Familiarity Does Not Breed Recognition
Very.
Slowly.
It was amazing, really, just how slowly the dragon was (barely) moving. It had felt as if they'd needed twelve minutes just to get near the edge of town, two more for the bridge -- Rainbow swore he'd lost some speed in going over the bridge -- and from the moment Ponyville had started to fade into the background, his pace had begun to drop still more, as if he'd only been keeping up the faster march just in case there were ponies watching. (She didn't seem to count.) Rainbow didn't get it. He was a biped: he was supposed to be made for moving on a mere two legs. Shouldn't he be better at it?
"How much longer?" he demanded as if it was somehow all her fault, keeping the pace -- a snail could keep the pace, as long as it didn't get frustrated and race ahead -- on her right flank. Another, smaller glob of flame was rubbed into his hands.
"I don't know," she gritted out. "I usually fly there. I don't know how long it takes when someone's moving over the ground..." Which was a lie: she had a rough idea, based on how long it had required the Bearers to reach it as a group -- but that was for ponies trotting, not dragons moving their walking claws along the path as if every movement might make one break off. "We'll get there, okay?" And would he bother flying once they'd reached the base, or would she wind up sacrificing more time under Sun just to get him up the thing with the false companion she'd never wanted and couldn't even remotely stand, with his barely-moving on foot...
No. He had to fly at that point. Who wouldn't?
She glanced over just in time to see him shrug. "Whatever."
Companion: even as a dark joke, it was still a word which made her sick. This bully, this utter jerk who'd tried to make Spike into a potential murderer in the name of having the little dragon prove himself, and all Spike would have proven was that he was as much as a bully, jerk, and potential murderer as those he'd been trying so hard to impress... What would have happened if Spike had smashed Pee-Wee's egg to the ground? Would the baby phoenix have survived the cracking of the egg? Would the shell have absorbed enough of the force from the impact, or would that have caused injuries by itself? Spike had felt sick for weeks, scales losing luster every time he thought about what he'd nearly done, and only the return of the infant to his parents had stopped the guilt from the near-crime. A crime the dragon at her side thought was funny...
The dragon. She needed a name. It would let her hate him on a more personal level.
"So what's your name, anyway?"
The pupils of the yellow eyes went wide with surprise. "Why does some stupid pony want to know my name?"
"If something happens and I have to yell out a warning --" now there was a disgusting thought "-- I can't just call you 'dragon'."
"Why not?" His chest swelled with pride. "I'm the only dragon here, right? I'm the only dragon you've ever met and the only one you're probably ever gonna meet -- and live. 'Dragon' should work fine. 'The dragon' is even better! Only one of us needs a name, Direction-Face, and that's just because it's so much more fun than calling you 'stupid pony' -- at least for now..."
He's got a giant ego: we all saw that the whole time. He wants everything to be about him. How do you work with someone like that? A moment of thought -- and then she forced the words: "Because -- someday, I might tell somepony the story of the great noble dragon I escorted, and that pony's gonna want to know which great and noble dragon it was." The original plan had been to add more, something like "And your legend would have spread --" but her mind had choked up at that point and her voice hadn't even made it that far.
His torso expanded to the point where it seemed as his body mass was actually increasing on the spot. "Good point, even for a stupid pony. You can tell them you once spent a day helping the great and mighty Garble. Not that he needed help, other than never having been around here before and just needing directions."
"Okay... Garble." No fire emerged when she half-spat the words, and it was a pity. "And --"
-- she almost told him her name. Because she was Rainbow Dash, and she was pretty great herself. The creator (reviver?) of the Sonic Rainboom, one of the Element-Bearers, Wonderbolt In Training, all-around ace and incidentally, the greatest authority on the Daring Do cycle the world had ever seen outside the original author and Rainbow wanted to meet her one day just to thank her for all the books and make sure she had a few interpretations right. But... well, it wasn't as if the Bearers were that well-known outside of Equestria: in fact, it often seemed as if she and the others were still pretty much annoyingly anonymous most of the time, unless being so would work for their benefit. And this was a dragon who didn't care about ponies or think what they did meant anything. Telling him her name just to get rid of Direction-Face would probably mean nothing to him --
-- but there was a chance he would figure it out one day. Make a connection dozens of moons from now. He might even remember the sight of a prismatic tail making speed ahead of him (but not too much of it because she'd had to keep pace with the others, they'd had to flee as a unit just in case they wound up fighting as one) and realize it belonged to the pegasus currently at his side, she was waiting for that to happen and had actually been making plans for how to deal with it --
-- the name would probably mean nothing today, or tomorrow, and the moon after that. But on the day it did mean something -- a day when he might somehow link it to other events...
It'll probably never happen. He's too stupid. He'll never come back looking for Spike just to punish him for being with the Bearers.
Probably.
...anyway, even if I told him my name, this jerk would just keep calling me Direction-Face.
"-- I'll remember that name," she hissed. "As the -- only dragon I ever got to escort. So... why do you need to go to the cave, anyway?"
"That's dragon business," Garble smirked. "It's nothing any dumb pony would understand."
A horrible image flashed across her mind. "You're not -- moving in, right?" Posters all over the cave walls. Never, ever cleaning up the debris from the parties, which would be thrown every night with all his friends invited over, something which passed for music among his species and just qualified as ear-withering noise for everypony else blasting down from the mountain during every hour under Moon -- no, come to think of it, this one would clean the cave, he would clean it by flying over Ponyville and dumping off all the garbage there, laughing at every impact of foulness into the fur of a once-clean coat, he'd think it was a prank --
-- admittedly kind of a funny one especially when she pictured some of the ponies it could happen to, but...
"Nah," Garble dismissed the idea, waving his right claw through the air as if trying to push it away. "That cave is just stupid. No real dragon would live that high up. I heard he only did it because the altitude helped with his dumb breathing. When I settle into a place of my own, I'm gonna go underground. Something nice and close to a lava flow -- someplace with built-in heat."
Rainbow thought about the volcano and all the heat she'd been desperately shifting away -- something which had been all the harder to do without having her wings ripple the costume's skin in unnatural ways -- to keep the group conscious during their time within, accompanied by Twilight's constant attempts to remove 'trace elements' from the air and make it pony-breathable -- something the librarian had experience with, she'd mentioned something... oh, what had it been, something about needing to take Spike to a volcano once a year ever since he'd hatched, he needed the trips to stay healthy... yeah, something like that. Anyway, it meant Twilight knew an air-purification spell, but she couldn't do anything about heat -- there was some sort of medallion for that, but it only worked once a year -- and she'd had to keep her field hidden the whole time while they were within the costume, which apparently had a way of making spells not quite work right and in this case, had given the purified air an aroma normally only found in bathrooms during asparagus season. (Rarity had nearly fainted. Five times.)
But all Rainbow said was "So you really like heat, huh?" She wished she had some of the volcano's output with her. Anything she could shift in.
"I'm a dragon," Garble proudly declared. Another short burst of fire ran across his claws: he rubbed it into the scales, seemingly without noticing. "Just because stupid ponies burn from the puniest amount of heat... Yeah, a river right through the middle of my place. I'll swim any time I want, not just once a year during the dumb migration. I can splash around a little, send some up to the ceiling and see what kind of rock icicle it makes when it drips... and then if anyone breaks into my place? I can just whip my tail into the wall and BAM!" His left fist pounded his right palm in perfect crescendo with the shout. "All those rock spikes come down on them!"
And then he winced -- before his expression went angry.
"Spikes..." he muttered. "Yeah. Spikes."
And Rainbow knew his mind wasn't on stalactites.
I have to keep him out here. If it comes down to a fight, I have to beat him so badly he doesn't go back to town looking for another pony. I'd have to make him afraid of ponies...
The easiest way to get rid of him -- the one with what seemed to Rainbow to be the least potential for disaster -- was still through giving him what he wanted. But if she was wrong...
I'm doing this for Spike. I have to keep Garble away from him because his little scaly butt isn't up to handling this jerk yet. He's brave and he thinks he's ready for a lot, but he's not up to a challenge this big. He can't just go charging in screaming and expect it's gonna work. Some things are just too major for him to handle and once he admits that, we're all better off.
I have to put up with this for Spike...
The extended silence seemed to be confusing him. "So what's that stupid look? Bored or something?"
Were words supposed to feel like they were sanding down the interior of her throat all the way out? "It's a long trip." And I've seen rocks move faster than you.
"You know what makes trips pass faster?" he asked, and his tone was almost -- conspiratorial. There was a distinct gleam in the yellow eyes and somehow, it almost didn't seem to be a hostile one.
Wings? It took a moment before she could force any attempt at feigning interest. "What?"
"Stories!"
And then Rainbow reluctantly had to admit, she was interested. How many ponies had heard dragon stories, especially directly from the source? Sure, she had Spike -- but anything Twilight's little brother told her ultimately came from books: not dragon parents, grandparents, their ancestors -- stretching all the way back into the wisdom of the ages. Garble could know about lost great feats of the past, legends nopony else had ever heard of... A good story or four (because at this mind-breaking lack of pace, there was time for at least four) just might salvage some part of the day, even if they were coming from a jerk with a giant ego.
Garble, without bothering to wait for any response, began to tell Rainbow a few.
Every last one was about Garble.
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"...and then I grabbed his wussy little tail and, you'd better believe this because I made it happen, I tied it around his neck! Now maybe that doesn't sound all that spectacular to a stupid pony because your tails are pretty much nothing but hair after you get a little past the rump, but ours have meat and bones and stuff in them plus we've got a lot of body to get past along the way, so we can't do that! Unless you're me. It's called the Screaming Tailstrangle, and I was the first dragon in centuries to make it work! You know, I wouldn't have believed someone could scream like that with a tail around their neck until I saw it happen? Go figure, right?"
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"...so he said to me 'I know you can't grab all those gems in ten seconds flat!', and I was all like 'Yeah, I can!' and he was 'Nuh-uh!' and I was totally 'Uh-huh!', so he, if you can believe this, dared me to prove it! Count to ten. Go ahead, count to -- can stupid ponies count that high? Never mind, I'll just do it for you. One, two -- something that comes after two -- four..."
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"...which brings us to the Best Young Flamers competition. And let me tell you something, if that one guy hadn't grabbed that supposed magic mineral which makes your fire hotter and brighter, stuck it between his teeth and gone around the whole place showing off his multicolored blasts... of course, when you get that gem a little too close to -- but am I getting ahead of myself or what? Maybe it's because the only way you can keep up with my awesomeness is by knowing how radically everything turned out in the end, am I right? Of course I am. Because I'm a dragon. So anyway, he sticks the mineral between two of his teeth, and the things were so far apart he could have jammed a whole mountain in there before anyone noticed..."
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By the time they reached the base of the mountain, Rainbow knew all about everything Garble had either ever done, ever dreamed of doing, ever lied about doing or somehow, someway, despite the fact that it should have been impossible, all three at once.
It was infuriating. He'd kept the topic on himself throughout the entire endless trip. His dreams. His aspirations. His delusions. She had no idea how anyone could stand to be around someone whose lone subject of conversation was himself. How did his dragon friends put up with it? How could anything with a brain? If it could think for itself, it would know to run after the first two minutes, forget about hanging around through hours which had been dragged through slime, coated in glue, chained to her ears, and had everything else done to the suffering things which would make them slower than the rock.
She was long-past the point of wishing she'd worn the earmuffs. A blocked syllable or two would have gone a long way towards saving her sanity. And the frustration wasn't even making her warm.
"...and then I thought I'd put a little expansion onto the Burning Lands, you know? Nothing too big. Maybe five times the current size. I mean, it only makes sense, right? Dragons get big. I'm gonna be bigger than any dragon ever, I know that already. I've got all the signs. So I'll need that much more room and if a few other whiny things have to clear out so I can stretch my tail, well, better they move than I bring it down on top of them, right? Anyone can see that. Even a stupid pony should be able to work it out!"
Rainbow went with what had become ninety percent of her journey vocabulary. "Uh-huh."
"Of course, I've got to have room for my friends. So maybe seven times. Because I'll be big enough to keep my friends. No dragon's ever been that big! And if I have to take up half the continent just to make sure they've got some room, if my tail has to block rivers all by itself while my breath scorches a whole forest, then that's how big I'm gonna be."
"Uh-huh -- what?"
He sneered. "What part of big did you miss?"
"Big enough -- to keep your friends?"
And the next words emerged before thought could block them. "Well, you know, there's only so many hoards to go around --"
-- Garble stopped. He stared at her. She looked back, confused, not understanding --
-- just long enough for him to decide he'd gotten away with it. "Yeah. That big." And switched to staring up at the mountain.
Rainbow, free of his attention for a precious moment, remembered.
Spike during the unnatural growth spurt. According to Twilight, the last word to remain in his diminishing vocabulary had been "Want!" Keeping every stolen object away from everypony -- including the mare he'd very literally known all his life. Companionship hadn't mattered. Friendship had meant nothing. Family connections -- crushed under greed. It was all about his hoard: acquisition and defense. Nothing else.
What if every adult dragon was the same way? Smarter, because they would have reached their size the normal way and not given up all rationality and control along the way -- but keeping to themselves? Every other dragon a rival, someone who would be after their hoard, trying to add it to their own. Coming together -- reluctantly -- just long enough to mate and breed? And then the hatchlings would team up, would play together -- but as they aged, as the instincts started to come in...
What if the only way to have friends was to be so big they could never pose a threat to you -- or big enough that no other dragon could ever question why you were willing to have other dragons around you outside of the migrations, maybe that's even when they breed -- big enough that you could set your own rules?
...no. That couldn't be right. Garble was just a jerk, and jerks didn't have depth. They were jerks. Plain and simple.
"So this is the right mountain?" the jerk demanded, still looking at the upslope which marked the start of the base.
"I know where I'm going," Rainbow spat.
"Well, your stupid wuss pony talent is for directions, Direction-Face. It's just asking a lot of a dragon to trust wimpy pony magic." He glanced at her flank. "Is that cloud with a weird lighting bolt coming out of it really for directions? Shouldn't you have a map there or something?"
She tried to come up with a workable lie and after a moment, found one about safety symbols for air paths which she was sure Garble had never seen, much less used. "It's showing --"
"-- yeah, whatever. So let's start climbing."
The lie shattered under the weight of disbelief. "...climbing?"
"You know any better way to get up a mountain?"
The pressure also forced the word out. "Wings."
He glared at her.
Rainbow was also long-past the point of caring. "The cave's near the summit. You really can't miss it. If you flap so hard you overshoot, just glide back down. You're at the right mountain, that's what counts here, the directions are down to one word which I know a noble dragon can remember, and that word is up. Just fly, you're there, it's been -- interesting --" 'nice' had died in her mouth and judging by the taste on her tongue, the corpse was decomposing rapidly "-- meeting you. See ya."
She turned to leave.
And from behind her, got "You're not going anywhere but up the mountain with me, Direction-Face. Until we hit the cave, we're not there. So your job's not over."
Rainbow spun back. "Fine! Then just fly with me! I'll lead the way! Hold back a little bit of that incredible noble dragon speed which you were talking about for over an hour and you'll be fine!" Oh, she'd heard about his speed, the speed which had only allowed him to keep up because she'd had the others with her and was moving through unfamiliar forest, needed to keep low to stay with them, slow in order to spot and avoid the trees, if she'd just been by herself and higher up, she could have shown him just who the speedster was and how he possibly could have kept going for over an hour just on flying speed...
He glanced over his shoulder again and this time, spat a little fire onto his own wings. It dribbled down the smaller scales in weak rivers and mostly went out before it hit the ground. The last surviving drops perished evaporating a tiny amount of frost from the rocks at the mountain's base.
"You wanna fly there now, huh?"
"Yes!"
"You really wanna fly?"
"Yes."
Garble smirked. "Good. Then we're definitely climbing. Show me where we're starting. Like, you know, now."
Rainbow looked up.
The mountain hadn't gotten any smaller since the Bearers had made their first visit. In fact...
Hours. At the rate he's going, we might not reach the top before the Moon is raised. And that's assuming we don't stop to eat -- no, he isn't carrying any supplies, and it's not like I've got much beyond a few snacks which he'll probably just grab for himself... Hours and hours with this jerk, and he'll just keep talking about himself the whole time like nothing in the world matters except him...
She wasn't seeing any clouds. She and the rest of the team had done a good job clearing them out -- in retrospect, too good. Virtually all the moisture in the air had gone solid on the ground: a dry cold. There wasn't any ammunition waiting for use above her, she couldn't weave when the humidity was this low...
Rainbow thought about Spike again. It helped. At least, it brought her to a point where the next sounds came out with just enough growl to let them still pass for speech.
"This. Way," she just barely got out, and headed for the start of the path.
Behind her, Garble spat a little more fire into his claws, rubbed it in -- she could hear both actions: there was a crackle and fizz she'd come to loathe -- then followed.
...she could swear the mountain was higher...
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I think you meant summit.
3521589
Horrible ugly eye-slide typos keep me humble.
And Garble is now very obviously dragon Rainbow Dash, right down to the loyalty. Didn't see that coming. Also love that Dash has no idea how ironic she's being. Oh, and also how the stories so clearly match up to specific events in Dash's life, even if they also showed how poor Garble's morals actually are.
I think Rainbow may be thinking about the wrong kind of 'heat'...
3522387
I think you're in the wrong Comments section.
...anyway, if it was that kind of medallion, Twilight would have had a pair of story invaders mugging her for it by now. Politely. With royal decorum. (But still essentially mugged.)
3523073
Yeah, I don't really know where that came from. I blame lack of sleep.
I love how you can weave so much character and world detail into something as simple as the walk from one place to another. Volcanos being necessary to dragon health, the magic needed for the ponies to withstand the caldera, Crackle being dragon Dash (with dragon morals and dragon mentality,) all folded almost seamlessly into the story. Well, except the last one, since that basically is the story. More or less.
In any case, looking forward to more.
I'm liking the comparison between Garble and Rainbow, though I'm curious to see what you'll do with it. I could see this becoming a 'We're not so different after all' or just as easily becoming a 'Whoah, I really need to turn my life around.'
Huh.
Garble Dash.
I am pretty sure that whatever you have planned for the conclusion of this story does not actually include Rainbow Dash beating Garble to a bloody pulp... but just this once I wouldn't mind a less sophisticated ending.
"And then she kicked his ass." That sounds like a good ending, doesn't it?
I'm kidding. Mostly. But dang, he REALLY needs to get some respect knocked into him. Nanby Pamby Pony princess herself can watch while Rainbow Dash gets first dibs.
RD and her blissful lack of self-awareness.