Defense of a New World

The next morning Twilight awoke at her normal early hour and sleepily made her way to the kitchen only not to find the smell of great food being made. She came to remember the fight she and Barb had the night before as she slowly looked around the kitchen. Slowly she walked to her sister's room trying to think of something to say but she could not find anything. In her mind what she did was right she was just looking out for her little sister. Everything was just too much of a coincidence and that scared her, not to mention that whom ever Barb spoke to had powerful magic at their disposal.

Finally she came to her sisters room and hoped she would listen to reason. She knocked on Barb's door and got no reply, so she knocked again meeting with the same results. Twilight took hold of the door nob and slowly turned it to find it was not locked. As she entered the sight of her sister on the floor, ring still on her finger, book clutched tight agent her breast and a empty mega jug of raspberry sapphire ice cream next to her.

Twilight kneeled down to wake her but as she did Barb curled in on herself as she got closer. Now she could see tears stained barb's cheeks, no doubt from a full night of crying. Light caught her eye and she saw it came from the ring slowly she reached out to take it and the book only to have Barb role over mumbling. Thanks to that Twilight could now read the title on the spine 'Draconians a Brief Intro' and now she was even more confused then before. Before she could do anything else she now found herself looking into very pissed off emerald green eyes.

"What do you think your doing Twilight?" Barb said with a great amount of venom in her voice.

Twilight recoiled a bit at her harsh tone. "You weren't down stairs so I came to wake you. I wanted to talk about last night."

Barb sniffed the air to smell something cooking. "Did you start to make something and leave the stove on again?"

"No! It's more likely Rarity and Fluttershy they stayed over last night. They want to help us talk about this and they were worried about you as well."

Barb quickly stood keeping the book close "Well lets go eat then we can talk."

With that she and Twilight quickly left for the kitchen to see Rarity at the table drinking coffee, reading the paper while picking at an omelet. Fluttershy was at the stove cooking away.

Rarity looked up from the paper to them with a raised eye brow. "Good morning darlings how are you two feeling this morning?"

Barb sat down next to her glaring at Twilight. "Lousy, I fell asleep on the floor after eating all my ice cream while reading this book because I was so upset."

"Oh you poor dear I am so sorry to hear that." Rarity leaned over and hugged her. "But you know you can hardly blame Twilight she just wants to keep you safe."

"Keeping me safe and not letting me learn about what I am are two different things Rarity." Barb mouthed a thank you to Fluttershy as she sat down an omelet in front of her. "There are no books on what I am here or in Canterlot. Yet every time I manage to find a source Twilight either wont let me go and I lose the lead or she takes it and I never see it again. It's like she does not want me to know."

Twilight jumped up slamming her hands on the table making Fluttershy jump and almost drop the plate of eggs she had. "That's because every time a dragon is willing to tell you they ask you to go to them! The last time you ran into a dragon and it's territory he tried to kill you! The information I took from you was mostly lies! The books and scrolls you bought or was given had hypnosis spells on them to put the reader under the casters control and two of them were just curses! Barb you are the only dragon living peacefully with ponies and some bad ponies will try to take advantage of you. Can you not see I do this to keep you safe?"

"Um Twilight yelling at her wont help. It's just going to cause another fight. So...um...maybe you should calm down...just a little. If you don't mind that is?"

"She is right darling yelling will get you no where. Plus had you informed Barb of why she never saw the books or scrolls again she may not have thought you were trying to keep her in the dark about dragons."

"I'm still mad but I wont hold it against her. Especially now that I know I'm not even a dragon."

All three quickly snapped their attention on to Barb and blurted out loudly "What do you mean your not a dragon?"

Barb pulled the book out from behind her and sat it on the table. "According to this book I am a half dragon the name of my race is Draconian. Almost every species of dragon has wings from their time of birth. Not only that but even though they are intelligent, and I use the word loosely, dragons are primarily beast. I'm eighteen if I were a true dragon then by now I would be the size of a two story house at least. Also dragons do not have an internal source of magic yet I do."

Twilight was writing like a mad mare but then quickly jumped to her feet. "You have an internal source of magic, like unicorns, how did you find this out?"

"Their are two species of draconians, flyers and mages, that are known. If I were a flyer then my wings would have grown in on my twelfth birthday. Which means I am a mage and all draconian mages have classes of magic they can use. To find this out you use a gem that matches the schools of magic and breath a stream of fire onto them. If you are a mage the gems of the schools of magic you can learn will lift themselves into the air and will glow. I didn't get to try this last night."

Rarity looked quite amused and very happy. "I'm so glad you have found something out Barb. Perhaps you could tell us what gem stands for what school and show us what schools you can learn from?"

"Ya sure just let me go get my gems." Barb quickly scarfed down her food and ran off.

"Oh I'm just so happy for her I could scream." Fluttershy was looking down the hall barb took off down.

"I know darling this has been a long time coming. Plus it looks like Barb isn't the only one excited about this." Rarity pointed over to where Twilight was as she wrote away in a notebook. Fluttershy could only giggle at the sight.

"What I can't help is this is new knowledge Equestria has never known. I am still mad she got it from somepony we don't know that lives in the Everfree. I mean even Zecora doesn't know him but it helps her and I haven't seen her this happy since Shiny got married. I just hope she will take us to meet this Venrus Nightingale so I know it's safe."

"Oh don't try to fool me darling I know you want to meet him to see what he may know that you don't."

"Can you blame me he has a book on a species that no Equestrian had knowledge of. Plus the ring he gave Barb was made by magic and has a spell on it."

"Well next time I talk to him I'll see if I can bring you to meet him or if he and his people will come meet us here."

Twilight jumped and screamed as Barb snuck up on her and surprised her. "Don't do that sis and what do you mean his people?"

"Oh, Venrus lives in this huge Keep made into the side of one of the mountains in Everfree. He lives there with his two daughters and his servants. Of the few I saw there are different species I've never seen before."

"A keep you say and he has servants too. I'm sure we would have seen that out in the Everfree or at least seen it being built if it is new."

"Oh it is. He invited me inside so we could talk and the questions he asked told me he was not from around here. I think he even told his maid they moved into a new dimension."

Twilights eyes lit up. "Are you sure he said that Barb, I need you to be very clear. He said they came from a different dimension?"

"Yes he did how else do you think a Lycan, a Werecat and a human could get here. That's not even telling what others he may have brought with him."

Twilight was jumping at the prospect. "Oh this is so exciting, new species and new knowledge no pony has ever seen and it's just in that accursed forest. Wait what if he is a threat we should tell Celestia and Luna about this."

Rarity grabbed Twilight in her magic before she could rush off. "Twilight darling you need to calm down. Now if Venrus will meet us or let us go to him and after we have talked then you can judge him. You are a princess yourself you don't need to run to Celestia and Luna every time something comes up. If you feel you need to talk with them after meeting him then by all means do but wait and show them you can do things on your own. Now if I put you down will you not run off, Barb still needs to show us how this gem thing works and you may miss it." She looked to Twilight with a sly smile.

Twilight was sweating, on one hand she thought she should tell the other Princesses about these new and possible threats. On the other, a chance to witness an unknown races magic at work. "Fine I'll stay but the moment I feel this is getting out of hand I'm calling for Celestia and Luna."

"Deal." Rarity quickly let Twilight go over a chair causing her to fall right in. "Now that Twilight is ready will you please explain the different schools of magic and then show us which ones you can learn Barb."

Barb sat a bag on the table and reached in beginning to pull out gems. "Sure the emerald is the stone for the school of life. This school of magic focuses on healing magic." She placed the gem down and took another "The ruby is for the school of fire, sapphire is for water, citrine is for earth, blue topaz is for air, amethyst is for magic itself. This school lets you learn things like making shields, teleporting or blasts. I don't much like the last two. Red jasper is for blood magic and obsidian is for shadow magic."

All three looked to Barb with horrified expressions. "Sis you mean your race can use two of the most illegal types of magic known to Equestria?"

Barb sighed. "Yes, but to draconians they aren't illegal. Mages that can learn Blood or Shadow magic are some of our greatest protectors and are highly valued. Now I'll show you what magic schools I can learn from." She inhaled as much as she could before letting lose a stream of fire over the gems. After she let up all the gems were glowing from the heat but slowly the glow died on all but three as they lifted into the air. Emerald, ruby and amethyst were the ones to rise.

"Oh my!"

"Oh my is right darling. You can learn three of the schools Barb that's so wonderful." Rarity rushed over and hugged her.

"Ya it is. Though they all make sense really." Barb smiled down at the floating stones.

"Why what ever do you mean darling?"

"Well a draconians fire tells what magic they will be best at, mine is emerald green so life, it is a rare magic for draconians to learn. Fire is extremely common so I thought I might have it. I mean like only one out of every thirty draconians don't have fire magic according to the book. Magic itself is not rare but its not common either but given that Twilight is the one that hatched me I was sure to get it."

"Why is that sis?"

"Well the book says that life changing events can affect what magic a draconian can learn. According to Celestia my egg was a dormant dragon egg. When Twilight had that big surge of magic and I hatched I was given her dna along with my dragon dna. That is pretty much how draconians are born besides the extremely rare dragons mating with something else. There is also the natural way of two Draconians mating or them mating with something else. Because Twilight is the element of magic some of that passed to me."

"Oh I get it because I hatched you and am good at magic you will be to."

"Yup thats pretty much it." Barb racked the gems into her bag and grabbed the book and made for the door.

"Barb where are you going?" Twilight quickly caught her by the wrist.

"Well I can't learn anything else from this book and I can't learn about my magic without the spell books from Venrus. Before I can go see him I need to do something for him he asked of me."

"And that is?"

"OH he gave me one of his gold coins he has and asked if it was good here, I said I would check." barb pulled the coin out of her pocket and showed them. Then quickly left the house.

Twilight quickly turned to her friends and had that look on her face. "Twilight darling I know what your thinking and I'm going to say right now that......"

"I'm going to follow her!" Twilight quickly tore out of the house before anything else could be said.