Daring managed to drag herself to bed, feeling lighter and heavier at the same time. Daring only had one desire, what came after she got into her bed. The thought of sharing her bed with Spike briefly flashed into her mind before she banished it with a shake of her head, if her mind was going to things like that then she really was more tired than she thought. Daring hadn’t felt this hot and heavy since she was a teenager in her first estrus, only now it was all being directed toward a single individual instead of every male she set her gaze upon.

Daring hoped this would be out of her way when she woke up in the morning. Twilight insisted she rest in proper sleep attire. Daring didn’t see the point to it all, she’d slept in daytime attire all the time on her adventures. Her admission to such things made the one known as Rarity nearly faint and practically fly to her boutique, which was officially closed at the time, and make a nightgown just for Daring’s exclusive use. Daring herself had been dragged along by said white unicorn, much to her surprise.

Being told to strip, rather forcefully, also was not something she was used to dealing with. Morally dubious dealers in ancient artifacts, easy, but dealing with a fashionista, that was one puzzle she didn’t quite know how to solve. Rarity spent a good seven minutes to measure her with her tape measuring Daring’s dimensions, all of them. After just twenty minutes, not even a full half hour, Rarity had put her through over a dozen different styles with over a dozen different fabrics, each. How the white unicorn could do something like that was a mystery to her, one that even her greatest aid couldn’t help her solve.

Just dealing with all those ponies, especially the time after the party, had tired Daring out. She was looking forward to sleep, unless the so-called Princess of the Night decided to pester her in her sleep. Slipping into her room with the nightgown on, she really didn’t have any choice in the matter, she sat down at the desk and managed to write up a twenty-six-page official-looking report. She hadn’t done anything like that in years, but was surprised at how little rust there actually was to filling out the report.

After filling out the report she slipped into bed and off to sleep, or so she thought. What waited for her was something she hadn’t anticipated, something she really hadn’t expected to see after she closed her eyes. The other surprises weren’t very pleasant either, but at least she was feeling refreshed through the whole thing.

A voluptuous dragoness, that looked suspiciously similar to the idol, met her in her sleep. “Do not worry, young one,” said the dragoness in a voice that had a bit of a sensual tone to it, “I am merely here to talk. You are currently outside the dreamscape, this is the domain I call home.”

It was at this moment Daring noticed she was completely naked from head to hoof, she was both embarrassed and not embarrassed at the same time. The feeling was odd to Daring, but she had not really been that conscious of her body in this sort of manner before. Her perky B-Cup breasts weren’t likely to draw the attention of most stallions, she even remembered a few times her breast size actually resulted in others mistaking her for a really androgynous stallion. She needed answers, this dragoness probably had the closest thing to them. “Alright, maybe we should see what you’re after,” said Daring in a sexy sounding version of her old voice, she blinked a few times, “starting with what is going on with me.”

“The ritual of restoration isn’t something you can just do, it has certain requirements that must be met depending on which deity you are talking about. In your case you stumbled into it with partial information, it requires the offering of blood from one who seeks and the flame of one who assists when you’re talking about me and mine. You unintentionally offered up your blood to the ritual, which actually intensifies it for some reason. As for what’s happening to you, your body is changing to meet the physical desires of the dragon that assisted you. It’s my little way of saying thank you. I haven’t had any worshippers for centuries, but have managed to remain.”

“How?”

The dragoness smiled and Daring noticed that the voluptuousness of the dragon’s form was not just in her bust line, it was in every part of her figure from the torso down. The dragoness had a set of generously large breasts, something that had clearly been lacking from her idol for some reason. Due to the dragon’s size converting their size to pony standards would be tricky at best, but based on her size in comparison to her body they were comparable to GG-Cup sized breasts, “I was once a mortal dragon, as were my sisters. Our domains were not seen of as being of great importance to dragons, thus we were relegated to the position of lesser deities. Amusingly, around the time your nation was founded some ponies seeking a sense of direction and purpose in their lives found our discarded idols from the dragons who also carelessly dropped our names in a language the ponies could understand,” she smiled, her smile was sultry and evocative, “they had no idea what they were actually saying, they were actually sleepwalking and my sister used the opportunity to bring us to those who would likely respect us more.”

“That explains how your idol was found in old ruins near Equestria’s border, but not my question.”

“I needed to set the stage for you, child,” said the dragoness with a smirk, “my old heart is now an artifact of great importance to the place you call the Crystal Empire.”

“The Crystal Heart,” said Daring, “but that amplifies the feelings of love from the ponies that direct their energies towards it and projects a shield that protects against the forces of unrestricted nature. Spike said you were a fertility deity, that doesn’t add up. Unless... there’s info regarding you that’s been lost to time.”

“Very good, that’s exactly it,” she said with another sultry smile, “I reigned over Fertility, Relationships, and Knowledge in my time. Dragons cared little for the last two and only mildly for the first part, it’s no wonder their only surviving records of me say I’m just a fertility goddess. My sisters reigned over the Sun and Moon respectively. She who reigned over the sun, Solmirashi, also reigned over Justice, Agriculture, Truth, and Politics. As you can guess, dragons didn’t really care much for Justice or Truth, more practical for them to pray to one of the four Vengeance gods. Of the three dozen deities dragons once worshipped, my sisters and I were the only goddesses.”

“And relegated to minor positions of power in the divine hierarchy,” said Daring, “wait you said your sisters reigned over the Sun and Moon, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have that power.”

“Just as a prayer to the Crystal Heart sustains me, the difference to Celestia and Luna allows my sisters to continue to exist, but only in a state of suspended animation for now. They felt their power waning rapidly, when they sensed the presence of the royal sisters having similar power to their own they embedded portions of their essence into them, as long as Celestia and Luna live so too do Solmirashi and Chandra. Chandra reigned over the Moon, Dreams, Art, Crafting, and Language.

“So pieces of your sisters’ personalities and abilities are also present in the Royal Sisters. You three enjoyed much more prestige among ponies because your domains were more in line with them. I’m surprised there wasn’t much talk about you all in the accounts from the pre-alicorn era.”

“They were more like a secret society, the tribes were all still working towards being on good terms with each other. Our pony worshippers gathered in secret and referred to each other in a manner that disguised their names, they only knew each other by those names. They didn’t want to let it be known they were worshipping non-pony entities.

“I suppose that makes more sense than most theories about that time,” said Daring. “But why would you want to have ponies worship you in the first place?”

“The three of us didn’t care who worshipped us, so long as they asked for our advice and took our edicts to heart. Despite being dragon deities our edicts actually came out sounding more pony, not surprising when you took into account what we were like back in our mortal days. The three of us all advocated for peaceful relations with other races. We tried our best to introduce dragons to the very concepts that became part of our domains. I don’t know how we ascended to being deities, it’s something we still haven’t been able to figure out or build a proper theory around. The three of us just did our best to be as selfless as possible, we actually managed to push back our own greed. We just wanted to make the lives of other dragons better, initially. Somewhere along the way our desire to make lives more meaningful for dragons expanded into a desire to enrich the lives of all the other sapient and sentient beings around us.”

“That’s a lovely sentiment and all, and really engaging history lesson. But that doesn’t explain my changes.”

“Don’t worry, you’re keeping your athletic body, it’s just going to be getting a little sexier in some very distinct ways. Like I said, you’re changing to be more in line with Spike’s ideal figure. That one is an interesting case, he’s a dragon but sexually attracted to ponies. I tweaked your body a bit, in addition to having a form that has heavy shades of his vision of the ideal mare you’ve also been given the ability to bear the offspring of dragons more effectively.”

“And I suppose your directing our sexual urges towards each other is your idea of a subtle push.”

“When they need to take more than a hint, yes. Spike is a special kind of dragon, as you probably know, but his extended fascination with the unicorn known as Rarity for an extended period of time has stunted his ability to recognize sexual attraction towards other females. The boy practically blew his chance with Ember, despite her being less-than-subtle in her advances toward him ten years ago.”

“Wait, you’ve been watching him that long?”

“And you even longer, along with some other figures in Equestria. You would not believe what it took get Cadance and Shining Armor together. Of course, Flurry Heart is another matter, nineteen years old and already a heartthrob for many a stallion, too bad they don’t realize she prefers mares at the moment.”

“How and why?”

“My former pony followers established a rather unique link with me, it gave me the ability to watch them and their loved ones from where I am now. My sisters would be able to do something similar in regards to Celestia and Luna if they were still awake.”

“And this effect carried on to their descendants,” said Daring, “Which means I’m descended from one of your followers?”

“Well, yes and no,” said Zelshirska, Daring finally remembered her name, it was so outside what she was used to in terms of names. “You’re the descendant of the loved one of a loved one of one of my followers, during those times such a union for ponies in his position would have been taken poorly and possibly ruined both their lives. But the connection was still formed, thus allowing me to follow that line. Mi Amore Cadenza is special case, she’s from the line that first formed a connection with my former heart, the Sparkle line are descended from unicorns that only chose to worship me in a desire to get a better understanding of dragon culture, their drive to understand what they are unfamiliar with has been passed down through the generations. I really didn’t have the ability to peer in on any of the families of Twilight’s close friends before she made the connection, but once she did I was able to look in on all those ponies as well.”

“So, you haven’t been subtly manipulating our history behind the scenes?”

“I might have done so a few centuries ago, but it’s only been recently my power has returned to the point I can do things like this. I have a question for you, Daring.”

“Go on.”

“You should take your time thinking it over before giving your answer, would you like to be my new High Priestess?”

“I’ll think about it, but I’m going to want to be talking about…”

“Which we will get to, another time. But know this, I haven’t been able to do something like this for thousands of years, the restoration ritual gave me a short burst of energy. It’ll probably only last a few days, mortal time, time in this domain passes differently.”

Author's Notes:

I deliberately left pieces hanging because I intend to have a continuation of this meeting in a future chapter.

Daring has questions, quite a few of them. Also, that bit about Zelshirska being able to follow her family line is something I intend to try expanding on a bit. I also wanted to give an explanation for why Celestia and Luna have something akin to divine level power. I foresee some debates flaring up with some of the stuff I presented in this chapter