Age of the Alicorns: Chaos Rising

by AleximusPrime

9. Accord Can Help

CHAPTER 9: Accord Can Help

“Having my daughters go in to negotiate with a dragon is indeed a very dangerous and risky business…” King Solmidas said with the princesses and dragons standing before him in the throne room. “Though, Celestia does know the protection spell and if Starswirl teaches her how to protect against dragon’s fire, that will lower the risks.”

“And not to mention we’re going to be with them to help since we are dragons and all…” Penny spoke up.

“Yes, Penny, indeed.” the king replied. “I trust you two will be eager to meet another dragon for the first time in years.”

“Not exactly…” said Percy rubbing his arm nervously.

“I promise you I will teach them the protection spell to the best of my ability, Your Highness.” Starswirl told him.

“I have no doubt you will, old friend.” the king acknowledged. “Though their negotiation skills are what they need work on the most and what they need to be prepared with.”

Solmidas then got up from his throne and walked down to speak with his daughters.

“Girls, what happened with Leogle may have been out of the ordinary, but this time you are dealing with a dragon who is bound to be wild and unruly. Pay extra close attention to what you learn in your studies for the next few weeks. I can’t let you go until you have more practice.”

“Yes father.” said Celestia as she and Luna bowed to their father.

“Also girls, due to the unusual nature of this negotiation, I am going to have to count this as half of your final.” the king explained. “If you are able to get that dragon to leave the mines then you have gained my trust and I will prepare a more suitable final for you. I don’t want too many ponies thinking I’ve inadvertently put you in harm’s way for the sake of a grade.”

“If you insist father.” Luna said.

The king nodded to his daughters.

“Father?” Celestia asked.

“What is it Celestia?” he replied.

“How are things going with General Leogle by the way?”

The king turned his head to think a little and then answered his daughter’s question.

“Nothing really has changed sadly, Celestia.” he said gravely. “Leogle did just what he intended to do and broke off all diplomatic connections with us. Right now I think the best thing to do would be to not worry about the Griffon Province. Losing them has hurt us financially but right now my biggest worry is the mines in the South Spire Mountain. Without the gold there, the economy will suffer even worse, that is why this mission to negotiate with Grumblebog is very important.”

“Well that’s why we’re here, Father.” she said putting her wing around Luna. “We’ve gotten over what happened with Leogle, and we’ll try harder with the dragon this time.”

A smile finally appeared on the king’s face as Celestia spoke. He had had a stressful morning finding out about the mines but seeing his daughters eager to help made him feel a little better.

“I trust that both of you will. Now if you all will excuse me, I must attend a council meeting with the parliament.” he said turning to leave the throne room.

The dragons then started to leave with Penny running around and leaping for joy around her brother while talking.

“Percy this will be great! We finally get to see what a grown dragon looks like! Well, you’ve seen what one looks like before, but I haven’t!”

Percy rolled his eyes and spoke nervously.

“I cannot wait…” he said with sarcasm.

Meanwhile the princesses stayed behind with Starswirl.

“Tia?” Luna asked.

“Yes, Luna?” Celestia responded.

“Have you noticed anything different about Father lately?”

“Different? What do you mean?”

“Well he just seems a little angry now...”

Celestia put her wing around Luna and smiled.

“Luna, Father is fine. He’s just a little stressed out about what’s happened with the Griffons and now this whole dragon issue.”

“I know, I know…” Luna said. “I just get the feeling he doesn’t trust us as much as he used to.”

“Your father trusts both of you.” Starswirl said standing next to Luna. “He knows he can trust you. These are difficult times for him though and he will need both of you to do your absolute best.”

“Well Luna, we have diplomacy lessons later this afternoon, but do you wanna go see Accord tonight to see if he might help us with it?” Celestia asked her sister.

“Oh, that sounds like an idea!” Luna responded with her ears perking up.

“The senator may be busy today girls, but I can let him know ahead of time that you’ll be stopping by.” Starswirl said.

“How about some time right after supper?” Luna suggested.

“That sounds good. Alright, we’ll go see Accord in his tower after we eat.” Celestia answered.

Later that night, Accord was in his study writing on a scroll. He was very hard at work; his face emotionless and utterly focused on his task. Not a sound could be heard in the study but the scratching of his quill on the parchment. The light from the candle on his work desk was nearly still until it started to flicker a bit. Suddenly Accord heard voices coming from outside his door. His ears perked up and his eyes widened as he began to smile. He immediately set his scroll aside and his quill back in its bottle. There was a knock on the door and Celestia’s voice could be heard.

“Hello, Accord?” she said. “It’s me and Luna. May we come in?”

Accord used his magic to open the door himself and got up to greet the princesses.

“Tia, Luna! I’m happy to see both of you!” he said excitedly. “With all the work I do I feel like I haven’t seen you two in over a hundred years!”

Luna walked over and nuzzled against him as he put his front hoof around her.

“Well I do hope we aren’t interrupting you from anything important, are we?” Celestia asked.

“Oh not at all, I was just fiddling around and waiting for you two.” he responded.

“Wait, you’ve been expecting us?” Luna asked.

“Starswirl sent me a psychic note saying something about you two needing help with the dragon I believe.”

“Well, more specifically, we were wondering if you knew anything helpful about the dragon and how to reason with one.” Celestia explained. “We’ve been deep in our diplomacy studies but we’re still a bit nervous about our second trial, especially with what happened with General Leogle.”

“Oh, don’t be nervous your highness. You two are more than capable of a diplomatic assignment. The General just isn’t in the right mood I fear.” he said as he started to turn to the door behind him that lead to his bedroom. “Come on in here and I’ll go get some old books about dragons as I rest on my pillow.”

He lead them into his bedroom and used his magic to retrieve two pillows that had Luna and Celestia’s cutie marks on them.

“Ooooh, you had my cutie mark stitched onto my pillow!” Luna squealed.

“Oh yes, I sewed that on myself after you raised the moon. A little princess who’s found her true calling deserves to have a properly adorned pillow.”

Accord then sat down on his large purple pillow and brought in some books with his magic. One of the books said “Dragons and their Ways” on the binding, the same book Starswirl consulted earlier that day.

“So ladies, what is it about dragons you would like to know before we get to the diplomacy part…” Accord said, looking through the book.

“Well, Starswirl said this dragon could be a descendant of the Northern Drakes which are said to be a lot tamer than regular dragons are.” Celestia mentioned.

“Ah yes, the Northern Drakes. I remember these.” he said as he stopped flipping the pages with his magic and turned the book around to show them a picture of a few dragons from old times. “These were some of the first dragons to learn to speak our language. That one right there was named Pyrona, she was quite friendly actually. Did you know it is said that some ponies of old were able to get some rather wild dragons to listen to them by using something called ‘the stare?’”

“The stare?” Luna said, cocking her head.

“It’s such an extraordinary ability that barely any ponies know how to do it. Only a few that knew well how to deal with creatures were able to use the stare to humble these giants.”

“But we don’t have the stare, so how will we get Grumblebog to listen to us?” Celestia asked.

“Well just do what you would normally do. How would you girls feel if someone bigger than you just came and took all your things?”

The sisters sat and thought for a few moments until Luna spoke.

“Well I wouldn’t be too happy…” Luna said

“Alright then…” Accord replied. “…but would you say harsh things to them?”

“No, that would just make them angrier…” Celestia added.

“So……we have to be nice to him.” Luna said.

“I know you both have probably heard the words ‘persuasion is better than force’ said many times to you, but this is indeed true, girls. There are years of war and quarreling behind us that we’ve learned well from. I, myself, am the expert on solving the conflicts of our time and I will now pass on my knowledge to you.” Accord said, putting his hoof on his chest and lifting his head proudly. “Here, pretend right now that I’m the drag…no, I’ve got an even better idea!” he said with excitement.

There was a flash of light that lit up the entire room and in a moment, everything in the room was gone and the walls appeared to look like the inner walls of a cavern and the ceiling had stalactites hanging from it. The only source of light was a large torch to their left. Suddenly there was a flash coming from the ground and Celestia and Luna moved upward as if something had raised them. They looked down to find themselves sitting on top of a heap of gold which reflected the light from the torch causing the room to be more illuminated. Suddenly a green dragon with a long neck and some bat-like wings poked his head out of the gold and roared.

“WHO DARES INVADE MY CAVE?!” the dragon said.

They then realized exactly who this was: Accord had transformed himself into a dragon to test them. The face and voice of the dragon even gave away that it was Accord. His body was long and slender like a serpent and his tail curled around the two pony sisters as he started to put his arms around the gold and hug it tenderly. The strangest part about this was that Accord had always been somewhat clumsy with transformation spells in the past. He even had to have Starswirl undo his spells sometimes because he would end up automatically transforming into random mix-and-match creatures against his own will. They found it odd that he had all of a sudden mastered the spell without anyone knowing.

“Uh……Accord?” Luna asked just to be sure. “Is that you?

“That’s strange…” Celestia added. “I thought you-“

“Alright, yes, it’s me.” he replied. “Sorry if I frightened you ladies but let’s ignore the fact I’ve all of a sudden been able to master my transformation spell and focus on the test. Just pretend right now that I am the dragon and you are trying to get me to leave.”

“Well……alright then.” Celestia said, clearing her throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Grumblebog, Sir…”

“What are you two puny ponies doing here?!” Accord replied.

“My name is Princess Celestia and this is my sister, Princess Luna.” She said, pointing to her sister who was smiling big and waving her arm fast. “We are the daughters of Solmidas, King of Equestria.”

“And why are you here?”

“We have come to……peacefully negotiate with you about our treasure.” Luna added.

“Yes, we understand that you are a dragon and enjoy hording gold away to yourself but our father needs this gold as do the ponies of Equestria.” Celestia continued.

“What are you getting at?” Accord said skeptically.

“We would appreciate it if you would calmly leave our mountain and rest in another one that is not inhabited by any innocent ponies or that has any treasure that belongs to our father. I am sure that there are many mountains out there that you can dwell in.”

“And what will you do if I choose to stay?” Accord said as he stretched his neck forward looking Celestia straight in the eyes menacingly.
Celestia leaned backwards and Luna got behind her to hide and to keep her sister from falling over. Celestia gulped. Although it was actually her friend, Accord’s disguise and demeanor was convincing enough to test her well. A few moments later her face went from scared to determined and she took a deep breath.

“We are not interested in getting into a fight with you Grumblebog. We just want our gold back and we want to get it back by being your friend, not your enemy.” she said to him.

Accord’s scaly eyebrows moved upward and he backed away thinking carefully.

“Well……you are the first ponies I’ve met that have been this nice to me…” he said stroking the webbed scales on his chin. “But I’ve wanted to sleep in a gold mine for all my life like a lot of other dragons have…”

“But would you want to hurt the feelings of all the innocent little ponies who need this gold?” Luna said softly.

“Well……now that you put it that way…” Accord said as the scales on the side of his head drooped downward and he began to look empathetic. He thought for a moment and then looked back at Celestia and Luna who looked very helpless and cute. They seemed sad at first but then they both smiled warmly.

Accord lowered his head and picked up a handful of golden coins in his claws and stared at it for a moment. He then poured the gold out onto the pile and turned back to the princesses.

“I’m sorry, my little ponies…” he sighed. “I didn’t realize I was hurting others by doing this. I was mad at first but since you both were kind to me then you’ve helped me see the error of my ways.” He then smiled and spread his wings. “I will leave this cave then and you can have your treasure back. I can always find another mountain and now that I think about it, I would probably be more comfortable in a warmer place like a dormant volcano. Thank you for being persuasive.”

“And thank you for cooperating with us, Mr. Grumbleblog.” said Celestia as Luna smiled with her eyes closed.

Accord then spread his wings and flew out of an opening in the cave to their right which was where the window originally was to his room before he changed it into a cave. He flew away and then a few seconds later the room transformed back to normal in a split second and Luna and Celestia were both sitting on their pillows again and Accord was back on his big pillow in his true form with a smile on his face.

“A JOB WELL DONE, LADIES!” he exclaimed while clapping his hooves. “That was wonderful!”

“But are you sure that will work on the real Grumblebog?” Celestia asked him.

“Well if it worked for the Mighty Drogus I’m sure it could work for him too!” he said, showing them a picture of a large green plump dragon that looked an awful lot like Grumblebog according to the description the miner ponies gave earlier that day.

“Hey, that looked nothing like you did!” Luna said with sarcasm.

“Maybe not but that’s pretty close to what Drogus told the young pony girl who got him to leave a gold mine that belonged to the old King Gallium the First!” Accord told them while pointing his hoof to a spot on the page that showed a young female pony before the dragon.

“Wait……that really happened?” Celestia asked.

“That really happened, my dear.” Accord said, nodding his head. “You girls and I just reenacted the taming of the Mighty Drogus way back before the founding of Equestria. Not word for word of course but pretty close I must say!”

“Wow, so we sort of just passed the test already!” Luna said, standing bolt upright on her pillow.

“So all we have to do is be just as persuasive as we were tonight and it should work on him because Grumblebog is the same type of dragon that Drogus was!?” Celestia said excitedly.

“Precisely Tia!” Accord said while putting his hoof around her. “And you girls were wonderful right there; it even caused me to tear up for real!”

“Aw, we’re sorry.” Luna said.

“Oh nonono, don’t be sorry at all, you did exactly what you are supposed to!” he replied. “Well, I hope that helped you girls out…”

“Of course it did!” said Celestia, hugging his neck as Luna flew up to him and hugged from the other side.

“Dawww.” Accord said, nuzzling both of them back. He then started walking them out of his bedroom and into his study to show them the door. “It’s been so much fun talking with both of you but you best go get some shut-eye and rest on what you’ve learned.”

“You were a big help tonight, Accord.” Celestia told him. “I feel a lot more confident to do this now.”

“I feel confident too!” Luna said, hopping towards the doorway. “Good night, Accord!”

“Sweet dreams, Highnesses, sweet dreams!” Accord said, waving to them as they walked out of his room. Celestia closed the door with her magic but not before giving a very grateful glance back at her friend.

Accord sighed a sigh of relief and giggled a bit as he used his magic to retrieve his quill and parchment. He continued to smile as he was writing and no longer looked so somber. His time with the princesses seemed to cheer him up a bit from whatever was angering him earlier. He seemed very happy to have helped them and acknowledged their progress.

“Those little princesses are learning after all. Oh, I forgot to tell them how I mastered the transforming spells...” he said, stroking his chin with his quill for a moment. He then shrugged his shoulders and continued working. “Oh well, perhaps it’s best they not know right now...”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Comments

[ccthesylveon]

He even had to have Starswirl undo his spells sometimes because he would end up automatically transforming into random mix-and-match creatures against his own will.

Uh, excuse me? I sense something bad happening soon with these accidental spells.