The Power Within

Chapter 9 - The Unseen Truth

In the past few days, I had almost gotten used to waking up like this; ringing in my ears, someplace either broken or bleeding, feeling nauseous and distant to the surrounding world. All that good stuff.

It almost felt like my mind woke up before me. I could hear and smell things, but I couldn’t quite move yet. And according to the obnoxious smell of blood and corpses, I guessed we were still at Whitestone. But I couldn’t hear the storm anymore, not even feel the rain.

I carefully cracked my eyes open and saw Twilight Sparkle looking down at me. So it was really her who had appeared from the thin air during the fight. She looked really tired but wasn’t apparently hurt. Did that mean she had won the fight? Where was Silvermane?

Before I managed to do as much as open my mouth, Twilight jumped away from my field of vision.

“Redheart, he’s waking up!” Twilight shouted somewhere.

I still had no clue how Twilight had even gotten here. Apparently, she was very real and so was the fact that we were still alive. Well, me, Twilight and Redheart at least.

LT didn’t have much time left anyway, and I couldn’t see or hear my sister anywhere. A grim thought took over my mind and I closed my eyes while a lonely tear rolled down my cheek.

My broken wing still hurt like no tomorrow and the whole thing felt really weird. Well, what was I expecting? It was shattered for Celestia’s sake. And knowing Nurse Redheart, it was probably heavily bandaged as well.

After a short moment, I heard hoof steps getting closer and as I waited a little bit more, I saw Nurse Redheart popping into my vision. Apparently, I was lying on my back, my head resting on my saddle bag.

“Shimmering?” the mare asked anxiously. “How are you feeling right now?” she continued, sounding desperate and exhausted. Her mane was open, hanging straight while dripping water. The tips were also stained by blood.

What was I feeling then? For starters, I felt dizzy, my wing hurt, and my mind was a dumpsite filled with dead ponies. All in all, I felt really awful in every possible way. I was so going to need some psychological help after all of this. I had seen what happened to Leaf Trotter after a tragic event and I didn’t want to end up like him, running away from my past for the rest of my life. But it was easier said than done.

“Dizzy,” I answered wearily to the nurse. “Where’s Cres and Leafy?” I asked with a whispery voice, fearing to hear the worst possible answer.

The look on Redheart’s face was absolutely crushing. Her eyes shifted between me and some other place as her breathing got even faster. She was also sweating. The nurse tried to say something a couple of times but little did she get out of her mouth.

“I, uhh…” Redheart stuttered with a shaky voice and once more peeked at her left.

I followed her gaze and soon found Twilight standing next to my sister. Crescent was lying on the ground, breathing heavily. Even if she looked to be in serious pain, she was still alive, though. A small ray of hope grew on my face.

I looked at the nurse again and once more followed her wandering gaze. This time, it let me to Leaf Trotter who was lying on the ground as well. Apparently, he wasn’t bleeding, but that didn’t comfort me at all. Something was very wrong with him.

“C-Crescent is in a really bad shape and … uh … Leaf Trotter i-is… He’s...” Nurse Redheart sobbed frantically and lowered her head in defeat. A couple of sharp sobs escaped her lungs as she cried.

My jaw simply dropped as I stared at her in disbelief, trying to grasp what she had just said. She wore the saddest expression I had ever seen on anypony’s face.

She didn’t have to say it. I didn’t want her to say it. My foalhood friend - my metaphorical big brother - was gone. I closed my eyes and let the tears flow freely. At that very moment, everything felt so meaningless, so pointless and frustrating. I had lost yet another pony from my life and I could still lose my sister too. If she died, what was I going to do? I could die as well then. I had absolutely nothing else left.

Still, the news about Leaf Trotter didn’t have as big impact as I had thought they’d have. Most of that was probably because I had already prepared for this due to his illness, but I never thought his life would end like this. Then again, maybe this was what Leaf Trotter had meant earlier at Ponyville; ‘Let me help you save Cres. Let it be the last thing I do’, his words echoed in my mind.

He had come back for me and protected me for the last time, saving Cres, Twilight and Nurse Redheart in the process. For me, he was a true hero - he was like my own brother. Thank you, LT - for everything. I thought and sniffled quietly.

“Redheart! She’s bleeding again!” Twilight shouted, interrupting my thoughts.

The nurse bolted to my sister in a split second. I followed her with my watery gaze, now also trying to raise my head up. Much to my surprise, I was able to move again. I saw Redheart rummaging through her saddlebag while Twilight was casting some spell over my sister. I had no idea what she was doing, though.

“We need more bandages!” Redheart shouted and turned her saddlebag upside down on the ground.

Apparently, there wasn't any left… Twilight went through her saddlebag as well but found nothing useful. Instead, there was now a pile of books soaking on the wet, muddy ground.

A lightning fast blink later, they both looked at me as if I possibly had something with me. I rolled onto my stomach and opened my saddleback with my muzzle. There wasn’t much stuff, only a few bits, my work badge and flying goggles, and Crescent’s ribbon.

It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at. The ribbon wasn’t long, but it just might do the job. I took the purple ribbon in my mouth and looked at Redheart and Twilight hopefully.

“I’m afraid that’s not enough, Shimmering,” Redheart panicked and peeked at my sister again, concern dominating her demeanor.

Was this really it? After all of this, Crescent would just bleed to death? Time was running out by every passing second and the situation started to feel hopeless.

Then it suddenly came to me. I actually had something that might work, but it wasn’t in my saddle bag. I pictured the alabaster designer from Ponyville in my mind and took a deep breath. Thank you, Miss Rarity.

I yanked the scarf from my neck and threw that toward the nurse, earning a surprised gasp from both Twilight and Redheart. Twilight then caught my scarf and gave it to Redheart.

The nurse swiftly took it and bent over my sister, trying to prevent some place from bleeding. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see much behind them.

Come on, sis, you can do it...

If somepony told me a week ago that I’d be lying in our destroyed town, surrounded by dead ponies while having a broken wing, I wouldn’t have believed a single word. And if somepony told me that I would lose all my loved ones and become a mass murderer, I would have probably killed myself before that could ever happen. But honestly, who would have thought that something like this could even happen?

On top of that, I had now dragged two outsiders into this horrible nightmare of mine and caused my friend to die. If I could have just died like everypony else did, I’d have never met Twilight or Redheart and cause them so much trouble. I was so glad they were still alive.

I watched as Redheart and Twilight worked in a team, trying to save the only family I had left. The nurse told Twilight what to do and the librarian seemed to be a fast learner. The scarf was almost gone, but just before they used the last piece, Nurse Redheart let out a heavy sigh.

“Alright, I think she’s stable for now,” she stated wearily, causing me to release a heavy sigh as well.

Twilight was double-checking their work to be sure. “We still need to get her to the hospital.”

She was right. Cres wasn’t safe yet, they had only stopped her from bleeding. I stood up and walked to the mares, taking a closer look at my sister for the first time. I still felt really weak, even the weakest breeze could probably knock me over.

The sight in front of me was far from pretty. The bars of the cage had caused some major injuries to Crescent. The frost white unicorn was mostly red and her body was covered with the bandages and pieces of my scarf. But she was still alive and only that mattered at the moment. How could we get her to the hospital, however, was beyond me.

I couldn’t carry her, Redheart couldn’t carry her, and Twilight probably couldn’t levitate her all the way back to Ponyville either. The fight with Silvermane had drained her powers a lot.

Speaking of the rotten commander, where was she?

“What happened to Silvermane?” I asked anxiously as if she was still around.

The nervous exchange of looks between Twilight and Redheart caused my heart to skip not one, but two beats. Don’t tell me she had escaped…

“Uhh, s-she kind of disappeared,” Redheart stuttered nervously.

“She probably teleported away,” Twilight added with the most disappointed voice I had heard for a long time.

Great. That horrible monster was still on the loose, but at least she didn’t have her troops anymore - If this was her only unit, that is.

“We need to get Crescent to the hospital and fast,” I shouted and looked around me, trying to make sure that nopony was watching us.

I saw nopony on the ground, but as I looked up, my jaw dropped. The sheer feeling of disbelief ran over me like a herd of angry buffalos. “You have got to be kidding me...” I whispered absently while gazing at the threatening view above us. Twilight and Redheart looked up as well, both gasping in unison.

Over the mountains, we saw a pack of dragons flying our direction. Big, mean looking dragons with huge wings, contrasted against the evening sunshine glowing behind the mountains. I quickly peeked at my sister lying on the ground and swallowed. She was completely helpless and couldn’t take a single hit if those beasts were going to attack.

I looked at Twilight and she was still exhausted, even scared. And so was Redheart. I just wished we didn’t need to fight, although, that’d be a very short and one-sided match. Everything would be over in a blink of an eye.

We couldn't do anything but stare. The pack came closer and eventually landed right in front of us, standing on all four legs due to their immense size. I didn’t actually recognize any of them as these bad boys were a lot bigger than the other dragons that used to rob our town. But this time, there wasn’t anything left to rob and that made me even more nervous.

There were six dragons in total, the orange Dragon in the middle being at least ten times our size. The other two beasts on both his sides were half the size of the orange one, one being light gray and other being brown. The other three dragons on the background were almost our size, all different shades of blue in color.

I held my breath and just stared at the dragons in horror, waiting what was going to happen next. If they decided to attack, there was absolutely nothing we could have done to defend ourselves.

However, nothing seemed to happen. They eyed us just as carefully as we eyed them. One wrong move could have triggered a huge fight. The dragons looked around our town, noticing the havoc around us. They also looked at Crescent Rain whimpering on the ground - an action that made me swallow once more.

“Did Silvermane do this?” the orange dragon suddenly asked, earning a loud gasp from all three of us.

His voice was incredibly deep and raspy and it actually scared me even further. I couldn’t believe he just talked. Were all dragons able to talk then?

Somehow, I found enough courage to nod, but nothing more.

“And who destroyed her army?” the orange dragon continued, looking at the crispy soldiers on the ground.

He then gazed us one after another, while others stayed put. I figured he might be some kind of a leader or something. He didn’t sound or act hostile, but still, I couldn’t bring myself to answer him. Fortunately, I didn’t need to.

“We did,” Twilight stated quietly, peeking at my sister, who let out a barely audible cry.

The cry made me and Redheart peek at her as well. None of us even tried to hide our anxiousness as the dragons followed our example, staring at the poor defenseless mare.

“Please do accept my most sincere apology,” the orange dragon said softly. “My name is Sorath, the elder of our clan. This is my daughter, Cinder Flash, and her mate, Hurricane,” Sorath introduced himself and the two other dragons next to him.

“We owe you thanks for defeating Silvermane’s army,” Cinder Flash, the light gray dragoness announced with a surprisingly beautiful voice.

It actually confused me. For the first time in my life, I saw a dragon as an individual, caring creature, not as a bloodthirsty monster. Well, Spike didn’t count, he was okay. Actually, Cinder felt kind of nice as well.

“I’m afraid Silvermane managed to slip away, though.” Twilight sighed disappointed, staring at her hooves.

The words caused me to lower my head and ears. If Silvermane had really escaped, it’d only be a matter of time before she found us again.

However, Cinder Flash just giggled and reached on her back and took something in her mouth, before turning back to us.

From her teeth limply hung a dark gray mare with a silvery mane that was now covered in blood. The mare looked completely lifeless to me. Then, without a warning, Cinder Flash bit her teeth together with force. An audible crunch was heard as Silvermane’s neck was crushed. Her body twitched as well.

‘So much for her being a nice dragon.’ I thought while staring at Silvermane in Cinder’s teeth and took a step backward.

Cinder Flash then dropped the body on the ground and gave us a smirky grin. “I don’t think she’s going to cause troubles anymore.”

Twilight and Redheart reflected my horrified expression as I peeked at them in a slight panic. I don’t know if Silvermane was alive just a moment ago, but she sure as Tartarus wasn’t anymore.

“I apologize for my daughter, but she had every right to do that,” Sorath grunted, while Cinder simply licked her lips like she was enjoying the taste.

Well, she did what I was going to do earlier. But for some reason, I couldn’t see me doing that anymore.

“E-excuse me, elder Sorath, but we need to get this poor unicorn to the hospital as soon as possible,” Nurse Redheart stuttered nervously, her eyes pleading compassion from the huge dragon.

How she had the guts to interrupt this giant beast, was beyond me. All I could do was simply stare at the mauled body of Silvermane in horror. I just couldn’t believe she was finally dead, nor could I believe how strong Cinder was.

“I’m terribly sorry, ma’am, but we have a problem of our own,” Sorath muttered. “Like I said, my daughter had a good reason to kill this abomination. Unfortunately, I would have liked her alive myself, as she was the only pony who knew where my granddaughter is hidden. Cinder, however, does whatever she wants,” the huge dragon continued quietly.

Sorath then grabbed Silvermane by her hoof and threw the mare behind his back, like she was a piece of trash. Well, she was that to me anyway.

“What!?” Redheart shouted in surprise.

However, Hurricane took a step forward before anypony else managed to say anything more.

“Yes. Commander Silvermane has kidnapped our daughter and threatened to kill her if we didn’t do as told,” Hurricane growled, giving his mate a sympathetic look. “We might know where she is, but no adult dragon can fit inside the mine and digging could make the whole thing collapse,” he continued with a huff.

The mine? Did they mean the one that’s been closed for years now?

“I-I know that mine,” I offered quietly.

I was still scared of these dragons and Cinder’s act didn’t help me to think otherwise in the slightest. However, if we were able to find their daughter, maybe they would help my sister in return. They were our only hope.

The dragons turned to me, eyeing me questioningly. For me, it felt like they were looking at their next dinner.

“If you three can help us find our baby, I can fly your friend wherever you need to,” Cinder Flash stated.

“She’s my sister,” I murmured quietly, tears now gathering in my eyes.

“What’s your sister’s name?” Hurricane asked with a calm voice.

“Crescent Rain,” I replied, laying a concerned look at her.

“Alright. Me and Sorath will take care of Crescent Rain while you ponies go look for our daughter with Cinder,” Hurricane planned.

That sounded good to me, the faster we found their daughter, the faster they’d fly my sister to Ponyville. It was the only town I knew with a proper hospital.

However, Twilight didn’t seem to agree with his plan as she shook her head.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Redheart here is a nurse so it’ll be for the best if she stays with Crescent. I’ll go look through the mine with Shimmering and your daughter,” she offered.

“Suit yourself, but ain’t the winged one in too bad shape for such thing?” Sorath asked, looking at my quickly bandaged wing.

The wing still hurt a lot, but I was able to walk at least. A little dizziness wasn’t going to stop me from saving my sister.

I looked at my wing and was about to open my mouth, but Cinder Flash cut me off. “We know where the mine is and a wounded pony would only slow us down. Let the nurse take care of him as well.”

Well, I wasn’t going to argue with her. Besides, I wanted to be with Cres so I only nodded and laid down next to Redheart.

“Well then, let’s get moving,” Cinder said and lowered her head and huge wings to the ground.

Twilight shot us a comforting smile and climbed on the back of the light gray dragoness. With one flap of her huge wings, the pair was gone in a second. I almost laughed at a small yelp Twilight made during the take-off, but I managed to keep a straight face.

Redheart then turned to me and stared at my wing in tears before giving me the look that made my heart skip a beat. I couldn’t even start to imagine how bad she must have felt. She had broken my wing after all. In the worst case, I’d never fly again. It was a devastating thought, but in the end, it was just a wing. The most important thing was that my sister was still alive.

“I-I’m so sorry, Shimmering,” Nurse Redheart sobbed. “I know it doesn’t fix anything, but I’m truly sorry. I should never have done that.”

I couldn’t bring myself to respond to her. I was still confused over everything that had happened. Deciding to neglect the pain caused by my wing, I asked her the one thing I truly cared for.

“Is my sister going to be okay?” I inquired ever so quietly.

One could have heard a feather dropping on the ground. The wind had calmed down while the sun was already going down. Only Crescent’s heavy breathing got through my ears.

“I can’t say for sure,” the nurse replied a moment later, looking at my big sister. “She needs to get in the hospital and soon, I don’t think she’s going to survive the whole night here.”

The latter sentence caused me to bury my muzzle between my hooves and cry quietly. The feeling was simply indescribable. I felt so hopeless, tired and desperate that I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack.

I felt Redheart pairing her forehooves around me and hugging me tightly. It felt comfortable enough to stop me from crying at least.

A few tearstained moments later, I was feeling somewhat better. Redheart was lying between me and Cres, while the two remaining dragons waited for Cinder and Twilight to come back from their trip. Sorath had ordered those three blue dragons to go back and inform the clan about the situation.

The mine wasn’t too far away, but it was pretty deep. Twilight would have her hooves full trying to get the baby dragon out of there in total darkness - if the baby even was there.

Taking a look at the two scary dragons next to us somehow made me feel a bit more comfortable. If Twilight was able to rescue elder's granddaughter, Cinder had promised to fly Crescent anywhere we needed to. And by the look of her take off, she was one quick dragoness. With that speed, she might be in Ponyville by midnight.

Having no idea how many ponies could one dragon even carry, it was comfortable to know that at least Cres would get out of here. Redheart and Twilight were not hurt so they could make it back if there was no other way, unlike me.

My crushed wing aside, there was also some pain in my chest. The kick I had received from the soldier might have broken one of my ribs. Walking all the way back to Ponyville sounded like an impossible task right now. I just hoped the dragons would fly all of us there.

I looked at Hurricane and Sorath and wondered if I should ask them. As the adrenaline rush was now gone, I started to slip back to my old ways. I didn’t want to upset them, but we needed to get back to Ponyville as soon as possible.

However, Hurricane happened to notice my wondering gaze and cocked his head questioningly.

“Is there something we can do for you, ponies?” Hurricane asked softly.

Now was my chance.

“Uh, I… um... If Twilight and Cinder Flash find your daughter, are you able to fly all of us back to Ponyville?” I inquired as carefully as I possibly could. “I mean, it’s a long way and I’m not able to walk that far in this condition and Nurse Redheart needs to-” I continued, but got interrupted by Hurricane.

“It’s okay, little one. We will get you all back home, right, elder Sorath?”

Sorath glanced at us a couple of times before smiling softly.

“Of course. It’s the least we can do for those who destroyed Silvermane’s troops,” the huge orange dragon said with his raspy voice.

I had no idea why I suddenly felt a lot more comfortable around these dragons. It was like they were on our side.

“Oh, um… How did Silvermane end up in… in your daughter’s teeth?” I asked with my newfound courage.

“Well, we heard some noises from your town and decided to see what was going on. Then there was this weird storm and soon after that, Silvermane simply appeared in front of us from thin air. She was in a really bad shape and my daughter didn’t think twice before attacking her. She tried to force the location of her baby out of Silvermane, but she was a little bit too rough on her,” Hurricane explained.

I almost felt bad for Silvermane… almost. I mean, that’s a pretty rotten luck to teleport in front of the angry dragoness whose daughter you have kidnapped. But then again, she got what she deserved.

“A-another question… Lately, we used to get robbed by some dragons… Do you know anything about that?” I asked shakily. Now I was downright accusing them of robbing us.

Sorath looked at me for a moment before sighing. “We had no choice. Silvermane threatened to kill our daughter if we didn’t bring her gifts. We don’t even know if she’s alive anymore, maybe she was only using us. I mean, she showed us our daughter through her magic, but that might have been just another trick,” Sorath grunted annoyed.

“And it’s because of that trick she showed us we think my daughter is inside that mine,” Hurricane added.

It all made sense now. But that also meant that Silvermane had had their daughter for a long time. What if she was dead and the dragons weren’t going to fly my sister to Ponyville?

A wave of sadness washed over me as I sniffled quietly.

“I’m sorry, we didn’t know that,” I mumbled quietly, earning a subtle nod from Sorath.

Redheart had been listening quietly while stroking my sister’s mane. I wasn’t sure if she could even hear us.

“So... cold…” Cres suddenly murmured, earning my immediate attention.

“Cres?” I asked quickly, but the nurse stopped me.

“We need to get it warmer around here,” Redheart stated nervously.

But we didn’t have any fabrics left to burn, that is if we didn’t want to burn our saddlebags. Cres was already covered by Redheart’s small towel, but that wasn’t enough by far. The ground was wet and cold, though my sister laid on a more dryer spot.

“I’ll go gather some wood,” Hurricane announced and took off.

I followed him with my gaze and wondered what he was up to.

He flew around the town and grabbed some wood from the huge tree and burned buildings. However, everything was fully wet, there was no way they could burn. I mean, dragons or not, I doubt they could build a fire.

Hurricane held his cargo in his front claws and flew a bit further from us, dropping the wood on the ground. He then dug a small hole and filled it with wood.

I followed his work with Redheart and we looked at each other questioningly. Why did he put them there? We didn’t want to move Cres closer, why didn’t he bring those woods here?

However, Sorath looked at us and gave us a small smirk. “You are about to find out why he’s called Hurricane.”

We stared at the brown dragon who now hovered over the hole full of wood. He started to flap his wings rapidly, aiming the gust downwards. He flapped harder and harder, causing all kind of debris flying through the air.

“Holy…!” I squeaked as a small rock flew past my head.

Sorath stepped in front of us and expanded his enormous wing to protect us from both wind and rocks.

Apparently, Hurricane was only getting started as he flapped his wings even harder now. Thank Celestia Sorath was standing there, otherwise, I’d be a halfway back to Ponyville already. Suddenly, Hurricane started to breathe fire to the hole.

That was simply genius. A hard wind combined with scorching heat was surely gonna make those woods burn better.

A short moment later, Hurricane stopped and Sorath stepped aside, revealing the sight behind him. The area was flat, burned and clean from all kind of debris. The hole on the ground was smoking, but I couldn’t see fire just yet.

Hurricane collected the woods from the hole and flew back to us.

“There, now we just need to light them,” Hurricane stated proudly and shot a small stream of fire at the woods, igniting them immediately.

Who needs magic when you could just use raw power? I would have never been able to do anything like that. But then again, I couldn’t breathe fire, nor had I such huge wings. All in all, I was pretty darn impressed.

The fire was now warming us gently and Crescent had finally stopped shivering. She was awake but didn’t open her eyes and her breathing was still heavy. All I could do was stare at her and hope that Twilight and Cinder Flash would come back as fast as possible.

I felt how the mud on my coat, mane and tail started to dry up because of the heat.

Redheart gave me a funny look and stroked my mane and coat in order to scrape off at least some of the mud. She tried to avoid the area around my broken wing and went down to my flank, revealing my cutie mark under the mud. Her hoof momentarily stopped, as if she was taking a closer look at my cutie mark. She had probably no idea what it meant.

Redheart’s touch felt extremely awkward and my cheeks flared up immediately. I knew she was only trying to clean me up, but still… it felt really awkward.

Despite the warm fire next to us, I shivered lightly.

Redheart’s hoof stopped again and I could feel her staring at me.

“Are you still cold, Shimmering?” she asked worriedly.

At that very moment, the dragons turned back to us and saw my blushing face. They also saw the nurse holding her hoof over my cutie mark. I didn’t know which one was worse. The dragons seeing my red hot face or the fact that Redheart petted my ass.

“I, uhh… I’m f-fine, really,” I stammered, trying to keep a straight face.

Sorath then looked away while Hurricane gave me a little smirk, greatly intensifying my blush. There was no way I could look at Redheart right now. I simply stared forward and tried to calm down by lowering my head between my forehooves.

Finally, Nurse Redheart lifted her hoof and turned her attention to Cres.

“Hey there, Cres. Are you feeling cold? Anything I can do to help?” she asked ever so softly.

I also peeked at my sister and waited for her answer. She then carefully cracked her eyes open and looked at Redheart.

“It’s so warm now... Thank you,” Crescent murmured and closed her eyes again.

A small, hopeful smile crept on my face. However, the smile soon faded away as I eyed at her body covered in bandages. Most of those bandages were on her neck and head. I wondered if any main veins had ruptured, causing her to bleed so much.

My pulse started to get back to normal levels and I dared to shoot a nervous gaze at Nurse Redheart. She looked surprisingly calm considering the situation. Maybe that was because she was in her element again, taking care of other ponies. That was her calling anyway. Unfortunately, she didn’t have that many tools with her. Only some syringes, pills, scissors and stuff like that.

Redheart had given Cres a shot during the operation with Twilight, but I had no idea what the said syringe had held inside.

The nurse corrected her still wet mane falling in her eyes. I had to say, she looked a lot better like that. It was like her true beauty had just been unleashed without that bun.

I quickly shook my head and tried to think about something else.

Fortunately, that something else happened to be a roar made by Cinder Flash who was flying our direction.

Everypony raised their heads and watched as the dragoness landed next to us. Soon, the familiar purple unicorn appeared behind Cinder’s wings and jumped off her back, smiling heartily at us.

“We are back!” Twilight announced happily.

According to Twilight’s mood, the search has been a successful one.

Cinder was smiling at Hurricane and suddenly a beige baby dragon peeked at her father from behind Cinder’s head.

“Daddy!” the small baby dragon shouted excitedly and jumped off as well, sprinting toward Hurricane.

“Fuzzy!” Hurricane shouted back with at least the same amount of joy in his voice as he spread his arms and wings to hug his daughter.

We all watched the emotional family reunion of the dragon family, including my sister. It was a miracle the baby was still alive, somepony must have fed her and I doubt it was Silvermane.

The dragons hugged each other for a moment before Cinder raised his head and gave us a warm smile.

“Thank you ponies, you have been a great help to us. We will fly you to Ponyville once our daughter is safely back within our clan,” Cinder announced softly.

I gave a tiny nod to the dragons and with that, Cinder Flash flew away with her daughter.

Looking around, I let my gaze travel across the ruins of my hometown. So many ponies laid dead around us, one of them being Leaf Trotter. My wandering gaze stopped at him and I stared at him quietly. If we weren’t leaving yet, I could as well use that time to bury my friend and say goodbye.

Twilight and Redheart followed my example and I could see the sorrow on their faces. I neglected their looks and simply walked toward Leaf’s body, earning Hurricane’s attention.

Lowering my head over Leaf’s body, I took a deep breath and chose my next words carefully.

“I’m so sorry, LT… I couldn’t have imagined that it would all end up like this. I wish you are safe with your family now. You were my best friend…”

A tear traveled down my cheek as I sniffled.

“Without you, we may not be alive right now. You truly saved Crescent like you said you would. You always kept your words… and I will keep mine. You are a true friend.”

I gave the body one last look and whispered, “Farewell… brother.”

And with that, I turned to Hurricane with a pleading look.

“Could you…?” I asked and motioned toward the fallen tree with my head.

“You want me to bury him there?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” I stated shortly.

Hurricane nodded and carefully moved Leaf Trotter at the tree and started digging. With his claws, the job was over in a minute and soon there was a big hole in the ground.

Redheart followed my reactions while Twilight seemed to be more focused on the dragon itself. Sorath was simply watching over us and tried not to interrupt us in any way. It was almost like he felt uncomfortable about the situation.

Carefully, Hurricane lowered my friend to his final resting place, under the very same tree we had first met. It was almost poetic how our paths had crossed and departed at the same place.

“Thank you,” I whispered as Hurricane slowly made his way back to Sorath.

Hurricane nodded and then turned his attention to Cres.

“We will go right away when Cinder comes back. She can fly the injured one and the nurse and I can take you two,” Hurricane said, looking at me and Twilight.

First, I was going to protest as I wanted to go with Crescent, but figured that Redheart could take care of her in case something happened. I just wasn’t that eager to go with Twilight as she would probably bombard me with questions the whole way back to Ponyville. But I guess we didn’t have a choice.

“Alright,” I sighed, earning a raised eyebrow from the librarian.

Soon enough, Cinder Flash roared from the sky, announcing her presence. Why did she do it, though, was beyond me. It was scary as hell.

The said dragoness then landed in front of us and smiled. “So, who’s going to fly with me?” she asked with a small smirk.

“M-me and Crescent,” Redheart mumbled nervously

I fully understood Redheart’s hesitation as we all saw what Cinder was capable of. Not that she would harm us after all of this, but Hurricane still felt like a safer bet to get to Ponyville in one piece.

After a moment, Twilight helped Crescent onto Cinder’s back with Redheart. She had even made a small vine harness for Cinder so they could hold on better. Hurricane got harnessed as well and we were ready to go.

Sorath gave us his approval, allowing Cinder and Hurricane to rise into the air.

Surprisingly enough, the ride was actually quite smooth. Those huge wings and long tail really made the flight stable.

And so we were on our way back to Ponyville.