After very little consideration, Cheerilee and Raindrops had chosen to do things the easy way. Hesjingrasvim, therefore, scooped them up without complaint and took flight towards the obsidian spire. The flight was surprisingly cool – a thousand feet in the air and the heat from the lava was much faded, while the steam had cooled considerably from ‘scalding’ to merely like that of a warm sauna. Their journey was also a short one, merely to the top of the obsidian tower, where Hesjingrasvim alighted within one of the entrances and set the ponies down. The floor beneath them was obsidian just like the rest of the tower, smooth and betraying no sign of scratch marks despite the claws of the beings that must have traversed it regularly.
Hesjingrasvim stepped ahead of the ponies and nodded his head towards the tower’s interior. “Follow me,” he said as he walked down a curving ramp that lead down the tower. “The tower is magic, it keeps out most of the heat. You’ll be fine.”
The two ponies did, though Cheerilee frowned at that. “Magic?” She asked. “Who enchanted it?”
Hesjingrasvim shrugged as they walked. “I don’t know. It’s always been magic,” he answered. “You ask a lot of questions.”
Cheerilee smiled a little. “I’m a teacher. I have to be able to answer a lot of questions. That means that at some point I have to ask them.” She looked back the way they came, then down into the tower. There was a dim light from somewhere far below, coming up the spiraling ramp that they were heading down. “Like…why are there so few dragons?”
Hesjingrasvim looked to her at that; in the dark, his eyes glowed violet. “So few?” He asked. “You said yourself there’s seven thousand here.”
“True,” Cheerilee said, “But Equestria has tens of millions of ponies living in it. Even smaller nations like Pferdreich or Cavallia still have populations in the seven digits.”
“Seven digits?” Hesjingrasvim asked, then looked to his hand, flexing the fingers there as though trying to figure out what they had to do with anything.
Cheerilee stared. “In the millions,” she said.
“Oh,” the dragon responded, walking again for a moment. Then he stopped again. “No, actually, wait. I don’t get it. Seven digits?”
“Numbers,” Raindrops answered, jumping in. Leaving aside that they were going to meet a dragon whelp that was not nearly as friendly as Raindrops vaguely remembered him being, she was feeling more than a little nervous as well at the walls, floor, and ceiling all around her. Sure, she lived in kind of a small home, but that was her home. Otherwise, like most pegasi, enclosed spaces made her a little claustrophobic, particularly spaces without windows, doors, or other means of seeing outside. “You know, like the ones digit, the tens, hundreds, thousands…” Raindrops continued.
Hesjingrasvim stared at the two. “When you write them down?” Cheerilee asked. “Or does Draconic have a different number system? How do you write?”
“Oh,” Hesjingrasvim said after a moment, turning and resuming walking. “We don’t.”
Cheerilee watched him go. “Don’t what?” she asked.
“Write. What’s the point?”
“What’s the point?” Cheerilee echoed, more than a little loud as she did so. She closed her eyes, holding up a hoof as she tried to process this. “Wait, wait, wait. Do you…are you telling me that dragons…that none of you know how to read or write?”
“I wouldn’t say none of us. I don’t, but maybe some dragon out there learned it, if they wanted to. I didn’t. What would be the point?”
Cheerilee was flabbergasted by that enough that Raindrops had to physically push the magenta earth pony several times in order to keep her moving after Hesjingrasvim. Cheerilee eventually got moving under her own power, but she looked to Raindrops with wide eyes and ears pressed to her skull. “They don’t…” she tried. “Dragons live eight, nine hundred years on average. And they don’t write anything down? But Hesjingrasvim is…okay, his accent is a bit weird but he definitely seems intelligent, most of the dragons do…”
Raindrops eyed Hesjingrasvim a moment, then looked back to Cheerilee. “They’re bullies,” she said in a low voice. She didn’t know how good dragon hearing was, but she had a feeling that what she was going to say wouldn’t offend Hesjingrasvim anyway.
“So are Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, a lot of the time,” Cheerilee retorted. “But they can both still read! Diamond Tiara has even said she might like to start up a school newsletter…”
Raindrops shook her head. “No, I mean…” she thought a moment. She was pretty sure she had figured dragons out, and was pretty sure she had done so because of her anger problems, because she had a part of her that just constantly wanted to fall into fight-or-flight instincts and heavily favored the fight part. “Okay. Imagine being a dragon whelp. You hatch and from the moment you do that, you can only look out for number one. Yourself. Every other dragon sees you as competition. You spend your entire foalhood…whelp-hood, whatever…just trying to get a one-up on all the other whelps. You probably only learn how to speak at all because figuring out what other whelps are saying gives you a better shot at surviving. Maybe you join a gang of other whelps since working together you’ve got a better shot at surviving, but even in that gang all you’re ever trying to do is get to the top and keep any other dragon from reaching where you are.
“And then, even after that, even if you make it to be the biggest and meanest whelp around, you’ve got…” she waved a hoof after Hesjingrasvim, “that to deal with. Adult dragons.”
Cheerilee considered. “But…argh. I just don’t get dragons. They live for centuries, they’re intelligent, at least as intelligent as ponies, they’re the strongest mortal creatures around …but all they seem to do is fight each other, and there’s only a few thousand of them! They eat rocks! They should be everywhere, where’s no reason why they shouldn’t be ruling all of Cissanthema!”
“Well, Luna and Corona might disagree,” Raindrops observed dryly.
Cheerilee shook her head again. “There’s just something I’m missing here,” she said, “something obvious, it’s going to really annoy me when I finally figure it out, that I didn’t hit on it earlier…”
Raindrops, for her part, was willing to just accept that dragons were mostly jerks without looking for a deeper reason than that. As the two continued to descend down the obsidian spire, the light that had been coming up from below grew gradually brighter, without the heat increasing – Hesjingrasvim hadn’t been lying about that, it seemed, and Raindrops wondered how much magic had to be invested in this thing to keep out the heat of an entire volcano. At length, the corridor they were descending through let out. Hesjingrasvim stopped just before the chamber that he was leading them to, not entering it, but indicating it with a nod. The two ponies looked in.
Gold.
So much gold.
The color and the metal were both anathema within Equestria, a societal taboo dating back a thousand years from when Corona had first tried to make herself sole ruler of Equestria. She had painted everything she claimed as her own in gold, and as a result after her overthrow the country had just gradually grown to find the color distasteful due to its association with the Tyrant Sun. But this wasn’t the case outside of Equestria – the metal was still precious, still valuable.
But if the sheer amount of gold that the ponies saw below them were ever introduced into the common market, that would change pretty quickly. The two were standing at the top of an overhang that overlooked a chamber that had to be nearly a thousand feet across, and was at least two or three hundred tall – far too large to be located in the obsidian spire that had been visible above the surface of the lava pool, and so they must have been beneath it, a thought that would have been unnerving if not for the wealth displayed before them. The chamber was full to bursting with piles of gold, coins and raw nuggets and trade bars and necklaces, rings, earrings, bangles, chokers, statues and any other form that gold could possibly be crafted or shaped into.
And there wasn’t just gold – there was silver and copper and platinum and electrum in every form as well, intermixed with the gold, as well as precious stones, rubies and sapphires and emeralds, diamonds and jacinth, opals and pearls and quartz and other stones in impossible amounts, stacked up as high as the ceiling, spread out across the floor of the chamber that they were in.
The wealth wasn’t even confined to precious metals. There were tapestries, too. The ceiling had hanging from it a hundred-foot-long one displaying a historical event that neither Raindrops nor Cheerilee could recognize, and that was only the largest – they hung from every possible space, the spaces that weren’t taken up by paintings, in any event, pieces of art that the ponies could only assume had been presumed lost for centuries, whole walls of frescoes and mosaics ripped out from wherever they had originally been and shoved into place haphazardly.
A bare hoof-full of the treasure in this room would set the ponies for life. The entire contents…they could buy half of Equestria itself. The sheer wealth, the sheer magnitude of the value set before them, was enough to make the two ponies at first miss the room’s current occupants. That didn’t last long, of course, given that one of them was a black dragon nearly a hundred feet long from end to end, and the other was the current Overlord of All Dragons.
“Hi, guys!” Spike called as he waved at them pleasantly from where he sat at the far end of the cavern, atop a golden throne with red cushions, the throne itself set on a gold, concave platform looking almost like it was supposed to have water in it. It looked familiar to Cheerilee, but she couldn’t place it, not with the sheer stunning wealth laid before her. The throne and platform, themselves, were wedged into the largest mountain of gold and gemstones in the cavern about halfway up.
Spike hopped off of the throne, sliding down the mountain of treasure as he did so. He gave a thumbs-up signal to Hesjingrasvim once he was back on the ground. “Good job!” he exclaimed, then looked once more to the ponies and spread his arms out wide. “Isn’t this awesome?”
Raindrops was beginning to seriously rethink the pony taboo against gold. “Yeah,” she said.
“In the original sense of the word,” Cheerilee appended, as the two started down a ramp that lead to the chamber’s floor, which was the same solid, smooth obsidian as the hallway they had been walking through. They glanced back at Hesjingrasvim, who wasn’t looking at them, but was rather alternating between keeping a wary eye on Spike and Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, and eying the astounding wealth of the room without even bothering to hide his greed. He was actually drooling, in fact.
Spike noticed that, and flicked a claw against the amulet he wore, growing rapidly in size to be a true dragon again – not to the ridiculous extreme he had achieved to cow Solrath, but still several impressive scores of feet. Hesjingrasvim noticed and shrank back from the chamber, bowing his head low.
“Relax,” Spike said – voice deeper and louder but not massive and booming – as he looked around the chamber a few moments. He eventually reached into a treasure pile and pulled out a golden statue in the shape of a griffin, probably a famous one. He carried it over to Hesjingrasvim and set it down before him, carefully avoiding stepping on the ponies as he did. “Here. That’s yours now.”
The green dragon blinked several times at that, eyes darting between the treasure and the Overlord. “It’s…mine?”
“Or I could keep it,” Spike suggested, eyes flashing red.
“No!” The other dragon responded quickly, darting forward with speed that belied his size and grabbing the statue before pulling it against his chest, arms and wings folding around it. After a moment, he seemed to remember who he was talking to. “I…I mean, uh…that is, thank you? Overlord. Yes.”
“No problem,” Spike said, then waved his claws in a shooing motion. “Now go on, get out of here. I want to talk to the ponies.”
Hesjingrasvim didn’t waste time, backing away with the treasure clutched firmly in his claws before turning around and scampering back up the hallway. Spike, for his part, turned his back on the green dragon almost immediately, red gem glowing and shrinking down to his normal size and laughing a little, jerking a thumb back the way Hesjingrasvim had run. “Dragons don’t really get the idea of being ‘paid’,” he explained. “But I finally figured out how to do it. Tell them that something’s theirs, then threaten to take it back. Greed wins over confusion.”
“I’ll bet,” Raindrops observed. Her wings were flared, she realized, and she deliberately tucked them against her side, resisting the urge to keep them spread. “Um…so, about…what happened…”
Spike blinked a few times, then let out a laugh, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah. Things got a little intense outside, didn’t they?” he asked. He held up both hands. “Sorry, but all the dragons out there expect me to be some kind of big mean monster. Have to act like it if I want to stay Overlord.”
He started walking back towards his throne, which the two ponies couldn’t help but notice still had a very large black dragon behind it. “And, um…” Cheerilee said. “What…what about you?”
The black dragon stared at the two ponies a moment. “Doesn’t matter to me,” he responded, his voice echoing through the chamber. “As long as dragons obey him.”
“He’s my number-one assistant,” Spike said, looking up at the big dragon and considering for a few moments. “Syachtherkeerthichposs-Vutha?”
“Almost,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs-Vutha responded, flexing his wings a few times.
“I’ll get it right one of these days,” Spike promised when he reached the bottom of the treasure pile that his throne was lodged into, considering it for a few moments before beginning to try and climb it. The two ponies and one massive dragon watched as the Overlord made a few goes at it, but the treasure would cause him to slide back down to the floor. Eventually he grunted, the amulet he wore glowed, and he grew in height and sprouted wings, flying up to the throne. The throne shifted a little when he landed, partially destabilized from the shifting treasure beneath it, but didn’t fall. “So…” he said after settling down and returning to normal size, “I guess you’ve got a bunch of questions.”
“Yeah,” Cheerilee said. “How were you talking to Hesjingrasvim?”
Spike grinned at that, tapping his amulet. “This does more than just make me big or small,” he said. He stood up on the throne and reached down into the pile of treasure it sat on, picking up a ruby. “See, some dragons have magic…” he inhaled, then exhaled a gout of green fire on the gem. It disappeared in the flames, but the flames themselves didn’t die, but rather transformed into a thin wisp that snaked its way over to Cheerilee before bursting to life again – and from the flame popped out the gem.
“I can send stuff to people with my breath,” Spike said. “But the amulet lets me do more, too! I can talk to dragons tele…telepati…with my mind, if I try really hard.” He frowned. “Not ponies, though, or any other being.” He walked over to the other side of the throne and picked up a hefty, black ball looking like it was made from polished obsidian. “And I knew you guys were in Perdrake because of this thing! Magic crystal ball!” he smiled smugly as he dropped the orb and then sat back down on the throne, brushing one claw against his chest and looking at it. “Yeah, this hoard’s got more than just gold. There’s all kinds of magical artifacts around here! Impressed?”
Raindrops didn’t doubt it, not if dragons had the innate sense for magic that they seemed to. She looked to Spike. “Okay,” she said. “Next question. Was I really just brought here so you could show me up?”
“What? No!” Spike exclaimed, though his eyes flashed red again and he leaned forward in the throne. “Well…maybe a little. You did make me bite off my tongue and break my ribs and it did hurt a lot, remember!”
Raindrops’ eyes narrowed. Some part of her knew what she was doing was a bad idea, but with her fear gone for the moment…“Remember how you wanted to eat me?” she demanded. Cheerilee bristled at the pegasus’ tone and turned to face her, eyes wide, but Raindrops didn’t notice.
Spike matched Raindrops’ glare with one of his own, his eyes retaining a red glow to them. After a moment, Raindrops remembered who she was trying to pick a fight with and forced herself to rein in her anger. She closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath and letting it out, then a second time. “Sorry,” she said. She didn’t notice Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs looking at Spike with concern, but Cheerilee didn’t miss it.
“Spike,” Cheerilee said, stepping forward. “That amulet – where did you get it?”
Spike looked to Cheerilee, and blinked a few times, leaning back in his throne again and putting a hand to his head. The red glow faded from his eyes. “Ugh – sorry,” he said. “Ruling dragons, has me on edge. Um…the amulet? I dunno, I found it.” At a look from Cheerilee – the same look she gave her foals in school when they misbehaved – he held up his hands. “I mean it! A dragon found me after…some stuff…happened. I was wandering around the edge of the Wilderlands and the dragon decided to take me to here. But we stopped somewhere and I just found it in a river. Kept it hidden until we arrived here, then I figured out how to make it work and what it could do.”
Cheerilee put a hoof to her chin, considering it. Seeing it up close, and what it could do…something tickled the back of her mind. Hadn’t one of her friends mentioned something like this…? An amulet…looked like it had an alicorn on it…Cheerilee seemed to remember Carrot Top, but she couldn’t for the life of her think why…
“Anyway!” Spike said, leaning back in the throne and spreading his hands. “Bringing Raindrops here to get even wasn’t the only reason I wanted you here. Actually the main reason is because of those,” he pointed to the necklaces they wore. “I want to talk to Luna, and I figure that you guys can get any message to her faster than if I just tried to have it passed through Perdrake.”
Cheerilee considered a moment. “Pferdreich,” she corrected.
“Whatever,” Spike said. “Look, I might be new to this whole Overlord thing, but I know that the ruler of a land meets with other rulers. Treaties and stuff.” He spread his arms wide. “I’m gonna rename the Wilderlands. It’s gonna be called the Dragon Empire from now on. With yours truly as the leader. But this guy,” he pointed at Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs, “says that I need to get something called international recognition first. So I figure if Luna gives it then every other nation will too.”
Cheerilee and Raindrops both blinked at that. Raindrops came forward after a few moments. “Wait,” she said. “That’s it?”
“Well, no,” Spike said, standing, glowing red, growing wings, and hopping from the throne. He glided over to another treasure pile, in which was set a gold-framed map of Cissanthema and parts of the nearby continents that looked a few centuries out of date, but very fine regardless. On landing next to it, he pointed to Elkheim. “See, that’s just part one. Part two is the Dragon Empire’s gonna need this.”
The two ponies stared. “Elkheim?” Cheerilee asked.
“Yeah,” Spike said. His eyes flashed red, and he grew a little – not much, but he had become as tall as either of the ponies. “Well, not all of it, but, see, Elkheim’s got this island chain that leads up to Rime, right? The northern continent. And a lot of dragons live there.” He turned to look to the ponies, tapping his fingers together. “See, Overlord of All Dragons, turns out that only applies to dragons in Cissanthema. There’s a bunch out in Rime, though, and even more in Occidenta. So if I want to be the real Overlord of All Dragons I’m gonna need to control them, too.” He pointed to the islands. “But even dragons need to stop for a break from flying every now and then. So the Dragon Empire is gonna need to be the Wilderlands, and this island chain.”
Spike looked back to them. “See, and as long as I’m taking those islands…Elkheim’s kinda’ basically been at war with dragons for centuries. Every few dozen years there’s a raiding party. A lot of treasure has been stolen over the past few hundred years. It’s mine. So I want it back. And let’s be honest, all those dragons out there want me to lead them to loot and plunder anyway.”
Spike stepped away from the map, waving his hands at it. “But I’m not going anywhere near Equestria, see? So all Princess Luna has to do is stay out of things. That’s all I want.” He smiled, growing a little larger as he did. “See?”
The two ponies did, but they didn’t like what they saw. “Spike,” Cheerilee tried. “Maybe…maybe it would be a bad idea to, as your first act as Dragon Emperor, declare war on another nation.”
Spike’s smile dropped. “It’s not like it would be a very long war,” he objected, crossing his arms. “And it’ll be my empire. I can do what I want.”
“It’s just…you’re not likely to get international recognition if you just attack others,” Cheerilee said. “That’s not what makes a nation, which is what it sounds like you’re trying to build. Plus there’s all those lives – you really want a war? And all that death it would cause?”
Spike paused at that, as though he hadn’t considered that. “Huh,” he said, deflating a little both figuratively and literally, as his form lost a few inches in height. “Hadn’t thought about that…I don’t want to hurt anyone I don’t have to…”
“And Princess Luna doesn’t rule over all ponies,” Raindrops observed, trying to help. “You don’t have to rule over all dragons – ”
The dragon whelp whirled on her at that. “Yes I do!” Spike exclaimed, stomping one foot on the ground and gaining a good two or three feet in height. He glare down at Raindrops, who backed away in fright as his form and in particular his eyes took on a red glow. “I need to. I own them, they’re mine!” He turned back to the map of Cissanthema. “Even if they don’t know it…I’ll hunt them down and make them mine!”
He turned back to the ponies, snorting a little green fire as he did and pointing at them. “I’m Overlord. But no dragon will stick with me if I can’t give them plunder, so I need to give them plunder. Lots of it. And I will and none of them will leave!”
Raindrops stole a glance at Cheerilee as Spike turned back to the map, flicking his tongue out at it and his form still glowing a subtle red. “Uh,” she whispered, leaning in close to the earth pony. “This…this isn’t good.”
“No, it’s not,” Cheerilee agreed. “I think I know why…” she took a cautious step towards Spike as Raindrops looked on in confusion. “Spike…you’re right. You’re Overlord. But do you really want other dragons to stick around only because you can give them treasure?”
Spike whirled around at that, growling and growing a few feet more, wings spread wide. Cheerilee backed away. “That’ss jusst to get them here!” Spike hissed. “But they’ll want to sstay. They won’t be going anywhere. They can’t. They’re mine! My dragonss! And then they’ll ssee – s-ssee how great I am, and…” he paused, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his head, shaking it. The red glow around him abated, and he shrank down several feet. When he opened his eyes again, they were their normal green, mostly – only a slight crimson tinge to the irises. “They’ll see,” he said, turning back to the map, leaning into it. “They’ll see, and they won’t go anywhere, ever again.”
“Oh,” Raindrops said in a low voice, suddenly able to put two and two together.
There was movement from the treasure pile that the throne sat on, and the two ponies looked to see Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs standing up, stretching his wings and making his way down the pile easily. “I think,” he said, “that your message for Princess Luna has been given to these two. So perhaps they should be on their way, Overlord?”
Spike considered a moment, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said, then his eyes widened. “Oh! And,” he looked around the treasure piles, digging into one until he came up with a jewel-encrusted silver comb and a brass drinking bowl with intricate carvings along its outer surface, inlaid with electrum. “These are for you!” He held them forward. “Payment for coming all the way out here, and for sending my message to Luna!”
The two ponies stared at the gifts. Spike grinned knowingly, and pulled them back a little. “Or should I keep them?” he asked.
Cheerilee looked at the dragon whelp, a soft, but sad, smile on her face. She took the comb, and Raindrops the drinking bowl. “Thank-you, Spike,” the earth pony said. “But…you know you shouldn’t have to bribe beings into liking you.”
Spike stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, before bursting out in nervous laughter. “I’m not doing that!” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. His form glowed red, but he once again shrank rather than grew, reverting to his normal size. “It’s just…it’s payment. That’s all.”
“And…can I make a suggestion?” Cheerilee continued, jumping into the opening while it was there. “Take off that amulet for a little bit. I…I think there might be some…side-effects, to its magic. And I think you know that too.”
Spike’s hand went to the amulet around his neck. “I’ll…think about that,” he said warily. “Dragons are super-resistant to magic, though. The amulet isn’t effecting me that bad.”
“Are y – ” Raindrops began, but Cheerilee shot her a glare and the pegasus closed her mouth.
“Just think about it,” Cheerilee said, turning around and heading for the ramp up, Raindrops in tow and Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs already waiting to escort them out. Once at the top of the ramp, Cheerilee glanced back and saw Spike sitting in the throne once more, looking down at the amulet he wore and tapping at it with his claws.
She shook her head as she and Raindrops began the climb up the passageway, Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs in front of them. “This is bad,” she said. “This is very, very bad.”
“Biggest bunch of bullies in the world, and they’re taking orders from him?” Raindrops asked. “Yeah, that’s bad. ‘I’m just going to need Elkheim?’ Does he really think we’d stay out of it and just let him do what he wanted?”
“I don’t think he’s thinking about that,” Cheerilee said. “He’s not really looking for a kingdom. And he doesn’t really want to rule dragons…it’s just that – ”
“That that is the only way a dragon will understand what he really wants from them,” the black dragon in front of them said.
Cheerilee and Raindrops both froze at that, glancing away from each other and towards Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs. He had stopped and turned around, looking down at the ponies. In the dark hall it was difficult to tell his expression – the only light came from the golden chamber they had left behind, and the red glow of the wyrm’s eyes. “And what is it,” he asked, “that Spike really wants?”
Cheerilee and Raindrops looked to each other. “A friend,” Cheerilee said.
“Friend?” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs asked. A low, rumbling laughter came from his maw. “What is a friend? Friendship is based on trust. Dragons have precious little of that.”
“Well, it’s what Spike wants,” Raindrops said, stomping her front hoof. The clack echoed through the hallway. “Friends and family.”
“Family,” the black dragon scoffed again. “Competition, you mean. Someone who will steal my gold, my treasure, my lair.” The black dragon waved two claws as though imitating little whelps running around on the ground. “Hatchlings that want nothing but their own hoard. Imagine having that! A lair that you invite – that you hatch – another dragon into?” He chuckled. “Foolish.”
“Well, that’s what Spike wants,” Cheerilee said. She eyed him a moment. “And you know that. And you’re not even against it, I don’t think. You’re not disagreeing with us, you’re just speaking for every dragon that does.”
“Which is to say,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs said, “every other dragon. I have been listening to you, Cheerilee, with the crystal ball that Spike uses. You have been trying to ‘figure out’ my kind, yes? Why are there so few of us? Why are we so willfully ignorant? So arrogant?”
Cheerilee paused a moment, before nodding. Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs nodded as well, and reached out a hand, touching it to the wall. “You’re right. The answer has been right in front of you. It is because we eat rocks.”
The earth pony considered that a few moments, but shook her head. “I don’t…what?” she asked. “How does that make sense?”
Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs turned around, resuming walking. “Nations. Societies. Cultures. These are all side-effects of the real goal of your race, I realized. The real goal is food. Growing it or herding it. Protecting it. Your societies exist to make the production of food more efficient.” He glanced back at the ponies. “You have a farmer. The farmer needs aid in tending his farm, so he has a family. The family needs protection, so you have soldiers. The soldiers need organization, so you have governments. You produce so much food that some of your kind don’t need to produce their own, so they become artisans, or artists, or thinkers.”
The dragon looked forward again. “But dragons eat rocks. We do not need farmers. We do not need a family. We are mighty – so we do not need soldiers. We can get our food anywhere. It does not need to be made ‘more efficient.’ So we need no government.” He snorted. “We collect treasure because the greed makes us grow. Because the more we own, the more we have, the stronger we are in our early years – but that makes every dragon competition, trying to take what is ours, to stop our growth. Even our mates are potential rivals.”
Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs looked back to Cheerilee. “Our only competition is other dragons – and so, we avoid those other dragons. We isolate ourselves in our lairs. We do not talk to one another. We have centuries of life to us…and yet the thought of companionship fill us with fear. So our language is stunted – so much that many of us learn other languages where we can, because Draconic simply cannot express what we may wish to say to others. And because we avoid each other, we see no need to learn or create letters. Draconic goes unwritten. Our history is distorted or forgotten.”
The three of them had reached the top of the tower, the entryway that looked out at the thousands of dragons in the Forge. The two ponies noted that all the dragons did their best to stay away from one another. They didn’t talk amongst themselves, really. Fights broke out over personal space. Almost every single one had a look of mixed paranoia and uncertainty on their faces.
“We are dragons,” Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs said to the two ponies. “We are mighty. We are the strongest of the mortal races. We have no equals. And because of that…we are dying.”
Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs seems to a very unusual dragon, I wonder what his story is? Did Luna maybe use a dragon egg in testing an apprentice a few centuries ago I wonder?
Ah, Spike, dragon nature + Alicorn Amulet + Abandonment issues is a fairly potent mix, he's quite sane all things considered.
Interesting point about the effect on farming on culture and development.
Would you believe me if I say Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs´ words are my headcanon about dragons (in most fiction, besides MLP) from a long time ago (probably after reading Earthsea?
Zecora's betrayal really tore Spike apart... didn't it?
... Cheerilee really is the absolute best protagonist for this job, isn't she? Laughter and a job working with children?
So it's cultural change or extinction. Tough call.
Intriguing. This interpretation of dragons is very interesting. I wonder how Spike's equine-influenced personality will eventually clash with all the others. Compassion can be taught, as Spike gives evidence to, but most dragons are set in their ways and I would be shocked he held control long enough to change their society significantly.
This really is a heart-breaking picture you've painted of the dragons. It's awfully bleak.
Hopefully there'll be something to brighten their future, if Spike can earn some real respect and support to help start the shift.
Woh, I can't help but see this a dragon version of "The lost treasure of griffonstone." Only of course you go way deeper in world building and explain things much better then that episode did for the griffons. I love this conflict it's a real friendship problem. The question is can Raindrops and Cheerily really help Spike and the other dragons? I know a few ways that might safe the dragon race in the lunaverse but I just keep them for myself and see if you can surprise me with a solution that I not came up with that's of course if you don't decide to chance it into a tragedy.
I can't wait for the next chapter. Dragons always fascinated me.
Another enjoyable chapter. Great job.
This chapter implies that ponies use Decimal (Base10). The ponies are aliens. Perhaps, one should use a different base. I prefer Balanced Ternary (Balanced Base3) and Sexagesimal (Base60). I wrote a blogpost about how ponies could settle upon Balanced Ternary (Balanced Base3):
How ponies might settle upon using Balanced Ternary (Balanced Base3).
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Well, mostly ponies are using Base-10 for the same reason they're using the Gregorian calendar: it makes things easier for us to understand and write. Though what was described in this chapter actually works just fine with any number base as long as it contains a 0.
Like, a base 4, for example, still has a "tens" place, you just reach it faster. 0, 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23...
6107689 Pretty much exactly my headcanon too for dragons everywhere. It's like a superpredator that is so efficient at hunting their prey the prey goes extinct and then the predator dies off too. Dragons are too strong to need civilization, so they never develop it.
They do, don't they?
Fair enough.
And 7K dragons roughly is only 4 digits. That's not much.
Math isn't your fort, is it?
Methinks he wasn't good at math in dragon school.
You mean, most dragons are illiterate? Wow.
Well, Dragons are greedy right? They want more, be it material, or otherwise, so, if you could read and write, you could hoard knowledge as well as power.
Not sure that's what she means.
I see.
Who are a lot more ruthless.
Maybe dragons don't reproduce often? Or as Raindrops explained, due to having to look out for nº1, they can die young?
I see.
Add the Arkenstone, and you've got Smaug's hoard.
Most impressive.
Again, this is like Smaug' hoard.
Oh yeah.
Very clever, Cheerile, it's both awesome in the traditional sense, and awe inspiring.
Smart.
Hm, I wonder, why the generosity?
Smart kid.
Fair enough.
I see.
You were off by, 4 letters, I think.
Damn right.
Very.
Yeah, I gotta admit, he's understandably pissed about that, but combine all the shit he's gone through, with the magic of the Alicorn Amulet, and being surrounded by so much wealth, it's a miracle he hasn't gone mad.
It's OK.
First, it's OK, you have a lot of stress to deal with, and yeah, that seems a bit too convenient.
I suppose you've git a point. But that can't be it, can it?
I see. But, you realize that declaring war is not gonna make things easier for you, right?
Perhaps, but you're their leader.
Yes, but do you really want Luna pissed at you? Besides, that attitude was the same attitude Scar had in Lion King and the same one Simba had as a kid, you don't want to become a crazed tyrant like Scar, do you?
Exactly, you're a good dragon, Spike, you're more than a monster.
Uh, Spike, you're starting to scareme.
Spike, calm down, please.
Agreed.
Oh. Guess Zecora's betrayal hit you pretty hard, huh?
Perhaps not, but, dragons are greedy beings.
If you say so.
She's right, she's not saying get rid of it, but it IS dark magic, maybe you should just give your mind smoe time to recover from it's effects? You did go a little nuts earlier.
Affecting me. And while I'm sure you are, resistant doesn't mean immune. but I'm glad you're willing to think about it.
Aye.
Perhaps, but that's what he needs, friends and family.
Correct.
Not sure.
Correct.
I see.
No wonder this is called A Dying Race.
... Dark.
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Yes, the joke that all civilizations use base 10:
SpaceAlien looks at 4flowers and says:
"I see 10 flowers."
The ape says:
"You use base 4."
The SpaceAliens says:
"No, I use base 10."
The joke being that all bases are base 10 in the base.
You state in the story that even small nations have 7-figure populations. That has implications for the base.
About Year-length, it can be whatever the ponies want. I would choose 360 because it is highly composite or 420 because it is the least common multiple of all natural numbers upto 7. The ponies can choose the day-length too.
Doh, well so much for Spike having a plan that isn't actually terrible. On the other hand, whatever Sjachthurkearverthichaoposs (Oye, so need an abbreviation for that. Sjach?) is up to is really intriguing.
6107689 What is "Earthsea"? Or did I already ask this?
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Earthsea
...This is Genius.
*Snort* He has a Palantir! that's great!
Anyway... this chapter is kinda depressing, to be honest. It's REALLY well-written, with great dialog, descriptions that set the mood and setting and whatnot... but depressing overall. Sorry.
And as a request... the throne room. Could you please not destroy it or the stuff inside? Please?! I'm literally begging you.
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In truth, with regards to the throne room, I'm a bit sad that no one has yet recognized one of the artifacts in it that I somewhat lingered on...
6128107 But you won't destroy it, will you?
Blacky (because I'm not going to copy-paste the name, and he isn't in our universe to be offended and roast me ) gives off a real Wrex vibe to me here. Sees everything that's wrong with his species, and can explain it in analytical detail, but at the same time has long ago given up on the idea of actually doing anything about it until something (Spike in this case, a potential cure for the Genophage in Wrex's) comes along that can shake up the status quo.
Well done
Wow. I really like your take on dragons. Or well... "like" might be the wrong word. It's not something that I would wish on any race, but it does make sense, and there's a certain dark irony to a race dying because it is too strong to survive.
Going back to re-read your stuff is always fun, especially in light of other things I've read since then. Are you familiar with Wings of Fire, the young adult book series by Tui T. Sutherland? It's interesting since one of the seven tribes of dragons in that series gets sustenance from sunlight, to the point where they (unlike other dragon tribes) don't bother hunting for food. They subside totally on sunlight and fruit. They're far more peaceable than other dragons, but they also have almost no drive to actually do anything: they don't learn to read or write (unlike the other tribes), don't engage the outside world and are written off as lazy fruit-eaters. It seems to parallel the thinking offered here, in some ways.
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No, never heard of it, though I might check it out.