How to Train Your Dragon: The Pony Edition

The morning arrived bright and clear after the fierce storm that had rolled through the night before. The air had a chill bite to it that Glendrel could feel even through his thick scales. But rather than encouraging him to remain in her warm, sandy nest, the brisk air, combined with the brilliant sun streaming in through the windows carved into the side of the cave wall where he made his lair, called to him in a way he could not resist. It was going to be a beautiful early spring day and he wanted to make the most of it.

As he rose from the shallow depression that served as his bed, Glendrel noted that the sand that lining the bottom of the hollow would need to be replenished soon.  Another reason to get an early start on the day, he thought to himself. The winter just past had been particularly cold with more snow than he remembered falling in many years this far south. If it hadn’t been for the stockpile of sand gathered before the first snows, he would have been sleeping on bare stone by now.  Glendrel turned toward the tunnel that connected his chamber to the greater lair complex winding its way through the hollow mountain. His acute hearing detected the sounds of talons clicking against the stone floor and the faint brush of wing sail against scales indicating that he was not the first to arise this morning.  But instead of going to join them in the communal central cavern, Glendrel turned continued to the protected mouth of his own lair and soon stepped into the brilliant morning sunshine.

Glendrel turned so the light of the sun sparkled along the length of his body, his ruby scales glinting brilliantly as he did so. He then spread his great onyx wings to warm them just a bit before taking to the air. The ledge outside his lair was high enough that when he was ready, all he needed to do was step off into the void and catch the currents that rose along the flanks of the mountain.

Normally he delighted in flying, chasing creatures across the wide river valley that spread out from the base of the mountain. Today, however, he wanted to enjoy the peace and beauty of the morning by himself.  Heading toward the rising sun, Glendrel soon found himself soaring over the blue ocean waters that lay to the east of his home. The swift, north flowing currents brought warmer waters and warmer air with them and he turned to catch these ocean born thermals. Glendrel pumped his wings to gain altitude and soon the islands that dotted the coastline shrank beneath him, green gems sparkling in ocean waters as blue as his mother's own eyes. The observation amused him immensely as he compared the scene below his wings to his own jeweled coloration and he soon began an impromptu sky dance to celebrate the harmony he felt between himself and the world around him.

Tucking his wings close to his sides he dove towards the water, delighting in the feel of the wind rushing past his scales.  As he reached the point where an observer would fear he was doomed, Glendrel snapped his wings open and pulled out of the dive to skim just above the surface of the water.  Snaking his head around he peered behind him and watched the wind of his passing creating interlocking ripples that spread out in his wake. He then pumped his wings again and rose once more into the sky.  As he continued to climb, he pulled one wing in close and gave a last down stroke with the other resulting in a vertical spin that in combat would allow one to escape an enemy attack.  But in this case it was purely an expression of the joy found only in flight. Once he reached the apex of his climb, Glendrel cupped his wings suddenly, caught an updraft and came to a hover.  The serenity of the quite morning had just been interrupted by a silent “cry” for help.

At first he wasn’t sure he had heard the faint emotional call, but when it came again he was able to determine that it was coming from one of the smaller islands some distance out from the coast.  Banking to his right, Glendrel glided out to sea at deceptively sedate pace.  While he was anxious to locate whomever was in trouble he didn’t want to approach so quickly as to alarm them.  Even though his kind didn’t hunt other sentient beings for food there were other races that weren’t quite so . . . discriminate. He reached out with his thoughts to see if he could establish mental contact with the being who had called out but without success.  Either they were from a race that had no ability at mind speech at all, or they were too far away for him to establish a link. As he closed in on a cluster of small islands Glendrel hoped that whoever was in trouble would call out again.  There were more than a dozen of the little outcrops of land, and though they were small when compared to some of the other islands around them, they were large enough to be time consuming to search.

He was beginning to wonder if he should send a call back toward home and request a rescue flight be sent to help when the cry came once again.  This time he was close enough to determine which island it came from and that the caller was getting increasingly desperate. He increased his speed and soon reached his destination. As he turned to circle the perimeter of the island, he saw the broken remains of a small boat strewn along a narrow beach. He was pleased to note the faint, but readable tracks that lead up the beach towards the tall cliffs that ringed the island. That gave him a direction in which to start his search.

Again he sent out a mental call in an effort to reach the caller and again he received no response. He also considered issuing a vocal call of his own, but he was still concerned that even a moderate roar from his might cause undo alarm in those he was searching for and might even drive them into greater danger if they sought to run from him. Glendrel lined himself up with a tall spur of rock thrusting itself up through the dense vegetation of the island so he could use his distance from it to establish a spiral search pattern around the island. He once again considered calling back for assistance, but until he was able to establish just who was in trouble and how they would react to Dragons he was still reluctant to do so.  Settling himself for a potentially long search Glendrel banked to his left and began circling the island in a clockwise direction.

He hadn’t gone quite half way around the island when he spotted a bright splash of reddish-brown against the dark gray stone of a cliff the looked to be several hundred feet tall. It was one of the Griffons,  the lion-eagle race whose lands bordered that of Equestria. As he got closer he saw there was another Griffon laying across the top of the cliff, hanging slightly over the edge and straining to reach its companion. Judging by their size these two were young, out of adolescence, yes, but not yet fully adult. That explained why there was no response to his mental call. Either neither of these two had the gift of mind speech, or their gifts had yet to fully manifest.  But at least he knew that they would recognize him as an ally if he were to verbally call out to them.

Just as he prepared to do so, a sudden gust of wind surged up the cliff face and knocked the young Griffon from its tenuous hold on the rock face and it fell towards the rocky beach below. A roar of dismay from Glendrel echoed the cries of fear and anguish from both of the Griffons. He dove down the face of the cliff after the plummeting form and snatched it from the air, being very careful not to puncture it with his sharp talons. As he had done earlier that morning Glendrel snapped his wings open and pulled out of the dive just as the other Griffon cried out in despair, convinced that both it’s companion and Glendrel were destined to crash. Glendrel then pumped his wings and soared back up the cliff face and with his free hand plucked the startled creature off the ground and flew towards the open beach.  When he reached the spot where he had seen the remains of their boat Glendrel cupped his wings and came to a gentle landing.

He then gently set the pair down on the soft sand and stepped back enough to get a better look at them.  The one who had fallen was a young male and the other a female. He could tell that his assessment of their age had been correct. The female immediately bent to check on the condition of her companion who had collapsed onto the beach. Glendrel could smell the dried blood that matted his dense, red-brown fur and knew that the male had been seriously injured in the fall that resulted in his clinging to the side of the cliff. How seriously he could not tell, but that he was not still bleeding was a good sign. Suddenly the female stood and rushed over to the remains of the boat, checking various boxes that had washed up along the beach. It was obvious that she was searching for something, but the Dragon had no way of knowing what that might be. After a few minutes the female had apparently found the box she was looking for half buried in the sand and began frantically trying to dig it out. Glendrel carefully got up and walked over to where the female was working and with a single talon lifted the box from the sand and popped the lid open.

For the first time the female spoke. “Thank you, Gentle Dragon. Had you not found us, I fear my brother would now be dead.” Glendrel nodded his head in acknowledgement and then introduced himself using the common language of trade.

“Master Glendrel,” the female said and bowed her head again.  "I am Gilda and my brother is Talon.”

Cree then began to dig through the box until she found a small green jar, it’s cap tightly sealed against water and air by a coating of wax. With her prize in hand, Cree ran quickly back to her brother and cracked open the seal. Whatever the jar contained the smell was quite pungent and Glendrel wrinkled his nose in disgust as he pulled his head back.  Apparently, the Griffon also found the smell unpleasant for as soon as Gilda passed the small jar under her brother’s nose he began to cough and turned his head away. A moment later his eyes opened and he looked around the beach, obviously unsure how he had gotten down off the cliff relatively unscathed. When he spotted Glendrel, he gasped in surprise and tried to rise to his feet. Gilda ushedack down and ordered him to lie still.  His sister’s tone was so firm and authoritative that he quickly turned to look at Eirlan in order to hide his amusement.   As he did so, Eirlan caught a faint touch at the edges of her mind.  Suddenly he put one hand over his eyes and groaned in pain.

"Can you hear me, Talon?" she asked.

“Yes,” he answered verbally if somewhat weakly, “but it looks like that is going to be all for a while.  My gift is only recently awakened and it appears this headache is going to interfere with it for a while.  I see my sister has already told you our names.”

“Yes, and I am pleased that at least one of you can hear me.  It will make things much easier.  You’ll just need to translate. For now, though, we need to see about getting the pair of you back home and you to a healer.  I would be happy to carry you on my back if you are up to the ride.”

“I think Talon might have trouble holding on to your back with his injuries and I am unwilling to rely on my own strength to hold him in place.  Could you carry him in your hands?” Gilda asked.

“I could carry him, but that would not be advisable.  It would not be as comfortable for Talon and it would make landing difficult,” Glendrel explained. "Maybe we can devise some sort of harness . . ."

After discussing it for a moment the pair agreed that a harness would be a prudent move and Gilda began scouring the wreckage for the rope they would need.  When she returned to her brother’s side, Glendrel asked if she should see about hunting for them, but Gilda didn’t think that would be wise with Talon’s head injury. It would probably be safer for him to wait until a healer had seen him before eating anything to avoid the possibility of making him sick to his stomach, Gilda reasoned. Well, Glendrel didn’t know enough about either the Griffons or the ways of healers to dispute Gilda’s reasoning and so he simply sat back and waited for her to gather the material for the harness.

He noticed that Talon had gotten rather quite and turned to see that he had fallen backward and was apparently sleeping.  However, Glendrel remembered one of his mates who had once crashed into the side of the mountain after attempting an aerial maneuver she was not skilled enough to perform and suffered a head injury. The healers had instructed that she was not to be allowed to sleep for fear she would lapse into a deathlike sleep. So he snaked his tail over and gently propped the male up into a sitting position and shook him just enough to get his attention.

”What were you doing out in such a small boat at night in a storm?  Should you not have been in your lair by a warm fire?”

“We hadn’t intended to be out so long. Gilda and I were fishing for deep-sea redfin … they come to these islands to feed on the smaller fish that spawn here in the early spring…and strayed too far out to sea," he explained.  "We were caught in the great current and the storm drove us on to this island."

“But what of your parents?" Glendrel asked.  "Surely they would net have permitted their cubs out on such a voyage alone?”

Talon dipped his head in embarrassment. “They did not know.  It was to be a surprise for our sire’s whelping day, so we told them we were going to visit friends. I am old enough that they usually don’t object to such journeys. After this, though, I fear it will be some time before we are allowed such freedom again.”

Further conversation was interrupted when Gilda called to announce that she was ready to fit the harness.  Due to Glendrel's size,  Gilda first simply laid out three long lines of rope about a foot and a half apart and joined together by smaller strands in the sand. She then directed Glendrel to lay down on the ropes with the first lining up around the neck and the other two behind his forelimbs. Next she tossed the loose ropes over the Dragon’s back and down the opposite side while Glendrel snaked his long neck back and forth to watch what the female was doing. Once Gilda had all of the ropes aligned to her satisfaction she pulled them tight against Glendrel's side, tied all the ends together and knotted them securely. Finally, she aided Talon to climb up Glendrel's shoulder and settled him behind one of the Dragon’s onyx neck ridges and between the first and second lines of the makeshift harness. She then used four more short strands of rope to secure Talon by his belt to the harness by four points: two in front of her brother and two behind.

“Is that going to be a problem for you?” she asked Glendrel. The Dragon extended his great wings and gave them a couple of experimental flaps.  The whole rig felt a bit strange, but he didn’t believe it was anything that would interfere with his ability to fly and maneuver properly. Gilda then secured herself to the harness in the same manner she had Talon before wrapping her arms tightly around his waist.  When everyone was ready Glendrel crouched low, lifted his wings high and launched himself and his passengers into the sky.

It wasn’t long before they were winging over the main land, soaring over open fields and the broad valley river valley he had flown over earlier that morning. He reached out with his mind and contacted his wing mate, Rainbow Dash, and quickly explained the morning’s events. Glendrel then asked Rainbow to have a healer meet him and his passengers at the landing meadow. He also asked Talon the name of their village so he could have Rainbow send word to their family. When he arrived at the meadow he was surprised to find Nurse Redheart, waiting for her along with Rainbow Dash and three others. Sitting beside the nurse was the Mayor and two Griffons.

“Uh-oh…” said Talon. “I think we’re in real trouble now.”

Glendrel came to a gentle landing, very careful to avoid stirring any more dust than absolutely necessary. He gathered by the sudden and acute apprehension he sensed from his passengers that those waiting for them were people of some importance. As soon as he was safely on the ground, he crouched low as Gilda helped Talon extract himself from the harness. Before Gilda could help her brother to dismount, the two adults reached Glendrel's side to offer their assistance.

“It looks like you had quite an adventure, young ones,” one of the adults remarked as he placed a hand under Talon’s jaw and carefully turned his head to get a better look at the wound. His tone was light, but the angry flick of his tail told Glendrel the elder Griffon was less than pleased by that he saw. "Nurse Redheart. . .?"

The white mare extended her neck and examined the wound, her senses extended to probe the extent of the damage. “The skull is cracked, but there appears to be no damage inside. Look at me, child,” she said to Talon. Peering into Talon’s eyes for a long moment, the healer then nodded to herself apparently satisfied with what she saw. “He will have a proper headache for several days, but I think it best to let the injury heal on it’s own. If nothing else, the pain will help teach him to be more cautious in the future in choosing his adventures.”

“If he is anything like his father, I doubt it…” remarked the second Griffon her tone somewhere between amused and exasperated. "Glendrel, my mate and I thank you for your timely service. I fear what would have happened to our children otherwise.”

So, that explains it, Glendrel thought very privately to himself. He had half expected someone from Gilda and Talon’s village might be there, but that it would be their parents had not occurred to him. He then noticed the feathered earring the female wore on her right and the matching armbands indicating she was also one of the leaders of the village. Taking a closer look at the male, Glendrel saw he not only wore similar ornaments but also wore the wide metal cuffs on both wrists and ankles of the village war chief. Suddenly, he knew who these Griffons were and why Talon’s apprehension seemed so out of proportion.

“I’m happy I was able to help, Lady Killer, Chief Thunder. But please, don’t judge them too harshly for their error in judgment. The seas this time of year can be unpredictable…” Glendrel began. Although he knew what Talon and Gilda had done was foolish, he found he liked them very much and did not wish to see them in too much trouble.

“Their error was not in underestimating the sea,” Thunder interrupted, “but in lying to us about where they were going.” Talon and Gilda both hung their heads in shame and their tails drooped nearly to the ground at their father’s words. “However, I think this is something we can discuss later, after you have both recovered from this… outing.”

None of the adults missed the looks of relief the children exchanged under cover of bowed heads. Glendrel couldn’t help but smile to himself. Like most hatchlings of any species, he had done things just as foolish as these two had done. And judging by Lady Killer’s remarks earlier he was certain that Thunder had similar adventures in his childhood. Glendrel had no doubt that some form of punishment was waiting for Talon and Gilda when they returned to their village, but he was certain it would not be as sever as the kids obviously feared.

For the first time since their arrival the Mayor spoke to the elder Griffons, “I am glad your children have been returned to you safe, and relatively sound. Since Glendrel still wears the harness, perhaps he would be willing to convey the kids back to your village?  It would be a much faster and smoother journey than traveling by cart.  We will care for your oxen and wagon until you are able to send someone to retrieve them.”

Killer and Thunder gladly accepted the Mayor's offer as Glendrel readily gave his agreement. Nurse Redheart gave a Killer a few suggestions for treatment of Talon’s head injury to passed along to their own healers while Thunder helped his children remount Glendrel's back and strapped them back into the harness. When he had finished, the Mayor walked over to examine the harness and how it was fitted to Glendrel's neck and shoulders.

“This is an interesting contraption, Glendrel. Your idea? I thought you were aware that Griffons can fly." she said.

"Yes, Mayor, but this my mother and Gilda's design. It seemed the best way to ensure the kids didn’t fall off on the journey here, ” he replied. “It feels a little strange, but I think it could prove most useful in the near future.  Perhaps we could work with the Griffons to design something more refined…”

“Perhaps.  I will discuss it with our own council after we return, and I would like you to be there as well,” the Mayor remarked almost casually.

        Somewhat surprised by that last part, Glendrel merely nodded his head and waited for Thunder and Killer to settle themselves on the train to the Griffon Kingdom. He waited for the train to leave first and then launched himself after them.  As they turned north towards the lands of the Griffons, Glendrel felt pleased in the outcome of the morning’s events.  However, there was also a growing sense that it had not entirely been a coincidence… that perhaps the Spirit of the Winds had taken a hand to ensure closer relations between ponies and the Griffons. But  the workings of fate could be left to fend for itself.  For now the sun was bright and the open sky was before him, and for a Dragon there was nothing better!