The tales of the Sixteen Spirits
“... I can't believe we have been arguing for that silly misunderstood” said the blue stallion, Moonlight Star I think his name is.
“Yeah,” his companion said, “I find it funny, thinking that we spent two hours arguing about who should keep the bit we found on the street”
“It WASN'T any kind of funny“ thought the recently crowned Ruler of Equestria, as she waved her hoof to the two leaving ponies.
“Spike, tell me that there isn't more friendship problems to attend” asked Twilight to Spike, who was carrying the long, long schedule of the alicorn.
“Good news, you don't have any other audiences,“ said the dragon.“The bad news is that you should have raised the moon one ho–“
"The moon!" exclaimed Twilight as she dissapeared in a flash of magic
"–ur ago" said Spike with resignation . "Also you have a meeting with... why I even bother speaking if no one can hear me".
With a flash of magic Twilight appeared in the observatory room of the palace, where she kept the amulet that the former princesses of Equestria, Celestia and Luna, gave her to move the sun and moon.
She chanelled her magic trough the amulet, starting to feel the weight of the moon. It was always a strange feeling raising the moon, meanwhile rising the sun felt like levitating a very heavy object, when she raised the moon she also felt like some kind of thick substance was on her way.
But anyways, as she have been doing the last weeks, and Luna and Celestia has done during centuries, she raised the moon to the sky bringing the night to the ponies.Twilight breathed, she couldn't remeber the last time she had a moment to think.During the last two weeks she hadn't been sleeping more than four hours per night, with all the paperwork, the meetings with the Saddle Arabian delegates to celebrate her coronation as the new ruler of Equestria, the moving from Ponyville to Canterlot... it has been a though weeks.She missed the random apparitions of Pinkie, or the honest way of talking of Applejack, she even missed Rainbow Dash bragging about her flying skills.
"Twilight you have a meeting with-" Spike stopped at the sight of her best friends at the border of the tears "-nevermind, I will tell them to come tomorow, you should take a break"
"You are probably right Spike" said Twilight as she rubbed her eyes "But what *yawn* should I do, is to late to call any of my friends, and I already read all the books I bringed up from Ponyvile"
"Have you visited the restricted section of Canterlot Archives ?" asked the dragon
"THAT'S IT!! " and with another flash of magic the alicorn dissapearred
"You're welcome" said the dragon "I should be heading to talk to Fancy Pants and the other nobles to tell them that princess Twilight Sparkel couldn't assist them tonight"
“What should I read, what should I read?” said frantically Twilight “Let's see what we have: “The history of Equestria”?Too typical, “Magica Umbram”?Soundss dangerous, I should take care of that book later, “----tia diary”? , it looks pretty personal and old, “The tales of the Sixteen Spirits”?Looks like some kind of legends, but I never heard anything about this book , looks interesting".
The tales of the Sixteen Spirits
The dragon who stole the Sun
Twilight levitated the book to a small desk and open it. There was no signature from any kind of author or any way to recognize who wrote it or when it was written, but due to the state of the book, I was very old, probably older than the rule of Luna and Celestia. And as Twilight opened the book, she started to read the first of the tales.
The dragon who stole the sun
”Once upon a time, in the northern icy lands lived a very ancient dragon, older than the stars. The name of the dragon was a secret that only the creatures as ancient as him knew, so the mortals decided to call him The Usurper.
”The dragon lived alone in a large cave with only the company of his hoard because he was different from any of the other dragons. His breath was colder than ice, his fangs where large as pines and instead of wings he had a crown of spikes. But what made this dragon so special was his greed.
”The Usurper hoarded all kinds of treasures, like gems and gold, as all dragons did. But The Usurper greed wasn’t satisfied with the gold and the gems, and even after he gathered enough riches to cover the ocean, he wasn’t satisfied.
“So he tried to satisfy his greed with knowledge, so he walked from the frozen north to the other limit of the world learning any knowledge unknown to him that he could find, from legends from yaks lore keepers, to war stories from proud griffons and storm creatures, to complex spells from unicorns and abyssinians archmages, , but even after learning from the four corners of the worlds his greed wasn’t satisfied, so he returned to his cave full of anger and frustration.
“But when the great dragon returned to his cave he found a pair of gryphins, an stallion and a male, stealing his tresures.
“Who are you and how you dare to steal from my hoard” asked the old dragon, his voice echoing in the walls of the cavern
“Oh, great dragon, we didn’t knew this hoard was yours, ” said the male griffon, while his body trembled knowing who the dragon was.
“But we need to gold, a group of dragons has threatened to burn up to ashes our village in the cloudy mountains if we don’t pay them a tribute!” exclaimed the female griffon.
“Threatening to dead to any innocent creature to gain riches, typical of my sons” the dragon chuckled. “Anyway, what makes you think that stealing from ANY dragons hoard was a good idea?”
“We know that wasn’t a good idea, trying to steal from a dragon hoard is a sentence to death” said the male griffon.
“But if we don’t bring the tribute to the dragons they we kill all the village, not only us” said his companion
“So this old has more value to us than for you, because lives depend on them”, and as she finished the sentence, she remembered that in front of her was an angry dragon, big enough to smash her completely with only one claw, but surprisingly for her, the dragon puts his claw on his chin.
“Is an interesting concept what you just bring, ” said the dragon, “that the value of any things depends of the creatures that relies on the object and not the object as such.”
And then the dragon walked to the deeps of his cave, making the floor shake with each of his steps, until he arrived to a grand pile of gold, twice as tall as the dragon. And then the dragon dipped his arm into the pile of gold and extracted a big red glowing red stone. And with his mighty strength he crushed the stone with his hand, and when his hand opened a small scepter, of the size of the griffons appeared.
“This is the payment for your services” – the dragon delivered the scepter to the griffins – “this scepter will give you lead over my sons. But this gift is non-transferable to any other creature, when you die, your descendants will return the Bloodstone scepter to me”
“The griffons nodded and without a word they flew away from the cave, don’t knowing what they did to help the dragon but happy that they village will be saved.
“And after the griffons left the cave the dragon started to think about what was the most valuable of all the things “I could steal all the forest on the world” thought the dragon, “but there are creatures that live in the dessert and volcanos” so the dragon discarded the idea. So after discarding the oceans, the clouds or the magic he realized what the biggest treasure of the world was: The Sun “Without the sun, the forest would wither, the oceans would freeze and the darkness of the night would take over all the light in the world.”
“But the dragon was wingless, so he wasn’t able to fly and catch the Sun, and so his desire for the star of the day increased. He asked The bringer of the Flames if he could give him the Sun but he said that he only crated the Sun, that moving the Sun has the duty of The Star Painter. But when the ancient dragon asked The Star Painter to lower the Sun for him, he said that the destiny of the Sun was to stay in the day sky as the destiny of the moon was fighting the darkness of the night sky.
“But even if the two spirits denied his demands , the greed of the dragon continued to grow, and as his greed grew the dragon did, until his head reached the clouds, and he continued growing as did his desire did, until his claws were tall as mountains but the dragon couldn’t reach the Sun , so he continued to grow until his tail sink into the ocean and surrounded three quarters of the world, and finally he raised his titanic claw and grabbed the Sun, and dragged down to the depths of his cave, were all his tresures lied.
“At first, the disappearance of the sun didn’t cause any damage, only the fear of all creatures, but as the Sunless days passed, the cold started to appear, and the darkness of the night started to devour all the little light that the creatures were able to create.
“And for the first time in all history, all the creatures, from dragons to deers, passing by umbrums and gargoyles gathered in harmony to fight against the harsh situation.
“First the army of creatures tried to assault the cave, but against the scales of The Usurper all weapons broke and all magic bounced, and against the icy breath of the dragon, all creatures from big to small finished frozen.
“So, seeing that mortal creatures like them couldn’t deal with a Spirit like him, they tried to persuade him to give back the Sun, but any amount of riches, knowledge or magic artifacts that they brought made the dragon change his mind about his possession of the Sun, saying that all their offerings were worthless in comparison of the Sun.
“So, after seeing that they couldn’t make the dragon come to senses about returning the Sun to the sky, the creatures decided to pray the other Spirits for help, but only The Singer came to their help.
“Do not fear, my dears, ” said The Singer, her voice sweet as honey and harm like the hug of a mother “the Sun will return to the sky” and immediately after the Singer entered the cave where the dragon lived.
“What are you doing here” asked the dragon, surprised by the apparittion of his spirit fellow.
The Singer answered, writing with his claw on the ice of the cave, that she came to make and exchange, the Sun for one song.
“And what makes you think that your song has more value than the Sun?” rebuffed the dragon
The singer , smiling , started to sing instead of answering the dragon
And she sang a song only heard by the dragon , a song one of its kind.She sang during hours or days , none of them knew none of them care.
And then she stopped to sing
“Don’t stop, continue, ” said the dragon, with a mix of anger and desperation “you cannot start a song like that and then stop at the middle.”
But The Singer stayed silent
“If I swear by my hoard that I will return the Sun when you finish, will you continue your song” asked the dragon rhetorically.
“Of course dear” responded The Singer with a chuckle.
And so, the grand dragon lay down and heard the song of his fellow spirit, and instead of keeping the song burden under his ice in the depths of the cave as he did with the rest of his hoard he locked the song in the depths of his greedy and frozen heart, where no creature could steal it from him.
And as the dragon promised he freed the Sun from his eyes and return it to the sky, not without taking and small ember.
“The first part of the song free” said the dragon with a mischivious grin “so the first fragment of the Sun dosen’t have to be returned”.
And after days of Sunless skies , the Sun was taken away from the claws of The Usurper and returned to the sky not by a legion of warriors or mountains of tresures but a song that touched his cold heart.