“Oh, come on Minty, aren’t you at least a little interested in seeing what a Recoilless Rifle warhead’ll do to a dragon? At least once?” A group of twelve hooves trotted along a frozen road towards the mountain range, the chill in the air clear as each of their breaths caused small wispy clouds of condensation. The golden pegasus trotting along the center of the group wore an excited grin, much in contrast to the two others he was traveling with, the cave which Night Strike had mentioned only a short while away by now.

“I’ll be honest Twinnie, sometimes jumping for the P-nuclear option isn’t always the best idea. Can we at least try and talk to this dragon first? He didn’t seem aggressive from how Night Strike and Static were describing him, if anything I think they were just spooked.” The teal-maned unicorn gave off a quick shiver, his magic readjusting his scarf as he huddled a little closer to the pegasus. A small groan came from his muzzle soon after, looking to Twintails. “And besides that, I wish you gave me more warning about this trip. How are you two not freezing already?”

“Pegasi are naturally a bit more resistant to cold, doesn’t do much good if you get hypothermia just by flying. But, Twinnie, yeah, I gotta agree with Minty here, even if I am bringing this thing and a few shots along with us, could we try to not use it? Besides the whole thing with the dragon, this is fresh snowfall we’re dealing with, and I’d rather not get buried in an avalanche today.” The massive amount of hardware strung over the largest pegasus’ back clanked slightly as he trotted along, doing as much adjusting of the heavy load with his wings as he could to get it comfortable. At the same time, can’t really blame him for being a little uncomfortable with 200 pounds of minimal-safety inflationary explosives hanging off one side and 200 pounds of recoilless rifle on the other.

Twintails let off a long huff, the condensed cloud parting as he trotted through it. “Fine, fine, we’ll only launch it off if it’s absolutely necessary. Or the dragon isn’t open to negotiations and I have a clear shot. Gonna need to figure out where to put it up, though…” The golden pegasus pondered on his predicament, while the understandably unamused unicorn could only shake his head in response. As they began winding their way up further into the mountains, following the slightly snowed-over tracks left by the motorized two-thirds track, however, an odd droning noise began to fill the air around them.

The large stallion, Featherweight, was first to come to a stop, soon followed by the unicorn and pegasus. They all tried to look around and locate the source of the sound, but they only gained a reprieve of a few moments, before the droning was once again followed up by distinct musical notes. Featherweight passed on a confused, slightly worried glance from the front of the group, both Minty and Twintails sharing in it for just a moment, before they pressed onwards up the path. They came to try and find a dragon… Night Strike did mention it being a musical dragon, though…

As they drew closer, much to their surprise the trek grew easier, hardly even noticing the trotting they were doing through the drifting snow. All the trio could really focus upon was the strange, and for that matter strangely pleasant music echoing out from the cave ahead, the three of them soon arriving at the cave entrance without even knowing they were there. Inside, the large, tartan dragon sat, muzzle held about the mouthpiece on the end of his tail, the pipes upon his back playing out an old melody he’d learned centuries ago. Wasn’t meant to be much more than a simple song, but add on a bit of emotions from the first faces he’d seen in a long while running off after a pleasant introduction, and, well…

It took Hylund a rather long time to finally notice the three new visitors that’d entered his cave, the song he’d been playing having come to it’s conclusion as he finally opened his eyes and looked to the entrance, blinking a few times in surprise. He moved over to the three new ponies stood there, all of them unmoving, caught in a trance – the dragon grimaced. He hadn’t meant to do that, not this time… but, all the same, perhaps now he might have another chance to make some new friends…

“Alright, Hylund… let’s see if ye still got it in ya for makin’ a quartet o’ pipes…”