Project DracoBreaf

The Princess and I were on a balcony. Never in my life had I been so determined, and yet so nervous. The mission I was about to embark on was perilous, possibly suicidal. The worst part was, I hadn't even graduated flight school yet. Why Princess Celestia decided to pick me to study the dragons, and at such a young age, I will never know.

Princess Celestia, standing right beside me, said "So, here's what you have to do."

Immediately, I put all my attention to what she was about to say. Missing even a singular word would make things even harder than they already were.

The Princess continued. "You are to fly over there," she said, pointing at a volcano in the distance, "and as you do so, make sure no dragons see you. They've been known to be able to identify intruders very easily."

Now, I was decent at flying, I could get from one place to another, I could pick up a bit of speed, and while I probably couldn't U-turn on a whim, I was still capable of doing the basic maneuvers a pegasus needed to learn in order to stand a chance at succeeding in life. But without taking any breaks, I didn't think I would've been able to fly all the way over to that volcano. I was never the best flyer, though, judging from some of the other students in flight school, I probably wasn't the worst either.

Questioning the Princess' actions, I told her "Your Highness, with all due respect, you want me to fly all the way over there?"

Princess Celestia, thankfully unaffected by my comment, reassured me with "You don't have to do it all in one go. You can go ahead and take a break if you get tired."

Adding to her response, I said "Actually, I think taking breaks along the way, say, on the ground, might prevent dragons from seeing me better. Don't they usually take to the skies?"

Princess Celestia continued with "Excellent point, 'Dracobreaf.' Anyways, once you get ther-"

"Please, call me SharpFeather." I said, embarrassed about my alleged new name.

With a giggle, the Princess replied with "Okay, 'Sharpfeather.' So, once you get to the volcano, take notes on how the dragons behave. For now, you'll be doing this for the rest of the day. Be back by sundown, as I don't want any dragons to eat you up."

As she said this, a notebook, surrounded by Princess Celestia's yellow magical aura, began to slowly float towards me. Her horn, too, glowed in a yellow-ish hue. Eventually, I held my hoof out, signalling Princess Celestia to drop the notebook onto it.

"Good luck, SharpFeather." Princess Celestia said as I took off.

As I flew over there, I noticed that it took less work to be able to achieve the kinds of speed I was capable of. As less effort was required in order to fly at my normal speed, which was around 25 miles per hour, I was able to think of other things while I was on my way there.

Just then, I thought What about Mom? I never thought about it until now, but Mom might be a bit worried about me. By the time I reunite with her, she might tell me how worried she was, and how she didn't know where I was.

I then began to miss her. We'd hang out a lot, play board games, and go places. She was a pretty cool Mom. Of course, every time I'd tell her that, she'd always respond with "Well, that's only because you're such a cool son!" Every time she'd say that, I'd smile. Obviously, I was in good hands. Even if she was somehow my adopted mother, which obviously she wasn't, I'd still be glad to have her as a parent.

But now was not the time to think about parents. Now, I had to focus on my mission. So I sped up, going faster than I usually do. So fast, in fact, that in only around 10 minutes, I was almost to the volcano. Slowing down a bit, making sure I didn't crash into anything, I noticed two enormous dragons flying the opposite direction I flew. My reaction was to immediately fly down to the ground, as to not be seen by them. Luckily, they didn't even seem to react to anything I did, and flew onward to wherever they went. I decided to take the rest of the journey to the volcano on foot, galloping as fast as I could as to not get there after sundown.

Once I got there, I flew up to the admittedly low peak of the volcano. As I looked down, I saw what I came here for: A group of dragons, both big, and really big. I'm pretty sure a large dragon claw was about the size of a regular pony, if not much larger. I would not have wanted these dragons to have seen me under any circumstance. There was a floor made almost entirely of rock, with a few lava pools here and there, and in those lava pools, were smaller dragons. Almost as if these dragons were fillies, they didn't look much bigger than Princess Celestia, but still big enough to clobber a pony to death. They were also much more bipedal in nature, like completely different creatures. Taking notes of all this, I became more and more fascinated as I-

"'Ey! Look! A stupid wimpy pony!" One of the smaller dragons said as he pointed at me.

I hid immediately, not wanting to bring and further attention to myself. Crap, I thought, I'm gonna have to hide somewhere else. If they see me again, it'll be the end of-

A group of those same types of dragons, including the one that spotted me, descended towards the ground in front of me. That same dragon walked towards me, exclaiming "So you think you can just barge in on our turf, spyin' on us?!"

"What's your problem??" I asked them, scared for my life.

"Our problem, is that you brain-dead ponies think everything's all "sunshine and rainbows," and that "friendship can solve anything," when that ain't how it's done! You gotta... Wait a sec' here!"

The dragon walked up towards me, inspecting my now dragon-like appearance. "This guy looks like a dragon/pony hybrid of some sort! What the hell's goin' on?"

I replied with "Uh, I can explain..." before all the dragons became furious.

"Alright, that's it! C'mon, guys! Let's roast 'em!"

Bracing for impact, I held up my dragon wings as some kind of shield. I then heard the sound of fire burning, getting louder, and louder, everything becoming brighter and brighter, and the environment becoming hotter and hotter.