three
I woke real unhappy about having to go back to ponyville. I was hungry, but I was so scared about having to see Miss Sweetheart, I felt like I’d just hurl anything I tried to eat. I couldn’t imagine what kinda trouble I was in.
I’m such a horrible pony.
I opened up the saddlebag Alex brought and rummaged through it to see if anything looked like I could hold it down. Mom always told me to eat something bland and light when I wasn’t feeling good...
Mom, I miss you so much.
Carrots, celery, flowers, a couple of hay pucks, a couple of juice boxes... I sat gazing with a hungry stomach at food that I didn’t want. I finally decided to struggle down a hay puck and a little juice... make that all the juice. I forgot how dry those things are.
I nuzzled the little one awake when the sun rose fully above the trees. No need to get him up too early. He was grumpy, but that was only to be expected with all the uncertainty that lay before us.
After he ate, I decided to check the area. Extending my wings, I gave a few flaps to see how he’d respond and was pleasantly surprised by his ability to stay on his feet. After making sure he was ready, I launched myself and did a quick aerial reconnaissance of the area. When I had made sure of the safety of the skies, I had him climb onto my back.
It was no wonder he kept his footing so well. I could feel a telekinetic pull from his hooves as he climbed up and stood on my shoulder blades. Shards, did I miss this. I had been alone for so long, I had forgotten how wonderful it was to share the skies with an earthbound.
Awesome! I can’t believe I’m riding a dragon! It’s scary as all Discord, but so totally fun! I don’t ever want to get down! I watched the trees zoom past under my hooves and felt the wind in my mane. I wondered if this was what pegasi get to feel and hoped that Tallic would let me do this every day. I imagined landing in the schoolyard on the back of Tallic. That would get me stares for all the right reasons!
Sadly, Tallic reached the meadow outside Ponyville almost immediately, but I think he wanted to give me some more time, ‘cause we made a few slow circles around the meadow before he came in for a landing.
Oh yeah, that’s why we’re here. I spotted Alex, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, and Miss Sweetheart. Great, Rockford is here too. I hopped down, cause I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to skip out on this.
Once he saw me, he started galloping over. He looked nervous, so he was probably gonna hit me. I felt so bad, I wasn’t even planning on hitting back. He slowed down as he got close and I changed my mind. He’d probably just keep his distance and gloat about how much trouble I was in. If he did that, I’d go ahead and go all in with a second beat down on him. Cowards don’t deserve an apology.
My jaw dropped when he got close enough to do what he came to. He started pawing the ground and looking embarrassed.
“I’m real sorry about last night, I had no idea about how you got... it.”
Wait? He was apologizing to me? What’s next, will the grass turn purple? I stood there dumbfounded as the adults walked up. My jaw was moving, but I had forgotten how to make words come out.
Finally, I found my voice. “No, Rocky, I beat you up. I’m the one that should be apologizing.” We finally looked each other in the eyes, and something just... clicked. We hoofed each other in the shoulder with a grateful smile.
I spotted the ‘welcome party’ almost as soon as I leveled myself out. They were in a nice little meadow just on the outskirts of the town. Mental note, no knight. I circled a few times, partly to scan the area for ambushes and partly because I did not want this first-in-decades kindred flight to end.
As I landed, the group of ponies approached with their human. When Steelskin disembarked (with a jump, no less), a colt slightly smaller than him ran up, and they started talking.
Alex unslung his pack, "Sorry I could only get five bars. Not much industry in Ponyville.” As he approached he started arranging iron ingots, five in total on a gaily decorated sheet. He half smiled at me, seemingly embarrassed, “I've made arrangements to get three pallets shipped in for you. 40 ingots at 25kg each per pallet, so three ton-”
“No.”
Alex stopped and looked at me.
“You’re being far too generous. I do not trust gifts, and this much makes me think you either are plotting something, or, worse, you may be pitying me.”
Alex surprised me. He did the unexpected. He laughed. “Oh, no. No, this is an apology gift. I recommended that particular course of action, so everything that was done falls on my shoulder. We now realize we shouldn’t have attacked you when you were only protecting this young gentleman. No, this is our apology. And, as an added bonus, it gives you a little reserve until you can get settled in.” He stood and smiled, hands on hips. To him, the conversation was over.
I fought an internal struggle between my pride and my greed. At long last, the greed won out.
“Fine, I shall accept your tribute." I was made uncomfortable by their lack of fear or awe, but the thought of that much iron made me drool
A little orange filly with messy hair came up beside him, “Whoa. You’re right dad, he’s big and he does look cool.”
Dad? The absurdity of this gave me pause.
“Why is a pegasus calling you dad?”
He looked lovingly at the child, “Simple. My wife and I adopted her. She is my flesh and blood.”
I decided to ignore it for now and greeted the orange pony and purple unicorn “It is nice to meet you again, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle. I would like to talk with you about the social norms of this ‘Ponyville’ sometime soon. I am eager to form a positive relationship with this town, I would prefer to not have to deal with any angry villagers or local heroes.” I tried to keep my contempt from coloring this last word.
I turned to the new mare, sporting a light pink coat and blond mane and tried to speak casually. “I assume you are Miss Sweetheart, Steelskin’s current guardian?”
She smiled and answered “Yes, he came to live with us at the orphanage three days ago.” Her nervousness showing through her attempt at congeniality, but even more apparent was the obvious concern for him.
“I can see your care for him and share a desire to see him healthy and happy. What would be the duties of a parent for a foal of his years?”
As she started explaining about schooling, shelter, and food, my attention was caught by a little dragonling. The little hatchling was standing agape where they had been waiting for us.
I noticed that Miss Sweetheart had stopped talking. “I am so sorry, I was distracted as I was not expecting a fellow dragon in your midst, especially one so young. Please forgive my inattention. You were saying that schooling is mandatory in this culture and the obvious requirements of feeding and sheltering. Did I miss anything during my lapse?”
“Simply my question of why you are curious.” She answered with some trepidation.
“Well, first, is there anything these three foals, and possibly that young dragonling should be doing?” I asked, trying to dodge the question. I was not yet ready to admit what I was hoping for. I was also mentally kicking myself. First ignoring combatants, now starting a conversation with “I want to adopt one of your children?” This reality must be draining my intelligence.
“The foals would normally be in school today, but we figured they could get away with-”
A pink blur interrupted Sweetheart as it shot straight onto my nose. My wide spaced eyes could just barely make out a pink pony perched on me.
“OOOOHHHH!!!!!!! Metalicana! you’ve finally made it! Gajeel misses you like crazy but he’s doing really well he’s ditched Phantom Lord and joined Fairy Tail and even made some dragon slayer friends and you’d be so proud of how he did in the grand magic tournament and-”
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS THIS INFERNAL PINK FIREBALL?!”
Everyone covered their ears except the Pink energy blast. Thankfully, she calmed down and hopped off my nose. I could now see that she was a regular pony with no wings. My head hurt partly from her insanity and partly from trying to understand how she got on my nose without the ability to fly.
“I’m really sorry, Metalicana, I was just so excited to see you, I forgot how few ponies can handle my ten percent form, oh wait, Belldandy would be the one to get that description. Oh well,” The pink pony gave an abashed grin. “I was actually coming to ask if you want me to throw you a welcome to Ponyville party, but now that I think about it, there’s not really room in ponyville for a dragon of your size, so we should probably have it at your house-oh-ifthat’sokaywithyou? Oh, and my name is Pinkie Pie, I really hope we can be friends.”
My mind swam with the verbal torrent, nay, waterfall of words that were assaulting my ears. I put a claw up to my snout. “Too. Many. Words.”
The pink typhoon stopped, closed her eyes and concentrated. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes again and spoke clearly and slowly “Welcome. Party. For you. At your house” She took a deep breath “Is that okay?”
Finally, I can actually understand her. “I have but one problem with your offer. I have yet to find myself a permanent cave. I only arrived in this universe yesterday, and there does not seem to be much in the way of vacant caverns.”
GASP!!!!
The pink pony somehow rose five feet into the air without jumping, then ran to the orange pony “I need you to find out what he eats and anything he’d like to drink then meet me at sugarcube corner this evening!”
House search Party!" The insane pony yelled, then dashed off into the center of town.
“Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, could you come here for a minute?” I requested.
The ponies trotted over to me and I took a deep breath. “What in the name of Aethelind’s Egg was that pink pony?”
The orange pony chuckled “That there was our resident Element of Laughter, Pinkie Pie. She’s downright genius level, but we reckon she’s not completely in this reality.”
“It’s best not to think about it too much...” The purple unicorn cut in.
I figured that would be good advice with that... creature. “Tell me, are there any good caves in the area that I would be able to make use of? I normally stay about ten years in any given reality, so I probably will not need it for long.”
On the edge of my hearing, I thought I heard a ridiculously meek voice speak, “How about...”
The purple unicorn tapped her chin with her hoof, “I’ll go back to the library and start looking at all the geography books for this area.”
Again, the demure yellow pegasus tried to speak, “Um, excuse me...”
I put a claw up to my mouth, hoping it meant ‘please be quiet’ here as well.
The orange pony pushed her hat back. “Tarnation, that’ll take forever. We need to send out for the records in Canterlot. There’s experts there who likely already know.”
The older human started shaking his finger at no one in particular.“You know sis, I’ve got a good relationship with the north east diamond dog tribes, maybe they’ll know a-”
What is with these people? Are they just so unable to see their surroundings that they ignore a friend, or are they just so rude that they only care about what they are saying?
“Quiet everyone” I said with just enough force to get them to listen.
Turning to the yellow pegasus, I continued. “What did you want to say, Fluttershy?”
“eep” The yellow pegasus shrank back, stiffening and looking around at everyone with a terror stricken face.
Oh well, maybe there was a reason they were ignoring her...
Turning to the purple pony, I asked “Is there a way of finding out what she was going to say?”
Alex said kindly, “Sorry Fluttershy. We just got a little excited.” He went to his knee and seemed to focus on her. I could only hear the softest squeaking, but he nodded his head and acted like he could understand every word. Finally, he stood up, cracked his back, pointed behind me, to my left. “Where the red dragon tried to take a nap. Large cave, good view, close to town. Do you see it? About four fifths of the way up.”
I squinted my eyes in the general direction. “It is worth investigating. Quite defensible, by the looks of it.”
Everyone chuckled. “The last tenant was about to take a hundred year nap, complete with smoke. These fine ladies, as well as Rarity and my wife, Rainbow Dash, persuaded him to leave. Now, before you get upset, I don’t mean anything by that. It was just a data point, so you know it’s not as defensible as it seems. You know the drill, different world, different rules. Around here, the worst you’ll get a sternly worded letter, for the most part.” Or a blaster bolt to the face. “And, I say this now, if you need help or advice or just want to talk to a friend, well, we’re here.”
“No, I understand. Dragon hunters use completely different terms. They usually prefer euphemisms like ‘put to sleep’ or ‘removed’. But please stop with the offers of help, it is getting quite irritating.”
Alex smirked at me, “Just my passive aggressive side.” He chuckled, “But seriously, you’ve not shown yourself to be aggressive, Not shown myself to be aggressive? What is this one playing at? and...” He grew melancholy for a moment, “I know what it’s like.” His expression changed to such a hopeful expression, “I’ll be here the rest of my life, but I’m surrounded by friends,” he hugged the little filly who happily returned it, “and family.”
Out of nowhere, the pink pony was back “Ifoundthebestcave....”
She looked down abashed. “I mean, there’s a cave up on the mountain over there, you might want to check it out.” She turned to the other ponies. “It’s the one we kicked that smoker out of and I think it’ll be perfect for Metalicana.
“My name is Tallic.” I replied
The pink pony looked confused for a minute, then shrugged her shoulders and replied “Okee dokee loki”
While the adults were talking, the three of us snuck off to talk. “Why isn’t your face all messed up, Rocky? I know I hit you real hard, and I was really worried about how bad you’d look this morning.”
“Yeah, you did, and I was pretty messed up this morning, but when Miss Sweetheart told me to come this morning, Fluttershy asked Twilight Sparkle to try a new healing spell that Nighm- Princess Luna taught her” Rocky looked around anxiously like Princess Luna was gonna pop out of nowhere and banish him for using that name. “Well, she said that gunk that Doctor Emerald put on my face was good, but she wanted me healed quickly so you wouldn’t have to see... well, you know.”
Scootaloo jumped in “So what happened? All dad told me was that you ran away and you stayed with a dragon last night.”
I could see her eyeing my cutie mark.
Rocky broke in “I didn’t know about him getting his cutie mark in the train wreck and told him he was..” he pawed the ground in embarrassment “was lucky to get it so early.”
“Ooh, no wonder he ran away. I’d rather be a blank flank forever than lose mum and dad.”
“Actually” I replied “I beat him up, then ran away.”
“Wow, you beat him up? Is that why you ran into the Everfree Forest?”
“Yeah, it was the only place I could think of that I wouldn’t be able to be found. Guess I was wrong on that.” I said with a halfhearted chuckle.”
The two of them stared at me patiently, waiting for me to continue.
“Well,” I continued “I started out pretty brave, since I didn’t think I had anything to lose, but ended up getting pretty creeped out. I ended up galloping straight into the side of Tallic. Oh Celestia, did that hurt.”
“What did he say when you met him?” Scootaloo asked
“He... wanted to know why I was running away,” I knew it wasn’t the whole truth, but you just don’t go saying ‘I cried like a filly and begged him not to eat me’.
Then the two humans and some of the Elements of harmony came, and they had a big fight before they realized Tallic didn’t want to hurt anyone.
I watched the little hatchlings wander off to talk amongst themselves while the adults gushed about how great that cave in the mountain would be for me.
I think I will need to get used to surprises.
Pinkie Pie, apparently, is not the only one who can move faster than I can track. I say this because a rainbow maned pegasus streaked down to land next to the human, who kissed her.
“What did I miss? I heard the dragon yell something that made me think ‘Pinkie Pie’, but couldn’t leave the thunderstorm we’re working on for this evening. I finally called a half hour break.” She turned to face me, realizing that she had not yet greeted me. “Sorry, I’m Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in Equestria” She said with a bow. “You must be Tallic.”
“Alex, you just said you were married. Why did you just kiss that pegasus?” I rumbled menacingly.
“Because she’s my wife.” he replied with a sly smile while I stared stupidly at him.
“Yep, I’m the wife of the most bad-flank human that ever lived.” The new arrival boasted.
The matter is settled, this is one of the strangest realities I have ever jumped to. I think I shall follow Twilight’s advice here as well.
I talked a while with this new pegasus about wind currents, cloud textures, and the interesting fact of their ability to manipulate the weather, but paid attention to Miss Sweetheart pulling Applejack away.
“Please tell me that thing isn’t planning what I think it’s planning.” Miss Sweetheart whispered.
“So you are telling me that you can manipulate clouds in this reality?” I asked Alex’s wife.
“Ya’ll need ta get it from his own mouth, but I reckon he’s seriously considering asking to adopt little Steel.” Applejack replied
“Yep, we even have cities made out of clouds, though only us winged creatures can walk on ‘em.” Rainbow Dash answered.
“How can a dragon care for a pony? How do you know he’s not planning on eating him?” Steelskin’s guardian asked in a horrified whisper.
“...So you are saying you can create rainclouds?” I interjected.
Alex butted in to their conversation, speaking in a harsh, angry whisper, “Hey now! I don’t see anything wrong with him wanting a child. I mean, I was accepted.”
“Well, yes but-” and they continued to argue in hushed tones.
“...and much as it seems counterintuitive, you should really add at least one large cirrus into your thunderhead if you want a substantial downpour.” Rainbow Dash went on.
“It’s highly unusual,” The purple unicorn cut in “but there are accounts of other species caring for orphans. I even read an account of a gryphon family caring for-”
“Stop pulling my tail, you really think a dragon would care about a little colt?” Steelskin’s guardian virtually yelled.
“Why not? A ruthless human monster has. He’s just... scaled up.” Alex retorted.
“I don’t know why you keep saying that. Despite your constant claims, the only humans I have ever met have been kind, caring, and selflessly heroic. You have proven yourself from the first day to be a creature that cares about others. When have you heard of a dragon ever caring about anything but its treasure?” The director of the orphanage was starting to get distressed.
Alex opened his mouth to argue further, and it hung open for a moment, “Maybe. But he shouldn’t be disqualified for being a dragon. That’s all I’m saying. He should be given the chance to-” Alex kept prattling on.
Rainbow Dash stopped talking and looked at me, obviously having realized that my attention was elsewhere. “Are you alright? Is this about Steelskin? Cuz...” she paused to listen to Alex and the director of the orphanage.
At this point they were not even bothering to whisper, and Alex was bending down almost nose to snout with her while she was straining her neck to come as close to his level as she could. “Mr Roberts. I simply cannot believe you would entrust a frightened child into the... the... the claws of this creature. Unless he saves all three Princesses and all three order me to reconsider, this case is,” the light pink pony stomped with her hoof, “closed!”
In the deafening silence that followed I could see all the ponies staring slack jawed at her and Alex.
That confirms it! No matter where I go, dragons will always be nothing but killing and eating machines that burn down villages just for fun.
“Maybe I should just be the monster everyone insists that I am.” I growled, glaring at Miss Sweetheart and allowing the rage bubbling in my soul to lash out through my eyes. I took a moment to run my tongue along my lips with a hungry smile. When I decided I had made my point, I took to the air.
With a powerful downstroke that I hoped would scatter them everywhere, I took off in the opposite direction of the village.
I was just getting to the part where Tallic stomped Matt into the ground when I felt a huge gust of wind.
Tallic was flying away, and he looked angry!
“NONONONONO!!!! Please don’t leave me!” I brayed as I galloped after him. I had just found someone who would care about me and now he was leaving! I couldn’t contain my tears, and didn’t even bother to try. All that mattered was catching up to him and convincing him not to leave me.
I ran faster than I had ever run before, but I was still falling behind. There was no way I’d be able to catch up. Soon, I was running headlong through the forest, barely avoiding tree trunks. I didn’t care about how badly my chest was burning. I didn’t care about the branches whipping my face and body. Physical pain was nothing. The only pain that mattered was the pain of loss and I just couldn’t deal with it again. Well after he was out of sight, I stumbled for the last time, my legs unable to lift me up again.
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So Good!! More More More!
Hehe nice one.