A hearth is a place in a home where a fire is kept for heating and cooking. It is such an integral part of a home, usually its central and most important feature, that the concept has been generalized to a homeplace or a household, as in the terms “hearth and home” and “home is where the hearth is”.
Someone had blown away the entire mountain at one point in the past. It had been a chimney originally, just like the other volcanoes.
It was the only entrance to the foundry for dragons as large as the last Dragon Lord. It was large enough for a pegasus to comfortably glide in circles, whether to go down or ride the updraft up. It was also the only entrance never used by anyone smaller than ex-Dragon Lord Torch. Usually.
It was about time for Celestia to remember.
“That spark over there.”
“Are you sure?”
“I remember now. That should lead to where I want to go.”
Dragon Lord Ember shrugged. “I’m not gonna stop you. Just don’t burn yourself.”
There wasn’t much to see there from the surface apart from lights and sparks coming out of the cracks on the walls. Some of the cracks are big enough to be used as an entrance to the foundry for the smaller dragons.
They called the chimney The Great Behind. It was the place where two great rulers first met.
“I come in peace!”
“Your mistake!”
Many of the little cauldrons use it as their main smoke chimney. It was way too big to be used as a magma chimney, so their molten wastes were usually mixed with the wastes from the larger cauldrons.
Gliding down the hole, Celestia saw through the cracks many of the smaller dragons breathing fire on pools of lava, making sure they don’t freeze too early so more of the delicious gems would form. Sometimes there were larger dragons breathing fire on larger pools of lava, and the sparks they emit shone brighter and more colorfully.
Sometimes the flames shot violently into the chimney. It wasn’t anything dangerous for the dragons, but Dragonfire at that temperature could easily melt a pony. At the deepest levels, they could melt the lesser dragons.
Celestia lit her horn and braced. The flames tickled her a little.
She remembered the first time she felt Dragonfire on her face. She was way younger back then, and it hurt a lot more. Thinking back, she should’ve thanked Torch for holding her so tightly, otherwise, she’d have more than a few scars from their little encounter.
The trip down was a lot more enjoyable than she remembered. It took a couple of hours, yet it felt like a few minutes.
One of the sparks caught her attention. It was blue, faint, and had a steadier interval than the rest of the sparks. Celestia glided toward it.
It was a large cave opening almost as wide and tall as the chimney itself. It was large enough for Torch to fit through.
“Let me go!”
“Shh! They’ll hear us!”
There was a certain feeling one gets when walking through the cave. An eerie, unsettling aura that crawled underneath the skin and won’t go away. No dragon was brave enough to fight the feeling and come any closer. It was the perfect place for two unlikely creatures to have a civilized talk.
“No one will bother us here. Let’s go a little deeper just in case.”
The air got colder the deeper she got into the cave. Almost no fire ever found its way there, let alone a dragon. The lack of scorching heat lets water settle without immediately evaporating.
“I’ve never been here either. Not because I’m scared, of course.”
There was an enormous lake in the deeper part of the cave, stretching further than any light could reach on all sides. One would believe that it was an ocean.
Blue luminescent crystals embedded on the walls together with the impenetrable darkness from the lake’s depth gave it an ominous look. Not even the brightest spell Celestia could conjure could push any meaningful distance into it, not a thousand years ago, not today. Even standing near the shorelines made her want to teleport back to the surface.
“Can’t we find somewhere else?”
“It’s the only place I can talk to a pony without becoming a laughing stock.”
Despite her common sense screaming all sorts of odes, Celestia walked in and swam.
The floor dipped immediately, and the bottom was lost to the darkness not long after she touched the water. It was deep enough for an eldritch abomination to comfortably live in. Deep enough for five Torches to stand on top of one another. Deep enough for your mind to conjure all your greatest fears and believe that it was all in there. Deep enough for an ancient Leviathan to call it home.
Should one bring enough equipment and courage to dive and see the very bottom of the lake, one would find a partial skeleton of such Leviathan. It would be missing its lower jaw.
“So you’re the one scaring everyone away? Not so scary without your mouth now, are you!?”
Its lower jaw would be hidden among the stalagmites as they would look no different than its teeth. They rose as tall as two houses and as wide as Torch with his arms spread.
It was the first time Celestia ever saw violence in its raw, unadulterated form. Neither King Sombra nor Nightmare Moon ever gave her such fear.
Dragonfire and eldritch blood filled the air with a thickening smell and deafening roars shook the walls of the cave. Much of the water had been thrown about then, especially when the Leviathan first pounced on them—the water level had probably been a little higher.
Despite the Leviathan’s unimaginable size, Torch had been able to stand against it and win, without any meaningful injuries, and without killing her in the process.
“That was loud and someone’s probably coming here, so spit it out. …Stop looking at me like that! ...Is it a pony thing to throw up before speaking? You ponies are so weird.”
It wouldn’t have been hard for Torch to tear her apart back then. She still wondered why he hadn’t. She was still ever so grateful that a Dragon Lord would ever see a pony and decided that a talk would be an option, let alone listen and agree to what she offered.
“I can make my dragons not kill anypony outside of our land, but I won’t tell them anything if your ponies decide to come here.”
It was an untold piece of history. It only lived on the memories of the two, and would forever be lost along with their final breaths.
Except for the Leviathan part. Torch bragged about it a lot.
It took nearly two hours, but she eventually reached the other end of the lake. Thinking back, she could’ve flown over it and spared her nerves from all that wreck. The ceiling had quite a few stalactites, but nothing she couldn’t maneuver around.
“I think this cave leads to the dragon halls, but you wouldn’t wanna be there. Now get lost.”
She somehow remembered that particular sentence. The memory was such a curious thing.
The cave stretched even deeper, but the passage narrowed sharply right after the water ended. The walls kept on closing and the ceiling fell as she walked further until, eventually, she could reach both ends with her wings and couldn’t stand upright.
The claustrophobic path went along for an hour before she could hear flowing water. It was only a short walk after that until she reached an opening with an underground river.
She could see a faint red light blinking down the stream.
It was a pump. A pony-made pump. The pipe went to a crack on the wall, bright and just wide enough to fit an alicorn, and she followed it.
Indeed, it was an opening to the dragon halls.
The dragon halls were a complex of enormous hallways brightly lit with columns of falling magma, looking as if they’re pillars holding the ceiling far above. They were bright enough that nothing looked any different when Celestia dismissed her spell.
Everything in it was dug out of the bedrock. The floor was carved with meticulous patterns older than any history could remember and unfamiliar to any surviving cultures. The walls and ceiling were also carved—grand columns and arches meet each other in a beautiful geometrical dance. Patterns similar yet different than those on the floor decorate the ceiling with enough boldness to be visible from where Celestia stood, yet detailed enough to show more of its beauty when she flew to get a closer look.
Lining the sides of the hallway between the carved-out columns were rooms for dragons to sleep in. Hoards of untold riches fit snugly inside each room to make up the most comfortable bed and the tastiest midnight snack a fully grown dragon could imagine.
Most of the dragons there were sleeping. Those who were awake gave her nothing but a passing glance.
In the middle of the hallway was a grand dining table just tall enough for a dragon to use while sitting on the floor, although no dragon had any memory of using it for dining. It was wide enough to be a bridge carrying Manehattan’s worst traffic, but with carvings fit to be in a Manehattanite art gallery.
The pipes from before snaked under the table to one of the few rooms unoccupied by dragons nor untold riches. Instead, as Celestia peeked in, she found a cozy little pony-sized camp. The pipe went to a sizable water tank, which then split into a miniature geothermal power generator, a miniature oxygen machine, and a tap. There were several tents around, notes and charts laying about in clusters both neat and chaotic, and a cooking spot at the edge of the room sharing a hole with the generator, which was nothing more than a cauldron attached to a long chain.
It was only then that Celestia remembered that she was supposed to be breathing. She should’ve saved her life-preserving spell for later.
“Excuse me?” she called.
A bronze-colored earth pony poked her head out of a tent and looked at her excitedly. “Celestia! You came early!”
“Hello, Bronze. Yes, I took a shortcut. Are the others around?”
“The others should be coming back now, it has been a few hours.” She scrunched her muzzle and glanced at the cooking pot. “I, uh, would’ve offered to make you tea, but we ran out of coffee, and then started drinking tea instead, and, uh.” She grinned. “We ran out of tea yesterday.”
“You drank quite a lot of coffee to run out so early.”
Her grin strained. “It was actually my fault. I dropped a full bag of coffee beans into the magma when I was about to make coffee.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow.
“It wasn’t my fault! I hadn’t had my coffee!” She waved her hoof around. “It’s also not my fault that I need coffee to properly make coffee!”
Celestia snickered. “Well, in any case,” she pulled out a bunch of scrolls and envelopes from her mane and continued, “here are letters from your loved ones.”
Bronze took them excitedly and started sifting through them. One by one she read who the letters were from and for, and her grin steadily diminished.
“Is something wrong?”
She sighed. “I was hoping to get a letter from my sister. Her next birthday would be the first birthday that coincides with my free time in, well, only two years, but still!” She fiddled with the letters and put two with her name in it in her dark brown mane. It was short and only grew from the right side of her scalp, but she managed to tuck them in it. “I want to talk all about it! I want to talk about what muffin she wants for her birthday, and if she still wanted a candle on it! Maybe she’ll let me bring an actual cake to the factory this time?”
“Well, why don’t you write a letter to her first?”
“Because it’ll take two days for me to write a letter for her and you'll be gone by tomorrow. So even if I write it right away it won’t be until next month for my letter to be sent, and that’s forgetting that we’re about to leave this hole in a week!”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Why would you need two days to write a letter?”
“We’re going to need an entire day to make the papers because it’s fun and we like to goof around during it.” Bronze looked away.
Celestia hummed. “How about this: You start making the papers when the others come back. I have some other business to attend to and it’ll take almost a day to reach the place, so you’ll have enough time before I return to you to take your letter back to Equestria.”
Bronze hummed. “That will be a good—wait, an entire day!? Don’t tell me you’re going to the mantle.”
“That is indeed where I’m about to go. What’s the matter?”
“It’s hot! It’s very hot! And it’s hot all around you and not just from a really hot thing that’s in the mantle, because the mantle itself is hot! It’s called the magma sea because it is. A sea. Of magma. No suit in Equestria can protect you from direct contact with something that hot.” She angrily pointed at the eyepatch covering her left eye, and at all the splotches of darkened and missing fur on her face, neck, and left shoulder. “Not even heat retardant suits can do anything against direct contact with even molten bronze—I’m living proof of that. I’m not the leader of this expedition but I’m not letting you go there!”
“You know we don’t use leather anymore after your accident. Aluminized suits have had a lot of improvements since then, and we’ve started integrating them with heat-resistant runes. We have standardized tests to make sure they will still protect you from splashes of molten iron.”
Bronze made a very good job raising her left eyebrow despite not having one. “You’re not using that to wade around the magma sea, though.”
Celestia hummed and averted her eyes. “How about magic?”
“Magic is… magic is…” Bronze let out an angry huff. “I guess I can trust the magic of an alicorn sun goddess, but!” She pointed an angry hoof at Celestia. “I’m still going to be worried, so you better get back as soon as you can!”
“I promise I’ll only take as much time as I need.”
“Good. I’m going to tell the others about it so you better not make all of us worried.”
“You really don’t want me to go down there, do you?”
Bronze raised her snout high.
“Alright, I promise to go back as soon as I can.” With that, they said their goodbyes, and Celestia walked out of the room.
As soon as she saw Bronze getting inside the tent, she teleported right down to the magma sea.
Celestia flinched at the sudden brightness. Her spell protected her well against the radiant heat, and as she slowly glided down and landed, it held up easily against the blood of the planet. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she slowly took hold of her surroundings.
It was indeed a sea of magma as far as the eye can see. The ceiling was far enough above for her to see the horizon amidst the many pillars of slowly rising magma. They were far brighter than the pillars back at the halls, much bigger, and looked much more viscous. Some of the rising magma pillars were split into a smaller stream, which then curved back down to giant white bowls suspended in midair, positioned directly underneath the chimneys.
Celestia slowly waded around the magma sea.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
A green dragon as large as Torch stood behind her with her claws on her hips and wearing an impatient expression. She looked just like any other dragon, except bigger, and with no ground to stand on she looked more like a sea serpent. With wings.
Celestia turned around. “I was told that Torch went down here?”
“If you’re down here for him, you’re too late. Or maybe not. He’s gone down to the Hearth about a week ago, but knowing him he’s probably stalling.”
“He’s gone down already?”
The dragon shrugged. “Or maybe he’s surfaced on the other side of the magma sea to hide his face so he can wait another thousand years just like when he waited to give me a child.”
Celestia perked up. “You’re his wife?”
The dragon raised an eyebrow. “His what?”
“Wife. You two are family?”
“Ah! No. Those are words you ponies use on us for no reason and I still don’t understand what it all means. The younger dragons these days do but they’re usually too afraid to even look at me. If you meant if I had a child with him, yes. She’s the current Dragon Lord. She would’ve been a much bigger and proper Dragon Lord if he hadn’t waited a thousand years to give me an egg! Bah!”
“But she’s holding strong.”
“I doubt that’s gonna last. My other children can swallow her whole if they want, I’m just waiting for it to happen. If she didn’t end up lunch, that’s good! That means the Hearth has a future after all.”
“Other children? I thought you said you waited a thousand years?”
“For Torch. We were two of the strongest dragons back then, and we wanted to make the most powerful child in history! I had children with other dragons but they’re all weak, so I ate their heads. I heard grasshoppers do that, and that’s funny! Ha!” She pointed at a scar on her jaw. “One of them got me in the jaw. I was about to let him live, but then he dropped dead. That one was a lot funnier!”
“You ate your children’s heads!?”
She stared at her with half-lidded eyes. “My mates. Grasshoppers don’t eat their children’s heads. I think. I want my children to grow big and strong, and maybe eventually eat my head. I don’t know if grasshoppers do that.”
“I… see. You must have raised them very well?”
“I don’t. There are other dragons for that. But I taught them how to fight, and most of them are still alive!” She paused. “Except Ember. Torch taught her. And I guess I have to teach her some more now that he’s down there. Even if he’s still cowering somewhere it’s hot enough here that a dragon her age might burn.” She squinted at Celestia. “How are you here anyway? Last I remember ponies catch fire.”
“I have several spells keeping me alive.”
The dragon hummed. “Well, if your fancy magic can let you swim like a dragon, you can dive down to the Dragon Hearth’s door. If Torch isn’t there, don’t go any further, he’s probably inside and will kill you. Or do, see if I care. If he’s still outside, kill him for me, will you?”
“I’ll put that into consideration.”
The dragon waved her claw. “Meh, I don’t think you can, anyway.” She pointed at one of the rising magma pillars and said, “There’s a spine behind that one. Follow it down and you’ll reach the door.”
“A… spine?”
“A spine of some ancient creature who was here before us. My great grandfather told me it rose from the frozen Hearth and was slain by the first Dragon Lord. They’re something weird and demon-y. I don’t know, remembering weak dead things is a pony thing.”
“Alright… thanks.”
“And make sure you melt completely if you die down there. We’ve had enough bones here already.”
By habit, Celestia took a deep breath, then dove next to the spine. She couldn’t see anything, and it was blindingly bright even with her eyes closed, so she swam and swam, and grabbed tightly to the spine. She followed it down and swam further and further down the magma sea.
Time flew agonizingly slow for her. Everything was sticky and viscous and it was hard to move her limbs around. The deeper she went the harder it got to push herself down and the heat around her pushed harder and harder against her spell.
The spine eventually ended, yet there was nothing around. Celestia kept on diving deeper, and deeper, and deeper still.
It took nearly an entire day, but she managed to finally find solid ground. She followed it, and before she knew it, she surfaced.
It was all white and blindingly bright. She was standing in a hall a few times higher than the dragon halls, stretching as far as the eye can see (which wasn’t much considering the brightness), yet carved similarly. Everything around her was built out of some sort of extremely hot solid material which no one had a name for. Behind her was a wall of magma, held back by an invisible force. The other end of the hall was visible, and there, next to a gargantuan pitch-black door, was Torch.
Celestia slowly walked toward him.
She couldn’t hear her own steps. All around her were only silence and the steady breathing of the dragon.
“Torch?”
Torch swiveled around. “Who? Oh, it’s you.”
Celestia continued walking forward. “It’s me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought that dragoness told you something before sending you here.”
“She told me that you’re supposed to be replacing the Dragon Hearth.” She gestured around her. “You’re still here.”
Torch sighed. “I hope you don’t think all dragons have guts as weak as I do.”
Celestia stood next to him in front of the door. “What are you afraid of? What’s behind this door?”
He shrugged. “No one knows. Maybe my dad, maybe the Dragon Lord before him. Maybe the Dragon Lord before that one. Maybe it’s the first Dragon Lord. A really old and probably dead first Dragon Lord. But it’s still hot, so it’s probably someone stronger than him at least.”
Celestia sighed. “Do you have to do this?”
“It is my duty as the dethroned Dragon Lord and the most powerful dragon alive to replace the Hearth.”
“What happens then?”
Torch raised an eyebrow. “I become the new Dragon Hearth. Or maybe I die. Why do you care?”
Celestia opened her mouth, then closed it back. Then, she said, “To be truly honest, I have no idea why I’m doing this.” She looked up at him. “We’ve only met a couple of times, all to take care of our people. We’ve never talked. I think this is the most we’ve ever talked to each other.”
“Don’t think we’re suddenly friends just because I don’t kill you right away.”
Celestia hummed. “That’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask. Why didn’t you kill me right away?”
“You were the bravest little pony I’ve ever seen.” He playfully nudged her with his massive claws. “You know I can kill you, yet you stood there, all glorious and courageous, declaring you want to talk to a Dragon Lord.” Torch laughed. “I liked you right away!”
“Was that all?”
Torch knocked on his head a couple of times. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. Maybe I just needed an excuse to go to that cave to kill anything inside it.”
“The Leviathan.”
“Whatever you call that snake thing is.”
“Was that something a Dragon Lord was supposed to do too? Killing giant monsters?”
“Not really, but most Dragon Lords I remember just kind of found one during their reign.” Torch blinked. “I only remember three Dragon Lords. Me, my father, and the first one. So that’s three giant monsters slain by a Dragon Lord.”
“Huh.” Celestia paused, then asked, “So, you’re afraid of your father?”
Torch stared at the door. “I’m scared of Ember.”
“Your daughter?”
“I don’t want to end up killing her when she has to replace me. I told her not to participate in the gauntlet but.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s just something I have to live with from now on. Hope she grows strong enough to kill me. Maybe her becoming-friends-with-ponies rule can teach her something that I couldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t it be lonely down there?”
“It will but I don’t really mind—” Torch scrunched his eyebrows. “Now hold on, I started to feel like you’re the one who doesn’t want me getting through this door.”
“I—” Celestia choked. “I… I guess I’m afraid of losing a friend.”
“We talked, like, three times.”
“But I knew you’ll always be around even after a thousand years.”
“I’ll still be down here in a thousand years. If I’m strong enough to kill whoever’s there, which I'm sure I am.”
“I’m still going to lose a friend I can depend on to be there.”
“Don’t you have other friends like that too?”
Celestia shook her head. “Ponies don’t age like we do.”
“Oh, I thought you were talking about a friend who would always be by your side.”
Celestia looked at him. “They’re all by my side, but eventually they just… fade away.”
“So… are you just afraid of losing something you know will be there? Like me? And that mountain that used to be up there?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.” Torch looked away, then at the ceiling. “The mountain wasn’t me.”
“It reminds me that nothing lives forever. Not even friendship.”
“No dragon lives forever either.” Torch gestured at the door. “But the Dragon Hearth shall remain eternal.”
“By getting replaced.”
He shrugged. “Dragon Lords come and go. They do what they need to do. Such is the life of a dragon.”
“And the legacy you leave behind is what matters most?”
“We don’t really remember dead things. That’s a pony thing. Unless your bones are good enough for surfboards, then you’ll definitely be remembered.”
“Surfboards?”
“We surf in magma with dragon bones. It’s fun! You should try it!”
“So you still play with your friends even after their death?”
“You said you wanted to have a friend that lasts forever. That’s one way to do it.”
She stared at the ceiling. “Well, not everything is within our control, I guess. A dead friend is a dead friend. You can only remember them.”
“Or use them as surfboards. You can ask any dragon to teach you how to surf with the bones of your dead friends. We do it all the time. Well, until the young dragons found that little pony shield.”
“You sure have an interesting way to remember the deceased.”
“It’s fun!” Torch looked at her up and down. “I don’t think I can use you as a surfboard though. Would be fun to have one down there.”
She chuckled. “Well, thank you for not killing me right away for the last time.”
“So that’s enough for you to consider me a friend?”
“Of course.”
“You ponies are weird. You make me laugh every time! Ha!”
“I shouldn’t hold you back any longer. I guess this is goodbye.”
Torch laughed. “Goodbye, brave little pony. Tell Ember to train hard, won’t you?”
“Goodbye, old friend. I’ll be sure to tell her.”
The door closed shut with a resounding boom.
Celestia sat on her haunches and stared. And she thought.
She thought about the mountain that had been. She thought about the Leviathan older than anything in this world. She thought about the death of the Leviathan who no one probably ever heard about until its death. She thought about the forgotten architects who made the dragon halls and all the knowledge lost to the passage of time.
She thought of the possibility that the dragon halls weren’t made by the dragons at all. There was no telling if the dragons stole the home of another civilization, but whoever they had been had made them perfectly dragon-sized.
Whoever they had been, they were long forgotten.
She thought about the ancient creature who the dragons very rarely remembered. She thought about all the work which must have been done to create the hall she was in, and how very few had and will ever see its majesty. Even less would ever see whatever lies behind the door. She thought about the Dragon Hearth and how lonely it must have been down there.
She thought about herself.
She thought about her sister.
She thought about Bronze.
Her friend must be worried.
Celestia stood up, then stumbled. She hadn’t noticed how much of her magic she had drained.
She quickly trotted back to the wall of magma and swam to the surface.
It was a lot easier to surface than to dive. The magma sea loathed her presence and would love for her to go away as soon as possible. It took very long still, and it felt longer even as Celestia had to endure the feeling of her slowly depleting magic reserve.
She swam faster and faster, and she was finally able to surface.
She immediately hit her head on something.
“Oh, you’re still alive?”
She blinked repeatedly. “Yes, I am.”
“Did you meet Torch?”
“I did.”
“Did you kill him?”
“He went through the door.”
“About time. Now we wait for someone’s entire skeleton to surface.” She huffed. “Golly gee I can’t wait to have to clean up after that.”
“Will you be able to tell whose skeleton it belongs to?”
“I don’t really pay attention. You want to have a pony look into them or something?”
Celestia paused. “Maybe not.”
“I thought you like bones. I gave your ponies a lot of bones, and this place is looking a lot nicer than it used to.” She tapped at one of the white bowls of magma behind her. “We even found a use for all the skulls scattered about.”
“I’m glad you find us helpful.”
“You sure are! We got a lot more gold than before, and whatever you made the youngins build up there certainly made the surface cauldrons make more gems.”
Celestia smiled. “So, you’ve met the pony who designed it all?”
She laughed. “I have. Smallest pony I’ve ever seen! Small but very brave! She wasn’t even afraid of me. I like her.”
“That sounds like a very good start to a beautiful friendship.”
She raised her eyebrow. “Just because I didn’t kill her right away doesn’t make us friends. There are orders from the Dragon Lord.” She smirked. “Speaking of orders, wanna see something cool?”
Celestia felt as if she was about to make a decision she would regret. Remembering that she wasn’t responsible for an entire kingdom anymore, she nodded.
“Watch.” She turned around, took a deep breath, then breathed a stream of blindingly white Dragonfire at one of the bowls.
Celestia flinched and shielded herself with her wings, then cast a second layer of protection spell on herself.
The magma inside the bowl boiled, then rose up the chimney. High up above the boiling rock would be caught by a series of chambers made of dragon bone, which would then condense it step by step into different molten metals until, at the very top, it would condense back into magma. It was one of the things that Bronze made for the dragons. Or, rather, she designed it and hoped that the dragons understood what she meant. By sample products Equestria had received so far, it seemed to be working just fine. And by the dragon’s comment from before, it was also working well for the dragons.
The dragon turned around. “You saw that? One of your ponies told me she would love to see it. Tell her all about it so she stops bothering me.”
“Yes, I… I saw it all perfectly. Thank you.”
“Wanna do something even cooler? I bet you can ride that steam up and reach the surface in no time! I’ll give you half my bed if you don’t die halfway!”
“No! No. No thank you, I don’t want to be a bother.”
She clicked her tongue. “Not even with a surfboard? You’re no fun. Get lost, then.”
Celestia nodded, then teleported back to the dragon halls.
She collapsed. She dropped all her spells and took a deep breath.
She felt a familiar presence walking closer to her. She smiled, as she knew who it was without needing to open her eyes.
“When I told you about Torch, I expected a little chat about it, not a journey to the center of the planet.”
Celestia let out a blissful sigh. “It’s good to see you too, sister.”
Luna rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t aware you two were that close.”
“I guess I’ve been having a lot on my mind lately.”
“Then talk about it. You have me, you have all your other immortal friends.” Luna grabbed her arm and lifted her up. “You have your mortal friends. You have to start engaging in their mortal activities, just like you told me to!”
She looked at Luna with half-lidded eyes. “None of us are immortal, sister. And ‘mortal’ activities. Really?”
Luna waved her hoof around. “You know what I mean. Activities that don’t require you to be ridiculously long-lived and having enough expertise to essentially be invincible. Like being afraid of molten rock because you don’t have any suspiciously specific spell for it. And actually breathing oxygen. And eating.”
Celestia took a deep breath. “I am breathing. And I’ve had lunch before coming down.”
“Sister, that was last week.”
Celestia scrunched her muzzle. It was only then that she noticed Bronze standing beside Luna with the flattest expression a pony could make. “...Sorry I was late?”
Bronze sighed. “It’s alright. My brother told me everything I wanted to know in his letter anyway.”
“...The stove for your distillery is working properly.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“...Your project is making the dragons happy.”
“Thank you for the reassurance.”
Celestia looked away. “...Am I doomed to have this mentioned in all of our future conversations?”
“Probably.”
“Are you by any chance having another expedition to a ridiculously dangerous and remote place where no mailpony would and could ever go to?”
“Luckily for you, not anytime soon.”
Celestia let out a relieved sigh.
Luna grinned. “Unluckily for you, Silver Shoals doesn’t have pesky guards to stop friends from visiting.” She draped Bronze with her wings and hoof. “I have found myself a friend who can actually play billiards. Bronze has also informed me that her sister is no less capable. If she ever decides to leave her office.”
“I can’t wait to play billiards again. It’s the perfect occasion to have a long and extended conversation with.”
“Oh wow what is this delicious smell?”
Luna snickered. “Your attempt at changing the topic is utterly pathetic and will soon be your downfall. Liquid Bronze has told me a very interesting story of how it is customary for you to eat the food she found during her expeditions.”
Celestia’s pupils shrunk. “Oh, dear.”
“Don’t worry, it’s actually edible this time!”
“Yearling, are you finished?”
“Dinner’s ready!”
The pony standing by the cooking spot pulled the cauldron back up. The smell was indeed delicious, but as she pulled it all the way, it became pungent and eye-wateringly sharp.
The tents had all been packed into a wagon and there were no scattered notes left to be seen. The four ponies gathered in a circle around the oxygen generator, using it as a makeshift table. There were already bowls and spoons ready for them, and Luna only needed to take an extra set for her sister.
Writer and archaeologist A.K. Yearling put the steaming cauldron in the middle where it made a gloop noise. “I think I managed to make this one a little less solid.” She looked at Celestia with a smile that said I’m sorry. “This meal has a… an acquired taste. We have some leftover soup from the nearby soup deposit if you want?”
“There’s a soup deposit here?”
“It’s a little far, but on the scale of everything else, it’s close. The surrounding magma flow kept it warm for millennia, so we don’t need to refine it.”
“But that’s no fun!” Bronze chirped in. “You have to try our special mac n’ cheese!”
“Special mac n’ cheese.”
Yearling put a ladle on the cauldron. “I wouldn’t call it macaronis since they’re really just tubular mushrooms, and the cheese is, uh, something else.” She scooped up the food from the cauldron and poured some into her own bowl. “It’s better not to think about it.”
Celestia sighed. “Well, I guess now I have to try whatever this is.”
Luna and Bronze cheered as Yearling poured dinner for them all.
Celestia scooped a spoonful, and as she slowly brought it closer to her mouth, everyone held their breaths.
She put it in her mouth.
And she chewed.
“Huh. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Pleasantly spicy and sweet at the same time.”
Yearling chuckled. “It’s still just cheese. You like it?”
“Well, there’s nothing extraordinary about it, but I can imagine myself living off of this for six months. Did you come up with this?”
“Yearling’s ability to make food out of almost everything is surprising for somepony who rarely comes out of her home. I thought it was a skill for survivalists. You certainly did a very good job on researching for your books,” Bronze idly wondered as she took a spoonful herself, oblivious to the sisters’ snickering and Yearling choking on her food. “But I’m not complaining. We’d be eating some questionable mushroom soup otherwise.”
“So, it’s mushrooms and cheese.” Celestia paused. “...cheese?”
“Dragon cheese.”
“Dragon… cheese?”
“Because it was made from dragon milk!” Bronze happily announced.
“Dragons are reptiles and do not possess mammary glands,” Yearling quickly said after swallowing. “For the record, it was Bronze who named it that.”
“But if I named it maggot milk, you can’t name the cheese ‘maggot cheese’ since that’s an entirely different cheese.”
“Maggot milk?”
“Purring maggots the size of your forelegs.” Bronze said as she thrust her foreleg forward. “Luna said the milk is incredibly dense in nutrition. They live around the same places where the mushrooms grow, so we don’t need to go to different places every time.”
“The milk is, however, a lot blander,” Luna added as she took a spoonful of the special mac n’ cheese. She added some more as she swallowed, “Turning them into cheese requires us to seek the white apoca blooms peculiarly growing in these depths. They feed off of decaying matter and are found mostly around caves which the dragons use as toilets.”
“What.”
“Dragon wastes are sterile and do not contain any diseases like other organisms. They are however still abundant in nutrition and may attract other sorts of bacteria. One of the toilet caves is a brewing ground for a colony of bacteria which ferments them into a spicy powder which we often use for flavoring.”
“I am suddenly not hungry anymore.”
“You haven’t eaten in a week, sister. I insist.”
“Why in the name of me did you decide to taste fermented dragon waste?”
“I didn’t. Yearling did. I was doing research on them when she licked it off the petri dish.”
“For the record, I didn’t know what it was at the time.”
“You totally did.”
“It looked delicious! And you said it was harmless!”
“I said it would probably most likely not give you dysentery if you somehow accidentally had it in your food.”
Bronze stared at Yearling. “You’re… certainly an adventurous type.”
Celestia couldn’t help but laugh. “She certainly is, isn’t she?” She gave Yearling a wink. “I think she’d like to join you on your other expeditions.”
Yearling let out a blissful sigh. “Well, this is certainly a lot more fun and… relaxing than my usual misadventures. A lot less hassle to write scientific papers than novels, too.”
“You’re certainly a lot better at making edible food than I am. Or anypony from my previous expeditions. It’ll be lovely to have you around.”
Celestia took a tentative bite into the special mac n’ cheese.
“Uh, do you want the soup? It’s still warm.”
“No, it’s alright. I’m already committed.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“How about you, Luna?”
“I am quite enjoying my food.”
“No, what I mean is, are you going to go on more of these expeditions?”
Luna thought about it as she chewed. “This hasn’t been an unpleasant experience. It’s relaxing. We already have the technology to overcome the hostility of this place and we weren’t fighting against the dragons for our lives. From the stories Bronze told us and Yearling’s—uh, dreams, I conclude that this is an anomaly to their usual adventures.”
“It is unnervingly peaceful so far. Just a fun little camping trip a few dozen kilometers below the surface.”
Luna nodded. “I don’t think I’ll enjoy what they usually encounter. I’ll stick with playing billiards, at least for now.”
“Aww, you’re no fun.”
“We’ve scarcely talked in the last six months. I’d like to spend some quality time with my sister, sister.”
“I mean it’s not my fault you decided to go to an expedition right after retiring and—” Celestia took a deep breath. “Alright, fine. Will it be alright if we travel, though? It’s been deathly boring in Silver Shoals.”
“Only if we’d be back on the weekends. That’s my time to play billiards.” Luna grinned. “I suggest you spend that time finding new friends. Preferably mortal ones.”
Celestia closed her mouth at the mention of mortality.
“Maybe Bronze’s sister? She’s always at the edge of mortality. As mortal a friend as you can get.”
“She never leaves her office, though,” Bronze said. “I don’t think she’d be up for any traveling.”
“Surely she has some sort of vacation? Especially for someone so old?”
“Old? No, she’s not even fifty. Alright, so she is pretty old, but not that old.”
“But Luna said she’s at the edge of mortality?”
“She can’t breathe normally. She has to do it consciously and she sometimes forgets to breathe. Her name is Liquid Oxygen, I believe you’ve met her once.”
“Ah.”
“She works at the Oxygen Factory. Very tight schedule.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “I thought the factory has been a lot nicer to its employees since my exile. I went there a couple of times and everypony seemed happy. And not the creepy mind-controlled kind of happy.”
“She’s the supervisor. She made her own schedule full year-round because she’s afraid she’d forget to breathe if she ever leaves the facility.” She rolled her eyes and her spoon around. “I told her I’d remind her, but outside of the factory, she just doesn’t trust a pony with the slightest chance of forgetting it. I kind of understand, but it doesn’t stop me from being extremely annoyed.”
“So she hasn’t been outside for... how long?”
“Very long. I told her she’s like the mare in the moon. She laughed at it.” Bronze looked at Luna. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Then I must find a way to convince her to come out. It’s not healthy living in isolation like that.”
“Good luck finding anyone she can trust.”
Celestia averted her eyes. “How about an alicorn sun goddess?”
Bronze shrugged. “Doubt it. I won’t stop you from trying, though.”
“Then I’ll try. A new friendship is always welcome, and I wouldn’t want anypony to have to live in seclusion.” She smiled at Luna. “Not anymore.” She stared at the ground and frowned. “...If I can help it at all.”
“And soon I’ll have two billiard buddies! Mwahaha!” She playfully punched Yearling on the shoulder. “Or maybe three! Perchance you are capable of billiards too?”
Yearling chuckled. “Not really. I’ve only played once a few years ago.”
“We can teach you if you want. Surely you won’t be as bad as my sister.”
Yearling glanced at Celestia waiting for a response. When none came, the group went to an awkward silence.
Celestia coughed. “I am surprisingly bad at billiards. I won’t deny it.”
Yearling shrugged. “Well, alright. It’s not like I have anything planned for at least a month.”
And so as dinner was finished and all the machinery was packed into a wagon, the group went back to the surface through the normal, longer, and much safer route.
Author's Note
I forgot to publish this since December.
