*1 week later*

We were currently staying in a town called Llanfair, that’s pronounced Hlanvairay by the way. Anyway, the American, or as he was now called, Vapaa Juoksija (often shortened to just Vapaa), was now an accepted part of the crew. I was walking through the town with Autumn, the general style of Minotaurian settlements was of a typical medieval style, but a lot cleaner. We were looking for somewhere to eat.

“God, this town is incredible” I said “it’s like something from the middle-ages on earth” we stopped to let a group of Minotaur calves run past, but the stopped and looked up at us in awe. They began chattering in Minotaurian, one of them walked forward. I knelt down and tousled the hair on his head.

“I won’t hurt you” I said, Autumn began translating for me “I’m Toa Vuur Koning and this it Toa Autumn Skies, what’s your name?” He responded in welsh and Autumn translated.

“He says his name is Dafydd” Autumn said.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Dafydd” I said, I then pointed to the Jörmungandr “you see that big ship?” he nodded after Autumn translated.

“I’m the captain of that ship” I said, they all gasped “never give up on your dreams, and one day, who knows, you might become a captain like me, maybe we’ll meet each other again someday, well, I best be going” I stood up and they all looked at me, wide eyed. I then continued walking down the street, with Autumn by my side.

Vapaa clambered across the rooftops, earlier he had let Minion shoot him with a paintball gun…without a shirt on, as a way of making them even for what he did when they found him, and now he was distracting himself from the pain by doing one of his favourite past times; free running. He leapt across an alleyway before stopping to catch his breath. He leant against a chimney, he noticed two dragons walking through the streets. Ones that weren’t from the ship, he raised an eyebrow at that. Even he knew that dragons weren’t common in the smaller towns, and most took up the profession of piracy or something similar. He knelt down and started to shadow them, making sure the sun was in a direction that wouldn’t cast his shadow onto the streets. The two dragons started to walk into a more run down part of the town, Vapaa quickly clambered across a washing line to the other side of the street before continuing to follow them. They eventually walked down a dark alleyway and knocked on the door at the end of the Alley. Vapaa watched from a distance, when he was sure the coast was clear he walked over the roofs of the Alley until he found a window to the loft of the building. He hid to one side and slowly looked through the window, through the grime he could see cages, with several different species of varying ages inside of them. He cursed under his breath before carefully opening the window and climbing inside. A young griffin in a cage next to the window, no older than ten, went to speak up but Vapaa held a finger to his mouth.

“Do you speak Equestrian?” Vapaa asked quietly, the griffin did a so-so motion with a claw “what is going on here?” the griffin thought for a moment.

“Bad drakens” he said “sell us to work, beat us, give little food, keep us in cage” Vapaa scowled, he grabbed the dog-tags around his neck and ripped them off before passing them to the young griffin.

“I promise, I’ll be back” Vapaa said, before climbing out of the window. What he didn’t see was a dragon watching them from the shadows.

*1st person Vuur Koning*
Me and Autumn we sat in a restaurant eating. We suddenly heard the com’s from our masks crackle to life, I picked mine off of the table and put it on.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Vuur Koning?” Minion said “you might want to get your arse back on the ship as soon as possible”

“Why?” I asked.

“Not something that can be easily explained over the com’s” he said, I looked at Autumn, she had already put her helmet on and was getting ready to leave.

“We’ll be there as soon as possible” I said, putting the required amount of money on the table and walking out with Autumn. We both changed to the mask of speed and got to the ship within a few seconds. I walked into the common-room, where Mata Nui, Vapaa and the other toa were stood. Vapaa in particular looked like he was about to go on a rampage “What’s the problem?”

“I was doing some free running along the rooftops, to take my mind off of the pain from him shooting me” he said, pointing to Minion “I was taking a break when I saw two dragons I didn’t recognise walking through the town, I followed them on a hunch and found a slavers hideout, with a ton of slaves” I frowned.

“How soon can your Toa be ready” Mata Nui asked.

“Immediately” I said, they took the hint and rushed off to get suited up “You too, Vapaa”

“Yes, Vuur Koning” he said, before walking off to get his armour. I walked out towards the exit of the ship, along the way I found Jack Harkness.

“Someone sure looks like a man on a mission” he remarked, I shot him a look.

“You, arm up, now!” I said “we’re going to raid a slavers camp” his expression immediately darkened.

“I’m on it” he said, before galloping off. I then continued on my way to the exit, I waited for the others impatiently. Soon all of them except for Vapaa were stood at the exit, Jack Harkness was in a dark-blue pony trench coat and had a spell pistol that looked like a modern human pistol. I looked outside and noticed a human in gold and white armour and a white hooded-cloak that looked like something from Assassin’s creed, running along the roof tops with a tomahawk and a double-ended sword.

“For god sake, Vapaa” I muttered, I turned to the others “Alright, we’re moving out, we’re going in through the front door, as Vapaa has jumped the gun he can be a distraction”

Vapaa ran along the roof-tops, he leapt from one side of the street to the other in a single bound, causing several people to exclaim in surprise. He rounded the corner and slowed down, he got into a crouch and shuffled along the rooftops towards the window he slowly opened the window and looked inside, there weren’t any slavers and the griffin was also missing. He cursed under his breath, that couldn’t be a good sign, he slowly walled through the loft towards a door, telling the slaves to keep quiet as he went along. He reached the door and went to open it but he saw the door handle turning, he hid on the hinge side of the door and placed his weapons on the ground. He waited for the door to open and a dragon walked through, dragging the young griffin, beaten and bruised, into his cage. Vapaa walked out from behind the door and all of the slaves went quiet, Vapaa ran forward and stomped the shins of the dragon, causing it to fall to the floor. The dragon bellowed in pain, before Vapaa kicked it in the head, knocking it out cold. Vapaa nudged it with his foot to make sure it was unconscious before taking the keys and unlocking all of the cages.

“Go on!” he said “get out of here!” the effect was instantaneous, people of all different species and ages rushed out of their cages and past Vapaa, the Griffin walked up to him.

“Me sorry” he said “draken…saw you, took what you gave me”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it back” Vapaa said, he then went and picked up his weapons, he then looked at the griffin “come on”

We walked to the entrance of the hideout after following Vapaa. I turned to Vinyl, she smirked before standing in front of the door and levelling her Bass cannon at it, she pulled the trigger and the blast obliterated the door, along with most of the wall.

“KNOCK, KNOCK!!!” she called, before walking in, we followed her inside to find several dragons on the floor, groaning in pain, I picked one up by the shoulders. He, no, it looked at me.

“Where are the slaves?” I barked, he chuckled before speaking in draconic and biting down on something, he convulsed and started foaming at the mouth before dying. I dropped the now dead dragon on the floor “cyanide capsule, make sure the others don’t do the same!” Minion went to each dragon and ripped the metal capsule out of their mouths using his magnetism powers.

“Spineless bastards” he muttered, kicking one in the stomach, who groaned. I got my pistol out and set it to stun, I noticed a wooden door with a lock, I nodded to Autumn who kicked it, causing the rusty hinges to fail. What we saw when we walked in caused us to stop in our tracks, row upon row of cages, each one filled with someone of a different species.

“Those spineless snakes are going to pay for what they did” I said, Autumn and Boris flew along, cutting open the locks down each row, the slaves soon started to walk out of their cages. We walked along checking each one, Autumn and I stopped at an extra-large cage, three individuals were in there, a Dragoness, and two young Kirin (Pony-dragon hybrids) in there very early teens, the Dagon looked like she was close to dying and the Kirin’s stood in front of her protectively.

“Stay away from her” one, a male, said, swinging his tail in front of us, the blades at the end split into four smaller blades.

“We aren’t here to hurt you” I said.

“You liar!” the other, a female, said, before sending a stream of fire towards us. I dispelled the fire with a flick of my blade, Autumn walked forward cautiously.

“We promise we aren’t here to hurt you” she said “we’re here to get you out of” the dragoness stirred.

“Wh…who are you?” she asked

“We are here to rescue you” I said, the dragoness chuckled.

“I’m past saving” she said, she then looked at the two Kirins “children, come here” the two children walked over and she nuzzled them

“Yes, Mother?” the male said.

“I want you to go with them” she said, tears starting to fall from her eyes. The children started crying and she comforted them as best she could “Shh, it’s going to be fine, promise me you’ll be good”

“We promise” the female said, the dragoness looked at us.

“Swear to me that you will protect them” she said.

“We swear” we both said, she smiled sadly before nuzzling her children, who were now crying freely

“Don’t worry” she said “no matter where you are, I’ll be watching over you” she then started to sing softly in draconic to them calming them down, eventually she laid he head down and stopped breathing.

“Mother?” the female asked, tears streaming down her cheeks, when their mother didn’t respond they both broke down crying once more. We walked towards them and knelt down to comfort them, I placed my arms around the male, who turned around and tried to bury his head in my chest armour. I looked to Autumn to see a similar thing happening with her, I could also see her eyes starting to tear up. I heard Minion walk over, I turned around and saw him go to say something but stopped and sighed before walking off. Autumn and I sat down in the cage and stayed there for some time, I could now begin to pick out the features of them both.

The male was mostly red with an orange underbelly and had the body and head of a pony, his head had two small horns that were swept back with a small orange mane jutting in between. A ridge of scales went from the top of his snout, along his back and to the end of his tail, his rear legs were like those of a normal pony. His front legs ended in clawed hands and he had large, draconic wings.

The female was almost like a reverse of the male, with orange primary colour and red secondary colour. Instead of an equine body and head she had a draconic head and body, her rear legs had small claws. her front legs were practically identical to her brothers except they were scaled rather than furred. Her tail was draconic except it had a bit of a pony tail at the base and she had a relatively large set of pegasi wings. Eventually the two Kirin’s stopped crying and I looked at the male Kirin.

“Are you ready to go?” I asked softly, he didn’t make a response other than nodding his head. Both Kirin’s backed away from us and we stood up “we’ve send someone to get your mother” they both nodded before following us out of the cage, when we got out side we found several dragons being led away by Minotaurian guards, assisted by equestrian guards from my ship. I pulled Minion to one side.

“Get some people to help you carry out their mother and put her somewhere for a burial in a few days” I said “she died when we got there. If anyone kicks up a fuss about me and Autumn taking them, tell them the dragoness’s last wish was for us to take care of them, me and Autumn are going to go back to the ship to comfort them so you’re in charge of things here whilst we are on the ship” he nodded and me, Autumn and the two children began walking back to the ship. Understandably the general mood was very sombre as we walked on to the ship, the two Kirins barely noticed the immense size of the ship, nor did they notice the stares they were getting off of the crew members, they just walked together, the brother had his wing around his sister and placed his head over hers protectively. Aurora flew over, grinning at there being two more kids around her age but stopped when I shook my head and mouthing ‘I’ll explain later’, she huffed and nodded before flying off, we eventually reached our quarters and lead the two children inside. Only when they heard the door shut did they fully react to their surroundings, subdued amazement would be the best way to explain it, we lead the two kirins over to a sofa and patted it as an invitation for them to sit on it, they hesitantly did so.

“Do you want anything to drink or eat?” Autumn asked, hey looked at her in amazement.

“W…we can eat!?” the male asked, a chuckled sadly.

“Do you really think we would bring you up here and not let you eat anything, after everything you’ve been through?” their ears drooped at being reminded of what had happened “oh, jeeze, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” I sighed and trailed off, Autumn looked at me and smiled sadly.

“Go make them something” she said “I’ll comfort them” I nodded in thanks before walking into the small kitchen we had, I put a pan on the stove and put butter in the pan before I turned the stove on on, I then realised something.

“Autumn?” I called “What sort of diet do they eat, are they herbivores or what?”

“They say the can eat meat and vegetables” I heard Autumn say, I grinned.

“They are gonna love this” I said to myself, before going into the fridge and getting out Bacon, eggs and sausages, I put the food in the pan and began cooking, when it was all cooked I put the food onto two plates and brought them through, the two Kirins eyed the plates with mouths watering, I walked to the table and they followed, I placed the plates on the dining table and pulled back two chairs so they could reach the table, they hopped onto the chairs and waited.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked “you don’t need our permission” the effect was instantaneous, they dug in like two hungry wolves, I chuckled before turning to Autumn and whispering in her ear.

“I’m gonna go find Aurora to explain the situation and so she can meet them” she nodded and I walked out the room towards the corridor.

*meanwhile*

Minion was overseeing the situation at the slavers camp, quite a few of the slaves were Minotaur’s from surrounding towns and villages, the one part he didn’t like was having to carry out the dead dragoness, it’s kind’ve hard to treat the dead with respect when they weigh several tons, he had to get the help of Blazewing and Frost Fang, partly because they were familiar with draconic burial traditions, they would bury her tomorrow, and the two children would be present for the ceremony, the two dragons were really pissed off about the whole situation with the slavers, and they kept muttering darkly in draconic and giving any arrested slavers they saw death glares whilst flames or ice vapour seeped out of their mouths, what surprised him the most was Blazewing’s attitude.

“You know” Minion said, watching the slaves pile out of the building “no offence but considering your past history, your current mood is kind’ve surprising” the crimson drake gave him a glare before answering.

“I may’ve been a dis’onourable, blood thirs’y, savage pira’e, bu’ even I ‘ad morals, if we found a save ship we would ‘ave killed the crew ‘nd either recrui’ed the slaves, or dropped ‘em off as close to their ‘ome towns as possible” he said with a snort of flames “even pira’es consider slavers as scum, slavers are cruel, they leave their cap’ives in cages and give ‘em barely enough food to survive, at least pirates give their captives the option to work and become par’ o’ the crew”

“Really!?” Minion asked, his voice full of surprise, Blazewing shot him another glare “right, shutting up now” Minion grinned nervously, Blazewing snorted.

I found Aurora after some searching, she was perched on one of the railings.

“Aurora” I said “I need to talk to you” the young emerald dragoness looked at me.

“Yes uncle?” she asked.

“Do you remember those two dragon-pony hybrids that me and Autumn brought onto the ship?” I asked, she nodded “Well, earlier, we found a place where some mean dragons were keeping lots of people against their choice, to be sold into work, one of these was a dragoness, and those two hybrids were her children, when we found the place, the dragoness was dying, and when we found her, her last request was for me and your Auntie Autumn to adopt them, so those two are now your cousins” her expression lit up when I finished.

“Really!?” she asked, I nodded.

“Yes” I said “I’m going to take you to see them, but you have to promise me you won’t get too excited or ask too many questions, okay?” she nodded before flying onto my shoulder, I walked back down to my quarters, a opened the door to find Autumn talking with the two Kirin.

“So, what are your names?” she asked.

“I’m Garnet” the male said.

“And I’m Ruby” the female said, I took the opportunity to interject by clearing my throat.

“Garnet, Ruby” I said, trying out the names as much as saying them to gain their attention, I gestured to Aurora, who was on my shoulder “this is my niece; Aurora, and as you are now mine and Autumns adoptive son and daughter, that technically makes her your cousin” they eyes widened.

“We have a cousin now?” Garnet asked, Aurora flew over to them.

“Aurora” I said “why don’t you show them around the ship” Aurora nodded.

“Come on” she said, after some coaxing they followed her out the door, once they were gone I walked over to the sofa and sank into it with a sigh, I took my mask off and brushed my hair back.

“What’s up?” Autumn asked, I looked at her.

“I look at them and I see myself from two years ago, just after I found out my dad died” I said, Autumns ears folded back and she nuzzled me.

“Then you will know exactly what to do” she said.

“Except they don’t have Autism, at least…I don’t think they do,” I said, I then started to get panicky “oh Autumn, I’m not ready to be a father, what if I mess up, what if they don’t like me, what if they don’t like either of us, what if they fly off in the night and never return, what if…” Autumn cut me off.

“Luke!” she said sternly, using my Earth name, which she only used when she was being really serious with me, her expression then softened and she nuzzled me “don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do fine, these sort of things just take time, besides, you were worried about us being together, and look how things are now, you’ve said it yourself, you haven’t looked back since” I looked her in the eyes and smiled softly.

“Autumn Skies, where the fuck would I be without you?” I asked rhetorically, she scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“Stuck in a cell in Canterlot for punching an arrogant prince?” she suggested.

“Oh, get lost!” I said indignantly, I then paused, before conceding “actually, you’re probably right”

Dafydd is pronounced as David, and is where the second name originated from

I have no problem admitting that I have plenty of shortcomings and flaws, most of which I don't write down as much as I should, one of which is if I think I can't handle a long term commitment, I'll start panicking, Twilight Sparkle style, unless someone whacks some sense into me, which could range from shouting my name, to slapping me in the face