//------------------------------// // Origin of Species // Story: The Rise of Species: Dragons // by Zarmflamekin //------------------------------// “Spike, can you please stop that? It’s rather annoying.” “Huh?” Spike looked up from his book. “Your fork, Spike.” Spike looked down to his fork, which he currently had between himself and his plate, completely devoid of eggs. He then vaguely remembered he had run out of eggs a minute prior and had been putting an empty fork into his mouth as he read. Giving an embarrassed smile, he put the fork aside and took a deliberate drink of orange juice. “How long do you think you would have been doing that if you had eaten alone?” “I dunno.” Spike sighed a little as he put his juice down. “Just how invested are you in that book Spike?” “I’m… pretty far in actually. Listen to this. ‘As progenitors of their species, the five gathered and did what their mother would not, and talked to each other. Grunts, snarls, and gurgles became vowels and statements, allowing for four to name one with a name unique unto themselves.’ I kind of wish I could have done that.” “I-Is there something wrong with ‘Spike’?” Twilight asked with a sudden amount of hurt in her voice, making Spike jump in defense. “No! No, there’s nothing wrong with my name Twilight! It’s my name and I wouldn’t try to change it.” Both were quiet for a moment before Spike spoke again. “I’m sorry. It’s just… would you want to pick your own name?” Twilight blinked for a second before looking down at her own, near finished eggs. “I… I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.” Spike chuckled. “Well, this might also help to explain myself.” Spike cleared his throat before continuing to read aloud from ‘The Life and Fall of Tiamat.’ “’Because of his overall indifference and breath of fire, Red was named Pyrathy. For her care of animals and diet of plants, Green was named Tiervu. Blue was named Serenava for her straightforward approach and mastery of the oceans. Between them, Black’s name was agreed upon as Animion because of his fascination with life, but relentless consumption of its end. And lastly White was given the name Miserhaze because of his overly self-centered ways and life sucking mists.’ Though if you really think about it, they got to just be themselves without having to really do anything.” Spike looked up to Twilight. “Not quite a luxury we have now is it?” “No, it’s not.” Twilight smiled, then tilting her head in thought. “But if they named each other, who named Tiamat? Didn’t you say she wouldn’t talk?” Spike only shrugged. “It does, but the book just always refers to her as Tiamat.” Twilight frowned. “That’s some poor research on Bold Venture’s part. If you’re going to explain how each of her children became properly named, why not also explain the title character?” “Well, who named Princess Celestia?” Twilight opened her mouth to answer, but stalled on an answer. Had Luna and Celestia named each other like the five in the book did? Or did Starswirl? Or had they always just… been? Instead of answering, Twilight only came up with another question. “What did you mean ‘progenitors of their species’? Did the five of them really start… all other dragons?” Spike got a smug grin on his face. It wasn’t all that often he knew more than Twilight, even if it was from one book. “Yes and no actually. It looks like Pyrathy is the root of all dragons like me. The other four started… others.” Spike was hesitant now because he knew Twilight was going to rebuke everything he said before he finished the claims from the book, and it wasn’t like he had other sources. Twilight seemed to pick up on this hesitance and looked off to the dining room door as if expecting something. A sad smile spread across her face. Her horn lit as she began setting the used dishes back to the kitchen to be washed later. “I think I could use a distraction Spike. Why don’t you tell me what you found.” “Really?” Spike perked up. This was a very odd offer from Twilight, of letting him tell her when she could easily read it for herself. “Can we go back to the Adventure section? This might take a bit.” Twilight smiled as she teleported Spike and herself back to the Adventure section from the dining room. Spike went back over to his previous seat as Twilight rearranged the seats to allow her to sit face to face with Spike in her own seat. “So, which do you wanna know first?” Spike asked excitedly. “How about you tell me about Pyrathy. How is he the only root of modern dragons?” “Well,” Spike flipped 'The Life and Fall of Tiamat’ to its fourth chapter, Life of Pyrathy. “Like I read before, Pyrathy was a very indifferent dragon. He never did what he didn’t wanna do, and didn’t stop when he was doing his own thing, so he never really did much of anything outstanding like the others. And, well, one of the things he wanted was… hatchlings.” Spike’s cheeks flushed a bit at what he just realized what he was getting himself into, but Twilight was confused. “So wouldn’t he mate with… Tiervu or Serenava? Those sounded like the females of the five. Why aren’t they progenitors of modern dragons?” Spike chuckled nervously. “Well, they were his sisters.” Spike thought that would answer Twilight’s question, but it apparently didn’t. “And why would that stop him? It’s a myth Spike, and from what I read on griffon mythology, the only way to grow the family from so few is… to… you know…” Spike assumed his face was now a cherry red from how hot it felt. “W-Well that isn’t how it happened here.” Spike hurried along. “But who Pyrathy did find was, majorly, other reptilian species. Lizardkin, Pterosaur, Naga, and others. He saw them either as equals or similar enough to himself to not eat, and some even seemed to revere him as a god, offering everything of theirs to him. Including their females.” Twilight thought for a moment. “If I remember correctly, Tiamat, and by extension her clutch, were huge, easily able to climb over mountains by foot, presumably. They probably weren’t that big, but to exaggerate as such must imply some sort of size differential. So, how…” “Hey, beats me, I’ve only got the one record. But yeah, from there, ancient dragons roamed and mated, making generations that lead down to me. Given from some of the descriptions, I probably got some Lizardkin in me somewhere, though the gem eating gotta come in from somewhere else. A lot of meat eating in the early days there.” “Do you think… that if Pyrathy is the progenitor of dragons, that you could eat meat too Spike?” Spike mulled it over for a second. “Naa, Pyrathy is way back in the lineage, that probably got kicked out somewhere for the gems. Although…” Spike kept thinking. “I’ve never really wanted any. I could probably, possibly eat meat. Doesn’t mean I would want to. Just like you could eat quesadillas.” Spike smirked, gaining a shudder from Twilight. “Ok, I get your point. So what about Tiervu? She sounded like somepo- dragon we could get along with.” Twilight was a bit confused when Spike chuckled. “Oh yeah, we all would have 'gotten along'.” Spike said as he flipped to chapter five, Tiervu is in the Air. “Turns out she was even more into other species than Pyrathy was, and since she didn’t eat any of them, they felt a safe attraction to her. And she to them, all of them.” Spike gulped a bit as he felt the heat returning, causing Twilight to look at him, confused yet again, causing Spike to sigh. “She mated with every male she could.” Twilight blinked rapidly in shock. “All of them? How would that even work? I mean, how would Pyrathy even… but they’re myths… but some facts… but… but…” “Twilight, set a lower gear on that brain of yours for one second.” Spike reached out and pat Twilight on the shoulder, causing her rapidly increasing ragged breaths to slow down. “Now don’t break on me again when I tell you this, ok?” Twilight gave him a small nod. “So Tiervu became the progenitor of chimera.” Twilight’s brow scrunched for a second before a look of understanding passed over her. “Huh, that… seems to make a bit of sense. If taking all of those samples at once and combining them into one fertile egg… that seems rather overly simple, yet brilliant. But… aren’t chimera only a combination of ram, tigers, and snakes?” Spike shook his head. “That a common one today, but a chimera as described here is what any animal of a combination of many dissimilar parts is able to live. So, in a sense of the term here, a manticore is a chimera, and thus a long descendant of Tiervu.” “Huh. Well… ok then.” Twilight said a bit dejectedly. “What about Serenava? What is she the mother of?” Spike’s face took a dower turn. “She’s the mother of kelpi.” He said flatly. The sudden bluntness of Spike’s comment hit like a hammer hitting the bag of bricks that just fell on her head. “The mother of what!” Twilight near on shrieked, causing Spike to wince. Twilight quickly noticed her folly and cooled down. “I’m sorry Spike. But, what do you mean Serenava is the mother of all kelpi.” Spike sighed as he turned to chapter six, About the Serenava. “It starts with Serenava in her own territory of the open ocean. And you know, for being a giant, four legged, winged dragon, she seemed to be able to get from one edge of the world to the other in no time flat. And so she had just eaten part of a reef and decided to partake in some fish from another ocean, but as she moved, she spotted something in her ocean she hadn’t seen before, and decided she wanted a piece of it.” Spike was silent for a moment. “They were ship wrecked ponies. Only a hooffull and some were barely treading water with the driftwood of the wreck. So when Serenava came along and saw their legs kicking in her waters… she ate them. Turns out Serenava didn’t have the same taste for ponies that the brothers had and soon spat the ponies back legs out, but when she did, she saw the blood from twenty-four stumps in her water still kicking about.” Spike began to smile hesitantly. “However, it seemed like Serenava liked having things in their proper place and rose above the waves to show herself, and in turn found a rather windy day which had sailed an earth ponies boat into a rock outcropping they had been trying to avoid. “Serenava said, I quote, ‘Creatures of the Land, what do you think you are doing in my waters?’. Quite naturally, this freaked the ponies who hadn’t passed out from shock even further, and one young mare answered with ‘We only sought better land than what we left. If this was your doing, then finish it.’ Now from what I’ve read, Serenava wasn’t all that kind of a soul, but she knew when something deserved respect, and that filly got hers that day. But since she knew she couldn’t heal their legs, she came up with her next best solution. So, to quote again, ‘I bare you no ill, but I cannot undo what was done, I instead offer my scales to see you to your new shore.’ So she plucked twelve scales from her own body and placed them over the pony’s stump legs, grafting to their bodies and forming what would become the kelpi.” Spike looked up to Twilight to see how she would handle this story of his, and he could see she was in deep thought. He gave her a minute before she replied. “So, kelpi are just some malformed ponies to dragons?” After a moment of shock at her cold analysis, Spike chuckled. “Well, Serenava wouldn’t be much of a progenitor if that was all. Apparently along with the scale, her aptitude to the water and more than a bit of her personality transferred as well.” Twilight merely nodded. “And does it say anything about the sirens?” “Uh, yeah, just not here, hold on.” Spike flipped towards near the back, finding one of the final chapters, Children of Dragons. “Yeah, here.” Spike poked the small section of script. “The sirens, deriving their name from their goddess Seren, shortened from Serenava, are kelpi far more adept in feeding their magic on the emotions of others and sought to spread their goddess’s will through- ooh…” “What? Through what?” Twilight sat up at attention. “Survival of the Fittest.” Spike rolled out. “Apparently they would rouse conflict to weed out the weak of communities for the strong to flourish. Not quite the best plan if I say so myself.” “And seeing as Starswirl sent them away, not that effective.” “Uhhh…” “Spike? What’s wrong?” Twilight arched her brow. “Those three are of particular note here, as early converters of land masses.” Spike looked up apologetically. “Sirens themselves are still a small group in the deeper parts of the ocean, or so it says here.” Twilight could only blanch. If the three from the other world were only a part of a bigger group, Equestria could have a bigger problem than she could possibly imagine. Were her friends and instruments here even be anywhere near as effective? And it had taken seven of them, specifically the Element Bearers, to match the three’s power of a small crowd, what would a group with sea life to feed off of be like? “Twilight, I can see those gears turning again, but relax. Remember what I said about Serenava? She likes things in their place, and the sirens, seeing three of their own whisked away, knew their way wasn’t for us. It’ll probably be a long while before they think of trying again.” “But that only brings up how long ago Adagio and the others were sent over.” Twilight muttered. She shook her head quickly to whisk away such thoughts. “But that’s something for another time. What of Animion, he sounds like quite the conundrum. What’s he the father of?” Spike flipped the book back to its seventh chapter, Not So Black and White. “It’s kind of funny actually, Miserhaze and Animion made their races at the same time, basically by their opposite means.” Spike began to surmise as he quickly scanned the pages. “So, remember how the two of them were a hunting pair, and how Miserhaze didn’t kill the first pony he met?” “Uh, no?” Twilight looked a bit upset and confused. “Oh, well they were, and he didn’t.” Spike blushed a little from the blatant assumption. “The second part was from when I asked about Starswirl.” “Oh, ok.” Twilight nodded appreciatively. “So, yeah, well, the book paints how the two just went about eating willy nilly, with Miserhaze letting his mists suck up life-forces and Animion munching on the aftermath. But on one of those days as the two made their way through a forest, Animion smelled something alive in Miserhaze’s mist, so he went to check it out. He found a village with a bunch of dead unicorns lying about their streets, but he went to one of the outskirt houses and ripped the roof out to find a pregnant mare on her side gasping for air. Animion had seen it plenty of times before from animals caught out when Miserhaze started his mist, but he had never seen anything inside the mist doing so. “So, curious, Animion picked the mare up in one claw and simply looked at her. She was scared and dying, apparently quickly looking between Animion and her stomach. Animion seemed to take it as a sign and… ugh… cut her open.” Both Spike and Twilight shivered at the thought. Medically sound removal was one thing, being sliced open in the wild by a dragon claw was something else entirely. “The mare passed on after that, not much of a shocker, but her foal came out near fine, as she had been late into her pregnancy. Animion hadn’t really learned to be gentile, a tried to pick the foal by its legs and horn, but punctured through them instead.” “Wait, are you trying to say Animion ‘fathered’… changelings?” Spike simply nodded and continued. “She was a charcoal foal, and having never really seen anything live outside his mothers and siblings, Animion found it strange for her to be without scales or wings and decided that she hadn’t fully developed yet. So, sort of like Serenava, he took his own scales and cocooned the filly in them while taking a pair of wings off a dead great ladybug. When the three grafted together, here we had the first changeling queen.” “But if that were the case, why are changeling like they are now?” “Well…” Spike flipped near the back again. “It looks like the ladybug and Tiamat had a thing or two to do with that, but mainly, Miserhaze deals with a majority of it.” “Oh, right, what’s he the father of?” Spike flipped back to chapter seven. “Well, being the greedy type, Miserhaze knew when he was missing a drop of food and went to see what Animion had done and came across the completion of the changeling, and it would seem the one thing that Miserhaze couldn’t consume was… pure love.” Spike looked up to see if Twilight would register the comment. She only looked back at him, hungry for more. “S-So that’s how the mare was at the brink, having unconditional love to her unborn foal, and that’s also what created… the windigo.” Twilight's eyes widened in awe. “How? What happened Spike?” She was now quite enthralled with this creation myth. Spike smiled, despite the morbid story. “Well, Miserhaze redoubled his effort to kill the new creature his brother had just ‘bothered creating’ as the book puts it. But the more he tried, the more the new changeling was bolstered by her mother’s dying love, because apparently… her spirit hadn’t left yet. And the more the changeling drained her mother’s spirit of love, the lager the void was to be filled with hate and rage. According to Bold Venture, as accounted by the dragon, as accounted by Animion, ‘The mother had not yet left, as to help guide her foal to the Beyond, awaiting the gruesome fate Animion would dole out to the unborn foal. She was horrified at the puncture wounds and confused at the cocoon, but furious at the out coming creature. What was before her was no longer her daughter, but a monster, and a monster that sapped the last of her love of the daughter that never was.’ And so, with that much negativity and Miserhaze’s mist, the mare’s soul coagulated into the first windigo.” Spike finished and sighed. “And there you have it Twilight, how Tiamat helped start it all.” Twilight seemed to be snapped out of a daze from all the information and struck to lecture mode. “Or at least how some dragons believe it was started. I’m sure at least the changeling records would say otherwise.” “Heh, yeah.” Spike smiled a little as he turned back to the fourth chapter’s opening to a picture of Pyrathy. The artist had done a fair rendition of the dragon’s likeness, especially if his dream had been accurate. “Still wonder about those scales though.” “What do you mean Spike?” Twilight asked, making Spike jump in notice that he had wondered that aloud. “It’s just… remember how I said that I saw lives of dragons on Pyrathy’s scales? I didn’t see anything about that in here.” “Spike, what you had was a dream. There’s no way you actually saw Pyrathy. What you saw were probably representations of what somepony wanted you to see in the form of Pyrathy, there’s no way he or the others are-“ "If you’re going to say ‘there’s no way they’re alive’, I’m going to disagree.” Spike quickly interrupted, crossing his arms. “These stories are way to fantastical to be completely wrong, and if Tiamat essentially cloned herself for her five hatchlings, then I’m going to take a leap of logic to say that they don’t have a typically normal lifespan.” “But Spike, if the five, heck, six of them were still alive, where are they? It’s not like dragons of their size can just hide in a cave in the mountains.” At that, a purple/gold smoke cloud billowed out from under the Adventure sections closed door and made its way over to Twilight. As it swirled in front of her, collecting itself into one mass, the smoke became a rather big scroll with Celestia’s seal on it. Spike looked on with wide eyes. “Well, I guess I’m just glad I didn’t have to get that out.” Twilight gave a small smile as she broke the seal and began to roll out the parchment, her eyes quickly gliding over the passages as the scroll was rolled in its opposite direction. A quarter of the way through she stopped and stared in shock. Spike began to ask what the scroll was, but Twilight quickly kept going, never stopping until the scroll was fully through. Safely setting the scroll aside, Spike saw Twilight take some calming breaths that Cadence had shown her, and made him begin to worry slightly. “Twilight? What did Celestia just send you?” After one deep breath, Twilight’s eyes opened, relaxed and with a much calmer smile than she had been putting on for the last half hour or so. “I guess Spike, we could say it’s your origin story.”