Boss pony said coming over to me and his eyes went wide. “Okay there are over ten thousand creatures and many areas you want to avoid. The most likely threat are the bolder spiders, while they can be handled normally, there are a lot of them and they have started to spread out all over the place.” “Wow.” He said looking at the maps. “Oh and the water and food.” “Over there.” He pointed to crates and a boxes of food. I smiled running over and stacking as much as I could onto my back perfectly balancing seven crates of water bottles and a box of food on my head making ponies stare at me a little shocked. “Thanks for the water and food.” I hummed a little as I walked perfectly going back to my cave unloading the water and food. I picked up a bottle looking at it. I had never seen such clear water before, this was amazing. “Hey.” I turned looking at the pony in the black armor. “Hi.” “We’ll be leaving soon, and we won’t be coming back, would you like to guide us out of the desert?” I had never really left the desert, the closest I had gotten to Apple Loosa was several hundred yards to a farm house to send a letter or two. Even when going to Smokey Mountain I always took the back roads never running into any pony. “Well you gave me a ton of water.” “Once we get out you can have the rest.” I stared at him. “How much is left?” “Ten times what you took at least.” “You have yourself a guide.” I followed him and we went back to their camp site. I went over to the boss pony. “Glad to see you back, also any way to get you to tell me about Smokey Mountain?” I chuckled a little. “The dragon there is really nice, when I first saw him I bit him. He was so startled that I had done that. He actually screamed as I tried to eat him. He had so much meat on him. He finally told me to stop. Ever since then he has always was uneasy around me, and never really bothers me anymore when I want to take from his horde. I though often times added more to it than take away from it.” “Really?” “Yeah he’s a big guy, but he’s not mean, and I wouldn’t want to just use him, that would be rude.” “Is there any way you could get me a lot of gold? I have things better than water and simple food.” “You keep making these offers I might just have to taste you. You make things sound really good.” He swallowed. “Yeah well, I, um don’t go outside of my species.” I chuckled at him being so oddly disgusted. “I was born in Canterlot, I’m the same species as you, I just don’t live in a city. Though I haven’t been in one since I was a filly. I think my mother still lives there, I bet she misses me now though.” “You, seem so different though.” “Different? What do you mean?” “Well it’s not normal for ponies to eat meat, and be able to eat gems like candy. That’s not a normal thing to do.” “I guess, other than one or two ponies that I find, you guys are the first in a long time. So I guess you would know if that was weird.” I yawned. “Oh man I’m getting hungry again, I hope we get attacked on our way I’m really hungry today, or tonight.” I looked at the setting sun. “Is it more dangerous at night?” I looked at him. “Ah, no and yes, yes as in there are a bunch of different creatures, but no at the same time, more as in the mountain spider sleeps during the night. I don’t think I could stop her from eating you all, so night time is better for traveling in a large group.” “Mountain spider?” Another pony asked putting a pack on a cart. “Oh yeah there she is right now.” I pointed at her and they stared. “She’s a bit shy till you get to know her. Though, her hatchlings have been getting annoying. You saw them earlier actually. The bolder hatchlings, they are finally getting their first set of teeth, so they tend to go further away from the mother to hunt.” “Every pony ready?!” The boss pony shouted and everyone nodded. “Okay so take us the safest path out and to, I’m guessing Los Pegasus.” I paused. “I’ve never been there before, but I can get you to the dirt road which leads there.” “That’ll be fine.” I went and jumped onto a wagon looking around at all of them. I counted. Sixty three of them. “Alright every pony pick a partner, you are to scream if your partner disappears. We will have stops every once in a while for breaks. Speak up if you get hurt, blood will attract creatures for thousands of yards so I need to know right away.” They paired up. “Okay now then stay in a tight group, we want to seem like we’re a big creature, the bigger the better, they will leave us alone then, just try not to make noise. No food is allowed to be in the open.” I hopped down and they huddled together. We started to move walking at a good pace, stopping a few times to let them rest. I sat at the head of the group humming the pond trapper melody. “Hey what’s that song?” I looked at the pony that had come to my cave, he was in tan clothes, no longer in his armor. I looked around and every pony in the group was paying attention to me. “The pond trapper melody, you’ve never heard it before?” He shook his head no. “It’s a sad song, the pond trapper can’t leave his pond and gathers riches, hoping for a mate to one day reach it’s claw into the pond to be found.” “That’s, okay.” “I'll feed him gems from time to time and he sings so wonderfully.” I started humming again. “We’re ready to move.” Boss pony said after a while and I got up. “No we’re not.” He looked at me a bit confused. “My dinner arrived.” They looked at a small herd of large scorpion beetles. They stared at me smiling. “Oh I haven’t seen you beauties in a long time!” “By Celestia!” One of the ponies shouted. I appeared in front of the scorpion beetles stopping them, and digging into one of my now meals, ripping it apart as I sunk my teeth into its moist body. Red blood splashed the ground as I ripped into them. One tried running toward the ponies and I jumped onto it’s back crushing it’s spine. “Oh no you don’t blue delicious.” I dragged it back to the other and started to eat, I stopped when only bones and some bad parts were left. I walked back over to them hanging my scarf again over my mouth, shaking off the blood off my clothes. “Yeah.” Boss pony said looking a bit green. I looked at them and all of them were scared, of me? I didn’t know why, but it wasn’t my problem that they hadn’t enjoyed a meal of a scorpion beetle before. It was always juicy and filling. “Are you alright?” I asked and one of them puked making me eye him. “Are you hurt or did you get stung?” “No,” the boss pony said. “Every pony’s fine, we’ve just never seen a pony devour creatures like that before.” “You guys really don’t eat meat, how weird. Oh well, let’s keep moving.” We started moving and three days later we got to the road. I had actually run into really good creatures to eat, it was wonderful. Though they never spoke to me much, I never really asked them why though. Train? Can I eat it?“ROAD!” A pony said running, kissing it and prancing around. I looked around, they were all happy to see a road, I didn’t understand it. “You guys really love your roads.” The boss pony came over to me smiling. “No we’re just happy to see it, and no one died thanks to you and you’re eating habits. I guess.” “It’s no problem.” “How about you come with me? I’m going to Ponyville to turn in my findings to my boss, if you do, I'll give you all the water you can drink.” “Ponyville.” I thought for a moment. “Never heard of it.” “Near the Everfree forest.” The pony in tan clothes said. “Oh that place, I go there to hunt sometimes. I find some of the best meals there, sure I'll come with you.” “Great, um but you’ll need to give the details to my boss, about Smokey Mountain.” “Sure.” “So, why do you live in dangerous place?” The pony in tan clothes asked. “Dangerous?” He chuckled. “Why do you say it’s dangerous? You ponies have acted so weird since I met you. Anyway if we follow this road it should lead us to Everfree Forest rather quickly.” “We’re not walking there.” Boss pony said and I looked at him confused. “Well I don’t have wings.” “The train?” “What’s a train?” They stared at me like I was stupid or something. “Well what is it? Is it some kind of beast?” I looked at them unsure. “Can we, eat it?” “It’s made of metal.” Boss pony said. “The question stands.” I said eyeing him. “No, you cannot eat it.” He said laughing lightly. “Oh.” I said sadly. I looked down digging with my hoof, whatever a train was, it sounded good. I wanted to try it. They started walking and I followed boss pony for a while. “We never asked your name.” I looked at the pony in tan clothes. “Roma.” “I’m Cord.” “Nice to meet you.” “I’m Haggle.” Boss pony said. “That’s a cool name.” I stopped at the city limits and every pony stopped as well. “I’ve never been in a city really, or at least not for a long time. I don’t even remember what Canterlot looks like any more.” “It’s fine,” Cord said. “Nothing will hurt you here.” “Oh I know that, I’ve just never been good around such weirdly unnatural things. I keep thinking they will fall over or something.” I hesitated stepping onto stone. I pressed it and it seemed sturdy enough. “We should probably get you some shoes.” I looked at my hooves and then at the rest of them. They were wearing metal things on the bottom of their hooves. “Why?” “Your hooves will chip if you don’t,” Haggle said. “It’s painful.” “Wait then why do you put your cities on hard stone then?” “We don’t, we made these roads.” Cord said. “How do you do that?” “Later.” Haggle said and I walked onto the stone, it was weird feeling rock so flat under my hooves. I followed them looking around amazed. This city was simply wonderful, I had never seen so many ponies and such weird things. I zipped around looking at every store window scaring pony with my sudden appearance. “Roma!” Cord said and I appeared in front of him. “Yes?” “Stop doing that, you’re scaring ponies.” I looked around and the ponies at the last shop were freaked out. “Also how do you move so fast? You’re not a unicorn. So you can’t possibly be teleporting.” “Oh my armor, it enhances my abilities a thousand fold. Also I’ve never seen such things before.” “Well calm down, we’re almost at the train station.” We went to the train station and I looked around seeing the weird tracks. I had come by them before, maybe the train was something that needed a road of some kind. They sure did love their roads. “Here it comes.” I backed up hearing a rattle of something heavy. I looked down the tracks and Cord pulled me back. “Don’t do that, in fact don’t do anything.” I nodded and waited till a large metal thing came rolling down the tracks making me back up a little. It was odd, really odd I had never seen something like it before. It slowed hissing at us and then blew hot air at me making me jump back, then forward kicking it rather hard, sending it flying though the air into a wall breaking through the wall easily. “No one blows air at me monster!” I shouted at it and every pony backed away from me in fear. “That was steam.” Cord said and I looked at him shocked seeing the train over fifty yards away on its side. “Many monsters blow steam, I’m not about to let it spit scolding water on me.” “It is a steam engine, it’s not alive and it isn’t a creature or monster, ponies made it out of metal.” “Now you’re just making things up.” “Can you please put it back onto the tracks. It can’t move otherwise.” “I knew it, it does need a special road to move.” “Please.” I sighed and ran over to it going to the other side and kicking it perfectly, sending it flipping through the air and landing on the tracks rocking back and forth making me jump, stopping it from falling over on its side. I went back over to Cord and he looked at me a little scared. “Happy?” “Yes, thank you.” “Um you need to come with us miss.” I turned to see two ponies in carbon armor with guns on arms on their sides. I had once fought ponies like them, plus a large blue dragon which tasted like the dead. They were responsible for killing a lot of my food from some kind of weird explosion years ago which I was young. “Wait guys it was a misunderstanding.” Haggle said. “She pretty well almost destroyed the train.” One of them said. “What are you talking about that thing hissed at me.” They looked at me weird. “If anything I don’t know why you allow such monsters in your cities, you ponies confuse me to no end, I swear.” “Is she alright in the head?” One of them asked. “Listen it was an accident, this is the first time near a train,” Cord said. “And you really don’t want an earth pony that was just able to kick a train to be mad at you.” They looked at me for a few seconds. “It doesn’t matter we will have to detain her till we can find out the cost of the damage and then have her pay for it.” “Why would you repair a monster?” “Does she even have gold? Or is some pony else going to have to pay for the repairs?” I looked at them confused. “Why would I have gold? I don’t understand.” “Listen we can repair it ourselves,” Haggle said. “Six members of my team are train operators and repairers. In fact they are already fixing it now with their magic.” I looked over at the train as ponies started to heal it. “You must really love the beast to heal it like that.” “IT’S A MACHINE!” Cord shouted at me and I frown stomping the ground making it shake. “Don’t you dare raise your voice to me, little pony,” I growled and he backed away in fear of me. “If you ever do that again and I'll rip you to pieces.” “Okay, okay.” “Trains ready!” A pony shouted. I turned growling at the train making Cord go in front of me. “Please don’t attack the train again, it’s nice we ride on its back.” I snorted. Whatever this train was I didn’t like it. “Come on, nice and calm, come onto it’s back with me.” Cord said leading me into a hallowed out back. “Wow.” I said looking around. “How is it that I took off the head and it is still alive? And how did you capture it?” “We made it and that is the engine, it moves all the carts with it by hooks, so it’s not really connected to the front.” “I still don’t like it, but you have made the inside look very nice. No wonder you love riding on its back.” “Yeah, um sir do you mind if I get her cleaned up?” “No go ahead.” Haggle said. Cord pulled me along as we went to the back and to a rather weird stone room. “This is a shower,” Cord said pressing a switch, clear water came out surprising me and backing up at the heat. “It cleans you.” “You clean yourself in its, its piss?” I asked looking at him and he paused. “Wait is that what that water was?” He slapped himself in the face laughing a little. “No this is water like any other, we have pipes made of metal to transport hot water so we can take showers and baths.” “Don’t you just use rivers or something?” “No, for goodness sake, get undressed.” He started getting undressed and I blushed. “Why do you want me to get undressed?” “Oh Princess Celestia help me.” “Who?” He chuckled. “Of course you wouldn’t know who that is, who in their right mind would think that you would know who raises the sun every morning.” “Raises the sun, right, I'll believe that when I see it.” “Get undressed.” I sighed. “Fine, but if you do anything weird.” I pushed him to the floor pinning him to the ground a little hard. “I'll eat you.” He swallowed. “I promise I won’t touch you in any bad way, please.” I sighed and got undressed. He stared at my dark green mane and coat. “You don’t have a cutie mark.” I looked at him. “How old are you?” “I don’t know.” “You’re a mare not a filly, so you would be around what fifteen?” “I guess, why would that matter?” “Well just wondering.” He went to pick up my armor and tried, but stopped. “How heavy is your armor?” “A few hundred pounds, why were you trying to pick it up?” “You are crazy and I’m insane.” He went through about twenty minutes of talking, of how being clean was a smart thing to do. I never got sick, but apparently others could, and it was just pleasant to do it. I cleaned my armor and he had my cloth washed before pushing me into the shower. “What now?” He closed the door and turned on the hot water. “Don’t buck!” He ordered and I didn’t as hot water hit me making me whimper. He seemed to like the heat, and after a few minutes it felt nice. I had never had a hot water bath before, and this was really nice, burned sure, but good. “Wow.” I said and I paused as he started to wash my coat making me shake a little as he really cleaned me. I pushed him back as he nearly reached somewhere he shouldn’t. “Where do you think those hooves are going?” I asked pushing him against the wall. “Even without your armor your frightening strong.” “I asked you a question.” “I need to clean everything.” I blushed. “Everywhere.” I stepped back. “Please it needs to be done.” I swallowed. “You ponies are weird, most of you wear nothing, you have no shame, but, I suppose if I must to, to.” “Please, you’ll like how you smell. Without your armor you stink. I mean you do keep your coat nice and all, but you really need to wash more.” “Fine, but, you, have to be gentile. I fell onto some sharp rocks not long ago, and my belly is still in pain.” “I will be as gentile as possible.” I closed my eyes and his hoof was warmer than I thought it would, feeling rather nice. I had never let anything touch me before, but he had a way that made me feel rather odd. He stopped after a while. “Why did you stop?” I asked looking at him. “You’re clean.” I paused. “Oh, I suppose some more cleaning wouldn’t hurt.” “You’ve never, mated before have you?” I looked away. “No.” “Well you’re still young, it’s not odd for you not to. Anyway we’re done.” We got out and he dried us off with a towel. I got dressed back into my now shiny armor putting on clean dry cloth. “Feels nice.” I looked at him. “Yes, I does.” I blushed a little. “I’m just not used to it, though I can’t say I will get used to it, wasting water like that is beyond me.” “Being clean is never beyond any pony, you should do it more often. I think you’ll enjoy the freshness.” “Maybe I will.” I smiled hiding it behind my scarf. Maybe ponies were more than just the last choice of a long list of meals. I followed him to Haggle and he looked up from a paper of some kind. “Ah you both look better.” “She’s presentable. Looks a lot better without her armor on, but I don’t think we could get her to walk around without it.” “That’s fine, now Roma come here.” I went around sitting next to him. The comfort of these ponies was unheard of to me. I looked at a map of Smokey Mountain. “Now I know you probably don’t want to go into detail, but will you outline on this map all the deposits of materials?” “Sure.” He handed me a quill and I started writing details about the mountain explaining the dangerous areas, and other things which would cause them to lose life or limb. He smiled once I finished. “Well my employer will love these maps, though I can imagine he won’t be happy that a lot of this is protected by dragons and other creatures.” I yawned. “Have you slept lately? I don’t know if I saw you sleep at all, the whole trip back.” “I sleep once a full moon, I can’t afford more sleep than that.” “Well no pony will hurt you here.” “Oh I have no fear that you could even scratch me, even in my slumber, but I simply don’t go to sleep, but once a full moon. It’s in four days.” “You seem tired.” “Yes I do get tired from time to time, especially when it’s hot, that shower water was quite warm so I’m a little tired. I'll be fine for a while though.” “That’s good, also food.” I turned to a pony pulling a cart. She smiled as she set plates of weird things on the table. I looked at her. “Don’t mind if I do.” I got up and Cord pushed me down. “Not her!” He scolded me and her eyes went wide realizing what he meant. “I'll be on my way.” She hurried to another thing of the train’s back. “What?” I asked looking at him. “No eating ponies! This is food.” He pointed at the things on the plates. “We have sweets, and other things that are good for you, grass root, cooked carrots, celery, apples, then some apple cider and other drinks. Here eat.” He gave me a carrot and I took it eyeing him as if he was joking. “Your joking, I’ve never seen this weird stuff before in my life, you expect me to believe that you’re telling me that this is food, and eating ponies is wrong?” “Yes.” “You ponies are so weird.” “Have you met anyone else besides us?” I paused. “No.” “Then what can that make you assume?” “You have no sense of taste.” He chuckled. “Try it please. We can get more if you like it, or, I’m sure we can find you something with meat if we must. Fish or something.” “Oh I love fish.” He looked around at other ponies unsteady. He shoved the carrot into my mouth and I studied the taste. It wasn’t, bad but it was no scorpion beetle. That was for sure, and it was cold, which was odd. “How do you like it?” “I could survive on these I guess, but I can barely stand the taste, how do you eat these and stay alive?” He sighed and had me try everything. I could even swallow what he called a cake, it was crazy too sweet and sickening. “You know I could do this all day just to see you queasy.” Cord said and I sneered at him making him chuckle. “Bring me fish, I can’t stand your food.” “I'll go speak to the chef.” I sighed as he left, and I looked out the window. I paused realizing that we were moving! And fast, I looked around and I hadn’t noticed. “We’re moving.” I looked at Haggle and he looked out the window. “Yeah, you didn’t know?” “No, I thought that it would be rough, but I don’t know now. How is it that it moves without legs?” “The wheels.” I opened the window looking out feeling the wind blowing on my face, smells brushing my nose, and the feeling of fresh air going into my lungs made me smile. A tug made me come back inside. “Can you believe how fast this beast goes?” “Yeah, pretty fast, anyway, I need a few more details.” He closed the window. “What?” “Do you know of any other mining sites, maybe safer?” “Well there are tons of other places which are much easier to get to, if that’s what you mean.” He pulled out a map and I marked areas, in the badlands, Haysead Swamps, a few places on mountains, a ton of places in the crystal mountains. “Whoa, you really have a knack for finding ore.” “What, oh no, I only find it because I am on a hunting trip, if I don’t balance out where I hunt then I wipe out local food and start to starve. I only did that once, now I move around enough that I never need to worry about it.” We talked a while longer. “Here you go.” I looked at dead white fish and then at Cord. “What is this?” “Fish.” I looked at him confused. “It’s gutted and cooked.” “Why would you mutilate a fish in such a way?” He sighed. “This is a popular way to eat fish, the chef says it tastes good.” I eyed it touching it. “I don’t like dead meat.” “Try it, and then if you don’t like it you can tell the chef that.” I picked it up eating it, and the taste was wonderful! I couldn’t describe the flavor, but it was a hundred times better than living fish. Though I did like the way the living fish wiggled around in my belly. “This is great!” Every pony around me was truly disgusted for some reason, and it was starting to make me mad. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you ponies, but I’m really getting pissed off by your weird looks!” I said to them sternly making them look away. “Can I get more of it?” “I'll talk to the chef.” He went away and I sat quietly till a while later he came back sitting down and I looked up at a griffin. “BIRDIE!” I shouted and his eyes went wide as he started to run. “NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN!” He squawked as I jumped on him flipping in front of him smiling showing my sharp teeth. “Oh I wondered when I would find you again, with your high flying and tasty wings ready to be eaten.” “ROMA!” Cord shouted and birdie backed away scared. “Not you again, don’t eat me!” “Stop, he’s the chef.” I went up to him. “You made the delicious fish?” He nodded scared. I licked him across his face. “I love you then, the fish making birdie. I won’t eat you this time.” He tried to back away and I pinned him to the ground with my hoof. “I never let my pray go, you’re lucky you can make me something better to eat than you, or I would feast this day.” He swallowed scared. “And I really love birdie flavor.” “You won’t eat me?” He asked scared. “Nope.” I let him get up. “You two know each other?” Haggle asked. “I was passing over San Palomino Desert with a group several months ago, we were flying at the time tired, and then out of nowhere my group started to disappear. There wasn’t even a sound, and we were very high in the air so we thought nothing from the ground could be doing it. We were so wrong, she had been jumping into the air, snapping our necks and falling to the ground like she was playing fetch.” “By Princess Celestia.” A pony said. “I managed to escape her when she didn’t snap my neck on the way down. I got away while she was feasting on others, I couldn’t save them. Why would you bring a monster onto this train?” He looked at them. “She knows a lot.” Haggle said chuckling nervously. “Yes and birdie eluded me for almost six hours, had I not been nervous to enter the city I would have caught birdie.” “My name is Max you.” I pinned him to the ground and licked his neck. Tears went down his face. “Birdie is birdie, you have no name, you are my pet so you can make me delicious fish to eat. Or I will eat you.” “Okay, okay I'll make you fish.” “And if birdie escapes me I'll hunt birdie no matter where he goes, I know dragons which are faster than birdie in flying. You will not get away from me again birdie.” “I-I won’t try.” I licked him and grinned. “Good.” I rubbed my snout into his chest smelling him getting his scent. He was really tasty, other than dragon, bird was the greatest tasting creature I knew. It was hard to let him up, but he had made the wonderful fish, too much to pass up. If I could capture a creature like him and have him make me it, then I was golden. “I-I have your fish.” I sat down and he put a stack of all kinds of fish in front of me, all shapes and styles, it wasn’t just cooked, it was diced, skewed and many other things. “Birdie is my pet, you will feed me the fish.” I smiled toying with him. I loved playing with my food sometimes. He fed me the fish shaking a little bit. “Sit down next to me, you will be my pillow.” He sat down after he finished feeding me and I nuzzled him. “Oh and since you’ve been good.” I set a diamond into his claw and his eyes went wide. “You get a pretty cut clear gem.” “It’s so big.” He said with a wispy voice looking at Cord and Haggle, both of their jaws dropped shocked. “Where did you find that?” Haggle asked. “The gem balls, I saved a few if I got hungry. The rarer ones taste best, that one I’m sure birdie will enjoy a lot, I do.” “Thank you.” He said with a sad smile. I laid down on his lap and closed my eyes resting my head. He pet my back a little and I stretched at the good feeling. “I thought you didn’t sleep till the full moon?” Haggle asked. “I’m not asleep, I’m laying down, I may not have my eyes open, but that doesn’t mean I can’t smell, hear, feel and about twenty other senses. I can hunt in perfect dark, I don’t need my eyes to know you moved closer to me and have your hoof above my pocket.” He moved it back away from me. “I just wanted to see what other gems you have.” “I have a few other diamonds, the one birdie has is the smallest one on me.” I pulled out a clear gem the size of a heart in the shape of a fake heart. I put it away. “I only give these to my pets when they are good.” Unlike other gems clear ones were by far the rarest in the world, I knew they had great value, but I only learned that because they tasted the best. “Okay.” Max said. “Well it’ll take us a day or two to get to Ponyville.” Haggle said. “Oh yeah, why are you having me come?” “Well you know of a lot of deposits, and I think my boss will want you to help us go collect the deposits. Your strong and I’m sure you could help us a lot.” I sighed. “Plus I’m sure we can have fish for your new pet to cook. If you won’t accept gold we can get fish.” Max grunted a little. “Did you think that I was simply going to let you go?” He looked down at me and I narrowed my eyes making him sweat a little. “No.” I got up and he got up as I pushed him a little. “Go make more fish or something, I need to go take out a rotted lung or two.” They stared at me. “You ponies are so weird, where is a privet place?” Cord got up and lead me to a toilet room and I went inside opening my front armor, then turning my hoof guard around pointing the knife down. “Okay I got to know.” Cord opened the door. “If you were kidding.” He paused seeing me with a pointy end to my chest cutting a little. He closed the door. “Your serious.” He walked away and I blinked for a moment and chuckled a little. I cut inside my stomach and pulled out a black shriveled lung and then pulled out a second lung looking at it, it had another few months left before I would have to throw it away. I had been cut, beaten, eaten and ripped into so many times I lost count as a filly. So I ended up replacing many parts, the more compatible the longer it would last. My armor healed me to such a degree that I could live without a heart for weeks if I had to. I put it back inside and I coughed up a little bit of blood having three lungs left which would last me a year or two longer. My wound healed as my lung hooked up. I washed up using a sink and drinking a bit of water, before going back. Replaceable“I miss anything?” I asked and even Haggle looked scared now. “I’m just going to ignore it this time.” Every pony was uneased by me for some reason, I just had no clue any more. “You have a bit of blood on your mouth.” Cord said and I wiped it. “Oh, must have missed it.” I licked it. I didn’t care much for my own blood, but it was better than simple water. “Did you eat the lung?” Haggle asked. “No I don’t like my old lungs or used body parts, they always taste like ash.” I shivered a little bit. “Actually let me take that back, they taste more like something else, ash can actually taste really good.” I sat down. “Are you a monster?” I looked at a little filly and a distraught mother grabbed the filly away. “Sorry about that.” She said, she and a stallion left the cart making me look at Cord. “Why would she ask that?” I asked really confused. “Well, you’re, just not normal,” Cord said. “Ponies tend to forget that every pony is different.” I shrugged. “Anyway, um how are we paying for all the food? I know that you want to hire her but I don’t think we have that much on us.” “May I have one of those stones?” Haggle asked looking at me. “Sure.” I gave him a larger one and he smiled. “Thank you, I will be back shortly.” He got up and walked out of this part of the trains back. I looked at Cord and he started to eat. I picked up a drink and took a sip setting it down shaking my head a little bit. “Ah.” I looked at Cord and he had a sorry expression. “What is that?” “Apple wine.” “What’s that?” “It’s, um, it’s a drink which will get you drunk.” “What’s drunk?” “Dizzy, warm, empty headed, blurry vision, and if you have too much you’ll pass out and have a headache in the morning.” I eyed him for a few seconds. Why would anyone want to do something like that? “It helps with bad memories and will make you feel good if you feel bad about something. It’ll make you forget for a while. A buzz can feel good.” “Why would you ever need to forget something?” “Um, well ponies will sometimes need to forget something bad they did, sometimes you can’t change something or fix it.” “I don’t understand, why would you ever want to change anything you do?” “It’s hard to explain, but you’ve never done anything you regret have you?” “Why would I regret anything I’ve done, I’ve never been wrong and I'll never be wrong no matter what I do.” He chuckled. “Have you ever done something in the moment which you knew you shouldn’t do, or should have saved later?” I thought for a moment and shook my head no. “You don’t feel bad about eating ponies or killing the griffins?” “They were food, why would I feel bad about eating food? You ate that cake, did you feel bad for the whatever was put into it so you could live? You honestly confuse me, you say something is bad yet you contradict yourself all the time. Why do you consider something bad even though you do it?” “Well there’s a difference, between something that can talk and something that can’t, you shouldn’t kill something that talks.” “I know plants that can talk, or you telling me that I shouldn’t eat them? Or what about the creatures you killed to save one of your ponies on the trip? It could talk, and you didn’t plan on eating it, you planned on it going to waste.” “Well I was protecting my friend.” “But you still planed on letting the food go to waste, would it not have been more helpful to feed the meat to them? That way he did not starve.” “I,” he sighed. “I’m not going to get through to you.” “It’s wrong because Princess Celestia says so.” We both looked at a stallion as he walked over to us in a white bow tie. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but over hear this conversation and how disturbing it was.” “Disturbing?” I asked. “Wrong, incorrect, morally bad.” I tilted my head confused. “How was what we said wrong or any of that?” “Well, may I sit?” Cord nodded and the stallion sat down. “Well Princess Celestia raises the sun, that means she gives everything warmth and light, each and every day. That means you need to do what she says.” “Or she won’t raise the sun?” “Yes.” “But if she did that wouldn’t that kill every pony, not just me?” He paused and looked at Cord, Cord shrugged. “She would turn you to stone.” “I have several things that would stop a pony from doing that to me, that would be silly if they tried, I would just rip out her throat.” “She can’t die.” I paused. “So, wait you’re saying that if I were to eat her, she would regenerate fast enough for me to never run out of food?” He stared at me. “Stop!” Cord said now slightly panicked. “Do not give her ideas like that, okay, just drop it please.” The stallion nodded and I looked at Cord. “Who is this Princess Celestia?” “A god, she wouldn’t be able to be touched by you unless she wanted you to be able to touch her.” I now wanted to try this Princess Celestia, if she could really give me an unlimited amount of food, finding and capturing her to eat would be wonderful! “I see that look, and stop right there, don’t even start.” “But if she can’t die, and I would never run out of food, then.” “NO!” He shouted standing up clearly panicked. “Stop, okay, just stop, think of it like this, if I ate the last birdie and you would never have that taste again, no matter what you did, it was the last birdie ever.” I stood up. “That’s not funny! Birdies taste too good to do that!” “That’s what it’s like to me when you say you want to eat Princess Celestia. It’s a very bad feeling.” I looked down and sat down. “Oh, I’m sorry then, I did not know she meant that to you.” “She of course isn’t food, but she’s a special pony that every pony cares deeply for, and just hearing you say that is painful.” “I’m sorry.” “That is also regret.” “What? Oh I don’t feel sorry for saying it, I still want to taste her flesh, now more than ever, but I won’t because you care so much for her. I wouldn’t want to take your meal from you like that.” “Yeah, good enough.” He said smiling. Haggle came back a while later with a rather large bag setting it down. “Whoa.” Cord said. “And that’s after paying the bill.” Max came with a cart setting a large stack of fish on the table. I smiled, and he sat down feeding me the fish. I licked him and he looked at me worried. “I like you birdie.” “Thanks, so you like my cooking?” “Very much, I’ve never had a cooked meal before so this is wonderful.” “What really?!” “Yeah, why?” “I will have to cook you a lot then.” “You learn fast, I thought you might try to escape a few times before you learned that no matter where you go I can find you.” He chuckled nervously scared. “You really.” I went up to his face. “Don’t have to say that.” He was sweating again, I imagined after me chasing him he would be afraid of me. I knew what it felt like to be on the wrong side of a hunt, but I played with my food sometimes, and I had with him too much. I laid down on his lap looking up at him. “You do realize I had let you go before.” He looked at me a bit confused. “When I caught you, I knew you weren’t dead, you played dead really bad. I could hear you breathing, your heart was beating so hard you body moved to it.” I chuckled. “You-you let me go?” “Yeah, even let you fly into the sky so I could chase you. I just didn’t realize that you were so fast, I would have probably let one of your other friends escape if I knew. I ended up losing you, I was so pissed.” “I always wondered if it was luck that you didn’t break my neck, or if you did it on purpose. I still have nightmares.” I chuckled. “That’s great.” He stared at me smiling. “You enjoy my fear.” “Yes, you smell great when you’re scared, everything does. When you’re scared it’s like adding a chewy heart on top.” I licked my lips and he tried his best not to look at me. Hours passed on the train, it would have only taken me about half an hour instead of a full day to get to Ponyville, if it was really next to Everfree Forest. We got off the train and it hissed at me again making me snort, but Cord grabbed me this time stopping me from attacking. Max came with us almost too easily, made me want to chase him around for a while, but he stayed quiet and mindful. A good pet if there ever was one, he would be my first and probably my last. Feeding a pet was going to be hard work. “What’s wrong?” Max asked and I looked at him. “Nothing, just never had a pet before, kind of weird.” “I can take care of myself.” “Yeah, yeah.” I said rolling my eyes. As if a birdies could take care of themselves, I was going to have to constantly filly him. We followed Haggle and Cord to a building going inside and a rather old earth pony stallion, with a brown coat, black mane was behind a desk looking at papers. “Filthy Rich, we’re back.” He looked up with a slightly confused look on his face. “You’re back early, I thought you had at least another month before you needed to come back.” “Nope we got everything and more.” “More?” Haggle went around and showed maps. “What in the world?” “This information is very reliable, in fact if it were not for her, we would have all died and you would have wasted your money.” He looked at me. “That is Roma, a local to the area, not part of a tribe, but she’s lived there most of her life, this is all her information.” He looked at the maps and then at me. “Is all this information correct?” “Well I also have this.” He showed the creature patterns on another map. “The information is correct and accurate.” “If that is true, this will create me more money than I have ever dreamed. What was her fee?” “Fish.” “What?” “She eats meat and living creatures. She’s, um, not normal, but very strong, she threw the train like it was a toy.” His eyes went wide. “Anyway, using her as a guide I think we could retrieve this all and it would be wise.” “I have worked with strange ones before, but that’s honestly a first. How many fish do I have to get?” “As many as I can eat.” I said smiling and he looked at Max. “Who is he?” “Her, um, pet.” “I escaped her from killing me and, well I couldn’t do it again.” I pinned him to the ground licking my lips. “Oh you know that’s right.” He shivered. “Yes master.” I frowned. “My name’s not master, it’s Roma, who’s master?” I looked around a bit pissed at whoever it was that was trying to take my pet! “Master is a name to some pony that owns another,” Cord said. “Or in this case you owning Max, your title to him would be master.” “That makes no sense whatsoever, why would I tell him to call me by anything other than my name, that would only confuse him. Whoever came up with that is an idiot, and they will not steal my pet by making him call them their owner.” “She’s a bit odd, and doesn’t understand most common sense.” Cord said looking at Filthy Rich. “I can see that, but why use her instead of a unicorn? A unicorn could use magic or any number of things.” “She took down a squad of griffin.” Bridie said and they looked at him as he got up. “Not even your best unicorn could do that, and we were armed. In fact we were moving to kill a monster that had been killing ponies flying around, but I found out it was her and reported it to command.” “Whoa.” Haggle said. “That’s, wait does she have a bounty on her head?” Filthy Rich asked. “Yes,” Max said. “Last I heard it was about, oh there it is.” He walked over to the wall and pulled off a wanted poster walking over to them setting it down. It had a drawing of me, it was rather good. “Cool.” They looked at me and Cord picked it up reading. “Wanted, the desert pony, upon the return of the desert pony’s head the reward of fifty thousand bits!” He said shocked and they stared at him. “Sub group bounties are partnered with at least fifteen other bounty sets. Upon proof of the desert pony, and her crimes to the sub groups, the reward will be up to but not limited to an additional fifty thousand bits per proof of each crime committed.” “That’s, that’s over seven hundred and fifty thousand, eight hundred thousand if you include this post.” Haggle said. “She is wanted for the murder of at least three hundred and ninety six ponies, one hundred and eighty five griffin, twenty three royal pony guards, thirty eight royal griffin guard, and the murder of thousands of pets. She is to be considered extremely dangerous, and under no condition should a party less than a hundred attempt capture or kill.” They looked at me and I stopped licking Max’s side. “This is serious,” Filthy Rich said. “I can’t hire such a dangerous mare, the implications alone would bankrupt me! That has a royal decree from both Princess Celestia and the ruler of the griffins!” “That is the highest bounty I have ever heard of,” Haggle said. “That could feed a family for several generations and then some.” “How many fish is that?” I asked. “There wouldn’t be enough fish in the ocean to sell to you.” “Then let’s do that.” They looked at me a little confused. “You would have to die.” Max said looking at me and I looked around. “What?” “A bounty means to hunt and kill something, you’re what they want dead, you would have to die to get the bounty.” “Oh.” I looked down. “I feel a little at odds,” Cord said. “Now that I know her, I kind of feel bad for her, but at the same time she should be stopped.” “I stopped eating ponies.” My words didn’t make them feel less nervous. “Anyway, I can’t hire her,” Filthy Rich said. “I mean I'll pay her for this information, but other than that I can’t do anything else.” “No fish?” I asked and they looked at me. “Yeah no fish.” I sighed. “I guess that’s fine, I got a nice cleaning, your hot water was wonderful, I'll have to figure out something.” “I have an idea,” Max said and I eyed him. “I mean if we can manage to sell that heart for that money.” “My heart? Well I guess I have a spare one or two.” I reached for my chest and he grabbed my hoof. “I didn’t mean your heart, I meant that gem heart. You showed it on the train.” I gasped realizing what he meant. “Yeah keep that other heart.” I pulled it out and gave it to him. He smiled looking at it. “But only because you asked nicely, and you have plan to get fish right?” “Yes, lots and lots of fish.” I smiled. “Wait sir, we could do a short list hire,” Haggle said. “Have her work under the radar, so long as we do night drops and pay for anything she gives us, then we could make a lot without doing much of anything, of course we would leave salted fish, is that useable?” “I can cook salted fish, they last for weeks.” “That’s fine,” Filthy Rich said. “But other than those here, we tell no one of this, where will there be a safe drop point?” Haggle pointed at the point on the map I had taken them to on the road. “This spot is perfect, I saw a small grove from the road, we’ll leave a large crate where we can leave the fish, and we’ll pay fairly in fish, and other salted meats when we can get them.” I licked my lips. “I’m craving fish now though.” “We don’t have any.” “The river will.” Cord said. I smiled going outside and running over to the river, I couldn’t wait for salted fish. I had tasted dead fish heavily covered in salt, and that was really, really good, but I didn’t know what they meant by salted fish exactly. I walked over to the river and looked down at the fish. I started to rub my hooves together just a tiny bit apart really fast causing them to heat up a little, and build up a massive charge. I could build up huge amounts of electricity so long as I didn’t actually touch my hooves together while building the charge. “As I was saying Twilight.” I stuck my hooves in water and a ton of fish jumped out of it leaving me only a second as I caught over twenty fish putting them in a wooden crate I had found on the road. I smiled and walked onto the road. “You there.” I turned to a purple and white pony. Both of them wore some kind of wear gold armor. I dropped my fish letting my jaw drop seeing a horn on their head and wings at their sides. “Why do you have so many fish?” The white one asked. “I’ve never had birdie unicorn before.” I said and they gave a confused look as Cord ran in front of me. “NO!” He shouted. “That’s Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight Sparkle.” “You didn’t tell me she was something I’ve never eaten before! I want to eat her, that’s not fair!” Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle gave a confused but serious look. “You can’t tell me she won’t be delicious!” “Remember what I said, not funny.” I growled. “Fine, I won’t eat them, but I want twice the fish!” I picked up a still wiggling fish tossing it into the air and swallowing it whole making me smile. “We’ll deal with it.” I picked up my fish. “PET!” I shouted with the crate in my mouth and Max came out. I threw it at him. “I want cooked fish.” “Where, how did you get so many? You were only gone for thirty second!” He looked at Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight Sparkle as they came over every pony around bowed to them. “What is this?” Princess Celestia asked and I looked at her. “Why is this pony demanding cooked fish and eating them?!” My mouth watered seeing them. “It’s hard to, Roma!” Cord shouted at me and every pony backed away seeing me having Princess Celestia on her back with me on her chest, my teeth at her throat. “DON’T!” Princess Celestia shouted at Princess Twilight Sparkle and she paused realizing that her magic wasn’t working. “Roma is it?” Princess Celestia asked, I let go of her throat. “Yes.” She nodded swallowing a little nervous. “Well Roma, why are you attacking me?” “I’ve never eaten pony with both wings and horn before, I want to try you, I have never seen a pony like you before. I want to know how you taste.” “I see, but will you please release every pony around us from your metal string?” Dozens of strings came from every pony and several of them fell to the ground breathing hard including Princess Twilight Sparkle. “You can see my string?” “Yes, clearly, if you wanted to, every pony within eye sight would be dead the second you made your move. The string is very sharp.” Blood ran down her face from a cut. “Oh.” I pulled my hoof and she let out a breath breathing hard. “Roma please don’t.” Cord pled. “But she looks so delicious.” “Roma,” Princess Celestia said and I looked at her. “I want to give you this.” She held up a ball of meat. “This will taste just like my meat, you’re not the first which has come for my flesh, so I made this in case.” I took it from her and sat down looking at it. “You sure?” “Yes.” I licked her and then bit into the ball. The taste was weird, both of them tasted like my old body parts making me spit out the rotten meat. “Ugh, you taste nasty!” I set the ball on her chest and it disappeared. “I like the fish better than you, pet cook me my fish!” “Yes Roma.” He picked it up and I turned to Princess Celestia. “You are lucky you taste nasty, or I would’ve eaten you, though I can’t say I’m happy about that though, I thought you would be delicious.” I sighed hopping off of her. A few ponies helped her up breathing hard. I went over to Max and he started to cook them and I sat down. I started to hum and Princess Celestia came over to me. Flona“Let’s see here from this map from the last mayor says,” Max started. “This village is under attack from, pig snakes. One pair of fangs for one gold. They spew acid so be careful.” I unhooked and took in a breath. “Lunch.” I said smiling as I ran disappearing to Max and Cord. The pig snakes made a loud screech as I ripped into them eating their tasty meat, they had way more than the spiders had. I saved over three thousand fangs completely wiping out the forest and any nests. I sighed looking at the cloudy sky. It was sprinkling a little, but not bad, it always rained so hard in the desert, but it was never this cool. I picked up my large bag of fangs, then a bag of meat and trotted back to Max and Cord which were talking to a light green earth pony with a bowtie. I walked over to them and he looked at me. I set the bag of fangs down in front of Cord and went to Max. “I brought good meat, cook it please.” “Okay.” He picked it up and walked off. The pony in the bowtie looked into the bag, his eyes went wide. “Give me a moment, I'll be back.” He walked off with the bag and Cord looked at me. “How many?” “Well in total there were about six thousand one hundred and thirteen of them.” His jaw dropped. Two ponies came a while later with a large bag full of gold bits setting it onto the cart with a heavy thud. “More fishy.” I smiled. “Wow, we can’t thank you enough.” The pony with a bowtie said. “It’s no problem, she’s probably still hungry, we were just stopping by villages to feed her, the bounties are just a plus.” “Okay.” Max came back a while later with a grill on his back and he opened the sack of meat letting a sweet smell float into the air. I jumped digging in to it quickly. It was so good to have cooked meat! Having him cook it was wonderful. “That’s a lot of gold.” He said looking into the bag, I don’t think we can fit this in your pack much less carry it ourselves.” “I'll pull.” I said as I gulped down the last bit of meat. “Get on.” They got on and we went village after village, and it was never enough. Max would cook as much as he could for me, but I kept running out of food to eat. “YOU THERE!” I stopped looking at three masked unicorn fillies with poky sticks pointed at me. “Give us all your gold!” I looked at Max as he hopped off a three bit high wall of gold bags. We had to move to a much larger cart with sides for how much gold we had. “Get back.” Another said. “Are you guys like tax collects or something?” I asked. “We’re bandits!” The leader said and Cord started laughing being trapped on top of the bags. “Thank Celestia,” Max said cracking his back. “That cart is so uncomfortable. Do you mind if we give them a bit of the excessive gold? I’ve had to hold onto bags, we simply have too much gold for this cart.” “But the fish.” “You’ll have enough to fill even your hunger.” “Alright.” Cord tossed him a few bags and he walked over to the now confused fillies setting them on their backs making one of them fall to the ground from the weight. “What in the world!” One of them said falling to his knees. “I think I’m going to walk a with you.” Max said coming over to me and I smiled. We started walking. “You know we can’t hold any more gold, I mean seriously this is a bit ridiculous in so many ways. I think we’re actually the only bounty hunters in the land. We’ve done over three hundred villages and each at least had a thousand to spend, which is crazy.” “Can’t we just get a larger cart?” He looked at it. “No this is getting ridiculous.” “Fine, we won’t have to stop at the next village.” “No we can if you like, I don’t mind cooking for you, but we just won’t be able to take any more bounty.” “Okay.” He pet me a little bit. “Also isn’t today the last day before you sleep?” “Oh yeah, I almost forgot.” I looked up seeing another village and I smiled. “We’ll stay at this village till you wake up.” “Alright.” We walked into the village and ponies were doing business as normal. A gray stallion with a bowtie came over to us. “You’re the bounty hunters right?” He asked making Max and me stop. “Ah, yeah, how did you know?” “All the villages on the king’s road were notified from earlier villages of your coming and that we should be ready.” “Oh, well I guess we don’t need to introduce ourselves.” “That’s a lot of luggage.” He said looked at the cart. “Oh that’s not luggage,” Max said. “That’s the bounties we’ve collected, we just didn’t realize we would collect so much.” Ponies from all around us stared at the cart. “All of that’s gold?” “Yeah, apparently no one else has been even trying to collect bounties, so they were able to pay us, or more her.” He rubbed my head. “She’s the one doing it, does a town in five minutes to half an hour. Mostly because it takes a while to cook.” “Right I heard she eats meat, well we have fully stocked fish if you would like to buy from us.” “Fish!” I said looking at Max and he smiled. “That sounds great, show me to your kitchen and I'll get started. Hey you alright up there Cord?” “Yeah, just, can’t move too much, or this gold is going to fall off, thanks for remembering that I’m alive up here.” Max chuckled. “Can you bring me something to eat to, I’m a little hungry.” “Sure, so the kitchen.” “Right this way.” I parked the cart and helped Cord get off the top so he could take care of his personal business. I sat on top staring at the sky. It was still a bit cloudy, it felt nice to be so cool. “Excuse me?” I looked down at the stallion in a bowtie without turning over. “Yes?” “Um, are you going to go hunt the monsters?” “I’m a little, tried right now. I'll deal with it later.” “But the dragons.” I paused. “Dragons?” “Yes there are three of them, we have a bounty of ten thousand per head.” I sighed and rolled over. “They said they would destroy the town if we don’t pay them gems today, but there aren’t any gems for miles and it would take us at least a week, they won’t take gold. Please before nightfall.” “Fine.” I jumped off stretching a little. I pulled out a small ruby and ate it to give me a small boost of energy, I was getting tired, but three dragons wouldn’t be hard. “Where are they so I don’t have to go searching?” He pointed at a large cave in a small mountain. “There, but you can handle dragons right?” “Yeah.” I started walking getting to the cave after an hour. I just didn’t want to do this right now. Dragons were very tasty, but that’s about it. I walked into the cave and I looked at three dragons as they woke up lifting their heads. They were each a different color, blue being a female, red being the only male, and white also being a female, which made them look a bit odd being so close to each other. “Oh look, a pony.” The red one said and I tripped over a rock rolling a little, I got up a little dizzy. I hated being tired. “I think it’s drunk.” The blue one said. “No just tired.” I said falling into a pile of treasure, I yawned rolling around a little finding a nice spot. “Pony why are you here?” The white one asked. “Well I came here to slay you before night fall, but I might fall asleep, your piles of treasure are always so comfortable.” I buried my face into the gems smelling them. They were wonderful. “Slay us?” The red one asked with a laugh making the blue one laugh as well. The white one looked at me serious, and frowned. “Yep,” I said closing my eyes. “Just, don’t leave the cave, I don’t want your meat to go to waste.” “Really now.” “Come here little pony, you interest me.” The white dragon moved the pile closer to her belly and I rolled over snuggling into her belly. She was fluffy having short fur on her belly, it was really nice. “You are so fluffy, I’m going to keep you as a pet.” She chuckled lightly. “So if we leave the cave you’re going to kill us?” The blue one asked. The red one got up making me frown. He walked over to the entrance and stepped outside. The blue one laughed but stopped when the red dragon wasn’t moving. “Hey, that’s not funny.” The blue one said frowning after a minute. The dragon’s body fell over, his head rolled to the feet of the blue one making her stand up shocked. “AAA WHAT, HOW!” She shouted pushing it away standing up scared and the white one looked at me with a bit of fear. “Oh your fluffy I’m keeping you.” I said smiling smelling her. “His meat is going to go to waste, I’m glad the blue one isn’t. I would be sad.” “Wait you don’t have kill me.” She said sitting down. “I’m fluffy to.” I chuckled. “I know, I’m going to make clothes out of you, you have a nice hide, but I can only keep the white, she’s the smartest one of you three. I will sleep, don’t move my new pet. I don’t want to have to beat you to make you understand, blue one if you try to leave I'll cut off your legs and let you bleed out. Now be quiet.” I fell asleep. The dragon was nice and warm making sleeping very pleasant. I woke up and sun light lit the cave nicely. I yawned getting up and stretching. The white dragon looked at me and the blue one was asleep. “You’re awake I see.” She said and I smiled cracking a few bones. “Yep.” I looked at the red dragon, a lot of the meat was already rotting away, I looked down sad, I had wasted a lot of mean. He was going to go eat ponies though, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. I moved skinning him, and cutting any good pieces of meat I could save, putting them in a pile. I appeared on top of the white dragons head and the blue dragons head rolled off making her gasp a little. “Darn.” “Grab heads and blue dragon body, as well as the hide and safe meat, I will cook her!” I shouted and the white one picked up both heads, tears went down her face as she picked up the body, and hide with the rest of the meat, and I laid down. “To the village please.” She walked to the village and ponies looked in a bit of horror as she set the heads down and the body. “Max!” I shouted and he came out, his eyes went wide. “Dragon to cook! And are my fish ready?” “Yes.” I jumped off the white dragon’s head, ran inside and piles of cooked fish were ready. I ate them quickly and went outside, the blue dragon’s hide was cut into nice sheets, along with the red dragon’s. Large pieces of meat were cooking over a large open fire making me appear on top of the white dragon’s head. “Oh I can’t wait!” I shouted and every pony looked at me surprised. “Max come up here!” He landed next to me sitting down. “Hi.” He said a little nervous. “Hello.” The white dragon said. “Dragon this is Max, my other pet, Max say hi.” “Hi dragon.” “My name is Fiona.” “You did good in cooking other dragon meat, you earned your name. I can’t wait for the meat to be ready.” I said excited. “It’s almost done.” “I love dragon meat!” I licked Fiona and smiled at the taste. “Did you know her?” Max asked. “She was my mates second mate, I liked her.” “Fiona, would you like a leg?” I asked looking at her and she stared at the cooking meat intently. “You should have a leg, you will enjoy it!” I said excited. “I-I suppose.” She said. “You don’t have to.” Max said. “I don’t?” She asked. “Of course not!” I said a little mad. “I would not waste the meat on you if you did not want to eat it, I will eat it all!” I smiled as my stomach gurgled telling me it was empty. “I am always hungriest when I wake up, we will have to do ten more villages to fill my belly today, I am very hungry!” “How can she eat so much?” Fiona asked. “I don’t know, she has a bottomless pit down her throat, she’s easily eaten over three hundred times your dragon’s weight in food over the last three days, and she never once got competely full. I haven’t been able to cook most of it, she’s ravenous.” “Are you hungry Fiona?” I asked. “A little, but I don’t want to eat her.” “I'll be right back.” I jumped off of her head landing on the ground cracking it. I started to dig going down a bit and digging out a large ruby the size of her head bringing it up and throwing it onto the ground next to her making her stare. “Whoa.” Max said as I landed next to him. “There we go, a good treat for my pet.” I rubbed her head a little bit and she brushed off the dirt from the gem, and ponies all around stared. “Such a huge ruby.” Fiona said. “Yep, enjoy.” She bit into it. “It’s great, may I go get my treasure?” She asked looking at me. “Sure, but do not make me hunt you, you will not make it off the ground.” I jumped off landing softly. She walked away and Max landed next to me. “I hope she doesn’t run, I don’t want to have to hunt her down.” “It’s ready by the way.” I sucked in some air and blew out sending a very powerful wind stopping the fires. I moved as fast as I could enjoying every bite. I finished laying on top of still hot coals yawning. Fiona landed with a large sack on her back. She swallowed seeing just bones from the large dragon. She was the smallest of the three, around twenty yards high. “Oh the gold.” Max said and she put the cart full of gold into her bag, the mayor brought out two small carts and she poured the gold inside the bag. “Don’t forget Cord!” I said and she put Cord next to me on a saddle cart that I had made for her, so we could comfortably fly on her back. It was just like the train cart from the train, but this one was made by all of the village folk as a way of saying thanks. It was nice. I rolled around in gold and gems smiling. “Enjoying yourself?” Max asked sitting in a seat next to a stove. “Yep.” I said grinning. Thanks to Cord we made it so rather Fiona was sitting standing or flat we were always even and stable. It was nice, she didn’t send me rolling every time she sat or laid down, and even then there was a very little amount of shaking. So long as she didn’t turn on her side or upside down, we wouldn’t feel any different than on the ground. “We’re almost to the capital.” Fiona said. I appeared on her head, she had gotten used to me just appearing. I looked out at the capital, it was huge, taking miles of land. There were probably millions of ponies living here. Even with the hundred villages after the one with Fiona, I was still hungry, it had been over to two days of her flying. It was meant to be a three day walk, but we stopped at every single village. Fiona’s pack was giving her back problems from all the gold, gems and other things I harvested, and Max told me this would be a good place to unload some of it, we could probably buy the city if we used it all, and that was after me making armor for Fiona. I smiled at her armor, she helped me a lot in hunting large beasts and she enjoyed the meat with me which made me happy, and not feel so much like a pig snake. I ate a lot, and my hunger was only growing large and larger each day. Though she was lucky I made her the armor, or she would have been killed several times. “Look at that!” I shouted and Max came out going next to me smiling. “Wow.” We landed in a large open plot of land. I looked around smiling. I jumped off and ponies looked at Fiona a little scared. “Finally!” Cord shouted and I looked at him appearing next to him. “What?” “I figured out a shrinking spell.” “Why?” I asked. He got off Fiona and Max landed next to us. Cord’s horn lit up burning with bright white magic. He shot at Fiona and her eyes went big before she shrunk down to normal pony height. As tall at me. I appeared next to her looking around her and she looked around confused. “Now she can come with us.” He said smiling and she went up to him. “This better not be permanent pony.” “It will last as long as I want, of course when we leave I'll change you back. I like flying on your back. Also you should put away your back cart.” She took it off, stuffing it into the pack with the rest of the stuff. It was made of dragon hide so it could take a real thrashing before breaking or anything. “This is great!” I said pinning Fiona making her nervous. “Now I can have a small dragon, I was worried that I was going to have to make you compact when we got you to the city, to fit you through the streets. That’s too bad, I guess you get to keep your legs.” She swallowed scared. “Yeah, that’s too bad.” She looked at Cord. “Thank you.” She said with a knot in her throat. I went over to Max and he tossed me a fish, I ate it mid air. “Now to find the king.” I said with a smile. “Come here.” Cord gave us all some papers. “What’s this?” Max asked. Cord ripped one and fire appeared before our faces saying, Cord found the king. An arrow pointed at him with directions. “You rip it and the magic will do the rest.” He handed a few pieces to each of us. “If you find him rip it.” I took a few and smiled putting them away. “Now splitting up will cover the most ground, but what do you think?” Cord asked looking at me. “I don’t mind, we don’t have a set limit to how long we have to spend looking or anything like that. I would rather stay together.” “Then we’ll use these if we get separated.” I smiled. “Oh I almost forgot.” He jumped and Fiona went to move but he shrunk going into her pack. He jumped off growing to his real size with a pack on his back and three more in his hooves. “You could have said something!” She hit him lightly. “Sorry, I wanted to surprise you.” He handed a pack to Max and hooked another one onto Fiona. “This will allow us to get gold bits to buy things, when we need them.” He put the last pack on me and I paused smelling him. I pinned him to the ground staring at him. He swallowed nervous. “Roma, what is it?” Max asked. “He.” I blushed a little backing up. “I, I’m sorry, that came over me rather quickly, you smell good.” I nuzzled his chest a little. “But not in a, I want to eat you way.” “Okay.” He said unsure. I appeared next to a large stallion and smelled him. He looked at me weird. I appeared next to Cord. “Oh no.” He got up. “Do not tell me you, just.” I looked at him a little unsure. He swallowed growing a little pale. “What?” Max asked. “Well she’s in that age, if you know what I mean.” Both of them blushed a little. “I just hope for which ever stallion she finds, that she doesn’t mix pleasure with hunger.” “What are you talking about?” I asked and they looked at me. “Nothing, just don’t smell me alright.” I went up to him and smelled him. He smelled really good, but I didn’t quite understand why. “I said don’t!” He backed up. “But you smell so good.” “Stop!” I stepped back. “What is it?” “Okay I think you may be hitting puberty.” “What do you mean?” He swallowed. “Do you feel hot?” I paused backing up blushing. “Oh.” “Yeah, I don’t know if you could keep that and eating separate. You can barely control your eating habits, so I can only imagine how that would turn out.” I backed up. “So let’s go find that king.” The King's CaptureWe went around the city and my mind would wonder enough for me to smell another good looking stallion before going back. They went shopping a lot having Cord shrink it down to fit into Fiona’s pack. “Roma.” I blinked looking away from armor sets to look at Max. “Are you alright? You haven’t bought anything and you haven’t said much.” “I’m just missing my mother a little, these armor sets are crap, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss her when I look at them.” “Excuse me?” I looked at the soot covered earth pony stallion frowning. “My armor sets are some of the best around, so unless you can do better, go away.” “Please I could make an armor which would make yours look like crap in an hour, and that’s using normal materials.” “Care to make a wager on that?” He said smiling. “Roma,” Cord said. “We need to find the king.” “No, that can wait, he’s mocking me.” I appeared in front of him. “Very well, I'll bet you a.” I looked at Cord. “How many do I have in this pack?” “Five hundred.” “Five hundred gold bits that I can make a better set of battle ready armor and make yours look like two bit work in an hour or less.” He swallowed. “Fine.” “But if I win, I get you for a while in privet.” “What?” “Roma don’t do that,” Max said. “You want to make it a pony you like, not some random blacksmith you made a bet with.” “But, he’s really good smelling, and I’m, not able to think straight.” “I’m sure the king can help us, if he is like you.” I sighed. “Fine, if I win I want that.” I pointed at a large piece of ice coal. “That’s worth a lot more than five hundred gold bit, more like ten thousand gold bits, that is the rarest metal in existence for armor.” I sighed. “Fine I'll let you keep the armor and give you six thousand gold bits.” Cord pulled out a large brick of gold off of Fiona’s back. His eyes went wide. “So how about it?” “You have a deal, your hour starts now.” Ponies gathered around and I cracked my neck a little. “Cord can you pull out my blacksmith set for me?” He pulled out a large silver egg and tool popped out on trays. I opened the front. “Fiona, can I have some flame?” She blew into it lighting the inside on fire. “Four pounds of Onyx Coal, four pounds of gold, carbon iron rod, cloud ore, three pounds of copper and fifty of steel.” Cord pulled it out laying it onto a blanket for me. “Wait what?!” The blacksmith shouted surprised. “You can’t have all that, that’s, that’s, that would cost easily over twelve thousand bits!” I snorted. “Please, these are unrefined materials, and I’m not going to be able to make even second rate armor with this, but it’ll still be better than yours.” I started throwing all the material into one pot and I blew into it making everyone even Fiona step back from the heat as the ground turned red, the egg turned white. I closed the door sitting down. A pony looked at a watch. “Aren’t you going to start or something?” Cord asked after forty five minutes. “It isn’t done cooking, it doesn’t taste right yet.” “When will it?” “Soon.” Five more minutes passed and I got up opening it, and pulling out a large block of glowing white metal. The ground and egg cooled off instantly. “There’s the beauty, cooked and ready for eating.” I paused. “I mean, using.” I sighed. “I hate wasting perfect dishes like this.” “You can eat that?” The blacksmith asked. “Of course, but not this time sadly.” I set it down and I rubbed my hooves together and ponies backed up as lightning streamed off of me burning the ground. I picked it up and spun it moving extremely fast detailing it, cutting, reforming, and finishing within a few minutes. I stopped smiling. An armor set sat down in front of me. It was pink with gold lining, and a very cute design outshining his armor, and literally shining a little bit. “And done!” “Time!” Some pony said with a watch. “Now give me the ice metal, I couldn’t find any.” “Now wait a minute, you said better battle armor than mine, I beg to differ. I demand tests not that it just looks good!” I sighed. “Fine.” I grabbed a random earth pony and put it on her, it fitted to her perfectly making her grunt a little bit. “Test away.” “Hey wait I didn’t.” I smiled showing my teeth and she swallowed. “Okay.” “Please some other pony for his armor.” I said smiling. “I will.” A stallion said walking over and the blacksmith put it onto the stallion taking almost fifteen minutes to fit him. “Are we stalling?” I asked and he was sweating. “There.” He padded the armor. “Does some pony know combat magic?” I asked. “I do?” A unicorn stallion said unsure. “Strongest spell please, your magic will get absorbed. I'll give you a hundred bits if you can even scratch it.” He swallowed and his horn lit up with blue sparks over charging with magic power. He fired a bolt and it hit the armor moving her a little, but the armor absorbed it wonderfully glowing brightly. She smiled feeling good. “Wow,” she said shaking a little bit. “I didn’t even feel that.” She smiled as tears went down her face. “Why am I still so scared though.” She fell to the ground shaking, her legs wouldn’t let her stand. I chuckled and brushed some dust off the armor showing it didn’t even have a single mark. “Now then, if you would shoot that armor.” The stallion swallowed and the blacksmith went in front. “Wait, stop, this isn’t rated for magic combat!” “Then give me my ice metal.” I growled at him and he swallowed. “Please I can’t afford to give that to you, especially after this.” I sighed. “Fine you can have this armor.” I took it off her tossing it to him. “Just give me that ice metal I’ve been trying to find some.” He tossed me the ice metal and I smiled tossing it to Cord and he put it into Fiona’s pack. “Thanks.” I appeared in front of him. “But if you ever challenge me again I'll kill you.” He stepped back. Cord put my blacksmith set away now that it cooled off and we started walking. “Is ice metal that good?” Max asked and I looked at him. “More than good, how do I explain this? Oh it’s a casting agent for the most powerful armor sets to ever exist. That fool was going to use it as armor itself, it’s useless being used as armor. While extremely good in the way of protection and such, it falls short against other materials which are better for that.” “Whoa.” “Such as Princess Celestia’s armor was casted out of it.” “Really.” “Yes, the biggest waste of ice metal I have ever seen in my life. I almost ripped it off her throat and yell at her for using ice metal in such a way, but I didn’t have a chance. Anyway it’s not important now, I got five pounds of it.” “That’s a lot?” Cord asked. “I could make almost eighty armor sets.” I giggled smiling. “Or two really legendary sets which would make this one look like it was second rate.” “Whoa,” Max said. “That’s crazy.” “Normally it would be, but since I can waste a few organs to make it, I think I’m going to enjoy it a lot.” “Nope, not what I’m looking for.” I paused hearing a voice and looked at a pony in an armor set made by my mother, and a really good set at that. He went over to a mare and licked her with a long tongue which went below the table disappeared. She moaned and his tongue came up. “Darn not you either.” “My king.” She said and we all looked at him. I appeared in front of him and he didn’t flinch looking at me, then noticed my armor. “That’s a nice set of armor you have there.” He went to lick me and I closed his jaw rather hard making him bite his tongue with his sharp teeth. “Don’t even think about licking me, second of all, are you the king of this land?” He frowned. “Yes I.” He grunted. “Am, you know that was just spiteful closing my mouth like that, it hurt.” “I saw what you did with that tongue, don’t even try it, or I'll rip it out of your mouth and feed it to you, before I feed on your corpse.” He swallowed a bit of blood. “Now then you will take me to my father and give him to me.” “Excuse me?” “My father, Night Jasper.” He paused. “Oh my vessel, I think he’s still suspended in my vault.” He chuckled. “But I’m not giving you him.” “You will or I'll rip your legs off your body and beat you with them.” “Challenge accepted.” I sighed and his legs ripped off making every pony around us back up, a few screamed. “Don’t mock me, you have no chance.” He rolled over regrowing legs and standing up frowning. “Oh please, you don’t have a chance.” He tried to use his magic but it didn’t work. “I already turned off your magic, and have your head on the chopping block, give me my father now!” “You can.” His body was ripped apart, but not his armor. “WOW!” He shouted making me back up as his body flew back together healing him and he stood up chuckling as he shifted in his armor. “I haven’t had that happen before!” He grinned showing a toothy grin making me smile as well. His eyes went wide seeing my teeth. “I’m going to enjoy this.” Blades came out of both of our hoof guards. He moved with blinding speed with me, and the ground ripped up sending ponies flipping back from the air pressure. His blades scratched my armor but mine cut clean through and he landed breathing hard, armor falling off in pieces. “How, no that shouldn’t be possible, this armor is the best in the land, no one has been able to make a better armor set, and I’m using magic!” He shouted clearly pissed. I growled bending forward ready to pounce, his blood dripping from my mouth and I blew ash with every breath as my insides burns with fire from the friction alone. “Crap, your just like me, but, you haven’t, oh that’s very bad.” My jaw trembled enjoying his flesh. “ROMA!” Max shouted and I looked around. The ground was ripped up badly and ponies were trying to get other out of destroyed buildings. “Can’t stop the hunger can you?” He asked and I looked at him. “What?” “You are constantly hungry, you can’t eat enough to fill your belly can you? If you don’t eat, then you’re in a massive amount of pain, and will do anything to eat more.” “Yes, then you know how to stop it!” “You have to go one month without food, water or anything that you can eat. It’s painful and nightmarish for you, but it is the only way to cure you of it. Anything else would only make you hungrier and hungrier, till eating an entire kingdom wouldn’t be enough.” “I, but, you, it.” I paused as my mind crashed into itself and making me hungrier. “I need more.” Drool flowed down my lips just imagining his taste again. “EVERY PONY EVACUATE THE DISTRICT!” He shouted echoing throughout the area and I let out a roar making the ground crack. He stepped back from the air pressure. “You three run!” He said to Max, Cord and Fiona. “We’re with her.” “She’s lost it, she can’t think straight enough to know who her friends are, if your anywhere close to us when we start, let’s just say, you’ll hope you only get eaten.” They rushed out of the area and I looked at him now being alone. “Finally.” I growled stepping forward. “Listen, you need to fall into the hunger.” “What?” I growled. “You’ll become slow and clumsy, I'll be able to easily strip you of your armor and pin you down. I'll be able to help you, but as you are right now, you’ll kill me. This body will die and I won’t be able to stop you from eating my entire kingdom, no matter how much you beg your body.” Tears went down my face. “But, that’s, that’s scary, what if.” “Don’t worry, you can trust me.” Red crept into my vision and I charged not thinking at all as the hunger took over completely making him, and his not soon enough ripped flesh in my mouth. Things went black after only a moment. “Ugh.” I said opening my eyes blinking at dim lights. I looked around and tired to move but I was completely immobilized. I could only look around with my eyes. I couldn’t even flex, and legs were being held down perfectly. “Feeling better?” I looked at him and drool ran down my cheeks. “I’m hungry!” I said without moving my mouth. “Oh I know, and it’s going to get so much worse.” I growled. “I’m sorry about this but this is the only way to help you. I can’t let you move an inch or you’ll likely escape. We have it set so you don’t have to move at all.” “Feed me.” “I can’t for twenty nine more days.” He sighed. “You’re going to go mad, and you’re going to want to die. Don’t worry you won’t, you’ll be able to go years without food. I’ve meet several ponies like you. I killed them all, but they were all like you. This infection is a royal one, but it can infect any pony at the same time. When I entered your father’s body he conceived you on that day, or more rather night. Since I was in him you got the infection. You are not related to me, but still infected.” “Let me go!” “I have servants change out music and make sure you are kept clean while you stay here, I’m sorry but you have to. Without this you’re uncontrollable, you will gain power like nothing else and not even I will be able to stop you. Oh and so you know, names Loggon.” He left after a while. My insides felt like I was being eating alive making me scream in pain and that was only the start of it as things burned inside that I didn’t know existed. I felt like I was rotting from the outside in, and if it were not for the fact I could see my body, I would have thought I was rotting with acid poured on top. Pain of every kind, from every little bit of my body screamed for some pony to feed me making me try to cut my tongue, but they had a guard to stop me. I couldn’t do anything, and I couldn’t stand it, he was right, I wanted to die, this pain was far too much. After eternal days Loggon walked into the room smiling and I looked at him as he sat down by my hooves. “Do you feel hungry?” I paused. “No, and the pains gone.” He smiled and the straps came off letting me sit up. My bones cracked and whined at me. I looked at my hooves. “I’m not hungry.” He smiled and I looked at my body, I wasn’t skinnier, not even a little. I was still the perfect size. “Great, and you can make me a new armor set.” I looked at a pile of metal ribbon on a cart. “I will make you a better one, that was my mother’s early work.” “Yes and was more skilled than an entire country worth.” I chuckled getting up. “Any way just name materials and I'll have them brought here.” “Cool, can I have my armor back?” “No.” “What?” “Oh you’re my new personal blacksmith so you know.” I chuckled a little. “I’m not joking around, also as you are.” He appeared in front of me pinning me down, I gasp. “You don’t have a choice.” I laughed a little. “You don’t know how to make armor do you?” “What do you mean?” “My armor allows me to make armor, the armor I’m planning won’t simply be able to be made by normal means. That armor was made to make better armor, it was never actually meant for battle.” He stared at me. “You mean that armor which made you a match for me, was meant to be a suit to allow you to make armor, you’re telling me that if you made an armor set with that, it would be even greater than that one?” “Basically, your other one had slight modifications to your power boosting your magic, and physical abilities. Mine boosts my physical abilities to a higher level so I can withstand massive amounts of heat, speed, and power. The fact it was magic proof, was just an offset thing that wasn’t intended. It worked out nice for me though.” He chuckled and then started to laugh a little hard. “You are amazing.” “Anyway give me my father first and I'll make you your armor.” He sighed. “Fine.” A black stallion pegasus appeared floating, he was asleep. “There, now make my armor for me.” “I need some things, first my friends, my armor, my clothes that I was wearing, a privet room for each of my friends, my father included, then a list of materials that I'll write up once I have a quill and paper. I will also need a large open space, and some food, I should eat right? I went a long time without any.” “Yes, you won’t feel hungry any more so you’ll have to remember from now on. You should eat once a day or when you feel tired. You’ll probably never die of hunger though, it mostly depends on how much you ate, it could be thousands of years.” “In the last week about five hundred dragon worth of weight, and one actual dragon.” He stared at me for a moment. “Alright, well that will take you a long time before you’ll need to eat.” “Can you get off of me.” He chuckled and moved close so he was near my ear, his smell fill my lungs and I cringed as a different kind of urge came over me. “You can feel it, the way your body needs something more than some food. The only thing I haven’t figured out the cure to is mating. I can never be fulfilled, while I do climax, most have many times by then, and beg for more.” I swallowed. “Keep that tongue inside your mouth.” I closed his mouth and he bit his tongue again. “I am not that kind of mare, nor am I that easy to bate into something like that. You just finished telling me this was something that could be given to my offspring. I would never have your offspring and have them go through this. That was hell.” He cleared his throat. “Wow I couldn’t resist after I had done this, mating was all I could think of.” I chuckled pushing him but he didn’t move making me nervous. “You want quality armor?” He paused. “While I can make it look impressive, I can make it into a piece of burnt metal as well. So back off.” He chuckled. “I have your father and your friends.” “The dragon is my pet, so is the griffin, the unicorn just came along for no reason, they aren’t my friends, they are my property. I can replace them on a whim, you on the other hoof need me, and I’ve been through worse than this, while not nonstop like this, it was a hell of a lot more painful.” “And your father?” “I’ve never known him, my mother only wanted me to bring him back, and when I was a filly I left her, I haven’t seen her in years. His life is of little importance, I haven’t actually been around ponies that much.” I looked down realizing something, I was alone, it didn’t bother me, but no one could say they were my friend or that they knew me. “Fine, how about this, let me at least let you try it out, if you can’t stand it or don’t like it, you can shut my jaw again.” “Why do you want to?” He licked my cheek. “Can’t you smell it?” I swallowed and licked his neck. He was just full of flavor, he tasted even better now, just not in a, I want to eat you way. “Fine, but you can’t go for more.” “I'll not go pass that.” I felt his tongue go down licking along the way and playing with me, making me want more. “Well are you going to waste my time?” I asked flatly and he stared at me rather shocked, no completely shocked. “No fun.” He said smiling, he could tell I liked it, but I just wasn’t in a playful mood to care. I gasped as he did things with his tongue that made me cringe with pleasure, I was careful not to moan a single time. “Done?” I asked, he was almost to that point, but I didn’t want him to go further even though I had heavily enjoyed it, I almost want to force him into me, but this could become very dangerous if I lead him on like that. He pulled back his tongue frowning. “You didn’t enjoy that even a little?” I chuckled. “Rather lousy for a king.” His jaw locked narrowing his eyes making me roll mine. “Now then, all the things I asked for.” He licked his lips. “You taste beyond what I expected.” “What?” I asked and fear shot through my hearts. “I’ve never tasted another like you, the second I tasted you I was on fire inside, screw having you as my blacksmith, you’re my new queen.” I stared at him. “Oh hell I don’t care anymore.” He grinned and I gasped with a whimper as I felt him do something I wasn’t ready for mentally, or at least on some level. I couldn’t help but moan almost too loudly as I squeezed and finished in the first of his thrusts. He grinned knowing I was trying to hide it. “You said.” He kissed me and bliss washed over me as something more than the physicalness of it. He felt like pure happiness, joy, and peace at the same time. Something I didn’t even know how to comprehend, let alone imagine as I pulled him closed wanting more than just one thrust. “You lied.” He whispered. “I, lied.” I couldn’t help it, my mind wanted it, and my body wanted it, only my soul begged for less. He finished after a long time and he showed me to my room. Locking me inside with his magic. I laid on a bed breathing hard trying so hard to get every single moment out of my head, but only to make me want it more, he was like something else. I couldn’t describe how well we mixed together, like the creation of chocolate milk, just flawless in idea and taste. I trembled shaking a little in a ball. “Roma.” I blinked looking at Max. I hugged him pulling him onto the bed crying, while it was bliss in my mind and body, the fact I was just forced to do something I really didn’t want to, wasn’t any less of a horror. It ripped me up on the inside. “I’m so sorry.” He looked at me surprised. “I’ve never said that to you before, I realize now what I’ve done to you. I killed your friends didn’t I?” He looked down. “Yes, and my two brothers.” “I’m so sorry.” I grabbed a letter opener and put it into his claws moving him over me, so the blade was pointed perfectly over one of my hearts. “I have three hearts right now, if you want to kill me, you’ll have to stab me three times, I don’t care if Princess Celestia said I’m immortal, I know this will kill me.” A few tears went down his face. “No.” He threw the knife across the room surprising me. “You were sick, I can understand that all too easily. My brothers were going to die soon anyway, in fact we all were, had it not been for you, I wouldn’t be alive. After I met you an air ship crashed into the barracks. It killed everyone I knew. We would have been there if it wasn’t for you, and at least they didn’t die painfully. You were quick, the air ship burned.” “I’m sorry.” “You’ve killed a lot of ponies and a lot of other things, but in just one week you saved thousands more than you killed. You’ve done more evil than I can imagine because you were sick, but so much good. Now that you’re well, you’ll have no limit to the good you can do, to the lives you can save.” “I’m going to become this kings whore.” His eyes went wide. “If I can’t retrieve my armor or get my hoofs on something else just as good, I'll never be able to escape. Even the stick that Princess Celestia gave me won’t be able to take me from this place. The stone is impregnated with anti-magic metal balls.” “What do you need me to do?” “You need to get Cord and Fiona and leave. Tell Princess Celestia of what has happen and she will send help, right now he is no more powerful than her, but with Twilight Sparkle, Luna, Discord and the others I’m sure they can overpower him.” “But what happens if we leave you here?” “I can’t escape, he’ll make me his queen, I won’t be able to fight him. I don’t know why, but the way, the way my body responded to him, it was like he was my soul mate.” “Wait I’m confused, how do you know of Luna or Discord?” “I was born in Canterlot, I lived there for almost four years, I learned the entire history and many things by then, while in my cave I spent two years studying before the hunger made me forget everything. I was never thinking of anything but where was my next meal coming from.” “Oh.” “I need your help to do this, please.” “What about your father?” “Is he free?” “Yes, I actually had him already touch it.” I smiled. “That’s great, but I can’t leave this room.” “What?” I got up and went over to the door. I touched an invisible barrier. “Wait but I can, pass though.” “Yes, he has heavy spells on this wall, I couldn’t even dream of breaking this with anything less than an alicorn’s best combat spell. Please go, I'll survive, I won’t die, he wouldn’t let me.” “Then don’t lose hope, we’ll be back.” He ran out into the hallway. I sighed and went over to the bed laying down. Time went by and I didn’t care to move or try to make what happen okay. It was worth it to save my father and stop the hunger, but I dreaded what I knew was going to happen if I wasn’t saved. “Sleeping?” Loggon asked knowing the answer. “You know I’m not.” “Yeah I asked around, only on the full moon, that must be nice. I sleep every night, or more need to. You’re a different kind of monster.” “So you going to actually shoot your seed in me this time?” He chuckled walking over to me and going over me on the bed. I closed my eyes tighter, he kissed me. “Come now, you can’t tell me that you hate me, the way you moved made even me feel, like it was magic. I can’t tell you how badly I’ve wanted something like that. Even my last mate was little in compare, she couldn’t even get me off. I sent her away, even now though I think she stocks me.” “Well I didn’t want my first time to be like that.” “Your first, are you sure? You had experience unlike any other, I mean, it was.” He shook his head. “You were more than experienced, or was it natural talent?” He paused realizing I didn’t have a cutie mark. “You don’t have a cutie mark.” “Yeah I never got one.” “What? But every pony has one.” “I never got one.” He laid down next to me so we were face to face. He kissed me and I pulled him closer feeling the surge though my body, but then pushed him back. “Please, stop, I can barely resist you.” “Then why resist if you want it so badly?” “It’s, wrong.” “Why?” He pulled me closer. His breath made a sickening good filling rush down the front of my body making my lips quiver in expectancy, my hooves went numb wanting to feel his skin brush against mine in excitement. “Because I don’t love you.” “Do you need to?” I inched ever so close and I could tell he was the same, holding back even more than me, knowing too easily, that I had no real say in what he would do to me, rather it was going to be him or our bodied that pushed, I was going to beg him for more. “No.” He kissed me and the sensation came back but better, everything was right about him and I couldn’t say no, I didn’t want to. A Spider Sac Bounty“Where did you hear that song?” I looked at her, she was much bigger than I realized, a lot of bad meat though, making me sigh. The only thing I hated was bad meat. Other than that, not much got me down. “Oh the melody of the pond trapper?” I asked eyeing her a little confused. “Yes.” “From the pond trapper, he’s nice, but I don’t want to eat him, he’s poisonous to me and most things, lost two livers to him when I took one bite, only have two left now.” She paused and I appeared on Princess Twilight Sparkle’s back pinning her down to the ground stopping her from using magic. “Twilight!” “BAD PONY!” I shouted at her. “Trying to use magic behind my back, if it were not for the fact you probably have bad meat to, I would eat you.” I licked her and I paused. I wasn’t sure of it, but she had pony taste, and something more. She wasn’t bad, but not good either and I had fish cooking. I got off her going back to my spot. “Twilight, please, all of you, back off, if she wanted to kill you all, she easily could have long ago. Do not give her reason.” Ponies backed off and I sighed. “You scare my pray, and taste bad, you are a bad pony.” She chuckled lightly. “Tell me Roma, do you know a mare named Hammer?” I paused and looked at her. “I-I might.” I said nervously. Talking about my mother was always hard for me, the few times I did it, I never got around to talking honestly. “I thought so, you’re her daughter, I should have realized it sooner.” “I never said.” “You didn’t have to, you look a lot like her, and that armor you have on, only a master blacksmith could make that, and other than her daughter, no one can make it.” She rubbed my back a little. “She misses you, you know that right?” “I know.” “Then why don’t you go home?” “She smells too good.” Princess Celestia stared at me. “What?” “If I went back home now I couldn’t resist eating her.” I shivered a little. “I really miss her, but I can’t go back if I would only end up killing her. I’ve tried to stop, but, things just taste too good.” I wiped my mouth. “I send her letters, she knows I love her.” “So is that why you left home?” “At first I didn’t understand, ever since I was born, things, I just couldn’t understand it.” I leaned into Princess Celestia and she wrapped her hoof around me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.” “What do you mean?” “I fear your father may have been infected with something evil when you were conceived, and it affected you in this way. There was once a stallion by the name of Shadow, he was a very brave stallion, but he told me where he came from once. It was a long time ago, but the king of his lands is evil.” “Here.” Max said handing me some fish. “Princess Celestia would you like some.” She chuckled lightly. “Sorry I couldn’t stomach fish.” “Sorry.” “Keep going.” I said munching on the fish’s head. “Well he told me that the king of that land came into power through blood lust, he ate every pony he could stand to fit into his belly. Ever since he was a filly he had a taste for blood, and ended up eating anything which he saw as bad.” “Oh.” “He returned to his throne shortly after your father disappeared, my sister and I believed that he had been defeated him for good, after Shadow gave his life to defeat him, but we were mistaken gravely. He wiped out more than half his population in a single day with magic so terrible, it even made me weep when I heard.” “So then he has the same problem.” I looked down. “Yes, but after that day he became a noble king.” “What, but how would he, maybe he’s not like me.” “No, I think he’s just like you, and somehow managed to curve his hunger. I believe you could do the same.” “So then he might know a way.” “Yes, but he also has your father, I found out not long ago that he had left Equestria, in your father’s body as a vessel. That if his new body ever failed him or died, he could go back to that body. I know a way to disconnect it, but I could not go there myself. I would like you to do that.” “He has my father?” “Yes, I believe so, and if it were not for the fact your immortal like him, I would not ask for you to go.” “Immortal?” “Yes, you have magic heavily coursing through your body, even without your armor you would not be able to die.” “That’s nice.” “If you go I’m sure you could learn a way to see your mother and stand not eating her.” I smiled at the thought. “But I don’t know anything about him or the lands which he rules.” “It’s to the south west over the western ocean. I would be able to send you there easily if you’re willing.” “Can my pet come with me?” She looked at him. “I will, the more fish I feed her the less likely she is to eat some pony.” Max said. “Very well, he can come, Twilight come here.” She walked over to us and gave me a green stick. “This will allow you to return home once you have found your father, just have him touch it once, and he will be able to come with you. Come touch this as well griffin.” “It’s Max.” He came over and touched it. “Do not let any pony but your father touch this and keep it safe.” I put it away. “Twilight let’s open a portal.” Both of their horns glowed shooting a steam of magic at one spot opening a hole and showing a beach. “Fish.” I said and Max held up the crate. We walked through and Cord jumped through as well. I looked at him a bit confused. Princess Celestia waved as the portal closed. “Why are you coming?” “I’m going to help you, you should always have someone which can fly and one which can do magic.” He was in a decent set of my mom’s armor. I held out the stick and he touched it, I put it away hiding it inside my cloth so it couldn’t be touched even if searched. “Alright then we will need to find the king.” Max said. “Hey you!” Two ponies ran over to us in armor and Cord held me back a little. “Yes?” Cord asked. “What are you doing here? You should know that this beach is off limits, staying too long will kill you, get to the path now!” We all hurried to a floating path and they threw water on us from buckets. “Stay on the path from now on, at least till you get out of the toxic zone.” “We will.” Max said and they eyed him. “How rare a griffin.” The other one said. I shook and the water came off. My clothes changed to black. “Hey do you know where we can find the king?” Cord asked and they chuckled. “Let me guess you want to challenge the king,” one of them said laughing. “I guess a griffin might increase their chances.” “No we don’t want to challenge him, we need to talk to him.” “Oh, well we can lead you to the kings road, follow us.” We followed him seeing a wall not far off, the land as blackened by something and everything from the trees to the grass was dead, nothing could live here. We got to the wall. “Open up!” The wall moved showing a vast field of flowers. Sweet smells filled my lungs and I looked at Cord, he was rather shocked. We walked pass the wall onto a stone path. We started walking and after a while got to a town. It was as full as Los Pegasus, and just as clean making me a little nervous. We stopped at a road marked path to capital. “This is amazing.” Max said. “You’re not from around here are you?” The guard asked looking at us. “No.” “Well just follow this road to the capital, he’s normally on the streets tasting ponies, so keep your eye out, but if you can’t find him, you can go to the castle, he’ll be there most likely then, just don’t attack him and you’ll be fine.” “Thanks.” I said and they nodded as we started walking. After a while we stopped, both of them were tired from walking. It had been hours and we had seen small villages off to the right and left, but other than that nothing. “How far away is this place?” Max asked and I looked at him rubbing his feet. “This stone path is killing me.” “We should also head in for the night.” Cord said pointing up at the storm clouds. I sighed but followed them to the next village heading to the local inn. We walked inside and ponies were laughing eating. The inn was completely open space with a bar covering the whole back side of the inn, two stairs were off to the side of the door, and a single desk was just a few yards from the door. Cord went to the stallion innkeeper sitting behind the heavy desk. “How much for a room?” The stallion looked at us. “You here to challenge the king?” “No, we’re just going to the capital.” “Oh, yeah you got at least another three day walk ahead of you. One night is ten bits of gold.” “That’s a little high.” “High? You must not be from around here, that’s really low, we’re the bother’s cheap room and board. Anywhere else is easily double that. Do you want a room or not?” Cord pulled out ten bits of gold and gave it to him. He gave him a key with a tag on it. We went to the room and it had two beds. “I don’t think we will find fish around here.” Max said looking at me and I paused at the foot of a bed. “It’s fine Max, I can stand a while without food.” I hopped onto a bed rolling around a little. “You called me Max.” I looked at him. “Yes, because you are my pet, but a good one, so you earned your name.” “Well I guess guys on one side.” Cord said and Max eyed him. “No, Max you sleep here, I have three more days before I sleep. I'll rest and keep my energy up.” “Wait but if it’s a three day walk, won’t you fall asleep when we reach the capital?” “Yes, but I only sleep for a full day before I’m awake for another two weeks. Come here Max, you’re tried right?” “Yeah.” He got onto the bed. “Sleep would be a good idea,” Cord said. “Once we wake up we’ll go get something to eat and figure something out for you Roma so you don’t starve.” I smiled and Max hugged me making me giggle a little. They fell asleep and Max’s warm body felt wonderful, but it would also taste wonderful cooked. If fish could taste so good cooked, what could bird meat taste like cooked? I swallowed trying to get the thought out of my mind. I got up after a while going down stairs. The innkeeper looked at me. “Not sleeping well?” I looked at him then around, the place was packed the day before, now it was empty. I looked at the door, it was boarded up heavily. “I sleep only on the full moon, but they were tried so we stopped. Do you have any fish by chance?” He thought for a moment. “Oh your griffin is a meat eater, let me check in the back.” He went back behind a bar going through some doors and came out a few minutes later. “We don’t have any in stock, but I can pick some up once the bell rings.” “Bell ring?” “I almost forgot, you’re not from around here. You see more than half of the country is pledged by wild beasts of all kinds, always have been. There are actually bounties now set by the king to have ponies take care of it, but so long as we lock our doors or aren’t out at night, we’re fine. The beasts are dangerous so, not many want to try their hoof at it. There are free shelters in ever town for ponies which can’t afford a home or inn.” “What kinds of beasts?” “You’re not thinking what I think your thinking. You cannot go out there and try to collect the bounties.” “I don’t care about the bounties if the beasts are made of meat.” He gave me an odd look for a second. “I believe they are made of meat.” He said unsure if he wanted to answer. “Great, well then can you let me out?” “Alright, it’s your deathbed, just save fangs, or skulls. Each is worth five gold bits, just go to the bounty keeper of any town and they will redeem it.” We walked over to a door, and took off three heavy pieces opening it. I smiled walking outside. I stared at hundreds of winged spiders, I had never seen winged spiders before, but from what I could see and smell, they would be a very tasty meal to be had tonight. My mouth watered as they started to notice me. “Tasty treats come to me.” I said. They charged at me but had no chance screaming in agony as I easily ripped them to bits craving them up nicely, leaving any poisonous parts out and saving their fangs. Cord and Max probably would like the gold. I stopped having finished with my meal. I had a large stack of fangs piled cleanly away from the rest of the bad parts. I looked around a bit having obliterated them clean into the forest destroying the nests and wiping them out completely. They wouldn’t be back. “AAAAAAAH!” I heard some pony scream and I turned sitting onto of a bed of spider sacs, a gray earth pony was terrified, but the bed was comfortable. Ponies started coming out and the Innkeeper came out falling against the wall shocked. Cord ran over to me with Max. “Roma what have you done?!” He shouted at me. “But.” “No! We are in a distant land, you can’t just eat anything you see!” “But.” “No, that was bad.” “I can’t believe it.” The innkeeper said coming over to us. “We are so sorry, she has sometimes bad impulses.” “What do you mean? She just wiped out the greatest threat this village has ever faced, single hoofedly and you think that was bad?” “It, wait you wanted the beasts slain?” “Yes, we have a five gold bit bounty per fang set, from the looks of the piles, she wiped out every single flying spider, just last week we lost eight to them.” He looked at me quivering a little and tears went down his face. “We lost very dear pony to them, they were going to overrun the town.” Ponies started cheering and I looked around. “That’s good she did it then.” “Some pony get the bounty keeper!” He shouted running off. “I’m sorry.” He rubbed my head a little. “I kept the fangs for the bounties, you and Max said something about liking gold bits, so I made sure to keep them all intact. “We should get you cleaned up.” I got off the sac bed and shook, the blood and guts easily came off cleaning me. “How many fangs is that?” Max asked. “Um, there were about a hundred and forty five, so two hundred and ninety fangs, but the hatchlings didn’t have fangs or any meat. I was sad by that, their meat wasted, but from the sound of it leaving them alive would be bad. Protecting them was good right?” Cord hugged me tightly. “Yeah, protecting them was great.” “By Celestia.” We looked at a blue unicorn mare wearing a bowtie. “You destroyed the nests as well, I don’t think we set a bounty for that though, I’m the mayor by the way.” “That’s fine,” Max said walking over to us. “She did it for good measure, now about that bounty.” A stallion went over to the pile of fangs and sorted them counting the fangs. “One hundred and forty five sets!” He shouted and ponies cheered. “Go fetch the bounty quickly.” The mayor said. The pony ran off and came back later with a good size bag on his back. Max picked it up feeling the weight a little. “Well this will do us wonders.” Max put it into Cord’s pack. “We should have a feast.” The mayor said. “Already ate.” He smiled at me a little sickened. “Alright, then Innkeeper, on my tab, drinks for them.” “Will do.” We headed back into the inn and I had my fill of water. Max and Cord got drinks and food before heading back onto the road. I had bought a cart from the village, allowing me to stick both of Cord and Max on the back and pull them. “Are you sure this is alright?” Max asked. “We need to get to the capital, and you slow me down.” “Well we shouldn’t go to the capital till you’ve slept,” Cord said and I looked at him. “I don’t want to have you falling asleep when we meet the king.” “If I run we can make it there in a few hours.” “Wait, your still hungry right?” “Yes,” I said sighing. “That wasn’t even breakfast normally.” “Right well there are plenty of towns with monster problems, if we help them then you’ll be able to eat your fill, we’ll make a ton of gold, and you’ll get to sleep.” “Max what do you think?” I asked looking at him as I kept walking. “Well I don’t like the idea of using you to make money like some ponies.” He said sneering at Cord and he looked away. “But if we get a lot of gold we can trade that for fish, plenty of fish.” I gasped stopping. “You can trade gold for fish?!” “Yes, you didn’t realize that?” “No of course not, I would have gone and harvested millions of bits of gold if I knew that was true.” They stared at me for a few seconds. “In fact I found large mounds of gold back there in the forest, I didn’t think that was useful since, I was going to get gold bits.” Both of them stared at me. “Don’t worry, if you find more harvest it.” “Alright I will.” I started walking. “Should we stop at each town?” “Yes,” Max said smiling. “There are a ton of forests around here so I think we most of the beasts will be hiding in the forests.” I smiled and ran getting to the next village.
The Desert“Come on!” I shouted jumping from the leg of the mountain spider onto it’s back and bucking a offspring, sending it over the side. I did a one hoof stand flipping over one as two charged hitting each other. I turned jumping into several bolder spiders, then started to beat the bolder spiders black and blue till they stopped attacking me. “NOW!” I shouted at them. “Ponies are not dinner! Remember that next time! If I so much as catch you coming by my cave again, I'll beat you up again!” One of them whined in a gurgle. After a while I understood their language. “I know you’re hungry, but you know I am not your food!” They huddled scared of me and I ran to the side jumping off flipping a few times before landing cracking the hard rock’s under my hooves. I ran sending up a huge plume of dust into the air behind me. I stopped after reaching my cave. I went and pulled out a bottle of sandy water from my cooler removing my desert scarf. I sat down at my table making a light metal clink from my armor. My whole body was covered in magic waived enhanced armor. I wore heavy tan clothes over my armor, including my helmet, which had rather sturdy glasses to protect my eyes in sand storms, which happen a lot. I got up after finishing the bottle and setting it back into the cooler, sighing as I hooked my scarf back. I had left home as a very young filly, I hadn’t even started school yet. I couldn’t stand my mother, it was just making me sick. I wanted to strangle her after a while just to taste her fresh bloody hide. She probably missed me after so many year. Though I would stop by once in a while in Apple Loosa dropping off a note in a mailbox, and then have it sent to her in Canterlot. She was still the best blacksmith in the entire city, no at this point the world. “What do we have here?” I looked at a black stallion unicorn in light black armor, it had my mother’s markings all over it, no one else besides me could make armor so well. I had even made the armor I was wearing, it wasn’t my talent, but I was still great at it. “I don’t take kindly to visitors whoever you are.” “No offense little one, but you don’t quite have the right to say that, since this land was bought not more than a few days ago.” I sighed. His armor was one of my mother’s normal cheap as dirt sets, probably a few hundred gold bits. An armor set like mine was worth more than several homes in Canterlot, plus enough to stay warm at night for years. “Oh and why would anyone pay gold to buy this place?” “Some rare minerals were found, we’re still surveying the area.” He looked me up and down. “And from your clothes, I’m guessing you’re a local from a nearby tribe. That’s going to be a huge headache.” “I believe that there has to be more than one pony to be in a tribe.” “You’re by yourself?!” He said a little too shocked. I groaned knowing what that meant, he wasn’t by himself, and I couldn’t just eat them without ponies coming to his aid, which would probably scare off dinner. “Yeah I have for years, I’ve spent most of my life here.” “Where do you come from? You don’t sound.” “Like a nitwit?” “I wasn’t going to say that.” “Yeah well I keep myself well read. Not that I found much out here, anyway get out of my home.” “How about a job?” I eyed him for a few moments. “What?” “Well we need a guide, if you’ve been out here for as long as you say, then you must know this area pretty well, as well as being able to defend yourself. If you help us survey, you could get paid a lot of bits of gold.” I chuckled. “Really gold, I have no use for gold, if I wanted gold I could just go mine it from Smokey Mountain. There are mounds of the stuff there, tons of it. There’s even this one solid gold piece larger than me. If it wasn’t for the fact I don’t need gold I would have brought it back home with me.” “What?!” “What do you mean what? I was over there to get some stupid metals, unlike there, this place doesn’t have any metal at all.” I sighed. “The trips are too long and after a while I just stopped going.” “Nothing here? Are you sure?” “Well I mean.” I pointed at light stones on the walls. “Other than those and some small deposits there, isn’t much here, and I’ve looked all over the place.” He swallowed. “Wait you mean you guys thought.” I started to laugh. “Are you sure?” “You do realize that there are some creatures out there that eat metals and gems right?” “I, I can’t believe this.” “What do you mean?” “You have no reason to lie to me right?” “Well other than to get you out of my home no.” “Wait why would you look for metals?” “To make my armor.” I flashed under my tan coat showing a golden weave. “I made this a long time ago though. I actually came out here first, because I thought there’d be stuff out here, but after the thrills of beating those monsters. Running for my life and so much more, I fell in love with this place. You can’t believe the dangers, it’s great.” “You should talk to my boss, he’ll want to hear this.” “And why should I do that? If I leave you be, you’ll all be dead by morning, that armor would only slow you down, they would open you up like you were covered in tissue paper. Hey even I could if I wanted to.” I chuckled. “I'll give you food and water.” I paused. “You have food and water?” “I’m guessing that’s hard to come by out here.” “Fresh water is, unless I go to the river, food is all over the place.” I chuckled hiding my razor sharp teeth a little. After the first few days here I was starving, and near death. I ended up eating some animal made out of meat, and ever since I loved eating them raw. “I'll give you a few bottles of water.” “Fine.” I followed him for a ways and we came upon a large camp at the bottom of the mountain. At least sixty ponies were doing things. A few looked at us as we went to a large stallion in black cotton making me giggle at him. He had a white coat under it covering his wings, was a pegasus. “Who’s this, and do not tell me that’s a tribe pony.” “She’s not from any tribe, but she’s a local.” He let out a sigh of relief. “She’s lived here for years.” “Hey I want the water first.” “What?” The stallion asked. “Oh I promised her water for information, she said she didn’t care about gold.” “There’s that much here?” “No in Smokey Mountain,” I started and the stallion in black armor gave me the glass bottles. “Plenty of gold in Smokey Mountain, but not much here, I’ve checked for a lot of things, I normally wouldn’t care for gold, but there’s very little here, or at least that I’ve ever found. Other than small deposits of minerals, nothing big.” “Are you.” “This water is so clean!” I said looking in the glass seeing it perfectly clear. “Even water from the Ghastly Gorge river wasn’t this clean. How did you do this?” He stared at me and I stared at him. He dropped a quill and his jaw dropped. “You’re serious.” Every pony around us stood frozen. “This isn’t a joke, you’re seriously telling me that there are no minerals anywhere!” “No I told you there are small ones, you’re sitting on one right now.” He looked at a gray rock under him. “What?” I sighed and went around. He moved. I punched the rock cracking it. I pulled ripping it open showing a ton of gems. “You’ll find a few deposits of gems like this all over the place.” I picked up a big gem, moving my scarf eating it. “They taste great, I always wondered why dragons loved the taste, I found out when I was trapped in a small cave, with three of those gem rocks. They taste really good to.” He swallowed picking other one up and biting it. “Oh, bucking.” He dropped holding his mouth. “You can eat real gem?!” A pony asked coming over to us. “I guess not every pony can.” I put my scarf back. “Anyway thank you for the water, if you need.” I paused seeing several bolder hatchlings in the center of a group of fifteen ponies. I growled jumping over the desk running over to them. “HEY I TOLD YOU, PONIES ARE NOT FOOD!” “Those are rocks.” A pony said. “GET OUT OF HERE NOW!” They whined getting up making every pony around them fall back shocked and scared. “And if I catch you in my territory hunting again I’m going to tell your mother!” A few ponies near other rocks backed away from them. “I swear those hatchlings are getting on my LAST NERVE!” I shouted after them. “Just because they have their first teeth set coming in doesn’t mean they can hunt in my hunting ground.” “Hunting ground?” I looked at the boss pony very uneased. “Hey if you guys die do you mind me taking your water?” I went up to him. “I mean you won’t need it, but that would be rude to do it without asking.” “What do you mean hunting ground?” “Well I got to eat something.” I chuckled. “You ponies act like you’ve never eaten meat before, I mean it’s funny.” Every pony around me backed up. “I mean you do eat meat right?” I looked around at them. “What’s wrong with you all?” I looked around unsure. “You eat meat?” The pony in black armor asked. “Yeah? Oh don’t worry I stopped eating ponies a long time ago, you guys just won’t stop complaining about getting eating, screaming attracting more creatures. I swear, you are just so ungrateful to the higher order.” They backed away from me further. “Okay now you’re pissing me off.” “So what other minerals have you found?” The boss pony asked. “Just some assorted minerals, nothing that great, I have to go all over the place to find the stuff I want. I stopped doing that after a while, going from one area to the next was almost too taxing, if there’s time to look for things, then there’s time to look for food. So, um about that water?” “How about this, you mark on this map all the locations of the minerals, what kinds and how much, and I'll give you as much as you can carry.” “Oh you got a deal.” I went around the desk scanning the maps. “Um, these maps are outdated and you don’t have any of the creature patterns on this map to take into account.” He paused. “That would be helpful, we’ll give you food as well.” “Alright.” I took off my scarf and started to write. I drew marking all over several maps as well as writing down details on several creatures taking almost the entire day. I yawned done and stretched a little. “Every pony we leave in twenty minutes.” Boss pony said coming over to me and his eyes went wide. “Okay there are over ten thousand creatures and many areas you want to avoid. The most likely threat are the bolder spiders, while they can be handled normally, there are a lot of them and they have started to spread out all over the place.” “Wow.” He said looking at the maps. “Oh and the water and food.” “Over there.” He pointed to crates and a boxes of food. I smiled running over and stacking as much as I could onto my back perfectly balancing seven crates of water bottles and a box of food on my head making ponies stare at me a little shocked. “Thanks for the water and food.” I hummed a little as I walked perfectly going back to my cave unloading the water and food. I picked up a bottle looking at it. I had never seen such clear water before, this was amazing. “Hey.” I turned looking at the pony in the black armor. “Hi.” “We’ll be leaving soon, and we won’t be coming back, would you like to guide us out of the desert?” I had never really left the desert, the closest I had gotten to Apple Loosa was several hundred yards to a farm house to send a letter or two. Even when going to Smokey Mountain I always took the back roads never running into any pony. “Well you gave me a ton of water.” “Once we get out you can have the rest.” I stared at him. “How much is left?” “Ten times what you took at least.” “You have yourself a guide.” I followed him and we went back to their camp site. I went over to the boss pony. “Glad to see you back, also any way to get you to tell me about Smokey Mountain?” I chuckled a little. “The dragon there is really nice, when I first saw him I bit him. He was so startled that I had done that. He actually screamed as I tried to eat him. He had so much meat on him. He finally told me to stop. Ever since then he has always was uneasy around me, and never really bothers me anymore when I want to take from his horde. I though often times added more to it than take away from it.” “Really?” “Yeah he’s a big guy, but he’s not mean, and I wouldn’t want to just use him, that would be rude.” “Is there any way you could get me a lot of gold? I have things better than water and simple food.” “You keep making these offers I might just have to taste you. You make things sound really good.” He swallowed. “Yeah well, I, um don’t go outside of my species.” I chuckled at him being so oddly disgusted. “I was born in Canterlot, I’m the same species as you, I just don’t live in a city. Though I haven’t been in one since I was a filly. I think my mother still lives there, I bet she misses me now though.” “You, seem so different though.” “Different? What do you mean?” “Well it’s not normal for ponies to eat meat, and be able to eat gems like candy. That’s not a normal thing to do.” “I guess, other than one or two ponies that I find, you guys are the first in a long time. So I guess you would know if that was weird.” I yawned. “Oh man I’m getting hungry again, I hope we get attacked on our way I’m really hungry today, or tonight.” I looked at the setting sun. “Is it more dangerous at night?” I looked at him. “Ah, no and yes, yes as in there are a bunch of different creatures, but no at the same time, more as in the mountain spider sleeps during the night. I don’t think I could stop her from eating you all, so night time is better for traveling in a large group.” “Mountain spider?” Another pony asked putting a pack on a cart. “Oh yeah there she is right now.” I pointed at her and they stared. “She’s a bit shy till you get to know her. Though, her hatchlings have been getting annoying. You saw them earlier actually. The bolder hatchlings, they are finally getting their first set of teeth, so they tend to go further away from the mother to hunt.” “Every pony ready?!” The boss pony shouted and everyone nodded. “Okay so take us the safest path out and to, I’m guessing Los Pegasus.” I paused. “I’ve never been there before, but I can get you to the dirt road which leads there.” “That’ll be fine.” I went and jumped onto a wagon looking around at all of them. I counted. Sixty three of them. “Alright every pony pick a partner, you are to scream if your partner disappears. We will have stops every once in a while for breaks. Speak up if you get hurt, blood will attract creatures for thousands of yards so I need to know right away.” They paired up. “Okay now then stay in a tight group, we want to seem like we’re a big creature, the bigger the better, they will leave us alone then, just try not to make noise. No food is allowed to be in the open.” I hopped down and they huddled together. We started to move walking at a good pace, stopping a few times to let them rest. I sat at the head of the group humming the pond trapper melody. “Hey what’s that song?” I looked at the pony that had come to my cave, he was in tan clothes, no longer in his armor. I looked around and every pony in the group was paying attention to me. “The pond trapper melody, you’ve never heard it before?” He shook his head no. “It’s a sad song, the pond trapper can’t leave his pond and gathers riches, hoping for a mate to one day reach it’s claw into the pond to be found.” “That’s, okay.” “I'll feed him gems from time to time and he sings so wonderfully.” I started humming again. “We’re ready to move.” Boss pony said after a while and I got up. “No we’re not.” He looked at me a bit confused. “My dinner arrived.” They looked at a small herd of large scorpion beetles. They stared at me smiling. “Oh I haven’t seen you beauties in a long time!” “By Celestia!” One of the ponies shouted. I appeared in front of the scorpion beetles stopping them, and digging into one of my now meals, ripping it apart as I sunk my teeth into its moist body. Red blood splashed the ground as I ripped into them. One tried running toward the ponies and I jumped onto it’s back crushing it’s spine. “Oh no you don’t blue delicious.” I dragged it back to the other and started to eat, I stopped when only bones and some bad parts were left. I walked back over to them hanging my scarf again over my mouth, shaking off the blood off my clothes. “Yeah.” Boss pony said looking a bit green. I looked at them and all of them were scared, of me? I didn’t know why, but it wasn’t my problem that they hadn’t enjoyed a meal of a scorpion beetle before. It was always juicy and filling. “Are you alright?” I asked and one of them puked making me eye him. “Are you hurt or did you get stung?” “No,” the boss pony said. “Every pony’s fine, we’ve just never seen a pony devour creatures like that before.” “You guys really don’t eat meat, how weird. Oh well, let’s keep moving.” We started moving and three days later we got to the road. I had actually run into really good creatures to eat, it was wonderful. Though they never spoke to me much, I never really asked them why though.
Train? Can I eat it?“ROAD!” A pony said running, kissing it and prancing around. I looked around, they were all happy to see a road, I didn’t understand it. “You guys really love your roads.” The boss pony came over to me smiling. “No we’re just happy to see it, and no one died thanks to you and you’re eating habits. I guess.” “It’s no problem.” “How about you come with me? I’m going to Ponyville to turn in my findings to my boss, if you do, I'll give you all the water you can drink.” “Ponyville.” I thought for a moment. “Never heard of it.” “Near the Everfree forest.” The pony in tan clothes said. “Oh that place, I go there to hunt sometimes. I find some of the best meals there, sure I'll come with you.” “Great, um but you’ll need to give the details to my boss, about Smokey Mountain.” “Sure.” “So, why do you live in dangerous place?” The pony in tan clothes asked. “Dangerous?” He chuckled. “Why do you say it’s dangerous? You ponies have acted so weird since I met you. Anyway if we follow this road it should lead us to Everfree Forest rather quickly.” “We’re not walking there.” Boss pony said and I looked at him confused. “Well I don’t have wings.” “The train?” “What’s a train?” They stared at me like I was stupid or something. “Well what is it? Is it some kind of beast?” I looked at them unsure. “Can we, eat it?” “It’s made of metal.” Boss pony said. “The question stands.” I said eyeing him. “No, you cannot eat it.” He said laughing lightly. “Oh.” I said sadly. I looked down digging with my hoof, whatever a train was, it sounded good. I wanted to try it. They started walking and I followed boss pony for a while. “We never asked your name.” I looked at the pony in tan clothes. “Roma.” “I’m Cord.” “Nice to meet you.” “I’m Haggle.” Boss pony said. “That’s a cool name.” I stopped at the city limits and every pony stopped as well. “I’ve never been in a city really, or at least not for a long time. I don’t even remember what Canterlot looks like any more.” “It’s fine,” Cord said. “Nothing will hurt you here.” “Oh I know that, I’ve just never been good around such weirdly unnatural things. I keep thinking they will fall over or something.” I hesitated stepping onto stone. I pressed it and it seemed sturdy enough. “We should probably get you some shoes.” I looked at my hooves and then at the rest of them. They were wearing metal things on the bottom of their hooves. “Why?” “Your hooves will chip if you don’t,” Haggle said. “It’s painful.” “Wait then why do you put your cities on hard stone then?” “We don’t, we made these roads.” Cord said. “How do you do that?” “Later.” Haggle said and I walked onto the stone, it was weird feeling rock so flat under my hooves. I followed them looking around amazed. This city was simply wonderful, I had never seen so many ponies and such weird things. I zipped around looking at every store window scaring pony with my sudden appearance. “Roma!” Cord said and I appeared in front of him. “Yes?” “Stop doing that, you’re scaring ponies.” I looked around and the ponies at the last shop were freaked out. “Also how do you move so fast? You’re not a unicorn. So you can’t possibly be teleporting.” “Oh my armor, it enhances my abilities a thousand fold. Also I’ve never seen such things before.” “Well calm down, we’re almost at the train station.” We went to the train station and I looked around seeing the weird tracks. I had come by them before, maybe the train was something that needed a road of some kind. They sure did love their roads. “Here it comes.” I backed up hearing a rattle of something heavy. I looked down the tracks and Cord pulled me back. “Don’t do that, in fact don’t do anything.” I nodded and waited till a large metal thing came rolling down the tracks making me back up a little. It was odd, really odd I had never seen something like it before. It slowed hissing at us and then blew hot air at me making me jump back, then forward kicking it rather hard, sending it flying though the air into a wall breaking through the wall easily. “No one blows air at me monster!” I shouted at it and every pony backed away from me in fear. “That was steam.” Cord said and I looked at him shocked seeing the train over fifty yards away on its side. “Many monsters blow steam, I’m not about to let it spit scolding water on me.” “It is a steam engine, it’s not alive and it isn’t a creature or monster, ponies made it out of metal.” “Now you’re just making things up.” “Can you please put it back onto the tracks. It can’t move otherwise.” “I knew it, it does need a special road to move.” “Please.” I sighed and ran over to it going to the other side and kicking it perfectly, sending it flipping through the air and landing on the tracks rocking back and forth making me jump, stopping it from falling over on its side. I went back over to Cord and he looked at me a little scared. “Happy?” “Yes, thank you.” “Um you need to come with us miss.” I turned to see two ponies in carbon armor with guns on arms on their sides. I had once fought ponies like them, plus a large blue dragon which tasted like the dead. They were responsible for killing a lot of my food from some kind of weird explosion years ago which I was young. “Wait guys it was a misunderstanding.” Haggle said. “She pretty well almost destroyed the train.” One of them said. “What are you talking about that thing hissed at me.” They looked at me weird. “If anything I don’t know why you allow such monsters in your cities, you ponies confuse me to no end, I swear.” “Is she alright in the head?” One of them asked. “Listen it was an accident, this is the first time near a train,” Cord said. “And you really don’t want an earth pony that was just able to kick a train to be mad at you.” They looked at me for a few seconds. “It doesn’t matter we will have to detain her till we can find out the cost of the damage and then have her pay for it.” “Why would you repair a monster?” “Does she even have gold? Or is some pony else going to have to pay for the repairs?” I looked at them confused. “Why would I have gold? I don’t understand.” “Listen we can repair it ourselves,” Haggle said. “Six members of my team are train operators and repairers. In fact they are already fixing it now with their magic.” I looked over at the train as ponies started to heal it. “You must really love the beast to heal it like that.” “IT’S A MACHINE!” Cord shouted at me and I frown stomping the ground making it shake. “Don’t you dare raise your voice to me, little pony,” I growled and he backed away in fear of me. “If you ever do that again and I'll rip you to pieces.” “Okay, okay.” “Trains ready!” A pony shouted. I turned growling at the train making Cord go in front of me. “Please don’t attack the train again, it’s nice we ride on its back.” I snorted. Whatever this train was I didn’t like it. “Come on, nice and calm, come onto it’s back with me.” Cord said leading me into a hallowed out back. “Wow.” I said looking around. “How is it that I took off the head and it is still alive? And how did you capture it?” “We made it and that is the engine, it moves all the carts with it by hooks, so it’s not really connected to the front.” “I still don’t like it, but you have made the inside look very nice. No wonder you love riding on its back.” “Yeah, um sir do you mind if I get her cleaned up?” “No go ahead.” Haggle said. Cord pulled me along as we went to the back and to a rather weird stone room. “This is a shower,” Cord said pressing a switch, clear water came out surprising me and backing up at the heat. “It cleans you.” “You clean yourself in its, its piss?” I asked looking at him and he paused. “Wait is that what that water was?” He slapped himself in the face laughing a little. “No this is water like any other, we have pipes made of metal to transport hot water so we can take showers and baths.” “Don’t you just use rivers or something?” “No, for goodness sake, get undressed.” He started getting undressed and I blushed. “Why do you want me to get undressed?” “Oh Princess Celestia help me.” “Who?” He chuckled. “Of course you wouldn’t know who that is, who in their right mind would think that you would know who raises the sun every morning.” “Raises the sun, right, I'll believe that when I see it.” “Get undressed.” I sighed. “Fine, but if you do anything weird.” I pushed him to the floor pinning him to the ground a little hard. “I'll eat you.” He swallowed. “I promise I won’t touch you in any bad way, please.” I sighed and got undressed. He stared at my dark green mane and coat. “You don’t have a cutie mark.” I looked at him. “How old are you?” “I don’t know.” “You’re a mare not a filly, so you would be around what fifteen?” “I guess, why would that matter?” “Well just wondering.” He went to pick up my armor and tried, but stopped. “How heavy is your armor?” “A few hundred pounds, why were you trying to pick it up?” “You are crazy and I’m insane.” He went through about twenty minutes of talking, of how being clean was a smart thing to do. I never got sick, but apparently others could, and it was just pleasant to do it. I cleaned my armor and he had my cloth washed before pushing me into the shower. “What now?” He closed the door and turned on the hot water. “Don’t buck!” He ordered and I didn’t as hot water hit me making me whimper. He seemed to like the heat, and after a few minutes it felt nice. I had never had a hot water bath before, and this was really nice, burned sure, but good. “Wow.” I said and I paused as he started to wash my coat making me shake a little as he really cleaned me. I pushed him back as he nearly reached somewhere he shouldn’t. “Where do you think those hooves are going?” I asked pushing him against the wall. “Even without your armor your frightening strong.” “I asked you a question.” “I need to clean everything.” I blushed. “Everywhere.” I stepped back. “Please it needs to be done.” I swallowed. “You ponies are weird, most of you wear nothing, you have no shame, but, I suppose if I must to, to.” “Please, you’ll like how you smell. Without your armor you stink. I mean you do keep your coat nice and all, but you really need to wash more.” “Fine, but, you, have to be gentile. I fell onto some sharp rocks not long ago, and my belly is still in pain.” “I will be as gentile as possible.” I closed my eyes and his hoof was warmer than I thought it would, feeling rather nice. I had never let anything touch me before, but he had a way that made me feel rather odd. He stopped after a while. “Why did you stop?” I asked looking at him. “You’re clean.” I paused. “Oh, I suppose some more cleaning wouldn’t hurt.” “You’ve never, mated before have you?” I looked away. “No.” “Well you’re still young, it’s not odd for you not to. Anyway we’re done.” We got out and he dried us off with a towel. I got dressed back into my now shiny armor putting on clean dry cloth. “Feels nice.” I looked at him. “Yes, I does.” I blushed a little. “I’m just not used to it, though I can’t say I will get used to it, wasting water like that is beyond me.” “Being clean is never beyond any pony, you should do it more often. I think you’ll enjoy the freshness.” “Maybe I will.” I smiled hiding it behind my scarf. Maybe ponies were more than just the last choice of a long list of meals. I followed him to Haggle and he looked up from a paper of some kind. “Ah you both look better.” “She’s presentable. Looks a lot better without her armor on, but I don’t think we could get her to walk around without it.” “That’s fine, now Roma come here.” I went around sitting next to him. The comfort of these ponies was unheard of to me. I looked at a map of Smokey Mountain. “Now I know you probably don’t want to go into detail, but will you outline on this map all the deposits of materials?” “Sure.” He handed me a quill and I started writing details about the mountain explaining the dangerous areas, and other things which would cause them to lose life or limb. He smiled once I finished. “Well my employer will love these maps, though I can imagine he won’t be happy that a lot of this is protected by dragons and other creatures.” I yawned. “Have you slept lately? I don’t know if I saw you sleep at all, the whole trip back.” “I sleep once a full moon, I can’t afford more sleep than that.” “Well no pony will hurt you here.” “Oh I have no fear that you could even scratch me, even in my slumber, but I simply don’t go to sleep, but once a full moon. It’s in four days.” “You seem tired.” “Yes I do get tired from time to time, especially when it’s hot, that shower water was quite warm so I’m a little tired. I'll be fine for a while though.” “That’s good, also food.” I turned to a pony pulling a cart. She smiled as she set plates of weird things on the table. I looked at her. “Don’t mind if I do.” I got up and Cord pushed me down. “Not her!” He scolded me and her eyes went wide realizing what he meant. “I'll be on my way.” She hurried to another thing of the train’s back. “What?” I asked looking at him. “No eating ponies! This is food.” He pointed at the things on the plates. “We have sweets, and other things that are good for you, grass root, cooked carrots, celery, apples, then some apple cider and other drinks. Here eat.” He gave me a carrot and I took it eyeing him as if he was joking. “Your joking, I’ve never seen this weird stuff before in my life, you expect me to believe that you’re telling me that this is food, and eating ponies is wrong?” “Yes.” “You ponies are so weird.” “Have you met anyone else besides us?” I paused. “No.” “Then what can that make you assume?” “You have no sense of taste.” He chuckled. “Try it please. We can get more if you like it, or, I’m sure we can find you something with meat if we must. Fish or something.” “Oh I love fish.” He looked around at other ponies unsteady. He shoved the carrot into my mouth and I studied the taste. It wasn’t, bad but it was no scorpion beetle. That was for sure, and it was cold, which was odd. “How do you like it?” “I could survive on these I guess, but I can barely stand the taste, how do you eat these and stay alive?” He sighed and had me try everything. I could even swallow what he called a cake, it was crazy too sweet and sickening. “You know I could do this all day just to see you queasy.” Cord said and I sneered at him making him chuckle. “Bring me fish, I can’t stand your food.” “I'll go speak to the chef.” I sighed as he left, and I looked out the window. I paused realizing that we were moving! And fast, I looked around and I hadn’t noticed. “We’re moving.” I looked at Haggle and he looked out the window. “Yeah, you didn’t know?” “No, I thought that it would be rough, but I don’t know now. How is it that it moves without legs?” “The wheels.” I opened the window looking out feeling the wind blowing on my face, smells brushing my nose, and the feeling of fresh air going into my lungs made me smile. A tug made me come back inside. “Can you believe how fast this beast goes?” “Yeah, pretty fast, anyway, I need a few more details.” He closed the window. “What?” “Do you know of any other mining sites, maybe safer?” “Well there are tons of other places which are much easier to get to, if that’s what you mean.” He pulled out a map and I marked areas, in the badlands, Haysead Swamps, a few places on mountains, a ton of places in the crystal mountains. “Whoa, you really have a knack for finding ore.” “What, oh no, I only find it because I am on a hunting trip, if I don’t balance out where I hunt then I wipe out local food and start to starve. I only did that once, now I move around enough that I never need to worry about it.” We talked a while longer. “Here you go.” I looked at dead white fish and then at Cord. “What is this?” “Fish.” I looked at him confused. “It’s gutted and cooked.” “Why would you mutilate a fish in such a way?” He sighed. “This is a popular way to eat fish, the chef says it tastes good.” I eyed it touching it. “I don’t like dead meat.” “Try it, and then if you don’t like it you can tell the chef that.” I picked it up eating it, and the taste was wonderful! I couldn’t describe the flavor, but it was a hundred times better than living fish. Though I did like the way the living fish wiggled around in my belly. “This is great!” Every pony around me was truly disgusted for some reason, and it was starting to make me mad. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you ponies, but I’m really getting pissed off by your weird looks!” I said to them sternly making them look away. “Can I get more of it?” “I'll talk to the chef.” He went away and I sat quietly till a while later he came back sitting down and I looked up at a griffin. “BIRDIE!” I shouted and his eyes went wide as he started to run. “NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN!” He squawked as I jumped on him flipping in front of him smiling showing my sharp teeth. “Oh I wondered when I would find you again, with your high flying and tasty wings ready to be eaten.” “ROMA!” Cord shouted and birdie backed away scared. “Not you again, don’t eat me!” “Stop, he’s the chef.” I went up to him. “You made the delicious fish?” He nodded scared. I licked him across his face. “I love you then, the fish making birdie. I won’t eat you this time.” He tried to back away and I pinned him to the ground with my hoof. “I never let my pray go, you’re lucky you can make me something better to eat than you, or I would feast this day.” He swallowed scared. “And I really love birdie flavor.” “You won’t eat me?” He asked scared. “Nope.” I let him get up. “You two know each other?” Haggle asked. “I was passing over San Palomino Desert with a group several months ago, we were flying at the time tired, and then out of nowhere my group started to disappear. There wasn’t even a sound, and we were very high in the air so we thought nothing from the ground could be doing it. We were so wrong, she had been jumping into the air, snapping our necks and falling to the ground like she was playing fetch.” “By Princess Celestia.” A pony said. “I managed to escape her when she didn’t snap my neck on the way down. I got away while she was feasting on others, I couldn’t save them. Why would you bring a monster onto this train?” He looked at them. “She knows a lot.” Haggle said chuckling nervously. “Yes and birdie eluded me for almost six hours, had I not been nervous to enter the city I would have caught birdie.” “My name is Max you.” I pinned him to the ground and licked his neck. Tears went down his face. “Birdie is birdie, you have no name, you are my pet so you can make me delicious fish to eat. Or I will eat you.” “Okay, okay I'll make you fish.” “And if birdie escapes me I'll hunt birdie no matter where he goes, I know dragons which are faster than birdie in flying. You will not get away from me again birdie.” “I-I won’t try.” I licked him and grinned. “Good.” I rubbed my snout into his chest smelling him getting his scent. He was really tasty, other than dragon, bird was the greatest tasting creature I knew. It was hard to let him up, but he had made the wonderful fish, too much to pass up. If I could capture a creature like him and have him make me it, then I was golden. “I-I have your fish.” I sat down and he put a stack of all kinds of fish in front of me, all shapes and styles, it wasn’t just cooked, it was diced, skewed and many other things. “Birdie is my pet, you will feed me the fish.” I smiled toying with him. I loved playing with my food sometimes. He fed me the fish shaking a little bit. “Sit down next to me, you will be my pillow.” He sat down after he finished feeding me and I nuzzled him. “Oh and since you’ve been good.” I set a diamond into his claw and his eyes went wide. “You get a pretty cut clear gem.” “It’s so big.” He said with a wispy voice looking at Cord and Haggle, both of their jaws dropped shocked. “Where did you find that?” Haggle asked. “The gem balls, I saved a few if I got hungry. The rarer ones taste best, that one I’m sure birdie will enjoy a lot, I do.” “Thank you.” He said with a sad smile. I laid down on his lap and closed my eyes resting my head. He pet my back a little and I stretched at the good feeling. “I thought you didn’t sleep till the full moon?” Haggle asked. “I’m not asleep, I’m laying down, I may not have my eyes open, but that doesn’t mean I can’t smell, hear, feel and about twenty other senses. I can hunt in perfect dark, I don’t need my eyes to know you moved closer to me and have your hoof above my pocket.” He moved it back away from me. “I just wanted to see what other gems you have.” “I have a few other diamonds, the one birdie has is the smallest one on me.” I pulled out a clear gem the size of a heart in the shape of a fake heart. I put it away. “I only give these to my pets when they are good.” Unlike other gems clear ones were by far the rarest in the world, I knew they had great value, but I only learned that because they tasted the best. “Okay.” Max said. “Well it’ll take us a day or two to get to Ponyville.” Haggle said. “Oh yeah, why are you having me come?” “Well you know of a lot of deposits, and I think my boss will want you to help us go collect the deposits. Your strong and I’m sure you could help us a lot.” I sighed. “Plus I’m sure we can have fish for your new pet to cook. If you won’t accept gold we can get fish.” Max grunted a little. “Did you think that I was simply going to let you go?” He looked down at me and I narrowed my eyes making him sweat a little. “No.” I got up and he got up as I pushed him a little. “Go make more fish or something, I need to go take out a rotted lung or two.” They stared at me. “You ponies are so weird, where is a privet place?” Cord got up and lead me to a toilet room and I went inside opening my front armor, then turning my hoof guard around pointing the knife down. “Okay I got to know.” Cord opened the door. “If you were kidding.” He paused seeing me with a pointy end to my chest cutting a little. He closed the door. “Your serious.” He walked away and I blinked for a moment and chuckled a little. I cut inside my stomach and pulled out a black shriveled lung and then pulled out a second lung looking at it, it had another few months left before I would have to throw it away. I had been cut, beaten, eaten and ripped into so many times I lost count as a filly. So I ended up replacing many parts, the more compatible the longer it would last. My armor healed me to such a degree that I could live without a heart for weeks if I had to. I put it back inside and I coughed up a little bit of blood having three lungs left which would last me a year or two longer. My wound healed as my lung hooked up. I washed up using a sink and drinking a bit of water, before going back.
Replaceable“I miss anything?” I asked and even Haggle looked scared now. “I’m just going to ignore it this time.” Every pony was uneased by me for some reason, I just had no clue any more. “You have a bit of blood on your mouth.” Cord said and I wiped it. “Oh, must have missed it.” I licked it. I didn’t care much for my own blood, but it was better than simple water. “Did you eat the lung?” Haggle asked. “No I don’t like my old lungs or used body parts, they always taste like ash.” I shivered a little bit. “Actually let me take that back, they taste more like something else, ash can actually taste really good.” I sat down. “Are you a monster?” I looked at a little filly and a distraught mother grabbed the filly away. “Sorry about that.” She said, she and a stallion left the cart making me look at Cord. “Why would she ask that?” I asked really confused. “Well, you’re, just not normal,” Cord said. “Ponies tend to forget that every pony is different.” I shrugged. “Anyway, um how are we paying for all the food? I know that you want to hire her but I don’t think we have that much on us.” “May I have one of those stones?” Haggle asked looking at me. “Sure.” I gave him a larger one and he smiled. “Thank you, I will be back shortly.” He got up and walked out of this part of the trains back. I looked at Cord and he started to eat. I picked up a drink and took a sip setting it down shaking my head a little bit. “Ah.” I looked at Cord and he had a sorry expression. “What is that?” “Apple wine.” “What’s that?” “It’s, um, it’s a drink which will get you drunk.” “What’s drunk?” “Dizzy, warm, empty headed, blurry vision, and if you have too much you’ll pass out and have a headache in the morning.” I eyed him for a few seconds. Why would anyone want to do something like that? “It helps with bad memories and will make you feel good if you feel bad about something. It’ll make you forget for a while. A buzz can feel good.” “Why would you ever need to forget something?” “Um, well ponies will sometimes need to forget something bad they did, sometimes you can’t change something or fix it.” “I don’t understand, why would you ever want to change anything you do?” “It’s hard to explain, but you’ve never done anything you regret have you?” “Why would I regret anything I’ve done, I’ve never been wrong and I'll never be wrong no matter what I do.” He chuckled. “Have you ever done something in the moment which you knew you shouldn’t do, or should have saved later?” I thought for a moment and shook my head no. “You don’t feel bad about eating ponies or killing the griffins?” “They were food, why would I feel bad about eating food? You ate that cake, did you feel bad for the whatever was put into it so you could live? You honestly confuse me, you say something is bad yet you contradict yourself all the time. Why do you consider something bad even though you do it?” “Well there’s a difference, between something that can talk and something that can’t, you shouldn’t kill something that talks.” “I know plants that can talk, or you telling me that I shouldn’t eat them? Or what about the creatures you killed to save one of your ponies on the trip? It could talk, and you didn’t plan on eating it, you planned on it going to waste.” “Well I was protecting my friend.” “But you still planed on letting the food go to waste, would it not have been more helpful to feed the meat to them? That way he did not starve.” “I,” he sighed. “I’m not going to get through to you.” “It’s wrong because Princess Celestia says so.” We both looked at a stallion as he walked over to us in a white bow tie. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but over hear this conversation and how disturbing it was.” “Disturbing?” I asked. “Wrong, incorrect, morally bad.” I tilted my head confused. “How was what we said wrong or any of that?” “Well, may I sit?” Cord nodded and the stallion sat down. “Well Princess Celestia raises the sun, that means she gives everything warmth and light, each and every day. That means you need to do what she says.” “Or she won’t raise the sun?” “Yes.” “But if she did that wouldn’t that kill every pony, not just me?” He paused and looked at Cord, Cord shrugged. “She would turn you to stone.” “I have several things that would stop a pony from doing that to me, that would be silly if they tried, I would just rip out her throat.” “She can’t die.” I paused. “So, wait you’re saying that if I were to eat her, she would regenerate fast enough for me to never run out of food?” He stared at me. “Stop!” Cord said now slightly panicked. “Do not give her ideas like that, okay, just drop it please.” The stallion nodded and I looked at Cord. “Who is this Princess Celestia?” “A god, she wouldn’t be able to be touched by you unless she wanted you to be able to touch her.” I now wanted to try this Princess Celestia, if she could really give me an unlimited amount of food, finding and capturing her to eat would be wonderful! “I see that look, and stop right there, don’t even start.” “But if she can’t die, and I would never run out of food, then.” “NO!” He shouted standing up clearly panicked. “Stop, okay, just stop, think of it like this, if I ate the last birdie and you would never have that taste again, no matter what you did, it was the last birdie ever.” I stood up. “That’s not funny! Birdies taste too good to do that!” “That’s what it’s like to me when you say you want to eat Princess Celestia. It’s a very bad feeling.” I looked down and sat down. “Oh, I’m sorry then, I did not know she meant that to you.” “She of course isn’t food, but she’s a special pony that every pony cares deeply for, and just hearing you say that is painful.” “I’m sorry.” “That is also regret.” “What? Oh I don’t feel sorry for saying it, I still want to taste her flesh, now more than ever, but I won’t because you care so much for her. I wouldn’t want to take your meal from you like that.” “Yeah, good enough.” He said smiling. Haggle came back a while later with a rather large bag setting it down. “Whoa.” Cord said. “And that’s after paying the bill.” Max came with a cart setting a large stack of fish on the table. I smiled, and he sat down feeding me the fish. I licked him and he looked at me worried. “I like you birdie.” “Thanks, so you like my cooking?” “Very much, I’ve never had a cooked meal before so this is wonderful.” “What really?!” “Yeah, why?” “I will have to cook you a lot then.” “You learn fast, I thought you might try to escape a few times before you learned that no matter where you go I can find you.” He chuckled nervously scared. “You really.” I went up to his face. “Don’t have to say that.” He was sweating again, I imagined after me chasing him he would be afraid of me. I knew what it felt like to be on the wrong side of a hunt, but I played with my food sometimes, and I had with him too much. I laid down on his lap looking up at him. “You do realize I had let you go before.” He looked at me a bit confused. “When I caught you, I knew you weren’t dead, you played dead really bad. I could hear you breathing, your heart was beating so hard you body moved to it.” I chuckled. “You-you let me go?” “Yeah, even let you fly into the sky so I could chase you. I just didn’t realize that you were so fast, I would have probably let one of your other friends escape if I knew. I ended up losing you, I was so pissed.” “I always wondered if it was luck that you didn’t break my neck, or if you did it on purpose. I still have nightmares.” I chuckled. “That’s great.” He stared at me smiling. “You enjoy my fear.” “Yes, you smell great when you’re scared, everything does. When you’re scared it’s like adding a chewy heart on top.” I licked my lips and he tried his best not to look at me. Hours passed on the train, it would have only taken me about half an hour instead of a full day to get to Ponyville, if it was really next to Everfree Forest. We got off the train and it hissed at me again making me snort, but Cord grabbed me this time stopping me from attacking. Max came with us almost too easily, made me want to chase him around for a while, but he stayed quiet and mindful. A good pet if there ever was one, he would be my first and probably my last. Feeding a pet was going to be hard work. “What’s wrong?” Max asked and I looked at him. “Nothing, just never had a pet before, kind of weird.” “I can take care of myself.” “Yeah, yeah.” I said rolling my eyes. As if a birdies could take care of themselves, I was going to have to constantly filly him. We followed Haggle and Cord to a building going inside and a rather old earth pony stallion, with a brown coat, black mane was behind a desk looking at papers. “Filthy Rich, we’re back.” He looked up with a slightly confused look on his face. “You’re back early, I thought you had at least another month before you needed to come back.” “Nope we got everything and more.” “More?” Haggle went around and showed maps. “What in the world?” “This information is very reliable, in fact if it were not for her, we would have all died and you would have wasted your money.” He looked at me. “That is Roma, a local to the area, not part of a tribe, but she’s lived there most of her life, this is all her information.” He looked at the maps and then at me. “Is all this information correct?” “Well I also have this.” He showed the creature patterns on another map. “The information is correct and accurate.” “If that is true, this will create me more money than I have ever dreamed. What was her fee?” “Fish.” “What?” “She eats meat and living creatures. She’s, um, not normal, but very strong, she threw the train like it was a toy.” His eyes went wide. “Anyway, using her as a guide I think we could retrieve this all and it would be wise.” “I have worked with strange ones before, but that’s honestly a first. How many fish do I have to get?” “As many as I can eat.” I said smiling and he looked at Max. “Who is he?” “Her, um, pet.” “I escaped her from killing me and, well I couldn’t do it again.” I pinned him to the ground licking my lips. “Oh you know that’s right.” He shivered. “Yes master.” I frowned. “My name’s not master, it’s Roma, who’s master?” I looked around a bit pissed at whoever it was that was trying to take my pet! “Master is a name to some pony that owns another,” Cord said. “Or in this case you owning Max, your title to him would be master.” “That makes no sense whatsoever, why would I tell him to call me by anything other than my name, that would only confuse him. Whoever came up with that is an idiot, and they will not steal my pet by making him call them their owner.” “She’s a bit odd, and doesn’t understand most common sense.” Cord said looking at Filthy Rich. “I can see that, but why use her instead of a unicorn? A unicorn could use magic or any number of things.” “She took down a squad of griffin.” Bridie said and they looked at him as he got up. “Not even your best unicorn could do that, and we were armed. In fact we were moving to kill a monster that had been killing ponies flying around, but I found out it was her and reported it to command.” “Whoa.” Haggle said. “That’s, wait does she have a bounty on her head?” Filthy Rich asked. “Yes,” Max said. “Last I heard it was about, oh there it is.” He walked over to the wall and pulled off a wanted poster walking over to them setting it down. It had a drawing of me, it was rather good. “Cool.” They looked at me and Cord picked it up reading. “Wanted, the desert pony, upon the return of the desert pony’s head the reward of fifty thousand bits!” He said shocked and they stared at him. “Sub group bounties are partnered with at least fifteen other bounty sets. Upon proof of the desert pony, and her crimes to the sub groups, the reward will be up to but not limited to an additional fifty thousand bits per proof of each crime committed.” “That’s, that’s over seven hundred and fifty thousand, eight hundred thousand if you include this post.” Haggle said. “She is wanted for the murder of at least three hundred and ninety six ponies, one hundred and eighty five griffin, twenty three royal pony guards, thirty eight royal griffin guard, and the murder of thousands of pets. She is to be considered extremely dangerous, and under no condition should a party less than a hundred attempt capture or kill.” They looked at me and I stopped licking Max’s side. “This is serious,” Filthy Rich said. “I can’t hire such a dangerous mare, the implications alone would bankrupt me! That has a royal decree from both Princess Celestia and the ruler of the griffins!” “That is the highest bounty I have ever heard of,” Haggle said. “That could feed a family for several generations and then some.” “How many fish is that?” I asked. “There wouldn’t be enough fish in the ocean to sell to you.” “Then let’s do that.” They looked at me a little confused. “You would have to die.” Max said looking at me and I looked around. “What?” “A bounty means to hunt and kill something, you’re what they want dead, you would have to die to get the bounty.” “Oh.” I looked down. “I feel a little at odds,” Cord said. “Now that I know her, I kind of feel bad for her, but at the same time she should be stopped.” “I stopped eating ponies.” My words didn’t make them feel less nervous. “Anyway, I can’t hire her,” Filthy Rich said. “I mean I'll pay her for this information, but other than that I can’t do anything else.” “No fish?” I asked and they looked at me. “Yeah no fish.” I sighed. “I guess that’s fine, I got a nice cleaning, your hot water was wonderful, I'll have to figure out something.” “I have an idea,” Max said and I eyed him. “I mean if we can manage to sell that heart for that money.” “My heart? Well I guess I have a spare one or two.” I reached for my chest and he grabbed my hoof. “I didn’t mean your heart, I meant that gem heart. You showed it on the train.” I gasped realizing what he meant. “Yeah keep that other heart.” I pulled it out and gave it to him. He smiled looking at it. “But only because you asked nicely, and you have plan to get fish right?” “Yes, lots and lots of fish.” I smiled. “Wait sir, we could do a short list hire,” Haggle said. “Have her work under the radar, so long as we do night drops and pay for anything she gives us, then we could make a lot without doing much of anything, of course we would leave salted fish, is that useable?” “I can cook salted fish, they last for weeks.” “That’s fine,” Filthy Rich said. “But other than those here, we tell no one of this, where will there be a safe drop point?” Haggle pointed at the point on the map I had taken them to on the road. “This spot is perfect, I saw a small grove from the road, we’ll leave a large crate where we can leave the fish, and we’ll pay fairly in fish, and other salted meats when we can get them.” I licked my lips. “I’m craving fish now though.” “We don’t have any.” “The river will.” Cord said. I smiled going outside and running over to the river, I couldn’t wait for salted fish. I had tasted dead fish heavily covered in salt, and that was really, really good, but I didn’t know what they meant by salted fish exactly. I walked over to the river and looked down at the fish. I started to rub my hooves together just a tiny bit apart really fast causing them to heat up a little, and build up a massive charge. I could build up huge amounts of electricity so long as I didn’t actually touch my hooves together while building the charge. “As I was saying Twilight.” I stuck my hooves in water and a ton of fish jumped out of it leaving me only a second as I caught over twenty fish putting them in a wooden crate I had found on the road. I smiled and walked onto the road. “You there.” I turned to a purple and white pony. Both of them wore some kind of wear gold armor. I dropped my fish letting my jaw drop seeing a horn on their head and wings at their sides. “Why do you have so many fish?” The white one asked. “I’ve never had birdie unicorn before.” I said and they gave a confused look as Cord ran in front of me. “NO!” He shouted. “That’s Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight Sparkle.” “You didn’t tell me she was something I’ve never eaten before! I want to eat her, that’s not fair!” Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle gave a confused but serious look. “You can’t tell me she won’t be delicious!” “Remember what I said, not funny.” I growled. “Fine, I won’t eat them, but I want twice the fish!” I picked up a still wiggling fish tossing it into the air and swallowing it whole making me smile. “We’ll deal with it.” I picked up my fish. “PET!” I shouted with the crate in my mouth and Max came out. I threw it at him. “I want cooked fish.” “Where, how did you get so many? You were only gone for thirty second!” He looked at Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight Sparkle as they came over every pony around bowed to them. “What is this?” Princess Celestia asked and I looked at her. “Why is this pony demanding cooked fish and eating them?!” My mouth watered seeing them. “It’s hard to, Roma!” Cord shouted at me and every pony backed away seeing me having Princess Celestia on her back with me on her chest, my teeth at her throat. “DON’T!” Princess Celestia shouted at Princess Twilight Sparkle and she paused realizing that her magic wasn’t working. “Roma is it?” Princess Celestia asked, I let go of her throat. “Yes.” She nodded swallowing a little nervous. “Well Roma, why are you attacking me?” “I’ve never eaten pony with both wings and horn before, I want to try you, I have never seen a pony like you before. I want to know how you taste.” “I see, but will you please release every pony around us from your metal string?” Dozens of strings came from every pony and several of them fell to the ground breathing hard including Princess Twilight Sparkle. “You can see my string?” “Yes, clearly, if you wanted to, every pony within eye sight would be dead the second you made your move. The string is very sharp.” Blood ran down her face from a cut. “Oh.” I pulled my hoof and she let out a breath breathing hard. “Roma please don’t.” Cord pled. “But she looks so delicious.” “Roma,” Princess Celestia said and I looked at her. “I want to give you this.” She held up a ball of meat. “This will taste just like my meat, you’re not the first which has come for my flesh, so I made this in case.” I took it from her and sat down looking at it. “You sure?” “Yes.” I licked her and then bit into the ball. The taste was weird, both of them tasted like my old body parts making me spit out the rotten meat. “Ugh, you taste nasty!” I set the ball on her chest and it disappeared. “I like the fish better than you, pet cook me my fish!” “Yes Roma.” He picked it up and I turned to Princess Celestia. “You are lucky you taste nasty, or I would’ve eaten you, though I can’t say I’m happy about that though, I thought you would be delicious.” I sighed hopping off of her. A few ponies helped her up breathing hard. I went over to Max and he started to cook them and I sat down. I started to hum and Princess Celestia came over to me.
Flona“Let’s see here from this map from the last mayor says,” Max started. “This village is under attack from, pig snakes. One pair of fangs for one gold. They spew acid so be careful.” I unhooked and took in a breath. “Lunch.” I said smiling as I ran disappearing to Max and Cord. The pig snakes made a loud screech as I ripped into them eating their tasty meat, they had way more than the spiders had. I saved over three thousand fangs completely wiping out the forest and any nests. I sighed looking at the cloudy sky. It was sprinkling a little, but not bad, it always rained so hard in the desert, but it was never this cool. I picked up my large bag of fangs, then a bag of meat and trotted back to Max and Cord which were talking to a light green earth pony with a bowtie. I walked over to them and he looked at me. I set the bag of fangs down in front of Cord and went to Max. “I brought good meat, cook it please.” “Okay.” He picked it up and walked off. The pony in the bowtie looked into the bag, his eyes went wide. “Give me a moment, I'll be back.” He walked off with the bag and Cord looked at me. “How many?” “Well in total there were about six thousand one hundred and thirteen of them.” His jaw dropped. Two ponies came a while later with a large bag full of gold bits setting it onto the cart with a heavy thud. “More fishy.” I smiled. “Wow, we can’t thank you enough.” The pony with a bowtie said. “It’s no problem, she’s probably still hungry, we were just stopping by villages to feed her, the bounties are just a plus.” “Okay.” Max came back a while later with a grill on his back and he opened the sack of meat letting a sweet smell float into the air. I jumped digging in to it quickly. It was so good to have cooked meat! Having him cook it was wonderful. “That’s a lot of gold.” He said looking into the bag, I don’t think we can fit this in your pack much less carry it ourselves.” “I'll pull.” I said as I gulped down the last bit of meat. “Get on.” They got on and we went village after village, and it was never enough. Max would cook as much as he could for me, but I kept running out of food to eat. “YOU THERE!” I stopped looking at three masked unicorn fillies with poky sticks pointed at me. “Give us all your gold!” I looked at Max as he hopped off a three bit high wall of gold bags. We had to move to a much larger cart with sides for how much gold we had. “Get back.” Another said. “Are you guys like tax collects or something?” I asked. “We’re bandits!” The leader said and Cord started laughing being trapped on top of the bags. “Thank Celestia,” Max said cracking his back. “That cart is so uncomfortable. Do you mind if we give them a bit of the excessive gold? I’ve had to hold onto bags, we simply have too much gold for this cart.” “But the fish.” “You’ll have enough to fill even your hunger.” “Alright.” Cord tossed him a few bags and he walked over to the now confused fillies setting them on their backs making one of them fall to the ground from the weight. “What in the world!” One of them said falling to his knees. “I think I’m going to walk a with you.” Max said coming over to me and I smiled. We started walking. “You know we can’t hold any more gold, I mean seriously this is a bit ridiculous in so many ways. I think we’re actually the only bounty hunters in the land. We’ve done over three hundred villages and each at least had a thousand to spend, which is crazy.” “Can’t we just get a larger cart?” He looked at it. “No this is getting ridiculous.” “Fine, we won’t have to stop at the next village.” “No we can if you like, I don’t mind cooking for you, but we just won’t be able to take any more bounty.” “Okay.” He pet me a little bit. “Also isn’t today the last day before you sleep?” “Oh yeah, I almost forgot.” I looked up seeing another village and I smiled. “We’ll stay at this village till you wake up.” “Alright.” We walked into the village and ponies were doing business as normal. A gray stallion with a bowtie came over to us. “You’re the bounty hunters right?” He asked making Max and me stop. “Ah, yeah, how did you know?” “All the villages on the king’s road were notified from earlier villages of your coming and that we should be ready.” “Oh, well I guess we don’t need to introduce ourselves.” “That’s a lot of luggage.” He said looked at the cart. “Oh that’s not luggage,” Max said. “That’s the bounties we’ve collected, we just didn’t realize we would collect so much.” Ponies from all around us stared at the cart. “All of that’s gold?” “Yeah, apparently no one else has been even trying to collect bounties, so they were able to pay us, or more her.” He rubbed my head. “She’s the one doing it, does a town in five minutes to half an hour. Mostly because it takes a while to cook.” “Right I heard she eats meat, well we have fully stocked fish if you would like to buy from us.” “Fish!” I said looking at Max and he smiled. “That sounds great, show me to your kitchen and I'll get started. Hey you alright up there Cord?” “Yeah, just, can’t move too much, or this gold is going to fall off, thanks for remembering that I’m alive up here.” Max chuckled. “Can you bring me something to eat to, I’m a little hungry.” “Sure, so the kitchen.” “Right this way.” I parked the cart and helped Cord get off the top so he could take care of his personal business. I sat on top staring at the sky. It was still a bit cloudy, it felt nice to be so cool. “Excuse me?” I looked down at the stallion in a bowtie without turning over. “Yes?” “Um, are you going to go hunt the monsters?” “I’m a little, tried right now. I'll deal with it later.” “But the dragons.” I paused. “Dragons?” “Yes there are three of them, we have a bounty of ten thousand per head.” I sighed and rolled over. “They said they would destroy the town if we don’t pay them gems today, but there aren’t any gems for miles and it would take us at least a week, they won’t take gold. Please before nightfall.” “Fine.” I jumped off stretching a little. I pulled out a small ruby and ate it to give me a small boost of energy, I was getting tired, but three dragons wouldn’t be hard. “Where are they so I don’t have to go searching?” He pointed at a large cave in a small mountain. “There, but you can handle dragons right?” “Yeah.” I started walking getting to the cave after an hour. I just didn’t want to do this right now. Dragons were very tasty, but that’s about it. I walked into the cave and I looked at three dragons as they woke up lifting their heads. They were each a different color, blue being a female, red being the only male, and white also being a female, which made them look a bit odd being so close to each other. “Oh look, a pony.” The red one said and I tripped over a rock rolling a little, I got up a little dizzy. I hated being tired. “I think it’s drunk.” The blue one said. “No just tired.” I said falling into a pile of treasure, I yawned rolling around a little finding a nice spot. “Pony why are you here?” The white one asked. “Well I came here to slay you before night fall, but I might fall asleep, your piles of treasure are always so comfortable.” I buried my face into the gems smelling them. They were wonderful. “Slay us?” The red one asked with a laugh making the blue one laugh as well. The white one looked at me serious, and frowned. “Yep,” I said closing my eyes. “Just, don’t leave the cave, I don’t want your meat to go to waste.” “Really now.” “Come here little pony, you interest me.” The white dragon moved the pile closer to her belly and I rolled over snuggling into her belly. She was fluffy having short fur on her belly, it was really nice. “You are so fluffy, I’m going to keep you as a pet.” She chuckled lightly. “So if we leave the cave you’re going to kill us?” The blue one asked. The red one got up making me frown. He walked over to the entrance and stepped outside. The blue one laughed but stopped when the red dragon wasn’t moving. “Hey, that’s not funny.” The blue one said frowning after a minute. The dragon’s body fell over, his head rolled to the feet of the blue one making her stand up shocked. “AAA WHAT, HOW!” She shouted pushing it away standing up scared and the white one looked at me with a bit of fear. “Oh your fluffy I’m keeping you.” I said smiling smelling her. “His meat is going to go to waste, I’m glad the blue one isn’t. I would be sad.” “Wait you don’t have kill me.” She said sitting down. “I’m fluffy to.” I chuckled. “I know, I’m going to make clothes out of you, you have a nice hide, but I can only keep the white, she’s the smartest one of you three. I will sleep, don’t move my new pet. I don’t want to have to beat you to make you understand, blue one if you try to leave I'll cut off your legs and let you bleed out. Now be quiet.” I fell asleep. The dragon was nice and warm making sleeping very pleasant. I woke up and sun light lit the cave nicely. I yawned getting up and stretching. The white dragon looked at me and the blue one was asleep. “You’re awake I see.” She said and I smiled cracking a few bones. “Yep.” I looked at the red dragon, a lot of the meat was already rotting away, I looked down sad, I had wasted a lot of mean. He was going to go eat ponies though, so I didn’t feel too bad about it. I moved skinning him, and cutting any good pieces of meat I could save, putting them in a pile. I appeared on top of the white dragons head and the blue dragons head rolled off making her gasp a little. “Darn.” “Grab heads and blue dragon body, as well as the hide and safe meat, I will cook her!” I shouted and the white one picked up both heads, tears went down her face as she picked up the body, and hide with the rest of the meat, and I laid down. “To the village please.” She walked to the village and ponies looked in a bit of horror as she set the heads down and the body. “Max!” I shouted and he came out, his eyes went wide. “Dragon to cook! And are my fish ready?” “Yes.” I jumped off the white dragon’s head, ran inside and piles of cooked fish were ready. I ate them quickly and went outside, the blue dragon’s hide was cut into nice sheets, along with the red dragon’s. Large pieces of meat were cooking over a large open fire making me appear on top of the white dragon’s head. “Oh I can’t wait!” I shouted and every pony looked at me surprised. “Max come up here!” He landed next to me sitting down. “Hi.” He said a little nervous. “Hello.” The white dragon said. “Dragon this is Max, my other pet, Max say hi.” “Hi dragon.” “My name is Fiona.” “You did good in cooking other dragon meat, you earned your name. I can’t wait for the meat to be ready.” I said excited. “It’s almost done.” “I love dragon meat!” I licked Fiona and smiled at the taste. “Did you know her?” Max asked. “She was my mates second mate, I liked her.” “Fiona, would you like a leg?” I asked looking at her and she stared at the cooking meat intently. “You should have a leg, you will enjoy it!” I said excited. “I-I suppose.” She said. “You don’t have to.” Max said. “I don’t?” She asked. “Of course not!” I said a little mad. “I would not waste the meat on you if you did not want to eat it, I will eat it all!” I smiled as my stomach gurgled telling me it was empty. “I am always hungriest when I wake up, we will have to do ten more villages to fill my belly today, I am very hungry!” “How can she eat so much?” Fiona asked. “I don’t know, she has a bottomless pit down her throat, she’s easily eaten over three hundred times your dragon’s weight in food over the last three days, and she never once got competely full. I haven’t been able to cook most of it, she’s ravenous.” “Are you hungry Fiona?” I asked. “A little, but I don’t want to eat her.” “I'll be right back.” I jumped off of her head landing on the ground cracking it. I started to dig going down a bit and digging out a large ruby the size of her head bringing it up and throwing it onto the ground next to her making her stare. “Whoa.” Max said as I landed next to him. “There we go, a good treat for my pet.” I rubbed her head a little bit and she brushed off the dirt from the gem, and ponies all around stared. “Such a huge ruby.” Fiona said. “Yep, enjoy.” She bit into it. “It’s great, may I go get my treasure?” She asked looking at me. “Sure, but do not make me hunt you, you will not make it off the ground.” I jumped off landing softly. She walked away and Max landed next to me. “I hope she doesn’t run, I don’t want to have to hunt her down.” “It’s ready by the way.” I sucked in some air and blew out sending a very powerful wind stopping the fires. I moved as fast as I could enjoying every bite. I finished laying on top of still hot coals yawning. Fiona landed with a large sack on her back. She swallowed seeing just bones from the large dragon. She was the smallest of the three, around twenty yards high. “Oh the gold.” Max said and she put the cart full of gold into her bag, the mayor brought out two small carts and she poured the gold inside the bag. “Don’t forget Cord!” I said and she put Cord next to me on a saddle cart that I had made for her, so we could comfortably fly on her back. It was just like the train cart from the train, but this one was made by all of the village folk as a way of saying thanks. It was nice. I rolled around in gold and gems smiling. “Enjoying yourself?” Max asked sitting in a seat next to a stove. “Yep.” I said grinning. Thanks to Cord we made it so rather Fiona was sitting standing or flat we were always even and stable. It was nice, she didn’t send me rolling every time she sat or laid down, and even then there was a very little amount of shaking. So long as she didn’t turn on her side or upside down, we wouldn’t feel any different than on the ground. “We’re almost to the capital.” Fiona said. I appeared on her head, she had gotten used to me just appearing. I looked out at the capital, it was huge, taking miles of land. There were probably millions of ponies living here. Even with the hundred villages after the one with Fiona, I was still hungry, it had been over to two days of her flying. It was meant to be a three day walk, but we stopped at every single village. Fiona’s pack was giving her back problems from all the gold, gems and other things I harvested, and Max told me this would be a good place to unload some of it, we could probably buy the city if we used it all, and that was after me making armor for Fiona. I smiled at her armor, she helped me a lot in hunting large beasts and she enjoyed the meat with me which made me happy, and not feel so much like a pig snake. I ate a lot, and my hunger was only growing large and larger each day. Though she was lucky I made her the armor, or she would have been killed several times. “Look at that!” I shouted and Max came out going next to me smiling. “Wow.” We landed in a large open plot of land. I looked around smiling. I jumped off and ponies looked at Fiona a little scared. “Finally!” Cord shouted and I looked at him appearing next to him. “What?” “I figured out a shrinking spell.” “Why?” I asked. He got off Fiona and Max landed next to us. Cord’s horn lit up burning with bright white magic. He shot at Fiona and her eyes went big before she shrunk down to normal pony height. As tall at me. I appeared next to her looking around her and she looked around confused. “Now she can come with us.” He said smiling and she went up to him. “This better not be permanent pony.” “It will last as long as I want, of course when we leave I'll change you back. I like flying on your back. Also you should put away your back cart.” She took it off, stuffing it into the pack with the rest of the stuff. It was made of dragon hide so it could take a real thrashing before breaking or anything. “This is great!” I said pinning Fiona making her nervous. “Now I can have a small dragon, I was worried that I was going to have to make you compact when we got you to the city, to fit you through the streets. That’s too bad, I guess you get to keep your legs.” She swallowed scared. “Yeah, that’s too bad.” She looked at Cord. “Thank you.” She said with a knot in her throat. I went over to Max and he tossed me a fish, I ate it mid air. “Now to find the king.” I said with a smile. “Come here.” Cord gave us all some papers. “What’s this?” Max asked. Cord ripped one and fire appeared before our faces saying, Cord found the king. An arrow pointed at him with directions. “You rip it and the magic will do the rest.” He handed a few pieces to each of us. “If you find him rip it.” I took a few and smiled putting them away. “Now splitting up will cover the most ground, but what do you think?” Cord asked looking at me. “I don’t mind, we don’t have a set limit to how long we have to spend looking or anything like that. I would rather stay together.” “Then we’ll use these if we get separated.” I smiled. “Oh I almost forgot.” He jumped and Fiona went to move but he shrunk going into her pack. He jumped off growing to his real size with a pack on his back and three more in his hooves. “You could have said something!” She hit him lightly. “Sorry, I wanted to surprise you.” He handed a pack to Max and hooked another one onto Fiona. “This will allow us to get gold bits to buy things, when we need them.” He put the last pack on me and I paused smelling him. I pinned him to the ground staring at him. He swallowed nervous. “Roma, what is it?” Max asked. “He.” I blushed a little backing up. “I, I’m sorry, that came over me rather quickly, you smell good.” I nuzzled his chest a little. “But not in a, I want to eat you way.” “Okay.” He said unsure. I appeared next to a large stallion and smelled him. He looked at me weird. I appeared next to Cord. “Oh no.” He got up. “Do not tell me you, just.” I looked at him a little unsure. He swallowed growing a little pale. “What?” Max asked. “Well she’s in that age, if you know what I mean.” Both of them blushed a little. “I just hope for which ever stallion she finds, that she doesn’t mix pleasure with hunger.” “What are you talking about?” I asked and they looked at me. “Nothing, just don’t smell me alright.” I went up to him and smelled him. He smelled really good, but I didn’t quite understand why. “I said don’t!” He backed up. “But you smell so good.” “Stop!” I stepped back. “What is it?” “Okay I think you may be hitting puberty.” “What do you mean?” He swallowed. “Do you feel hot?” I paused backing up blushing. “Oh.” “Yeah, I don’t know if you could keep that and eating separate. You can barely control your eating habits, so I can only imagine how that would turn out.” I backed up. “So let’s go find that king.”
The King's CaptureWe went around the city and my mind would wonder enough for me to smell another good looking stallion before going back. They went shopping a lot having Cord shrink it down to fit into Fiona’s pack. “Roma.” I blinked looking away from armor sets to look at Max. “Are you alright? You haven’t bought anything and you haven’t said much.” “I’m just missing my mother a little, these armor sets are crap, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss her when I look at them.” “Excuse me?” I looked at the soot covered earth pony stallion frowning. “My armor sets are some of the best around, so unless you can do better, go away.” “Please I could make an armor which would make yours look like crap in an hour, and that’s using normal materials.” “Care to make a wager on that?” He said smiling. “Roma,” Cord said. “We need to find the king.” “No, that can wait, he’s mocking me.” I appeared in front of him. “Very well, I'll bet you a.” I looked at Cord. “How many do I have in this pack?” “Five hundred.” “Five hundred gold bits that I can make a better set of battle ready armor and make yours look like two bit work in an hour or less.” He swallowed. “Fine.” “But if I win, I get you for a while in privet.” “What?” “Roma don’t do that,” Max said. “You want to make it a pony you like, not some random blacksmith you made a bet with.” “But, he’s really good smelling, and I’m, not able to think straight.” “I’m sure the king can help us, if he is like you.” I sighed. “Fine, if I win I want that.” I pointed at a large piece of ice coal. “That’s worth a lot more than five hundred gold bit, more like ten thousand gold bits, that is the rarest metal in existence for armor.” I sighed. “Fine I'll let you keep the armor and give you six thousand gold bits.” Cord pulled out a large brick of gold off of Fiona’s back. His eyes went wide. “So how about it?” “You have a deal, your hour starts now.” Ponies gathered around and I cracked my neck a little. “Cord can you pull out my blacksmith set for me?” He pulled out a large silver egg and tool popped out on trays. I opened the front. “Fiona, can I have some flame?” She blew into it lighting the inside on fire. “Four pounds of Onyx Coal, four pounds of gold, carbon iron rod, cloud ore, three pounds of copper and fifty of steel.” Cord pulled it out laying it onto a blanket for me. “Wait what?!” The blacksmith shouted surprised. “You can’t have all that, that’s, that’s, that would cost easily over twelve thousand bits!” I snorted. “Please, these are unrefined materials, and I’m not going to be able to make even second rate armor with this, but it’ll still be better than yours.” I started throwing all the material into one pot and I blew into it making everyone even Fiona step back from the heat as the ground turned red, the egg turned white. I closed the door sitting down. A pony looked at a watch. “Aren’t you going to start or something?” Cord asked after forty five minutes. “It isn’t done cooking, it doesn’t taste right yet.” “When will it?” “Soon.” Five more minutes passed and I got up opening it, and pulling out a large block of glowing white metal. The ground and egg cooled off instantly. “There’s the beauty, cooked and ready for eating.” I paused. “I mean, using.” I sighed. “I hate wasting perfect dishes like this.” “You can eat that?” The blacksmith asked. “Of course, but not this time sadly.” I set it down and I rubbed my hooves together and ponies backed up as lightning streamed off of me burning the ground. I picked it up and spun it moving extremely fast detailing it, cutting, reforming, and finishing within a few minutes. I stopped smiling. An armor set sat down in front of me. It was pink with gold lining, and a very cute design outshining his armor, and literally shining a little bit. “And done!” “Time!” Some pony said with a watch. “Now give me the ice metal, I couldn’t find any.” “Now wait a minute, you said better battle armor than mine, I beg to differ. I demand tests not that it just looks good!” I sighed. “Fine.” I grabbed a random earth pony and put it on her, it fitted to her perfectly making her grunt a little bit. “Test away.” “Hey wait I didn’t.” I smiled showing my teeth and she swallowed. “Okay.” “Please some other pony for his armor.” I said smiling. “I will.” A stallion said walking over and the blacksmith put it onto the stallion taking almost fifteen minutes to fit him. “Are we stalling?” I asked and he was sweating. “There.” He padded the armor. “Does some pony know combat magic?” I asked. “I do?” A unicorn stallion said unsure. “Strongest spell please, your magic will get absorbed. I'll give you a hundred bits if you can even scratch it.” He swallowed and his horn lit up with blue sparks over charging with magic power. He fired a bolt and it hit the armor moving her a little, but the armor absorbed it wonderfully glowing brightly. She smiled feeling good. “Wow,” she said shaking a little bit. “I didn’t even feel that.” She smiled as tears went down her face. “Why am I still so scared though.” She fell to the ground shaking, her legs wouldn’t let her stand. I chuckled and brushed some dust off the armor showing it didn’t even have a single mark. “Now then, if you would shoot that armor.” The stallion swallowed and the blacksmith went in front. “Wait, stop, this isn’t rated for magic combat!” “Then give me my ice metal.” I growled at him and he swallowed. “Please I can’t afford to give that to you, especially after this.” I sighed. “Fine you can have this armor.” I took it off her tossing it to him. “Just give me that ice metal I’ve been trying to find some.” He tossed me the ice metal and I smiled tossing it to Cord and he put it into Fiona’s pack. “Thanks.” I appeared in front of him. “But if you ever challenge me again I'll kill you.” He stepped back. Cord put my blacksmith set away now that it cooled off and we started walking. “Is ice metal that good?” Max asked and I looked at him. “More than good, how do I explain this? Oh it’s a casting agent for the most powerful armor sets to ever exist. That fool was going to use it as armor itself, it’s useless being used as armor. While extremely good in the way of protection and such, it falls short against other materials which are better for that.” “Whoa.” “Such as Princess Celestia’s armor was casted out of it.” “Really.” “Yes, the biggest waste of ice metal I have ever seen in my life. I almost ripped it off her throat and yell at her for using ice metal in such a way, but I didn’t have a chance. Anyway it’s not important now, I got five pounds of it.” “That’s a lot?” Cord asked. “I could make almost eighty armor sets.” I giggled smiling. “Or two really legendary sets which would make this one look like it was second rate.” “Whoa,” Max said. “That’s crazy.” “Normally it would be, but since I can waste a few organs to make it, I think I’m going to enjoy it a lot.” “Nope, not what I’m looking for.” I paused hearing a voice and looked at a pony in an armor set made by my mother, and a really good set at that. He went over to a mare and licked her with a long tongue which went below the table disappeared. She moaned and his tongue came up. “Darn not you either.” “My king.” She said and we all looked at him. I appeared in front of him and he didn’t flinch looking at me, then noticed my armor. “That’s a nice set of armor you have there.” He went to lick me and I closed his jaw rather hard making him bite his tongue with his sharp teeth. “Don’t even think about licking me, second of all, are you the king of this land?” He frowned. “Yes I.” He grunted. “Am, you know that was just spiteful closing my mouth like that, it hurt.” “I saw what you did with that tongue, don’t even try it, or I'll rip it out of your mouth and feed it to you, before I feed on your corpse.” He swallowed a bit of blood. “Now then you will take me to my father and give him to me.” “Excuse me?” “My father, Night Jasper.” He paused. “Oh my vessel, I think he’s still suspended in my vault.” He chuckled. “But I’m not giving you him.” “You will or I'll rip your legs off your body and beat you with them.” “Challenge accepted.” I sighed and his legs ripped off making every pony around us back up, a few screamed. “Don’t mock me, you have no chance.” He rolled over regrowing legs and standing up frowning. “Oh please, you don’t have a chance.” He tried to use his magic but it didn’t work. “I already turned off your magic, and have your head on the chopping block, give me my father now!” “You can.” His body was ripped apart, but not his armor. “WOW!” He shouted making me back up as his body flew back together healing him and he stood up chuckling as he shifted in his armor. “I haven’t had that happen before!” He grinned showing a toothy grin making me smile as well. His eyes went wide seeing my teeth. “I’m going to enjoy this.” Blades came out of both of our hoof guards. He moved with blinding speed with me, and the ground ripped up sending ponies flipping back from the air pressure. His blades scratched my armor but mine cut clean through and he landed breathing hard, armor falling off in pieces. “How, no that shouldn’t be possible, this armor is the best in the land, no one has been able to make a better armor set, and I’m using magic!” He shouted clearly pissed. I growled bending forward ready to pounce, his blood dripping from my mouth and I blew ash with every breath as my insides burns with fire from the friction alone. “Crap, your just like me, but, you haven’t, oh that’s very bad.” My jaw trembled enjoying his flesh. “ROMA!” Max shouted and I looked around. The ground was ripped up badly and ponies were trying to get other out of destroyed buildings. “Can’t stop the hunger can you?” He asked and I looked at him. “What?” “You are constantly hungry, you can’t eat enough to fill your belly can you? If you don’t eat, then you’re in a massive amount of pain, and will do anything to eat more.” “Yes, then you know how to stop it!” “You have to go one month without food, water or anything that you can eat. It’s painful and nightmarish for you, but it is the only way to cure you of it. Anything else would only make you hungrier and hungrier, till eating an entire kingdom wouldn’t be enough.” “I, but, you, it.” I paused as my mind crashed into itself and making me hungrier. “I need more.” Drool flowed down my lips just imagining his taste again. “EVERY PONY EVACUATE THE DISTRICT!” He shouted echoing throughout the area and I let out a roar making the ground crack. He stepped back from the air pressure. “You three run!” He said to Max, Cord and Fiona. “We’re with her.” “She’s lost it, she can’t think straight enough to know who her friends are, if your anywhere close to us when we start, let’s just say, you’ll hope you only get eaten.” They rushed out of the area and I looked at him now being alone. “Finally.” I growled stepping forward. “Listen, you need to fall into the hunger.” “What?” I growled. “You’ll become slow and clumsy, I'll be able to easily strip you of your armor and pin you down. I'll be able to help you, but as you are right now, you’ll kill me. This body will die and I won’t be able to stop you from eating my entire kingdom, no matter how much you beg your body.” Tears went down my face. “But, that’s, that’s scary, what if.” “Don’t worry, you can trust me.” Red crept into my vision and I charged not thinking at all as the hunger took over completely making him, and his not soon enough ripped flesh in my mouth. Things went black after only a moment. “Ugh.” I said opening my eyes blinking at dim lights. I looked around and tired to move but I was completely immobilized. I could only look around with my eyes. I couldn’t even flex, and legs were being held down perfectly. “Feeling better?” I looked at him and drool ran down my cheeks. “I’m hungry!” I said without moving my mouth. “Oh I know, and it’s going to get so much worse.” I growled. “I’m sorry about this but this is the only way to help you. I can’t let you move an inch or you’ll likely escape. We have it set so you don’t have to move at all.” “Feed me.” “I can’t for twenty nine more days.” He sighed. “You’re going to go mad, and you’re going to want to die. Don’t worry you won’t, you’ll be able to go years without food. I’ve meet several ponies like you. I killed them all, but they were all like you. This infection is a royal one, but it can infect any pony at the same time. When I entered your father’s body he conceived you on that day, or more rather night. Since I was in him you got the infection. You are not related to me, but still infected.” “Let me go!” “I have servants change out music and make sure you are kept clean while you stay here, I’m sorry but you have to. Without this you’re uncontrollable, you will gain power like nothing else and not even I will be able to stop you. Oh and so you know, names Loggon.” He left after a while. My insides felt like I was being eating alive making me scream in pain and that was only the start of it as things burned inside that I didn’t know existed. I felt like I was rotting from the outside in, and if it were not for the fact I could see my body, I would have thought I was rotting with acid poured on top. Pain of every kind, from every little bit of my body screamed for some pony to feed me making me try to cut my tongue, but they had a guard to stop me. I couldn’t do anything, and I couldn’t stand it, he was right, I wanted to die, this pain was far too much. After eternal days Loggon walked into the room smiling and I looked at him as he sat down by my hooves. “Do you feel hungry?” I paused. “No, and the pains gone.” He smiled and the straps came off letting me sit up. My bones cracked and whined at me. I looked at my hooves. “I’m not hungry.” He smiled and I looked at my body, I wasn’t skinnier, not even a little. I was still the perfect size. “Great, and you can make me a new armor set.” I looked at a pile of metal ribbon on a cart. “I will make you a better one, that was my mother’s early work.” “Yes and was more skilled than an entire country worth.” I chuckled getting up. “Any way just name materials and I'll have them brought here.” “Cool, can I have my armor back?” “No.” “What?” “Oh you’re my new personal blacksmith so you know.” I chuckled a little. “I’m not joking around, also as you are.” He appeared in front of me pinning me down, I gasp. “You don’t have a choice.” I laughed a little. “You don’t know how to make armor do you?” “What do you mean?” “My armor allows me to make armor, the armor I’m planning won’t simply be able to be made by normal means. That armor was made to make better armor, it was never actually meant for battle.” He stared at me. “You mean that armor which made you a match for me, was meant to be a suit to allow you to make armor, you’re telling me that if you made an armor set with that, it would be even greater than that one?” “Basically, your other one had slight modifications to your power boosting your magic, and physical abilities. Mine boosts my physical abilities to a higher level so I can withstand massive amounts of heat, speed, and power. The fact it was magic proof, was just an offset thing that wasn’t intended. It worked out nice for me though.” He chuckled and then started to laugh a little hard. “You are amazing.” “Anyway give me my father first and I'll make you your armor.” He sighed. “Fine.” A black stallion pegasus appeared floating, he was asleep. “There, now make my armor for me.” “I need some things, first my friends, my armor, my clothes that I was wearing, a privet room for each of my friends, my father included, then a list of materials that I'll write up once I have a quill and paper. I will also need a large open space, and some food, I should eat right? I went a long time without any.” “Yes, you won’t feel hungry any more so you’ll have to remember from now on. You should eat once a day or when you feel tired. You’ll probably never die of hunger though, it mostly depends on how much you ate, it could be thousands of years.” “In the last week about five hundred dragon worth of weight, and one actual dragon.” He stared at me for a moment. “Alright, well that will take you a long time before you’ll need to eat.” “Can you get off of me.” He chuckled and moved close so he was near my ear, his smell fill my lungs and I cringed as a different kind of urge came over me. “You can feel it, the way your body needs something more than some food. The only thing I haven’t figured out the cure to is mating. I can never be fulfilled, while I do climax, most have many times by then, and beg for more.” I swallowed. “Keep that tongue inside your mouth.” I closed his mouth and he bit his tongue again. “I am not that kind of mare, nor am I that easy to bate into something like that. You just finished telling me this was something that could be given to my offspring. I would never have your offspring and have them go through this. That was hell.” He cleared his throat. “Wow I couldn’t resist after I had done this, mating was all I could think of.” I chuckled pushing him but he didn’t move making me nervous. “You want quality armor?” He paused. “While I can make it look impressive, I can make it into a piece of burnt metal as well. So back off.” He chuckled. “I have your father and your friends.” “The dragon is my pet, so is the griffin, the unicorn just came along for no reason, they aren’t my friends, they are my property. I can replace them on a whim, you on the other hoof need me, and I’ve been through worse than this, while not nonstop like this, it was a hell of a lot more painful.” “And your father?” “I’ve never known him, my mother only wanted me to bring him back, and when I was a filly I left her, I haven’t seen her in years. His life is of little importance, I haven’t actually been around ponies that much.” I looked down realizing something, I was alone, it didn’t bother me, but no one could say they were my friend or that they knew me. “Fine, how about this, let me at least let you try it out, if you can’t stand it or don’t like it, you can shut my jaw again.” “Why do you want to?” He licked my cheek. “Can’t you smell it?” I swallowed and licked his neck. He was just full of flavor, he tasted even better now, just not in a, I want to eat you way. “Fine, but you can’t go for more.” “I'll not go pass that.” I felt his tongue go down licking along the way and playing with me, making me want more. “Well are you going to waste my time?” I asked flatly and he stared at me rather shocked, no completely shocked. “No fun.” He said smiling, he could tell I liked it, but I just wasn’t in a playful mood to care. I gasped as he did things with his tongue that made me cringe with pleasure, I was careful not to moan a single time. “Done?” I asked, he was almost to that point, but I didn’t want him to go further even though I had heavily enjoyed it, I almost want to force him into me, but this could become very dangerous if I lead him on like that. He pulled back his tongue frowning. “You didn’t enjoy that even a little?” I chuckled. “Rather lousy for a king.” His jaw locked narrowing his eyes making me roll mine. “Now then, all the things I asked for.” He licked his lips. “You taste beyond what I expected.” “What?” I asked and fear shot through my hearts. “I’ve never tasted another like you, the second I tasted you I was on fire inside, screw having you as my blacksmith, you’re my new queen.” I stared at him. “Oh hell I don’t care anymore.” He grinned and I gasped with a whimper as I felt him do something I wasn’t ready for mentally, or at least on some level. I couldn’t help but moan almost too loudly as I squeezed and finished in the first of his thrusts. He grinned knowing I was trying to hide it. “You said.” He kissed me and bliss washed over me as something more than the physicalness of it. He felt like pure happiness, joy, and peace at the same time. Something I didn’t even know how to comprehend, let alone imagine as I pulled him closed wanting more than just one thrust. “You lied.” He whispered. “I, lied.” I couldn’t help it, my mind wanted it, and my body wanted it, only my soul begged for less. He finished after a long time and he showed me to my room. Locking me inside with his magic. I laid on a bed breathing hard trying so hard to get every single moment out of my head, but only to make me want it more, he was like something else. I couldn’t describe how well we mixed together, like the creation of chocolate milk, just flawless in idea and taste. I trembled shaking a little in a ball. “Roma.” I blinked looking at Max. I hugged him pulling him onto the bed crying, while it was bliss in my mind and body, the fact I was just forced to do something I really didn’t want to, wasn’t any less of a horror. It ripped me up on the inside. “I’m so sorry.” He looked at me surprised. “I’ve never said that to you before, I realize now what I’ve done to you. I killed your friends didn’t I?” He looked down. “Yes, and my two brothers.” “I’m so sorry.” I grabbed a letter opener and put it into his claws moving him over me, so the blade was pointed perfectly over one of my hearts. “I have three hearts right now, if you want to kill me, you’ll have to stab me three times, I don’t care if Princess Celestia said I’m immortal, I know this will kill me.” A few tears went down his face. “No.” He threw the knife across the room surprising me. “You were sick, I can understand that all too easily. My brothers were going to die soon anyway, in fact we all were, had it not been for you, I wouldn’t be alive. After I met you an air ship crashed into the barracks. It killed everyone I knew. We would have been there if it wasn’t for you, and at least they didn’t die painfully. You were quick, the air ship burned.” “I’m sorry.” “You’ve killed a lot of ponies and a lot of other things, but in just one week you saved thousands more than you killed. You’ve done more evil than I can imagine because you were sick, but so much good. Now that you’re well, you’ll have no limit to the good you can do, to the lives you can save.” “I’m going to become this kings whore.” His eyes went wide. “If I can’t retrieve my armor or get my hoofs on something else just as good, I'll never be able to escape. Even the stick that Princess Celestia gave me won’t be able to take me from this place. The stone is impregnated with anti-magic metal balls.” “What do you need me to do?” “You need to get Cord and Fiona and leave. Tell Princess Celestia of what has happen and she will send help, right now he is no more powerful than her, but with Twilight Sparkle, Luna, Discord and the others I’m sure they can overpower him.” “But what happens if we leave you here?” “I can’t escape, he’ll make me his queen, I won’t be able to fight him. I don’t know why, but the way, the way my body responded to him, it was like he was my soul mate.” “Wait I’m confused, how do you know of Luna or Discord?” “I was born in Canterlot, I lived there for almost four years, I learned the entire history and many things by then, while in my cave I spent two years studying before the hunger made me forget everything. I was never thinking of anything but where was my next meal coming from.” “Oh.” “I need your help to do this, please.” “What about your father?” “Is he free?” “Yes, I actually had him already touch it.” I smiled. “That’s great, but I can’t leave this room.” “What?” I got up and went over to the door. I touched an invisible barrier. “Wait but I can, pass though.” “Yes, he has heavy spells on this wall, I couldn’t even dream of breaking this with anything less than an alicorn’s best combat spell. Please go, I'll survive, I won’t die, he wouldn’t let me.” “Then don’t lose hope, we’ll be back.” He ran out into the hallway. I sighed and went over to the bed laying down. Time went by and I didn’t care to move or try to make what happen okay. It was worth it to save my father and stop the hunger, but I dreaded what I knew was going to happen if I wasn’t saved. “Sleeping?” Loggon asked knowing the answer. “You know I’m not.” “Yeah I asked around, only on the full moon, that must be nice. I sleep every night, or more need to. You’re a different kind of monster.” “So you going to actually shoot your seed in me this time?” He chuckled walking over to me and going over me on the bed. I closed my eyes tighter, he kissed me. “Come now, you can’t tell me that you hate me, the way you moved made even me feel, like it was magic. I can’t tell you how badly I’ve wanted something like that. Even my last mate was little in compare, she couldn’t even get me off. I sent her away, even now though I think she stocks me.” “Well I didn’t want my first time to be like that.” “Your first, are you sure? You had experience unlike any other, I mean, it was.” He shook his head. “You were more than experienced, or was it natural talent?” He paused realizing I didn’t have a cutie mark. “You don’t have a cutie mark.” “Yeah I never got one.” “What? But every pony has one.” “I never got one.” He laid down next to me so we were face to face. He kissed me and I pulled him closer feeling the surge though my body, but then pushed him back. “Please, stop, I can barely resist you.” “Then why resist if you want it so badly?” “It’s, wrong.” “Why?” He pulled me closer. His breath made a sickening good filling rush down the front of my body making my lips quiver in expectancy, my hooves went numb wanting to feel his skin brush against mine in excitement. “Because I don’t love you.” “Do you need to?” I inched ever so close and I could tell he was the same, holding back even more than me, knowing too easily, that I had no real say in what he would do to me, rather it was going to be him or our bodied that pushed, I was going to beg him for more. “No.” He kissed me and the sensation came back but better, everything was right about him and I couldn’t say no, I didn’t want to.
A Spider Sac Bounty“Where did you hear that song?” I looked at her, she was much bigger than I realized, a lot of bad meat though, making me sigh. The only thing I hated was bad meat. Other than that, not much got me down. “Oh the melody of the pond trapper?” I asked eyeing her a little confused. “Yes.” “From the pond trapper, he’s nice, but I don’t want to eat him, he’s poisonous to me and most things, lost two livers to him when I took one bite, only have two left now.” She paused and I appeared on Princess Twilight Sparkle’s back pinning her down to the ground stopping her from using magic. “Twilight!” “BAD PONY!” I shouted at her. “Trying to use magic behind my back, if it were not for the fact you probably have bad meat to, I would eat you.” I licked her and I paused. I wasn’t sure of it, but she had pony taste, and something more. She wasn’t bad, but not good either and I had fish cooking. I got off her going back to my spot. “Twilight, please, all of you, back off, if she wanted to kill you all, she easily could have long ago. Do not give her reason.” Ponies backed off and I sighed. “You scare my pray, and taste bad, you are a bad pony.” She chuckled lightly. “Tell me Roma, do you know a mare named Hammer?” I paused and looked at her. “I-I might.” I said nervously. Talking about my mother was always hard for me, the few times I did it, I never got around to talking honestly. “I thought so, you’re her daughter, I should have realized it sooner.” “I never said.” “You didn’t have to, you look a lot like her, and that armor you have on, only a master blacksmith could make that, and other than her daughter, no one can make it.” She rubbed my back a little. “She misses you, you know that right?” “I know.” “Then why don’t you go home?” “She smells too good.” Princess Celestia stared at me. “What?” “If I went back home now I couldn’t resist eating her.” I shivered a little. “I really miss her, but I can’t go back if I would only end up killing her. I’ve tried to stop, but, things just taste too good.” I wiped my mouth. “I send her letters, she knows I love her.” “So is that why you left home?” “At first I didn’t understand, ever since I was born, things, I just couldn’t understand it.” I leaned into Princess Celestia and she wrapped her hoof around me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.” “What do you mean?” “I fear your father may have been infected with something evil when you were conceived, and it affected you in this way. There was once a stallion by the name of Shadow, he was a very brave stallion, but he told me where he came from once. It was a long time ago, but the king of his lands is evil.” “Here.” Max said handing me some fish. “Princess Celestia would you like some.” She chuckled lightly. “Sorry I couldn’t stomach fish.” “Sorry.” “Keep going.” I said munching on the fish’s head. “Well he told me that the king of that land came into power through blood lust, he ate every pony he could stand to fit into his belly. Ever since he was a filly he had a taste for blood, and ended up eating anything which he saw as bad.” “Oh.” “He returned to his throne shortly after your father disappeared, my sister and I believed that he had been defeated him for good, after Shadow gave his life to defeat him, but we were mistaken gravely. He wiped out more than half his population in a single day with magic so terrible, it even made me weep when I heard.” “So then he has the same problem.” I looked down. “Yes, but after that day he became a noble king.” “What, but how would he, maybe he’s not like me.” “No, I think he’s just like you, and somehow managed to curve his hunger. I believe you could do the same.” “So then he might know a way.” “Yes, but he also has your father, I found out not long ago that he had left Equestria, in your father’s body as a vessel. That if his new body ever failed him or died, he could go back to that body. I know a way to disconnect it, but I could not go there myself. I would like you to do that.” “He has my father?” “Yes, I believe so, and if it were not for the fact your immortal like him, I would not ask for you to go.” “Immortal?” “Yes, you have magic heavily coursing through your body, even without your armor you would not be able to die.” “That’s nice.” “If you go I’m sure you could learn a way to see your mother and stand not eating her.” I smiled at the thought. “But I don’t know anything about him or the lands which he rules.” “It’s to the south west over the western ocean. I would be able to send you there easily if you’re willing.” “Can my pet come with me?” She looked at him. “I will, the more fish I feed her the less likely she is to eat some pony.” Max said. “Very well, he can come, Twilight come here.” She walked over to us and gave me a green stick. “This will allow you to return home once you have found your father, just have him touch it once, and he will be able to come with you. Come touch this as well griffin.” “It’s Max.” He came over and touched it. “Do not let any pony but your father touch this and keep it safe.” I put it away. “Twilight let’s open a portal.” Both of their horns glowed shooting a steam of magic at one spot opening a hole and showing a beach. “Fish.” I said and Max held up the crate. We walked through and Cord jumped through as well. I looked at him a bit confused. Princess Celestia waved as the portal closed. “Why are you coming?” “I’m going to help you, you should always have someone which can fly and one which can do magic.” He was in a decent set of my mom’s armor. I held out the stick and he touched it, I put it away hiding it inside my cloth so it couldn’t be touched even if searched. “Alright then we will need to find the king.” Max said. “Hey you!” Two ponies ran over to us in armor and Cord held me back a little. “Yes?” Cord asked. “What are you doing here? You should know that this beach is off limits, staying too long will kill you, get to the path now!” We all hurried to a floating path and they threw water on us from buckets. “Stay on the path from now on, at least till you get out of the toxic zone.” “We will.” Max said and they eyed him. “How rare a griffin.” The other one said. I shook and the water came off. My clothes changed to black. “Hey do you know where we can find the king?” Cord asked and they chuckled. “Let me guess you want to challenge the king,” one of them said laughing. “I guess a griffin might increase their chances.” “No we don’t want to challenge him, we need to talk to him.” “Oh, well we can lead you to the kings road, follow us.” We followed him seeing a wall not far off, the land as blackened by something and everything from the trees to the grass was dead, nothing could live here. We got to the wall. “Open up!” The wall moved showing a vast field of flowers. Sweet smells filled my lungs and I looked at Cord, he was rather shocked. We walked pass the wall onto a stone path. We started walking and after a while got to a town. It was as full as Los Pegasus, and just as clean making me a little nervous. We stopped at a road marked path to capital. “This is amazing.” Max said. “You’re not from around here are you?” The guard asked looking at us. “No.” “Well just follow this road to the capital, he’s normally on the streets tasting ponies, so keep your eye out, but if you can’t find him, you can go to the castle, he’ll be there most likely then, just don’t attack him and you’ll be fine.” “Thanks.” I said and they nodded as we started walking. After a while we stopped, both of them were tired from walking. It had been hours and we had seen small villages off to the right and left, but other than that nothing. “How far away is this place?” Max asked and I looked at him rubbing his feet. “This stone path is killing me.” “We should also head in for the night.” Cord said pointing up at the storm clouds. I sighed but followed them to the next village heading to the local inn. We walked inside and ponies were laughing eating. The inn was completely open space with a bar covering the whole back side of the inn, two stairs were off to the side of the door, and a single desk was just a few yards from the door. Cord went to the stallion innkeeper sitting behind the heavy desk. “How much for a room?” The stallion looked at us. “You here to challenge the king?” “No, we’re just going to the capital.” “Oh, yeah you got at least another three day walk ahead of you. One night is ten bits of gold.” “That’s a little high.” “High? You must not be from around here, that’s really low, we’re the bother’s cheap room and board. Anywhere else is easily double that. Do you want a room or not?” Cord pulled out ten bits of gold and gave it to him. He gave him a key with a tag on it. We went to the room and it had two beds. “I don’t think we will find fish around here.” Max said looking at me and I paused at the foot of a bed. “It’s fine Max, I can stand a while without food.” I hopped onto a bed rolling around a little. “You called me Max.” I looked at him. “Yes, because you are my pet, but a good one, so you earned your name.” “Well I guess guys on one side.” Cord said and Max eyed him. “No, Max you sleep here, I have three more days before I sleep. I'll rest and keep my energy up.” “Wait but if it’s a three day walk, won’t you fall asleep when we reach the capital?” “Yes, but I only sleep for a full day before I’m awake for another two weeks. Come here Max, you’re tried right?” “Yeah.” He got onto the bed. “Sleep would be a good idea,” Cord said. “Once we wake up we’ll go get something to eat and figure something out for you Roma so you don’t starve.” I smiled and Max hugged me making me giggle a little. They fell asleep and Max’s warm body felt wonderful, but it would also taste wonderful cooked. If fish could taste so good cooked, what could bird meat taste like cooked? I swallowed trying to get the thought out of my mind. I got up after a while going down stairs. The innkeeper looked at me. “Not sleeping well?” I looked at him then around, the place was packed the day before, now it was empty. I looked at the door, it was boarded up heavily. “I sleep only on the full moon, but they were tried so we stopped. Do you have any fish by chance?” He thought for a moment. “Oh your griffin is a meat eater, let me check in the back.” He went back behind a bar going through some doors and came out a few minutes later. “We don’t have any in stock, but I can pick some up once the bell rings.” “Bell ring?” “I almost forgot, you’re not from around here. You see more than half of the country is pledged by wild beasts of all kinds, always have been. There are actually bounties now set by the king to have ponies take care of it, but so long as we lock our doors or aren’t out at night, we’re fine. The beasts are dangerous so, not many want to try their hoof at it. There are free shelters in ever town for ponies which can’t afford a home or inn.” “What kinds of beasts?” “You’re not thinking what I think your thinking. You cannot go out there and try to collect the bounties.” “I don’t care about the bounties if the beasts are made of meat.” He gave me an odd look for a second. “I believe they are made of meat.” He said unsure if he wanted to answer. “Great, well then can you let me out?” “Alright, it’s your deathbed, just save fangs, or skulls. Each is worth five gold bits, just go to the bounty keeper of any town and they will redeem it.” We walked over to a door, and took off three heavy pieces opening it. I smiled walking outside. I stared at hundreds of winged spiders, I had never seen winged spiders before, but from what I could see and smell, they would be a very tasty meal to be had tonight. My mouth watered as they started to notice me. “Tasty treats come to me.” I said. They charged at me but had no chance screaming in agony as I easily ripped them to bits craving them up nicely, leaving any poisonous parts out and saving their fangs. Cord and Max probably would like the gold. I stopped having finished with my meal. I had a large stack of fangs piled cleanly away from the rest of the bad parts. I looked around a bit having obliterated them clean into the forest destroying the nests and wiping them out completely. They wouldn’t be back. “AAAAAAAH!” I heard some pony scream and I turned sitting onto of a bed of spider sacs, a gray earth pony was terrified, but the bed was comfortable. Ponies started coming out and the Innkeeper came out falling against the wall shocked. Cord ran over to me with Max. “Roma what have you done?!” He shouted at me. “But.” “No! We are in a distant land, you can’t just eat anything you see!” “But.” “No, that was bad.” “I can’t believe it.” The innkeeper said coming over to us. “We are so sorry, she has sometimes bad impulses.” “What do you mean? She just wiped out the greatest threat this village has ever faced, single hoofedly and you think that was bad?” “It, wait you wanted the beasts slain?” “Yes, we have a five gold bit bounty per fang set, from the looks of the piles, she wiped out every single flying spider, just last week we lost eight to them.” He looked at me quivering a little and tears went down his face. “We lost very dear pony to them, they were going to overrun the town.” Ponies started cheering and I looked around. “That’s good she did it then.” “Some pony get the bounty keeper!” He shouted running off. “I’m sorry.” He rubbed my head a little. “I kept the fangs for the bounties, you and Max said something about liking gold bits, so I made sure to keep them all intact. “We should get you cleaned up.” I got off the sac bed and shook, the blood and guts easily came off cleaning me. “How many fangs is that?” Max asked. “Um, there were about a hundred and forty five, so two hundred and ninety fangs, but the hatchlings didn’t have fangs or any meat. I was sad by that, their meat wasted, but from the sound of it leaving them alive would be bad. Protecting them was good right?” Cord hugged me tightly. “Yeah, protecting them was great.” “By Celestia.” We looked at a blue unicorn mare wearing a bowtie. “You destroyed the nests as well, I don’t think we set a bounty for that though, I’m the mayor by the way.” “That’s fine,” Max said walking over to us. “She did it for good measure, now about that bounty.” A stallion went over to the pile of fangs and sorted them counting the fangs. “One hundred and forty five sets!” He shouted and ponies cheered. “Go fetch the bounty quickly.” The mayor said. The pony ran off and came back later with a good size bag on his back. Max picked it up feeling the weight a little. “Well this will do us wonders.” Max put it into Cord’s pack. “We should have a feast.” The mayor said. “Already ate.” He smiled at me a little sickened. “Alright, then Innkeeper, on my tab, drinks for them.” “Will do.” We headed back into the inn and I had my fill of water. Max and Cord got drinks and food before heading back onto the road. I had bought a cart from the village, allowing me to stick both of Cord and Max on the back and pull them. “Are you sure this is alright?” Max asked. “We need to get to the capital, and you slow me down.” “Well we shouldn’t go to the capital till you’ve slept,” Cord said and I looked at him. “I don’t want to have you falling asleep when we meet the king.” “If I run we can make it there in a few hours.” “Wait, your still hungry right?” “Yes,” I said sighing. “That wasn’t even breakfast normally.” “Right well there are plenty of towns with monster problems, if we help them then you’ll be able to eat your fill, we’ll make a ton of gold, and you’ll get to sleep.” “Max what do you think?” I asked looking at him as I kept walking. “Well I don’t like the idea of using you to make money like some ponies.” He said sneering at Cord and he looked away. “But if we get a lot of gold we can trade that for fish, plenty of fish.” I gasped stopping. “You can trade gold for fish?!” “Yes, you didn’t realize that?” “No of course not, I would have gone and harvested millions of bits of gold if I knew that was true.” They stared at me for a few seconds. “In fact I found large mounds of gold back there in the forest, I didn’t think that was useful since, I was going to get gold bits.” Both of them stared at me. “Don’t worry, if you find more harvest it.” “Alright I will.” I started walking. “Should we stop at each town?” “Yes,” Max said smiling. “There are a ton of forests around here so I think we most of the beasts will be hiding in the forests.” I smiled and ran getting to the next village.
