//------------------------------// // 2. Diaspora // Story: Twinkle Twinkle - Speaker to Dragons // by Georg //------------------------------// Twinkle Twinkle, Speaker to Dragons Diaspora "The loss of a childhood is a terrible thing." — Starswirl the Bearded Twinkle Twinkle was a strange child, although in her mind, she was perfectly normal and it was the entire world which was strange. Ponies had so many odd rules and weird laws which made no sense at all to her, and it was difficult to separate them from the ones that did. Little rules like not having a cookie before dinner or before bedtime were perfectly rational, once they had been properly explained to her satisfaction, but other ponies lived by bigger rules that constantly baffled her. The earth pony servants in the mansion were supposed to defer to her judgement, even as a foal, and call her ‘Lady Twinkle’ even when in private where no other ponies could see. They were below her, although taller than her small stature, despite the small height bump she received due to her stubby horn. Other unicorn foals were likewise above or below her ‘station’ in life, as explained by her mother, a soft-spoken mare of wisteria hues much like herself. Life was all very confusing to Twinkle, like a maze without an exit or a question without an answer. Books provided a refuge from the confusion and answers to her incessant questions which neither her impassive father Obsidian or aloof mother Peridot were comfortable discussing. The books were quiet, logical, and most of all, available at all hours of the day or night, quite unlike her parents. The best part of all was that once she had read a book, she could remember just exactly what it said no matter where she was. Even during the most tedious lectures, Twinkle could occupy her mind with treatises on obscure Minotauren culture or the history of cross-pollinating rosebushes while not missing a word of the droning lecturer, which was a great surprise to her teachers. When they would chastise the supposedly inattentive young unicorn only to have Twinkle repeat every word they had said to her, the teachers would always get a peculiar expression, then write a note to her parents. Twinkle kept all of the notes in a scrapbook. Not that she needed to look at them more than once, but her parents seemed to enjoy it. Notes were another thing she could not understand. It was natural to remember things, so having to write them down on valuable paper was a waste of time. The same went for tests, another waste. It seemed to disturb the other students whenever Twinkle would fill out the test and turn it back in, sometimes before the teacher had finished passing them out. It made the students angry, which was another thing Twinkle Twinkle did not understand. She had never felt angry or afraid in her life. The first time in school when several other unicorn students had gotten together on the playground and attempted to ‘teach her a lesson’ about making them look bad on a test, she had been terribly confused. They had struck her repeatedly, as if that was supposed to be some sort of educational experience, and when the teacher had come along and stopped the beating, he was absolutely baffled that Twinkle was not crying. Afterward, her parents hired tutors to guide her education instead of exposing her to the violence of her peers. They taught her many things about magic, how to behave with other ponies, how to speak, and most of all, how to defend herself when attacked. The one thing they could not teach her and which Twinkle had no desire to learn was how to fear. That was not to say Twinkle Twinkle was a fool who took unnecessary risks. Quite the contrary. Anything she attempted was exhaustively researched and examined until the actual act was almost routine. She learned to swim, to take long hikes in the mountains of Unicornia with her brothers, and the complicated steps to all the dances required for the balls and festivals her family attended. She learned how to do the complicated bookkeeping of Obsidian’s job and the proper way to arrange flowers from Peridot. Most importantly of all, she learned about the night. Twinkle Twinkle appreciated the night, even though she could not really love it in the way she did her family. She would sit out under the stars with none of the distractions of the day and just stare upwards at the distant lights while thinking. Even when she grew into a young mare and had responsibilities in the House, she appreciated her time in the evening spent under the cold and unchanging stars. It was a peaceful distraction away from the squabbling of older ponies, the constant wheedling of the unicorns to get food from the earth pony commoners, and the clashes against pegasi who thought they deserved more than all the rest. Until it got colder. The stars became more and more of a refuge for Twinkle, somewhere arguments and shouting did not interfere with her thinking. Then the clouds began to blow in, tall wispy things high in the sky that passed across her stars more every night until one evening, her refuge in the sky was gone. And it got colder. With the additional arguing between the older ponies, Twinkle retreated further into her own world. Food became scarce, even in their House, but Peridot refused to take food away from their servants for Twinkle’s brothers despite their protests and shouts. Her brothers claimed the earth ponies had more than enough food, although the eldest brother shouted the least, most likely due to the time he spent with the young upstairs maid. The sound of distant howling began to fill the frozen night. Then the Windigo came by day. The rest of the ponies had been frightened of the eerie white creatures and their constant screams of rage, but Twinkle had just sat and watched them course across the cloud-strewn sky. The pegasi rose to fight, as they always did, but their bravest warriors plunged to the ground afterwards, some even breaking into colorful chunks like shattered glass. The arrival of the Windigo made all of the shouting stop inside the House, with certain rooms blocked off and the top floor abandoned totally to the weather. Wood was scarce too, even to the point where the furniture was broken up and wood from the walls salvaged. Other families were driven into vicious infighting by the incessant cold, but House Starlight came together far more than they ever had, with the family and servants alike eating in the same room in front of the meager flames of the fireplace, and gathering into the same bedroom to huddle for warmth through the icy night. Once Peridot Brings The Dawn and Obsidian Brings The Night had finished their tasks for the evening and became simply Peridot and Obsidian, Twinkle found herself sleeping between them. It was both nice and uncomfortable, only made worse when the unceasing wind would blow small piles of snow under doors several layers of rooms inside the house or one of the servants would relay a tale about a citizen of the city being found frozen into ice by the Windigo. Then her oldest brother left to confront the wind-beasts, and never returned. Obsidian and Peridot held Twinkle even closer afterwards at night, while during the day, she read everything she could find on Windigo. It was not much, and what there was tended to be contradictory or seemingly invented by the authors, a type of fictional writing that frustrated her to no end. There was no reason for authors to write about things that did not exist when there were so many things in the world that did exist, and which had not been thoroughly written about for Twinkle to read. When King Bullion called for the evacuation of the city, Twinkle Twinkle was prepared. She had written out a detailed instruction list for the entire household, along with what to pack and where their path would most likely take them. The one thing she could not prepare for was simple misfortune, and when the avalanche happened and she saw her last brother vanish beneath a wave of snow and loose stones, she felt the faintest stirring of fear. All of her plans and preparation could not stop the destruction caused by a flake of snow or a loose rock. Despite the memory of the disaster haunting her at night, the days which followed blurred together. Trudging through the snow in the cold and sleeping huddled together with the servants and any other pony nearby for warmth were more memories she did not want to remember. The sight of that first first green blade of grass lifted a great metaphorical weight off Twinkle’s thin shoulders, and she could breathe freely again. The taste of the bitter weed against her tongue was intense and more real than even the most delicious meal prepared when her family still lived in Unicornia. Bitter and rare as they were, she still relished every scrap of green on their journey. And still they walked. The occasional strand of grass turned into clumps and then small bunches, not enough to fill empty bellies but barely sufficient to ward off starvation with the few supplies the refugees had remaining. The presence of fresh food was a gleam of light in a dismal future of certain death, but that gleam was a dangerous thing indeed. The stars once again shone at night, but Twinkle Twinkle no longer had the luxury of staying up and watching them. It was far more important to rest, lying between her parents and feeling their cautious touches in the inky darkness as if to ensure she was still with them and had not died like her brothers. All around her, sleeping in collections of tents and rough shelters throughout the inky night were the tattered remainders of their kind, cast from their warm homes with blazing hearths and fluted towers. Battered and broken, the ponies of Unicornia had left their worst days behind them, and the flickers of hope for a better tomorrow began to rise while they slept. They were wrong. - - ☾ - - There had been never been any dragons in the snow which blanketed their former home, just the endless shrill screams of the Windigo growing ever louder with each passing day. When Twinkle awoke in the dark night, there were dragons now, immense beasts drifting through the sky and plunging to the ground in search of prey and treasure. Ponies all around screamed and ran about in fear, but Twinkle stood and watched the sky while Obsidian and Peridot gave her orders. If Twinkle lost her will like the other panicked members of the herd, she would have been just as defenseless, and the lives she had been entrusted with would be lost too. The servants listened to their small and somewhat young Lady, huddling up next to the wagon and remaining still in order not to draw attention while the foals and pregnant mares were hidden underneath the wagon bed. Their family wagon became an island of relative calm in the chaos, with passing panicked ponies hesitating in their flight, then huddling up next to the ponies who looked like they knew what they were doing. Twinkle did not. She was in a situation she had never anticipated or planned for, and the screams of ponies and the roar of dragons made her normal thought processes jumbled. She had never seen dragons before, so she could not remember them, but Twinkle had read several rather self-contradictory books about them. They seemed so different in reality than the fanciful paintings and pictures in her books, which could not hold a weak candle to the sight of dozens of the mighty beasts soaring through the sky while illuminated by the burning wagons below. They had a certain lethal beauty to their movements, the way they swooped and dove, which brought the reality of death to Twinkle’s senses. The cold and the snow had claimed many ponies, mostly the weak and the old, but those deaths were distant, as if they could only happen to others. Even the deaths of her own brothers had been indistinct things, with enough uncertainty about them to leave the smallest chance of having one of them just turn up one evening, with tales of their narrow escapes or rescue. Here, death was quite near. It soared through the skies on membranous wings, rending and tearing at pony flesh even while pierced and bleeding dragons fell, never to rise up into the sky again. They fought by ones and twos, even fighting each other like the five or six dragons engaged in a ferocious battle over the burning remains of the Blueblood family wagon train on a distant hill. Two bloody dragons already lay sprawled and dead in the vicinity, with others darting down out of the sky to take up the empty spaces over their corpses. In their frenzy to loot the gold and jewels pouring out of the burning wagon, the beasts almost totally ignored the screaming servants running around in terror and the occasional family member who fired ineffective magic bolts up into the smoke-filled night. Their magic only seemed to draw unwelcome attention to the brave defenders, and one passing dragon swept down to snatch up a taller pony dressed in the Blueblood livery and armor. Caught up in the jaws of the dragon, the unicorn bellowed defiance and fired a massive bolt of power right down the throat of the beast while they ascended. It was his last act when the dragon's jaws slammed shut and a single twitching leg fell down to the ground, but the dragon was staggered, allowing several pegasi and griffons to swarm over him. In flurry of driven spears and blood, the combatants vanished into the smoke and clouds, leaving Twinkle to think. Remaining immobile while trying to look at everything around was the only thing she could do, but after a period of time when the crowd of ponies around her grew, something became abruptly obvious to her observations, and she had to act. “All of you!” Twinkle spoke in the same stern tone her father used when addressing stubborn nobles, and the sudden attention the young mare received from all of the ponies gathered around startled her. “Take the foals and go down the hill, away from this wagon. Three groups. Over there, go that way. You there, go to that wagon. Willowbark, take the rest of the servants and any pony left over and go to the wagon over there. Move!” she snapped, finding that the stern voice her father used was quite effective. Ponies scattered in the directions she indicated, but while the older servants were pulling the last foals out from under the wagon, Willowbark hesitatingly asked, “Lady Twinkle. Have we displeased you?” “Our wagon has some gold in it,” said Twinkle while looking up into the smoke-filled sky. “Not much, but the dragons must be able to smell it on the wind. One of them is circling around now. Go, and I will distract it from following you.” “Got him!” called out the older servant before pulling the squalling foal out from under the wagon where he was hiding. “Come on, Willowbark! Do as Lady Twinkle ordered.” “Come with us,” said Willowbark as the rest of the servants began to gallop down the hill. “Let the dragon have whatever gold it wants.” “If I go with you, the dragon will attack us and kill us all before searching for the gold. I will stay behind so the dragon will have to come here first. Go,” added Twinkle before doing something she had never done before. She used her magic to push the older mare in the direction of the rest of her servant family, then watched silently while Willowbark galloped away. It left Twinkle alone again, but she had always been various degrees of alone, even when surrounded by other ponies. The pattern being flown by the dragon she had spotted left no doubt which wagon it was targeting for an attack, but if she had gone with the servants, the wagon would have been left unguarded, and the dragon could easily cut a bloody swath through the nearby ponies before making its way here. Twinkle Twinkle was going to die. Willowbark would live through her sacrifice, and so would the unborn foal she carried. Her family would survive. The gold in her family wagon was only a pittance compared to the fairly large pile that had been concealed in the Blueblood family wagons, most likely smuggled in direct disobedience to the orders of Princess Platinum. The circling dragon seemed as transfixed by the smaller amount of potential loot much like a cat circling around a wounded baby mouse. Twinkle charged her horn with magic, weak as it was, and prepared for the dragon’s inevitable descent. She dared not actually hit the dragon or it would realize how weak she was and potentially rampage through the nearby defenseless servants, but she had to make her bolts pass as close as possible to the dragon so she would be considered a threat and attacked first. The faintest stirrings of an emotion Twinkle had never felt before rose up in her chest when the dragon tucked up its wings and began to descend in her direction. It still was not fear, but the multitude of rapid actions around her came very close to what she considered excitement or joy might possibly feel like. The huge beast was fascinating, and since Twinkle only had a few minutes to live, she was determined to learn as much about it as possible before the end. It was a responsibility, and Twinkle took her responsibilities very seriously. When the dragon got close enough through the smoke to make out details, Twinkle was ready. She fired a bolt of magic to its left to distract its path, then a second time to make her defiance look more authentic, although it was difficult to get the concentration to fire a third time. The dragon was beautiful. She, and Twinkle was positive of the gender, glittered in the smoky night air with the reflection of the stars above and the flames below in a radiant ruby red that just cried out for the proper amount of light so she could be seen in her full glory. As the magnificent dragon drew closer, those broad wings, a somewhat darker shade and far more different than the pegasus wings Twinkle was used to, extended in one long, powerful stroke to brake her descent, making a gust of wind sweep over Twinkle. The huge beast should have been ungainly in the air, but the dragon held herself in balance, alert and ready to dart in any direction at the slightest sign of an attack. When the dragon landed in front of Twinkle, all that she could think about was that she had never been eaten by a dragon. It most likely would hurt, but it was not anything she could prevent. It would have been possible to use a spell to suicide, but when her family started on their trip away from the frozen wasteland of their former home, Twinkle's mother had been very insistent about the survival of every pony in her family, no matter what happened on the journey. Besides, Twinkle Twinkle found herself far too busy soaking in the sight of the dragon looming over her. Even when the dragon opened her mouth, Twinkle remained stationary, taking one last moment to study the dragon's teeth and throat structure. It reminded her of a lizard, except for the long, sharp teeth where most lizards had a lesser denture, more of a bony jaw with rough edges. The dragon actually had three types of pointed teeth, which Twinkle really did not expect, and since the light was dim, she lit her horn up to get a better look. “What are you doing?” The dragon pulled her head back, closed her mouth with a snap, and gave Twinkle Twinkle a nasty look, which was really saying something since the dragon’s head was several times the size of the young pony, and there was a lot of space for nasty on that face. “Why aren't you running around screaming like the rest of them?” “It wouldn't help,” explained Twinkle. “You're much larger and faster than I am.” “Of course it wouldn't help!” growled the dragon. “Do it anyway. Go on. I'll give you a head start.” “Why?” It was Twinkle’s favorite word, and since she did not think she was going to use it much more, she saw no reason not to use it now. “Because I can’t eat you if you keep looking at me. Now go on. Run.” The dragon snorted, and little wisps of flame crisped the dry grass stubble around Twinkle’s hooves. “That makes no sense at all,” said Twinkle. “I don’t want you to eat me, so logically I should stay here and keep looking at you.” “Fine! We'll do this the easy way,” snarled the dragon, opening her mouth and inhaling. With the additional light from her horn, Twinkle could see the fascinating way the dragon's throat shifted while she prepared to breathe fire. There was a strange double-flap to her epiglottis that sealed the esophagus and trachea away from the upcoming flame, while a set of four glands opened in the back of the dragon’s throat, which was completely different than the way the books had said dragonfire was produced. It made her curious, so Twinkle sat there and watched, trying to figure out the real way in which the dragon’s ability to breathe fire actually worked. Was it was just one substance like some of the books said, or was it was a combination of two or more different substances that was mixed inside the dragon's mouth before being exhaled? Finally, the dragon closed her mouth and took a step backwards. “Will you STOP that!” “What?” It was, after all, Twinkle's second-favorite word. “Stop looking at me!” The dragon huffed and puffed, giving off little bursts of flames that skittered against the blackened ground. “But then you'll eat me.” Twinkle considered her words, and added honestly, “Besides, you’re fascinating. I've never seen a dragon before.” “Well… I haven’t ever seen a pony before, either. That doesn't mean I can't eat you!” “Why?” The red dragon seemed to be working herself up into a frothing fit when a gust of wind from the beating of large wings blew dust and ash up around them in a choking cloud. A second dragon, larger and more of a bronze in color and with a natural bladed fin of some sort on the bridge of its nose, landed next to the red dragon and began chattering in a deep, booming voice. “Sis, we gotta get out of here! A bunch of ponies put together a huge cloud a few soars away and used it to throw a bolt of lightning at that dragon with the big bottom jaw. Killed him dead right there, on top of a wagon. There’s six or seven claws of dragons dead that I've seen so far! It's not worth it tonight! We need… what’s this?” “I’m Twinkle Twinkle,” said Twinkle while wiping some ashes off of her forehead. “What's your name?” The bigger dragon just chuckled, reaching for her with a claw instead of introducing himself as requested. “At least we get something to eat out of— Ow!” The red dragon lifted her tail up, ready to slam it down over the male dragon’s arms again if he made another attempt to reach for Twinkle. “She’s mine!” growled the dragon. “I saw her first!” The bronze dragon had pulled his injured arm back and was nursing it with a surprisingly pony-like motion. “Well, eat it and let's get out of here, Sis.” “I’m trying!” The red dragon turned back toward Twinkle with a fierce scowl. Green dragon eyes and violet pony eyes matched gazes for a long moment, then the red dragon turned her head with a snap and growled at the other dragon. “What are you looking at, rocks for brains?” “Is he your brother?” asked Twinkle. “Because he called you ‘Sis.’ I don’t have any brothers anymore, but I know you're not supposed to treat them like that.” “Shut up, Food!” snapped the red dragon, fending off another attempt by the other dragon to grab Twinkle and eventually just grabbing the young unicorn herself. The dragon's claws were hot and sticky, with a damp redness to them that Twinkle did not want to think about, but they held onto her with a firm grip instead of the crushing pressure she was expecting. The dragon made one more abortive attempt to eat Twinkle before giving a scream of frustration and stomping against the ground in a thunderous rumble. “Grab one of those wagons and let's get out of here before we get killed!” There were at least a dozen wagons within sight of Twinkle, but only one that she knew for certain did not have a family of terrified unicorns or earth ponies hiding under it. “That one,” she declared with a pointing hoof. “My family has some gold and gems hidden under the floorboards. We weren’t allowed to take much,” she added. “It was more important to bring food through the snow, but now that we're out in the plains where we can graze—” “Grab that wagon before she talks any more!” bellowed the red dragon. “Come on!” The red dragon extended her huge wings and swooped into the sky, followed by the larger bronze dragon with the family wagon clutched firmly in his claws. Twinkle had never been flying, particularly in this fashion, and she would have rather not been given the experience now, but she was still alive despite her expectations so she settled down to soak in the experience. The patches of fire and lights on the ground faded once the dragons ascended above the scattered clouds with powerful wingbeats, leaving Twinkle with the comfortable sensation of being alone again, despite the dragons. Flying was so peaceful when compared to the chaotic fighting and death below the clouds and smoke. Up here with the stars, Twinkle was at home again. The close grip of the dragon’s claws shielded her from the strong wind of their progress and comforted Twinkle, much as if she had closed the cover on a good book and was about to open another. Her family and the other ponies were now her past, and her future, as short as it could become, lay elsewhere. Sacrificing herself to save the others had been the logical decision, and even if her sacrifice occurred in a fashion she had never expected, her life as she knew it was over. Still, there was something inside her heart that made her think this was only another step on a long journey that no other unicorn had ever experienced, and she found herself looking forward to what was to come.