36 - Dawn
Chapter 36: Dawn
Tempora wasn't wrong, Lapis was a handful. Her tail kept coiling around my midsection annoyingly and she eyed me in the same way a girl would her dolls. It was not a pleasant experience, let me tell you.
Still, I managed to get some things out in between each squeezes that crushed my lungs.
“If you don't mind,” I gasped. “Can we talk about why you're here so—” *urk* “—early!”
Lapis relaxed her hold, and coiled sinuously on the other side of the table. She wasn't that much larger than Tempora, so her height just about overtook mine when I was standing straight. Lapis gave me a tousle with her claw and then studied me with pale rose-quartz eyes.
“Mother told me about you,” she said with a toothy grin. “I was interested to meet a traveller that went beyond the boundaries of wing and will.”
Oh, finally a normal conversation.
“But I didn't expect you to be so astoundingly cute! That patch of hair! Those squishy skin! Your stubby little claws!”
And the crazy comes back.
I took a seat uncertainly, as Lapis circled around the chair like a shark around a stranded survivor. “Don't you have duties or something? Matriarch Scales would have something for you to do, wouldn't she?”
Lapis smiled in the same sort of way a tiger does before it clamps down on its prey.
“Dragons have a different system to the ponies. The right to rule is kept only so long as there is no challenge. Power holds court in our halls.”
I struggled with the thought.
“Power? Sounds pretty dangerous.”
Lapis giggled. “No, silly! Power isn't just something physical like you're thinking. Power comes in all shapes and sizes. It's the ponies and their system that really frighten us. What happens when somepony is born into your little kingdom and upsets the balance. Thinks a little much of themselves and decides they know what's best to rule?”
Lapis grinned, stroking a claw down my hair.
“That's dangerous,” she said.
I had to agree, she made some good points. Besides, it was hard to disagree, when a razor sharp claw was winding down my neck.
“So, what now?” I asked, suddenly recalling the feeling I had moments ago, when Lapis declared us alone. Butterflies flittered in my stomach.
Lapis waggled a claw in front of me.
“Show me show magic!” she exclaimed, rocking back.
My jaw dropped open.
“U-Uhh, I haven’t prepared anything… why?!”
Lapis tutted as her tail swished from side-to-side, reminding me of a cat crouched and ready to swat a paw.
“It's a simple little test,” she said. “Let me see what you have to show the Council of Elders!”
“I-I’m not ready,” I stuttered, looking away. “I thought I would have more time.”
Lapis eyed me critically.
“Time, time, time,” she giggled, waving what I could only describe as a mischievous claw. “Do you really need time? Or do you need help?”
“I thought this demonstration was something you did by yourself?”
Lapis rolled her eyes, shaking her head. “Yes, ultimately you need to perform the feat in front of the Council by yourself, but who is to say that you won’t get help in the sidelines?”
I frowned, drawing up a list of ponies I knew that could help me. Celestia and Luna… but they were too busy. Tempora? No I don’t think she has the time either. Even less so than her daughters. Star Swirl? Unreliable. Clover? Clever but crazy. Discord? Already helping me.
I glanced up to see Lapis grinning at me.
No, no, no.
Lapis seemed to read my thoughts.
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “You could ask me!”
“I’m flattered, really, but uhh, I think I can handle this on my own.”
Lapis, who moments ago was smiling, drooped. Even her spines seems to deflate. She dragged a sullen claw across the tabletop.
“You sure you don’t want my help? I can show you lots of things,” she offered, eyes wide.
I gulped.
“It’s… not going to be anything dangerous is it?”
Lapis shook her head in shock, as if the very idea hadn’t occurred to her.
“No!” she replied. “I’m a lot more responsible than I look!”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“Unless you have some sort of weakness against burning hot lava!”
“What?!” Lava?!
“You’ll be fine!”
With a chuckle, Lapis wrapped a sinuous tail around and lifted me bodily into the air. I was deposited unceremoniously onto her back, where I clung instinctively to whatever protrusion I could feel.
With a burst of flame that I suspected was more from her excitement than for show, Lapis burst out of the room and ran towards one of the large open bay windows that lined the corridor.
“Hang on, where are we— you’re not going to—”
Lapis didn’t reply, but just giggled as she dove out the window with her wings half-unfurled. Outside, the air was cold and sharp and her wings snapped out catching a slight draft. She flapped hard and I felt a sudden surge as we gained altitude. I blinked, I swear I only blinked. One moment the towers of the castle were around us, the next moment the castle was but a dwindling spec among the sprawling darkness of the moonlit nightscape below us.
My breath caught in my throat. I hadn’t flown before, unless you counted dream-flight.
Lapis curled around with a surprisingly flexible head. She could barely see me with her eye, but I noted the hidden pieces of laughter.
“You’re a brave one,” she said, “most land-dwellers get really scared when they are so far from the ground.”
“Well they’ve never been higher than I have,” I said reflexively.
I could feel Lapis’ intense curiosity without even seeing her face.
“Oh?!” she exclaimed. “What is higher than a dragon’s reach?”
I looked at Lapis in surprise. “You know,” I said. “Space.”
Lapis flapped her wings, taking us higher. We broke through cloud cover. Around us was the dimly lit constellations of an alien planet, the cool light of the moon and the rushing, biting wind.
“What is this ‘space’, tell me!”
How could I explain it?
“How far have you flown?” I asked.
Lapis giggled. “Farther than most dragons,” she replied with no small tone of pride. “I have gone so far that my wings found it hard to catch air, and it became bitterly cold, so cold a dragon could feel it. I nearly lost my thoughts up there.”
I had a few questions as to what would drive a dragon to try something like that, but I quashed them.
“Well space is when you go so far there is no air for your wings. That’s why we call it space. There’s nothing there except the stars, and the planets, and the wonders that can be found further beyond.”
I recalled an image of the first time my Dad had taken me to Annex-5. The slowly rotating ring-world underneath Annex-5 was framed by a binary star system. Beyond that was the Juniper Nebula, name so by the dull red dwarves nestled in between the stellar dust of million year old supernovae.
It was a breathtaking sight.
My Dad had chuckled at the time and tapped me politely on the shoulder.
“Careful now, Harmony,” he said. “If you lean too far you might crack the glass.”
I had stumbled back with a terrified look.
He laughed.
It was pressed diamond. There was no way I could’ve broken it.
Lapis was silent for a moment.
“You are interesting!” she said in an uncharacteristically serious tone.
Then she pulled up, angling us into the air. We headed up for a few moments, then she stalled, while my reminiscing thoughts was broken by the sudden feeling of weightlessness.
“Wait! There’s nothing holding me to youuuuuuuuuuuu!”
I had to fight to hold onto Lapis’ spines as the air struggled to pry me from her.
“Lapiiiiis!”
The dragoness laughed.
“Do you feel alive? Do you feel that?!”
I gritted my teeth, snapping my fingers. Stick Spider’s Spell, here we go, like a gecko. Come on!
It worked. Let me just tell you, if you use fingers to cast spells, don’t use both hands to grab onto something after casting the Stick Spider’s Spell. Bad move.
“Ooh good idea! Now we can try some more moves!”
“How about we don’t do things that might make me a pancake!”
“What? Did you say go faster?”
“Wha— No— Wooooooah!”
Lapis pulled up sharply, I was nearly turned into a pincushion by her spines. With a twist, Lapis spun in the air, with me hanging on like a rag doll superglued to a fighter jet.
“Hold on, I’m getting a bit dizzy!”
Lapis slowed down suddenly.
“Alright,” she said, uprighting herself. “We’re here anyway.”
I could smell the sulphur and ash.
Coughing, I managed to choke out a few words. “Where—” *hack* “—are we?!”
“A volcano,” Lapis replied with barely disguised glee. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
I was coughing uncontrollably, so I couldn’t reply. Luckily, Lapis seemed to notice because she angled away from the smoke and ash, and descended towards the summit of the smouldering mountain.
When I could drag in a breath, I wheezed, “Why are here?”
Lapis grinned at me, practically buzzing with excitement.
“The volcano is where dragons like to gather at. The most important thing, though, is that volcanoes have a lot of liquid rock.”
“Lava?!”
Lapis nodded as I scrambled rather than dismounted. I landed in waist-deep ash. Mumbling and grumbling, I flailed around until I found a series of hard recesses among the ash. I uncovered something hard and stood upon it, glaring at Lapis. The air was hot and uncomfortable, but Lapis didn’t seem to mind the heat at all. Or my cross look.
I pointed an accusatory finger at Lapis. “You— crazy dragoness!” I yelled. “I could have fallen off!”
Lapis smiled. “I wouldn’t have let you fall. You have to have more trust in dragons.”
I growled and said a few choice words under my breath.
“So what now,” I said, crossing my arms.
Lapis looked like she wanted to hug me again. I took a step back.
“You’re so adorable when you’re mad!” she exclaimed, reaching out with a claw. I took another step back out of her reach.
“Aww!” she pouted, then shook her head. “Okay, some lessons, then.”
She took what looked like a deep breath, but instead of air she breathed out, it was fire.
“Now,” she said. “How did I do that?”
“Magic?” I hazarded.
Lapis grinned. “I know that, silly! But how?”
Well it wasn’t as if I could get the composition of her magic through grabbing it like Clover did.
“Uhh, you converted some of your internal reserve into fire?”
Lapis smiled, but shook her head. “Close,” she said. “But if that were true, how could I do this?”
There was a good-sized block of obsidian a few steps away from us. I didn’t notice it before because everything was covered in a fine layer of ash. Lapis sauntered up to the rock and blew a steady stream of fire onto it. Her flame played upon the surface of the rock, blowing away the ash from the force of her breath. The rock beneath started glowing dull-red. Before long, the rock was white-hot, and the air visibly rippled with the heat.
I was impressed.
“How do you get that much power out?” I said in amazement.
Lapis grinned at me.
“Do you know why dragons eat gems?”
I shook my head, fascinated.
Lapis waved a claw. “Because gems can naturally store magical power. Every dragon has what we call a hearthstone. It is the accumulated blend of all the gems we’ve eaten in our lives.”
“So dragons eat gems…”
“To get more power,” Lapis said. “The more gems, the more ability a dragon has to store power. Often the biggest and longest-living dragons have ingested tonnes of gems, their hearthstones hold enough power to level mountains.”
My eyes widened with that.
“So…” I trailed off, embarrassed to ask the question.
“Why haven’t we gone around and started ruling everything?” Lapis chuckled.
I nodded dumbly.
Lapis scratched the obsidian stone with a claw absently. It broke off chips easily, as if her claws were made of diamonds.
“Dragons aren’t very adept with magic. All of our skills are pretty much innate. We can breath awesome fire, our claws and teeth can cut through stone, but beyond that…” She shrugged. “We used to be the most powerful beings in the land, but now the future lies in how clever you can manipulate magic. Ponies are the best with that, no doubt about it.”
“Why are you telling me about this?”
Lapis stopped scratching the stone and looked at me. “There’s trouble brewing,” she said. “Some—” she stopped herself “—most dragons are not like me. They are not as accepting of ponies as I am, they rather take what they can while we still hold the balance of power.”
Lapis’ eyes welled with tears. “I don’t want to see everything my mother has built up torn down for such a petty reason!” Lapis gritted her teeth, her tail lashing out and striking the obsidian stone behind her. The stone fractured and split with the force of her blow. I flinched.
Lapis looked up and softened her voice. “The Council is hounding for blood and Gripple is the one doing it. He’s heading for mother’s position.”
“But your mother can deal with him, can’t she?”
Lapis hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “For now. But what of a decade? A century? My mother will not last forever, and all it will take will be one successful challenge.”
“What about you, can’t you help your mother?”
Lapis looked away. “Challenges are one-on-one, I cannot interfere with a rightful challenge. Gripple’s hearthstone should be no bigger than mine… but I’ve heard tell he’s been growing his by enlisting some strange creatures that have the guise of an overgrown dog.” I couldn’t tell if it were from the red glow of the lava nearby, or if her cheeks were red. “I’m… no match for Gripple. If mother loses a challenge from him, then it’s over.”
“Then how is helping me going to help?” I asked.
When Lapis stared at me, I felt like a child that had spoken out of turn while the teacher was explaining something. In a way, her sudden change in demeanour made her more scary than she would be if she were mad from the beginning.
“When the treaty is signed, it will be inviolate for the duration of your reign,” Lapis said quietly. With the constant rumble of the volcano, I could barely hear her. “Nothing Gripple could do would break it.” She straightened. “Dragons will always honour their agreements, but they can only broker a treaty if they recognise you first.” She sighed.
“I don’t want a war. Please. The last time…” Lapis trailed off, fixing me with a pair of eyes that was passionate as much as pleading.
“Convince them,” she said. “Quell their thirst of blood with the irrefutable acknowledgement of mutual destruction.”
I couldn’t hold her look for more than a few seconds. I dropped my gaze to my worn shoes.
“I’ll try,” was all I can say. I looked up at Lapis. She was staring at the volcano’s summit. Finally she turned to me with a small, tight smile, a shadow of her former bubbly personality.
“That’s all I ask,” she said.
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A bit dark, but okay... Also, great chapter, but a few errors.
Should be "as if".
1. If you want to keep "good-sized", it needs a hyphen.
2. "I had not noticed [the rock] before (No comma) because everything had been covered..."
3. Is there a better way to phrase this?
Alright, just have him level a mountain. Shouldn't be too hard
Good job :)
Some M.A.D business going on, huh? I expect you'll be talking about nuclear warheads, then?
So is harmony going to learn what could be thought of as 'dragon slayer magic' from fairy tail?
6349878 Thanks! I really appreciate it. You can probably tell I have no editor.
6350896
I can tell, but that's not the question. The question is thus: "Do I care?"
I have two reading 'modes.' I either am A. critical because errors break the immersion, or B. don't care because goddammit, I need my fix. When I read this chapter, I was in mode A, and now I'm in mode B.
6350929 So... I'm guessing you want more chapters, then?
6350942
(I'd make a Khorne reference, but I can't think of any.)
What do you think?
And did you notice that the 1000th comment just happened? You did it, even.
6351039 Not a nitpick, thanks, they've all been fixed.
6350978 Wowsers, that many? Well thank you for being one of many that contributed to that. Hehe, I'll smash another chapter out quick-smart.
How about an illusion showing the effects of sciences greatest mistake/weapon? The thermonuclear bomb, hell, just showing the less efficient atom bomb rather than the half a second star of the hydrogen bomb should be enough. Just tell them there is already an improved one that is easier to make. Let them think the ponies have a literal world ender in a bunker somewhere.
6350799
And to add salt to the wound, you made a bad joke!
M.A.D
Still noticed a couple of mistakes, but right now my reading is quite sporadic (at work right now), so I'm not able to exactly point them out. But they're pretty minor.
Anyway, flight was fun! Good thing Harmony remembered his grip spell, or he'd start to feel the pull of gravity after the weightlessness... without anything to hold him for a few seconds at least
So, plot thickens.
i like this dragon
stayclassy
fukushima-diary.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wink-nudge.jpg
6359215
Perhaps.