01 - Dragons? In MY homeland? (It's more likely than you'd think.)
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The Draconic Tale of Sardonyx
01 - Dragons? In MY homeland? (It's more likely than you'd think.)
It all began on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year, but it lasted four days, kinda ruining the whole 'seven' thing it has going on. It was a legendary event, the kind spoken of in legends. Princess Celestia herself ascended to the top of Mount Jormutar with naught but determination and her hooves, and the rest of her, I guess, violent wind spiralling around the largest mountain in existence and ensuring nothing could fly or use magic, black gem dust and rocks swirling around with the brutal wind that tore the tears from her eyes.
When she ascended to the mountain's flattened peak, taking four days to do so thanks to how big that mountain was, she came face to face with her opponent, who dwarfed her and the mountain. He was absolutely colossal black dragon with yellow gems for eyes, a maw lined with rows of sharp needles for teeth, seven sets of batlike wings lining his lower body while two colossal bat wings spread out from his back, edges and backs coated in protective black crystal shards. The vile beast smirked down at the Alicorn Princess and grew larger still, rendering her ascent for naught and not even caring.
No more than a gnat to this ferocious beast, she grit her teeth and flared her wings, the magnificent golden double-headed double-bladed war-axe with a solar-themed design held tightly in her mouth. For the sake of Equestria, for the entire planet, she knew there could be only one way this battle could end.
She put down her horn and charged at the magnificent monster grinning down at her, wings opening up despite the danger. Immediately, her sensitive feathers were battered by the dirt and gem powder in the air, but she did not care, she could not care. She rose up, angled herself down at the beast's eye, and shot forwards while wrapping her wings around her body, spinning like a drill as she rushed towards the monster.
The beast raised a clawed hand larger than Canterlot to swipe the Alicorn out of the air. "YOU'RE MINE." He roared.
But she was an illusion, and the real Celestia was faster than he realized, faster than anything that size had a right to be, not that he was one to talk about size.
Her horn struck the beast's right eye, and with a tremendous yell, Princess Celestia shouted out, "You lost the game!"
All was silent.
All was lost.
Especially the game.
Which you lost, just now.
Again.
Oh, and Princess Celestia drilled through the eye-gem and went out the other side, spreading out her wings and casting a growth spell on her weapon despite the incredible pain, starmetal axe growing large enough to chop the monster's head off, making a huge crater and explosion when it hit the ground, but who cares? You just lost the game! Ha! Passionfruit, you don't just owe me a gem sundae, you owe me ALL the gem sundaes. ALL OF THEM. Also, while most 'translations' of this story say the dragon used 'The power of daaaaaarkneeeeeesssss!" or something, you and I both know it was gem dust. That's right, Unicorn horns are weak to gem dust. Or sandstorms. Or pretty much anything that has a chance of seriously hurting the big spiralling horn that suddenly becomes incredibly sensitive when magic is charged through it. To anypony that ever lost a fight to a magic-user and never thought to throw some sand in their eyes or at their horn: Ha.
And now, dear reader, you're probably wondering how this is relevant to my tale. And I'll tell you how this is relevant:
That monster... had an egg. There was an egg in his cave, on that mountain. Along with ALL the money, more gems than even he could eat, and a collection of fine art. And a bunch of loser ponies that were foalnapped or whatever, but who cares? She destroyed the mountain because she didn't want the foalnapped losers to have a constant reminder of how much it sucked to be foalnapped, but I think it was really because she was mad that it was bigger than the mountain she was building her town on. A town with the stupid name of Canterlot. Anyway, onto more important things...
That monster broke the world's record for gem hoarding, a record that had never been beaten, even now in the year three thousand, when there's suddenly a fourth princess running around throwing magic at ponies and I'm wondering if Princesshood is just going to become as commonplace as a certain well-known transformation from the greatest story of all time. Anyway, they said he... transcended greed, and could get bigger or smaller whenever he wanted. He didn't need any more gems, or any gems at all, besides the gems he ate. He didn't need gems, but he wanted them anyway, simply because he could get them, or so the story goes, and that is true greed. Sometimes, I wonder... Sure, that beast was considered evil, and horrible, and stuff, but... was he saving those gems for me?
And if he was... was he such a bad guy after all?
...Meh, probably. Especially since I might not actually be related to that guy.
And now, I'l finally get to the real reason you're reading this story: Me. I'm half-Dragon, half-Unicorn, and all-awesome. My name?
Sardonyx.
And that's not a fusion of sardonic and onyx, there's an actual gemstone out there named sardonyx, and it could eat pretty much any gemstone ever for breakfast. Like me. Except I can also eat more normal pony food, like ice cream and chocolate. You know, it's weird... a lot of ponies ask you how gems taste, and... it's hard to explain how they taste. Sure, they taste awesome, but they're rocks. Because ponies don't think they taste of anything, they'll say that when you're tasting them, that's actually just your mind supplying a good flavour to go with the buzz of indulging your Dragon greed by eating a precious gem. If that's true, why do certain gems taste better than others, regardless of the rarity ponies assign to them? When you've tasted the pleasurable crunch of garnet, feeling the pieces break onto your tongue... you can say what gems taste like.
Anyway, you're probably wondering how a half-Dragon half-Unicorn like me looks, or fights, or exists. To answer those questions in order:
I look awesome. My body is coated in dark scales, a purple darker than the night sky. My sharp front claws on dexterous limbs are a pure white, as are the limbs, as if I'm wearing fancy opera gloves or something. My hindlegs have ordinary pony hooves with the non-hoof parts coated in scales like the rest of me, white on the bottoms as if I was a mangy mutt with unshorn fetlocks. Which they technically might be, but I don't care. My bright Draconic eyes are a gleaming gold, like the shiniest of coins, and the thinner scales on my eyelids are a similar gold, as if I'm wearing eyeshadow. Even though I'm, y'know, not. I have a Unicorn horn, dark-purple like the rest of my body, and I have large draconic wings with an impressive wingspan only a quarter of an inch smaller than Princess Luna's, darker-purple frames holding together a white-scaled batlike membrane. I don't have a mane, I have a mohawk of sharp shovel-ish gold spines that serve a similar purpose, before shrinking a little and running down my back and tail, which ends in a sharp-pointed surprisingly-heavy pyramid perfect for cracking big gems into easily-edible fragments. Or splitting coconuts, or trees, or metal, or pretty much anything. It feels weirdly good to smash stuff with it, even though I know saying that out loud would make me sound like a dumb brute. The swing, the impact, the release when it crashes through something, and you feel the tail go straight though it... it's really nice. And weird. In a good way.
I fight awesomely. I have wings, no fire breath (Yet!) and even if my wings aren't exactly the quickest, when I'm in the air, I'm staying in the air until I get bored and hit up the nearest bakery for some donuts. I have magic, even if I'm not exactly the fastest at practicing spells to the point where casting them is second nature and they don't take at least twice as long as they should to charge and cast, and I can hit stuff with my tail, or break stuff with its tip. I can also do Dragon stuff, like getting bigger and more Draconic and violent and awesome-looking, at the cost of losing my mind a little at a time the further up the mountain I go. Very little is actually known about Dragons - Thanks, Celestia! - so... sometimes, I wonder if that's it for me. I wonder if that's the ultimate fate of all Dragonkind: To live forever and make a ton of friends you'll never really connect with while trying not to think about that dark part of your mind that could destroy you and your friends at any moment, and the knowledge that no matter what, you'll eventually give in to your base urges for whatever reason and spiral out of control, you'll lose your mind and personality and everything that makes you you, you'll lose absolutely everything and become another mindless beast some upstart hero will battle and slay in an awesome battle you'll eventually lose, because when you're a slow-moving giant whose roars shatter buildings and horn will be lucky if it can even fire lasers, though they'd probably be the biggest lasers of all time, ever, you're no match for something faster than you. Unless it's too weak to do anything. Which most upstart heroes aren't.
And finally, for how I was born... when a mare with Science (A clear empty vial symbolising researching and taking samples and doing analysissy stuff) as her Cutie Mark captures a wild Dragon to investigate him and they eventually start to love each other very much, the stupidest and lamest love story you can possibly imagine happens, and when the egg doesn't hatch at a time considered normal for chickens, the egg ends up sold on the black market a bunch of times and stolen and re-sold like a fancy painting, until it eventually hatches and a confused half-dragon Unicorn starts scratching up the ugly things around it while searching for its mother, only to be told that she died eighty years ago, the dragon died some other time, and I'm completely and utterly alone in the world. Rough stuff to drop on a newborn foal-drake-thing, but hey, it's the truth. Possibly.
Wanna know the real interesting thing?.. I look a little like the red-maned yellow-eyed white-furred pony suspected to be my Mom, judging from the old photos of her - even if her mane was a complete pile of slag - but... I look nothing like my suspected Dragon Dad, a fat green dragon with blue highlights and a thicker-scaled blue chest I don't have, along with an actual tail-flail, a dumb, brutish tail-flail. But that ancient beast Celestia fought all those years ago, his name forever lost to time... Besides the non-Dragon stuff like his weird teeth and gem-eyes and my white parts and horn... I look just like him.
It probably sounds weird to a pony, wondering if my dad was actually this horrible monster that almost destroyed everything, just to say he could do what no other dragon ever could. And yeah, it sounds weird to me, too, when I'm in my more ponyish moods. But... something in that story calls out to me. I might just be some throwaway egg, like most Dragons - And most Griffons, not that they'll admit it - but maybe, just maybe, I might be the daughter of the greatest Dragon to ever live. I might have been taken by either some random treasure hunter, a survivor, or Princess Celestia herself, who had her own plans for me. And that's awesome. The monster dragon dad part, not the Celestia's plan part, that's just pretty cool. She's smart, cunning, and when going through history books, I wonder if she has some Draconic blood in her. It would explain her huge size, compared to other ponies. And her sister, who 'Only' owns the moon and all of nighttime, and maybe also creatures of the night. Owning Equestria, the greatest land on the planet, likely helps contribute to Celestia's size, along with all the tea and cake she chokes down to fit in more.
Anyway, back to the important thing: Dragon dad. The timelines fit, and eggs can last a really long time before they hatch. It wouldn't surprise me if Science Mare ended up buying the egg on the black market, suspecting that it was a dud, selling it off again, and that's how my egg got found.
Maybe... I am special, after all?
Then again, it'd also be cool if I became awesome and powerful on my own, without needing some epic destiny or super-powerful dad or a plan from a higher power guiding me.
Then again, maybe I should get on with the story some time this century. Even if Dragons do live a long time, meaning I could literally write a book so long no pony could ever finish it in their natural lifetimes, and then watch ponies try to do so and fail. I think I might do that some time, when everything else gets so boring, writing seems like the fun option.
Anyway, let's start at the beginning. I was a newborn foal-dragon-thing, and sweet Celestia, I was adorable. I saw the foal pictures of myself, and I'm embarassed to say I was the cutest thing ever. I was scared and confused, running through Canterlot while letting out wordless animalistic yells, searching for my mother, one that wasn't there, and never would be. My wings were small and useless for flying, and my claws were dull. But that didn't stop me from giving a good scratch to anything that got too close, even if I couldn't even make cuts.
I eventually woke up in a crib in Canterlot Specific Hospital with a forcefield trapping me inside, paralysis spells keeping my body so still, I would have suffocated if the spells hadn't been designed to let be breathe. And do what all newborns do anyway. The Royal Guard do not mess around. Well, they do, but when stuff gets serious, so do they.
As my helpless body lied there, a pony came to explain things to me, an Earth Pony mare with a baby bottle for a Cutie Mark on flanks that would be pretty hard to miss. Seriously, not making this up, THAT was her Mark. Her literal one and only talent was to be good at looking after foals, something most mares do well anyway without needing a magical butt-symbol chanelling their inner magic to boost their capabilities and grant a natural aptitude for said skill. Congrats, Loser Mare. I never did get her name, so I'm just gonna call her either that, or Butt Mare, which I named her as a newborn. Butt Mare feels more fitting.
Anyway, she could talk to me, even though I was fresh out the egg. Must be a Cutie Mark thing. She told me her dumb name, something to do with foals, and then she gave me this speech on how things are probably scary for you now, but things are gonna be alright, especially when you're older.
I smirked and asked, "Old like you?"
She laughed. It felt... good. I liked having something to talk to. The other two doctors in the room didn't understand a word, but they seemed used to this stuff, as if her literal one and only purpose in life was to talk to the babies of other foals, and this was the only place she could do it without it being weird. Butt Mare? If you're reading this, and you're still alive despite being old, please tell me if you have epic surgery skills you picked up from hardcore doctor training at increased gravity. That'd make you way less lame.
"Do you have a name?" She asked.
I told her my True Name, something so incredibly awesome that it cannot be printed here.
"Oh. Well, that's... A bit long. Hm... You're part-Dragon, so... how about... Spiney?"
I let her know exactly what I thought of that incredibly stupid name, and she forced a smile as her eyebrows betrayed her true emotions and she backed away slowly, to the surprise of her colleagues.
"What did she say?" A brown stallion doctor with a labcoat that didn't cover his Stethoscope mark asked in amusement.
"I... couldn't tell?" Butt Mare lied badly. You suck, Butt Mare.
Her colleagues laughed, and Butt Mare and I continued our conversation alone, because they left once they were certain she could handle things. We had a long - and incredibly boring, in retrospect - conversation about what she is and what I am and so on. She said I'm a Half-Dragon Unicorn, and I said no, I'm a Half-Unicorn Dragon. Then the conversation shifted to names, and I was told that I would fit in better if I had a nice pony name.
"Like Book Wall or Table Chair?" I asked. She laughed, and got out a stupidly huge Foal's book of pony names from a shelf I initially thought held super-important documents. Or hidden food. Or super-important documents that could double as food.
She opened it to the first page, a spread that also covered the second page. There was a bunch of pictures with words underneath it, followed by tiny numbers. She pointed to each one in order, telling me what they said.
"Non-pony names." I chose.
I regretted it soon enough. There was a bunch of ugly names starting with a hard G for Griffons, like Grizelda and Griswald and Gottswald and Gertrude and Gilda and Gak. What is Gak? What are any of these? These aren't even words. I expressed my dislike, and Butt Mare was expecting it this time, so she wasn't caught off-guard.
Turning the page, we got to the Dragon names. And every last one was stupid. One-word options? Lame. Who'd want to go around named Fang or Spines or Claws or Butt? Two-word options? Even when combining the best words listed, SharpTooth and DarkStorm and EmpressAwesome just sounded dumb. I asked for the gems section, partly because I was hungry, but mostly because gems are cool.
I went past the gems that are just colours, because to me, colour-names are a sign your parents just didn't care. "He has blue eyes, and he's blue, and he has a darker blue mane, so let's call him Blue... uh... Bouncer? Bomber? Blur? Wait, I'm not a COMPLETE idiot, uh... Days? Sky? YES, Blue Sky! Or Blue Sapphire! Or Cobalt Blue Navy Blue Sea Sky Blue Blue! The very best name for foal number nine! Now, to get started on number ten!". Also, hypothetical pony, Sapphire Sky sounds worse than Blue Sky because it means the same thing, it's just more pretentious. Forget Ruby, Sapphire, Onyx, Topaz, and pretty much any gems most ponies have actually heard of, I was looking for the good stuff.
After a short while, I found it. A gem coloured somewhat like me, with the absolute greatest name of all time.
I told Butt Mare that from this day forth, I would be called...
Sardonyx.
She smiled. "A fitting name."
Then she gave me this mini-speech on how life was going to be wonderful, and I was never really alone. I'd always have my friends.
Moving on, I moved on, going to an orphanage for ponies. Yes, they have those, where do you think the ponies with parents as dead as mine go? Anyhoof, my first four months there were laaame. At first, everypony was just a little scared of the 'Monster pony', and I had to move away from the foals if they started crying, but I eventually made friends with one colt who turned out to only like me because he wanted to fly on my back, and when I told him I was too young and my wings were currently useless, he got bored and wandered off. Meh, they were all idiots anyway, so I didn't want to be friends with them.
I ended up being adopted by two fancy-shmancy society-climbing Unicorns, a mare and stallion that spent hardly any time together when not in public, apparently saving their love for where others could see it. I didn't care, they fed me well, and that was the main thing back then. It was a simpler time. Also, over time, they actually warmed up to me. Is that the right expression? They started being nice to me where others couldn't see, buying me anything I wanted and letting me hoard it, and I finally started growing. Slower than a pureblooded Dragon would, but I still slowly grew from a less runty size to a more acceptable pony size and... no larger, unfortunately. I really wanted to get bigger than everypony else in town, but it was not to be. Not back then, anyway. They refused to let me become 'Too big' or 'An eyesore', making me give something up if I wanted something new so my hoard would stay the same size.
And when I went to School, some fancy place with a dumb name, I... sorta made some friends? I was expected to be a fancy-pants jerk, I even sorta looked like I was wearing fancy gloves, so being my usual open and bluntly honest self didn't exactly do me any favours wkth the crowds that like that kind of loser. Especially when I insulted the Pretty Mares crowd to their faces. Uh... hello? You're ponies, you all look the freaking same! Except for different bright colours and hair-spikes! Anyway, I made friends with a dumb painter Earth Pony mare, a lame emo colt with a serious love for swords and the complete inability to talk to mares without shoving his hoof so far into his mouth he pushed out his other organs right when they were about to fly out of his body in an effort to escape the shame of being anywhere near this colt - apparently, I didn't count as a mare, and could be talked to normally - and a ditzy, cheery, nerdy and stereotypical Unicorn mare with so much repressed anger for no apparent reason, I'd bet half my hoard she'd use Dark Magic and go crazy after just one spell if she had any actual magical talent or ability to use anything beyond third-level spells. You know, 'Alter Shape... OF A TINY GROUP OF OBJECTS!' Le Gasp! I heard she became a storywriter after all these years, writing books for foals where the average cookie-cutter hero defeats the worst of horrible monsters, typically evil Unicorns. My favourite villain is Lord Ironhide, the one with the cooler super-armour enhanced by magic and machine bent on conquering the world, because he's basically just pony soup inside the most awesome and evil-looking can ever. I like how he represents the inherent problem with obsession and how it hollows you out until there's nothing left inside but a lingering shell driven to achieve your goals at any cost, and his tongue electrifies things and he has missile launchers in his butt, that's freaking awesome. Hey, why do books always make Unicorns out to be the bad guys? Where are the stories with Pegasi that want to obliterate the surface world with lightning or create a focused thunder cloud so strong it can penetrate the planet's core and destroy it all? Or the Earth Ponies obsessed with returning the world to its wild, untamed, natural state by having a giant monster eat all the ponies and other sentient beings? Why do stories never end with a Dragon coming out of nowhere and beating the villain senseless with Raging Dragon Style? For that matter, why are Alternate History stories so obsessed with either making Celestia a tyrannical monster, or the kind of loser that gets her flank handed to her (heh) by a Griffon army? Some day, some giant monster or meteor or giant meteor monster is going to descend on Equestria, burning up on entry, and rather than teleport it away, we Unicorns are going to say 'Actually, we're the bad guys, so... yeah. Have fun with that!' before teleporting away and enjoying life on the nearest planet terraformed into non-suckishness by the biggest spell ever, energy gathered for the spell Spirit Bomb-style.
It's probably because magic is freaking awesome, and anything without magic is lame, whether lame ponies want to admit it or not.
Anyway, my friends back then weren't exactly my friends. They were just the ones I ended up talking to, and the other cliques decided we were all losers by default, since we didn't have any shared interests beyond our sorta-appreciation for art. I'd never abandon my friends, but... to my surprise, they'd temporarily abandon me the second I started showing too much of my Draconic nature. And when I say Draconic nature, I'm talking things like showing too many sharp teeth when you grin, or liking the villains in stories, or rushing off in the dead of night to find the nearest farm and eat a cow. In Equestria, you'd better be the cutest and happiest of happy ponies, the most cheerful and nice thing to ever glide gracefully through a field of pretty plants and animals before petting a puppy, enjoying some nice light reading, spending fun time talking aimlessly with your circle of friends and going on the occasional mini-adventure, and if you aren't like that or you don't have a circle of friends, you're a loser, a freak, and a monster.
Or I might just be looking into things too much. Or I might just be salty because ponies get mad when they find out you eat cows, and they suddenly get nervous or defensive, as if they think you're gonna choke down pony meat. I'd never eat my friends! Besides, cows and ponies have nothing in common. It's not like anypony actually likes the dumb animals, they aren't even properly sentient! You tell them to sit down and watch a movie, and they'll either get scared by explosions and run off, or stare mindlessly at the screen and not understand anything at all, except that they should cry when the others do. Sure, they can talk, but some parrots can mimic pony speech and be trained to say rude words, and some smarter magic-enhanced parrots from forests in the world with more ambient magic in them have picked up our very own Equestrian language. Doesn't mean they all know what they're saying or what those words mean. By the way, don't you love how our language is named Equestrian? Because why come up with clever names for our language, when we can instead make it clear that it's the language you're supposed to speak if you go to Equestria?
Sorry, we're getting off-topic. Back to the important thing: Me. Now, school... sucked. I showed great aptitude for the more physical activites like gymnastics and basketball, but my attempt at Hoofball got me in a full-body cast for a whole hour when some hideously obese living cannonball decided to go Kamikaze on my face, fully aware that I couldn't extend my wing and dodge a little to the side to let his throat hit my wing without getting in trouble for it. Not my finest hour. And no, I don't have a magical healing ability, the school had a Unicorn nurse, the only acceptable kind of nurse. I have tough scales, but my bones are as mediocre as any Unicorn's, so while I could laugh off a normal sword to the face, a hit with a sledgehammer or warhammer's going to suck. Sorry if my natural half-Dragon jerkishness is showing by saying whatever pops into my head, but if I was horribly injured and I could choose for an Earth Pony to make a splint out of twigs and bandages out of owls, a Zebra to make a magical healing potion out of tea leaves and Pegasus dung, or a Unicorn to cast a pain-removal spell, shove the bones back into place, and then use a healing spell, I'd pick the obvious best option.
Anyway, I didn't have a Cutie Mark in school. I must be a REAL late bloomer, because I still didn't have one by the time I went to Duel Academy. And to the surprise of everypony who expected me to be the kind of dumb Dragon they read about in comics and stories, ones who only exist to serve the pony that hatched them or serve as a mediocre selfish-evil filler villain for the hero to slay while the writer struggles to think of more interesting enemies, I OWNED in intellectual showdowns. Maths was a joke, Equestrian was annoyingly fiddly and obsessive, but I still got good test scores even if it was a pain, and I was pretty dang good at magic, if I do say so myself. I might not have been that quick at pulling off spells, but anypony can master theory if they can wrap their heads around it. Just like so many other foals in that town, I was a Spelling Bee champ, as if remembering how words are spelled is that big an accomplishment. Except for my friends, who thought I was cool as long as I danced to Canterlot's beat and tried not to step out of line or act too 'Dragon-y', the meaner ponies were filled with jealousy and hate over me, and I loved it. Is this how professional wrestlers feel? The ones you're supposed to love to hate? I hope so, because I want to be a wrestler. And ruler of my own town. And Empress of an army of awesome half-Dragon Unicorns, with Dragon slaves bowing down to me in the traditional manner. I'm not likely to get any of those... but yeah, it'd be sweet.
I do believe my proudest moment is when I created a spell that grows gems out of pretty much anything. Point it at something, and boom. Sapphire-encrusted bagel, Ruby-coated chocolate cake, and my personal favourite? A four-litre bottle of sweet strawberry milkshake levitated up and rolled into a small sphere of liquid, encased in a layer of Diamond, and then a layer of Onyx, and finally, a layer of Amber. Eat that, and enjoy how the contrasting flavours are complimented by the thick, gooey liquid that spurts out of the center. It's like an Eclair, except it's actually edible and actually delicious.
Sadly, I didn't get my Cutie Mark for that. So much for my Cutie Mark having something to do with gems. Then again, for a Dragon... wouldn't that be kind of like having a Cutie Mark that makes you naturally talented at Eating Donuts? Or Breathing? Even if Competitive Eating is a sport, that's pretty useless for any situation that isn't "We need you to eat X or bite through this rope".
Anyway, this biography is going to skip over my younger years, because they were really, really boring. And sad, and who'd want to read a story about a bunch of sad ponies crying all the time?
But my time in The Royal Canterlot Academy for Magical Duelling? That's when things got interesting. And I'll tell you all about it... some other time.