Letters to a Stranger - Special Episode
Spike yawned as he laid into his bed. It had been a long day. Zecora has needed his help for a lesson, Apple Bloom had needed his help because she overworked herself, again, and the mayor had wanted his help to promote some new store. Apparently his appearance at the opening meant that it had his, and by proxy the Princess’ approval, but frankly, what kind of store only sells quills and sofas?
Now, after finally sending Twilight to bed, he was ready to just go to sleep. A strange interruption demanded his attention however, sending him to the study to read.
A puff of sparkling green smoke floating towards him before transforming into a floating letter.
Dear Spike,
I apologize for not writing to you about this sooner. My sister is forcing me to focus on recovering from our encounter within Evermute Forest.
You and your friends had completely stripped me of my magic it seems, causing a bit of sickness in the first weeks. Only now am I able to use my magic to send this letter.
See, a dragon’s amber flame can be used to make magic unstable. I, as Nightmare Star, took advantage of your attempts to spark the elements of harmony by introducing my own magical flames which mimicked those of another dragon.
My “false ruby” dragonflame allowed me some control over the reaction, the explosion, allowing me to destroy the elements before you could truly to wield them.
Your grateful reformed friend ex-princess, Celestia.
Sitting there at his desk, Spike was confused to say the least. There was a lot to unpack with that letter.
First off, ‘mimicked those of another dragon’? Was it possible that other dragons had other abilities similar to his own? Were his abilities not simply the result of his unique birth?
Second, ‘false ruby dragonflame’? Was Celestia implying that dragons had abilities that not even ponies had complete access to? How did she know a term that he’d only heard his brother use to refer to his magical breath?
And her use of the term ‘false ruby’ implied the existence of a true version. Could Spike wield a power comparable to Nightmare Star? Was he more of a match for the fallen princess than he originally thought? That’s definitely a confidence boost.
Beyond all of that though, the last bit of the letter… she clearly didn’t seem to know how to refer to herself. Was she nervous to speak to him?
Grabbing a scroll and quill, he began to write.
Dear Princess(?) Celestia,
You don’t need to be worried about referring to yourself as my friend. I’m more than willing to be one. I have to ask though, why are you referring to yourself as an ex-princess? Are you not reclaiming your title?
Your friend, Spike The Dragon
Dear Spike,
I thank you for your words. It calms my heart to know that you at least have forgiven me for my actions.
So answer your question, no, I will not be returning to the throne just yet. After allowing my pride to consume me like it did, I don’t believe I should hold that level of authority again.
Perhaps at one point I will return to my sister’s side, but for now I must work on my collection of mental, physical, magical, and spiritual issues before I am worthy of the crown once more.
To avoid leaving this letter on that mildly depressing note, I must ask how it is that you, a dragon, came to be my sister’s most trusted assistant and student? Equestria has clearly changed much since my time, but this particular situation still seems quite unusual.
Your friend, Celestia
Dear Celestia,
I wish you luck on your journey to recovery. Maybe you could visit Ponyville sometime. This place seems to have a weird pattern of helping visitors with their emotional problems.
How I became Luna’s student isn’t really much of a story. I was found as an egg by her a long time ago, and was used as part an exam for her school. Luna had a close eye on me since I hatched, and even personally oversaw my education when I first developed my magic breath. I was kind of adopted by one of her students after that. My position is just kind of a natural evolution of the odd situation she found herself in after finding me.
Actually, this kind of leads into something I’m curious about. See, I try not to associate myself with dragons and dragon culture. I’m starting to get over it, but I’m still scared that everypony will be afraid of me if I go out of my way to improve that knowledge.
Clearly though, you, and apparently my brother, know some things about me and my kind that I had no idea about. I always thought that ‘dragonflame’ was just a cool sounding name that my brother used to refer to my magic green fire, but here you are using that apparently not made-up term.
Also, here you are talking about a ruby dragonflame when I only just discovered that I had a blue one during our encounter in the ruins.
Are these all abilities common to dragons? I honestly don’t have any idea.
-Spike
Dear Spike,
Found as an egg? Really? Strange. It’s a shame that you know so little about your species.
Other dragons do have the same abilities that you possess, but are not quite able to use them at the same frequency. See, while they can wield magic with their fire, they cannot produce magic by themselves, or at least not very much. They absorb as much of it as they can from the gems that they consume, which allows them to wield five different flames naturally. One of amber, of emerald, of sapphire, of topaz, and of spinel.
To my knowledge, any other magical flames only exist because of unnatural circumstances. Though I only know of three such unnatural flames, I’m sure that more exist. The ruby which only appears to the dragon lord, the onyx which I believe is a form of dark magic, and the opal which I’ve only seen used once and have no further knowledge of besides its existence. There is one other that I’ve heard about, but have no real information on.
Most dragons can only wield one flame at a time from what I’ve personally seen, two if they're skilled. Your third was a huge shock to me when I saw it. Mixing flames can alter the effects, such as what happened between your amber and my false ruby. An explosion from the unstable orange, controlled and directed by the commanding red.
As for the terminology, your abilities are actually known as ‘Dragonfire’. ‘Dragonflame’ is used when referring to a single type, and ‘dragonflames’ is used for a group of specified types.
I’m unsure if there’s been any evolution to the creatures of this world since my banishment however. Scrying spells didn’t work quite as effectively while was imprisoned, so any information I have is coming from over a millennia in the past. Apologies if something I say is… outdated, to phrase it nicely.
-Celestia
Any information is better than no information, right? Besides, even if things aren’t exactly the same as they were then, it’s kind of cool to hear about the ancient past from a direct source.
Do you have any idea what these other flames do or how I can use them? I imagine that I’d be able to use the other natural ones at least, right?
Your draconic student, Spike
Possibly. I’ll help if I can, but I always believed that, unnatural dragonfire aside, a dragon would only have access to the magics they were born with. Though perhaps that assumption is wrong. I hope that you can grow beyond your innate talents, learning new flames just as a unicorn may learn new spells.
Unfortunately, I only have direct knowledge of the ruby, spinel, and topaz flames, I seriously doubt that you can attain the ruby without assistance from the Dragon Lord themselves, and I can’t help to develop the emerald, amber, or sapphire. Though… As I mentioned previously, it’s possible to mix flames. This is called a ‘companion flame’, if I remember correctly. I cannot do it due to the counterfeit nature of my own fire. If I could, the encounter with Nightmare Star would have gone very differently.
If you can figure out how to mix flames, you should have able to improve your arsenal of abilities even if you’re unable to use the other dragonflames. For now though…
The topaz flame is pure yellow in color and acts as a way to modify what it’s used on. It’s how I was able to transform into a living fireball at will. If you have the right components, you can use it to create entirely new objects or improve existing ones.
The spinel flame is pink and is less like fire and more like pure magic. It has only slight heat, and can be used to burn away or empower magical effects. For the most part, this flame doesn’t have any obvious direct use aside from interfering with spellcasters. However, I found this flame to be one of my favorites for its ability to reinforce and empower the enchantments set into artifacts.
Assuming that it will work the same for you as it did for me, you should be able to wield these flames by tapping into the seven draconic impulses. Wrath, pride, envy, greed, etcetera. These impulses, and mastery over them, is how I was taught to wield my own flames. Learning how each impulse manifests within you, embracing it, and then conquering it.
To find the topaz, face your greed. To find the spinel, face your gluttony.
That’s good to know I guess. I’ll try and think of something, but the literal route is probably what I’ll end up going with anyway. I’d like to keep it simple, just out of the way of my normal life. Maybe I’ll keep a hoard of comic books in the basement or something.
Hang on a second, I just realized that your letters have been appearing by themselves, in a cloud of smoke. The same smoke generated by my green fire. How did you pull that off if you don’t have direct info on it like your others?
I didn’t contradict myself, young drake. I have the other basic flames, I just wasn’t directly taught how to use them. The amber, sapphire, and emerald flames all came to me naturally once I developed my False Dragonfire spell. The only things I know of them is that they’re represented by, the impulses of wrath, pride, and sloth, respectively.
In hindsight, that probably should have been a sign to step back and think about my life choices.
From how Nightmare Star acted, I get why you have the orange and blue flames, by why did you have green? You don’t exactly seem like a lazy pony to me.
It actually kind of has to do with the reason that I don’t want the throne that Luna is offering me. More-so than Nightmare Star even.
Both myself and Luna were naturally talented and powerful as fillies. That power only grew as we did. As an earth pony, Luna had to scrape and claw every ounce of strength she has. I, as a unicorn, was able to take the easy route.
I studied scrying magics. Clairvoyance. It was a crutch that allowed me to take shortcuts. It taught me things I couldn’t have known, showed the way to treasures I’d never have found, and it let me see things that no pony should ever have seen.
Luna earned her wings and her horn. I was born lucky and I still cheated to get mine. That is how my sloth manifests.
You feel like you never earned the throne to begin with.
Heavy.
Uh…
So you guys weren’t born as alicorns? And Princess Luna was an earth pony? I always thought she was just born as an alicorn.
I’m not surprised. considering the fact that I was nearly wiped entirely from history, I doubt any information from our shared reign and before has survived the tests of time.
No, an alicorn cannot be born, as far as I am aware. We had to earn our ascensions through some form of trial, something with difficultly and far-reaching effects. The one time someone attempted to challenge that idea, it didn’t turn out well. It was an ordeal that I, much like Luna, would rather forget entirely about.
As for Luna being an earth pony, well, there isn’t much to say. She was an earth pony. Simple as that. And I was a unicorn.
Well, what was you reign like? Apart from the whole jealousy and downfall thing.
It was a hundred and five years of pure bliss compared to my experience trapped on the moon.
Myself and Luna had to go out of our way to fight off monsters almost daily back then. New villages would appear in dangerous areas all the time, and so ourself and professional monster hunters would need to go out to fight off all kinds of threats.
Considering that one of the flames that came naturally to me was amber, you can probably guess how much I liked to do that. Those fights were some of the only times I felt fully appreciated by my sister and our subjects.
It seems that the royal guard has taken up most of those duties, but I plan on joining them myself, regardless of whatever else I plan to do when I fully recover.
Perhaps I’ll ask Luna to split a sixth of our soldiers off into some kind of “Solar Guard” or “Day Guard” and have them dedicated specifically to helping me fight.
I was going to say something about you just having trained fighters with you in a purely support role being a little irritating, but then I remembered how easily you knocked down a group of thestrals when you first showed up.
You should probably train them up to your level them instead of just keeping them around as eye candy. I’d very much prefer my brother to not get knocked down like a bowling pin if a threat of your caliber shows up again. Especially if you’re going to be taking guards out with you specifically to hunt threats like that.
That’s a good point. Effort to strengthen the guard could certainly prove useful in future events. Im just used to myself and my sister being the only consistently useful ponies around. In situations like a hunt, at least.
Spike wrote to Celestia through the night. By the morning, they both felt like their encounter in the Evermute was nothing more than a bad first .
Little did either of them know, a tired visitor from a molten wasteland was beginning to make his home in a nearby forest, carving his way into a mountain cavern to prepare his lair.
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Hey there. Thanks very much for getting this next chapter up. It took a while, but was quite worth the wait. VERY much appreciated the bits of world-building in the letters Spike and Celestia exchanged (even if I had to use highlights to read Celestia's letters, some of the stuff Celestia mentioned concerning dragon types and the types of flame breath indicates at least some need for secrecy anyway) and I can understand that Celestia is still feeling too ashamed of her past actions to reclaim her old role as a co-Princess.
Anyway, definitely looking forward to more of this story when you can find the time and inspiration.
The fact that the chapters are still coming out says a lot and I'm glad that you didn't abandon the fics, but simply postponed it for a while and maybe we can see new chapters more regularly.
11294610
I really could not have picked worse colors to use for letters and dreams. I will ruin the light mode experience AND the dark mode experience at the same time.
Good work so far, can't wait to see more!!