Student of Friendship

by zalla661

Oposs di ixen

Author's Note:

Okay, so I fibbed a bit. I lost power for a while and lost my original chapter of over 5k words. Feeling discouraged I decided to go ahead rather than halt progress for another week, so, for those who want to know what I originally had in mind read this otherwise you can skip it. Rainbow was going to thank Starlight for hooking her up with Guiding Wind, and she would get an earful about how using magic to manipulate others is a bad thing regardless if you feel it's right or wrong.

So, with that out of the way let's move on to the next chapter. Here we will get to the adventure portion of the story. Why? Read on and find out! I'm the writer I won't tell you everything before hand! LOL. Hop eyou all enjoy!

Starlight sat at the dinner table later in the evening completely proud with herself over her accomplishment with hooking Rainbow up with Guiding Wind. Twilight and Spike noticed the mare was in a particularly good mood and wondered what could have possibly happened to have put the mare in such good spirits. Spike was sitting next to Twilight who was sitting next to Starlight, happily humming as she munched away at her salad.

“So, what’s got you in such a good mood, Star?” Twilight asked with bemusement.

Starlight replied with a light chuckle as she swallowed her salad almost choking on it. She coughed a few times but never lost her smile as she hacked up a leaf.

“Oh, nothing just feeling… good about today,” Starlight said her smile growing with every word.

Twilight and Spike exchanged confused looks before shrugging it off and returned to their meals.

As they ate Spike looked up at the clock above the table every couple of minutes. It eventually got to the point that it drove Twilight mad, Starlight was in her own little world and didn’t notice him looking. Twilight, after the twentieth time, finally called SPike out when she caught him glancing up at the clock and barely touched his meal.

“Spike!”

“Huh, what?” Spike asked alarmed, dropping his fork. “Wh-what did do?”

Twilight sighed shaking her head with motherly disappointment.

“I Thought I told you to not do that anymore!” She scolded the baby dragon.

Spike looked down at his bowel in shame. He made no argument but continued to eat in silence. Twilight shook her head taking a bite from her salad and chewed thoughtfully and swallowed before she began the verbal lashing again.

“Seriously Spike, I taught you better table manners than that,” TWilight said to him.

She shook the fork in her magical aura at the little dragon who sighed in annoyance at his scolding.

“Oh, don’t you give me that attitude mister,” Twilight warned him narrowing her eyes. “Come on. Finish eating. I’m sure Ember will be here soon.”

Spike got in a brighter mood, his frown curled up into a smile at the thought of seeing his fellow dragon friend. He quickly chowed down his gem salad and picked up his bowl and left to the kitchen. Moments later he came back and gathered the rest of the empty bowls. Taking them to the kitchen Starlight followed behind the dragon with Twilight right behind her. The castle staff however shooed them and Spike out saying, ‘it was improper of them to clean anymore.’ Annoyed by this Spike and Starlight walked out grumbling while Twilight was thanking the castle staff for their service.

The small group of friends soon made their way to the Chamber of Harmony with full bellies and excitement. Starlight had heard of the Fierce Dragonlord Ember from Spike and Twilight from time to time. She was very excited to meet a real dragon. NOt that she thought Spike wasn’t a real dragon, but in her mind he wasn’t a dragon dragon due to being raised by ponies. Starlight had never met a dragon from the Dragonlands before and wonder what they’d be like. In her mind she imagine a large scaly beast that was big and strong with massive wings that could create tornadoes with a single swing. Tails as long and big as the table, and breath that would melt iron and steel. Starlight’s mind ran wild with possibilities when twilight nudged her side as they enter the Chamber of Harmony.

Startled by the sudden contact Starlight jumped slightly but tried to play it off like she tripped.

“Hey, what’s up?” She asked, Twilight.

Twilight smiled at her student and wrapped a wing around her back. “Just making sure you were paying attention, Star. This is really important. I want you to sit in on this conversation we’re going to have with Dragon Lord Ember. I’ll be tasking you with telling the others about it when me and Spike leave for Canterlot afterwards to deliver our negotiations to the other Princesses.” Twilight explained.

Starlight cocked her head. “Why me though? Isn’t this just a friendly meeting?”

Twilight gave a weary look at Spike before asking, “Hey Spike? Can you please run back and tell the staff to bring beverages for us and Ember please?”

“Sure thing Twilight!” Spike said with joy. “I still can’t believe she’s coming here to Ponyville. Never thought she would want to.”

With a quick salute Spike, as loyal as ever, ran off to do his duty. Twilight couldn’t help but smile and pat his head as he passed by and hugged him before letting him go. They watched him go around the corner as they sat and waited in the main chamber for his return. Twilight was reading through a “Twilight Checklist” while sitting on her throne. Starlight sat beside her on a wooden chair looking over her shoulder occasionally, when she noticed a large annotation on the list that read: IN CASE OF DRAGONFIRE IN CASTLE PLAN A-2. Starlight knew Twilight liked to plan for every occasion and possible outcome, usually for naught, but it made the mare feel better to be prepared. And Starlight had to admit, having some foresight was good, even if it was too much. Starlight was looking at the checklist after Twilight gave it to her to double check in case she missed anything.

The two mares sat in silence for sometime when Thunderclap entered the chamber and stood to the side. She was followed by Golden Claw who had a heavy bandage over his left eye and stood opposite of Thunderclap. The unicorn guardsmare clear her throat and with her might gravelly voice made an announcement.

“Announcing the arrival of her lordship Dragon Lord Ember, ruler of the dragonlands!”

Mere moments after she stepped ot the side as Thunderclap approached with Ember right behind her. A moment later Spike entered the room with the beverages on a large cart and beamed with excitement at the sight of his dragon friend. He left the cart near the thrones and ran up to Ember, but he stopped a foot away from her as she greeted Twilight.

“Princess twilight, it’s good to see you alive and well again,” Ember greeted her with a handshake.

“You too Dragonlord Ember, but please you don’t need to be formal with me. If you’d like twilight, is just fine for me.”

Ember looked oddly at the purple pony. In her mind such formalities were commonplace in dragon culture, but clearly ponies thought differently among their friends. With a casual shrug Ember let out a squeaky, “meh”, and turned to look down to Spike.

“Hey there little guy!” She greeted him with a playful rub on his head. “How has the, might Spike, been?”

Spike swatted her clawed hand away. “Fine. How about you Dragon Lord Ember? How was the trip?”

“Ugh, the flight here was awful!” Ember complained slumping on Rainbow Dash’s throne and setting her Dragon Scepter on the Cuite Map. “Why do your pegasi always have random weather changes? It makes no sense!”

Clearly she was very annoyed as she slammed her head on the map. Her head made a loud thunk noise as she made contact. Starlight, was still reading at the moment, jumped at the sudden loud noise dropping the papers on the floor. Starlight tried to pick them up but stopped when she looked up to see the blue dragon lifting her head up. Starlight gasped dropping the papers she had left in her hooves and stared slack jawed at the curved female dragon. She saw the light blue scales of her body complimented by her dark blue head scutes and the ever so slight dark blue spots under her eyes, like tiny light blue makeup spots. Her amber eyes had a certain level of ferocity behind them yet were highly appealing to look into. Starlight was entranced by the dragons beauty and had the dumbest lost look on her face. Twilight turned to her student and introduced her, unaware of the mares dumbstruck stupor.

“-and this is Starlight Glimmer, my personal student! She’s a student of the magic of friendship. She’ll be with us while we have our open discussion!”

“Hi! Pleased to meet you!”

Starlight happily shook Embers claw with her hooves.

“Nice to meet you too. I guess?” Ember asked not trying to offend the excited mare. “So, should we bring the discussion?”

Twilight shook her head and brought the Dragon Lord closer to her and offered her a large plush cushion chair next to her throne.

“Please have a seat here Ember. We don’t want you to sit on these crystal thrones after your long flight.”

“Thanks, Princess,” Ember sat in the chair with her scepter in hand. “So… now do we start?”

“Wouldn’t you like to just talk first? Maybe we can offer you a beverage after your long flight?” Twilight kindly offered.

“Nah, I prefer to get to business. My dragons are pushing me to make changes and I need to hurry lest I lose their support,” Ember said trying not to outright say, no.

Twilight sighed but kept her smile. Spike and Starlight knew she was disappointed that Ember didn’t want to chit chat before getting to business, but they both figured such was the way with politics. Seeing twilight’s look of disappointment Ember quickly added that they could talk afterwards, which brought the mares spirits up greatly as she opened the floor.

“So, Ember, or do you prefer your title?” Twilight asked.

“Meh, I don’t care either way. I’m like you. I prefer action over formalities.”

“Very well, Ember. As the ruler of the dragons I extend a warm welcome to our lands to you! I hope this is the first step in creating a lasting friendship and alliance between dragons and ponies.”

“Same here Princess,” Ember agreed. “Now, the first thing I want to talk about is the most voted topic by all my fellow dragons, myself included, and that is....”

Ember paused for dramatic effect, leaving the ponies, griffin, and dragon with held breaths. Then, with one word she broke the dramatic mood with the topic of discussion with such an anticlimactic effect that it made all present facepalm, and the topic in question?

“...Beds.”

Everyone present looked at the dragon with confused looks. Had they heard right? Surely the mighty dragons would never discuss such a silly thing as beds. Would they?

“Um, I’m sorry Dragon Lord Ember,” Starlight said getting her attention. “But, why beds? Do dragons even use beds?”

Ember blushed gripping her scepter nervously. She felt foolish talking about something so common to ponies that it might make her species look like savages.

“Well, you know.. Dragons are suppose to be big and strong. We’re able to endure the worst elements and survive off stone and dirt if we need too, but that doesn’t mean we like too,” She said nervously.

“But, why not?” Starlight asked.

Twilight intervened seeing the nervousness of Ember growing.

“I’m sure Starlight doesn’t mean to put you on the spot Ember,” Twilight said turning to her student. “You see Starlight, dragons are usually big and very powerful beings. Ember’s father was easily the size of this chamber and a good portion of my castle by himself. Dragons only cared about strength and being big as the signs of being a real dragon. Ember here is planning on changing that. One thing I remember when we first went there was dragons slept on rocks. No beds what so ever.”

“Wow, I figured that, but I never knew dragons hated it,” Starlight said. “How many beds are we talking here?”

“Over sixty-thousand beds.” Ember stated factually.

Everyone blinked as a loud boom sounded and thunderclap ran out.

“That’s a lot of beds!” Spike said looking at Twilight. “Davenport would love that as a business opportunity.”

“Yes, but even he can’t supply sixty-thousand beds Spike,” Twilight said shooting the drakes idea down. “We can’t get every business to do it either, we’d still come up short.”

Starlight tapped her chin thinking about what to do. “So’ what options do we have then? How do we get over sixty-thousand beds, let alone get them to the dragon lands at all?”

“Well, we could get Filthy Rich to talk to his distributors.” Spike offered.

“That’s a great idea Spike! Then we could get them to make the beds we need and rally the current bed businesses to offer their surplus of beds to the dragons. We’d just have to then think of payment,” Twilight said.

Ember grinned tapping her scepter on the ground getting everyone's attention. “Money? Princess twilight, please… I’m Lord of all Dragons… DRAAAGGGOOOOONNNSSS?”

Twilight and Spike cocked their heads sideways wondering what she was getting at. Starlight sighed and rubbed her temples tenderly and said, “She’s the lord of all dragons guys. Dragon's hoard gems. Gems are very very valuable. She could tell them to pay for their own beds making payment no problem.”

“Ohh!” Twilight and Spike both mouthed.

“Well, now that we got that out of the way,” Ember said winking at Starlight making her blush. “Let’s talk about how and when we will-”

Suddenly Thunderclap came running in in a panic. The guardsmare skidded to a halt and bowed to Princess twilight and party, panting heavily. They then noticed she was scorched black like she went running through a fire field. The mares fur was singed and her tail was still burning.

“Thunderclap!? What happened to you!?” Twilight bellowed out looking over the mare like a mother would their child. ‘Who did this? Was it that Amber Anvil mare again? I swear if she doesn’t straighten herself out-”

“NO PRINCESS!! It’s another dragon! It came from the sky and demanded to see you,” Thunderclap screamed. “I told him you were meeting with Dragon Lord Ember and he torched me saying that he would speak with you or else!”

“Clappy, calm down, you’re safe,” Twilight cooed at the mare rubbing her back supportively. “Go get some rest. I’ll handle this.”

“Si geou notwait tikil drongilt!”

A voice called out shaking the very ground. The castle doors slammed open and in came a dragon like creature. It was massive, barely able to squeeze through, as it focused on the guardsmare he met before and growled at her. Thunderclap whimpered and passed out on the floor. Golden Claw tended to the mare as Starlight, Ember, Twilight, and Spike stood between the beast and the others.

The dragon had a long neck with a long narrow snout. His horns curled around his head and out like protective antlers on an elk. His wings were the full sixe of his body and tail combined, and his tail didn’t fit into the chamber itself. Instead it stuck out of the door and down the entryway to the hall itself. His scales were dull, scarred, and worn out. His razor sharp teeth looked more fierce than any dragon Twilight had ever seen and his eyes had a hunger about them that showed no fear. He was the predator here and he knew it. Perhaps his most notable feature wasn’t his size of ferocious aura, but his wings. He used them as a set of legs, walking on them and his two large back legs like her had four limbs. This struck Twilight and party as odd, they never seen a dragon like this before.

Twilight stepped forward hoping to open a dialogue with the dragon.

“I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship! Who are you to come into my home unannounced and terrorize my subjects!?” She called out to the dragon.

“And I am Dragon Lord Ember! I demand to know why you’ve attacked this pony!” Ember yelled at the dragon stepping beside twilight and pointing her scepter at the beast.

The massive beast laughed. His deep gravely voice boomed over them, “Wux weatonan doutan mrith dout ignorance. Moxt darastrix.”

Ember blushed and growled at the other dragon. “How dare you! I am the Dragon Lord! You will obey what I say!”

“I am not yours to command dragon. If you can call yourself that.” The beast let out a deep belly laugh and pushed her on her butt with his snout.

“Well, at least you know our language, yet you do not speak it?” He asked, in the common tongue. “Why do you speak in the common tongue and not the royal drastrixkrin?”

Ember blushed crossing her arms clearly embarrassed. “Because I, never learned it. I honestly barely understood you.”

The beast shook his head. “Thric bensvelk. That is not good for a drastrix.”

Spike scoffed crossing his arms. “Funny coming from you.”

The beast growled at Spike making him shrink away, holding his neck and head up high over the others like a swan.

“I am Raza, emissary of the Wyvern Council from the frozen north! I come with a warning to you ponies! The Wyver Council won’t tolerate a breach of our contract! By allying yourselves with the dragons you will be breaching our ancient agreement and we will wage war upon you. You have been warned,” Raza said turning his his back on them and left.

He crawled through the chamber and out of the castle where the whole town seemed to assemble at awe at his presence. He stood back on his hind legs, extending his massive wings, and with a few powerful flaps lifted into the air and flew off heading north with a mighty roar. Twilight, Starlight, Ember, and Spike all came running out to see him breath his fire breath in the sky as he disappeared over Canterlot and became a speck in the distance.

Everyone in town was now talking about the massive dragon that flew out of Twilight’s castle. Many were worried about it’s sudden departure, but most of the town wasn’t worried. Since it was common for many large magical beasts to come and go they just assumed it was a friend to the Princess of Friendship.

Twilight and party knew better though. After hearing the threat of war, over some agreement made long ago, Twilight realized she might just be in over her head with this one. She was about to asked Spike to take a letter when the little drake burped out a scroll onto the floor. Twilight looked at it and took the scroll in her magical grasp and read it. She got a dark look on her face as the color in her face drained away making her pale.

Starlight and Ember tried to read the scroll but twilight rolled it up and burned it. She then turned to face them with a terrified expression on her face.

Starlight chuckled nervously at twilight, rubbing her arm. “What’s wrong Twilight?

“Starlight, go get the girls and meet Ember, Spike, and I at the train station. We’re going to Canterlot to see Princess Celestia.”

Comments

[zalla661]

7705863 Thanks friend. I'll fix those quickly. Sorry I didn't reply sooner. Hope you're enjoying yourself and this great and humble story. 3.bp.blogspot.com/-fwOWVVPFgtw/VyVWOjprvjI/AAAAAAACkNE/9fqMsF73Y28xmQw45mlUpsaU-JAjOHOyQCLcB/s640/1143260__safe_solo_screencap_animated_trixie_salute_no%252Bsecond%252Bprances_spoiler-colon-s06e06.gif

[Texus]

Just saying, I hope you never try anything like Twilight dorcing Starlight to be a princess or to do her duties. I don't really believe you do it, but I often saw that the characters never had a say in the matter of what they wanted to be.

I mean friendship stutyd are nice and stuff, but that shouldn't mean they are forced to well live a certain live.
In the show they just made Twilight accepting all that stuff, and I believe since she is kind of used to it, she maybe would have agreed anyway, but I don't think everyone would usually be happy with it.

You you like to add a little bit of drama now and then right?

Hhhhmmm if I'm honest that could be kind of exciting, but I'm not sure if it should play out to long or not.
This is probably the first or second real problem in this story right? At least it doesn't feels so obtruded like in a different story, where the character is suffering a heartbreaking adventure which would make everyone insane.

Oh how I hope for something to happen with the Changelings before the war is going to happen

[zalla661]

7717938 Well, to start let's just say I learned from the best when it comes to Twilight.

s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9b/64/45/9b644583fd55bcf92864623ca08d1f17.png

Changelings? Hmm. I wonder what I can do with them now. I never planned on having them in the story originally. I guess they could but I'd have to see. Drama? Well silly of course I do! Drama was part of my stories long before the "drama" tag was added.

[Texus]

7719049 oh thank you^^, this is going to keep me happy tonight.
Best Celestia moment, explanation and whatever

I mean mostly I hate her for that, but the way she looks on that picture makes it appear like shes serious and I'm totally on her side right there.

I think if you show it in a different light then she can even look like a genious suddenly.

I noticed that I totally messed up my words in the last comment, but to be honest I was really busy thinking today again. I maybe make some personal stuff more difficult than it has to be, but I have my fair share of problems at the moment. Nothing to serious, but stuff that could work out better than it does at the moment. .....Twilight does look funny.