Portents
It was one Princess Celestia's very favorite times of the year: Enrollment Day, when all the young unicorn colts and fillies tried to fill out the limited number of spaces available in her School for Gifted Unicorns. The weather for it couldn't have been nicer, with the weather pegasi to thank for the clear blue skies and low humidity. The day was bright and cheerful, the perfect compliment to all the eager young unicorn colts and fillies on the grounds, most of whom seemed incapable of walking when running was an option.
It was during a walk through the school's gardens that a strange phenomenon caught the Princess's eye. A wave of rainbow colors rippled their way through the sky in an expanding ring of prismatic brilliance, bringing Princess Celestia up short during her otherwise uneventful walk.
Celestia turned to watch as the wave passed overhead, the colors flowing across the sky like watercolors spilled across a canvas. A wave of nostalgia passed over Celestia as she reveled in the sight of it, as it had been centuries since a pegasus had last performed a sonic rainboom. Whoever had managed it was certainly a pony to keep an eye on.
The Princess had barely begun resuming her walk when one of the towers exploded. Or, at least, that was her first impression.
She turned to look at the tower and was mildly surprised to see the head and shoulders of a large and inexplicable dragon protruding from the top of the tower’s dome. The dragon, oddly chubby for one of its kind, blinked slowly in the afternoon sunlight.
Hmm. How peculiar, she mused. First the sonic rainboom, and now a dragon erupting out of the Testing Tower. This was shaping up to be a very interesting day, indeed.
She made her way to the top of the tower with some haste, summoning her own power in order to craft mighty shields and cunning wards. Celestia believed in being prepared, after all. Something was obviously attacking her school, something powerful enough to break through the ancient pre-existing wards around the school grounds in order to summon a dragon ally—a dragon which had looked little nonplussed to find its head poking out of a tower, but a dragon nonetheless.
Whatever creature that had summoned the dragon was at the top of the tower, and Princess Celestia was resolved to defeat it. Whether it was an ancient sorcerer bent on domination or one of Equestria’s seemingly-endless supernatural enemies seeking revenge, Celestia would stop it, just as she’d stopped every other threat to her little ponies over the centuries of her existence.
The door to the testing chamber at the top of the tower was vibrating, thrumming like a plucked bass string. Wild magic sleeted around her, crashing up against reality and trying to remake it in various subtle ways. Celestia added a few more wards and strengthened her shields, mentally and emotionally bracing herself to confront the enraged lich-king or vengeful demigod who could throw around such power, and opened the door. She was ready for anything.
Anything, that is, except for a tiny, purple filly hanging suspended in midair, glowing and twitching as unrestrained magic poured out of her.
That… is even more peculiar.
A quick scan showed that the filly wasn’t possessed, nor was she some eldritch creature disguised as a small child. It seemed like the font of all this power really was just an adorable little girl who was caught in the grips of an extremely powerful magical surge.
Taking a moment to orient herself, Princess Celestia glanced quickly around the room. The teacher evaluators were hanging in mid-air, their eyes wide as they stared at the filly with both awe and fear writ large across their features. A rather tasteful and unexpected potted plant stood next to an out-of-place cactus. The dragon’s foot was crushing a cart…
Celestia’s eyes wandered over to the dragon in the room. The cart was smashed to splinters underneath the massive creature, sad little bits of hay sticking out from between its toes. Obviously, the teachers had been pulling the old “hatch the egg” routine on this particular batch of prospective students. It was an exam designed to gauge a student’s reactions, how inventive and determined they would be, and how long it took before they gave up and accepted the impossibility of the task.
Her eyes flicked down to the crushed shards of eggshell underneath the dragon’s feet, feeling a chill of foreboding. It wasn’t a test that was meant to be passed.
Licking her suddenly-dry lips, Celestia turned away. She could deal with that later. For now, she had a young filly to pull out of an intense magical surge. Steeling herself, she put on her best matronly smile and placed a hoof on the young filly's back while countering the cascading wild magic with a strong counterpulse of her own.
The filly blinked, her eyes losing the characteristic glow of a magic surge, and she sank to the floor. As she did, the results of her magic faded, lowering the teachers to the ground and causing the cactus and potted plants to flash and resume their pony shapes, which would have been shocking enough on its own if it weren’t for the fact that the dragon merely shrunk to the size of a baby, rather than returning to an egg. Effects of a magic surge were rarely permanent, but it seemed like this baby dragon was here to stay.
Eyes that could stare for hours into the sun had no trouble at all reading the names of the applicants off of the list posted on a nearby wall. She finally had the name of the downcast and obviously guilt-ridden filly before her.
“Twilight Sparkle,” she began, only to be cut off as the filly began babbling.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Twilight Sparkle began. “I didn’t mean—”
“You have a very special gift!” Celestia continued, briefly relishing her proficiency at understatement. She continued on—though, if she were to be honest with herself later, she really had no idea of what she was saying. Preoccupied with glances over to the baby dragon—who was now, quite adorably, sucking on his tail—she spoke mostly on autopilot. Something about harnessing power, she would recall later, as well as an offer to personally teach the young filly about magic, an offer which Twilight enthusiastically accepted.
Though, not as enthusiastically—or as adorably—as the young filly had accepted her new cutie mark. Which, Celestia noted, was an exceedingly familiar six-pointed star, with five smaller starbursts arranged around it.
Finally, things were beginning to make sense.
The ecstatic Twilight Sparkle left with her parents soon after, leaving Celestia alone in the room with the young dragon. The teachers had all fled the moment the magic surge had ended, and Celestia couldn’t blame them in the least.
According to a few quick magical scans, the dragon was a perfectly healthy and normal example of its species, with no defects or magical after-effects to speak of. Celestia pointed her horn out of a nearby window and let off a flare spell. A Royal Guard arrived a few minutes later, just as Celestia finished carefully gathering up bits of smashed eggshell.
The Guard, a pegasus by the name of Highwind, saluted. “Highness?” he asked.
“Sergeant Highwind, excellent.” Celestia examined the bits of eggshell held in her magical grasp. Had she managed to get them all? “I seem to have found myself in possession of a young baby dragon.”
The sergeant blinked. “Ma’am?”
“He’s just over there, sucking on his tail. Adorable, isn’t he?”
Steel-grey eyes flicked towards the dragon and then back to Celestia. “Yes. Quite precious, ma’am.”
“Could you please find Mrs. Glitterful from the Resource Department and ask her to join me here?” Celestia asked as she began arranging the pieces of eggshell like a three-dimensional puzzle. “At her earliest convenience,” she added, which both of them knew as code for “immediately, if not sooner.”
“Ma’am,” Highwind answered, saluting crisply before turning to run out the door.
It took some time to properly arrange the pieces into an egg-shape, held aloft in Celestia’s magic, which managed to confirm that she did, indeed, have nearly all of the shell. There were still some gaps, however. Celestia frowned and decided that small amount that was still missing had likely been crushed to powder underneath the dragon’s formerly-massive feet.
She was still looking for a dustpan when a slightly out-of-breath Mrs. Glitterful rushed up the stairs, pausing outside of the door to catch her breath and mop her brow with a towel she’d thoughtfully brought along. Celestia pretended not to notice her presence while the other mare composed herself.
“You wished to see me, Princess?” Mrs. Glitterful asked when she finally came into the room. Her mane, golden streaked with grey, was in mild disarray, but there were no other outward signs that this mare had most likely charged across the campus as quickly as her hooves could carry her.
“Yes,” Celestia said. She held up the nearly-reassembled dragon’s egg. “This was one of yours, wasn't it?”
“Ah,” Mrs. Glitterful said, then clucked her tongue. “Did one of the applicants break the egg again?”
Celestia flicked her gaze over to the baby dragon and then back again. The young whelp had fallen asleep, still sucking on the tip of his scaly tail. The other mare hadn’t seemed to have noticed their diminutive guest as of yet. “It appears so.”
“Ah, well.” Mrs. Glitterful shook her head sadly. “Perhaps that poor child can re-apply when they learn to control themselves a little bit better.”
“Actually, I’ve decided to take this particular student on,” came Celestia’s careful reply. “It wasn’t her fault,” she added in response to the other mare’s questioningly-raised eyebrow. “The poor thing was in the grips of a rather powerful magic surge.” Again, an understatement. “Tell me, was this egg made any differently than the ones we’ve used in the past?”
“No, Princess. We’ve been making those dragon’s eggs the same way for as long as I can remember. It’s a pity about this one, though. I thought the green and purple looked quite striking together.”
“Hmm, yes. I agree. What do you make of this?” Celestia asked, floating the remains of the egg over.
“Oh, yes. Quite thoroughly smashed,” the art teacher replied, going over it with a critical eye. “Wait… that isn’t papier-mâché. Was it somehow transmuted to… is this porcelain?”
“Eggshell, actually.”
Celestia gestured over her shoulder towards the sleeping baby dragon. Mrs. Glitterful stared in blank incomprehension for a long moment before her eyes widened and she drew in a sharp breath. “How..?”
“I can only assume,” Princess Celestia replied softly, “that young Twilight Sparkle, while in the depths of her magic surge, expected the egg to hatch a dragon. So a dragon is exactly what she got.”
Mrs. Glitterful ran the implications through her head for a moment, and then she collapsed in a dead faint. Princess Celestia caught the mare in her magic just before she hit the floor.
It was almost as if the exceedingly well-timed rainboom had heralded the arrival of what Celestia could only call a youth of nearly-impossible potential. A rueful smile crossed the Princess’ lips.
“Yes. It seems as if we’re moving into very interesting times, indeed.”
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I bet Celestia saw a bird of the sun when she tried hatching her egg.
Cute.
Now the question of the day: Did Twilight somehow create and hatch a dragon's egg from a papier-mâché mock-up, or is there somewhere a rather annoyed dragon with a fake egg in her nest?
<We need to talk, Spike.)
No wonder Spike is so different from other dragons. He isn't an Equestrian dragon - he's exactly what young Twilight Sparkle subconsciously expected a dragon to be! No more; no less.
So in this interpretation, the task was even less possible than it seems to be in canon. What a fascinating twist.
Also, would this make Twilight more like Spike's mom, or more like a nascent goddess of magic?
It's not the first time I"ve seen this idea on Spike's orgin... t6hough never seen the scene itself written. This does really make him Twilight's little boy.
Wow. Loved it
!
Getting one of the shows unexplained parts explained via your favourite authors headcanon presented from the most befitting of POVs.
Having any more of these bumping around in your head Hoopy? Because I'd love to read more of them. I've always liked the way you portray Celestia and to see some of the events from the show from her perspective was just marvelous.
Also hatching a papier mache egg? Ouch, that's really mean. To do so to aspiring students trying to apply to the school? It's pure evil I tell you. (Also I would probably be as stubborn, and become frustrated, as Twilight)
I like the idea of the egg as a Kobayashi Maru scenario. It makes the school's administrators seem less evil.
You broke my library by making a chapter public then hiding it, now I'm stuck with one unread chapter...
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Sorry... Hit publish by accident instead of edit... I will finish the story and post it later tonight. Hopefully that will fix it!
7138110
More coming on this one ... I goofed and published way too soon.
Oh come on, Twi was OP all the time, that's why DHX (or probably Hasbro) keeps nerfing her because in reality nothing would stand a chance against her
Ahahaha, NICE! I loved this whole piece overall; Celestia being so dang calm and SEVERELY UNDERSTATED was hilarious and made me love her even more. The bit about the egg was a fascinating touch, although i agree with your note that Twilight probably isn't QUITE this overpowered. (Unless she summoned an actual egg from somewhere else, it's hard to imagine she has the power to create life.) Overall, very fun, I always enjoy your stories and these little ones are very enjoyable. ^^
Yep, I've had suspicions about that egg before too, and so has Green Grass
“When I worked at your school’s entrance exam for the last few years, we always used a ceramic dragon egg for the final test. How the student reacts to their failure to hatch it tells a great deal about how they will react to failing in school. We were told if they throw a fit or get violent, it is much better to find out in the test than in a room full of young unicorns just coming into their power. Sometimes they have to replace the egg, but—” He tried to shrug, finding his shoulders nearly as rigid as ceramic themselves “—that’s why they don’t use a real egg.”
This would also nicely explain why Spike is so similar in color to Twilight.