Just A Slice

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 7
chapter 8
Chapter 9
A Soldiers Last Thoughts
The March
Just the Beginning
Troubles at Home
Chapter 6
The Birth of the Dragon

Chapter 1

Aeroslash looked upon Cloudsdale from miles above. Small towers and buildings appeared the size of beetles, the entire city, like a sheet of parchment. The air was so thin his breathing was uncomfortable, but tolerable as his wings had to beat all the harder to keep him aloft as gravity gripped his after each beat of his wings. His wings rubbed metal with each flap, the strange metal weighing hardly anything at all did not make his flying any harder, flexing and shifting with the powerful muscles in his wings.

The near-stellar pegasus readied himself, drawing in a deep breath, his heart thrumming in anticipation for what was to come. He felt so calm, so at peace this far up that he didn't want to begin his inevitable descent. He looked up to see a dark sky and pushed upwards into a slow back flip, his wings spread to suspend the arch for perhaps less than a second but to Aeroslash, it was an eternity. He felt the air begin to nudge his nose and gave one powerful flap to jump start his speed. The wind exploded in his ears and his nose burned as the wind broke around it. Pushing his fore hooves took much more strength than he expected but the relief his nose felt was worth it.

Aeroslash tucked his wings to his sides as there was no more air to push against, and held out his rapid descent. Cloudsdale slowly got bigger but his target was not Cloudsdale. His speed increased at an exponential rate until he felt his acceleration halt and his quickly gave a flap and felt his speed continue its climb as he closed his eyes.

He fell like that for almost 30 seconds, blind to whatever might meet him. With one more flap his eyes shot open and he saw Cloudsdale rushing at him, imposing even though the ground was made from clouds. But he did not focus on the floating city, but on small silver dot that hovered just outside the city's boundaries. The air screamed at him and his body shuddered, every bone in his body vibrated with increasing frequency as he spread his wings, angling them so that they did not impede his speed. The silver dot turned to a small metal rod as the streak neared, held aloft by a wisp of cloud.

His eyes set, grim determination roared in his soul as he felt a shock go through his left wing. Barely twitching his right, he swerved at an alarming degree and as he flicked his wings upward, he shot like an arrow, no faster than any arrow could hope to move, into the wonderful cyan above.

Aeroslash felt his ascent cease and his reactivated his wings to fly to the clouds at the edge of the wall where a familiar pony sat waiting for him.

"Perfect hit. Cut clean through. Now let me have a look at the blades."

She seemed as if impassive, wasn't even smiling or cheering like a normal pony would do. Just ran her hooves over the clean sheet of metal latched over his feathers, examining the blade it boasted.

"Not a scratch on the temper and not a nick on the edge. That was half inch steel cable you just cut. Seems as long as you actually hit your target it cuts through with ease. Aeroslash flinched at the several memories of his misses and and failures to test the blades.

Finally that half smile of her lit up her face and she gave him a peck on the lips. "You get a treat for getting it, but don't get greedy now." He made a grab for the flirtatious pony but only squeezed a puff of cloud. She was gone quick as a flash of lightning but he knew where she would go. One strong flap and he was over the wall and bolting to the concession stand.

He found her sitting on one of the sofas, a coffee cup in her hooves. "'Bout time you got here, my mocha was getting cold." She hadn't had a sip he knew, but he said nothing as he sat next to her. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

"You didn't give me a chance to sweep you off your feet." "First you would have to keep up with me." He could almost hear her grin stretch it's way across her face. He was about to make a witty flirt when a voice sounded behind them.

"Awwwww, isn't it cute? Flashfire and Slowbro together."

"Nice to see you too Fal," he managed to get out before the shoulder his head was supported on vanished.

"His name isn't Slowbro! It's Aeroslash! And he is a hell of a lot faster than you will ever be."

"Not with all that metal on him. Trying to keep your boy from getting hurt when he crashes?" several ponies snickered behind him

Aeroslash slowly got up and turned around to see his girlfriend with her muzzle in Falco Gryschons face, or rather beak. Wordlessly he grabbed Flare by her fetlock and practically had to drag her screaming curses from the stand before she kicked Falcos behind and got in trouble. Once outside she calmed down a little but still fumed and brooded. Twining his spiky tail with hers and just started walking. She reluctantly matched his pace and they walked with each other to Aeroslash's dorm room. Once they arrived Flashfire began unmounting the blades on his wings and set them on the stand on his dresser.

Her dark blue rump made her cutie mark stand out: a smiths hammer in a blazing fire. Flare caught him checking her out and she sat on the bed with him and sidled closer, tucking her head into his lap. Aeroslash absentmindedly stroked her silvery hair as she asked him, "Tell me about the time when you got your cutie mark." He chuckled, "I think I have told you a thousand times."

"I don't care I love to hear it." He agreed and began regaling the events that led to the appearance of his cutie mark.

Indeed Flare had heard the story countless times and she knew the story by heart as well as the cutie mark that the story was about: a small line with two streaks sprouting from either side of it, the speed she had witnessed just a few minutes ago. She only wanted him to tell the story because it was the only way to get him to talk for an extended period of time, as he was such a quiet pony. And she loved to hear his voice, it calmed her in a way that nothing else did. Soothed, Flare shifted her head against the dark green colt and fluttered her wings.

As if on cue Aeroslash wrapped a hoof around her belly and stroked just the right spot under her wing making her shiver, he never even paused in his story. She fell asleep soon after.

Aeroslash woke her about 9:40 telling her she needed to go to her dorm lest the wardens catch them. She only pressed her lips to his and whispered, "Then we still have twenty minutes." They lay together on the bed in each others embrace for too short a time when she had to go. "Goodnight, my love." were the last words she heard before she flew out his window to her dorm.

Chapter 2

Aeroslice woke up groggily, several days in a row now he had been making perfect hit after perfect hit and his wings ached and were sore despite the way the shimmering blade remained unscathed by the tests they put it under. He slowly donned the blades and folded he wings to his sides. They fit perfectly, and he could barely tell the metal still clung to his wings. Flare had crafted them perfectly.

He left his room and headed for the mess hall. For weeks he had anticipated this day, but now that it was finally here... he wasn't sure he was ready for it. After today he would have a week to wrap things and head for... Home.

At least he would have Flare. She had persuaded him to let her come home with him to meet his family. "I'm sure any family that could raise such an amazing stallion such as you will be great!"

Though he didn't really want her to come, he knew that she would comfort him when they got there, if she wasn't to stunned to say anything.

He brushed his dread aside when he spotted her sitting at their regular table with even his breakfast to boot.

"Ready for the big day Aero? Cheer up. Not everypony gets to be salutatorian of their class," She sang cheerfully.

"Still hate that I came under Fal by so little." Her answer almost seemed prepared, "You are more of a speed pony you are faster than everypony else but you give up acceleration for that. Plus she is a gryphon so even if you had normal acceleration, she would still have the upper hand."

"Still I kinda hoped I would have enough speed to make up for it." "It would take a Rainbow Dash to get that kind of speed."

This statement caused a wan smile to slide across his face. Rainbow Dash had been his idol for a long time and was one of the main factors he had gained his cutie mark the way he did, attempting a sonic rainboom.

Flare picked idly at his mane, "As gorgeous as you mane is I'm surprised you don't take better care of it."

"I do too, I condition it every morning." he said defiantly

"I meant something like brushing it, though it looks so sexy wild like this."

Aeroslash grunted and dug into his tulip sandwich, an indignant smile adorning his face.

Later that afternoon, after the graduation ceremonies and constant taunts from Falco, Flare walked up to her while nopony was looking.

"Hey Falco."

Fal looked surprised for a flash of a second before that cocky smile crawled over her face. The smile didn't last long as it was soon slapped across all of Equestria. "That's for being such a bitch." And with that Flare left her gaping there like an idiot and trotted back over to Aero's side.

The week went by quickly and the couple soon found themselves in flight ladened with heavy saddle bags. Aeroslash quickly became pretty tired even with the blades so light. His family lived in the palace at Canterlot due to their high status as having more than 10 members of the family serving in the army as officers and another 7 in the royal guard. The couple flew all day and most of the night before they saw the lights of the city on the horizon. Aeroslash was exhausted, his mouth foaming and his every breath was labored. Finally he gave in to Flashfire's request that they touch down and rest for the night. They could walk the rest of the way and get to spend plenty of time together on the road.

When Aeroslash landed, he immediately collapsed into a sprawled lump in the dirt. Flare landed next to her spent partner and laid down beside him. She put a hoof over his heaving sides as he gasped for breath, He lay there not even bothering to wipe the drool off his chin as he struggled to draw in breath.

When dawn came Flare woke but left Aero to sleep. Those plates were very light but they still wore on his wings hard, especially with his bags in tow. She could see Canterlot in the distance, a fleck on the horizon. To the right of their makeshift camp was the road to the city, huge on the ground where it had only been a ribbon of grey from up in the sky.

As she sat her mind began to wander about his family. Aeroslash never, ever talked about them and it was extremely difficult to persuade him to let her come meet them. "Stallions and their silly pride. What is so bad about introducing your marefriend to your parents? Are they really so bad to be around?"

Aero mumbled her name in his sleep and she smiled. He was such a great pony. They hardly ever argued, and he was completely faithful. True Blue. Like her coat, she giggled to herself. But she was going to have to do something about his shyness. Flare had met a mare named Fluttershy once and Aero was almost as bad. He wasn't timid like she was but he rarely spoke up about his opinions on much.

About the time the sun reached it's peak in the sky, a carriage rumbled down the road, startling Flare and waking Aero. As it passed by a mare from the interior shouted for the stallions pulling it to stop. Aero slowly got to his feet and put his bags over his back as the carriage slowed to a halt.

"Are you ponies going to Canterlot?" came a voice from the inside.

"Er, yes. Yes we are." Flare responded.

A moment of silence, "Would you like to join me? It's ever so lonely in here with nopony to talk to. I would enjoy having somepony for company."

Flare looked at Aero and he nodded, hanging his head, "I think we will join you, thank you so much." she called.

As they climbed into the carriage and sat down Flashfire beheld a lovely white unicorn with an expertly groomed mane of a moderate violet color. Aero climbed in after her and sat down tiredly next to Flare, leaning his head back against the cushions tiredly.

The carriage resumed its rocking course as the unicorn spoke up, "Hello. My name is Rarity."

"I'm Flashfire and this is Aeroslash."

"Why are you two headed to the city? And on hoof! You poor dears, why not fly?"

"Well we did fly from Cloudsdale but we had to rest here for the night."

"Cloudsdale?!" her face turned to the embodiment of astonishment. "But that's so far away and you flew all in one day?"

"Yes we did."

"Well then I am overjoyed to be the one who alleviated you for the rest of your journey. So tell me about yourself dear."

Flare could see that she was talking to Aero, not to her. She grinned inwardly, if she had the intent to flirt, Rarity was in for a big surprise.

"I'm Aeroslash." he said plainly giving her a blank look and holding out his hoof to shake. Flare grinned inwardly, pleased at his facade of neutrality.

"So are you two together?" her slightly indignant tone gave away her disappointment as she looked at Flare, a hint of jealousy in her eye.

Aero answered before she could, "Yes we are." he stated calmly as he put a hoof on Flare's leg, sending waves of heat directly to her cheeks.

"Oh." was Rarity's only response, clearly disappointed.

They engaged in idle conversation for the remainder of the ride and the generous unicorn let two pegasi outside the gate when they arrived. "I wish you both the best of luck!" she called as the carriage rolled away. Aero turned straight to one of the guards and began conversing with him. After a few minutes of them talking, the guard called for an escort to the palace.

Aero walked back over to Flare, "They will give us an escort to the mansion." She started right in, "You know that unicorn had the hots for you right?" She sincerely hoped he did, then she would know he told her off on his faithfulness. She really was a very pretty mare and Flare knew how fickle stallions could get.

"Well it would have been kinda hard to miss wouldn't it?" he said with an amused smile as a decadent carriage rolled next to them. He opened the door and offered her a hoof, "After you my queen." he said playfully. Taking his hoof she stepped inside and sat down. He piled in after her. And when she turned to him, he met her with a passionate kiss.

The carriage rolled to a stop and Aeroslash let go of Flare giving her a caress on her wing before he turned to open the door. As he stepped out he looked up to see a huge four-story mansion towering above him, two statues of unicorns in full battle armour stood guard on either side of the ornate carved door. The house looked exactly the same as it had when he was last here, so many years ago. He turned to help Flare out of the carriage and whispered, "Stick close to me, there's no telling how he might react to you."

"He who?"

"You always asked me why I'm always so quiet, you are about to find out why." And with that, Aero twined his tail in hers and they approached the ominous door together.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

"Your father has been expecting you." answered the butler as he opened the door for them, letting them into a massive parlor. The walls were lined with portraits of serious-looking unicorns all dressed in some military uniform.Expensive vases and suits of pony armour stood along the walls. Two massive staircases ascended to the second story and to the floors above as Aero remembered and Flare saw. "He is waiting for you in his office," the old butler added warily, eying the mare at Aero's side. He shuffled off and left the two of them alone in the foyer. "It's been so long." he mumbled under his breath as the door closed behind the old butler. "What?"

"I just said that it has been a long time since I set foot in this place." he responded.

"And with good reason." Boomed a voice from above. Flare squeaked and pressed against Aeroslash's side as a deep red stallion garbed in a decorated military uniform descended a wide marble staircase, nemerous medals clinking against each other with each step. He slowed when he caught sight of Flare and then resumed his former pace, his hoofsteps echoing off the walls almost endlessly. "I see you have failed." He said sharply with obvious distaste in his voice. Aero said nothing, shirking at the unicorn's poisonous tone. "I told you to come back a unicorn or not at all and yet you defile my home with not only yourself but with this stray bird?" His fathers tone became angry and bitter, not even trying to contain his anger and hatred. "17 generations of my family were all unicorns and every stallion fought in the army. Then you came, not only destroying our families legacy but also my wife." Aero surprised Flare, actually speaking up, "The conditions of my birth are not of my cause Father."

"SILENCE!!!" he bellowed causing Flare to bury her head deeper into Aero's side as he tucked his wing around her.

Aero's father resumed his tirade, yelling so loud the portraits along the walls shuddered,"You will take that creature away from here or I will personally tear her wings off. This house has been ruled by unicorns since Celestia took the throne from her parents two millenia ago. You defile it's name with your very existence! I will not harm you because you are blood, but She..." his gaze shifted to Flare, trying to burn holes in her face with his glare, "is not."

His horn lit in a blue glow and he felt Flare be pulled away from him, enshrouded in the same essense. She started screaming in terror, flailing her legs helplessly against the magical grip.

Blindly acting without even thinking, Areo charged his father and rammed him hard, driving his shoulder into his father's side, sending the unicorn flying into the wall. The portraits shook in their frames as his body slammed into the wall. Flare fell from midair and landed on the marble floor with a sickening crunch and a scream of pain. Aero whirled and ran to her. She tried to get up, but her leg was twisted at an gross angle and she collapsed to the floor in agony. He picked her up and slung her over his back. He fled the mansion with his father screaming at the fleeing pegasi, "DON'T YOU EVER COME BACK YOU VILE HELLSPAWN!!"

A block away he sat down and laid Flare on the ground and examined her. Her right foreleg was broken and she was shivering uncontrollably. Not knowing what to do, he picked her up again and ran to the hospital, his broken marefriend laying limply over his back.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Echoing hoofsteps woke him from his light slumber. Aero must have dozed off waiting for the doctor to tell him what was going on. He looked up to see an old doctor who looked at his clipboard before speaking. "Aeroslash Duriean?" Aero only nodded morosely.

"Well good news. It wasn't a bad break so it should only take a few weeks to heal, she is conscious and continues to ask for you so I suppose it's all right to go in now. But don't stay too long she needs her rest."

A mumbled "Yes Doctor." was all he could manage as he wearily rose from his chair and staggered to her room.

As he walked into the room the first thing he saw was the cast around her leg, then his eyes rose to meet hers. He walked over to an armchair next to her bed and sat down putting his head in her lap. He finally let go and cried where nopony but his marefriend could see his anguish.

Her foreleg ached and it still hurt every so often but it wasn't bad. When Aero walked in he looked like someone had sucked the life out of him. He still had his blades on his drooping wings and both of their saddlebags were slung over his back. She didn't know what to say to him. Didn't know how to comfort the one she cared about so much, she could only watch him walk over like a zombie, sit heavily into a chair at the side of her bed, and lay his head in her lap until he started crying. She didn't know what to do. She had never seen him cry, he was so strong, so composed, never flinched at anything. But she had also never seen someone get disowned and then have to attack their former father to save their love. She just laid her left forehoof on his head and kept stroking his mane as he moaned apologies into the sheets. She didn't know how long they sat there but eventually she fell asleep.

Aeroslash spent the next week by her side in the hospital bed before he realized, besides the hospital, they didn't have anywhere to stay, much less anything to pay the hospital with. He had a few bits, enough for food for a few days but nothing else. Telling Flare he would be back soon, he left her looking lonely and remorse on her hospital bed. As he stepped outside, he saw that it was nighttime and knew most businesses would be closed.

As he turned around to go back inside, something caught the corner of his vision: a dark pegasus in black armour bearing the standard of the Princess Luna flying towards the palace, and an idea struck him. Opening his wings he took flight, following the guard of the night.

He flew over most of the city before the guard realized he was being followed. His cargo was extremely important, he didn't want anypony following him. He drew up and faced the spy in the air. He could barely see him but for a flash of gold in his mane, His color was perfect, dark green, the hardest color to see at night. "Who art thou?" he called to the follower. The moment the words left his lips, the pony drew up and faced him, showing glinting razor-sharp blades attached to his wings. "Wingblades." The guard knew they were extremely dangerous especially if somepony knew how to use them, The rogue ponies intentions were clear and obvious.

"For Luna!" he screamed a battle call and dive-bombed the mysterious pony. The pony tried to scramble out of the way but he obviously wasn't much for acceleration, and the armoured pegasus hit him full on, driving a practiced, steel-clad shoulder into the rogue's chest. The pony was knocked unconscious and the guard took him to Luna to be dealt with, flying for her throne room.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

There was still nopony in her throne room as there hardly ever was. Just her personal guard of pegasi. Her sister always kept unicorns around, but they were so limited even with their magic. "Why does Tia always discount pegasi so easily? They are much better for sending messages and whatnot throughout the land, they are so much faster."

She was interrupted in her musings by Praetorian, her guard captain, carrying an unconscious green pegasus as he entered the room. She stood from the throne, worried. Praetorian was carrying very important information and the pony over his shoulders obviously had malevolent intentions judging from the blades over his wings, sharp and deadly.

"Your Majesty." Praetorian bowed and threw the unconscious pegasus onto the ground. "I caught him following me through the city. When I saw the wingblades, I knew he was after your package." he explained as he walked to her and gave her the package. She took it, grateful that the pony had succeeded in his mission.

"Thank you Praetorian, you may take a well deserved rest. You have served Equestria well." Praetorian nodded and took a bow before departing to the guard chambers, a proud swagger in his stride. Luna looked down on the pegasus. He was skinny and lean like he hadn't eaten in some while and was falling behind on sleep, but he was ridiculously good-looking. His wings were very powerful,his body lean and muscular, and his jet-green and gold hair proved perfect contrast with his dark green coat. His blades were made from what looked like some kind of aluminum alloy, shining like gold. They were sharper than even normal blades were which meant that the metal was designed for cutting through thick armour.

She lifted one of his wings and put a small electric current through it to lock the muscles, curious at the significance of the strange metal. She then took a sword from one of her guards and swung the sword at the wing with as much force as she could put into the rod of steel. What she saw terrified her.

Aeroslash awoke paralyzed and with his wing vivid with electricity. He was soon released after he felt something strike his blades, passing smoothly over the metal with a loud ring. He opened his eyes and saw two halves of a sword laying on the ground. Magic enveloped them and the were pushed aside as blue hooves in silvered shoes approached him.

"Who art thou?" he was asked in a thunderous voice by the pony to whom the hooves belonged. "And where did you acquire wingblades of such a manner?"

He hesitantly answered, not looking to see who addressed him, "M-My marefriend made them for me."

"And who is your marefriend?" He was immediately asked. "And why did you attack my guard?"

Aero scrambled to his feet. That could only mean he was in the presence of THE Princess Luna. He hastily bowed.

"I did not attack him Your Majesty. I merely followed him so I could see you." A moment of silence.

"And why would you be interested in seeing me?"

"Your Majesty, I have no job nor home and I must care for my marefriend and myself and I have little money. I saw your guard and had the idea to join your night watch. We would have a home and meals and my family honor requires me to join the royal army or palace guard. I cannot join the army because as you can see, I am not a unicorn." It was the most he had said at one time in a very long while.

He dared not look at Luna, but as she remained silent he continued to get more and more worried so he added, "Flare has trained me on how to use my blades to the point of perfection and I shall not fail you."

"Is Flare your marefriend?" He nodded slowly, nervous.

"Take me to her and there we will discuss your admission to the guard."

Flare laid there on the bed with the incessant beeping of the heart monitor driving her crazy. He should have been back by now, what was taking him so long? The minutes continued to slide by, dragging slowly and doing everything in their power to drive her crazy. He left both their saddlebags here so he didn't have any money. Maybe he was more dedicated than she thought. "Or less." her mind prodded her. She shook her head violently to make the thought go away. "No, he was the most loyal stallion I have ever met, he won't leave me. Besides if he really meant to leave her for good he wouldn't have left his bag here." she said to herself, as if that would help her keep calm. That bag was the one with all the money, or what little they had.

Content that this logic was true she continued to wait and eventually fell into fitful dreams of Aeroslash and his father.

Flare was awakened by the door opening and the hoofsteps of two ponies. She opened her eyes and beheld Aero standing next to an alicorn, a mare alicorn at that. Rage built in her like a sudden hurricane. She hopped out of bed and slapped Aero as hard as she could. He just looked at her shocked. "What was that for?" he asked innocently.

That only made her madder. That he had the audacity to stand there so innocently next to the strange mare enraged her like a bar of iron.

She tried to slap him again but he ducked and she fell, off balance. She only had three hooves after all. She fell on the ground and he immediately picked her up and gently placed her on the bed. "Sorry I took so long." he whispered in her ear. He took a step back, "Flare, meet Her Majesty Princess Luna, guardian of the night.

Flare suddenly realized what she had done, embarrassed her boyfriend in front of the Princess for no reason. She could only mumble, "Pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty."She could admit she was jealous that Aero was giving the princess more attention then her, but that was because she was a Princess. Her authority demanded it.

Luna spoke, "I hope I am not the cause of that display of emotion. Aeroslash brought me here to see you as I needed proof of his claims. But I hadn't imagined the hospital. Why didn't you tell me?"

He only shrugged. "You never asked me what condition she was in, only about myself."

Flare realized he was still faithful to her. He showed indifference and was bluntly frank with anypony other than her. His casual answer, shut her suspicions off in a heartbeat. Luna looked her over and nodded, mumbling quietly to herself.

"When is she free to leave to hospital?" Flare didn't know, the doctors never told her. Aero spoke up, surprising her, "She was free to go the day after we got here but I persuaded the doctor to let her stay here until I could find work and a place for us to stay." "And how long ago was that?"

He hesitated, looking at Flare, she only looked back. "We have been here a week or so." he finally answered.

Luna stood astonished. "Truly?" Aero only nodded his response sheepishly.

Flare began to wonder, just what had he tried to do to get the attention of a princess? What was he trying to do? She gave voice to her queries, "Why did he bring you here Princess?"

Luna looked thoughtful, eying Flare thoughtfully as she spoke, "I needed to verify his situation. I don't let just anypony into my personal guard." She turned to Aero, "Go ahead and bring her to the palace I will find quarters for the both of you. In the meantime I will consider you proposal." And with that she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Flare looked at Aero. Then and only then did she see the anger in his eyes. She braced herself, she knew she deserved it. But he only kept it in as he so often did. He didn't make voice to his hurt pride just said, "C'mon your wings still work, we will fly to the palace." as he picked up their saddlebags. "I'm sorry for hitting you Aero." He looked at her, a hint of a smile on his face. He gave her a peck on the lips and forgave her. She got out of bed and followed him through the door, hobbling on three legs.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

As Aeroslash and Flare flew through the palace doors a servant greeted them and showed them to their room. He left them after they were inside with a, "If you need anything just let the guards outside know." Aeroslash took Flare in his arms, careful not to hurt her injured leg, and kissed her passionately before letting go of her turning to the enormous bed. She flinched she saw the left side of his face, all swollen and bruised. A thin crack had split over the bruise, welling up blood in a steady trickle, only making her feel worse.

He saw her flinch at the corner of his vision and felt sorry for her. That pony could hit hard, courtesy of working in the forge all the time, but she was very self-critical. "It's okay babe, I know it must have been quite a shock to see me standing there with another mare after being gone so long." He then relayed the nights events to her to explain his lengthy absence.

When Aeroslash got to the part where he got rammed by the guard, he saw her look at his chest to see the cuts and numerous bruises the armour had inflicted on his being. He took her face in his hooves and told her he was fine before continuing with his story.

Flare did smile when he told her how the wingblade had split the sword so easily, pride in her work clear on her face. When he finished he picked her up in his forelegs and carried her over to the bed and tucked her into the covers. He laid a kiss on her forehead before he crawled into the bed with her. He fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

Luna had decided to give him her invitation to breakfast personally but when she opened the door she saw the two ponies snuggling motionless under the sheets. She smiled to herself, slightly jealous of the lucky mare, and closed the door. She would have to tell him in the morning.

Chapter 3

The Throne room remained absent of anypony but her guards while Luna made her plans for the next day. She was intrigued by the handsome pegasus and wanted to see just what he could do. She called in her flightmaster and headservant to the throne room, rudely awakening them from their slumber, but she paid no heed to their annoyed looks badly hidden behind their facade of respect, she was too excited.

"Tiberias, If a pegasus has been proven to have slower acceleration, yet has extraordinarily powerful wings, what does that mean about his aerial performance capabilities?"

He was startled by her unusual question, "Ideally it would indicate to great maximum speed Your Majesty, but some pegasi are born with stronger wings whilst having normal statistics. So it might only show that he just isn't good at acceleration."

Still, she had hope, "I have a new recruit who bears the aforementioned traits and I would like to see what he can do after breakfast in the morning. I want you to prepare trials based on mine and your hypothesis on his skills for tomorrow."

"Yes Your Majesty." he said with a bow before he trotted off to the pegasus training grounds.

"What of me Princess?"

"Ruby, I want you to join me for breakfast in the morning and after I want you to attend to the pegasus in room 306. I want you to spoil her, and pamper her. If you aren't sure what to do, attend to her as if she is the unicorn Rarity, I believe you have had her under your watch several times. But keep in mind, if she asks anything of you, heed her word. If she asks you to stop pampering her, do so and immediately come to me. Do you understand?"

"Yes my lady, you always present me with the hardest challenges." she said with a smile. They laughed together about the picky unicorn for a bit before Ruby trotted off to make preparations.

Tomorrow is going to be so much fun for the both of them, Luna smiled to herself.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

The two pegasi awoke in each others legs and snuggled for a bit longer until disturbed by a servant giving them an invitation to breakfast with the princesses.

They got up and followed him to a large dining hall with the princesses at the head of the table and a motley group of nobles talking about the workings of the kingdom. They all were silenced by the entrance of the couple as they were seated. Luna introduced them to the court and to her sister. "Celestia these are the ponies I was telling you about, Aeroslash and Flashfire. Celestia nodded to them and resumed speaking with a maroon pony to her right. Luna engaged them in conversation as they sat down next to her at the table. Plates of food promptly slip under their noses, making their mouths water.

"Was your room alright? I am afraid we don't have many left, we have a few dignitaries over from various places in Equestria so we are a bit tight on room. Aero answered her, "It was quite nice Your Majesty." before turning to devour his food. He hadn't eaten all week despite Flare telling him to go out and buy some food, he had just stayed with her in the hospital not even accepting the food she offered him from her plate, insisting that she needed it more than he.

"You will have to forgive him Princess, he hasn't eaten all week." Flare informed the startled Luna. Several heads turned to stare at her in shock, including Celestia.

"And why ever not?" the white alicorn asked.

"Oh, he didn't want to go and eat, he just stayed with me at the hospital." Celestia nodded and returned to her conversation. However the rest continued to stare in disbelief. Luna saved them, "What are you staring at? Don't you know that is rude?" They returned to their food and conversation hastily, but still snuck peeks at the oblivious Aeroslash, his snout buried in the food..

Flare thanked Luna and began eating the exquisite meal set before her. When Aero finished with his, he looked around hungrily for more and Luna called for another serving.

Gradually the nobles trickled out of the room after finishing their respective meals until only the couple, the princesses, and a yellow pony beside a green pegasus in uniform.

Celestia excused herself to her duties and Luna called the two unknown ponies closer. "Ruby take Miss Flashfire to her room and attend to her, Tiberias, come with me and Aeroslash. Ruby collected Flare and they left to do girly things, Aeroslash supposed while the pegasus approached him. "Tiberias Leonithicas, I am to be your trainer."

Aeroslash looked at Luna confused, at which Luna responded saying, "I will accept your application to my guard after we see what you can do." Aeroslash nodded and followed her as she left the room with the pegasus behind him.

Luna led them through the palace and outside to a large open field with rings on stands everywhere and several dummies in armour standing and hovering all over the ground and in the air. Aeroslash shifted his wings uncomfortably in their metal encasings. "So you just want to see how well I can fly?" he asked. The pegasus answered, "How well you can maneuver, how fast you can start up, how fast you can go, and how well you can fight, among various other things. Come with me." Aero heeded him and followed him to a rack of weapons while Luna remained where she was and watched. Tiberias pulled out two steel hoof caps with upraised studs. "These are your melee weapons. Since our mouth is unwieldy and we cannot carry many weapons these are for bucking the hell out of stuff." He popped them onto Aero's hooves and ordered him to work on an armoured dummy.

He approached the dummy, not sure what to do. "Well? Hit it!" Startled, he bucked the dummy so hard, the head shot off and rolled under a table in the distance. The trainer's eyebrows shot upwards almost as fast in surprise.

"Well you are strong for a pegasus, lets see what else you can do." He told him to fly as high as he could and use "Those shiny things" on a levitating dummy some distance away.

Aero compelled his wings to push himself up and with some added assistance from his legs, he rocketed for the sky.

"Well he seems pretty fast in acceleration." Luna stated to Tiberias. The flightmaster snorted, "It's how every pegasus learns to fly, we are all good at it that way. He used his legs to start up faster. We will see how fast he can accelerate while starting in the air. I see what you meant by powerful wings, and I find it hard to believe what you say about his poor acceleration."

He looked up to see the pegasus and was astonished yet again. "That is much higher than most ponies are willing to go and he is still going higher." Luna looked up. Aero was so high she could barely make him out to be a dot in the sky.

Still going ever higher, Aeroslash sought out the height that he was at the first time he hit his target. When the thin atmosphere started affecting him, he ceased his ascent on hovered, looking down at the distant ground. An array of puny dots littered the ground, but his pegasus eyes were like the eyes of a hawk, he saw his target and aligned himself directly over it. Taking a deep breath, he did his signature, slow back flip and began the dive.

Tiberias' eyes got wide. Luna couldn't see what he saw so she asked him what was wrong. "He is up too high. There is no way he he will be able to unfurl his wings in time to avoid the ground." Luna didn't know what he meant, "So-"

"So there will be nothing left but a splatter of that green fur on the ground."

He pushed his hooves in front of his nose as he opened his eyes. The air was splitting around him and he heard it start to whistle. With a sudden realization, he knew why he had never been able to duplicate Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom, he always hit his target long before he got enough speed. The realization made him braver, much more courageous ad he pushed harder with his wings, his speed increasing at a faster and faster rate.He could see Tiberias jumping around like a madpony but he was too focused to pay any attention. He gave another strong flap of his wings.

Tiberias started cursing and jumping around about how stupid the pony was and stuff, but Luna had only eyes for the streak of green and gold streaming from his wake as a thunderous shrieking blasted at her ears. She saw him spread his wings, increasing his speed as he rocketed for the ground.

He spread his wings, angling them so that they only increased his speed. Determination was set on his face as we willed himself to go even faster. He would make the rainboom, this he knew it deep in his soul. His wings split the dummy effortlessly but he still didn't cease his course. Then he realized, if he didn't pull up, he would die. He flicked his wings and shot forward horizontally, his hooves barely kissing the ground, He could feel his wings slashing dozens of targets, rings, and steel poles before he flicked the tip of his left and he swerved left. he continued to dodge targets as he couldn't seem to slow down. When he realized he wasn't slowing, he panicked and tilted his wings. He rocketed upwards and pulled his wings to his side. He eventually slowed and began to fall. He opened his wings and flew to where Luna and Tiberias stood motionless.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Flare stopped the masseuse mid-back and listened. That whistle could mean one thing and one thing only. She shot off the bed and burst out of the room leaving the surprised ponies that were catering to her in her room. She raced through the hallways, the sound getting louder and louder. As she ran onto the grounds, she stopped cold.

In the sky, she saw Aero plummeting to the ground much faster than he normally did in a dive. "He is getting too close!" she screamed and she raced to where he was headed. She saw him start to streak and saw a ray of green and gold erupt in his wake. She just knew he was trying the rainboom again and wasn't going to let up until he left nothing but a crater in the ground.

Tears began streaming from Flare's face as she ran, hooves flying around a corner of a wall and saw him vanish behind a tall hedge and she heard a loud thud as well as the clang of metal. Flashfire stopped in her tracks and collapsed on the ground in tears.

Her love! He was surely dead! There was no way he could have survived a hit like that. He was all she had! She couldn’t lose him now! Why did he have to be so obsessed with making a sonic rainboom? Whywhywhywhy?!

It was all Rainbow Dash’s fault! If she hadn’t of done the sonic rainboom at that stupid show where she did it to save some wonderbolts. She just lay there in the grass crying her eyes out for what seemed an eternity until she got up and ran to her room, throwing everypony out and slamming the door in their surprised faces and collapsed on the bed. There she cried until she fell asleep.

Aeroslash landed with a grunt of disappointment. He was so close! He just didn’t have enough speed to do it. He emerged from his thoughts and walked over to where Tiberias still stood gaping.

The pegasus didn’t say anything only walked over and pulling out one of Aero's wings began examining the blade, still unharmed before returning to Luna grumbling to himself. “Where did you say you got these wingblades? Luna asked. "Flare Made them for me. She is a forge pony, I swear she can make anything.” He said reminiscent. Tiberias interjected with a snort, “They are much lighter and stronger than the ones we make for our guards. I have no idea what they are made from.”

Luna gave a surprising answer, “Some kind of aluminum alloy I should think.”

“I never really knew what she was talking about but she did mention that metal.” Luna nodded, "Welcome to the guard. We do our training and drilling at night so I will see you here at sunset. Before we say goodbye we should ask Flashfire how and with what she made the blades from. Let us go to your room.” Tiberias protested, saying that they were not done with their evaluation. "We will do that later Flightmaster, but for now We will visit Flare to discuss what metal these are made from.

Aeroslash followed Luna into the palace to his room. When he opened the door to his room, he spotted Flare buried into the blankets. He walked over and rubbed her wing. She jerked awake and when she saw him her eyes grew big as grapefruits as she pulled him into a big hug kissing him hard and stroking his mane and crying loudly. Luna slid out of the room to give them some privacy, anger scarring her face.

“W-What’s wrong?” he asked startled as Flare attempted to choke the life out of him.

“You! You scared me half to death! You and that stupid sonic rainboom! I saw you disappear behind a wall and heard a loud thud. I just knew you had died, leaving me all alone!” She continued to cry into his mane. "Don't you dare ever do that to me again! Don't you dare! Promise me!" Aero gripped his distraught marefriend harder, trying to ccalm her down. "I promise Flare. I promise."

Luna summoned Ruby and when the yellow pony arrived, sheepish, Luna lit into her.

“I ordered you to cater to her every need! I told you to keep her happy! Now I want an explanation as to why she is so upset, and I want it NOW!”

“S-s-she ran off when some kind of whistling sound started ringing. When she came back she threw us out of the room and slammed the door. I headed for you as you told me to but a messenger came before I arrived at the training grounds and summoned me back here.”

Hardly satisfied with her answer, Luna sent her off with a huff and reentered the room. Aero was still holding Flare, comforting her as her crying died down. She backed out of the room, still seething from her anger. She would have plenty of time tomorrow to question the apparent forging pegasus, when she had calmed down a bit. As she walked to her room she began to reminisce about the stallion as her vengeful attitude faded. “She is one lucky pony, both in how attractive he is and how much of a great stallion he is. He will make her a wonderful husband. ” she said to no one in particular. When she entered her room she laid down on her bed and thought about Aero until she fell into a dreamless sleep.

_____________________________________________________________________

Aeroslash continued holding Flare until she calmed down. He kissed her and asked if she wanted to walk with him. She immediately accepted. She didn’t want him out of her sight for a long time. Perhaps forever. Aeroslash led her to the training grounds where he caused so much destruction. He told her what happened and showed her that there was no crater. Only then did she notice the studded hoofcaps on his hooves.

“What are these?” she asked him while she examined them, holding them in her hooves.

“These are what I will use in melee combat. Luna accepted me in her personal bodyguard. My close call impressed both of them.”

She nodded a little worried that he would get hurt in battle. He saw the worry spread over her face so he nuzzled her affectionately. “Don’t worry,” He said, consoling her, “The bodyguard are the last ones to fight in battle.”

“Then I’m worried you will get hurt then.”

“Not with these things on.” He said shuffling his wings and in turn, his razor sharp wingblades. She gave a wan smile and they continued their walk about the palace. Eventually they came across Celestia's throne room and saw the sun alicorn with an astonishing line of ponies waiting for a audience with her. Aeroslash remembered how empty Luna's room had been at night, nopony but the bodyguard. Here at day however, the number of ponies far outweighed the number of guards.

They spotted the unicorn that had given them a ride to the city and waved. She waved back as they trotted over to her. "Oh my dears! It's such a pleasure to see you again I didn't know you stayed at the palace. If I had known I would have taken you straight here." She smiled and batted her eyelashes at Aeroslash in an annoying manner. Why girls did that was always a mystery to him.

He gave her a slight smile, "We only got here last night. we ran into some... unfortunate business in the city and Flare was hospitalized. I met Princess Luna and just got accepted into her personal bodyguard about an hour ago.

She looked shocked, "Oh you poor dear. Are you all right?" she asked Flare "I'm fine, just fell and broke my leg." she said not really looking her in the eye. "Oh come now deary I have a friend who is awful at lying and I can tell when a pony lies, Come you can tell me." Aeroslash cut in with an unheard of tone of voice scarily like his father's, "No she won't tell you. Now I suggest you leave her alone." he said with distasteful malice. The prying unicorn was getting on his nerves. Rarity looked at him in astonishment, "Well I must say you have need of an etiquette lesson on how to speak to a lady."

"How about one on how to speak to a snoop?" Flare looked at him with the same amount of surprise as Rarity. She had never heard him snap at somepony so harshly. Aeroslash realized how rude he had been. He was just so annoyed at how she kept on prying. "I apologize. Those circumstances are a rather touchy subject. I didn't mean to snap in such an undignified manner. I ask your forgiveness." He said, not really looking like he meant it.

Flare had never in all the time she had known him seen him speak in such a "Noble" manner even if he didn't look the part. His language was all prim and proper and his words strangely eloquent. Rarity didn't seem to notice as she accepted his apology. "I understand. Everypony has secrets they would rather not everypony know."

He stood up straight and Rarity saw his mane, a deep, deep forest green, almost black, and a bright gold streak. She knew where she had seen that combination of colors in such perfect contrast, almost an hour ago as she was arriving at the palace.

"Did you by any chance attempt a sonic rainboom at the 'hour ago' that you mentioned?" His eyes grew wide, confirming her suspicions. "Because I happen to know the pony who created that particular move." Flare kew what was happening beforehand but she couldn't stop his eagerness. "What?! You know Rainbowdash?!" Several ponies hissed at him to be quiet, glaring at him.

"As a matter of fact I do." She smiled at Flare thinking her victory was at hand. Aero quieted down but was still very excited. "Could you introduce me to her?" Flare gasped and stared at him. She couldn't believe he was more interested in a mare he didn't even know than her. Rarity didn't miss a beat, "Hmmm, I don't know when the next time she might come to Canterlot is, but next time she does, I will come with her and I will look for you."

His glee was obvious, "It's a deal." he shook her hoof vigorously and trotted away humming a happy tune. Flare followed him reluctantly as Rarity winked at her, smiling. She turned her head angrily and ran to catch up to him.

Aero was about to go somewhere when Flare told him to come with her to their room. There was something in her tone that made him comply, though he was so overjoyed that he wanted to go flying. Just to let the wind run through his hair. When they got there Flare shut the doors and turned to him, "Do I mean so little to you?" she asked harshly.

"Huh?" was all he could get out before, "Are you so interested in a mare that you don't even know that you totally forget about me?"

He didn't like where this was going so he responded, shooting down her accusations. "So you are saying that even though I defended you from that obnoxious unicorn, I still don't love you? Is that what you are saying?"

Flare hadn't even thought about it that way. "Then why were you so excited when she mentioned Rainbowdash?
You forgot me when she said you could meet her."

"So I could get her to sign that poster of the competition where she made her debut. Big deal. Look, I love you. Not Rainbowdash. So what she is my favorite celebrity. You are my favorite mare, and that won't change just 'cause I got her autograph."

Flare looked at her hooves shamefully. She didn't know what to say. Aero lifted her muzzle to his and gave her a small kiss. "Now lets forget about Rainbowdash. I have to spend all night training so I need to get some 'rest'." he offered flirtatiously with a wink. "I will have to make that very difficult for you." She responded likewise, taking off his wingblades and setting them on the dresser. He took off his hoofcaps and crawled into bed waiting for her. She slid in under the covers next to him as he pulled her into an intense kiss, full of all the love and desire he had ever felt for her. He drew away barely an inch, catching his breath, "Actually, I don't think I need much sleep right now."

Flare smiled and pulled him back into her.

Chapter 4

Aeroslash awoke before sunset. He untangled himself from Flare's legs gently, trying not to wake her, and slid his hoofcaps on while he buckled his wingblades into place. He slowly walked to the door, careful not to make too much noise with steel shoes, and headed for the training grounds. He saw Luna in front with Tiberias, talking to him over a sheet of parchment while he nodded his head every so often.

Aero cleared his throat to announce his arrival. Luna looked up and smiled at him before returning to her conversation with the trainer. After a few minutes, she beckoned him over to join them.

"This morning we saw what you were capable of, but tonight we will train you to do your assigned task in a fight."

"And what is that Your Majesty?"

She looked at the parchment thoughtful, "To take out key ponies in a fight under my command. For example, if somepony leads a small force against me and my sister, your job is to take them out. A snake without a head cannot bite. That and other things. In a larger battle you will stay above me and Celestia and prepare to strike down anypony who nears us individually, or take out an array of them like you did this morning when you pulled out of your dive."

Aero nodded understanding, "And what if you yourself are in the fray? I mean no disrespect to your sister, but I am employed in YOUR personal body guard. I will fight for you before Celestia."

"I am flattered, but you will serve Celestia as you do me. Anyway should I join the fray, I want you to make a strike at the immediate area around me, then land for melee at my side with the other guards in my retinue."

"Yes Your Majesty."

Luna walked closer to him and placed a hoof on his shoulder. "Come, walk with me Aeroslash." He complied hesitantly, not sure of her intentions, but obedient nevertheless. He walked next to her into the palace and Luna headed to the throne room. "I will go ahead and pay you this month's wages and I want you to take tonight with Flare and make yourselves at home, go out to eat, whatever it is you wish but keep in mind, tomorrow you will join me in the throne room for your first night of service at sunset.

"Yes My Lady."

"Good. Now go spoil your girlfriend, she needs it." She finished with a smile. He returned the smile and trotted off to find her. But Luna called him one more time, "And just call me Luna if you don't mind."

He smiled and nodded to her before heading down the hall.

When he told her that they had tonight to themselves, Flare pulled him to the bed, "There won't be very many shops open at night. Tomorrow we can go out and have some fun. So for tonight get a good rest, you have a long day tomorrow.

He smiled and kissed her before crawling into bed.

Rarity handed the letter to the mail pony. He took it without a word and flew off in the direction of Ponyville. She smiled to herself. If she could get this very attractive stallion to owe her a favor, she would be very... pleased.

She waved at the pegasus as he flew away out of a quick wave of giddy joy. She couldn't remember if she had ever been with a pegasus before but she was sure it would be grand. She had an itch to feel those wings under her hooves. She got back into the carriage and continued to hatch her plot to gain the favor of a certain dark green pegasus pony as it rocked back to her hotel. Fortunately she was going to be here all week. So she had plenty of time to charm him.

She thought for only a moment about the mare that was always at his side but brushed her off. Stallions were fickle and were very susceptible to the charms of a unicorn so entrancing and sophisticated as herself. She had little doubt she could steal him away from Flick or Flab or whatever her name is. She settled for dreaming about enticing him while she fell asleep, dreaming of what he would be like to have.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Fortunately, Flare wasn't very flamboyant. They went out to lunch and bought her a dress to wear should any formal occasions come up but not much else. When they returned to the palace they sought out the palace smithy so she would have something to do when Aero was gone on duty.

The numerous unicorns in the forge were surprised that she, "a lady", was quite adept with a smith's hammer, and without even the use of a horn. They chatted over some coffee about things way over Aeroslash's head. Metals and the best way to heat steel and other things Aero didn't understand. After the smiths had finished with their coffee break and returned to their forges, The couple walked out to explore the palace some.

They found an enormous variety of strange things from a massive labyrinth, to an ancient library filled with scrolls and dusty books. Soon Aero noticed the sun start to go down and he led Flare to their room. Saying his goodbyes and giving her a kiss he left for the Throne Room.

He arrived early, seeing a long line of ponies lining up even outside the door waiting to see Princess Celestia. He saw her greeting countless ponies of all sorts. A rather large, handsome unicorn dressed in a military uniform looked to Celestia and after seeing her nod to him, he called out, "Alright everypony, visitation with the Princess is over." Several ponies groaned at being cut short in meeting the princess, but left the room without any trouble.

Aero trotted to Celestia and bowed to her. She gave him permission to rise and introduced him to the unicorn.

"Aeroslash, I would like you to meet my commander, Shining Armour." Aero saluted him a he always had when meeting a soldier. The memories of his childhood hurt him, but he shoved them aside for now. Shining Armour saluted him back.

Celestia resumed, "He is my second in command. He is the one you will take orders from aside from me and Princess Luna. He is also captain of the guard for both me and Luna. If you have a problem with your duties or anything related to your employment as a guard, you go to him about it."

"I hope your serving under my command will prove beneficial to us both and may our jobs of defending the Princesses be successful." Aero responded likewise, "May we die together in service of our Princesses." The commet was unnecessary but he felt it would help him gain Shining Armour's trust. The unicorn raised an eyebrow in surprise before nodding and excusing himself.

Celestia turned to Aero, "I didn't know you were so willing to die for us." "You are the reason I am able to provide Flare with a home and food. And not just any home, but a palace. I owe my life to you, literally and figuratively."

"I am pleased to hear that." She answered. She rose from the throne and Luna took her place. "Goodnight Luna."

"Goodnight Tia." Luna responded, surprisingly casual in front of Aero. He bid the Princess good night and she returned his sentiment.

"Excellent." Luna began, "Let us talk about what your duty entails in the everyday environment."

Aero nodded and asked, "You spoke last night of battles, are they common or do they practically never happen?"

Luna smiled and waited for a moment until Celestia was completely gone from the room, "No, they hardly ever happen, we rarely have a pony who wants to see Tia but ran out of time. Every so often we have one run in here wanting to meet her but other than that, not much happens at night. Everypony is asleep or out on a late night date, but we hardly ever see anypony come in at night. They all want to meet my sister.

"Now tell me the exact circumstances the led you and Flare to the hospital." He hesitated but began his tale :

"Me and Flare graduated from Cloudsdale flight school about two weeks ago. Our plans were to introduce her to my family and get settled in the city. We flew from Cloudsdale but when we arrived at my home, my father was there."

He struggled to continue his story, it was such a tender wound, still open and bleeding freely.

"Go on."

Aero sighed, "First a background about me, I am the sole pegasus in my unicorn family. My mother died during ponybirth and my father has never forgiven me. As soon as I was old enough, he sent me to Cloudsdale flight school with the command to come back a unicorn, or not at all." Luna gasped, incredulous.

Aero continued, "For obvious reasons I didn't, but I met Flare and we started to go out. Over the years, I suppose I almost forgot that my dad hated me and when we graduated and Flare asked to meet my family, I supposed that perhaps his loathing of me had lessened. It hadn't. He tried to hurt Flare but I hit him and Flare fell, breaking her leg. I picked her up and fled, taking her to the hospital. And the rest you know."

Luna remained silent taking it all in. "So why did you say when I asked you, 'My family honor requires that I join either the equestrian army or the palace guard'?"

"My family has served in both for the past 17 generations and they take an enormous amount of pride in it."

Luna nodded and began telling him how things work around her and 'Tia'. "Every so often a lonely pony comes in to see me and I expect you to be at full attention, but do not intervene unless the pony seems outright hostile. In between those isolated incidents, whenever I travel somewhere, you will accompany me. Also Tia sometimes travels to the pegasi cities and for obvious reasons, she cannot bring a unicorn along. She normally borrows from my guards and may choose you. Should she select you, I expect you to guard her as well as you would me, to die for her as you would for me, and do whatever she asks of you."

Aero nodded, struggling to take it all in.

Luna did not relent, "You are not my Captain of the guard but you will be sided with him in the following nights. But you will do what I had him do in the past. If I need a parcel delivered or received or have a mission for you, you are to carry it out."

"I don't mean to sound rude or anything but, you seem to be much more relaxed and casual than Tia seems to be"

Luna laughed out loud, a surprisingly beautiful sound, almost as if she was singing, "No, I don't really like to be so formal and proper. It's so stuffy, like wearing a really tight necklace. Don't worry, you can talk to me about anything and don't be afraid to ask me a strange question. I promise you I won't blow up."

Aero smiled, "Princess-" "Luna. Just call me Luna."

"Luna." he tried, weighing it on his tongue. "I don't want to sound ungrateful, but why did you do so much for me and Flare? Why give us a room in the guest wing? I'll wager that none of the other guards gets to stay in such fine quarters."

Luna answered without skipping a beat, "I took pity on you two in the hospital. I gave you the room to help you unwind, but it occurred to me later that night, the two of you wouldn't work in the barracks so I decided to let you keep the room."

Aeroslash thanked her and took his place by her side.

She was right. Not much did happen that night.

Chapter 5

The next week passed in much the same fashion. His second night on duty he met Praetorian, the pony who had brought him to Luna. He was rigid and didn't talk much, but seemed to have an intelligent answer for everything presented to him. On Aeroslash's ninth day on duty Luna came to him before she raised the moon to speak to him, a look of seriousness on her face.

"Aero, I have a mission of sorts for you."

He drew closer as she presented some saddlebags for him. "The right bag has some money and supplies for a week or so, but the left contains an extremely Important package. It's your job to ensure that this package gets to it's recipient as soon as possible and without incident. Head south past the Badlands along the east coast and continue southward untill you come across the city of Dragonheim. After you deliver it, I want you to return to me immediately. You are not to speak to the recipient, nor will you converse with anyone you see. You are to avoid the public eye as much as possible. Take this to assist you with remaining unnoticed."

She handed him a silvery cloak. The silk fabric literally felt like water as he caught it in his hooves. It shimmered and waved, seemingly of it's own mind. "That cloak will entirely cloak you at night and make you very difficult to see at day. One of our master enchanters made it. Take good care of it."

"I will Princess." Good you will seek out a pony named Treshald. A completely black pony. Even his mane and tail. Give the package to him."

"I understand."

Luna only stared at him hard and long, not a hint of emotion on her face. There was nothing, like looking at a brick wall.

"Go." One word. One word was her only command.

Aero turned and after clasping the cloak about his neck, he set off into the drawing night.

Somepony knocked on her door. Flare got up and opened the door to see Princess Luna standing there. She invited her inside and offered her a seat. The alicorn declined and told her of Aeroslash's leaving.

"Aeroslash is off on a mission for me. I wanted you to know that he was going to be gone for a while and command you not to tell anypony, including my sister where he went, or that he went at all."

Flare could only stare at her in disbelief, her head reeling. He had left without even saying goodbye? Why hadn't he at least told her he was going?

"I sent him off immediately so that is the reason that he left without saying goodbye. he should return in about a month or so but until then, you will go about your buisness as if nothing is amiss. It is of the utmost importance that nopony know about this."

She could only splutter a, "Yes, Your Majesty," before Luna turned on her heel and left the room.

What in equestria would she do for a month to keep him off her mind? She barely got through the night alone in the bed but the day as well? And for so long? She wondered why the princess had sent him on such a long mission.

She tried to calm her nerves by going out to eat, but it did little to help. She kept expecting to see Aero sitting across from her, eating his favorite jalapeno sandwich. So after she returned to the palace she sought out the blacksmith. Upon her arrival she requested to use the facilities, and when she was granted permission, she picked up a bar of steel and a hammer and thrust the metal into the fire. When it was a lovely cherry-red, she drew it out and started hammering it.

At first she still thought of Aeroslash, but after a few minutes she lost herself in her work, the loud ringing of her hammer striking and molding the steel took her mind off everything. Her entire focus was on the shaft of heat that became more and more like a sword.

She hammered all throughout the night, reheating and tempering the steel when warranted, and by morning she held a rather impressive blade in her fetlock. The metal shone the brilliance of the forge behind her and the edge was sharp as the wingblades she had made for Aeroslash.

At the thought of Aeroslash again, shew tossed the sword onto a pile of finished weapons and walked slowly back to her room, too drained to do much other than sleep. But even in sleep, she still could not keep Aero off of her mind.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Luna sat upon the throne, wallowing in her worry and boredom. She had sent Aeroslash on such a dangerous mission she wasn't sure if he had the skills to survive. If the city watch of Dragonheim didn't kill him on sight, then the Others probably would to help keep their contact secret. They wanted to keep Celestia from knowing their plans as much as Luna did, and probably even more and weren't held by any set of moral values. Her most recent package that Praetorian had brought her was helpful to her plans, but they had made yet another ominous warning against betrayal.

Luna continued to dwell on her worry for Aeroslash and for Flare if something happened to him. It was unlikely that he would return alive, but she trusted him even over Praetorian because of his oath for his life. An oath like that is not made frivolously and she knew Aero would hold true to it. Not at all comforted by that she sank into a perpetual state of worry.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The first two days were uneventful, but on the third he could fly no longer and settled down in a small patch of trees. He could see the sea from above, but from so high, that meant he was still several miles away from reaching the glassy waters and start Southward. He landed in a heap, too tired to land gracefully, or even stand for that matter. He fell asleep into fitful dreams curled around the saddlebags.

He awoke in the middle of the night feeling not at all rested. His wings were aching and sore from such a long flight and his legs were cramped from his awkward sleeping position. He struggled to stand and tossed his cargo over his back before taking off into the night with fire in his wings.

It was several hours and dawn before he actually reached the sea. He landed on the shore for a short rest for his wings. His hooves sank into the sand a bit and the smell of salt stung his hard working nostrils. The sand made it hard for him to walk so he ended up losing more energy trying to walk than he gained for his wings.

He took off again hoping he would come across a stand of trees to sleep some around midday or so. Celestia's sun shone splendidly to his left as he flew south. Here, at the edge of the land, he could imagine the waters never ending and felt like he was flying along the very edge of the world itself. The scenery remained unchanged throughout several hours of flight, endless waters to his left and endless sands to his right.

He proved to be very fortunate. He spotted some rather dead looking trees, but trees all the same on the horizon. He strove for them but did not reach then until the sun had almost set.

Setting down, he observed that the trees did not provide much cover. They were all dead and the closest thing to brush around him was thick thorn brambles. He tossed the magical cloak over himself as he fell asleep under the setting sun, throwing a fiery blanket of light over the invisible lump as the moon followed to shine over the motionless body of the pegasus.

He awoke to the sun blazing his eastward-facing eyes blotting out his vision. He fumbled blindly in his bags and pulled out some food to eat while his eyes recovered from the sun's onslaught. The food landed sickeningly in his empty stomach, barren after several days of constant action and no sustenance. After eating he felt better and a bit more energized for the flight. He wrapped up his supply of food in the bag and refastened the cloak about him before he took flight.

Around 10 he could see desolate brown mountains in the distance like a wall to halt his journey. They drew on slowly, giving testament to their impressive size. Eventually he could make out crevices and passes between mountains with his eagle-like eyes. His wings continued to burn and his back hurt from the bags he carried. He was struggling to get in good breaths and foam crusted from his mouth.

But he pushed onward. The thought that his Princess had chosen him, gave him hope. If she had chosen him then she believed in him. His mind wandered to those in the palace he had met and he almost fell when he thought of Flare.

He hadn't thought to say goodbye before he left and he hadn't even thought of her during his long flight.

She was surely angry with him for not saying goodbye and he did not look forward to that part of his return, but he did miss holding her in his arms. The thought that if he pushed harder then he would get back sooner gave his tired wings new fervor. He flapped hard and began to ascend into the upper atmosphere. Up here it was a bit harder to breathe but he flew easier. Up here he got an idea.

It was speed he needed, but he also needed rest and there is only one way to get both, at least as far as he can tell. He flapped even higher, the air barely nourishing his lungs. He looked down and readied himself. He only hoped that his wings didn't fail and he crash to have his journey cut short. He strafed over to where he was hovering over the ocean, and pushed down as hard as he could.

He dove as fast as his wings could push, his speed surpassing that of what he had done at the palace. He could see the air break over his hooves and opened his wings in the vaccuum of air in preparation of the glide. His flicked his wings at just the right time and he streaked over the cerulean waves, barely even having to flap. The waves tossed and turned below him, trying to slap him down into their embrace. A few almost did, but he rose over them, wasting some of his meagre strength. He continued to glide for a long time. But nature had other ideas in mind for him.

A sudden gust sped over the waters, and hit his wing at a bad angle. His wing lifted over his head and he began spinning out of control. He flipped over sideways like a gymnast before slamming hard into the water. The water was frigid and sucked the breath out of him seconds. He couldn't tell which way was up and the undulating water sloshed him around like a Colttail Martini. His lungs threatened to burst as he exploded out of the water. His triumphant breath was cut short as a wave punched him in the face, filling his mouth and throat with brine. He went under again. He fought his way for the surface, clawing at the water helplessly. The saddle bags and his steel ladened wings dragged him down as his strength waned.

"You have failed me my son." His fathers words almost sealed his doom and he lost the will to fight. Death seemed such such a reprieve. He could just sleep. Never tire again. He could... be with his mother. At that point he stopped kicking. His lungs screamed at him and he felt lightheaded as darkness threatened to swallow him. His mother. If he died he could be with her. Hear her voice. He could hold her. There under the merciless waves, There was nothing sweeter.

As the last dregs of his life drained away, and he prepared to accept death. Thin wires lashed against his hide and clamped down on his wings. He could barely feel them. Didn't care to feel them. Death was all he cared about. Death, his sweet mercy. And he succumbed to the darkness.

Chapter 7

His throat was raw and his tongue was like sandpaper as he became concious. He could feel his body rocking back and forth while he lay in a rickety hammock. The rocking motion made him fell sick, and he felt the need to throw up, but there was nothing in his stomach to vomit out. Where was he? He didn't know. He? I? He had a name. But he didn't know what it was. A faint prickling in his head, just barely beyond reach. He knew he had a mission. The package. To a pony in black. But he didn't feel his bags on his flank where they should be. With a dry gasp, he sat up quickly, banging his head on a wood board above him, hard. He suddenely heard a lot of yelling from above him. A pegasus lept out from above and ran out of the room via a small wooden staircase, yelling his head off the entire way up. He rubbed his sore head where he had banged it, and stepped out of the hammock. His legs collapsed out from under himand he toppled onto the floor in a heap of legs. He slowly got up and stumbled about the room, looking for his missing parcel. Finding nothing, he staggered up the steps leading out of the room.

As he opened the door, the moon shone over still waters. All around him was dark wood. Behind the door he just came out of, a huge beam stood over him with an enourmous canvas attatched to a cross beam towards the top. He was on a boat. In the middle of the ocean. How the hay did he get here? He didn't remember anything before his awakening besides the parcel and the need to deliver it. His mind and memory was a blank. A pony came rushing out of a small cabin at the back end of the ship. He saw the confused pony and rushed back in. The pony followed the other into the cabin and ran into a massive green pony with a wide brimmed black hat on his head. The pegasus backed away sheepishly, mumbling an apology when the big pony pushed him, ordering him to return to the hold with him. The pegasus went back as told, and when he turned around the pony with the hat closed the door and began bombarding him with questions.

"Who are you?"

"Why are you here?"

"Do you know where you are?"

"Where did you get those wingblades?"

"Whats in the package?"

The pegasus couldn't answer him. He didn't know the answer to any of those questions. "I-I don't know."
The earth pony. or sea pony, only glared at him from under that wide brim of the hat. "I am the captain of this ship.This is a fishing ship and we saw you hit the water. Fortunately you fell into the water right over one of our fishing nets. We didn't get any fish, just you. So you better explain yourself. I am not used to going home with a net empty."

The pegasus didn't know what to say. Couldn't say anything. He just stood there dumbfounded. Hit the water? He looked at his hindquarters and saw wings. He could fly? He fluttered the wings, almost strangers to his body, yet somehow they felt familiar. "Why were you flying out over the ocean? I have known dozens of pegusi that have drowned because of a ocean gust or gully. Don't you know better than to trust the sea? The waters are more treacherous than a hired blade."

He had no idea what the captain was talking about. His head hurt. "I don't know. I'm thirsty." The captain showed him to a barrel full of water with a small rubber tube stuck over a nozzle on the bottom. The pegasus just looked at it, not knowing what to do. "Dragons! You take the tube in yer' mouth and suck. the water comes clean an' fresh." The captain did not look happy to have to explain how to drink to a grown pony. He took the tube in his mouth and did as he was told. The water was warm and a little tepid, but it tasted like sweet nectar to the desert of his tongue. He sucked greedily on the keg untill the captain took it from his mouth. "Thas' enough you'll drown yerself again." He looked at the captain with disdain. His body demanded more, though his tongue was wet.

"Now. Answers." ordered the captain sitting down on a chair as the pegasus slumped into the hammock. He just shrugged. "Fine. We will start from the beginnin', Who are you?"

"I don't know." was all he could answer. The captain sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Dragons, ya got the mind blight look like. I guess ya don' remember anythin' before ye' woke up. The pegasus shook his head, but asked about the package. "Hold on fer' a second." The captain said leaving. He returned a short while later with a bundle in his mouth. He dropped it on the floor, issuing a series of clangs. The captain just looked at him expectantly. "Well? Ye' wanted ta know where ye' bags had gone. There they is."

He unrolled the cloth and a metal box and a pair of odd... things, tumbled out. The things were the same shape and size his his wings and had a very sharp edge. The metal box shone dully in the lamplight. "We tried everthin' tryin' ter open that wee box. But it been sealed by dark magic. We gots a unicorn that says so. How do you explain that?"

He only knew that he was supposed to deliver it to the one in black. "Dragonheim." The name meant something to him about the package but he didnt know what. "Dragonheim? Thats a city, we make port there every so often, but we ain' to far away. We could get you there by sunrise and get rid of ye'. Savin' a drownin pony is bad luck on the sea, but me consciousnesses was naggin me."

He only nodded. "Welp you ain't got no name. The bad luck that come wit' ponies like ya is called a cairn. So how 'bout we's call you Cairn? Yep, that be fine. Get some rest I'll wake ye when we get to thar city.

He nodded and curled into the swaying hammock, becoming nauseated once again, but he was slowly getting used to the constant swaying back and forth. Cairn. It wasn't his name. But he didn't know what his real name was and it felt good to actually have a name. But the name meant "bad luck" so he wasn't sure if that meant anything. He shifted and turned, but no matter what position he got into he could not relax in the awkward hammock. The sides squeezed his wings mercylessly and constantly made him uncomfortable. After a while the pegasus that had summoned the captain came back into the cabin. "Hi." said Cairn trying to be friendly. His voice startled the pony and he saw that he only had one wing. He settled after he spotted Cairn in the hammock and climbed up into the bunk above him. "Eez it hard to sleep in that hammock?"
came a voice from above. "Yes." He heard a laugh come from the one above him. "Crushes the vings, don't it? Ja, alvays perfurred the hard bunk to ze crushing of ze sheets pulled tight."

The pony spoke with a wierd accent. "Where are you from?" Cairn asked, curious as to where he aquired the strange accent. "I come from across the grass desert to the vest. From the Tall Cities miles from Dragonheim. My homeland speak entirely deefrent language. I learn to speak like zis from taveling merchant. I go wis 'im to Dragonheim, and zere signed to vork on ship." Cairn stepped out of the hammock, tired of it's vice-like grip on him. He settled on the floor. "I don't know where I come from. I don't even know who I am." The pony laughed again. "I'll vager zat you come from ze pony land. Soom Ekestia or somsing like zat." The name tugged at his mind. But he didn't know what it meant. He knew that he recognized the name. Somewhat. He settled on that the ponies accent was the cause for his confusion.

The pony was right. Even the hard floor was much better than the hammock. He pulled his belongngs closer. He tucked the box next to his belly and pulled the unknown metal thing closer, examining it. He put it up to his wing and it was the perfect size. "Zat ve took from your vings. They go on like zis." He hopped down, limber like a cat, and put them onto Cairn. At first they sat rather strangely on his wings, but they quickly became comfortable as he moved them. "Zose are veery vell made. Almost as if for you. Zey are called 'Lævatreinn'. Vingblades I sink zee ponies call dem." Wingblades they were called. The name was befitting. They moved fluidly with his wings, and the razor sharp edge testified to the 'blade' part of the name. Doubtless they were used in combat.

The forein pegasus climbed into the bunk and blew out the lamp, telling Cairn to get some sleep. He tucked his wings into his side with ease and curled around the special package that he had to deliver. No matter what.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

As he had promised, The captain of the small fishing vessel woke him a few hours before sunrise, telling him that his crow had spotted the city on the horizon. He led him out onto the deck and pointed. There at the very edge of his vision was a black dot. How the sea pony could see that was beyond him. The captain informed him that they would be in the harbour in a few hours and encouraged him to try his hoof at something and be useful as long as he was on the boat. Cairn wanted to meet the crow who had such astonishing eyesight. He considered flying, but after being told that was the reason he didn't remember anything and had almost drowned deterred him. He settled for climbing the net-like ropes that stretched from the crow's nest to the railing on the side of the ship. The ropes shook and shivered as he climbed, the wind becoming stronger and stronger trying to throw him off into the foaming waves below. A couple times he almost fell, his hoof slipping on the rogue rope that suddenly moved before he could get a good grip in his fetlock. After a while he made it to the top and toppled over the rail of the large basket that was the nest. The pegasus he had shared a room with the night before stood before him, his eyes squinting at the city. At Cairn's arrival he looked from the city to him then back again.

"Gutten, ze port gate iz down." Cairn struggled to stand up. The constant swaying motion of the ship was amplified and the floor swayed and shook like an upside-down pendulum. The pegasus laughed at his fall and helped him up. "Iz not so easy to stand up here. spread hoofs wide like zis." He showed Cairn and he imitated him. It helped him considerably, he could now stand, but he was still uneasy. "How can you see so far?" He asked him. "Iz my special ability." He said simply, showing him a picture of an eye on his flank. "You has very strange mark. I not seen one like it." Cairn looked at his flank. He had never noticed it before. A short gold hyphen with two lines coming off it. "Iz just like when I see you fall in sea. Gold streak coming from around you. You moved so fast." Cairn didn't know how to respond, so he asked if he knew an all-black pony. Unfortunately he didn't, but he did volunteer to teach him how to get around Dragonheim without getting his head cut off.

He taught him all the workings of the city, how the traffic moved. how to greet ponies. And he also taught him how to greet dragons. "You fall on your knees like zis if you see a dragon come your way. Get avay from his path and don't look him in ze eye, they are powerful. Much more powerful zan you , ja. He resumed his teachings untill the ship floated lazily under a massive steel gate rising out of the water. Under the water, if you looked hard enough, you could see long lines on either side of the gate.The pegasus answered his question, "Spikes to sink ships. You must enter through ze gate."

The boat docked up and ponies tied thick ropes to the pier as Cairn was showed how to climb down. When he made it to the deck he found the captain waiting for him. "I gave you some dragoons. The Equestrian mony you had is useless out 'ere." "Equestria" struck a familiar note in Cairn's head, but still he couldn't place the signifigance of it. He thanked the captain for saving him and exited the ship. The moment his hooves hit the ground, he almost fell again, but managed to keep a shaky balance. Several sailors laughed and called him a 'landlubber', whatever that meant, as he walked shakily from the docks.

He was immediately thrown into a river of ponies as he stepped onto the street. Thanks to the old pegasus, he found his way to a small restaurant. he oredered a "clover sandwich" and tossed a dragoon onto the counter, not sure how much to pay. The pony behind the counter told him to put two more down. He did and the pony took them as he found a table and ate. The food was good, and landed with a plop in his empty stomach. When he finished, he felt several times better and left the eating place to look for the dark pony.

chapter 8

A black pony in a shadowskin cloak felt his horn tinge. A magical prickling that meant the princess Luna was had sent him a package in the form of a pegasus. her last letter hadn't told him which pony to look for so he cast a finding spell. An almost invisible line appeared in mid-air pointing out the door. He summoned several thugs, and told them to get ready to go hunting. They all grinned at him cruelly. He sought out only the most vicious ponies from the prisons and from the most violent districts of the cities he had searched, coming up with an army of several hundred. Enough to take his dream by force.

Leaving his lair with the criminals at his back he followed the trace leading him to the package. Luna always put a slight magical cloud over it to keep others from opening it and drawing him to it. The packages always came to the pony they were intended for. He sought out the cloud in the massive city. As he drew closer to it, his horn pulled harder at the trace and he ordered his thugs, thirty in all, to fan out and single out the one he wanted as they were excellent at. They were like wolves they way they separated their prey from the public to get him where they would not be noticed. He found a crate and stood on it to get a better view of the crowd.

His eyes followed the trace to a dark green pony with an even deeper green mane with a gold streak in it. The pegasus was swiveling his head like a corkscrew, obviously looking for him, but the shadowskin made him absurdly hard to see. He had once made a thug wear it just to see how other ponies saw him. He could barely make him out even in full sunlight. He shook the memory away and sent a mental projection of the one he wanted to all of his thugs. They immediately found him in the throng of ponies and began their "magic" per se. The pegasus saw one thug give him a dirty look and began edging away from him, putting as much distance between them as he possibly could. The dark pony watched in awe as they corralled him, gradually closing in on him in then middle of the street. Eventually they surrounded him and pulled him to the side of the road.

It was unfortunate that none in his army were pegasi because he took flight over their heads trying to escape. The dark pony cursed his foolishness. Normally the pegasus Praetorian would deliver the package and knew the routine by heart, but this was a new pony so he didn't know what to expect. He was looking for an entirely black pony, not a series of thugs singling him out. He gave a mental order to the thugs and all 31 of them set chase after the flying pony. In the crowds it proved difficult, but the thugs knew how to traverse an astounding piece of the city very quickly and the Dark pony just teleported across the rooftops, keeping with him and not once loosing sight of him. He began flying toward an unfavorable portion of the city as he neared the dragon keep. The Dark pony teleported to a house around the corner with an excellent view of the entrance and the street below, startling a couple kissing on the roof. They scrambled away while he watched and waited for the pegasus.

On cue he came flying around the corner and seeing the keep, headed for the foreboding entrance. The Dark pony told his thugs to set up beside the gates and wait for him to leave. Ponies were unwelcome in that place. And he settled on the roof ready to wait however long he needed to get that pegasus.

Cairn landed just past the tall gate that stood in front of a huge tower, panting heavily. Those dangerous ponies that kept appearing all around him in the crowd surely had foul intentions for him, and he had a package to deliver. He could only hope that they weren't just waiting for him outside of the gate. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He turned to look at the tower before him. Huge stone gargoyles glared down at him from the top of the tower and he could spot rubies the size of apples for their eyes. Statues of dragons breathing fire, holding maidens in scaled paws, and casting magic surrounded him like a silent army of depictions. He had no idea what this place was, but he thought it much better than whatever those thugs had had in mind for him. Suddenly he heard a voice ring in his head, a silent echo resounded after the single word "Come" lit up his mind like a tinder fire. He felt his hooves move him in the direction of the tower seemingly of their own will.

He came to a massive solid steel door inlaid with enameled, cut gems of every kind and hue higher than the fishing ships mast, and as wide as the length of the boat. The door opened slowly with out any cranking of gears or magic, and as far as Cairn could tell, it opened entirely on its own. The door opened barely a crack, but the opening was as wide as a dozen ponies standing abreast as Cairn entered involuntarily, reprimanding his hasty hooves as they walked his body into the darkness. Several torches along the wall lit up when the door closed, not leaving him in darkness for long. He stood in a hallway just as wide as the door, yet so high, he could barely see the stones of the ceiling in the gloom. The hallway went on for what seemed miles. But that was impossible, the tower wasn't that big, just the scale and proportion made it seem larger than it was. The voice appeared in his head again.

"Is that what you really see? How do you know that the floor you stand on is not stone but sand?" He looked down and indeed he was standing in sand. He looked back up and the walls were made entirely of a different kind of stone than they were before. The ceiling also was much closer, barely a wing above Cairn's head. "Your eyes deceive you. Anyone can make their surroundings seem different to portray a false reality to get what they want." Before Cairn's eyes the hallway shifted and the ceiling retracted to it's former height. But the hall instead turned to a massive circular room ringed in a small river that flowed into the floor. Before Cairn stood a black wall carved like a reptiles scales. The wall moved and lifted causing Cairn looked up. The wall was instead the enormous nose of an immeasurable dragon that towered so high he couldn't see the top it. Scared out of his mind, Cairn stumbled back and fell on the floor in a heap. From the floor he looked at the dragon. A single eye as big as the door he had just entered through and red as blood opened and focused on him. He felt puny to the point of nonexistence before the unimaginable volume of the creature before him. In his mind the dragon chuckled, "You are the only pony I have met who has not cowered before me, babbling for mercy. Your courage impresses me."

Cairn couldn't believe his... mind. He could barely keep from passing out in terror, and he was the most brave pony? The dragon chuckled again, sounding like a combination of an erupting volcano and an earthquake. "I am the Patriarch. Oldest of all beings in all the world and father to the race of dragons. I was before all that is began. I saw the earth build the continents and felt the great flood against my scales. I saw the lands shatter and break into fragments. The cities were built unbeknownst to ponies on my back, and when I arose, they believed it to be a terrible earthquake. I have lived here on the energies of this planet for more aeons than your kind has numbers to count. I am oldest of the old and intrigued by you, does that not count for something? Even if you do not know the courage you possess, you should know why it then intrigues me, for I see it in your very soul." Cairn could only stand and stare. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't... anything. He could barely form cohesive thoughts.

"Now, take my blessing and find that courage in your soul. With it you can surmount the very mountains, and do all that is and is not possible." The head shifted again and the dragon opened his maw, it the size of a castle. The dragon cast a breath on Cairn, hardly a breath to the dragon, but then as strong as a hurricane to the tiny pony. He pushed against the torrent, barely able to keep his hooves as his body was filled with energy. He began to feel the thrum of his blood in his every pore. He could feel his legs begin to become stronger and stronger with every second. His wings literally lengthened in his wingblades and he feared they would cease to fit, but they continued to adapt to their mounts, increasing in length. At the end his mane stood straight back and his wings were almost twice as long as they were before. His entire being was livid with energy and he felt like he really could topple the mountains. Every chip and crack in the stone walls around him was clearly visible and he could think with the utmost clarity.

The enormous head settled back down in its previous position, and the great red eye focused on him once again. He could see that it was more of a deeper crimson and he could see flecks of gold in the titanic iris. He could hear the dragons gentle breathing and he could feel tremendous power in the air around him, thrumming and pulsing like a beating heart. Cairn could smell the dragons hide, a musky, yet clean scent. All of this and more he absorbed in a fraction of a second. The dragon hummed like a roll of thunder, a pleasured sound, and bade Cairn leave. "Your name is now Aeroga, like that of your birth-name, but the power of the dragon beats in your soul now, and you are different." At the suggestion of his birth-name he turned and explained his loss of memory. The Patriarch only said, "You will remember when the time is right. And that time is not now." With that, the newly dubbed, "Aeroga" left the powerful being in his tower and left the courtyard into the city beyond.

The moment his hoof touched the pavement outside the gates, a pony on either side of him tackled him. Or at least tried to. He could smell them before they struck, and he found that all his senses were all amplified. He darted out from under them and bucked another coming from behind him in the chest. The third went flying into a wall as three more came at him. He leaped vertically, nimble as a cat and caught two on the jaw with a lightning-fast hoof, and the third he slashed with a wingblade, splattering the wall with bits of brain and skull. He landed softly and, whirling, cut yet another brutes legs out from under him. He fell, legless, as Aeroga took a strong flap of his wings to fly away when the strong aura of a unicorn picked him up. He fought the magical grip as much as he could before he saw the pony responsible for his magical imprisonment, a solid black unicorn with golden eyes, draped in a shadowy cloak that made him almost invisible even in the day. The unicorn leaped down from the house he was perched on, and approached him with a slight hint at displeasure in his eyes. Aeroga could see a faint scar, covered by fur, just under his left eye, but the rest of the pony was obscured by the strange cloak that enshrouded him like a fog. "An impressive display of prowess, but I believe you have something that is mine."

Aeroga nodded and responded, "Yes sir." The unicorn let him down and Aeroga pulled the metal box out of his saddle bags, handing it to the ghostly pony. "Why thank you. Would you like to walk with me?" Aeroga agreed and followed the pony into the shadows, descending into the alleyways between buildings. He smelled them before he saw them. Thugs, the same ones from earlier, moved almost silently into a ring around the unicorn and enhanced pegasus and walked with them. "These are some of the ponies under my command. A shame you had to kill those seven before, they were some of my best. But that allowed me to see what you could do. So, how is the princess Luna?"

Aeroga stopped walking, "Who?" The Dark pony turned to face him, his face puzzled. "Luna is the one who sent you, no?" Aeroga explained that he had no recollection of the events before his awakening on the ship besides the need to deliver the package. "Ah. Well you have delivered your package and I find I am in need of a second in command, as my most recent one is bleeding to death in the street without any legs. Would you consider applying for the job? Unless there is something else you wish to do."

"No. I have no purpose without my memory and living alone won't help much I should think. I would be happy to apply for the position." The pony looked pleased as he lead Aeroga into a small apartment building. "Good, you are hired." This pegasus was exceptionally agile and strong. He would be invaluable in the battle to come. Thought the Dark Lord. "Your training begins now."

Chapter 9

Luna was in her study working on things for Tia so her sister could sleep. Lately there had been a lot of turmoil in Equestria for unknown reasons. She expired yet another quill and picked up a fresh one from the box on her desk and continued writing. It had been nearly a year since she had sent Aeroslash on his mission. When he never returned after about two months, Flashfire had practically gone crazy, spending day and night for weeks in the forge make so many weapons, that they had an absurd number of extra blades that were probably never going to be used. Tia had finally broken through and gotten some answers out of Luna about the same time she realized that he was gone for good. When Tia came to her after two months and asked her, she told her that she had sent him on a rather dangerous mission, and that he was probably dead by now. Tia asked her what the mission was but Luna denied her forthright in her haste. Tia had left the room with a hurt look on her face.

Luna hated that she had hurt her sister like that, but nopony could ever know what she had done. She decided not to send any more packages and had tried to forget about her mistake after seeing Celestia's hurt face. She had to go to Flare and tell her that Aero was probably never going to return, but she could still stay with the employment of a smith. She took the job without any emotion on her face, but Luna could sense the ticking bomb just under the mare's skin. Her guards later told her that the mare had freaked out, smashing everything in sight and crying nonstop all night long. Her servants verified that when they told her about the massive cleaning project. Luna felt awful that she was the cause for Flare's pain. She openly avoided Luna until she went down into the forges, rarely leaving to eat or sleep. The forge-master told Luna and Celestia about how he would leave after a full day at work and return in the morning to see the pegasus still pounding away.

A servant came through the study door in a rush, telling Luna that there was a messenger for her. The servants last words sent a chill down her spine. "He looks like Aeroslash." Looked like him, the words could not be more ominous of foroding. She rushed out of the office and took flight for the Throne Room. Why had he been gone for so long just to reappear a year after his disappearance? If it even was him, her brain told her. The the servant had only said that he looked similar to Aeroslash. But her heart couldn't release the want, or need, that it would be him. She landed outside the Throne Room door and after regaining her royal posture, entered the room like a queen.

The servant spoke true. As she entered, she saw who she thought was Aeroslash at first glace, but after closer observation, he was slightly, yet completely, different. His posture was much more formal and imperious: taller, more muscular. His wings were too long, yet they bore the same strange wingblades that had adorned Aero. But it was his eyes that set him differently from Aeroslash the most; Cold, calculating, devoid of any compassion, and they bore complete malice and cruelty in those honeyed irises underneath a dangerous looking helmet. Aeroslash had been a kind heart, but the pegasus before her was evil and treacherous as any she had met in her long lifetime.

She walked regally to her throne and sat down, trying not to unveil any of the emotions that buzzed around her mind and tried to push themselves to her face. The pegasus stepped forward, and without any regard to decorum or proper etiquette, Began his message. "The Dark Lord asks that you open your gates as promised in your letters to him. He demands the complete surrender of Canterlot and that you and your sister relinquish the ruling of Equestria to him. Comply and none of you will be harmed, deny the Dark Lord, and he will make all of your deaths slow and painful. The princesses will leave Equestria forever and never return, or your doom will be decided before my master."

Her mind exploded into questions as the guards in the room exploded into a defensive frenzy. Several of them gathered in formation around Luna, and several others rushed off to alert the defenses. Luna immediately sent Praetorian to set up the walls for an attack, and ordered a pegasus to wake Celestia and Shining Armour. The messenger stood like a wall, unwavering amongst all the chaos around him. Luna's mind couldn't process all the queries whizzing through her mind. A bit every dozen, she could double the royal treasury. Aeroslash must have succeeded in delivering the letter, but that could only mean, "Aeroslash?"

The pegasus glared at her angrily and spoke coldly, "I am Aeroga, second in command to the Dark Lord, and the harbinger of your doom should you deny my Lord's claims." Luna couldn't believe her ears. She tried again, hoping that this could somehow be the one she knew so long ago. "Did you deliver the package successfully?" His answer was the very thing she did not want to hear: "So you are the one who gave me that. Yes, I did deliver it to the Dark Lord. He was most pleased with it's contents." Some of the ponies looked at Luna in disbelief, but she ignored them. This pony was Aeroslash! Somehow the "Dark Lord" had twisted his mind, or brainwashed him. He didn't even know who he was!

Celestia walked in with her entire retinue of guards surrounding her, and Aeroslash turned to her and repeated his message. Luna cut in before Celestia could respond, "I made a mistake once, but not again. Take your army to the gates of Tartarus for all I care. You will not take this throne!" Her voice rang in the sudden silence, causing a chilling smile of pleasure to crawl its way over Aeroga's face. The Aeroslash doppelganger turned towards the windows, "So be it. You will all die at the hand of my master. Your sacrifice will be for naught and all of Equestria will burn under the fires of hell itself."

Flare ran into the throne room and saw him just as he took flight out the window. She screamed his name and rushed to where he had been moments before. She saw his dark figure fly towards a massive army just outside the palace walls. She screamed his name into the night, but he didn't return to her loving embrace. Didn't even look back. Not even once.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Aeroga pitied all the ponies that would die. Nopony could stand up to the Dark Lord. A year under his tutelage had driven that into his brain like a spinal chord, the knowledge that the Dark Lord's power was absolute was as natural as his own beating heart. The Dark Lord had shown him the courage the dragon spoke of and taught Aeroga to use it for his own power. Cruelty. Malice. No mercy. Like the ocean waves, Aeroga was unstoppable, besides the his master. He had even managed some minor spells without the use of a horn. The magic was like a nudge in the back of his mind, and he need only touch it to feel the power flow through him like a river of energy. The army had swept across the countryside wreaking havoc, and killing anypony that tried to get a message to Canterlot. Aeroga had been in command of the executions, and he took a sickly pleasure from watching the heads roll from their bodies as his tools cleaved flesh like butter. Such was the fate of all who opposed them, and none would be exempt. The message he had delivered to the alicorns had only been half-truths, Those two would be for the Dark Lord's personal pleasure, but everypony else who did not bow would be slaughtered.

Aeroga grinned at the anticipation as he flew to his master's side. His heightened senses could taste the anxiety in the troops, smell the fear in the defenders along the walls. He could hear the small crowd in the city square a few blocks down, wondering at why there was an army at the walls of the palace. He could see the princesses and a smaller pony looking out of the windows he had just flown from as he gave his report to his master, "They refuse. Not that it makes much difference. We will butcher them all at your command My Lord." The Dark Lord only continued to glare at the walls before them. "The difference is more casualties on our side. I'd rather not risk defeat." Aeroga laughed loudly, having never considered defeat a posibility. "My Lord, there is no such word for you. You will conquer. That is a guarantee."

The Dark Lord had always admired how faithful Aeroga was to him. Believing anything he told him, and believing that he was indestructible. He was a very powerful unicorn, yes, that was true. But he wasn't quite so powerful as his student believed. Not that he minded. He turned to the trio to his right and commanded them to begin the bombardment of the walls. Three unicorns filled their horns with energy, and three explosion spells were hurled at the walls. When they hit, chunks of stone went flying everywhere and the walls sagged under the spectacular force of the magic. The unicorns continued to blow the wall apart as he readied his troops for the charge once the walls were down.

Arrows began flying from the ramparts, a few almost hitting him and Aeroga, and dozens more landing among his troops, yielding screams of pain in every direction. He nodded at Aeroga to take care of the assailants on the wall whilst continuing his preparations.

Aeroga took off obediently and flew straight up. His color was perfect. Dark green, the hardest color to see at night, and he meant to take full advantage of being hard to see. He took a quick dive and cut down at least a dozen archers on the walls before disappearing into the night, hiding in a nearby cloud. The archers were pointing their bows in every direction but his, trying to figure out what was going on. He took another dive and cut down another six, and knocking several more off with his hooves. He landed in their midst and began ripping them apart like rag dolls. A pony in front of him lunged with a sword and he dodged him easily, beheading him with a deft swipe of his wing. He spun and grabbed two earth ponies and tossed them screaming over the edge of the wall. An arrow was fired at him and he twisted in midair and came down on top of the offending archer. He smashed his head in with the helmet upon his head, the three blades turning the unicorn's brains to a sloppy goo. He took a strong flap and flew out of the way of a spear thrust at him. He circled around and slashed the pony across his belly before landing into a gaggle of soldiers, ripping and bludgeoning his way through them. A spear grazed his shoulder before having its owner thrown off the wall, and he blocked a sword with a wingblade, severing the steel with the bright scrape of steel and the scream of its owner.

Aeroga continued to butcher the almost endless soldiers on the wall before feeling the stones tremble beneath his hooves. He sidestepped a sword and jumped of the wall in a graceful back flip, catching himself on his wings as the walls collapsed under the magical barrage. The ponies on top of the wall fell with the stones into the mass of soldiers waiting on the inside, spears poking out of a defensive semi-circle around the collapsing hole in the wall. The army outside rushed for the gap and pushed into the defenders, nearly overwhelming them with sheer numbers. The defenders rallied at the call of a captain pegasus and pushed back the attackers with lancing spears. Aeroga saw the gate tower firing numerous ballista at the ponies assaulting the walls, dropping dozens before they reached the breach. Aeroga dove and landed in one of the narrow windows and deftly severed a fired bolt with a wingblade as it left the scorpion. He leaped into the guard tower and killed all the surprised ponies within, bashing their bodies against the walls, and cutting them to pieces, literally. Adrenaline surged through his body, making him even faster and stronger than before. He loaded a scorpion and readied it to fire, aiming it at the pegasus shouting orders into the formation below, holding them together. He pulled the lever and the scorpion jumped as it loosed its deadly projectile. The bolt struck home, driving itself through the pegasus and into the ground beneath him, spraying the ground with blood. The unit dissolved in the absence of its captain and were quickly overrun by the torrent of warriors from outside the walls.

What few soldiers remained fled to the palace and closed the palace doors to hold back the invaders. They surged forward, flooding the courtyard and after the three siege ponies blew the door apart, they poured into the palace like a rushing river. Aeroga flew in and helped dispose of the ponies and secured the foyer. He led them to the Throne Room, taking them up a staircase to the door where the last remaining defenders had barricaded themselves in, spears poking out like a porcupines quills. The invaders attacked the wall of spears, falling by the dozens, barely taking one ore two ponies for their every thirty. Aeroga, seeing that this was not a good idea, took 50 of the best warriors he could find and they broke off of the main group, racing down the hallways around the throne room. He had seen another door to the side when he was waiting for the princesses, and he planned to hit the unit inside from their flank. The hall had already been cleared by the strike force, and they jumped over several dead palace guards. Seeing the door he was looking for he headed for it before seeing the mangled body of a dark blue pegasus with silver hair.

The memories hit him like the waves that had nearly drowned him in the sea. He saw Luna giving him and the blue pony a room. He saw their first kiss. He remembered the time when they had met, and when he was given the wingblades. Hundreds of memories flooded into his brain and he felt the "Dragon" part of his being shift. Flashfire. Flare. The one he loved. He re experienced saving her from his father. Felt all the emotions of of the past hit him like a mountain, all at once, knocking him to his knees in front of the corpse that use to be his lover. Her throat was torn open and numerous cuts and open wounds adorned her. Dead. Dead. Dead. She was dead. Flare... was... In that moment, he heard the Patriarch's voice in his head. "The time has come." And he felt the dragon in him twitch, and wake.

A Soldiers Last Thoughts

When the siege unicorns broke through the palace doors, shattering the wood and blowing them off their hinges, Zwei Handier rushed forward, roaring his battle cry and charging into the ponies beyond the door into the palace. He stabbed a unicorn in the throat and pulled his sword out as the Commander landed in front of him, wings outstretched, blades shining red with the blood of dozens, and started into the scrambling soldiers. The Commander swept into them like a hot knife into butter, and the soldier's ranks melted before him. He cut down more then sixty ponies before Zwei's eyes and bellowed orders for the ponies to follow him. Zwei sprinted with the others in his unit after the Commander. He led them up a narrow staircase to a door with countless spears poking out of it. The army rushed forward, but fell in waves as the spears carved deadly swaths into their ranks.

The Commander pointed at Zwei and several others and ordered them to follow him to the flank. He followed obediently, as did fifty others. They raced through the halls, jumping over the dead and struggling to keep up with the pegasus commander. Eventually they came to a rather small door in the side of the room and they could hear a pony shouting commands to the troops inside. They almost ran in until they realized that the Commander had not gone in before them. They turned to look for him and saw him standing over a blue mare, a pretty one in spite of the slashed throat. The troops watched in silence, waiting for an order, as he just stood there gaping over her. He collapsed to his knees and the small unit spread out, fearing an invisible foe.

The Commander flinched suddenly and began crying, silver stars dribbling down his cheeks. He hunched over, his spine jutting out, and screamed like a banshee. The others around Zwei fell to the ground covering their ears, but he could only watch the commander. He could literally see the sound waves shivering from not only the pegasus' mouth, but from his chest. Wave after wave of sound crashed against the walls and the stones began to crack. His scream stopped, and he lay whimpering on the ground. Zwei was about to help him up, when he began to just float from the ground, levitating without a unicorn's magic. He burst into flames and they could see his body twisting. Grotesque lumps started poking out of his skin and his coat dissolved, showing pink muscles in between flames. His flesh burned from his body and he started screaming again, this time even louder, but it was deeper, more like a roar. The ponies around him started panicking, but held their ground looking about wildly for whatever was doing this to him.

The Commander opened his eyes and they shone with the brilliance of the sun, just an orange glow, no actual eye. His screams continued and the ceiling started crumbling above them. A few chunks of stone landed on the soldiers and the walls continued to shiver and break apart. The Commander's hooves began shifting and fingers or talons started growing out of where his hooves used to be. His spine twisted backwards, as did his hind legs and scales grew over the open muscles as his limbs stretched to unnatural lengths. His scream was endless, he didn't even pause for breath, just continued to breath out pure destruction around him. Two horns sprouted from either side of his mouth and his teeth narrowed to long, razor sharp fangs, his tongue suddenly forked at the end, splitting apart with a sickening rip. He curled into a fetal position as he transformed and his scream ended, but Zwei could see waves of energy pulse into him. The air pulsed in the silence and he could hear his very heart beat. The Commander spread out suddenly and a wave blasted out of him. Zwei and the others were thrown into the wall and some out the windows from the sheer power of the concussive blast.

Zwei crawled to his hooves and looked up, into deep, golden, reptilian eyes. He could feel his throat open and he collapsed to the ground in a pool of blood. His blood.

The March

Luna looked out her window at the massing army in the courtyard under her iridescent moon. Hundreds of cooking fires provided warmth and meal to the hungry masses of soldiers below. She hadn't the slightest clue how they would be able to fill the bellies of fifteen thousand stallions on the long march to Dragonheim. She wasn't even sure if she was the right choice of command of the army. She hadn't commanded so much as a small force since long before Celestia banished her and Nightmare Moon.Yet Celestia had put her in command of the army, "A chance to redeem yourself Luna. Perhaps Aeroga's hatred for you will have lessened if you help him bring down the Dark Lord." Her thoughts turned to Aeroga and she winced. She still had a headache every time she did something active. His crushing mind attack had scarred her mind, making it muddled and slow at the best of times. The memories of the attack after she had been caught spying on him in the gardens made her head throb and she winced again. After he let her go, She had barely been able to form thoughts, she had just laid in her bed crying her heart out. She couldn't believe that he really hated her, but after his display of enormous power coupled with the threats and mind attack, she had been crushed. Both Aeroslash and Flare had bonded very well with her, and the deaths of both was like having Celestia torn away from her under Nightmare Moon.

To her, Aeroslash was dead. She had only seen Aeroslash as an amnesiac after she sent him on her foolish mission, and then he only knew himself to be Aeroga, harbinger of the Dark Lord. The pony, Aeroslash had gone on his mission and never returned. She hated herself for sending him. If she hadn't, the Dark Lord may never have come to Canterlot, and both he and Flare would be alive, he with no reason to hate her. She wished with all her power and heart that she hadn't thrown him away like she had, but that wish didn't work. Aeroslash was still dead, and Aeroga still hated her.

She turned away from the window and fell on her bed, continuing to brood solemnly. After a while, a knock came at her door and she told whoever it was to come in, her face buried in her pillow. She didn't see who walked in, just lay there with her face shoved into her bed hoping they would go away after they saw that she was in no condition for company. She felt the bed cave under the weight of somepony, and a hoof began stroking her hair. She felt violated by such a tender display of affection, but her offended attitude drained like dirty water through a sieve, leaving only her hurt lying bare. Tears began to flow freely but she fought them, determined not to show emotion in the presence of somepony. "Luna?" Celestia's voice startled her and she squeaked, before letting go of the tears. She bawled like a new-born filly, her tears soaking the pillow under her head, she couldn't control the waterfalls tumbling from her eyes as Celestia just continued to stroke her mane slowly, soothing her. Luna rose up and hugged her sister holding on to her for dear life as the tears continued to drip off her chin. Tia held her like Mother used to so many years ago when Luna couldn't raise the moon like her sister could the sun. She hadn't hurt this much in so long, hadn't cried for more years than she could count. Tia pushed Luna off her and held her face in her hooves, placing her forehead against hers. Her violet eyes bored into Luna's tear soaked ones. She looked so worried, so caring. Luna remembered the Celestia before Nightmare Moon, never like this. "Are you OK?" Luna nodded with a sniffle, their foreheads rubbing together. "Aeroga again?"

This time she shook her head, no, "Aeroslash." she mumbled. Tia gave her a confused look. "Aeroga?" Again, Luna shook her head. "I shouldn't have sent Aeroslash with the parcel that gave the Dark Lord the information he needed. That was the last one and held the information he needed to make an attack. Without it, he may never have tried to take the throne. He captured me spying on him in the garden after you left, and told me that it was my fault. All the ponies that had lost their lives, Flare, everything else was my fault. And he was right. I don't-" Tia shushed her quietly. "Luna don't beat yourself up. Aeroga was distraught. He let his emotions direct his actions, and you know what happens with that." She said referring to Luna's grudge against her until Nightmare Moon took control of her. "Luna, I promise you, Aeroga will forgive you in time, give him that. Emotions don't last forever, they fade after a while. He will forgive you, you just have to let him think. That is why he lashed out at you, he hadn't had time to think about it, only had his emotions. Do you understand me? He will forgive you." Luna sniffled, nodding her head slowly. "I-I don't know if I can lead the army. What if I mess up? It's been so long since I have led a force of any size besides my guard, a-and they don't do much, just-" Celestia put a hoof over her mouth, silencing her, "Luna, you are rambling, you will do fine, I know you can handle it. I wouldn't have chosen you if I didn't think you could hold the army together. Someone has to stay behind, and in war I really can't leave my adviser in my place for so long. Your generals will assist you, you need not worry. Just raise the moon as you normally do, and be my representative. You are the only pony who knows me well enough to know what I would do and act on that."

Luna hugged Tia hard again, "Thank you so much sissy. I just- just thought that he would always be at my side, nothing romantic, just... faithful. I had so many wonderful conversations with him, like having another sibling, like having the little brother we always wanted. But I ruined it, and when he hated me, I-I just couldn't take it."

Celestia smiled. "Go to sleep Luna, it is almost morning and I have to raise the sun. The army leaves at noon so get as much sleep as you can. I will come and wake you when it's time." Luna looked back at her sister, "Thank you sissy, just like when we were little, you always had a penchant for comforting me." Tia smiled and brushed off the compliment. She kissed her forehead and bade her good morning before closing the door behind her. Luna resettled her sheets and pillows before slowly drifting off with the sunrise shining into her room, the golden beams shining on the small dust motes drifting through the air. She could hear the songbirds singing of the morning out her window, a slow drifting tune pushing her to the edges of unconsciousness. Her eyelids grew heavy as the lilting cadence egged her drowsy body into sleep.

Luna felt herself falling. She spread her wings, frantically trying to stop her descent, but her fluttering wings did nothing to slow her fall. She landed roughly in the gardens outside the palace, animals and songbirds surrounding her in blissful ignorance. The songbirds were singing a happy tune, and the animals meandered about, not noticing Luna's presence. Suddenly, they all scattered with the exception of the birds who continued to sing as their happy tune slowed to a sad song that made Luna feel like sitting down and crying. A deep green peacock landed in front of her, his tail feathers splayed in emerald splendor. He looked right at her, gold irises shining like the sun. He stood watching her before closing his eyes solemnly. She stood transfixed by him, he was so beautiful.

The songbirds continued to sing as the peacock stood as still as a statue, motionless. His head drooped and his tail seemed to sag as if tired or worn out. He spread his wings, head still down. He stood like that for almost a second before exploding into flame. Luna jumped back in surprise and astonishment and watched as the peacock transformed before her eyes. The peacock grew and reshaped until Aeroga stood before her. He sighed and opened his eyes, the color of honey. His reptilian eyes flitted to her and he rose from all fours onto his hind legs. His voice rang in her mind like a crashing cymbal, paralyzing her. "I will never forgive you." he whispered. The green dragon rushed at her and drove his paw into her chest. She didn't feel it, just gasped as he wrenched her still-beating heart out of her body. He held it before his face, eying the pulsating muscle, blood seeping out of arteries with each pump. He glared at it for what seemed an eternity before he inhaled sharply and unleashed a torrent of fire on her heart as her entire body exploded in pain, the fire burning her from within.

She awoke screaming with Celestia trying to hold her flailing legs down. Luna broke into panicked sobs as she collapsed under Tia's weight on top of her. Tia picked her up and held her close trying to soothe her panicked sister. Luna eventually calmed down and stumbled from the bed, breaking their embrace. Her legs shook violently and felt like rubber beneath her, threatening to buckle as she walked to her door. She looked at her sister and saw a black eye slowly forming on Tia, blood welling from a cut on the side of her face. "I-I'm s-sorry Tia." she spluttered as she hastily left her sister in her room.

Luna walked through the labyrinth, barely paying attention to where she was going. She just took random turns through the hedges, as she continued to brood over her dream. It was so true. The dragon had burned her heart, scorched it with his hatred. She wasn't sure if she had had romantic feelings for him like she had told Tia, but he did feel like a little brother.

She delved into the memories of her and Tia laying on their beds talking and gossiping about which colts they thought were cute, and other things that fillies talk about. She could remember them reminiscing about having a little brother. They knew several others in their class who had little brothers and sisters, and all they ever talked about was how annoying they were, but they could not imagine how those cute little foals could be annoying. The sisters wanted to hold a little foal in their hooves, feel him grab them and hold onto them with his little fetlocks. They imagined playing with him and teaching him how to do fun stuff, feeding him and taking care of him. Mother and Father always smiled at them and told them two sisters were enough for them whenever they asked their parents if they could have a little brother. She understood now as an adult why they had. She smiled, relishing the image of her parents faces, clear as crystal in her memory.

She found herself in the very center of the labyrinth, it was empty except for a small stone bench sitting next to a small fountain with statues of her and Celestia, water sprinkling out of their horns into the small basin below. The trickling sound of the water soothed her somewhat, took her mind off the horrible happenings of the recent past and it allowed her to focus on the blissful memories of the sisters' childhood. She laid down gently on the grass, ignoring the bench. The grass bowed under her flank, soft as silk as her wings sprawled out under her body. The grass itched the flesh under her feathers and she waved them absentmindedly. It calmed her tired body to lay under the sun and just close her eyes. She felt as if she could stay there like that forever, napping gently, away from raising the moon, away from Aeroga, away from everything. She sighed deeply, the sun shining through her eyelids. She could tell why everypony loved Tia so much, the sun felt amazing to spend time in.

She lost herself to thoughts of random things, brushing away thoughts of Aeroga and the march, untill she could hear Tia calling for her. She was loathe to forsake her nap but rose to her hooves all the same. Responsibility and duty called and that was a call she could not ignore. She stretched her wings before flying out of the labyrinth to the entrance where her sister stood, waiting for her. Luna could still see the bruises on Tia's face, even though her sister had tried to cover it up with some makeup, the cut however was black from the clotted blood and her eye was puffed out just the slightest bit. Luna landed in front of her and folded her wings to her side. Nodding to Celestia's face she apologized for the black eye. "Don't worry about it sister. I have had much worse in my lifetime. But now is not the time for that, the army awaits you, they are ready to march at your command." Luna nodded and followed Celestia to the top of the gatehouse. As she stepped onto the stone walkway between the two guard towers, she could hear the masons working on the hole in the wall and see the army shifting into formation before the gates. The columns and rows of fifteen thousand soldiers were impressive to behold as they formed together into rectangles, resembling a brick wall. Celestia raised her hoof for silence, and the shouting officers ceased barking orders and the soldiers stopped in position. Casting a quick spell, Celestia amplified her voice, it the only sound other than the sounds of the construction crews. "Today we march south, for the cities outside the realm of Equestria. The attack they have made against Canterlot is a clear message, a message of war.

This declaration, will not be ignored. You are the army of Equestria, and as such we will show that we have ot forgotten how to win a war. Victory is our goal, to show those not of this land that we are not foals to be preyed on in the night. I give you Luna, supreme commander of the army, and my representative on this march." The masses stood and watched silently as Luna performed the voice amplification spell and stepped forward to address the ponies she would be leading to war. "We march south along the railroad that goes through Ponyville to Dodge City. From Dodge we will march through the badlands to Dragonheim. As far as we know, this attack was based from the city of Dragonheim and we will retaliate against the city unless that information changes. We will make camp at sundown and we will be ready to march by the time the sun breaks over the horizon. Fifteen thousand of you make this army whole. Fifteen thousand of you compose the greatest army Equestria has ever raised and our victory is assured. But remember this, our victory is not assured by our strength in numbers, but by our strength of will. Courage will decide the fate of this army, fight not only for Equestria, fight not only for Princess Celestia and myself, but fight for your wives, your children. Those are the ponies that you fight for, those are the ponies that the cities against us seek to harm. If you throw down your arms, your families will suffer under the armies of those against us. With that in mind, fight for glory, honor, and most of all for love!" The army roared and the soldiers stomped their hooves yelling a great war cry. "Forward March!" She called. The units shifted into marching formation, filing out under the portcullis onto the road.

Luna ended the amplification spell and turned to Celestia, a dry smile on her face. "An excellent speech. See? You will do fine my sister, you were always the more war-like one of us." Luna nodded and hugged her sister hard, "I love you sissy, I will miss you being there for me whenever I need help. But I promise I won't fail you. We will win this war." Tia smiled and kissed her on her forehead, "Go then Luna, make Mother and Father proud." Luna nodded eagerly and leaped from the battlements to the officers column, landing gracefully on her wings and falling into step with the many ponies that made up her retinue.

Banners bearing her and Celestia holding their heads high over a half-moon, half-sun orb flapped in the wind all around her as the long column marched through the city. A bright yellow unicorn wheedled his way through the marching soldiers and walked at her side, “Princess Luna, I am Bright Star your main battle adviser. It is my job to give you council on unit formations and functions during a battle. battle is like a game of chess, each unit has specific purposes and uses in battle to assure our victory. The correctly placed unit can spell victory or defeat on the field, so it is of vital importance that you make the right dec-” Luna cut him off sharply, “Bright Star I am well over two thousand years old and I have commanded armies before. I am well aware of the importance of the right decisions in warfare, I am not a new-born foal to be spoon-fed information as you see fit. I wish to know all happenings on the field and in the war as they occur, I will not have you sugar coat information because it may make me angry or less than happy. I will listen to your council, but do not coddle me. Do I make myself clear?” “Yes your Majesty, I understand.” “Luna nodded, “Good, now go prepare a table for us to discuss strategy so we may attain a better feel for each others reactions to certain stimuli and get to know each others methods better.” “Yes my Lady,” he said, trotting off to get her table from the wagon.

Luna felt powerful again, having these ponies obey her every command felt strangely alluring and addictive, but she knew better than to get caught up in her power over them, especially since she was representing Tia. SHe hadn’t really commanded anypony since she sent Praetorian to oversee the defense of the walls. With a sudden epiphany, she realized she had not seen hide nor hair of Praetorian since the battle. Asking for him, she was presented with a bright pink stallion with a blood-red mane close cropped over his head introducing himself as Rose Crimson. “Praetorian was killed by a rogue ballista bolt when the walls fell in the battle at the palace. I am your new captain of the guard my Lady.” Luna could hardly believe her ears, Praetorian had served under her for more than a decade before being promoted to captain about three years ago. The silent yet extremely intelligent pegasus had stood at her side for a very long time and losing him made the world seem backwards and upside-down all at once.

When asked about his name, Rose Crimson answered proudly, holding his head high, “I was named for my very rare coat my Lady, the gene I have is even more rare than the albino gene, especially when combined with the color of my mane, considering my mother was black as coal and my father a shade grayer than white.” Luna sent him away when Bright Star came back with her table levitating before him and delved into strategy with him over maps, graphs, and charts of various battlefields.

The war adviser disagreed with her at almost every turn, and it was apparent that war truly was merely a game of chess rather than the command of the actual lives of the ponies in the army. He did not shirk nor felt any remorse at wasting a peasant or levy unit on a much stronger unit to reduce casualty rates in their juggernauts. After objecting to his proposal to throw an archer unit into the melee before the knights, he attempted to lecture Luna on battle yet again, “Princess, they are peasants and commonponies. It is their function in battle to die so that our knights survive. The peasants are easily replaced and therefore are expendable. Our knights however, are fewer and more expensive, so it is more important to preserve their lives instead of useless peasants. If-” Luna interrupted again and lit into him, She would not have this silly elitist bias throw lives away for personal entertainment. “They are ponies just as well as the knights, and I will not waste their lives where another unit would do much better in the task. I will hear no more of knights and pawns to be thrown away in battle. Am I clear?” He mumbled a yes ma’am and they resumed their discussion, Bright Star speaking up less and less until Luna tired of his sulking and sent him away with the table. He shuffled away, practically dragging the table behind him.

It was late afternoon and the sun was just beginning to kiss the horizon, throwing strikes of gold and orange across the armour of the ponies in the army, creating a line of marching column across the grass like a river of molten magma. Luna told her officers to set up camp and led her entourage onto a grassy hillock that overlooked the valley below. Her servants milled about like frenzied ants setting up her pavilion and the officers camp as Luna walked to a small bluff next to it and watched the sunset.

As the shadows lengthened, She began the process of raising the moon, bringing forth the glorious resplendence that was her ward. The crickets began chirping their harmony as the wildlife below snuggled into nests and burrows under the ghostly shafts of her moonlight. She overlooked the world descending into restful bliss and looked on the forests and fields before her watchful gaze for a long while. She eventually yawned loudly and returned to camp finding the numerous pavilions and tents erected over the grass. She entered her tent to find a steaming bath in a massive brass tub awaiting her. Her servants helped her into the scalding water and she began to relax as they scrubbed her and cleaned her tired body. Her muscles relaxed and she felt at peace in the wonderful bath. She got out and the servants groomed her coat and mane as Rose announced the arrival of guests from outside and asked their admission from Luna. She allowed them in as the servants continued to brush her mane as almost twenty officers filed in and stood before her.

A dark red unicorn adorned in numerous medals all over his officers uniform stepped forward and introduced himself and his companions. “I am Daemon Duriean, your second in command.” Luna sat upright, her back rigid as a board. Duriean was Aeroslash’s last name as well. “Are you perhaps related to a pegasus by the name of Aeroslash? I recall his name was also Duriean.” Daemon’s expression darkened quickly and Luna could swear he was about to strike her. “He is an abomination to our family and my son. But no more does his name spurn and tarnish our great family. Forgive me Princess, but we will not speak of him or I shall leave this instant.” The other generals shuffled their hooves and fidgeted anxiously as Luna barely reeled in her horror. Aero had told her he had been disowned, but never had she truly believed him, but the general’s declaration forced her out of her denial. “Forgive me for bringing up the subject, but I do believe since you are his father, you have the right to know that he is dead.” His reaction made her want to vomit: he smiled cruelly and he thanked her graciously, “I can only hope his death was slow and painful, never again will his name mar our families honor. I can only hope that stray pigeon that was with him met the same fate?”

Luna could barely comprehend what he was asking, “Y-yes she was killed in the battle at the palace.” He looked astonished and asked her what she was doing at the palace. “At the time of the attack she had lived there for almost a year. Aeroslash served under me as a bodyguard and I gave he and Flare a room in the palace. He died in my service, drowned in the ocean during a mission for me.” The smile slowly dried from his face as he took in her words. “So, the cur sought to redeem his honor. It matters not. He is dead, a blessing unrivaled by anything else in my lifetime.” “Why do you hate him so General?” The unicorn turned deadly serious obviously not pleased with Luna for carrying on the concept of Aeroslash. “That is of no consequence. Let us resume the reason for our coming, to introduce ourselves. We are the generals and captains under your command, appointed to assist you in the leading of your army. You already know Bright Star...” He introduced the numerous officers to her, naming more positions than she though possible in the command of the army, infantry, archery, cavalry she knew, but he introduced a violet camp officer, a pale green siege master, and several other offices that didn’t even make sense to have in an army. In her day, the battlefield was where wars were fought, but warfare had evolved significantly since her banishment, wars centering more on cities than standing armies.

After what seemed a very long time, the officers excused themselves from her presence to their own tents. She laid down heavily on her bed, her tired body sinking into the sheets, sighing softly. Her mind was bogged down with everything that had gone on through the day, and it felt slow like honey. She pitied Aero then, knowing full well what he had gone through with his father. She couldn’t believe any father would do that to his own flesh and blood, nor could she fathom the reason for his malice. Aeroslash had never spoken on it and Daemon had outright refused her request to tell her what had happened. She pondered it until she drifted into vicious dreams of war and bloodshed, the face of both Aeroslash and Aeroga haunted the visions of her subconscious, they fought each other endlessly, wingblade clashing against scaled claw and talon, quick wings dodging blasts of fire. She could only know that there was some significance in their endless fight, even as they endured injury after injury from each other, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

On the third day of the march, the scouts came to Luna to report that Ponyville was a short march ahead of the army. Luna dismissed them and they rushed off into the trees as she continued the boring march with a new spring in her step. She hadn’t seen any of twilights friends for a long time and she was anxious to spend time with them. She developed a few ideas to include each of them in the army as they would make excellent additions. She was unsure of Rarity and Fluttershy and what they could do, but Rainbow Dash and Twilight sparkle, she had high hopes for. Twilight would make a great addition to the small unit of mages they had, only about twelve of them. And Rainbow Dash, she could use in her bodyguard, she was fast and strong, excellent traits for a fight.

Pinkie Pie she had plans more developed on a hope or feeling. If she could convince Pinkie to teach the siege master how her “Party Cannon” worked, they could perhaps put something a bit more dangerous in the strange object, the way it fired party favors was intriguing and it made her hopeful that it could be used for other purposes besides parties. Luna remained hopeful for the six friends as Ponyville appeared down the road through the trees. She led her unit to the head of the marching column and gave the command to set up camp as they arrived at the small town. She brought along Rose and Daemon and set out into Ponyville towards the town hall, leaving the rest of her entourage to set up camp. Mayor Mare ran out of the doors, running into Luna as she walked up the steps to the door. The mayor looked like she would have a heart attack when she saw Luna and bowed before her blabbering out gibberish about respects and honors until Luna silenced her, raising a hoof. “Madame Mayor, I ask permission for the army to make camp outside the boundaries of Ponyville. I assure you they will not disturb the town overly much and will find their own food.” The mayor spluttered her acceptance, still bowing before Luna as she left the town hall and headed for the library where her sister’s student resided.

She asked Rose and Daemon to wait outside and entered the rather large tree. All around her on shelves carved into the tree itself books sat in rows and columns much like the army that she commanded. The leather-bound spines stood boasting their titles in gold and silver lettering, thousands of pages surrounded her and reminded her a little of the royal library which dwarfed this one by far, but still held the same air of untold knowledge bound onto parchment. A voice came from a set of stairs on the far side of the room informing the unknown visitor that she would be down in a few seconds. Luna stood patiently as a light violet mare with a darker mane with a streak of pink descended the steps and upon sighting Luna, rushed forward to greet her. “Princess Luna! Welcome to the library, and to what do I owe the pleasure?” She asked offering Luna a chair, “The army is passing through Ponyville and since I have a request for you and your friends I had the army make camp outside the town.” Twilight blinked as she registered Luna’s words, “The army? What army? Princess Celestia didn’t tell me anything about the army being on the march. Who are we at war with?” Lua answered hesitantly, not sure if Tia had withheld the information for a purpose or had just never thought to mention it.

“We are not quite sure, we do know the army that attacked the palace was based out of the city of Dragonheim, but-” “WHAT?! The palace was attacked?! Oh no, was-was Shining hurt? What happened? What-” Luna put a hoof over her mouth, silencing her. “Calm yourself Twilight Sparkle, Shining was not hurt he, fought valiantly during the battle. We are marching on Dragonheim to attack if the city is the one who sent the army that attacked us, or somepony else. I also have a request for you if you do not mind.” Twilight nodded hastily. “I would like you to march with us and function with our small unit of mages. We only have a few and I do believe that your magical prowess would be very useful to the army.” Twilight thought for a moment before answering, “What about Spike? Can he come as well?” Luna had an idea, Spike could be a valuable source of knowledge on dragons, so that she might better understand Aeroga. It would be an excellent idea to have him along. “Of course Twilight. He could even stay with me if he wished, I have no short supply of gems he may find tantalizing.” Twilight turned and trotted back up the stairs, “Very well. Let me make preparations and tell Spike. I will meet you at your pavilion when I am ready.” Luna gave her consent and exited the library, sending Rose and Daemon back to camp and heading for the sweet shop that was where Pinkie Pie worked and resided.

Sugarcube Corner quite literally looked edible and made Luna’s stomach growl hungrily as she looked on the gingerbread house appearance with a cupcake standing as a kind of tower on top of the building. She walked into the busy shop with a long line of ponies waiting at the counter as a bright pink earth pony with a puffy mane zipped around the kitchen faster than ponily possible, both taking and filling several orders at an impossible rate. Luna stood at the back of the line, unnoticed by anypony as she looked about the bakery at the dozens of pastries, cakes, and all other sorts of baked goods. Suddenly Pinkie burst into view, little party streamers flying out of nowhere, “”Hiya Princess!” Luna stumbled back in surprise and looked at the counter where she had seen Pinkie whizzing about, and indeed, the pink pony had left her position in the kitchen, leaving only bowing ponies before her. Pinkie pulled an off-white cannon with her cutie mark painted on its side seemingly out of thin air and it fired on its own, showering a nearby table in perfectly set party decorations. “And now we are going to have a BIG party for Luna!” She yelled excitedly. Luna stopped her and asked if they could speak in private. Pinkie nodded excitedly and Luna could swear she would be crushed as she picked up the cannon effortlessly over her head and carried it with them into a side room off the bakery.

“Ok, a private party. We can do that, but without anypony here besides you and me it will get kinda boring, but that’s what I am here for...” Pinkie was talking faster than a chattering squirrel barely giving Luna time to understand what she was saying before Luna interrupted her, “Pinkie I am not here for a party, merely a request. The army has made camp outside of Ponyville and I am curious about your party cannon. I-” Pinkie blurted into Luna’s speech, dropping her facade of giddy joy, turning very serious. “Oh no you don’t. Twilight has asked me this before, no I will not turn it into a weapon. I made it to make ponies happy, not sad. This cannon is for parties not battles so I won’t teach your siege ponies how to make and operate one. Look at this,” She said pointing at the copy of her cutie mark on the side of the cannon. “Those are party balloons and happy ponies, not steel projectiles and dead ponies.”

Pinkie walked out of the private room without a word after that and Luna took that as a definite no without any chance at a compromise. She looked at the cannon and began inspecting it when Pinkie walked back in and wheeled the device out of the room without a word to Luna. She walked out glumly, those cannons had been a hope to reduce casualty rates at the walls and decrease the time it took to break the walls and ultimately, the war. She thought about bringing that point of view to Pinkie, but decided against it.

Applejack and Fluttershy had similar results, Applejack was in the middle of an apple harvest and Fluttershy didn’t even like the word “army”. Luna grew less and less optimistic as the rejections piled up and didn’t even bother the prissy unicorn Rarity. Luna took flight and headed for the last pony she had hope for, winging her way to the drifting mansion.

“YESS!!” Rainbow Dash bellowed, jumping up in the air and pumping a hoof in excitement. “Of course I will fight for you, I will be your best guard ever! I promise!” Luna smiled happily, and thanked her for cooperating and told her that Twilight was coming along as well. Rainbow Dash grinned, a mysterious twinkle in her eye, but said nothing to this, instead she asked, “Did that Aeroslash colt ever return? If he is with the army I would love to meet him finally. It has been like a year since I was at the palace and-” “I am afraid that Aeroslash died during that mission that he was gone for. He never returned.” Rainbow Dash looked down at her feet with an embarrassed apology for bringing it up. Luna accepted it and told her to report for duty in the morning. The cyan pegasus gave a sad, “Yes Princess” as Luna left her home in the clouds and flew for the encamped army.

Later that day Twilight arrived at Luna’s pavilion along with Rainbow Dash, interrupting her boring conversation with a siege engineer, to which she was grateful. “Where are the others Princess? Are they not coming?” Luna sighed and after dismissing the engineer, regaled her experiences with the remainder of Twilight’s friends. Twilight winced when Luna told her of Pinkie’s rude rebuff, but said nothing as Luna told her that she was not angry with the pink party pony. When she finished her tale, Rainbow Dash spoke up, “So do I stay with the army? Or do the guards stay in your camp?” Twilight turned to her in surprise, “You are fighting in Luna’s bodyguard?” “Indeed she is Twilight, I believe her speed and ferocity will be valuable should a fight go awry and draw near to me. I have wingblades and certain armours that she will wear in battle.” She said going to a chest by her bed and withdrawing from it a set of armour, with the sharp blades atop the small pile. Rainbow Dash took the pile and began trying them on as Twilight helped her adorn the new items.

Luna was pleased with Rainbows’ enthusiasm and continued her debriefing of the two. “You two will stay in my tent because I would love to have some actual friends around sometimes rather than all these stuffy soldiers. I get into more arguments than I do actual conversations and I could use some friendly talk for once. Being royal has its downsides that is assured.” Luna sighed involuntarily, revealing her carefully hid frustrations with the numerous aristocrats, to which Twilight remarked. “ You seem tired Luna. Are you not getting enough sleep?”

Luna chuckled despite herself and responded with reassurances and badly changed the subject, asking if Spike had come along with Twilight. Twilight nodded, “He is out and about helping Rarity gather some gems before he goes, but he accepted your bequest and offer of lodging with you. He seemed pretty happy with the gem part.” Luna asked when he would be along and Twilight just shrugged her shoulders. ”Rarity will sometimes be gone for an hour and sometimes be gone all day. There is no telling when he will be back.” “Very well. Twilight, do you know much about dragons?” She looked at Luna with a confused expression as Rainbow Dash began posing in front of a mirror, finally finished putting on the armour. “Not really. I don’t see many dragons besides Spike, and he is about as knowledgeable as I am. He does know some things though, several years ago he joined a dragon migration and learned a few things, but not much. Just that they were pretty mean and abused their considerable power often.”

Luna nodded and looked over at the pegasus now making faces under the light helm that adorned her crown. Rainbow Dash saw her watching her and spun around embarrassed. The three proceeded to pass away the hours until sunset, speaking of the happenings of the countryside. They hadn’t even heard of the attack on the palace and had no idea that an army had marched across the land. As Rainbow put it, “Thought she had seen smoke on the horizon.” only seemed to confirm Luna’s fears, the army had burned through the contryside and she could only pray to Mother and Father that she wouldn’t find the carnage that her imagination forced upon her.

She excused herself when the sunset began peeking through the entrance of her tent
and left her pavilion to raise the moon. As she walked from the tent, Spike walked up to her. “Sorry I was late. I was-” “Twilight already told me you were helping Rarity. But I would like you to take a walk with me.” “Uh, of course Princess.” He did walk with her silently as she found an ideal place and began the rising of the moon. Spike watched in awe as she raised the pearly orb from beneath the horizon and bestowed it into the sky. The creatures of the night erupted from the brush in a flurry of activity as those of the day settled in for the night. Luna stood watchful over the deepening darkness, lost to herself in memories of her early days as princess of the night, before Spike poked her on her leg with a finger. “Ummm Princess? I don’t mean to interrupt but-” “No need to apologize Spike. I just had a few memories well up. I did ask you here for a reason, now sit and we will talk about a few things.

The little dragon complied, plopping his purple rump firmly on the grass and started looking a the stars. “Twilight once showed me a star through her telescope, and it turns out the stars are suns for other planets. If we only see the stars at night, then do you raise them up along with the moon? But if you did that, then that would mean that you require much more power than Celestia does to raise one sun, while you raise many.” Luna chuckled, “No Spike. I only raise the moon. You cannot see the other suns during the day because our own is so bright because it is much closer. My moon is much less bright and so you can see the stars only at night. You will notice that when I raise a new moon, you can see more stars than when I raise a full one like this.” She indicated to the shining white orb hanging lazily in the night sky, indeed full. Spike remained thoughtful until Luna revealed why she had asked him to come. “How much do you know about dragons?”

Spike burst into thralls of laughter much to Luna’s confusion, she had no idea the question was a joke, nor did she get the hidden jest that was the cause of such fits of merriment. When she asked what was so funny, Spike could barely form words around his hysteria. “Y-y-you asked a d-dragon i-i-if he knew ab-b-bout dragons!” “I am merely curious about them. I did not ask if you knew they existed, but what it is like being one or what they are like. Twilight said you once went to a dragon migration.” Spike had settled some and wiped a tear from his eye before responding to her query. “Yeah, I did and it was not what I thought it would be.” “How do you mean?

“Well, I mostly hung out with the juvenile dragons, not really any of the adults so I don’t know about adults, but the ones I was around, let me tell you, they make Diamond Tiara look like Fluttershy. Pretty mean and they really abused their power, stealing eggs from phoenixes, and doing all kinds of cruel stuff.” “Did you ever see a dragon use magic?” “Not from the adolescents, but I saw one adult use magic of some kind. Moved a big boulder from a lava pool not quite big enough to sit in with the rock. But it wasn’t like Twi’s magic, more like he just willed it to move and it did. I do know one thing that I asked Zecora after a certain growth spurt I had with being greedy, different types of dragons have different skills. Some can breath fire better, while others have harder scales, some can use magic, others can’t. It’s like the three different types of ponies, unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, but with a much wider range in number of specimens, and variation. For some reason, Zecora seems to know a lot about dragons, I never really thought about that before.” Luna considered speaking with Zecora about this, but decided against it over a wide yawn. The food train would be stocking the abundant apples from Sweet Apple Acres on the morrow, and she would have plenty of opportunities to go speak with her then.

Luna bid Spike to follow and the two returned to her pavilion. Rainbow Dash was snoring lightly on a pile of pillows on the ground, making Luna’s bed rather bare beside the dark sheets, and Twilight was not there at all. Luna snuck two pillows from Rainbow’s makeshift bed and gave one to Spike and kept the other for herself. She made a mental note to purchase two other beds for Twilight and Rainbow tomorrow before she went to visit Zecora in the morning. Spike was asleep almost instantly, but Luna struggled to persuade her body to sleep. She was still recovering from the repeating nightmares that had haunted her every night during the march, always Aeroslash and Aeroga battling to the death. The victor was always the same one. The green dragon had died once from his wounds after defeating his opponent, but mostly he barely did, his fine scales littered with wide cuts and his wings missing most of their feathers.

Luna lay for a long time until Twilight entered the tent carrying a basket full with a small mattress and a blanket, and a few books. She transplanted Spike into the basket, tucking him in like just like a mother would her foal, and lay upon Luna’s bed with a book in hoof. She gave one to Luna and settled into her own, focusing with a tunnel of thought that was near unbreakable. Luna looked her own book over, a shadowy black or dark gray leather-bound cover with intricate runes lining the spine in a deep red ink. The runes were a language Luna recognized, but the title was unknown to her, “Dragons Among Us”. She raised a suspicious eye to Twilight her remained enthralled in her book. “Um Twilight, how did you know I was curious about dragons?” The unicorn was unresponsive, remaining entirely focused in the book. Luna poked her with a hoof and she gave a half-minded “Hmm?” “How did you know I was interested in dragons?” “Oh I didn’t, I just thought that you might find it interesting. I don’t know the language so I don’t know what it is about or even what the title is. Why? Is it about dragons?”

Luna nodded and translated the title to her. Twilight just shrugged and returned to her book, quickly losing herself in the dry pages of the novel. Luna opened the old cover and the same runes from the spine were inscribed on the parchment inside. The language was a very old form of Equestrian, before the alicorns left Equestria. It was the standard back then, everypony spoke and wrote it, at least the alicorns did. The language was never translated for the unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, but was simply dropped as the alicorns forsook what soon became Equestria. Luna read it easily, almost as easily as she did normal writing, but it had been a long time since she had even though of it, actual millennia. The first few pages were acknowledgements to several different dragons who assisted with the writing of the book. One particular name caught her eye, a word that meant something along the lines of Father or Patriarch. But it was one among several strange and different names.

The book turned into a study on the intricacies of dragons, their differences in their species and abilities, like what Spike had spoken about Zecora. The book made critical notice on the special type of magic dragons used, a literal substance called “Aura” or the living essence of all things. The ability was explained as both being magic and not magic at the same time, drawing in the strength of the things around a dragon and converting it into raw power on the basis of instinctual will. It explained that the power of the aura absorbed was increased exponentially when drawing on magical energies, i.e. When magic is being absorbed in the form of aura, the power converted is much more powerful than the base life energies of a creature. “That explains the way mine and Tia’s magic was beaten so easily and effortlessly.” “What Princess?” Luna explained about the power that had swatted Luna aside so easily in the gardens. Twilight was interested in the mention of Aeroga and commented on a green dragon she had seen flying overhead. “Where was he headed?” “South, I think. He was flying at an odd time of the year, long before the dragon migration so he wasn’t an early bird. He flew pretty fast, flashing across the sky like Rainbow Dash when she tries to beat her records.” Rainbow snorted at the mention of her name, but resumed her light snoring, being joined with a loud rumbling sound coming from the little purple dragon in his basket.

Luna delved into the book again wondering why he had flown south, perhaps to hunt down the Dark Lord? The book made several reference to different breeds and their capabilities with aura. Auxiliary horns act like unicorn horns, channeling the energies needed to harness aura, but were not necessary. A certain breed, the Draconian reminded Luna of Aeroga, the description almost an exact copy of the dragon-turned pony himself, two horns along the side of his snout, feathered wings, as well as a particularly strong capacity for the control of aura. The Draconian is much smaller at adulthood than almost any other breed, but is the the single strongest type at the control of aura with the exception of “The Patriarch” or Father Dragon. Studies showed that the Draconian was capable of enormous feats of strength and adaptability, one of only three species able to survive in any desired climate with little to no change in its habits, and was able to adapt in a situation with incredible speed and precision.

Luna looked for a passage on transformations into dragons, but only found a small script on a dragon that lived much as a changeling does, but without the hostility or malevolence. Luna paused in her reading to ask Twilight if Spike had ever had demonstrated an ability with aura, but upon seeing her nose pressed into the book before her with her eyes shut tight, put the two books away and drifted off to sleep, surrendering herself to the horrible dreams of Aeroslash and Aeroga in battle. But this time something was different, Aeroga lashed out every so often with a wave of magic, and he won the battle with far less grave injuries than before, defeating his opponent suffering only a rather nasty cut on his shoulder. Luna shuddered awake just before the dawn.

Just the Beginning

Aeroga pushed hard on his spread of aura, attempting to push it past the Equestrian border. "Remember, a dragon's will is his greatest strength, you have to will your senses to spread out farther. Use your will, grip it like a stone and use it." Aeroga pushed harder and his head began to hurt slightly, His exhausted body couldn't take much more of the incredible duress on its fortitude. Time had vanished in the dragon's keep, Aeroga remaining in constant meditation before his massive teacher beyond days and into several weeks at once. He felt the presence of thousands of ponies at the walls of the city and his concentration shattered like glass as a pony burst through the doors. "Repay him for breaking your mental focus, confuse him and impress me."

"Yes master." Delving back into his mental energies, he pulled on his master's aura and bent the walls around him, squeezing the frantic pony behind him into a prison of impossible size. He could sense the earth pony panic, feeling as if he was being crushed by the very walls that en rounded him. Aeroga withdrew the walls, forcing blazing hot chains to erupt from the floor and wrap around the pony like a python as they burned into his hide. The dragon opened up the ceiling with his mind and brine gushed forward like the floodgates of Tartarus, pouring onto the helpless pony and making the chains contract as they rapidly cooled, squeezing the pony into further suffocation.

"That is enough. I am impressed with your skill, but I disagree with the method you have chosen and remember this is practice. Should I ever sense you actually doing these things to another without cause, I will crush your mind and inflict doubly what you have done." Aeroga released the unharmed pony from his mental grip and stepped from his levitating position in the air, uncrossing his legs.

The pony laid on the ground gasping for breath, and scrambled to his feet as he spotted Aeroga. "Mighty Dragon." He said with a bow to the Patriarch, obviously used to such tests. His words blared like a foghorn to Aeroga who had not heard any actual sound for a month. "Mighty Dragon, there is an army from Equestria at the gates requesting a diplomat. They stand almost fifteen thousand strong, and bear siege weapons." The Patriarch hummed, his emotions the only ones Aeroga had ever been unable to sense. He had felt the changeling queen Chrysalis brood in her cave, sensed the emotions of Celestia with ease, but the mighty dragon before him retained such control that he could even limit the amount of aura he emitted.

"My child will go as my diplomat and representative. I see that it is the alicorn Luna and I believe that it is time to test his control." Aeroga looked at the Patriarch, not comprehending the words that rang true in his head. Luna was here with an army? To attack Dragonheim? If that was the case, then they had no hope of even breaking the walls, no matter the amount of siege they had prepared, nopony could stand to the Patriarch, and he knew that an attack was the only thing that could cause his teacher to rise from the tower, bearing his massive power over all the world unto the helpless masses below him. "Go Aeroga, and I will speak through you."

"Yes Master." the aprentice responded as he followed the pony from the tower. As they emerged from the tower, the sun burned Aeroga's eyes like hot steel, and he formed a barrier to dull the sun's glare around them. The pony shirked at the change in atmosphere, but pushed on, leading the green dragon through the city. The crowds parted before them and bowed to Aeroga as his talons clicked against the cobblestones. Under the gate, the portcullis rose and allowed them to pass outside the walls.

The field in front of the walls was covered in a blanket of soldiers. Aeroga sensed the front line's fear as they spotted his serpentine figure, and the words flooded through the army in a wave, soon every pony dressed in armor quivered in fear, such was the power that was his, the power of the dragons. A small open tent stood erected in between the army and the walls, and standing under it was Luna and another familiar presence, eying him warily. Luna gasped aloud when she identified him, but he ignored her as he approached, only casting his gaze on the deep red stallion embroidered in medals pinned on his military uniform, flashing the familiar set of military chevrons and badges of honor and accomplishment. Aeroga spoke aloud for the first time in weeks, his tongue slightly heavy, but the unpracticed appendage still produced his deep, resonant voice clearly, "Hello Father." He said with very slight malice. A heavy gasp made him erupt in a blast of fury and anger. Aeroga picked up the unicorn in his aura and flung him across the ground. He hit the ground hard and bounced for several feet, legs flailing, before skidding to a stop. The dragon walked over to his former father and picked him up by his neck and charged hard into his fragile pony mind. He tore through it and ripped at it with mental claws, sharper than his physical ones, pulling up memories and sensations and pouring through them with an analytic eye. The stallion remained paralyzed during the onslaught while Luna struggled to move through her surprised stupor, unable to form simple thoughts or emotions, much less able to move.

Aeroga pulled at the memory of his father throwing himself and Flare from the house and fused it together with his own version, forcing the unicorn to feel the both sides of the memory as he hammered it into his mind, He would never forget that moment, no spell would penetrate the memory shield Aeroga created around his mind. Nothing would erase the horror, the torment, the damage from his mind. When he finished and his father began weeping in the steel grip about his throat and Aeroga flung him back to Luna, who caught the unicorn in mid-air and deposited him in the dirt. "Surprised Father? I now bear more power than you could ever dream of, I will haunt your every waking and sleeping moment. Forever you will feel the terror that grips you now. Until the day you die you will truly understand what you did.

The heap of fur spluttered broken sobs into the dirt, unable to even lift his head from the dust. Aeroga walked closer to Luna, trapping her under a hypnotic glare, holding her like a vice without even using his powers, merely his gaze. Luna wished in that moment that she could return to the moon if it meant that the dragon would cease his merciless leer that held her, petrified. Aeroga felt his mind be swept aside with a rush of power, and he dropped to all fours, struggling to breath.

"Give me your mouth, hatchling." He was commanded. He had not a chance to relinquish his body before his master took control entirely, not pausing to wait for comprehension. Aloud, Aeroga's mouth spoke not of his will, forming foreign words with an alien voice, "Forgive my student, he is young and does not have complete control over his emotions. I am the Patriarch, Father Dragon and the first creature to ever walk the earth and master of Dragonheim. I know your mind Luna, and yes you may make camp outside the city. Your soldiers are allowed to enter the city for food, entertainment, and accommodation provided they do not disturb the peace, for I will bring judgement as if they were of my own city." Luna barely responded to the booming voice that was like the winds of a hurricane, it resounded in her very soul shattering all her protections and safeguards in a single sound. Her battered ears sighed with relief when the speech was concluded.

Aeroga regained control of his body in a flash of searing pain in the back of his head. "Princess Luna, my master commands me to accompany the army to repay my attack and to hunt down the Dark Lord." Luna nodded fearfully and invited him to her tent to "Discuss things." The dour dragon walked silently behind her, sending the messenger back into the city.

A small purple dragon was helping himself to some small pieces of diamond as Luna and Aeroga entered the tent. Aeroga stood at the entrance, forming shields and protections around him, including a magic reflection spell he had recently mastered, as Luna sent the startled dragon from the tent, leaving them alone. "Aeroga-"

The dragon held a clawed hand up, silencing her and responding to her swirling emotions, "Luna I don't hate you anymore and Master has asked me to stay with the army and lead you to the Dark Lord." Luna sat down on her bed and sighed with relief. She felt so alleviated that he had forgiven her, even if on terms. "Dragonheim is not the city that attacked Canterlot, even though the Dark Lord had his base in the city. He was cast out two decades ago for trying to usurp the throne from the Patriarch and was banished from the city. He took control of the Three Sisters, Geirn, Angholm, and Stalthion, which are three cities to the west of here, about two days flight to the closest one. Those are the cities that he rules, and those are the cities that we must strike. Angholm means impenetrable in the ancient language and is the citadel in which the Dark Lord resides. Fortunately, that is the third, and final city we will reach, as Geirn and Stalthion are in between us and the citadel in that order. Geirn is a warrior city, a city where the occupation of soldier consists of over eighty percent of the work force. Stalthion is an island city, but is a trade hub because of the rivers that run off of it to almost every city in Ordonia." Luna put her head in her hooves, trying and failing to absorb everything.

'What is Ordonia?"

Aeroga explained that it was the country that Dragonheim and the other cities were a part of before resuming his lecture. "Stalthion is famous for their smugglers and is able to withstand both blockade and siege for several years. It will be a problem but we will cross that bridge when we come to it." He laughed at his own joke and sat cross legged in the dirt. Luna sat silently on her bed for several minutes before asking what happened after Aeroga flew away.

"Well before I burned Flare, I was thinking of what I was going to do. I decided to fly for Dragoheim to learn how to be a dragon from an actual one, the Patriarch. Once I arrived I began training immediately, meditating for days on end while I was fed information by my master. During meditation, I..." He frowned and sighed. "Look, I apologize for lashing out at you Luna. I was emotionally distraught and wasn't thinking straight. I don't hate you anymore and I forgive you, you couldn't have known the powers that the Dark Lord possesses. It's not much, but It's the best I can do right now. Now, check this out. Still sitting with his legs crossed, he held his palm out and began charging his aura. A little sphere of pure energy took shape in his hand, glowing a resplendent blue and pulsating with power. He aimed at a suit of armor on a rack and fired the ball of energy. It flashed across the tent and hit the steel in the middle of the breast plate which exploded in a shower of burning metal. Luna screamed and the guard outside rushed in to protect her. He leveled his spear at Aeroga and jabbed at him, yelling for more men to come. The steel tip collided with his scales and the blade was gripped in the dragon's palm. he wrenched it from the guards hold and incinerated it in a burst of fire from his maw.

Seeing this as an aggressive act, the guard drew his sword and swung it hard at the dragon before him. The edge bounced harmlessly off his belly and Aeroga threw up a wall in between them. The guard instantly began beating on the wall, desperately trying to get to Luna. Three more walls sprouted from the ground around him and Aeroga thrust a command into the ponies mind. He stopped and looked around in confusion at the four surrounding walls. Letting the illusions fade, Aeroga turned to the calmed Luna. "You didn't have to freak out, I wasn't trying to hurt you." Luna only nodded, terrified, and sat quietly on her bed. Aeroga filled his horn with power, and gently poured a happy emotion into the glum princess who' eyes lit up with reluctant joy at the feeling. He returned her smile and left the tent for the forest a few miles from Dragonheim, he was hungry and grass wasn't something that would appease his appetite.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

The repeated stomp of fifteen thousand marching ponies drawled a tedious beat in his head. In order to entertain himself, he made an effort to step out of beat, but was disappointed when his feet landed in correlation with the marching hoofbeats. He walked on the edge of the column, away from the frightened soldiers who shied away from him and broke formation to keep away. Occasionally he took to the skies and worked on spreading his senses while having to fly. High up in midair, he spotted a stag rummage for acorns in the brush along the side of the road while his belly grumbled a complaint. Sliding into it's mind, he slowly took control of it's body without it noticing, and walked it out into the open. He flapped hard on his wings and bolted for the deer, landing hard on its back, snapping the fragile spine. He clamped a toothy maw on the neck just behind its head and dragged the corpse to a small cluster of grass and set it down with a limp thump. He inhaled deeply and breathed a steady flame over his kill. The flesh sizzled and popped under the fire until it was very well cooked. Shutting off his fire, he reared his head and drove his mouth into the juicy meat in the shoulder and tore at it, slivers of succulent venison sliding down his gullet.

Lost in his feeding, several soldiers nearest the carnage panicked and broke formation, the column suddenly forming a stitch in its rows. Luna spied the feeding dragon from afar and flew for him to get him to stop scaring her soldiers. As she landed, she very nearly turned her insides out as the bloody dragon drove his head inside the chest cavity of a deer, lifted his head, and swallowed a long gulp of meat before diving back into the carnage. Luna felt like Fluttershy as she addressed Aeroga timidly. He ignored her and continued feasting, spraying drops of blood over Luna's coat. Stronger, "Aeroga, look at me." Still he didn't hear her and continued in his frenzy. Getting an idea, Luna both spoke and shouted with her mind at the dragon to stop. This time he stopped and looked at her, blood dripping from his snout and a hunk of torn meat dangling from his jaws, making her stomach roil once again. She suppressed the gag and asked him to take the body somewhere else to eat it. "You are scaring my soldiers, I-I don't think they have ever seen something get eaten before. Any of them." He dropped the slab of flesh which landed with a splash in a pool of blood, throwing more of the thick liquid onto her coat.

"I don't ask you to take your flower sandwich away from me when you eat that. Why should I take this somewhere else?" He asked indignantly.

"Aeroga can't you sense their fear? Can't you tell that they are terrified of you?"

"Well they are soldiers, I can bet they have seen blood before."

"But they have not seen somepony actually eat an-an animal." Aeroga sighed, swallowing another piece of meat with a wet slurp. He rose to all fours and bit down behind the deer's head, dragging it towards the woods. His voice sounded in her head, "Very well. I will eat out of sight, but do not ask me to stop the battle because some coward gets scared during the fight."

The dragon and the officers, minus one mentally disabled unicorn, pored over a map of Ordonia that Aeroga had conjured, much to the ponies surprise, out of thin air. It showed all fifty-one cities that littered the landscape. He took a quill and circled the Three Sisters.
"Gentlecolts, these are the three cities that stand between us and victory. The first is Geirn, which we should arrive at in one, maybe two days. It is a basic city, but their men are not to be underestimated. They are chosen at birth and are trained from the day they can hold a sword. These are by all means ferocious warriors and I can guarantee you that we will lose the better part of our army if we do not attack their weaknesses."

Riga, a mahogany offensive-strategist, asked, "And those are?" Aeroga considered for a moment before answering.

"They really don't have any. These ponies are deadly, perhaps too deadly, so I will lead the army into the breach and perhaps give us a fighting chance. Odds are, we may even lose this fight anyway." The officers all stared at him, mouths agape.

"You can't be serious."

Aeroga turned to the one who had spoken, a very large hulking pegasus, muscles tumbling out from his too-small uniform. "Dead serious." he answered. "And that is what we will be if we don't take this war seriously. Equestria hasn't been at war for several centuries, we need to realize that this isn't a game, but it is much more then that with higher stakes than you realize. These are not brawlers, these are not rioters causing an uproar, these are trained soldiers that can just as easily kill one of our own as we can them. Even with my help, we will still lose many soldiers." The officers looked at the map silently, trying to think of something they could do, but the dragon had a valid point and they knew it.

Nopony spoke until Luna walked in from raising the moon and asked them if they had formulated a strategy. Aeroga reiterated his advice to Luna and when he had finished, Luna sat heavily on a chair pulled up to the table. "Is there anything we can do to reduce our casualties?"

One pony mentioned going around the city, but Aeroga rebutted his idea quickly, "If we just skip them, they will hit our flank. We would be trapped between two armies, both of which can prove a challenge to our forces on their own. Together though? No, we would be obliterated and our heads would adorn the walls of Angholm and the Dark Lord will have won. The lives of the hundreds his army killed would not be avenged, they may just be some of the many. No, we must destroy Geirn, it is our only option." The ponies pondered the dragon's reasoning, attempting to find another solution and finding none.

They all retired to their tents for the night upon deciding that an attack on the city was their only option, and a violet unicorn and a cyan pegasus with a rainbow colored mane entered the tent. The latter, Aeroga recognized instantly and could barely contain his excitement, but that was a ponies emotions, those of the past. He pushed them aside and introduced himself.

The violet unicorn greeted him and introduced herself as Twilight as Rainbow Dash introduced herself. Aeroga nodded to them and called out to the presence waiting outside. "Go ahead and come in Spike."

The infant dragon peeked inside the tent sheepishly, nervous in the presence of the strange dragon, and entered quietly. "How do you know my name?"

Aeroga laughed, "I heard Twilight tell the princess Luna you would be along, so I just put two and two together." He held out a paw and spike gripped it gingerly making Aeroga laugh again. "Do not fear little Spike, I don't bite. Hard." He conjured a diamond out of the air and handed it to the bewildered Spike, who held it in front of his nose, sniffing it. He took a hesitant bite and the smile that spread on his face confirmed that the gem was real. He finished the gem and headed over to his basket bed. Rummaging around, he pulled an aquamarine from the blankets and handed it to Aeroga.

the green dragon himself was surprised, having never tried a gem before and not expecting such a return. Spike looked at him expectantly as he tossed the entire thing into his mouth. It tasted sweet and a little sour, but was moderately tasty, nothing like the meat of the buck he had devoured earlier. In Spikes mind he made him a promise, "It was good, but later I will show you something even better." Spike looked at the bigger dragon curiously and Aeroga winked at him.

"Those are my favorite. Aquamarine. Twilight found one once and let me try it and they are the best." Aeroga nodded to him and turned to the ponies watching the exchange. "If you will excuse us dragons, I believe an adventure in the moonlight would be an adequate finishing touch for the day, so I bid you good night." He picked up Spike in his hand, and deposited him on his back between two spikes lining his spine as they exited the tent. Aeroga looked into the moonlight and asked, "Have you ever been flying before little buddy?"

"No." Came the response from his rider. Then hold on, he thought as he opened his wide wings and shot into the air.

Aeroga felt Spike scramble for the spine in front of him and grab hold tightly more with his body than his mind. The cool air rushed about them as the ground spun way and he sensed Rainbow Dash take off and follow, but he ignored her. If Twilight was worried about Spike, that was her right. He flew ever higher, creating air bubbles around his and Spikes noses as the air thinned and he proceeded to climb. The air grew colder and colder as their altitude increased, causing little icicles to form on his scales, he shook them off and pushed his body ever higher. Aeroga sensed Spike look down at the ground below and a wave of panic set into the flightless dragon. Aeroga reassured him, and drove his wings higher, feeling Rainbow cease her ascent as she couldn't draw in air in the thin atmosphere. Still Aeroga continued his climb until Spike poked his scales. He twisted his head back to look at him and Spike pointed down and pressed his hands together, like he was pleading to go down. Aeroga nodded and drew up to hover in the thin air, looking down on the arching horizon and able to see the curve of the very earth itself.

"Hold on tight little one." he intoned in Spikes mind, making the little dragon grip the spike in front of him harder. Aeroga cast an air splitting spell in front of his snout, making the air much easier to break. He flapped up in a short back flip and felt gravity pull him downward. He shifted to the perfect angle and flapped hard, exploding with speed towards the earth. He could hear Spike screaming his little head off with glee over the whistle of air in his ears. Aeroga flapped harder and harder shooting down faster and faster until he bolted past Rainbow's astonished face. Spreading his wings, his speed increased to the point where it pulled at his feathers and threatened to tear his wings off. The air ahead of him split with a visible streak flying past his eyes and behind him. Only a few meters from the ground, he flicked his wings upwards and he hit a perfect horizontal glide.

His speed did not slow, nor did he even need to flap. He sensed Rainbow struggling to keep up behind him, but failing as only a dragon had the aerodynamics to move at the speed he did. He lifted his right wing and began a slow arch, gradually shifting his angle toward the numerous tents in the far distance. Spotting a glade ahead he performed a rather dangerous maneuver. He thrust his wings in opposite directions, making his body spiral like a corkscrew, his head barely missing the ground and he landed on his feet with a loud thud. Spike tumbled from his back as the inertia settled and hobbled to his shaky feet. "That... was...awesome!!" He cried excited. "Do you do that all the time? Like, every time you fly?"

Aeroga sat on his haunches, "I used to a long time ago, I moved faster than I did then so it was a relatively new experience for both of us. Now I want to show you what I promised you in Luna's tent."

Stretching out with his mind, he found a family of rabbits sleeping soundly in their burrow nearby. He picked up the two fattest, and gently brought them out of their earthen home and laid them gently in the grass in between the two dragons. Spike looked at him questioningly, "What's so special about these two rabbits? They look like normal ones to me."

Aeroga smiled at the little one's ignorance, "Remember when you said that aquamarine was your favorite gem? This-"

Spike stood up quickly, holding his hands out in front of him, "Oh no, you aren't going to eat them are you? That's barbaric and disgusting. How could you kill these innocent creatures? They never did anything to you."

Aeroga sighed, taken aback by the small dragon's refusal without even trying. "Look, I know it's different, I could barely do it my first time either, but trust me, it is so much better than gems." With that he drew in a deep breath and bathed the sleeping rabbits in fire as he crushed their minds. They roasted quickly and were ready in a matter of seconds. Looking at Spike he nodded to the charred meat and waited for him. Spike looked at him in disgust, unable to comprehend the thing he was being asked to do. "Just try it Spike. If you don't like it I promise I will erase your memory of you eating it." Spike reluctantly agreed, and sat down slowly in the grass while he picked up the cooked meat. The fur and skin had been completely disintegrated, leaving only charred flesh all over.

He took a tentative bite and his mouth exploded with flavor like a sonic rainboom. He chewed slowly, savoring the unique taste and texture, before taking another hungry bite. It was just as sweet as aquamarine, but had the potency of a Fire Ruby, and for what his two favorite gems lacked, this meat had both. It was much more filling than them as well, where several gems would disappear down his gullet, he couldn't even finish the rabbit, leaving a leg and breast behind on the ground. He leaned back on his paws, sighing contentedly as Aeroga looked at his expectantly.

"Well? How was it?"

After a burp and wick of fire, Spike only nodded, a happy smile across his face. The green dragon laughed again, a sound like thunder, and snatched up his own and what was left of Spike's, swallowing them both in one gulp. "Don't make judgment based on a personal bias, but rather try new things with an open mind, you will find that the world is full of amazing things if you are willing to try them." Spike's belly bulged as he struggled to his feet. "What did you mean by: 'The first time I tried it'?" Aeroga sighed with the realization that the little dragon didn't know his origins. "Well, a long time ago I used to be a pony. Ask Luna about it sometime, I don't feel up to telling the story right now." He stood on all fours and walked with Spike back to camp under the ghostly moon above.

Rainbow Dash darted back to Luna's pavilion. She could not believe what she had just seen. First, somepony that was actually faster than her, and not just by a bit, but much, much faster than her. Second, The dragon had tricked Spike into eating meat! A little rabbit! And the little dragon had liked it! Rainbow had thrown up after she saw the act and flew straight for the camp. She burst into the pavilion, startling Twilight and Princess Luna who were reading books on Luna's bed together. All her words came out in a burst, "Spike... Spi... He ate! Aeroga trick... Spike, meat!" Twilight looked at her with a confused expression while Luna told her to calm down and take a breath. Once she had, Rainbow told them all that she had seen. Luna gasped and Twilight dropped her book in disbelief, her jaw hanging like a loose swing. They just stared at Rainbow for what seemed like forever. "Well?" Her word snapped them out of their stupor, but with less than desirable results. Twilight started crying like a foal and Luna put a hoof on her back, stroking her mane and trying to calm her down while she just stared at the ground. Twilight continued bawling, tears flowing like rivers down her face.

Rainbow sank down on her bed and put her head in her hooves, rubbing her temples slowly, trying to forget the horrible memories. All the blood gushing onto the ground, Spike's sigh of contentment, it wasn't the blood, but the consummation of it that sickened her. She felt bile rise in her throat again and she rushed outside and threw up all over the ground, the soldier standing outside the tent, eying her suspiciously. Her sides heaving and her mouth tasting like vomit, she panted over the ground for a few minutes until the two dragons arrived at the pavilion, coming up silently behind her.

Spike asked what was wrong and Rainbow gave a squeak as she shot back into the tent. The two dragons entered to find a unicorn bawling her eyes out, a pegasus burying her head in pillows and sheets, and an alicorn staring slack-jawed at the ground. They looked at each other, bewildered and asked what had happened.

"Spike! How could you?!"

"W-what?" the little dragon asked bewildered.

Twilight's eyes turned slightly crooked and her pupils dilated to small dots, as she spluttered through rampant tears running down her face, "Dash told me you ate a rabbit! A helpless little bunny! How could you eat meat? You have never in all your life eaten meat before, and You!" She burst out, turning to Aeroga and walking up to him, prepared to give him the greatest lecture of his life, "And you tricked him into doing it! Why would you prey on a baby dragon to force your horrid concepts, your-your barbarism on his infantile mind? You are a dragon for crying out loud, don't you like gems?"

Aeroga saw holes in her accusations all over the place and he shot them down like practice targets for his aura pulses, "First off, I gave him a choice. Second, my 'concepts' as you call them, are in our very natures. I am astonished that he has never tried it before. Third, he is not infantile, yes a baby, but he still has the capabilities to make decisions on his own, and to presume that I like gems because I am a dragon is a bias that has absolutely no logical base. Because one likes something, does not mean another like him appreciates the same thing." Twilight's eyes dilated even more and her face took on a crazed expression as her accusations were destroyed on both logic, reason, and even practicality.

"How can you even kill those poor creatures so cruelly? They never did anything to you! They were just living their lives and you butchered them like the-" His rage began to build, this unicorn was annoying him to no end with her petty and false notions.

"They feel no pain when I kill my food. I break spines when I pounce, and crush the minds of those that are small. They feel nothing when their lives end."

"You are a barbarian!" She started screaming at him now, "A horrible, stinking, cruel, tyrannical-"

"SILENCE!!" He roared in both mind and body, making Twilight flinch and Luna break from her stupor while Rainbow only squeaked under the pillows and blankets that covered her head. His nostrils belched black smoke, and he almost let a flame slide over his tongue as his temper broke. "You do not grudge the wolf or falcon to take their prey, and neither will you begrudge Spike and I, or any dragon for that matter, our very own nature. We are carnivores whether you approve or not." He threw back the entrance flap of the tent and walked out angrily, his long talons carving deep divots in the earth.

Spike looked up at Twilight ashamedly, "Gosh Twi, you didn't have to take it so far." And with that he trotted outside and followed Aeroga as well as he could on his short legs.

For every step Aeroga took, the little dragon had to take five, completely dwarfed by the green reptile. Spike was practically running to keep up and Aeroga showed no signs of slowing down, walking steadily through the thick brush that overgrew the ground. After a while the larger dragon stopped in a glade that lay open to the moon as the little ran from the mini-forest that covered the ground underneath the canopy of the actual one, his sides pulsing like a set of bellows as he collapsed to the ground. Aeroga looked up at the moon that hung over them like a watchful sentinel and snorted out the heat that tickled his throat. The small clearing brightened significantly for a split second, and returned to its former darkness and shadow after the flames retracted. He was so angry, he couldn't focus and he struggled to push his senses past his own body. He brooded, shooting little spheres of energy at choice leaves, until the moon stood on the opposite side of the sky as it had when they first sat down. Spike sat up after he caught his breath and watched Aeroga fire the little projectiles with amazing accuracy and precision at various objects. He heard a twig break on the other side of the clearing and jumped to his feet.

Turning, he saw Aeroga did not notice the sound, but continued to launch streaks of light at the trees. Spike grabbed the lost dragon's tail and tugged on it. He got his attention as he knew he would and the little ragon pointed at the far side of the glade. Aeroga looked in the indicated direction, and took a more athletic stance, spreading his feet over the ground. He hissed at the shadows and shot an energy ball at the bushes.

Something moved amongst the foliage just before the ball hit with a small explosion that obliterated the bushes around its point of impact. Standing in the spot where there was once been greenery, stood a shadowy Pegasus, his features concealed by the shadows."Now, now," Came a gravelly voice. "Let us not get too violent before our introductions."

He stepped into a shaft of moonlight, revealing not only wings, but a spiraled horn that stood erect over a bright red eye and what was left of the other eye. His face was gnarled and contorted from several long slashes over where his eye used to be. His stark white chest bore a large red burn and his sides were littered with bare patches among deep cuts and scars. The tip of his left wing was missing, as was the entirety of his tail, only a small, burned stump in its place. "Greetings dragons. My name is Kalthorn, your bane and woe for the rest of your short lives. The Dark Lord sends his regards, Aeroga."

Blind to the taunt, the green dragon roared and rushed forward, slashing with long claws at the alicorn's throat. His claws cut easily through the air, and a hard hoof rammed his back, throwing him face-first into the ground. Aeroga loosed a concussive blast of energy the moment he hit the dirt, throwing the startled stranger across the entire length of the clearing into a thick oak tree. He landed with a sickening crunch and slid to the ground. Aeroga rose from the ground and faced the motionless alicorn. He spread out his aura and felt the life force of Kalthorn pulsing hard. He was playing dead, but was in for a nasty surprise.

Drawing on the aura of Kalthion himself, Aeroga formed a ball of energy between his hands, but did not let it go. He continued to push energy into it, filling it up like a violent balloon as its diameter increased with the power filling it. The alicorn sagged visibly from the withdrawal of energy and realized his mistake. Aeroga loosed the ball of energy, more then three feet wide now, at the stirring pony and it soared with lightning speed, but only struck the tree on which the alicorn was formerly laying against. In a flash of white, a bright, shimmering sword collided with Aeroga's wingblade. Kalthion swung again and Aeroga parried with a swat of his hand and countered with the other, leaving a fresh wound on the tip of the alicorn's snout. Hissing, he recoiled and swung the sword again, only to be parried and countered again in a similar fashion, gleaning a long scratch along his shoulder. Aeroga took to the offensive and thrust his head forward, his horns jutting hard into their target in a feral headbutt.

Flying, through the air from the blow, the alicorn did a wing-assisted back flip and landed firmly on his hooves before lashing out with strong magic, a whip of fire slicing through the air. Aeroga conjured a shield to block the spell and duplicated himself several times, the doppelgangers fanning out beside him. With a synchronized "POP!", the apparitions teleported all at once to several different positions around the alicorn.

Slashing frantically with his sword, several bursts of fire leaped at him from all directions. However only one jet actually burned its target, erasing skin and fur on his right flank, the rest of the flames passing harmlessly over his body. He growled in pain and whirled to the actual assailant. Another pop filled the air and the alicorn passed through Aeroga as if he wasn't there. A streak of green shot from the sky and Aeroga landed on top of Kalthion, pinning him to the ground with a hand over his throat, and the other clamped down on his horn. The dragon dove into his mind like a swimmer, but with a much more violent intent. He rampaged through the ponies terrified mind, gyrating his mental grip as it butchered the mind of the alicorn. Mentally screaming in agony as his body remained rigid and silent, all his thoughts, knowledge, and memories were drawn and quartered, being analyzed with careful precision. His memories of the slayer academy in Angholm were pondered over much more than the others, his first dragon, graduation, all the dragons and wounds he had experienced over the years were poured into Aeroga's mind.

He withdrew from Kalthion and looked into the blood-red eye, a stream of literal blood trickling from the new cuts on his face. "Tell him I said 'Hi' ." He said before gripping his neck in his mouth and giving a sharp jerk which produced a wet snap. He crawled off the fallen dragon slayer and turned to Spike. "Better get back to camp little one." He said, picking up the corpse and slinging it over his shoulder. The last thought of the alicorn passed through his mind over and over again, he didn't even know what Kalthion had meant by it: "This is just the beginning."

Troubles at Home

Celestia woke from another restless night, the bed sheets tangled about her legs like malevolent vines trying to hold her to the bed. The moon shone in through her window, just a sliver of silver shone over the darkening horizon giving her her cue to raise her own in turn. She slid off the mattress and stood sleepily and walked out to her balcony. Her horn lit up with a golden sheen as the princess reached out and gripped the gaseous being that was her charge. She pulled at it and it resisted her, but she persisted, turning up the amount of power she thrust into it. It budged just the slightest bit and began to slide upwards. She again increased the power she pushed into it and this time, the sun burst over the edge of the world and fell into its daily drift across the sky. The golden shafts of brilliant light flooded into her room and warmed the fur on her chest, soothing her tired body and making her feel even more drowsy.

The past few nights Celestia could feel a dark presence in the palace, making her restless and giving her less than pleasant dreams. Everypony around the palace could feel it, it was obvious in how they were less patient, their tempers and attitudes were shorter. The guards were less friendly in the mess hall, recreation was always strained, the entire palace was flooded with the menacing shadow that overlaid everything in it. Celestia had looked into it, suspecting ghosts or spirits from the battle, but she found nothing in her endeavors. Yet everything that she did, casting expulsion spells, revealing spells, search spells, nothing worked, ever on the shadow plagued her and those under her.

She walked to her vanity table and applied some light make-up to cover the slight, yet noticeable, bags under her eyes from her near sleepless nights and haunted dreams of death and misery. She sighed to herself, feeling glum as today was another day of attending to her social duties, resolving disputes, settling complaints, and working to give her subjects every reason to be happy when she herself was not happy. She walked to her door and after looking longingly at her soft bed, left her room for the dreary throne room.

"Her Majesty, Princess Celestia!" called the honor guard as she entered the room. She groaned in her mind when she saw the long line of nobles streaming out the room, waiting to meet her and present their problems. She pasted a smile on her face as she sat on her throne and waved on the first pony in line. For hours on end, the endless ponies brought petty problems, bequests, and mere greetings to her until her patience felt ready to burst.

She began to notice that her patience was wearing thinner with each pony that came to her and excused herself much to the disappointment of the still trailing line. She left the room filled with disappointed ponies and wandered through the halls, brooding over the the spirit of unease that pervaded the very air.

It seemed to get stronger as she proceeded down the hall, steadily driving her deeper and deeper into her morose temperament until she felt it pull at her through a door on her right. Looking around she realized that she was standing outside of Flare's old room, the large oaken doors standing haughtily over her. She opened the door without really thinking about it and a rush of stale air greeted her through the small opening. She entered slowly, uncertain about herself as the dark presence over her lifted and was replaced by something more... soothing. She breathed better, her body felt just the slightest bit rejuvenated.

It was very dark inside, no torch or lamplight illuminated the cavern inside and the shutters were closed. Celestia opened the windows and light and air flooded into the room, illuminating the urn in which Flare's ashes rested and the flamberge she had forged after Aeroslash had gone. A cold chill ran up her spine as she caught sight of the sword.

The blade was heavily tarnished and corroded, glinting dully in the sunlight, but it was not the sword that raised her hackles. Everything, all the furniture, the armoirs, everything other than the sword and urn had vanished. The room was completely empty. The presence shifted again, an alluring tone, seductive and enticing, drawing her toward the dull blade. She edged closer, instinctively wary because of the disappearance of everything in the room. The pull she felt increased the closer she got to the strange sword. It was nothing like the one she had set here a week ago, that sword had been made of the adamant that Flare had developed, an incorruptible metal.

She gingerly picked up the sword by its handle and felt something enter her mind. Like a parasite, it sucked on her emotions, but it made her feel powerful, like she could do anything and get away with it. She felt as indestructible as adamant, heedless of any and all opposition. "With this, I could rule much more than Equestria." she mumbled to herself. She immediately dropped the sword, causing a loud clang as the metal hit the stones of the floor. She reprimanded herself for thinking such selfish and conceited thoughts before eying the blade accusingly. "Gods save us." She whispered. The presence that bounded through the palace causing so much strife and contempt was coming from the sword itself. The metal shone more brightly now, some of the corrosion had disappeared when she handled it. It had fed off her like a leech, sucking at her energy without her realizing it, too consumed by how powerful it made her feel. She left the sword where it lay on the floor and ran out of the room in a panic, slamming the door behind her. The dark shadow returned to its first song, that which made everypony on edge, driving them to the last vestiges of their patience as its home in room 306 was shut off from the world. Celestia sealed the door with magic and made it impossible to enter, the evil inside could not be handled, much less even allowed to sit in peace, driving her subject into insanity.

She had an idea to teleport it to the caverns below the palace, but decided to wait until tomorrow. She felt ill and drained at the moment. She returned to her room and sat at her desk, pulling out a quill and a sheet of parchment. She wrote Luna for the first time since she left with the army, sending the letter to her via Spike, who according to Twilight, was with her and Luna. After seeing the message on its way, Celestia headed for the library to look into the possession of the sword. She had heard of ghosts and spectres, but never had she heard of actual objects being taken as hosts for darker spirits. The familiar shelves stood all about in their perfect order. Celestia had been down here so many times that she knew the shelves by heart. Finding a book on spirits of the dead, she sat in a chair to read it, but the presence distracted her, making it exceedingly difficult to concentrate on the book. She found nothing about inanimate objects being taken as a host as they had no life-force to live on. But the sword had drunk from her. It was heavily corroded when it had nothing to feed off of except the distant ponies about the palace for a week, perhaps just barely surviving. Disappointed by her lack of answers, she returned to her room and fell asleep on her soft bed.

The dreams were worse than usual.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

“Your Majesty, we are getting complaints about the army from all over Equestria. Manehattan, Fillydelphia, everywhere ponies are protesting about the raising of the army for what seems to them, no reason. We must make a public announcement of the war on Dragonheim.” Celestia calmly corrected him, “Luna has informed me that it was not Dragonheim that made the attack, but a small faction called the Three Sisters, the cities of Geirn, Stalthion, and Angholm. The Dark Lord rules these three cities exclusively and Luna has marched on them with the assistance of a dragon. I want you to make public that I will be making an address tomorrow, it is then that I will tell everypoy that we are at war.” Andreas nodded and rushed off to make the preparations.

Luna had sent the letter last night in return to her own, informing her of the changes in their plans. She was surprised and impressed when she read that Luna had acquired the services of a dragon and felt a little proud of her younger sister. She seemed to be leading the army quite well despite her doubts of her ability to hold it together. Celestia requested for Luna to send her a letter each night to keep her up to date on what was happening beyond her borders.

True to her word, the next day she walked up to the raised platform standing in front of a huge crowd of newsponies waiting to hear what she had to say. She amplified her voice and gave her speech, “Fillies and gentlecolts, my subjects, many of you have been giving voice to your opposition to the raising of an army where there seems to be no need of one. I come before you today to give answer to these unspoken questions, a faction of cities from the south attacked the palace a month ago and we have taken this to be a declaration of war on Equestria. The army is marching on the first city as we speak and we will show the foreign powers that we are not prey to be pounced upon through victory.” She ended the speech along with the spell as she stepped from the platform. Andreas was there to meet her, “Princess, They are ready to ask you questions.”

Celestia sighed before nodding her head to the burnt orange unicorn, “Then let us not keep them waiting.

Celestia sat in a chair on a raised dias in the center of a large room stuffed to capacity with eager ponies. She gave an indication that she was ready and dozens of hooves shot into the air. She selected a pearly white pegasus, the remainder of the hooves returning to the quills and notepads of the others. “Your Highness, Do we have any knowledge as to why this ‘Dark Lord’ made an attack? Any provocation or disputes?” Celestia chose her words carefully, knowing full well how capable newsponies were at twisting words to better suit their story. “As far as we know, only a desire to rule. We do not have any intel that gives him another desire or cause for this strike.”

He tucked his tongue as he scribbled on his notes while the numerous hooves returned to the air. Selecting a purple earth pony, She answered a question that surprised even her. “There are rumors that a fell beast brought on by the Dark Lord was the reason that the we won the fight, a dragon. Are these rumors true?” “We had assistance from an unknown force. It was not the entire reason, but it helped us considerably.” The reporter asked another question, gleaning angry glares from those around her, “Why did the dragon assist us?” Celestia’s hesitation hindered her lie, making it more obvious than she would have liked. W-we do not know. We only know that he slew the entire army without mercy, there were no survivors in the opposition, all of them were dead, which indicates that he had a personal vendetta against them.” The hooves shot into the air again and Celestia answered the countless questions and inquiries directed at her from the war to things that had nothing to do with it. She settled into a steady rhythm, steadily growing weary of the ceaseless barrage of questions.

Chapter 6

The ringing peals of a hammer flooded throughout the smithy. Several unicorn ponies watched a pegasus in awe and admiration. How this hornless pony could even match, much less surpass their skills in the forge was beyond them. Yet another flawless sword was dropped on the growing pile of various weapons from intricately sculpted ceremonial swords, to elaborate maces, to long poleaxes crafted to, literal perfection.

As the next hunk of steel inevitably began to take on the exact desired shape of the one striking it wished, it was thrust into the heart of the forge to be reheated and tempered. Flare took a break to rest her tired hooves, sitting on a bench next to the bellows. One of the unicorn apprentices asked to take the mound of steel to the weapon racks.
She nodded her consent and the unicorn began sorting through the numerous blades and edges, trying not to scratch their tempers as Scorch walked over to Flare and the watching unicorns returned to their work. The grizzled forge-master lumbered over with a hiccup in his stride, the result of a long past battle. “Where in the world did you learn to smith so well?” He asked, still astonished by how adept her hooves were with metal and hammer.

She attempted a flattered smile and failed. The smile being more of a grimace than an expression of happiness. It was trying to craft the wingblades for her new warrior coltfriend that she had learned the nuances of steel and metal, whilst honing her skills at art by forging intricate patterns into the blades as she made them.
She had wanted them to be perfect for Aero on their first Hearths Warming day together.

But as the day came and she gave them to an ecstatic pony, she was not satisfied. She set to work making an even better set. Flare spent countless nights working until she collapsed from sheer exhaustion, or the rays of the dawn broke though the smithy windows. It was always Aeroslash who had saved her. Picking up her tired body and taking her to her room with the unfinished wingblades in tow, Doing her homework and taking up for her when she missed morning classes. That entire year Aero worked hard to keep her afloat in school when all she cared for was the forge day in and day out.

She found a metal that she didn’t know in the storeroom one day during the summer and tried to smelt it together with the steel wings she was making. The result was a grey blob of weak metal that was about as strong as lead. She got more and began experimenting with several different kinds of metals. Failure followed failure until she placed the unknown metal with some aluminum in hopes of getting something light. The two metals stuck together like magnets and formed a shiny golden metal much harder than steel and was just as light as aluminum if not lighter. It was easy to forge but harder to bend when than anything she had ever seen when cooled.

With this new steel she called Adamant, after it’s resoluteness, she crafted the perfect wingblades that he wore even to this day. There was nothing that could match the joy or happiness of Aero when she presented them to him, or of the one who had made them, finally satisfied with her work.
She dwelt on the memories as the old unicorn remained silent, knowing better than to disturb a pony during their musings. Flare got up and headed to the storeroom. Rummaging around the back, amongst old and rusty iron, tarnished bronze, and grayed silver, she found it. The familiar dull red sat forlorn under troves of discarded metal. Smiling she picked it up pleased to find its weight so heavy. She knew she had found some more of the unknown metal. She brought it to the forge and placed it in some of the duller coals at the edge of the fires. She returned to the storeroom and pulled out a block of aluminum. There was only one product that would satisfy her. And that she was about to make.

Bringing the aluminum to the billowing flames she set it on top of the red ore and asked a unicorn to move the bundle about so she could smelt it. The unicorn agreed and a yellow aura surrounded the two metals and brought them to the spots Flare dictated. As at Cloudsdale, the metals seemed to soak into one another, smelting in a matter of seconds. Flare asked the unicorn to split the metal into a section enough for a large weapon and leave the rest somewhere where it could cool. She didn’t want anypony to find her product and seek to duplicate it. The adamant was hers and hers alone. Once the metal cooled, there was no reshaping it. He complied and handed her the glowing adamant.

Normally when you pull a metal from the furnace, you hit it a few times to seal the heat and then dunk it. She knew better. With adamant, you do not let it cool. She continued to shape it and reheated it when its glow lessened.

“You will damage the temper if you don’t cool it after beating it.” The forge-master advised. “Watch and learn.” Was all she said as she pulled it from the fire and began striking it once more.

Before long it was shaped right and she decided to make it look beautiful. It was strong enough that you could do more to shape it and it still retain its functionality. She thought of a flamberge that she had made yesterday and made a similar blade, but without its second handle. She gave it a two-handed grip starred with a teardrop pommel. When she had finished, the blade looked like a tall flame. The tip was sharp enough to cut steel and its edge was the finest she had ever made. She turned to the barrel of brine behind her and plunged the adamant into the heart of the water for the first time. A huge cloud of steam erupted from the water, flooding into her face like an ocean.

When she pulled it out, it shone with the brilliance of the sun. The sword was a gorgeous golden color just like the streak of gold in Aeroslash's mane. The unicorns stopped their work to see what she had wrought. The forge-master asked to hold the sword and Flare consented. He took it in his magic and looked it over.

“Never have I seen a steel such as this. What is it?”

“I invented it. I call it Adamant, because it stands up to anything.”

“Where did you get it?”

She didn’t answer, only took the magnificent sword from him and began polishing it on the bench by the bellows with a damp washcloth. Soon however, a servant came calling for her.

“There is a pony to see you miss.”

Flare nodded and told him that she will be a few minutes. She took the sword to her room and after laying it on the bed, took a cool bath. She had practically lived at the smithy for the past several days and it felt amazing to feel something cold on her hide. She washed her mane and tail to get all the grime out of it and dried herself off with a towel. Casting one more glance at the sword that lay on her bed, she left her room to go see her visitor.

She entered the guest lounge to see Rarity laying on the couch trying not to mess up her mane. “Oh great, what does she want?” she thought to herself. “Come to flirt with Aero again?” “Oh darling! It has been such a long while. What have you been up to? You look dreadful.”
Flare did not feel like playing her games. “What do you want Rarity?”

The unicorn seemed not to hear her. “And where is Aeroslash?” So that was what she was here for, “I brought somepony he might like to meet.”

“He is working right now Rarity.”

“Oh.” Rarity looked so crestfallen. “Oh well. Who needs stallions anyway? They get in the way and just ruin quality girl time.”

“Huh?”

At that moment, a cyan pony with a ruffled, rainbow-colored mane walked in and sat down heavily on the couch. “What’s up?”

Before Flare could respond, Rarity piped up, “Flare, I would like you to meet Rainbow Dash, the pony I was talking about earlier. I asked her to come to Canterlot to meet Aeroslash. I just hate to see somepony with a dream and be unable to meet it. But since he is not here, well we- .”

Rainbow Dash interrupted her, “You mean I flew all this way just to meet some stallion? Rarity, I’ve told you hundreds of times, I don’t need a stallion in my life. I am just fine being single.”

Flare was not going to let this pony think HER stallion was free game, “He is not single anyway. I am his marefriend.” Rarity helped for once, “Exactly. I just asked you to come so he could meet you and maybe you two could talk about the sonic rainboom. He almost did one the day I sent for you, but he didn’t quite make it and I thought you could give him some pointers or something.”

Rainbow Dash just looked at the unicorn, then at Flare. “Well, now that I’m here, and I don’t like the idea of flying back so soon, what are we gonna do? We might as well do something.”

“Good thinking Dashie. And I know just what to do.”

Rarity must have had a list hidden somewhere because the itinerary she had in mind was ridiculous: Makeovers that Rainbow Dash groaned over, a lunch at a high end restaurant, and all kinds of other things to do throughout the day.

Rarity looked at the two pegasi giddily, clearly pleased with her agenda. “And after that we can have a sleep over! We can stay in Flashfire’s room and talk about stallions and…” She babbled on and on about the things they could do as Rainbow Dash looked at Flare with a look of horror. Obviously she wasn’t the type of pony who was keen on girly things like makeovers and hooficures, and to be honest, neither was Flare. She grinned at the cyan Pegasus. She was sure they were going to get along very well.

“How does that sound, girls?”

“Sounds great Rarity.” Flash quipped.

Rarity grinned from ear to ear and Rainbow Dash burst out laughing. Rarity didn’t seem to notice the joke on her, “Well then, enough of sitting around looking pretty, let’s go girls.” And with that, they trotted out of the palace to try and appease Rarity’s enormous agenda for the day.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Luna was rudely awakened by a servant long before sunset. But when she heard that it was a summons from her sister, her anger vanished and she hastened for the library. When she arrived, the door slammed shut behind he and locked itself. Luna went into instant defensive mode the moment she heard the click of the lock. She immediately teleported over to the other side of the library, fully expecting and attack. When it didn't happen, she charged her horn with magic,ready to fire a beam of energy at anypony that moved into her vision.

"Calm down Luna. I only wished to speak to you in private." The voice of her sister startled her and she stopped the flow of magic to her horn. Tia was sitting at the table in the middle of the room reading a book. When she saw Luna, she put the book down. Luna stood in front of Tia and waited. Her sister looked her over before she spoke, "Luna, I havent seen Aeroslash in a few days. Do you know where he is?"

Luna took in a sharp breath at the mention of his name. Celestia noticed, but her gaze did not waver. "He is not on duty right now."

"Luna, I could have figured that out just by looking to see that the sun is up. You didn't answer my question." Luna was getting nervous. Tia never missed anything, there was little chance she could wheedle her way out of this. She just looked at Tia hoping she would ask another question. But the princess of the sun did not even blink. The only part of her that moved was her extremely long mane. "Luna."

"Yes, Tia?"

"Answer my question."

"About Aeroslash?"

"Yes."

"Oh. What about him?"

"Luna, don't play games with me please."

"He's... training."

"Training?"

Luna nodded.

"He's not at the training grounds Luna."

"Have you looked in the barracks?"

"No. He is not there either."

"How do you know?"

Celestia sighed and rubbed her temple with a hoof. Luna was barely avoiding her and she was going to ask her direct questions that could not be avoided. Tia knew how to get information out of somepony. She had been doing that for a millineum. Luna was getting antsy, waiting for Celestia to ask a question. But there was only silence between them. The pressure seemed to build. building and building untill it threatened to pop.

"Have you tried-"

"Luna, Is Aeroslash in Canterlot? I know you know where he is. He is your personal guard and you are not that absentminded or that irresponsible. Just tell me where he is and we will be done here."

"Why does it matter where he is? Maybe he decided to go shopping for Flare or something."

"He has to ask you to go somewhere."

"Maybe he is in his room. He guards me all night, so he has to sleep during the day."

Celestia seemed to take that answer. Barely. "Ok. Tonight I will speak to him. I need to talk to him about something."

She dismissed Luna and Luna went back to her room. She didn't know what to do. For obvious reasons Celestia couldn't talk to Aeroslash. He wasn't even in Equestria, unless something had happened to him. She doubted that. Aero could handle himself and he was determined not to fail her. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea." she said to nopony in particular. Her eyes had heavy lids, lids determined to fall on her and shut her out of the world. And soon she was asleep.

Luna was in a familiar city. The walls towered over her and the towers were carved in the shape of dragon heads, a very familiar sight. "Am I dreaming?" No, she told herself. Not a dream, a memory. She looked around. all about her ponies swarmed, carrying parcels, heading to work, all the hustle and bustle of a city flooded around her. A pony ran right through her and she realized that she wasn't really there physically.

Looking around, she saw a grey cloaked pony, taller than all the rest, but not so tall as to draw attention, duck into a secluded alleyway. She recognized the cloak and knew who it was without a thought. She immediately followed the figure through alleys and narrow passages between the cramped houses. The figure entered a black painted door in the side of a small shack, and Luna followed. Inside the shack was only the figure in the grey cloak. But there didn't seem to be anypony else.

Just then, a charcoal black colt emerged from the shadows. Even his mane and tail was black, his only color the pale grey in his eyes. "Do you know why you are here?"

"No." the hooded pony answered.

The black colt walked a few steps nearer and cast a spell from his almost invisible horn. A wave of black magic pulsed throughout the room. "There. Now nopony will over hear us."

"What do you want?"

"The throne of Equestria. And nothing will stop me. Not even you Princess."

The hood was thrown back by the black unicorn to reveal Luna, a sour expression on her face.

"Celestia will stop you."

"Then I will destroy Celestia. Along with anypony who stands in my way. Including you. Nothing will stop me from taking what I want."

"What can I do to stop you from doing this?"

"Nothing."

Such a simple answer, yet filled with meaning. But Luna knew what he was going to say next.

"Unless you help me."

"Help you"

"Get us past the walls and into the palace. Get Celestia to stand down from the throne and I will allow you and her to live, along with anypony who doesn't want to live under my rule. But don't help me and see what happens. I will butcher Celestia and make sure your death is slow and painful, while I take my pleasure from your helpless form. Or rather yet I will do that to Celestia, make you watch, and then after she dies, I will start to work on you."

"No!" Luna fired a blast of energy at the dark pony, but he quickly threw up a shield that absorbed it. He then picked Luna up in his magic and threw her against the wall, shaking the very foundations of the building. Luna struggled to get up after his attack.

"Help me and you can avoid this terrible fate, for both you, Celestia, and for your people. Think about it, slavery and death for your people, or freedom of choice for them. Your decision decides what kind of throne I sit in."

Luna thought for a long while, and eventually, her head bobbed and she left the building. The dark pony grinned, showing teeth filed down to a point.

And Luna woke up, the memory fading. Perhaps she had been wrong and should have at least tried to defeat him then and there. She could have ended it then and there, perhaps with her life or his. But the lives of the ponies of the land and that of Tia depended on her decision.
Perhaps she overestimated the pony and his boasting of the power he held. "Power to break the very surface of the world." He had said. Maybe she had been wrong. The package she had sent with Aero, held the final chapter of The dark pony's plans. When he got the package, He would march his army up from the south and attack Canterlot.

"Maybe I was wrong." She looked out the window to see the sun begin sinking below the horizon. She began her daily ritual to bring up the moon.

The Birth of the Dragon

He looked into the blue eyes of the terrified pony Zwei. He could sense his fear and confusion. With a claw he carved a red smile under his chin and stepped away to avoid getting blood on him. He could feel the armies in the palace resume fighting. He could sense Celestia and Luna panicking, wondering if this was some monster that the Dark Lord had conjured. The unicorn that had once been his master was wondering the same thing in a similar panic. Yet it proved to be the latter, if unintentional. Aeroga felt a few ponies stand up behind him. He turned on them and slaughtered them without a thought for mercy.

These were the ones responsible for Flare's death. The army, the Dark Lord, and Luna. He was still loyal to Celestia but he felt an abiding hatred for Luna for it was she who had given the Dark Lord what he needed to make his attack. But that hatred would have to wait for later. For now, he resolved to butcher the Dark Lord along with everypony in his way. He flapped his wings and flew through the halls to the main foyer. The green dragon landed in the midst of the ponies attacking the palace and killed them by the hundreds. He functioned more off of instinct, rather than coherent thought, using his newly found fangs, claws, and horns. He incinerated several fleeing brutes in a wash of fire from his maw. They fell before him like leaves in a storm and there was no mercy in his draconic heart. He quickly learned that he had complete control over his formerly meager magic, and cast killing spells left and right, most of them instinctual blasts of energy rather than actual magic. The ones that escaped him, he gave chase and killed until his rage carried him out into the courtyard. He sensed the Dark Lord see him, a bullet of fear rocket down the unicorns spine, and immediately flew for him. He flooded the ground with fire where the unicorn had been just as he vanished with a loud pop.

Furious at his prey escaping, Aeroga continued to circle, bathing anything and everything in a blast of fire. When every last life of the army was extinguished, he landed and walked among the charred bodies. He looked upon the carnage he had wrought and felt satisfied, to an extent. The Dark Lord had escaped his wrath, for now. He lifted into the air once again and flew for the Throne Room.

He entered through the windows he had come through before to deliver the message, but when his claws touched down, A golden shine encircled him and he could barely move. Summoning the power of the dragon inside of him, he shattered the magical hold over him and landed in a crouch.Looking up for his attacker, he saw Celestia was lying on the floor unconscious, her horn slightly charred. The guards at the door spun around and charged him. Without a thought he roared with his mind, "Halt!" Eveypony in the squad instantly stopped in their tracks and dropped their weapons to the ground, issuing a loud cacophony of clanging metal on stone. Aeroga rose to his hind legs and walked up to Luna, who stood petrified by the mental command. He realized he held enourmous power over anypony he wished, his being was powerful, but he didn't know why. He couldn't feel any magic in him as he did in Luna and Celestia, but he still seemed to have great corporeal power. "Use your mind. Bend the world. Use their mind against them." Came a voice inside his head. He recognized the voice of the Patriarch, and did as he was asked. He used a mental projection to make dozens of Aerogas walk about the room as he released everypony from his grip. The guards milled about in confusion in the midst of multiplying numbers of green dragons, slashing with their swords and hitting nothing but air.

One guard walked up to him and tried to hit him with his sword. He created a wall in front of him and the guard reeled in surprise, trying to figure out what was going on. With the wall he separated him, Luna and the unconscious Celestia from the rest of the room. He spoke to Luna with his mind, conveying all of his emotion and anger at her for what she had done, and incurred the emotions inside of him to make her understand. She trembled slightly and sat down on her throne heavily, holding her head in her hooves. "Make it stop. Please I beg of you. Make it stop. I-I can't stand this." He replied with his mind again, forcing the wild emotions into her harder without mercy. He only relented when she began crying uncontrollably.

Ceasing his onslaught slowly, he roared into her mind with all the power he could muster, "It is your fault! The hurt of all these ponies is all your fault Luna. The hundreds that army killed are all dead because of you, civilians and soldiers alike." She continued to weep. But he didn't let up. For her, he was beyond compassion or mercy. In his heart, he loathed Luna with a hatred unheard of in the annals of time. "Never again will I owe you anything. Never again will I respect you. You are the lowest of the low to me. Vermin among gods. I am only loyal to Celestia. So be warned, If you ever try to meddle with me, or those I care for, you incur my wrath." She recoiled violently, curling into her throne, as if trying to sink into the stones themselves. He left her like that, tears streaming down her face in shame, and woke Celestia, nudging her with his mind. She awoke disoriented at first, but she slowly came to full awareness. She saw Luna crying into her throne and the green dragon before her. He could sense her start to panic and spoke into her mind to try and keep her from striking him. "My Queen, forgive me. I did not know who held me and I struck out of defense."

"Aeroslash?" She asked groggily. He shook his head slowly, "No. Aeroslash died beneath the waves of the sea. I am Aeroga, former owner of that body. I had lost my memory and was given a new name by the Patriarch, my father dragon. Luna is the cause for all you see here."

Celestia rose to her hooves clumsily, still affected by his draconic attack. "I know Aeroga. She explained everything to me during the battle. Do not hold it against her. She made a wrong decisions, but in the end, she made the right one."

The dragon growled in response, "That right decision came too late, Flare is still dead." And with that he left the room, revoking all the illusions confusing the guards. He walked on his hind legs, a strange but natural position. His pony mind was unfamiliar with the gait whilst his body relished in it. He ran a paw over the scales on his belly and fingered the feathers sprouting from his back. He still had feathered wings, and his mane, but the rest of his body had completely transformed. His body was covered in deep green scales, a horn sprouted from either side of his jaw and stood out along a fanged snout. Sharp spikes ran the length of his back to the end of a pointed tail which split into three segments at the very end. Something else was different though. He had a sixth sense. Aeroga could feel the things around him, from the moths flitting around bright torch flames, to the guards in the previous room. He could feel their emotions, their thoughts were not like reading a book, but he could get a general idea on what went on in their heads based on what they were doing and feeling.

He pondered his transformation, wadering the halls until he came upon Flare's body. He sat on his haunches in front of the corpse and ran a talon through her mane her mane. She felt cold under his scaled fingers, and he couldn't sense her in his sixth sense like he could all the others in the palace. Reptiles don't have tear glands. He couldn't cry. It was anatomically impossible for him to shed tears, but in that moment, he felt his soul be shorn in two. His eyes remained dry, but his very soul was weeping blood.

The dragon sat there for what seemed like hours, stroking the body that had once been his greatest love. Even in death, she was still beautiful to him. Eventually a medic came up the hall, looking for survivors and carrying away the dead. He came and picked up a few bodies before leaving and returning for another load. When he tried to take Flare, a throaty growl scared him silly and he fled, leaving the dragon with several mangled bodies lying in pools of drying blood. Aeroga decided to take the body somewhere where he could mourn in peace and carefully lifted the mare's body from the ground, careful not to damage it as he took her outside. He settled down in front of the entrance to the labyrinth and laid the body in front of him and continued to shed his silent tears. A few hours later, he felt Celestia come up behind him. She didn't say anything so he began for her, sensing her emotions. "No. I will not bury her. I will cremate her. In the morning come back here and take her ashes. Preserve them in an urn and keep it safe till my return. I must go and... think." Aeroga had been thinking, but the ponies everywhere was distracting, he kept on sensing the wounded, leading doctors to the ones who needed attention most with his mind. He wanted to be alone, alone to mourn his loss.

Celestia made a startled squeak. " You can read minds?" She asked incredulously. "No." he answered, "Just emotions. I can figure out what you are thinking based on what you are feeling." He felt her recoil slightly, even though she tried to hide it. "Please don't hate Luna. She told me what you said to her. She-"

"She is the reason I was not here to protect Flare. She is the reason I had amnesia. She is the reason I have now lost everything." He said, rising to his feet. He was the size of Celestia on all fours, and towered over her on his hind legs. He smelled rather than sensed her fear. He could tell why he had affected Luna so much, the sense of power over the mighty alicorns was sweet and addictive, but he resisted it. In Celestia's mind he and continued, "And I will never forgive her. No matter if you give me the command yourself, I will then just leave. I pledge my loyalty, but on that threshold, my dedication ends." She flinched at the mental contact, but accepted his words before walking away. He began working on a stand to cremate Flare's body, creating stone slabs and building a small stone table out of thin air using his new found abilities. After a while, he felt Luna approach him from behind a hedge and stop to watch him. She remained ignorant of his knowing she was there and continued to watch him sadly. She felt miserable. Sad, confused, she was terrified of him, but she knew that she had to say something. Her whirlwind of emotions was delicious for the dragon, he loved how hurt she was, drank in every emotion and used it to fuel his anger. He picked her up with his mind and threw her onto the ground before him, pinning her down with his clawed hands on her chest and throat. Smoke billowed from his nostrils as he hammered her mind in a mental attack, ripping and raving through her psyche.

She started yelling for help and he formed a barrier around them with a casual thought. Aeroga let her go then, but the princess tried to flee, only to run straight into the invisible force field her attacker had conjured. Luna turned to face him, terrified, and tried to blast her way out with magic. He formed a spell dampening cloud in the domed barrier that absorbed her magic and made it useless. She ran out of ideas and just started screaming her head off in terror. He silenced her with a mental command, shutting off her screams like a switch. "I warned you Luna, and this is your last chance. After this, I won't let you go. Next time, you will die." He released all of his protections and she ran off into the night, tears streaming from her eyes like miniature waterfalls. She was miserable and he could feel her anguish, but he couldn't bring himself to care. She deserved the pain he had served. He didn't care if Luna hurt. He didn't care about her at all, only to revenge her the pain she had inflicted on him. Aeroga resumed his task, and by the time Celestia began the rising of the sun, the altar was finished. He prepared his body and loosed a jet of flame over the body of his love, the inferno tickling his barbed tongue and setting the very stones aglow with heat. the Flashfire ignited like a dry leaf as he lifted into the skies in the direction of Dragonheim.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Celestia walked through the medical wing among the dozens of soldiers that lay bleeding on their beds as doctors scrambled to help them all. She cast a spell here and there to help the ones who were more dangerously injured, but her horn still ached and magic was more tiring than it usually was. Aeroga had broken her magic so effortlessly, almost at a flick of will. Chrysalis, the changeling queen, had defeated her once, but only after a hard power struggle. The newborn dragon hardly had to try to shatter her magic and render her unconscious. She found the head nurse and thanked her for her efforts and asked if there was anything she could do to help. "No, your Majesty. We have a handle on things here, but the wounded are still coming in." Celestia thanked her again before leaving for the Throne Room. She dreaded her arrival, it would mean plans, forms, papers to sign, expectant ponies waiting for orders. She could only imagine what day would bring.

She arrived and was immediately asked about what to do about all the dead. She just told him to dispose of them in whatever way seemed best.They nodded their heads quickly and scuttled away to do their work. She sat on her throne and asked for the palace master-mason. He came quickly, eyes groggy with sleep, obviously ignorant of the attack. He must be a very heavy sleeper, especially since those screeching sounds shook the very stones of the castle. She had seen the damage of the immediate area and there wasn't a square foot of stone that wasn't cracked in one way or another. She filled him in on the happenings of the night, his eyes widening when informed of the sound shattered hallway. She told him to set about preparations for repair and when done with that, to come to her about the improvement of the defenses. She had had ideas for a long time about solidifying the walls, but a situation had not yet presented itself before tonight. He nodded quickly and scampered from the hall. Shining Armour came to her and requested a heavier watch for the next few weeks before she turned him down.

"No Shining. Aeroga obliterated the entirety of that army. It is unlikely that there is anypony left to defend against." Shining was not satisfied, "And if there is one who might seek to slip past our defenses?" "That is unlikely Shining. Give your guards under your command more credit. They lost a mere six tonight against the nearly two hundred that lay slain just outside that doorway." she pointed at the main entrance. "This was a siege, not an assassination attempt. A different type of fight, with different results." He only nodded and took a position at her side, next to her throne. She could see his frustration, subtle anger and need for vengeance brimming under his very skin, but he said nothing.

Celestia continued to administer to the needs of her injured kingdom. She gave the command to send out a relief force south, to asses the damage done by the marauding army. She was worried about the thousands of ponies between Canterlot and the southern border. She was scared that there was nothing left but a scorched wasteland, the dead bodies of hundreds of civilians, and the images haunted her as she tended to the needs of the palace. She issued army recruitment orders, they would need to raise an army to retaliate against the cities south of Equestria. Luna had hinted that the "Dark Lord" was the ruler of the cities there, and that meant that this was a declaration of war. She saw the edge of the moon flicker over the horizon and she hastily put everything down and rushed for her chambers. She rose the sun in a rush, almost dropping it a few times, and headed for the labyrinth where the funeral pyre for Flare stood. She felt obligated to obey the dragon's wishes since he had ended the battle for them. He had lost everything and in a way, Celestia pitied him. She couldn't imagine losing someone that close to her, and thought of Cadance and Shining. What would happen if one of them lost the other? She remembered Flare's expression of hurt and woe when Aeroga had flown away, not recognizing his name as she screamed it at him, torment and pain flooding her cracked voice. The pony had died miserable, and the pony who loved her was transformed into a vicious dragon at the sight of her dead body.

"Happy endings only seem to happen in the story books." She murmured to herself. She came upon the pyre, barely anything left but charred bones that continued to burn. Celestia crumbled the bones into ashes and placed them in a cremation urn. The patina was intricately carved with scenes of the afterlife, said to bless the pony's spirit within. She took the urn to Flare's old room, although now it was probably Aeroga's. When she entered, there was still wreckage scattered across the entirety of the room. Flare had thrown out the cleaning ponies and wouldn't even let them change her sheets. Broken wood and debris was scattered everywhere, covering almost the entire floor. The walls were slashed and had deep gouges in the stone where what was left of a dresser covered in a shredded dress stood. The bed had been mutilated, long slashes leaked goose down and the sheets were rent and torn like a tangled cobweb of thread. How the earth pony could do all this escaped her until she found a golden sword buried in the rubble. The blade was unmarred, and it shone with a brilliance that matched the sun, but the blade seemed lifeless. Even more so than the regular steel blades. As if the sword once had its own spirit, and that had fled. She summoned the cleaning crew and told them to take care of the mess at their own pace. There was no hurry. She put the urn in the corner next to the sword, which she stood against the wall, and left to go entertain the annoying aristocrats that believed they were entitled an audience with her, whether she cared to or not.