Author's Note

So, I've never really taken requests before, outside of contests like Jinglemas, but I figured I'd give it a try. You can all thank The Crimson Pony for this one. The prompt they gave was: Zebra Stallion's Trophy Collections., which is only spoilered because, well, spoilers.

Enjoy the read.

The Hoard of a Dragon

Smolder was walking through the Zebrican city of Roam by herself.

If she was honest, she would have preferred the company of her friends, but they were all cooped up in their air conditioned hotel room.

As a dragon, Smolder was of course untouched by the hot climate. The southern continent might be a lot warmer than Equestria, but for someone who grew up bathing in lava for fun, the difference in climate was negligible.

She was just about to get bored when she was approached by one of the locals.

"My, what an exotic creature you are," the zebra stallion said as he looked her over, a pleased smile on his muzzle. "What brings you to our lands, my scaled beauty?"

The dragoness resisted rolling her eyes. She'd interacted with a lot of zebras since they were sent here by the map and she generally got along well with them. This guy however was just being straight up rude.

"The name is Smolder," she replied, stopping to show that she wasn't the slightest bit intimidated. "And lay off the racist talk. I'm a mighty Dragon, not some exotic thing for you to ogle over."

Having said her piece she strode past him. The creep looked stunned by her rebuttal, but she often had that effect on ponies that annoyed her.

And keep annoying her he did. As she strode away, he followed.

"My apologies, my fair dragon," he simpered. "I did not mean to offend you."

Smolder rolled that over. One one claw she was tempted to roast him, on the other she and her friends were here on a diplomatic mission. Being the pragmatic sort she settled on a compromise.

"Apology accepted," she said, waving her claws in a gesture of dismissal. "Now scram."

"Scram?"

The stallion seemed genuinely confused and she remembered that while all ponies spoke the same language, they had a lot of regional dialects and accents.

"Yeah, scram," she explained. "It means get lost, fuck off, and leave me alone."

"I can see you are busy," the stallion looked disappointed, but seemed to finally take the hint. "I am sorry to have bothered you."

Smolder grinned, making sure her sharp teeths were on full display.

"Apology accepted," she repeated herself.

"I merely thought to offer you some shade in this midday heat, most tourists would appreciate it."

"Again," smolder said, letting a small gout of flame slip past her lips just to reinforce the point. "I'm a Dragon, heat means fuck all to us."

The stallion looked if not intimidated, then at least like he finally regarded her with respect.

"I can see that now," he said, giving a very light bow. "It is nice to run into a fellow warrior."

"You, a warrior?" Smolder looked him over for the first time. She guessed she could see it. He was quite tall and muscular, for a pony, and he was armed. A sword hung by his side, as did a knife and the bulges beneath his cloak hinted at even more hidden gear.

"Okay, fine. Nice to meet you."

She extended a fist, which he took, and shook. Not the hoofbump she was expecting, but then again they weren’t in Equestria anymore. She returned the shake with a firm grip of her own, which seemed to please the guy immensely.

"And you as well, dragon warrior! Say, would you care to join me for a cup of tea?"

Blast it! Tea parties were Smolder's one weakness, that and frilly dresses. Well fuckit, why not, she was bored anyway. It'd still be another couple of hours before her friends had cooled off enough to do anything fun, so she might as well.

"I guess," she shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. "What's your name by the way?"

The zebra stallion smiled. "It's Muuaji."

"Muuaji?" Smolder repeated. The word rang a bell, and thanks to her language lessons back at the School of Friendship it didn't take much effort to translate. "Doesn't that mean Murderer?"

"Killer," the stallion corrected, sounding a bit miffed. "Though I prefer to see myself as a hunter. You should see my trophy collection."

Smolder's grin was genuine as she followed him back to his house. She was curious to see what beasts there were to hunt down here in Zebrica. Probably no bears or mountain lions, but definitely something fun. This might prove to be a worthwhile encounter after all.

As Muuaji busied himself in the kitchen, Smolder took the time to look around his living room. There were indeed a number of hunting trophies decorating the walls.

The heads of Lions, hyenas, a chimaera, and a even a few that Smolder didn't even recognize were on full display, as was a number of skulls, tusks and horns from various beasts. There was also quite a few weapons, bows, javelins, swords and clubs. As a Dragon, smolder didn’t really need that sort of thing, but they were cool to look at.

Clearly Muuaji wasn't all talk, he genuinely had some skills as well.

Actually, a couple of the skulls gave her pause. There was something creepy about them. Something that struck smolder as odd. She was a hunter herself, back home she ate her own game freshly flame grilled, so a few dry skulls really shouldn’t bother her, but they did. One was clearly a large bird of prey that looked eerily familiar. The other one looked insectile, and there was no mistaking that one.

"Is that a changeling skull?" she called out, never having been one to dance around a subject when direct confrontation was an option.

"Ah," Muuaji appeared in the doorway, a tray balanced on his back. "I see you found one of my most hard earned trophies."

He set the tray down on a coffee table, clearly unbothered by the fact that his guest was holding the skull of a sentient being.

"Those are shapeshifters," he explained as he poured them a cup each from the pot on the tray, adding a few herbs and spices to each drink. "Extremely hard to track down, clever too."

"I know," Smolder stated flatly. She knew she had once had the same opinions on changelings, but Ocellus had changed all of them. There was just no way she could think of them as anything less than creatures worthy of respect when one of her closest friends was not only one of them, but also one of the kindest, gentlest, most considerate creatures Smolder had ever met. The fact that some ponies still considered them monsters pissed her off.

Despite her earlier excitement, she was no longer enjoying her time with Muuaji. The changeling skull had left a sour taste in her mouth, much like the tea did when she took a swig. You'd think with all the spices the savage put into them it'd taste better.

She forced herself to swallow the bitter brew and looked around the place again. After the revelation of the changeling skull, the collection took on a far darker tone. Her eyes fell on the second skull. Having recognized one for what it was, it wasn't hard to guess the other one.

"And that's a Gryphon?" She pointed at the beaked remains.

"Yes," he confirmed, clearly missing just how upset his trophies was making her. "Strong warriors they are. I still have a few scars from that fight, and her spear is on my wall over there, place of honour."

He calls them warriors, Smolder thought. And he collects their weapons. She felt the fury of dragons stir in her chest. This savage was no hunter, he really was a killer, and one who kept the skulls of sentient beings as trophies. The changeling skull could have been an honest mistake, but this bastard knew that Gryphons were people. Sure, not the nicest people, but definitely not the sort of people it was okay to murder and use like fucking wall decorations!

"It's a nice trophy, yes?"

The smirking zebra could count himself very lucky that Smolder considered herself better than him, or she would have replied by burning his house down.

"No," she stated flatly.

Wanting very much to be done with this absolute creep she downed the rest of her tea, grimacing as it burned on the way down.

"I'm done here," she said, and tried to stand up.

"Oh I think not," Muuaji disagreed.

If Smolder could have, she would have torn that smug grin off his face with a swipe of her claw, but the bastard kept his distance.

"What's going on?!" Smolder coughed as she pushed herself up from the couch, her legs felt unnervingly wobbly, as if they struggled to take her weight. Something was very wrong!

Muuaji's grin grew downright diabolical. She tried to take a swipe at him, but he easily avoided her clumsy strike. Why was she suddenly so slow?

"I know poison is a dishonorable way to end such a worthy opponent," the shitstain of a stallion answered with a snicker. "But I think we both agree that taking you down in any other way would have been… far too messy."

Smolder could barely think, but there was one thing left to her, rage! If she was going to die, she was going to take this bastard with her!

She tried to extinguish that smug face with her flames, but all that came was a coughing fit that brought her to her knees and stained the carpet a deep crimson red.

"Why?" was all she managed to get out before she vomited another gout of blood. Her head swam and the gore stained floor rose up to meet it.

"Come now," came the mocking voice of the monstrous zebra as he stepped over her prone body. His eyes glistened with sickening avarice as he told her. "Surely you noticed the gap in my collection?."

Still snickering he pulled a dagger from beneath his cloak and bent down over her.

“I have yet to claim the skull of a dragon.”

Smolder tried to wriggle away, to do something, but her body was no longer obeying her at all. It was a horrible realization that there was nothing she could do to stop him, and even if she did, the poison would finish her off anyway.

With her last effort of defiance Smolder spat blood in his face, but that only made his face even more ghastly as he bent down and slit her throat.