One Year Later…
It had been a very quiet year, at least for the Hourglass Clan. Sadly, the world at large was not as quiet.
Discord was working overtime, and even with the help of some diplomats from Celestia tensions were rising to critical levels in Traxti City. The fear was that at any moment a single spark would set the whole city off dragging three nations with it. Discord was actually beginning to think that it was past the point where he could do anything but delay the inevitable, and Harmony was inclined to agree. The only one holding out that there was still a chance to cool down the tensions peacefully was Celestia. Harmony and Discord hoped that she would be right but were preparing for the worst nonetheless.
Equestria was not without its own issues.
The Bearers had recently dealt with a village of ‘sameness’ and the report that Harmony got from it made him shudder. Twilight had asked why the Elements didn’t protect them. To which Harmony had to respond to not be so complacent with the Elements. They had limitations just like all magic. To begin with the spell that Starlight used was not disharmonious. There was medical uses for the spell. It was originally developed to try and cure the cutiepox… sadly all it did was make the symptoms less severe. Harmony could only figure she must have found journal that had information on the spell. (Which annoyed him as he was sure he had destroyed all of the copies to prevent this from happening after when the cure was found.) And secondly, they were caught off guard and unless the threat was extreme the Elements would only work with a conscious effort. In this case, it was not extreme enough.
Harmony next had to admonish Fluttershy for nearly letting her still submissive behavior cost them everything. False kindness was one of the most dangerous and harmful deceptions around, and she once again fell for it. He felt, though, that it wouldn't happen again, given that she saw what it looked like now.
Harmony warned them that it most likely wasn’t going to be the last time they would have to deal with Starlight Glimmer. If anything, she would become more dangerous. Celestia was in agreement and had placed a bounty on her capture. Her abilities to disrupt a pony’s talent magic in a similar fashion to Tirek made her too dangerous to be allowed to toss in the wind. He predicted that it was very likely that more cults that had a twisted view of what harmony ‘truly’ was just like the one started by Starlight Glimmer would emerged, and told them to be on the alert.
On that same line, the Cult of the Moon was beginning to really make its presence known. For the moment, they were relatively ‘peaceful,’ but past history of the cult said that it wouldn’t last long. To Luna’s chagrin, she had discovered there were branches of the cult in every major city and from what she could tell membership was growing at an alarming rate. Sadly for the moment, there wasn’t much to be done but to monitor the cult.
Harmony was getting impatient waiting for the the ‘magic’ cutiemark to reveal itself. All the others came in within a relatively short span of each other. One year was just too much time from the last one so he decided to take matter into his own hands.
For the past week he had been spending nearly eight hours meditating on the element in the Hourglass council chambers. He was beginning to think he would need to try something different when in hour three and the fifth day something seemed to stir within him. His eyes shot open to see a familiar sight.
“Finally!” Harmony hollered, jumping up and down in his excitement. He finally found a way to enter the strange forest that had plagued him for nearly two years by his own volition.
“I knew you could do it.” Spike called out from the clearing ahead of Harmony.
“Spike!” Harmony galloped to him and pulled his brother into a hug. After a moment he pulled away a million questions coming out. “Please tell me what is going on! And for that matter where are we!? Why are you even here?! How are you even here? What’s with the fire every time I’m here? Why is the only constellation I see is Draco?”
“Whoa whoa whoa. Slow down Harmony. You are just as bad as Twi.” Spike pinched his brow. This is going to take some time, but at least we finally have the time… “We are in a place known as the inner fire… more specifically, your inner fire. I think the pony equivalent would be similar as to say we are in the plane of the soul.”
“But why do I have one? Or do ponies even have one?
Spike groaned. “Dragon magic…”
“Oh right.” Harmony facehoofed. I can be a total idiot sometimes forgetting the obvious. “But if this is my ‘inner fire, how are you here?”
“We are connected because of the Rite of Guardianship. Being a nondragon there were some parts that you are either unaware of or as usual lack understanding. Thankfully, you did the Rite or there would still be no hope for us…”
“No… no hope!?” Harmony nearly lost his voice in shock. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t move on; no dragon can. We are stuck in limbo, Harmony. We can not become part of The Voice or what you call Draco the Constellation.”
“What!? And The Voice? Is that the dragon equivalent of the Pasturelands?”
“The Voice is like what you call the Pasturelands but it’s also not…” Spike waved his hand and shook his head to stop another question from Harmony. He really wasn’t in the mood for to be annoyed trying and failing to explain something that would only confuse the alicorn further. “As for the limbo part: It’s part of the curse, Harmony, and only you can break the part that prevents us from reaching The Voice. Golden DragonHeart will have to break the other half.”
“The other Half?”
“The part that prevents The Voice from helping the dragons like before.”
“The ‘Nameless One’ really did a number on the dragons…” Harmony grumbled. “I guess it’s not surprising as he probably felt betrayed by them and that the dragons could pose a real and serious threat.”
“Astute as usual Harmony.”
“Not really…” Harmony admitted. “I still don’t know exactly what my sixth element really is… Wait a minute! How do you know all of this?”
“What? You think I can’t talk with other dragons while in limbo? It’s not like we have much else to do being ‘dead’ and all…”
“Have you met your parents yet? I… uh…”
“Yes, I have, and, Harmony, they do wish they could speak to you like we are. Sadly, I’m the only one that can be here… But they wanted you to know that you did well, that they love you, and you have made them very proud.”
Harmony knees buckled and he almost collapsed from the force of his emotions. In the back of his mind he always worried that he would fail Spike’s and his parents. The look on his mother’s face always forefront. He knew not to beat himself over it but the question still lingered. Teas of relief and joy came out in streams and even though he could not see them he could feel the love of They of Glowstone Caves wash over him. Spike only sat there patting him on the side.
After a while, Harmony was finally able to collect himself. In a faint whisper he stated, “So you know the truth…”
Spike positioned himself in front of Harmony and gently move his face so that they could see each others eyes. Harmony nearly lost it again when he could see the love coming from Spike. “That you are literally my hatchmate? Yes… and Harmony it’s more than ‘by the code.’ When you passed the Rite magically you became my hatchmate.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised, but all I could get was that a sibling would be ‘linked’ to the their sibling’s egg(s)”
“It wasn’t their fault remember its usually already a hatchmate you did something they had not seen before so they had nothing to compare it to… Of course, most don’t memory walk everything about the Rite, because, if they did, they may have discovered that you became linked irrevocably to dragons… which makes those that showed you so much disrespect...” Spike’s voice fell into angry growling.
Harmony put a reassuring hoof on Spike. The hatchling sighed. “Harmony you payed a larger price than you thought. The Pasturelands are locked to you, because The Voice claimed you as his own.” Spike held up a hand already seeing the question coming. “Yes, the Voice is a he. Please don’t try and psychoanalysis it… you’ll understand when it’s time.”
“Okay.” Harmony roughly rubbed his forehead already feeling the pain increase. “Let’s talk about something else before my developing headache becomes a migraine… What’s with the fire?” Harmony pointed to the flames surrounding them. At least this time the fire seems to be staying on the edge of the meadow and not try to overtake us.
“That would be him…” Spike stuck his thumb in what seemed to Harmony to be a random spot past the firewall.
“Him!?!?” There is someone doing this?!
“Yeah, ‘him.’”
A familiar draconic roar echoed across the meadow. “That was coming from a dragon and not Draco or as you said ‘The Voice’?”
“Yeah he's frustrated, and you would be too being a dragon never having a name…” Spike shook his head sadly.
“WHAT!? Not another one!” Harmony growling in frustration. He looked towards the fire. “How do we reach him? I was never able to move or affect the flames before.”
“He has that control.”
Of course… Harmony sighed at he made his way to the edge of the meadow. “Well at least I know why I was never able to get the fire to go away.”
“Can you see him?” Spike inquired as soon as he caught up with Harmony. He could see the dragon clearly but he had an advantage over Harmony.
“Yeah,” Harmony shifted a bit to try and get a better view, “I think so.”
Harmony finally got a good look at the dragon staring hard back at him with one purple and one green eye. It was a quadrupedal white dragon. Clearly the dragon had reached its first growth how it could without ever having a name was mystery to Harmony. The belly scales appeared to also be at least whitish but it was a bit difficult to be sure.
The dragon’s head was adored with six horns, each a different color of the rainbow. Two jetted out from each side of the face and were long enough to go cover the dragon’s ear frills. The two on the top curved up and over and were much bigger and longer than the ones on the sides of his head. The horns as a group looked strangely like a cross between a glossed back mane and a helmet. That was strange to Harmony. He never seen horns like that before. What kind of dragon is this?
The dragon’s tail become visible when in a rage it roared and slammed the ground in front of itself. Six different colored spines in the coloration and order of a rainbow ran down the dragon’s tail which ended with a purple, white, and green trident. A purple right eye, horn, and trident prong and a green left eye, horn, and trident prong? Strange. That is the same colors as Spike’s/Golden DragonHeart’s scales...
He’s definitely angry… Harmony thought as could hear the sounds of the dragon growling and hissing from within the wall of fire. It looked as if the dragon wanted to leap out and attack but was being held back somehow. Harmony heart broke he wasn’t sure if the dragon was angry at him, its circumstances, or both. One way or the other he just knew that he dishonored this dragon somehow he wasn’t sure how but he just knew that he had.
He slowly lowered himself to the ground. He spread his legs and wings out in the same way as Garble did in an attempt to make himself as flat as possible. He put himself at the mercy of the dragon. The last thing he did was close his eyes in preparation for the carnage to come. The carnage that never came.
Harmony could feel a nudge under his foreleg. From the feel of it was a dragon muzzle. He opened his eyes to look up and he could see the white dragon. It whimpered before nudging him again. It was clear it wanted him to get up. Harmony complied. The fire was raged around them but Harmony was not afraid. The fire felt more like the fire of a fireplace or campfire and not the type that destroyed.
The dragon grabbed Harmony’s muzzle roughly pulling him hard to look straight into its heterochromia eyes. Harmony tried, but couldn’t, to pull his gaze away. Before too long he could see the inner flame of the dragon and it looked exactly like the area around them. This shocked him to his core. It meant that this dragon was him!
“I need to choose.” Harmony said the moment the dragon let go.
“You realize…” Spike began wanting to make sure that he knew the cost.
“To Tartarus with the consequences!” Harmony snapped angrily. “I never flinched with the Rite of Guardianship I ain't going to now either... I know fully what will happen.”
No you don’t. But I will be with you until the end. Spike put a claw on Harmony’s shoulder.
Harmony sighed heavily knowing that even though he needed to choose there was still one small issue. “Spike, I don’t know draconic. How will I get across to him the correct name?”
“You got this far… Now where is that egghead brain of yours?”
Harmony couldn't help by laugh. “Don’t get snarky brother…”
Harmony thought for some time thinking back on what he knew about Hoard Names. He knew that it reflected what they hoarded for what was it that he hoarded? And how was he going to find the right name with the correct meaning?
Gah, I wish I knew more Hoard Names… It would at least give me a better idea...
Harmony felt frustrated. He now knew how Spike felt when he was approaching his time to choose. The difference was Harmony was not dragon he didn’t innately knew draconic… Maybe if I do the same thing as I did to get here…
It only took seconds of mediation before Harmony eyes shot back open. He knew the perfect name… as long as the dragon agreed. He leaned in to whisper into the dragon’s left ear frill and noticed that it was green. The red and blue horns had masked the frill and its color until then. What is with that pattern? The dragon listened and his eyes went wide at what he heard. Harmony pulled back to stand next to Spike.
“Do you like the name?” He asked.
The dragon responding with a nod of his head growling in contentment. His claws pawed the ground in excitement. He had waited a long time and finally he had what he needed: A Hoard Name. Now he needed to shout it out to complete the Choosing.
“You’d best go to the Plane of Harmony,” Spike smirked, “and drag the whole clan there too…”
“Oh, Spike!” Harmony facehoofed, laughing.