Dawn had broken over the eastern horizon half an hour ago, but it was only now that the sun rose above the dark clouds that had caused the ponies so much grief the night before. Sunlight brought with it a bare modicum of color to their surroundings. The dark sea was painted a faint cerulean, the restless waves upon it sparkling as they caught the glimmers of light. The bleached sand underhoof, however, turned only a lighter shade of beige.
That was about all the color that could be lent this place. Applejack sighed, squinting against the sunlight before adjusting her hat. For a mare who'd spent most of her life in Sweet Apple Acres, Gray Bay seemed... unnatural.
She didn't know much about these borderlands between the dragons and changelings. From what she had been told by the sailors aboard the Sunrise, it seemed the dragons had played no small part in making it what it was today. Seeing it now, she doubted anypony could ever believe any differently. The sand, the dirt, the rocks, the air itself. It was all the color of ash. Pale, gray, and lifeless.
There were no trees, no shrubs, not a blade of grass. No birdsong above nor pitter patter of critters below. The only sound on the wind was the wind itself; a lonely song in an empty wasteland.
Applejack had never thought she would envy Twilight and Rainbow Dash for having to cross the badlands up north, yet here she was. They were four ponies standing at the shore of Gray Bay: Captain Pepperbeard, who gazed silently upon the ruined ship anchored in the middle of the bay, and three of the four friends that had set off from Baltimare.
“It's unbelievable.” The captain, a dark brown mare bearing the unusual distinction of a large, scraggly, black beard, shook her head slowly as she regarded her ship, its damage made all the more apparent in the sunlight.
The alicorn figurehead that had once adorned the bow had been ripped off by a particularly vicious wave. Applejack remembered seeing that wave cresting almost half a mile away just before she was shoved inside the ship off the deck.
The hull was in shreds near the bow, revealing several gaping holes into the interior of the ship. The damage was less critical toward the stern, but the wooden gunwale had been crushed to splinters. She remembered the first real wave to have struck the ship, and the look of terror on Rarity's face as she was swept screaming into the pitch black waters frothing all around them.
The entire ship itself seemed tilted sideways at a slight angle, and Applejack remembered the creak and snap of wood she had heard while in the cabin with Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, followed by the sound of rushing water inside the ship and the agitated shouts of sailors.
Applejack remembered a lot of things she'd rather not.
“Are you going to be able to fix your ship?” Fluttershy ventured, and Pepperbeard gave a firm nod.
“'Course! It'll take a few days 'fore he's fit for the high seas, but we'll make Zebrica yet.” The mare stroked idly at her beard as she looked around Gray Bay, frowning. “Repairs won't be easy 'round here, though.”
“Anything we can do to help?” Pinkie Pie offered, and Applejack grimaced.
The captain caught the look on Applejack's face and smiled, shaking her head. “Nay, the three of ye are down one mare, and on a tight schedule besides.” She nodded her head at the ship anchored in the distance and a group of pegasi taking flight northward. “We'll be on the lookout for Miss Rarity while we're patching up the Sunrise. If we find her, we'll have her back in Baltimare 'fore week's end.”
Applejack stepped up beside the captain and shook her hoof. “We appreciate it, Cap'n. Safe travels when ya get that far.”
“I hope you don't run into anymore storms,” Fluttershy added.
“Aye.” Pepperbeard scowled at the dark clouds in the east. “The weather off that coast ain't unlike dragons themselves: Big an' vicious an' untamable. Now that we're past it, we should be alright!”
“Tell your brother happy birthday from me!” Pinkie Pie saluted the captain, bouncing off toward the mainland and the three ponies' destination. Applejack and Fluttershy followed after, with Pepperbeard waving them off.
“I'll be sure to! Take care out there! The land between changelings and dragons is more like both than neither, I hear!”
The trio nodded their heads in thanks at the warning, hefting the heavy saddlebags draped over their backs before plodding on.
It wasn't long before their hooves were gray with ash, Applejack found. The deeper they went into the borderlands, the deeper the hoofprints they left behind. The pale blue sky became lost in the dark haze drifting off down the mountains up north, carried by the same wind that whirled the ashes on the ground into the air. The dust settled on their backs, their bags, their faces, and in their fur, slowly robbing them of all their color, making them part of the Graylands.
When Fluttershy started coughing and Pinkie Pie started sneezing, they dug out the scarves that Twilight had had the foresight of packing with them, fashioning makeshift masks to ease breathing.
Not many words were shared between the trio as they wandered westward. Although certainly overwhelming, Applejack knew it wasn't just the silence of the Graylands settling upon them.
Pinkie Pie was bouncing along in front of them, dousing both Applejack and Fluttershy in the clouds of ashes whirled up in her wake, yet her rhythm seemed off. Every jump carried with it half a heartbeat of hesitation. Fluttershy was much the same. Her head hung low as she walked, her long mane shielding her face against most of the ashes while she stared distantly at the ground. Her eyes would occasionally turn toward the dragon mountains to her right, just as Applejack kept glancing in the direction of the changeling border to their left.
It wasn't just the threat of enemies on all sides either.
It was dark as dusk by the time Applejack called for a halt, although they had only been walking for a few hours. The sun was directly overhead, no doubt, but the thick smog drifting down from the mountains up north was a constant shadow over the Graylands. It didn't really feel like they were outside. The small amount of light filtering down past the smoke looked more like a faint glow than actual sunlight. The shafts of light that managed to shine through where the smoke thinned were white and colorless. Although there was certainly something grand to the way the light danced across the landscape in tune to the wind, it was just more of the same to Applejack at this point.
She sat down heavily, cushioned by the ashes around her hooves. With a sigh of relief, she unbuckled the two pairs of saddlebags she had been carrying around all day and slung them around in front of her. Digging around through Rarity's supplies, she quickly found the crude map of the Graylands that Rarity and Fluttershy had managed to find in Baltimare.
“Alright, lessee...” Applejack unfurled the map and glanced at the sky, finding the vast gray expanse above her absolutely useless to navigate by. “Err...” She looked to her left toward the changeling lands, but found only flat, ashen wastes. To her right were bumpy, ashen wastes. Beyond those were blurry silhouettes of mountains, too obscured by the ashes falling constantly from the clouds above to identify any landmark in particular.
“Well, shoot.” She looked at the map again, tracing a path west from their point of arrival at Gray Bay. “We've been goin' this way for about, uh...” Without thinking, she tilted her head up to tell the time, but was once again stymied by the unrelenting smoke above. “Aw, for the love of ‒!” With a huff, she rolled up the map and stuffed it back into the bag. “Let's just start angling toward the mountains. Tangled Pass is bound ta show up sooner or later.”
“Are we lost?” Fluttershy, who had just shed her own saddlebag, seemed almost afraid to ask.
“We got dragons on the right and changelings on the left. We're fine.”
“But won't the hills slow us down?” Fluttershy asked of Applejack, repeating Twilight's warning. “We might be late if we go north too early.”
Wrinkling her nose, Applejack went through Rarity's saddlebag again, retrieving the map and tossing it to Fluttershy. “You try ta figure the darn thing out, then.”
The pegasus made a quiet “eep!” as she fumbled to catch the map, but otherwise made no word of protest as she unfolded it and set to studying it diligently. She turned to face the mountains up north, glancing in their directions frequently as she traced paths across the map.
Applejack sighed as she opened her own saddlebags and dug out their food rations. Rarity had been the pony in charge of the map. She would have paid attention to how far they had been walking today. Rarity would have known exactly where they were and where they needed to be.
Applejack's brow furrowed. In her mind's eye, she kept seeing Rarity after the first wave had hit, scrabbling at the wooden floorboards only inches from the splintered edge of the deck. The way she and the sailor were tossed across the deck by the second wave. The scream of terror as the white unicorn was lost to the black ocean.
“Applejack?”
The earth pony blinked, releasing the breath she'd been holding. She glanced briefly at Pinkie Pie, who was giving her a worried look. Applejack gave her a reassuring little smile before continuing to rummage through her own saddlebags. Only afterwards did she realize nopony could see her smiling through the scarf she was wearing across her muzzle.
“Sorry.” She found an apple and tossed it to Pinkie Pie, who managed to pull down her mask before catching it in her mouth. “Just worryin' about Rarity.”
Pinkie Pie took a big bite out of the apple, nodding as she chewed. “I wonder where she washed up...”
“If she washed up,” Applejack muttered, drawing a horrified look from Fluttershy.
“Applejack!”
“Y'all didn't see the storm!” Applejack defended herself. “It weren't like nothin' Ah ever saw...”
“Captain Pepperbeard said she'd be okay,” Fluttershy reminded her. “We weren't that far from the coast, and... the wind changed after the first waves hit.”
“Saltbeard said it was a special storm,” Pinkie Pie chipped in. “Rarity's fine!”
Applejack raised an eyebrow, but she refrained from pressing the matter. She dug out two more apples from her bag and tossed one to Fluttershy. “Ah hope you're right. Both of ya.”
“Ah. The princess joins us.”
It was a deep, rumbling voice that addressed Twilight, so much so that she felt tremors shake the ground she slept on. Rubbing a hoof at her sore throat, she opened her eyes slowly.
She was inside a cavern. Several times larger than the Ponyville town square, but dimly lit, shrouding the peripheries of her surroundings in deep shadow. Behind her, an opening in the cavern wall glowed a sinister shade of red, and ahead of her, a bright halo of sunlight surrounded a truly enormous dragon lying near the cavern opening.
The great dragon shifted, sending shimmers running down the cavern walls as its silvery lavender scales caught the light from outside. Piercing, golden eyes settled on Twilight, who quickly shook off her drowsiness and jumped to her hooves.
“Relax, Twi.” Rainbow Dash emerged from the shadows to her right, shaking her head. “She's... Well I wouldn't say friendly ‒”
“Neither would I,” the dragoness grumbled in agreement, and a light gout of smoke blew past Rainbow Dash. With the dragoness' massive size in mind, Twilight suddenly found the ground-quaking rumble of her voice almost feminine.
“‒ But she's not gonna eat us,” the pegasus finished, scowling at their host.
“Where are we?” Twilight looked to Rainbow Dash, then the dragon for answers.
“The Great Heart,” the dragoness answered her. “The heartbeat of this mountain sustains our land. From here, life flows to the farthest reaches of our territories. I am its keeper.”
Twilight nodded. She remembered Celestia mentioning this place a long time ago. If she wasn't mistaken, the princess and this keeper were on fairly good terms with each other. Twilight cleared her throat. “That must make you a great dragon. My name is ‒”
“I care not for names,” she interrupted her. “You are a princess of Equestria. The fourth and most recent, if I am not mistaken.”
Twilight nodded again. “Why... are we here?”
Even silhouetted against the light from outside the cave, Twilight sensed the dragon's eyes narrowing. “I could ask the same of you, pony.”
Twilight frowned for a moment at the hostility of the dragoness' tone. Her status wasn't helping her as much as she would have hoped, though it certainly wasn't much of a surprise. Celestia had told her not long ago that she would have to establish her own authority ‒ among dragons in particular.
So Twilight offered the dragon no reply. She lifted her head, straightening her posture, and she readjusted her wings, positioning them more comfortably at her sides. Standing still in the middle of the enormous cavern, she held the gaze of the beast several hundred times her own size.
Several moments passed as the two held each other’s gaze, but in the end, it was the dragon’s patience that ran out.
“I was awoken by your battle last night,” she relented, no small hint of accusation in her voice. “By the time I arrived, your enemy was gone. You were both unconscious, so I brought you here. My neighbors don't all have the same... respect for Equestria's royalty as I do.”
“Both of us?” Twilight echoed, looking to Rainbow Dash, who shook her head.
“He's not here, Twi. Sorry. Smokey here wouldn't let me leave the cave 'til you'd woken up.”
“A young dragon was traveling with us,” Twilight told the dragoness, turning towards her again. “Do you know where he is?”
“The dragon companion of the fourth princess,” their host rumbled. “I have heard of him.” Before Twilight could ask, she continued. “As I said: Once I arrived, the two of you were all that remained.”
“We have to find him!” Twilight took a step forward, but so did the dragoness, shaking the entire cavern with her weight.
“And why is that?” she hissed dangerously, a wave of smoke rolling across the floor past Twilight. She lifted her head slightly, towering above the ponies. “I have been forthcoming with my answers, Princess. Now, why is it two ponies find themselves in my land? Why is it you disturb my peace? Why is it that the day you arrive, The Great Heart answers with storm and thunder?”
Twilight hesitated a moment, looking at the ground before answering the dragon's gaze again. “We're hunting a changeling. He's stolen Spike's heart.”
The great dragon's eyes seemed to glow with rage at the revelation, and through the dim lighting, Twilight caught the flash of teeth as she snarled. “What?”
“He's been traveling through Tangled Pass,” Twilight continued, sensing the dragon's breathing growing erratic. “We've been chasing after him since Ponyville. His crime won't go ‒”
“This is an outrage!” the dragon bellowed, forcing Twilight to flatten her ears against the noise and take a step back. “How could you allow this to happen!?”
“I’m not! I'm hundreds of miles from home in the heart of The Dragon Territories!” Twilight shot back. “This is me not allowing it!”
“Not in a thousand years has a changeling ever stolen a dragon's heart! His heart of all hearts!”
The golden eyes left her as the dragoness turned away from Twilight and toward the cavern entrance, her wings unfurling and eclipsing what little light was entering the cave.
“Wait! Where are you going!?” the alicorn called out, running after her.
“The changelings must answer for this impudence! It seems their queen must be reminded why the Graylands are gray!”
“No! You can't!”
The dragoness whirled on her this time, and Twilight found herself scrambling backwards as her massive head bore down on her, stopping only a few feet from her. The smoke blowing from the dragon's flared nostrils stung at her eyes, and her breath was like an open furnace in her face.
“I can't!? Do you not seek punishment for this crime!?”
“For the thief,” Twilight insisted, wiping her burning eyes and glaring back at the dragon. “Not The Changeling Kingdom. And he won't pay with his life.”
“He has committed an unspeakable crime! I will not sit idly by while he wanders free!”
“I won’t condone a war on the changelings.”
“I do not need your permission,” the dragon growled.
“You do,” she insisted again. “Spike is from Equestria. He was born and raised in Canterlot, just like me. This is a matter between Equestria and The Changeling Kingdom. I'm sorry, but you're not part of this!”
“That changeling stole a dragon's heart!” the dragoness roared angrily, blowing another gout of smoke in Twilight's face. “This is a crime against our kind! I have ‒!”
“He's not your kind!” Twilight snapped, the sharpness of her tone managing to cut through even the dragon's booming voice. “He's nothing like you or any other dragon out there!” She took a step closer to the dragon, standing only inches from her snout. “If you're that worried for Spike, you can help my friend find him.”
The dragon's lips twisted into a snarl, and a low growl emanated from deep within her throat, causing the cavern floor to vibrate. Twilight jumped back in alarm as the dragon snapped at her suddenly, before pulling her head back up to the ceiling of the cavern. She looked down at the alicorn with narrowed eyes. “Go then. You have overstayed your welcome, Princess.”
Twilight regained her composure as best she could and nodded, trying to keep her legs from shaking too visibly. The dragoness stepped past her further into the cave and moved aside, allowing the two ponies to exit.
“C'mon, Twi.” Rainbow Dash sidled up next to her, and together they left the cavern, the pegasus nudging the alicorn subtly with her wing in order to hurry her on.
The light outside seemed less intense now that it no longer framed the dragon, and Twilight's vision adjusted to find nothing but blue skies above.
The cavern opened up onto a large, open plaza that overlooked the southern and western Dragon Territories. It was even larger than the cavern, larger even than Ponyville, and featured several overgrown gardens full of exotic plants Twilight had only ever read about. The gardens encroached on what had once been elaborately carved brick walkways, tracing an elegant, but fading pattern all across the plaza.
Passing outside, it became apparent that the cavern entrance was far from naturally formed. Time had worn away its edges, but carvings were still faintly visible all along the cliff face. Most were illegible writings, but Twilight noticed several equine faces of stone gazing down upon her as she and Rainbow Dash descended the steps connecting the cavern mouth and plaza.
The cliff face itself only extended a few hundred feet further up before culminating in the peak of whatever mountain the dragon had brought them to. Not a single cloud hovered in the air above the peak, leaving nothing but the blue pre-noon sky above the two ponies.
The clouds turned out to be beneath them, almost half a mile. They bled out from all over the mountainside below and trailed down the steep rock face before lifting into the air, forming trails of clouds that extended like a great cobweb out across The Dragon Territories as far as Twilight could see.
“This place is like Cloudsdale,” Rainbow Dash observed, reaching the edge of the plaza and looking down the steep drop beyond.
“She called it the source of all life in The Dragon Territories.” Twilight joined Rainbow Dash at the precipice overlooking the smaller mountains below. “She wasn’t exaggerating... I don't see Tangled Pass from here. You'll probably have to circle around the mountain to find it. Hopefully Spike won't have gotten too far.”
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Why does it sound like you're not gonna be helping me?”
“I'm heading south.” Twilight pointed to the massive black clouds in the direction of The Changeling Kingdom, testimony to the hundreds of slumbering dragons polluting the air. “We can't save Spike without the thief.”
“You'll need help. He wiped the floor with you last night.”
Twilight swallowed, feeling the bruises all over her throat. “Too bad there's just two of us. He used Spike to get the upper hoof last time. I'll do better if I'm not worried about him. If I don't catch that changeling, Rainbow, he's gonna run into Rarity and the others' ambush.”
Rainbow Dash grimaced at the thought. “Good point. I guess. Sure you can catch him, though? Dunno if you noticed, but he didn't exactly have the wingspan of your everyday changeling.”
“It's the heart.” Twilight shook her head. “Not only is he feeding on its emotions, but he's somehow exploiting the inherent greed in a dragon's heart. Just like Spike did last year, the thief will keep growing the more he indulges in his greed.”
“Greed for what exactly?”
Twilight shrugged. “Power? It's not exactly physical ‒ you can’t really hoard it ‒ so it shouldn't work like that, but...”
“Changelings eat love,” Rainbow Dash finished, nodding her head in understanding. “Guess we haven't got much time then.” She unfurled her wings, feeling the flow of air around them. “Hit him hard with everything you've got, Twi. And stick to the north wind up here. If you're lucky, he's still following Tangled Pass. But with those wings, he could cut across the mountains easily.”
“When your servant has found the dragon without heart” ‒ the two ponies turned to find the lavender dragon gazing at them from within the cavern ‒ “Bring him here.”
“Servant!?”
“The heart of his homeland shall sustain him,” the dragon finished, ignoring Rainbow Dash's protest.
“Thank you.” Twilight gave the dragoness an appreciative smile while nudging Rainbow Dash in the ribs with her wing. “It's very generous of you.”
The dragon nodded her agreement.
“Be careful out there, Twi.” Rainbow Dash lifted into the air and hovered out past the edge of the plaza, giving the alicorn a wink. “But not too careful. Kick his flank!”
“And good luck finding Spike.” When Rainbow offered her hoof, Twilight bumped it. “I'll expect him back in that cave by the time I return!”
The pegasus did a short salute, dropping down a few feet below Twilight. “I better hurry up then! See ya soon!”
Rainbow Dash flipped around midair, gaining speed from a short dive before soaring off around the plaza, becoming nothing more than a blue speck within moments.
“You have slept a night away.” Twilight's gaze returned to the cavern, finding the dragon's golden eyes staring back at her. “Half a morning, too.”
Her head broke through the shadows, followed by her lengthy neck and hulking body. With her wings half unfurled as they were, she could barely fit through the forty foot tall opening, and it took her several moments to withdraw her entire body from the cavern, joining Twilight near the edge of the plaza. Remarkably, she avoided stepping on any of the plants or flowers situated beneath her.
Twilight caught herself staring as the great beast lumbered up beside her. During the argument within the cave, she had been acutely aware of the size of the dragon's head; how it had been noticeably larger than that of any other dragon she had seen, and how nearly a hundred ponies her own size would be able to fit between those jaws. But still the full size of the dragon before her was astounding. Her wings alone could span the width of Ponyville easily, and even as she stood with her on the other side of the wide plaza, the tip of her tail still lay within the shadows of her den.
The dragoness possessed an undeniable beauty as well. Her long neck arched and curved like a swan's, her feet rested lightly on the ground despite their massive size, poised as if she were some great predatory cat, and her lean, slender form betrayed no hint of decadence in so proud a creature. Even in the shadow cast by the mountain peak behind them, her silvery lavender scales seemed to be almost aglow. Her wings, as well as the scales along her belly and throat, were the color of milky gold, shimmering ever so faintly in shades of cerulean and pink.
“The thief will know you are coming,” the dragoness continued, eyeing the pony from up high. “And he will reach his kingdom long before you reach the Graylands.”
Twilight shook her head. “I'll catch him.”
“You know little of our geography,” the dragon rumbled. “You know less of your quarry. How is it you are so sure, Princess?”
Twilight gazed out across The Dragon Territories, silently despairing at how far away the distant plumes of smoke out south seemed. “Because I won't lose Spike. If I can't catch the thief here, I'll follow him straight to the heart of The Changeling Kingdom. I'll take on the thief, I'll take on his queen, I'll take on anything either of them throw at me. I’ll do it as many times as I have to. They'll regret taking his heart.”
She looked back up at the dragon, who was now giving her a small smile of approval. “You may be angry for what's been done to a dragon, but I'm furious for what's been done to my friend.”