Chapter 2: Novell
Water dripping into a nearby puddle drew Novell Light to consciousness. Eyes fluttering open, the pegasus stared out into a thick, inky darkness. His pulse spiked immediately. Hot, dizzying air filled his lungs in quick breaths. Sulfur suffused his sense of smell, and his eyes began to water.
I’m blind!
Sounds like wind filtering through a bellows thundered through the area. It echoed strangely, almost as if he were in a cave.
A cave?
The last things he recalled were a battle under a sky filled with griffons and hippogryphs, a blaze of magical light and a grip around his hoof.
“But as long as I have someone from this plane... I can’t be banished! Not with this pathetic amount of magic your “friends” control. And I’ve. Got. You!”
Novell yelled, jumped to his hooves and scrambled backward at the haunting memory. The cool touch of stone against his flank was like lightning. He cringed away, completely disoriented.
Where am I?
“Whisper!” he croaked. His thoughts were a jumble of flashing images and half-recalled words.
Again, the rumbling of the billowing air came. With it this time was the stench of seared meat. The smell sent a flash of nausea through Novell’s stomach.
“Nnn,” somepony grumbled from nearby.
Novell latched onto the noise. It was familiar, somepony he knew, a rock in the tempest of broken memory. “Hello?”
“N-novell?” a new voice came from behind him, also familiar.
Pensive. The name floated to the top of his memory with a discordant tone. Something was missing, but he couldn’t figure out what.
Once more, the thundering rumble shook the cave.
“Pensive?” Novell asked meekly.
Before an answer could arrive, the rumble came again, too quickly. It was almost like a gasp, as if the cave they were in had finally realized something lay inside it.
“THIEF!” The roared word sent tremors through the walls and floor. Something snapped and crashed to the ground. Water sloshed like the ocean against a cliff. Dirt rained like miniature meteors from the ceiling.
“Wha—!” one of the previous voices yelled. “What’s going on!”
“BANDIT!” the bellowing roar thundered again.
A light appeared, yellow and green against the walls of the cave. It bounced and bobbled like a will-o’-the-wisp. With every second, it grew brighter, closer.
With that light, Novell finally snapped out of his stupor. His thoughts crystallized and time seemed to slow down.
Pensive Coalaesence lay nearby beside a puddle, awake and alert, eyes turned toward Novell. The unicorn’s teal coat was matted with moisture, but it didn’t seem to be from an injury.
Focusing to the right, Novell spied Scrolls Parchment. The young earth pony was standing, attention clearly on the brightening light. The yellow and orange scarf Scrolls wore was as frayed and dirty as his tan coat. Again, no injuries.
Now Novell stared at the light, his mind working to understand what was causing it. Yellow meant it could be fire, but the green threw him off.
Magic from a unicorn’s light spell? Professor? The thought came and went as Novell dismissed it. The Professor has grey magic, not green.
Time rushed forward, and with it came a blistering heat.
“RETURN WHAT YOU STOLE, WHELP!”
The source of the light appeared around a corner, carried by a small figure.
Details flooded Novell’s mind, along with a hefty amount of confusion. The figure was a baby dragon, scales of gold glistening in the light of the gems it carried. It carried its burden impossibly on its back, not a gem falling from the stack.
It passed Scrolls without even a glance, little feet clawing at the dirt. When it looked at Novell, however, it’s eyes widened and it stumbled.
“I’LL HAVE YOU, INSECT!” the roar of what Novell now realized to be a much, much larger dragon echoed through the cave.
The words seemed to have a profound affect on the baby dragon, because it caught itself and, with one last look at Novell, took off in the opposite direction the terrible voice was coming from. The stack of green and yellow gems bounced on its back as it picked its way around stalagmites and jumped over deceptively shallow puddles of water.
A crackle of flame appeared from where the baby dragon had come from, the smell of sulfur growing stronger.
“Ponyfeathers!” Scrolls yelled and glanced around, his eyes immediately stopping on Novell. “We should probably leave.”
“This one agrees!” Pensive replied and stood.
“No arguments here. Run!” Novell opened his wings and motioned the other two forward.
The three took off down the cave just as another spout of flame incinerated the spot where they’d stood. As it was, Novell felt a burn start on his back.
Please don’t let my tail be on fire!
“ACCOMPLICES! YOU THREE SHALL BURN, LITTLE PONIES!”
“No, we’re not with her!” Scrolls yelled back toward the voice. “We just got here!”
“LIES! STAND AND BE PURGED!”
Novell dodged a stalactite and dove closer to Scrolls. “I don’t think logic is going to work on an enraged dragon!”
Scrolls didn’t look up from the treacherous ground of the cave. “It was worth a try!”
“It would seem to this one that your words simply made it angrier!” Pensive chimed in as he ghosted through a wall of stalagmites with a flash from his horn.
“Would you two shut up! I’m trying not to break a leg!” Scrolls yelled back.
Novell looked back and watched as a massive girth of flashing teeth and red scales barreled through the passage. “Must go faster!”
“Really? You think I can just run faster than I already am with a blasted dragon right behind me?” The young stallion leaped over a puddle of water. “Please, pegasus, show me your ways!”
“Fine!” Novell snapped back. He dove down and grabbed Scrolls around the middle. “Pensive, spell please!”
“Which one?” Pensive asked over the sound of scales and claws ripping through rock behind them.
Novell was thrown off by that. Normally Pensive knew exactly what he was thinking, since they shared a psychic link. “The one where you make things lighter! Cast it on you and Scrolls!”
A flash of teal light was the only answer, and suddenly Scrolls was as light as a feather. “Hang on!”
“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this!” Scrolls screamed.
Novell ignored the young stallion and dodged left to avoid a massive stalagmite. His passenger whinnied in fear as Novell executed a roll to the right to slip between two stalactites. Once again, he dove and grabbed Pensive in his other foreleg.
Ahead, the bouncing light of the baby dragon’s stolen plunder met a gradually lit up cave. Two thoughts vied for attention in his brain. The exit has to be close! How is that baby dragon moving so fast?
“BURN!”
The sound of rushing bellows came from behind, and suddenly heat exploded across Novell’s back. He winced against the pain and flapped faster. A stalagmite clipped his wing and nearly sent him tumbling out of control, but he corrected it with a quick left flap.
“Flying with two ponies underneath me is a lot harder than it needs to be!” Novell yelled.
“Don’t you dare drop me!” Scrolls screeched.
Pensive’s horn lit up and they bounced to the left and avoided hitting the wall. “This one would very much not like to hit the wall, Novell!”
“We’re almost there!” Novell said. “Shield us behind, Pensive!”
They zoomed around a corner and a blast of brilliant light blinded them. Novell closed his eyes and tried to remember the maze of obstacles he’d glimpsed before the light hit him.
“NO! COME BACK!”
Left. His brow furrowed as the air heated up around him. He trusted in Pensive’s shield.
Right, left.
“Oh Celestia, oh Celestia!”
Twist!
“OW!”
Oops. Left again!
He felt the roof of the cave graze his mane.
Down, down, move down!
Rock scratched a furrow of pain down his back, between his wings.
Ponyfeathers, I forgot about that one!
Novell opened his eyes again just as they shot out of the cave like an unstoppered cork. Fire pressed angrily against the shield held to their rear. Icy wind cut through them from the front. To Novell, it felt like he was trapped in between worlds again.
“Tree! Novell! Watch out!”
Without thinking, Novell pulled up. It was awkward with the two ponies beneath him and he heard the sound of snapping branches as he dragged his friends through the outer edge of the pine tree.
All at once, they were free, in the sky.
“CURSE YOU!” the dragon who’d been chasing them roared.
Below, Novell watched the beast writhe in rage. It’s crimson scales were a stain on the sheet of white snow. Yellow spines like spokes of fire ran down its back and ripped through the trees around it with each raging thrash.
The dragon stamped, and fire billowed out from its mouth. Icicles fell from the entrance of the cave and shattered like glass upon the dragon’s scales. Snow around the display turned to water and the ground blackened under the heat.
But what drew Novell’s attention the most was the dragon’s wings. The thin membrane was tattered and shredded, ragged and raw as if the wound had occurred recently.
Novell’s heart twinged at the sight.
Nothing deserves to lose the ability to fly…
Safe for the moment, Novell glanced around to figure out where he was.
Gone were the green mountains and valleys of the Griffon Kingdoms. In its place were wintry peaks and white-washed forests. To his right was a series of canyons twisting and twining their way through the ground. A river flowed through one of them in lazy curves.
“Novell,” Pensive said from below. “My spell seems to be… failing.”
Suddenly, he noticed that the two ponies he was holding were beginning to become heavier by the moment. Breathing hard, Novell nodded and rushed down toward the ground. Each beat of his wings was a strain against Scrolls and Pensive’s respective weights.
“Hold on!” he managed to grit out as they reached the white curtain of snow-laden treetops.
The spell finally failed before they managed to reach the ground. Scrolls and Pensive slipped out of Novell’s hooves.
“Waaha!” Scrolls yelled as he slammed back-first into a pile of snow.
Pensive, meanwhile, used his magic to turn intangible just before he would have slammed into a nearby conifer. Once beyond the tree, he regained full opacity and rolled to a stop in the snow.
“Are you two all right?” Novell asked worriedly, coming to a swift stop with a flap of his wings. He touched down, heading for Scrolls first, who had since disappeared into the snow.
“Just dandy! Fantastic! Slightly roasted!” Scrolls yelled, and popped his head out of the snowbank. “And now I’m freezing! Where are we?”
Pensive strolled up next to Novell and lent a hoof to help Scrolls out. “We seem to be in the lands of the dragons.”
Novell glanced askance at him. “How do you know that?”
“I remember the topography from… Havoc.” Pensive winced, raising a hoof to his horn. “The memories that came with that… gem I fused with in the abandoned griffon aerie are… hard to digest. They come in waves.”
Scrolls raised an eyebrow at that, and traded a glance with Novell. “Well, that’s certainly interesting. The Dragon Lands aren’t far from the Aeries, if I remember correctly. We should find our way forthwith—”
“SMELL YOU!” a monstrous voiced roared out.
In the distance, Novell heard the snapping of trunks and the thundering footfalls of the dragon they’d just escaped. The sulfur smell returned, and he could feel the telltale swells of heat on the wind with his wings.
“Posthaste, actually,” Scrolls yelped, glancing at where the voice had come from. “More running!”
Trees whipped past them as they went. Novell flapped above the two, constantly glancing back. Maybe I can distract him…
He waited for Pensive’s dry rebuke at such a thought, but once again only silence returned him. A sickening feeling came over the pegasus as he looked down at his former mind-mate. No time to think about it now, he thought with a chill down his spine.
“I’m going to try to distract him. You two keep going!” Novell yelled at the duo.
Scrolls replied between gasps, “Too dangerous! Stay together! Clearing ahead!”
Novell looked ahead. Something about the way the trees stopped felt off to him. He squinted his eyes, and sped up. A few moments later, Novell realized what he was looking at.
“That’s not a clearing! That’s a cliff! Pensive, can you do another spell?”
Pensive shook his head, mane steaming behind him. “No. Not enough energy.”
“Didn’t that orb… give you... like... super powers or... something?” Scrolls asked and slowed down to a trot, looking nervously behind them.
Yawning before them was the cliff. A river coursed far below, too far to jump into safely.
“Only when I fuse with somepony else,” Pensive replied with a frown. The unicorn glanced up at Novell.
A part of Novell reeled at the thought of becoming one with Pensive again. Black hooves, a horn, so much power. Flames, destruction, death…
“Well great!” Scrolls exclaimed. “What do we do now? I can see the giant lizard’s teeth from here!”
Novell touched down again, his hooves indenting the snow. He looked around, looking for anything, any place to hide. He saw nothing but trees on a flat plane. There were no rocks, no caves, nothing.
Wait… his eyes caught a flash of bronze between the trees.
“Follow me!” Novell rushed to the right, toward the flash of color he’d seen.
“More running! Right! Perfect plan!” Scrolls complained loudly.
Novell ran, the two other ponies close on his hooves. Jumping over a root, he caught sight of a familiar form.
The baby dragon from earlier was hunched over, running for all it was worth, still carrying the massive amount of gems on its back. Only, now the gems weren’t colored, but completely transparent. Aside from the dragon’s bronze scales, there was nothing but white.
“Hey!” Novell called out.
The dragon looked back, and its eyes widened. “Go away!”
Novell jumped twice and spread his wings. He cruised ahead, and pulled alongside the baby dragon. “You’ve got a plan to escape! Take us with you!”
“You’re just going to take my gems!” The dragon’s growl was surprisingly feminine.
Now that he looked at her, he noticed she was slimmer than the baby dragons he’d seen in books. Her spines were longer, and seemed to run down from the sides of her head instead of up. A gleaming yellow spot was also atop her crown, almost like a sunstone in a circlet.
“They aren’t even your gems!” Novell exclaimed. “Just take us to your hiding spot and we’ll leave once the other dragon does. I promise we won’t take your gems.”
The dragon laughed, and shook her head. “And I can just trust you? I don’t even know you!”
“You can trust us! My name’s Novell, I’m from Hoofington, and I’m trying to stop an evil draconequus from taking over the world! Totally a good guy!”
The dragon stopped suddenly, her jaw dropping.
Novell shot past her, unprepared for the stop. He tilted his wings and banked around, nearly smacking himself into a tree in the process.
Almost like Whisper, he thought suddenly, and remembered the last time he’d seen her, nearly dead. I hope she’s okay.
To his mild surprise, the baby dragon was still where she’d stopped, waiting for him. He came to a stop in front of her just as Pensive and Scrolls ran up.
“You!” Scrolls yelped, pointing at the baby dragon before hanging his head and gasping.
“You’re fighting Havoc?” the baby dragon asked.
Novell blinked. “Wait, you know who Havoc is?”
“O-of course I do,” she said, and glanced to the side. “He’s been talking to dragons all over this last week. Trying to find something.”
Pensive broke in, “We don’t exactly have time to stand here and talk, Novell.”
“Right,” he replied with a ruffle of his wings. He looked back to the baby dragon. “You’ve got an escape plan, right? Let’s go, before the big guy finds us.”
The baby dragon looked up at him, then back at her gems. One of her fangs chewed on the scale of her lip. Finally, after an agonizing few seconds, she nodded reluctantly. “Fine. It’s this way. Not far.”
“WHERE DID YOU GO, LITTLE GNATS?!” the larger dragon roared again, closer now.
They followed the small dragon, and in a few short moments, came upon a crack in the ground near the edge of the cliff. Novell glanced down it curiously as the baby dragon lowered herself into the gap. To his surprise, as soon as the gems on her back fell into the shadow of the ice, they returned to their gleaming color.
“Down here. He won’t find us, and even if he does, he can’t reach us,” she explained, carefully balancing her load. “And don’t touch my gems.”
“Holes in the ground. Sometimes it feels like that’s the only place you ever take us, Novell,” Scrolls grumbled.
“It would seem that we often find ourselves in need of escape from larger and more powerful foes,” Pensive replied as he followed the baby dragon inside. “‘Holes in the ground’, as you put it, are quite reliable escape routes, in my experience.”
Scrolls gave Novell a world-weary glance. “Why does he have to make so much sense?”
“Just hurry, the dragon’s almost here,” Novell said, and squeezed through the hole. A series of ledges were the only “path” downward. Each stair was dusted with flakes of recently fallen snow.
Underneath the ground again, Novell felt the uncomfortable press of ice all around him. It grumbled and groaned from the vibrations of the dragon chasing them. Bits of snow followed them into the hole. He looked up, catching the telltale hints of dark clouds with his last glance at the surface.
“Just once I’d like to visit somewhere spacious and up high,” Scrolls mumbled to himself as he followed Novell down the slippery path. “Somewhere like Cloudsdale! I wouldn’t even mind the height!”
“Something tells me your sister would,” Novell replied, memories of carrying Quills etched firmly in his mind.
Scrolls was silent for a moment. The only sound he made was the clip clop of his hooves on the ice. “Yes… I imagine she would.”
Novell looked back at the young stallion. For all Scrolls’ bluster and fancy language, he was still the same age as Quills. He hides behind his intelligence the same way she does, he thought to himself with sudden realization.
“She’s fine. Better than us, probably. Her, Whisper and the Professor. They’re probably still in the Aeries, trying to find us,” Novell pointed out.
“Maybe,” Scrolls replied noncommittally. “More likely, they’re in just as much as trouble as us. This whole quest hasn’t exactly been the easiest.”
“We’ll take care of each other, like we’ve always done,” Novell smiled at the earth pony.
A ghost of a grin came to Scrolls’ face. “Yeah. We will. Though I haven’t been much help…”
“You’ve helped a lot. We couldn’t have come this far without you. You’re the one who bailed us out of jail, remember?” Novell said.
“I just wish I had the opportunity to help more,” Scrolls said with a hop down.
Novell stopped, and rested a wing on the earth pony’s shoulder. When Scrolls looked up, Novell smiled. “You will, Scrolls. You’re the smartest out of all of us here. I need you. Pensive needs you. And when we get back to the others, we’ll all need you.”
Scrolls glanced way, a small blush creeping up his neck. He dusted Novell’s wings off his shoulders and sniffed. “Okay, okay. Mushy time done. Let’s focus.”
Novell grinned, and punched Scrolls in the shoulder like Whisper would have. “That’s it, champ.”
“I’ll make sure I’m helpful to you. I promise. I’ll show you the real Scrolls,” the earth pony said seriously, passing him up. Scrolls hesitated a moment. “And thanks. For the pep talk.”
“It’s what I do,” Novell said simply.
Soon enough, they caught up with Pensive and the baby dragon at the bottom of the cave. Above them, silence punctuated by roars in the distance were all that came.
“Well, he hasn’t found the entrance, I suppose,” Scrolls said matter-of-factly. “First thing that’s gone right all day.” He turned toward the baby dragon. “Thank you, Miss…”
“Khromie,” the baby dragon replied. She looked away again. “My name is Khromie.”
“Thanks for saving our hides up there.” Novell stepped forward, and Khromie took two steps back.
She stared at him suspiciously, then stole a glance at Pensive. “Who’s he? The unicorn.”
“Pensive Coalescence,” Novell replied, nodding to his friend. “We rescued him from Havoc awhile back.”
“Thought realized,” Khromie said, eyes narrowing. “Thought of what? Havoc? Yes. Isn’t he? Havoc’s thought.”
Novell cocked his head, looking back between Pensive and Khromie. “Well… yes, sort of. But how’d you…”
“Your forehead,” Pensive interrupted, eyes widening. “That’s a jewel!”
Khromie stepped back even further, glancing between all of them, and bared her fangs. “I knew it! I can’t trust any of you! Agents of Havoc! Evil! Chaos! Get away!”
“What?” Novell asked, flabbergasted. “Wait, calm down, let’s talk about this!”
“No! You’re here to steal my gems! All my gems!” Khromie yelled. The jewel in her head flared brightly, her scales gleaming incandescently.
Novell winced, shielding his eyes with a wing. “Wait! Stop!”
Vzzt!
The light died out as quick as it’d come. Novell opened an eye, and peeked out from behind his wing. He let it drop when he realized Khromie was no longer there. Instead, all that remained was the pile of gems she’d been carrying.
Novell looked over at Scrolls and Pensive. Each of them wore differing levels of puzzlement clear on their faces.
“Okay…” Scrolls was the first to break the silence. “I have a question, but at this point, it’s just going to lead to more, so I’m just going to stop.”
Pensive blinked. “That jewel in the baby dragon’s forehead…”
Realization hit Novell suddenly. His jaw dropped. “No, wait. Really? That was one of the jewels we’re looking for? With Havoc’s power?”
“I… think so,” Pensive replied with a furrowed brow. “But that doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“What do you mean?”
Pensive looked up at the dark roof of the cave. “She disappeared completely, but I feel like I can still sense a sliver of her power… somewhere nearby. But it’s different. Almost completely different.”
“Different how?”
“Almost like it’s… older.”