//------------------------------//
// You Will Remember Me 
// Story: The Lost Children 
// by RuinQueenofOblivion 
//------------------------------//


 "Some legends are told
Some turn to dust or to gold
But you will remember me
Remember me, for centuries
Just one mistake
Is all it will take
We'll go down in history
Remember me for centuries."
-Fallout Boy, Centuries


We spent the evening with Daegra and the other Zencori, after awhile we were joined by Jennifer, Serenity, and the Twins as we sat around the campfire. It was a beautiful night, and the lights of Nightingale weren't nearly as intense in this part of the city which gave us a beautiful view of the stars.

Serenity smiled and took a seat next to us as me and Alicia stared up at the night sky.

"So what are you two up to?" She asked curiously as she followed our gaze up to the stars. "Stargazing huh?"

"Yeah, something like that," I said with a shrug, really Alicia said she was hearing the stars speak to her again, but I wasn't sure what they were saying. "We're just thinking about what's been going on, and about Alicia."

"Oh yeah, Daegra told me you're not sure about what tribe she's from," Serenity said as she looked over at the two of us. "Have you considered asking around at the library? Haven has had access to some records from Equestria, but I don't know how much we have on the Zebra Tribes other than the ones we've already had contact with."

"I see," Alicia said with a sigh as she rolled over to look at me. "We haven't had any more of those weird dreams at least, that might mean something."

"Maybe you should talk to a Bat Pony," Jennifer suggested as she came up with the twins. "They should be able to help with anything related to weird dreams at least."

"What's a Bat Pony?" I asked curiously and Alicia looked just as confused as I was.

"Bat Ponies are, well they're kind of like Pegasi only instead they have bat wings," Serenity said as she rubbed the back of her head, well I guess that meant they were exactly what they sounded like. "They also have the ability to enter dreams and help figure them out, so that might be useful for you at least."

"What kind of dreams are you talking about?" Jennifer asked.

We told them about the shared dream we had before and they frowned a little. That was not a good sign, frowning was never a good sign when adults did it, it meant something bad.

"Well, honestly that's not quite something we're familiar with," Serenity admitted as she rubbed the back of her head a little. "Sorry about that girls, but I think the Zebras know more about this than we do."

It felt weird, for a moment I think it was like they were keeping something from us. Was it possible Haven knew more about what was going on than we did? Something was certainly up, but I didn't have a chance to dwell on it because Daegra came up to us.

"Come, come fillies, its time for stories," Daegra said with a smile as we got to our hooves and headed to the circle where the Zencori were already telling stories. I took a seat next to Daegra and smiled up at her a little bit, the blind storyteller smiled as she started to tell her own story.

I was a bit surprised to hear that it was a historical account, it was apparently part of Naris' journey as she had traveled north and wound up in Michigan where she came across a settlement there called Dragon Rest. I was curious to learn more about Dragons,  I had never even imagined that such creatures could be real before all of this.

I wondered about what I had talked with them before, was it possible I could be a storyteller? Could I really get up in front of a group of ponies like this and tell some sort of story? I honestly had no idea, I just sighed a little and kept listening to the story as she told it.

It was kind of strange to think about a dragon being friendly, most things I had ever seen about them portrayed them as monsters. I guess that maybe there was some sort of human thingy or something that changed all of that, or at least made them different here, who knows really.

"That was an interesting story, Daegra," I said as I looked up at the Zebra who smiled a little. "But is it all true, is there really a place called Dragon Rest?"

"Oh sure, you'd be surprised, Naris came back to the Zencori with quite a few stories," Daegra said with a smile. "Dragon Rest, Alexandria, and others she met on her journey. It became a lot of the foundation for what Haven would do to communicate with the other settlements."

I was a bit impressed to be honest, I had no idea that a Zebra had traveled around that much. I didn't know a lot about what she may have had to go through given that was probably before the Herd given that it hadn't been mentioned in the story, so I had to wonder a bit about how long they had been around.

"Well, that's pretty interesting," I said and looked at Alicia who nodded in agreement. "So, what's going to happen now? I mean, we can't stay with Serenity and Jennifer forever, can we?"

"Well, ideally no, usually with fillies and colts you stay with a temporary family until we can find somepony who will take you in on a more permanent basis," Jennifer said. "Sometimes, that would be the temporary family like we did with the twins here, but that's only if they can really."

"Oh, I see..." I said with a shake of my head, I really didn't understand how any of this worked, but at least it meant that me and Alicia weren't going to be out on our own. "So, I guess we're starting refugee school tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about it, you'll be fine," Serenity said as she looked thoughtful for a moment and took Daegra off to the side to talk to her about something.

I perked my ears up a little and tried to hear what they were talking about but I didn't have much luck, maybe I wasn't used to my pony ears yet or they were being too quiet. I felt like I was finally used to this new body strangely enough, it was like I had become more used to it while I traveled, maybe that was a good thing, I don't know.

Daegra finally broke off the conversation with Serenity and went over to talk with another Zebra. Alicia looked at me curiously as she wondered what was going on, but I was just as lost as she was. Finally the Zebra got up and took their spot in the storyteller's position and gave me and Alicia a smile.

"It is very rare that we get somepony connected to one of our stories here among us," she said as she looked over at me, I tilted my head a little, why was she saying that? "As we have Miss. Katherine Sinclair among us this evening, I have been asked to tell one of the stories from her mother."

I blinked a little and looked over at Serenity and Daegra who just gave me a smile. I was a bit surprised that the two had gotten this together so quickly, but I wasn't that surprised that a Zebra here knew one of my mother's books, I just had to wonder what I was in for right now.

"Our story begins aboard the American spaceship Galileo 7 in the old calendar year of 2047," the Zebra started telling the story. "It was finishing its three year mission from Earth as it arrived in the orbit of the planet Jupiter. But its destination was not the Gas Giant itself, instead it was the ice covered moon of Europa. The head of the expedition, Captain Heather Morgan, looked out the window at the ice covered moon. She adjusted the landing thrusters as they went on approach to Europa."

I couldn't believe I was listening to this, while my Mom had always written stories she had never really let me read any of them because of my age. This one in particular I remembered was called Depths of Europa, it was some sort of science fiction story about a manned mission to the moon Europa, but I didn't really know anything else about it.

"Captain Morgan locked in the autopilot before she headed back into the rear section of the ship to check with the rest of the crew. The ship was split up into two sections, the first was built for space as they traveled towards the ice covered moon, and the second was constructed to serve as a submarine. The primary part of this mission was to explore the ocean depths of the frozen moon and investigate the possibility of life."

I kept listening as the Zebra told the story, there wasn't a lot to tell at least in this part. We met the rest of the mission crew that were assigned to the mission and the craft touched down on the Moon's surface with only a minor problem. It wasn't exactly the most thrilling thing I had ever heard, but it was clearly meant to be setting up for something big that was coming later.

But more importantly, this was my mom's story, it was what she created to give to the world, and even after 314 years and everyone being transformed it had still survived. There was something special about it, and the fact that they could all enjoy it actually meant a lot to me. I wondered what my mom would think of this, maybe someday she'd get to find out.

"And as the capsule descended into the ocean depths, there was a brief blip on the sonar," the Zebra storyteller continued with a more dramatic tone of voice. "Captain Morgan and her crewmates exchanged a long look, what they had seen on the screen read as being almost as large as the craft they were piloting. They had come to Europa in hopes of finding alien life, and they may have just found it. Whether or not they'd like what they found, well that's another question entirely."

I was a little sad that the story was over, well at least that part of the story was over. I didn't know what to think about it so far, but I could admit it was at least an interesting story, the fact that my mom wrote it had drawn all my attention so I jumped when Alicia tapped my shoulder.

"Hey Katie, you might want to see who joined us," the Zebra filly said and pointed off to the side, I followed where her hoof was pointing and my jaw dropped when I saw what it was.

Standing off to the side was a Zebra that was wearing an odd outfit and had a pattern I didn't recognize, but what really drew my attention was who she was with. There was a large black dragon seated there, having apparently been listening to the story, and it strangely had grass growing out of the top of its head.

I gasped in shock, there was an actual dragon in front of me! Sure I had heard them mentioned before, but actually meeting one was something else entirely.

“What should we do?” Alicia asked as she looked at me.

“Well, I mean the Zebras don’t seem that nervous, maybe they’re friendly?” I suggested with a shrug. “We could try talking to them…”

Alicia nodded and we got up and walked over towards the Dragon, but the Zebra that was with it moved to block us and looked down at me, and then at Alicia with narrowed eyes.

"State yourselves," she said with a sneer.

“Umm, what?” I asked and blinked a little, what exactly did she mean by that?

"You wish to speak to my leader, my friend? You have to give your reason's to me, the Battle Creek Battalion leader that follows her."

I looked over at Alicia who looked about as confused as I felt, but at least that made a little more sense now. I took a deep breath and looked at the Zebra, there was something about her that scared me a little.

“Well, we, haven’t ever really met a dragon before…” I said nervously as I backed up a little. “We, were kind of curious really.”
A soft growl came out of the mouth of the dragon. "Zooni dear, I know you wish to be like your mother, but they’re just children. I doubt they would harm me." The large creature stood on her claws and lifted herself up.

"But.. Ma." The dragon stared at the Zebra who gulped. " I'm sorry children I don't mean to be rude or any harm. It’s just the ones in Battle Creek are very protective of Malla here."

“Oh, it’s okay I guess,” I said as Alicia nodded a little, she was still a bit nervous. It took me  a moment to realize I recognized the name Malla. “Wait, Malla? As in the Dragon that Naris met on her journey?”

The dragon smiled and pulled out the flower's from her head. She lowered them down and gave one to each of us before speaking again. "Yes I'm Malla, but I haven't ever seen you two before."

“Well, we only returned about a week ago,” Alicia said and I nodded. “We’re still kind of getting used to the new world.”

“I’m Katie, and this is Alicia,” I said with a smile as I sniffed the flower a little.

A frown formed on  Malla's face. "You two are lucky then. I showed up the day it happened, I used to be human like you. Zooni's mother was the same.. "

“Oh… that couldn’t have been easy,” I said as my ears flattened a little. “Was it hard to adjust to being, you know, a dragon?”

"I was lucky, a pony named Lyra from Equestria helped me. Thanks to her I didn't become a angry feral like dragon."
I blinked a little at that, while I had heard of Equestria from Daegra, I hadn’t expected to learn that ponies had come to Earth from there. Was it possible there were other ponies out there from Equestria? I would have to ask about that later, right now I just wanted to learn more about Malla.

“Wait, how old do dragons get? I mean, the Event was what, 314 years ago?” Alicia asked as she looked at Malla curiously.
Malla just shrugged. "I don't really know. Forgive me tell me your name's again. I enjoy hearing the story of my friend, I do miss her."

I was about to say my name again when what she said registered, she called my mom her friend. My ears perked up and I looked at her for a long moment as I tried to figure out what to say to that.

“You… you knew my mom?” I finally managed to ask.

Malla's eye's grew wide, then they grew soft and gentle. She lowered her arms to gently wrap them around me, I was a little surprised but I let it go. " I didn't know her personally. I got know her well enough that I loved her stories and she told me about her little treasure and joy."

I started to cry as I hugged the large dragon back as best I could. I couldn’t quite put in words what I felt right now, but it I had found something that connected me back to my mom, even if I didn’t know where she was, that was something.

“She’s still missing…” I said as I brushed my tears away after a minute. “Me and Alicia have been trying to figure this new world out together but… I still wish she was here…”

"It's fate sadly, I haven't even found my own family. But if you little one's ever need help, Dragon's Rest always offers others a place to rest and stay. That's kind of why I'm here."

“Oh?” I asked as I looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”

"You see there is something going on here, I'm sure you heard of something about to go down here? Now I don't know the full story, they never wish to tell me it because Zooni and the others are worried I might get in the middle and will try to stop it. But I am trying to get the weak, the young, and the lame back to Dragon's Rest."

I paused for a moment, I certainly was young, same with Alicia, maybe it would be a good idea to get out of here if something went wrong. Then I thought of something and shook my head a little.

“I want to stay here, in case my mom comes back, she’ll probably come back near where I showed up,” I said with a sigh.

“And where Katie goes, I go,” Alicia said as she smiled at me. “I’m not going to leave my best friend behind.”

Zooni finally spoke up.  "That is wise, a lot of the Zebras back at Dragon's Rest are very protective of the citizen's around the town of Battle Creek and Dragon's Rest itself, so they might not be very kind to you. Of course Malla can very easily change their minds, don't ever try arguing with a dragon."

“Yeah, probably not a good idea to argue with a giant lizard that can eat you,” I said with a chuckle as I looked up at Malla again. “Hey, uh, what’s with the plants growing out of your head?”

"I'm a nature dragon. I'm kind of one with nature, but I'm not like ET with bringing things back to life. The soil has to be just right, it has to have the right amount of everything. So if I give my blood to bad soil nothing will happen. If it’s weak it will happen slowly. And f it's very rich it might happen in a month, but it depends. If I am in a green dense area like this I become more one with the tree's. If it’s hot and arid i breath fire. If it’s cold as ice, I breath ice. Sooooo my body acts odd. And...let's not go into what happens during the fall." Malla said with a blush forming on her face.

“Huh, interesting, I don’t really have any cool abilities because I can’t even fly,” I said with a shrug as Alicia yawned a little, I didn’t realize how late it had gotten and the Zebras were starting to head to their tents for bed.

Zooni spoke up again. "Malla I think it's time that the young one's get some rest. Maybe Naris and Charlie are still awake. So let's allow their young mind's to refocus with the sleep." Malla gave a nod.

“Come on you two, let’s get home,” Jennifer said as she walked up with Serenity and the twins who were already asleep, she gave Malla a nod.

“Good night Malla, it was nice meeting you both,” I said sleepily as I waved to the dragon and the Zebra. “I hope we can see each other again soon.”

As we walked off I heard Malla speaking to Zooni again, "Oh Zooni it seems they were happy to see you to." Zooni just snorted in anger at the joke.