//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Letters From a Princess to a Dragon Lord // by NotanImportantPony //------------------------------// ‘Dear Dragonlord Ember,         Thank you soooooo much for letting me ask you questions about Dragon Culture! I don't want to send too many questions at once otherwise Spike might get a bellyache. But onto the questions;         Question One: When do dragons get their wings?         Spike was really curious. When we were in the Dragon Lands everypo-every dragon we saw had wings and but Spike did not.         Question Two: How long do dragons live for? I’ve gone through all the dragon reference books I could find and there’s no real  data on the lifespan of dragons.         Question Three: How long can a Dragonlord rule before they choose a successor? We remember Dragon Lord Torch saying, “-according to dragon law, it is time for [me] to step down.”         Question Four: In reference to the brief exposition from question three; What is ‘dragon law’. Are there more laws? If so, what are they, when were they made, and who were they made by?         Question Five: How old is the Dragon Culture? From what we saw when we were in the Dragon Lands, there were no real structures nor any evidence of a draconic culture. Thank you for helping Spike and accepting us as your friends. I-We hope you are making some other friends.         Sincerely,         Your friend,         Princess Twilight Sparkle         P.S. Spike was wondering if you'd ever like to come and visit Ponyville. He knows some really great places to eat!         P.P.S. What is your favorite type of gem. Sapphire is my favorite. - Spike'         Twilight finished narrating and a few moments later Spike finished up his writing, all they needed to do was wait for the ink to dry and then send the letter off to Ember. O-Or Dragonlord Ember. Twilight didn't know how to properly address the letter. Was it Dragon Lord Ember? Or just Ember because they were friends? She had to make sure. It wouldn't do to improperly address a new friend. Wait a second...         Twilight whirled around, her horn sparking, her face set in a desperate scowl only to find Spike's green flames consuming the potentially erroneous letter.         Twilight stared at Spike, her visage crumbling in the face of her mistake.         Meanwhile Spike was brushing his claws free of any soot or residue. Finishing that, he spoke up,         "Well, that's done! So what's next Twilight?"         A slight squeaking noise came from Twilight's mouth. Spike turned to look at her with a quizzical expression.         "Umm... Twilight?"         Twilight's right ear flicked forward. Spike looked at her and rolled his eyes.         "Twilight relax, I know it’s the first letter we’re sending Ember but she did say that you could ask her about Dragon Culture.”         Twilight's eyes poignantly swiveled towards Spike and he jumped back, alarmed at her expression.         "Whoa Twilight! What's wrong!" Spike said as he moved towards her.         He padded towards her and as soon as he touched her Twilight seemed to jump  ten feet into the air. On the way down her worries spilled from her like water breaking through a dam.         "Spike! What if we just insulted Ember! Dragon Lord Ember! Ember the Dragon Lord! I-I don't know what to call her!"         Twilight slid to the floor, her hooves and wings covering her eyes.         "What if we messed up Spike?"         Twilight's left wing moved uncovering one of her purple eyes. She peered up at Spike.         "Huh! What if I messed up, again! You remember the Yaks right?! Do you remember what they were like? Do you-" Twilight launched up from the floor and latched onto Spike’s face, their noses were touching "-want that to happen again!"         Spike took a step back. Twilight slid off of him, thumped onto the floor and promptly curled up into a fluffily distressed alicorn sized puffball.         "Mlfsovremrhtsme."         Spike peered down at Twilight's poor imitation of one of Celestia's prized pillows and sighed.         "Twilight." Spike flatly prompted.         A few more hairs and feathers stuck up from the purple Twi-puff. Spike pinched the bridge of his nose, throatily inhaled and drew in a big breath.         "TWIIIILIGGGHT!"         Unceremoniously Celestia's patented purple plush puff-pillow precisely pounced on Spike with a wild gleam in its glowing eyes and Spike reflexively roared.         Ten minutes later...         After Spike had caught Twilight and extinguished her flaming mane, coat, and tail with a bucket of sudsy water he helped to dry her off. Not that there was much to dry off anymore... Withdrawing his towel from Twilights neck she was revealed in all her maneless glory. And she was not a happy pony. “Spike... Mirror... Now.” Spike did not dare disobey Twilight. Her eyes were twitching. Finding a bathroom, Spike slowly proceeded back down the hall with an old hoof mirror that he had dug out from one the cabinets under the sink. Approaching Twilight carefully he watched for any signs of reignition on her now thoroughly ashy coat and muzzle. Both of their noses were crinkled because of the smell of burnt hair. Reaching a safe distance away from Twilight, Spike held out the mirror and was immediately yanked off his feet as a magenta glow surrounded him and the mirror. Twilight’s face did not improve. Hoping to improve the heated atmosphere Spike cracked out, “Well... you were going to get your mane styled anyway? Right? Heh. Heh. It was painless right? And now your maneless...” Twilight did not move, but the mirror and --by unwilling attachment-- Spike did. Twilight lifted the mirror up until she could look Spike dead in the eyes. “Spike.” Spike felt himself sweat from the heat of Twilight's boring eyes. And he knew fear. “Yes-” He gulped nervously “-Twilight?” She looked at him, her eyes glazed over from something. “Where did you send my mane?” Spike looked anywhere but at Twilight. “I-I-” Spike the Brave and Glorious, the one who had helped save the Crystal Empire and raced against a mad king curled himself into a purple and green ball “-don’t know. Celestia I think...” Twilight’s eyelids violently twitched.         Sixteen minutes earlier         Princess Celestia sat at her desk going over tax laws, tax loopholes, tax deductibles, tax write-offs, tax proposals. She was not a happy Princess. In fact, one could say she was absolutely miserable. She hated doing taxes. It’s why she had a secretary but nooooo Raven just had to take one day off and that left Celestia with taxes and she hated them.         A knock sounded at her door, breaking the monotonous sea of ink and paper.         “Come in.” she added a near silent “Please” to the end of her request.         Her bedroom door opened and Luna trotted in, closed the bedroom door behind her and made a beeline for the mountain of paperwork Celestia was holding back. Celestia gazed despondently from the pile of papers to Luna and back again, a near begging expression entering her face as she did so.         Luna simply snickered. Celestia would be receiving no help from that quarter. She shot her sister a look.         “That’s for the moon, isn’t it.”         Luna did not respond to that statement. Instead, her brow furrowed and she nosed her way past Celestia in order to get a better look at dear sister Celly had wrote.         With unconcealed glee Luna knickered,         “It’s Taxes you-”         -Luna’s mouth was forcibly closed by an irate looking Celestia. But even through her sister's magic repression Luna still looked smug.         Across the signature line of form 41-B section X subsection C Celestia had wrote ‘I hate Texas.’         She would burn all the taxes. All of them. As she prepared to use the Royal Canterlot Voice to issue the order for the Royal Guards to execute order sixty-six, a green flame sprung up in and around the aforementioned mountain of tax papers. The green flames brought with them the horrible smell of burning hair, ink, and paper. After a few seconds the green flames died.         Sitting there atop the smouldering ashes of tax forms 1 through 42 Celestia saw the most beautiful thing. Turning to her sister, Celestia saw the same awe struck look. They turned to each other and nodded, smiling gleefully.         Sitting atop her heated rock Ember, the new Dragon Lord read her only piece of mail and laughed. Where had friends been all her life? But, Twilight Sparkle and Spike were probably expecting a response. She set the parchment in a protected nook on her rock, picked up a nearby rock slab, bent down and got to work.