Twilight, though she hated to admit it, was confused. For the first time in her life, she didn't know what to do, or how to react. She knew what was expected of her, what she should do, but she was unsure if actually doing it was feasible.
Princess? She was still struggling to cope with the new title, more so with her newfound responsibilities, but most of all, with her new nature.
The coronation, her transformation... the sum of the past weeks' events swirled in her mind like the wind around her, carrying with it snow and ice, fragments of a much larger storm above, in a twisting, writhing, violent current that hypnotized the eye, and stung the hide.
Her parka did little to shield her skin from the merciless cold, and though she'd covered her head with a hood and a facemask, her eyes filled with cold tears as the frost bit at her exposed flesh.
The cold in itself was unbearable, never mind the pain in her legs and hooves, or the burn in her lungs as she struggled to breathe in the thin, high altitude air. She'd come so far already. Turning back now would make the sum of her exertion pointless. Giving up would be worse than the pain that would accompany endurance.
So, upwards she climbed, placing one hoof in front of the other as she followed the trail, colored white by frost and snow, as well as black by the rock that existed between drifts, as it spiraled skywards, towards the summit of the highest mountain in the world, right where the Crystal Empire and Equestria met.
Up until a few weeks ago, to her as well as most ponies, this mountain was nothing more than a big rock. But, a browsing session in yet another library had yielded some unexpected information.
It was during an impromptu stroll through Princess Celestia's private library; being a princess did have a few perks, such as unlimited access to all wings of Canterlot Palace, among other things. Anyhow, during said stroll, she'd stumbled across an aged text, one that provided a couple legends surrounding the terrain beneath her hooves.
There were already countless bits of Equestrian lore surrounding the peak, Mt. Magnus, as ponies knew it. Like the story of how the first alicorns descended from the sky to the terrestrial earth below, alighting on the summit of the very mountain Twilight now treaded. Those alicorns, from whom, all ponies were said to be descended from, came down from their celestial paradise to govern an ancient world shrouded in mystery and fantasy, rescuing it from being torn apart by the reign of Chaos himself, and as the years turned over, they created the Equestria that all ponies knew and loved.
This legend would have made the summit of the mountain a popular site for pilgrimage among the devout, if not for one detail. Every citizen of Equestria held the mountain's summit in such a lofty state of reverence and respect, that it was considered disrespectful for anything, except for alicorns, to ever set foot on Mt. Magnus's summit...ever. If Twilight had sought to make this journey no less than a few months earlier, respect and tradition would have prevented her from even beginning the hike. But, with her recent wings to compliment her horn...not all the rules of her previous life applied. Call it divine right or simple luck, but the timing of everything had lined up conveniently thus far.
There was another legend regarding the mountain, birthed by an early Equestrian hybrid of religion and science. It told of the earth and the sky, immortal lovers ever since the dawn of time. They were together for millennia, but then, they were separated, so as to create a balance in the world. This balance meant that the earth and the sky had to be kept apart, but, their love was strong. The earth reached up, as high as he could, to the immortal sky, and she, in turn, sent down bits of herself to be close to her undying flame as well. The earth, in reaching up, created this mountain, and the clouds that perpetually shrouded the peak's top were the bits of herself that the sky had sent down. It was a logical explanation...for primitive thought.
Harmless legends, Twilight thought. Good stories for foals on late nights, or simply an explanation for things that were nearly impossible to understand. But, as many an educated mind knew to be true, Twilight accepted a simple truth; that sometimes... not always, but sometimes... legends were built around a core of truth.
These truths were more abundant in some legends than in others. The earth and sky did meet on this mountain, but not because the two were infatuated with one another. The alicorns really did come to Equestria to govern a new kingdom thousands of years ago, but their descent from the heavens to the peak of the mountain had little evidence beneath it. Myths, built from a foundation of fact.
So, when she'd found a certain book in Celestia's library, her curiosity was seized by its originality. But, as she read on, her attention was gripped by its implications.
The book, an archaeological account, titled Excursions of the Eastern Mountains, was written nearly a century in the past by the leader of an excavation site a few dozen miles outside of what would eventually become Las Pegasus. Apparently, some traces of a long extinct civilization were unearthed in some kind of an ancient ruin during a period of heavy rainfall. Soil was washed away, and some artifacts were exposed. Tools mostly, nearly petrified by age; a weathered iron sword, a hammer, a pair of tongs, a spade head, even a few bits of pottery, ground down to mere shards of their former selves by the persisting bite of time.
Time. The word had so much more weight now, thought Twilight, but, at the same time, its effects would almost never be felt as they had been before. Alicorns never die, or, at least, never succumb to time. Ironic; that which had destroyed the source of her inspiration, was the subject for her journey thus far.
Twilight's mind drifted back to the book's contents. An archaeological dig, outside of Las Pegasus, just over one hundred years ago, its findings preserved in paperback knowledge under a thick coat of dust until she'd opened it once again a few days ago. The tools and subtle creations found during this past excursion, though somewhat numerous, were completely overshadowed by another discovery within the ruins, which the author of the text believed to be some sort of an ancient temple.
It was a wall.
A massive, carved wall, preserved within an eon old vault of sealed stone architecture. The wall depicted the legends of whatever race had carved it, and, needless to say, these legends were astonishing.
Carved in the granite mural was a depiction of a great war, fought between two races, one of them physically superior, as well as immortal, and the others, arguably inferior, and mortal. But, unbelievably, even if it was just a legend, the mortals won.
The wall depicted a trio of the mortal heroes standing up to the leader of the immortal faction, and defeating him by using some kind of magic.
Legends. Twilight thought it nothing more than elaboration to make a story more interesting. After all, dragons as she knew them would never be defeated in any bout of might, no matter the opponent, least of all, mere mortals.
This war was the core of the legend depicted in the architecture of this ancient temple. But, it was the subtle details that had intrigued the book's author most of all, as well as its most recent reader.
Chronologically speaking, after their victory in the war, the wall depicted the mortals hunting down their previous opponents, and driving them to near extinction as they committed a fervent genocide against their gargantuan counterparts. Depressing, yes, but the important detail was that they failed. Dragons were still alive, meaning that, especially if these events occurred thousands of years in the past, some of them had survived the onslaught so as to be able to carry on their legacy.
Another detail of the wall, hidden in a tiny corner of the stone mural, was a lone dragon, one that Twilight believed to be one of the likely survivors, fleeing the genocidal hunt of his kin...towards a very tall mountain, a mountain much taller than any of the other sierras depicted in the ancient artwork. Possibly...the tallest mountain in the world?
Twilight knew it was a stretch, as she had conceived the possibility on her own, going off of small details the author had failed to tie together in her very thorough analysis and detailed sketch of the archaeological discovery.
The fact that there were no more details surrounding the contents of the wall in the text failed to console Twilight's hopeful mind. The rest of the book was used for proposing theories about which race had made the artifacts in the first place. There were several pages devoted to monologue regarding which species was the architect of the monolithic marvel.
Dragons perhaps, but that inquiry was refuted by more evidence than that which supported it. Dragons never had any need for tools, and definitely not for weapons like swords. The fire in their breath and the blades they called talons were universally applicable, and coupled with their nearly impenetrable skin, any aspect of nature, whether heat, cold, or force, was hardly a threat, if even a challenge, to dragon-kind. If that wasn't enough, the inherent pride of the dragons would dictate that they left out any evidence alluding to defeat or weakness from their legends and history. And, dragons were known to record their stories and pasts one of two ways; either orally, passing down spoken words to the next generation, or with an early cuneiform writing system, scratched in stone tablets or mountainsides with their talons. They didn't use pictures to record their culture, so the possibility that they created the stone mural was highly unlikely, if at all possible. All together, the evidence combined to make dragons a very unlikely source for the artifacts, even if they were the subject of the age-old creation.
Ponies were out of the question. The artifacts pre-dated even the alicorns. That in itself was enough to check equines off the list of candidates.
Griffons were unlikely culprits as well, as every record of their history supported that they had always lived much farther north than where the artifacts were found.
The standing hypothesis accepted by the author of the account, as well as by Twilight, was that the wall depicted early minotaurs battling the dragons. After all, there were several things that the mortals depicted in the artwork had in common with the species. Both were bipedal, both had horns on their heads, both had digits on their front limbs instead of hooves, and lacked the same digits on their rear limbs. Warrior culture was apparently prevalent in the society of the ancients...yet another thing to be had in common with the incredibly burly, upright bulls. The only thing missing was the presence of tails, but it was possible that in the ancient world, the minotaurs cropped them for some unknown purpose.
But none of that really mattered. The important detail was the dragon, flying to what Twilight believed to be Mt. Magnus. The possibility that it could still be somewhere on the mountain was what had encouraged her to come this far, and to keep persisting upwards through the howling winds.
She knew it was not unthinkable for dragons to hibernate for centuries, if not tens of centuries. Logically, therefore, if this dragon was fleeing genocide, specifically at the hands of the mortals, he could have outlasted them by taking to prolonged sleep in a secluded area, waking once the threat of annihilation had passed. Since no equines had any idea exactly how long ago the wall was built, it was anypony's guess as to how long ago the events depicted actually occurred, if they even occurred at all. The only sure fact that she had to go on was that the wall predated Equestria, but nopony knew by how long. Not even Celestia...she'd asked. Twilight was hoping therefore, that the events of the wall were recent enough for the possibility of this anonymous dragon still being asleep to be feasible.
So, onwards she went, her mind with nothing else to remember regarding her journey, and her legs with nothing to do but to keep moving, her hooves nothing to do except to keep crunching against the loosely packed, sharp, frosty snow on the trail. Methodically, her rhythm of movement continued.
*Crunch*...*crunch*...crunch*.
She was beginning to wonder if she would ever reach the top, if the monotony of the snow would ever be pulled away to reveal the magnificent view of the land miles below as she finally conquered the mountain.
*Crunch*...*crunch*...*crunch*.
Forget a view of the entire world; now, she was just hoping for anything to be seen, other than snow and rock.
*Crunch*...*crunch*......*clack*.
Twilight stopped walking as she looked down, the fog from her breath rising up into her eyes as she did so. What she'd just stepped on didn't sound like snow, and it didn't feel like the rough granite of the mountain all around her. She lifted her hoof, stepped back, and gasped.
Where her hoof had previously been, was a tile. Neatly, geometrically carved, and smooth as glass. It was definitely a tile, not a phenomenon, as all around it were others, separated by spaces of snow, but carved to match the same shape and pattern. When she brushed away the powdery precipitation, she only revealed more of them. She kept doing so, excited by her discovery, until she'd uncovered an area comparable to the size of a ballroom, all covered in the same, uniformly carved, deliberately patterned, tiles.
But how?
She kept investigating, clearing away snow with her hooves, or with wind generated from flailing wings, until she'd cleared a substantial area of snow, and still, in every piece of exposed space, there were tiles.
Something like this could only be attributed to a civilization capable of architecture, but then, where was the rest of the architecture?
As she pondered, her eye caught a small pile of rock on the edge of her cleared area. Without hesitation, she made her way over to it, and upon reaching it, became even more excited. This was no mere rock pile; they were bricks, uniformly cut and stacked neatly, though only two or three feet high. As she observed, she noticed another pile, much like the first, a few meters off to her right. She eagerly made her way to it...more bricks. And then, she saw another pile. The more she looked, the more she saw, until the sheer amount was unfathomable. But, she needed to get an idea of the scope of what she was dealing with.
She began connecting the brick piles with a line she drew with her hoof in the snow, outlining her discovery; it took much longer than she had originally thought it would before she wound up back where she'd started. When she connected the line, she stepped back, and nearly laughed aloud.
Whatever had been here, it had been massive, something to rival a small palace, or the largest of standard buildings, reminiscent of a town hall, or even one of the wings of Canterlot Palace. It had definitely been a structure of some kind, the bricks marking the sites of past walls, and the tiles indicating ancient flooring that had since succumbed to time and instability. But, there was one pressing question.
Who could have built such a structure, way up here?
Too far south for griffons, too high up for ponies and minotaurs alike, and it wasn't a cave, dragons' age old living quarters, which eliminated them from the mix as well. It could have been the first alicorns. Or perhaps...
Twilight rushed over to the nearest brick pile, her breath coming in rapid gasps as she became fervent in her passion for discovery. She cleared the snow away from the bricks, digging out from their base as she quickly worked to make them wholly visible. Once clear, she leaned in close, and squinted as she tried to make out the finest details. She found what she was looking for...carvings.
The structure, whatever it had been, had had carvings in its walls; they were only remnants now, but, when the walls were at their full height...Twilight tried to imagine what the structure could have been like, but her imagination was quickly reeled in by her objectivity. She had made a monumental discovery.
Whoever had made the wall in the temple, from the excavation site unearthed a century ago...could they have also made this? And, this building site was too high up for minotaurs; they stayed in the lowlands, barely ascending the peaks of a few hundred feet, never-mind peaks that rose to commune with the clouds such as Mt. Magnus.
So, the question stood. Who made this mighty structure, up here, on the top of the highest mountain in the world, and why? It definitely was not a known civilization, which made Twilight's knowledge obsolete...perhaps closure for the issue, along with many other questions she had, waited a few hundred meters farther up the mountain side.
Reluctantly, she left the ruin, and kept trudging onwards and upwards through the storm to try and find answers.
She had so many questions, questions that only a rare few could answer, and even fewer could answer well. Apart from her recent inquisition regarding the ruins, she had much more important, more personal matters that needed attention before her meager curiosities.
Immortality. It was such a hard concept, especially to one that had lived their life thus far as a mortal. How was it possible for her, a normal unicorn, to one day, earn her wings, as well as infinite life? And, even more so, how was it possible for her to cope with such a change?
She'd tried to approach the others, and petition them for any help or advice they could spare. But, their answers left her unsatisfied.
Celestia was too sheltering. Whenever asked about the subject, she immediately went onto the bright and flowery parts of living forever; she didn't want to reveal the more frightening truths behind immortality. Twilight thought she knew them, but, like with everything, she wanted closure from her mentor and role model. Twilight didn't know what the princess feared, but, regardless, she felt that keeping her in the dark, at least for now, was wiser than enlightening her.
Luna was equally reserved, only she was reluctant to talk about anything immortal, not just the parts that weren't all sunshine and rainbows. It seemed she was still uncomfortable even thinking about her millennium past, never mind talking about it. And justifiably so. Twilight could only imagine living forever with the guilt of a past deed. Especially to somepony like Luna, of whom perfection was expected... such a flaw could eat holes through her spirit.
Cadence hadn't been alive long enough to truly gauge the concept of immortality; she only had a few years on Twilight, never mind eternity. She still had yet to live the duration of an entire lifetime; the concept of infinite life times was as foreign to her as it was to Twilight. The two were still friends, and likely would persist in being so, but, when it came to learning, especially on this subject, Cadence was more a student than a teacher, the same situation as Twilight.
And then, there was Discord. He had the best concept of immortality of any of them, as he had been alive longer than the others combined. Granted, he'd spent nearly half his life as a statue, but still. At the same time, however, he was completely insane. Learning from him was dangerous, as well as confusing. All previous attempts at advice or conversation regarding the impossibility of death had resulted in enigmatic nonsense, always culminating in how much fun chaos was compared to order. However, the draconequus had produced one satisfying answer in all of his attempted lessons.
He'd said that, in regard to chaos, immortality was chaos at its simplest form; that's why he liked it so much. By never dying, it was possible to disrupt the very laws of nature, the circle of life. He claimed that this was his finest quality, his best contribution to his irregular output into the world. After all, for every prank, for every joke, for every physical law he disrupted, none could best the thwarting of the simplest, most universal, inescapable fact of nature. Death.
But then, he'd gone right back to fun and incoherent rabble, and Twilight promptly lost interest. If she was going to be anything when she was three thousand years old, she did not want to be like Discord...if it was possible.
That was the reason why she'd come to the heights of Mt. Magnus in the first place, in the hope that this dragon, a much longer lived immortal than anypony she knew of, was still sane, and agreeable enough to consider a conversation with her. If she could get it to talk to her, perhaps she could learn about herself, and her inevitable future. After all, she needed to know now, and she wasn't going to learn any time soon from her regular teachers.
Desperate times...
So, onwards she went. She thought she was nearing the top; then again, she'd thought she was near the summit nearly a dozen times so far, and she was still climbing. The air kept getting colder, the wind stronger, and her legs weaker. Good signs.
She kept pushing against gravity and the slope, her eyes watching now for any sign of the giant reptilian she hoped would be somewhere ahead, but they found none. There was nothing to look at she hadn't already seen; snow, ice, frost and rock. Things to be expected on a lonely mountain.
But then, her tired eyes found a sight she was exuberant to see; the trail's end.
The path widened out to a small plateau, and eagerly, Twilight rushed to its center. There were sheer cliffs all around the flat area, descending downwards on three sides, and rising up a few hundred feet to her left, until the slope tapered off to the point of the mountain's true summit. Just above the highpoint swirled a massive storm, concealing the sky in its entirety. Twilight had no idea what time of day it was, mostly due to this omnipresent overcast; it blocked out the sun, and failed to allude to how much time existed between now and the sun's setting.
Twilight turned around once again, looking at everything, and gauging every aspect of her situation. She could go no higher; this was the summit, as far as she was concerned, and there was no dragon in sight. She turned a complete circle once again as she reluctantly accepted that it had all been in vain.
Nothing...just rock and ice.
Perhaps she had been foolish to ever think it was possible. Perhaps she wasn't ever meant to understand. Perhaps, this was something she would have to learn on her own. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was never meant to be.
She turned back around as her heart sank and her head lowered, and dejected as she ever had been, she began the long walk back home. She had only retraced three of her previous steps when the wind picked up.
A sudden buffet from above, stronger than the gales of a tempest, that nearly knocked her to the ground. She staggered and looked up, confused. The wind was still swirling, blowing across, not up and down. Did the wind just shift that suddenly?
As she looked up into the storm, she heard a distant *fwoosh*, and another gust came barreling downwards to her. She shut her eyes against the wind's sting, and its raw power pushed her back and off balance, and she lost her footing and fell.
She looked up from the cold ground, baffled, and now, a bit nervous. This kind of weather wasn't natural, and she searched the grey sky for any sort of an explanation. When she found one, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. When she realized they weren't, her heart filled with hope.
It was impossible, but, Twilight thought she saw something moving within the clouds. She'd only caught a fleeting glance, but it was definitely something, moving against the wind before it disappeared again. She didn't bother to get up; every ounce of her focus was devoted to confirming whatever was moving in the clouds.
Another gust of downwards flowing wind stung at her eyes, and through a layer of tears, and another layer of fog, she saw it again. A silhouette, large and dark, only exposing itself for a moment as it darted overhead.
The size of, whatever it was, was immense. Forget curiosity, now Twilight was excited, and adrenaline coursed through her veins as she anticipated fulfillment of her journey.
She fought her way to her hooves, and as she turned to find her visitor, she saw a shadow coming towards her through the fog. It descended towards her, and, upon reaching her, it twisted itself mid-air to compensate for a landing, exposing its form. A dragon...the dragon.
It hovered for a moment, likely in an attempt to set down lightly, and with each beat of its wings, a massive current of air caused the snow and air to kick up beneath it, as well as buffeting Twilight around as if she were a feather on a breeze.
Finally, the dragon landed heavily in the snow, the ground shaking with the savage impact, and, once the dust and debris settled, Twilight found herself face to face with a massive creature. She was much more sure that this was a good idea before...now, it was intimidating at the least. She sparked a glow from her horn, just to be safe, and was mentally preparing a spell when she heard a voice.
"Drem yol lok. Greetings, traveler."
Twilight looked up through the still settling snow, and took in the sight before her. The dragon was massive, with bronze scales and black spines covering the entirety of its exterior. It leaned forward on its wings, serving as its front appendages, and extended its long, craning neck closer to her as it spoke. The wyvern looked old; several of his spines were broken, as well as one of the horns on his crown, and his wings were tattered and weathered with a few holes in their leathery membranes. As she simply took in the majesty of the creature, it spoke again.
"There is no need for defensive measures, young one. I mean you no harm."
Twilight realized that her horn was still radiating magic, and quickly snuffed it out, causing the involuntarily erected force field around her body to dissipate as well. She stood before the dragon, a behemoth the size of a large building. Less than a few feet separated the two's muzzles, and with each strong exhale the beast released, Twilight felt the hot, damp plume of breath displace strands of her mane.
She tried to speak, but found that her mouth would have none of it. Her teeth kept chattering away, no matter what her mind told them to do. So, a long silence interrupted what would have been the beginnings of a conversation.
She shivered.
"You look weary," said the dragon, his deep voice finding a rich compassion, "Come. Warm yourself."
The dragon lifted his wing, and with it, scratched away at the snow on the ground. He cleared a small patch of snow away to reveal bare rock, and then, he reared up.
"Yol!"
As he spoke, a stream of black liquid, followed by a column of flame, shot forth from his mouth, and in the time between blinks, he had created a campfire. Twilight didn't bother to reason how he'd done so; rather, she hurried towards the dancing orange flames, and found them hotter than any fire she had ever experienced. She marveled at how, in fact, the granite of the mountain hadn't been combusted, but rather, a sort of filmy oil that had stuck to the rocky surface harbored the flames. She stood a few feet back from the leaping tongues, and still, she could feel the snow that had accumulated on her skin melting away to create a warm flow of water through the fur on her cheeks.
She relished in having the cold chased from her bones, and as she embraced the warmth, she closed her eyes, and found a smile forming on her face.
"Hmmm...Better?" she heard the deep, haggard voice of the dragon ask again.
She looked up to see he had moved, and was now perched with his back legs on a large boulder, his wings folded up against his sides. His long, snake-like neck was extended outwards in her direction, but he remained a small distance from the fire as he cocked his head to look at her with one eye at a time.
"Yes," she said gratefully, "Thank you, umm..."
Twilight hesitated, searching for a name, and concluded her thought by accepting that, despite her being brought here by his legend, she had no idea who the dragon was.
But, before she could ask, he assumed her dilemma, and answered her question for her.
"I am Paarthurnax, the eldest of the dovah, and teacher of the ways of the Thu'um to the mortals of Keizaal for generations. And, who might you be?"
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but found that the dragon wasn't done talking yet.
"For no commoner, no mere mortal are you, princess. No, your features betray that notion. You are much more than just a simple key, a horse," the dragon cocked his head, and Twilight saw his gilded eyes peering at her wings, protruding from small slots in the fabric of her parka, "For you are a daughter of the sky, as well as of the earth, and attuned to the gift of lah, magicka, as well. An alicorn. Few are your brihnaa und zeymah, your brothers and sisters, and fewer still are those that came before you. Too rare are your kind for mere chance alone to have dictated this meeting."
"Ah. Forgive me. I have allowed my weakness for speech to intrude on my manners. According to long tradition, the elder speaks first, and so I have spoken. So, princess, I ask again, who might you be?"
"I'm Twilight Sparkle," she said after a short pause, mystified by the dragon's knowledge of her already, "How did you know I was a princess?"
"Hm. This mountain is a haven for those that wish to see, without being seen. For ages, I have lived on this summit, and watched and learned as the world below grew, withered away, and then was born again. But, for all that changes, there are a few things that remain constant; all things end, good always defeats evil, and the strong lead the weak. Alicorns are strong; even now, I can feel the lah radiating from your essence, a quality lacking in your weaker counterparts. That is why alicorns have led the inhabitants of Keizaal since its rebirth. And this day is the first I have laid eyes on you. You are young, whereas your forerunners, those that occupy a position higher than you in your society's hierarchy, are almost as old as a young dovah."
"So, you already know Celestia and Luna. What about Cadence?"
"I do not know them," said the dragon, shaking his head slowly, "but I know of them, and I am sure that they know of me. Formalities have not been struck between us, but I have observed their rule, and felt their presence. Any dovah would have been able to. The power of their lah beckons to me, like the warmth of the shul on a summer's day. Krosis. I beg a thousand pardons of you, princess, for until today, I did not know of your existence. I am ashamed; I should have at least felt you before you reached the base of this mountain."
"Oh, don't feel bad," Twilight said, "I haven't been an alicorn for very long."
"Hmm?" came Paarthurnax's guttural response.
"I was made this way. Celestia saw me fit to be an alicorn princess. I used to be a unicorn, but, I, um...earned my wings."
Twilight resisted the urge to cough as she iterated the cheesy phrase, but Paarthurnax only nodded.
"You get it?" said Twilight, a bit shocked, "Almost everypony I've tried to explain this to didn't understand until the third or fourth time."
"Yes, I understand perfectly. You are as your aak, this Celesita, made you, and I am as my father, Akatosh, made me. These are things we cannot change."
"Yes," Twilight began, "but, I was changed. I used to be, well, more normal."
"And you, regret this?"
"No, I'm grateful," she countered, trying very hard to remain as polite as possible, "This is an opportunity that few ever earn, and I'm happy that Celestia thought I was ready to become a princess. It's just, if I was meant to stay as I was created, then, why was I changed?"
"Mmm. A fair question. There is but one answer."
"Those that ascend to positions of power do so through prowess and success. Leaders, therefore, are the best of their peers. They are stronger, wiser, than those that follow them. Those that lead with pahlok, arrogance in their strength, do not last. I trust, and you should as well, that your superior thought it best for you to change, whether for your own good, or for the good of others. Only she knows the reasons; if you are meant to know, she has the answer for you. But, then again, there are some things not meant to ever be learned."
There was a short silence before the dragon continued.
"But I know that you did not come so far just to make idle conversation with an aging dovah. There must have been something more. So, tell me princess, what has brought you to me?"
Twilight pawed at the ground as she thought up some words. She was warming up now next to the fire, and pulled back her hood to expose her entire head to the frigid air, and for a moment, there was silence except for the crackling of the fire, and the howling of the wind above.
Nearly a minute passed before she answered the question.
"I came...to learn."
"You wish to study the Thu'um?" he asked, raising his voice, devoid of an accent, to indicate excitement.
"Thu'um?"
"Yes," Paarthurnax responded, "the way of the voice, the art of concentrating one's essence into a shout."
As he finished, Paarthurnax looked up into the sky, and in a deafening roar, bellowed a collection of sounds.
"Fo Krah Diin!"
Thunder boomed as he spoke, and an immense blue wave of cold air and ice followed a path from his mouth, creating a rain of water crystals from the sky as it dissipated into the atmosphere.
"How did you do that?"
"The Thu'um? All we dovah can. It is to us, like breathing is to you."
"I don't understand," she began, "I mean, I live with a dragon, and he's never done anything like that. He can breathe fire, but..."
"Yes. You may live with a dragon, but not a dovah. They occupy the same place in our tongues, but they are not the same. My brothers and I, the dov, were the sons of Akatosh. We were gods, created by a deity to rule this world in his place. But, our rule was corrupted by our own ambition."
"Created to rule?" Twilight asked, cutting the dragon off, "Created to rule what?"
"Mortal kind," Paarthurnax said matter of factly, "Men and mer, the first inhabitants of Keizaal, gone now to the currents of time, and the planes of Oblivion and Sovngarde."
"So, they're extinct?" Twilight confirmed, receiving a certain look from the dragon, "Were they the ones that built all the structures out of stone?"
Paarthurnax's look became a bit more stern, and his eyes grew a bit darker.
"Sorry," she interjected, "you were saying..."
"Akatosh was displeased with our arrogance and cruelty, our pahlok, so he abandoned us to our own accord. But, try as we may have, we were not akin to the aedra that birthed us. One by one, we fell to corruption, and then, to blades of battle, until there were only a few of us left. We went into hiding, and I found refuge here, on the monahven; many of the others were not so fortunate."
"Once those that had sought to eliminate us, the men and mer of Keizaal had succumbed to time, a briihnaa of Akatosh took pity on the few of us left. Kaan, Kynareth, sent forth dragons of her own loins, female, and bid the remaining dov of Akatosh to reproduce, so that our race would survive. But, we found that each generation of offspring was weaker than the last."
"We would survive, yes, but our culture, our power, that which had made us strong, would not. Of the original dov, I am the last; the others have fallen, not to time, but to action, either those of their doing, or by those of others. But, dragons, the children of my zeymah, thrive to this day, despite their loss of the Thu'um, among other things. Krosis."
Twilight nodded slowly to herself as she came to accept what he was saying.
"So, the dragons and the dovah, they aren't the same thing?"
Slowly, Paarthurnax shook his head back and forth.
"And the dovah, they're all gone?"
"All, except for me."
There was another silence, filled with the ambient noise of the storm.
It was nearly fifteen minutes before either of them spoke, spent with Twilight stomaching what her companion had lived through, and Paarthurnax patiently waiting for her to be ready to speak again. Finally, the alicorn broke the silence.
"So what's it like?" asked Twilight, looking up at the dragon once she finished.
"What do you mean," he rumbled.
"What's it like to watch your friends fade away... while you stay behind?"
"Hmm. I knew you hadn't come this far to discuss history and philosophy."
Twilight held her gaze, and Paarthurnax inferred what she should have said.
"For you were not always an alicorn. Immortality to you is as foreign as mortality is to me. You wish to discuss your own infinite time, yes?"
Twilight nodded.
"Then I am sorry, for I could employ every ounce of my effort to teaching you about immortality, but nothing I could say could come close to describing the real weight of infinite life. For to those such as you and I, that know no end, the impact of life never fades; it only grows, and words fall utterly short in their capability to describe such a thing."
"But, I will try, princess. But before I begin, answer me this. Why seek me out, when there are those much closer to you, in location as well as in companionship, who could likely answer your question as well as I?"
Twilight thought for a moment, before she came to a simple conclusion.
"Sometimes, I don't think a thousand years is even enough time to learn the secrets to life on your own. And even then, I think that once you figure out the realities behind life, the truth can make you insane. Losing your innocence isn't exactly easy. I was just hoping that, since you'd lived much longer than anything I've ever heard of, and, since you're, well, not the spirit of insanity, that you could help me along a bit. After all, I may live forever, but I still only have one life, and I want to live it as best I can."
"Hmm. A fair response. So, let me try to give you an answer of equal merit. What aspects of immortality do you wish to attempt to comprehend?"
"Just talk," Twilight said, "I'll listen to everything you have to say."
"Mm, where to begin?" Paarthurnax said, looking down and to his left, "How to teach of something that words can do no justice?"
The drake paused before continuing, and smiled to himself as Twilight presumed he concluded his lesson plan.
"I have spent many years as a teacher. I have meditated long and hard on matters that most cannot even begin to comprehend. But, I have found that, sometimes, the world is a much better teacher than I."
The dragon lifted off suddenly, his wings creating a downdraft to rival a small tornado, and alighted lightly, or at least, as lightly as possible for a creature of his size, next to Twilight; only a bit of snow kicked up into her face this time. She walked up next to him, and stood next to his bronze-scaled neck, sheltered a bit underneath his expansive wing. The dragon's breast was warm, almost as warm as the fire had been, and with him, Twilight found she felt utterly safe.
"Look at the sky," he said, his rich, deep voice carrying through her.
Twilight stepped out from the warmth beneath the shelter of Paarthurnax's wing, and walked up next to the dragon's head, tilted up towards the stormy skies above. She mimicked his gaze.
"Now tell me princess, what do you see?"
Twilight sighed.
"I just see clouds."
She heard a small growl off to her side, and her ears laid flat as she turned to see Paarthurnax with his muzzle lowered to the ground, his eyes closed.
"Describe it. Make me able to see everything you do, as if I were blind."
Twilight again averted her eyes skyward, and began to speak.
"I can only see, maybe a hundred feet. All there is, is a swirling current of wind and cold, carrying bits of snow, like ash, down to me. The whole sky is rough in texture; I can't see the sun. There is no color; only greyscale. It looks almost like the whole sky is angry, or depressed, writhing this way and that as if it were struggling against some kind of foe."
"Hmm. I can see it... Now, princess, make me feel it."
Twilight sighed again, but as she began to think, her bits of sarcasm fled, and she found herself becoming emotional on the brink of speech.
"The cold stings my hide. The wind burns my eyes, causing little tears to form. The air hurts the inside of my throat. I don't feel anything good...just bad. It's almost like... if the sky is angry... it's angry with me."
There was a long silence, filled with the sounds of the storm and Paarthurnax's breathing. It gave Twilight plenty of time to think, and let the impact of this unexpected lesson take her in an emotional grip.
"Princess, where does your mind go in the storm?" asked the dragon, returning his gaze to Twilight.
The alicorn held her stare with the sky, until she lowered her head, and closed her eyes.
"Sad places?" inferred Paarthurnax.
"Not good ones, that's for sure," Twilight said, faking a laugh to try and trick the dragon into thinking she was fine... it didn't work.
Slowly, Paarthurnax's slow, methodical words came back.
"Memories, inevitabilities, fears, regrets?"
Twilight nodded.
"Me too."
Twilight looked back to the dragon, to find his gaze looking skywards again.
"I see many things in these storms. Pieces of my past...a face, an action, a regret... There are so many."
"I see my brothers. Alduin...despite what he did to me, what he did to the world; despite what we did to each other... he was still my zeymah once. Odahviing... He was the best flier of any of us. We used to race each other across Keizaal; it is what made us strong kendov when war came. But, I made my choices. He stayed loyal to Alduin when I defected, but joined ideals with me upon The World Eater's defeat at the hands of the Dovahkiin. I sometimes wonder if it was one of my pupils that slayed him, once the Dovahkiin was no longer around to protect him. Nahfahlaar...he went with me when I parted from the Way of Power. He was a fine kendov as well; his Thu'um was strong. He proved a valuable ally to the mortals of the land below for many years. But, the Akiviri showed him no quarter. They showed no quarter to all of my race; they could not tell the difference between World Eaters and World Savers. To them, all dovah were considered inherently evil. There were only a few of us left when mortal kind, including the Akiviri, faded to the depths of time."
"I almost joined in my brothers' fate, if not for the Dovahkiin. With a lie, he saved my life, and convinced the Akiviri that he had slain me...had he chose to do so, I am sure that he could have. But he spared me, and tried to do so for the others that joined me alongside the mortals, but he did not last. And once he was gone, there was nothing between us and the swords of the mortals. He was brave for protecting what the rest of the world hated...I am proud to have called him my friend."
"I have had the privilege of teaching some of the bravest, most dedicated beings in the history of Mundus, the world. My friends Hakon, Gormlaith, and Felldir, the first men to learn the Thu'um. Their bravery was outstanding; they challenged Alduin to combat, and banished him to time with the Kel."
Twilight looked away as she realized that the events depicted on the wall near Las Pegasus...they were true.
"Arngeir, Borri, Einarth, Wulfgar... we unraveled the power of the Thu'um, and achieved enlightenment, together."
"Together...together," he lingered over the word, repeating it to himself, over and over again, until finally he stopped, paused, and turned back to look Twilight in the eye.
"I miss them...all of them. Not a day goes by when I don't wish that I could see their faces one last time, and finally give them each a proper kogaan, good bye."
Again, he paused, and Twilight fought a tear back from falling from her eye.
"The sky above us represents life; it is vast, all-encompassing, and the storm represents the pain in life. The cold, the sting, the feeling of despair...the storm and the sorrows of life have these things in common. And do you know what else? No one, neither key nor dovah, can escape the storm."
"You and I, princess, you and I, and those like us, endure more storms than anything else. We are immortal, we have the most time, so all the pain that accompanies a single lifetime becomes a sum of agony in even our youngest years. Time does not discriminate, but age does. For you and I are ageless, not timeless. There will be no end to our sorrow."
Twilight tried to fight another tear back into her eye, but it was no use; it froze when it hit the ground.
"So, everypony I know now...my friends, my family. Everypony I know that isn't an alicorn...Can I save them?"
Paarthurnax shook his head 'no.'
The alicorn sighed, and lowered her voice.
"That's what I thought."
"Just as the snow continues to fall from the storm," Paarthurnax began again, "those you know will continue to fade, and your sorrow will persist. Your nature will dictate how you respond, but likely, fate will have it so that you find more friends once your current ones die, and then, they will die too, until all that remains of your memory is a sea of faces that have succumbed to the cold touch of death."
Another alicorn tear joined with the ground.
"But, just as the storm blocks the rest of the sky, so can sorrow obscure the rest of life."
Again, Paarthurnax looked skyward, and in a deafening roar, used the Thu'um.
"Lok Vah Koor!"
Immediately, as the echo of the dragon's roar faded into the distance, the clouds vanished, and the storm dissipated into the atmosphere, and Twilight gasped.
One moment, she could only see a hundred feet, her vision blocked by the storm, and now...she could see forever. It was dusk, and the sun's face was half concealed by the western horizon, and the entire sky was painted pink and blue and yellow and red by the day's last moments. Far in the distance, she could see the glint of The Crystal Empire, the golden sunlight reflecting off of the limpid towers of the capital. She turned around and around, not wanting to miss anything of the view. She could see the ivory towers of Canterlot, the gilded wheatfields of Ponyville, the majesty of the cloud city, Cloudsdale, the skyscrapers of Manehatten, the boundless green of the Everfree Forrest...It was as if she was on top of the world, and she found herself drawing closer to the edge of the plateau just to see more.
Paarthurnax only watched her silently.
Time dragged on, and the sun finally set, but that wasn't the end of the spectacle of the sights the mountain revealed.
First the moon, then the stars came out. Billions of them, so many that the constellations were hard to identify from the rest of the mass of twinkling dots. She could see nebulas, the Milky Way, the brightest stars she'd always learned about, but had never been able to view from the city. Shooting stars darted overhead, but she was too awestruck to wish upon them. And then, just when she thought she'd seen it all, the auroras came out. Rivers of green and blue, waving and dancing in the sky, almost as if they were showing off their own beauty, just for her, and Twilight, rather than crying out of sorrow as she had been earlier, shed a sweet tear, because she was seeing the greatest wonders of her life.
"Now princess, what do you see?"
Twilight turned back to Paarthurnax, realizing he'd been silent for the better part of a half-hour, and smiled, her cheeks still wet with tears.
"It's beautiful."
Paarthurnax smiled.
"Yes it is... just as life is. But, for all the majesty you see before you, it is put to shame by the beauties of infinite life."
Twilight came closer to the dragon, and he continued.
"You will see many sights, do many deeds; you will experience the world in its entirety, a privilege guarded by those that share our likeness, for mortals merely do not have enough time to do so, and that in itself is beautiful. But, the true majesty of this world is not something that you can touch, nor see, but something you feel."
"For as immortals, we have the privilege of experiencing the lives of many, as well as our own."
"You will share in the beauties of life over and over again through your experiences with others. You will touch many lives, and share in their best moments. You will help to fulfill dreams, to create futures, to promote love. You will touch many lives, princess, but many more will touch you."
"And that, princess, is the true value of this world. The friendships we form, and the experiences that accompany them."
"I once had a student ask me the secret to life. I was not able to give him an answer, but now, I think I may have one. If I were to be asked the same question again, I would say that each must find his own secrets to happiness, but who can guard a secret better than a close friend?"
"Yes, we will remember our lost friends, and yes, we will mourn their passing, but princess, just as with storms and clarity in the sky, you must look past the pain to see beauty, because as you age, gold and silver will lose their value, and you will safeguard the memories of your friends as your most sacred treasure."
Paarthurnax leaned in closer to Twilight.
"Princess, tonight, I have seen how much you love those close to you. For you to acquire such a quality at such a young age is astonishing, but you have to retain that quality. Loss will try to steal it from you, pain will try to cut it down before it can grow, but no matter what happens, you can never stop living. Learn from my mistakes."
"When my brothers died, I fell into a pit of despair, and for nearly a hundred years, I forgot I was alive. You must not do the same; melancholy can be an easy trap to fall into, but you must not become ensnared, though you will be tempted to."
"Everything that ends must be reborn again...remember that. So if you want something back, something that you yourself may have destroyed, try to breathe some life into it, be it a memory of someone you once loved, a relationship you abused, or a dream you gave up on."
"When you do someone wrong, first, ask forgiveness, then, forgive yourself. If you make a mistake, apologize, and then make it right. But above all, when you lose someone close to you, do not replace them in the sense of forgetting them. Remember them, and hold onto their memory, but find another to fill the void they left in your heart. For there is no greater power, no greater gift, no greater feeling, than that of a true friend."
"Never forget that. But more importantly, never take that for granted, and do not be fooled into thinking that immortality means indestructibility. Spend each day as if it were your last, or if it were your friends' last, because it very well may be."
"You will experience many things in your life. Some will be painful, and others will be joyous; the type of life you lead depends on which things you focus on. For just as clouds may conjure a storm, there is always a blue sky beyond them... Granted, being a dovah makes it a bit easier to see those clear skies."
Paarthurnax chuckled a bit, and Twilight did the same.
"Tell me princess... does this wisdom help?"
"More than you know," she responded, wiping a tear from her eye, "Thank you."
He nodded in response, and the ends of his mouth drew up in a small grin.
There was a short silence before Twilight yawned.
"It is getting late. I think that is enough of a lesson for one night, hmm?"
Paarthurnax strolled a bit closer to the fire, and curled up next to it on the rocky ground. Once settled, he looked to Twilight, and lifted his wing, beckoning for her to join him. She was a bit hesitant.
"The nights are cold," he reasoned, "and it is unwise to venture down the mountain at night."
Twilight agreed, and made her way over to the dragon, setting down on the ground beneath his expansive wing. He let the membrane fall down over her like a blanket, and she found it surprisingly warm. She listened to the drake's breathing, the only sound on the mountain, other than the crackling of the fire. She laid her head down, until a simple question came to mind.
"Paarthurnax..."
"Hm?" he responded, letting his head drop a bit.
"I'm grateful for everything, but, I was just wondering... If friends are the secret to life, why do you live up here alone?"
He was silent for a bit, before answering softly.
"For many years, I have lived up here to protect my friends below."
"Protect them from what?"
He paused.
"Myself... but they would visit me from time to time. And when they were not around, I always had their memory to keep me company. Fate had a way of restricting the amount of friends I came to know, but fate also had a way of bringing them to me in time, much like today. When one has all the time in the world, one can afford to be patient with such things."
Twilight nodded as she accepted his answer, but found herself unsatisfied.
"I still don't understand why you would need to protect your friends from yourself."
"That is a lesson for another day."
Twilight tilted her head in disappointment.
"Well then I look forward to it."
"As do I, princess," he said sincerely, his head lowering onto the ground as he found rest, "As do I."
The fire crackled. Paarthurnax's breathing found a rhythm, and Twilight found herself being lulled to sleep by the lullaby of the mountain. She heard one last thing before sleep came over her tired eyes.
"Good night, princess..."
Author's Note
Hey guys! So, please tell me what you thought. This was meant to be a stand alone story, but if you want, I may consider a sequel. Please let me know what you liked, and didn't; instructive criticism is appreciated (instructive criticism, not destructive criticism). Thanks again.
TheBigLebowski
