Wyrmlysan
*****
Three ponies stood before the cavern, the setting sun silhouetting them against the mountain ridge upon which they stood. One pony faced the cave, staring into the gaping hole which towered above her. Two ponies faced her, occasionally glancing at one another as if for support.
The first pony spoke. “It is here.” She said it with a quiet certainty, a surety which would brook no argument.
Nevertheless, the other two shifted uncomfortably. They made eye contact again, and by mute agreement one of them took up the burden of answering her. “With all due respect, Cirrus and I must disagree.”
The first pony’s gaze did not waver from the cave. “Nevertheless, it is here.”
“Princess, I’m sure you know more about dragons than either of—”
“We do.”
“...Than either of us, but there’s nothing about this cave that suggests it’s here. There’s no smoke coming from the entrance. There are no bodies, and no smell. There’s no sound, Princess. A dragon that size can’t help but rumble when it breathes.”
“It is not breathing.”
The two looked at one another again, consternation playing across their faces. This time, the other spoke. “You’re asking us to believe… based on this hunch of yours… that there’s a dragon in there, and it’s holding its breath?” He looked up at the cloudless sky. “There’s not even a trace of smoke in the sky. Just how long do you think it can go without breathing, Luna?”
“Princess,” she growled back, though she still did not look away from the cavern. “Or dost thou presume to speak with Our sister so familiarly, as well?”
Cirrus looked more resentful than abashed; he lowered his head in apology nevertheless.
Princess Luna took a testing sniff, then nodded. “A dragon full come to maturity may lie motionless, as if deathful, utterly still to its very lungs, for days. Some, for weeks.” Her tail swished. “One possessed of the knowledge of centuries—” her eyes narrowed as she spoke “—a condition thou shalt ne’er be troubled by—might learn many ways to mask the scent of decaying flesh.” She lifted a hoof, paused, set it down. “It is waiting. It knows We have come. But it cannot hide one sound.”
Cirrus bit his tongue, but his companion rose to the bait. “And what sound is that, Princess?”
She gestured with her horn, not once letting her gaze wander. “It is the sound of silence. Do you not hear it, Cirrus, Azure? The purity of the nothingness which surrounds us?”
Both ponies cocked their heads, twitched their ears. There was nothing.
“No birds, nor beasts,” Luna muttered. “‘Aye, though ye be mighty of Earth and Sky, each shall ye trammel in solitude. All shall flee before thy coming, an ye will or nay.’” She repeated, with all the finality of her first pronouncement, “It is here.”
Cirrus finally looked back at the cave. “Well, if you say so,” he said, uncertainly. “If it’s in there, though, then this stinks of a trap. We’ll have to—”
“Thou shalt await here,” Luna smoothly overrode him, turning as she spoke to address both ponies. “Thou as well, Azure. We shall essay the cavern alone.”
Both guards frowned, but it was Cirrus who spoke. “With all due respect, the Princess ordered us to keep you safe. We can’t—”
“Pray, do repeat thyself,” Luna said, with a sweetness which did nothing to mask the danger in her voice. “What hath the Princess ordered of thee?”
Cirrus bristled, and for a moment the dragon was forgotten. Azure whispered, “Cirrus…” then, caught upon the knife-edge of the conversation, lowered his head once again.
After a long moment, Cirrus inhaled. “The Princess,” he said through gritted teeth, “has ordered us to wait.”
“She hath,” Luna agreed. She frowned down at Cirrus, idly noting his golden armour, his close-cropped mane, his alabaster coat—and the stylized sunburst painted upon each of his flanks. “Do not forget that thou art of the Royal Guard, and though thy visage belies it, thou servest both of thy diarchs.” She returned her gaze to the cave which yawned before her, the tension fading as she did. “We shall return ere the moon must be raised. Await Us upon this spot.”
With smooth, unhurried steps, Princess Luna of Equestria entered the cavern.
*****
The passageway dwarfed Luna; a fissure through which twenty pegasai could walk with wings abreast marked its mouth, and the tunnel only grew wider as she descended. Soon the passage looped and dipped, and Luna found herself in perfect darkness.
She did not balk at the darkness; she was Warden of the Night, and the black of the cavern was nothing to the tenebrousness of the new moon. She did not balk at the silence; she was Guardian of Dreams, and the preternatural stillness of the cave was nothing to the true silence of the deepest slumbers. She did not balk at the weight of the stone above her; she was Mistress of the Moon, and the rock massed over her head was nothing to its weight and majesty.
She descended slowly, her only companion the echo of her hooves upon stone. After a time, she felt the air change; the passage had opened into a massive natural chamber. She paused, and above her heard a whisper which made stones tremble: “Thou shalt not take me unopposed, Wyrmandsaca.”
Without transition, Luna was engulfed in scoriating green flame. The stone around her liquefied, casting a red-black glow, its angry light echoing the discordantly violent jade of the inferno. She was alone in a world of all-consuming fire.
She did not balk at the conflagration which enveloped her; she was Matron of the Void, and no mortal fire could touch the endless cold of the nothingness between the stars.
When the fire ceased, she stood unharmed, her hooves sinking slightly in the glowing pool of lava which had coalesced beneath her. As she stepped lightly forward, a pair of eyes larger than Luna herself glittered high above, shining dully in the rocklight. Again, the deafening whisper echoed through the cavern.
“Thou art come to thy…” The voice paused, and the eyes came swiftly closer. Luna stepped free of the molten rock as the eyes approached, until the massive purple head which housed them was only a few lengths away from her, its size only hinted at in the swiftly fading illumination. They stared at her with unblinking intensity. Luna returned their gaze.
“We are not Our sister,” she whispered, her voice dwarfed by that of the dragon, yet no less dangerous. “We are not the Drakenbane.”
“...No,” the dragon breathed, its exhalation a fresh oven-burst in the fast-cooling air. “Thou art not Wyrmandsaca. Thou… you are the Other.” The head pulled back, out of sight once more save for the two glittering eyes. “Why have you come to this place?”
As the last light faded, eyes too faded from view. Luna was once more cocooned in darkness. Still, her gaze tracked its through the cavern’s unlight. “It is good that We are remembered amongst thy kin, who have forgotten so much.” Her muzzle furrowed, as she at last allowed her face to show a hint of anger. “Who have forgotten the friðgrið, it seems.” She lifted herself into the air, her eyes still locked with the dragon’s despite the darkness. “Thou hast committed murders against ponykind, against the oaths which bind thee and thy people; the lenity of We and our sister thou canst no longer claim, and thy life is forfeit.”
She felt more than saw the dragon’s nod. “Aye, it is; I will not deny my deeds. Yet… you are not Wyrmandsaca; you are not without nemægen. Will you hear my plea?”
Luna bristled. “Thou would charge us with weakness? Ill this becomest thou who beggest Us for clemency.” Still, she did not make any move to attack.
The dragon rumbled. “Is weakness not what ponies desire in their rulers? When I came upon the village, they begged me for mercy.” It lowered its head in submission. “Perhaps there is some nuance which escapes me. I meant no offense. Still, I ask not for myself, but for the Wyrmlysan.” The wyrm turned. “Come, and I will show you.” A pause. “Please.”
The dragon set off into the mountain, its footsteps reverberating through the walls. Luna considered, then followed.
The dragon could not live; by the ancient truce’s terms, any of its kind who took the life of a pony within the realm of the Princesses surrendered all protection from their wrath. Yet a brief delay could be allowed. The dragon’s behavior intrigued her.
Ere she killed this dragon, Luna intended to learn who—or what—the Wyrmlysan was, and why this dragon plead for mercy on its behalf.
*****
The chamber which Luna was led to was small, considering its inhabitant—perhaps a few hundred feet wide, and half again as tall. There was no hoard here; the dragon, it seemed, had not brought its trove. Luna paused to digest the implications. It did not intend to survive this transgression.
At the center of the chamber was a stone dais, glowing with a faint white light, and carved with symbols foreign to her. Upon the stone lay six pony corpses—and a single purple-spotted egg.
“I will not deny my deeds,” the dragon repeated. “Yet you must know their purpose, for it is condign to your kind and mine that these deaths serve a larger design. Behold—” he gestured at the dais “—the fægeorcanstan.”
Luna studied the rock, ignoring the bodies it bore. She frowned. “The fægeorcanstan has not been seen by any pony in millennia; many of my subjects believe it to be a myth. But even in those myths, it is known to be ensconced in the demesne of the wyrdraken. This cannot be it.”
“True. And yet you know that it is in sooth,” the dragon replied, settling its bulk so that its head rested near the dais. “You can feel its power.”
It was not a question; Luna did not bother to answer. Instead, she asked, “How, then, is it come before Us?”
The dragon sighed. “I shall tell you. Do your myths speak of the purpose of the fægeorcanstan?”
Luna glowered. “Thou forgettest whom thou doth address. We know more of thy kind than thou dost thyself, and need no myths to recall the Fatestone’s function.” She clipped the last word as she settled herself, her face and posture returning to the studied neutrality she had maintained since she entered the chamber. “Thy kin bring their eggs to the wyrdraken, that they may be placed upon the stone. It foretells their fortune, it is said.”
The dragon snorted, then carefully adjusted one of the bodies which its exhalation had jostled. “It is more than that. The stone tells of that which will be, and which may be. It speaks of destinies, and of possibilities. But that is but a part of its power.” It turned an eye to the stone, looking upon it with something akin to reverence. “It creates futures. The longer an egg rests upon the fægeorcanstan, the more set its prophecies become.”
Luna studied the markings on the rock once more. “And what prophecy is here writ?”
The dragon shrugged an eyebrow. “The symbols it speaks in must be interpreted; this is the function of the wyrdraken.”
“And what, then, was their reading?”
The dragon lifted its head. “I shall tell you, for their words are burned in my mind:
When magery writes life or death,
When theurgy brings newfound breath,
The Wyrmlysan shall rise in might,
Presaging triumph for the Light
And shall redeem the draken-line
In eyes of Pony, eyes Divine.
With heart of Equus, soul of Drake,
Their strengths in he a meld shall make.
When six are one, a One shall he
Make whole, and bring forth Harmony."
Luna cocked her head skeptically as the dragon finished. “How convenient that thy seers’ words should translate so smoothly to Equuish rhymes.”
“They were not translated. The prophecy was in thy tongue.”
Luna paused on the tip of speaking, unsure what to make of this revelation.
The dragon sighed, its breath another furnace-blast, and continued. “Never before has the prophecy been rendered in pony-speech. If the meaning was not portentous enough itself, surely that would be a sign.”
Luna nodded slowly. “How came the stone to this place?”
The dragon turned its head to face her directly. “I stole it.”
Luna looked sharply at the dragon, seeking any sign of falsehood. Finding none, she asked, “Thou hast stolen it? The most sacred stone of dragonkind?”
It nodded. “The stone’s words must come to pass. I slew the guardians and took the stone, flying to pony-lands like a thief in the night, that mine egg might rest upon it the longer. That the words would be set, and their promise guaranteed. Aye, and I would do it again, for the dragons must have their Redeemer.” It gestured around the chamber: a bare, natural cavern, cold and damp despite its occupant. “Save for my hoard, this could have been my home in the Terragon Range. It could have been any dragon’s.” It lowered its claw. “The great castles of our ancestors are distant memories; the dragon-kings are but legends which fire the imaginations of our hatchlings. Our numbers have shrunk with our land, and our culture has evaporated. We have become solitary and weak in our isolation.
“We must have our Redeemer,” it repeated, louder. “We must have one who will unite our kind once more. We must have a king!”
The chamber echoed with its voice. Luna waited until the echoes ceased, then finally turned her attention to the six corpses which surrounded the egg. “And these ponies?” she asked, her voice mild.
The dragon nodded. “When six are one,” it murmured, “and heart of Equus. I may not be trained of the wyrdraken, but I can read these portents well enough.” It gazed down at the bodies. “Six pony hearts for the Wyrmlysan. When I razed the town, these six were the first to rush to its defense.” It bowed slightly to the dead ponies. “Only the bravest shall be worthy of the Redeemer.”
Luna looked at the bodies impassively. “Thou hast broken the oaths which bound our peoples. Thou hast slain those whom We are sworn to protect.” She turned and faced the dragon. “Thou shalt perish this day.”
“I will not deny my deeds,” it said once more. “I only ask, in the name of your nemægen… your mercy… I ask that you spare my child. The dragons must have their king.” Its gaze softened as it looked to Luna. “The portents do not lie. He shall redeem us, not only for ourselves, but for your people as well. In eyes of pony, eyes divine.”
Luna glanced to the egg, then back. She did not answer.
The dragon reared back. “But now,” it rumbled, “the time for words is over. Come, oh Princess; I have no power to defeat you, but I shall not die a coward.” It sucked in a breath, preparing to unleash its fire.
Luna’s horn pulsed.
*****
Two ponies stood before the cavern, illuminated by the last rays of the sun. One pony faced it, staring into the gaping hole which towered above him. One pony faced west, watching as the sky began to darken. Both jumped as the stone beneath them suddenly spasmed, and a guttering roar issued forth from far below them. There had been intermittent jolts and rumblings for more than an hour, but this was an order of magnitude beyond any them.
As suddenly as it had begun, the shaking ceased.
“That’s it, I’m going in after her,” said Cirrus, turning away from the sun’s dying rays. He took a step towards the cavern, but Azure turned, stepping in front of him.
“She told us to wait here,” he said, for what seemed the dozenth time. “She ordered us, and she said she’d be back in time to raise the moon.” Glancing over Cirrus’s shoulder, he added unnecessarily, “She has a few minutes yet. We can’t—”
“There is no need for any further bickering,” said a voice from the cavern. Seemingly without transition, Luna emerged from the darkness. “Stand aside, that We may bring forth the night in peace.”
Cirrus rose from the half-bow which he and Azure had both dropped into upon her arrival. “Princess, I—”
“Aside, guard.”
Gritting his teeth, Cirrus moved away to stand beside Azure. In silence, the two watched as Luna’s horn lit with dark weaves of magic. As the last rays of the sun fell from the earth, another light rose opposite it. In moments, the moon shone down upon Equestria, its silver light a palliative counterpoint to the daytime's.
Her eventime charge fulfilled, Luna turned to the two guards. “The dragon is slain. Your services are no longer required; return to Canterlot bearing news that the oathbreaker is no more, and return to your duties.”
Cirrus bit back a comment, but Azure spoke in his stead. “Princess, we aren’t to leave you alone.”
Luna cocked her head, her lack of obvious anger more frightening than any bluster could have been. “We have made a decision. Henceforth, We shall give our orders but once. When thou returnest, Azure, inform Our Royal Guard of this as well. Inform them that the first to disobey a direct order shall serve as an instructive example of Our desire for obedience.”
The guards exchanged a glance. By unspoken accord, they took flight, banking away toward Canterlot.
When they were gone, Luna’s horn glowed once more. Out from the cavern’s darkness floated a single egg; a smooth, spotted, dragon’s egg, perhaps as large as her head. She set it on the ground before her and, after staring at it for a moment, sat down facing it.
Well did Luna know the seductive power of prophecy; she was Guardian of Dreams, and she had seen ponies project all manner of constructs onto the flimsiest of pretenses. The dragon had convinced itself that the egg before her held a new dragon king, one who would restore the lost glory of its people. The dragon had created a bridge to the future from wisps and shadows. Luna knew only too well that wisps fell away with the first winds, and shadows melted and died with the changing of the light; even if the whelp’s fate were writ by the stones themselves, interpretation was impossible.
Still, one line troubled her: Presaging triumph for the Light...
She stared at the egg for long hours, hardly aware of her moon cresting above her head, then beginning its slow descent. As it made its way downward, she grasped the egg with her magic and unfurled her wings. A few short minutes later, she sat at the very top of the mountain, the egg resting before her once more. Far below and to the west stretched a wide farmland, dotted with villages.
She scanned them with immortal eyes, searching for any life, any movement. There was none. She continued looking until the sun broke over the horizon, illuminating the valley. Until the ponies below rose from their slumber, coming forth to greet the day.
With the tenderness of a mother, she lifted up the egg. She stared at it for a long moment, following the pattern of its purple speckles, the minuscule ridges.
“Thou art not the Wyrmlysan,” she whispered, “and I fear no prophecy.”
With a single vicious spasm, she dashed it upon the ground.
