Lovie Dovie

by The Psychopath

Getting closer

"So...you're conflicted about how to behave because others have been imposing their ways of thinking onto you, and you don't know how to act because of it?" Emboreale wondered.

"Y-yes..." Lovey hiccuped.

The serpent raised her eye's lower eyelid. "Then you're concerned more with how they feel than your own well-being?"

"Maybe," Lovey answered between sniffles.

"Then you have been demonstrating, at least indirectly, that you do care for people, but you're the one who is afraid of what they might think of you, Lovey." Lovey didn't answer. "That means that you're only harming yourself by pretending to be mean, no?" Still no answer. The serpent sighed and flicked her fins. "Would you prefer if I called you by your real name?"

The pink dragoness nodded in response.

"Then what is your real name?"

"Oliver."

"...Oliver, then."

"Why DO you call me 'Lovey Dovey'?"

"It's part of our usual procedure, like I mentioned earlier."

"But it's hurtful."

Emboreale nodded and tilted her head left and right. "Perhaps but that's part of it."

"But I hate it." Lovey spoke with a strained, baritone voice. "You took away my body and my life. All I had left was my name, and then you took that too..."

The serpent remained silent for a moment. "Well, the idea behind that was embarrassment for the toxicly rude, prideful summoned."

Lovey wiped her snout. "That doesn't make it okay to call me that without my consent."

"Again, that wasn't the point--"

"The point doesn't matter!" Lovey shouted between tears. "You were just trying to confuse me like everyone else."

"And yet you did not concede despite being with us for a few months." A discreet smile started forming on Emboreale's face. "Regardless of what we did or said, you never ceded what you thought was the correct way to act."

"So?"

"You stick to your convictions. Why bother with what everyone else says when you've only been truly listening to yourself?"

"..."

"Am I wrong or right?"

"I...don't know."

The serpent hummed. "Well, what do you think?"

"..."

"You should learn to listen to yourself more often. When you don't, it leads to great confusion like this and causes tension to build up." She slithered up to Lovey. "Are you feeling better now, by the way?"

Lovey didn't look up, but nodded. She was stiff as a board and her arms were drooping by her side.

"Good. As for your name..." she scratched the back of her head. "I would rather have a discussion with the Pueric Mother about that...among other things..." she sighed. "If you want to stay here, you can do so, but I would prefer to have this conversation in private with her."

"Okay."

The pink dragoness waddled towards the platform landing and called the colossus leader. After a few minutes of waiting and information exchanges, Lovey went into Pueric's 'room' and the colossus stayed behind. She wiped some dust off of herself and approached the colorful serpent nervously.

"Lovey said you wanted to see me?"

"Y-yes..." Emboreale hesitated. "It's about quite a lot of things, actually."

The colossus dropped down, her body causing a small tremor and destroyed the volcanic rock beneath it.

"Like what?"

"Lovey's...psychological condition has made me realize that our methods of dealing with the strong headed like her won't work all the time."

"But it has always worked!" Pueric gestured behind her with outstretched arms. "We gave her her name because of how she was acting. The shock of becoming a dragon and being here is understandable, but her macho attitude and reluctance to do actions not 'conforming' to her society's view of males is--"

"Unfounded," Emboreale interjected.

"What do you mean?"

"She had a...moment of revelation to me, showing me that, wherever she comes from, there are no sex roles like we've seen in this world so far. It's all varied and random, by what I understand."

"Don't some of them stem from the base genetic functions that our unevolved ancestors had?" Pueric inquired.

"Yes, but her's is very complicated in that regard. I don't know what it is, and I frankly do not care. However, by treating her the same way as everyone else, I learned that, as the expression goes--"

"Putting all your eggs in one basket is a sure-fire way to lose your daily acquisition. I am aware."

"P-pretty much. Yes. The issue is that our old techniques no longer work. I'm worried what will happen to those that come after her."

Pueric brushed the idea off. "It doesn't matter if it didn't work with her. She's an exception to the rule."

Emboreale's concerned expression turned to one of great dour, and her colors started flickering to more 'sinister' shades.

"Yes. I've been wondering about that. Exactly how many like Lovey have you not told me about? Her reactions and stress build up have not been diminishing much since I last saw her." She leaned closer to Pueric. "It's been getting quite worse."

"I--"

"She was on the verge of killing herself, the only thing preventing being that liiiiitle slimmer of hope that she could trick me into sending her back, which that spell won't allow."

The pueric mother was sweating and fumbling with her fingers. "She's the only one that's been like this."

"But how many have you lost to the world, who tried to 'escape' us?" the serpent queried as she narrowed her eyes.

"Y-you make it sound like we're imprisoning her!" Pueric shouted. She was visibly insulted.

"Are we not?" Emboreale wondered. "I was just expecting our gradual form of 'breaking down' would take quite a while. However, as I mentioned earlier, with Lovey, it only took a week, if not less. I'm curious as to how that is, because she's far too stubborn to be so easily...mmm...'dissuaded', shall we say?"

---

Guards of the city of Cancremol were occupied with some card games, reading, or sleeping on the high walls.

"Uff..." one of them sighed. "There's never anything happening here, although maybe that's for the better." She grinned. "But nopony can deny the thrill and excitement brought by fighting, eh?"

"What?! The excitement of fighting? You're talking about war!"

"Yeah!"

"Wh..."

A loud brouhaha started reaching the ears of the guards, interrupting what might've been a rather aggressive conversation. Leaning over the inner-side of the walls, they could see a large mob chasing the relatively pony-sized dragons towards the gates. Gates which, as it would turn out, were not open. Some of the guards armed themselves and galloped or flew down to reach the site below and blocking the mob from the terrestrial dragons.

"What's the meaning of this?" the elder guard shouted.

"They've been torching the city! Every time we've received shipments of products from them, the whole place gets burned down!" one stallion shouted. "Get them out of here and we won't have these problems anymore!"

"In fact," a mare interjected. "Chase them out of Equestrian territory for good!"

The mob all shouted in agreement.

"But it's not us!" one of the dragons said in a worried tone. "Why would we suddenly want to destroy all your cities?! You're the est providers of gems anywhere. There's no gain to destroying everything you've made!"

"That's a lie! Since you want our gems then you would just chase us away from our mines!"

A younger stallion stepped forward with two saddle-bags full of gems and dirt and put one in his hood. "If you want our gems and lands so bad, then here! Have them!"

The others grabbed their own share and started stoning the poor dragons while the guards above started to open the gates.

"If you all keep this up then we'll have a reeeeeeal problem on our hooves!" the old guard threatened.

A voice in the back of the crowd shouted. "The guards are with the dragons. They're trying to take everything for themselves! Do we want the corrupt 'protecting' us?" the voice mocked.

"Hey, they're right!" a mare agreed. "Get them out of our city!"

"Are you insane?!" the guard bellowed.

It was too late, though. The mob had already formed their own minds, and so were deciding to attack the guards all across the city as soon as word spread out.

"It's true what they say: A pony is smart, but a herd is stupid."

Comments

[Mother3Forever]

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

[Vaalintine]

And so one problen is taken care of, though I hadn't thought of there having possibly beeing oyhers that ran off, but it makes sense in hindsight. Also dragon-pony relations are breaking down even further, which is definetly not good.

[The Psychopath]

8466507
Soon we'll have some fun times maybe.

WITNESS MEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[Vaalintine]

8466529
So large scale breakdowns of public order then.

[The Psychopath]

8466705
Maybe.

[Vaalintine]

8467576
Its either that or Oliver gets a D-dog sidekick and they go on high-speed desert adventures fighting bandits. Goddamn I loved those movies.

Or maybe something with trains, or airships. Probably airships since dragons can fly.

[The Psychopath]

8468340
Airships? I always reserved those for the Secantor Island...maybe I could use them here.

[VcSaJen]

Hmm, in this story, we see that he's been railroaded the whole time. He's been sitting inside the box, and all he did is reacting. It's like reading Harry Potter book, only he's only either doing homework/going to classes, or sleeping. Even if he doesn't have all the cards, and there's The Plan that involves all members of this "Lovie-Dovie" society, there still could have been some initiative, investigation, interaction, thoughts outside of his current missions/lessons. Why don't he go investigate the moss wall he's came from? Reluctantly go to library (of course he can't read Equestrian, but he didn't know at the time)? Go around asking some leading questions? Make theories and plans in his head (he did do it, but that's a few and far between)? Maybe do things he did in Earth to relax? That would have made things more exciting.
Or maybe he did do those things, but they're been offscreen the whole time? I noticed that his thoughts are 'blocked' from reader's view most of the time.

[The Psychopath]

8469529
Hmmm. I was more focused on how he was absolutely furious about his new body and trying to go home. Plus, he was more hellbent on using the direct method of going home (Which were the Lovies themselves), than trying to figure it out himself. You have good points, though.