"This May Sound a Little Strange, but You Totally Remind Me of My Mother."
Ponies stared in silence at the new arrival. Some wore expressions of surprise, others of a deeper fear, but those who recognized the new-comer’s color pattern held a look of simple befuddlement.
Princess Celestia, barely able to support her weight even despite already fallen to her knees, looked to the drake standing a few feet away from her. She almost didn’t recognize her son upon the fist glance.
“Ah crud, I forgot to introduce myself!” The drake before the masses dipped into a bow. “My name is Spike the Wanderer, and I’m on a quest to find a dragon.”
He quickly rose to his full height and slouched to the side. “And before you ask, no, I am not looking for myself – though I do suppose that’s the premise that first started me off on this journey.”
The ponies were silent as the drake thought to himself for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders. “I’ve been chasing after the guy from burnt village to burnt village, but his wings allow him to be one step ahead. There was a great use of magic here a little while ago that allowed the Count to transport me here, but of course, an entity that has the power to create portals through space also has the precision to drop me exactly over that thing.”
He gestured his head to the bottomless circle.
“Annnnywho, all that mountain climbing has kinda left me out of it, and it doesn’t help that my vision is all blurry because of it.” He rubbed a claw against his eyes and was dismayed when that did nothing to help. “So you ponies...zebras...whatever you ares wouldn’t have seen an dragon anywhere close to here, would you?”
There wasn’t any movement from the crowds at first. The ponies had clenched their eyes for death now had them opened to a fool, and those who recognized the fool were more confused at how different he looked.
Spike stared back at the blurs with similar confusion adorning his slightly sharper face, which had lost all its baby fat as his snout was pulled out a little more. Finally, a hoof pointed outward, which made the drake sigh as he began to turn around.
“Didn’t I just say that the dragon I was looking for...wasn’t...me?” Spike turned around to the giant black beast across from him, allowing those behind him to see the green spines that once adorned his back were no longer existent, or else he wouldn’t be able to wear the thin black coat that fell to just above his tail. t
The black dragon roared as his coat wafted into the air. The ponies plugged their ears once again to avoid the horrible frequency, though the drake tilted his head in thought.
“Huh. Were you always standing there?”
Steam flared from the other dragon’s nostrils. Its black pupils shimmered on the white forces that were the pools of its eyes. For whatever reason, it studied the drake that had destroyed the form of its master instead of upright destroying him.
“Hmm.” Spike lifted up the left side of his coat, exposing the tattered brown scarf around his neck and the brown vest he wore. His claw dove into his jacket pocket and pulled out a scroll, unrolling it before himself, as he compared the drawing of the blue dragon as opposed to the black beast shaking the ground as he got closer to him. “The dragon that I’m after is blue with purple eyes instead of, well, black with even more black. The sources from the villages said he was big, but never this big.”
Spike quickly rolled the scroll back up and placed it back in his pocket, turning around to the white blur he had saved from before, and exposing his back to the dragon. Just as the beast was a few feet away, his eyes caught sight of the symbol embedded in the back of the drake’s jacket, before being rendered frozen in place.
It blinked, unable to take its eyes away.
“By any chance, did that dragon look, uh, different before?” Spike said to the fuzzy white thing before him, stroking his minimal facial scales as the fuzziness began to leave the heavenly creature. “Uh, this may sound a little strange, but you totally remind me of my mother...er, didn’t mean that offensively!”
Spike rose his claws in surrender as he took a step backward. “I only say that because my mother isn’t a dragon! Well, I mean, she probably is, but I’ve never met my birth mother before – nor my dragon father for that matter. This may sound odd, but I was raised by ponies, if you know what those are.”
Even those who had been stricken by fear the sight of an another dragon held their mouths agape.
“Even then, my mother isn’t really a pony per say.” He dropped his claw as his head once again tilted in thought. “She’s this awesome alicorn who rules over the nation of Equestria – if you know where that is. Well, that’s if it’s still standing…I’ve unfortunately been gone for a few years.”
A gust of wind passed over the platform.
“But yeah, it’s kind of a state secret thing, so I’d really appreciate it if you...kept it...a secret.” The blurriness finally left the drake’s vision as his pupils dilated to the world around him, or, more importantly, the alabaster alicorn before him wearing a look of disapproval. “Oh, um...hehe, hi mom.”
His eyes then gazed over to all the royal guards and subjects station on the platform as well, all silent with most of their mouths agape. Spike quickly realized the extent of his stupidity, and just how many got to bear witness to it.
The black liquid emerged out from the dragon’s body, slapping him on the head with a tendril, and knocked him upside the head. The dragon shook his head as he broke out of his trance, setting his eyes on the ponies who had bested him once before, and unleashed yet another roar.
Spike, caught in the middle, wasn’t sure which was louder.
The dragon’s roaring?
Or his mother’s yelling?