City of Gold
As the morning sun rose over the City of Gold, capital of Draconia, a young crimson Dragon rose from his slumber with all the grace of a seal, flopping chest-first onto the ground from his ornate king-sized bed, crimson with yellow curtains and pillows. As he awoke, he rose majestically, crimson scales brightened by the light of stained crimson and gold glass, his brick-red back and lighter scaled underbelly separated by tougher lines of gold scales, the same ones that protected his neck. He had two long spines slicked back on his head, the third shorter and on the back of his neck, each sharply bladed, like the spike at the end of his long dragon tail, ending in a curved crescent moon-shaped blade capable of cutting diamonds. He was six feet in height, his body rather slender, but still strong.
Blaze of the Emberheart Clan breathed in, feeling the pure mountain air of Draconia fill his lungs, and a knock at the door greeted his draconic ears.
"Enter." He spake, voice refined and powerful.
Like puppies, two Earth Ponies and two Unicorns entered the room, a golden bracelet stuck on each limb, their bodies covered barely by dresses made from thin golden veils. There was a pink Earth Pony mare with a swirling red and white mane, red eyes, and a lollipop Cutie Mark by the name of Sweetie, a brown Earth Pony with a straight yellow mane and a melted toffee Cutie Mark by the name of Taffy, a shy light blue Unicorn with darker-blue eyes and a blue water droplet-shaped mane named Lapis, and a yellow Unicorn with a spiked-up red and orange mane by the name of Daybreak. Each Cutie Mark had an image of a gold wreath ablaze branded around each one, the mark of a slave. Each Unicorn had a much smaller gold bracelet on their horn with a red gem on the base, covering all but the tip, designed to limit magic and stop them from casting anything when he was absent, only letting them cast a levitation spell when he was around. Trying to cast anything harder would leave them red-horned and screaming, and these mares knew better than to try.
The four bowed to him the way a Pony would usually bow to their Celestia, Sweetie smiling up at him while the others closed their eyes properly, even though she was just a servant like the other three and Daybreak was his personal assistant. She was one of the strongest Unicorns to ever find themself captured, and she'd cost quite a pretty penny. You'd think a Unicorn would be harder to capture, but it was easy. They relied too strongly on their magic, and if you could grab their horn, the most delicate and sensitive part of their bodies, they were putty in your claws. And they needed focus to cast spells, so if you could hurt them or startle them, even by leaping at them or burning them, they were helpless.
"Rise." The dragon spake kindly. He could not give these beings their freedom, nor would they want it. He treated them with kindness and love, and they repaid the favour. He even shelled out for a larger brand, so his family's mark would not interfere with their Cutie Marks, an act they were eternally grateful for.
"Good morning, Master!" Each spake in unison.
"Did you sleep well?" Sweetie asked.
"Yes, my little ponies." Blaze said. "Now, I wish to be dressed."
The red dragon stuck out his arms and waited as his slaves got to work, picking out clothes from his massive enchanted wardobe and placing them on him. A red robe, marked clear on the back and on the front, over the heart, with his family's symbol, a golden wreath ablaze. Armour was for lesser beings without scales to protect them, and clothes were for decoration only. Three gold bands were placed around his tail, shrinking and moving magically to fit perfectly. And that was all.
"Shall we take our leave, Master?" Daybreak asked me, Sweetie eyeing her enviously.
"Do we have time for a game first, Master?" Sweetie asked hopefully. Taffy eyed her in irritation, and Lapis was looking away shyly, as usual.
"Perhaps another time, my dear." Blaze said courteously, patting her head. She grinned at his touch, and he and his Unicorn began to walk to the stained windows. He lifted his assistant easily, held her close to his chest, and despite how they looked to be solid, she opened the windows outward with her magic, letting sunlight pour in as he spread his wings and took flight.
The Golden City, capital of Draconia, was a beautiful set of mountains rich in gold and gems that stretched for miles and miles in every direction, giving out a wonderful view of all the buildings, mansion and slavehouses alike, built into the side of the mountains, the top of each mountain reserved for the biggest and most important Ancient Families. Paths of pure gold connected each house, not that Dragons ever took them. Still, it mattered not where your house was, for in this city, every Dragon lived like a king, even the poorest peasant with nothing to offer the world. The servants also lived wonderful lives, their only duty was to care for and work for their Master when on duty, and they could do as they pleased when off duty. Save, of course, for the Shards. Those lived as slaves, as dirt, and were the traitors and monsters of old, murderers and thieves and liars and backstabbers captured and branded and split into many beings by ancient magic, each one rendered a servant of a different size forced to know only work and painfully hard labour for the rest of eternity, mining and carving out gems for the pure, honest dragons to eat. Their sons and daughters, and any other family members, along with any runts, were cast out from Draconica, and sent to the Dragon Badlands near Equestria, the wasteland they had claimed as their own, exceptions made only for Dragons that showed exceptional promise.
Blaze flew over the amazing land of the Dragons, the true land of the Dragons, and he never tired of its wonder. Still, he had to head towards the schoolhouse, a magnificent building eighteen storeys high dedicated to the study of magic.
...After some fun.
He took a sharp turn downwards, his passenger screaming in shock as he spun and they dived down faster and faster to the ground beneath him.
"Pull up!" Daybreak shouted in shock. "Pull up!"
Blaze went down further and further, pulling up at the last possible nanosecond sharply, his wings under tremendous strain as the lowest of his stomach scales scraped the ground at high speed, the ground beginning to crater as he flew away faster than an arrow, the crater stopping when it was four feet deep and six across. The Shards would have fun cleaning that up.
"Waaahooooooo!" Blaze cheered as he and his Unicorn flew into the air, looping over and over. "That's my personal best!"
"AWESOME!" Daybreak squealed happily. "I thought I was about to die!"
"I know!" Blaze yelled as he began to leisurely glide down to the schoolhouse, looping around the building. "I can't believe today's the day I take my Trueness Test. If I pass, I'll finally be a real Dragon!"
"Pass or fail, you'll always be a real Dragon to me." Daybreak said sweetly, turning her head to kiss his cheek.
"H-hey!" Blaze said happily, blushing bright yellow. "Don't let the others see! What'll the others say if they see me smiling like this?"
"If anyone has a problem with you feeling happy, tell them you're thinking of their True Mother." Daybreak said. A True Mother was the name of a female Dragon that gave birth to their young herself, laying eggs and hatching them. Since it was quite common these last few years for a female Dragon to put off childbirthing duties to her servants, just to say she had nothing in common with the Broodmothers of old that once served as the female who would lay the egg of every male Dragon in the city, it was suddenly a big deal when one chose to lay them herself. To make a Pony 'Give birth' to an egg, a spell was used to safely turn the mare into a Broodmother lookalike and place the egg into their enchanted mouths, the eggshell entering the stomach, dissolving, and being birthed the typical mammal way, though painless, thanks to magic.
Blaze laughed. "They'd love that." He said sarcastically.
They began to fly towards the building's entrance, and Blaze began to spin.
"Prepare the Daybreak torpedo!" Daybreak said happily, and he threw her horn-first. She spun in the air as she got closer and closer to the ground, hitting the ground, rolling, and landing in a strong casting stance, her coated horn almost glowing gold for a nanosecond. Though it was illegal for slaves to learn to fight, he had been indulging his favourite mare by 'Accidentally' letting her read through ancient scrolls that spoke of a time when Dragon and Pony lived in harmony as master and pet, though some Dragons chose to be the Master while others let their Pony command them, equal warriors doing battle across the world. These scrolls contained ancient knowledge on the ways these Unicorns would fight, styles vastly superior to anything most modern ponies were taught elsewhere. His precious Daybreak was a true master of the Rising Dawn school of magical arts, and sometimes, in the privacy of his training room where not even the other servants were allowed to be when he was present, he would remove her horn inhibitor and let her practice ancient spells only the Dragons knew of, powerful and dangerous spells of immense power even she struggled to use safely, and only one with her control could compress and hide such impressive power during intense training.
She smiled when she sensed Blaze land behind her, and the two went to school. She waited outside like a good servant, and he went into the school to see all the Dragons already seated, waiting for him. The teacher was at the front, a massive green and red Dragon that towered over the others. He had neck frills, and large round spines like petals. In front of the blackboard, he had a whole lot of scarecrows made by the finest crafter pony servants. "Finally, our star pupil arrives!" The teacher said happily.
He smiled nervously, secretly hating how he kept sucking up to him to try and make his father happy. It made the other pupils think he got special treatment, even though he was actually even harder on him.
"Now, for your Trueness Test... First, you must demonstrate your Dragon strength, heart, and trueness. Then, you shall fight in one on one combat." The teacher explained. "The winners shall graduate, and the losers... will be doomed to become Shards for eternity!"
Tons of Dragons gasped in horror, but not Blaze or a certain other Dragon. He knew the truth of this test, and so did Blaze.
"Remember, all things have magic, even Dragons. It has a light side fuelled by pride and determination, and a dark side fuelled by hate and greed. Unicorns charge magic in their horn and aim it with their mind. Ancient Dragon magic flows through our hearts, our very beings, filling it with power. They cast magic. We command it. It is the difference between kissing a beautiful Dragoness... And kissing a mirror." The teacher said.
Dragons laughed as the teacher nodded towards the rows of scarecrows. "Now... Anger."
The laughing stopped. A snakelike red Dragoness with beautiful orange neckfrills and brighter-orange chest scales rose up and prepared her hands, a bright orange glow forming in each hand. She pulled her hands back and clapped them, a big tornado of three spinning orange embers slicing apart a scarecrow into tiny burning chunks. Her light side Dragon magic was a sight to behold, controlled perfectly and fuelled by her Dragon pride.
"Very good." The teacher said proudly. "Now... Bass." The teacher said in disgust. Bass was the son of one of the worst traitors in Dragonia history, one who had betrayed all of Dragonkind in leading a deadly foe here from a foreign land. He and that ancient foe, his name lost to time, nearly destroyed the city with their fight against the heroic Dragons. Bass had barely passed his test at all, his power mighty but his heart untrue, and whispers spoke that he'd only been allowed to stay because the Elders feared his offspring might try to avenge his father if he was banished.
The largest Dragon pupil in the room with grey scales rose up to his seven foot height and stamped his way to the training dummies, the ground shaking with each step as he planted his feet in front of them. He roared and shoved his mauve-glowing hands forward, unleashing a blast of mauve flames that trashed four whole scarecrows, the embers still burning the floor as the Dragons clapped and the teacher nodded approvingly. His dark side Dragon magic was powerful, but unweildly, and those embers would have spread if the teacher's glare did not put them out. The glare also made the scarecrows move together to cover up the gap he'd made in the middle.
"Good. Now... Blaze! Come on, my boy! I expect great things from you!" The teacher said, smiling down at him.
Blaze nervously walked down to the front of the classroom. Bass stuck out his tail to trip him up, but Blaze saw it and stamped on it as hard as he could. Bass grit his teeth in pain, but was silent, aside from a hateful hiss.
He stepped in front of the Scarecrow, and paused. He tried to use his anger, his pride, but his hands refused to glow as brightly as the others did. They had an orange light, but not much of one. He thought of his pride, his family, his homeland, his possessions, his hoard...
He thought of Daybreak.
His hands burst into a massive glowing light that spread to the rest of his body, coating the whole thing in powerful raw orange magic. Some Dragons gasped while others cheered and Bass glared jealously, and the teacher's jaw dropped. "No... it can't be!" He gasped.
Blaze thought he should probably feel scared or surprised, but he didn't, he only felt confidence. He pointed a single hand at the scarecrow furthest to the left, and launched a huge beam of Ancient Fire magic at it, a beam that spread out to burn every scarecrow into ash. The fire quickly burned itself away when it was over, and Blaze's power faded suddenly, his body falling down as his heart started to hurt. He'd never felt power like that before!
"Amazing..." The teacher whispered. "Students that passed, go to your combat teacher and prepare for battle."
Anger, Blaze, and Bass rose up and left the building, heading upstairs past labs and magic experiments to find a wide open arena fifty feet in width, length, and fifty in height. The floor was made of Titanium, and the place had four pointed pillars made of rock.
The combat teacher was a brown dragon with purple scales and spines, a set of three spines on his chin like a beard. "Blaze, Bass, you're up." He said in boredom, not really expecting much, besides Bass getting crushed.
The red and blue Dragons went to the center of the arena, and took their stances.
"I know why we're doing this." Bass said as he clawed at Blaze's head furiously. "And I know you know."
"So why are you fighting like this?" Blaze asked as he leaned back and countered with a punch to the side.
"Because this is the only chance I'll ever have to kill you." Bass said, clawing again, and then firing a blast of fire that made Blaze fly up to avoid it. He flew around the blue Dragon, dodging fireball after fireball by flying around him.
Blaze brought back the fire from before, thinking of Daybreak. Except he tried to, but nothing happened. It looked like he was on his own, with no magic to help him.
He turned sharply and spun towards Bass, hitting him in the face. In the air, he clawed twice at his foe's face, landing so he could hit him with his left wing, then his right, and finally, he flipped forwards to hit Bass with the flat part of his tail, smacking his head into the ground and denting it. If Blaze had used his tail's point for that attack, it would have seriously hurt Bass.
"Impressive!" The combat teacher said proudly.
Bass got up angrily and blasted Blaze with a huge fire tornado, and Blaze dodged, the fire setting the building on fire. The combat teacher eliminated that fire with a glare, and Bass grabbed Blaze and slammed him into the ground hard enough to make a deep crater. It hurt, but Blaze powered through it and spun around, swinging his tail blade around and hitting Bass's neck.
"I surrender." Bass said angrily, pulling Blaze's tail blade out of his neck and letting the combat teacher cure the huge gash in the scales with magic, the cut so deep it almost went through his scales completely.
Blaze saw that a few other Dragons had arrived, and the combat instructor ordered him to go down to the Dragon Temple Room for the final part of his test.
Blaze flew through the corridors, butterflies inside him. He flew past rooms and safes filled with books and scrolls, heading to a big stone room with no fancy decorations at all. Only one large statue seventy feet tall, the room cutting into the floors above like the arena room, a big red gem on the statue's heart.
He bowed down to the statue, and a red light came from the gem to scan him. It dinged, and he jumped in shock. Blaze moved closer to the sacred statue, examining it in confusion. He always thought it was a big, sacred ancient statue of some great Dragon... was it actually just a machine?
"That's a good sign." The headteacher, an old and grey Ice Dragon with a beard made of four icicles and similar icicle spines on his head's back and sides. "Congratulations, Blaze. You have passed the Trueness Test."
Blaze squeed like a filly, and then coughed wheezily to cover it up. "Yeah, I passed!" Blaze shouted in his usual low and manly voice. "I knew I would!"
"That's nice." The old headteacher said, handing him a scroll. He opened the can and excitedly pulled out the paper, opening it up to find a map of Draconia and the neighbouring lands with the location of his new Quest marked on it. Blaze grinned as he ran out to tell his favourite Unicorn and personal assistant, Daybreak. Dragon school usually only lasted an hour, that was all it usually took to teach them about, or test them on, all their usual subjects. After that, they were usually free to do whatever they wanted, unless they had a Quest.
The old headteacher looked up at the statue, and it seemed like he was about to say something deep. "When's tomorrow?" He wondered.