Silver and Foals

by dracone


Chapter 2: Silver 200 Years Later

Silver 200 Years Later


It had been a century since her exile from her mother's clan, in that time Silver Fall came to realize that the majority of her emotions were frozen away and she had no idea how to free them from their icy prison. The only emotions she seemed have capability to feel were concern, respect, sadness/sorrow, loneliness, generosity and compassion. It only took her a month to realize that compassion and love are separate forces, but she also found that they were similar enough that she could could see a representation of love nearest to the surface of the block. There were many treasures nearby for her to claim, but she only took small clawfulls and left the rest for others to find. There was a pony settlement nearby, the place was moderately sized town called Mustang. She managed to tap into the form shifting ability her father had, which she had managed to inherit, and would go to the town every couple of months to ease here loneliness. She chose to look like a pegasus, it would be an easy enough excuse to simply say she was flying in for of pace (everypony there always smiled at that like it was a joke, she still was incapable of feeling humor,), town used to be called Pace, but they decided to rename it after the community was within the boarders of Equestria instead of on the boarder of the nation.
Mustang had started as trading outpost during the early years of Equestria before the nation had expanded to its current boarders. The town itself was a joint operation between pegasi and earth ponies, unicorns came later. The town had a number of things, she always preferred the kind of diet her father had over that of her mother's choice of cuisine. Her father was primarily vegetarian, he grew magically augmented soy beans in a small garden near the den she shared with his family. When Silver Fall left she took some of the seeds for the beans with her, her mother wasn't able to near the garden after the loss of her mate because of the painful memories it stirred up.
She did however keep some of the seeds and gave a few to Silver Fall. The small soy garden Silver Fall was growing was nowhere near as vibrant as her father's, the beans weren't even close to half as big and they were lacking something in their flavor that she couldn't place. It was after a decade of growing the beans that she remembered her father saying that love is just an as important of component of the garden as soil, sun and water. She couldn't give her garden love, no matter how much she really wanted to. Since love was an emotion frozen away from her Silver Fall never really knew what it was like to experience any kind of love. She knew her parents loved her, but she had no genuine memories of what it felt like to be loved.
Silver Fall's form shifting ability had more limits on it than her father's, for one no matter how hard she tried she couldn't change her scales to a different coat color when she changed into a pony, she also couldn't change her eye color. So what she did turn into was a silver pegasus with the same eye color, fortuneatly with the same eye structure as a pony, and and a midnight blue mane and tail, she still had some sense of aesthetics and she thought the colors complimented each other well.
While in Mustang she spent some her treasure, something that most other dragons would practically consider sacrilege, on things like fruits and vegetables for when she was alone at her lair, and she would try planting the seeds to see if they could grow near the little bean garden she had. Once every five years or so she would mix things up a bit and take a small portion of her bean garden to market, it was during one of these market visits that she noticed a very real physical pressing from inside her chest. It turned out that while she wasn't as talented as her father at growing the beans to the size or quality he had, however the compassion she poured into raising them made them quite well liked by many of the ponies in town, she did manage to sell them at a price well above her initial asking price because the ponies that returned told her that they could not in good conscience buy such a wonderfully high quality food at such a low price. One the first things had ever bout was a set of sadlebags.
When she returned home, with a small saddlebag's worth of bits, she checked her chest and found that there was a section that could be removed as a sort of snug flap. What she found would have astounded her, if she were capable of truly feeling surprised, inside her chest right next her heart she pulled out a large rainbow colored pearl. She remembered her father talking about such things, in his homeland all dragons had a personal treasure, a pearl or some other kind of gemstone that resonated with them. From what she had been told a dragon must find it, but she had apparently been born with it and it had grown along with her. A rainbow pearl, much like herself, was a rarity that few could even hope to come across within their lifetime. She would later learn just how strong the connection between her and the pearl was.
This pearl was the only thing within her entire treasury, which was still meager by dragon standards, that she was legitimately concerned for. So she hid it away in a region of the lair that was difficult to access, she knew if she made it a center piece some great fool or greedy idiot would do all they could to take it from her possession without knowing the significance of the pearl itself. A Dragon's Gem was no ordinary treasure the dragon kept, this kind of treasure gave the power have whomever possessed it to exert their influence over the dragon for whom it resonated. She would do everything in her power to make sure that no entity she had any less than absolute trust in even got a glimmer of a hope of accessing her pearl, even if it meant sacrificing herself to stop whatever force was after it.
When asked what her name was, which was done every thirty to fifty years since ponies don't have the same kind of life expectancy dragons do, should would always give a name that had to do with treasure, doing so helped her to keep the memory of her mother alive. Names used she over the years were Garden Treasure, Jewel Guard, Crystal Wing, Bit Watcher, and the first she ever used was Diamond Shield. These would be the aliases she would go by for the nearly three centuries, but for now she was just Diamond Shield to the townsponies.
The hardest part for her transformations was replicating a cutie mark, while she couldn't do dramatic transformations like her father she could do simple ones and also make fine adjustments that would make any from her father's homeland proud, she had six designs she would cycle through.
The first design was modeled after her first alias, a black diamond in the form of shield with a green star burst emblazoned on it, it was major accomplishment; her next was a emerald green vine growing bits, another great accomplishment; a pair of spears overlaying a navy blue diamond, sometimes simplicity is best; a topaz eagle, she wanted to try her creative side a bit more; and an onyx raven holding a bit in its beak, sometimes you need something to make them a think a little harder.
Everypony still enjoyed the soy beans she cultivated with all the compassion she could spare, but she always made sure to have a few seeds stashed away just in case things took a turn for the worse. It was during year 150 of her life that another noticeable event occurred during Silver Fall's life, a nearly avoided tragedy. Diamond Dogs were setting up dens near her lair, and some of the more ambitious idiotic diamond dogs decided to try stealing from her lair (as every creature knows stealing from a dragon is insisting that your friends and family beat on you for the better part of a day, both are really stupid and result in you feeling nothing beyond pain for an extended period time if you're lucky). One of the diamond dog managed to dig into the holding place for Silver Fall's rainbow pearl.
The pearl itself was around the size of the average pony, in other words it is a really big gem, so as means of testing it the diamond dog decided to chip away a piece of the jewel to shoe the others. Said diamond dog got to chisel tap number three before finding out what it is like to be an ice sculpture, with each strike on the pearl Silver Fall felt like someone was trying to chisel into her heart.
Fortuneatly for Silver it turned out the gem actually mended itself much the same way a living creature heals itself, when it was all over there weren't even any faded cracks to indicate the flawless pearl had been chipped at. Silver Fall had no intention of a repeat so she started stashing the pearl in a secret compartment she made herself within her sleeping chambers, and would carry it around regularly in her saddlebags when she departed her lair.
It was twenty years after the diamond dog incident, which amusingly had diamond dogs bringing her some of their best gems for ten years after she gave a diamond dog an ice jacket (yet still managed to keep said diamond dog alive, she may have been angry at them for invading her home but she wasn't going to end the life of another creature. Doing something like that would be an insult to her father's memory), when she encountered another creature. This one was a threat to Mustang, and quite rare (if her memory served her as well as she believed).
This creature, or monster (she wasn't entirely sure), was called a Phobarian Hound. Phobarian Hounds are rare in and of themselves, but more they are a threat to any being or community they come across. Their howl is a force that causes all your fear to surge through you, their bite makes you see your worst fear everywhere you look, and it is said if you hear their howl after they have bitten you a physical (and very real) version of your fear will be present for all to witness and experience. What makes this worse is no pony, or dragon, has ever managed explain why they would have such abilities. It has been theorized by several sources that the hounds feed on the aura of fear they induce. The problem is that nobody had has been able to determine their standard life expectancy, the only ones that would have a clue would be a long lived dragon or pony (like Celestia or Luna).
Silver Fall couldn't feel fear, it was frozen away from her (much like love and greed it was just below the surface of the block that contained it, so she would show momentary glimmers of it on some occasions). She did her best to protect the pony settlement, keeping the creature from Mustang for three days and nights on end (blocking the creature's advancements to where the ponies called home). All that got past her was the creature's howls, it tried biting her and found that she seemed to have an immunity to it. The creature would retreat, only to meet her at lair a few months later. It seemed to have a morbid obsession with making her feel fear. The hound with its pitch black fur, towering twice the size of the average pony, with six cruel fangs sliding from its upper jawline was a sight that would induce nightmares in all but the most stalwart of ponies or dragons. Even dragons told stories about how the Phobarian Hounds were to be avoided.
The hound would pester her for centuries, and she would treat as a nuisance. The hound's fangs could pierce her scales and go as far as her deep muscle tissue, it's bites hurt. That's when she learned the hounds had a disenchanting property to their fangs, a dragon's scales have an ambient magical field that reinforces them against most natural forces and some mystical ones. This was not where she had hoped her life would be at 150.
Things didn't get better once she reached two hundred, the ponies knew her aliases. She cycled through different dark mane colors with her aliases, it helped with disguise and gave her the shape shifting practice she needed. Ponies were happy to see her on the days she came to market to sell some of her beans, she just barely avoided Princess Celestia's visit one year. She had a feeling the ivory alicorn would catch on to her and she really wanted to avoid a confrontation with the alabaster ruler of Equestria, she was concerned about what Celestia would say when she realized the silver scaled dragon was masquerading as a pony whenever she visited the town. However things would dramatically change fore the silver dragoness after she reached her third century.