“And you are okay back there?” Thiemo’s nod was barely noticeable at the question of the dragon by the name of Spike. Dogs were supposed to be called Spike, not large, fire-spitting dragons. Anyway, he was now lying on said dragon’s back while the rest of the group trotted alongside him. At least Spike was at a more pleasant size now. After he was sure nothing else would crawl out of that tunnel, simply by sealing it with a large boulder, he had shrunk from the size of a small skyscraper to a relatively tiny ten or twelve metres. “If dragons always were that large, we couldn’t all fit on the planet,” he answered with a laugh when Aura asked him curiously. Said filly was now halfway sitting on Applejack’s head and followed Spike’s every move, completely mesmerized by the fact that there were friendly dragons.

Twilight coughed slightly to get the attention of her brother. “So, Spike, please tell us what happened. You weren’t out here just by chance, were you? Also, you’re in your large form...”

The dragon chuckled for a moment, shaking Thiemo around on his back. “Oh, sorry. I’m just not used to having passengers.” He turned towards Twilight. “Well, Celestia had written Cadance a letter to inform her about your arrival.” He nodded over to Hawk, who was carrying Heart on her back. The wings of the white pegasus were still not ready to fly, and she was more than just exhausted. “And that you took the Captain to follow them.” Thiemo knew the face that Twilight made in that moment. It was the face of a child who got caught while reaching into the cookie jar. “We expected you two days ago and were getting worried. Cadance asked me to keep watch at the pass. A dragon in the mountain is less suspicious than a fully manned airship.”

“Thanks, Spike, you really saved us.” Estoc patted one of the dragon’s legs. “Well, I’d give you a pat on the shoulder, but you’re just too big for that now.”

“Estoc is right. Thank you, Spike.” Rarity pulled the dragon’s head down to her with a bit of magic and pressed a kiss on his cheek. The bright purple scales on his face immediately turned slightly red.

“Oh, don’t mention it, Rarity,” he waved it off.

“But don’t ya think I’m gonna follow ya dragon code now, sugarcube.” Twilight and Rarity giggled at the comment, while Spike only turned redder. “But Ah don’t think Ah have to say that yer always in mah good books.”

“Thanks, Applejack.” Spike nodded. “Would someone explain to me know what adventure I missed this time? I mean, you’ve all gone through a lot in the past, but living skeletons? Luckily Fluttershy didn’t came along.”

Everypony present made different sounds of agreement before Twilight began to tell the story from her point of view. She began at the point where she had been informed about the presence of a human on the castle grounds and the subsequent fight that had been happily sponsored by their dear friend, Eris. Thiemo only made occasional remarks from the back of the dragon. Amaryllis instead preferred to stay completely silent. Twilight eventually reached the point where they began their pursuit and tried to catch the human again.

At this point, Lyra took over the story. She explained how she had been more or less sucked into all this and from the escape itself, then from the small place of Sunny Town and the Karst incident. Even though Twilight and the other pursuers had seen the place, they were still surprised to hear what had actually happened. Finally, Lyra got to the point where they had seen Twilight’s emergency signal. Thiemo was lucky that she didn’t mention him trying to go on without Hawk and Heart and about what they had found inside the mountain. Well, aside from the dark stone that reanimated those who died long ago. It was foolish to think that the drake wouldn’t have wanted an explanation for it.

“The first thing I’m going to do is write a letter to my mother and tell her to send help to Sunny Town, if she hasn’t already done so. And someone has to search for Hopper and Storm Cloud. Who knows how long they will last in the ice.”

“You don’t have to worry about the two pegasi,” Spike said. “I flew over the Chain over and over again the last two days. I found them and brought them to Noveria. The thestrals there know how to deal with frostbite.

Not only the princess, but also Rarity and Estoc sighed in relief. “That’s good to hear.” The Captain looked over to Rarity, who smiled with a tear in her eye. From what Thiemo had heard, it was her who had asked those two to help them. Of course she would feel guilty for what had happened to them. At least a bit. They surely knew what they had gotten themselves into when flying over the Chain during winter. Celestia had been very clear when she told him how dangerous that could be.

“How far are we away from the Empire?” Thiemo tried to raise his head, but that only caused more pain in his right shoulder.

Again the dragon responded. “A few hours of flight. On foot, I would say about a day.”

The human gulped as another question pushed its way through his head. Not that he was really scared of the dragon anymore, but every other one had always wanted to bite his head off. “Spike, quick question. How does that work with you shrinking? Or are you getting bigger? If you don’t mind me asking.”

He snorted from laughter, causing a few flames to come out of his nostrils. “Of course not, Fluttershy.” The ponies chuckled. It took Thiemo a few seconds to understand what he meant. “There are two ways a dragon can grow. Naturally, like any other creature, or through greed. Problem is, the more greed builds up, the more the dragon loses control over himself until he is nothing more than a hungry beast.” So he wasn’t wrong when he was scared of the large Spike. “But with training, you can control the greed. The last days, when I flew over the mountains, I was craving to find Twilight. That part of me then stayed the same, and when I found her, I shrunk again. This is my natural size.”

Twilight stepped it up a notch and now walked alongside the dragon’s head. “Now that you mentioned it, Spike, how is your training coming along?”

“I flew around for two days like that and saved you.” He grinned proudly. “What do you think, Twi?”

“I meant what Ruby said.” Thiemo didn’t know what the two were talking about, but he still tried to catch as much information as he could. That had kept him alive so far.

Spike rolled his eyes. “She said I’m making great progress.”

“And?”

“And that I still have a long way in front of me.”

“Who is Ruby?” At least he could count on one pony. Curious as she always was, Aura asked the question for him.

“Ruby is a dragon, just like me. She lives up here in the mountains and teaches me what it means to be a dragon. I met her shortly before my first growth spurt. Afterwards, she came to me and offered to teach me.”

“Another friendly dragon? All dragons I have met so far were really mean.” Spike looked questioningly over to Twilight.

“She lived on Dragmire for a while.”

“Ah, that explains a lot.”

“What do you mean?” Thiemo threw in again.

“Well, Dragmire is a hatchery of my race. I was raised amongst ponies. Which is rather rare, I assure you. Anyways, it is not common for dragons to care about their young for too long. They raise themselves and, without guidance, quickly fall to the greed. I was so lucky to have Twilight.” Thiemo took a while to comprehend what he was told.

“Hold on. Does that mean that all the dragons on Dragmire are just kids? Only larger due to their greed?” Spike nodded. Thiemo had to resist the urge to laugh and cry at the same time. He had developed a fear from greedy, yet large and fire-spitting children.

“Twilight had to pass an entrance exam for school, just like every other pony. But the jury thought it would be appropriate to slightly adjust the test for her. So instead of a colour changing spell, like the other foals, she had to hatch a dragon’s egg. The shell is incredibly hard, almost indestructible. But nopony had expected the egg to even be fertilized. Someone just took out of the school’s archives. But as you see, here I am.” The dragon chuckled as Aura lay on his head and curiously listened to one story after another from him.

Twilight couldn’t help but notice how mature Spike had gotten over the last few years. She remembered the day she had brought him to Cadance so he could live there. He simply could no longer fit into her library, and his diet had started to become a problem as well. Even if Rarity brought him a whole cartload of gems, he had still remained hungry. With her private income, she could have never afforded to feed him for the months where she had to buy more gems. Her old foalsitter’s offer to let him live in the Crystal Empire was just perfect. That had not been the only benefit. A female dragon by the name of Ruby lived somewhere in the snowy mountains. She and Spike had become good friends, and he had learned a lot about his own species from her.

She was just happy now that his second long sleep wouldn’t be due for a few more centuries. The first had begun a year after she was officially crowned as a princess, and it had lasted for five years. So Spike hadn’t been there for a little over six years, and she had desperately missed him during that time. And not just because no one cooked for her anymore and she had to fly to castle at first to get a warm meal. No, Spike was a little brother to her. She wasn’t the only one who thought that. Shining surely saw him in the same way.

This led her to look over to another, the new member of her family. Looking up was probably a better term. In her natural form, Amaryllis was a head taller than her without adding her horn. Her niece seemed to be caught up in her own thoughts instead of listening to the endless stories of Spike. In the cave, she had spoken to her for the first time as her aunt, not as a princess. Even though she said that she had forgiven her, the thought still hurt Twilight. She had accepted Spike, a dragon and therefore far more dangerous than a changeling, into her life without any doubt. At least not until his first greed attack. In that moment, she realized for the first time that Spike was not a pony but a young dragon, and his kind could feast not only on various gems, but also on meat. The only reason he didn’t eat anypony was because his greed was provoked by presents, not by hunger.

Twilight took heart and dropped back to her niece, who was walking next to Spike’s tail. “You are looking worried.” This sentence always worked on her when Cadance talked to her. “What is troubling you?”

“Is a dragon really that much more pleasant than a changeling?” Twilight felt hit directly in her chest. “Nothing against Spike – he seems really nice, but…” At first she didn’t know how to react to that, but then Twilight remembered an old saying.

“We, and I’m not just talking about our family, but all ponies, are predestined. Chrysalis had infiltrated and attacked Canterlot, locked Cadance into a dark cave below the city, and charmed Shining Armor. During the battle itself, not only soldiers lost their lives, but also many civilians. It happened almost twelve years ago, but it is still fresh in the minds of the public. And in mine.” Twilight sighed. “The last attack of a dragon on Equestria was four hundred years ago. And he did it only because somepony had stolen gold from his lair. Usually they stay far away from civilization and just want to sleep quietly. I just want to say that this is very unfortunate, and I’m sorry.” She immediately raised her hoof as she saw that Amaryllis wanted to say something. “No. I know that I’m not responsible for this alone, but I am your aunt, and as such, I have failed you.”

“Actually, I wanted to say that my mother really messed things up, didn’t she?”

“Oh.” Twilight smiled, slightly nervous.

“I mean, I wasn’t even born back then, but I have just seen my grandmother and Princess Luna were once very good friends. If my mother hadn’t ruined it all, we would have never been forced to attack Equestria. I love my mother, but I just don’t know anymore. So much she taught me proved to be false or a lie. Did she do it for my good or her own? Why did she let me go?” Twilight didn’t know Chrysalis, and if she was honest, she didn’t even want to, so she just remained silent. “And I wonder how my father will react. Or had? Spike said that Princess Celestia told him and Princess Cadance in a letter that we will be coming.”

This was more of her area. “I know my brother and Cadance very well, Amaryllis. Shining loves his family and would do anything to protect them, no matter where they came from.” She nodded over to Spike. “After all, he is the alicorn of devotion. And Cadance? I bet she will be happy that Skyla has a big sister.”

“I have a little sister?”

Twilight blinked quickly. Did she really forget that? Why did that always happen, that she forgot to tell about certain members of her family? “Sure. Little Skyla is three. The cutest little alicorn that I have ever seen. You will surely like her, and so will she.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely! I mean, Skyla immediately bonded with Spike, even though she only met him in this size. It wasn’t a problem for him to make friends when he was just a baby dragon. You should have seen him. How he always used to run on his hind legs instead of all fours. I bet he was the only dragon who did so, and that was only because he used to write with his claws. He was so cute and clumsy. My little number one assistant.”

She couldn’t help but to smile at the memories of the past days. However, her thoughts inevitably led back to what the future would hold. Spike would be with her for a very long time. Dragons could get incredibly old. Her mother only recently had a meeting with an old friend from her foal days. The dragon obviously was insanely old now, and would soon reach his end, but he was basically as old as she was or even older. Her friends were not that lucky. Two hundred years, a bit more or less, she had left with them. The Elements they were connected to gave them increased vitality, but it would not last not forever. Something she had found out over the various injuries during their adventures. Their wounds healed quickly, very quickly. Rainbow Dash had a broken wing once and only had to stay in hospital for two days instead of weeks. But it had been obvious from the start. Back then, during the fight against Nightmare Moon, Rarity’s tail grew back after she cut it off. All their bruises she had gotten from the fall were vanished, and her wing was set right again. Things that just didn’t happen on its own. “So don’t worry – if she can handle a dragon as an uncle, she can handle a changeling as a sister.”

Amaryllis smiled faintly and nodded. “Thanks, Twilight. Thiemo had been telling me that for a while, but sometimes I don’t think he takes things as seriously as he should. Don’t get me wrong. I love him. He is so carefree and constantly happy. Since the begin of my journey, he kept on telling me that everything will be fine in the end, but there were always a few thoughts left that asked, what if it won’t? Having a second voice that tells me the same is very comforting.”

Twilight looked over to the human on Spike’s back. His gaze was fixed on Aura while she bombarded the dragon with questions. “I just can’t figure him out. I have seen him fill almost the entire spectrum. One moment he is loving and caring, the next moment he fights with a joy in his eyes that I have only seen in creatures like Nightmare Moon. A bit frightening, if that fits on all humans.” It was easy to figure out a pony. The position of their ears, head, and the movement of their tail was often all it took. You didn’t even have to see their face. But humans seemed so unpredictable. If they weren’t shouting at you or standing with a weapon in front of you, it was almost impossible to read them. No tail, the present human aside, no moveable ears, and their posture was so different. “It is unsettling that you can’t read them.”

“Well, right now he is quiet in order to learn more about dragons. Until now, he was terrified of them.” Twilight looked at her niece with a bit of surprise. “I can feel his emotions. He panicked when he saw Spike in the sky. At the moment, he is curious and a bit ashamed. Why exactly the latter, I don’t know.” Now she understood a bit better why these two got along with each other so well. For Amaryllis, the human was an open book.

“So when you told me that you forgive me…”

“I felt how sorry you were,” she completed Twilight’s sentence. “Most of the time, I’m only focusing on Thiemo. Feeling his love is warm and pleasant. And not just for me, but also his love for Aura. When he says he is her father, he means it.” Twilight saw the human laughing with Spike as he finished another story. “When I met him, I compared him with a changeling. He cared for his family, no matter the cost. Today I know that he is none. He’s just a human. My human.” Amaryllis licked her lips.

“Alright, that’s enough, young lady. How old are you supposed to be?” They both laughed. “But it is nice that you have found someone.”

The group killed the hours of wandering through the snow-covered steppe mostly with talking about what had happened and what would be expecting them. Thiemo was fascinated to see how the ponies that were hostile just a few days ago now reacted to him and Amaryllis. Almost like skittish animals, shy at first, and almost worried about the danger, but as soon as you proved worthy, you were seen as one of them. As he now looked down on the sleeping Aura on Spike’s head, he could say that it was worth all the troubles they had been through. Maybe that was the reason Eris did all this? To get him and the ponies together? Maybe there really was more behind that chaotic creature. Who knew? But what he knew was that it was going uphill again from here.

Carefully, he leaned back and used one of Spike’s spikes as a backrest. The sky above them had taken a beautiful orange colour that seamlessly went over into the fresh, white snow. He turned his head a bit to the left and found another colour at the sky. A bright green light that seemed to dance on the sky. Then there was suddenly a blue, and in the next, second a purple. “Polar lights? There are polar lights on Albion?”

Spike’s head and those of the others who heard him turned towards the sky as well. “Those are no polar lights.” The dragon grinned.

“The Crystal Empire,” Lyra cheered. “Oh, how have I missed this sight.”

“That is the magical energy of the Empire which brightens the sky at night. It spreads love and hope into the cold night,” Twilight explained. Thiemo could not care less about what exactly it was. Whether it was magical energies or solar winds that hit the planet’s atmosphere, it was an unmatched sight.

“It is beautiful,” he hummed with open eyes. “Does that happen here every night?”

“Only for special occasions,” Spike answered the question. “Like the return of a lost daughter.” Both looked over to Amaryllis, but she was mesmerised by the light, just like Thiemo before. A bit further behind walked Rarity and Estoc, closely snuggling at each other and also staring at the sky. Spike sighed a bit and turned his head up front again. Luckily, Thiemo reacted quickly and caught the still sleeping Aura, who would have otherwise landed in the snow. “We will be there in less than an hour.”

Author's Notes:

And as I told you: character building! I know a lot of you wanted Twilight to act different from the start, but there has to be a reason why a character behaves different after a while. Else it would just be out of character.

Also, Spike. There were a few comments on the topic of why was so big now. Greed, as explained and used in the show and natural growing of dragons. I want to remember everyone that this story takes place 12 years after the end of season 3. Nearly 13 if you count the time we spent in the story too. Twilight was, at least in my headcanon, 20 when the show started with season 1. Add 3 years for 3 seasons and another 12 for times passed, then she is today 35. (As Lyra said earlier, the average pony can get around 150 years old. So Twilights 35 would be our 25-30.) Spike hatched as Twilight was around 6-7. Making him today 28-29 years old. Even if dragons can get over 1000 years and older, dragons grow fast. One more reason why dragon parents don't really care for their young. (They don't think they need their help.)

Next week we will probably (if a certain editor doesn't decide to take a break again) reach the crystal empire. Finally.

Thanks to Gron for translating this chapter.
Special thanks to JBL for proofreading and editing.

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