-It Could Have Been Worse-
I felt like I’d only just put my head down when one of the does woke me to an empty tower. She helped me to my hooves when I realized that I was too sore to walk comfortably on my own. She never said a word other than a few murmurs of encouragement back down the stairs.
I wasn’t really fully awake until she pushed me into the freezing water. I shouted in surprise, but any further protests died on my tongue as the doe started to scrub with a frenzy at my coat with a worn piece of soaked cloth. After a few seconds of scrubbing with no sign of ending I simply didn’t bother to struggle.
It was to my great surprise then, when the doe did stop and backed away from the shallow pool. I turned, shivering, to look in the direction that the doe had. Fern stood under the entryway with a strange look aimed at me.
“W- What?” I croaked through a wave of shivers from the cold.
Fern took a deep breath and sagged slightly. “I‘m in charge of ye now,” he said, somewhat reluctant.
“W- What does that mean?” That was a stupid question, really. I was a slave, somepony had to ‘keep me in line.’
“Their exact words were: Keep the Master’s new pet busy,” Fern admitted. He had the decency to blush. “We’re going to the library, and the Big Horn wants to talk to ye tonight,” he said.
“Why the library?” I asked reflexively.
Fern turned around and pulled something off his back. My magic book thumped to the damp floor unceremoniously. “Ye can read ‘em, so ye can organize ‘em. The Master doesn’t have the time to do it himself, but not many of us can speak pony words and none of us can read, so yer going to help me put the books in order.”
“You can’t read? I would think a dragon would have the time to at least show one of you how to read his books if you’re supposed organize them,” I grumbled.
Fern nodded to the doe and I suddenly had a bucket of icy water dumped over my head. My mane clung down over my eyes and I gave a shivering glare toward him, I swear I saw the ghost of a grin. The scrubbing resumed.
~~~ ___/v V VvV V\___ ~~~
“We’ll start from the back and move forward,” Fern said. His delicate hoofsteps echoed slightly off the spotless library floor as he walked. “We should be able to finish in a few weeks if we work through midday meals,” he said with a sigh and continued down the room without me.
I simply stood in the door and stared. It wasn’t because this was a larger room than I even expected to find on the mountain keep. It wasn’t even because I had to organize every single book in this surprisingly large room. It was because this was not only the largest collection of books I’d ever imagined, but more than I ever considered could possibly exist.
The towering shelves drew my eyes up to a support system that had a beauty to it even in its function. Crossing beams carved into intricate depictions of stars and leafy branches webbed across the ceiling in domes that repeated all the down the length, I could make out more creatures than I could name among them.
The tall hall went on so long that the end was hidden in gloom. The distinct lack of vegetation which had seemed so prevalent in the rest of the keep was startling. Dust hung in the air and caught the mangled streams of sunlight from the few windows that still let in light. I could just barely make out the green of leaves hanging in front of the windows, but half of the others seemed to be buried in rock.
A sharp whistle brought me back to myself. Fern tapped his slender hoof impatiently and glared at me with a disapproving frown. I scrambled to catch up, I had to stay at a canter with his fast pace.
“Keeping anyone, especially the Master, waiting is a good way to get beat’n, Lyra-pony,” he said in hushed tone, his voice echoed across the walls but the words were muffled by the shelves.
“Can you really blame me? Even though I know this place belongs to a horrible dragon, it’s amazing,” I said. I spun to walk backwards as we passed a carved pillar that seemed to depict some sort of battle all along its impossible length. “How did this place ever get built?!” My voice bounced from wall to wall, “place” and “built” fought for dominance to be heard.
“Shut it!” Fern hissed, his hoof slid around one of mine and spun me back down the hall. He dragged me forward at an even faster pace as he spoke. “First off, if the Master catches ye calling him that he’ll punish ye. And second: We have a job to do, and if the Big Horn catches us not doin' it, then we’ll both be missing meals on sprint patrols,” he grunted, he dropped my hoof as we came to the end of the hall.
The rear wall was an intricate marble flower sculpture, leaves and petals spread out and almost looked like fire once it reached its border. Here a large space of smooth petrified wood dipped down, and the large scratches on the floor gave me the hint that this was where the dragon came to read his collection. A pile of books towered in the corners, perilously high and thin.
“Where am I even supposed to start? This isn’t a library, it’s a … an archive!” I voiced, but Fern’s bad mood only seemed to grow at my outburst.
He walked forcefully toward me, head lowered. He pushed his short horns right into my face to look me in the eye with a glare, I’d never noticed how sharp the tines were until now. “The Master tells the Big Horn what needs to be done, he tells us what to do, I tell you what to do. If I say ye need to balance every book in the ‘archive’ on yer horn at the same time, ye’ll do it,” he growled, his horns pressed against mine with a clack. “Trust me, the punishment is always worse than the order.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat before I spoke. “Got it. Yeah, okay. Let’s organize the books,” I consented, afraid to say anything else with the sharp tines of his horns jabbed into my forehead.
He gave a forceful snort before he backed away, though the glare never left his face. He turned toward one of the many piles in the corners of the open space and leaned over to pick one up.
I sighed. Not only was this going to take years, but it seemed like I’d gotten on the bad side of the only decent deer here.
Fern let out a grunt, and quite surprisingly the top half of the pile began to move. I jumped up, a yell ready to warn him that the pile was falling. I froze though, because when Fern looked up his tines glowed a pale yellow and the books lifted a foot away from the rest. He grunted and swung his head, the pile moved in his ethereal grip to land with a thud to the side of the wide walkway between the shelves.
“We start with these,” Fern huffed once his horns stopped glowing. “I think that if we split it up somehow, and then organize them again, we can have sections done every week,” he said as he peered down at a few of the books lying open where they’d fallen. When I gave no response he looked back up at me in confusion. “What is it? Let’s go.”
“Deer use magic?!”
Fern sighed. “This is gonna be a long day, isn’t it?”
\ \ _/Vv ____ _ _ ____ V\_ / /
“You’ll not want to play with that,” Pierce said in a bored tone. He watched the smith carefully turn the claw in his mittened hooves.
“I heard rumours ‘bout the properties a’ Dragon Bone,” the smith, Swift Shield, muttered as he ignored the stallion wrapped in the chains he’d forged for a new plow. It had been years since he’d forged a good blade for fighting instead of for farming, he wondered if he would have to carve the bone or if it acted like a metal and could be beaten into shape.
“The dust won’t heal ponies or cure diseases, but it holds and deflects magic easily. Tricky to enchant. Better for bows than for blades, they’re stiff but when they flex they always come back to shape even after centuries of use,” Pierce put in, sobered over the night. His spine ached from the uncomfortable position that that orange earth mare had forced him into, but he knew better than to fight his way out.
The plan had gone perfectly, it worked in all the villages and towns he’d visited before. Where small provinces lay, ponies directly loyal to the inhabiting dragon always existed. He wondered if he should attempt to enlighten the townsponies here of their traitor or if he should simply handle the dragon quietly.
For now, he had to convince the smith to loosen the chains. “I could help you turn it into a fine crossbow, it’s just big enough for that actually. And if you like, I know where some bones of a dragon lay, you could craft them into fine tools and sell them for high prices.” Smith’s were always interested in new selling materials.
“Nopony leaves the valley,” was the smith’s only response.
Pierce supposed he’d been wrong before, but he wouldn’t let this upset him. “My offer about the crossbow still stands,” he continued, his eyes locked on the bloody claw. “You could make the claw tip into tips for bolts, the bow would be stiff but it would shoot farther and faster than any other crossbow. You could defend this town well with a weapon like that.” That got the smith’s attention, Pierce could see it in the tilt of his ears.
Swift was getting too old to swing the shield hanging from his wall like he’d used to. He’d patrolled the village years ago when the Timberwolves had migrated through the valley, and it had been the sight of his shield that had scared the wooden cretins up the Everfree and out of the valley. A crossbow though, he could make a winch to pull back the string easily, even his old arms were strong enough to do that.
He looked carefully over Pierce, a considering gaze. The stallion had been complacent all through the night, nary a peep but a few grunts of discomfort at the chains. He acted civil, shouldn’t any decent pony return the favour. “You ain’t ta leave the shop floor, and ye go back ‘soon as the sun touches the mount’ns,” the smith finally said. He set the claw down on his workbench and removed his hoofmits.
“Of course,” Pierce replied agreeably, he shifted to present the chains more readily with his head to the side. The earth pony shuffled over to a set of keys and pulled them off their hook before he returned to Pierce. He leaned in carefully and dexterously unlocked the thick padlock on the chains around Pierce.
Pierce let out a sigh as the chains fell away and stretched his shoulders. Quickly, before the other stallion could pull away, Pierce snapped his head to the side. His dense horn caught the earth pony on the side of his head with a thick crack, and the smith slumped to the floor before he ever realized his mistake.
Pierce shook off the chains over his shoulder and twisted off the torturous ring over his horn as he stood. He rolled his eyes. Earth ponies, he mused, were too trusting. He quickly gathered his things and ignored the singing of his limbs from the awkward positions they’d been forced into for the night. The claw was returned to its place in his bags, his daggers slipped back into their hidden slots, and the chainmail fell back over him comfortably.
He let out a sigh and a smile returned to his face. It was always so much more fun to hunt the Scale Lickers on his own.
|ß| ) \_ \ _|_ / _/ ( |ß|
I was in heaven.
Alchemy. History. Biology. Chemistry. Ancient History, Pre-Dragon History. Thaumaturgy- All the -turgies! Dictionaries, encyclopedias, research journals.
It was all in this dragon’s library! As the hours had gone by, and my curiosity over deer magic had subsided, I’d found more than two hundred different subjects in learning and fictional pieces - almost all from before dragons. That was just in this pile, and we weren’t even halfway done yet!
Fern was beginning to tire though, and he seemed frustrated that he didn’t understand the way I had organized them. First he thought I would organize them by the first letter of each, which he could recognise easily enough. Then he thought I organized them by the subject of the pictogram on the cover of some of the books: Biology books had plants or animals on them, Physics usually had some sort of simple machine on it, and so on. The second time he was pretty close, but not quite since some books didn’t have pictograms and some of the fictional books had symbols that fell outside those categories.
Maybe he was frustrated because he couldn’t help the process go any faster. The most he’d done was either mess up the organization I’d already started by going off of what he knew, or just stood around and waited for me to ask him to do something. That I could sympathize with, I’d definitely need to teach him how to read. I could use the help.
However, before I could ask Fern about when we should do exactly that, the sounds of small hooves on the petrified wooden floor echoed down the library hall. Fern reacted instantly. He pulled me to my hooves from where I’d been crouched over a growing pile of chemistry textbooks.
“Stand tall, keep your rack pointing up and behind ye,” he hissed at me, his hoof stood me up beside him.
“My what?” I asked. I pulled my arm out of his grip forcefully and he snapped to attention.
“Yer horn, damnit!” he hissed at me and used a hoof to point my chin at the ceiling.
The hoofsteps grew louder and stopped a short distance in front of us. I could just barely see a few grey tips of antlers at the bottom edge of my vision. “Sut y caiff y llyfrgell yn dod ynghyd, un bach?” The stag spoke with a deep timber that vibrated through the air. With that voice I could instantly tell that he was someone had power and knew how to use it.
“Y gwaith yn araf, ond rwy'n ymddiried yn y merlyn i wybod beth mae hi'n ei wneud.” Fern replied, his voice shook slightly but the attempt to appear strong was not lost on me.
The stag grunted and I could see the tips of his horns bob in a nod. “Pony,” he said, and I stiffened. I wasn’t sure who this was, but if Fern was so nervous around him it might be a good idea to not get on his bad side. “You are to see the Master at his dinner tonight. Follow,” he commanded, the antlers turned away.
Fern had to give me a kick to get me to move, which is where I took the chance to look slightly down. The stag was big, bigger than any other deer I’d seen here. His fur was thick and greyed, and chorded muscles rippled in his neck as he walked. Even his antlers were greyed, like they were covered in frost.
This must be the Big Horn that Fern told me about.
He led me out of the clean Library and back into the overrun castle outside, I had nearly been able to forget this place was so decrepit. He bounded down the crumbling staircase and back into the main hall, I was forced to scramble down or be left behind. He walked through the myriad of roots and bushes with ease, comparatively I felt like I was a stumbling idiot.
He led me through a different portion of the castle this time, one I’m sure that in its prime was used to host guests. The vaulted ceiling was high and vines dangled down from where chandeliers once did. Several rooms branched off, but we passed all of them: Something I was certain was a smoking room or a lounge of some sort but was now mostly a pond; a smaller hall that may have once been a gallery, all I could see were rose bushes inside; even another staircase, but the water cascading down it looked treacherous for my hooves.
The Big Horn led me through to the end of the hall, and the room opened up into the dining hall. However, uncommon to the pattern that I had seen so far, the plant life here had not been allowed to grow wild. Instead, grass and moss were only allowed to grow so much out of the square tiles of stone, and ivy crawled up the walls and hugged several bas relief sculptures. But most surprising of all was the large, polished wood table along the length of the dining hall and the large braziers of smoldering coals that surrounded it. Light trailed in through the slats in the broken windows, scattered by the smoke and humidity in the air.
Again I found myself awestruck by this castle, despite my worst horror living - quite literally - under my hooves.
“Pony,” the Big Horn said, his deep baritone made me realize I had stopped in my tracks. I jumped back to attention only to see that he had walked to the opposite head of the table, an indication that I was supposed to be near him. I scrambled to catch up again, but it seems that the Big Horn was more patient than I realized as he simply waited. “Sit here, and do not move,” he said, and with that he left.
I was left with nothing to do but comply, and simply sat on the comfortable moss and grass on the stones. I expected the dragon to arrive shortly, but I was sadly disappointed when I was still alone in the dining hall an hour and a half later.
I examined the bas reliefs from afar, hard to do past the smoke and occasional cloud that passed through the windows. I couldn’t recognise the ponies in any of the sculptures by their races, but the imagery was incredible. In one I could see a pony lounging on a flowerbed, and around her more ponies looked like they bathed in a nearby stream. Another depicted a regal pony, dressed in what I can only assume is some ornate armour, and around her ships sailed, soldiers marched, and I’m sure I could see a castle on the side of a mountain behind her.
“A shame that so few of these survived the years.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It looks like a whole history was recorded right on these walls,” I remarked as I looked at another bas relief that instead showed two ponies that I’m sure either had a horn or wings at one point leaning against each other compassionately.
“Indeed. If I remember correctly the founding of the country that once stood here was recorded all throughout the castle.”
I blinked, a thought occurred to me just then - mostly the question of: Who the heck am I talking to?
I turned around and nearly choked on my heart as I realized the green dragon had come into the Dining Hall without a sound. He stood at the other end of the hall, a dominating form on that side of the room. His wings spread out from his shoulders and over his spiny back, head low as he looked past me to the sculptured wall. “Unfortunately the previous owner of this place had no respect for art or history,” he rumbled. I was frozen unsure how to reply.
His rear legs shifted as he hopped to wrap his body around the side of the table that was not facing the bas relief sculptures we had admired together. His huge, spade of a tail spike thumped heavily down beside the table, its stiletto-like tip pointed at me. His arrow shaped head remained at his head of the table. He breathed over one of the braziers and they all flared brighter at once.
Without an announcement deer streamed into the dining hall, platters and silverware balanced within their racks and on their flanks. A doe rushed up beside me, a simple placemat of woven thread was spread on the table. Quickly a set of simple, silver utensils laid themselves out on the mat, soon followed by several empty dishes and a simple clay cup. The cup was filled with a bubbly purple drink, and a covered platter was placed atop the plate.
Just as quickly as they had come, they froze. And contrary to what Fern had told me, all of the deer bowed to the dragon, their racks or foreheads nearly touched the floor. The dragon had also been presented with a much larger placeset in the rush. He did a strange thrust and rise motion with his horned nose and the deer rose. With a flourish my platter was uncovered to reveal a ceramic bowl filled with steamed vegetables. At the other end of the table a few of the dragon’s many platters were also uncovered in a cloud of steam.
As an afterthought the dragon used one of his wings to waft the steam toward himself and out the doors behind him, I flinched as I realized his large wing had actually begun a slight breeze that flowed out from the broken windows. The deer cleared out of the dining hall almost as quickly as they had entered, for all purposes simply a part of the decoration.
The dragon leaned down to his plates and began to eat, though I couldn't tell what it was. Demurely, I decided that that was my invitation to eat as well. The vegetables were incredibly delicious, which was surprising in a place like this. I'd never eaten food this good before. Before I knew what had happened I had already begun to drink what was left of the broth. The drink in the cup was sweet and contrasted the vegetables strangely but wasn't unpleasant.
It wasn't until I put down the cup that I realized the dragon had his eyes locked on me. It was difficult to tell with the solid purple orbs, but he definitely looked right at me. I froze under his gaze and he spoke.
"I will be having guests in a three days' time," he rumbled, steam billowed out of his nose. "A dragoness will be here, and if you are able to convince her to, she has the ability to help you with your friend," he said, the claws on his wing fiddled with one of the plates on the table.
I couldn't move, my breath caught in my throat and my heart felt like it was shivering in fear. More dragons?! It seems like I could ignore this one for the most part, especially if I just had to take care of his library. But more? I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Thankfully another, less terrifying thought came to me as my brain caught up to what he had said. "You- You'd let me leave? To help her?" I asked. It was a vain hope, but if I'd heard him right, he actually wanted to help me.
"No," he growled, his eyes narrowed and his tail plate twitched. "You belong to me. But I am a dragon, it is my nature to protect my horde," he said, his remaining talons scraped across the stones gently. I heard the rattlesnake sound again.
"We're a part of your horde?" I asked incredulously, mostly on reflex.
The dragon's tail slammed into the floor beside me, the entire table jumped with the force of the impact. "I already told you, little pony. This valley, and everything inside it belongs to me!" he bellowed, green smoke billowed out of his lips. "That includes your petty little town and every single pony in it!"
I scrambled back away from the table and the horrible spikes of his tail. His rumbling growl filled the hall, very nearly a roar in its own right.
Just as quickly as he had risen to anger it melted away, I saw the snarl drop from his face and he visibly relaxed. "Return to your seat, little pony," he commanded gently. I'm not really sure how a command can be gentle, but he managed it well. I shakily sat back behind my empty bowl. He opened another platter on his side of the table, something that hissed with the remaining heat that it held. "Tell me what you think of my library," he said as he speared something hidden in the steam with the claw of his wing.
Emboldened by the subject, but no less uneasy around the dragon, I spoke eagerly. "The library is incredible! M- master," I stumbled to add, the dragon merely kept a blank expression as he ate something dripping. "You have an incredible collection. I've never even heard of some of the studies of magic that are in there. I could spend forever in there and never be wanting for something to study or to be entertained with." I did my best to lay on the praise, hopefully I could make up for the insult I must have given.
"I took great care in restoring each book, though I've yet to read them all," he remarked. "I collected them from all across the world, some are in dead languages others in no language at all. Be careful what you read however, some of these books hold great words of power." Whatever was on the plate disappeared down his throat. "You may leave. And treat yourself to the flowers growing near the library, they should be the best this time of year," the dragon said as he rang a metal dome of a shield to call in more food.
I hurriedly stood and walked around the table to leave through the door. I nearly tripped over my hooves as I passed by his plates, the smell finally hit me there. I'd never been subject to the smell of cooked meat, but if the ribs sticking up from one of the platters was any sort of hint, then the greasy scent that felt like it had coated the inside of my throat was definitely that. My fur stood on end as I fought the urge to vomit and quickly trotted from the room in as calm a manner as manageable.
Which really means I forced myself to lockstep out of there until I was out the door, at which point I bolted to the nearest stream of water to rinse the taste out from my throat and nose. That's right, I could taste it in the air. I heard the dragon chuckle in the dining hall.