FoE: Do Robot Ponies Dream of Electronic Bunnies
Chapter XXI: Here There Be Dragons!
"Ye'd best start believin in ghost stories, Miss Turner... YER IN ONE!" ~ Cpt. Barbosa, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
System Report: 0000000021
Unit Status: Active
Location: Zebrion
Satellite Signal Status: GPS active.
Begin data dump to external off-site memory back-up:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - Done.
Preparing visual report: Done.
Date: --/--/2212, 200PA (+63 days activation)
Time: 2031 Local
A Dragon.
A really fucking big dragon. Big by my own standards, and being bigger than an alicorn, that's saying a lot. I mean, seriously.
"Holy fucking ass-crackers," was all Scratch would say for the first ten minutes of the dragon de-cloaking right next to our camp. The rest of my friends were just as eloquent in speech for about as long. Myself, meanwhile, did my damnest to get over the initial shock, and achieved lucidity in half the time. Fortunately, the dragon was used to such reactions.
"Sorry for going brain-dead on you there," I said to her now laying-on-the-ground head. The end of her snout was the only bit that was fully illuminated by the fire light, her golden-yellow scales reflected some of it. The rest of her body was silhouetted against the night sky, and even lying down she was a good fifty feet from dirt to spine tips. Really. Big. Dragon.
"Eh," she snorted, nearly blowing out the fire. "It's fine. Happens all the time when I'm made to deal with your kind. For some reason, all ponies know of dragons is our babies and our magic. Past that, we're monsters."
"Maybe it's that you don't socialize with them enough," I commented. "I know dragons are solitary for the most part, but if you came out from time to time and talked to them..."
"Have you MET modern ponies," she asked. The cynicism practically dripped from her words. "If I showed up in any town anywhere, I'd get shot at. While not exactly a problem, neither is it an endearing trait of the wasteland. 'It's bigger and scary, let's shoot it!' Please. I have better things to do than try to convince some tiny creatures that I don't want to eat them."
"Like... like get us into Zebrion?" Apple Cider had recovered from his shock and timidly approached the dragon. "That's why you're hear right?"
"That's why Spike called me... Oops! I wasn't supposed to call him by name." The way she said it, I don't think it was on accident. Still, she seemed willing to help. I wasn't gonna call her out on her attitude.
"At any rate, we should be going soon. Getting past the plague-microbes won't be a problem, but what's beyond them will be, so we're gonna do it at night."
"And what's beyond the Invisible Death," Zirc asked. "Is it not enough to be afraid for our breath?"
"Oh you should still fear it, zebra," she chuckled. Her laugh was something short of a train wrecking into a rather large and completely solid block of tungsten, in that the train dies a very loud and screeching death. "But beyond it, ghosts."
"Ghosts?" Scratch leapt behind Frieda who just smirked at her. AC jumped into Chef Sandy's arms and shuddered violently. Chef simply dropped him. Night Rose hid partially beneath me.
"There are no such things as ghosts," I replied. "There's no possible way they could exist."
"Sure of that, are you?"
"Prove me wrong. Why should I believe in ghosts?"
"Because these aren't pony ghosts. Those might not exist, I'll give it to you. Dragon spirits, on the other hand."
"And we're going there willingly?" The fear in Swiftpaws' voice didn't show on his body. "Are we sure this is a good idea? Angering the spirits?"
"They're already angry," the dragon replied. "Us passing through won't give them any more rage, just a target to vent what's pent-up. Now, are we going or not?"
"I'm going," I said. "Anyone who's coming with, pack up and load up. Our ride's here and leaving soon."
Everyone went about cleaning up camp, albeit slowly. Apparently I was the only one who didn't believe in ghosts. In due time, we all walked up the dragon's tail to her back, and settled in for the ride. I noticed our wolf companion did so very nervously, with his tail tightly between his legs. It set of mental flags, but I didn't have time to do anything about it.
She had two rows of fairly tall spines running the length of her back, so we didn't have to worry about falling off to the side. With ease she rose to her feet and took off at a run, flapping her giant leathery wings and taking to the air.
"So what do we call you," I asked, having to amplify my voice over the now rushing wind.
"Names are useless where I'm from," she replied. "Just call me Dragon."
I found that sort of odd. Even raiders had names. Why didn't a centuries-old dragon? Rather than put my hoof in my mouth and ask, though, I changed the subject. "So how long have you been out here?"
"My whole life and then some," she replied. "Zebrion has been my home ever since I was an egg."
"Your mom birthed you here then," Night Rose asked, slightly over her fear of Dragon. "I mean, she laid you out here before the war?"
"Long before," Dragon replied. "My clutch was laid a few hundred years after Nightmare Moon was banished. "
"Wow, you're old," Night Rose muttered. Dragon chuckled, having heard the comment over her own flapping wings.
"I'm probably the oldest dragon alive," she said. "Used to live with a green in the Everfree Forest a few years before the war started, but he got mad at because a certain purple baby found his hoard and ate some of it. He moved without even telling me, the big jerk."
"Do you know how many dragons are still alive," I asked. I was curious if they were now an endangered species. Dragon, however, shook her head and glanced back to meet my eye.
"Dragons are rare now, and we tended to keep to ourselves even before most of us decided to join in your war. That little event nearly wiped us out, and the rest scattered all over the planet. Now there's no way to know. Watcher might, but..." She shrugged at that and returned her attention to flying. "Thankfully, babies are still being produced. I know of one working with the zebras in Borderland. A little red, I think. Don't remember her name."
"Are you worried about your species," Shadowpaw asked. Of all my companions, he knew best what a small population meant.
"Not really," Dragon replied. "We've survived worse, and had lower numbers before. We'll thrive again."
She suddenly reared back and let loose a long stream of fire. Everyone went to her left side to see what she'd flamed, and saw a glowing cloud falling away. It struck me as odd at first. Clouds don't usually fall.
"Take that, Invisible Death," AC cheered from my side, and I quickly remembered why we'd needed Dragon in the first place.
This was going to be an easy trip.
Karma, why you no like me?
Three hours later, my party had gotten bored with cheering Dragon's flaming abilities and fallen asleep. Even with all the excitement, it was just about midnight after all. I was the only one awake, and I was pondering again. What was this Doctor Stiches going to be like? Was he the one who kept hacking into my systems? I hoped I wasn't on a wild goose chase with this. Well, even if I was, it was probably worth it to help AC and Chef. I had been hired by them after all. I still didn't know why Frieda had come along, or Scratch, for that matter. She was a complete mystery to me as to why she was here. As far as I could tell, she wasn't anyone's marefriend; I'd seen her physically slap AC one night, and Chef wasn't interested in her at all. So what was her story?
"I know you're still awake back there." Dragon had stopped her flaming half an hour back, and was silently gliding across the moonlit sky. "What's on your mind?"
"Lots and little," I replied. "Just... well, everything."
"Climb up here and let's talk about everything, then."
I had to admit, I was slightly nervous climbing up the neck of a dragon, but she'd invited me and besides, if she wanted to hurt me or any of us, she'd have done it long ago. I slowly made my way along her neck, which was pretty flat, to the top of her head. Looking out in front of us, I felt a burst of exhilaration. I hadn't flown in a long while, at least not under my own power. It's one thing to fly in an airship, quite another to fly with nothing surrounding you.
"So what's on your mind, hmm?" Dragon was blunt and straight-forward, but she'd lived several centuries longer than I'd even been an idea. I think she was allowed to be cheeky.
"My friends, mostly." I sat down at her brow so I wouldn't have to shout into the wind. "I've been traveling with them for almost a month now, and I barely know about them. Night Rose I've known for two months and I love her, but she still won't say anything about her past."
"I assume you've been direct as well as sneaky," Dragon said. In truth I'd even put little notes on scraps of paper I'd found and tucked them into her bags. I didn't even know if she'd seen them or just tossed them out as garbage. "Well, with that one, all I can say is that time will be your best ally."
"I don't want to push her," I replied. "But at the same time, I know she has problems rooted in her past. She has bad nightmares, kicks out and cries in her sleep. I just want to help her with them."
"The only thing you can do is talk to her. That's the best I can say. I don't know her as well as you to."
I nodded, more to myself than in acknowledgement of her statement. I didn't really have a response for that.
"As for the others, same problem, same answer. Ask! You can't sit on my forehead and say you're afraid of asking them what they're all about. The pony who single-hoofedly convinced an entire Raptor crew to turn and fire on their own ships?"
"More like I was the catalyst to get them to do it themselves," I snorted. "Hell, in that battle I was more or less a bystander."
"Regardless, you did it. Alone, no less. So I know you aren't afraid of them."
Again, I had to nod. For all my intelligence, for all my advanced technology, it all boiled down to one simple fact.
"I am not a clever pony, am I?"
"You're young," she replied with a giggle. Again, the giggle of a dragon is more akin to a rockslide coming down a very tall mountain covered in landmines. "You've been alive only, how long?"
"Just over two months," I told her. She seemed a little surprised, but took it in stride.
"There you go! Not nearly enough time to learn how ponies work. If they're your friends, they'll open up to you. That's what friends do."
We lapsed into a strangely comfortable silence while I processed this. It was one aspect of friendship I hadn't even considered. Winter Starry and Tiller had told me about themselves without my even asking. I couldn't assume everyone just poured their past out like that. So if I wanted answers, I had to ask questions.
I was about to thank dragon when she suddenly went transparent.
"Stay quiet," she whispered. I went back to my friends and nosed them awake, urging them to be silent. It wasn't that I was scared of them freaking out when they could see down, but that they might do so unexpectedly. Whatever spooked an ancient dragon into not being seen was definitely not something to mess with. I only hoped her camouflage didn't reveal us.
As I looked down through the body of the dragon (a weird feeling, akin to looking through the glass bottom of a boat), but all I saw was the dark, scorched ground. My friends all did the same, a look of worry on all their faces. Swiftpaws was the only one not looking down. He was curled up tightly with his eyes closed, his body visibly shivering. I couldn't blame him. Flying on a dragon was bad enough. Having it suddenly disappear had to have a bad effect on him mentally.
I brought up the files I had on wolves. They weren't suited for anything aerial. Studies told that they could barely stand flying in Sky Wagons. One quote from a researcher said that "if there was open sky and no walls, the wolf could be prone to panic and throw itself off the chariot, or on one occasion, at the pegasi pulling it." Images accompanied the report on that incident. It wasn't pretty.
Scratch seemed to have noticed the canine's discomfort, and made her way to lie at his side. My enhanced hearing picked up her humming as she laid her head on his back gently. I recognized the tune. It was a song written by a school teacher in praise of Celestia and Luna, in thanks for their raising and lowering of the celestial bodies they controlled.
Zirc turned and, seeing the situation, joined them on Swiftpaws' other side, laying his own head next to the wolf's and humming silently. It wasn't long before the entire group was gathered around them, listening to them hum quietly to the terrified wolf. If we didn't have to be quiet, I would have started playing the accompanying music. Thinking back now, that would have ruined the moment, so I'm glad I couldn't. Eventually, Swiftpaws stopped shivering. He didn't open his eyes, but visibly relaxed a bit.
I was surprised Zirc knew that song at all.
"The danger has passed," Dragon called, returning to the visible spectrum again.
"What was it," AC asked.
"It's better that you don't know, but if you must..." She sighed, her back heaving slightly. "One of the more powerful spirits passed closely to us from below. Fortunately, he didn't look up. My chameleon ability doesn't apply to passengers."
"You mean if the ghost had just raised its head, we'd have been in trouble?"
"Well, not exactly trouble, but definitely hindered."
"What's the difference?"
"Hindered, I find an alternate way of sneaking past," Dragon replied, turning her head to look back it him. "In trouble, I have to take evasive maneuvers."
"And that's worse because..."
"You all go flying off my back," she said immediately.
Right. I could catch maybe two others after I caught Night Rose. Frieda could catch one. That left two ponies/zebra/wolf to plummet to the ground below. I really didn't want to make that decision. We all lapsed back into silence, with only the sound of Scratch and Zirc humming to lull us back to sleep. I hoped to hell there weren't any more spirits on our path.
Hey, if a one-hundred-fifty foot tall, centuries old ancient golden dragon who could hide in the sky believed in them, who was I to argue their existence?
Footnote: New Perk! Wary of the Unseen ~ Ghosts exist. You're dead certain of it. If an area is rumored to be haunted, you lose 30% AP but gain 20% Awareness while there! Keep your head on a swivel!