Sky of Jewels
Princess Twilight Sparkle was an innately curious pony. Often, this characteristic seemed to be one of her natural instincts, resulting in her apparent inability to leave new or interesting things alone. When something out of the ordinary happened (which seemed to be more often than not around her and her friends), Twilight’s reflexes told her to focus on it, analyze it, and find out as much information about said occurrence as possible.
As such, one can imagine what happened when The Great Dragon Migration happened in the middle of winter, only a few years after the most recent one. The Dragon Migration was an event that, years ago, had captivated Twilight’s attention and brought about a mini-adventure for her and a couple of her friends, with Spike being the focal point of the matter. This event was a once-in-a-generation affair, with only a few ponies ever seeing it due to the route taken through the sky over Equestria by the majestic creatures. In reality, the migration that the Equestrians saw was only a fraction of the whole scope. The dragons that chose to fly over the land of Equestria were, in fact, the ones who chose the more difficult and longer route, often using it as a way to get the younger dragons introduced to arduous flights. They flew in a long line, several dragons wide and hundreds long, minimizing the amount of effort that had to be put forth due to fitting in the air streams that wove across the sky.
However, this was not what happened on that winter morning. What came on that day was a sight that would be regaled to foals and grandfoals for ages to come. Songs, poems and stories would be written of what was seen, and ponies would use the fact that they’d seen it as bragging rights in conversations or to impress others. That day, the blue sky of Equestria was no more. In its place was a sky more multi-hued than a stained glass room at midday. The sky was obscured by dragons. Hundreds of dragons. Thousands. Tens of thousands. There would never be a count of how many dragons flew across the sky that day, stretching as far as the eye could see, in any direction. Dragons large and small, young and old, bull and vixen, flew through the air indiscriminately. The air displaced by countless wings created gusts of wind so strong that pegasi were grounded, none being able to stay in the air for more than a minute. However, not a single pony cared; all were too taken with the sight above them that they stopped everything they were doing to observe the spectacle of the ages.
To Twilight, though, this event didn’t hold even a fraction of the wonder that it did for other ponies. No, this worried Twilight a great deal, and extremely so. The Great Dragon Migration wasn’t supposed to happen for at least another sixty years, so why was it happening then? Several thoughts occurred to Twilight; first: that this was just the dragons scouting a new route for the migration, though she quickly dashed that idea. There were far too many to be just a scouting endeavour. Next was the thought that the dragons were attempting to show their strength to the other races, though that idea was thrown out as well; the dragons had no reason to do such a thing, as every creature already knew of the dragons’ superiority. Twilight then drew the idea that the dragons were relocating. If so, why would there be that many of them? After many, many trashed possibilities and hypotheses, Twilight decided to do what she almost always did: she decided to send a letter to Celesta.
“SPIKE! WHERE THE HAY ARE YOU?!” were the words bellowed from Twilight’s mouth, echoing throughout the entire castle. Due to the fact that it was a large castle, Twilight had thought it prudent to place several magical amplifiers and conduits at strategic points throughout the rooms - all interconnected - to allow commands and summons to be heard throughout the entire castle, but only when the magic was activated. As such, Spike had absolutely no problem hearing Twilight, and spent the next three minutes attempting to get his ears to stop ringing and regain his off-kilter balance. Stumbling from room to room, as he had just woken up, Spike managed to make his way to Twilight’s study.
“Huh? Twilight, what’s wrong?” was Spike’s question, deciding it was the best one to ask in a situation such as this, lest he garner a drawn out explanation of what to and not to say in response to different summons.
“I need you to send a letter to Celestia,” said Twilight.
“Okay. Let me go get the paper and quill. I left it by my bed.”
“No need, Spike. I already wrote it up myself.”
After being given the letter via telekinesis, Spike looked over it to see what it was that he’d be sending and/or get roped into this time. Seeing the letter, Spike had to do a double-take. Written in nice, flowing text was a very simple letter.
Dear Princess Celestia,
What. The buck.
-Twilight
“Uh, Twilight?” Spike said after a moment of hesitation.
“Yes, Spike?”
“Did you really write this? I mean, come on. This doesn’t sound like your normal letter to Celestia.”
“Well, I’ve been spending more time with Celestia as of late, and just recently learned that she thinks I need to ‘loosen up, drop the constant formalities, and talk to her like a friend’ more often, especially when it’s just the two of us. I thought this would be a perfect time to do just that.”
“Oh. Well okay. I mean, if you’re sure, then I’ll send it.”
“Please do.”
With that, the letter was dissolved into a mass of swirling green ash and magic, flying through the nearest window, directly on its way to Twilight’s mentor. With the letter out of the way, Spike decided it would be best to figure out what was going on that caused Twilight to send such a simple message. Waltzing over to the cupboard on the side of the room, Spike removed a large, brilliant green gem, before taking small, slow bites from it before asking what was happening.
“Hey Twilight?”
“Well, Spike, look out the window. You’ll know why I sent a letter to Celestia.”
“How’d you know what I was going to ask?” At Twilight’s knowing smile, Spike walked over to the window and looked up. He promptly fell to the floor in shock, awestruck at the sight outside. “What. The buck.”
“Exactly what I said. Now, I guess we’ll just wait for Celestia to answer.”
“How do you know that she’ll know what you’re talking about?”
“Seriously, Spike? How could she miss this?” Twilight said, motioning at the window with a hoof.
“. . . point taken.”
It was at that point that Spike’s cheeks bulged outward before releasing when a gout of green flame poured forth from Spike’s mouth before coalescing into a perfect scroll. Reacting on reflex, Twilight grabbed the letter from the air with her telekinesis and levitated it to herself. As was easily assumed, the letter was from Celestia in response to her previous question. Simply read, it stated:
Dear Twilight,
Grab your friends and get your flanks to the castle. Stat.
-Celestia
P.S. Thanks for following my previous advice. Saves time and ink. Especially ink.
Having read Celestia’s letter quickly, Twilight immediately set about doing several things at once, utilizing her magic to the maximum. She wrote up a notice to place outside on the tree castle, gathered and organized all the loose items in her study, and grabbed her saddlebags from the hook by the door. Making sure that she had everything she’d need for a stay away from home, the violet alicorn turned to tell Spike to get ready to go, but immediately noticed that the young drake was already by the door, ready to go.
“How’d you . . . ?” Twilight began.
“Come on, Twilight. We do this enough times that I know the signs by now. I can’t even call what I have a contingency plan, considering how often I have to use it.”
“Heh. I guess you’re right,” said Twilight sheepishly. “Well, we need to go find the others, and get to Canterlot as fast as possible.”
“How are we going to do that? I mean, we can’t exactly fly, at the moment, much less the guards who bring the usual chariot,” was the reply from Spike.
“Well-” at that moment, another message was projected forth via Spike, interrupting whatever plan it was that Twilight had formulated.
Twilight,
Buck it. Hold still, I’m just gonna teleport you guys.
-Do I really need to sign these things?
With Twilight looking over Spike’s shoulder at the message, the only thing that the violet mare and her assistant could do was blink rapidly in confusion, not entirely sure if the letter was really from Celestia. She never spoke so informally, even when she was relaxed.
“Twilight.”
“Spike.”
“Do you think-”
“Eeyup.”
"But-"
"I know."
As soon as that was said, the two disappeared in a flash of light with a pop, leaving the castle of friendship as empty as the moment it was made.
The great solar diarch of Equestria, Princess Celestia, was one of the oldest, wisest, and strongest beings that roamed the planet. Or at least, she wished she could roam the planet. Politics saw to keeping otherwise. However, in all her years of life, she had done much. In fact, there was not much that Celestia hadn’t seen or done that she thought possible. With several thousand years to form ideas, that list was quite extensive, and Celestia knew it was a completed checklist. At that point in time, though, the solar alicorn found herself shocked that another item was just put on her list, and checked at the same time.
Before her, taking up all available space in the courtyard of the castle, was a full contingent of dragon warriors, forming a protective ring around the immense figure occupying most of the area. Celestia was standing tall and regal before the king of the dragons, thought that statement meant nothing when one considered how small she was compared to the dragon leader.
“So, Celestia, what say you?”
Just as Celestia was to voice her opinion, a letter appeared in a swirl of green fire, forming into a letter addressed to her. After a brief moment of a silent pause to read the message, the response came. “I believe I may have a solution, Ancalagon.” With that, Celestia created a piece of parchment and inkwell, before plucking one of her feathers for use as a quill, and began to write.
Twilight had been prepared for anything. Whatever it was that Celestia needed to tell her, she was sure that she could do so without fail. Yes, she was prepared for whatever she would be confronted with from Celestia. As such, she was caught completely unawares when she appeared in the center of the Canterlot Castle courtyard, surrounded by a dozen large, terrifying, full-grown dragons. After a few moments of abject terror, Twilight noticed Celestia standing right next to her, which served to calm her down a great bit. Turning her head, Twilight decided to ask her former mentor a few questions.
“Umm, Celestia?”
“Yes, Twilight?”
“When are my friends getting here?”
“Oh, I set the teleport to occur about a minute after locating each one of them.”
“Wait, you can do that? How come I’ve never heard of it?”
“I might show you some other day. At the moment, we have a rather pressing matter on our hooves.”
“Well, as curious as I am about that, I have to ask. Did you send letters to my friends telling them you’d be bringing them here?” Twilight looked questioningly at the princess next to her.
Looking down at Twilight, Celestia opened her mouth as to speak, before halting and snapping her jaw back shut. “ . . . Whoops. Well, this should be interesting.”
The only thing that the violet alicorn could do was to face-hoof in response. Yes, it was going to be interesting indeed. The two didn’t have to wait long before the first of the foci of their most recent conversation appeared in a flash of light.
“-and right after I got the third loop in, I started to spin out, but it was all planned, ya know? So, me being as awesome as I am, deci-”
“Eep!” At the sudden interruption, Rainbow Dash was snapped out of her recollection and seemed to take stock of the situation around her, most notably the shivering mess of a pegasus that was trying desperately to hide herself behind Dash.
“Whoa! Where’d these guys come from?” Getting into a fighting stance, Rainbow tried her best to look intimidating, despite the horror she felt inside. There was no way she’d tell her friends that, though. “Don’t worry, Flutters. We can totally take these guys. Just stare at ‘em, and I’ll kick their flanks!”
“Wait! Dash, stop!” came the hasty warning from Twilight, knowing that there’d be trouble if the cyan pegasus started a commotion at a time such as that.
Looking over, Rainbow saw Twilight and Celestia standing calmly relaxed a few metres away. Relaxing and standing back up, the rainbow-maned pegasus looked quizzically over at the two princesses.
“Twilight? What are you doing here? Don’t you guys see the dragons?” The last action was punctuated with a sweeping motion of the courtyard with a blue hoof.
This time, it was Celestia that chose to speak up. “Yes, Rainbow Dash, we see them quite well. In fact, they are the reason I brought you here, but not for the reason you might think. Now, I’d have to ask you to stand down and please come here. And do bring poor Fluttershy as well. I really should have thought this through more.”
Though the last comment was meant in relation to teleporting Fluttershy among a group of dragons, it garnered a smirk from the King of Dragons. It did not go unnoticed by Celestia. “Now, I believe we must wait for the others, who should be along shortly.” No sooner had she said that than another flash of light and a pop came from a few metres to the left of the company of four mares.
“-you see, darling, there’s no way that this could possibly-” Whatever Rarity had been about to say was lost in a high-pitched gasp, followed by the white mare falling on a fainting couch that was drawn from seemingly nowhere.
“Whoa, Nelly! Ya’ know what, Rares? Scratch what I said earlier. We might just need a bigger rope after all.”
At the sight of more of her friends appearing near her, Twilight called out yet again. “Applejack! Rarity! Over here!”
“Howdy, Twi! Ah reckon y’all got somethin’ to do with them critters there?” Applejack asked, looking over to where Twilight and the others were, Rainbow having already managed to drag Fluttershy out of her panic attack and relocate her.
“Yes, Applejack. In fact, it was Celestia here who teleported you. Why she chose not to send advance warnings is beyond me,” - Twilight shot an irked glance sideways toward the subject in question - “but the important thing is that you’re here now.”
The focus of the mares having been on Applejack, nopony had noticed Rarity recover from her fainting spell and start walking over to her friends. Looking behind the alabaster unicorn, Twilight addressed her. “Rarity? Where’d the couch go?”
“Why, my dear, I assure you I have positively no clue as to what you’re talking about.” Rainbow muttered something about Pinkie and random.
“Well,” Twilight started, “it looks like everypony’s here except for Pinkie.” Once again, as if on cue, a flash of light appeared from a bit farther off in the courtyard than the others had appeared.
“Yes! My portal worked! Mom and dad, I’m here to--wait. You’re not my parents.” Pinkie’s back was turned toward her friends. “Though, the big one does kinda look like Fluttershy’s father . . . “
“Pinkie? What are you talking about?” was Twilight’s comment on the odd things Pinkie was saying.
“Twilight? Girls? Wait, you mean the portal didn’t work?” Turning around, Pinkie started walking towards her friends, muttering to herself. “I knew I shouldn’t have used seapony tears . . .”
“What are you talking about, Pinkie?” came Twilight’s inquiry.
“Yeah, Pinkie. I mean, we all know you’re random, but that was weird. I mean, that looks nothing like Fluttershy’s father, I’m sure. Seriously! That’s a dragon, not a pony. Am I right, Flutters?” Rainbow looked behind her at a Fluttershy who was staring distractedly at the ground in front of her hooves, pawing idly at the grass below her.
“Actually, Pinkie, I don’t h-”
“Aaah! Now that everypony’s here-” the gaze of everyone in the courtyard was drawn to the regal alicorn “- I believe that we can begin with the matter I called you six here for. As I’m sure you noticed, my little ponies, that the sky above Equestria is filled with dragons on what appears to be a mass exodus-”
“I would rather you let me explain, Celestia.” The way in which the great black dragon stated his interruption left no doubt that it was not a humble request.
“But to explain the problem at hoof-”
“Claw. The problem at claw. I would remind you, Celestia, that this is our problem, and thus a problem at claw. It is our problem, and one I am here to warn you about so as to keep it from becoming a problem at hoof.” The gaze that was sent to Celestia was one devoid of any warmth, icy to its core, cold enough to send shivers up even her spine.
“Um, excuse me, mister dragon sir, but, um, what problem is that, exactly?” The timid question coming from Fluttershy shocked the other ponies, as she was the absolute last one they had expected to ask the question.
“Yes, I too, am curious as to what it is that you feel the need to warn us about, much less trigger the dragon migration so early,” said Rarity to the large onyx drake.
Bending his long neck down toward ground level so as to better make eye contact with the seven ponies before him, the Great King of the Dragons stared directly at Fluttershy.
“Young one, this is not the migration. The mighty race of dragons is fleeing. Fleeing as fast as it possibly can.”