The First Hearts and Hooves Day: A Legend of Spike Story

by DiabloGuapo

The Princess and the Dragon

The golden dragon flew triumphantly away from the Castle of the Unicorn King with its prize in its clutches. Fiore Rossa struggled to herself from the dragon’s talons, still crying for Prince Zephyr. Though she was now being spirited away by a fire-breathing beast, she had hardly noticed it. In her drugged stated, she only desired to be reunited with her “sweetums.” She didn’t even realize that if she broke free of the dragon’s grip, she would plummet to the misty ravine below.

The dragon paid little heed to the Unicorn Princess, for it was to be expected that a pony would try to escape from a dangerous predator such as it. Ignoring the mare, it continued to fly straight through the impenetrable haze. Out from the mist, a stone pillar emerged and the dragon effortlessly swooped out of the way at the last second. Just as it cleared the rock column, the jagged surface of the canyon’s wall came into view, but the dragon avoided colliding head first into the rock face with a quick turn. Not only was the chasm hazardous to anything that tried to traverse it, but to anything that tried to fly through it as well.

However, this was the dragon’s home and it knew it well. This is where it learned to hunt and to fend for itself.In order to survive, it had to learn how to master this inhospitable terrain. It had spent years as a hatchling exploring every nook and cranny of the mountainous maze in search of food and had come to be intimately familiar with its secrets unlike any pony could. This was the dragon’s domain and it could navigate through it with its eyes closed.

It suddenly pulled its wings close to its scaly body and fell into a dive, speeding head first into the gray abyss. The dark outlines of crags, boulders, and cliffs rushed passed the dragon until it suddenly extended it wings, halting its descent mere feet above the chasm floor. It flapped its webbed wings in a hover for a few seconds before touching down with its hind feet. Since its fore legs were preoccupied with holding the still screaming pony, the dragon used its wings to walk along the rocky ground like an overgrown bat towards the mouth of a cave.

Once inside, the dragon carried its hostage to the back of its lair to its treasure hoard. Small mounds of gold, silver, and copper coins sprinkled with an assortment of gems littered the floor. It wasn’t much, but it would grow over the ages as the dragon acquired more loot from future raids until it would dwarf the vaults of a kingdom’s treasury.

“Smoochie!” The dragon looked down to the red coated mare in its claws with perplexity. They were miles away from the castle and there was no chance that anyone could have followed them through the fog. There was no hope of rescue, and yet she cried out for her beloved.

“Your cries for help are futile,” the dragon told her in a deep, unmistakably male voice as he set her down on top of a pile of treasure. “You are… HEY!”

As soon as he relinquished his hold on her, the blonde maned mare immediately bolted towards the entrance of the cave. She ran passed the dragon and almost reached the exit before a clawed hand seized her around her barrel and pulled her back in.

“Smoochie!” she pathetically wailed as the dragon carried her back to the pile and once again sat her down.

“Escape is pointless. You have no…” Before he could finish, she once again galloped for the exit. With an annoyed snort of smoke, the dragon chased after her and grabbed once more. “Listen, there is nowhere for you to run! You will be unable to find your way out of the chasm and would surely perish. You are my prisoner, understood?”

Apparently, she didn’t understand and tried to run away again. Irritated, he pulled in her only to have her try it again.

“Do you think this is a game!?” he angrily roared. If it wasn’t a game, it sure did resemble one. They repeated the process of catch and release several more times, making the dragon look like a dog playing a game of fetch. “Will you desist!?”

“Smoochie!” Fiore Rossa wailed as she tried to escape once more. The dragon tried to block her with his body, but she wiggled through between his legs and slipped past him. Growling in frustration, he pulled her back and lifted her up with his claws to eye level.

“Are you listening to me!?” he roared as he slightly shook her. “I am a dragon. You are a damsel. It is not that complicated!”

“Smoochie!” she shrieked in his face, causing him to wince at the shrillness of her whining. The dragon snarled, baring his wicked fangs at her until his face relaxed and took on a patient look.

While still holding her up in his claws, he calmly said, “Fine. Go ahead and scream all you want. Let us see if I care.”

Almost an hour had passed and the gold dragon was now laying on his side, propping his head up with his left hand while a look of utmost exasperation fixed his face in scowl of unadulterated unamusement. Every few seconds, the crazed mare would run by and he would push her back with a wing. As this cycle continued, he began to wonder if other dragons had to put up with this sort of trouble whenever they kidnapped damsels. If so, then he seriously questioned if the practice was worth it.

While the dragon mentally bemoaned the situation he put himself in, Fiore Rossa’s incessant cries for the Pegasus Prince carried on as she once again ran pointlessly towards the opening at the end of the cave. She was halfway to the point where the dragon would normally slide her back to the starting line of her impromptu raceway when she stopped mid stride and froze in her tracks.

“Smoo… Wait…” she slowly said as she started to ponder. The dragon, noticing her unexpected change in behavior, raised a scaled brow at the mare as she stood in the center of the cave, looking around in confusion. “What is… Where… am I?” She held a hoof to her head, her brow furrowing as she tried to concentrate. She then looked up and panned around the cave, taking in her surroundings and realizing she was no longer in her castle. All she could see were the stalactites hanging from the ceiling and only heard the echoes of water dripping in the distance and the squeaks of bats emanating from the depths of the cavern. “A cave? How did I get inside a cave?”

“I brought you here,” a rumbling voice announced from behind her, causing her to jump in alarm. She quickly turned around and gaped at the dragon looming over her, stepping backwards. She correctly assumed that the gold-scaled reptile before her was the dragon that her father and brother had been seeking. Her father was paranoid and believed that the dragon would bring havoc to his kingdom. It would appear that he was correct.

“P-Please, don’t hurt me,” she begged as she continued to cower away from her captor. “I’ll do anything you want. My father will pay whatever ransom you ask for.”

“That is the idea,” he dryly responded to her promises. He then studied his hostage with a bemused look. She was finally acting like a proper hostage, begging for her life and offering promises of a reward in exchange for her freedom. At least she had ceased with her infernal wailing, but he was confused by her sudden change in behavior. “After almost an hour of assaulting my ears with your cries, you no longer cry out for your beloved. Why is that?”

“My beloved? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she claimed, still trembling before him. “I don’t even remember how I got here.”

“Do you take me for a fool?” he questioned, glaring at her suspiciously. “Do you not remember being dragged out of the embrace of your lover and being flown to my lair? Do you not recall how you been doing nothing aside from pining for him and trying to escape?”

She fervently shook her head and said, “I swear, I don’t remember any of it. I… I don’t even have a lover!”

“Oh, I find that unlikely,” he sneered snidely, grinning at her with his fang filled maw. “The way you clung to him would suggest otherwise.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. The last thing I remember… uh…” The mare paused as she tried to recall the events prior to her suddenly finding herself in the middle of a dragon’s lair, but she was drawing a blank. It was though a fog of forgetfulness had descended upon her mind and obscured the events of the past few days, only being able to see faint shapes and images of the memories of that time. Since that part of her memory was obscured, she sought for an earlier point in order to ascertain what caused her lapse in memory. She could remember going to the Grand Summit of the Three Tribes. There, she met with Fertile Soil of the Earth Ponies and Prince Zephyr of the Pegasi. Prince Zephyr. For some reason, that name struck her as being important. Even as she recalled the name, part of the fog lifted and she could see more of the picture. Yes, he played an integral part in all of this, but what? Following that train of thought, she remembered that a few days after the summit, he had come to the castle. He came and he had something with him. Oh, what was it? The wine. Ah, yes! That’s right. He came wanting to apologize for his behavior and offered the wine. And after that… After that everything gets blurry. A sudden wave of panic coursed through her body, realizing that whatever he had given her is what was causing her amnesia. Further panic enveloped her as she remembered that the dragon claimed that he had found her in the embrace of her “lover.” She started to hyperventilate as a million awful possibilities ran through her head.

“You are not going to start screaming again, are you?” the dragon asked, not to eager to resume that procedure once again. He then recoiled a bit as she rushed up and stuck her face in his.

“Was he a Pegasus?” she urgently asked.

“...Excuse me?” he asked, caught off guard by her sudden invasion of his personal space.

“The pony you found me with, was he a Pegasus with a blue mane and white coat?” she asked, leaning in closer to the now confused dragon.

“Yes. What does that have to do…”

“He drugged me!” she shrieked in outrage and disgust. The dragon flinched at the volume of her voice and used a claw to clean out a rigging ear as the princess prisoner started to pace around in distress. “I can’t believe it! He drugged me! Of all the underhoofed things a pony could do! Ugh, I should've known better! I should’ve known that he hadn’t changed! All he wanted to do is rut me! Aaahhh! What if he did!? That’s what he did, isn’t it!? He spiked my drink and had his way with me! Of all of the things that could happen, this is The. Worst. Possible. Thing!” Her hind legs gave out and she fell onto her haunches, her green eyes as wide as saucers. Her rapid pants increased to dangerous levels, her red face becoming a deep shade of maroon.

“You might want to take a deep breath before you…” the dragon started to say until the inevitable happened. Fiore Rossa’s eyes roll back into her head and she toppled over onto the ground unconscious, “...pass out.”

A few minutes later, the princess’s eyes fluttered opened and she groggily asked, “Oh, what happened?”

“You fainted,” the voice from earlier flatly explained, jolting her back to full attentiveness. She quickly raised her front half up to see that her bizarre dream was, in fact, reality. When she saw the dragon again, she tried to scurry away, but he reached out and pinned her down with a clawed hand. He growled, letting smoke rise from his nostrils as he leaned in to warningly whisper, “Let us not start that again, shall we?”

She frightenedly nodded compliantly, and he lifted the claw off her barrel, watching to see if she would keep her word. They sat in silence, Fiore Rossa tucking her legs close to her body and shivering as she nervously watched her keeper. The dragon in turn looked down at her, his body crouched down and his tail twitching side to side, making him resemble an impatient, overgrown cat ready to pounce on her if she dare move. His head was raised like a cobra poised to strike, and his claws gripped the ground in anticipation. She found it hard to met the gaze of his eyes that burned like two green furnaces and averted her eyes to the floor before her.

“I’m sorry. I’m just a little confused,” she explained. She took in a deep breath to calm herself and allowed her mind to clear. Slowly, but surely, memories of the time she was under the love poison’s spell came back to her in fragments. Scenes of her snuggling with the loathsome Pegasus Prince and even the attack by the dragon started to paint a picture and she was to fill in the gaps by logical reasoning.

“So am I,” he admitted. “So who was that stallion I found you with?”

“He is the Prince of the Pegasi. He tricked me into drinking something that made me lose my senses. It must have been a love potion.” The princess paused and shuddered. “I can’t help but dread to imagine what he had planned for me.”

“That would explain the unusual behavior from both of you. When I abducted you, the two of you were acting like you did when I brought you here,” the dragon elaborated. “You were so lost in your infatuation that you did not even notice that your castle was under attack.”

“That is the effect of a love potion, but that would mean that Zephyr was also under the potion’s spell,” Fiore Rossa concluded.

“Wait. He was trying to enchant you but ended up enchanting both of you?” the dragon asked, to which Fiore Rossa nodded in response. The dragon chuckled and the mare looked up to him, feeling a little insulted that the dragon was laughing at her. “Oh, I fear for the Pegasi. If their Prince is so incompetent that he drugged himself, how can he possibly hope to run a kingdom? You ponies are so amusing.”

Embarrassed, Fiore Rossa pouted as the dragon continued to laugh. Once his laughter ceased, she cautiously asked, “I don’t suppose you could let me go.”

“No,” the dragon flatly denied her inquiry.

“But what do you want from me? If it’s money you want, I promise you that you’ll have it if you but return me to my home,” she vowed.

“That is not how this works,” the dragon responded. “I kidnap a princess, knights come to save you, the king pays a ransom for your return, and then I eat you.”

“Eat me!?” she cried, aghast. “Good heavens, whatever for? Have you ever ate a pony before?”

“No, I have not,” he admitted with a smidgen of chagrin, shifting weight uncomfortably.

“So why eat me? Surely you don’t have to,” she said in hopes to dissuade him.

“But that is what dragons do,” he shrugged, unable to come up with a better excuse.

“But who says so? Is there a quota of damsels eaten you have to fill each year?”

“No…” he quietly responded.

“Is there a dragon law that compels you to raid castles?” Again, he answered in the negative. “So why go through the trouble?”

“Because that is what dragons do,” he told her again.

After waiting to see if he would elaborate, she looked around the cave that was her prison when he didn’t say anything else. It didn’t offer much for scenery and the dragon would certainly prevent her from leaving. The only thing of interest in the stark cave were the piles of coins and gems. Having nothing else to do, she asked, “So, what happens now?”

“We wait,” he simply said.

Hearing this explanation, Fiore Rossa stared at her captor incredulously and said, “Okay, I have a few questions. How do they know you want a ransom?”

“Excuse me?” the dragon asked, caught off guard by her question.

“Did you tell my father how much you wanted for my return?”

“No, I…”

“Oh, so you left a ransom note behind when you kidnapped me?”

“No…”

“So how would they know that you’re holding me for ransom?” she pointed out the flaw in his plan. “Were you hoping they find your lair and then you give your demands without them attack you? Do they even know where your lair is located?”

“I assume they do.”

“You ‘assume,’” she repeated in disbelief.

“They were snooping about the chasm just the other day,” the dragon told her. “I am sure they would be able to find it sooner or later.”

“Chasm? As in Blind Chasm? Really? You expect anypony to find anything in here within the next century? And you’re hoping for them to find your lair? What’s to stop them or anypony else from coming here later and bothering you?”

“Um… I…” The dragon began to shift his eyes, becoming unsure about his decision to kidnap the princess.

“And you plan to eat me. Why? What’s the point? And how? If even they pay the ransom, do you expect them to sit there and watch as you eat me?”

The dragon opened his maw to retort, but the words wouldn’t come, and so he sat there with his mouth wide open and a claw held up. The only sound he made was, “Ehhh…”

It was the dragon’s time to be embarrassed, which only grew when he heard the sound of giggling. He snapped his head in the direction of the red Unicorn to see her covering her mouth with a hoof as she merrily laughed. His chagrin grew, causing the golden scales of his face to glow a coppery red. After recovering from her fit of laughter she asked, “You’re not really good at this are you?”

“Give me a break. I have never done this before,” he ashamedly confessed and then turned away from her. “Just be quiet.”

“Our first meeting… could have gone… better…” Aurum said with much difficulty.

As her mother did her best to make their host comfortable, Amethyst asked, “What happened to Prince Zephyr once the potion wore off?”

Aurum laughed, a painful coughing sound that caused the elder wyrm much discomfort. Rarity, who was currently standing by his massive maw, quickly scurried away as a black cloud spewed out of the dragon’s mouth. The alabaster mare coughed herself, waving a hoof to clear the air.

“I apologize,” Aurum said to Rarity before turning back to the Kirin. “He… found himself… in quite the precarious… situation.”

Comments

[Mal Masque]

Well that was... Actually pretty funny. I found myself chuckling at the whole thing, especially when Aurum found himself caught in that little slip up. Bravo on that, I don't laugh easily.