The dragon threw back its head and roared as it soared through the air.
Strawberry watched it pass by with bated breath; it was a Regal Serpent, one of the nobles of the ruling caste of New Draconia. His rank was indicated by golden bands of armor that encircled his massive, scaly neck. She recalled the tales of the old days; how these very dragons had played a critical role in overthrowing the throne of Old Sunlight, the former ruler of a land called Equestria. The dragon hung like a shimmering cloud above the valley and the wind from his furiously pumping wings sent large gusts of air across the lands below.
Its wind swept over the long rows of strawberry bushes and brought relief to the farmers who worked among the blooming leaves and sprouting grasses of the summer. Their wooden baskets overflowed with the ripe, red vegetables and the brims of straw hats sheltered their faces as they worked. Whether or not they were aware of the great contributions which their labor brought to New Draconia’s economy was of no importance; they simply worked, as their fathers had worked before them and as their sons and daughters now labored alongside them.
One of the farmers, a unicorn named Strawberry, smiled as the breeze tickled her black mane and swayed the saddlebags full of ripe fruit on her side.
“Do you like the wind, Strawhat?” she asked to a filly at her side.
Strawhat was herself carrying a wicker basket stuffed with ripe fruits from her mouth. The wind was blowing her light pink mane into tufts that left whiskers of her mane dancing about her forehead. Her light pink coat was stained in sweat and bore dirty marks from the labor of the day. Her cutie mark had already come in; a basket full of strawberries, in the same shape as the strawberry that shown from Strawberry’s own flank. Strawberry took a moment to appreciate the way that the light caught her eyes and brought out their brilliant pink hues.
The filly nodded, as her mouth was too full of basket to muster a response.
“You’ve already gotten so many!” said Strawberry to the filly.
Through the handle of the basket in her teeth, the filly mustered a smile. She began to giggle as Strawberry bumped her muzzle against hers and the two rubbed against one another, laughing in the light of the afternoon sun and the relaxing coldness of the crisp breeze. Her eyes twinkled with true happiness as she played with her older sister and Strawberry returned that love, as happy as she had ever felt.
She looked up from playing with her sister and realized that she never truly wanted to leave the farm. Her cutie mark was a strawberry, just like her name, after all. This was her happy place; where she had been raised by her father and mother in the ways of agriculture. Every day when she woke up and took to the fields to tend them, or to the stables and barn to tend to the animals, she was filled with a sense of purpose and belonging. She knew that there were things beyond this, but this place filled her with the golden ambrosia of belonging and happiness.
The filly and the mare trotted over to a wooden table underneath the spreading branches of a massive willow tree. It had stood on that same soil for countless generations to shelter laborers in the spring and summer from the harshness of the elements. They made good use of its shade and began to unload their harvest into the back of a cart, which stronger stallions would pull to a collection site further within the farm.
As they poured their wooden baskets of strawberries into the cart, the two began to talk.
“How’s school going for you, Strawhat?” asked a curious Strawberry.
“It’s okay I guess,” she said with a dismissive glance to the ground.
Strawberry stopped her labor and trotted over to the filly. “Just okay?”
The filly shook her head and a tear came to her eye, her lower lip losing itself in a bout of trembling. Strawberry let out a small sigh of sympathy and lifted a hoof to rustle her mane to and fro. Then she smiled and offered for the filly to clamber onto her back. Strawhat reluctantly did so and the two began to trot to the north of the farm.
It was a cliffside that overlooked the vast valley of the Lowland Breadbasket; a sweeping expanse of hills that stretched out in their natural beauty as far as the eye could see. Far above, pegasi flew through the sky, small dots that stood out amidst the white swirls of clouds and the blue tarp of the afternoon sky. Below them, the trees stood in all the glory of spring as birds swirled within their branches and deer bounded through the depths of the forest. The horizon stretched out into a think, murky line within the distance, the display of natural beauty never coming to an end.
The filly seemed to relax before the expanse of nature. Her eyes became lost in the craigs of distant mountains and Strawberry could tell that she was as far from the puerile annoyances and trivialities of the schoolyard as anypony possibly could be. The sun shone directly on her and the filly smiled in its warmth, curling against her older sister. Strawberry wrapped a leg around Strawhat and smiled at her display of sheer relaxation.
“Strawhat, remember that no matter how bad one part of the world seems, it’s always bigger than you think it is.” said the mare to her sister.
Strawhat looked up into her eyes and a smile came across her face. “Yeah, I know.”
She lifted up her tiny leg to wipe away a tear and Strawberry planted a kiss on her cheek.
“What are you girls gettin’ up to?” came a gruff voice from behind them.
The two ponies looked over to see their father approaching, Hot Coffee. He was an older stallion with deep lines and wrinkles in his face. He had a scar on his neck that started from the center and wrapped around the left; a token of his time in the Draconic Legions. A pipe dangled from his mouth and ratty locks of a dirty, black mane hung over his face. His emerald green eyes peered at his daughters from under bushy, greyed eyebrows.
“Strawhat was just having some problems in school,” chuckled Strawberry to her father.
Hot Coffee sighed. “I remember the very first time I ever took you out here, Strawberry. What a time that was.”
He spoke his words with a gentle smile and looked out towards the horizon. “This is the same spot where me and your mother got married, you know.”
Strawberry laughed. “I know, you’ve told the story at least a dozen times.”
As her father continued on, Strawberry leaned back and drank in the beauty of the nature around her. At her side was her sister and she knew that she would do anything to anypony to protect her. Her father continued to speak of the earlier era that had been her childhood and Strawberry grinned to herself as she recalled the tales of her youth playing out amongst stacks of hay and fields of strawberries. Her life was a perfect lake of gold for the time being and she had no reason to think it would ever end.
Those were truly the best days of her life, when she had nothing to hide, with her family by her side.
They began to trot back to the farmhouse in the toasty, warm air of the Equestrian summer. Her dad was eagerly recounting tales of Strawberry’s fillyhood to Strawhat as they walked and the filly eagerly ate up the knowledge, as if it was the last time she was going to hear it. It took them a few minutes of walking down the worn, hoofprint studded trails of the farm to get back to the small farmhouse.
It was a tiny thing, painted white on the outside with grey shingles adorning the top. They showed the normal signs of weathering; dings, small holes and a few were missing to expose the wooden roofing of the home. Glass windows radiated the light of a cooking fire inside and a chimney delivered its smoke outwards as Strawberry’s mother prepared lunch for the trio. On the wall hung an old, rusted blade. A few other workers passed them while they were walking to return to their own homes on the property of the farm.
Strawberry opened the door and saw her mother there, preparing a meal for her family. A worn knife worked quickly as it chopped up a variety of carrots, tomatoes, rabbit meat and celery to make a stew of natural products caught and grown in the wilderness around the farm. A hunting trophy hung above the stove; the head of a deer, the first animal Strawberry’s brother, Potshot, had ever hunted.
Around the farmhouse was the usual assortment of items; a creaky set of chairs pulled up to a dusty table, the floorboards of the floor and a single bulb that hung from a black wire. The light outside shifted every so often as the body of a passing pony would cause it to damper for a second, sending shadows into the interior of the home. The smells of her mother’s cooking swirled into her nostrils and brought her back to the earliest days of her childhood, when she would eat that very same meal every afternoon.
“Where’s Potshot?” asked her mother, Candlewax, to Hot Coffee.
“Out in the woods,” he grunted. “Said there was some funny business going on and wanted to check it out with some of th’ other stallions.”
“Funny business? Surely not more cattle rustlers or, Celestia forbid, Griffon strawberry thieves?” asked Candlewax with a note of concern in her voice.
With a start, the door of the cottage bursted open.
All of the ponies within whirled around to see a distressed brown stallion, sporting a bushy white mane. Strawberry immediately recognized it as her rambunctious brother, Hoofshoe. He was panting furiously and large drops of sweat fell from his brow to the floor of the cottage. On his flank was a hoofshoe cutie mark and two wings hung from his side. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath before he began to speak.
“You’ve got to come quick!” he yelled.
“Daddy, what’s wrong with-” piped up Strawhat.
Hot Coffee silenced his daughter. Before he could ask his son what was the matter, he had already darted off and joined a band of stallions and mares that were rapidly walking towards the woodline. Hot Coffee grabbed his sword from the wall as an afterthought and quickly rushed outside to join them.
“Candlewax, watch Strawhat. Strawberry, come with me if there’s any trouble.” said Hot Coffee.
With a nod, Strawberry followed him out of the door. She stood outside of her cottage with her father and they both took a second to drink in the scene before them. A thick plume of inky black smoke rose from the thick columns of trees on the edge of the farmland and most of the farmers had dropped their tools, either retreating in shock or heading towards the woods to investigate what had happened.
Strawberry, alongside her brother and father, joined the stream of panicked mares and stallions that curiously flocked towards the woods. Murmurs and muttering were spreading out among the crowd as everypony tried to get a hoof on what was going on.
“I heard somepony say it was an alicorn!” loudly exclaimed a younger stallion with a green mane.
“No, it was Old Sunlight herself, she just now came back!” roared a panicked mare brandishing a pickaxe.
Several of the older stallions tried to raise their voices to assert their dominance in the crowd, in a futile effort to direct its energy, but nopony paid them any heed in their excitement. The trickle of ponies crept slowly but surely towards the deep darkness of the waiting trees. Strawberry noticed that the song of the birds had stopped and the rustling of rabbits and other such creatures had come entirely to a halt. Farm tools were scattered about everywhere and she took care not to step on any as she trotted into the waiting woods.
*****
Wind swept over the clearing as the dragon pumped its wings.
The crowd of ponies had quickly trotted their way into the forest after being driven there by their curiosity. Within the depths of the forest was a strange sight waiting to confront them. An uncountable number of strange, hairy beasts lay waiting in the forest before Strawberry and the farmers who had come to investigate.
The source of the smoke and flames from earlier was now starkly evident; torches which the beasts clenched within their hands, their other hands bearing spears, swords and more arcane and mysterious weapons. The green eyes of the beasts, which the ponies around Strawberry referred to as ‘apes’ and monkeys’, continued far up into the trees and shone from every bush and shrub surrounding the ponies.
Strawberry turned her gaze upwards to see a Regal Serpent hovering over the clearing, turning her look away as the reflection of sunlight from the golden bands around its neck seared her eyes. In the half-look she was able to take, she saw an eerie, focused stare emanating from the eyes of the dragon. Its red eyes were widened under a narrowed brow and its lips had been pulled back into a snarl.
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” roared Hot Coffee to the dragon that hovered above.
Shudders ran throughout Strawberry’s body. The power in her father’s voice was something totally unknown to her. Never had the gentle pony raised his voice into such an anguished and angered yell and to hear it made her feel like a filly quaking before the path of a tornado.
Everypony in the clearing trembled as the dragon spoke.
“Bloodbath.” it said with an icy hiss.
Hot Coffee’s face twisted with rage and Strawberry almost offered words of consolation to him, had her curiosity not overtaken her.
“That name is gone to me,” said Hot Coffee in a low, powerful voice. “I have found peace here and want no part in your wars-”
“The choice is not given to you, Bloodbath.” replied the dragon in a surely tone. “Tell me, how much do you remember of war?”
“Be gone, dragon! And take your repulsive apes with you!” roared Hot Coffee.
A smirk overcame the dragon’s face and it pointed a claw forwards.
When it did so, the entire forest moved with it. A tidal wave of smoking torches, rusted blades, monkeys and apes shot forwards towards the ponies in the clearing.
Everypony had a different reaction to their imminent demises. Some tried to escape, only to run into the path of the apes and be cut down where they stood. Some wet themselves and begin to sob, a path that Strawberry took as she quivered beside her father.
One pony drew a sword and roared.
He was no longer Hot Coffee, in the eyes of Strawberry. The father she knew would not have eyes so bloodthirsty, yet so determined. The father she knew could not manipulate a sword the way this pony was, to slice through heads and limbs with graceful ease as if they were sticks of warm butter. The father she knew did not laugh with a bloodsoaked face as he took the lives of squealing, frightened enemies.
The pony before her had stopped being Hot Coffee and was now something else entirely.
Severed limbs and heads encircled him, as well as a ring of apes too frightened to approach him. Strawberry and Strawhat quaked by his side, the only surviving ponies besides him in the clearing. Though she had not the bravery to look upon the massacre around her, she had heard it clearly enough. Her younger sister had already passed out and lay still in Strawberry’s arms.
“Come, dragon!” screamed the pony who was no longer Hot Coffee.
The Regal Serpent laughed, a sound like boulders falling from a mountainside. “Ponies are weak. Look about you; how many survive? There are your unconscious, urine-soaked daughters, but besides them and you, the dead. Ponies do not deserve to survi-”
Its words were cut off by a howl that emanated from the forest. Strawberry squeezed her eyes shut and hugged Strawhat to her chest as the roar shook her skull and brought pain to her eardrums.
From the depths of the woods emerged a creature so terrifying that Strawberry wet herself once more. It was no normal ape, but a twisting mass of muscle that bulged as if fruits had been stuffed under its skin. It stood far taller than the apes around it and great fangs jutted from its mouth, already soaked in the blood of the ponies who had been foolish enough to flee in its direction.
The pony who was not her father turned his sword to it, but it rushed at him like lightning. He got a single swing in that left a gash across its chest.
Strawberry watched blanky as the beast ripped her father into pieces. His blood splashed onto her face and soaked her fur a scarlet red, but she felt no disgust in her emptiness.
“Da...daddy?” she said in the numbness that had overtaken her.
Strawhat had reawakened, her face buried in Strawberry’s chest.
“Is daddy okay?” she asked her older sister.
Strawberry could not even cry. It was as if a blanket of snow had descended over her heart and blocked all of the emotions which fought to raise to the surface. She could feel sorrow and heartbreak writhing within her heart like serpents, trying to make her feel what she knew she should feel, but nothing came.
“Yes,” softly whispered Strawberry to her younger sister. “Everything will be-”
A light-furred ape pried her sister from her legs and she gave no resistance as the filly was taken from her.
“Straw...hat?” whispered Strawberry.
The ape grasped the filly’s head in its hand and began to squeeze. More blood joined the gore dripping from Strawberry’s fur.
“Are you okay? Strawhat?” whispered Strawberry as she stared into nothingness.
Nothing greeted her ears save from a cackling from all around her. The apes whooped and hollered as the dragon above burst into a bout of laughter that shook the leaves from the trees in the forest surrounding her.
“And now his daughter.” she heard the dragon say clearly.
Something which was neither an ape or a monkey then approached her. It was a towering castle of muscle that stood far above her on two legs, hairless across its entire body. Two red eyes shone in its skull and its lips were drawn into a fierce frown.
It took her in one hand and then there was a sensation of movement.
“STOP HIM!” roared the quickly vanishing dragon.
Strawberry was vanishing among the depths of the forest as the beast sprinted as quickly as it could, far outpacing the monkeys and apes which chased it. Great swathes of the forest flickered away as it swung from trees, leaped over boulders and dashed quickly through the white rapids of vast rivers.
The beast whispered to her in a strange language, then everything faded away and Strawberry finally fell into a merciful, unconscious slumber.
