8. To Be Lunch Or Not
Twinkle Twinkle, Speaker to Dragons
To Be Lunch Or Not
“She was a genius. And an idiot. Thankfully, not at the same time.”
— Smart Cookie, a translation⁽*⁾ of On Discourses of Dimensional Phasing and Flan, Volume XXIZ by Chancellor Puddinghead
(*) When asked what language it was translated from, Cookie merely said “Hers.”
The bellowing of enraged dragons echoed around the valley, drawing the attention of every scaled inhabitant within miles. The audience gathered individually with perked up ears and spread wings to perch on nearby spits of rock and sections of the cliff face where they could get a good look at what was going on, but some were a little close when Brass came shooting out of the cave entrance in a burst of dragonfire with Ruby in close pursuit.
“They’re mine!” he bellowed, trying to turn in flight only to have Ruby’s jaws clamp down on his tail and yank him out of the air. The two dragons tumbled down into the scrub brush and ragged trees below Ruby’s cave, ripping and tearing at each other with great fury.
“Mine!” screeched Ruby. “The Dragonlord will reward me with first claim on the pony treasure!”
“I helped capture the pony!” screamed Brass. “Their treasure is mine!”
The watching audience gained a line of ponies, all cautiously peeking over the cave lip but none brave enough to attempt escape with the roars and bellows coming up from below. A few of the dragons looked at the curious ponies, but it was quite plain that if any of them made a single move in their direction, both fighting dragons would jump on them like a loose gemstone.
In the end, Brass erupted out of the mess of flung trees and muddy water to flap away from the cave, turning around once he had gotten far enough away to bluster, “I should have crushed you in the egg! I’ll have that pony away from you and find out where the ponies are hiding their treasure! The Dragonlord will see who is the better dragon!”
“I’m the one the Dragonlord trusted to question the pony!” bellowed Ruby back just as loud. “And I’ll rip the guts out of any dragon who tries to take that away from me!”
- - Ω - -
Once Ruby had herded the watching ponies back into the cave and given one last fiery glare out of the entrance to keep the curious onlookers at bay, she lowered her voice.
“How was that?”
“Awesome,” breathed Rootstock. “You had him by the tail and socked him right in the face and then he grabbed you by one wing and smacked you into the pool and then you clobbered him over the head with that tree—”
“We all saw the fight,” said Twinkle, cutting off the exuberant little colt. “I’m not a good judge of emotions, but the two of you seemed to be fighting for real, so the other dragons should believe he is trying to steal us.”
“Are you sure you two were just pretending?” asked Nurse Care with a quaver of fear quite obvious in his shaky voice.
“We wrestled like that in the nest all the time,” said Ruby. “If I killed him like the others, I wouldn’t have anydragon to fight with. It was good practice for later when we grew up.”
A dead silence followed, with every pony except for Twinkle looking at Ruby with wide eyes.
“Awesome,” breathed Rootstock again. “My big brother was always too busy out in the fields to play with me. How many…” His voice trailed off. “What do you mean, if you killed him like the others?”
“Just what I said. Six of my mother’s eggs hatched. She killed two of the weak ones, and my brother helped me kill the other two before they killed us.” Ruby cocked her head to one side and looked at the stunned ponies. “What?”
“Ponies don’t kill their siblings,” said Twinkle. “We may fight at times, but ponies do not kill.”
“There were a lot of dragons killed by ponies during our attack on your wagons,” snapped Ruby.
“There were a lot more dead ponies that we could not protect,” snapped back Pansy, which surprised Ruby, but not as much as when the timid pegasus stalked forward, putting herself between the ponies and the dragon. It looked like Pansy was going to say something else, but the pegasus froze while looking at Ruby, then fainted.
There was a very awkward silence.
“Eggshells,” rumbled Ruby. “I don’t even know why I’m trying to protect you ponies instead of eating you all.”
“Enlightened self-interest,” said Twinkle while the rest of the ponies edged backwards. “If you kill us, the Dragonlord will kill you for certain, and we’ll all be dead. If you don’t kill us, the Dragonlord might kill us all, but we might be able to all survive if we all work together.”
There was something deep in those dark violet eyes that annoyed Ruby, and after a few moments of thinking about what she had said before, it made more sense. These ponies cared about each other, regardless of family boundaries. Ruby was female and understood the concept just a little more than her brother. Male dragons viewed eggs as an annoyance, and baby dragonlings as a prospective threat. Female dragons actually cared for their broods, thinning out the ones who were defective or weak and allowing nature to take its course with the remainder. Once a dragonling became old enough to think, the mother dragon taught them everything she knew, languages she may have learned in the nest from her mother or long tales of history. Ruby could still remember the day her mother kicked them out of the nest, driving her and Brass away with strong buffets of her wings and swipes of her claws. Their father had given chase, but was distracted by the possibility of breeding again and had been lured back into the cave before he had managed to do more than claw at them once or twice. Afterwards, they had even set up lairs fairly close to each other, but still, Ruby had no fanciful ideas about what would happen if Brass snuck into her cave and found a bunch of undefended eggs.
“So I go out and fight him again tomorrow,” said Ruby slowly, “and every day after that so I can practice for when the Dragonlord returns.”
Twinkle nodded. “Or skip a day here and there to keep the other dragons off balance. When you come back to the cave, we will check to make sure you do not have any undetected injuries, then we all will make a trip to the valley to forage for supplies. Guarded, of course, by you. From what you said earlier, the other dragons will respect Brass as the dragon with the pending claim against your treasure, and should allow us to gather food and herbs unmolested.”
With a grumbling rumble, Ruby nibbled on her bottom lip and tried to find flaws in the plan. “What if my brother is injured?”
- - Ω - -
The roaring ball of fighting dragons tumbled through the air, winding up vanishing into Ruby’s cave with only the sound of the conflict filtering out. The rest of the dragons kept their distance, because the last time this happened, Brass came shooting out at high-speed and promptly clobbered the nearest curious onlooker. This time, there was only the thunderous thuds of impact and the occasional plume of smoke drifting out of the cave entrance, but from the sounds, somedragon was getting thumped, hard.
* * *
“Aaaahhhh!” bellowed Brass. “That hurts! That hurts!”
“Yell louder, you big softie,” growled Ruby, who was standing by the entrance to the cave, thumping up against the walls and floors with her tail and using her wings to occasionally blow a gust of dusty air outside. “It’s your fault for not dodging fast enough.”
Twinkle and Nova sat next to Brass’ eyelid, keeping magical pressure on the wad of gluey potion they had just smeared across the deep cut. “Just another minute, Miss Ruby,” said Nova. “The elixir has just about set up. The bonded scales should be just as hard as the rest of his head. Try not to hit him in that eye for a day or two, just in case. How are the rest of you doing?”
“Aft quadrant reports no significant injuries,” said Nurse Care, who had just finished scanning his magic across the dragon’s rear. “The scar tissue in all previous wounds are holding fine, and I’m clear.”
“Right front quarter, significant bruising, but well within tolerances,” said Pansy. “Fake blood applied, paint crew has evacuated the area, and we are clear.”
“Left front quarter had some sticks jammed under some scales,” said Rootworm, who was sliding down Brass’ extended leg and wound up tumbling across the pebbled floor. When he stood up, he spit out some sand and added, “I’m clear.”
“Patch is solid,” said Twinkle, backing up out of the way with Nova. “Ruby, you are clear to launch.”
“Finally!” Ruby grabbed her brother by the tail and heaved the larger dragon out of the cave entrance, watching his ballistic path out across the valley with a scowl. “If we live through this, he’s going to want to do that all the time.”
- - Ω - -
A Moon was a long time, except when somepony was trying to run a household of nearly twenty ponies, supervise a dragon fight nearly every day, care for the injured, both dragon and pony, and draw plans for their survival.
Twinkle had little time for trivial items. Unfortunately, trivial items had time for her.
“Hm, black guard to E7,” said Nova while using his magic on the shapeless lump of clay that the foraging team had brought up from the river valley. “That puts your priestess in threat, by the way.”
Twinkle bit her bottom lip while trying to concentrate on her own task of mashing shredded bits of tree and plant fibres into some sort of virulent glop. Paper had always seemed so easy. Mention to the servants that she needed another stack and a few minutes later, one would appear. There were dozens of spells that she knew for shaping and smoothing the goop into a correct end product, but she had never cast any of them. In fact, her sum total of practiced spells had doubled over the last few weeks, then doubled again as she found herself as the ‘go-to’ unicorn in the makeshift herd. Twinkle, we need to extract the oils out of these herbs. Twinkle, we need to dry this flower and grind it into a powder. Twinkle, we need a spell to discourage blister beetles from eating up the new plantings. Even Nova’s assistance with spellwork, despite his blindness, did not slow the incessant demands of her tiny kingdom.
In a way, getting eaten would have been a blessing. At least it would calm her raging hornache.
“Hey, Twink. Relax.” Nova left the half-formed lump of clay sit, moved up behind her, and began to gently run his magic over her shoulder blades, leaving a trail of pleasant tingles behind. “Even I can tell you’re tense. Just leave whatever you’re working on alone for a moment and tell me what’s bothering you. Other than the dragons, that is. They’re both outside.” His warm magic continued to work its way down Twinkle’s spine, making her tail give an uncomfortable twitch.
“Are you intending on having sex with me?” asked Twinkle, turning to look at the injured stallion. Although most of his bandages had been removed, the ones on his face had remained, along with several medicated patches that the nurse had insisted on remaining over his injured eyelids for the next few weeks. She could not help but think he was looking back at her eyes because his head always stayed fixed in her direction. Perhaps it was a horn finding spell. Or, maybe not.
The question seemed to startle the stallion, and he took a deep breath before replying. “If you desire, M’Lady Twinkle. Although I must ask why you ask?”
“Guard to G5. You said we were going to mate and have foals.”
“I did?” Without being able to see his eyes, it was difficult to figure out what the injured stallion was thinking, but his nose wrinkled up. “Anything else? Oh, and guard to D5, capturing your priestess.”
“Nothing that made sense.” Twinkle spread the goopy wood-glop across the flat rock and considered which of the three paper spells would be best to use on it. First, she had to get rid of two things which bothered her mind. “Guard to F7, capturing a soldier. And you said I had beautiful eyes.”
“Castle,” responded Nova promptly.
“You’ll lose your queen,” said Twinkle.
“I’ve never liked royalty.”
“Guard to D8, capturing your queen.”
Nova bit his bottom lip and sucked on it for a long time, which gave Twinkle enough time to spread her magic out across the gloopy pulped fibres. She pressed for a while in the quiet, damp air of the cave before Nova said, “No, that’s not right.”
It did not seem as if the spell was performing any worse than expected, but Twinkle switched to her second choice, even if it was more difficult. The paper straightened out and lost some of its coarse nature as it dried, which made her give a short grunt of satisfaction. It would still need a fine coating of clay to keep their ink substitute from running, but that would wait.
“What exactly did I say?” asked Nova.
“You never liked royalty.” Twinkle flexed the new sheet of paper and regarded the few thin spots. It was as good or better than anything she had created so far. The original purpose of creating the paper had been demolished by the greedy behavior of the other dragons, but it would still give the other ponies hope to write their loved ones, even if the possibility of getting the letters delivered was slim.
“Exactly what did I say, Twinkle. Exactly, every word you can remember.”
Twinkle looked up from her freshly created sheet of paper. What little of Nova’s expression that was visible under the bandages seemed to be more serious than she had ever seen before. “Every word?”
“Yes,” breathed Nova. “Our fate may depend on it.”
“But you’re not going to tell me why,” said Twinkle. “Not even if I insist.”
“No. It’s too important.”
Twinkle wanted to tell him no. After all, if he was not going to tell her why, there was no reason for her to do what he wanted. Besides, she was supposedly in charge, and having an injured stallion push her around this way irked her. Combined with the frustrations she had been through so far, it almost actually made her angry. From his tone of voice, it was obvious that Nova had planted his hooves and was not going to give even in the slightest. It was very much a dragon sort of reaction, and to meet it horn against horn would only make him dig in deeper.
If he was this obstinate when blinded and still wearing leaf-bandages over most of his body, he was going to be insufferable when he recovered. The only way to overcome his arrogant nature was to break him intellectually, to tempt him in a way that he could not resist and crush his sense of superiority in the way that several of her father’s favorite authors had detailed.
“If you will not tell me why you wish for me to parrot your words back to you, I shall not do as you desire, unless—“ Twinkle left the word hang in the air “—you defeat me in this game.”
“You took my queen,” countered Nova. “I’m outnumbered, with one of your pieces in my backfield. I demand better conditions. When I am victorious, you are to repeat every word I’ve spoken to you, as much as you remember, and you are to admit that I am the greater intellect and more qualified to lead our subjects to safety.”
“Victory in a game of chess does not exemplify superior survival skills,” countered Twinkle. “I shall grant you my respect as to your intellectual prowess in the unlikely event of your victory, but if I win, you are to explain your complete reasoning to your request. No excuses.”
“Agreed. Priestess to F2. Check.”
“Castle to—” Twinkle stopped and rearranged the chess board in her head. “Oh, yes. Check. King to H3.”
“D7 soldier to D6,” said Nova without a pause. “Check.”
“Guard to—” Twinkle stopped again. “No, you can just capture it and I’ll be in check. Soldier to E6.”
“Guard to F4,” said Nova before Twinkle had finished talking. “Check.”
“King to… G4,” said Twinkle slowly. “Mate in nine.”
“Guard to E6,” said Nova. “Capturing soldier.”
“Guard to E6,” said Twinkle. “Exchange.”
“Priestess to E6,” said Nova briskly. “Poor exchange on your part. And check again.”
“King to G5,” said Twinkle. “Concede.”
“There’s always hope,” said Nova. “Not here, though. Castle to F5 and check.”
“King to G4, your soldier to H5, King to H3—”
“And castle to F3 for checkmate. Quite impressive for a mare. Forty moves.” Nova smacked his lips and smiled thinly, which was about as much as he could do with the bandages around his burns. “Sometimes, sacrifices must be made in order to draw one’s opponent into a false sense of overconfidence. I, of course, do not suffer from such hubris, since I am smarter than any other unicorn in Equestria.”
“Easier to say now that many of them are dead,” said Twinkle, who was going back over the moves in her mind and cringing at how easily she had been hoodwinked.
“Ahh… Yes.” The injured stallion licked his cracked lips again and Twinkle floated a piece of waxy honeycomb for him to chew on. “Thank you, kind mare. I suppose I have not thanked you enough since my initial recovery. I should be groveling upon my knees and begging your forgiveness.”
“That is not the proper place for a husband,” said Twinkle, still distracted at the way the game had deviated from her plans around the twentieth move with the dangled temptation to capture his queen. “My father would never have grovelled in front of my mother, nor the inverse. They have a marriage based in mutual respect of equals.”
“Perhaps that is my problem, then.” Nova placed the perfect clay bowl that he had been shaping in his magic to one side with the others, all lined up in perfect rows for Ruby to breathe over later. “You see, I have no equal, and I refuse to lower myself for any mare. I do have a single flaw, however. My intellect is so vast, so powerful, that at times, I am enthralled by threads of the future wafting away into the distance.”
“Then you should have foreseen the dragon and dodged when he breathed on you,” said Twinkle.
“A practical solution for my situation. You should have been there to remind me.”
Nova let out a short huff of breath and coughed briefly, a thin and weak noise that belayed his otherwise cheerful demeanor. Twinkle had always been thin, and the diaspora of ponies to the warm lands of the south had left her with hollow cheeks and protruding ribs, but not nearly to the extent that the young stallion displayed. The recovery that he had started last week had not triggered his appetite to the degree that Twinkle had wanted, so she had taken to bringing him extra helpings of the grass and roots from the foraging team, and watching him intently while he ate. Cook from home would have tied him to a chair and fed him until he resembled a holliday stuffed beet, but all Twinkle had managed to do so far was give him a bad case of gas and occasional constipation.
“In any event, I am victorious, and demand my prize.” Nova waved a hoof dismissively. “Proceed.”
The taste of defeat was bitter, almost as bad as the violet roots from the swampy bit of ground down in the valley. After casting a spell on the results of the daytime foraging, Nova had claimed they contained needed nutrients and insisted that everypony had at least a few every day. Even Ruby, who washed hers down with a bite of muddy gravel and considerable grumbling.
Swallowing down the nasty aftertaste from her upset stomach, Twinkle Twinkle began to recite every word she had heard from the annoying unicorn, matching the words against her own when they had been talking together and including all of the grunts and low grumbles he had given over the last few weeks. When she ended with a sneering ‘Proceed’ just as Nova had done, his jaw was hanging open and Twinkle was fairly sure if his bandages had been off, his eyes would have been wide too.
“That was…” Nova took a long swallow. “Three foals?”
“Most probably delusional ramblings associating my voice with another mare in your history, much as a dream state will cause neuronic triggering of old memories such as Sunshadows wrote in his book on active dreaming,” said Twinkle. “I don’t see that it has any—”
“Your coat is a subtle shade between lilac and periwinkle,” said Nova rapidly, “shading more to the dark at the hooves. Your mane is cornflower blue with a pale pink stripe, but you keep it trimmed short and it’s just starting to grow shaggy, which you hate. Your eyes… between lilac and pale blue. You don’t like being out in the sunlight because you think you’ll bleach. I have no idea how I know, but it’s a silly worry, because a sunscreen spell will take care of that. Stop me if I’m wrong.”
“I’m orange,” declared Twinkle. “With yellow and green stripes, and frosted wings.”
“You’re a unicorn,” countered Nova.
“I can have wings too,” said Twinkle. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Of course—” Nova stopped with one hoof raised, then drew it back across his jawline to scratch an itch for nearly a minute. “You lied?”
“I’m practicing. I’m not very good at it, because I’ve never done it before,” admitted Twinkle. “Now, did you lie to me when you said our fates could depend on me repeating all of your words to you?”
“A little.” The stallion sat down with a thud. “It is true that I can see things, little hints in the present that tell what the future might become. Interactions in forms of magic that other unicorns are, pardon the expression, blind to the effects thereof. My father called it the gift of jumping to a foregone conclusion from a irrational premise by skipping the intervening steps of analysis. I became so used to being right all the time that I thought I was right all the time.”
“So are you right now?” asked Twinkle. “I don’t see how we’re going to wind up married and have three foals if I’m going to die in a week.”
“I…” The stallion stopped as if he had eaten a raw chestnut, and it was caught in his throat until he took a deep breath and blurted out, “I don’t know.”
“You could have lied,” pointed out Twinkle. “Told me that you saw us surviving this, escaping back to the new pony lands, and raising a family. Stallions lie a lot when they’re trying to have sex with mares.”
Nova snorted and broke into a coughing fit, although he was grinning instead of looking like he was about to die. “Oh, don’t do that,” he managed after a short while and a blow of his nose on one of the broad leaves that Twinkle floated over to him. “It hurts too much.”
“Would sex help? My brothers are all dead, so they won’t threaten you. And your family is dead, so even a defective pony such as myself—”
She had turned her head to get another broad leaf for Nova’s running nose when Twinkle found a hoof placed gently on her mouth. “No,” said Nova. “You’re not defective.”
“I’m weird,” said Twinkle the moment his hoof moved.
“You’re unique,” said Nova.
“Everypony is unique,” countered Twinkle. “Except maybe Ignatia and Hypatia, the identical twins who lived down on Flower Row.”
“But you are not any ordinary unicorn, color and plaid coat pattern notwithstanding. You are extraordinary. Every other pony captured by the dragons, myself included, found themselves helpless when faced with their power. You found a way to use that power against your captor, and to gather more ponies to you. To live with the dragon instead of fighting her, which would be futile, or surrendering to her, which would be fatal. And, if I may be so bold, managing to save the most intelligent unicorn in the world while doing so.”
“In a week, we’re all going to die,” stated Twinkle plainly.
“No, we won’t.” Nova shuffled across the pebbled floor of the cave back to his woven reed mat and settled down on it with a few minor winces. “When history writes of this time, they will speak of you, not me.”
“History lies too,” said Twinkle. “A thousand ponies see the same event and tell a thousand and one stories about it, none of which match.”
Nova smiled and put his head down on the stuffed bundle of hay that he was using for a pillow and occasional snacking. “Then you must survive in order to write the story, so that the world may know the truth of your bravery.”
- - Ω - -
In several days, the moon would be over and the Dragonlord would return to claim his treasure, or at least claim Twinkle’s blank map to the hidden gems and gold of her kind. If she were capable of being angry at the frustration that had overwhelmed her, she would have been able to breathe fire like a dragon.
She needed an idea, or every pony she had saved would die.
Any idea would do.
Anything.
Sleep evaded her much like any worthwhile ideas as fatigue clawed at her churning stomach. While night spread its wings and the rest of the herd gathered together to rest, she occupied her time at the cave entrance, staring up at the unchanging stars. Twinkle Twinkle had even stopped assisting with the raising of the sun and moon in order to conserve her dwindling strength for the upcoming confrontation.
Thus she was the only creature awake at the early hour just before dawn when the distant sounds of wind passing over scales alerted her to an approaching dragon. Actually, five dragons, all the size of Ruby or Brass, who silently swooped down and clung to the cliff face just outside the cave.
“Do you hear her?” whispered one of the dragons.
“No,” whispered another. “Go in and see if you can find the pony.”
“I’m not going in there,” whispered the first dragon, somewhat louder. “You go in and find the pony. We’ll wait here.”
“Which pony are you looking for?” asked Twinkle Twinkle.
There was an exceedingly long silence outside of the cave, followed by all five of the dragons cautiously poking their heads around the edges of the cave ‘doorway’ and looking at Twinkle.
“Grab her,” whispered the smallest dragon, about half the size of Ruby but with a ridge of spines from the top of his head down out of sight and presumably all the way to his tail.
“I’m not grabbing her,” said the first dragon, a tusked and fierce female with small piggish black eyes. “She’s a trap, obviously.”
“Actually, I’m Twinkle Twinkle,” said Twinkle.
“You have a Name?” they all hissed in unison.
Twinkle nodded. “Why are you here?” she asked. “Did the Dragonlord send you?”
One of the dragons opened his mouth to say something, but the tusked female backhanded him with a blow that would have squished Twinkle flat. It only made the male dragon blink, but he did remain quiet while the female cleared her throat and put on what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile. “Yes, our father sent us to see how you are coming along with that list you promised.”
All five of the dragons nodded, but Twinkle could see the greed in their eyes, if not the little specks of drool they were leaving behind on Ruby’s doorway. Pointing out that she knew they were lying would be a bad idea, and admitting that she was not going to give the Dragonlord the location of the pony wagons with the most gold and gems in it was an even worse idea. The only idea that could possibly be worse was—
“I promised to make him a list of all the few pieces of pony treasure that we brought with us from Unicornia,” said Twinkle. “You must want all the heaps and piles of treasure we had to leave behind.”
“Heaps?” breathed one of the dragons.
“Piles?” asked another.
Twinkle nodded. “When we left Unicornia, bringing food was more important than bringing royal treasure like the Diamond Chandelier of King Bullion, or the Courtyard Ruby Fountain of Eternal Flames, or even his Royal Throne of a Thousand Gems. Most of his treasure rooms were sealed when we left, so all the gold and gemstones are still there.” Twinkle paused. “That is unless some other dragon took them.”
There was a serious risk of drool puddling in the cave entranceway now, but the female dragon closed her jaw with a soggy snap and began to reach forward in Twinkle’s direction. “I think you need to show us—”
“Touch me and the Dragonlord will tear you to shreds,” said Twinkle just as coldly as she could. It must have worked, because the dragon quit reaching for her and took a brief glance over her shoulder at the darkness outside. “Besides, Unicornia is easy to find on your own,” she added. “It’s straight north about three hours at the speed Ruby flies.”
The four dragon claws that had been slowly inching in her direction stopped as the sound of a sleepy dragon snort came from the darkness behind Twinkle.
“Then across the frozen Great River,” she continued, “following the tributary that winds to the north between two towering mountains, across a vast open plain scattered with peasant houses and up the valley to where the mountains of Unicornia look down. They’re supposed to look a little like noble unicorns,” she explained, “even though they don’t. Other than being pointed at the top.”
“That’s where the treasure is?” asked most of the lurking dragons at once.
“The gold and silver palace of King Bullion,” intoned Twinkle in the familiar pattern her family had recited at every meal, “shows the true majesty and power of Unicornia. Let every gem and every treasure proclaim our glory to all the world, that the kingdom shall last forever, and that all shall marvel at our works. It’s at the midpoint of the largest mountain, rising above the city of Pinnacle,” added Twinkle. “You can’t miss it. The roofs of all the towers are inlaid in gold leaf and inset with diamonds, or at least they say they’re diamonds. I think there may be a number of rhinestones mixed in with them. And the vaults below the castle contain wonders beyond imagination, with all the artefacts and relics Unicornia has collected over centuries of growth. Rare and unique enchantments, artworks from the far corners of the world, books of forbidden knowledge, all the sorts of things that a dragon could use to build a hoard that no other dragon could match. And since there are no ponies there anymore, it’s all unguarded.”
Twinkle let her eyes travel over the five eager faces filling Ruby’s cave entrance, then pointed to one of them at random. “Since he’s the fastest, he’ll probably get to the treasure first and… How do dragons say it? Place his fire upon it to claim it for his own? Then the rest of you will be left with the scraps. There are a few coins left in the fountains, I suppose.”
The dragon she had pointed out got a look of sudden terror when the other four turned to face him, and he bolted in a flurry of wings, followed almost instantly by his companions. The resulting wind of their departure almost blew Twinkle over, and brought Ruby out from the treasure chamber where she had been supposedly sleeping.
Moving slowly as not to terrify the awakening ponies who stared at her bulk and cringed back onto their sleeping mats, Ruby moved up behind Twinkle and looked out into the night. “They’re gaining on him,” she murmured. “They’re too far away for me to make out any details anymore.”
Twinkle nodded. “They’ll kill him before flying further north to Unicornia. Were those the offspring of the Dragonlord?”
“I think so.” Ruby peered into the night, then sat back on her haunches and remained silent. Minutes passed, then hours. The restless ponies settled back down to sleep, but Twinkle and Ruby continued to sit in the darkness beside each other until the glow of the rising sun began to illuminate the distant horizon.
“You killed them,” said Ruby after lowering her head almost down to Twinkle’s level and speaking in a whisper. “Five spawn of the Dragonlord and you killed them with words. They’re going to fly away to your frozen city and die when the Windigo freeze them, just like you told Brass.”
“I didn’t want to,” said Twinkle. “I had to.”
Ruby turned her head to lock eyes with the little unicorn. “You could have killed my brother just as easily. What will I do if you try to kill me also?”
“I won’t kill you.” Twinkle reached out with one hoof and touched the end of Ruby’s nose. “Unless you make me.”
Ruby snorted a puff of smoke, which made Twinkle cough and wave a hoof to get a breath of fresh air. “Since I met you, I’ve nearly lost my brother to your pony weapons, I have to beat his head in every day to practice for my fight against the Dragonlord, and I’ve got a bunch of pretty colorful ponies instead of gems for my hoard. What’s next, are you going to make me Dragonlord?”
“If I can.” Twinkle patted Ruby’s nose before returning her hoof to its proper support role. “You and Brass are the first real friends I’ve ever had. If you were Dragonlord, you could keep your dragons from attacking my ponies, and save many lives on both sides. The first is nice, but the second is the most important.”
- - Ω - -
The next day, the wait for Brass to begin his assault on Ruby’s cave was exceedingly long, and even the ponies began to poke their noses out around her sides to scan the sunny sky. Her brother had agreed to keep the schedule somewhat random to throw off any watching dragons, of which there were quite a few this morning, but after him not showing up yesterday, Ruby was…
No. Worrying about her brother was something a pony would do. She was concerned that he had gone and done something stupid, and that she could not go rescue his sorry hide because that would leave the ponies vulnerable.
It made her idly wonder how the rest of the dragons would react if the ponies fortified the cave by building spear-throwers and arrows. No, having a hoard that could transport itself was bad enough. Having one that could defend itself against dragons was just begging for trouble. Even the spear blades and arrowheads that had been dug out of Brass had been placed quite securely in Ruby’s treasure cave so that the ponies would not get ideas and tie the weapons back onto sticks.
There still was something wrong about the sun above the valley, like it had stuck in the sky without the Dragonlord to bellow it along its path. And it was an odd shade of yellow, with petals like some sort of flower, which was a distraction that Ruby most certainly did not need right now.
She straightened up when a flying figure could be seen in the distance, mostly obscured by the sun. It was larger than most dragons, and in relatively short order, she understood why. The Dragonlord was actually carrying Brass limply under one foreleg, and landed solidly on the valley floor outside of the cave, flinging his burden down on the grass-covered ground with a loud thud.
“Female!” he bellowed. “Attend your Dragonlord.”
“I’m going to kill him,” growled Ruby just barely loud enough for the ponies around her to hear. “I’m going to rip his heart out of—” There was a feather touch of magic across her lips that stopped Ruby’s quiet muttering, and she did not even need to look down to see the determined look on the little unicorn’s face.
“I’ll kill him,” said Twinkle in a flat, cold whisper. “Take me down there, please.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Ruby quickly while she wrapped her claws around her passenger.
“Where are my sons and daughter?” bellowed the Dragonlord from down below in the valley, using one clawed hind leg to slug a solid kick into Brass’ inert side. “Where are my children!”
“Castle,” responded Twinkle. “Ask Nova when I’m gone. Now take me down there before your brother dies.”
It was a short glide to the ground, and Ruby lighted a respectful distance away from the glowering Dragonlord, where she placed the cryptic little unicorn on the ground between them. It was not the meeting she expected, with the unconscious but still breathing bulk of her idiotic brother sprawled across the muddy grass and the little unicorn looking unusually intent.
“I have completed the task, Respected Dragonlord,” called out Twinkle in a clear voice. “The treasures of Unicornia will be yours.”
“You ponies crumble without a fight.” The Dragonlord kicked Brass to one side and leaned down to put his tusked face right up to Twinkle, giving her a terrifying snarl “You are weak and surrender your treasure, while dragons are strong and take them!”
“You may have the most precious treasures of the kings and queens of Unicornia,” said Twinkle flatly. “I’ve never liked royalty.”
The Dragonlord actually laughed at that. “Nor do I. Now show me where the ponies hide their treasure!”
Twinkle bowed low. “Yes, Respected Dragonlord. It lies far to the north, in the kingdom of Unicornia above our city of Pinnacle, where your children have gone to protect it until your arrival.”
“WHAT!” The Dragonlord shrieked and blew a giant blast of flame up into the sky, but Twinkle did not react in the slightest, even when he brought a huge clawed hand down and swatted her, knocking the little unicorn into a muddy end of an irrigated field of some sort. “Why did you give my greedy little brats the location of the pony treasure before me! I should destroy you!”
“You’ll never find the treasure in time by yourself,” called out Twinkle. She plodded out of the mud, dripping and bruised with her head held low. “Take me with you and allow me to guide your path. If we hurry, we can reach the treasure before them.”
“If you are lying, I will take my revenge on your kind!” thundered the Dragonlord. “I will track them all down and burn them to ashes, every single pestilent one of them!”
He scooped up Twinkle so rapidly that he took a huge chunk of muddy grass along, and was instantly in the air with one huge sweep of his wings. Other dragons rose to fly with him, but the Dragonlord roared his defiance, and they all turned back, watching with wide eyes as he headed north until they vanished from sight.
“Is he gone, sis?” groaned Brass.
“They’re gone,” said Ruby.
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Unexpected talents all around. Poor Nova. Last cached chapter tomorrow, with a special guest star.
Nova certainly embodies the pride of the unicorns.
9603729
Is it hubris if he really was the most intelligent unicorn in Unicornia?
In case there was any doubt that Puddinghead was Pinkie's ancestor.
Nova definitely showed Twinkle the proper gambit. The question is how skillfully she can execute it. And the Dragonlord.
I have been thinking, since the Windigoes are "powered" by anger and disharmony, doesn't that mean thay they will be starving when the dragons and now Dragonlord get there?
The ponies who were feeding them with the bickering and fighting left a while ago, so they have gone through a bit of a dry spell already. 5 angry, greedy dragons fighting amongst themselves will be a hell of a pick-me-up, but then they will be killed and they will go back to starving.
And now Twinkle and the Dragonlord. His anger and hatred should feed them for a while but Twinkle might as well be a empty tupperware for them. Once the dragon are gone they will waste away. She will probably be able to just hang around in the old palaces and houses, eating whatever froze over and burning old furniture until they die and the place thaws out.
This is not going to end well for the dragons, and hopefully will end well for Twinkle.
There we go.
The Dragonlord has just suicided. How long it takes, well, Twinkle can just make him angrier?
Just for funzies Im replacing Nova's names with Stardust, and picturing his eye bandage's with a small lumps of coal where the eyes should be
Well, I have no idea how Twinkle gets out of this. Pretty sure she does somehow, since it'd be hard for her to have descendants otherwise, but...
Well, finding out how is half the journey and all of the fun, isn't it.
What a cliffhanger! How did Twinkle survive, you ask? Click below to find out!
On the long flight up north, Twinkle and the Dragonlord found they both had a deep appreciation for 80s sitcoms and romcoms. After hours laughing and trading their favorite quotes, they decided to fly off to the Horseshoe Archipelago together where they spent the rest of their happy days reenacting scenes from Cheers and Different Strokes.
THE END
9603705
Noooooo, all caught up again.
Damn Twinkle. Tricking them all into becoming Windigo hors d'oeuvres? That is cold (pun intended)
There is vindictive, then there is scorned mare vindictive. And now peeved unicorn filly mare vindictive.
9603745
Yes actually. Hubris has nothing to do with wether or not it’s true, it is entirely based on viewing your accomplishments or traits in an excessively positive light. The fact that he mentions how he is the best a half a dozen times in one conversation is more than enough to meet the definition.
*Alondro eye-narrows* This one could be competition... *Nova is suddenly stabbed through the face with a steak knife from a mysterious portal*
9604407 I am no longer burdened by such things.
You see, when I was younger I used to be very conceited.
But that has all changed now that I am perfect.
Alright Nova, you were interesting before but now you've started to move into annoying. No wonder Twinkle eventually divorces you.
Just, you know, don't make her.
Ah hah, there's the line.
Uh oh.
You know...the argument could be made that said twins are unique precisely because they are not unique, at least not in comparison to each other.
This Nova character irks me a bit, not necessarily just because he's a bit egotistical or because he tends to speak of his fortune telling in riddles, but because the more I find out about him the more the back of my head thinks I should already know who this dang pony is and his significance in the greater picture, beyond the current events of the story.
I just know it'll click by the end of the story (if not sooner) and I'm going to end up slapping myself for not realizing it sooner.
Point is, I know he's not just anypony, he can't be.
Won't lie--I was thinking that might be what it comes to as far back as the second chapter or so.
...and I'm thinking that's probably still going to be the case more than ever now.
...That sun is concerning.
And gives me a suspicion of who the special guest star might be.
:)
*boop*
Twinkle is quite terrifying.
And also quite sexy.
EDIT: Like a doofus, I posted this comment to the wrong chapter after my laptop died. Moved it there
Also, besides lying Twinkle seems to be learning a great number of emotions. Anger for one.