Tell Her Tail

Allura, weary, reached the shore,
Her wings, now tired, could fly no more
A vision of conquest, filled her mind,
A town to conquer, forces to find

"What shall we do?" Allura did say,
"Shall we rule here, in our own way?
Make them our subjects, rule with fright,
And seek revenge, with all our might?"

Twitch sniffed the air, a sudden pain,
A dart had struck, a cruel refrain
Allura's heart, filled with dismay,
As Twitch fell, in a dizzy haze

Another dart, did strike her side,
A stinging pain, her anger tried
She yanked it out, with fury's might,
Scoffed at foes, so weak and slight

But darts flew fast, a vicious rain,
Her strength began to slowly wane
Her vision blurred, her senses failed,
As darkness fell, and courage paled

Twitch woke up to find that the whole world had been turned upside-down. He blinked, shook his head to clear out the misty confusion in his brain, and realized that he was the one who was upside-down. He craned his neck and looked up to she his feet were tied together and hanging off of a hook. The rabbit then looked around the room, and he noticed various jars, bottles, and cooking utensils all around him. He also noticed the pot of boiling water atop a nearby stove.

It all became clear to him at that moment. He was in a kitchen, and somecreature wanted rabbit stew.

Twitch immediately swung his upper body upward, reaching up with paws. Eventually he grabbed the twine tying his feet together. In a few moments, he was able to untie the knot. He fell to the stone floor, then stood up tall to sniff the air. He needed to get back to Allura. Lucky for him, nothing in this land smelled anything like a snow leopard, so tracking down Allura wouldn't be too hard.

With a determined hop, he sprang up onto the windowsill, and then leapt out in search of a big cat.

When Allura’s eyes fluttered open, she was in darkness. Her head throbbed, and her limbs felt heavy. She tried to move, but her head hit something cold and hard. She blinked, her vision clearing, and saw that she was in a metal cage within a dark stone chamber. Panic seized her, and she pushed herself up, ignoring the ache in her body.

"How dare anyone put ME in a cage!" Allura snarled, and she lifted up her front legs and slammed her paws on the ground to unleash her icy powers. She hoped to shatter the cage with a blast of freezing wind and icy shards. However, not a thing happened.

"My ice magic still isn't back yet?" Allura roared incredulously, "Curse you, Sunny Starscout!"

Just the cage door creaked open, followed by the door to the chamber the cage sat in. She bolted out, only to skid to a halt as the bright sunlight outside blinded her. When her eyes adjusted, she found herself in a massive open-air stadium. It was a circular arena of stone and sand, with high walls and towering stands packed with cheering centaurs. Creatures with the legs and bodies of the ponies Allura had grown to despise, but with the torsos, legs, and heads of monkeys.

The air buzzed with excitement of these hybrid creatures, and the smell of sweat and dust filled Allura's big black nose. Allura made to spread her wings, ready to take flight and escape this madness, but she felt a sudden yank at her sides. She looked down and saw thick chains wrapped around her barrel, pinning her wings tightly against her body.

“You must be kidding me!” she growled, tugging at the chains. “How dare you restrain me, you wretched half-pony freakish—”

Her angry shout was cut short by a tiny squeak. She turned and saw a small hole opening in the ground, as if something was burrowing through. Without any fanfare or buildup, Twitch popped right out of the hole, his ears twitching wildly, his fur covered in dust but his eyes bright and alert.

“Twitch!” Allura gasped, her heart leaping with joy, "You're alive!" She didn’t care about the chains, the stadium, or the cheering crowd. Her legs sprang into action, and she sprinted toward him, her paws pounding the ground in frantic strides.

Twitch saw her and ran too, his little feet kicking up sand as he raced toward her, his eyes wide with relief. But before they could reach each other, a chariot shot out from the side, cutting between them. The side swipe sent Twitch spinning on one leg like a top, and he stumbled around dizzily when spinning finally stopped.

Allura yelped in surprise as her tail snagged on the back of the chariot. A pair of smaller centaurs pulled the chariot, where a larger more butly centaur, dressed in fine armor, drove it with pride and boldness. The crowd went wild with cheers, jeers, and laughter at the sight of the snow leopard being dragged by the champion's chariot. The driver looked over his shoulder and laughed at the unfortunate cat.

Allura’s paws barely skimmed the ground as the chariot tore across the arena, dragging her along for the ride. "What the—!" she screeched, her claws desperately trying to dig into the sand beneath her. But the arena floor was a mixture of coarse sand and loose rocks, making it impossible to gain traction. The landscape whipped by, the scorching sun glaring down on her as her body bobbed and jerked violently. Her paws skidded across the dirt, her claws scraping against the sand, kicking up a cloud of dust. Her sleek, lavender fur was soon dusted with grains of sand. Her mane blew back wildly in the breeze, and her legs wobbled as she struggled to keep her balance.

"Ice! Ice! I need my ice!" Allura shouted desperately as she slapped her paws against the ground while sliding backwards. The rough ground did not feel good under her paw pads. She turned her head to insult the centaur driving for giving her paws road rash, only to spot a pile of rocks up ahead, placed by the centaurs as an obstacle for the chariot. The centaur driving pulled on the reins to make the ones pulling him turn sharply. Allura leapt to one side to avoid the rock, and wound up on her hind legs facing forward, her tail still stretched out ahead of her.

“HEY!” she roared, her fierce voice carrying over the wind as she aimed a venomous glare toward the charioteer ahead. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO YOU’RE MESSING WITH?!”

The driver didn’t so much as glance back at her as he laughed again. The chariot’s wheels clattered noisily against the uneven ground, bouncing over rocks and dips in the sand as if her predicament was of no consequence.

"Oh, you’re going to regret this!" she snarled. But her words were cut short as a large boulder loomed ahead, and Allura barely had time to twist her body, avoiding it by the narrowest of margins. Her hind legs kicked out, her paw pads burning as they skidded across the rough sand.

Allura had always prided herself on being in control—fierce, selfish, and unrelenting in getting what she wanted. But now, she was at the mercy of someone else, reduced to being nothing more than a passenger on this humiliating joyride. “When I get loose, I swear, you’re going to wish you’d never seen me!” Her threats, while fierce, were punctuated by the increasingly desperate yelps and hisses every time she dodged a new obstacle. Her tail yanked again as the chariot jerked to the side, weaving between obstacles. It was all Allura could do to keep herself from being slammed into the nearest rock pile.

She landed on her rear with a thud, sliding across the sandy arena. Her hindquarters scraped painfully against the ground, leaving behind a trail in the sand. She yelled at the centaur driver, her voice filled with indignation, “You are scraping the fur off of my-!”

Before she could finish her complaint, the chariot swerved sharply to the left, narrowly avoiding a massive, jagged rock—but Allura wasn’t so lucky. She let out a choked yowl of surprise, her eyes going wide as the unavoidable became reality.

With a brutal, bone-rattling impact, Allura slammed face-first into the rock. Mocking laughter and delighted cheers echoed through the stadium as the chariot continued to speed off, leaving Allura flattened against the unforgiving stone surface. Her body hung limp for a moment. A groan of pure frustration escaped her, and her claws slowly slid down the side of the boulder, leaving small gouges in the stone as her body flopped into the sand.

Dust clouded around her as she lay there, stunned, her ears ringing from the force of the collision. For the first time in what felt like forever, Allura had nothing to say. She simply stared up at the sky, the soft azure of it mocking her in its serenity while her own world was turned upside down.

“I’ll... I’ll tear that chariot apart,” she seethed, her pride more bruised than her body. “No one messes with me and gets away with it.”

Though, deep down, as she rubbed her sore rump and winced at the ache in her tail, she had to admit... this wasn’t exactly her finest moment.

But then, she remembered who she had been running towards when the chariot rudely interrupted her.

She wasted no time and darted back to Twitch, her fierce predator demeanor forgotten in the rush of relief that he was alive. When she reached him, she wrapped her paws around him, pulling him into a tight embrace. She rubbed him against her cheek, her face wearing a huge smile. Twitch hugged her back, his tiny paws gripping her fur as if he’d never let go.

Allura closed her eyes, letting herself melt into the warmth of his tiny body. “I thought… I thought I lost you,” she whispered, her voice breaking with emotion she’d been trying so hard to suppress.

Twitch nuzzled her cheek, his nose twitching, his eyes bright with affection. She felt his whiskers brush against her fur, and she let out a soft purr, something she hadn’t done in years. She didn’t care that she was supposed to be a fierce, terrifying villain. Right now, all that mattered was that Twitch was safe and with her.

The sound of the centaurs’ cheering grew louder, filling the stadium with a deafening roar. Allura and Twitch glanced at each other, their expressions smug. They broke apart, standing tall, puffing out their chests, and waved grandly to the crowd, believing the cheers were for them. Allura even gave a dramatic bow, her tail flicking with pride.

But then they heard the sound of a heavy door creaking open behind them. They turned, and their confident grins faltered. A dark room lay beyond the door, and from within, they could see two glowing, hungry eyes staring back at them. A deep rumble echoed through the arena as a massive, scaly form stepped into the light—a cragadile, a massive reptile made of nearly unbreakable stone. Its teeth were bared, and saliva dripped from its gapping maw. One could tell just by looking at it that this was abnormally large specimen. It was certainly large enough to snap up abd swallow an entire snow leopard in one go.

Allura froze in place, her heart pounding in her chest. Twitch, ever quick-thinking, scampered up her back and began to fiddle with the lock on the chain that pinned her wings.

The cragadile bellowed, and it charged toward them with surprising speed for something do huge. Allura’s breath caught in her throat, and she felt a scream building in her chest. “Hurry, Twitch!” she shouted, her voice high with panic.

Twitch’s paws worked frantically, using a toothpick he had picked up from the kitchen he woke up in to pick the lock. The cragadile jaws were open wide, ready to snap them up in a single bite.

Allura squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the worst. But then she heard a faint click. The chain around her wings loosened and fell away. Her eyes flew open, and without a second thought, she spread her wings wide and took off with a powerful leap.

They soared into the air just as the cragadile’s jaws snapped shut below them, missing by mere inches. Allura flapped her wings hard, ascending higher and higher, away from the reach of beast of stone.

The centaurs shouted angrily, their cheers turning into boos as the pair flew out of the stadium. But Allura didn’t care. She and Twitch were free, and that was all that mattered.

As they flew away from the arena, Allura glanced over her shoulder at Twitch, who was clinging to her back, his face pressed into her fur. She felt a rush of gratitude she hadn’t known she was capable of.

“Alright, Twitch,” she murmured softly, “Let’s leave this dump behind.”

And with a final beat of her wings, they flew off into the bright, open sky.