The New Six

Part 1

Cinder was not happy. She’d be happy if she was in the Dragonlands, training to become the best dragon ever.

Of course, she wasn’t technically a dragon… okay, she wasn’t a dragon at all, but she thought of herself as one. For as long as Cinder could remember, she’d been fighting to prove herself and striving to be as much of a dragon as she could.

Biologically, she was a pegasus, so jumping in lava probably wouldn’t be the best idea. Fire breath was also unfortunately not in her skillset, However, she did have wings, and with enough practice, she could keep up with other dragons. And so she did practice. Every day of her life. She had to in order to stay on par, and there wasn’t anything she wanted more.

It wasn’t easy trying to be a dragon as a pegasus; Cinder had learned that the hard way. Her hooves and wings had been burned more than once by the harsh environment of the Dragonlands– to the point that they had acquired permanent char marks. Not that it had deterred her. In fact, she wore them with pride, because they were proof of her resolve. She refused to be seen as a weak little pony.

There was a little problem with that sentiment, though, and that was why she was not happy. At the moment, she was flying to Ponyville with her mom and dragon lord Ember because she was being forced to go to the school of friendship. It was probably just about the worst thing that could happen to her! And it was by Dragon Lord Ember’s command, of all dragons!!

Cinder had always looked up to Ember when she was little, but she’d lost a lot of coolness points the day she’d come to Cinder and her mom’s cave and ordered that Cinder go to the friendship school. Cinder’s mom, Pyre, had also lost a few coolness points when she didn’t even try to not have Cinder sent to the friendship school. Like, hello? What happened to dragons being tough?

So now, here Cinder was, flying across the ocean. Flying and mad. And also bored. She idly scanned the waves below, hoping vainly for a giant sea monster to pop out so she could fight it or something and be saved from the horrible monotony of flying all the way from the Dragonlands to Ponyville.

Ahead of her, Pyre and Ember were flying close to each other, talking in hushed tones.

They both seemed a little nervous about something, which was also not cool because dragons were supposed to not be scared of anything. Pyre had been nervous since Ember came by, and Ember had been nervous since they’d left.

Pyre flashes an unreadable glance back at Cinder as the group flies, her magenta scales shimmering in the morning sunrise. Cinder pretends not to notice. She looks away, scowling a bit. When she does, though, she catches movement close to the horizon. She squints. It looks like… a boat? It seems to be rocking pretty heavily though, which is odd because the ocean looks rather calm around the area at the moment. Well, excluding the area specifically around the boat.

Cinder steals a glance at Pyre and Ember. They’re busy talking to each other. They wouldn’t miss her for a couple minutes to investigate, right?
…

Ah well, even if they did, she didn’t particularly care. She was bored.

Cinder speeds towards the boat, seeing as it is rocked from one side to the other. She doesn’t see any visible reason for it to be shaking so hard, though. There must be something grabbing at it from underneath.

As she gets closer, she can faintly hear some bellowing cries– perhaps from whatever is currently trying to sink the ship. Cinder can see what seems like a crew of 2 griffons and a weird yellow-ish pony that simultaneously looks more and less fluffy than normal. They seem to have a horn like a unicorn, but it’s weirdly shaped– like a stick.

As Cinder is flying towards the group, the boat gets rocked especially hard, and the stick pony gets sent overboard. “Oh no you don’t,” Cinder thinks to herself. With a large splash, she dives into the ocean after the stick pony. The first thing Cinder notices is the massive, black, whale-like creature below the ship, currently grabbing onto it with its, like, flippers or something? She wasn’t sure what that was about, but it wasn’t really in a good position to be fought since it was entirely underwater.

Cinder returns her attention to the currently-seemingly-drowning pony. Said pony looks up as Cinder dives down, and Cinder is surprised to see that she seems rather calm about the whole situation.

Cinder wraps her front hooves around the yellow pony’s stomach, kicking with her hind legs to propel them both up. The stick pony apparently doesn’t know how to swim, because she just kind of sits there limply like a wet ball of cotton. Really heavy cotton. “You’re lucky I’M here.” Cinder thinks to herself as she swims up with the yellow pony in tow.

It’s no cakewalk, as the thrashing of the weird sea monster is creating a bunch of waves around the area that make it difficult to break the surface. The challenge only excites Cinder though, and with a burst of energy, she makes it up to air, flapping hard to get up far enough to drop the cotton ball pony on the deck of the ship. They land with a splat, coughing up water. Cinder can feel her muscles burning a bit from the effort, but she’s only just getting started!

“Might wanna grab something, cuz’ the Cinder Express is preparing for takeoff!” Cinder yells, doing an aerial flip and coming up from behind the ship. She spreads her wings, and with a mighty flap, she sends a huge gust of wind blowing into the sails of the ship. The wood of the boat creaks under the pressure, but it seems to get wrenched free from the grip of the sea monster as it begins to speed off. Cinder flies to keep up with the boat, blowing a little more wind into the sails at a time as the sailboat coasts until the bellows of the creature are out of earshot.

The crew onboard still seems to be recovering from the ordeal as Cinder lands on the deck of the ship. “Well, that was fun.” Cinder says nonchalantly, flipping her hair. “I’d love to stick around for your applause, but I gotta catch up to my mom unless I want her to throw me in a pool of lava before I ever make it to that dumb friendship school.” Cinder says, rolling her eyes.

She crouches down, spreading her wings for takeoff, before blasting into the sky. Cinder flaps hard to catch up, but it doesn’t take as long as she’d been expecting, since it seems like Pyre and Ember have stopped, and are hovering in the air, looking in her direction.

Ah crap, she was about to get chewed out, wasn’t she? Cinder groans, slowing her pace.

“Just WHAT do you think you were doing over there, Cinder?” Pyre growls as Cinder gets close enough. “That was very–”

“Brave and thoughtful!” Ember interjects, elbow-ing Pyre, who practically seems to shrink a bit at the dragon lord’s interruption despite being over twice the size of the blue dragon.

“Before you tell me what a good idea it was to send me to the friendship school because of this, I didn’t do that to be ‘brave’ and ‘thoughtful’. I did it because I was bored.” Cinder retorts, rolling her eyes. Pyre gives her an incredulous look.

“Alright, well, I’m pretty BORED with your attitude.” Ember snaps back. “I get that you have this conception that dragons can go around being jerks and get away with it, but the world has changed, and that is NOT acceptable anymore!” Ember presses. Pyre seems to flinch back at that last part, but Cinder barely notices, her eyes locked with Ember’s in a fierce staring contest. Cinder wasn’t scared of Ember. She hadn’t been much older than Cinder was now when she’d become the new dragon lord.
Cinder narrows her eyes. Ember narrows her eyes too. A few moments pass, but they feel like they drag on for minutes at a time.

Eventually, Cinder looks away with a huff. “Dragons used to be cool.” she pouts.

“Being cool and being rude aren’t the same, kid.” Ember says pragmatically. “Like it or not, you’re going to have to learn that.” Ember turns back in the direction the group had been flying. “Now come on, we don’t want to be late. School’s starting in 2 days and we still haven't reached Ponyville.” Ember begins to fly off. Pyre and Cinder follow suit, now flying side-by-side with Ember ahead of them.

“...I know you’re not particularly happy about this, but I promise that going to the school will be good for you.” Pyre says after a while of flying. Cinder scoffs.

“Fat chance.” She remarks. “What will the other dragons think when I get back? I don’t wanna be soft and cuddly and make little pony friends. Dragons are supposed to live it out on their own without rules.” Cinder says with an angsty scowl.

Pyre lets out a wry laugh. “I used to be like that, you know.”

“I find that hard to believe, what, with how protective you’ve always been of me– not to mention the past few days.” Cinder replies sourly. “I can only imagine what must’ve made you this way.” She adds sarcastically.

“You have no idea.” Pyre responds ruefully, before flying ahead again.

…

Well, that was weirdly ominous.

Part 2

Cinder was still not happy, not that Ember or Pyre seemed to particularly care. Once in Ponyville, Pyre said her goodbyes, before flying back towards the Dragonlands. There really wasn’t a good place for her to stay in Ponyville, and she had to get back to the cave before any dragons at home got ideas and stole something.

Ember explains that she also had somewhere to be in Canterlot for a meeting with Twilight or something (Cinder hadn’t really been listening), but that she’d arranged for Cinder to spend the last night before school at the Friendship Castle. That sounded like just about the literal lamest place ever conceived. Not even the ‘castle’ part could save it. Or the fact that it was made of gemstones. Cinder wished she was a dragon so she could take a bite out of the big dumb castle.

Ember and Cinder landed in front of the doors to the castle. Ember knocks (way too politely for a dragon in Cinder’s opinion), and a few moments pass. When the door opens, Cinder is perhaps a little more surprised than she should be to see an alicorn in the doorway, though after a moment, she recognizes them as Flurry Heart. They look more cheerful than Cinder had ever seen them when they arrived in the Dragonlands for diplomatic meetings with Ember.

Flurry Heart was probably the poster filly for ‘soft and cuddly ponies’, which meant that Cinder didn’t respect her. Ember apparently did though, as she does a small bow to the princess. “Hey, Flurry Heart!” Ember says, looking mildly surprised to see them.

“Oh, hi Ember!” Flurry Heart says back, looking equally surprised.

“Would you happen to know where Spike is?” Ember asks, peering into the castle over Flurry Heart.

“Oh, yeah! Wait just one sec!” Flurry Heart says excitedly before speeding off.

Cinder feels like the name ‘Spike’ sounds familiar, but she doesn’t get time to ponder it for long before Flurry Heart comes skidding back to the door, with a young adult dragon in tow. He has a pretty similar scale color to Pyre, though the green spines down his back are definitely different.

“Ember!” He greets her, hugging Ember. Cinder recoils in disgust. Spike looks down at Cinder. “Oh, I’m guessing this is the pony you mentioned in your letter?” He asks, addressing Ember.

“Yes. I think she’s going to like it here.” Ember says, giving Cinder the side-eye. “And she’s not going to cause any trouble while she’s here, either!” She adds, looking back at Spike. Cinder gives Ember a death glare, but no creature seems to notice.

“Well, that’s good, because we’ve had our fair share of trouble-making recently.” Spike says suspiciously. Flurry Heart looks away.

“Huh. Anyways, I’m going to leave Cinder here with you. See ya’!” Ember says, before taking off for Canterlot. Cinder watches her leave, sighing internally.

“You gonna come in, or what?” Spike asks. Cinder turns and begrudgingly steps inside. The castle isn’t any less terrible on the interior, not made any better by the princess jumping up and down beside Cinder.

“It’s nice to meet you! Your name is Cinder, right?” Flurry Heart asks.

“Yeah.” Cinder says simply.

“OooOH! Do you know my name?” Flurry Heart asks more excitedly.

“Yes. Blurry Fart.” Cinder retorts, obviously getting her name wrong on purpose.

“Close, but not quite!” Flurry Heart says, unfazed. “It’s Flurry Heart; Nice to meet you!” She extends her hoof. Cinder assumes she wants a hoof bump, but decides that the princess isn’t nearly cool enough for her to receive one, so she just starts to walk off. Unfortunately, Flurry Heart follows her. “Ooh, your wings are really big!” Flurry Heart gasps, changing the subject. Cinder looks back at her, one eyebrow raised. She hadn’t really met any other pegasi before, so she didn’t have a frame of reference, but Cinder’s wings looked like they were roughly the same size as Flurry Heart’s.

“...Are they?” Cinder asks, a little curious. Flurry Heart seems to follow her gaze, and evidently realizes something.

“Oh, yes! I’m an alicorn, so my wings are naturally quite a bit bigger than a normal pegasus. Your wings are about as big as mine though, which is impressive! I bet you’re a really good flier!”

Cinder grins. “Heh, well, you could say that.” she says, puffing out her chest a little. Maybe if Flurry Heart kept this up, she could get some coolness points.

Cinder turns around to look at Flurry Heart. “So is there, like, anything interesting to do here?” She asks, looking around with distaste at the sparkly castle walls.

“Uhhh, I think Spike mentioned a game of some sort earlier?” Flurry Heart says. Cinder’s ears perk. Dragon games were the BEST. Stuff like lava surfing was SUPER COOL. Pyre never let her try it though because ‘she could die’ or something. Ugh.

“Do I hear you two talking about Ogres and Oubliettes?” Spike asks, approaching them.

“What’s that?” Cinder asks quizzically. She’d never heard of it, but it sounded interesting if it had anything to do with fighting ogres or something.

“It’s a game where you can do… anything..!” Spike says dramatically.

“You have my attention.” Cinder says, trying to hide her excitement.

“Follow me, you could probably join us!” Spike says, turning to go. “You wanna come too, Flurry?” He asks.

“Sure! I have nothing better to do!” Flurry Heart says happily.

Spike leads the group of three through the halls of the friendship castle. If it weren’t for all the lame colors and lame name, Cinder thought, then this place would be pretty rad. There were also way too many books. Cinder felt like she saw at least 3 different libraries on the way, which was 4 more than necessary.

Cinder also spots an odd room that appears to be largely overgrown by a leafy vine-like plant. Inside, she sees a light purplish-pink unicorn with deep purple hair semi-frantically pacing around and seemingly trying to simultaneously read 3 different books. Papers hang on the wall, with red strings strung between some. Cinder pauses walking to indulge her morbid curiosity, watching the unicorn as she’s too caught up in her… studying(?) to notice Cinder.

Flurry Heart comes back to see what Cinder is looking at, and follows her gaze. “Oh, yeah, that’s Starlight Glimmer!” She whispers. “She’s been at this since not long after I got here. I wonder what she’s trying to figure out…”

“Hey, what’s the holdup?” Spike calls from down the hallway. Cinder and Flurry Heart run to catch up with Spike as he’s standing in front of a door. He opens it and steps inside (though he has to duck slightly under the doorway). Cinder and Flurry Heart enter next, seeing it’s a relatively small room with even more books (ugh) and a circular table in the middle.

Sitting at the table is a reddish earth pony stallion with an orange mane, looking over the table, which houses a bunch of scattered papers, pencils, mini figures, and dice.

Oh no. Was this… A BOARD GAME?!?

“Hey, Big Mac!” Spike greets the red stallion.

“Howdy.” He responds simply. Big Mac notices Flurry Heart and Cinder walk in behind Spike, who seems to realize what he’s looking at.

“Oh! Would it be fine with you if these two joined us for a session?” Spike asks. Big Mac mulls it over for a moment, before letting out a slow “Yyyyuup.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Cinder addresses Spike, grimacing. “You didn’t tell me this was a board game! More like ‘bored’ game! As in it’s boring!” She huffs. She turns to leave, but is surprised as a door suddenly swings open FROM THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF HER. She looks down incredulously to see some weird horrible blend of animal parts assembled into a crude ‘creature’ staring down (up?) at her from within the floor doorway.

“Sorry I’m late!” He calls, before seeing Cinder. “Oh, and who’s this?” he asks, stepping forward and proceeding to not be affected by the laws of gravity as he appears to be standing on a different axis from the rest of the creatures in the room. He bends down to look at Cinder, who instinctively crouches down defensively and growls at him menacingly. She didn’t know what this thing was, but if it was dangerous, she was gonna BEAT IT UP. The thing merely raises his eyebrows at her.

“Hey there, Discord!” Spike calls nonchalantly from across the room, now setting up his stuff on the table from a bag he’d been carrying.

“And hello to you, Spike!” Discord says jovially. “Ah, hm. Something seems wrong here.” Discord walks up the air and puts his talons/ paws on the ceiling, seeming to twist the room in reference to him until it’s upright. The sensation is incredibly disorienting for Cinder, who feels like she just did a quadruple barrel roll against her will. Flurry Heart looks similarly dizzy, while Spike and Big Mac are proceeding like this is just business as usual.

With Discord now actually walking on the floor, he seems to realize Flurry Heart is here. “Oh, Flurry Heart, look at how you’ve grown!” He says, shrinking to be half her size and walking up to her, reaching up to pinch her cheeks.

“Hi, Discord!” She says awkwardly as a byproduct of Discord’s grandma-y cheek pinching. Does everybody here just know who this thing is??

“Are you here to join the session of Ogres and Oubliettes? I’ve got some positively wonderful things planned!” Discord gushes, returning to normal size and going to stand by the table. Flurry Heart follows him, looking excitedly across the table. Cinder remembers what she was doing and resumes leaving the room.

“Yeah! I haven’t played many board games, though; What are the rules like?” Flurry Heart asks. Cinder steps over the door hole Discord left in the floor, reaching for the handle of the actual exit.

“Hah! More like ‘what rules?’ Discord says, before snapping his talons. Cinder opens the door, but finds that instead of the rest of the castle interior, it leads to a wide open desert with sand as far out to the horizon as the eye could see.

“Wha..?” She gasps out, perplexed. Before she gets time to ponder it though, the room begins to tilt downwards. Cinder looks back in shock to see that Flurry Heart, Spike, and Big Mac are now all falling towards the open doorway– and her. “Wait, WAI–” she cries before being impacted by the three bodies. The group is sent tumbling through the doorway, landing in the sand in an ungraceful heap. Cinder ends up in the bottom of the heap. She is unhappy about this.

“Alright, have fun, you four!” Discord calls, before the doorway zips shut and is suddenly gone. Cinder untangles herself from the pile and runs to where the door had been, trying to feel for it, but it seemed like it was really gone.

“LET ME OUT OF HERE!” Cinder yells at where the door had been. “OR ELSE!” She adds to be a little more threatening. Behind her, Spike, Big Mac, and Flurry Heart stand up.

“And why should I do that?” A voice seems to emanate from around the group, sounding like Discord’s. It also doesn’t sound particularly threatened.

“BECAUSE I’LL POUND YOU FLAT WHEN I GET OUT!” Cinder screams outwardly at the desert, flapping her wings to be intimidating. She wasn’t sure it was really working, though.

“On the contrary, little pegasus, I believe I’d flatten you, but that’s besides the point!” Discord’s voice swirls teasingly around Cinder. “If I recall correctly, you mentioned a distaste for board games. But look around! Does this seem like a ‘bored game’ to you now?” Cinder looks around at the desert.

…

She supposed he had a point. She also wanted to ask how he knew she’d mentioned not liking board games before he’d even come into the room, but it felt like a stupid question after all the reality-warping nonsense she’d seen him pull.

“Well okay, then.” She huffs. “But then where are we?” She asks.

“I should be able to answer that!” Spike chimes in from behind her. Cinder turns around and notices for the first time that Spike– and also Big Mac– appear to be dressed in.. costumes? Spike is wearing a turquoise robe and a matching pointy hat thing. He has a silvery beard coming down from his chin, which is not normal for a dragon, and he’s holding a curly wooden staff that’s tipped with a little spherical aquamarine-colored gem. Meanwhile, Big Mac is now wearing spiky black and gray armor that looks cooler than Cinder wants to admit, and he seems to have a unicorn horn now. Also a SWORD?

Cinder kind of just gawks at them as Spike steps forward to explain stuff. Cinder doesn’t really hear all of it. She makes out ‘dangerous temple’, ‘evil overlord’, ‘ancient artifact’, and that’s about it.

“Did you catch all that?” Spike asks, snapping Cinder out of her trance.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure. Temple overlord stuff.” Cinder mumbles. Spike raises an eyebrow at her, but doesn’t seem to feel like questioning it. Cinder notices Flurry Heart is similarly enamored by the costumes, especially with Big Mac’s horn.

“Could I be a new character too?” She squeaks excitedly.

“Of course!” Discord’s voice whirls around the group again like the wind. “What did you have in mind?”

“MAKE ME A CHANGELING!” Flurry Heart blurts.

“Ask, and you shall receive.” Discord’s voice says with a hint of a smirk in his voice. Cinder watches with a mix of horror and intrigue as Flurry Heart’s body begins to mold and morph into that of a changeling. Holes form in her legs. With a blink, her eyes are now a solid, blue color, and her coat of light pink fur darkens, becoming a deep gray color. She looks down at her new body in pure joy, but pauses for a second when she sees it.

“Oh, did you mean one of the reformed changelings? How silly of me!” Discord’s voice chuckles to itself.

“Actually, no!” Flurry Heart interjects. “...But can you give me my colors back?” She asks.

“Oh. Huh.” Discord’s voice sounds almost disappointed. “Alright, then.” it sighs. In a much less dramatic transition, Flurry Heart suddenly sports her old color scheme, accompanied with a white flash, an audible ‘pop!’ and a sprinkling of confetti that blows away in the wind.

“YAY!” Flurry Heart bounces with glee. She looks around, and her gaze lingers on Cinder. “What about you, Cinder? Do you have something you want to be?” She asks.

Cinder almost instinctively yells ‘DRAGON’, but stops herself. She was still feeling generally a bit defiant at this whole situation for being forced into it. Playing along would be like submitting, and that was WEAK. Admitting she wanted to be a dragon would also imply that she wasn’t happy with herself, which would be another sign of weakness.

“No.” Cinder says finally, trying to seem confident. “I don’t need a silly costume to kick serious flank.” Flurry Heart looks slightly disappointed, but Cinder doesn’t let herself feel bad for the princess. It was their own fault for not being tough enough. “Speaking of which, when are we gonna get some action? You mentioned an evil overlord or something, right?” Cinder asks, turning to Spike.

“Well,” Spike stars, “That ‘evil overlord’ is a bit far off in the story. He’s the–”

“Yawn. Skip to why we’re in the desert.” Cinder interjects.

Spike sighs. “We’re in the desert because we came looking for an ancient artifact that's hidden in a temple around here.” He says dryly.

Cinder looks around. She only sees sand in every direction. “I don’t see any temples.” she says skeptically, sitting back on her haunches and crossing her front legs in front of her chest.

“That’s because it’s hidden.” Spike smirks.

Cinder frowns. Flurry Heart steps forward. “So where is the temple, then?” She asks.

Spike scratches his chin. “I'm not sure… my magic led us here at the end of last
session.” He muses, tapping the ground with the base of his staff. Flurry looks down at it.

“Maybe it's under the sand?” She ventures.

“Ah, smart thinking!” Spike praises. Flurry Heart squeals happily. “But now we just have to figure out how we're going to get below all this sand…”

“Yyyup.” Big Mac adds.

Cinder looks up from a little bug she'd been squashing. “You said you need the sand cleared?” She asks.

“Yeah, something li–” he cuts off as Cinder bolts past him, having heard enough. She spreads her wings, taking a running leap into the sky.

“Better take cover!” She calls, beginning to circle the group overhead. “A storm is brewing.” She adds to herself, grinning in anticipation. She begins to beat her wings harder, flying faster in a circle overhead. Winds begin to pick up around her, swirling around, getting louder and louder until a miniature tornado is roaring around her. Sand is lifted off the floor in droves, creating a small sandstorm. Once it's big enough, Cinder tilts, changing her course and directing the sandy whirlwind away, bringing tons of sand along with it. As the tornado tears away into the distance, Cinder lands proudly, a smug look on her face. Looks like Flurry Heart had been right, as a stone entrance of sorts had been revealed. “Feel free to thank me whenever.” Cinder gloats.

“Yeah, thanks for almost getting us swept away in a tornado.” Spike jabs sarcastically. Cinder opens one eye from her proud expression, finally noticing the group post-storm. Spike crawls out from the protective wrapping of Flurry Heart, now transformed into a large, snake-like creature. “I was gonna suggest that Flurry could turn into something that could dig and more safely find the entrance…” Spike pauses, sighing. “...but I guess you went ahead and solved that problem already.” He says, sounding defeated.

“You BET I did!” Cinder grins. Flurry Heart shifts back from being a big snake, skipping forward.

“At least nopony got hurt!” She chirps happily.

“Yyyyup…” Big Mac adds, though sounding a little uncertain.

Cinder approaches the entrance, followed by the rest of the party. It’s a little tunnel of sorts, made from pale stone bricks. Little smatterings of sand linger in the entranceway, which ends at a door with a strange symbol on it that seems to have a spherical recess in the center. Spike wordlessly pushes forward, producing a dimly glowing teal orb from a bag on his back and pressing it into the circular hole of the door. As he takes his claws away, it remains fixed in the door, and seems to glow brighter, beginning to spin rapidly. The ground rumbles slightly, causing a bit of dust from overhead to be shaken loose, before the door begins to move. It grinds slowly to the side, and stops with a booming thud that echoes inside the dark temple. It isn’t dark for long though, as torches along both sides of the darkened temple begin to light up on their own, the flames progressing all the way down to the far end of the large room that has now been revealed. It’s made primarily of the same sandy beige brick as the entrance, with some earthy browns and oranges accenting them now too.

“Woooah!” Flurry Heart gasps, her eyes full of wonder. Cinder realizes her mouth is hanging open in awe, and promptly closes it before anybody notices. Unfortunately, it seems like Spike caught her, as he flashes her a cheeky grin. Agh! She looks away, pouting slightly. She wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending to be unimpressed. She speed walks forward, intent on not letting anybody else see her frustration.

“Wait!” Spike cries. Cinder turns around, confused, and feels one of her hind legs sink a little as a pressure plate clicks under it. Cinder instinctively recoils as several arrows fly out of small crevices in the walls, flying towards her. One hits her hind leg as she’s maneuvering out of the way, and she prepares to feel the immediate sharp pain… but none comes. She watches as the arrow that hit her leg blinks in and out of existence rhythmically for a second before disappearing entirely. A strange bar of some kind becomes visible in Cinder’s vision– perfectly clear despite residing in her periphery, and moving with her head. Most of it is green, with a bit at the end being red. Displayed in the middle of the bar are the letters ‘HP’.

“What’s happening??” Cinder scrambles backwards, attempting to rub her eyes and clear it away, but it remains even when her eyes close. “Why is there a rectangle on my eyes!?” she barks, a bit of panic creeping into her voice.

“Oh, that’s your HP!” Spike says way too calmly.

“My what now?” Cinder asks, looking at him, puzzled. The rectangle seems to slowly be fading, and before long, it’s gone. She blinks, but it doesn’t return. Phew.

“HP. It stands for hit points! Or health points.” He adds. “It basically indicates how many times you can get hit before you faint. If it becomes fully red, you’ll be down and out!” Spike explains. Cinder pauses. She looks back down at her leg. Spike follows her gaze. “Ah, right! You can’t really feel pain here in Discord’s world. I wouldn’t advise getting hit much more, though.”

Spike steps forward, leaning down to inspect the floor. Now that Cinder looks more closely too, she can see the pressure plates on the ground. They’re only slightly raised above the rest of the floor, and are made of the same color of brick. They’re also absolutely littered around the place. “Traps,” Spike concludes. “We’ll need to be careful.” He advises, giving Cinder a sideways glance.

“Gee, thanks, genius.” Cinder responds unenthusiastically.

“You say that sarcastically, but those were words you might’ve wanted to hear before rushing off.” Spike retorts. Cinder scrunches her snout up in general distaste at this, but says nothing.

“If there are pressure plates on the ground, then why don’t we just fly over them?” Flurry Heart ponders, stepping up beside them alongside Big Mac.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Spike rummages around in his bag for a moment, before finding a crowbar. He looks at it a moment, before shrugging. “Ah well, I’ve never used this thing anyway.” He says, before standing up and hurling it across the room. As soon as it reaches a certain height, not far above the party’s heads, it gets engulfed in massive jets of fire that erupt from holes in the wall. The crowbar clatters to the ground on the other side of the room, charred and glowing slightly from the heat. “That would be why we can’t fly.”

Cinder tries to stop herself from thinking about how she could go through there no problem if she’d asked to be a dragon. She was NOT about to change her opinion now. “Alright then, smarty-pants.” Cinder grumbles. “So how do we get across?” Cinder asks, looking at Spike.

“Well, I’m glad you asked, Cinder!” Spike says, ignoring her prior remark. “Care to demonstrate, McBiggun?” Spike asks, gesturing towards Big Mac, who nods, and steps forward. He proceeds to shimmy across the room, watching his step carefully as he hopscotches around pressure plates. He moves with surprising dexterity despite his large size, and makes it to the other side of the room without activating any traps. He does a bow.

“ooOOH! That looks fun!” Flurry Heart bounces up and down eagerly. “Can I go???” She pleads to Spike.

“Sure, just be careful!” Spike smiles. Flurry Heart begins to follow in Big Mac’s hoofsteps. Cinder goes to follow suit. “Hey, hey, wait up, Cinder. You probably shouldn’t go at the same time as Flurry Heart!” Spike calls.

Cinder turns back to him, unamused. “I’d like to be out of here as quickly as I can,” she shoots back, which was mostly true. “If you don’t want me going right behind Flurry Heart, then why don’t you stop me?” she sneers.

Spike sighs again, and starts following behind Cinder as well, despite his own warnings. Flurry Heart giggles, and Cinder looks ahead at her to see she’s looking behind her at Cinder and Spike. Suddenly, Cinder hears another click. In Flurry Heart’s distraction, she’d stepped on a pressure plate. Her face drops. Expecting another barrage of arrows, Cinder darts forward without thinking, shoving Flurry Heart forward and sending her tumbling the rest of the way across the room. To Cinder’s dismay though, there are no arrows, as instead the floor opens up below her. She begins to plummet into a dark hole.

“AAAGH!” Spike yelps, falling in beside Cinder. It only takes a moment for Cinder to regain her senses and remember that she has wings. But by the time she rights herself and tries to fly back up, the floor is already closing.

“CINDER!” Cinder hears Flurry Heart cry out, before the opening is sealed. Cinder pounds on it, but to no avail. Despite the darkness they’ve been plunged into, she can sense Spike flying beside her now. “The pressure plate doesn’t seem to be working anymore!” Flurry Heart’s muffled voice sounds from above Cinder and Spike.

“Keep going, we’ll meet up with you two further on!” Spike shouts up.

There’s a pause, before Flurry Heart responds “Alright!”

Spike waits a moment, before sighing for like the 20th time or something so far. Cinder can’t see him, but she feels like he’s contemplating his life decisions.

“Alright. There’s gotta be a way out of here.” Spike eventually speaks up. A teal light emerges near his face, originating from the tip of his staff, and illuminating a bit of the relatively small passageway they’re in. Darkness stretches out below them. “Well, nowhere to go but down.”

Cinder was electing to remain primarily silent for fear– no, NOT fear. Simply for just not wanting to risk the topic of this predicament being potentially mostly her fault getting brought up. As the bottom of the pit comes into view, they see a collection of grisly spikes protruding from the base of the pit. “Good thing we can fly.” Cinder mutters to herself.

“See any passages?” Spike asks with what sounds like waning hope. Cinder looks around. She spies a crack in the wall a little ways above the spikes. It’s not a passage though, per se.

…At least, not yet.

Cinder charges forward, bucking it hard with her hind legs. It crumbles a bit, but doesn’t fully give way. She winds up, before delivering another blow. More bits of brick fall away. Spike flies up beside her as she delivers the third and final attack, breaking through the wall and clumsily landing on solid ground. Spike comes in after her, standing beside Cinder and looking ahead. They appear to be in a long corridor. It’s still quite dark, but Cinder can make out a faint light at the end a decent way off as she stands up.

She and Spike begin to start walking down the corridor, moving fairly slowly so as to try and avoid triggering any traps. Cinder contemplates just running, but going fast doesn’t seem to actually be helping her get through this temple any quicker, so she resolves to wait. Just this once.

“Y’know,” Spike suddenly speaks up. “I’ve been thinking about how we got down here.” Cinder lets out a small groan of annoyance.

“Look, I know it’s my fault we got stuck down here, but just deal with it.” She says sharply.

“No, it isn’t that.” Spike says. “Well, kinda. Believe it or not, I’ve noticed that you’re a little, erm… headstrong?” He ventures.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘cool’. And also ‘tough’.” Cinder responds matter-of-factly.

“No, I think I chose a good word, but regardless, the point I wanted to get at was that I saw you save Flurry Heart up there. That caught me off guard, because it seems more noble than I would have expected from you.” He explains.

Cinder sputters. “I did no such thing!” She says. “Well, maybe I saved her, but it wasn’t for any noble reasons!” Cinder corrects.

“Oh?” Spike raises an eyebrow. “And why not?”

“Because dragons aren’t meant to be noble!” Cinder responds with confidence. “Nobility doesn’t get you the most gold or the biggest cave.”

“Ah right, Ember mentioned you were raised in the Dragonlands.” Spike says ruefully.

“I was!” Cinder huffs, puffing out her chest. “And if I had MY way, I’d be back there right now, training to be the best dragon ever!”

Spike lets out a small chuckle. “Is that why you’re so reckless?” he asks.

“The word you’re looking for is FEARSOME!” Cinder reiterates grumpily. “And yes, why? Didn’t you grow up there too?” Cinder raises an eyebrow of her own.

Spike shakes his head. “No, I grew up here in Ponyville.”

“Oh, so that’s why you’re so soft for a dragon” Cinder mutters under her breath.

“Hey, I heard that!” Spike gives her an unimpressed look.

“How’d that happen anyways?” Cinder asks, veering to a different topic. “Y’know, with you being raised here.”

Spike looks up at the ceiling, seemingly deep in thought. “My egg was taken at some point, and I was hatched by Twilight Sparkle in Canterlot,” he explains. “I’ve been her faithful friend ever since!” He says contentedly.

“Barf.” Cinder snorts. “Probably sucked here.” She says.

“Nah, I loved it.” Spike looks back at Cinder. “Wasn’t it hard growing up in the Dragonlands? Do you not wish you could’ve grown up here instead with ponies who’d understand you better?” He asks.

Cinder bristles at this. “Are you implying that I’m not GOOD ENOUGH to live among dragons!?” Cinder snaps, her tone angering.

“No, I–” Spike starts, but gets cut off.

“I’m LUCKY to have been raised there! No matter WHAT anybody else says! Least of all YOU!” She yells. Spike’s brow furrows as some of Cinder’s anger seems to be rubbing him the wrong way. “I’M PERFECTLY HAPPY IN THE DRAGONLANDS, YOU SHOULD BE THE ONE WHO’S SAD– YOU DIDN’T GET TO GROW UP IN THE DRAGONLANDS WITH YOUR REAL FAMILY!” Cinder shouts angrily.

“Doesn’t sound like you got to grow up with your real family either.” Spike snaps back. He seems to immediately regret his words though, as Cinder stops in her tracks. Spike turns, looking apologetic. “Shoot, I’m sorry. That might be a sore topic for you.” He says, his tone softening. Cinder sits down, looking at the floor. She’s silent for a moment. She didn’t think about her real parents very often.

“...It’s fine.” She says quietly after a moment. “I don’t remember them anyways. Pyre is my mom now.” Cinder feels a touch on her shoulder, but doesn’t look up. “You don’t have to do that, you know.” she says, frowning slightly, but Spike doesn’t respond. She looks up, seeing that he’s still standing where he had been… notably a bit too far to have put his claw on her shoulder. He’s giving her a rather frightened look, or more specifically giving her shoulder a frightened look. She turns her head and startles when she finds that a scorpion is sitting there. Cinder bats it away quickly, turning and stumbling backwards towards Spike. The tunnel appears to be rather quickly filling with little black scorpions, filing in from more holes in the tops of the wall along the corridor, and amassing an army that’s currently marching towards the two. “It might be a good time to–”

“RUN!!” Spike shouts, bolting in the other direction. Cinder doesn’t need any more encouragement to follow hastily behind him. The light that had previously been distant was now starting to close in, and it was now evident that it was a beam of light filtering in from somewhere above. It wasn’t a very large hole, though– definitely not large enough for either of them to fit. “You hold off the scorpions, I’ll get us through this brick!” Spike directs. Cinder obliges, turning to the sea of scorpions now pouring towards them. They were piling over each other, chittering and snapping their pincers threateningly. Cinder stomps a few of the front runners, but there quickly became too many for that. Behind her, Spike seems to be charging up a spell with his staff, which is glowing brightly.

The scorpions continue to descend on Cinder. “Can you hurry it up back there!?” She hollers back, now focusing her efforts on beating her wings to blow back the scorpions with moderate success, but they are slowly and surely gaining ground.

“I’m gonna need another 30 seconds or so!” Spike shouts back.

Cinder steels herself and flaps even harder, putting everything she has into it. Her muscles scream with effort, but she’s determined to keep the creepy crawlies at bay. They slowly inch forward, and Cinder slowly inches backward. Her wings are beginning to tire, but she forces herself to keep going. “CAN YOU GO ANY SLOWER??” She screams at Spike.

“I’m almost done!” he yells back.

Just as Cinder feels like she literally can’t continue, the teal light behind her flares violently, and a loud BOOM can be heard as a beam of energy blasts through the stone ceiling from Spike’s staff. “Come on!” he cries. Cinder turns tail and runs, using the last of her wings’ energy to fly up towards the opening. Spike grabs her by the hoof as she falters, pulling her up and out of reach of the scorpions. They both exhale a sigh of relief, just laying on the ground to catch their breaths for a minute. After a while, Cinder sits up.

“Alright, I’ll admit. That was pretty cool.” Cinder says between gasps.

Spike grins. “Heh, glad you’re warming up to OnO.” He begins to stand, looking around, before letting out an excited “Aha!”

Cinder turns to see what he’s looking at, and spies a pedestal on the far side of the room. Floating atop it is a small bedazzled scepter of some kind with an impressive crystal mounted at the top. “That the weird thing you’re after?” Cinder asks.

“Yes!” Spike says excitedly, not tearing his gaze away from the artifact. “That’s the Scepter of Teirr’an! With it, we could–”

A loud scraping suddenly emanates from the side of the room opposite the scepter. Cinder and Spike’s heads swivel at the noise, seeing that it’s coming from a closed stone door. Cinder gets up, going to stand near Spike, her eyes not leaving the door. The scraping is accompanied by what sounds like the ambient cries of whatever is currently clawing open the door. “Get ready,” Spike urges, holding his staff out in preparation. “Whatever’s coming through that door sounds dangerous.”

Cinder assumes a defensive position, staring down the door. It grinds against the ground as it is slightly pried open, and a pair of three, large claws curl around it, pushing it farther aside. “I think it’s a maulwurf..!” Spike gasps. He pauses for a moment. “That’s weird, I didn’t think they lived in the desert.” As he finishes saying this, the door finally gets pushed aside, and a large mole-like creature with a frilly pink nose, white fur, and massive gnashing teeth squeezes through the doorway. It spots Spike and Cinder, and begins to charge, arms outstretched to attack! Spike and Cinder charge forward as well, battlecries escaping their mouths. As they make contact with the maulwurf though, it embraces them in a giant hug.

“What..?” Cinder says, muffled by the fur in her face.

In a large green flash of light, The Maulwurf is replaced by Flurry Heart, still gripping Cinder and Spike in a tight embrace. “Hiya!” She chirps.

“Please don’t do that again.” Spike says tiredly.

“Oh, right. Sorry!” Flurry Heart lets them go. Her gaze wanders past them, settling on the scepter. “oooOO, what’s that??” She points at it.

“That’s the artifact we’ve been looking for.” Spike responds. He looks around. “Speaking of ‘we’, where’s Big Mac?” Spike asks.

“Oop! That’s right!” Flurry Heart turns around. “You can come in, Big Mac! It’s safe!” She calls. A rather bedraggled and semi-traumatized-looking Big Mac steps into the room. He appears quite battered, his armor dented, and evidently his spirits too.

“I take it you guys didn’t have a very easy time getting here.” Spike observes.

“nnnnNNNOPE!” Big Mac says a little insanely. As he steps up to join the other three, a voice suddenly rings out throughout the room.

“CONGRATULATIONS!” Discord pops into existence in front of them. “It would seem you’ve all made it through the desert temple of Teirr’an and acquired his scepter..!” The scepter lifts up and floats towards the party. Spike steps forwards, taking it into his claws. “And that… is where we will end the session!” Discord smirks, snapping his claws. A hole suddenly opens beneath the party, and they all fall with various yelps of surprise, landing awkwardly in the room of the crystal castle where they’d met up. Cinder stands a little shakily as Discord descends after them through the hole, closing it behind him. “I’ll see you all later!” He calls joyously, walking to the door, grabbing it by the handle, and pulling it off its hinges. He then proceeds to ride it out of the room like a surfboard on imaginary water. Cinder is a little too drained to comment on that.

“That was really fun!” Flurry Heart cheers, apparently the only creature in the room not currently suffering from some form of exhaustion. “Can we go again??” She pleads to Spike, who has also stood up by this point. His costume has disappeared, apparently tied to the Discord World or whatever.

“Maybe, but definitely not right now. I have a sneaking suspicion that…” He goes to the hole where the door to the room had been, peaking out. “Yep, it’s already super late.” Cinder goes out to see for herself, and sure enough, the moon has risen. They didn’t actually spend that long playing, did they? “I think you two should probably be getting to bed. The first day of the friendship school is the day after tomorrow!” Uuuuugghh. That’s right. Cinder was still not looking forward to that. “You’re staying here, right, Cinder?” Spike asks. Cinder just shrugs, rolling her eyes. “I’ll take that as a begrudging yes.” Spike decides. “HEY, STARLIGHT!” He calls out, his voice booming through the castle. A moment later, that purple-pink unicorn sticks her head out of her room, mane looking frazzled.

“...Yeah?” She asks uncertainly.

“You got a place for Cinder to sleep here?” Spike questions.

“Who?” Starlight squints at him. Spike simply gestures down at Cinder. “Oh, OH, right! Yes! I do!” Starlight steps out of the room, coming over to the small group.

“Geez, have you been in there all day? Just what are you working on in there?” Spike asks, raising an eyebrow at her somewhat disheveled appearance.

“Hopefully nothing.” Starlight says ruefully.

Spike’s eyebrow raises higher, but he lets it go. “Well, I’ll be heading out now. I need to get back to Canterlot before sunrise.” He begins leaving. “It was fun playing with you all!” He calls, before rounding a corner.

Big Mac begins to head off the same way as Spike. He gives a nod to Starlight, Flurry Heart, and Cinder as they head off in a different direction. Flurry Heart bounds off ahead of Starlight and Cinder, evidently knowing where she’s going already. Starlight leads Cinder to her room, opening the door and allowing her inside. “If there’s anything you need, I’ll be in the room you saw me come from!” Starlight says, seemingly mustering a lot of energy to sound welcoming. With that, she closes the door. Cinder looks around the room. It’s nothing like anything from her cave in the Dragonlands, but she finds a place to sleep, crawling under the soft square thing on one end of the room.

As she’s drifting off, the memories of the day swirl around in her head. Ugh, she’d totally let her guard down too much around Spike in the tunnel. She shouldn’t have let his words get to her like that. At least the adventure had been kinda cool.

Maybe Cinder wouldn’t be too unhappy here. Maybe.