Dragonshyness

by Jordan179

Chapter 10: The Charm Offensive

Fluttershy

"So much for ... persuading him," Rainbow Dash said sarcastically in between coughs, as the smoke slowly dissipated.

"Now what?" asked Applejack, in a frightened voice. She seemed to be having second thoughts about the effectiveness of bucked apples as weapons against a Dragon.

Fluttershy was watching from behind her rock outcropping.

Good, she thought. Maybe they'll all give up now and we can go home and Celestia will handle the Dragon and nopony will get hurt. She was surprised by the sadness she felt at the thought of Twilight's failure. But it was a small thing next to the anguish she would have felt had any of them -- especially Rainbow or Rarity -- been slain. Twilight will be sad, but she'll get over it. Princess Celestia can't expect her to succeed at everything. And we'll all live. That's the really important part.

Rarity trotted forward, somehow managing to convert her cough into a ladylike "Ahem. Obviously," she said, posing herself with confidence, "this situation just calls for a little ..." she primped "...Pony charm." She tried to say it with pure sophistication, but on the last two words she dropped into lower-class nasals.

Rarity does that under stress, thought Fluttershy with some alarm. Rarity, what are you planning to do?

"Allow me, girls," continued Rarity, and walked into the cave.

Fluttershy's last glimpse of Rarity was of her hindquarters vanishing into the cave.

Rarity was actually sashaying.

***

Rarity Belle

It would be untrue to say that Rarity was not intimidated by her first sight of the Dragon.

His head was as long as a fashion runway, and his vast body trailed away into the distance, bulkier than anything Rarity had ever seen living. She might have quailed at the sheer size of him, had she not previously befriended Steven Magnet, the river serpent of the Everfree Forest. Steven was longer than the Dragon, but Rarity was fairly sure that the Dragon was much more massive.

Size doesn't matter, Rarity told herself, he's still male. I can charm anything male, and most females, ever born. Or hatched, in his case.

She knew for certain that her charisma worked on Dragons. Or on one Dragon, anyway. Though he was very small. And innocent. And had been raised by Ponies ... No! I mustn't doubt myself! Not now!

"I'm so sorry to in-ter-uh-hupt!" she said in a loud sing-song, walking right up to his great beak, which towered over her like the prow of a ship.

Eyelids as long as her own height slid open. Vast slitted yellow eyes regarded her, not unkindly. The Dragon looked relaxed, his great head resting on his arms, and seemed to be interested in the little white apparition.

Rarity cleared her throat and continued. "... But I couldn't possibly head back home without mentioning what handsome scales you have." Rarity trotted back and forth, getting a good look at the Dragon from several angles, and not coincidentally in the process offering the Dragon a good look at herself from several angles.

Only tasteful ones, of course. There was a subtle difference between being enticing and being trashy, and that difference was the course which Rarity steered at moments like this -- though, really, it said something about the strange path her life was taking that she was experiencing two "moments like this," complete with gigantic archosaurs, in the space of a single summer.

There was a metallic sound as the Dragon raised his crest, the better for her to admire it. Rarity's attempt to charm the Dragon was working. And the Dragon was, in point of fact quite attractive. Rarity really did think Dragon scales were beautiful.

Unfortunately, Rarity had found something even more beautiful in the cave. The Dragon's hoard.

This treasure -- it's amazing! I joked with Pinkie Pie about this earlier, but I didn't realize its true scale! Why, with but a small fraction of this wealth, an inconsiderable fraction, less than a hundredth of one percent, I could leap ahead years in my career! This could fund an expansion of the Boutique -- it could buy me materials, a whole publicity campaign in Canterlot or even Manehattan!

Rarity of course continued talking to the Dragon. It was essential to keep him interested.

"And those scales have to be hidden away in some silly cave for a hundred years?" she asked, donning a fine gold-chained necklace with a faceted red ruby pendant. It looked especially nice against her fine white coat, as if it was meant to be there.

Which is exactly the case, realized Rarity. That gem is meant to be there. I am meant to have a share of this treasure. What good is it doing that silly Dragon, anyway? And anyway, I'm doing him a service by, essentially, mediating between Celestia and himself. Mediators get compensated for arranging deals, usually with a percentage of the gross. I'm a mediator, and I deserve some compensation for my efforts. It's only fair ...

The Dragon rested his head, gave a complex rumble which almost seemed to be speech, and smiled fondly. Then he rose slightly, leaned down to her.

"Personally," she said, rubbing slightly against his beak as if she were a Pony-sized housecat -- though she was much smaller compared to the Dragon than any housecat compared to any Pony -- he lifted his head and she rubbed him under the chin with one hoof -- "I think you should skip the snoozing and be out there." She gestured dramatically by way of emphasis, pointing to some bright happy land of her imagination within which he might shine. "Showing them off!"

The Dragon was so caught up in her enthusiasm that he entirely failed to notice that she was now wearing the aforementioned necklace, a jeweled gold crown, a diamond ring on her right foreleg, and a chain of amethysts on her left hind one.

"Hmm," mused Rarity as she watched him preen his own scales. He's buying this hook, line and sinker. This treasure is as good as mine ...

Rarity Belle was fundamentally a very good Pony. And she never would have stolen like this from a fellow Pony. But she loved wealth, almost as much as did a Dragon. And at this point in her life, Dragons were not as really real to her as were Ponies. They were monsters, the antagonists of chivalric tales, the villains of story and song. The idea that they were simply people like herself would have struck her as seriously strange.

There would come a day when she would squirm in remorseful memory of her earlier disdain for Dragons, for one Dragon in particular would become very dear to her. There would even come a day when Rarity -- gaining a fuller understanding of her own Element -- would appreciate and argue for the principle that all sapient life had inalienable rights, and the responsibility to respect the rights of others, regardless of form or stature; and thus become one of the leaders of the cultural unification of the Earth.

This was not yet the day. And this was not to be Rarity's finest hour.

"Obviously, I would be more than happy to keep an eye on your jewels while you're gone."

The Dragon stopped preening. His eyes went wide in belated realization. He snarled angrily as he suddenly noticed exactly what Rarity was wearing.

One mighty fist descended to slam the cavern floor right next to Rarity, a pulse of telekinesis lifting her out of the way as he swept his hoard back to safety. She was momentarily frozen in terror, then ran, as a second pulse stripped her of her stolen finery. She did not resist -- she would rather escape with her life than her treasure, and the Dragon's manner made amply clear to her that her only choice was between one or the other.

As if an angry Dragon were hot on her tail -- whch was close to the truth -- Rarity bolted from the cavern.

Fluttershy

Watching from atop her outcropping, Fluttershy was frankly surprised Red Haze had let Rarity escape that cave alive.

Fluttershy had heard the Dragon raging at Rarity as he drove her from his lair. She had understood every word he spoke -- though some of them made her ears burn, and she didn't think she'd be repeating any of them literally to Twilight Sparkle later on, when they were safely off this mountain and she could tell the scholar-mage the details she had noticed. She knew Twilight would be interested in that, even if Twilight were still mad at Fluttershy for her failure. Twilight's curiosity was one of several things Fluttershy really admired about her, and she'd never let being angry get in the way of learning something interesting, would she?

Though Fluttershy supposed that Twilight might get angrier that she hadn't been informed before going into the Dragon's cave. So maybe she shouldn't bring it up at all. After all, Twilight didn't even really know Fluttershy was still there.

Fluttershy was just relieved Rarity was okay.

Rarity draped herself over a rock and pouted.

"I was this close," she said, putting her forehooves almost in contact with each other, "to getting that diamond."

Twilight noticed the object of the sentence, and its implications with regard to a certain change in Rarity's goals. She gave Rarity a far-from-pleased sidelong glance. "You mean," she said, "getting rid of that dragon?" Her tone sounded distinctly annoyed.

"Oh ... uh, yeah," replied Rarity, unconvincingly. "Sure."

Pinkie Pie blew a party horn.

"What in tarnation?" asked Applejack.

At some point Pinkie had managed to don a curious costume consisting of a big green box around her whole body wrapped by a yellow ribbon with a polka-dot bow worn in gront like a giant bowtie, as if Pinkie herself were some bizarre sort of birthday present. She had on dark glasses -- presumably so nobody would recognize her identity, balloon ears as if she were a giant rabbit, swim fins on all four hooves, and a bunch of balloons elevating her tail, for absolutely no reason practical or symbolic Fluttershy could discern.

The sight of her made even Fluttershy forget her fear for a moment, and giggle softly to herself. What did Pinkie intend to do in that getup?

Pinkie Pie blew her party horn again.

Rarity walked over, looking at Pinkie dubiously, while Rainbow Dash examined the party pony from an aerial angle.

"Darling," commented Rarity, "you look ridiculous."

"Exactly," said Pinkie Pie, brightly. "Sharing a laugh is a sure-fire way to get someone on your side!"

Fluttershy wondered about that. Maybe if Pinkie had been the first to speak to Red Haze, but he had sounded furious based on the way he'd ranted about Rarity being a "thief" and a "floozy," to take the least insulting and most repeatable of his descriptions of her. He didn't seem as if he would be in the mood for fun right now.

Still, Pinkie knew what Pinkie was doing -- Fluttershy hoped. Certainly, Fluttershy had never understood why anything Pinkie Pie did ever worked -- or failed to work -- before.

It seemed worth a shot.

***

Pinkie Pie

She was keeping up a brave front -- she didn't want to demoralize her friends -- but Pinkie Pie was almost exhausted as she staggered down the tunnel. Her attire had been designed for silliness, not practicality, and she had paid for its summoning out of her bodily energy -- her link with Paradise was down, her ability to see worldlines fuzzing to gray, and her personal mana long since overchanneled through aching hooves. All she had left was her intelligence, charisma and sheer stubbornness. She did not want to let her best friend down, no matter the risk involved in her attempt.

The dragon was no longer asleep. As she waddled into the main cave, moving with great difficulty in her cumbersome costume, Pinkie almost immediately saw him, sitting up, great yellow eyes glaring malevolently at her. He did not look in the mood for a party.

Had her mission not been so important to Twilight, Pinkie would have bolted at the sight of him. As it was, she made one game attempt to make friends with the Dragon.

"Hi --" she began, in her absolutely friendliest possible tone.

The Dragon whirled around, turning his back on her, and before Pinkie could react to the rudeness of the gesture, a tail bigger than herself smacked into her with potentially bone-shattering force.

Pinkie Pie looked soft and chubby, but she had grown up on a rock farm and even after leaving the farm still worked hard constantly, even though what she did would not have looked like hard labor to one who had never tried to cater at least one party every day. The fact that she loved her work did not change the physical demands involved. She was actually not that far inferior, in terms of raw strength and endurance, to Applejack herself.

So what was left of her reality-warping talent, channeling the last of her endurance through her burning body, had good odds with which to work. Her costume constituted impromptu armor (one of the criteria she had used in designing it), her remaining body fat padded her, and strong muscles provided flexible cladding for her thick Earth Pony bones. It was certainly possible that the impact was spread over her whole body, never reaching the point on any part of her skeleton where it would actually cause significant stress fractures -- and no external observer was watching her with X-rays at this instant.

Thus it was that, though Pinkie Pie was smacked hard by that huge scaly tail, an appendage which had the ability to batter down a small fortification, the collision was elastic and not a single bone was broken. There were some very minor fractures, some scrapes and cuts from her repeated lesser impacts with the tunnel walls -- and much of her body was covered with massive bruises, nicely hidden by her bright pink coat. All this would heal over a single night with the help of Paradise, once the link was re-established -- assuming, of course, that she survived to return home from this mountain.

She did her best to put on a brave front as she limped out of the cave mouth.

"Apparently he doesn't like laughing, heh," she said, trying to disguise the pain she felt with every bodily motion. "Or sharing."

Rainbow Dash looked down at her, examined her searchingly.

Rainbow knew Pinkie Pie quite well. The last month, they had been getting together increasingly often, pranking the whole town, sharing as similar a sense of humor as anypony did with Pinkie.

Once Pinkie had seen an otherwise dark and dreary worldline in which she had lost most of her special powers, lost her way, become far less than her potential -- but her one consolation in that worldline had been that Rainbow Dash loved her. This vision had been one of the reasons why she had, in this worldline, made Rainbow one of her best friends. And in consequence, in the mainline, Rainbow Dash now knew Pinkie Pie very well indeed.

Rainbow Dash was perfectly aware of Pinkie Pie's physical toughness. And knew exactly what her wincing and limping meant in terms of the injuries that had been inflicted upon one of her best friends.

Rainbow's face darkened. Pinkie could see a little superimposed bar marked "Patience" run out, going first yellow, then red, before that particular element of Pinkie's Narrative Sense ran out of power and shut off.

Rainbow erupted in rage. "All right!" Rainbow cried out in disgust. "That's it! " She looked at Twilight Sparkle. "We've tried persuasion," she said, then at Rarity "... charm ..." She looked at Pinkie Pie, her face growing puzzled, "... whatever it is Pinkie Pie does ..."

Pinkie blew her party horn gamely, hoping the humor would calm Rainbow down.

"... It's time to stop wasting time!" stated Rainbow Dash. "I'm going in!" She darted forward.

Pinkie got a sickening flash of what was about to happen, but was too exhausted even to speak.

"Rainbow!" cried Twilight, suddenly realizing exactly what Rainbow Dash intended. "No!"

***

Fluttershy

And, peering over the top of her outcropping, Fluttershy gasped in utter horror. She knew what Rainbow was about to do, what Rainbow had always fantasized about doing to a Dragon, what she had always said she wanted to do to a Dragon.

Rainbow was going to kick the Dragon. Just as in their fillyhood games.

But this was no game. This was real life.

Just as in Fluttershy's worst fears, Rainbow Dash was about to die.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Oh, Rarity. Well, we all have less-than-stellar moments.

I dearly want to give Pinkie a hug. I just feel terrible for her right now.

And as for Dash... Well, her heart's in the right place, I know she survives, and she hasn't seen the dragon yet. Still, kicking a dragon is generally never a good idea. Of course, one has to think to consider the quality of an idea, and Dash is currently well beyond calm, rational thought.

Looking forward to more.

[Jordan179]

4510155

Oh, Rarity. Well, we all have less-than-stellar moments.

This is pretty much her worst behavior in canon. Yeah, she does dumb things -- such as convincing herself she's in love with stallions she's never even spoken to -- in other episodes, but never again anything this profoundly amoral (planning to steal from someone under cover of admiring them) or stupid (the Dragon could have killed her on the spot, and some Dragons would have done just that). Note that this is a very early episode (7th of the whole series) and Rarity at this point is not as mature as she becomes later on.

I dearly want to give Pinkie a hug. I just feel terrible for her right now.

Even in canon, what Pinkie Pie does is profoundly brave -- she goes into that cave with no plan other than "I'll be silly, he'll like that," knowing that the Dragon is already angry. We don't see what happens to her in there, probably because it would make the episode very dark if we saw a cute, harmless and absolutely well-intentioned Pinkie getting battered by the Dragon. In the context of my theories about how her powers work, she did this when she had almost no power left, and she nearly got killed or severely injured doing it. As it is, she's been injured to a point that might be significant if it wasn't for my assumption that Paradise can regenerate her.

Her reference about a dark timeline in which she had lost her way and the one bright part of it was Rainbow Dash loving her is to the Winningverse, as perceived by anyone whose name isn't Cloud Kicker. My original version of this was more explicit about this, but then I realized that I was going to tell this story later in Pinkie Sense and Sensibility, in the scene where she gets to appreciate the wondrousness that is Cloud Kicker in the Shadow Wars verse.

One of my serious writing flaws is that I tend to give away too much, too fast, unnecessarily. The original was an example of this, and it would have suddenly derailed the plot for irrelevant exposition at a tense dramatic moment. So I cut it.

And as for Dash... Well, her heart's in the right place, I know she survives, and she hasn't seen the dragon yet. Still, kicking a dragon is generally never a good idea. Of course, one has to think to consider the quality of an idea, and Dash is currently well beyond calm, rational thought.

In the canon version, the point at which Rainbow Dash loses it is when she sees an obviously-injured Pinkie Pie come out of the cave. This is two episodes after "Griffon the Brush-Off," which means that Rainbow has already accepted Pinkie as one of her best friends. I choose to believe that Rainbow is furious at the abuse of her friend.

[Unbridled Dolly]

Cliffhanger!! Nice chapter though.

[grogar]

NICE!! I see the dragon going

"First you refuse to listen, then you try to STEAL from me with your false flattery! NOW YOU ATTACK ME!!!" The dragon roared. "YOU WILL PAY DEARLY FOR THIS!!"

[Ardashir]

I laughed so had at the section with Rarity trying to vamp the dragon, and initially succeeding. Yes, this was not one of her best moments. No matter how good she looked while she was doing it. Though it'd be hard to blame anyone for feeling some avarice when they saw a king's ransom spread out over the floor of a cave before them!

And I can't help but to remember the comments posted by guys after they'd seen Rarity walking into that cave swiveling her hips: "Wow is she sexy -- NO! No. she's not! She's a horse, I can;t be feeling this!" Heh, in comparison to the rest of the Mane Six, Rarity would probably be flattered to know that she'd so affected males of another species entirely.

Poor Pinkie Pie. She was lucky to survive that swat, even if the show reason was 'Rule of Funny'. But yeah, by that point they're dealing with one seriously ticked-off dragon!

I have got to read the rest of this one later. Great story and I live the insight from Fluttershy and her thoughts as she saw Rarity heading in.

[Cursed Quill]

"paracticality" practicality

[Walabio]

I always felt that Miss Rainbow Dash has impulse-control-problems. I always wondered whether she bashed her frontal lobes at some point. In the movie, her lack of impulse-control really screws everypony.