Chapters It seemed like there was no place to run. The valley had become a caldron of blood and flames.
And now that the little family had managed to climb the mountain slope, they could smell the smoke and hear the screams coming from the other valleys.
It was civil war, and Discord stood triumphant over the ruins of Dracoslavia.
-
After a few hours, they arrived in a little village overrun by refugees. The villagers were helpful enough, but there simply were not enough tents and food to go around. And there were reports of militias advancing in their direction. At the beginning of the war, the dragons in the village would have prayed for the militias to be of the “right” ethnicity or persuasion, but by now all of them had degenerated into plundering hordes.
-
At nightfall, no soldiers had made it to the camp, and so the little family decided to try to get some rest. They had been on the run for days.
The dragon male had managed to requisition a tarp and build a primitive shelter. Now he was watching over his wife and his two children while they were huddled up to one another. It was very cold at this altitude, even if you were a mountain dragon.
Someone was coming. The dragon father tensed up.
It was a young, female dragon, just slightly older than his daughter. She sat down next to their little campfire.
“Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening. I’m sorry, I’m afraid I cannot offer you any food- or much hospitality, for that matter.”
The female smiled.
“Oh, I didn’t come here as a beggar. I came to offer something to you .”
The older dragon frowned. What, right now? In front of his sleeping family, no less? He knew these were desperate times, especially for females, but this was going a little far...
Now the dragoness laughed.
“Goodness, you should see your face! No, whatever you’re thinking, that’s not what I had in mind.”
He said nothing, taking care of the fire.
Finally, the female sighed and said:
“You have children. I am sure you are thinking a lot about the future. Or the lack thereof. This country is going down, it’s no secret. I’m sure you wonder where your kids are going to live- if they are going to live at all. You wonder how you can offer them the food, the education, the safety they will need to grow up.”
The male was still not looking up. This stranger was trying to sell him something. She advertised it as a future for his children. But was that what it really was? Could it be?
“I am a member of a foundation. ‘The sisters of Draconia’. Maybe you’ve heard of us?”
The other dragon was moving his head in a sort of hybrid between shaking and nodding. The name did sound familiar. Like something he had heard on the news. And even the blue ribbon tied to this female’s tail reminded him of international organizations he had seen operating within Dracoslavia.
“We know how dangerous these lands have become for young dragon girls. I myself have met parents who have lost their daughters to the militias. After all, our "war heroes" need some sort of motivation to keep on fighting...”
She was gazing into the distance, as if lost in her memories. The dragon father felt a sudden surge of sympathy. He could almost imagine the things she must have seen and heard. Her voice was sad, but not bitter. Matter-of-fact.
“We have set up boarding schools”, she said, “Outside the country. Far away. Where there is no war. In fact, there are hardly even any dragons! Young countries set up by little mammals, can you imagine that?”
The older dragon could not help but smile. Mammals? To a dragon, these creatures were pretty much the incarnation of the word “harmless”. It was said they were lacking the cruelty and viciousness archosaurs were capable of.
The place she was describing to him sounded like a petting zoo. He could almost see the school, a little chateau in the middle of a blooming meadow, with little furry animals hopping about... The shiny pamphlet she gave to him wasn’t exactly contradicting that fantasy.
“Several families in this camp have already decided to send their daughters to our boarding schools. We know how hard it is, but we have to urge you to consider letting us help your daughter. We cannot sit idly by as young dragon girls are exposed to this nightmare.”
He shivered. Sending his daughter away? Sure, it would break his heart, and he couldn’t even imagine how his wife would feel. But did he really have a choice?
He was gazing upon his sleeping daughter. What would it take to get her away from this place? Somewhere where it was warm and safe? He had to face it. This might be his one and only shot.
-
600 gold eyes.
To raise that sum, they had to sell what little they had managed to carry with them. That was the cost of their daughter’s trip out of Dracoslavia.
The young dragon lady who was leading the operation had explained to them that while much of their efforts were financed by charity, they still needed additional resources to keep going. They had to bribe the authorities. Get the girls the official papers they needed to stay in the host country. Pay for the train tickets.
Their daughter was terrified, but they did their best to cheer her up. She would see big cities and far away lands. And once the war was over, she could come back and tell them about her adventures. Or better yet, she could get a great job there and make enough money so they could all come and live in the new country. Surely, a place run by mere mammals would pay well for the services of a dragon! She could become a tax collector, a treasuress, a royal guard, or even - her father jokingly said - Queen of the land.
As scared as she was, she couldn’t help but feel excited. She had never been to a foreign country before. And there were so many other dragon girls coming as well! Almost all of the refugees and even some of the local villagers who had daughters of their own were sending them to the boarding schools. Some of these girls looked really nice. She would make lots of new friends.
Still, when the dragons of the foundation were leading the girls out of the village, everyone was crying, and she almost felt as if someone was trying to rip her heart right out of her chest. She would never forget her parents and her little brother standing there together, waving her goodbye. It was a picture she would carry in her heart for the rest of her life.
She would never see them again.
-
The dragons of the foundation had told their parents they were going to a train station in the next valley.
After walking for one day straight, she was starting to worry. They had not given them any food and didn’t answer any questions. The cheerful enthousiasm the “Sisters of Draconia” had displayed back in the village had been dropped like a mask. When they were speaking at all, their tone was harsh and they were scolding the girls for being slow.
When it became harder and harder to believe the "sisters" would honour their promises, she was already unable to tell where they were. All these mountains looked the same.
-
In the evening, they arrived in a camp full of male dragons. Some of them were of gargantuan size- indicating an excessive practice of greed.
That was the point where all hopes of ever seeing a boarding school vanished for good. The girls panicked. They were screaming and crying at the injustice and the lies they and their families had been told. Some were even breathing fire, trying to fight their way out. Of those who had wings several tried to lift off and fly away.
But the males just laughed. Everyone who was trying to flee was captured again- they were all exhausted after the long march, and these monsters were veterans when it came to picking on smaller dragons.
The dragon girls were chained.
And then the slavers cut their claws and sewed their mouths shut.
-
There was a train. That much was true.
But for a long time, it didn’t go anywhere. The girls were herded into the wagons, which were small and dirty.
And then they had to stay there. They were living cargo.
It was dark, she could not move, she could hardly even breathe. She was entangled in the tails and limbs of the other girls. It was as if they had become one big colonial organism, polyps in a reef of pain.
In the first hours, she prayed for a way out, for the one brilliant plan where they would all work together and break out of this wagon. Then she was praying for someone to find them, a police officer who wasn’t corrupt, who would free them and bring their torturers to justice. All along, she was thinking about her family.
A few hours later still, she was praying for water. For a way to scratch. For sleep.
And when she finally lost control of her bladder and urinated on the sobbing girl beneath her, she was praying for death.
-
Dragons are resilient. Even the young ones can go without food or water for long periods of time. They fall into a state of hibernation. It was said some could remain in this sort of sleep for centuries.
The captured girls took a few weeks to “cool down”, as the traders called it. When they had, henchmen came to inspect the cargo. Some of the girls had died after all, but most looked like they would stay “fresh” for months to come.
And so the train finally started to roll.
“Phew! What a stench! You sure they are still alive?”
The young dragon male was staring into the darkness of the wagon. He would never get used to the smell. Female dragons were supposed to be nice and perfumed! But this? Something that was smelling so foul truly deserved to be treated like dirt.
It was hard to examine one particular specimen in this bundle of tails and legs, so he had to go by color and the shine of the scales.
“Gimme that green one. That yellow one with the black stripes. And... yeah, that purple one. Let’s have a look at those three.”
The trader nodded and together with his assistants, they were dragging the selected girls out of the wagon.
“Tss, tss, tss...”, the merchant said.
The striped one was awfully small. He put one claw on her chest.
“I don’t feel any fire.”
“I believe this one doesn’t have fire, Mr. Quill. She must be from one of the poisonous tribes.”
The young dragon considered. It was difficult to sell the poisonous ones, but he just happened to know of a pharmaceutical company who was in need of new raw material...
“Alright, I just might take her anyway. You understand though that one cannot spend a fortune on a cold lizard.”
He moved on to the green girl. He pushed her with his tail.
“Are you kidding me? That one is actually dead! Dead, I tell you!”
“A thousand pardons, sir. Some are better at hibernating than others.”
And then there was that purple one. Not the prettiest one, but she was tall and her fire was strong, even after the long period of starvation. Ample hips. That sort of thing could come in use.
In the end, he bought all three, even the dead one. He still needed a present for a griffin warlord he owed money to. Griffins loved dragon meat.
-
-“Plüschheim? What are you, nuts?”
The young dragon trader had arrived at the Dracoslavian border with his merchandise.
He was spending an evening at the local pub, drinking beer with a colleague.
“I know what I’m doing. That girl will make a good boiler. Plüschheim is perfect for her. Lots of little old carebears with cold feet living in big mansions. I’m sure to sell her for a good price.”
“Quill, I tell you, you are making a mistake.”
The other dragon leaned forward.
“Think about it. If there is one thing we have, it’s slaves. And there is more and more of them by the day. Even Dracoslavia’s immediate neighbourhood is starting to get all saturated.”
Quill nodded. That much was true.
At the beginning of the war, the most obvious choice had been to sell girls into prostitution in Dracoslavia proper. But there had been a shocking inflation ever since the big families had started that “Sisters of Draconia” sheme. Which was a good sheme, of course- it was easily confused with "Faithful Hearts of Draconia", a legitimate charity.
You could still sell for a profit if you knew where to go, but the margins were shrinking.
“Quill, I give you one word: Equestria.”
“Equestria? Don’t tell me... That’s this new place. With the ponies. Ha! Ponies...”
“Equestria is the way to go, my friend. They are building castles there. Entire cities. And they don’t have that many dragons. See where I’m going?”
Quill was grinning. Sure, he knew what his dear colleague was trying to say. It was a story he had heard more than once. It was just a warmed-up version of the lies the “Sisters of Draconia” were telling to get the merchandise in the first place.
The other trader insisted.
“Think about this logically-like. Plüschheim is just a few days away. They are practically sitting at the source. There’s lots of competition in the prices. Equestria, on the other hand... That’s pretty much virginal. You can get whatever you want! We could be pioneers, you and me!”
So that’s what this was all about.
“Let me guess... You are planning an expedition into Equestria right now?”
“We’re almost ready to go. But we could use more... associates. Transport doesn’t come cheap, and with the last bunch of sweetmeat we bought...”
“You want me to buy a ticket for that ponyland of yours, just so that I get to try selling the purple one thousands of miles away instead of just dropping her off in Plüschheim.”
“I heard you made a fortune with the yellow one you sold. You grew quite a few inches too, if I may say so.
And they say you have already bought a new lot. Tell you what: You help me finance the trip and I even get you a share on all profits. Come on! You know a good deal when you see one.” The older trader grinned.
“Have another drink. This one’s on me.”
-
The older dragon had been right about Equestria.
They had to operate through locals who would lead the transactions in their stead for a small fee. In these parts, hardly anyone had even heard of Dracoslavia or the civil war, and the perversity of dragons selling other dragons would have turned off potential buyers. The fine people of Equestria didn’t want to think of themselves as slave owners. Which was kinda funny, considering these ponies had de facto enslaved several sentient or semi-sentient species already.
Mammals , Quill thought, they say they were all about empathy. More like hypocrisy if you ask me.
No, it was better if the customers thought of dragons as exotic pets with a million different uses. The fact that the girls were just waking up from hibernation was helping. Some of them seemed to have suffered permanent brain damage, and that was even better. Some were trying to talk, but with the way their lips were stitched together, their new owners didn’t suspect a thing.
Profits were rolling in. Quill was growing at a comfortable yet handsome pace. They were travelling through a young and beautiful country which was not marked by the horrors of war. Life was good.
-
The purple dragon girl was still wearing the chains they had put on her all these month ago. She was alone now. All the other girls on the cart had been sold. Now she got this cart all to herself.
She felt as if she had to teach herself how to think again. She didn’t remember her name, but she knew that she wasn’t supposed to be here. They had lied to her parents. They were a complacent bunch of KIDNAPPERS and LIARS, who took pleasure in torturing her. She had to escape.
She started rolling around, trying to get a sense of her surroundings. And then she droppen off the cart.
The cart was basically a wooden platform on wheels, they had put a large tarp on it to protect the merchandise from the rain. She was supposed to be tied to the vehicle, but somehow they had negelected to secure the chains after removing the other girls. This was her chance.
She would gain her freedom.
It is the fire , a voice in her head said. It took her a second to realize that these were her thoughts. They were back. The fire inside keeps me going.
She heard male dragons laugh, but they were making too much noise to hear her. It had to be that way.
She felt grass under her belly, and if she had not been as dehydrated as she was, she would have cried. The air. The smells. She had forgotten how beautiful it was outside.
Like a worm, she was crawling away from the cart, one centimeter at a time. The woods seemed so far away. But she would make it. She would get there, and she would hide, and she would find water, and a way to get rid of the chains...
She had almost reached the trees when she heard someone swear behind her. She was sobbing. Oh no. No, no, no.
The voice of the male dragon was coming closer. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Why did he have to take her again? Why couldn’t he just let her go? She deserved to be free!
She was still advancing. Even if her capture was imminent, she had to go on.
And then he was above her.
-
Quill was drunk, and not just a little. When he had discovered that the dragoness was missing, it had been like a grotesque nightmare.
But there were tracks. It had been easy to follow them.
And there she was now, the little runaway.
Quill was both impressed and disgusted. The purple one was crawling like some sort of maggot. No real dragon should move like this! No one should be so pathetic, so... undead . Did this kind of vermin really deserve to be called a dragon? He supposed a real dragon lady would have died of shame before becoming a creature like that. But of course this was not a lady, not like his mother used to be, or his sisters. It was merchandise. Yeah.
But there was something about this little thing... with all these muscles, moving under the iron chains...
Quill was licking his lips.
That's when the young dragoness was lifting her rear into the air. Quill almost laughed. Wasn't that conveniant!
It wasn't.
When she whiped him with her tail, she took him completely by surprise. Somehow, she had managed to free her most powerful appendage from the chains.
He fell down, his face bleeding. He blessed the alcohol for making him feel so numb, but he knew it was going to hurt quite a lot in the morning.
"...You little purple piece of..."
And there was the second blow. This one sent him flying through the air.
When he opened his eyes again, the dragoness had advanced further still. If it was going on like this, she would actually manage to escape. Preposterous.
"... I heard of courage born of despair, but this is ridiculous...!"
She was strong, he had to give her that. In fact, she was also slightly taller than him. It reminded him how young he was- almost all of his apparent maturity was due to freakish greed-growth. It was even possible that this dragoness was older than he was.
But she was still wrapped up. Nice and tight. He owned her.
Quill realized that he had never been so horny in his entire life.
-
“You managed to get that thing pregnant?”
The older trader chuckled. “That is great news.”
“It is?”, Quill asked. He wasn’t very comfortable with this. In fact, he had even considered looking for ways to get that round belly of his prisoner all nice and flat again.
“Sure! Now we can sell her as a “dragon hen” or something. Consider: Not only can she be used as a heating system, but she will also lay eggs! With the right advertising, these ponies will go coo-coo for dragon eggs. A gift that keeps giving.”
Quill considered. It was a long shot, but then again, this whole trip had been.
Once a dragoness got pregnant, she had the ability to produce a seemingly endless stream of eggs, like an ant queen. Only by eating at least one of her own eggs could she stop the cycle.
He grinned. They would end their journey by selling an egg-factory.
“Am I amazing, or what? Somehow everything I do is turning into profit. You were right all along. We made a lot of money on this trip.”
The other dragon nodded.
“Indeed. And there’s even more to go around if I don’t have to share with you.”
“What...?”
Quill was staring into his empty beer mug. He was feeling kinda dizzy.
And then he dropped to the floor.
The other trader laughed and emptied his own mug. He would leave this country with a maximum of gold and a minimum of dragons.
Of course there was always the risk that the kid could find his way back into Dracoslavia one day and take revenge. That’s why they would cut out his eyes and perform a few strategic amputations. It appeared the diamond dogs were looking for slaves to use in their mining operations.
-
The earth pony maid giggled as she walked over the warm tiles with her colleague.
“Isn’t this amazing? We’ll never get cold hooves again.”
“It’s hard to believe that there is a dragon beneath our hooves... It’s a little scary, don’t you think?”
“Nah. He’s all chained up. And besides, the royal architects know what they’re doing. That thing is pretty much walled in.”
“I heard it’s a she-dragon! It’s laying eggs. They say they are going to give them to the students of the Academy, so they can do magic-stuff with them.”
The other pony smiled and was shaking her head.
“Isn’t it amazing? The march of progress? So much talent... So much hope... So much faith. I am so glad my family decided to come to Equestria... and that I got to work in this wonderful city.”
“It’s like a dream come true...”
They were now standing on a balcony, gazing over this magical city where ponies were working together to forge a glorious tomorrow.
The future belonged to Canterlot.
"A ROYAL THANKS TO YOU, MY LOYAL SUBJECTS!", Luna said, "YOU HAVE DONE VERY WELL!"
The royal plumbers were bowing down to the Princess of the night.
They left the room by walking backwards, so they wouldn't offend their master by showing her their rears.
Luna was pleased. Etiquette was essential. Why did her honourable sister have to insist on more casual forms of interaction? If Celestia continued like this, she would end up undermining their beloved subject's discipline.
While studying physics and chemistry, Princess Luna had started to ponder about the many little mechanical wonders around her. She had been living in Canterlot for so many years, and never had she even bothered to ask why they always had hot water flowing in the pipes, or how they ran the underfloor heating even in the coldest of winters. Of course a lot of things were provided by unicorn- or alicorn magic, but she realized that wasn't the whole picture.
So she had requested plans and records detailing the conduit systems, the central heating, the mechanics behind the fountains in the palace garden.
And there it was: The central piece.
The dragon.
-
Luna knew about the dragon, of course. It was providing giant eggs, so very important for magical experiments. It seemed logical to use it for heating as well. Luna had just not realized that it was the very heartpiece of the palace.
And so she started wondering what it was like, this great, ancient creature, forever locked away in silence and darkness. She decided to honour it with a visit.
Escorted by two proud veterans of the royal plumbers, Luna descended into the dungeons of Canterlot. The plumbers were reluctant of opening up the ancient passageways, but it would never even have occured to them to question the orders of a princess.
-
Even though much of its body was hidden by cables and pipes, Luna could tell it was a beast of magnificent size.
At first glance, the dragon was repulsive. It wasn't anything like the feral dragons the princess had encountered before. The scales were grey and dull. The body was bloated, the arms and legs atrophied.The stench was almost unbearable. Its belly was producing a whole orchestra of disturbing noises as the dragon was blowing out flames out of its nostrils and experiencing the joys of motherhood at the opposite side. Overall, it resembled the pale, sickly creatures that inhabited subterranean lakes.
Still, Luna was fascinated by this creature. How had it ended up in the bowls of the palace? What was going on in the head of an animal like this one? Was it dreaming? Could it think? Was it even aware it was a prisoner?
She was going to find out.
Before she knew it, she had put her horn on the dragon's forehead.
"Wake up", she whispered, "Awake for your princess..."
The plumbers were scared. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen!
The dragon opened its eyes.
-
Luna screamed in pain and terror. In the fraction of a second, thousands of images had flashed before her inner eye. And not only pictures. Voices. Emotions. Pain.
And while part of the dragon's mind had flown into hers, she realized the opposite was true as well. And not only that: The creature had also absorbed part of her magic.
Her eyes and the eyes of the dragon met.
She gasped. She had never been faced with so much hatred.
Pipes were torn apart as the dragon started to move. The ponies watched in shock and awe as its scales changed color. They were purple now, and looked almost polished. The stubby legs grew until they could carry the dragon's weight.
With a mighty scream, the dragon pulled apart its lips which had been stitched together for so many years.
-
The whole castle was shaking as the dragon was fighting its way outside. Panicked ponies were running around like headless chicken.
When the dragon breached the palace walls, feeling the wind on its scales once again, tears of fire were running down its face. There was nothing that compared to freedom. Nothing at all.
It was gazing upon the city below. This was no time for joy. This was a time for sharing the pain. All the pain which had accumulated inside the creature's soul.
And as the purple dragon was ripping Canterlot apart with its fire breath, the first thought in years appeared in its mutilated mind.
Boarding school? More like barbecue school.
Whatever that was supposed to mean.
-
"I am sorry, Celestia", Luna said, tears running down her face, "Can you ever forgive me?"
Princess Celestia knew that with every passing minute, the rampaging beast would cause more destruction and suffering, but Luna deserved to hear this right now.
"It is as much my fault as it is yours, little sister. I should have talked to you about this a long time ago. I kept the dragon imprisoned under the palace without sharing its story with anypony. You need to understand that it isn't evil, Luna, but years of agony have corrupted its mind. When we inherited the palace, it was already too far gone. I cast a spell upon it that would keep its mind in permanent hibernation. The story of this dragon is the story of my biggest failure. I couldn't heal her, Luna, so I locked her away."
She looked at her sister and smiled.
"That alone is proof that I can't handle things on my own. I need you, my dear little sister. Will you lend me a hoof?"
Their eyes met.
Side by side, they descended upon the city, to put the dragon to sleep once again.
And again, it was sealed away.
It was the year before the rise of Nightmare Moon.
Spike was gently snoring in his little basket, when Twilight Sparkle was suddenly rising from her bed like a jack-in-the-box.
“Spike, wake up”, she gasped, “Wake up, wake up, it’s Winter Wrap Up day!”
She was gently pushing the little dragon with her snout.
He blinked and turned around
“Huh? Mommy?”
Twilight Sparkle was frowning, growing impatient.
“Winter Wrap up!”
Spike was gazing upon his master, trying to make sense of the situation.
“You’re not mommy”, he decided and let himself fall back into his basket.
Twilight was merciless. She turned on the light.
