Rain thrashed viciously against foliage and soil, drenching anything foolhardy enough to be in its way in moments. Even the rowdy creatures of the wild, unruly, and untamed Everfree Forest knew better than to risk a storm such as this. It was a storm the likes of which would only be seen in the forest once a year, upon the changing of seasonal humidity and a great shift in the arcane leys through the forest.
Even the nearby little village of Ponyville, only recently founded and expanded to a total population barely breaking the fifties, secured windows, doors, and hid from the raging and violent storm that surged around their humble homes. The full range of this violent storm, with a lack of weather-fighting ponies in large enough numbers to combat it, even reached the city of Canterlot, where the monarchy had recently moved just before the completion of a new castle in her name.
Even still, with all of the danger that this violent and rampaging storm posed, figures moved through the wild forest. Nine ponies, three each of pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony, and each garbed in royal guard armour, moved through the forest on urgent business from the monarch they had sworn to serve and protect.
Slowing to a stop, the group spread out around a cave entrance and eyed the surrounding environment; other than the sounds of the storm raging all around them, the forest was silent.
One of the unicorns hissed at an earth pony, “Sarge’, the Tartarus are we doin’ here? The Everfree’s been uninhabitable for twenty years; ponies don’t return from walkin’ into this place.”
The earth pony huffed at him. “Colt, Princess Celestia ordered us here, that’s what. Supposedly we’re here to check up on an old ally of hers. Featherlight, Hugs, Bulwark, you’re with me; rest of you stand guard.”
“Why, mom, why’d you have to call me Hugs?” The named unicorn amongst the group groused while being sniggered at before falling in step behind the sergeant. His horn lit up and illuminated the cave around them as they marched into the dark unknown.
Their staccato hoofsteps echoed off the damp walls, and as they moved deeper into the cave a thick atmosphere began to press on them, making breathing harder. After what felt like an eternity –but was in fact only a few moments- the small group halted at the foot of a mound of gemstones and gold coins –bits, the currency of Equestria.
“S-sarge..?”
“Yes, Hugs?”
“Sarge, this is a hoard, a dragon’s hoard!”
Before the earth pony could respond, a deep rumbling came from the mountain of coins, shaking them loose and sliding the pile wider until it encircled the pony squad, burying their legs up to their knees and hocks. A bass, feminine voice echoed off the walls and throughout the cave, rumbling from within the mound and shaking the constitution of the gathering of ponies.
“Is that you, Celestia..?”
At that, a head larger than any of the gathered ponies pushed out of the gold, lifting up to look about drunkenly. Deep dark purple scales poorly reflected the light that Hugs’ horn emitted, and misty eyes moved within their sockets in search of the dragon’s company.
“Lady Viola, we are humbled to be in your presence.” The sergeant said, dipping his head to her respectfully. To not show respect, even to a blind dragon that couldn’t see the gesture, was a potential death wish.
The dragoness’ head turned in their direction and her nostrils flared as she took in their scents. “You are not Celestia… but you hold her scent upon you, however faint.” She paused to heave in a breath, raspy and sounding forced, “Did she send you?” Her head shook, “Of course she did… why else would you be here?”
“Lady Viola, Princess Celestia sends her regrets that she could not be here for this herself, she is unable to leave Canterlot due to the workload the current political, social, and economic climate has placed upon her shoulders.”
The dragoness chuckled at him, her blind eyes rolling in their sockets. “Of course she would put work first; she always did insist that work came before play… Perhaps that is but another cause of…” her head shook again, “No, it doesn’t matter. Pony who speaks for Celestia, do you know why I called her here, to my den?”
“I cannot say I do, Lady Viola; I am but a royal guard.” He replied, bowing his head, “It is not my place to question my orders.”
Again she chuckled, “Ah, had I still the authority I would suggest you for a promotion, your sense of duty is… admirable.” She rumbled before her face grew more serious, now showing her impressive age, “I grow weary, dear guard; centuries ago, using her magic, your Princess breathed life into the egg that brought forth my being, but now I find myself at the end of my time. Blinded by my first mate, drained magically by the spirit of Chaos that attempted to bring Equestria to its knees, attacked by the Nightmare, I have struggled much in my life, and now, it is at its end. It was a good life, despite being shortened as it has been by the magical abuse of my past trials.
“Guard, before you leave you will find a pair of saddlebags near the entrance to this inner den. Celestia herself enchanted these bags to be capable of holding immense amounts.” She paused to breathe another raspy and forced breath, “Use them to take what you can of my hoard to her, along with one of my teeth. This is my boon to her, a favour for the life she has given, one of happiness and joy; a life of friendship to warm my heart and bones.
“My only request of you, dear guard, is that you also take these;” a massive scaly paw rose from the gold and unclasped, presenting a pair of eggs, “take them to her, the last of my brood; I want her to give them a life that I cannot…” she chuckled as her paw relaxed and thudded to the gold and the pair of eggs rolled to his chest. “Ah, my time is almost uruns My fire is gone, and my furnace smoulders low…”
Carefully, the guard lowered himself and scooped the pair of eggs closer, bowing his head. “Lady Viola, your eggs… the last of your brood and your legacy, will be safe with us; we will do everything in our power to keep them safe.”
She rumbled a weak laugh, “Not often does a dragon get to see the future of her children, guard;” she breathed, “but I will have to take your word for it regardless as I know you mean well…” She smiled in a cheeky manner, resting her head atop the gold, “Last words… last words are a pain. So many waste theirs on pointless things; mine? I would like mine to amuse me well into my next life… I suppose something… that will play at her mind for… years to come will do. Tell her… ‘Always… trust your heart.’”
As these words left her, her eyes slid shut and she exhaled a heavy yet calm breath with a smile on her scaly lips.
“Rampart, has she..?”
The earth pony nodded with a sigh and dipped his head. “Yes, lad; Lady Viola has died. Never thought I would see the day, to be honest, that Princess Celestia’s confidante would pass away…” he shook his head and picked up one of the two purple spotted eggs. “We’ll have time for mourning later; we have a job to do. Bulwark, Hugs, collect a tooth and the bags and start collecting her hoard. Featherlight, take this egg and its sibling, hoof one to Wildwing outside and fly them directly to Canterlot. When we return with the carriage, I’ll inform Her Highness about the events that transpired here. Let’s go, ponies, the Everfree is dangerous enough in a storm, you do not want to see it when everything comes out to play!”
Hurried attempts to pull themselves from the gold followed by quick yet delicate removal of a dragon’s tooth then ensued as Featherlight picked up the eggs and flew from the cave. He signalled over Wildwing and hooved him an egg. “Wild, we’re to fly these direct to Canterlot castle, Princess Celestia’s private study, and no stops.”
The other Pegasus took the darker of the two eggs from his fellow guard and another guard spoke up, “Feather, what happened in there?”
Featherlight sighed as he looked back to the cave entrance where the sound of rushing bits could be heard echoing. “The fall of a titan, Cloudy,” he replied sadly. “You’ll get a full report in Canterlot, we’ve work to do. See you at home.”
He spread his wings again and rushed into the sky, Wildwing following him soon after.
*
Princess Celestia strolled into her study, eyeing the basket that rested on a stool nearby curiously, but pulled her attention away from the curiosity to the still damp guard standing to attention by her desk. She smiled to him wearily and he saluted.
“Your highness,”
She tilted a wing to signal he could halt his salute, “Sergeant Rampart, welcome back. Tell me, what was-” her voice halted as he took a step back to reveal her desk, and the objects that rested upon it. “What is this?”
The sergeant dipped his head, “Princess, I regret to inform you that ten minutes after we arrived, Lady Viola passed away peacefully. She told us to give you her tooth and hoard as proof and as a boon to you.”
The doors behind the Princess slammed shut, startling the pair of pegasi who stood guard just outside, and her hindquarters hit the floor with a thump as her legs gave out. “V-Viola… my Viola..?”
“She understood that you could not be there yourself, but did not seem terribly upset over it. She laughed, actually.”
Celestia nodded dumbly in response before finding her voice. “That… that’s just like her, finding humour in everything,” she said, wiping her face with a handkerchief, “she helped me learn how to care for Philomena after we found her orphaned in the Everfree, did you know that?”
“No, ma’am.”
She nodded with a faraway smile. “She was a remarkable dragoness…” her voice hitched and she wiped her face dry again, “she will be missed dearly.” The duo fell into mournful silence for a few minutes before Celestia found her voice again. “Tell me, did she say anything before she died?”
Bulwark nodded. “She spoke of a shortened life well lived, your highness.”
Celestia hummed distantly, “And her final words?”
He smiled, “Ah, at those she said something about seeing the future of her children before her last words for you were ‘Always trust your heart’.”
Celestia stood in silent contemplation for a moment or two before curiosity got the better of her. “’Children’? Is that what the basket is for, sergeant?”
He shook his head, “Only one egg, highness; corporal Featherlight flew that one here himself. There was a second being delivered by corporal Wildwing, but…”
She tilted her head at him curiously, “go on..?”
“Corporal Wildwing was struck by untamed lightning just over the castle, your highness. Sadly the corporal did not survive, and no trace of the egg he was carrying could be found. We assume it was vaporized by the lightning. The bolt seems to have grounded itself in the gold dome of the east tower, which he had been flying over at the time. The gold itself had become soft and superheated, but the magic enchantments placed there by your own skill kept it from melting completely.”
Celestia sighed, her ears drooping. “I will speak to the guard captain about informing his next of kin and recompense for their loss.” She said sadly. Wild Lightning, unlike the bolts squeezed out of storms by pegasus ponies, were usually focused bolts of the same power concentrated from across entire storms. Their lethality was well known, even to adult dragons who could shrug off magic attacks as if they were thrown gravel. “I thank you for your report, sergeant.”
He nodded and saluted to her. “If I might, Princess, what of the egg; do you plan to hatch it?”
Celestia shook her head, “I don’t have the time to care for a young dragon anymore; I suppose it will have to be kept somewhere safe until the time is ready for it to be given life. It could be next millennium that the opportunity arises…”
Rampart bowed, “With your leave, your highness, I have some fellow guard to inform.”
Celestia sighed, looking over at the egg sadly, “Yes, of course, you are dismissed sergeant.”
She stepped over to the egg, ignoring the sergeant leaving the room and closing the door behind him with a click. Her hoof brushed over the egg faintly, another sigh leaving her. “Oh, Viola…”
-
~Arcane Blood~
-
Twilight Sparkle, recently crowned Princess of Friendship, hurried after the mare she called her teacher. She’d led an interesting life, Twilight Sparkle; raised under Princess Celestia’s wing to learn magic, she also brought up a young drake named Spike, whom she cared for like a little brother and currently had sitting on her back, had become the bearer of the Element of Magic itself, had, with her friends, defeated Tirek and restored magic to all of Equestria, and recently saved Equestria from a potential gross misuse of time magic.
To say she was a celebrity was understating things.
“Princess, I don’t understand what we’re doing here in the dungeons.” She huffed, keeping up with her mentor’s longer strides with a little effort. “All I know is that your letter said you wanted me to help you with ‘something’ in Canterlot Castle.”
“Yeah, she got me out of bed early in a blind panic and everything.” Spike groused sleepily. “Seriously, Twilight, for once I’d like to get through a week without having to wake up before seven.”
Celestia sighed, “Twilight, your expertise in magic would be most useful for the task at hoof today, actually.”
“Can you tell us anything about it?” Twilight asked, scampering to keep up as they rounded a corner. She briefly wondered if she would ever grow to be as tall as her mentor, thinking that it would be nice to be able to keep up with her for once, and Spike nearly slipped off her back as he attempted to doze.
He scrambled back onto her back before he fell off and grumbled, holding on as she quickened her pace. Oh, to be back home with his pillow and blanket and that glorious bed he loved so much; he’d kiss it if sleeping in it wasn’t a better option which didn’t usually wind up with him having lint in his teeth.
Celestia nodded faintly as they passed a pair of guards lighting sconces. “Back before Nightmare Moon, I was friends with a dragoness called Lady Viola; she was a confidante and true friend, and not a year goes by that I don’t miss her dearly…” she smiled over at Spike, “Spike is, in fact, her last living descendant. She passed away shortly after I had to banish the Nightmare, and entrusted me with his egg. With no time to care for a young, growing dragon, I had to put the egg into suspended animation until we could come up with a way to hatch it, eventually using it for entry exams into my school.
“However, about two hundred years after her death, another dragon appeared within Equestria –within the castle, no less! We had no idea where it came from, and almost all attempts to subdue and capture it proved futile. For the centuries since then, we have kept it down here in the dungeons. I must warn you, Twilight Sparkle; this dragon has proven immune to all but the most powerful of magic, and we have detected it actually accruing magical power over the last four decades.” Celestia gave a worried glance to Twilight, “It… he, may not be the friendliest of creatures; keep your guard up, and do not become complacent.”
Twilight nodded as the trio rounded one final corner, coming to a cell made of glass. The walls and roof, even the glass, had glowing runes etched into them, and Celestia nodded to the guard.
Twilight eyed the runes, “Reinforcing runes…?” She asked, her hoof tracing a line, “The magic engraved into the glass alone would keep this cell here if the whole mountain fell…” She looked beyond the glass, and for the first time lay eyes on the dragon within the cell.
He sat with his eyes closed much like a dog might, not much larger than Twilight herself, simply sitting as if in a meditative trance. The magic within the walls and roof kept the cell well lit, and she could see almost every detail of him. Smooth, scaled skin of a rich and deep purple coated him, his tail curled around his paws.
“Interesting bone structure…” Twilight mumbled, her magic taking a notepad and quill from her own pocket dimension for her to take notes with, “subject… male dragon, age unknown, quadruped in stature… purple scales... subject has a peculiar skull shape, his nose curling up to a point at its tip, along with a large pair of enlarged plates on his chest, rather triangular in shape, with…” she moved to one side to get a better look, “two spines down his back. A plate appears to cover the back of his skull, while he has five horns on his head, one in the middle of his forehead much like a crest, two to either side of that near his ears, and another two that curl around the back of his head and down near his jawline with two barbs jutting from them on their overside. Subject also has two small protective plates on the middle of his tail… whatever could these plates be for? I may have to ask him about it if…”
She found herself pulled back to stand alongside her mentor by the latter’s magic, and the world around her brought back by her voice. “Twilight, focus please; I know we don’t often have access to dragons that you can question, but now is not the time.”
She chuckled sheepishly and put her things back into their pocket dimension. “Right, sorry Princess,” she said before giving the dragon another long and curious look. “He’s… quite peculiar. Not to say that we’ve never seen quadruped dragons, as we have, but… he doesn’t appear to be breathing.” She took a closer look and her eyes widened. “Princess, he’s not breathing, we need to--!”
“Calm yourself, Twilight;” Celestia cooed, placing a wing on her student’s back, “the cell he is within is hermetically sealed; from what we’ve seen over the last two hundred years, he doesn’t actually breathe at all. Now, just let me get his attention.”
Celestia then stepped over to the glass and tapped on it with her hoof. The dragon’s ear twitched and he opened his eyes to look upon his guests. He gazed at Celestia with apparent indifference, and then smiled when he looked at Spike. Finally his eyes fell on Twilight; his jaw fell faintly and his ears drooped, and he scurried to the back of his cell.
Celestia tilted her head. “He’s never given that kind of response before.” She mumbled before shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter; Dragon, I know you can hear me.” She snapped loudly at the cell, “Nod your head, and don’t make me ask again.” She continued, getting a meek nod from the dragon within the cell. “Good, now, we have had a new cell built especially for you, and we are to take you there now. Do not resist; you remember what happened last time you resisted.”
“Princess, what’s going on?”
Celestia sighed and turned to face Twilight, “Princess Twilight, we may need your assistance in controlling the dragon should he decide to become unruly.” She said, before turning back to the cell and putting her horn to it. “Guard, be ready.” She snapped, the guards snapping to attention and readying their weapons at her words. A faint spark came from her horn, and the glass wall before her melted away, opening the cell. She glared at the dragon and stepped to one side. “Dragon, step out of the cell and follow the Royal Guard. Do not try anything; I will give no second chances.”
The dragon sheepishly complied, standing and stepping out of the cell and onto the stone slabbed floors of the dungeon corridor. He stretched a little before turning in place and waiting for the guard to begin to lead him.
Again a steady staccato of hooves on stone echoed through the dungeons, now accompanied by a soft scraping of claws on stone. As they walked Twilight’s eyes continued to roam over his form curiously; she’d not seen a dragon this up-close for a long time, well, except for Spike of course, and she wanted to get as much information as she could. He was, indeed, the same size as her, though his body was much lither than her own. He even appeared to be fitter than her, his body lacking in any apparent fat though, now that she looked, she couldn’t even really see muscles moving as he walked.
What was that all about..?
As she continued to observe his movements, she began to notice subtle strange things about him. He didn’t seem to, well, walk right. It was somewhat robotic to her eyes, as if he were forcing his limbs to go through motions that were completely unfamiliar to him. His tail didn’t even seem to be being used to balance him, merely moving as if it were what he thought ponies expected.
Another thing that she noticed were odd little flashes of light on his body in the corners of her vision as they moved between sconce-light, little glitters of iridescent purple that would disappear in a heartbeat.
Still, the whole time they walked, Celestia never had to ‘punish’ the dragon in any way. After the threats that she had given to him, and the fact that he had spent his time within a room unmoving when they arrived, Twilight chalked it up to the dragon still being sleep-drunk and focusing on not nodding off or giving Celestia anything to be angry about.
Two floors up, now on the first sub-dungeon floor, and they reached a newly built cell of glass set into the middle of a large otherwise clear area. A doorway had actually been built for this one, a round gold plate in the middle scored with runes and an indentation for a hoof in it. Celestia motioned for the dragon to enter.
As the dragon was marched into his new cell, Twilight felt Spike tug on her mane.
“Yes?”
The drake fidgeted nervously on her back before responding. “Twilight, something’s not right about that dragon,” he mumbled, “I mean, did you see how he was moving? It was like we were walking a corpse through the halls.”
She nodded a little, “I noticed that too.”
“You don’t think he’s a zombie, do you?” Spike asked, worry in his young voice.
Twilight giggled, watching as the door was slowly swung shut, “No, Spike, I don’t think he’s a zombie; you know they don’t exist as well as I do. Well, unless dark magic is involved anyway.”
“S… Spike..?”
The ponies blinked, gawking at the dragon in the cell who now stared out at the so-named drake.
“Y-you are… Spike..?” He asked with a semi-mature male voice, deeper than Spike’s own, but still evidently youthful. The dragon smiled at him. “It’s nice to meet you, at last… I am-” his voice was cut off as the door closed, his last two words being mouthed at them unintelligibly due to Celestia’s form moving to stand before the door.
“He’s never been talkative…” one of the guards said, “I don’t think I remember him ever saying anything, actually.”
Celestia nodded, putting her hoof to the door and into the golden indentation as Twilight moved closer to get a better look. The runes on the floor, walls, and roof looked familiar, but without the completed pattern or a little more time to read them properly she couldn’t fully grasp the formula.
“Princess, these look like the runes in the Heavy Magic rooms at your school; what is this?”
Celestia smiled and nodded, “These runes, Twilight, are a slight warping of those ones; instead of reinforcing to resist or even mute magic, this runic structure has been written over the last decade; this cell is designed for creatures such as Tirek and the Changeling Queen, or even this dragon. Creatures which accrue massive amounts of magic which enter this cell will, when the script is complete,” her hoof turned and the runes along the outside of the cell lit up brightly, “have their magic drained and dispersed safely into the atmosphere. The pattern also soundproofs and reinforces the structure to resist-”
The dragon frenzied, throwing itself at the walls and door in panic and cutting her off. They watched in stunned silence as it panicked, screeching, though no sound penetrated the walls, and its claws scratched futilely against the glass and stone, seeking purchase. All the while glowing purple energy streamed from its body, magic being drawn from it in massive quantities. He grew slower, sluggish, before slumping against the glass between himself and Celestia and his eyes stared up at her, wide and frightened, asking a question that his voice could not, his mouth moving in a silent, begging question while a loosed tear ran down his face.
“Why?”
He grew still, sliding to the floor, and his eyes glossed over.
“What in the world..?” Celestia asked with her usually serene face wide with shock.
Finally the dragon seemed to begin to simply dissolve; his horns and scales, his eyes and skin, all evaporated into magic and drifted through the structure. Deeper, his muscles atrophied and atomised, then his organs, and finally his skeleton simply dissolved away, leaving only a faint shape of what had been there.
The wide-eyed room stared in horror at the cell, terrified at what had just happened. Eventually Celestia snapped back to the world, shaking her head and turning to a guard. “Get our best unicorns down here this instant! I want to know what went wrong immediately!”
“Yes, P-”
“Wait,” Twilight breathed, her weak voice silencing the guard and halting him in his tracks. Spike had slumped to the floor off of her back, out cold, so she gently moved him to the back of a guard before moving closer to the glass. “Celestia, you can read these runes as well as I can. There are no faults, look,” she pointed out a line of carved inscriptions, “these ones seal the room,” her hoof moved to another line, “these ones reinforce the wall, and correlates with the ones on the roof, floor, and other walls,” another line, “this line of runes, while archaic, correctly spell out that they drain magic, and the ones next to those block all magic within the room.” She pushed her hoof into the plate on the door and turned it counter-clockwise, unlocking it and opening the door, then turned to a guard. “Private, put your spear inside the cell if you would.”
Nervously the stallion approached, giving twilight a worried glance before throwing his spear into the room and stepping back. Twilight nodded and closed the door and turned the plate back into place. The runes lit up and, as they watched with bated breath…
Nothing happened.
“See, the runes are correct; the spear didn’t react. If we put, say, a living plant in there I don’t think anything would happen either.” She said, opening the door again and retrieving the spear with her magic. “I would advise that we do not use this room, however, on anything which requires magic to-”
Celestia blinked at Twilight’s sudden silence, and the face of utter shock she wore.
“Twilight..?”
“Ce-Celestia… what would happen if we put something… alive, yet made of magic into this cell and turned it on?”
Celestia blinked. “But there’s… no such thing.” She attested, “We’ve never seen a creature of such a nature, but… oh by the sun, that would kill it!”
Twilight nodded and shifted away from the cell, eyeing the runes bitterly. “This room is a death trap waiting to happen; it already did!” She looked over the carvings again venomously, scanning their code for flaws. “Who wrote these runes, without even thinking of carving in fail-safes? There are no ‘if’ clauses in this structure at all! At the very least there should be a clause to protect life should it be in danger! This is sloppy! If anypony changed some runes here or there, this could be used as a torture chamber, or worse a form of execution chamber! This goes against every principle of humane magic use, it even skirts on being willingly negligible, it’s-”
Celestia sighed, putting a wing around her ranting student’s smaller form and pulling her into her hooves. “Twilight, this is nopony’s fault, it was an accident, we must learn from this and move on, however regrettably tragic it was. Come, we shall let the ponies from the school handle this.”
Twilight nodded numbly, shaking a little as she came to terms with what she’d witnessed that day. “W-we killed him, Celestia.” She whimpered, “We killed a dragon without meaning to; a-and Spike saw that! Oh heavens, what’s that going t-to do to him?!”
Spike groaned from where he lay sprawled across the guard’s back, pushing himself up and looking around drunkenly. “I’ll… I’ll get over it.” He said weakly. “If I’m going to live as long as I’m supposed to, this isn’t the last time I’ll see somepony die, right..?” He slipped off the guard’s armoured back and landed on his head, grumbling the whole time. “Not the way I thought today would go, usually early wakeups are Everfree stuff…” he groused, rubbing where he’d landed on his head.
Celestia sighed, “That’s very mature of you, Spike; but if you ever need somepony to talk to about this, you know I’m always here for you.” She said, levitating him over and hugging him. He sighed and returned the affection.
“Yeah, thanks mom.”
Celestia paced the outside perimeter of the cell, watching as three unicorns rewrote the script carved into the walls, roof, and floor. Something wasn’t adding up, she could feel it. Something, somewhere, was out of place and she just knew she had the piece of the puzzle yet didn’t know how it fit, the final jigsaw piece that refused to go into place.
But what was it?
Not having the one clue that could tie it all together was slowly eating at her; if she’d been able to put the pieces together earlier she could have spared a life, spared that young drake the suffering he’d gone through. Wars had come and gone in her past, of course. What nation was without its conflicts, after all; but she had never seen any being die in such a manner. It had torn at her all day after sending Twilight to the library to relax –and spike to Pony Joe’s with a guard and a big bag of bits for the same reason, that young drake loved his snacks.
“Sister,” Luna’s voice called from the halls leading back to the castle above. Celestia’s thoughtful face turned in the direction of her sister, and Luna stepped over gracefully. “Are you alright, you have been absent most of the day; I had to hold court all day for the first time in months.”
Celestia sighed, “I’m alright Luna; just… lost in thought.” She replied glumly.
Luna walked close and sat alongside her sister, “I heard what happened down here from the guard, sister; you need to talk to me…”
Celestia shook her head, “Luna, I feel as if I’m forgetting something, something that’s staring me right in the face and if I could just remember I could understand why this just feels… wrong.” She sighed and turned her gaze to the ceiling. “Do you remember Lady Viola?”
Luna nodded, “I do, sister, she was quite a… charismatic dragon.”
Celestia smiled, “Yes, she was at that. Did I tell you that Spike is the last of her brood?”
A snort left the younger sister. “I could see the resemblance, actually, especially his love for unhealthy pastries. How much longer are you going to wait before you tell him about her?”
Celestia shook her head, “He knows where he comes from, but not who she truly was. I want him to mature a little more yet,” she said, her eyes distant, “he needs to set his own goals before I tell him about those of his mother, and all the things she did.” She smiled, “She would be proud of the things he’s already done; he’s grown up so much since he left for Ponyville…”
Luna nodded, eyeing the runes being carved delicately into the glass walls before her. “Yes, she would.” She muttered, before twitching and looking away. “Sister, did you feel that?” She eventually asked.
“A high-magic ward being triggered; I suppose I shall see what my student is up to before she risks bringing the whole mountain down upon us.” She nuzzled her sister affectionately before moving to stroll out, “Gentlecolts when you believe yourself finished please come and find Twilight Sparkle and myself to look over your work and ensure there are no issues.”
“Yes, your highness.” One of the unicorns replied, looking away from his work momentarily.
Celestia nodded before strolling out, heading up to the library to see her student.
*
Celestia’s mind continued to torture itself as she strolled through the castle halls, almost absently dawdling from one place to the next, her mind still performing torture upon itself trying to solve the puzzle presented to it.
She thought back to the day the dragon had first appeared, no larger than Spike. He’d been cute, sure, but even the cute could be dangerous, as he had proven when he had tackled a guard clean through a wall before she could subdue him. How had he shrugged off magic like he had..? It was as if she were trying to use her magic to put a lump of gold to sleep.
The high-magic ward blared in her skull once more, and a glint of light caught her eye, pulling her attention out of the nearby window and towards the source. She had to shake her head and look again at what she had seen, but sure enough it remained in her sight; a bright purple glow, a sign of intense arcane concentration, from the top of the old East tower, now used as storage.
Not quite sure what to make of it, she opened a nearby balcony and, after strolling into the evening sun, she spread her wings and flew up to the golden dome of the tower, landing near the anomaly and pacing towards it warily.
What on Equestria was this?
As quickly as it had come, however, the glow of magic faded, leaving Celestia with questions to answers she was unlikely to get now that it had faded.
“Well…” she mumbled, eyeing the golden dome where it had been concentrated warily, “that was most peculiar. I suppose it was merely a surge in the protective wards on the castle… It’s certainly happened before.” She hummed to herself, sitting and tapping her chin with a hoof thoughtfully. “Now that I think about it, the guard have a high rate of anomaly concentrated here in the reports. Perhaps the ley lines are attempting to shift position..?”
She froze when a voice spoke from behind her. “Why?”
She spun on the spot, spreading her wings and stance offensively to find… nothing? Her nerves relaxed somewhat, settling and letting her smooth her features out. Surely she had merely been hearing things. Perhaps the wind had made that sound and her mind merely mistook it?
“Why?”
Again she spun, a scanning spell bursting to life and surveying the area around her; that had undoubtedly been a voice. Her magic scan only told her one thing when it returned its results: that she was currently in the middle of the largest concentration of arcane magic she had witnessed in centuries.
And as strong as the magic was, it seemed to fade with the wind, disappearing like water down a drain. What on earth was happening? This wasn’t like when the arcane leys had shifted to her balcony in reaction to her using it as a staging point to raise the sun for centuries; this was a far grander scale than she’d ever seen!
“Hello, Celestia.”
A final turn and her eyes landed upon the dragon that had been imprisoned within her dungeons earlier, now smaller and sitting calmly on the golden roof cap, simply gazing at her idly. She took a startled step back and lifted a foreleg protectively. “W-what..?” She breathed with her eyes wide. “B-but you’re dead?”
The drake looked down at himself before shaking his head. “No, Celestia, I am not.” He said plainly. “You merely… what is the word? Ah, yes, incapacitated; yes, you merely incapacitated me.” He sighed and stared off into the sky thoughtfully. “It’s nice to see Spike is doing well; it really was about time you found somepony who could hatch him. Impressive that it was the bearer of the Element of Magic herself, though I suppose you couldn’t have asked for a better pony to raise him.”
Celestia shook her head, gathering her wits and calmly charging magic in case she needed to defend against him and sending a small magical signal through the castle’s wards that would have Luna come running. “Who are you, dragon?” She asked, “What are you?”
The drake smiled a little. “I was never named, you know. My mother never knew of me, and thus I never was given a name to call my own. Even you have merely called me by the collective term for my species, 'dragon'; over time, I have had to give myself one that I found rather acceptable. My name, Princess Celestia, is Argus. I am, to my knowledge, the only dragon of my kind in all of Equestria, though with the lack of other dragons in Equestria that likely isn’t saying much, and therefore do not have a genus. I suppose you could call me an Arcane Dragon, though I daresay Spike fits that category more suitably, having been birthed by so much raw magic that it is an intrinsic part of who he is, so that won’t do. And, despite magic being such an integral part of my being, it did not seem fair to classify him to be like myself. No, I eventually came to call myself a Ley Dragon.”
He smiled as Princess Luna reached the rooftop, alighting alongside her sister and gazing at him curiously. “Sister, what is this? I thought he was destroyed in a magical accident, how can he be here?”
Argus sniggered, “Ah, Princess Luna, how delightful of you to appear, I suppose there are only two more that I need present myself to, however they are disposed at the moment.”
Luna turned her eyes on her sister, “What’s going on?”
The elder sister shook her head. “He is calling himself Argus, sister, and seems to believe himself something called a ‘Ley Dragon’, whatever that is supposed to be.” She replied, giving Argus a wary stare.
Luna shivered, “His magic is strong, sister; do you not feel it? I’ve not seen such power outside of an Alicorn or Discord, not even in elder dragons.”
Argus chuckled merrily, “Strong magic, Princess? My, quite a compliment, if it even applied to me. Tell me, have you ever seen the arcane leys that run throughout the world? Have you seen them pulse and vibrate, seen the currents and eddies of the world’s very arcane might, its life, as if looking at streams?”
Celestia nodded, “I chose this land to build Canterlot Castle for its position as a focal point of the world’s arcane leys, and the castle sits upon the greatest convergence of them anywhere in the country outside of the Everfree Forest. I required use of a spell to allow me to see them for the positioning to be correct…”
“Then you know how I see the world. Not for brief periods of time; if I do not focus, I cannot see anything but the magical threads that hold this world, its inhabitants, and even the very castle we stand upon, together.” Argus shuddered and grimaced, looking away. “You two are bright, as is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza; the magic that runs through you is impressive, Princesses, like the moon compared to the stars in the sky. Imagine, now, how I would see the Element of Magic? She shines like a sun, brighter than anything I’ve ever seen! If I focus, I can see the flesh and blood, the physical forms that make up those around me; you have no idea how long I have been meditating, trying to make such a thing instinctive. But still, even now that I can see your fur and skin and flesh, I can still see the magic that runs through your veins! Normal sight, the likes of which you take for granted, is not for me to ever truly have, it would seem …”
He sighed a little and shook his head. “I’m afraid, however, that this is where our conversation ends. After all, I cannot just have you up here giving me a headache, can I?”
Celestia didn’t even have time to brace herself before the dragon slammed into her, the force hurling her back and through the wall next to where she had taken flight originally. Luna managed to dodge to one side as he clipped her in his attempt to ram into her, and after hearing a thud she could see where he had plowed into the mountainside behind the castle.
Before he could attack her once again, she teleported away to her sister, who she found struggling to rise back to her hooves.
“He is fast, sister,” Luna breathed, turning to the sound of Argus crashing through a window and hissing at them furiously, “and remarkably sturdy. He uses his own body as a projectile.” She swivelled her gaze down the hall at the approaching guards, “Do not approach, royal guard! Protect the staff; Celestia and I shall handle this!”
“Dragons tend to be rather sturdy, yes.” Celestia hissed, before turning to one side and rearing up as Argus lunged again, only to be pounded to the ground beneath her hooves. “Though he is using his magic to enhance his speed, he is still not as fast as the fastest pegasi; the magic he is using to move at such speeds is also enhancing the force he is putting into his assaults.” He pushed against the tiles beneath him, cracking them as he attempted to force himself back to his feet. When he finally gained purchase, he bolted away a short distance and breathed purple fire in their direction, the flames of which were deflected with a magical shield. “And his body does not seem to take any damage…”
Something in her head clicked, and she blinked at Argus as he rushed by her once again, this time careening into a vase that neither she nor her sister had ever really liked anyway. “Luna, I need you to hold him here,” Celestia said, “I think I finally know what we are dealing with,”
“You plan to cut and run, or do you truly not think he poses a threat?” Luna asked, leaping to one side and rearing before bucking him upward, bouncing him off of the high ceiling and back down the hall. She sighed as he rose again, snarling furiously. “He is impressively resilient, isn’t he?” She asked rhetorically before using her magic to catch his next gout of fire into an orb and fling it back at him, the explosion singing a nearby pair of curtains. “He’s quite tenacious, too.”
“He attacks with charges and fire, clumsy and untrained. He fights like a cornered animal.” Celestia rebutted, ducking a charge and, with her wings, redirecting him into a wall. “He only refrains from trying to bite because that would require him to slow his momentum or else risk having his own teeth removed. His claws, while sharp, are too busy keeping his grip for him to sacrifice their use as weapons. I dare say that Twilight, as unaccustomed to combat as she is, would find no real difficulty in handling him.”
“Very well, sister, but be quick with whatever you do; he is likely to come looking for you, and while repairing this corridor can be afforded, repairing the whole castle will not be as easy.”
Celestia nodded and, after the next deflected charge, teleported away. Seeing his larger opponent disappear, Argus roared in fury.
“Running away, Celestia? What do you think this is, some kind of game? Come back here and fight me, you coward!”
In the blink of an eye he had Luna in his face, reared on her hind legs and with a hoof cocked back. “You have your hooves full, drake.” She snarled before landing a blow across his face that punched him through a wall. She blocked his charge with a shield when he came back, the force of which burst all around him and shattered yet another window, before Luna head-butted him to the floor and stamped on a foreleg to hold him there.
“Stay down, Argus, I do not wish to harm you.”
He chuckled and struggled to rise against the pressure she exerted on his leg. “All evidence to the contrary, Princess.”
Her horn lit up a little as he managed to kick away from her, his claws scratching along the tiles as he slid to a stop, only to rocket back towards her and slam into her chest as if hitting a solid steel wall. He kicked off of her and slid a short way before charging at her once again.
“Enough,” she hissed, unleashing her spell. Argus slumped to the ground and slid to her hooves, magic having engulfed his forelegs and, inch by inch, unravelling them and dissipating them to the winds, dissolving them into raw magic and making them fade until he was left with but stumps. “You honestly thought I would not be informed of your weakness to having magic removed from your being? You disappoint me, Argus.”
He hissed and struggled to move away from her, “No, Luna, what’s disappointing is that you think that will stop me!”
Magic surged around him, cracking tiles and warping reality in ways that Discord would have found most amusing, and his body rushed towards her, rocketing at speeds that would have impressed Rainbow Dash. He bared his teeth and snarled furiously as he approached, bouncing around the room in attempt to dodge her magic, “I do not tire, do not need to eat or drink, cannot grow old or feel pain; even destroying this body is merely delaying me, Princess of the Moon!” He ignored the feeling of his hind legs being removed by Luna’s magic as she managed to hit him, “Your only option is to either flee or contain me! I! Will! Not! Sto-”
He halted mere inches from her face with his eyes wide and shocked, coming to a complete stop in the space it would likely take for her to blink. Luna’s face was impassive, however, and she didn’t even blink at his form. She turned to see what he was staring at over her shoulder.
Celestia stood nearby, a few feet behind where Luna had resolutely held her ground throughout the short bout, with a dark purple ,spotted, gold speckled egg in her hooves.
“I finally understand,” she muttered, gazing down at the slightly gold-encrusted egg in her grip, “you were never vaporized in the lightning all those years ago, were you Argus…? When lightning struck the pony carrying you, it liquefied just enough of the gold cap atop the east tower for your egg to fall in and be hidden, buried beneath the metal as it cooled. I should have expected that something as sturdy as a dragon's egg would survive such stresses... The magic that holds the dome together, my magic… as it drew in arcane energy from the leys to replenish the spells it slowly breathed life into you… didn’t it?”
She didn’t wait for him to answer, continuing on her own, “That explains why you were pleased to see Spike, as well; you’re happy that he’s well cared for. You’re… you’re his brother; the egg we thought destroyed almost a thousand years ago.”
Argus snarled, turning his head away. “Damn you, Celestia…” He growled bitterly, “you… why are you showing mercy, why not just destroy me? Stop talking me to death and get on with it; you have your victory in your hooves. You see what I’ve become, a gods-forsaken ghost! A spirit dwelling within a magically sustained egg bound as a focal point of the arcane leys, experiencing the world through damned avatar that can feel nothing! I’m no better than a Lich, a soul bound to a phylactery!” He glared over at her, the dam of tears he’d tried to hold back spilling forth, “Why won’t you just kill me?!”
Celestia sighed, lifted the egg with her magic, walked closer to him and pulled him into a hug. She huffed sadly as he stiffened in her grip, “You foalish drake,” she breathed, “My magic gave you your life Argus, and I’m sorry it took this long for me to see that. I’m sorry that we didn’t search for you after the lightning, I’m sorry that we simply jumped to conclusions when you appeared in the kitchens all those years ago. I’m so sorry, Argus… You’re a drake that grew up with the only company he’s ever known hating him, a dragon that thinks himself a monster simply because of how he must survive…” she sighed and nuzzled his head softly, feeling him relax slightly.
“Look at you, Argus; you grew up unable to leave the tiny existence of your egg, constantly being fed raw magic from the world around you, keeping you alive, and you used the power this gave you to create a body that you could experience the world through. You built an avatar for yourself, something that even I find difficult.”
“Why…” the limbless drake in her grip asked pitifully, “why won’t you kill me? I’ve been a burden to you for so long, I’ve been a thorn in your side… I’ve been so alone. This isn’t living, Celestia, you, of all ponies, know what I am by law; I’m no better than accidental necromancy! So why, why won’t you just end my suffering, end the loneliness that is my… my pitiful existence? You have the power, there in your magic; all you would have to do is destroy it. Destroy me.”
Celestia stiffened before shaking her head. “No, Argus, I… I cannot, I will not. The dragon that lay both your egg and Spike’s was once my dearest of friends, hatched the same way Spike was, only through both my own and Luna’s magic combined. Her dying wish was that we… that I care for the two of you as best I could.” She sighed and nuzzled his shivering form again, “If she could see what has happened here, she would be rolling in her grave…”
“Probably with laughter, Celestia; you know she would find the entire convolution that led up to this hilarious.” Luna said sidelong. “She would likely give you a stern talking to, but I am fairly sure she would be amused more than anything.”
Celestia chortled, “And proud, Argus; she would be proud of what you’ve become. Look at you, a living being of magic itself, having avoided the horrors of what has transpired these last few years. You even managed to avoid being destroyed by Tirek, though how you did so eludes me.”
Argus huffed. “That lummox can sense magic, the greater the more appealing to him; all I really had to do was vent magic into the leys and, if you’ll excuse the pun, lay low. My avatar was hidden from him within the cell that negated magic, so… he couldn’t sense me.”
Celestia nodded before turning her gaze on her sister. “Luna, go back to the dungeons and order decommission of the cell; I want it destroyed.”
“Am I to give a reason, sister?”
“That room is dangerous, Luna; it’s capable of killing Argus, or any other creature that enters it should the runes be meddled with. A few clauses will not change that fact; it must be destroyed.”
Giving a nod, Luna turned towards the corridors leading to the dungeons, “Very well, sister; I shall see you at dinner, I trust?”
“Yes, Luna, I’ll see you at dinner.”
Luna nodded and began to trot away, pausing at the doorway out of the current corridor they stood within and looking back with a smile before stepping out. Celestia hummed thoughtfully, still holding Argus in her grip, both magically and physically, and she moved so as to look at him proper.
“Now, Argus… I know that this body I’m holding is made of magic, and that you’ve regenerated from having it entirely destroyed; I assume you can simply regenerate your limbs, yes?”
Argus fidgeted for what he could in her grip, which given that he didn’t have any legs to move, wasn’t much. “Celestia, it took hours to safely siphon off the arcane magic from the leys to recreate my body, even with what I managed to recover. It could be another, what, hour and a half before I even have enough to start.”
She nodded and, with her teeth, gripped the nape of his neck and transferred him to her back. “I have an idea where to keep your egg safe, Argus; I’ll take you there and then we can look at repairing your avatar. I will no longer forsake your mothers’ wishes through ignorance. You will be given the best care I can give, I promise you.”
He sighed and let her carry him through the castle, her wings held up to hide him from view. “If you say so, Celestia,”
*
Celestia strode confidently into a large room, one of the castle’s most interesting that was for sure; this round room smelled of flowers and freshly cut lawn, and while Argus had difficulty focusing on the actually physical parts of it, he could see why.
“Why, Celestia, are we in a greenhouse?” He asked, “They are hardly what I would call built to protect; if anything, this place looks inviting to ponies. Fresh lawn, well-kept flowerbeds, even a large tree of…” he closed his eyes for a moment or two before nodding, “the Zap-Apple variety… this place is practically a hidden little paradise.” His eyes scanned the circular, glass dome roofed room sceptically. “There is much magic in this room, true, but it does not seem ideal for hiding anything.”
Celestia nodded and placed his egg gently onto a nearby table. “True, Argus, the room does not seem safe, but you have my word that it is one of the safest in the castle. Even Discord dislikes coming in here.” Her magic reached out, and after a moment or two of concentration a large golden chest teleported before her, set neatly onto the soil. She lay down and, after thinking for a moment and opening the chest, began to magically carve runes into its inside surface.
Argus peered over her shoulder as best he could to get a look at the rather plain golden chest that sat before them. The insides of the chest were padded with royal red cushioning, a few runes carved onto the outside of the chest glowing faintly even as Celestia continued to carve more into the inside of it.
“What are you doing? What is that?”
Celestia smiled, “This, Argus, was the home of Spike’s egg for almost a thousand years.” She informed him, looking her runes over again and nodding before writing a new line, “The runes on the outside of the chest, while ancient, instruct magic to preserve the contents and protect the chest from wear and damage for as long as magic is supplied to them. As I have affixed a charm that draws magic from the arcane leys into the rune structure, the chest can preserve anything indefinitely.”
“And what are you writing to the inside, Celestia?”
She tittered, “if this is to be your home, Argus, it should have wards to protect it from tampering. Once your egg is placed inside the chest, it will seal and lock, and only my sister or I will be able to open or even move it, making it a fixed point.” She double-checked her runes, smiled, and gently placed Argus’ egg onto the cushioned insides. “I’m about to close the box, Argus, tell me if you feel anything strange.”
“It already feels strange, Celestia; I can feel the preserving runes tingling, and while I’ve already figured out that it cannot hurt me, it feels weird.”
She chuckled, “I’m sure you’ll get used to it. Okay, I’m about to close it, ready?”
He sighed, “Not really, but it’s unlikely that will stop you.” He said, watching as the box snapped shut. A light tingle ran through his body, and he shuddered before shaking his head. “That feels so weird, but… no, I still have access to the leys, and my avatar is still working as intended. I think everything is good.”
Celestia sighed and smiled, using her magic to move the soil to a convenient wheelbarrow by the door. “Thank the sun, I was a little worried. Now, all we need to do from here is…” She concentrated for a moment, her eyes scanning over the chest before her. A flash of magic left her horn, and the chest was gone, replaced by a cube of soil the same size as the now missing chest. “There we go, it is hidden.”
“Maybe from mortal eyes, Celestia, but you know as well as I do that I can see you hid it under the apple tree.” He shifted a little on her back. “It’s pleasantly warm there, to be honest; but I don’t understand why you say this room is safe?”
Celestia giggled before letting out a long whistle. The pair waited in silence for a moment or two, interrupted by something swooping over their heads and alighting on the grass before them. An orange and red avian that tittered and warbled at the alicorn, tilting her head in a curious manner.
To Argus, she looked like a small glowing star. “A bird has that much magic..?”
“Argus, this is Philomena, my pet phoenix;” Celestia announced, motioning to the avian with a hoof, “Philomena, this is Argus.” She added, earning curious warbles from the phoenix. “Ah, do you still remember Lady Viola, Philomena? She and I found you orphaned in the Everfree, remember?” Again she warbled a response, tilting her head to both sides as she did so. “I thought you might, well, Argus is one of her last descendants.” The bird chirped something, and Celestia nodded. “Yes, we also thought that Spike was the only of her last clutch to survive, but it would seem that Argus also managed to find his own way.”
Argus blinked dumbly at the exchange and shook his head. “Wait, you can understand this phoenix?”
Celestia chortled, “Of course I can, Argus; not only has she been with me for over a thousand years, but she took the time to teach me to understand her.” She said merrily, “Now, Philomena, I know you usually don’t like others coming into your roost here, but Argus is… special.” She said, tilting her ears irritably when Philomena gave a loud and irritable squawk. “Philomena, that’s not nice; no, you don’t need to worry about him intruding on your space. He’s here for his protection,”
The bird warbled and squawked irritably for a few moments, to which Celestia giggled, “Yes, Philomena, that is what that concentration of magic beneath your tree is. How did you manage to grasp what he is exactly so quickly?” Philomena cooed at the alicorn, and Celestia sighed. “Right, of course you can see the ley lines if you concentrate; why do I even bother asking sometimes?” She stood and shook her head with a laugh. “In any case, we must be off; we need to repair Argus’ arcane avatar, and I believe I know how to do it.”
Argus squirmed, trying to edge away from Celestia as she bore down on him. His limbs had been recovered a half hour earlier, and now he was being subjected to the most heinous of torture he’d ever endured.
“I want the cell back, put me back! I’ll be good and won’t struggle!”
Celestia sighed. “I wish you’d stop struggling now, to be honest.” She said, pulling him back over to her and vigorously scrubbing his back with a steel brush. “Sit still, Argus; if you’re to accompany me to dinner you need to look presentable.”
“Stop it, this is unbearable!” He protested, again trying to get away from her, being held in place rather firmly by her hooves.
“Argus, I know you don’t breathe, I could hold you down at the bottom of the bath to do this; you know that, right?” She shook her head and scrubbed a likely looking scuff on his left shoulder. “And I know that this doesn’t hurt you, Argus; if you can manage to survive Luna kicking you through walls, a meager steel brush isn’t going to do anything to you.”
“You’re going to make me smell all flowery!”
“I’m using the same soap Spike used to use in the castle, Argus.”
“Spike wears a frilly pink apron when he does housework! I know because I saw the photos when you were fetching the arcane batteries in your room!”
“Spike never complained this much when I bathed him…” Celestia grumbled, finally getting the dirty mark off of Argus’ shoulder.
“I doubt you threatened to hold Spike down until he stopped struggling when you did it, too!”
She sighed again, turning him around and holding him still, ignoring the tittering laughter from the servants standing next to the door, “Argus, I do still remember the magic feedback spell that I used to contain you at first, do you want me to have to use it?” She asked sternly, brushing his horns with the steel brush roughly. The dragon in her grip cringed.
“No!” He practically yelped, “Celestia, that spell actually causes me pain.”
“Well then, sit still and this will be as painless as possible.” She snapped, before throwing the brush over her shoulder where it clacked heavily on the tiles of the bathroom floor. Argus eyed the room embarrassedly.
“Do they have to watch, Celestia?” He asked, giving one of the servants in the room a wary glare.
Celestia giggled, “We interrupted them cleaning the bathroom, Argus; they are merely waiting for us to finish. Now, up we get. We’ve got to dry you off for the next part.”
She lifted him from the water and placed him on a convenient towel on the edge of the bath before draining the large tub and using her magic to dry herself off quickly as she stepped up the bath’s steps and, bringing another towel over, began to vigorously dry him off.
“Ah… ah! Celestia! I may not die if you manage to actually break my neck, but twisting my head at this angle is still really disconcerting!” He yelped from within the huge fluffy towel, “Celestia, legs are one thing but I cannot just regenerate my head!”
Celestia sighed and moved the towel away, having finished towelling him off, and hung it on a long rail near the door to the room. “Such a child,” she grumbled, before holding him in place and levitating over a pink rag. “Hold still,”
“No, get off; I won’t let you apply cosmetics to me!” He snapped, struggling to get out of her hooves, “Stop it, Celestia! I’m warning you!”
Celestia chuckled, as did the servants who went about cleaning the bath that the pair had just been in. “Oh, what’s the big bad dragon going to do, bite me?” She asked, before yelping as, like she had mockingly predicted, he bit her.
Her grip loosened, he scurried away from her and cowered down in the corner of the room, giving the mare wary glares over his tail, behind which he hid his face. One of the servant mares in the room moved over to Celestia’s side.
“Princess, are you alright?”
Celestia sighed and looked at her leg where he’d bitten her, turning her leg this way and that. “Yes, Summer Bloom, I am alright; he nipped me at best, I was not expecting it,” she said before looking over at Argus disappointedly, “Honestly, Argus; that was uncalled for.”
“You’re trying to prettify me!”
“And you’re behaving like a petulant child!” Celestia snapped back, “For goodness’ sake, Argus, act your age!”
“I’m barely a teenager in the relative age of my kind, Celestia!”
She scoffed at him, “Physically, in that body? Yes, you are, but chronologically you are an adult who should know better! Argus, all I’m trying to do is make you presentable.”
“Explain the pink cloth!” He demanded back from behind his tail, shooting the offending object a spiteful glare.
Celestia sighed, “Argus, this cloth is infused with something that will buff your scales, nothing more. Again, this is something that Spike uses himself.”
“Again I rebut that Spike wears a frilly pink apron.”
She sighed again as he flicked his tail, still glaring at her over it. “Argus, I went out of my way to get one of the guards to get some cologne from town for you. He said he got something… ‘Spicy’ I think is the word he used. Now get over here, or you’ll be wasting both my time and my patience.”
He growled but complied, crawling out of the corner and close enough for her to grip him with her hooves, sliding him closer and standing him straight. “Hold still, this should only take a minute.”
He huffed but complied, “That’s what you said about the scrubbing.”
“Argus, you were covered in muck from slamming into the mountainside and fighting us in the hall.” She replied, running the cloth over his back and down one of his thighs.
He grumbled but didn’t disagree, staying irritated but silent until, “Ah! Bad touch, bad touch!”
“Argus, for the love of the moon, stop that;” Celestia retorted while the servants laughed, “you and I both know there’s nothing-”
“And yet I’m still uncomfortable!”
She sighed, this was not going as she had envisioned. The cloth moved to other parts of his smooth anatomy, leaving buffed and shiny scales in its wake. “You know neither your brother nor your mother behaved like this whenever I bathed them.”
“Sorry to ruin the family tradition!” He hissed. “But one wears a frilly pink apron, and the other would likely want a frilly pink apron!”
Finished with the cloth, Celestia placed it within a drawer in the bathroom cabinet. “She would be laughing at me so very hard right now.” She complained under her breath. Her magic lifted a box from the countertop and levitated it over to her, unwrapping as it moved and eventually sliding open to reveal a cube-shaped bottle filled with a red liquid and a little spritz head on it. She read the label, “Hmm, fitting that the cologne is made with Dragonweed…”
“Ooh,” one of the servants cooed as she looked at the bottle, “that’s a Fragrant Scent original, Princess. He’s a cologne maker in Prance, what one is that?”
“Flambé batch fifteen, according to the label,”
“Gee, you even got a good bottle. No expense spared for the Princesses, that stuff is rare.” She breathed back.
Celestia spritzed a little into the air and sniffed at it, twitching her nose a little as she placed the smells. “Smells like… ebony wood smoke, with some accents of… is that habanero..? And there’s a strange undertone I can’t quite make out, I suppose that must be the Dragonweed.”
She shook her head a little and, using her magic, spritzed the cologne onto a few points on Argus’ body. “There we go, that should do. Now, as I assume you would only fight me over getting some attire on you, we can go have a look in the mirror and then plan your entrance to dinner.”
“Celestia, I don’t eat, why am I going to some dinner?”
She shook her head and led him from the bathroom, “Argus, you’ve never had the opportunity to eat, and even when we offered you food back when we first imprisoned you, you threw it in our faces in spite. We stopped offering you food because you never seemed to weaken from lack of nutrition, and figured that if you needed to eat you would eventually demand it.” She stopped walking and stood him in front of a mirror, watching him turn this way and that. “Now, doesn’t that look better?”
Argus stared at the mirror for a long couple of minutes before shrugging. “I concede defeat.”
“I thought you might.” Celestia said with a chortle. “Now, we need to plan your entrance to dinner, a couple of nobles are likely to be there, and though I doubt you’ll get along with them all, a showy entrance is important.”
Argus blinked at her before his lips spread into a predatory grin. “Oh, don’t worry; I am certain I have that handled.”
-
“Twilight,” Celestia greeted from her place at the large dining room table, “Spike, it’s so good of you to join us. I hope your respective days have been less… unpleasant than our earlier incident in the dungeons?”
Spike nodded, sitting in a taller chair to her right, “Yeah, today’s been pretty good.”
Celestia’s head bobbed, “Good to hear, Spike; and you, Twilight?”
Twilight, who had sat on the other side of Spike, shook her head a little, “I admit it has been… difficult to get past what happened. I spent most of the day in the library’s fauna section looking up rare creatures to see if there are any other similar creatures that we might have missed, but so far I’ve not found anything.” She sighed and shrugged, “I did hear, however, that Luna and you fought off something in the east dungeon access corridor?”
“Something to that effect, Miss Sparkle,” Luna said as she entered from the same entrance that she had used with Spike. “Good to see you are feeling better as well, Sir Spike. Sister, I trust there were no complications?”
Celestia chortled, “No more than one would expect,” she replied, taking a quick sip of her drink, “and on your end?”
“It has been destroyed, as you wished; I made sure to scratch it out to avoid anypony repairing it.”
Twilight’s head pivoted between the two of them curiously, “Hello, Luna, and what’s been destroyed?”
Celestia sighed, “My sister and I came to the joint conclusion that the cell built to contain the dragon was a danger we did not want to risk. Anypony with the right mind to could have added to or changed the runes and have created a potentially lethal device within the very castle itself. As of this afternoon, the cell is no longer part of the dungeons.”
Twilight nodded dumbly. “The best path is caution in this case, I suppose.”
A pair of unicorns entered from the main door to the dining room, both of them bowing to the gathered royals politely, “Princesses, so wonderful to have been invited to dinner,” The stallion spoke with a charming smile. He adjusted his monocle and moustache as he straightened up, using his magic briefly to fiddle with his purple bowtie and the sleeves of his tidy jacket.
“So nice of you to have accepted our invitations as such short notice as well, Sir Fancy Pants and Lady Fleur Dis Lee. Please, come sit, we have so much to catch up on.” Celestia said, waving the couple to some nearby chairs. “Unfortunately the chair to Luna’s left is reserved for another guest who has yet to arrive, but you are welcome to sit wherever else you would like.”
“Oh, a reserved chair guest at dinner? How splendid; do tell, whoever are they?” Fleur asked, tossing back her pink and white mane as she sat down to her husband’s side. She wore a slim and attractive powder purple and white dress that showed off much of her figure, and she magically fiddled with the hems of her sleeves as a servant pushed her chair in for her.
Celestia chuckled amusedly, “Ah, my dear, that would be ruining the surprise, wouldn’t it?” She teased.
“My, Princess, you do spoil us for entertainment, don’t you?” Fleur asked amusedly, “Very well, I shall hold my enthusiasm for their arrival.”
“Princess, we heard that there was an intruder in the castle earlier that had the two of you busy for a few minutes?” Fancy Pants asked, “I trust you are unharmed?”
Luna nodded, “We are fine, Sir Pants; it was merely a… misunderstanding.”
“Good thing too,” a new voice rang out from the main door as it swung open revealing a white unicorn stallion with an impeccable blonde mane and tail, “doubtlessly they were overwhelmed by your power and surrendered. Of course, what creature could truly go one-on-one with my aunts?”
A pair of unicorns behind him nodded in agreement, and the doors were closed behind them by a guard. The grey stallion shifted in his expensive looking jacket, and his yellow-coated wife adjusted the dress she wore that Twilight was certain Rarity would have scoffed at.
“Jet Set, Upper Crust, welcome; I assume you can find some seats.” Celestia announced with a smile. She frowned slightly at Blueblood, who moved to Luna’s side and, after removing the reserved sign, sat down. “Ah, Blueblood, that chair is rese-”
The doors slammed open, startling the ponies seated around the table into looking up and out into the dark hall. Nothing moved, everypony watching the entrance to the room with bated breath. Beyond the doors, nothing but darkness; it was as if the light simply ended at the doorframe.
Purple glowing lines lit up, carving a strange pattern across whatever stood beyond the doors. Like arteries, the glow seemed to outline a figure, though from the angles each pony had they could not see the full form. A pair of glowing purple eyes with slit, draconic pupils opened in the darkness, gazing into the room.
“Who is sitting in my chair?”
The darkness vanished as the figure strode into the room, revealing Argus to the gathered ponies and dragon. He stalked around the table, making sure to get as close to the backs of their chairs as possible and cause a reaction –of which Upper Crust and Jet Set jumped as he tapped the legs of their chairs with his tail. Finally he came to a stop next to Blueblood, his eyes boring holes into him.
“No, really, who is this? I’ve not met anypony yet, and this guy’s sat in the chair Luna said she had reserved for me. Not a good first impression.” He asked, looking around at the others gathered at the table.
Celestia chuckled, “Introductions are in order, I believe; everypony, this is Argus. Argus, these are Sir Fancy Pants,” he motioned to the named pony, who dipped his head in greeting, “his wife, Lady Fleur Dis Lee,” she, too, dipped her head, “Sir Jet Set,” another dipped head, though Jet Set was shaking a little bit as he did so, “his wife, Lady Upper Crust,” she did not greet the dragon with anything other than a worried stare, “Prince Blueblood, who happens to have sat in the seat reserved for yourself,” at this Blueblood gave his aunt a frightened, wide-eyed stare, but failed to move otherwise, “And lastly Princess Twilight Sparkle, and my adopted son, Spike.”
“You’re dead!” Twilight breathed, staring at the dragon before her like she’d never seen anything like him in her life. “We watched you die!”
Argus blinked at her and looked down at himself, poking at a likely-looking rib. “No, I don’t feel dead. Princess, am I dead?”
“Depends on who you ask, I suppose;” Luna quipped, “but strictly speaking, Argus, no, you are not.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Celestia cleared her throat, “Prince Blueblood, if you could find a seat elsewhere? We did have that seat reserved for Argus.”
Blueblood’s higher functions seemed to reboot at this, and he nodded dumbly before moving out of the seat he had taken for himself and to one to Jet Set’s right. Twilight noticed that there was a space between herself and Upper Crust, though she didn’t really mind.
She didn’t want to catch ‘pompous’.
Celestia nudged Spike with her wing to get his attention, “Spike, Argus has something he’d like to tell you.” She smiled over at her dinner guest invitingly, earning a huff in response.
“Way to put a guy on the spot, Princess.” He mumbled to himself before looking at Spike directly. “Spike, down in the dungeons, there was something I was going to tell you before I was so rudely, and painfully, interrupted; something that has needed to be said to you for a long time.
“Years ago, almost a thousand in fact, your egg was given to Princess Celestia as a… as a favour, in the hopes that you might grow up well, that you might become more than our draconic kin are.” He smiled faintly to himself, his gaze lowering to the table, “Spike, on the day that your egg was delivered, a great dragoness died, but… you were not the only gift given to Celestia that day. An entire draconic hoard, which helped her found and fund Equestria for centuries, was also given to her, as well as one of the dragoness’s teeth.
“Of all the gifts that she received that grim night, Spike, there was one thing that did not make it to her; a pegasus carrying the final gift was struck by wild lightning over the eastern tower, and his gift was presumed destroyed by the very bolt that claimed his life, having fallen into the molten gold of the tower’s cap where it lay hidden for centuries.
“That gift, Spike, was me.”
If a maid dropped one, the oppressive silence in the room would have allowed everyone to hear a pin hit the floor. Finally, after what was only a full ninety seconds but felt like an eternity, Spike managed to speak.
“What?!”
Argus chuckled, “I understand your shock, Spike; how could I be your brother, after all you have seen today? Well, the answer is… complicated. The caps of the towers have several spells and runic structures on them, making them impossible to destroy by anything other than Celestia’s magic, and as her magic fuels these spells with power directly from the world’s natural arcane heartbeat, her magic eventually brought me to life.
“For decades I remained within my egg, trapped within the golden dome; I was kept alive by the arcane energy being pulled into the spells around me, and eventually it… changed me. I can only interact with the world around us through this body, an avatar built through spell work and arcane magic.”
He sighed and turned to look down the table, unable to look Spike in the eye, “As monstrous as I am, Spike… I’m your brother.”
The oppressive silence that followed was biblical, and Argus fidgeted more and more as the seconds ticked by until, unable to bear it any longer, he slid out of his chair, “Thank you for the invitation, Princesses, but… I believe I shall take my leave.”
He slipped from the room silently, not even bothering to keep his head up as he walked from the room and closed the doors with a click that echoed in the otherwise silent room.
Eventually, it was Blueblood who cleared his throat. “So… what are we having for dinner?”
Celestia ignored him, instead opting to lean down to her adoptive son, “Spike, talk to me, please talk to me;”
“Why?” He asked weakly, “Why was he hidden for so long?”
She sighed, “We didn’t even know about his relation to you until today. It wasn’t until we were fighting with him that-”
“Fighting with him?! He was the one that wrecked the east hallway?!”
“Spike, what happens when you corner a frightened animal?” Celestia asked calmly, “We had more or less cornered him at the time, though we did not know it at the start of the fight. We were atop the eastern tower, and he attacked us to defend himself.”
Spike shook his head, “I don’t understand, Princess; he supposedly went hoof to hoof with you and Princess Luna to defend himself?”
“His physical form is... was defenceless, Spike. Your aunt and I were right on top of it, and he just… he wanted to defend himself from us. He believed we would destroy him if we had the chance, so he reacted as anypony trying to defend their life would.”
“Maybe you should have destroyed him; after all, he’s legally a Lich.” Blueblood scoffed from down the table, “You know as well as I do how the law views such creatures.”
Celestia grit her teeth and slipped from her chair, standing and starting to slowly walk down the row of seats to where Blueblood sat. “Prince Blueblood,” she began, her voice calm and her eyes staring at his own, “tell me, would you kill a pony under the same circumstances? A pony thrust into an existence which, like those we find monstrous, is but an innocent soul in a cell forced to live through an avatar? We… I have had him sealed away from the world within the dungeons for the last eight hundred years, denying him even that freedom. Tell me, Blueblood, how I should act unto an innocent that I have already wronged for so long? Tell me what I should do unto the child of one of my oldest and dearest friends, a child whose life was entrusted to me, whose very life I have mistakenly ruined for the current entirety of its span?”
“A-auntie… I-I merely meant-”
“You said exactly what you meant, Blueblood.” Luna hissed from her chair. “And were he a Lich, we likely would have destroyed him upon finding his phylactery.” She sighed and shook her head. “Instead we found a drake that has been maltreated at our own hooves. This is not a case of foul and dark magic abused in the hooves of one who wishes to gain power, but a child who wants to be forgiven for being born.”
“Twilight… I want to go after him.” Spike mumbled, looking up at his caregiver, “But… can you come with me?”
She smiled down at him, “Of course, Spike; we’ve both questions for him I’m sure.”
“You will likely find him in Philomena’s roost, Twilight.” Celestia informed her as she strolled back to her seat. “I would accompany you, but there is unfortunately some business which must be discussed here with our other guests.” She chuckled mirthlessly, “No rest for the wicked as they say.”
Spike nodded, “I’ll talk with you later, mom.”
“Of course Spike, I look forward to it.”
Sitting beneath the branches of the tree which protected his egg, Argus sat in forlorn silence, staring up at the branches above him. Philomena shifted her wings from the branch she sat on trying to ignore the dragon that she was aware was not looking at her.
Argus didn’t even move when she looked up and took wing, buzzing over his head and cooing lightly.
“I know you are there,” he said not turning his head, “I could see and feel you coming the moment you left… really, it’s hard to be snuck up on when you can see through walls.”
“Argus…” Spike’s voice mumbled, barely audible over the sounds of Philomena playfully annoying Twilight. He poked the bird to get her attention, “Philomena, Celestia’s currently in the northwest dining room with Blueblood, why don’t you go say hi? I’m sure he’s missed you all day!”
Philomena blinked at the drake for a second, and a smile, impressively cruel for a bird, spread on her beak before she took flight deeper into the castle.
“That wasn’t very nice, Spike.” Twilight chided.
“Eh, it got Philomena out of your mane.”
“Is there a reason you came here, or did you just happen upon me?” Argus asked sharply, “As far as I’m aware, dinner has only just been served to the table, so I doubt you have eaten.”
“Is what you said true, at the dining table?” Spike asked nervously.
Argus sighed, still not facing them. “Yes, Spike.” He replied. “Every word; I…” he chuckled mirthlessly for a second, “I honestly didn’t see this conversation happening, after everything that has happened today. I admit, I had hopes, but the better of them were dashed in the dining room.”
“What was that, when you entered? All the… glowy lines and stuff..?”
Argus chuckled. “Those ‘glowy lines’ as you put them, Spike, are this body’s version of blood vessels. I… my avatar does not have blood, but arcane magic courses through it to keep it alive, or at least a close approximation to it. In the dark they glow, as they also do when I am performing advanced magic.”
“Why won’t you look at us?” Twilight Sparkle asked, walking a little closer. “It’s hard to have a conversation with the back of your head, Argus.”
He chuckled, “Princess Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic, asks me why I don’t face her… cute.” He said, mostly to himself, “Lady Sparkle, have you ever seen the magic that courses through this world naturally?”
She tilted her head, “Do you mean the arcane ley lines? Yes, I have seen them; Princess Celestia taught me a spell to allow one to see them for a brief period of time.”
“Did you, during the time you were using the spell, happen to look at her?”
Twilight shook her head, “No..? Why, should I have?”
“Princess, looking at her is like looking at a full moon; everypony else just becomes small glimmering stars, background noise, to the kind of power she has at her disposal. Luna and Mi Amore Cadenza are much the same. You, Princess, are the bearer of the Element of Magic. Looking at you is like… staring at the sun.”
“But I don’t understand; I’m nowhere near as powerful as Princesses Celestia and Luna; they’ve had years, centuries, to hone their skills…”
“Princess, while your normal magic is not as strong as theirs, there is another that you can tap into that outstrips even theirs. Harmony magic itself has made you one of its figureheads; you have all the power in the world at your disposal.” He sighed and shook his head, “I imagine your fellow Elements would be just as bright to my sight.”
“Can you show me?” Spike asked, sliding off of Twilight’s back and stepping closer. “How you see the world, I mean?”
Argus barked a boisterous laugh before nodding. “I can, Spike. That’s… rather easy, to be honest; it is vision like yours that I cannot manage.” He turned his head to see Spike, “Close your eyes,” he said, waiting for Spike to comply before closing his own and exhaling. A deep purple glow surrounded the smaller dragon, slowly receding until it focused on his eyes. A flash of light later and Argus opened his eyes again. “Now, open them, and see the world as I do, through my own cursed vision.”
Spike did so, blinking for a second before swivelling his head around to look this way and that. “Whoa, this is cool.” He muttered, stepping forward and putting a scaled palm to Argus’ neck, trailing his jugular with a claw. He placed his palm over a glow in Argus’ chest, where all of the magic seemed to connect. “What’s this?”
“That’s my avatar’s heart, Spike; there, enough arcane magic is stored to power me for quite some time. If I increase the amount of magic inside the heart enough, I can enlarge my body.”
Spike’s eyes flicked to something he could see behind the larger dragon, buried beneath the soil. “What’s that, under the tree..? It’s got a whole bunch of… lines coming from it.”
Argus smiled, “That, Spike, is me.” He said.
“But you’re here!”
Argus laughed, “Oh, how nice of you to say. No, Spike, I told you that I was basically trapped within my egg, right? Well, I kinda still am; I can’t leave the egg. I don’t have a physical body, but the magic that Celestia had on the dome is made to preserve whatever it affects, and that included me. I’m basically a soul bound to the egg, kept alive with the heartbeat of the world.”
He sighed and lay down, staring at the ground beneath the apple tree, “Those lines you see coming off of me are the arcane ley lines of the world; I’m connected to every one of them that converge at this castle, I basically am the main hub of the castle’s power. If arcane magic is used, I can feel it from whichever wing it is drawn. I took almost a century to siphon off enough to create my first avatar without anypony noticing or upsetting the balance.”
“So why were you collecting power down in the dungeons?” Twilight asked from behind them.
Spike spun on the spot and covered his eyes. “Gah! Geez, you weren’t kidding about the ‘staring at the sun’ thing, were you?” He shook his head, “How do you turn this thing off?”
“Like this, Spike,” Argus replied, smacking the drake up the back of his head with a paw idly, yet hard enough to make him yelp and flinch.
“Ow, Argus, what was that- oh, it’s gone? Thanks for that, I guess.” Spike complained, rubbing his head and blinking.
“You didn’t answer my question, Argus;”
The dragon laughed, “No, I guess I didn’t.” He mused, “Princess, as ponies age they gain in mass and size, as do most other creatures. I, however, do not. I was born the size of a hoofball, and I will likely never grow beyond the size of a hoofball. My place in the magic of the world has made me basically immortal, but there is still one thing I can do. Slowly, over the last eight hundred years, I accumulated spare arcane magic and filtered it to my avatar, aging it. It was only in the last few decades that your unicorns detected the gradual increase in magic that my avatar was gaining.
“Put short, Princess, I was growing up.”
“Is that why you’re, well, only half the size you were before?” She asked curiously.
“Yes; I only managed to save the magic that comprised of my original bones, organs, and some of my muscles when my avatar was destroyed, so there was not enough for me to create the older body I had before. Celestia happened upon my egg attempting to draw the magic in before I could fully contain it all and I panicked, creating this body in a rushed attempt to distract her.”
One of his ears twitched and he turned his head to the flowerbed to his left, staring at it as if it had insulted him. “What do you want, Discord?”
A flower uprooted itself and morphed into the named bringer of chaos, “My, that is rather annoying, someone who can tell when I’m around. It ruins all the fun of surprising people.”
“You upset the order of the world around you, arcane energy diverts away from you, and your own magic is upsetting to look at. You cause enough trouble when you’re not doing anything, what do you want?”
Discord held a paw to his chest in mock offense, “Me? What do I want? Well, if you’re going to be that rude I suppose I will just have to leave; I was all ready to simply greet the newcomer to the castle, but if he’s going to be this rude, I’ll save it for someone who wants it.”
“Discord, you greet ponies by trying to rearrange their brain; that is hardly something I am going to be upset at missing out on.” Argus snapped. He grinned inanely as he noticed something from the corner of his eye, “You may want to leave, however; Philomena is on her way here.”
Discord scowled and clicked his taloned fingers, disappearing in a flash as the named phoenix flew into the room and squawked angrily.
“Just missed him, my dear,” Argus said as she gently landed on his shoulder. “Though why you would want to get a hold of him is beyond me.”
Twilight shook her head, “When he was first released from stone, he put Philomena in charge of a group of phoenix chicks that he brainwashed her to believe were her own. She’d snapped out of it when he was sealed away in stone again, and she’s been rather… angry ever since.”
“Ouch, that’s harsh. Never mess with anything’s family.” Argus said in a hiss. He sighed and shook his head before turning his attention on Spike. “Speaking of family… Spike; Celestia has told me about some of the things you’ve done in your life,”
Spike shifted his feet nervously, “Like what?”
“Like the Greed incident, for one,” Argus replied, ignoring Spike’s flinch, “and your escapades in the Crystal Empire.” He smiled at the dragon-shaped magic in front of him, “You would have made mother so very, very proud…”
Spike chuckled, “Yeah, Celestia’s said that in the past.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true, Spike;” Argus pressed, “you’ve done so much, saved the Crystal Empire twice, you even beat your own greed, a most impressive feat!”
Laughing again, Spike shrugged, “It’s not like it was that much of a deal, really; haven’t you done it?”
Argus shook his head, “I can’t go through a greed growth, Spike, and there is no need for me to have one. I don’t think I’ll ever have a… a conflict of self like that.” He turned to stare at the tree’s roots again, “No, my conflicts are… not something that I wish to burden you with.”
“Luna said you regret being born?” Spike asked, getting Twilight to cringe at his crude question.
“There are days, yes.” Argus replied, “After all, I have spent the last eight hundred years as a trapped soul using an avatar to interact with the world; an avatar trapped in a box.” He chuckled sarcastically, “A prisoner imprisoned in his only means of escape.” He shivered for a moment before continuing, “I was glad to be free of that room, but in turn I was placed within a new one. You have no idea, Spike, I pray that you never will, of how much it hurt. Magical feedback through the avatar hurts, not the body, but my soul. I can still feel pain. That cell that tore me apart was agonizing. Though I’ve no real frame of reference, it was like my entire body was burning in acid. Every muscle, every bone and inch of skin, everything hurt.
“I know Celestia didn’t mean to, but she put me through the most agonizing thing I have ever felt. I think that was what made me so afraid when she showed up on the rooftop, the thought that she could do it again, and not just to my avatar, but to me.” He shivered as he spoke, shaking his head before he continued, “When the fight started I sort of just… ran on autopilot. My existence may be pitiful and pathetic, but in the end it was all I had left.”
Spike sighed, punching Argus’ side lightly, “Well, you’ve got a brother now, right? So, what, are you going to come back to dinner, show me your favourite food or something?”
Argus laughed, “It would be the other way around, Spike; I don’t eat. Or drink. Or breathe…”
“For somepony who’s not a zombie, you sure are talking about yourself like one.”
“Zombies don’t exist naturally, Spike, and if they did the magic of the world would destroy them.” Argus pointed out, “Necromancers and Lich pervert the natural order of the world to create the undead, and that’s why there are such strict laws against them.”
“My question stands, Argus; you coming back to dinner or not?”
He sighed and nodded. “I suppose I might as well make an effort, after all the fuss I went through to impress those present.” His ear twitched and he smiled a little, “Oh I think I can hear them talking about me; I will see you there.”
*
“Princess, you cannot seriously be considering housing that dragon!” Blueblood snapped over his roasted eggplant, “They’re dangerous beasts, and he doesn’t even count as alive by the courts!”
Celestia sighed; the conversation once Spike and Twilight had left, had quickly turned professional, and the business of the meeting had ended rather neatly. As soon as that topic had ended, however, the Prince had turned his ire upon the castle’s latest official addition to its population.
“Were the gryphons not once also considered as dangerous beasts, Blueblood?” Luna asked, “And yet we have a few of their number amongst our staff, both as guard and private.”
“Gryphons don’t continue to kill and devour ponies, aunt Luna,” Blueblood countered, “you admitted yourselves that you had him locked in the dungeons for eight hundred years, why not just return that monster there?!”
“Rude and cruel; no wonder Philomena doesn’t like you.” Argus’ voice echoed through the room, as if from nowhere.
Purple energy shone behind the chair to Luna’s left, growing brighter and brighter until, with a flash, Argus appeared, some of his arteries glowing vibrantly and dimming as the magic dissipated. He glared at Blueblood from where he stood, keeping the stare up as he moved to sit in his chair. “Talking about someone like that behind their back? So impolite; at least let me be in the room so I can laugh. For your information, Prince, I have not eaten anything in the time I have spent alive, so saying I eat ponies is uncalled for. And returning me to my cell so I can be left there forevermore?” Argus snorted at him angrily, “And you’re calling me a monster.”
“Argus, so nice of you to re-join us,” Celestia said with a genuine smile, “I take it you and Spike spoke?”
“We did, yes. Thank you for sending him up to me.”
“I didn’t send him to you, Argus,” Celestia said, “he went of his own accord.”
Argus smiled thankfully, “You truly have raised him well, haven’t you?”
Celestia chuckled, “I tried my best, yes.”
“Mother would be glad,” Argus mumbled, “he’s going to grow into a fine dragon. Someone she would be more than proud to call her son.”
Luna’s wing wrapped around him, “She would be proud of you as well, Argus; a mother would find a reason, regardless of what their children have done.”
“Even if that child has done nothing but sit in a box their whole life?”
“Even then, Argus,”
“Sorry it took us so long to get back,” Twilight apologized as she trotted into the dining room, “unlike Argus, we had to take the stairs; teleporting just before meals riles the stomach, after all.”
“Quite alright, Twilight, your meals were held for your return.” Celestia replied, holding a hoof up to a maid who nodded and scurried off. “And Argus, I was unsure what you would find interesting, so we ordered you what we assumed would be a dragon’s staple. I do hope that wasn’t presumptuous of me?”
Argus shrugged, “Celestia, you know I have never eaten anything. Whatever is fine.”
She nodded as the maid returned, carrying three plates of food with her that she put before their respective diners. “The chef hopes you find your meals to your tastes,” she said, “garden salad with extra cherry tomatoes, grilled mushrooms, and light vinaigrette for Princess Twilight Sparkle,” the cloche covering Twilight’s meal was lifted, revealing her meal to her, “a ruby, emerald, and chives omelette with a light dusting of parmesan, along with a side of five-leaf salad for Sir Spike,”
“Salad? Mom, come on,”
Celestia chuckled, “Spike, what have I said about eating your greens?”
Spike grumbled and forked a spinach leaf into his mouth, “Finish your greens or no more rubies for breakfast.”
Celestia nodded, “That’s right,”
The maid moved around to where Argus was seated and placed his dish before him, “And for the guest, as per the request, one plate of assorted gem filets.”
She lifted the cloche and Argus eyed the plate before him, noting the subtle magical signatures of the different gems he had at his disposal. He hummed curiously, lifting one with a paw only to put it back when Luna tapped his side and held up the fork next to his plate.
“Oh, sure, he doesn’t have to have any greens with his meal.” Spike grumbled, chewing on a mouthful of salad.
Argus took the fork with his own magic and stared at it, turning it this way and that, as if the very concept was foreign to him. “Okay, I admit, I do at least know table manners,” Argus said, twirling the fork once more, “But this fork… Mithril plated steel? Your cutlery must have cost a small fortune to have smithed.”
“Not at all, since I was the original creator of them,” Luna replied, scooping a forkful of her curried rice, “I take it you approve?”
He shrugged and speared a ruby with his fork, hearing it clink against his plate but not pierce it, “And reinforcement charms on the crockery, no expense spared I suppose,”
“That was your mother’s work, actually.” Celestia commented, “She got fed up with breaking plates.”
“Trust a dragon to need things to be hard to break,” Argus mumbled, lifting his speared gem and turning it curiously.
“Are you going to eat, or just play with your food?” Twilight asked.
Argus chortled, “My dear, if you could see the subtle magical matrices within this gem, you would likely ‘play’ with it as well.” He sighed and gave it one last long look, “Down the hatch, I suppose; we’ll see if I have this body’s digestion down right.”
With that he shoved the gemstone into his mouth, pulled it off the fork, and began to chew. It wasn’t until after he swallowed that he spoke again.
“Interesting… having never eaten before, I cannot say I know how to describe it other than as such. My tongue tingles, but it’s a pleasant feeling.”
“Rubies are generally sweet,” Spike said from where he sat, having finally gotten to his omelette, “Emeralds can be bitter, depending on the colour, sapphires are tart, and topazes are often sour but are great for fuelling dragonfire. From there, most gems are sweet.”
“If dragons did not find them appealing to eat, I suppose they wouldn’t get the nutrition required from them for their fire.” Argus commented, spearing another gem and eyeing it curiously before shrugging and eating it. “They are edible, Celestia, but I cannot see myself making this a regular thing.”
“If you say so, Argus,” Celestia replied, “For now, I believe we should just continue with our dinner.”
Argus reclined on his back, lying on a large bed and surrounded in blanket and pillows. It was weird, he figured, that Celestia had brought him up here and dumped him onto her bed while she went and bathed so that she could retire for the night.
“What was she even thinking, bringing me up here?” He groused to himself, “I don’t sleep; this is a massive waste of my time.”
“And what would you have been doing otherwise, Argus?” Celestia asked as she walked into the room wearing a long pink dressing gown with her cutie mark embroidered onto the right breast.
He shrugged, “I don’t, know, sat around feeling about as useful as a one legged pony at a butt kicking contest maybe?”
She chortled and slid into the bed, giving him a flash of her pearly whites, “Argus, you need to learn to relax.”
Argus snorted, “Celestia, I have spent the last eight hundred years locked in a box unable to do anything,” he said, “I think that would be enough relaxing for several lifetimes.”
“So you want something to do, then?”
He shrugged, “This dragon, locked away for his life, has been released and found the world wanting;” he snarked, “I know that, in a few minutes, perhaps an hour or so, you will be asleep and I will be alone.”
He sighed and let his head flump to the bed, “Perhaps that is as it should be.” He murmured.
“Argus,” Celestia chided, “don’t do that to yourself; things are looking up.”
“How, Celestia? So I have been released, whoop de doo; if I had truly wanted that, your little box would not have stopped me. All I would have had to do is dismiss my avatar into the leys and reconstruct it elsewhere. I was there because I had nowhere else to be.” He shimmied on the bed and mussed up the blanket in a way designed to annoy, “And don’t tell me to read a book, you know I find that difficult, if not impossible.” He sighed and shimmied again, getting his tail in on the movement this time, “Eight hundred years and I still haven’t managed to fix my eyes.”
“Argus, stop that,” Celestia huffed, lifting him from the bed magically and straightening the sheets out, “and why have you had so much difficulty figuring it out, I would assume simply reversing the effects of the Linesight spell would be enough?”
“That only partially works, Celestia,” he grumbled, shimmying once again much to her consternation, “it’s like… when you use the Linesight spell on yourself, I'm fairly sure you can still see the material world around you, you’ve merely added a filter to the top. For me it’s much the same, only in reverse. I can see the magical world around me, but the material world appears as a sort of phantom on the top. I know what colour your dressing gown is because of the magical signature it gives off, but I cannot see it. If I opened a book, I would see the magical signature of pages, but not words. To me a book is weird box of paper sheets that Twilight Sparkle thinks are more important than finding companionship.”
“Argus, have you ever tried simply copying the eyes of ponies, rather than just making things that look roughly the same?”
“I have spent the last eight hundred years in a box, which nopony was allowed to get close to, Celestia. I can actually count the amount of days in that time that I spent with light.” He griped, lifting one of her pillows magically and thwapping her with it; he was actually getting rather impressed how much of his behaviour he was being allowed to get away with. “The answer is two thousand and fifteen, Celestia, one every one hundred and forty two days. I spent more time alone in the dark than the sun did in the sky.”
Celestia sighed, “Argus, two things;” she said, lifting him with her magic and straightening out her sheets again, “First, stop doing that, and second, if you needed a frame of reference for making your eyes similar to ours, I’m not going anywhere.”
Argus sighed as she dropped him back onto the bed, and he used the momentum to bounce to a position where he could see her eyes. “Fine, if you’re so insistent,” he groused, staring at her sparkling magenta eyes. Magic tingled at her face and eyes as he concentrated.
Two minutes into the stare and Celestia was starting to feel a little awkward, “Argus, are you quite done?” The dragon didn’t answer, just continuing to stare at her. One of his eyes bulged slightly, followed by the other, and she drew back a little. “Uh, Argus, are you-”
Argus’ eyes swelled further and popped audibly, making Celestia rear back and off the bed with a loud whinny, tumbling to the floor. From her new position lying on her back on the floor she could hear Argus laughing raucously and vaguely see his limbs wiggling as he laughed.
“Oh my stars, that was perfect!” He mocked from the bed, “I cannot believe that happened!”
Celestia sighed and climbed back onto her bed, giving the still giggling drake a push with her hoof. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Argus; this is what I get for helping someone…”
He kept giggling as he rolled over, his eyelids shut, “You did that to yourself, Celestia, just keep that in mind.” He said, before his face finally found hers, “Besides, I needed to get rid of those ones before I could grow-” He opened his eyes, showing her his glowing purple irises, pristine white sclera, and black slit-pupils, the words on his tongue halting and his smile melting away.
Celestia tilted her head at him curiously, pulling her face back as he tried to paw at it. “Argus..?”
“White…” He mumbled, “Celestia, I…” His smile returned, shaking and shivering, “Celestia, I can see you. I can still see the leys, they are still visible, but I can see you!”
She smiled as he got up and moved about the room, looking at all the things that he could, “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?” She asked jokingly, straightening her sheets again before retrieving a book from one of the bookshelves and holding it out in front of her, “Argus, perhaps you would like one of these?”
He bounded over to her, landing on the bed heavily and, of course, messing up her sheets, and looked the book over. It was now that his smile faded, becoming sheepish, “Uh, Celestia? Not that I’m not grateful for this or anything, but…”
“’But…’?”
He chuckled and looked away, “I can’t read.”
Celestia stared at him for a good long moment before, “You… cannot read. Someone with your vocabulary cannot read?”
“Vocabulary is easy, Celestia, all you have to do is listen and often you pick up the meanings of the words as you go! I’ve never had to read before… I never could read before.” He admitted with head still turned away embarrassedly. “And besides, even if I were able to read over the last eight centuries, would you have indulged me?”
Celestia tilted her head in thought as her horn lit up and a faint scratching could be heard from a far wall. “No, I suppose not.” She admitted honestly. The scratching finished and after a moment of rustling paper, a soft ‘fwoosh’ echoed through the room.
Argus sat and stared at her, “Princess, I know you magically send letters to Spike through use of a Dragonfire candle, I’m not so stupid as to not see the connection to him when I saw it the first time I was in here.”
“Yes, and?”
“And it’s, like, half past ten at night and well past his bedtime.” He deadpanned, “You are a horrible mare.”
She feigned offense, holding a hoof to her chest, “A horrible mare? Moi? Oh Argus,” she grinned at him evilly as the sound of frantic hooves could be heard coming from beyond her chamber doors, “you’ve not seen anything yet.”
The doors burst open in a flurry of movement, and the seemingly crazed Twilight Sparkle moved through the room like a mare possessed, possibly with multiple demons at once if her manic grin and wild mane were anything to judge by, and zeroed in on Argus sitting shocked on the bed before tackling him to the floor.
“Twilight Sparkle, what the-”
“Celestia, letter, you, can’t read! Fix, library, now!” She rambled, before lifting him from the tiles and rug with her magic and carrying him from the room.
“Twilight, calm down, what on Equestria has gotten into you?! Put me down!” He shouted back as she abducted him from the room. One of his ears twitched as he heard Celestia laughing, “Curse you, Celestia, you sicked your insane student on me! I’ll get you for this!”
Celestia waved at him gleefully as he was carried from the room. “See you in the morning, Argus.”
“I put a curse on you Celestia, I put a curse!” Argus could be faintly heard shouting as his voice faded into the distance.
Celestia giggled to herself as she straightened out her bed for the fourth time. A click echoed from the hall, and Luna’s head popped into view, “Celly, did you really just sic your student on Argus because he can’t read?” She waited for Celestia to nod before continuing, “That was low, even if it were just a joke; she’s liable to not let him go until the morning.”
Celestia only grinned toothily and nodded, “Marvellous, isn’t it?”
A flicker of green flame swirled in Celestia’s bedroom window and coalesced into a scroll, which burst open and threw pebbles all over the bed. Taken aback, Celestia read the scroll, written in Spike’s claw,
‘Everypony is trying to sleep, mom, and I’m pretty sure that ponies down in Canterlot just heard Argus trying to put a curse on you; go to sleep and stop weaponizing Twilight or you’ll be late to raise the sun again!
Sleepy and annoyed –Spike.’
Luna rolled her eyes as she finished reading the letter over her sister’s back. “Goodnight, sister.” She snarked as she strolled out, putting out all of the candles in the room with her magic and closing the doors behind her.
Celestia chuckled a little then shook her head. “Oh fie, now the bed is full of rocks.”
-
Celestia arrived at breakfast to find Argus sitting at the table, a distant and haunted expression on his face. She held in a snigger as she sat down, waving over a maid.
“I’ll have the Waffle Supreme today,” She said. The maid nodded and scurried off to the kitchen, and Argus turned his haunting face on Celestia.
“Four hours, Celestia,” he said listlessly, “she taught the alphabet and numbers in ten minutes, and then had me reading the dictionaries and encyclopaedias for four. Hours.” His left eyelid twitched and he leaned across the table at her, “And that wasn’t the worst part, Celestia; I couldn’t even get away from her when she fell asleep. She’s a cuddler, Celestia. Your meddlesome, muddled, and mildly miscreant student is a cuddler. And you knew, didn’t you?”
“Consider it payback for the eyeballs.” She retorted, dipping her head to a maid who placed a large glass of orange juice at the table for her.
“It was cruel and unusual punishment, sister, and you know it.” Luna said following a yawn as she strolled in, her magic cradling a mug of coffee that could probably contain an entire pot.
Spike came strolling in just behind the lunar princess, yawning wide and heading directly for the chair made for him. “Good morning, Princesses, Argus; have you seen Twilight anywhere? She wasn’t in our suite this morning after she left the room in an insane hurry yesterday.” He shivered a little in his seat, “She looked kinda like she did during when that Want-it-Need-it thing happened. Ah, I’ll have what Princess Celestia is having.” He added to a maid who moved to his side to take his order.
Argus sighed and looked about, his eyes shifting a little in their sockets as his head swivelled this way and that. “She should be here right about…” The main doors to the dining room opened and a dishevelled Twilight dawdled in, yawning and groaning, “… now.”
“Good morning, Twilight, I trust you had a pleasant sleep?” Celestia asked warmly.
“It’s too early for all this light…” She slurred as she sat in a chair next to Spike, “I’ll have a pancake surprise, no elderberries, extra strawberries, please.”
“It’s hardly a surprise if you know what’s in it, Twilight Sparkle.” Argus commented as a plate was placed before him.
“One serving of the chef’s suggestion, an extra-large omelette with chives, spring onions, and cheese, with a side dish of Eyrie muffins with butter,” the maid said as she removed the cloche. “Our gryphon chef who made this dish, Elizabeth, hopes you enjoy your meal.”
He dipped his head to her, “If it tastes as good as it looks, I believe I will. Thank the chef for me.”
The maid nodded and scurried off to the kitchen, leaving Argus the field the stares that Luna and Spike were shooting at him.
“What?”
“’As good as it looks’, Argus? I thought you couldn’t see anything but magic?” Luna probed.
“Oh,” he blurted, before grinning sheepishly, “last night your sister helped me upgrade my eyes,” he lifted his fork and tapped his open eyes with it without flinching, “with these I can see like you can, only with the benefit of seeing magic too. I copied the structure of her eyes almost perfectly, so I think that my nature as a being of arcane magic allows me to see the leys naturally.” He shrugged a little, “I memorized how I did it last night while Princess Sparkle was lecturing at me the importance of being able to spell a word I couldn’t even pronounce, and I’m fairly sure I can switch between them now.”
The maids who had taken orders came back carrying dishes, and they placed them at their respective diners while announcing the dish before hurrying off to their next task.
“So,” Spike began partway through the meal, “can you really put curses on ponies?”
Argus laughed, “No, Spike, take it from someone who is made of magic that curses do not exist." He said, "But I do know where to find samples of Poison Joke and a few spells that could be quite annoying.” He gave Celestia a wolfish and inane grin.
“Do so, Argus, and I’ll find things that even you won’t want to do,” she threatened, taking a drink of her juice.
“It’s like sitting amongst children.” Luna huffed, “Could we at least try to be civil to one another during meals?” She glared at her sister and Argus, waiting for them to nod before continuing, “Good. Now, Argus, unless you have anything else to do, I was planning on giving you a tour of the castle and perhaps take you to the courtyard so I could see some of your magic. It has been some time since I have seen high level magic not being channelled by ponies, and I would like to leap upon the opportunity you present. Perhaps while we are touring you might find something interesting to do.”
*
“Well, Argus, what did you think of the castle?” Luna asked as they strolled out into an open courtyard.
“It’s large,” he replied simply, “If not for my magic vision, I would likely and easily get lost in there.”
“It takes a little while to get used to it,” Luna admitted, “now, I have brought you to this courtyard in particular because I would like to see your capabilities.” She waved a hoof to the paved yard grandly, “This, Argus, is where our unicorn guards come to train and spar. The pavers have engraved resistance and reinforcement runes on their underside meaning that the kind of magic that unicorn guards can unleash cannot damage them.”
Argus sighed, “Luna, I hate using magic for anything other than an emergency; drawing from the leys is something I don’t like doing. Hay, I only made my avatar by skimming extra magic off of them, not by abusing and drawing directly.”
Luna nodded, “Not today, Argus; we have more than enough arcane batteries in storage to make up for whatever you draw.”
“Fine, Luna; I don’t know why you’re so eager for this to happen, but fine.” Argus groused in return, dawdling a short distance away before squaring off with her. “Let’s get this over with.”
With a nod, Luna charged magic in her horn and released a flare into the sky, “When the flare bursts, we begin. Not a moment sooner.” She instructed, watching the globe.
As soon as it burst, Argus launched himself at her, drawing magic in and releasing a bolt of energy at her that scorched the stone pavers and charred a path in her direction.
Or at least he would have, had he not been tackled to the ground by a multi-coloured blur.
“Don’t worry, Princess, we’ve got this varmint!” A voice with a heavy southern twang shouted as an orange coated, blonde-maned, Stetson wearing earth pony mare charged past her and threw a lasso of rope around the legs of a prone and surprised Argus. With a mighty heave she pulled him across the courtyard, hogtying him with ease, and dumping him at Luna’s hooves.
“They’ve hogtied me, Luna,” Argus complained bitterly, “this is humiliating.”
“What are you going to do about it, huh?” The rainbow-maned pony asked mockingly.
Argus growled, and the ground around him shook, “Likely I will do this.” He snarled, as the rope around his legs burst into flames and burned to ashes, “And then this!”
In a flash he flipped to his feet and burst into motion, zipping across the courtyard and underneath Applejack, kicking out with his hind legs and launching her over to where Luna stood, where she landed with a heavy thud.
“Don’t break anything that cannot be replaced.” Luna said idly as Applejack got back up and rushed back in.
“Don’tcha worry yer highness, we’ll have this critter handled in no time!”
Luna sighed, “I wasn’t talking to you.” She mumbled.
“Sparring rules, then;” Argus snarled as he rocketed at Rainbow Dash, who rolled to dodge him, grabbing one of his forelegs and using her roll and his momentum to slam him into the stone. He leapt back to his feet only to be bucked in the ribs hard by Applejack, and then blinded by sparking light reflected from gemstones. After the spots vanished, his vision cleared for him to be face to face with a pair of cyan eyes that bore into his very soul.
He grinned, noticing the magic this yellow pony was channelling into her eyes, and blinked to switch his vision and dashing away, now using his better vision to move.
“W-what..?” Fluttershy mumbled, blinking in surprise, “g-girls, The Stare doesn’t work on him!”
A cannon barrel suddenly appeared in Argus’ face to a cheerful cry of “My turn!” from a shockingly pink pony riding atop it. The cannon fired, whipping his head back at an unnatural angle and launching him across the courtyard and to Luna’s hooves.
“Pinkie, its neck, you broke its neck!”
“This is getting quite annoying.” Argus griped as he put his head back into the correct place on his shoulders, much to the surprise of the ponies that had recently been fighting him. “I can barely see because they’re the Bearers, Loyalty is too damned fast for me to hit, let alone keep up with, Honesty is a nuisance that I don’t want to accidentally hurt, Laughter just used a blasted cannon on me, and the other two worked together to use mind-control magic on me.” He stood again, shaking himself off and barely ducking an attempt by Rainbow Dash to tackle him at high speed. “And I’m not allowed to hurt them!”
Magic lightning arced and crackled off the stones around him, lifting him into the air as he snarled and his veins shone with barely restrained energy, “And I have had enough!”
The pavers around the bearers burst from the ground, and the very earth itself wrapped itself around them and pinned them to the ground; all except Rainbow Dash, who had managed to zip away at the last minute. Argus, however, chased after her in the air, keeping up with her only thanks to his magic and anger.
She halted for a second, holding out a hoof and clotheslining him before zipping around and bucking him in the head, sending him spiralling away, only to get bucked in the stomach when he tried to recover. “Nopony can keep up with the Dash!”
Curling around her next attack, Argus swung his entire body around, “Not if you don’t. Keep. Still!” As he shouted this last word, his arc completed and his tail crashed into her, catapulting her at the ground. His magic moved the pavers where she was about to strike the earth away, and she slammed heavily into the dirt, which then moved to pin her to the ground.
Argus thudded onto the tiles near Luna, unable to catch himself as his body struggled to stand.
“Too… too much, I used too much…” He wheezed, “Leys are diminished…”
Luna hurried to his side, “Argus, what’s wrong? You weren’t this weakened when we sparred before!”
“I… I need to stop. The magic in the lines around my egg is diminished, never has it been drawn on so heavily while I was affixed as the hub.” He groaned and lay down, “Those five pack a punch, Luna, and far out is Loyalty a nuisance.”
“I resemble that remark!” Rainbow shouted from her crater.
“That’s why I said it, stupid,” Argus growled, “Don’t… don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine; the magic is returning as we speak, and I can feel the lines growing stronger in response to their heavy abuse. It sucks to be me right now, but I’ll have more magic available as a result.” He groaned up at Rainbow Dash who, having been released by Luna’s magic, towered over him with a scowl on her face. “I hate you,” he grumbled sarcastically.
“Yeah, well, you can go suck a-”
“Miss Dash!” Luna snapped.
“Lemon, I was going to say lemon.”
“That isn’t any less impolite and you know it, Rainbow Dash.” Rarity scowled. “To say such a thing in the presence of Princess Luna is so uncouth.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.
“Who the heck is this dragon, anyway?” Dash asked, trying to get the topic off of her. “And why are you helping him, Luna? He was attacking you!”
“Name’s Argus, I’m Spike’s brother. Could you get out of my face? You hurt to look at.”
Rainbow Dash scowled, “You want another go?!”
Luna sighed, “Miss Dash, Argus’ vision relies upon the magic that everything contains; the more magic, the brighter it is. He has already explained that the Element Bearers are like staring at the sun, so if you could just back up a little bit? Thank you; and as for the ‘attacking’, Argus and I were about to spar, which is why we chose this courtyard in particular.”
“Um, Princess, what did he mean when he said he’s Spike’s brother?” Fluttershy asked meekly. “I mean, we’ve never heard of him having a brother before…”
“Yeah, we only came up here because Twilight didn’t return from her trip to Canterlot yesterday and got worried.” Pinkie Pie practically bellowed.
Luna sighed, “Do you want to explain to them, Argus, or shall I?”
Argus waved a paw tiredly. “No, no, you do it; I’ll just lay here and be exhausted.” He grumbled, resting on his back and laying his head on the pavers, right at Spike’s feet. “Oh, hello Spike;” he managed to breathe, “How much of that did you see?”
Spike crossed his arms as Luna began to speak to the bearers, “Enough to know that Rainbow Dash was kicking your butt.”
Argus groaned, “She so damned fast, I can’t even use my magic to get that kind of speed.” He shook his head while squeezing his eyes shut, “And the lot of them blind me. Also, what was with Kindness staring at me? I managed to avoid whatever magic it was, but only by having to sacrifice my vision.” He eyed Spike again, “You’ve eaten something with a lot of magic in it, by the way.”
“He wanted to try an arcane battery; the diamonds we use to make them are top quality, so they’re like candy to him.” Celestia’s voice said as her magic signature came into view. “And Fluttershy is capable of utilizing a magical phenomenon known as ‘The Stare’, it typically gets things to settle down and behave.”
“Well, the magic in it is going right to his flame gland and scales; and this stare of hers seems to require me to physically see the scowl on her face. Bit of a weakness when I can just switch to my natural vision.” Argus replied. Without warning he was lifted from the ground by a pair of hooves and hugged tightly.
“Oh, you poor thing!” Fluttershy’s voice cooed into his ear.
Argus struggled against her, “Let me go!” He snapped irritably. Fluttershy complied and he slumped to the ground again. “Honestly; I just spent five minutes fighting you lot and the first thing she does is hug me. Spike, Celestia, are we the only normal ones in this land of technicolour pony weirdoes?”
Spike shrugged at him while Celestia chuckled.
The larger dragon sighed, “Your friends, Spike, I swear;” he muttered, “are any of them not going to try to kill and-or maim me?” He grunted and attempted to get to his feet, “No, don’t answer that, one might succeed.” He shook himself off and turned back to the castle. “If nopony needs me, or is going to attempt to kill my avatar again, I believe I will head to the library; surely there will be something there that I will find interesting to read.”
“Try the fiction section,” Celestia called after him, “Ask the staff for a book, I’m sure they’ll give you one you might like.”
Argus nodded as he walked away before slipping into the castle and disappearing from view. Luna turned to and huffed at her sister.
“Really, Celestia, that line again? You know they’re just going to give him Lunar Hearts, and he’ll-” she paused and stared wide-eyed at the white alicorn, “Oh by the stars he’ll see right through it!” She hissed before running into the castle to catch him.
Celestia sighed, smiling wistfully, “It’s like having his mother back,” she mumbled warmly, “She would be so proud of him.
“And then she would probably prank him into seclusion.”
Author's Note
I did it again! More than twenty thousand words, hahahaaah... kill me.
Seriously though, this little brainbaby wouldn't get out of my head for the longest time, and watching How to Train Your Dragon one and two again, accompanied by going through my old artwork, inspired me to think this up.
And then it wouldn't go away.
Anyway, thanks for reading, dunno if I'll ever do a sequel or anything to this I'm a sad, pathetic twat of a man, so it's likely at some point, and I'll see everypony at the bottom of the next story!
-Silent Quill.
