//------------------------------//
// The Hero 
// Story: The Wyrd of a Dragon 
// by Gizogin 
//------------------------------//


The Wyrd of a Dragon
Chapter Two






Trixie entered the door to a very plain room.  A small bed took up the middle of the floor, with a smaller nightstand beside it that felt more like a concession than a comfort.  The dragon Trixie knew as Spike lay on the bed, wires running from a few small electrodes on his head to a series of softly beeping machines whose purpose was a mystery.  It was a sterile, uncomfortable scene, but not a surprising one.  In fact, apart from the dragon on the bed, it could have been the ward of any injured foal.  The only thing missing was the haggard parent.

Twilight Sparkle was no parent, but she had everything else right.  Sitting at a low table opposite the door, the princess scribbled furiously at something Trixie couldn't see.  Every inch of the walls, floor, and table around her was hidden beneath sheets of dense diagrams and equations, with even more floating in Twilight's magical grasp as she flicked her eyes between them and her current writing.  So enveloped in her work was Twilight that she took no notice of Trixie's entrance.

For a moment, Trixie remained silent, taking the opportunity to get her first look at Equestria's newest princess unnoticed.  Even sitting down, hunched over a table, it was obvious that Twilight had gained a few inches in height since their last meeting.  Her horn was longer, too, and the simple display of telekinesis she was putting on filled the room with an undercurrent of thrumming, invisible power.  Trixie had been, by her own admission, ever-so-slightly outmatched by Twilight's sheer power the first time they'd met; even at the height of her boasting, Trixie would never have claimed the ability to lift a bear the size of a large house back into its forest home by herself, but Twilight had done it.  And that had been before the wings.

Yes, there they were.  Feathered wings the same pale lavender as her coat and horn proved, more than any crown ever could, that Twilight Sparkle was no ordinary pony.  

She was one of the four princesses of Equestria.  And she wanted Trixie's help.

Well, Trixie is here.  Time to make an entrance.  She cleared her throat loudly, the sound carrying easily over the soft scratching of Twilight's quill.  "The Great and Powerful Trixie," she bellowed, "has arrived!"  The real trick was how she'd managed to hold the streamers and confetti under her hat this long, but Trixie thought they added just the right amount of flair.  

Twilight Sparkle's response was impressive in its complete and utter failure to appear.  In fact, if Trixie didn't know any better, she might have suspected that the princess hadn't heard her at all.  

"Ignore the Great and Powerful Trixie, will you?  Well, don't expect Trixie to repeat her performance!  She, ah, may have used the last of her streamers just then."

Still, there was no response, other than that infuriating scribbling.  If only Luna were there; Twilight would be hard-pressed to give her the cold shoulder then.  Alas, the other princess had not followed Trixie into the ward.

"Fine.  Trixie knows when she is beaten."  It took all of her effort, but the Humble and Apologetic Trixie could show respect when it was needed.  Taking a stiff, awkward knee, Trixie said, "The Great and-  Er, that is, Trixie is here, Your Highness."

With regal poise and an air of indomitable power, Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, regent of Ponyville, and former bearer of the Element of Magic, made no motion or acknowledgement of Trixie whatsoever.

Well then.  Defeated and mildly embarrassed, Trixie rose.  At least nopony saw that.  She trotted casually over to the table and tapped Twilight gently on the shoulder.  "Hey."

That, at last, managed to provoke a reaction.  Rather more of one than Trixie had expected, at that; with a startled yell, Twilight Sparkle tried to jump out of her seat.  Unfortunately for the princess, she was still pressed up against the table, and her leg caught it awkwardly, making her overbalance.  Wings flared, hooves flailed, and quill, papers, and princess fell to the ground, one rather less gently than the rest.

"Are you alright?" Trixie asked, panicked.  

Twilight Sparkle rubbed her cannon where it had struck the table, hissing through her teeth.  She would have quite a bruise tomorrow, but she looked otherwise unharmed.  Tired, with bags under her eyes and a few hairs out of place in her mane, but otherwise she seemed to be taking things remarkably well.  Trixie breathed a sigh of relief; she was in enough trouble as it was, without adding regal assault to the list.

"I'll survive,"  Twilight said.  "Sorry; I didn't know you were here already."

Of course, Trixie thought.  Outwardly, she said, "Trixie will be sure to announce herself next time."

"Right.  Good."  There was a pause while Twilight Sparkle climbed to her hooves, then she said, "Hello, Trixie, and thank you for coming, but we really don't have time to waste.  Did Luna explain the situation?"

"Vaguely, but-"

"It's very simple.  I'm going to create a partial-telepathic virtual bridge between your upper neural pathways and Spike's theta signatures with a memetic, symbolic comprehension overlay to aid in your cognition of the mental landscape.  Your job is to search the short-term impulse band to locate the source of his abnormal syncope."

Trixie blinked.  Does she not need to breathe?  "Oh.  Well, you should have just said so."

Taking another breath, Twilight said, "It means—"

"Trixie knows what it means."  

Her interruption seemed to have taken the wind out of the princess's sails.  "Right.  Sorry.  My friends aren't exactly versed in magical terminology, so..."  She trailed off.  "Anyway!  Will you help me?  Please?"

"Trixie would not have come otherwise."  It was almost true, at least.

"Okay.  Let's get started."  Twilight gestured to the now-slightly-more-scattered papers as she said, "I'd just finished working out the modifications to the original spell that will let me send somepony else in instead.  As soon as you're ready, we can start."

Ready?  How could Trixie possibly be ready to trot around in a dragon's memories, even if that dragon didn't probably hate Trixie and want to have nothing to do with her?  Still, she'd come this far.  Her chance to walk away had passed.  "Is there anything Trixie should be worried about?"

Twilight shook her head.  "It's perfectly safe," she assured.  "I've used it before.  You might feel a bit of vertigo for a second, but nothing worse than that."

"Then Trixie is as ready as she will ever be."





The spellcasting turned out to be a lot less dramatic than Trixie expected.  She and Twilight Sparkle took up positions on one side of Spike's bed, with Trixie sitting on a pillow and Twilight standing to her left, towards the head of the bed.  After one last check to make sure Trixie was ready, Twilight lit her horn and tapped it to Trixie's forehead, just below the front of her luxurious, silver mane.  The touch of the princess's aura was electrifying, sending involuntary shudders down Trixie's spine.  There was power there, true power, subtler and yet more concrete, more real, than the pitiful imitation she had once tried to claim.  Twilight's horn thrummed, a vibration that wasn't seen or heard but felt, and then it stopped.  Trailing a streamer of pale magenta from the point of contact, Twilight repeated the motion on the unconscious Spike.  As soon as the ribbon of light connected pony to dragon, Trixie's vision went dark and a tugging sensation at the root of her horn seemed to pull her forwards, even while she knew she hadn't moved.

When Trixie could finally see again, she found herself at the foot of an enormous spire of rock.  She would have called it a mountain, but mountains had peaks; this structure just went up forever.  Trixie tried to follow it with her eyes, but only briefly.  The dark, craggy tower was almost imposing enough to make her lose her nerve as it was.

If she'd understood Twilight's explanation properly, what Trixie was seeing now was some sort of mental illusion, meant to make sense of the inner workings of a pony's—or dragon's—mind.  This jet-black pillar, then, must have represented something significant about Spike.  Trixie tried not to think too hard about what.

"Who goes there?" called a voice from in front of her.  Trixie looked to its source and found a massive, elaborately armored figure standing before a pair of heavy, iron doors set into the stone.  It stood at ease, legs apart, with one hand closed around the shaft of a lance, the handle of which rested on the ground.

What's a minotaur doing here, of all places? Trixie wondered, but a second glance revealed that, whatever this being was, it was no minotaur.  Its knees were wrong, for one thing, and it had no horns; in place of any semblance of a mane, it had a ridge of green spines running over the top of its head.  On closer inspection, what Trixie had initially assumed to be rings of decorative mail were, in fact, small scales of deep purple and pale green.

Trixie could have kicked herself.  She only knew of one creature with those colors, and she was in his head right now.

"Greetings!" Trixie called, her voice booming with confidence she wasn't sure she felt.  Still, she hadn't been performing on stage and on the road all her life without learning how to hide a bit of nerves.  Muscle memory, or the mental equivalent, smoothed her words and lent her a greater presence than any pony facing down a dragon in his own mind had any right to show.  "The Great and Powerful Trixie would speak with Spike the Dragon."

That seemed to amuse the guard.  He grinned, as though at some private joke; the action revealed wickedly sharp teeth.  "Does she now," he mused.  Adjusting his grip on the lance, he said, "And what makes you think I'll listen to what you have to say?"  The grin vanished, the guard's face becoming cold and fierce.  "You're not welcome here, Trixie."  He spat the name out with such venom that Trixie nearly flinched.  Nearly.

"Trixie is here on the order of Princess Twilight Sparkle.  Stand aside."

"Hah!" Spike barked; it was a laugh utterly devoid of humor.  "You're not a guard; Twilight couldn't order you to take off your hat.  Last chance, Trixie."

So much for bluffing my way in, Trixie thought.  Time to try something drastic.  "Do you promise to keep what Trixie is about to tell you a secret?"

Without hesitating, Spike drew a claw in an X over his chest, then touched it lightly to one eye.  "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."  He pronounced the schoolyard rhyme with all the gravity of a sworn oath, somehow managing to convey that he would keep her secret at almost any cost.

It was as good as Trixie was likely to get.  "Twilight asked for my help," she said, some of the bravado sliding out of her voice.  "She's worried about you.  And Trixie is not about to disappoint a princess."

That earned another flash of that wicked grin, but this time there was actual warmth to it.  "Now that, I can believe."  Without turning around, Spike rapped a fist on the door behind him, and it swung noiselessly open.  Flickering, green light spilled onto the dirt, and Spike hefted the lance over his shoulder as he turned to head inside, gesturing for Trixie to follow.

"Welcome," the dragon announced as they crossed the threshold, "to the mind of Spike."