Thing A Day: A Purpose
"It's been a long time since anyone came to visit me, youngblood." I say, looking down from my perch. "Why do you seek me?"
The dragon before me must only be in his younger years, his wings undeveloped, his body hardly larger than my foot. "I'm Spike, the dragon, sir. I
heard you were the oldest dragon in Equestria. Is that true?" He asks, grasping his claws together.
I laugh, a loud, deep chuckle, and it booms in my humble cave. "Tell me, Spike: Have you ever seen a dragon like me before?" I arch my serpentine
neck and smile. He shakes his head, and I sigh. "Of course you haven't. After all, I am the last of my kind." My head sags, and I lower it to look him in the
eye. "Tell me, youngblood: Were you raised by your dragon parents?"
He gulps. "N-no sir. I never met them."
"I presumed as much," I sigh. "That means you never heard the traditional stories then, did you?" He shakes his head, and I chuckle once. "Well then,
that explains why you didn't recognize what I am."
I motion with my wing to the far wall, one whose length might easily be fifty of my paces, or three hundred of this youngling's. "This, youngblood,
is the wall of tales. Among wild dragonkind, it is but a myth."
He raises his claw. "What tale does it tell?"
I smile at the small purple dragon. "Mine. But, as I was saying. The wall of tales is the oldest recording ever made, and it tells one singular
story: the story of my life."
His claw was raised again. "But I've met other dragons before. Why would they care about the life story of another dragon?"
This elicited another laugh from me. "Because, my naive young friend, to other dragons, I'm something of a mythical creature myself." He gasped, and
I felt my ego inflating. "Oh yes, but I try not to brag about it. But listen to me, an old lizard, giving you a monalogue you didn't ask for. So tell me:
what did you really come for?"
Spike looked at his feet and crossed his arms behind his back. "I wanted to know what it means to be a dragon. I mean, I've been me for many years,
but I don't know what it really means to be a dragon."
"To be a dragon? Come now, Spike. The ultimate goal of all dragons is to accumulate the largest hoard. However, the results of having said hoard
prevent you from reasonably residing within society. And being raised by society prevents you from leaving it, am I right?" A nod responds, and I smile.
"Thus is the curse of a civilized dragon. Your hoard will cause greed, and greed can lead to strife."
Spike sighed. "Does that mean I'll never really know what it means to become a real dragon?" he asked, fear staining his voice.
I wiggled my snout and snorted. "Of course not. For you see, you could do what I do: hoard something which doesn't cause greed."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Like what?" He asked, in a challenging matter.
"Simple. Hoard something that isn't valuable to many ponies, and is readily available. For example, there is quite a nice forest at the base of this
mountain, where ponies are afraid to travel. You could hoard that, slowly buy land in surrounding areas, and say that you hoard land. Land will become
available when ponies die or move, and you can buy it."
"But land is expensive." He interjected.
I smiled. "True, but you can make money off of land. You can rent parts to make money, and play the land baron game. You have the lifespan for it."
When he didn't reply, I shook my head. "Not to your fancy?"
"Not really. I don't want ponies to be angry with me." He paused, and put a claw to his chin. His eyes lit up, and he asked "Wait, what do you
hoard?"
I laughed. "Me? I hoard time."
He tilted his head. "Time? How do you hoard that?"
I motion around the cave with my wings. "Do you see any other reasonable thing I could hoard in here? Stone, perhaps?" With the shake of his head, I
continued. "Yes, time. I hoard minutes, days, years, and centuries. There's nothing wrong with that."
He groaned. "But it sounds so boooring, just sitting around and doing nothing."
I wiggled my snout again. "On the contrary. I enjoy my time. Most of it is spent alone, where I meditate. In the centuries between visitors, I often
reflect on things, and it has granted me a sort of peaceful understanding of the world. The quiet helps me, as it prevents things distracting me from my
meditations."
He tilted his head again. "Why do you meditate? You seem like the kind of dragon who could mingle in with pony society and be happy. I know many
ponies would be fascinated by your stories."
I laugh. "I seclude myself to meditate, and I meditate to fight my inner nature."
"It can't be that bad." he said, waving a claw as if my nature meant nothing. "After all, what you hoard can't be taken from any other being, so you
can't be greedy. So why not join society?"
"Silly youngblood. What you say is true, I can't be greedy with my hoard. However, hoarding and greed aren't my nature." I motion to the wall
of tales again. "You see, I lived before the rise of the races you know of today. I lived during Equestria's founding, during the rise of the Griffon empire,
and even before the days of the minotaur kingdoms. I lived before this continent rose from the ocean.
I am not a native dragon of this land. Thus, I do not have the same nature as your kind. I come from a time when the world was a violent, feudal
place. The nations were constantly engaged in some war, and I watched it all from my home at the peak of the world. I lived before the empires of that land
rose, into a time when my kind ruled the world.
The empire of my kin was a powerful, cruel, and practically imortal construct. We dominated the lands, and enslaved the lesser races for amusement.
They eventually rose up, and destroyed most of my kind. I had done evil things during those days, and I secluded myself from the world in order to pay pennance.
It is in my blood, though, to rule. Dominion is my birthright, and that is what it means to be a dov. And yet, to go to society would be my demise, for my nature would rear it's ugly head, and I might try to seize power again. Those that choose to gather around me are welcome to learn, but I should not rule, lest I become a tyrant."
He nodded numerous times, and eventually I connected him to a bobblehead. "You are lucky, you know. You can live among civilization and not feel the need to rule everything. To be able to go out, and meet all the ponies you want. Tell me, where do you live?"
He smiled, and pointed to the small settlement at the base of my mountain. "There. It's called Ponyville, and I live in the library with the pony who's raised me all these years."
With that, an idea formed in my mind. "Youngblood, I think I have just the thing you can hoard: Books. Lay claim to the library, and assimilate books."
"Why books?" he asked, not getting it yet.
"You aren't hoarding books for books, youngblood," I explained. "You are hoarding knowledge. Something that cannot be taken away from you, yet you can amass forever, until you die."
With that, his eyes lit up in recognition of my idea. "You're right! I can hoard that!" He turned to leave, but paused at the mouth of the cave. "I never even thanked you for your time. Thank you..."
I saw where he was going, I finished for him. "Paarthunax."