Smolder snorted, streams of smoke slipping out of her mouth and nostrils. The wide brush’s handle felt dry and scratchy against her palm as she brushed another coat of red on the wagon she was supposed to paint for her punishment. Honest work for dishonest conduct, Professor Applejack had said.
It was one test. One test. She was schooling Gallus at poker the previous night, and she forgot to study, and Ocellus was her friend anyway and she would never get tested on honesty by herself in the real world.
What was the big deal if, during that one, single test, for a single question, she had a little peek at Ocellus’s answer?
Who even saw her do it? The rest of the class had their snouts in their papers and were scribbling away, and Professor Applejack had left the room.
Somecreature had to have seen her though, because the day afterwards, Applejack called her in and gave her detention.
Such a bummer.
The parts she hated the most were that she a) deserved it, and b) still didn’t know who it was that turned her into the authorities. But that might have been for the best. If she could get her claws on the filthy snitch that caused her to miss out on cupcakes at Sugarcube Corner with her friends, she’d end up doing something that would be worthy of expulsion.
“You about done there, sugarcube?”
Smolder stopped painting and turned around, finding Applejack standing by the entrance to the barn. The afternoon sun glowed a dark orange behind her, heightening the colors of her coat and filling Smolder with the reserved acceptance that her friends were probably heading back to their dorms, and there would be no gem-crusted, sugary treats for her to eat today.
“Eh,” she shrugged. “I’ve never painted a wagon before, so I don’t really know.”
The pony smiled. “Well, the wagon’s red, ain’t it? I think I’m ready to let you go, now.”
“Professor Applejack,” Smolder chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
And she really sort of was. She wasn’t going to cheat on a test again. That wasn’t who she wanted to be. She wasn’t ever going to make cheating a regular thing. Whoever snitched on her should have asked her first, so she could explain. And promptly light them on fire.
“It’s okay, sugarcube,” Applejack said with a nod. “I understand how hard school can seem sometimes. Just don’t do it again, you hear?”
“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Smolder said, performing the motions to a Pinkie Pie swear.
“Alright, now get outta here. You got a friend waiting for ya.”
Curiosity piqued, Smolder flew out of the barn, feeling a flutter of delight as she saw that a cyan changeling was outside, sitting against the wall with a bright pink, crystal dusted cupcake in her hoof.
“Ocellus?”
“Hi,” the changeling replied, the corners of her mouth turning up. “The others went back home, but I figured you might appreciate something for your hard work today. I know it’s not much, but—“
“Thank you,” Smolder hushed. “Thanks for coming for me.”
“Of course!”
Smolder took the cupcake and swallowed it whole, paper and all. It took all of her restraint to resist the urge to moan and shudder at its impeccable flavor. The sweetness of a pony-made pastry danced harmoniously with the complex, tart, fresh minerality that the crystal shards offered. It was something that only Sugarcube Corner could make, and something that wouldn’t exist without her or Spike’s presence in Equestria. This cupcake represented Smolder’s entire being, if she thought about it.
Really, though, the most important thing about it was that it tasted delicious.
And now it was time to to return the favor. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Ocellus, squeezing her tight, marvelling at the sheer warmth that a changeling could give off at such close range. Ocellus squeezed her back just as hard.
Smolder nuzzled Ocellus’s neck, closing her eyes and visualizing her emotions as being stored someplace in her body—this time she found them in the centre of her chest—and imagining that she was a jug of water, and she was pouring her emotions over Ocellus’s head.
Eventually Ocellus softly sighed—a sign that she had taken all the affection that she had cared to receive from another creature—and Smolder pulled away.
“Don’t—“
“Tell anyone you were so happy to feed me?”
“Eeeeexactly,” she punctuated the last syllable with a playful boop to the changeling’s snoot.
Something weird happened.
Ocellus was glowing. Smolder tilted her head and, noticing the area around them had turned brighter, looked down to see that she was glowing too.
A year ago, Smolder wouldn’t have any idea why that was, but now, almost halfway into her second year at the School of Friendship, she knew that it could only mean one thing.
“A friendship mission!” Twilight Sparkle wheezed, half in joy and half in an anxious bundle of nerves. “My students are going on a friendship mission! Their very first!”
Smolder and Ocellus met each other’s side eye, nodding slightly as they let the headmare continue flying about, chattering to herself as she summoned books from the library, canteens of water, and a gorgeous canvas sack filled to the brim with bits that Smolder just couldn’t wait to get her claws on.
“I wonder why the map chose you two?” the alicorn wondered to herself, keenly looking at the glowing table where two icons of wings—one a translucent salmon pink and the other a webbed orange—floated around an isolated town in the outer lands of Equestria.
“Because we’re the best!” Smolder declared proudly, nudging Ocellus with a cocky smirk. The changeling gave her a bashful smile in exchange, cheeks flushed with nervous energy.
“It could be possible that the map takes into account how adaptable the creature is to the environment it sends them to,” continued Twilight, talking more to herself than to either of the students. “Somnambula is a desert, after all. Neither of you should have too much trouble with the extreme dry heat like Yona or Silverstream might.”
Twilight grew quiet for a few seconds, looking over the pile of things she had summoned for the students, crossing items off of a mental checklist in her head and double checking it immediately after, before finally she nodded her head and turned to Smolder and Ocellus with a radiant smile.
“I’m very proud of you both, by the way,” she said. “And it looks like everything’s here, so it’s best you get going now. In each of your packs I’ve put a book filled with tips for friendship missions and interacting with the ponies of Somnambula. And be ready to write a report!”
Smolder groaned.
They left immediately—Smolder’s idea. If they caught a good wind, they could get to Somnambula in a matter of hours.
Besides, she had gotten enough worrying and anxiety from Headmare Twilight. She didn’t need any from her friends. It would be much more exciting to come back and surprise them all.
Hey, guys. Guess who got to skip class and go on vacay? Just little old us. Because we’re, you know, amazing at friendship.
Ocellus didn’t object much. She hadn’t really said anything for the past few hours, in fact. Not that Smolder expected her to, but it was a little weird. A normal Ocellus thing to do would be to read as much as possible about the town they were going to before they arrived, but she hadn’t even pulled her book out. Her saddlebags were completely untouched.
Smolder flapped her wings, feeling the breeze in the air get warmer and warmer by the second. At first she was willing to chalk her friend’s supposed mopey-ness down to a lack of stamina when it came to flying, but the more that she glanced over at the changeling, the more she started to notice that no part of her body language implied exertion, and she came to realize that it was something else.
“What’s up?” she said. “You’ve been quiet.”
The breeze was especially loud for a few seconds. Smolder opened her mouth, ready to repeat herself, but the wind quieted in a second, and Ocellus turned to look at her.
“You aren’t nervous?”
“Of course not!” she puffed her chest out and dived down, flying an extravagant loop before returning to her original place. “I’m getting to skip school, and I’m going to a desert—you have no idea how much I miss some good old-fashioned constant heat—but most importantly? I’m going on an adventure with my best pal.”
“Best pal?” Ocellus repeated, sounding like she was drinking a double chocolate milkshake with sprinkles and toasted graham cracker crumbs.
“Best pal,” Smolder reassured her. “Look, I love everyone else and all, and it’d be great if we were all together, but if I had to pick anyone to be going on my first friendship adventure with it’d be you. I mean, not to pick any favorites,” she flew closer to the changeling and gently bumped shoulders with her. “But, you know. If I had a favorite, then...it’s not like I have weekly tea parties with the others.”
Ocellus blushed, meeting Smolder’s eyes and sharing in what felt like a nuzzle, but with no physical contact.
“Don’t be nervous,” repeated Smolder. “Because we’re together. And we’re unstoppable.”
To that, Ocellus giggled. “I’ll try to believe—“
“Oh wow.”
Smolder stopped flying, eyes growing wide. From the corners of her eyes she saw Ocellus do the same.
They were there.
Somnambula was beautiful.
It wasn’t as impressive as Canterlot or Manehatten, of course, but it was beautiful all the same. In the midst of an ocean of pale-golden sand the town stood, strong and unyielding but somehow mysterious. Ancient. Like it was lodged in the past. Like it had proudly refused to move despite the world around it marching forward through time.
Smolder dipped down, flying fast and close to the ground as she sped towards Somnambula. Loose sand tickled her face and sides. Something about this place was speaking to her. It was like she had been here before. Or maybe it was someone she knew, and they told her all about it, and she didn’t remember until just now.
She halted her dash in front of the town’s entrance, waiting for Ocellus to catch up. After a good twenty seconds, she did.
“W-why the rush?” Ocellus panted.
“Dunno,” Smolder replied. “I just felt like flying faster,” she turned, shooting her friend a concerned look over her shoulder. “You alright? I’ll give you fair warning next time.”
“I’m fine. The warning would be nice.”
“You should thank me! I’m keeping you slim and fit. Prime adventuring body.”
“I have no muscle to build. Besides, I can always alter my internal systems to give me better endurance.”
“What? Why don’t you?”
“Because if I did it wrong I’d probably end up in the hospital for a few months. But, now that I think about it, it’d be totally worth it just to beat you in a race for once.”
Smolder mouth quirked upwards into a smirk. “I like it when you act all tough. You’re like a cuter Gallus.”
“Thanks!” Ocellus chirped, skipping towards the town. “And you’re like a cuter Scootaloo.”
Her eye twitched. “I take every nice thing I said back.”
“You can’t erase the past,” she sang playfully, looking back at her and winking. “Now come on! We should find an inn before these saddlebags get too heavy.”
Spurred on by something, Smolder turned back and glanced at the desert behind them.
In the distance, just far enough to be hard to see, was something black and winged.
“Smolder?” Ocellus called.
Smolder blinked, and the figure was gone.
She shook her head and joined her friend. Barely a few hours in the desert and she was already seeing things.
The pair walked into town together, passing through the first buildings and wandering deeper into Somnambula. It was the early night, now, and as such there weren’t too many ponies wandering through the streets. This was something Smolder was thankful for, to her own surprise. Such an isolated part of Equestria probably didn’t see too many dragons or changelings in its daily routine. It was a good decision to leave as soon as possible. She doubted that a scene would have been avoidable if they had arrived in the evening.
The buildings around them seemed older up close. The houses and inns were simple, and cubical, but there were slight engravings and flourished on each that made every one slightly different. History was practically oozing out from every crack and splinter in their stone walls.
It creeped Smolder out.
“You know where we’re going?” she asked Ocellus.
“Nope!”
“What?” she said in alarm, turning to—
To see her smug grin at her reaction, an opened map held tightly in her hoof.
Smolder snorted. “You got me.”
“I know.”
“But are you preparedtogetgotyourself?!” she said, words speeding up and building into an incoherent growl as she strafed to the side and stood her ground in front of Ocellus, throwing her arms up and baring her teeth.
Ocellus didn’t even give her a second look as she circled around her, keeping on the trail that her map was guiding her along.
Smolder grumbled, rolling her shoulders forward as she felt her bag shift against her back, and went to follow in the changeling’s place.
”seventh mound”
She froze and looked behind her, but no one was there.
“Anyone there?” she said, to no reaction.
The streets were open and accessible. Free of hiding spaces. She didn’t smell anything either.
“Smolder?” Ocellus called again. “You okay? Did you forget something back there?”
“No, I’m fine...I’m coming,” she called back, turning around and flying to catch up with her friend.
Smolder woke up face-first and snuggled into her bed. As soon as her eyes opened, she closed them again, instead focusing on the sensation of the soft, warm linens bending and wrapping around her scales. She couldn’t stop herself from purring as she did so, twisting her body one way and then the other, slithering in place as she basked in her temporary hoard of warmth.
She and Ocellus had ended up a nice room at the Get-On Inn that, after explaining to the nice mare working the front desk that they were students under the personal tutelage of Princess Twilight Sparkle, came at a discounted rate. It came with two beds, and that was pretty much it, but there was something charming about it that made Smolder want to snuggle up and laze around. So that’s what she did, and without intending it she had fallen asleep, and now she was awake again.
She pressed her face further into the bed, trying to sleep once more.
From somewhere vaguely behind her, she heard Ocellus giggle. Of course she was already up. Little miss best student in the world.
“Don’t make fun of me,” she said, half-whining.
“I’m not,” Ocellus responded. “But I’m gonna have to nip this in the bud. No oversleeping when we’ve yet to find out what our friendship problem is. We can’t be wasting any time.”
She curled up and groaned.
“Please?” Ocellus tried again.
“Yeah, fine.”
An old dragon proverb came to mind: push past the pain. Or the tiredness, in this case. Smolder summoned her will and, in a fantastic show of strength, sat up and looked at her friend.
Ocellus smiled. She smiled back.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Hmm...” Ocellus rubbed her chin with a hoof. “I figure we can go down to the square and just blindly ask around. That’s what the professors do when they’re assigned a new mission by the map.”
“Good enough,” Smolder said with a yawn. “Let me wash up.”
With a last deep inhale and exhale, she hopped out of bed and went about brushing her teeth, using the washroom, and gathering all of the supplies she’d likely need for the day.
When that was done, she stood proudly in front of Ocellus, who had ended up sitting in bed and reading a solid half of her guide to Somnambula.
“Ready to go?”
“Yep!” Ocellus said, eyes still on her guide. “Did you know that dragons used to roam this land?”
“No,” Smolder narrowed her eyes. “That’s weird. Why haven’t I heard of that?”
“They’ve only recently discovered ancient bones in the sand.”
“Creepy.”
Ocellus shook her head. “It’s fascinating! You know, some of the locals think that they’re still out there. There’s been reports of sightings. Black and orange dragons flying through the sand or standing near strange obelisks. Usually near a mirage, as well, so a lot of those reports get filed away as somepony’s crazy visions in the desert.”
“And that matters...how?”
“I don’t know,” hummed Ocellus. “I just thought it was cool. And Headmare Twilight probably put it in there for a reason, if only to get a sense of Somnambula’s culture.”
Smolder chuckled lightly. “Alright, it is pretty cool. But weren’t you the one who was going on about ‘wasting no time’?”
“You’re right, unfortunately. Let’s get to planning: I’ll take the outer roads and you lurk around the main square.”
“Why do I get the busiest place?”
“Comedic value.”
She could only glare.
Somnambula’s town centre was a big open space, in which stalls were opened and operated at the sides, and many different ponies walked through it at their leisure.
Smolder was among them, passing the different, rather crudely set up stalls of ponies selling a whole variety of things that she already had. From apples, cloaks, canisters to fill with water, it was all there. Her eyes scanned the surrounding area for unsuspecting passerby that looked like they might know something. She wasn’t sure what that qualified as, but she didn’t care.
Her general tactic was both simple and the first thing to come to her mind: find a pony walking towards her, and then ask them for information. In a very friendly way.
She caught sight of a tawny pegasus mare walking towards her, nose stuck in a book. Perfect prey.
Smolder stroked her headfins back and readied her voice, waiting until the mare was about two ponylengths away before she closed the distance, aggressively stepping towards her with a big, toothy smile and saying “Hey!”
To this specific mare’s credit, she had started flying before she had the opportunity to see that Smolder was a dragon, so it’s not like it was a speciest thing.
Smolder watched the mare dash away in a manner that reminded her of Professor Fluttershy during a thunderstorm, and sighed out loud. As easy at it sounded, finding a friendship problem was proving to be rather difficult.
She found herself awkwardly standing in place, waiting around in the middle of the square and making eye contact with a pony on occasion, wanting to go up and approach them, but never being able to because said pony would speed up their trot, or break eye contact, or both. Which was...frustrating. Annoying, even. Fire-breath inducing, almost.
”the seventh mound”
Smolder shivered suddenly, feeling a little silly doing so in the heat, but not being able to help herself. She looked around.
She wasn’t really hearing things, was she?
Was she dehydrated? Definitely not. She had water at least a few days ago, and dragons her age could literally sleep for years until they had to come out of their caves for a drink.
So she wasn’t dehydrated. Was she going crazy?
”sand, around the corner”
Her breathing stiffened.
She was hearing voices. Not, like, actually, though. They were voices in that she was hearing something, but it wasn’t like they were being said aloud. They were only voices in the capacity that the voice in her head was a voice.
She sighed. Now she was barely making any sense to herself.
“Hey, dragon!”
Smolder turned. A brownish red stallion with a slightly brighter red mane was walking up to her, leaving behind his stall of clay sculptures for sale.
“Hello,” she said cautiously.
“You’re looking for a problem?”
“Who’s asking?” she snorted, baring her teeth as tiny streams of fire exiting her nostrils.
“Whoah, whoah,” he said, holding a single hoof up. “I didn’t mean it like that. My name is Red Clay. I’ve been watching you for a while now.”
“Like that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“I can offer you an explanation for why everypony’s avoiding you.”
“...I’m listening.”
“Your scary teeth and tendency to sneak up on ponies that are clearly trying to mind their own business aside,” he chuckled to himself at Smolder’s frown in response. “Right now the whole town’s on edge because of the disappearances.”
Smolder raised a brow. “Disappearances?”
“Ponies. Disappearing.”
She rolled her eyes. “I got that.”
“There’s talk. Not too much of it, but it’s there. Some ponies think it’s the tourists that are responsible.”
“So what,” said Smolder, “they think that I’m going to kidnap them or something?”
“Probably not,” Red Clay laughed again. “They’re definitely not going to be willing to talk to strange dragons off of the street.”
Smolder groaned and rubbed at her eyes. “Great.”
“I know somewhere ponies might be willing to talk, though.”
Her tail wagged. She regarded him—looking for signs of suspicion or deceit. She found nothing, so she nodded. “Where to?”
“There’s a place called The Jar of Sand, just around the street corner,” explained Red Clay. “The owner, Sidewinder, knows just about everything that goes on in this place. And he’s not scared of dragons.”
“I like the sound of that,” Smolder said with a grin as she rubbed her claws together. “What’s in it for you, though?”
“You can go looking for those ponies,” Red Clay said. “If they’re in the desert, and they’re lost and they need help, you can find them.”
She went to reject his idea—missing ponies weren’t friendship problems—but thought better of it. This was the closest thing she had right now.
Plus, it would help if she had something to do until Ocellus got back.
The Jar of Sand was sandy (obviously), bleak and out of shape. It reminded Smolder of herself, after Sandbar had attempted to teach her how to surf. If any place in the world could be described as exhausted, then this would be it. She felt tired just standing in the front entrance.
Not many ponies were here except for two. Smolder hazarded a guess that one of them was who she was looking for.
“Are you Sidewinder?” she asked the pegasus stallion with a corkscrew cutie mark standing behind the bar, polishing glasses with his wingtips.
“Yes,” he called back. “What brings you here, dragon?”
Smolder began to walk closer. “I’m looking for information.”
“Information?” he laughed. “Maybe you’d like to check our library. It’s across town.”
“Not that kind of information, pal,” she said. “I was wondering if you knew about any sorts of friendship problems that might be going on in Somnambula.”
“Friendship problems,” he echoed. A smile grew on his face, but it wasn’t happy. He looked a lot like the teenage dragons back in the Dragonlands. Gleeful, mean, and without a single ounce of joy.
Sidewinder put the glass he was polishing down and put his forehooves up on the bar, peering down at Smolder, who now stood in front of him.
“I know of plenty of friendship problems,” he said. “But why am I going to help you?”
Smolder thought about pulling her big bag of bits out. She had a feeling that those would get him to talk.
But that would mean giving her bits away.
“I’m a dragon,” she said.
“I got that.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said again. “I’m a dragon. I barely need water. I have eyes that can spot the glitter of jewels from miles away. I can help you find the ponies that have been going missing if you give me something to work with, here.”
Sidewinder eyed her for a moment, then broke out into a laugh. “I know where you can start,” he gestured to the other pony in the room.
The other pony was a slumped down, messy maned tangle of mint green and white. Like an older, withered version of Lyra. His cutie mark was a cactus in a glass of water. Certainly one of the strangest that Smolder had seen.
“Cactus Juice right there lost his colt,” explained Sidewinder.
“That doesn’t sound good,” said Smolder.
“Good?” the green pony murmured, a strange accent dripping from his lips.
“Uh oh,” Sidewinder turned around. “I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
His hoofsteps went further and further away as the green unicorn woke up, stretching his legs out and popping his back and neck a couple of times before managing to sit up straight.
“Losing Frankincense was anything but good. It was great,” he said, quirking a brow at her. “It was the best moment of my entire life.”
Smolder put her claws up in the air. “Not here to argue, sir. I just need to know where he might have went.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” muttered Cactus Juice once more, laying his head down on the bar and closing his eyes. “That boy is...difficult. He ain’t ever been easy.”
“That’s what difficult means, yes,” she said, sitting beside him. “You think he’s wherever the other ponies are?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means I don’t care,” Cactus snorted.
“You’re talking about your son right now,” she hissed. “Ponies like their sons.”
“So? He don’t care. He don’t care one bit. One little argument and he’s gone. Whatever,” he rolled his eyes, “see if I care.”
A lead. Smolder drummed a claw on the bar, her talons making small indents on the wood. “What were you arguing about?”
Cactus Juice straightened his posture, looking away from her. “He...it’s not important. It don’t matter.”
That sounded like a friendship problem. Maybe not the friendship problem, but a friendship problem. Certainly one that would land Smolder some marks if she and Ocellus managed to fix it.
She stood up. “Okay, I’ve heard enough. Let’s go find your son.”
“Hah!” Cactus wheezed. “Good luck.”
“We won’t need luck. I’m amazing.” Smolder smirked.
“We?”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Like Tartarus I am,” he snorted.
The bag of bits made a heavy clink as she dropped it on the bar, startling Cactus Juice and making him nearly fall out of his stool as he flinched backwards. His eyes went wide at the sight of it.
“I’m giving you bits to help me find your son,” Smolder lied. He’d hardly be in a state to remember that he was being paid to do this once he was actually reunited with his son. She’d just sneak off with it once they were hugging and crying and all that junk.
But Cactus Juice just looked at her and shook his head.
“Seriously?” she asked.
“Keep your bits,” he said solemnly. He was quiet for another moment, and then, “I’ll go with you anyway.”
“Great!” she squeaked, leading him out of the dingy lounge. “We just have to find my friend first.”
“Another dragon?” Cactus asked once they were outside.
“No. Cute little changeling mare about half your size. You seen her?”
“Think I would have remembered a changeling.”
“She’s pretty hard to miss, yeah.”
Smolder put her hands on her hips, peering down the sandy street. Where to go...
Her breathing seized, and her legs lost all feeling as she collapsed to the ground.
She saw Ocellus.
She saw Ocellus walking through a street. She saw her gracefully approaching ponies and conversing with them, probably asking them the same things that Smolder was asking her own targets, but with much better feedback.
Same results, though. The ponies would eventually shrug, or shake their heads, leaving Ocellus as lost as she was.
She saw Ocellus sigh, and she saw her began to glow.
It wasn’t the kind of glow that the friendship map triggered. Ocellus was glowing a bright orange.
She looked afraid.
Ocellus disappeared in a covert blink of light. Smolder wanted to scream.
She saw something else: the desert. It was like she was flying through it, but as the kind of speed that Rainbow Dash hit when she performed a Sonic Rainboom. Except she was seeing things with perfect clarity.
She took note of specific dunes in the sand. Strange hills. Mounds.
She saw a temple in the middle of the desert, standing ancient, proud and imposing.
She heard a scream.
“Dragon!”
Smolder opened her eyes. She had fallen down, and Cactus Juice was standing over her.
With one flap of her wings, she took to the air, hovering over him.
“What are you doing?” Cactus Juice yelled as she wrapped her arms around his barrel, lifting him up as she flew higher and higher. “Are you crazy? Put me down!”
“I might be, the way things are going. And I can’t,” she answered. “Look, you want to find your son?”
“No!”
“Well, I don’t care. We’re going to the desert. I know that I know where he is. And I need to find Ocellus.”
He fought her. They always did. She could sympathize—Sandbar still squirmed a little bit when she flew him around.
Right now she didn’t have the luxury to care. She waited until he finished fighting, choosing instead to grumble to himself as they soared through the air, making towards...
She didn’t know. But she did. But she didn’t. She knew where to go: the temple in her vision.
But why did she know?
Bahamut’s skull, why did her first friendship mission have to be so weird?
“Are we there yet?”
“No,” Smolder said, glancing down. “Stop asking that.”
“We’re flying towards nothing. We’re going to get lost.”
“No, we’re not,” she said. “Does the ‘seventh mound’ mean anything to you?”
“N—“
“I didn’t think so. Look down.”
“I’m looking down. There’s only sand.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Smolder sighed. “Look, it might look like nothing but sand, but every so often there’s an oddly shaped dune. And then we’ll see a dune with the exact same shape after a few more minutes of flying. I don’t even know why I’m seeing them. They’re something I wouldn’t see if they weren’t pointed out to me.”
Cactus Juice tried to look up at her, but failed after two attempts. He tried to rub the back of his neck, but failed in doing that as well.
Smolder repressed a snort of amusement. “We’ve passed through six of those dunes now. I have a feeling that when we reach the seventh one, we’re going to find the temple I saw in my vision. Which means I’m having visions.”
She narrowed her eyes at the ocean of desert before her. “If Ocellus were here, she’d think that something was communicating with me. I think she’s right.”
“I did not think dragons believed in ghosts,” said Cactus.
“I don’t. I believe in weird pony artifacts, magic and monsters.”
She readied herself for another retort, but the stallion said nothing, instead letting her fly in silence. She took the opportunity to have some peace and quiet—something that she was surprised she was glad to have.
Inevitably her mind drifted to Ocellus. What was the changeling doing so far away from Somnambula? Was she taken by something? Did she simply get swept up into a strange situation like she had?
Was she okay?
Smolder saw the seventh mound.
“There.”
“Where?”
“Do ponies around here not have working eyes?”
There was something in the distance. She squinted, trying to see it.
“Do you at least see that?” she asked.
“Yes...” Cactus replied.
Smolder sped up, gripping the stallion tighter as she dipped down, beating her wings as she frantically tried to speed towards the golden speck.
“It must be a mirage. We’ve ventured too far into the sands.”
“Shut it.”
The desert rolled forward underneath them like a film reel, up until the temple became truly visible in both their eyes. There was no denying it now—it was a temple. And what was more was that there were ponies crowded outside.
“Somnambula...” whispered Cactus Juice. Smolder didn’t know if it was meant to be a prayer or a curse.
As they flew closer, the ponies inside became easier to see, and it wasn’t long at all until they were close enough for Smolder to stop flying, put Cactus down, and fly around, eyes scanning for cyan, apple red and fleshy, glittery pink.
“A dragon?” one of the ponies (a stallion with a yellow coat and green mane) said. “And he brought Cactus Juice?”
“I’m a girl,” Smolder corrected him, but they weren’t listening.
Instead they swarmed Cactus Juice, asking him questions that blended into an chaotic mess that she couldn’t be bothered to engage in, though even passively listening she could make out generic questions such as “How did you find us?” and “Where are we?”
Cactus Juice remained relatively unexcited. He responded to the questions with brevity, looking as uninterested as ever as he eyed at the temple.
“Have any of you seen a changeling around?” Smolder asked the crowd, raising her volume enough to be heard clearly.
“Oh, yes!” a stocky blue mare said. “She—“
The temple interrupted her, groaning its front doors spread open, a cloud of dust pouring out along with a new group of ponies, scrambling out of the place like they would never get another chance to.
And behind them, fresh on their tails, was a panting changeling.
“Ocellus!” Smolder yelled, dashing towards her friend, circling her when she got close enough, anxiously looking for any signs of injury or trauma. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ocellus giggled, stopping her with a hoof so they were facing each other.
“Why are you here?” she nearly yelled.
“I was teleported here by a strange magical source. I think it’s coming from the temple. Why are you here?” Ocellus asked, raising a brow.
Suddenly she felt embarrassed. Her wings itched from the flying, and the burst of exertion towards the end had actually drawn a few beads of sweat out of her scales. She scratched at the small of her back as she avoided Ocellus’s gaze momentarily. “I think I’m seeing things.”
“You think?”
“I mean, I was hearing things when we first came here, but I thought maybe I was just hearing things. But now I think I’m hearing things that want to be heard,” she met the changeling’s eyes again. “Does that make sense?”
“Yes and no,” said Ocellus. “Are you okay?”
“Dragon!” Cactus called, trotting over to them. “Is my son here?”
If Ocellus had fur, it would be bristling. She narrowed her eyes at the stallion. “Who’s this?”
“Uhh,” Smolder looked back and forth between them. “This is Cactus Juice. His son—“
The world went white.
“Went missing and what the hay...” Smolder trailed off as she smelled a heady earthiness combined with remnants of smoke.
She wasn’t outside anymore.
The walls on either of her sides were tall and ancient, littered with writing and crude pictograms, covered in dust and sand. They were spaced wide enough that she, Ocellus and Cactus Juice could stand far-enough apart without feeling cramped. There were no signs of torches even though she could see relatively fine. There were no sounds other than her companions and her own breathing.
“We’re inside the temple,” said Ocellus.
“I figured,” she replied.
She heard hoofsteps, and a soft gasp. “I think we’re farther in than I’ve ever been.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Those ponies outside—they were teleported here as well. One second they were in Somnambula, and the next second they were here. But none of them were transported so far as to not see the doors.”
Smolder frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Neither do I.”
A moment of quiet snuck in between them, serving to remind Smolder once again that the tunnel that they were in was deathly quiet.
She hated it.
“I think I might have found our friendship problem,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Cactus Juice and his son had an argument before he went missing.”
Ocellus looked puzzled. “How old was his son?”
“Still in school. Our age or younger, I guess.”
“...I didn’t see anypony like that when I was helping everyone escape.”
“Escape what?”
To that Ocellus looked to a wall, studying it like she could read the strange writings carved into them. ”This temple seems to have traps laid in it.”
“Traps?”
“Daring Do type stuff,” Ocellus began to hover a few feet above the ground. Smolder did the same. “Spikes in the floors. Arrows flying. Walls closing in. I think we can avoid them by not walking on the ground.”
“Wait, so you were flying around saving ponies from deathtraps while I had to haul a bitter old pony around like cargo for who knows how far?”
“It probably looked pretty cool,” Ocellus smirked at her, hovering up and flying forward.
Smolder followed, grumbling to herself.
“Do you at least recognize this part of the temple?”
“No. Nothing looks the same even though—“
“Everything looks the same?”
“Exactly...”
Ocellus’s head drooped down. Smolder increased her speed so they were flying beside each other, and saw that she was frowning.
She drifted a little, gently bumping sides with the changeling. “You okay, Celly? I’m not actually mad at you for doing cooler stuff than me.”
“I just feel like I should know more. What is this place? Why are we here? We didn’t even have time to visit Somnambula’s library!”
Smolder scoffed. “We don’t need information, Ocellus. We have something better.”
“Please don’t say—“
“Friendship,” she drew the word out like a spoon dipped into a jar of honey. “And it’s true. We don’t need books. We’re a dragon and a changeling working together! Remember what I said earlier? Nothing in Somnambula can touch us.”
As was the dragon’s goal, Ocellus began to smile. “When did you get so enthusiastic about our lessons?”
“I always have been, I’m just too cool to show it sometimes,” she grinned back. “You ready to kick this temple’s butt?”
“Yeah!”
“Good. Lead the way.”
The temple felt like a giant sandcastle. The kind that Sandbar loved to make when they spent extended time at the beach. The walls felt like a sandcastle’s walls, looking robust but secretly, slowly crumbling under the weight of its fragile self, and the smell in the air was lightly salty like the sea.
It was weirdly calming, which was a big part in why Smolder wasn’t too concerned about the fact that the hall they were flying through was beginning to seem like it would never end.
“You remember that time Sandbar accidentally ate Silverstream’s turmeric and sriracha cupcake instead of his apple-cinnamon one?”
Ocellus, whose expression had been neutral and focused until now, snorted happily. “Yes. I didn’t think I’d ever see Sandbar get so...not calm, in my life.”
Smolder chuckled. “He was heaving on the ground for like ten minutes! It was beautiful.”
“Are you getting homesick too?”
“Not really,” she replied quickly. Then scratched at an itchy spot on her forearm. “I mean, I guess I could use a cupcake right now.”
“Too bad we’re without our saddlebags. I’m pretty sure I saw Headmare Twilight pack a few sapphire ones in my bag. Probably to bribe you with in case anything happened.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Smolder asked, glancing to her side.
“Nothing,” Ocellus sang back with a wink.
They kept flying forward, into the temple, and somehow seemed to never get deeper.
“Wait,” she said, stopping suddenly.
“What’s up?” asked Ocellus.
“This is weird. Something’s wrong,” she explained, looking around at the walls. “The hallway’s not ending. How long have we been flying?”
Ocellus narrowed her eyes, moving her lips slightly as she jogged her memory. “Fifteen minutes?”
“Fifteen minutes,” said Smolder. “But nothing’s changed? Ocellus, come on. That’s not weird to you?”
“I guess it is, but,” Ocellus paused. “Wait, what have we been doing for the last fifteen minutes?”
“I don’t know!” Smolder nearly yelled as she threw her claws up in the air.
“That’s so weird...”
“Look,” she sighed, rubbing her snout, “you said we should fly earlier, right?”
Ocellus nodded.
“What if we need to walk?” Smolder said, shushing her response with a claw. “But then we’ll trigger a trap, right? But what if we need to trigger a trap?”
Ocellus nudged her claw away and considered the thought. “Like Ogres & Oubliettes?”
“Dungeonmaster Sandbar doesn’t like things happening without a little bit of action. What if this temple’s the same way?”
“I guess it can’t hurt,” she nodded her head.
“Good,” Smolder flew up to her and took a breath. “On three? One. Two...”
They dropped down, sinking down, anchored by gravity until they simultaneously touched the floor. Ocellus’s hooves made a loud clop when they did, echoing through the hall.
Smolder tensed, waiting for the floor to give out, or for arrows to start flying towards them, or a giant ball to drop from the sky.
Nothing happened.
“There goes that theory,” Smolder deadpanned as she put a claw to her face.
“It was a good guess,” Ocellus reassured. “We can keep fl—“
The room started to shake, and they both took to the air, instinctively pressing their backsides together as they analyzed the room for potential threats.
“How did you help the ponies escape earlier?” Smolder asked.
Ocellus clicked her tongue. “I did what you would do: Grabbed them by the belly, sprinted for the exit and dealt with problems as they arose.”
“That’s—yeah, that sounds good.”
The sand on the walls was thrown off by the convulsions of the temple, falling down on them like a heavy snowfall and making them squint and cover their eyes.
“Okay, crazy idea: what if the hallway’s the trap? Like, it’s gonna fall on us.”
Smolder could barely hear Ocellus’s reply, but she was fairly sure that it was made in agreement with her.
“Okay, let’s dash for it on three. One—“
The rumbling stopped, leaving the sounds of their coughing and the displaced sand as the only ones audible.
Ocellus cleared a cloud of sand away and turned back to face Smolder. “Are you okay?”
Her confirmation died in her throat as she caught sight of the golden book on the ground. “Was that there before?”
“No,” Ocellus said. They met eyes and nodded, and hovered back down to the floor, landing perfectly in front of the book.
“It’s as thick as the school rulebook,” Smolder observed, crouching down to look at it more closely. “Let’s open it!”
“Smolder no!“
But her claws had already turned the cover. The changeling’s gasp rung sharply in her ears as the first page revealed...
A hoofwritten passage in orange ink.
I wish she’d stop saying things like “we’re best pals” or “we’ll get through it together” because she wouldn’t be doing that if she knew I turned her in.
The writing almost reminded her of a dragon’s. It had the kind of hurried, scrawled letters you’d find in a cave. Neurotic. That was a good word to describe them. The letters were neurotic.
“Any idea what this is?” Smolder asked.
“No,” Ocellus said, starting to walk away. “We should—“
The boulder fell from the sky, and Smolder didn’t see it until a split second before it fell on top of her friend.
“Ocellus!” she cried, flying towards the boulder as fast as she could, book in hand. She dove into the haze of smoke and sand that arose from the boulder’s impact, not caring that she was directly breathing it in. She coughed as she frantically searched around for the changeling, waving an arm around in front of her, begging the universe that she’d feel a chitinous hoof grab her claw.
And one did. Ocellus pulled her through the smoke, and to the other side. Smolder wheezed and coughed, leaning into her.
“Oh my—“
CRASH!
Another chunk of rock fell from the sky, and they looked up to see that the ceiling was falling down piece by piece.
They didn’t have to tell each other to start flying.
The disintegrating ceiling seemed to be aiming at Smolder as she flew, dodging and diving as bigger and bigger chunks came falling down in front of her.
A thick cloud of dust began to settle through the hall, obscuring her vision.
She flew upwards, hoping to get above it.
A thick piece of rock sped towards her like a moving train, and she rolled to the side, barely managing to keep it from crushing her head.
She managed to soar above it, and get clear sight of the temple.
It seemed that Ocellus had the same idea. They only had a few seconds to smile at each other before they flew forward once again, strafing the bits of ceiling sailing down on them.
For a second, she worried that there truly was no way out, but then Ocellus’s voice rose over the crashing. “Door!”
Smolder saw it through the haze below, clear as crystal. A single stone door laid into the walls. She glanced upward, seeing that several rocks were heading straight for the front. It was only a matter of seconds before what was probably their only exit was blocked off.
She sped up and dipped down. Time slowed to a halt. The crumbling temple around her began to simply melt, slowly and deliberately like a bowl of ice cream on a cold spring day. It became a trivial matter to simply fly faster than the falling rock, grab Ocellus with an arm, and dash through the door before the room completely collapsed.
Then she dropped to all fours and threw up. There were chunks of amethyst in the mess.
“Smolder!” she heard the buzzing of changeling wings beside her. “Are you okay?”
“Moved—moved too fast,” she huffed. “You good?”
“Thanks to you,” cooed Ocellus.
Smolder stood up, turning towards her, only to be tackled to the ground by her friend. They took a moment to share grateful looks and squeezed each other mutually, happy to have survived the trap.
“I bet you we looked cool.”
Ocellus laughed.
“I’m serious! We should have brought a photographer with us or something. Can you imagine Gallus’s face when we tell him that we had to run through a collapsing ancient temple?”
“He’s going to be pretty jealous—maybe we should bring him a rock or something as a souvenir?”
“Yeah, or a—book, the book!” she said, standing up and gently nudging Ocellus off of her. “Did you grab it?”
“No, I—oh,” Ocellus tapped her shoulder and pointed to a corner of the bare room they were in.
There sat the golden book, sitting as if it had been there the whole time.
Smolder was in front of the thing in mere seconds. She picked it up and held it in front of her, feeling its shiny smooth cover under her digits. “Do I even want to open this?”
Ocellus came up beside her and looked around the room. “We got somewhere last time we did.”
She flipped it to the first page, and underneath the first passage was something new. The writing had improved considerably, going from chaotic chicken scratches to a coherent cursive.
Smolder. Smolder, Smolder, Smolder. I want her there, but she needs to study. She did this. This is her fault, and I’m being a good friend by excluding her. The others agreed, didn’t they? Silverstream and Sandbar looked a little sad, but they understood. It was a logical decision, wasn’t it? Yes. Of course it is! It’s just an ordinary Saturday, anyway. We’ll have plenty of other opportunities to hang out with everyone together. It’s just a day at the lake.
“What is this...” Smolder growled. “What is this?” she turned to Ocellus. “Do you know what this is? Why does a dusty book in Somnambula have my name in it? Our friend’s names?”
Ocellus backed away, stammering incoherently. She was wide-eyed and terrified. She looked like how she did on her first at school. “I don’t—I don’t know.”
Smolder glanced at the writing again, and closed the book in disgust. “Do you think they’re here? What if they’re in trouble?”
Her feet were wet.
She looked down to see them in a thick black liquid.
“Another trap!” she called, and took to the air. Maybe there was some kind of hidden button or switch or something on the ceiling that could help them get out.
Nothing.
She dashed to the other side, nearly hitting Ocellus out of the air as she did so. Her claws moved frantically over the stone, looking for any bumps or ridges that might have seemed strange.
Nothing again.
“Over here!” yelled Ocellus.
Smolder was beside her in a heartbeat. The liquid had filled the place impossibly fast. It was nearly reaching their ankles now.
There were a series of symbols in front of Ocellus: A claw, a wing and a hoof.
Ocellus tried pressing them in order, to no avail.
The liquid was magic. It had to be. Their legs were completely submerged. Smolder’s flapping was now just splashing it everywhere, so she stopped, opting to swim to keep herself steady against the ceiling.
Ocellus tried pressing them in reverse.
Nothing happened.
“Ocellus,” Smolder said. “Ocellus!”
“I’m tryingggh” Ocellus’s sentence was interrupted by the liquid completely submerging the room.
Smolder found that there was no transparency to the liquid. She couldn’t see in front of her. She couldn’t see Ocellus.
She kicked her legs, keeping herself against the ceiling, shutting her eyes, trying not to focus on the growing pressure in her chest.
She could—she could...
She had never been very good at holding her breath.
She was only going to last a few more seconds.
She wanted to yell. Or scream. Or something.
Eventually her mouth opened of its own accord, and she felt herself take big gulps on the liquid. It tasted disgusting. Like molasses mixed with dirt, salt and swamp mud.
Smolder thrashed around, trying to feel for Ocellus.
She felt something grip her entire body.
Then, suddenly, light.
She was in another room. She had been teleported. She could breathe.
She doubled over and coughed up the liquid, expelling it from her lungs.
“Smolder!” yelled Ocellus.
She couldn’t speak. Not yet. She wheezed and rasped as more of the liquid shot out of her mouth.
When it was all done, she stood up and tried to walk towards her friend, who was on the other side of the room.
“Are you okay?” she panted, falling against the wall of the new hallway they had ended up in. Her knees gave out, and she slid against it as she fell on her butt.
She saw Ocellus’s lips move, but couldn’t hear her. She assumed that the words were a “yes.”
“I’m—I have to close my eyes for a sec,” she said, doing just that.
She heard hoofsteps.
A weight settled on her shoulder and a hoof held her claw tight. She opened her mouth to tell Ocellus off for being too cuddly, but couldn’t get the words out. Her thoughts began to drift as she felt herself begin to fully relax.
She was so tired.
Smolder awoke from a dreamless sleep to the drumbeat of tears. Ocellus was across from her, reading the book and crying.
“Cell—wuh?” she slurred, rubbing her eyes. “Whaswrong?”
The changeling refused to look up at her, or even acknowledge that she’d spoken. She held her gaze down towards the open book, stiff as she cried, with soft sniffles being the only sounds she was making.
“Ocellus,” she said again, speaking louder.
Her friend flinched under her call. “I lied. I know what this is.”
“What?”
The drowsiness of recently being asleep was mostly gone now, leaving Smolder simply curious to see both what her friend had found and the reason for her sadness.
Ocellus was breathing heavy now. She raised her head and—
The look on her face was something Smolder had seen before, and had expected to never see again after Dragon Lord Ember’s reformation of dragon culture.
Ocellus had the same look that a pony would get when they saw a fully grown adult dragon. The same sort of primal, overwhelming fear of knowing that there was little to nothing that you could do to prevent something so massive from making a home in the mountain above yours, and crushing you like an insect if you said otherwise.
“Please don’t be mad,” whimpered the changeling.
Smolder didn’t like being looked at like that. There was something demeaning about it. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.
She tried to move closer, but Ocellus shied away, so she sat in place, frozen.
“What’s the book supposed to be, Celly?”
“Don’t call me that,” Ocellus put her face down into her hooves. “Smolder, there’s mind magic in this temple. I don’t know how, or what, or why, but there’s something really, really bad going on. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Mind magic?” she repeated, shaking her head. “Okay, can you just—“
Ocellus’s hooves shot forward, sliding the book across the floor to the front of her lap.
Is there something wrong with me? Are you supposed to like not having your friend around sometimes? I know that ‘space’ is a concept that you’re supposed to keep in mind, and maintain in order to foster a healthy friendship, but why does it feel so good?
A friend is someone you’re supposed to like spending time with. Not the opposite.
Not that I don’t want Smolder around. I do. It’s just that without someone to instigate Gallus and Yona things are so—
Peaceful.
Peaceful is a good word for it.
Without Smolder, things are peaceful.
And I like peaceful.
It was like hooks were in Smolder’s chest, and they were attached to hundred pound weights.
“Ocellus?” she asked, glancing at her—her friend. “I still don’t under—“
“They’re my thoughts.”
“No they’re not,” Smolder laughed. “Come on.”
“They are,” said Ocellus quietly.
She wasn’t looking at her. Why wasn’t she looking at her? She shook her head, a withering smile on her face. “Seriously. What are these?”
“I wanted to tell you,” Ocellus muttered.
Smolder recalled the first passage. She blinked. No. It couldn’t possibly be true. “Did you rat me out to Professor Applejack?”
“Smolder...” the changeling pleaded. “Let me explain myself.”
It was true. It was actually true. She tried to back up, but remembered that she was up against a wall. She was powerless. She was alone.
“Why?” she said.
Ocellus looked hurt. Why did she look hurt?
“I saw you cheat off my test.”
“And?”
“And I told Professor Applejack.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because what?” Smolder roared. “What about the other entries?”
“You said you wouldn’t be mad.”
“Tell me!”
“We need to stick together,” Ocellus begged. “We need to get out of here. Smolder, this temple’s messing with us—“
“But they’re true, aren’t they?” she said, ushering a pained exhale from the changeling.
She waited for a response, and got none. She went on.
“So, you don’t like having me around,” she couldn’t keep herself from laughing as she sank deeper into disbelief, “Why did the map even send us here?”
“Smolder, please!”
“What?” she asked. “You clearly don’t like hanging out with me. I’ll bet the others don’t, either, since they agreed to leaving me out of your little day at the lake. When was that, huh?”
“Last month...”
Smolder stood, wings flared. “How long?”
Ocellus met her furious stare. “It was just the one time—“
“Liar,” she spat.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Ocellus spoke monotonously. “You’re either at zero or a thousand.”
“What’s that—“
“It means,” the changeling stood, volume raising with her body. “That you’re lazy and brash and rude and you need us to watch out for you sometimes. All the time. That’s what being friends with you means: taking care of you while you get into whatever mode of trouble you’ve chosen for the day.”
Smolder’s mouth opened, and closed. Her eyes narrowed into a glare as her jaw set tight. Smoke streamed out of her nostrils.
“Shut up.”
“You’re so competitive, Smolder. But you only ever fly in races you can win. You hate anything other than being superior.”
“Shut up!”
“You don’t like it when your friends disagree with you. I have a theory that you’re only closer to me because you feel like I’m weak. Like when I object to something you do it’s easier to shrug me off.”
Smolder spit a stream of fire at her. It wasn’t very strong or fast, so a simple tilt of the head was enough to dodge it, but the look on her face betrayed her surprise.
Smolder bared her teeth and spread her wings. “I’m closer to you because you’re a nerd that I can use as a cheat sheet to get better test scores, and because sometimes I’m the only one strong enough to keep up with your insane rambling. But not anymore.”
She leaned forward, fire beginning to sputter out of her mouth as she talked.
“I hate you,” she hissed. “I don’t want to be your friend anymore, and I don’t ever want to see you again, you lying, evil parasite.”
Ocellus was crying.
Smolder’s head felt like it had been dunked in swamp water. Dragons didn’t cry. They could—she had cried on her own a couple of times, during her adolescence—but a quiet, muffled place in her mind realized that she had never seen another creature actually cry before, and it was horrifying.
There was a door. There was a door in the wall, clear as day. It was impossible that she or Ocellus could have missed it, but it was there. Ocellus turned away, sobbing, flew to it, and disappeared from Smolder’s vision.
Smolder wanted to follow. She couldn’t move. She watched as the door disappeared into thin air.
Silence invaded the room that was once again impossible to escape. She let it grip her horns, pinching at the webbed parts of her wings and grabbing the inside of her stomach.
“Poor sister,” whispered a voice. “How did you get to this palace of punishment? How did such a disgusting creature convince you that you were friends?”
Another dragon was in front of her, appearing out of thin air. He was male, with one horn on one side of his head, and two on the other. His scales were Black, but with cracks of orange throughout. He looked like a volcano’s surface. His face was hard to describe. She wasn’t sure if she was even looking at a face. It was like she was constantly forgetting what he looked like.
“Who,” she croaked, “who are you?”
“My name had faded, but I was a dragon, much like yourself,” he spoke. His voice sizzled quietly, like vermin rotting underneath the sun. “The ponies of the desert named me Ifrit. So that is who I am, I suppose.”
He snapped his fingers.
They were back in the hallway Smolder had arrived in. She took several steps back, her wide eyes never leaving him. “Dragons don’t use magic like that.”
“I was a dragon,” said Ifrit. “I ventured to the desert, and found this temple. I did not get out. But there is magic in these walls, and it changed me. I am more now that I was before.”
Smolder narrowed her eyes. “You’re behind this temple?”
“My collaborator is. I snap to let him know when to do what I’ve told him to,” he answered, tilting his head. “I have power. I cannot use it on my own. I can only communicate. That is my curse. I must seek out the pathetic and abused.”
“To do what?” she asked.
“You’re a dragon. The answer is obvious,” said Ifrit, “To give them the power to wreak havoc upon ponykind. I sensed you in the desert and called you here, so you might aid me and free me from working with these filthy creatures once and for all.”
“I—I was seeing things,” she said numbly. “Hearing them, too.”
“That was me alone. It’s the same sort of magic that lets the Dragon Lord call us to his throne.”
He smiled at her. She thought he did, anyhow. For a second she saw every single one of his sharp, glistening teeth.
She gave him fire.
Flames rose up from the centre of her stomach and slithered through her mouth, bursting out of it and soaring towards the other dragon in a beautiful crescendo of blue and orange.
Ifrit waved a claw, and her fire went out like a light.
Smolder coughed and wheezed from the oxygen suddenly disappearing from the air, turning to fly backwards—
But sped straight into a wall, striking her head against it and knocking her to the floor.
Immediately she rolled around, swivelling her head around to try and get vision on the other dragon. She couldn’t find him. He was gone.
All around her, his voice echoed. “How far my race has fallen. Your mind has fully opened to me, sister, and I am profoundly disappointed. I think you will fit in with the ponies in the throne room. Take her, pony.”
Smolder heard a snap, and after a moment, nothing.
If she knew one thing, it was that she was completely and utterly over blacking out. If she survived this, she wasn’t ever going to take a nap, get knocked out, or fall asleep unintentionally for as long as she lived.
Smolder opened her eyes.
Her upper body and wings were tied tight with rope. It wrapped around her torso and bound her wrists together behind her back, slithering down her lower body and binding her calves as well. She had been made to kneel.
She had been laid in front of a small flight of stairs that lead up to a throne, and on that throne was a young violet unicorn stallion with a messy charcoal mane and shiny amethyst eyes. On his flanks lay a slender black stick, halfway burnt and sending a thin line of smoke into the air.
From the moment she had woken up, he had been watching something behind her, but as she stirred more and more, she caught his attention, and they met eyes.
“Hi,” he said in a sing-songy tenor.
“Where am I?” she slurred.
“The throne room,” said Ifrit, suddenly beside her.
Her head was swimming. And spinning. Her head was spinning. “Listen, you have to let me go.”
The stallion on the throne laughed. “Why would I do that? You’re obviously here because you’re a guilty little liar, or else the spell I put on Somnambula wouldn’t have taken you. You’re going to join the rest of your kind when I parade you through Somnambula with your special little sins over your heads for the rest of the good, honest townsponies to see.”
The rest...
Smolder looked back over her shoulder.
There were piles of ponies, splayed across each other, not moving a muscle. Beiges and yellows and light reds gathered in multiple mounds—a fleshy basket of apples.
All their eyes were closed. A spell of some kind. Probably Ifrit’s doing. And a single stallion was laid in front of the masses.
“Cactus!” she yelled.
Cactus didn’t stir. She wasn’t even sure if he was breathing. She turned to Ifrit with furious eyes.
The dragon chuckled. “Don’t you worry, pony lover. They’re not hurt. They’re simply the ones who failed to conquer their respective traps. If it were up to me, they would have no other chances, but my collaborator over there had the much more creative idea of letting the world know what they’ve done.”
Smolder looked to the pony on the throne, who had been watching her with a smirk. “Cactus Juice is a jerk, but he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s just here to find his son.”
The stallion’s smile dropped. He regarded her for an agonizing moment.
Then he began to giggle. “Holy Celestia! You’re a funny one.”
“I’m not joking,” she growled. “I carried him here myself.”
“Wait, what?”
“I grabbed him out of some sandy hole in the wall in town and I dragged him here to find his son,” she said. “He acts like he doesn’t want to, but I know he does.”
“He doesn’t,” the stallion said, mirth freezing as fast as it has flared up.
“He does!” Smolder yelled. “What in the buck would you know? There’s a pony somewhere in the desert starving and without water and probably lost and you—”
“I am that pony,” said the stallion, looking at her with the kind of disdain she had never thought his race could be capable of.
Smolder lost her next words in the revelation. She could only stare, bug-eyed at the evil stallion on the throne.
“My name is Frankincense,” he said coldly. “Son of Cactus Juice. And I’ve decided that you’re going to suffer with him before I throw this lot of liars to the streets.”
Frankincense’s eyes glowed as orange as the cracks in Ifrit’s skin. He slammed a hoof on the arm of his throne, the sound thundering into Smolder’s ears.
Harsh neon light began to flare from behind her. She turned back and saw floating phrases forming above each of the ponies thrown to the pile.
Has three children more than his wife knows.
Left her sister in the desert when they were fillies.
Resents his best friend for being richer.
And above Cactus Juice, simply: Lied to his own son for seventeen years.
“Isn’t it amazing?” said Ifrit, laying a claw on her shoulder.
She tried to shrug it off, but failed.
“Simple words will destroy these friendships that ponies value so much. They will change drastically in a moment’s notice. Love into hate. Fondness into annoyance. Adoration into contempt. Do you see now, sister? How fragile these soft creatures can be?” he leaned in and began to whisper breathily into her ear. “Join me. Forget friendship. Let us form an alliance.”
Oh.
Right.
Smolder had almost forgotten. Ifrit began to say more words, but she was no longer listening.
They were there for a friendship mission, weren’t they?
“You’re so stupid,” she said, cutting him off from whatever idiotic drivel he had been vomiting. “I can’t believe you actually reminded me why I’m here in the first place.”
Ifrit stepped away from her. “And what, pray tell, are you—“
“Friendship,” she stated, tasting the word. “I’m here because of friendship!”
It brought a smile to her face. She went on, laughter slipping out as she explained. “Friendship’s going to solve literally everything wrong with this place! Watch me, Ifrit! I’m gonna beat you without lifting a claw.”
Ifrit began to say something, but she cut him off.
“Hey, Frankie!” Smolder yelled, looking to the purple stallion. “Your dad loves you!”
Frankincense raised an eyebrow. “Do you not see the naked truth above his head?”
“I do, but he still loves you,” she giggled. “Wake him up. Let him defend his point of view if you’re so sure of yourself.”
“I already have. He barely managed two words before I shut him up,” he said.
“Then what’s the harm in doing it again?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Okay.”
Smolder turned back to Ifrit with a grin, but he had no coherent reaction.
Frankincense slammed a hoof on his throne, magic reverberating off of it and hitting Cactus Juice in the chest, levitating him next to Smolder.
Cactus woke with a gasp.
“Where am I?” he cried, frantically looking around. He quickly caught sight of his son. “Frankie!”
“Don’t call me that!” shrieked Frankincense.
“Cactus,” Smolder pleaded, scooting over as much as she could and thumping her hips into his. “You need to tell Frankincense how you feel about him.”
Cactus merely squinted at her. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?”
“I don’t,” she said slowly. “But I don’t care. I need you to fix your friendship with your son right now or we’re going to get really, really hurt.”
Cactus shook his head. “I don’t have anything to say to him, dragon. Nothing’s changed.”
“No,” Smolder said, unsure if she was addressing him or herself. “No. No. You need to tell him what’s happening, Cactus. You need to get us out of here.”
“I thought you were going to be the one who got us out of here,” Cactus spat. “You talked a big game earlier. But looks like it was just talk.”
“I—I don’t—“
“This is pathetic,” Ifrit chimed in, piercing through their conversation like a knife into an orange. He turned to Frankincense, a claw on his hip. “Get rid of them now. We have our plans to attend to, don’t we?”
Frankincense stared at the two for a second longer, and nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”
The sound of his hoof meeting his throne was met with the sensation of falling. The ground underneath Smolder and Cactus disintegrated, and they dropped into a pit, landing on the rock with meaty thuds.
Pain strangled Smolder’s entire left side—the side she landed on—and went to her head. She was sure that her horn at least had a crack in it. And she couldn’t move her legs but she would bet against her ability to walk properly.
She groaned, squirming around in the low light of the pit. The sounds of Cactus moving told her that he was fine. Her bindings must have been tied expertly, and made with the most durable raw material known to ponykind. They had stayed nice and tight through the entire fall and landing.
“Dragonnnnnn,” Cactus Juice moaned.
“I’m here,” she said.
“Your fault,” he told her.
“Kind of,” she huffed back.
She managed to gather up the strength to kneel, and look up from the bottom of the pit, into Frankincense’s amused face.
“Do you enjoy the view from down there?” he called. “It’s the last one you’ll ever see.”
“Boo!” she yelled up at him. “You sound way too goodey-two-shoes to pull off that villain stuff.”
He answered her by clopping his hoof on the floor.
A thin sprinkle of sand came down from the ceiling, landing on Smolder’s forehead. In the span of seconds more sand began to fall, building into a steady trickle, building into a stream and then into a cascade pouring over her and Cactus.
Smolder tried to cover her mouth and nose—only to be reminded that she was tied and bound.
There was already an inch piled on the floor, rising quicker and quicker as she wriggled through the pit, eyes scanning for a means of escape.
There were none.
“You’re actually going to do this?” she yelled, counting on the echoing of her voice to make its way back up to Frankincense. “You’re going to do this to your own dad?”
Frankincense was a stone wall. He stared at the two of them for a moment more, and disappeared from view.
Smolder turned to Cactus Juice, who seemed to have wholly accepted his fate. He had found a cozy spot against the wall and his eyes were closed. If it weren’t for his steady breathing, she would have assumed that he had somehow fallen asleep.
“What did you even do?” she screamed. “You’re just letting this happen?”
The sand was building rapidly, floating up to the top of their knees. His ear flicked. “I don’t care. So long as I get out of this forsaken temple.”
The words above his head began to dim. She looked away, no longer wanting to watch.
Smolder breathed in and out of her mouth rapidly, and flexed her wings against the rope, trying to spread her wings enough to—to loosen them, or break them, or something—
She heard something pop, and she knew nothing but intensely concentrated pain. With a shriek she went down, flopping down into the building pool of sand.
This was the end. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t fly. Couldn’t win with the most powerful magic known to the world. She was going to suffocate in this pit of sand, and she would never eat another gem, or surf with Sandbar and Silverstream, play Buckball with Gallus, wrestle with Yona.
She’d never get to make up with Ocellus. They’d never again chill at a café, or study, or tell each other scary stories after dark. And that was all her fault.
Smolder was aware of her vision blurring, and a wetness, but she wasn’t sure what that was. Dragons didn’t cry.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, breathing in sand and not bothering to sneeze or cough it back up. “I’m sorry, Ocellus. I failed us. I cheated on the test. I need you to look out for me all the time because I’m completely lost without you and the others. I’m—I’m sorry you’re going to think I died hating you because I don’t. You’re...”
Smolder closed her eyes. That way it was easier to fool herself into thinking she was at peace.
“You’re my best pal.”
“And you’re mine,” Ocellus replied sweetly.
She heard the flash of changeling magic, and felt herself being yanked out of the sand. Ocellus somehow found the strength to grab Cactus Juice as well, plucking him from his corner with one of her claws—
Wait.
Smolder glanced up, blinking away sand and tears.
Ocellus had turned into a dragon. Not fully grown, of course, but way bigger and older than Smolder. She was at least twice her size, with scales and fins the same color as her and lithe, rippling muscle underneath.
“So this is how you saved those ponies earlier,” she said in wonder.
“Remember what I said? I just tried to do what you would.”
They flew up. Smolder prayed that neither Frankincense or Ifrit had noticed.
“Are you okay?” Ocellus asked.
“How are you here?”
“I found the throne room on my own but I realized something was wrong, so I turned into a fruit fly and hid on a pillar. I hate turning into small things.”
Smolder laughed as they breached the surface of the pit.
Frankincense, who had been standing over the unconscious ponies, spun around and gawked at them. “What?”
“Friendship,” sang Smolder. “Friendship always wins. And I have a second chance at make it!”
Ocellus set her and Cactus down, and promptly cut Smolder loose with a spare nail.
She instantly stood and ran behind Cactus, nudging him towards his son.
Cactus turned back to her with a glare, and she responded with an amused shake of her head. “Even now, you’re still too stubborn?”
Cactus’s glare softened slightly. “I am.”
“You don’t have to be. Whatever it is, you can tell him. You wouldn’t have been able to if it weren’t for my friend. How did that feel?”
Cactus gave her a neutral look, and shook his head again.
“He’s your son! Your little colt! He loves you, dummy! Look at him!” Smolder shook her head. “He’s not doing this because he doesn’t care about whatever you did.”
She put a claw on his withers and looked him in the eyes, voice shrinking into a soft and tender plea. “He’ll forgive you if you tell the truth. The whole truth.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Okay.”
“As cute as that was to watch,” Frankincense called, Ifrit at his side as they began to walk up to them. “I think it’s time for you to go back into the pit.”
“Not until you hear me out, Frankie,” Cactus trotted halfway to his son and stopped. “It’s time you hear the truth.”
“I’ve heard enough of your truth,” the colt hissed. “I saw the letters. I read them. I heard you tell me my mother died giving birth to me for years, and then I saw the letter under your bed notifying you that she died. Last month.”
Smolder’s eyes widened. Her gaze flicked back and forth between father and son. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure that Cactus could fix everything in such a short time period.
“You took away the only chance I had to get to know my mother because you’re bitter, old and crazy, and when I told you what I knew, what did you say? ‘If you want your mother, she’s buried in the sands’. Well, I didn’t find her, but I found something better: power.”
Cactus Juice barked out a laugh. “You sound stupid. You sound like the stupid child you are.”
“Shut up!” roared Frankincense.
“No,” Cactus Juice said. “No, no no. You’re going to hear this. Your mother was alive for years after you were born, yes. That is true. What isn’t true is that I took away the chance to get to know her. She never would have gotten to know you. She walked out on us, son. She found something shiny and new in Saddle Arabia and took the first chariot there.”
“That’s not true,” said Frankincense, but he was beginning to shrink into himself. “That’s not true. You’re lying again.”
“She never wanted to be a mother. She used me—us, for money. We used to own a house, Frankie. Look where we live now: renting from Sidewinder’s spare. She took everything from us. She never would have wanted to even see you.”
“No!”
“Yes!” he roared. “Your mother was nobody! Your mother was a thief! To call her a mother is an insult to every other mother in existence! I raised you. I put up with you. I protected your view of the world by keeping your idea of her sacred! You are a child! Tell me what I was supposed to do!”
“I don’t believe you,” whispered Frankincense, his ears folding back and his eyes the same width as his hooves.
“Use your ridiculous new magic, then,” said Cactus Juice. “Tell me for sure.”
The colt grit his teeth and slammed his hooves into the floor. His eyes glowed with a fiery magic. Glowing tendrils came out of his horn and made contact with Cactus, who stood there, shivering as they sank into his chest.
A moment passed.
The magic powered down.
Tears gathered in his eyes. He backed up slowly, step by step. “No.”
Ifrit, who had been passively watching the ordeal, turned to the pony. “Frankincense?”
“I—I can’t. I can’t believe that.”
“It’s the truth,” Cactus Juice said. He began to trot slowly to his son. “I’m sorry, son. I wish I was the villain you thought I was. But it’s not. I’m not. She was.”
Frankincense screwed his eyes shut. “No, no!”
Ifrit dropped to all fours and pounced on Cactus.
He merely passed through, like a ghost.
“Frankincense!” he wailed. “Continue with your plan! Wreak chaos upon Ponykind! Make them suffer!”
Frankincense didn’t do anything. He sank to the floor and put his face on the stone, and began to cry.
Cactus reached his son, and lay a hoof on his head, stroking it.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“I’m sorry,” Frankincense cried back.
There was a shrill scream from Ifrit. He cradled his head, backing up into a pillar as the orange cracks in his scales began to glow. “Nooooooo!”
The ambient glow from the words floating above the unconcious ponies began to fade, one by one, until there was nothing over Cactus’s head.
The room began to rumble.
Smolder reached for Ocellus, finding that the changeling had never left her side, and held her close as the room went white.
The temple disappeared like it was a single, elaborate mirage the whole time.
They were back in the desert.
The ponies began to wake up.
It was decided that everycreature had to walk back on hoof. Even the pegasi. It wasn’t good to be flying dehydrated and starving from being locked inside of a magic temple.
Luckily enough, the ponies who had been freed previously had gone to town and come back with water, and now everyone was on their way back to Somnambula.
Smolder and Ocellus found themselves in the middle of the pack, their fins, scales and chitin glowing softly from a job well done.
“For what it’s worth,” Ocellus started. “I shouldn’t have hid my feelings from you. I won’t do it again.”
“It’s okay,” she replied. “We’re past that.”
They continued walking.
A bad idea came to Smolder. She spread her wings—and immediately came to regret it at searing pain shot through her back. She nearly fell over, but Ocellus came in time to lift her up.
“Thanks,” she wheezed.
“Looks like we’re gonna have to stay in Somnambula for a while,” said Ocellus. “Probably find a doctor, too.”
“Y-Yeah. Can’t go flying back on a dislocated wing.”
“From what I’ve read about the professor’s friendship maps, the map itself doesn’t indicate when the mission’s over.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I’ve heard Somnambula has some really nice tea and coffee.”
“Does it?” she asked, attempting to mask her excitement.
She glanced for a moment past her friend, spotting Cactus Juice and Frankincense at the back of the caravan, walking beside each other and simply talking. No aggression. No malice. Just talking.
Then the changeling smiled at her, and her attention was stolen away. “They have these cafes with giant pillows and you just relax in them, drink and eat. I think we should write our reports in one. Maybe stay a few more days after you heal up to see the sights? Oh, and I’ll pay for everything.”
Smolder pretended to consider for a moment, and then smiled. “Okay. Fine. That sounds good to me.”
