Lessons in quirks

by Mike84

Chapter LVIII

The group of wolpertingers seemed unperilous enough to be permitted to cross the bridge, though Fluttershy made a mental note to herself to ask Discord whether or not these unlikely composed creatures had been the result of one of his more "creative moments". It did not take long however for creatures to appear along the treeline for whose integrity not even Fluttershy was ready to guarantee. The manticore was probably the most well behaved among the creatures from Everfree which would not be permitted to cross the brook. As he sat down and started licking his paws, Fluttershy was wondering if Princess Luna too had recognized him as the very one whom Nightmare Moon had hurt and placed into the way of the future wielders of the Elements of Harmony a long time ago. Much less well behaved was a chimera who protested fiercely and scurrilously against being denied to cross the brook. Had it not been for the chimera's quick relapsing into its various heads quarreling among themselves, she might have been the first to put Princess Luna's means to enforce her orders to the test.

This test ultimately came in the form of a multi-headed hydra. The roaring of four heads at a time resounded from the forest and over the meadows beyond the brook. Like a much shriller echo, there were the outcries of many of the ponies who were by now gathering on the green, following the call Princess Luna had issued before. Fluttershy leaped backwards and took to the air more by instinct than by decision.
Princess Luna however walked towards the hydra at an almost casual pace.

Fluttershy didn't know what to do, she knew that such a hydra was beyond the soothing influence of whatever kind of kindness she might offer to this beast and not even her stare would be of any use when there were four heads to be stared at at the same time. She spotted Captain Crescent whom Luna had assigned to guard the bridge. He stood there, ready to take a stand if any of the unwarranted creatures from the other side should try to cross the bridge, but he didn't bother to come to Luna's aid.
"Shouldn't you be at your Princess' side... please?" Fluttershy almost screamed at the guard.
"No", he said curtly with an unnerving ease.
In view of Fluttershy's desperate face, he condescended to give further explanation:
"Young Miss, had you been on night patrol with her Highness as often as I have, it would not be the Princess you would be worrying about now. I am to guard this bridge. My presence there would only distract her Highness unnecessarily."

Fluttershy looked at the captain of the guard dumbfounded and then turned her head towards Princess Luna. The princess had neither accelerated nor slowed down her casual pace and Fluttershy suddenly realized that the pace of the princess and the aura of composure that radiated from her every movement were all part of a cold calculation. Not just the eyes of every pony on the green, but also those of every single creature on the strip between the treeline and the brook were fixed on her. For most of them the hydra was as potential a threat as it was for anypony. Had any sign on the face or in the composure of the princess raised any doubts about her ability to keep the hydra at bay, the result might have been a panic and a renewed stampede of these creatures.
The hydra did not seem captured by the princess' display of calmness. As soon as she got within reach, the two outmost heads of the hydra darted forwards to catch Princess Luna in a pincer movement. Fluttershy shrieked, but the princess looked neither left nor right and leaped upwards in the very last moment. The motion was so sudden and swift, it would have done Rainbow Dash proud, and yet there was nothing hectic or fidgety about it. The two heads clashed with an ugly thumping sound and Fluttershy instinctively cringed.
"That's what I meant", Captain Crescent commented coolly.

Another head on its snakelike neck lashed out straight towards the princess. Luna didn't budge to any side, but her horn flashed momentarily in a silver light and the next moment the head seemed to clash against an invisible and impenetrable obstacle right in front of Luna. Fluttershy was reminded of the invisible obstacle Twilight had clashed into at the Rich Mansion the previous evening. The hydra's head sagged to the ground, unmistakably numbed. Even from the distance, Fluttershy could see that the green eyes in the face of the last remaining head of the hydra were looking rather scared by now. It made no difference that Princess Luna was smaller than any of the heads. The hydra recognized her as a potential danger and it was probably the absolute absence of any sign of fear from the princess rather than the pain of three hurt heads that intimidated the hydra. Before her last unscathed head could make up its mind on what to do, the booming voice of the princess sounded through the night:
"DOWN, BEAST!"
Immediately the snakelike neck bent and lowered the head to a spot low above the ground and well below the dark princess with the thundering voice. An unmistakable act of submission.
"Stay here! Don't cross the water! Keep thy heads down! Don't you dare to attack or threaten any creature in any way and thou will be safe until the fire in the forest will perish! Defy, and I swear the fire will be the least of thy concerns tonight!"

Fluttershy didn't know if the hydra was even able to understand the words, but the tone and nonverbal signs were clear enough. When Princess Luna pointed at an empty patch of grass a little remote from the other creatures, the hydra crept there, three numbed heads dragging over the ground, the fourth one whimpering like a beaten dog. Even though the hydra was easily five or six times as large than even the largest of the creatures so far assembled on this side of the brook, it had lost all its menace. On the other hoof the looming threat of incurring the wrath of a princess who had reduced a hydra like that caused for the other creatures already assembled to be a lot more inconspicuous than before. Even the chimera stopped quarreling with herself and fell into a silence very uncommon for her kind.

As Princess Luna turned around to continue her air patrol between the brook and the treeline, a very different sound erupted from the green on the other side of the brook. It took her some moments to understand that the assembled ponies were cheering her. She granted herself a smile of grim satisfaction. This part of the job of being the guardian of the night was something hardly ever witnessed by ponies other than her accompanying guard. Much like the beauty of the night sky, it was something that usually stood in the shadow of attention cast by the brighter light of her sister's service to Equestria...

Princess Luna shook off the thought and focused on her task again rather than allowing for herself to be distracted, basking in her subjects' rare recognition. These subjects however posed a problem of a different kind. Not for the first time since her return did she realize how much things had changed in the thousand years of her absence. If back then she would have given the order for all capable of contributing to fighting fire and deterring what might come from the forest to assemble on the green, she would have been sure for only those actually capable to end up assembled. The part of the peasantry not capable of providing relevant help would have heeded her order to get out of harm's way and to the far side of the river. Today's citizens of Ponyville were not the peasantry of the days of old however and by the looks of it, almost every single one of them was either assembled on the green or approaching from the town.
"Bless the subjects for their courage...", Luna thought grimly, "...and protect them from their lack of reason!"

In case the larger creatures on this side of the brook stampeded to the other side, Luna did not believe she would be able to stop all of them or to protect the crowd of ponies. She descended towards the bridge where Fluttershy was standing beside the captain of her royal guard. From the other side of the brook she saw a mare approaching whom she recognized as the mayor of Ponyville. She was looking a little disordered and cast nervous glances at some of the larger creatures between the brook and the treeline, but when she spoke up, her voice was almost enthusiastic: "Your Highness! Princess Luna! That was amazing! You and... that hydra. But what is going on at all? Rumors are abound—"
Luna cut her off with an impatient wave of one hoof.

"There is little time for explanations, but you see for yourself that the forest is on fire. More creatures will come from it and that hydra may well be not the worst of them. When we asked for ponies capable of fighting the fire or deterring such creatures to come here, we meant only for those capable to come and not for the entire town to assemble in the swath of danger!"
The mayor looked rather taken aback and mortified and Luna regretted the necessity of strong words to bring home her point. Doing her best to sound calm and friendly, she continued:
"Now please get everypony not capable as far from the treeline as possible and to the other side of the river before—"
A hoarse roar sounded through the night, like the grinding of many huge rocks against each other, but louder than any of the roars that had echoed through this night so far.
"...it is to late", Luna finished her sentence, her voice turning icy.

Princess Luna turned and took to the air again. Whatever it was that was approaching, she did not have to wait for it to reach the treeline to spot its approach. Shaking and falling treetops testified to its path as well as to its dimensions. Luna swallowed and braced herself. This was no time for the playful filly that a small, long forgotten part of her had never quite ceased to be even after all this time. This time required the Princess of the Night's most fearsome and even relentless site. The princess' horn flashed and so did the air above the brook behind her. A flaring wall of fire seemed to rise high into the air above the waters of the brook.
"Princess Luna! What are you doing?"
The princess looked to the side to see Fluttershy flapping beside and a little behind her. She hadn't noticed that the kind-hearted pegasus had followed her when she had left the bridge. Fluttershy was looking terrified and Princess Luna was uncertain whether the roar, the commotion between the trees, the spell she had cast or her own grim appearance contributed most to her fear.

"Whatever comes there will scare the creatures beyond my control or yours. Fear of fire over the brook may turn their flight to the left and right and keep them from Ponyville."
Fluttershy was looking aghast and Luna felt compelled to add: "There is no real fire above the brook. An illusion of flaring air, fiery scent and some warmth that will neither ignite anything nor burn anyone who touches it. But so long the creatures below don't know that, it may direct their flight away from the town or from your home." Luna's horn flashed again and a circular pillar of fire seemed to rise around Fluttershy's cottage.
Something large broke forth from between the trees, breaking two of them in the process.
Fluttershy gasped.

"A dragon!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "A dragon!"
"Stay away from it!" Luna ordered, uncertain if that order was even necessary and dived to a spot in the air in front of the dragon's head.
Very diverse was dragonkind, more diverse than even ponyfolk. During her nighttime patrols, Luna had made the experience that there were dragons to be reasoned or bargained with, but she had never so far encountered a specimen of this size.

Only the front half of the huge beast had emerged from between the trees. A head like that of a deformed crocodile almost as large as a small house. This dragon was unmistakably ancient by the standards of ponies. Its skin had an earthy and rocky texture and as she approached, Luna even saw some plants and small bushes growing on the dragon's back, some of them shaking, some detaching from the dragon's body as it was moving on. No doubt, this beast had lain dormant for a long time, centuries perhaps or maybe even since the days preceding her own. Confused for a knoll perhaps, covered by the earth and soil, accumulated by the ages and as unconcerned by the world as the world had been unconcerned by it until it was woken up again to this world by the events of this night. There was a pair of wings on the back of the dragon, but if they had ever been able to carry it, it had long outgrown them and the wings were torn and remained so limp compared to the dragon's other motions that the question was legitimate if the old dragon was even aware of its wings' existence anymore.

"STAY BACK!" Luna commanded in her loudest and most booming voice to catch the attention of the old dragon.
The dragon slowly raised its head and looked at the loud but tiny creature floating in the air ahead. Princess Luna could see her own reflected image in the eyes of the old dragon that looked like dark pools of black water.
"This way is not open to you!"
The dragon snorted and the exhalation hit Luna like a squall, sending her drifting for some ponylengths like a leaf in the wind. She struggled against an urge to gag. The snorting had a disgusting smell of smoke, scorched earth, composting and decay. Anger was boiling up in Luna. Ancient as this beast might be, it was not entitled to snort a Princess of Equestria away like a fly with its foul breath. Suppressing her anger as good as she could, she flew back to the spot in front of the dragon who had now worked more of its massive body out of the forest.
"STAY BACK FOUL WORM! THIS IS NOT YOUR PLACE TO BE!"

The dragon stopped again, glaring at Luna with these dark bottomless eyes.
"Thou art a creature of the fire! The flames cannot hurt you! Return and rest as thou hast rested for so long and leave thy fellow creatures in peace!"
The old dragon opened its mouth slowly, laying bare fangs larger than any alicorn's horn, grained, stained and marbled as if they had been chiseled from rock, yet sharp and deadly to anything that would come within their reach. Green-yellowish, viscous saliva of a penetrating smell was dripping from these fangs and where droplets of it splotched the ground, grass withered within seconds and the earth itself took on a sickish color. A forked serpent's tongue flickered behind the fangs. A tongue not shaped to form words, but only to pick up the scent of prey for a creature that had likely roamed this world before even the first ever spoken word had been uttered or picked up by any listener's ear. This creature would not speak, or listen, or reason, or bargain, relic that it was from a time when all of these had been concepts unknown to the world.

The old dragon inhaled deeply, creating a pull against which the Princess of the Night had to struggle with might and main to avoid being sucked between the lethal fangs. The huge lungs of the ancient beast were filling with air like giant bellows and even before the first sparks of ignition flashed up deep in the dragon's throat, Luna braced, conjured up a shield as strong as her powerful magic allowed and hoped desperately that it would suffice to withstand the onslaught of this enemy's ancient fire.

Dragonfire was no comparison to regular flame or even lava from the earth's deepest pits. It could reduce to ashes in seconds what would take a regular fire hours and days to consume and old stories told that the touch of even a flicker of some dragon's fiery breath could drain the life of another creature, even if it managed to escape instant cremation. It could melt stone and metals which not even the largest furnaces in Equestria could soften up enough to forge it. It was this kind of all-consuming flame that hit on the all-withstanding shield-spell that Luna had cast. The heat was murderous and it made the sphere of the spell glow like a bubble of liquid metal. The spell however stood the shock and kept the flames at a distance from Luna, but even so the heat was intense enough to make her scream out in pain. Shielded by some of the most powerful magic known to this world and therefore some distance away from the blazing flames, they were still intense enough to heat up the metal of Princess Luna's helmet and her greaves to the point that she would have torn them off and hurled them away if there had been the time and occasion to do so.
From far away she heard the screams of the ponies on the other side of the brook whom she was entrusted to protect; and protect she would, no matter what! The time for negotiations was over. This dragon was a powerful and ancient creature, but so was Princess Luna, the Guardian of the Night!

Few ponies could claim to have witnessed in their lifetimes a spectacle such as that which unfolded before the eyes of the citizens of Ponyville in this night. It was a clash of creatures both of whom from a different age that had been there long before any of the witnesses and both of whom would still be there when the passing of the ages would long have obliterated the memory of any of the witnesses to the dusts of history; unless of course it was for one of the ancient beings to end the existence of the other tonight.
It was a rapid dance of light and shadow, fire and magic, hooves and claws, alicorn and dragon between a wall of fire and the treeline of a burning forest with more trees falling to the whirl of the fight.

"RETURN BACK UNDER THE EARTH FROM WHENCE YOU CAME!" thundered Princess Luna, not because she expected for the dragon to understand or comply but just because her booming voice was a vent for all the power and all the anger that she felt would otherwise tear her apart from the inside. Battle rage, a sensation for which there was no part in the better Equestria of these days compared to darker days of old and much as Princess Luna strove to keep such dangerous relics of darker days caged in a faraway corner of her mind, the dragonfire had reignited it and she was not sure if she could have withstood but for the strength she derived from this archaic fury.

It was not a surprise that the old dragon remained utterly underwhelmed by attacks of magic fire, even though they burned away the last patches of vegetation from the ancient beast's soiled scales. Piercing flashes of pure magic energy however did hurt the old beast and Princess Luna made the best of her ability to fly and her superior agility over the huge beast. Short necked as the dragon was, it didn't take much to stay out of reach of its deadly breath, its venomous saliva and the view of its bottomless eyes. More difficult it turned out to evade the razor-sharp spikes on the back and the tail of the dragon. Slow and deliberate as the motions of the beast's head were, its tail was lashing out as fast as a whip, yet much more erratic and less predictable as to where it would strike. As the battle drew on, it became ever more obvious to Princess Luna that the time and the toll of the fight were working against her.

The beast who had lain dormant for ages was detached from the sleeping rhythm of other creatures and while the constant evading and casting of magic spells were exhausting to Princess Luna, her enemy seemed quite capable to continue like this for days or even longer without any fatigue. While she was sure some of her attacks had caused the dragon pain, it seemed insufficient to turn it away or to decrease its will and ability to continue the fight. Unless she came up with something more severe, the outcome of this fight was as foreseeable as it was not to her liking.

She concentrated with all her mind on the next magic lightning she would send against her opponent, much like she had concentrated to create the shield that had saved her from obliteration by dragonfire. This time the result was not a short bolt of magic white light, but a flash of lightning emitted from her horn, branching out and connecting to several of the spikes on the dragon's back at the same time. This lightning didn't flash out within a moment like a lightning in a thunderstorm would have, but instead it lasted, forming a flickering bright band between Princess Luna's horn and several of the dragon's spikes. A smell of burning filled the air and there was a metallic taste to it. The air itself seemed to spark from the sheer power of the magic cast and Princess Luna felt her hair stand upright underneath the helmet. The helmet itself and greaves were glowing in a bluish light. The dragon below was roaring and hissing in unmistakable pain and Luna hoped that it would stir up its flight instinct rather than its fighting spirits.

She was so focused on maintaining the powerful magic lightning that she noticed the dragon's tail only in the very last moment. Princess Luna let herself drop and fluttered backwards hastily. It did get her out of the way of a potentially lethal tail lash, but it interrupted the lightning and the princess did not get away unscathed. One of the spikes on the dragon's tail scratched along the left cheek guard of her helmet, cut through it as if it was made of paper and scratched her cheek below, drawing a little blood.

The dark alicorn uttered a cry of rage. If this creature was not to be reasoned or bargained with, not submit to any orders nor succumb to pain, she would resort to her most frightful means, abandon all restraint and strike terror into the mind of the creature who did not yield to other means. She flew a loop that brought her to a spot right above the snout of the old dragon, out of reach of its breath, and right in front of those large dark eyes. She stared into them and nopony who wasn't very close by would notice the magic used here. This was not the crude and showy magic of flaring fire, flashing lightning or similarly blunt approaches. This was more subtle, more elegant in a way, more effective, more sinister and less attention-grabbing and it required a different kind of mindset to perform.

Wild and cruel was the teeth baring smile on the face of the dark alicorn and piercing her blue eyes which now flashed up in a bright white light. As if the white radiance of the dark alicorn's eyes had rubbed of on the dragon eyes they were staring into, the surface of the dragon's eyes suddenly grew frosted as if pervaded by a grayish haze. There was no focus in those eyes anymore and the dragon seemed to freeze in motion for a moment.

A cry went up into the air which few in the history of this world had ever heard and which nobody who had heard it desired to hear again. It was the shrill and bone-chilling scream of a creature supposed to be beyond age or mortality suddenly confronted with the fear and possibility of the own demise. All the fear and terror that one voice could carry were in this cry of a voice usually prone to spread rather than express terror. The unearthly cry faded into something like a whimper, though still more powerful than anything the lesser creatures would ever utter and with that, the dragon crawled backwards.
"BEGONE, FELL BEAST!"
The dark alicorn laughed in triumph.

The dragon turned around and as it did, more vulnerable parts of the beast's less scaled flanks were exposed to the dark alicorn. She reveled in triumph, her magical powers were beyond boundary by the shaking off of restraint and fueled by a malicious fury. It would be a cinch now to finish this which had seemed like a serious challenge, a danger even, just moments ago.
The dark alicorn took aim and her horn began to flare in a greenish light.

"Princess Luna!"
Her ears still half deafened by the cry of the defeated beast as well has her own booming voice barely picked up the voice which seemed to come from a different sphere entirely. It would have been easy to ignore this hushed, timid voice, but something in a suppressed corner of the mind of the dark alicorn told her that this was important, that this was in fact somehow what everything was about.
"Please Princess... don't!"

It had taken Fluttershy a huge effort to get herself to fly close to Princess Luna, who had told her to stay away, and to the dragon whom she dreaded. But she, like nopony else had understood what was going on, that more than one fight was taking place and suddenly she had understood the meaning of the Princess' earlier mystic words:

"But I feel that before dawn I may be compelled to instill greater fear than that of fire into some of them. When that time comes, I hope you will be by my side to guard me against the means I may have to employ to instill that fear."
The piercing eyes rested on Fluttershy who could barely stand the look of these eyes with their almost reptilian pupils. After the uproar of the fight, the occasional cracking of a tree in the path of the retreating dragon sounded like deafening silence and shy as she was, Fluttershy could not bear this silence now and forced herself to talk.

"The dragon is fleeing. Please let him flee! He will not hurt you or anyone now! Please... please stay here!"
The dark alicorn closed her eyes for a moment and she took some deep, audible breaths. When she opened her eyes again, there was nothing reptilian or piercing in the eyes of Princess Luna of Equestria. She looked exhausted, but when she took off her gashed helmet and casually flung it away, a smile appeared on her face, weak and tired but of a goodness and heartfelt gratitude that no battle rage or older resentments would drown out, so long they themselves were drowned out by a quiet voice of kindness.

"Thank you", she said without any further explanation since there was no need for it.
"When this night is over, Fluttershy, I would really like to jaunt the Canterlot gardens with you. I don't think I have ever introduced you to my pet opossum Tiberius, have I?"
Fluttershy nodded and then shook her head. She appreciated the invitation and the gratitude of the Princess, but at this moment she was too worried about the others to feel any real joy.

Author's Note:

I recall that when writing this chapter I considered for a moment whether or not there should be a kind of "You shall not pass!" Lord of the Rings reference, maybe even employing the bridge. I decided against this however, since this chapter is not meant to be more serious and I got some lord of the rings alusions elsewhere

Last edited on December 17th 2015.