The rock formations were much bigger than they had seemed from the distance, naturally, but he was very thankful for that once he got into their shadows. The beating sun had dried his scales out something horribly so the cool shade was a blessing in and of itself. He would have loved for it to be closer to an oasis though.

A superstitious part of him felt as though the sun was punishing him for the loss of its ruler. The rest of him knew that was silly angst, his mind just trying to place more blame on himself. But he couldn't shake the feeling. He should have protected her. Or at the very least, not been so weak as to have been a liability. She didn't need to sacrifice herself for him, he would have probably survived. Dragonskin was pretty hearty.

"It killed Celestia, it would have destroyed you. You know better, Spike." the dreamdragon hadn't even had to chastise him for that one, he was doing it himself

His inner voice had been silent since the argument and he was not sure how he felt about it. The being, whatever she was, had been nothing but helpful before, if not mysterious. For her to be as outright hostile as she was earlier had been new, just like it's change to a teen dragon and its girlish frame.

Was it getting stronger? What was it?

Sitting against the cool rock, he sighed and took a moment to relax. The dragon closed his eyes.

He looked at the white alicorn with a terrified look, like any child would have if they had been caught in the act of doing something wrong. His hand was caught in the “gem jar” like a unicorn foal using their magic to get into a cookie jar. She looked as thought she was holding back amusement but putting forth a stern facade. Spike, naturally, saw none of this, and the baby dragon started crying.

The gentle warmth of Celestia's magic enveloped him and his crying sniffled away.

The dragon awoke with a start, looking around frantically. He had fallen asleep unintentionally, and he had been out for a while if the starry night sky was any indication. The initial shock of his waking wore off quickly, only for him to realize that he was freezing. The desert air chilled him quickly, and Peewee was cuddling against him trying to provide, and share, what warmth he could. Spike hugged the baby towards him and smiled, pulling his cloak around them. He tried to adjust himself to get a little more comfortable, when a gentle breeze swept across him. He felt a powerful presence and his eyes were drawn up to see the moon.

Also, Princess Luna.

“Hello, young Spike.”

The dragon waved back at her, a small grin growing on his face. Finally, someone friendly that wasn't a bird! Not that he didn't love talking to Peewee but he didn't talk back. He hadn't realized how lonely he had felt.

The lunar princess flew down next to him, landing with a soft sound. She looked more tired than Spike had ever seen her, and sad.

“What brings you to the neighborhood, Princess Luna?” Spike asked, his curiosity piqued.

Luna managed a small but tired smile.

“We- I was flying to Rideyah and I felt your dream. I had not realized you were here. You see, the Princess of the country has disappeared and I was going to see if I could lend a hoof of assistance in finding her. I hoped to sense her dreams.”

Spike looked saddened for a moment, realizing he had just bombarded her with images of her dead sister but he pushed it away, focusing instead on the Princess's reason for being in the desert nation.

“Have you had any luck? I was trying to look for her myself, I figured this would be a place to start, see if I could smell any magic or anything, but I haven't found anything. I haven't really even started, to be honest. I sat down to rest a minute and then I woke up to see you.”

Luna looked a bit shocked at the dragon's words. It seemed odd that the two of them would find each other with the same purpose in mind.

“So have you found her, Princess Luna?”

“Just Luna, is fine, thank you. And no, I have not yet located her, however, I do sense horse magic lingering here, but it's disguised, faded, as if something was covering its tracks.”

The Moon Princess closed her eyes, and her horn began to radiate with magic. Spike closed his eyes, and took in the feel of it, the scent and was in awe.

Where Celestia's magic was warm and embracing, Luna's was colder, striking and almost wild, and as powerful as Celestia's magic was, Luna's magic felt nearly as infinite as the stars.

Her eyes shot open and she frowned.

“I think I found her... but... she didn't feel panicked at all. I could only probe her dreams for a moment but she felt almost jubilant. Something isn't right...”

Twilight grabbed another book with her telekinesis, bringing it closer to her face.

Coming to live at the palace again might have had horrible reasons behind it, but Twilight was determined to make the most of it. She had thrown herself into training, spending entire nights pouring over tomes. She had learned a spell to help her sleep more efficiently and the magic of her Element was overcharging everything, increasing her reserves. She was useless to protect her teacher during the war, but it would not happen again.

Twilight would train until she could lift the sun by herself, if only to ease Luna's and Cadence's burden.

However, tonight wasn't for training. In her studies, she had stumbled upon some older scrolls and texts, finding things she had never even heard of. Being a princess, even if by name only, had its perks and that included getting to read into Celestia's private study. She had come across scrolls that were very interesting and very ancient. They went even beyond the time of Star Swirl the Bearded, and very few ponies even knew what went on then.

Alicorns. Luna, Cadence, and Celestia had been the only ones she had known of. Goddesses in terms of power, really, and on their worst day still easily more powerful than any regular pony. A changeling, even a Queen, should not have been able to overpower Celestia, let alone kill her. It was still so hard to believe, and that was why she had began to dig. Surely, Celestia was still alive, biding her time and healing.

But from her research, it was the truth. Not only could an alicorn die... most of them already were dead. The more she dug, the more questions she had. All of the alicorns had simply disappeared, leaving only a handful. Celestia made no mention of it in her journals and Celestia had documented everything.

This was one of the oldest ones, the one she was reading now. The journal's pages were ancient. As she flipped through the pages, she gasped and the book fell down, open on a page.

There, drawn in immaculate detail and colored to a perfect hue was...

Alicorns were incredible. With a levitation spell, Luna picked Spike up and began to make a hasty flight outside of the rock formations with out a single word. Peewee perched himself on Spike's back, content to let the telekinetic bubble carry him instead of flying himself.

"Where are we going, prince- I mean, Luna?"

The dark mare looked back at him with a serious face.

"Where I last felt her. She's not alone. Be prepared. We may have a battle ahead."

Spike gulped and he felt Peewee give an unconscious shiver. He didn't feel like having Peewee around combat was a good idea. He was still a baby. Granted, he wasn't exactly old enough for combat either, a year shy chronologically from being able to enlist into the Equestrian military.

"And what do you want to be when you grow up?" the white mare asked him, looking down on the now 4 year old dragon.

"I wanna be an army pony like Shiny! So I can be big and strong and I can beat up bad guys and then I can be your bodyguard and we can hang out and play all day!" Yellow magic enveloped him as it began to tickle him, and the little dragon laughed.

Spike shook his head. He needed to focus. He wasn't exactly a fighter, but he was a dragon and that was enough most times. Especially if he could pull off what he did during the invasion.

He wouldn't let this princess get hurt. Determination etched itself into his visage and the purple drake felt a surge of magic inside of him as his wings formed in a green flame. The bubble eased off of him and he clumsily caught up to Luna, Peewee still floating in what was left of her telekinetic spell.

Luna looked at her companion, and began to increase her speed. Spike did his best to keep up, wondering if she had sensed something to warrant the change in pace but realized that every time he caught up, she'd push even faster? Was she testing his capabilities? Racing him? It wasn't quite the right situation to challenge one to a race but he could see a reason behind a test. If they were going into combat, she'd need to know what he could do.

Too bad he wasn't quite sure what he was capable of. Dreamy had done something, unlocked something primal and powerful and angry, that was deep inside of him that he hadn't been able to call back out since. His emotions had something to do with it, he had surmised during his journey so far, but that was it. It didn't help that the only emotions he felt were depression, angst, and the feeling of being lost and overwhelmed.

"Hush now, quiet now... it's time to lay your sleepy head..."

The baby dragon laid in his little bed as she sung him to sleep, a feeling of calm washing over him as the angelic voice drifted through his ears.

He barely whispered it, but he looked up at her with the innocent eyes of a tired child.

"Good night, mommy."

He had fallen asleep before he noticed the mixed emotions on Celestia's face.

Getting the hang of his flight was hard enough, getting the hang of it when he had all of these thoughts running through his mind was much more difficult. But maybe his emotions were just running that high.

Luna's sky was shining brightly with starlight, and the trio of flyers could see a very small oasis in the distance.

"There! I'm going to teleport us closer. We'll walk the rest of the way, I can cloak us with a spell of invisibility."

The drake nodded, and felt a tugging sensation before he landed on ground. Much closer to the oasis. He looked to Luna, out of habit. Usually the teleport spell left Twilight drained if she used it at a great distance or carried multiple ponies. Luna barely appeared winded. Was she really that much more powerful than Twilight? Where had she been during the invasion, then? She could have helped. She could have saved Celestia.

Spike mercilessly squashed those thoughts and fought to reign in his anger. His wings faded away with it, but he was much more calm. He needed to focus on what was ahead.

Twilight walked aimlessly. What she had seen had been too much for her to handle. It shouldn't have been possible. But there were several dozen theories running through her mind and it was just too much.

Alicorns. There had been hundreds, thousands of them. An entire people, gone.  And the picture she had seen...

A younger Celestia, with a pink flowing mane, standing with a family of dragons. There was a baby dragon, a green female, next to an orange adult dragon and a pink one. The important  thing was the egg they had been holding.

Spike's egg.