The life and times of Lafayette Ryder

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!”

We walk outside to find Spike shouting in excitement at the chance to meet the king of the dragons. Sujenymos chuckles at the youngling as Spike shows off all the Draconic words and phrases he knows and asks for an autograph.

“Young Sylpegk,” Sujey says while patting Spike on the head gingerly, “while I am very impressed with your knowledge I must say that you still have much to learn about our holy language.”

“Wait,” Spike pauses, “why’s it holy?”

“You mean to tell me that you know nothing of how our language came to be?” the great, silver monarch asks in shock.

“No, I don’t know very much about dragons at all really; I’ve lived with ponies all my life and they don’t know much either.” Spike tells him.

“Well now,” Sujey grumbles, “that wrong must be righted immediately.” He looks over at my family and I. “Sergeant Ryder, would you care to sit with Sylpegk and I and hear of the dragons lore?”

“Absolutly!” Twilight answers before I can even open my mouth.

“I’d love to.” I finally say as Twi runs back into the library to fetch a quill and parchment. She’s back out and at my side by the time I’m sitting down next to Spike and Sujey.

“King Sujenymos?” she says.

“Yes?” he replies.

“Would it be Ok if I recorded this all?” Twi asks hopefully.

“Certainly.” Sujey agrees.

“In that case,” I say, pulling my iPod from my coat pocket, “let’s use this instead.”

“What is that?” Sujey asks interested by my electronic device.

“It’s an iPod,” I turn it on and pick a song at random from the menu, “with it I can listen to music, view images, watch videos, or in this instance record your voice as it is. Every word you say will be perfectly copied into a digital format that will last forever.”

“How ingenious.” He mutters under his breath as I set the device to capture his speech.

“So what were you saying about our language?” Spike asks, bringing us back to the topic at hand.

“Well, Sujey repositions his body and scratches his chin, “if it’s alright with you I’ll just start from the beginning of our history and explain it from there; it will make more sense that way.”

“Go ahead.” Twilight urges.

Sujey closes his eyes in thought for a long moment and starts speaking in a rough, rumbling tone. Beneath his words I can hear ancient Draconic words form deep in his maw, he’s speaking in duel tongues again and somehow it makes every words he utters reverberate within my mind with crystal clarity. The boys lean next to me and watch and listen in awe as the greatest living dragon tells us a firsthand account of the history of his kind, Twilight scribbles notes at first but is soon lost in the tales being told and she too leans onto my side, Spike sits near us but doesn’t move as his idol speaks, he just stares up into Sujenymos’ blue eyes and absorbs every word the elderly dragon says.

“In the dawn of time, when the astral sisters first created the day and night, when the chaos god first set randomness and excitement loose on the world at large, and the first ponies began to walk upon the land, another goddess rose to power out of sight from the others. It was her that gave birth to the three mighty families of dragons as well as the rocs and the wyverns, the sea serpents and the Constalite beasts. She gave each race of her children unique powers and part of her essence so that we may live as one with both her and the land she blessed. May Zaranquenyes bless us all.”

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While the Astral sisters, Cyjezdy and Laqendes as the dragons called them, set about creating and governing their nation of Equestria a winged beauty by the name of Zaranquenyes conceived and birthed three children; Sujenymos, Duwiqdencaf, and Zaran, the latter of the three being her favorite son and secret lover.

Two of the three brothers left the mountain home they were born in to travel the unknown lands surrounding them, they quickly returned to their mother with a simple request; a form of speech so they may communicate with all the other creatures who could not think to each other as they could. Their mother slit her throat and offered her own voice to them each, leaving herself with only guttural howls and moans. Her three children thanked her for the offering but felt that they should give her more for her sacrifice. Together they created a language akin to their mother’s now rumbling, raspy words, they perfected the tongue and carved runes that symbolized the words, and finally, when they were pleased with their creation, they presented it to their mother. Zaranquenyes was so pleased by the gift that she gave them her blessing to go and do as they pleased. They immediately did just that.

While their mother was ecstatic to see her children go off on adventures and enjoy themselves she became depressed when her sons fought with each other, due to Zaran’s carnal relationship with her, and began to hate one another. Her favorite son abandoned her and fled to an island in the sea of Grundthegar, her other two children quarreled further and left to find their own lands so they need not see each other. Zaranquenyes grieved and felt sorrow for her lost sons. In the midst of her grief she conceived once more, this time giving birth to two intelligent children, one a slender serpent with a dozen legs and the other a small, two legged dragonite, and one semi-sentient child, a bird brained eagle-like creature of massive proportions. These three new sons stayed with her but longed for a life of true freedom, after much thought their mother released them into the world with her blessing.

The holy matriarch fell into sorrow once more and felt the need to have a companion. Since she was growing old and did not wish to conceive another child just for such a selfish want she did nothing about this desire. One night she felt so alone that she ventured from her cavern to find solace in the night sky and the glimmering moon that Laqendes had so painstakingly forged for all to wonder at. Inspiration struck her and she flew into the pitch black heaven above her. She caught the strands of the dark sky and began to sew them together into a mate, her mind wandered as she worked, imagining how perfect this fellow would be, and her hands slipped at a crucial point causing her hand made lover to be born with the mind of a beast rather than that of one such as herself.

Despite all the love and affection she had shown the feral beast of her creation it could never love her back. Finally realizing this she let the first Constalite roam free, it then returned to the night sky and made it’s own mate by gnashing and tearing at the fabric of the night until it suited his animalistic desires and they lived peacefully for a time.

The two spirits of the sky were found by Laqendes who bred them and filled her night sky with their descendants. As soon as the once barren sky was filled to the brim with these Constellations the few remaining on land took refuge in various forests across Equestria to spend the rest of their near endless lives together in pairs.

She became depressed yet again and contemplated allowing her mind to drift away into the void just beyond mortal comprehension. The only thing that stopped her suicidal thoughts was the return of her three youngest children with a message for her. They told her how lonely her eldest sons were, how they had no family, no friends, and most importantly no mates and that neither did her younger children. The serpent, the wyvern, and the roc left her after telling her this so that she might decide her course of action without being pestered.

Zaranquenyes thought long and hard on what to do and eventually decided on a plan of such simple elegance that it could not fail. She conceived once more and birthed a female whelp for each of her six sons, but she used the last of her bodily strength to do so and grew weak soon afterwards.

Hearing of their mother’s failing health all of her children and even the first Constalite came to visit her.

“Teqw uni,” she told them, “luwxe tes, cun tes, sir wyh tes.”

“Take one, love them, care for them, sire with them.”

She laid her head down and spoke once more. With her final breath she said one word with such great meaning that it soon became a blessing just to utter it.

“Drogun.”

"A word that's meaning cannot be translated into any language other than Draconic and means things which can only be felt, not truly spoken."

Her sons held her body as she passed from this life to the next, the wept as her flesh crumbled, and they thanked her one last time as her sacred magic seeped into each of them.

The three elder brothers made amends soon after that and began siring children, every year each one would gift the next a daughter to bred with, this continued as a holy tradition for years.

The serpents, the rocs, and the wyverns spread out and found their own niches but all three faced problems that stymied them at every turn.

The first serpent, Syvsyn, was injured while on a journey to the ocean with his wife; his back legs and genitalia were severed rendering him unable to walk on land or procreate.

The first Wyvern, Jemucelys, and his wife flew to the eastern most edge of Equestrian land. Their children were many but tended to fight brutally and kill each other until their numbers became too low to continue breeding.

The first Roc, Kreylvurn, bred with his wife and then wife his daughters and granddaughters and every other suitor he could find and mount. After only a few generations the Rocs became feral and unintelligent due to the inbreeding and have kept that same trait up to today. They grew violent and began raiding the dragon’s nest for eggs.

Zaran and his first wife grew exponentially more adventurous as they grew older. After traveling the entire world thrice over the decided to continue on to the next frontier; space. Since their departure from this world their children have been adopted into one of the other two dragon’s families.

Duwiqdencaf populated the east while Sujenymos populated the west. The two brothers have been on good terms since then and continue to trade wives-

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“-to this vey day.” Sujenymos finishes his story just as dusk fades into dark.

“Wow.” A chorus of voices, including my own, says at once.

“I hope you found our history both educational and entertaining young Sylpegk especially now that you know your Draconic name and heritage as well as your bloodline.”

“I know I found it exciting!” Twilight tells the king.

“I’m quite pleased to hear that Mrs. Ryder.” Sujey says.

“Wait a minute,” Spike suddenly says, “I got the stuff about why Draconic language is holy and my heritage and all that but what did you mean by my “bloodline”?” the teenaged dragon uses air quotes as he says the last word.

“I meant your parentage of course.” Sujey tells him.

“Ok.” Spike says lamely. “Who are my parents?”

“In all my years I’ve only met one other dragon with scales of purple and fins of green, you are undoubtedly the lost son of Murgarsdhwa the beautiful.”

“Uh…ok.” Spike says dumbfounded by the information. “But then who’s my dad?”

“Murgarsdhwa is my oldest and most beloved wife.” Sujey says calmly.

“Wait… you mean!?!” Spike says flabbergasted by the assumption in his head.

“Yes Spike, I’m your father, but this does lead to an interesting conundrum.”

“What would that be?” Twilight asks in Spike’s stead since he’s far too excited to speak.

“Murgarsdhwa was, unfortunately, sterile. She cannot lay fertile eggs.”

“But if that’s true then how-” Sujey cuts Twilight off with a claw pointed at her.

“My long time friend Cyjezdy, Celestia as you all call her, requested a few “dud” eggs to use as a final test for her prospective students.”

“They told me that I was to hatch that egg with my magic!” Twilight exclaims.

“They lied,” Sujey explains, “the true test was for you to discover that the egg was empty, it was not a test of raw power but off intelligence, logic, and deductive reasoning. You failed the actual assignment but what you accomplished was so much more impressive that you were still accepted into the school as Celestia’s personal student. She told me all about it afterwards and I was quite impressed myself.”

“So,” Twilight begins, “what you’re saying is that I made Spike from nothing but an empty egg?” Spike looks speechlessly back and forth from Twilight and his newly found father.

“Yes,” Sujey says, “and no. My seed and mine wife’s ova were already there, they had just failed to grow and mature as they should. Sylpegk was alive but just barely. Your magic forced him to develop as he should have done naturally.”

“So-” Twilight starts to say.

“I’m your child but Twilight literally raised me?” Spike interrupts, speaking for the first time in a good while.

“Yes.” Sujey confirms.

“DADDY!” Spike rushes over as fast as his stubby legs can carry him and gives his father a big hug around the muzzle. Sujenymos chuckles and pats his son on the back.

“I’m so very pleased to have met you my long lost son.” The aged king says kindly.

“And I’m so glad that I met you too.”

“Say,” I cut in, “it’s getting dark and Sujey probably wants to get back to the rest of his family, why don’t you go spend the night with them?”

“Really?” Spike asks me. “Can I dad”

“I’d like nothing more.” His father says.

“Can I Twilight?” The young dragon looks to his adoptive caretaker.

“Go ahead Spike.” Twilight says, choking back a sob as she does.

“Sujey and Spike say good bye and fly off into the night as father and son, one riding on the other’s shoulders as they go. We put the boys to bed and the Twi and I head to bed as well. Once we’re snuggly under the covers I decide to ask Twilight the pressing question at the moment.

“Are you going to let him go?”

“Yes.” She replies.

“Really?” I prod further.

“Really, he’s found his real father and his real family.” She says. “Besides, I always knew I’d have to let go of him eventually, I couldn’t have kept him as a baby forever and I don’t know how to raise a teenage dragon.” She sniffles a bit and I pull her into a close embrace.

“It’s the right thing to do.” I tell her.

“I know,” she sniffles again, “but I’ll miss him so much.”

“Twi, you’re his adoptive mother basically, he’ll come back and visit often I’m sure.” I comfort her.

“Yeah, I’m sure he will.” She says, turning to me and snuggling closer. We stay that way until we fall asleep.

Things are looking up.

Alternate chapter title: You ARE the father!