//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: The dragon from a different realm // by Delta111 //------------------------------// Luna breezed through the night sky searching for any disturbances in her subjects’ dreams. The city she flew above was Tira her favorite place to fly over on patrol. The city had a serene setting at night with stone columns and buildings graced by sweeping arches that shone alabaster in the moonlight, polished silver statues, and four spires at its center. Breathing a content sigh she started banking right to land on the nearest building with a view of the city. It seemed that there wouldn’t be any nightmares to combat tonight. There She lied down and drifted off into her own peaceful dream. <-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-> Luna awoke after only about an hour, something was up. For some reason she felt a sudden feeling of dread. The night marched on in silence until an explosion of gold and black painted the night sky forming a vortex. Then two beasts flew out of the portal with alarming velocity narrowly missing the spires and gliding over Luna before crashing into the ground east of the city. The gold one had dropped what had looked like a golden egg right on the ground at her feet. She looked back at the beasts recognizing them as dragons. One was golden and the other dragon seemed have scales made of living shadow. They circled each other in an almost formal way. The gold dragon growled at the other dragon before saying in a venomous tone “I should have known Tiamat would send you to slay me and take my heir. Have you not forgotten our last encounter Tantubus?!” The other dragon chuckled darky, “yes I do! And it will make my victory all the more satisfying!” The two then clashed, attacking each other mercilessly. The one known as Tantabus struck out aiming to clamp his teeth around the golden ones throat. The other dodged it and spun his barbed tail round striking on Tantubus’s back earning a brief cry of pain. Tantabus then pulled the golden ones hind legs out from under him and moved to pin down his opponent. They rolled around a couple times fighting for control until the golden one slashed his claw across Tantubus’s face down his neck and ending at the front leg. The shadowy creature shrieked and grasped gingerly at his now damaged eye. He disengaged and got up to fly away but his opponent was anticipating this and was already in the air. “You’re not getting away this time.” The golden one bellowed kicking Tantabus back to the ground. At this time a small gathering of ponies had gathered on the edge of the city to discover what was making such a ruckus. They watched in horror, and yet amazement, as the beasts’ battle raged on. Luna also couldn’t help but watch and wonder if the egg she possessed was the source of this conflict. ‘All this over a golden egg’ she thought turning it over with her magic. The egg suddenly moved a bit as if responding to her action, ‘wait didn’t he say take my heir?’ she then realized that she was cradling a dragons egg, and a small one at that. Turning her head to the battle once more she noticed Tantabus growing weaker. The golden one wasn’t impervious to damage however, and had some bad wounds too. Tantubus collapsed from the fatigue and pain unable to fight any longer. “Please show mercy Ghillen!” The other now known as Ghillen gazed forward with no emotion as he took his claw and drew it across Tantubus’ throat, “I have already shown you forgiveness twice now and twice have you betrayed your word. You chose to serve Tiamat and tried to steal one of the few surviving golden dragon eggs. You are too much of a Threat.” The ponies that had gathered quietly sneaked back into their dwellings exchanging hushed whispers fearful of the dragon’s wrath. Ghillen backed away from the corpse as it slowly dissolved into shadows and settled down to catch his breath. For a few moments everything was silent until he heard the sound of hooves land softly on the grass a couple yards from him. “I know you have the egg.” Ghillen said looking at Luna with a inquisitive eye, “wasn’t by mistake that it was dropped on that roof” Luna held up the egg to the dragon with her magic, “I don’t know how you got here or why it is you came but you must leave at once!” she wished that her voice had come off as authoritive but it more or less was a squeak. Ghillen chuckled halfheartedly and got on his feet. “I can tell you’re of good morals and mean no harm but unless I find someone in this dimension to guard the egg I am unable to get back to my brothers and sisters defending the world from the forces of Tiamat.” Luna looked down at the egg that was now slightly glowing, “but why here in Equestria?” “Dragon wars are the closest from safe and Tiamat wants to find as many eggs as possible to add to her army. She especially wants golden dragons because we tend to associate with Bahumut the most. Our contact here in this place you call Equestria notes that it is extremely hard to get to and has two highly powered deities that might be willing to help.” “What contact?” Ghilen shrugged his scaly shoulders “an old freind of mine, a mage who went exploring this dimension and never returned. He wanted to stay here under the guise of Starswirl.” Luna couldn’t suppress her look of shock. Ghilen noticed and started to look serious, “I hate to ask you of this but it seems you know of whom I speak. Please take the egg to him, he will ensure its safety." Luna nodded hesitantly, “very well, I swear to get this egg to him poste haste.” The egg then pulsated and let off a golden light that died down after a couple seconds. Then the vortex that had once ripped the sky was once again open. Ghilen nodded to Luna and lift of from the ground, “I must go now. Once the war is over I’ll come back to reclaim the egg. Farwell kindly stranger.” And with that he flew back through the portal and out of Equestria and Luna set off to meet with Starswirl. Unoticed by both, a single shred of shadow remained. Making its way towards luna, it crawled into her shadow and hid itself to buy time until the next opportunity presents itself.