First time using? How were you using them, aaaaayyye?
(kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss ... huggies ... flying around the room ... kiss, kiss, kiss...)
(I may have enacted scenes I'm writing with my Fluttershy & Rainbow Dash plushes once or twice before...)

Anyway...

This moved faster than I thought it might. I didn't expect the next stop to be dragon lands already. Not complaining though mind you. I think you've gone and done a great job on both the young un's relationship and the older pair too. Both feel well established and it's nice to see that the two pairs are in very different places in their relationships too. I hope to see both build on things and grow throughout this tale.

Manehattan's dragon zone was a surprise to me. I really did not see that coming. That's an interesting piece of headcanon there... You made it work and it kinda felt Diagon alley-ish (from HP) to me. Very exotic among the ponies but nice to see that the two species are close enough that such a place exists in a major city. The small changing populace was making sense, even though most of the hive would be still living with Thorax (well, Pharynx too as boss since Thorax is occasionally out to mate and/or relax with a certain dragon mate/missus of his)

When they got the letter at the start I immediately thought that it was because the two leaders had decided to skive off for some more personal time. The fact that Thorax is seeming to be there for some hanky panky made me think of a few choice (and funny) pictures I've seen of him and Ember. I like the dragon form of his that you described. He seems like quite the drake for her... With the added bonus that he can turn into whatever else they want to have fun with
The fact that the letter came out of nowhere makes me think that Ember has him roped into something kinda last minute. I'm keen to see where that gets them both...
The scenes in the dragon land were nice. Short enough to not be the focus of the tale, but good enough to set the scene for what our two youngsters are walking into.

I am seriously hoping that Ember is caught with her mate having a quiet moment or something and that it's Ember & Ocellus who find them, say... if they had gotten off the airship and gone to see her without warning. And if Ocellus is still in dragon form at that point, I would be very interested to see how the two changelings react to getting a wif of the other being in such a form.
This could be fun!
Especially if we throw something else in to complicate things the next day or something.

The pinky dragon was going on about sex to the two young uns..? Oh, dear. They have quite a captain there, don't they?
And I see a lot of very interesting ideas emerging (sorry, 'interesting' is the best I can come up with, its now past midnight here...) both around dragons, changelings and how the different species are intermixing & getting along.
And so far... I like it.
The worldbuilding and hints of this and that are nice.

That last scene... I thought Ocellus was a changling there, in her regular form as herself but then "clawed arm" threw me for a loop and I had to re-read. So she stayed a dragon for sleep time too? Maybe just make a bit more clarity there. As she is naturally a changling and therefore my mental iamge can revert back to her as herself if theres a time skip and no mention of what form she has taken. (this will also go for Thorax, might I add)
very interesting... changlings (or maybe just higher up 'lings) can hold a form for a long time, even if they sleep then? That's quite impressive.
Although if I read that right, Smoulder finds Ocellus's dragon form to be appealing?
What about her changing self?

Smolder laid back on Ocellus' bed and hummed as she thought.

Getting comfy there I see...

No wait...

Ocellus stuck out her snout and it pressed onto the young dragon's own. Smolder blushed, the thought of being so close to something. . .special and, dare she say it, cute made her head spin for a moment. The orange dragon breathed, trying to center herself as she crawled into Ocellus' bed.

Now we're getting cute & comfy...
(Dang nammit, where's the Luna emotes... I wanna put her next to twi. I Guess Scootaangel will have to do... )

I'm getting a sense that they hold each other in especially high regard and that Smoulder seems to be feeling the start of the love bug coming. I wonder how soon it will be before Ocellus realises that the love coming off her best friend is directed at her...?

A great start.
I look forward to more.

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Well that's a very nice comment. Hadn't time to explain that little wrinkle in the story just yet, but how would a race built on hiding in plain sight work if they needed to switch between forms so often at night. It's a simple illusion spell in effect, once cast, it only needs a small bit of mana to run. Thought that doesn't take in effect the square-cube law of things I only briefly in passing mentioned. Queens can use bigger transformations, but those take more magic to use.

Didn't expect the Diagon Alley thing though, I can see that kind of now. Maybe its the isolated, yet within a major city feel.

I wanted it to be longer, and had ideas for more stuff in the Dragon section in Manehattan, but the little bits didn't really add the oomph I wanted the story to have. The focus is of getting to the dragon lands, and its going to probably take a while with what I have planned in chapters 2 and 3. Also, I was having fun writing the dragon captain, but I didn't want that to slog down too much. A nice hint of how I see dragons work is taking that one Spike episode where he grows into a huge dragon and taking that to an extended degree. Seven tribes of dragons. Seven deadly sins.

I'll keep the trying to differentiate between a Changeling's form change and their actual form better though. First attempt at a Changeling protagonist and its surprisingly difficult to keep that in check. I have more Changeling and dragon headcanon to do. Even though I hinted at a lot of it already. And no, this story won't be a quick one. Even if they are already in the air and going to the Dragon Lands. That's not how road trip stories work.