Dragon's Tale, the city of Darkrise

It is a fine Thursday morning, the moon and the stars were shimmering on the snow covered rooftops, a sight not a thousand words can describe. Darkrise is beautiful.

However today is by far not a normal day, as of yesterday, after the fiasco of Cyril at the dinner table, I was given charge of our dear guest, that little purple dragon, Spike. It would be a good opportunity to keep an eye on his condition, however I am not sure how that will affect my current work.

As one of the twenty resident doctors of Darkrise general hospital I usually take Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, but my hospital duties are not my only ones, I also have to make the rounds on all of my patients in their homes. As it is in our practice our belief that patients tend to heal better in their own beds surrounded by family than by coming to a hospital with its nearly insufferably depressive atmosphere.

After everyone have left the mansion, I checked my patients list as well as my to do list, then woke our little guest from his slumber.

Groggy he opened his eyes and inquired about the time, I told him its morning, he then looked up and saw that the moon is still up in the sky, “but it’s the middle of the night.”

I chuckled at his lack of congruence, “You are in Darkrise, where the sun never rise and the night is the new day, now get up you are coming with me.”

On the dining table were the remaining two pieces of a chocolate opal cake. Definitely my father’s cooking.

As we sat, spike started looking at his surroundings.

“Is there anything amiss?” I inquire

“Yeah, where is everyone?”

“Father had already went to work, and Adonis is back in his forge, while Cyril and Reina went to school.”

“School?”

“Yes a school that teaches magic.”

He remained a bit confused, “isn’t Cyril too old for school?”

I laughed at his notion, “Cyril isn’t a student; he is a teacher there.”

Shocked he replied, “Wow I don’t think I ever want him as my teacher.”

“Regardless of what his quirks are, Cyril is an excellent teacher, he can show you the path you need to take all without showing you what you are looking for.”

That seemed to have convinced him. “So, it’s just you and me?”

I gave him my most sincere smile, “I also have some work I need to attend to.”

“Yes, he is going to treat the sick, heal the wounded, and raise the dead.”  One of the fairies said, but as a resident of Darkrise I learned to ignore them, though not as completely, since I replied: “raising the dead is Cyril’s work not mine.”

Realizing what I just said I bit my tongue, my brother is not a monster, regardless of what his powers may be.

“So what am I to do all day?” asked spike.

“If you were useful at something you might get a job.” Teased him one of the fairies.

“Oh well, I used to work at a library, keeping scores of checklists, making sure the books are in order stuff like that.”

“Excellent.” I jumped from my chair, but that was a brilliant idea that popped into my head. “How about you be my assistant for the day?”

“But aren’t you a doctor, I don’t know anything about medicine.”

“Oh no, you won’t do medicine, but you will handle all my checklists, from patients to drugs to appointments, I think that fits your area of expertise quite nicely.”

There was a glee in his eyes as he nodded in agreement.

“Alright then, finish your breakfast and we can get started.”

Out on the street, I couldn’t help but realize at spikes wander and awe at our city’s street, I watched as he is auspiciously weaving his way through the ice covered streets that are teaming with lights, fairies and all sort of creatures.

“You know,” he went “I never thought it would be this bright, It’s as if the ground itself is light up.”

I simply enjoy at his marveling, “Well you should be able to see the light over there.” I pointed him toward a light beam that is coming from the ground toward the moon. “There is the temple of the moon. An ancient relic left by a civilization long been dead, it harnesses the power of the moon and the stars then amplify it nearly ten thousand folds.”

“It creates enough power to control the weather of the entire mountain chain, all the way to the Bad Lands in Equestria, and as south as the eyes can see, it also prevents the sun to rise.”

“You mean, you have never seen a sun rise before?”

I looked at his raw curiosity, somehow I wish Reina was that intuitive, “Well, no, not personally, others have though, they tell me that when the sun is in the sky you can’t look up because it blurs your eyes.”

“How about warmth?  The sun is what usually give warmth to all living things in the world?”

“Well according to an archaeologist in our local university, this place used to be a desert because it was too high up, the sun burned everything, even the grass, so that ancient civilization, for reasons unknown to us, created a machine that forbade the sun to rise and used the moon instead.”

That answer didn’t convince him it seems, so I decided to go on: “have you noticed already? There is ice everywhere, and it’s snowing, but despite all this coolness, neither you nor I am cold.”

He nodded.

“Well that is because the street themselves emits the warmth needed to sustains all life form, the higher you fly the colder it gets, and trust me it gets really cold, really fast. That phenomena happens because that temple transform the power needed to raise the sun into heat for the earth.”

“I think I understand, but I still find it strange.”

“When magic meets science, stranger things have happened still, now what is the first order of business?”

“Get the surgical instruments from Adonis.”

“Ah good then we are here.”

In front of Adonis’s shop, there is a score of females, dragonesses, ponies, even fairies, all gathered around his shop. “Go figures.”

Spike noticed it too but did not understand what was going on. “Why is there a big crowd in front of smithy?”

“You’ll see in a moment.”

As we made our way through the crowd and finally reached the inside of the shop, the crowd cleared right in front of the door. I opened the shop to be greeted by Anvil Ford, a grey earth pony with silver and white mane, and one of Darkrise greatest smith might I add.

“Hello mister Ford, crowded as usual I see.”

Anvil grunted, he liked the work of the smithy because it was quite, but ever since Adonis came to work for him, well you get the picture.

“Where is Adonis? I gave him some surgical tools to repair for me the other day, and I’m here to pick them up.”

Mister Ford lifted his hoof and pointed at the forge, I looked closely only to see my brother hammering at a sword with his full strength, he is topless but wearing some ragged trousers, his sweat accentuating his already well-toned and highly muscled body, he stopped his hammering and raised his newly forged blade, and the crowd gasped holding their breath as he looked over the metal assessing it, then he plunged the blade into a basin of cold water, and the crowd sighed as the steam filled the ford.

“And I am supposed to be related to him.”

“Hey there little brother, and little dragon.” He greeted me and Spike while cleaning his hands. “Out for a stroll today?”

“Are you done playing macho for the day?”

“Why? Jealous much?” Gods he make me so angry.

“No, I thought you might have forgotten our deal earlier this week, which I’ll take care of your chores for next week while you repair my surgical instruments.”

“Nah of course I didn’t forget. Here.”

He handed me my surgeon’s bag. I opened it and picked up one of the scalpels, then made a cut on my finger just how sharp it got, the cut went straight to the bones just like when I first bought them.

“Well, if it’s to any support, your skills as a smith are formidable.”

“Sharpened to a fault, cleaned from any rust, and enchanted to kill all germs, just like my way with women.”

He then made a hand pistol, pointed it at the entrance and winked while doing a clicking sound, and the crowd fell into a cheer. However that didn’t please Mister Ford who grunted at all the noise.

“I have to get back to work, you’ll be home this Saturday, expect the list to be on your desk then.”

“Wow I never thought he would be like that from the way he was acting yesterday.” Spike remark caught me by surprise, he was so quite back there that I almost forgot that he is with me.

“What are you talking about, he is always like that.” After another look at him working then I turned to Spike: “let’s go, we are done here.”

As we were taking our leave, Mister Ford stopped me half way, “Say uh doc, can you see to my son, he is been having this terrible cough, that I couldn’t send him to school today.”

“Of course I will, Spike right down Mister Ford’s name on our patient’s list, we’ll go to him as soon as we are in the area.” I said with a smile on my face, regardless of what my brother think, my job is worth it.

Out on the street once more, we made our way to my sector of the city, probably one of the poorest sectors, with a dense population, however it was always clean and the people are a lot friendlier than what one might expect.

“You know,” Spike remarked. “Other than your colors, it is pretty hard to believe that any of you are related to each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well Mister Edmund is quite open, and Adonis is…”

“Eccentric?”

“Yeah that, but you are so much calm, and Cyril is just…”

“Creepy!”

“I was going to say closed off, while Reina is always on fire.”

“Well we weren’t always like that, you see, Cyril was worse than Reina when he was her age, to compare him to a demon is not an exaggeration, and I was just as open as Adonis, those were really happy times, mom was alive, and we were waiting for Reina to hatch, and then…”

I still remember what happened like it was yesterday, but that isn’t my story, nor should it be.

“Mom died and Cyril got really sick.”

“Really? How? What happened?”

“I can’t answer these questions, only Cyril can tell you what happened, I can however tell about the aftermath.”

Spike looked at me with his big purple eyes, almost begging to hear what happened.

“After mom had died, dad got really lost, he quit his job as captain of the city guard, and started roaming the house like a lost puppy, Adonis started to come home less and less, he would either spend time in the smithy, or go chase after girls. He even slept on a park bench, anything but come home. So it became up to me to nurse Cyril back to health and look after the egg, and cook and clean and do all the chores in the house.”

“All that however was about to change suddenly, a year later, and Cyril condition got worse, he fell into a coma, That was a very bad day, when Cyril didn’t wake up, dad went into a frenzy, cursing the gods, the heavens and everything in between, Adonis disappeared entirely, and I started to slip as well, I cursed my helplessness, I wanted to do something, anything to get him out of that state. Then I remembered something about Cyril that mom used to tell me, Cyril can channel life, from one creature to another, a magic only he can perform, something that earned him the title death mage in the past. But what type of life can I use, in my ignorant absurdity, I found the answer in a moment of folly, in a single moment of insanity, in the form of an egg, my own sister’s egg.

I went through the books in the library, and found what I am looking for: a life transference spell, I thought it would solve all of our problems, so after a week of tedious preparations, I drew the magical seal on the ground and placed the egg in the sacrificial shrine that I build out of mother’s nest, and started the ritual. But as soon as the magical seal is activated and even before I started to chant, I look up to see Cyril standing, my heart was over joyed, I managed to wake my brother up, but that joy soon turned to horror to see his eyes glowing as he took a step towards me, ‘don’t’ he said, ‘don’t you dare.’ It wasn’t his voice, ‘don’t you dare harm her.’ That was mother’s voice. And then he attacked, I was sent flying from the third floor and crashed in the garden at the opposite side of the mansion, the next thing I remember is Adonis picking me up asking ‘what’s going on?’ but then we saw father flying over our heads and crashing into the main gate, and he came out. He was floating, and the level of powers that came out of him was excruciating it was painful just staring at him, he kept hovering toward us saying that we shouldn’t have harmed her, before he could reach us however, I fainted.

The next thing I remember was when I woke up three days later at the hospital, I looked at the bed next to me and I see my father cheery as ever with a broken wing and a broken paw, talking to Adonis who was sitting here making funny jokes at something, when they saw me waking up, none of them said a word to me, only smiled and pointed at the other side of the room, and when I looked I saw the most heartwarming thing in my entire life so far, Cyril wrapped in a blanket sleeping peacefully while there is a baby dragoness in his cute little paw.

They told me what happened after I fainted, they said that the temple light suddenly converged from the moon and struck Cyril absorbing all his excess powers, it turns out that that was what made him sick in the first place, he had too much power that his own body couldn’t handle anymore, and my spell served as a trigger to his powers to surface and take control.”

I paused, realizing that Spike has stopped following me, I looked and I saw his shocked face.

After returning to him, I asked: “Are you ok?”

“Does Reina knows you tried to sacrifice her?”

“Yes she does.”

He looked at me bewildered, almost afraid of me, I know that look too well; I got that look from everyone for a long while.

“I decided from that day to make amends you know,” I continued ignoring his thoughts, he still needs to know the full details, “I needed to move on, so I decided to become a doctor and help anyone and everyone in my way regardless of who they are and what they do, and trust me it was hard getting people who already perceive you as a murderer to acknowledge you for a healer, it took time and a lot of effort to prove that, I am not a monster, none of us are.”

“You know I’m finding that harder to believe by the minute.”

A logical reply, he already seen Reina kill a maulder with her bare hands.

“There is no simplistic way to look at things Spike, the world is not black and white like everyone wants you to believe, for the most part its grey, like your story which you have inclined yet to share with us.”

Spike broke his gaze, he wore a sullen look on his face, guess I touched a nerve or two. “Tell you what” I decided to change the mood, “why don’t you continue the rounds with me today, and by the end of the day, if you don’t like being with us, just walk into any house here in Darkrise and ask them to stay, you will not find a single closed door in this city.”