Maple shivered and tugged the draw strings of her hood, snuggling the thick winter parka tighter around her ears. The cold was getting to her, and the sun was setting. She would be in serious trouble if she didn't reach the shelter of the lair soon. She turned and looked back to the sunset, for a second simply letting the beauty of the mountains sing to her heart. She felt like she was flying, looking down as the valley swept away from her feet. The slopes swiftly dropped away until the mountains gave way to plains. She saw the river she had struggled with in her climb, from where it was born in an icy lake to where it rushed away from the peaks towards the distant sea. The end of the day softened the harshness of the cold stone and snow around her, the brilliant orange coloring the white and gray expanse warmly. She sighed at the distant sight of her base camp and felt the weight of responsibility settle back on her shoulders. She grimly turned her back on the spectacle. She had a mission to accomplish, and she would succeed or die trying. Bracing herself against the wind, stubbornly putting one hoof in front of the next, she continued towards the dragon's cave.
It wasn't warm inside the cave, but it was out of the wind. She unhooked the clasps on her boots, kicked her rough-worn snowshoes free and piled them neatly. She did a quick inventory of her gear and cached some of her bulky snow equipment near the entrance. She would pick it up on her way back. If she left alive. The cave stretched inwards, the corridor quickly falling into shadow despite the sunset shining through the entrance. She straightened her neck, took a few deep breaths to compose herself, and started inwards.
The light of her lantern was tiny in the darkness. She quickly left the last touches of the sun behind and walked on with only a circle of darkness for company. The walls of the cave slowly swept in and out of her view. The passage narrowed or widened in places, but was never tight enough to bother her. Considering who she came to visit, that was understandable. For a long time the only sounds were the clopping of her hooves and her regular breathing.
As she approached the center of the mountain she started to hear the breathing of another. It was a huge noise, diminished by the vasty caves, but she froze when she noticed it. The sound faded and grew, faded and grew, as the king of the mountain lay slumbering. She shuddered at the images that danced in her mind, painting the ring of darkness around her with fantasies and figments, a thousand horrors that could befall a timid pony in the dark. She fought the urge to stampede back to the entrance and managed to calm down, fighting back the image of claws lunging into her pool of light. Should she announce her presence? She was here to talk. Although she didn't want to draw attention, it would be bad to surprise him. Most people didn't like being woken rudely...better to wake him from a distance.
"Hello?"
...OH...Oh...oh...
Her echo mocked her for a second as her shout jingled her lantern and harness. She waited for a reply, and then tried again.
"Your Highness? Are you there?" Best to be respectful.
....ERE....ERe....ere....
"Please! I need to talk to you!"
...YOU...You...you...
Her desperation sounded pitiful even in her own ears. She hung her head, nearly giving in to despair. She knew that her chances were slim, but she'd held tightly to the thread of hope she had followed all this way. The dancing darkness and mocking echoes pressed in on her, and suddenly she felt very, very small, and very, very alone.
One more step. She encouraged herself, thinking back to the mantra that had kept her going for the past week. One more step. If you stop, you're as good as dead. And you can't. Die. Yet! She picked her head up and shook herself, willed away the depression with thoughts of her family and friends, and stepped forward again.
Suddenly, silence.
The sound of breathing had quieted. She continued, not letting the new noiselessness unnerve her.
Whoomph.
She jumped at the noise, and stifled a surprised whinny as green flame exploded from the ground on both sides of her and coalesced into a pair of head-sized spheres that floated just above the ground.
Whoomph-whoomph-whoomph...
More way-lights appeared. The sounds faded off into the distance as a series of green flames flickered into existence and hovered just high enough to light the path.
"I...I guess he heard me." The greater light illuminated the passage, which was carved into the side of a huge cavern in an inverted spiral. It snaked its way downwards until it reached the shadowy floor of the mountain. Something shifted in the deep shadow below. She blew out her lantern, gathered her courage, and stepped forward.
She reached the bottom of the cavern several hours later. The descent had been nerve-wrackingly uneventful. The spheres of fire had faithfully illuminated her way, and the floor was smooth. She'd spent the entire boring trip trying to convince herself she would be OK. She was only going up against something that would terrify anypony, with nothing backing her but the strength of her conviction and a hope for the future. She continued, though; no matter how frightened she was, even when she shook and shuddered with each step, her determination still drove her on.
The descent finally ended. The path tunneled into the stone for a short distance before it twisted back and opened out into the huge central cavern. The way-lights extended out of the door a few yards before arching outwards and back to form an open semicircle. The flaming globes illuminated the center clearly, but obscured the rest of the cave. She walked slowly out and strained her eyes into the darkness.
"Hello?" She called softly.
Her heart lurched into her throat as a sizable slice of the darkness shifted and lifted away, revealing a green slitted eye as tall as she was. The flickering light painted a Draconian face in the shadows. It examined her lazily for a second.
"Greetings." The voice was smooth as molten silver, as deep as black velvet, and calm as still water. "What brings you here? It has been long, long years since I've seen a pony." There was a sadness to the words, as if the speaker felt some ineffable loss.
"Lord-" Maple began, but a quaver in her voice stopped her. She paused, and cleared her throat. She wasn't dead yet. "Lord, I come seeking a boon." It took every ounce of self control she had to keep from bolting backwards into the tunnel. Although the darkness revealed nothing more than an eye and a few lined shadows, every instinct of hers was screaming for her to flee, that this thing was a danger to pass all others. She clamped down on her instincts, calling into use the same iron self-control that kept her steady as she perched on an ice ledge thousands of feet up a glacier, the same discipline that allowed her to rigorously check and double-check everything needed to keep herself safe on an exhausted descent.
"Hmm." The hum of the word shook her bones. "We will see. What year is it?"
"Four hundred and sixty-seven since the start of the Equestrian Republic, Lord."
"Pfff, is that foolishness still prevalent?" The great dragon yawned. Maple's green mane tried to stand on end underneath her thick jacket as teeth longer than her legs slipped in and out of shadow. "Enough with the 'Lord' this, 'Your Highness' that. I may be king of this mountain, but it is a desolate wasteland. I rule nothing of worth, I own little of value. Simply cold, hard, stones. Tell me your name."
"I'm Maple Sugar..." She replied. Her voice trailed off as she tried to decide how to address him.
"Spike." His voice was deep. "You may call me Spike. Friends once did."
Maple breathed out, much of the tension she had felt starting to ebb from her body. Her instincts still screamed at her, but she dealt with that on every climb. No, the tension that was leaving her was the fear of being summarily eaten, the terror of being chased and killed for sport, and the deeper wariness of finding nothing at all, not even an abandoned horde. Slowly, that feeling, the fear of futility, began to ebb.
"Maple. Hmm. Well." He turned his head away from her and breathed a lick of flame, emerald green; for a second the velvet dark split and she caught a glimpse of an enormous scaled shoulder and neck above her. As his flame faded, a table and chairs were revealed, cushioned with satin, draped with linen, and lit by a candelabra. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll be with you momentarily; I only need a second to...change." The draconian eye closed, and she was alone in the darkness.
She walked slowly into the circle of yellow light, her mind churning over what had just happened. Instead of being executed, she was received with grace. Although her spirits were starting to lift, she forced them down again. The cruelty of dragons was renown, and their cunning boundless. Would he be willing to help? Would he even be able to help?
She settled herself at the table. As she did, a lithe form slipped out of the shadows to join her. The dragon had shifted his shape from gargantuan to more her size. He was now only a little taller than her, although he walked on two legs. His form was lanky and odd, but undeniably graceful. He was wearing an immaculately preserved suit, styled to fit his strange shape but elegant nonetheless. He draped himself in the chair across from her and dropped a handful of gems on the table in front of each of them.
"I have no food that you might enjoy," He said, picking up a carnelian and licked it once, his forked tongue flickering, before swallowing it with a crunch. "Yet you are welcome to a few gems. Or did you want more from me than my hoard?"
"N-no, that's not it..."
"Well then Maple, please tell me your story."
"U-um...for me, it all started on a moonless night..."
Slowly, the tale spilled out. She spoke of the beginning of the war, when ponies started simply vanishing. She spoke of how she had seen some of the first attackers, the shadows of sea-foam and insanity that had attacked her town. She spoke of the rising threat, the crushing despair as the attackers brought the blight with them. How whole villages bled, screamed, and died, the fog of evil rolling over them, slowly covering the land. The last remnants of a once mighty nation had huddled together, shivering in the dark, waiting for the end. But they had denied despair and seized hope instead, working frenetically to avert doom, to scream one last gasp in the face of futility.
"...and now, the darkness waits, watching and hoping for our fall. Equestria can't hold out! We're pressed on every side! Please, you have to help!"
...ELP...elp...
Her voice echoed away to nothingness. She panted a bit, realizing just how caught up she had been in her recounting.
Crunch. Gem dust sparkled across the white tablecloth as the elder wyrm across from her devoured another gem and licked his long, pointed snout.
"And why," He said, his voice as calm and level as it had been when she arrived, "Should I care?"
She boggled. Her jaw dropped. Her head spun, and she felt faint. She'd never considered this situation. As she talked, her host had listened attentively. He was the soul of hospitality, offering her a glass of water for her throat, asking pointed questions, making keen observations and critiques. Slowly, hope had grown in her chest. She hadn't been eaten. She hadn't been too late. But to be met with this cold indifference? She felt the flower of her hope wither a bit and begin to die.
"Maple, let me tell you something. Everypony dies." His green eyes caught her amber ones and held them. "I have lived nearly thirteen hundred years. Everyone I care about is dead. Can you comprehend the weight of years? I stagger beneath them. It took more effort for me to raise my eyelid today than you might guess. Even if I throw my considerable might behind you, you will still be dead before I wake up from my next nap. Why should I spend my waning energy trying to catch mist in my hands, or collect the morning dew?"
"I...I...ah," Her eyes filled with tears, her nose quivered, and Maple broke down. "Waaaaaah! I,I hate you! -Hic!- You're awful! I wish you had just -hic- eaten me like I thought in-hic-stead! Even if it -hic- hurt, at least I -hic- wouldn't have to feel this hope-hic-less!" She cried for a while, tears streaming down her face. Slowly the sobs receded and the deadness in her chest faded, leaving only gray. She felt a soft touch on her muzzle and looked up to find Spike holding out a silken kerchief, an odd expression of remembrance and pity on his face. She almost broke down in tears again, but choked back the sobs. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of watching her cry.
"You..." His voice was soft, and for the first time, hesitant. "You thought I would eat you?" He almost seemed afraid of her answer.
"Yes! You're a dragon! You're huge! No-one has come out of these mountains alive for two hundred yeeeeeeeeeeears!"
"...and you still spoke to me."
"How could I not? My friends, my family, they are GOING TO DIE! If I could give them hope by dying, I'd do it in a heartbeat!"
"What a bright soul." She took the kerchief from his claws, and he stepped back. She sniffled and wiped her eyes and nose. He watched, standing absolutely still, for long enough that she started to feel uncomfortable.
"Maple." His voice was calm again, but there was something else there. A spark of life? As if he was waking up, for the first time in years. "Maple, you are truly generous. I...I'm sorry for how I acted. It has been so long..but your tears have reminded me of one of the joys of my life. I am ashamed to admit I had forgotten how much love is worth, and why I once fought to preserve it. I have become jaded. But. I can grow yet. All...although it is precious to me, I may have something to help you." A glimmer of hope appeared in her chest, but she squashed it sharply and held her silence, simply staring back at him.
"Come with me." He said finally, turning away. She rose behind him, resigned, and followed him as he headed for the center of the cave. She gasped a little as the candelabra rose from the table behind them and floated along. He glanced back, his eyebrow quirking at her surprise. She gasped again as the ring of light moved forward and revealed a pile, a heap, a hill, a veritable mountain-within-the-mountain of gems. It was huge. Large enough for an elder wyrm to nest in. He led her clockwise around it until a tunnel appeared leading inwards. The candles struck a thousand glittering chromatic flames off the gems as she followed him into the heap.
It was a short tunnel, twisting just enough to obscure the entrance before opening out into a small cavern. In the center rested a marble plinth. She flinched as the candles went out, plunging them into blackness. For a second her heart beat wildly, the darkness mixing with the cinnamon smell of dragon to re-ignite her fear. As her eyes adjusted and she calmed, she saw that the plinth was glowing.
Her host stepped forward and raised the top, revealing a pattern of three blue diamonds set in the stone. Resting on top of them was a glowing ivory horn, slender and spiraled.
"That's...a unicorn horn! How did you-"
"Her name was Rarity." His voice was dark with sorrow. "It survived her death, because she gave it to me. As I said, everyone I care about...But she was the very soul of generosity." He paused for a minute, before reverently picking the horn up and touching it to one of the diamonds. It came loose with a soft clink. "I..." He picked it up and held it out to her, a blue diamond glowing with its own gentle light. "I can be really selfish sometimes." His voice quavered slightly. "But she was the most generous person...and you remind me of her. So, take it. You were willing to sacrifice your very life for those you love. I know not if it will help, but if I held on this, if I held onto part of her like this, for the sake of my ego, when someone needed her help, she would...be so...very...sad..."
Maple was shivering. His voice was cracking, laden with sorrow, but he was holding out to her the most beautiful gift she'd ever seen....hope.
"This is..."
"An Element of Harmony. A memento of someone who loved me. I can not say it will be enough. Part of the set is gone for good. But there is still magic there. Wherever there is the light of life and love, there are friends. And that can give you hope."
Maple was perched on a cliff in the chill light of dawn. The wintry wind swirled snowflakes around her. She carefully checked and double-checked her setup, searching for any flaw or mistake. She tugged, testing it with her weight. Her belay rope creaked but held tight. She looked up, taking one last glimpse of the cave mouth before she fell out of sight. The Element of Generosity warmed her heart, tucked deep in her parka. She was carrying the possibility of salvation back to the ponies she loved. It wasn't what she had expected. It was much more than she had hoped for.
"Spike." She said softly under her breath. He'd given her hope. "Friends once called you that." Maybe they could again.