We Are Dragons

Ember the Dragonlord tried not to show the pain.

She was the Governor of the Ash Citadel, Bearer of the Bloodstone Sceptre, and Protector of Eggs and Hatchlings, but all she could think about was bathing her arm in that plant salve Spike had used on her burn. After two days of hard flying back to the Citadel—the trip took longer since they had to take turns carrying Rosebud, and Ember’s arm demanded more rest—Ember had gotten only a few hours of sleep before dragons came knocking on her door.

Over a dozen dragons crowded together around the Core, grumbling among themselves, bumping and pushing with their tails and wings to be the first to speak. She could see all of them from above. Above the doorway to Burnt’s office, her office as long as she was here, hung a short ledge barely large enough for one dragon. But it was there that she stood. Like standing on a pedestal with nowhere to walk off, she was showing her people that she would not back down from their complaints.

Below her, at the entrance to the Core Office, Burnt and Spike stood guard, growling at any dragon that roared a little too loud and began to start their flames. Well, it was Burnt who did most of the growling. Disagreements between dragons were settled usually by fire and blood, or a good wrestling match in a pit of lava. But now wasn’t the time for that.

“Who are all these dragons?” Spike had asked just a few minutes before the first to arrive started demanding answers for the attacks.

“Cohort leaders, like Rosebud,” she had told him.

She didn’t list any names, she doubted Spike would recognise any of them, but from her little perch, she could see their faces clearly. Leaders from every cohort of the Citadel seemed to gather. Most didn’t bother her, leaders of small cohorts stuck to the back of the crowd mimicking their more impressive comrades, though everything they said usually lagged behind them.

There was only a few Ember was truly concerned about. Reave Stonesplitter, his cohort was the largest among the miners, may have been the most pressing. After all, the Citadel would be nothing but a heap of scrap if not for the mines. Then there was Caldera Hammerclaw. Without her cohort, Ember was fairly certain the other dragons who worked at the forges wouldn’t be able to make anything more complicated than a horseshoe.

But neither of them was the largest and loudest. That honour belonged to a red by the name of Rend Farfire. Along with the other two, he was one of the few full-fledged adults in the Citadel, and he threw his weight around by bellowing complaints louder than the rest.

Ember would have ignored his loud yawping if it wasn’t for the fact that Rend’s cohort made up half of the Citadel’s guards, something the arrogant dragon couldn’t help but remind everyone of.

“These attacks are making us look vulnerable! We should burn the last of those storm-whatevers to the ground!” As Farfire roared, Ember couldn’t help but remember a pony saying, something about hammers and everything being nails. His back was a tapestry of scars, each one hard-earned from a duel that he had started. And if things went his way, the whole Citadel would be dressed up and down in old wounds.

“And where is that dragon?” he continued. “That traitor should be chained up at the bottom of the mines for working with our enemies.”

Ember held her tongue. Traitor. That implied he ever had loyalty to the Dragonlands. And she was sure it wasn’t the case. No dragon in the history of dragons had ever done what he had done. Disobeying the Sceptre and breathing lightning instead of fire, her head still struggled to understand how either of those was possible. But, considering there were no questions about those details, it seemed the secret was still safe for the moment, and she wanted to keep it that way. The Citadel was already up in flames as dragons picked up news and rumours about the attacks.

Ember wondered if she should have kept it all a secret. Dragons knew she had gone south, but if she wanted to keep it confidential, she could have easily denied them any details. Instead, she had told Burnt everything that his daughter had faced and ordered him to share the basics of it. Every dragon deserved to know who they were fighting.

Though, if they were going to argue about it instead of preparing, Ember considered keeping things closer to her chest next time.

“My only concern was rescuing Rosebud,” she finally answered him. “Our enemies are not like scattered griffons or peaceful ponies. They were organised and armed with specialised weapons to bring down dragons. Capturing that dragon could have put Rosebud in harm’s way. Who here wouldn’t choose to save their hatchlings over fighting the enemy?”

That silenced quite a few jaws, but not Farfire’s. Instead, he spat a wad of fire on the ground, scorching a loose bit of coal at his feet.

“Or maybe you tucked your tail and ran at the sight of a real dragon. Dragonlord Torch should have never let you compete for the Bloodstone Sceptre.”

“Just Torch,” Ember growled. “I am the Dragonlord, and before you say your complaints, you will remember to respect that title.” She gripped her Sceptre firmly, letting her will flow through the red gemstone at the top. Even if he was her father, Torch had willingly given up the title. No one was the Dragonlord but her.

All the dragons, even Farfire, gave a shallow bow and acknowledged her power, and the power of the Sceptre.

“Of course, Dragonlord Ember,” Caldera spoke up, her silvery scales shimmering under the sceptre’s magical light. “We are all simply concerned. It seems you hold the opinions of ponies higher than the opinions of your kind. We do not have six heroes to call upon in times of need, and I believe Farfire simply wants to know why you let such a valuable asset slip away. Was the fighting so intense you couldn’t even issue a command?”

Ember loosened her hold on the Sceptre and lifted her will from the dragons. They calmed down with Caldera taking the lead, but Ember would have honestly preferred to contend with Rend. Average as adult dragons went, the red’s neck was long enough that if he wanted to speak to her eye-to-eye, he needed only to walk up and stretch to the ledge. Size and power were all dragons ever looked for in a leader, but Rend Farfire was so dull that Ember wondered if he hadn’t taken a few hits to the head along with his scars.

Yes, it would have been easier to argue with Rend. He was too simple to concede his position, but he’d never win an argument either. Meanwhile, Caldera could reason her way around most other dragons. And she had a point.

“I told you, she’s a coward!” Rend snorted, pointing an accusatory claw at Ember. “She even brings a pony princess to judge the Citadel. I’m not surprised a dragon that bows to ponies would let one battle scare her off. If I had the Sceptre, I would have ordered that dragon to burn his little hedgehog friends before finishing him off!”

A dozen younger cohort leaders, many of them around Ember’s age, cheered at Rend’s claim. Caldera simply rolled her eyes at him.

Ember clenched her jaw, thinking of what she could say now that they were fixated on the Sceptre. The last thing she wanted to do was lie to her dragons. She could feel her fire rising as she grew angry. Lying felt like running from the truth, like being the coward Rend claimed her to be. She wanted to stand firm and face the truth head-on like a dragon, whatever the consequences.

But fire died down when she imagined the panic and dissent that would follow if they all knew the truth about the lightning dragon. Or was calling them storm dragon more apt? They once served the Storm King, after all.

Ember shook the distraction from her head. Whatever their name, she had to lie. If she played into Caldera’s suspicion and claimed the fighting was too fierce, Rend would have his day and paint her as a Dragonlord who couldn’t even handle a fight with hedgehogs. Perhaps she could say she didn’t have the Sceptre on her, since she never expected to face a dragon. Whatever story she could have made up, it didn’t matter. Just as she was growing frustrated, Spike clearly could not stand to see his friend accused.

He shot up in the air, flying up to Rend and staring him in the eye. It looked almost comical; Rend’s eye was nearly the size of Spike’s head.

“She’s not a coward!” he shouted at the red dragon. “I’d like to see you fight a lightning dragon and say you wouldn’t do the same!”

And then Ember’s fire went cold.

“Lightning dragon?” Rend narrowed his eyes at Spike. “Dragonlord, what is this whelp talking about? What are you hiding from us?”

Spike whipped around to face Ember, eyes wide and face aghast, covering up his mouth with his claws as he realised what he had blurted out.

The other dragons, Ember noticed Caldera and Reave specifically, started to stare. Some of it was suspicion, after all, she had hidden the truth from them, while other looks were of confusion and anger. Well, at least she could stop thinking about her options. There was only one thing to do.

Ember told them the truth in detail. In front of every leader of nearly every cohort, she told them of the Storm Host and how she had used a spell to speak from afar. She described the dark blue dragon—a storm dragon she had decided to call them as a reminder of their enemy’s identity—who spat lightning instead of fire and could completely ignore a command from the Bloodstone Sceptre.

During the story, some dragons spoke out. Rend Farfire, the arrogant brute, mocked Ember and accused her of using the Sceptre wrongly when it mattered most.

But she levelled it against him and challenged him to try her. He did not.

Despite Ember’s reservations and initial distrust, the dragons of the Citadel took the news somberly. Rather than panic or challenge her for the Sceptre, the cohort leaders, even Rend, listened. There was little in the world that could shake a dragon’s confidence, for as long as there was a Dragonlord to keep their kind tame, or tame enough, it seemed all her dragons had believed that nothing could threaten their new kingdom. Any challenge to that basic assumption bore sober consideration.

“So, this dragon, if he could even be called that, is not a traitor,” Caldera said. By some trick of light and positioning, her scales seemed to dim their reflections and settle down. “He is an enemy, head to tail.”

“Some enemy,” Rend scoffed. “My guess says the Storm King kept him as a pet or something. Anyone who serves under a fool like that king is no dragon in my books. Let me find him, I’ll end this problem with one quick strike.”

Ember found it ironic that Rend of all dragons was calling the Storm King a fool, but his posturing couldn’t help but stir her imagination. How did a dragon come under the banner of the Storm Army?

“The only thing you’ll end is all our suffering,” Reave Stonesplitter, the brown dragon nearly as big as Rend, said. “One lightning bolt and the whole Citadel will be freed from your yawping like a newly hatched whelp.”

“You have the claws to back that?” Rend snarled but backed off immediately when Ember tapped her Sceptre. Both males glared with blazing infernos in their eyes. But as long as the fire was in their eyes and not their mouths, they were making progress.

“We can fight among ourselves when there are no more enemies left for us,” Ember said. “Until then, we have to prepare the Citadel to handle any kind of invasion. I think they’ve been testing our defences with the hedgehogs, seeing how we’ll react. Now that they know they’ve been exposed, these dragons may not hold back any longer.”

“Let them come, we can take two dragons!” cried one of the smaller leaders, a pink-scaled female. Ember couldn’t remember her name immediately. Was it Smokestack? Cinders? Whoever she was, she seemed to have the approval of Rend, who nodded at the pink dragon’s aggression.

“We are not going to invite an attack,” Ember replied, announcing to the whole crowd. “We know what we’re fighting, but not how many. The Storm Host called that dragon her brother, but we can’t assume it’s just the two of them. Maybe she had more siblings, or parents. Or maybe a whole horde of them is waiting beyond our shores.”

Ember raised her wounded arm to the crowd. “We already know they can hurt us. Plus, their soldiers use weighted nets and spears. Maybe against one or two, we’d win, but how many dragons will have to die to take down five? Ten? A hundred?”

Caldera flicked her tail about, scattering some young dragons crowding around her. “What do you say should be our first step then, Dragonlord?” She gave herself more space and cleared a circle with her at its centre, forcing the other dragons to look her way.

“It’s unlikely they’d strike at the Ash Citadel,” Ember said. “Our steel walls are complete and continue to grow stronger by the day. But our other territories, the mines, fishing posts, and home caves out in the desert, they’re all at risk.”

It was a short list, but one that would perk up any dragon’s attention. Gems, food, and shelter were at stake. The last one was the most important of all. Gems and fish could be found anywhere else, but a good secure cave that could hold a dragon’s precious horde, that was hard to come by.

“We can start by putting up lightning rods across the colony,” Caldera suggested. “We’ll see if that lightning spitter can control the electricity he makes. My cohort should be able to put up most of them.”

Ember nodded and gestured down to Burnt. “The Core Office will help manage the funds you’ll need to make them work.”

“Put those credits into the mining cohorts,” Stoneplitter said, pushing his way past Rend to grab Ember’s attention. “We’ll need stone and steel to build more fortifications, but my dragons need better tools and carts to pull all that material out of the earth.”

A few other dragons, Ember guessed they were the leaders of the other mining cohorts, puffed small sparks of flame in agreement. It sounded like a good plan as well, and she didn’t see why it couldn’t complement Caldera’s. The Ash Citadel had the resources to spare for both. Of course, dragons had to be greedy.

Caldera laughed at the brown dragon. “Give me half the time it takes your blockheads to dig a hole and I’ll build a weapon that’ll tear down any fortress. Dragonlord, we have enough materials, what we need is a set of skilled claws to do something with them.”

Ember raised the Sceptre, not using its magic but simply as a gesture to silence the other tiny arguments beginning to spawn from Caldera and Reave’s dispute.

“We can support both of you, for now,” Ember said. “If it turns out we can’t, I’ll judge the progress you both make and pick a direction. But for now, we can’t let a single detail slip by. So you both have my support, agreed?”

Both of them huffed. Two winners would always look like a draw to dragons, and they’d remain mad even if they were better off for it. What surprised Ember was the remarkable silence coming from Rend. She looked at him, curious as to what was going on in his head.

He took notice and simply smirked. “Don’t worry about us lowly guards,” he said mockingly. “Unlike those two, we’re ready to fight: any place, any time. Just promise my cohort a skewer of clams for every charred hedgehog and we’ll be there.”

Ember smiled. Sometimes she had to appreciate her kind’s bravado. Simple desires over food and gems were much easier to manage than whatever kind of politics happened in Canterlot’s royal palace.

As soon as the hearing was adjourned, Ember retreated to her dwelling. Just above the Core, most dragons lived in false caves, ledges made from steel or stone that jutted inward, creating a shelf that overlooked the Core. Once a layer of steel was welded on top, it made for a passable cave for a young dragon.

Hers had rows of heavy, fire-retardant curtains pulled across the front to create a kind of door at the mouth. They were cheap and inexpensive, many ponies she talked to said that firefighters in Equestria wore the material all over their bodies as they worked. The only added luxury was its purple colouring. The curtains were the first gift Twilight had sent to Ember when the Citadel opened its doors to the world.

Twilight had insisted that the purple colour was her friend Rarity’s idea since purple was a colour for royalty. Ember took it on good faith that it was by tradition, and not some trend set by Twilight conveniently being a purple alicorn.

She laid down on a flat boulder in the middle of her false cave. She had ordered a few dragons to bring it in from the desert when the false caves were first built. Something like furniture, though she imagined that rocks made uncomfortable beds for ponies and griffons.

Spike was close behind her, already preparing that salve for her burn. “I’m so sorry,” he pleaded with her. “I don’t know why I said that stuff about the dragon. But that guy was just insulting you, and I couldn’t take it.”

Before she said anything to him, Ember peeled the bandages off her arm and took a look at the burn. She winced as the tender skin was exposed to the air. The scorching currents of air rushing up from the Core felt different without a layer of scales for protection.

“It’s fine,” she said, sitting up and giving Spike space to get close and treat the wound. “They took the news better than I thought they would. I should have just told them everything from the start. Dragons should trust me if I’m going to be their Dragonlord.”

“Applejack would like the sound of that,” Spike said.

Ember looked at him strangely. “Am I supposed to… Do I know that pony?”

“Applejack? She’s one of Twilight’s friends. The Element of Honesty?”

Ember shrugged. “If you ask me, ponies are all sparkles or rainbows or sunshine. You see one and you’ve seen them all.”

“I guess that’s if you never grew up around them,” Spike said.

He gave the burn a quick rinse, cleaning off the old, sticky residue of the salve before applying a new coat. Once it was clean, a quick rub with the plant-goo and a swift wrapping of bandages made Ember’s arm feel almost as good as new.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Just doing my duty as an ambassador to the Dragonlands.”

“As a dragon.” Ember looked at him with a frown. “You’re doing your duty as a dragon.”

“Uh, isn’t that what I just said?”

“You called yourself an ambassador to the Dragonlands. But more than that, you’re still a dragon. You still belong among us.”

“I dunno, I still feel weird around so many dragons—”

“You should stay here, Spike.”

There was a pause and a blank look on his face. It was as if his brain had suddenly shut off for a second as he tried to process what Ember had just asked of him.

“I don’t mean forever,” she quickly added, worried he might get the wrong idea. “I know you’re still a pony at heart, it’s one of your good traits. That’s why when Twilight finishes her tour here and goes back to Equestria, I want you to stay, just for a while, until the attacks have stopped.”

“I’d like that, but it’s not up to me,” he told her. “If Twilight needs me, I have to go with her.”

Ember nodded and knew that was the best she was going to get. “I understand, but please ask her if you can stay.”

Once her burn was cleaned and wrapped up, Spike left her to rest. Ember fell asleep quickly, letting the sound of hammers and furnaces take her mind off her arm’s throbbing. As she slept, her mind drifted from one worry to another. Dreams flashed quickly in her mind, not long enough to remember but enough to recognise.

The Storm Host’s voice echoed through her sleep, repeating all she had said. An empire. The dragons were barely a kingdom, and yet their new enemy had such high ambitions. But a dragon who flew too high was doomed to fall from exhaustion.

A metallic skritch-skratch outside her cave woke Ember up.

She wondered how long she had rested. The sun scarcely reached into Ash Citadel, and the fires of the Core left a consistent orange glow at all hours of the day. She could have slept for ten minutes or a whole day.

She rose off her rock to answer the scratching outside her cave, pulling back the curtains just enough to let her guest in.

Skullfang, nearing the size of a full adult dragon, had to duck down low to fit through the entrance. His crawling on all fours looked more appropriate than the wobbling upright gait he still kept. As dragons aged, their bodies became too difficult for their legs and spines to support upright.

Burnt looked around quickly and then settled down in the back corner of her cave. Before she could ask him why he had come, he revealed a deep metal bowl from behind his back, laden with sapphires and garnets and aquamarine gemstones.

“For me?” Ember tilted her head, but her claws could not wait. Before Burnt could answer she was already picking the sapphires and vanishing them in a single gulp. The stones dropped with a satisfying clinking sound in her stomach, and immediately her mood lifted.

“A gift basket, Spike called it,” Burnt said. “I asked him what would be the best way to thank you for bringing my daughter back safely.”

Ember laughed. “Ponies do love giving their friends food. One time when I visited the Princess, she had the walls of her home made out of crystals for me.”

“Are you certain? I’m not so sure…” Burnt narrowed his eyes thoughtfully but then shook off whatever thought had taken hold of him. “Nevermind, a discussion for another day. I wanted to ask you if you’d be able to oversee some of the defences being built by the aqueduct. Caldera told me she has some ideas she’d like to try, she just needs a few days to set it up.”

“Where on the aqueduct?” Ember asked for clarification. It ran west, from the Citadel straight to the sea, and at a leisurely pace, it’d take a dragon a whole day to fly its length.

“She had a few ideas, spoke too quickly for me, frankly,” Burnt admitted, nervously picking at one of the teeth that jutted out of his face and gave him his namesake. “She did specify starting at the head, however. ”

“By the fishing village?” That was the furthest possible place to start. “I’ll have to see how my arm heals. That’s a lot of flying.”

“I can arrange for you to be pulled on a skipper. I know a few griffons who’ll do the pulling, for a bit of coin. Or we could get some jewel jackals to take the job.”

Ember imagined it for a moment, and then decided she would rather take another hit from the storm dragon than be seen being dragged around in a skipper as if she was helpless.

She refused Burnt’s suggestion, despite how easily the boat-like vessels could slide across the sand.

“As long as you think you’re up to it,” Burnt said. “But don’t push yourself when you don’t have to. The Ash Citadel needs you at your best, and personally, I don’t want to see the dragon who saved my daughter’s life make her own injuries worse just to keep up appearances.”

Ember nodded. “You’re too wise for a dragon. Certainly wiser than Rend.”

“That’s not a hard bar for any dragon to pass, Dragonlord.” They both laughed. But it was only a passing nicety to stall the real question that was on both their minds. The question of the storm dragon.

Burnt had heard the story already, but he still asked Ember to recount it one more time, just to be sure. She didn’t want to believe it, and probably neither did he, but she couldn’t deny what had happened.

“Perhaps they’re some variation, like how pegasi and unicorns are both ponies, despite their differences,” Burnt speculated. “Can it be the same with dragons?”

“Maybe, but if that were true, wouldn’t there be records or stories of them?” Ember wondered. “The Storm King’s conquests spanned a decade or two. If they are dragons like us, they must’ve been around for much longer.”

Burnt fiddled absent-mindedly at one of his fangs again, distracted by his thoughts. “The hedgehogs come from a distant land, don’t they? Far enough away that it could permanently separate our kinds.”

Ember groaned, rubbing her head. She still couldn’t picture it: dragons separated from each other for hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of years. More pressingly, if their guess was right, she had to wonder where those dragons had been all that time.

“I don’t know about you, Burnt,” she said, “but I’m still tired. There’s too much to know, and I don’t have the time or the books like Princess Twilight to figure it all out. I need rest, and then I’ll focus on preparing the Citadel. We can ask our questions when we don’t have enemies to fight.”

Burnt nodded and then rose to his feet, still ducking down to keep from scraping his head against the ceiling. “You have a practical kind of wisdom, Dragonlord. Same as your father. A shame there are so few dragons like you.”

He parted the curtain with his wings, spreading them as wide as he could to catch the hot air billowing up from the Core. He’d need every gust, his adult body was growing in fast, and his wings would not do a good job of keeping up, not for a few more years anyhow.

Ember laid back down, but she quickly realised that no matter how hard she shut her eyes, her sleep had been disturbed. She tried settling her mood, eating a few chunks of topaz and aquamarines, but they were no help. Without any other recourse to calm her nerves, she stepped out of her cave and decided to take a flight around the Ash Citadel. At least then, dragon or non-dragon, everyone would know that the Dragonlord was still strong and ready to lead.

She followed one of the air currents up to the upper levels, gliding by a number of shops and stalls owned and run by griffons and ponies.

Instantly, her appetite flared.

Diamonds, while the most delicious of all jewels, were also incredibly valuable. Other gemstones did just as well for growing healthy scales, so most dragons were comfortable giving up the short-lived flavour of diamonds in order to trade for more useful resources, like enchanted tools or special crafts.

And those diamonds adorned rich ponies and griffons, who set their success into bands of silver and gold. Just how rich did non-dragons become, trading in the Citadel?

Ember wondered for a moment who’s colony it really was.

She ignored the appetite onset by such a rare flavour and focused on a task, any task. It had been a few long days, but Princess Twilight was still in the Citadel. She had been entertained by the kind living in the Citadel for a while, but Ember decided it was the right thing to do to show her a little more hospitality.

The Equestrian consulate was deep in an iron web. Dozens of walkways crossed from one side of the walls to the other, suspended by thick steel cords dangling from the ceiling. Ponies could fall off one walkway and find themselves on another just ten feet below. It was difficult to fly through, but that was preferable to a thin web that would never catch a falling pony.

The consulate office was built much like the Core’s office, although it was much smaller in order to remain safely suspended on top of steel support beams. Like the Core one could find food, medicine, or official documents at the consulate, the ponies seemed to require a great deal of variety. Three kitchens, four stores, and even a bank, extended from the consulate, and ponies of every kind entered in and out of their doors as they would in any Equestrian town.

The ponies scarcely paid any attention to Ember as she passed by them. With the Sceptre packed away in her bag, she imagined that she must’ve seemed like just another dragon to them.

Inside the consulate, the dim and brutalist design of the Ash Citadel faded away. The metal skeleton of the building disappeared, completely concealed by layers of soft carpets, curtains, and potted indoor plants. The steel walls were banished and replaced with a welcoming beige wallpaper, though Ember could still make out the tiny bumps underneath where the rivets had been placed.

The pony at the front desk, a slight portly mare with a lavender mane done up in a bun, greeted and welcomed her. The mare recognised Ember immediately, as expected of a consulate worker, and they exchanged some quick words before Ember asked to see Twilight.

“I’m afraid she’s not in right now,” the mare told her. “She should be out, taking a walk through the Merchants’ Level.”

Asking about their business, no doubt. Ember thanked the mare and quickly made her way back out to the Citadel, descending down through the canopy of steel.

The Merchants’ Level was a series of wide steel bridges that spanned the middle and upper layers of the Citadel. Anything from any of the other kingdoms, from Equestria to Mount Aris, and even some scant goods from Griffonstone and Abyssinia, could be found there. While narrow walkways and pipes formed something like a canopy, the Merchants’ Level was a divide between the dragons below and non-dragons above.

Plenty of dragons still visited, of course. There was a currency exchange among the colourful and eclectic stalls, the only place outside of the Core which would accept the Citadel’s credits. Credits became bits, and bits could buy a dragon anything from anywhere else in the world.

Ember eventually found Twilight at an enchanter’s stall, seemingly in a discussion with the unicorn who operated the register at the front.

“Dragonlord!” The enchanter noticed her walking up to his stall and immediately rushed to place his best-looking pieces out in front. “How fortuitous! The Princess and Dragonlord grace my shop with their presence in simultaneum!”

She eyed the unicorn carefully, taken back a bit by his speech. At first, she thought it was a difference between Draconic and Ponish, but that didn’t make sense. The two were so similar that she never had a problem understanding other ponies.

Twilight gave Ember a knowing look, and she realised that this pony just happened to be a little strange, even for pony standards.

“It’s not a coincidence,” she told the enchanter. “I actually came to check on Princess Twilight. Am I interrupting?”

“Oh of course not,” Twilight said and then gestured with her horn to the tools laid out behind glass cases. “I was just asking him why he doesn’t use Starswirl’s Method of Parallel Entanglement to unify the uneven distribution of enchantment energy. And then he said it’s because he thinks Mistmane’s System for Adjusted Particle Diffusion is better for making more durable tools.”

The Princess laughed as if she had just shared the wittiest joke in all of Equestria, which she might have, but Ember had no sense for half the words she said. Instead, the Dragonlord just politely nodded and chuckled along.

“Every pony has their opinions I guess,” Twilight waved one of her wings in the air as if to fan away the issue. “I mean it’s not like I’m an expert who spent her whole life studying magic or anything.”

“Okay then,” Ember smiled and put a claw around Twilight’s shoulder, “I think we’d better go before someone, not naming names, uses magic to blow a hole in my colony.”

“I would never!” Twilight gasped. “I mean, I might be able to. But who knows?” She spun her head around to the enchanter. “Like I said, it’s not as if I’m an expert at spellcraft or anything!”

Ember quickly removed her from the stall and together they continued walking. Once Twilight had cooled off from whatever obsession had possessed her, they began to talk about the Citadel.

“I heard the news passing among the ponies,” Twilight said, sounding so composed it was as if nothing had happened a few minutes ago. “You know you can always ask Equestria for help, right?”

Ember swallowed her nerves. Which news, she wondered. That clean water was limited in the Citadel? Or that the Citadel was under threat from a storm dragon? The latter was impossible, she decided. Her own dragons had only just learned of the details.

“With the water? I know it’s a problem, but we’ll be installing new filters to clean the seawater we get from the beach.”

Twilight raised a brow at her. “Water? I meant with the remains of the Storm King’s army.”

What ponies said about the speed of gossip was true, and Ember suddenly felt like drowning herself in a pit of molten slag.

“How much have you heard?” she asked, trying to hide the embarrassment flushing her face.

Twilight shared, recounting all but the most recent news. It seems the rest of the Citadel heard about the hedgehogs and the remains of the Storm Army as soon as Ember had returned. A whisper here, a whisper there, perhaps one of the other dragons made a comment and someone overheard. However the news spread, it didn’t matter. It was out already.

Ember hesitated on filling in the gaps in the story. Twilight didn’t know a dragon was involved, let alone a storm dragon. But she would’ve been an idiot to try and keep it a secret any longer. If so much news had spread so quickly, by the end of the day she was sure Twilight would find out anyway. So she confessed the rest to her, including how the Bloodstone Sceptre was useless. She described the Storm Host and her brother, plus the potion spell the Host had used to speak from a distance.

“I know that spell,” Twilight said when Ember mentioned it. “Tempest, a defector from the Storm King’s army, showed me how it works. The magic’s advanced, but easy to use once it’s concentrated into a potion.”

Eyes looked their way as they walked by traders and merchants. The Princess and the Dragonlord, what prudent entrepreneur could resist? Fortunately, the ponies and griffons in the market respected their authority enough to give them a wide berth and mind their own business.

“But these storm dragons, I've never even heard of them before,” Twilight continued. “That burn on your arm, that’s from their lightning?”

Ember nodded, flexing her arm around to show it wasn’t a big deal. But she immediately questioned why she did that, Twilight wasn’t some dragon to be easily impressed by a show of strength.

“He had dark blue scales, almost as dark as the night, and he was the size of a full-grown dragon. Nose to tail tip, he was almost as long as the airship.”

“I’ll have to see what I can find about it in the Canterlot libraries. If there’s any record of a dragon like that, it’d be there. But until then, I think I can send a company of guards to help protect the Citadel.”

Ember stopped walking. “No.”

“No?”

“That dragon is dangerous even to other dragons,” she said. “I don’t want to think about what it could do to ponies. If you send your guards, they’ll end up my responsibility, and I have enough on my mind right now.”

She held out her arm. “Even if they can hurt us, dragons are still the only ones who can take that lightning and survive. So it’s up to us to protect the Citadel.”

Before they continued their discussion, the two of them noticed the many eyes that had fixated on them now that they had stopped in the middle of the Merchants’ Level. They turned back around and returned to the consulate to talk with privacy.

Twilight even told the mare at the front desk to cancel all visits and turn away visitors until they were done.

“It’s not just dragons who live here,” Twilight said once they settled inside the office, normally used to sign off on trade and travel documents. “Every pony in the Ash Citadel is my responsibility. You can’t stop me from protecting my citizens.”

“I don’t plan to stop you. But I’m asking you to trust me. If my dragons can’t protect the Ash Citadel, what can your guards do?”

Twilight tapped the tip of her horn. “Don’t count us out of the fight, we can still pull our own weight.”

“Twilight, please.” Ember pressed her brows together with her claws. “This isn’t Equestria. We have to be able to hold our own, or else the other kingdoms aren’t going to treat the Dragonlands as anything more than a rag-tag bunch of brutes. Queen Novo, Prince Rutherford, King Thorax, do you think they’re going to respect the Citadel if we can’t even hold it for more than a few years?”

Ember slumped down and she could feel her scales scratching against her wooden chair. The Equestrian consulate’s office was even simpler than the Core’s, with wooden furniture instead of the usual steel or bronze that dragons used. It was packed with bookshelves and an overcrowded desk of papers and the floor was covered in a soft carpet.

Her mind drifted for a moment, and she thought how dangerous it was. If a single lucky spark drifted up from the Core’s forges, the whole office would be swallowed in flames.

“I never knew you felt that way, Ember,” Twilight said. She fell silent, deep in thought and humming to herself. She picked up a fountain pen off the table and twirled it around in a levitation bubble. Ember watched, briefly mesmerised. Was that as easy as it looked?

“Still, I can’t just go back to Equestria and do nothing,” she eventually said. “I trust you to defend your home, but at least let Equestria send you supplies. Potions and medicines should help protect your dragons. I can even add a few royal wizards to guard the supplies. Even if you don’t want them getting into danger, a lot of graduates from our School of Magic can enchant letters to deliver themselves. It’s not a communication potion, but those spells can send messages much faster than a dragon or pegasus can carry them.”

Ember nodded. “Fair enough. As long as no pony is putting themselves in danger, I wouldn’t mind the help.”

“And I don’t mind offering it,” Twilight said. “It’s the least I can do to repay you for all the rare jewels Rarity’s been able to buy for her dresses.”

Ember felt grateful for Twilight’s friend. She couldn’t for the life of her remember exactly what this Rarity looked like, but she knew she was the pony who had a hoof in gifting the purple fire-resistant curtains that dressed up her cave. Pony fashion, the need to wear a dozen trinkets that served no function, would probably never make sense to Ember, but she appreciated the demand for gemstones it created.

“If you really want to help, there’s one thing that’ll help more than any amount of magic or potions.”

“There is?” Twilight tilted her head.

Ember nodded. “Let Spike stay in the Citadel, at least until the danger is gone.”

Twilight’s face quickly paled. “Y-you want Spike?”

“He’s a dragon with a pony’s wisdom. I can’t think of someone better to help organise the Citadel.”

Suddenly, Twilight’s posture changed and she sat higher up, straightening her back and fluffing up her feathers just slightly in a way that made her look bigger.

“I’m sorry, but Spike is just too important to me. I can’t leave him here in good conscience, not if there’s a chance he might get hurt.”

“You just said you trusted us to defend the Citadel. On top of that, his fire breath can send messages instantly. Isn’t that the same as sending unicorns to do the job?”

“No, it’s not.” Twilight hesitated, but only briefly. Whatever reservations she had, she quickly sorted it out. “I care about all my subjects, of course, and I trust you to take care of them by defending the Citadel. But Spike is different. He’s family, and I’m sorry to say it, but I just can’t trust someone else to protect him. I’m sorry.”

Ember took a deep breath and settled down. She could feel her scales rippling as her muscles tensed up underneath. What she wanted to do was fight for Spike, he had every right to rejoin his kin, especially when they were facing a dangerous enemy. On the other claw, Twilight had a point.

“I just risked life and limb to save a daughter,” Ember wiggled her injured arm to prove her point. “I can’t exactly turn around and take a dragon away from his mother, even if they are an unlikely pair.”

Twilight seemed to relax and her feathers flattened down. “Thank you.”

“But I just have to ask,” Ember added, “how long do you think you can shelter him? He has his wings, he’s not a baby dragon anymore.”

“There’s a difference between letting him travel the world and knowing he’ll be fighting against the Storm Army and a storm dragon. I’m not trying to shelter him from the world, but there are lines I can’t let him cross.”

“I understand,” Ember said, “and I won’t ask you again.”

Ember walked the length of the Merchant’s Level afterwards, drifting from one stall to the other, ignoring the invitations from ponies hawking their overpriced goods.

She tried imagining what she would do without Spike. It wasn’t that he had any particular skill: he’d never be able to convince a dragon of anything, the Storm Host proved as much, and he didn’t have experience fighting or brawling. His value came from his ability to trust in his principles. Dragons the world around at least had heard the rumours about Equestrian magic. Time and time again, little ponies proved that they could prevail against overwhelming odds simply with their friendships and magic.

But even if a dragon knew that’s how Equestria remained so strong, it didn’t make it any easier to put faith in generosity and kindness when greed and dominance was the norm, not the exception, in the Dragonlands. That was Spike’s strength. He could stick to his beliefs even in the face of adversity. In a sense, he was useful because he was reliable.

Ember scoffed and laughed at herself. For all her preaching about how dragons needed to form an independent kingdom, she still felt so reliant on a pony’s way of thinking. And then, as if summoned by her thoughts, or more likely a stroke of coincidence, she came across Spike. Rosebud walked with him, elbows hooked together, as he passed by a hippogriff’s shop selling pearl jewellery and specialised fishing rods.

“What are those?” Rosebud asked, pointing to a heavy-looking rod on display. The shop owner, busy with another pony, didn’t seem to hear, but Spike was quick to answer.

“I’ve been to Mount Aris a few times,” he said, “there’s like to catch big fish with them, like sailfish or tuna.”

“With a rod? I thought they could turn into sea-ponies. Why not just swim after them? Or throw a net?”

“It’s mostly for fun. Like a game. The rod makes it a challenge to fight the fish, you have to pull at the right time and make the fish tire itself out until finally, you reel it out of the water.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” Rosebud said.

Ember, letting the two young dragons talk, snuck up behind them before cutting into their conversation.

“Sounds fun. Maybe we could try it one day.”

“Dragonlord!” Rosebud jumped and spun around, unhooking her arm from Spike’s.

Her squeal caught the shopkeeper’s attention, and that of the other ponies trotting by the stall. The hippogriff at the counter immediately approached Ember and started asking her what she’d like to buy, but she turned him away and asked for some privacy with her dragons. The hippogriff seemed a little disappointed, but he didn’t dare refuse her.

“You two getting to know each other?” Ember waggled a curious brow.

“N-no,” Rosebud replied, catching herself. “I mean yes. Well, we already talked on the way back to the Citadel. Spike just wanted to take a tour of the Merchant’s Level. He said he didn’t get a good look at it before.”

“Haha,” Spike laughed lightly, “I think I’ve spent more time outside of the Citadel than in it.”

“That’s too bad,” Ember said. “I spoke with Twilight just now. It seems she wants to take you back to Equestria.”

“Really?” Both Rosebud and Spike said at the same time.

“But she’s not just abandoning the Ash Citadel, right? Is she going to send help against the storm dragon?”

“Some, yes.” Ember nodded, trying to hide the bittersweet expression that was trying to surface. She was glad his first concern was the Citadel, but she would have liked him to be more worried about having to leave. “Mostly in resources, no guards or soldiers. Fighting a storm dragon is too dangerous for anyone but another dragon.”

“But why does Spike have to leave?” Rosebud asked.

“That’s just how she wants it. They’re family.”

The young dragon hissed sharply. “Family? She’s a pony princess. What would she know about dragon families?”

“Um, Rosebud?” Spike carefully interjected, placing a claw on her shoulder to calm her down. “Twilight was the pony who hatched and raised me. I know most families aren’t like mine, but she’s like my big sister and my mother at the same time.” Spike paused. “Wow, that sounds really weird when I say it out loud.”

“Whatever she is, they’re important to each other,” Ember said.

“But Spike’s important here too. Shouldn’t he get to decide if he can stay?” Rosebud quickly turned and locked eyes with him. “You don’t want to go, right? The Ash Citadel is a city of dragons, why would you want to leave?”

Spike stepped back, not saying anything for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. Just like a dragon would, Rosebud came on him strong. Ember wondered if Spike had any experience talking to a younger dragon, a female dragon, at that.

“I do want to stay,” he said slowly, “but if Twilight wants me to leave, I don’t have a choice.”

“But will you be happy?” Ember asked. “Having no choice and being happy with what happens aren’t the same.”

Spike opened his mouth but no words came out. His eyes darted around the way eyes always did when someone was searching their thoughts. The search must have come up empty because he found no recourse and eventually relented.

“I do want to stay, just a little bit longer. Even if it’s dangerous.”

“Then you’ll have to tell Twilight that,” Ember said. “And leave me out of it. I already told Twilight I’d respect her wishes, so you’ll have to change her mind on your own.”

“He’s not alone,” Rosebud said with a confident grin. “I’ll talk to her—”

“Oh no,” Ember took the young dragon by the claw, “the last thing you are going to do is make more trouble for me. This is Spike’s business. Let him take care of it himself.”