The smell of leaves and dust, the sound of wind coursing swiftly near my ears, the forest and mountains looming on the distance, the murmurs of the other passengers clouding my busy mind, leaving me in the hands of serenity itself, as if an incarnation of peace was hugging me.

So dazzled I was on my own trip that it took three calls from my uncle to get my attention. He pointed out my weakness towards long travels with a warm smile before moving to my side and hug me.

“Uncle Spike?” I asked confused.

He laughed before stepping aside, “I’m just proud of you Flurry,” he said. He rested on his back and with his eyes looking at the ceiling he sighed. “I’m sorry for going all harsh on you some hours ago. I know you had good intentions, it just that the way you did…” he turned to me, with furrowed brows, “It was wrong, Flurry.”

I tried to apologize, but he hushed me with a finger, telling me it wasn’t necessary to say sorry twice. He probably heard my conversation with Twilight. “Now,” he recoiled back a little to look me better, “you must be wondering about all the fuss from earlier between me and Twilight. And more exactly, how are the challenges I had surpass.”

“Actually, I’m really intrigued about…” I pointed to myself, “Why do you want me to go for that same path.”

“Do you remember what I told you the first time you got lost thinking about your powers some months ago?” he pointed, which made me ask if he was talking about the pride, “Yes, that’s what made me dive in the path of the knight.”

“The path of the- wait, you were affected by pride?” I withdrew in confusion, “The pride of a dragon?”

He nodded.

“But how? Uncle Spike, I don’t understand, what could have made you go prideful?“

Spike took off one scale from his tail and showed it to me, “You should know by now how resistant are these,” he waited for my answer, and after I nod, he continued, “then look.”

He took the scales with the sharp tips of his claws and in a single movement, the scale was cut into multiple pieces. I looked intrigued at the remains for a second, what was he trying to demonstrate with this? I already knew that his claws were sharp enough to cut a diamond-like object…

My eyes grew in size as I looked back at him. He responded with a serious look, followed by a short history of him, about his early days as a hatchling, a really dangerous hatchling. Do you think that taking care of a foal is a big deal? I mean, even I, a foal, know how hard it is! Now imagine that the foal is greedy by nature, and to make it even worse, he is armed literally to the teeth. Celestia had to imprison him during his first days in the castle because he couldn’t stop ripping off the armors of the guards.

“Celestia is the kind of mother that gives examples instead of lectures,” he added, his eyes focused on his claws, “She turned me into a skunk to show me how it was to be repulsed by everyone else. Then she turned me into a turtle to show me how my greed and the fact that I wanted to have everything for myself at all times would make me unable to play, have fun or even life peacefully to begin… and then…”

Spike breathed deeply and turned to me, “she…”

“Turn you into a monster?” I asked at the same time that I moved closer to him.

“Worse, she turned me back into a dragon… and introduced me to a group of little foals…” He paused, “she showed me that day how my life could be if I followed the ways of other dragons; that everyone would fear me like those innocent foals did when they laid their eyes on me…”

Spike was again looking at his palms. I couldn’t say anything to cheer the mood, because, the truth was that his words reached a place in my heart. Memories of other ponies looking at me during my practices, foals avoiding me in the playground, nobles who saluted me only when I was near my parents…

“We are monsters, cute ones, but monsters after all,” My uncle smiled, faintly. His mood gave me an odd feeling, something between fear and intrigue.

“Uncle Spike...” I beckoned, “you are not a monster. I don’t think anyone could see you like one anyway.”

I was trying to cheer him up, but when he looked back at me, I knew that his smile was not a product of my words. It takes time to know how to show others your heart, he said before the whistle of the train interrupted our conversation.

But it takes wisdom to make others see their own heart. He said after the whistling stopped.

After that, he promised me that everything will make more sense to me after our talk with the princess, yet at the same time, he pointed that there were things that not even she could understand. That really made me curious.

“But she has centuries of knowledge on her shoulders,” I stated while making my way up to his back and asking for an example.

“Things like how I grew so fast, even though my body hasn’t. I have eaten more precious stones than any dragon of my age, yet more than ten years had passed and I look the same,” he explained while carrying me on his way out of the train.

“Dragons growth process is still unknown for ponies,” I stated, my head resting on Spike’s soft fins, “is just now that they left out their caves for other creatures to know them. So I can understand if she didn’t know anything about you at the time.”

He saluted some nobles as they passed us, his eyes locked in somewhere in the distance before raising his head, foreshadowing his next words, “what about you then?” “Me?” I asked doubtfully, “she is an alicorn just like me-“

“Yet she doesn’t know anything about you,” he stated. “You are a different kind of alicorn Flurry.”

I stared at him with furrowed brows and asked what did he meant by that. To which he answered with another question that made the rest of the walk towards the castle a silent one.

Do you think a filly of your age would’ve understood and learned everything you had up to this point?

Author's Note

Thanks for reading up until now. Sorry for taking so long on this and my other stories, I'm trying my best to keep some time each day to write a little bit of each project.