The dental restoration draught had a dreadful smell and Dim had a feeling that it would taste even worse. He wasn’t looking forwards to drinking this, because as a trained alchemist himself, he knew what had gone into it. The main ingredient was several organs from dragons, organs responsible for regrowing teeth and scales so a dragon could remain in good condition for fighting. This draught, this rather common potion that was available almost everywhere, on almost every continent, consuming it was like drinking liquified meat, and this disgusted Dim to no end.

“You were a completely different pony earlier,” Blackbird said to Dim while she examined a somewhat corroded battery cable. “You sat down and discussed the killing of another sapient creature as if it was nothing. You haggled about cost… you haggled about the estimated value of another creature’s life and you bickered and you threatened to bring the Jaguar Witch in alive to cause Commander Starhammer a problem and you convinced her to pay you more. You actually used another life as an inconvenience and as bargaining leverage.”

“Does it bother you?” Dim asked as he watched Blackbird pick up a brass-bristled brush to scrub away the corrosion on the cable. He wasn’t sure why he asked this, but for some reason he was worried that she might not approve of his actions, for some unidentifiable reason.

“No.” This lone syllable came out low and slow. “But it did make me think of my mother and I was uncomfortable with what I thought. I don’t know if I can put it into words. Dim…”—she blinked and the brass-bristled brush moved in a circle while she made a gesture with her talons—“you should know that I don’t think any less of you, I guess, if you happened to be worried about it. I just don’t know how to deal with all these thoughts in my head.”

“I have good reasons for securing as much money as possible.”

“Do you, Dim?”

He nodded and his nostrils crinkled from the potion sitting nearby. “We might need a bribe. Sometimes, information must be purchased. I know that we have a small fortune right now, but trust me, it isn’t enough. There are those whose minds I cannot sway with magic and the only option is coin. Lots of coin.”

“Oh.” Blackbird began scrubbing at the corroded battery cable and her body shook with her efforts. “So you were trying to help me, I guess?”

“Yes.” Dim nodded and found that he was shocked by his own honesty. After lying for so long, after living a lie, this was refreshing, like a cool drink of water on a hot day. It felt good to be straightforward with Blackbird, and he longed for further opportunities to do so. He wanted honesty. He needed honesty. Honest expression was a release like none other, and he longed to be balls-deep in Blackbird’s hot snatch, whispering into her ear all of the ways that she was a perfect sexual creature. Each word would be honest and spoken from his heart. The truth would grant him culmination, and oh how he would culminate everywhere when he could at last whisper these sweet truths into her ear.

“Dim, you got a weird look in your eye and you’re staring at me funny.”

“Yes, I undoubtedly was,” he replied, and he said nothing more while he continued to savour his perverse thoughts.

“Something about the way you looked at me gave me the twat-twitchies, Dim. Don’t do that, it’s distracting.” Her tail began slashing from side to side and she scrubbed even harder, trying to remove the off-white and green buildup on the cable. “Now I’m gonna have to find a spot to rub one out later,” she grumbled.

“I’ll be going out on my own… it is too dangerous for you to follow and while your weapon is impressive, it will not kill trolls. Stay here and try to fix up that rattletrap—”

“What did you just say?” Blackbird’s eyes narrowed in the most dangerous way imaginable.

“I said ‘rattletrap’ just before you interrupted.” Dim’s eyes narrowed too and he glared right back at Blackbird, fearless. “You were the one that said it needed some serious repairs, not me. You keep complaining about stuff breaking, not me. I haven’t said one word about my concerns on how that flying scrapheap holds itself together.”

The angry felinoid-avian-equine now had a white knuckle grip on the cable and there was murder in her eyes. Dim could not help but fantasise about sweet, sweet sexual murder and all of the ways she could kill him. His fevered thoughts made his skin feel clammy and sweat trickled down his sides, almost tickling him. Infatuation was like a drug, like coca or opium, and right now, Dim was getting his much needed fix. Something about her angry expression left a fire in his mind and an ache down deep in his loins. She was a terrifying predatory creature and right now, he wanted to be pinned beneath her with that angry, hungry expression of hers looking down at him.

Never taking his eyes off of Blackbird, he snatched up the now well-oxygenated potion, pinched his nose shut with his magic, tilted his head back, and poured the vile concoction down his throat. It was slimy going down and it slid down his throat in one long slippery strand that did not break. The sensation was exactly how Dim imagined drinking a glass of dog slobber would be like. He could feel the part deepest down tugging at the part still highest up and it tickled his tonsils in the worst of ways.

Shuddering, Dim was given no chance to recover from downing the horrendous liquid before the magic began its work on his broken, jagged teeth. It felt as though things squirmed and slithered just below the surface of his gums and electric tingles coursed through his teeth. His mouth grew hot, his tongue went dry, and the earwax in his ears melted. He could feel it trickling down through the canals in the corners of his jaw, and then the bitter drainage hit the back of his throat.

It was an unpleasant but interesting experience, and Dim focused on every awful moment, enduring a perverse enjoyment of everything while it happened. For a few seconds, all of his teeth turned rubbery, and he could feel them wiggle-jiggling against one another, jostling for space while they regrew. After a few seconds, they went stiff, and each tooth was like a tiny, tumescent erection in his mouth, starting off with a half-hardness, going firm, gaining rigidity, and then going rock hard.

Magic was the most amazing and most terrible thing in existence…

“Hey, Blackbird… check out my teeth… they’re shiny!” Peeling his parchment thin lips back, Dim revealed his restored choppers with a grin that could only be described as unsettling. His teeth almost seemed to glow because they were so white and so brilliant. She didn’t quite have the reaction that he had hoped for, and after thinking about it for a time, he thought that it might be because she was still angry with him. Provoking her would now have to become part of the agenda, because an angry Blackbird was an attractive Blackbird.

Feeling swimmy headed, Dim could feel his internal organs trying to rearrange themselves, each of them trying to be far, far away from his stomach, which was filled with liquified unspeakable horror. He had just drank the distilled essence of another creature to heal and restore himself, not a pleasant thing to think about when one’s belly was sloshing with the remains of said creature.

“Dim…”

Still sporting his unsettling grin, Dim clacked his now perfect teeth together.

“Dim… you’ve gone… dim.”

Blinking, Dim’s lips slid back over his teeth and he had himself a good look at himself. He held up his foreleg and he was just as Blackbird had said: dim. It was difficult to describe, but it was as if he existed in shadow, or perhaps he had faded somehow. This was curious. It was faint, but noticeable, and his companion appeared to be quite concerned.

“Dim, what is going on? You look weird!”

“Probably just a side effect of the potion,” he muttered, bothered by his condition but in a hurry to dismiss it. “Alchemy is not an exact science. There are quirks, odd side effects. I’m sure that I’ll be just fine. Just needs some time to wear off. Nothing to worry about, nothing at all.”

Blackbird did not seem convinced and her mouth puckered into a worried pout, complete with a protruding lower lip. As for Dim, he continued to examine himself and couldn’t help but notice a fascinating near-translucence to the fine hairs that covered his foreleg. So the potion had a bit of transparency as a side effect. It wasn’t anything to worry about, but it was intriguing to have a look at.

Further examination revealed that his hoof had a touch of translucency to it, or perhaps he was seeing things. Intense curiousity transformed into mild obsession and he remained fixated on his hoof long enough to gain a painful self-awareness of it. Blinking, he jerked it away and then did his best not to think about it. There was a peculiar sense of wrongness, but he was unable to put his hoof on what it was.

“I’ve never encountered a troll.” Blackbird peered at Dim in an odd way, not the way that Dim wanted to be looked at. She pulled her toolbox from a cubby beneath the vardo, opened it up, and began to look inside. “I’ve only heard stories about trolls and how scary they are, and you don’t seem worried at all that you are about to face an army of them.”

Shrugging, Dim wasn’t sure how to respond, but he did so anyway because he wanted to keep talking to Blackbird, and not think about the nagging thoughts that lurked in the back of his mind. “Trolls are megaflora. They are highly evolved carnivorous plants that are filled with a ravenous hunger. In sunlight, they are deadly. The nighttime slows them down just a little bit. I’ve heard that it restricts their limited intelligence. The only way to kill them is to burn them into nothingness.”

“Just stay safe, okay?” Blackbird’s eyes shimmered with some meaningful emotion and she pulled a wrench from her toolbox. “And Dim, whatever you do, don’t set the woods on fire.”

“I’ll do my best, but I make no promises,” Dim replied with a chuckle. “I am going to go to the room given to us and I am going to try to get a little sleep. I am going to have a long, busy night ahead of me.”

“Sleep well, Dim…”

“Blackbird, right?”

Startled, Blackbird looked up from the hinge she was trying to fix and found Commander Starhammer studying her. The pegasus looked a little antsy and her armor made muffled clanks as she shifted her weight back and forth on her hooves. For some reason, Blackbird felt a prickle of worry and her grip on her wrench tightened a bit.

“I’ve been debating on how to deal with this… how to tell you this… for a time, I even thought about cashing in on this and to be truthful, I almost did. I almost slipped a little something something into the food and drink I gave you earlier after I realised who your companion was.”

All of the hairs on the back of Blackbird’s neck stood up and her tail fluffed out, becoming three times its normal size, an indicator of feline fear. One hind hoof clopped on the stone and her grip on her wrench caused the tendons in her talons to creak. Eyes narrowing, she focused her burning stare upon the much smaller pegasus mare just a few yards away. One single pounce and she would be on the mare in an eyeblink. By the second eyeblink, the little pegasus pony would be shredded meat, iron armor or no.

“Now, before you claw my eyes out, and I can see that you are thinking about it, at least hear me out.” The brave little mare drew herself up to her full height, which was nothing compared to Blackbird’s bulk, and when she met the hippogriff’s gaze—locking eyes with the fearsome predator—her jaw muscles clenched tight. “There is a huge bounty on your friend. A few days ago, a strange griffon came to town and gave me a bounty notice. Has a pretty accurate picture of your friend and his name and it has a promise of a king’s ransom.”

Blackbird tossed her wrench into her toolbox and moved out from beneath the vardo. She moved with a fluid grace that was terrifying to witness, an ease that belied her size, and her hind hooves rang out like death knells with each step on the stone landing pad. Using her full height, she towered over Commander Starhammer, and her talons tapped and telegraphed her agitation as they clicked against the stone.

“I decided it wasn’t worth it!” Commander Starhammer blurted out. “I’m as mercenary as they come and everything I do is about making money… I m-m-made my husband p-p-purchase my services to prove that he was interested in me.” The little pegasus mare began to stammer while Blackbird loomed in a menacing manner over her. “B-b-but I am also about honour, and after meeting him, I decided that I liked him—OH SHIT!”

It was a movement faster than any eye could follow: Blackbird made a swipe and her talons closed tight around Commander Starhammer’s neck. The armored neck was large, but Blackbird’s talons were larger, and she lifted the much smaller equine up off of the ground to look her in the eye. Four little legs kicked and two wings made futile flaps. The sound of running water could be heard loud and clear in the immediate vicinity around the landing pad.

“Stand down!” Commander Starhammer shouted to the guard that began to gather.

“Dim is wanted by Grogar… betray him and you betray the entire world. I doubt you’d even live to spend that reward. I can almost guarantee that they would just kill you and take Dim. About a week ago, we came upon a town called Schwarze Wasserüberquerung… all of the townsfolk… everything in that town is dead. If you don’t believe me, go have a scout fly there. You’ll find out who you are dealing with soon enough.”

With that, Blackbird let go and allowed Commander Starhammer to drop to the ground. There was a clatter of iron and hooves striking stone and a wet splash as well. The smaller pegasus began to back away while making wing gestures to keep her fellow guards back. Blackbird reveled in her dominance, her aggression, and the outright fear that these smaller equines had of her. For the first time in her life, she had let her instincts get the better of her, and it felt good. She was a hippogriff among ponies, a titan, a colossus, she was vastly superiour to them in every conceivable way. With a heady rush, she began to understand her mother even more; in the back of her mind she had hazy thoughts about the relationship her parents shared, something she would recollect and reflect upon later.

“I want a scout sent to Schwarze right away!” Commander Starhammer barked, no doubt trying to regain some of her lost authority. She continued backing away from Blackbird, but it was obvious just how futile of a gesture it was—the big hippogriff had wings and her speed could only be described as supernatural felininity.

City walls would do no good; the danger, the lioness was already inside the town.

Muscles twitching, puffy tail slashing, Blackbird roared out an order: “Tell me more about this bounty notice, I demand to see it!”

Author's Notes:

Dim plays a dangerous game.