Meeting the locals

Sam and Ember had been walking for at least a couple of hours. And in those hours, he started to ask himself question after question.

"Where did that portal come from?"

"What happened to Burns and the marines?"

"Will I ever be able to get back?"

Hopefully, he'd be able to get some information about this place from the locals when he reached their destination.

It was weird enough that he'd got sucked into a strange portal, but having a talking dragon asking you nonstop questions wasn't any more normal. He expected to see some strange things on providence, but never did he expect anything like this. Then again, who expects to get sucked in to a portal and sent to a strange world?

He'd been answering Ember's questions to the best of his ability for the entire walk and he had to admit, even though he'd only known her for a few hours, he was quite interested in her. She seemed intelligent, friendly and overall nice to chat with. However, there was still that knawing feeling in the back of his head that he should keep his guard up. He didn't expect her to try anything, but she was an alien that he'd only known for an incredibly short time. But he had decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. At least for now.

Anyway, if anything did turn nasty, he had the means to easily defend himself.

"Sam? Are you alright?"

He snapped himself out of his thoughts and looked towards her. "Oh. Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking about this whole situation." Unknowingly to him, he'd been quiet for quite a bit.

"Understandable that she'd be concerned. I did kinda zone out there for a bit."

He noticed that she was now adorning...a smile on her face?

"What are you happy about?"

She giggled and looked at him. Goddamn, if anything was managing to lift his spirits, it was that giggle. He'd heard it quite a lot in the past few hours.

"Nothing. Just find the whole situation funny. In a strange way. I get a wing cramp, fall and get my wing trapped under a branch and then a random alien comes in and absolutely breaks my assailant. I just didn't expect anything like this to happen."

He chucked to himself. Yeah, she was indeed correct about that.

"That's quite true. But then again, who does expect anything like this to happen?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that's true."

There was a dead silence between the two for quite a short time. He started to wonder if he'd said anything wrong, but he put that thought to rest as they closed on their destination. At least, he presumed it was their destination. In the distance, he could see that the forest cleared and beyond that, there was a small town. He looked at Ember and pointed towards the town with a bemused look.

"That's where we headed?"

She nodded and cocked her head to the side. "Yeah, but what's so funny?"

He chuckled and threw his cigarette on the ground, making sure to step on it to douse the remaining flame. The last thing that he needed was a forest fire.

"Well, it's just that it looks like something that you'd see in a kids show. Colourful and stuff."

Ember didn't know what a "kids show" was, but she chose to just shrug in response and continuing walking. There was more dead silence, until she spoke up.

"So, why did you save me? You never said."

He shrugged and turned to her. "To be honest, I have no idea. I thought at the time that this was all a dream and that doing that might snap me out of it. It was just a way of trying to reassure myself that it was all just a dream, I guess. But, it was a dumb thing to think. Now that I really think about it, I just had this feeling that I should. I'm glad that I did, though. I can see now that it was the right thing to do."

She seemed content with that answer. She smiled.

He smiled in return. "God, why does she have to look so adorable when she does that? Why am I even thinking that a dragon is adorable?"

He was about to say something in return when Ember started running in front of him. He looked in confusion and then saw why she was running. The forest clearing was directly in front of them. He looked around and nodded to himself.

"I can see why she wants to get out of here as fast as possible. Obviously because of the Manticore that attacked her, but this forest is also creepy as fuck. I better hurry too, in case anything else decides to jump out at the last moment."

He started to catch up to her in a few seconds and managed to make it out of the forest. He returned to a walking pace when he realised that he was out of the forest and continued walking beside her. She pointed towards a large castle in the town ahead of them.

"See that castle? That's where I was supposed to attend the meeting. I would have had guards with me, but I refused. I didn't want the ponies to feel threatened."

He looked at her with a confused look. "I'm going to assume that most dragons aren't like you with that statement?"

She nodded. "I'm one of the very few that don't instantly want to gobble up a pony when I see one. There's always been animosity between dragons and the ponies. Mainly because a lot of dragons are brutes who just think about fighting each other and keeping their hoards safe. I admit that I'm not all flowers and roses, I am still a dragon after all. But I personally don't have an issue with ponies as of recent."

Sam pulled out a cigarette and his lighter. He put it in his mouth and lit it, relishing at the great taste. He looked towards her in interest.

"As of recent? Something happen that changed your opinion on them?"

She smelt the fumes from the cigarette and pulled her head back a bit. He chucked. "With her being a dragon, I thought that she'd like smoke or at least be used to it. Then again, this could smell totally different to any smoke that she's been in contact with."

She wafted the smoke away from her face and looked towards the town. "A dragon named Spike who had been raised by ponies since birth and two of his pony friends, one being Princess Twilight, showed me what friendship was like. I never believed in it before. Dragons don't really do friendship. I ditched him at one point during a competition that I talked about earlier, the Gauntlet of Fire. But then I remembered that he'd saved me. If it wasn't for him, I would have drowned due to being bumped into by another dragon. A dragon that...I hold a lot of hate towards. I won't go into it too much but to sum it up for you, he showed me what I'd been missing out on when it came to friendship. After he gave me the scepter, even though he had won, I commanded as the new dragon lord that ponies and dragons would get on in peace from then on out. Of course, some dragons still show a lot of hate towards them, but I've tried to make sure that dragons can have safe travels to their homeland and vice versa."

Sam nodded. "Huh. Sounds quite interesting. I'm going to assume that I'll meet him if I'm going to meet this "princess Twilight"?"

She nodded. "Probably, yeah. He's a good dragon. He's actually smaller than me, believe it or not. But then again, he is a lot younger."

He chuckled. "A dragon smaller than you? I gotta see this."

She stuck her tongue out at him and put a mock insulted look on her face. She looked towards the town and beckoned for him to follow. He stamped out his cigarette and put his lighter away, following behind her.

As soon as they had reached and entered the town, he'd seen a bunch of multicolored, talking ponies. When they had seen him and Ember walking through town, they instantly ran into their houses and closed their windows. He chuckled.

"Yup, that was the response that I was expecting."

She looked towards him and giggled slightly. "Indeed. Anyway, don't worry. It's not too far away now."

He nodded and followed. After a few more minutes of walking, they finally reached their destination. He looked up and blew a whistle sound.

"Phew. That is one tall fucking castle."

The castle shimmered in a bath of glorious light. He took every detail in. From its staircase leading to a big, wooden door with two hearts on it, to a giant crystal star at the very top of the castle.

Ember noticed that he was staring and giggled softly. "Impressed?"

He chuckled in response. "Damn straight I am. This castle looks amazing."

She put her claws on her sides and smiled. "I thought the same when I first saw it. It is quite beautiful."

He looked towards her for a second and smiled. "You know, I appreciate how nice you've been to me, considering everything. If it wasn't for you, I'd have probably still been wondering the forest, having no idea where to go."

She gave him a warm smile in return. "I appreciate you saying that. Even if I've only known you for a few hours, I'm glad that you came along. If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead anyway, so I practically owe you my life."

He smiled and nodded.

"Glad that I could help. Anyway, shouldn't we be knocking and seeing if this princess is home?"

Ember blushed in embarrassment and nodded.

"Yeah, sorry. I was taking in the castle, same as you. No matter how many times I see it, it never gets old." She proceeded to knock and stood back, waiting for the door to be opened.

Sam just stood there beside her, not knowing what to say if the door actually opened. He waited there for felt like ages until he noticed that the door was slowly opening. He looked at Ember and she turned to him, giving him a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry. She's a very understanding pony."

He nodded and put his attention back to the now open door. What walked out was a purple colored pony. He took in its features, noticing that it had a horn and wings. Some of the ponies that he'd seen while he was walking through town either had wings, a horn or none, so it was strange to see one with both. "I'll have to ask about that later."

Twilight looked at him in shock and interest. It turned to Ember and started to speak. "Hello, Ember. May I ask...who...or what is that?"

Ember looked towards him and nodded. He coughed slightly, attempting to clear out his throat.

"Hello. You can call me Sam. As to what I am, I'm a human being. Human for short. As to what I'm doing here, it's a long story. Mind if we come in and explain?"

Twilight looked shocked as he responded. "Oh. Well, at least you can talk. At first, I thought Ember had gotten a new pet."

He felt a bit of annoyance from thinking that he was a pet, but he let it slide and waited for her to continue.

"Well, considering Ember was supposed to be here anyway for a meeting and the fact that you can at least talk, I guess so. Oh, my name is Twilight, by the way. If you didn't know, I'm the..."

Sam put his hand up and continued for her. "Not meaning to be rude here by interrupting you, but Ember has already told me who you are and what you are."

Ember nudged him and gave him a slightly annoyed look. "Sam! Let her finish."

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry about that. Just had a long day is all." He looked toward Ember, who now had a more neutral expression. "We both have."

Ember nodded and looked towards Twilight. "He is right, Twilight. We have indeed had a long day. We will explain what happened when we get inside and then we can start the meeting if you want?"

She looked at Sam again and then back at Ember. She nodded.

"Sure thing, Ember. Just follow me you two."

Sam nodded, following Ember and Twilight into the castle. He sighed and shook his head slightly. "This is going to take forever to explain."