//------------------------------//
// The Dreams 
// Story: The last of the Pragons 
// by WolfoftheWaves Pony 
//------------------------------//

	She tossed and turned in her sleep. A small cry escaped her lips, as the familiar scene before her played out over and over again. "No!" She cried out. "No!"



The white mare with the mane like flames stood over her, smiling. Though the scene behind her was more gruesome than the face that stood over her. 
Fire. Fire burned. The screams of the dying and weak rang in her ears. Smoke filled the air.
The white mare reached down and touched her face, stroking it, giving her comfort. 
"Goodbye, My Nima..."



Silver Lining bolted upright in her bed. She looked around in the dark room. She saw no fires. Heard no screams of the mournful. She was in her room, and all was quiet.
She sucked in a breath and let it out. This was the third time this week that she had that same dream. Was there no end to her misery? When will it stop?

She reached up with her white hooves to rub the tiredness out of her eyes. There was no way that she would be going back to sleep  now. How could she? That awful dream could come back to haunt her. Maybe reading a book will help?
Silver lining carefully slipped out from under the covers, taking care not to wake her sleeping older sister on the other side of the tiny room. Her sister snored. A sound barley audible to a pony but to Silver's ears was loud and clear. She rolled her eyes at her slumbering sister.
She had a bit of an attitude for a half-pony at the age of five. 

She slowly crept into the living room, the ember's in the fire place now just starting to cool after that evening's fire. She searched through the bookshelves that came up to her eyes, but then she realized that the particular book that she was looking for was three shelves above her. Sighing, she unfurled her small wings and fluttered up to the shelf to grab the book she wanted.
Settling down on the couch, the small filly opened up the book to the page she wanted.

This book, a book on mythical creatures and monsters (in a world of talking neon ponies) was one of Silver Lining's most prized possessions.  It did, after all, have a chapter on Pragons.
The mythical creature Pragonis Draconem, or "Pragon", is a mythological beast that is half pony, half dragon. Many theories speculate that the creature was just an olden-pony myth from ancient times, that the legend died out after the Dragon-Pony war when the many tribes where destroyed, while others claim that the Pragon was a real creature, evolved when Dragons and Ponies could mate before the war, and is now extinct. There is no evidence to support that a Pragon could be living today.
"Well, I'm proof," Silver Lining said. That passage, like so many others in the section, made her feel lonely. Could she really be the last of her kind? Or maybe she was just abandoned that night that her brother and sister, Track Wheels and Lula Hearts, found her, and there where more?
But seeing as how she was the only Pragon in Baltimare she truly didn't believe it, Baltimare really being one of the only places that she has ever known.

As a filly of five, there where many things that Silver Lining did not quite understand. She was still so young, and her family knew this. The ponies of Equestria where quite the superstitious bunch, always blaming something new and different as causing something bad and or being bad because they where different. This was something that the young Pragon did not understand. Thus the cloak that is hanging on the coat rack near the door in the living room was bought. Silver Lining was not sure why she needed the cloak, but she knew that she always wore it in public. Covering her tail, her wings, everything.
Maybe Silver Lining was starting to understand.
For she felt ashamed of showing herself without the cloak, even though her family were the only ones to see her without it.

And maybe she was starting to understand why it started to snow outside even though the weather team said that the night was supposed to be clear. 
Because things like that only happens when she's sad.



The two bright-yellow eyes stared down at her. She saw no fire. Heard no wails. She felt calm. This pony, a tall, dark-green mare with a light green mane tied up in a bun, showed her kindness. "Shh, shh, Nima." She said. She started to sing. A chorus of ponies behind her joined in, each stepping into view. One was black with flame hair and the same yellow eyes as the mare before her. The other was a light blue so light that it was almost white, with a mane that cascaded down like waves and brown eyes like her own. They smiled at her, revealing sets of sharp fangs. The filly reached her hoof out to them, hoping to touch them, but the they faded away to black. She was all alone. But then, suddenly, the fire, the wails, the ear-splitting cries filled the air around her, and she screamed.



The young Pragon awoke with a start, her hooves still clutching the book. Had she really fallen asleep? And that dream, it was different. Not the same dream she kept having over and over. This one was different. She knew those ponies. She was sure of it. She felt it deep down in her heart.  And they seemed to know her, too. And they used that strange name, Nima. Who is Nima? Who are those ponies? Why did the dream seem so, real?

A single tear fell out of Silver's eye. Even after 5 years, she still did not have the answers.
The blizzard outside intensified.
Still no answers.
The wind howled.
No answers.
The icicles formed.
And even though Silver might have known why she had the dreams, she still had no answers.
And then came sleet.