Six months later

Sylf had been going to school once a day for 4 hours each day, learning the topics she would need to pass the royal guard test, it had of course many other topics like how to write and read, which she didn't know, the days for her were spent learning, reading books about the topics she would need, which of course she let me read as well, I helped her when she didn't understand something, I had long ago finished reading the blacksmithing book, but to get the blacksmith job I needed to actually forge a tool or weapon, so Id have to wait longer.

Also mom had gotten me some seeds for my own garden herbs, and some natural compost made from the clippings of veggies we ate every day, thanks to that I was able to make my own compost and now I had a good supply of cooking herbs that we used for making food taste better, the princess sends us money every month, enough to eat and some extra to spend in things we want.

Mom used her now fully painted and decorated saddlebags, she wore them to school to carry all her books, notebook and pencils, I had decided to go for a colorful flower pattern instead of a rainbow, which looked good on her, and the kit still has enough paint for a bunch more, I could probably give color to a whole set of armor with each single color.

During this time I did lots of reading, drawing and meditating on the knowledge I had obtained from this world, it was basic, I had only gotten the same books mom has been given to study topics related to her future job, but it was enough to know about how magic worked on a basic level, how pony society worked and a basic understanding of history, the laws and rights of the citizens, which the both of us were officially after one month, the princess had sent us our citizenship papers, birth certificates along with our second paycheck, it was a sort of basic income that would be paid to us until mom got in her job, since the princess herself was asking her to work as a guard and not something else.

I had gained during this time 4 points of intelligence, which were a moderate boost to my magic power, along with 2 wisdom and 2 charisma, Sylf had gained 4 points into strength, 2 on charisma, 2 on constitution and 2 on wisdom. From all of her training by going out running, and the dungeon, where she trained using her new wooden longsword, I didn't really do physical training and focused on my magical training, casting spells as further and fast as I could, practicing my aim and even trying to cast two spells at once, which didn't work at first, but after months and months of training I was able to do it, now I could easily cast twin spells, for now I could only do the same spell at the same time, but I was trying to do more.

Mom and I went to the abandoned dungeon to practice, we had cleared out all the cobwebs and looted and burned all the spider carcasses to ash by now, there was about 50gp and 2 shards of darkness gem, not much, but not bad either, now we had our own separate real to practice without fear of scratching, burning or breaking the floor, walls or roof of the house, we even had set up wooden targets painted to resemble enemies and made a sort of shooting gallery for me to practice my spells at different ranges, while I didn't gain any perks or EXP from fighting imaginary enemies, I did gain affinity with magic and learned the first metamagic, after shortening my casting time as much as possible, what I had a large advantage was when casting I used my maw as a focus point, and just like unicorn's horns and other creatures that were able to use magic naturally, I didn't need a verbal component for my spells.

Dragon breath was the natural way dragons used their magic, and it was innate and instinctual, they didn't need to learn it, or think of a spell matrix, unlike all other spells required, unicorns had this same ability with telekinesis, all this abilities were there from birth, but the foal or hatchling mind was usually unable to properly use it, it occurred randomly and when they grew to a certain age, magic creatures had their magical core grow, making them experience a brief period of wild and unfocused magical outbursts that lasted only until their magic was exhausted and their core naturally stabilized once again.

I was able to use magic from basically birth because my memories from my past life, stabilized my brain structure enough, sure I still had the mind of a hatchling, I slept randomly and felt very clingy to mother, and I cried sometimes when I had bad memories or dreams, but I still had an adult and logical way of thinking that was inherited from my past life, knowledge about the elements I wielded also increased the chances of success and the potency of the spells themselves, so I was not a bumbling hatchling accidentally using my breath every time I got scared or grumpy.

My first birthday, from what Celestia calculated when she made my birth certificate, had passed as well, we just shared a simple meal with mom at the house by ourselves, I didn't want any gifts at the time.

This six months of peace and serenity, of sharing a house with my mom and cuddling every night to sleep, of talking, teaching and learning were exactly what my mind and soul needed to heal, I now could think back to what happened to mom and I, not with overwhelming sadness and fear but with acceptance, it had passed, and I had learned from it, the spiders while still scary to me, I have now made that terror into a strong sense of resolve, to kill them and wipe them out, no fear but a sense of duty to destroy those monsters, all of the monsters that polluted the dream realm, and spiders in real life too, if they tried to take residency in my home, a weakened cast of ray of frost usually made even the nastiest house spider crumble to tiny shards of ice, along with it's spiderweb without damaging the house itself, this could be considered a type of metamagic, Minimize spell if you would, a very effective pest control.

Mother and I have done what I recommended with the poison inoculation, we took months, stabbing ourselves and wanting for the poison to go away, only once every 3 days, as we didn't want to waste our healing potions on this, we only had 2 left after all, and sleeping all night would recover about half of our HP and remove any negative side effects, the extra day was just to recover mentally from the poison, it was scary honestly, losing so much hp, it felt like you were dying, but to cope with this sensation we embraced each other and whispered words of comfort and love to each other, helping us endure, honestly this was mostly for me, as I had the weaker mind of both, my baby mind couldn't just take this constant punishment and I would feel overwhelmed and cry and even refuse to do it, and mom would comfort me and wait until the next time I regained my courage, yes the first time I was pretty cocky when I did it myself and I didn't really feel much scared, but it was because I drank the health potion and healed instantly, so I didn't have to endure for more than a few minutes.

When your HP is less than 100% you feel discomfort at first, then pain and some dread, then full on agony and terror when the closer to death you are, and you can get used to and even learn to resist the terror of death, but the pain, you can not get rid of, not without sedatives and other strong medicine that probably only hospitals had, and for this pain you would need to be put under to not feel, poison hurt the whole body, not at first but it quickly spreads until from the tip of the tail to even my ears hurt, not to mention the insides.

During this time I had not grown very much, just about 3 inches taller, but my legs were still short and I was tiny, I could at least jump higher, and run faster, but that's about it, the only thing that grew is my skill with spellcasting and my use of the dagger, mom was still a year and a half from finishing her studies.

In the end the idea of gaining immunity to poison was a success, now mom and I wouldn't be able to get poisoned as far as I knew, and if any poison that was somehow magically stronger, it wouldn't be strong enough to kill us, maybe... This worked for venom, that was simply poison injected directly into the bloodstream, so venomous animals were also rendered a non threat too, not that there were any in the city, the closest one would find were either at the University that studied this creatures, or the dense forests at the outskirts of Equestria, and the infamous Everfree forest that was barely visible down below on the distance from the edge of the city.

We decided to not try and gain immunity to other sources for now, since I was absolutely opposed to it, mom agreed it was good enough for now, and pointed out we still didn't have a reliable way to heal ourselves quickly if something went wrong, we were still nervous and scared of having a dungeon take us away at any time, but none seemed to be coming for now.

Today was an exciting day, we went for a walk around the city, I usually stayed home studying, sleeping or just practicing magic in the first dungeon, going outside meant usually you wanted money to spend, and we didn't want to use too much of what Celestia gave us so we kept it stored for emergencies, but today was time to take our money and exchange it, along with figuring out the price of the valuable gems we had, in bits, I opened the map while riding on Sylf's back, and looked around, I found the artisan's district and we headed there looking for a jeweler or someone who knew about gems, and maybe gold, since we had pure gold coins to exchange.

By checking the weight of 864gp, our money that was exactly 7862 grams, I calculated a single one would weight 9.1 grams, and how much was each gram of gold worth in bits? I had to find that out, and then give the coins, in exchange I would obtain the bits, and then I would ask for the valuation of the gems once I had the bits, quite simple in theory.

With this all communicated telepathically to dear mother, we headed towards the street where the most stores that worked with gold and gems were located, among the way many ponies stared at us, some had seeing my mom around and they either waved or nodded to her, and I waved at them since my mom could really do that, some smiled when they saw me riding a top of her waving at them, others just stared confused, and a few just made a face of irritation, lifted their noses in disdain and walked away.

Probably one of those rich nobles that think themselves better than the average pony or creature, but despite the fact some were like that, most ponies even here in Canterlot seemed decent and kind, or they just adored foals or in this case hatchlings? mom seems to have made a few acquaintances during her occasional runs around the city, now that she could talk, I wouldn't be surprised or even offended if she made friends or even something more, but that didn't happen yet, and from how little stallions there were, it was harder for even an attractive mare to find one.

It was no wonder that mares seemed to work in the "manliest" types of jobs around like construction workers or trash collectors, pulling chariots and other such things, while stallions were often the ones working in offices, as store attendants or on management positions around the city.

It didn't take long for us to find the right street, it was full of ponies walking around in fancy clothes, jewels and some wore monocles and top hats even, and walked in and out of stores and looking around the front displays, it was a lovely sight for me, and ponies in top hats were very cute, I still kept my human thought process, of ponies being super cute, it was different, as a child myself but the cuteness factor didn't go away, and in real life they were even more adorable.

We found a nice store that offered their services in gold exchange, and that bought and sold gemstones as well, and headed inside, as we pushed the door open, a little bell sounded above us, and i held the door open as we entered so mom could fully enter without having to scrape her body against it, and it closed by itself behind us.

"Welcome to Gold and Wealth Exchange, dear c-" The young green unicorn mare with orange eyes behind the counter began on autopilot before she looked at us, and froze for a few seconds, blinking with wide eyes, seemingly not expecting a huge wolf with a dragon on top to enter, her face went a bit pale, but she swallowed audibly, and tried to regain her composure, mom decided to talk to diffuse the situation.

"Oh gosh, sorry to scare you miss, I didn't meant to scare you, Im Sylf and my son here is Onyx, we have come to do an exchange." This seemed to calm down the mare, who shook herself a bit and regained her smile, if a bit of a forced one, she was clearly still a bit nervous, but was calming down.

"Oh yes, you're welcome in our shop then, I apologize, I have never seen somepony... someone quite like you, and while I know what dragons are, I have never seen such a small one, my name is Gold Leaf." She said with a small smile, now a genuine one, feeling calm now.

"Please take a seat and tell me what you are looking for miss Sylf. I will see if we can make a deal." Gold said gesturing towards a pony chair, which thankfully was big enough for mom's ample rear, while I stayed on top of her, hugging her neck and basically perched on her head, this made Gold Leaf giggle a bit despite her previous nerves.

"He's a really adorable little hatchling, isn't he? well, what I want to know first, is the price of the gram of gold." Mom said with a smile, then gained a bit of a serious expression.

"Oh, that's easy, its 21 bits per gram if you want to sell, and 24 bits per gram if you want to buy, the price is decided by the market, it cannot be haggled." Oh that sounds... extremely good actually, seems like gold is very valuable here, just like back on earth, probably even more valuable than back on Earth, I immediately tell mom its a good deal, and she nods, towards the mare, but i know she's acknowledging me.

"I want to sell about... 7.8 kilos worth of gold, its in the forms of old coins, but they are pure gold, do you have a way to test for purity right?" Gold Leaf nodded, not even raising a brow, seems like this isn't an uncommon sum to exchange here, and it makes sense, the city is extremely rich and wealthy, and ponies who live here are probably stupidly rich.

"That can be done, but to transport all those bits you will need more than a saddlebag, do you want to arrange transportation to your domicile? this can be done for an additional fee of 1000 bits, and you get to keep the wooden chest for storing them." I mentally affirmed, having it transported in a chest, and a legitimate way was a much better look and I wanted to keep the existence of my abilities and mom's hidden from the world for now.

"Yes that is reasonable, I also have some gemstones I want valuated, but I don't want to sell them for now, but it would be nice to know their value for the future".

"Come, follow me, we will go and count the gold, and take a look at those gemstones in the other room, where our expert will give you an estimate." Mom nodded and Gold Leaf opened the counter door for us and then we followed her to an adjacent room, as we followed I took a look at her cutie mark, and it was a few leaves seemingly made of gold, it was quite pretty.
A brown coated and black maned old earth pony stallion was napping, his cutiemark had a beautiful and perfectly cut ruby, Gold moved and shook him awake.

"huhh? wha- oh, I'm awake, i'm awake! Good day everypony! I mean... every creature, my name is Sharp Stone, are you here to sell or evaluate some gemstones? if you want to have their quality checked, it will cost ya, depends on how many there are." announced the old stallion, he was quick to get to business, it seems, despite just having woke up he was in full business tone.

"My name is Sylf, pleased to meet you mister! dear son, please hand me the bag of gemstones please." I did as she commanded, opening the saddlebag pocket where we kept the gems, and handing the bag to the stallion, who smiled at me and took it with his hoof.

"The pleasure is mine miss Sylf, you and your son are quite adorable together, congratulations, what is his name?" He asked with curiosity, I couldn't help but smile, being called adorable clearly pleased my baby brain.

"His name is Onyx, he is a baby dragon, and a very well behaved little one." I nodded at her words, playing along, we both knew i was far from well behaved, but not everyone had to know.

"Hah! i can tell he's quite a hooffull, but well behaved, like every other foal, my daughter here is a good example, foals will be foals, I'm surprised he hasn't eaten your gems as soon as he knew where they were, ive read that dragons eat gems and that's why they love collecting hoards, they actually just use it to feed themselves and trade for gems and other things they like, dragons are very interesting, but there is not much ponies know."
I definitively did not remember that, so... I could just eat the gems, instead of selling them? should I? well, for now I would just rather have their price checked, so i mentally told mom to thank him for the information and then let him do his job.

"Oh thank you, he can get a bit playful sometimes but thankfully he is really well behaved, i will have in mind what you said about gems, maybe he needs to eat them more often... Well, i need to get some gold exchanged, i hope the gems are worth something." This seemed to be the queue the old pony needed to get to work, so he nodded and then headed to a desk with a few instruments, sat down, emptied the bag and got to examine them, making thoughtful noises to himself.

"Miss Sylf? here, bring the gold and we will have it weighted and examined, but first of all, before I do this, I will need to make a few questions, this is just a formality we have to do, in order to not get in trouble ourselves with the crown, please state where you obtained this money from, and show me your identifying paper." I expected this, but we had sort of a failproof story and we already had been granted citizenship and ID by the princess, so we were covered.

"Of course, baby, please pass me the papers, and as for where we got this gold? We are originally from the far north, there, an expedition sent by Princess Celestia found us on the wilderness, me and my son, of course, adopted son, were offered a place to stay here by the members of the expedition, as at the time we were living in the wilderness, and struggling to survive every day, well, my son here, is of course adopted as you see, and where I found him, it was a cave on a mountain, it was clear his biological mother or father, or both, had either abandoned or died, as he was there, helpless and recently hatched from his egg, I helped him survive and and kept him company, I became his adoptive mother, and... I think his dragon parents actually must have died, because the hoard was left in his cave, before we left with the expedition, we took as much gold as our saddlebags could carry and we left, this is part of that gold and gems, but the rest is in our new house and back in that cave, so if we can find a way in the future, we will go back and collect what is rightfully his, by right." As the story went on, Gold Leaf was in the verge of tears, imagining what mom and specially I, went through, she actually had a few tears running down her cute muzzle by the end, the conviction in my mom's voice got to her, success! I made a sad face as well during the story, to really tug at the heartstrings, It was partially true after all, except for like... all the important stuff.

"I-im so sorry you two, for what you went through, specially you little Onyx, you are a precious little foal and you are safe now, and you will never lack anything here, rest assured lady Sylf, my family will always do business with you, ill write the source of the money as inheritance, all done, now the gold?" mom nodded and gestured to me, i jumped down from her back and she lowered herself to the ground, i untied the saddlebags and pulled them off her, then grabbed the offered basked and emptied the golden pieces there, they had 2 curved sides and were rectangular shape, and had symbols of dragons on both sides, this was really convenient for me, it would be harder to explain if dragon money had faces of humans or something. i shook the saddlebag until no more coins were inside, and mom nodded towards Gold Leaf, she grabbed the basket and lifted it with her magic, and placed it over a scale.

"Seven thousand eight hundred and sixty two grams... that will last you a while, even here in Canterlot! now we check the gold, give me a minute, casting this spell is slow, but better than doing this the old fashioned way, and its my special talent." mom nodded but looked confused, and so did I, then Gold's horn lit up in a bright yellow light, and a beam of blue light slowly moved back and forth across the inside of the basket, it looked like a sci-fi scanner, but the beam only moved up and down, and only within the circle of the inside of the basked, Gold's face was scrunched in concentration and her horn was lighting up the room intensely, seems this spell was not easy to cast, even if it was her special talent, after about a full two minutes, she stopped the beam, and panting a bit, but she caught her breath quickly, and nodded with a smile, seemingly satisfied with the results.

"Everything is in order, congratulations you two! your payment of will be sent to the addres provided in your ID, and only delivered to you, so if for some reason we get the wrong house, your money will be safe." I smiled and hugged my mom tightly.

"Thanks a lot miss Gold Leaf, I will make sure to always come to your family business in the future, now im going to see mister Sharp for the gems, and we will be on our way." After that Gold nodded and left to other room, while we walked and sat next to Sharp, who was examining the last of the gems, after a minute, he gave a nod as he seemed to have finished, and turned to us.

"This is very interesting young lass, here, you have some well known gems, and others that are very rare, so the value varies for some of this, the gems that are more common here are Amethyst, Jade and Amber, I can give you 10 thousand bits for each, as for the pearl, its quite rare in Equestria, because we don't have many ponies who would risk their lives to collect them, and this one is particularly good quality, large, and beautiful color, I'd give you 25 thousand, As for this, I have no idea what it actually is, seems like some little plant inside a gem, and the texture is odd, not quite gem like, you know what? because its unique and very pretty, I'd pay 15 thousand, no idea if ponies will buy it, but if anything it will make a pretty thing to collect, and for the last one, This... is amber right? quite an exquisite find, a stone of this caliber would make for a fine centerpiece on a crown, it is said that this gemstone can be used to empower enchantments in armor and swords, but i'm not a mage, I'm just a gem fanatic, Amber is very rare, it only can be obtained in very very old forests, and all of them are outside of Equestria, except for the Everfree forest, but no one that goes there comes back, so id pay 100 thousand for this, without a doubt, and I'm probably lowballing you, if I were you, I would keep this gem to yourself, as the centerpiece of your collection, specially for you little one, one day you may want to start a hoard of your own, and this could be a lovely addition to it." He smiled at me, I blinked in confusion, not expecting that, and smiled back, looking at the admittedly beautiful amber, now... the more he spoke about gems, the more i got interested in them, his excitement was contagious!

"This is awesome mister Stone, I'm going to go home with my son and celebrate! ill also be selling only the unknown gem to you, the rest I'm gonna take back, how much do I owe you?" Sharp Stone shook his head with a small laugh.

"Nothing miss, you selling the stone to me is good enough reward, plus getting to see such stones was a reward on its own, I'm sure the stone you are selling me is worth something, if it was part of a hoard of dragons, i couldn't help but overhear, I'm sorry both of you went through such a mess, but as my daughter said you are safe now, if you ever need something, or just want to talk, come to us and let me daughter know you're looking for me, same goes for you too, Onyx, don't forget old Stone hahah!" He handed us the stones minus the coral, and we said our goodbyes, mom went in and nuzzled him, she seemed to have taken a liking to this old pony, and so did I, hugged his foreleg and nuzzled his chest, he smiled warmly and wrapped a hoof around mom and i. "You are both really sweet, I can feel you went through a lot together, this is making me get emotional too..." he said in a soft voice to us, seemed like ponies were very empathic, I could tell he was holding his emotions back a bit, after a few more seconds, we pulled back, i felt a lot better, this ponies were truly good people.

"Thank... mister Stone" i said softly, surprising him a bit and making him smile again, and we waved goodbye.

"Come again anytime you two, your payment will be added to your delivery tomorrow!" he exclaimed as we were about to leave, i waved at him and we left, on the way we waved again to Gold Leaf, heading home with thoughts and emotions swirling in our minds, what a cute family, those two have, truly i felt like i was about to cry, when they got emotional for us, I wish we could have told them the truth, but the lies were, sort of, true too, I had lost my parents when I died, while I wasn't close to them, i did care and lived with them most of my life, and we had survived in the wilderness alone for a time.

On the way home, i hugged and nuzzled mom, happy to have made friends this day, and now we wouldn't have money problems or depend on Celestia.

Author's Note

There ocassionally be some time skips, but dont worry, it wont be something crazy like ten or twenty years.