Into the Horizon
Twilight nibbled at her breakfast pastry in an uncharacteristically reserved manner. She tried to keep her gaze fixed on the red and white checkered cloth beneath her, but caught herself sneaking glances towards the dragon and pony sitting on either side of her, each with their own breakfast roll. There were five other dragons gathered around, her aunts and Spike’s friend. They all had similar pastries, each in an appropriate scale. The hatchling was at a loss; she hadn’t spoken since Spike revealed his feelings about Rarity, but there were so many things she wanted to say, so many questions she wanted to ask. But she promised Spike that she wouldn’t- Wait a minute! She didn’t promise anything! She just agreed to hold back.
“This is good.” The hatchling looked up at the pony to her right as he started talking to Pinkie. “You called it a cinnamon roll, right?” The pink dragon looked up after taking a bite from her own pastry and nodded. “Have you ever tried adding nuts? Some pecans would add a nice texture and contrast to the frosting.”
Rarity nodded thoughtfully as she finished her cinnamon roll. “Indeed, these are marvelous, as always, but a tad on the sweet side.” She turned towards Spike. “And I believe it’s pronounced peca~hn, darling.”
Spike scratched his head. “You sure? Everydragon in Roundspire called them pecans.”
“Either way,” Grumble said through a mouthful of pastry, “they’d be difficult to find this far from the southern regions.” He swallowed before continuing. “You could cut the amount of sugar in the frosting and add a bit of fruit to make the sweetness a little less overpowering. Maybe some orange, lemon, or even apple, since it already has cinnamon.”
“Now hold on there!” Applejack had already finished her cinnamon roll, despite it being the largest of the bunch. “Whaddya mean ‘even’ apples? Ah bet apple-cinnamon rolls’d beat the scales off a’ orange-cinnamon rolls any day a’ the week!”
Grumble nodded quickly. “Yes, of course, I’m sure they would.”
Spike chuckled as Grumble scrambled to defuse the situation. The pony then turned towards Rarity, but just as he was about to say something, he noticed that Twilight was staring up at him. He looked down at the hatchling, but she just kept staring up at him with a look on her face that made it look like she was intently trying to figure something out. Spike glanced back and forth between the hatchling and her guardian. He couldn’t say anything, couldn’t ask what Twilight was up to, not without alerting Rarity. He nervously glanced around to see if any of the other dragons noticed the hatchling’s stare, but they all appeared to be preoccupied.
Spike let out a sigh, the only thing he could do was ignore the stare and hope the hatchling held up her end of the bargain. The pony turned his attention to the dragoness sitting just beyond Twilight. “So, Rarity, what made you run off earlier? It seemed important.”
“Oh, that.” Rarity picked up a napkin from a pile sitting nearby on the blanket and wiped her claws on it, carefully removing any trace of sticky frosting. “Just something I’ve been meaning to buy, but haven’t gotten around to.” She lifted a paper bag from the blanket beside her and tapped a claw against it. “It’ll be quite useful with your plant research, but it’s a surprise for Twilight, she’ll get to open it later.” With a sly grin on her face, Rarity set the bag down between her and the hatchling and looked away. After a few moments of silence and inactivity, the dragoness glanced back towards Twilight. The hatchling was looking down at the picnic blanket and tapping her claw against her lower lip. Rarity cleared her throat and looked away again. “I just hope Twilight can handle not knowing what I got for her.” She glanced back out of the corner of her eye, hoping to see some sort of movement, but the hatchling didn’t budge. Rarity crossed her claws in front of her. “For a whole day, knowing that it’s just out of reach.” Again, the dragoness glanced back, but the hatchling still showed no interest in the bag. Rarity looked up at Spike and leaned over to whisper in his ear. “Is she ok?”
The pony sighed and shrugged. “Who knows?” He decided not to mention the fact that he had a pretty good idea what the hatchling was thinking about. She was most likely thinking about what he had confessed to her earlier, and who could blame her? Even a hatchling knows that sort of thing comes with consequences. In many ways, Twilight was just like him, and the pony wondered what she thought of him intruding on their lives. He could only hope she was ok with it, but what if she wasn’t? Rarity and Twilight were just as much of a family as he and Celestia were, and he couldn’t get in the way of that. He would have to have an in-depth talk with the hatchling before taking any sort of action.
Unknown to the unsure pony, consequences and approval were the farthest things from the hatchling’s current line of thought. Right now, she had one thing on her mind, actually, two. The first was whether or not Rarity liked Spike back; the second was, if not, could she be convinced to? And not in a way that involved potions, poisons, or any help from- “Oh, no! I forgot!”
Rarity jumped at the hatchling’s sudden exclamation, but it was movement, and the dragoness gave her charge her undivided attention. “What did you forget, darling?”
Twilight looked up at her guardian with a look of worry on her face. “When does Sweetie Belle come back? Wasn’t her trip supposed to be over today? Are we waiting for her?”
“I’m afraid not, deary.” Rarity gently placed a claw on the hatchling’s back. “Mom and dad aren’t going to be back until this evening, so Sweetie won’t be coming on this camping trip. You’ll be able to play with the Crusaders.”
“Speakin’ a’ which,” Applejack piped up, “everythin’s set up with Macintosh, he’ll meet up with yer folks at the boutique and bring Sweetie and her friends back fer a sleepover.”
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. She would talk to the Crusaders about everything later, but for now, it was better that they didn’t interfere. There was just one problem left. She had to get Rarity alone without alerting the other five dragons going on the camping trip, not to mention the one pony. She had a plan for that, but first, they had to reach the first campsite.
Spike let out a low whistle as he watched the scenery fly past. He had assumed the camping trip would consist of a long, arduous walk with the larger dragons stopping constantly to wait for the rest to catch up, but that was far from the case. Applejack, the largest dragon in the group carried the pony and two dragons, Rarity and Pinkie Pie. He and Rarity sat atop a large cloth-covered package. She ran along a well beaten path towards the mountain in the distance. Oddly enough, Rainbow Dash ran beside her rather than fly. Twilight sat on the colorful dragon’s head, holding on tightly to spectral-hued crest. Grumble and Fluttershy flew above them. It had come as a shock to the pony when the shy dragon first spread her wings, they were huge! They easily dwarfed her brash friend’s cyan wings, but she was a much slower flyer. It was also surprising because, until that point, Spike didn’t even know she had wings.
That was several hours ago. They had been travelling at a relatively steady pace since then, speeding up every now and then as the two running dragons held miniature races between random landmarks. Spike looked ahead, towards the smoking mountain in the distance. They were almost halfway there, and, if they continued at the current pace, would reach it just after nightfall. But, Applejack and Rainbow Dash probably needed rest. Spike held his breath and listened intently, tuning out the sound of thundering footfalls. Nothing, he heard nothing. Despite the fact that they’ve been running since breakfast, neither dragon was even breathing heavy. The pony silently wished more of his subordinates had been this in shape, it certainly would have made his job a lot easier.
There was a tap at the pony’s shoulder. He turned back as Rarity leaned forward. “We’re going to stop soon!” She had to yell to make herself heard above the earthquake-like din of running dragons. “Hold on to something!” To illustrate her point, she wrapped a claw around one of the heavy ropes securing the package they were sitting on to the dragon carrying it. Pinkie Pie did the same.
Spike quickly moved to imitate the gesture but ran into one small snag; he didn’t have claws. He tried in vain to get his hooves around one of the ropes, but there wasn’t enough slack to get his hoof under it. There was nothing else for him to hold on to. He ran through his options in his head. He had a spell that let him mimick Grumble’s spit ability, but Applejack would probably hate him afterwards if he glued his hooves to her stuff. He could try to hold on to- “Wait,” the pony turned to face Rarity, "how do you know we’re going to-“ Applejack stopped. The laws of physics took hold of Spike immediately, sending him flying through the air with all the force his inertia could muster and, the pony would have sworn, a little extra, because the universe just hated him that much. He cast his protection spell well before he hit the ground, preventing any serious injury, but that didn’t mean that tumbling through undergrowth at outlandish speeds was ever pleasant. He ground to a halt in a pile of dry, fallen tree limbs, thankful that at the very least, he hadn’t straight-out slammed into a tree. He slowly untangled himself and started walking, following the obvious trail of destruction he had left through the forest’s plants. As he walked, he noticed sparse patches of blue here and there among the plants. He laughed to himself. “I guess that’s another thing to be thankful for.” There was no sign of blue mixed in with the debris of his landing. He could nullify poison joke, of course, it was the same process as nullifying any other magic, but it would be troublesome to perform that spell on himself while under the plant’s effects.
Rarity called out to Spike as soon as he stepped out of the undergrowth. “Are you ok, darling?!” She felt a bit guilty about not giving him more warning, but he seemed unharmed. Using the ropes used to tie down Applejack’s pack, the much smaller dragoness climbed down until she could jump to the ground from a reasonable height. Her pink friend just hopped straight down, landing with a heavy thud and kicking up a cloud of dust.
Spike waved and nodded before walking over to her. “I’m fine, but how did you know she was going to stop? She didn’t say anything.”
Rarity giggled softly. “Twilight,” she said in a pleasant sing-song, “be a dear and explain to our guests why we stopped here.” The dragoness gave Spike one last smile before turning her attention to magically untying the ropes on Applejack’s back.
Rainbow Dash walked around her orange friend and towards Spike. “Dude,” she laughed, “what’s with the stupid grin? You look like you’ve been munchin’ on brimstone.” She lowered her head to allow her small, purple passenger to disembark. Once the hatchling was safely off, the multi-colored flyer swung her head over towards Spike. “Well, well, well,” she whispered, “looks like somepony likes it when somedragon giggles, huh?”
“What?!” Spike shook his head quickly, hoping to clear his face of expression. “So? What does that matter?”
Rainbow lifted her head up and looked over at Twilight. “Yo, kiddo! Run and grab your notebook from Rarity. I want to show this guy your map.” Twilight gave an enthusiastic nod and ran off towards the dragons currently engaged in the unpacking effort. Rainbow watched the hatchling for a moment, then turned back to Spike. “Look, dude, we all know what’s goin’ on, but you better keep in mind that there’s two dragons you’ve got to worry about. If you hurt either of ‘em, well,” she clicked her teeth together, long, pearly razors, each nearly as long as Spike was tall, “these aren’t just for show.”
Spike gulped loudly, memories of his first day in the military filling his mind. “When did things get to that point? I haven’t done anything.” The look on Rainbow’s face told the pony that she did not care. “I told Twilight.”
The dragon’s menacing expression turned into one of confusion. “You what?”
Spike took a deep breath to calm himself, now that the dragon he was talking to wasn’t as threatening. “I told Twilight about my feelings for Rarity. I don’t know how you found out, but I’m not going to do anything until I talk to Twi about it.” He glanced over to where Twilight and Rarity were digging through the contents of Applejack’s pack. The pony sighed as he watched the two search for who-knows-what. “I think I’m falling in love with Rarity, but I can’t ignore Twilight. There’s, I don’t know, a connection, or something. It’s there, I can feel it, but don’t ask me to explain it.” He looked up at Rainbow. “Twilight and I are the same, we never got to know our parents, both of us have had to rely on the generosity of another just to survive, and both of us found more than just survival in that generosity. We found a family.” He looked back towards Rarity and Twilight, it looked they found what they were looking for; Twilight’s notebook. Rarity picked Twilight up with her tail and placed the hatchling on her back. “I’m not going to get in the way of that.”
Rarity walked over to Rainbow and Spike. “Did the two of you lose something?” She set Twilight on the ground between the dragon and pony. “I believe she has something for show and tell. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to help finish with the unpacking.” With that, she turned and left.
Rainbow glanced down at Spike. “Alright, I’ll buy your explanation, for now. But know this, “ she held out her claw in a gesture indicating something small, “you were this close to actually making me cry. If that ever happens, I’ll have to squish you.” Rainbow looked towards the sky before Spike could respond. “Fireball boy! Get your butt down here before I go up after you!”
Grumble landed a few seconds later, cutting his aerial survey of the area short. Rainbow walked away without another word, leaving Spike, Grumble, and Twilight together. The brown dragon let out a groan as soon as he thought Rainbow was out of earshot. “Not the friendliest dragon, eh?”
“Hey,” came the instant reply, “I heard that!”
Spike sighed. “So, Twilight, you said you had a map to show us?”
The hatchling nodded happily. “Welcome to campsite one-alpha-three, the woodland clearing.” She started flipping through her notebook. “As you can see, we are in a clearing in the middle of an old-growth pine forest. The smooth rocky surface of the trail grows wider here than at any other point along the trail, making it the ideal location to set up camp, because you can have a campfire without the risk of it spreading.” She stopped flipping through the notebook and held it out to Spike. It was opened to a page with a decent aerial map, no doubt drawn while riding on the back of Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy. “Its designation breaks into three parts, the one marks it as the first day’s campsite, the alpha indicates that it is the first choice, the three indicates that there are three adjacent areas for fun activities.”
“Wow,” muttered Grumble, “you should be a travel agent.” Spike shot him a glare and the brown dragon shrugged in response.
Twilight just continued talking. “The three fun locations are as follows. One, mining area to the north, abundant gem and mineral deposits, and an unconfirmed native diamond wolf population. Lots of fun. Two, hunting area to the west, you’d have to ask Fluttershy about this. Not much fun. Three, fishing hole to the south, large section of a river, fish are always biting. Tons of fun.” Twilight flipped through her notebook again. “And… That’s about it. Just watch out for poison joke.” Twilight snapped her notebook shut just as a loud growl escaped from her stomach. “Time to eat.” She spun around and marched over to Rarity with poise and purpose. She tapped on Rarity’s leg to get her attention, but before the hatchling could say anything, another loud growl from her stomach made her intentions known.
Rarity looked down and patted Twilight on the head. “How did the presentation go?” She looked around at the supplies that were being unpacked. Everything was neatly organized and laid out for easy access.
“Good, like always.” Twilight climbed over a bundle of metal stakes and made her way to a large coil of rope. She sat back in the coil of rope like it was a cushion and closed her eyes. “I have it memorized, so it’s the same each time.”
“Well, aren’t you the organized one?” Rarity walked past the ropes towards bundles of thick canvas. Just past that was a small picnic basket, a tin can with a lid, and a long, thin, fabric-wrapped bundle. The dragoness grabbed the picnic basket with her tail and magically lifted the other two items. She walked backed to the hatchling with the items in tow, dropping the canvas bundle and tin can into the coil of ropes that was currently occupied by the hatchling.
Twilight opened her eyes just in time to catch the falling items. She looked at them for a moment before realizing the meaning behind them. “Yes!” The hatchling hopped up out of the rope coil, clutching the items tightly to her chest. The bundle was twice again the hatchling’s height, but that didn’t deter her in the slightest as she marched off into the woods.
“Twilight! Wait for me, dear!” Rarity looked around for her friends. Pinkie and Fluttershy were nearby, so she called out to them. “Girls! Twilight and I are going to be at the usual spot, be sure to tell the others!” Fluttershy waved back. She may have said something, but Rarity couldn’t be sure. She didn’t have time to worry about it though, Twilight was heading off without her! She took off after The hatchling, quickly catching up with the encumbered hatchling. “You shouldn’t run off like that, darling, it’s not safe to be alone out here.”
Fluttershy carefully untied the last bundle of fabric and neatly coiled the rope it was bound with. She looked over everything one last time before turning to the pink dragon helping her. “Um, Pinkie? Would you mind handling the rest of this? I need to go talk to Grumble and Spike.”
Pinkie popped up from beneath a dark green tarp with two metal stakes sticking out of her mouth like a set of fangs. “Oki-doki-loki!” She moved her lips around, moving the stakes to the center of her mouth. She then spit them out towards the dirt on one side of the clearing. “Just put in a good word for me.”
Fluttershy nodded and walked over to where the pony and dragon were talking. “Um, excuse me?” Spike and Grumble looked up from their conversation, causing the yellow dragon to take a step backwards. “Um, you don’t have to stare.” The dragon and pony exchanged glances, but remained silent. “Um, Twilight and Rarity went for a picnic down by the river, just like they always do. Twilight gets hungry when travelling, so we make sure to bring a bit of extra food for her. The rest of us usually fend for ourselves, but I thought, since, Grumble applied for a hunting license, and you did such a good job with dinner yesterday, the two of you might want to handle food for everydragon.”
Again, Special thanks to Cold Spike and Imaginary Valued for proofreading.
Chapter Title
Into the Horizon by Neverland
Edit - CONTEST OVER!
I'm going to hold a contest! In the next few chapters, I am going to introduce a new character. Can anyone guess who? Leave a comment with your guess, the first person to get it right will recieve a pm from me and get to pick from three different prizes.
1 - A pony OC can be mentioned in one of my other fics.
2 - A dragon OC, or a dragon version of a pony OC can be mentioned in this fic.
3 - You give me your address (via pm),I send you a poly-clay keychain in your choice of Rarity, Pinkie, or Big Mac Cutie Mark.
Rules!
1 - Use the format, "My guess is ________!"
2 - One guess per person, If you have multiple guesses, I will not accept any of them. If that person guessed correctly, the next person with a correct guess will win the prize.
3 - To avoid spoilers, I will not say who won or that someone did, in fact, win. I will contact that person directly.
4 - The contest will end when I introduce the character. If no one has guessed it by then, I will pick a winer at random and the contest will end.
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My guess is Zecora, or the dragon equivalent.
My guess is Trixie?
This right here? This means jack shit to us the readers. This is all auditory and you have not put in anything to tell us HOW they are pronouncing the two versions so this means nothing. Long story short; "This needs pronunciation key."
2273103 I know, this is an inside joke to a friend who lives in texas, there are two pronunciations of pecan
Paycahn
Pee can
I left it up to the reader as to which is which. Sorry.
2273103 And fixed
2272920Really? Cause it was in the feature box for a solid week when I first posted it, then never again.
My guess is Zecora, as an Earth Dragon.
(Funny thing is, the transliteration of Earth Dragon into Chinese characters literally is a pun to "earthworm" in Korean.)
If I see titles like The Distance, Formidable, Into the Woods, Scales of the Moon, Beings of Light, Pure, Stellar or Arcane Academic, I would be really happy.
Did I mention the story feels just like this song so far?
2273118>>2273131 Actually I am familiar with; pah-can, pee-can, pay-can, pay-cahn, pah-cahn, pee-cahn.
My guess is Lyrra! But instead of being obsessed with humans, she's obsessed with ponies!
2273136 I was going to use ego from the same album as that first one relatively soon(5 or so chapters away.)
Have you heard of a band called Amaranthe?
They mix melodic and growler vocals very well. Songs that are pure growl make me smile and laugh uncontrollably, but if they have good instrumentation with them, I'll still listen to it.
2273149
Yes! That band is my absolute favorite for its genre. It seriously needs more exposure. Gotta thank you for that.
I've heard some good rep for Amaranthe. I'll check it out during this weekend.
2273136
Summer's Glory is on the list for a very important chapter much later in the story. Have you heard of a band called Aria? Russian band, also on the list.
2273172
Only a few songs, but a fun band to listen to. I remember the bass being quite prominent.
My guess is Vinyl Scratch
Nice use of inertia.
My guess is Gilda.
because I can never have too much Gilda.
My guess is Luna.
"My guess is Cheerilee!"
My guess is Steven Magnet :D. Because Sea Serpents are best.
My guess is Scootaloo.
zecora version, since they are traveling through the woods. though big mac or maybe braeburn could be fun as well.
My guess is Big Macintosh.
I'm going to guess Nyx
My guess is Blueblood
My guess is... dammit all the ones I would guess have been taken... so my guess is Nightmare Moon, because the first adventure with all of them has to include some reference to the original show villains.
2273085
Damn, beat me to it.
My guess is Stephen the sea serpent.... or would be if someone else didn't get it first >.>
Contest Over!
2273765 :P :Lol
2273821
MY ARCH NEMESIS!!!! COME. We must do battle of bullsh*ttery!
2273172 I've seen it a few times in there. The bottom 3 are updated stories, and they cycle though much faster than the new story ones. Usually a matter of hours instead of days. Plus, it won't always go in right when it's updated, but after the ones in there come out. I've had that happen with my sotries, so most likely, that's why you haven't seen it.
As important as everything else was, this part makes me fear the Apocalypse is neigh!
My guess is Zecora... Oh wait somepony already guessed that and the contest is over... *sigh*
2273144
That would be complete win!!
>>>The rest of us usually fend for ourselves, but I thought, since, Grumble applied for a hunting license, and you did such a good job with dinner yesterday, the two of you might want to handle food for everydragon.”>>>
And so they did, and in a matter of minutes, the pair had captured enough tasty, tender hyoomans for everydragon to eat! As usual, the strange hairless apes begged for their lives, but everydragon knew that if nature had meant for them to be anything other than dragon fodder, it would have given the soft little bipeds some actual physical defenses.
So they nommed them mercilessly, relishing the screams.
this fic is going awesomely good...
But this chapter ending feels... empty...
I feel like it was not a good place for dividing the big-ass chapter you said you have...
Other than that, this keeps being awesome
2273776
ah. sorry, I sent you a PM already.
Maybe you can also remove the details as well, if the contest is really over?.
Hate to ask this, but why do AJ and RD seem to have an attitude int his story? Seems a bit more..blunt than I'd expect. Most of what they do is in character in my book, but that scene with Spike basically being threatened by RD, even if just a little, kind of threw me off.
2393557
I didn't really notice an attitude with AJ to much, but I have to say now that their dragons they'd all be a bit different and more fierce then normally. I can see RD doing all these things only because shes very protective of her friends. They also probably have shorter tempers since their not ponies anymore. I can also see the changes in their personalities, but I think the changes are very slight and she did an amazing job overall.
And one by one, Spike admits his love to everydragon in the group, until Rarity is the only one to remain clueless.
Onward to the next chapter!
So wings = breasts?
5655266 Considering dragons don't have breasts, like many reptile-like species... I'd say wingspan would make a fairly nice equivalent, at least to the flying dragons