The Twilight Years

by Crimmar


An oral problem

        Another day, another lesson. Celestia could not complain though. On the contrary, the eagerness she had for every day’s session to begin could rival the one displayed by her student.

        Celestia had brought Twilight into her private chambers. They were going to mostly practice fine control today, and her own rooms provided the best chance for them to stay uninterrupted.

        Twilight was sitting between Celestia’s front legs as she lounged on a large pillow, almost a mattress in its own right, that she had placed on the marbled floor. The look of intense concentration on her young face as she tried to separate the grains of sand Celestia had provided her always brought an honest smile to Celestia’s lips. She was just adorable!

        A small marble appeared before Celestia and she quickly caught it before it could land on Twilight’s head, distracting her. Celestia turned to look at the table that Raegdan and Spike occupied. The pair had elected to stay as far as possible from teacher and student, reluctant to break Twilight’s concentration. They whispered to each other, making an admirable effort to remain quiet. The extremely young, baby dragon would normally cling around Twilight, asking questions or cheering her on with adverse effects on something so delicate.

        Luckily, Raegdan was always around to babysit Spike and keep him busy. The little hatchling showed an incredible amount of respect to Raegdan. Celestia suspected that the dragon’s instincts led him to recognize Raegdan as a greater authority even than her, due to his status as a fellow carnivore. Raegdan had quickly bonded with Spike and he in turn had almost immediately adopted the biped as his father figure, trailing behind him on every opportunity.

        Raegdan was currently performing his own session of teaching with Spike. He had gotten hold of a few marbles and some sheets of paper that he had crumpled into a sphere shape. Every now and then he would throw one of them upwards for the little dragon to hit with his fire. If it was a paper ball, he had to light it on fire. If it was a marble, he had to send it to Celestia. Celestia had to admit, Raegdan had a greater penchant than her for turning exercises into fun games.

        The little dragon loved this game but had trouble with both aiming, which meant that Raegdan looked like he was dancing on his chair like an epileptic to avoid the thin pillars of flame, or switching to his magic fire, in which case a red hot marble fell back on Raegdan’s palm. Celestia had provided him with a basin of water to cool down the marbles. He often made stops to dunk his hand in it too.

        Celestia turned her attention back to her student. Despite the small grunts of pain and hushed giggles she could barely hear -Celestia would feel bad with how much the whole scene entertained her if she didn’t know that Raegdan actually played along to amuse them- this was a moment to treasure. She loved those few hours when all four of them were together. There was a palpable feeling of homeliness and casualness during these times instead of the stiff and formal setting she was used to and dreaded.

        A few more minutes passed in relative peace and quiet. Twilight was making an amazing amount of progress. She started out with extreme difficulty in grabbing a single grain and now she was able to easily snatch up two or three of them at the same time, barely disturbing the rest around them.

        A hand tapped her on the shoulder, and then did the same to her student, surprising her enough to stop her constant casting. Raegdan was crouching next to them, his legs bending so much at the knees they brought his almost sitting on the floor. He presented a serving tray in front of them, filled with small sandwiches, a jug of juice, and two glasses.

        “Alright, ladies. What do you think about taking a break?” he asked smiling widely.

        “I’m starving,” little Twilight cried out and quickly picked up a sandwich, stuffing her mouth. Celestia laughed and took hold of a napkin to clean the filly’s face from the jam she spread on her coat in her haste. Raegdan looked on smiling as he filled up their glasses with juice.

        “When you are done eating these, I have something special for you.” He pulled a small bundle, wrapped in a napkin from his pocket and opened it to reveal four large chocolate cookies. “Two for each, alright ladies?” he winked.

        “What about Spike?” Twilight asked. Pride filled Celestia’s chest. Her young student did not forget her friend.

        “I gave him a gem to snack from Celestia’s stash after he finishes his own meal,” Raegdan answered. He turned to Celestia. “I got him one of the blue ones, that’s ok, right?”

        “A tanzanite?” Celestia asks in confirmation. “Yes, one of these will do. I believe dragons find them very tasty. It’s almost like a chocolate pastry for him,” she says to Twilight’s questioning eyes.

        “Hmm, I thought the right word for these was sapphires.” Raegdan took out his small, battered dictionary but Twilight stopped him from leafing through it to make the unwarranted correction.

        “No, Raegdan. A sapphire is another kind of gem. Both of them are blue.”

        “Huh. What’s the difference then in what Spike gets?”

        “Oh, they are both tasty and nutritious for him,” Celestia answered, “but he is too young to be able to eat something as hard as a sapphire.”

        Raegdan eyes lost their focus. “Did you have any sapphires in there?”

        “A few. But since you gave him a tanzanite…” Celestia had an awful suspicion. “Raegdan. Did you give him a tanzanite or a sapphire?”

        “How do you tell them apart?” he asked.

        Behind them, there was a loud crunch followed by painful cries.

        “Never mind, I figured it out!” Raegdan yelled as he rushed to Spike’s side.


        
        “Is the doctor going to be here soon or not?” an irate princess asked the guard. Celestia would normally be much more patient, but Spike had been crying his eyes out for almost half an hour. Raegdan was sitting on a chair, holding him to his chest, trying to calm him down. He wasn’t having much success at all, and what was worse, he almost looked as if he was about to burst in tears too.

        Most of the nurses that passed by made a few soothing noises at the baby dragon. A few just snickered behind their hoofs at them. Raegdan’s eyes followed the last type as they left, memorizing their cutie marks.

        “I’m sorry, your Grace,” the poor guard stammered. “We haven’t been able to find him yet, but his shift starts in just a few minutes. We hope he will appear on his own soon enough.”

        Celestia huffed in disappointment. One time she tries to abuse her authority to get a pony to come to work earlier, and her guards cannot find him to get him here.

        “Twilight,” she said to the little filly by her side, “could you please tell Raegdan I want to talk with him? Keep little Spike company in the meanwhile. See if you can calm him down.”

        Twilight’s little frown turns to a smile as she nodded and skipped towards the source of the crying that was drilling into Celestia’s soul. Raegdan soon came to her side. Now that the young ones couldn’t see his face he had let all the inner agony he felt come forth.

        “It was not your fault,” Celestia assured him before he had a chance to say anything.

        He shook his head. “Of course it is my fault. I gave him that gem.”

        “That tooth was probably weak already. Your small mistake sped up the process, that’s it.”

        “I still screwed up. Maybe you should find somebody else to take care of little flame. I can’t-”

        Celestia’s magic grabbed one of the books she had ordered delivered to her and smacked him with it. “I said it’s not your fault and that’s final. Here, I got you something to read. It’s about dragon physiology and diet. This will help prevent any more accidents if you worry about this.”

        “It’s not much help if I can’t tell one gem from-”

        A second, thicker book smacked him again. This was fun, Celestia thought. “Here. Everything you need to know about gems.”

        “Huh. This might be what I need. Does it have pictu-”

        A third book smacked him, cutting him off.

        “Stop that! What’s this?”

        Celestia unrolled the magazine she had gotten hold of. “Canterlot Pony Weekly. It seems that its main article is “How to tell if your significant other is no longer attracted to your tail.” I think that might be an euphemism.”

        “Why the hell did you hit me with that?”

        “Because you’ve been a bad boy?” Celestia asked. She rolled up the magazine and smacked him one last time.

        Raegdan tried to keep a serious face but a snort escaped him, revealing his smile for a brief second before being overtaken by a questioning expression. “Hey, little flame stopped crying. How did our little one manage tha-”

        As both of them turned to the young pair in question they froze in comprehending shock.

        “...and then the dentist uses a drill. It uses specialized runes to make it rotate along its axis in many rotations per minute, I’m not sure how much but we can ask, and that way it can pierce through the tooth enamel easily. He grinds away at the tooth like that and then he drills a hole in it that reaches deep into your gums. Then he basically inserts a screw that…”

        “Why are we not stopping her?” Celestia’s own voice screamed in her head. Both her and Raegdan did nothing but stare in morbid fascination while Spike listened to his step sister with a wide eyed, horrified expression that Twilight had failed to notice.

        “Princess Celestia. I am so sorry for making you wait!” A white maned stallion was running towards them while putting on his white coat. “I’m the castle’s dentist, White Crest. Which of these young ones is my patient today?”

        Spike looked at the dentist’s bright, toothy smile and began screaming.


        “Little flame, there is nothing to worry about, I promise. You won’t feel a thing.”

        “No way! He’s got a drill and he’s going to use it on me. Twilight said so!” Raegdan took the opportunity to throw a disapproving glance towards the filly. “And did you see the tools he has next to that chair? They are like big needles and I even saw pliers! He’s going to pull my tooth out, I don’t want to do this, I want to go, get me out of here dad, please!”

        Raegdan rubbed the tiny dragon’s shoulder. “Little flame, it’s not going to hurt. Even if it would, they have spells and such to make it painless. Which you won’t need,” he quickly backpedalled. “It never hurts at all.”

        “Yeah,” Spike agreed, “but they are ponies. I’m a dragon. It might be different for me.”

        “Ok, now you are being ridiculous. It’s not going to be different. I’m telling you, it’s safe.”

        “No! I’m not doing it. I want to leave.”

        Celestia decided to step in. Raegdan had been trying to convince Spike to climb on the chair for the last five minutes. It had gone on a relative repeat after the first minute.

        “Spike, how about this if that’s your fear; Raegdan is not a pony either. If he lets the good doctor check him out, will you be convinced?” Celestia said with a reassuring smile.

        “Well… If dad can do it, I can do it too.”

        Raegdan pushed Celestia a little further away and whispered. “This might be a good time to mention that I don’t like dentists either.”

        Celestia’s eyes looked at him with pity and compassion and absolutely no trace of sarcasm or taunting. That or the opposite. She really didn’t want to spend all her day in here, next to that terrifying drilling machine. “How much of a choice do you think you have right now?”

        Raegdan obediently took his seat on the dentist’s chair.

        The doctor quickly got to work, shining a light in Raegdan’s open mouth. He tried to prod at a tooth with one of his tools but as soon as the dentist touched him with it the magical field dissipated and it fell down on the floor.

        At the dentist’s questioning look Celestia spoke up. “Raegdan is… having a disrupting effect on magic that touches him or gets too close to him. No spell of any type has been able to affect him so far. You are going to have to be a little careful.”

        “Ah, a challenge,” the old stallion says. “Well, open up wider lad. I’m going to have to check on these beauties the old fashioned way.” White Crest used a long piece of dental floss to tie his prodding tool on his hoof.

        Raegdan jerked a little as the dentist inserted the sharp tool in his mouth. “I’m sorry,” White Crest apologized, “I’m not used to working with my hooves.”

        “It’s ok. I didn’t feel a thing,” Raegdan answered. Celestia saw the metal’s red edge and the blood that was seeping from Raegdan’s gum. Luckily, Spike was too short and his vantage point didn’t allow him to see that.

        “Oh, that’s bad,” White Crest said after a minute.

        “Something wrong?” Celestia asked. She didn’t expect Raegdan to actually have a problem with his teeth. She just thought the doctor would prod him for a while before he started working on Spike. Still, this might help relax Spike even further.

        “There’s some decay here, along with some more damage. I can take care of it, no problem.”

        “What, now?” Raegdan asked with a slight tinge of panic in his voice.

        “Is this going to hurt him?” Spike’s innocent voice piped up.

        Raegdan quickly sunk back into the chair. “No, of course not. We are going to be done right away, isn’t that correct, doctor?”

        “Yes, yes, no problem at all. I'm just going to cast a numbing spell on you first and-”

        Celestia cut him off, speaking lowly but urgently. “Doctor White Crest, I believe I already mentioned that spells of any kind don’t work on Raegdan.”

        “Not even that?” the old stallion asked with wonder. “In that case, my boy,” he whispered, “you are in for a world of hurt.”

        Raegdan lifted up his head so he could see Spike’s big eyes patiently watching him, judging how discomforted his adopted father was by the whole process. One of Spike’s little hands was against his cheek, where his broken tooth was still aching him.

        “Celestia,” Raegdan whispered.

        “Yes?”

        “Get little flame and the little one out until the doctor is done, will you?”

        Celestia was about to agree but stopped. The reason she halted was currently in White Crest’s hooves. An old fashioned, large drill, that worked with a manual crank. It looked more like a mixer tool you’d find in a kitchen or an instrument of torture in an evil dungeon than something destined for medical use. Raegdan spotted it too if she judged by the way his pupils turned into the size of pins.

        “And put a silence spell on the door,” he whispered, horrified beyond words.


        “...and it really didn’t hurt at all!” Spike repeated amazed.

        Celestia patted his tiny head with one of her wings. “We told you it wouldn’t, Spike. Now, why don’t you go off and find Twilight? I’m sure she will want to hear all about it.”

        “Ok! Where is dad anyway? I want to tell him too.”

        “Raegdan is still in the bathroom,” Celestia said. “You have all the time in the world to tell him later, but right now Twilight waits for you.” Spike nodded and hurried off to find her young student.

        When he was gone Celestia approached the bathroom door and knocked. “Raegdan?”

        A moan of pain answered from within.

        “I’m really, really sorry for what happened. I promise, I’m going to find an earth pony or pegasus dentist the next time. They certainly won’t have a problem with trembling hooves.”

        A short moan agreed with her.

        “Spike has gone off to find Twilight. If you can just avoid opening your mouth until the bleeding stops and the wounds heal…”

        A long moan that ended in a tiny whimper told her what he thought about the quality of her suggestion.

        “We can tell him you went off to hunt if you prefer.”

        An affirmative groan told Celestia to go with that plan instead.

        “Agreed then.” She hesitated. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

        Two small moans.

        “I am not killing you. You’ve managed through worse. Spike at least had the excuse of youth for acting like that,” Celestia reprimanded him.

        One very short moan.

        “I’m a pony princess, not a diamond dog princess. You shouldn’t be calling me that.”

        The moan repeated itself.

        “The way you act? Right back at you.”