Dragon Lord Ember groaned as she pulled herself up from her wonderfully comfortable stone bed. She never understood those dragons who opted to decorate their perfectly-good slabs of stone with those annoying fluffy mattresses. It just seemed absolutely unnecessary to her. Hard rocks built power. They built character. They occasionally built cramps, but cramps were pain, and pain built power, so really it all just worked out the same way.
The Dragon Lord stretched her arms, legs, and wings as she rolled out of bed. She briefly regretted the fact that no other dragon was around to see the awesome roll she'd just done. Every degree of rotation she'd gone through exuded energy and confidence, and she'd even managed to land in that cool down-on-one-knee-with-one-fist-on-the-ground pose that all the heroes in the comics she'd borrowed from Spike landed in after a flight or a big leap. She made sure to only briefly regret it, though. To regret was to show that she felt something about something, and there was simply no time for that. Not when there were dragons to order around, a land to rule over, and other generally cool things to do.
The first sound that met Ember's ears as she started to stroll out of her chambers was the cacophonous sound of shouts and roars. She was totally used to that by this point. Dragons had an overwhelming tendency to fight each other over pretty much anything that could possibly come up, and the only thing they did more than fight was shout and roar. Especially since fighting almost always included shouting and roaring. So adding up the shouting and roaring that came from the fights to the shouting and roaring that happened without the fights...well, simple math dictated that one would happen more than the other. Not that Ember liked to do math. There wasn't enough shouting and roaring in math to pique her interest. She felt annoyed by math, and then felt annoyed that she had just expressed her feelings, even if they were only to herself. She didn't feel anything about the fact that she felt something about feeling something, because to do so just felt like overdoing it.
Ember followed the sounds of shouting and roaring so she could find out what was going on. There were three distinct possibilities here. First and most likely, the shouting and roaring could have been borne out of a fight, and seeing as fights were awesome, she didn't want to miss out on it if that were the case. Second--both in order of possibility and order on the mental list she was currently making for herself--was the possibility that some dragons were shouting and roaring because they just wanted to at the time. This was almost as exciting to Ember as the fight scenario, because that opened up the possibility of joining them in their shouting and roaring. Ember hadn't had a good shout in a while, and although she had roared just before going to bed, there was never a bad time for a good roar.
The third possibility was that something was amiss in the Dragon Lands. This was the least likely one of all. Dragons could handle most threats that came their way. Dragons were strong. Dragons were powerful. Dragons were mighty, vigorous, dominant, forcible, almighty, puissant...
Ember kicked the thesaurus that Twilight had lent her as she stomped out towards the exit to her chambers to see if there was really a threat to her land, as unlikely as it might have been.
There were many things that Ember expected to see upon looking over her lands. Rocks, lava, and ash were by far the most prevalent and likely. Dragons were pretty high up there too. Rocks, lava, and ash still outnumbered dragons, but dragons tended to be bigger and more noticeable. Although there were some pretty big rocks. What Ember certainly did not expect to see, however, was the exact thing she saw before her eyes. She still saw rocks, lava, ash, and dragons too, but she ignored all of them in favor of the outliers.
There, growing out of her land, in defiance of the very nature of the Dragon Lands and the very desire of Ember, was a field of daisies.
"What the heck are those doing there?" Ember shouted. Part of her felt like she should have been happy with how loud and authoritative that shout was, but she didn't have time to feel things, nor did she want the time to do so. All of her attention was focused on the petaled invaders. She'd had a good thing going here with nearly everything in the area bearing a fine ashy color, and these beasts were assaulting her vision with horrible, blinding color. The very nerve of it caused her to let out a roar of disgust.
"Dragon Lord Ember!"
Ember quickly whirled around, assuming the same action pose that she'd gotten out of rock bed with. Much to her chagrin, the dragon that was calling out to her wasn't just trying to get her attention so he could praise her for her excellent roar--although it was very possible that he was thinking about it. He would probably get to praising her right after he was saved from the onslaught of tulips growing over him.
"Cinder!" Ember shouted back. "What do you think you're doing letting those horrible things grow all over you? Stop that this instant!"
"I'm trying!" Cinder shouted. Ember watched as the terrifyingly huge Cinder rolled around on the ground, trying to crush his adorable assaulters. Every effort he made, however, seemed to be fruitless, as the beautiful beasts simply sprung back up and encroached further along his monstrous frame.
"Burn them!" Ember shouted. Burning things solved so many problems.
"I tried that too!" Cinder shouted. He reared back, letting loose with a jet of flame over himself. The flowers burned briefly, but then left Ember stupefied as each flame winked out, leaving the plants unscathed.
"Jump into the lava!" Ember shouted. "No way some stupid boring flowers can survive in lava!"
One of Cinder's tulip-covered talons pointed shakily towards the nearest pool of lava, and Ember's jaw dropped as she stared at it. Sprouting from the lava itself, despite how impossible it should have been, was a veritable meadow of forget-me-nots.
"Impossible!" Ember shouted, clenching her talons angrily. "Where are the air troops? Get them down here to take care of this colorful mess! Flare, Wildfire, Pyre, get down here!" Despite all the chaos going on, Ember paused to smirk. Dragon names were so cool and unique. Not like those weird pony names. How was one supposed to discern the difference between a sparkle and a glimmer anyway?
Ember's smirk was quickly wiped off of her face as the three air guards she'd called down zoomed past her field of vision. Each one of them was coated from crest to talon in terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad flowers. The three dragons crashed to the ground, rolling to a stop against one of the taller rocky peaks. A rocky peak which also happened to be sprinkled with a large amount of chrysanthemums.
"Unbelievable!" Ember shouted as she ran towards her fallen troops. "Get up! Get up and get rid of these things!"
"Don't come any closer, Dragon Lord Ember!" Pyre shouted, backing away from Ember's approach. "We're already turning! We can't risk losing you too!"
"Turning?" Ember shouted. "What do you mean, turning?"
Pyre pointed a talon at Flare and Wildfire. At first glance, nothing really seemed to be wrong with them, other than the fact that they were covered in horrible flowers.
"What am I looking at?" Ember shouted.
And then everything came to light. Flare and Wildfire, two of Ember's strongest and most dependable soldiers, weren't looking quite as strong and dependable as she was used to. In fact, upon further inspection, Wildfire was...smiling. Wildfire never smiled. In fact, dragons in general never smiled. They might have smirked or grinned here and there, but smirking and grinning were cool. Smiles were just too...pansy. As were the pansies that were growing on Wildfire.
"Wildfire!" Ember shouted. "Wipe that smile off your face this instant!"
"But..." Wildfire mused, formerly-fierce eyes dulled into a hazy trance. "I'm so...pretty..."
Ember roared. This roar, however, wasn't only out of anger. This one, as much as she hated-slash-refused to admit it, was almost equally out of fear.
"What's gotten into you?!" Ember shouted. "Flare, Pyre, knock some sense into Wildfire!"
"My name isn't Wildfire anymore..." Wildfire said dreamily. "Call me...Wildflower."
"Nooooooooooo!" Ember shouted.
"Yeeeeeeees!" came the droning voices of Flare and Pyre alongside Wildflower's. "It's so nice to look so pretty, isn't it? Flowers are lovely..."
Ember took off into the skies. She was the Dragon Lord, and abandoning her people felt utterly wrong, but she justified it in her head by vowing to return to them once she found a cure for the terrible fate that had befallen them. As fate would have it, however, her return was far quicker than she could have expected, as she suddenly crashed into a large green stem.
"Augh!" Ember shouted as she collided with the stem. Her stunned body spiraled towards the ground, and what she saw there made her scales crawl. The strong, tough-looking Dragon Lands that she ruled over were no longer the color of rock and ash. Instead, flowers of all varieties had begun to sprung up over every square inch of them. Flowers with large, colorful blossoms, blossoms which turned to face Ember as she plummeted. Like a wave along the newly-formed meadows, each flower turned up to stare at her. Each one of them bore a large, smiling face; some of them faces she didn't recognize, and some of them, terrifyingly enough, the faces of her subjects.
"Come join us in the flower bed!" the flowers said in a creepy unison. "It's much better than a rock bed!"
"N-never!" Ember shouted, trying to fight back the fear that was starting to encroach upon her usually-tough voice. A flap of her wings saved her from the grisly and adorable fate that awaited her, and she soon found herself clinging to something. She tried to ignore the fact that she was trembling. Dragons didn't get scared; they were just too tough and strong for that. So her shaking had to be something else.
It was just then that Ember realized what she was clinging onto. It was the stem she'd just crashed into moments ago, and that stem was now shaking as well. Her cool eyes traced up the stem to its giant orange and blue petals. The thing towered over her like some sort of tower, and despite its pretty appearance--or, more likely, because of its pretty appearance--Ember found herself frozen with what she wished she didn't have to call fear. There was no denying it at this point, though. However little she wanted to feel fear, she was feeling it right now. The almighty Dragon Lord trembled as the flower began to bend its bloom towards her, and the sight of what lie in the middle of the petals was far more terrifying than anything she could have imagined. There, in the center of the bloom, was the face of her father.
"Ember..." the flower-fied Torch cooed down to her. "My darling daughter...always fighting and being so tough..why don't you take a moment to stop and smell the roses?"
Ember's mouth went dry as she tore her gaze away from her father's face. Her scales were starting to feel itchy and tingly, and as she turned her attention to one of her arms, she noticed a single rose sprout from between her scales. A second rose quickly joined its brethren, followed by more and more.
Ember could do nothing but tremble in fear as the flowers overtook her as well. Red, red roses, standing out from the blue of her scales, taunted her as they grew, each one giggling softly as it prettified her. As the rest grew, the first one turned its bloom to her and whispered sweetly into her ear.
"How lovely you look, Princess Ember..."
~~~~~~~~~~
Ember awoke with a bloodcurdling, ear-piercing shout. Her talons quickly ran themselves all over her body, trying to tear away the despicable roses that had been growing from her scales. Her heart raced a mile a minute as she pawed all over herself, but soon began to slow as she realized there wasn't a single flower to be found. It had all been a nightmare. A terrible, terrible nightmare.
"I can't believe I just had a nightmare about flowers..." Ember shouted.
"Oh yeah, those are the worst," Rainbow Dash agreed.
