Mrs. Brisby had hoped she would never have to see this place again.

She stood a few good feet away from the edge, her recent fall down the rocky cliff still fresh in her mind, but she could still see it from there. She clasped her trembling paws against her chest, scooting a shaky step forward to stare down into the abyss, shivering with a deep, instinctual fear at the sight of the river.

She was not ready to return to it at all, especially just after she had escaped it.

Yet here she stood: At the edge of the abyss.

The River of Bones.

Zoe had been right: it was an all-too fitting name for a dried-up riverbed filled with the bodies of dozens of animals, all in a state of damage and decay. Blood-stain bones of medium-sized animals laid scattered across the sun-bleached ground, picked clean of their meat by razor-sharp teeth, some broken by jaws strong enough to bite clean through them. Hollowed-out corpses of larger animals lined the edges, their bellies split open by blade-like claws, with entrails messily devoured and massive bites of flesh having been ripped out of the carcass entirely. There were barely any remains of smaller animals, though, like mice and other similarly sized creatures, a severed head or limb at most, but there were enough of them to tell that even they were not spared the hunger of his gullet.

Given his sheer size, it was frankly a surprise that there were remains of smaller animals at all: a few lucky scraps that had been bitten off when he had snapped them up in one bite and swallowed them whole.

Even standing far away on the river's edge, a good distance away from the carnage, did little to ease the horror of it all. If anything, it seemed to make it even worse: from here, she could see just how far the literal river of corpses spread. Far more-so than having fallen into one small part of it. The smell was no less unpleasant to bear either; the stench of rotting flesh filled the air like a miasma of death, causing her eyes to water and her sinuses to burn.

And the final touch to this showcase of death: the eerie silence that hung over the land: no songbirds, no animal calls, nothing. Nothing but the clouds of flies buzzing around the dead meat and the wind rustling the canopy above, which cast a dark shadow over this chasm of death.

This was a dark place, one of ruin brought forth by power, wrath, and very sharp teeth.

"Amazing, isn't it?"

The sudden voice caught her off guard, making her jump a little in surprise. She looked up to see Zoe standing next to her, gazing over the River of Bones with a look of admiration on her face.

"How much him simply being here has changed these lands, that is." The fairy explained, glancing at her with eyes that gleamed with outright-twisted pride. "How much the very order of the forest itself has changed from Spyro's mere presence alone. Only a few days ago, it was alive and singing the praises of spring. But now? Silent as the grave, neither bird nor beast daring to make their presence known, lest they make themselves his next meal."

She extended an arm out to the mass graveyard before them, as if showing it off to her. "This is the power of the Dragon. Of a force of nature given life."

Mrs. Brisby couldn't say she shared the fairy's borderline-barbaric admiration for this display of violence and gore, but she couldn't deny how much it spoke of 'Spyro's' influence that he, a single beast, could impact the very world around him so much.

"He…" She swallowed nervously, licking the back of her teeth as she tried to gather her words. "…h-he doesn't eat mice, does he?"

To that, Zoe simply rolled her eyes again.

"He doesn't eat Rodentkin, if that's what you're asking." She stated simply, waving the mouse's concerns off with a hand. "That was never a danger to begin with: Dragon Honor forbids the consumption of the flesh of innocent Soul Bearers. 'Only the Wicked or the Guilty may be devoured in the name of Vengeance'. Such as those weasels, who chose to hunt and eat a fellow Enlightened out of a perverse thrill, rather than filling their bellies with the meat already available…so, no: he has never killed or eaten Rodentkin before."

Mrs. Brisby blinked in surprise at that claim, and she dared another look into the pit of carnage.

And to her realization, she found that the fairy was telling the truth: all the corpses in that pit were of the Feral versions of those species. The heads/skulls were all of their animal counterparts: sideways-facing eye sockets, flattened heads with small brain-cases, no complex facial muscles or expressions of fear frozen on the ones that still had skin. There were also no items to show that they had been intelligent, either: no remains of clothing, weapons, or accessories of any kind that were the universal symbols of 'Enlightenment' amongst all of Nimh's races.

She understood that carnivores had to eat meat to survive; she didn't like the idea of creatures dying and suffering, but she understood that was how Frith made them, to keep his world in balance. She also understood that hunting Ferals wasn't always a successful endeavor, as beasts proved harder to find, chase down, and kill. If he decided to, it would be all too easy for a meat-eater of his size and power to gorge himself on all the Rodentkin flesh he could eat, and there would be little that anyone could do to stop him if he did.

But he didn't. If the fairy was right, this 'Spyro' refused to take the life of an innocent Soul Bearer, even at the cost of such a convenience, for no other reason than his own moral standing.

Once again showing himself to be quite unlike the dragons sung of in a minstrel's fancies.

"And up we go!"

"EEEEP!" Mrs. Brisby squealed in alarm as she was quite suddenly, and literally, swept off her feet. While she wasn't paying attention, Zoe had come up behind her and, with all the tact and grace of an upset porcupine, scooped her up in her arms bridal-style. The mouse was left beet-red in the face: last time she had been carried like this was by Johnathan, over the threshold of their newly-finished house for a rather intimate night. She never expected to be carried like this again following his death, let alone by another female.

"W-W-W-What are you doing?!" She stammered in a high-pitched squeak, too shocked by her current position to react otherwise.

Zoe, however, simply gave her that same look of unamused exasperation that she was becoming rather familiar with. "Would you rather try climbing back down the cliff-face?" she asked flatly. "With that leg, no less?"

Oh. That was fair. Mrs. Brisby glanced away in embarrassment, trying not to acknowledge the awkwardness of their position.

"I didn't think so." Zoe stated simply as her wings snapped open with an almost-flamboyant flair; the sight of them made Mrs. Brisby realize, with no short amount of horror, what she was intending to do. But before she could say anything, the fairy broke into a light jog toward the edge, her wings beginning to flutter with the twinkling of magic, creating a cloud of glowing magenta pixie dust as they did so.

"WAIT!" She cried in panic, fear clenching her heart.

Zoe nearly stumbled mid-step at her cry, looking down at her passenger with annoyance, even as the mouse's paws gripped tightly to her dress. "Oh, what now?"

"N-Not so fast! P-Please!" Mrs. Brisby whimpered, shivering in place. "…I-I'm afraid of heights."

There was a moment of silence.

Then Zoe laughed. Outright laughed at her, said laughter carrying an outright magical quality to it, like the tinkling of wind chimes.

"Was this before or after you literally jumped off a cliff?" she asked in unabashed amusement. Mrs. Brisby's heart twisted with hurt, and she could feel the tears prick at her eyes.

"I-It's not funny!" She exclaimed, even as the fairy continued to chuckle at her. "I didn't know about the cliff! I nearly died!"

"You're a mouse. Literally every day you live is a day you nearly die." Zoe humored as her laughter died down to light chuckles. "And hey, look on the bright side: you now know about the riverbed, so no more jumping off it anymore. And it'll be quite the story to tell your kids when you get back."

Mrs. Brisby opened her mouth to snap something back, but whatever words she wanted to say were quickly forgotten as Zoe's wings fluttered up again and they were suddenly airborne.

She clenched up in fear and clung to the fairy as if her life depended on it, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt herself rise off the sturdiness of the ground, her innards sinking in her belly as gravity was pulled against them. She fought the urge to cry or scream (or perhaps both) as she felt them shift from going up to going down, her innards rising up in her chest and throat as she felt an all-too familiar weightlessness of descent. Her mouth was clamped shut in gritted fear, forcing her to breathe through her nose, the putrid smell of rotting meat getting stronger with each passing second.

As if the urge to throw up wasn't strong enough at it was…

However, it was a much slower descent this time; despite finding humor in her misfortune, Zoe respected her fears and was making the trip as smooth as she could.

And just as the nightmare seemed like it was going to last forever, it ended: with a soft jolt and an uncomfortable lurch of her insides, Mrs. Brisby felt them touch down on solid ground. She could've passed out from sheer relief, a heavy sigh escaping her lips as her whole body relaxed, and she was finally able to open her eyes.

Only to be greeted by a very familiar sight. One she had hoped to never see again.

She knew returning to the River of Bones would not be a pleasant experience in the slightest, but even then, she was not prepared to find herself in the exact same spot she had nearly been killed in. The log loomed overhead like a great overhanging rock formation, taunting her with its very presence, while the remains of the two weasels laid scattered across the ground between her and the cliff's edge, which was still soaked in a large smear of red from where the dragon had crushed one of them against it. There was little left of the weasel that had pinned her, though: the severed head and a few scattered pieces of limbs and tail were all that remained, the rest having been devoured by the beast.

She swallowed the bile building in her throat, the memories playing in her mind's eye like a horrible theater performance of death. The screams of the dying predator, along with the sickening crunch of its bones, would haunt her for many years to come.

"See it anywhere?" Zoe, who looked completely unaffected by the sights and smells around her, asked.

Mrs. Brisby shook her head no; the last thing she wanted to do right now was open her mouth. The fairy hummed thoughtfully at that, tapping her finger against her chin as she looked about.

"The wind might've blown it elsewhere, though I doubt it couldn't have been blown far, given the river walls…" She muttered aloud, before turning back to the mouse. "You stay here and search around this area: keep your wounds from getting any worse. And I'll search further abroad, see if I can."

Mrs. Brisby nodded in agreement, still keeping her mouth closed; as Zoe took to the air once more, she took a steady breath to ease her nerves (as much as she could) and began her part of the search. Her bad ankle flared with a dull pain with each step she took with it, forcing her to limp as she walked, and the rest of her bones ached with varying levels of soreness with each movement. But she continued on despite it all.

Her son was waiting for her to return. And she wouldn't let him down.

That didn't make the current task at hand any easier, though.

Mrs. Brisby prided herself on being a mouse who kept her hands clean of conflict and violence; even when at her angriest, she had never raised her claws against anyone. Never lashed out in a blind temper. Never raised her voice above the required amount of volume. She was a mouse who wanted nothing more than life than peace and happiness for herself and her family, never having once caused anyone or anything to shed a single drop of blood.

Her paws had been clean of bloodshed her entire life.

Never in a million years would she have imagined that she would lose her cleanliness from blood by digging through the remains of the dead, her arms literally soaked to the elbows in viscera red.

She sat on her knees, searching through the piles of bodies in a desperate attempt to find the envelope, which could be hidden anywhere among the sea of white and red. Many of the torn-apart skeletons were still covered in half-eaten flesh that clung to the red-stained bones, while the larger animals were still somewhat whole, still covered in fur and with only a few bites taken out of it…and all their insides spilled out across the ground, forming a makeshift carpet of gore for her to wade through; she was pretty sure she was currently standing in what remained of some poor boar's spleen.

She couldn't tell which was worse: the skin-curling sensation of raw flesh and organs squishing between her fingers, the stomach-churning squelch every time she was forced to step in the pulped remains of some-creature's organs, or the absolutely Frith-awful STENCH of dead flesh, blood, and pus that assaulted her nose with the force of a swung sledge-hammer. A putrid, rotting sledge-hammer.

It was nothing short of a miracle that she hadn't thrown up yet.

The groan that could only be described as pure, unadulterated displeasure broke through the silence; eager for the chance to look away from all the gross, Mrs. Brisby turned to see Zoe stomping towards her, looking fit to murder someone. The fairy looked even worse off than she did: her once yellow and orange dress was soaked red and black in blood and Frith knows what else, bile dripping from the tips of her petal skirts, while her once-vibrant hair was sagging and crusty from it. Her eyes burned with the promise to strangle the first living creature that dared to cross her path, her lips twisted into a tooth-bearing snarl.

"I have endured a lot, and I mean a LOT, of both metaphorical and literal shit in my lifetime." Zoe growled outright as she approached, pulling a sticky clump of what looked like purple spaghetti from her hair. "And believe it or not, this was not the worst of it…but spelunking through the hollowed remains of a dead deer is easily in the top ten, maybe even the top five…and I think it might've been pregnant, too."

Mrs. Brisby tried not to dwell on that disturbing thought any more than she was forced to, changing the subject immediately. "Did yo-?"

It was a mistake to attempt to speak: the moment she opened her mouth, the putrid taste of death in the air assaulted her tongue with all the subtlety of a slap to the face. She clapped her paws over her mouth, cheeks bulging as she fought to keep her stomach down.

"No, not yet. Just need a minute to get my nerves back." Zoe said bitterly, moving to a dry spot in the riverbed clear of any form of gore. The fairy's shoes left bloody footprints on the clean gravel as she made her way to a nearby rock and sat down on it, giving a heavy sigh of relief as she did so. She gave Brisby a look over. "You look as if you could use a break as well; your son won't die waiting just a little longer."

She patted the top of the stone next to her. "Come. Sit."

As much as she didn't want to stop looking, she knew she needed a break herself: another moment of digging through dead animals and she would lose more than just her breakfast. Not taking her paws off her mouth, Mrs. Brisby stepped away from her own search and joined her, grateful just to not be stepping through the remains of animals anymore. At least Zoe had the fortune to be wearing shoes…

She sat down next to her new companion, finally removing her paws and taking a much-needed breath of fresh (or at least relatively fresh) air. She also took the moment to try and clean herself the best she could, rubbing her face in the usual mouse-like manner to try and clean the blood off of her fur, to little success. Meanwhile, Zoe said nothing as she hitched up the front of her skirts and fished out the leg bone of a sparrow that had got caught under them; she examined it for a moment before promptly tossing it over her shoulder, not giving it a second thought as it clattered amongst the others.

"…How can you stand it?" Brisby finally asked, unable to hold it back any longer. "All this death…all this b-blood…it's horrible. And to see it every day."

"Eh, when you've dealt with it as long as I have, you get use to it." Zoe stated simply with a shrug, not taking her attention away from removing 'remains' from her person. "I will admit, though: today's been an…extreme example, for sure…but when you work with the world's mightiest carnivore, death-and-blood's something that just comes with the territory."

That made the mouse pause as the same question she had asked herself before came to mind.

"And...h-how long have you fairies been 'working' with him?" She asked carefully, knowing how sensitive the topic was for the horned fairy. "The D-Dragon, I mean."

At that, Zoe paused herself. She had no obligation to tell the mouse anything. She shouldn't tell the mouse anything; she was already breaking so many laws by just associating with this small family of Rodentkin, even if just in passing help, let alone actually speaking of the Jendovahzoor to them...but for that very reason, she found herself compelled to do so. To simply stick it to all the self-righteous bastards that thought they knew what was best for her dragon...when in truth, these mice actually knew more of him than they did. Besides, they were already this deep into the mire already; what was another few causal breaks of Fae Law at this point?

"Fifty years." She finally answered. "That's how long we Fairies have been taking care of him."

Mrs. Brisby blanched at the revelation, eyes going wide. Fifty years. A third Titan Beast, a Dragon no less, had been living on Nimh for half a century?!

Zoe smirked at the face she was making. "Yeah. That long." She told her, wiping the blood from her own. "Fifty years ago, the Night Patrols found him in a cave beneath the Crystal Mountains; he had literally just hatched from his egg, still wet and clawing out of the shell. He's been with us ever since."

The mouse stared ahead, trying to comprehend what she had just learned. "...that's the same time Feywild closed its borders to the rest of Nimh." She muttered, perking up in realization. "Is he-?"

"Yep." Zoe popped the word, not missing a beat. "The Calendula Council decided it was in his best interests that we keep his existence a secret from the Rodentkin, so we closed off the borders to prevent him from getting out, and you guys from getting in, both in the name of keeping anyone from finding out about him."

She then gave a small scoff, turning to look at the Rodentkin with amused eyes.

"But, given who I'm talking to right now, I'd say that was a moot endeavor."

Mrs. Brisby flinched a little at those words. "I-I didn't know that this was Feywild." She stammered, panic starting to grow in her chest as the gravity of the situation began to register in her mind. "Johnathan t-my husband, he told me that these lands were a place where we would be safe. W-W-We didn't mean to intrude on anything, please-!"

"Relax. I, for one, am not going to do anything." The fairy reassured her. "What those nectar-indulgent idiots want is none of my knowledge nor concern. They can all go suck a toad's wart, for all I care. Besides, Spyro seems to like you, to the point that he's let you keep your home in his favorite sunning spot, which is pretty impressive given how dragons usually are about sharing anything."

Mrs. Brisby blinked, taken aback. "He...likes me?"

Now it was Zoe's turn to look uncertain. "It's...complicated, and I'd rather not get into the details myself." She admitted. "Let's just say, after all the shit Spyro's been through, you and your family's peaceful life is...comforting, for lack of a better word. Though he's know better than to get too involved, so don't worry about that; we were already pushing limits just by talking to your kids the other da-."

The fairy's eyes went wide, and her hand shot up to cover her mouth, but it was too late.

"Wait, what?!" The now-alarmed mother exclaimed in shock. "When did-?!"

She paused, realization flooding her features, leaving her staring at the embarrassed fairy. It all suddenly fell into place: Cynthia's scare in the forest, the dead section of the farmland that looked as if it had been drained, that whole fiasco with Auntie Shrew ranting and raving about a 'fairy' she caught in one of her traps, her children's quiet gossiping and whispers, 'making friends with the sad purple monster'.

"You're the fairy that my aunt caught in her trap!" She exclaimed, eyes wide with surprise. "And your dragon was the one who-"

"We didn't mean for that to happen!" Zoe quickly interjected, holding a hand up to silence the mouse. When she did quiet down, the fairy gave an exaggerated groan and rubbed her face. "Look...that whole thing was one big accident: we had just returned from a long voyage and didn't know you guys had moved under the stone at the time, and Spyro ended up spooking your daughter by mistake. All that went down was a crazy domino effect that none of us intended to happen. Blame me for my part all you want, but Spyro doesn't mean you, your children, or your home any harm...I give you my word on it."

Mrs. Brisby wanted to say more. She had a lot of questions and fears running through her mind that she wanted answers to. And she fully intended to get them eventually...but right now, seeing the look of regret and pleading in Zoe's eyes, not for herself but for her friend...to hear her willing to shoulder all the blame in his stead...

"...you really care about him, don't you?" Mrs. Brisby whispered.

Zoe nodded, lowering her gaze. "He's all I have to care about.

*Thoooommm…*

The icy-cold grip of dread filled the mouse's heart as the distant rumble echoed across the land, just as a gust of wind suddenly blew through the chasm, whipping up leaves and scattering them further down the riverbank, nearly knocking over the two small creatures. Both of them looked to the direction both the wind and the rumble came from: to the north, toward the distant open ocean. They were far too inland to see the ocean itself, but they were more than able to see the massive clouds rolling in over the far horizon.

The massive, dark, ever-approaching clouds of a early spring storm.

"The first storm of spring..." Mrs. Brisby muttered in dread.

"It's early this year." Zoe growled, scowling with displeasure as she stood up, her wings and dress beginning to flutter against the wind. "It'll be on us by dark. We have to find the medicine now, before this entire riverbed is underwater."

"We have to hurry!" Mrs. Brisby exclaimed, outright jumping to her feet. "We only have-AHH!" Only to stumble backwards as her ankle exploded with pain, causing her to fall back onto the rock she had been sitting on.

"You have to stay here until I get back." Zoe told her, grabbing hold of her shoulders and lifting her back up into a sitting position. "You can't go anywhere with that leg."

"B-but the medicine!"

"I'll find the medicine." The fairy assured her, pointing to herself for emphasis. "I can fly, and thus can search the riverbed faster than you can. And I'm willing to bet my wings that the wind carried it down-river, hence why we didn't find it here." She pointed to the mouse. "You wait here and keep off that leg until I get back. Trust me on this...alright?"

Despite all she had just learned, trust wasn't why Mrs. Brisby wanted to object; she wanted to help, the desperation to find Timmy's medicine before it was too late urging her to go on, despite the logic of Zoe's words. But she knew she couldn't; she was right: a fairy's wings would carry her a lot faster than a mouse's wounded leg would, and they were running out of time as it was.

She had no other choice.

"Please hurry." Was all she could bring herself to say.

To that, Zoe merely nodded. With a flair of her wings and a fluttering of pixie dust, the fairy took to the skies; she struggled a little bit to stay in place against the growing storm-winds, but eventually got high enough to wear she could see the entire left-to-right of the riverbed. At that point, it was simply a matter of letting the wind take her down river, like a fish swimming in the current, and she was soon out of sight and sound, leaving poor Mrs. Brisby to sit on the stone, tears of dread pricking her eyes as horrible thoughts clouded her mind.

The more the winds blew, the more she began to think Zoe was right: the wind could have carried it away, but only Frith knew how far it could've blown, or if it had been torn or soaked against anything it landed on. Would the medicine still be any good if they did find it? Or was it already a loss cause?

She buried her face into her paws, giving a deep, shuddering sigh.

"Please…" She begged in one weak, final whisper. With all her heart and soul, even as both crumbled within her breast. "…Help me."

*Thoooommm…*

Another peal of thunder echoed across the land; this one was extra strong, as if to mock her final prayers for her child's life. She could feel it in the earth itself, rumbling softly beneath her.

*Thoooommm…*

She paused, her eyes opening as a second, identical rumble shifted through the ground.

*Thoooommm…*

Her gaze fell upon a blood-puddle in front of her, formed from the remains of the boar nearby. It suddenly rippled as a third vibration shook the earth, this one significantly heavier than the last, in an identical pattern to the first two.

*Thoooommm…*

Another thundered through the ground, the puddle rippling violently.

*Thoooommm…*

This wasn't thunder.

She didn't even have time to come to realization when she felt it: a presence she had felt only once before but recognized all too well. The feeling was very similar to the distant storm that was steadily approaching, but clearly a separate entity entirely, as if there were two great forces of nature before her. One in the far distance, and the second within the nearby trees and growing closer with each of those heavy, thunder-like thuds.

The thuds of heavy footfalls.

A crash rang throughout the gulch, this time of splintering wood, as the plants on the bank opposite of the log were split apart and sent crashing to the ground. Mrs. Brisby jumped from both the surprise of the crash and the impact, throwing her onto her back. She scrambled to regain her balance, propping herself up on her hands, and stared up in surprise, awe, and instinctive fear as a very familiar form stepped out from the edge of the forest, shoving the smaller trees and bushes aside or underfoot.

His dark-purple scales glistened like polished amethysts in the evening sun. The folds in his wing membranes and the dorsal frill on his head fluttered in the wind, the rest of him standing strong against it. And a pair of fiery draconian eyes glowed in the dim light as they locked with her own.

The Dragon had returned.

No, she remembered: not 'the dragon'…Spyro.

Spyro had returned.