We all pinned back our ears at the noise.
“Get inside!” Sunset yelled as she raised the castle’s shield as the three ran inside.
“Think it’s hostile?.” I had stayed behind with Sunset and was helping power up the shield, crystals would power it once fully raised.
“Ponies and dragons had a tenuous relationship at best when I left and considering what happened because of mom abandoning her duty, I wouldn’t doubt it.” She kept her eyes on the sky.
“It looks small though.” I noticed as it started circling the castle. “Shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Ponies! Meet at your front gate or we will attack.” A female voice rang out.
“We?” Sunset whispered but then we noticed more shadows. “Should I reply?”
I nodded. “I’ll follow your lead princess.” Considering the situation, acting formal felt right.
“We will meet you there!” Sunset yelled back to the dragon.
“Sunset is everything alright?” Fluttershy looked worried as we walked back inside.
“The dragons are here and apparently want to talk.” Sunset didn’t stop and I followed close behind.
“Dragons?” Rainbow sounded excited and nervous. “Awesome.”
“Not awesome, if they blame ponies for the state of the planet it means trouble.” Twilight pointed out.
“Right, not awesome what can we do?” Rainbow and the others followed along.
“You girls should hide while Dusk and I handle this.” Sunset adjusted her regalia as I put mine on as well.
“Not a chance.” Rainbow flew into her face.
“Dash I don’t think...” I cut Sunset off.
“Let them come, but you three need to stay quiet and behind me, got it?” I gave them a look and they all nodded. “Good. Well Rainbow here’s your adventure.”
Sunset looked unsure but didn’t argue as we made our ways outside.
“Took you ponies long enough.” The female dragon huffed, a lick of fire danced upon our castles’ shield as she stood outside the front gate. The other dragon’s stood behind her or if they were too large, remained circling.
“Hello, I am Sunset Shimmer the new princess of the sun.” She nodded politely as she went through introductions. “This is prince Dusk Shine of the moon.” I nodded. “ And finally our three citizens. What can we help you with and may I have your name?” Sunset kept a surprisingly polite tone for the situation.
All the dragons behind the leader laughed until the female leader held up her claws to silence them. “Ember. Dragon lord.” She huffed without any concern for politeness and pointed a claw behind herself. “My dragons.”
“I see, and what can we help you with Dragon lord Ember?” Sunset continued to smile but from her side I could tell she was getting nervous.
“You can start by giving us her.” One of the male dragons pointed a claw at Fluttershy as he licked his lips. This started another round of laughter from the males and eye rolls from the females of the group before Ember gave him a glare.
“You ponies broke the treaty of keeping the sun and moon moving. So, I’m here to collect on your debt. Because of you ponies there’s nothing to eat except gems or rodents.” Ember tapped on the shield.
Sunset looked at a loss of what to say so I stepped forward. “No.”
“No?” Ember raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean that no, we are not responsible.” I couldn’t lie but also didn’t have to tell the whole truth of Celestia’s decline or Sunset’s relationship to her. “All of the original ponies of Equis died, so harmony brought us here to get things going again. Have you even heard of a male alicorn before today?” I raised my own eyebrow in return. “Those original ponies are the ones who failed, not us.”
This earned a few murmurs from the group. “Then why are you in the pony capital, in their castle?” Ember looked like she might be buying my explanation but not fully.
I shrugged. “Why waste a good castle?” I got a few laughs. “In all seriousness though harmony led me here. The castle had a surviving greenhouse which we have been able to use for our food.” I still told no lies.
“And what about our food?” Another dragon, this time female, asked.
“Sorry, but we can’t magically revive the animals back. Perhaps enough survived elsewhere to repopulate once the plants start returning.” I knew we could use the mirror to import some, hence me saying ‘revive’.
“Maybe we just eat you.” The same male dragon half said half roared.
“And then who would move the sun and moon?” Sunset was reaching her breaking point as the other three just watched, too afraid of the dragons that were easily double their size to do anything but watch.
“Just give us the smaller ones.” Another dragon grinned. “You two ‘alicorns’ can handle it alone.” I could almost feel the air quotes.
“And how do you expect us ponies to repopulate?” I deadpanned and both sides went silent. “Sunset and I can’t survive alone. I would need a herd to make enough offspring else ponies die out, again.” I stomped my hoof. I was getting angry that these dragons would even suggest eating my friends. “I doubt harmony will bring us back another time.”
Some of the dragons began arguing or laughing at me.
“Enough!” Ember roared at her grumbling dragons. “I concede that you particular ponies are not responsible. You may keep this city but all other former pony lands are forfeit, since you hold no relation to the original owners that is. Do you accept?”
Sunset gave me a nervous look.
“Here and the Everfree.” I spoke up.
“You want more?” Ember narrowed her eyes.
“We need it for food and collecting plants to spread around, without access to it nothing will be green again.” I left out that Harmony’s tree was there.
Ember huffed more fire. “Fine, this mountain until that forest. If we catch a pony outside those lands they are fair game.” Her group grumbled. “Is that clear?” The last part was mostly towards her own group that agreed and flew off.
“We find this acceptable Drgon Lord.” Sunset nodded.
“Good enough princess Sunset.” Ember flew off along with the rest of the dragons and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
“The fuck was that?” Rainbow punched my shoulder. “Your mares? Repopulation?” She looked angry.
“Rainbow.” Fluttershy tried to hold her back.
“No, I want him to answer.” She got up in my face.
“Rainbow.” I was as calm as could be. “They’re dragons. If I didn’t make them think you were with me they would have Eaten you and the others.”
She immediately deflated. “Right.” She scuffled at the ground. “Thanks.”
“Well that wasn’t the worst encounter but it could have gone better. We basically lost all of Equestria today.” Sunset whinnied.
“I know dragons are resistant to heat and magic but we could always use firearms.” Twilight said with complete seriousness. This earned her a confused look from the girls and an impressed look from me. “What, my grandfather and father were in the army and my brothers a cop. I have been to a shooting range before. And I won’t be letting any dragons eat my first real friends.”
Rainbow laughed first then we all joined in to ease the tension.
“That sounds a bit extreme. Would they really eat us?” Fluttershy nervously asked.
“Sadly, yes. Dragons and ponies only ever got along because my mom kept them in check. It was smart of Dusk to show strength or else they might not have backed off. Even if it did mean the sun never moved again.” Sunset sighed. “In any case let’s get back inside. I’ll leave the shield up for now, luckily it has plenty of magic stored up.”
“How could you just let those ponies go Ember? I’m starving.” Complained the male dragon that had been the one to ask for Fluttershy. Ember couldn’t even remember his name.
“Because you idiot, I wasn’t about to piss off two Alicorns, especially a male protecting his herd. I’ve never even heard of a male alicorn before and as long as they keep moving the moon and sun and stay inside their lands we won’t touch them.” Ember took a swipe at him with her scepter. “But they are fair game if they leave or stop preforming their duties.” She smiled. “Plus if they start repopulating they will eventually need more land.”
There was one thing that did concern Ember, something she didn’t share with her group. The look she received by the pony prince when her underlining mentioned eating the yellow one had sent a shiver down her spine and she could have sworn his eyes looked draconian for a few moments.
“Today was going so well too.” Sunset set her crown on her night stand and hoped into our bed. Neither of us were denying we had something going on between us so was treating it like an arranged political match curiosity of Harmony herself.
“Yeah. Did Dash tell you about the magazine she found.” I laughed and told the story since she hadn’t heard it while removing my regalia.
“Of course the nobles would keep stuff like that.” She gave a content sigh when I nuzzled up close to her. “What do we do about Ember?”
“Well, in the original timeline she was friendly with ponies but obviously she isn’t this timeline. In fact without Spike she should have lost the race to become Dragon Lord.” I tilted my head back and forth in thought. “She probably doesn’t realize but we could probably take her and every dragon of the group that showed up today.”
“You can’t be serious, we couldn’t fight that many dragons even with magic.” Sunset booped me. “Maybe like a quarter of them.”
“True but like Twilight said, science could do some damage. Instead of using magic directly, we could just hurl some projectiles, like swords, really fast.” I gave her a serious look. “I thought about teleporting the armory out when that idiot asked for Flutters.”
“You would have done it wouldn’t you? Killed them I mean?” Sunset looked a bit surprised as she grabbed my hoof.
I nodded. “To keep you and the girls safe? Absolutely.”
She gave me a kiss on the cheek. The first one ever. “Dusk I won’t say you shouldn’t but we should try other methods first.”
I gave her a peck back. “Already did that today remember.”
She smiled and we cuddled up close.
After the day they all had none of the girls wanted to sleep alone. Thanks to their pony anatomy cuddling and nuzzling already felt more natural so sharing one bed curled up together for safety just felt normal tonight.