Drakengard: Far From Home

“Sister, are you sure it is wise to leave these creatures under such light surveillance?” Luna asked. They were in a pristine white emergency overflow medical bay in the deepest part of the castle. The bay was much larger than the rooms provided in the medical wing on the upper floors, mainly to provide space in the case of an emergency evacuation of the city, though it has never happened. For now it was housing a severely wounded dragon and a rather bald Diamond Dog.

They were overseeing the nurse change the bandages on the dragon. The beast somehow sustained massive injuries to its head, leaving not but the skull intact. The biped on the other hoof was clothed in various pieces of metallic armor, which had been carefully removed, revealing it was a male, and stored in a side closet. Though he showed no signs of injury they agreed that applying a medicinal gel to the body would be wise.

“Luna, if these two were indeed after the destruction of our fair city, why would they have risked themselves to destroy the monster that sang the song of such destruction?” Celestia replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see about the recovery efforts in the city.”

Luna watched her sister walk away before returning her attention to the male biped, and then used her magic to tuck him back into his blankets as the nurse laid him back onto his cot after removing the bandages.

Shining Armor was overseeing the relief efforts of the Royal Guard in the center of the city. It was grim work; so many lives were lost in the initial attack, then in the collapse of the surrounding buildings. All too often several unicorns would lift away a section of rubble to reveal the mangled form of a shop keeper, or somepony unlucky enough to have been too close to a building as it collapsed. These bodies were becoming all too common, but the worst was what was being uncovered in that instant.

Some of the guards claimed they heard sounds from beneath a rather large section of stone and they required his assistance. Together they were able to shift the boulder enough to look at the underside. They found a young orange filly pegasus with a purple mane and tail, not quite old enough to have earned her cutie mark, curled up in a pool of blood between the smashed bodies of a mare and stallion while obviously in shock. Mother and father used their bodies to support the crushing weight of the stone in order to save their filly.

Another guard used his magic to remove the sobbing filly and the bodies of her parents. He set the bodies in the row next to the countless others and passed the filly to one of the medics on sight to be cleaned up and taken care of.

“Well I see that not everything is as dire as I suspected. Seeing one survivor gives us hope for others.” Princess Celestia announced as she arrived on the scene. The guards gave her a quick bow before returning to their tasks.

“I don’t know, Princess, she just had her entire life stolen from her. I almost wonder if death would have been a blessing than to live the rest of her life with what happened.” Shining said with a sigh, watching the filly from afar.

She was sobbing uncontrollably over the sudden loss of her parents and was fighting against the medics to get to their bodies. She managed to wiggle out of their grip and made it a few steps before getting hit with a sleep spell. Her body instantly collapsed and skidded to a halt where she was retrieved and taken into one of the medical tents.

“Shining Armor, while her life may seem bleak at the moment, never assume death to be the better option. She still has so much life ahead of her, friends she no doubt has to lean on and others willing to love and care for her. Yes, she will bear scars for years to come, but in the end one can only hope it will make her strong.” Celestia said. Shining nodded in agreement before resuming his duties with her by his side.

“Biological scans indicate that they pose no disease, illness, or any other threat to our health.” A light pink nurse stated as she read from a chart.

“Thank you, miss…?” Luna asked.

“Mrs. Autumn Heart.” She said.

“Thank you Nurse Heart. Do we have any information on the dragon?”

“Well, after further examination we found that the head IS the skull, and it is SUPPOSED to be like that. It is of no known dragon species on record, although we did manage to contact a dragon expert in the area. He’s supposed to arrive sometime tonight.” Nurse Heart said as she flipped through the reports.

“And the other one?” Luna asked, turning her gaze to the biped.

“At first glance it does look like a bald diamond dog, but after analyzing the bone structure in more detail there is no relation to the diamond dogs in any way. The diamond dogs have short legs and long arms ending in clawed paws to give them a better digging ability. This specimen has longer legs and slightly shorter arms lacking sharp claws.”

“Curious…” Luna trailed off in thought. “How long until they wake?”

“We currently have them suspended for the testing, so we can wake them at any time.” Nurse Heart said with a smile.

Luna smiled back, “Most excellent! Let us wake them at once!”

“Shouldn’t we inform Princess Celestia?” Nurse heart asked cautiously.

“She is currently overseeing the recovery efforts and would be unavailable for some time.” Luna said with a wave of her hoof. “Now let’s wake them up!”

“Well if you say so.” Nurse Heart said with a smile, Luna’s enthusiasm was contagious, causing her to become giddy with excitement as she prepared the spell to wake them.

With a soft pink flash of light, the dragon and the biped began to stir. Luna and Nurse Heart watched with bated breath as the creatures slowly began to wake up. The male biped was the first to regain consciousness. He looked around the room in confusion for a moment before his eyes landed on Luna and the nurse. His eyes went wide and he leaped off the bed in reflex and crouched down behind it in hiding.

He cautiously poked his head up to get a better look at his visitors, which he soon identified the nurse as a small horse, a bit too small to ride. The other was another horse; a bit smaller than average but it was a horse none the less. A horse with a horn. And wings. His eyes widened further as he took in these details.

He slowly stood, never taking his eyes off of the blue horse. He was surprised at the amount of expression displayed on its face. If he didn’t know better he would guess it was… embarrassed? Caim looked down at himself, seeing nary a scrap of cloth on him. With equal embarrassment he promptly grabbed the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around his torso.

Luna laughed, “I see you are lively today.” He seemed shocked that she was able to speak, even more so that they spoke the same language.

“Can you understand me?” Luna asked, which he replied with a nod of his head. “Well that saves us countless hours of language issues. Now, where are you from?”

Caim raised an eyebrow as he looked around for a way to answer the question. His eyes fell on the still recovering dragon. He looked back at Luna and pointed at the dragon.

“You… came from the dragon?” Luna asked in confusion. Caim face-palmed with a loud slap. “Wait, can you even speak?” Caim shook his head ‘No.’ He pointed to the dragon again.

“Well let’s start at the beginning. You remember coming to our world?” Caim nodded. “After your defeat of the monstrosity you and the dragon lost consciousness. My sister and I caught you before you could fall to your deaths and brought you here to recover. We have no record or either of your species and we were able to bring you back to consciousness in hopes of finding out more about you.” Luna said. “My name is Princess Luna, Ruler of the Night, and my sister is Princess Celestia, Ruler of the Day. Together we control the sun and the moon, bringing forth night and day to our land.”

Caim looked at her in doubt, he had seen gods and they were mockeries of the human race determined in their destruction of the world.

“What manner of creature wields such power as to control the very heavens themselves?” Luna and Nurse Heart nearly jumped out of their skin as a new voice echoed through the chamber. “You do not appear as a god, for we have met them and slain them all.”

Luna discovered that it was the dragon, somehow able to speak. “And for what reason would you seek the destruction of your gods?”

“Simply because they sought the destruction of our world. Do not tell me you failed to notice the monstrosity that attempted to lay waste to this world. That was their queen.” The dragon said. “For months we had fought against their armies of corruption and killed millions of foes with my searing flam and Caim’s vengeful sword.”

Luna turned to Caim, “So, your name is Caim?” He nodded, “And what may we call you? Surely being called ‘dragon’ is degrading to one such as yourself.”

The dragon raised her head to look directly at Luna, “No mortal has ever gained the honor of learning my true name in my fifty thousand years of life.”

“I’ll have you know that I am no mortal, My sister and I have lived for hundreds of thousands of years, through times of great strife, war and bloodshed, and I myself have recently returned from a thousand years of banishment to the very moon I control; my punishment for allowing myself to become corrupted by evil and enslaving my guards in an effort to overthrow my sister to bring about eternal night.” The dragon was stunned into silence, the first time since she was naïve and still in her birth nest. “Nurse Heart, you may take your leave and speak of nothing you have seen or heard here.”

Nurse Heart bowed quickly before trotting out the room, closing the door behind her. The dragon glanced at Caim, “Caim, we have fought and bled side by side for months as we battled through entire armies on our own. You showed me that not all humans are pitiful beings to be spited and eaten, and for that I shall bestow upon you an even greater honor than being a simple pact-beast: my true name. Do not take this knowledge lightly, for a dragon’s name is sacred.”

She bowed before Caim and Luna, “Angelus. My name is Angelus.”

“It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Angelus. My true name is Princess Lunamoon.” Luna said as she bowed back toward Angelus.

“I am honored to meet a benevolent god.” Angelus said as she stood from her bow. “Caim, we have bested gods and found ourselves in a new world. A world devoid of the war we have faced head on. I feel we no longer have need of our pact, but let us not be strangers, but allies in this new world should we need one another.”

Angelus grunted as she flashed with light, Caim felt his connection to Angelus disappear and had an odd taste on his tongue. He turned and looked into a mirror on the wall; he opened his mouth and saw the mark on his tongue fade away. With a sad smile he turned back to Luna.

“Hello Princess.”