I Wish I had an Angel - Part 2
“This looks like a good spot.” Ice Heart sat down facing the two dragons that were following him. “You can rest if you need to.”
Fluttershy watched in concern as Twilight dragged herself towards the drake. “That… was… cheating…” she said as she gasped for air. She wiped the sweat from her face. “I don’t know what you did, but you cheated, somehow.”
Ice Heart put a claw to his chest, feigning hurt innocence. “Me? What did I do? Aren’t you just being a sore loser? Where we even competing in the first place?”
Fluttershy gently fanned the hatchling with her wing. “She’s right, Grandpa, that wasn’t very nice.”
“It wasn’t?” The drake crossed his arms. “Then why didn’t you help her? You had no trouble keeping up. And, I doubt carrying her would have slowed you down any.”
“She never carries me anywhere.” Twilight grabbed onto Fluttershy’s wing to help herself up. “But I don’t care about that. I want to know how you were able to go that fast. You were just walking, and our legs are about the same size. What did you do?”
Ice Heart squinted at her. “You really didn’t see it? You didn’t feel it?” The drake stood up and walked around Twilight in a wide circle. “And here I thought you were going to be some sort of prodigy. I’m kind of disappointed. So, how often do you practice your magic?”
Fluttershy wrapped her wing around the hatchling as she backed away from the drake. “Grandpa, you shouldn’t ask about that. Rarity-”
“I already know all about it.” Ice heart pointed at Twilight. “Her magic caused harm to somedragon she cares about. I want to know how well she’s learned to control her power since then.”
“Shut up!” Twilight shouted. “I can’t control it, so I don’t practice. I don’t use my magic, ever.”
The drake walked up to her. “Then you are still a danger to those you love.”
Twilight hugged the feathers surrounding her. “That’s why I don’t use it. If I keep my magic sealed away, it can’t hurt anydragon.”
“Yes.” Ice Heart pulled Fluttershy’s wing away from the hatchling. “But you aren’t sealing it away.”
Twilight backed away from the drake. “Yes, I am!”
“Don’t argue with me!” The drake held his claws out in front of him, making a circle that he could see Twilight through. He slid his claws past each other and balled them into tight fists. “This is a seal!” He opened his claws and spread them wide. Threads of light shot from the ends of his claws, and wrapped around Twilight, immobilizing her mid-step before fading away.
“Stop! What are you doing?” The hatchling tried to move, tried to put her foot down, but it was stuck just a few centimeters off the ground. “Let go of me!”
Fluttershy stepped in between the two smaller dragons. “That’s too far, Grandpa! Let her down, now!”
“I can’t. Once the seal is set, it must last for at least one minute.” He walked past Fluttershy, attention focused on Twilight. “This is a seal, hatchling! It requires magic,knowledge of magic, and control of magic. You can only seal that which you know and understand! And you do not understand magic.”
“Grandpa, we’re going back to the others as soon as the seal wears off.” Fluttershy shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe you would do something like this.”
Ice Heart waved the dragin’s words off with his claw. “I’m not interested in what you believe at the moment.” He walked up close to Twilight, and stood eye to eye with the hatchling. “Do you understand now?”
Tears fell from her eyes as she struggled and failed to nod.
“Just relax.” Ice Heart put a claw on Twilight’s shoulder. “The less you struggle, the looser the seal becomes, and the sooner it will release. Understand?”
Twilight took several deep breaths, and was able to nod slowly. “If this is a seal, what was I doing to my magic?”
“Storing it.” The seal came undone, and Ice Heart caught the hatchling as she fell. He helped her sit down, then tapped her on the chest, right over the heart. “You’ve been bottling it all up and keeping it inside you. Through the seal, I could feel it. Magic is a seed that never stops growing, but you kept yours from sprouting.”
“Ok, we’re going now.” Fluttershy moved in and scooped up the hatchling in her claw. “Hold on, Twi.”
“Wait!” Twilight squirmed out of Fluttershy’s grip, landing at the dragin’s feet. “Please? Just wait a little bit?”
“Twilight…” The yellow dragon looked back and forth between the hatchling and her grandfather. With a troubled sigh, she leaned towards Ice Heart. “Don’t do anything like that again, Grandpa. Rarity is a good friend of mine, and I promised her years ago that I would protect Twilight. I will keep that promise.”
“I like your resolve, moonbeam.” The drake patted the end of her nose. “But, don’t worry, I won’t have to do anything drastic now. The hard part is over.”
The yellow dragin sighed again. “I hope so.”
Ice Heart walked towards Twilight as his grad-daughter moved away. He gave the sitting hatchling a pat on the head and said, “I’m sorry I had to do that to you kid, but are you ready to talk about your magic now?”
Twilight looked up and nodded.
“Good.” Ice Heart sat down in front of the hatchling. “Think of magic as a seed. It grows roots, and it grows a stem. The stem is the magic that is used, its leaves, flowers, and thorns are the changes made to the world around us, good, bad and neutral. The roots represent the magic inside. It fuels the stem, and grows unseen. As a dragon grows, so does the magic inside.” He gestured at himself. “As you can see, this growth doesn’t have to be physical. It could be mental, physiological, or even just growing more accustomed to magic in general. The dragon is the field in which the seed grows.”
Twilight listened closely to the drake’s words, silently nodding every so often.
Ice Heart allowed himself a small smile at the Hatchling’s eager attention, but forced it back as he continued. “Normaly, the field grows. It’s carefully tended to, dirt is added, and the plant can grow without limit. But, your magic is different. The plant sprouted, and at the first sign of a thorn, you pushed it back into the dirt. Then you uprooted the whole thing and stuffed it into a flower pot so you could watch over it and make sure it never grows.”
The hatchling looked down and nodded slowly. “That kind of sounds like what I did.”
“I know it is. Hey.” He waved a claw at the hatchling. “Hey, look at me.” He waited for her to look up. “This is important. If you forget everything else I say to you, remember what I say next. Got it?” He waited for a nod. “Magic never stops growing. As long as you’re alive, your magic will grow bigger, and stronger. Under that dirt, the roots are still growing, twisting in on themselves to buy time. But, pretty soon, they’re going to outgrow that flowerpot.”
Twilight swallowed hard. “What happens then?”
“It takes years, far more than you’ve even been around for, but the flowerpot eventually breaks.” Ice heart clenched his claw into fist. “I’ve seen it happen. Three times, I’ve seen it happen. They each had different reasons for rejecting their magic, and each of them thought they had it under control. Each of them broke.”
“W-will that happen to me?” Twilight hugged her arms to her chest, as if to hold herself together. “Am I going to… break?”
Ice Heart shook his head. “Only if you refuse to change. It took as many as a hundred years for those others to break. You haven’t even been around for ten.” Ice Heart stood up and walked over to Twilight. He stood beside her and rested a claw on her shoulder. “You are safe for now, but what about the future? What happened to those other dragons was terrible. You’re too young, I won’t tell you all of it, but you should know that only one of them survived.”
Twilight looked up at the drake. “Did that dragon get better?”
“No,” Ice Heart’s voice cracked, “he didn’t.”
The drake was facing away from her, but Twilight could see tears falling on the ground. They only fell on the left side. “Was he a friend of yours?”
“No!” The drake snarled, not at Twilight, but at memory. “That thing, it can’t even be called a dragon anymore, it went mad long before I was even born. It was sealed away, by force, after killing many, many dragons, including its own brother.”
Twilight gasped in shock. “What?! Then, why are you sad? Isn’t it better for somedra-thing like that to be sealed away?”
“Of course it is,” Ice Heart said calmly. He looked back at Twilight. “But the ones who sealed him only did so because they couldn’t kill him. And keeping him sealed means that somedragon must sacrifice their magic to keep his locked away.” He turned his gaze to the night sky, and the bright moon above. “Right now, my mate is the one keeping him sealed. She is just as much a prisoner as he is, locked away, deep in sleep, alone and forgotten.” The drake wiped at his good eye. “Sorry, kid. We’ve all got our sad stories, and I shouldn’t burden you with mine.” He cleared his throat and turned around. “I should be focusing on you. I want to make sure your friends don’t have a sad story to tell about you.”
Twilight hesitated for a moment, then stood up as tall and proud as her height allowed. “What do I have to do?”
Ice Heart reached out to the hatchling, a glowing sphere of pure-white energy floating just above his palm. The hatchling instantly recognized it, the light-bringer spell, the first spell magic dragons learn to cast. He crushed the glowing ball in his fist showering them both in harmless sparks. “Harness your magic, and learn to control it.”
“But, how?” The hatchling touched the star hanging from her ear-fin. “My magic hurts Rarity, so she can’t teach me.”
“She doesn’t have to be the one to teach you. I could order Spike to teach you, or you could just ask him. Seeing as how he’s got the hots for that caretaker of yours, he’d probably jump at the chance to impress her. He’s not even the only option.” Ice heart set a claw on her shoulder. “There are angels watching over you, kid.”
Twilight squinted at the drake. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Ice Heart smiled and walked away. “If you can catch me, or tell me what I am doing, I’ll tell you.”
Twilight groaned as she started after him. “Not this again!”
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For some reason, I get the feeling that Twilight will somehow teach Twilight.
Hmm, very interesting. Now you got me pining for Rarity and Spike's conversation
Iceheart is still an unbearable person. No matter how wise he is.
Love Iceheart. One of my favourite characters. Such a unique personality. (Or rarely seen, I should say.)
3622307 if you mean pony twilight teaching dragon twilight... then yeah I can see that happening somehow.
Okay, that's interesting. If I'm remembering the previous events of the fic correctly, Luna has never been mentioned. I'm going to go out on limb and guess that in this world, Luna is Iceheart's mate and is missing because of the story we just got. Also, that living-yet-broken dragon sounds an awful lot like Discord.
3624786
Interesting speculation, the moon connection certainly makes it plausible. I'm not sure why a discord analog would seal away his magic, though.
3624786
How could the mad dragon be Discord when Iceheart IS Discord in this world? I would guess that it is Nightmare Moon as a male persona and Luna is Iceheart's mate who has to use her magic to bind him to the moon.
3625110 Iceheart is Discord? I either missed that or just forgot it.
Nice. Even though I think Iceheart is a bit of a jerk, I still think it's nice what he's doing to help Twilight out.
~ Super-Brony12
Ah, character development. Twilight just isn't Twilight without the practical end of magic.
As always, looking forward to more. I especially love what you've done with Tank.
3625110>>3625771
Iceheart is Discord?!
WHAT?!
3622307>>3624437
That. Would. Be. AWESOME!
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3625110 Where in the story does it say that iceheart is discord?
Did you all forget that discord and his daughter were mentioned to be in the military in one of the chapters.
3629942>>3625771>>3631310
When Iceheart is introduced to the gang for the first time it goes into detail about his bizarre mismatching clothing. If you pay close attention you notice that each article of clothing is the same color and location as one of original Discord's limbs. It doesn't directly state that he is discord but with his wild and unpredictable behavior and that hint it is strongly implied.
3632897 I can buy that, seems like good reasoning.
3632897
Oh.... I just kind of took his wild acrobatics and such to be like Master Asia's crazy martial arts abilities.
I admittedly don't remember the details of his appearance aside from "He is small and bipedal".
Its been awhile since he was introduced.
3632897
It's a nice theory, but a dragon named Discord has been specifically mentioned.
From "A Perfect Day":
And then in "Spectres":
Sure, Iceheart has some Discord-like qualities, but when there's another dragon who seems to also have the right qualities and is actually named Discord, I think the latter is probably the match.
Maybe its just me not being able to go back and reread all the chapters..but when did they end up on the back of Tank? I remember the forest camping trip -> run into creature -> run into a disguised (stuck?) chrissy -> teleport..but I dont recall all that to the "ruins" that turned out to be tank.
Love the story, but there's just something about the pacing and chapter availability that ive kind of lost track of fully whats happening at this very moment. Anyone got a summary that can fit into an appropriately sized comment here?
3647339 I think, not really sure, that the firecracker teleport, was a beacon, for ice heart to locate them and teleport them, then after chitchat and a fight, Ice used his magic to teleport them to Tank.
as they said, going somewhere is easier than bringing someone over, so they did not detect the second teleport.
3647339 and chrissy was stuck because spike had beaten her before, and they left her tied up, I guess she also got pulled in the teleport...
3647339
What's-his-face teleported them again in the last chapter while fending off everyone (except Spike, Twilight, and Chrysalis). Spike mentioned this while talking to Chrysalis, at the same time as the big dragons are all scrapping.
>>>“Just relax.” Ice Heart put a claw on Twilight’s shoulder. “The less you struggle, the looser the seal becomes, and the sooner it will release. >>>
Bah! Kurosaki Ichigo strained like crazy against Rukia's binding spell in "Bleach" episode 1 and he totally broke it! All you need is to be a stubborn teenage protagonist and you can beat anything with badassery!
3730498 Twilight's not a teenager, though. She is also decidedly un-shonen.
3805755 Well that's Twilight's fault! If she wants to be one of the cool kids, she'll level up to a shonen teenager at once!
3809170 Well, that shouldn't be too complicated! Just get her to YELL! EVERY! WORD! SHE! SAAAAAAYS!
3809662 She also has to strain like she's been constipated for 37 years to boost herself to Super Dragonsan!
3818020 Not to mention expositing and monologue-ing about the subsequent power boost, and all the no doubt myriad benefits thereof.
3818933 Oh, and we simply must have a 15-minute flashback to the training sessions where she first learns to summer her powers through rage and righteous indignation.
3825426 Or, we could skip all of this namby-pamby crap, and simply enroll her in THE SCHOOL OF THE UNDEFEATED OF THE EAST!!!
3826361 Eh, just give her 'Falcon Punch' so she can PWN everything.
3827757 This is really more along the lines of what I had in mind...
I agree with the assessment of the previous commenters; it sounds like Ice Heart's mate is Luna. Who is also likely Celestia's missing sister. And the Moon is probably involved in the seal. But who is inside the seal? Jorgmungandr, perhaps? It would tie the currently known mythology together quite nicely.
One problem with Ice Heart's description of the sealed “thing” is that he says he witnessed said dragon/thing breaking under magic-constipation, yet also says that it went mad long before his time. These seem directly contradictory.
Also, plot-related breakthrough on Twilight and magic. There isn't much to say about that yet; let's see how she handles her first spell, first.
5587965
That makes a ton of sense, especially with his connection to the night. It also hinted at his connection when Spike said he raised the moon. It was so subtle that I almost missed it a couple chapters ago.