We stand together

Fáfnir flew a lot faster on the way back to Canterlot than he did on the way to Bloodstone. The ponies weren’t quite sure why, but he seemed to be extremely determined to do something. They ended up going so fast, that they went into sonic rainboom, causing Rainbowdash to be a little annoyed.

‘I thought I was the only one who could do that...’ she muttered.

Fáfnir smirked. ‘yth tir coi shio wer tairais, moxt ir’ he replied, smugly. She caught on as to what he was saying by the tone of his voice.

‘Showoff...’

‘Hypocrite’ he snorted with laughter, then carried on flying with a steely look on his face. Dasher moved slightly closer to Rainbow.

‘Hey, even though dragons can do it, there’s still only one pony for me.’ She blushed slightly, but then looked right at him

‘What?’

‘Oh? Did I say that? Uh...’ He moved back a bit.

‘Don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing to be honest’ she looked down and blushed some more. Dasher looked around at Bowdler, made sure Rainbowdash couldn’t see and then grinned wildly. He chuckled and nodded back at him. He moved closer back up and stopped just beside her. She looked back up and smiled at him, then shuffled the extra distance and sat down, almost touching him. They looked at each other for a second.

‘GUYS!’ yelled Pinkie Pie, ‘Get a room! For Celestia’s sake!’

The moment broke instantly and the two ponies moved apart, realising what they were doing. Dasher coughed and looked back ahead of Fáfnir.

‘We’re nearly out of the forest by the looks of things!’ he shouted over the slipstream.

‘kwi, nafl? si siofmea wer skjalli jahen filki tsydanir ihk thric dril!’ replied Fáfnir, sarcastically. He laughed loudly and began to descend upon Canterlot mountain.

When they reached the entrance and the ponies disembarked from Fáfnir, they noticed that he had started to become noticeably smaller. His shape changed and he began to look like a stone pony. Eventually that was exactly what he’d become.

‘svabol? tira wux ti vucot yth re arcaniss kiri?’ he said when they stared at him, ‘si rigluin ekess soyol crodr ekess renthisj mrith wer wanotreyxkaiv’

‘Look I’ve no idea what you’re saying, could you please try to speak Equestrian?’ asked Bluewing, as politely as he could.

‘thric! Kara wux!’ He snorted and led the way into the castle, stumbling on his smaller form. ‘nomeno geou clax creol itrewicir used ekess...’

The halls were a lot more empty than usual, the guards must have been posted further down into the outskirts of the castle or in Ponyville. The throne room, however was guarded by double the amount of military ponies as usual.

‘Password!’ shouted a green and brown striped one.

‘There’s a password?’ asked Dasher, ‘Since when?’

‘Since this morning’s forum!’

‘We weren’t here this morning. We were on a quest!’

‘You still need to know the password!’

‘We don’t know the password!’

‘Well how we know you’re not a spy?’

‘Because I am Lieutenant Dasher of the Equestrian army head of defence, over there is Captain Bluewing and right here is Fáfnir of the stone dragons!’

‘That’s not a dragon!’

‘axun si mi wux hofiba!’

‘How can a pony speak Draconic? Only the Princess can do that!’

‘BECAUSE HE’S A DRAGON!’

‘But he’s a pony!’

‘Let us in you oaf!’ he stormed forwards but the guard stuck out his pike.

‘You cannot pass without the password! Celestia’s orders!’

‘Oh ho, I am going to have so much fun with you... you will wish you were never in the throne room that day!’

‘Dasher! There’s no need to get violent!’ Bowdler said as he began to pull out his knife on the guard.

‘THIS FOOL IS IN THE WAY!’

Another green and brown striped guard came up behind the original and poked him with her pike. ‘Stormie, I think this guy’s legit. He looks a lot like the Lieutenant.’

‘Who’s to say it’s not Nightmare Moon in disguise?’

‘Me’ came a voice from behind them. The door had opened without them noticing and Princess Celestia had stepped out.

‘Princess! You’re not supposed to leave the room! What about assassins?’

‘I do as I please thank you very much Storm Shield!’

‘Wait, Storm Shield? I thought I recognised you, you insufferable oaf!’ Dasher punched the first guard in the shoulder, ‘You were the only reason I left the Cirrus Guard for the job as head of defence and now you’re here! What has the world come to? Princess, you do realise you’ve put the least effective guard in the whole of Equestria in charge of looking after the most important part of your palace!’

Storm Shield looked at the ground, feeling ashamed.

‘Storm shield may not be effective, but he is tough and trustworthy. He is up to the job in my eyes.’

Dasher sighed. ‘Let’s just get to the point, we have the intelligence we’ve gathered from the mission,’ he began to walk into the throne room, ‘We’ve got to-’

‘What’s the password then?’ asked the Princess, a smile starting to form on her lips.

‘Wait, what? We don’t know! We were on the mission!’

‘Well you’re not allowed in are you?’

‘GAH!’ Dasher kicked the wall as hard as he could. The other seven ponies and Fáfnir began to laugh at his fruitless efforts to stay calm. He sat down and exhaled heavily.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Bananas?’

‘You may enter, Lieutenant’ The Princess said, chuckling.

Dasher’s face began to go red. ‘That. Is the single worst password I have ever heard.’

‘If you don’t like it, you can come up with a new one’

He snorted distastefully ‘Fine’ he walked into the throne room but Celestia stuck out her hoof again.

‘No, no. You’ve got to come up with a new password now.’

Raging, dasher threw his knife at the floor. ‘JUST LET US IN CELESTIA DAMN IT!’

‘Alright then, that’s the password. clang, let us in Celestia damn it. Quite a good one, to be truthful’

A small tic began to form in Dasher’s eye.

‘You know what? I’m not arguing this any further. Bluewing can give you the mission report.’ He stormed into the room and sat down. Celestia turned to the other ponies and shrugged.

‘What’s got into him?’ she asked, innocently. They laughed and walked into the room, the doors swinging shut behind them.

~

‘So then’ she said, calming down totally, ‘What’s the mission report?’

Bluewing stepped up with Bowdler. ‘The Black Dragons and the Cultists of Nightmare were both present at Bloodstone. They appear to have technology far superior to our own and a type of guard beast called a ‘warp fiend’ that we did not encounter. At first looks it seemed that it was just the doing of the two rogue forces, but that was not the case. Bek’kiliip was inside the stronghold behind the falls, having had something called ‘duty code X-973’ enacted on him’ Bluewing explained.

At the mention of duty code X-973 Celestia’s face darkened.

‘I know of this code, do not explain it’

They nodded in unison and Bowdler continued from where Bluewing had left off.

‘We, uh... Carried out Bek’kiliip’s wishes and tried to leave with the intelligence we had gathered, including the facts that Nightmare Moon did in fact escape from the aliens at the old castle, but we were ambushed by Dark Spectre. He himself was being subject to duty code A-46, but did his best to help us escape. Apparently an important passcode to somewhere is 42-1337-69-15. That is all we know.’

The Princess nodded, then looked at Fáfnir.

‘I assume you have found something of importance, seeing as you’ve taken the effort to transmogrify yourself’

‘lae vi selgtarn di ywrats, si tepoha’ he replied, grimly, ‘svadrav yth zulf bloodstone, yth annisha persvek vi goawy familiar ekess ve. ihk coi jahus wer goawy batobot si jahus vehafora, de wer tilabil ternesj di wer verthicha di marfedelom. si bihainwor ekess visit coi, ihk wer sake di memories, vur si noticed batobot creolnali jahus xuut.’

‘Well I know what you noticed was wrong. That it was there in the first place. The mountain of death was destroyed in the first coming of Nightmare. No stone dragons have been birthed since’ she replied, sounding stern.

‘batobot ui wer montu wanotreyxkaiv. coi jahus mobi, vur wer creation reskafar jahus larger. si l'gra malrunwa welun tepohaic coanwor birthing jacioniv kurjh ternesj darastrixi ihk vin reab ekess demak mrith wer aliens’

‘I don’t think she’s allied with the aliens. But I don’t want to see this turn into a three way war’

Bluewing looked at her with a puzzled look. ‘Princess?’

‘Fáfnir here has come up with some brilliant information here. It appears that the Mountain of Death, the place where stone dragons are birthed, has re-emerged from the warp. He fears that Nightmare Moon is birthing dragons for use in her own army.’

‘That makes sense, since she was using Bek’kiliip’s black dragons, but we freed them. She can’t win a war with just tanks.’

‘That is a good point. However, if she truly can bring things as large as the Mountain of Death back from the warp, then Stone Dragons are not the worst thing that could be coming back to this world. For the warp is also linked to the moonprison and...’ she paused for a second, looking worried, ‘the afterlife’

Dasher snorted. ‘How could the warp be connected to the afterlife? There isn’t one!’

‘Don’t be so quick to judge what you don’t know about, Dasher. The afterlife is definitely a real place’

‘She’s right Dasher. There is an afterlife, I saw it, remember?’ Bluewing added, remembering a time long ago. Dasher looked like he could remember and sat down again, worrying.

‘An army of warp beasts and enemies from the past is definitely something to fear. But we shall worry about that another time. You all look shattered. Especially you three.’ She looked at Dasher, Bowdler and Bluewing, ‘You’ve been questing non-stop for a few days now. You’ve got to get some rest.’

‘With all due respect Princess,’ said Dasher, ‘I’d prefer to spend my time doing something constructive than resting. I’m fit as a whistle, just tell me what to do.’

‘Alright then. As your Princess, I order you to mow the royal lawns.’

Dasher collapsed to the floor. ‘On second thoughts, I do need some rest actually’ He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. The Princess smiled.

‘I knew that’d work. He can ‘sleep’ here, the rest of you had better get going home before it gets dark’

‘Thank you Princess’ said Bowdler, ‘I will be here in the morning for our next mission’

The ponies walked out of the throne room.