This didn’t stop running until they managed to get out of the forest. It took just a few minutes, considering they weren’t very far when the manticore attacked. But after the fight and running for quite some time, they had to stop and catch their breath. They sat in an opening at the edge of the forest. They all looked out over the giant field bordering the forest. It was very gloomy. Close to the forest there were small bushes growing and the grass were greed and nice. But just a few meters more, and as far as you were able see, there were only stone, sand and a few dead plants here and there. Some bigger rock formations could also be seen here and there, but they were not many. The field itself had a dark, almost reddish tone, which made it look very unwelcoming. It was like the field itself carried a dark secret. Sharpy was looking over the dead field with disgrace. Then he looked from one side to the other. He couldn’t see the mountains where he used to live. They hadn’t exactly walked the way he flew when he first came to Equestria a few days ago. He had to get a sense of direction so that they wouldn’t go completely the wrong way.

“Twilight?” he asked without looking away from the dark field. “Do you have a map?”

“Yes! Sure I have!” Twilight responded and picked up the map from her package. Then she walked up to Sharpy and levitated it if front of them both so that they would be able to see the entire map. The map illustrated the edge of Equestria, the Everfree Forest and then the dragons region where you could see what was the beginning of the mountain chain, Shadowcliff Mountains. On both sides of the mountains there were large fields.

“The thing is; we should have ended up over here…” Sharpy said and pointed at the beginning of a mountain chain. But then his hoof pointed at the two open fields on each side of the mountains. “…but instead we ended up somewhere here or here… I’m not entirely sure”. Twilight took a look at the map and compared the map to how she believed they’d walked.

“It was pretty hard to navigate in the woods, but if I’m right we should be on this side of the mountains”, Twilight said and pointed at the field to the right. Then she dragged her hoof over the field to show where they could walk. “The fastest way would be to cross the field like this”. Sharpy nodded. He knew better than to question Twilight about how sure she really was. Twilight was very knowledgeable and probably knew how to navigate in difficult situations. Sharpy was satisfied with Twilight’s sense of direction so she folded the map and placed it safely back in her bag. Then she left Sharpy and returned to the others, asking them if they were ready to move. The mares all looked at each other before nodding. They were ready. After getting everypony’s approval, Twilight returned to Sharpy’s side. She looked at him, noticing he was feeling a bit down, so she tried to start a conversation. The field didn’t have a name on the map, but she assumed the dragons had a name for it, considering it was right next to their mountains.

“So what is this place called, anyway? It said nothing about it on my map, but I’m guessing it has a name, even so?”

“Nothing…” Sharpy replied. Twilight assumed that it didn’t have a name after all, but before she could say anything, Sharpy continued. “It’s actually called Nothing”.

“Yeah, well… It looks like a pretty sad place. There is nothing here… But why is the ground so dark?” It was more like Twilight thought out loud rather than asking Sharpy, but he decided to answer anyway.

“This place has a back-story, actually” As soon as Sharpy said that Twilight looked interested. She wanted to know more. “Well I don’t know if it’s true or not. But it’s a story nevertheless”. As Sharpy was talking, more interested ponies, Rarity and Applejack to be more exact, walked up to listen. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie wasn’t that interested but were quiet so that Sharpy could speak without being interrupted.

“Many years ago, and many years for a dragon is a lot, there were conflicts between two different types of dragons; dragons from around here and dragons from the north. As I’m sure I’ve told you; dragons are usually quite violent. And because of that, war broke loose. Even though the battles were huge and brutal, they somehow managed to keep their fights a secret from other intelligent species. Well, long story short, the dragons from the north had the upper hand, they were bigger and stronger. But as they fought their way through the land they eventually died one after another. But they still managed to come this far. Their target was the mountains and the plan was to attack from both sides. There is said that there used to be a forest here. But even so, that was a really dumb decision. They were already just a handful left and splitting them into two groups just made it easier for the local dragons. The local dragons were many. And they were angry. They breathed fire upon the forest, burning every plant down to aches… and the dragons from the north shared the same fate. It’s said that the reason the ground looks so dark and reddish is because of fire and the blood from countless victims who died during that battle…” Sharpy stopped there. There was nothing more to say. But even so, a disgusted look formed on Sharpy’s face.

“Wow…” Applejack said after listening to Sharpy’s story. “Ya’ dragons really have a dark history, don’t ya’?” Sharpy nodded slowly and closed his eyes and clenched his teeth.

“Do you know what the worst part is?” Sharpy said after a while. Everypony looked questioning at him. “I haven’t even realized how horrible that was until now… even though I’ve heard that story many times as a dragon… as a dragon…” The last three words he whispered to himself repeatedly. He realized how he began to look at things differently recently. Was it because of him being a pony, the death of his sister or just because he’d gotten the chance to see a completely different reality as the ponies lived? He couldn’t say if his personality had changed too, but he didn’t think so. He was still the same old Sharpy he’d always been. Except he was now in love with a pony which had a fear for dragons. Was his love for Fluttershy only because of him being a pony, too? Sharpy got worried. He didn’t want to stop loving Fluttershy if he became a dragon again. He’d tried to forget about her, but it was impossible. But Sharpy told himself that Huffy’s spell should only have changed his appearance and physical attributes. Not his mind. He felt calm again. So his love for Fluttershy wasn’t in danger. Their relationship was, but not his love. But then he couldn’t blame his recent differences in the way he looked and thought about things on Huffy’s spell. He’d fallen deep into his thoughts so that he didn’t realize the other ponies were talking to him until Rarity finally grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“Hello, are you listening?” she asked. Sharpy looked up confused. He didn’t say anything. All he did was shaking his head.

“Is everything okay, darling?” Rarity asked worried. At first Sharpy was all quiet, but soon he replied.

“There is a lot going on right now, okay?” Sharpy turned his eyes to the sky. “I just hope that everything will be clear to me soon enough”.

“Don’t you worry, Sharpy. Ah’ am sure it will”, Applejack said as an attempt to cheer Sharpy up. She gave him a little pat on the back to show him that she’s on his side.

“And if there is something you want to talk about, darling, I’ll gladly be there for you”, Rarity said happily. Sharpy smiled to them both. He felt lucky to have such kind friends around him. He was really glad they all offered to help him. But now was not the time for taking it easy. They had to get past this field as fast as possible. Sharpy didn’t know why, but he got a really bad feeling about this place. And they were really exposed to other animals and even dragons. Sharpy started walking faster. If a full grown dragon were to see them he or she would surely attack them. And Sharpy was not quite ready to pick up a fight against a dragon. Realizing what he was thinking he began to worry about Huffy. If he was scared from fighting a regular dragon… how would he even stand a chance against Huffy who was a magical dragon? His thought got interrupted when Pinkie asked him a question.

“Why do we walk so fast all of a sudden?”

“Well, we’re pretty exposed here and I don’t feel like encountering a dragon”, Sharpy said. He waited a couple of seconds before adding: “It’s not exactly rare for dragons to fly around in this big open area”. This made everypony a bit afraid so they all followed Sharpy’s lead and hastened. But quite quickly Rainbow Dash realized something.

“Hold on, Sharpy!” She shouted. “If we’re afraid of a regular old dragon… how are we supposed to take down a dragon that can use magic?” Sharpy sighed and tried to find the best possible answer. After a few moments he answered.

“Well, I’ve just realized the same thing. But I’m confident that if we can come up with a good plan and strategy we will be able to take him down”. After saying this he looked at Rainbow to see if he could notice her reaction. It didn’t seem like she liked it very much and were a bit skeptical. Sharpy guessed that she wanted to hear the plan right here and now to feel comfortable. “Well we have to find Huffy before we can make up our plan. But as you might have guessed I’m not exactly inexperienced. And I’m sure we have more clever ponies around here to aid me”. Satisfied with the answer she got, Rainbow Dash nodded and they all continued their walk.

They had walked in relatively high speed for quite some time now and the sun was about to go down. As the sun was setting, it just got darker and darker and soon it was very hard to see anything at all. The moon hadn’t risen yet so the darkness was next to absolute. Sharpy was the only one who didn’t experience any major problems seeing. During they walk, they had spotted at least three dragons flying by, but neither of them had seen them, or perhaps just didn’t care. Sharpy suspected the latter. As he’d stated before; they were really exposed on this field. They had agreed to find somewhere to sleep and rest as soon as the moon rose so that they would actually see what they were doing if they would put up their tents. But as they walked forward peacefully, waiting for the moon to rise, they heard something. I sounded like an enraged roar from a dragon. It was close and it was getting closer. All the ponies got worried and started looking up in the sky to see if they could see the dragon.

“Y’all hear that?” Applejack said. “That’s a dragon, right? If he sees us…”

“But it’s so dark”, Rarity responded worried. “He won’t be able to see us”. Sharpy looked at Rarity with condolence.

“Don’t be so sure about that, Rarity… I can see perfectly well…” After Sharpy said that Rarity looked at him in surprise. She was going to argue with him that it was next to impossible to see anything, but then she looked at his eyes. Eyes with those thin pupils were practically there to make it easier to see in the dark. And if Sharpy could see next to perfectly in this darkness, the dragons could as well.

Sharpy looked up in the sky to see if he could see any dragons. They’d heard one roar pretty close and since he was the only one who could see well it was his duty to make sure they didn’t get surprised by an attacking dragon. Normally he wouldn’t get too worked up by hearing a dragon. Dragons rarely attacked ponies as long as they didn’t tread on the land that the dragons saw as theirs. But as previously stated; this dragon was angry. And when a dragon was angry, he was aggressive. And there! He saw the dragon flying in their direction. If they were lucky he wouldn’t see them, but Sharpy was smart enough not to rely on that possibility. He signaled the others to come closer to him. If they weren’t so spread out, perhaps it would be easier for them to go unnoticed. As everypony came closer to Sharpy, he also started to walk towards some big rocks that could be seen in the distance. If they could reach them they would be able to hide.

“The dragon is heading towards us”, he said quickly but only as loud so that everypony could hear. “If we would get attacked… promise me that you’ll run to that rock formation over there, okay? I’ll try to shake him off”. Everypony agreed, though Rainbow didn’t think it would feel quite right to leave Sharpy alone with the dragon since she was the fastest flyer in Ponyville. But Sharpy just shook his head and told her that she would just be in the way. With two ponies flying around, the risk is big that the dragon will ignore the one who’s trying to lure him away and go for the other. Rainbow muttered a little but agreed to follow Sharpy’s plan. Then they heard the dragon’s roar again and this time it was really close. Sharpy looked up in the sky where he’d last seen the dragon. This time is was much closer and he was looking directly at them. They had been spotted. Sharpy reacted quickly and yelled:

“Run, quickly!” Sharpy pushed the other ponies a little to make them hurry up. They understood perfectly and started heading towards the rocks in high speed. Sharpy flew up high in the air so that the dragon would see him and ignore the others. It seemed like it worked because the dragon were now heading towards Sharpy in high speed. Sharpy looked down for a second to make sure the others were heading towards the rock. Rainbow Dash was already there and the others were not far. Good. Now Sharpy only had to worry about the dragon. Sharpy looked up once again and noticed what the dragon looked like. The dragon had a very dark reddish tone on his scales, almost like the ground below. The spikes were white, making it a nice refraction to the dark scales. The eyes were yellow like a cat’s. The dragon was also very big. Almost too big. The dragon was at least thirty feet tall if he would stand up straight on his front legs. All that size would only slow him down. Sharpy smiled nervously as he felt the adrenaline pump through his body. He flapped his wings faster as he prepared for the chase.

“Let’s see what these wings can do”

Next Chapter: Chapter 15: ... a predator, a killer... a dragon Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 5 Minutes