Sometimes serendipity comes when the most unlikely of needs collide. I’ve been meaning to explore the day-to-day workings of the SSG for a while now, and at the same time, I needed to quietly lay down some missing canon for the larger storyline. It turns out both problems had the same solution.

So, rather than another half-finished essay, I decided to show instead of tell.

What follows is a small, self-contained story about yard work, bad weather, questionable knights, and everybody’s favorite cranky locomotive dragon: Cinderthrax.

The Locomotive Dragon and the Knight

Cinderthrax decided weeks ago that he did not like Lyonesse, not one bit. Yet here he was, at three in the afternoon, steaming back home to Ginkdimblid through this godforsaken patch of dirt.

He had left Dragon Den that morning on a construction supply run laden heavily with scrap metal, ballast, cut stone, and wooden ties. He had deposited the supplies at the railhead established by the HMLS Endeavour at 1 o’clock before heading north again.

Cinderthrax groaned. While he appreciated HMLS Endeavour and its clockwork AI A781b for building new rail lines for him and the girls, he was not fond of it as a person. He thought the oversized cuckoo clock of a sentient mobile factory didn’t appreciate him at all.

Or what he and the girls had to go through to keep it fed on construction materials—namely, Lyonesse.

 Well, there was no avoiding steaming through Lyonesse to get back home, and with nothing else to occupy his mind, he ruminated on what he hated about the country.

The line ahead cut around the chalk hills and over moors on stone causeways. It was nice, easy terrain to steam through, and in Cinderthrax’s opinion, utterly boring. The entire country was a never-ending expanse of woodlots, downland, and moors. He had been told by a reliable source that the land adjacent to the track was actually quite pretty come midsummer, but at this time, Cinderthrax would prefer to be anywhere else he had been. 

The wrecks and junk piles of his native Scraplands are dramatic. 

The forested valley of New Mountainheart was breathtaking. 

The city of Siberberg, with its massive, towering trees and a castle at the top of a mountain, was awe-inspiring. 

Even the railhead along the coast of the Silver Highlands had been gorgeous in its own way, with its stunning view of the sea.

As he was ruminating on wanting to be anywhere else, he felt the smallest of taps on top of his nose and neck.
Great, he thought to himself, rain.

He hated rain—being made of metal, it was his natural predator. It rusted his parts and made the tracks slick. Pulling trains became harder and more dangerous.

He had spent centuries out in the elements, and it nearly killed him. Nowadays, he had a nice, comfy lair to share with his harem and his soon-to-be-born offspring; he never wanted to spend time out in the rain if he did not have to. 

Alas, there were still about 60 miles between him and home, and at the rate he was going to avoid running down pedestrians, it was going to take all day to get there.

Oh, right, one more thing to hate about Lyonesse.

He scowled to himself as he passed over a small stone bridge over a shallow, dull colored creek. 

The people here are complete morons. Since construction had begun through Lyonesse, he and his harem had had so many near misses with idiots standing on the track that he had lost count. It was a minor miracle that nobody was killed yet. But whenever somebody barely avoided being run down by him or one of the girls, the idiot always blamed them for not stopping.

As if it were their God-given right to stand on his tracks

It was such a serious problem that his men were building tall fences and walls along the line and bridges over it through this god-forsaken country to ensure that such accidents never happened again. Until then, he crept along at a paltry fifteen miles an hour.

Just slow enough to stop if one of the morons decided Cinderthrax ought to stop for them

Then there were the knights, the less that could be said about them, the better.

So here he was, 4 hours from home, pulling an empty train through a landscape that was about as interesting as a blank wall, filled with morons he had to be careful not to hit, and to top things off, it looked like it could start pouring any moment. Anyone would be grumpy in such circumstances, and Cinderthrax was in a bad mood, thinking to himself, “How could this be any worse?”

At that moment, he felt the heat in his stomach drop and a mounting pressure in his behind. “Great,” He thought to himself, “I had to ask.”

As the stray drops turned into a drizzle, the looming mass of Swindmoor Station was both a welcome and a sorry sight. It was a single, moderately sized fieldstone building with a thatched roof, with a stone platform sitting amidst a nest of sidings and a few sheds in the middle of an empty bit of meadows. It was an utterly typical station in the Lyonesse countryside.

“Brakes NOW!” he shouted. He felt the train behind him start to grow heavier. He began to heave against his own driving wheels as they glided into the station, stopping just within the bounds of the platform.  His passage had scared some of the locals who were using the station and its shelter to get out of the rain, and they fled inside, cowering.

“How embarrassing,” thought Cinderthrax as he unhooked his tail from the big hook at the front of the brake van and started up the line to the switch to the pit siding. He really needed to go now, and he had no time to wait for his crew to respond.

“Oi, Big Guy, what are you doing stopping us out in the sticks when we have hours to go before we get home?” shouted train foreman Mack.

“I got to go,” shouted Cinderthrax, mildly embarrassed as he wrapped his tail around the siding crank. He had to admit the dragon-sized cranks were useful in certain situations when the train crew was slow on the uptake, like this one.

He backed his way down the siding to the pit that served as a toilet for him and his kind. The pit tracks, as they were called, were a necessary evil present at all the stations. Cinderthrax personally hated using the pit tracks out in the Lyonesse Countryside; they were so unprivate, little more than a siding that ends in a stone-lined pit. At least at Dragon Den, he had a proper room to do the deed in. 

“Oi, Big Guy. Ye done yet?” called Mack, “The boys are wondering if it would be a good idea to get ye a bite while we’re here?”

Cinderthrax could just barely make out the half-orc foreman in his blue overalls and dirty white shirt in the door of the brake van as he struggled. Note to self, he thought, do not eat the wood of hidebark trees ever again. 

Now that he thought of it, some coal would hit the spot right about now. “Yeah, a snack would be good right about now,” he yelled back.

“Ye heard the boss,” bellowed Mack to unseen figures within the van, “hop to it.”

Into the rain dashed more characters in similar attire; there was at least one dwarf and two humans among his crew. He did not get their names; there were too many new people in his life these days, he thought as they vanished towards the fuel shed. 

Finally, the deed was done, and Cinderthrax was feeling much better, a small bit of coal and some water, and he could leave this one-horse town behind. That’s when he noticed that someone was standing on the tracks, on top of a horse, wearing a chainmail shirt and pants that would have shone if it weren’t for the rain, and a bucket with a feather crest on his head and holes for the eyes.

“Oh no,” thought Cinderthrax, as the knight drew his sword. 

“Foul creature!” shouted the knight, with the sort of pomp reserved for men who paid bards to write ballads about them before going questing. “Thou shalt not terrorize this fair land with thy foul breath or thy—”

“Look, pal, I’m just passing through,” said Cinderthrax with a sigh. “If you step off the track, I’ll grab my train and leave. You’ll never see me again.”

“Nay, foul creature!” shouted the knight, brandishing his sword. “You die here today! I, Sir Pembersly of Swindmoorshire, shall be your doom!”

Cinderthrax groaned.

This was why he hated the knights of Lyonesse. The young and wealthy men of this country suffered from an acute form of insanity that the locals called gallantry. They wandered out into the world seeking monsters to kill and gold to steal. All so they could be memorialized in ballads—when those monsters inevitably killed them instead

Apparently, “monsters” included himself and his pretty young wives.

They would be minding their own business—pulling trains, waiting at stations—when one of these questing fools would try to pick a fight. A fight between fifty tons of enchanted metal and a single human with a sword never went well for the dummy who started it.

Not that Cinderthrax or the girls ever fought back. There was simply no need. The only incident he could recall was when Patty had given a concussed fool a thorough tongue-lashing after he charged her with a lance while she was waiting at a station. It was much easier to outrun a galloping horse than to deal with the paperwork and PR fallout afterward.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option here.

This moron was standing directly on the tracks, sword raised, as if enthusiasm alone could kill him. Worse still, a small crowd of onlookers had gathered to watch the “fight.”

As if it weren’t embarrassing enough to be effectively held at sword point on the toilet, simply because he refused to crush an idiot.

Sensing that it was up to him to take the initiative, Sir Pembersly gave his horse a sharp jab with his spurs and charged.

Cinderthrax felt the dull bangs as the sword struck along his flank.

“Thy hide is tough, foul beast,” huffed Sir Pembersly, “but my blade shall find thy weak point!”

“Whatever you say,” sighed Cinderthrax.

He briefly considered making a break for it. But at the speed he would have to creep, there was a very real chance that this twit would get in front of him and be crushed. That was exactly the sort of public relations nightmare he wanted to avoid as the railroad’s owner and nominal President of the SSG.

The banging crept farther along his body until it reached his thigh. Sir Pembersly was clearly tiring now; the impacts were fewer, weaker, and farther apart. Cinderthrax figured he would proceed around the pit and then start hacking at his other side.

That was when a wicked little thought crept into Cinderthrax’s mind.

“Oh no, brave knight,” he said, putting on a show of mock distress. “You have nearly found my weak spot.”

It wasn’t a very good performance, but it seemed to work.

“Pray tell,” shouted Sir Pembersly between huffs, “what weak spot is that?”

“My anus, beneath my tail,” said Cinderthrax. “Please spare me, good knight. I shall flee far away if you do.”

“Silence, foul beast!” shouted Sir Pembersly with renewed vigor. “I shall slay thee yet!”

Cinderthrax obligingly lifted his tail.

There was the clip-clop of hooves. Then came a horse’s scream, a man’s scream, and the sound of metal striking stone.

Cinderthrax had neglected to mention that his anus was currently positioned over a ten-foot-deep, stone-lined pit filled with hot ash and clinker.

He grinned as he steamed back toward the station. Sir Pembersly, he knew, would not be bothering him again.

Two hours later, Cinderthrax steamed into Dragon’s Den, aka Ginkdimblid Terminal Yard. 

The rain had turned into a proper early summer thunderstorm. Spears of lightning were dramatically lighting up the looming piles of scrap and wrecks that towered over the railroad. Thunder rattled the tracks and wagons. Sheets of rain buffeted his face. The darkness pressed in on both sides of his headlights.

Cinderthrax was wet, hungry, and miserable. 

After dropping Sir Pembersly into the pit with his poop, Cindertrhax had tried to get a quick bite to eat. However, the crew barely got one cartful of coal in front of him before the twit Sir Pembersly managed to lug himself out of the hole with his pride mildly tarnished, his armor very tarnished, but his gallantry intact. 

Cinderthrax and the crew decided not to deal with him and made a hasty exit. The idiot knight gave chase on foot, shouting threats and words like craven until he was a greyish dot in the distance. He did not stop at any of the other stations; he did not want to deal with another Sir Pembersly.

Cinderthrax dumped his train of empty flat and hopper cars on one of the receiving tracks in the yard and then steamed towards the den proper through the maze of switches that formed the largest (and currently only) railroad yard in the world. 

It was slow going; he was moving at what could be generously described as a limp. Nobody was around, and he had to work the switches by himself.

He wished he had real legs again.

He stopped to throw another switch, steam hissing angrily as his weight settled wrong on the rails.

Sure, he could split his bogies apart and flop around like a sea turtle, but if he had claws again—real claws—everything would be easier.

He should have asked Miss Fionnuala when she’d given the girls life. The thought came too late now.

 Fionnuala. He was eternally grateful to her for all that she given him. She was the girl’s favorite non-dragon. But now that he was thinking about his ‘patron’ as he limped along, certain concerns that had been eating away at the back of his mind resurfaced.

It had been four weeks since Fionnuala had given the girls life, and things hadn’t sat right since.

She’d known too much about the girls’ homeworld. The SSG hadn’t felt improvised at all. And somehow, twelve kingdoms had fallen in line overnight.

None of it made sense—and the thought curdled in his firebox—but he was too tired and too hungry to pull at that thread now.

He eventually reached his lair at the far side of the yard. It was a point of pride that the Ginkdimblidi had built for him something quite a bit more than the simple roundhouses the girls had previously dwelt in. The structure was a massive set of domes with “rooms” for him and his wives. It would be the perfect place to raise a family, once his kids hatch.

He limped through the open door and on to the “track inside.” Somehow, the Ginkdimblidi gnomes had enchanted the inside so that glowing, slightly translucent rails appeared wherever he or the girls wanted them. It gave them a relatively large amount of freedom of movement, even though it was nowhere near as good as having real legs

Awaiting him just inside the threshold, 6 of the girls were waiting. Mary, Alice, Margaret, Sarah, Louise, and Helena all gave a perfectly synchronized, “welcome home, darling,” in their perfect sing-song voices. He barely responded and kept limping forward.

The girls fell in beside him, 6 former LMS Princess Royals class locomotives turned locomotive dragons in pastel colors against his massive red-scaled Garratt frame, each one alternating between cuddling him and trying to get his attention.

Mary and Sarah chattered about their new coral-pink paint jobs, circling him so he couldn’t miss them.

Alice launched into a breathless explanation of new furnishings, somehow having acquired a fancy chandelier without leaving the lair at all.

Margaret worried about the mail, Louise about nurseries, and Helena—Helena unloaded half the railroad on him in one go.

All of them were complaining about how dreadfully boring being on maternity leave was. They wanted to know what was going on in the world beyond watching their eggs incubate and doing light duty out in the scraplands. 

Eventually, he reached the chamber the girls had named the Den. Unlike most of the other rooms in the lair, this one had a cushioned floor made for relaxing when they temporarily leave the rails, decorated like a cozy, cutesy parlor

With a series of clanks and groans, he lifted the right half of his front bogie, and after a few awkward contortions, both bogies unfolded into a set of clawless, jointless legs. CInderthrax thought to himself how ridiculous he must look right now, like a sea turtle on tiptoes. He did not care, though. 

With a deep sigh, he let himself collapse onto the cushions. The feeling of soft padding against his metal chassis was divine—he might be made of steel, but he could still appreciate a truly comfortable bed. 

It finally dawned on the girls that Cinderthrax had had a rough day. They blushed as one and hurried off to gather comforts for their beloved husband.

Within minutes, he was surrounded by a pile of cuddling locomotive dragons. The girls had gone all out to make him comfortable: a huge wagon of coal, a tank car of water, dragon-sized towels, kobolds with oil cans to lubricate his aching joints, and anything else they could think of. They would have spoon-fed him if they could. But instead, they, too, had gone off the rails to better cuddle him. They nestled close, stroking him with their necks and clawless arms, showering him with as much affection as they could.

He recounted the tale of Sir Pembersly of Swindmoorshire, earning fawning responses like, “Poor baby!” and, “Mean, nasty old knight!” It had been a long, exhausting day, but wrapped in warmth and care, cuddled by some of his favorite girls in the world, Cinderthrax felt whole. He truly must be the luckiest creature alive to have such devoted angels as his wives.