“Grrrrrrrrr. Grrrrrrr. Grrrrrr.” Claw growled ineffectually as Twilight watched the machines she currently had him wired too. She completely ignored the annoyed colt as her eyes danced across all the different measures, numbers, lines and readings. They'd even cleared out a small section in the library to set up all the machines.
Rarity was far more worried as she looked from the colt to the princess. “Twilight, are you sure this is safe? He is just a colt. You wouldn't... put him in any danger, right?”
“Of course not!” Twilight said, looking up quickly. “This merely measures his time dimensional access against the standard disparity according to Starswirl's third law of dimensional and relative time travel. I'm trying to determine if he's a first, second or third case.”
“... What? Wait, I thought you were just trying to determine if he was from the future or not!”
“Oh, he is. Well, not necessarily from the future, he could be from the past. He's not from OUR time, at the very least. His time residue is completely off.”
“Grrrrrrrrr,” the colt kept growling.
“It's really quite fascinating. You see, there's three different types. Either what he does now is guaranteed not to have any effect on the future, meaning he already did it once, well the other Twilight had experienced it. Or the second type, where his mere presence here will have drastic effects to the point where he'd never even exist.”
“W-what?” Rarity asked. “N-never existed? But if he's here--”
“If he wasn't here before, then this likely alters, however slightly, whatever led to his birth. Delaying his conception by even a few days could completely alter him. He could come out as a girl, maybe more pony, more dragon, anything.” She paused. “But... that could mean we can't send him back.”
“And... the third option?”
That gave Twilight pause and she shook her head. “I... don't think it's the third option and we should not focus on that.”
“Twilight... tell me.”
“It's option two, but... worse. He never existed, after all...”
“What would... oh,” Rarity said softly, gulping. “So... the message...?”
Twilight glanced to the scroll which was now, mostly, clean. “It'll take a while to fix. Were it just normal paper, repairing the ink would be easy. But noooo. It had to be covered in dragon slobber.”
“Sorry,” Claw mumbled.
“Now dear, there's nothing to be sorry for,” Rarity said gently. “You did nothing wrong, it was just an accident.”
“Well, if he hadn't breathed fire when--” The alicorn cringed when she got a nudged on the side. “Ow. Right, nothing wrong. Interesting. Claw, can you try speaking for me?”
“Yes!” Claw said.
Twilight stared and waited, before face hoofing. “I mean, say a bunch of different things.”
“Oh, yes. Mommy, daddy, Aunt Test, Uncle Discord,” that one brought a confused look from Twilight, but Rarity only shrugged, “Gooey thing, ummmm...”
“Well, that should be enough, thank you,” Twilight said as she looked over the scans.
“What is it?” Rarity asked.
“It's his brain.”
That made the unicorn tense up. “What's wrong with it?”
“Err, nothing, I think. Maybe? It's not a pony brain, but it's not a dragon brain, either. Trust me, I've done enough scans on Spike to know. Or maybe it is, I've only really had a chance to do these scans on one dragon but... anyway. When he speaks, his brain goes haywire. It's a lot more active than a pony's brain would be.”
“That's... good, right? It means he's smart?”
“Actually, it means he's struggling to form the words. No, not struggling, it more means his brain requires more work to form the words than a normal pony. But I guess that's not surprising, his brain probably operates on different levels than ours. Not to mention the different levels of magic and organs his body maintains. I wonder if his horn can do pony magic, or if it's just for decoration or a weapon. I know he has the fire breath, but does it have the innate magical properties that Spike's has, or does it just have--”
“Is he going to be okay?!” Rarity finally shrieked.
The princess cringed and gave her friend a meek smile. “Err, yes. He is going to be fine. As far as I can tell he is completely healthy. Both by pony and dragon standards. He'll just likely have some problems in certain areas growing up. He'll likely thrive in others, though. Depending on how his mind operates.”
Rarity nodded. “Good. So he's from another time and he's healthy. And... about him being... my son. Do, errr...?”
That, for the first time made Twilight look away. “I haven't determined yet. I'd need samples from you and Spike.” Was Rarity imagining it, or did the princess suddenly seem annoyed? Even, dare she say it, angry?
“Is something wrong, dear?”
“Wrong? No, no, what could ever be wrong? Not like I'm looking at the off spring of one of my best friends and my BABY dragon who's like a brother to me,” she said a tad bitterly.
Rarity cringed. “Err, Twilight, darling, I-I'm sure whenever... if... whenever... this happened, Spike and I were... I'm sure he was... I mean, there's no actual proof he's mine. Or Spikes. But if it was, I'm sure it was consensual. From both of us. And, errr, I'm sure you were okay with it. I'd never do anything to... jeopardize our relationship. Maybe... I just happen to look like his mother? He might not even be Spikes, either,” she said with a nervous grin.
“I'm sure,” Twilight mumbled with just a tad bit of annoyance. However, it faded quickly as the princess lost herself in her research again, all her annoyance abandoned. “Ohhhhh, maybe if I tried a gentle matrix array set through the third polithial of...”
“What's going on?” a small, purple dragon with green scales asked groggily as he stepped in through the library's main doors, letting out a soft yawn. Spike.
“DADDY!” Claw yelled before racing forward, yanking out most of the sensors and causing Twilight to shriek. He lunged over the screens and raced to the door, skidding to a stop in front of Spike. He then paused in place and looked down at the small, confused dragon. “Daddy?”
“Errr, Twilight?”
“Possibly your son from the future.”
“Oh,” Spike looked up at the dragon. “Cool. Errr, who's the mom?”
“We're trying to figure that out but it seems it might be Rarity,” Twilight said, the anger returning to her voice.
“WOO HOO!” Spike yelled, jumping into the air and fist pumping the air. He let out a yelp as Claw batted him down.
“Why daddy so small?” Then gasped. “Did the slime make yah small? Mommy told yah not to touch it!”
“Err, Twilight?” Spike asked again. “A little help?”
“Claw, dear, come get back into the machine. Twilight still needs to do measurements,” Rarity said gently.
“But I wanna be with daddyyyyyyy!” Claw whined, before lunging forward. Before Spike could object, Claw had the little dragon pinned and was licking his face. “I missed you daddy!” He giggled. “You still taste the same!”
“Ack! No, stop! I'm not, hey! Twilight!”
“Claw!” Rarity snapped. “Get back, now!”
The colt cringed and lowered his head, walking back into position with his head and tail limp on the ground. The unicorn sighed and moved over, giving him a gentle stroke on the back of the neck. “There there, dear. You know this is important, right?”
He nodded. “I know. But I really, really, really missed daddy,” he mumbled.
Rarity froze. “When... was the last time you... saw daddy?”
He blinked a few times before looking to Twilight. “When Aunt Test took him with her to the ooze.”
Twilight glanced up. “The... ooze? How long ago was this?”
He blinked and tried to think. “Ummmmm... forever ago?”
Twilight looked between Spike and Rarity. Then her eyes shifted back towards the note. “I think I've done enough tests for today.”
All three ponies were shaken to the core at that. “I... what?” Rarity said, her mouth falling open. “But... you don't want to... do tests?”
“I really need to get working on this letter.” The princess held it up, her magic stroking along it. “Maybe if I find the right mix I can reset the ink, or maybe a time winder spell. If only dragon's weren't so naturally magic resistant this wouldn't be so difficult.”
Spike stared at the alicorn, his eyes so wide they threatened to fall out. “Did... did she say she didn't want to do te-- EEP!” Once again her was tackled by Claw, who proceeded to start licking him again. “Gah, stop it! Stop iiiiiittttttt!”
“Claw, down,” Rarity said as she trotted over. “Come here.”
The colt whimpered, but backed away. Spike panted for air before smiling up at the unicorn. “So... uhhhh... you and I, in the future... err?”
Red flooded her cheeks. “There's... no actual... it's not actually set in stone. Maybe. I mean, w-well, you've always been a dear friend, I... I really should return home and continue unpacking! Come along Claw!” She galloped off, leaving the little dragon behind. Her snapped his fingers in disappointment.
“Oh sapphires. Eeeeeee! Me and Rarityyyyyy!” He wiggled in place happily, his claws flailing about.
Meanwhile, Twilight stared at the note, glaring at all the smeared ink that refused to heed her fixing spells. Were it just covered, it would be simple. But no, she had to find a way to reset the ink back to its original position. It was made even worse due to the fact the parchment was completely smooth, the specific materials made in its processing didn't allow for much imprint of the quill to be left. That cut down on practically every refreshing spell she knew.
Dear p*st me,
***ngs***ve ***e horr******ho***bly wr*******is ***Cl****th***on o****ike a***Sw***ie****k***, I***ow, n*****f us******ted it ****er. A*****th****ath ** Ra***y******* th***** b***ed*******sely****t i***** in****abl***** hel*** th*****ey *********t the *****age*******But th***s not w****s im**********
W****s impo***** is **** I ***t hi*****k in time for a ver********ant mi****n. He*****ill****hild, so *****esn't ******tand eve****ing, but***** spell ******y, ***********ous. If ****************on d*****lity, I'm d*****ul ********vive. I ****him swallo****************************he onl******* could **********wou*****t to you. I****e sure to *************impregna*********ment to *****it endure.
If I*******ect, ************time ************e na***** Val shoul******rri****. Watch***********from ******r di****ion, h*****ther shou*******ve at ******thre*****ks **** n****************off*******n reac**** th*******ly get****l of us kill*******lud*******ity, may her ***l r*** in peace. ***************s, you ********stop her ****se*******p****** some********e way. The*****************sen***************e untold chaos ********t***ly *****t the ***oze.
The **************d every******n Eque****a han** in the bala******ur fr****** ve** lives rest in************. I ***************** too late.
At least she'd managed to make a little progress so some words and spaces were noticeable. She even had a few commas. She loved the commas the most, they were small and cute and showed she was making some progress. Sadly, though, her progress was a result of cleaning it as best she could and then using every restoration of text spell she knew. And she knew a LOT of spells like that. She glanced around the library of her castle, thinking back to when her library had first been destroyed.
She shivered and leaned back against the note. Claw said it had been forever ago, had something happened to Spike? What if it had been months, weeks? A smile spread across her lips as she thought back to when Spike was younger and 'forever' could mean anything from twenty minutes to three days. For all she knew, Spike was fine and was just gone a few days.
The smile disappeared. But if he was fine, why would she send his son back in time? Why risk damaging the time space continuum? She didn't even know if she could send him back. What if she wasn't SUPPOSED to send him back? What if both his parents were dead?
What if her little baby dragon and one of her best(pending a full inspection of what she did with Spike) friends were dead? A chill went down her spine and she buried her face back in the scroll as some books slid off the bookshelves. Something must have happened in this time for her to send the colt here now. Something important.
She barely even noticed when suddenly Spike belched and a letter shot out of his mouth, landing neatly on the table besides her. She barely had time to look at it before a heavy knock echoed through the castle. Followed by the sound of the door crashing down. “Sorry!” a bubbly voice said. “I didn't mean to! I just don't know what went wrong!”
------
Val stared at the pegasi before him. They all wore golden armor and and had the same short tails with straight manes. He couldn't deny it. He hated it with every single fiber of his being. Soooooo much.
But they looked kind of cool. For ponies. Not that he'd ever let them know.
Cheerilee smiled down at the colt, trying to avoid chuckling as the colt stared at them with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. She couldn't deny it, she herself was feeling quite impressed as well, her heart all aflutter. She'd expected an escort from maybe a police pony. Possibly a soldier. But royal guards? Not to mention four of them?
A brown one stepped forward and saluted. “My name is Flash Sentry, I'll be escorting you this evening,” he said firmly, before smiling down at the little colt. “I hope you're excited to meet the princess.”
“Bah, I've met plenty of princesses,” Val said with a lie, making the teacher roll her eyes. She then smiled to the soldiers.
“Thank you for the escort, but I have to ask. How did you get here so fast? I thought the request had only just been made.”
“We were already on the way to see the princess,” Flash said with a nervous smile. “Important royal business. When she realized we were on the way, she sent a message asking us to gather you immediately.” He looked down. “You must be Val. The princess says you must be very important.”
“I am!” he said proudly. “I'm going to dethrone your princesses and rule with an iron fist. As any drow would, foalish pony!”
He just stared at the child for a few moments before looking to Cheerilee. “He might be from another dimension. Probably another species, as well,” the teacher said.
“Ohhhhhh.” He gave a nod. She had a feeling he was just nodding because he was expected to nod. “Well, to the princess!” He trotted to the front of the group. Cheerilee and Val were surrounded by a pegasus on each side and one behind. The little colt struggled to stand, his little hooves unable to keep his balance right. She couldn't imagine how he had survived at all in the Everfree Forest.
“Dear, would you like to ride on my back?” she asked softly.
“Hah! I need no help from you, pony! I have mastered the use of two legs, four is easy!” He kept trying to move two at the same time and did more of a leaping motion than actually walking. She hummed for a bit, before smiling.
“If you're going to conquer us, shouldn't you be riding on a noble steed?”
That made him pause before nodding. “Of course. Yes, pony, carry me!”
She smiled and put him onto her back. Perhaps drow children weren't quite so different after all. They were certainly just as easy to get to do what you want, you just needed to know how to talk to them.