Curiosity.
Fluttershy once said curiosity hurt the cat, but never condemned it otherwise. Why would she? Curiosity usually led to seeing something interesting. The program’s memories even insisted on being curious, like they insisted on observing the white rabbit. Why would the program lie?
In the cloudless night of Ponyville, the moon illuminated the streets more so than the lamps resting behind windows. Almost nopony was out, except for the alcoholics and workaholics alike. A typical Friday night. Even the shadow that dashed over the streets and houses of Ponyville for but a fleeting moment would become a regular, if unnoticed occurrence.
Fluttershy always said to never go out at night: it was dangerous. You never knew what could be lurking behind every corner, skulking just out of sight, or fading into the darkness. But why was that a bad thing? There were just as many things to see during the night as there were during the day.
It was all just a matter of opening your eyes.
The moonlit shadow came to a rest on the top of a slanted roof overlooking one of the few buildings that still had its lights on: a bar. Two mares walked out—one of them surprisingly off balance.
“You really shouldn’t drink so much, Vinyl,” said the not-stumbly mare with a grey coat and black mane. “Be glad I’m here, otherwise I’m afraid something bad might have happened to you.”
“Ahhh ... come on, Tavi!” said the stumbly one with a white coat and blue mane. “I’m fine! You really shhh- shouldn’t worry sss- so much.”
“You’re flat out drunk,” not-stumbly dead panned.
“Sso? You, you, you know I play better when I’m a little buzzzzzed,” said stumbly. “Besides! Tonight’s a night to celebrate!”
“Vinyl, getting hired to play at the Gala’s afterparty is worthy of celebration. Ordering new speakers and a DJ table for the event, is not.”
“Are you kidding? Didn’t I tell you who I’m getting them from?”
Not-stumbly rolled her eyes. “You said you were getting them from ‘engie’. Honestly, I don’t know why you would call him that. He has a name, you know.”
Pausing in their walk, stumbly waved a hoof. “Hey, he doesn’t mind! Besides,” she said, looking down at her hoof, seemingly surprised that it was waving around. “He promised to make them…” Stumbly paused, finally noticing a faint yellow glow on the roof of the adjacent building. “Hey, Tavi. You sss- see that up there?”
Before not-stumbly could look, the shadow slipped down the other side of the roof and took flight without so much as a whisper.
It was only recently that Garry had begun his nighttime excursions around Ponyville. Without proper wings, he spent the entire night curled up in a basket Fluttershy had gotten for him, remaining in standby mode and always “waking” at 6 AM sharp. When Fluttershy would eventually wake up, she would usually find Garry hanging upside down by his tail just outside her bedroom window, regardless of what kind of weather there was.
At first, Fluttershy would always be quick climb out of bed and rescue him from his perch. She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if Garry fell and got hurt. However, Garry did this so frequently that the occurrence became routine for her, and her worries eventually disappeared altogether. He could always get back down on his own anyway.
Over the course of several strange months, Fluttershy learned the quirks her dragon replica possessed. Climbing seemed to be one of his favorite activities, as he spent almost all of his time off the ground. Usually on a couch or table, but hanging by his tail via a tree branch, bird perch, even rafters in the ceiling was surprisingly common as well. Unless they were flat, climbing on walls and ceilings wasn’t terribly rare, either.
Yet despite the fact that Garry was made entirely of deep red metal from the tip of his snout to the end of his tail, Fluttershy couldn’t help but notice that he was almost entirely silent. His scales never clanked together, and he always walked on carpeted or cushioned surfaces whenever possible. When Fluttershy brought Garry into town, he would always prefer to rest on her back, rather than walk beside her on the cobblestone road. The exact opposite happened when she was in her backyard, where there was nothing but grass and dirt.
Of course, even if Garry never made a sound, Fluttershy still somehow managed to communicate with him, as she did with all her other critter friends. And, just like all the other animals under her care, she gave Garry explicit orders never to go out at night on his own.
Unfortunately, even he knew when and how to break the rules.
Since gaining the power of flight, Garry had snuck out of Fluttershy’s house every night, just past midnight - when Fluttershy was sure to be sound asleep. All to feed his curiosity, Garry would glide all over Ponyville, just to learn the ins and outs. Occasionally, he found a pony or two walking around the streets, usually on their way home. Being his only source of intrigue, Garry would follow them; gliding from roof top to roof top, just to see what would happen, if anything.
Tonight was no different, but after the stumbly pony outside the bar saw him, he was fully aware that he had to make himself disappear. At least for a few minutes. They shouldn’t be too difficult to find again anyway.
Besides, there were many other things to see during the night, many things that not even the ponies would see. Every now and then, Garry would fly over a tall figure calmly walking down the side of the streets. There was usually only one or two roaming at night, and if it weren’t for the thermal and electromagnetic signals coming from them, he wouldn’t be able to tell they were there at all. But they were no secret. They came from the big building to the north - the home of the program and the creator.
As Garry flew over the big cake-house, a light in the distance suddenly flashed. It was brief, but it was enough for him to determine that it came from the big tree that Fluttershy called “the library.”
Stumbly and not-stumbly can wait.
Garry altered his course with a few flaps of his wings and sliced through the air towards the big tree. After gliding around the tree once, Garry determined it to be entirely dark, save for a strange white light coming from the top floor.
As carefully as ever, Garry landed on the top floor’s balcony with barely a gust of wind. Glancing through the balcony door’s window, the source of the light identified itself as the gold Liandri. It stood in complete darkness, save for the bright white light of its eye that illuminated a book in front of it. Garry had only seen it once before, many months ago. The gold Liandri wouldn’t be afraid of him - not like those ponies in the market that Fluttershy had to talk to.
Garry tapped on the window with his wing. The gold Liandri looked up from its lectern to glance at the balcony, its exceedingly bright eye overloading his optics, forcing him to close their protective covers. With light, calculated steps, the gold Liandri approached the balcony and unlatched the door.
Holding the door open, the gold Liandri dimmed its light, and stared down at Garry. With the spotlight gone, Garry stared back in return.
“Unit designation: Garry.”
It knew his name.
“Unit classification: light class dragon replica.”
And it knew what he was.
But why would the gold Liandri tell him this? Garry knew what he was. The program’s memories made it very clear. But how does the gold Liandri know this? What else does the gold Liandri know? Does it know more things about him? What does it know about the ponies? About the dragons? Of all the mysteries in Ponyville, the gold Liandri may have been the biggest one.
“Google! Can you come down here for a few minutes? Spike and I need your help!”
The purple pony - Twilight Sparkle. She was a friend of Fluttershy’s.
The gold Liandri closed the balcony door and secured the latch before walking off down the stairs.
Working purely from his memory of his fly-by the minute before, Garry leapt over the balcony railing, hooked his wing on a lower branch mid-fall, flipped, and grappled onto another branch with his tail. Bringing his momentum through, Garry swung from his tail and latched onto the bark of the big tree. Carefully bringing one claw in front of the other, Garry crawled along the bark towards a window that now had a warm, golden light coming from it.
Securing himself against the tree, Garry peered his head over the window frame. What he was doing was risky; a stray set of eyes would surely spot him, but the purple pony and Spike seemed much too preoccupied to think about looking out the window. Their voices were muffled, though, so Garry oriented his microphones directly towards the glass.
“- know we may not have found anything when Alex was looking for it, but I’m sure Google found something dragon related since then,” said the purple pony.
Spike sat off to the side, holding his legs to his chest with his claws. “I hope so…”
Garry altered his gaze as the gold Liandri descended the stairs. “What would you like to know, Twilight Sparkle?”
The purple pony smiled at the gold Liandri. “Google, do you know anything about Dragons?”
Dragons? Garry tilted his head.
“Four results have returned from your search query. Would you like me to display them?”
The purple pony appeared… dismayed by this response. “Only four…? Are you sure?”
“Affirmative.”
Spike let out a pained groan. “You see? It’s hopeless… I’ll never find out who I am…”
The purple pony placed a hoof around Spike. “Don’t worry, Spike. I’m sure Google is going to give us something good to work with.” A small rectangular object floated over to the purple pony. “Google, could please display the search results for me?”
“Displaying now.”
The purple pony huddled Spike closer to her. “Come on. We have the entire Library in a single tablet: let’s do some late night research and find out what it means to be a dragon.”
Stumbly and not-stumbly can wait a little longer.
“Nothing!” The purple pony tapped her rectangle with her floating stick several times. “This search turned up nothing either!”
The sun had already come up, but Garry continued to observe Spike and the purple pony from his spot by the window. The two of them had been doing this research all night, drinking surprising amounts of some brown liquid to keep themselves awake. Spike had fallen asleep a number of times, though, so compared to the purple pony, he seemed relatively more awake.
Despite the fact that the purple pony used her rectangle more than the books, a surprising amount of them were still removed from the shelves, most of it by Spike. From what Garry was able to tell, the gold Liandri and the rectangle had some sort of connection between each other and the books. It made little sense to him, but it all seemed to work for Spike and the purple pony. Or not work, as the case seemed to have been.
Spike groaned and tossed a book aside. “This is getting ridiculous! How is there so much nothing about dragons?”
The purple pony walked over to Spike and placed a hoof around his shoulder. “I’m sorry Spike. I really am. If you want, we could go visit Fluttershy? Maybe you and Garry could spend some time together?”
Garry perked up at the sound of his name.
Spike slapped her hoof away. “Are you kidding? Garry isn’t a real dragon. He’s just a copy of one!”
Garry focused his microphone towards the window more intently.
Spike continued. “He doesn’t act like a dragon at all! If anything, he acts more like a pet! Taking everypony’s attention the way he does… Well I’m not a pet!” Spike stood up and stepped away from the purple pony. “I’m a real dragon, and I’m going to find out what that means if it’s the last thing I do!”
But… Garry knew he wasn’t a real dragon… Was that a… bad thing?
“Hey, guys!” The front door of the big tree burst open, causing Spike to yelp and jump behind a pile of poorly stacked books. Rarity and the winged pony with rainbow hair entered the library. Both appeared to be in positive moods.
“Good morning!” sang Rarity.
“You wanna join us for breakfast?” asked the rainbow pony.
“Oh hey, girls!” The purple pony smiled at them. “That sounds great! I’m famished.”
Spike climbed back to the top of the pile and threw off a book that managed to land on his head. “Count me out. I have to get an early start!”
Rarity looked at Spike confusingly. “An early start?”
Looking back at her from next to the front door, Spike held his claws at his side and declared, “Yes! I’m going on a quest of self discovery! I need to learn what it means to be a dragon, and the only way I’m gonna do that is to join the dragon migration!”
“WHAT?!” the ponies all screamed in unison.
Garry tilted his head and reloaded his memories of the day before. The trench, the dragons, the big red one that stared at him… Spike wanted to follow them to fulfill his curiosity.
His curiosity…
Finally moving his claws after keeping them in the same place all night, Garry carefully climbed over the top of the window and moved along the side of the big tree, closer towards the door. Much to Garry’s inconvenience, the bark along the tree proved difficult to support him, forcing him to spend more time being careful. By the time he climbed his way to the front door, where he held himself upside down from above, a bright purple flash had escaped from it. Still unable to see inside, Garry paused, focusing his microphones towards the opening.
“Really…?” said Spike, barely above a whisper.
“Don’t tell me you think he should go!” came the voice of the rainbow pony.
“Yes, Spike!” said the voice of the purple pony. “I couldn’t answer your questions, and Google couldn’t either! I understand why you want to look elsewhere. I truly believe you should go on this quest, and we have no right to stop you.”
Her last few words sounded… sharp. Authoritarian.
“I suppose not,” came Rarity’s voice.
“I still think you’re nutty, but hey, I’ve done lots of nutty things,” said the rainbow pony.
“We know,” they all deadpanned simultaneously.
The rainbow pony groaned.
The purple pony’s voice continued. “Well then, I guess this is goodbye, Spike. We can’t wait to hear about it - when you return.”
“Yeah, we hope your quest answers some of your pesky ‘who am I?’ questions,” said the rainbow pony.
“Thanks, everypony,” said Spike. “I know it will.”
Interesting. The ponies were actually letting Spike go - without any help.
Garry clutched himself closer to the big tree as Spike walked out of the door with a stick and cloth bag hanging over his shoulder. Regardless, Garry’s optics trailed after him. Spike didn’t look back and waddled with confidence. Garry’s head zipped back down as the three ponies walked outside and waved after him.
“Goodbye, Spikey-wikey!”
“Go get ‘em, big guy!”
“We have faith in you!”
Garry’s microphones remained focused, and were sensitive enough to pick up Rarity’s whisper of an addendum. “We’re following him, right?”
“Of course,” the purple pony whispered back.
Following him…
Following him.
Garry turned and climbed back up the big tree in complete silence.