(???)
Twilight walked through the garden, until she came to a stop in front of the old statue.
Typhon's eyes opened, making her yelp and rear up.
"Twilight, why are you dreaming of my old statue?" He asked, rubbing the back of his head as he sat on the border. "Stone is very uncomfortable, you know?"
"Wha- huh?! Dream?" She asked, looking all around her.
"It's useless - this place is made of your memories, so you can look all you want and it'll never have something you don't remember." He stood up, leaving his sword and instrument on the stone bed. "Well, only on this one, and only until I told you that... I know it's confusing, but not all dreams you have that I visit will be like this."
"How are you here?" Twilight asked.
"I am now a living dream; the normal boundaries do not apply to me any more." He shrugged, standing up and walking away. "I just wanted to... actually, I don't know what I wanted to do. I just want someone new to talk to, I guess."
Twilight cantered behind him, watching as the landscape became more and more abstract as the distance grew. Parts of the castle halls here, a tower from the Everfree castle there, some impossibly high structure of steel and glass in the distance, her own tree planted right next to a volcano's caldera...
"I kind of wanted to talk to you, too." Twilight said, then her eyes caught a treasure chest that made her feel an explainable desire to open it.
"Oh? About what?" He followed her as she opened the chest... and found her Smarty Pants doll.
Twilight hugged her doll close to her chest, smiling for some reason she - oh, it was a dream; her subconscious had more pull in there.
"Mostly about magic." She said, in a higher pitch than she remembered. Looking over herself made her realize that she was a filly again.
"That can wait some more... say, my more-or-less adoptive daughter is going to Ponyville tomorrow, make sure that there won't be a commotion." He smiled as he saw Filly Twily place Smarty Pants on her back and gallop after him.
"Daughter?"
"Her." He gestured with a hand to a small cabin covered by snow. They got near, and Twilight noted that the snow was barely any cold at all.
Typhon had to prop her up to reach the window.
Inside the cabin, a white dragon was trying on clothes. The speed at which her outfit changed, and the sheer variety of colors, was dizzying. She caught the important details, though. A tall, slender dragon; her sleek, gently-curving body was completely white save for her claws and her eyes, which were a bright purple.
"A dragon?"
"She's on a shape spell so that she looks like that, but yes, that's her." He placed her back down on the streets of Everfree city. "Rarity is making a dress for her, and she said that it would be ready tomorrow."
A small, lively song reached her ears.
"Oh, so that's why Rarity was so busy when I got back." She turned all around, until she spotted a stallion that matched Windstorm's description sitting on a bar, drunk.
~May the winds of fortune sail you.
May you sail a gentle sea.
May it always be the other guy
who says, ‘this drink’s on me.’~
Then he planted a big, sloppy kiss on the pink-haired mare next to him. She jumped forward, virtually tackling him to the floor and embracing him really strongly. Without separating their lips, of course.
"She's my sweet, little Prosperity. She's my little White Queen, alright? If you want to know something, you can ask her, but be gentle, understood?"
"Umm.. sure?"
"Good." He poked her forehead.
*****
(Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville)
The sunlight pouring through the window made the room bright enough to rouse her from her slumber, although she felt a little more disoriented than usual.
She ambled unevenly towards her window and opened it for some fresh air.
A piece of paper stuck to her face immediately.
Removing it and glaring at it for good measure, she noticed that there was something written on it.
That was not some odd dream. Make sure that the town doesn't flip when they see my little Prospit, alright? And don't tell them I'm involved.
May the Winds of Fortune be at your back.
Typhon.
On one hoof, she could learn more about Typhon, on the other, it was way too early.
Well, the checklist for the day was - Wake Spike, breakfast, Celestia, search for the pony in charge of the guard...
*****
Later
"Well, it's a good thing Typhon raised me, because something this awkward would bother me a lot otherwise." Prosperity quirked her brow at the sudden cessation of activity that followed her everywhere. That there were some that stopped right in the middle of reaching over from a ladder to hang decorations was a little worrying, though.
"This is a little outside the norm." Twilight pointed out, while Spike kept glancing at her from his position atop Twilight's back.
The sudden stares were not unexpected. They did have a white dragon almost as tall as Typhon himself, wearing a bright yellow dress with Juliet sleeves, a little crescent moon emblazoned on the center, walking besides them.
Prosperity didn't care, though.
"Sorry about that." Twilight said, watching how the guards followed them with their eyes.
"Meh, Typhon worries too much; I'm almost as old as he is, I'm a dragon, I'm STRONG, and I'm magic. They have no chance. That's all there is to say on the matter." Prosperity shrugged; she wasn't like other dragons, content on growing fat atop their hoards, ignorant of their own abilities... it was the reason Tiamat got killed so easily! Well, it wasn't easy at all - it was more like hell, actually; Luna spent weeks recovering even with magic, and Celestia spent so much energy that she could barely move the sun, but Celestia got out of it without a single injury.
Alright, alright, she conceded that the injuries Luna had already inflicted were a decisive factor, but the so-called goddess of dragons still got 'owned' in a brutal beat-down at the hooves of 'that ignorant sun-foal'.
"Somepony sounds confident." Twilight couldn't make up her mind about the dragoness.
"Please, do you think I spent fifteen centuries napping? Or counting gems? No." Prosperity's tail swished under her long skirt. "I was raised by that guy, who trained me because he was utterly terrified of something bad happening to me at the claws of other dragons."
"Are dragons really so territorial that they would attack a young dragon?" There was only so much information about dragons, after all. Spike shuddered when he remembered his run-in with that dragon in the cave, back when he thought he was being replaced.
"Well, not exactly; they might be very rough on those younger than them, but dragons are tough." She shrugged... then groaned. "Ugh, it's because I look so much like a white."
This gave Twilight pause.
"But you are white." Spike said.
"Yes, I am colored white, but that is because of leucism; it doesn't make me a white." She waved her claw, which Twilight noticed had a simple gold ring with some sort of engraving on it.
Prosperity swallowed, nervously adjusting her dress.
"I'm not a white." She whispered.
"What's the difference?"
"Oh look, we have arrived at our destination; we'll have to talk about this some other time." She pointed towards Carousel Boutique, which was actually still a little small in the distance.
Twilight and Spike, despite knowing that the boutique was still far, looked regardless, because anyone would feel compelled to look at what someone else is pointing.
"We're not that close." Spike said, turning back only to find an empty spot besides him.
"Where did she go?" Twilight looked around, only to see a white tail disappear through the door of the boutique.
"She's fast." Spike commented, then slumped sadly. "It looks like she doesn't wanna talk about other dragons."
"It seems like it..."
*****
(Carousel Boutique)
"Why call him by his name, dear?" Was the first thing Twilight heard as she entered Rarity's home and business.
"Habit, mostly. We only let out relationships show when we were together; I only spoke of Wind Runner like a sibling when we were in the same room." Prosperity was already wearing a red tunic with a red vest, a red skirt, and a red hat similar to a fedora with a large white feather. Rarity was making the final adjustments.
"Oh my, you must miss them." Rarity's thoughts suddenly steered to Sweetie Belle, and she felt herself slow down.
"Yeah... although Wind Runner would get mad at us if we mourned. 'Wind Runner' meant more than just a name for a pegasus - it's practically the philosophy of Runner's life itself; always move forward, never stopping, using the past to push yourself to a bright future." She smiled sadly, ignoring the poking of the needles as Rarity missed due to her growing emotions. "Typhon made darn sure that I understood what it meant 'to live' before I got hung up on coming to terms with 'not dying'."
"I'd like to know more. All the history books I've read, and princess Celestia herself, said that he just appeared when something was being destroyed." Twilight frowned; there obviously was another side, but-
"That's pretty much it." Prosperity nodded. "If he could have it his way, he wouldn't have been found even then."
"Your scales are magnificent! It's like a canvas just waiting for the right dress to give it some life!"
Prosperity flinched, then slumped slightly.
"Well, at least you like them."
"Is being a white dragon really that bad?" Spike asked, before slapping his claws over his mouth.
"Yes." She growled, and Rarity felt the hair of her neck rise. "Riddle me this, why are all of the white dragons you see younger than a thousand and a half years old, not counting the albinos and the leucistic?"
"Uh..."
"Tiamat." Prosperity growled again, and Twilight was sure that the temperature started to rise. "See, not only was she arrogant and vain; she was jealous and petty. Her white head thought herself the smartest, but she refused to accept reality... for some reason, she decided that no other white would best her in an argument... and, being a Greater Dragon - and the second most powerful, too - the amount of magic in her body was immense, even if she did not know how to use it properly."
"Psh, few dragons do" She muttered, the claw with the ring flicking idly.
"Something happened. The white dragons became feral much more easily, by their tempers or their rampant greed, losing their reason with disturbing frequency... until the dragon parents stopped bothering with 'lost causes'."
"Wait, does that mean..." Twilight's blood ran cold, and not from the sudden absence of the heat.
"Yes, Twilight; my parents tried, for a time, but were convinced that I would go like that. It might take a century or two... or maybe the afflicted wouldn't be able to manage their hoard and their greed would spiral out of control... but I am not a white - not that we could tell; only Typhon knew what leucism even was."
She snorted.
"Anyways, Tiamat is dead - good riddance to bad rubbish - and the whites are no longer devolving into animals that need to be put down for the good of all. If anything, my biological parents saved me - if a white started to show signs of rampancy, it was killed, and I had a bit of a temper as a baby before living in the wilderness took it out of me; at least this way, I met Typhon."
They remained silent for a while, until Spike decided to break the uncomfortable silence.
"I kinda noticed that you're being very open about being related to that guy; aren't you worried that the guards'll find out?"
"If the guards three hundred years ago didn't worry me, then you can be sure that these guards don't worry me." She almost shrugged, but a tug of the fabric reminded her of her situation. "Typhon has a bag of tricks longer than his hood, without counting exotic resources; he educated me, along with many others, and I have befriended a large amount of historical figures, who had their own tricks. I am an unusual dragon."
"Let them try whatever they want; even if the treaty didn't apply to me, I'll have already gotten away with it before they even notice I did anything. And that includes the stallion listening in through the door Twilight neglected to close fully."
The tell-tale sound of a teleport reached their ears, the light having faded before they turned around.
"Really, like we didn't have secrets to hide." She huffed; 'Silver Shine' needed lessons in spying... that Notice-Me-Not spell was so sloppy that Typhon nor his agents had to tell her he was there.