Chapter 1: In the Time Before Magic
Hi, My name is Clay Pot! I live in Bucksford with my mom, my dad, and my twin sister, Flower Pot. Neither of us have our cutie marks yet, but that's going to change soon, I just know it! and after that, I know much more will change. my sister and I are both quite different from other ponies. We were both born with a deformity of our skull. It almost looks like a horn! the doctors told us that it was "benign"... whatever that means. We’re made fun of a lot in school by the other foals, but it's okay, we don't mind.
There are also weird things that happen around us that no one can seem to explain. Objects we use, like our shears and trowels, seem to float and follow us occasionally. We haven't told our parents this yet; we'd think it'd really freak them out. Flower seems to have this happen to her more than I do because she complains about it all the time. I'm sorta really worried about it.
But anyway, enough about us. It's time for my story!
It was a cold, misty morning in Bucksford. just like any day in Bucksford, really. That's why Clay wanted nothing to do with today. He laid in his bed, curled up for warmth, still dreaming about the day his cutie mark would come. There was a knock at his door, followed by the warm and caring voice of his mother.
"Claaay, It's time to wake uuup!"
Clay heard her, but as far as he was concerned, it wasn't time to wake up at all. He didn't move a muscle. The door was pushed ajar, and she sighed.
"Clay, you know what day it is, it's time to get up."
"I don' wanna." he replied sleepily, curling up tighter.
"Clay, you know we go out to the forest every sunday to collect new flowers for our garden. so come on, wake up." she said tiredly, pushing her way into his room.
"But it's cooold!" He moaned out from under the blanket.
She began to trot off "Well, okay, then, if you want your cutie mark to be a couch potato instead of something cool, fine by me."
That got Clay moving.
"Fiiine-uh!" He groggily rose from his little nest, his dirt-stained hooves leaving a mark on the blanket.
"You didn't wash your hooves again last night, did you?" The annoyance in her tone was enough for Clay to glance down at his hooves. sure enough, he had forgotten; his permanently dirt brown feet had globs of soil tangled in the fur around them, contrasting well against his crème colored coat.
"No, mom!" Clay said as he tried frantically to hide any evidence to the contrary. He quickly went to the bathroom across the hall from his room, trying to avoid his mother's gaze. He quickly stuck his hooves into the bath tub and began to rinse them off, making sure to get rid of all the globs of dirt. After letting his hooves soak for a bit, Clay took his legs out of the tub and began to dry them off.
On his way out of the bathroom, he took a quick glance in the mirror. His cobalt eyes still looked quite tired, and his gray mane was disheveled. Through the hair, he could see the tiniest bit of his deformity. He let out a sigh, and continued on his way to the kitchen downstairs. The smell of fresh oatmeal and toast hit Clay immediately; dad must've been making breakfast.
“Weph, mormin’ pun!” dad said jubilantly through a stirring spoon.
“Morning, dad.” Clay said, pulling a seat up to the dining room table. “We got any new areas to look at in the woods today?”
“weph. Umph, jub a sec,” he said as he spat out the spoon, which woefully slid into the pan of oatmeal. He muttered something about the oatmeal being stupid. “I hear tell from Missus Peach down the way that there’s this very special spot in the woods where rainbow lavender grows.” He said, mystified by the mere concept of a new plant for the garden.
“uhhh… how can lavender be rainbow? I mean, lavender’s called lavender because of the color, and the fact that something is naturally rainbow colored is sorta weird, and doesn’t seem botanically possible.” Clay responded, quite puzzle at the thought.
His dad pondered for a moment, fetlock to his chin. A sad look came over his face. “You know, I’m not sure. I’m not even sure why I’m listening to Missus Peach. She’s a little crazy.” His expression solidified into a mix of disappointment and depression.
“Yeah, she ain’t exactly the sharpest crayon in the tool shed, either.” Echoed down the hallway. Seconds later, Clay’s sister, Flower Pot pranced into the kitchen, simply bouncing with excitement for the day to come; she absolutely loved family sunday. She, like Clay, was crème and gray, except vice versa; a gray coat with a crème mane.
“Now Flower, it’s rude to talk about other ponies like that.” Their mother said as she came in, carrying the family’s specially designed miniature tree spade saddlebags strapped across her back. “Eat up, now. We’ve got a really long day ahead of us.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
An hour later, after everyone had eaten, saddled up, and otherwise prepared, the family headed out to the woods through their backyard. The birds were chirping, the bees buzzing, dew dripping off the fresh budding flowers; today was an idyllic spring morning.
And it was cold.
Clay had made sure to bundle himself up tight with as many scarves and hats as he could, but he could still feel the early morning chill running down his spine. The rest of his family, unhindered by the temperature, continued on with their weekly routine. He harrumphed in his annoyance and began to pout at the base of a pine tree.
“Oh, don’t be such a grumpy guss, Clay. Get out there an’ explore some stuff!” Flower called down to him, half way up the same tree, following a vine system that had taken root in the bark. How she had gotten up there, Clay would never know.
“But I don’t wanna! It’s all cold n’ junk and there’s never anything different out here!” He shouted up at her, then crossing his forelegs in indignation.
“She’s right, son. You might as well make the best of your day. Besides, there’s nothing like movement to warm you up.” His dad said distractedly, fascinated by a rather large bush of morning glory.
Finally, Clay sighed in resignation as he got up from his pouting spot and delved deeper into the woods.
Bachelor button grove? Seen it! Dandelion patch? Knocked all the seeds into the air two weeks ago! Daffodils surrounding the creek? Who cares! There was nothing in Bucksford Forest that Clay hadn’t seen yet. He let out a groan of extreme boredom and slumped over on the ground, giving up on this Sunday’s endeavor.
That’s when he noticed it; out of the corner of his eye, Clay saw something moving. He turned around, thinking it was probably Flower trying to sneak up on him again. What he saw baffled him. It was a floating trowel, surrounded by a deep blue glow. It wasn’t just any trowel; it was his; he looked back on to his gardening harness to find that it wasn’t there anymore. Great, his stuff was floating again. It seemed like this was starting to happen a lot more lately.
The trowel, still floating there, seemed to point off into a overgrown section of the woods; somewhere that his father had told him not to go, as it was very close to bear territory. Hesitant to follow the small shovel, not only because of the fact that it was a trowel and not a pony, but the fact that following it would just increase the chances of being turned into a bear’s lunch, he sat down hard.
The trowel, deciding to not be ignored, whapped Clay quickly on the back of the head with a small ‘ouch!’. Clay, not wanting to be hit again, begrudgingly trudged off behind the floating gardening instrument.
After following the tool for about 10 minutes, Clay had finally had enough. “Okay, I’m not taking another step until I know what I’m following you for!” he called after the trowel, which was a great deal farther ahead than he was. It looked back, seemingly taken aback by his words. That’s when the trowel responded.
Not with words, but with what felt like a magnetic tug, centered right on the tip of Clay’s head protrusion. Although he wanted to ignore his trowel once and for all, he couldn’t, As it was now dragging him along. When Clay woke up this morning, he definitely didn’t know that he’d later on be dragged through the forest by his floating trowel. Maybe it was possessed or something.
He tried to gallop away from his demon tool, but he was still being dragged in place, seemingly running backwards. Then he tried throwing things that passed by at the trowel, but to no avail. This shovel was stubborn. After awhile, he just accepted his fate, sat down, and crossed his forelegs in pouting resignation.
After what seemed like an eternity, the trowel finally stopped midair, bringing Clay Pot’s sitting form to a grinding halt. A thought of anxiety flashed across his mind; now he was totally and completely lost! He looked around, panicking and hoping he’d find a familiar landmark. The panic faded and was replaced by relief as soon as he noticed his butt-drag marks in the forest floor.
He then turned on the still floating trowel. “Now WHY did you bring me here?! I mean, seriously, you’re a dang gardening too-“ He stopped mid sentence as he saw what was beyond his strange guide. What was behind it was simply marvelous: like Missus Peach had said, there was a special spot in the forest where rainbow lavender grew. It didn’t seem possible at all, but there the rainbow briar grew, resolute and absolutely beautiful. There was a spark in Clay’s eyes as he looked at the flowers with glee.
“You are the best tool. EVER!” he lunged out at the floating trowel, hugging it tightly against his chest. He looked down at it in his moment of happiness, and noticed it was no longer glowing. He let go of the hug, and the trowel dropped to the forest floor, just like any other inanimate object would. He began to creep close to it, face nearly in the dirt, and prodded at it with his hoof. Nothing. Well, that was weird… just as weird as being pulled along by a floating shovel.
Disregarding the series of events that brought him here, he got to work delicately knocking the seeds off the plants (which also happened to be rainbow colored) into a small envelope and slid it into a pocket in his barding. He then used his now dormant guide-trowel to dig around one of the smaller prismatic plants, careful to do minimal root damage to prepare it for a transplant. Filling one side of his saddlebag with soil and the diminutive plant, along with a clipping of one of the larger flowers, Clay felt his work for the day was well overdone and he definitely needed to get out of the cold. He dusted himself off and followed his butt-trail back towards home.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The sun was just barely peaking through the forest canopy by the time Clay had reached familiar ground; it was getting late. How long had he been gone? He heard the panicked calls of his parents and sister off in the distance. As he galloped into view of the widest path of the woods, he ran into his mother, her eyes wet and her expression quite distraught. As soon as her eyes met Clay, there was a flicker of relief, but her face contorted into a mask of rage.
“And WHERE have YOU been?! We’ve been looking for you for hours! We were worried SICK!” She seethed.
Realizing he hadn’t thought of a cover story for his trowel-following escapades, Clay had thought of the easiest excuse that he could think of in a pinch.
“I don’t know.”
Wrong answer.
“What do you mean you DON’T KNOW?!” she asked furiously. His father and Flower Pot began to approach, their presence given away by the rustling of the underbrush.
“Oh, good. You found him. Now let’s ju-“ his dad began, but something rainbow caught his attention.
“What is that in your saddlebag?”
Eager to avoid the topic of where he was, Clay dug out one of the rainbow seeds from its envelope and presented it to his dad.
“Well, I’ll give you a hint; Missus Peach isn’t as crazy as we thought.”
He began to scrutinize the tiny little pod closely as if to make sure that it wasn’t painted. He then took a look at the full plant, which was beginning to droop.
“Where did you find- You know what? Never mind. We need to transplant the big ones soon, or else they won’t make it through the night.”
The collective family began to hurry towards the back yard gate. After bursting through the gate, Clay trotted over to an empty patch of soil by the perimeter of the fence. He shrugged off his saddlebags and inserted the spaded part of the saddlebag into the ground and was just beginning to press the levers on it to open the tree spade when there was a prodding on his flank. He looked back; it was Flower, staring wide-eyed at him, as were their parents behind her.
“Y-you should take a look at this…” she said, her voice wavering with surprise.
“can’t you see I’m busy?” Clay replied as he pressed the last lever on the tree spade; the small rainbow flower plopped into the soil.
“But… your flank.”
His ears perked up at the mention of ‘flank’. He turned to look at his side excitedly, and was immediately greeted with a new sight. On his flank was a stalk of rainbow lavender blowing in the breeze; his cutie mark.
He began to grin with unfathomable glee. It had finally come, and it was unique! But there was one thing about it that he didn’t quite understand…
“It’s cool and all, but what does it mean?” he inquired, gazing into the direction of his dad. His dad, still dumbstruck by the sight, began to shake his head, as if to clear it.
“I’m not exactly sure, Clay. They never quite say the full story with cutie marks. Either way, now I guess we’re going to have to plan a cuteceneara.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The rest of the week was quite uneventful. For the Pot family, it was business as usual; Clay and Flower finishing up their last week of school for the year, and their parents working their garden supply shop.
It was completely uneventful. At least, until Saturday.
Clay, for the entire week, had been thinking about how to bring up the trowel event with his sister. After all, he needed someone to talk about it with, and his sister was the perfect candidate. This normally would have been an easy task, but ever since he had gotten his cutie mark before she had, been quite…
“What do YOU want?!”
…moody.
Her door flew open and immediately after she saw that it was him and not her parents, the random junk started to fly.
“Well… um… I need to talk to you about something.” Clay said hesitantly, being sure to dodge the terrarium that came flying at his face.
“Well maybe I don’t WANNA talk to you!” she said, emphasizing her opinion on talking by throwing rather large book, which bounced off Clay’s nose.
“OW! Why would you throw that?!” He said, clutching his throbbing muzzle. “I need to talk to you about the glowy stuff! It happened again.”
At the mention of ‘glowy’, she stopped mid throw with a pair of rather sharp looking shears. Looking at what she had in her hooves, her eyes widened in surprise as she dropped the shears, which had stuck in the floor.
“Fine. Get in here.” She said, slamming the door behind Clay after he had came in. her room, comparatively to Clay’s, was much cleaner; there was no hints of left over dirt, except for the now tipped over terrarium that she had thrown.
“What was it this time? Did some of the plants get out of the ground and start following you again?” She asked as she began to sweep up the potting soil mess she had made in her bout of anger.
Clay chuckled; that had been one of the funnier events, as the flowers had began to skip behind him while singing in tiny little voices. “No, it was my trowel this time. It… uh… led me to where I found the rainbow lavender.”
“So… you followed a flying trowel… to a grove of rainbow flowers?” Flower asked slowly, as if she was waiting for Clay to correct what she was saying. He had not, instead nodding at the end of each incredulous statement.
“Well. That’s not something you hear every day.” She said as she poked at the now imbedded shears. “Was there anything else th-“
She was cut off by a shrill scream that had come from the downstairs foyer; that was mom! The twins exchanged panicked glances before hurrying off to see what had happened. By the time they had rounded the corner and began to head down the stairs, they saw that she was standing at the front door in a wide stance, like she was holding her ground or something. The door was open, and it looked like someone was on the porch. Who could it be that would make her scream?
“Mom? Who is it, is everythi- woah…” Flower began to ask, but then stopped halfway down the stairs, eyes transfixed on the figure sticking his… it’s… clawed foot through the doorway to block it from being shut.
What was standing there was something absolutely fascinating. It looked vaguely bird-like, but it was very large and standing on four legs. The hind end, however, was not avian in nature, but instead feline. A half bird, half cat? What in Equestria was this thing?
“Look, lady,” it said with a quite masculine voice through gritted… beak? “I’m just here to deliver a message for a mister Clay Pot. It’s urgent he gets my message.”
This thing had a message… for him? Who in the heck would have a message for Clay that involved a delivery from a bird-cat-thing?
“Well, whatever it is, we don’t want it. Ju-just get out of here, you- you freak!” his mom stammered, stomping down like she was going to charge at it.
“Fine. I’m going, but we’ll be back… we always make our delivery…” He stated. “Friggin’ muggles…” He turned on the spot and pushed on his muscular wings and soared away.
After their mother slammed the door behind the thing, they all just stood in place, dumbstruck about what they had just seen.
Flower spoke up first. “Mom, what was that, and what did they want with Clay?”
“I’m… I’m not exactly sure, Hun. But whatever they want with Clay, they’re not getting.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Whatever these winged beasts were, and whoever they represented, they sure were persistent. That one visit turned into five every day for the next week, sometimes many at the same time. There came a point where Clay’s father had told him and his sister to ignore the door.
But these things were crafty.
Eventually they had stopped trying the door. Instead, they had begun to try everything else. They had begun to claw at the windows, knocking heavily on the walls, and waiting outside each exit for someone to leave. There was even one that had tried climbing down the chimney, but dad had quickly smoked it out with a small fire.
That’s when something else had gotten into the house.
It was well past midnight when it had happened. Clay had gotten up to get a drink of water, and had heard a crash of broken glass come from the basement. His parents must have heard the crash as well, because they had rushed past the bathroom towards the staircase to the main floor. Clay had heard hoofsteps coming back towards the bathroom. His mother’s head poked through the door, a tired, worried look on her face.
“Clay, get back to bed. I think one of those things has broken in. just get back to your room and lock the door. Your father and I are going to deal with this.” She said sleepily before withdrawing her head.
Doing as he was told, Clay had finished his water and trotted back to his room and gently bucked the door shut and locked it behind him. Sliding back under the covers, he began to doze back into a light sleep.
Until he heard a blast coming from the first floor.
He was jolted awake by the noise; what in the world could cause that? There were footsteps slowly coming up the stairs. It was just one set, and it didn’t sound like either of his parent’s footsteps; that was worrying. The foot steps had stopped just outside Clay’s door. There was a fumbling with the knob, which stopped as soon as whoever it was realized that the door was locked. The bashing came about slowly, but started to pick up as the door began to splinter from the force. Clay was shivering under the covers where he now hid. This obviously wasn’t either parent, which terrified Clay. What had this person done to them? Had those bird- cat things gotten violent?
The door finally toppled over from the amount of blunt force. The footsteps came towards the bed, but there was something interesting about them now; it sounded like the back ones made a clop, while the front made a clacking sound that usually came from untrimmed claws. Whatever this was, it was neither pony, nor bird-cat, unless the bird-cats happened to have hooves. In which case, it was definitely a bird-cat.
The covers over Clay were ripped out away from him, and what he saw made his heart stop. The being was vaguely equine shaped, but the similarities stopped there. The thing had what looked like bat ears, the same type of claws that the bird-cats had, along with the same eyes. The nose, if you could call it that, was scaled and reptilian. It also had a horn-like thing just like Clay and Flower had. The rest of it was shrouded in a dark, black cloak, which Clay was thankful for; this thing was unnatural. At least the bird-cats looked put together right albeit a little differently. It’s eyes scanned Clay’s shaking figure, like it was looking for something specific. Then his cutie mark caught it’s attention, lingering on the spot.
“Ahh. You must be the older one.” The thing hissed, it’s voice deep and condescending, yet surprisingly feminine. “Unfortunately for you, I have no use for you. It’s the younger one I need. It’s time for you to die.”
The abomination lifted its claw, and everything went black.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Clay’s eyes began to flutter open. His head was light and his chest was numb, but painful. What had that thing done to him? He looked down to his chest where the pain was radiating from, and he gasped. His chest was quite mutilated, with three diagonal claw marks that were deep into the flesh. It’s a wonder he hadn’t bled out yet, as the bed was absolutely soaked.
“M-mo-mom?” he rasped out, his mouth dry. No response. Then he remembered what had happened before that abomination had come in. Tears from the pain began to fill his eyes as he crawled out of bed and tumbled onto the floor. Before he did anything, he knew he needed to cover his grisly wound, so he pulled his mostly dry blanket off of his bed and wrapped it tightly around his chest. Now that he wasn’t bleeding as profusely, he wobbled onto his jittering hooves.
After he had gotten a feel for his shaky movements, he wandered out into the hallway. Clay had remembered that the thing said it wanted the younger one, so before he headed downstairs to see what had happened, he tripped his way into his sister’s bedroom.
She was nowhere to be seen. Her stuff was thrown everywhere, making her usually tidy room look like a warzone. Her window was shattered, presumably used as an exit. He was scared. Scared, not only because of what that thing might have done to his parents, but what it had definitely done to Flower. Wherever that freak was, Flower was probably there with it.
He stumbled down the stairs and into the foyer, and the sight he saw made him feel dead inside. There, lying on the ground, were both his parents; seemingly untouched, but both were absolutely and irrevocably dead. Their skin under their coats was white as a sheet, their eyes wide, and their mouths open wide in a perpetual, silent scream. He nuzzled them each softly as tears streamed freely down his face. He just wanted to curl up into a ball and join them. But he couldn’t, what’s done is done.
He headed into the living room, which was covered with broken glass from where the monster had broken through the window. Looking through the shattered window, Clay gasped as he saw the multitudes of bodies of the bird-cats strewn across the lawn. Some bloodied and torn, others quite like his parents; all dead. Whoever that was, it wasn’t on the bird-cat’s side. Clay had felt an additional pang of sadness; sure the bird-cats had basically forced them to stay in their home for a week, but they hadn’t done anything to deserve this.
He decided on sitting on the mercifully unscathed couch and waiting until he was in the right frame of mind to do anything. He just sat there and bawled his eyes out.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
After what seemed like ages of crying, Clay just sat there, too dry to continue and too weak to move from blood loss. He’d taken the blanket off his wounds to let it breathe, as the blanket was utterly drenched. There was a knocking at the door. Then a pounding. That’s when the front door came flying through the foyer, crashing and sticking into the kitchen counter like a dart into corkboard.
“Anypony alive in ‘ere?” a gruff voice came in from the foyer.
“I am.” Wheezed out Clay, mouth as dry as the Moojave.
Then, for the third time this week, a being that he did not know the name of shoved his huge body through the living room doorway. This one was probably the easiest one for Clay to understand. It was much like a cow or bull. If the cow stood on two legs and was nine feet tall. The hulking creature was brown and very shaggy, his hair and a large woven goatee matted down with grease; he must not bathe much. He had a large ring piercing through his nose, much like many bulls had.
“So…” He said as he pulled out a blood covered letter, probably taken from one of the bird-cats outside, and taking a quick glance at it. “I’m gonna go ‘head ‘nd guess yer Clay Pot."
Clay Nodded.
“I’m sorry about yer parents; they was good folk.” He said, a hint of sadness in his voice.
“H-how would you know?” Clay coughed out, licking his cracked lips. Noticing this, the beast took out a glass vial filled with a green liquid.
“Before we get to that, drink this. It’ll help with those nasty gashes and dehydration” Taking the vial in his hoof, he uncorked the top. The smell wafting out was sweet, but the liquid itself was the consistency of snot. Not wanting to think about it, Clay downed the vial with a quick gulp. It tasted like sweat, but the effects were immediate; the wounds began to close quickly, leaving three thick scars where the claw marks once were. He felt a wave of relief as the liquid seemed to replenish his lost blood.
“Wigginweld potion,” the huge cow-thing muttered as he sat down in an armchair adjacent to Clay’s couch. It started to sag from his weigh. “probably one ove the mos’ useful things made by zebra kind.”
“What’s a zebra?” Clay asked, mouth finally moist enough to form words right. “In fact, what are you, who are you, what are those bird-cat things outside, and who was that last night who gave me this,” He gestured to the scars “And killed my mom and dad, and foalnapped my sister?” He almost sobbed out.
“Uh…” He had cleared his throat and stared at the ceiling, nodding while mumbling, trying to remember all those questions in order.
“Sorta eh striped pony, minotaur, Strongheart, griffons, ‘nd She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
“What did the griffons and this She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named want with me, Strongheart?”
“Ah’m ‘ere the same reason that the griffons were. Ah’ve got a message fer yeh, from Starswirl the Bearded ‘imself. Judgin’ by the fact yeh didn’t know what them featherbrains wanted, Ah’m gonna guess yeh don’t know much about any ove this, do yeh?”
It took a minute for Clay to understand what Strongheart had just asked him; his grammar was atrocious. After a bit of thought, Clay shook his head.
“Well, first o’ all, do yeh know what that thing is on yer forehead?” pointing a pudgy… claw… thing… at Clay’s deformity.
“It’s a… deformity? What does this have anything to do with what’s been happening lately?” Clay responded, his face contorted in straight-up confusion.
Strongheart flourished his claws up in the air in a manner of disbelief. “A deformity? Yew serious? Yer parents didn’t tell ya what that actually is? It’s got literally everything ta do with what’s been happenin’ around ‘ere to ya!”
“What do you mean? My parents didn’t know what it was either. Are you saying it’s not a deformity?”
Strongheart gave a frustrated sigh “Yer parents should know, they lived with ponies like you fer most of their lives. It’s impossible fer ‘em to not know.”
“What do you mean ‘ponies like me’?” Clay retorted, slightly offended.
The ‘minotaur’ or whatever he is clutched his nose and took a deep breath with his eyes closed tightly; he was getting nowhere quick. “That,” pointing to the thing on Clay’s forehead “Is a horn. Your kind uses em as a focal point to harness their inner magic.”
What.
“What?”
“Yerr a unicorn, Clay.”
“A what?”
“Look, have yeh ever done anything that yeh couldn’t explain, like things glowing, er floatin’? Maybe something caught fire?”
Clay nodded to all as they came except for the fire part which elicited a baffled look. Seriously, somepony caught stuff on fire the same way he apparently made stuff float?
“Well, there’s yer answer ta that life mystery; magic. As fer what She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wanted, we don’t rightly know what she wanted. Well, apparently she wanted yer sister, but fer what, we don’t know.”
“ And what was it that Swirlybeard wanted from me?”
Completely sidetracked by this point, Strongheart finally remembered why he was here, talking to a traumatized colt. “It’s Starswirl the Bearded, and the reason Ah’m ‘ere is to extend yer invitation to be educated by the magical folk ove Novaboom Boarding Academy for the Magically Inclined, where you will be taught how to use your magic, along with the assorted other skills that our community consists ove,” He glanced over at Clay’s cutie mark, inspecting it to see if it might fall into one of the ‘assorted other skills’. “like herbology.”
Clay’s eyes lit up at herbology. “You mean, magical… gardening?”
“In a sense, eyep.”
Clay thought for a moment; what other option was there? Now he was an orphan, and as far as he knew, he had no other family to go to. He couldn’t stay here. Although, Clay did see two issues.
“What about Flower? Are they going to be looking for her? And if she’s neither of us have anywhere to go.”
“They’re not looking fer ‘er, specifically.” Clay visibly began to droop at that. “But there’s an Equestria-wide witch hunt for You-Know-Who, so they are tracking her by extension. She’ll be found, Clay. Don’t you worry.” Clay felt a tiny bit relieved, but that didn’t mean much.
“As for where to go, like Ah sed, Novaboom is a boarding school, so you’d be living at the Academy. And as fer when school’s out, yew and yer sister er welcome ta stay at my cabin on the school grounds; Ah’m the Groundskeeper there, by the by.” He said, with a kindly smile on his face. “Whadda ya say? Join us?” He held his grubby foreleg outstretched, presenting his claw for a hoofshake.
What did he have to lose? If anything, this would at least give him a home and a guardian, who seemed alright, although a bit unkempt. It would also give him a chance to understand the ‘magic’ he’s been performing. That, and now he was a part of this new world, whether he liked it or not.
“Sure, why not?” he placed his hoof into Strongheart’s large claw. After being shook about wildly, strongheart let go, and gave Clay an apologetic smile. “Sorry ‘bout that… Don’t know me own strength.” He helped Clay back onto his hooves. “Ah’ll give yew a few minutes to get whatever you need and to say your goodbyes. Don’t worry about your parents, a Ministry of Magic clean-up crew will be here soon, and they’ll make sure they get a proper burial. We c’n visit them before school starts up, if ya want.”
“That… that’d be great, Strongheart. Just let me go grab my saddlebag.”
“Take yer time.” He said, strolling casually out the front door to wait on the porch.
As Clay went to the foyer, he adverted his gaze from the forever sleeping forms of his parents, so as to not have another tearful outburst. Heading to his room, Clay slung his tree spade saddlebag over his flank, along with his normal satchel saddlebag over his ribs. He checked his tree spade bag, finding that he still had the rainbow seed envelope. Tucking them away, he headed back downstairs.
Strongheart poked his head in from the open door.
“Ready to go?”
“Yeah, just give me a sec.”
Clay turned to his parent’s bodies, and the sadness set back in.
“Mom, Dad, I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry I couldn’t help Flower.” Tears started to well up in his eyes; this wasn’t as god of an idea as he thought it’d be. “I promise we’ll find her. I’ll see you later. I love the both of you more than you’ll ever know.”
Finishing on that note, Clay turned to face Strongheart, whose face was full of pity.
“I… I think I’m ready, Strongheart. Let’s get going.”
“Alright. Next stop, the Drippy Trough. One thing, though; Ah can’t be seen. Non-magic folk aren’t supposed to see us. It’s against the rules. It’s a blasted miracle none of them griffons were seen.”
“But how are we going to get where we’re going if you’re not allowed to be seen?” Clay looked up at the minotaur quizzically.
“Simple; you’re going to use your magic to see me.” Out of a satchel on his belt, he pulled out a very large cloak and slid it over himself. As soon as the cloak was on, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Um. What?” Clay looked through the area that his new acquaintance once was.
His voice called out from the same spot “It’s an invisibility cloak; just tap your horn on it, and you alone will be able to see me.”
Raising an eyebrow, Clay did as he was told and prodded where Strongheart used to be. Slowly, color began to outline his figure until he was completely visible. Well… magic is… magical. Who would have thought?
“Alright, let’s move.”
On that note, Clay and Strongheart walked off into this strange, new world that was just asking to be explored. Leaving behind them the only home Clay Pot has ever known.
Author's Note
Hi guys! All Nighter here!
This is my first attempt at a pony fanfic, so I hope you enjoy!
Note: Yes, I know this chapter might be painful to read, but It's sort of that awkward 'need to know the background but the background can't be written very well." more of a prologue, if you will.
Made in response to the lack of an original storied Harry Potter/ FiM crossover
depending on the popularity, I might make multiple, but only time will tell.
Inspired by Khat (author of the original Fallout: Equestria) and a friend who has not yet picked her ponysona name yet, so We'll go with E.C for now.
