Five miles up, on the crest of a mountaintop that had no name, in a broad clearing of carbonized rocks blasted smooth by a continuous wind, the dragon watched the knight approach.
He’d been at it since dawn, shuffling around switchbacks and crawling over crags. His glinting silver armor flashed pitifully in the sun like a fish washed up on shore. The same wind that animated the endless forest below threatened to pluck the knight from his perch and send him flying into the void.
Now it was approaching evening. The knight picked his way around the final switchback that terminated at the dragon’s lair.
The dragon considered waiting outside the cave. It would be rather humorous to catch the knight out of breath. The look on his face when he saw his doom laying there like a bored cat in a sunny patch of carpet--that would be priceless.
No, thought the dragon, better safe than sorry. There was no telling what strange new technology the knight had devised for the purpose of dragon-killing. Better to fulfil the time-honored contract and do glorious battle, mano y mano, honor and glory, yada yada yada...
The dragon almost yawned. It caught itself at the last second. Dragon yawns were louder than erupting volcanoes. It would need the element of surprise. That and a single, decisive strike would mean a nice crispy dinner and a return to lounging on the giant pile of loot and bones in the back of the cave. The beginnings of a cozy evening in.
So the dragon slithered silently back into its cave. Shadows draped over its scales until it was certain the knight would not see him. Coil and wait. Let him come. Knights couldn’t resist big dark caverns. It was downright Freudian.
The knight finally arrived at the outcropping of ash and windswept rock. In a very unknightly fashion, he tore off his helmet and collapsed, sputtering curses.
A long, flowing blonde mane tumbled out. A rounded snout gasped for air. This knight was a mare, and not a particularly athletic-looking one at that.
After a minute, she tried to get up. The armor chestplate was ill-fitting and constricted her movement, and she had to roll back and forth like a turtle in order to finally right herself.
This knight looked a lot younger than the others that typically came to do battle. She couldn’t be more than 20 or so. Bright blue fur. Green eyes. A noble’s cheekbones and peasant’s shoes.
The first thing that came to the dragon’s mind was the word, veal.
Without bothering to put her helmet back on, the knight approached the cave. She reached for something in a saddlebag strapped to her side. No doubt some weapon meant to maim, to kill, to rend scales from skin and stick something spikey in the gap.
The dragon breathed in, then let out a curtain of smoke from its nostrils. It covered the mountain’s edge in a knee-deep fog before reaching the edge, where it fell away into empty space.
“Pooooooony...” the dragon growled. Its rippling muscles tensed for the attack. The knight cast a nervous glance into the darkness and dug deeper into the bag. “You have made a grave mistake, trespassing here.”
The knight gulped. Random objects flew from the pouch. Desperation and sweat poured from beneath the ill-fitting armor. To the dragon’s hypersensitive nostrils, it smelled like an easy meal.
Time to lay it on thick and go for the kill. “I have devoured your fathers, and their fathers, back to the beginning before there were ponies to speak of. I will devour your children, and their children, and when the line of ponies runs out I will devour the sun, and the universe will know the same darkness you are about to behold--”
“Wonderful weather we are having, isn’t it?”
The dragon paused. The knight’s voice was squeaky, crackling... Oddly familiar. Its eyes turned the knight over warily. “...What.”
“Just wonderful, the weather up here.” The knight’s armor clattered. She ripped off her gauntlets and spilled the bag out on the ground. Various non-threatening knick knacks fell to the dirt. “You can see so far from up here. There’s not a single cloud. Well. Except the one you made. But I mean--would you look at that view?”
The dragon kept one eye trained on the knight while turning the other one to the mountain’s edge. The endless forest was quite pretty this time of year. Infinite conifers caught the fading afternoon light as it turned from yellow to gold, swaying in a breeze breathed to life at the beginning of time by the eternal magistrate of alicorns.
“...Yes, the view is quite nice. A fitting throne for a master of the universe. And a suitable place to devour intruders.”
“Do you like to dance?”
The dragon let out a sigh, accidentally dissipating its own dramatic cloud of sulfurous smoke. A deep frown creased its face. “No.”
“I’ll bet you’d like it. You’re a natural born dancer, on account of you being part lizard. No offence--is that offensive? Nevermind. You can wiggle! Like--” she attempted a pitiful wavy dance move. Armor plates rattled like bones. Her smile got even more nervously toothy. “Like that, sorta.”
“I am a little too big for barnstormers, don’t you think?”
“True, you’re much more of a barnburner than a barnstormer. But I thought of that!” The knight reached into her pack. The dragon bristled, expecting maiming and killing and rending scales from skin and sticking something spikey in the gap.
The knight did not pull from her bag any of those things. The dragon recognized the object she pulled out as a lute.
“I thought, everyone down there in the pony territories has been trying to kill you.”
“Since the beginning of time, yes.”
“Well, I thought, instead of doing that, why not try and break bread with you instead?” The knight smiled weakly. “Metaphorically speaking. Do dragons like bread? Nevermind, stupid question. I’m just a little nervous, because you’re quite large, and I think I breathed in too much of that smoke, and--y’know what? Shutting up now.”
Then, inexplicably, the knight closed her eyes and began to play.
The strings were out of tune. The knight’s strumming was amateurish. Her voice was croaky from the dragonsmoke and more than a little trembly with fear.
Still, it was so familiar... Where did the dragon know that voice from?
Perhaps realizing her performance was on the ropes, she began to dance in time with her strumming. All the fear left her eyes. She howled nonsense lyrics and kicked up a cloud of black dust, pausing only to unclasp the last of her armor before launching herself once again into the music.
The dragon considered the knight, this frail little pony without any weapons or armor. It had never seen a pony dance before, other than the flailing dance ponies sometimes did when it lit them on fire. At any rate, this display, whatever it was, was definitely nicer than being stabbed at with pikes.
The dragon waited until the knight was out of breath and concluded her tune. Then it leaned down until its massive fiery slit-eyes were level with hers.
“What is your name, pony?”
“Harbinger, of line Dash,” she said, a little out of breath.
One of the dragon’s eyes moved to the knight’s discarded chestplate. “Dashes do not bear star sigils on their armor.”
“I may have borrowed it from another squire.”
“A squire without armor is no squire at all.”
The knight flinched. “I’ve read of the ancient histories between your kind and ours. We used to be allies.”
“We did.”
“That was a long time ago, but dragons live for a long time. I don’t think you forgot what it was like to be peaceful with us. I think it was us who forgot.”
A memory bloomed in the dragon’s mind. The star sigil on the squire’s borrowed armor reminded him of something he’d seen six thousand years ago, right at the moment of his birth. “Have you ever seen a dragon up close before?”
“Uh. No. Sorta. You burned the village next to mine ten-ish years ago. So, yeah. Sorta.”
“So you’ve seen us fly.”
“Yes.”
“If you’ve seen us fly, then you’ve seen us dance.” The dragon leapt from the cave and unfurled its massive purple leathery wings to their full breadth. It leaned down so close the squire could reach out and boop its nose. The dragon whispered in a voice aching with something like hope, “Play that song again.”
The knight let out a squeal of amazement. She shrugged off her chainmail, revealing a pair of pegasus wings on her back. She threw her mane out of her face so it caught the ethereal wind, puffed out her chest, and struck a pose of complete confidence, mingled with just a tiny bit of terror to boot.
Aah, yes, the dragon thought, I remember now.
The dragon took off into the golden sunset, twisting and turning until rainbows cascaded off its glorious purple scales. A melody followed.
