Chapter 2: The Cairage Incident
As the legionaires approached where Cairage was supposed to be, smoke rose where the town and its adjacent hamlets should be. What was over the next rise gave pause to the confident march from Bridledolas.
" He, it burned Cairage to the ground." Zephyr said, tiredly, going to meet Zecora at the head of her column.
" All the more reason to stop him here, before he can further instill fear." Zecora said sternly, passing the supplicant to examine the ruins.
" He said that if we lured the legion here, he'd spare the town..." Zephyr said weeping.
" What do you mean?" Zecora started, pausing in her inspection, before being interrupted by one of the outrunners.
" Princess! The dragon is back, and is angling to strafe the column, we have to get into position now!" The exhausted outrunner said before collapsing in the ashen dirt.
" You heard her! Get into position, we have to bring this dragon down before we're all gone!" Zecora said, directing her troops to cover and cloud.
The massive black and brown dragon flew over the column just as they took to cover, a handful of spears flew up to mostly bounce off the robust scales of the dragon. Little strings of magic flew up from the users, assisted by their brews, they stretched and yielded as the dragon banked for a second, closer pass.
" Now my friends!" Zecora shouted, raising a large wall of earth for the dragon to crash through, the final component to the magic strings, having them coalesce into bound stone pillars, as the zebras who'd first tossed the magical strings anchored them into the ground shortly after they'd cast them.
The Dragon roared in frustration and anger at its summary capture. It struggled in vain as Zecora trotted up to him to confront him.
" Why are you here, causing my people to fear? Is it not enough to be considered in your homeland, tough?" Zecora asked the dragon.
" By the gems of Paarthunax! An Alicorn in this land of savages? Are you the 'princess' these pathetic earth grubbers have threatened me with?" The dragon asked incredulously.
" Why. Are. You. Here?" Zecora asked more insistently.
" When my siblings and I escaped from Equestria, we sought a place to call our own. We flew across the southern border. We dragonlords claim this land in our names. For the treasure you hold, and the gems we would have." The dragon proclaimed as loftily as he could from within the binding stone prison, still trying to feel out the weaknesses in it. Trying to get it to give.
" You dragonlords will have to find another place, unless you wish to lose face. I'll not permit you to rob my people. What treasure you desire, you must earn, unless you wish my ire." Zecora informed him.
" If it takes a legion to bind me alone, I see no reason for me to listen to you. I am but one, but soon my brothers and sisters will come, and what will you do then?" the dragon asked, and snorted at her suggestion that he earn what he felt he could take by force.
His tail slithered out of the binding stone, cutting it to pieces with his razor sharp ridges. One of Zecora's sorcerors cried out, trying to warn her, before being flung into the smoldering ruins of Cairage by that very tail.
" Even now your bindings upon me weaken. You do not have the power to contain me, much less control me." The Dragon said, using his tail to weaken the stone bindings around one of his arms.
" I have not yet begun, you comment as though I am as ordinary as the sun." Zecora said, stepping backwards, into the ruined shell of one of the buildings that had composed the outskirts of Cairage before the fires consumed them.
" Yet as you speak you flee. I cannot take you seriously." The dragon said, pausing as he realized that he'd begun to speak as she.
Zecora smiled knowingly, disappearing behind a broken wall as the dragon's golden eyes glazed over. With a muffled 'clop' she stomped on a crossbeam, launching some ash into the dragons mouth, causing it to cough.
" You will do as I say, and then you will pray that I do not more." Zecora said, to the dragon as it collapsed unconscious.
" Princess, what do you have planned?" One of her lieutenants asked.
" You will see, for now you must help me. Search for survivors, if the dragon is to be believed, more will come, and by then I will have them struck dumb." Zecora instructed the lieutenant as she whispered instructions into the receptive ear of the now dominated dragon.
Nearly an hour later Zecora and her Legion were watching as their dominated dragon fought four others over the Ruins of Cairage. The survivors, numbering nearly three dozen, mares, foals and stallions had been escorted by the majority of the Legion back to Bridledolas. There they would be placed in a refugee camp until they could find new homes, or relatives to take them in at other towns.
" Wait, should they not turn from us? My instruction was precise, concise, and clear. The dragons should now return from where they came." Zecora said to herself, as the fight gradually came to a stop in the ruins of the town center.
The dragons that had arrived later seemed to be talking to the dominated dragon. After one laid claw to the others head, Zecora felt the control spell shatter. She turned to the other zebra sorcerors. "Run."
Reader's Note: I hope you enjoyed, I have a pretty good idea of how to get from point A to point B. Probably going to be about 7 chapters. I can't speak to the length of said chapters though, can pretty much guarantee 300. Let me know what you think, review message whichever.