“I wonder when Ember is gonna be back,” you sigh, your feet swinging back and forth off the edge of the bed. It had been nearly an hour since she’d left, or at least, you were pretty sure it had been. Clocks didn’t seem to be a thing in the Dragon Lands, so you had absolutely no idea what time it even was.

“Hopefully soon, I’m starving,” Spike replies, making you raise your eyebrow.

“Dude, we ate like an hour ago.”

“Yeah, I know, but I wanted a second helping.” He blushes.

“Well then why didn’t you just ask?” You say, slapping a hand to your face in disappointment.

“I didn’t wanna be rude. After all, we are her guests.”

“Yeah, well if you ever tell the others that I ate beef, I’ll—”

“Am I interrupting something?”

That voice makes you scream for joy inwardly, and you turn to the doorway with a smile. That smile quickly fades as you take in Ember’s appearance, though. She looks absolutely exhausted, as if she’d gone a few days without sleep. What the hell had happened at her meeting?

“N-no. How did your meeting go, Ember?”

“Well,” she replies. “Though I did not expect it to go on as long as it did.”

“Heh, that’s meetings for you. There’s always something that makes them last longer.”

“Especially if Twilight is your boss,” Spike comments, making you laugh. Ember tilts her head.

“I don’t understand.”

“He means that Twilight is always finding work to do,” you explain. “She’s a huge nerd, basically.”

“Ah, I see. Well, I was thinking that you two could help teach me about friendship now.” The two of you quickly shuffle to your feet. She smiles at that. “You two seem anxious to leave this room.”

“Hell yeah!” You shout, ready to finally go somewhere else. Spike seems to share your sentiments, but you cut him off. “Please tell me the room we’re going to isn’t made entirely out of rocks…”

Ember chuckles at that, and motions for the two of you to follow her. It’s only as you take a good look at the hallway you’re in that you realize just how large this place is. The throne room must have had several more secret passageways in it, because you could see numerous hallways connected to the one you’re in. You follow Ember’s lead and take a left down one of those hallways, and come to a large wooden door. “This room is our secret study,” she explains, pushing the door open.

To your absolute disbelief, the room is made almost entirely out of wood. There are a few wicker chairs in the center around a coffee table, and the walls are completely lined with books, some of which you recognize from Twilight’s library back home. “But I thought dragons didn’t care about being smart?”

“Father might not, but I had this built after I became Dragon Lord.” You watch as she walks to the nearest bookshelf and grabs a rather large novel. The name on the spine seems awfully familiar to you. “This is my favorite book so far.”

“Wait a sec, can I see that?” You hold your hand out, and she gives you the book. “‘Nineteen Neighty-Four’...” You mutter out the name, then look back up to Ember. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

Ember puts her hands on her hips and turns her nose up at you. “Hmph, well if you don’t like it, then just give it back.”

“No, that’s not it at all. I love this book,” you smile, hugging the book close. “Do you mind if I borrow it to read?”

“As long as you stay in here while you do. But you so much as scuff that book, and I’ll claw your eyes out,” she warns you, poking her claws out at you for emphasis. You take the warning, and make your way over to one of the chairs she has set up.

“Hey, do you have any blank scrolls?” You hear Spike ask Ember, and she leads him to the other side of the room. While they’re off presumably writing a letter to Twilight, you open up the book and begin reading. To your astonishment, it’s almost a word for word copy of the one from back home, aside from the humans being changed to ponies. As you begin to read, the world around you is zoned out, and you lose yourself in the dystopian world.

You aren’t sure how long you’ve been reading the book, but the sound of a platter being dropped on the coffee table freaks you out enough to make you throw the book up in the air. You manage to catch it before it falls onto the mugs of coffee she’d brought, and Ember gives you a glare as she sits down next to you, running her index claw up and down the arm of the wicker chair. “It’s a good thing you caught that.”

You chuckle nervously, rubbing the back of your head. “Heh, you’re not really gonna claw my eyes out, are you?”

You feel Spike take a seat to your left, leaving you in between two dragons, and you gulp. “I guess you won’t know until you mess up,” she replies, smirking.

“So why did you decide to have a study built?” You ask, attempting to change the subject. Luckily, she takes the bait, and takes a sip of the coffee she’d prepared before replying. You decide to grab a cup, and take a sip as well. It’s good, and you drink a bit more as she begins speaking.

“I felt that, in order to better understand ponies, I should try to surround myself with their knowledge,” she speaks slowly, looking around the study as she does. You take the opportunity to shove your nose back into the book you’d been reading. “Plus, learning about the history of Equestria has been pretty cool.”

“Heh, you should see how many books Twilight has in her library,” Spike pipes up. “And she used to make me reorganize them every single morning.”

Ember raises an eyebrow at that. “She forced you to reorganize her library for her? Why not do it herself?”

“She helped,” you say, not looking up from your book. “Spike likes to leave that fact out when he talks to girls he likes.”

Spike punches your arm playfully at that, and you snicker as you rub where he’d hit you. Ember, though, is blushing and says, “O-oh, I see.”

‘Crap,’ you think, ‘Now she’s all embarrassed…’

“He’s just messing around,” Spike says, catching on to it as well. Hopefully he knows how to use tact so he doesn’t piss her off. “I like you as a friend, but that’s it.”

Ember clears her throat, doing her best to regain her composure. Her tail slithers up and smacks back down against the floor, and you can tell that she’s having trouble getting out words, so you decide to help her. “So Ember, tell me, what do you like to do for fun?”

She takes a moment, but says, “Hunt.”

“Hunt for…?” Spike asks, leaning forward along with you as you await her answer. She mutters something, but neither of you can discern what it was, so you ask her to speak up.

“Birds, alright?! I hunt birds!” She yells, her face turning red. Your sudden laughter confuses her, and she leans towards you. “And just what are you laughing about? I’ll have you know that birds are a formidable enemy!”

“Humans hunt birds too, Ember,” you reply, and she seems to calm down a bit. “You done freaking out?” You ask, and she nods reluctantly. “Humans eat bird all the time.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, but I’m surprised you guys do, to be honest. Spike, have you ever eaten meat?” You ask, turning to him. He shakes his head.

“No, but most griffons and dragons do. I was raised by Twilight and Princess Celestia, and ponies don’t eat meat.”

“That makes sense,” Ember says. “But actually, most dragons prefer to eat beef. I’m one of the few that likes poultry more. Father says it’s a sign of weakness, but what does he know? I’m the Dragon Lord now,” she smirks.

“I don’t really care what I eat as long as it tastes good and doesn’t kill me,” you chuckle. “Though you might want to keep the fact that you eat meat on the down-low if you’re ever in Equestria.”

“Yeah, probably,” Spike cuts in. “Especially in Ponyville. I swear, those ponies will freak out over the smallest thing. But hey, it wouldn’t be Ponyville without a little chaos now and then.” He was definitely right. All you had to do was think back to the story they’d told you about when bunnies stampeded through the town, and the townsfolk all ran away in terror, to know that overreacting was a common occurrence there. Heck, there had been times where ponies had taken shelter in your home from just a little bit of rain.

“I’m sure I can handle just eating some gems if I ever visit there,” Ember grumbles. “What, do you think I don’t have any restraint?”

“It’s not so much we don’t think you have self-control as you’re a fire-breathing dragon. I don’t think ponies are big on that, are they Spike?” His answer is a snort of laughter, which tells both of you all you need to know. “Exactly.”

“Part of befriending someone is making compromises with them,” Spike adds, and you nod. “If you promise not to act mean, like you have been with him,” he points to you, “then they’ll be more accepting of you.”

“Even of my meat-eating?” She asks.

You sigh. “I’m sure that they’ll be fine with it as long as you don’t do it in front of them,” you say. “When Twilight found out humans were omnivores, she didn’t make too big a deal out of it.”

“I see. What do ponies eat, if not meat or gems?”

“Plants,” you and Spike say at the same time. Her face blanches at that, and the two of you snicker. “They’re not that bad,” you say, but her expression doesn’t seem to change.

“You mean to tell me you eat vegetation? That is absolutely disgusting…”

“Ponies think the same of eating meat,” Spike counters. “‘Sides, it’s not like you have to eat them.”

“What else do friends do?” she asks, quite clearly trying to change the subject. She looks like she’s about to puke, and you feel bad for laughing about it, but not bad enough to stop.

“Friends make fun of their friends,” you say, leaning towards Spike. The drake lifts up a hand and you give him a high-five. “Nah, but friends do poke fun at each other once in a while,” you say, leaning back in your chair and putting your book down on your lap. “Speaking of, what kind of dragon drinks coffee?”

“The kind that likes to feel energized,” she replies, seemingly calmed down. Suddenly, though, she pounds her fist against the arm of her chair. “Gah! Why is learning about friendship so difficult?”

“Well you can’t exactly learn it in five minutes,” Spike deadpans. “You just need to find someone you’re willing to look out for, and that would look out for you.”

“Well then that rules out him,” she says, pointing at you.

“Hey, I’ll have you know that I—”

“I guess that just leaves you,” she says to Spike, cutting you off. You grumble a bit, but decide to just let the two converse. “You were willing to die to help your friends, and to help me.”

“Well, yeah,” he blushes, rubbing the back of his head. “I just thought it was the right thing to do. Besides, you did the same for me.”

“Huh, I guess I did. Does that makes us friends?”

Spike titters. “Of course! The fact that you called me here to teach you about friendship should answer that question,” he says matter-of-factly. “And I do wanna help you.”

“Speaking of that, how’s Starlight?” You ask, turning back to Spike. You hadn’t heard from the unicorn in a while, and you were curious how her redemption was going. Twilight seemed to have high hopes for the former villain, but you had been far less willing to trust her after seeing what she’d done to her village.

“She’s great,” Spike replies, which was good; at least she wasn’t causing trouble anymore. “Twilight thinks she’ll be ready to go off on her own soon.”

You blow a bit of air out of your nose at that one. The very idea of the pony who had altered the timestream just to cheat her way to victory being accepted so readily is laughable. Still, this world seems to be a lot happier than your own, so something that crazy didn’t sound, well, crazy. “If you ask me, I think she still has a lot to learn.”

“Excuse me, but who is Starlight?” Ember asks. You let out a sigh.

“Damn it,” you curse, hating having to explain stuff like this. You decide to condense it, and hope for the best. “Alright, she’s this unicorn that tricked a bunch of ponies into following her every command. She stole their cutie marks, and if it wasn’t for Fluttershy, she would have done the same to our friends.”

“That sounds terrible…” she mutters. “I don’t know much about ponies, but I know that their cutie marks make them who they are.”

“It was. She was a horrible leader, but…” You think back to what Twilight had told you on numerous occasions. “I suppose anybody can change, given the right motivation.”

“Many of my dragon kin believe that I’m not fit to be a leader,” Ember responds. “They believe that a leader has to be tough and fearsome, but I can be those!”

“I dunno, you are pretty cute for a dragon,” you reply.

Her eyes go wide, she blushes, and you know exactly what’s coming. “S-shut up, I am not cute! I’m the Lord of all dragons!” She shouts, banging her scepter against the ground a bunch as she does. The whole display only serves to reinforce the fact that she’s cute, but you decide to just let her have this one.

“Fine, you’re the most fearsome dragon I know,” you say, your voice dripping with sarcasm. You hear her yell at you some more, but you tune her out as you pick your book back up, open it, and lean back in your chair. You begin to read where you’d left off, chuckling at how easy it was to upset her. She definitely isn’t going to learn how to take friendly barbs quickly, that much you’re sure of. After a few seconds, your thoughts are consumed by the book you’re reading.

‘Oh, 1984, I love you...

Author's Note

Someone left a comment claiming this story was foalcon. Disregarding the fact that foal would imply there's a horse, this is definitely not a child pornography story. As far as I'm concerned, Ember is likely somewhere between 18 and 24 in this story. Dragons age differently anyways, and it's really not worth debating.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the interactions in this chapter, along with the reference to one of my favorite stories ever put on this site.