//------------------------------// // 2. The Forge // Story: The Great Dragon Coronation // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// The course of events that had brought Cheerilee and Raindrops to their current location were swift yet multi-layered. A number of decisions had been quickly made about the most appropriate place for two of the six Elements of Harmony to be during this impromptu dragon migration, and everypony had quickly agreed for reasons that were beyond either of the two mares that the best place was near, but not quite on, the front lines. Cheerilee and Raindrops had been given almost no input into the decision. They would have had some rather pointed objections if they had been consulted, but things hadn’t worked out that way. And so it was that, in a matter of less than a day, the two found themselves in a fortress – actually, a hollowed-out small mountain that rose apropos nothing from the otherwise broad and flat fields of western Pferdreich – on the edge of the Western Wilderlands, surrounded by more military force than had been seen in any one place for hundreds of years. In an abstract way, Cheerilee was impressed by the sheer level of military force that had been assembled in so short a time. The new railroads that criss-crossed Pferdreich had helped with that, delivering troops and materiel to the edge of Pferdreich at speeds that even as soon as thirty years ago would have been unimaginable. Pegasi swarmed in the sky overhead, filling it to bursting with a powerful stormcloud that once unleashed would make the sky nearly unnavigable to any creature without a natural resistance to electricity – meaning pegasi, griffins, and not dragons, it was hoped. The vast flat lands that spilled over on both sides of a river that marked the boundary to Pferdreich, meanwhile, teemed with ponies digging defensive trenches. Ballistae and canons both abounded, unicorn mages were arriving and rifling through any defensive spells they knew, and in an enclosed area near the fortress contained a treasure trove of magical artifacts of unspeakable power. What was more impressive than the force assembled before Cheerilee was the knowledge that it was only a small part of a much, much larger machine that was already in motion. She knew this because she was standing in the fortress’ command center alongside Raindrops, a vast map of the continent of Cissanthema spread out before her with markers all along it highlighting troop movements. From the lands of Elkheim in the north, down along the Griffin Kingdoms’ western frontiers, to Heststed, Pferdreich, and Paardveld, and along the northern reaches of Naqah and its northern tributaries, the armies and air forces of every race were being mobilized and deployed, with the griffins, elks, and camels additionally scrambling their ocean-bound fleets. All of Cissanthema was mobilizing, it seemed. Despite the sheer military power on display, however, it reminded Cheerilee of nothing so much as a porcupine or hedgehog curling up on itself to ward off a predator – an analogy that was, she was certain, apt. “Und ve are trying to get in contact vith the other Elements of Harmony,” Colonel general Preussischblau informed Cheerilee and Raindrops. An earth pony bedecked in a military uniform jacket that looked heavy under all the medals on it, he used a long pointer to indicate Ponyville, near the center of Equestria. “But it is two days by train to the Pferdreich border from Ponyville, even by express, und not all of the Elements are in Ponyville now…Freifrauen Dizy und Carrot Top vere on their vay to Appaloosa und ve do not know precisely vhere they are, they may have even crossed into Caballeria by now…” Cheerilee thought that Preussischblau’s way of saying Ditzy was rather interesting – he pronounced it Ditzu, or something close to it. “They’ll be found if they’re needed,” the school teacher guessed. “I’m still not clear what the problem is,” Raindrops said. She was sitting with both front hooves on the table, resting her head on it and looking over the map and all the markers there. Somepony had gotten her a cup of water, somepony else a straw, and she was drinking the beverage with the geological speed of continental drift. “So a bunch of dragons want to go home. So what? We get a dragon migration every thirty years or so. We’re about due for one, aren’t we?” Preussischblau looked at Raindrops like she was a crazy pony. “This is no mere dragon migration!” He objected. “Have you not been told vhat is happening?” Cheerilee shrugged. “I think everypony just assumed we knew,” she said, looking over the map again. “Though, I have to say that we do seem to be overreacting. Like Raindrops said, we have a dragon migration every generation. This one did come early, but plans change all the time. Dragons aren’t clocks, they change their habits over time the same as anything else might.” Preussischblau glanced between the two dames, then to the rest of his general staff, saying something in Pferdreicher – probably explaining what they’d just said, since to Cheerilee’s knowledge none of them spoke Equestrian. Their reactions certainly seemed to bear this out. “Es ist ein Drachenführer!” One of them – a lieutenant, Cheerilee thought – exclaimed. “Drachenführer,” Preussischblau confirmed with a nod. “Er…dragon-leader…I believe the Equestrian term is Draconic Overlord.” Cheerilee tapped a hoof to her mouth. “Draconic Overlord…Draconic Overlord…oh!” She held up a hoof, smiling as she remembered and began reciting as though in front of a class. “The term Equestrians use to refer to the Draconic position of Svernmaekrix, itself derived from svern, ‘above’ or ‘high,’ and maekrix, usually translated as ‘leader’ though it’s really more like ‘one in front.’” Raindrops raised an eyebrow. “You speak Draconic?” Cheerilee shook her head. “I…well, when I decided I wanted to be a teacher I started reading everything I could so I could pass my examination, and so that I could answer any questions my students might have. I think I paged through at least a few books on dragons.” She looked back to the Colonel General. “I think I remember something about how there haven’t ever been that many Overlords…” “Seven,” Preussischblau confirmed. “There have been seven Overlords – one a myth from before the advent of ponies, Glaurancalunggon, und six others in recorded history.” He waved a hoof at a nearby table, on which sat a thick, ancient tome, labeled Draconomicon. “To become Overlord, a dragon must meet only vone requirement: it must be stronger than any other dragon – must be able to fight und fight und fight every dragon that challenges it, und win. The strongest dragon, bar none, that every dragon vill follow out of respect und out of fear. Und vonce it has proven that…it means that it has under it a host of dragons villing to follow its commands for as long as it seems to be the strongest. A host of the most dangerous creatures in the vorld, vith vitch to indulge its draconic greed und arrogance.” “Oh,” Raindrops said after a moment, leaning away from her drink. “I get it. Basically this overlord dragon is the biggest bully and has a gang of bullies under him. And once the big bully has his gang, he wants to use it to beat up ponies and take their stuff.” The Pferdreicher colonel general nodded in confirmation. “The dragons proclaiming an Overlord has never gone vell for the other races of Cissanthema. They have, to a vone, used their hordes to loot und plunder the land, und were only defeated at great cost. Eventually ve learned to set aside our differences vith the griffins und the camels und all others, und present a single, strong front against the dragons.” Preussischblau looked down. “Ve hope that, this time, it vill be enough to vard off any attack at all, rather than to merely survive it.” Raindrops and Cheerilee glanced between each other, the rush of ponies and others across the continent no longer seeming the least bit funny. Raindrops looked to Preussichblau. “So what are we supposed to do?” She asked. “We can’t fight dragons!” “That is not vhat I’ve heard,” the colonel general noted. Raindrops and Cheerilee looked to each other again, then as one both sighed and covered their eyes with a hoof. “Two, kind of,” Cheerilee said. “But the second time, we didn’t exactly win the fight, we were just able to stay alive until Tambelon returned and the dragon we were fighting flew away.” “And the first time I was a hundred feet tall, or something, because of poison joke,” Raindrops said. “And the dragon was just a baby dragon that Corona had made grow big anyway. He didn’t even really want to fight me.” Cheerilee considered. “Oh, and I guess there was the fire drakes in Oaton,” she pointed out, looking to Raindrops. “They’re distant cousins to dragons, I think.” Raindrops shook her head. “We weren’t exactly kicking flank and taking names against those, either,” she recalled. She also almost mentioned that their real trouble had come from the basilisks – plural – that they had needed to fight, but realized that if they kept naming monsters the two of them and their friends engaged in over the past year and a half since Corona had first escaped from the sun, the Pferdreichers would just become increasingly convinced that the two of them really could fight a flight of dragons. Dragons, basilisks, fire drakes, windigoes, salamanders, sirens, ursa minors, parasprites, golems…actually come to think of it Raindrops and her friends had fought quite a few monsters. But that didn’t mean that they wanted to, darn it! Preussichblau glanced down slightly, to the gilt necklaces that the two were still wearing. “But…you do have the Elements…” “If the Elements of Harmony could work against dragons, don’t you think that Princess Luna or Princess Celestia would have used them back in the day?” Cheerilee asked. “Against those other Overlords?” “The Elements are for using against things like evil liches or alicorns,” Raindrops added, studiously leaving out the ‘maybe’ she wanted to append to the end of that since she honestly didn’t know and would frankly be happier if indeed the Elements were only useful against those. It felt right, anyway. “Things that have a lot of magic…evil magic, I think. But not dragons.” “They’re immune?” Preussichblau asked worriedly. “The same way a normal pony would be, no matter how evil,” Cheerilee said. “For all that dragons are big and scary and powerful, they’re just normal creatures like you or me.” That was a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around, and Cheerilee gave Preussichblau the time to do so, trotting over to a narrow window in the fortress and looking out at the assembled Pferdreicher army outside. There was maybe ten thousand now. Before too long, there would be a hundred thousand…ponies from every walk of life called into emergency service. Well…there was still a chance that all of this would be for nothing, a waste of time. The Overlord had to not only beat all the dragons at the Forge, but also defeat all the other dragons that were coming now, right? That was the point of the call across the continent, she remembered. The dragons might… “What’s that?” Cheerilee asked, squinting. She had glanced up at the horizon, into the Western Wilderlands. All the dragons who felt like it had already answered the Overlord’s call and journeyed into the dragon homeland, the last few flying overhead a few hours ago. There were probably some additional stragglers that would be looking to circumvent the pegasus storm barricade as well, but for at least a little bit the sky had been devoid of giant fire-breathing reptiles. Now, however, that was not the case. From her vantage point high atop the fortress mountain, Cheerilee had a commanding view into the Wilderlands, and could see something coming out of it – something large, and reptilian, and probably fire breathing. “Drachen!” A call went up from somewhere outside. The army below reacted quickly, pegasi bucking their thunderstorm into action, earthbound ponies readying ballistae and catapults that were quickly hidden behind magical shields. If the army beneath had reminded Cheerilee of a porcupine before, the description was only more apt now. The dragon was close, now, only about a mile from the mountain fortress. It – Cheerilee couldn’t really tell the difference between male and female dragons – was primarily green in color, with an impressive-looking scar across its underbelly’s paler green scales, while the membranes of its wings were purple. It landed well away from the ground-bound army, but seemed less interested in them than in the pegasus-created storm overhead – probably a mistake, Cheerilee thought, since the storm was mostly to slow the dragon and make it easy to aim at. The dragon then pulled something from its back, and held it out. It looked like… “…is that a white flag?” Raindrops asked. Cheerilee jumped, not having noticed her fellow Equestrian having joined her at the window along with the Pferdreicher command staff, peering out. Indeed, the dragon held up a large white piece of cloth – it looked like canvas, actually, from a sailing ship – and was waving it around in the air. “A truce?” Raindrops asked. “It’s looking for a truce? For what?” The dragon had been approached cautiously by a commanding officer down below and a small guard. With a pony so near to it, Cheerilee could guess its size at maybe forty or fifty feet long – gigantic by her standards, of course, but relatively average as dragons went. From this distance they couldn’t make out what was being said between the pony and the dragon, but the dragon didn’t seem to be acting hostile, indeed it settled down on the ground comfortably. At length, the pony commander below withdrew from the dragon and returned to the army’s front lines. As everypony in the command center watched, a messenger was dispatched from the front line back to a communications post, which then had a pegasus pony take off from it and head straight for the mountain at her best possible speed, landing atop it within a minute where she would report to another officer. Two minutes after that, a junior officer of some variety descended into the command center, snapped a salute, and said something in Pferdreicher, while glancing nervously to Cheerilee and Raindrops. Preussichblau listened and asked her to repeat herself several times, before turning and glancing between the two Equestrians. “The dragon vants to speak to you,” he informed them. Cheerilee and Raindrops looked between each other, then glanced back to the general. “What?” Raindrops asked. “Us?” “You two,” he confirmed. “He asked for you by name. Cheerilee, Element of Laughter, und Raindrops, Element of Honesty. How does he know you are here?” “I have no idea,” Cheerilee said, looking to Raindrops. “You…you don’t think that Solrath has friends, do you? Or…or that maybe he’s the Overlord…?” Raindrops thought it over for a few moments, before looking back out at the dragon. “I…I guess the only way we’ll know is if we go and ask,” she said. --- The dragon was not the largest living thing that Raindrops had ever seen – Solrathicharnon the Red, Corona’s current pet dragon, was at least twice as long from snout to tail. For that matter, Spike had been around the same size, and during their impromptu visit to another world a few months back she had laid eyes on an Ursa Major that had been grown via magic to be at least a quarter mile tall at the shoulder when on all fours, though she hadn’t needed (nor wanted) to fight that monstrosity. This did not make the green dragon they now approached small by any means, however – it could still have easily fit Raindrops into its mouth and probably swallowed her whole, pausing only to spit out the Trab hat the Raindrops still had on. She adjusted it slightly as she and Cheerilee approached the front line of the army, escorted by a dozen ponies armed with back-mounted crossbows that might have been able to hurt the dragon as much as a bee sting could hurt a pony. Of course, that guard was only a small part of a much larger army which certainly could bring down the dragon before them with little effort itself. But the thousands of dragons even now within the Western Wilderlands… “Okay,” Cheerilee said as they reached the front line, a trench into which had been set canons all pointed upwards and outwards, and all of them loaded. She turned to their escort’s leader, who spoke Equestrian. “You should stay here. We don’t want to startle the dragon.” “Startle it?” Raindrops and the escort captain asked at the same time. Raindrops glanced to the dragon. It had sat up a little straighter on spotting the two of them, but otherwise looked like it had no intention of actually standing up anytime soon and was instead watching them curiously. “It is outclassed by all of this,” Cheerilee noted, waving a hoof at the army. “Besides, it came here in truce, right?” “I did not even know dragons had truces,” their escort captain said, eyeing the immense cloth that the dragon had waved around. “That came from a sailing vessel, freifrau Cheerilee. Vhat happened to the ship?” Cheerilee didn’t want to think about any of the worse possibilities. “We can ask it,” Cheerilee said. She looked to Raindrops. “Come on. We’ve seen scarier.” Raindrops opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t. Cheerilee had a point, and they couldn’t assume this dragon was hostile simply because it was a dragon. Most dragons weren’t, Raindrops knew. What was it that Cheerilee had said to the Bundesrat? They were petravores. They ate rocks and gemstones, or slept, or did whatever it was that dragons normally did – but that didn’t involve hurting ponies, not normally. Raindrops let out a long sigh, then nodded. “Okay,” she said. She and Cheerilee trotted up from the trench and onto the open ground between them and the dragon, took a moment to steel themselves – Raindrops was somewhat comforted to see that even Cheerilee needed that – then started forward. The dragon watched them approach with interest, its violet eyes missing nothing and the slits of them widening slightly as though to take in more light. Or more appropriately, it was eying the gilt jewelry they were wearing around their necks – the Elements of Harmony. “Yours is a fascinating tribe,” it rumbled once the two of them were close, its Equestrian understandable to Raindrops but with an odd accent, as though the dragon had picked up Equestrian by learning it from a dozen different ponies from all across the land. She was fairly certain from the sound of the voice that it was a male. The dragon’s eyes flicked up to the army behind the two of them, then back down to Cheerilee and Raindrops. “You fear my kind so much, and yet you walk around with your hoard’s finest displayed for any dragon to see and covet.” Raindrops shifted on her hooves a little. Her wings were splayed, she realized, nominally an instinctive threat display but also ready to take her into the sky and flying away. Cheerilee spoke up at the dragon’s words. “They’re the Elements of Harmony. The most powerful magic in all of Ponydom.” “I can see that,” the dragon said. “Fascinating and beautiful in their own way, but mere scrap metal and rock compared to my hoard.” The dragon reached up to a scale just over his heart, lifting it up and pulling from beneath it… “Is that a pearl?” Raindrops asked incredulously, backing up a step as the dragon held forth the stone. It was easily two feet across, an orb that shined a perfect alabaster so white it almost didn’t seem real. Cheerilee was entranced as well, and her reaction had been different from Raindrops’ only in vocalization – she, too, had backed away a step at the sight of a precious stone so large as to defy reality. Neither had ever seen a pearl that big. Neither could have even conceived of it had they not seen it with their own eyes. Where had the dragon acquired it? How big was the clam that had created it? The dragon grinned wide. “Yes, a beauty, is it not?” he asked, then eyed the pony’s necklaces again. “Gemstones. Gold. As common as any rock beneath the Earth’s surface. Any dragon could acquire trinkets like yours, though I grant you the magic in them does give them the most intriguing luster. But this…this pearl was created by a living thing, a creature of legendary size deep beneath the waves that I dared explore, heedless of the ocean serpents who might take offense. With my own eyes I hunted down the creature. With my own claws and my own breath boiling the water around us I slew it and feasted on its shell and its meat. And from that feast I pulled this, my hoard’s finest, all before the ocean serpents could discover my theft!” The dragon tucked the pearl away again, and at last stood, spreading his wings wide. “I am Hesjingrasvim. It means ‘water treasure,’ the Draconic term for pearl.” The dragon looked between the two as though expecting them to find this significant. Cheerilee caught on to that before Raindrops did. “That’s…impressive,” she said. “You named yourself after your hoard’s finest. You’re putting it on display too.” The dragon grinned again. “Precisely,” he agreed. “Um…” Raindrops said. The dragon looked to her, and she resisted the urge to flinch. “That’s…cool. Really, it is. But…I don’t think you came here just to show off that off to us.” The dragon’s smile dropped. “I did not,” he confirmed, leaning down again, lowering his long neck and head until he was nearly at eye level with the two ponies, though Raindrops noted that he carefully avoided placing his head on the ground. “I have been sent by the Overlord, Dame Raindrops, Dame Cheerilee. He wishes to speak to you.” “How did he even know that we were here?” Raindrops asked. “And who is he, anyway?” “He is the Overlord!” Hesjingrasvim responded, and when he didn’t elaborate further Raindrops realized that that was supposed to be the answer to both questions. The dragon noticed her dissatisfaction with that, and grinned broadly. “When you meet him, you can ask yourselves, little ponies. It was he who sent me here, and instructed me to bring you to the Dragon’s Forge.” The two ponies looked between each other. “And…” Cheerilee said, “if we refuse…?” The dragon blinked at that, his smile dropping once more. “Refuse?” He echoed. “Yeah,” Raindrops said. “If we don’t want to go to the Dragon’s Forge. If we’d rather stay in Pferdreich.” “We like it in Pferdreich,” Cheerilee added. “Just got here. Still have some sightseeing to do.” Hejingrasvim looked between the two ponies in confusion. “But…” he said, leaning forward and extending a clawed hand. Both ponies flinched, and could hear the army behind them readying to defend them, but Hesjingrasvim only put his claw over their heads, leaning down to peer at them. “But you’re so small,” he observed. “You’re very small, ponies. You are tiny things.” “That’s kind of why we don’t – ” Raindrops said. “Might not,” Cheerilee added. “…want to go,” Raindrops finished, staring up at the massive appendage above her. The dragon’s thumb-claw was as long as her hind leg and she was very uncomfortable learning this fact. Hesjingravsim withdrew his hand. “But how can you refuse the Overlord?” he asked. “Do you think you can challenge him? I cannot challenge him! I accept this. Why don’t you? He is the Overlord!” “We didn’t vote for him,” Cheerilee said, probably before she could think better of it. Raindrops’ head whipped around to look at her with wide eyes even as her wings flared fully. Cheerilee, for her part, had a hoof to her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered to Raindrops after a moment. “Defense mechanism…” “Find a better one,” Raindrops hissed, before looking back to Hesjingravsim, who was still looking at the two ponies like they’d just said that he had four heads. Were hydras related to dragons? Raindrops didn’t know. “Look, we appreciate the invitation,” she said. “It’s just…well, like you said. We’re very, very small…and you’re asking just to go to a place where we’ll be surrounded by dragons. We wouldn’t feel safe.” Hesjingrasvim opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. He turned his head, looking back in the direction he had come, head tilting slightly as he did. At length, he looked back to the ponies. “You shall be treated as whelps,” he said, then waited another moment, once more glancing behind him before speaking again. “That means, little ponies, that no adult dragon shall challenge or harm you – as long as you do not challenge them.” Another moment, and Raindrops got the sense that he was listening to something. “The Overlord will also ensure that no other whelps challenge or harm you – again, as long as you do not challenge them. He advises that you do not.” “You’re…talking to him, aren’t you?” Cheerilee asked after a moment. “Or listening to him, at least. He’s speaking to you right now, isn’t he? How?” Hesjingrasvim’s eyes narrowed. “Clever. Yes, I was – am. The Overlord says that he wishes only to speak to you and then return you to this land.” He held up a claw. “One day. The Overlord wishes to…confer with you for only that long.” Hesjingrasvim’s eyes narrowed. “And I have been instructed to bring you to the Dragon’s Forge by any means necessary.” The two ponies started at that, glancing between each other. By any means necessary? Did that mean that if they refused, the dragon would grab them and drag them away? Could it? The two could probably make a break for the front lines, and one dragon wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the thousands of ponies behind them… …but, on the other hoof, Raindrops had to admit, Hesjingrasvim had been pretty friendly…for a dragon. And the Overlord sounded fairly reasonable…again, for a dragon. If all he wanted to do was talk…and maybe the two should wait for their friends to arrive? But how long would that take? They were scattered across the continent right now, and who knew how impatient this Overlord was… “Okay,” Cheerilee said for the two of them after a moment, waving a hoof at the army behind her. “Just give us a few minutes to explain everything to everypony else.” --- Cheerilee took some small consolation in the fact that everypony on the front lines were at least as confused at Raindrops and Cheerilee’s departure as the two of them had been to even be on the front lines in the first place. Flying into the heart of the dragon homeland in Cissanthema seemed monumentally stupid, they were told, but Cheerilee and Raindrops had made their case and not waited around long enough to be talked out of it. They were off within ten minutes – and regretted it in less than fifteen, though by then it was too late. Hesjingrasvim had been their ride to the Dragon’s Forge, the dragon apparently having no problem with conveying the two smaller beings towards the draconic homeland towards the new Overlord. As they flew, the broad plains of the Wilderlands gave way to a rocky desert of black and dark gray stone – a land that looked like it had once been covered in lava that had since cooled and hardened and, if the blast marks were any indication, was regularly scoured of plant life – though the lack of rivers may have played a part in that as well. It was broad and flat and featureless save for the occasional small crater or dropped stone – pretty much exactly like what Raindrips had supposed the dragon homeland to look like. Of course, then they reached the Dragon’s Forge itself. Appearing on the distant horizon as what looked like a tall, broad, and black plateau a mile high after several hours of flying, the Dragon’s Forge quickly revealed itself to be swarming with dragons – thousands of them, some resting on the edges of the plateau’s top, others flying in a sky that was full of white and gray clouds that rose from somewhere atop the plateau “Newcomers, mostly,” Hesjingrasvim rumbled, startling the two ponies he carried. He turned his head a little to look back at them, even as his wings kept up their steady beat. “There are always a number of dragons within the Forge. Not this many, though. Not for a very long time. Look carefully, little ponies. This is a sight that few of your kind will ever see, if you’re lucky.” Cheerilee caught the choice of words, and her head tilted to the side somewhat. “Does that mean that the Overlord doesn’t plan to…y’know…raid everything he can?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the wind rushing by. Hesjingrasvim took a moment to consider. “I do not speak for the Overlord, except where I am told to,” he responded, wings beating a little harder in order to gain the altitude needed to crest the plateau. If the dragons that the three of them were soon surrounded by had anything to say about Cheerilee or Raindrops, they kept it to themselves as the two ponies looked out before them. Cheerilee had been wrong – the Dragon’s Forge wasn’t a plateau, but a caldera, an impossibly wide volcanic crater that must have been more than three miles across, its depths sinking deeper into the Earth then the land around its outer base. Lava pooled in the center of the caldera around an island of obsidian, a twisted spire that reached a thousand feet into the air and had several apertures along its surface just big enough for a dragon, and positively cavernous to a pony. More surprising, however, was the slopes of the Dragon’s Forge. Welling from some hidden sources were a trio of rivers of clear water that flowed unevenly from near the top of the caldera and down to the pool of lava below – the source of the white-and-gray clouds that rose up. Immediately surrounding the lava pool was a few hundred feet of baron rock, but almost immediately thereafter began a thick jungle growth – trees twenty and thirty feet high packed closely together save where dragons had recently torn them down to make clearings for themselves, all of them obviously the largest and strongest ones there. Paths had been burned or torn between the clearings in which smaller dragons, some no more than whelps, moved freely save for being careful to avoid the clearings of the largest dragons. As Raindrops and Cheerilee watched, one whelp twice as long and half again as tall as either pony ventured too close to one of the clearings, and in return for its adventurism the adult dragon within exhaled a gout of red-hot flame that sent the whelp scurrying away. The whelp was unharmed by the flames due to its fireproof hide, but it was charred and chastised. Oh, and there was treasure in each of the clearings, too – piles of precious stones and metals stacked together upon which the older dragons lay curled up, almost as though they intended to sleep save that their eyes were wide open and constantly looking between every other nearby dragon of comparable size to them, assessing them, measuring them, and wondering how best to defend against them. A distant part of Cheerilee’s mind started trying to assess the value of all the treasure she saw, but pretty quickly gave up once it became obvious that introducing even a tenth of what she saw to a nation’s market would throw said nation into economic chaos. “Behold the Dragon’s Forge,” Hesjingrasvim declared as he flew up to the ‘beach’ of bare rock near the lava pool and landed near one of the rivers of water that flowed down into it. The steam that was created was carried straight up as soon as it was created, leaving the beach sweltering but not boiling. Cheerilee and Raindrops both climbed down from the dragon’s back, and found the rock beneath similarly hot but not painful, not quite, and Cheerilee guessed that even a few hundred feet more back, towards the jungle, would lower the ambient temperature even more, to simply ‘very, very, very hot.’ “Wait here,” Hesjingrasvim instructed, turning and lifting into the air. “I shall inform the Overlord of your arrival. We have arrived just in time – he has been declared but not revealed. I imagine you’ll meet him when all the other newcomers do.” Raindrops glanced around. The sky overhead was still full of dragons, the jungle behind them was full of greedy, paranoid adult dragons and greedy, prowling dragon whelps, and the ground before them gave way to lava and, beyond that, a dragon so fearsome that he could beat the tar out of any of the ones in the sky or on the ground right now. “How, uh…” Raindrops asked, “How do the other dragons know not to attack us?” Cheerilee nodded. “Yeah, little curious about that,” she said. Hesjingrasvim shrugged. “The Overlord promised your safety,” he said, flying off and towards the obsidian tower. Raindrops and Cheerilee watched him go, then looked to each other. Without even realizing it, they’d stepped closer together, an instinctive defense mechanism when surrounded by so many potential predators. “So…” Cheerilee said, as she started trotting back from the lava pool and closer to the nearby river, Raindrops following. “I’m starting to think this was a bad idea.” “Better than not going,” Raindrops said. “Then Hejingrash…Hejingram…whatever, would have gotten himself killed. That wouldn't have ended well.” “Hesjingrasvim,” Cheerilee said once the two reached the river. She looked Raindrops in the eye. “Better work on that…I think I remember that dragons don’t like nicknames, find them insulting since dragon’s aren’t given names at birth, they have to earn them – and they get longer the more they accomplish.” “Great,” Raindrops groaned. Closer to the river and back from the lava, the air was, indeed, much cooler. She leaned down to the river water, sticking a hoof in an swirling it around before splashing it up, her pegasus magic making a thin sliver of cloud that almost immediately began to evaporate due to the heat. “The water’s clean, I think,” she said. “Not much floating in it, anyway. Wonder how they do that…” “Who cares?” Cheerilee asked, immediately bending down and starting to lap up gulps. She paused a moment. “Place this hot, you can dehydrate fast. Drink up.” Raindrops leaned away from the river. “No,” she said. “I don’t eat things unless they’ve been washed. And I’m not going to drink water straight out of the ground, either.” Cheerilee sighed. “Raindrops – ” There was a roar from overhead, followed swiftly by several more. The two ponies both jumped and bolted away from the river before they could even think about it, dashing towards the jungle before they even thought to check the source of the roar. At first it looked like some kind of fight had broken out amongst the dragons that soared overhead – hardly surprising, Cheerilee remembered that small brawls tended to break out amongst dragons all the time whenever there was a migration. Then Cheerilee noticed how much bigger than the others in the sky one of the dragons, who was knocking aside the smaller dragons with his wingbeats without effort, looked. Bigger and older. And there wasn’t any time to think about more than that as Solrathicharnon the Red swooped over the Elements of Harmony. The wake of his passing created a wing strong enough to send the two stumbling down and into the ground, which had the side-effect of giving the massive dragon – bigger than any other dragon here, some part of Cheerilee that she really wished would shut up noticed – time to bank, come back around, and land a scarce fifty feet from the two of them – only half his body length. His wings were wide and his eyes, though blind and blank gold orbs, seemed to lock onto the two of them. Or, more likely, onto the massive magic of the Elements of Harmony that the two wore, his Draconic sense for all things magic allowing him to ‘see’ them with little effort. “I don't know what you two are doing here,” Solrathicharnon hissed as the two found their hooves, “but those trinkets of yours will make excellent additions to my hoard...”