She knocked, giving the door a gentle kick, and found its deadbolt less than sturdy.

The door gave with an eerie creak inwards, and she found the Arbiter in the midst of dressing. He hastily stood up straight, a regal posture coming over him, despite several pieces of his armor still on the floor.

"Twilight," he offered simply in greeting, and her cheeks turned red.

"I'm sorry, the door... I didn't mean to come in as you were... changing..."

He seemed to ignore her once his greeting had been returned, and within a few moments, before she was done explaining her transgression, he had fastened his greaves and gauntlets around his gangly grey limbs, he met her in the doorway. A grunt towards the hallway told Twilight the Arbiter was ready to leave, but his shoulders' drooping under his armor's weight and the bandages, stained indigo through the gaps in his sterling armor, told her the opposite.

Regardless, she turned and led the way out of the hospital's walls, giving the nurses a friendly smile as she led her towering company past.

She looked over her shoulder, the Arbiter's heavy metal footsteps matching her own; he was ready to get out of the hospital, but he was not ready to be moving around so suddenly. He faltered every few steps, and the surprise behind his helmet was very apparent that he was not used to wounds, recovery, or his body failing him.

When they finally ducked outside, The Arbiter seemed to drink in the sunlight and relish in the breeze. He began to spread his arms to stretch, but winced before they extended, hiding a pained expression with a glare and resisting to grab at a wound on his shoulder, visible under his pauldrons... the linen bandages began to soak through.

He saw her noticing his wound reopening, and before she could get any ideas, the alien grimaced, growling, "I am glad to forsake this place. I have no home among the sick and dying. I'll not go back."

"Then where shall it be?" she asked.

The Arbiter looked around, and drifted off as if he'd forgotten her question. It was then that the great disparity between them became extremely apparent, if only for a few moments. Twilight felt a pain in her neck as she craned up at him, and the sunlight glimmering off of his armor, somehow still immaculately clean, was all but blinding. But what fixated her more was not their difference in size or posture, but with how they regarded the day.

She watched as his eyes flitted between birds, trees and flowers. She heard his strong breath sipping in the damp air, the smell of wheat and rain on the breeze. She smiled as his balled fists relaxed ever so slightly, and the tension in his shoulders loosened.

She swore that, even for an instant, the Arbiter looked... peaceful.

A warbler in the trees above interrupted her thoughts, and when she looked back to his amber gaze, any change she'd seen in him had gone, and he was back to the alien she'd become familiar with.

"I have no bearings," the Arbiter sighed, "I do not know this place."

She eyed him carefully.

"I could show you around. Are you up for a walk?"

She grit her teeth; she knew she'd struck a nerve by the slightest implication he may not be able to do something, even though she hadn't meant to. The flare in his eye was something she'd seen in Rainbow many times, and she knew what his answer was before he ever clicked his mandibles together, and began down the road.

"Arbiter," she called after him.

He turned back, a bit annoyed.

"Town is actually that way."

"Of all the places we have been together," growled Rtas, choking on ash, "This infernal place is the worst."

"They don't call it Caldera for nothing!"

Shining Armor laughed over his shoulder, the scarf keeping the burning air from his mouth but muffling his voice. Far behind them, the Phantom's engines idled, their subtle green glow a deep contrast from the bright orange of the bubbling lava pits and flows that streaked and pocked the ridge the pair were currently ascending.

Black soot swallowed each footfall, as though they were walking through sand. Only as they neared the spine of the ridge did the warm, dark igneous rock replace the soot, and it was there that the air slightly cooled, and they found a glimmering figure waiting for them.

"Thank you for coming!" the Tarragon clamored over the groan of the volcanoes all around them, a sound like the son of wind and thunder pervasive on the eastern wind.

"Steelhide! When we got your message, we came as fast as we could!" Shining Armor answered, and the dragon's talons wrapped around the Captain's forelimb.

"Let's get to the nesting grounds! I apologize but what we have to discuss cannot risk being compromised. We'll brief you everything we have on the plateau!"

As Steelhide began to turn, his wings folded behind him swung like a cloak, and he began to spread the black, velvety membranes as if to fly, but he remembered his company could not match him there.

As they crested the true summit of the formation, the rock leveled off into a great volcanic plane, dominated by a great smoking mountain on the horizon. Spread out in intervals as far as the eye could see were crouched dragons of all species and sizes, ranging all colors of the earth and sky. Some were smaller than ponies, others were bigger than buildings. Most were the size of a small house, but the biggest, far off in the distance, commanded a nest the size of a hill, and as her wings unfurled to protest the trespass of a particularly bold drake, their shadow could have cast all of Canterlot into shadow and her roar shook the earth.

The hens guarded their nests jealously while the drakes circled, either on foot or high above, riding the currents of rising air on great wings. Now and then, a jet of territorial fire leaped out from the gray sky or from one of the bulwarks of the nests, and whichever wyvern, wyrm or dragon had ventured too close went reeling.

Steelhide led the two through a gauntlet of fiery breath, gaping maws and very angry mothers. Shining Armor dared look a little too long at one of the eggs beneath a bronze wyvern's breast, and she returned his hospitality with a shrill roar, her long neck craning toward him. Her hot breath blew the crest of Shining's helmet flat against the metal, and from within her throat, an orange glow manifested.

Quickly, Steelhide ran between the two, and spreading his crocodile-like maw, he let out a deep roar of his own, and the hen curled back over her nest with a menacing hiss.

"It's the nesting season," the Tarragon said, almost defensively, a harsh turn around from the aggression he'd just shown menacing down a dragon three times his size, "Every species in the world nests here. These months are when traffic is heaviest."

His explanation had little effect on his company. A nerve might have been all that kept 'Vadum's sword from erupting forth from its hilt, and Shining Armor's wide eyes regarded every dragon they passed as if they were coiled snakes, ready to strike. The reptilian barks and growls seemed to nip at their heels every step of the way.

Their trek brought them to a cave, and Steelhide strutted inside, Shining Armor and the Shipmaster close behind. Within was a massive bonfire stoked by a very stocky wyrm with stubby wings. Above the fire, the sky peeked through a massive hole in the cave's ceiling.

It took Shining Armor a moment to realize the cave was rather a lava tube, the hole, a massive vent. They were in the throat of a dormant volcano, and beyond the thick black walls of hardened ash and stone, the cacophony of angry vocalizations tantalized the relative peace within.

Around the fire were much quieter specimens. As Shining's eyes adjusted to the dancing light, more appeared. One wyvern dominated the room, curled up like a dog near the cave wall, his head the size of a cart. Two lung, their horns like the antlers of deer and their manes like those of lions, laid near him. A few cockatrices, perched like flamingos on one leg, poked at what looked like roasted bats. Most in the room were Tarragons, like Steelhide, walking upright and conversing quietly with the others.

Rather than angry at their intrusion, these dragons regarded the pony and the alien with casual indifference. Most didn't even care they'd entered, and those that did didn't even lift their heads as they approached. But when Steelhide gave a call like that of a hawk, they all rose suddenly, and gathered around the fire.

As he approached, Steelhide unfurled his wings and he heaved into the air, flying over the fire. The downdraft caused the flames to swirl beneath him, a shape like that of a heart ringed in fire left in his wake, and the fires, now fanned, reached for the ceiling.

As the fire died back down, Shining looked up through the tongues and saw the Tarragon seated upon a massive treasure horde, at least ten meters high. A nest of gold coins and gems melted into a nest crowned the summit, and served as Steelhide's throne. The centerpiece of the treasure was Steelhide's gladius set in a massive stone, tip down. Only as he looked closer did he realize the stone was not rock, but bone.

The sword was embedded in a massive skull, its horns broken and chipped with age, and the rest of the skeleton, presumably, was still buried beneath the treasure horde. It became immediately obvious how Steelhide had come to amass, or rather, acquire, so much wealth. He had not always been the Emperor he was today, and this gold, this cave, these nesting grounds, had not always been his.

Shining Armor stowed that in the back oh his mind, and made a point to mind himself in present company.

Steelhide's voice boomed.

"This council is convened."

The Shipmaster stepped forward, circumnavigating the bonfire, putting the flame at his back to glare up at Steelhide.

"Then let us be onto our first point," he growled.

Shining Armor's eyes widened, and he looked to the other dragons in the room as they leaned in, snarling and growling softly. This was not the place for defiance, or for such a blatant challenge. They weren't necessarily surrounded by enemies, but they weren't quite friends. All around him, talons gleamed.

But the Shipmaster went on.

"You summon us from the other side of the ocean, and so we came to your aid. And you welcome our help by allowing your citizens to threaten us with fang and fire?!"

Steelhide gave his contemporaries a wave, and they stepped back ever so slightly. He stood up on his throne, the towering shadow of his wings cast on the walls and up onto the ceiling by the dancing light.

"I summoned you here for the same reason that hen nearly cooked you alive," he responded, his voice powerful, but calm.

"To protect the eggs."

Shining Armor laughed nervously, the light from that wyvern hen's throat as the fire bubbled up still very fresh in his mind.

"They seem very well protected," he chortled.

The fire popped, and the dozen or so pairs of eyes in the cave slowly drifted off of the stallion. Steelhide gestured to the other dragons.

"These are my scouts. They patrol the borders of the nesting grounds. When I sent you the summons, it was because they confirmed that the Covenant is in these hills."

Now Shining Armor ran around the fire to stand with the Shipmaster, and the two, then and there, they and the Emperor were eye to eye

"What size?" asked Rtas.

"Only a scouting party," came the answer.

Shining looked at the Elite at his side.

"Which means there's a larger force out there," the Captain said.

'Vadum nodded.

"And we need to find it."

"Do you want to go into town?"

They'd been standing on a crossroads, looking down Main Street. To walk where they'd been leading to would take them around the outskirts of town once more. They'd seen everything outside of the town's limits, from Fluttershy's cottage on the rim of Everfree to Applejack's farm, rolling hills covered with green leafed apple trees.

They had only seen others at a distance. And here they were, looking down a wide cobblestone road on Market Day. The whole town was in the square, and the Arbiter's heels were stuck in the road. In the distance, they heard the bustle. Conversations and laughter made the heart of the town, but Twilight and the Arbiter were quiet.

He looked down at her, and nodded.

She led the way, slowly. The Arbiter's stride had slowed since they had started, and he was breathing heavily.

The first to see him was a foal. He pointed, and his mouth went wide. He looked up at his mother as if to ask permission to run over, but she seemed hesitant, holding him tighter.

Then the adults started noticing and pointing, and even from out of earshot, it was obvious that the nature of their conversations had shifted as well.

"They're staring," the Arbiter growled.

She glanced up at him while his fists balled. She knew they meant no harm, that they were just curious or surprised to see one of Equestria's Angels. She'd grown used to the aliens; they hadn't. The Arbiter was still an alien to them.

The fillies and foals, however, were fascinated, and once the first got away from his mother to bound over to get a closer look, they all came. A block from the market, a mob of tiny ponies swarmed him, all shin high and asking him a thousand questions, 'oohing' and 'aahing' about his gleaming armor and outlandish weapons, so much like big toys in their eyes.

The Arbiter was surprised at the welcome, but his biggest concern seemed to be not to step on any of them as they darted between his legs, jumped up and down all around him, and pleaded to know what his spaceship looked like.

"Now, now," Twilight cooed, trying to buy the Arbiter some space, but even as she began to pick up and move the foals gently in her magic's grip, they only ran right back as soon as she let them go. She gave an apologetic look to the Arbiter, but the look he gave back was one of confusion.

Understandable, she figured. How could this be anything but foreign to him, getting surrounded by baby ponies. But as it went on, she realized something.

He wasn't used to others seeing him this way, as an icon, a hero. This, jovial, almost excessive welcome was nothing like he had ever had before. They liked him, and it was foreign to him.

Before long, their parents had wrangled them up, and the pair was left in relative peace if not for the expression on the Arbiter's face. His mandibles hung loosely, and his brow was furrowed, but not angrily.

"Are you okay?"

He only watched them go, and within the arms of her mother, a filly looked back at them, and waved.

"Are you ready to go home?"

He thought for a moment, and his mandibles clicked.

"Yes."

The walk back to Golden Oaks was quick, and before long they'd reached the base of the hill atop which the library stood tall, nestled into the heartwood. The road wound up the slope lazily, and without thinking she began the climb.

The staunch, metallic footfalls of the Arbiter persisted behind her as they ascended the slope, and his deep breaths grew louder. She heard him groan, but his rhythm continued, slowing ever so slightly. She reached the door, and as she turned the handle, she heard something like a railroad car hit the ground behind her.

She turned around, and saw him on his hands and knees, the blood slowly spreading across his armor, and filling in the gaps between the cobblestones.