Cleaning the Wound

“Alright listen up, dweeb. I’m only going over this once,” Garble started.

They were in an open field just outside of Ponyville. Spike and Twilight sat in front of him, the prior apprehensive and the latter eager.

“First off, I’m a Wyrm,” Garble continued.

“Which means?” Spike asked.

“I have four limbs, wings, and stand upright.” Garble gestured at his upright position. “I can use Breath, plus we’re known to be the most aggressive of the species.”

“What’s breath?” Twilight asked.

“It’s Breath. Use the capital B as it deserves, idiot.”

“How can you even tell I didn’t use the capital letter?”

“It’s in the tone!” Garble retorted. “It deserves the respect of a capital letter! Whatever, moving on.”

“But what is—”

“Wyverns,” Garble interrupted.

Twilight scowled.

“No arms, massive wings, and they’re basically storm junkies,” Garble continued. “You won’t see many since they chase lightning off of coastal regions like adrenaline-fueled addicts.

“Knuckers have long claws, no wings, and kind of look like moles with horns. They live way way underground and don’t like top surface… ever. All they do it dig, and they really like doing that.”

“Okay, so that’s three of them. That leaves… Amphipteres?” Spike said.

“Got one right at least, runt. Yeah, them. Descended from Lungs, and those are extinct. No limbs, decent-sized wings, and are the most magically powerful of all the species.”

“Then how am I one?” Spike waved his hands at Garble. “I have limbs.”

“Do you even listen? You’re a hybrid. Two different dragons in one. In your case, Wyrm and Amphiptere, so you get the best and worst of both of them. Weird that it happened, but some Wyrm probably inflamed your egg when the Amphipteres weren’t looking, which means your Greed is focused around both size and magic.”

“My Greed?” Spike tensed. “Wait, the size thing is—”

“A natural thing… for Wyrms,” Garble finished. “When Wyrms cave into their desires they get increased size and strength, but also really really dumb. You’re a hybrid though, so you won’t experience the worst part of a Wyrm’s Greed.”

“And what’s that?” Twilight asked.

“None of your business.” Garble crossed his arms over his chest.

“Wha— You can't just not tell us!” Twilight exclaimed.

“First off, there is no us—” Garble wagged a finger between himself and Twilight “—just Spike and I. You’re optional. Second off, Spike literally can’t do it, only full-blood Wyrms can. There’s no point in telling him.”

“But what if I have to deal with a Wyrm?” Spike asked.

“Are you going back to the Dragonlands?” Garble asked.

“No?” Spike replied.

“Are you planning on fighting any Wyrms?”

“No!”

“Then you don’t need to know. I don’t want to tell you and I sure as Tartarus ain’t showing you. You shouldn’t encounter other dragons since they don’t venture outside of the dragonlands unless…” Garble looked askance. “Well, unless.”

“We’ve seen a dragon around Ponyville, though. He—”

“Has his own reasons.” Garble clapped his hands together. “Okay, that’s all for today.”

“But we barely went over anything!” Spike exclaimed.

“And you've barely answered any of our questions!” Twilight added.

“Yeah! Like I wanna know about the other thing Wyrms—”

“No,” Garble interrupted.

“But—!”

“No!” Garble roared. “I’m calling the shots here and I say we’re done for the day. Be here tomorrow at noon and we’ll go over more. You’re dismissed.”

“But—” Twilight and Spike both started to say.

Garble glared.

“Right, tomorrow then!” Twilight said.

“I was getting tired anyways,” Spike added.

“Uh huh,” Garble said. “I’m going out for a while. I’ll see you back at the tree later. Got… stuff to do.”

Before they could respond, Garble launched himself into the air with his wings and flew off.

Garble was flying. Wind whipped by as he flew… somewhere. He didn’t really have any particular destination in mind, but ‘anywhere’ sounded good.

He felt uncomfortable. And annoyed. He couldn’t really place the why or the what that had caused it, which was what accounted for the second half of his feelings. He just needed to get away and flying off into the sky seemed like a good idea as any, if only because running was slower.

His thoughts were all over the place, a swirl of emotions, which was stupid because dragons didn’t get caught up in their emotions. They just punched something until the emotions weren’t a problem anymore then moved on with their lives since dwelling on them was dumb.

Also, what was the big deal with not showing them? He was being so weird about it. It wouldn’t be hard to just do a demonstration. Would even feel great since they’d know not to mess with him. He was being so unreasonable… or at least more than usual.

Garble could even do it right now.

Just think of the things he wanted, grow three times his size and then show off what made Wyrms scary when they got into their Greed. It wasn’t hard, wanting things was easy if you let it happen, he just kept a tight leash on it since he didn’t need to go rampaging around with no cause.

He just had to do it. Just do it. Do it.

Bile was rapidly climbing his throat. He dropped to the ground, found the nearest bush then vomited his guts into it. It hissed and burned, a mixture of stomach acid and flame.

This didn’t make sense. This was a basic biological function for all dragons. Whatever, he’d just refocus, think about his desires and—

He lurched forward for another round with the bush.

This was stupid. Why was he puking into a bush? This was dumb. He was dumb. This was basic stuff. Whelps learned this within the first few years of their life and he couldn’t do it.

As he breathed raggedly, throat raw from the bile, all he could think about was how pathetic he was.