Spyro had been expecting a lot of things for the day he finally came across the Rodentkin of Nimh.

An army of Fae-sized rats with swords and armor was the most common image he had imagined throughout his younger life. These images were always followed by daydreams of himself, fully grown and able to fly, swooping down upon the puny mortals and unleashing his fiery wrath upon them, blowing the entire army to ash in a single breath of flame; such were the dreams of glory that all young dragons shared now and again.

Another had been one Zoe had told him during their younger days: the story of the mouse kingdom's capital city made entirely out of cheese. Of how every year the mice would end up eating the entire city to the ground, and then re-build it out of the finest cheddar, gouda, provolone, and cream cheese, only to eat it all over again. Of course, it was another one of her tall tales (a fairy tale, for a very fitting term), and she had gotten an earful from her mentors about 'filling the dragon's head with nonsense', but the image of an entire city made of food had been one that resurfaced every now and then, usually when he was hungry.

But this? This was not what he was expecting at all.

Neither of them made a sound as Spyro gently pulled back from the unexpected contact and raised his head up to full height, his eyes never breaking contact with those of the mouse before him.

Likewise, the tiny furling didn't dare look away from the massive reptilian beast poking its head out of the field's edge, her eyes wide with terror and her tiny body frozen on the spot; raising his head back up may have been a mistake, as it only emphasized how much bigger he was than her, which only added to her fear.

The dragon took the moment to observe the first mouse rodentkin he had ever seen (as all the rodentkin members of the Veil Piercer's crew had been rats). She had to be no older than a few years at most, no bigger than a human toddler, with a single incisor tooth barely peeking out from under her upper lip. A furling, if he recalled (the universal term for rodentkin young, regardless of species). Her fur was a soft sand-blonde in color, while her nose was a light pinkish brown. The only article of clothing she wore was a large teal-green sash that was wrapped around her midsection and tied behind her back in a big, poofy bow. And her chocolate-brown eyes were outright human in appearance, not anything like the black, glossy orbs of the animalistic Ferals, but windows into the sapient soul that made up her very being, full of awareness and emotion.

Though the only emotion that could be seen in them now was a deep, primal fear: the fear of standing before a great and terrible monster.

Curious of the new being he had never seen before, Spyro took a slow step forward, stepping partially out of the field and lowering his head down to get a closer look.

The furling gave a frightened squeak as his head approached her; she tried to back away but ended up stumbling over her own paws with the natural clumsiness of children her age, tumbling backwards in a way that reminded Spyro of tumbleweed; a small, chubby furball of a tumbleweed. He pulled away again in surprise at the sudden tumble, finding himself outright concerned for her well-being, but the mouse looked unharmed as she pushed herself up into a sitting position.

The two didn't say a word or move a muscle after that, each staring at each other in complete silence.

The moment was promptly interrupted when Zoe flew out from the grass, confused as to what was keeping Spyro in one spot. "What is it? What did you find?" She asked in him in a concerned manner as she pushed the stalks aside. "Is it a thr-?"

Then she spotted what had captured the dragon's attention, and her own eyes went wide, but with a different kind of horror.

"Oh, Sard Me!"

Spyro immediately whipped his head to his fairy and gave a loud, snarling hiss of disapproval; despite being inexperienced in the matters of handling children, even he knew using vulgar language in their presence was frowned upon, and Zoe's natural dismissal of common decency was no excuse.

This, however, would prove to be a mistake.

The sight of the Safi'jiiva's jaws opening and his lips curling back to reveal all his sharp flesh-tearing teeth, along with the thunderous bone-chilling growl finally snapped the mouse out of her stupor; she gave a truly terrified scream, scrambling to her feet as if the ground she was sitting on caught fire, and bolted away as fast as all four of her paws could carry her.

"W-Wait, come back!" Zoe called after her: not out of concern for the child, but out of the need for answers.

Spyro, on the other hand, was very much taken aback by the extreme reaction to him; he gave a calling croon after the furling, as if pleading for her to return, as he stepped fully out of the field and began to follow her, his long strides allowing him to keep pace with the young rodent even as she ran. This did little to calm her down, as when she looked behind her all she saw was the sharp-toothed monster come out of the grass, revealing just how much bigger than her it truly was, and chase her down to catch and swallow her whole.

She shouldn't have looked back, otherwise she would've seen the large fallen branch of a nearby giant tree coming up in her path, and the sharp twig sticking out over said path like the deadly claw of a predator in waiting.

Before anyone could react, she had run past it and the twig struck her across her right shoulder, its sharp tip slashing it open.

A pained squeak escaped her as she tripped over herself, falling to the dirt. Spyro abruptly stopped at the sight of the sudden tumble, a light jolt of panic coursing through his chest when he saw a flash of red.

Then it hit him: a smell that slithered through his nostrils, filling his sinuses in the most pleasant way. Sweet. Warm. And Fresh. The smell of prey. A smell that he, as a predator, welcomed as mortals would welcome the smell of freshly baked bread. He was promptly reminded that water wasn't the only thing he hadn't had since the previous night when an all-too familiar emptiness in his stomach made itself known, rumbling hungrily for warm flesh. Saliva dripped from his fangs as his pupils narrowed into tight slits, all instinct and desire joining to seek out and devour the source of such a divine and succulent-NO!

With a warbled bark of distress, he quickly banished those involuntary desires from his mind, taking a step back as he shook his head from side to side in an animalistic manner, all the while snorting fire through his nostrils several times to clear the scent from his sinuses. By the Flames of Akatosh, that was the flesh of a Soul Bearer he was hungering for! A fellow sapient being, and an innocent child at that! Only the wicked and the unforgivable were allowed to be consumed in the name of Justified Vengeance; to consume the flesh of an innocent soul bearer was a sin that all carnivorous soul-bearing races, not just dragons, were forbidden from indulging in. He recoiled mentally in self-disgust, outright shaken by how potently the temptation had flared within him, shaking his head several more times with angry snarls.

Only when the smell had completely cleared from his head was he able to gain hold over his senses again, and the first thing he became aware of was the sound of pained crying.

He looked over to see the furling laying on the ground, curled up in the fetal position and sobbing her eyes out. A large red scratch had been torn across her upper arm, which she clutched with her other paw, blood trickling over her fingers and down the wounded limb; large, round tears spilled from her eyes, rolling down her face and dripping off her whiskers as she wept like it was the end of the world.

Now Spyro was no stranger to such feeling, though it had been many years since such an injury brought out such a powerful reaction; only the very young and inexperienced would react so strongly to such a minor wound. Large as the scratch was, only the skin had been broken, hardly what one would call life-threatening.

To one who lived through the terrible glory of war, and all the pain and injury that came with it, seeing one react so violently to something so small was rather insulting.

At least…that's what he thought he should've been feeling.

But there was something about seeing someone so young…so small…so untouched suffering like this, even from something so minor...it caused a strange nagging feeling in his chest; not like the tight emptiness, as it didn't dig inwards. Instead, it felt as if it was…reaching. For the mouse girl. A want to do…something: something to stop her from feeling pain and sorrow, but not in a way that would harm her even further.

To soothe her pain, and his own would be soothed as well…

He shifted uncomfortably where he stood, tail swishing back and forth impatiently and a frustrated grumble spilling forth as he struggled to understand this new sensation.

His movements snapped the mouse out of her bleary-eyed confusion, her teary eyes widening in fear as she remembered the monster. Holding her wounded limb to her chest, she quickly got back up on her three good legs and ran in a limping gait, slower than before but no less panicked.

This time, Spyro didn't follow her right away; instead, he simply stood there and watched with a mix of unpleasant alien emotions as the furling fled into the woods on the edge of the field he had just left, running zig-zag through the giant flowers in an attempt to lose her perceived pursuer, all the while leaving a visible trail of red drops behind her.

He waited until she was fully out of sight before he stepped forward once more, now concerned for her survival in these predator-filled parts of Feywild.

Something soft and cushioned pressed against the bottom of his right forepaw with said step; he stopped and lifted his paw to see what he had stepped down. There, slightly pressed into the ground within his footprint, was a small, hand-knitted ragdoll, not unlike a teddy bear, with reddish-brown cloth skin and black button eyes. He hopped back a bit and lowered his head, sniffing the doll; the furling's scent was so deeply ingrained into the toy that it had to be hers.

She must've dropped it while fleeing from him.

He nudged it gently with his snout, a soft groaning croon rumbling from his throat…before he gingerly picked it up between his teeth by its arm and lifted his head back to full height, turning his attention back to where the furling had fled…an easy enough path to follow given the trail she left behind.

Brow-ridges furrowing at the sight of the spilled life-liquid, the Safi'jiiva turned his attention to the branch that had harmed the innocent child; the offending twig glimmering red in the midday sun, like the blade of a sword that just made a fresh kill, almost as if it was boasting about its ability to cause harm.

Eyes flashing with rage, Spyro promptly lifted his hind leg and slammed his foot upon the offending piece of wood; the sheer impact of the blow shook the earth around the area, leaving the branch outright crushed to sawdust.

The Elder Dragon drake gave a snort of satisfaction before setting off towards the Lee of the Stone once more, following the trail in an outright serpentine manner; his body and tail weaved in and out between the flowers like a snake, while he used his wings to grip and push the ones tightly-packed together out of his way, their stalks snapping like twigs to his draconic strength, all the while his eyes never left the trail of blood.

Given the direction it was laying in, it wasn't hard to guess as to where the furling was heading…

There weren't enough words in all the languages in the world to describe just how utterly swived they were.

While Spyro was following the winding trail of blood through the woods with unwavering attention, Zoe was experiencing what could only be described as a full-brain aneurysm exploding in her skull. They had literally just gotten back, the sun not even at its noon peak yet, and they had already just stepped right into plunging all of Nimh into chaos.

What in the Seven Realms was a furling doing all the way out here?! And this close to the forest's borders, no less?! She had literally just gotten done receiving the request from King Avalon himself to keep Spyro away from the Rodentkin, and not even a full sarding minute after did they just happened to stumble across one so deep into Feywild that she was surprised nobody had noticed a kingdom-wide cheese shortage!

She slapped her hands against her cheeks, snapping herself out of her panicked exaggerations and clearing her head to rationalize what she had just discovered. A mouse furling in Feywild: how could this have happened? She furrowed her brow in thought, thinking hard on any possible explanations.

First that came to mind: she was a very, very lost child, having wondered a little too far from the Rodentkin settlement of Dapplewood...and was about a three-to-four-day trip by foot from the forest's edge.

Yeah, that was completely impossible, even by her imagination. Even if such a young furling had the physical strength to 'wander' that far away from the nearest rodentkin settlement without food or rest, she wouldn't have made it this far. The wilderness of Feywild was crawling with predators: many of the more magical species of Nimh's native animals lived in the fairy-inhabited areas of the continent, most of which were more than capable and willing to greedily devour lost furlings in a single bite. She would've been monster dung long before she even left sight of Dapplewood.

Zoe scratched her head as she tried to think of another alternative…perhaps she was with Mr. Ages? An elderly mouse that had history with the Fae, and thus was the only rodentkin that had been welcomed to live in Feywild; the ruins that he had set up shop in wasn't far from the Lee of the Stone at all, making her presence plausible if that was the case. Perhaps this was his grandniece or something, having been dropped off for a visit so far away from inhabited rodent lands by unnamed relatives for the spring...

...oh, who was she kidding? Mr. Ages was the personification of anti-social personality disorder. The cranky old mouse had moved to Feywild counting on the fact that he wouldn't be bothered by other rodentkin; in all the centuries he traveled Nimh, he had not once taken a mate or had children. And if he had any siblings, he would be the last mouse in the world that they would trust to look after their children for whatever reason.

That meant the third idea was only one plausible answer. One that made as much dread as it did sense:

A clan of rodentkin had entered and settled down in Feywild.

And given the direction the furling was running in, she had a very bad feeling as to where they had settled.

The scratching became more furious as the weight of this realization made itself known, her fingers outright clawing at her scalp. How could this have happened?! Ever since Spyro's birth, the already anti-rodentkin mentality of Feywild only skyrocketed in strength; not a single mouse or rat (which the exception of the pre-mentioned Mr. Ages, and even he was unaware of the elder dragon's existence) was allowed anywhere in Fae territory, let alone this close to the forest itself! Even Dapplewood was under heavy patrol from the border guard to ensure not a single non-fairy inhabitant of Nimh crossed over, and they were literally on the border!

If the Council found out about this new colony, it could very well be the tipping point of the already-fragile peace with the rodentkin and the excuse needed to plunge all of Nimh into war!

She sighed wearily, dragging her hands down her face in exasperation; was it really too much to ask for even a single break from it all? Just for one day, even?

She pulled her hand down to her lower face, allowing her to open her eyes and glare in front of her as they walked into the cast shadow of another obstacle. Before them stood a set of massive bushes, each larger than Spyro himself and forming a wall that extended beyond sight to the left and right alike. The light of the mid-morning sun was shining through the holes in the brush, casting small beams of light upon the otherwise shaded area behind it.

Zoe recognized this wall; it was the berry bushes that lined the glade where the Lee of the Stone stood. Many a late summer/early fall was spent gorging on their juicy produce, which wasn't due to grow until that time of year, leaving the bushes bare of fruit.

She watched as Spyro leaned forward to look through the holes in the wall, but the sun was at an angle that made its light shine directly in his dark-adjusted eyes, forcing him to pull back and blink in discomfort, growling softly in frustration.

Then he stepped forward and began to push through the bushes, bark creaking and leaves shifting about as he shoved his way into them.

She was not going to allow her dragon to suffer under the cruelty of war again. He had just gotten away from one that nearly killed him; to go right back into another, let alone on Nimh, would be the breaking point for his morale, Elder Dragon of Primordia or not.

Her eyes glistened with an icy-blue aura of their own and her pupils narrowed into reptilian slits as silently followed Spyro. Avalon and the Council would never have to know that these mice were here in the first place. To get this far meant you had to be a small enough colony to make it pass the border patrol; a few mice with even iron weapons were no match for the cunning and trickery of even the simplest and weakest fairies in all of Feywild…and she was, by far, no means simple nor weak.

She would deal with these intruders herself. Even if it meant dragging their corpses back to the border herself.