Iggy's Night Out

Ignus roamed about the buffet, chatting with old employers whom had also been at the Gala; the party itself was never really the dragon's thing, but it gave him a chance to slip in cards advertising the casino now and then into ponies pockets or purses; his out fit was a black tux with vine like etchings of white trailing all over it, it offset his white well, "Ahh what a night, good food, good atmosphere and Royal's not making a scene! This is great, I can relax for a night and not worry about the budget or making sure no one's cheating or anything! Man I need to come to this thing every year if I can!" he said as he gathered up a plate of food, placing some diamonds from his pack on the side as a garnish.

There was one visitor to the castle this night who hadn't been invited, and wasn't on the guest lists. A little dragon with scales so deep in colour they looked black had been wandering through the pony-party, his stomach gurgling lightly as he looked from pony to pony.

The ponies all seemed very lively, even if he wasn't sure exactly how he got here. Or where here wa-

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when his blind wandering carried him straight into a column.

Ignus was heading back to his table when he noticed the small black dragon roaming about looking to and fro, watching him for a moment he saw he was headed straight for a pillar, "Oh! Hey kid watch ou...t" Ignus said as he watched the poor little guy slam first into the stone column; walking over to see if he was alright Iggy went to kneel down near him, "Hey bud, you ok? Looks like you hit that thing pretty hard huh."

Ears working, fins not broken, nose seemed to be smelling still, but there was an awful lot of black in his vision all of a sudden. The little dragon blinked and turned his head, then realized that the sounds were directed at him. And they were words.

He stopped and thought for a second, then said "I...hard, yes. Too many ponies, wasn't looking ahead.".

"Heh, yeah, gotta watch out for the pillars heheh" Ignus said as he gave the younger dragon a friendly pat on the back, "Oh, my name's Ignus, by the way, what's yours?" he asked before he heard a rumble from the little guy's stomach, "Oh, you sound kinda hungry, here have a couple onyx!" he said as he dug a couple black gems out of his satchel and handed them to the hungry dragon.

Tourmaline's eyes went wide as dinner plates as he took the gems from the other dragon. He said a quick "Thank you! I'm Tourmaline!" before unceremoniously putting both gems into his maw and chewing loudly on them.

This was the first dragon he'd seen in a pony town, and the first one who didn't throw him out of their lair. He must have lots and lots of gems if he was willing to let the little dragon have these, and to give them to him himself!

Ignus smiled as he watched the young dragon gnaw happily on the chocolate flavoured gemstones; they were a personal favourite of his that he loved to share whenever he had the chance, "Not a problem at all! It's nice to meet you Tourmaline; never seen you around before, are you new to Canterlot?" the slim dragon asked as he snacked on a few diamonds from his plate; this almost pitch black dragon didn't look familiar to Iggy, and he had been in Canterlot for years, so it was rather rare to see a new dragon come to the city; perhaps he was here as a helper to a unicorn or something.

The young dragon quirked his head and blinked at the well-dressed older dragon. "Is that the pony town's name? I wandered here, wasn't watching." Tourmaline said, having already finished off the gemstones.

This dragon seemed almost as nice as ponies were. Even if the ponies here seemed always so busy. Maybe the dragons here were the ponies everywhere else. But that was silly. "Lots of ponies here. Not a lot of dragons."

Ahh, so he wasn't from around here, just as Ignus had expected; the young dragon's speech pattern seemed to show he was probably a 'wild' dragon, not that it mattered much to Iggy, "Heh, well most are either up at Celestia's University working as assistants, or just didn't want to come to a fancy dress party like this one; but yeah, this is Canterlot, home of the two Princesses, Celestia and Luna, they're both really nice, thought Luna seems to be a tad more self reserved than her elder sister." the white dragon stated as he tried to decide which of the Princesses was better looking, returning his thoughts back away from that he smiled at Tourmaline, "So how are you enjoying the Gala tonight bud?"

"'Gala'? Lots of ponies, but not a lot of dragon food. Lots of pony food, and lots of pony...uh...not-hide? You have not-scales too, never seen dragons with." He said, seeming to have only just noticed what Iggy was wearing.

This was easily the largest collection of ponies he'd ever seen, and the first time he'd ever seen a group of ponies with almost all of their pelt covered up. He wondered what the other dragon was thinking about. It was the first dragon he'd met that hadn't yelled at him and thrown him out, but it was also the first dragon he'd met in a pony town as big as this one.

"Not-sc...Oh! My tuxedo? Clothes, yeah, I don't normally wear this, but on special occasions I like to dig it out of my closet and slip it on, it makes a good contrast to my scale colours heheh" Ignus said adjusting the collar of his outfit, this one hes had for a few months now, he kept having to buy new ones back during his growth spurt, but since it slowed, it looked like this one would last him a while, "Yeah, I like the food they serve well enough, but nothing beats gems and the like that's for sure, or some meat!" he stated with a nod, it wasn't very often that he ate meat, it was more of a rare now and then treat that he would indulge in ever few months or so.

The younger dragon's belly grumbled again at the mention of meat. "Meat is hard to get. Hunt for it, but not in pony-town. Ponies get mad when hunt." He said, finally taking the initiative to stand again.

He smelled lots of food on the way in, but most of it looked like pony food. And not much of that at all. Plus all the tables were taller than he was, so he couldn't get at the food anyway without climbing more than he wanted to tonight.

Finally, Rose Madder thought, it was time to indulge in her absolute favorite part of every party: the refreshments! She'd spent a few hours hobnobbing with old friends from Canterlot, making new friends from Ponyville, and best of all, set her brother up with somepony he meshed well with... sort of. In the time since then, she'd digested most of the food she bought from Applejack's booth, making plenty of room for more. So she used her horn to levitate a pair of plates next to her and scoped out the buffet.

But before she could take notice of the hors d'ouvres, she noticed a pair of dragons talking next to the table, a tall, skinny, white dragon and a short, chubby black one. She couldn't help but crack a smile and give them a little wave before turning back to the buffet to see what was on the menu.

"Yeah, and they get really mad if you hunt their pet heh...I learned that long ago." Ignus said with a chuckle as he remembered hunting someone's cat quite some time ago, it was some stuck up's cat and he was near starving, thankfully someone gave him a new job and some food on the same day or he would have been eating cat kabobs that night.

As he and the younger dragon chit chatted a bit, Ignus caught a glimpse of a cute mare out of the corner of his eye, turning to look, he couldn't help but blush a little bit when she smiled and waved at him; grinning a little, Ignus returned the wave as he thought to himself, 'Wow, now she's cute...wonder if she's spoken for heheh.'

Tourmaline looked up at the older dragon with a quizzical expression on his face, asking "Pet?". He tried to follow the other's gaze when he turned, but Tourmaline only saw a bunch of ponies.

Maybe one of them had food..? But there was already food here, so there was no reason to worry about more. That just seemed silly, really...Maybe older dragons had other things they needed too. Tourmaline wondered for a moment if it had something to do with the Fire...

Rose chuckled a bit when she saw the taller dragon wave back to her, and swiftly returned to browsing the buffet. Sadly, the offerings here weren't the sort of things that looked like they could fill her up too much. There were canapes and miniature sandwiches, things that couldn't even properly be called bite-sized. She sampled an LT with mayonnaise, or maybe it was ranch dressing on it, and smiled. She didn't think she'd find anything like that here! Several more little LTs found themselves on her plate as she moved on to the dessert table.

There she found something beautiful: a sumptuous tiramisu as large as her head. It sat there untouched and unsliced, which baffled her. Why wouldn't the chefs save the nobleponies the extra bit of work and slice it for them? If those upper-class twits could get help to chew and swallow for them, they would.

Rose started furtively looking around to see if anypony else was watching her. This seemed like far too much of a perfect opportunity to pass her by! After making sure the coast was clear, she levitated the entire thing into the air and took it with her, next to her plate of sandwiches, leaving the serving plate with only a few drops of icing and a dusting of crumbs. She felt generous enough to take only that, leaving the other sumptuous pastries for the other gala-goers.

Having found enough food to tide her over for a few more hours, she started walking back over to the pair of dragons, this time to have an actual conversation. She found herself interested in them, and besides, she knew they preferred inorganic meals, so she wouldn't feel the obligation to share.

"Enjoying yourself, handsome?" she asked the taller one. No matter how she tried, she just couldn't seem to stop teasing others.

"Uhh, yeah, a pet, it's like, a companion that lives with you and you feed and it gives you company, know what I mean?" Ignus said, doing his best to explain what a pet was to his young friend; having grown up in town, all the information Ignus knew seemed so simple, but for a wild dragon like Tourmaline, it must have been so foreign.

Ignus smiled when he noticed the lovely mare from earlier coming over and blushed when she spoke to him, "Oh uhm err, yeah I am, th-thanks for asking!" he said with a nod, feeling a bit embarrassed that he was called handsome, "Uhm, OH! Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Ignus; this is my friend Tourmaline; it's wonderful to meet you madame!" the white dragon said, bowing to the mare.

Tourmaline glanced quickly from dragon to pony and back before imitating Ignus and bowing, albeit somewhat awkwardly, as it wasn't a position he was used to holding.

In fact, before long he nearly lost balance, and instead simply goes on all fours and looks around. There were so many ponies around that the little dragon was starting to get a little overwhelmed, but he didn't say anything about it, instead opting to study the pony closest to them. She had some sort of cake thing floating beside her, maybe she was wanting to share it?

"Hey, Ignus," she said, bowing her head a bit in a polite response. She couldn't help but smile at Ignus's awkward bumbling. The taller dragon was clearly bewitched by Rose's beauty. Rose didn't consider herself an ugly duckling, but she didn't think of herself as a seductive bombshell. The next great Equestrian novelist, sure, but a beacon of sex appeal? Get out! So it always surprised her when she got this kind of attention, sort of. "My name's Rose Madder. How are the two of you enjoying the gala so far?"

Then she glanced at the little dragon, Tourmaline, who seemed a bit out of his element. She noticed him sneaking a peek at her cake, and rethought the idea of sharing it. Technically she wasn't supposed to have made off with the entire thing, so she supposed that she should share it with her new friends, too. With an extra bit of concentration, her magic neatly divided the cake into twelve slices. She passed one each to the two dragons and started eating a third. "Have as much as you like. It's delicious!"

"Oh thanks much Rose, that's very nice of you!" Ignus said with a smile as he took a bite out of the cake, as Rose said, it was really delicious and light; setting the cake on his plate, the dragon glanced down at his friend to see if he was enjoying the food as well, before returning his gaze to Rose, "Oh, I'm having a wonderful evening myself, I've gotten to talk with some highbrows and meet you, oh uhm and plus it's a night away from my job, so that's always a great thing heheh. How about you? I hope you're having a good night as well." he said with a chuckle, before taking another bite out of the tiramisu.

Tourmaline examined his piece for a few moments before taking a bite out of it. It smelled sweet, which usually tasted prett-WHOAH! His opalescent eyes suddenly contract to near pinpoints for a moment as the taste hits his tongue.

Whatever this cake-thing was, he LIKED it. After the first nibble, he devoured the rest of the treat in short order and, after licking his fangs clean, managed a quick, polite, "Thank you, Miss Pony." before his eyes flitted back to the rest of the tiramisu.

Rose enjoyed her slice of cake, taking a big bite and holding it for longer than she expected. It was an amazing taste, masterfully crafted by an artisan chef, and somehow it felt wrong for her to just scarf it down like she was planning to. That didn't stop that little dragon from doing it, but she got the feeling that Tourmaline didn't particularly comprehend the finer things in life. Heck, he didn't even pick up on her name!

At least Ignus was appreciative of that cake. He told her about his own experiences at the Gala, which sounded a lot like Rose's. "I actually haven't met that many famous ponies yet. Mostly I've been making small talk with some of the newcomers to the Gala, ponies from Ponyville who just got their first invitations." She took another bite of cake and savored it while thinking of something else to say.

That's when she caught sight of a very specific pony out of the corner of her eye. It was an olive green pony with an orange-red mane, her tail braided and her hair tied in a bun. She wore cat's-eye glasses and a rather plain suit with a vest, which barely qualified as formal attire. The older mare embodied a sort of casual demeanor, as if she'd seen it all and was just enjoying the rest of her life as it came.

"Sans Serif!" Rose gasped, bewitched at the sight of a prominent literary figure in the same room as her. She turned to Ignus with an apologetic smile. "Um, listen, I just found somepony I'd really like to talk to, but I'd like to meet up with you some other time! If you live in Canterlot, just tell me where I can find you and I'll drop by and pay you a visit!" She then glanced over at the levitating slices of cake and tried to think of what to do with them. It would be rather uncouth to talk to Serif with them floating next to her, but there was no other way to support them without them falling to the floor. Maybe if she had a plate...

Ignus listened on intently to Rose as she spoke; he hadn't expected to get to talk to such a nice pony; sure the others he spoke to weren't really rude, but Rose really stuck out to him, "Ahh I see; I forget how many parties like this I've been too; they all seem the same after a while heheh." he said reminiscing over Galas and parties past; he had been in Canterlot ever since he was hatched, which means hes been to literally dozens and dozens of these sort of events in the past; but so far this one was his most memorable.

As Rose's attention turned, Ignus had just finished off his meal, "Oh! No worries at all Rose, don't fret none! I live and work up at the Casino in Solstice Heights; and if I'm not there I'm usually roaming about Canterlot on my days off." he said with a grin, feeling ecstatic that Rose wanted to see him again, "Oh, and here, so you don't have too keep your cake floating there." the dragon said as he handed Rose his empty plate.

"Solstice Heights, huh?" she asked, setting the cake down on the plate Ignus provided. Much to her relief, it fit on there well enough, just coming up to the edges. "I'll stop by and visit soon!" She smiled and levitated a slice up to her mouth, then after a moment's deliberation, another slice. As she walked away from the two dragons, she did her best to finish them quickly, so she wouldn't have to chew on them while she talked to a childhood icon.

((Exit Rose))