Cleaning the Wound

It wouldn’t come off.

Garble washed his hands underneath the lava. Nails dug into scales as they scrubbed the skin underneath raw. Jolts of pain shot through his body from the rough contact. He ignored it. He’d felt worse.

Removing his hands from the fiery basin, he looked over them. Still red. The blood was gone, but… it was still red. Maybe if he scrubbed even harder—

No. He needed to stop. It was just the colour of his scales. No amount of scrubbing was going to make that go away. The point was that his hands were clean and he wouldn’t need to worry about his food having the metallic taste of blood on it.

Standing up to his full height, he stretched, then winced. Fresh wounds had made their presence known along his hide. There was nothing he could do about them. Standard medicine didn’t work (he’d tried everything). A tradeoff for high natural recovery. He’d just have to bear it.

Like he always did.

“Stupid Spike,” Garble muttered.

The whelp hadn’t inflicted the injuries to him, but he had caused them. Garble had been at the top of the hierarchy and then toppled from his pedestal, leaving the entire system in chaos.

Every dragon with even a spark of ambition was vying for his perceived empty spot. It meant fights and injuries and… blood. Red splattered across himself and the landscape like the world’s worst painter. It made him uncomfortable to be the one holding the brush.

A red pool. A furred face. A draconic face. One horrified, the other proud.

The latest battle had been rough. That Ember or whoever was going to end up a problem. Eventually. With the wound he’d inflicted — he hadn’t meant it to be that bad. He’d just wanted to scare her, not take her out — he wouldn’t have to deal with her for a while since she’d need to take time to recover.

That particular brawl had scared off the weaker-willed challengers, which meant quiet. He could take it easy for a while. Maybe write some more poetry, had out new verses from the safety of his—

“Hello.”

Garble whipped around, claws out and fire gathered in his mouth. He hadn’t noticed their approach. How could he be so stupid? He—

—Swallowed the flame.

“You’re the stupid pony that helped that runt,” Garble said.

“If you mean Spike… yes,” the pony replied. “I also prefer to be addressed as Twilight Sparkle.”

Normally, Garble would just call her Loser Sparkle, but dragons knew three things better than anyone else: gemstones, fire, and magic. The dumb pony in front of him radiated more magic than the most concentrated and pure gemstone out there.

He knew not to piss off a walking bomb.

“What do you want?” Garble clenched his jaw. “...Twilight Sparkle?”

She smiled at that. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Don’t care.” Garble walked away.

“But, you haven’t even—!” Twilight sprinted after him. She huffed and puffed as she did. “Don’t you want to hear about my deal?!”

“I don’t listen to namby-pamby ponies.” Garble waved his hands around to emphasize the point. “You don’t have anything I would want.”

“I have gemstones!” She offered.

And he had a hoard of them. Inherited and collected. “Pass.”

“W-what about magical artifacts!?”

Utterly useless against a dragon’s natural magical resistance… unless it came from her, at which point he was already a smear on the ground.

He snarled.

The pony panicked. “I-I could be your frie—!”

Garble wasn’t really sure what expression was on his face when he looked at the annoying twerp, but whatever it was caused the stupid pony to shut up and shrink away from him. Served her right.

“Not. Interested,” he said.

“You… are very different from what I expected,” Twilight remarked.

Because he didn’t need to showboat around some irrelevant idiot that didn’t belong there.

Aloud, he said, “What’s it to you? I’m not agreeing to your little deal. Scram.”

He roared in her face. That should have scared her off, but it would seem she was more stubborn than that. She stood up straight (barely coming to the bottom of his torso) and fixed him with a determined look. It was impressive… for a pony.

“What can I give you for you to agree to hear my request?” she asked.

Something to make him stop hurting all the time. Medicine that actually healed his wounds. Give him back his first friend. Make him not hate the colour of his skin. A long list of things that no dumb toy horse could possibly give him–

“Nothing,” Garble said.

He walked away again.

“...I just wanted to give Spike a friend like him.”

He whirled around.

“What did you just say?!” Garble shouted.

Twilight took a step back.

“You want—” He laughed. A shot of fire burst from his mouth. “Are you stupid? Why are you even asking?”

“I-I just—” She cleared her throat “—Okay. Since you’re listening. Spike is a dragon.”

Garble rolled his eyes.

“What?” She asked.

“No, duh, idiot,” Garble retorted.

“Aren’t you going to tell he’s a pony and not a dragon like you did before?”

Garble snorted flames from his nostrils, impatient.

“Right, moving on. I’ve raised Spike as my baby brother since I hatched him and… I don’t know much about him. Biologically. Ponies don’t know much about dragons and there are no other dragons in Equestria, so he doesn’t have anyone to ask about himself. Like what it will be like growing up or how to recover from being sick or—” She took a deep breath “—I’m hoping you could be the dragon he can ask.”

“Why would you ask me?” Garble asked. He narrowed his eyes, suspicious of her intentions. “I hate him.”

“Welllll, about that. You’re kind of a last resort.” Twilight chuckled nervously. “You’re actually the tenth dragon I’ve asked today. The others—”

“Immediately tried to kill you?”

“...Yes. But! You seem… different. Not what I expected, but at this point, I’ll take it… or just give up. So, could you help my brother? Please?”

Garble hated Spike. The stupid whelp was a total loser that ruined his life. Why would he help someone like that? Magic bomb or not, he was going to tell this dumb pony to leave and never come back.

“I’ll do it.”

Twilight looked as surprised as he was.

“You will?!” Twilight squealed, hopping up and down in place. “Oh my Sun, yes! That’s wonderful! Did you have something you wanted in mind then? No, actually, first, should I bring Spike here or—”

“I want to move,” Gabriel interrupted.

“You— what?”

“You come from some stupid pony town, right?”

Twilight nodded.

“Then that’s my condition. I want to move to ponytown or whatever.”

What in Tartarus was he doing?

That was the question going through Garble’s mind as he sorted through da— his hoard for his essentials. Books, gold, artifacts, and gemstones piled high enough to scrape the ceiling.

His home was in the dragonlands… where he always needed to be mindful of his surroundings. His people were there… that wanted him dead or hurt enough so they could take his place. He was going to go help the whelp that had ruined his life… whom he hated.

He grabbed a nearby gold plated plate and smashed it against the wall. He shouldn’t have done that, but he never liked that plate anyways. Power wafted toward him from his hoard, providing fuel for his anger. Enough strength to squash his enemies instead of what he was about to do which was to give up the position he had—

Clutching his head in his claws, he dropped into a crouched position, begging his thoughts to calm. He felt like he was under the waves, lava pulling him into the undertow and drowning him.

Garble had spent so much time building up his reputation and ascending the hierarchy to keep himself safe. A carefully crafted life that keeps ‘friends’ close and him away from red.

Now, he was uprooting his entire life to move to some dumb pony town.

Logically, he should tell that Loser Sparkle to shove it and leave. He had nothing to gain from this arrangement. He should just keep doing what he was doing. Fighting everyone. Always staying ‘on’ when he so desperately just wanted to be off. Seeing red spilled all across—

Packing would be easy. His main hoard, he could just seal using magically charged Tourmaline, making it impenetrable to everything barring the dragon lord. The source of his power would be secured. Well… most of it.

Moving around the hoard, he grabbed a worn pair of saddlebags refitted to be worn across his shoulder. Inside was an assorted pile of junk that made up his keystones. Most dragons used the best of their hoard. The shiniest and most powerful of treasures. Garble… didn’t.

The jade inside meant to preserve the items was still active. If he was smart, he’d leave it all behind. Keep it safe in the tourmaline. But… well, sometimes Garble really was as stupid as the other dragons.

He slung the saddlebags over him. He was going through with this. He was leaving the cave.

His home.

Good riddance.