Zorko’s Arcane Appraisals

The One That Bit the Sky

"Welcome," Zorko whispered, lowering his voice to match the wind’s hush, "to the velvet fields between boundaries. Where real is relative, and hooves rarely touch the same patch of clover twice."

He stood in a sea of wildflowers that shimmered in uncoordinated hues. Blues flared into gold. Pinks faded into memory. Some blooms blinked. Others swayed against the wind. Somewhere in the distance, a harp played itself.

The pasture stretched endlessly, but politely. Everything here was beautiful. A little too beautiful. The kind of place you remembered only while dreaming, and then forgot again before waking.

Zorko turned to the orb.

"Today, we find ourselves among nobility. Four-legged elegance. Starlit fur. Bloodlines drawn in glyphs. These are no mere animals. These are the mounts of story."

He gestured to the hill behind him.

At least a dozen Elysian Ponies, magnificent, luminous, glowing like slow laughter, grazed in near silence across the slopes. Their manes sparkled like dew on spellbooks. Their hooves seemed allergic to dust.

Zorko raised his phoenix feather and whispered:

"We are here to appraise one such steed. A companion bred not for war, nor burden, but for story. For legend. For..."

Something growled.

Low. Rolling.

Zorko froze.

The flowers behind him trembled. A soft thump. Another. Something was coming. It was not dainty. It did not sparkle.

A tree shook. Several ponies raised their heads in practiced disdain.

Then, from the curve of the pasture, it arrived.

A Scalebound Dino.

Seven and a half feet tall at the shoulder. Thick orange-red scales shimmered across its broad body, striped with dusk-purple markings. Its eyes gleamed like volcanic amber. Powerful hind legs churned the grass in rhythmic thuds. A long tail swayed with awareness. Upon its back, nestled into a well-worn, rune-stitched saddle, rode a contradiction given form.

Charmer Circe of Arcadia.

She sat tall in the saddle with one hand resting on the horn, the other curled gently around a red frog on her shoulder. Iza, unblinking, surveyed the field with the solemnity of a saint or a security detail.

Circe’s cloak trailed behind her like breath. Her boots were clean despite the ride. And her Dino moved with the grace of something that didn’t understand how large it was, only how important.

Zorko blinked. Twice.

"That... is not a pony."

Circe’s voice was as soft as it was certain. "No. This is a Scalebound Dino." "It has claws." "Of course." "It just growled at the wind." "He usually does."

The Dino huffed, biting once at a nearby cloud. The cloud flinched and veered right.

Zorko took a hesitant step back. "You ride it?" he asked. "You don’t control it?"

"I don’t control any of my mounts," Circe said. "I’m invited."

She dismounted, sliding gracefully from the saddle. Despite the height, her feet touched the clover with the delicacy of someone landing on memory.

Zorko adjusted his hood.

"You traded for this?" "A high price," she said. "Not one I regret."

He turned toward the orb. "This is not just a mount. This is... chaos, saddled."

The Dino blinked at him, then slowly turned its head and exhaled a low puff of heat. Zorko flinched. Iza croaked once. The Dino settled.

Circe stepped to the Dino’s side, resting one hand on its neck. The scales shimmered under her touch, briefly pulsing with soft light.

"I have ponies," she said. "Ponies that gleam and bow and graze. But this one?" She looked up at the orb. "This one reminded me who I used to be, before anyone told me what I should ride."

Zorko’s feather wilted slightly.

He turned to face her fully. "What... are you?"

She smiled. Not kindly. Not sharply. Just honestly. "I’m the first one who didn’t flinch when it roared."

Zorko took three careful steps in a slow circle around the Scalebound Dino, holding his phoenix feather like it might ward off curses or be used as bait.

The Dino blinked at him. Zorko blinked back. Then whispered to the orb, "It’s measuring me."

He circled again, squinting. "No... not measuring. Assessing. It’s too calm. That’s how they lure you. You think it’s docile, and then, boom, you’ve been spiritually reclassified."

The Dino tilted its head. Its eye glimmered faintly with mischief. It sniffed a nearby rock and licked it once. The rock glowed briefly and rolled away.

Zorko gasped. "It just baptized a stone."

Circe crouched beside the Dino, checking the runes on its saddle straps with a practiced flick of her wrist. She didn’t speak yet. She didn’t need to.

Zorko crept another step closer. "I’ve read scrolls," he said, his voice growing theatrical. "Whispers of pre-Sundering apex familiars. Mounts bred not by hands, but by time. They were said to walk through weather like memories, bite through magic like bread..."

Circe spoke without looking up. "He once bit a shooting star."

Zorko stopped mid-stride. "Did he?!" "It hit the pond instead."

The Dino yawned. Its teeth were... substantial. Zorko pointed. "Teeth of prophecy!" Circe gave the faintest shrug. "Teeth of a carnivore."

Zorko began pacing. "This isn’t a mount. It’s a clockbreaking omen-lizard. A breath-powered beast of wild resonance. You’ve bonded with a prehistoric whisper of death."

The Dino wagged its tail and knocked over a fence post. Circe gave it a small pat. "He’s still learning about boundaries."

Zorko froze as the Dino turned to face him. It walked forward slowly, softly. No growling. No signs of stalking. Just presence.

Zorko held his ground. The Dino stopped directly in front of him. It sniffed. Snorted once. Then leaned in and licked Zorko’s hood, leaving a warm, slightly sizzling stripe across the velvet.

Zorko stood perfectly still. "He has tasted my cowardice," he whispered.

Circe smiled faintly. "He likes you."

The Dino turned and sat. It was a very deliberate sit. One that suggested finality. A vine cracked under its weight. Iza hopped from Circe’s shoulder to the Dino’s head and blinked slowly at Zorko, one leg lifted in what might have been approval.

Zorko exhaled loudly, shakily, and with some small grace. He turned to the orb. "This creature is no ordinary mount. No docile companion. This is a sovereign engine of forgotten instinct. A thunderclaw of pre-historical trust."

The Dino coughed a puff of heat and began chewing gently on the vine fence. Zorko blinked. "It’s... very cute when it’s destroying things."

Circe crossed her arms, standing beside it. "He’s not a relic," she said softly. "He’s a choice."

Zorko adjusted his robes and turned back to the orb. "A choice," he echoed, "with claws."

Zorko walked with deliberate calm toward the lower pasture, hands clasped behind his back, as though nothing had just licked him into existential crisis.

Circe walked beside him, boots silent on the grass, Iza dozing in the crook of her elbow.

In the distance, the Scalebound Dino remained seated. It was chewing through a second fence post. Sparks flickered from its nostrils every few bites.

Zorko did not look back. He cleared his throat. "Perhaps... perhaps we might take a brief detour. Something traditional. Something hooved."

Circe said nothing. Just tilted her head toward a nearby archway of living branches. It opened with a sigh.

Beyond: a grove of soft light and ponies.

Each one different. Tall, small, winged, antlered, rune-marked, flower-maned. They stood or trotted or bowed in quiet rhythms. The air smelled like hay and lavender spells.

Zorko nearly wept. "Oh... Circe. You could’ve led with this." "I could have."

He approached the first pony. It shimmered white-gold with silver fetlocks. It looked at him as though it were trying to guess his deepest regret.

He patted it gently. It tolerated him.

Circe moved easily through the herd, greeting each with a nod or a wordless gesture. They responded, not obedient, but familiar. Like old friends with secret handshakes.

Zorko turned in slow wonder. "These are... magnificent." "They are." "The rune-stamping alone is worth a library." "Two, actually." "You could appraise any one of these and break the orb with resale value."

Circe smiled without turning. "But I didn’t choose this pasture for value."

Zorko looked toward the grove’s far edge, past a flowering elm, back toward the Scalebound Dino, still destroying a small stack of enchanted haybales in the distance. "You keep him... here?" "No." She paused. "He keeps himself near."

Zorko frowned. "Why?"

She faced him now. Not cold. Not boastful. Just honest. "Because he wasn’t raised. He survived. He came to me wild, wounded, and full of noise. And I didn’t try to fix that."

Zorko glanced back at the ponies. Polished. Beautiful. Quietly proud. Then toward the Dino. Messy. Loud. And still watching.

Circe crouched beside a low pony with a mane like moonlight mist. It nuzzled her shoulder, and she whispered something only the grass could hear.

Then she stood and looked to Zorko. "I’ve had perfect mounts," she said. "But he’s the one that made me better."

Zorko didn’t respond. He just turned back to the orb, eyes softer now.

Zorko stood very still.

He had returned to the heart of the pasture, deliberately uphill from the Dino, comfortably downhill from danger, and had placed himself beside the only creature in sight that gave him a sense of control.

"Good boy," Zorko whispered, gently patting the sturdy shoulder of Honey the Strong.

The pony gave no indication he noticed. His mane shimmered like storm-drenched clouds. His rune glinted proudly at the haunch. He was perfectly still, save for the subtle, occasional twitch of an ear, like he was annoyed on Zorko’s behalf.

Zorko leaned in and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "This one," he whispered to the orb, "is Honey the Strong. Legend of the Zaros Oasis. Wielder of hooves that once broke a mountain. Hero of the Fallen Tree Rescue. Cousin of Oread the Mirthful. I feel... safe here."

Honey blinked slowly. He did not move.

Zorko sighed, dramatically. "He understands me."

Then, without warning, the air shifted. A faint hum rolled through the grass. The temperature dropped half a degree.

And beside the far fence, exactly where no one had been a moment ago, Uvlius stood.

Wearing simple robes. Holding a closed book. Spectral blue. Perfectly still.

Zorko froze.

Circe looked up from across the pasture, nodded once, then returned to brushing the Dino’s shoulder. He was busy trying to intimidate a nearby windmill. The windmill refused to blink.

Zorko cleared his throat and approached.

Uvlius didn’t turn to face him. Just stared into the pasture, gaze flicking from pony to pony... and pausing briefly on the Dino.

Then: "I don’t catalog mounts," Uvlius said flatly.

Zorko offered a theatrical shrug. "Ah, but surely you make exceptions for time-lost thunder-lizards?" "I don’t."

He adjusted his glasses. "They’re not relics. They’re bonded. Alive. They don’t qualify."

Zorko fidgeted with his feather. "But it bit the sun."

Uvlius didn’t respond.

Instead, his eyes shifted, slowly, intentionally, toward Honey.

He gave a small nod. Barely more than a breath. But it was there.

Zorko noticed. So did Honey, who exhaled like a war horn on cooldown. "That’s recognition," Zorko whispered.

Uvlius raised one eyebrow. "That’s respect."

They both turned to watch as the Scalebound Dino began chasing a dust sprite in a lopsided figure-eight. Circe didn’t interfere. She simply raised a hand, and the Dino changed direction without pause.

Zorko blinked. "It obeys her." "No," Uvlius corrected. "It listens."

He turned to go. "That’s harder."

And with that, he stepped backward, once, twice, and vanished into the fence line like breath into frost.

Zorko stood very still. Then slowly turned to Honey. "He complimented you."

Honey did not respond. Zorko’s voice dropped. "He complimented you. Do you have any idea how rare that is?"

Honey twitched one ear.

Zorko turned back to the orb. "I think I may be out of my depth."

The wind had settled.

For the first time all afternoon, nothing growled, galloped, or glitched the sky.

Circe stood beside her Scalebound Dino, one hand resting at its shoulder. Iza blinked slowly atop its head like a crown that had grown bored with ceremony.

Zorko approached with cautious intention.

No flourish now. No cloak-flapping dramatics. Just one wizard, walking toward something he no longer needed to fear.

The Dino turned its head slowly, eyes glowing faint orange in the fading light.

Zorko stopped just in front of it. He raised one gloved hand and paused.

The Dino leaned forward. And pressed its snout gently into Zorko’s palm.

Zorko blinked. He didn’t move. He just stood there, hand on the nose of a thunder-lizard, while the grass held its breath.

Circe watched without a word. Iza croaked once. Almost approvingly.

Zorko exhaled, then turned to the orb. "This mount," he said softly, "cannot be bought. Only beckoned. It does not yield to leashes or legacy, but it listens. And it stays."

He stepped back. "It is not tame. Not trained. It is not lesser for choosing a rider."

He looked toward Circe. "It chose... well."

The Dino gave a snort, then leaned sideways and collapsed onto the grass like a house exhaling. Iza leapt clear at the last second and landed perfectly on Circe’s shoulder.

Zorko raised his feather, then stopped. He smiled, faintly. Sincerely. "No appraisal today," he said. "No price could describe what it means to be trusted by something that still remembers what it is to be wild."

He looked at the orb, then at the fields. At the ponies glowing under dusk. At Honey the Strong, now proudly chewing on a rune-twig like a philosopher with a toothpick. And finally, at Circe, who stood exactly where she belonged.

Zorko gave a deep, slow bow. "To the rider," he said.

The Dino wagged its tail once, knocking over a barrel that burst into glitter.

Zorko smiled wider. "And to the one who listens."

He turned toward the orb, voice soft but sure. "This concludes our visit to the Elysian Fields. We came seeking pedigree. We found presence. We sought the perfect mount... and met something real instead."

His feather flicked. "Final appraisal. Irreplaceable. Uncatalogued. Entirely itself."

The Dino burped a small puff of smoke in agreement.

Entered by: 0x6424…79B4