//------------------------------//
// A Dime(ond) Dog a Dozen 
// Story: The Fire of Friendship 
// by Azarune 
//------------------------------//

		As all Ponyville citizens know, there is a barren and rocky area near the town.  What they don't know however was that this placed had gems of all sorts just underneath the surface.  For many years ponies never gave the place any thought, for why should they?  All ponies with cutie marks tied with mining were out west, and the famous Element of Generosity hadn't yet need to explore.  

The desolate place looked sinister in the night, the clearing itself only had a single tree clinging for life.  While a shorts walk away had jagged rocks jutting out of the ground, casting frightful shadows, all the while the distant sound of scratching and howls punctured the silence of the night.

Though this place was frightening to some ponies, most dragons would find it a perfect camp site.  Cinder landed with a loud thud, immediately began scratching at the ground.  He could smell the gems, just beneath the surface.  Quickly a mound of dirt was form around him, using both arms he furiously tore at the earth.  Soon after Cinder began to see a glint something shiny, which only made him redouble his eforts. scoopful of rock and dirt revealed what would be considered his dinner.  Varied colors of red, blues and greens.  Not even picking up the gems Cinder leaned in and feasted on the precious stones.  Too experience the taste of gems is a rare one indeed, asking any dragon to describe it wouldn't be able to satisfy a curious mind whose diet doesn't already consist on them.  Once this vein of gems was depleted Cinder began digging for another batch.  No longer worried about having to find food his thoughts finally began to catch up with him.

"Humf, at least I have gemstones..." picking a nice gem and popping into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
"I suppose I could make myself a den out here...  Enough gems, far away from anything..." a sigh escaped Cinder's mouth, as he began to flick crumbs of gemstone using his forefingers.  Watching them shine in the moonlight while they spun away.   "Yeah...  Far away."

As the seconds seemed to stretch into minutes, Cinder became more and more uncomfortable.  Laying on his back he contemplated on the night sky.  He stared at the sky, seeing how all the stars differed in size and brightness.  Even stars die out, Cinder thought morosely.  

There are so many theories about the night sky, a few books believed that each star was a sun, untold distances away and eventually what ever fuels them runs out, causing them to die: subsequently any pony astronomers shied away from bringing this theory up.  Another theory was Celestia, (and formerly Luna), simply wished to recreate the night sky from time to time, whether because of a master plan or a flight of fancy is another story.  Either way stars don't go out often, even some of the oldest drakes can recall only noticing a handful of them go out.  There was even a story of a drake recording a star until it died out, and that dragon is still very much alive while the star faded from existence.

A loud groan erupted from his mouth, which followed with a bellow of flame.  He felt restless, bored, and much to his regret, lonely.  Despite Cinder's best efforts, he couldn't resist the urge to crave attention, the overwhelming urge to talk with something, anything, tried as he might no amount of thinking, whining or pacing would satisfy his desire for company.  Sadly for him, company was already on its way.
As boredom soon followed by inactivity, sleep inevitably crept on Cinder.  As the world faded to inky blackness, the distant shuffling of movement could be heard.  Ignoring it Cinder allowed himself to drift to sleep.



Somewhere just below the surface, the local diamond dogs weren't deaf to the disruption on the surface  Spying from a conveniently placed bushed.  The three leaders of various sizes: Spot, Fido, and Rover watched the dragon claiming their roof for his own.

"Dragon eating precious gems!" gasped Spot, the smallest of the three.
"Yesss we must fix problem and get dragon!" Fido, the largest and perhaps the most straightforward of the bunch growled.  Nodding in agreement Spot began to climb out of the bush with Fido, until both of them are cuffed on the head by Rover, the "chieftain" of the pack, who began berating them.
"No no no, idiots!  He has found many preciouses, and he not big dragon either!  Take dragon and make him findprecious gems for us."  Immediately impressed by such a brilliant plan Spot and Fido began to turn back to the tunnel, muttering about getting reinforcements to capture the drake.

As Cinder slept, the diamond dog pack wasted no time to try and apprehend the beast.  However, one needed to be brave enough to start getting the ropes under the dragon's body.  So naturally the pack decided Spot to risk his hide.  An small frighten yelp could be heard as he was launched from a freshly dug hole.

The minute Spot was exposed he raised both hands up in surrender as he waited for the inevitable flames.  But after a few moments of his fur not igniting, he opened his eyes to discover the dragon was still sleeping.

With a sinister glare that Discord himself would sue because of copyright infringement, Spot wasted no time to begin the process of setting up the ropes.  Each one was placed gently over and under the dragon, not even tightening them until the pack would be sure that the drake would be secured.  Soon Cinder was in a complex web of rope that crisscrossed around all his joints.

As the final rope rested on Cinder's snout, Rover, swiftly took claims for such a brilliant plan and it's execution, silently ordered Spot to give the order to restrain the snoozing serpent.  With a bitter nod Spot gave the thumb's up to Rover and the others.  With a short count (that was neither short nor consisted of much counting) the diamond dogs pulled.

In the realm of dreams, Cinder's mind began wandering through the maze of his subconscious, which focused around rhymes and striped bubbles.


Authors Note: Wow, it has been maybe half a year since I updated?  Well now I feel guilty for anyone who showed an interest in this story.  Now I wish I even had an excuse to justify the hiatus, but sadly I have none, so I am truly sorry for those who wanted to see this story continue.  Rest assured, I do not plain to forsake this story, and I have been doing my effort to being writing in any form that I can.  Also as the months went by I feel that my writing skills have improved drastically and hopefully such progress will be evident in future updates.

Post your irks, compliments, suggestions, grievances and complaints below, I always want to improve my writing and try and make my story something worth reading.

Note: I have plenty of stories in the works, I just need to write out the chapters.  Best wishes everyone!