FEB 23 Friday.

I tense my body and nearly try to back up or move my eyes away from her, but the look in her eyes isn't hostile, just extremely focused.

I try to run through all the different things that could cause such a reaction but it doesn't make much sense. Dragon greed growth was something plainly shown in the show, but now that I'm thinking about it no Dragon has mentioned it while I've been here.

Not a single reference or even a hint of greed growth. I try to quickly search my mind for the slightest hint but I come up empty after a few moments, nothing at all. I look up at her after a long few moments of silence, not entirely sure how to go about answering the massive Dragon.

Her look alone tells me she's not going to take no for an answer, her eyes still highly narrowed and focused as I gather my thoughts. I'm also not one to just tell her the truth about this situation, and her extreme focus is making me a little nervous about revealing anything.

It never really occurred to me that greed growth could be something desired by Dragons, a trait they might value for the power it can bring. Is it rare? An ability not many have? I haven't seen anything like it while here and Larimar's excitement makes it seem likely.

So what to tell her? Maybe a half-truth then, she's too smart and focused not to notice a full lie. The silence stretches on for a while as I finally speak again, "I came across it from a storybook." Her eyes widen a bit and she moves her head back a few feet, not changing her expression. "It was very basic and not detailed in any way, but it was about a very young Dragon Growing into a massive Dragon from Greed," I explain after a moment, making sure to sound caught off guard.

I watch for a moment as she seems to think over my words. "I suppose there is more to that story than just entertainment than?" I ask, keeping my calm as best I can. I chuckle a little, "If so then you Dragons have a truly amazing amount of abilities." I say truthfully to try and sound just as relaxed as normal.

Her eyes are less focused, but she's still giving me her undivided attention and I can tell she doesn't fully believe my words. "An odd story for a Pony to read." She comments before lapsing into silence for a long time, nearly a full minute. I think she's trying to stress me so I just remain outwardly calm and try to center my mind.

"Yes." I raise a brow at her simple answer. "It is real, and it is amazing and terrifying, in equal measure." She answers very deliberately, not making it known if she can tell I'm not telling the entire truth. "There has only ever been two wars amongst us Dragons, that I remember at least." She lays down a topic that complexly throws me off balance again,

I make a few notes quickly and she keeps her eyes firmly on me as the tension rises while she speaks. "The Dragon Lord rules uncontested, no Dragon is able to resist the scepter's power, but greed is a powerful thing." At this point, I am both extremely fascinated and also a bit concerned.

She takes a long breath and blows out some flame and smoke before focusing on me once again. "Sometimes, very rarely, a Dragon is born different. They don't look different, in any way, but they are. Those Dragons gain power from greed, and greed is not so limited." She starts to get a little vague about her explanation and I know she's holding back.

We look at each other for a few moments and I sigh before letting out a long breath, not really interested in playing this game. "Look, we've been relaxed and calm. I honestly don't know much about this, barely anything, and I did learn about it from a foal story." I say in a far more blunt and level tone, dropping any pretense.

She raises a brow as if to challenge my words. "How about we just be blunt here, not honest just blunt, fuck the fancy words and avoiding the topic like it's made from molten metal." I stare down the massive Dragon and do just about the most stupid thing I can, I bluff. I cut off her being vague and tried to push the topic.

She stares at me silently for a long few moments, before finally smiling, showing off her massive teeth in the largest smile I've ever seen her have. She laughs, not chuckles, full-on booming laughter. "Good, I'd be disappointed if that was enough to make you back down. Keep your secrets, I haven't paid for them after all, but you did pay for me to answer you." Her tone is less serious and her eyes return mostly to normal as the building tension breaks.

"You are talented, even I can't tell if that was a lie." She says honestly. I don't give any indication one way or the other and after a few more moments she lays her head back down to relax again. Internally I'm very surprised that it worked, and surprised she's so open about things, but she's a Dragon after all. "Very well, let's be honest in our lies." She says before shifting her large body while I finally feel my body relax a little.

The mood has abruptly shifted and it's now clear Larimar was doing more than just questioning me. She was testing my limits, seeing how far I would go. "Greed growth is a very rare ability some are born with, and it is very rare. I only know of three in our history." She uses her normal tone and starts to explain properly.

I nod slowly and smile back, deciding to take her words literally and be honest with my lies. "Great, I'm getting tested by Dragons now," I mumble and she just keeps her now small smile. "So, I'm going to guess that the power of greed growth is just about the only thing that can stand up to the Dragon Lord? And when there is no clear leader, war." I summarized what I picked out from her earlier words.

She blinks and nods a small bit. "Yes, it's only happened twice, the other Greed Dragon, yes that's the name for them, they became the Dragon Lord through a fight with the reigning Dragon Lord." That actually makes a decent amount of sense. "That was before my time though." I flick my ear and let that sink in.

Even Larimar doesn't know how old she is, and if this happened before she was born then she'd be one of a very few who even remember it at all. I make notes rapidly, "So what is a Greed Dragon? The names make it obvious, but what is the actual ability like? And what about the other two?" I don't try to phrase my question as something else and just be forward with her.

She flicks her tongue as I drink some tea to help calm down more. "Like I said, they don't look different, it all comes down to greed. When a Greed Dragon is filled with greed they magically grow in both size and strength, often at the cost of control, but it's said that the downside can be overcome." She explains and seems mostly back to normal. "Tell me, how greedy do you think a Dragon can get?" She asks back.

I shrug a little. "I'd guess there was no limit. Loss of control can also feed into more greed, a loop." I guess and she nods. "So at least two wars, probably from those two you haven't mentioned. I guess it's cause for concern, a Dragon like that is a dangerous thing." I keep up the tempo of the conversation and piece her words together with guesses.

She lifts her head and scratches her neck for a moment, the sound of her scratching loudly echoing around me. "I know little about the first war, it may not have even been the first for all I know. It started when a Greed Dragon declared war on the Dragon Lord, and in some way protected those under them from the Bloodstone Scepter's control."

I pause again at that. It would definitely do it, a direct challenge to a Dragon Lord's power is a mess waiting to happen. "The second is the one who took over by fighting the ruling Dragon Lord, she won and ruled for a long time. She died when I was young, a volcano erupted where she was sleeping." She seems to think for a moment and bears her teeth a little.

I keep writing everything down and start to get a little concerned for a certain small green Dragon. The good news is that they can't tell the difference between Spike and a normal baby Dragon, but I really need to inform Celestia about this when I get home. On the upside it does mean Spike might be able to control his ability to his benefit, having such power is no small thing.

She blows out a puff of fire from her nose and I see her second eyelids move over her eyes for a moment. "The third is the most recent, and was around when I was young." Her tone takes a slightly dark turn to it. "Dark, Dragon Lord of greed." She uses a title and I flip a page to add to my already extensive notes.

"He waged a war against a particularly ruthless Dragon Lord, one not well-liked. So, Dark waged war on him, and won after a long battle. He led us into that battle, me included." She relives and her eyes move to a large scar around the base of her neck. "Dark dethroned the Dragon Lord in that battle and took the scepter through combat." She has a little sadness in her tone, just a bit and it quickly leaves.

I stop taking notes and just started copying down her words for later while making mental notes for later on certain things. "I honestly don't have the context to understand," I say truthfully. "I can agree to overthrowing bad leadership though, and war is never a pretty thing." I sympathize with her a little as war takes much from everyone involved.

She looks back at me and nods slowly. "Yes. After the war Dragon Lord Dark reigned for a long time, but the greed was too much in the end. Ssss, he went mad." She says with a loud hiss and narrowed eyes, staring off into the distance behind me. "That's all I really know though, a few others might know more, but it was a very long time ago and greed growth is far too rare to be understood well." She seems to cut her explanation short.

I think I've hit a nerve, something in her past that she would rather not talk about more. So I just take what I've gotten already and end the topic. "I guess so, not that it really matters. I'm not going anywhere near a Dragon with such an ability, I'm not that foolish." I lie and joke at the same time while moving on from the topic.

She doesn't react to the joke and just waits for me to keep talking, to ask something else in our seemingly endless conversations. "Let's talk about where you all live. What is a Dragon's home like?" I ask something completely unrelated as I settle in again, my mind thinking through several things.

She keeps her slight smile as she speaks. "This is what I like about Ponies, you just drop a topic when asked, I don't even need to hit you." She points out my changing the topic as some type of compliment. "It depends, many younger Dragons carve out homes inside caves. Rooms are more pleasant than a simple cavern."

I've seen a few unoccupied caves with some rooms carved out inside them, the cave I'm staying in seems to have been carved out as well from what I can tell. "So not too different then, something similar, how sharp are your claws? And is there a way to make them sharper? Do you sharpen them? Cutting through stone isn't an easy thing." I've seen many Dragons rubbing claws together as if sharpening them but I was never sure.

Larimar moves one of her own claws over and digs it into the stone ground with a smooth motion. "The more a claw is used the sharper it is, I believe it may be a form of magic actually. If it is then it's not done on purpose, but some train by scratching and carving hard things, like gems or hard stones." She explains while moving her hand again and smoothly slicing a boulder in two.

So it's like my TK field in a way, through practice they can train their claws to be sharper than before. She's probably right that it's passive magic of some form, but it can be trained, an interesting avenue of study. It's not too uncommon though, earth ponies are the same with their strength and pegasi with their speed.

"So, do you decorate your homes? Anything interesting that stands out?" I ask and flip to yet another page to make more notes.

time skip

I watch the sunset as I walk back to the cave I've been calling home.

I wonder what I should do with this place after I leave? If I ever come back to the Dragon Lands I don't really need this specific cave so I can just abandon it. It's not like the Dragons would care if they found it, especially the young ones, who are most likely to find my cave after I leave.

I shake my head a little and focus my thoughts on the things I've learned while speaking with Larimar. The Greed Dragon situation is concerning but not a massive problem at the moment. I'll need to pass all this off to Celestia and Twilight as well, probably Twilight's family too.

I'll think about that later though, for now, I don't have much to worry about. The only Dragons that might hear about Spike's birth are the young Dragons that come to trade, and they are likely to brush it off as a silly story because they have never heard of a Greed Dragon before.

All those events are so old they have mostly been forgotten, so it's only elder Dragons that might be a problem and they don't have a reason to go to Equestria. Something that's more worrying is that Larimar knows I'm not telling the truth, at least not all of it.

She's fine with letting it go but it's clear from the way she reacted to my bluff that she knows I'm lying. I think she doesn't want to press me though, apparently it's not worth it at the moment. Still, I'm going to be more careful with my words until I leave and probably not mention the topic again just to be safe, she doesn't seem to know too much anyway.

It's clear she has a history with it and she would rather not talk about it, I'm surprised she shared as much as she did. She admitted to being in a war and losing her ruler, I'm not sure if they were close as she's very good at hiding her emotions, but it's not a topic I should bring up again regardless.

As for Obsidian? He's not a massive concern, he's unlikely to ambush me because he would want to humiliate me instead and that takes an audience. Even if he does try that I will see it coming from a mile away, I'll remain vigilant anyway though as that's never hurt me before.

As for fighting him? If it comes to that I'll do it, weakness is a bad thing to show here, and if nothing else I want to not go down without a fight. Also, a small part of me will admit that I want to fight him as well, because why not? That small part of me still calls for battle, the same part I feel when sparring with Shining and Stone.

I keep it tempered and controlled though, I do not want to become some battle-blind maniac that seeks out every fight they can. I sigh a little and stop holding my body as straight as I walk into my little cave home, watching Entropy leave my shadow and stand on my back as I do so.

She looks at me and tilts her head a little before moving over and starting to preen my mane. "Ok? Why not?" She asks while straightening parts of my mane a little. I smile at her and pet her a little before taking off my saddlebags, placing them down, and getting comfortable on my makeshift bed made from wood and cloth.

I pick her up and lie down on my side before placing her next to me. "I'm fine Girl. I just wish I could keep myself out of trouble for one vacation." I laugh a little at the luck that has plagued my life, being both a blessing and a curse. "Do you remember that day with the bear? The time you saved me?" I ask curiously as she snuggles into my side.

She tilts her head and lets out a few small chirps. "Yes, big bear, scared." She chips out softly with a slightly somber tone and I pet her more while keeping my smile. "Save you, love." She quickly gains a more positive tone and picks herself up from those darker thoughts.

I nod with my smile still in place. "It was scary, but you saved me. Then you did it again, and again." I move over and kiss her on the side of the head. "Thank you, Girl, you've done so much for me." I give her the most genuine thank you as she's done more for me than she may ever know.

She moves her head over to my muzzle and mimics a kissing sound. "You saved me too." She uses more words than normal and doesn't break her speech up. I laugh and move over to hug her happily, she stretches out her wings to hug me back for a few moments. When I pull back she looks at me and tilts her head a little. "Dinner?" She asks while trying to be cute.

I laugh again at the innocent tone she uses and nod before standing up off my makeshift bed. "Sure. We still have that fish so let's do some grilling." I agree happy to have my little ball of fluff to keep my spirits up and my thoughts away from darker places.

I walk over and open a wooden box I made and open it. I bought a good amount of fish from the market a few times to supplement the things I grow to feed me and Entropy. I take out a whole salmon and start to work on it with my dagger, slowly breaking down the fish so it can be cooked, all while Entropy tries to beg scraps off of me.

Once it's broken down I take the leftover bits and put them in a pile to the side before growing two skewers and placing the fish over the fire to cook while I grow a few fruits to eat as well. As I'm growing the fruits I glance at the pile of leftover fish bits, and it gives me an idea.

I have them in a pile for now and I was planning on just throwing them into the fire to burn up like I normally do. I've never really tried to decompose flesh before though, and this seems like a decent opportunity to try. I reach out to the pile containing fish bones, flesh scraps, fish guts, and the fish's head.

I do the same as I always do and visualize them decomposing while using my life magic and letting it follow my will. I immediately notice that it's taking more magic than normal, but only around double. After a second the flesh starts to wither, the scales dry and flake, the bones becoming whiter and whiter, the fish head visibly degrading away.

The flesh quickly deteriorates into the soil along with the guts and the fish's eyes. After a few more seconds the scales flake off into dirt and the last thing remaining is the bones, which don't seem to rot after a moment. I add more and more life magic before eventually the bones crack and start to break down as well, slowly turning into soil like everything else.

A minute after I started and all that remains is a small pile of black dirt, not a bone or scale remaining. It's odd that I can decompose the bones to begin with, it took much more magic but they aren't really alive and are more like rocks that the body makes. So how? Well, maybe I've been looking at this wrong?

The rotting of material normally happens from microorganisms eating things and breaking them down. I might be unknowingly taking advantage of this and making the microorganisms rapidly breed and devour the living material. Or maybe the magic is directly manipulating the material to mimic that process without the actual organisms?

I guess there isn't really a way to know for sure without some way to see microorganisms, something to maybe look into later. I take a moment to leave my thoughts and flip the fish, watching and feeling Entropy teleport over to me as I sit next to the campfire on the wooden floor.

Feeling the space bend and stretch in such odd ways from her teleportation gets me thinking, my mind already pondering about theories from before. I've made massive progress in my space magic, both in my conversion ratio and my control over it, so maybe it's finally time to experiment with teleportation.

This is also a pretty good place to do it as there are very few important things around here. After thinking for a few movements I bring over my notebook and start to think while cooking the fish slowly. First I need a method to start off with, something to base my efforts on.

I'm not sure I can copy Entropy's style right now. It's hard to keep track of while watching it and I don't have any solid information. From my point of view, while watching her teleport, it looks like Entropy rips the space apart, literally ripping the fabric of reality at a certain point.

I believe the Void overlaps with our spatial plane, and she's basically ripping her way through to another spatial plane below this one to travel through it. That's my best theory at least, but do I want to copy that method? It has the advantage of being able to just copy Entropy, and potentially having her retrieve me from the Void if I get stuck there in some way.

On the downside it seems like a big first step to just start ripping apart reality, I might end up somewhere else entirely and be lost forever. So if I'm going to do this I should start by only using this spatial plane before moving on, but then how am I supposed to go about this?

In theory, there are a few different methods, but my best bet is probably to just try to shorten the distance between two points in space. I sort my thoughts and move over to the mostly empty side of the cavern, having only my bed near me, I bring over a small pebble from the cavern floor by the campfire.

I start by doing something simple, I form a tube shape with space magic, three feet long and five inches wide. Then I take it and simply compress the space along the length of the tube, pulling both flat sides to touch the other in the center. The space stretches where all the space is compressed, but it's odd.

I take the pebble and feed it to one end of the tube, but nothing happens, it moves normally through the space where the tube was before I compressed it. I let the Spatial Structure collapse with a small pop and think for a moment. That didn't work like I expected it to.

The Spatial Fabric is very stretchy, when I compressed the tube it filled that formally normal space by stretching the space around it so that there was no void, no clear break in the Spatial Fabric. It's like bunching up a stretchy fabric at one point, the fabric around it just stretches to fill the gap. After some thought, I formed another tube the same size as the last one.

Instead of moving the walls of the tube, I move the insides while keeping the Spatial Structure the same. I compress the space as much as I feel comfortable with, the area of the tube bending space a very small amount but otherwise looking mostly normal.

I take the pebble and move it through one end, and I feel as if I keep moving it through the space, but I only need to move it an inch or two before it appears on the other end, three feet away from its original location. Visually all I see is a slight brown streak as the space stays a little bent.

I toss the pebble through without holding it in my space magic and it comes flying out of the other end a half second later. I then drop it from above at the middle of the tube and it comes out the other side on the bottom a fraction of a second later.

I feel the Rebound building and move the space back to normal before letting go instead of just letting it snap back, this action removes most of the Rebound but consumes more magic. I make a few notes while looking at the small pebble with a smile on my face. :It seems I'm not as far away from this as I thought:

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :]
Current year is 996

Not too much in this one, mostly just more talking.

Any ideas on how Shade could learn to Teleport? Spatial compression is only one way but I'm no expert and wouldn't mind any idea if you have them.