The cave wasn’t that hard to find.

A mighty gash in the side of a small hill, it looked as though the dragon had simply pried apart the ground with sheer brute force. Ironically, atop the crest were several of the only living ironwood trees to be seen for miles in any direction. It stood out pointedly, a proclamation of dominance over the land, a crown of green for the king of the hill.

Some ways away, behind a cluster of scorched boulders, the Cinderwings waited for the rest of their numbers to arrive. The scent of dragon was strong in the air, now, and the diamond dogs had grown skittish.

Their Alpha kept watch, lying on a small, flat-topped rock. Her head rested down upon her forelegs, eyeing the way into the dragon’s lair with a frown upon her face. Aside from the occasional blink or flick of the ear, she was still and silent.

Ginger felt eerily calm, a state of mind which she rarely experienced. It was the calm before the storm, she assumed. Though, she couldn't deny she was nervous. How could she not be? They were about to storm the hoard of a dragon, one of the most dangerous creatures in the world. They were like castles, if castles were scaly, flying, and could breathe fire.

She scowled. This could go very wrong, very fast.

The time for action had arrived, though. She could not back out of this, not now, not so close. Her standing would plummet. Her pack would rise up against her, over-throwing Echo first, through sheer numbers, challenging him over and over again until even his renowned stamina failed him. And then the new Beta would come after her. Until she redeemed herself, she would know no rest, always glancing over her shoulder in fear of an uprising. Like it or not, she needed the mute diamond dog as second-in-command. His unwillingness to lead cemented her into power.

She needed this to work. Badly. Her pack would explode onto the radar of the Diamond Lords. With their attention, she could begin her own path to greater power...and that path started here, today, in the shadow of a pile of blackened rocks.

Sudden noise came from behind. Ginger turned, to find Luther bounding up, the pudgy diamond dog clad in an ill-fitting suit of patchwork armor. “The others!” he announced, his tail wagging slightly. “They are here, from thattaway!” He pointed over towards the west, where the pinpricks of color on the bleached landscape were closing in.

About damn time. Ginger frowned at the distant specks. They’d be here in five, maybe ten minutes.

“Ready the rest,” she snapped. “Sharpen your claws and get your armor ready.”

Luther attempted to salute, but knocked himself in the face with his spear, the over-large helm he was wearing comically bouncing around on his skull.

“And for Celestia’s sake, give that kettle you call a helmet to somepony bigger than you.”

“But it is kettle.”

One of Ginger’s eyes twitched.

“Does Coconut know you’re using that?”

“I ask foodpony if I can borrow. He say yes.”

“Does he know what you’re using it for?”

Luther looked like he was about to say something, and then abruptly deflated.

“Uh-oh...”

Ginger fixed him with a stare. “I don’t think he’d like his soup-kettle used as a helmet. When we get back, I’m not responsible for what happens to you. But take some advice. Give it back to him when he doesn’t have anything nearby.”

“W-why?”

“You will never look at a spatula the same way ever again.”

Luther’s eye’s widened. With a start, he scrambled away towards the others, tail tucked down between his legs.

Ginger glared after him for a moment, then burst into quiet laughter. How in Equestria they’re more scared of a pacifistic cook than me I’ll never know. Then again, the jolly chef was unusually skilled with those sharp utensils of his.

The unicorn shuddered to herself.

The nearby Cinderwings began to prepare, just as she asked. Lassie was already outfitted, clad in leather-and-iron banded armor and carrying an enormous longbow. The quiver across her back held arrows longer than Ginger’s body. Each had been tipped with a diamond arrowhead. The female was the only one of the pack who had anything like it, and took pride in that. Nearby, Luther finished tightening his kettlepot helmet, scraps of metal dangling loosely around his body with no particular concern for order. His spear was crooked, and the diamond tip notched. Out of them all, Old Yeller remained, wearing only a ragged vest and the pack collar. His own spear, a long and warped piece of driftwood, capped with a narrow steeple of iron, was stuck in the ground as he leaned on it heavily.

“Yeller, I gave an order. Get your armor ready.” Ginger approached him from the side, noticing the peculiar expression the venerable diamond dog wore. “Something wrong, old timer?”

Old Yeller gave her a meditative glance. “I not bring armor. Armor will not stop dragonfire. Not much can.”

“Such as?”

“Two things. Your blade is one thing. It is mage-metal, what you ponies call ‘arcanite.’ It repels magic, cuts through it. Dragonfire is magic, dragon magic. A suit of mage-metal will deflect this away.”

Ginger drew her sword from its scabbard and held the handle in a telekinetic grip, testing the familiar balance. So, this could repel dragonfire, then? Small wonder. It was a deadly, beautiful item, formerly the enormous spearhead from the Greenclaw Alpha’s own weapon. It had been reforged into something a pony could use, after the Battle of Wethoof. It had served Ginger well ever since, and she had become quite the swordsmare. Ginger shrugged and sheathed the blade again. “What else?”

“Another dragon,” Old Yeller said bluntly. “It takes another to match their might.”

Ginger looked at the cave on the hillside again, wondering if this was all really going to be worth it in the end. Old Yeller moved off to sit in the shade, sensing the conversation was at an end for a time.

For a short while, there was only the rustle of wind, rasping over the burned and blackened landscape.

The beating rays of the sun were relentless. All the diamond dogs were panting by now, roasting in their armor. The heat didn’t bother her, though. It never did. She hoped that her special gift wouldn’t fail her now. She would need it desperately.

A flickering of a shadow spreading around her snapped Ginger out of her thoughts. Dragon! She immediately sprang up reared around, horn igniting she launched a fireball at where she thought it might be.

There was an awkward gasp of surprise, and Daring Do suddenly impacted right into her, knocking the pair tumbling end over end into the ash. Ginger coughed as she was slammed on top of Daring, before rolling off the pegasus. She staggered back to her hooves, about to chew the explorer out for scaring her like that.

But when she saw Daring lying there, in a split second, her heart dropped into her stomach. The pith helmet strapped to her head was warped and smouldering, smoke obscuring her features.

“Daring! Oh, buck, buck, buck!” Ginger was at her side, pushing away the other Cinderwings as the ash settled from the landing. She rolled the mare onto her back, tearing off her helmet, and the pegasus looked dazedly up.

“What...huh?” she mumbled.

Ginger gently shook her, almost hysterical. The sight of the pegasus lying like that brought a queer sense of familiarity to her, like she’d been in this situation before. She nudged Daring with a hoof. “C’mon, Daring, are you alright? Please tell me you’re alright! I didn’t mean to do that, I just thought you were something else...”

Then it her her. She had been in this situation before.

Cloud...

“...Ginger? C’mon, you all right?”

Ginger Snap opened her eyes, and found the world turned sideways. She lying on the soft, sweet grass out in the small field beyond the village. She rolled over onto her back, forelegs tucked against her chest. There was a pony lying beside her in a similar manner, a pretty pegasus mare with a pale pink coat and a ruby-red mane. She gave Ginger a warm, if somewhat dazed smile.

“Cloud? What happened? Why does my head hurt so much?” the unicorn murmured.

“We, uh, kind of took a tumble,” said Cloud Nine. “When you leaned out too far, the perch finally gave out.”

Ginger looked skywards. Above her was the small tree they liked to rest in. One of the branches was broken.

“Wow. We fell from there?”

“Hoo, man! Did we ever! Well, you did, at least. I swooped down underneath you and cushioned your fall. But still, Ginger, we hit pretty hard. For a second I thought you were a goner,” Cloud Nine said, sincere relief etched across her face. She leaned aside and nuzzled Ginger on the cheek. “Don’t ever do that again, you klutz. Gave me a heart attack...”

Ginger warmly returned the nuzzle. “Sorry, Cloud,” she murmured. “Guess I’m getting too fat for our special place.”

Cloud Nine snorted, a rush of hot air in her ear. “Filly please, you’ve got flanks like the Princess. Everypony knows that pegasi are really light. It’s how we’re built. Hollow bones, and all that.”

Ginger giggled, bopping her on the nose with her horn. The two young mares rolled around together in the grass, laughing as they playfully wrestled, not a care in the world.

The pair had been close, like two peas in a pod from the get-go. Ever since they had met, still little fillies, on that first day of the dry season, all those years ago. Best friends since the very beginning. The ponies of Wethoof couldn’t think of Ginger without thinking of Cloud, and vice-versa. They were the Terrible Two, the lovable scamps of the town - almost like good luck charms for the backwoods rainforest settlement.

They were always getting into trouble, as young ponies were wont to do. Stealing pies off of windowsills, ‘accidentally’ setting fire to the old, decrepit schoolhouse so a new one could finally be built, terrorizing the Greenclaw camp whenever the nearby diamond dog pack brought in shiny gems for trade.

As the years rolled by, their foalhood adventures gradually ceased, but the bond between them remained strong. The innocent embraces and honest affection of their younger years gave way to something...more. A new, deeper passion they found for each other. Maybe it had always been there, maybe not. But neither were complaining.

It was love.

Sweet, naive, youthful love, in all of its radiant glory.

Late afternoon found the pair curled up against each other at the base of that very same tree. Ginger sighed with contentment as she lay across Cloud’s stomach, while the pegasus idly played a hoof through her fiery mane.

“Hey, hot stuff?”

Ginger lightly flicked her tail into Cloud’s face. “I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”

“Yeah, well.” Cloud Nine humphed. “You think we should be getting back to town, now? I don’t remember if we told anypony we’d be gone for this long.”

“Nah, it’ll be fine. You know my Dad. He knows when I’m in trouble. It’s like this weird sixth sense of his for finding out when something’s wrong.”

“Maybe it comes with the job?”

“Pfft. Since when did being the mayor give you superpowers?”

“Superpowers? Really? This coming from the unicorn who melted down a solid iron ball into a puddle two nights ago by accident?”

Ginger grumbled something into Cloud’s stomach. The pegasus laughed at this.

“I like this. Let’s stay here for the night. Just the two of us. If we aren’t going to be missed back in the village, then we might as well.”

“Ho-ho, just want to have me all to yourself, hmm?”

“No, I want to have us to ourselves.”

Ginger blushed at that. “Oh?”

Cloud nodded seriously. “Oh. It isn’t often we get the chance to sneak off like this.”

“I could get used to it. We should get away more often,” Ginger said.

“Yeah. Just the two of us.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, dozing together as the sun began to sink into the western sky.

Evening came, gentle as a falling leaf. It was one of those few special days a year when the sky in this part of the world wasn’t blanketed by powerful rain clouds and a constant drizzle.

It was that strange part of the day, just before the nocturnal creatures of the forest came out. A lull of silence would fall over the land, a calm before the storm. The nights in the Haysead Swamp were always a riot of noise and action, even with the rising of the moon. The ponies who called the place home had grown used to it, though, a welcome ambience that signified all was still right in the world.

Despite herself, the normally irate unicorn found a truly contented smile playing across her face as she laid together with her mare.

She was happy.

“I love you, Cloud.”

“I know. I love you too, Ginger.”

She was - for a blessed, fleeting moment - at peace.

Ginger loomed over the fallen pegasus, hoof frozen mid-nudge.

Reality slapped her across the face. This wasn't Cloud Nine. Cloud Nine was dead. Had been dead since Wethoof. She was gone and buried, along with Ginger's heart.

And yet, for an instant, Daring's tawny gold feathers flickered a pale pink.

The unicorn sat down, hard, shaking her head violently as if to clear away the image. “Please...please, are you okay?” she muttered half-to herself. “This was my fault, I’m sorry.”

What the hay had that been? One moment she was here, the next, somewhere else. Somewhen else. With somepony else.

Ginger’s mind churned, ugly thoughts threatening to break the surface of the already-stormy ocean that was her heart.

That wasn’t possible, she rationed.

It was a memory, she reasoned.

A flashback, she assured herself.

…

Right?

Daring Do blinked several times, seemingly coming out of a daze.

“You bucking shot me with a fireball!” she suddenly screeched, lurching off her back and forcing her muzzle into Ginger’s face. Ginger shrank pathetically backwards as the mare in front of her advanced step after step.

“I-I know, I’m sorry, you just startled me,” she managed to squeak, scared and confused. “I wasn’t thinking. Reflex.” She lowered her eyes.

The few diamond dogs nearby watched the confrontation with hanging jaws and surprised stares.

Daring Do relentlessly drove her onward until she was backed up against a boulder. “You shot me with a fireball,” she repeated, “for utterly no reason. Do you have any idea what that could have done if it had hit me anywhere else but my helmet?” The pegasus drew closer and closer. Ginger shuddered as she felt warm breath strike her face. She raised her eyes, matching her own startling green orbs to Daring’s magenta ones.

“Do you?!”

“I d-don’t know...”

Daring glanced down at her hooves and frowned. “My helmet!” She scooped it up with a wing. The tan pith helmet, the signature apparel that had been with her for all of her adventures, the object that had saved her life on multiple occasions - was done. It had been charred and blackened, warped grotesquely out of proportion. Daring’s eyes glazed over for a moment, a small tear threatening to spill over before she brushed it away.

The pegasus abruptly tossed the hat into the air, before zipping upwards and performing a neat flipping kick, launching it far away, where it vanished into the bleak landscape. She then landed heavily back down where she launched.

There was a pregnant silence for a time.

Then, a soft sigh was heard.

“Ginger.”

That was all she said - but the way she said it! Ginger felt sick to her stomach with guilt and shame. She looked away.

Suddenly, something wrapped itself around her. She struggled.

“Ginger, stop.”

She stopped.

“Look at me.”

She did. Daring gave her a warm, yet sad smile. All the former aggression had completely melted away.

“You need to chill out, hon. As hard as that is for somepony like you,” she chuckled at the joke. “I should be the one saying I’m sorry.”

“...What?”

“I know you’re dealing with a lot right now, and you’re under a lot of stress. I shouldn’t have approached you like that. I also shouldn’t have lost it, either.”

“B-but, your helmet-”

“-I know about the helmet, okay!?” Daring bristled, then relaxed again. “Believe me, I’ve had that thing since I was a filly. Maybe today is just the day I outgrow it. Look. We all lose a few things important to us as we move through a lifetime. But, if you think about it, that’s not so bad. Sometimes, you just need to clear out a space before you can fill it up again with all kinds of wonderful stuff. So enough about the helmet.”

Ginger stared at her, open mouthed.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing, don’t worry. Look, I’m sorry and everything. Let’s just...move on, now, okay?” Her cheeks felt uncharacteristically hot, even for her. “Where’s the rest of your group?” she asked, eager to get off this subject.

Daring paused for a moment. “A minute or two away. There was another challenge on Echo. Rin-Tin-Tin, this time. Overdue, if you ask me - he’s been itching for a fight for weeks, now.”

“And the bag with Vixen?”

“Err...it’s fine. What’s in that thing, anyway?”

“Just something to level the playing field. Provided you brought your dynamite as well.”

“You bet I did. A mare’s gotta be prepared for anything, you know. And speaking of unprepared, it seems our striped guest decided to sneak along for the adventure.”

Ginger cursed. “The filly? How did she get away from camp?”

“Feathers if I know. Point is, somehow, she kept up with us and managed to track us all the way here. Kid’s got pluck, if you ask me. But...what should we do with her?”

“I did say she was Echo’s responsibility. Until I say otherwise, she’s not of my concern, as long as she stays out of the way,” Ginger said. It seemed a bit harsh, but she had to remain steadfast in this. The little zebra had been claimed by the Beta, and now she was his charge until they could leave her somewhere.

Daring didn’t seem bothered by this, though. “Got it, chief.” She flashed Ginger a smile and moved off towards the other dogs, leaving Ginger alone once again with her thoughts.

The unicorn let out a breath of air she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

A puddle of dirty water lay nearby. She looked into it, and at the mare who looked back at her. For the first time in a long while, she gave herself a good, long look, still shaken by the encounter with Daring.

Is that really what I look like?

Her quest hadn’t been kind to her. The fiery mane was matted and clumped, small bits of brush and dirt tangled inside it. The face staring back at her looked gaunt and hungry, and the three small scars on the side of her jaw seemed to stick out more than ever. Muck and grime smeared everything, turning her cinnamon coat a nasty, sickly color. Her barding was smoke-stained, worn and beaten, covered in various nicks and dents accumulated by a life on the road and a life around diamond dogs. But her eyes were the same - burning pits of molten green, bright with anger and grief.

Ginger found herself unable to match her own stare, such was the unsettling power of those eyes.

“Get a hold of yourself,” she quietly scolded the mare in the water.

The mare tried to put on a reassuring face, but it came out more like a grimace. Ginger scowled at this, and the visage followed suit. Ginger angrily splashed a hoof in the puddle, destroying the reflection.

When it reformed, a different face looked back at her.

It was pure white, with a swept back, pale blue mane and eyes like dirty chips of ice. His face was haggard and hard. It was face that she knew well.

Ginger seethed with a brilliant rage at this, and reared, her horn lit up, and the puddle of water was suddenly vaporized in a jet of fire.

Now sitting in the faint depression in the ground was a stormy gray alicorn, clad in a bizarrely colored cloak.

“Well, I was about to ask for a hot tub, but I think you’ve overdone it a little,” he sniffed.

Ginger felt a vein pulse on the side of her neck. “Disarray. Leave. Now.”

“Sorry, Disarray isn’t here right now, please leave a message at the beep.” The alicorn stood up and hopped lightly out of the pit. He cocked his head to the side and waited a few seconds before a faint beep was heard from an unknown source.

“...Wait, Entropy?”

The alicorn nodded. “Ding-a-ling. We have a winner, ladies and gentlecolts.”

“You used the Two Sides One Coin spell? Again?”

“And Bingo was his name-o.”

“Why exactly was this necessary?”

Entropy gave a hearty chuckle. “Because, you silly filly. I don’t keep all my eggs in one basket, so to speak. Multitasking is just naughty habit of mine. I like to do two things at once. That’s why I put cocaine inside my blunts.” He then produced a small length of white material, lit on one end, and took a very deep drag from it. He let out a satisfied sigh and said to nopony in particular, “Kids, don’t try this at home. Only reason I’m still standing is because I’ve got tiger blood and Adonis DNA, and if you smoked this, you’d probably die. Capiche?”

Ginger stared at him.

“What?” said the alicorn, exhaling a puff of noxious smoke from his ears.

“At this point, I’m not even sure whether or not you know what you’re going to do next,” said Ginger.

“Porkchop sandwiches!” Entropy affirmed, nodding sagely.

“Right...So, where’s Disarray, if you’re here?”

“Right now, prison.” He said it as if it were a simple fact of life, or merely commenting on the weather.

“Doing...?”

“Hopefully, not dropping the soap.” The more mild side of the once-Prince declared seriously. “But, in all honesty, that’s none of your beeswax, so I insist that you go stick your nose into a different hive. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.”

Ginger blinked. “Was that a threat, Entropy?” she asked softly. The thinly-veiled danger in her voice was palpable. She was sure she could beat the alicorn if she got the drop on him first, but if he managed to use his reality-altering powers quick enough...

He laughed. “A threat? Oh, you must have mistaken me for someone who fights fairly, Miss Snap.” Suddenly, in a flash of magic, he appeared not inches away. “I don’t give warnings,” he said coldly. “And I am not bound to your little tribe of puppies, so don’t presume to have authority over me. I am here only for the sole reason of the fact that I find Fluffy so integral to my ambitions.”

“Your ambitions? If you’re trying to use this pack for your own ends...”

“Oh, don’t be so naive. You are but a pawn in a much larger game of chess,” Entropy sniffed and fluttered his wings. “Luckily for you, you’re going to be on the winning side - because like I said earlier, I don’t follow rules; I make and break them. I also don’t hold myself to playing only one side of the board.” The alicorn abruptly spun about and stalked away, the conversation clearly over.

Ginger glared after him, pupils boring holes into the back of his head. If it weren’t for the fact that the Prince hadn’t saved their lives on countless occasions already, she might have actually done such a thing.

Unpredictable madpony, she seethed. She was more angry for the fact that she’d come to rely on his timely intervention in the first place. It made her weak, trapped behind a shield she could not lift. She was not some helpless filly, anymore; she was a tried and tested warrior, a veteran of the Battle of Wethoof and the one who dealt the deathblow to Ahuitzotl himself. She had faced a swarm of hydras and had a hoof in the extinction of the Greenclaws. If there was anypony here who could take care of herself, it was Ginger Snap. She was very, very dangerous, and it showed.

But to keep using Disarray as a safety net...it could not stand. One way or another, it had to end, or she would never be able to call herself a true Alpha.

She resolved to find a way to somehow do away with the entire situation...and possibly the Prince himself, if he kept demonstrating a superiority to her.

It wasn’t like she’d asked him to come along. The self-exiled noble was hell bent on it. He seemed to owe some sort of gratitude to Echo and Daring, perhaps that was why he stuck around. The way they told it, he’d been freed from a long imprisonment by them on some escapade long before they’d met at Wethoof.

Celestia-damned Wethoof.

It always came back to Wethoof, for one reason or another.

Ginger snorted angrily and stomped away towards the top of the rockpile the pack was sheltering behind. The green hill of the dragon’s den still lay beyond, as immortal and immovable as a mountain.

She suddenly wanted to destroy it, to utterly crush it into dust.

Celestia-damned dragons.

Yet another obstacle in between her and the ultimate prize - a new nation, a new order, under her. Lousy diamond dogs couldn’t take care of themselves.

Celestia-damned diamond dogs.

Then again, they were the whole reason she was here in the first place.

She shot a glance over to the pack. By this time, Echo’s group, the three others that had been in the wastes, had returned, finally caught up to Daring Do. Among them was Zanza, the little zebra filly. She hung away, nervously poking at the ground, clearly uncomfortable around the diamond dogs. She looked tired, dirty, and guilty, though Ginger saw the light of determination in her eyes. Ginger snorted to herself - Echo would have his paws full dealing with that one.

Already there was already a warm welcoming between the packmates. Friendly cuffing and boisterous laughing was heard. From the fragments of conversation blown on the dry wind, Ginger heard tell of another challenge made, the first one in a while. Once again, she owed the stability of her leadership to Echo, who steadfastly barricading the entrance to power.

Celestia-damned Echo.

She didn’t understand him. Everything he did went against all she knew of diamond dogs. They revelled in combat and conflict, while he seemed to despise it. They valued material wealth, collecting small hoards of treasures that were nestled into their bedding. She often had to mete out punishments for stealing from ponies and each other - a constant battle. Her Beta, meanwhile, carried all he owned in the world on his person.

“Echo!” she barked. The diamond dog smartly spun about from where the others were busy looking at a magnificent bruise he’d received on his jaw, no doubt from the challenge he’d won. He was at her side in an instant. He smelled like ash and dirt and freshly cut wood, for some odd reason.

Ginger pointed a hoof towards the green-capped hill. “I want you to take your group - Daring and the zebra, too - and circle that rise. Inspect the entrance to the lair, but do not, under any circumstances, go inside. Report back on anything of interest you find.” The diamond dog looked at her strangely. For some odd reason, everypony had been doing that lately. “Well, what are you standing around, for? Go!”

Echo saluted her with that strange one-fingered gesture he was so fond of, before swiftly returning to the others. After a brief issuance of orders, interpreted by Daring Do, the Cinderwings that arrived with him split off from the pack, and left in a cloud of gray dust and ash blown up by their receding pawsteps.

For some odd reason, Ginger found herself watching as the figure of the pegasus zipped up into the sky, soon becoming nothing more that a small dark blip as she circled above the hilltop. Her muscles unclenched a little. She hadn’t realized she was so tense.

For a while, there was a peace. There was nothing to do until Echo’s band returned with the report, except sit around idly and watch the distant hilltop and the specks now moving around it. She spent the time lying in the shade of the rockpile, her head in her forelegs, as her remaining pack lounged around and groomed each other.

It was a strange sort of interaction, Ginger thought. The diamond dogs would use their tongues and teeth to clean out the coats of their packmates. None of them groomed alone, unless something had happened that had severely lowered their social standing. Ginger recalled a time that Chance had once accidentally sent one of the supply wagons off the edge of a cliff, plummeting into a gorge until it shattered along the rock walls. All the food and several of the pack’s possessions had been lost, and their displeasure with him was evident. Chance had been shunned for almost an entire month. He was treated as if he weren't even there, as if an invisible wraith stood in his place. Ginger had tried to intervene, but Old Yeller had pulled her aside and told her that it had to happen.

Aside from the justice she dealt out as Alpha, and by extension, her Beta, the pack tended to judge itself. Most small disputes and issues were resolved on the spot. If a pack member was doing wrong, the pack would pass its own kind of judgement upon them. Stealing food, for example, was a crime that could be worth a beating from the victim. Cowardice and incompetence, like Chance had displayed, earned the odd social exile.

There were no real laws within the Cinderwings. Ginger had never established any formal rules. It was a common kinship that bound them together. In diamond dog terms, they were, technically, family, despite several members being born in various places across Equestria. They lived, slept, ate, fought, loved, and died together. That’s what it meant to be in a pack. It was more than a gang of furry thugs. It was a home, a society that they all had to share.

Family tends to take care of itself, Ginger mused. Thoughts of her own family crept into her mind. Her father had been a hard stallion, stoic and cold, but had loved her fiercely, even if he rarely showed it. Her mother had been his polar opposite, wild and tempestuous. Ginger wished she remembered more of her.

A sudden nudge on her side brought her back to reality. It was Old Yeller, surprisingly, gently prodding her with his cold, wet, nose. Ginger stiffened, ready to move away, when a warmth on her other side pressed up. It was Lassie. The other Cinderwings had gathered around, laying about in a close huddle, grooming each other. Their Alpha had now become the center of the pack.

Ginger felt something warm and wet rasp across her ear. At first, the sensation was shocking. She faintly realized that Lassie had begun grooming her. The diamond dog’s tongue was strangely rough and very strong, and Ginger soon found herself soothed by it. A small nip along her spine told her that Old Yeller was busy combing through her ragged coat with his teeth and claws, gently cleaning it out. It was an intimate moment, but a different kind of togetherness, that of friends and comrades, merely scratching each other’s backs. A low rumble sounded out, a contented hum that was quickly picked up by the others. It was a happy, lazy sound, that spoke of warmth and comfort.

Ginger relaxed with her pack, and for the first time in a long while, a small, contented smile crept onto her face.

Achievement Unlocked! - "Feather Fetish"

Level Up! - Ginger Snap, Alpha of the Cinderwings

Perks unlocked! -

-Blood In the Water: (-1 int, -1 spirit, immunity to poison) That strange sensation you feel in your veins? Congratulations! It's not some life-threatening disease. It's just, oh, you know, the waters of the River Styx. The dead know you can see them, now. Expect hauntings. I suggest having the Ghostbusters on speed-dial, Odin knows you're going to need them.

Location Discovered! - Lady Pyrite's Crown