117: The Hoard of The Ancient Keeper - by SpinelStride
The Hoard of The Ancient Keeper - by special guest author SpinelStride
Chapter published 23rd Sept 2013
********************
Sixteen small, sharp claws clicked against the stone floor. The little dragon barely heard his own footsteps. He wasn't crying anymore; it was his own panting that was making the bulk of his noise. He wasn't sure exactly where he was anymore. He'd found the cave entrance and smelled gems, so he'd gone inside. There was a big cavern inside, and huge tunnels that went down into the mountain. The smell of the gems came from the tunnels, so he'd followed.
The tunnel was long; it looped around several times, and it was very dark inside. Even dragon eyes need a little light to work with, and he couldn't keep a flame going long enough to show him everything. He'd long since figured out that he should have brought a branch or something from outside to use as a torch. But it was okay. As long as he went around on all fours and didn't move too fast, he'd be able to stop himself if there was a big hole or something, and he could follow the smell of gems just fine without light. The floor felt nice and smooth, so he guessed this used to be an old mine or something.
The air was warm, but he knew about geothermal energy. If he was down underground, it should be hot. Maybe they'd abandoned the mine when they hit a lava tube, and by now it had had time to cool down. That made sense. There would be plenty of gems left after something like that, and a nice warm cave system he could make into a lair. Then he'd live here forever and...
... and never have to go back. That'd show her. She didn't even want him anyway. She wanted a real assistant, not a baby dragon who wanted to waste time playing instead of taking her notes and cleaning her lab and making her meals. Now she could go get one and he could be a dragon all by himself.
A sweet scent hit his nostrils and his eyes widened in the darkness, bitterness vanishing as quickly as it had re-emerged. That couldn't be. He couldn't be so lucky. A fire ruby? He'd only ever had a sliver of one before, and that was a special birthday treat! But this smelled like a lot more than just a shard. But if there was a lava flow, then that'd make sense that a fire ruby might have grown in the aftermath. He skittered faster. There probably weren't any pits and holes in the ground between him and that ruby.
There was, however, a wall. He ran smack into it, headfirst, when the smell of the ruby was so close as to be downright maddening. He dropped onto his rear and rubbed his skull. his eyes watered, but he kept from crying. He'd cried enough today and he was a wild dragon now, all on his own, so he shouldn't cry. He should look for his prize instead. He sniffed. The ruby was... off to the right, very close. He put a claw on the wall and followed it, scenting after it in the dark. Closer, closer, closer... there!
He reached up and found the ruby embedded in the wall. Perfect! It was held in place, stuck to the rock, so he had to tug at it. It was really in there solidly. He got both foreclaws on it, then pulled so hard he lifted himself right off the ground, and still it wouldn't come loose! Finally, he wedged the tips of his claws underneath the top edge of the ruby and pried at it. With a resounding CRACK! the stone snapped apart and fell free from the wall. The little dragon fell on top of the pieces.
A burst of flame lit the cavern, and a series of lamps hundreds of feet up on the walls flickered to life. The little dragon looked up, eyes squinting in the sudden light. There was another dragon there. The other dragon was big. Really, really big. The baby dragon was smaller than one of the smaller teeth of the big dragon. He was purple, with sharp green spikes atop his head. A long, long golden chain was around his neck, connecting to the ends of a tiny little necklace with a blue diamond shape in the center.
Wordlessly, the little dragon rolled over and held up the pieces of the ruby. His mind was completely blank. He was about to die and his only possible chance of survival for a few extra seconds would be the time it would take for the big dragon to take those bits of ruby and then eat him.
The enormous claw lowered. It picked him up with surprising precision and delicacy, lifting him up to one of those gigantic eyes. He was smaller than the big dragon's eye. He was too terrified to even wet himself. The ruby chunk were still in his claws.
"What's your name, son?"
It was like the mountain itself was speaking. That voice. It was vast. Deep, rich, powerful. Layered. There was so much being asked there. One thing being asked directly, but the little dragon couldn't help but answer the rest.
"My name's Clawed. I'm running away. I didn't know this was yours. I'm sorry."
"Yes. You are," the voice said. It was gentle the same way a weathered mountain is gentle, soft curves over enormous power. "What are you sorry for?"
He tried to hang his head, but being held up like that it made him sway, so he looked into that giant eye instead. "I'm sorry I took something that wasn't mine, and I'm sorry I broke it," he said, and swallowed.
"It's broken before, and I've given it away before," the big dragon said. "Perhaps the time has come again."
"If you gave it away, why do you have it?" Clawed asked, looking at the pieces, still holding them up.
"Do you know the secret of dragons?" the voice asked him. Honest curiousity was there, and rumbles of anticipation. A secret that wanted to be shared.
Fortunately, Clawed knew lots of secrets. "That we live for thousands of years and we're fireproof and about the Noble Dragon Code and about the Ancient Keeper?" he answered,
hoping one of those was the right one.
"Tell me about the Ancient Keeper," the voice rolled out.
"He's the strongest, most powerful dragon ever, who created the Noble Dragon Code, and he lived all the way back in the First Golden Age, and..." Clawed trailed off, then squeaked, "And I just broke one of his gems?"
"That seems to be the case," the Ancient Keeper agreed. "How long have I slept?"
“Long enough…” Clawed whispered. “... Long enough only the Princesses remember you? And I met a dragon who said his grandfather met you but I didn’t believe him.”
“A long time, then,” the giant dragon said quietly. Even with that voice, the words barely disturbed the air. He gestured at the cavern with a claw, and set Clawed down. “Time to start anew once more.”
Clawed looked. He looked up. And up. And up. He could see the golden fitting where he’d torn the fire ruby free. Over it, carved into the stone of the mountain’s roots, the profiles of a dozen ponies and two dragonesses were sculpted in such detail they seemed to move in the light of the fires. Another wall showed eight mares - Celestia and Luna in back, looking exactly as they did today, and six mares, two of each tribe, in front of them. One was the same as the leftmost mare on the wall over the fire ruby’s spot, and that unicorn was wearing the same necklace as hung about the Ancient Keeper’s neck.
The wall across from that one had just three mares on it, with a strange bipedal creature in the middle and a baby dragon at their feet. Two of the mares in that one, one of the unicorns and a pegasus, were also in the one with Celestia and Luna. The creature looked like some sort of de-horned, skinny, flat-faced minotaur with huge hands and really weird feet.
“My family,” the Ancient Keeper said. “The first one. The ones who raised me when I was your age.”
Clawed fell onto his rear, staring. “Ponies? You… the Ancient Keeper was raised by ponies?” Tears welled in his eyes. “But you’re the dragoniest dragon there ever was! You can’t be raised by ponies!”
“And why is that, Clawed?” the voice asked him.
“Because… because then dragons aren’t just dragons! Then dragons are… dragons come from ponies too,” Clawed sobbed. “How can a dragon raised by ponies… how can he be a dragon? It’s not fair!”
Those massive eyes looked down at him. Clawed hung his head now.
“I can smell your mother on you.”
“She’s not my mother!” Clawed screamed. “She’s my boss! She was my boss! She didn’t want me! She just wants me so she can make me do her work and have all the fun she wants!” Then he gasped. “But now you can come back and show her, right? Then if you tell her she has to do all the work she’ll have to, right?”
“And why would I do that, Clawed?”
“Because you’re the Ancient Keeper! You’re the dragon who stands up for other dragons and makes sure nobody goes around stealing hoards or anything. You’ve got to! If you tell Glimpse she has to let me go, she’ll have to do it!”
“Tell me about her.” The Ancient Keeper looked up at the wall with the three mares and the strange biped.
“She’s bossy, and mean, and she never lets me have any fun!” Clawed said bitterly. “We never have enough gems and she always stays up all night and I have to stay up with her so I don’t get to meet anybody and she likes her telescope more than she likes me anyway.”
“She’s Luna’s student, isn’t she?” he asked.
Clawed stared up at him. “You… you know her? She… yeah, she is. She… she hatched me. At the entrance exam for Princess Luna’s School of the Mystic Arts. There hadn’t been a pony-hatched dragon in over four thousand years.” Then he drooped again. “And Princess Luna likes her better than me, too. They always send each other letters, but I never get any. I just burp them up. I might as well just be a mailbox for all they care.”
“She’s heading this way,” the Ancient Keeper told him. “She’s done something very clever. I haven’t seen starlight used to swing from before, but there’s a silver unicorn doing just that.”
“I’m not going back! I’m gonna be a dragon, not her flunky!” Clawed said, voice cracking. “You won’t let her take me, will you?”
“She’s crying,” he said.
“I don’t care!” Clawed yelled. “She should cry! She should know what she did!”
“That’s not very noble,” the Ancient Keeper commented.
Clawed started to speak, then looked up. If anyone had the right to say what was noble, it was the dragon who wrote the Noble Dragon Code.
“I’m not… I mean… It’s hard.”
“It’s meant to be. If it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t mean as much.”
“I still don’t want to go back with her.”
“You have some time. It’s going to take her a while to get here, and then she’ll have to come down the tunnel. Unless we meet her outside.”
“No,” Clawed said firmly, and turned his back on the entryway. “Maybe I can’t stop her from coming, and maybe it’s not noble of me to be glad she’s unhappy she lost her flunky, but I am anyway and I’m not going back to her, even a little way.”
“Do you know the name ‘Twilight Sparkle?’” the Ancient Keeper asked, and gestured at the unicorn just beneath Celestia. “She hatched me. I ran away from her once.”
Clawed looked up at the massive stone carving. “She made you come back?”
“She saved me, and she apologized to me, and I apologized to her, and we straightened things out,” he said.
“Why did you run away? She was making you do all the work too?” Clawed asked, then scowled. “Lazy ponies always want dragons to do all the hard stuff, right?”
One enormous claw touched under Clawed’s chin, then withdrew. “I was jealous. She took on a second assistant to help her, and I took it to mean she didn’t want me anymore.”
Clawed stared. “... You ran away because you had to do less work?”
The great purple dragon laughed. “It wasn’t usually work to me. It was sharing time with Twilight. I loved her. I loved helping her. Sometimes I did want more time for myself, and sometimes we argued, even fought. But in the end, she was my mother, and she was sharing with me what she loved.”
“What… happened to her?” Clawed asked.
“It’s been a long, long time,” the Ancient Keeper said softly. “Long enough that generations of dragons have lived while I slept, just now, and I was old before I slept. I’ve had many friends and even families of my own since then. But you never forget the ones you love, no matter how many of them there are.” He raised a claw and brushed it delicately across the wall with the mares and dragonesses. “No matter how long it’s been.”
“Are… are you… lonely?” asked Clawed, and swallowed. He looked down at the broken ruby, still in his claws, and offered it up again.
“Loneliness comes and goes. A friend told me, when I was about your size, never to be lonely too long, because you can always find more friends to be with. It’s being alone that you have to watch out for.”
“Isn’t loneliness the same as being alone?”
“No. Being alone means there’s no one to be with. Being lonely means you aren’t with anyone. I’ll never be alone.”
Clawed looked at the three enormous carvings in the walls. “You always have your memories?”
The Ancient Keeper laughed, louder this time, booming against the walls. “No, those keep me from being lonely. I’ll never be alone because I’ll always have at least two friends.” He gestured at Celestia and Luna again. “The princesses are older than me. Celestia helped raise me, when I was a new-hatched whelp and Twilight wasn’t old enough to take care of me herself. They’ll outlive me, too. But I’ve lived long enough now that the difference in our ages isn’t that much, relatively. We’ve had each other. They know if they need me, they can wake me.”
“How have you lived so long? Dragons live a lot longer than ponies, but you’re a lot older than even that.”
The Ancient Keeper touched a claw to his necklace. “Do you know about the Elements of Harmony?”
Clawed shook his head.
“They’re magical artifacts. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna found them when they defeated Discord, near the earliest days of their reign. They represent some of the fundamental virtues of ponykind. And not just ponykind. Equestria. Those who wear them live greatly extended lives.”
Clawed stared up at the necklace. “So… if you took that off… would you crumble into dust?”
The Ancient Keeper laughed again. “No. I would begin to age normally. And I am not a young dragon, even taking into account the Element of Generosity’s effect.”
Clawed blinked. Several times. “What is a dragon doing with something that represents generosity? Isn’t that…” he waved a claw. “Undragonly? Or… did someone give it to you?”
The Ancient Keeper looked down at him. “It is dragonly to hoard. It is the way of a Noble Dragon to know when, and how, and why.”
Clawed looked back up. Then at the carving of the mares and dragonesses. Then down at the ruby. “You gave this to them. To the ones you loved. And they gave it back when you outlived them. And you hoarded it because it was a memory of them.”
“And I gave it away when I met someone who deserved it,” he agreed.
“I’m sorry,” Clawed whispered again. “I didn’t know. It smelled so good.”
“It always has. It’s always been there, since I was very small. It’s always been something to give, not something to be taken.”
“But… I took it,” Clawed said, and swallowed. He rushed to the spot on the wall and tried to fit the heart-shaped ruby back into its place, but the two pieces fell back into his claws.
“Take it,” that voice told him. “It’s meant to be given, but I can’t give it the way I mean it anymore. You can give it a different way.”
“I don’t understand,” Clawed said.
“I think you will. Soon. Glimpse has found the entryway.”
“Don’t let her in! I don’t want to see her anymore.”
“You’ll have a very long time to not see her, Clawed.” Two sharp clawtips lifted him again, and those age-worn eyes looked at him together. “You will see her grow old and die. You will see her name lost to the world save for your heart. You will find ways to remember her, then. Make the most of each day as it comes.” He shifted his grip, holding Clawed in his palm.
Clawed stared back into those eyes. For the first time, he thought about what being a dragon meant. What it really meant. He thought about Starlit Glimpse as an old, old pony. He thought about standing in front of a stone with ‘Starlit Glimpse’ written on it. He began to cry.
“Being a Noble Dragon means being worthy of all those lives you’ll touch, Clawed,” the Ancient Keeper said softly. “Your life is their monument. What they teach you, what they give you, what you keep of them, that is your true hoard. Things are just things. That is the secret of dragons.”
Clawed was still crying in the Ancient Keeper’s palm when the clatter of hooves announced the arrival of a silver-coated unicorn into the cavern. Her eyes went huge at the sight of the massive dragon holding her Favorite Flunky. He’d been gone when she woke up that evening, and she’d been wracking her brains as she chased after him, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“L… let him go… please?” she squeaked. It had come out much more bravely in her head.
To her vast surprise, the Ancient Keeper lowered the baby dragon to her. Clawed grabbed her neck and hugged her with all his strength, burying his face in her mane.
“A baby dragon needs more sleep than a grown pony,” the massive dragon rumbled gently to her. “And Princess Luna once herself fell prey to being lonely in the night.”
“I’m… I’m sorry…” whispered Starlit Glimpse. “I… I’m sorry, Clawed. I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I thought you liked stargazing with me…”
The little dragon was crying too hard to speak back, and soon Starlit Glimpse was too.
When they left, the Ancient Keeper wrote a letter to his friends to tell them of his waking, and to invite them to visit, his bulk making it impractical for him to come to them.
That night, Clawed gave Starlit Glimpse half of Spike’s Heart.
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Damn, that was heavy.
that was beautiful...
Nice job.
i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn105/walkseva/ManlyTearsHaveBeenShed.jpg
Wow
how <expletive> far in the future is this? if he(spike) has outlived many generations of dragons, should equestria not be firmly rooted in the space age? perhaps even at the point of being a type 2 civ?
3246436 Assuming he was the last dragon hatched via magic, roughly 3920 years.
...
I don't like this story. I really just don't like the Xenophilia universe itself. I won't go into the reasons, mainly because that would be very rude of my to do so. However, this chapter, right here, is goddamn beautiful. I love reading about older Spike, and this... simply amazing, friend. Great job.
Damn you for making me cry this morning...
Thank you.
That was lovely.
oh god, those feels hurt so good.
Good stuff. With feels.
That was beautiful, man.
3246436
What use do ponies have for space? They can grow rocks, make tons of food quickly, and control the weather. The princesses control the heavens. What good would a spaceship do them?
That was sweet, I guess, but Glimmer-whatnot needs a smack to her head. 'Favorite Flunky' indeed ...
I suppose I was expecting more 'Spike looking back' but that wasn't the focus of the story. I dunno, it lacks an emotional impact for me. It's good but ... well, yeah. I just said that. I want to like it more then I do but I can't. Sorry.
Huh. Well, I guess that settles the question of Twilight's immortality. At least, for this story.
Good to see that the Elements haven't been needed for multiple draconic generations. I guess they just ran out of ultimate evils.
In any case, a heartwarming story, a very positive spin on the immortality blues. Thank you for it, Spinel.
At first, I actually thought it was an alternate version of Spike running away in "Owl's Well That Ends Well" and the figures were Megan from G1 and her pony friends. It wasn't until Clawed explained his story that I realised he was a totally different character.
I did wonder if this was a Lunaverse AU at first, though.
Some things never change. The same stories; just different names.
3246750
A friend of mine pitched a story which I think (outside of perhaps curiosity) which I thought would be one of the few reasons ponies would be motivated to go to space.
An object falls from the heavens, and it's discovered to be artificial. And contained within it is a message. Not a greeting, not a threat, or even an insult, but rather the one thing that would immediately make a pony seek its creator: a desperate cry for help.
One thing I did like here was that despite their obvious parallels, Clawed (...Clawed. Claude. Ha!) and Glimpse are still distinct characters with notable differences as much as similarities. As someone noted, things may always be the same, but at least the details are different enough to keep it interesting.
3246884
Did it really answer that question, though?
If you pay close attention to the wording, they didn't actually reveal anything. Never once did he say Twilight died, but he did say "They'll outlive me" immediately after mentioning both the princesses, AND Twilight.
3247087
Let's look at the whole paragraph:
It's fairly clear that he's referring to only Celestia and Luna throughout. Granted, there is wiggle room here, but if the "Favorite Flunky" of Luna's personal student has never of the Elements or of Twilight, that would mean she's nowhere near Equestria. Maybe she set up shop on the Astral Plane...
I'd most certainly be crying if i wasn't in class right now
The liquid PRIDE!!!
3247053
I like that.
3247515
Yeah, try to imagine the alien races trying to conceive of it: they sent out distress calls, hoping to find other spacefaring races to aide them... Only to find out one of the beacons was answered by a pre-space civilization who went through all the effort, expense and danger of inventing space flight just to help?
3247629
That would be heartwarming.
... Why is Twilight dead if she's an alicorn?
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7102672640/h9DFBA2F3/h9DFBA2F3.jpg
3247087
refers to Twilight in past tense.
thats a lot of past tense for what he said. It may be that Twilight is dead, but it never outright states it.
What happened to this story is seems to have nothing to do with xenophilia any more??? its just become impossibly hard to follow.
fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/360/d/c/all_the_feels_by_nothguy-d5p7709.jpg
3248177
that could just as easily mean that those feelings are in the past, but not necessarily twilight herself; that they grew apart at some point but he still remembers those moments fondly.
Oh wow that was great! I like the idea that Spike made up the noble dragon code thing since he knows squat about those jerk wild dragons.
Wow. Maybe it's just that I'm finally reading Fallout Equestria but this chapter really captured what Spike must have to go through when his friends and family are long gone. It's stories like these that make you really believe that Immortality would be a curse.
the fucking feels man.
3246884
What 'Ancient, Misbegotten Evil' would stand up to a massive, ancient dragon utilizing the full might of the Elements Of Harmony?
Idunno about you, but I think most of the evils now have taken the form of pastries, and Celestia has valiantly defended her realm from their savage ways.
But still, most of the Big Bads would probably flee from an enraged, fully-grown Spike, and if Celestia or Luna can always just say, "Hey, Spike, wake up and get to kickin' their ass," at virtually any time, then those big bads are probably more likely to just run scared. It'd be like if Godzilla shot concentrated Harmony Beams instead of plasma.
3251524
Click here if you dare. There is a chapter that mentions it on the one-shots but this is the unabridged chapter. I'll never be able to unsee Vinyl popping up to DJ for the Canterlot Wedding thanks to this.
This was a wonderful chapter. Well written, and a side of Spike we normally would never see. Thanks.
Interesting, and I loved the feels in this.
I am conflicted as to whether I want to learn more about this ancient spike and the time he now lives in, or if I want to remain ignorant of the possible sadness that entails.
3255487 Ah, I had a felling that's what it was, oh well I guess it kind of makes sense in a society where they don't normally wear clothes. I didn't realise there was a forum for this, interesting.
oh my god stop you made me FEEL things!
3251235
How about those... things... that kidnapped Lero from Earth?
3268344
Those are more subtle Things, and they much prefer messing with things just barely behind the scenes, than actual direct confrontation.
If they did get into a direct confrontation with a full-grown Spike wielding the six Elements of Harmony, they would not be assured of a victory. And that is the minimum requirement for them to perform such an action.
spike the creator of the dragon code seeing him older and much wiser then he is now and placing wisdom on being a noble dragon is a really good read and I enjoyed this greatly.
For some reason I really like stories that deal with immortality and loss. These stories man
For some reason all of the passages that say "Twilight&Co are dead" read more like "Twilight&Co are often unavailable when he's awake." And the final line about writing a letter...seemed like outright stating that they CAN visit him. Especially with the line about not being able to move.
Also, with other parts of Xeno canon(Gah where is that chapter???) putting forth that Twi&Co are immortal, with the big different one being "Lero is Immortal," they are still around in my mind at this point.
In reference to Lero seeing Luna in his dream and her being surprised. I think it was mentioned in another story that she had control over whether or not she was seen,. In Leros dream she seems to think that she is invisible and the shock is that Lero sees her no matter what.
I cant stop Crying.
It was so beautiful.
The chapter is good, but I personally dont like retrospectives, especially such "a long time ago" retrospectives. It somehow destroys he mood for me.
3533198
Juvenile herd. It's something that'll turn up in a forthcoming Scootaloo chapter... if I can ever finish the damn thing.
3533731
Ding! Got it in one.