Of Purple Dragons, Great and Small

by Mannulus

Milady's Leave

Chapter 6

Milady's Leave

The old stallion seemed to vanish. He had been swept away by an enormous purple claw, Derpy realized as her brain decoded the events of that split second. Of course, Lockinkey could not really have simply ceased to be. He was still there in the coliseum, lying a full thirty paces from where he had stood, and some distance below Derpy herself, who had leapt skyward instinctively at the last possible instant, carrying her just over the dragon's swipe.

She turned in midair, and was greeted with a sight that filled her mind with a thought altogether inappropriate for the situation, regardless of how true it might be.

It's probably a good thing I'm so dehydrated.

The sight that had prompted Derpy's moment of mental innocuity was nothing less than a purple face bigger than a house -- a face with massive, open, and very green eyes; eyes fixed into a scowl which the pegasus could not fully decipher as either the dragon's neutral expression or one of manifest displeasure. It was not until Xindathrana smiled, her eyes yet retaining the majority of their menace, that Derpy came to her decision.

Her face just looks that way, I guess.

"You're quick," whispered the dragon, and Derpy knew that Xindathrana had whispered because if she had not, the pegasus was certain she would have been rendered permanently deaf.

As it was, the sound was still so loud that it left Derpy's ears ringing, and the breeze of the dragon's breath was so hot and powerful that she swooned slightly and had to strain to keep herself from being blown backward. After all, it would not do to have Xindathrana think she was trying to leave. From what Derpy had just seen, she was lightning quick, and her huge, clawed forelegs were very, very long.

So considerate of her to bother with whispering, thought Derpy, and why am I having such odd thoughts, right now? Am I actually so scared that I can't physically feel fear, anymore? Can that happen? I think that's what's happening. This dragon has actually scared me calm... You know, Derps, you should probably say something, so she doesn't just eat you.

"So," Derpy began, and the brow of one of those permanently scowling eyes lifted ever-so-slightly, though the general attitude of disgust remained in its shape. "Uh, Xindathrana?"

"Yes, that is me," whispered the dragon, and there came another blast of hot air and a brief ringing of Derpy's ears. "Who, little pony, are you?"

"Well, that may be the ultimate epistemological question," said Derpy.

I can't believe I remembered that word, she thought. What did I even just say?

Xindathrana chuckled at the remark, and turned her gaze towards the music box. She very carefully and gently picked it up between the very tips of two of her claws, and held it up to her eye, which narrowed and shifted to focus on it. While doing this, she brought her other foreleg forward, and rested her chin lazily upon her palm, for the bulk of her body was still lying on the ground. Only her head and forelimbs were erect. Even her enormous wings remained folded.

"Such a tiny thing," said Xindathrana, "but to me, most things are tiny."

"I can see that," said Derpy.

"What makes it remarkable," said the dragon, "is that it is also beautiful to me. It gives me... joy to behold it, and to hear its melody played. It subdues all my rage, and allows me to sleep in perfect peace."

The dragon blinked just once, a work that took two full seconds and produced both an audible sound and a noticeable breeze. Then, her scowl deepened.

"I cannot abide that," she said.

Xindathrana squeezed her two claws together, and the music box crunched between them, offering no effective resistance whatsoever.

"Now," whispered the dragon, "with that taken care of, I do not suppose that you, little pegasus, would happen to know where my real egg is, would you?"

"Would you believe that I think I actually know what you're talking about," said Derpy, "and I think I actually may know the answer?"

"Of course I believe you," said the dragon. "You are too terrified to lie; the fear has driven you cross-eyed."

"Yeah, about that..." Derpy raised a hoof and almost corrected the dragon's assessment of her countenance.

Let this one go, she told herself.

"Never mind that," she told the dragon.

"I assure you, I do not 'mind' it," came the whispered reply. "Like everything else about you, it is inconsequential."

"Yeah... Now, about your egg," said Derpy, and the dragon's eyes narrowed.

The pegasus felt her heart flutter. Her initial adrenaline rush and the delirium of it had begun to subside, and she was now becoming aware of just how precarious and potentially fatal her situation really was.

"I don't even know where to start," said Derpy, shakily.

"Take your time," whispered the dragon. "I have no shortage of my own."

Maybe that's what makes you a jerk, thought Derpy, but then again, Princess Celestia's pretty nice, and she's really old, too. I guess this dragon really just likes being a jerk.

These things she thought, but she knew better than to say them.

"Well, you see," she said instead, "your egg, uh... It isn't an egg, anymore."

The dragon looked confused.

"It hatched." said Derpy, spreading her hooves out slightly to the side.

"Then why am I talking to a pony?" whispered the dragon. "You should all be dead."

"Well, the dragon that came out of it is still just a baby," said Derpy.

"Really?" asked Xindathrana. "How long ago did this egg hatch?"

"I dunno," said Derpy. "Ten, maybe twelve years, tops?"

"That is too long," said the dragon, her eyes narrowing and concern creeping into her formerly confident tone. "It should have begun its work by now. Furthermore, that egg should not have been able to hatch without a tremendous magical infusion, which could have only have come from one source, that being myself."

The dragon's head came forward so far that Derpy could have reached out a hoof and touched her nose.

"Are you lying to me, little pony?" asked Xindathrana, and her eyes rolled very minutely in their sockets as she looked over the gray pegasus.

For those few seconds, Derpy's eyes teared slightly, and she hyperventilated. She gulped several times, but her mouth was so dry that it gave her parched throat no relief. It was so unbearably hot this near to the dragon that she feared she might pass out, but finally, Xindathrana withdrew her head, and the air around Derpy's body began to cool.

"No," said the dragon. "You are not sly enough to lie. I have known sly ponies, and sly you are not. But still, how could my egg have been hatched without a second infusion of despair? You know more than you are telling, I am sure."

Derpy knew that she should probably hide as much from this creature as possible. As the dragon had observed, however, she was simply too terrified to even imagine a falsehood, much less to give one voice, and to remain silent would almost certainly spell the end of her.

"W... Well... it didn't.. hhhhhatch on... on its own," stammered the pegasus. "A unicorn hatched it... Well, she's an alicorn, now, but back then..."

"What?" said the dragon, cutting her off. "A pony hatched my egg?"

"Uh-huh... Yeah," said Derpy. "A little baby dragon came out of it, and now he lives in Ponyville, where I'm from."

"I am... skeptical," said the dragon. "Perhaps you are cleverer than I give you credit for."

"I'm not clever, at all!" came Derpy's protest. "I'm telling the truth!' And then, her eyes lit up. "I've even got a picture of him!"

"A painting?" asked the dragon. "With you, you say? Perhaps I was wrong, and you are merely a lunatic."

"No," said Derpy, "Not a painting; a photograph. It's like... it works by... Okay, I don't know how it works, but I can show you!"

"Please do so," said the dragon.

Derpy fished out the photo, and held it carefully in her lips. The dragon's enormous head shifted to side, and craned in close. One of her colossal eyes once more realigned and focused on the miniscule image.

"This is my offspring?" asked the dragon. Mercifully, the orientation of her head prevented Derpy from being once more blasted by the heat of the ponderous furnace that burned inside her, but there was a note of indignation in her voice that Derpy could not fully place.

"Mmhmyeah," responded the pegasus, through clenched lips.

She took the photo from her lips, and clutched it carefully between her forehooves.

"That's Spike," she said. "He's what came out of... your egg... I think."

"Oh it is certainly what came out of my egg." said Xindathrana. "The color is right, and also the form... But no... Where are its wings?"

"He's never had any," said Derpy.

"And why is it smiling amidst all these ponies? It was meant to despise ponies; to obliterate them. I made it to PUNISH HER." These last two words raised to a thunderous volume that was physically painful to the mare's ears, despite the dragon's mouth being aimed sidelong away from her. "It should have left her alone in a lifeless world by now, deprived of everything and everyone she loves!"

"Spike's a good kid, though," said Derpy. "He has lots of friends, and..."

The dragon's voice retained much of its elevated volume as she literally spat out the words, "It is defective!"

Thick, slimy spittle flew from her lips, landing in several tremendous pools that gave off clouds of steam smelling so strongly of sulfur that Derpy could pick up the scent even from where she hovered.

"This is Celestia's meddling," said Xindathrana, whispering once more, though now there was a wicked, hateful jeer behind the words.

"This purple alicorn," she continued. "Is she the one who hatched it?"

"Y... Yes," said Derpy. "That's Twilight Sparkle. Well, I mean, Princess Twi..."

"I will kill her and it!" Xindathrana's breathing grew rapid and heavy, and the breeze of the air flowing into and out of her lungs tousled Derpy's mane and forced her to flap and throw her hooves out to the sides for the sake of stability.

In this action, the photograph, of course, was released, and it fluttered off on the hot wind of the dragon's exhalation, sailing over the wall to be lost somewhere in the desert sand.

"No," said Xindathrana. "I will kill it in front of her, and I will kill her in front of Celestia! Her wretched little sister, too, if time has not robbed me of the strength!"

"But why would... Spike is happy!" Derpy pleaded. "Twilight really loves him and she takes really good care of him! Doesn't that matter to you?"

"The thing you keep calling "Spike" was created for a purpose at which it has failed," whispered the dragon through gritted teeth that were each longer than Derpy's wingspan. "The only use it can have to me now is to inflict misery on those responsible for that failure!"

"But he's your... baby," said Derpy. "You... made... him."

"A mistake I shall not repeat," whispered the dragon, and this time there came a low, rumbling growl behind the words.

The pegasus hung her head low, and let herself sink from the sky. She fully expected the dragon to crush her or burn her, but at that moment, she did not care. The knowledge that a being this malign could even exist had done something ruinous in her heart that left her totally unable to act or even to think. When at last she sank to her haunches, she looked up, so stunned that such a thing could be real that it seemed necessary to take at least one final look by which to appreciate its sheer hatefulness before it ended her mortal existence.

That was when she noticed the lance.

It was still buried between the two scales where Lockinkey had earlier wedged it, and the likeness of Celestia's cutie mark rendered on its guard was now pulsing with a faint, golden light. She thought this was odd; perhaps some sort of failed magic meant to put the dragon back to sleep, but she gave it no further consideration. All her heart and mind were turned elsewhere: towards a creeping, welling sensation inside her that had begun to manifest itself as a trembling throughout her body.

This was not the trembling of fear; this was something more violent and passionate -- even dangerous. At the same time, however, it felt justified and rightful. It swelled inside Derpy until she could contain it no longer, and it came out as just two words.

"You're awful," she heard herself say, never having truly willed herself to say it, and with those two words' emergence, Derpy suddenly became aware that she was more profoundly angry than she could ever recall being in her entire life.

This creature disgusted her more intensely than she had believed disgust could be experienced only a few minutes prior. She could do nothing to stop a being of this magnitude and power, she knew, but if it was the last thing she ever did, Derpy Hooves the cross-eyed delivery mare was going to give Xindathrana the Hope Murderer a good telling-off.

"What did you say?" said the dragon, her head snapping downward to bring her gaze onto the tiny pony.

"You are nothing but a giant ball of selfishness!" said Derpy, standing up defiantly. "You just wanna see everypony around you hurt as much as you can because you're so rotten inside you can't stand for anypony to feel anything good, ever! Queen Chrysalis isn't even as bad as you! You could love, maybe, but you just don't want to because it would mean somepony... dragon... somewhatever other than you might actually feel good from it, and you can't stand the idea of anyone feeling good because you don't even know how to feel good, yourself, and you don't even want to! You're gonna be miserable forever, and it's gonna be all your own fault, and you know that, so you just want everyone else to be miserable right along with you! You are the worst thing I have ever met," said Derpy, "and I have met some awful things!"

The dragon actually smiled.

"You know, little pony," said the dragon, "you are foolish, but you have spirit. I rather like you."

Xindathrana made a noise that, for a creature of her size, might have been a giggle or a chuckle. To Derpy, it only sounded like a barrel of rusty chains rolling down a hillside.

"Oh, please don't," said Derpy, huffing out each breath in her complete and utter disgust.

"Begging for your life, now?" asked the dragon.

"No," said Derpy. "I'm begging you: please don't like me!" She hyperventilated, and stared up at the horrid creature. "I couldn't live with myself!" she snarled. "Why, I couldn't even die with myself! Kill me if you want to, but PLEASE hate me while you do it!"

"Is that your last request?" asked the dragon, and it raised its right claw high above Derpy's head, blotting out the sun.

"I guess it is," said the pegasus.

"Very well," said the dragon. "It would be terribly discourteous of me not to grant it."

There came then a flash from around the dragon's claw, having its origin in the very sun which that claw obscured.

"Hello, Xindy." It was Celestia's voice. "Enjoy your nap?"

The dragon slowly lowered her gargantuan claw, and Derpy saw in silhouette the big alicorn, slowly beating her wings high above the coliseum.

"How and why are you here?" asked the dragon, and these words were spoken not in a whisper, but so loudly that they made the walls of the coliseum reverberate and spill sand from their ancient stones. It was only the fact that the dragon's head was turned away from her that kept Derpy's eardrums from bursting.

"Maybe I am wise and all-knowing," said Celestia. "Or maybe someone kept you distracted for me while that old beacon buried in your scales did its work. I don't know what you're doing here, but good job stalling her, Derpy Hooves."

"Stalling her?" asked Derpy. "Is that what I was doing? I thought I was just mad." She blinked twice. "Come to think of it, I'm still mad."

"So am I," said Celestia, her eyes fixed on the dragon.

Xindathrana continued to stare at Celestia. Slowly, she reached down and flicked the lance from her scales with a claw. Then, in one swift movement that absolutely defied her tremendous bulk, she rolled her hindquarters around and flung the huge, spiked ball at the end of her tail at the little, gray mare.

It was to Derpy's good fortune, however, that she was now under the effects of adrenaline, anger, and renewed hope. Being thereby fueled, she managed to fling herself skyward, barely clearing the lethal instrument as it passed. A wave of sand was heaved skyward in its motion, and some of that tickled at her hocks amid the wind of the wicked weapon's passage. There was no greater harm than that, however; only a breeze.

"Are you still so petty, Xindy, even after so many aeons of peaceful sleep; so many dreams that Luna sent you at my behest to calm your heart and soul?" asked Celestia. "What can that little pony even do to you!?"

"She and the other were attempting to curse me once more with your contraption!" said the dragon, and the walls of the coliseum shook and spilled sand.

"It is a curse to offer respite to a lost soul?" asked Celestia. "Then surely we are all ruined, Xindathrana, for we are all lost souls."

The dragon said nothing, but a low, rolling growl rolled out from her throat.

"Wait," she said, "The other -- the keeper of this place -- where is he?"

"Oh, he is quite ruined," said Xindathrana, and she gestured at the fallen pony with a claw.

"I see," said Celestia, noticing the stallion's stricken body for the first time.

She shook her head slightly, then turned her eyes to where Derpy now hovered.

"Fly away," she said.

"You don't have to tell me twice!" said Derpy, moving even as the first word escaped her lips.

The dragon gave one more halfhearted flick of her tail towards the pegasus, which missed cleanly, and instead demolished a wall of the time-worn structure in which she had slept for thousands of years.

Derpy ripped into the air with her wings, spurred on by the gust of wind off the dragon's tail, but then a thought came to her. She ground to a halt, and spun around.

"Princess Celestia!" she shouted somewhat sheepishly.

"What is it?" asked the alicorn, and the dragon turned her head to focus on the pegasus, though she did not speak.

"I gotta be honest; I totally didn't get around to getting Twilight's parents that picture, and I'm not sure, but I think it's lost pretty much forever."

The dragon grumbled something low in its throat, but it was unintelligible to the pegasus.

Princess Celestia's large eyes blinked several times, and it was visible to Derpy, even at this distance, owing to her liberal use of eyeliner.

"It's fine," she said, and though it was not a shout, Derpy heard it plainly. "I'll show them mine. Please, go."

"Thanks!" shouted Derpy, "I feel much better, now!"

She gave a little wave, then turned around, and slapped at the sky with her wings.

"How did you know letting that purple alicorn hatch my egg would ruin it?" demanded the dragon, and her voice was so loud that Derpy perceived every syllable clearly, even in her flight.

Satisfied that she was far enough away to avoid immediate danger, she stopped and turned to see if she could hear Celestia's reply, and though the Princess' voice was quieter, she could.

"I had no idea," said the alicorn, shrugging. "I honestly just wanted to see if she could do it, but what could it have hurt? I had already accepted that I would one day have to kill or imprison whatever came out of it, regardless. A strange thing happened, though: what came out of it was nothing like you. What you used to be, maybe, but nothing like what you are now... what you became."

"Then it is weak," said the dragon.

"Yes it is," said Celestia, and she shook her head for a moment, and corrected herself: "Yes, he is. He is weak, insecure, and fearful, just like you were, but unlike you, he has someone who won't allow him to become a monster."

She laughed. Xindathrana laughed at the top of her lungs, and the sound pounded in Derpy's ears until she thought their drums might burst at each impulse. The intensity was beyond thunder from inside a storm cloud.

"Do you really believe that you could have made me something other than this?" asked the dragon, and even in her earth-shaking voice, Derpy distinguished two piercing notes, one of accusation and one of regret. "That was what I hated about you, Celestia; what I came to hate about you; so arrogant and prideful... So vain.

What is the sun but a light for the righteous and the wicked alike? Do you see now? Do you see me!? See THIS!? Xindathrana!? Aeons of peace could not unblacken my heart. I hate you now more than ever, and I will kill you if I can, even if the sun should fall from the sky! This is all I could ever have become, Celestia. What delusion ever made you believe you could change that?"

"I do not know," said Celestia, "but I know that I was too busy being a child in those days to raise one. I am sorry for that."

"And so you seek to atone for your failure by trusting another child to raise one?"

"Again," said Celestia "What could it hurt? She cannot possibly do any worse than I did."

"Trusting another to correct your own mistake? How like you, Celestia."

"No," said the Princess. "This time, the mistakes will be hers to make and hers to correct, if indeed she makes them. As for my own, I will correct it before this day I lay the sun to rest ."

The dragon laughed again, but more quietly; the same sound, but as if it echoed from within a deep, iron canyon.

"Do not fool yourself, Celestia." she said. "You cannot stop me. The ruins above our heads bear testament enough to that."

"Then let us decide this in their midst," said Celestia. "But be forewarned, my dearest scribe: This time, you do not face a child, and you are not so young as you were then."

The dragon's lip curled into a sneer, and a plume of black smoke thicker than the largest tree drifted up from it, curling only slightly.

Saying nothing else, Celestia lifted herself into the blackened, smoke-stained ruins tangled in the clouds above. The dragon followed, bringing herself slowly aloft with several long, thrashing strokes of her gigantic, amethyst-colored wings. Sand poured off her body, and still more burst upward from the earth with the mighty gusts her wings created. All of it glistened and shimmered in the sunlight around her long, serpentine body as she climbed higher and higher into the sky. Watching this, Derpy realized that the dragon, in and of her physical form, would have been astonishingly beautiful, but for the scowl that seemed to permanently mar her face. Something about that pricked the pegasus' heart with a pang of sadness.

As she watched the dragon go, Derpy fought off the perverse urge to follow and watch what she knew would transpire. She would only get in the way, and might well die for her trouble. Instead, the thought came to her that Lockinkey might possibly still be alive.

She flew back to the coliseum, and was immediately distressed to see that the gusts of the dragon's wings had pushed the old stallion, alive or not, up against the wall from where he had previously lain, and dusted him with a thin layer of sand. She flew quickly to him, and spoke his name.

"Lockinkey, are you... still here?" she asked.

"Of course," he said weakly. "I must remain here... until Milady Celestia releases me. It is my duty -- the one thing that I must do in my whole lifetime."

"You keep saying things like that," said Derpy, her voice cracking as she stepped closer to him. "Did you ever think of just resigning?"

The old Stallion chuckled, and it gave way to a hacking cough.

"Every day," he said.

Derpy actually laughed, but her heart remained heavy; the old pony was dying, and she knew it, as did he. She knelt beside him, and gently brushed the sand away from his face, chest, and shoulders with a wing. The sun glinted off his armor, silvery now where once it had been gold. As had the image of the dragon in the sky, this somehow gave Derpy Hooves a pang of sadness, but she chose not to consider it too deeply.

"I'll wait here with you until she gets back," said the gray pegasus.

"'The dragon or the horse?" asked the old warrior, and Derpy had finally decided that, ridiculous though he may look, this Lockinkey was most certainly a warrior.

"I don't know," sighed Derpy, "but I'll wait all the same."

There came then from the ruins high above a terrible cacophony, snatching Derpy's eyes towards the sky. The blackened ruins seemed to erupt in bursts of green fire and golden light, and amid those there came occasionally brief glimpses of glimmering purple scales. Buildings of blackened cloud shattered and burst into what seemed to be millions of fragments, and others drifted into one another, each impact shattering into pieces what must have been the work of centuries to create. At last, there came a searing golden flash and a mighty, whining roar louder than the fiercest storm. A moment later, Derpy caught a glimpse of a huge, shimmering purple body crashing through the blackened pillar of cloud from which sprouted the Scorched Wings. They folded inward over the dragon's body as she plummeted, shedding fragments of filthy, smoke-fouled cloud, until at last they were no longer wings at all, but only a few ragged bits of vapor, slowly rolling with the impetus of Xindathrana's passage.

Derpy's eyes followed the immense creature's fall until her vision was blocked by the coliseum wall, and though she did not see Xindathrana strike the desert floor, she saw the great wave of sand that shot up and then washed outward over the desert before finding its way back to the ground. It was three seconds later before she heard -- and felt -- the sound of the impact. It poured over her so strongly that it lifted her slightly from her hooves and shook stones from the place where the dragon had struck the wall with her tail.

It was only a few minutes later that Celestia returned, lowering herself gently to stand over the little mare and the dying stallion. Her lips were drawn into a thin line, and though no tears spilled from her eyes in Derpy's own sight, they were puffy and red, with two faint, gray streaks that traced from their corners to her jawline.

Lockinkey, still aware despite the invisible form of the pale pony hovering so near his soul, noticed her immediately.

"I am sorry, Milady," he said, gazing up at her. "I could not keep her safe. I have failed in my one duty."

"No," said Celestia, "you have not."

The Princess' teeth clenched tight, and she took a deep breath through her nose. Though Derpy was sure that Celestia would not have liked for it to have been heard, there was the distinct, rattling hiss of sniffle behind it.

"The dragon is once again asleep," said the Princess, "and I do not believe she shall ever again awaken," she said, looking down into the weary old stallion's eyes.

"Then... do I have... Milady's leave?" asked Lockinkey, taking long moments to breathe between each short burst of words.

"Yes," said Celestia. "You have my leave."

When she looked down, Lockinkey's eyes were open but empty, and from time to time for the rest of her life, Derpy Hooves would find herself wondering whether he had still been alive to hear those words spoken.