The Poisoned Barb

by ManlyDerp

Chapter 1: Birth {RE-EDITED}

If there is one thing that I feel that this life was merciful to me for it is this; at least I was not reborn as a mammal.

That must sound quite silly out of context.

Allow me to explain. I, unlike a normal child, remember my birth. I remember it quite well, in fact. While my first birth was what I can only assume was standard fare for a human being; kicking, screaming, and tears everywhere, my second birth was much calmer than what one would expect. At least at first. It was very much akin to the simple act of waking up from a long nap, as opposed to it being the mind-numbingly painful experience for all parties involved that it most certainly is, speaking from past life experience.

If my name has not tipped you off yet, dear reader, then allow me to spell it out plainly; I am a dragon. A baby dragon to be precise. We are not born like ponies, instead we are hatched out of eggs roughly the size of foals. We do not naturally leave our shells as griffons do though, instead magic is needed for us to enter the world. If I were a natural, wild dragon like the rest of my kind this would mean that my mother would have needed to breathe fire on my egg and that would have been the end of that. The shell would have melted away and I would have been reborn in flames.

I am not a natural-born dragon, however.

My egg was not in the possession of my draconic mother during my hatching but instead ponies. Before I was born I was the property of the Canterlot Magical Institution. Recieved as a donation from an anonymous adventurer many years ago, I can only surmise that I was an unwanted trophy from a successful dragon slaying. Am I bitter about this fact? Well, if I were a normal child, I'd imagine that I wouldn't have been granted access to this information until I was much older and "mature" enough to handle it. I only know what I know now because of the outside research I conducted after learning how to speak and read Ponish. Under the false appearance of a curious child, blissfully unaware as to what she was "pretending" to read, I learned the history of my egg and the history of my mother in this life. I'd imagine a normal child would be left quite distraught at this information though, which leads me to wonder about my other; an equally young dragon named Spike.

It occurs to me that I have gone a bit off-topic. Resuming; a dragon egg is hatched by magic. Lots of magic. Magic was never something I was ever well versed in during my past life, it didn't even exist so I can't give you an exact amount, but I can at least tell you that it would have to be an amount on par with, if not rivaling, the natural magical flames produced by an adult dragon's breath.

And a small colt, not even ten years of age, managed to produce just that completely on accident one fateful day. This is what led to my rebirth.

It was seven odd years ago, on the morning of the Solaris' School for Gifted Unicorn's entry exam, when I opened my eyes to this world for the very first time. It was with a yawn, not tears, that I reawakened to the land of the living. I was such a small thing, I remember; even smaller than I am now. The world was big and frightening back then, but it wasn't in those scant few minutes as I numbly looked around at my surroundings in that dusty old examination room. My mind was blank and empty in that moment, my past life like a distant dream. I knew not where I was, what happened to me, where I had been, or who I even was. I was like a newborn babe, which I suppose is not too untrue a description. I should have been frightened, and eventfully I was, but not in those few first moments of life. I was simply confused, unsure where I was or what was going on. My eyesight was not perfect right away; my green orbs unused to such harsh light. The room around me was a mess of colors and noise, nothing more. Even the ponies within it were simply blurry blobs.

And then I grew gigantic.

That sounds a bit abrupt, doesn't it? Well, it was for me too, so maybe you can now feel a fraction of the surprise I felt during that sudden turn of events.

The source of my abnormal growth was the same source that had granted me my new life; Dusk Shine.

The tiny colt was just another student being tested on his magical aptitude that day when our paths crossed. Him a Canterlot unicorn foal, me an "unhatchable" dragon egg. I was nothing more than a tool for the school at the time; a testing instrument meant to gauge how much raw power each little unicorn possessed in their equally little bodies. I was never meant to be born, I was never meant to be hatched. A child couldn't possibly accomplish such a daunting task, nor could a regular unicorn even hope to send a crack down my rocklike shell.

But, as I would soon learn in the following years to come, Dusk Shine was anything but a regular old unicorn.

From what his parents have told me, in the brief few times I have conversed with them, Dusk didn't accomplish this feat on his first attempt. No, it took many tries for him to even produce a spark from his horn. The colt became depressed at this, and elected to give up altogether, but then a peculiar event happened. A quake occurred, magic was released, and Dusk Shine's horn became a brilliant beacon of magenta light in the aftermath. It was then that I was born. This phenomenon, what experts refer to as a "magic surge", didn't end with my hatching, oh no. I said I grew gigantic; this was the work of Dusk's rampent power. With magic swirling all around him, Dusk kept on sparking and unwittingly casting spells until Prince Solaris himself appeared before the testing room, using his amazing powers to undo everything that had gone wrong. I was even soon returned to the more manageable size of a babe, with no indication of the shocking transformation I had just undergone.

No indication upon my flesh, true, but it had certainly left its mark on my mind.

My form was large. Larger than even the room. Prince Solaris was led to his future protégé thanks to my new size, for my enlarged head had crashed through the ceiling to the outside and became clear for all to see. I was so very confused, I remember, and the first sparks of real fear had begun to lick at my heart, but all remained still as my enormous eyes focused into clarity, and as I gazed upon the amazing city of Canterlot in all its beauty.

It was, and still is, like nothing I had ever seen before in this or any past lives I've lived.

Looking back on it, it was a very sobering experience to have. A view like that only truly comes around once a lifetime, after all. Sometimes it doesn't come at all, speaking personally. Watching the city move and churn from above; its buildings grand, its ever-moving citizens acting as the lifeblood of the massive "heart" of Equestria, makes a gal humble and contemplative.

And contemplate is what I did back then as I stared out over the capital.

It was this moment of inner introspection that allowed my mind to expand and, more importantly, remember:

I remembered my name.

I remembered my family.

I remembered who I was, the woman I used to be.

The woman I was supposed to be in that moment, but wasn't.

Slowly memories began trickling back into my brain in reverse. I watched lifelong friendships begin, I watched kept wedding vows being re-exchanged, I watched children return to their carefree days. Everything fell into place; like a once empty filing cabinet being refilled with boxes upon boxes of old papers. At that moment, above the great city of Canterlot, I was restored to who I once was.

And I began to realize that something was wrong.

So unnaturally wrong.

As I was shrunk back down to size through the will of Prince Solaris, scenarios played in my mind's eye. Ideas were formed and discarded, memories were brought up and re-lived, old knowledge was gathered and reviewed.

Nothing.

My mind couldn't manage to explain to me what was happening. Strange creatures surrounded me, the world was brighter than I remembered it being, my skin felt rough and hard. I believed I had lost fingers, and that I had gained deformities on my behind, but I couldn’t properly move my body to confirm the state of my being. I was an infant, after all, with no motor skills to speak of, but my mind was not savvy to that information yet. I was still a woman for all I knew, an adult. The signals I sent from my still-developing brain were not going where I wished for them to go. I remember trying to rise to my feet only to instead lift my tail to the front of my face and grip it with my stubby claws. The sensations I felt from these actions shocked me even harder; my world was crumbling all around me. I couldn't even move my head enough to see what it was that I was gripping, or why it felt like it was a part of me. I had no idea what my body was doing and that fact frightened me greatly.

My mind so dazed and confused, so full of a slowly growing fear, started making patterns where there was none. The examination room was now, I assumed, an operating room; the strange creatures around me were now doctors there to help me. My body's problems were now the result of a rather nasty accident that had most likely left me brain-damaged, and the object in my grasp was now a sort of feeding tube that I was foolishly preventing a nurse from putting into my mouth.

All these rapid assumptions and false guesses resulted in was the moving of my spiked tail into my open mouth, unintentionally become a sort of pacifier for me.

As I lay there, in the remnants of my egg, sucking on my own tail, I was the spitting image of a newborn infant. Words were exchanged around me in a language I did not understand; a colt was celebrating the appearance of his cutie mark, his parents were celebrating their son's educational success, a prince was discussing what was to be done with the recently hatched dragoness, and I was oblivious to it all.

It was a mere minute later that I was granted my first real look at a pony.

Dusk was such a clean colt even back then. Although he was covered in sweat his coat was still perfectly brushed and matted and his two-toned mane was done up nicely and well maintained.

He smiled largely at me.

This scared me fiercely.

While I had met ponies before in my first life, the ones I knew were nowhere near the same as the ponies that exist here in Equus. Their eyes are smaller for one thing, and they lack the capacity to speak in a language one can understand. They also are not usually as colorful as Dusk, instead having coats of whites, browns, or blacks.

So, imagine this if you will; you can not move your body, you don't know where you are, everything is frightfully large and imposing, and a strange creature you only vaguely recognize approaches you. That in itself is scary beyond mere description but Dusk Shine, despite one day being labeled as "adorable" in my mind, went one step beyond by getting closer than any sane pony would or should get to a newborn dragon and talked to it cheerfully. I didn't learn what he had said to me until years later, but when I did discover the truth my heart warmed quite a bit, and my love for the colt only grew fonder.

Dusk, the innocent child that he was, had welcomed me to his world with outstretched forelegs.

Precisely, what we said was, "Hello there, little one. Welcome to Equestria! Hmmm, your tail has a spike on it... Spike sounds like a dog's name though. That wouldn't be a nice name for a fill- er, girl to have... How about... Barb? Barb... Barbara! There we go! Barbara! How does that sound, Barbara?"

Though this is what he said, word for word, all I heard was gibberish. It was frightening gibberish though, especially considering that the only word out of it that I understood was the rapid use of my old name.

So an unknown creature was looking at me and saying my name over and over again; I should have cried in that moment. I probably should have cried. I was so incredibly scared, but I didn't end up crying yet.

No, instead I giggled.

It came out as such infantile laughter, but I couldn't help it. It was all so horrifying and unreal that my brain filed it as just that; unreal. I thought I was dreaming. I was so sure I was dreaming. "None of this is real. Everything is just a dream!" I convinced myself at the time as I continued to laugh. I was enjoying the sound of my own voice, I remember; it sounded so much like my once baby daughter's that I kept on smiling, thus kept on laughing.

The colt took this as confirmation of a successful naming.

With a smile firmly plastered to his face, he galloped out of my sight and to his parent's and new mentor's sides so that he could informing them of the happy news.

Meanwhile, I kept on laughing.

I laughed and laughed and laughed at the supposedly fake world around me. I laughed at the colors, the ponies, the walls. I laughed at anything and everything that my young eyes fell upon, seeing all of it as a confirmation of a flawed dream.

I only stopped laughing when a summoned unicorn nursemaid gently levitated me into a rolling glass crib with her magic. With my body laid sideways, I was finally alowed to make out one of my new magenta claws with my own eyes.

This didn't cause me to laugh.

I didn't laugh again for the rest of that day, in fact.

As I was carted away through the halls, exiting the building altogether, I kept staring at what had become of my hand.

I had no control over it at all, yet I could clearly feel that it was mine. It bounced around limply as we wheeled along the path, and I felt as it moved up and down with us. I felt the cart's vibrations in my tiny body as well, and I felt the sun on my fresh face as it beamed down on me from on high. I could feel my tail slowly moving on its own, gently scraping against the glass containing me. I felt each and every scale on my arm that now hugged at my flesh.

I could smell the fresh air, I could hear the chattering of an unknown language and the galloping of hooves and the turning of wheels. The chirping of birds, the buzzing of insects, the laughter of children; what once I was so convinced was not real all of a sudden felt too real; scarily real. Everything started to click in my mind, and I realized the severity of my situation.

I didn't know where I was, my body was not my own any longer, and I was surrounded by creatures that I could barely comprehend; vaguely familiar yet fiercely not.

And I was small.

So completely small and tiny and helpless.

I was a baby once again.

Thus I cried like one with no shame.

Comments

[Asa_harris]

This is new to me and i love it
more please?

[More Dakka]

Can you say insta fave?

[Fido]

Very interesting and original. Very well written. Very... tracking this now.

[Eclipsemlp666]

How peculiar... I will be watching this story's progress for sure.

[ManlyDerp]

5378262
Currently aiming for an update schedule of once a week. Next one will be up same time next week! See you then!

[RadicalDishonesty]

I'm... interested, even as I'm a little unhappy that the story is "AU Spike is not Spike but someone else" and, from the way this is written so far, that Barb is apparently literally property (ie: a slave), and that is not going to be admitted/addressed by Dusk, which also makes me uneasy!

But I'm interested, and track records have been good so... let's do this.

Also, regarding Tragedy tag: is it actually a tragedy as in the character utterly fails at the end? Or is it a tragedy because it starts with a tragic event, and is sad/bittersweet throughout?

[ManlyDerp]

5378454
My track record is good? Yay!

Well then, first off; it's AU so things won't always be show accurate. It'll stick pretty darn close, but not always thanks to the variable added. Hopefully that alleviates some of your concerns that this will be incredibly out there like some of my other works can be at times. Secondly; the, er, second one for the Tragedy question. It's just kinda about living life, one day at a time, with the burden such a thing would bring, that's all. Plus a look into Spike's past from an interesting point of view; addressing things often left unsaid in the show... which kinda dangerously dips into my other work's mentality but I'll be just as careful about how I go about it here as I do there now

[Seeking Dusk]

Hmm... I must admit, I'm liking this so far. A lot. Rule 63 cast, human, transformation, younger than original form... a lot of story bases I enjoy are in this. The writing is top notch and deep. Barb's feelings and thoughts translate to the reader clearly and with good pacing. Tracking and Liked so far, Favouriting will depend on where the story goes from here.

[Ranakastrasz]

Hmm. This could borderline be the same universe as A Cog in the Machine, minus the whole gender inverse thing.
Fun times.
Instant favorite, will be following.
~~~~
This, and the other story, are rare stories. They are human in Equestria stories (self inserts) which balance the scales appropriately. The inserted character NEEDS to have their power be comparable to other characters, and generally less than is required to solve most problems, and preferably is also limited by a number of other things. The other story had the character have retroactive precognition, which is standard for many human in Equestria stories, but limited by an extreme lack of freedom and ability to exploit said knowledge. That, along with significant world-building is why I liked Cog in the Machine so much. I can't actually think immediately of any other comparable self inserts.

Also, self insert/human in Equestria is a story basis, and not ever intended, from me at least, as an insert. Most if not all stories are self inserts of some type or another, as it is, from my understanding, nearly impossible to not have the protagonist, and other characters, get some personality traits and decision making from the author themselves.

[RadicalDishonesty]

5378510
If the story is someone coping with a burden... then it would only be a tragedy if they could not cope. Otherwise I'd say it's just sad.

The problem with Spike isn't that it's outlandish... it's that I like Spike too much. I want to see him succeed, and the more his backstory changes the more his character seems to change, and I notice I don't usually care as much. But... if you're sticking close, I'm gonna go ahead and see instead of jumping to Barb not feeling like a female Spike.

[ManlyDerp]

5378798
Hmmmm... would gender-bent Cogwill be Cogworth or simply Nathan than? These are the things I wonder about

Glad to hear you like it! And thank you for your kind words. I'm still aiming to return to updating that fic during season five and I think that's a promise I'll finally be able to keep. I hope I'll see you then

[ShadeTail]

So far, this is a very interesting story. It has a good writing style that's descriptive, but also compact enough to hold the attention. And even though I'm no fan of the whole "Dusk Shine" gender reversal thing, you're using it well so far. I'm looking forward to seeing how you explain Barb's references to the standard FiM-universe.

[LittleKing123]

Awesome new fic and great to hear you are alive again writing. The story has a great start to it and the alternate universe is greatly enhancing how this story will be shaped. Hope to hear more from this story and others of yours.

[ManlyDerp]

5384791
Oh hi! Long time no see! Glad to hear you like it; next chapter will be up Saturday for everyone to enjoy! Hope to see you then!

5386835
Okay; thanks for at least giving it a look! I'm planning on updating this fic regularly, but I'm also focusing my attention towards completing "If you ain't..." Once THAT'S done, A Cog in the Machine is back up to bat. That's my current plan; hope I'll see you both then

[Cantankerous]

Hmm...

Hmmmmmm...

...

Okay, I like. More please.

[ManlyDerp]

5392346
Hmm...

Hmmmmmm...

...

Okay. See you Saturday then!

[lilflamewars]

Now this right here is a damn fine portrayal of waking up in a body not your own. Although a little odd for me as my maternal grandmother is named Barbara.

[EverfreeSparkle]

Even though I personally don't like the perspective (past tense story telling (maybe biography?), or whatever it is called, is my second least favorite perspective. 2nd person being my least favorite), this story seems promising.

[DarkPinkie]

Interesting concept. That moment of advanced age allowed for the memories of a reincarnation to solidify enough to stay rather than fade away. Quite interesting indeed.

I look forward to reading further, but for now, sleep awaits.

[ManlyDerp]

9112940
I HAVE WAITED FOUR YEARS FOR SOMEONE TO GET THAT!! THANK YOU!!
Hope you enjoy

[Snow]

9113090
... huh. I thought it was obvious enough not to comment on. Interesting idea in any case though.

[novkit]

9160364
Me too. Honestly it reminds me of an old sci-fi book where scientists confirm that reincarnation is real but the trauma of birth wipes the old memory out before it can really 'take' in the infant's mind.

[Pensive]

Why does this feel like a copy of Twilights backstory, but with different characters and reversed genders for the person involved?

A two minutes search on Netflix later

Oh wait, it's because it is...

Edit: Oh! The names are the same as well, just less feminine versions.
Celestia/Solaris Twilight/Dusk Spike/Barb

[KvAT]

Sweet lords above, your words are beautiful. Every word conveys emotions that seeps out of my phone screen and into my very core.

I'm so very excited to see the rest of this.