Chapter 6: Solstice
The stars, the assumed source of all unicorn magic, were out that night, and all of creation was in a state of perfect harmony.
The dragons, wounded and unscathed, all together in the megachamber. A fire was set on the crystalline floor as a memorial to the Alpha. The smoke seemed to dance throughout all of the chamber and exit swiftly through the new skylight in the ceiling. Moonlight was shrouded by the smoke as it exited and was blown away by the wind currents.
The mare lay the closest to the fire where she watched over the sleeping colt. The red dragon curled around the two, subconsciously guarding them from anything that could come to harm them.
The colt, his shiny maroon coat reflected the glow of the fire. The mare questioned as to how he came into existence or if he was already there on the battlefield the entire time.
Was it possible that the red lightning had something to do with it, she though to herself. The colt stirred ever so slightly and turned over to his other side, letting the fire warm his entirety. While watching him, one thought kept flashing through her head.
One and the same.
How it applied here, she was unsure. But it would reveal itself in due time, she assured herself.
A grey scaled dragon descended into the chamber bearing a Balefire torch; the mare was sure it was the last bit of the Alpha still in existence. He approached the memorial as the dragons in his path parted to give him space to walk.
Upon reaching it, he leveled the torch to his brow, muttered something to the flame, and dipped the green into the red.
The Balefire gently extended it's tendrils into the memorial and merged, tinting the flame green. Placing the exhausted torch into the flame, the grey scaled dragon joined his companions and sat with them, watching the blaze.
"May all of the valiant warriors who fought today remember him. The Alpha was our greatest leader. Through sacrifice many times over, he has earned the right to take the position to the grave with himself."
Hushed whispers rippled through the crowd; mostly among zealous veterans.
The Alpha was now allowed his position in death.
This was not tradition for the Draconic Empire. Even though it was previously ruled by a Queen, the same rules and customs applied; after the death of one leader, it's predecessor would be elected to the position after a battle with another willing Dragon. Whomever emerged victorious reigned supreme; no questions asked.
The grey dragon raised a claw and silence was drawn about.
"I understand what you feel," he continued.
"That is why the Grey Sun council has decided that the Games be held in 7 years time," he said confidently. Turning to another gray scaled dragon, he nodded and his companion brought forth an hour glass.
"When the enchanted sands fall to the bottom of the hour glass, those willing to fight for leadership will do so."
More hushed exchanges between the dragons brought a curious setting to the crowd. One question kept being asked: why wait the 7 years?
Upon hearing the question, the grey dragon began to speak again, silence spreading almost immediately when he spoke.
"We shall wait the 7 years to recuperate from this event today," he said. "Additionally, we may know Typherias was vanquished, but we have no idea what became of the spawns in the lower chambers."
An understanding was reached and the grey dragon merged into the crowd to answer separate questions.
The mare looked to the red dragon curled around her, wanting to ask if he would participate. He must have known what the look meant because he shook his head slowly.
In a hushed tone he spoke to her, "I am not their leader." Glancing to the hour glass, he nodded, reassuring himself he was right. She didn't doubt he was right due to his quiet and relaxed nature, but things change over the years; she expected him to contemplate fighting in the Games throughout the 7 years to follow.
She looked away from the dragons and their power play to watch the colt again. He was curled up tightly, warming his back to the fire. A slight smile spread across her face and reached out a hoof to move his grey and blond mane away from his forehead.
A unicorn. Why a unicorn?
His horn was seemingly bigger than what she thought would be appropriate for a colt of his size. Only a shadow larger though. Not a remarkable difference, but something noticed upon a closer look.
She took her hoof away from his head and tucked it back under herself, relaxing against the heat of the flame.
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Specks of purple light floated out of the grassy fields scorched with smoke and chars. The lights began to pulsate, feeding on each other, growing bigger.
The process began to accelerate. The purple lights multiplied like cancer and floated higher into the sky, attracting insects who were soon devoured by it's glow.
A voice reverberated through the lights like telepathy from a source unknown. A cry for help through the breeze of a late summertime night.
Save your mother, it said. Come to my aid.
Something woke up below the caverns.
Some things, to be exact.
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"An earthquake? Here?" shouted the Grey dragon over the roar of the earth. The red dragon took hold of the mare in his clawed hands, and spread his wings, preparing to fly.
"Wait! The colt!" she screamed. Opening his claws, she wrapped the colt in her magic and brought him in closer to herself.
Debris began to fall from the ceiling above, showering everyone below in rocks and dirt. A stone had fallen above the mare and connected with her head, making her lose her magical grip on the colt. He didn't fall very far, but still didn't wake up.
Blood seeped into the mares eye, making her shut it and wipe most of it away with a hoof. The red dragon reached out for the colt and began to take off into the nighttime air above.
Then the quake stopped.
Curious, the mare leapt from the dragons claw and walked to the center of the chamber, examining the fallen debris.
"What could have caused this-"
She was cut off by a thousand screams that came from below the chamber; something primal and adolescent.
Reeling back to her companion, she turned her attention to what seemed like ink seeping upwards through the crystal ground.
A pillar of Spawns erupted from the crystalline floor, their tint a deathly shade of purple. Their movement seemed to crawl and race at the same time, like an enchanted sapling springing from the dirt.
They turned for the hole in the ceiling.
The mare seethed with fury as she tried to magically grab the top of the pillar and impede it's progress. But the Spawns branched out and around the shield, struggling to be free.
"I can't keep them at bay much longer," the mare shouted. "Do what you can to stop them!"
Dragons bounded forward and blew flames at the Spawns, turning their gel-like bodies white hot.
It kept on going like a juggernaut, not phased at all by the viscous attacks.
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Wake up.
The Draconic Ghost grew more furious when his requests were not obeyed.
Wake up.
He watched over the trials taking place in the megachamber; the Spawns were escaping and nothing could stop them.
Wake up.
Except one stubborn colt.
Prove yourself. Wake up.
The Draconic Ghost withdrew, staring down above the area.
Please wake up, Hybrid. Save them.
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Yellow eyes.
The colt had glowing yellow eyes.
The mare looked over to him while struggling to keep the Spawns contained, and saw he was standing, his head lowered.
He looked murderous the way his mane covered his eyes that glowed a golden yellow.
The colt raised his head and his horn flared up like a forest fire, encasing itself in a blazing light.
Taking a careful step forward, he glared up at the Pillar of Spawns, still crawling upwards towards the night sky.
The mare swore she saw him smile as his eyes turned pure yellow, and his horn gained a second overglow.
The Spawns seemed to slow their ascent, watching him, curious as to what he was going to do.
Next to emerging from depths, that was their biggest mistake.
Thunder shook the megachamber and sent the mare and the dragons to the walls, blasting them back with an echoing THOOM!!
A ring of flame formed from where the pillar exited the floor, rising up a few yards from it's base.
The colt placed a hoof forward and the wall of fire serpentined higher, tightening itself around the Spawns like a noose.
They shrieked and writhed, showering the chamber in their burning, disintegrating bodies that had separated from the mass.
His mane waved in the turbulence of the flame he was commanding, clearing away from his face and horn. The mare wanted to stand by him; make sure he was alright, but she feared if she got too close he would turn her to ashes.
The fire wall pulsed like it had a heart beat of it's own, working in tandem with the colts'.
Taking one more step, the blaze erupted skyward, turning all traces of the Spawns into nothingness.
As the fire died out, the colt returned to normal.
Then, he swayed, and fainted.
Trotting swiftly up to his fallen form, the mare carefully embraced the colt. She placed a hoof to his neck.
Good. A pulse.
The grey dragon drew close to them, studying the colt who had just desecrated a very large threat on his own.
"The boy smells of dragon."
Confused, the mare looked to the colt, then back to the dragon.
"We are in a cave full of dragons. Of course he smells of your kin."
Shaking his head, the grey dragon reached out with a claw and touched him on the chest, right above his heart. Smiling, he withdrew to his recovering friends.
Looking around the chamber, the red dragon saw many expressions on the chambers inhabitants scaled faces; mostly of shock and awe. He was no exception, of course.
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The colt was sleeping soundly as the mare read over a few scrolls she recovered from a short trip back to her fathers castle 3 days prior.
The king was there, waiting for her. He escaped his vine imprisonment when a search party was sent out to find him.
He told her that she would be hunted, and when she was found inside the castle again, she would be made an example of.
She shrugged off these threats. It wasn't like she wanted to return there again anyway.
Using a spell she remembered, she had carved a berth in the rock walls of the cavern for herself, the colt, and the red dragon.
It was comfortable.
The colt rarely woke up, and when he did, he would turn about on his bed, find a new position to sleep in, and return to his slumber.
Eating didn't seem to be a problem with him since he hadn't eaten anything since he was discovered.
The mare laid food by his bed for him; hay and apples, a normal Equine diet.
Her scrolls she retrieved from the castle explained the many types of Constellation Animals: Scorpions, Wolves, Bears, et cetera.
But in all the records of Constellations, very little was found of Typherias and other beings of the like.
The only bits she found consisted of strange glyphs and markings found in ancient zebra areas. These glyphs resembled the crown shape and six eyes Typherias had on her head.
Except in the multiple forms of the glyphs, the basics varied. Sometimes, the head shape was less dragon and more equine shaped. Sometimes it appeared more serpentine than anything else.
The mare placed down the scrolls and left her little room to find the grey dragon and discover what he meant when he said the colt smelt of dragon.
He was not hard to find.
"That colt saved our lives and still you disrespect him!"
The grey dragon argued with a new silver scaled dragon: his understudy.
Silver replied angrily, baring his teeth. "You want to let him battle in the games! What respect should I have for a small, equine-" he stopped, searching for the right word.
"Saviour?"
"Beast." He spat out the word like it was a poison just to mention the colt.
"You know he has every right. I know you can sense-"
"I sense nothing more than a stain on the Draconic race! He is not one of us!"
Reeling his neck backwards, grey scales chuckled. "He protected us from the Spawns without any regard to his own safety. These are Dragon traits. I'm beginning to think you are the one who is not one of us."
Growling, the understudy slapped his tail into a wall with a resounding WHOOM and left, fuming with rage.
The mare trotted up to the grey dragon, her eyes full of worry.
"The Alpha was always saying how one day our saviour would come. We thought it was him all along." He smiled and turned towards the mare, motioning for her to follow him.
So they walked.
"He said that this 'saviour' would lead us in the right direction; steer us away from the dark path."
Curious, the mare stayed silent and listened.
"Of course nothing was specified other than how it would become our leader. Not the gender, name, or even species was specified for us. The Grey Sun council has convened so many times on this matter, but to no avail."
Leading her into a separate tunnel, they came upon a gem lined mineshaft full of rubies, emeralds, and other rocks.
"And then you came along. We thought it was you, but my understudy convinced me otherwise. I see now that he was right-well, no offense."
Smiling, she nodded, taking no offense.
"And now..."
He stopped when they came towards a wall covered in glyphs. Pointing to one certain shape, the mare was speechless.
"This was found not too long before you arrived for the first time. We had no idea what it meant-nor do we know what any of the other symbols mean, but this we weren't completely clueless to."
The mare cast a small orb of light and took a better look at the glyph.
It was a unicorn carved onto a ruby. It was looking straight forward, a seemingly murderous look in it's eyes.
And it's horn was ablaze.
The glyph was a picture of the colt.
"We know now that he is the one to save us. And there is nothing better than a hybrid-a master of two worlds-to protect this land."
Confused, the mare asked her question.
"So, the colt is part pony...and...part dragon?"
The grey dragon gave her a toothy grin and nodded.
"To be exact, half you and half him." He motioned for the tunnel they traversed, and the red dragon was there, holding the colt.
"He's awake, and he's hungry," said the red dragon.
Grabbing a stray shard of ruby from the ground, he offered it to the colt, who took it without question; gnawing on it, shaving bits of it away with his incisors.
Blushing furiously, the mare began to speak. "Wait...wait... Nooo... I think I would remember...ah...something like THAT-" He held up a claw to stop her from embarrassing herself.
"No dear. Nothing like that. Obviously, there was some kind of magical eruption of sorts. Maybe a side effect of Typherias's dark magic. Maybe even a direct effect, implying you were hit by a spell."
Thinking back to the battle, she remembered she was hit: the airless wind that rippled her coat. So she nodded, piecing his theory together in her head.
"So, somehow, bits of you and bits of him merged together and formed a really young colt."
Sighing, the mare replied. "It's magic, you can't explain it sometimes."
To be continued...
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(Thank you all for your patience on this chapter. Some things came up and they took first priority. The next chapter won't take as long.)