The Dragon and the Photograph

by Scramblers and Shadows

3/3: Ascent

The Dragon lay on the rock, staring at the photograph. Sweetie Belle had given him that photograph not long after Rarity's death. He'd taken it with him when he left. No, not left. Ran away.

He'd hidden a note one night, tucked the photograph beneath his scales, and flown south. He hadn't known where he was going, just that he had to get away from it all. Over several weeks he had flown across deserts and mountain ranges. He had crossed a sea and passed by a vast, ancient city filled with statues of dragons but empty of gemstones. He had kept on going until he could barely remember where he came from. Until he reached this gorge. And here, over decades, he began to build his hoard.

He had been a coward and abandoned his friends. But time had obscured the memories. They were hidden behind acquisition and hoarding, behind feeding, fighting and fornicating with other dragons. That little bit of mammalian brain he'd picked up as a whelp had been lost in a sea of barely sentient survival strategies. Hidden away so it couldn't trouble him any more.

Until now. Until that damned photograph had brought it all the surface again. He wondered why he kept it with him, even after all the trouble it had caused. Why it still gave him some sort of comfort. Why, for all the heartache it caused, he still didn't want to abandon the heritage life with the ponies had given him.

He looked up at the stars. He recited to himself all the constellations Twilight had taught him. It had been many decades since he had last seen – truly seen, not merely looked at – those constellations. Maybe there was something to this pony mindset after all.

"Now, isn't that just the most spectacular sunset you have ever seen?" said Rarity.

The last fraction of the sun peeked out from below the horizon, a magnificent but timorous animal slowly retreating into its hiding place. Above it, the sky saturated with orange and red, the clouds breaking up the monotony and turning the view into a great floating, colourful inkblot test; below, the calm rippling of the sea breaking up the sun's reflection into a thousand bloody slivers floating in wine.

The seven of them had spent that day at the beach, enjoying the opportunity to relax while the three new element bearers were beset by royal celebrations and accolades for saving Equestria from a jumped-up demigod who embodied archetypal anxiety.

"It certainly is somethin'," said Applejack.

Twilight frowned. "With that cloud cover, I don't think tonight will be good for stargazing." This earned her a look from Rarity. Twilight winced. "I jest! It's beautiful, of course."

Rainbow Dash shrugged her wings. "Well, I dunno about you lot, but I'm beat. Plus, y'know, I've got way too much work tomorrow. Practicing for another grand tour, if you can believe it. I'm gonna go hit the straw."

"Me, too," said Twilight. "Bed is calling." There was a general murmur of assent.

"Well, I," said Rarity "am still feeling rather sprightly! I think I'll be up for a few hours more. If anyone would like to join me, feel free!" She was holding eye contact with Spike.

"Oh, uh, yeah!" he said. "I think I'll stick around for a while, too."

"Okay," said Twilight. "Goodnight both."

"Don't have any awesome adventures while we're gone!" said Dash, grinning.

Applejack raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"Goodnight, ladies," said Rarity. "And I assure you, we will not let any tumultuous troubles befall us until you're with us to enjoy them, Rainbow Dash."

As the five ponies retreated, Rarity smiled at Spike. "I'm in the mood for a walk. Shall we go investigate that cliff face? I've not been there before."

"Sure, sounds good!" said Spike, and the two trotted off down the beach.

They continued on in a comfortable silence for some time, watching the sun slowly slip away behind the horizon. When they reached the cliff, the disk was deep enough that they could see one of the openings in the rock face glowing with a faint, pale light. It was a dozen or so metres off the ground.

"Now that," said Rarity, "looks interesting. Shall we investigate?"

Spike spread his wings, triangulating on the opening. Then he stopped, and looked at Rarity. She held his gaze unwaveringly. Spike scraped his claw through the sand. "After all these years," he said, "you need only hint, and I'll still jump to do anything for you. Why is that?"

Rarity looked away, grinning sheepishly. When she looked back, eyes wide, it was no longer with a charming, charismatic expression, but a purely sincere and slightly troubled one.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was being ever so slightly manipulative. But, please Spike, I would quite like to see what's in that cave. I really would appreciate it if you could give me a lift."

Spike relented and stooped down a little so Rarity could, with some difficulty, climb on his back. And then, with one tremendous beat of his wings, they were in the air. He flew up to the cave and landed, allowing Rarity to disembark.

The cave was just about large enough for him to stand up in. It was cool, but not uncomfortably so. The wet, undulating limestone beneath his claws was oddly comforting. With Rarity and him standing still, the only sound was the faint but insistent crashing of the sea upon the rocks below, echoing ever so slightly throughout the cave.

Spike looked up, and stood enthralled by the sight for a moment. So, that's where the light was coming from. The ceiling was bedecked with dozens of small, luminescent stalactites. Except they weren't stalactites. They were stringy. Soft. Slimy. A chain of damp, glowing pearls.

Rarity was standing, staring at the cave's lightshow in silence. After a while, she turned to him. Using the field from her horn, she gently detached a glowing point from the bottom of one of the strings and brought it down to her level. It sat there, floating in space, Rarity's field aura complementing its light.

"Twilight told me about these, once," she said. " 'Bioluminescent bacterial colonies suspended in mucus' was the exact phrase, I think." She put the blob back on its string. "There was a time when I would have felt nauseous knowing I was within ten metres of such a thing. Now, I couldn't care less about it save for its beauty."

Rarity walked over to a pool of water in the cave's floor and looked at her reflection, frowning and putting a hoof to her face to tug at the soft skin around her jaw and eyes. After a moment, she sighed and looked away from the water, at Spike.

She wasn't so immaculately put together as usual; her mane and tail were slightly matted by wet sand and had fallen away from the curls she usually kept them in, draping somewhat awkwardly to the side. It didn't matter, Spike thought. She still looked amazing.

"C'mon," he said, sitting by the entrance to the cave, looking out. "It's a great view."

"Quite right," said Rarity, abandoning the pool to sit by him.

The sun was no longer visible, and the sea was more active, churning and grumbling against the rocks below. They could not see the moon, but they saw fragments of its reflection in the sea; amorphous flowing bits of silver swimming in blackness.

"Spike," said Rarity. "About what you said down there –"

"Don't worry about it," said Spike.

"No. This is important. When we first met, I was a silly and capricious filly. I realised quite quickly that you were smitten, and I did nothing to dissuade you. If anything, I encouraged it. I threw my charisma around with no thought for the damage I could do. And when your feelings grew stronger I found myself bewildered and just fell back on my old patterns of behaviour, foolish and manipulative as ever."

Spike put a claw on her shoulder to stop her. "Rarity," he said, "I didn't love you for fluttering your eyelashes at me, you know. I loved – love – you for everything that your are."

Rarity considered this for a moment, and smiled to herself. "But still," she said, "I did not always treat you well. I am truly sorry. I consider myself tremendously lucky that you were willing to see past my less mature behaviour and that, even after everything I have put you through, I still have your friendship. You must know, though–"

Rarity was interrupted by a fit of coughing.

"Are you sure you're all right?" said Spike.

"I'm sure. Don't worry, I just need to–"

More coughing, which lasted longer. Spike put a claw on Rarity's back while her body shook. When she had finished, she took her hoof away from her mouth, looked at it with an unreadable expression, and wiped it on the stone below her.

Seeing Spike's concerned expression, she said, "Honestly. Don't worry about it. I've just had a rather tickly throat today. It's just the salt in the air, I think."

Spike looked out at the sea. "Okay, if you're perfectly sure," he said.

"I am. And don't think I've forgotten my lecture, you know." Rarity sighed and looked down at the stone floor in front of her. "What it comes down to is that I don't love you. I... Never have. This is through no fault of your own. You are a wonderful creature, sincere and genuinely decent. As much a hero as any of us former element bearers were. Celestia knows, Spike, I've tried to love you. I've wished that I fell for you rather than that complete and utter gelding Debonair, because I know you'd have been so much better for me. But as wonderful as you are, I can't make myself fall in love with you. And you don't know how abysmal and guilty that makes me feel."

When Rarity looked up, there were tears in her eyes. Spike, without a second thought, wrapped his wing around her and pulled her close to him. She leaned into him, luxuriating in the embrace.

"Maybe I've got as much to apologise for as you, then," Spike said. "You can't help how you feel any more than I can. My buzzing around you as a whelp, my constantly reminding you of how I felt... That must have hurt."

He felt Rarity nod. "A little," she said weakly. She took a breath, then pulled away to look him the eyes. "Perhaps I was wrong before," she said. "I'm not in love with you. But I do love you. Platonic yes, but love nonetheless. I know that may not help much, but–"

"It helps," said Spike. "It helps at a lot."

Rarity smiled tearfully. "It's things like that, genuine acts of compassion without any ulterior motive. That's why."

They sat in silence, watching the stars and sea framed by the soft, flowing curves of the cave's entrance while Rarity composed herself.

"I bore the element of generosity," said Rarity, "but the thing that has preoccupied me most in this world is beauty. Beauty is what unites the world. It can be enjoyed by the elite and downtrodden alike; from here in this nameless cave to the ancient architecture of Canterlot to the great dance of celestial mechanics above us. But, most of all, it's our expression that we are more than animals. We are... We can be such disgusting and brutal creatures. But that we can see beauty in the world, that we can recreate it. That is an expression of our transcendent qualities.

"It's that ideal that kept me going when faced with all the fickleness and avarice and skulduggery in my line of work. It is that ideal that kept me going when my marriage came crashing down around me. It is that ideal that sums up who I am and everything that I stand for."

Spike was silent.

Rarity closed her eyes and thought for a moment. "Where am I going with this? Alas, I fear my dramatic nature has got the better of me again. I don't mean to say that I ran on that alone. Without you, without our friends, I would not have been able to uphold that principle. Each of you has helped me become who I am. Without your support I would not have been able to truly understand any of that, let alone put it into words.

"What I'm getting at, Spike, is that you are, in part, the origin of that principle. In turn, you've been affected by it. We've grown into the creatures we are together, our ideals and beings are woven into one another. Part of you is me.

"I've always wanted to leave my mark on the world. All the beauty I've created lives in a world too ephemeral for that to happen. Debonair and I were close to trying for a foal. But, fortunately, I suppose, that never came to pass, and I don't think I'll get another chance at it."
Spike made a move to speak. Rarity put a hoof to his mouth to stop him.

"Really," she said sadly, "I won't. Which means any chance I have at this lies with you. Spike, the most beautiful things in this world are our fellow creatures. Pony, dragon, griffon, whatever. And the most beautiful thing you can do is care for another. So what I ask of you is that you continue to be the wonderful, compassionate, magnanimous dragon you have been all these years I've known you. If you do that, then so long as you're here, I'll always be here. "

As she finished speaking, Rarity had her hoof on Spike chest, her face only a few inches from his.

"I will," he said. "I promise."

Rarity looked into his eyes for several seconds. Then she put her muzzle to his forehead and kissed him.

"Thank you, Spike," she said. "That means the world to me."

The Dragon lay, staring east. The sky was a dark, dusty orange. There was a blink of green at the horizon, followed by the bright, swollen edge of the sun.

He dragged himself to a standing position. His wounds still seared. He didn't care, though; a thought had come to him. The airship must have had a crew. He had seen no bodies near the wreck, and as far as he knew there were no carnivores native to the gorge. Which meant...

The Dragon took to the sky, wincing in pain as he did so. He had made some truly terrible choices to get him into the position he was in. That couldn't be helped. But right now he had an opportunity, one last shot at making a difference. He would not let that slip by.

The wreck was as he had left it. Cold, vast, and empty. There were no signs of habitation. He searched for several minutes, finding nothing. The crew were not here.

The Dragon sat thinking, wondering where they might have gone. Whether he should search the bottom of the gorge, or whether they might have made it to the lip and gone out into the plains beyond. Then he realised that he could smell smoke. It was very faint, but it was smoke, and it was not his.

He found the source of the smoke a few hundred metres upwind of the wreck. A campfire in the mouth of a small cave, left burning during the night, presumably to ward off any would be aggressors. He tapped very gently with a lone digit on the ground by the cave. There was no response. The Dragon searched his memory, trying to recall long blurred Equestrian words and sentence structure. No pony had come out of the cave, so he put his muzzle as close to the opening as he could, and said softly, "Hello? I... I'm not an enemy." Silence. The Dragon tapped again, louder. "If you're in there, speak. Please." Nothing. "I'm going to try and get you home."

He heard hoofsteps from within. And then, a voice. "You think you can get us home?" it said. "I mean, I– Really? Are you sure?"

"I will try," said The Dragon.

"Hold on, move your great mouth before you smoke us out."

The Dragon obliged. Moments later a mare appeared from within. Her hair was matted with dirt and dry blood. Her mane, lank and unwashed, hung over the side of her neck. And yet, for all of this, she looked imperious and dignified.

"A dragon offering help out of the blue? Forgive me for asking, but are you going to charge us for this? We're all out of gems here, as you've probably noticed, and I doubt either the Co-Operative or Princess Celestia would be willing to pay our travel costs at the destination."

"I'm not asking for payment of any sort. I knew Celestia. I need to see her again, to go back to Equestria."

The mare stepped out of the cave. Behind her, several ponies waited quietly.

"And you're willing to just take us along for the ride?" she said, trying to peer over his muzzle. "Well, I'm not one to look a gift dragon in the mouth. Or, uh. Maybe I am. But only literally. Anyway, I don't see that we've much of a choice. If we stay, we're gonna die anyway." She turned to the rest of the ponies behind her, "Come on, let's see if we can make this work." And then, to The Dragon, "Do you think you can make it? Equestria is a bloody long ways from here, and if you don't mind me saying so, you look pretty beat up."

The Dragon shrugged. "I will try, " he said. "That's all I can promise. I just need directions. It's been a long time."

The mare nodded. "Well, then, on behalf of the crew of the Zero Gravitas and the D. Hooves Shipping Co-Operative, I, Captain Hyacinth, thank you graciously."

There were twelve ponies in all. No fatalities. The Dragon thought it nice to know that even out here, far from civilisation, Equestria considered the safety and comfort of ponies a priority above all others. After some discussion, they had The Dragon tear the intact part of the airship's cabin off, so they could secure it to his back with cables salvaged from the wreck. Hyacinth pointed the way to Equestria, and by midday they had set off.

The journey was long. They passed a litany of geographic features. The ponies remembered them, The Dragon did not. Sometimes Hyacinth left the cabin, climbed onto his neck as he was flying and talked to him. She asked his name. The Dragon told her. She introduced the rest of the crew. He did not recognise any of their names. After some days, she asked him if he might like to hear stories. He said he would. She recited from memory the tales of Daring Do, and explained how these tales had inspired her to seek adventure by signing up for long range flights. Leading a mining expedition was nowhere near as exciting as being an actionista archaeologist, of course. But then, Hyacinth noted with some pride, Daring has never brought home anything as awesome as a real live dragon. The Dragon didn't point out that he was her rescuer, not her trophy. She told him why they were so far from home, too: Equestria was running out of gems. As its civilisation expanded, they had to look further and further afield to support their industrial base. She asked him if he was feeling okay. The Dragon lied. She asked if he knew anything about the great dragon city when they passed over it. He didn't.

The Dragon listened. It helped with boredom. Some of it was rather interesting. And, most of all, it distracted from his growing weakness, his growing pain as the muscles in his stomach tore a little more with every beat of his wings.

The Dragon had become noticeably sluggish and Hyacinth had given up trying to get him to talk about his injuries or slow down and rest when they arrived at a great swamp. The crew in the cabin began to whoop and cheer and neigh.

Hyacinth came out and said to The Dragon and said, "Hear that? We're now above Equestria. You can land anywhere here and we'll make it the rest of the way."

"No," said The Dragon. "We're going to Canterlot."

She sighed. "Very well," she said. "Just keep going forward, you'll know it when you see it."

The Dragon kept on going forward. He could barely register awareness of the the outside world at this point. Everything was either fatigue, pain, duty, or an annoying captain talking at him. That was okay, though. He was nearly there: Journey's end.

A few hours later, he saw it. A great cluster of ancient towers clinging improbably to the side of a mountain, an act of wilful defiance against the dreary realities of gravity and decay. A beacon of pony civilisation. Seeing it gave him renewed vigour. He forgot the fatigue and hurled himself onward towards the city.

The Dragon half landed, half crashed just outside the castle, crushing some flowerbeds in a part of the royal gardens. There was a great fuss around him. Members of the royal guard running or flying up to him, shouting at one another, telling civilians to back off, ordering underlings to call the Princesses and the Viceroy immediately. He was vaguely aware of ponies clambering off his back onto the grass, the shocked reaction of the crowd. Voices spoke of a great adventure and a heroic dragon. Injuries. Medical help needed immediately, they said. The world blurred and swam around him.

Celestia had arrived. She told him how proud she was of him. Then Rarity was there. She told him that everything was fine, and that she loved him. He told her she didn't need to. That he had done what he could to help other ponies, that he had her to thank for that, and that he had honoured her as best he could. On the edge of hearing someone shouted, he didn't know who. All six bearers of the Elements stood before him, smiling. No, he thought. They weren't really there. He was just hallucinating. He had to stay awake, The Dragon thought. Hold on until the Princesses arrive.

And then he thought nothing at all.

"He's back with us," said Discord.

The Dragon opened his eyes. So much for a nice, heroic, dramatic death, he thought. Looks like I'll get another chance to hold on to beauty.

Before him stood Celestia, Discord, Luna, and Twilight. Twilight was taller than he remembered, as tall as Luna. Discord floated by Celestia's side, paw inattentively caressing her mane. Celestia and Twilight had tears in their eyes. There were more ponies in the background, Captain Hyacinth among them.

"We almost lost you there for a moment," said Celestia. "Had Discord not seen you land..."

"Actually, we did lose you," said Discord, smirking. "You were quite dead. But your flesh was still warm. Lucky thing, really. The ol' ball and chain only taught me regeneration, not necromancy."

Celestia gave him a look, and Discord fell silent.

"Spike," said Twilight. "You're really back. I can barely believe it. You were gone for so long. I was worried you had forgotten about us."

Celestia and Twilight walked forward to rest their muzzles against his. He shifted his head slightly and plucked the photograph from its position, safely tucked behind the scales on his neck, and put it down in front of him.

"Welcome back, Spike," said Celestia. "We all missed you, greatly."

Spike smiled; he was finally home.