Little Ember

by Heresy Incarnate

Warmth

Darkness, the beating of leathery wings, warmth.

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I yawned and stretched out against my mother’s side, soaking in the heat just a moment longer before brushing down my ash colored fur and blowing my deep red tangled mane out of the vision of my bright orange eyes. I had had that weird dream again, of when I was found, and I liked to stay close to her for a little while every time that happened. I considered going to see what my brother Amber had to say about that, he was obsessed with books and other weird things. There was a deep rumbling as my mother spoke. “Little Ember, I believe it is time for you to awaken.” With a groan I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes with a forehoof, priming a simple spell I learned from years of experience to make the scorching heat of The Caldera bearable and nodded in return. I couldn’t quite make the deep rumbling growls to respond properly in Draconic, and my Mother, who was, as usual, hosting The Great Meeting this year at her Lair, understood and let me go nonetheless.

I stepped away from Mother and began wandering around The Caldera, several first timers gave me odd looks but I was used to that and the regulars merely glanced at me with recognition. I understood that I didn’t look like a Dragon, that I looked instead like some silly creature called a pony, but since Mother was the only caretaker I knew, I had no doubt in my mind that I was a Dragon through and through… mostly. As I looked around it seemed hatchlings about my age, 17 years, were beginning to molt and develop wings in the safety of The Caldera… something which ponies didn’t do. Ponies didn’t even get wings unless they were born with them. I was lucky enough to have a horn though, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to cast out my fire or even tolerate the terrain my Mother liked to rest in. The bottoms of my hooves have scars, apparently from early failed attempts to traverse the more dangerous parts of The Caldera without protection before I figured out how to maintain a fire shield.

Having gotten a good look at the new arrivals in my home, I made my way to Amber’s old den. He had left last meeting to seek a Lair of his own, normally tradition dictates that as next in line I would claim his den and any treasures he had left behind, but since the small cave on the side of The Caldera was just as hot as outside, I had remained sleeping on Mother. She didn’t mind, I was small and would remain so for quite some time. While Mother was still warm, it was a pleasant warm, a safe warm. Without my protection I wouldn’t be able to stand The Caldera for very long and I would miss out when the older Dragonlings decided to dive into the lava pool as well, and that just wouldn’t do. As expected, Amber had returned for The Great Meeting and was resting in his den.

It had been a year since I had seen him and he had grown quite a bit, he was only a couple decades older than me but he had experienced a rapid period of growth and was now towering several times my height above me. I grinned up to him and spoke in clipped Draconic “Big time, grow big. Hoard book now time?” Amber turned from whatever he was doing in the back of the den on his hind legs and laid down to be at eye level with me.

He tilted his head up showing his softer under-scales in a sign of trust and responded. “And you’re still small. Maybe even smaller than before. I still maintain my Hoard of knowledge yes.”

Maintaining my lifted head I snorted at him playfully. “Silly child, book little weight.”

With a twinkle in his eye Amber rumbled, the barest hint of laughter in his words. “I would think you of all Dragons would understand the value of knowledge Little Ember, it was you that got me hooked after all.” I rolled my eyes dismissively, while gaining me as a clutch-sister had made him interested in ponies, I had done nothing to exasperate his intrigue. He continued with a burst of enthusiasm. “That reminds me, I found something you might be interested in.” He turned his back to me and I patiently waited as he pulled a small book down from a shelf, it seemed old and tattered but on its cover was an image of a pony casting some sort of spell, I couldn’t make out the meaning of the Equestrian title but I was indeed interested.

I looked back up at Amber with a questioning glare. “Little Ember little Pony Tongue.”

He waved a foreclaw as if to wipe away the notion that I didn’t speak Equestrian. “Well, that’s why I’ll teach you.” I raised one of my eyebrows as he continued his tirade. “Picking up all these books I’ve interacted with ponies amicably before and had to learn their language so we could understand each other and I could actually read their books.”

I shook my head no. I wanted no part of other ponies, this was where I belonged. With Mother and other Dragons. I tried to say as much. “Little Ember Dragon. Little Ember...” I once again shook my head no. It was one of the words that annoyed me due to my inability to properly enunciate it. “... pony.”

Amber grinned, and apparently decided to ignore my vehement head shaking. “So, since you admit that you are indeed a pony… then I’ll ask Mother’s permission to return until the next Meeting and teach you.” My horn flared up and I flicked him with my magic to wipe the smug grin off his face, I suppose it would make it easier to communicate with Amber at least, if he knew Equestrian I could tell him “no” to my heart's content. Rubbing where I flicked him with one claw he began turning pages in the book with the other, settling on somewhere near the final pages and looking back at me with an almost compassionate look. “Really, these pages are why I wanted to show it to you.” I glanced at the book and my eyes grew wide, the illustration for the spell showed a horned pony, one that looked much like myself, and an arrow pointing to a larger pony with both a horn and wings.

I snatched the book and looked at Amber with pleading eyes. “Little Ember wants Pony Tongue.” He chuckled, but he knew what I meant.

Comments

[El_Padrillo]

This is probably just my personal taste, but the first line feels kinda forced with the description of Little Ember's appearance:

I yawned and stretched out against my mother’s side, soaking in the heat just a moment longer before brushing down my ash colored fur and blowing my deep red tangled mane out of the vision of my bright orange eyes.

Optional comma would have made this sound better to me, but I suppose it is just my opinion.

With a groan,* I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes with a forehoof, priming a simple spell I learned from years of experience to make the scorching heat of The Caldera bearable and nodded in return.

I made my way to Amber’s old den. He

Maybe I'm just weird, but the name Amber, for a male, caught my attention. I have only ever heard that as a female's name. Perhaps it's important? It'd be cool if this was some sort of tip off, but I sorely doubt it... Just wanted a personal record for this; you can ignore this part if you like, author.

Lair of his own

I get that the place and the thing the mother is holding are proper nouns, but I question why lair is capitalized here. Same thing with

Hoard of knowledge

.

Enough about all that, let's talk content. I found it interesting, for sure. The only thing cliche-ish I could really point out from chapter 1 would be that a person that clearly is not part of the group they were raised by (probably in this case) going to go live among its real people. Of course, I do like that someone from the raising group is doing the teaching. I normally don't see that, and that's all operating under the assumption that that is where this is going.

I enjoyed much of the indirect characterization found it watching the daily actions of Little Ember, such as the noting of the new folk in The Caldera. Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I'll read the rest, although, perhaps not all in one sitting.

[Heresy Incarnate]

6524204
Thanks for the short review, I am certainly open to criticism(Helps me improve and all that!) I will admit that the description of her appearance was kind of hashed on there last minute as I realized that in like the... penultimate chapter, that there was nothing at all beyond her posturing and with her appearance being... a plot point at that juncture, I felt it needed some reference before hand and with the deadline for the contest fast approaching I couldn't quite find a great place to put it.

While I have used the name Amber for female characters before, I was trying to find a name that felt sufficiently dragon and looked to the show for examples... where the two that stood out to me in memory were Gargle and Crackle... I decided to go with a precious stone instead, and Amber was one of the first that came to mind.(Others were Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl... Don't know how they got there. )

In regards to the capitalization of Lair and Hoard, I wanted to convey the feeling that in the dragon mindset, these were veeery important to them without being too Anvilicious with it. I suppose I succeeded in the subtlety department. The same type of thing goes on in later chapters, and I might have missed a few spots or been a tad inconsistent, but after the judging is over for the contest I'll be sure to go back and try and fix any errors I can find along those lines.

I will apologize now, the entire prompt that gave rise to this is pretty darn cliche...

I'm glad you enjoyed it though! And look forward to comments on future chapters too if you are so inclined.