North Wind: Earning your Cutie Mark

by BlackBonitaCherry

Chapter 7- Dragon in the Egg

Author's Note: I do not own MLP, just my character

Lyra lowered the book on Predictions and Prophecies, North wilting under her stare while a pale Fluttershy and flat maned Pinkie Pie were staring at the book with wide eyes.

“W-we’re s-supposed to save E-equestria from E-eternal night?! Nightmare Moon is real?!” Fluttershy looked very alarmed and Lyra was glad that North managed to get them to wait a month before talking about this. She made them swear a Pinkie Promise, something that actually startled Pinkie since it was an off-shoot of a Pie promise that her family took very seriously.

Apparently, Pinkie had yet to come up with it and North facehooved when she was told that. So apart from holding a Cutiecenera celebration for both Pinkie and Fluttershy (the Pie and Apple families were very awkward, and the former were rather glad to go back to their Rock farm, even if they did promise to arrange a letter exchange with Granny Smith.) Gaius took North to Cloudsdale in a balloon separately from Fluttershy and her own parents while Lyra hopped on a train to Canterlot to get ready for school.

They all promised to meet up in the planetarium after Lyra had her uncle put a bunch of silencing and privacy spells on it, which actually took a whole month because he was pretty busy with his own duties. North surprised Fluttershy by ending up in her class after taking a placement exam, something that ended up getting North in trouble with her own parents and Rainbow Dash who hadn’t even known she was doing it. Any attempts to move her back to the previous grade was stopped by the headteacher who was ecstatic at finally having a student who would break the record for youngest graduate in Cloudsdale. He had an ongoing rivalry with someone in Las Pegasus who had a graduate at age 11, one year earlier, and the fact North would be graduating at age 9 made him giddy. Plus, her report on how weather affected rocks in different ways was so fresh compared to the boring reports that the other students did through the years. It didn’t stop other students from harassing North Wind, but she paid them no mind and continued producing good enough grades that the teacher accepted her request to become Fluttershy’s permanent desk partner on account of the filly being the only ‘mature’ one in their class.

She used this as an added excuse to visit Fluttershy’s house and to do homework with the older filly who didn’t seem all that upset at having a filly three years younger than her helping her. If North also used this time to show Fluttershy books about animals, no one knew about it.

But now here they were, in the basement of the planetarium with shredded training dummies and three out of four with shocked expressions.

“Nightmare Moon is r-real?” Pinkie was shivering, the eleven-year-old didn’t look at all peppy at the moment. Which was understandable, compared to her future self she was just a filly who recently learned how to broaden her emotional range.

“North! Shouldn’t we go to Princess Celestia about this? Warn her?” North gave her a look.

“She wrote that prophecy, she knows,” was the deadpan before the blue filly sighed, “And I’m not even sure whether my information is accurate, there are so many things different from what I expected. Maybe there are other Elements, or maybe she has a different plan to take care of Nightmare Moon. I only have a vague memory of what happened,” Lyra huffed, still not at all placated.

“And when did you plan on telling us, telling me that you had a past life where we were fictional?! And you were a human!” North raised an eyebrow and Lyra trailed off, recalling one of their conversations where she had asked how North knew about humans and the other joked about having been one in her previous life, “Wait, technically you did, how was I supposed to know?!” North was snarky on a good day, some things she said seemed too impossible to happen.

“Look, I never planned on telling anyone my knowledge because there’s no way for me to prove it, if I say anything about the future then they’ll just think I put together information from the prophecies. Or they might accuse me of being a villain, but at least now you know why I was trying to keep you away Fluttershy,” the yellow pegasus frowned, color returning.

“Well I don’t care,” the statement made North blink as the filly’s shoulders straightened and her wings flared in agitation, “Even if Rainbow Dash and I are supposed to Element Bearers, and Pinkie as well, I don’t see why that means I cannot be friends with you; besides I’m a bit peeved with Rainbow at the moment,” she said this last part in a low voice.

“Why?” North asked, Fluttershy withdrew into herself once she saw that she was the sole center of attention, but still answered.

“She told me to stay away from you,” the words were said in a dark tone, “That you were dangerous and it was for the best,” Lyra scowled.

“Seriously? She ignores North Wind and goes out of her way to avoid her, but she’s even trying to make sure North doesn’t have any friends? Wait, she never approached me,” Lyra wondered if she should be offended at that.

“That’s just not nice, why would she do that?” Pinkie looked shocked, but it was North that grabbed their attention as the pegasus filly was still and staring at the floor.

But there was no surprise or shock on her face, but a sad understanding.

“North,” Lyra’s voice was quiet, “What else is there?” she looked at the training around them, noting the cuts in the walls and the way some of the dummies were stitched back together or still in pieces on the ground, “Does it have anything to do with this?” she gestured at the scene, North closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it out before replying.

“Blessing of the Wind,” her voice carried in the empty room, Lyra blinking while Pinkie and Fluttershy gasped.

“B-but, I thought that was a myth,” Fluttershy’s statement was overshadowed by Pinkie’s.

“You have a Blessing too?!” North’s head lifted up, all of them staring at Pinkie Pie who stared back, “What?” Lyra growled.

“Can someone explain please?” she had no idea what they were talking about, North however was staring at Pinkie.

“Too? What do you mean by that?” Pinkie rubbed the back of her head.

“Oh, the Pie family has always had a touch of the Blessing of the Earth, it’s hereditary and each of us get our own kind when we get our Cutie Mark. Well technically, we have some of it that gives us feelings here and there, but we don’t understand what it is till we discover our destiny. On top of her sense Maud found out that she can talk to rocks! It was really cool, my Pinkie sense I’m still trying to find out though,” then she saw the way Lyra was looking at her and giggled, “Oopsie, okay, you know that Earth Ponies have this connection with the ground? Well there are some of us who also have the Blessing of the Earth that goes way beyond, some of us have the affinity to become like the ground, while others have the ability to tell what is going to happen before it does.” Fluttershy stepped forward, eyes on North Wind, realization dawning.

“That’s not the only Blessing, there is also the Blessing of Water, Fire, and Wind,” North flinched, “But there are tales of the Wind being more dangerous than even Fire with every generation, even capable of not just controlling tornadoes by one’s own magic, but slicing through anything as well. Rainbow Dash’s ear,” North closed her eyes, not wanting to admit it but not wanting to lie either.

“It was an accident,” the whisper made Lyra’s stomach drop, and when Fluttershy touched the filly’s shoulder the rest of the story poured out, from the time the ability activated to having her wings bound and put to work in the mines. Her interactions with the Ruby Dogs and other workers, and even the part about Corn Husker.

Pinkie Pie ended up needing a bucket, and Lyra felt terror at certain points, especially as any shyness disappeared from Fluttershy whose face kept getting darker and darker.

“I’m sorry, I understand if you don’t want to-“ all three glomped North to the ground.

“It’s not your fault,” Pinkie backed up Fluttershy’s fierce declaration, tears falling from both of their eyes.

“Yeah, she’s right, you warned that big meanie and he still continued, the Blessing of the Elements become very fierce if they feel someone is targeting their chosen. If someone were to try to figure out my Pinkie sense for the wrong reasons, they’ll end up in a lot of accidents, and that’s with the Earth’s Blessing spread out! But from what I can tell, your Blessing is way way stronger, I wonder why?” she pondered this, North sighed.

“Probably because a lot of bearers returned the Blessing,” Pinkie Pie fell over, sputtering.

“Returned?” she squeaked, “Why! That’s not good at all! Returning a Blessing?!” she peered at North, “You” her mane completely flattened, “You want to do that too,” Fluttershy gasped.

“North?” the youngest among them sighed.

“You call it a Blessing, but all I see is a curse with a thirst for blood, and it takes all of my energy to keep it contained and not hurt anyone. I’m close to finding out the location, but there is still a few things missing,” Lyra smacked the back of her head, “Ow! Lyra,” Lyra narrowed her eyes.

“If I had a newspaper, I would be smacking you till it was torn up, this is why you don’t fly is it? Why you don’t even open your wings, and why you don’t want to go to Princess Celestia either?” she’d known North had looked up something about Princess Celestia that caused her to avoid going near the palace whenever possible.

“By proclamation of the Princess all who bear the Blessing of the Wind should be taken into custody,” North stated flatly, “I looked up names of those who were taken into custody and there’s no report on what happened to them afterwards,” it became silent for a moment as they all pondered this before Lyra sighed.

“Alright, seeing as we cannot persuade you, will you at least promise to be more open about what is going on, and promise to tell us everything?” North clearly didn’t want to, but at the trio of puppy-dog eyes directed towards her, she gave in and made a Pinkie Promise to do so. Something that Pinkie elaborated on is tied to her Pinkie Sense and would tell her if it was immediately broken.

“This explains so much from the show,” North had muttered before Pinkie Pie tried using the Promise to get her to reveal things about the future, though Fluttershy put a stop to that.

“Like she said earlier, things are different now, and I think we should continue going on as if we do not know what the future is. I-if that’s alright with everyone,” the other three agreed and the subject was changed to what to do for lunch.

After that, Pinkie made a trip up every other weekend since she didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the train (even if her parents were glad that her new exuberance was being directed towards something else than throwing parties every day.) Fluttershy visited as well, though only when North did since she didn’t like taking trips by herself yet and the chance of running into strangers. The filly was trying to figure out what she wanted to do for the future with her Cutie Mark and was researching the Rangers since there were no books in Cloudsdale on the subject. Lyra started her own personal research project and looked up the different Blessings that she’d known nothing about before. Which she admitted to being annoyed about.

North on the other hoof, tried to continue her research but was finding it difficult to find any peace at home. Her parents were very unhappy that skipped grades without telling them and that she didn’t tell them about her personal project. Rainbow Dash was jealous and frustrated because there were fillies and colts at school making fun of her for having a nerdy sister. Not that her sister tried to confront her or anything, rather she decided to take a different approach to get back at North.

A week before the winter holidays, North came to the house, only to find all the scrolls she’d been working on in the attic in a huge pile and her displeased parents with a scowling Wind Scar.

“So, you plan on emancipating yourself and studying rocks huh?” North blanched, inwardly cursing the fact that she forgot to take those scrolls back to the planetarium. She’d just finished the second set of exams and while her teacher said she could skip spring semester, she was going to stay till Fluttershy was done.

“T-that’s-“ he slapped her with one of his wings, sending her to the ground while her parents did nothing but watch.

“You said you were researching the guard, was that a lie?” Bow Hothoof was unhappy and had the nerve to look hurt and Windy Whistles was frowning, giving her a disapproving look.

North saw Rainbow peeking from behind the house with that griffin friend of hers who was smirking and realized that her own sister had gone into the attic to get the scrolls when before not even their parents wanted to go in there.

“I think that you should be taught a lesson in what happens when you deceive your family,” Wind Scar flew up and bucked a cloud, sending a bolt of lightning into her scrolls and setting them on fire.

“No!” she ran to grab them but was backwinged into a different cloud, it felt like she’d been hit by an oversized hammer.

“This is for the best, sweetie,” Windy Whistles went up to her and tried to side hug her but North smacked her hoof away.

“Why is it you only pay attention when I don’t fit your stupid mold, and stop acting like you actually care,” North backed away and ran, Windy calling her and she could hear Wind Scar flying after her.

She did not want to get caught by him.

She dove through one of the patches of clouds and into a small tunnel that existed throughout Cloudsdale, patching up the cloud behind her and randomly going through different tunnels till she came to a bigger spot that had snacks and water bottles.

It was a project she gave herself when she wasn’t visiting Lyra and was forced to stay in the house. She needed a spot in Cloudsdale that no one else knew about that didn’t have that choking feel to it.

Then she accidentally fell in a cloud that was thinner and discovered a small tunnel that someone had dug underneath the school leading towards the snack shed. Through trial and error she expanded the tunnel till it went through all of Cloudsdale and made several emergency staches throughout it. She even used her sense in the wind to tell where exits were (though that’s as far as she got) and if someone else was in the tunnels.

Once she was done, she left the tunnels alone till she would actually need them, and so that no one would find out about them.

Good thing she did.

For an entire week there was no sign from North Wind, searches were sent out but no one could get a hold of her. Fluttershy, upon finding out what happened, wasn’t very happy with Rainbow who tried to search her room for the elusive filly. The rainbow maned pegasus tried to put up yet another case for why Fluttershy should stop being friends with North Wind, only for Fluttershy to Stare at her and state that of the two it was Fluttershy who actually knew North Wind.

She then threw Rainbow out (well Stared at her till Rainbow left) and told her parents that she wanted to spend Hearth’s Warming in Canterlot with Lyra’s family. They agreed and despite it being so close to the holiday, managed to book a room at one of the hotels big enough for Lyra and Pinkie (who had managed to persuade her family into seeing the Hearth’s Warming Play and see a geology exhibition that was on display with rocks and artifacts that had existed before Equestria.) to spend the night. Zephyr was forced to spend the time with his parents who had been talking with Granny Smith and were learning how to tell the colt no, much to his shock.

They ended up destroying the hairs he got from the girls and sat him down for a very long talk, Granny Smith on hoof just in case and gave him a very thorough lecture about why that kind of behavior was wrong in the first place. Granny Smith offered to have him work on the farm to learn the meaning of hard work, but his parents put that idea to the side to his relief.

Lyra had told them that Bow Hothoof tried to have her home searched and even tried to tell her that she was to no longer hang out with North Wind.

Instead of getting her mom (who didn’t need yet another excuse to ban the two of them meeting), she got her Uncle whose growing influence in Canterlot society made Bow stand down. Not having an actual good reason to forbade North without making himself look like a tribalist, and the uncomfortable questions about why she had run away in the first place caused him to retreat. Rainbow was with him and ended up with her hair being turned red to represent her betrayal and mistreatment of North.

(Though if Lyra were to be asked she would’ve stated it was to represent a Hearth’s Warming prank.)

Pinkie Pie luckily or not did not run into them, though she did huddle with Lyra to come up with a perfect prank for Rainbow Dash and Gilda for being meany-pants. Fluttershy, tellingly didn’t stop them.

“I mean, if Mom and Dad destroyed my party supplies I spent months gathering, I would be very upset,” Pinkie Pie was saying, while her family was supportive of her interest in parties, they did tell her to keep the parties to a minimum and said she had to finish all of her chores first.

“Yeah, it sucks when one’s parents tries to do stuff like that, and they found out she was going to emancipate herself too, and she’d been planning to do that without their knowledge,” they were getting ready to attend the play and Fluttershy was drawing a picture with Marble Pie whose quiet nature was calming. Limestone was pouting in the corner, having wanted to stay home to watch the Rock Farm while Maud was looking over a brochure of the geology exhibit. Granny Smith would’ve been there but relatives from the other parts of Equestria were visiting and she was busy putting together a feast for them.

“Do you think North’s okay?” Fluttershy’s sudden question caught their attention, the two paused in their prank planning to think about it.

“She’s fine, North’s been preparing Plan Run-away for years, she’s either with Ruffalo, Gaius, or probably still in Cloudsdale hidden somewhere, or maybe in the Canterlot Library sleeping in a hidden room somewhere.”

“Or she’s at the window waiting to be let in,” Pinkie Pie piped up, pointing a hoof at the window where a shivering North was knocking on the window. Fluttershy burst into action, opening the window and bringing her in, Lyra throwing a blanket around her and Pinkie Pie fetching some hot cocoa.

“Thanks, wasn’t sure if you could hear me through the thick windows,” Maud handed her a scarf which she wrapped around her neck and Fluttershy walked with her to the fireplace where she spent several moments warming up.

“Where did you go? No one knew where you were,” North sipped the cocoa, licking the whip cream off of her nose.

“Under Cloudsdale,” she explained, “I created tunnels under there and spent the entire time with limited supplies,” Lyra raised a hoof, “And yes I created a personal bathroom out of clouds,” the hoof went down.

Limestone and Marble shared a look before the former rolled her eyes and muttered about going to get washed up for the play and the latter hm’d before following after her.

“So what are we going to do? I mean, if you go to the play, where Princess Celestia is by the way, your dad or my mom might see you and tell your family, and Wind Scar. Are you going to stay in the hotel room?” North shook her head.

“Nah, I’ve seen the Hearth’s Warming Play before, Lyra’s probably told you I’ve spent every Hearth’s Warming here the past few years. I actually have a different plan,” she laid out an old blueprint, “The caves beneath Canterlot castle,” the three gasped.

“No one’s been down there in years,” Lyra protested, “What are you going there for? Why don’t’ we just go to the observatory?” North scowled.

“When was the last time you went there?” Lyra blinked, confused and worried.

“Um, I think a few days ago, why?” North showed them a picture of a pile of scrolls being burned.

“Bow went into the planetarium with your Mom’s permission and burned all my notes on the cave systems we went to, luckily he couldn’t get into the other rooms though,” Lyra stared at the picture, entire expression blank.

“Some of those scrolls contained pictures of us,” her horn was glowing, “And one of those was the song about humans that you North wrote down from one of the cave pictures that we had, a cave we can’t return to because it was flooded the next day,” items around them were shaking and Pinkie Pie disappeared before returning with a gingerbread house.

“Want to eat the house?” she tried to calm Lyra down, Fluttershy shot North a look who sighed.

“Lyra, I still remember the song,” the glow died down a bit, “I’ll write it down again, and this time we can change the locks, or if the exploration bears fruit, find a new hangout underneath the castle.” Maud stepped in as the magic winked out, Lyra still scowling but somewhat pacified.

“I’ll tell the adults that you three are not in the mood for the play,” North opened her mouth, “Going alone is not wise,” that got her unhappy looks from her friends.

“You weren’t planning on going down there by yourself, were you?” Pinkie Pie asked, North winced.

“You should spend the night with your families,” she tried, Lyra waved a hoof.

“Not in the mood after finding out what my Mom did,” Fluttershy nodded.

“Mom and Dad will understand,” and if it meant she didn’t have to deal with Zephyr Breeze, all the better.

“Eh, my family is already overwhelmed with being in the new city, if I’m still back to open presents it should be okay, we even did our Hearth’s Warming rock dolls before we left!” North stared at her.
“Rock dolls?” her interest made Lyra smack her own forehead with her hoof.

“North!” their friend looked sheepish.

They all bundled up, North borrowing one of Marble’s hats and a complete winter outfit from Lyra. The moment the play started they disappeared through several alleys and towards the end of Canterlot where North led them into a narrow opening.

“Found this when I was exploring once, didn’t want to go any further before finding out a layout of some kind for it,” they all squeezed through, North trying not to look disgruntled at the glowing from her body, the other three stayed silent.

Pinkie Pie zoomed from one end of the tunnel to the other, oohing and ahing with her pith helmet nearly falling off her head till Fluttershy went over to tighten it.

“This is so fun! There’s a mine and cave on the rock farm but I know every single tunnel and they’re not nearly as exciting as this!” she hopped around them, “I can’t wait to go cave exploring with you guys in other parts of Equestria, I mean, when you can that is,” Lyra and North shared looks, it has been a while since they went caving.

“Hm, we could revisit some of the caves to show you two the ropes, but technically speaking, we’ve been to every single one in Equestria, we’ll have to look farther out, although,” she thought about it, “Technically the Bad Lands are part of Equestria but we never went there,” North huffed, avoiding a sharp rock and leading them down a separate tunnel.

“Because it’s actually a settlement that I just found out belongs to the Nocturne tribe,” Fluttershy froze and Pinkie gasped.

“Nocturne? You mean the vampire ponies that drink your blood and haunt the night?” North tapped her mane, pushing her head back a bit.

“That is just malicious gossip meant to hurt their reputation, you can’t really say anything about Nocturne ponies till you see them for yourself,” Pinkie’s ears went back, looking chastised.

“Oh, sorry,” then she lit up, “Do you think they like parties?!” the question had Lyra giggling while North sighed and Fluttershy hid her own smile.

“You’ll have to go up to one and ask them Pinkie Pie,” then her and Fluttershy stopped, ears perked up, a frown growing on her face matched by Fluttershy’s growing dismay.

“There’s an animal in trouble,” she gasped, North put a hoof to her mouth to signal quiet and carefully walked down the path, tightening the clothes around her and covering up as much as her glowing coat as possible.

Not hearing what they heard, Lyra and Pinkie were forced to be quiet as Fluttershy and North kept their ears forward.

Then they reached a round opening with rocks jutting out around it, and the sound of shouting and growls below.

North crouched to the floor and inched forward, the others following her lead and peaking over the pointy rocks.

Fluttershy covered her mouth while Lyra and Pinkie stared at the scene in horror, North’s mouth was twisted into a grim frown.

Ponies in the Royal Guard armor were marching around, some with whips they used to punish unruly animals in their cages. There were a lot of cages spread out, some containing animals like a phoenix or a fire salamander with its flames being put out every few seconds by a guard shooting water at it from his horn. A chimera was in a different cage, arguing amongst it’s three heads and there was a griffin chained against the wall, roaring at some of the guards who were guarding a nest of eggs and poking it with spears that made the griffin even angrier. Lyra recognized them as griffin eggs and felt sick, what was going on?

North nudged her shoulder and pointed at a pair of eggs in the middle of the room, one orange with stripes on it while another was dark green with diamonds on it.

‘Dragon eggs?!’ did Princess Celestia know about this place.

Then everything got worse.

“Move it! If these items are still here by the time the plays over, I will make sure every single one of you are retired without severance pay!” North stiffened and Lyra stared at the blue pegasus stallion standing right in the middle,

If Wind Scar spotted them, but the stallion turned and exited the room, leaving the guard ponies by themselves and the few Jewel dogs that were there who were from the Diamond Dogs if their collars were anything to be judged by.

The four retreated and went into a separate spot where Fluttershy bit her lip and Pinkie Pie looked like she was restraining herself.

“We’re not leaving those poor creatures like that, are we?” Fluttershy asked, trembling from fear and anxiety.

“But how will we get them out without being discovered?” Lyra furiously whispered, Pinkie Pie looked at North.
“Windy?” her question and nickname snapped North Wind form her thoughts who gave her a strange look at the nickname but was now back with them.

“Pinkie Pie, how many party supplies do you have on you? And Fluttershy, do you hear any animals, insects or anything in the tunnels?” she turned to Lyra, “Lyra, do you know the Bringer of Darkness spell? I can deal with knocking everyone out, but I’m going to need a better cover, even my hair glows,” Pinkie was already taking out a bunch of party poppers and streamers from her hair and Fluttershy was speaking softly to some spiders that she had found. Lyra closed her eyes and sighed,

“Alright, I can even do a muting spell,” hopefully that was enough.