Tales of a Dragon Clan

There, leaning against a palm tree, was a purple and green scaled male dragon. Unlike my hair-like spines, he had roundish spines, from the top of his head down to the tip of his tail. Green and purple sparks appeared all over his body, before falling from him and disappearing. I would be the first to say that it made him look sexy… The diamond studded bowtie only helped. If I wasn’t spooked out of my mind, I might have said he was cute, but, as it was, I moved in front of Dowsy and Minty.

I got really jealous when I noticed his tail weapon. The end of it looked like a radish or turnip. Why couldn't I have had a tail that ended like his? I keep the spikes at the end of my tail filed down to nubs. I would have ground my teeth flat if I could, all just so I could lessen the hate for me, if only by a smidgen.

At least he was quadrupedal, just I was. Well the way I usually am, I should note, as I can be bipedal just as easily as quadrupedal, but I usually don’t, to make myself less imposing, and to make it so that my family wouldn’t have to go to a chiropractor just so they could talk to me face to face. He was a bit larger than I was, however, and, from what I could see, he could not walk on two feet.

He caught me eyeing him, and his eyes locked onto my own. There was a sort of joyful playfulness in them, but also a world weariness as well. He tried to take a step forward, but that only caused all of us to step back a touch. I glanced around, to see if there was an easy way to escape, but could find none. I could try and fly away, but carrying two ponies would slow me down too much, and, from the look of this dragon’s muscles, I don’t think I would win a fight, either...

“Relax, my little ponies, I don’t eat meat.” The dragon spoke to my brother and Minty, who were shaking behind me. He sighed, seemingly saddened that his initial words did not allay our fears. “I will not harm you this day, Es the üaitēt juls šo tiethu. Please, I merely want to talk.”

Normally, I would have doubted that, but somehow, I knew that he had said something irrevocable. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just knew. He would not harm my brother or Minty. My concern, however, was tomorrow, as he said he would not harm them this day, but that left him to harm them any other day… and if all he wanted to do was talk, then why didn’t he make himself known earlier, and not in a shocking manner…

“Okay, I believe you, but couldn’t you have picked a better way than scaring us like that!?” I relaxed just a bit. I looked over my sholder to see that Dowsy and Minty had also relaxed a bit as well.

“Yeah…” The dragon rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “I think maybe I could have made myself known another way…” No, fucking duh. I crossed my arms. “I... that is we couldn't come up with anything better… even with the advance warning… Your timing was both great and… uh… well… ‘bad.’ ”

Wait, we? Advance warning? Warning bells went off in my head. I didn’t get much time to deal with that, as I was suddenly pulled into a bone-crushing hug by the dragon.

“Ruby… I...You don’t know how long I have waited...” The dragon started to bawl. I could hear gasps of shock, followed by barely contained giggles.

I had no idea who this guy was, but here he was, hugging me and bawling like a baby. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what was more uncomfortable, him hugging me or him crying over me… Two strange encounters in two weeks… Why did I, all of a sudden, have to attract the crazy ones? Murderous, I could get but crazy? No.

“This is all great, but who the hell are you?” I said when I was finally able to extract myself from the dragon.

“I didn’t tell you who I am? Wow… I really need to get out more… Maybe I should have taken Thirdclaw up on his offer… or maybe I should have gotten more sleep...”

It was then that I noticed that he did have bags under his eyes, and they were a bit bloodshot, though I guess that the last one could have been from the crying. However, my patience was wearing a bit thin at the moment. “And your name?”

“Oh, right…” The drake shook himself, obviously in an attempt to wake himself up. (And maybe stop being more creepy than that pegasus from Castle Town…) “My Name is DragonWyrm Heart, and I am the Firstclaw of the DragonWyrm Clan.”

Well that's original, a dragon named ‘dragon.’ I rolled my eyes. I was about to comment on it, when my stomach growled.

“Hungry aren’t we?” DragonWyrm Heart smirked at me, which only made my embarrassment increase. If I wasn’t mistaken, I could hear Dowsy snickering behind me. “Well, come inside. I made some daffodil sandwiches and barley soup. I also have apple cider to drink, and a fresh apple pie for dessert.”

Okay, that is not helping his creepiness... My stomach (and my brother’s, and his marefriend’s, as well) overruled my trepidation by growling louder, this time. Resigning myself to fate, I shrugged a ‘why not?’. It was at this point that I noticed that a certain weight on my neck was missing.

I had tied the compass to my neck, to make sure I didn’t accidentally lose it, and now it was missing. I started to looked around, figuring maybe it got dislodged when Mc-Huggins-a-lot hugged me, but I could not see it anywhere.

“I was beginning to wonder when it would move on…” DragonWyrm Heart noted as I frantically looked around to see if had fallen off the chain, somehow, when we got to the oasis, mumbling about it as I did.

It took me a moment, but it soon dawned on me what he was talking about, he was talking about the compass. Forgetting my unease around the dragon, I angrily stomped right up to him. “YOU… YOU STOLE IT!”

“I would never do such a dishonorable thing as steal from you, much less THAT Compass!” DragonWyrm Heart snapped right back at me.

“Ruby, chill.” Dowsy put a hoof on my shoulder, probably to try and calm me, which didn’t. “DragonWyrm Heart is right. The compass is gone, but not because he stole it…”

“And how the fuck do you know!?” I now turned towards my brother, roughly knocking his hoof off of me. How am I going to find my answers, if the compass that is supposed to help me find them is gone?!

“I took a class of mythical and legendary artifacts, and one of them was the rumored, but never proven ‘The Finding Compass.’ When I examined it back in Castle Town, I had my suspicions, but nothing more...”

“Actually, it was a Compass of Harmony, one of twelve…” DragonWyrm Heart interjected, shaking his head. “Discord, who enchanted them, couldn't help himself and get one last prank in… the Compasses are only ‘found’ by those who are not only worthy, but are needed to find something or someone of great importance to fate, and then leave...yours was in possession of History Seeker for nearly eighty years. If I recall correctly...”

So that was his name… At least now I had a name for that crazy pegasus. Maybe. I am guessing that DragonWyrm Heart, weirdest name ever, was referring to him… The pegasus, History Seeker, did say that he was an explorer in his youth, and it would make sense that he may have met this dragon during one of his explorations.

I looked over at my brother with a murderous expression which I nearly wrecked when I saw that he saw my annoyance. I’m going to have to talk to my brother about leaving out important details again. I should have known something was up, when he was so quick to say that we should go wherever the compass led us...

DragonWyrm Heart clapped his paws together to get our attention. “Why don’t we get out of this heat, eat, and rest, and then I’ll try and answer the questions that I’m sure you have.”

You live for now… brother. I noted as I followed DragonWyrm Heart, as he led us into the shack.

Whoa… My mouth dropped when we stepped inside. I knew Dowsy had said it was bigger on the inside than on the outside, but damn. I wasn’t expecting the size to be on the level of a rich pony (not to mention the decor…). At least the ceiling wasn’t high as the Crystal Tree Castle. All three sides had doors and hallways that led to what I could only assume were a buttload of rooms. To the right side was a large spiral staircase that went up to at least a second floor.

“I would suggest you not wander around the mansion; it was not exactly built with sense in mind…” DragonWyrm Heart waved for us to follow him down one of the corridors.

ബഐബഐബഐ DragonWyrm Heart ബഐബഐബഐ

Even though I had used Draconic to state that I wouldn’t harm them, Ruby was still a bit leery about being poisoned when I dished out the food for them. Even more so when I put something ‘special’ into her soup, just for her. When she finally got the courage to take a very small sip, her eyes rolled, and her tongue flopped out of her mouth in a comical fashion. No offence to her mother’s cooking, but I make the best dragonfied pony food. Clearly, she had never thought of using crushed gems as spices before.

All three travelers tried, between scarfing down the food, to ask some questions, but, every time, I would only interject with some variation of “eat, rest, and then questions.” As it was, I was trying not to drown by falling asleep into my soup. After the filling lunch, I showed them to where they could shower and nap for a while. I then curled up in front of the warm fire in the den that could be used to send and receive mail, though I made sure to turn that feature off. There was no need to startle them with a letter, or for them to read a letter they weren’t supposed to.

The next thing I knew, I was awoken by the familiar feeling of someone sending a letter. I was hoping to sleep a bit longer. I opened my mouth and let out a small puff of fire that morphed into a scroll. I grudgingly opened it, to see what it was.

It was a letter from Twilight, checking to see if they had arrived yet or not. I facepalmed. I had forgotten to send her a letter to let her know when they arrived, so she could let History Seeker know via the special communication array in Hourglass that allows live communication between Hourglass and the throne room in the Friendship Castle. Love that array… So handy to keep in contact with my friend… who was dieing… I despise being effectively immortal sometimes...

I flipped the scroll over and quickly wrote back to her. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Magic Dowser was waking up. I rolled up my response and blew a small flame over it, which, like always, turned into magic ash and floating out the chimney.

“Whoa… How did you do that?” Magic Dowser had the same look in his eyes that Twi has when she discovers something new. I just hope that Magic Dowser isn’t as bad. “Usually, I can see spells’ structures when they’re being cast, but I can't seem to read yours at all.”

“Dragon Magic is extremely powerful, and thus, resistant to pony magic. As for the ‘spell’, it was just me using a special flame. Twilight can tell you the specifics of how it works, as she’s the one that made this fireplace work in much the same way as my letter-sending flame.”

“How what works...” Ruby mumbled as she stirred awake. Oops, we must have been talking too loudly.

“How I use a type of my flame to send letters.” I explained. I could see that Ruby seemed thoughtful at what I said.

“Umm…” Ruby rubbed her shoulder. I know that guilty look. Yeah sleeping on something can really bring perspective to a situation, and my guess is, it’s over her earlier leeriness; though, to be fair, I could have introduced myself better. Stupid Twi’s bad habits making me not get any sleep! “Look … you’re not what I expected… I… that is...”

“What were you expecting? A fire-breathing, flesh-eating monster from your worst nightmares?” I joked.

I noticed that Ruby’s and Magic Dowser’s gazes shifted at the mention of monster and nightmare. This piqued my interest. History Seeker had noted that Ruby seemed to be troubled about what it meant to be a dragon in a land of ponies. Which was not surprising, as I had had a similar existential crisis, but nightmares, and monster? I am aware of the less than stellar views Castle Town had for her, but I didn’t know it was that bad… Maybe I should have kept a closer eye on Ruby... I had, for a bit after the accident, but, after a while, things went back to basically normal, from what I was told… Guess that was not true.

It didn’t help that her mother, Elegant Prose, had thrown out History Seeker over telling her about dragons, our history and culture. And without him, it was harder to keep watch over her, and to check for less visible problems...

While I didn't agree with her throwing out History Seeker like she did, when Elegant Prose wanted to raise her as a pony, to the most part, it was okay with me, as I was raised basically the same way. As long as she didn’t neglect or abuse her, I felt that it would be inappropriate for us to remove her over what amounted to a disagreement on the best way to raise her.

“Ooookay…. Clearly I’m missing something.”

“Ruby has been suffering for years from nightmares stemming from when…” Magic Dowser began, as Ruby seemed to either be unwilling or unable to speak for the moment.

“When on her third birthday, she grew into the whelp she is now in mere seconds from the small hatchling she was. You hugged her a bit too hard, and her inability to control her fire caused her to accidentally burp a massive amount of fire, burning you?” I ‘guessed’. I would not be surprised that it would cause nightmares, but not for this long… unless something happened recently...

“How the hell do you know?” Ruby snapped at me angrily. “Have you been spying on us?”

“Technically, but indirectly, yes.” I shrugged as I half admitted to the charge. “A dragon in pony lands is kind of a big thing.”

I could see that the answer I gave was only going to placate her for a while. I just wasn’t quite ready to tell the truth, as it would lead to… No, don’t think on it. Magic Dowser, however, seemed to find my answer acceptable; either that, or he was better at hiding his true feelings on the matter.

“Ruby, you should probably tell him about the dream.” Magic Dowser nudged Ruby.

“What!?” Ruby looked at her brother incredulously. “Why should I? Especially after him admitting to spying on us.”

“And how was that any different from those scientists?” Magic Dowser countered.

“More like veterinarian quacks, if you ask me...” Ruby mumbled angrily to herself, crossing her arms. She grunted in annoyance under the pleading eyes of Magic Dowser, which finally broke her down. “Fine!”

“It all starts with…”

So her wyrm half is coming out… I thought as I listened to the dream, and, more specifically, the return of the dream with the addition of the voice. I think Ruby might benefit from spending some time with Dragon FireWyrm. But there is one problem with doing that right now… “I have my suspicions on the voice and dream, but I am not an expert on Inner Fire matters… However, I can at least say this much: you need to hunt and use your flame.”

“See!” Magic Dowser exclaimed, giving Ruby a ‘I told you so’ smirk. I know that smirk all too well…

“Do you hunt and use your flame?” Ruby countered.

I sighed.This is going to be tougher than I thought… Maybe I should have told Dragon FireWyrm to come home sooner, instead of allowing him to return with the Migration. “I use my flame often. I, however, have never ‘hunted’, though I have watched others do it.”

“If you don’t do it, then why should I have to? Well, fuck this! I can’t believe we went this far to get the same FUCKING ‘ANSWER!’” Ruby roared angrily, getting up and stomping out of the den.

“Now I know how Twi felt…” I groaned as rubbed my head.

“Ruby will be fine, I hope.” Magic Dowser explained reluctantly. I could see that he was worried, so was I. “She just needs to cool off for a while… I do have a question. How did you know we were coming?”

“That’s easy; History Seeker sent word.”