Chapters Sadly Sings Destiny
Emerald Dawn looked exhausted, but she kept working while ignoring the fact her mane was starting to fall into her eyes. The mane in question was a light orange, which contrasted with the deep green of her coat. She also had a magnifying glass for her cutie-mark, and you could just make out her horn from under her mane. To make the matters of her comfort worse, the desk was too big for her diminutive size, which she hadn't got around to replacing yet. All of this was taking place inside her house, which is in the quaint little town known as Broken Bit. It definitely wasn't a glamorous place to live, but she absolutely adored all of the little fillies and colts she taught.
As her concentration began to slip, it wandered back to her trip to Manehattan. It was a pleasant city, if a bit overwhelming. Not only from the size of all the buildings, but also from the sheer amount of ponies that inhabited the place, creating a congested mess of a city when they were all in a hurry to get somewhere. Drifting into another thought, she wondered if she really had seen the unicorns create objects with magic. Still not sure if she had, she'd spent a good deal of her time since returning to her hometown trying to unravel the mystery.
"Come on, stop getting sidetracked and keep trying..."
To her delight, she managed to replicate the spell with a pencil later that night. Celebrating her success, and almost waking the neighbors in the process, she started to wind down. At first she wanted to give something a bigger a try as soon as she could, but the huge yawn she let out stopped her.
"Maybe I should get some sleep first," she told herself in an amused tone as she reversed to go back to her room.
Sleeping peacefully, and quite like a log, through all of Saturday, she awoke early Sunday morning. Looking at her clock, which read 6:00 AM, she couldn't help but wonder how she felt so great after only sleeping a few hours.
"That's odd, I'll have to check the paper when it arrives."
Shrugging it off, she walked out of the door in search of a place to try her new conjuring spell for something larger.
"Where should I try this... I guess I'd better pick somewhere close..."
Humming a cheery tune, she began looking for a suitable place to practice. After a few minutes, she found a low hill with a relatively flat top that looked like an ideal place. After arriving, she realized she had no idea what she wanted to summon. Sitting down with her hoof raised a hoof to her chin, she pondered.
"What do I want to start with...? I know! I’ll start with a small house! Maybe something like a dog house!"
Concentrating as hard as she could, she performed the spell, and it wasn’t long before she started sweating and her legs began to shake. She finished the spell with a small smile that quickly faded as she realized she had badly misjudged the amount of power needed for the spell.
"This isn’t good." She managed to gasp before losing consciousness.
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Jesse had been up late Friday night doing his usual thing: playing games that usually ended up with him killing the fuck out of anything he came across. At about average height and slightly above average weight, he was pale with brown hair, which he kept buzzed off, a rather large nose, and a pair of clear blue eyes.
Although he was an above-average guy in an average life, he'd chosen it. With his natural intelligence and a little work, he could have been an engineer at Boeing or a researcher in most fields. The problem was he just didn’t have the drive to do it. What was the point of wasting half of your life with a high-level college education, then another quarter of it paying off the debts that you had amassed while going to said college? Hell, he actually had an aunt that worked for Boeing, and she had little time for herself and more than a little stress, which was a major factor in his decision. He was comfortable with his mid-range desktop in his small house. It actually had two rooms, but he had reinforced the smaller of the two to store his guns and other weaponry in. Most called him lazy for not fulfilling his full potential, and while he didn’t disagree on that as a fact, he did argue when they said that that was why he was where he was.
Waking up the next morning to get ready for work, he grabbed himself a bowl of cereal, finished his morning ritual, grabbed his keys from the table, and went to go to work. The sun seemed unnaturally bright for some reason, though the reason became clearer once his eyes had adapted to the morning light. On the ground before him, which was much greener than his dead lawn would ever be, was a unicorn that had been drowned in paint and tossed on his doorstep. It was dark green with a light orange mane and tail, and his subconscious told him its mane and tail were the same hue as the sky surrounding the rising sun, but his consciousness was busy with other things at the moment.
“What the... How can my house use electric here?” Jesse asked to no one in particular in his southern accent. He did have his priorities straight though -- when in a new world, don’t bother trying to figure out how you got there, just start questioning the physics to stop a mental overload. Or maybe he was slightly insane, sometimes it could be hard to tell. The unicorn continued to lay there, so he decided to wait and see if she would awake. He lasted about 5 minutes before he got bored and went inside for a bowl of water, which he tossed on her. Honestly, finesse was never something he was good or cared about.
“What, who’s there? And why am I wet?” The mare sputtered as she got to her hooves. She saw Jesse and the house behind it and her body began to tremble.
“What are you?” She probably would have ran away, but her legs kept telling her brain to just leave a message, they'd be in contact later.
“Well,” Jesse started, “I’m a human who appears to have been teleported off of his world, along with his house to, ah... Wherever this is. What is this place, anyway? It looks like someone found the contrast setting for the entire world and started playing with it.”
The poor unicorn looked faint, and a few seconds later she did exactly that, falling flat on her face. With a sigh, the human just sighed and picked her up, grunting with the effort, and dumped her on his old couch. Going to the bathroom, he brought back a towel. Drying her off as best as he could, without touching anywhere he thought might be inappropriate, he took his old Mario blanket from his bed tossed it over her. After all of that, he decided to pass the time by seeing what worked and what didn’t work in this world. Surprisingly, the only things that didn't work was the internet and phone connections.
“Well, I’m not on Earth, there’s a green talking unicorn, and everything still works... Maybe there was a gas leak and I’m dead, or maybe just high... Oh well, I’ll find out eventually.” With a shrug, he decided to worry about it later.
“Ugh, where am I?” The mare said as she slowly regained consciousness, "And why does my head hurt?"
“You’re in my house after you fainted a second time, and I decided against waking you up this time around. As for the pain, that's probably because you face-planted the last time you fainted," he told her in a matter-of-fact tone.
Emerald had been looking at the blanket with a puzzled look as Jesse spoke, staring at the odd little creatures that appeared on it. Looking up a few seconds later, she saw this human standing in a small kitchen making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“But why are you here?”
“Not a clue myself, I was kind of hoping you’d have that particular answer.”
“I... tried to create a house with my magic, and it worked on the pencil, so what went wrong with the house?”
“Did you make the pencil, or did you just bring a pencil to you?”
“I... Um... I’m not sure...” Face and ears drooping, she began to realize the spell hadn’t done what she wanted it to.
Jesse, on the other hand, had to force his face to stay impassive. There was something about the little unicorn’s pout that was trying to tug at the heart-strings he didn’t remember even having.
“Well, I’m here now, and unless you can send me back, there’s no way to change that.”
“How are you so calm? If this had happened to me, I would be scared to death." She told him, shivering at the thought.
“Like I said, I’m here, I can’t do anything about it, I don’t think you can do anything about it, and I might as well consider this a vacation. I’ll start worrying once I find a reason to worry, like when my food runs out, or the magical energy supply that I have seem to have runs out. Then, of course, there's the possibly this is a dream, or I'm hallucinating, or that I'm dead.”
“I’m really sorry about this, and I’ll try my best to fix it. I'm also alive, so you shouldn't be dead."
“Just tell me if you need any help, otherwise I’ll just stay here and try not to cause chaos. I will admit the thought of causing chaos with my mere presence would be hilarious though. Oh, and I should ask you to advise the locals to leave me alone, by the way. I usually don’t play nicely with others, especially when they begin to pester me.”
The poor mare just looked at him in shock, but it was obscured by the fact she already had a shocked look on her face from everything else.
“Okay, I’ll do that.” After a short pause, she added “I’m going to go see if I can find a way to send you back.” She got off the couch and headed toward the door, which included a few awkward steps as she tried to regain equilibrium. She had no idea what he'd do if he got angry, but she had a feeling it wouldn't be very nice.
Jesse nodded as she left, which was all of the recognition she got that he was paying attention. She really felt bad, not only because she caused somepony a problem, but also because she had no idea the effects this strange creature would have in her world. Making her way to the town library, she started looking through every book she thought might help.
"This is going to take some time," she muttered to herself as she started reading through the first book, which was titled, Dimensions and You: A Novice’s Guide to the Galaxy . She didn’t really expect to find any answers in it, but with a title like that, it had to have something of note inside. She spent the next few days going over books that looked promising and working, though she did remember to warn the town to stay away from the house on the hill.
As she left, Jesse decided he might as well do some maintenance on his guns and other assorted weapons. He walked into the last room of the house, which held a few shields and swords hanging from the walls, a workbench, and a large black gun safe, which was his destination, he opened it with a quick sequence of numbers and a turn of the handle. The collection of guns wasn't large, but it was fairly impressive. The entire bottom had been turned into two shelves, both of which were full of ammo. The guns on the custom racks included an M4A1 assault rifle, an old Russian SKS battle rifle, a Russian Dragunov sniper rifle, and his M1911 pistol. Some people seemed to think he had a gun fetish, he just replied that he liked things that go bang. Sitting at the work bench, he spent the next few hours stripping down and meticulously cleaning the guns and his favorite shield and sword. He didn’t actually use the shield and sword much, but he loved them and had a fair amount of knowledge on how to use them.
After a few days of playing video games, he began to wonder what he would do when the food ran out, but figured he'd just ask the next time Emerald dropped by. He also wondered if she had spread the word around town to leave his house alone. Because if she had, it didn’t show. The ponies tried to spy on him inconspicuously, but they were all doing a rather bad job of it. Finally losing his patience, decided to get it over with. So without ceremony, he pulled out one of his camping chairs, sit it down outside, and sat down.
“Okay, you pony things aren’t exactly great at hiding, so come on over and sate your curiosity,” he yelled.
Most of the ponies scattered, though one of the pegasi flew down and landed in front of him. She had pure white coat that had a light blue hue to it, like it was seen through ice, and a bright red mane.
“What are you? And I don’t know why the town’s scared of you, you don’t look so tough to me,” she said. Her voice wasn’t very harsh (or soft for that matter), it was somewhere in between, and her eyes were the same fiery red as her mane. It was an appropriate color, since she was currently trying to burn holes through him with her glare. Adorning her flank was a snow-flake with a pillar of fire.
“Indeed... I’m a human. Apparently there aren’t any humans in.... Wherever I happen to be right now. Though I would like to know if you ponies realize it’s rude to spy. In fact, it’s probably considered even more rude to spy badly,” Jesse told the mare, unfazed by the glare.
She looked at him like she was going to laugh. “You don’t know where you’re at? You’re in Equestria, and what else were we supposed to do? You didn’t come out, and we don’t know if you’re dangerous or not. You don’t look tough though, so how dangerous could you be?”
Jesse let out a chuckle. “You’ve no idea, and I don’t plan on sharing that particular bit of information. Anyway, the name’s Jesse.”
“Jesse? that’s a weird name, why would anypony name their foal Jesse? Anyway, my name's Frostfire”
“As you may have noticed, I’m not a pony, so your form of naming is equally odd to me. Anything else?”
“Yeah, what do I keep hearing when you’re inside? I couldn't quite hear it.”
“It’s either my music or the noise made by my games. Anyway, I’ve the odd suspicion you're going to be wanting a tour of my house, So now I just have to find a way to keep you from destroying everything and killing yourselves. Goodbye, I’ll talk to you later.” And with that, he got up and walked back inside, shutting the door behind him.
“Later? Get back here! I'm not done talking with you!” Frostfire yelled as the door closed. She tried to open it, but it was locked.
“Fine, be that way,” she yelled before she took off with an unintelligible grumble.
Sadly Sings Destiny
Emerald Dawn decided to take a walk through Broken Bit after a particularly intense study session. The stress from days of work were adding up, so she decided a break would do more good than harm. Trotting along mindlessly, she accidentally ran into the town blacksmith, which drug her back into reality.
“Sorry, Mr. Steel. I should have been watching where I was going,” she told the stallion.
The stallion in question, Steel Crescent, had a dark grey coat, a matching white mane and tail, silvery eyes, and an anvil for his cutie-mark. He was an older stallion, his prideful recklessness mellowed by age and years of patience, which was required when working metal into objects of use and beauty. Although he’d never been married, there were rumors that said he could have any mare he wanted if he tried.
“That’s quite alright, Ms. Dawn, no harm done,” he replied. “Though you do look like you haven’t eaten in some time, care to join me for lunch?”
“You’re such a gentlestallion, Steel. Of course I’ll come,” she replied with a giggle. She knew he wasn’t hitting on her, he really was just that much of a gentlestallion.
They walked over to a small diner and ordered a pair of sandwiches, which they ate in a friendly silence. Emerald had ordered green tea to wash it down with, while Steel had settled on a normal cup of iced tea. After a few minutes, Steel broke the silence.
“So, what have you been getting into this time?”
She sighed. “I tried a new spell, and ended up bringing a house, and the creature it belonged to, to our world.”
“I had heard there was something strange going on...” His face was blank, as he'd thought it was just a rumor. “I don't know much about casting spells, but couldn’t you just reverse the spell and send it back?"
“If only it was that easy. I’d have to know where I’m sending him, and I don’t know whether it’s a nearby moon, star, or another dimension.”
“That’s not good. Is he friendly, or is he going to end up causing problems?”
“I don’t know.... He doesn’t seem completely hostile, but he doesn’t seem very friendly either.”
“At least he’s not destroying stuff.”
“Yeah, I’m not even sure if he’s left his house. He doesn’t seem to like being around ponies.”
“Well, he did just get pulled from his world into ours, so he’s probably just trying to get over that.” He paused, then added, “Well Ms. Dawn, I have to go back to the shop, I've got a few orders I still need to finish today. I’ll see you around,” he said as he got up and started walking back to his smithy, putting some bits on the table before he left.
“See you later Steel.”
She sat there for a few more minutes and finished her tea before going back to her house to continue her ongoing research. Her latest book was on ancient relics, and though it was missing a few pages, it seemed to be her best lead so far.
Two hours later, she came across a passage that described a small marble that reputedly could send the possessor across space and time. "This could be exactly what I need," she mumbled to herself. The details were sketchy, though it was said to be roughly the size of a large marble and filled with flickering lights. It also mentioned it was perilous to look directly at it, for the pony doing so would disappear. The disappearance was said to sometimes be to the future, and a few tales say the past. The last known location of the artifact was, supposedly, somewhere in the Misty Mountains.
“Well that’s convenient, those are quite a distance from here, but not too far.” She pondered aloud.
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“I know you’re in there, let me in,” Frostfire yelled as she banged on Jesse’s front door.
“Why am I not surprised,” Jesse said as he opened his door. “Come on in, I managed to either lock or nail down anything that you’d be curious about. I can’t have you running around with something you’re likely to injure us with.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said with a huff.
“Ever held a sharp knife or a gun?”
“What’s a gun?”
“I rest my case, welcome to my humble abode.”
Frostfire walked in, and was fairly surprised by the color scheme, or lack of one. It was all either black or silver. “It’s rather bland in here, isn’t it?”
“What can I say? I’m a fan of black and silver. This is also how I bought the place.” He walked over to his chair and sat down. “Take a load off, and ask the hundreds of questions I know you want answered, and this time I’ll be able to explain some, and demonstrate others.”
She didn't even have to think for a moment. “What’s a gun?”
“That’s an easy one, I’ll show you one.” He unlocked the second room’s door, went inside and got his 1911 pistol out of it, and one of the rounds. “This is a pistol, a type of gun, and this is a bullet. You put the bullet in the pistol and the tip of the bullet comes out of the end of the pistol at very fast speeds. They are generally used for shooting inanimate targets, or for killing things.”
“Humans make things to kill each other with?”
“We’ve been making things to kill each other, and things to eat, for most of our time on our planet.”
Her face blanched. “Wait, eat things ?”
Jesse pulled his lip over his teeth, showing off his canines. “The sharp, pointy ones are for meat, and the flatter ones in the back are for plants. Humans are omnivores, so we can eat just about anything.”
“That’s... just gross, so how can you stand to eat other animals?”
“Mainly because I’m guessing the animals on my world aren’t quite as sentient as the ones I’m assuming you’re used to. As it is, I quite like the way meat tastes to be honest. But don’t worry your pretty little head off, because I’m not going to kill anything here unless it tries to kill me first.”
Frostfire didn’t quite know how to respond to that. “So, what was your job on your planet?”
“I was a librarian actually. I worked for a small town and ruled my library with an iron fist. Which involved banning idiots and hosting tournaments for this card game called ‘Magic: The Gathering.’ On Thursdays and Saturdays I kept the doors open an extra two hours for people who wanted to come over and play some games. Occasionally I’d even take my old 64 up and play Super Smash Brothers.”
“Can you show me some of these games?”
“Easily, though I do have to ask how squeamish you are when it comes to blood and guts.”
“Blood and guts?”
“Most of my games are a little on the violent side, so it would be pleasant if you told me whether or not you can handle it, so I don’t have to clean up your breakfast from my floor.”
“Of course I can handle a little violence, are you saying I’m a wimp?”
“We’ll see”
He started off showing her some of his older games, like Super Smash Brothers and Donkey Kong 64, and worked his way up. She seemed to like Twisted Metal 4 and Spyro. He just increased the violence slowly, until he reach Fallout: New Vegas. He went around showing her the game and finally came across an enemy. With a small smile while she was distracted, he turned the volume up.
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
“What the hay,” Frostfire yelled as she jumped back. Her eyes went wide, and she started breathing harder.
Jesse had been watching her and started laughing when she jumped. “You should have seen the look on your face. I would have recorded it with the webcam if I had been able to activate it without tipping you off.”
“You’re a jerk,” she huffed as she went back to watch the screen, which was centered on the thing he had just shot.
“Okay, now watch closely and see how long you can hold your lunch.” He then proceeded to shoot the corpse a few times, until the game’s ‘Bloody Mess’ perk activated. Frostfire had been watching impassively when the corpse exploded into hundreds of chunks and a mist of blood. It turned out her stomach wasn’t as strong as she thought, and she ended up hurling a few seconds after seeing it. Jesse expected it though, and put his trashcan over her muzzle.
“Didn’t you say something about being able to handle a little violence?” She just groaned and puked some more.
A few hours later Frostfire was feeling better, though there was a scent in the air that didn't quite seem right. Jesse was cooking something, though she didn’t ask what after remembering what he said about humans eating other animals. He walked back with some red, lumpy stuff and a couple of bread slices in one hand, and a plate of what looked like golden sticks in the other.
“Here’s some food,” he told her as he set some french fries down in front of her.
“And what exactly are these, they look familiar....”
“Fried taters, though most humans call them ‘french fries’ for some reason.”
“And they are made of....”
“Plants.”
“So what are you eating?”
“They’re called ‘sloppy joes’ where I come from. Before you ask, they are made from things you do not wish to know about, some vegetables, and spices.”
She accepted the answer, she really didn’t want to know exactly what he was eating when she thought about it. They ate in silence, during which Frostfire seemed jittery. If Jesse was nervous or uncomfortable, you couldn’t tell it. He finished his food and got up.
"So, what's with the tattoos on your ass? I saw Emerald had a magnifying glass, but I saw most of the other ponies had a tattoo on their ass," Jesse asked Frostfire.
"Tattoos? Ass?"
"What's with the pictures on your butt?"
"Oh, it's my cutie-mark, don't you have one?"
"Nope, the closest thing we have are tattoos, which involves injecting ink under your skin with a needle that pokes you really fast."
"That sounds painful..."
"It can be, so give me an explanation of these "cutie-marks" please?"
"Well, when a pony finds their special talent, it shows up."
"Well that sounds right out of a fairy tale, so why do you have a pillar of fire coming out of a snowflake?"
"It's because I'm good at doing weird things with the weather, like making lightning when it snows."
"That sounds like fun," he replied. “Well, I’m about to take a shower, so feel free to leave when you want. Oh, and please don’t get too nosy, because you might not like what you find.”
He went into the bathroom and the sound of running water can be heard. Frostfire waited an indecisive minute before sneaking over and opening the door quietly. She peeked in, but her view was obscured by the curtain. She looked over at the mirror to see if she could get a better angle, just to meet his eyes.
“Wondering if we were compatible, eh?”
“I... I was just leaving,” she said as she hurried off, blushing. Jesse chuckled as he finished his shower, then went back to playing Fallout.
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Several minutes later Frostfire made it back to her house. She wasn’t sure what she expected to see, but what she saw definitely not wasn't it. Somewhat shook up, she hopped into her bath, then recoiled from the coldness of the water. Turning the hot water on, she tried to settle down and relax. After soaking for some time, she got out and hopped into her bed. Much to her chagrin, she tossed and turned forever before the sweet, blissful of sleep overcame her.
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Emerald Dawn had gone to bed early that night, trying to make up for all of the sleep she had lost while searching for an answer. After awaking, she started thinking about what would be required to make the journey.
‘First I’m going to need that map of the Misty Mountains,’ she thought to herself as she went into her personal library. It wasn’t a big room, but it had a fair number of books across all genres, and a few maps she had bought when a travelling salesmare had come by town a few years back. She rummaged through the drawers until she found the map she was looking for. Taking the map and spreading it across her kitchen table, she studied it intently, looking for all of the possible places that such an artifact might reside.
Lost in the Twilight Hall
Sadly Sings Destiny
Emerald Dawn got up fairly early the next morning, and decided to go tell Jesse that they could start the search for the artifact today. After arriving at his house, she knocked on the door. Since he didn't answer, she knocked again. This time footsteps could be heard coming from inside, which was followed by Jesse opening the door.
“Bit early for this, ain't it?” he asked, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“I think I found a way to get you home,” she said, a pleased expression on her face.
“Well maybe it’s not too early then. So how many dragons do I have to slay?” he asked nonchalantly.
She looked at him with an odd expression. “Why do you think we would have to slay dragons?”
“Just ignore that. Where I'm from, it’s almost against the law to write an adventure without having to kill something at the end. Dragons guarding the treasure is a popular choice.”
“Uh... Anyway, do you want to start searching today or tomorrow?”
“Might as well leave today. So what exactly am I getting into?”
“I’ve found an artifact that’s supposed to be close by called ‘The Time Twister’. If we can find it, it should be able to take you back home, though I will admit I’m not exactly sure how it works or the specifics of its powers.”
“Eh, just a bit of dynamic risk assessment then, what could possibly go wrong?”
She looked at him as though he were crazy.
“Why does everyone look at me like I'm nutter when I say that? You’d think I’d just said the sun was blue or that it’s only a good day when an anvil drops on my head.”
“Because saying that is just inviting something bad to happen.” She shook her head with a sigh. “I’ll come pick you up after I eat lunch, does that sound good to you?”
“Sounds good to me, see you then." He paused, then added, "Oh, and I may or may not be as crazy as you think I may or may not be.”
Emerald just continued to shake her head as she left to finish up her packing, and Jesse disappeared back into the house to start his. She arrived at her house later and started arranging her saddlebags, making sure she had everything. Looking through them again, she discarded a few things that weren't necessary. A rumbling stomach distracted her, so she decided to go have lunch at the diner. She took her time getting there, pausing on occasion to see if there was anything new in the shops. Upon her arrival, she saw Steel Crescent sitting at the same spot they had eaten at the day before.
“Mind if I join you, Steel?” she asked him when she arrived.
“Not at all Ms. Dawn, please take a seat. And if I may ask, where are you going?” he asked, motioning towards her full saddlebags.
“I’m about to go with Jesse to try and find an artifact I researched last night. Its true name is unknown, though it was referred to as ‘The Time Twister’ in the old tome I found it in.”
“So you’re going to go out on an adventure with a creature you know nothing about?" He chuckled before adding, "If you’ll excuse me, Ms. Dawn, I’ll go pack up and join you for this journey.”
“You don’t have to Steel -- we’ll be fine.”
“I know I don’t have to, but I’m not going to let you find out how nice this creature is by yourself.”
“Okay then, but what about your shop?”
“It’ll be fine for a few days, business has been slow lately anyway.”
“Alright, meet me outside of my house as soon as you can.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Fifteen minutes later, Steel Crescent was outside of Emerald’s house, and another ten of companionable silence after that, they were at Jesse’s front door. She knocked and waited for Jesse to show up, which didn’t take long. When he opened the door, she didn’t know what to think about his appearance. The backpack didn’t seem out of place, but what did seem out of place was the thing strapped to his right thigh, the thing slung over his shoulder, and the rather large knife on his left hip, all complemented by a few metal rectangles in various places.
“Hello Jesse. What are those?” she asked while pointing at the foreign objects.
“Evenin’ Emerald, just some protection in case something takes offense at my appearance, though if you want a word, just call them ‘guns’.” He nodded towards the grey stallion, “Don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Jesse.”
“I’m Steel Crescent, nice to meet you.”
“Well gentlecolts, we might as well get started.” With that, Emerald started walking northward towards the heavily wooded mountains.
As they walked through the woods, the two ponies hadn’t said anything, Jesse seemed to give off an unpleasant aura that made them feel as if silence was the best course of action. After walking a few more minutes, Jesse suddenly motioned for them to stop, which they heeded out of surprise. Jesse’s face was slightly narrowed in concentration before a smirk came across his face.
“Okay Frostfire, I know you’re around, so you might as well join the party,” he yelled suddenly, which startled the two ponies that were standing near him. A minute later, the pegasus in question came out from behind a tree.
“How did you know I was following?”
“Easy, if you stalked my house for the first few days, then met me, I’m pretty sure it’s a safe bet to say you’d follow me if I left. Come to think of it, you probably snooped around my house, then followed us when you realized it’s sealed shut.”
“Hello Frostfire, it’s been quite some time,” Emerald Dawn said.
“Good evening Ms. Frostfire,” Steel Crescent added.
“Hey! So what’s going on here? And don’t tell me it’s nothing! I know it’s more than ‘nothing.’ This is only the second time he’s left his house since he’s arrived! And I did not try to get into your house either!” She finished with a huff
“Well, we’re going to search various ruins throughout the mountains to try and find an artifact that will take him home.” Emerald replied to her.
“Eeyup. Just going to do some dungeon crawling till we find the magical artifact that saves the world while slaying the undead until we reach the dragon overlord at the very bottom of the ruins. Then we just have to find the Magic Sword of Dragon-Slaying so we can finish him off and take the loot.” Jesse added with a straight face.
Frostfire glared at him for a full minute before saying, “I really can’t tell if you’re serious or not...”
Emerald facehoofed. “Come on you two, we need to make as much progress as we can today.”
Jesse shrugged with a chuckle while Frostfire backed off, much to Emeralds relief, and the group continued walking in silence. It was starting to get dark when Jesse spoke up.
“Might as well set up camp here for the night.”
The others readily agreed, especially Emerald, and started gathering wood to start a fire and laying out their sleeping bags. The night air had a slight chill to it, but the ponies didn’t notice it as much due to their coats. Jesse took his backpack off, laying it and the assault rifle on the ground, and rummaged through his bag for his jacket. He found it shortly after and put it on. He looked around at the others, noticing that Steel Crescent and Frostfire appeared to be asleep, and decided to let his curiosity get the better of him.
“Since I may be here for some time, mind telling me more about the place I’m stuck in?”
Emerald shook her head to get herself completely out of the book she was reading. “Well, you’re in Equestria, which is ruled by our two Princesses; Celestia and Luna. They raise the sun and the moon, respectively, and help keep order in the land.”
“Princesses eh? So is there a king or queen, or did they just choose ‘princess’ arbitrarily?”
“You know... I don’t think anyone has ever asked that...”
“Really? Hmm. Okay, so next question is what’s with all of the... magic that seems to be floating around this place?”
“Well, a lot of it is innate and is sometimes tied to the ponies special talent. Let’s say my talent is healing, I’d be good with healing spells, other spells would be harder to learn. I may not even be able to learn any other spells except telekinesis, which is innate to all unicorns.”
“Well that would be handy. My people lack magic, so we’ve advanced our technology as much as possible. The last fifty years has seen a drastic leap in the fields of science and technology, we have even managed to learn how many atoms are in a given amount of an element.”
“That’s amazing! How do you see them to count?”
“Ah, well that’s not quite how it works, if I remember correctly, it was more theoretical and eventually proven somehow. That part of my memory is sketchy, it’s been some time. Okay, I can’t think of a way to ask the other questions I have, so I’ll leave them for later. Are we going to set a watch?”
“Set a watch?”
“Make sure someone is always awake and keeping an eye out for beasties that might get too curious.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, there aren’t any ‘beasties’ in here to worry about.”
“If you say so...” Emerald lay down next to the others, while Jesse propped his back up against a tree and slept with his rifle across his lap.
The next morning they had woken up roughly at the same time, with Steel Crescent up first and Frostfire the last to wake. They had been walking for a while in the serene silence under the boughs of the trees when a faint roar was heard in the distance.
“What was it you were saying about there not being any beasties in this place?” Jesse asked the green mare.
“There weren't any, but now we’re getting closer to the untamed lands.”
“Okay, just making sure.”
They walked for most of the day, swapping stories and explaining little bits that Jesse asked about, when they finally made it to the first ruin about the time dusk was starting to arrive. It looked like it used to be a large and airy affair, though gravity had claimed a good deal of it. During the twilight the decrepit fortress still had the grace of its youth as the dust motes shown in the waning light.
“Well, here’s the first location, there’s no name for it, and no one knows who built it.” Emerald told the group.
“So we go in, find the artifact, get out and be back two days from now? Easy. Now let’s go, it can’t be that hard to find some artifact.” Frostfire stated.
“Don’t be hasty, we don’t know how safe this place is.” Steel warned her.
“Okay, I’ll take lead and you follow a few feet behind me.” Jesse told the group as he started into the ruin. They walked along the seemingly endless maze of halls in silence, the airy feeling of grace somehow managed to feel oppressive. It didn’t bother Jesse much, but the ponies weren’t used to such unease and kept looking behind them. When it started getting dark, Jesse pulled out his flashlight and kept searching. It was about midnight when they finally found a door with a large iron lock, the only locked door they had found so far, which promised something important was beyond.
“Any of you have an easy way to get this open?” Jesse asked the group, all of which shrugged. “Okay let me think of something.” After a few minutes, he had an idea. “Okay, Frostfire, can you freeze the lock, and Steel, any chance you’d have a hammer or something made of iron?”
“Yeah, I can freeze that lock easily.”
“I did bring a hammer, as it happens, I didn’t think I would need it, but then again, I didn’t really know where we were going.”
“Okay, that’s great, Frost, you freeze the lock and get out of the way once it is as cold as you can get it. Steel, when she jumps back, hit it as hard as you can with your hammer. Questions?”
Both ponies shook their heads and Frost started chilling the metal. It took her several minutes, but then she fluttered out of the way, and Steel charged and swung his hammer with all of his might. It contacted with a thunderous crash, and several clicks of metal on stone was heard shortly after, as the lock had broken in several pieces.
“Good job, now let’s see what lies within.” Jesse said as he opened the door and shown the light inside. Illuminated in the room was several large and feral looking rats. “Rats? Does it always have to be rats first?” He barely managed that sentence before they came charging. There was a small click as he flipped the safety on his pistol and fired at the rats, giving each a double tap. The ponies were shocked, but recovered by the first shot fired, and stood still as they watched Jesse kill the rats that charged at him.
“Jesse! Why didn’t you try to subdue them or talk to them, you didn’t have to kill them!” Emerald practically screeched.
“They charged me while snarling. If I feel threatened, I aim to kill.” He responded with a shrug.
The three ponies looked at each other incredulously, they had never seen any creature that killed so readily. They honestly didn’t know what to think, between the shock of seeing the rats killed and the noise from his pistol, they just stood there stunned.
“You didn’t even give them the option to run away...” Steel managed to say.
“I could tell you exactly why this doesn’t bother me, but that would just make you even more sad. If you insist, can we leave it until we set up camp away from this place??”
The ponies nodded, not really sure if they had another course of option. They searched the room in silence, occasionally calling out to see if they had found what they were looking for. After searching the room over, it they decided the artifact wasn’t here. It took an hour to find their way out, even if they had spent four searching the ruin. They set up camp about an hours walk away, the ponies hadn’t talked, unsure of what to say, and Jesse was just enjoying the silent night.
“So Jesse, why did you kill them before asking them to stop or surrender?” Emerald finally asked, her voice trembling slightly.
“Well, if you three haven’t quite figured it out yet, I tend to have a lack of empathy for those that aren’t my friends. There’s also the fact they looked like huge carnivorous rats that had been locked in a room for who knows how long. And I really don’t know how well you all packed healing provisions, but what little I had wouldn’t help with the kind of gashes those things would have made. Throw in the fact they are animals and I’m an omnivore, and you’ll realize I’ve nothing against killing animals. I don’t do it for fun, but if they threaten me or I’m in need of some food, then they’re in trouble.”
Emerald tried to come up with something to say, but he said it all in such a logical tone that she had a heard time coming up with any faults other than it was against her morals. Frostfire, on the other hoof, had caught something in his explanation that she wanted to clear up.
“Wait, a lack of empathy for those who aren’t your friends? We’re your friends, right?”
Jesse chucked. “Yeah, I’ve no idea why, but I do consider you three friends of mine. That also means that you're very safe right now.”
Steel didn’t ask any questions, instead he decided to keep an eye on him just in case. With the fire built up, they felt secure enough to not set a watch and each on drifted asleep slowly. Jesse wondering why he felt a small inkling of guilt, nothing huge, just enough for him to realize what it was. Emerald was wondering what other nasty surprises would show up on this trip, and dreading the time they would arrive. Steel pondered the mechanics behind the weapon Jesse had used, all he saw was a flash of light and a loud noise akin to that of a pony cracking a whip, he didn't know how Jesse had killed the rats, and now he was curious. Frostfire was wondering why she didn’t feel as bad as the others... Maybe it was being in his house and having a larger glimpse into his life than Emerald and Steel. She shrugged and squirmed into a more comfortable position. They all finally went to sleep under the starry sky while listening to the crackling of the flames.
Sadly Sings Destiny
Jesse awoke before the ponies, deciding to do something productive before the others got up, so he searched around for a few things he needed for an idea of his. An hour later, he walked back into the camp to see that ponies were up and eating breakfast. They looked up and called out various greetings.
“Morning group, get enough rest?”
“Could have been better, old bones don’t like the hard ground quite like they used to,” Steel replied with a grin.
“I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t bring a cloud or two down for myself...”
Jesse raises his eyebrow at that. “Unless you can make clouds, I think you might have a hard time finding one.”
Frostfire looked up, and realized she didn’t see any clouds. She flew up above the canopy to get a better look, just to realize he was right. “How did you know? And yes, I can make clouds thank you very much.”
“Magic, my dear friend, it makes life so easy.”
“You said you didn’t have magic.” She said as she glared at him.
“A wizard arrives precisely when he means to.”
“Wait! what?” She went from glaring to utter confusion.
“Well, you see, we do have a few innate abilities, and one of those abilities is that we can run straight up things like walls and tree trunks.”
“Really? That’s awesome! Come on, show me!” Frostfire begged.
“You never mentioned that! She’s right, show us!” Emerald joined in.
“That’s a pretty neat trick.” Steel added.
“No, I can’t be a show off, that’d be rude.”
“Please!” The two mares said in unison, while looking at him and pleading with their eyes. Jesse kept his face straight for a minute or so before he started laughing. They looked at him, confused, when he straightened up.
“Oh god, the look on your faces was priceless!”
“You.... You.... Jerk!” Frostfire stomped away.
“That was mean, Jesse,” Emerald said in a disapproving tone. Jesse shrugged. Steel just shook his head, as he hadn’t really believed him. He seemed to take pleasure in frustrating others -- not really doing something to anger them immensely in one shot, but the occasional prodding.
“Okay, maybe I played along a little too long. On the bright side, I’ve come up with a way to defend myself without causing harm to my attacker. Well, major harm anyway.”
“And exactly how are you going to do this?” Emerald replied curtly.
“Take a seat and watch, though I should probably go get Frostfire back first.” With that, he left off towards where the mare in question had stomped off. When he finally found her, she was pacing back and forth grumbling about something.
“Hey there Frostfire, you alright? I’m used to being around people with thicker skins.”
“You’re a jerk, you know that?”
“Eeyup, something like that. Come on back to camp, and I’ll let you hit me if it makes you feel better.” She answered by promptly punching him in the shoulder. “See? All better, come on, I’m about to make a new toy that won’t do as much damage. I can’t have you missing my pure awesomeness, now can I?” He finished with what could be called a very irritating smirk and headed back to camp. Frostfire hesitated for a few seconds, then decided to get it over with and followed.
“Well, now watch in wonder, as I make something out of a few sticks, a rock, and this magical thing called ‘duct tape.’”
He pulled out said magical item from his pack and also unsheathed his knife. The longest stick was about a yard and a half long, and he roughly measured out about eight inches from one end, and nicked the wood to mark it. He then took the knife and spliced off third from each side, from the marks to the nearest end of the stick. Satisfied that he’d got it about right, he took the shorter stick and put a rectangular hole in it about halfway through. He tried to fit the shorter stick’s hole through the narrow end of the bigger stick, but it was still too small, so he made the hole bigger and then slid it on. Next, he carefully placed the two shards back onto the thin end of the bigger stick, though upside down, and put strip of tape around the middle to hold it. A wide slant was cut from the overhanging ends of the two fragments he had put on, and a rock was taped in place, probably with more tape than was necessary. The final act was to cover all of the visible parts of the biggest stick with a double layer of duct tape.
“And there we have it, a wooden sword to beat up anything that tries to attack me. Is that an acceptable alternative to just shooting them?”
“Well... I’d prefer we not use violence, but if you must...” Emerald replied.
“I really hope you don’t think I like to kill, it’s more along the lines of apathy.”
Emerald didn’t reply, and Steel decided to change the subject.
“That’s rather clever, and I figured you were fairly smart when you got us to smash that lock, but now I’m sure.” As a craftspony, he could respect Jesse’s resourcefulness when it came to crafting, ven if his respect for his mindset wasn’t quite so certain.
“Anyway, time to try this next location. We shouldn’t take long to get there, since it’s not that far away.”
They had been walking for a few hours, with some small talk, though mainly in silence and enjoying the view. Jesse noticed Frostfire, at the back of the group, seemed subdued. He slowed down until she caught up.
“What’s got you down?”
“Nothing,” she replied tersely.
“Oh don’t give me. You’ve been sulking all morning, and it’s cute. I don’t like it when things are cute against my will.”
“Nobody asked you!”
“Now that’s not very nice.”
“You aren’t nice.”
“Oh really? So what’s not nice about me?”
“You’re constantly picking on me and making me feel dumb, now go away so I can hate you in peace.”
“See now, there was something wrong.”
“Jerk.”
Jesse took a breathe, probably to say something else to raise her ire even more, then stopped, sighed, and muttered to himself.
“Ugh, cute little ponies that seem to be able to awaken my guilt. I’m not sure how much I like this place, I’ve gone without guilt for ten years, then these I end up here and I’m feeling guilty over harmless pranks and self-defense.”
Frostfires ears perked up. “What did you say?”
“I said, ‘It should be illegal for these cute little ponies to lay guilt-trips on me, and succeed.’ I haven’t worried over guilt in years, and you ponies seem to be able to manipulate it.”
“So what you’re saying is...?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you took that much offense at them. I’m used to a world that’s much more harsh than that.”
“You’re sorry?” She eyed him suspiciously.
“Yes, and I even made the wooden sword because I don’t feel like overloading on cute, like when you were all sad over those rats. it’s... uncanny.”
“So, you’re telling me you will kill things without a second thought, but for some reason doing it in front of us made you feel guilty?”
“Something like that, not sure exactly what it is, but it should be illegal.”
Ahead of Jesse and Frostfire, Emerald and Steel started their own conversation.
“Well, what do you think of him so far?” Emerald asked Steel.
“I’m not quite sure... He seems like a good pony, but I was watching him when he killed the rats. He seemed to be running off instinct, and if his instincts is to cause harm first, it worries me.”
“Any idea why he fixed up that stick? He’s always seemed to me like a pony that has no trouble stepping on others’ hooves.”
“I don’t know. He’s a weird one, that’s for sure.”
“Can’t really argue with that.” They continued walking in silence, and Jesse and Frostfire caught up shortly afterwards.
They walked for another hour or so before finally arriving at the next location. This one appeared to be no more than a stone door on the side of a cliff.
“Well, it’s going to get late soon, might as well look around while we can.”
“I’ll take point, since I’ve got my flashlight.” He went up to the door, and braced himself against the resistance it would have when he tried to open it. The door swung open easily and he almost fell, he recovered his balance and looked back at the others, one of whom was chuckling. “Well, I’m no expert, but I’m going to say well-oiled hinges in a supposedly abandoned ruin does not bode well.”
“Yeah, we should be careful,” Steel said in agreement. The two mares nodded and followed him in. The large hall of stone was covered in moss and seemed to slant downward, though it was barely noticeable. Iron brackets hung with the burnt remains of torches still in them. Jesse stopped a few times, checking a surface or inspecting the ground. What looked like the remains of tripwires could be seen, but what they once had activated was a mystery. They finally reached a the end of the hall, and the only door they had seen since the entrance.
“Well, guess it’s time to see who’s frequenting this little lair,” Jesse said as he eased the door open. They really didn’t know what to expect, but a dark room somehow wasn’t it. Jesse was about to shine his light through when a voice came from nowhere.
“Why have you entered my home?” The voice sounded soft and feminine, despite how loud it was.
“Well, we’re looking for a shiny marble to take me home. Any chance we can get some light?” Jesse responded. Lights flared around the room, and in the middle was what appeared to be the statue of a sphinx, until it spoke again.
“I have no such treasures,and normally I would have killed you on sight, but I haven’t had company in some time and felt like playing with my food first.”
“Well that’s reassuring.”
“Um, Ms. Sphinx, we didn’t mean to disturb you, we’ll just be leaving.” Emerald said as she backed up, trying to exit. She bumped into a door which had been shut as soon as the sphinx had spoken.
“Your reasons do not matter, so you shall answer three riddles. If you get them right, I shall let you leave. If not, then I’ll get to find out what this strange creature tastes like.” Her smile revealed teeth like obsidian, which matched her claws and eyes.
Jesse looked at the others, who shrugged. “Well, seems we have little choice, what are the riddles?”
“Tall I am young, short I am old, night’s breath is my foe.”
Jesse turned to the others. “Any ideas?”
The other’s shook their heads and continued thinking. A minute later, Emerald spoke up. “Well, pencils get shorter the longer you have them, but that doesn’t fit the last part.”
“Ah, I get it now,” Steel said with a chuckle. “It’s a candle, tall when new, short when old, and the wind can blow it out.”
“Sounds better than anything I could think of,” Jesse said then turned back to the sphinx. “A candle is the answer you are waiting for.”
“Very good dears, now try this one,” The sphinx purred. “A blue house is made of blue bricks. A yellow house is made of yellow bricks. A red house is made of red bricks. An orange house is made of orange bricks. What would a green house be made of?”
“That’s easy! it’s made of,” Frostfire didn’t get to finish her sentence, on account of Jesse grabbing her muzzle and forcing it shut.
“I’m rather sorry I had to do that, but if it’s a choice between being rude and being eaten, I’ll be rude. That sounded way too easy... So now we just have to figure out what she’s getting at.”
Once again they started trying to untangle the riddle, occasionally speaking up, but none of their guesses had any merit to them until Frostfire thought about it.
“Red house, blue house. Those don’t sound very familiar, none of them do except for green house, and who would want a green house anyway?”
Emerald’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that is clever. I think it means a greenhouse, the type you use to grow plants in.”
Jesse nodded. “That makes sense, and it’s devilishly tricky. Any objections to her reasoning?” All he got was shrugs from the other two, so he turned to the sphinx. “The green house is made of glass.”
“Again, you are correct. Hear this last riddle, and proceed with caution,” The sphinx replied. “This old one runs forever, but never moves at all. He has not lungs nor throat, but still a mighty roaring call.”
Jesse looked at the others. “Hope you can come up with something, cause I’ve got nothing. Riddles really aren’t my specialty.” They grouped up for the last time, really hoping they weren’t about to become food for the sphinx. They were just about to give up, the image of the sphinx behind them smiling the whole time really not helping matters, when Frostfire finally came up with the best answer they’d thought of so far.
“Hey, could it be a waterfall? they can be old and running, and they can also roar with out lungs.”
“That’s... A really good idea, Frostfire,” Emerald admitted. Steel just nodded his assent.
“Better than anything I’ve come up with so far.” He didn’t even bother turning around this time, just calling over his shoulder. “It’s a waterfall, now will you open the door?”
“You insolent... Be glad I’m not very hungry this day, now begone!”
The door opened and they all went out. Near the entrance, Jesse hesitated, but kept going. The others eyed him, wondering what was on his mind, but decided not to push it.
“Well, that was close,” Jesse said as they finally exited the tunnel.
“Yeah, let’s not do that again, please,” Emerald replied.
“Stupid cat, it’s not our fault she doesn’t put a sign up,” Frostfire added.
“You probably wouldn’t want to say that to her face, Frostfire,” Steel reminded her.
They walked straight for awhile, before Emerald changed their course towards the next ruin. They had walked for an hour or so in the new direction before deciding to stop and rest for the night, even if it wasn’t very late yet. Supper was just being finished when Steel spoke the thoughts on the three ponies’ minds.
“Jesse, why did you hesitate back there?”
Jesse finished his drinking from his canteen before answering. “I was wondering whether the effort of destroying the entrance would be worth the reward. I decided it wasn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t have any explosives or tools to do it with. Well, do it efficiently.”
“What I meant was why did you think about destroying the entrance?”
“Oh, that’s simple, I take extreme offense when something threatens to eat me.”
“But you eat other things!” Frostfire shot at him.
“Yeah, and if they try to attack me, it doesn’t really bother me, nor does it change the outcome.” He sighed. “I’m rather sorry my thought processes seem to offend you ponies, but I doubt it will change anytime soon.”
The two ponies stopped talking to him, so he walked out to find a clear spot, Frostfire following him after some hesitation. He noticed her, but didn’t acknowledge it and walked towards a small clearing nearby. When he arrived, he lay down on his back and started looking at the stars, fascinated at how many there were. Frostfire approached him, and when he didn’t respond, nudged him.
“What are you needing?” He asked in a dull tone, not out of any real emotion, but because his mind was far away.
“Just making sure you’re okay, you seem kind of up and down recently.”
“Like I said, you ponies seem to be able to just pile guilt on me without trying, and it’s rather annoying, so I decided to spend some time alone and wrestle it into submission.”
“So why are you staring at the stars?”
“In my world, the light of the stars are dimmed by all of the lights from our cities. They can get so bright that they can bee seen from the moon.”
“That’s... weird.”
“Yeah, never much liked those big cities, too many people for my taste.”
They stopped talking, and it looked like Jesse had fallen asleep, so Frostfire decided to use him as a pillow. As soon as she put her head down on his stomach, she realized she was wrong.
“You really are a curious one, aren’t you?”
“I... um... I...” She stuttered, trying to come up with something.
“Eh, no worries, I’m just not really a touchy-feely kind of guy. Tell ya what, I’ll let you use me as a pillow, so I'll get to brush your mane for days on end,” He said with a chuckle. Frostfire became more flustered and shot up and away, heading back to camp. All the while, Jesse lay there, laughing and watching the stars.
Sadly Sings Destiny
Jesse had been laying there for quite some time, looking up at the stars and still occasionally chuckling over Frostfire’s rapid departure, when he became rather startled by a voice coming from behind him.
“What exactly are you, and why are you here?”
He acted on extinct, rolling over and pulling his 1911 out, and when he saw it was a large pony, he lowered it and got to his feet. Oddly, this pony had both a horn and wings, along with having a dark blue coat and an... ethereal looking mane and tail that seemed to mimic the night sky.
“Okay, I’m a human, and I’m not here because I chose to be. I’d also advise not sneaking up on me while I'm armed, I tend to have an itchy trigger finger.”
“Are you threatening me?” Princess Luna asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Nope, just warning you.”
“So why are you up while the others sleep?”
“I’m just looking at the stars, I don’t get to see too many of them back on my world.”
“Why not? Do you not have stars?”
“Oh we have them, it’s just our planet now has so many lights everywhere that it’s basically drowning out our vision of the stars; they call it ‘light-pollution.’”
Luna looked confused, then asked, “So you find my nights lovely?”
“Yeah, I was always more of a nocturnal person when I got the chance. The sun is nice and all, but I prefer the cold over the heat.”
“So you like my night?” She asked, making sure she heard him correctly.
“Eeyup, much nicer than the ones back home, even if the clouds aren’t quite as interesting at times.”
Luna almost looked offended. “Why is that?”
“Well, most of the ones I’ve seen seem to all be... basically uniform, from what I’ve heard, it’s probably due to the pegasi controlling the weather.”
“Then what are the clouds like in your world?”
“That’s always up for debate, they can look like just about anything, since it’s all completely random. Depending on how much imagination you have, you can see everything from faces to objects.”
“Wait, so the weather isn’t controlled in your world?”
“Weren’t you here to tell me to get off your lawn?”
“Why are you changing the subject?”
“You changed the subject, I was trying to get it back on track. Anyway, I never did catch your name, and you can just call me Jesse.”
“I am Princess Luna.”
“Princess eh? You’ll forgive me for not bowing and grovelling at your hooves, won’t you?.”
“If I did not, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Really? That’s interesting, so will you send me and my house back now?”
“No, I can’t, since I don’t know where you came from to begin with.”
“Oh well, I’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Though while I may not be able to send you hom, I could turn you into a pony and let you become a citizen of Equestria.”
Jesse could usually come up with something to say, but even the idea of becoming a pony startled him to the point where he couldn’t come up with anything. Luna smiled at him before silently departing into the night. Jesse’s head was still eerily blank when he decided to go to sleep near the campfire.
He awoke later the next morning, and would have awoken later still if his subconscious hadn’t been blaring an alarm to wake him at the smell of food.
“Any chance breakfast is pancakes and bacon, or sausage and biscuits?” He asked while he was trying to force his brain into gear, which was a battle he wasn’t winning quite yet.
“Whats bacon and sausage?” Emerald asked as she finished cooking the oats over the fire.
“Forget I even mentioned them, so how are you all doing?”
“Just fine, thanks, though the smell of those oats are starting to make me hungry,” Steel said as he looked at the pot of oats.
“Oh don’t worry, they’re about done, they just need to cool,’ Emerald replied.
“Awesome! Let me at it! I’ve been starving!” Frostfire said as she started hovering above the ground. Emerald spooned out large servings into four bowls and passed them out. They all ate enthusiastically, not even talking while they ate. After wiping the food out and packing their supplies, they set out towards their new destination through the seemingly endless forest.
“You know, I think I met one of your princesses last night,” Jesse said nonchalantly, and the others almost fell over themselves in surprise.
“You’re pulling my leg again, aren’t you?” Frostfire asked suspiciously while glaring at him.
“Really? What is she like?” Emerald asked with more than a little enthusiasm.
“Sounds like you had an interesting night,” Steel pitched in, deciding that he was a little suspicious.
“Nope, not pulling your leg, as it happens. She was kind of nice, though very sneaky. It could have turned out nastier if I didn’t have ponies under ‘harmless’ in my my internal beastiary. Yeah, she was wondering what I was and why I was here. I told her I was a human and I was looking for a way home. She then asked why I wasn’t asleep, I told her I was enjoying the night and then she went off asking about it and such. You know, you ponies should enjoy her night more, it makes her happy. Anyway, then I told her she was getting off topic and she told me she could make me a pony and flew off.”
“I don’t believe you,” Frostfire replied.
“In that case, have any of you told me what she looks like?” The others thought for a moment before shaking their heads. “In that case she’s a large, dark blue pony with wings and a horn. Her mane is some funny looking swirly-star thing and her cutie mark was a black splotch with a moon inside it.” Frostfire and Steel looked at each other shrugging, while Emerald didn’t seem surprised.
“So what did you talk about?” Emerald asked.
“I basically just gave you the whole conversation in a condensed form, there really wasn’t much more to it than that.”
“Oh fine...” Emerald sighed.
Walking until the sky darkened once again,they passed the time telling stories. Frostfire told a few stories from her time in flight school, Emerald shared a few from her travels on the rare occasion she went, and Steel even threw a story in about one of his first pieces that he had made by himself.
They found a small cave to set up camp this time, and Jesse volunteered to go find firewood. While he was gone, the others started talking.
“How are you feeling Frostfire?” Emerald asked the pegasus.
“I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you seem to be keeping as much distance between Jesse and yourself as possible,” Steel added.
“Completely unintentional, why would I do that?”
“You tell us. I’m not sure about Steel, but I heard you come back last night, and you seemed spooked.”
“That... That was a simple misunderstanding.” Frostfire replied, trying to keep the memory from popping up and making her blush.
“We’re worried about you Frost, and if he did anything bad, we want to know,” Steel said with a concerned tone.
“Nothing, I just did something stupid, and he found it funny,” Frostfire replied testily.
“If it was nothing you wouldn’t be getting angry, do we need to talk to him about it?” Emerald replied.
“Fine! If you must know, I thought he went to sleep, so I used his stomach as a pillow. He thought this hilarious and started laughing, so I left.” She practically shouted, “Happy now?”
“Thank you, we just don’t want you getting hurt is all,” Emerald said timidly.
“Calm down, we aren’t your enemies,” Steel assured her. Frostfire didn’t seem to care though, as she flew out of the cave before either could react.
“That’s not going to get any better, is it?” Steel asked Emerald, who sighed.
“I don’t think so.”
Jesse arrived some time later with a huge bundle of sticks and started making a fire, when he finished and looked up, he noticed they were one pony short, “Where’d Frostfire run off to?”
“She went on a walk." Emerald replied, pausing a moment before adding, "Hey Jesse, do you think you could tone it down some around her? She’s starting to get frustrated with you.
“I can try, I can’t promise results though,” Jesse responded with a shrug as he started making a pot of soup.
After that, they sat in silence, waiting for the soup to finish. About ten minutes before the it was done, Frostfire walked back into the cavern, but didn’t acknowledge any of them. With a look between them, the other's silently agreed to let her have some space. The food finished and Emerald once again divided it into four bowls, one of which Jesse sat beside Frostfire. After they finished eating they all lay down to go to sleep, the ponies in their sleeping bags and Jesse with his back against the wall. He also had his assault rifle across his lap, just in case.
The sun rose and they packed up and headed out, they weren’t too far from the next ruin. They ate a few apples they had found while they walked. Not long after they reached the third ruin, an abandoned tower on the crest of a hill. They found the front door, and Jesse took point, as was his habit. The inside of the tower was surprisingly well kept, it still had dust and cobwebs, but it was nowhere near the amounts they had expected, nor was it crumbling.
They scoured the tower, with Jesse pointing out old traps and a few old suits of armor. The countless rooms still seemed to have things left inside, and the fact it was empty so far was disturbing.
“Okay, if something arrives, just run. I doubt we could do much to harm it,” Jesse told the others. to which they nodded in agreement.
In one room, an old picture finally fell down when they were in it, scaring the entire group with its crash. Jesse barely managed to grab Emerald's tail to keep her from dashing out of the tower, and the force of the jolt almost dislocated his arm. Letting go and massaging his shoulder, he walked over to the wall and wiped his hand over the wall that was covered by the painting. Feeling the texture, he started grinning like an idiot as he pulled his knife out and scraped the dull edge across the stone behind the picture, just for the ‘stone’ to start peeling off. More scraping revealed a metal chest with a built-in lock.
“Well that looks mysterious, who wants to try and open it?” He asked while still grinning like an idiot.
They tried everything they could think of to open it, but it resisted their efforts. First they tried freezing it then hitting it with a hammer, but it didn’t work like it did on the lock a few days ago. Then Emerald tried to open it with her magic, with no success. Eventually they just tossed it out the nearby window, after struggling to pry it out of the wall. It hit the ground with a heavy thud, and though it warped, it still hadn't opened. Jesse was just about to see if he could shoot the lock, against his better judgement, when he had a better idea.
“Any of you happen to have a bobby pin?”
To his dismay, the others shook their heads. Thinking on it, Steel thought me might have an alternative. Pulling a steel brush from his pack, he yanked a bristle out and held it out.
“Will this work?” Steel asked as he held the bristle in his hoof.
“Probably, I've no idea if this would work even if I bad the bobby pin," Jesse responded as he once again pulled out his knife and took the bristle. It took him about two hours, and several bristles, but he finally heard the click of the lock disengaging and the door opened. Inside was a few old books and a silver ring with a polished piece of obsidian set into it.
“Well, you can have the books Emerald, I’ll keep the ring." He chuckled as a thought hit him. "It’s funny, I don’t usually keep jewelry, but there’s something about this thing that I like...” He said as he put the ring on, and promptly disappeared. The other’s started to panic when he spoke again.
“Well I’ll be damned, a ring of invisibility, this should be fun.” He took the ring off and put it in his pocket for safekeeping, the others sighing in relief as he reappeared.
“You have to promise you won’t you won’t use it to scare us.” Steel told him, to which he shrugged.
“I won’t use it for pranks until we’re back in town, is that good enough for you?”
“I guess it’s the best I’m going to get...”
“If you trick me I’m going to tie you up and leave you!” Frostfire put in, to which Jesse just smirked. “What’s funny about that?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when you’re older.” Frostfire started to fume, barely subduing her anger and resisting the urge to punch him.
As they started walking, Emerald checked her packs and turned to the others. “I think we need to go back by town, it’s not very far out of the way to our next ruin, and we’re starting to run low on supplies”
“Why not, we could take a break and start out when we’re refreshed.” Jesse added.
“It would be nice to drop back by home,” Frostfire agreed.
“I can check to see if there is anything that needs to be done and catch up with what little work I may have missed, so it sounds like a good idea to me,” Steel said with a nod.
They walked for two days, during which they shared a few stories and even Jesse chipped in with a couple of stories, though he only told the mild ones. They made it to town and said there farewells and went to their respective homes.
Jesse looked around his house when he got there, seeing if any ponies got in and started rummaging through his stuff. A quick inspection outside revealed hoof prints all around the house, though after looking around inside he determined nothing was out of place. He spent the rest of the time before going to bed eating dinner, this time tacos, and playing a few games. It was funny how much he could miss the taste of meat after only a few days with the vegetarian ponies.
Emerald also fixed her dinner when she got home. The main difference for her is that she took a nice relaxing bath afterwards. She then spent an hour or so reading the book they had found, which seemed to be written by a person who claimed to be a wizard of some sort, before falling asleep on her bed. Her dreams weren’t peaceful though, since they were filled with rats and sphinxes.
Steel Crescent went by the diner and picked up a sandwich, sitting in the last rays of the sun before the night fell. After he got up, he checked to see if he had gotten any new orders, and found one for a simple candlestick. With nothing better to do, he decided to start on it, working a few hours before he took a quick shower and went to bed.
Frostfire got back to her house in the sky and started pacing. She punched or stomped the cloud on occasion, trying to get rid of the frustration. She made herself a quick sandwich, hoping some food would help calm her down. After finishing it she realized it really didn’t help, so decided to go flying, hoping to wear herself out and avoid dreams tonight. When she got back, she could barely keep her eyes open, and even ended up flying through the side of her house. Her bed was finally underneath her when she succumbed to sleep, which to her dismay wasn’t dreamless, and was full of shapes and colors and ponies, all in a jumbled mess.
Sadly Sings Destiny
The next morning Emerald Dawn woke up from the best sleep she’d had in days. She had taken her sleeping bag, but it was hardly as comfortable as her bed. The breakfast dishes were just starting to dry on the rack when she heard a knock on the door. She went to the door and opened it, to find Jesse standing at the threshold.
“Good morning, Jesse! You’re up early.”
“Yeah, woke up and figured it was too late to go back to sleep, so I figured I'd drop by.”
“Come on in, are you hungry? I just finished breakfast but I can find something.”
“I’m fine, I ate before I came over,” Jesse replied as they walked into her living room, which was about the size of his and had books lining the walls. “Any fiction stories, or are they all of a more scholarly genre?”
“Most of them are research books, but this shelf over here has some fiction, mainly romance, but there are a few other types,” Emerald said as she went to the smallest bookshelf in the room, which just happened to be in a corner.
Jesse followed her, looking at the titles. They say never judge a book by it’s cover, but between the title and the synopsis, you can generally weed out those you wouldn’t find as enjoyable. After he’d looked through the the titles and a synopsis or two, he looked back at her.
“You seem to be lacking books in the epic adventure department. Does Equestria have them at all, or are you just not fond of them?”
“I think there might be a few, but Equestrian writers don’t usually write about it. I don’t even think our small library has a book like the one you are thinking of.”
“Oh my poor dear little pony, I shall have to fix this post-haste. Do you have time to come by my house for awhile?”
“Um... Yes, I do have some free time today.” She responded after she thought about it for a moment.
“Well let’s go, I’ve got... lots of books you will either love or hate.” Jesse lead the way to his house, not saying anything so he wouldn’t spoil the surprise.
When they arrived, Jesse unlocked his door and went to his bedroom, motioning for Emerald to follow. She did and was met with a sight that made her smile, because the walls of the room were almost entirely covered in shelves, and most of them were full of books. There was also a full size bed with black sheets, a few maps on the wall, and a computer desk.
“Almost all of these books are from a genre we call ‘fantasy.’ They are generally about a group of friends going on adventures or quests. Monsters are usually slain by the hundreds, awesome weapons are found, neat trinkets are acquired through various means, and the good guys usually win at the end of the day.”
“Your species has a thing for killing, doesn’t it?”
“Eh, you could say that. You could also say that most of them are idiots. Here, let’s see how you like ‘Lord of the Rings.’ It’s light on the details when it comes to killing things and heavy on environmental details. The author, J. R. R. Tolkien basically created the genre of high fantasy.”
Emerald started reading The Lord of the Rings, occasionally stopping to ask Jesse to ask what certain things looked like. He usually told her, but sometimes he’d pull something up on his computer or show her on the map of Middle-Earth he had on his wall. She got to the point where they released Bill and looked up.
“Why would they release that poor pony out into the wild with all of those wolves! You know, come to think of it, he never spoke either. Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because he has a chance to outrun the wolves and make it home, but he has little chance in Moria. In fact, he’s better off this way, though I won’t spoil it for you. As for why he hasn’t spoken, it’s because ponies in our world can’t speak. Well, at least not any languages that we know of.”
“So how big was this ‘Moria’ place anyway?”
“It’s utterly massive. There’s a chasm there that you could probably drop your biggest city in, though you might have to flatten it.”
“How deep is it?”
“That’s the question,” He replied with a chuckle, “No one really knows, but it basically goes to the center of the world.”
“I can’t picture how far that is,” She said with a confused expression.
“No one can, except maybe Tolkien, but he’s been dead for years. Any other questions?”
“Ahhh, that’s sad. Well, do you have any books that doesn’t involve violence?”
“Let’s see... nope. There are books in my world without violence, and I may have a few around here that I can’t remember at the moment.”
“Well, I guess that’s fine, there may be some ponies that would like to read this, but it’s just too violent for me.” The mare shuddered slightly at the thought.
“Hey Emerald, you happen to be able to make copies of things?” He asked, out of the blue.
“I think so, I haven’t tried. Why do you want to know?” She wondered why his antics surprised her, after being around him for several days, she thought she'd be used to it by now.
“Well, I saw a library in town, and as a librarian, I was thinking that you could add these books to a special corner. I did tell you I was a librarian, right?”
She tilted her head slightly. “You are a librarian? I’m having trouble seeing that...”
Jesse chuckled. “Most people do, though I run a tight ship in my library and everything stays in order.”
“Well, I’m not sure, what do you want me to try it on first?”
Jesse looked around his room, and picked up an ink pen from his desk. “How about this?”
She nodded and concentrated on the pen, which floated out of his grasp. A few minutes later a flash of light and a popping noise heralded the arrival of a second pen.
“That looks like a result, how are you feeling?” Jesse asked her.
“It wasn’t that bad, though I doubt I could do too many more today.”
“Don’t worry about it, we’ll enlist help if it's needed.”
She looked at a few more of the books he had, and studied the map on the walls for the next hour or so. When she looked like she had finished, he spoke up.
“Can you bake, and have you ever had a Mississippi Mud Cake?”
“Well, I can bake some, but what’s a Mississippi Mud Cake?”
“You’ll see,” He replied with a grin, for some reason that made her uneasy.
The next half-hour burned by as they made the bottom layer of the cake, which was basically brownies, and mixed the icing together. The icing was a recipe he had gotten from his mom, and was absolutely delicious. They waited until the bottom was done and put it all together. The cake now had the bottom layer of cake, a middle layer of caramel, a personal twist of his, and the home-made icing to top it off. Jesse took the bowl they used and held the two mixer prongs out to her.
“Here, try out the icing,” He was already scooping what was left in the bowl with a large spoon, which had ‘U.S.’ on the handle. She gave it a tentative lick, and then her eyes shot open. She preceded to greedily lick both of them clean until they were gone, all the while Jesse was chuckling.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re jittery, you look like you’ve got a gallon of adrenaline in your system, and it’s absolutely hilarious.”
“I am not!” She yelled.
“Then why have suddenly started to bounce? Your tail is also twitching.”
“It is...” She looked down, then at her tail, “Okay, it is, but that doesn’t mean you can laugh at me!”
“Oh come on, you look completely ridiculous, you have to laugh at yourself sometimes!”
“Forget it! And what all was in that thing?!”
“You fixed it with me, did you not look at what you were making?”
“No!” She barked, as started slowly moving to the side from the vibrations in her legs.
“You have a low sugar tolerance, don’t you?”
“Yes!”
“Ah, well that icing has a little more than a pound of powdered sugar in it.” Her eyes shot open even further at this.
“Then why isn’t it affecting you?”
“Because I’ve been eating it for years.”
“How are you still alive? Too much of this could kill a pony!”
“Extremely high sugar tolerance, and I think you’re overreacting a little bit,” He said with a smirk.
“I’m not overreacting!”
“If you say so. Okay, just go lay down on the couch and wait for it to go through your system.”
An hour or so later Emerald had finally managed to calm down enough so that she could actually walk without hopping, they decided to go visit Steel Crescent. Before they left, Jesse put some of the cake in two small containers. Walking towards Steel's, with the occasional bounce from Emerald, they arrived at the forge in good time. Steel was working when they arrived, and they waited until he finished the candlestick he was making before greeting him.
“Evenin Steel,” Jesse told him.
“Good afternoon Steel,” Emerald
“Hello, how have you been so far?” Steel replied as he set his tools down.
“Not much, just showing Emerald my books and letting her taste some of the best cake ever.”
“Well... The icing tasted good... It’s just too much sugar for me.”
“How much sugar does it have?” Steel asked, his face expressing a slight amount of curiosity.
“Here, have a bite,” Jesse said has he popped the lid off one of the containers and held it to him. Steel took a tentative bite, then his eyes went wide.
“Holy... So how much sugar is in this?”
“I told you it was too sugary,” Emerald told him.
“Ah, not too much. About a pound of sugar in the cake part, and about a pound of powdered sugar in the icing. I’m not sure exactly how much is in the caramel, but I’ll assume it’s about as much as the other two.”
“That’s... Insane. How can you eat this?”
“Well, I guess sugar doesn’t affect me like it does you. So... How’d you like it?”
“Well, it tasted good, just way too rich for my old taste buds.“
“Oh well, more for me then, which suits me fine seeing as I love this stuff.”
“Anyway, I’m going to get out of your mane and go check on Frostfire, see you later Steel. Are you coming Jesse?” Emerald asked.
“I’ll have to pass, though give her a piece of this to see how she likes it,” Jesse said as he set the other box on her back. “I’ll see you both later,” and with a wave walked back towards his house.
“See you next time Jesse,” Steel called after him,“ I’ll see you next time too, Emerald.”
“Okay, bye.” Emerald walked out of the shop and Steel got back to work.
A short walk later and Emerald was underneath Frostfire’s cloudhouse. She looked around for a way up, or at least a way to signal her, but found nothing. She gave a quiet sigh before yelling.
“Hey Frostfire! Want to come down and talk for awhile?” She waited for a response, and not hearing any, tried again. “Frostfire! Are you here?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” Frostfire said as she came out the front door and glided down to Emerald.
“Oh my, did you sleep well last night?” Frostfire really did look terrible; her mane and tail looked like they hadn’t seen a brush in years, and her eyes seemed dull.
“No, couldn’t get to sleep, and when I did, my dreams were... weird.”
“Is there something you want to talk about?”
“Not really...”
“Well, me and Jesse baked a cake, want a piece?”
“No.”
“Oh come on, he really wanted you to try it.” That might have been a bit of a lie, but it would probably do the job.
“Really?”
“Yeah, though I should warn you it has lots of sugar.” She took the container off of her back and set it next to Frostfire.
“Fine... But only because it’s chocolate.” She took a large bite, and had to stop herself from devouring the rest as fast as she could. “That was great!”
“How can you eat that? I only ate some of the icing and I was bouncing off the walls for over an hour!”
“You? Bouncing off the walls? I wish I could have seen that!"
"I bet you would! Jesse was practically rolling on the floor! But what's got you down lately? The cake perked you up, but you looked terrible before."
"I told you, just a bad night's sleep."
"If there's something wrong, you can tell me."
“It's nothing...”
“You can tell me.”
“No.”
“Is it anything to do with Jesse?” At this, Frostfire blushe slightly. It wouldn’t have shown on most ponies, but Frostfire’s white coat betrayed her this time.
“No...”
“You blushed.”
“Because I’m angry with him.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he’s a jerk.”
“I don’t think that’s reason, but I’ll leave you alone if that’s something you don’t want to talk about.”
“Yeah... so how’s your day been?”
“I went over to Jesse’s and looked over some of his books, then we made the cake. After I settled down we went and visited Steel for a few minutes. We didn’t stay long since he was working. Jesse went home and I came here.”
“Sounds like fun. I just woke up.”
“How did you wake up this late?”
“Like I said, I didn’t sleep well, and what little sleep I got was plagued with those weird dreams. I’m still feeling kind of tired.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“No, you probably wouldn’t understand anyway.”
“If you say so. I guess I’ll get out of your mane then.”
“Okay, see you later Emerald.”
Emerald arrived at her house, pondering what could be wrong with Frostfire. She finally decided she had no idea where to even start, so she decided to ask Steel later. A romance novel lasted till she was ready to go to bed. She normally didn’t read them, but she felt just felt like reading one today.
Sadly Sings Destiny
Emerald woke up early the next day to repack for the next part of the journey. She double-checked to make sure she had everything she wanted, including the little things she had forgotten during their last trip. After that, and eating breakfast, she went out the door to collect the others. She'd first pick up Steel, then Jesse as he was on the way to Frostfire's house. Before long, she'd arrived at Steel's doorstep and was knocking on his door.
“Good morning Ms. Dawn,” Steel said as he opened the door.
“Good morning to you too. Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, and I made sure to pack a bigger hammer this time,” He said, with a nod to the large sledge over his back.
“Is that really necessary?”
“I hope not,” He said with a shrug. “Who are we picking up next?”
“Jesse, so let’s get moving,” She replied as she started walking towards Jesse’s house.
They arrived at Jesse's house some time later. Emerald knocked on the door and waited, Jesse opening the door moments later. He had essentially the same gear as last time, but his assault rifle was replaced with a different rifle that was older and bigger than the last.
“Hello Jesse, ready to leave?” Emerald asked.
“Good morning Jesse, I see you brought a different... weapon this time,” Steel added.
“Morning you two. As for the new gun, it’s called an SKS and packs a bigger punch, even if it doesn’t shoot as fast. Right then, off to pick up Frostfire and then be on our way then?”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Emerald replied as she started walking to Frostfire’s house.
In less than half an hour, they arrived at Frostfire's house, but once there Emerald and Jesse noticed that there was no way for any of them to reach her.
“Shall I get her attention?” Jesse asked.
“Exactly how are you going to do that?” Emerald asked suspiciously.
“Well, I can either yell, or make a bang. I prefer bangs, but that might upset the neighbors,” Jesse said in a matter-of-fact tone
“How would you wake up the neighbors? There isn’t a house for quite a ways,” Emerald replied.
“Something tells me it has to do with that ‘SKS’ he has over his shoulder,” Steel cut in.
“Good man, Steel. All I’d have to do is point at the ground and pull the trigger, then a big bang happens. It’s kind of hard to ignore when it goes off, though it's far from the loudest gun out there,” Jesse said in a light-hearted tone.
“Just yell,” Emerald said, with a rather unamused expression on her face. Jesse shrugged and complied.
“FROSTFIRE!” Jesse barked.
“What?” Came an irritated voice from above.
“Time to go!” Jesse replied, lowering the volume some.
“Fine.... I’ll be right there,” Frostfire replied. After a few minutes, she glided down to them.
“Good morning, Frostfire,” Emerald and Steel told her.
“Morning- ” Jesse started.
“Just shut up.” Frostfire muttered.
“Wow. It's been years since I've managed to piss off a female to the point where I can anger her with one word,” Jesse replied with a chuckle.
“Come on you two, stop flirting and let’s go,” Steel told them. Jesse’s response was laughter, Frostfire instead grumbling something unintelligible.
“Yeah ponies, let's go!” Emerald said as she started walking towards the next ruin.
The trip only took two days to complete, though it seemed much longer than that since most of it was through plains. During the second day, they reached a small forest of willows and maples. They’d been walking through the trees when they came across a large crypt with a pony outside of it, who was standing in front of an imposing iron gate. Well, they at least thought it was a pony. What little they could see of him was white, as he was wearing a silver robe that obscured most of his body and face. He spoke in a deep, gravelly voice when they approached.
“Halt. State your reasons for approaching the Monastery of Thorn.”
The group stopped at this, not sure what to make of the pony. Jesse decided to step forward.
“We’re just a group of friends looking for a way to get me back home.”
“What is it that you seek, and why should I allow you to pass?” The hooded figure replied.
Jesse looked over to Emerald. “You mind explaining?”
Emerald stepped forward to speak, “We are looking for the Time Twister. It’s an ancient artifact that’s rumored to be hidden in some of the old ruins in the area.”
“These are not ruins. This complex is home to many monks,” The hooded figured told her.
“Ponies live in there?” Frostfire asked in confusion.
“Yes. There have been monks in the monastery for centuries,” The hooded figure said, his voice remaining emotionless and monotonous. It was starting to unnerve the ponies.
“So may we enter in search of the artifact?” Emerald asked. The tension mounted as the pony stood there, not saying a word. After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke.
“You may enter. I will warn you that there are no lights below,” The hooded figure said. The collective group said their thanks and walked through the gate.
The guardian wasn’t joking, as it was pitch-black--there weren’t even any vents included for illumination. The entrance was the only source of light, and even that was gone after a few seconds. Jesse grabbed his flashlight, glad he’d put it on the outside of the bag. After a few seconds of twisting and trying to find the switch, he finally managed to turn it on. The tunnel they were in was made with surgical precision and no decoration, and went down a gentle slope. They eventually entered an atrium that was as featureless as the tunnel, save for more tunnels branching off along the walls. They got to the middle when they heard a voice off to their left.
“Welcome, travellers, it has been long since we’ve had visitors.” Jesse spun around and pointed the light in the general direction of the voice, and found that its source was a pegasus mare. She was small, even smaller than Emerald, with a light brown coat and silvery mane. Her most astounding feature, however, was her pure white, pupilless eyes. The others had jumped at the sound of the voice, and turned to look.
“What happened to your eyes?” Frostfire asked. Emerald and Steel face-hoofed when they heard the question.
“Don’t you have any manners, Frostfire?” Emerald asked in an exasperated tone.
“It is fine. All of the monastery is blind,” The mare replied in her soothing voice.
“Oh, that’s... interesting. My name is Emerald Dawn, and it’s nice to meet you.”
“My name is Valkyrie, and it is a pleasure to meet you,” Valkyrie replied. “So who is the earth pony that has yet to speak, the female pegasus, and this other creature that is unknown to me, though I would think it is male?”
“My name’s Frostfire. How do you know what we are if you can’t see?” She asked.
“Just because I am blind does not mean I cannot perceive my environment. The earth ponies are heavier than others, and make the most noise when walking. That’s how I identified the silent member of your group as such. I know you are a pegasus, because I can hear the rustle of your feathers. I also know Emerald is a unicorn, because I can feel the magic that is idling throughout her body, centered on her horn. I do not, however, know what this last creature is. It does not sound like it has hooves, nor does it seem to walk on four legs. It doesn’t any magic about it either--even earth ponies have trace amounts of magic in them. It does, however, carry a maical object, though the magic in it is unknown to me.”
“Well, that’s certainly one of the more epic things I’ve seen so far. Oh, as for me, I’m what’s called a ‘human’ and was brought here by accident. The name’s Jesse by the way.”
“That is interesting indeed, Ms. Valkyrie. My name is Steel Crescent, and it’s a pleasure to meet you,” The earth pony said with a bow.
“A human. I would like to learn more about you before you leave,” Valkyrie told Jesse, then turned to Steel. “You flatter me, though the bowing was not necessary.”
“Well Valkyrie, we came in search of the Time Twister. Do you know if it’s within the monastery?” Emerald asked.
“Indeed it is, but we can leave that until a later time. Now I must welcome you to our halls and invite you to dinner. Will you accept?” Valkyrie asked the group.
“We would be honored,” Emerald replied. The others didn’t have any qualms with it, and there might be something good to eat.
The blind mare started walking down one of the many corridors that branched off of the atrium, with the group following. The tunnels were still precise and undetailed, but the mare seemed to know where she was going without any sort of indicators and never got close to touching the walls. They approached what appeared to be a natural cave, and there was even a stream passing through it, and stopped in front of a door set in the wall. They had seen several doors like this along the way, and probably had passed even more, but it was hard to tell the difference between them and the walls. Valkyrie stopped in front of it and opened the door.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” she said as she walked across the threshold. The home didn’t appear too different from the cave outside, but it obviously didn’t bother the mare, who had gone towards the kitchen.
“Nice place you got here, though some of the door frames are a bit low for my taste,” Jesse commented as he ducked under the door frame. When he stood up, he could feel his hair brushing against the roof. “Yeah, that’s a bit close though.”
“It is a quaint little place,” Emerald agreed, and then turned to Jesse with a laugh. “That’s what you get for being so tall!”
“Is this natural? If it isn’t, an excellent craftspony made this room,” Steel asked.
“It’s a bit small...” Frostfire said quietly as the group followed Valkyrie.
“It is indeed natural, Steel Crescent, and worry not, Frostfire, the entire complex is stable. Please, have a seat. The food will be finished momentarily,” Valkyrie told them. A few minutes later, she came to the table with a huge platter of steaming mushrooms. “Please help yourselves.”
The ponies didn’t need to be told twice, though Jesse hanged back.
“Well... I hope your not offended if I pass on the shrooms. They never liked me on my planet, and I doubt it’d be much different on this one,” Jesse told Valkyrie. The rest of the group looked at him with puzzled expressions.
“Of course not, I would hate to do anything that may sicken you. Shall I see if I have anything that would suit you?” Valkyrie asked.
“No worries, I’ll just make myself a sandwich. I really do appreciate the effort though,” Jesse told her as he dug through his pack for a jar of peanut butter. They all ate in silence, and offered to help clean up after it was finished.
“Do not worry, an acolyte will come clean this up soon. Before you continue on your quest, I would like a private session with Jesse,” Valkyrie told them.
“Sounds agreeable to me, Ms. Valkyrie, lead the way,” Jesse replied. Emerald nodded their assent, not seeing anything wrong with the request. Frostfire was feeling anxious about it, however. Valkryie lead Jesse to a small room off to the side that appeared to be full of books and shut the door.
“So what’s the point of books if you can’t see? Or are they of a more unconventional nature?” Jesse asked the mare.
“They are written in a way developed by our ancestors, which is one of the few secrets we actively keep. Now then, I have some questions about your kind. What is a human's dietary habit?” Valkyrie asked him while she had one of the books opened.
“We’re omnivorous, though some eat things others won’t.”
"Okay then. How do you reproduce?" She asked, seeming to scribble something into the book.
“Sexually, male with a female. The female is pregnant for 9 months and they both look after the child for a varied amount of time. The time being determined by the mentality of the parents.”
“What is your culture like?”
“Now that’s a big can of worms. It’s probably more varied than you can imagine. We have tribes in some places and very large cities in others. We have tons of religions, which cause more than a few wars, and you could say greed is rampat. The problem with my world is that the powerful people are all corrupt. There is some corruption throughout the ranks, but the wealthiest, and therefore most powerful, have the highest rate of it.”
“Interesting...” She scribbled some more. “And what exactly do you mean by war?”
“Two groups decided that they either don’t like each other, or that one has something the other wants, so they give their citizens weapons, tell them those other guys want to eat their kids, and they proceed to slaughter each other until one wins, surrenders, or a truce is called.”
“Your kind seems to be very violent.”
“That it is, I’m not exactly against violence either, though.”
“The Guardian would have not let you through if he thought you posed a threat,” she told him.
“We’ve created machines for everything, though most of it’s associated, whether directly or indirectly, with creating weapons or defenses. We’ve also put people on our moon and put a massive telescope into orbit.”
“You are an advanced society, albeit riddled with problems. Thank you for your cooperation, Jesse. Now, let us go back to the others,” she said as she shut the book and went back into the main room with Jesse in tow.
“I am going to bed. I only have one extra bed and the couch, so you will have to work out your sleeping arrangements among yourselves. Good night,” Valkyrie said as she left the room.
“Well I can’t be assed fighting over the comfortable options, so I’ll just take the floor,” Jesse told the others.
“I’ll let you girls decide where you’re sleeping, then we’ll see where I’ll end up,“ Steel said, deciding Jesse had the right approach.
“I’m taking the couch,” Frostfire announced while flying over to it.
“Well, Steel, you can have the other half of the bed... if you want to, that is,” Emerald said to Steel.
“Sounds fine to me,” Steel replied.
“Now don’t you two go getting ideas,” Jesse said with a cheeky smirk as Steel chuckled and Emerald blushed slightly. “Good night.”
They went and gathered the pillows and blankets and went off to their designated beds. Jesse decided to sleep with his back to the couch, figuring it would probably be just as comfortable as trying to lay down on the stone. After some time the only sounds were the faint sounds of sleep and Frostfire muttering in slumber. Jesse couldn’t hear most of it, but he caught a few words that were probably directed at him, none of which were really polite. He turned around and got to his knees so he could see over the back of the couch.
“Oi, ye, Frostfire. Are you going to keep muttering or what?” Jesse asked as the mare awoke with a jerk.
“What? Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep here?”
“Yeah, I just decided I’d tell you that you were muttering in your sleep. I’ve almost blushed at some of the things you said about me.”
“What!? You’re lying!”
“Shhh. We don’t need to wake the others, now do we? But yeah, calling me a charismatic stallion just may be over the top.” Frostfire started blushing, though it was impossible to see in the dark.
“I didn’t call you that!”
“Okay, fine, maybe you didn’t. So what’s keeping you from sleeping well?”
“Nothing... My brain is just a mess.”
“Can’t relax?”
“Not really...”
“I bet I can fix that. All I need you to do is lay on your stomach.”
“I’m already on my stomach.”
“That’s nice. Now, you’ll feel my hand, but don’t worry.”
“And why shouldn’t I worry?”
“Because, this will relax you! I think...” He shrugged, not that anyone could see it. “It works on dogs.”
“Fine, just get it over with so I can sleep.” Jesse scooted around so he could reach her head. When he could, he crept his hand towards her ear and started scratching behind it.
“Ugh, stop that...” Is as far as she got when he started scratching. “Okay... Don’t stop...” She said lazily as he scratched. It really did feel divine... They eventually both went to sleep, and Jesse was leaned back against the arm of the couch, his hand still occasionally scratching behind her ears. The woke up the next morning to the sound of Steel’s chuckling, while Emerald was blushing slightly, her horn illuminating the room.
“And you told us not to try anything,” Steel said when Jesse stirred.
“What can I say? I’m just too dashingly handsome for my own good. I practically have to swat the ladies off with a club,” Jesse replied with a straight face.
“What?” Frostfire said as she came back to consciousness, then her brain registered what had been said and she started blushing.. “Never!”
“I see you have awoken, so do you care to join me for breakfast?” Valkyrie said as she entered the room, her appearance saving Frostfire from any further embarrassment.
The group readily agreed and followed her into the room. They found a veritable mountain of pancakes on the table this time.
“That looks great,” Jesse said as he resisted digging straight in.
“Well then help yourselves,” She told them. They didn’t waste any time digging into the food, which was even more delicious than they’d thought would be. The next half-hour was spent savoring their meal, everyone expressing their thanks for the delicious food they had been given.
“If you will follow me, I shall now take you to the artifact.” Valkyrie began walking back down the corridors.
The corridors were the same as all the others, smooth and undetailed. They walked for what felt like hours, and Jesse even had pulled his flashlight back out to let Emerald rest. They finally reached a steel door flanked by two more monks, and Valkyrie passed by them without acknowledgement and opened the gate, so the rest of the group followed suit. When they reached the inside, all of their jaws dropped--the room was full of artifacts of all kinds. Valkyrie walked by all of the trinkets until she reached a drawer and pulled out a small velvet bag. She picked it up with her mouth and brought it to Jesse.
“Here is the item you seek. Please keep it from falling into the hooves of those who would abuse it,” Valkyrie told him.
“Thank you. This gift means more to me then any I’ve gotten in a long time. Is there anything I can do to repay you?” Jesse asked her.
“No, we are fine, and your interview yesterday was a wealth of new information we would have never gotten otherwise,” Valkyrie replied.
“Thank you for helping us, Valkyrie, and for the food and bed,” Emerald told her.
“That was one of the best beds I’ve ever slept on, to be honest, so thanks for that,” Steel admitted.
“Yeah, we may have to come back sometime if you don’t care,” Frostfire told the monk.
“You are all welcome, I assume you wish to go home now. Follow me to the exit or back to my home,” Valkyrie said as she started to retrace her steps.
“Well ponies, I think it’s time to go home,” Emerald said to the group.
“Doesn’t bother me at all,” Jesse replied.
“Yeah... I’m starting to miss the sky,” Frostfire added.
With that, Valkyrie lead them back through the tunnels. They stopped after an hour to eat, and there was some chatter between them, but they mainly travelled in silence. It was late when they reached the atrium, and Valkyrie turned to them.
“I am sorry, but I must leave you. A matter of great importance has just come up and I’m needed,” Valkyrie told them.
“See you later. Tell me if you need any help,” Jesse told her.
“It was nice to meet you Valkyrie,” Emerald replied.
“You’re pretty awesome, you should come on over sometime,” Frostfire told her.
“If you ever need a smithy, come find me and I’ll be glad to be of service,” Steel added.
“Thank you,” Valkyrie replied as she walked down a seemingly random hall. The group made a quick camp, for it really was getting late, and decided to start again when they woke.
They ate a quick breakfast and headed towards the exit, wondering what time it was in the meantime. The doors opened with ease and they saw the guardian was still standing there, though he didn’t acknowledge them. They just shrugged and kept walking. After a relatively uneventful trip, they arrived back in town, and Jesse spoke of his plans.
“Well, I’m going to be leaving tomorrow, sometime after noon, so if you want to say goodbye, that will be the time,” He said as he started towards his house with a wave.
That night they all slept peacefully in their own beds... all except one, that is.
And Then There Was Silence
Sadly Sings Destiny
Jesse woke up with a crick in his neck, he’d turned over in his sleep or something, either way, his sleep hadn't been as restful as he would have liked. He got up to fix some breakfast, and started muttering about some heretics that needed purging, probably due to the fact he’d ran out of bacon. Checking to see if he had anything else,he came across some of the left over sloppy joes he’d fixed. With a shrug, he nuked it until it wasn’t frozen, then devoured the result. Some thought he was crazy for liking them cold, and he payed about as much attention to them as he did everyone else.
An hour or so later, he heard a knock on his door. He got up and opened it, smiling as he saw the three ponies that had been putting up with him.
“Morning ponies, finally get some rest?”
“Just fine, I was starting to miss my bed.” Emerald told him, barely suppressing a yawn.
“Did these old bones some good!” Steel said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, the ground is nowhere near as comfortable as my clouds.” Frostfire tossed in.
Jesse laughed and looked at them, “Well, guess this is good bye.” He was hit in the gut as Emerald gave him a hug, adopting an expression of suffering, e grumbled as he hugged her back. “Oh fine, just because it’s you.” He shook Steel’s hoof and ruffled Frostfire’s mane after it looked like she wasn’t going to give him a hug.
“Do you have to leave?” Emerald asked him. “Life was starting to become exciting with you around.”
“Afraid so, this world will probably be a better place without such a hateful warmonger running around.” He told her with a smile, but he relented and they sat there for a few minutes, wondering exactly how long he’d really been there.
“Time to get going, I’d advise standing back.” He told them as he gave himself a shake and pulled out the Time Twister. He walked back into his house, leaving them to trot back a small distance. They could see a comforting light coming from the windows, then the house was gone.
Two weeks later, Emerald heard a knock on her door late in the evening. Getting up from the little bit of homework she’d been grading, she answered the door, to nopony.
“Hello?” She asked the darkness, not really expecting an answer.
“Well hi there.” A voice from behind her said. She jumped and shrieked, before seeing Jesse standing there with a cocky grin on his face
“I’m going to.... ugh!” She said, settling on glaring at him. She finally broke and gave him a hug.
“Missed me eh?”
“Of course, though I’m not sure why...”
“Because I’m a dashingly handsome bastard.” He said, barely suppressing a chuckle. “Did you really think I’d not use the power to travel between time and space once I had it? It’s like you don’t know me at all!”
“Now that you put it that way... So what have you been doing?”
“Nothing much, I somehow went back before I had to go to work, so I’ve just spent the last week messing around.”
“It’s been two weeks here, so that’s odd.”
Jesse shrugged, “I don’t know how this thing works, I just use it. So how are the others doing?”
“They’re doing fi...”
She didn’t finish the sentence, since there was a small pop and a dark alicorn was standing in the room now. Emerald bowed to Luna as Jesse gave her a nod.
“Evening princess.” He told her, still grinning like an idiot.
The Princess nodded, but was looking at him seriously. “Ms. Dawn, would you mind letting us speak in private?”
Emerald looked confused, but nodded and went to her bedroom.
Turning back to Jesse, Luna sighed. “We can’t have you bouncing back and forth. You may be harmless, but it would set a precedent that could be harmful in the future.”
Jesse nodded while his face took on a more serious tone, he could see where she was coming from, even if he doubted the other ponies would. “Me? Harmless? I’m touched that you think so, but I’m sure we both know I’m far from harmless. Just because I refuse to harm these ponies doesn’t mean I can’t.” He looked her in the eye to make sure she got the point, she had, and saying she wasn’t amused with him would be an understatement in the extreme. “So when do you wish for me to leave?”
“Sometime tomorrow, we’ll give you time to say a final farewell. I take it you remember my offer to stay as a pony?” Jesse nodded. “Well, if you decide to take us up on our offer of citizenship, just spend tomorrow night here. Fare thee well, child of Earth.” And with that, there was another small pop and she disappeared.
Jesse raised his voice so Emerald would here him. “You can come out now.”
“What was all of that about?” She asked, the curiosity written across her features.
“Not too much, I’ve just got a bit of a decision to make. Go home and never return, or stay and become a pony.”
“Why would she do that? You’ve done nothing wrong!” She said, going from curious to confused.
“Simple, if she lets me stay, then they’ll have to fight an uphill battle to get rid of any bad things that come along. Just because you ponies like me, doesn’t mean all of them will. Since they have no precedent for this, they’re being cautious. I really don’t blame them, they’re doing their jobs as rulers well.”
“I don’t like it, but if you seem to understand, I guess it’s fine.” She said with a snort, still not liking that they were telling a friend he couldn’t come back.
“Think of it this way, what if they let, let’s say a cockatrice, live in a town because he was nice. If they let that happen, they’d have to let any cockatrice that wanted to live in a town stay. If they started letting only a few in, they’d be criticized for playing favorites. Not only that, but some of them may just be using the guise of being nice to allow them to get inside the town before starting a disaster. Does that help?”
“I’m pretty sure I understood it to begin with Jesse...” Her face had changed to annoyance.
“See? I’ve already made you realize that me sticking around would just cause you to wish I’d be elsewhere.” He said, his cocky smile returning. To which she just groaned.
They went to sleep later that night, after talking about books they’d read. Jesse had brought a pack, but left it beside the house while he snuck past her earlier. He then brought it in and gave her the gift he’d brought back; a complete copy of all of Tolkien’s work. She’d given him a hug, and he was sure she’d stayed up later than him reading.
Jesse woke up the next morning to something that smelled delicious. Following his nose, he found Emerald making pancakes.
“Those smell absolutely lovely, any chance I can have one?”
“The ones on the table are for you silly, did you think I wouldn’t let you eat?”
Jesse chuckled as he sat down. “Of course not, but it’s always polite to ask. Not that you could have ignored my roguish charm.”
He waited till she had sat down with hers before he started to eat. They ate in companionable silence. The pancakes tasted great. He could make them, but cooking was not a refined skill of his. They eventually migrated back to the living room and Jesse slumped onto the couch.
“That was great, I’m almost tempted to stay just for the food!”
Emerald laughed as she got up and walked towards the door. “I’m going to get the other two, I think it’s best if you stay inside, since this is a short visit.” Jesse nodded and twisted so he was laying down, his feet over the end of the couch.
The group returned some time later, and Jesse twisted off of the couch and on to his feet. “Well hello there.”
“I was wondering when you’d be back.” Crescent Steel told him.
“Why didn’t you tell us you’d be back?” Frostfire asked him, she wasn’t quite glaring at him, but it was getting close.
“I see your more perceptive than our friends Steel,” Jesse said with a chuckle, and turned to Frostfire. “I thought you’d have realized I wouldn’t let that kind of power go to waste. Apparently I overestimated your abilities.”
Frostfire went to say something, but Jesse held a hand up. “Do you really want to annoy me when I brought back presents?” He brought a book out of his bag and gave it to Steel, and gave Frostfire a pair of goggles. “That’s a book on metallurgy, not completely comprehensive, but I’ll bet you’ll learn at least a few new tricks. And those goggles are made for very cold conditions, they should help keep your sight clear and your eyes protected in all weather.”
“Well that’s not what I was expecting, but it should be interesting, thanks.” Steel told him as set it on his back.
“Thanks.” Frostfire said, though she seemed slightly unhappy about what the gift was.
Jesse shrugged. “I didn’t have a clue what to get you, but since you fly, I figured a good pair of goggles may eventually come handy.”
“So, Emerald said you had something important to tell us?” Steel cut in, not sure if she would start yelling at Jesse or not.
“Yeah... " Jesse replied, "The Princesses have decided that letting me come and go as I please would set a bad precedent, so they gave me a choice. I can either leave and stay gone, or stay here as a pony.”
Steel sighed. “I think I can see where they are coming from.”
“Just because they are the rulers, doesn’t mean they can do what they please!” Frostfire said vehemently.
“Um, I think that’s the part of the definition of “ruler” Frost.” Jesse told her.
“I still don’t think it’s right.” She muttered.
“You could always do like we did a few hundred years ago, get a group to follow you and create a bloody war for freedom of rulers and set up a democracy. You’d just have to create an army and forcibly march to the thrones of a pair of alicorns of unknown power.” The others just looked at him with their jaws slightly open. “What? I was just telling her how it usually works in my world.”
“Nevermind...” Frostfire grumbled.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got today to go do all kinds of crazy things.” Jesse reassured them with a grin.
They spent the rest of the day just messing around. They played a few Equestrian board games, and Jesse had brought Monopoly as well. After it was all over, he told them to keep the board, since he could get another easily enough. It was getting close to sunset when Jesse decided it was time to leave.
“It’s been a blast, but I should probably be heading off, don’t want Luna to turn me into a pony before I get around to leaving, that would take some explaining once I got back home.”
Emerald gave him a hug, while Steel shook his hand. Frostfire hung back for a few seconds before asking. “Are you sure you want to leave?”
Jesse sighed, he had an idea where this might go, and didn’t much like it. “Yes, I don’t belong here. This is for the best, to be honest.”
“Well then can any of us come with you?” The other two looked rather intrigued by the idea, before he squashed it.
“You’re a horse, albeit a small one. Humans are the only creatures capable of speaking on Earth, so if you came, you’d probably just end up in a science lab being prodded for the rest of your life. And that’s the pretty picture, it can become much more... grotesque.”
She slumped slightly and gave him a quick hug. He waved his final farewell before he slipped the ring on and went towards the woods. When he was sure no one was around, he pulled the Time Twister out and headed home, though not for the last time. While he may not be able to come to Equestria anymore, there were plenty of other worlds and planes of existence to explore.
The End
This is my ending author notes and such. So as a few of you have noticed, the story and the songs are titled after songs, so I figured I'd link them here. They're all Blind Guardian songs.
Sadly Sings Destinyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEDXdHVIG88
Otherlandhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ZDaQbH5Hk
Turn the Pagehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dupfXQo269M
Lost in the Twilight Hallhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyM0zjBgDVw
A Voice in the Darkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX0j8q6wbeg
Majestyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdKXiYoorew
By the Gates of Moriahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZunVo1WlWU0
Guardian of the Blindhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xihLJQgkHbo
And Then There Was Silencehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8XZgfpLbYI
I'd also like to thank all of you that's helped me. Ponymarine and Foolonthehillz come to mind first, the former helped me realize that some things I write are cringeworthy before the grammar mistakes were taken into account, and the latter is the one that helped fixed those grammar mistakes. There are more that did some pre-reading and such, and I thank you.
Oh, and if you're one of those that actually read the story, I thank you too, for I'm sure there are many better stories out there. Kind of like this Dragonriders of Pern one I'm reading every time it updates.
For those who are looking for more by me, I doubt I'll be writing more, though I may write an epilogue of sorts for this fic.
-Buckwood
