//------------------------------// // Chapter 20: The Nightmare Within pt.1 // Story: Stairway to Equestria // by AlexUk //------------------------------// Chapter 20 The Nightmare Within The large doors of the throne room swung open, the heavy sound echoing in the large hall. A hooded pony walked through, escorted by four gryphon guards. On the far side of the room, from a large iron throne, King Arnost kept his gaze on the one he had called forth, impatiently tapping his talon against the large chair. The pony stopped several feet from him, a pink aura unveiling her head. She took a bow, her pale blue mane shining in the moon’s light that filtered through the large windows. “He lives,” Arnost simply said, his voice echoing in the throne room, “and the fight he put up today was not as impressive as I expected it to be,” he immediately added before the pony could speak. “How could you fail such a simple task? Thousands of miles of wasted opportunities, just for you to return to me with him still alive.” “I . . . apologize, but he was helped all those times: Luna, that dragon friend of his, even their birds. I will get them on their way back, the great and powerful promises!” A loud, splintering crack filled the room as Arnost slammed his talons against the throne. “You are a great and powerful nothing in here!” his strong voice accompanied the echoes of his fist slam. “A worthless defector of your own kind, nothing more.” “But I-” “Silence! You’d better make sure they don’t escape unharmed this time,” he said, signaling with a claw a pair of guards next to him. The gryphons grabbed a chest from behind the room and brought it in front of the mare. After placing it gently on the marble floor, they opened the top lid. “It’s called a Magebane; take it and finish the job you started. After that, return to Equestria and await word from me.” Trixie stared at the content of the chest, her lip trembling slightly. “Is that a-” “Go, and ask no more questions!” Arnost ordered, causing the mare to flinch. She grabbed the object inside and slid it inside her robe, packing it securely in a satchel on her back. Trixie then bowed her head in front of the gryphon king and left the throne room in great haste. *** *** *** The sounds of the night pierced through the dense forest around me, the howling of unknown creatures sending deep chills in my bones. I looked up towards the moon, its shimmering white bringing a tang of comfort into my restless soul. “Waiting for someone?” a familiar voice came from behind a tree. Its bearer came out into the moonlight, carrying a malicious grin on his face. His pitch-black orbs that served as eyes gazed upon me as he approached, his hoofsteps unheard. He bore no cutie mark for some strange reason, yet there was no doubt about who he was. The last two days have been marked by his pungent presence inside my head, his words tantalizing orders of maddening actions. He was me . . . my own Nightmare. “She can’t come here and save you again,” he said, stopping at a frightening safe distance, just out of my immediate reach. Was he going to fight me that time? The encounters with him had been weird and sometimes violent, but I realised what he was actually doing: slowly but steadily he was breaking me, getting into my mind and planting the seeds of chaos and death that was to come. “Who are you talking about?” I lied between unsteady lips, trying as best as I could to appear disinterested in him. That didn’t usually work in my favor; he hated being ignored. “Luna can’t visit you unless you’re in a dream, and we both know that very well.” “You are not real, therefore you are a dream; a creation of my subconscious.” Clouds or dark smoke invaded my view, sipping into my nostrils and eyes as he teleported right next to me. He was at my neck, his hoof extending black tendrils around it, squeezing it dangerously “I am as real as you are,” he hissed between his teeth. I dared look into his abyssal eyes and saw nothing but eternal darkness, emptiness and an unquenchable thirst for blood. My horn flared magic into the dark night as I grabbed a nearby log and smashed it against his head. “I will never let you out, whatever the hell you are!” I shouted, wrapping my blue magic around the tree behind me and uprooting it. I pummeled the blue stallion with it, driving him deep into the ground. The tree broke in half, and the half broke as well after several more beatings. The remnants of the tree dropped with a thud on the ground. Moments later the stallion got up and stared at me as if nothing had happened. Puffing out of existence in a cloud of smoke, he instantly reappeared inches away from me. “Fighting me is useless, how do you not understand that? You cannot keep me locked inside forever!” The ground shook slightly. A distant call of my name echoed in my head. My Nightmare tilted his head, staring into the dark sky. “Until next time,” he whispered in his cold voice. He then backed away, his hoofsteps leaving unnatural ripples like a stone dropped in water in the forest floor. The sounds of waves splashing against something solid faded in, along with another call of my name. At the same time, the world around darkened and darkened until there was nothing. “Blink! Hey, Blink, how are you? Feeling better?” I raised my hoof, and it was soon grabbed by the worried dragon. “I’m okay, Spike; just another bad dream.” “It’s well into the evening, and you’ve slept all night,” he clenched my hoof harder. ”Are you sure those visions are not real?” “I don’t know,” I admitted, heaving a deep breath. “How long?” “Last time I asked Pearl, he said we should be there tomorrow.” I fumbled my hooves around and stood up from the makeshift hay bed, my back stinging with every move. “How bad is it?” I asked, gently running a hoof along the back of my neck. “The ambassador fixed it up pretty good. Most of the fur already grew back. But dude-” “What?” “You really need a mane-cut. And a fur trim for that matter.” A smile formed on my face, yet quickly faded away. “Come with me, I wanna show you something,” came Spike’s voice as I felt his claws wrap around the end of my unkempt mane and tugging it gently. “Show me something? What a funny dragon we are today. And I thought I told you to stop doing that, I’m not a workhorse, you know?” I said, following him. “You didn’t like the rope leash I made for you,” came his retort. The sound of the sea became louder and clearer. As I dragged my hooves along the wooden floor, I realised we were on the deck of the ship, the wind battering against my coat. A few moments later, we stopped. Spike’s claws reached for my front hooves and he pulled them up one by one, letting them rest by what had to be the wooden rail. And then I felt it: an unusual and barely present sensation across my face. I took a deep breath, taking in the cold ocean air, its salty smell imprinting itself deep into my mind. “How . . . how is it?” I simply asked. “Well, it’s still shimmering a little. It already got that purple haze around the horizon, and the color is reflecting in the ocean’s water all around us. It’s just as beautiful as last time we saw it.” I searched deep through the depths of my mind and pulled the memory of the last sunset me and Spike had watched together. I tried to place that image in front of me, and for one moment, have a little bit of light in my otherwise dark world. “Thanks, Spike; for everything. Especially for coming with me on this stupid journey.” “It’s all right, I guess. We’ll soon be back home in Ponyville, you’re gonna get fixed up and then we’ll forget about this in no time.” I rested my head on my front hooves, trying to keep the twilight’s image in my mind. “Sounds like a plan,” I added with a sigh. *** *** *** The door glowed a magical yellow and opened wide, allowing Celestia to step into her large study. She stopped the moment she noticed the unusual presence of her sister, staring at a wall of portraits. The late morning’s light filled the room, but even so, the air was gloomy and dark. Celestia closed the door behind her and stepped warily to her desk, idly checking several scrolls and waiting for her sister to talk first. Yet Luna remained silent, staring at the multiple portraits on the wall with rapt attention. “So little sister, anything troubling you?” Celestia asked, deciding to break the awkward silence. Her sister shuffled a little in place, re-directing her attention to another portrait, the one of a mare she had just recently seen. “Only the dead’s unrest, and the sins of my past.” Celestia froze, and the moment she noticed Luna was looking at the portrait of a long gone Captain of the Royal Guard, Bellona the Wise, she figured out her sister somehow knew. “What- what do you mean, sister?” “Why did you withhold the truth from me?” Luna simply inquired, turning her attention to Celestia. “I- how did you find out?” “Twilight sent me a letter, informing me about a strange occurrence in the Everfree. It was in the old ruins where the Elements were kept. Dost thou wish to take a guess at what I found there a couple of nights ago?” Celestia remained silent. For her, it was a surprise to find out Twilight sent her sister a letter about something important, and not to her in the first place. “Twilight-” “Yes, dearest sister; she sent me a letter, not you. I do wonder why; maybe because you’ve sent her beloved to die on a strange land, and that her dearest friend followed said stallion in his quest? Alas, the worst part is not even that . . .” “Ohh Luna, you know very well that I only meant what’s-” “Did thou mean well when you hid the death of tens of stallions and mares from me as well?” Luna cut her short. “I- I didn’t want you to know that, so that you wouldn’t have to carry that burden with you,” Celestia said, her eyes pleading for any form of understanding. “Yet the burden of knowing no rest for over a thousand years was carried by them! They were all there, every last one of them. They were there when I returned from my banishment and was saved by the Elements. They have been there ever since, waiting for something, for someone to free them of that burden.” Celestia had frozen in place, almost unable to take in what her sister was telling her. “And yet I managed to release them from the curse that has was bestowed upon them by Nightmare Moon the day they all died by her hoof. Now tell me sister, was a few years of my peace worth it?” The white alicorn opened her mouth to speak, yet no words formed on her lips. Luna turned back to Bellona’s portrait, her eyes filled with emotions. “Thou told me to leave my heart opened for you. How can I do that when one doesn’t even show honesty towards the other?” Luna said quietly, her eyes shut as to keep those emotions in. She then turned around and left the room, leaving Celestia to stand alone in the middle of the study, her apologies untold. *** *** *** My entire world was pain. The fight had been going on for hours and hours on end. I let out a deep groan as I got up from the ground. Another powerful blow out of the blue sent me flying again through the air, ending up smashing myself against something hard. Pain flooded my body again but I couldn’t give up. There was no way I would let that happen. I got up, the broken bones and muscles healing up almost instantly. Fighting in my own head against a darker side of me was surreal, an indescribable experience I wished upon no one. I couldn’t die, but that was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to break me, make me give in and let him do his bidding. When emotional attacks showed no results, he resorted to inflicting pure, unfiltered pain, delivered straight into my head through countless beatings that I managed more or less to stand up against. Fighting my nightmare was like trying to reduce numbness with pain medication. On the outside I was in control, but inside his powers were greater that I could ever imagine, which made me even more determined to not let that evil out. “Still not giving up?” he asked from a distance, coming towards me. The world around me shook and plunged itself into darkness without warning. The cold air sent a shiver down my spine, forcing me back awake. “Blink, you okay? Let’s get you into bed,” came Spike’s concerned voice from nearby. He helped me get up and guided me inside the ship, towards my makeshift bed. “Wha- why am I not in my bed already? I remember being outside on the deck, talking with you . . . you told me we would arrive at Issac that day, and then I lost it somehow . . . why are we still on the boat?” “Blink, we just had that talk a few seconds ago, when you fainted. What’s happening to you, man?” Panic engulfed me. I’d been fighting my Nightmare for what seemed to be hours, not moments. The situation was getting desperate and I was running out of ideas and even willpower to push on against him. I laid onto the rough bed, covering my shivering body with a piece of cloth. “I’m fine. I just need to keep fighting him.” “Can I help?” came Spike’s genuine, concerned-filled question. “No, I need to do this alone . . .” I let out a deep breath and relaxed my body, the creaking of the hull slowly fading away into the depths of my mind. When I opened my eyes I could see once again. My Nightmare was, as always, waiting for me inside my mind, prepared for another round of torture. The endless forest around me stretched towards all four horizons, the colors of the night blending together in the distant line of sight. The large clearing we were in marked the place where we usually fought against each other like crazed animals. I looked him in the eyes, and the depthless pits of darkness that were his stared back. I channeled my magic, ready for another head to head against my darker self. As I focused that energy, a single glance at the nearby trees revealed a most fascinating spectacle, something that I’d been totally oblivious of in my recent encounters against him. Each tree seemed to glow gently, soft pulsing points raising from their roots and into their crowns. The faint glowing wisps then propagated throughout the many branches, sparking other glows in the neighboring trees. I realised I was literally inside my head, and the spectacle was breathtaking. “Lovely view indeed, but I would rather enjoy the one . . . outside of here.” His voice immediately snapped me back to reality. “NO!” I yelled as he took a step towards me. My horn shined brightly through the dark night, illuminating the forest around and causing the neuron-like trees to send out powerful pulses to each other. The blue light imploded back into the horn, my eardrums popping from the sudden change of pressure. He didn’t even have time to flinch before the whole ground underneath him exploded violently in a large area, throwing tons of dirt into the air all around him. As the large mass of debris rained back down, so did he, and ended up trapped feet under as I redirected the whole mass displacement back on top of him. It was shortly after the last pebble fell back onto the freshly made mound that a blue hoof came through it. In moments he was out of the ground, his blue coat smeared and dirtier than before. “You fool,” he started, choking out and spitting dirt, “do that again and you’ll spend the rest of your pathetic life drooling like a bland vegetable!” Ohh . . . shit. That must have been quite a lot of brain matter I just blasted away, given that even my own Nightmare was worried. I made a quick mental note not to mess around with the environment anymore, the prospect of sucking up food with a straw drawing a frightening image in my head. That moment of pondering was short lived, his face appearing inches away from mine as he teleported next to me. He then drew a front hoof back, his dark magic glow encasing it and forming itself into the dark shape of a blade. With a powerful swing, he plunged the blade through my chest, knocking the air out of my perforated lungs as pain overtook each one of my senses. As soon as he withdrew the blade from me, he plunged it back in, using black tendrils spawned from his other hoof to hold my by the neck. Wave after wave of mind-breaking pain crashed against my conscience with each stab, the forest around flashing like a lightning storm with every new spike in my agony. A loud cry filled the night, and his blade-wielding hoof froze mid-air. The Nightmare barely had the time to look to his side when a dark shape crashed against him, lifting him into the air. I recovered from the pain and looked up, trying to spot whatever took him, but failed to spot anything into the dark limits. The sound of a falling object faded in, and with a bone-crunching sound that made me shiver to the core, his body crashed against the ground, feet away from me. Moments after, the powerful flapping of a very large pair of wings became louder and louder. I was expecting Luna, I was even expecting Celestia or Death Himself in the shape of a dark angel to land next to my Nightmare’s limp body, but what I didn’t expect was the a huge jet-black bird that instantly reminded me of a dear friend. “Raven? What the fuck?!” I yelped, the five foot tall raven tilting her head at me quizzically. She was huge, her rapid head movements as she looked around being shockingly similar to her real movements as the creature that would usually sit between my shoulder blades out of pure laziness. I approached her hesitantly, but there was no doubt about who she was. Her signature caw even made my eardrums vibrate in pain. She was Raven all right. A groan escaped the lips of my Nightmare underneath her and Raven instantly locked her eyes onto the barely moving corpse, her instincts driving her. I was almost sure the impacts I’ve put him through our battles were more powerful than the fall he just took, so it seemed that somehow, Raven was able to really hurt him. His horn began to glow but immediately Raven drove her beak down with lightning speed and crushing force, the sound of breaking neck bones filling the silence around. He gasped as Raven ripped the flesh apart with every peck of her beak, retaliating violently to the tiniest movement he enacted. As the gruesome evisceration took place right under my eyes, I stood there in silent shock, a strange mix of petty and satisfaction overtaking me. “Blink, wake up!” I raised my head, searching for Spike’s presence with my hoof. “Come on, let’s go; we’re here.” “Here?” I followed him, the ocean’s sounds no longer there, replaced however with the powerful ambient of the bustling port city. “Aye, Blink. Managed to bring ya’ll to shore safely this time,” came Pearl’s voice from somewhere on the deck. “Thanks for that, and if you ever find yourself back in Equestria, give us a visit. Especially to your cousin.” “Sure thing, lad. Take care of ya, guys!” Bidding our farewells, we left the ship and headed towards what I assumed was the city. “Spike, how the hell are we going to get back home safely with me not seeing a damn thing?” I asked, adjusting the cloak on my back and magically checking that I had my holster and pistol strapped underneath it. “It’s gonna be fine, you’ll see. Plus, I can take care of-” “Well look who decided to show its face around here again,” came a coarse voice from up ahead. I bumped by nose against something hard, most probably Spike’s back scales. “Spike, what’s happening?” I asked worried as I felt him back away, guiding me back with his hand. I felt a spike of senses deep inside. Something with a lot of magic had suddenly appeared around us, and the strange part was that it wasn’t even originating from whoever was in front of us, but from somewhere behind. “Look, if you want to go against me again, you’ll have to bring more friends than that,” Spike threatened, and I could clearly hear the bubbling noises in his flame chambers as he breathed in and out. “Eyy! Get lost Snatcher, these guys are with me,” came Pearl’s voice from behind as I heard his hoofsteps approaching us. “Can it whitey, that beast there knocked me out and burned my buddy, I think I might just return the favor, ain’t that right boys?” A series of laughs and approvals erupted from all around us. I then realised how many stallions had actually ganged up on us. I gritted my teeth in exasperation, not being able to stand the overwhelming sensation of vulnerability I had. My horn glowed slowly as I grabbed the pistol under my coat, and for a split second, I was sure that my mind was playing me tricks because I could have sworn I felt the stallions and dragon in front of me in a very visual manner, almost as if I got a glimpse of their outlines for the briefest of moments. “Back away, lad!” I heard a hard impact sound from my left, where Pearl should have been. Immediately after, Spike’s deep inhaling as he prepared to spit fire at whoever was attacking us notified me that the fight had started. And I couldn’t see or do anything about it. Acting on instinct, I raised a shield plate in front of me. As I used my magic to do that, fleeting traces of color filled my vision for the briefest of moments. Raven’s loud caw came from my shoulder. The strange sensation of something magically powerful was still behind me, and it was stronger than ever. A shot rang through the air from nearby. A groan cut short Spike’s fire breathing attack. And then the world suddenly came to an abrupt stop. No sounds, no movement, no sensation. I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of a large commotion, all frozen into place as if time had forgotten how to flow. I couldn’t move my body, but my head was somewhat mobile. I could see. I saw Pearl to my left, his hoof departing from its impact site, teeth flying from a scruffy stallion’s mouth. I turned my eyes to the right. Ignited drops of liquid were sprayed out of Spike’s mouth and nose in an unfocused manner, as if he had choked with his own fire. His eyes were closed shut in pain. A small shimmer caught my attention. A bullet, next to his left shoulder, dented and torn as it had just bounced off a harder scale. The thug in front of him. I recognized him to be the second guy that assaulted us at that motel the night we left Issac’s Port. The barrel of his revolver was smoking and his eyes were filled with hatred and a pure desire for revenge. “Quite . . . a . . . view,” a familiar voice said in the eerie silence. From behind one of the many thugs in front of me stepped out a blue unicorn. My jaw hung in shock. He was alive. The Nightmare was not over. “Why so surprised? Do you think your precious bird actually killed me? Thing is Blink, you can’t kill me, until you actually die yourself,” he said with a wicked grin. His face however turned serious as soon as he directed his dark gaze somewhere behind me. He came towards me, passing me and then walking for few more feet before stopping. “Ohh, this explains so many things. Never thought I would see you here. And what the hell is that, a horn?” His hoofsteps made themselves heard again as he stepped back in my field of view. “Seems like we are in a pickle here, old friend,” he said trying to sound smug, yet his voice was tainted with nervousness. “That one behind you is the same pony that tried to kill us on the way here. The strange feeling you’re having comes from her weapon. So, you either let me out to deal with this-” “Fuck you!” I shouted, determined. “That’s never going to happen, you hear me?” I clenched my teeth. It could have well been my last moments alive, but I had one last card to play. “You will die, once and for all. As you said, if I die, you die. I’m okay with that.” My Nightmare flinched, anger overtaking him. The shimmer from the bullet that bounced from Spike’s shoulder caught my attention. It was moving. Painfully slow, the bullet was moving through the air. Time was unfreezing. The Nightmare looked at the bullet as well, his façade of power and superiority beginning to crack and crumble visibly. That was my last chance. “Help me, and we walk away from this,” I calmly said. I was knowingly stepping into a very dangerous game, but it was that or the death of me and my friends. “Help you?” he hissed, locking his dark eyes onto mine. “Yes, make me see and I can fight these guys and whoever is behind me.” “You idiot, I can’t make you see. All you’re seeing now are just frames in time, built from all the input of your sense. You are still blind.” “Then how am I supposed to fight?” “Use your magic, fool. Every time you do, you can see their signature in your mind, instinctively.” He shuffled around, nervously staring at the thug’s revolver as its cylinder slowly spun a new round. He was visibly strained by the spell he was probably casting so that we could have that conversation while everything around was frozen in place. A caw came from above me. Raven was sitting on my horn, apparently unaffected by time’s flow. “All right; I’ll help us,” he finally conceded. “We will just feel a slight pinch when I surface a bit, but you still need to let me loose a little, otherwise you won’t get any power.” “Deal. Raven, listen to me. If I lose control you kill me, just like you did with him back in my mind. Can you do that for me?” Another caw came as a confirmation. Sounds started ringing in my head, as my vision went dark. “Remember, use your magic to see them, and watch for the charging one behind us,” came my Nightmare’s last words. The echoes of the gunshot filled my ears as everything started happening all over again. My insides suddenly started burning and I flinched in pain, dropping on one knee. “The bullet bounced, shoot him again!” came a voice from afar. I focused and suddenly the air around me went out as a torrent of energy began flowing into a pool around me. My cutie mark was burning. Whoa, that’s a lot of magic. The first spell cast was sending a powerful blast in the direction where I remembered the gun wielding stallion was. My whole world of darkness was instantly lit up as I channelled the powerful magic. Blue smudges of smoke and vapors blended in to form the shapes of every living creature around me. I could see all of the thugs that had ganged up on us, and some of them had weird mists around them. I then noticed those were the ones that had horns, the unicorns. I could literally see their magic. A scream faded away, and I saw the flying shape of a stallion, currents of my own magic blast flying past him. He came to an abrupt stop and I heard the sound of breaking wood and glass. “One down,” I muttered to myself. “Spike, burn em’!” I yelled to my partner as I pulled my own revolver from its holster. The imminent approach of the powerful force from behind was however impossible to ignore any longer. I turned around in place and saw a unicorn galloping towards me. Its magic was latched onto a blade-like object which was the actual source of unrest. With a thought, I raised a solid shield between us. The unicorn smashed against it, stopping in its tracks. The blade fell from its grasp, the momentum sending it sliding on the ground to my feet. I stared down upon it, the horrendous thing now clear in my mind. The dagger-like weapon was sharp and slightly curved but what was truly weird was the handle, a unicorn’s horn with its tip severed. The broken appendage was leaking strange magic right into the blade’s edge and tip, the weapon’s profile shining the brightest in my magic perspective of the world. A nearby presence reminded me of the fight going on. I turned back just as one of the thugs swung a knife at me. It would have been too late if not for the black tendril that somehow conjured itself and latched onto the attacker. My blood was boiling, a mixture of pure magic and rage filling my veins. Without hesitation, I cast another tendril and smashed the stallion into the ground. A very bright stream of magic filled my view, obscuring everything else. I looked closely to my side and realised it was actually Spike’s flame. Who would have though he carried so much magic? The pained screams of those unfortunate enough to be caught by the flames erupted, filling the air like a sweet melody to my ears. My senses caught up to two other fast approaching ponies. I turned around in time, my revolver ready. As I poured magic into the weapon, I felt a strange thing in it. And then I remembered the words of the merchant that had sold it to me. With four effortless squeezes of the trigger, the revolver spat its bullets one after the other in the blink of an eye. The sounds of the shots were ear-shattering, the recoil was powerful but the gun steadied itself immediately after each shot, the enchanted fast triggering mechanism kicking in, fueled by my magic. The thugs dropped to the ground, one of them with a shattered leg bone and a deep hole in his shoulder while the other one was missing half his jaw and his left ear. The smell of blood just seemed to add to my powers. I raised my gun to the next stallion but immediately noticed his missing eye. “Whoa there, don’t shoot! It’s me, Pearl!” I saw his lips move. My gun shook a little as I internally fought against my instinct to blast him into the afterlife. “I’m in control!” I let out, hosting the gun with a grunt. Movement behind me. I snapped my head back at where the blade that was lying on the ground but it was gone. On the other side of the town’s street, the unicorn attacker was rushing inside a narrow alleyway between two wooden buildings, its cloak fluttering behind him. An electrifying sharp sound rang in my ears as the crackling energies focused in front of me in a huge ball of invisible but very potent magic. “Ughaa!” I let out the feral cry, casting the spell. The blast created a powerful shockwave, knocking me behind and landing on my rump. Dust raised around me in an expanding circle travelling at the speed of sound, my eardrums ringing from the blast. I focused and tried to visualize the aftereffects of my spell, yet my eco-locating magic could only form images of living things and magic fields in my head. Spike’s contour was frozen in place in my head, just feet away from the spell’s cone-shaped area of effect. To my relief, his magic field moved, his head turning towards me. “Dude . . . just wow!” I heard from him. I felt being raised from the ground. Looking at the stallion grabbing me, I barely traced the shocked features on Pearl’s face. I flinched my hoof from his grasp, starring madly at him for some I reason I couldn’t explain exactly. Raven broke the moment by landing on Pearl’s head and cawing at me loudly. Her magic signature was shadowed by a translucent one, several times bigger. It looked the same way it did in my head when she saved me from my Nightmare. Seeing her like that triggered something in me and I immediately relaxed myself, my whole body and its muscles de-tensing as if something had left from within. “You’re welcome, fool,” came the echoes of my own voice from somewhere deep in my head. “I think we should get out of here,” Spike suggested, approaching me rather cautiously. “You okay? How did you manage to do that back there without seeing?” “Let’s say that I’ve come to a relative peace with my inner self.” My cutie mark still burned on both sides of my flank and my head was throbbing a rising pain. As my magic usage went down, so did my visual sensory abilities. Soon, my entire world was a cold emptiness, devoid of any colors or lights. The chilling wind, empowered by the nearby ocean’s breeze pulled at my mane and coat, and I started shivering as the heat around me leaving alongside the channeled magic. “Who was that?” I asked as we made our way out of the town, ponies and creatures of all kinds that transited it staring at us along the way and avoiding our path. “Who?” “The one that attacked me from behind. The unicorn that ran between those buildings.” “Well, I think that was a mare. I didn’t see her very well but her blue mane seemed very familiar.” I winced, finding out that whoever had been on my receiving end of that last spell was just a mare. A mare with a strangest weapon I had seen in my life, one that would have probably ended my life if I hadn’t reacted in time. “What happened to her, did you see where she ran to?” “Uhh dude, there was barely anything standing after you blasted those buildings; I didn’t see her . . . body however.” “That was some serious magic there lad, I’ll have ya know that,” came Pearl’s familiar voice from my side. “I really appreciate what you did for us Pearl, but I don’t want you to escort us anymore. You did enough as it is.” “Ye’re kidding, right? I can’t go back there after knocking the whites out of one of the sheriff boy’s mouth.” “The sheriff?” I asked, taken aback. “I thought those were all the thieves that tried to rob me and Spike that night and their friends or something.” “You forgot this is Issac’s Port we’re talking about, lad. Sheriffs here are the ones that turn their eyes the most from stuff like that. It ain’t Equestria here, so I was hoping ya fellows won’t mind me coming along with you. I wanna give my cousin a visit, see my niece as well, ya know?” “We could use an extra pony given our situation,” Spike added, thoughtfully. “All right, but we need to move fast. I don’t like how everyone is looking at us,” I said, picking up the pace. “How- how can you tell?” “I just feel it. Let’s go.” *** *** *** A distant roar echoed throughout the valley, barely audible in the dry wind. I slowly placed my hoof onto the last ledge and so I found myself on top of the tall plateau we had been climbing for the last hours. “What was that?” I asked, turning my head around, trying to pinpoint the sound’s source. “What was what? Ah didn’t hear anything.” “Same here,” added Spike, still guiding me gently across the narrow valley top. “Must have been my imagination again. So, see or smell anything, Spike?” “No . . . there’s nothing around in sight,” came Spike’s response after he probably scoured the entire horizon of the Dragon Territories. We were near the end of the thin stretch between Issac’s Fields and the Zebralands, and finding Ruby’s cave or Ruby for that matter seemed like an impossible task, as we didn’t recognize any of the strange valleys. I moved to glare at Spike, but was slapped by the brutal irony of my predicament. “Story of my god-damn life. Climbed all the way up here to find your precious drakefriend and all, and she ain’t even around.” “Wait, we climbed here to find yerself a dragon?” Pearl raised his voice from behind me. “Are ya out of yer damn minds?” “Nah, that one’s special. Spike’s got the hots for her; literally. She blew fire onto his chest and all, melted his heart,” I said with a chuckle. “Shut up you-” A clear roar rang inside my head again. “Shh- tell me you heard that one.” “Ah think I did. Does that sound like yer friend’s mate?” “Hey! She’s not my-” “Shut it both of you!” I spat at them, all of my senses all of a sudden bombarding me with sharp pinches, as if I had fallen in a pit of needles and sharp blades. ”Ohh- I- I think I can smell that,” said Spike in a chilling, trembling voice. “I don’t like it, Blink. This was such a bad idea, I think we should get down from here.” My horn buzzed, energy coursing through it faintly. An immediate magic presence came to life in front of my blind eyes, its signature having a magnitude and a color like I had never seen before. The loud, slow flaps of his wings went ignored by my ears, as every sense I had was focused on figuring out the magic reading in my head. My heart stuck to my ribcage, and if I hadn’t had my eyes closed already, I would have done so out of sheer terror. “Lads, we need to move, do it slowly or we’re all-” “We’re dead anyway. Aren’t we, Spike?” I asked, knowing fully well that Spike must have felt something similar to what I did, given the nature of the inbound creature. His silence spoke more than anything else. His claws wrapped tighter around my mane as he shuffled towards me and Pearl. Raven was silent as well, feeling her hiding between my shoulder blades. I gazed with my temporary vision at the large shape, the odd hue sticking at a notion lodged deep into my head. “Don’t move an inch. Whatever he is, I feel that he is immune to anything I could throw at him.” The roar filled the air, that time only a few hundred feet away from us. The valleys beneath us shook from the deep call, and even the rock underneath my hooves trembled. The outline of one of the largest things I had ever seen in my life descended in front of us. By the looks of it, the dragon was probably as tall as two of Twilight’s library trees put one on top of the other, but I couldn’t tell for sure; the magic around him was too powerful to even tell apart from his normal outline anymore. The ground shook again, and with that I assumed that he had landed in front of us. Gusts of wind smashed against my face, accompanied by the sound of latent wing beats. Two other presences made themselves known as they landed at each side of the huge dragon. Compared to the first one however, they could have passed as his newly born, but were still larger than Spike by several magnitudes. “Sweet Celestia’s mother,” came a murmur from behind me. I went through all the possible scenarios in which those three dragons were hostile, and in the best possible case, I would teleport away, leaving my friends to die and sharing their fate a couple of days later, after an agonizing, blind crawl through the dry valleys of the Dragon Lands or the arid flatlands that belonged to the Zebra. “Don’t harm us, please; we’re just traveling through these lands,” I said, my voice almost cracking from the fear. “You have trespassed on our lands, mammals,” came the deepest voice I had ever heard, the ground itself shaking as the mammoth dragon spoke. “You there, dragon. Of what shire you belong to?” “I- uhh- I’m from Ponyville sir,” said Spike in a very shaken voice. “Sir?” A chuckle filled the air, its heavy bass rumbling deep into my chest and bones. “You don’t know who I am, do you now?” spoke the large creature again. “Excuse my friend, he’s been raised by ponies and you’re probably among the few he had seen in his life.” “Keep your words to yourself when the Old One-” came from one of the smaller dragons, but was immediately silenced as I saw the large dragon’s claw raised in the air. He leaned forward, approaching me with his claw. If my magical reading was correct, the appendage was probably bigger than me. As it approached, the tip pushed me to the side with impressive gentleness, after which, with even more dexterity, unveiled the cloak from my back and jabbed my satchel away. I clenched my teeth, scared that he might kill me on the spot for bearing a weapon, his eyes probably studying my revolver. A powerful jolt of magic shot through my entire body as I felt the very tip of his claw pass over my cutie mark. I saw him flinch his arm away as soon as that happened and then he slowly retreated it back. “What are you doing here, unicorn?” he addressed me directly, his tone slightly more grave. “I’m returning from the Griffin Kingdoms, and we are heading home to Ponyville. We didn’t mean to trespass on your lands,” I said as humbly as possible. Silence rolled on for a few long, tensed seconds. “So be it, ponies. Make your way into the Zebra Lands with haste, I won’t guarantee your safety from the dragoness that has claimed these narrow valleys.” “Thank you uhh- sir,” I said, taking a deep bow just as a precaution. The sound of rapid wing beats approached us. I tried to scan for its source and saw a smaller dragon almost Spike’s size landing near us on top of the valley’s ridge. “Grandfather!” came the more suave voice of the newly arrived dragon, and I noticed it immediately take a bow. “Ruby?” “Spike?” “Spike?” inquired the large dragon, the name rolling out of his mouth like an avalanche of boulders. One of his guard drakes took a step forward and sniffed the air. “It’s his scent, Great One.” “You’re the one that gave a gift of stone to my niece?” Ohh shit. I sensed the two escorting dragons taking a few steps towards us. I lunged forwards in front of Spike, and moments later felt Ruby’s hard back scales pressing against my muzzle as she, in turn, put herself between us and the three dragons. “No grandfather, he didn’t mean so! He’s just a stupid drake that wandered on my territory a while ago.” Tremors went through the ground beneath us as the large dragon spoke again. “You mean to tell me he didn’t purposely ask of you to be his mate, without my given permission?” “I did what?” “Shut it drake,” Ruby shushed him right away. “No, he didn’t. In his culture it’s probably considered a sign of gratitude for me helping them out when they stumbled upon my territory.” Another laugh rolled heavily through the air. “I know of his culture very well, young one. And I know my eyes are not what they used to be centuries ago, but I can still tell that those are scales on his skin and claws at the end of his hands, not fur nor hooves.” Another few silent moments ticked by agonizingly slow as the large dragon probably pondered on what to do with us after in that unexpected predicament. “Many I have seen in these long years, but a dragon raised by ponies is among the few I haven’t. As the old code dictates, my niece is to decide your fate while you’re on her territory. Meet me at the great peak further up north when you’re done here, young Blood Eyes.” The giant dragon took a heavy step towards us as the other two accompanying him took to the skies. “Send my regards to Luna, unicorn. I have heard of her recent return. And you,” he continued, turning away from me, “you would benefit from learning our ways if you’re to consider giving more gifts like those in the future, especially to my niece.” With that, the dragon flapped his large wings, sending powerful gusts of wind in every direction. The heavy wing beats faded out as I traced the magic aura of the dragon, my heart still pumping mad from the adrenaline rush. “You fools, you’re lucky he didn’t have you burned to ashes,” came Ruby’s harsh scolding immediately after the dragons were no longer in visible sight. “What were you doing on high grounds?” “I . . . I was trying to find you,” Spike mumbled, nervous. “Blood Eyes?” I asked, cracking a dry smile. “Yes, that is my shire-given name. Ruby is how I like to be called- wait . . . what’s wrong with you?” I heard various shuffling sounds around me and felt a pair of claws wrap gently around my jaw, turning my head slightly to the left. “Your eyes . . . what happened?” “I’m fine. Just need to get to a doctor back home and it will be all right.” “You can’t see anything, can you?” she asked. “No. Just . . . feel; with my magic. But not all the time.” “Come then. I’ll escort you all to the edge of these lands. Relax pony, I won’t bite, whoever you might be.” Hearing that, I remembered we had an extra member to our crew that hadn’t formally met the dragoness. “Pearl, this is Ruby. Ruby, this fine sailor here is Pearl.” “Captain . . .” “Captain Pearl,” I corrected myself. “Now, captain Pearl, let’s carry on before we encounter more things that can kill us,” I said drily. We followed Ruby through the intricate maze of valleys and mountain paths, a painfully slow trip as Spike had to guide my every step on that treacherous land. The chilling winds that whipped through the mountain scape were a constant reminder of the winter’s settling presence. “So who was the big guy? Was he really your grandfather?” I asked after around half an hour of walking in complete silence. “He goes by the name of the Old One. And yes, he is my grandfather. The dragon that mated my mother left her when I was still an egg,” Ruby explained. “So your mother is-” “-was his daughter. One of the many daughters he had across the centuries. But she was the last one of his clutch.” I sensed the tension in her voice, so I chose not to press the subject of her mother and the use of the past tense further along. “So is he like, a clan leader or something?” Spike picked up the lingering pause. “No, he is the head of the Old One’s drake council, the one who all of us dragons respect and look up to. He is the ruler of our lands and the protector of our entire race.” “So he-” “We are here,” said Ruby sharply. “Follow the path ahead and you’ll reach the outskirts of the Wildforest. Traverse it and you will find yourselves near the Zebra’s Flatlands. I gather that you know your way from there on.” I heard Spike turning back, his guiding grip on my mane gone. “Ruby, I’m sorry about that part with the diamond back when you saved me- I mean us. I didn’t mean to- you know . . . not that I wouldn’t like it! I mean I wouldn’t like it because that’s weird to say but I- I should probably stop talking now.” “Good call lad,” said Pearl from behind me. A melodic laugh filled my ears. It felt like a blessing after all the grumbles, shots and screams of pain from the last few days. “You should go now, grandfather is waiting for me,” Ruby said, trying to hide her amusement. “You’re invited to come back to my territory, Spike of Ponyville, I’ll probably teach you a thing or two about using those wings of yours.” With that, I heard the red dragon take flight, heading back into the Dragon Lands. “Smooth lines there, Spike-o.” I suddenly said, breaking the awkward settling silence. “Whatever,” he retorted, gripping my mane and pulling me on the right track with a little bit more force than necessary. “No, really. I mean, proposing to a dragoness chick hours after you just met her? Now that’s some hardcore rebound,” I said with a chuckle. “That sounds serious lad,” added Pearl with a snort. When Spike didn’t retort, I realised how he must have felt after that whole experience, especially after not being able to hang around with Ruby because of her grandfather. “Hey, cheer up bud, least you got out of this with your eyesight intact and everything.” “Damn right,” muttered the eye-patched captain from behind. “And she said you’re allowed on her territory. Don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like a date in dragon terms and all.” “I guess,” concluded the young dragon, and I could feel his spirits going up a little. With all the things we’ve been through recently, moments like those came with great relief. Despite my situation, I somehow managed to keep hope alive, hope that I would soon see Twilight again, in its full meaning. The road ahead of us was still long and our hooves and feet were tired, but soon our troubles would be behind us once and for all. To be continued . . .