//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: Ambassador // by THOSEideas //------------------------------// Mockin and Juniper were flying towards the clearing at a moderate pace, mostly because Mockin was scared that the wind would blow Juniper off his back. Juniper had so far enjoyed being with Mockin, he was kind and caring towards her, but she didn't really feel like he was her father. He was more of a big brother to her, but since she didn't have any other family she was content to have a brother. Mockin thought of Juniper as a younger sister as well, she was careless, smart and energetic, all in all, annoying. Mockin didn't care though, he didn't have any siblings so Juniper was perfect. However, because he had adopted her he needed to act like a father to her which was confusing him a little but he would find a way to manage. They were getting very close to the clearing so he started gliding towards the entrance at an angle. As he approached he saw two dragons sitting at the peaks of the mountains on either side of the entrance. When he got close they spread their wings and dived down at him, Mockin took the hint and dived down to the ground and landed. The two dragons landed in front of him and behind him, the one in front spoke to him. "What brings you here?" Mockin looked at the dragon in confusion, didn't he know?" "I was told that I would be welcome, Granite I believe was the dragon's name." The dragon in front of him stared at him in suspicion. "Then why do you have a foal with you?" "That was Princess Celestia's doing, she requested that I bring her here as a sign of trust." That wasn't entirely a lie either, Celestia was worried how she could show her trust to the dragons. The dragon in front of him and snorted and told Mockin to stand still as the dragon behind him searched him for anything that could harm the tribe. The dragon opened up Mockin's bag and rooted around inside but came up with nothing. He then went up to Juniper and picked her up with one claw and examined her. Juniper squeaked as she was picked up but didn't complain verbally. She did kick the dragon in the nose as he leaned in to sniff her, the dragon snorted and growled at the fillie. Mockin turned around and took Juniper out of the dragons hands before smacking his hand away. "You deserved that, why would you need to sniff her?!" Mockin was slightly angry so he stood on his hind legs (which he rarely did because it was kind of awkward for him) to stare down at the dragon. "That's enough both of you, seeing that nothing is wrong you can go in and see Granite." "Oh he has invited me to stay, permanently." The dragon just snorted and flew up to his original post, followed by his companion. "I'm sorry Juniper, I thought they would have been told who I was and thank you for not questioning what I said." Juniper was still a little scared from being picked up and Mockin made a mental note to make sure she was comforted later. Mockin walked through the entrance to find that the clearing was mostly empty. Shrugging Mockin placed Juniper down and she stood looking around with awe. Mockin let her observe the clearing until he led her to the cave where Arrow and Crash were staying, Mockin was excited to see his friends again. Mockin stepped into the cave and looked around, at first he was confused because there was two dragons sleeping in the cave and then he realized that they were Razor and Jewel. He kept looking and saw Arrow and Crash sleeping as well, why was everyone sleeping? It was around four in the afternoon! Mockin walked over to Arrow and Crash and stomped on the ground to wake them up. What they didn't do was wake up though, confused Mockin rolled Crash over and was surprised to see that he was still sleeping, what was going on? Mockin half-ran, half-flew towards where Jewel was and shook her shoulder. She didn't wake up either! Mockin bent down and put his ear to her mouth and heard breathing, they weren't dead at least. Mockin turned around to ask Juniper if she knew anything but she was on her side and laying in the cave entrance. Mockin ran over and examined her body, she was alive but...asleep. Mockin ran out of the cave to find that there wasn't a single dragon out. Every cave he checked was filled with sleeping dragons, something was very wrong here. Mockin looked up at the two dragons standing guard to see that they were still awake. He shouted up at them to get there attention and one started flying down to meet him. But half way through the flight the dragon stopped flapping his wings and just started falling through the sky. Mockin gasped and took off through the air trying to catch the dragon before he hit the ground and died. Mockin picked up speed and caught the dragon in his arms but staggered at the weight of him. he started gliding towards the ground with the dragon when he heard a growl, the other sentry saw Mockin caring his friend and started flying towards him. Mockin groaned as the other sentry fell asleep as he was propelling towards Mockin. Mockin looked down at the ground to see it was fifty feet away, a dragon could survive that fall, so he dropped the dragon in his arms and turned towards the speeding body of the other dragon. He looked up just in time to catch the dragon as it collided into him and sent him flying through the air towards the ground. Mockin hit the ground back first with the dragon still clutched in his four limbs. The impact made him dig a trench about twenty meters long and five feet deep, it hurt, a lot. Mockin screamed as he felt his right wing snap and his right leg break from the impact. Mockin shoved the dragon's body off of him and looked down at his right hind leg, it was bent towards him and at a slight angle. Mockin fought the urge to throw up and looked away from his mangled leg. Mockin felt a different pain then his leg or his wing but nothing else felt wrong. Confused and a little scared, Mockin looked down at where the pain was coming from. Mockin took a shuttering breath as he saw a rock sticking out of his chest. The rock had stabbed through the left side of his back and came out the right side of his chest, going through his right lung. Mockin was gasping for breath and spat up blood as his lungs filled up with his life force. Mockin looked down at his mangled body and realized he was going to die, either by chocking on his own blood or from lack of air from his lungs. Mockin reached towards his back and felt where the rock had entered and realized that it was shaped like a spear or a stalagmite. Mockin couldn't remember either of those things in the clearing, how did it get hear? Mockin soon stopped caring as he coughed up what felt like half of his lung, but what came out was about a a liter of blood, he was dying fast and he needed to get help NOW. After three minutes of struggling to stand or crawl towards a cave to look for something to help him, he had coughed up gallons of blood and was suffocating because his lungs couldn't get enough air. Mockin just gave up and started to cry as he realized he couldn't continue on with his life. It was over, Mockin saw his vision slowly turn black, he lost feeling in his limbs and felt sweet relief crawl up his body as he lost feeling in his chest and neck. The last thing he saw was bright white claw extend towards his body from his left side and he knew no more. ~~~ Mockin gasped as he took his first lung-full of air and felt oxygen go through his body. It was bliss. He took a couple more breaths and studied his surroundings carefully. Everything was black, and he felt as if he was floating, where was he? Mockin looked down and stared at his hooves. Hooves! He was a pony again! He looked over the rest of his body, but he was confused when he saw scales hidden in his fur. What in the world? He looked over the rest of his body and saw that he had hooves, but his tail was that of a dragon with fur patches running down his spine. Mockin felt his face and felt a long snout and very sharp teeth, he also noticed that looking at his hoof he could see details he wouldn't have noticed if he was a pony. So he was a pony/dragon AKA a hideous monstrosity that scared even him. Mockin started to cry and hugged himself in the abyss, he wept big fat tears that didn't flow down his face but rather ran in streams just floating away. Mockin was slowly spinning backwards and he tried to correct himself causing him to notice his Pegasus wings stretching from his back. He cried even harder, there was no way that he was still alive, no way at all. ~~~ Juniper woke up to find herself laying on a very uncomfortable surface. She sat up and held her head in her hooves, what a headache! She looked around and noticed two other ponies stirring from their sleep, both groaning from the pain in their heads. She jumped when she FELT the two dragons groan in pain as they woke up, wait, dragons? Now she was really confused. There was a terrible scream from outside of the cave and Juniper ran to go investigate. A dragon was backpedaling away from a long dirt trench that stretched from the meter of the clearing to the edge of it. But he was more concerned about the thing at the end of the trench, there was a dragon skeleton with a rock jammed through its rib-cage. Juniper also noticed that it had a broken wing but most surprising was that it was in a pool of blood. How could a skeleton bleed? Dragons from all over the clearing came over to investigate the strange occurrence, there was even a dragon who got up from the clearing floor with a broken leg and Juniper recognized the dragon as one of the sentries. The creepiest thing about the skeleton was that it looked like it was sitting down and had it's arms on the dirt around it as if they were arm rests. The blood around the skeleton began to seep into the ground around the skeleton and then it disappeared revealing the lower part of the skeleton, it had a broken leg too. Where did this dragon come from? why was it here? Where was Mockin?! ~~~ Mockin was asking himself that same question as he cried himself out and continued to slowly spin. Deciding that he had died and was awaiting his punishment or salvation he thought about where he was. He could hear himself when he cried, he could move everything on his body, he could sniff, but couldn't smell anything. He touched his left leg with his right and felt it, well he had five of his senses so what was he doing here. Mockin floated for what felt like hours to him, he didn't have anyway to tell time so he didn't know. Just spinning, and spinning, and spinning, and spi-WOW THAT'S BRIGHT!!! Mockin covered his eyes as a blinding light erupted all around his body and consumed him. After the light died down a little Mockin snuck a glance around him and saw nothing but whiteness. Great, from eternal darkness to eternal brightness. He was still spinning. Mockin completely blanked out out of boredom, but snapped his eyes open as he sniffed something. It smelt like burnt rock, or maybe burnt earth, he didn't care he just needed to go towards it. Everything he tried failed as he tried to stop his spinning and travel towards the smell. But he must have done something because he could smell it getting stronger. Mockin looked in the direction of the smell and saw movement. As he looked closer he saw the up-and-down movement of wings propelling a body forward. What was it? A pony? Dragon? Griffin? The smell grew stronger and stronger as the object drew closer to him. The object became clear as it flew closer, it was a dragon, but it was a pure white being. It came up to Mockin and smiled at him. It examined his body and shook its head. "You couldn't decide what body to have could you?" Mockin stared at the dragon in awe, why was it being so casual? How could it move? "Can you stop me from spinning please?" The dragon snorted and reached out with a pure white claw and stopped his movement. "Thanks, where am I? Am I dead?" "No. You are not dead, you are in the deep stretches of your soul. Judging by how you look you haven't decided what you want to be as a species, understandable but you need to decide if you want to return to Equestria." Mockin recognized that voice! It was the voice that spoke to him in his dream! "So How did I get here?" "You died." "But-" "You aren't currently dead, but the dragons at the clearing will be if you don't return, and quick." "Who are you? Why are you in my soul? And why is my soul so empty, its kind of disturbing." "I am here because I was meant to guide you through your journey, now soon you will be forced to make a decision. If you decide to become a pony you will be able to save Canterlot and all the ponies living there, or you can become a dragon and save the dragons living in the clearing. You don't have much time so choose wisely." The dragon turned away from the stunned and panicking Mockin and started to fly away. But it turned around suddenly and looked at him. It's body suddenly went pitch black and its voice became masculine. "There is a third option, but you have to figure out what it is. If you choose the third option you will save both species and join them in their happiness. But if you fail on the road of the third path you will die as well as both species. Choose. Wisely." With that the dragon turned around and vanished into thin air.