Two pegasi winged in behind Gel and their party. He caught a glimpse of them, recognizing Cloud Chaser and Stormwalker.

"What are they doing?" Ember's voice was loud, loud enough to hear over the wind.

"Watch." Rainbow Dash set her wings just right, losing a little forward momentum. Until the wind hit them.

Ember's eyes were wide as she was shot forward like a missile, the wind from the two ordinary-looking pegasi throwing them forward. "What the…"

"Weather ponies rock!" Dash was screaming her delight, twirling and streaking ahead of the group with ease on the magical wind. It was an easy enthusiasm to catch and the lot of them, tails to the setting sun, jetted away from Ponyville.

Darkness slowly sank around them and it was only a soft glow from both Twilight and Muffins' horns that let the five know where each other were. The gray mare and Gel were having the easiest time of it, both had large, broad wings to catch the wind and keep them moving.

"Ugh, when are we going to reach land? This is BORING." Rainbow Dash wasn't doing so well. Gel could see she was straining. The poor pegasus' wings were made for flapping, not soaring.

"Dash, incoming!" Gel called, dipping a wing and rolling down and into her.

Rainbow Dash saw Gel coming, she was always watching when flying but fatigue slowed her reaction time enough that the goopy changeling smacked right into her and around her. "What are you doing?" Her legs got pulled up and tucked tight to her chest. Gel seemed to gain some size around her and soon was not just all around her, he contained her folded up inside and let her peek through his own eyes. She looked to each side, his huge wings not under her control at all, but she could relax. "Coulda warned me!"

Gel wasn't doing anything naughty, he had just taken the strain from his friend. "Warned you and had you try to prove you weren't tired? Just relax, we are going to need all your speed when we arrive."

"Pushy stallion." Dash's words were more playful than serious but held a measure of fatigue that quickly overwhelmed the mare.

Muffins tilted a wing and floated down to keep wing at the changeling's side. "Thanks, don't know if I could carry her and this load."

It wasn't until the first red line of false-dawn hit the horizon that they had their first chance of seeing land and it was a blighted, blasted land. Rocks drove up out of the sea like angry teeth, in places there were odd crystals and others flows of lava coming down from one of the many active volcanoes.

"That mountain over there, we need to reach father first." Ember called to them and altered her heading to the target. Each of the three flying ponies followed suit and the change roused Rainbow Dash.

"What's going on?" The pegasus came to and looked around, taking quick stock of their position. "Whoa, that's awesome. I bet there are so many updrafts around here!"

"You want out?" Gel lined them up with the dragon. Getting a nod from his companion the changeling simply dropped her out through his belly.

"Woo!" Dash's wings spread and she snapped a tight roll and pulled a loop around the group.

Gel looked to Twilight. Her endurance was mainly thanks to her alicorn-sized wings, but the poor mare still wasn't used to flying for a whole night.

Talking without screaming was impossible and the group winged their way, albeit slower without the wind they rode from Equestria. Ember pointed once more but this time it was down and at a huge cave.

Rainbow Dash, even after all the flying, didn't land with the others. Keeping her wings beating, her eyes took in everything. Scrapes and claw marks in the stone that revealed a talon bigger than her. Drag marks of what had to be an immense tail.

"Dad! I'm home!" Ember kept to an upright stance as she ran into the dark cave. "Dad?"

"Incoming!" Dash screamed and was suddenly not just evading but trying to distract the giant dragon with her hooves.

"Dad!" The cry from the dragoness was no longer inquiring and lonely, a cyan and black streak speeding past the ponies and crashing into the huge wyrm.

"My daughter." The rumble of the great dragon's voice was weary, sounding tired and worn. "What is this upon your wing? Not that your father doesn't like seeing his daughter flying again."

The wing had felt so good Ember had barely remembered that it wasn't even her anymore. "Oh, it… well, it is him." She pointed with a claw to Gel. "He is a strange pony, but… nice."

A smile curled the old dragon's jaw. "Well well, you found the princess, two of them. And what else, a pony type I have not seen before and a pegasus? I am Torch, former Lord."

Twilight stepped forward, lifting a hoof. "I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, your daughter said you needed our help?" One huge digit reached down and bumped her hoof.

"Not I, all dragons. Laws of dragon-kind required I give up ruler-ship and, by those laws, a challenge would be needed to declare the next Lord." Torch settled down.

Ember was concerned, her father looked older than when she had left. "What has happened?" She folded her wings to her side, ruffling them slightly. One squeaked.

"Lord Garble took the challenge and became the new Dragon Lord." Torch looked to his interrupting daughter fondly. "He called in dragons, to bring a tithe to him. He has fed and fed and now, now he talks of raising his army. The call will be going out tonight. Within three days most every dragon in the world will be here, you can't let that happen."

"Father, what happened?" Ember was, apparently, just as stubborn as her father.

Gel looked among his companions, smiling when he realized everypony was relaxed and calm.

"He can call the dragons, he can, eventually, control them. But if he had me at his side they would flock to him. He asked me to fly at his side, I refused." Torch rolled to the side slightly, his huge horns tilting as he did, but it was the dragon's belly that showed the wounds he had sustained. There were two large sets of lines. "It is impossible to fight his strength and his will at once."

The wounds shocked all the ponies, more so Ember. "Oh…" She threw herself at her father's huge neck, hugging him with little effect, but much effort.

"So he is ruthless and brutal and seeks to come to Equestria next?" Twilight had to avert her eyes from the angry red welts, looking at the old dragon in the eyes. She got a nod as the dragon focused his sight on her. "We have a history, in Equestria, of having enemies that don't like to get that personal, but ponies adapt."

Spike got off the train, reaching Canterlot mid-morning. He marched along, the letter floating along beside him. "This was so much easier as a dragon… still, horn magic is so much better than hands." Trotting up to the castle, he saw a changeling and a pegasus guarding the front gate. "Letter for Princess Celestia from Princess Twilight Sparkle!"

The two guards looked spooked. "Uh, sure, we can take it to her…"

"No, I must deliver it myself!" Spike clopped a hoof to the ground, punctuating his words and making both guards jump a little. "I need to see her at her earliest convenience."

"Relax Tia, nothing is going to happen, it will just be another bunch of boring petitioners." Luna had to jump, lacking her wings, to swing her neck and bounce the big inflatable ball back over the net toward her sister.

Celestia countered, turning and bucking the ball back. She noticed more than a few stallions were watching their game, and some mares. "You are right, Lulu. Besides, we left Twisty behind, and Twilight is in Ponyville. I just worry about my ponies." The enchantment Luna had woven reduced their words to giggles for those watching the two monochromatic mares playing on the beach.

"What do you mean they aren't here? What about Luna then?" Spike was in a room with a very anxious-looking Twisty Turn. Her look dropped further when the unicorn mentioned the Princess of the Night. "Uh… so who is covering?"

Twisty lifted a hoof. "They said I could call on Twilight if I needed…"

Spike shook his head. "She will be in the dragon lands by now, hopefully defusing this whole mess. Honestly, are they like this all the time?"

The queen changeling wanted to scream and call her mares back, not only wasn't it right she handle things alone, but she had a whole mess of eggs to lay!

Octavia was practicing her cello. It was a time that Vinyl knew she had to be quiet so, in deference to her sweet mate, she had her cans on. She started with a new beat she had heard in her seed, it was a three-three time beat. Playing it on her synth, she looped it and built it up until she had the thing rocking.

"Chorus…" Vinyl's muttering didn't distract Octavia from her work, she could let her little raver-lover have her moments.

Hooves struck the keyboard, the mixer dials twirling under the white unicorn's control, but nothing seemed to fit the beat right. She pulled her headphones down and, in the split moment between hearing thundering bass in her ears and not, the chord progression Octavia played seemed to just fit. "Tavi!"

The bow of the cello stopped dead and Octavia's eyes narrowed. "This had better be life threatening, Vinny."

"That scale, can you play it again? Please?" Vinyl levitated a microphone close, turning the gain just right and turning her speakers way up.

Octavia heard the deep thrumming of the amplifier. She raised an eyebrow but only saw excitement and the focus that Vinny got when her music was riding through her. A deep breath was taken and Octavia played. She knew there would be a lot of feedback, but part of being a solo cellist was being able to push on. And she did.

"Perfect. Tavi, you are the best." Vinyl had a grin from ear to ear and was pulling her headphones back up, already looking down at her deck.

Which is why the unicorn was even more surprised when a brown hoof reached up and pulled her cans back down. "Now you have me interested. Play it for me… with the bass up."

Vinyl stared at her lover. Octavia sounded hungry for something and the DJ wasn't sure if it was music, food or sex. She decided she could give the mare at least two of them, since she was sitting on the edge of one of the big speakers.

Twirling a knob up to full, Vinyl started the back-beat playing, introducing the loop at just the right time. She could see Octavia have to clamp her forehooves down to hold on to the edge of the speaker.

It was a challenge then.

The cello broke in, sounding nothing like the warm instrument that was the source of the sample and like some kind of screeching, squealing stringed contraption. Vinyl hit it again and again, weaving it around her beat. Racking it up down her keyboard, she wove different parts of the sample through the music. Looking over to her lover, she saw Octavia's eyes were closed, her plot firmly pressed to the corner of the speaker and her snout… her snout was half open, tongue hanging out.

Vinyl worked the music up and up, turning on her mic-pickup and swinging the arm close to Octavia's lips. A bit of pitch-change and the reverberated moan of the earth pony shot through her own body as a hefty bass note thudded through her.

"Oh Celestia! Vinny, more!" Octavia was bucking against the speaker, her mind lost to the orgasm she was riding, even as the music rode her. Each thump, each twitch of the big speaker cone sent shock-waves of bliss into her and she practically melted against the speaker, moaning and whimpering.

Vinyl sampled this too, her grin far too wide. The song had slowed, the beat having dropped and rebounded. There was now a soft sighing in the back of the loop. Her lover's cries worked into the music and at last the unicorn stood up on her back legs, the loop unraveling, the beat slowing to a halt. Panting, Vinyl pumped a hoof in the air. "Got it!"

"You… you got it… now… leave me to practice…" Octavia was panting and trying to reach for the soft towel with a hoof, only to have Vinyl float it over to her. "Thanks Vinny… were we… always like this?"

Vinyl walked around her deck, moving up to her lover she had just played into a song. "No, we used to be much worse." She kissed her lover, again and again until Octavia couldn't find any fight left to want to get back to her practice.

Author's Note

Oh dear, Vinyl broke poor Octavia. She would get strung-up for this crime, if I could find any chord

Support me on Patreon or fuel my writing on Ko-Fi!

Join me on Discord. Warning, said chat may contain NSFW material and should be considered adult in nature.

Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
Canary in the coal mine