Strong, powerful, respected, and feared. Those are the words that Torch would define himself in his time as the Dragon Lord, and while many 'weaker' races would question the last word, he relished in the idea. As a dragon, being feared is considerably ideal in his opinion. No one dared question his rule. No one fought him. Importantly, no one dared get on his bad side.
That was then, when he was the Dragon Lord. Now, the power and title of 'Dragon Lord' has been passed on to his daughter and he mostly spent his time in his favorite lava lake relaxing the day away. He still somewhat disagreed that his daughter, Ember, became the next Dragon Lord. She was still so young and small; however, he couldn't deny that she was capable of emulating herself to be strong, powerful, respected, and feared by the other dragons.
"Ha-ha, the stone didn't fall far from the mountain top it seems." He muttered quietly to himself amidst a chuckle.
Admittedly, he did miss being Dragon Lord on some days, when he had something to do other than just laze about around the Dragon Lands getting fat. He did appreciate that he did have time to just laze about and not worry about having to settle another hoard dispute between dragons. He may have been feared by the other dragons, but as their leader he was still obligated to help settle certain disputes, and ,tooth and scales, hoard disputes was the worse.
As he gave a loud yawn, he relaxed further into his lava lake and proceeded to take a mid-day nap. Not long into his slumber though, he found himself in the middle of the Dragon Lands, but no one else around.
Confused at first, Torch looked around wondering where everydragon could possibly be, but then noticed one thing that was completely out of place as he looked up at the sky. Despite that it was in the middle of the day, the moon was already up in the sky, and was shining as if it was already night.
Torch sighed, he then spoke to the moon in an exasperated tone, "That time already, huh? Alright, alright, let her through. I've got time to kill right now."
No sooner had he said that, he heard someone behind him speak, "Hello, again, Torch, long time no see."
"Princess Celestia." He greeted as he turned to face her, the alicorn currently at his size and standing at eye-to-eye with him. "Nice seeing you, too, again. So what do I owe this visit?"
"Torch, you're more than welcome to just call me 'Celestia' given our past together."
"Yeah, yeah." He replied before sitting up on his hind legs and crossing his arms, "So what do you want?"
"I only wanted to visit is all. It's been a while since we were able to just talk between ourselves. Not since your daughter was hatched."
He remained still as he looked her in silence.
After a moment of utter silence between the two, Celestia gave a loud groan in irritation as her soft expression changed to annoyance, "Very well, I can take a hint. You don't want to talk to me." She then turned to leave, "Sister, we are done here."
"Wait, wait..." He stated in a tired tone, making Celestia turn to face her head to face him, "It's good to see you too, Celestia." He said like he actually meant it that time, and opened his arms offering a hug.
"See, was that so hard to do?"
"It is when you decide to bother me when I'm so busy."
Celestia trotted over to him and accepted his hug. They remained that way for a good long while, Celestia even sneaking in chances to nuzzle the dragon along the underside of his jaw and cheek.
"Do you really need to do that?" He groaned.
"We've done more than just nuzzle each other in the past, Torch." She remarked with a smirk, "Besides, we're in the dreamscape, no one is going notice."
"Your sister? Last I checked she's the reason why we can hold conversations on the dreamscape, and why we can meet as each others liaisons, and I mean both professionally and personally."
"She knows not to listen. Luna usually tries to ignore us since she finds me being so... affectionate unappealing." Celestia remarked before hugging him tighter, and positioned her head under his chin, "By the way, nice to know your intellect hasn't degraded over the years as Dragon Lord."
He scoffed. "Please, don't underestimate us dragons, Celestia. I know there's a good number of us who are possibly dumber than the boulder they sleep on, but we aren't not that dumb."
She giggled as they remained like that a moment longer, appreciating the warmth his scales naturally gave off, even during a dreamstate.
"So, tell me what exactly were you so busy doing that you couldn't afford a chat? Last I heard, you've already passed the reigns of leadership to your daughter, Princess Ember." She asked as she pulled away from the hug.
"I'll have you know, I'm still a very busy dragon despite my retirement." He lied, despite knowing that he was technically caught napping in the middle of the day.
"I'm sure you are." She responded and rolled her eyes.
"What about you? Last I recall, it was mid-day when I fell asleep. Aren't you suppose to be ruling an empire right now?"
"Oh, I've decided on retiring from the crown."
"Wait, seriously?!"
She nodded, "I've been on the throne for longer than you've been the Dragon Lord, and considering you're almost as old as me, you should know that. Luna and myself officially retired last month, we're now living at Silver Shoals."
"Never would've figured that one. So who has the throne now? Last I heard, you didn't have a next of kin. No offense."
"None taken. I passed it down to my last protege, Twilight Sparkle. She's more than proven herself capable."
"Ah, I see, the purple pony that actually managed to hatch a dragon egg." Sounding strangely quiet.
"Worried that she'll damage relationships between ponies and dragons?"
"What relationship? During our time as rulers, outside of the occasional moment for a snuggle or secret flirtation on the dreamscape, the only real relationship between our two species was to minimize damage from the occasional trespassing. If anything, she and her runt of an assistant are improving things."
"Then why do you seem concerned?"
He sighed, "I guess it just reminds me how much time has really passed. It almost seems like it was just in the last century that we began minimizing the time we could talk even as just friends due to me gaining the title of 'Dragon Lord', and even less once Ember hatched from her egg, now though..." He scoffs, "Now..."
"Now, we're both retired, and can talk like we use to. Or 'used to' as we could given we're limited to the dreamscape due to our size differences." She finished for him.
"Not exactly how I would've said it, but, yes."
"I'm still working on that by the way. I should have a spell at my disposal soon enough to temporarily shrink you down to at least just a head taller than I am normally."
"Remind me again why, I'm the one that needs to change sizes? I'm sure you can find a spell that does the opposite and grow yourself to my size."
Celestia raised a brow, "You really want me to be the one to change sizes? To a size where both of us are easy to spot for some distance around us?"
"Right, I had forgotten that point." He remarked as he scratched his head.
"Believe me, I wouldn't mind. I just figured you would prefer a more discrete option considering you enjoy showing off how big, strong, and powerful you are, and sun and moon forbid do you ever seem emotional."
"Got that right."
"Well, if you want, you're aware I can do transformations. I can possibly change myself into a dragon. Would that be a problem for you?"
"Eh, that would be interesting, and I doubt any dragon valuing their life would personally question me about it. Ember might, but I'm not sure how she would take it, especially if she found out that it was you."
"That is true." She nodded in agreement.
"Anyway, I suppose now that you're also retired, should I expect these visitations to become more frequent?"
"Unless you prefer I don't. You are a 'very busy dragon' afterall."
He sighed loudly as he gave it some thought, "I'm not sure. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to see how our personal relationship will go with more time between moments, but, looking at our past, I'm more accustomed to the quick visits."
"I'm certainly not opposed if you want to keep in that way, but I would like it if you would at least consider the idea." She then placed a hoof on his claw, "For old time sake." She added hopefully.
"Yeah, sure. Best you give me until next week. I should have an answer then." He then rose up to stand. "Until then though, would you care if we continue this conversation about our relationship over at one of the lava pools?"
"You know I'll get burned, right?" She asked, but took a position next to him anyway as the pair started walking to the nearest lava pool side-by-side.
"It's a dream, Celestia, I'm sure you'll be fine." He remarked as he stretched out a wing to lay on her back.
"And you're sure of this how?"
"Unless you can somehow explain to me how your size right now, and the fact we're completely alone here in the Dragon Lands, I'm inclined to believe anything can happen in the dreamscape." He explained, "Besides, it's not like it has to make any sense. I still remember a dream you and Luna decided to intrude upon once in the past. Your sister decided to break wind and accidentally left a multi-colored cloud behind for us to see." Torch visibly recoiled, "I even recall it smelled of burned sugar."
Celestia burst out laughing, "That happened well over a thousand years ago!"
He chuckled, whether it be from hearing Celestia's reaction or because he could vaguely hear Luna groan at that mention, he didn't know. Either way, he suppose he was happy about one thing, that Celestia was one of the exceptions of who feared him.
Author's Note
This wasn't my main idea for the contest, but this was something I had been itching on doing for a while now. The idea just seemed so interesting to me.
That said, I did put a 'romantic' tag as that was kind of my intention, but wanted to keep it subtle since I didn't want to make it overtly blatant like this was thing they did every night. As such my editor said, he didn't pick up on it immediately, so I'm leaving it up to you guys whether you want to see it as romantic shipping or friendshipping, either one works for me I guess.
Hope you guys liked it.
-Blueninetails