The Night’s Shadow
By
Syndicate Luna
Night, a time when the moon and stars paint the sky with their beauty for all to enjoy. A time when quiet tranquility reigns to allow those who live during the day to rest and recover. However in the cities, these qualities are often forgotten about. The lights obscure the stars and dim the moon while the constant noise of vehicles break the silence. However, these things mean little to one person, a young man in his mid-twenties who lives in the city that never sleeps, New York. To this man, even though the lights block the stars, he can feel them in the sky. Even if there is constant noise in the city, he can tune it out without a second thought. Then there is the aspect of the night that few consider and fewer still respect, the shadows and the darkness they bring. This man not only respects the shadows that the night brings, but he also uses them. To him, the shadows are a place of relaxation, a place to retreat to when he feels the need to get away from the chaos of the city.
Saturday nights, a time when most people are out with friends, at a movie, restaurant, or party. Me? I have a routine. I start as soon as the sun goes down with a long walk to a relatively secluded bar known as the Wishing Well. It doesn’t have wall to wall TVs or slot machines like most bars do, but what it does have is a bartending god. Watching him make drinks is as captivating as any dance can be.
If I walked straight to the bar from my apartment, it would take about two hours, but I like to take different paths every week. This week I decided to have some fun and use alleyways as much as possible. Not the smartest thing to do but when you know every nook and cranny of the area, it’s easy to avoid the stupid people. I arrived at the Wishing Well around 9:00. “Hey buddy, thought it was about time you showed up.”
‘Is it bad that the bartender can time my arrival?’ I chuckled at that thought as I walked up to the bar table. It stretched across the back half of the building with a dozen or so tables filling the rest of the space. In one corner there was a pinball machine, the owner was a beast at it, and in the other was a 60 inch flat screen TV. All in all, it was a cozy place to relax, chat, and have a few drinks.
“The Saturday I don’t show up without letting you know is the day you should start worrying Dan,” I say as I sit down. Dan is the owner and bartending god standing at a whopping 5 feet 5 inches with short black hair, brown eyes, and average build. Don’t piss him off though, because he can and will kick your ass six ways to Sunday.
He laughed and responded, “I wouldn’t take that seriously if you hadn’t already shown up sick as a dog a few weeks ago. You can’t break your routine, can you?”
I shrugged, “What can I say, I’m a creature of habit.”
“So, what should I start you with today? Shot, beer, one of my famous mixed drinks?”
I thought for a minute and decided to go with one of my favorites. “Get me a Bloody Mary, and make it burn.” I say with a grin.
He chuckled as he retrieved the mixings for my drink. “Should’ve known. You’re the only person I know that likes their drink hot enough to bring tears,” He says as he pours a generous helping of tabasco into a glass. “So how’s work been?”
I give an amused snort at this, “If you can really call it work.” The “work” in question is a website I created to sell various pieces of woodwork I make. Anything from simple picture frames to decorative room sized display cases are a few things I make during the week. I also take commissions for custom works if it interests me, which it normally does outside of the few orders that you could literally make with a handsaw and some wood glue. I make enough to pay the bills and have some leftover spending money. “It’s a little slow right now. I have a few pieces in the works and I haven’t had a commission in a few weeks, but it’s always like that for a while after Christmas,” I say as Dan hands me my drink. “Fast as always Dan,” I take a drink “and still the best Bloody Mary around.”
“That’s because no one else knows about your extreme tolerance for things that will burn the tongue out of most people. And I would like to keep it that way, don’t want to lose one of my frequents.”
I laugh, “You don’t have to worry about that, I won’t leave until I beat you in pinball.”
“HA! Good luck with that sonny. You’ll get free drinks for a year if you ever do,” Dan says in his cocky attitude.
“I’ll hold you to that.” We both laugh at this.
We continued to talk for a few hours before I attempt to break Dan’s high score again. I didn’t even get close. “Dammit Dan, how the hell were you able to get 78 million? This thing only goes to 99!”
He chuckles and replies “Face it boy, you’ll never beat me.”
I gave a small laugh. “That just means I won’t be leaving anytime soon. Anyway, I think I’ll call it a night. I’ll see you next week.”
“Watch yourself out there. All the idiots are out this time of night.”
“It’s me we’re talking about here Dan, what could happen?” I say as I give him a wave and walk out the door.
The second part of my Saturday routine is simple; spend the rest of the night wandering around New York until morning. I just walk in random directions while sticking to the shadows as much as possible. The reason I have been able to do this for the past 4 years without incident is because I have a particular talent for blending into the background and going unnoticed. It’s a handy skill to have and it has gotten me out of trouble more times than I care to count. I can also be fun at times to find out that I’m being followed by some would-be muggers only to slip into an alley, hide in the shadows, and watch as they walk by wondering where I went. I haven’t been found yet and I don’t plan to anytime soon.
I left the Wishing Well at 1:30 in the morning and started my trek into the night. It’s about 6 hours till the sun starts to rise so I spent a good hour and a half wandering around and decided to take a break for a bit to see if anything interesting passes by. After 30 minutes of nothing happening, I start walking again. I spend another 2 hours wandering before I stop again.
‘Something isn’t right. I’ve never been out for 4 hours and not see anything,’ I think as I stop in a small alleyway. It was then that I heard the sound of a high pitched scream….a little girls scream. I immediately make my way in the direction it was coming from and hoped my paranoia was overreacting.
“Get back here you worthless piece of shit!” I heard after jogging for a minute. ‘…fuck,’ is the only thought that goes through my head as I slip into the shadows of a small alley. I’m there for only a few seconds before I see a little girl run by screaming, followed by an average sized man shortly after.
I sit there for a second stunned before I run out after them. ‘Oh hell no!’ I think as I chase the man down the street. Sadly though I can’t fight for the life of me so I resign myself to follow them and only try to attack him if things get worse. After a minute the little girl turns a corner and I start to get my hopes up. I recognize the corner as one of my favorite spots to ditch people who are chasing me. Not far around the corner is an alleyway that branches off in multiple directions as you go further in. As I continue to follow them, I pray the little girl is smart enough to run there and hide somewhere. I make the turn and smile inside as I hear the man yelling, trying to find where the girl went. ‘Good job kid. Now stay hidden for a bit’
I slip into the alley before he can see me and start to slowly make my way down it, hoping that I find the girl first. After walking for a few minutes I hear her crying around the corner. I try to figure out a way to approach without making her panic ‘I can’t just walk up to her and calling out to her will just make her run…shit, this is a really bad idea…’
I creep up to the corner she is hiding behind a pray that my idea doesn’t end horridly. After a few seconds, I brace myself and jump around the corner. The first thing I do is cover her mouth to keep her from screaming and immediately after I pin her to the wall hard enough to keep her from running but not enough to hurt her. As I expected, she immediately starts to struggle in an attempt to get away.
“Shhhhh. I need you to calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. Relax okay, relax,” I say to her in a quiet and calming voice. After a minute of trying to calm her down, she stops trying to break free and stares at me with fear filled crying eyes. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you,” I say quietly. After a few minutes she starts to calm down some more. “I promise, I’m going to try to help you. If I let you go, do you promise not to scream or run?”
The girl doesn’t stop staring at me, fear still in her eyes. But now there is something else there as she stares, hope. After a few seconds of hesitation, she nods. “Good.” I say as I let her go. After I let her go I sit against the wall next to her. Now that she isn’t panicking, I was able to see what she looks like. She was about 4 feet tall with shoulder length red hair and currently wearing a white T-shirt and pajama pants. If I were to guess, she was about 10 years old. But there were 2 things that caught my attention right away. First of which was the fact that she was covered in cuts and bruises, most of which didn’t look recent, and it looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. When I saw this, I immediately got pissed and wanted to find the guy that did this to her and kick his ass into a coma, even if I can’t fight for shit. This however was put on momentary hold when I noticed the second thing, her eyes. They were something I didn’t think was possible. Her eyes were blood red. How I didn’t notice this when I was trying to calm her down is beyond me.
After getting over the initial shock of her eyes, I motion for her to sit down. After a moment’s hesitation, she sits next to me…shaking like a leaf. It’s the middle of January and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she isn’t shaking just because of fear. So I take my jacket off, put it around her shoulders, and hug her close in an attempt to keep her warm. After about 5 minutes her shivering starts to slow down, so I decide to try to talk to her.
“Feeling a little better now?” She slowly nods. “That’s good.” I sit there with her for a few more minutes before I finally ask “Can you tell me why you’re running from that guy? What happened? Who is he?” I already have an idea of what happened but I need to make sure…I just hope I’m wrong.
She sniffs and her shaking begins to intensify again but she answers in the most melodic voice I have ever heard, “That was my daddy. He wanted to hurt me because I left my room.” She starts to cry again. “I was hungry, and daddy doesn’t give me food. So I have to take some from the kitchen when he’s asleep or isn’t home. He caught me going back to my room with food and said that he’s had enough and he started hitting me. After a while he stopped and went back to his room, saying he was going to end this. When he came back out, he looked scarier than any other time he was mad at me, so I ran.” I sat there for a minute after she finished. ‘God dammit…I hate it when I’m right sometimes.’
“P-p-please…d-don’t hurt me.”
This takes me by surprise so I ask, “Why would I hurt you?”
She answers, “D-daddy says my eyes are a c-curse. H-he says that I’m e-evil and I don’t deserve to l-live.”
I look at her for a minute before I start to laugh. She looks up at me in confusion as I do so. After I calm down a bit I ask, “Want to know what I think?” She gives a hesitant nod. “I’ve known you for less than 20 minutes and I think you are the sweetest little girl I have had the pleasure of meeting. In fact, I’m having a hard time deciding what’s more beautiful, your voice or your eyes. There is no way you are evil.”
She stares at me wide eyed, not believing what she just heard. I just give her a caring smile as she does. After a few minutes, she suddenly hugs me and cries. “T-thank you,” she says between sobs, “thank you.”
I look at her face again and she is smiling. A smile that can light up the darkest of days. A smile that I found myself wanting to see on her all the time. We sat there for what seemed like hours, eyes closed, enjoying the quiet of the alleyway.
*CLICK* “Found you, you little piece of shit.”
My eyes snapped open ‘FUCK’ and without thinking, I threw myself between the girl and the gun that the guy who I assume was her father was holding.
*BANG, BANG, BANG*
I barely felt the bullets hit my back and neck. After a few seconds, black started to creep into my vision. The last thing I saw was the terrified, blood covered face of the girl
‘Son of a bitch…I’m pathetic. I can’t even keep a promise to a little girl.’ After that thought, everything went black.
“Do you really think he’s the one?” A feminine voice asks.
“Yes,” a masculine voice replies “he has a pure heart that will not be easily corrupted. However, he will not be able to do it alone. When the time comes, he will need help to keep him from falling into despair.”
The owner of the female voice looked worriedly at the other being. “I just hope that they will be able to accept him before it’s too late.”
“As do I Aurora, as do I.”
Author's Note
And here it is, the first chapter of my first fic. I have no idea how long this will be as I only have a rough layout of events that will occur, the rest of the story develops as i type. For example: the only thing that i had set in stone for this chapter was how he died. Dialog and everything else just happened.
Critique is requested and appreciated, pointless hating is not
Equus, a world of Godlike beings, myths, and magic. In this world is the land of Equestria, a place primarily populated by Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi with some Zebras, Griffins, and the occasional Dragon here and there. This land is ruled by two ponies, Alicorns to be precise, who are so powerful that they are seen as gods by many. These two rulers are sisters who control the heavenly bodies. Celestia, Princess of The Day, raises the sun. While Luna, Princess of The Night, raises the moon and stars. They have ruled over Equestria for thousands of years and have protected it from various dangers. Because of this, for the last thousand years, they have known peace and prosperity. However, unknown to the inhabitants of this land, a being has arrived from a world vastly different than their own and his arrival is the spark of great change.
Pain, that word doesn't even begin to describe what I felt when I woke up. It felt like every nerve in my body had been stabbed with a hot knife, then had salt rubbed very roughly into the wounds, then had the process repeated. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, and I could barely breathe. I sat there for what felt like ages, not even able to make the smallest of noises, until the pain started to subside. Only once it calmed to a rapid but dull throbbing did I open my eyes. Everything was blurry at first, but after some waiting and constant blinking to clear my vision, what I saw had me confused. Thick trees, tall grass, and other plants were what greeted my eyes. To further add to the confusion, I noticed the distinct lack of noise unique to a city as busy as New York.
‘Where am I,’ I thought as I tried to get up to have a look around. I immediately found out that was a bad idea as a spike of pain shot through my head. I brought my left claw up to my head...
My left claw up to my head...
Claw up to my head...
Claw…
‘Claw…what?’ I stared at the claw that was supposed to be my hand for what felt like ages, slowly flexing what was supposed to be fingers only to have one of the four claws respond. Most people react to a mental shock in different ways, some outright panic, others go into some form of denial, and some try to rationalize whatever it is that caused the shock. Me, I’m a bit different.
“Well, that’s interesting.” My eyes widen as I hear my voice, as it is no longer the my normal tone, instead it has a deep yet soft tone to it. “This just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” I say as I start to recover from my shock enough to move. I start by examining my arm more closely. The top of my arm was covered in pitch black scales that have a slight purple sheen to them while the underside was a slightly faded shade of purple. My claws were long, sharp, and colored like ivory. Three of them were where my fingers would be and the fourth acting as a thumb.
Next I turn my gaze to my back, and it’s there that my thoughts grinded to a halt yet again. Folded against my sides in plain view are large leathery wings. After staring for a few minutes, I start to shift the muscles along my back trying to find the ones that are connected to my wings. It took some effort and time but I was able to unfold my left wing slowly. What greeted my sight was a massive black wing with a slightly transparent, dark purple webbing. I then look to my right side and extend that wing as well, giving a few experimental flaps afterwards. After taking it in for a few minutes I grin.
“As weird as this is, I am going to have some fun with these...as soon as I figure out how to properly use them. Something tells me there is frequent pain in my near future.”
After voicing my own thoughts, I find talking to myself useful for sorting out my thoughts. I fold my wings back and continue my self examination with the top of my back. There I find it lined with dark gray spikes. With further testing of my back muscles, I find out that these spikes are able to fold down to the point where they wouldn’t impale something on my back. Next my sight follows the spines down my back to the thing that makes me grin again.
“Ok, now I really can’t complain. I not only have a tail, but I have a tail with a freaking blade on it. Oh, this I will enjoy. I wonder how sharp it is.” To answer this question, I start to familiarize myself with the new muscles in my tail.
With this done, I look to the nearest tree which is a few feet away from me, a nice thick tree that I am unable to identify, and swing my tail blade at it. What happens though adds another shocking thing to my list. The tree is cut clean in two and falls over. To add to the shock, when I cut the tree, I didn’t feel the slightest bit of resistance. I bring the tail blade up to my eyes to examine the edge for any nicks or scratches.
“Holy shit,” I say in awe. “Not a scratch...note to self: be careful with my tail blade.”
I move my tail back behind me and examine my hind legs next. It has black scales like my arms but instead of also having purple scales as well, it’s all black. My feet have three sharp ivory claws and after taking a secondary look at the rest of myself, I note that my body is nearly rippling with muscles. The next thing I figure out is my size. Being a woodworker, I picked up on the ability to relatively accurately guess the measurements of objects, so I stand up on my four legs as straight as I can.
“It looks like I am about twenty feet tall.” Next I lay down and stretch my neck as far as it will go, then I drag a line through the grass and dirt with my chin. After I do that, I do the same with my tail and made a line with my tail blade. With this done I stand up again and examine the distance. “And fifty to fifty-five feet long. That seriously slims down what I could be, and if I am right, I am going to be as giddy as a schoolgirl.”
“Well, the only thing left to see is my face, so I need to find a water source somewhere.” I close my eyes and listen for anything that sounds like running water. After a few minutes, I hear what sounds like a river off in the distance to my right. I open my eyes and start to make my way in that direction...then I fall flat on my face.
“Right...don’t know how to walk on four legs. *sigh* this is going to take a bit.”
It was slow going at first with many trips, stumbles, and falls, but after thirty minutes or so I am able to walk with enough ease to make my way around without constantly face planting. As I start making my way towards the river, I note that my vision is way better than it used to be. Before I needed glasses to see anything farther than ten feet away, now I can see over 100 yards in fine detail easily. I also notice that my hearing is sharper as well. I can hear an owl call clearly enough to where it seems to be right next to me but when I look, I see the owl causing it is off in the distance. I decide to think about it later and focus on getting to the river. After about twenty minutes, the treeline opens up into a clearing with a decent sized river. After I make my way up to the river, I dig out a medium sized hole, so I have calm water to look into, and connect it to the river. When it fills up, I finally get a look at myself. The front of my face is elongated, like a muzzle, and is covered in the same black scales with a slight purple sheen like the majority of my body. The back of my head is covered in white spikes and two large horns, and my chin has some small black spikes on it. From my neck to the underside of my body are the same purple scales as on my arm, but what really catches my attention are my eyes. They have slitted pupils while the rest of my eyes are a deep midnight purple that seems to glow. With all the details noted, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what I am.
“...I’m a Dragon.” I sit in there in shock at this realization, then I start to chuckle. Said chuckle then turns into all out laughter after a moment. I sat there laughing for a good ten minutes before I calm down enough to ask myself the three big questions.
“How did I get here? How am I a Dragon? What happened?”
Its that last question that kick starts my memory and causes my mood to plummet faster than a bullet shot straight down.
‘A Saturday night routine. A long walk in the night. A little girls scream. A melodic voice. Bright blood red eyes. A beautiful smile. Three gunshots. The blood covered, fear filled face of the little girl. Blackness’
I stood there for what seemed like hours, my face showing no emotion but a rage growing within. As I stood there, the forest seemed to go dead, like it could sense my rage building. The wind stopped blowing, the animals stopped moving, even the river seemed to slow to a crawl.
"Dammit, Dammit, Dammit, Dammit," I stand straight up up my hind legs “DAMMIT!” I roar as I bring my claws down with all the force I can muster. I hit the ground so hard that I ended up creating two craters where my claws are and caused the ground in the immediate area to violently shake for a few seconds. After standing there for a few minutes, my rage dies down but all I’m left with is guilt and sadness. Guilty that I was unable to keep my promise to her and sadness because I have no idea what happened to her. I stand there, unable to find the energy to move, and shed silent tears. After what felt like forever, I look up and see a gap in the canopy of the forest, and in this gap I see a sight that forces a smile on my face despite my mood. It’s currently night time and out for all to see is an uncountable number of stars, surrounding a giant full moon. It is a sight I was never able to experience in New York due to the light pollution and that makes this current sight all the more beautiful.
I stayed there watching the night sky and letting it dissolve some of my sadness and guilt for a while, when I heard the snapping of a branch followed by multiple growls. I swing my head around and see something I have never seen before. It looks like a lion with an oversized upper body, large bat wings, and a scorpion tail. It is a little shorter than I am standing at roughly fifteen feet tall. After a few seconds, two more make their way into the clearing, and they all look hungry. Anger started to build up from being interrupted so I sat there and gave them a flat stare as they approached.
“...Really? You really want to do this now? You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” I stand up and turn to face them as they start to surround me “I am in no mood for your stupidity. Leave now or you will regret it.” I say in a voice that echoes through the area.
After hearing that, they hesitate for a moment, but continue to growl and surround me. I keep my head on a calm swivel so none of them are too far out of sight. Suddenly the one on my left charges at me, quickly followed by the one on my right. When they are close enough, they try to jump on me. After they jump, something strange happens. Time seemed to slow to a crawl and I am in mild shock as I watch them slowly move through the air. However, I don’t stay in shock for long and as they get closer, time seems to speed up again. I spin and swing my right claw at the one on my left while at the same time using the momentum from my spin, I swing my tail at the one on the right. My claw connects with the side of the creatures head and I hear the audible crack of its skull shattering. I then turn to the one on my right, only to see that my tail blade decapitated it. Then I hear a roar from the remaining one and face it. The hunger that was in its eyes was now replaced with rage. After a moment, it charges me head on and once its close enough, it tries to sting me with its scorpion tail. Once again time seems to slow down, only this time I don’t hesitate to act. I grab the thing’s tail, sidestep it and, using its own momentum against it, swing it around back in the direction it came from. It impacts a tree at the edge of the clearing so hard, the tree snaps in half. I watch as it slowly get to its feet and looks at me, the anger in its eyes replaced by raw fear. After a few seconds, it runs away and I’m left in the clearing with the bodies of the other two.
A few minutes of watching where it ran latter, I sigh, turn to the river, and start to clean off my blood covered claw and tail. When this is done, I get out and start to walk away, but stop when my stomach decides to make its existence known.
“Well that’s just perfect,” I grumble. Then a thought occurs to me ‘I wonder. Dragons are carnivores, so I should be able to eat raw meat now.’ At this thought, I make my way over to the decapitated creature and, using my tail blade, I cut a chunk out of its arm. After a moment’s hesitation, I take a bite.
“Hmm, not bad.” I say after chewing a bit. When about a quarter of the creature is gone, I am unable to eat any more. I go back to the river to clean off the blood, and while I’m there, another small problem occurs to me.
“I won’t be able to haul that thing with me if I went anywhere and I can’t cut off pieces of meat to take with me because I don’t have anything to carry them in.” I look around the river clearing for a minute. “Guess I could set up camp around here, and since I don’t see any clouds, I won’t have to worry about making a shelter right away.” With my plan set, I get out of the river and drag the two corpses together closer to the river. When this is done, I let out a yawn. Looking up at the position of the moon, while I’m not the most accurate telling time this way, I can easily determine it’s well past midnight, so I lay down and curl up a short distance away from the river and slowly drift off to sleep.
It has been a few days since I woke up here after dying and being turned into a dragon. I’m still staying at the river clearing for easy access to water and the open sky so I can see the stars. On the second day, I was able to make some fire by striking a rock with the blunt side of my tail blade to make sparks because, after all my efforts to do so, I was unable to breathe fire. That night I encountered another creature I’ve never seen before while I was cooking some meat for dinner, or should I say six of them. They were wolf like creatures but they were made of wood instead of flesh. Surprisingly enough they were not hostile towards me, and even seemed to respect me. I have taken to calling them Timberwolves because they are made of wood. They hunt in the area around the river clearing and after they were unable to get anything substantial enough for their pack, I decided to give them what was left of the decapitated lion creature.
The next two days I decided to try and teach myself how to fly. Needless to say my earlier prediction of pain was accurate. By the time I was able to properly hover a few feet off the ground, I was very sore from the constant crashing into the ground and trees. I was also able to continue woodworking to a small degree in the form of small figurines. The fact that my tail blade is impossibly sharp helped a lot. When I wasn’t crashing into thing in an attempt to learn how to fly, I was carving various types of animal figures to pass the time. Currently I have a few birds, the six Timberwolves that come by every now and then, and the lion creature.
Right now it’s mid afternoon and I am currently sitting next to the river, engrossed on finishing my current figure. It’s the likeness of something that has been on my mind for that past few days, a figure of the little girl. I have been working on it for a few hours and am so focused on it that the world around me has faded into silence. I take the last little bit needed off of the head and examine my finished product. It is a close to a perfect likeness of the girl as one can get with wood, but even in wood, the smile on her face is brighter than the sun. As I stare at the figurine, a sad smile creeps its way onto my face.
“I must say, that's very well done,” says a voice right in front of me.
“GAH!” I yell as I jump from surprise, accidentally throwing the figurine into the air. Immediately I scramble to grab so it doesn’t break, fumbling it a bit before I safely catch it. I look it over to make sure it isn’t broken and give a relieved sigh when I see it’s undamaged.
“Oh I do apologize, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the voice says. I turn to face the source and I see something that both surprises me and brings a small smile to my face. Sitting in the river is a long Sea Dragon with orange, borderline blond, hair, eyebrows, and mustache. The majority of his body is covered in purple scales a few shades darker than my own while his underside is sky blue. From what I can see of his upper body, I would guess that he is at least sixty-five feet long.
“It’s fine,” I say after a moment “the downside of me focusing solely on one thing is that I scare easily. How long were you watching me?”
“Oh, about an hour. I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt you. My name is Steven Magnet by the way, what’s yours?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but then stopped. ‘What’s my name?’ I think as I start to rack my brain searching for my name. ‘Why can’t I remember my name?!’ I start to panic as I frantically search my memories for my name, but no matter how hard I search, it’s like never had one. I sat there for a few minutes thinking and Steven started to look at me warily. All of a sudden, something clicks in my mind and I think of a name. I know it’s not the name I had before, but somehow it just sound right, like it’s supposed to be my name.
A small smile works its way onto my face as I reply “My name is Noctis Umbra, or Umbra for short. Nice to meet you, Steven.”
“Oh what a lovely name, so dark and mysterious, it matches perfectly with your black scales. Although I am curious, how did you get them to have that purple sheen? It looks positively marvelous; I wish my scales were like that.”
I shrug at his question. “I don’t know, they just do but I wouldn’t sell yourself short. Purple is the second hardest color for a guy to pull off, and I say you do it pretty well. Whereas black, if proportioned properly, can go with almost any color.”
“Why thank you,” he beams at my comment “but what do you think is the hardest?”
“Pink,” I say instantly, “any guy who can pull that off has my eternal respect. Not even black can help.”
We both laugh at that for a minute. After we calm down, he looks at the figurine still in my claw and asks “I’ve never seen a creature like that. What is it and why did you make it?”
My mood drops at his question and I look down sadly at the figurine “This creature is known as a Human,” I sigh, “and this is the little girl that I failed to protect after I promised her I would.”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
I look back up and him and smile. “Don’t be, I made this so I could remember her and as a reminder to never let it happen again.”
He smiles sadly at me. “That’s very noble of you. It sounds like you travel a lot, where are you from?”
‘Should I tell him or not,’ I think. ‘I’m not sure what his reaction would be...’ I sit there for a minute debating with myself. I decide I should trust him and tell him. “Would you believe me if I said I was from another world?” He gives me an incredulous look so I continue to explain. “The world I’m from is completely different from what I’ve seen here so far and the city I lived in, New York, had almost no plant life outside of some parks and a few trees. Dragons only existed in myth and I was also a Human. The night before I ended up here was the night I ran into this girl,” I say as I gesture to the figure. “She was being chased by her father and from what she told me, he was going to kill her. She was able to get away and thanks to some of my habits, I was able to figure out the area where she was hiding. I was able to calm her down enough to talk to me but while we were sitting there, her father found us and in an attempt to protect her, he killed me. The last thing I remember before waking up in this forest was seeing the girl’s scared face covered in my blood.”
I sat there watching his reaction to see if he believed me. “I want to call you coocoo for saying that, but I get the feeling you’re telling the truth and you seem different from other dragons, I’m not sure what it is but something about you is….oh what’s the word I’m looking for.”
“Off?” I ask.
“No, not off. That makes it sound negative.”
“Unique?”
“Yes that’s it! Unique, you have this aura about you that I haven’t seen in other dragons.”
I was thinking about this for a moment when the six Timberwolves walk into the clearing carrying two deer from a successful hunt.
Steven recoils in disgust when they appear. “Ack, Timberwolves! What are they doing here?”
I give him a confused look as I get up and walk towards them. They drop their kill and start growling at Steven. “Hey! He’s a friend, calm down!” I yell at them. They stop growling and fold the branches that are their ears back. I look back at Steven who now has a shocked look on his face “They hunt in the area and whenever they get more than enough food for themselves they bring them here to share with me. I also think they are a fan of my cooking,” I say with a grin.
The shock doesn’t leave his face as he responds “They actually listen to you? Timberwolves have never listened to anyone outside of their pack’s Alpha, and he will normally go down fighting than obey someone else. How did you do it?”
I shrug. “Don’t know. The second night I was here they found me and didn’t attack me, instead they seemed to respect me. A little while later they came back after a failed hunt so I decided to give them what remained of one of the lion creatures that attacked me on my first day.” I start to carve up the deer with my tail blade when something occurs to me. “Wait, they’re actually called Timberwolves? I only called them that half as a pun.”
He can’t help but chuckle at this. “Indeed they are, did this lion creature have bat wings and a scorpion tail?”
I glance up to him for a second before going back to work on the deer. “Yep, you know what they are?”
“They are called Manticores and they are extremely violent.”
I let out a bemused snort. “I figured that out relatively quickly.” I walked over to my fire pit with the meat of the deer in one arm and set it down to start the fire. After I have it going I look back to Steven and ask. “You want some?”
He gives a shudder of distaste. “No, thank you, I don’t like meat. I’ll stick with my gems,” He says as he reaches into the river and pulls out what looks to be an aquamarine gemstone then eats it.
I give him a shocked look, “Wait, you can eat gemstones?!”
“Of course I can. All dragons eat gems, it’s actually our preferred food.” He reached into the river, pulls out another aquamarine, and tosses it to me, “Here, try one.”
I catch it and give it a look before shrugging and popping it into my mouth. I’m shocked that when I bite down the gem shatters like it was hard candy. I sit there savoring the taste for a minute before swallowing. “Not bad, tastes like fresh blueberries.” I turn back to my cooking and we sit in silence for a minute when I get an idea, turning back to Steven with a grin “Since I’m new here and don’t know much, what can you tell me about this world?”
I sit there listening to Steven tell me all about this world. He tells me about the different sentient races that live on Equus: Griffins, Zebra, Dragons, Diamond Dogs, and Ponies. He goes more in depth with the Ponies, saying that there are four different kinds: Earth, Pegasus, Unicorn, and Alicorn, which is a hybrid of the other three races and that there are currently only four Alicorns. He tells me that there is magic in this world and that while every creature has some form of innate magic, Unicorns and Alicorns can actively control it. He tells me about the land we are currently in, Equestria, and how it is primarily ruled by two Alicorn sisters that raise and lower the sun and moon. We discuss everything for the rest of the day and when night falls he heads off up river with the promise that he will come and visit every now and then.
The Timberwolves left not long after Steven, having enjoyed their meal, and I’m left alone in the clearing, deep in thought watching the stars. I think about Steven and everything he told me, trying to figure out what I would do in this world. After an hour or so, I decide I should get some sleep to let all the information soak in.
I’m laying curled up on the ground, listening to the calming noises of the night and slowly drifting off to sleep. All of a sudden, there is a noise deeper into the forest that causes me to instantly shoot up. It’s a noise that I will never forget, and a noise that sparks an anger inside me.
I hear the screams of a group of little girls.
Author's Note
Then there was chapter one. So...how many of you noticed that I never gave his name in the prologue?
For those that are wondering what his voice sounds like, I imagined it to be similar to Ignitus from The Legend of Spyro, just a little younger.
