Smolder and Ocellus get lost in the Dragon Lands and find each other.
Smolder invited Ocellus to the Dragon Lands over summer break in order to cheer up the sad Changeling. Smolder expected the trip to go well, possibly ask a few questions to the usually quiet bug, and get to know her friend better. But she bites off way more than she can handle when they get somewhat lost.
Ocellus stared out of her room's window, her multifaceted blue eyes swiveling ever so slightly to take in all the information she could in that moment. She could taste a melange of emotions wafting through the school. Mostly joy, which tasted like roses. A faint hint of worry and fear which tasted like lilies. And sadness which tasted ever so much like raspberries, tart and sour on her proboscis. She sighed as she packed up her belongings and turned, all ready to meet up with Thorax and get ready to go on summer vacation. She buzzed around unhappily, unsure of what to do.
A pitter patter of claws broke her slightly out of her emotional funk, the blast of emotion like a ray of sunshine in a world without light. She could just feed off that pure emotion and drain it and. . . Ocellus shook her head, her body feeling warm at the thought of things that she had tried to stuff down to fit in here in school, emotions and thoughts that were new and fleeting to most Changelings.
"'Cel, great news." Smolder, her best, and technically only dragon friend stood in the hallway. Her scaly orange hide buzzing with excitement as her purple frills waved around as she jumped in the room. "Great news. Great news."
Ocellus smiled ever so briefly. "What? Did Twilight find a new book in the archives or something?"
Smolder stopped for a moment and cocked her head. "No, also besides you and the Headmare, I'd doubt there's creatures that actually like new old books. Or is that old new books?" Smolder shot a quick look. "I mean getting back on the point, no. Better news. Twilight said that we could go on a trip together. Something about how Ember and Thorax are busy with something. Came in the mail today." Smolder tossed her a letter and the changeling quickly grabbed it.
Scanning the letter, Ocellus was thoroughly confused. She had planned to tell all of the hive about the year and try and follow Headmare Twilight's overall idea for spreading the idea of friendship past ponykind. She scratched out her mental checklist and tried to be hopeful about it. Thorax and Ember seemed too okay with this and the letter seemed odd to her, though she could not taste emotions off of inanimate things. "Thorax doesn't just announce something like this off the top of his antennae. He's very much like the Headmare- he'd have planned out the ambassadorship and the itinerary and the emotional meal plan to see how the country we'd be entering would react to better Changeling relations."
Smolder yawned and fished out an old emerald from her knapsack of possessions, carefully chewing it as she talked. "Maybe he had a change of heart. Do you have a heart or is it a weird bug thing? Not saying that you are a weird bug, I just am saying that I have no idea how you work internally."
Ocellus sighed. "Smolder, I'll tell you later. What I have to figure out is what to do with my things. I'm underprepared for something like this."
Smolder laid back on Ocellus' bed and hummed as she thought. "Well just follow Rainbow's rules of the outdoors."
Ocellus rolled her milky blue eyes. "Her list starts with 'Be Awesome' and ends with 'Don't Die.' I don't think that's a good-"
Smolder shook her head and laughed. "Well, yeah. But there's also how to maximize space, the essentials, and all the times she took us out to test our skills in the real world."
Ocellus shivered. "But Yona almost died. By drowning."
Smolder let out a quick breath and scratched her chin. "Um, well, Dash didn't know yaks couldn't swim super well. But neither of us are yaks and you can turn into anything, so we'll probably be okay. Plus it's only a trip to the dragon lands. What can go wrong?"
***
Manehattan
Ocellus was staring at the twinkling Manehattan skyline like a moth drawn to a flame. She tried to sit still as the train pulled into the station with a wooshing sound and a throng of ponies all began to disembark the Ponyville Express. She had tried to stay silent in the train, holding back her whirling head as she tasted the melange of smells that the passengers all gave off. Warm pumpkin pie, strawberries, a hint of ash, and honeysuckle assailed her- guilt, joy, love, death. She felt a slight pang at that. She didn't feel a lot of death related feelings in Ponyville, especially with Pinkie being a cotton candy filled experience that made her feel overstimulated and groggy. Death was an odd feeling, and kind of foreboding with her dragon friend lazily eating an amethyst that the train had on standby for the rare dragon that decided to take the train. She giggled at the thought, seeing Spike as one of the few other dragons that could fit in a train like this.
"Don't know why you are looking like that." Smolder tapped the glass pane and glanced out at the lights of Manehattan, seeing Ocellus as a lime green earth pony with a light blue mane. "I mean we're in Manehattan. Though not for long. But still I bet there's Changelings all around us totally fine with their look."
Ocellus tapped her hooves together, sighing as she got up and grabbed her bags. "There is. I can smell them. Or really just kind of feel them. You know how Changelings are, right, hive mind and all?"
Smolder groaned. "Now if you are going to transform into Professor Fluttershy and tell me about the habits of Changelings, I'd rather you wouldn't. I wouldn't want to try to decode what you meant with animal metaphors. I think Sandbar's still slightly put off by her after that birds and the bees demonstration- with actual bees." Smolder giggled. "Anyway, summer vacation isn't about learning and books. It's about vacation stuff. Like lava diving and sharing old dragon stories and fighting contests."
Ocellus rolled her blue eyes and stared at her faux cutie mark, a ladybug, and continued. "I liked her Critters of Comfort and Conflict class, Smolder, and to the point, we mimic creatures. Their emotions, their thoughts, sometimes their memories though that is now explicitly banned under the new Changeling code of conduct. But we taste different."
Smolder laughed. "What?" as she walked through a side street to enter the dragon area of Manehattan. "Gross."
Ocellus frowned slightly, her pony disguise showing far more emotion than she was fully used to. "Changelings mimic emotions. Not perfectly. And we never needed to learn because there were few natural predators for us. Apex predators." Ocellus shivered slightly at the thought of Chrysalis infiltrating Canterlot. So easy to destabilize an entire country just to feed on every emotion in a large banquet. She slid closer to Smolder, whose excitement was like chocolate on her tongue. She breathed out and let the fear pass.
"We're here."
Ocellus blinked and let her eyes adjust to the dragon district of Manehattan. She walked around vendors who sold rather odd wares of glinting metal and gems, a few stalls of actual meat in a pony city, and more dragons than she'd ever seen in one area before. Well, outside of the few dragon migrations she had seen over the hive. She tried to keep her fear down at the mass of creatures that were squeezing into the crowded and sort of tiny space. Not that it was small, but that many of the dragons were in between their adolescent and adult phases, at least what she remembered from Professor Fluttershy's lectures, and so they took up a lot of space anyway.
She would have sat there all night and marveled at the wonder of everything around her, taste each and every new mixed emotion that she could, and buzz relatively unnoticed through the throng of dragons, happily shifting between a few different forms to fit in and be forgotten about. She would have, if Smolder didn't pull her into a nearby alley and sighed.
"Drake's tooth, I nearly forgot."
The changeling stared at her friend. "What?" She never liked unforeseen circumstances- she planned out each and every step to a well defined set of routines that she could recite in her sleep. So she quickly froze and slid up to the wall, her disguise fading with a poof of blue flame. She felt her bug wings buzz unhappily as she looked at her friend. "Smolder, what's wrong."
Smolder ran a claw through her scales as she paced back and forth. "Forgot that there's a strict dragon policy. I mean besides the festivals and the outskirts of the dragon section, it's really insulated."
Ocellus felt her cheeks bloom with slight heat as she stared at Smolder. "How'd you forget that?"
Smolder raised her claws in defense. "Garble took me to Manehattan once. And we didn't take the boat." She quickly pointed to her small wings. "Flying's easier. So I forgot. And it's not like you'd do the same if we went to your hive. I bet there's some crazy rituals that are anti-dragon." Smolder frowned and leaned against the alleyway.
The blue changeling sat there and looked out at the street. For a brief moment, she felt lost and pulled back to the hive, not a random Manehattan alleyway. She breathed out and felt her emotions boil to the surface for a brief moment. She let them surround her as she was assailed by memories of the hive. The deafening buzzing all around her, the connection to each and every Changeling ever made, the sheer devotion that surrounded the Queen. She breathed out and looked down at her carapace, tracing the lines of her middle, the bright red wings and just comparing that to then. The love of one. She had grown up in a world where Chrysalis was both mother and father, lord and master, goddess of the hive and she sat there in silence. She looked at Smolder and sighed. "No. We may have hated ponies at the time I was a pupa, but we never hated dragons. Mother. . .I mean, Chrysalis, loved dragons."
Smolder chuckled. "Never knew that. She didn't seem the type." The orange dragon pointed at the relatively small airship that sat tethered to a nearby building, the prow of the ship decorated like a dragon, all blues and greens, with orange jewels inlaid for eyes. "We'll talk more. But for now, I need you to change slightly. While I prefer your normal look for everyday things, I'd think dragon would be better now. Less questions. And with how spread out we all are, you could easily lie your way through any check. Probably."
Ocellus narrowed her eyes at that, but she breathed out and reached for her magic, letting her imagine herself as a dragon. Breathing out, she encased herself in her aura, letting the thought become reality as she felt her insides shift for her illusion to work. If she wasn't so used to changing her form, so uncomfortable in her own body, she would say it was painful, unbearable to have her exoskeleton pop and crinkle as scales replaced them, her eyes squeezing in pain as she shifted them to a normal pair. She blinked and saw Smolder, now far shorter than her, stare up at her.
She never mentioned the pain, but she didn't care. Other creatures wouldn't understand. She closed a new fist, sharp claws digging into her palm as she shuffled back and forth.
"Scales, everytime I see you do that, I think that would be the absolute coolest thing to do. I mean you could be a roc, or a tatzlwurm, or a ogre. The sky is the limit for you."
Ocellus cringed, carefully brushing the dark brown, long spikes of keratin out of her eyes, wishing that Smolder would shut up. Not in a mean way, just she didn't understand anything about changeling magic. There being limits on what was changed and magical upscaling. She whisked through the list of creatures she knew she could do, and there were some there that was huge and useful. But she didn't use them ever. She flexed her faux claws and leaned against the wall, not listening to Smolder at all as she felt so worried about a creature she should never see again. Chrysalis was gone, not dead, but gone.
"Have you even heard a single thing I've been saying? 'Cel, you better focus cause all we have to do is get on the airship and go and then you can have a rad time with me." Smolder scampered away and Ocellus plodded after her, head down, crouching in self defense as she almost could hear Mother calling her name.
She cautiously kept her friend in her sight, trying not to be a burden or a bother to the other dragons in the street, weaving through an ever more worrying amount of dragons as she entered the small building that the airship was moored to. She breathed out, trying to think of happier thoughts and tried to focus on the present, not the past. She had overcome all of that and now was more important than all the things that could creep in the corners of her mind.
***
The Dragon Lands
Ember tapped her claws against her throne as she waited for court to be over. She hated court, even if it mostly involved brawls between the seven tribes of drakes, each with their own grievances and problems with one another. She loved the bloodshed involved, the sheer amount of skill that each fight showed off, the colorful scales of some of the more interesting drakes and vibrias, the male and female dragons so crudely defined in the rest of the world. She was lost in thought as she watched a particularly nice looking green dragon slice another dragon's wing, the appendage spurting blood as the dragons grappled each other.
Ember shivered as she thought of another green dragon, sometimes not, in her memories, She wished that she could let Thorax be more present in her affairs, outside of short trysts in small hideaways and Changeling controlled areas. She hadn't been able to broach the subject of her dating, or rather screwing, an outsider to the other dragons, and unless there was a good chance she wasn't going to be dethroned in a coup, there was no reason to mention it.
Ember grumbled as she picked up a claw and decided the match, the pair of drakes stumbling off in a haze of bloodlust. "Thanks to the seven tribes that saw me today, but I believe that Court is done. This throne is rather hard to sit on for too long." She bowed and out of the corner of her eye she saw the congregation of dragons bow back to her. Picking herself up and carefully gripping the scepter that conferred her title, she headed off to her chambers carved out of the mountain that she called her home. She was raised here by her father, so she knew each tunnel and valley that Drakesfang offered. She took a quick left and slipped through, waiting for someone. She basked on a nearby rock and waited for the telltale sign of claws that she was expecting.
"Sorry to make you wait, Ember, really." A greenish black dragon sat down nearby, letting a claw run through his large horns. "Pharynx was giving me trouble about what we were planning to do."
Ember groaned. "Is he still going on about the lying thing? Odd coming from him cause your whole race lived on lying for a while." The vibria crossed her arms and stared at the nervous changeling. "Or should I not bring up some rather thorny subjects about you eating love and all that. I mean if you paid attention to some of my letters I get from the ponies- that's all you are to some. Parasitic. Evil. Kind of a bore. Though that's shocking since I keep finding new ways you interest me. You are far more than any of these dragons I rule over. Though I've not had time to show it with all the work this job entails."
Thorax sighed, knowing full well of each and every time he had to atone for his Mother. Her actions in Canterlot marred the new Changeling mission of cooperation by being a major black mark that each and every creature brought up. "I could say the same. I've barely had time to myself with all the red tape that goes with being a newly minted ally to so many nations. That's why I'm letting Pharynx deal with some of the more difficult nations. Abyssinia has only let us trade on an infrequent basis thanks to those magical cats being distrustful of any outside 'ling mission. And the Storm Lands haven't opened up to us since we 'deposed our former ruler'"
Ember rolled her eyes. "I'd rather have to debate jewelry with Diamond Dogs than having to deal with cats. And the Storm King could rot for all I care. He's a pain to try and talk to. Always weaseling his way through treaties so we come out on the losing side. If he wasn't so good at ruling a nation with an iron hand, I'd think he'd be a dentist because he's fantastic at pulling teeth."
Thorax wryly smiled as he slid up to his mate, even if no one truly knew it besides them. "Which is why I let Pharynx deal with the cats and the Storm. I seem to be a better negotiator with certain dragons." Thorax bit playfully on Ember's neck as he wrapped his dragonic wings around her. "I do have to say my dear that this idea of yours is rather demonic. Though welcome. Smolder didn't realize anything?"
Ember blushed as Thorax hit a particularly sensitive part of her neck. "No, though since she's related to Garble, who I think is about as intelligent as a bag of rocks, that doesn't mean much."
Thorax's muffled giggling reverberated over Ember's scales. He broke his ministrations for a brief moment to stare into Ember's eyes as he entwined his tail with hers. "I think you think too little of that drake. I had a rather intelligent conversation with him about, of all things, the magical uses for marble. He has a rough exterior, but is soft when you get to know him." Thorax mused, letting one of his claws drag lower and lower on Ember's body. "Though I don't know if that is unique to him. Seems like every dragon I know personally has that character flaw."
Ember didn't protest as she leaned into his touch.
***
Skies Above
Ocellus stared lazily out the window on the airship, barely feeling the wind hit her face, listlessly hearing the small drakes scamper across the boards of the ship, and stretched out a claw, silently tracing the musculature in her head. She had had tons of practice like this with Chrysalis, delineating each muscle group in a hand, each bone white and gleaming on racks of skeletons, from dragons to ponies to the wayward gryphons. Chrysalis had been a wonderful, if macabre teacher of biology and chemistry of the material form. Ocellus sighed as she closed her claws, feeling the claws bite wordlessly in her palm, letting blood run down her arm as she stared down to the tiny lights below wondering if Chrysalis was down there plotting or not.
"What are you thinking?"
Ocellus broke out of her reverie as she felt a claw poke her in the side.
"Just looking at the scenery. Never really got out of the hive much before entering the school. So everything feels new- all the new tastes of emotions kind of shock me. You know there's like seven different kinds of love and each taste different? Totally interesting. Not to mention the sheer size of the world. Chrysalis made it seem like the Changelings were the center of everything and, yet, here I am in a ship. Interesting." The fake dragon shivered as she felt Smolder accept that lie. She couldn't say the real reason she felt so alien and awkward here. It would break Professor Rarity's rules of etiquette.
Smolder nodded. "Isn't that the truth. The elders were always going on about how great the times before Discord were. All about how the ponies bowed to us and. . ." Smolder shook her head and sighed. "Whatever. I just think every place thinks they are the best. Oh, almost forgot. Dinner's about ready. The captain said to mention it."
***
"-And then I mention that her payment was right between my legs." A pinkish dragon laughed heartily as she quaffed a tankard of ale, her tail curling in memory of the wenches she had made love to, their trysts and times alone all recounted as she took the two young dragons in her gaze.
Smolder and Ocellus blushed furiously as they tried to look away from the dragon, her laughs resounding in the small feeding quarters. Ocellus spoke first, her nails tapping nervously on the wood. "That's. . .a wonderful story."
The captain smiled, rows of teeth glistening in the dim lamplight. "Now, less about me. More about you two. I mean I get some drakes and vibrias going up and down Equestria and our own land, but its summer. I'd have thought you would have waited for a few months to participate in the dragon migration. Or has it been such a long time that our Dragon Lord has stopped that practice and let little ones just wallow in the wonders of these ponies?"
Smolder stared at her hunk of steak and demurely shook her head, the older dragon slightly intimidating her by its size. She never did particularly well with Lust Dragons, but she pushed down her unease and quickly concocted a story, plausible but slightly exaggerated. "We'd love to do that. But see. . ." Smolder racked her brain for a second trying to come up with a name, slightly cursing that she wasn't fantastic in her creative writing class. "Amber here has a really sick mother with. . .what was it, rooster sneeze. Yes, something like that."
The captain narrowed her eyes for a moment. "Really? Never heard of it."
"It's a new thing. Really new. Had to go see some ponies in Manehattan cause they know a little more about diseases. I mean its a terrible disease. Without the right precautions, Amber's whole family here would get it and we'd have an outbreak of dragons going about the countryside uncontrollably burning things when they sneeze. Which is worse than the norm of just being bored and burning things."
The captain shook her head. "Ah, yes, the good old days." She chuckled. Staring off into the distance, the pink dragon turned to Ocellus and sighed. "So you are going to see your mother then?"
Ocellus coughed as she tried to compose herself. "Yes. My mother is very sick." Ocellus thought of Chrysalis, probably holed up in some kind of cave. Plotting revenge. "Got a letter from my. . .hmm, Uncle. Large family, spread out everywhere. I was the, uh, closest one to check up on my mother. Else I would have spent the summer somewhere else. With friends." Ocellus glanced at Smolder, feeling the waves of emotion radiate off of her as she kept speaking. "Well, she's sick and hopefully we can help her."
***
"Good lie, 'Cel. I mean that was really good. I thought the captain. . .Jade? Jasper? I was more focused on her stories, was going to grill you on us being out here. For a Lust Dragon, she thought more with her brain than I thought she would."
Ocellus grumbled at the dragon and pulled the ratty sheets over her head. "Yeah. I thought so too. I mean what with you stumbling over yourself. And rooster sneeze. You could have come up with something more plausible."
Smolder crossed her arms. "It came to me and I ran with it. I can't just spend all my time thinking up plans for my plans and run through everything. Dragons aren't good about that. It isn't in our nature to just plan out things."
Ocellus sighed. "Okay, okay. Not the best time to argue." She curled up in the blankets and peeked out an eye, watching Smolder prowl around the tiny bunkroom, her claw scratching slowly over the wood. Ocellus didn't want to speak since the smaller dragon seemed agitated, but she had one question still on her mind from dinner. "Why Amber?"
Smolder looked at the bundled fake dragon and imperceptibly smiled. "Gemology. Prof' Rarity mentioned a thing in passing. I mean I already knew most of the sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks, and most gemstones by taste- but she said amber was like tree sap that got all hard and sometimes had little bugs stuck in it." The dragon awkwardly scratched her head.
Ocellus' taste buds were filled with the rich, sweet taste of chocolate. She blushed and rolled over, bumping her nose on the wooden planks of the wall. "Thanks. I was just wondering cause I never had a name before."
Smolder cocked her head. "I don't follow."
Ocellus shivered. "Nothing." She held on to the feeling of having an actual name for the first time. Something that she could call her own. Not her form or function as a member of the hive- a name that she could have to herself. She heard the rain start outside from the pitter patter of raindrops from above her head and she blinked. For a moment, she could swear she was back in the hive. Alone in her cocoon, feeding on royal jelly, the overwhelming taste of memories blinding her for a moment. She wiped a tear as she was dragged back to reality and dried it on the mass of blankets. "It's nothing. Just tired."
Smolder ruffled through her bag and picked out a ruby, casually tossing it between her claws in a fit of boredom. "Well goodnight then. I might stay up a bit. Kind of restless. You know. Lot of things on my mind like what I'll tease Garble about when I see him next. Maybe something about his time in lava swim class when he thought he would drown in lava. That was a good one. Dragons can't drown in lava." Smolder leaned back and tapped a claw against the boards. "Yeah. Just go to bed. Long journey ahead and we can't have a bad first impression."
Ocellus nodded, her blanket bobbing up and down quickly as she tried to get comfortable in the tiny quarters. "Night."
***
Ocellus walked carefully through the hive, her hooves clicking gently as she worked her way through the twisting tunnels of the hive. She rubbed her wings together slowly, a tuneful hum echoing through the walls as she walked. The changeling thought briefly of her plans for the day, each and every routine action marked ever so gracefully in her mind and filed under important and immediate actions, the lesser actions she could delegate, and the things for tomorrow could be put off until then. She nodded at some Changelings who were passing by as a common courtesy, as defined by the rules of etiquette.
They did not look up.
She clicked her tongue, trying to not let that get her down since she wanted to put a good hoof forward for her meeting. It seemed rather important since it lay directly in her memory as a necessary action. She did not know what the meeting was since she was still a bit groggy from sleep and remembering things in the morning was, she admitted to herself, rather difficult.
She whistled as she dropped down to a lower floor, since the meeting was in the direct center of the hive. Thorax had, yes, that was it, Thorax wanted her to talk to Twilight. It had seemed important. Something about a treaty. Though she had tried rather to get him to deal with it. She was more unsure of where to place herself in the hierarchy of the hive. Things like soldier, speaker, worker, and queen. . .she quickly amended that as leader. Silly her, it had only been a few months since Chrysalis had been defeated. It took time to adjust. That was it.
She waved to a nearby worker, who oddly shuffled faster as she did so.
The doors stood in front of her now. Ocellus shook her head. It must have been a rather boring few minutes since getting from where she had been to the throne room was a good ten minutes away. She touched the door with a hoof and pushed it open.
"Chrysalis." Twilight, bound and with a dampening ring on her horn, stared at her through a myriad of bruises.
***
Smolder stood watch over Ocellus. She knew something was wrong by the sounds she was making- small buzzing noises, faint and low. Smolder crept closer to the bed, careful to not disturb her too quick since the last time she had, it ended with a squid in their bedroom. Ocellus, as a squid, spraying ink in surprise. She grimaced when she remembered having to sleep in inky black sheets for a week.
She had partially wanted Ocellus to come to the Dragon Lands to get the 'ling's mind off of whatever was bothering her. Even if the letter that came to the office reeked of some kind of weird joke. Too easy, too neat. But she had shoved all those concerns down as she had seen it as a rather nice way to get Ocellus out of her funk. A 'change of scenery', as Headmare Twilight would have put it. "Easier said than done" Smolder grumbled as Ocellus' clawed arm bopped her on the snout. She swore quietly as she rubbed her nose and sat carefully near the changeling.
"I'm here. Feel the emotion. . ." She had asked Professor Fluttershy about a hypothetical thing like this and she had replied that this odd and slightly humiliating thing could be the answer. Totally not a cute thing to do. Not at all. Smolder tried to think of calming things. Ice cream. Tea parties. Lava diving. Dragon stuff. She held those thoughts slowly and as focused as she could in the pitch black darkness. She tried to hold that thought and sprinkled in thought of the rain, hitting peacefully on the ship. Calming thoughts. She held that for what seemed like eternity and she slowly felt Ocellus calm down, her fists no longer having a slight punch to them. Smolder felt the Changeling scoot closer to the source of the emotions, which so happened to be her.
Ocellus stuck out her snout and it pressed onto the young dragon's own. Smolder blushed, the thought of being so close to something. . .special and, dare she say it, cute made her head spin for a moment. The orange dragon breathed, trying to center herself as she crawled into Ocellus' bed. She had her own, but she'd rather be slightly uncomfortable than the alternative.
She curled a small blanket around her and started to drift off to sleep. Smolder grumbled softly as she felt Ocellus wrap her claws around her like a cute and cuddly stuffed animal. For a moment, she tried to escape her predicament with a few soft kicks and light shoves, but it was like being stuck between a rock and a hard place- way too difficult to escape. She quietly wished that it was going to be an easy summer break since she could only deal with so much. Ocellus was a nice, but big enough problem.
One headache was enough for her. She buried whatever those odd feelings were in the deepest and darkest place she could and drifted off to sleep, slightly uncomfortable, but unable to do anything about it.
Ocellus opened her eyes, quickly setting the illusion of her dragon self in place with a brief thought, the wards shimmering for a brief moment as she placed them upon herself, her bones settling in place as she did so. Mother had personally created that particular spell, the one that made her approachable, made her feel safe, after years of testing out certain alteration spells. Umbral magic was close to Changeling magic, the dark spirals and whorls of the shadow useful to one such as Chrysalis. To Ocellus, it was just a cobbled together spell, reminiscent of mother. Of herself. Of the failed versions of her. The ones that didn't take to the royal jelly.
She stretched a claw, unused to the feeling being a dragon. This height. Feeling oddly normal for the first time in forever. Ocellus looked at the bronze scales that covered her arms, slowly taking them in as her, at least for a while and sighed. It was easier to deal with- the change between what was real and what wasn't, but there was still a part of her that knew that this was a lie. A falsity. The Changeling way of things.
She leaned up and felt a noticeable weight shift on her. Odd.
The fake dragon looked down to see Smolder. On her. Ocellus breathed slowly and felt something like an emotion from within herself. She stared at the small, snoring dragon and Ocellus shivered as she tried to still her breathing. She tried not to overreact since this was just completely normal. Smolder in her bed. In a small room. By themselves. She turned to see that Smolders' bed lay untouched and perfectly made so she was even more confused. Ocellus tried running through every single possible reason why Smolder was on top of her. She quickly ran a claw against the small dragon and she sat back trying to figure out the body temperature of a dragon, realized that she didn't know and groaned as she tried to get up without waking Smolder.
"Hive preserve me." Ocellus slid out of bed with a thump as her head bumped into the other bed in the room. She groaned in pain as the room spun, her draconic form sparkling and flickering blue as it dealt with the slight loss of concentration.
Smolder yawned and opened an eye, slowly taking in the scene. "What's going on? Thought I heard a noise."
Ocellus blushed, her disguise's brown scales turning slightly red as she stammered out a quick reply. "Fell out of bed."
Smolder stretched and groaned as she popped her neck. "Claw, I slept terrible. I hate how small these beds are." The dragon glanced at Ocellus who was furiously blushing. "I mean, whoops. Looks like I sleepwalked again. Thought the Headmaster had fixed that issue. On that note, I'm starved." Smolder crawled over the disguised changeling and scrambled out of the room.
Ocellus sat there for a moment, horribly confused about what just happened.
***
"You can't starve here." Ember traced a claw over Thorax's dragon disguise, carefully poking the illusion to let little sparks of magic twirl around her. She shifted and leaned into him, letting his leathery dragon wings envelop her. "I won't let you."
Thorax laughed, the sound buzzing around them as he spoke. "If I did, I'd think Pharynx would have some words with you." He stretched out a claw and entwined his with Ember's.
Ember rolled her eyes, remembering the last time she had seen the black Changeling, the transformation of Pharynx to a new 'ling not causing his quiet and sometimes gruff exterior to change. Nor his odd attachment to Thorax, the Changeling a shadow to him, usually in the background of everything he did. Pharynx was there. Doing whatever he wanted. "I have a few words to share with him about you too." Ember huffed. "I'm not one to share."
Thorax hummed slowly in thought. "He's trying to protect the hive. Nothing more, nothing less. He just hasn't redirected that kind of protection to another target." Thorax sighed and shifted back to his normal bug state and got up slowly from the rock, his buzzing wings humming in rhythm as he flitted around the room. "Sending him out might be good for him. The world's a huge enough place that even he might find love."
Ember shook her head. "I doubt that."
Thorax smiled as he curled a faux green claw around his mate's and wolfishly grinned, rows of teeth sparkling in the fire light. "I doubted it for me as well and yet here we are." He ran a claw below Ember's throat and traced her breaths, rising and falling as he did so. "Now, let's get back to business. You needed help with the, what did you call it, gathering of drakes?"
Ember huffed. "Gathering of the Tribes, but yes. Acheron and the other five leaders have been particularly prickly about having a female dragon lord. Something about me not having the correct qualifications."
Thorax hummed quietly to himself as he thought on how best to phrase his next sentence. "Well. Then I guess these drakes haven't really seen you take charge where it counts." Thorax grinned as he flicked a clawed hand at his lover. "I mean if you need a few choice words I bet Pharynx and I can have a written declaration about all your feats. I mean puffed up a little of course to help with the decidedly important task."
Ember groaned. "No, I just need to be my father's daughter and take charge. Even if it sucks."
***
"This sucks." Smolder stared out of the galley kitchen window, rain hitting the pane of glass in a rhythmic pattering. "I knew that Equestria had it all swanky with the controlled weather, but it's been a while since I've seen something like this."
A hearty chuckle came from behind the small dragon and Smolder turned to see the pink captain slither into the kitchen, her wings hitting the sides of the door as she squeezed into the room. "I'm surprised somedrake as young as you could remember a storm such as this." The captain's eyes sparkled. "Not many know of the Thunderbird."
Smolder shrugged as she ate an amethyst, her mind focused too much on what had happened with Ocellus. There was an odd feeling that she couldn't place when she thought back. Warm and yet cold in her heart. Indigestion probably. "What? No I was saying that there was a bad typhoon off the shores of the Dragon Lands once. That reminded me of this." Smolder groaned. "Here I was thinking that getting from Equestria to home would be simple. But no. . ."
The pink dragon looked at Smolder and shrugged as she moved on to the next thing that kept her interest. Two young female dragons, all by themselves, without drake supervision. She blushed as she remembered her own sending out into the world, young and impressionable. "Hmm, so tell Jade here about why two vibrias such as yourselves go out hunting together?"
Smolder shook her head and blushed furiously as she realized what the older Lust dragon was insinuating, her tone rife with all the information that she needed to quash, right now. "Uh, see, that's a good question. And we have a completely normal answer."
Jade smiled as she glanced at Smolder, the dragon's eyes twinkling as she tried not to laugh. "Yes, the rooster cough thing or whatever you called it. Very rare. Very interesting." She clicked a claw against a cupboard and slid out a few gems, carefully eyeing them as she talked. "If it was me, and I'm speaking hypothetically, yes, as that strange purple princess of the ponies likes to say. . ."
Smolder goggled at the dragon. "You know of Head- I mean Princess Twilight?" The word of 'princess' in conjunction with Twilight Sparkle odd to Smolder's tongue after months of Headmaster this and Headmaster that. Plus she knew too much about the older mare to even see her as a real princess. Pancake Day had ruined any hope of taking Twilight Sparkle as more than a weirdly obsessed mare with power.
Jade eyed a peridot and crunched it between her teeth. "Trade routes love stories and that mare breeds stories like a rabbit in heat. Ponies talk a lot. Something about a dragon saving the day and she being involved in passing." Jade smiled. "Whichever great and powerful dragon opened up the north to a creature like I, I'd love to shake his claws."
Smolder put two and two together. "Yes, I would as well. I bet they'd be so amazing and wonderful." Smolder felt the sarcasm drip off her tongue as she thought of Spike, the savior of the Crystal Empire, in a dress acting out the part of Princess Platinum. "Probably be a theatrical one, that's for sure." She tried not to laugh as she spoke. "Haven't gone to the Crystal Empire, haven't had time."
Jade's pink eyes sparkled. "It's a dragon's dream. Everything made out of crystal, the ponies being that as well? It's like the old tales come to life again. Fafnir's mighty hoard of gems all in one spot for the taking. If I was a Greed or Pride dragon, I'd have the best time ever." Jade hummed to herself as she thought about it. "Though the brothels were adequate."
Smolder blushed at that thought. "Interesting. I'll remember that."
A cannon shot echoed in the distance.
Jade's slight smile faded for a moment as she sniffed the air. "This isn't good."
Smolder sighed. "What is it?"
Jade sat there, quiet for a moment. "Slavers."
Smolder laughed. "You serious?"
The pink dragon nodded. "There's not many, not anymore, but the ones left are rather focused. Especially the-" A howling chorus hit both of their ears as more cannon shots boomed from nearby. "The Howlers." Jade gripped Smolder's smaller claw in hers and dragged her out of the room. "Go back to the room. Now."
Smolder shook her head. "Not until you get O- I mean, Amber- down there as well."
Jade sighed and cracked her claws. "Knowing how I train my crew, that's probably happening already. And we'll talk later about you letting a Changeling aboard my ship." The pink dragon almost laughed as she saw the look on Smolder's face, the sheer shock that she would know. Bending down, she whispered into the orange dragon's ear. "I'm a Lust dragon that's been all around the world, you think I haven't been around the rock before. I know what a Changeling smells like, their glisten, their way of hiding? She smells similar enough for my nose to tell. Now get on down and I'll deal with the Black Hounds. We'll talk about this later. I just have to make sure they don't get on my ship."
***
Ocellus sighed as she felt the rain hit her face, her disguise a respite from the nightmares that she had had for months. She brushed a faux brown claw through her keratin and leaned over the railing, seeing the small forms of islands glide by, each a green blot on the ocean, a world devoid of worry. Ocellus tasted the excitement in the air, a mix of chili peppers and dandelions as she turned to watch the scampering deckhands- a motley crew of reptiles, parrots, and gryphons all clamoring up the sails in their own ways.
Ocellus watched distant lightning dance in huge rolling clouds. She knew that weather out here was technically dangerous from the mass of scrolls and books that she had read in the School of Friendship. How there were microclimates all attuned to each area of the world all built on what lived there. Birds that controlled the weather, Saddle Arabian djinn who willed the sands to move, ancient dragons the size of mountains. She smiled briefly in that thought. Chrysalis would never be out here, alone, with all these dangerous animals. Even if she loved dragons. Ocellus shook her head, letting her disguise sparkle as she pumped in more magic. She was overthinking things.
She listened to the sailors singing sea shanties and smiled as she stared out at the horizon. It was dark with an incoming rain cloud the size of a castle, to be sure, but it was lighter than most of her nightmares. She stretched her faux brown dragon wings and felt her feet lift from the wooden boards for a moment. "Stupid." She let herself glide on the winds for a moment, letting her fluid heart pump blood in her chest. She hummed softly, letting the moment wash over her, her muted emotions of joy, a facsimile of a pure feeling she fed on, giving her a slight rush of happiness for the first time in a while.
She would have soared in the sky as long as possible, savoring the feeling of freedom, of living in the moment free of expectation. Except for one thing.
The black cloud parted for a moment, lightning dancing between the cloud halves. It was rather interesting to Ocellus, the charged particles zipping around the ship as motes of light, tickling the edges of her perception as creatures watched the lightshow, careful to keep their limbs inside the ship due to the magic that powered the craft drawing the harmful electricity towards the engines. She let a bit of her fake claws out of the ship and felt the lightning tickle her disguise, letting sparks fly off of it in its own tiny lightshow. She smiled, imagining Thorax watching her do something so reckless, so stupid, so completely dangerous, and having his own panic attack.
"What he doesn't know won't hurt him. And anyway, I always wondered what pegasi felt, the rush of electricity on their fur, the danger, the I don't know, feeling of being alive. . .", she mumbled to herself that thought.
A cannon shot broke her smile and she watched the black cloud dissipate as a massive black ship cut through it.
Shouts of 'Thunderclaps!' rent the air as the pirates ran across the deck, gathering up cutlasses and guns as fast as they could.
Ocellus thought she saw a huge bird weave through the air, shimmering with light and its eyes blood red. She almost decided to stay on deck to make sure, but a nearby pirate saw the young 'dragon' and pulled her forcefully below, the reptile's slimy hand grossing out Ocellus a bit. "Where are you-"
The reptile hissed, its words slithering out as it spoke, "Captain says passengers are precious cargo. You smell not right to her. Which means precious." The reptile gazed at her, its eyelids fluttering as it stared. "You no smell like dragon, to her. She knows what you smell like." The reptile pushed her into the room that Smolder and Ocellus shared. "Don't come out. Dangerous."
The door was locked behind her and Ocellus frowned as she stared at the door, trying to shift into a different form to sneak out. but finding that somehow she couldn't. "What? That's?"
"Probably a magic thing. Wasn't the Headmaster talking about anti-magic devices during one of our lectures?"
Ocellus turned to see Smolder sucking on a gem. "I remember most things that the Headmare said and I don't remember anything about anti magic fields."
Smolder shrugged. "Maybe it was during a detention or something? Most of the time the Headmare starts talking all I usually hear, unless she mentions like dragons, or things I'm interested in is all 'blah, blah, blah.' Smolder grabbed a pillow and flipped it, careful to slide back into place as she tried to gather her thoughts. "So color me impressed when she started talking about what I thought was going to be like the most boring thing ever- why I shouldn't mix magic potions and all that, and Sandbar talks about, I dunno, like the Storm King, and I was like, that sounds pretty cool. Then the Headmare just clams up. Totally suspicious right, so I talked to Prof Dash and she filled me in."
Ocellus sighed and let her disguise drop. She would have kept it up longer but after months of knowing Smolder, she knew that she'd be here a while. For some unknown and dumb reason, dragons could not for the life of them, tell a story that didn't meander in the telling. Counselor Glimmer mentioned in probable jest, though Ocellus had to be told explicitly afterwards that it was a joke and nothing more, that maybe they were so long lived that they could take their sweet time. "And?"
Smolder shrugged. "Dunno. Storm King sounded like a cool guy, in dragon standards anyway, took over a lot of land. Had an army. Was a strong force in this area. Sounds like a few old dragon myths where we destroyed our neighbors. But I guess he was bad. Silverstream had a panic attack when she thought she saw him in the caves, right? Must be a bad memory or something."
Ocellus rubbed her temple and shifted back to normal, her bones cracking and reforming into her Changeling form as she did so. Shouts and low rumbling could be heard above them, and she wanted to be focused on the moment, clear her mind of any stray thoughts and stay as ready as possible. She had trained with Pharynx briefly on how to fight, but they hadn't gotten past the basics of Changeling morphology and generalities of battle when she went back to school. She slowly flexed her blue hoof, imagining hardening her exoskeleton if need be, or turning parts of her to a more jelly like state to deal with blows. The sky seemed to be the limit, but there was a few ground rules on how changes affected-
"'Cel, you okay?"
The changeling smiled and shook her head, letting the thoughts of violence to be easily compartmentalized within her brain. "Fine. Just thinking. About up there."
Smolder winced as a particularly loud noise came from up above. "Yeah, guess my idea for a 'fun vacation' wasn't really in the cards, huh?"
Ocellus sighed. "Well it's definitely going to be a memorable one."
A knock came from outside the door. The two stared at each other, unsure of what exactly to do for a moment until a slightly familiar voice came from the other side. "It's the captain of the ship. I'd say open up."
Ocellus smelled the air, hints of nightshade and snake venom filled her taste buds as she tasted the emotions from behind the door, her sensed dulled from being in one form for too long. It seemed familiar to her, notes of home, the hive, on her tongue. Hints of memories long buried and forgotten, seeing the failed carcasses of her sisters litter the ground, their guts full and dripping with royal jelly. Ocellus blinked and forced bile down as she saw Smolder reach for the door. "Stop!"
Smolder froze, unsure of what to do, mostly because her friend usually spoke in little more than a whisper, and hearing something that shook the blue changeling enough, even for a moment, worried her.
A muffled scream came from the other side of the door. The pair waited in silence, unable to breathe as they stared at the normal door, scuffed and worn with slight age, but otherwise a door. "Knock, knock. I thought we had a good talk. . . Smolder. Thunderbirds and all that."
Smolder nodded. "We did."
"So open the door."
Ocellus shivered as she tasted the tangy bite of mustard on her tongue. Excitement. She breathed out slowly. "Is the battle over. Or whatever caused your pirates some worry? I mean I was told to come down and not open the door."
"I don't remember giving that order. Seems like a crewmember took it in their hands for something I did not allow."
Ocellus shivered as she continued. "Well you did. You mentioned getting me down here to Smolder."
Knocking devolved into banging as a new low growling was heard behind the door. Dog like and feral, angry and focused on getting what it wanted, it mixed sweet honeyed words with strong demands as it spoke. "Let me in. Its over and done with and just please. I mean I can't just be let in without being offered. It wouldn't be right."
"Well then I say no." Ocellus firmly denied whatever was behind the door entry. She looked around the room, seeing small cracks in the wooden boards, quickly covered with resin and sap, then hardened with magic. She breathed out, trying to come up with some kind of idea, some alternate way out. But finding none, she decided to-
"Mistress Chrysalis wants to talk to you, you failed abortion of a Changeling. She felt you on the wind, child. You make a fine addition to the slave pens near Mount Aris. She has been waiting. So long. So very much. Something about a mother's love. And the black dog of the wild hunt will find you, no matter the door, no matter the stupid, simpering dragon I have to dismember to puppet like a little lost lamb of a creature. Her mouth sure opens good." The growling voice laughed.
Ocellus' blood ran cold. "Smolder, get near the door."
The orange dragon shook her head. "You said not to, remember? And I really don't want to do it now. With whatever that is."
Ocellus groaned. "Black dog. Like a diamond dog. Eats souls. I really don't have the time or patience to explain to you Professor Shy's entire lecture on the less enjoyable parts of nature. Especially with that thing behind the door. Sure, it can't get through the door without us agreeing to that, but there's always loopholes. Like the wall or small things like cracks in walls if need be. So get over there quick cause I need space."
Smolder inched closer to the door. "Fine. Fine. But if that thing eats me, I'm haunting you forever."
Ocellus broke a quick smile. "If it ate you, I think the memory would haunt me. Your ghost would be an afterthought." The changeling shivered as she fired up her magic, flipping through each and every thing she could remember seeing, a catalog of creatures all in a row. She quickly took away some of the smaller ones- useful for hiding in normal situations- and quickly ran through the rest, finding none. "Crud."
Smolder twiddled her claws, keeping one eye on the door, that had now gone deathly silent. "What now. Don't tell me you do have a plan cause I'm really not liking it so far."
Ocellus breathed out and nodded. "Yeah. I'm just not going to like it." Ocellus breathed again and felt worried as she opened up the locked section of her mind, the magic that separated her from the rest of the hive. The thing that made her special. Her mother's daughter.
---
Chrysalis stared down at the little pupa that held so much potential in it. The chitinous black gleam of its exoskeleton, its multifaceted blue orbs staring at her, the smell of her- to Changelings she'd smell like the finest flower, full of pheromones and enough power to lead a hive, if need be, or lead the hive when Chrysalis withered away. The new birth almost made her smile, if she could see the thing as anything more than a pure science project, gene splicing as many different strains of genes together, weeding out the weak ones, letting the royal jelly choose exactly which strain of Queen should be next.
Chrysalis' wings buzzed calmly as she thought of a name. A name meant so much to her in that it made those who had names stand out in the hive, a hierarchy of power, from drones, workers, warriors, speakers, and queens. All in their place in a sacrosanct line. She bent down and poked the larva, the female staring blankly at its Queen. She prodded the curved horn and let a bit of her magic touch it, letting sparks swirl in the near darkness of her cave, the green glow illuminating the corpses of the bloated failures of her research. This step was her favorite, if most dangerous, for if the strain wasn't formed correctly, the larva would join her sisters as a bloated mass of flesh, eyes and limbs jutting out in unnatural angles. Or the transformations had too many eyes, or too few; too many heads, too many stomachs deforming the chest cavity.
Chrysalis smiled at the thought of perfection. "Go, Ocellus, my eye of perfection, you can do it. "
A sickening green glow lit up the throne room as the magic started.
---
Ocellus screamed in pain as parts of her self finally saw the light of day, codices of genetic material all stored magically, nicely wrapped in a bow, and packed away in her brain like dangerous mementos, all there. She quickly grabbed the first thing she could, a bandersnatch. She felt her magic work overtime as her body billowed out, her head aching as it was pushed and prodded by her magic, letting each wave of greenish magic wash over her like a shower, shimmering as she stared at the wall. Mother said it was based off of something. Maybe a dream she had. Maybe not.
She didn't think about anything but being out of here, letting the pain focus her. She felt her mouth fill with rows upon rows of teeth, like a shark, letting her neck extend like an accordion, her world now a mass of colors as her eyes shifted, the room shrinking as she expanded, her body snakelike and coiling upon itself, her spotted body like a leopard. She purred softly as her bones popped into place with a horrible crunch. "Smol-"
The wall started to bend and break as a new howling snarl came from the wall. "You little bitch you. You think you can run from the hunt? The hunt of the dark?" The dog giggled, its voice in duplicate as the captain's laugh joined in, a mix between a scream and a yell as the wall bent and partially shattered. "I can scent your kind. I will send all of the hunt."
Smolder scrambled away as a large paw started picking the wall, long red claws clicking slowly against the wood. She slid carefully to the weird thing that 'Cel was, the mix of creatures slightly off, a nose too big here, eyes too small here. Not entirely natural, yet almost familiar. "What now?"
Ocellus grinned, her rows of teeth giving the smile a menacing twist. "We get out of here." Ocellus pointed to her back and let the small dragon to climb upon her back. Smolder felt slightly odd about it, since whatever this creature was, it looked both unnerving, yet the feel of the fur was like stepping on a cloud. Ocellus shifted her weight, her long frabjous tail curling and uncurling as she pounced at the side of the wall, her weight and momentum crushing the wooden beams, and the pair tumbled out of the ship and into the waves.
***
Smolder opened her eyes and regretted doing so as harsh salt water burned them immediately, stinging bits of salt causing her to go blind for a few moments. She looked up at the ship that they had jumped from slowly sinking into the distance, listing on its side as she saw the magitech engines blow, sparks of mana raining down like liquid fire. She dove as parts of the ship hit the roiling waves with a crash, tons of weight causing the water to thrash into a frenzy.
Smolder held her breath and tried to paddle her way to safety since she had no idea how to swim properly in seawater- she had more experience than most dragons since she stayed in Equestria at the school- living with creatures that didn't outright know that lava was buoyant and easy to swim in, she had to learn how to approach water without drowning outright, limbs flailing in sheer terror as her mind tried to come to grips with that.
She had kind of paid attention to Professor Fluttershy on sea creatures, since they seemed rather neat. Sharks and whales and other things that could rival a dragon's size or power- but that was in the classroom, far away from the sea.
She pumped her limbs as much as she could, coughing as water touched her face. She would drown out here since she didn't know which way was land in the fall to earth, her directions were all crossed and jumbled as the water just looked like it extended for miles in each direction, an antithesis to a desert.
Smolder felt a tail curl around her legs and she screamed, water pouring into her mouth as she did.
"Smolder, calm down."
Smolder opened her eyes to see Ocellus carefully twist her free of her seapony tail. "What?"
Ocellus huffed in pain as she let Smolder get on her back. "We get to land. While I think I could hide out here for as long as I needed to, you can barely swim."
Smolder grumbled. "Yeah, well if it was a volcano, I could swim just fine."
Ocellus grinned, her sharp row of seapony teeth glistening in the sun like pearls. "I don't doubt that." Ocellus craned her neck, swiveling her head as she did so to see any rocky outcrops of land. "Let's see, I thought I noticed something over there when we were in the sky." The faux seapony pointed a long regal flipper towards the east. "Hard to tell though, since there wasn't enough time to be sure. Seemed like a big island."
Smolder leaned in close and sighed, smelling the salty breeze on the air and feeling the slightly warm clamminess of Ocellus' new form. "Better than dealing with that." She pointed at the large black ship that was circling above. "Still don't know what they were talking about. I thought the Headmaster beat Chrysalis, what with you guys not looking like black anymore."
Ocellus shivered. "Yeah, guess not." She breathed slowly, trying to get her rampant emotions under control. She had things to think about, thinks to deal with, and pressing things that truly mattered. Like the shivering dragon that was curled up on her back. Ocellus let her fins carry her, the seapony magic that she copied in this state letting her breeze past some of the worst currents through skill and finesse. She tried to cheer up the dragon, even though she felt sick and tired herself from using her magic so often. She had tried to limit it for the last few months due to Thorax's command to fit in by being herself- a queen. A near copy of Chrysalis- genetically modified to be slightly better. In different ways. For a different time. "Well, at least when we get back to school, I think everyone's going to love Story Day. I mean think of all the cool stuff we can mention."
Smolder sighed. "Still we're totally lost and I don't know where we are."
Ocellus rolled her eyes. "Semantics. And think about it. I eat emotions and you eat gems. It's not like we have to starve. If we just treat it like a dangerous vacation, we'll be okay." The changeling didn't mention the dark ship. She didn't have to. Her words range hollow in her head as she saw a coastline appear. A coastline she never saw and didn't know anything about. "Land. Now, let's hide cause I bet if we do it well enough, the ship will leave. Cause I'm not that important."
She didn't believe that for a second. But it made her feel better.
Smolder blinked at the sun that hit her eyes. She rolled over, waiting for a blind or some kind of covering to hide the sun. She grumbled as she felt the morning heat ooze over her scales, her body basking in the summer sun. "Five more minutes." She yawned as she reached a claw near her bed and felt no clock, nothing but sand. She jolted awake and looked around the sandy beach that she was marooned on, all she saw was a pristine white beach and some palm trees in the distance. She breathed out and pinched herself, wondering if she was dreaming since Principal Twilight always talked about checking for illusions and the like.
She winced in pain as she found out that she wasn't dreaming. She was in the middle of nowhere and she couldn't see where Ocellus was.
"'Cel, where are you?" Her cry echoed through the beach bouncing off the trees and coming straight back to the dragon. She sat there and waited to see if Ocellus would jump out and surprise her. She sat and waited as long as she could, her claws digging into the sand in worry.
"Okay, what would Professor Dash do in this situation." She breathed out and tried to remember what her Wilderness 101 class told her. "Fire, check." She chuckled, the thought of ever running out of fire a ludicrous idea. "Shelter, food, water." She could eat rocks if she had to and if she could find a tree or a cave she could survive somewhat. Water was her first concern. Well, besides Ocellus.
She ran a claw through her spines and tramped off towards the middle of the island. She could only hope that a tropical island like this had a spring of water or a river somewhere. And maybe she would be lucky and find Ocellus. "Think happy thoughts, Smolder, maybe that could draw her towards you. . ." She could only hope.
***
Ocellus shot up in fear, unsure of what was going on. The last thing she remembered was falling out of the airship and a crash of water. Warm water, but still a hard fall into the depths. She glanced around and was confused for a moment.
She was in a small hut, a thatched roof of reeds shading her from the tropical sun, covered by a fine blanket. It was an unfamiliar but safe seeming place. She carefully looked around to gather her bearings. Weapons adorned the wall, sharp knives of black stone, unlit torches, rudimentary armor that looked ornate and pretty with long swoops of cloth dyed dark red. She quietly tried to remember what she had to do in this situation and came up with nothing. She was just sitting there admiring the weapons when a creature that she had heard only briefly mentioned. A kirin, with a long swirling horn walked in and glanced at the young changeling.
Quickly bowing, the kirin smiled at Ocellus, and spoke to her quietly. "Looks like the remedy that the Trickster suggested when last she came works on others like her." The kirin flicked her tail and clicked her tongue in thought. "Though she never mentioned that you could change your bodies without illusions."
Ocellus spoke up her voice wavering. "Uh, I'm sorry, but I don't know where I am and who you are talking about."
The kirin blushed in surprise, her face matching the tufts of fur on her body, deep red. "Sorry, outsiders are rare here on Kamani, the last one was washed up during the time of my ancestors. So I was just surprised that another god came to the island. . .my name is Petal Spring and I am one of the kahuna. Particularly a kahuna that uses herbs to heal."
Ocellus stared at her. "A doctor?"
Petal Spring shrugged and shook her head, red mane cascading over her purple coat. "I don't believe so, but outsider terms for things can be difficult to translate." She picked up a bottle of deep pink liquid and turned back to the young changeling. "Here, liquified mana for you. Helps with your healing."
Ocellus opened the bottle and was assailed by the purest smell of love that she had felt in a while, the only time this taste of love was equaled was in the Crystal Empire- and that was the stronghold of love in the eyes of Changelings now. Wherever Cadenza was, love bloomed and blossomed easily. She took a small sip and remembered her hazy thoughts. "Ah, that's wonderful. But, um, I have a slight question. I kind of fell here with a friend of mine. A dragon. Did you see her?"
The purple and red kirin shook her head. "I wasn't the one who found you. A hunting party stumbled upon you when they were gathering food for the tribe, but they told the chief that you were alone."
Ocellus shivered in worry since the last stable memory was of the pair of them being together, and then nothing. "Ah, that's. . .unfortunate." She controlled her emotions of fear and locked them away in her mind since any kind of uncontrolled large emotion could be detrimental to finding Smolder now. She opened her senses of taste and smell to the maximum for a brief moment and was washed in the sheer wonder of the world. She could feel kirin share their emotions freely, fully seeing them as a striped color- balance of light and dark emotion tones, fear and joy, love and hate in equal measure. She would have spent days studying the odd feeling of balance and noted to herself to ask Principal Twilight about how magical forms influenced emotions. Because she remembered for a brief moment, that kirins were dual creatures- a mirror of opposites with the nirik mania balancing out kirin aloofness.
She breathed slowly, centering herself in her mind and sorted each emotion that she could feel by creature and started extending her range ever so slowly. Chrysalis had bred her children and, by extension, her to be emotional hunters. Eking out an existence by taking any emotion that they could. She could differentiate the slightest hint of emotion in a mile easily, but focusing increased her range with the cost of mental strain.
She smelled worry and fear and the smallest hint of love for her a few miles away and she snapped back to reality. She knew that Smolder, while in an unfamiliar land, was still alive and presumably well. Ocellus felt a feeling of joy in her insides at that thought. It was strange but she didn't mind it.
"Ah, you were talking to the gods it seems because I had tried to break your focus and could not." The kirin bowed and opened the curtain. "I would invite you to see the chieftain but I don't want to impose."
Ocellus held out her leg. "Wait, I was just trying to find my friend." She slid slowly out of the bed, letting the thin sheet buch up over her as she stumbled to her feet. "I would like to meet them. I mean as a goodwill ambassador of sorts."
***
Ember smiled as warmly as she could to the dragon that was currently biting her head off about some silly task that she usually delegated to some other dragon. It was Ember's job to lead, not serve random orphans their meals of jewels. She didn't mind doing it, its just that there were more Dragon Lord things to do. Like not have the seven tribes devolve into civil war again. It wasn't hard for them to do that, the agreements were all based on blood ties. And distrust had been ingrained into dragons ever since Discord got bored one day and accidentally caused the fall of the tribes. He said sorry to Ember personally once in the last few months, but no amount of friendship caused her to look at that amalgam of creatures as fully good.
Especially not since his meddling nearly two thousand years ago inadvertently caused her job to be harder.
In particular, juggling the seven tribes of dragons was nigh impossible.
A reddish orange dragon grinned as he walked up to her and bowed, his sharp spines dulled slightly with age. Ember grumbled to herself as she was staring directly at Garble and Smolder's father, Acheron. Leader of the Pride Dragons and a rather conniving snake for Ember.
"Greetings, Lady. Now may I please continue with my speech that was so cut off from yesterday? Or shall I just hit the big picture topics since you seem so preoccupied with whatever gender issue you have." He smiled ever so tightly at that barbed statement.
"You know I am outside of that season, Acheron." She tapped a claw on the obsidian throne that she filled, the size almost dwarfing her due to her father's own size. She had a throne to fill and all the tribes slightly detested her for taking up a spot that should have been their right. "But what was it again? Drought? War? Famine? Death? I thought I gave you distinct mining and gem maintenance rights for the Spine."
Acheron blinked. He had sent in a copy of his speech as a formality since that was the way of things. He never expected the daughter of Dragon Lord Torch to read his proposal- her father hated reading, the letters were too small and dainty for him. "Yes, well, there's been some rather odd smuggling operations on the Spine. Some interlopers from outside. Something about an Empire of the East or something. I rarely pay attention to these things."
Ember's spines perked up. She had heard whispers of the Storm King in her periphery, the satyr king a thorn in many kingdom's sides. "Tell me exactly what these outsiders want of us?"
Acheron bowed. "They say they don't want jewels. Metals are more their thing. Something about platinum and any anti-magical metals that we have. I say we should not take their offer, but its rather generous and word gets around so the other six might be more amenable to the offer of friendship."
Ember growled. "Outsiders like that don't need a response."
Thorax, who was carefully hidden in the crowd, knew that Ember was putting on an act as her title demanded, but the thought of him crossing her- especially when she was mad and focused like her body language and the taste of her emotions radiating off the azure vibria, that made him nervous. And he often had sex with her, notwithstanding. She was kind of terrifying when she got going and that was what some ponies- like Twilight's friend Rainbow- found "hot". He didn't exactly know what temperature had to do with fear and delight, but he wouldn't argue semantics.
***
Ocellus walked through the village of kirin, feeling rather exposed with the tens, possibly a few hundred kirin staring at her. Some looked worried and confused, the small ones looking excited- larvae, or quickly correcting herself, foals tended to be rather excitable in cases such as this. Ocellus felt her wings buzz in nervousness as she walked ever closer to the large, thatched hut that was surrounded by kirin dressed in bits of leather and reeds. The sharp pointed spears glinting somewhat in the sun. Ornate tattoos decorated the stallions, she quickly surmised, from size and from what she could tell between their legs. She blushed since she was rather too curious for her own good, cursing that she had agreed to read Headmare Twilight's detailed notes on biology for extra credit.
Silence reigned as the group of kirin stared daggers into her soul.
Suddenly, the silence broke with a beating of loud drums coming from inside the thatched hut and a lithe figure walked out, dressed in a large birdlike headdress, feathers from a menagerie of birds covered what seemed to be the kirin leader in a rainbow cloak.
The drumming grew louder as the figure began to sing in long, high tones. The changeling found it eerie as she couldn't translate the words as the group of warriors surrounded their leader, spears swirling in rhythm with the loud drums that disorientated Ocellus, their toneless rhythm a heartbeat to the dance. Ocellus didn't want to look as the warriors contorted their bodies and faces into large, unsettling smiles and those that weren't grinning were howling in a mix of mock rage. Ocellus could tell at least this might be a ritual due to the excitement on the air, the taste of sweet courage and practiced steps.
The leader's curved horn lit up and Ocellus could taste the mana on the tip of her tongue as she watched the kirin pull out a pair of obsidian blades, their edge serrated and sharper than glass. The swords floated right in front of Ocellus and she prayed to whatever creature these kirin worshipped as they passed right around her head.
"You pass." A husky female voice came from under the headdress in what amounted to common tongue. "Welcome to Mauna Mele, child of the Trickster. I am the rangatira of this slice of Mother Earth, you may call me Sky Dancer." The chieftain of the tribe carefully bowed and took off her headdress.
Ocellus nodded carefully and started to look up from the small patch of ground that she had trained her eyes on out of a mix of nerves and fear and looked directly into her host's eyes. Her milk white, blind eyes. "Oh. um. I didn't expect you to be. . .uh, blind?"
The old mare laughed. "You could not expect what you did not know." Sky Dancer nodded, her faded grey mane and pale blue scales a sign of her advanced age. "And no, while my age hints that I might know a lot about your mother who passed this way- that was before I was born, back generations ago when the first few rangatiras of this isle of Kamani landed in their small boats, back when the gods walked the earth far more readily than they do now." Sky Dancer smiled and beckoned Ocellus into the hut. "Go on ahead child and give me a moment to talk to a few of my clan. While I am not afraid of you, it doesn't mean all have the same view."
Ocellus carefully nodded and walked into the hut, looking downward as she passed the large, imposing kirin warriors.
Sky Dancer waited until the young changeling's hoofsteps faded away and quickly wove a sound dampening spell upon the entrance of the hut, letting the sound from outside not get close to the new outsider's sensitive ears. She breathed out and turned to Petal Spring and bowed. "This spawn of the Trickster has a different hue in her magic, the touch foreign and odd to the jagged cliffs of darkness that the worst of all possible enemies has."
Petal Spring nodded and shrugged. "Well, its not like I hadn't run some tests of my own. This blue one seems interesting, different and so very quiet compared to Chysalis' poisoned tongue and honeyed barbs. And Sky Dancer? Good job. She may be a young changeling, but it seems like she bought your little "rangatira" fake out. If I didn't know better, I'd almost say you were a chief." The red and purple kirin smiled as she levitated the cloak of feathers over and caressed it gently. The cloak was the sign of the chief of the kirin, a holdover from generations of kirin who had come before, each chief adding a layer of feathers. Petal Spring picked out a crow feather and looked at it, the deep, dark black shimmering in the daylight. The layer of feathers she had added herself when she had become the chief. "Deception doesn't become us, sadly. Kirin are all about loud bravado and not much on plans." She ran a hoof through her mane. "Thank goodness this Ocellus was knocked out when I found her else I'd have had to go with Plan B. And that involved death."
The old kirin bowed and nodded. "Should I continue this ruse? I mean I wasn't born to rule and it feels odd."
Petal Spring laughed and smiled. "I would hope so, else what would you think a Changeling who was expressly lied to would do to our little slice of paradise? She'd call her mother and the mass of writhing mindless things and our wonderful place would lose our color, the emotions of us drained, the artifacts we hold taken and used for nefarious purposes. So I'll play this role of Kahuna and you play yours. . " The kirin stretched and felt a flicker of rage that she had stored in the deepest part of her soul. She could felt her rage bubbling up ever so slowly when she looked at the blue changeling, the only thing that stopped her from becoming a nirik were her breathing exercises and focusing on things outside of herself. Petal Spring glanced at the surrounding warriors and nodded approvingly- each had trained for this moment. "From this moment forward, I allow each of you to use your rage and righteous fury to find any other outsiders and deal with them permanently; and if they say they aren't a changeling. . .don't believe them. They lie."
***
Smolder groaned as she rubbed her bruised face. She thought trying to get her bearings in this jungle island would be easy- just follow water and she'd get somewhere fast. She forgot that there were animals. Angry animals that didn't like seeing a dragon of any shape or size. She grimaced as she felt her shoulder ache from a particularly bad fall. If Ocellus was here, she would have been more focused and less frazzled. But she wasn't, so the Changeling's book smarts of what not to do in wilderness situations were thrown right out.
At least Ocellus hadn't heard her scream when she had grabbed a particularly large vine and realized moments later that it wasn't a vine at all, just a pissed off snake that eyed her as a meal instead.
"This is great. Just great. If the others saw me right now, I bet Gallus would be laughing his beak off. Yona might be at least backhoofedly give some kind of bad compliment. And Sandbar might be crying a corner somewhere about wanting to go home. Silverstream would have befriended the snake with some stupid hippogriff story. . ." Smolder picked up a medium sized stone and tossed it into the jungle in sheer anger at being alone.
It wasn't like she was sad or anything, it just felt odd and wrong to be alone.
"Damn it." She sat and looked up at the starts, slightly visible through the breaks in the canopy. And she realized that she was kind of cold. It wasn't often she was stuck out in nature for so long- especially an environment with no hot lava streams to sit and relax in. Dragons were kind of cold blooded and she had a terrible day.
She noticed a small cave in the underbrush and she rolled her eyes as a smarter part of herself shot images of what could be in the unknown cave system. Cave bears or more snakes. Or actual ponies. Would be odd, but there were hints of fires in the area. The young dragon sighed. Whatever. It wasn't like the jungle was any safer than a cave.
She got up and stretched, her back popping as she did so, and walked cautiously, if a tad bit quickly to the mouth of the cave.
