Shine on, You Crazy Dragon
Shine on, You Crazy Dragon
It was a beautiful morning in Ponyville. The birds warbled and, high above, a sleepy sun shone over thatched roofs, giving the—
“SPIIIIIIKE!”
That unexpected yell shook the Golden Oak library down to its roots: leaves fluttered, thrushes flew away, and the beehive almost fell.
A few seconds elapsed, but there was no sign of a baby dragon showing up.
“SPIIIIKE!”
This second shout was not as loud as the first one: it takes a lot of stamina to yell twice at the top of one’s lungs, and stamina had never been Twilight’s shtick. Acumen, yes. Stamina, no. Thus, the fallout was less devastating: leaves shivered, the beehive swang ever-so-slightly, and the birds—they had already flown away, so forget about birds.
Twilight’s second call remained as unnoticed as the first one.
Furious, she stomped up the stairs to the first floor, and found her familiar deeply asleep in his basket. She rubbed her nose. Her eyes widened and she facehoofed in realisation.
“Now,” she whispered to herself, “this scallywag will get his lump.”
She breathed deeply. Her horn lit as two nimbuses of magic appeared around Spike’s ears, pulling out the hidden earplugs.
“SPPPIIIIIKKKKKEEEE!”
Suddenly the basket was empty. Twilight raised her head and saw, above on the ceiling, a round purple blotch with four outstretched spurs, streaks of green and bulging eyes. She floated down this crêpe and whirled round. “Spike, thank you for volunteering to help me so early in the morning,” she chirped as she descended the stairs with her quarry in tow.
She stopped in front of a bookshelf and broke her spell. A thunk sounded behind her, followed by a grunt and the rubbing of scales. “Since you’re awake,” she said, “tell me why the book Dragons: a spatial analysis of lairs, dens, hoards, loots and plunders by Cator is missing, please.”
“How’s that? Who’s Cator?” Spike asked, yawning.
Twilight sighed and assumed her academical stance. “The Mare Cator, as everyone refers to nowadays—her true name was Creamer—was a cartographer who lived in the early days after Nightmare Moon’s banishment. She’s famous for inventing a projection system—of course you know it’s impossible to represent the surface of a sphere on a plane without deforming its contents, don’t you?—so, a projection system called ‘conformal’ because it preserves angles, thus bearings, while unfortunately altering distances and especially surfaces. Besides, she first endeavoured to map the entirety of Equestria, collating centuries of disjointed observations by—” She broke off.
“Zzzz…” Spike commented, sprawling on the ground.
A bucket of icy water flew from one remote corner of the library and spilled all its contents over the dozing dragon.
“Oops!” Twilight said. “I’m sorry Spike. Looks like there’s a leak in the roof.”
“Hey!” a drenched Spike protested. “That’s not fair!”
“The world is not fair,” Twilight replied. “So many mishaps happen, even in such a cozy library!”
Spike growled. “I’ve never heard of that book. I’m sure you never asked me to find it.”
“Spike, do you realise it’s the third book that disappears in less than a month? Are you sure you can still keep this library in good working order?”
“Twi, I swear by Celestia I never saw that book. Somebody must’ve borrowed it on the sly.”
Twilight paced around. “Spike, who could possibly find any interest in that book? It is ancient, dog-eared, and has no practical value. Only scholars would. Scholars… or dragons?” She stopped and cast an inquisitorial look at Spike.
Spike blushed. “But… But… I assure you I know nothing about this book. Twilight, why would I pinch it while I can ask you for permission to read it?”
Twilight pouted. “Okay, you’ve got a point. On the other hand, if it’s not you, then who is it? Books do not evaporate like that!”
“Evawhat?”
“Never mind,” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Curiously, I wonder if—” She rushed to her lectern, flipped a notepad open and riffled through it. “Hey, I was right!” she exclaimed. “Every book has disappeared in the nights between Waterdays and Firedays. Isn’t that peculiar? Firedays, dragons…”
“So what?”
“Spike, two colliding facts may be called a coincidence, three would be a doozie, but four is utterly impossible. There’s some sort of sapient design at work here. Maybe all that dragon stuff is just a red herring. Anyway, I intend to find out who’s the neck to plunder my library.”
“Plunder?”
“Oh come on Spike, stop pestering me! Yes, plunder. Even one book surreptitiously—”
“Surrep what?”
Twilight hunched and her ears flopped. “Forget it, Spike,” she said in a resigned tone. “I just want to know who’s the perp, and nab him, or her.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“We’ll set up traps all over the place. I guarantee that whoever breaks inside will not escape unpunished. I’ve one week to set everything up, that’s much more than I need.”
⁂
—Next Waterday night—
“All right, it’s done,” Twilight said, as she put the board back in place. “Remember: every other step has a triggering mechanism hidden under it. You know how to count up to forty, don’t you.”
Spike glared at Twilight, moved one of his legs as if to walk on the trapped step. At the last instant, he backed off.
“I take it it means yes.” Twilight shrugged. “Shelves are trapped too. Should a single book move…” She nudged a nearby tome with her magic. A loud siren blared straight away. Spike stuffed his fingers into his ears. After a minute, silence returned. “So no fancy reading or shelving tonight, okay?” She winked at Spike, who grinned in return and nodded.
“Very well. Good night then!” She trotted to her bed, climbed up into it and tucked herself under the clothes, as Spike nestled in his basket. “Good night Twilight,” he said, pulling the string that hung from the lampshade.
A click, and the light went out. Silence and darkness fell.
***
Twilight shifted in her bed. She was deep in a weird dream, exploring a land where ponies had six legs and unicorns two horns. She was asking one of those ponies why they were called unicorns and not bicorns, when a giant clock sprang up from the earth and started pealing madly. Twilight woke up and rushed down from her bed amid the deafening jangle of the alarms that had all gone off together. She groped for a switch. The noise petered out as the lights turned on. She looked up to the ceiling where an undefined shape was wriggling in a tightly-knit net.
“Haha! I got you, my little scamp. Let me see who you are!” she triumphed. She unhooked the net with her magic and levitated it down to the floor where it opened like a flower to the morning sun.
The familiar form of a baby dragon uncurled up and rose to his feet before Twilight’s bulging eyes. There was a hefty hush. Spike cleared his throat twice, and flashed his brightest self-conscious smile. “Err… Sorry Twi, I think I made a mistake counting up to twenty,” he apologised. “Can I have a glass of water?”
Twilight was about to fume when the front door of the library cracked open. Just a chink, before being pulled back shut.
“HEY!” Twilight yelled. “YOU THERE! HANG ON! STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” She plunged headlong down the stairs and darted to the door which she flung open.
Nothing greeted her but the dim outlines of the neighbouring houses under a sky riddled with stars. Far away, an owl hooted.
She sighed, swivelled and closed the door.
⁂
—Next Waterday night—
“This time, no pratfall, eh?” Twilight grated. “Anyhow, I have tweaked the traps. They won’t react to our presence. Have a slab at it! Err… I mean, a stab.”
Spike glanced at the step doubtfully. “Are you sure? I don’t wanna end up caught like the week before.”
“It’s hundred-and-ten percent safe. Look!”
Twilight walked one step down, her four hooves standing on the same tread board.
Nothing happened. “See? It’s inert. Your turn.”
She climbed back up to the landing, while Spike took one step down. He stood on the board with a big glee. “Hurrah! It works!”
“Excellent!” said Twilight. “Curfew now. We must be ready to welcome our visitor the way they deserve it.”
Spike rubbed his hands, hopped back to the first floor and scampered to his basket. He waited until Twilight turned in, then switched the light off. “Good night!”
“Good night, Spike! Don’t forget there’s a glass and a jug on the bed table. Just in case.”
“Thanks!” he replied.
***
Twilight shifted in her bed. She was deep in a weird dream, exploring a land where she’d been captured and hogtied by an army of small, almost minute ponies that swarmed around her with their minute spears when, in a flash of sunburst, Celestia appeared in the sky. “Twilight Sparkle!” she boomed, and the shoal of tiny ponies rippled under her thunderous voice, “your carelessness is matched only by your foolishness. I won’t rescue you each time, so be more careful!” She closed her eyes, and a blinding light sprang out of her horn. Twilight’s eyes shut. She tried to roll on her side to escape the radiance, but the ties that held her were too tight. She reopened her eyes—and found herself in her bed, trussed up in her bedclothes. Through the window, a shaft of sun was falling straight on her face. Down by the foot of the bed, Spike was snoring loudly in his basket.
She wriggled out of the bedclothes and got up. “Spike! Looks like nobody intruded last night. This is weird.”
“Mmm?” mumbled the young dragon.
“Come on! We must scan the shelves to find out if a new book is missing or not!”
A purple glow wrapped itself around Spike who was lugged down the stairs to the ground floor, his butt bumping on the steps.
“Oh, Spike, thanks so much for volunteering so early in the morning! Please, vet the ground shelves while I take care of the first floor!” chirped Twilight from the balcony.
“Yeah,” Spike grumbled to himself, rubbing his rump. “I’d already figured that out.”
***
“Twilight?” called Spike after a while.
“Yes, Spike? You found something missing!?” The face of the alicorn poked out over the railing.
“Wasn’t the book of Cator missing?”
“Yes, why?”
“It’s back here, right in its place,” replied Spike, scratching his head. “Isn’t that strange?”
“WHAT?!”
Twilight teleported next to her assistant and craned over him. The book was here, as if it had never been missing. She yanked it free and opened it. She skimmed through the pages: it seemed unaltered, as yellow and brittle as it was before. Suddenly she froze and snuffled. She turned to Spike.
“Did you catch it too?” she asked.
“Yes, it was very faint, but unmistakable.”
“What did it smack of?”
“Fire. Smoke. No doubt. We dragons are genetically programmed to register this scent. I couldn’t miss it, even under tons of cologne.”
“Exactly. I’d wager this book’s been stored in a dragon’s den. But who? And why?”
Spike shrugged and gestured his arms in ignorance.
⁂
“That’s flabbergasting. A reappearing book? Fire, smoke? A dragon you say?” Celestia seemed puzzled on her dais.
“There hasn’t been any dragon nesting in these parts for… almost an eon of eternity,” Luna added.
“I’m positive it reeked of a dragon’s den, and Spike smelt it too. Book’s about dragons, so it seems logical for a dragon to read it. But who? And why that book? And why steal it and then put it back? I see no logic in this.” Twilight shook her head.
“What were the two other books that disappeared from your library?” Celestia asked.
“Origins: Primeval Battles in Equestria and the Rise of the Two Sisters by Morzei the Wise, and A Tentative Psychoanalysis of Discord by Shrink.”
“Mmm…” Celestia pondered. “I remember Morzei quite well”—she smiled—“we had several interesting talks together when he wrote that book.”
“Interesting talks?” Luna giggled. “Interesting talks my hoof! Whom do you think you take in, sister. You think I didn’t see through your charade?”
Celestia glared at Luna, a tinge of pink on her cheeks. She turned back to Twilight, who had been observing the exchange with incredulous eyes.
”Dragons. Origins. Discord. Hmmmm… I wonder if…” Celestia trailed off.
“If what?” Twilight asked.
Celestia ambled to Twilight, and, wrapping a wing around her protégée’s barrel, she prodded her out of the throne room.
“Look,” Celestia begun, “next Waterday night…”
⁂
—Next Waterday night—
“No, no traps or other devices tonight. No need for it,” Twilight explained.
“But,” Spike protested, “you don’t intend to nab the smuggler any more?”
“No. Why should I? If the books reappear after a while, why should I get worked up about it? We’re in a public library after all. Everybody’s entitled to borrow books, given they return them. Straight-up, the books that’ve disappeared are not very trendy. I give up. Maybe the ‘smuggler’, as you call them, will turn themselves in spontaneously.”
“Spontawhatnow?”
Twilight gnashed her teeth. “By themselves.”
“Okay. So, regular sleep tonight? No fancy tests and all the shebang of the last weeks?”
“Nope. You may enjoy a plain, solid night. And if a book disappears, well, we’ll see what we do.”
Spike snorted. “It’s the first time you’re so flippant about books.”
“That riddle beats me, Spike, and I’ve other fish to fry. The books come back. It’s just a minor inconvenience—if an intriguing puzzle.”
Spike scratched his nose. “Okay Twilight. It’s your call. Good night then?”
“Good night Spike. Sweet dreams!”
“Thanks!”
⁂
When Spike awoke, Twilight’s bed was already empty. The baby dragon heard a strange clatter coming from the ground floor. He got up, hopped down the stairs across the main room to the door beyond which there seemed to be some activity. He grasped the handle, but it was locked from inside.
He knocked. “Hey, Twilight!”
“Wait Spike!” responded Twilight’s voice from inside the room. “I finish processing last night’s roll. I must be in darkness for a couple of minutes more.”
“Last night’s roll?”
“Yes, the photographic roll from one of the infrared cameras I arranged all over the place to film the culprit during the night!”
"You did what?”
“I installed infrared cameras. They register the heat waves everypony emits. No need for traps. In a few seconds, we’ll find out who has intruded last night!”
“Somepony stole a book last night?”
“Yes! Some obscure book about ore, smelting and refining. Weird, no?”
The lock clicked and the door opened. “Tatata!” Twilight trumpeted, holding a reel of film. “In a few minutes, we’ll have the key to this pickle! Go get me the projector, please!”
***
“Let do this fast," Twilight said. “Select twentyfold speed-up playback. One hour will be squeezed into three minutes, so we won’t fritter the whole day away. But let’s stay focussed on what happens, because the slightest flick in the image may be our thief showing up!”
The projector whirred as Spike pressed a switch. The screen went all white.
“Okay, that’s normal. That’s when the lights were still on. The emulsion is so sensitive that thermal sources of light overexposed it. Ah! There. The lights are switched off now. Look!”
On the screen, a blurred, fuzzy image formed. It was the library for sure, but not at all as the eye perceives it: patches of white surrounded by large areas of grey, and, here and there, black spots composed an eery portrayal of Twilight’s home.
“What you behold here,” explained Twilight, “is the thermal signature of the objects that make up the furniture: books, shelves, and all the other things. The image’s going to clear up as they all cool down at their own pace.”
She was right: ten minutes later, the silhouette of each object was identifiable. The image was outlandish, but at least the geometry was familiar.
They were almost one hour into this ghostly show when a white blotch appeared, moving from one side of the image to the centre, loitering imperceptibly there before rushing away, first along the shelves, then down the stairs.
“STOP!” Twilight shouted. “There we are. Rewind, slowly this time!”
The baby dragon operated a few levers and the blotch appeared again, this time moving slowly up and backwards. “Stop!” Twilight commanded again when it was bullseye in the field. “Blowup now, please!”
Spike rotated the objective ring, zooming in while adjusting the focus.
Then he stopped, gasping.
The shape was smudged, but there was no doubt possible: it was his own silhouette.
Somepony chuckled behind them. Twilight and Spike almost jumped in fear. They turned round in perfect synchronism.
“PRINCESS LUNA!?” they blurted in unison.
“Congratulations,” said Luna with an impish face. “Witty as expected, Twilight. Now time for some clarification, I suppose.”
⁂
“What you’re about to behold, Twilight, is one of Equestria’s most guarded secret. I hence beseech utmost discretion. But, first, tell me, what do you know about Equestria’s First age?” Luna asked Twilight as she unlocked a heavy wooden door. They were deep in the basement of Canterlot castle. As the door grated open, a draught of hot air blew from behind it. Twilight immediately picked up on the smell.
“You mean, at the very beginning?”
“Yes.”
They walked through the doorframe into a large corridor, hewn in the granitic bedrock. Luna lit her horn to dispel the surrounding darkness.
“Nothing much. There were primeval ponies, the famous three tribes. They lived together with dragons, as far as I remember.”
“That’s right,” Luna replied. “In peace, until Discord came. He banished the dragons that were too powerful and unruly, and kept the ponies as slaves and laughingstock.”
“And?”
“When my sister and I defeated Discord using the newfound Elements of Harmony, the dragons returned. But millennia of exile had transformed their hearts: they had become bitter and resentful. And when they came back, they claimed Equestria as theirs.”
“What happened?”
“We didn’t yield, of course. So they formed an army and began burning and rampaging the land, hoarding the few precious items we had hidden away from Discord. Soon it turned into an all-out war.” She looked away, and for a brief moment her eyes seemed unfocussed, as if lost far away. “I can remember that day, when they first attacked. They were so many the heavens were obscured by their wings, like a dark, ominous cloud of living fire. And that thunderous flapping sound. We thought our last day had come.
But we withstood their first blow, and we stroke back. For a long time, the outcome was unclear. Our ponies had been weakened under Discord’s sway and it wasn’t easy to fight back those mighty opponents. But eventually the tide of fate turned in our favour. Many dragons were slain, and the others were scattered or fled away. Their leader we captured and shackled with iron chains, then we hurled into Tartarus for eternity. And at last peace returned upon Equestria.”
“A great feat I never heard of,” said Twilight.
“Few are those who collected high feats and tales from this remote era, so I’m not surprised even a master of lore such as you is unaware of it. There is a short lay about it though…” She broke off and pondered. Then she began crooning:
”There was a war
In times of yore,
When dragons came
With hearts of flame,
Running amok,
Shifting the rock,
Searing the turf,
Burning the earth,
Spreading fire
In their ire,
And pain and death
Under their breath.
There were several other verses, but I can’t remember them. Something about raze and blaze, I think. Maybe Tia still knows it in full.
Anyway. When Nightmare Moon”—she winced—“was banished, my sister built this new castle and realised that our foe could still be useful. Thus, she ordered this complex to be dug in the bedrock. When it was done, she transferred him here.”
They rounded a hairpin in the corridor. Twilight stopped short and gawked in awe.
They stood at the threshold of a giant cave, whose remote walls were lost in darkness. In the middle of it, sprawled on a jumble of gems that glinted in the gloom, lay the dark and towering silhouette of an immense dragon. The chains that hobbled each of his limbs were made up of steel rings so huge that a hundred ponies could’ve easily corralled inside each of them. The cave was full of a roar that ebbed and flowed: the dragon’s snoring.
“May I introduce you to Agni,” Luna said, “the mightiest of all dragons that ever trod this earth.”
“But… I don’t see how my books fit in that story!”
“Even for a dragon that sleeps more than twenty hours a day, eternity can become tiresome. So my sister, in her magnanimity, decided to offer him a bit of entertainment: books picked up from Canterlot’s Royal Library. She charged me with the task of carrying them in and out, once a week.”
Twilight strained her eyes and made out, close to the formidable head, a stack of shapes she recognised as books.
“Recently,” Luna carried on, “I realised I had almost spent all the shelves of both Canterlot’s and our private library. So I had to turn to somepony else’s…”
“But…” Twilight objected, as everything clicked into place, “you could’ve asked me directly! I would’ve accepted, of course!”
“I’m sure you would have,” replied Luna, smiling. “But I was seduced by the idea of testing your proverbial acumen. Books that disappear from your library, I was certain to hit the spot. And I was also curious to know how you would solve that conundrum. I hope you won’t hold me a grudge.”
Twilight smiled in return. “Not at all. But Spike? How?”
“Spike is an arrant sleepwalker,” Luna explained. “It’s a breeze to control his movements from within his dreams. I made him stand up, walk, pick the book on the shelves and deliver it to me at your door, then I sent him back to sleep in his basket. Simple and efficient.”
“That’s a formidable power you wield here, princess,” Twilight noted.
Luna nodded. “I know, Twilight, I know. But that power I use only sparingly, and—except in this case—warily and for good reasons.”
“I don’t doubt it a second,” Twilight replied.
Both alicorns remained silent for a moment. Then, “Shall we go back?” Luna proposed.
“All right,” replied Twilight.
She was about to turn round when she spotted a weird metallic contraption, not far from the dragon’s head. Several large pipes seemed to connect it other unseen devices embedded deeper in the rock. Intrigued, “What’s that metallic thing over there?” she asked, pointing at it with a hoof. “It looks like a giant steel accordion.”
“Oh, that?” Luna replied. “I forgot, yes. That is the main reason why Agni is kept here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Twilight, did you ever wonder how Canterlot’s castle is heated? All those spacious, airy, lofty halls, kept deliciously warm even in the coldest of winters?” Luna asked.
Twilight’s eyes widened in wonder.
“Well,” Luna carried on, “that is the castle’s central heating system.”
