Red in Tooth and Claw

It stared forward at its unsuspecting quarry, its catlike eyes narrowed in a cold, calculating gaze. It pulled back its top lip in a silent hiss, preparing to pounce. It was on the hunt, to kill the competition in this new territory. Harder battles were yet to come but for now, this was a start. It was ready, and the manticore was not.

It decided right then to swagger into the clearing where the manticore was eating its latest kill. It fanned out its feathered arms in a classic challenge, and hissed, opening its mouth wide and baring its teeth. The manticore looked shocked. It was the top predator of its environment, and this creature, a full head shorter, had the audacity to challenge it?

The manticore readied itself, facing its opponent and looking it over. Male. Three claws on each hand. Four claws on each foot, one of which was vastly oversized. Lizardlike proportions, but covered in grey feathers, with a lateral stripe of white going down the length of its body. The primaries on both its arms and legs were tipped in white. Tan, scaly skin and emerald eyes. It was foolishly showing him its side as it walked, circling him, and leaving the perfect opportunity to rip its ribcage open. This creature was foolish and arrogant. The manticore would make short work of it.

He lunged, aiming for the long tail. Taking its balance was the key to taking its life. All he felt was the gentle brush of feathers on his upper lip and nose. How had he missed it? Suddenly, too quick for him to turn around, he felt a searing pain go up his rear right leg, from his thigh to his haunch. He looked back, and to his horror saw three deep slashes going up his leg, which had cut cleanly and shredded the muscle. His enemy’s hand was dripping with his blood as it slowly and pompously walked over to stand in front of him.

Unable to support his weight, he fell forward. The enemy loomed over him, and then jumped onto his back, standing on the spot right over his shoulder blades. It was surprisingly light, he thought. Then, before he could get it off with his tail, two large daggers of pain shot into his spine, making his body go limp against his will, and he felt a set of wickedly sharp teeth slowly and gently come over his neck before his vision cut to black.
* * *

“I think I’ve got something! Maybe a hadrosaur!” Sandstone said from her section of the dig. Tyra walked over, and was pleased to see that for once, her intern was right. It was, in fact, a tooth from a hadrosaur. Nothing too special, but it was still good that she had been able to tell.

“How can you tell, Sandstone?” she said, not giving away her approval just yet.

“It has a shape that allows it to pack in with others of the same shape. It’s small and leaf shaped.”
The bright yellow pegasus looked up for the first time at Tyra, and her face contorted in slight fear at her stern look. The moody blue unicorn had a nasty habit of chewing her out when she was wrong. But Tyra’s look softened into a smile, revealing that Sandstone was right.

“Good job. You guessed right.” She took the tooth and examined it. “Doesn’t seem particularly big though. Maybe we have a smaller species, or a juvenile.” She knelt down with Sandstone in the dirt. “Maybe we can find the skull, or a fragment of the jawbone.” She started to help Sandstone dig.

Hours later, after giving up the search, they sat down in Tyra’s tent, where the third member of the team, Granite, was cooking dinner.

“Nothing?” he asked.

“One tooth,” Tyra replied sadly. Lately, their staff had quit, and productivity had greatly decreased. They were digging in the Macintosh hills, south of Ponyville, and sadly, there was no funding left in the dig. Stubborn as she was though, Tyra was probably going to dig here until she had to sell her tent for dinner.

They weren’t going on much, and her partner and intern were really just her volunteering colleagues. Still, over the course of two years they had all become good friends.

Granite, a strongly built grey Pegasus stallion, put a comforting hoof over Tyra’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry. We’ll hit something good eventually. If not, we can just go join another dig and earn enough money to get back on our hooves. I heard Levine has hit a treasure trove of troodontids.”

At the mention of her rival, Tyra’s face soured. “Levine can kiss my-”

“Tyra, be professional.” Sandstone said as she carefully blew on her soup, interrupting Tyra before she could finish her remark.

“Right.” She replied, and then cleared her throat. “No, I would prefer not to dig within fifty meters of that condescending and unpleasant but undeniably successful stallion.” With that, she started to eat Granite’s mushroom soup out of one of her paper bowls.
* * *

It could smell something, hear the sound of hooves hitting the soft soil, and the clinking of metal. It slowly used its hand to part the branches in front of its face. The thing it had been hearing was a hoofed quadruped with golden rings around its neck and hoof. It took another sniff of the striped creature, and information came pouring in.

Female. It was a female. It smelled of strange foliage, wood, oil, and other hoofed creatures. As it watched, the hoofed thing hid in a den covered by a piece of tree. It narrowed its eyes at the hoofed thing. This would be its next target, for sport. Not food. Slowly, it crouched and then pushed hard off of the ground, jumping high into the air, and landed on a tree branch. Climbing from branch to branch, it started to move, positioning itself where it could hunt and watch the den.
* * *

Zecora looked out the window, feeling a strange presence, and saw two green eyes. She blinked, and they disappeared.

“Silly me, it was probably a trick of the Everfree.”

She then started to mix potions.