After I woke up, I’d found that I was low on money, so I decided to go and see if Rarity needed any jobs done for her. Luckily, she did have a job for me: Bring her some dragon gems from the top of a nearby mountain. I gladly accepted the job and started to make my way towards the mountain.

As I trotted in the direction of the mountain, I saw Fluttershy running about. She looked like she was in a panic, so I stopped and asked her what was wrong. “There’s smoke coming from the mountain!” She cried, slightly out of breath.

Before I could even ask if she knew if it was a fire or something, she ran off, so I decided to continue my journey to the mountain.

I slowly made my way up the mountain, which proved to be a bit difficult seeing as I was only an Earth pony and had to climb up the rocks. “Why couldn’t I have been made a pegasus?” I huffed to myself as I scrambled up another boulder.

All was going well, until I came to a gap between two bits of the mountain. I cautiously peeked over the edge and saw that I was really, really high up. I went back a few feet away from the edge, took a deep breath and galloped towards the edge. I sprang over the chasm with ease, then carried on up the mountain path with a newly found sense of elation.

When I finally reached the top of the mountain, I sat down for a bit to get my energy back while looking around for the dragon gems. I couldn’t see any gems outside, so after I got my breath back, I trotted over to a large cave with smoke pouring out of it. Peeking inside, I saw a huge pile of glittering treasure, topped with an even bigger dragon. I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do, but I saw that there was tons of treasure, so I thought to myself “If I only take a little bit of treasure, this dragon will never know it’s gone!” I crept inside the cave and scooped up a few gems in my forelegs. Just as I was starting to tiptoe out, I heard something growling behind me. I whipped round and saw that the dragon had woken up, and was bearing its huge, sharp teeth at me. I tried to convince the dragon to let me have some of his treasure, but he was having none of it. He flicked me idly out of the cave with a single swipe of his tail.

I decided to try again, and this time I whipped my violin out of my saddlebag and rushed back into the cave. I started to play my violin to the dragon, my goal being to soothe it back to sleep, but apparently dragons hate violins because he reduced my violin to a pile of ash and then flicked me out of the cave again!

Outside, I was slumped over trying to think of what to do next when Twilight and Co. showed up.

They all told me that they needed to get rid of the dragon too, so we all decided to have a go at it.

Twilight tried to persuade the dragon, but failed. Rarity tried to use her charm against the dragon, but that failed as well. Then Pinkie Pie tried to make it laugh and, predictably, also failed. Then Rainbow Dash went and kicked it in the face!

After that, it got angry and started attacking us! We all struggled to dodge its teeth, claws and fiery breath. I tried to distract it by shouting and waving my forelegs around, but it thwacked me with its tail and sent me smashing into a boulder. I was momentarily paralyzed by a pounding pain in my back, and I could only watch helplessly as the dragon continued to attack Twilight and the other ponies. Suddenly, Fluttershy gathered up her courage and flew right up to the dragon and told him off!

“But the rainbow one kicked me…” The dragon whimpered, tears starting to form in its eyes.

“And I am very sorry for that.” Fluttershy replied.

And with that, the dragon started to cry and swiftly flew away. I never knew it was possible to reduce a dragon to tears like that, but I guessed the things I had heard about Fluttershy being an amazing pony were true.

As the other ponies made their way back down the mountain, Applejack kindly carried my aching body back to Ditzy’s house. I thanked her and went inside.

Then it occurred to me that I would need to buy a replacement violin.

Stupid dragon!