Shadow of the Dragon Lords

D. G. D. Davidson

My Little Pony is © 2012 by Hasbro, Inc.

Chapter 4: An Envoy to Ponyville

Princess Luna and Moondancer were standing together at the desk, where by flickering candlelight Luna was explaining the cipher in which many of her books were written, when a timid knock came at the door.

"Enter," Luna called.

Trembling from horn to hoof, the same Unicorn servant she had earlier found in the hall walked into the room. Shaking so badly he looked as if he might break himself into pieces, he stammered, "P-p-p-p-p-"

"What is it?" Luna demanded. "Speak!"

The servant hit the floor and covered his head again.

Luna sighed.

Moondancer walked over to the servant and nudged him. "Hey, Hopkart, what is it?"

Hopkart opened his eyes and peeked up at her. "Moondancer?" he asked. He breathed a sigh of relief and stood. "Princess Celestia wants to see . . . to see . . ." He blanched and began stammering again. "To see P-p-p-p-p-p-"

"Princess Luna?" Moondancer asked.

Hopkart nodded miserably.

Luna was scowling over the books and parchments on her desk, refusing to look at the servant who was so annoying her. "Let our sister enter," she said. "Her Highness is always welcome in our chambers."

Hopkart backed out of the room as quickly as he could, and a moment later Celestia trotted in. Her luminescent mane of rainbow mist brought an alien light into the dark room; by means of it, Moondancer could now see that many of the chamber's outré decorations were dusty, frayed, and spotted with age. A moment before, the gloom had seemed to hide dark and wonderful secrets, but as soon as Celestia walked in and some of the gloom dissipated, the room appeared to contain nothing but a lurid shabbiness, like an amusement park's haunted house ride.

Luna turned from her desk, bowed her head, and nickered. Moondancer knelt.

Celestia glanced at Moondancer and started. "Moondancer, I thought you were in class."

"I was, Your Highness," Moondancer answered, "but Her Highness, Princess Luna, called me here."

"What does the princess of all the land desire in our humble rooms?" Luna asked.

Celestia frowned at this formality. "You are as much a princess as I," she answered.

"Some would dispute it," Luna said. "What does Equestria wish of us?"

Celestia watched Luna and thought; usually, Luna used most of her archaisms only with subjects, but perhaps she was maintaining them now because Moondancer was present. Celestia could not help but detect veiled insult under the formalities, however; to address Celestia as if she were sole ruler, and to identify her personally with all Equestria, suggested that Luna was displeased.

"Moondancer," Celestia said, "why don't you return to class? My sister and I need to talk."

"She stays," Luna answered. "She is to be our protégé." Luna stared Celestia in the eye. "Will that be a problem?"

Celestia smiled. "Of course not. I'm pleased to know you're taking interest in the students. But I have a favor to ask you, of a delicate political nature."

"How may we be of service to Her Highness?"

"The ambassador from Draconium has arrived, and he wishes to see Spike, the hostage. He is upset that I allowed Spike to go to Ponyville with Twilight Sparkle. Somepony needs to take him to Ponyville, somepony who knows how to handle him."

Luna nodded. "And Her Highness believes that we-"

"Oh, Luna, please!" Celestia cried, losing her patience. "Nopony has talked like that for five hundred years at least, and I know you're doing it on purpose!" Celestia flushed slightly and glanced at Moondancer. Though she disliked courtly formalities, that was no excuse for showing anger at her sister in front of a student.

"Five hundred years ago, I was trapped in the moon," Luna said calmly. "I could pay no attention to alterations in manners. I will go to Ponyville for you, but I would like my protégé to accompany me."

"That's fine," Celestia answered. "I'll let her professors know, and they'll excuse her from her classes for the rest of the week." She thought a moment. "As for the ambassador, your old-fashioned manners will appeal to him. He is versed in the ancient customs that once held between draconic slaves and ponies, and he chafes at their disuse."

Luna smiled and reverted to her formal speech. "We shall show him all the traditional honors."

"Good. It may incline him to be less annoyed that Spike is not in Canterlot. I would like, if possible, to avoid forcing Spike or Twilight to come back here."

"We shall wheedle him. Subtly, of course."

"Thank you, Luna." Celestia kissed her sister on the cheek, nodded to Moondancer, and left the room.

As Celestia trotted back to her audience chamber, she felt as if a great weight had lifted from her withers. Luna might have trouble dealing with modern ponies, but she should have no difficulty dealing with the ambassador, as Luna had often interacted with the dragons' emissaries before she became Night Mare Moon. Not only was she the best possible choice for placating Severin, but this mission would at last get her out of her rooms and involved in running the kingdom again. Plus, it was a mission taking her only to Ponyville, which she had visited twice already, so her appearance there should not be too frightening to the citizens.

In Ponyville, when Princess Celestia's hastily written letter arrived, Twilight Sparkle was, as usual, in her library researching. Her latest assignment, sent by post from the department chair of Applied Alchemy, involved a study of the reactions of several metals to liquefied rainbow. Twilight was well aware that her paper on the subject would be incorporated, probably without attribution, into the department chair's forthcoming monograph, but she resented it only a little: such was the plight of students, especially talented ones.

With the help of her pet and junior assistant Owloysius, Twilight had already acquired powdered or shaven samples of the metals she would need for her experiments, and she had them neatly laid out on her desk, along with a selection of flasks sorted by size, above which Owloysius sat regally on his perch. All Twilight needed now was the rainbow.

Rainbow Dash, holding a jar full of swirling colors, flew through the front door. "This what you asked for?"

"Hoo," Owloysius said.

"Who?" Rainbow asked. "Twilight. She said she needed some liquefied rainbow."

Twilight nickered a greeting. "That's perfect," she said, using magic to take the jar from Rainbow's hooves and bring it to the desk.

Rainbow hovered over Twilight, grinned, and rubbed her front hooves together. "Now, for my payment-"

"Of course." Twilight magicked a book from a shelf and sent it flying Rainbow's way. Some time ago, Rainbow Dash had discovered a taste for adventure fiction; having devoured all the Daring Do novels, and having recently completed Solomon Mane, Pegasus Adventurer, she was looking for something new to read. "Here," Twilight said. "Coltan the Canterian. I think you'll really like this one."

Grabbing the book out of the air, Rainbow nodded in approval at its cover art, which depicted a muscle-bound bay Earth Pony leaning one foreleg on an enormous sword while a svelte white Unicorn mare languished at his hooves. "Oh yeah, this oughta be good."

Spike, who had been sleeping late after the festivities of Nightmare Night, stumbled down from the bedroom upstairs. His cheeks were puffed out, and he was holding a hand to his mouth.

"Good morning, Spike," Twilight said. "You are about to witness a first-of-its-kind experiment in the reactive properties of-"

Spike belched a green flame, out of which burst a scroll. He snatched it from the air, unrolled it, and scanned it quickly.

"A letter from the princess?" Twilight asked. "What does it say?"

Spike started in surprise and nearly dropped it. Speechless, he simply held the letter out to Twilight instead of reading it aloud. She magicked it from his claws and held it before her face.

She started as well and dropped the letter to the floor. "Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! He's coming here? What do we do, Spike?"

Spike scratched his head and shrugged.

Fluttershy poked her nose around the corner of the open front door. "Twilight?" she said. "Rarity and I were going to the spa this afternoon, and she said I should ask you if- oh!" Fluttershy noticed the shocked looks on Twilight and Spike's faces. "Is now a bad time? I can come back if now's a bad time."

"What's the big deal?" Rainbow asked.

"The dragons' ambassador!" Twilight shouted. "He's coming to Ponyville to see Spike! Do you know what this means?"

Fluttershy cringed, her eyes growing wide as saucers. "A d-d-dragon? Coming here?"

"Hoo," Owloysius said.

"Who?" Twilight asked incredulously. "Ambassador Severin of Draconium, that's who! Oh, this is awful!" She started pacing. "What if he hates Ponyville? What if somepony does something the ambassador doesn't like? It could be an international incident! He'll complain to the dragons, and they'll start a war!"

"Ah, c'mon, Twilight," Spike said. "There's not gonna be a war. Equestria hasn't had a war for, what, two thousand years?"

Twilight magicked A Short History of Ponydom from a shelf, brought it to her reading stand, and flipped it open. After reading the section she wanted, she made a swift mental calculation. "One thousand, eight hundred, and fifty-two years, to be exact."

"Right," said Spike. "That's, uh, what I meant."

"Hoo," said Owloysius.

Fluttershy cringed, quivering. "Oh! A dragon! In Ponyville! This is terrible! This is awful! This is . . . unsettling."

Rainbow Dash landed, folded her wings, and rolled her eyes. "Right. Because there's never been, like, a dragon in Ponyville before. So since when do dragons have political ambassadors, anyway? I thought they just sat in caves on piles of gold or something."

"Hey," Spike said.

"Most do, but Severin's not a dragon," Twilight answered, pulling the Encyclopaedia Draconica from the ethnography section. "The dragons of Draconium are different from most. They're more civilized, they're ruled by the seven dragon lords, and they have a special race of slaves who do their bidding. Hmm . . ." She flipped through the encyclopedia, frowning. "There's nothing under slaves, or servants, or minions. What is their slave race called? I can't remember. Spike?"

"He's not a dragon?" Fluttershy asked hopefully.

Spike held up his claws and shook his head. "Hey, I've been in Equestria since I was hatched, remember? Don't ask me about Draconium."

"Whoa!" Rainbow said. "You're from this freaky place?"

Spike shrugged. "Well, yeah. I guess. I mean, my egg was laid there, but then they brought me to Equestria. Like I said, I've been here my whole life. Well, you know, my whole life since I hatched."

"Ah!" Twilight cried. "Here it is! They're called 'humans.' Oh my, the entry's only a paragraph, and there's no picture. It says the humans are much smaller than dragons. They're bipedal, apparently mammals, and they look similar to apes or monkeys. Wow, is that all the information we have? That's not very much. You know what that means, don't you?" She clicked her front hooves together in glee. "That means the ambassador's visit might be an opportunity for research!"

Spike muttered to Rainbow, "Her mood sure changed fast."

"Oh, he's not a dragon," Fluttershy said in relief. "So he's furry? And small? And he's a monkey? Oh, I love monkeys. Maybe we'll be the best of friends-"

Twilight closed the encyclopedia. "Fluttershy, it does not say he's a monkey. It just says he's like a monkey, and I don't think the ambassador is coming to Ponyville to make friends."

"Twilight Sparkle, what is the meaning of this?" Pushing past Fluttershy, Mayor Mare cantered into the room. "I have just received a letter from Princess Celestia. She tells me an ambassador is coming? To see Spike?"

"Um, yes," Twilight said. "We just found out, too."

The mayor glared over her half-moon spectacles. "Why was I not told before? I won't have Ponyville the site of an international incident!"

"I don't know, Miss Mayor. Maybe this is all the warning the princess could give us-"

"Oh, what shall we do?" the mayor said, throwing a hoof to her forehead. "We aren't prepared for this! We need weeks! Months!"

Twilight was thinking about the P.S. the princess had added to the end of her letter, "Keep Pinkie Pie away from him." That was uncharacteristic of Celestia, and it caused Twilight to think the mayor was right: this was serious. It had to be, if the princess really thought one of Twilight's friends could cause irreparable problems. It also indicated that Celestia didn't quite understand what she was asking; there was no keeping Pinkie away from anything she didn't want to be kept away from.

"We need to prepare something dignified, something noble," the mayor said. "Something to show honor and respect to the ambassador. We need some kind of celebration-"

"Did someone say celebration?" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she burst into the room, knocking Fluttershy aside. "I am always ready for a celebration!"

Twilight's heart sank. They were doomed.

As everypony gaped in mute horror, Pinkie reached out through the front door and pulled in her party cannon. "Look!" she shouted. "Instant celebration!" She pounded the button on the cannon's back, and it fired a burst of confetti and balloons into the midst of the library. The blast knocked all the carefully sorted piles of powder and metal shavings from Twilight's desk to the floor.

"Oh, no, my work!" Twilight cried. She ran to the desk to assess the damage and found that the metals were hopelessly mixed; she would have to get new samples.

"Oops." Pinkie giggled.

"Pinkie!" Twilight shouted. "We are getting a visit from a very important ambassador! There's no telling what he could do, but he definitely, certainly, will not want a party!"

Pinkie's face dropped. "Ohhhhhh."

Twilight sighed, relieved. "Yes, you understand. A quiet, dignified reception-"

"He doesn't want to party," Pinkie said.

"No. He'll want-"

"He wants to par-tay!" Pinkie jumped around the room in glee. "We'll get DJ P0n3, and she'll play all the bumpin' tunes, and-"

"Pinkie!" Twilight shouted.

Pinkie stopped bouncing and fluttered her eyelashes in Twilight's face. "Yes, Twilight?"

Twilight let out an exasperated sigh. "Just . . . just . . ." She tried to think of a polite way to say what she was going to say, but couldn't come up with one, so she said it impolitely instead. "Just stay out of it, okay?"

Pinkie's face dropped again, but now it stayed that way.

Twilight turned to the others. "All right, we need to get organized. Spike, get quill, ink, and parchment. We're making a checklist."

"I'm on it," Spike said, digging into the desk and pulling out the supplies.

Twilight said to Rainbow Dash, "First thing we'll need to take care of is catering. Rainbow, could you go to Sugarcube Corner and talk to the Cakes? Might be a good idea to talk to the Apples, too. The letter says the ambassador can't eat hay or straw, so we'll need fruit and baked goods and anything else he can probably eat."

Rainbow saluted. "I'm on it." She zoomed out the door.

Twilight turned to the mayor. "Miss Mayor, we'll need a formal reception at Town Hall."

"Why, yes, of course, you're right," the mayor said.

Twilight spoke to Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, could you help decorate Town Hall while the mayor is making preparations?"

"Of course, Twilight." She and the mayor left.

Twilight turned to Owloysius. "And since the ambassador is coming to see Spike, this place needs to be spic and span. Owloysius, can you start the cleaning while Spike and I figure out what else needs to be done?"

"Hoo," Owloysius said, and he flew from his perch to begin the chores.

"Now, Spike . . . oh, Pinkie Pie." Twilight saw that Pinkie was still in the library, sitting on her haunches in the middle of the room, staring glumly at the floor. Her usually poofy mane had gone straight.

Twilight swallowed. He hadn't even arrived yet, but it seemed the dragons' ambassador was already causing problems.

Next: Severin Arrives