A Little Hatchling's Journey

by Night--Mist

The Nesting Grounds. Lessons in Dragon Culture.

Spike was amazed at how big the Volcano actually looked from a, well, dragon's eye view. This was the first time he had been on a Dragon's back. He'd spent many a trips on the backs of Three ponies he was close with. Thinking about them did make him miss them a little, but he was happy to get to know his kind a bit better, not that he knew much yet, but Rhea said she was gonna teach him. Now that he thought about it, perhaps riding on backs was a natural thing for hatchlings to do. With no wings, he couldn't exactly fly to the nesting area Rhea spoke of, and even if he had walked, from what he could tell at this perspective, the trek would have been long, taking him hours, where, with the flap of Rheas wings, they were fast approaching.

Just then, as she prepped to land, Spike saw something quite unexpected. The Dragonesses, along with some older Dragon kids, were bowing. Rhea soon lent Spike a claw to let him down into the nesting area. Spike could see some eggs yet to be hatched were nestled closely to, what he assumed was the mother dragonesses who laid them. Then he heard one of the Dragonesses with white scales on top and beige scales on the underbelly, and spikes a little lighter than that of Rarity's mane, state, "Hello your majesty. It's an honor to see you again on the migration my queen."

'You're Majesty?...... wait, this Dragonesses is their queen?' Thought Spike as he gazed up at her. Now it made sense why her size out matched any other dragon or dragoness here. She was royalty. Spike bowed as soon as he realized he never formally did so before claw. "Forgive me, your highness," Spike apologized.

"For what little one?........ Oh, no need to worry dear. You didn't know, and I hadn't told you. Remember, you told me you were living among ponies, so it's only natural you weren't aware of my lineage dear," Rhea assured him, as she made him raise himself up, "Besides, you're only a hatchling. Many your age aren't yet at the point where not bowing would offend me dear."

Spike was relieved she was not offended by his actions at their first encounter. "And who is this adorable little claw biter you brought with you, your majesty? He's quite the tiny one." Stated another one of the mother Dragonesses present. She was one with Aqua scales on top, and Red Scales on the underbelly, and spikes that were of pink similar to Fluttershy's mane color. Spike wouldn't be surprised if he bumped into a Dragoness with Rainbow Colored spikes before too long.

Spike blushed at being called tiny and a claw biter. It sounded embarrassing, and out of instinct he hid behind Rhea's massive talon. Rhea chuckled at his actions. "This little hatchling, my dear Aqua, is called Spike. He told me that he has been living with ponies for a while, and doesn't know where his mother Dragoness is. And from what I could tell, he walked all the way here, since his wings haven't sprouted yet. I did save him from those rebel Dragons near the center of the lava pools, before they could bully him," Rhea answered Aqua's question.

"That's good to hear. Honestly, I don't know what possess those Rhinestones to behave like that," Stated the other dragoness from before.

"Sapphire, please, not with the hatchlings present. You know none of them like that word," Rhea warned Sapphire.

"My apologies, your grace. Those teenagers just really steam me up sometimes, I lose my temper. Sorry little ones," Sapphire apologized to all the other hatchlings present.

"It okay" many hatchling stated. Some looked Spike's age. Some older, some younger, but all were playing together under the watchful eyes of the giant mothers.... well, giant from Spike's point of view, making Rhea Titanic to him.

Rhea looked back to Spike. "Sorry for that outburst dear. Rhinestone is what we consider a fowl name to dragon kind, being as we all find the stone bitter to the taste, and often avoid eating them. Most of the time, it's the name we give to those rebel dragons. And usually, I try to keep that verbiage from being spoke around the little ones, and why I try to have mothers keep their hatchlings away from those rebels," She stated as she nuzzled him gently.

"Oh. Okay," Spike said shyly.

Rhea smiled as she nuzzled Spike and laid down as she scooted him in front of her between her for legs. "If you don't mind me asking your majesty, you said Little Spike there was living with ponies. While I bare them no ill will, were they using him as a slave? That isn't right for any species to do, especially what the Crystal King did to his subjects," Aqua stated.

That caught Spike's attention. He remembered hearing, or perhaps reading some mention of a crystal king, but the details were sparse, so he couldn't remember if that was pony or some other creature in their world. Could be dragon, though there was a difference between Gems and Crystals. He learned from Celestia herself, that while Gems were something he and his kind usually ate and hoarded, Crystals were used for medical situations for Dragon kind. So it felt unlikely this "Crystal King" was a Dragon.

His thoughts were interrupted as Rhea replied, "From what he has told me, he was actually taken in and treated as one of their own, as an equal, at least among the common ones. Not so sure about some of those snotty nobles Celestia and Luna have to deal with. They have the patience of Gaia herself. But like I said. Spike here has told me they didn't treat him unkindly."

"That's good to hear. I just hope our more "unethical" young ones haven't given too many of those ponies the wrong impression about us. I know we look fierce, but we're not savages who would hurt them," Sapphire stated.

"Indeed. We may get a little rough when we are cranky, but never hostile," Rhea assured.

All the dragonesses agreed. While the grown ups were talking, some of the other hatchlings bounded over to Spike. He would have wondered what Rhea's reaction to this would have been, but having been told that these fellow hatchlings his age were not old enough to offend her, he figured this was normal behavior. "Hi there. My names Flare," Said a boy hatchling with spikes that looked like the shape of a flame on his back, as if he were speeding past. And the color matched, going from orange to yellow and he had the same build as Spike, maybe a head taller then himself. His top scales were Cobalt Blue, with yellow spikes on the underbelly, and like Spike, wings hadn't sprouted.

"Hi, I'm Spike. But, you knew that," Spike chuckled nervously.

Flare giggled a bit. "Yeah, hearing that story from the Queen, I'm just glad those rouges didn't get to you first. Do you wanna play Flaming Catch with us?" Flare asked with all the others urging Spike to join as well.

"How do you play that? Sorry, not used to dragon games," Spike admitted.

"Hey, it's no sweat, we use one of the round boulders that's able to burn completely when we fire it up and is light weight, then we throw it to each other to catch. That last Dragon who catches it when the flame goes out is the winner, and gets to take a ride with one of our moms to do a patrol fly for any, well, if we notice something dangerous, so we can alert the rest. But we can't cheat and keep a hold of the boulder til it burns out. Don't ask what happens if you do that...... it's not pretty," A girl dragon named Dagger with a more sleek build, and a longer jaw, and long spikes on the back, that were similar to that one dragon Twilight and Spike's pony friends asked to leave. Their scales were orange on top, the spikes were blue, and their underbelly scales were white.

"Cool. But, uh, I may not be the best to fire up the boulder. My flame tends to teleport things elsewhere," Spike admitted.

"Wow wow wow. You can actually breath fire already? That's awesome, I couldn't do that til a month ago, and I'm 12," Dagger admitted.

"Yeah. I can't even use flame yet. You're a fast learner Spike," Flare complimented.

Spike blushed, "Well, like I said, my flame's only been able to teleport things. Sometimes, I burp up a letter from Princess Celestia."

"THE SUN MARE?!!!" All the hatchlings explaimed.

"Wait, you know her?" Spike asked.

"Who doesn't? She's the one who raises and lowers the sun every morning and night. And Princess Luna is the Moon Mare. We all heard those stories. That's amazing, you get to be honored with their letters being sent back and forth through your flame," Flare stated.

Spike never knew his flame delivery was high honors for a dragon. "Well again, that's all I know how to do with my flame right now," Spike stated.

"That's why you ask one of us grown ups to flame up the boulder. We've got more training with our fire breath," Came a voice that sounded remarkably like Rainbow Dash, and belonged to a Dragoness who landed with a thundering quake.

The hatchlings hadn't noticed their outburst had silenced the mothers, who listened to the rest of the converstation they had, This new dragoness had spikes from her head, going down her neck, and on her tail, that matched Rainbow Dash's mane color, and they were almost having the look of a flowing mane, but stiff. Her top scales were just like Flare's, Cobalt Blue on top, but the undrebelly were sky blue. "MOM!!!" Explaimed Flare, as he dashed over to her.

"Hey there my firey tike. How you doing?" She inquired as she nuzzled him and let down another hatchling off her back.

Flare told her about Spike, and everything Spike had told him about living with ponies. She wasn't as big as Rhea, but she was the larger in height then all the other dragons. And her build told Spike that Rainbow Dash may have a serious competitor.

"I trust your patrol didn't find anything dangerous Zipper?" Rhea asked.

"Not a one your majesty. Although," Zipper said, before coming up to Rhea to whisper something to her.

Obviously, she didn't want the little ones to know about something that could possibly give them a fright, not that much could, when the Queen was around. Perhaps if something was around, Zipper didn't want it public that the Dragons were alert to the outsider's presence. "I see, thank you Zipper. Well, Spike, why don't you play with your new friends here. I have some things I'd like to talk to the mothers about," Rhea said, before firing up a boulder, almost light as a feather to give to let them play with.

"Okay," Spike agreed.

Soon, he and the others ran to the center of the nesting area, and he notices the mothers started speaking in old Dargon, a language he was not familiar with yet, nor were the rest of the hatchlings he was with. Modern Dargon was pretty much the same language as Modern Ponish, but they called it so, so it was not to discourage the little ones. He learned this when reading books with Twilight. He wondered what his Pony friends were doing now, but at the same time, was having a lot of fun playing flaming catch, wondering who would be the next to take a patrol flight with one of the mothers, not aware other caring eyes were keeping an eye on his state, and recording more info about what they were learning.

Author's Note:

So, Spike has learned a lot more about Dragon culture, and there is so much more he may yet come to learn. And yes, I call Dragon language Dargon. (Dar-gin). And I understand it's pretty much as misspelling of Dragon, but it felt even more lazy to call it Dragonish, like Ponish, which is Pony verson of English. But Old Dargon is a language only the Dragons know, and no other race yet understands among the masses, with maybe a pony or two brave enough to get the lessons, including the Princesses.

And I was trying to think of something something that sounded sporty, and Dragoneque at that same time, so that's why I came up with "Flaming Catch".

Anyways, What else will Spike Learn, What has Zipper, Rainbow Dash's Dragon Counterpart it would seem, found out that only Rhea knows. What are the mother's and the dragon Queen conversing about in Old Dargon? Only future chapters will tell.

I do apologize for the hiatus, but a lot of parts have been moving in the last year, and early this year, that I've had little creative energy if any. But I finally got some inspiration that got my gears turning to help me produce this chapter.

Let me know what you all think.

Comments

[jw278]

WOW creepy, I was going through my list of stories lastnight and came across this one and thought, It's been awhile I hope this is still being up dated. I wake up this morning and what do I see

Thanks for the new chapter, glad to be able to read it, thank you. I enjoyed this chapter a lot, can't wait to see whats to come next. I have a few thoughts, 1, is that the dragons know the girls are there and thats what they are talking about and in next chapter the girls come out of hidding and start to hang out/learn more about dragons along with Spike or 2, something bad is gonna come and try to hurt the dragons and Spike's gonna try and fight them off and the girls are gonna jump out and fight by his side to help the dragons and after they all learn more about dragons lol

just 2 short idea's that poped into my head after reading this chapter I look forward to seeing whats to come and thanks again for the update, keep up the good work

[Sky Hooves]

Happy to see this story being continued. Looking forward to learn more about the dragon culture and Spikes adventures in the dragonlands.

[SpikeSmolder fan]

Oh a very sweet *what if?* take on Dragon Quest, looking forward to see what happens next!

[TrainDude90S]

I'm totally enjoying this, keep up the SUPERB work & keep it going.