“It's an end to the evil of all this land’s foes,
beware, beware, the Dragonborn comes!
For the darkness has passed and the legend yet grows,
you'll know, you'll know, the Dragonborn's come!”

There is no applause.

The pathway weaves back and forth through the land’s gradual descent into a river, bordered by deciduous trees, whose leaves collectively descend into the rapids. The moist air from the river mixed with the chill of autumn makes Caro, who is still completely without covering aside from a few bandages, begin to shiver. Several times he refuses the help of Tohro, who offers to purchase him a fur cloak from a gruff traveling vendor. “I told you before, I prefer to go without clothing.”

The vendor taps his left forehoof in impatience. “Will that be all, or may I go about my business?”

“Well, actually, do you have any food?”

“Mmm, just sold my last stock to a zebra.”

Caro has never seen a zebra before. He is intrigued, though also disappointed that he will go hungry for a while longer. “Shame,” he says.

“Yeah, that zebra was a sly little mongrel. Wouldn’t have sold him the stuff if he hadn’t waved a sizable sack a’ bits in my face.”

“We all have to make sacrifices these days,” says Tohro, “even if it means doing business with outsiders.”

“Here’s hoping the Blackwings drive ‘em all out.”

With a salute, the merchant adjusts his large pack of goods and merchandise, clears his throat and swaggers away. Tohro waves enthusiastically. “He was nice!”

Caro is a little thrown off by how quick his companion and the merchant are to pass off a zebra as a ‘mongrel.’ He shakes his head in disapproval.

The river dips into a waterfall and the dirt road forks into a stone stairway to the right and a bridge on the left. “The bar I was talking about is in Ivarstable,” says Tohro. “It’s a quiet settlement away from the bustle of any city.” He points to the wooded area just past the bridge. “We Blackwings also have a camp there.”

Wonderful, Caro thinks.

For a settlement that is host to the Blackwings, Caro finds Ivarstable rather inviting, or maybe that is only in comparison to the dungeons and caverns that he had spent the last few days trotting about in with no sense of coordination. Even so, it is a pleasant sight. Colts and fillies are laughing and chasing each other up and down the single winding street surrounded by two story houses and small farmlands, where earthwalkers and unicorns are going about their business harvesting the daily crops. This is all illuminated by the sun as it peeks through a break in the large cluster of trees and vegetation.

Outside the farmlands there are clusters of empty campfires and tents adorned with lightning bolt crests, blue fabric and animal pelts. Caro assumes those to be the temporary homes of Blackwing soldiers. No barracks for rebels, he thinks.

Many Blackwing soldiers salute Tohro as they exit their tents. "Orders, sir?" asks a scrawny one with a claymore slung across his back.

"Nothing to report. I'm just here for leisure. At ease."

The scrawny fellow relaxes and lays down in the grass, looking relieved.

"Though..." Tohro says, "I am pleased to report that the assault on Gallopagos Keep was a success."

Another soldier approaches from behind. He speaks to Tohro as well, seemingly ignoring Caro's existence. "Did you find what you were looking for? Actually, for that matter, what were you looking for?"

"Our objective and whether or not we succeeded is classified." Tohro hesitates for a moment. "That's what Shokenda would say. Truth be told, I don't know, but if Shokenda is right, whatever we found could win us this war."

He looks to Caro, as if he's expecting some dramatic speech. Instead, all the earthwalker says is, "Uh, where's the tavern?"

Then there is laughter.

“The Broken Horn. Finest mead and produce in the southwest, and the barwenches, well, they’re not too shabby themselves.”

The bar is in better condition than the name suggests, but that isn’t much of a redeeming factor, given the chipped glasses, splintered tables and broken windows. The ponies drinking themselves into oblivion don’t seem to notice, the way they continually speak of their personal lives.

“I tell ya, once I get my payment, I’ll finally be able to propose to..."

“...my glass. It’s empty. Somepony fix that, now, please! Before...”

“...I kill that merchant! He sold me a faulty axe. Look, it’s snapped at the...”

Caro tunes them out and keeps to himself, moving quickly to the counter.

“What’ll it be, you two?” asks a unicorn bartender with an eyepatch and numerous facial scars.

Tohro takes a seat at one of two unoccupied barstools. “Heya, Jarvis. The usual for me. What do you want, Caro?”

“Um... whatever you’re having. Could I get some bread?”

“And make it quick. He’s quite literally starving.”

The bartender Jarvis grunts and ducks below the counter.

Caro continues to search the bar. He can’t help but feel paranoid in a place filled to the brim with so many Blackwings. According to a sign propped up at the windowsill, they all eat and drink for free in this place. No wonder it’s so crowded.

The constant droning of indistinguishable drunken conversations amongst the ponies ceases. Most of them turn their heads as a single figure steps onto the stage in the far corner, and removes his hood.

A zebra.

“Good day, fellow equines of the bar,” he says in a distinctive deep Saddle Arabian accent, “I have come so very far, to bring my music to your ears. Simply sit back, and let flight take to your worries and fears.”

There is stifled laughter amongst the drinkers. The zebra reaches into his large saddlebag to behold a lute. He sets it upon the floor, clears his throat, and begins strumming a slow tune.

“Our hero, our hero, claims a warrior's heart,
I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes...”

Caro knows this song. When he was only a foal, his master used to sing this for him as he worked the furnace. It used to make him feel so confident in himself.

“...with a voice wielding power of the ancient art,
believe, believe, the Dragonborn comes!”

For the longest time, he had wondered what the Dragonborn would be like if they were real. How they would appear, their powers... could they really summon fire, lightning and wind with only their voice?

“It's an end to the evil of all this land’s foes,
beware, beware, the Dragonborn comes!
For the darkness has passed and the legend yet grows,
you'll know, you'll know, the Dragonborn's come!”

There is no applause, except from his own hooves, which falters at the glares from the drinkers. The zebra clears his throat again. “This tavern contains a tough crowd. Should I sing a bit more loud?”

He has to duck and weave from the tomatoes and sweet rolls thrown at him in rapid succession. The jeering and hissing comes at an even faster rate.

“Get off the stage! Bring on the saucy singing barmaids!”

The zebra nonchalantly steps over to the counter, paying no mind to the red tomato sauce dripping from his otherwise clean white mane.

“Hello!” he says rather cheerfully to Jarvis. “Do you serve iced tea? If so, please pass one to me.”

Jarvis snickers. “Oh, we serve iced tea.”

The zebra eagerly awaits his order, but it does not arrive. “Um, what’s the matter? Has all the iced tea gone a-splatter?”

“We serve iced tea, in fact, I’ve got three bottles in magic ice right here at my hooves. We just don’t serve it to your kind.”

“How foul of you- you- um...”

“Can’t put a rhyme together, stripes? Here, I’ll make you one: Take your fairy tale mumbo-jumbo elsewhere, or I might have to skin you bare.”

Jarvis’ joke brings laughter to everypony at the counter, except for Caro. He looks to the offended zebra, who seems prepared to retreat into his hooded leather jacket and gallop as far as equinely possible from the tavern. He takes sympathy and passes the poor fellow his chipped glass of mead, which has otherwise gone untouched.

The zebra is surprised, confused, and simultaneously amused. He shows his thanks by raising the glass and draining half of it in a matter of seconds. He slams it down dramatically, causing Jarvis to stop and stare.

“You don’t serve his kind,” says Caro, “but that doesn’t mean he can’t drink.”

The bartender decides to avoid any argument and returns to his business.

The zebra continues to drink, and he speaks between sips, smiling away. “My thanks goes to you. To me, your kindness is new.”

“I’m not a Blackwing, and you could have picked a better bar.”

The zebra shrugs. “That might be a fact, but the ponies here don’t react-” he pauses as he takes another drink “-as badly to my skin as the Empiricals of your kin.”

Caro rolls his eyes. “That only barely rhymed while making sense. Must you always do that, or is it just a pretense?”

The zebra beams and gives Caro a hoof to the shoulder. “You learn quickly, that the tongue can be faster than the sword-”

Caro cuts him off. “But that does not mean that the rhyming’s untoward. Have you thought that perhaps, your kind is so hated, not for those stripes, but the rhymes so out-dated? Or maybe it’s because you sing better than them. Maybe that is why they throw at you their phlegm.” Caro smiles triumphantly as the zebra drums his hooves on the counter in applause.

“Ah yes, best me you have; grow great will your fame. Xephyr’s what I call myself, may I ask you your name?”

Caro extends his hoof in greeting, satisfied that he has found an unfamiliar yet friendly face. “My name is Caro, and don’t ask what I’m doing here, because, well, I don’t know.”

Xephyr takes Caro’s hoof and gives it a firm shake. “A loose cannon. Walking about, forsaking any plannin’?”

“Indeed. I’m traveling with somepony, and he’s been... helpful... but he’s far from good company. He’s, ah...”

Caro turns around and sees Tohro is no longer occupying the adjacent bar stool. Instead, he’s conversing with twin unicorn mares at another table, and they’re chortling at his story. It apparently involves a lot of action and suspense, the way he moves his hooves so dramatically.

“He’s inept.”

“No,” says Xephyr, “he’s just having fun, and he’s not the only one. These ponies with their friends chug on their mead, and in this life, it’s all they need.”

“Most of these ponies have blood to their name, and would gladly see your head on a pike.”

“They are misguided, but even still, I hardly bear them any ill will.” One last gulp and Xephyr’s drink is all but gone. He slams the glass on the counter triumphantly. “If you’ll excuse me, I must depart, for I must continue to spread my sacred art.”

“As target practice?”

The zebra laughs, and then sings, “The liiiife of a baaaard is fiiiiiilled with song, for Ingramm and Aramis will never steer me wroooooong! I’m sure somepony out there will pay to hear, and that thought is what gets me past the jeers. Soon I will be wealthy enough to return to Saddle Arabia, so I may leave Equestria... um...”

“...a land so angry-a?”

Xephyr snorts. “That wasn’t bad.” With a bow, Xephyr trots to the door. “If we cross paths again, I will be glad.”

“Tohro,” Caro calls out as the door swings shut behind his new found acquaintance.

The flirty pegasus stops with his flamboyant reenactments of fictional adventures and turns away from the twin mares. “Hey there, mate. I was just talking about you.”

I find that hard to believe, Caro thinks.

“These fine girls are Sugar and Spice, and they’re made of everything nice.”

“I really don’t care. I’ve got to talk to you about something.” He raises an eyebrow at the mares. “In private.”

Tohro looks back and forth between the mares and Caro, groans, and puts up his wing. “You know,” he whispers, “I was thinking that at least one of those girls would be willing to have some fun. Spice seems to like bad colts, and you’re a wanted felon. It’s a dead lock!”

“I have more important matters on my mind than sex.”

“I don’t believe that’s possible, but humor me if you’re such a prude.”

When Xephyr had mentioned returning to Saddle Arabia, he seemed so homesick and longing, and Caro understands. “I know we have a bit on our plate, but I want to return home, to Riverhoof. It feels like ages since I’ve been there, I...” His voice trails off as he reminisces of the place he grew up. They may have not been happy memories, constantly breaking his back in the name of weapon crafting, but they are all he has to remember Riverhoof by.

“Caro? You were saying?”

“Y-Yes, sorry, lost my train of thought. But nonetheless, I’d like to visit my home, just for a short while. Eventually.” Caro keeps his voice firm despite the sentimentality causing tears to well up in his eyes. He blinks them away.

“But why would you want to go there? Riverhoof is just a coastal villa, a rest stop for travelers at best. Come now, we have two perfectly slim and trim mares over here, ripe and ready for the picking...” Tohro said, flashing a grin and motioning to Sugar and Spice.

“Are you deaf? I said I don’t care. I want to go home. I’d like to get away from the drudge of this bar for a little time to relax, as opposed to all this running and hiding from authorities.”

“But why not rest here, fill your belly with mead, and ‘relax’ with Spice here? I’m sure she’d be more than happy to make you feel ‘welcome here’.”

“I told you, I have more on my mind other than sex.”

“Are you afraid of the opposite gender, hmmm?” asks Tohro. “Are you intimidated? Or have you never been with a mare?”

Caro is ready to break a wing if the accursed pegasus refers to Sugar and Spice ever again. Tohro, seeing the expression on his face, drops the subject and puts his hooves up in defense.

“Hey, sorry mate, I was only trying to find you a little bit of joy, however fleeting it is. We need that sort of thing in this crazy bullshit world we live in right now.”

Caro furrows his brow. “Fleeting is an appropriate word.”

“How do you mean?” asks Tohro, peeking over his wing.

Sugar and Spice had trotted to the next table over and were chatting it up with a much more rugged and burly Blackwing earthwalker.

“Ugh, I can’t believe it!” says Tohro in a loud whisper. “Good call, Caro. Those Baltimare whores may look like sweet pickings but trust me, the morning after is paaaainful.”

“Only paid escorts would find you charming.”

“Why, thank you! Come on, I’d say your food is ready by now.”