Sticks? Stones? Come on people, we're dragons
Twilight Sparkle’s castle was radiant, but not so much as the iridescent Dragonlord Ember. “A dragon does not breathe fire.”
“Um? Yeah we do. That’s like the first thing we’re known for. Everybody knows it.”
She snorted. “What you know is wrong, Spike. What everybody knows is wrong.”
Spike was not usually inclined to be contrary, far from it, but he felt he had to argue the point. He looked to Twilight Sparkle for reassurance, but she was like a pony half her age, bright-eyed and reveling in quill and notepad before teacher. Even so, Spike rather felt like he was arguing a given point. The sky was blue, Twilight Sparkle was a massive nerd, dragons breathed fire. He felt inclined to be confident on that point. That point and the second, really. The quill scritch-scratched.
“Dragons breathe fire,” he said.
Ember’s wings flared and her chest rose and fell with exaggerated effort. There was intensity in her eyes, but also the glint of playfulness. She acted shocked by his words. “Oh no! I’m breathing right now! Run away, Twilight Sparkle, get to safety! Your pretty castle, your home, I’m so sorry, I have to breathe, nooo!”
Ember swooned, or completed most of a swoon, so that she looked pantomime majestic in the face of fate most tragic. She puffed noisily and the tiniest gout of flame sizzled from her tongue. Her eyes swivelled and she winked. “Dragons breathe air, Spike, same as everyone. That whole thing is a misnomer. We don’t breath fire; we speak it.”
The Dragonlord sighed. “You don’t have to put your hoof up to ask questions.”
Twilight Sparkle became Twilight Blushing. “Sorry. But, how do you mean, dragons speak fire? Ooh,” she squealed, “I’m questioning the very basis of Equestrian understanding on dragon nature! Questions so obvious they’ve never been asked! I’ll finally publish a legitimate paper in a reputable journal! Yes, yes, yes!”
“Does she... does she always go bouncing around like that?”
“She gets excited.”
“I see.”
They watched the pony go. Ember said, “Should I wait, or...?”
“You can tell me. She usually works it out of her system in a minute or two. Just as soon as the self-consciousness hits, and she remembers we can see her.”
Twilight Sparkle, who had become Twilight Blushing, became Twilight Blushing Very Much Indeed more or less on cue. She planted her hooves and cleared her throat, as if these slight mannerisms of professionalism could obliviate the previous minute’s antics. They couldn’t.
“Just, focus on your note-taking, okay?”
“Right,” squeaked Twilight.
“We dragons were the very first creatures to discover magic.”
It was a strange and pleasant dissonance for Spike, what with him being a faithful student to a grand ruler and Twilight Sparkle playing the helpful notary. It was a lesson for him, after all, and only stood to reason. He listened intently.
“And we didn’t use horns, or rituals, or potions. Dragons used magic by learning the true name of things. Know the name and you know the thing. And that gives you power over it.”
The scritch-scratch became a more fervid Scritch!-Scratch!
“The common word, ‘fire’ is...fine. It's a nickname. An allusion. It’s powerless, so it's harmless, and that works for you ponies. But if you want the real word, the draconian word, that word is...” Ember tossed her head back and spoke the name of fire. It reflected in the ceiling and the floor, in the walls and the watcher’s eyes. The colours burned and the heat was sweltering.
“Oh my,” murmured Twilight Sparkle, eyes swimming in colour, notepad forgotten.
Ember’s eyes swirled like molten bronze. They seared Spike in place. “Every dragonborn knows fire, whether he knows that he knows it or not. It was, and is, our first and dearest word.”
Twilight Sparkle hummed and hawed. “How do I spell Fwoosh growl rumble fwoosh!?”
“You don’t.”
And Spike understood. It made sense in a way that, when Twilight would inevitably quiz him on it later, he wouldn’t in the slightest be able to explain. It was primordial. He could feel the fire grow stronger within him. He didn’t burp, or sneeze or cough. He spoke, and flame answered. He smiled at his Dragonlord. “And there’s other words?”
Ember’s grin was toothy, not unattractively. “A whole language.”
The afternoon passed in demonstration and study. Ember was a patient teacher, but she was Spike’s teacher, not Twilight Sparkle’s. She bore up under the alicorn's interrogations graciously. Many of the Twilight’s questions went without answers, but even answers like “because that is the way it is” and “it is something a dragon feels”, frustrating as they were, she faithfully recorded verbatim.
To Spike it was like there was a whole ‘nother level. Ember took them up a tower and there Spike learned the name of the wind, albeit not without some excitement. (“I didn’t think he’d actually jump,” a much amused Dragonlord said to the flustered and thankfully rescue-capable Princess.) Spike felt the terror and the rush; he walked away elated; his whisper was like song and the wind gusted around him like a pet eager to be taken for a walk.
Ember demonstrated the word of peace, so that others would get over their fear and awe of a dragon’s innate majesty (A problem that, while common to dragons, Spike had remained embarrassingly innocent of in his own life).
They practiced into the evening and Spike learned with some difficulty the opposite of flame: frost.
“Whoops,” he said. Twilight Sparkle was glazed with ice and her hair went straight back, frozen stiff.
“It’s-s-s fine, S-s-spike.” Some magic of her own, a blanket over her shoulders and a hot cup of tea soon set the Princess to rights. She was neatly entrenched in a growing arrangement of note pads and reference sheets, and had developed a not unexpected attack of books. All this changed the pace of things; Ember’s teaching and Spike’s learning took on a more reflective and relaxed manner as the evening crept over them.
“What about lightning?” Spike asked. “Flame. Frost. There’s a name for lightning. There’s got to be. That’s something I could really impress the ladies with, you know?”
“I...” Ember paused. A cloud of uncertainty settled over her, a rare state for a dragon. Lightning, lightning... Certainly there would be, must be, but why had she never heard the name of it? A dragon never confesses ignorance though, and she rallied heroically. “Of course there is. But I’m not teaching you that tonight. Far too dangerous. You already iced Twilight, and the sun is setting.”
“Oh, okay.” Spike was only dismayed a moment. “I still learned a whole lot. I can keep practicing over what I learned already. He struck a pose but the Name of Fire became the Name of Yawning in his mouth.
Twilight Sparkle, freshly thawed, was compiling her amassed research for the night. “It has been quite the busy day for you, Spike. Maybe you should get some rest and come at this again in the morning?”
Spike was drowsy. The day had been a rush and moreso it had been a sustained rush. With the excitement gone, that other ex word - exhaustion - came in to collect.
“What’s the name for a warm cozy sleep?”
“Bed.” Ember smiled. “You’re picking this up like you were born to it, Spike. You were born to it, I mean, but even so.”
“See you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Alright, goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Spike.”
And Spike left, slumped and dragging his tail with fatigue but, in some indeterminate way, walking considerably taller all the while. That left two.
“We really appreciate you coming for this visit. I had no idea there was such intricacy to dragons. It’s practically a whole new branch of magic”
“Spike has the birthright. He just needs to be shown and to understand. It wouldn’t reflect on me as Dragonlord very well if I let a dragon grow up ignorant. It wouldn’t reflect on me very well as a friend, either.”
Twilight Sparkle had a very disarming smile, Ember decided. She didn’t carry herself like someone carrying daunting magical prowess. The alicorn looked happy shuffling her papers into orderly sets. “Even so. To come all this way and spend time with Spike like this. It means a lot. If there’s anything I can do to make your stay more enjoyable, let me know. I’ll be up a few hours yet reviewing and organizing all this. You’re an absolute wealth of information that we’ve only just begun to tap!” The threat of Twilight Bouncey came and past unrealized. Ember didn’t find favour with the Princess’ metaphor, but she knew it was not meant to suggest a thief on a hoard.
Moreso, Dragonlord Ember had something else on her mind. “Everything should be fine,” she said. “If anything, I plan to go to bed early, too.”
“Oh? Well in that case, goodnight.”
“Goodnight. And thank you.”
Ember left and made her way through the expansive halls of the castle. The guest chamber given to the Dragonlord’s use was, like the rest of the castle, shaped crystal. Fine chandeliers and vanity mirrors, the very walls themselves made constellations of candlelight. It made for a very relaxing ambience, and on another night Ember would have been quite content to let it lull her into total relaxation. However, Spike had raised a question and, like Twilight Sparkle, she intended to do a bit of research of her own.
Why wasn’t lightning ever spoken by dragons? She’d never heard it, that much was for certain.
Twilight Sparkle had a special love for the early stages of a research project. Of course, she had a unique and special love for every stage, but at the start there could be such joyous speculation, such wild abandon in the hypothesizing. A study of dragons of this calibre would cement her name not as a hero or a princess - both entirely wonderful things, to be sure - but as a scholar. And Twilight Sparkle had never set out to be a hero or a princess, but a scholar.
The thought of such hefty academia made her tingly.
The flash and the sharp crack snapped her out of that. The crystal walls amplified and scattered illumination to such spectacular extent that it could have come from anywhere in the castle and still be so bright, Twilight Sparkle couldn’t be sure of the source.
Dashing to check the safety of the others she met Spike bumbling and hurrying into the hall, clawing his way clear to wakefulness fast as he could. “What was that?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. That’s not Starlight Glimmer, is it?”
Scooping up the baby dragon, Twilight hurried on. “She’s still visiting Sunburst for another two days!”
“Ah, right. Just, I don’t want to go time-traveling again. This is a good time, I don’t want to change it.”
“Freaky bangs and flashes notwithstanding!” Rounding the corner, Twilight zeroed in on the door to Ember’s guest chambers. She burst through them out of ingrained heroic habit.
“Ember! Ember, Are you alright?”
What Spike and Twilight Sparkle saw was this: Dragonlord Ember, standing up stiff as a board with her back to them. She jittered and turned slowly.
“Ayble mibble fid,” she said. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth and she hastily shoved it back in. “Verble tidde flib.”
“What?”
Ember shoo’d at them. “Nobble tsobble eeble!” An arc of blue electricity danced along her mouth and fizzled out. Ember covered her mouth with a drastic slap of her claws. Sparks teased their way from between them.
There’d been no missing that little display. “You spoke the name of lightning, didn’t you?” Spike asked.
Ember’s eyes went wide. She shook her head urgently, saying “Nopple oibble sarble nit!” Her jaw was lax and her tongue once again lolled like a dentist’s patient. The Dragonlord glared defiance as she fixed it, only for it to come lolling out the other side. She sighed or, in her case, sibbled, and droopled in defeebble.
“Ayble moibbledd spiggled timeld nimmemment linen,” she said.
It sounded confessional.
This being Twilight Sparkle’s castle, every nightstand in every chamber came stocked with pages, quill and ink. She floated a readied quill to the Dragonlord’s claw now.
Ember nodded.
I rediscovered the word for lightning, she wrote. You would think it was cool having a lightning bolt in your mouth, but turns out it isn’t. I can’t feel my face. She jabbed the period to the sentence in place with a mean stab. Ember skulked grimly. I’ll be fine. Sorry.
Spike spoke thoughtfully. “I guess dragons breathe a lot of things, but we just don’t breathe lightning after all.”
Dragonlord Ember held his level gaze with all the intensity and majesty she could. “Nottle. Murble. Tin womps.”
Twilight Sparkle hummed awkwardly. “I think she said, ‘not more than once’.”
The Dragonlord furiously decreed: “Heeble Neebles whabbles Ayziz Zid!”
The three paused.
The three regarded each other.
The three broke down into fits of giggles. Ember hiccuped and a teeny tiny lightning bolt tickled her nose.
Not a bad day, all in all.
“I’m keeping that page. For research.”
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Whoops! In time-honoured fashion, I've comitted a blunder - early readers will have seen an original draft that got mixed in here as well, my bad
I could put it back as extra stuff if it's requested, but otherwise it was a silly oversight of mine to make. Sorry for the mishap, and hope you enjoy the story-proper.
This is a really interesting concept. It usually concerns me when writers give Spike a bunch of super-awesome hitherto unmentioned abilities, but you pulled it off in a way that made it seem more majestic. Spike learning more about his heritage is a concept that interests me, and this really ticks the right boxes. I kinda wish this was part of a much larger, "coming-of-age" type story for Spike, but that's neither here nor there.
If I have any complaint, it's that I really couldn't make out what Ember was supposed to be saying at the end. As such, I have no idea what they were all laughing about. That's nitpicking, though. This was an excellent one-shot, and I think I'll be coming back to it sometime in the future.
7853701 It really was just a one-trick Skyrim joke idea that's managed to find its own footing. I'm glad you enjoyed it and like the concept. Nine Divines know Spike could always use more love.
There's no hidden secrets in Ember's jarbled dialogue. What she says is very much what you'd expect her to, by design. It is based on actual lines I gave her, but in this instance I'm hoping the humour is more from attempting to pronounce things out loud than discover any wit in the words themselves.
Thank you for the comment.
Strun Ba Quo? What about that?
Anyway, great fic! Love Skyrim, love Dragons.
7853534 This should have a sequel that expands on it.
I'm enamored with this story. I found the the writing style with its cute and clever worldplay utterly delightful.
sweet! a story with my 7th favorite character in it! now if only FIMFiction can make use of a Princess Ember character tag already! :D
I like the cover art more than the story.
Oh! Not to say the story isn't bad, I just looked at the cover art and really liked it. Who did that?
7855787 You know if you mouse over the cover art for a story, there's a button that brings you to the image's source (if the author provided it), right?
7855873 Well, I was hoping to have a nice conversation with the author of the story by lulling him/her into talking, but again for the third time this month an octopus spoils something I try to do.
Seriously. I am starting to hate octopuses right now. This site was the last place I expected to get interrupted by one.
Which...admittedly is actually kinda funny in a sort of irony sort of way...so I'll give you a follow for at least making me chuckle like the mad prick I am. Go on. You earned it.
7855899 Oh no, most of us are purely rape and hentai-free. Very unsavory stuff, that.
That was awesome. She was speaking like Bill Cosby when he visited the dentist!
Who knew that lightning was like novocaine to dragons.
7855899 Here you go, Unique. Knock yourself out
You won't believe where I found that.
7856000 Actually, there's nothing porn in the video I sent you. It's just a cute little homage to the Lovecraftian Cthulhu mythos.
7856017
Oh my gosh, you are making the comment section completely disgusting. I'm not one to say, because I'm not the author (who hasn't been online to see it) but... why?
7856017 Doing pretty good, here. Just mostly catch up on my humongous read lists. My stuff's on hold at the moment as Ryuu's been having issues keeping him too busy to work with me at the moment. He's told me he's not forgotten about me, and has promised to send me some stuff soon to update WTNNTW.
)
How've you been doing? I've seen you at times responding to some of the stuff I'm doing catch up on. (actually, this was about to go on the read-later, but I said, "what the hell, it's only 3k--give it a shot right now." Glad I did
7856038 Yeah you're right. I let that get out of control. I'll delete my comments now. Thank you for being the voice of reason, Harmony Pie. I apologize immensely for my behavior. (bows politely to you)
Been there, done that, accidentally zapped my mouth with enough juice that I couldnt talk for hours.
Really shouldve realised that holding wires in my mouth connected between flyback transformers and latern batteries is asking for trouble if one slips and causes an autotransformer pulse if it bounces off the wrong terminal. Which it did.
At least ember didnt have the embarassment o finding out it was also the name for dragon catnip.
7856048 Nice. I'm working on a new animation; Castlevania crossed with MLP. It's gonna be a music video-style animation and it's going to be the video that starts off my new Patreon page!
After I finished finalizing the goals and put up the artwork banner, then I can upload my first Patreon!
7856137 Cool. Castlevania--sounds familiar...is that the Japanese "Lord of Shadows" version of Dracula?
You know.. this leapt to mind...
"you... how did you..." Ember had been informed, repeatedly by Spike, that Twilight was "A very very clever pony". Until now, she hadn't known what that really meant.
"How in Smaug's forgotten lair did you work out a phonetic symbology for DragonSpeech? It's not POSSIBLE! The Speech is-- it just IS! How--" Words failed here, as the princess, with no trace of smugness or conceit shrugged.
"It seemed rather simple once I decided to put my mind to it."
"Which means," noted Spike, "That she spent three days with scroll, quill, and blackboard nonstop inventing the darn thing."
"It's useless to ponies, of course, except as a possible reference guide. Might be of use to younger dragons, though, I don't know, it's just interesting--"
"Enough." Ember sighed. "I find the only thing more perplexing than a pony raised dragon is a pony herself. So, how does this work again?"
"Well, ponies-- obviously-- can't actually pronounce the Names, not properly, but we can learn to hear the sounds, and assign syllables that a pony can pronounce to each sound, allowing us to identify the Name in histories and the like. It's really very simple."
"It's also already 349 pages long," noted Spike.
"So.... your script for the Blasting Name would be...?"
Twilight turned a couple of pages in her new notebook, and read out the corresponding syllables. "Fus. Roh..."
Crossover tag?
7856484 It's the Konami version before they became the worst of the worst.
Eragon?
That would explain the stout, "Storm Call". Great job!
Excellent way to incorporate a foreign magical system and make it feel like an organic part of the setting. Plus, this is one of the most dignified Embers I've seen on the site... for most of the story.
Great stuff. Thank you for it.
Alternate title suggestion: Dr. Strangedragon, or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Thu'um.
7856801 I was thinking the exact same thing.
7856517
Hah! This was perfect! Of COURSE Twilight would be the one to figure out how the language was spoken. She's like the original GreyBeard.
I read that about Dragon language in a D&D supplement book.
7854309 I had thought of Storm Call, but since that changes the weather externally, the logic holds that dragon mouths remain un-numbed and loqacious. One of the most awesome Thu'ums, also.
7855654 I'm glad you enjoyed it!
7855673 How she doesn't have a tag of her own is something I don't understand. She's more than popular enough here for one.
7855787 The source link will tell you more the artist than I can. Long and short is, I went through every Ember picture on derpibooru - with filters on, mind you - and picked the one I liked best. Additionally, thanks for resolving the comments section yourself. It's a credit to you that you did.
7855971 There was fun had trying to read her lines out loud, I tell you. If someone does a reading, I hope they take her lines and just go for it.
7856042 "Twilight researches dragons / Spike learns about being a dragon / Ember and co. learn about friendship" would exactly be the kind of arc that the show could do. Maybe a three parter featureing a dragon villian as well? One can hope.
7856110 Science! But yeah, did that to an arm in a similiar but smaller case. I wouldn't call it painful as such, but the sensation is pretty unsettling.
7856517 This made me laugh. Have a cookie.
7856724 Thought about it, but as crossovers go, this is really mild of one. It's pretty subtle. Cross-over tag would have been misleading to readers, I figured, so out it stays.
7856801
7857272 The idea of Naming as Magic is, and I stress the word, ancient. It appears in probably every human culture ranging back to the very first ones. Eragon and other stories make use of it, but they didn't originate it. But yes, for what I know of Eragon, the way it works here and there are pretty equivalent.
7856994 She's a fun character to write, certainly, and I'm glad about how she turned out. 'Tis a mature soul can accept silliness. I like to imagine her growing into being quite a wise, laid-back dragonlord.
7856906 Lightning breath wouldn't kill a dragon or even really injure it I don't think, but vain creatures they are, they'd die of bluster and embarrassment, slurring and tongue-lolling about like that. Like cats, really, these dragons.
7857217 This.
7857685 Hey, I make a mess, I clean it up. Just common courtesy and respect for a fellow brony / pegasister / human being.
We need more Ember stuff. She is an awesome character
This dragon lord does gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=394548&type=card
7859259
Actually, that seems to be a worrying trend with the show's writers; specifically, that other races need to have friendship "introduced" to them, as if it's a pony-exclusive thing...
hey ambion! guess what? you might want to remove the other character tag because Ember now has her own character tag on FIMFiction! :D
7859795
Talk about timing!
7859861 yep! it's about time it happened! :D
I spy with my little eye another Rothfuss fan.
7856517 I forgot who it is, but there's somebody on fim that collects these little ficlets and puts them in a... Collection.
7860420 I was going to say! When spike jumps off the building to learn the name of the wind, I knew.
7860972
7860420
Sometimes I can't help but love a story that takes all the conventions and plays them out studiously straight. He writes a fun fantasy.
7859259 Garble (the red teenager-like bully with the posse) wasn't Dragonlord before Ember, her father, Crunch (the massive shouty one) was. As for Garble, he's been an antagonist, sure, like Lightning Dust, Gilda and Trixie, bullies and thugs and such-like, but not on the same level as Discord and Starlight Glimglam were, Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis and Sombra which is what I mean for a vilian that holds up a two or - preferably - three parter. I agree - it would be nice to see more good dragons, though I would say that so far most of the ones we've seen aren't so much evil as simply vain and self-interested. Even Ember was pretty stand-offish at the start.
7861999 Uh, sorry, but Ember's father was Torch, not Crunch.
7862249 Ah! So it was - my mistake.
Big shouty guy. Thank you
7862281 Not a problem. Hope to see more from you~
Ember never struck me as the studious, philosophical sort who knew much about her own kind's history.
This is the sort of thing I'd expect more from Torch. Since he's a bazillion years old.
7865918 True. It's really Spike's total and abject ignorance more than Ember's knowledge that makes the divide between them so pronounced. Against other dragons, Ember is really only discussing general knowledge stuff here, but it's all news to Spike. That said, as a new Dragonlord she might start taking more of an interest in expanding her horizons.
Torch yes, but the capslocks don't capslock high enough.