A tale of Dragonborn and colorful ponies

Chapters

Chapter 1: What could possibly go wrong? (slightly polished))
Chapter II: Ok, so maybe things DID have the potential to go wrong...
Chapter III: The journeigh ( I'm terrible at puns, yes I know.)
A Question for you all.

Chapter 1: What could possibly go wrong? (slightly polished))

-EDIT- I polished this chapter a bit, added a few details and what not. I didn't change any major details so it doesn't have to be re-read if you read this chapter when I first uploaded it. Be sure to tell me if you spot any mistakes, Chapter 2 will be out shortly and will be 3000-4000 words. Feel free to make any suggestions or constructive criticism on the story or writing style.

I took in a deep breath as I looked upon the vast mountains and tundra of Skyrim before me, The Mountain I was on was no High Hrothgar, but had a beautiful view. My name is Skoruligr Ulfrsson, but most call me Dragonborn. I am a man of Nordic decent, Tall, Large frame, Very muscular; I have long crimson hair that parts down the middle and goes down to my shoulders, Full beard of matching color, and ever-present sky blue war paint on my face. I am a Dovahkiin, or Dragonborn, this means I was blessed by Akatosh with the blood and soul of a dragon. The main perk to being Dovahkiin is that the draconic language comes naturally to me; within the Dragon Tongue are words of power that can be formed into a powerful “Shout”. However this requires a complete understanding of the true meaning of the words used, But as Dragonborn when I kill a dragon I absorb their soul and their knowledge of the words from said soul.

“Are you sure this will work? J’zargo is not confidant this is a good idea” J’zargo said with uncharacteristic lack of confidence.

Great. He was the LAST one I expected that from. J’zargo is a khajiit with grey fur and eyes, and wore full ebony armor I smithed except for the shrouded cowl I got when I cleared out the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary. I met him at the college of Winterhold when he was an apprentice, and he agreed to be my follower after I nearly got blown to bits for an experiment of his. He can be arrogant at times, and is constantly making reckless decisions to show off, but is very talented in the arcane, especially the destruction school of magic.

Maybe I should fill you in on what exactly we
were doing. I learned all the shouts I could, yep, ALL of them. So I thought maybe I could create one of my own. I thought for weeks as to what exactly it was going to be used for, until my thoughts turned to Sovengarde, when my “business” was finished there I remember how Tsun sent me back to Nirn with his Thu’um (Thu’um is draconic for voice, “Shouts” use the Thu’um). Perhaps I could create a Shout that could take me places? Maybe even my companions as well? It’s been a good two months since I started developing that Shout, and I was confidant I had it down this time
.
“J’zargo! Of course it will work, when have you ever had reason to doubt me? Are you being… chicken?”

“J’zargo is in no way chicken, he just thinks that you might not have thought this though all the way!”

“Tsk Tsk J’zargo… I always think EVERYTHING all the way!”

“For what reason do I have to be here anyways? To be your test subject? To see if two and be transported? I Protest! I refuse to en-”

“gut…GOL LEIN!” !” I shouted and my Thu'um whent forth in a azure wave. It hit the ground 10 feet from us, producing a 7 foot tall 5 foot wide black ovule with an azure outline.

I smirked at the astonished khajiit as he stared at the blue and black orb-shaped portal that stood before him.

“We can go through at the same time if it would make you feel better, and it should only take us to the opposing ledge 500 yards from here.” I said.

“No.” J’zargo replied flatly.

“C’mon, don’t be a milk-drinker about it” I taunted.

“J’zargo is no fool, or a milk-drinker. He refuses to enter the portal, why are we experimenting this on a mountain anyways? If you got the range wrong we could fall to our deaths!”

“Because we are already on the mountain and I don’t want to wait to climb down it before trying this.”
“Enough of this foolishness, J’zargo is returning to the colla-“

“FUS!”

As J’zargo stumbled backwards from the force of my Thu’um, I grabbed him by his hood and pulled him towards the portal, letting go before he and I actually went through. Momentum did it’s job as he stumbled into the blue and black portal.

“Well now that that is done…” I said shortly before closing my eyes and diving right though the portal myself and reuniting myself with my feline-humanoid companion.

THUD

I opened my eyes to see I landed right on J’zargo, Which couldn’t have been pleasant considering my choice of armour, a full set of heavy steel platemail. I lifted myself off my spell-flinging cat companion and took a look at my surroundings.

“See? What do you know! We have arrived safely on the opposing ledge! Oh wait we are in the middle of a forest… huh, guess the new shout didn’t go completely according to plan after all.”

At that point J’zargo realized I threw him though a portal in to a strange land neither of us recognized. Have you ever been electrocuted? Don’t try it, it isn’t fun. The surrounding forest was very dense with foliage, and trees with thick trunks and canopies that let very little light in. All of the flora seemed to be dark and saturated in color and you could hear constant noises from whatever fauna was nearby. After recovering from my muscle spasms I was the first to break the silence.

“So, wanna explore?”

“Yes, let us find where we are and get back to Skyrim. After that J’zargo will burn down your house.”

J’zargo then climbed a tree to see if he could see anything, and saw nothing in particular except a distant field. We began walking in the direction of the field J’zargo saw and continued for a couple hours before we started hearing the occasional light rustling of leaves or seeing the shadow of something large dart by in the corner of our eyes.

“I smell a predator, We are being stalked.” J’zargo said scanning his surroundings.

“No, really?’ I said as I pointed towards a huge orange cat behind us even bigger than the sabertoothes back home. It had a red mane, large paws, bat-like wings and an odd tail covered in an exoskeleton that ended a stinger.

The creature roared at us and J’zargo readied the firebolt spell as I unsheathed my Skyforge steel longsword and took my Shield of Ysgramor off my back and took hold of it’s grip. The creature lunged right at me and J’zargo hit it in left ribs while it was in mid-air with a firebolt. When it landed in front of me it faltered because of the second-degree burns on it’s side so I took that chance to slash it across it’s face with my sword leaving a long, deep cut down it’s snout.

It recoiled back for a split-second before coming right back at me with it’s stinger which I blocked with my shield. With my shield already raised I was able to retaliate immediately with a shield bash to it’s nose which was followed by another one of J’zargo’s firebolts, this time hitting it in the left eye, It was dazed and roaring in pain so I used it’s moment of venerability to maneuver to it’s right flank and with a swing I put all my weight and strength into I severed it’s right foreleg right under the knee joint. That lowered the beast’s head enough that I was able to grab on to it’s mane and hop unto the back of it’s neck, I then plunged my sword into the base of it’s skull, severing it’s brain stem and killing it instantly as it immediately ceased all movement and fell down into a unmoving lump on the ground. I hopped down and examined the unfamiliar and unidentified beast.

“By the Twin Moons! What was that thing, it looks like a failed experiment.” J’zargo said. There was a moment of silence as we both took a minute to sit down and rest .

“I don’t know what that thing was, but we should get going though, we need to get out of the forest as quick as possible before nightfall.” I advised.

“Yes, hopefully out of this forest and into someplace with warm beds.” J’zargo said before we continued our walk toward the field. After that point it was only an hour long walk that was rather uneventful, before we broke out of the tree line and into an open field. Once we were in the field we could see a village. It was a fair sized village, full of thatched-roofed buildings usually with overhanging second floors. In the middle we saw what appeared to be a tower-like town hall with a large encircling porch.

“That architecture, I think we may in in Cyrodiil!” I said with excitement, if we were indeed in Cyrodiil that meant my new shout could instantly travel me and a follower across entire Provinces.

“Cyrodiil? Let us hope they have a good tavern.” J’zargo said with both relief of finding civilization, and frustration of being so far from Skyrim.

It was about 4pm and we could hear the townsfolk going about their business. It took us half an hour to reach the town. And as we reached the top of a hill at the edge of the town… We got a good look at it’s inhabitants

It was a normal day for Twilight Sparkle; The sun was shining, the sky was clear and a beautiful azure. She had been studying all day and decided to walk around town to stretch her legs and get a breath of fresh air, and maybe get a bite to eat. She then passed by Applejack’s stand and decided she could go for a apple pie.

“ Hey AJ!” she said as she approached the stand.

“ Howdy Twi! Could you go for some apples?” Applejack replied.

“Why yes, an apple pie please!” Twilight said as she placed a few bits on the stand counter.

“Sure thing partner, commin’ right u-“ Applejack stopped mid-sentence. Her jaw nearly hit the floor and her eyes became wide as saucers. She pointed to something behind Twilight with her. When Twilight turned around she saw two bipedal creatures on top of a hill. They both stood upright with two legs and two arms a little shorter than their legs. One was about 5 feet and 9 inches tall looked like it had the hooded head of a grey cat and wore armor that appeared to have been forged out of the midnight sky, The other one was about 6 feet and 3 inches tall and had much larger frame and heavy steel armour. She couldn’t make out it’s face because it was covered in steel platemail from head-to-toe, however she could make out the large splash of blood splattered on it’s chest from the battle with the manticore…

“RUN!”

End of Chapter 1.

Hey guys this is my first fanfic, I hope you liked it! Be sure to comment if you have any constructive criticism. I worry I might of made things go a little too fast, so if you think so be sure to tell me. Also I’d like to know what you thought of the 1st person POV most of this chapter used, Did you like it? Or would you rather I not use it.

-Branden Hew Troy

Chapter II: Ok, so maybe things DID have the potential to go wrong...

The two humanoids and the crowd of ponies just stared at each other for a minute, the humanoids looking at the ponies with confusion and curiosity, and the ponies look at them with more fear than curiosity. After that minute was up one of the ponies screamed “RUN!” and the entire crowd went into a panic.

“Did one of them scream ‘run’?” Skoruligr asked.

“I believe so.” J’zargo replied flatly.

The humanoids just watched as the crowd of ponies all ran recklessly in apparently random directions, running into each other, and tripping on anything and everything they could.

“They are panicking; don’t you have a shout that calms them?” J’zargo asked.

“Kyne’s peace, it should work. Kaan… DREM OV!” Skoruligr replied with his Kyne’s Peace shout, however all it accomplished is make him shout unnaturally loud and create a thunderclap, scaring the ponies even more. “It didn’t work, I think these… horse things are sapient, that shout only works on animals.”

Talking sentient colorful equines… Most men would have a mental break down at this, but to the two Tamrielians this was just another Tuesday (or Tirdas as it was called in Tamriel, but whatever.). All the weird adventures they had been on had prepared them from having a mental shut-down, but instead they just stood there wondering what in oblivion they had gotten themselves into this time.

That is when Skoruligr noticed a flying rainbow blur approach him from his left at impressive speeds, not having enough time to defend himself from it before it’s front hooves collided into his side. Which did little other than make him stumble and J’zargo stabilized Skoruligr before he was able to fall down, Steel platemail with thick fur padding tends to keep one well protected from the hooves of a pony half your size. When Skoruligr found himself in a stable stance he looked down at the rainbow-maned cyan Pegasus pony before him.

“Hey you! You lookin’ for trouble tin can?!” She said in a very tomboyish voice while taking an aggressive stance.

“what.” Skoruligr said flatly.

“You heard me! Are you looking for trouble?!” She ended that sentence with a quick buck in the middle of Skoruligr’s breastplate, this time without the added momentum of her dive it barely pushed him back a quarter of an inch.

“J’zargo suggests you leave now, unless you would like to be electrocuted.” J’zargo threatened.

“Easy J’zargo, we aren’t here to figh-“Skoruligr was interrupted by another swift buck, this time in the head. “You know that doesn’t do anything when I am wearing this armor right?”

A rope tied into a lasso then found it’s way over J’zargo’s head before falling down to the middle of his torso and tightening, pinning J’zargo’s arms to his chest. Skoruligr looked over to J’zargo and saw the lasso binding his arms and the orange pony about 15 yards away responsible. Skoruligr went behind J’zargo and unsheathed and raised his sword, getting ready to bring it down and sever the rope when that rainbow maned Pegasus leaped into his side mid-swing. Skoruligr was in an instable stance at that time and so he staggered sideways before losing his footing, as he fell his sword got tossed several feet away and onto the dirt. Applejack’s tugging finally managed to make J’zargo fall down unto his back and Skoruligr rolled to his feet and stood up. Seeing the rainbow one was about to charge he prepared his voice.

“fus… RO DAH!” He shouted at the rainbow mare in the middle of her charge causing her to fly backwards 20 feet and into a house, crashing right through the walls. He wanted to avoid doing such a thing, but he thought the best thing to do was for him and J’zargo to get out of there as soon as possible.

“Rainbow Dash!” Applejack called out. As she was distracted with her friend’s well-being Skoruligr took hold of the rope and yanked it from the earth pony. Even if she was paying full attention Skoruligr would’ve won, as it would happen being huge has it’s advantages. Before he could loosen the lasso around J’zargo he noticed his sword had taken a soft blue glow and began levitating, so he lunged to it and held unto the hilt and pulled it downward with all his weight, all 400 pounds of it. The alabaster unicorn responsible could not handle so much weight with her magic so the sword was quickly released. Skoruligr headed over to J’zargo and quickly released him from the lasso.

“Not exactly according to plan. We should begin advancing… away from here.” Skoruligr said and he and J’zargo began to flee.

“Oh naw ya don’t!” Applejack yelled and lunged at them, only to be stopped by Skoruligr’s shield. She was deflected off and received a mouthful of dirt. Skoruligr then got tackled by a full speed Rainbow Dash and she began punching him in the back of the head with her hooves with no effect. J’zargo tried to pull her off but that just got him a stomping to the stomach (Again, no effect with all that heavy armor, you’d think she would have figured that out by now.). Tired of his situation J’zargo channeled a light amount of electricity though her, not enough to cause any real damage but enough to make her let go and allow J’zargo to toss her to the side. That actually electrocuted Skoruligr more than it did her, which to J’zargo was a bonus.

“Thanks for trying to fry me, now let’s… OH FOR TALOS’ SAKE!” Skoruligr said after he recovered. Once he got up he noticed that the town had finally scraped together what would barely pass as a militia. There were about 50 ponies of all three types wielding various household items in their mouths that they were apparently planning on using as weapons. Their “war faces” where laughable and a quite adorable, but for some reason absolutely terrifying. Spearheading the hastily developed defense force was a purple coated unicorn with… you know what? Forget that noise. You know who it is, it was Twilight Sparkle. Beside and slightly behind her was Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie and they were quickly joined by Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Their spirits bolstered by numbers they all began to charge.

“Faas.. RU MAAR!” Skoruligr released his Dismay shout at the stampede, sending a crimson wave of energy throughout the herd causing them to stumble and then flee in terror as soon as they could.

To the two Tamrielian’s surprise the mane six in front stumbled, but did not flee. Not even Fluttershy turned tail and ran (Though normally you don’t exactly need a Dragon Shout to scare her off, she remained brave thinking the Tamrielians were a threat to her friends.). This revealed that they were more powerful than Skoruligr or J’zargo could have ever expected. When the six recovered they turned to look at the chaos behind them with shocked looks on their faces as they watched all those ponies flew in absolute terror, though they did not succumb to it, they too felt the urge to flee. Seeing that intimidation was out the window, that they could probably not out-run the quadrupeds, and that bringing them harm would not be a good idea, Skoruligr decided to make an attempt at diplomacy despite the less-than-ideal circumstances.

“You did not flee. That means you are stronger than most of your kind, most of MY kind even! Your bravery and willpower are both quite commendable.” When Skoruligr said that, the mane six looked back over to him. Most of them stayed uneasy, staring at the two with confused but angry looks while in an aggressive stance, Pinkie was being Pinkie with her seemingly inattentive smile and Rainbow Dash had a smug, proud smirk because the compliments to her bravery and willpower. Skoruligr continued “But this is all just a misunderstanding. I and my colleague have not come to harm any of… whatever it is you are. We arrived due to a portal having… unforeseen results. We came here seeking help, but will be on our way if that’s what you would like, though if you are felling kind you could perhaps tell us where we are so maybe we will know what direction to go.”

The ponies, wary it may be a trap, did not let down their guard (Though it was hard to tell if Pinkie was ever on her guard). Twilight stepped forward and prepared a sleep spell to use on them. Her horn and the two Tamrielians began to take on a purple glow and Twilight closed her eyes and focused. Every few seconds she would peek out to see that they were both clearly awake. After 30 seconds of that she squeezed her eyelids shut and put all she had into the spell and kept that up for about 40 seconds before tiring out. She ceased the power flow and fell on her haunches panting and sweating. She looked over to the Tamrielians to see them completely unaffected by her efforts. “I don’t get it. How are they awake?” Twilight said as soon as she could catch her breath enough to speak.

Pinkie Pie hopped up to Twilight and said cheerfully “Oh Twilight silly! That spell only works on targets level 25 and below! They are both TWICE that level!” After she said that, everyone there exchanged looks, Pony to Pony, Tamrielian to Tamrielian, Pony to Tamrielian and vice versa, all mentally asking for an explanation for what she said before they all shrugged and gave up.

Skoruligr saw he would not get any information out of them and sighed “I can tell we have overstayed our welcome, we’ll just be going to… not here.” The two Tamrielians turned to leave, But a Bright yellow light shined behind them and they turned to look. It was a large flying golden chariot pulled my ten muscular Pegasus royal guards. In the chariot were the two princesses of Equestria, Celestia and Luna. Seeing the Two large, regal alicorns and the dozen armored praetorians made the Tamrielians tense up. “And we were just about to be able to leave.” Skoruligr said with a resigned sigh from the further complications.

The two princesses got out of the chariot and the 10 royal guards unlatched themselves from the chariot and went into a protective arrowhead formation in front of the sisters. The mane six bowed before the royal sisters as twelve new arrivals approached the mane six and the two Tamrielians.

“Twilight Sparkle” Celestia began “You and your friends must come to Canterlot Castle immediately; there is a great threat to Equestria that needs your attention. Your chariot awaits.” She motioned to the huge chariot and the six immediately trotted to it and hopped on. Celestia turned her attention to the two Tamrielians “And as for you two, your arrival at this moment cannot possibly be a coincidence. You both are coming with us.” Her horn began to glow and Skoruligr and J’zargo both were enveloped by the same golden glow, they were both lifted into the air from her telekinesis. Harmlessly floating above the ground they both moved with the princess towards the chariot, Skoruligr didn’t like this. He was Skoruligr Ulfrsson, Dragonborn, Slayer of Alduin the World Eater, Harbinger of the Companions, Annihilator of the Dark Brotherhood, Liberator of Skyrim, He had slain so many Dragons he lost count! All that he was subdued and by a pretty white horse-princess…

“Great” Skoruligr mumbled “Just another adventure in the life of Skoruligr Ulfrsson!” he said unenthusiastically.

“What have you gotten J’zargo into now?” J’zargo asked.

Skoruligr considered using the Thu’um to escape, but decided it would be futile unless he was planning on killing everypony there. When everypony was onboard the chariot and all the guards took their positions they took off into the sky towards Canterlot.

“Hey, your royal highness?” Skoruligr said several minutes after they took off. Both of the royal sisters looked over to him. “The white one. What is your name?”

Celestia paused for a second before answering. “I am Princess Celestia.” She said with caution, she could tell he was up to no good.

“Celestia, got it. Well anyways you should invest in a new coat color; White makes your flank look big. I just thought you should know.” He said smirking, though you couldn’t tell with that helmet on. Most of the ponies were shocked, Twilight and Rainbow Dash were furious, Pinkie giggled, and Luna fought to hold back laughter.

“See? I told you so ‘Tia” Luna said snickering. Celestia looked at her sister shocked and angry. Her cheeks turned hot pink and her horn’s glow intensified. She cast a spell replacing Skoruligr’s mouth with a zipper; you couldn’t see it because the full helm but every pony recognized the sound and knew what happened. Celestia then kept looking forward and tried her best to keep a straight face, almost imitating one of her guards, but couldn’t do anything about the blushing.

“Worth it.” Skoruligr thought. Nothing was said for the rest of the ride after that point.

Once they arrived to Canterlot Castle, the royal sisters and the mane six went into a huge atrium whereas the two Tamrielians where taken by the guards elsewhere and stripped of their gear. The room they were in was about 20 feet by 15 feet large and the walls, ceiling and floor were made of plain slate blocks. The entrance as a heavy iron door and the room was bare except the two chairs the Tamrielians were tied to that were a bit too small for them. They sat there for an hour before the two princesses came in. They all just looked at each other in silence for a few minutes before Celestia began.

“Can we get your names?”

“Skoruligr Ulfrsson”

“My name is J’zargo.”

“Now, what kind of creature are you two?”

“Your worst nightmare… I jest. I am a man, a nord of Skyrim to be exact.”

“J’zargo is a Khajiit.”

“I’ve never heard of those.” Celestia said

“I’ve never heard of tiny, talking, colorful horse things. We should form a club or something.” Skoruligr said.

“We’re ponies. Now where are you from?” Celestia inquired.

“Quick and to the point, eh? Skoruligr said

“We are from a land called Skyrim, We got here when my colleague decided it was a good idea to go through an experimental portal he knew little about, which he THREW me through!” J’zargo answered.

“Never mind my companion here, this is what REALLY happened; I was testing out a new ingenious means of teleportation that I singlehandedly developed, but it was so incredibly mindboggling powerful that we went much further than any mere mortal could have fathomed. Also, I wouldn’t have had to throw him through if he wasn’t such a milk drinker about it and had a little sense of adventure.” Skoruligr “corrected”.

Celestia let them bicker for a few moments before interrupting. “Skoruligr Ulfrsson was it? I would like to know something about you.” Before she could actually ask her question he interrupted.

“I am Skoruligr Ulfrsson, I have long red hair, a full beard, and vivid cyan eyes you can just get lost forever in. I enjoy frequent pilgrimages up the 7000 steps of High Hrothgar. There is this dragon who comes to me when I call his name to help me defeat my foes, but sometimes when J’zargo isn’t around I get lonely so I call him just to talk, that just makes him mad though and he flies off. My hobbies include smithing, being a better swordsman than anyone else ever, dungeon diving, making villagers nervous by using the Thu’um in their presence and ignoring the guards who tell me to stop, making fun of those same guard’s knee injuries, dragon-slaying, and provoking the Thalmor by making fun of them in front of their faces. I know this might break your heart ‘Tia, but I really don’t think this will work on account of whole ‘We don’t even have the same amount of legs’ thing. Plus I really don’t think I’m ready for a relationshi-“

“Enough!” Celestia stomped a hoof on the ground and stopped him before he could finish, clearly irritated by his foalishness. After taking a moment to regain her composure she continued. “We have reason to believe you have something to do with recent events involving a powerful and ancient foe. We will speak with you further when we have learned more.” The two sisters left the room, with Celestia hardly hiding her frustration.

The two Tamrielians sat in there for about 10 minutes before Skoruligr spoke up. “Now is as good of a time to break out as ever.”

“That would only serve to make matters worse.” J’zargo said.

“Nonsense. This place seems to be having a problem, and what are we? A couple of problem solvers, that’s what. Besides, what better way to gain their trust and eternal gratitude than saving the realm?”

J’zargo sighed. Being Skoruligr’s follower could be a pain sometimes, but in the end they were both loyal to each other. Not only did they form a friendship tempered in blood, J’zargo had grown far more powerful accompanying Skoruligr in his quests than he ever could at the College of Winterhold. J’zargo eventually learned it was just best to go along with it. Thankfully the Equestrians didn’t know that J’zargo could use magic, so he quickly incinerated the rope bind around his wrists. He then used his now bare claw-hands to cut through the rope around his upper chest, a quick and easy feat with his razor sharp claws. J’zargo was then able to use his hands to release his feet and then Skoruligr. Skoruligr could have used his Thu’um to get out, but they didn’t want to alert the guards… yet.

The four guards realized something was wrong when the smelled… smoke. Sure enough when they turned around they could see smoke rise from the cracks of the iron door. They immediately opened the door and the first guard in saw two things.

The chairs were on fire and empty
Skoruligr’s fist, a split-second before making contact with his schnozz.

That punch sent it’s victim flying unconscious right into a wall. When Skoruligr stepped out of the room he was greeted by another guard ready to buck him in his now-unarmored stomach, but right before he delivered the kick Skoruligr hit him right between his rear legs with a left jab, making the guard tense up and cancel the kick. With the back of that guard’s head vulnerable, Skoruligr threw a haymaker with his right fist into the back of the guard’s cranium. That left a fist-shaped dent in his helmet and made him do a half-frontflip into the other dispatched guard against the wall, joining him in unconsciousness. Before the third guard could make an attack of opportunity against Skoruligr he felt a (Relatively) small shock from J’zargo, while the guard was stunned by electricity J’zargo took that chance to snatch off the guard’s helmet and bring it back down on it’s owner’s head like a club. The helmet smacked against the top of it’s former wearer’s head, causing him so smack his jaw on the marble floor hard, making him the third to be knocked unconscious. The fourth and final guard saw he had no chance, and fled down the hall. The quadruped ran fast, but not as fast as a tempest.

“WULD!”

Skoruligr dashed with great speed by using his whirlwind sprint shout, not only catching up, but getting ahead in the blink of an eye. The fleeing guardspony tried to dodge, but Skoruligr reached out and grabbed him by the jaw. He then lifted him up so they could see each other eye-to-eye.

“Evening, good sir! Could you perhaps direct us to where our equipment may be kept?” Skoruligr asked.

Overcome by fear, the guard completely forgot about the whole “undying loyalty to the crown” thing and broke out a nervous smile. “Second left down the hall, it should be the fifth door on the right!” he hastily said.

“Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.” Skoruligr said before throwing the poor pony against the wall, leaving all of the guards unconscious. The two Tamrielians made sure the guards were in no mortal danger and that the burning chairs wouldn’t burn the whole place down (They were the only things in there and the whole room was made of slate, so it was fine).

(Skoruligr’s POV)

When we both got to the room we were directed to, we saw that our gear was indeed in there, as well as a scholar studying our belongings. We interrogated the scholar to find out all we could about the trouble in Equestria.

We discovered that there disturbance in the very nature of this world at about the same time we created that portal. That for a moment the essence of this plane of existence clashed with ours, and for the entire duration the portal was up the magic of the world was disrupted to the point of being unrecognizable. It was only for a few seconds, but that was enough for disaster. An evil spirit of chaos named Discord was released from his seal and was once again devastating this land. He escaped after being sealed from these “Elements of Harmony” once before, but was sealed once again using the unbridled force of the elements, meaning this time it was for the rest of eternity and there would be harmony across the land forever… Well that’s how it would’ve happened if it weren’t for that blasted portal of mine.

“J’zargo, there is an evil being in these peaceful lands causing chaos wherever he goes. It is because our… No, MY actions this is happening and is thus my responsibility. This is MY fault, but I need your aid. If you would join me, we must get ready immediately. Discord has no place in these lands.”

“There is no need to the theatrics, you already know my answer.” He replied. That darn cat. He never did appreciate a heroic speech.

“Good, let’s hurry then. Discord must be stopped.”

End of Chapter 2

Hey guys! That’s the end of this chapter, hopefully the next will either be sooner or bigger. This one would have been sooner but I got over 2000 words in and didn’t like it, so I restarted it and when in a new direction. Any constructive criticism or advice will be much appreciated. Be sure to tell me if I should use first person, third person, or third person with first person at certain parts?

Chapter III: The journeigh ( I'm terrible at puns, yes I know.)

(Skoruligr’s POV)

J’zargo and I spent some time further researching Discord for a few hours, as we decided it would be best to wait until a couple hours before dawn before leaving. What we had found out is that while extremely powerful, Discord was neither omnipotent nor omniscient, thus had his limits and weaknesses, but was incredibly cunning. We knew that the only thing that has defeated him thus far was the elements of harmony and he attempted to hide them last time, but underestimating his enemies was his folly; it was most likely he would not do such a thing this time. The library we were in had a surprisingly small amount on the matter despite being so historically significant; Details tend to fade away over the course of millennia I suppose. The best lead we could find is that Discord had a temple just inside the Everfree where some would worship him as a god, and that we could perhaps find more intelligence there. The temple was little under 5 hours walk from Canterlot and there were still a few hours until dawn, so we took that time to plan out an escape route that involved the least contact with the locals.

I tried to make conversation, but J’zargo was giving me the silent treatment, obviously not in the mood for my scintillating remarks. I guess because when I got him from the collage to test my new shout, it was only supposed to take a couple hours then he could go back to the collage, but instead ended up being transported to an unknown realm of pretty ponies with no guaranteed chance of return. If memory serves, he was supposed to get a new shipment in containing a new staff yesterday, and knowing Enthir he has probably already gotten his greasy mitts all over it and sold it to somebody in Hammerfell. It was stressful to him, but J’zargo retained a good sense of equanimity still considering the circumstances.

I hadn’t been too surprised by the ponies. I have been to the afterlife of Sovengarde and back without dying, been inside the head of a long-dead homicidally insane emperor with the god of madness, beaten a another god in a drinking competition which resulting in me almost getting married to a half-bird half-woman hag, and conversed with a talking dog who ended up being the canine companion to yet another god. Yeah, these ponies aren’t anything too out of the ordinary for me.

After 5 hours of careful planning, it was 4:00 AM and we were ready to go. We had created our plan using a map of the castle and what the scholar knew of the patrols, a squad of guards was supposed to pass bay at 3:40 without fail like clockwork and we were supposed to be in the clear until 4:20. We packed all of our gear back into our packs and headed to the door ready to use out plan to escape without a hitch. I would like to blame J’zargo for any flaws the plan had.

(Third person POV)
They opened the door and stepped out to find an entire Platoon of 35 guards that were on their way to report to their commanding officer. The Platoon and the Tamrielians looked at each other for a moment.

“What are you doing out of your cell…” The Lieutenant leading them asked without any perceptible expression.

“I had to pee.” Skoruligr said with a straight face (He wasn’t wearing his helmet at the time.).

The Lieutenant just continued to look at him with that royal guard trademark lack of expression, clearly not amused.

“Tough crowd. Um…” Skoruligr said scratching the back of his head and after a second just shrugged. “iiss… SLEN NUS!” Skoruligr used his Ice Form shout and an icy blue wave went through the platoon, immobilizing the first several rows in a layer of ice where they couldn’t move a muscle, not like that’s any different from what they do all day anyways. The back rows were unfrozen but the first rows blocked them from getting pass, even the ceiling was too low for the Pegasi to fly through. The Tamrielians took this chance to run away, knowing it wouldn’t take long for them to break out.

After a few minutes of navigating the twists and turns of the castle they heard the hoof-falls of about 18 guards coming up from behind them. Out of necessity they entered and hid in the nearest room to avoid being spotted, they hoped it would be empty at this early hour. They kept an ear to the door holding their breath until they heard to hoof-falls of that Squad go by the door and back down the hall until they couldn’t hear them anymore. They released their breath in a sigh of relief and heared somepony clear their throat from inside the room.

They turn around to see a white stallion earth pony sitting at a mahogany desk. He wore an olive drab jacket with various medals and ribbons on it and a short grey cropped mane. Behind him was a large painting of him saluting with a waving equestrian flag. On his desk were various pictures of usually his family, but one was a photo of him at a barbeque with his family and Princess Celestia flipping veggie burger patties at the grill wearing an apron saying “Kiss the Princess.”. Engraved on the front of his desk was “General Ponedict Arnold”
.
The general pressed a button on his desk and leaned his head over to a microphone and said “Ms. Meadows, alert the guard to triple the patrols and keep an eye out for the bipedals, also send the entire 5th infantry division to my office.” He said calmly as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“Yes sir. Right on it sir.” His secretary replied, her nasal Whoofsconsin accent coming out from the speakers. The Tamrielians and the General just looked at each other for a moment.

“Huh, this isn’t my pantry. Good day sir!” Skoruligr said as he and J’zargo hastily left the room.

The general just sighed and went back to his paperwork. He’ll be up to his withers in paperwork for weeks because of this Discord fiasco. ‘I’m too old for this crap’ he thought.

The patrols tripled, as the General requested. But the Tamrielians were long gone before they could get organized. After exiting the palace with no further complications they traveled through the back alleys of the city using a map they acquired earlier at the library. They had no further conflict until they reached the city gates protected by eight guards, most of which should go see a doctor about that shield bash to the nose. They ran for a solid five minutes before slowing down to a jog. It was nearly six o’clock now and the sun was just coming up, due to the early hour not many ponies had seen them and they had Canterlot city a good mile behind their backs. They entered the woods as soon as they could as they knew they would have plenty of guards chasing them down very soon and hoped to lose them in the forest, besides, this way was faster. “Roads are for milk-drinkers” Skoruligr always said, somehow he never got lost in the middle of the woods. He always seemed to have some sort of internal compass with a waypoint pointing right at his intended destination in his head at all times.

It would be about 5 hours walk, sooner if they jogged but they decided to save their strength.

Even though Discord was not actively messing with them, the general changes he was making to the world were a hindrance. Flying demon chickens, as in Discord gave chickens their wish; wings large enough for them to fly, but then made them apparently out for blood. When the Tamrielians when into a clearing the started hearing the demonic noises echoing from all directions.

“CLUCK CLUCK B’GOK b’gok b’gok b’gok”

“What was that noise?” J’zargo said, shifting his eyes left and right.

“Evil…” Skoruligr said grimly. Most believe chickens to be just a bunch of dumb animals, not capable of evil. Skoruligr was not so easily fooled.

When he was but a “cub” (as his father Ulfr always called him when he was a child), he lived on a farm a just few miles out from Whiterun in Skyrim. One day he was assigned to feed the chickens and decided to bring his new puppy with him, even though he was feeding them their blasted seeds they had other ideas… While he was sprinkling their seed they swarmed his new puppy, completely covering him in a pile of ravenous poultry, and when the swarm dispersed the puppy was gone, no trace of his existence.

It was that day Skoruligr realized there was great evil in the world that must be stopped, or punished. Later that night he went to the chicken coop where the foul beats slept and sealed it’s only entrance, and then burned their blasted coop to the ground. He then set out into the night to faraway lands to become a hero, to bring justice and honor back to the world. Bandits, Necromancers, Murderers, Arsonists, Jaywalkers, and of course chickens. No evil was safe from his wrath.

“Incoming!” J’zargo warned and pointed to the sky. There it was, a chicken with wings the size of a eagle’s diving at high speeds towards them. “What is that thing?” J’zargo said as it got closer. It dove right at them, and hit head first on Skoruligr’s shield.

“A red splatter on my shield is all it is.” Skoruligr said triumphantly. He appeared to not be afraid, but in truth he had to fight to urge to shudder at the thought of flying chickens.

“By the twin moons! There are more of them!” J’zargo shouted. There were several dozen of them circling them from above and they all started diving at them.

The chickens were still no match, they dove in large numbers but the Tamrielians fought valiantly. J’zargo used chain lightning to dispatch large groups of them, and any that got too close met their end face first against Skoruligr’s shield, or cleaved in two by the panacea that is his sword.

This whent on for several minutes before a shadow came over them. They looked up and saw over a hundred of the foul fowl, enough to blot out the sun!

“RUN!” Skoruligr shouted and began running in the opposite direction followed by J’zargo. They ran though the foliage as fast as they could but the airborne poultry were too fast. Seeing that they could not run fast enough on flat ground they started running down a steep slope. However it was too steep and covered in vines so they both tripped on ivy and began to roll down the slope before changing their roll into a slide. As they slid down Skoruligr stopped his descent long enough to look back to see the chickens gaining on them, but also saw that they were crowded and lined up.

“yol… TOOR SHUL!” Skoruligr used his fire breath shout and a 20 foot round blast of fire went forward for nearly 60 feet, engulfing the pursuing swarm in flames. Before he could cheer at the defeat of his mortal enemies he noticed their flaming carcasses continued to dive towards him and had to dodge an incoming flaming chicken. The Tamrielians spent all their attention dodging chickens they didn’t see that the slope they were sliding down on ended in an upward ramp and they were fast approaching it.

Stephen Magnet the Fabulous Sea Monster was happy. He never regretted moving to Whitetail wood, It was MUCH nicer here that that drab Everfree forest. But the best thing was that his mustache had finally fully grown back, his beautiful, fabulous mustache. There will be no mustache murdering wisps of smoke here, nope none of that happens in Whitetail, just Everfree.

That’s when those two things came flying by him and the big shiny grey one grabbed onto his beautiful mustache to break his fall, but the 400 pounds of muscle and steel were too much for his fabulous mustache and half off it was ripped right out from the roots.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHahohuhuh!” He felt great physical pain from it, but that was nothing compared to the heart-break. It was like losing a limb, it took a year for his mustache to grow back and will be even longer this time, but it would never be the same…

It took them a few minutes to get their bearings after the flight, luckily the thick canopy of the trees broke most of their fall and some healing potion fixed up any broken bones they had. The rest on the journey went without further obstacles and they made their way to the temple in a couple hours.

The entrance was nothing special, just a plain old cave opening, you would never be able to tell it was anything other than a cave from just looking at it from the outside. After going in there was about 5 minutes of twists and turns before finally reaching the first chamber.

The first chamber was large and rectangular, with four support columns. Everything in there was plain with apparently no detail put into it except the door on the wall opposite where they came. The door was about 10 foot square and had eight ornate small circles all arranged into a larger circle and there was no visible handles or levers to open the door.
The Tamrielians walked across the room to the door. There were what appeared to be 5 piles of twigs and small tree branches that didn’t appear very noteworthy, until they stood up on four legs and looked at them with glowing amber eyes of course.

You probably know these as Timberwolves from Family Appreciation Day episode but I will describe them anyways. Or I can just provide a picture.

There were five timberwolves, two on the right, two on the left and one on the far side of the room. The timberwolves growled at their prey as Skoruligr unsheathed his sword and J’zargo was getting ready to use the flames spell. The timberwolves charged at the Tamrielians and J’zargo cast his flames spell unleashing a continuous jet of flames from his hands, but the timberwolves didn’t seem to care, all that served to do is make the Tamrielians have to fend off timberwolves that were now on fire.

One of the timberwolves leapt at Skoruligr and he swung his sword down in an overhead swing lodging his blade two inches deep into to wolves head. While the sword was stuck in to the wolves head it continued to swipe at Skoruligr with its claws and another one of its brethren made an attack of opportunity by attempting to tackle Skoruligr from the side causing him to stagger, but Skoruligr manage to shake off his timberwolf off.

When that timberwolf lunged at Skoruligr for a second time, Skoruligr spun around with its brethren’s head still stuck on his sword and smacked him mid-lunge with his fellow pack-member. The force of impact dislodged his sword from one timber wolf and sent the other flying into a pillar. Skoruligr approached the timberwolf against the pillar and thrust his sword into its heart, killing it in seconds.

When Skoruligr pulled his sword out he turned around and saw another timberwolf mid-leap just in time to dodge barely and have its claws scrape against his helmet. The timberwolf landed at Skoruligr’s feet and jumped up to tear out his throat, but he countered with a sword pommel to the throat causing the timberwolf to fall onto its back. When the timberwolf got back onto its feet Skoruligr threw a shield punch to its jaw that he put all his weight into, sending it flying into the stone wall face first with a loud *CRACK* as it broke various vital pieces of timber and fell to the ground motionless as it’s glowing amber eyes began to dim.

After Skoruligr had dispatched his second timberwolf, the one he had just used as a blunt instrument had regained its senses and got back to its feet. It saw that Skoruligr had his back turned and incorrectly thought he was off-guard. It leapt into the air towards what he thought was going to be his victim, but Skoruligr just calmly stepped to the side and held out his shield where he was just standing. The timberwolf’s snout slammed againt the thick metal shield with a dull *BONK*.

“Thought I had forgotten all about you didn’t ‘cha?” Skoruligr said with a smirk hidden behind his helmet. The timberwolf quickly recovered and made another lunge and Skoruligr raised his shield in defense, but the timberwolf landed on the shield and held on with its forelegs and tried to reach Skoruligr’s throat with its maw. Skoruligr retaliated by slamming his sword pommel against the side of the timberwolf’s head and attempted to shake it off to no avail. Seeing how didn’t work he shield-bashed the wall with the timberwolf still on, to no avail. In a final attempt to liberate his shield from the timberwolf he lifted it high and pointed it to the ceiling as if he were trying to block falling debris and shouted. “fus… RO DAH!” His Unrelenting force shout pushed the timberwolf’s head back and by extension, it’s body, with enough force to pull it off the shield on have it go flipping through the air for 40 feet. When it came back down it landed on its right hind leg with enough force to snap it backwards. With only 3 functional legs it attempted to get up, but was interrupted by Skoruligr’s steel boot coming down on its neck, the powerful stomp crushing the life out of the timberwolf.

J’zargo had a few problems with the invasion of personal space that two of the flaming timberwolves were committing. Without sufficient space to cause some arcane carnage he unsheathed the ebony sword Skoruligr had forged with legendary craftsmanship and kept his right hand free and ready to claw. One of the timberwolves lunged at J’zargo and he responded by dodging right and moving forward at the same time and impaled the timberwolf in the side. J’zargo dug his claws into the side of the timberwolf’s face and pulled out his blade and threw the timberwolf onto its pack mate. While the two timberwolves were on the ground atop each other J’zargo prepared his Ice Spear spell to impale them both, but when he threw the spear the bottom uninjured timberwolf got out from under his brethren in time to avoid the same fate of being spiked to the ground.

The released timberwolf recovered quickly and lunged at J’zargo. Because of the short distance J’zargo could do nothing but raise his sword in attempt to block the timberwolf with the flat of his blade. The weight of the timberwolf caused J’zargo to be knocked off his feet and onto his back. The only thing keeping the timberwolf from tearing out J’zargo’s throat was the flat of an ebony sword lifting its head up too far to reach, J’zargo rolled to the side to get free from underneath the timberwolf and once his sword was free he brought it down like a hammer, crushing the timberwolf’s jaw with the pommel. J’zargo quickly got to his feet and leapt backward a few times to gain distance but the timberwolf got to its feet before J’zargo could reduce it to ash. With 20 feet between them the timberwolf charged, and rather than dodge J’zargo brandished his ebony sword with both hands and did the same while bellowing a war cry.

When to two were within a close distance the timberwolf sprung into the air toward J’zargo’s upper torso, but J’zargo ducked without stopping his charge and swung his sword in both hands in an overhead swing with all his might. The ebony sword pierced the timberwolf’s wooden sternum and went out its back; the blade continued down the timberwolf’s body, splitting it down the middle going with the grain of the wood, not unlike one would split firewood with an axe. The timberwolf then fell to the ground behind J’zargo split down the middle from its sternum down, and squirmed on the ground for a few seconds before it’s glowing eyes dimmed and all movement ceased.

(Skoruligr’s POV)

“Nothing like an ambush to get the blood circulating!” I said triumphantly. I turned to look at the state J’zargo was in to see my Khajiit companion panting and sweating. “By talos, what happened to you? You look like you got in a wrestling match with a frost troll!” J’zargo merely looked back at me; he was too busy catching his breath to respond.

With no more apparent threats I took a closer look at the door that I assumed lead into the temple. It was large stone door with no handles or hinges in sight, and it had eight circles with carvings of animals arranged into one large circle, upon further inspection it appeared the smaller pieces were removable and it then became painfully obvious it was a puzzle door, because apparently all dungeon makers think themselves clever and original by installing puzzle doors instead of a more conventional one. The eight depicted animals were: Horse, bat, lion, goat, snake, Pegasus, eagle, lizard.

After a few minutes of making educated guesses and then half an hour of completely random choices, J’zargo and I were baffled. Usually in old Nordic ruins they were stupid enough to leave the answer somewhere in the room, but a thorough search showed this one wasn’t going to make it so easy for us. After thinking back on previous puzzles I have solved I remembered that in a nordic ruin named Ansilvund at one point I was in a situation similar to this, but found the answer in a book with related history to the place. I went through my pack and J’zargo and I began skimming though the books we brought related to Discord and his temple. After nearly an hour J’zargo had found something, one of the depictions of Discord was an odd serpent like being consisting of several different animals.

Using the depiction of the Spirit of Disharmony as a reference, we rearranged the puzzle pieces in the order they appear on him. He had a horses’ head, right Pegasus wing, right paw is that of a lion, etcetera. After we arranged the pieces in the order of: (Clockwise) Horse, Pegasus, lion, lizard, snake, goat, eagle, bat; we heard a clicking sound, and the door slowly began to lower into to the floor… to reveal a set of upside-down stairs leading into the temple. Why would you install upside-down stairs? How in Ysmir’s name are you supposed to use those?! (Oh wait, the greybeards named me Dragon of the North, which means that I’m Ysmir now.) As we further progressed though the temple, we learned its best to not question the design of temple devoted to a Spirit of Chaos. We just needed to get in there, and find out what intelligence against Discord we could.

[Holy dooley! It took me way too long to get this chapter done! Thanks guys for the support you have given thus far, and please be sure to give constructive criticism if you have any! It took a bit long to get this chapter done due to my job, minor writer’s block, and copious amounts of procrastination. The next chapter won’t take as long. Probably. Maybe… Hopefully. If you are worried about the lack of mane 6 in this one, don’t. Later chapters will have them, and even after Discord is taken care of Skoruligr and the Ponies will still have much aaaAAAADVENTURE.

A Question for you all.

As is painfully obvious, this story has not been updated for over half a year. I am sure at least some of you are wondering why. I have not set this story to "on hiatus" because I want to continue it, I really do. However, when I started this story I was new to MLP fanfiction, and fanfiction in general, so I had not read many stories at all. What I did read typically was not very good, which lead me to believe that my story was vastly superior in every way to the vast majority of stories on this site, especially originality. A small part of me still believes this. But as I read more and more stories I discovered that the idea of " Botched experimental spell/Dragon Shout land a Human/Humaniod(s) in Equestria, start pony panic, get captured, and go on a quest to save the world from Discord." Is not very original at all.

There are some parts of the story that are very different than other stories, and I believe I did a good job writing a story with a unoriginal plot. I have the basic outline done for the Discord arc in the story, and I believe that it would still be a good story if I continued it, even if the basic idea of the plot is unoriginal, the execution will be very different. I can enjoy things made by others that are "okay", "decent", or just "good", but all my life I never settled for my creations being just "okay", I have always wanted to be one the best if the THE best at things, whether it be drawing, gaming, airsoft, or graphic design.

I have decided to swallow my pride and ask whether or not I should continue, and ask for suggestions on how to make the story more original. I want this story finished, too many things in my life I have left unfinished because I couldn't convince myself it is good enough for my name*, it is time I started lowering my standards(But not too much) or I will never get anything done.

So what are your thoughts? What do think of the story? Is it decent? Good? Excellent? What could I do that you have never seen done before?

Also, after Act 1 is done, I am going to beef it up a bit and do some revising so I can submit it to EQD, even though their pre-readers can be a very biased lot at times. I believe the pacing and dialog are not all they can be, It needs slower pacing and wittier dialog.

* Even though I am writing this story anonymously, as Branden Hew Troy is not even my real name, but rather an anagram.