//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: Spike's Nameless Brother 
// by Cold Spike 
//------------------------------//

As the day dragged on, Rarity noticed that other creatures and ponies had begun to go home. “They’re leaving?!” She turned to Princess Celestia, who was smiling proudly at all of them, nodding to the occasional pony or griffon. “Shouldn’t you give a speech or something?”

Celestia looked at her in confusion, then shook her head. “I already did.” She then winked at Rarity and went back to beckoning others to leave and thanking them.

Shyfrost, meanwhile, looked over to his griffon savior with a solemn expression. The large bird had spread his wings and was looking off over a cliff. “Why do you have to go?”

“I have things to settle at home.” He looked back at the sulking drake and wrapped one of his wings around his back. “Don’t worry, I have a feeling we’ll cross paths again.” He then placed his favorite tool into one of his pouches and spread his wings. “Farewell, Shyfrost.”

Shyfrost smiled and waved to Garret, and watched him fly away until he was only a speck on the horizon.

“I’m going to miss what’s his name, he was the greatest of them all,” Discord announced to his side, startling him. He held a mock salute, with his expression reading anything but serious. Shyfrost glared up at him. “Oh don’t look so pouty. If any of you creatures get any…” he trailed off and made a smacking noise with his tongue in disgust. “Cuter, then we’ll all get an illness of some kind.”

Shyfrost stood back up and walked straight up to him. Despite DIscord’s size, he didn’t feel intimidated, he felt angry. “Why’d you let her leave?!” he demanded, puffing his chest out, ready to freeze him at any moment.

“Let’s see,” he paused and pointed off to the distance at six mares, “those mares have the power to turn me to stone. There wasn’t anything to stop that, no guarantee,” he emphasized. “With her gone,” he paused again and leaned in to speak, “and they not knowing where I sent her, wouldn’t it be reckless to simply do away with the only being that knows where she is? How would they stop her then?”

Shyfrost huffed, knowing what he was getting at, mostly. He wasn’t sure about the ‘turning to stone’ part, but he surmised that it was something that was possible. “She was evil…”

He chuckled at that, and quickly patted his head. “Maybe, sure! But if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have had the time of my life! Oh, and I guess you wouldn’t exist, there’s that,” he pointed out, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“Yeah, but--”

“Oh, don’t be so down on where you came from!” Discord exclaimed loudly, knowing he was about to protest. “I was born because two chickens laid an egg while not crossing the road! Who cares?”

Instantly the drake shifted from anger to confusion. “What?”

“Well, I’ll be seeing you! I’ve got a sun butt to bother!” He then vanished into himself, flickering out of existence, leaving the dragon stunned. Not really sure on what else to do, he lazily walked back toward Princess Celestia

“I appreciate your offer and it shall be considered. Although I will have to meet with these Elder Dragons,” Celestia announced quietly to King Pyro.

He chuckled. “I may not have met you before, but your legends seem true. Always interested in new forms of magic?”

She smirked. “If this experience has taught me, and I hope you, anything, it’s that sharing knowledge--and indeed, friendship--can go a long way to forming strength and power between our races. If you will have me and anypony else, I would gladly wish to share knowledge of our species and our magic on a grand council, so long as the favor is returned in kind.”

Pyro glanced back at Shyfrost and nodded. “Anything to keep my kingdom safe. We’ll have to be ready if that Dee ever returns.” He then turned around and gave a quick nod to the frost dragon. “Ah, Shyfrost. I appreciate you and your, er, comrades weakening Dee. If it hadn’t been for your unique connection to her, or your bravery, we’d all still be locked up.”

Shyfrost gave a shy nod and shrugged. The king nodded back, then spread his wings to join his allies in the sky.

“Are you alright?” Celestia asked.

He played with his claws a bit, not bothering to glance back up at her. “It’s just, what she said… where I come from. That’s really weird.”

She draped a wing over his back and smiled. “Perhaps so, but we do not get to choose our origins. Believe me when I say you are one special little dragon. Why, if it wasn’t for all of this happening, I might never have realized there was a completely isolated species that needed help surviving on love alone.”

He nodded, but didn’t feel convinced. “But--”

“And I wouldn’t have found out about the council of dragons, where they live and what they do.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t--”

Her voice raised again, almost on purpose, to speak over his. “And now that I know that the other rulers are happy with my kingdom, we can work together on a global council, making sure that each kingdom gets their say and is treated fairly, thereby ensuring the safety of my little ponies. Don’t try and argue that you didn’t have something to do with all of that, young Shyfrost.”

Feeling flustered, he tried to come up with a rebuttal. “But- but, it was my friends, too! I couldn’t have done any of that, or gone that far without them!”

“Yes, friendship is very important. It’s not an amulet that connects you all, but the actions you have all taken together.”

Feeling a lot better, all he could do was nod dumbly. From behind him Princess Luna came walking up and chuckled. “My sister is quite skilled at talking others down from their guilty consciences. She’s had a lot of practice.” She then winked at Celestia and walked off to join Twilight and her friends.

“I believe somepony-- err, somedragon wishes to speak with you.”

Spike was waving at him, hanging over by Twilight who seemed busy conversing with her friends. When the drakes sat with each other, neither of them had much to say. 

“Hey dude,” Spike finally broke the silence.

“Hey, Spike.”

“So she made me… from you, I guess,” Shyfrost explained, feeling more uncomfortable by the second.

Spike placed his claw behind his back and scratched his head in a nervous gesture. “Heh, yeah, I guess so. That’s okay.”

“How is that okay?”

Spike seemed taken aback by the statement. He quickly grabbed his friend for a hug. “Because I made a new friend. Twilight thinks that doesn’t “technically” make us brothers, but I still think she’s wrong. You’re as much a brother to me as she’s a sister to myself.”

He looked up curiously. “She’s your sister?”

“Sort of, I guess. She did hatch me, so you could argue she’s my mom, too… there’s a lot of techni- uh, technic- our family's complicated.”

Shyfrost chuckled. “Alright, uh, brother?”

Spike slapped his back and sighed. “Just call me big bro.”

“Okay, big bro.” The two shared a quiet moment together, looking up as Luna began to raise the moon and plant out each star. Life felt peaceful and finally the frost dragon knew his place and his family.

On the other side of the valley, Scootaloo sat with her friends who looked up with focused curiosity. “Alright, so you both want to know who I am?”

Apple Bloom quirked a brow up at her. “Aren’t ya Scootaloo? You look like her.”

Sweetie clambered to her hooves and quickly began to inspect the pegasus all over. “Are you one of those changeling things?”

Scootaloo slapped her hoof down her face and sighed. “No and no. It’s a long story, but my name is Blaze Wings. But, uh, you can call me Scootaloo if you want to.”

Apple Bloom scowled and looked her up and down. “Why the secrecy?”

She sighed. “Look, let me just start at the beginning, okay? If you both don’t want to be my friend after, then I’ll understand.”

The farm filly scowled even further. “Who said anything ‘bout not bein’ friends?!”

Sweetie Belle then hugged Scootaloo, mostly because she loved hugs, but also because she could tell the filly needed it. “Yeah, we’re your friends. No matter what.”

Blaze, feeling better about telling them, took a deep breath and began. “Okay, it started when I met this really old mare one day.” She looked over at Sweetie then continued. “She looked like you. I was living in an orphanage at the time, though, they call it a group home...” WIth that the filly began to explain the full story, not leaving out a single detail. Soon a crowd had gathered, from Twilight’s friends to Shyfrost’s and others, but Blaze kept speaking.

Twilight, tapped her mentor on the shoulder and made a hissing noise. “Psst, Princess Celestia, is it really possible to create a singular universe from a… well, a spell?”

“I suppose it must be. After all, we are here, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, but…” WIth that Twilight trailed off, pondering the mere existence of their lives. All of them brought together from a mere spell that was simply meant to send someone back in time, but to make sure they couldn’t mess with time. A spell that is self healing, that fixes paradoxes. Why would the answer to that be so complicated? Create a whole other universe? Would we not have existed if Blaze hadn’t done what she did?!

Celestia walked over to her student and patted her on the head, comforting what she saw was a young filly. Even if she was her very well respected student. “Twilight, I wouldn’t ponder on it too long. You’ll turn into Discord, thinking about chickens all the time.”

“Chickens, what? But… the knowledge…” she said, weakly.

“It’s all there. Everything we need to know about it was just said by a remarkable little filly. Do you really think she knows how it happened? Or why? She didn’t cast the spell, nor is she a unicorn. We can’t go to her timeline, or universe. Without these, all we need to know about this is there. We exist, nothing more. I’m not saying you can’t pursue knowledge, of course, but wouldn’t you be happier going after things that are less troublesome?”

“I- I guess so, sorry Princess. It just seems very… weird. It makes you reconsider our existence.”

“Maybe so. But so do a lot of things. The birth of a child, making a new friend, losing an old one.”

Twilight smiled, suddenly it didn’t seem so crazy. It’s nuts! she thought, but at the very least she could move on without pondering it so much. While she could dedicate her entire life figuring out how to get to Blaze’s universe and how to reconstruct the spell that had brought her here, what would it accomplish? She had everything she needed in her own plane of existence. She watched the three fillies giggling with each other and smirked. I guess she is pretty amazing

“Our best friend’s a time traveling filly from another dimension!” Sweetie Belle announced, her voice squeaking just a bit too much. “Oh my gosh, it’s just like in issue number thirty seven of the Power Ponies!”

“She also is living out of a clubhouse,” Rainbow pointed out. “Dimensional traveling filly or not, I don’t think I can just take her in… Pinkie.” She looked at the pink mare and glared. Pinkie looked down shamefully, but her head was tilted up by Princess Celestia, who gave her a kind smile.

“What happened, Pinkie?” she asked in a calm and collective tone.

“Oh… I kind a volunteered Rainbow to take care of Scootaloo, maybe not the best idea?”

“Hmpf. Perhaps a tad rude, but your heart was in the right place.” She shook her head and turned to Rainbow. “Rainbow Dash, do you care for this filly?”

She rolled her eyes, then glanced back at her and slowly nodded. “Yeah… yeah I do. You’d have to be crazy to hate her… or to make up something that crazy sounding.”

The princess giggled. “It’s why I believed her; well, that and she seemed to speak as if she believed what she claimed. While it is entirely possible she is stretching the truth, I highly doubt it.” Blaze remained silent while she listened. “Could you take her in?”

“It’s not that I wouldn’t… although I’m not great with children. Uh, it’s that I don’t make a ton of money. I mean, I do; but aren’t fillies expensive?”

“Any family member can be, yes. However, perhaps a deal can be worked out. I’d feel terrible allowing the catalyst for the creation of our existence to simply live without a family.” She turned up to Scootaloo then winked at her.

“Uh, what deal?”

“A monthly allowance from the crown to help out, only until you can afford to pay for anything she may need yourself.”

Rainbow grumbled, but nodded. She didn’t enjoy accepting so much help, but she figured it made sense. Blaze walked up to her and nuzzled her chest. Rainbow sighed and looked around, making sure nopony else was paying attention, then repeated the gesture.

“Splendid; now--” Celestia tried to get out, by was swiftly interrupted.

Pinkie then felt a tingling in her body. “Tingling ankle, twitchy tail, blinking eye… I forgot to throw Shyfrost a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party! Hmm… Or Blaze Wings a ‘Welcome to our Dimension and new Timeline’ party!”

“Uh, but how would you have known to--”

Pinkie stuck her hoof onto Blaze’s mouth. “Hold that thought, we have to hurry! C’mon!”

Pinkie Pie began to bounce away from the crowd, but not before calling out to the princesses. “I hope it’s okay if I borrow the castle!”

Celestia giggled, while Luna looked less than pleased. “What is going on?”

“I believe we will find out, dearest sister. Let’s go, we have friends to catch up with.”

Shyfrost pondered on what his friends were up to, would they come to Pinkie's party? Or would it be time for them to head back home, to take care of their own friends and family? He looked around, happy to be surrounded by just that. For now, it didn't matter. His friends would be fine, they had their own lives to take care of. For now, he had his. He had family, friends, a brother, but mostly importantly he had his purpose.


THE END