Sleeping soundly beside his wife, Gallus’ eyes fluttered open as he stared down at her light blue mane and smile visible on her small beak. Her long hippogriff wing was draped over the four eggs that they had and expected to hatch very soon. With the eggs being various colors, from bright purple to dark blue with pink spots, Gallus found himself constantly daydreaming of what they would look like upon hatching and what kind of ‘griffs they would grow up to be. He may not have had high hopes for himself as a student at the School of Friendship, but he liked to think that he and Silverstream made it pretty well for themselves as a Captain of the Royal Guard and a teacher at said school respectively. Unlike them, Gallus would make sure his chicks knew to always be chasing after dreams instead of just going through the motions.
THUNK!
Gallus’ body ran cold at the heavy thud against the house, standing up in the giant nest they slept in as he climbed out and walked to the window. Opening the curtains, staring at the pitch black night, all the blue griffon saw was snow gently falling into the steadily growing pile of winter that was collecting against their window. Perhaps a bunch of snow fell from the roof and onto the side of the house? Gallus looked behind him, at Silverstream sleeping soundly in ignorant bliss. The sound wasn’t enough to wake her up, but it wasn’t subtle enough for Gallus to feel comfortable going back to sleep.
Feeling tugged from his previous tiredness into a steady stream of coldness, of continuous what ifs, Gallus walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Staring at the rest of the house, including the other windows, it appeared to be simple snow falling. Gallus was almost tempted to open the door, if he wasn’t certain that a giant pile of snow was going to fall into the house. Then, Gallus heard creaking from far away, scratches against the house. Rushing over to the front door and pressing his head against it, Gallus failed to hear anypony trying to get in. He looked at the sink and the coffee machine. Still, nothing was acting up. Then, a gentle thud, this time inside of the house, shook the ground enough that Gallus’ body involuntarily sprung up and down from the hardwood floors.
Something was inside the house.
Gallus’ eyes widened, a flash of memory in his head from years ago. Griffonstone, the crippling cold, the wilted expressions of other griffons as they either explained to the young chick that his family wasn’t coming back or worse yet, Gallus having to explain it to others in order to get a couple of bites to get by. There was no way he would’ve found anyone to share his heart with there, and Gallus considered himself a million times lucky to have found someone to start a family with in Ponyville. A family, in their fragile mortality.
Gallus turned around, feeling the sound of the snow and the creaking of the wood underneath him turn to piercing silence as he bolted back towards the bedroom. With the sound of wind entering the bedroom, Gallus felt his heart getting colder. How could he have left his wife to whatever entered the house?
Swinging the door open, Gallus lost his voice and the ability to breathe from the sheer cold that entered his body. The chilling bite of the cold was almost as shocking to his body as the monster that’s head directly hovered over his wife and eggs. A icy cold blue that bordered on snowy white, a body of snow that resembled a dragon had entered the opened window. The monster, who was so big that its tail couldn’t even fit into the bedroom, stared directly at Gallus with its sapphire blue eyes and its icy fangs dripping ice cold drops of water over the stirring Silverstream.
“Hnn, Gallus, why is it so-”
Gallus screeched, his wings springing out from his sides as he was losing time. Not acting could mean losing her, being forced back into the cold of pitying expressions and the all too common “it’s not your fault.” The snow dragon might’ve been a dozen times bigger than him, might’ve had icy claws bigger than his fangs, might’ve had a back full of razor sharp amethyst gems that looked like they could slice a fleshy griffon like him in two, but the beast wasn’t half as scary as that fate. Silverstream woke up, her purple eyes focusing on the snow dragon as she acted faster than her husband. Lifting all four eggs into her wings firmly, Silverstream turned tail and bolted out of the bedroom. Snow poured from the open window and into the bedroom, and Gallus knew he was running on borrowed time. He didn’t know how long such young eggs could survive in such extreme temperatures, or if help would even arrive, but Gallus stared at the unthinkable. The impossible. The difference between a fulfilling life and the cold and crippling life he grew up in. Gallus lunged at the snow dragon, bringing his talons right into its eyes.
…if its eyes weren’t actually sapphires.
Gallus found his talons poking gemstones, unable to sink into the monster’s eyes as it roared and broke a good chunk of the bedroom wall near the door, revealing Silverstream hiding underneath the couch with their eggs, her wings draped over them. Without her wings, Gallus was sure they wouldn’t survive. Even then, Gallus was highly doubtful. His heart was thundering in his chest as he looked over his shoulder, opening his beak to scream to Silverstream to tell her to take the eggs. Try to reach Twilight.
With a searing shock of hypothermia flashing through his neck and surging through the rest of his body, Gallus felt icy fangs clamping down on his neck. Watching as Silverstream swept up the eggs and took off, reading his mind, Gallus felt a spark of warmth as he knew that his family would survive with him having fended off the dragon long enough. Launching his paws into the hard snowy chest of the dragon, Gallus felt his paws penetrate through the monster’s chest as it let go of him with a thundering roar that destroyed the house entirely. The house of his dreams, collapsing as he felt cold water run down his throat when his vision turned completely dark…
“Dude, dude wake up!”
Gallus’ eyes opened, this time resting in a hospital bed as he stared at Smolder at the foot of his bed with Twilight alongside her. The tall purple alicorn, holding a notepad with her magic and vigorously writing notes, dropped her notepad as soon as Smolder encouraged him to wake up. Twilight galloped over, pressing her forehoof against Gallus’ forehead as she smiled warmly.
“Your temperature is getting back to normal,” Twilight sighed. “As soon as I heard my Captain nearly got killed, I came over here and used every spell I could to save you. I almost resorted to dark magic, because…you honestly had less than a 5% chance of surviving. Even though it was only ice and not real teeth, that monster did a real number on your neck. Be careful when you talk, I don’t know if your throat is that far along in recovery.”
“Why,” Gallus’ voice came out scratchy and barely audible, staring at Smolder. “Why are you here? Where’s Silverstream?”
“Silverstream is with the eggs in the lobby, she was waiting till you woke up,” Smolder explained. “She was having a hard time waiting to see if you were going to live or not, and we convinced her to get something to eat. And me? Well, that weird snow dragon came to life with snow and the gemstones. She knows dragons have some understanding as to why that happened.”
“Do you want me to bring Silverstream in?” Twilight asked, walking towards the door as she already knew it was a rhetorical question. Not waiting for Gallus’ response, Twilight pushed the door open and disappeared. Smolder looked at the floor for several minutes before she continued.
“Dragon manifestations can come to life with gemstones and any physical form of matter without life,” Smolder explained, Gallus noticing that she refused to make eye contact with him as she kept going. “But it can only happen when dragons live in the area, and the gemstones detect abundant wealth. It’s the manifestation of greed, and it's why Ponyville went so long without having any dragons live here.”
“Does…Twilight know this?” Gallus tilted his head.
“Yeah, we’re kind of dealing with the dragon now that it's reached full transformation…” Smolder winced.
“Full transformation?”
Wearing the neck brace, Gallus gulped as he followed Twilight Sparkle in Canterlot. Even as a Captain of the Royal Guard with expert training in both self-defense and offense, Gallus felt the on-again-off-again searing cold that he felt on that awful day. He needn’t worry about Silverstream, with a whole fleet of guards protecting her and their eggs in the hotel. But walking down the room to the very end, Gallus shivered as he saw the ice blue dragoness with bright blue eyes in a cage. He expected her to grin maliciously, or to fling herself at the bars and blow icy breath at him. But instead, she tilted her head and frowned.
“She’s alive, she’s an actual dragon now,” Gallus whispered. “Does she remember anything that happened?”
“Appears not,” Twilight sighed, and when Gallus turned to look at her, the purple alicorn looked several years older at that moment. “Suppose there’s something good that could come from this happening to you. This means that I don’t have to hide Smolder’s secret anymore.”
“What secret?”
“Well, there was a dragon that lived in a cave near Griffonstone, near the home of the richest griffon family in the land. They collected gemstones, and one Hearth’s Warming, the gemstones…reacted and created a new dragon…”
“Wait, you don’t mean-”
“She doesn’t remember, Gallus, she only knows because I had to contain her this exact same way,” Twilight shook her head, turning away. “I can’t stay here, I’m sorry.”
Gallus felt his heart turn cold as ice, his eyes wide and his beak dropped as he watched the ruler of Equestria fly away, leaving him with an icy dragoness locked in her cage.
