It wasn't normal for ponies to live so close to the nesting grounds of dragons, but in the case of the two mares who settled near the Onyx Clan, no one contradicted them.
The dragons didn't know much about ponies or their culture. They assumed that the older of the two, who appeared to be an adult in her prime, was the mother, and the other (nearly a third her size) was the daughter. Or maybe they were sisters. It made no impression that the mare was an ashy purple, with the silky mane and tail and cornered eyes of eastern Equestria, and the filly was orange with hair that looked like windblown feathers. It was the same with the fact that the mare had a single horn while the filly had wings. They were both ponies, and they lived together, so they had to be related.
The Onyx Clan was small and isolated. There were only fifty adults and thirteen adolescents, with a fluctuating number of children running around underclaw. No other dragon clans nested within a hundred miles of them. And maybe that was why they accepted the ponies living within sight of them without question.
Old Snap was the patriarch of the Clan. Hatchlings and mated adults alike came to him with their problems, and if they faced attack or starvation, he was expected to lead.
He was ancient even by the standards of his kind, the sails of his wings cracking like untreated leather and most of his fangs little more than stumps. But his eyes were bright. His mate was long-dead, the Clan was a peaceful community and so rarely needed him, and they hadn't migrated for years, so Snap often had to find rather unconventional ways to amuse himself. His favorite, currently, was reading. He had accumulated an impressive amount of books over his lifetime, and one of the best ways (in his opinion) to spend an afternoon was leafing through one of them.
Until, that is, the ponies came.
They interested him. And at Snap's age, that didn't happen very often.
He started watching them from the ledge outside of his cave right after they arrived with nothing but their saddlebags and the strange symbols that they both wore around their necks. Unlike the rest of the Clan, he didn't believe they were related by blood (they were far too different for that), but he could see that there was something strong between them. It was evident in the way that the mare magically sent rocks whizzing through the air for the filly's amusement, the quick nuzzles that they frequently shared, the tail that the mare would toss over the filly's back when they were heading home. Protective and comforting like a teenage dragon throwing a wing around his female's shoulders.
They lived in a small cleft in a massive rock and spent most of the day looking for edible plants. If the mare tried to leave without the filly, she was stopped instantly by nervous squalling. Alternately, she yelled at the little one if she strayed too far. But she didn't seem to need the filly as much as the filly needed her.
They were happy here, but afraid of something. Probably whatever they had left behind when they came.
The filly had carried some sort of wheeled contraption here, all folded up and crammed into one of her saddlebags. The ground was too rocky and rough for her to make much use it. But she took it out every day and tried to make it go, tiny wings buzzing like those of an insect. She couldn't fly, even though her mare was skilled at lifting things with her magic.
It was her that Snap was interested in. The older one, the purple one. She was a reader, just like him. Her saddlebags were full of books and she spent at least an hour a day reading. He wanted to talk to her, because even though he hadn't had many (or any) dealings with her kind before, she was the first literate creature he had seen in almost two hundred years.
But he waited. He watched her and her little one talk quietly in the evening and forage in the morning. He watched the mare clumsily weave a small blanket out of inedible grass and present it to the filly on what must have been her birthday. He saw their wide eyes and their dependency on each other and the way their flanks steadily sank as winter drew closer.
And finally, on the day of the first frost, Old Snap saw the mare reading a book that she had already finished. She was out.
He wrote a note on a piece of parchment. The letters were minuscule, but he had no trouble with it. One of the hatchlings (his great-grandson, actually) delivered it to the ponies' home while they were out, and the next morning, both were making their way up the switchback path that led to his cave.
The mare walked right in when she arrived, meeting his gaze coolly.
"You're not afraid," Snap noted. For some reason, that pleased him.
"No," she said evenly. "Not of dragons."
They wintered in his cave, eating the mosses and mushrooms that grew in the wetter passages. The wheels of the filly's contraption worked beautifully on the smooth floor, which delighted her to no end. The mare almost fainted when she saw Snap's 'library'. They spent hours next to his stacks of books, discussing magic theory and dragon history.
A few of the smaller dragons made the hike during the cold months, curious about 'Grampa's ponies'. The filly was ecstatic and constructed adventures with them in the back caverns, even letting them try out her wheel thing--kids were kids no matter the species, he supposed. The mare was good with them, compassionate yet firm. Like a combination of schoolteacher and mother. But Snap often saw tears in her eyes after their visits.
The filly took to calling him Grampa near the thaw and the mare once leaned her head affectionately against his leg. He told them often enough that they were welcome and he enjoyed their company, and steadily that became code for "I love you."
He never learned their names or gave them his, and maybe it was better that way.
"So am I right to assume you were running from something when you came here?"
It was early, both in spring and in the morning. Snow still covered most of the Onyx Clan's territory, but the ledge outside Snap's cave was bare. That was where he and the mare were crouched, while the filly slept in the cave behind them.
She was silent for a very long time, watching the sun rise. When she spoke her voice was even.
"Yes," she said. "Yeah. We came here to get away."
He didn't ask her what they had been trying to get away from, and she didn't tell him. They wouldn't broach the subject again until midsummer, right after the mare gave herself and the filly manecuts because their tails were dragging the floor. But during now and then, Snap learned plenty.
For example, why she was taking care of a filly who so obviously wasn't related to her.
"I made a promise to a friend."
What the symbol around her neck was.
"It's the cutie mark of Celestia. The sun goddess."
The name of the filly's wheeled toy.
"That's a scooter."
And he relayed these things to the little dragons the next time they came to play with the filly and listen to the mare talk about the history of their race. Predictably, they didn't care. They were far more interested in the ponies themselves than their grandfather's crazy ramblings about them. Not that that was a bad thing--the filly's shrieking laughter could be heard from the back caves, and the mare's face positively lit up when she saw them coming.
But after the hatchlings left, he found her in the 'library', swiping angrily at her eyes with one hoof.
"What is it about them?" Snap asked quietly.
"They--" She stopped, gulped in air. "I--he--oh, Celestia." She buried her face in her hooves.
Old Snap waited. Finally, the mare raised her head.
"I lived w-with a dragon hatchling for a long time," she said shakily. "I raised him. He was...like a little brother to me, like a son. He was my assistant. My number-one assistant." She smiled weakly, staring off into space.
Snap was honestly surprised. The idea of a pony raising a dragon was incredibly strange to him; he had never heard of anything like it. Though he supposed that his own relationship with the orange filly was just as odd.
"What happened to him? Why isn't he here with you?" he asked gently. He expected to be told that the lad had grown wings and left, off to find himself a female and found a clan. It was sad, but a common occurrence among dragon families. Only a quarter of Snap's own offspring had remained within Onyx.
"He's dead," the mare said dully.
"Oh...oh, little one." Snap put one cracked-leather wing around her and drew her close. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
"It's okay." She twisted her head, stared into his stern amber eyes with her wide violet ones. "I...it's just...he's not really..."
"Not really what?" Snap tightened his grip on her, offering comfort with his innate heat. He sensed that he was about to find out the reason for her presence here.
"N-not...really...dead."
Snap was silent for a long time. Then he shifted his wing slightly, into a more protective position, and spoke.
"Oh, little one," he said softly.
The mare began to cry, and she told him everything.
One night in late fall, almost a year after the ponies had come to the Onyx Clan, the filly screamed in her sleep. It wasn't the first time it had happened. But it was the first in a long, long time.
By the time Snap got to her bedside, she had stopped shrieking names that meant nothing to him ("Applebloom! Sweetie Belle! Rainbow Dash!") and the mare was already there. Stroking her feathery forelock with a calm, resolved expression on her face.
"We're leaving soon," she whispered without looking at Snap. "She and I. We have to go back, and set things right. I have to finish what I started."
He could have argued with her. He could have begged her. He could have told her to go, but leave the filly here, with him. Where she'd be safe.
"I hope you're successful," he said instead. "For all our sakes."
She smiled. Her muzzle was wet with tears.
"I love you," he added.
"I know."
The next morning, they left.
Dragons were a faithless people, but Old Snap prayed for them all the same.