BEST BROS
“Wow...like...wow. Really?”
Spike nodded, grin splitting his reptilian face. “Really really.”
Starlight shook her head, keeping pace with the little dragon as they walked the halls of Twilight Sparkle’s palace. “It’s nice to know my friendship mentor thinks I’m a lightning rod for trouble.”
“Hey, it’s Twilight.” Spike shrugged, stopping in front of the door that led to his bedroom. “If she didn’t freak out, I’d be concerned. Take it from me, Starlight, a Twilight freakout means she really cares about you and your future.”
“But I wouldn’t endanger space-time—again—just by hanging around Sunburst!” Starlight groaned, her head hanging low. “I’m a changed pony, Spike.”
“I know that.” Spike reached up and patted Starlight on the shoulder and flashed her a bright smile. “And so does everypony else, Starlight. Twilight freaks, she thinks about the worse case scenario. It’s what she does. Don’t worry about it too much, okay? Now, it’s this dragon’s bed time! I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Thanks, Spike.” Starlight lifted her head to weakly return his smile. “Sleep well. I think...I think I might just go ahead and hit the hay too. This has been a pretty wild day for me.”
Spike nodded and turned the handle on his door, leaving Starlight alone in the faintly glowing crystalline hallway. She set her jaw and turned to shuffle away toward her own bed room at the end of the hall. It bothered her that Twilight assumed the worst, but if she was being honest with herself, she could at least see something going wrong with studying magic in the Crystal Empire.
Starlight opened her door and fired up her horn to turn on her bed side lamp. “At least the way she imagined things going with the Changelings wasn’t my fault.”
When she thought about it, the way Spike described Twilight’s fantasy of her going to live with the dragons actually sounded kind of cool. Though suddenly becoming a ‘bro’ of any sort seemed highly unlikely. Starlight smirked at the thought. “Yeah...like I’d actually chest bump the Dragon Lord! Twilight must have just been really stressed, trying to come up with something in front of her mentor at the last moment. I can understand the feeling.”
Starlight stifled a yawn and pulled back the sheet on her bed. She climbed in tiredly and tugged the covers up over herself as she worked her head comfortably into her downy pillow. “I should make her teacakes or something. Twilight would like that for her trip.”
Starlight relaxed, flexing her hooves and winking out the lamp as soon as she was settled. “The bro thing was kinda funny...maybe I’ll tell Trixie about it…” She smacked her lips, yawning deeply a few more times until sleep took her.
“Are you sure we can do this?”
“Bro...dude...I’m like, the Dragon Lord, bro. We can do whatever we feckin’ want to.”
“Heck yeah!” Brolight Glimmer growled, spearing her horn into a can of Vanhoover Blue Ribbon before crushing it with her magic which forced the beer mostly into her open mouth. She wiped her face with a hoof and tossed the beer aside. “Being best bros with you is best!”
“No homo.” Dragon Lord, Brocess Ember smirked and slammed down her own can of beer, belching fire a second later. “I’m glad Princess Weakpony sent you, Brolight. Otherwise this would be the pits.”
“I thought this was part of the track was called the ‘pit?’”
“I have so much to teach you, bro.” Brocess Ember pumped her fist in the air and all around them, dragons of all sizes and age categories fell silent. She stood up and flared her wings, leaping up to fly a few dozen feet. “Yo! Bros! ARE YOU READY?!”
The roar from the crowd was deafening and made the very stone under Brolight’s hooves shake and crack.
“IT’S TIME FOR SPEED, YOU BROS!” Brocess Ember raised the Rod of Dragon Control over her head, its magic amplifying her voice over the crowd. “WE GATHER HERE, AT THE GAUNTLET FIRE SPEEDWAY TO SEE JUST WHO IS THE FASTEST!”
The crowd went wild, bursts of fire, ice, acid and other exotic energies exploded throughout the tiered stands that were roughly carved into the mountainside. It rained badass-style down on the glassed smooth area where Brolight and a few garishly painted dragons stood. The flat area was split by a solid wall of cooled lava that was a little taller than Brolight herself, forming two distinct quartermile long lanes. Brolight speared another beer while a couple of the dragons on the ground near her lifted barrels and started guzzling something that made the fine hair in her nostrils burn.
“GIMME FUEL!” Brocess Ember yelled, pointed her Rod at the garishly painted dragons.
They crushed their barrels and slammed back another keg-ful, spilling some of the contents down their fronts.
“GIMME FIRE!”
The dragons around Brolight sent up a burst of elemental fury, outlining the Dragon Lord in panty-soaking badassery. The painted dragons, however tromped over to the ends of the two quartermile lanes, their bellies sloshing audibly. Two of them rolled up to a line scratched into the glassed surface of the stone and turned around to face the crowd. The cheering—somehow—got even louder.
Both dragons waved to the crowd and then dropped to all fours, bending their knees and extending their tails to point straight. Claws dug for purchase and grip, their stomachs starting to gurgle. A smaller dragon in tight fitting clothing took a perch on top of the short wall between them and held up a red colored flag. With one last blast of fire the dragons in the stands went silent again.
“The dragsters are in place, Brolight. Time for us to take our places too.” Brocess Ember called down from the sky, swooping down to the track and grabbing her armored helmet.
“Way ahead of you, bro!” Brolight laughed, her horn lifting her up onto the back of one of the painted dragons. Its tummy was rumbling like thunder rolling in the distance and she could see the dragon’s eyes starting to water. She grabbed her own helmet and slipped it on. Across the wall she saw her bro, Brocess Ember take a seat on the other fueled up drake. “You ready for this, bro?”
“I was hatched ready, bro!” Brocess Ember slammed her helmet in place and grabbed the scaly protrusions sticking off the back of her dragster. She tucked her feet into its wing-pits, so she could kick them open at a moment's notice. She glanced back at Brolight and grinned when she saw the pony in the same position, sighted down the tail of the other dragster.
“When the green flag goes up, we kick it, bro!”
“This is gonna be so sick!”
The yellow flag went up in the claw of the dragon on the wall.
“I’m gonna be sick…” Brocess Ember’s dragster muttered. Brocess Ember dug her claws a bit deeper into the soft spot where wings met body, coaxing a loud rumble from her dragster’s guts.
Not to be outdone, Brolight squeezed with her knees, ramping up the gurgling from her own dragster. Whatever was going on inside it was making the whole dragon vibrate in a scary yet pleasant way. She narrowed her brow, peering down her dragster’s tail and using its tail spade as iron-sights. She was pointed right at the finish line and she smiled fiercely. This was totally the best thing her old mentor had ever done for her. Being bros with dragons had some feckin’ perks. Who needed magic studying when you could go blasting rocks to smithereens for fun any day of the week? Who would want to hang out with fancy bugs...or whatever changelings were...when you could chest bump and arm wrestle and drink fatal amounts of booze with bros that could level a castle after a couple of six packs?
Not Brolight Glimmer, that’s who.
The green flag shot up. At that same moment, Brolight squeezed hard with her legs, forcing her dragster to burp and belch a jet of fiery destruction that put the entire crowd of mystical dinosaurs to shame. The gurgle from the gut under her was ear shattering, and the wave of heat from the blast going on behind her made the nearby stone glow. Her dragster’s claws were struggling to hold itself in place as the force of the blaze rocked her tail off point. Brolight shifted her weight forward, pushing the tail back down in time for a secondary belch to explode out of her dragster. Suddenly they were shooting down the quartermile lane like a missile, leaving smoke and semi-molten stone in their wake.
Brolight wanted to look at how Brocess Ember was faring, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the finish line. It came up at her almost faster than she could think and she kicked the tender spot under the dragster’s wings, making them flare out wide and catching the air around them. Really, it barely even slowed them down, but to Brolight it felt like hitting the ground after a nose dive off Cloudsdale. She bellowed in effort, holding onto her dragster with muscle and magic. The finish line vanished behind them in the blink of an eye, the smooth lane running out a half-blink later. The next thing she knew the ground and the sky switched places and they started to roll, barreling toward the stopper pile of rubble at the far end of the flattened area.
The rest was flashes of light and dark, roaring noise and sharp silences. Brolight’s stomach tossed in a pale imitation of the dragster’s and she tasted her Vanhoover Blue Ribbon again.
“Bro! Bro, you okay, bro?”
Brolight wobbly got to her hooves and turned her helmet around until she could see again. Her dragster was buried in a new crater amid the stopper rubble, groaning from the collision, the wicked awesome burp, or both. Brocess Ember was running up to her from the aftermath of her own dragster’s embedment, looking concerned. When Brocess Ember eached her, Brolight held up a hoof to keep her back as Brolight struggled to fight back the bile from her guts. They stood in silence like that for a few seconds until Brolight swallowed victoriously.
“Feck yeah!” Brocess Ember barked with laughter and covered the last of the space between them and scooped Brolight into a seriously platonic hug. “Bro! That. Was. AWESOME! You are the best bro ever!”
“No homo.” Brolight coughed, grinning ear to ear. “So...who won, bro?”
“Bro, dude...YOU won!” Brocess Ember whooped again and shot into the air, her voice booming louder than ever across the craggy mountains, cliffs and even more glassed quartermile. “WE HAVE A NEW CHAMPION! BROLIGHT GLIMMER!”
The distant crowd of dragons applauded politely. Some of the elemental spray and looser boulders rained down around them as Brocess Ember flew down to take Brolight’s hoof. “So bro...what do you want to do now?”
“Can we go again?”
“That’s my bro!” Brocess Ember turned and pointed the Rod back at the starting line. “NEXT DRAGSTERS INTO POSITION! WE’RE FECKIN’ GOING AGAIN!”
“NO HOMO!” screamed the crowd.
Starlight screamed, jolting upright in her bed and clutching the sheets to her. She stared, wide eyed, into the darkness of her bedroom as visions of fire and rock and scales faded and her mind regained its conscious footing. “It...it was just a dream?”
She swallowed, panting hard and tried to calm her racing heart. It took a few minutes, but by the time her pulse was starting to approach normal, Starlight shivered. She looked down at herself and reached down to feel a cold, damp patch in her bedding. “I-I hope that I peed the bed…”
Visions of Princess Ember cloaked in fire and riding atop a flaming vaguely other dragon shaped thing flashed in her mind.
“I really hope that’s pee.” Starlight fell back onto her pillow and took a deep breath. She was too tired to do anything about it now, and sharing a bathroom with Spike meant the possibility of awkward questions about her nocturnal bathing needs. She’d just deal with it for now.
“On second thought...I don’t think I’ll tell Trixie about Twilight’s fantasies after all.”