Author's Note

Ok I'm back and have redone this chapter hope you like it.

~Chief

Ch 2 First encounter Part 1 (Updated: 15/03/2023)

The next morning with Twilight and Spike

As the two Ponyvillians set about getting ready to head deeper into the forest after the wonderful breakfast of greens for the two equines and additional sprinkles of gem dust for the dragon. Turning to leave Twilight waves with her wing to the zebra "Thanks Zecora, Spike and I will be sure to stop by on our way back tomorrow"

Nodding the stripped female replies "I shall be ready for you and the young dragon on your return."

Waving from behind the Alicorn the baby dragon shuts the door to the hut as they exit, before they begin to head off he can feel a magic aurora picking him up and putting him between the mare's wings. "Come on Spike I have a good feeling about this. What could go wrong?" Twilight cheerfully chirped as she headed off for the castle at a modest trot. While the baby dragon face claws at the mare's tempting fate.

A few hours later, Past the castle

CRASH!!!!!

"WHY? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SAY THAT!?" Spike screams at the lavender alicorn as his claws hold her mane tight to keep him on her back as he adds. "LEFT!" to which she dodges left barely avoiding the fire from the feral wyrm's maw. The mare too busy trying to keep her and Spike alive was unable to make a comment back as she galloped further into the forest having long left the old path.

"RIGHT!" Spike cries as the flames lick at their sides making the mare cry out as her wings got singed again making her unable to fly. Her whole body shakes as she moves with Spike on her to try in a vain attempt to protect him. As the wyrm opens its dagger-filled maw to eat the two it had been chasing for a while through the forest. The shadow of the beast loomed over the mare and her dragon companion as she dodged around another tree only to skid to a stop as a wall of stone in the form of a cliff appeared before her from the foliage. The wyrm landed behind her with a thud making the mare turn towards it with dread before she closed her eyes as she tries to think of a way to escape what looks to be their end.

Ten minutes before at the base camp

I'm sitting by the fire and enjoying a nice bowl of snowberries and a few pieces of cooked horker when I hear a rumbling in the distance that didn't sound like thunder but as I was about to turn back to my meal I hear the scream of a young lady after the rumbling starts up again. Shortly after hearing the scream, I hear a very familiar roar of a dragon about to end its prey.

Dropping my food I take off at a sprint into the woods to find this lady and help save her from this dragon. Since it wouldn't be the first time I've fought one, once more sending a prayer up to the Divines for those schemes that hair-brained Khajjit came up with that saved my hide. With a swiftness I didn't know I had with my new body I was moving through the dense foliage with ease and was soon near the voice as another earth-shaking roar fills the early evening air. Making me wince a little at the volume of being so close to it. As I feel the earth rumble under my talons and paws meaning the dragon had landed and the chase was about to come to an end, I brust out of the bushes and find the ground I was running on disappear. In a moment of cartoon comedy, I poke the open air below me and look down before screaming as I was now falling off a cliff.

Once more not the first time I'd found myself falling off a very high cliff towards a dragon, what was new was the bright coloring of the dragon. But what really took the cake was the purple equine with wings and a horn covering something purple and smaller on the ground trying to protect whatever it was from the beast.

Then I remembered I was speeding toward them and more importantly the ground and as they drew closer I let out a mighty warcry........ok I was screaming like a little girl. Which made the dragon and equine look up at the unexpected sound, letting me see the anger in the feral dragon's eyes. But what held my attention was the look of pure terror in the mare's eyes as she looked up moving just enough to let me see that they were covering a very young dragon. But that terror in her eyes was one I'd seen before.

Skyrim, Nirn

Shura and I return to the house she owns outside of Riverwood to find the front door smashed in and the house ransacked. As I was searching around outside the home for any sign of the people who did this or the children that were home when we left a few hours earlier. I hear a loud gasp behind me and turning I find at the door, was Shura holding a note that had been nailed to the frame that we missed and she was reading it. As I grew closer to her and she read further into the note, I was just about to ask what it said when her face gave way to an expression of pure unfiltered terror.

The fear on my friend's face was so great it hurt me to look at it as I stop before her and she offers the note to me weakly. I read through it as fast as I can which was rather hard as the person who wrote it obviously didn't do much writing as there were grammar, spelling, and more mistakes. Not to mention that the writing itself was so horrible it made our chickens' scratchings on the floor of their coop look like perfect print.

Soon I felt my face grow as painfully afraid as she's as once I got what was being said "We have your Children, Dragonborn. If you don't come to our hideout by dark you will never see your little ones alive again." Then it was telling Shura to bring all of her gold to pay for the kids to be released as well as to come alone. We both looked up at the afternoon sky and then at the location of the hideout and knowing we didn't have time to even search the house for more gold we began to make our way to the hideout.

We reached the bandit's hideout a little before sunset, so we didn't have long to plan. So Shura had me keep watch outside the hideout with my bow in case any of them tried to escape. Then she went down and they let her in having been waiting and ready for her. Deep into the earth, they lead her with me waiting outside until she would return with the children. Of that I held no doubt. She would sooner throw herself on her sword if it meant that she would spare her children.

It was less then an hour and she came limping out of the hideout opening to find the guards already handled by me as she lead the children out. I soon learned they had all been tied up and held at sword point to threaten the Dragonborn into giving up her gold and her life. Shura of course wouldn't let that happen and the bandits soon learned why you don't cross her.

Back in the EverFree

I knew that fear, it was the fear of a parent over the life of her children. Which spurred me into action which cleared my mind and allowed me to think up a plan. And as I fell faster and faster toward them, I cast my blades spell sheathing my wings in their otherworldly shadows. As the dragon looked up it smiled as it opened its maw to swallow me whole, thinking I was the appetizer, only made my beak grin as that made this all the easier since the throat wasn't covered in three inch thick scales. All I had to worry about was it breathing fire while I was in its throat as my warcry went silent as it snapped its jaws shut around me.

Twilight

I watched as this strange gryphon continued to dive towards the dragon letting out a screaming warcry as its wings began to glow an otherworldly purple before they were silenced with a loud snap of the dragon's jaws around the little gryphon. That's when it hit me the gryphon was a chick not even full adult and they were just swallowed whole by the dragon as it turned to look at her and Spike as it licked its lips and swallowed and I gulped as I could see the bulge of the little one moving down his throat nearly making me faint right there.

But as the dragon was opening his maw to do the same to Spike and I, it stopped short and gave an odd look and tilt of his head before he straightened his neck and began to twitch about like he was being stung by bees. Then just as soon as it started the dragon collapsed before us dead. Spike and I stared at the dead dragon in stunned silence, unsure of what happened to it. Then its head started moving once more, relighting the fear in us as it opened is maw to eat us......and out rolled the gryphon chick covered in blood and stomach acid. She was coughing up blood and bile the sound of the wet spatting against the ground made me rush to the nearby bushes and lose my lunch.

After I was done tasting my food for a second time, I turned back and made my way to the cliff to find the chick was clean if a bit wet looking and was checking on Spike. He had fainted sometime in the time of us arriving at the cliff and the gryphon being eaten. Hurrying over, my hooves drawing the attention of the young gryphon, as I neared I opened my muzzle to speak when she cut me off. "He's fine, just unconscious from fright." she looked over to me and tilted her head and asked "Are you ok, miss?"

I shake my head to try and clear the cobwebs that had formed "u...uh yes.......more importantly are YOU ok? You just got eaten!" I cried to which she just shrugged and muttered 'not the first time for that either' but of course that couldn't be what she said as that couldn't be true. She began to move to my side where my burnt wings throbbed and reminded me of their damage leaving me grounded for the future.

"You sure miss? You look like he got you pretty good with his breath." She pointed out as she nodded to my wings.

"Okay, I'm not in the best of shape what are you doing out here? Do you know of anywhere safe we can go to rest until Spike wakes up?" I hurriedly asked her with a nod to Spike at his name.

"Sure just follow me back to my camp, its only about an hour's walk from here even with the cliff." With that the strange little gryphon waited for me to pick up Spike and then began to lead me deeper into the Everfree at night.