This story is a sequel to The Last Keeper of Harmony
Book 2 of the Keeper Trilogy:
Dragons of Hourglass
I look as darkness looms ominously over the world as the threat of total annihilation from the 'Nameless One' draws closer. If we are to have a chance win the coming war much needs to be done. Sadly, only Golden Heart, the newest Keeper of Harmony, Discord and myself are all that really stands against the rising tide...
To go with the threat of war the dragons must be brought back to a harmonious state, but that will be difficult to accomplish as outside of the dragon migration dragons are fractured and solitary... plus overly prideful and stubborn...
Though I'm deathly ill from a strange illness, I will help guide Golden Heart as he attempts to overcome the seemingly insurmountable problems that plague the dragon race. For all our sakes I hope he succeeds for if not I fear we may not have the strength to win...
I wonder who would come to the middle of nowhere alone?
5430925 Trying to do my job? That is the type of question I usually pose trying to get people to pay attention and comment. As for who, that is going to be answered very very soon as for why I'm looking at chapter 8 or so....( and no I'm not counting the Golden Journals as Chapters...) And before you all groan about a slow pace it has nothing to do with slow pace....
Well, this is an interesting flashback, though it almost feels out of place. I trust that there is a reason for this? Perhaps introducing the 'invaders'?
Also, I don't get why likes and dislikes are so mismatched...
5474920
It's not as far out of place as you think. Actually it's extremely important for the upcoming few chapters... Remember what Harmony said about Garble dishonoring him...
invaders? no idea what you are talking about... unless you are talking about the changelings... as this is a flashback we all know what happens next...
I'm a bit miffed about the oddity that is the rating... though to be fair this one is being tracked by 14 instead of 44
I suspect that some are just trolls that thumbed down b/c they don't like me "killing off" spike
You know, this doesn't make me really... hate Garble any more than I did before. Which wasn't really any at all. He seemed a lot like most villains in MLP, a jerk but not evil, even though he's often played as much worse. He's just a guy who's too self-centered and loses his temper, and of course, here this is turned into a permanently-scarring life-destroying event for Garble, even though everything turned out perfectly fine.
But, maybe the goal isn't to make him seem reprehensible and hateable. I guess I'll see when we see what actually happened to Garble afterward.
5474985
I didn't like you killing off Spike and replacing him with a dragon that barely resembles him, but I try to not thumbs down on concept alone, the concept has to be really vile for me to do that, and this one isn't egregious enough for me to be tempted to just on the concept alone. I'm sticking with it, to see how it goes.
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I'm glad you don't hate him any more then before... and yes we will see a bit more of what happened in a few chapters...
As I said before in the previous book I ain't done with Spike.... I'm glad you are giving me the benefit of the doubt...
The memories don't need to be painful for Harmony not to talk about, just important. Without fail he's going to leave out the important bits.
He's basically dramatic revelation delay: the character.
And I'm glad that at least Golden understands that maybe not everyone would support the kill-on-sight nature of someone who was given a dishonor mark for... well Rarity doesn't even know why, but if she knew, then "disobeying Harmony" would probably be pretty low on her list of "things you should die for."
5487509
I literally laughed so hard that it started to hurt...
The kill on sight is nearly instinctual... more on that in the next GJ
unless you are RD nearly getting Fluttershy killed...
I think I can risk this: Remember that each Keeper has traits of the magic of harmony that they manifest.... I dropped a hint on one of GH's in this chapter (don't worry I'll drop another hint soon....)
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Well, the thing is... from what I see: Dragons try to kill others all the time. Over all kinds of minor, unimportant slights. So even if Garble was explicitly trying to attack and kill Spike, (who had basically insulted Garble, was accepted into Garble's group and then shunned it when they let him do what they considered the best part. Given the feelings dragons have about honor and acceptance, that might have felt like a pretty major betrayal) that might only be an offense if there was something else.
Instead, the mark was given by Harmony pretty much because Garble disobeyed his orders. That he didn't leave Spike alone, when he was ordered to, not that he ultimately wound up attacking Spike. That was his "dragon rationalization" for this mark.
In a twisted way I guess it makes sense, given that stuff like intruding on their home or calling them the wrong title is death-worthy, that if normally attacking a younger kid in anger, and failing, would involve some form of severe punishment, Juvenile detention, reform school, long-term punishments. So if something that would be disrespectful and involve a lecture normally is punishable by death, something that would require a real punishment is fate-worse-than-death worthy.
... But I suspect that this is more about the unusual mores that dragons have, not that they have similar mores just more severe.
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Finally somepony is starting to think! not that everything you said is correct.....
Remember that the dragons are the last to get their harmony back. The Nameless One curse them... the question is what was in that curse? Could it be that GH has sensibilities to what dragons used to be? MAAAAAAYBE............... He is the Dragon Keeper it wouldn't be a stretch for that to be the case... all i have to say is keep watching and reading and as also read between the lines with Harmony... though you might have to do that a bit with GH given the somewhat secretive nature of dragons or maybe you wont need to...DISCORD STAY OUT OF THE COMMENTS!!!!
Silly Spike, you can't grammar write right
By being taken over by someone? But it's mainly based on viewpoint, the brits thought the aborigines were culture less barbarians despite the fact they did have a culture
I thought his name was trenderhoof or am I thinking about another one of Rarity's many crushes
SHE NEVER REALISED THIS!? Ok, someone get me a crowbar, a cheese grater, some dynamite, black goo strait from LV-223 and a whole buncha other stuff. Cause Rarity, this is gonna hurt a lot...
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exactly... something of which GH will point out.
Spotlight is an OC...
She knew how highly Spike thought of her she just forgot in her grief. Might want be careful what you do with her you don't want Harmony to come after you(even though he is severely crippled)
5489185 correction Golden Heart... not Spike
Eh... if I'd have to guess, using my own headcanons about Magic: Magic = Friendship. Just like the title of the show says. Except Harmony has spent a lot of time trying to be friends with people who don't want to accept him, and now even when he's interacting with the bearers he's doing confusing stuff that keeps them at arm's length. He doesn't really embrace friendship.
5495539
good guess but a little obvious don't you think? However it is possible that in a way you are right
Actually he is semi-accepted by most dragons and (minor spoiler) is accepted by most of the other races like the griffins, minotaurs, zebras, etc. He is not well known in Equestria because of the dragons(remember the whole zebra episode?) given that the dragons are a bit 'rough' around the edges....
Does he really embrace friendship for himself? No. The council pointed that out that :
( kinda hard to embrace friendship without some sort of harmony between the 2 parties....) Harmony does however try to get other to embrace friendship...
As Discord said "...Harmony is an enigma and an oddity."
Stay safe, perhaps? Also Stay safe would be it's own sentence in this context.
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the danger of self editing.... thanks!
Oh you want a rant?
Well we can talk about how Harmony apparently did not want Garble to ever clear his dishonor mark. Firstoff, he forced him to stay around other dragons, whom, if they did not want to kill him (since it was apparently hard to stop Hourglass, who's probably the calmest dragon alive, from killing him outright) treated him like he had the plague. So that is a punishment that is very close to death, since it would inevitably lead to death or a fate worse than death, being shunned by every dragon. Then he constantly says "if I wanted to kill you, I would have" which, given that he has given Garble a punishment worse than death, implies he just wants Garble to suffer.
And then, part of clearing it was to interact with the dragon he wronged (sorta, especially since the real "dragon" he wronged was Harmony, given that he seemed to take offense that Garble disobeyed his direct order, not that he believed Spike was in any actual danger from Garble), which he is explicitly made impossible by permanently binding Garble to the dragon flight.
And the thing he had to do with the dragon he attacked? To want to die anyway, which is explicitly what Harmony was discouraging him to do. It's like an abusive parent who constantly holds approval right away from their children, saying they'll never be good enough because of some previous failure, so they constantly punish them . It's sick. It worked, but I think it was pretty clear it never was supposed to work.
And about Garble dying... I don't care as much as Spike. All he had going for him was that Harmony wanted him to have justice mete out upon him or whatever Harmony tells himself to help himself sleep at night for ruining Garble's life. Since he wanted to die, had no friends, no family, and no future, it's not really a tragedy like with Spike, who (apparently) had all of those things.
5602140
Can we be honest? Most of the time you rant when you comment
I wont lie the Mark of Dishonor is an extreme punishment only one is worse then that... did Harmony go overboard? Yes. The question becomes: for someone who is supposed to represent kindness what would tip him over the edge? The answer? I have already supplied that in the story... though i didn't outright say it...
Actually he forced him to stay with He of the Flight... and there is a reason for that that I hope you can figure out. I did leave a few clues...
mayhaps... did he want Garble to suffer? No. Did Garble suffer yes and no... Remember how life as a whelp/hacthling affect the adult dragon? lets just say that Harmony didn't want that on an "innocent" Adult dragon. Harmony will get a comeuppance for this...
Was it hard for Hourglass to control his instincts, yes. Could Harmony have stopped him from killing Garble? Yes
The real dragon he 'wronged' was Spike but because of his status as a hatchling under Dragon Code he was under the guardianship of Harmony.
He was never permanently bound to the dragon flight if Garble had swallowed his pride sooner he would have had a "productive" whelp(-ship-ish?) life it just took the very dragon he nearly killed to withhold killing him to get him to understand.( and yes I know that you might argue that GH doesn't not = Spike...)
Will Harmony sleep at night with what he did with Garble, yes... would Spike had approve what he did no...
he had no real friends to begin with.
Um yes and no... Though i would like to point out that ritual suicide was an acceptable form of "restoring" one's honor is feudal Japan...
Remember Dragons are honorable creatures though are are quite "rough" in comparison to the more docile ponies.
You only have part of Garble's story most of what you have said is conjecture and educated guessing.... though I'm really really happy that you are doing that... I love it when there is a debate about what is going on in the story...(even when its wrong...)
okay I think that enough countering...
I end my response with two things: Dark tag and The Alicorn Keeper is not in harmony.
5602314
I know I rant. I try to reign it in, actually. Lots of typed comments I don't post... and even more I cut in half after I write it, deciding it's too harsh, or I should be giving the benefit of the doubt. I didn't do that this time, though.
Just imagine how awful it would be if I didn't do that. The horror! Complaints everywhere, misinterpretations, first reactions without thinking about consequences, then second reactions thinking about the consequences in a way the author never intended... The scourge of Fimfiction, shunned and hated for his whiny ways.
Okay. It does seem like Harmony overreacted, and justified it by saying "this is how dragons do it", which is basically my primary issue with it.
But Harmony acts, well... like everything he does is right, and the story appears to take his side, so it's frustrating when he seems cruel.
5602358
that is about to change...
I really appreciate what you do when you "rant" about my story...It keeps me on my toes to make sure I'm writing the characters correctly and if there needs to be adjustment. I do understand your concern about misinterpreting what the author is saying and blah blah etc etc... always is an issue especially with an incomplete story...
I wish more would comment on this story...
I'm fairly certain that dragons have authority over their hordes in less of a "I have a right to this" legal sense (although they see it that way), and more of a "I have decided this is mine, so I am going to do things to keep it" way.
So Harmony "owns" Rainbow Dash only as much as he is willing to be a violent bully to keep her as his possession.
I mean, I guess something owned legally has the same thing but with cops and lawyers and courtrooms, but it just seems like a... well a dick move to claim someone's life as yours under a system you don't entirely explain and is weighted against them.
This was your daily dose of me taking what was clearly a playful exchange too seriously.
You can't have it every day, though.
5615944
Very close... to the truth...
Harmony just did something that could be considered very devious as being King Of Equestria actually had put limits on his power/authority... I'll let you figure that one out...
I wonder when the ocs will appear
5621610
excluding any GJ's the first OC may show up in 5 chapters...
You're like addicted to my rants now.
I like Rarity. Or... I like Rarity's ideal. The one who cares about beauty in a broad sense, not beauty that she hoards or the one she uses to manipulate others, but beauty she gives to others.
So, I disagree that she shouldn't be like she is. She's not perfect, but she's good, and I'm good with that.
There isn't a lot more, actually, my real beef with Rarity interpretations has nothing to do with the way you've played her.
5623250
Maaaaaaaybe...
Wait... This is a document written by Golden Heart, but the first paragraph seems to be written by someone looking at Golden Heart? Or is He of Hourglass supposed to be Garble, too, but his common-name is confusingly the exact same one as Golden Heart's?
5628527
From How One Restores Honor:
I seemed to have puled a fast one on you...
you are correct which of course completely confused Harmony. Something that will be "fixed" very soon.
The problem Harmony has is that there is a subtle difference between saying He of Hourglass("Garble") and He of Hourglass(Golden Heart) But nondragons are unable to make or hear the necessarily changes in pitch and tone to be able to properly address each one correctly. Something about no sharp teeth and overly long tongue...
So far it seems like the knowledge that dragons are keeping from other races is the knowledge of their code of manners, which they take so seriously (and are physically forced to, in some cases) they will kill over, and insist that this is the other party's fault.
5640483
Well that's only because that's all that I have really revealed so far. However it looks like you hit on something... I dare not go much into it because spoilers I will say this:
From Origin of the Keepers:
A lot of what you are seeing is the result of said curses... You should start seeing the effect GH has on the dragons before too long... the Clan is only the beginning...
Also thanks for your comments you have given me some thoughts on how to fix a problem that I have written myself into.
Will there be some sort of battle between light and dark
5645577
This trilogy is dealing with the fight between Harmony and Dark Magic so yeah there will be battles between "light and dark" There were 2 in TLKoH. So far in this one we have had a massacre perpetrated by the dark side(whether the minotaur is a dark magic user or helping the 'Dark One' I wont say) but no actual battles, at least that we know of... The issue in the forefront is why has the 'Dark One' not left the Hydro Hourglass yet.
So that new dragon is a Oc?
5662398
99% of the dragons in this story are OCs
5664154 oh lol
I don't think it's that mysterious, what's happening. The dragon magic is probably related to the Harmony being the most likely candidate for the "missing" secondclaw. I'm sure the known Dragon Rules don't cover the scenario, especially given they tend to be heavily focused on dragons being the only ones worthy, so no one would suspect it.
I suppose that's just my guess, though.
5669546
you are correct there is nothing in the "Rules" that cover a missing Secondclaw... As for the rest I'm not saying anything one way or another...
I cant wait for the next one
Lol you could also just call him nova for short lol
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I did or at least his mother did...
Probably because the relationship is mostly because Spike liked Harmony, and Golden Heart can't actually remember that stuff. I'm not even sure if he can adequately explain it.
Seems that Golden Heart, for all his Golden Heartiness, isn't a particularly good friend to Quartermaster. He's back at "dragon honor" stuff of hiding stuff that might be important.
... Harmony's inability to explain anything in a timely manner is dragon code business, isn't it? He just can't stop himself from hiding things, even things that would be safe or things he needs to tell others (and, like all dragons, would exhibit he actually respects others), just because dragon code says not to tell anyone anything almost all the time.
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No he can't... I believe that GH said that in an earlier GJ... He couldn't understand why he was so forth coming with his name...
Um I think you got it flipped if QM knew the importance of Harmony he wouldn't be as disrespectful. I didn't outright say it but Harmony is part of GH's hoard which is something that can end up being explained or taken the wrong way reeeeeeal fast. Also even if they are in a clan together dragons are not going to know everything that is in each others hoards...
GH is just not ready yet to tell QM everything yet not that he is obligated to do so...
Also I did not specify exactly when Harmony set the letter to GH so the lack of info from Harmony could be him hiding info or he may not have had the info at the time that he sent the letter...
As always I appreciate your pointed comments its always helpful...
this is very interesting, never fear, Nova's here
.....nova....why are you hear
to see myself in a story
....seriously
5691055
Nova playing hero? Just wait until next chapter...
5691514 i cant wait till the next chapter, things are getting really interesting
Really, the rules for dragons, in this case, get to be ineffective as well as self-centered and harsh. He's supposed to do nothing but protect that whelp... so he goes off and only protects the whelp once in his normal life (and didn't need to do anything anyway, Spike was fine under Twilight's care) then for a handful of weeks leading up to his choosing. It didn't seem like it really worked the way that the rules were supposed to, except that it made Harmony miserable and more unfortunate when he did what he was already going to do.
I would make a joke at Rarity loosing bowle control at Harmony's rage, but *puts on sunglasses* It would be shit
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
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Spike was never a whelp... an oddity that Harmony is not sure of the cause of he only speculated it had to do with the method of hatching. Also did I say anything about ONLY protecting him? No. I said to raise him...
he protected him more then you think Spike was under the care of Harmony's Element Bearers. Harmony being the Alicorn keeper was doing alot to keep Equestria safe. Which just happens to be where Spike lived. Harmony said that Equestria was very peaceful in comparison to other lands.
You also forgot how far along his Magic Wasting Disease was during TLKoH.
No the rules didn't work properly.. notice what Harmony said about only family could care for the egg/hacthling/whelp? That the Rite of Guardianship is also required? Something that Twilight couldn't do... Harmony did take care of the egg and Spike... just not by using the traditional/conservative way of applying the rules... Harmony found a loophole that allowed Twilight to care for Spike... Although Twilight was not supposed to do more then to care for him for a short while. Harmony made an error... He wasn't aware or accounted for the fact that spike could and would be hatched when he was... Discord Could have alerted him but he was in stone and Harmony lost the ability to sense disruptions in the balance of magic on a large enough scale to be able to detect Spike's hatching.
Of course he was fine under Twilight's care... If not Harmony would have done something about it...
Beginning to see a problem with the dragon code? May I make an interesting point: the Keepers are suppose to bring harmony back. Could it be possible that the Code is broken and is what is causing the dragons to not be in harmony as they should? Something that I am getting ready to address.
Okay I think I have addressed everything that needed to be (I had troubles as your rant this time was very winding)