Dinky Doo: The Scion of Wind

Blood spurted out her mouth in reply.

The white mare flinched; her surprise evaporated as quickly as the splatter on her cheek.

The tar-stained eye widened.

Within the immaculate folds of her burning magic, the foal finally had the sense to thrash about, desperate for any hope of escape.

The long spiraled horn hummed, ready to burn to life again.

"Silence, impudent runt!" she snarled at her prey, which was now inches from her muzzle.

Frozen, the periwinkle foal gave the faintest of whimpers. Her lip was trembling, her heart was pounding, ready to leap out of her chest. Were her golden eyes dilating? She dared not look away from the hateful face of her captor.

Yet, the details she could focus on were not much better.

Behind the mare, the sky was blood-red, cloudless; the once-verdant fields — now ash.

"No, don't hurt her!" cried a voice, which the white mare seemed to take no notice of, for she had eyes only for the crumpled heap in her telekinetic grasp.

With a forked tongue she traced her fangs; she smacked her lips appreciatively.

Then her eyes flashed.

At the end of her horn bloomed a ball of swirling fire, which made the captive foal hiccup inside her magical prison. Out of options, the foal kept trying to push herself from the safest corner of the prison.

"Dinky!" cried a voice that, again, the white mare took no notice of, since she was too busy relishing the sight of her prominences dancing around in her victim's shrunken pupils.

"Dinky, DINKY!" the white filly shrieked, her squeaky voice cracking.

Tears trailed across the blackened grass. She galloped and galloped, desperation in every dry pant and every hiss of a hoofstep. Her fuchsia hair dragged thinly and lamely behind her.

"Sweetie Belle, you dummy, no!"

An orange filly started into a gallop. In seconds, she caught up with her white-coated friend.

A yellow filly who lacked a bow wasn't far behind.

"It's too dangerous! C'mon! It's too late. We can't do nothin' here now. We gotta get outta here. Now!"

If the white filly was paying any attention to her friends, who were galloping on either side of her now, she didn't show it. She raced further ahead and sidestepped a volcanic geyser, her eyes fixed stubbornly on the bully of a white mare.

The white mare perked her ears up. "Oh?" she crooned, a slight glance over her shoulder.

Pausing its idle undulations, her burning tail stood up straight as though it had been caught red-handed. It twisted into itself, its tendrils coiling over each other over again. Tighter and tighter into itself the tail wound…

Ash clumps were spraying past the white filly as she ground her forehooves to a halt. Mouth agape, she watched, paralyzed.

"Oof!"

The yellow filly stumbled, falling onto her.

The orange filly's hoof skipped a step, her wings fluttering feebly before her momentum parted her from the ground.

Dazed and sweating, there the little fillies lay.

They looked up.

Now a fully braided serpent of flame, the tail was ready to swoop upon the prey under its glow.

"Mhmhmhm," the white mare chortled to Dinky over the screamed terror. "Humorous, isn't it? That these foals could ever think they could stand up to me, the Bringer of Day Eternal!"

Paralyzed, Dinky could say nothing; she roved her eyes over her friends' faces for the last time.

The point of the fiery tail winked a deadly promise.

Finally, Dinky gasped herself awake. "Applebloom! Scootaloo! Sweetie Belle!"

But they could not hear her over her screaming.

"Ah," the white mare purred, eyes closed. "Music to my ears."

Helpless, Dinky watched the fiery serpent dive. She could blame only herself in that moment. It was her fault for dragging her friends into this. It was her fault for what was going to happen them now. It was her fault for being foalish enough to go with him to Haissan in the first place…

She couldn't look.