Society as We Know It

by Comma Typer

Meeting

Inside, the huge and spacious and wide hallway was there. Banners and curtains of long length flowed down to the floor. The massive and tall windows brought in the sunlight along with the open blue sky that brightened the day. Columns added to the majestic touch of the room.

At the center, elevated by a stepped, limestone and marble platform, a round table covered with red felt. Chairs of magnificent height and decoration—gems and other precious stones were embedded in them—completed the table.

And Princess Celestia and Princess Luna left the room through the tall double doors. The doors were then closed by their magic.

That left only two royal occupants—a green and shiny changeling and a blue and scaly dragon. They were sitting on chairs across the table.

On both sides, there were guards. On one side, changeling guards were shielded with their armor. On the other, large dragons towered over even the royal guests, looking over the event.

Thorax gulped. "So, uh...how do we begin this?" He looked here and there and back at Dragon Lord Ember. "Greetings, Dragon Lord Ember? Dragon Lord Princess Ember?"

"Don't ask me," the dragon gruffly responded. "The Dragon Lands have never been to a formal meeting in Equestria's capital for...probably never."

"We're both going into this head-first, aren't we?"

She tapped the table with a claw. "Are we supposed to just talk our differences or whatever the goal of this meeting is?"

"It's about—"

"I know it's supposed to be forming a friendly alliance between the Dragon Lands and the Changeling Kingdom for our—" She raised her claws and made air quotes with them "'—mutual interests,' but we can just say 'Let's agree to not fight each other and help each other' and then we're done!"

"Hmm." Thorax held his chin, staring at the table. "Maybe we're supposed to be more specific about our alliance."

"Like what?"

The changeling leaned towards the table, still looking at Ember. "Probably...send each other food and...things?" He went back to slouching at his chair. "It's called trade, right?"

"That I get." She glanced at one of the tall windows. "Anything you need that we have? And, anything we need that you have?"

Thorax rubbed his chin. "What do you need? I mean, what do your citizens and your subjects need?"

Ember now rubbed her chin, too. "To be honest, we don't need much in the Dragon Lands. We just look for food and then we eat."

"Water?"

Ember looked blankly at him. "Really, Thorax?"

"OK, probably not the best thing to say." He made a smile. "What about...books!"

"You expect us, fire-breathing dragons, to be able to read through a few books?"

Thorax chuckled nervously. "Yeah, I guess I should've thought that one through, also."

"I'm also having a hard time thinking about what you might give us since...like I said, we don't need much." She glanced back at the window. "Are we supposed to stay here for an hour? What are we going to talk about for an hour?" She slammed the table with her fist.

Thorax gasped.

"Oh, sorry about that—I'm just bored here, that's all."

Thorax looked around at the guards.

The guards, both changeling and dragon, just looked at them. Then, they looked away to some other places. One changeling yawned at his location.

Silence was there as a while passed by with no word said.

Thorax tapped a hoof on the table, making a beat.

Ember sighed, looking out the windows again.

The guards stood still in their place.

"Uh, we need..." Thorax stopped. "OK, I'm not sure what your natural resources are there in the Dragon Lands."

"We have precious stones such as diamonds, rubies, crystals—maybe we can sell you that."

Another bout of silence went about.

"I think we're not that rich in terms of bits."

"We don't need bits, considering that we just buy things by trading items around." She gave a single, scoffing laugh. "So, in exchange for giving you some of our precious stones..."

Yet another time of silence began.

Thorax sighed. "We can give you..." He groaned. "OK, I think we should not think about trade. What other things can we do to help each other out?"

"Send forces to the other if one of us is attacked?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"That's already settled, considering that all alliances I've seen in and with Equestria have that."

Yet again silence was in the room. No word was spoken for a while.

The guards watched at their places.

"This is not what I expected when I wanted a meeting with the Dragon Lord of the Dragon Lands."

Ember stood up. She held the table with her claws. "You're saying that I'm not worth your time, shapeshifter?!"

Thorax brought a hoof to his neck. "No, Ember! That's not what I meant!" He desperately held out his front hooves at her, defending himself. "What I meant to say was that I did not expect the meeting itself to be boring, not you! You're actually someone I wanted to meet for quite a while!"

Ember gruffly went back to her seat. "If you didn't say that, I would've burnt you down." She smiled. "At least we're not supposed to be hurting each other around." Then, she sighed. "This is not going the way I expected it to be, too."

The double doors opened.

The two Princesses were there at the door.

"Have you two reached a conclusion?" Celestia asked from her place.

The two looked at each other, giving a silent conversation through their expressions.

"I guess it was a short and easy meeting, right?" Luna said.

Ember flew away from her chair. "Well, we just wanted an alliance that shows to Equestria that the Dragon Lands and the Changeling Kingdom are now friends. We don't want to have an hour-long discussion about what's this and what's that." She folded her arms.

Thorax stepped off his chair and walked to Ember's side. He looked at the Princesses at the door. "I agree with her, too." Then, he bowed down to the Princesses.

Ember still hovered above the floor. She looked at the bowing changeling. "Uh, you're a king. You're not supposed to bow down to other leaders and royals."

He quickly and hastily stood up. "Uh, y-yes, I knew that!" He gave a chuckle.

Celestia responded with her own light chuckle with closed, happy eyes. "Like she said."

"But, may I ask of you two, why you have not followed the standard protocol of spending at least one hour in deep discussion and talk about your alliance terms?"

"Ahem." Ember floated down to the ground with her wings. "Do we really need to go through all the steps? It's not like we're trying to build some kind of complex political...thing. We just want mutual protection and resources, that's all."

"But we haven't talked much about trade yet—"

Ember forced a clawed fist into Thorax's mouth. "Can't we just say we're friends and that's it."

Luna sighed. "You definitely do not need contracts and treaties to be close individual friends, but national friends and alliances...that is a more complicated matter that cannot be handled in only words and hoofshakes."

"I am sad to say that my sister is right." Celestia looked up towards the sky. "We've had our share of trials back in the day when we were young in the political realm. Making friends one by one is one thing." She paused. She faced the two short creatures in front of her. "Having to consult with leaders of other lands for our and their benefit is another, although I do understand that both of you are new to this leadership thing." She winked at the two and smiled.

One of the large dragon guards raised a claw. "Does that mean we can go now?"

Celestia nodded. "Yes, you may."

---

Seated at another table with red felt cloth, the wide view of the landscape that was laid in front of them was breath-taking with all the tall and short buildings of various kinds and types, all sporting yellow, white, purple; ponies trotted, galloped, walked, stood, sat still, all while doing various activites such as talking and eating and drinking and laughing and just beholding all that was around them in both the natural surroundings and the pony-made structures, under the sunny sky with its sun, although the view itself was also accompanied by the sounds of utensils touching plates and ponies inside eating their food and as the fragrance of delicious food and refreshing drinks drifted in the air above the checkerboard-floor which contained elegant, wooden chairs and tables just like the one that Thorax and Ember were seated around as they kept looking out the window and then back at their food and then back at each other as many ponies ate on while some others stopped their eating and watched the two leaders seated across the table, waiting for the next word from their mouths to be said or for the next activity from them to happen like taking a bite from their sandwiches.

Thorax planted his face onto the plate and loudly munched his sandwich.

Ember saw the ponies looking at Thorax.

She shurgged her arms and let out a fiery breath. Her sandwich was now toasted.

One of the ponies waved a hoof in front of his face, looking away in disgust.

"I saw that." Ember glared at the pony.

The pony hurriedly went back to eating his lunch.

"The ponies here are at least nice enough to let us eat at this fancy restaurant," Ember said.

Thorax looked up. His face was dirty and stained by the bread and the peanut butter. "The peanut butter's delicious!" Then, he kept consuming the half-eaten sandwich with noisy munches.

Ember sighed. "The meeting went well, I guess. The signing was alright." She kept looking at the ferocious changeling, ravenous with hunger or a desire to taste and to experience that taste again. "Are you alright?"

He held up his hoof after another bite. "I haven't tasted peanut butter before and I adore its flavor! I want to eat more of this peanut butter sandwich!" Then, he took another bite.

Ember observed the eating Thorax.

The ponies halted all their dining to see the changeling eat his sandwich.

---

As the two kept walking through another spacious and grand hallway with its own dignified and fancy decorations, the double doors in front of them opened.

Outside, Twilight Sparkle was there.

She gasped. "Oh, I didn't know the Changeling-Dragon alliance meeting was taking place right now! Or was it just a few minutes ago? You seem awfully early." She levitated a notebook in front of her. "You're early! My schedule tells me that the meeting should end ten minutes from now!"

Thorax scratched his head nervously. "About that, Princess Twilight Sparkle..."

Ember stepped in front of him. "A meeting for one hour is boring. So, we just went straight to the point and said, 'Let's be allies!'" She gave her a rough, menacing face. "And that was all."

"I see." Her face suddenly brightened up. "I almost forgot! What about our dragon culture session where you tell me more about how dragons live?" She levitated another notebook to view. There were bookmarks and pieces of paper sticking out. "We're almost full with this one! I have another notebook that looks exactly like this one! I bought my bookmark pack, my extra paper pack, and—" She levitated a box "—my additional writing instruments!"

An awkward pause was there.

"You must be very excited for that, Twilight." Ember glanced around. "I didn't expect anypony to be that excited about dragons."

"And then, I'll publish a book and be the first pony in decades to discover more information about dragons!"

Thorax looked at Twilight jumping up and down in excitement.

Twilight then stopped jumping and saw Thorax. "Oh, sorry for leaving you out!" She ran up to him. "Do you want me to schedule your own changeling culture sessions?" She levitated another notebook. "I have plenty of bookmarks and paper to keep up with the richness of the changelings and their lifestyle and living!" The grin on her was face was big.

Thorax gulped. He faced Ember.

Ember shrugged her arms again and rolled her eyes. "Just let Twilight be, Thorax. I've already gotten too much of ponies being happy and cheery all the time."

Thorax then looked at Twilight who was still staring at him with that grin.

"So, will you say 'Yes,' Thorax?"

"Uh, can we move outside?"

Twilight looked at the double doors and the inside of the building as Thorax and Ember still stood on the carpet.

"Oh, yes, please come out of the doors! It's probably freezing cold inside!"

"It's not winter, yet," Ember said.

Twilight laughed nervously, scratching her head and mane. "Yeah, that's OK! I make mistakes sometimes!"

They stepped out and Twilight closed the door.

Thorax sighed. He smiled. "Yes, Twilight."

"Yes!" Twilight jumped up and down again.

Comments

[Xanderfox]

I think Twilight is going to be disappointed that Changeling culture is at the "Coming soon" stage, she won't even fill one notebook.
Does seem like the Princesses kind of left Thorax and Ember out to dry, the two have no idea what politics is yet. Though at least when talking to each other neither is really at a disadvantage.