//------------------------------// // Chapter 18 // Story: Sharing the Nation // by Cast-Iron Caryatid //------------------------------// — ✒ — Never before in his life had Spike looked at the now-ex-library with such trepidation. No, not even that time, with the cutie-mark crusaders and the potato salad. Hesitating at the door, he found himself wondering what would happen if he just… left the library to them and found someplace else to sleep. Twilight would understand, right? No, not really. Not after the Celestias had declared their support for his den, as if the sitcom that was his life was something to celebrate and replicate. And speaking of Twilight Sparkle… “You’re still here, Twilight,” he pointed out to the alicorn that was virtually vibrating in place behind him. “Well, of course I am!” she beamed with excessive cheer. “You’re going to introduce me to your harem, aren’t you? Better now than tomorrow when we’re all hustling through the crowds to get to the coronation.” Spike buried his face in his hands. “Twilight,” he groaned in put-upon aggravation. “I can’t introduce them to you because I don’t know their names! I know you want to ‘be supportive,’ but give me a chance to actually meet them.” Twilight’s ears flattened and looked away, deflated. “…Oh.” He immediately felt bad for snapping at her, but at the same time, he was really fed up with it all. “I’m serious, Twilight. It’s awkward enough that I don’t know any of these dragons I’m apparently living with. I don’t need you hovering while I’m trying to figure things out.” “No, no,” she said, backing off. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be butting in. I just… sorry.” She shuffled in place for a moment, then lit her horn and disappeared in a flash of light. Spike let out a heavy sigh at how that had gone, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now and he had five other people to concern himself with at the moment. He missed the days when all he had to do was snark about other people’s problems. Steeling himself, he reached forward, opened the door and went inside. Much to Spike’s relief, the main room of the ex-library was neither full nor empty. Dealing with them all at once, he was sure, would have been just like that morning, with awkward staring and nothing actually being said, while an empty room… Well, he didn’t want to think what an empty room could have meant, aside from the actually quite high likelihood that they were just all down in the basement. What he actually found, were two of the new dragonesses that had installed themselves into his home. Specifically, they were ‘the orange and yellow one’ and ‘the green and brown one’… and that was about all he could say he knew about them. Ember was nowhere to be seen, which was an immediate relief, but it also meant that he had even less to draw on to actually break the ice. Not that there actually turned out to be any ice. The moment the door clicked open, the orange one perked up from where she was laying on the top level of one of the bookshelves built into the walls of the tree, and by the time the door had shut, she’d jumped down and was waving. “Hey! Spike, right?” she asked, rhetorically. At least, Spike hoped it was rhetorical. He wouldn’t actually put it past Ember to have neglected to tell them anything about him, including his name. Rhetorical or not, it was only a half beat before she was moving on regardless. “I’m Kindle, and lazy over there is Drift.” The green and brown dragon waved leisurely from over by the window, though she was rolling her eyes. “Pfft,” she scoffed. “I’m not lazy, you’re just hyper.” Kindle rolled her eyes and gestured in the direction of the alcove where Drift had ensconced herself. “You say that, but you’re still lying over there doing flack all instead of coming over and saying hi.” “I said hi already, jeez,” Drift insisted. Kindle disagreed. “You did not.” “I waved,” she pointed out. “I’m giving him some space. Just look at the poor guy, he’s practically catatonic.” Spike was struck rather speechless, though not entirely for the reason the one named Drift seemed to be implying. “I’m just shocked you’re actually regular people,” he deadpanned, earning a moment of silence from the both of them, followed by an appreciative bark of laughter from Drift. “I wouldn’t go that far,” Drift shot back, giving Kindle a deliberate glance. “Though I guess compared to Carnelia and Slag, even Kindle could practically pass for a pony.” Spike’s shoulders slumped at the implication that these other two were closer to Ember than sanity. “Do I want to know?” he asked. Kindle shrugged, unconcerned. “From what I’ve seen, Slag acts like somedragon just told her what her name means in Trottingham,” she explained. “Carnelia acts like it’s her life’s goal to live up to it.” “Rude, but accurate,” Drift commented with the mein of someone who didn’t really care if she was being rude or not. Spike, however, was less concerned with the information or how it was phrased than the metaphor that was used to convey it. “You know how ponies in Trottingham talk?” “Sure,” Kindle said as if it wasn’t strange at all. “I grew up around the mountains near the Griffish Isles, and Drift is from… all over, really, which should surprise absolutely no one, what with her name and all.” “I… see,” Spike said, still processing that. In hindsight, he’d known that dragons were largely solitary creatures who laired up wherever they felt like it and only gathered for events like the yearly migration, but the idea that there could be dragons out there living on the periphery of pony society hadn’t really occurred to him. “So, are Carnellia and… Slag… from the dragonlands, like Ember, then?” “Probably!” Kindle said. “You never know, though,” Drift added. “There’s always the chance that somedragon is just a bitch regardless of where they come from.” Spike wanted to groan at that. Kindle and Drift were not painting a picture that Spike was looking forward to. “Wait, you don’t know?” “What, you think we all knew each other before today?” Kindle asked. “Well, Drift and I met a couple of times and came to Equestria together, but I’d never seen the others before Ember came up to us and was like: “Come with me if you want to be sexy.” “…That was her pitch?” Spike deadpanned. “Really?” “Are you saying it didn’t work?” Kindle asked, cocking her hips and shoulders in a sultry pose. Spike swallowed, his mind briefly derailed, but he quickly rallied his sass. “Hey, just remember—you girls are the ones that were staring at me all morning.” It would have had more effect if he hadn’t immediately cringed at the sound of the basement door slamming open followed by the clacking footsteps of the other three dragonesses. Now that he had names to go with the other two new girls, he immediately pegged Carnelia as the red and… red one. Rarity would have said she had wine-red scales with more scarlet accents or something, but yeah, she was red and she walked like she’d had these proportions her whole life. Slag, on the other hand, was definitely named for the forging byproduct and not the trottingham pejorative. She looked like she could be a blacksmith, actually, which was a feat considering Ember’s use of the Ring of Ashmund had brought her into very similar proportions as the other girls, and if Carnelia had taken well to it, Slag was almost the opposite, walking with a two-ton gait in a ninety-pound body with mottled black scales. It was Ember, though, that was frowning as she looked Spike over and glanced around the room. “Where’s the food?” Oh, damn. Honestly, Spike wondered if Ember hadn’t ever had to resort to eating rocks growing up for how spoiled she acted, but that wasn’t a subject to tackle right now. Instead, he produced the bag of bits that Twilight had wished into being at lunch and jingled it. “I figured I’d take everyone out to eat tonight?” he suggested as if that had been the plan all along. Ember seemed to be considering it for a moment before she finally agreed with a smirk. “Alright, but we’re going someplace that serves meat. I don’t care if they put it on a salad; tonight, you’re gonna learn what bacon tastes like.” “O… kay?” — ✒ — In spite of his theatrics, Spike made a point of swapping out the bits that Twilight had ‘minted’ for a sack of the more usual kind that he’d had hidden in his bedroom upstairs. It was on his way back down that something occurred to him. “So, uhh, Ember. Now that you look…” he gestured vaguely at her pseudo-adult transformed body. “Are we allowed to call you ‘Ember’ in public? Because I refused to call you ‘godzilla’ with any level of sincerity. I told Twilight your name is ‘Tinder.’” Kindle perked up at that. “I have a sister named Tinder,” she mentioned. “She’s an annoying little chit.” “That’s… unfortunate?” Spike said, accidentally making it more of a question than he’d intended. “Actually,” he added, “Come to think of it, I should probably mention that there were some dragons looking for you. At least three of them. Big ones sticking their heads in shops and people’s houses.” Ember grew deathly still for a moment before rounding on Spike in a fury. “You’re telling me this now?!” she all but shrieked and started asking questions without waiting for any answers. “Who was it? Where were they seen? Are they coming this way?” As soon as she voiced that last thought, she glanced at the door down to the basement, clearly considering sequestering herself underground until the threat was over. Which, it should be mentioned, it already was, if only Spike could get a word in. “Spit,” Ember cursed, shifting her gaze to the front door. “I think… we’ll probably be fine. It should be impossible for anydragon to recognize me like this.” “What’s the big deal, princess?” Slag asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’ve got the ring. Somedragon shows up trying to drag you home, all you’ve gotta do is make yourself twice as big and kick their tail.” “Uh… yeah.” Ember’s eyes dropped to the ring on her finger as if she was just remembering that it was there. “Yeah, you’re right. I can do that now,” she said, gaining confidence as she built herself up, though it was quickly tempered. “I… probably shouldn’t, though?” she said, looking to Spike for confirmation. “I mean, the ponies would probably throw a fit if I stepped on one of them. That would be… bad?” “Yes, Ember,” Spike said, hardly able to believe she needed his input on this, but also relieved that she’d at least come to the right conclusion. “That would be bad. In fact, in my official position as Princess Twilight Sparkle’s vague sort of assistant, I’d like to officially request that if you do find yourself in the position of needing to use the ring to win a fight with somedragon, just make them smaller instead. Believe me, if it ever comes to that, Twilight and Luna will be ecstatic if all they have to deal with is a couple of chicken-sized dragons nipping at their fetlocks.” That seemed to get a chuckle from Drift. Ember was a little less appreciative of it at first, but she seemed to be able to work her way around to the idea. “That’s… No, you’re right. That’s what the book says, too. That’s how they used the ring to maintain order and punish criminals in the empire. Alright. If they come for me, I’ll do that.” “I’d hope that you’d at least consider hiding first, since we don’t want anybody to actually know about the ring,” Spike pointed out. “But fortunately, I doubt it’ll come to that.” Ember considered Spike’s words and visibly relaxed. “Yeah. You’re right. Like I said, they shouldn’t even recognize me.” “No, I mean because one of them is dead and the other two still haven’t regained consciousness,” Spike told her as bluntly as he could. That got everydragon’s attention. “They… what?” Ember asked, thinking she must not have heard him right. “They were idiots and tried to poke one of Twilight’s demigoddesses who is literally made of lightning and rainbows,” Spike nonchalantly explained. “Twice. Then the third one tried to kill another of the demigodesses. Twice. That’s the one that didn’t make it.” They didn’t seem to know how to respond to that, and Spike remembered what Luna had said about it being rare for dragons to actually die. Well, maybe this would help them to take things a little more seriously. “Look, all of you,” Spike said, gathering everyone’s attention. “Twilight, Luna, the Celestias and the demigoddesses… they’re all good ponies. They talked about the fact that these violent dragons were looking for the Dragon Lord’s daughter, and they’re even tentatively on your side.” He chose to avoid mentioning Twilight’s suggestion that Ember might be as much of an asshole as her father. “You’re going to meet them and maybe you’ll think that they’re soft, namby-pamby ponies… and they are. Proudly, because they have enough power that they can be compassionate and forgiving right up until the point when someone goes too far. “There’s no reason to be afraid of them and you don’t need to bow and scrape in their presence, but… respect them, respect their laws and… that’s it. There is no step three.” Ember frowned, thinking back. “The Pinkie Pie that knew about me coming here before I did… that was one of these demigoddesses, right?” “Yeah, that’s her,” Spike said. “Right, so… don’t break the law,” Ember concluded. “That should be easy enough.” “Says the one who had to ask if stepping on ponies is bad,” Kindle snarked. “I didn’t mean it like that!” Well, it was a start. — ✒ — Dinner went well enough. Spike earned some points with the girls by helping them with their flying thanks to the time he’d spent with Rainbow Dash earlier in the day, though he told himself that he still wasn’t sure if he wanted ‘points’ with them to begin with. He recognized it as sour grapes over the situation, of course, since there was nothing wrong with making friends and it was vastly preferable over the alternative, but unfortunately knowing and feeling were two different things. That said, his ability to interact with each of them in a friendly, sensible manner was in no way equal. Kindle was always eager and maybe a little too aggressive, but in a friendly way. Drift seemed lazy and distractible on the surface, but never actually put anything off or failed to be paying attention. Slag… wasn’t actually all that bad. She was just there most of the time, occasionally ill-tempered and moderately violent, but mostly she seemed to want to be left alone. Carnelia, on the other hand… Spike didn’t know what to feel about Carnelia. In hindsight, he wished that Kindle hadn’t been quite so candid with her opinion of the provocative red-scaled beauty because now he was having trouble seeing past those preconceptions when, really, she actually reminded him a lot of Rarity. It wasn’t just that Carnelia was beautiful, because all the girls were that, to some degree. Kindle was a little cuter, and Slag significantly more athletic, but comparing any of them would be splitting hairs they didn’t have. The difference with Carnelia was that she cared about how she presented herself and put the effort in to make the most of what she had. Out of all of the girls, she was the only one who had trimmed her claws and polished her scales in the short time since that morning. She was the only one who seemed completely comfortable in her new body and the slinky, very reptile way she moved did things to him that he wasn’t at all comfortable with. And that was the problem, because as much as she reminded him of Rarity, he didn’t like her very much, which wasn’t a very fair comparison. They were different people, obviously. Carnelia was a very touchy, tactile person who seemed to delight in making Spike blush during their short impromptu flight lessons by brushing up against him, posing on all-fours and generally keeping him tongue-tied enough that he’d yet to actually talk to her properly, and it was very much intentional. And yet… Spike had seen Rarity act that way on occasion, too. Just not with him. Sure, he tried to tell himself that Rarity acting flirty to attract attention or get something at the market wasn’t serious… but did that really make it any better? Now that it was directed at him, and even more so now that he suddenly had a body that other dragons considered attractive and worth stealing looks at, he was very quickly coming to the conclusion that maybe that sort of behavior wasn’t something he actually liked being on the receiving end of. Still, Spike wished that Kindle hadn’t put that name to it because no matter how much he told himself it was going too far, he also couldn’t forget the comparison and it bugged him for the entire rest of the night. Even as the six of them descended on one of the new griffon-run restaurants like a plague of scaly locusts and Spike got his first taste of bacon to the sounds of cheering and jeering all around, he found himself appreciating the fact that the rest of the girls seemed no less appreciative of him but were simply much more natural about expressing it, and conversely, less coy about receiving such attention. Okay, maybe Ember in particular didn’t make a big deal of the attention she got from him and other dragons at the restaurant because her ego was just that big, but somehow he still preferred that over being sidled up to and winked at. That was a bit hard to reconcile, if he was being honest with himself. — ✶ — “Are you done spying on your assistant who specifically asked for privacy?” Luna asked dryly over the top of her book from a purple velvet chaise lounge that Twilight had created for her. Twilight, who had converted the entire open space in the center of the tower into some sort of scrying pool and had been looming over the side of it for the past hour or so had now rolled over on her back and was stretching until she remembered that it was night and she could just remanifest herself, which she then did, blinking over next to Luna in the process. “Oh come on,” Twilight said, her tone threatening a pout. “He asked me not to get in the way and I did that. You can’t expect me not to keep an eye on him on his first date. I saw and heard nothing that I wouldn’t have if I was hiding in the bushes like Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttersquirrel. Squirrelshy? Whatever. You get the idea.” “Rather antisocial of you not to join them,” Luna observed. “Was Rarity truly not present as well?” “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I kind of stick out,” Twilight deadpanned, pointing at her sparkling ethereal mane. “As for Rarity, she’s ensconced herself in her workshop getting ready for tomorrow and that wasn’t one of her restaurants. I did see that pink dragon assistant of hers—Cinders?—there with a camera, but I’m not sure if she was actually on the clock.” “And of course, Applejack remains a hermit and refuses to set hoof inside the city more than once each week,” Luna concluded, which Twilight confirmed with a sigh. “Yeah, things really have backfired with her,” she said, feeling a pang of regret for how she’d handled things with the stubborn mare. “She did forgive you, yes?” Luna asked. Twilight shrugged. “She said she did, and she’s not the type for empty platitudes. She just doesn’t seem to have gotten over the initial wave of harassment from the press and political sharks looking to exploit her. I can sort of understand, since she can’t fly, teleport or pink, but even so, Fluttershy’s cottage is in town and nopony is banging down her door any more.” “To be fair,” Luna said. “Fluttershy knows when they are coming and has bears.” “Applejack didn’t seem to have any problems when she did come into town,” Twilight pointed out. “At this point, it seems that she just doesn’t want to be seen backpedaling after moving her farm so she’s being stubborn about moving it back. As soon as this whole coronation thing is over, I’m going to be looking into portals for the girls’ towers, but whether or not she’ll use it or even let me put one on her property is anyone’s guess.” “You’ve mentioned before that she might be against unicorn magic, I believe, but have you not aided her with it in the past without issue?” Luna recalled, to which Twilight gave a weak sort of shrug. “Yes and no? I’ve helped out several times on the farm with unicorn magic and it wasn’t a problem, but get it anywhere near her traditions like Winter Wrap Up and it seems like it’s another story. I honestly have no idea whether a permanent portal on her property is something that’ll rub her the wrong way or not, or how best to pitch it.” “How do you mean?” Luna asked, curious. “Well, there are any number of ways that a portal could function,” Twilight said. “It could be a simple wooden door that just happens to lead to her tower… or she might not want it in her house. It could be a freestanding toroid with runes to dial in a destination… but that might be too overtly magical. Or, with dream magic, I could probably just enchant the road to town to be shorter so long as the one walking it doesn’t harbor any ill will to the apples… but that might be too surreal.” “You seem rather confident for somepony who has admitted to not even having brushed up on the subject as of yet,” Luna teased. Twilight waved it off. “I remember enough to know that power is the limiting factor on portals, and we have that. All the rest is window dressing. Um. Literally, I guess. I should write that down. There could be a dream magic opportunity in that.” Soon, she was doing just that while Luna chuckled. “I would very much like to see the expression on a young Twilight Sparkle’s face should she be told that her future self would willingly and of her own volition keep a pun diary… yes, like that, only cuter and even more horrified, if that is possible.” — ✒ — It was late into the night when Spike and ‘his’ five dragonesses returned to the ex-library stuffed full of smoked pork products and ready to go sleep it off and it was only then that Spike remembered that there was a subject that he had yet to broach. Well, technically there were at least two, but he had already decided to hold off on talking to them about the Celestias’ offer to ‘sponsor’ the group of them as some sort of poster-dragons for Equestrian integration. No. Unfortunately, the subject at hand was one that he couldn’t put off any longer, so before the girls all went down to the basement to sleep, he figured he’d just ask. “So, uhh,” he began, then made an effort to stand straighter and stop prevaricating. “Did any of you want to go to the coronation tomorrow? I’m likely to be there all day, and I have an open invitation for the five of you from the princesses if any of you want to come.” The answer, he realized, should have been obvious. “What’s a coronation?” Ember asked, not at all sheepish about her lack of knowledge. Kindle, who Spike remembered had mentioned growing up in griffon lands, of course knew. “It’s a ceremony where they make a big deal about putting a crown on someone’s head.” Ember scrunched her face up as she thought back. “Right, I think I’ve read about those, but who are they crowning? They’ve already got, like, four alicorns and I’ve lost count of the ‘demigoddesses.’” “I think…” Carnelia spoke up, her voice soft and sibilant, “It is possible that they are re-crowning the one who has twinned and changed species, in which case… yes, I believe that I shall attend.” Sure enough, per Twilight’s prediction, once they all understood that it was the Celestias that they would be able to see crowned, they all decided to come. Even Slag, who didn’t tend to talk much, wasn’t willing to let herself be left behind in this. “Well, alright then,” Spike said to himself as several of them went on talking about it without him. “I guess we’re doing this.” — ⭗ ✹ — “I’m not certain why we thought that bringing two injured and one dead dragon to a mountain infested with even more dragons seemed like a good idea,” Corona lamented, shutting the large, golden doors of the chambers she shared with Candesca behind her. “It does seem like something we should have thought of,” Candesca agreed, walking ahead of Corona and tossing herself onto the bed. Corona chose instead to sit herself on a couch and open the doors to the balcony. “What is done is done, I suppose. I continue to be both surprised and concerned at how this draconic nature of ours holds influence over them.” “I find myself more concerned with the similarity it holds to the effect we have on our own little ponies,” Candesca observed from the bed. “While I’m doubtful that there is anything that we can do or could have done about either situation, it does feel like we have done our ponies a disservice by forgetting truly how pervasive the effect can be.” “If only our dual nature weren’t causing such problems for the ponies…” Corona mused. “Or that it was enough to prevent news of those dragons’ injuries from spreading.” Candesca shook her head. “We both know that there is no stopping gossip. I shall count our blessings that we avoided a riot by explaining the situation. Is there anything still to do for the Coronation tomorrow?” “I’m guessing not,” was Corona’s cryptic reply. “Guessing?” Candesca asked, craning her neck up to look at Corona. “When it came time to delegate the preparations for the event, Pinkie Pie appeared before me.” “Ah.”