Children love to interact with everything, they are curiousity incarnate. To give a child the power to question is to see life grow, and parents crave nothing more than to see their child's wonder and knowledge expand. A parent whose child learns rapidly in the equine world is both a blessing and a curse, however. Knowledge is power, they say, and this is no more different when age is envolved.

Teach a child too much, give them too much freedom, and they can drown in it.

As was the case with Silent Roar, or Nightmare Moon, who had learned so much in the past few hours that her brain felt filled to capacity. Her teacher was none other than the unicorn ranger that had found her in the woods. His name was Willing Growth, but he went by Will for a nickname. The unicorn stallion had made it his newfound goal to get her caught up on everything that was new and modern.

Nightmare groaned throughout the impromptu lessons, vaguely remembering how Luna had hated listening to Starswirl the bearded's lectures. Some of the things Will was trying to teach her were too basic even for her. she knew basic math, she knew what a clock was and how to tell time, and she sure as tartarus knew how to read.

Will thought otherwise it seemed, and had amassed everything he could find on the subjects in the few hours she had alone. Well, not entirely alone. Doctor Points had pestered her to no end about her "place in time", Asking everything from "Have you foaled?" and "Was the equine plague still in effect before you vanished?" to more pressing matters like "do you know any dark magic?" and "Have you ever consumed meat?".

To these questions, Silent never really felt the need to lie to the doctor, finding it humorous when she nodded to the questions of meat and dark magic. This had perturbed the doctor greatly and he'd written down a whole page of notes before excusing himself and letting the nurse refresh her Iv bag. The nurse had also brought in a large helping of food around noon, notifying Silent that her weight ratio was way off and that she need to eat more food to regain her strength.

The draconian mare had growled at the aid but begrudgingly eaten her fill of the food. The nurse refilled her Iv, her eyes watching from the corners of her sockets to make sure the ancient mare didn't try any fast ones. When she had finished her meal, The nurse had tried to take the tray back but Silent had snapped her teeth at the aid's leg, startling her and making her back away quickly, holding her hoof to her chest protectively. Silent held the tray up to her chest and growled at the earth pony.

The nurse sighed and dropped her hoof back down to the floor a moment later, her voice quiet but strained with annoyance.

"Ma'am, i'm just trying to help you, if you wish to keep the empty tray you may, but i'll need it to feed you again at dinner time."

When Silent growled more as a response, the nurse left, opening to door to find Will about to open it, a pile of books in his magic. The nurse had whispered something in his ear, her eyes slanting back to look at Silent for a moment, before she pulled back and walked out of view. Will looked down the hall where she'd disappeared and then to Silent.

He frowned, and entered the room, closing the door behind him. "That wasn't very nice of you, she's just trying to help you recover ya know." He grumbled, setting the books in a stack at the end of the bed. Sitting next to them, he picked up the clipboard from previously and flipped the first book open.

Tilting her head to the side, Silent read the spine. Ancient Equestrian Translations, by Glyph Storm, huh...I guess he's trying to decipher what I wrote. She smirked and sat back, watching him as he flipped back and forth through pages. A moment or two into the work, he levitated a scroll and quill out of his bag and began looking back and forth from the clip board she'd written on and the book.

And now the fun begins, lets see what you think of me after this. Nightmare smirked, she would play this charade until her power was fully restored, and then it was sweet nightmares for the whole lot of em. She'd send entire towns into nightmare induced coma's, leaving them like that for a few days, and then let them all wake up to recount their horrid memories to others.

I think i'll start farther away from Canterlot actually, it seems tactically sound to effect smaller areas first. With Luna guarding the realm of dreams now, Nightmare had to be sure she kept on the down low until she was fully capable of over powering Luna.

"Huh." Will's verbal statement pulled nightmare out of her thoughts, she watched as he scribbled something down and then looked up at her. "Silent Roar, that's an interesting name, is it because you can't seem to speak?"

If looks could kill, Will would be a pile of ashes. The stallion flinched under the glare she leveled at him, and looked back down at his clipboard.

"Er, I'll take that as a yes then." Continuing on down the page, he blinked at her answers. "Okay, first question, putting "Equestria" as your place of origin isn't exactly helpful to the doctor or me. do you have a more detailed answer of where you are from?"

Silent Roar put her hoof to her chin and acted like she was thinking, and then she pantomimed a square in the air to him. At first he looked confused, tilting his head to the side slightly and flopping an ear.

"Um..you...lived within the borders?"

She smacked her hoof into her forehead and shook her head. using her magic she grasped the clipboard again, both to get a hold of it and try to siphon out some more magic from Will. To her dismay he let her have it with ease, he even procured a pen. She didn't even get a scrap of his magic before she had to let go.

Its fine, I have plenty of time, patience is a virtue here. Silent used the pen and scribbled a rough drawing of Equestria onto the back of a page. she outlined the area known as the Everfree forest and then filled in the spaces marked as Canterlot and Ponyville. From there she branched out to the foal mountains where she made a big scribbled circle. Letting Will take the clip board back and examine it, she watched as he nodded and jotted down some notes in his personal paperwork.

Once more he looked up. "Alright, thank you. Next question, you answered "Dragon slayer" as your job occupation, I assume this implies you killed rogue dragons that invaded our borders?" When Silent nodded, Will frowned. "I see, well sadly that occupation is no longer applicable to our time. Dragons have been allied with us for over a couple hundred years now."

Silent merely huffed and folded her arms, pinning her ears back against her head. Of course Celestia and Luna had done that! They wanted to be all goody goody with the other species. Silent couldn't care less about em, unless they wanted to worship her, then they were...acceptable.

Will kept talking. "Now with that being said, I wanted to ask a question about your physiology," Here Will brought out the X-ray if her body from a side view. "You have parts of your anatomy that are the same as a dragon's. The teeth, eyes, and these sacs under your lungs, all correlate to that of a dragon. This begs me to ask you, Silent, are you a half breed?"

Silent furrowed her brow, and shook her head. Will seemed perplexed.

"Oh? But if you're not as half breed, then how did you get those traits?" He paused for a moment, "...Was it by magical means?" Silent nodded slowly, looking out the window at the sunlight that peeked through the blinds. Again she reached for his clip board and he gave it willingly. This time she draw a circular symbol, with images and designs she pulled from her memories of Luna's magical classes. she created a makeshift rune symbol that held three markers within it.

the first marker was of transformation magic, she placed it at the top. The second marker was for a unicorn, and she placed it on the left. The third marker she placed as the symbol for dragon. She drew all of these in ancient equestrian, both to confuse Will, as well as make it hard for him to decipher the image. While she didn't really care if he succeeded, she also didn't want him to find out entirely what she was doing.

Handing him the clip board once more, she watched as he looked it over and then went to his translation books. after a couple seconds of confusion, he simply set it aside and looked back to her with a smile. "I'm just going to put magical as the reason." After jotting it down, he continued. "With your job being defunct, are there any skills you can show me without strenuous activity, that could be useful in this era?"

Silent thought for a moment and then nodded and was given the clipboard with a new sheet of blank paper. She wrote for a few minutes and then with a snicker she hoofed it back to him. She smirked when he started reading. the first one making him blush hotly.

"M-Ma'am, I...this isn't...okay, we need to cover some ground rules its seems. First off, Writing "kiss me and I'll show you my talents" isn't acceptable. Prostitution is illegal nowadays, and even then, that kind of activity requires strenuous movements. Plus...no offense, but you are in no condition to do stuff like that."

Silent couldn't help but chuckle as the stallion blustered his way through evading her proposition, she batted her eyelashes at him when he finished and let out a throaty purr that sent his mane straight up. He gulped and took three steps back.

"N-Nope, no way. nu-uh. I-I'm on duty anyway." Will looked anywhere but the mare on the bed. He instead quietly read down the list, some items making him squirm and others seeming to intrigue him. As silent expected, things like "professional dragon slayer," and "can kill just about anything" seemed to bother him, but stuff like "soldier" and "weapon trained" grabbed his interest.

Will wrote several things down and then looked up once more, a happy twinkle in his eyes. "Sweet! It sounds like you were a military pony, and that field of knowledge I know! So, next question. Your throat is pretty messed up, can you tell me how that happened? Cause you not being able to speak is...hard for us."

Silent purposefully scowled, and nodded. She quickly scribbled "I can fix that" onto the paper. When Will translated it, he blinked in surprise.

"Y-you can? W-well tell me what you need, and if we have it i can get right on that!"

Silent made a grunting noise and shook her head. she scribbled onto the page and handed it to him. When he read it, his cheeks flared up to their brightest. "I....I don't think we can do that...the only other mare here is...well--"

It was here that the door opened and the only other mare in the building walked back in, carrying another clipboard and a few syringes. "So the doctor wants me to take another blood sample from around your hip area and..." The nurse paused as she became aware that both occupants were staring at her with two very different expressions.

Silent was gazing at her with a pair of sultry half lidded eyes and a light blush was on her cheeks, while Will was staring at her like she'd walked in on him masturbating or something. Setting her clip board down on the table, she leveled a glare at Will. "Ooooookay, whats going on and what did i just walk into?"

Will simply blushed harder and slowly handed her the note. She read it, she blinked wide eyed, she blushed furiously and then to Silent's delight started beating Will over the head with her clipboard until it broke.

"She wants me to do WHAT!?"

**********

The nurse, Doctor Points, and Will, all looked from the clipboard and it's single sentence, to Silent Roar, who was looking back at them with a semi serious expression, her front hooves steepled together as her eyes darted between the three of them. After explaining in written format how the spell worked, they had fallen silent and shuffled awkwardly about. Doctor Points spoke up, coughing into a hoof and glancing at the nurse for a moment.

"You do realize this sounds completely preposterous to us, right?" He pointed to the clipboard, where the sentence 'Let me kiss a mare and take her voice.' glared back up at the trio. "Seriously? this sounds like a spell straight out of the imagination! I went to school, and no mage would allow such magic to exist...then again," he glanced at his patient. "You do come from a time when magic was in it's infancy, things deemed unacceptable now were useful back then I imagine...."

Silent nodded, and Doctor Points frowned, his ears folding back to touch his neck, and he looked to the other mare present. The nurse out ride shook her head and lifted her hoof defensively against her chest. "No way, not in a thousand year will I do that."

Silent smirked, oddly ironic statement there, nurse, I haven't done this is a thousand years either!

To her disgruntlement, The doctor agreed. "I must admit while it would help us get more direct answers from you, and you'd be able to speak, I'm not going to put my career, or the job's of others in dangerous fields. I cannot allow this spell to take place. I'm sorry Ms Roar, but until I can get the clearance to do so, I'll be putting it in your paperwork that you are a mute."

Silent Roar growled, she pointed exaggeratedly at the clipboard and when will gave it to her, she furiously scribbled out a reply.

Will retrieved it from her, and read aloud. "This was perfectly legal in our time! We could request a voice, and thus be given one! Have these many years softened our race so much? Could we not just take from those who deserve not to speak?"

All three looked at her with sideways ears and perplexed expressions, the nurse furrowed her brow. "What do you mean by that. While I understand the irony of your situation, I feel it should be said, every pony deserves to have their voice, and keep it."

Silent threw her hooves up in the air and then flopped back into the bed cushions. folding her arms and glaring at her lap.

Suffering children, why is it so hard to get a voice!? Silent snatched the clipboard from Will, and scribbled again, before thrusting it in his snout, he took a step back and frowned, displeased by her actions. "She asks...why can't we use a criminal or dying pony..."

Here the doctor stepped forward with a haggard sigh, Silent could tell he was trying to reighn in his frustration. "Listen, Ms Roar, what you are asking, while legal in your time, is NOT legal in ours, besides the obvious moral issues with stealing a voice from a dying pony or a criminal even, it is wrong to do so."

Silent looked out the window, frowning and grumbling.

It was here the Doctor reached out and touched her shoulder, making her flinch. She slowly slid her eyes in their sockets to look at him, without moving her head. the result was that Will put a hoof on the side of his sword, and the nurse backed away. The Doctor didn't pull back. "Ma'am, With as much respect and consideration as i can muster for your predicament, It's like this, when in Roan, Do as the Roan's do. You are in our time now, and until you go back--"

the nurse quipped quietly "If she can go back..." Oddly, her statement wasn't said in annoyance, it simply was.

"--Then I am going to have to ask you to adhere to our rules, our way of life." Removing his hoof, Silent watched as the Doctor straitened himself up and turned away from her, to Will. "Ranger Growth, I want you to stay here and watch Ms Roar, and try to help her as much as you can. See if you can get her caught up on some of the laws of our little town and the rudimentary basics of modern etiquette she'll need to eh...fit in." At the last part of his sentence he looked back at Silent and smiled lightly.

She scowled back.

When the nurse and Doctor left the room, she looked back out the window with the same displeased expression from before. If she couldn't get a voice, this would make things quite complicated. If she stole one, it would be blatant that she cast the spell now deemed illegal.

Curse Celestia and Luna for their morals...it'd be so much easier if I just took it from a criminal, they will not need it in the afterlife anyway! She smacked her hoof into the sheets in frustration, and then using her magic, she picked up a nearby picture frame and crumpled it instantly. Will barked out a "hey!" before she leveled him with a glare and sent the chunk of scrap hurtling out the window at a speed that shattered the glass in several pieces.

Will jumped to his feet and sent out his magic across her body, restraining her front hooves to her side and pushing her head into the pillow. she snarled for about a second before she felt his magic slam her jaw shut. Will trotted around the side of the bed and bared his teeth at her. Silent widened her eyes at this, her ears pinned back and her teeth bared back.

"Alright that's enough!" He hissed, and brought his nose within an inch of hers, making her surprised expression all the more genuine, "I have had it with your bratty, childish glares, your insults and vulgarity! The first thing i'm going to teach you, is some humility."

The nurse poked her head in to speak and Will snapped to her. " We are busy with a lesson, please give no interruptions."

The nurse promptly squeaked and closed the door. When her foot falls had gone away, he looked back to her. next to him, the clipboard floated up and a pen zipped across it's surface, writing out the basics of a spell. Once finished, Will unceremoniously bopped it against her snout and sat back to where she could only see the clipboard and it's contents.

"That is a repair spell, in our village every foal capable of magic learns this first, so if they break something, they fix it as well. You are going to do the same."

Silent glared daggers at the clipboard, wishing it would burst into flame, but when it didn't she snorted and read the spell over. It was simple enough. In fact, it was too simple. She knew a spell that was far better then this, and instead of falling the stallion's learning lesson, She decided would surprise him.

After about ten minutes of holding the clipboard up for her, Will pulled it away. If he expected a remorseful or guilty expression, he got none of that. Silent was the epitome of calm, collected peacefulness. she closed her eyes, lit her horn, and Will watched in full fascination. As if time was reversing, the many shards of glass reversed from their resting places on the ground, and in perfect sync, the window mended itself in one fluid motion.

Even more surprising, was that the object that caused the damage, right before the window finished mending, came floating through the hole it had made, oscillating in mid air all the way over to the desk, where it then un-crumpled itself and reverted back to it's previously undamaged form.

All of this took place in a matter of a minute, And Silent was very thankful that Will hadn't removed his magic from her arms or her neck, the magic pull she was getting was really helping heal her hip. Will for the most part had his mouth agape in astonishment. She looked slowly from her, to the window, and then back again, a hoof lifted and swinging back and forth between the two.

"I... that was...you...what?!" Standing and walking over to the picture frame, he scooped up the picture with a hoof and examined it closely. his magic faltered and fell away from Silent's form as his attention changed targets. She found herself rather amused by his antics, as he poked and prodded the frame with his magic.

"What in tarturus was that spell? You didn't fix everything, it's like you made it never happen!" He set the frame down and went to the window, slowly encasing the glass and feeling it before his eyes widened. "N-No, you did more than that, this glass's internal structure is more firm, better formed, gods above..." Will slowly turned around and looked at her, this time with full apprehension.

"W-what did you cast?" He asked, his voice pouring out ample amounts of curiosity. Silent inwardly cheered.

Good, he knows i'm no foal when it comes to magic, and as an added bonus I healed quite a bit of my hip too. still...Silent watched as Will walked over to her, and they both stared at one another, two different forms of thought processing in their minds. One questioned the level of danger this mare could deal, while the other contemplated if she should show less of her power.

Their thoughts were rudely interrupted by the door opening and the Doctor barged in. he quickly looked to the window, then to Will, and finally to Silent. "You!" he exclaimed, pointing a hoof at her. "What did you just do? What Spell did you cast?" He stepped forward with each question until he was on the other side of the bed opposite Will. Both stallions looked down at her, and weirdly, Silent felt herself shrink into the bedding by an inch.

yup, I definitely need to be careful with what I cast around here... Sitting up fully after a second, she collected the clipboard and scribbled the answer. Will read it out loud and quietly exclaimed "Sweet Celestia...it was a temporal reversal spell..." The Doctor opened his jaw in surprise and then they both looked at her, Will murmuring "how in the heck can you cast a spell of that caliber? That's like.." he Looked to the Doctor, "Isn't a spell like this around the royal sister's level?"

Doctor Points snorted and shook his head, "Erm, No, I don't think so, but it is a spell rarely cast by random unicorns, it has multiple levels. Some are simple, others are complex. An average unicorn from Canterlot University could cast this spell to fix something a window." He then frowned and looked back at Silent Roar, "However, there is one part of that spell that most cannot cast, and you, ma'am just did it with ease."

Will twitched an ear and sighed. "What did she do?" Silent looked at him like he'd betrayed her and he snipped "Oh don't look at me like that, you are a very odd case even in my book."

Doctor Points sat down. "Just a few seconds ago, after She shattered that window, a patient came in with a cut on her foreleg. It was rather deep. I went to patch it up, only to watch in amazement as the wound closed up and even a couple globs of debris removed themselves from the wound!" He chuckled, "Frankly, I'm quite surprised Ms Roar here can do such a thing, that part of the spell casting process is very rare. If any part of her spell is a higher level, it's the fact that she reversed organic damage."

Shit...

Doctor points smirked as a bead of sweat trickled down Silent's neck. "Not to worry," he said while standing up and walking to the door, "If anything it means you've made my job a lot easier. You should be very easy to find in records of old, as back then, a spell caster of your level would be very useful and thus, very noteworthy.

ShitshitshitshitshitSHITSHIT Why didn't I think of that! Of course this old codger has been observing everything i've been doing since arriving, he spotted the inconsistencies in my blood, my magic, and my body, quick, think of something!

wracking her brains out, she snatched up the clipboard and scribbled something, before almost flinging the scrap of wood at the doctor, whose reflexes barely caught it before it smacked his snout. He read the sentence. "N-Not your spell? what do you mean it's not your spell? You cast it."

Silent made an effort to look like she was hiding something, biting her lip, looking away cautiously, nervously flicking her ears. All little ques to show she was anxious about revealing more. Doctor Points and Will both stepped forward, Will speaking up authoritatively. "Ma'am, You're clearly distressed about something, what is it?" He and the Doctor leaned in, ears forward.

this would be a perfect time to slit their throats....Nightmare chuckled inside. Composing herself slowly, she nervously took the clipboard offered to her by the Doctor, and wrote out her half lie.

Doctor points took it from her once she was done, and read aloud for Will. "We were not supposed to cast it, our teacher, Starswirl, the Bearded said it was for emergencies only...We thought, it would serve a better purpose for what soldier, Willing Growth requested we cast."

Will backed up immediately. "wait, wait, wait a darn minute...Starswirl was your teacher?!"

When Silent nodded, both stallions sucked in breath and looked at one another. will spoke first. "so...that explains the power level...b-but then that means if you knew Starswirl, then you might know Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Right?"

Silent had to fight not to growl or frown, instead she nervously chuckled and shook her head, before writing more on the clipboard, at this rate she'd need a new sheet of paper soon. Once more the Doctor read aloud her response.

"We were not his student, more like a passing learner. We met Starswirl on the border of the dragon lands, where we were hunting a rogue dragon. Injured from a previous fight, we witnessed his casting of said spell and asked him to teach it to us."

here Silent rubbed a forehoof against her forehead, looking exasperated, blowing a lock of her mane out of her eyes. The Doctor chuckled and continued.

"We were not expected for his lectures, they are more dangerous than some dragon's we have fought! Regardless of this, it is the only spell he taught us, and our time with each other was nary a week in company. I went on to fight the dragon, and he....he went somewhere else, we do not know where."

The clicking of the clock claimed the majority of the room's sound for the next few moments as the two stallions absorbed this knowledge, and then an idea came to Nightmare, and she wrote more.

"We were camping not a few weeks later from this encounter, when we woke in those woods the soldier, Willing growth found us in. We are still not sure how we got there, or what caused our sudden alteration of time, but we have an idea."

That got the two males attention, and they scooted closer. Silent wrote out the next part slowly, seeming to shrink in embarrassment. her cheeks reddened and her ears flattened against her neck. The Doctor spoke more.

"We have been known to..sleep cast... in the past."

Doctor Points sighed and tossed the clipboard onto the bed next to her. "Well that is certainly a possibility, but most foals stop doing that at around ten, did you never get trained to stop your horn's flow of magic while sleeping?"

Prepared for this inquiry, Silent broadened the fabricated story.

"We suffered surges at a young age, our magic once surged in a field and it continued for two hours until we fell unconscious." Here the doctor gasped, putting a hoof to his lips, before reading more. "we were unconscious for a week, and were told we almost passed on..."

Will grimaced at this, rubbing a hoof on his other leg. "Yikes..."

the Doctor continued. "Ever since, sleep has become dangerous to those around us. We have woken in the epicenter of blown out houses, destroyed glades, and ruined forest floors. We think what happened in your forest, to us, was a mixture of both a magical surge, and starswirl's spell."

Nightmare inwardly patted herself on the back for the story. Doctor Points put his hoof to his chin and tapped it a couple times before nodding. "That would explain why my magical meter showed two different levels, one low and the other unimaginably high...and I suppose it could explain why you have a piece of your hip missing. You sort of teleported through time, and teleportation without a point of landing or a point of known origins can be extremely detrimental, Losing parts is a known risk."

He stood up with a determined expression. "I won't be able to medically say it's sound, but it makes sense logically and that's good enough for me." Next to him Will nodded his agreement and Silent sighed with a small smile. "Now, You need some rest, Will, she will need some more paper, and maybe a set of pens, in case some fail. Heavens above I know I've ran into those. It's like they engineer some to just be duds."

Silent looked down at the pen and turned it to the side where she could read the name.

Hmm, I know not who these flim n flam brothers are, but if they make pens utensils that purposefully fail, I will give them never ending nightmares of sudden inexplicable fatherhood and broken contraceptives.

**********

Author's Note

Eventually, the warbling griffon who writes this story will manage to give regular updates.