Without waiting for an answer, Smolder nodded to herself and went back to hugging her knees, her blue eyes fixed on the lake ahead. The setting sun had transformed the water into a pool of molten iron, a soothing illusion that fought desperately for survival against the autumnal gale. It was a conflict attempting to give a voice to that which didn’t want to be heard; Smolder didn’t need an answer, she had never needed answers her entire life, yet here she was—waiting, anxious. Weak.
“I mean, it’s not like I care about all that stupid warm-blooded stuff—y’know, labels and things. They’re just dumb words really.” Smolder licked her lips, surprised that the taste was still on them. “Us dragons, we don’t hide behind all that, we just say—hey! Are you even listening?”
Sitting beside her, Yona had begun to tremble with what Smolder hoped was excitement or pleasure; she was a simple dragon in many respects—things happened to you that were good, and things happened to you that were bad. The problems arose in knowing exactly what somebeast found good or bad. Smolder had never really worried about the feelings of others before being enrolled in the School of Friendship, and so even after spending years there she still found herself playing catch-up.
She stared at Yona, refusing to back down now that she had come this far. It felt like her scales were being pulled one by one from her body, but she beat down the discomfort and tried to meet Yona’s gaze. It wasn't easy; the yak’s face was mostly hidden beneath a thick tangle of hair, but Smolder was sure she saw the curve of a smile as she inclined her head.
“You kissed Yona,” Yona said, her hoof tracing the memory of Smolder’s sudden lunge.
For a few seconds Smolder was convinced she had unconsciously ignited a spiral of flame inside of her mouth. She pressed her claws to her cheeks to check, but the scales there were still cold to the touch.
“Yeah I did!” She wasn’t sure whether she intended the statement to sound like a challenge, but it was certainly better than sounding uncertain. Feeling uncertain was bad enough.
“Yona was speaking about finishing school next year, about going back to Yakyakistan… Then Smolder kissed Yona.” Yona pushed the thick braids away from her face. Her eyes were wide and staring, the green of them stained by the sunset into a colour Smolder couldn’t even name. It was a mystery trying to recall exactly when she had started to feel the same way about Yona as she did about gems and gold, but she knew without question that it had begun with those eyes.
“Uh… Should I do it again?” she asked, when the wonderful, terrible feeling growing inside of her had become too much to bear.
Yona’s smiled widened for a moment. Then she frowned. “Why?”
“Why?” Smolder almost took a step back. She had been ready to fight if needed and she had been ready to storm off in a sulk. She hadn’t been ready to explain herself, and didn't even know if she could. All she knew was that the thought of Yona leaving the following year, of her selfishly going away and diminishing Smolder's life in the process, was a lame one.
Feeling awkward and, even worse, anxious, Smolder retreated to the familiar and shrugged her shoulders. When that didn’t work she glared at Yona. When that didn’t work she breathed a plume of fire into the air. Light and shadow danced across the surrounding trees, startling birds and squirrels who quickly voiced their displeasure. Smolder swore at them.
“I… don’t know.” She rubbed the spines on her head before turning back to Yona. Everything had become so vivid and intense: The bitter wind was pouring ice between her scales and the long grass tickled and caressed her feet and legs. Worse still was the way her heart was thumping against her chest. “Because we dragons take what we want, I guess. Because you’re strong, and that’s cool. Because you make me laugh. Because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about feeling like this.”
Yona blinked, her muzzle twisting up to meet her brow. Then she leaned across and tapped her horns against Smolder’s. It was only a gentle motion, but it still sent the dragon tumbling backwards.
“No, Yona meant… Yona did not think dragons kissed.”
“W—We don’t! It’s disgusting!” Smolder sat up and rubbed her head. Her blood was boiling at the mistake of revealing so much unnecessarily. “But there weren’t any big sharp rocks lying around, so what else was I supposed to do?”
“Oh.” Yona lowered her head, braids and tassels tumbling back over her face. “So Smolder didn’t want to kiss Yona?”
“Of course I did!” Feeling horror and revulsion at seeing the yak look uncertain, Smolder practically screamed the words. Not for the first time, she felt relieved that she had waited until their weekly walk into the Whitetail Woods before confessing. “Ugh, this is what happens when you live around ponies for so long—you end up doing everything like they do.”
Yona raised her head, a hoof holding her braids out of her eyes. “Yona is confused.”
“You think you’re the only one!?” Smolder climbed to her feet, her aching legs twitching in protest. “I like you, Yona. I… I don’t know what that means and what we should do about it, but I like you and I kissed you.” She folded her arms. “But it doesn’t matter why does it? We kissed, so now we’re dating, okay?”
"No, not okay."
This time Smolder did take a step back. "Huh?"
Yona shook her head, the colourful tassels that hung from it fluttering with the motion. Smolder couldn’t recall exactly why Yona had started to wear them over the past year—something about her having reached a certain age or something—but they suited her, like emeralds studding a particularly valuable crown. Smolder had always liked green.
Her chest began to feel tight again.
“No?”
“Not yet.” Yona took a breath and stared at the ground. Noticing a small rock, she brought a hoof down onto it and pounded it into dust. Only then did she look up.
“Smolder is competitive… and opinionated. Funny too.”
Despite her nerves, Smolder found herself smirking. “Guilty as charged.”
“And kind.”
The dragon raised an eyebrow at that. “Hey now…”
Yona’s cheeks darkened. “Is Yona doing it wrong? Smolder said nice things about Yona. Yona now saying things about Smolder that Yona likes.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get that.” Thin slivers of smoke escaped Smolder's lips as she spoke. "But don't you go yak-shouting about that kindness thing too much."
Yona laughed, a deep throaty sound that Smolder wanted to snatch and lock away with all of the other things the yak did that made her smile.
"Smolder protests too much. Yona remembers all times Smolder helped Yona with school work, or ate with Yona, or went on walks and adventures with Yona. Like today! Smolder kind. Yona will shout, loud."
"The 'loud' was unnecessary." Smolder tried to roll her eyes, but she felt far too conflicted to pull it off with any degree of sass or indifference. It pained her to admit it, but the fact that Yona liked something about her that she wasn't even sure she liked herself made her feel…
Good. The truth was it felt good.
"Now Yona will kiss Smolder too!"
Before Smolder had a chance to process her words, Yona had leapt to her hooves and swept the dragon up in a wing-crushing embrace. Smolder opened her mouth to protest, but found it suddenly stifled by Yona's enthusiastic kiss. Her brain popped and fizzed, smashing together thoughts of resistance or flight.
And of yielding.
It was the latter that won out; a warmth was creeping from Yona's body, infusing the air around Smolder and then finally the dragon herself. It was as though she had sunk into the most scolding of lava baths, and Smolder's eyes flickered shut as she began to meet Yona's kiss with her own.
Okay, she thought, maybe it isn't disgusting.
But then it was suddenly over. Yona pulled her head back as though Smolder had bitten her, and the dragon was left leaning into air. She stepped back, feeling foolish.
“Hey! What gives?”
Yona's head was cocked, her muzzle scrunched. "Yona not like kissing. Yona prefer yak way."
Smolder folded her arms, hoping that the scales on her face weren't really on fire and that her heart wasn't really about to break through her chest.
"You know, I can't decide whether to be offended or not."
Yona grinned. "Don’t be. Yona likes Smolder. Yona likes likes Smolder. But yak way involves wrestling. Is better."
"Oh of course it is—wait," Smolder shook her head, "did you say wrestling?"
Yona nodded, a hint of arrogance sharpening her features. It was, Smolder decided, a very cute look.
"But I thought... So yaks wrestle instead of doing all of that mushy stuff? You just decide who you like and go up to them and throw down?"
"Yak demonstrate suitability for relationship and strength of love by hitting each other, yes." Yona fixed her eyes on Smolder's, the green of them almost luminescent in the dimming light. For a moment the dragon was convinced she saw a flash of challenge in them. "Shows passion, resilience and vulnerability. Shows commitment and respect. Sometimes, wrestling lasts all week!"
Smolder grinned. The heat in her face had become almost pleasant now. "You know, as crazy as that sounds… It sounds cool. In fact, it doesn’t seem too different to what we dragons do.”
Yona nodded, and this time Smolder was certain she saw the challenge. “Good. Because if Smolder wants to date Yona, Smolder has to wrestle.”
Smolder swallowed, now certain her heart was about to burst from her chest. Alien feelings were assaulting every part of her body—hope, fear, anticipation. Her scales itched with desire, with affection. Genuine, unguarded affection.
The dawn sun was bright and malicious; as she opened her eyes, Yona was confronted by a roiling cauldron of colours framed by swaying trees. She wouldn’t be cowed, though, not by something she couldn’t lock horns with. Forcing her eyes to remain on the spectacle above, Yona began to assess the sensations that had joined the sunlight in creeping over her body.
Her forelegs were aching, and her spine felt as though she had carried the world on her back while she slept. A taste of iron lingered in her mouth, and a quick probe with her tongue confirmed that at least one of her teeth was loose.
Now fully awake, Yona was also becoming aware of a dull pain blooming across one of her cheeks. It dragged a memory out of the hazy morass of her mind, one that made her lungs tingle. One of Smolder’s horns, all jagged and fierce, had sliced into it after being deflected by Yona’s. The dragon hadn’t waited before trying again, her eyes narrow and lit by determination and exhilaration. Her breath, hot and smokey, had singed Yona’s hair.
Yona grinned. It had been a great evening.
As she returned to playing with her teeth, humming a merry yak melody, Yona became aware of another sensation—a small, dense weight pressed tight against her stomach. Smolder was still asleep, her snores cutting through the morning birdsong. A bruise was forming on her face, darkening the skin beneath her scales, and tiny streams of dried blood were snaking down her arm.
Yona watched her for what felt like hours. When she was young she had often listened to the songs of her kin during ceremonies and festivals; the ones about fighting and smashing things had been easy for her to follow, but some of the others had left her confused.
Until now.
Yona draped a foreleg across Smolder, finding pleasure in making the already minute distance between them even smaller.
After a few moments the dragon stopped snoring.
“Ouch,” she said, without opening her eyes.
“Yona sore too,” Yona conceded. “Smolder wrestles good for a dragon.”
A hissed laugh escaped Smolder’s lips. “And you throw rocks pretty good for a yak.”
Yona laughed too, and immediately regretted it as pain bloomed in her chest. She prodded at a rib and winced, although further investigation confirmed no serious damage had been done. As silence returned to the clearing, a second ache began to join the first. Yona swallowed, wishing that the elders back in Yakyakistan had taught her about this before she had left—about how wrestling created such an ignorant bliss of certainty, and how its aftermath brought with it a terrible absence of resolution.
“Does Smolder regret it?” Yona considered it the mark of a true yak, a fearless warrior, to open herself up to the risk of serious harm to obtain the outcome she sought, but that still didn’t stop her from wanting to stuff her braids into her ears after asking the question.
She had to know, though. She just had to.
“Maybe the whole using rocks part.”
“Yona being serious!”
Smolder opened her eyes and twisted her head around to face Yona. The dragon’s eyes were shimmering in a way Yona had never seen before. They still resembled the forges of Yakyakistan, but now shook and wavered, seemingly unwilling to settle on anything for more than a few seconds. Smolder’s body tensed, and Yona felt her heart do the same.
“Do you?”
Yona was shaking her head before Smolder had even finished speaking. “No. Yona wants to date Smolder.”
The dragon closed her eyes and grinned. “Sounds like we’re dating then.”
She didn’t say anything more, but Yona could feel Smolder’s arms wrap around her a little more tightly, and her tail relax as it coiled around Yona’s. The yak grinned again, before pressing her muzzle into the cool angles of Smolder’s spines and closing her eyes.
The small, two-story teahouse was almost empty, having only just opened its doors for the day. The ponies who had already visited had been mostly stallholders and morning commuters, ordering to go, and that was exactly how Smolder preferred it. Sitting in the candle-lit, low-beamed building and sipping tea from—admittedly very cute—decorated cups was something that could still make her stomach perform somersaults, and having so many witnesses to the deed was a particularly lame bonus.
It just wasn't a dragon-y thing to do, was it? And until recently that fact hadn't bothered her as much as it used to.
So when Ocellus had offered to reschedule her morning study classes, and her book club, and her meditation sessions so that they could have their tea dates together without Smolder feeling uncomfortable, the dragon had naturally made the only right decision and snapped her foreleg off.
Still, the curious glances she was getting from the few ponies inside were enough to make her regret even that concession. Smolder lowered her gaze to the table and kept it there, feeling fire in her cheeks. She wondered whether the attention had been provoked by her appearance—perhaps the bruises and cuts had made them think that she had been getting up to no good rather than the reality.
That she was a dragon who was becoming less dragon-like by the day.
With a tightness growing in her throat, Smolder lifted the teacup to her lips and slurped extra-noisily. However the mildly offended stares she received did little to ease her worries.
You picked a fine day to be late, Ocellus.
It hadn’t showed in the mirror, either. Smolder had stared at her reflection for the best part of an hour that morning. Whether she was scowling or smiling goofily, she was still the same lithe shape and her horns were still awesomely long. Her wings were still growing and her eyes still carried the right amount of sass and greed.
So then why did it constantly feel as though she was being turned inside out?
It must have been that book she had borrowed the other week. That had to be it. She would be pinning that on Ocellus too, as soon as she found a way to do it that didn’t involve telling her the difference between ‘dragon borrowing’ and ‘everybeast else borrowing’.
It had been a pretty useful guide to all things romantic, and as much as Smolder wouldn’t usually be seen dead reading such literature, desperate times and strange feelings called for desperate measures and strange decisions. Besides, she reasoned, it wasn’t like anyone would ever know. She had read it in her dorm room at night. Under her blanket. With the door locked.
Smolder fiddled with her teacup and glared at the door. There were things in that book that scared her, as much as she hated to admit it. All the references to making sacrifices, compromises and acts of giving. Was she expected to be like this with Yona? Because she wasn’t like that, and she wasn’t sure if she could ever be like that. Sure, she had made small concessions during her time at school, but being in an actual relationship with someone of a different species sounded a lot like having to be less of a dragon and more...
A horrible warmth seized her heart, and the skin beneath her scales sang out for air.
More like what exactly?
Smolder reached across and plucked loose one of the crocheted mice that were decorating the menu-holder. It was disgustingly cute, with its little pink nose and top hat and suit, but there was no denying that whoever had made it had put in a lot of time, effort and care.
Smolder thought about toasting it right there and then in the middle of the teahouse, but after a brief internal struggle she settled on just stealing it.
Could she do this? Being a good friend was one thing, but being even half of the things written in that book was something else entirely. She had meant what she said to Yona, and meant even more the things she hadn’t yet said but only thought, but if she couldn’t make enough changes then what would that mean for them both? Her dragon blood demanded that she shouldn’t care, but this was Yona.
Smolder swallowed. Her head was beginning to feel as though someone had shoved a cart full of yarn in there.
This was Yona. The Yona who had made herself a home inside of Smolder's head. She had to make it work.
Further ruminations were interrupted by the jingle of a bell, and Smolder refocused her gaze on the tearoom door. Ocellus had just stepped inside, her head snapping around in those quick, rapid movements that Smolder had once found a little creepy, but which now seemed cool. Her compound eyes grew wide upon seeing Smolder and her wounds, and she scuttled across the room towards her. Smolder gave her a casual wave before inhaling deep. Hopefully the changeling could help her make some sense out of all these thoughts. After all, she had once gone through something similar.
“Smolder, what happened to you?” Ocellus’ face was creased with concern. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Smolder tried on a smile, but it trembled as much as her stomach. “And, I guess, I’m not. I’ve got some pretty big news. You should order some tea.”
“Oh, uh, sure.” Ocellus sat down, her eyes darting to and from Smolder, and pulled loose a menu. Smolder drained her cup and watched her as she browsed it, her lips mouthing the list of teas.
“You might wanna make it a strong one,” she added.
Yona smashed through the door, turning the dorm room beyond into a vortex of splintered wood and yak hair, and bellowing a melody that espoused the many merits of being a happy yak.
“Yona happy! Yona sing happy song!”
She bounced and tumbled around the room, sending books and chairs and pictures falling to the floor. An errant hindleg broke a lamp, and a miscalculated toss of her head left a wall in need of serious replastering, but Yona didn't care in the slightest. Cosmetic redecorating and structural repairs were trivial considerations in the mind of a yak newly in love. Indeed, the first love smash was something of a yak rite of passage, so she was actually doubly pleased with herself.
She was dating Smolder. She was actually dating the dragon who brought a smile to her face in the day, and who she thought about every night. And it had been Smolder who had made the first move! Granted the kiss had been far less enjoyable than the subsequent wrestling, but it still meant that Smolder felt the same way. Yona's joy about that fact was matched only by her relief that she would not have to compose a ballad about her unrequited love, as yak tradition dictated. Even the shortest of those lasted three days, and the composer wasn't even allowed to revisit any of the attributes of the one they were singing about. Repetition was an imperfection, and imperfection was unacceptable, especially in matters of love.
"Yona now dating Smolder!"
Yona laughed as she sang, the wonderful fire in her belly beginning to smother the rest of her senses. Now she could hug Smolder as tightly as possible without questions being asked, or read best yak poetry to her, or participate in bhyaki, the braid-bonding ritual, with her or—
Her vision began to swim, her brain moving too fast for her heart and lungs to keep up with. Sheer euphoria poured into every part of her being, hopes and dreams and plans filling her until it felt like she was going to explode.
Then she burst into tears.
It was a momentary reaction, an opportunity to alleviate all that had been building and building, and Yona's mind had seized it by the horns. She bubbled and leaked like an overfizzed bottle of soda, laughing and spluttering all the while.
And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.
Yona looked around the room and grinned, before a further realisation dawned on her.
"Yona must tell Silverstream!" she bellowed, and left the room as violently as she had entered.
In the silence that followed, Sandbar turned wide-eyed to Gallus.
"That was a surprise."
Gallus looked up from the book he had been reading and surveyed the room.
"No it wasn't. And that's why you owe me ten bits, buddy."
Sandbar pulled a face and climbed down from his bed to get his saddlebag. Gallus watched him for a moment before chuckling.
"Cheer up, at least you were right when you tricked me into this revision session. I am grateful—my room could have been next."
