It was a dark and rainy night outside, though the cavern was bright and loud and cheerful, the flaming torches reflecting off the huge piles of gold to create a warm glow. A dozen dragons were making a lot of noise, eating huge clawfuls of gems, mock-fighting each other, thumping into the walls, letting off jets of fire, farting and belching loudly as they slapped each other on the back. Other, smaller dragons, still huge by pony standards, stomped in and out of the huge cavern from side tunnels, carrying massive trays piled high with meat or gemstones, or great barrels of wine and milk.
Periodically, a dragon would swoop in through the main entrance, waved through by the rain-soaked guards, flying through the chaos and landing with a scraping thud at the back of the cavern. Each of these new visitors would immediately take a knee before the biggest source of light in the room: a huge, raised dais made of crushed rocks, surrounded by flaming torches, housing a black granite throne. The visitor would bark out a report to the little blue dragon lazing on the throne, receive new instructions, and fly straight back out again, to be replaced ten minutes later by a newcomer following the same procedure.
Dragon Lord Ember snapped open her pocketwatch, and let out an audible groan of annoyance; dragons eight times her size noted her displeasure and automatically shrank into themselves, as she grabbed a ruby from a passing tray and crushed it to dust in her razor-sharp little claw.
He should have been here already.
She closed the watch case with another huff, the loud snap of metal on metal adding to the general din, and looked up at the red dragon cowering in front of her throne. She made a show of rolling her eyes in displeasure.
"Garble. Report."
"Uh, yes, Lord Ember. Red Pack came up, uh... a little short of our target... there weren't as many sheep as White Pack led us to believe earlier in the day, and..."
His voice tailed off as he noticed Ember's deeply unamused expression. Another, much bigger dragon had taken up position behind her throne, and was cracking his knuckles in a menacing manner, but Ember, without turning to look at him, held up a claw and he stopped straight away.
"So, it's not your fault Red Pack didn't deliver. Is that what you're telling me?"
"...Uh... yes, Dragon Lord Ember?"
Ember nodded for a moment, a thoughtful expression crossing her features, before she leaned forward and grabbed a diamond from another passing tray. In one deft movement, she reached back and then flung her arm forward, pitching the diamond straight at Garble as he knelt before her, smirking as it bounced off his skull with a resonating crack. Garble collapsed to the floor holding his head, and Ember sat back in her throne.
"I don't want to hear it, Garble. All the other packs have managed to hit their targets. No other dragons have had problems with White Pack's scout reports. It only seems to be your pack that keeps having issues. And Black Pack reported they saw you and Gristle, twenty minutes ago, taking pot shots at sparrows instead of looking for the sheep," she growled. "In the old days, my father might have let this kind of thing slide. But that's not how we do things now, and if you don't pick up your game, maybe it's time some other dragon led Red Pack out to hunt next time."
She looked at the watch; Equestrian-made, probably once the property of some unfortunate pony who wandered too far into the badlands, never to be seen again, before she came across their abandoned watch as a hatchling. Spike could probably bring her a new one, if she asked, but she liked this one, because it was hers; badly dented, charred on the back, a huge, mazy crack across the glass of the case... but it still worked.
This was her greatest tool in her quest to modernise the dragons; now she could mark off the hours, send the hunting packs out at regular intervals, receive reports from the gem fields, rotate the border troops in shifts, make sure the cooks and butchers all had enough work divided up between them to keep them busy... it was her own quiet revolution, and it was working, and it started with the watch.
Not to mention, it allowed her to divide up her own time, and schedule herself some... "appointments" away from the cave. Appointments where she could work out exactly how long she had free for herself before a search party came out looking for her. Appointments like the one she was getting impatient to keep tonight.
"...Why do you even keep hold of that thing?", asked Garble, and immediately regretted it as a white-hot jet of flame seared past his cheek.
"I keep hold of it because it's useful," she snorted, black smoke billowing from her nostrils. "It tells me when some dragons aren't pulling their weight. It tells me when some dragons were supposed to bring a pile of dead sheep to the kitchens for skinning and cooking. But if I said I wanted to keep it because it was a chicken from Saddle Arabia that laid me fresh eggs every day... it wouldn't make any difference to you, would it?"
"No, Lord Ember," said Garble, facing the floor.
"This is a chicken," said Ember, holding up the watch, her smile twisting maliciously. "Right, Garble?"
"It's... a chicken," said Garble, ashamed.
"Now, get to work, and get out of my sight, and don't come back without the sheep. Yes?"
"Yes, Lord Ember," said Garble, and flew out of the cave.
Dragons, thought Ember, possibly out loud.
She looked at the watch again. Should she be worried? She knew she shouldn't appear worried. Showing weakness in front of the rest of these dragons wasn't a great idea. Later, in Council, she'd talk to some of the elders and get their ideas on what to do next, but out here in the main cavern, the best thing she could do was appear tougher than any other dragon; like she was the one dragon in all of these lands who wasn't to be messed with.
Right on cue, a huge dragon with a torn wing flew through the mouth of the cave, his wingspan making the guard dragons duck out of the way and lower their spears. As he landed and drew himself up to his full height, the torchlight gleamed off his green and red scales, pockmarked with scars and welts from countless battles. Just like every other visitor, the newcomer dropped to one massive, bony knee, digging his chipped and grimy claws into the packed dirt of the cavern floor as he prostrated himself before Ember.
"Scout Bloodwing. You are late."
Bloodwing bowed his head, and mutely nodded, before giving her a grunt and an apologetic shrug.
"...Is the forward position established for the new lookout?", she barked. "Is that what kept you?"
Bloodwing nodded, the scars and cracks in his horns and fins obvious in the bright torchlight.
"I want to inspect this for myself. Carbuncle!", she shouted, as she hopped down from her throne, clutching the Bloodstone Scepter in her claw. A jet-black dragon with huge, yellow eyes scurried out of the darkness.
"I'm going out to personally inspect the new lookout with Scout Bloodwing here. Deal with any visitors until I come back. I'll want a full report."
"Yes, Lord Ember," said Carbuncle, bowing deep before sitting himself down in front of her throne and baring his massive teeth.
Perfect, thought Ember, as she gripped the watch tightly, before taking off and flying out of the cave mouth, straight into the rainstorm, ignoring the salutes of the guards as Bloodwing followed at a respectful distance.
Rain lashed down around the new lookout; high on the hillside, jutting out on a ledge several hundred feet above the volcanic plain, barely accessible from the air even before Bloodwing had started to build a rough cairn of stones around it to make a makeshift fort, or a hut... it was a great place for a lookout. If a dragon sat behind the crude walls, looking through the tiny gaps between the stones, under the rudimentary camouflage of the leaf canopy her cloakmaker had put together based on Rarity's letters, there was almost no way for them to be seen; and if anyone were to approach from afar, the lookouts inside would surely see them long before they themselves were spotted, giving them crucial time to raise an alarm. It was a good idea, and she'd rewarded Coal Pack well for coming up with it in the first place.
Of course, none of the dragons in Coal Pack knew quite what she was using it for.
"I don't know what we're going to do when the scouts actually do start using this as a lookout," sighed Ember, as she pulled the canopy closed above her and Bloodwing. The rain still managed to find its way inside their improvised stone hut, dripping through the brush of the roof, but it was definitely slightly less wet inside than it was out there. She pulled a little brass lamp - another pony invention - out from a box, and lit the wick with her fire before covering it over. The tiny, flickering little flame provided some comfort to both of them, and covered over like this, it would be almost impossible for an intruder to spot its feeble light between the gaps in the stone walls, even on a dark night like tonight.
It wasn't exactly the nice, warm cave, of course, and Ember clicked her forked tongue against her teeth as she shivered. Normally, there was no way she'd give up an evening of carousing and gemstones and shouting at stupid dragon boys, especially when the alternative was getting cold and wet outside for no good reason.
Luckily, tonight she had a good reason.
"We'll just have to meet at your place one of these days, I guess," she grinned, and Bloodwing grinned too, a weird, lop-sided, goofy grin that looked even stranger with his various scars.
Then, he burst into bright blue flames for half a second, made a trilling noise with his wings, and Thorax shook his head to clear the raindrops from his antlers, before smiling up at Ember once again.
"I wish we could," said Thorax, wistfully. "But you know we can't."
"I know," said Ember, sitting down on the cold, hard earth, feeling for a volcanic current underground that she already knew wasn't there. "How are things back in the Hive?", she asked.
"It's... better," said Thorax. "All of the changelings are still getting used to... after the Queen... I mean, it's not been easy, but we're adapting. Now that Pharynx has come home, I think everyone feels a lot safer. And I've been trying to be more assertive, like you said, and..."
Ember quickly shushed him with a finger to his lips. "Shhh. Stop talking."
Thorax gave another sweet little smile, and pushed her claw back down. "I wasn't finished, Ember."
Ember smiled, a huge, sharp-toothed grin. "That's my boy," she said, and Thorax let out a giggle in response.
"So, yeah, that's helped a lot, I think. We're on the right track now, the ponies are still friendly, we're all feeling better since we stopped feeding by forcefully taking love..."
"I still can't believe you saved Equestria," she said, with genuine admiration.
"I wish you'd been there," said Thorax, and took her claw in his own fluorescent hoof. "I could have used your help... and it would have been nice to be together..."
"Yeah," said Ember, smirking. "You want to take me on all the best dates. Cold wet secret hideouts, hostile hives, life or death adventures..."
Thorax laughed. "I wouldn't have let anything happen to you," he said.
"I know," said Ember, and she scooched over to snuggle up against him, feeling the bizarre, magical warmth radiating from his chitinous covering and through her scales. For a moment, they just sat there in the dim near-darkness, holding each other close.
"What are we doing?", said Thorax, after a while had passed. "It's crazy. If the changelings ever found out, or the other dragons..."
"I know," said Ember, pressing herself into him, tucking her tail around his back, careful not to scrape his diaphanous wings...
...those beautiful wings, she thought, so unlike a dragon's, but so graceful and eerie, just effortlessly and unashamedly pretty in a way nothing else in her life ever was, surrounded by burping morons tearing meat from bone with sharp, ugly teeth, flying on heavy, leathery wings, landing and leaving huge clawed ruts in the soil...
...and then there was Thorax, who seemed to be made out of nothing but air and light and magic, looking so delicate that she feared she could break him if she sat on him wrong; and yet in his way, tougher than any dragon she'd ever met... and willing to die for her if need be, of that she was quite certain. Though... let's not test that theory any time soon, she thought to herself, as she pulled him close and gently nuzzled his long, graceful changeling neck.
"All we can do is keep working," he mumbled, maybe not even realising he was talking out loud. Ember had found his voice oddly grating at first, diffident and mousy; now, it just reminded her of how sensitive he could be compared to the idiots who right this second were probably having a competition seeing who could piss the highest up the cave wall. "It's going to take time, but now, with the kids at the school... soon, I think we can exchange official visits, and then maybe after a few of those... who knows? We've both done so much already..."
"Yeah," muttered Ember, her snout nuzzling her mate's neck as she stretched out her legs. "Smolder's excited to tell every dragon about all the new creatures she's meeting, and I want to use what you taught me, but... it's like, there's still a way I'm supposed to act, and it's hard to live up to it, like I'm in a cage or something... like I'm being detained. Am I being detained?"
Ember looked at the watch. She loved to hear it ticking away at night; she'd loved the sound since she was a fledgling, its soft, almost inaudible rhythmic pulse an ever-reliable landmark amid the noise that echoed through the cavern all day and night, something she could rely on. She'd been the only full-grown dragon with claws small enough to wind it, and no other dragon had dared risk the wrath of her father by stealing it.
Nothing else in the world made her feel as safe as that sound... until she'd discovered this sound.
She listened to Thorax's heartbeat, magically swollen with love, somehow radiating that love straight through his skin and through her hide, suffusing her with a warmth like she'd never felt before. Being the dragon lord was wonderful, and being able to boss around dicks like Garble was never going to get old... but sometimes, well...
...sometimes, she just needed to be Ember again, and maybe that meant wanting to be small, to be open, to let her guard down in the way she'd always been taught a dragon never, ever should, not to her parents, not to her mate, not to any dragon who might see a sign of weakness, a gap in her armor, and plunge a claw straight through it before she could close it up again.
Thorax leaned his muzzle atop her head, making his weird, adorable little chirping noises which told her he was happy. Usually, any dragon who dared adopt that pose with her - a traditional display of male dominance, though she doubted he knew that - would have found himself missing an arm. But with Thorax, Ember let it go. Instead, she just let out a long, contented sigh, and nuzzled up to him once again, before looking up and holding his muzzle in her claw, pulling him towards her.
The kiss was as strange and electrifying as their kisses always were; her long, forked tongue played with his weird, flat, bristly not-quite-pony tongue, and she tried not to accidentally light him on fire as he let more and more of his love magic flow through their connection, a buzzing sensation on her lips and in her throat.
All too soon, it was over, and she pulled away, reaching out to snuff the little lamp's light.
"I have to go back soon," she said. "I wish you didn't... I mean... I wish Scout Bloodwing wasn't spending the night camped out, as he always does."
They both smiled ruefully, and then Thorax squeezed her closely, the surprise quickly giving way to a rush of excitement, before she found herself sitting alone. A blue flash, and Thorax was gone, and a big, battered dragon sat opposite her.
"Fly back with me," said Ember, decisively, as she looked at the watch again, before spreading her wings and opening the canopy, receiving a face full of rain for her efforts. "You can do that, at least."
"Of course," said Thorax, and he leapt up into the air before spreading those huge, torn-up, leathery wings, just hovering there in the lashing rain, waiting for her to join him. Ember couldn't help but wish she could bring him back to the cave in his true form, challenge any dragon who had a problem with it, assert her dominance, announce she was taking this changeling - the King of the Changelings, no less - as her mate. They'd stun the world, the news would send shockwaves all across Equestria and beyond, and neither of them would care, they'd just be together, just the two of them, the mighty and assertive Dragon Lord and the kind and sensitive Changeling King, the greatest mating pair in dragon history, and...
"Are you coming, Ember?", called Thorax, flapping hard to keep his position in the squall, the rain splashing against his scaly fake hide.
"I'll be there," she called back, gripping the watch tightly as she launched herself back into the air.
...Soon.
Author's Note
I wanted to write a non-clop story, and also something about dragons, because pretty much all the "native" dragons we've seen besides Ember and Smolder have been awful, and I wanted to think about how Ember might fit in to that culture now that she has to be the leader instead of the runt. And then I got to thinking about how Thorax, as a fellow newly-installed world leader who also has no choice but to act tough all the time, might be the only ~~person~~ creature out there who could truly understand just what she was going through... and that led to this.
Plus I think they could make an adorable couple. But if Ember hears me say that, I'm toast.
