When War is Close by

When War is Close by

Chapter 7
Gold in Sliver

Twilight was happy to be out in the open of the park again leaving the small cramped office belonging to Doctor Stable and the smell of hospital behind. She was heading across the park lawn towards a large oak tree which had roots in far end of the park, not too far from the taller, outer wall.

While she had been in the small office the park guests had increased in numbers. It seemed as if most of the whole town had decided that today was a good day visit the park.
Young fillies were playing and dancing around their parents who were relaxing in the shade of one of few trees the park had to offer or a parasol they had brought from home.

Past a small group of fillies playing in the warm summer sun she spotted a snow white stallion sitting in the oaks shade his back against the tree trunk... He seemed relaxed almost sleeping with his eyes closed. His oddly short cut, golden mane helped Twilight confirm it. This was Gold Plate.

As she passed the playing fillies she noticed a nurse sitting in the grass not too far away from Gold Plate and remembered what Redheart said to her just before they parted ways.

Even if Gold Plate was one of the most stable PTSD patients he was still like the others under constant observation. Redheart had also pointed out that anything related to the army could have a negative impact and had pointed at Twilights circlet with it's symbol.

She slipped off the circlet and made it evaporate into thin air. As she approached the white stallion the nurse who had noticed her from a mile away didn't move but nodded approvingly when Twilight made eye contact with her. She returned the nod.

Twilight sad down next to Gold Plate and leaned against the tree as a lazy, warm summer wind passed by. She realized that she was actually in doubt about how to start a conversation with Gold Plate... Had he even noticed her sitting down next to him?

But as she was about to panic trying to figure out how to break this increasingly awkward silence Gold Plate himself broke the silence with a steadfast tone.
“To what do I owe the honour, Vice-commander?”

Twilight turned her head and looked at him. He had opened an eye looking at her with a lazy gaze from his sky blue eye. “I think you can almost guess why. Your help is needed.”

The white stallion looked down over his body with an unsure frown. Twilight noticed his stomach was covered in white bandages that blended in almost perfectly with his coat making it hard to see at a distance. His left back leg was heavily wrapped as the hoof had seemingly been ripped off at the ankle.

The white earth pony looked back up at her, meeting her eyes again with a distressed expression, hyperventilating. “Do you-”, the steadfast tone had vanished and been replaced by uncertainty, “-really think someone like me can be of any help a-at all...” His voice trailed off with a little shutter at the end as he gestured toward his recovering body.

“You don't have to but I'm sure you'll be able to help.” Twilight nodded with an understanding frown. “You see, the soldiers here in Ponyville have no knowledge of what we are up against.”

Twilight summoned an empty scroll, ink pouch and a quill as she continued. “All you need to do is to sit here and tell me everything you know about these half-dragons,” she assured him.

This seemed like a relieve to Gold Plate as he responded dryly. “Understanding your enemy is the first step toward victory. I'll tell you what I know...” His voice carrying a much calmer tone.

His hyperventilating had come to a halt for now yet Twilight could tell by just looking at him that he wasn't comfortable with the subject at all.

“As I said,” she began putting a soft press on the assuring tone in her voice. “You don't have to do this if you don't wan--”
“I have to do this,” he cut her off. “This is the only way that someone like me might have a small chance to get back at those half-dragons for what they have done...”

Talking with Gold Plate went a lot better than Twilight had expected and after what must had been about an hours time Twilight had a good, clear description of what the average half-dragon looked like.

She dared not ask what he meant with 'what they have done', but it wasn't important right now.
“So just to summarize before I leave," she said as she unfolded the three scrolls that now contained notes from their about an hour long conversation.

Gold Plate didn't respond so Twilight started to read aloud from the information gathered on the scrolls.

Commonly half-dragons were bigger and stronger anypony, and with their ability to walk up right if they desired they could always tower over anypony.

Some could breathe fire imbued with magical properties while others were nimble and could shapeshift to gain wings or hide in plain sight but most of them were without such features.

But they all had scales and claws with spikes for hair, either in the same manner as Spike or with a porcupine mess.

Twilight finished summarizing the scrolls content to Gold Plate expecting some kind of response from him but Gold Plate still didn't say anything so she looked up from scroll.

His breathing seemed stressed and his teeth were grit in a tight frown. His gaze directed towards the far end of the park.

This worried Twilight. 'For how long had been like this?', she thought to herself. She had been too obsessed with her scrolls to notice when it started.

“Gold is everything alri--” A loud shriek from a small group of fillies made Gold Plate jolt as if someone had surprise poked him in an open wound.

“Gold Plate!” Twilight exclaimed in an attempt to gain his attention but he didn't respond. His breathing becoming more and more intense as his gaze shifted from the distant other side of the park to the five fillies who were playing a game of trust not too far from the big oak tree.

The nurse who was watching over Gold Plate had approached them trying to calm him as well but was unsuccessfully knocked over as he raced forward toward the fillies with a war cry.
“You will not take Round Shield from me!”, he bellowed taking stumbling steps with his now reddening bandaged leg as he dashed forward.

Twilight was about to panic. The fillies were in danger, what could she do? “Stop him!”, the tumbled nurse called to her snapping Twilight out of it and lashed onto the rampant white stallion with her magic in attempt to halt his advance but Gold Plates physical might was too great and Twilight could only manage to slow him to a trot at first.

She could feel the white stallion struggle against her magic. She could easily have overpowered him but she remembered what was written on his patient profile in the section about his body's damaged condition and the fact that physical manipulation of or levitating living beings was something that required weeks and weeks of careful training with a ton of eggs, soon to be crushed by your imperfect magical balance, to master made her fear that even if she had mastered both she would damage his healing bones and tissue or even worse crush him to death due to wild struggling against her magic.

The rampant stallions left leg was already leaving a trail of red behind him but it seemed like he couldn't care less in his attempt to reach the fear paralysed fillies.

Twilight could feel her concentration beginning to slip as the mentally taxing mana output management constantly changed. In a panic attempt to lower her needed effort to halt Gold Plates advance Twilight began to levitate him off the ground.

“Let go!”, he yelled bucking out and fighting harder against her magic. “Please let go!” Gold Plate almost begged. “Round Shield is going to die, I have to help him!”

That was too much for Twilight and she fell into sitting position as the magical backlash from her broken levitation spell hit her with a headache and ringing in the ears followed by a dizzying blur of stars filling her vision forcing her to look down to avoid losing balance.

But she quickly looked up again worrying about the fillies only to look back down again as her stomach didn't quite agree with the spinning surroundings but at least she could rest easy now as she had caught a glimpse of a giant white pegasus with the tiniest wings and a black dumbbell as cutiemark drop from the sky and halt Gold Plate instantly with his massive forelegs.