As you wake from your slumber, you’re aware of something poking against your side. You reach out to brush whatever it is away, but reel back when you feel it. It’s sharp, and the feeling of it pricking your hand causes your eyes to snap open as well. Your vision takes a moment to clear up, but when it does, you look to your right. “Your tail is poking my side.”

Ember looks up from her book, but makes no move to shift her tail. “Looks like it.”

You roll your eyes, and move to grab it, this time being sure to avoid the tip of the tailfin. With a little nudge, her tail flops to the floor and you fold your arm back over your belly. You force your eyes shut, but it’s useless at this point. The pain her tail had caused to your hand was lingering, and your eyes open back up after a few moments. “That hurt, you know…”

The dragoness just shrugs. “It was your fault, not mine.”

“Well you were the one poking your tail into my side,” you argue, shifting yourself to sit up in your chair. You let out a yawn as you stretch your arms outwards.

“Well you were the one who just grabbed at it without looking first, idiot,” Ember retorts. Well shit, she pretty much had you there. You decide to take this moment to look around the study for Spike, but you don’t see any trace of him. “If you’re looking for Spike,” she guesses correctly, shifting her focus back to her book, “he insisted on sleeping in.”

“Heh, what a shocker.” That didn’t surprise you. Twilight always made the poor guy wake up at ungodly times. You were honestly surprised whenever he didn’t have massive bags under his eyes. “So what brings you here?”

“I am reading, if that wasn’t blatantly obvious,” she replies coldly. You ignore that, and look at the cover of the book. When your eyes finally manage to adjust to reading it sideways, you recite it aloud.

“‘Equine Dating Habits’?” You chuckle. “Why on Earth would you care about that?”

“If you must know,” Ember turns her nose up at you, “our conversation last night piqued my interest.”

You look at the book again. It looks as if she’s already about forty or fifty pages in, which seems to be about a fourth of the book overall. “So I’m guessing you’ve already read about the cheesier aspects of their dating rituals?”

Ember doesn’t directly answer your question, instead asking a question of her own. One that you can’t help but laugh at. “Is it true that the mares eat the flowers they’re offered?”

“Some of them do, but not all of them.” You chuckle at the thought of a girl doing that back home. You’re almost certain that any guy who saw that happen would take off faster than a speeding bullet. “I actually had a question for you, though.”

“Then ask it,” Ember replies, moving her attention back to her book. “Unless you humans are incapable of performing such menial tasks.”

You ignore that little barb, which is probably for the best. “How do dragons court each other?”

“Hm?” The Dragon Lord hums, “What do you mean?”

“You know. Ponies give each other flowers and get married and stuff. What do dragons do?” You ask, clarifying it for her. “I know you guys don’t exactly believe in ‘love’, but you’ve gotta have some way of figuring out who you want to… you know, with.”

Ember gently places the book down on the table, and turns to you with a smirk. You swear you can hear a slightly chuckle escape her lips. “You want to know how we go about mating.”

“Yes, well…” You feel your cheeks heat up a bit, and your cross your arms over your chest as you avoid the dragoness’ gaze. “You don’t have to put it so bluntly, ya know.”

“What would you like to know about?” You hear her ask. “The process of earning another dragon’s affections, or the process of—”

“Okay!” You shout, thankfully cutting her off. You definitely didn’t need to be hearing about how dragons had sex, especially not from the fucking Dragon Lord. “I think just telling me how you guys find out who you like will be fine, thanks.”

Ember opens her mouth to reply, but shuts it just as quickly. Instead of replying right away, she grabs her book and flaps her wings, hovering up and over to the bookshelf and putting it back in its rightful spot. As she flies back, she finally seems to have an answer for you. “We don’t ‘like’ each other. When dragons choose their mate, it’s not out of love, it’s out of necessity,” she says, plopping down gently in her chair.

She stretches her wings a bit before finally retracting them against her sides. She turns her chair a bit so that she’s facing you, and continues. “Once a year, on the week of the Winter Solstice, the dragons enter into a mating ritual.”

“Kind of like when mares go into heat?” You ask for clarification. Ember nods, and you chuckle a bit. “Minus the bitchiness, hopefully.”

She raises an eyebrow at that. “What is ‘bitchiness’?”

Oh. Right. The creatures of this world don’t know about human curse words. “It’s just a word used in my world to describe someone with a foul attitude.”

“Ah,” Ember nods in understanding. You motion for her to go on and lean back a bit more in your chair. “Well, the ritual begins when the male dragons take their places on top of their rocks. They stretch their wings out as far as they can, and then the females go around to look for the best available dragon.”

“... That’s it?” You ask.

“Well… yeah,” she shrugs. “Like I said, it’s not about love or anything. The females just pick the males they think are the most attractive.”

“Man, the women in my world would have a field day if they heard that…” You mutter, just quiet enough so that Ember doesn’t pick up on it. Raising your voice a bit, you reply to her. “Have, uh, you, ever taken part in the ritual?”

Ember turns so red that you could almost mistake her for a female Garble. Oh god. Ew. No. Get that image outta your head, bro.

“N-no! Why would you even assume I have, I’m too young for children! Besides, I told you yesterday that I would never let a dragon touch me like that!”

Oh. Right. She had, hadn’t she? Whoops. “S-sorry, just trying to make conversation,” you reply weakly.

“Well think of a better topic than whether or not I’ve ever had a penis inside of me!” She shouts at you, her face red as a tomato. It’s actually kinda funny, but you’re not laughing. You don’t want to die today.

“O-okay,” you stammer out. “S-so, uh… how’s the weather been?”

Ember stares at you blankly, blinking a few times. Finally, after what seems like hours, she pinches the bridge of her nose. “... You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, an idiot that you’re having fun talking to,” you shoot back. “Otherwise you would have left already.”

“Hmph, I just don’t want to upset Spike by maiming his ‘bro’,” she replies, sarcasm evident in her voice as she turns her nose up at you once again.

“Yeah, sure, keep on—” You’re cut off as the doors to the study open up, the drake in question walking in. He’s rubbing at his eyes, and lets out a yawn as he waves weakly at the two of you. “Morning, Spike. Tired?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he replies, immediately making his way over towards the coffee machine. God, even his voice sounds like it was just awoken from a thousand year slumber. Hopefully some caffeine will fix that. “I couldn’t fall asleep on that stupid rock bed. It kept digging into my spines.”

“At least you didn’t wake up to a tail poking you in the side,” you grumble, earning a little jab in the arm from Ember’s elbow. “Hey, get me some coffee too, would ya?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Spike waves a hand nonchalantly, as if to say ‘no worries’. “So what have you two been up to?”

“Just talking,” you’re quick to reply, cutting off whatever Ember was planning on saying. Not that she seems to mind. Anything to avoid telling Spike just what you were talking about.

“Oh yeah. About what?” He asks a bit too sarcastically.

Fuck.

“Uh…”

You’re doomed. At least, until Ember suddenly decides to save the day. “We were just talking about… food.”

You can’t see Spike’s face as he goes to work making some coffee over by the bookshelves, but you’re fairly certain he just chuckled. “You two are terrible liars.”

… Shit.

“If you don’t want to tell me what you were talking about, just say so.”

Okay, that works. “We don’t really want to tell you what we were talking about,” you say. Ember nods profusely in agreement. Spike shrugs, seemingly okay with that, and after a few moments he comes back and hands you a cup of coffee, placing his own down on the table.

“You know, for a trip to the Dragon Lands, this feels an awful lot like Twilight’s tree library.”

Tree Library? You’ve never heard about that. “What library now?”

“Oh yeah, I guess she never told you. It’s a pretty bad memory, after all. But back before the fight with Tirek, we lived in this tree that had been hollowed out into a house, and a library. Tirek kinda blew it up during their battle, though.”

“... I fail to see the problem,” you reply, earning odd looks from the two dragons. “I mean sure, her house blew up, but now she lives in a castle. A friggin’ CASTLE.”

“I’m sure you’d feel different if it was your home that exploded,” Ember argues. She almost has a point, but…

“Maybe for a bit,” you chuckle, “but I’d be moving into a castle!”

“You keep saying ‘castle’ as if they’re some sort of mystical buildings that you’ll never be able to go into. Don’t you live in one?” Ember asks, eyebrow raised curiously.

“Damn straight I do.”

Spike chuckles at your behavior, turning to Ember. “So what’s the plan for today?”

“I was actually waiting for you to wake up,” Ember replies, her face showing a bit of the excitement she has in her plan. “I was hoping that we could go out, and let you two get to know some of the other dragons.”

Meeting more dragons, huh? Well, Pyre had certainly seemed pretty cool. It would be nice to just hang out and chat with him, if your conversation had been any indication of his personality. You can only hope that most of the other dragons are like him. You smile. “I’m game.”

You look over to Spike, and he offers up his own smile. “Yeah, it could be fun! I just hope we don’t run into Garble….”

“Not like Garble would be able to do much with Ember around,” you say, pointing in her direction with your thumb. “He’d never disobey as Dragon Lord as cool as her.”

You keep your eyes focused on Spike, but you just know that Ember is blushing. “H-heh, thanks. But I’ve still got a lot to learn, and my hope is that Spike can teach me a bit more about being a good friend.”

“Well if he fails, you’ve always got me, “ you wink at her. That makes her giggle, and you feel as though you’ve succeeded in finally saying something she liked. What a fuckin’ miracle. And hey, that laugh was actually kinda—

“Uh, are you okay, bro?” Spike asks, nudging your shoulder and pulling you away from your thoughts. “You’re, like, totally staring at Ember.”

You blush a bit at his words, and turn sharply towards him. “Dude, shut up!”

Ember giggles again, and the two of you turn back to her. Damn, that giggle is cute. “Is this what being friends is like?”

“If you mean always poking fun at each other, then you’re spot on,” you reply, smirking. “Now, what do you say we go meet some dragons?”

Author's Note

Short chapter setting up a much longer chapter where Anon interacts with the many dragons of the Dragon Lands. Stay tuned!