Sandbar was seated on the floor of the common room. His books and homework were laid out in front of him on the coffee table. He scribbled down answers and such upon the papers as they came to him. The nearly empty room was still save for his movement, that is until a dragon entered.
“Hey, Sandbar! There you are!” Smolder called from the doorway. She entered in, carrying her bookbag.
“Oh, hey there, Smolder,” Sandbar looked up from his papers for a moment.
Smolder made her way to the couch that was positioned next to the coffee table that Sandbar was working at. “Been looking for you all day,” she said, setting her bag upon the cushions of the couch.
“Our schedules are a little weird on Thursdays, remember?”
“Thursday?” Smolder thought aloud, “Oooh, that’s why Counselor Trixie made less sense than normal in literature class today.”
Sandbar had a smirk on his face, “No, that’s normal of her.”
Both the pony and a dragon had a laugh.
“Anyway, what’s up? You were looking for me?”
“Yeah,” the dragon sat upon the couch, looking down at the pony, “I wanted to say sorry if I was a bit of a….problem last night at the bar.” The tone to her voice was both embarrassed and apologetic.
Sandbar brushed it off, “Don’t worry about it. Friends help friends, right?”
A weight was lifted off Smolder’s shoulders, but there was still something that bothered her, “Thanks, but there is something I have a question. I kinda don’t remember some parts of what happened.”
The pony set his pencil down on his papers and chuckled a little to himself. He turned to look at Smolder, seeing her humbled expression, “Alright, so what do you remember?”
“Well….I remember us leaving the bar and you carrying me back into the dorms,” Smolder explained, avoiding eye contact with Sandbar, “and the next thing I remember I woke up in my bed with Silverstream poking at my leg for some reason. It’s been bugging me all day what happened.”
“Are you sure it isn’t the hangover?” Sandbar joked.
“Yeah, I didn’t have a hangover, okay! I just don’t remember what happened!” Smolder quickly got defensive as she reached her claw out to push Sandbar lightly..
Sandbar laughed, “I’m just messing with ya. Well, after we got to your dorm door, you kept having some balance issues, so you sat down up against the wall. Then you asked me to sit down next to you, which I did and you put your whole body weight on me.”
Smolder immediately blushed at Sandbar’s words.
“It seems you were too comfortable to move and sort of just fell asleep right there,” Sandbar continued. “So I just decided to wait a bit. About fifteen minutes later, Silverstream came back to your dorm and she helped me get you into your bed.”
The dragon raised her claws up to her face in an effort to hide embarrassment. “Oh, by Dragon Lord Ember, this is so embarrassing….” she mumbled, “I am so sorry about that….”
Sandbar still had a smile on his face, “Hey, don’t worry, Smolder. I’m sure you would have done the same for me. Besides, it allowed me to work on a few more detailed drawings.” As he finished speaking, Sandbar reached into his saddlebag and pulled out his sketchbook. He then passed it to the dragon.
Taking the sketchbook, Smolder flipped through the pages to the newer drawings, “You drew when I was asleep on you?” she asked, her face still flushed with embarrassment, “What would you have drawn in there?”
“Just a doorknob and that light fixture outside your dorm,” Sandbar said as he picked up his pencil again, “They aren’t great, but you gotta try and draw just about everything to be good enough to draw just about anything.”
Arriving at the pages with the new pieces of art, Smolder took a look at what the pony had drawn. Both items looked like an eraser was taken to the page a few times to correct a number of mistakes, but the final result still showcased Sandbar’s artistic abilities for details.
“Sandbar, these are….really cool. I never knew I could be so impressed with the artwork of the lamp outside of my dorm.”
“You know, I almost can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not,” Sandbar smirked.
“I mean it!” Smolder raised her voice a bit, “You’re really good!”
“Why don’t you try drawing something?”
“What?”
“Yeah, any creature can draw. I’m sure there’s something you want to sketch out,” Sandbar motioned for Smolder to sit adjacent to him.
While Smolder wanted to say a few things to object, she slid off the couch and sat down on the floor, right in front of the coffee table with Sandbar to her left. “Alright, but I don’t know what to draw,” she said as she placed the sketchbook aside on the table. She then pulled out a piece of blank paper and a pencil from her bookbag.
“Come on, there’s gotta be something. What about a character you made?”
The orange dragon raised an eyebrow, “A character?”
Sandbar elaborated, “You know, back when you were little, didn’t you ever come up with your own character that you would make all sorts of cool adventures for?”
Smolder thought for a bit. As the memory of such came to her, she didn’t say a word as she began to draw upon her piece of paper. While the orange dragon didn’t see because she was so focused upon her art, Sandbar had a small smile as he watched. Several minutes passed as Sandbar resumed his homework and Smolder drew. Finally, Smolder placed her pencil down, seemingly satisfied in her art.
“Done?” Sandbar looked up.
“Yeah, here she is,” Smolder held the parchment out with her claw towards Sandbar.
Sandbar took the parchment and looked at what the dragon had drawn. The character on the paper was that of a dragon with what looked like cybernetic enhancements on various parts of her body. The art was not that good, not by a longshot. Rather, one would believe that a young pony would have drawn what was on the paper. However, despite the lack of skill in the artwork, Sandbar was happy with what he saw.
“They look pretty cool!” Sandbar said sincerely.
“Really? I mean, my art is really bad,” Smolder looked bashful as she received the compliment.
“Nonsense, they look great!” Sandbar warmly smiled to Smolder as he looked back at the drawing. “What’s their name? Tell me about your character.”
Smolder became a little bashful again as she started to speak, “Well, her name is Cinder. I kinda got the idea of her after I saw that Power Ponies movie that you had us all watch.”
Sandbar opened up his sketchbook to a blank page, “Oh, so you did like it?”
A bit of a sour look appeared on Smolder’s face as she admitted, “Yeah, it was really cool. But I was all like, why isn’t there a dragon there to help them out! So I made Cinder! She’s super cool, too!”
“I can tell,” Sandbar commented as his pencil was making contact with the sketchbook, “What can she do?”
“Well, she has all these cool robot parts, you see? And she’s super strong and stuff.” Smolder was becoming very excited and animated as she started to describe her character, “Then she has all these weapons like that blaster where her claw is supposed to be, and a missile launcher out of her back. There's a cool laser that she can fire out of her robot eye, and one of her wings is also robotic. Oh, Cinder can also hack into any computer with no problem too!”
Sandbar was smiling as he continued to drag the pencil across the page, “Really cool. How did she get those robot parts though?”
“Oh, well she was injured after she went lava surfing in the Dragonlands, but thanks to some help from a mysterious scientist, Cinder’s life was saved, and she turned into this super cool hero!”
“I see, I see,” the pony nodded, “Almost done.”
Smolder finally noticed that Sandbar was looking down at his sketchbook, “Hey, what are you drawing?”
“Just a sec….” he said as he quickly added a few more details. “Done!” Sandbar chimed as he lifted the sketchbook up and turned it for Smolder to see.
On the page, Sandbar had drawn Smolder’s original character. While it was a simple sketch, the very character of Cinder was already given so much more life in Sandbar’s art. The dragon looked fairly similar to Smolder, but with the cybernetic enhancements that were detailed in both Smolder’s artwork and words. She was in an action pose that looked as if she was flying backwards and firing the blaster on her right claw at some unseen threat. Cinder’s face gave the impression she was delivering a snarky one-liner to her target.
Smolder was dumbfounded as her eyes were fixated on the sketch of her character. She tried to say something, but was unable to find any words.
“Here, let me add a little shading to Cinder here,” Sandbar turned the sketchbook back back towards him and started to move his pencil across the paper. He continued, “Just a little shading can bring anything to life. And since she’s going to be the first dragon to team up with the Power Ponies, she’s got to look good.” There was a moment where the only sound was the scribbling in the sketchbook until Sandbar added, “Now it’s done.”
The dragon was still speechless as she saw the green pony turn the sketchbook back around. Her original character had more detail to her, making her look as if she was about to be added to one of the many comics that Sandbar read.
“And just like that, she’s ready to team up with the Power Ponies to take on the Mane-iac!” Sandbar beamed.
“Sandbar….” Smolder finally said something, though her words reflected her surprise, “it looks….it looks amazing….” She reached out and held the sketchbook. Smolder then looked back up to Sandbar, “I absolutely love it. But, you really didn’t have to draw her….”
“It’s no big deal. I just wanted you to see what your own character can look like. All it takes is a little practice and a little inspiration to keep you going, ya know?” Sandbar explained, “Every creature deserves a chance to shine, just the same as their creations.”
Again, words failed the dragon, “I don’t know what to say, Sandbar….thank you….”
Sandbar smiled as he began to pack up his homework into his saddlebag. “You’re welcome. It was a fun exercise. I’m not used to drawing robotics, so I might want to try again if you don’t mind.”
“No, Cinder looks perfect,” Smolder said as she continued to gaze at the sketchbook.
“I’m glad you like it. I do hope it inspires you to keep drawing and expanding on Cinder as a character. I can really see her becoming a really cool character,” Sandbar took his sketchbook back from Smolder and carefully started to tear the page from the rings. Once it was out, he passed it to the dragon. “Maybe she can team up with one of my characters, like Sigurros or Mitski.”
Smolder took the page in her claws. She looked at the page and then back to her friend, “Sandbar, you don’t have to keep drawing stuff for me.”
“I insist. It’s keeping my hooves drawing and it’s allowing me to practice more and more,” Sandbar stated as he placed his sketchbook in his saddlebag. “Besides, I know you got some talent in there, and I would like to try and help bring it out,” the pony’s second statement was just as brightly said as the smile on his face.
The dragon’s cheeks grew a pink tint to them as she saw his warm and gentle smile.
“By the way, have you eaten yet? I was about to go get dinner,” Sandbar asked as he stood up on his hooves and placed his saddlebag on his back.
“Oh, uh, no I haven’t,” Smolder was snapped back by Sandbar’s question, “I-I’ll meet you in the mess hall.”
Sandbar waved as he trotted out of the room, “Alright, see ya there.”
After the pony left, Smolder stood up with her bookbag and slowly made her way back to her dorm. She continued taking glances at the artwork that Sandbar had given her, still in shock at the pony’s artistic talent. Upon entering her room, she went straight to the bulletin board to retrieve two pins. Both pieces of artwork depicting Cinder, both drawn by Smolder and Sandbar, were pinned to the wall above her bed.