Bell to Pay
When magic was restored, it was like I was a filly again! Belly bursting with enough energy that I could run for hours with my Tootsie! My legs never felt stronger, my back could carry any load, and even my… well, you know how it is working full time and chasing after three foals, yet I felt invigorated! It was all I could think about!
And then I saw Sprout making his way toward the ruined lighthouse. At first, I thought he was going to inspect that machine he built. Maybe give it a good buck. Well, we all built it, I’m sorry to say, and maybe we should all give it a good buck or two. But then he kept going, a curious glint in his eye. Phyllis was chatting with that strapping unicorn and those two pegasi princesses, and I knew I would lose him if I tried to get their attention. So I told Toots where I was going, he gave me a quick kiss goodbye with a “Stay safe, Sweets,” and I took off after Sprout.
I lost sight of him a couple times as we went into that dark forest, the spooky one, full of snares and shadows even with the light from the aurora above. Gnarled roots tugged at my hooves, twisting branches grabbed and pulled, conspiring to leave my mane worse than Toots does when I’m on my back. A couple times I thought I spotted what Sprout was following after. The sight nearly spun me around then and there, but I wasn’t leaving without the colt. Okay, yes, stallion, but I spent too many nights pulling his hoof away from electrical sockets to think otherwise. Plus, after the stunt he just pulled?
We stopped at a clearing, and I got my first good look at the creature. It was a ram. He stood taller than Alphabittle by a good two hooves; wider and heavier-set, too. Two blue horns twisted off his skull. They were like tires on a cart, monstrous things with sharp points on the end I was sure would spear our precious Sprout like a kebab. He was covered with bristly blue hair, thick and coarse. He had a short white mane and tail that matched his bushy eyebrows, and a curling blue goatee. Is that breedist?
Anyway, he had with him an ancient green bell, marred with scratches and with a big chip off one corner. Parts of it were stained with rust, or maybe those were the only parts that weren’t oxidized. That happens to copper, right? Maybe he had taken it from the lighthouse, I don’t know, but I recognized the long purple feather in a glass case. You know, the one that Argyle called his ‘proof’, but of what I never really got. And he had one of Sunny’s old quilts, the one with an orange and yellow sun made of yarn.
“You are not afraid,” the ram announced, and I knew he wasn’t talking about me, because my knees were knocking against each other like a foal’s rattle. His voice was deep, and had a slight echo, like he was speaking from the bottom of a well. Every word was perfectly annunciated, and carefully chosen, which made him seem slow and ponderous at first, but gave his speech a measured and erudite quality. Ordered, in a word, like a dirge.
Sprout crept forward, still wearing that silly uniform he made to go with the metal suit. He laid down the cap reverently. I didn’t know the colt had it in him to pay respect to anypony, much less a strange creature, but he bowed his head and announced, “I know who you are. Grogar!”
The ram chuckled, a deep and echoing laugh that put my heart at ease, like when my grandsire would set me on his knee and ask me what I wanted for Hearth’s Warming. “It would seem I have not been gone for too long if there are those who still remember my name.”
“Yeah!” Sprout was jittery with excitement. He fearlessly trotted forward, bouncing like a foal, all eyes and gaping smiles. “Mister Starshine talked about you in one of his stories! You were my favorite, even though nopony else liked you! The Necromancer, right?”
Grogar nodded, an amused smile on his wide, toothy mouth. “That was but one of the many titles I was bestowed by those afraid of the inevitable; yes, by those that dreaded and ran from their destiny.”
“Oh, pony!” Sprout exclaimed. He either didn’t hear that last part or didn’t care. “I made so many characters based on you!” He squatted down in the grass, hooves tapping against each other like he was playing with his dolls. Err, his action figures. Miniatures? I can never keep up with what the colts are playing with these days. “I would be all in charge of my loyal legions, and they would do whatever I commanded them to!” He beamed up at Grogar like the ram was his own sire. “Did’ya know I got the whole town marching around, doing my bidding?”
“A feat worthy of song.” Grogar waited patiently while Sprout squealed with delight.
“It was awesome! We were all, like, ‘Mob. Mob. Ma-ma-ma!mob! Mob. Mob. Angry, angry!”
What? Don’t look at me like that. It was really catchy! Maybe you just had to be there.
Anyway, after a bit of dancing Sprout lost his fervor. “But,” he hesitated, “it turned out that wasn’t what we were supposed to be doing.”
Grogar cocked his head to the side, his grandsirely smile telling Sprout that he was wrong, but in a kind, friendly way that prompted the colt to defend himself.
“We were supposed to be friends. Friendly.” Sprout sighed, and I couldn’t tell if it was at himself or at the lesson. “How were we supposed to know that? I know my history! Well, the parts of it that matter!”
“The strongest lessons we learn, the ones that hit closest to our hearts,” Grogar rebutted as casually as swishing his tail, “are of our failures. You learned a powerful lesson this day. One you will not soon forget.”
That stunned Sprout into silence. “Huh,” he said after his mind rebooted. “You’re saying me messing up was a good thing?”
“As valuable as the lesson you learned.”
Wow.” Sprout sat down, the first time I’ve ever seen him eager to listen. His hooves restlessly tapped at the ground. “If you’re so wise, how did you lose?”
“Lose?” Grogar chuckled as he sat next to Sprout. “Many an aspiring hero lacked conviction to their beliefs, and failed to do what was required. Or their beliefs crumpled when tested, unable to merit the faith of their adherents. A strong forge burns away impurities, and I harnessed volcanoes and the fires of heaven to temper those to come. A small price to pay for salvation. You remind me of those fires, in a way.”
Sprout grinned. “My dam always called me a firebrand.” His smile fell slightly. “Or a hellion. But only when she didn’t think I could hear.” His head bowed. “I don’t think it was a nice thing.”
“Being a dragon is not ‘nice’, either, yet that is their purpose.” Grogar paused, but Sprout just stared at him, uncomprehending. He continued, “Greedy, vengeful, spiteful, prone to outbursts of anger and resentment. Yet there is a spark of equinity in them which, when cultivated, could redeem and sustain them through all their temptations. The one you remind me of most… Garble, that was his name. You share his body color, though your mane matches his wings more than his frills.”
“Wait.” Sprout squinted. “Garble was real?”
Grogar nodded. “He and many others.” He gently placed the green bell on the ground. “My proudest day was when my magic was removed and placed into this bell. A Kirin, of all things, combined her power with those of a band of unicorn warriors.” He reverently picked up the yellow and orange quilt. “Thus, my task completed, the foundation laid, I watched the sun rise on a grateful world.” He set it slightly to the side to carefully pull the long feather from its glass case. He twirled it around, light sparkling off the purple like stars at twilight. “And those that came after.”
Sprout just looked befuddled. “You… wanted to lose? It wasn’t real?”
“No, it was very real. For a champion is only as worthy as their opponent, and I strived for my opponents to be as worthy as they could be. It was not easy, for any of us, but the hardest choices require the strongest wills. For instance.” From his hoof Grogar pulled a patterned double blade, sharp on both edges, exactly symmetrical. “Do you see this knife?” He demonstrated by holding it out. “It is perfectly balanced.”
Sprout’s sigh was thick enough to be cut by the blunt handle. “As all things should be?”
“No.” Sprout’s eyes went wide as Grogar tipped the knife, letting it tumble from his hoof. It landed point down, half buried in the grass, the other half a clear hazard to anypony walking around. “It is easy to disrupt balance. It is costly to those who attempt to disrupt established Order.”
Sprout warily regarded the knife. He tried pushing on the flat of the blade, but it was embedded too deep in the soil to loosen. He tried biting it, gingerly at first, then growling and shaking his head back and forth when it still refused. Then he yelped! Oh, it tore my heart to see him clench at his deeply cut lip, dripping blood onto the grass and all over his hooves. But Grogar just smiled his grandsirely smile, and laid his hoof on Sprout’s withers, and before my very eyes the cut healed! Sprout was astonished, too, and looked at the knife with befuddlement, like he wasn’t sure if it was real or if the cut was real or if the healing was real.
“But what if it does get disrupted?” Sprout asked as Grogar calmly placed his hoof over the blade and firmly pushed down. No metal remained when his hoof withdrew, nor any sort of wound. Sprout pointed at the hole in the ground. “Like that. I know something was there, but if I forgot, or if somepony else just happened to casually walk by?” He demonstrated as though it was a difficult to grasp concept, even kicking at the opening to cover it up. “They might never know.”
Grogar stared at the partially covered hole, as stupified as Sprout can be, and I don’t need to tell you how difficult that is. “I had not considered that.” To Sprout, that admission was the highest of praise. “That such lessons, the most important a pony could learn, would fail to be passed on.”
“So we just gotta teach ‘em again!” Sprout grinned and grabbed his cap from the ground. “Emperor Sprout, reporting for duty, ma’am! Err, sir!”
“Is that truly what you wish?” Grogar drew to his full height, dwarfing the stallion, but Sprout stood firm. “To again teach the world the perils of apathy, the bitterness of betrayal? Of covetousness, despair, enmity, and fraud? You will earn no accolades along this path; you shall be forsaken by those you once called friend, your name cursed and reviled by all.”
If anything, the dissuasion only hardened Sprout’s resolve. “If it’s for the good of ponykind?” Grogar nodded. Sprout clasped a hoof to his chest. “Then I’ll do it.”
“Then we shall require additional allies.” Grogar’s grin widened. And then he…
“What?” Sunny Starscout demanded, her four friends crowding closely around Sweets as she anxiously chewed her bubblegum. “What did he do?”
Grogar held the long purple feather with two hooves, like a magician concentrating before her finale. Then he twisted, and the feather fanned out, suddenly a dozen! He twisted again, and again, now grasping a whole wing. He yanked it apart, two humongous wings connected by a thin strip of lavender coat. Flesh and bone knitted itself from nothing, sinews and tendons forming before he tugged the coat and hair down like a comfortable sweater. He pulled and teased and stretched until it was taller than anypony I’ve ever seen. From her long, regal face he withdrew a spiraled horn, and a mane that billowed like a dark blue aurora.
“Friend-Maker,” he named her, and beheld the sun of yarn like a sculptor with a block of fine marble. “And Day-Breaker.”