Scales of Time

by The Psychopath

Counselor

A violent expulsion of water nearly punched both Twilight and Celestia far into the surrounding forests, but the alicorn's reflexes were trained enough that she erected a barrier around herself just in time while Twilight managed to jump out of the way. At least ten of the water ejge left the water to fly around and evaluate, with better view this time, what was aggravating them with intense rays of sunlight. The lavender unicorn jumped back onto her stone platform and slammed the hilt of her spear into it. One of the ejge paid heed to the action and looked down while hovering in place. These ejge were blue, much like the Royal Ejge, but their color was a much brighter shade of sea blue.

"Ejge! I must speak with you!" Twilight roared at the creatures.

There wasn't much reaction from any of them, but the guards were getting quite on edge and started huddling together and taking out their weapons. Celestia flew down next to Twilight to inquire about the situation, although her exhaustion caused her to nearly fall into the sea after landing.

"We got them out, but now what? Can they really talk?" Celestia asked.

"Yes. It all depends on them whether or not they want to talk with us, but I have a few ideas on how to get their attention." Twilight looked up to the ejge and started yelling. "We need to speak to you so you can relay a message to your Royal Ejge." The ejge did not react and continued to fly around the sea. "It concerns the awakening of the King Dragon!"

Just the mention of the name saw the flying serpents freeze in place and glare at Twilight...as best as they could. The first ejge that fixated the lavender unicorn dropped into the water below, splashing the two ponies on the platform. Its wings smashed into the ground around the stone, allowing the creature to lift itself up from out of the water.

"We know where the King Dragon is going to awaken." The ejge craned its head slightly at Twilight's words. "We want to form an alliance with you to kill it and prevent an apocalypse from destroying all of our people." Twilight gestured to everyone near her.

The silence perturbed Celestia. "Twilight," she whispered in Twilight's ear. "This isn't working, and I can't stay here forever on a 'leisure trip'. They clearly won't--"

"What does the small mammal know of the dragon's location of awakening?" the ejge responded with a booming voice.

The ponies were all startled by the sudden revelation of speech performed by the creature. Its voice wasn't low-pitched as one would expect, either. Instead, it was in an octave just between normal males' and females' with an faint echo at the back of the throat.

"The 'small mammal', as you call me, doesn't come from this time. I come from the future." Twilight lifted her staff to let the ejge view it better. "Since your kind stays far away from ponies, and these ones didn't even know of your existence, my armor and weapon should be enough to prove to you that I'm not lying as nopony in this time is even remotely capable of hitting an ejge at full speed."

There was a long pause while the ejge analyzed the information given to it and checked the veracity of the pony's statements. "You are right, mammal. We have avoided your kind for long, and the shock demonstrated on the one with growths on both back and head while such emotions are absent from your face prove that you know of our kind, among other things."

"Good."

"However, we cannot trust one who would wear and use our flesh and scales as armor and weapons."

Twilight's eye twitched. "This may come as a surprise to you," she growled and pointed her spear at the ejge. "but it's your kind that ruined mine! We take all we can get, and if you haven't noticed, only my weapon has ejge scales used for it. The armor is mostly dragon hide."

"That is not my concern."

"Yes. It most certainly is."

Both mouths of the ejge bared their teeth as it growled angrily at Twilight, but the pony did the same thing, and the two butted heads slowly. It would have been funny to see such a small pony confronting something that could eat her in bite were it not in such a dangerous situation. Celestia pushed Twilight away with her left hoof and made a loud gulp. She took in a deep breath and forced the widest smile she could muster.

"Oh, great beast of the sea, I am Princess Celestia, monarch of the ponies of Equestria." She bowed respectfully.

"Poh-nees?" the ejge mimed.

"Yes. Ponies."

"We will save that information to transmit to our future generations," the ejge said calmly. An ejge behind it dived back into the sea afterwards.

"We need your help in killing the King Dragon, or, preferably, just stopping it altogether."

"The King Dragon can be killed."

"But I would prefer--"

"The filthy dragon, much like our own greatest, will always be reborn afterwards."

"You don't call it a 'Royal Ejge'?" Celestia inquired.

"Royal Ejge? Befitting title."

"The how did you know what we meant by 'King' Dragon?"

"The dragons also call it a 'king'. They have a bizarre fixation on your languages."

Celestia seemed rather disgusted. "I'll take note of that..." She regained her composure and addressed the creature once again. "If we don't join hooves, er, talons...limbs, then we'll both see destruction on a level never before seen, and I know from her actions that this future IS immediate!"

"But why should we fought for her?"

"You shouldn't. You're not fighting FOR anypony. You're fighting WITH us! We BOTH share in the responsibility of keeping our respective races alive and prevent future generations from going through battlefields ruled over by dragons and ejge just to get an apple."

"If you are right, what assures me that the poh-nees will be of any help to us?"

"We can use magic and create spells." Celestia proved this by recreating the spell from earlier, but at a much smaller level and for far less time.

"Magic? Interesting, but if it is only for cumbersome purposes, then we have no reason to join arms."

"You're quite stubborn," Celestia groaned. "We can use more than just 'annoying' magic, but I am exhausted right now when I tried to get your attention."

The serpent remained silent for a moment. "Then tell us the location of the 'King' Dragon's awakening, and we'll consider."

Celestia recalled that DQ had not told them the location and played on this. "I'm sorry, but I refuse."

Most ponies, if not people in general, would erupt in pure rage and speak of their positions and power as a justification for acquiring the knowledge, and Celestia braced for this. Yet, it did not came. The ejge was rather calm and collected. "Then we have no reason to ally."

"But without the alliance, neither of our people will leave unscathed. Would you REALLY like to be known as the one who had a chance to stop everything before it started but refused to do anything for it?"

"Psychology will not work on me."

"Then I'm afraid we are at an impasse."

Celestia's stubbornness made the ejge laugh internally. "I will bring this information to the greatest specimen regardless."

"If I have any additional information regarding the King Dragon, then I'll come here as fast as I can to deliver the message."

The serpent took to the skies and burst away at speeds inconceivable by the ponies. Celestia turned around to see Twilight held down and muffled by nearly all of the guards. The alicorn lowered herself to the mare and smirked widely. Twilight didn't like her 'I did better than you' face and wiggled under the pile of ponies atop her and tried to curse at the alicorn, but the words only came out as muffled noise. After traveling back to the castle, Twilight checked on her trophy to see it perfectly intact.

Sparkles left her clinic to check on everypony and noticed Twilight wasn't there but next to the dragon corpse, something she should have expected from the beginning. "Okay, so you all came back," she said when she joined the unicorn. "So now what? Did it work?"

"Yes. As for what's next, well." She turned and faced the guards and slammed her spear into the ground. "It's time to teach them how to hunt dragons!"