“Wire brush,” I set aside the tool to my left, sliding it back into a leather roll up case that I'd been given for Weiss’s care. “Claw pick,” Interesting little thing actually, it looked just like a nail. “Scale pick.” How was this a specialized tool? It was just a flat, circular piece of metal with a hook on either side of it.

“Don’t forget about the toothbrush.” Weiss replied from her seated position opposite me, bending down to pick up another wire brush and set it in my hand lovingly.

“Of course not. Gotta get the gemstone dust out of your teeth somehow.” I remarked in all boredom. This was the eleventh time that Weiss had asked me to reorganize my care tools so that she was confident that I knew what each piece was for. “Dragons really eat gemstones?” I asked, still in disbelief about this piece of information.

“Yes, yes we do.” Eben replied from the next cell over, having established that it was his and his sisters place of residence. “Occasionally, if we ever get the chance, we’ll eat meat as well.”

“Oh good, something in common then.” I replied, packing up the tools and rolling the kit up to set it on an old dusty cabinet.

“Humans eat meat? But your teeth don’t look anywhere near capable of ripping flesh!” Weiss explained, jumping up to climb my body to examine my dental work via hooking her tail around the back of my neck.

“No, no they don’t. We don’t eat raw meat, we have to cook it first. The canine teeth-” I paused to press my finger to the teeth in particular to show Weiss. “-are what do the ripping. The front are for biting and the molars in the back are for grinding.”

“So much more complicated than our teeth.” Eben announced from the next room over.

“Yes I know, but your teeth are built for breaking the crystalline structure of gems so it’s no wonder that you can easily rend flesh from bone.” I replied, unhooking the white dragon from my body to set her down.

Turning back to my partially completed chair project, the new tools I'd received were more than helpful at completing the project so far, I strapped my leather tool belt back around my waist again; chisels of all shapes and sizes beating against a tape measure, speed square, a proper wooden mallet and likewise various equipment.

Sitting on the cabinet next to the care tools sat all my sandpaper in various grits and forms: paperback, sponge, block, etc. 80 Grit, 120 grit, 220 grit, 500 grit for lack of a wood finish.

“So is this going to be sold?” Weiss inquired, climbing up onto the chair with a bit of difficulty.

“Probably not. This chair is specifically made for human asses so I'll probably keep it down here with me.” I replied, taking out an parting chisel to work on some scroll-work in the backrest. It just wasn’t agreeing with me. Then an idea struck.

“Weiss or Eben, whoever can answer me, I know that Dragon Breath will teleport things to another dragon or Celestia so I’m sure that you can blow just straight up pure fire, correct?” I asked, crouching down to examine my work.

“Well duh,” Eben replied in all boredom. I didn’t even know what he was doing over there and frankly, I didn’t care. “Wouldn’t be much of a dragon if we couldn’t burn things down, now would we? Why does that matter?”

“Because” -I turned to Weiss before me.- “I need a dragon to heat this chisel up so I can safely burn the wood without setting it on fire.” I explained, holding up the single pointed chisel in my hand.

“I’ll do it!” Weiss declared dutifully. Pulling in a breath, Weiss let out a lick of flame over the metal of my chisel; letting it heat up before it reached a glowing point.

“That should work.” I announced, pressing the hot chisel to the scroll-work and dragging it along, darkening the wood to a pleasant deep brown. “That works quite well actually, thank you Weiss.” I replied, shifting the chisel to my off hand so I could brush Weiss’s head scales, receiving a giggle from the small dragon.

“Gah! I’m so bored down here! When are we going to go top-side and pick out a storefront?” Eben demanded, appearing from around the corner.

“Actually that’s a good idea. I wanna go out and stretch my legs for the first time in weeks.” I replied, setting my hot chisel down on a scrap piece of wood to cool. Pulling the rest of my tools off once more -even though I'd just put them back on again- I set them down in a pile next to the work cabinet and stood up, bringing Weiss with me when she very childishly requested “Up!”

Squirrelling her way around my body, Weiss tethered herself onto my back with her foot claws digging into the back of my shirt. I’d have to get a leather jacket built so that her claws wouldn’t tear my measly clothing to ribbons yet.

Eben had none of it as he lead me from the dungeon, pulling open the large wooden door and stepping through before I could pull the door shut again. Following him up the stairs, and there were a lot of them, we exited the dungeon for the first time since my arrival in incarceration and entered into the Castle courtyard; the gardens of which were meticulously groomed and the grass manicured. It was also quite dark out.

“Well, I suppose there’ll be no need for worry of scaring the residents of the city with my presence and two dragons.” I noted under my breath as I felt Weiss’s tail snake around my torso to keep her from falling over as she left go to look around. “Honestly, it’s probably for the better.” I added as Eben continued to lead me towards the Castle gates and into town itself.

“No kidding; anypony sees you walking around, they’d scream and run for the guard.” the black dragon replied with a scowl as his claws tapped on the street cobblestone underfoot. Weiss sucked in air before letting out a belch away from my head, a scroll materializing in the smoke and flame before landing in my open hand.

“A letter from the Princesses,” Weiss explained as I broke the Royal Seal and unrolled the sheet of paper.

“Indeed. A list of storefront property that we should consider looking at.” I replied, reading over the contents.

“I suggest looking for the smallest square feet.” Eben remarked, climbing up my left side to look at the paper. “If we’re going to be selling custom-order furniture then there’s no real need for room to display pieces.”

“Just what I was thinking.” I announced, taking a note of the address for the smallest looking listing and ignoring Eben's claws sinking into my flesh. “Can you navigate to this one?” I asked, pointing out the particular text.

“Mmmm, yeah I think so. This way.” Eben remarked, unlatching from my flesh to run off down the street on two legs. Following after the dragon, I tilted my head towards the white one.

“Why do you and your brother run on two feet? Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to run on all four?”

“Sometimes we do,” Weiss replied, watching her brother go. “But when we do we run significantly faster; you probably couldn’t keep up with us.” I nodded understanding as Eben rounded a corner a ways off.

Taking the same corner, I searched the lamp lit streets for the little black reptile enveloped in shadows. This was going to be racist, but I couldn’t see him.

“Oi, over here!” Eben called, his blue eyes glowing in the darkness. A quick jaunt over and I stood side by side to Eben, peering at the smallest little storefront I'd seen. It was more or less just a cigar tube stuck between two larger buildings, all boarded up with a “Foreclosure” sign hanging on the door.

“Shall we take a look-see?” I asked, stepping up and taking a firm hold of the first board. Pulling hard, the nails let go and the board came flying off as Eben set to work with Weiss who’d climbed off me beneath me.

Setting the lumber aside, we soon had access to the glass doors and gave them a push; a small silver bell tinkling upon our arrival. Stepping inside and closing the door with another alert from the bell, Eben held up a piece of scrap wood from outside and breathed a bit of blue fire on it, lighting it to function as a torch.

“Huh, what did they sell here?” Weiss asked as she viewed the old wares not yet cleared out.

“Sofas apparently.” Eben replied, hopping up onto one such seat and bouncing on the cushion a couple times.

“And quills.” I added, looking into a display case of various quills on the walls. “Strange combination; no wonder they were foreclosed.”

“I’m thinking cabinets over here,” Eben was currently sizing up the room for potential products already as I continued to survey the rest of the store, working my way back. “Desks over there, tables and kitchen chairs over here.” Eben decided, already pleased with the location. “I like it!” he shouted up at me as I broke through the curtains to the back. Tiny little space; no more than a corridor with a desk and some empty shelves with interspersed filing cabinets. Good enough for a baby dragon shopkeeper.

“I agree, I like it.” I replied, stepping back through the curtains into the lobby. Weiss ran up to me and latched onto my torso, glowing in the torch and faint moonlights as she scurried onto my back for the ride home. “I’ll just let Princess Celestia know to acquire this location for us.” I added, pulling out the scroll again and with use from one of the quills nearby, left a circle in thin blood -what else was I going to use for ink? This was a Sofa and Quill shop, not a Sofa and Quill and Ink shop- around this address.

“Weiss, if you please?” I requested, rolling up the document and holding up to the dragon now on my back. Weiss took a breath and gave a breath of green; effectively hitting send on an otherwise static message. “Thank you.”

“So now what?” Eben asked, leaning against a green sofa with both his arms and legs crossed.

“Oh! Can we go get some gems to eat? I’m starving!” Weiss requested, lolling backwards though her tail under my arm kept her feet planted in my shoulder blades.

“And where exactly are we going to go at this time of night with no money?” I demanded, already aiming for the door with Eben on my heels.

“So we go out of town to a gem mine, I've done it plenty of times!” Eben shrugged back rather casually. “There’s one that was closed down in the early years of Canterlot’s founding when the Princesses moved here from Everfree. I don’t think anypony even knows about it anymore.”

“Then lead on.” I motioned, turning the bell upright so the clacker remained still against the bell wall as we exited.

~~~

“It’s just this way.” Eben whispered, leading me by the hand down an alleyway towards the mountain face. Soon we came to another boarded up entrance, save for a tiny hole near the bottom that I estimated fit a black-scaled baby dragon-sized creature. Kneeling down on the dirt, Weiss and Eben disappeared into the hole as I worked to pull the remainder of the broken board off to crawl in on my stomach.

Once inside, my vision was assaulted with pure darkness, however the blue and golden eyes of Weiss and Eben were rather alarming as they were the only pairs of eyes that glowed.

“I don’t suppose you’d build me a torch again, would you?” I requested as I remained in place. I wasn’t going to risk falling down some mining shaft to my second death.

“What? Afraid of the dark? Don’t have natural night vision?” Eben asked skeptically. Weiss seemed to scowl at her brother as she fought to look around in the darkness for something.

“No, I'm not afraid of the dark. I lived in the Castle Dungeon for a month remember? My night vision just isn’t very good in places with absolutely no light, like in here.” I explained, remaining still and seated.

“Here,” Weiss’s soft whisper alerted me to her presence right next to my ear. “Try this.” She took my hand and placed something into it before closing my fingers around it. “Place it over your eye but don’t cover the stone with your hand. I’m going to breath on it.” She instructed.

“This isn’t going to scar me for life is it?” I asked in half sarcasm, half humor.

“Ahh,” Weiss replied, worrying me. “Nah, it’ll be fine.” I could hear Eben snicker from somewhere in the darkness.

With a deep breath I did as instructed and held the whatever-it-was stone up to my right eye in two fingers.

“Keep your eye open or this won’t work.” Weiss instructed from before me. I obeyed and shut my left but opened my right; my eyelash flicking against the stone.

The intake of air told me that the breath was coming soon before a narrow burst of golden fire leapt from her muzzle, illuminating her concentrating face in blue given that I was apparently holding a sapphire or something similar up to my eye.

The flames washed over my head and fingers but turned the gem into dust in the process; the magically infused particulate entering into my eye and almost immediately washing my vision blue. Resisting the urge to blink until the very end, I rubbed at my eye socket before opening both eyes and noticing I could clearly see everything around me in the right, even if it was all blue.

“Oh, magical night vision. Cool.” I noted, looking around at the cave walls. Nearby Eben stood, scratching at the dirt to extract a purple looking stone before tossing it into a nearby pile.

“I have given you a Dragon’s eye. It will illuminate even the darkest of environments and show you where a gem lies under the surface.” Weiss explained, hopping down from my lap to scurry off and begin digging as well.

Dragon’s eye? Does that mean that my right eye is glowing like theirs? I wondered as I stood up and began wandering the tunnel, keeping to the middle of the minecart tracks.

“Question, does Dragon Breath have different magical properties depending on what it’s used on?” I asked as I looked around at all the gemstones in the wall. “Ooh, diamond. Nice!” I whispered as I picked up a pony sized pick axe and began mining myself.

“Why do you ask?” Eben’s voice echoed back, continuing down the darkness.

“I’m just curious if it’s possible to augment myself with other gems.” I replied, reaching into the hole to pick out the surprisingly perfect cut diamond. Royal cut, interesting.

“I dunno, we’ve never tried it before!” Weiss replied, her voice closer to me than her brothers. Looking over my shoulder I found Weiss chomping down on a fire ruby, licking the dust off her lips.

“So you’ve done this ‘Dragon’s Eye’ thing before?” I asked, moving on with my new diamond in my pocket.

“Yeah, our previous caretakers wanted to study the effects of Dragon’s Breath on different gemstones.” Eben replied, hauling a bag of gems back to his stash. Weiss seemed plenty content at digging through rock and stone as I continued deeper into the mine with the pickax on my shoulder.

“And what happened to them? I heard that you lost them somehow.” I inquired in a normal tone of voice, letting the echoes carry my words to their ears.

“We, uhm, burned them to death. Turns out if you use Dragon’s Breath on a Fire Ruby, you get a rather spectacular inferno.” Weiss sorrowfully looked on at me as though she were to cry.

“Well damn, I’m sorry for your loss.” I wished as sombrely as I could. “I’ve lost many too.” I added in an attempt to sound empathetic.

“Ehh, it’s not like they were our real parents. Ponies don’t lay dragon eggs you know?” Eben shrugged, moving on down the hall.

“But still, a loss like that can mess up anyone’s mind.” I replied, mentally turning back the clock to when the police officer told me about my own misfortunes.

“Is that why you don’t hold value in life anymore? You’ve got nobody to live for?” Weiss asked in all concern for me, climbing up my chest to give me a hug. “You can live for us now!” she suggested in an attempt to console me.

“I appreciate that, Weiss, I really do.” I replied, returning the hug to the reptilian with one hand. “Come on, you think you’re brother’s had enough to eat yet?” I kept my voice just loud enough to echo in the darkness.

“Not likely!” Eben’s voice echoed back from much deeper into the mine.

“I know I haven’t.” Weiss replied with a smirk as she climbed down, her head spike brushing against my body in the process. The two of us continued down the corridor occasionally stopping to dig out some treat or another for Weiss, or a particularly interesting stone for myself.

~~~

“So what’re you going to do with your stash? I thought humans can’t eat gemstones?” Weiss asked as she helped me pop the aged sack out from under the boards; my Dragon Eye having detected sufficient light sources and “deactivated.”

“No, but I can use these to upgrade my tools. The diamonds I can use to tip the chisels better, hone down their edges into a finer point; should give me a better finished product. The rest I can crush into powder and turn into a stain for a nicer finish.” I replied, standing up with my brown sack of gems over my shoulder. Eben let out a burp as he picked at his teeth, having ate his fill; as did Weiss.

“Will that work?” Weiss asked as she climbed up onto my back again, helping me to carry the bag and reduce the weight.

“I honestly have no idea. If anything I’ll use them for treats for you two if you’re good.” I shrugged, receiving happy gasps from both dragons.

The return trip to the Castle was uneventful and soon we were back in our dungeon, organizing the loot bag.

“Diamonds Rubies Jades and Jet! Nothing tastes better than gems I bet!” Weiss sang from her seated position on the work cabinet as she helped me organize and recut the diamonds with her thumb claw. Beside me sat Eben, keeping the chisel’s metal warm and pliable as I worked to set the newly cut diamond blades in their new homes before sealing everything up with a removed white scale; courteous of our friendly neighborhood Weiss.

Setting the new tools aside to cool, the three of us worked through the chisels until finally I could work at honing the diamond edges into proper chisel blades with help from Eben’s belly; provided of course I fed him an emerald every time I picked up a new tool.

“So that’s it then?” Weiss asked, sucking the diamond dust off her thumb claw as she watched me scrape away the extra metal with her scale.

“Yep, just gotta hone them and that should be it.” I replied as I began dragging the diamond edge over Eben’s belly scales.

“So what exactly is that going to do for your projects?” Weiss asked as she picked up one of the skew chisels to run the edge of her claw over the finished edge.

“A sharper tool is a safer tool.” I replied, picking up a parting chisel and giving it a fling at the wall. “Since they’re diamond bladed they’ll never run dull and I won’t have to worry about sharpening them.” I explained as the chisel stuck out of the stone surface. Weiss whistled as she ran over to pull the tool from the wall, leaving a gap in the stone almost an inch deep.

“I have a question.” Eben finally spoke up over sucking on his next emerald. “If our claws are tough enough to shape diamond, wouldn’t it be better to use one of our claws as a chisel?”

“Yes, but since I'm not about to go pulling a claw off for my benefit, I fail to see the relevance of your question.” I replied, taking the parting chisel from Weiss to set it back down on the cabinet to continue honing my current blade.

“Not what I meant.” Eben announced, sitting up as I was about to draw the blade over his stomach again. “I mean, if I’m going to be on the surface and Weiss is going to be down here, why not get her helping to finish products faster using her claws?”

“Oh! Yeah! I wanna help!” Weiss shrieked, jumping up and down on the cabinet. Good thing it looked solidly built or she’d have broke a joint and crashed down.

“I tell you what. When I start a new project and have to do all the rough cutting, I'll be more than happy to have you help me out until I'm confident you can do precision work.” I replied, placing the final blade with its compatriots. Pulling out another leather roll, I began packing each chisel away before tying them up and dropping them into my tool pouch.

“What’s next? What’s next!” Weiss demanded, still hopping around.

“Next is bedtime.” I decided with a yawn and a stretch. Eben kept the yawn going as he too stretched out where he sat before picking himself up, already aimed for bed.

“Aww, but I'm not even tired yet!” Weiss whined, looking adorably disappointed. “I can go all-” And down she goes. Flopping off the cabinet and into my arms, I carried the white baby dragon into her shared room with her brother, setting her down in a bed specially for baby dragons -apparently.-

Exiting the room and blowing out the torch keeping everything lit, my Dragon Eye illuminated the space around me in a lighter blue with assistance from the moonlight coming in from above.

Author's Note

Okay, so I've got the creative juices flowing right now. This is what, two chapters in a semi-completed state in one day? With the first chapter hopefully edited to a point that would allow me to submit this story anyways.