Several seconds were spent in a silence so profound Gunnar could hear his heartbeat as the… creatures stared them down, weapons still pointed their way. None in the group of three dared reach for their guns, so close were they to the group of mysterious creatures that kept to the darkness.

Sven had tried to turn on his flashlight when he took note of the group, but a quick series of guttural cries of protest and weapons flashed threateningly had driven him away from that attempt. The locals didn’t like the light.

Their silhouettes were hard to make out in the dim light, with just enough to reflect off the tips of the crossbow bolts and spears they kept trained towards the three intruders. What Gunnar could see attached to the beady glowing eyes that pierced the darkness were small, stout silhouettes no bigger than human children would have been, except with a far stockier if misshapen build.

But there wasn’t enough light to make out more details than that, other that they all wore thick metal armor of plate and mail that clicked and rustled at their every movement.

Sven’s greeting had made them start a sort of silent conversation where they exchanged gestures in the back while the front line watched them vigilantly. Try as he might to figure out what they were saying with that sort-of sign language, the front line’s joined frames prevented Gunnar from making out anything significant.

They were agitated though, that was for sure. Not much you could read in their beady, glowing eyes, but they hadn’t expected visitors. Much less as eclectic a group as the trio. Every so often, one of those in the back would peek above the shoulders of those in the front row for a couple seconds before returning to their silent discussion.

“Agmund… any idea?” Sven whispered to the dragon standing by his side.

“Why would I have an idea?” The group’s cleric whispered back heatedly.

“Pal, if that ain’t related to the whole magic revival I’ll stuff my antlers up my arse.” Gunnar joined in, momentarily taking his eyes off the mysterious beings. “I have my assumptions, but c’mon, do something. That’s your area of expertise, mister I-got-Thor’s-backing.”

“Oh, and what would that assumption be then?” Agmund snarked.

Gunnar slowly turned his eyes towards the group of creatures. They had gone still now, still pointing their weapons towards them, but they had caught on to the whispering and were listening on curiously.

“Dwarves.” He stated flatly.

“Dwarves?” Sven did a double-take and jerked his head towards his companions, surprised to find Agmund nodding in agreement to the assumption.

“Dwarves.” Gunnar repeated, staring right at the creatures, small and misshapen as they were. “Except err... not those of modern post-Tolkien tales and their embellishments. Actual dwarves, creatures from another realm, creatures of the dark uh....”

“Svartalfheim?” Agmund completed, earning a nod from the reindeer.

That got a reaction out of the so-called ‘dwarves’, as they finally broke the silence they had kept themselves to up until then. One of them pushed his way to the front of the group, one that carried a pickaxe and wore thinner armor than the rest, before he jabbered something very quickly in a gravelly – literally, his (its?) voice sounded like gravel turning inside a dry cement mixer- in a tongue Gunnar didn’t recognize.

Though he may not have recognized it, it did sound vaguely familiar, familiar enough for Agmund to furrow the scaly ridges that stood in for his eyebrows and slowly reply in the same dialect – if only with poor diction-.

“Agmund, what’s going on?” Gunnar inquired. “What’s he saying?”

“Shush...” The dragon raised a claw. “It’s ‘she’ apparently, and they’re pissed off some wild animals would stride into their mine unbidden.”

“We’re not wild animals!” The reindeer exclaimed in outrage.

“I know, I know...” Agmund admitted before he switched tongues and told the weirdly enough – female- dwarf something.

Something that got a reaction out of her as she turned around on her heels and started yelling at her brethren.

“What now?”

“Eh, I just pointed out they left the door open.” Agmund shrugged innocently. “By the way: they’re speaking old Norse. East Norse as a matter of fact.”

“You speak that?”

“Got the ability in the package when I became cleric, among other tongues.” He explained before folding his claws behind his back, distractedly stroking the membrane of his wings. “Didn’t think it’d come handy so soon.”

“So soon?!” Sven erupted.

“Bound to happen eventually, with Yggdrasil’s network of realms reconnected and all. Now if you don’t mind… diplomacy is in order.”

It didn’t take more than a few words from their cleric and a show of magic to demonstrate his status for the dwarves to take them, not deeper into the mine as they’d have expected, but higher. Dwarven masonry was the finer stuff, and coupled with the dim lighting of the main gallery the trio had accidentally overlooked the barely noticeable passageways that ran perpendicular to it.

Not unsurprisingly so, mind, because the female dwarf showed how almost perfectly hidden the access was as she led them inside a circular chamber with a deep dark pit in the center. There were more of them there, and the moderately brighter lighting – thanks to the soft reddish glow of a forge- allowed them to take note of further details, both about the underworld dwellers and their architecture.

They were very different from the modern man’s idea of a dwarf. Creatures of the underworld as they were, there was little in the way of ‘organic’ materials to be found in their dwellings. All cold stone and metal, with no wood or leather to garnish their craftsmanship.

Only exception to that rule were the glowing mushrooms they grew in beds on the edges of the chamber and which they used to light up their galleries, and those weird chitinous creatures Gunnar managed to sneak a peek of as a dwarf on the opposite side of the cavernous chamber led them into what he assumed to be a ‘pen’ cave.

And the dwarves themselves…

Old tales would have it that the actual inhabitants of Svartalfheim would turn into stone at the touch of sunlight so ugly they were.

Legends didn’t stray far from the truth, turns out.

What little ‘skin’ the trio could see – on the guards, they kept eyeing their visitors like hawks from veeery close up- was this odd greyish stony surface with cracks all over along with unsightly wart-like protrusions. Through the cracks in that skin, reddish sinewy ‘muscles’ could be seen. It added to the lichen and moss that grew on them instead of hair, giving them some weird verdigris-colored beards – even on the thinner females- that Gunnar assumed were there to hide their ugly features. Jagged edges, fat noses, beady eyes that glowed in the dark…

It was no surprise most of the Edda had divinities scoff at the dwarves’ ugliness, all despite the quality of their crafts.
As it stood, while the mossy beards hid part of their features, the armor did most of the work, being extremely intricate pieces of metal decorated with the utmost love and care which covered them from head to toe in plate and chainmail.

Gunnar had to thank his inability to understand anything that was being said for even noticing those details. There wasn’t much he could make out of the East Norse that was being spoken, particularly given that it was from a dialect not native to this part of Scandinavia.

A few paces in front of him and Sven, Agmund was in heated talks with the locals, gesturing at his two companions every so often while he spoke, mostly to the female dwarf from the beginning. The cleric was hard at work asking questions and trying to figure out the situation, learning about what had led to the dwarves’ arrival.

And the arrival was recent. The sound of pickaxes working the stone even here in the higher galleries implied that they were still setting up, regardless of how impressive the stonework and the extent of the galleries already was.

That they could build a mine in so little time was a testament to their skills.

By their admission, the reason they had ventured to Midgard was to search for rare magically-charged minerals now that the sudden increase in magic spurred the formation of such alloys within ore veins. An endeavor that had been encouraged by the High Throne of Nidavellir – their capital in the realm of Svartalfheim- as there were little to no signs of activity in Midgard to contest their founding a new mine.

They weren’t aware of humans having turned into mythical creatures however. Nor of the sudden appearance of monsters all over the place. That apparently the gods up in Asgard had yet to tell them.

Nevertheless, Agmund was all too happy to clarify what was going on above the surface of the Earth to the assembled dwarves. Monsters, returnees, the whole ten thousand years shebang with the return of magic and new species replacing humans and all.

Interesting as it was, the topic didn’t last long before it shifted to something else entirely.

Trade. Of course.

It was Gunnar that brought up the topic for Agmund to translate, and judging by the interested gleam in the dwarves’ eyes, they were interested.

By what exactly, that took them a little while to figure out. Despite being interested in some stuff such as food from the surface to garnish their plates as well as materials they couldn’t produce themselves such as leather and wood – a valuable rarity in their society-, the quantities they desired weren’t very high.

Probably because there weren’t that many of them in the mine. Barely more than four dozen or so. The mine was recent, and most of its dwellings were still under construction. More dwarf settlers would come… later.

The real interest came when they caught word of the technology the former humans had on hand (or the closest approximation thereof) and the potential there was for them to further their craftsmanship.

Apparently the prospect of high-tech salvage was equivalent to ambrosia for them, because a smith-dwarf eagerly pushed his way to the front of the little crowd that had formed around the trio of visitors. He jabbered in a rough, tinny voice at Agmund, inquiring about their guns and gear and whether or not he could get a look at them.

“Uh… no, I’d rather not.” Gunnar quickly said when he got the translation. “We can get him guns later if he wants, but he ain’t touching mine. I know something you can give him to sate his curiosity.”

“What then?”

“Show them the mana stones.”

“But I might need them!”

“Might. And I can get you more. I live next to the convergence point. Now, show him the good stuff.” Gunnar insisted.

Begrudgingly, the dragon cleric dug his claws under his robes and fished out the little pouch that held his bits of solidified magic. He carefully deposited each of the little glowing gems in his palm and bent down to the smith’s level.

The smith was a lot broader than the female miner, wearing thick armor with hulking pauldrons each emblazoned with a hammer symbol that matched the enormous thing he carried in a sling across his back. Paired with his already bulkier frame, he was easily twice as large as the female, with eyes that flickered with interest at the sight of the mana stones.

Gunnar didn’t need his companion to translate the gravelly jabbering to figure out they had just gotten themselves a deal.

The hotel’s office was stuffy.

As simple a term as it was, it was the best Roberto could think of to describe it. Dust hung heavy in the air, with the breeze from the ceiling fan only just enough to kick it up and not at all do anything to combat the Caribbean heat.

Roberto had already shed his flak jacket, and still he found himself tugging at his collar from the sheer heat as he opened up yet another manilla folder while voices shouted in the hotel’s lobby. Cat fur, great against the cold, not so much when you’re trying to keep cool.

The shouting was coming from the ruckus that had sprung up when the grapevine ran its course and word of the sailors visiting the hotel reached the tourists. He caught bits and snippets of Alejandro quickly switching from Spanish to English as the Chief Officer did his best to appease the stranded travelers.

But he didn’t pay it too much attention. The Spaniard would whip up something eventually. Give them some paperwork to fill out, say they were going to solve it…

Somehow.

Didn’t detract Roberto from his task. Which was going through the locals’ intel to sort out some kind of export. That and stabilize their situation.

Turns out, so long nobody was speaking, he could actually make some sense of texts in Spanish, if only slowly. The language wasn’t too complicated to figure out, and for someone who already knew French and English along with his mother tongue of Italian, he could get the general gist of a text.

And from that general gist he peeked at through the multiple manilla folders Quiros had provided him, along with what little data was available on the office’s computer terminal – the old thing wasn’t much good-; Roberto had managed to draw a picture of where the colony was at and where they could bring it. Semi-realistically at least.

For one, there was one thing they hadn’t been told verbally but that he found in the documents. The plantation. Quiros and the locals did get their food from somewhere, and that place was a small plantation up in the hills away from the city next to a reservoir, which was also the extent of the local trade. The Cuban hippogriffs were no fishers, but where their Ornithian compatriots got fruits and vegetables from the plantation in exchange for salvage, they traded it for freshwater fish obtained from the vast lake that was also the freshwater supply.

Roberto drummed his digits against the table, a purr of satisfaction already beginning to rumble in his throat. There was the beginning of something.

Food. Secured by the plantation.

Electricity. That they could provide. Just ensure they had a makeshift power station – maybe a salvaged train, a diesel-electric might do if they could find one- and they could import fuel in the future.

Water. Again: the plantation and its reservoir. Running water might be trickier to achieve, but they could just do as they had in Belfast and assign a freshwater tanker truck and a waste water truck to handle it. Give all the inhabited city blocks the tanks to store a week’s worth of water and waste, and that might be a done deal.

Security? If it were only about small fry for monsters and feral dogs, the locals’ deal with the ‘urban jungle’ and the SKS guns would have been enough.

Sao Paulo pointed to the contrary. There were pirates about, and they would readily attack colonies given the opportunity. Their fleet could track them with weather satellites and escape. A colony didn’t have the luxury of being mobile.

Did Roberto have a solution for that? As a matter of fact, yes he did, and it lay at the entrance of the bay. El Morro. The old Spanish fort that watched over Havana.

If it could protect the fairway back then, there was no reason it wouldn’t now… with some adjustments. Quiros’ files told of many old Soviet guns lying about in military depots all around the Capital.

In short: the old fort was overdue for an upgrade to 130mm naval guns. Give them enough height advantage to improve range, and no pirate ship could ever hope to take the bay and threaten the colony. Eagerly, the Abyssinian jotted the idea down in his notes just as his ear twitched at yet another outburst in the lobby.

By the sound of it, Alejandro had just located a disgruntled Karen. Pity the fool.

The Karen erupted shrilly and Roberto’s grip tightened around his pen, ears going flat against his skull. Pity his ears, feline auditory prowess be damned. And there was no way in Hell he was stepping in the lobby as an empath. Hard enough to tune it out from within the office, all those nasty vibes.

Rob shook his head firmly, one paw reaching to fiddle with his whiskers. At least he had something to show for the security aspect, which left…

Ah, the exports. Their main interest.

Shame it was so bland. Again, his notes only arced back to the plantation. Sure, there were other colonies that had farms and the works, but Havana was the only one so far he expected could reliably produce stuff like fruits, tobacco and sugar cane. He really doubted that O’Connell dragon in Ireland could compare to that.

But maybe they could do more than that. Intel did point out to some canneries near the docks, which would facilitate export, and the sugar cane… well, its use was self-explanatory. Roberto wasn’t exactly reinventing the wheel there.

He was just about to finish up his notes and open a map to chart out recce missions when a small mare barged in his office with the clatter of hooves and shouting behind her. She stood squared up in front of his desk, panting, while he just stared at her in annoyance.

Dammit Alejandro, you let the Karen loose.

No doubt about the nature of the annoyance. The Earth Pony’s haircut was enough of a tell, only made worse by the cheap clip-on earrings and hastily-resewed flower dress she wore.

“I demand you take me back to America!”

Roberto’s annoyed glance switched from the equinified Karen to Alejandro just behind her as the Chief Officer stood in the doorway. Roberto quirked an eyebrow, to which Alej’ only replied with an apologetic shrug. He could also make out a crowd of assorted creatures right past him, all gathered in the lobby.

“That is quite the demand you have here… miss?”

“Brown.” The Earth Pony puffed her chest up self-importantly. “Katherine Brown, vice-treasurer of the Silverthorne city parish.”

“Oh you’re important then.” He drawled sarcastically.

“Very!” She jabbed a hoof in his direction. “Which is why I must get back stateside immediately. They need me back home. Take me to your manager.”

He shook his head quietly and set down his notes momentarily, leaning forward on his desk to get closer to the pony, a soft chuckle rumbling in his throat.

“Manager? Miss, you just blew off a Chief Officer – that’s standing right behind you might I add- trying to barge in on a secretary as he’s working through paperwork. Doesn’t really help with your making demands. Now simmer down, go back to the lobby, and file whatever document they give you so we have your intel on hand. Fleet command will study what to do with you tourists when we get to it.” He paused before he leaned to the side to address Alej’. “Say, Quiros, he told you if they had a relief team from Equus tell them what’s what?”

“Don’t think he did, so I assumed the answer was no.” The hyacinth macaw replied.

“Care to verify that?”

“Hold on… are you ignoring me?!” Miss Brown cried out in outrage.

“And you’re making it very hard, sporca troia.” Roberto’s ears twitched at the noise. “Back to the lobby with you, we’re busy. Alej’, my question?”

“I’ll ask.”

And if no Equestrian relief team had met them… then that would mean even more resources had to be spent to ensure all the locals were up to snuff on their biology, magic, and any other matter pertaining to the Event.

Folks always got so riled up when you mentioned the whole 10.000 years deal.

While some in Cuba were busying themselves with paperwork, security, or plainly resting… something else entirely was occurring for some of Amandine’s crew. Not too soon after Roberto and Quiros had left for the hotel, a couple vehicles were seen exiting the cruise terminal, forming a little column that headed west towards a little military airfield.

The closest one available actually, closer even than the commercial airport to the point that the airfield was actually situated in one of the less dense parts of Havana near the university. That proximity made it so that even prior to the Event, it hadn’t seen use in years. For good reasons. Too short of a runway for most MiG’s the local air force used, and much too close to habitations for regular flights.

But the reason they went there wasn’t for looting or salvaging. It was a test, of sorts. For their pilots, and for Scarface as well.

One of the things about Amandine’s still new air wing, was that the Super Tucano they had obtained back in Belfast just couldn’t be carried in a ready-to-fly state, nor could they launch it from deck. Dilip didn’t seem to consider it such a big deal, but he did insist they find an opportunity to test its capabilities.

Now was as good as they would get.

With Schmitt supervising the whole operation and taking notes so they’d have a procedure to go by in the future, the little convoy of three vehicles burst through the rusty chain link fence barring access to the airfield and set up camp in one of the rusty, decrepit hangars.

One unimog with the team and some comms to keep in touch with the aircraft.

One tanker truck full of kerosene.

And at last a hooklift truck carrying a forty-foot container that held the Super Tucano and its associated gear.

By their reckoning, it was probably the plane best-suited for their purposes, or so Schmitt claimed as Scarface opened the container and set to assembling the plane. It embodied the concepts of ruggedness, low-cost engineering and efficiency to a point, being a simple two-seater turboprop originally designed in Brazil to strengthen the country’s grip on the Amazon with a purpose-built aircraft.

The result was something that clashed with an age that had seen the rise of high-tech aircraft such as the F-22 and the Su-34. What boiled down to an armed trainer craft.

It didn’t need much in the way of maintenance (at least compared to jet fighters).

It didn’t guzzle a lot of fuel.

It didn’t even need particularly long runways and could even make do with dirt or highways.

And lastly: it’s status as a glorified trainer made it so damn simple to fly their two helicopter pilots actually had the skills to fly it.

Schmitt’s claims weren’t that far from the truth then. It still took Scarface most of the morning to get the aircraft ready for take-off, a delay he blamed on quality control – didn’t want the wings to come off mid-flight after all- and being unfamiliar with the task.

Just a few minutes before noon though, the pilots finally got their call to board the craft and get on with the test-flight, now that the engineers were confident nothing would come loose that shouldn’t.

“Anything I should pay attention to?” Flynn asked as the pegasus took his seat in the front seat, wingtips flicking switches here and there to boot up the electronics.

“Sorta.” Schmitt answered as she leaned on the edge of the cockpit before he and Owen could close the canopy. “I gave you a flight plan to follow, but consider it more of a suggestion. Today’s goal is to put this bird through its paces. Go the scenery route and patrol if you want and have fuel to burn, but it’s test day, got it?”

“Eeyup...” Flynn took a look at the weather notes he had in his lap. “Weather looks fine, not much wind, clear skies, shouldn’t be too rough on the Tucano. Anything else?”

The orange dragon lifted two of her claws.

“Two things. One: we’re being cautious, as ever. This Tucano’s got two .50 cals. One at the base of each wing, loaded. 550 round-belts per side, all tracer. Pay attention though, it’s M3 fifties, not M2, so the fire rate is like three times faster.”

Flynn raised his gaze to the front of his cockpit, only then really noticing the gun sight in his HUD.

“Ooo-kay...” He slowly said. “I see a monster...”

“You do to the monster, what we do to monsters.” Schmitt confirmed.

“The second thing then?”

Schmitt’s head turned towards Owen in the back seat.

“That one is mostly for you. You’re not carrying ordnance in the hardpoints, but we still fitted the observation pod in the underbelly. Try it all out. The thing’s got thermals, laser designation, zoom, you catch my drift. Main thing is with the designator. Not gonna spout all the tech cant to you, but apparently it’s keyed in to the GPS. You point at something, it should give you it’s coordinates to transmit to other units.”

“Make sure it works fine?” Owen guessed.

“There’s a good pilot.” Schmitt smirked before she jerked her head towards the runway. “’kay now, go and get that bird airborne while we sit with our thumbs up our asses over here. Have fun.”

Flynn smirked right back at her before the pegasus closed the canopy and taxied the aircraft to the end of the runway. It didn’t need more than a short distance to get airborne, and then its pilot took it on a wide turn around the city, steadily climbing above the cloud cover to get a feel of its handling.

Back on the ground, Scarface lowered his binoculars and turned to face Schmitt.

“That’s our part done… now what?”

“You really think we’re just going to wait here?” The orange dragon smiled at him as she made her way to the back of their unimog.

“Not really seeing much to do here.” He waved a hand at the surrounding decrepit airfield.

“You’d be correct...” Schmitt admitted. “… but I’d be damned if I didn’t make the best of the time here. The others are probably already enjoying the shore time, so it ain’t a crime if we do as well?” She questioned.

And as she was saying that, she reached for a crate in the back of the truck next to their comms gear, along with a couple folding chairs and a cooler. A cooler filled with a case’s worth of cold beer that earned an appreciative look from Scarface.

“Why boss, I could kiss you for that.” He laughed out loud.

“Thanks, but the change only swapped my sex, not preferences. I don’t swing that way. Still…” She cautiously eyed the other handful of sailors that had accompanied them. “No reason why we can’t have our fun, but it ain’t just alcohol. Got soda and water too. We still got guns, a plane and kerosene. No drunkenness on the airfield, and an eye out for threats, but we’re more relaxed than usual. Two beers per person, you want more, you’ll have to wait ‘til the evening when we’re back on the ship.”

Naomi wished she could enjoy a cold beer.

Unfortunately for her, being in the middle of the Tanzanian savanna hardly came with that kind of luxuries, and she couldn’t fault herself for trying. Having grown up in rural Texas before she decided to become a vet – and off-grid at that- had made her pretty handy at securing herself the resources she needed… in their own unique form. She doubted many survivors could compare their situation to hers…

Except maybe for that sphinx she had heard of on the radio. Some survivor nut in Montana who kept away from civilization and lived with mountain lions.

Her? Actual lions, because for some reasons big cats didn’t mind being in the presence of sphinxes at all. So here she was, living alongside one of the biggest prides to roam the Serengeti National Park. Prior to the Event, she had been pretty certain of the path her life would follow. Study, become a vet, work a couple years with big cats at a conservation center in Africa… and then she’d have found herself a cozy job back in the US. Houston maybe. San Diego if she pulled the right strings.

That had gone haywire when the Event happened. When the wave swept her, she had been busy heading for the lions’ den in her Hilux intent on sedating a lioness to take some blood samples.

By the time she had her bearings back, her Hilux was on its side in a ditch by the den, she had been propelled through the windshield, turned into what she at the time thought to be a small lioness – with a mane, weirdly enough- and wings, and the lions were examining her.

She still thanked the heavens for her transformation and sphinxes’ relations to big cats. Had she been any less lucky, she might have turned into a pony as she heard over the radio most Americans did and become lunch for the local fauna.

In a unique turn of events, she was now cohabitating with them. Studying them. Surviving. The recent apparition of magic had done something to enhance their intellect, not to the point where she’d call them sapient yet… but they showed a lot more wits than the big lazy cats she had grown to know over the months she had spent in Tanzania prior to becoming a sphinx.

Part of the reason why she chose to stay at the den instead of making her way back to civilization. Another was that she doubted she could get along with what locals she found if they weren’t tourists of people from the park’s conservation center… and from what her sailor contacts told her on the radio, making it back to the US wasn’t really an option.

The safety of a lion’s pride was well worth living alongside her research subjects.

The den Naomi now called home was a tall rocky protrusion that jutted out above the sparse trees that dotted the savanna as if it were a giant termite mound, with the same galleries and chambers you’d expect from the insects’ version, serving as housing for the lions that protected them from the blistering African heat. While far from the nearest watering hole, the knife-shaped mound was surrounded by a thick row of thorny bushes and saplings that stood out against the yellowish grass and formed a rampart with only a few easy accesses.

One of which involved flying. Naomi had wings, she’d have been an imbecile not to learn how to use them.

And of course the den had received some modifications to accommodate her. Naomi deemed the place safer than the rapidly deteriorating conservation center some twenty miles away, so she had elected to salvage gear and whatever she could recover to turn the dark galleries and chambers into a proper home…

Despite the lions. Clever-er as they had gotten, it took her a whole lot of effort to keep them and Kiba – the pride’s leading male- from damaging her stuff.

In the last few months, she had thus made a couple trips back and forth between the den and the ruins of the conservation centre. Her Hilux had become a makeshift generator hidden underneath a couple thorny bushes, to which she had plugged some salvaged batteries and solar panels to provide electricity at any hour of the day or the night.

Cables mounted on poles then carried the load into the caves and to the top of the den to feed her electrical installation. Part of it powered a pump that drew water from the aquifer underneath the den, while the rest served to power her appliances, including the array of antennas that kept her in touch with the WSU.

Naomi rose from her sunning spot and stretched herself like a cat down to her wings. Cat naps were nice and all, but she had to make sure her research went ahead. Below her, snapping noises announced the pride had finally stripped the last wildebeest they had caught down to the bone. She’d have to get rid of the remains before they started to stink up the place.

With a yawn, she padded back inside the cave higher up in the den that had now become a mix of a lab and a bedroom with her cot and some lab equipment set on folding tables. The pale glare of a neon light hanging from the ceiling flickered above her as she moved over to the rugged laptop she used to monitor everything.

Connect to the satellite network. Done. Check the mail, answer Sandra’s questions, promise to look into something for a future broadcast… Her usual habit, but keeping in touch with someone who could actually string a sentence together was her daily social activity. She needed it.

The lions were nice, sure… but so far they were just disturbingly clever, not intelligent. Not enough to socialize with, even though apparently she was lion enough for Kiba to show attraction towards her.

“That damn moron...” Naomi muttered at the thought of the lion she had seen napping by the trough she used to provide her research subjects with drinking water.

Kiba was a big male by his species’ standards, with a shaggy black mane, broad shoulders and a set of scars close to his left eye from when he had taken over his predecessor. From observing him and his pride before the Event, she had come to know him as a crafty brute – if lazy- that had only been made more intelligent by the magic in the air.

What made him a moron was his enslavement to the wills and whims of his ballsack.

Though to be fair, where repelling the interspecies advances of an amorous cat was one thing, the same moron had accidentally provided her with his fair share of research material. Cubs, that is.

One thing she had noticed early on when one of the lionesses had given birth was how much more the cubs were affected by the magic than the adults. With the adults she could reliably teach them basic stuff like how to relieve themselves somewhere specific, not touch her stuff, pull a lever near the water tank to empty water in the trough when they were thirsty.

The cubs… what little she had experienced when their mother allowed, they were actually responsive to what she was saying. They genuinely understood her, yet they were pure lions from what the samples she had managed to take told her. Genetically, 100% lions, no change reported.

A simple fact that had become a wall of text recorded in her research files with multiple hypotheses as to how magic may affect animals on an intellectual level, why it would not cause any genetically-perceivable changes, cross-references with Equestrian texts she had requested from the WSU.

Enough reasons to be stuck in her cave long enough not to be dragged into hunting with the lions – because yes, she did go alonga couple times- and to escape the African heat. She didn’t even need to hunt per se, canned food salvaged from the convention center could last her a while.

No way she was giving the lions any though. The water was already an overstep with wild animals, no telling what feeding them regularly might do.

A weak little meowl behind her signaled the arrival of the cubs.

Guess mommy thought the weird winged lion was good enough as a babysitter. She didn’t mind, that was time she could use to study the smart little guys.

“Why hello there, you little cuties...” Naomi smiled at the miniature lions – only weeks old yet- as they dutifully hopped onto her cot while she was still on her laptop, all four of the litter staring at her with wide curious eyes.

Provided mommy had fed them, she knew they’d just soak in her words while she spoke at them over various stuff. Like a sounding board, except fluffy.

There was a pang of anxiety in a corner of her heart though. About one seriously questionable thing she’d done one week prior, which she was only learning more about now.

IVF had been considered at the park to bolster the lion population. The gear was there.

She had salvaged it. It was all pristine and ready in a corner of the cave next to her lab equipment.

She had used it. A young lioness called Petra, most likely one of Kiba’s favorites and well in line to become the pride’s matriarch.

With Kiba’s activity, it was no trouble getting a sample from the male. A tranquilizer dart from her air rifle brought him down long enough for her to get what she needed.

The thing was…

The egg that made the embryo implanted inside Petra didn’t come from the lioness.

It came from Naomi.

And today? She’d taken her blood-work. It read pregnant.

Author's Notes:

Time since last completely unethical experiment: _ _ _ [0] days.

And for once the HPI is not to blame.

This story isn't a canon PaP fic (if all the deviation wasn't enough of a tell at this point), but the hybridation with certain animals isn't from me. There was one where ponies wound up pairing with regular horses I recall. Don't know if that was in the main or side stories, last I read it was a while ago.

As an aside... I hope you folks like my take on the denizens of Svartalfheim. Personally I find modernized dwarves to be... a bit too human, and more embellished than they should. The Edda states they're not supposed to be good-looking, and I don't think creatures unable to stand sunlight would share that many similarities with surface dwellers, no?

Besides, copypasting Tolkien/Warhammer/[whatever] dwarves would just be boring at this point. Not gonna pretend this take is truly unique (it's not), but there's some due diligence in putting a fresh coat of paint over the concept.