Tsundere Travels

Ember awoke with a serious feeling of déjà vu. She was lying on her back on a hard surface, with what felt like a rough pillow under her head. And she couldn’t move her arms, so she figured that she had somehow tangled herself up in her blanket.

Then she remembered.

The dragoness snapped her eyes open. Just like the last time she awoke in this place, when she opened her eyes all she saw was a gray ceiling. There was a wall directly to her right, and open space to her left. But she remembered that she was on a bed and not the floor, so she knew not to just roll off the edge. Instead, she wiggled her legs around until her feet were off the edge of the bed. Then wiggled some more until she was able to stand up. A glance downward showed that she was wearing a similar white shirt that restrained her arms. But this time, there was a white belt that wrapped around her arms and chest.

Ember frowned at the new addition. The belt was holding her arms closer to her body, but it looked like the same material as the shirt so she figured it would rip just as easily. The dragoness flexed her strong dragon muscles and yanked her arms outwards. But this time, the fabric didn’t tear. She pulled and pulled, but she just couldn’t get free of the shirt. The belts holding her arms must be stronger than she thought. She snorted in frustration, and smoke curled out of her nostrils.

Smoke? Ember would have slapped herself on the forehead if her arms were free. The Dragon Lord sucked in a deep breath, then let loose a torrent of orange flame all over her chest and arms. Of course, dragons were immune to dragonfire so all she felt was a pleasant warmth over her scales. But her restraints were far from fireproof. The sleeves and front of the straitjacket instantly caught fire and burned away. Ember was able to shrug off the rest of the material, like a blanket draped over her shoulders. She stretched her arms out to their extremes, and sighed in relief.

Now to get out of her prison. There was only one way out that she could see, and that was through the barred door set in the middle of the prison bars. There was a metal plate on one side of the door, with a small metal circle at the edge of the plate. To Ember, this was obviously the lock. She stepped over to the cell door, and gave it a few shakes. The lock made some metallic clicking noises as the internal mechanism rattled, but the door itself didn’t budge. She stepped back and gave the lock a hard kick; the rattling noise was louder, but the metal didn’t even bend. The dragoness reached over and grabbed two adjacent bars in the door, and used all of her strength to pull them apart. She could feel the metal flex slightly under her hands, but they didn’t bend.

All of a sudden, a loud screeching sound filled the prison cell! Ember winced at the painfully loud sound, then covered her ears and looked around for the sound’s source. She found it on the ceiling, a small round white box that was extremely loud for its size. She also noticed there was some light smoke around the ceiling. Her eyes quickly followed the smoke downwards, and realized that the shirt that she had burned off was still smoking.

The dragoness guessed that the smoke was why the box was screaming at her, but she didn’t know how to turn it off. Well, there was an easy way every dragon could stop something like that. For the second time that evening, Ember blew out a gout of flame at the noisy box. The screeching sound warbled then shut off, as blobs of something dropped down from the device. The Dragon Lord smirked, quite pleased with her quick-thinking action. But her mood dampened considerably when cold water began to spray down from the ceiling. The deluge of water quickly soaked her and everything else in the prison cell.

The defeated dragoness slouched in the sudden rainshower, and wondered to herself what she had done to be treated so poorly. Her self-pity session was interrupted by a faint rattling sound, one that came from somewhere outside of her cell. At first, the sound reminded her of the rattle her cell door made when she shook it. But when she turned around, there was no one outside the cell. The only thing outside the cell door was a narrow hallway that ended just to her left, but she couldn’t see the end of the hallway to her right. The noise continued somewhere off to Ember’s right, but out of sight from her cell.

Then she remembered the guard and the stick and the stinging from earlier. She deduced that the sound was from another door, and the guard was trying to open it. She had to get out before she got poked with the stinging stick again!

Ember inhaled deeply, then let loose her dragonfire on the cell door lock. But this time, she narrowed her lips which turned the orange flame blue. In mere seconds, the metal plate covering the lock glowed white-hot. A moment later, the metal began to sag. This was the sign the dragoness was looking for. She cut off her flame, then reared up and gave the lock a hard kick! The cell door slammed open and sprayed molten metal all over the far wall. Ember burst out of her prison cell and bolted down the right hallway. She barely registered the bare wall on her left and another prison cell on her right -- but she did see the open door in front of her. A guard was standing in the open doorway, holding a long stick in one of its hands. And it was staring at her with its eyes wide open.

The Dragon Lord put on a quick burst of speed, and tackled the guard just as it was reaching for the end of the stick. The two tumbled through the doorway into the room beyond, and the dragoness made sure that she was on top when the two hit the floor. She straddled the guard’s body while she slammed its head on the hard floor until it stopped moving.

Ember let go of the guard’s head and sat back on her haunches. She watched the guard breathe slowly while she tried to catch her own breath. She idly noted that her position on the guard was much like a sexual position she was fond of. Fortunately, she didn’t feel any big bulges under her tail or the whole thing would have felt a lot more awkward. The puzzled dragoness wiggled her butt around, and was surprised that she didn’t feel any bulges at all. Her curiosity piqued, she leaned over and sniffed at the guard’s exposed face and neck. Three sniffs later, and she was sure that the guard was female. With some creatures it was easy to tell the genders apart by looks, like with the ponies. She had learned that male ponies had a wider muzzle than the females, and adult males were taller than the females. She still had some trouble telling the hatchlings apart, however. But these bald monkeys all looked the same. This guard was wearing the same uniform as the other one, as far as she could tell. Did they all wear the same uniform, or was this the same guard? Ember was sure there was some way to tell the genders apart, but she wasn’t going to stick around and ask them. They’d probably just poke her with another stick and capture her again.

Speaking of pointy sticks, the dragoness looked around for the one that the guard had been holding. She saw it a moment later, some several feet away. With the guard unconscious and the stinging stick out of easy reach, she stood up and stepped away from the guard. Ember was sure that she’d hear the guard if she woke up and tried to get the stick, so she was confident the guard was no longer a threat. She was also pleased that she couldn’t smell blood, so she knew she hadn’t hurt the guard too badly. Probably just have a nasty headache, which suited Ember just fine.

The first thing Ember noticed about this new room was that it wasn’t raining. Everything looked to be nice and dry. She was surrounded by rows of small tables that she thought were called ‘desks’ that stretched out in front of her and to her left. There were four desks in the row that stretched out in front of her, and to her left she counted eight desks in the second row. Each desk was covered in stacks of parchment, and most had a chair behind it with a second chair next to it. Beyond the second row was a large platform that Princess Twilight had called a ‘counter’, though this one was covered in stacks of parchment instead of doughnuts and pastries like the one in the shop in Canterlot. Ember suddenly remembered that the shop was called “Pony Joe’s”.

Suddenly, a set of double doors on the far wall slammed open! Two guards wearing the same uniform as the other one burst through the opening, and pointed these small sticks at Ember. The doors bounced off of the walls and bounced back into the guards, but the two didn’t seem to notice. They both shouted the same phrase at the same time.

“FREEZE! DON’T MOVE!”

The dragoness saw the sticks in their hands, and while they were shorter than the other stinging stick she wasn’t going to take any chances. She reached out to the nearest desk, and used her dragon strength to lift it into the air. Parchment and other items went flying as Ember lifted the desk over her head, then aimed it at the guards! The guards realized what she was about to do, and ran back through the doorway just as Ember threw the desk at them. Luck was with both the guards and Ember; the doors had begun to close after the guards, so the desk hit the doors instead of flying down the hallway after them. When the desk hit the doors, the doors slammed shut and the desk slid up against them. The doors were now held shut by the desk.

Ember stared at the closed doors and couldn’t believe her luck. But as she stared, she heard the doors rattle as they were shaken from the other side. Then she heard a thump, and saw the doors move slightly as the guards rammed the doors from the other side. The Dragon Lord did not trust the desk to hold the guards forever, so she knew it was time to find a way out.

From Ember’s position, the double doors were on the far wall. That wall was lined on both sides with chairs. The walls themselves were covered in paper with pictures and writing on them. To her right was more walls covered in paper, but no windows. To her left was another wall without a window, but on the other side of the counter was a door! The dragoness hoped that it led outside, or at least led somewhere without guards. She ran around the counter and to her left, then came to a stop in front of the door. She looked for a door knob, but didn’t see one. Just a long bar that stretched across the door. She pushed on the door, but it didn’t open. She next tried to pull on the bar, but the door refused to open even though the bar moved a bit. In desperation, she pushed on the bar instead. To her surprise, the door opened! Her nose smelled fresh air past the door, so she pushed the door open all the way and ran through the doorway.

Outside! She was finally free of the prison! The air smelled kinda funny, but it was cool and reasonably fresh and right then it smelled like FREEDOM! Ember continued to run into an open area right outside the doorway. She looked upwards to see if there was room to fly, and there was. The sky was dark but the ground was lit by some sort of lanterns on poles. Her dragon eyes had no issues seeing in the dark of night nor the bright of day, so she quickly unfurled her wings and leapt into the air. The dragoness beat her wings furiously to put as much distance between her and the prison she just escaped from. Farther and farther she flew, until she simply disappeared into the midnight sky.