The Dragon Law

General disclaimer: I do not own MLP, characters or otherwise, it belongs to Hasbro and such. Aside from the occasional original character I own nothing but the love of the show and its fanbase.

The Dragon Law

04.    The Not so Far Future

A week has passed since I had awoken in the hospital, and being stuck in a body cast with no TV or Radio it would have driven me crazy if not for the fact that on the second day nurse Gold had brought me several books that I had asked for. I may have surprised Gold with my choice in reading material: the first Daring Do book, the basics of magic, recent history, mythology, and an atlas. I just said I was a bit of a scholar and left it at that.

Yeah, the Daring Do book read essentially like an Indiana Jones novle, without the Nazies. The book of magic was meant for unicorns and read like a psychology textbook, I prefer my magic tomes to have less ‘believe in yourself’ and more formula. The history book was from the past five hundred years, so no information about Nightmare Moon or Discord, it was mostly about politics and the building of new townships (including Ponyville),  but did give me some insight into some of the technology the ponies had. The book on mythology was little more than a child's story book full of poems and legends...but this being a fantasy world there could always be a grain of truth to these stories, I’ll have to keep that in mind. Lastly the atlas, gave me a pretty detailed layout of the land of Equestria and to a lesser extent its surrounding nations...interesting.

To actually read the books they were put on one of those sheet music stands, and to turn the pages I was given a short stick (probably a conductor's baton) that i held in my mouth. The first thing I did was bite through the stick, it tasted like fresh bread, how odd, then when the nurse replaced the stick I went about reading.

A few times I had one of the doctors that helped earlier drop by. The first time Dr. Scalpel, whose first name was Rusty (Rusty Scalpel, best doctor name EVER!), and Dr. Relief came by to show me my X-rays. This world is definitely ran by cartoon physics...my bones looked literally like a jigsaw puzzle, it was damn impressive and would have been quite funny if it weren't my bones that had been rent asunder. The doctors had reassure me that I would infact make a full recovery, how in the nine hells that could happen based on the damage I seen could be only explained with one phrase, one that I most likely will find repeated in my time here... ‘magic, I ain’t gotta explain shit’.

Yesterday I had gotten more Gems from nurse Gold, I don’t know how much it cost but somehow I will repay her kindness, because I’m a gentleman dammit. Even if I have to dig up more gems to pay for what was given to me. I mean it can't be too hard can it, if Rarity did it with the help of Spike then I can as well, couldn’t I?

Oh but today is a special day, today I finally get my cast off and into a normal bed. I’ll be able to stretch my sore, stiff new body. Oh yeah, I will actually get to see what this body looks like without the mummy costume. Then I will only have another week or so of therapy so my body can relearn how to move; not to mention I don’t know what this body is capable of and physical therapy would be the best excuse to get acquainted.

I was so excited that I had hardly gotten any sleep and when I did finally nod off I had woken up early. So now I’m just sitting here playing the waiting game reading the last bit of the mythology book, it was a legend...okay a child's nursery rhyme but still it stood out.

On powdery wings of magic the ponies of old did fly

Bearing the love of their mothers they kept the land alive

The valley of dreams, where they kept hope afloat

Until chaos in the book of fate had wrote

To twist and discord the lovely guise they donned

And turn them into a form none gazed upon

...Discord. Thanking back to what little I knew of Generation one Ponies I remember Dream Valley, and home to the flutter ponies, what had Discord done? No matter, it was thousands of years ago, nothing I can do now but read about it.

As I was contemplating the rhyme the door to my room opened. Seconds later the curtain was pulled back revealing my two favorite medical professionals, Maritime Gold and Gentle Relief.

“Hey there Mr. Law, how are you doing today?” the doctor started.

“Pretty good, doc, I was just about to finish the last of the books,” I answered through the stick in my mouth.

“Today’s a big day, but you know that don’t you Mr. Law? I bet you're relieved to get out of that cast aren't you?” nurse Gold asking with all the joy of a caretaker seeing one of her patients getting well.

“Yes Ma'am, it’ll be nice to be able to move again, not that I didn’t enjoy being spoon-fed,” I said with a snicker.

“Yes, I’m glad that’s over with, now I’ll have more time to make my rounds,” the mare replies with a playful smile.

“Oh, Ms. Maritime Gold, you wound me,” I say faking shock, “and I thought you enjoyed our time together?”

“I am sorry Mr. Law, but your not my type,” Gold joked stealing half a glance at the doctor, oh ho, that again.

I had noticed throughout the week that Maritime had been there every time the doctor had visited and always tried to sneak hurried looks his way, and had a starry-eyed expression whenever she was talking about the stallion. She wasn’t the most subtle of ponies.

“Okay, now if you two are done with that silliness,” the doctor said with a smile, “let’s take you to your new room and get that cast off.”

The nurse rotated my bed into its horizontal position and began moving the contraption to the door while the good doctor grabbed my half eaten bag of gems and the books in his magic and followed us out.

On the way to my new room spotted something out of the corner of my eye it darted away before I could get a better look. I wouldn’t have let that bother me, the slightly paranoid side of me that I had lived with most of my life seen things out of the corner of my vision all the time, but it kept happening. Every time we took a turn as we past the corner a dark green blur would zoom away. When it got to the point of making me uncomfortable and bring the issue up we had arrived.

Forgetting the blue blur for the moment I took in what was to my new home for the next week. The new room was just like any other hospital room I’ve seen, which was odd because the chairs were the proper size, as was the bed and everything else, not like the pony sized rooms I had seen in the past. I was about to ask when the doctor answered for me.

“Now that you get to sleep in a normal bed it was decided a bed that actually fit would be pertinent, this is one of the rooms to accommodate the few larger races that pass through these doors.”

“To my knowledge this is the first time a dragon has visited, its usually minotaurs, griffins, or diamond dogs. Your roughly the same size so everything should be comfortable, at least for the week,” nurse Gold chipped in.

The nurse wheeled me next to the bed and began messing with some of the screws and knobs of thing I was attached to. The doctor placed my gems and books in a neat stack on the end table then started to wrap me in his magic. A second later I was out of the rotating mass and laying on a real bed, although still in the body cast. I’ve never had a cast removed but a friend had once, while cutting it off the doctor had nicked his wrist and left a nasty scar.

“Okay, now the fun part,” says doctor Relief says with a malicious smile, and pulls from nowhere a small rotary saw chuckling to himself...wait, what?

“Bahahahaha! You should see the look on your face, I’ve been waiting for that for over two weeks!” the doctor put the saw away (where? I haven't the slightest...because, cartoon?), “oh, Rusty would have loved to see that but he's in surgery at the moment.” finished Dr. Relief.

His horn then started to glow and shot a small spark at me. The spark hit the edge of the cast and began to move along the sides. Before long the spark had done its job and a glowing thin line outlined my cast. Next the entire front of the cast was lifted off (I thought about making one of pressurized hissing noises but decided against it) and sat against the wall. Then I was lifted up and the bottom half was removed, it took slightly longer because of my new limbs, the tail and wings. The doctor then placed me under the covers of my new bed and sat the back of the cast aside.

One thing I do know about castes is they make you all kinds of sore. When trying to experiment with moving a painful pins and needles feeling erupted all over my body, so I decided to do the smart thing and lay there stiff as a board until the pain stopped.

“Well, I’m going to take this mess away,” Maritime nodded toward my old bed and cast, “I’ll be back with breakfast soon, bye.” the nurse said as she pushed the thing out of the room.

“Now, Mr. Law how do you feel?” the doctor asked.

“At least I can move, although it hurts when I do,” I shrugged, sending more pain down my shoulders and spine.

    “Don’t worry I got something that can help, this spell will relax your stiff muscles and slightly dull the pain, one sec,” the doctor charged his horn and touched it to my head.

    It kinda felt like being dipped in cold water, then hot water, now back to cold water. It went back and forth for a few minutes then I started to get drowsy. Before I knew it I was asleep.

--decidet ad tenebras--

    I was running. It was dark, only the slight shimmer of the gems that littered the tunnel. I look behind me and see two ponies following close behind; a pegasus stallion and a unicorn mare. Both with looks of fierce determination, hell bent on what was to come. What was to come? Coming to a door, a large, rusty beast of a thing, I focus myself and charge straight at it. With all the force of a demon’s fury the door came off its hinges. The poor, hairy beasts on the other side crumpled like tissue paper before the wall of iron, scales, and fire.

    Upon entering the chamber I see my quarry. Amidst a pack of the bipedal, furred canines one stood a head above the rest, she was my prize. The pack formed in front of her they could have number five or fifty; it matters not she was my target, the Beta.

    Rushing past past the lowly mongols I Launch at the bitch, wings uselessly flapping behind me. One brave dog decides to get in my way a second later he’s on the floor a flaming stump where his right arm once was. Others try to impede my progress, crude swords slide easily off my grayscale skin. I bat spears away and avoid the maces and clubs, little can slow or stop me.

In less than a minute I was on the other side of the cavern, a claw around the Beta’s through, I turn and see the ponies that had followed me could hold their own. The unicorn placing barriers, casting flames, and tearing weapons out of the dogs paws only to have to embed them into their wielders. The pegasus held a dagger in his mouth, bucking, jumping, flying, and rolling from enemy to enemy kicking up whirlwinds and landing deadly blows on those that that got in his way. I turn back the my prize, with a look of malice she says, “Come on! Let me in!”

And the dream ends...

--decidet ad album--

[Notes]

Here's the new chapter. I’ve given up setting deadlines seeing how I never make them. The best I can do is promise to quicken the pace while keeping and improving my writing. I hope you liked that sneak peek of what's to come, it’s no Endgame, just a few months into the future. Law will be a invalid no more!

-Law