Dragon Our Love 'Till the End: Zog Strikes Back

by The Lord Thunder

Chapter 3

Spike found himself glad that Sapphire had cast a spell on him to protect him from cold.

Here, in the peaks of the Northern Mountains beyond the Crystal Kingdom, the fierce cold was omnipresent. Well past the timberline, no trees grew and few creatures dwelled, only those with a natural affinity for the cold. Frost trolls and snow yetis made their home here. The ice dragons, however, dominated this land of permanent winter.

"So this is where you're from, huh?" Spike scratched the back of his head, taking in the colorless scenery.

"Yes. I called this place home once. I haven't been here since the avalanche. I forgot how beautiful it is."

Spike bit his tongue and swallowed a snarky comment. A barren, frozen land of drifting snow where the predominant color was a white that stretched as far as the eye could see, was about the last kind of place he'd consider beautiful. But Sapphire was an ice dragon. A love of the cold was set deep in her genes and it wouldn't do to insult her homeland.

"What do you love most about this place?" Spike asked, trying to view this place from Sapphire's perspective.

"Aside from the bitter cold?" Sapphire seemed to soak in the scenery, as if searching it for an answer. "We're so high up from the rest of the world. It's so serene and isolated. I feel like the troubles of the world can't reach us up here.”

A good point, Spike realized, one he hadn't considered until Sapphire mentioned it. It was isolated for good reason; few creatures could tolerate the brutal cold this high up, and thus it was largely untouched by the modern world. The downside was there wasn't much for entertainment, unless you loved to play in the snow.

Snow! The stuff was everywhere, and it made Spike think of the things he loved to do during the winter back home. Sapphire had her back to him, still absorbed in the scenery, which gave Spike the perfect opportunity for a surprise attack. He scooped up a clawful of snow, packed it into a ball and threw it at Sapphire. It burst into a white powder against her back.

“Oh!” Sapphire snapped around and let out a malicious chuckle. “You're pretty brave, challenging an ice dragon to a snowball fight!” She held out her arms, and snow began to lift from the ground, forming a dozen snowballs that circled her.

“Oops,” Spike mumbled. His fins drooped in realization of the mistake: he didn't stand a chance.

The snowballs began to revolve around Sapphire, slowly at first and gradually picking up speed until they appeared as a white blur. "Watch carefully!" Sapphire said. "Which direction is the first strike going to come from?"

Sapphire flicked her right wrist. Spike, on instinct, leaned to his right, but the snowball shot from Sapphire's left side and hit Spike square in the chest.

“Ha! Tricked ya!” Sapphire teased. She flicked her left wrist this time, throwing a snowball from her right side. Again, Spike instinctively dodged in the same direction Sapphire threw her snowball, and it exploded against his torso.

“Got ya again!”

“You'll have to do better than that!” Spike taunted.

Sapphire flashed a playful smirk. “Ok, you asked for this!”

The rest of her snowballs flew towards Spike in rapid-fire fashion, pelting him on the face, against his chest, all the way down to his knees. All the while, Sapphire was forming more snowballs as backup ammunition.

Sensing defeat, Spike scrambled for cover from Sapphire's relentless assault behind a nearby boulder and dusted the snow from his body.

“Oh, come on!” he heard Sapphire yell. “Don't tell me you've had enough already!”

“I'm just getting started!” he yelled back as he scooped up and formed the biggest snowball he could handle. By the time he was done, it was the size of a basketball. Satisfied, he stood up from his cover. “Got a present for you!”

Spike took aim at Sapphire and threw the snowball he'd made. It stopped inches from her, held in place by the ice dragon's magic. She observed it for a few moments, pretending to be impressed. “That's cute. But you can have it back!”

At that, Sapphire hurled Spike's snowball back at him, and he ducked just in time for it to sail over his head. This was getting more and more unfair by the second! Spike dared a peek at Sapphire from the side of his boulder.

“All you have to do is say the word and your suffering will end!” Sapphire taunted.

“Never!”

"Ok, now I'm getting serious!"

Sapphire held her arms to the air, lifting a great mass of snow from the ground and swirling above her head like an icy hurricane. All that snow was being compressed into the center, forming a rapidly growing snowball. It grew to the size of a basketball. A few seconds later, it was as big as a hay cart, then a piano, next; a barn. Moments later, it was the size of a house!

"Give up yet?" Sapphire asked. She swung her hands downward, feigning to throw the huge object.

"Ok! You win!" Spike reeled backwards, stumbling over his own feet in his retreat and landing flat on his back. Smiling, Sapphire snapped her fingers and her enormous snowball exploded, filling the air with bits of snow that fell over the duo even as Sapphire propped herself over Spike's collapsed form. Sapphire smiled down on him and then planted a kiss right on his maw. He almost expected it to chill his lips, but felt nothing but warmth thanks to Sapphire's protection from the cold.

"Come on, goofball," she said. "My old home isn't far from here."

Sapphire led Spike a couple miles through a path in the mountain, which ended at the aptly named Frozen Spires, the jagged, ice-capped peaks of the Crystal Mountains. The home of the ice dragons where Sapphire once lived was a crescent-shaped network of caverns made of ice that glistened in the sunlight. Without the fierce cold to distract him, Spike took a moment to appreciate this place from the foot of the caves. Sapphire was right; it truly was beautiful here, and that beauty radiated in the sunlight that glimmered off the ice.

"Sapphire, is that you?" a deep, booming voice rang.

Sapphire smiled at the sound of the new voice. "Glacien!"

A humongous blue dragon, scales dulled with age, welcomed Sapphire with open arms. She ran to him and embraced the old dragon.

No, this dragon wasn't just old. He was ancient, probably much more so than Princess Celestia. Dark, aged circles surrounded his eyes and he made every movement with the slow, precise method of a weary being in his twilight years.

"It's so good to see you again, Sapphire. I missed you." Glacien released Sapphire and looked her over. "Look how you've grown!" Glacien looked down at Spike, smiling. It was then Spike noticed he'd lost many of his teeth in his old age. "Could you be the famous Spike?"

Spike gazed up at Glacien, mouth agape in awe. "How did you know my name?"

"When Sapphire returned home from Equestria ten years ago, she told all of us about you."

"And who are you?"

"This is Glacien," Sapphire explained. "He's the oldest living ice dragon."

"How old are you, exactly?" Spike asked.

"I gave up counting after my 100,000th birthday." The weary old dragon scratched his head. "Or was it my 110,000th?"

"Glacien's always been like a grandfather to me,"

Glacien laughed a laugh that seemed to make a millennium lift from his years. “Come now, Sapphire, when you say that it makes me feel old!”

Yeah, you're only a thousand centuries old Spike quipped to himself.

“Where have you been all these years?” the old dragon asked.

Sapphire hung her head and sighed. No doubt there were painful memories surfacing. “When the avalanche happened, my parents told me to run, just before our cave was crushed. So I ran, and I just never had the nerve to come back. I went to Equestria. I wanted to learn more about ponies, and I hoped I'd see Spike again someday.”

Glacien shook his head ruefully and pulled Sapphire in close to comfort her. She clung to the old dragon, shivering. “A terrible tragedy. I am so sorry, Sapphire. If only there was something I could have done.”

“There is nothing you could have done,” Sapphire answered, her voice shaky. “It's not your fault.”

Seeing Sapphire like this lit a pang of regret in the pit of Spike's stomach. He stepped closer and rubbed Sapphire's shoulder. “I wish I could have done something, too.”

Sapphire let go of Glacien and wiped her eyes. “It's not your fault, either, Spike.” Her gaze drifted to the .left, her eyes lost in something. “It's time I stopped running from it. I'm going back to our old cave.”

“There is nothing left,” Glacien said lowly. “It'll only trigger more sad memories. But if you truly wish to go, I cannot stop you.”

“I'll be fine.”

“As you wish.” The old dragon stretched, yawned and spread his wings, cringing at a loud pop that Spike winced at as well, almost feeling it himself. “Curse it all, these old bones and joints of mine aren't what they used to be. I enjoy my daily walks, but at my age, they take their toll. I'll take my leave of you now, I must rest.”

The old dragon lumbered off to a distant cave towards the right of the network of ice caverns. Wordlessly, Sapphire wandered off to the left. Spike followed close behind until they reached the left side of the Frozen Spires. Most of the leftmost caves had been crushed inward by massive chunks of ice and rock that littered the area, a grim reminder of the power of nature. Countless tons of matter spilled by the avalanche had come to rest at the foot of the caves.

Sapphire rubbed some of the debris with her claw, her eyes distant, lost in time. “Look at all this rubble,” she mumbled. “This was the exact spot where our cave, our home was. My parents used all their power to stop the cave from collapsing, just long enough for me to escape. As soon as I did-” Sapphire dropped to her knees, clenched her eyes shut and sobbed. “Mom, dad, I'm so sorry!”

“Sapphire,” Spike said. She didn't seem to hear him.

“It's all my fault!” Sapphire squeezed a claw shut, crunching snow in her fist. “All I did was run! I didn't even try to help you keep the cave from crushing you! If I hadn't been such a coward, you might still be alive! If it weren't for me, you might have had time to get out.”

The cold protection spell kept Spike safe from the sub-zero temperatures of the Frozen Spires, but it did nothing to stave the chill that worked its way through his body, hearing Sapphire blame herself for what happened to her parents.

“It wasn't your fault, Sapphire.”

“How would you know?” she sobbed. “You weren't there.”

Spike knelt down beside her and put his arm around her shoulder. “They told you to run. You did the right thing.”

“Did I?”

Spike wondered if she was asking him, or herself. Sapphire hugged him, buried her face in his shoulder and cried. She cried for a long time. Spike would let her cry on his shoulder as long as she needed. At last the sobbing stopped. She stood up, wiped her eyes and sniffed.

“I'm ok,” she sighed. There was a brief hint of a smile in her eyes as she looked to the towering central spire of the Frozen Spires. “Spike, there's someone I'd like you to meet.”

“Who is it?”

“Dragonlord Frost, ruler of the ice dragons. He's an old friend of my father's.”

“Alright. Lead the way.”

Sighing and sniffed one more time, Sapphire turned around and guided Spike up the icy slopes that led to Dragonlord Frost's cave.

***

It had been some time since Princess Luna had been to Griffonstone, not since she attended the welcoming ceremony of Queen Gale ten years ago. The Griffon Kingdom had existed without any official form of government for many years. It was through unanimous agreement that they needed a leader. They elected the oldest and wisest among them, a griffon named Gale, to be their new ruler. She accepted the position with pride and had done well in leading the griffons to restore their once great kingdom.

Gustwing, a young griffon who, through quick and precise decision making, a level-headed demeanor and the ability to command respect from her troops by giving respect in return, had swiftly rose through the ranks of the griffon army, all the way up to general. She was now considered the second most powerful griffon in the kingdom, only to Queen Gale herself.

Queen Gale had been busy with a political meeting, so Princess Luna reported directly to General Gustwing in her office at Eagleclaw Base, the main headquarters of the griffon army. It was a training base as well; Luna understood that at the sight of a griffon sergeant carpet-bombing the ears of the recruits. Luna stepped through the open door of the general's office, spotted Gustwing at her desk and dropped to a knee in respect.

“At ease, your highness,” General Gustwing said. At that, Luna rose. Gustwing stood up, walked around the desk and offered a claw to Luna. “General Gustwing.”

“Princess Luna,” she replied as she accepted Gustwing's claw. The griffon clasped her hoof in a firm, confident shake. Her feathers were well-groomed and she wore an olive beret on her head. A vast array of medals were pinned to her uniform.

“It's an honor to meet you, Princess of the Night.”

“Likewise,” Luna replied.

“What can I do for you, your highness?”

“Equestria has been attacked by dragons. One of our villages was completely destroyed. Celestia and I intend to fight back. But Our might alone is not enough to contend with them. I have come on her orders to seek your aid.”

Gustwing shook her head, giving barely any time to contemplate the matter. Though her expression didn't change, Luna thought she caught a brief glint of fear in the general's eyes at the mention of the great reptiles. "You and your sister are both out of your minds. We are not about to fight dragons."

“You disappoint me.” Luna studied Gustwing closer, looked her over, knowing that the general wouldn't miss this subtle but powerful gesture. “I'd heard better of the mighty General Gustwing.”

Gustwing held her neutral expression, but Luna noticed her chest swell with pride. “It is true, I've lead the griffon army to many victories, but you must understand that our enemies in those battles were not quite the caliber of what you intend to fight against. Changelings are one thing, but dragons are far, far out of our league.”

“You'll be well rewarded,” Luna replied, hoping this would appeal to Gustwing's more primitive instincts.

Again Gustwing shook her head. “If we provoke dragons, we won't be around long enough to make use of a reward.”

Was there no appealing to this stern-faced general? She might as well had put up a stone wall between the two of them, Luna thought. "Our country has experienced a direct attack! Will you stand by and do nothing even as the Shadow Dragons could be plotting to attack your country next?"

"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it. Your ponies have experienced an awful tragedy, and you have our condolences. Under normal circumstances, I might even have agreed to ally with your forces. But dragons are no ordinary enemies. They're too powerful. I am terribly sorry, your highness, but I didn't get promoted to general by taking risks. In the interest of the Griffon Kingdom's safety, we will remain neutral."

Luna feigned a smile and locked eyes with General Gustwing. “What irony. I did not come here expecting to find a coward.”

Aside from a slight tightening of her jawline, even that did not alter Gustwing's flat expression. The change was subtle, but it was there, and Luna had noticed it, and knew she'd succeeded in piercing through Gustwing's pride.

“There's a fine line between cowardice and prudence,” Gustwing replied, her tone every so slightly more dangerous, unnoticeable to an untrained ear. Luna had heard it. The griffon snapped her talons, and two sergeants came rushing into the room. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm a very busy griffon. Sergeants, please remove Princess Luna from the facility.”

The two sergeants approached Luna, who summoned a white glow into her eyes. They hesitated, knowing what Luna was, what she was capable of and they understood the warning: do not touch me. “I can remove myself, thank you very much. If you are as helpless as you say, then I hope for your sake, general, that the dragons do not decide to attack your country next.”

A quick surge of darkness, and Princess Luna had vanished from the room. The sergeants allowed themselves a quick sigh of relief. They'd rather tangle with dragons than an alicorn.

“Your orders, general?” one of them asked.

“Return to your posts. I have work to do.”

Both the sergeants saluted simultaneously. “Ma'am! Yes, ma'am!”

After the soldiers marched out of the office, Gustwing returned to her desk and pulled out a new document.

Comments

[HolyCross9]

If you ask me, Gustwing should have listened and heeded Princess Luna's warnings.

[ponylover2]

I agree and I love this story a lot and can't wait for the author to upload more chapters to this story