Harmony was a bit surprised that Quartermaster rage didn’t boil over during the week long boat trip. It had taken another long month trudging through the jungle where the boat had dropped them off at before a challenge was made. Again, Quartermaster had insinuated that Harmony was up to no good and again Harmony won in short order.
“Still, you won’t accept me?” Harmony commented as Quartermaster again shoved away his helping hoof. “I guess I should be used to it by now...”
“And what is that supposed to mean, outsider?” The dragon narrowed his eyes. Oddly, he didn’t like what he was hearing. And why does that bother me?
“Exactly what I just said: That I should be used to having dragons reject me by now.”
Quartermaster was shocked, so much that he again became enraged at him. Why am I mad about this!!?! Sure, I’m mad that we have to trudge through this ill begotten jungle because Harmony needs to find what he called an ent grove. But, for him saying that he should be used to dragon rejecting him! I...
Before he could do anything in his rising anger Harmony asked him a question. “You want me to be as far from the clan as possible, never to return, never to contact the clan again.”
“I…” Quartermaster was confused not only at his own feelings but what Harmony was revealing.
“Well? Am I right?” Harmony pressed not letting Quartermaster find a way out.
Before Quartermaster would have agreed but now he wasn’t so sure. Why was he always after Harmony even after all the evidence that Harmony was truly was loyal to the clan but to the dragon ways. “Why?” Quartermaster looked downward not wanting to met Harmony eyes. For some reason he couldn’t look at his accuser. It felt almost like he had dishonored Harmony and as such should not look at him… But he knew he didn’t dishonor him...did he?
This surprised Harmony as of all the reactions he would have expected this wasn’t one of them. His mouth opened and shut several times as he tried to form words but couldn't.
“Why do you keep trying?”
“Because... Because despite you treating me with contempt I still consider you a ‘hatchmate.’”
“Your only saying that because of He of Hourglass…”
Harmony shook his head. “That is where you again are wrong. No matter what, you are and will always remain as family to me. True, your animosity towards me is hard to take sometimes. But I know it’s just misguided and in no way malicious. You are one of the most loyal dragons around… It’s that sense of loyalty that drives your paranoia that somehow I might bring trouble or dishonor to the clan...”
I wish I could tell you Quartermaster that Golden Heart is my adoptive brother. That his egg was the egg that I guarded; the egg that I went through the excruciating pain of the Rite for… There are times I despise the code and dragon instincts as it forces me to be quiet when I so want to tell you everything...
“But you are still a pony not a dragon…”
“Technically… true…”Harmony rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “There is an assumption everyone has, which I guess is to be expected, that I disowned ponies as would be ‘required’ of me for the Rite of Guardianship…” Harmony turned away, tears beginning to form. “The truth is different…”
“What are you saying?”
“Ponies were never my people. You can’t not disowned something if you never owned them.”
“But you’re their Keeper!” This pony was making less sense to Quartermaster. The more he spoke the the more he realized how little anyone really knew about him. Even with Eternal Beats and Golden Heart’s abilities…
“He is broken Metal Claws… Scars and wounds are etched across his heart… I don’t have a clue where to start… Every time I think his pain is gone another source surfaces.”
“It’s worse than that.” Eternal Beats interjected. “His true soul song is nearly non existent… It wasn’t until I was ordered…” He growled out the last word to let them both know his displeasure, “to dive deeper that I realized the depiction. He is merely a shell of whatever he once was. But there is hope… I can’t be sure until another part his cutiemark appears but it appears that those marks are beginning to heal him… from what I can sense they alone will not do it as they are merely a drop of water on an erupting volcano…”
Quartermaster didn’t argue. He knew that Golden Heart and even more so Eternal Beats would know about the state of one’s heart. “And what does this have to do with me?”
“Everything or maybe nothing.” Eternal Beats shrugged.
“Eternal Beats I don’t like riddles!” Quartermaster roared readying his flame.
“Such is life so get over it Metal Claws.” Golden Heart calmly stood between him and Eternal Beats. “One last thing… He of Harmony is hiding something, something that I feel is important… something about the ash illness of his… Try and see what you can get out of him about it.
“Ugh, do I have to? It’s bad enough I have to have leave Hourglass for a prolonged trip but to have the ou-” Quartermaster shrunk back at the look of murder coming from Golden Heart. “-him ‘tag along’...”
“We don’t have the time to indulge your animosity towards him just so you can wander about the eastern continents in peace and take longer because you have no guide!”
“Yes, Firstclaw.”
“Good. You are to meet him in the morning three days time from now. I trust that should be enough time to prepare your forge.”
... something you will understand in time.” Harmony ignored the annoyed growl coming from Quartermaster over the last remark, “Do you know how Keepers come into being?”
“They are the last born of their kind…”
“In a way that is right…“
“When no more can be born the Keeper appears. The spell takes the essence from the male and female (if the race reproduces that way) and combines them just like would happened normally through sexual relations. Then the spell births the child or in the case like dragons an egg is ‘laid’”
“I was born around ten thousand years ago. The last herd (and really the remaining) of alicorns had been on the run from the forces of the “Nameless One” for several years. I don’t know exactly who or what it was that pursued them. Celestia is the only one alive that was old enough to remember unfortunately her memories from that time are too hazy, the trauma was too much…”
“It wasn’t really her fault. she was still so young and in matter of a short time she lost her parents then her ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’ nearly lost her sister Luna than to have me appear. It was too much for her. She struggled to show any signs of love and care to me. What made it worse was we were on the run for my early life.”
“When I was old enough to go out on my own I did. I was a lost pony unsure of why Celestia was so cold towards me. I didn’t understand why we were on the run all the time. I didn’t know about the Keepers or my role as one until much later. I didn't understand why I was so different. The ponies unlike the other races had been isolated for so long they didn’t realise who I was. The tales and prophecies surrounding the Keepers of Harmony had been lost. They just saw me as a freak or as a monster…” Quartermaster finally caught the glint of tears. “They were frightened of me.”
“Because of your fur.”
“Yes...” Harmony eyed the dragon closely for a moment before continuing, “Don’t think wrong. I will die to protect ponies and bring them harmony as is my duty and honor. Nothing has or will change that until my death or the final defeat of the ‘Nameless One’... But… when it’s over they were just my duty and while it has brought and will bring me great joy and pride to see the ponies come into harmony... they… They aren’t family for they rejected me from the beginning.”
The concept of family was different for Quartermaster especially as an adult dragon. To a dragon family was only those that had the utmost trust with each other… Name sharers which Harmony and he had not done yet... But for Harmony he wasn’t a dragon adult or otherwise… so for him it had to be different. Hence the reason he felt that the alicorn was an outsider… right?
“The sun is setting we best find a clearing to make camp.”
Harmony lifted off and began circling just above the canopy. He was just beginning to circle a third time when he spotted what appeared to be a clearing not too far away. He motioned to the dragon below that he found a clearing. Quartermaster grumbled but quickly himself took flight to follow Harmony. It wasn’t long before they reached the clearing that Harmony found and had started a small campfire for warmth and light.
Quartermaster had been going over everything that Harmony had told him. Something about Harmony not considering his own race as his own bothered him. It bugged him so much that he had to ask. “If ponies were never your people what race would you consider as your people?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Harmony nearly facehoof from Quartermaster’s blank expression. “Dragons.”
Again Harmony was surprising Quartermaster. How and why would he want to have dragons as his people. The Rite would have force him to disown his own race but Harmony seemed to be implying that dragons were already to him to be his people. He could only voice a single word. “How?”
“I inadvertently ran into a mated dragons’ hoard. Instead of killing me they took me in. For the first time I was accepted. They taught me the ways of dragons. They were the ones that in effect adopted me. Before them, I had no family. They are the ones who entrusted their egg to me…“ Harmony started sobbing the memories too painful to remain stoic or happy. This confused Quartermaster as he had no clue what would ever get him this messed up in front of him… “I tried everything I could think of to save them in the end. I watched the light in their eyes fade. It tore my heart asunder… The hoard they had was… unstable and exploded mere moments after the mother sung the egg’s name…”
“That was between five and four thousand five hundred years ago. It took me quite a while to find out about the Rite of Guardianship. Being an acolyte was one thing but claiming that I was entrusted with a dragon’s egg was understandably… hard to believe.”
“I did manage to finally found a dragon willing to hear me out. When I revealed that I knew the eggs name the dragon immediately told me of the Rite and without hesitation I agreed to go through it.”
Harmony laughed at the memory of He of the Flight pacing back and forth agitated at him for immediately wanting to go through the Rite of Guardianship. Harmony wiped some of the tears from his eyes and took couple of deep breaths to calm himself down before he felt he could continue.
“That dragon tried several times to persuade me to forgo going through it knowing full well that it was almost impossible for dragons to pass much less an alicorn… As you already know, I did pass the Rite. Knowing what I now know about the Rite I still would have done it without hesitation...”
“You know what's ironic? Dragons have treated me with more disdain and hate than the ponies ever did… And yet...” Harmony smiled as he gazed upwards at the twinkling stars and specifically to Draco. Quartermaster followed his gaze. Both watched for a while until Harmony began speaking again and Quartermaster eyes lowered to Harmony as he declared to Draco. “I will never stop considering dragons to be family, to being my people.”
A small flash of light caught Quartermaster’s eye. He looked towards the source. On Harmony’s flank was now a red flame to go with his green and light blue ones. Quartermaster didn’t care that the alicorn had a new butt thing but He of Hourglass warned him to notify Harmony if his ‘cutiemark’ changed in anyway. Ugh, the things I have to do for my clan and my Firstclaw.
“Outsider…”
Harmony looked at Quartermaster and noticed that he was pointing to his flank. A quick glance and he could see the same red flame mark that the dragon had seen. “Loyalty…”
Loyalty? Quartermaster wondered. “You are one of the most loyal dragons around… It’s that sense of loyalty that drives your paranoia that somehow I might bring trouble or dishonor to the clan.” Quartermaster grumbled as he realized it was getting harder and harder to not like Harmony.
A yawn from Harmony interrupted his thoughts. Begrudgingly Quartermaster motioned for the alicorn to get some sleep. He had a lot to think about and really wanted to do that as alone as possible. Before too long the sounds of sleep could be heard coming from the alicorn.
The crackling from the forest fire was overwhelming loud and yet he somehow he heard the sounds of someone or something approaching from behind. He surreptitiously readied his horn for a fight. When whatever was behind him seemed to have stop he spun around.
Who he saw shocked him. “Spike?!”
“Hello, Harmony.” Spike crossed his arms, smirking.
“You Chose!” Harmony nearly yelled. He just could not believe this was Spike. “How can you be here?!”
This seemed to amuse Spike a bit because he chuckled a bit before giving his answer. “I’m here because of you.”
“But, but this is impossible! This isn’t real!”
“Who said this wasn’t real?” Spike’s voiced faded away as Harmony’s vision went to black.
“GAH!” Harmony shot up. He was getting know where on whatever vision like dream he was having. He still had no idea he was in it until afterwards and he never stayed long after he saw Spike. It seemed though that Spike only showed up after he got another part of his cutiemark. He was half way there and with the first three he only seemed to get only a few seconds longer with him each time. He need more time, especially if he was going to go through the ‘You Chose!’ and ‘This is impossible’ speeches every time...
His sudden exclamation got Quartermasters attention. The dragon was about to speak when Harmony held up a hoof.
“Hold that thought.” Harmony grabbed two vials of ash cure and down both in quick succession. “Sorry Quartermaster I needed to take those potions asap to prevent my ash illness from flaring up. Now, what is on your mind.”
“You claimed that that red flame marking of your is loyalty, but why are you hiding something from He of Hourglass?”
“I am allowed to have secrets you know!” Harmony nearly yelled. He then sighed heavily. Somehow he knew that He of Hourglass would keep trying, being a dragon and all. “...It’s about the illness isn't it?… Yes its true, I am hiding something from in relation to the ash illness. It seems he wanted you to find a way to pry it out of me… I don’t know why he is so focused on me… It makes little sense as he is nowhere near as worried about the Bearer of Magic. Even if without an ash illness she is in just as much danger as I…”
Harmony got up but could no longer met Quartermaster's gaze. “I wish I could help him, but to tell him would… I can’t. I will not cause him more pain… I just can’t…”
With that he walked out into the night. This left Quartermaster alone to his thoughts. Harmony had said much and he had much to dwell on because of that.