Ch. 2 Meet Some Ponies
‘Well, I’m off to a great start, first pony I meet passes out from the sight of me, sure it’s Fluttershy but still.’
I sighed as I mentally berated myself before looking down at the passed out pony lying at my claws. I also noticed that if she was standing up she would be about four feet tall.
‘I can’t leave her here; this is the Everfree Forest after all. How am I gonna even carry her? I can’t put her on my back; my spines would probably spear her. I can’t carry her in my claw; I’m not confident enough in my walking to only use three limbs. Hmm… ’
I thought for a minute scratching my head and I noticed that on the top of my head was a flat spot that was fairly smooth.
‘Guess that’s as good as I’m gonna get.’
I gingerly take my claw and scoop up Fluttershy, making sure her weight isn’t on my talons as I lifted her up and placed her on top on my head. Making sure she was secure I started walking through the forest again.
‘What am I gonna do? Just waltz into Ponyville and give her to her friends or something? Yea that will go over real well, I bet Pinkie will throw me a party and everything.’
I chuckled to myself as I thought of the implications of throwing a dragon a party. After another hour or so of walking I cleared the forest and was in a large grassland, using my new incredible eyesight I could see off in the distance there was small town resting beneath the afternoon sun and a large castle sitting up on the mountainside further behind it.
‘Well shit, I didn’t think I’d end up in Ponyville so soon. Oh well nothing I can do about it now, gotta get Fluttershy back to her friends.
As if on cue, Fluttershy began to stir on the top of my head, I heard her squeak when she opened her eyes and realized where she was.
“Oh, you’re awake. Are you feeling ok?” I asked as I continued walking to the town.
Even with my increased hearing I could only hear a squeak as she curled into a ball and began to shake again.
“You don’t need to be afraid, I’m not gonna hurt you, in fact we are almost to that town over there, that’s where I was gonna take you if you stayed asleep.” She gasped a little, so I assumed she knew that it was Ponyville.
I walked in silence for a minute before I tried to make some more small talk.
“So, what’s your name?”
I actually got her to make a noise different than a squeak but I still couldn’t hear it.
“I didn’t quite catch that.” I was pretty sure she was telling me her name but I wanted to make sure.
“My name is Fluttershy.” Her voice was so quiet I wasn’t sure that she actually spoke or if it was the wind.
“Hello Fluttershy, it’s nice to meet you, my name is…” I paused for a second.
‘Should I tell her my old name? Should I even still use it myself? I’m not human any more so maybe I should think of a new name? Come on! Think! Think! Think!’
“My name is Taros.”
‘Oh nice dragon name there genius, why don’t you call yourself Dragon McDragon? How is that supposed to inspire fear in the hearts of your enemies?’
I mentally kicked myself in the head as I kept walking, the ponies of Ponyville becoming more visible as I went. As I passed some of the outlying buildings I heard a high pitched scream come from my right, when I looked over I saw Carrot Top staring back at me, eyes wide.
“He-.” I started but never got to finish as she bolted for town, screaming all the way.
‘Yea, that’s pretty much the reaction I was expecting.’
I sighed again and continued towards the center of town, passing more screaming ponies. Once I reached the center of town in front of town hall, I saw the rest of the Mane 6 standing there defiantly staring back at me, except Pinkie who was wearing the suit she used on the sleeping dragon in ‘Dragonshy’.
I opened my mouth to say hello but didn’t get very far as my mouth was snapped shut by a purple glow around my mouth silencing any attempt at verbal communication.
“You won’t get a chance to breathe fire on us Dragon!” Twilight shouted at me, her horn glowing the same purple color.
“Return dear Fluttershy to us you foul beast!” Rarity was the next to speak, a great deal of spite in her voice.
I closed my eyes realizing that any attempt at communication would fail if I didn’t get them to stop being so hostile to me first. I lowered my body to the ground, head included, until I was parallel to the ground. Fluttershy then quietly hopped off my head, but instead of immediately running to her friends, she stayed next to me. Everyone was shocked when she looked back at me and gave a small smile and then stood in between me and her friends. Twilight was so stunned that she dropped her magic around my mouth. I lifted my head but kept lying down, looked down at Fluttershy who looked back to me, and gave her a nod. She then slowly walked over to her friends who all huddled around her to hear what had happened; Rainbow Dash and Applejack were staring daggers at me the whole time, until Fluttershy told them about the timberwolves when they stared wide-eyed at her than at me.
Twilight was the first to approach me, horn still glowing with a charged spell ready to defend her in case I attack her.
“It seems we have you to thank for saving Fluttershy from those timberwolves.” Twilight was still wary of me.
“Oh you’re not gonna instantly snap my mouth shut with magic again?” She may be Twilight Sparkle but it doesn’t mean I can’t give her a jab while I’m here.
“I am sorry about that but so far all the dragons that have come to Ponyville have attacked us so we have had to defend ourselves.” She said while shooting me a glare.
‘Other dragons have attacked? I thought the only dragons near Ponyville were the one who was snoring and the one who lives in the forest?’
“Why did the other dragons attack?” I had to find out what was going on.
She gave me a confused look, “Don’t you know about the war?”
“War!? What war?”
“The three-sided war between the Griffons, Dragons, and the Diamond Dogs , how does a dragon not know about the war?” She was giving me a scrutinizing look.
‘Crap I got to think of some excuse for why I wouldn’t know about a war.’
“Uh… I was…asleep. I just woke up a day ago.”
“Hmm… I thought all the dragons were woken up when war was declared three years ago.” She was giving me an even more scrutinizing look, “but I suppose it’s possible that some of fell through the cracks.” She abandoned her line of questioning.
“Anyways, my name is Twilight Sparkle, Prized student of Princess Celestia. This is Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Pinkie Pie.” She pointed to each of the respective ponies, who each gave a wary nod, except Rainbow who gave me an angry glare.
A few other ponies hiding in buildings around the square began to slowly poke their heads out from hiding when the realized they weren’t going to be attacked. I could hear them whispering to each other but was distracted by a rainbow blur shooting up into my line of sight.
“Look here Dragon, I don’t know why you’re here and I don’t care. If you do anything to my town, there won’t be any place in the world you can hide where I won’t find you.” She tried to look as intimidating as possible which made me laugh.
“What’s so funny!?” she shouted.
“Ha-ha-ha nothing… nothing… I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.” I was still giggling, “Oh and by the way, the name isn’t Dragon; it’s Taros.”
I stood up and turned around and began to walk the way I came out of Ponyville when I saw a flash of purple light in front of me and saw Twilight now standing in front of me.
“Just where do you think you are going?”
“Leaving, it’s obvious that I am not wanted here, so I’d rather not overstay what little welcome I have.” I deadpanned as I walked right over her.
I heard Fluttershy gasp and a quick flap of feathered wings as she was soon floating in front of me.
“Wait… umm… I want to thank you for saving me…if you don’t mind that is…” Her voice was a little louder but still very quiet.
“Don’t worry about it Fluttershy, you don’t have to do any-.” I was interrupted by my stomach growling loudly. “*ahem*, actually if it isn’t too much trouble, something to eat would be nice.” I said with a little embarrassment.
“Oh… well I don’t have any gems that you eat… but… I’m sure that Rarity has some that she could give you?” she was looking at Rarity while asking.
“I… well… umm…” She was trying to think of some excuse but was no match for Fluttershy’s puppy dog eyes, “very well I shall return momentarily.” She sighed and gave Twilight a stern look and a nod.
I gave Rarity a small toothless smile as she took off down a connecting road. I then laid down in the middle of the road while I waited for her to return. I could see Twilight still giving me a scrutinizing look.
“Go ahead, ask your questions.” I deadpanned to her.
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She looked away from me.
“I can see it in your eyes, so go ahead and ask; I’m sure you haven’t had many opportunities to talk to a dragon, given by what you told me about the others that you’ve met.”
“Ok… I guess I will then… just to make sure that you aren’t a danger to any pony.” She was trying to hide her obvious curiosity.
She magicked out a piece of paper and a quill and began writing.
“So… umm… how old are you?”
‘Hmm that’s a good question. Should I tell her that I just turned thirty? No, that wouldn’t make seen for a dragon as big as me to be only thirty years old.’
“I’m about two hundred years old.” That sounded like a good age for an adult dragon.
“What do you mean ‘about’? Don’t you know how old you are?” she looked at me quizzically.
“Well you said that the war started three years ago and I don’t remember hearing anything about it from before I went to sleep so I had to guess at how long I have been asleep. Dragons tend not worry about the exact age since we live so long.”
She continued to take a few more notes; I used the opportunity to talk a look around the town. More of the ponies were looking out from their windows; a few of the braver ponies were slowly approaching me. There were even a few foals that were sneaking glances before their parents snatched them up and hid them again. Through all the whispers that I was listening to I could hear a faint buzzing noise that was getting louder. I closed my eyes and tried to listen, trying to make out what the sound was.
‘What is that sound? I know I’ve heard it before, but where?
I continued to listen as it got louder and louder when I shot my eyes open as the realization finally hit me.
‘I know that sound! It’s the-.’
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DRAGON SLAYERS!” Shouted the troupe of fillies as they came over the hill in Scootaloo’s scooter pulled wagon. They were stunned when they saw me and Scootaloo lost control of her scooter.
“Scootaloo! Hit the brakes! Evasive maneuvers!” Sweetie Belle shouted as they all screamed and crashed into me with surprising force. Their scooter and wagon was trashed as they attempted to untangle themselves. I also noticed that Spike was with them. Everypony present all gasped in horror when they saw me turning my head to face them.
“Dragon slayers huh? Aren’t you a little young for that?” I smirked while looking down at the jumble of three ponies and one dragon.
They all froze when they heard my voice and saw me looking at them; the color all drained from their faces, even Sweetie Belle’s loss of color was noticeable through her white coat. Spike was just staring up at me more awe more than fear.
“Sup.” I said as I gave him a head nod.
“Spike! What are you and the girls doing here!? I told you to stay in the library!” Twilight shouted at the small dragon.
Hearing her voice brought Spike out of his shock, “I couldn’t stop them Twilight, they were determined to come fight the dragon and they said that I could either stay behind or go with them and since I wanted to see the dragon as well I came along.” Spike was still staring at me with wide eyes as he spoke.
“I don’t mind, it’s not like they hurt me or anything. “ I said while looking back to Twilight.
“S-so ar-are you a n-nice dragon?” Applebloom stuttered out in her cute southern style accent.
“I don’t eat ponies if that’s what you’re asking.” I gave her a quick smile; she cringed a little bit, probably from seeing my teeth.
I looked over to the road that Rarity went down when I heard the clinking of gems and saw that she was carrying a wooden chest about the size of a small refrigerator in her magic. As she placed the chest down in front of me she gave a small snort and stuck her nose in the air, Applejack was ushering the fillies away while I was focused on my snack.
“I usually keep all of the flawed gems I collect in here until I can rebury them but I suppose I can give them to you as thanks for saving Fluttershy.” She said in her slightly smug tone.
“Thanks.” As I opened the chest, I was shocked by the gems inside, not only was almost every type of gem and precious mineral inside but the sheer size of the majority of them would put the Hope Diamond to shame. Like Rarity said many of them were flawed, some with dark splotches inside of them, some were foggy in color and others had a spider’s web of cracks.
‘I wonder how they will taste? I never really thought about it, Spike never mentioned how they tasted in the show; he just said they were delicious.’
I picked up the first gem, an emerald with roughly the same size and dimensions as a piece of bread.
‘Well, bon appetit.’
I opened my mouth and tossed the gem inside and brought my teeth down on it and it elicited a satisfying crunch. I was amazed by the flavor that followed; it tasted like a freshly picked green apple and even with the slight flaw that gave the smallest taste of dirt it was still delicious. After I chewed and swallowed the emerald I reached for another, this one a foggy red ruby, as I chomped down on it I tasted a mixture of cherry and baking flour, the latter was probably from the flaw. I couldn’t help myself as I started grabbing more and more of the gems and ravenously devoured them, each with their own unique flavor only slightly marred by the flaws that they all had.
After the last gem was safely inside my stomach, I gave a content and full-bellied sigh.
“That was very good, thank you for the generous gift Rarity.” She was taken aback slightly as I mentioned her Element without thinking about it.
“Well then.” I rose to my claws and stretched like a cat does, “I suppose it’s time for me to leave.”
Fluttershy fluttered up to me to say something else but I raised a claw and stopped her.
“Your debt is repaid Fluttershy, you don’t owe me anything more.” She gloomily floated back down to the ground, her face hidden by her mane as I made my way out of town under the watching eyes of many ponies.