From the Tree of Flames

by Falx_of_Lume

(3) An Exciting Morning

Granny Smith awoke to the sound of a light thud and a suprised squeak. She blearily blinked open her eyes to see the early light of the pre-sunrise dawn leaking in through the window across from her. Her mind caught up with her rather quickly and her eyes widened and shot to the couch the dragon was sleeping on.

Was, was the operative word. He wasn’t sleeping anymore and he wasn’t on the couch. She didn’t have to look around very long to find him though, thankfully.

The little dragon was shaking in pain at the foot of the couch, his injured leg slightly tangled in a blanket as he tried desperately to keep from making any more noise in an attempt to not wake Granny. Or, at least that was what Granny reasoned his reasons were.

Then the dragon looked up for a moment and met Granny Smith’s gaze and froze. Granny kept completely still, not even blinking as she stared into his sharp, diamond-slit pupils surrounded by the red of his irises. And then he darted to Granny’s right and hid behind the edge of the metal fireplace, out of Granny’s view and likely pressed against the wall.

Well he was certainly spry despite his injury.

And then she heard the dragon’s whimper from upsetting his wound again. Granny couldn’t help but send her sympathy out to the little one.

“Ya’ll don’t have teh’ worry ‘bout little ol’ me. Ah ain’t gonna hurt ya lil’ feller.” She said comfortingly in an attempt to try to coerce the dragon back out. Her words were met with silence from the corner around the fireplace. Granny sighed in resignation. This was going to take time.

Her ears were then met by the sound of the farm’s rooster crowing to the break of dawn outside. She closed her eyes in preparation for the coming day’s work, and then stood up slowly from her chair. She trotted into the kitchen, mindfully giving the fireplace a wide berth, to prepare breakfast for the family.

But she made a point to pick out a ripe apple from the basket on the counter and place it on the floor near the couch, and gave a reassuring look at the huddled black form against the far wall. He’s bound to be hungry after the night he had before. She caught the gleam of red from his eyes before she turned around again. The hue matched the color of the apple she’d just put down.

That stray thought somehow reassured her.

The sound of quiet hoofsteps coming down the stairs drew Granny’s eyes away from the oven. She grabbed a cooking pan off the back hook to place on the oven even while she greeted the second Apple to wake that day. “Good mornin’ Macintosh.” Granny murmured to the red colt.

“Mornin’ Granny.” He replied tiredly.

“Mind the fireplace fer now. Our guest’s bein’ a little skittish at the moment.” Granny told the colt with a small nod at the dragonling, who remained affixed to the same spot with his back to the wall. Macintosh looked to where she indicated and his eyes shot wide open. Though he glanced back and forth between Granny and the dragon, he eventually nodded in affirmation.

“Well, take a seat. Breakfast’ll be ready by the time everypony gets down.” Granny told him. He did just that.

The next sounds of wakefulness in the household came from above Granny’s head in the floor above, where Bright Mac and Pear Butter’s room was. Granny first heard a set of heavier hooves bumping against the floor, and then a second lighter set each set off in the direction of the other bedrooms, likely each went to wake up the fillies. This was proven true as, a few moments later, Applejack came bounding quickly down the stairs and past the kitchen. “Goin’ to feed Winona! Be back in a bit!” She said rapidly as she passed Macintosh and Granny Smith, not even pausing to say any kind of greeting to the two of th-

“Oh! Uh, mornin’ Granny, mornin’ Mac!” Applejack said sheepishly after popping her head back inside through the doorframe, before darting back outside to feed the dog.

… Well, better a late greeting than none at all.

Granny was actually surprised by how diligent the young filly was with taking care of the canine. Actually, it surprised her how diligent she was with all of her daily chores in recent times. It probably had something to do with getting her cutie mark, Granny supposed. Her parents had certainly been relieved to have the orange filly back from her brief stay with her Orange relatives.

“She’s certainly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this mornin’.” Pear Butter commented, trotting down the stairs at a more sedate pace than her daughter.

“That she is. Ye’ makin’ the applesauce today, or the pancakes?” Granny asked her.

“Ah’ll handle the applesauce since you’d probably slap mah hoof away if ah tried to take over the pancakes from you.” Pear Butter said drolly.

“Now yer learnin’!” Granny Smith said with a laugh.

Pear Butter giggled as well and took up her position in the kitchen near the apple strainer.

As the two got to work, Pear Butter glanced over her shoulder to the living room. “So how’s he doin’?” She asked Granny.

Granny looked sideways at Pear Butter. “Ah imagine the little feller’s doin’ alright, considerin’ how he wound up. But like ah told Macintosh earlier, he’s skittish ‘round others. It’s best we give ‘im some space fer now.”

Pear Butter looked at Granny. “But what about his bandages? Won’t we need ta’ change em’?” She asked.

Granny sighed. “That’s certainly somethin’ we’ll need teh do at some point. But he was unconscious when we first treated ‘im, and that ain’t gonna be the case from now on. With how he’s likely been livin’ till now, the only way we’ll get close ‘nough teh do that again is if he lets us.” she explained.

With a small turn of her head, Granny could just make out the form of the dragonling still hunched in his corner. However, the apple she left out on the floor was gone, and with a second look, Granny Smith thought she could just make out some slight movements in his hunched form, as if he were eating something.

Granny Smith smiled. “An’ while it might take some patience, ah think we kin manage teh get ‘im to warm up teh us in time.” She told Pear Butter reassuringly.

And that was when Bright Mac came trotting down the stairs. “Did one ah you wake up an’ bring down Applebloom?” he asked them worriedly.

The two mares looked at each other, and then back at Bright Mac. “No, why?” Pear answered, suddenly concerned.

Bright Mac’s eyes grew more worried than before. “She wasn’t in her crib when I went tah get her.” He told them.

“What?!” Pear Butter exclaimed.

“Well, earth foals do tend tah get a burst ah energy to their bodies pretty soon after they’re born. Guess it’s Applebloom’s turn now.” Granny commented calmly.

“But she’s barely a few months!” Pear argued.

“Eeyup. Looks like she beat Jackie’s record of escapin’ at three and a half ah them.” Granny said with a chuckle. “Really, after raisin’ two foals already, ah’d have thought ye’d be prepared fer this by now.”

Pear Butter put a hoof to her forehead. “Ah’m just let down that she’s not likely to be calmer than AJ was when she was a foal. We need to go look for her, she could get hurt!” She told them.

“Ah’ve told ye this twice already when the other two were foals. When an earth pony foal starts gettin’ surges in their magic like all pony foals, then the only things that’re dangerous teh them in this house are all here in the kitchen. Ye don’t need the worry so long as ye left the windows closed so she can’t get out.” Granny Smith reassured her.

“Ah checked, all the windows are locked up.” Bright Mac informed them.

“There, ye see! Jus’ go look around. She’s around here somewhere.” Granny told Pear with a wizened smile.

“Uh… Ma, Pa, Granny?” Macintosh said, grabbing the adult’s attention.

“What is it Macintosh?” Granny asked.

Mac’s answer was to only point across the table towards the living room. The three adults followed to where he was pointing and then all of them felt their ears drop.

The dragon was still in his place, and he looked just about done with his apple, but the sudden silence made him look back up at them warily.

Unfortunately for him, he looked in the wrong direction to find out what had caused the change, and was thus completely caught by surprise when Applebloom dropped down onto his back with a gurgle of baby joy.

He yelped in surprise and immediately darted from his hiding spot, but Applebloom was clinging to his back by her magically strengthened front hooves and she started giggling in glee at the sudden dragon-back ride.

Normally, one or more of the ponies in the kitchen would have made a move to try to intercept and separate them, for both their sakes, but the sheer speed and explosiveness of the dragon’s movements left them all stunned and unable to make a decision on how to catch him. Now that he's moving, he was quite literally running across the walls and sides of surfaces as he scrambled and leaped at a dizzying rate as he tried to escape the one hanging off his back. Granny Smith noticed multiple scratches and gouges in the floor, walls, and furniture suddenly just appearing after the dragon shot past them.

And all the while, Applebloom squealed in joy as she rode on the back of the creature moving at seemingly impossible speeds.

That is, until the dragon misplaced his good hind leg, slipped, and slammed his wounded thigh into the arm of Granny Smith’s rocking chair, and sent the both of them to the floor.

The four watching earth ponies could only mutely watch the train wreck as it unfolded.

Applebloom honestly got off no worse for wear than when she started, thanks to both her magic increasing her durability, as well as just not taking the brunt of the fall. The dragon, however, hit the floor and tumbled forward across the rug, all the while breaking Applebloom’s fall with his own body. Those facts however didn’t seem to concern him though, as he clutched his leg with his front claws with his eyes scrunched shut and his mouth clenched stiffly open even as he rolled across the ground.

Granny’s eyes widened, she recognized the face of a foal that had just taken a bad fall and was momentarily unable to vocalize their pain, and she knew what came next was not going to be fun to hear.

She was right. The next instant, the dragon let out a sharp shriek of pain that ripped into everypony in the room, and then continued to whine and growl even as he curled up around his leg.

And, of course, being a foal and right next to a sudden and scary sound, Applebloom started to tear up. Granny winced in preparation. Regardless of how much pain the little dragon was in when he let out his cry, he’d never be able to beat out the raw reverberation in the wail of an upset foal.

Somehow, the dragon managed to hear Applebloom’s whimpers that were growing in volume through his own racket, and he shakily looked up at her from the floor with his red, reptilian eyes.

What happened next would be etched into Granny Smith’s memory for the rest of time.

The long, sharp, diamond-shaped pupils of the dragon’s eyes slowly softened… literally. The corners curved, and the black stretched into a more ovular shape, the intimidating edges in his eyes that had been present since they’d found the youngster disappeared completely in favor of a shape that nearly matched the ellipse pupils of other equines. Granny Smith could actually see the concern and empathy fill into his eyes.

And then he slowly crawled over to Applebloom and brought his head up to hesitantly nudge, and then nuzzle Applebloom’s cheek. She opened her tear-filled eyes and looked at him with small huffs of imminent sobs, and sniffled her nose. Then, her mouth curled up into a smile and she let out a small giggle. She reached her tiny hooves forward and pulled the dragon into a laugh-filled hug. He resisted slightly, at first, but ultimately surrendered to the embrace, likely assuming it was the only way to keep the young foal happy. The rest of the Apple family could only stare at the strange pair from the kitchen, each one contemplating the events they had just witnessed.

And then Applejack trotted back inside through the front door. She sat down at the kitchen table next to Macintosh. “Mornin’ Ma, mornin’ Pa!” She greeted her parents. Pear Butter and Bright Mac looked at her and hesitantly nodded a greeting to their eldest daughter.

Applejack looked over to Granny Smith. “So what’s fer breakfa-what is Applebloom huggin’?” She queried in confusion mid-sentence, having noticed the actual dragon in the room finally.

“A dragon that looks like he’s about ta start cryin’ instead ah Bloom.” Macintosh answered with a wince.

Granny was about to ask what her grandson meant, until she noticed that he was right. The little dragon was wincing in obvious discomfort and had starting to tear up as Applebloom hugged him, her surge-boosted grip likely being the cause. Not to mention his wound had re-opened if the new red stains on his bandages were any indication.

“Oh dear, Butter, maybe ye should go‘nd grab Applebloom? And Bright Mac, see if ye ken get close teh him. It looks like we’ll have teh change his bandages sooner than we though. Ah’ll grab the first-aid kit.” Granny Smith told the pair. “And we’ll get around tah breakfast shortly you two, jus’ give us a few minutes teh treat our guest first.” She told Applejack and Macintosh before leaving the room.

Considering the house wasn’t on fire right now, Granny Smith thought that things had gone well involving their first incident with the young dragon. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad thing for the farm as she’d been thinking he could be.