Chapters Day One
I have attempted to delve into the maelstrom that is the Twisting Nether, with little success. All I have to show for my findings are a headache and a drained mana pool. My assistant and wife Ira is currently in the process of reconstructing the spell circle for a second attempt later today.
Second attempt: still nothing, and my headache got worse. The strain on my mana pool wasn’t as bad as before, but that’s because I cut the spell early. I’m currently looking over it to see where it can be improved on, since this one isn’t doing too well. Ira’s gone to get a mana potion from the apothecary before he closes shop.
By Sylvanas, has it really been eight hours? Note to self, improve scry spell speed in the near future. This amount of time being spent on resetting the spell is unacceptable. One more try with the new spell, then it’s off to recuperate for the night.
Third attempt: This spell can rot with the Lich King’s corpse. I’m going to have to pay a visit to Stitches to re-attach my arm and the right side of my face now! Ira’s currently laughing her head off as I write with my off-hand.
I think I should just have her rewrite this entry into something legible.
Back on topic, the spell was a complete flop as described above. Tomorrow I’m reworking the spell from the ground up, because Jared apparently didn’t want people modifying it at all. Upon attempting to use the reworked version, it jammed itself on its own lines and exploded. Violently.
On a related note, I need a new spell circle, floor stones, blast shield, protection runes, counterspell runes, ceiling, walls, and an easily accessible fire extinguisher for Duran. His library next door caught fire after the spell teleported itself.
Day Two
After reworking and reviewing the spell six times over, we are ready to try it. I am now only waiting on the construction crew to finish up my lab, which will be a process that’ll consume the rest of the day. Testing the spell tomorrow, having a couple hours off now.
I closed the book, and rolled my right arm in its socket. Stitches did good work, even if he was a tad slow in more than one way. Must come from being an abomination sewn together from various piles of flesh and sinew.
Standing up, I walked off into the winding tunnels that made up the Apothecarium. Here, mages, alchemists, enchanters, warlocks, and all sorts of Forsaken converged to work on the latest in magical breakthroughs, potions, and plagues. The tunnels themselves were quiet and dim, with the occasional sounds of something groaning or dripping in the distance to break the monotony. A black rat would rarely scurry across the dark cobblestones, or a spider would crawl along the ceiling and being weaving a web laced with green ooze.
Don’t ask me what the ooze is, nobody knows anymore. I tried figuring that out once and I got seventeen different results from a single sample.
Passing through an archway, I emerged into the lively traffic of the Undercity. Skeletal horses drew carts along the dimly lit, grand hallways, and various auctioneers shouted their wares and goods. Plain merchants offered various artifacts of probably mundane natures, sold various fungi that were probably only safe for the dead, or sold a variety of books for the common man. Rarely, I saw one of the living nudging their way through the traffic, trying to complete their business as quickly as they could.
I pushed my way to the central hub, a simple round room with a bank in the middle and a variety of services surrounding it. Here was the highest concentration of merchants or artisans, most of them of the Forsaken variety. Below the stone bridge I was on, a ring of viscous, glowing ooze stagnated around the central spire. Four staircases lead up to it, then four more led away and farther up towards the merchants and elevators to the surface.
I wasn’t sure where Ira was, except that she was looking for a nice place to dine later tonight. We hadn’t been able to have nearly enough time together, what with all the work that had been dumped on us. I narrowed my eyelights as I scanned the upper ring for a diner that might be considered fancy. For the Undercity, anyways.
Ira was waving to me from the upper levels, standing in front of the inn. I smiled, waved back, and made my way up the staircases through the sea of varying undead of all shapes and sizes.
Literally. There were other Forsaken like me, who could pass for almost human, to skeletons whose flesh had rotted away long ago, to hunched-over ghouls creeping along, to spirits who had no corporeal form to speak of. Stitched abominations to skeletal liches to semi-angelic val’kyr were an uncommon sight in the main halls, but not unheard of. An adventurer death knight rushed past me, black plate armor clanking and rattling all the way down the stairs.
I ignored the masses, more focused on getting to my wife. We were one of the few couples that had married in life, then continued on into undeath. More often when that sort of thing happened, one of the spouses would become horrified, or one of them would simply pass on, or something went horribly wrong and they came out as mindless dredges, or other horrific fates like that. It’s even more amazing considering the method of our deaths, which I’m not about to divulge.
Ira ran up to me, giving me a warm hug and a kiss. As warm as the dead could be, anyways. I returned both, holding her tight against me and letting my head bury itself in her black hair.
“So,” I asked, still hugging her, “I see you found a place.”
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, “it reminds me of our younger days, when we were out exploring the world.”
‘How does a restaurant pull that off? Did the owner just mash a bunch of themes together?’ Slightly confused and more than a little intrigued, I turned my head to look in. It wasn’t anything special, just a hole carved into the surrounding cave with a stone wall placed up to mark it. A partially-rotted door jutted out from its frame ever so slightly, which made my eye twitch just a bit.
“Well, I do recall being in a dungeon at one point or another,” I responded dryly, eliciting a muffled laugh.
“You’ll see,” she sang. Letting go, she skipped -skipped!- into the restaurant ahead of me. I shook my head in amusement as I followed her at a more sedate pace.
That energy was going to be the second death of me. Stepping inside and deliberately ignoring the door’s refusal to shut completely, I made a small ‘oh’ in understanding. I paused to take in the room.
As with most Forsaken-run food places, basically all of the customers were undead, or other restaurant owners looking to get rid of old foodstuffs. Rarely, an idiotic individual or someone on a dare would come in, as evidenced by the one orc, surrounded by a goblin and an elf, giving a disgusted look to his plate. The decor was, again, old and rotted, but it still didn’t stop me from realizing what it represented.
Somehow, the shopkeeper had managed to recreate Dalaran’s finest restaurant, or to me and Ira, the place where I began my not-so-famous journeys across Azeroth. The owner had even managed to get the table positions right.
“Move it, gawker.”
“Oh! Whoops…” I gave a brief glimpse behind me, and saw that I had inadvertently blocked the doorway for a ghoul. I hurried over to where Ira had taken a seat, embarrassed by my social flub. I couldn’t say my face flushed, not having any blood anymore, but that’s what I felt like. “Why did I do that?” I muttered under my breath.
I wasn’t quite quiet enough to escape Ira’s hearing, though. “You still worry too much,” she chided, “even after all these years. Take a break. Go on a vacation. You haven’t taken a day off in how long?”
“Three months,” I mumbled in an even lower voice.
“What was that?”
“Three months,” I said, louder. “But you know how much work there is to still be finished! We’re almost at a breakthrough!”
“And the breakthrough will still be there when you take some time to unwind. You’ve been tense lately, and I’ve been tired. Lets take a break, go on vacation to Un’Goro or Gadgetzan. We didn’t spend very much time there, after all.”
I gave a prolonged exhale. Ira was right; we needed a vacation. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take one until the project was finished. The magus was expecting results soon. “Ira, I know. I’ve been working hard almost nonstop, and it’s getting to me. But this absolutely needs to get done. I can’t budge on that.”
“Forget the magus,” she deadpanned. “He can rot in his grave for all I care.”
“I would love it if he would,” I groaned, “but he’s still the head of research. Lets get him some results, then we’ll go on vacation.”
She huffed, displeased. “Fine. Lets at least enjoy our dinner. The owner even got the menus right, down to the fine print on the bottom!”
And so we ate. It wasn’t nearly as good as the original restaurant, but we both expected that. In all, it was a nice release from reviewing magical formulae and painstakingly aligning runes and circles in just the correct fashion. Reminiscing was had, plans were thought up regarding the few other hours we had left to use, and the orc was a hilarious spectacle as he ran full tilt out the door, closely followed by his buddies.
I feel no pity for him. He knew exactly what he was doing. After we finished, we made our way out the door as well, and weaved through the Undercity traffic for a day of relaxation. It didn’t relieve us of all our stress and exhaustion, but it was nice to not have to worry about anything.
Two hours later, I regretted ever thinking that.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOT WORKING?” came the enraged yell of the magus from down the street, flanked by two of his personal guards. We were sitting at the docks, overlooking a stagnant, artificial river of the green ooze, just enjoying each other’s company when he decided to come out of his office for what might have been the first time in years. The ghost was floating towards us, vibrating and shaking. “THAT PROJECT NEEDS TO HAVE PROGRESSED BY THE END OF THE WEEK!” he shrieked in that rattling, hollow voice ghosts shared.
“I can’t finish anything until my lab is fixed from the explosion that happened earlier! Jared’s the one who hated others using his work!” I yelled back. I did not approve of authority yelling at me for no good reason.
It was this behavior that usually bit me in the rear later on. The magus quivered even more, turning a shade of quickly reddening pink from his usual ice blue. Ira discreetly elbowed me in the ribs, then the magus screamed in my face, “THAT’S NO EXCUSE! GET IT DONE BEFORE I HAVE YOUR FUNDING CUT TO NOTHING!”
To my credit, I didn’t flinch when his voice cut cleanly through the background noise of the traffic. We had gathered a lot of onlookers at this point, and he had just barely taken notice. Looking around, he made a dismissive noise before floating off into the traffic, trailed by his two guards. ‘Good riddance,’ I thought. Ira was sneering after him, though it wasn’t long before she rounded on me.
“Why did you do that?” she hissed at me, whispering. “He was about to fire us, and then what?”
“I am not about to back down from a ghost who thinks he can push us around. He’s had it coming for a long time.”
“That was still a stupid idea.”
I sighed in admittance. “I know. And it’s probably going to become a problem in the future. My mood has been ruined as of now. Want to see if the construction crew has finished repairing our lab yet? I could use something to get the ghost off my back.”
She rolled her eyelights. “And ruin our day off?”
“Yes, our day has been ruined. And I might be partially to blame,” she snorted at that, “and I’d like to be able to go on a proper vacation as soon as possible,” I finished.
She didn’t seem as happy as before, but that was understandable. With a tired exhale, she began walking off back towards our lab. I followed her close behind.
One walk later, and Ira was in a slightly better mood as we opened our lab door. To our surprise, the lab was already fixed, floors, blast shield, spell circle, everything. I was about to point this out, when Ira started before I could get a word in edgewise.
“Oh look! How about we get to that vacation a day early?”
“Well…” I started, thinking of ways this could go wrong. Why did the construction crew leave early? They even managed to clean up their tools and scaffolds, something that should have taken them much longer. “Why is everything so suddenly fixed now? I smell a rat, and not a literal one.”
“Yes, it seems strange, but it’s a nice surprise, isn’t it? Or were you hoping to go somewhere before having to come back?”
“No, I’m just suspicious. This should have taken the crew well into the night, and that’s not even counting Duran’s library. Where are the noises from there?”
“His library is through a couple yards of rock and ooze. Come on, we finished the spell. Lets get some results, turn them in to the magus, then we can take off on vacation tomorrow!”
I gave a weary sigh, but conceded. After checking the spell circle for any breaks or deformities, we began the spell. Magical energies, pulled from the Twisting Nether, began swirling around, following the runes and shapes in purple streaks.
Everything was proceeding just as we expected. That’s when everything invariably went wrong. Something… broke would be an apt description, in the circle, and the energies became violent and erratic. Free from their confines, I panicked in an attempt to shut the spell down as purple ribbons and swirls streaked by our heads and into the blast shield around the circle.
I watched as a stray bolt of energy struck Ira directly in the chest, and watched she vanished in a purple flash. A similar bolt hit my face, and everything turned white as I was sucked into the Nether.
* * *
I don’t know how long I was out, but I did know that I was not in the Undercity anymore. I was prone on the ground with a face full of dirt, insects buzzing all around me, and the occasional bird call. The next thing I noticed as I shot up, was that it was really, really dark. Trees loomed above and around me, creating an atmosphere of claustrophobia and dread. Even the plants looked somewhat mean.
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t imagining that face in the tree. I would say I landed in Felwood, but I couldn’t feel any demonic taint in the mana nearby. So where was I… and where was Ira?
“Ira?” I called out into the trees, echoing for a bit before fading into the background. “Ira!” I called, louder.
Panic welled up in my chest, and I swept aside the underbrush as I searched for my wife. Dashing around trees in this dark, dense forest, my imagination coming up with all sorts of terrible scenarios. Trapped in a foreign land, and Ira wasn’t by my side as she was every other time.
“No… no no no! Ira!” I lost it. I began a madman’s sprint through the trees, my cloak catching on loose branches and barbs. The trees became a blur as I focused on getting somewhere, anywhere else but there. I clung onto the dim hope that Ira would be fine, that she would just be around the next tree.
It never happened. Ira wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I burst out onto a path, and nearly ran into a sextet of ponies. I paused in my frantic searching when I grabbed the first one I could by the withers and asked her, “Have you seen my wife!?”
She screamed in panic, a purple hoof flung out into my face, and I fell unconscious for the second time that miserable day.
* * *
“He’s gone?”
“Yes. If Ira had listened to him though, the whole gig would be up.”
“Are there corpses?”
“No. They were teleported into the Twisting Ne-”
“You idiot! I need proof that they died! I need to see their heads on pikes! Until we get actual proof that they’re dead, you are to act as if they’re still alive and could come back at any moment.”
“...Yes sir. We’ll go see if his spell survived the explosion.”
“Good. Don’t disappoint me, or the consequences will be severe. I will have revenge.”
I awoke slowly. A blunt-force concussion typically does that to you, though if you happen to be alive at the time you usually wake up dizzy and feeling sick as well. I could hear some voices around me, though I had a difficult time making out what they were saying.
Instead, I chose to lie down wherever I was at the moment and attempt to collect my thoughts. I recalled being hit by a purple hoof, then I recalled trying to talk to a purple pony...
What did I have last night? Talking to colored horses? I had seen stranger, but that was still weird in my book. The voices around me were becoming a bit more clear, enough that my addled mind could make out some of the whispers.
“...dead! Look at its arms! Or… foreleg, maybe? It’s only bone right there!”
“You saw it, it attacked me! It definitely wasn’t dead!”
“I just hope it’s alright… the poor thing must be in terrible pain…”
Pain? The last time I ever felt physical pain was when I got hit by the Holy Light paladins and priests wielded. Emotional pain, on the oth-
Ira. Where is Ira?
That got me up quick. Panic found itself to me again, and with a drunken lurch and a stumble forward, I made my way up onto my feet.
“Ira!” I gasped. “Whe- huh?”
It seems I wasn’t dreaming. Six brightly-colored ponies were staring at me with varying mixed expressions of fear, wariness, and anger. Typical response to seeing a dead person, though the fact that the looks were coming from apparently sentient ponies was new. Ponies later, Ira now.
“Nevermind. Have you seen my wife?” I asked with a bit of urgency.
All I received was a number of baffled looks in addition to the emotions already on display. Their faces were oddly expressive, though considering that they already differed greatly from normal horses and ponies, that was less surprising.
“Answer me, please! Have you seen another like me?”
“N-No?” the purple one stuttered, now looking more confused than anything else. There was still revulsion though.
I said something unpleasant in Gutterspeak under my breath. “Then where’s the nearest settlement? I need help finding her, and I’m not going to get any in the middle of… wherever this is.”
That was probably the wrong thing to ask, considering that the cyan-colored pegasus zipped right up into my face, eyes narrowed. I backed up an involuntary step, and she took that as the opportunity to start yelling at me.
“And why should we tell you, huh? You came out of the trees and attacked Twilight!”
“Rainbow!” the one named Twilight chided, pulling the aptly-named Rainbow back with telekinesis. “What are you doing?”
I cut Rainbow off as she opened her mouth. Retorting, annoyed, I said, “I nearly tripped, and I was panicking. I still am, because I don’t know where Ira is. Now if you don’t tell me where a settlement is, I’ll pick a direction and simply walk that way.” Actually, what I had planned was to walk until I couldn’t make them out, then follow them to whatever destination they had in mind. A good plan, in my mind, especially since I realized I we were on a path. Old, but easily visible to my untrained eye.
“Yeah, well how do we know you’re not lying?” Rainbow countered.
“You don’t. Goodbye.”
I spun on my heel, walking towards my left. I could feel the ponies’ eyes on me as I disappeared into the shadows of the forest.
After deciding that I couldn’t be seen anymore, I looked over my shoulder. No ponies. I dove into the brush alongside the path, and waited. If they didn’t show up in ten minutes, I went the wrong direction, and would then correct my path to go right.
It then occurred to me that they could get a local militia, and if their initial response was any form of indicator, I probably just ruined my chances of any possible friendly relations. Crap.
I drove the heel of my palm into my forehead, berating myself when hoofsteps sounded on the pathway. Covering my eyelights with my hand, I made a tiny crack in my fingers to see what was going on without, hopefully, alerting them to my presence.
The six were warily searching the forest, presumably for me. Did I choose the right direction to town? Maybe. I waited for them to pass me by before picking my way back onto the path, crouching low to the ground. I gave a wary stare to their retreating forms, still covering my eyelights.
The yellow pegasus glanced back towards me, and I covered up my eyes completely. I just hoped I wouldn’t make a fool out of myself if she did spot me and come back.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
I cracked open my fingers, and the pony group had disappeared. I was thankful my hair had a similar color to the foliage, and for the nighttime light.
Speaking of which, I could tell I was definitely not on Azeroth anymore. The moon hanging in the air wasn’t one of our moons at all. It didn’t even have any markings on it, which was very strange. Both of Azeroth’s moons had features on them, but this one was a dull, featureless white.
Their moon goddess must be a rather boring person, I decided. With that observation out of the way, I walked along the pathway, following the ponies’ tracks.
It wasn’t long before I heard an animalistic roar up ahead. My first instinct was to run to the place of the battle, and that’s exactly what I did, fire and frost dancing in anticipation on my fingertips. I cut my enthusiasm short as I took the time to think over a few things. If I just ran in there, spells ablazing, I could just as easily terrify the ponies into being more uncooperative. I decided then to just drag the attention of whatever creature was up ahead away from them, then deal with it.
When I could see the ponies, not a single one of them was harmed despite the creature towering directly over them. A manticore, I realized, one of the more violent and rare creatures on Azeroth. To my immense confusion, the manticore flapped off not a few seconds later, leaving them be.
I ducked down back into the undergrowth as they began moving again, and followed them again as soon as they disappeared from sight. I hoped that wouldn’t become the norm for this little trip.
It didn’t. I caught up to them enough that I could see them, but stayed a long ways behind them to remain hidden. They had reached a fast-flowing river, and were talking with a river dragon with a twin-colored mustache, it seemed. As in, half of his mustache was purple and the other half was orange. After the brief conversation where the dragon was praising something or someone, if his enthusiastic arm-waving was anything to go by, he let the group cross the river on his back, where he afterwards waved them goodbye, submerged, and left.
The river calmed down after that. I suppose he was the cause of it, though I don’t know what would make him upset enough for him to do that. Hurrying along the path, I reached the river’s bank in about half a minute and instantly dove in. My mage’s physique didn’t help me much, but I managed to cross the river eventually with my weak strokes. I landed on the opposite shore somewhere downstream. Not stopping to dry off, I hurried along back upstream and onto the path again.
I had lost the group well and truly after that little exercise. There wasn’t any sign of them except for the tracks they had left in the dirt, even after I had kept up my quickened pace for the better part of an hour. Obnoxious, but not a crippling problem by any stretch of the imagination.
This problem, on the other hand…
I had exited the wooded part of the forest, and was now walking alongside a cliffside passage, both above a cliff and below one, giving me a sweeping view of the trees to my left below and the starry night sky above. I paid a bit of attention to those for a little while, merely to drink in the scenery, before I reached my problem. A rather large rockslide was barring my path. Pretty sure it was recent as well, as the occasional pebble still bounced down from the cliff above me, and the ponies’ tracks walked right into it.
I gave the pile of rock a foul look before rubbing my hands together in preparation to climb.
An excessively long amount of time later, I made it over that infernal deathtrap. Hardly any of the rocks were stable enough for me to put weight on them without causing them to collapse, and that was only on the climb upwards. Downwards was just as bad, considering that I had a miniature avalanche after me as I landed on the ground. Thankful that that ordeal was behind me, and cursing the ordeal for wasting even more of my time, I continued to follow the tracks. Definitely a recent rockslide, probably caused by them.
Did they know I was following them? I hope not.
Regardless, I had lost so much time and distance on them that closing the gap would be pointless and futile, even if they happened to be walking to a settlement that was hundreds of miles away.
By then, I would’ve turned around and gone the other way. It would probably be much faster. I pressed onwards, following the cliff path as it dove back into the forest again.
What was probably an hour later, I came across a recently repaired bridge crossing a misty gorge. The ponies had definitely been here, though the bridge was a concern. Repairs or no, the wooden planks and rope making up the bridge were rotting. It would hold for a while longer, but it was in dire need of replacement. Even the Undercity, for all of its decay, was kept in decent condition by magic or sheer structural integrity. This bridge had none of those things.
Coming to the opposite end, I could see fresh knots having been tied, more evidence for my thoughts. The old path could just be indicative of a path not often used. The river could’ve washed away a bridge crossing it. The cliff was clear until they came along. But this bridge had been down entirely, and none of the ponies had anything on them to indicate that fixing it was their designated job. I was convinced that they weren’t heading to a normal settlement, if it was one at all. Were they heading to some ruins, or a cave, perhaps?
Things just became much more interesting, though I doubted any of this was going to help me find Ira. I kept following their path, and stopped in my tracks as soon as I could get a good look through the mist hovering in the air. There, a massive, ancient castle loomed above everything else nearby, including the other ruined buildings around it. Holes were apparent in the rotting walls, but that didn’t detract from the sheer magnificence of the building.
The ground gave way to old cobblestones, though most had been dislodged from the dirt underneath them long ago. The tracks still weren’t very hard to follow, and I continued doing this when one of the most diabolical laughs I had ever heard echoed across the mute landscape.
“The night shall last FOREVER!”
So they were an adventuring group tasked to take down yet another egotistical maniac? Some things don’t change between worlds, I guess, but I don’t think they were adventuring material. I sprinted into the castle proper, noting the sun and moon motif spread throughout.
‘Now, where does every single maniac hide in a castle? Either the tallest tower, the throne room, or the basement, and considering the sheer volume of the voice, I’d say she’s in the tower, or she has a really good set of lungs.’
I made up my mind, and ran up the nearest staircase I could find, two stair-steps at a time. Before I could get halfway up, I felt and saw a lot of magic go off back on the ground floor, in what I assumed was the throne room. Blinding white poured out from the windows for the span of a few seconds, and I yelled in pain, throwing up my arms defensively. Light, or at least a very close substitute, was being utilized in that room. I felt a bit of pity for the crazed person in there, hearing her screams of, “No! No! Nooooo!”
I was sure that if I went into that room, only ashes would remain of everyone in there right now. It died down after a while, and everything fell silent. Taking a cautious peek out from my crossed arms, my somewhat blinded eyelights took in what little I could see. I could see another pony, lying on the ground, unconscious. Dark blue, with a lighter shade of blue for her mane and tail. I hadn’t seen her in the group of ponies from before, so she might have been the damsel in distress.
How anyone got through that light show was beyond me. Curiosity more than piqued, I began running to the throne room to check on everything there, skipping steps on my way down.
Just as I reached the closed doors leading to the throne room, I cautiously opened them a crack to observe what was going on in there. On the ground, unconscious, was the pony group from earlier. Opposite of me, underneath a pedestal, was the blue pony I spotted earlier. The first six ponies stirred awake, each of them wearing a piece of jewelry they hadn’t been carrying earlier. They must’ve been magical artifacts, I decided, hidden away in the depths of this castle. Did the crazy lady attempt to reach them first?
If those five torcs and the tiara could make that much energy, I would assume so. That amount of power on your side was nothing to sneeze at. I closed the door a little more, letting only my eyelight show itself through the crack, and watched the proceedings. All of them were excited about their new accessories, and the white one was very happy about her purple tail being fixed.
Wait… purple tail, tail got fixed, and a purple and orange mustache on a river dragon? That’s too much of a coincidence. Was fashion really that big of a deal here? This world was weird, but maybe it was just a woman’s thing.
I broke out of my musings when another bright light appeared, prompting me to cover my eyelight up again. There, floating down gently from the window, was one of the most majestic creatures I had ever seen, and if the regalia, size, and the fact that it appeared to be a hybrid of both pegasi and unicorns, and the fact that the six were bowing before her, a ruler of sorts. I then noted that the blue pony also had both wings and a horn, so she must have been one of the ruling groups too.
A few soft words were exchanged between the white hybrid pony, the blue pony, and the six others, and they all vanished in a flash of light and teleportation magic. But not before the white one made eye contact with me, I was sure.
“Wait,” I said aloud to myself, “I was just left here in the middle of nowhere, in a forest with manticores and dragons in it, and I have no idea where the nearest settlement is, or if it’s even friendly. And none of this has helped me find Ira, at all.”
My yell of frustration rivaled that of crazy lady’s yell from earlier.
I was about to start tearing my hair out in anger when the third bright flash of the day assaulted my eyelights again. I put up another arm again, recoiling back from the amount of light being used. There, standing in front of me and regarding me with a guarded, neutral look, was the white hybrid from earlier.
“Why are you here?” she demanded.
I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased that their ruler came back to visit me personally, or terrified because I was an undead and their ruler came back to visit me personally. “I’m here on this world by random chance, and here specifically because I thought the group of six was heading to a settlement.”
She frowned at me. “And what are your intentions?”
Honesty is probably the best policy right now, I decided. “To find my wife, Ira.” I then told her the story of my arrival here, me running into the six from earlier, and my ordeals getting to here. “...and now here I am, having made absolutely no progress whatsoever,” I finished.
The whole time I told my story she regarded me with that decidedly neutral look that I had seen on all nobles having been in politics for any amount of time. She remained silent for a while, going over my story, before she spoke again.
“I thought the undead were incapable of passion,” she mused. “You seem to have disproven me.” She gave me a smile, completely unexpected by myself. “Come. I think you have a story to tell and a wife to find.”
A flash of light and teleportation magic, followed by my knee-jerk reaction to bright light, and I found myself in a sitting room that was a stark contrast to the ruins from earlier. I was sitting on a couch, with the white pony sitting across from me on another couch, separated by a coffee table with a tea set on it.
Levitating one of the cups to her lips in yellow telekinesis, she said, “Now, why don’t you start at the beginning?”
‘Oh boy,’ I thought, dreading what she may be looking for. ‘This just might become very bad indeed.’
“Will you help me find my wife?” I asked.
“Of course. I can imagine what it must be like for you,” she said, with a hint of sadness. “The same thing happened to me with my sister.”
I exhaled, falling backwards onto the back of the couch, and began the tale of my life, and unlife. Hopefully she wouldn’t think much differently about me when I was finished.
“The first thing I should warn you about is that I’m not about to tell you a couple of things. Specifically, what happened for the first part of my undeath.” She frowned at that. “There’s a reason, and it all ties back to this one man named Arthas. I refuse to call him by his title, as he is no longer deserving of any.”
“What was his title?” she asked. She probably had a good idea though.
“Prince, then later, king. A bad one, one of the worst in our history.”
“I know of terrible kings and rulers, unfortunately,” she sighed.
I paused, contemplating. In my experience, the new ruler wasn’t always better than the previous one. My face didn’t change from its relaxed appearance. “Well,” I continued, “I’m fairly certain Arthas was worse. Did those kings and rulers of yours try to destroy the world using a plague of undeath?”
She frowned again, deeper. Uh-oh. “Are you diseased with this?” she asked in a low tone.
Whoops. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned that. “No,” I replied, “not anymore.”
Her face didn’t change, but she continued. “The first ruler threw the whole world into unending, random chaos. The second attempted to enslave it. There has also been the rare petty necromancer or warlock throughout the ages that attempted something similar to your Arthas’ methods.”
‘So things are still like Azeroth,’ I thought. ‘Wonderful. She might be the “good” queen, however. Actually, what’s her name?’ My eyebrows furrowed at that. “I just realized that I don’t know your name.”
“Neither yours,” she countered.
“Mr. Icara, husband to Ira Icara,” I responded, with a bit of an emphasis on husband.
She got the hint. “Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria. And while I did say that I will help you find your wife-”
I tensed slightly. ‘Another obstructing politician? Seems like Azeroth and this ‘Equestria’ aren’t so different after all. Could she be the “evil” queen instead?’
“-I first need to know what you two are planning to do and if you two will possess any threat to my ponies.”
‘Oh. That’s actually a good reason.’ I deflated, and gave a mental snort. ‘Not quite what I had hoped for though.’ Relaxing a tad, I said, “Return to Azeroth.” Plain and simple.
“And how will you do that?” she said, taking a sip of tea.
“The same way we ended up here, hopefully. I told you my scrying spell went awry,” I swore there was a mildly amused smirk behind that cup, “but I’m certain that something else was in play.”
“‘Awry’ is putting it mildly,” she murmured. “What is this something?”
“Probably the same reason why the workers who were tasked with fixing my lab left a couple of hours early. I can’t think of anyone who might want to get me...” not off the top of my head, anyways. I had made a few enemies because of my attitude and undeath, but for the most part we just avoided each other. “...so I don’t actually know,” I finished lamely. Was I missing something important? I found that I had unconsciously pursed my lips in thought.
Celestia was silent for a while, going over what I had said. Our thinking was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door, to which Celestia responded, “One moment, please!” She turned to me with an apologetic look. Before I could comment, I saw a bright flash, more teleportation, and found myself dumped into an empty bedroom.
“Really?” I asked nobody flatly. It made sense as to why she did it, but a bit of warning would have been appreciated. I sighed. More delays. With a mildly bored look, I looked around the room. Not much, even if it was made for royalty. A plush bed, a window, a dresser with a mirror, a closet, and a bathroom with all of the necessities. Curious as to what the city I was in was like, I turned my head to look outside, catching the predawn rays as they painted the city in shades of purple, pink, and blue. It reminded me of Dalaran, actually, seeing the spiraling architecture soaring into the air and the fields sprawling off below it.
Was this city flying too, I wondered? With a curious frown and a more intrigued look, I stood up from the bed, walked over to the window, and peered outside. Then I looked down, and backpedaled away from the window, nearly tripping on the edge of the bed in my haste.
That was a long fall down into the courtyard below. But I could confirm that the city wasn’t flying, it was attached to the side of a mountain. I exhaled, now busying myself with finding out why the bed was far more comfortable than what I had ever experienced before. Mattresses just don’t feel this way.
I peeked under a bedsheet, and found out that the “mattress” was actually a cloud with a bit of magic running around in it. Interesting. There were priest spells for levitation, but this was a tad different. How does water vapor do that? I took a closer look, getting onto my knees and peering at it from just a few inches away.
This is where I shone. Understanding and making complex spells and formulae was my forte, and the exact reason why me and Ira were chosen for…
Oh. Right.
And just like that, my curiosity gave way to gloom as I remembered why I was here. With a heavy sigh, I put the sheets back and flopped onto the bed to just stare at the ceiling and plan ahead.
Sometime later a pony maid walked in with a gait that could only be described as dainty. I lifted my head up, one eyebrow raised in annoyance as she managed to cross the room and start cleaning it with her eyes closed. How she did that, I don’t know.
The scene came to an end when she opened her eyes and looked at me sprawled on the bed. She froze up, mouth agape in an attempt to say something, pupils contracted to pinpricks.
“Yes?” I snipped.
As if someone flipped a switch, she screamed at the top of her lungs and galloped out of the room. Realizing at just how bad that boded for me, I took what little time I had before the inevitable guards showed up to dive under the bed.
Then I realized at how much worse I would appear if I was found just as two guards barged in, their golden horseshoes the only things I could see. The maid was standing behind them, her hooves shaking in fear.
“It was right there, on the bed,” she stuttered, “and I swear, it talked!”
If I still had eyes, I would roll them at a statement like that. One guard muttered something to the other, and then said, “Can you describe it, ma’am?”
“W-well, it was… it was like nothing I had ever seen! It had glowing eyes, was wearing a cape-” It’s not a cape, it’s a duster! “-and it had bone sticking out from its arm!”
“Arm?”
“Mm-hmm. It didn’t have any hooves, so it had arms!”
There was a moment of silence I imagine the guards used to look at each other. With the faint *clink* of armor sliding across armor, they moved from one end of the room to the other, searching the wardrobe, the bathroom, even peering out the window.
Armored hooves began approaching the bed, and I made an inadvertent motion backwards, crawling closer to the wall. Slowly, silently, I pushed myself up into the mattress, stopping when I was an inch away from the sheets. White cloud filled my vision, obscuring it, and, hopefully, the guard’s as well.
Five agonizingly long seconds passed before I could hear the guards moving away, and I exhaled softly in relief. I relaxed when I heard the gruff voice of the first guard say that the creature wasn’t here anymore, and walked the maid out of the room. The second guard stuck around for a bit to peer out the window again before he also left the room.
The door clicked shut, and I crawled out from underneath the bed, muttering under my breath. I popped my entire spine, one vertebrae at a time, and I sat back down onto the bed to wait. It wasn’t long before Celestia reappeared in a bright flash of light, looking slightly stressed. She did a good job of hiding it, however.
“You missed the show,” I said, irritated. “A maid came in to clean and saw me lounging on the bed. I managed to hide from the guards she brought in, thankfully, but we both know that I can’t be kept here for long.”
She murmured something about cleaning schedules before exhaling. Whether it was relief or annoyance, I couldn’t tell. “I’m aware of that, Mr. Icara, but I don’t have anywhere I can hide an undead. Which is why I’m going to give you a crash-course in Equestrian basics and a pony illusion while you’re here.”
‘Oh, this’ll be fun,’ I thought. “I can think of so many ways this could go wrong.”
“I can to, but it’s the best option we have right now. Do you have a better idea?”
I thought for a moment. “No. Put your illusion up, I’ll keep my mouth shut, and we can get through this as soon as possible. Barring any unforeseen complications.”
With that flash of light that always signaled Celestia’s spells, I watched as I became invisible, and as a fake unicorn with my colors appear in my place. Gray fur, teal mane, and yellow eyes. Celestia studied the illusion for a bit, viewing it all around.
“What do you want for your mark?” she said, gesturing to the illusion’s flank.
“Mark?” I replied, a tad confused. I didn’t recall seeing any marks on the pony group at the beginning, but I wasn’t paying attention at the time. The maid’s and the guard’s flanks were covered up by their respective uniforms, so I couldn’t tell if they had anything like that. I assumed Celestia’s was a tattoo reserved for the crown, what with being a sun. “You mean that those aren’t something unique to royalty?”
“No. Where did you get that idea?”
“You’re the only one I saw with one.”
“Despite having a close-up with my student and her friends just a few hours ago?”
“I was panicking. I was focusing on where I could get assistance, not tattoos.”
“They’re not tattoos,” she said flatly, “they’re cutie marks. They appear whenever a pony finds his or her special talent.”
‘I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like that. Seems constraining,’ I thought. “Then I suppose mine would have to be something relating to magic. Or death. Or study and research.”
Her horn flashed, dimmer than before, and I looked down to see what changed. The illusion did the same, following my head’s movement to look at what I was. There was a closed scroll, candle, and quill on its flank now.
Not quite what I expected, but I can’t complain. “Now what?”
“I cannot ask you any more questions as of now, as I have business I have to attend to. I was merely taking a break to check on you. My ponies are in panic, since the night lasted much longer than it should have…”
‘Really? I didn’t notice, actually.’
“...so I am now going to teleport you to the castle library to read up on Equestrian history.”
“Homework, then,” I said, watching as my voice came from the pony’s mouth as Celestia refined the illusion even further. “I can do that.”
‘I can’t promise that I won’t look up a couple other things, however. Ira would love seeing a brand-new library that doesn’t kick us out on sight.’
I hid my emotions from my face, how successful I was, I didn’t know. I did know that Celestia gave me one last curious look before teleporting me into an empty hallway, facing a direction.
‘I suppose she wants me to go this direction.’ I rolled my invisible eyelights, the copy doing the same, and began walking down the hallway. Rather, I walked while the pony illusion trotted. It was interesting to watch, but I kept my head forward on account of the pony illusion continually looking down whenever I did.
After a minute of walking, I passed by a maid and two guards at a door. Not the same ones from before, thankfully. I watched them for a second or two before looking forward again, half-expecting something to go wrong as I passed them.
I walked past them without incident. I let out an exhale of relief as soon as I couldn’t see them around the hallway’s bend, and kept walking. Perhaps I should place a little more faith in the princess’ spell.
Another minute of walking, and I reached what appeared to be the library. I also found out why the princess didn’t just teleport me into the library, or near it. There were a number of scholarly types around, and I could feel enchantments in the room preventing teleportation.
Walking inside, avoiding the trickle of ponies going in or out, I took a look around. Like the city, the library was designed to be spiraling, shining, and showy. A massive bay window let in the sunlight and another sweeping view of the city. Light blue shelves made out of what might have been a mix between stone or crystal held books of all sizes and colors.
I asked the librarian for a book on general Equestrian history, and received a dozen books after a quick search, all of them at least six hundred pages thick. The one on the top was titled History of Equestria, with the other books below it all titled in reference to some specific time. No doubt the librarian got a lot of people who were more interested in specifics. I gave the stack a startled look and picked it up. The pony illusion’s horn lit up, encasing the books in a yellow glow while I simply used my arms and hands.
How some of the ponies got around without magic or hands was another question for my ever-growing list. I chose a secluded table over in a relatively dim corner of the library, picked History of Equestria up, and began to read.
I looked up after I had read the first page. The book was written like a fairy tale. I grunted in annoyance, and resumed reading.
* * *
“Have you reconstructed the spell yet?”
“We’re working on it. Most of his notes are, for lack of a better term, vaporized.”
“What?”
“They were left out by the spell. Considering the blast shield was only a strong illusion…”
“...It held against casual observation, but not brute force. Fine. You have a week.”
“Yessir.”
I closed the book I was currently reading, and reached for the next one. Six hours had passed between now and when I started my trawl through the reading assignment Celestia had given me. She had come back after half an hour to check on me, midway through History of Equestria, in the guise of a pink-maned pegasus with a mark of a sun behind clouds.
How she got through the castle looking like that without garnering any attention is beyond me. Maybe these ponies aren’t quite as observant as I initially thought, or maybe she used an invisibility spell.
Regardless, I told her that I would prefer reading a dry book rather than History of Equestria, and she came back ten minutes later with a massive sixteen-hundred page tome from only she knew where, along with the instruction to just read the overviews on the first page of each chapter.
Instead, I went through the first hundred pages of extremely interesting pony history, much to my future annoyance. I was now rather well-versed on happenings from two thousand years ago, but I didn’t have a clue regarding recent history. Maybe I should see if they have recent newspapers?
With that thought in mind, I stretched backwards from my sitting position on the floor, cracking every single vertebrae in my spine. The pony illusion did the same, and rose to a standing position as I did. I was surprised it had lasted this long, actually. Plain illusions usually break down after just an hour, with invisibility lasting an even shorter period of time. Gathering the books the librarian gave me, I turned them back to the desk and asked for some recent newspapers.
This city was a lot like Dalaran, I realized after I watched a pony check out a grimoire. All it needed to do now was fly and park itself next door to a giant frozen cathedral of death, and there wouldn’t be any difference that mattered. I checked my pocketwatch, a memento Ira gave to me during our travels, and decided that it was way off. It was certainly not six in the afternoon, not with the sun almost directly overhead.
The librarian came back to see the pony illusion looking at a pocketwatch of foreign make being levitated six inches above its head and vanishing into thin air as I put it back in my pocket. She didn’t seem to be very surprised about that, so I thanked her for the newspapers and went back to my table.
Another hour later, and most everyone was out to lunch while I was skimming the recent newspapers. Celestia came back, still in her disguise, and gave the newspapers a raised eyebrow.
“The book I gave you wasn’t enough?” she asked, taking the top newspaper on my “already read” stack with her hooves.
“Too absorbing, actually. I ended up reading all of the first three chapters,” I said, putting the newspaper I had onto the read stack and taking the next one. Something about a midsummer celebration in a week, from a week ago if the size of the remaining stack newspapers was anything to go by. “Anyways, I assume you’re just back to check up on the not-so-famous undead?”
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed.
“Let me guess: you’re paranoid that something will go wrong sooner or later, and there’ll be a panic here in Canterlot?” The name had come up in every single paper I had read.
She put her newspaper back. “Exactly. Come, Mr. Icara, it’s lunchtime. I don’t want to have to be constantly worrying when I’m not around you.”
I almost opened my mouth to disagree, but thought better of it. “I don’t think your illusion’s going to wear off in the next ten minutes,” I said, piling up all the papers into a single stack. I had learned a fair amount going through those, but I was still in the dark when it came to some things. I could pass as a foreigner. “And I certainly don’t want to draw attention to myself. We Forsaken get enough animosity as it is.”
Celestia took her book, balancing it on her back with her wings. “I’m not sure how to respond to that,” she replied.
I shrugged. It looked strange when the illusion did it. “You don’t have to. I went beyond caring about that kind of stuff a few years ago,” I explained, dropping the papers off at the desk. “It’s just something me and Ira got used to in our travels. The Alliance doesn’t take kindly to Forsaken wandering around.”
“Alliance?” she asked.
“One of the two, three, four,” I counted, “major factions. There’s them, the Horde, the Burning Legion, and the Scourge.”
She looked at me with interest. “Go on.”
“Hoo boy,” I exhaled, “that’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the way.”
And so I did, explaining to Celestia the basics of those factions. I didn’t go too deeply, as politics wasn’t something that interested me, nor was it something I was familiar with. I told her the tale of the Horde and the orcs of Draenor as we exited the castle, the story of the demonic Burning Legion and its role in creating the Scourge, the Alliance and how it came to be in light of the encroaching Legion, and finally, I came to the Scourge.
I paused in my storytelling as we arrived at a restaurant, grimacing. Celestia took notice. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m not fond of this next bit, mostly because the Scourge were led by Arthas until recently.”
She nodded in understanding as we took an empty table outside. “I see,” she said.
“You may be able to figure out what happened, with the Scourge being a product of the Legion and what my story’s been like so far. But I doubt you can actually understand what it was like to try and destroy all that you cared about under the dominion of a twisted husk of a man,” I finished bitterly.
“Try?”
I gave her a flat look. “Try, and succeeding half the time. I wasn’t placed on the front lines, but I killed just as many people in the lab. I was a researcher when I was killed, I became one of the researchers at a Scourge outpost in the middle of nowhere, Plaguelands, and I’m now one of the best researchers in the Undercity. I’m not going to discuss what necro-arcane horrors I helped make.”
We were silent after that. The waitress came and left, and an awkwardness descended. I wasn’t looking for anything to fill it though. It let me be with my thoughts.
Lunch came and went. I had water, Celestia had a salad with flowers in it. Not a word was shared between us. She went and paid the bill, and we were back off towards the castle.
Walking the streets of Canterlot wasn’t much different from walking the streets of Dalaran, or maybe Lordaeron before it was overrun by the Scourge. Magic was used commonly, ponies acted just like people, goods were ferried across the sky and through the streets… if it wasn’t for the inhabitants, I wouldn’t be able to notice the difference.
“I should think the guards will get nervous when you don’t show up to lunch.” I said, making sure we weren’t in direct earshot of anyone.
“They worry a little, but I go out every once in a while to escape royalty. It’s nothing new,” she added.
I hummed. I had a lot to learn about this new world, apparently. “And,” she continued, “I’m heading right back to check on my sister.”
“Sister?” I asked.
Her eyes went distant for a few seconds, and she looked to be on the verge of tears. “I would rather not discuss it.”
Nothing more was said on the way back.
Upon getting back to the castle, I was led right back to the library to finish up reading my newspapers while Celestia went off to presumably visit her sister. Half an hour later, I had gone through the remainder of the papers while everyone was still buried in a book or absorbed by a tabletop magical experiment. I exhaled, seeing a long afternoon ahead of me filled with history books. While I wasn’t opposed to reading, I did enjoy doing other things besides.
‘Now what?’
I went up to the desk, requesting some paper and a pencil. I got some paper, a quill, and an inkwell. I thanked her for them, and gave the quill an annoyed look as soon as I sat back down at the table. I was going to attempt to recreate my spell from memory.
Fifteen attempts, forty pages of math, and the rest of the day later, I had managed to make something that resembled the original. Only an untrained idiot would try casting it as it was now, but it was a decent start considering that all of my calculations were back in the Undercity. I picked up the most recent version, folded up the rest into various pockets of my light duster to dispose of later, and returned three inkwells with hardly any ink left.
After being hassled for using so much ink and paper, and a few pieces of unmarked silver given in return, I went my way out of the library to find out where Celestia had gone off to. I stopped in the hallway, just outside the library as it closed for the day. Was this a good idea?
“Probably not,” I muttered to myself. “What to do, what to do?” Grunting in annoyance, I backtracked to the best of my ability to the castle’s entrance.
“Oh, you’ve got to be joking,” I complained after hitting a dead-end. Twenty minutes of walking hadn’t gotten me anywhere, though I was pretty sure I was on the third floor. I think. I could be wrong, I walked up and down a lot of staircases of varying length. With a sigh, I continued my trek through the castle. Maybe I could find a guard, but that would end up going into explanations as to why I had to find Celestia.
After a lot more walking up and down staircases and along hallways, I was completely, utterly lost. Looking out an open window to the city below, the last few ponies were heading home for the night, with a few others beginning the graveyard shift. I could see a few pegasi pushing around clouds, but they were too far away for me to see more than that.
From my vantage point, I could see Celestia on a circular balcony below me, next to the smaller blue alicorn I glimpsed last night. I considered calling to Celestia, when a thought came to me and shut me up.
‘How did I not see that? Little blue alicorn is big white alicorn’s sister,’ I thought. ‘And little blue alicorn is Luna from the Nightmare’s legend.’ I nearly banged my head on the wall, held back by how weird the illusion would look if I did. In the end, I cut myself some slack, knowing that I didn’t know anything earlier.
It was still frustrating, regardless. I turned my attention back to the duo, Celestia saying something reassuring to Luna. Whatever she said seems to have worked, because Luan began casting a powerful spell. A very powerful spell. It was one that I nearly shielded my eyelights from again, for fear of it being similar to that massive light show from the ruined castle.
What happened was very different: Luna stumbled forward a bit, and whatever she had attempted to cast sputtered out. Celestia caught her, and they slowly made their way back inside. Luna was crying.
‘I wonder…?’
I had a new destination, provided I could find it. I followed the hallway down, keeping a mental eye on where the room the sisters went into was. After more walking and backtracking, where the sun had gone down in the meantime, I reached the hallway where the room was located.
I came to a door emblazoned with a moon and two spearmen… spearponies guarding it. Luna’s room, more likely than not. I got curious glances from both of the guards before they went back to imitating statues.
‘Professional guards. Doesn’t matter what they are, who they work for, or where they’re located, they’re always the same.’ I gave a questioning look to them as I approached, stopping in front of the door. I raised a hand to knock, the illusion doing the same with a hoof. No response from them. I knocked on the door three times. Still no response.
I gave a mental shrug as the door opened to reveal tired- and irate-looking Luna who narrowed her eyes at me, glaring. They only narrowed as she continued to look at the illusion. My confidence rapidly drained as they slowly trailed upwards and locked onto my eyelights.
‘Ohh boy.’ I thought. With a startled yelp on my part, she yanked me into the room and slammed the door shut. I was let go just as she removed the illusion, and she threw me unceremoniously onto the floor.
“Who art thou?” she yelled at me as I rolled onto my back. The guards from outside barged in, saw me, and immediately leveled their spears at my chest. I didn’t crawl back. I gave the three wary looks as Luna lit her horn up.
“Three…” she counted.
“Mr. Icara, as your sister Celestia knows. Speaking of which, I was trying to find her,” I brazenly told her. “What’s your name? Luna?”
That just made them more upset. Their spears went from my chest to my neck, and they were moved away as Luna picked me up in blue-colored telekinesis. She drew my face to her height, leaving my legs to bend as my feet dragged. “And what reason do We have to believe thou, undead?” she yelled, angling her horn to gore me.
I thought quickly. “You can just contact her, can’t you? I’ve been sear-” I was cut off by Luna locking my jaw closed.
“Undead, We do not know what manner of creature thou art-” she began in a low tone.
‘So there aren’t any humans here? That’s a first.’
“-and I don’t know why you were sent here, but know that whomever your master is, he won’t succeed in stealing the crown.”
“Hey!” I yelled back, “My ‘master,’” I said, injecting as much loathing as I could into the word, “died long ago, and for the better.”
“And how can We know thou art?” she yelled right back.
“Because I’m not a liar! I’m a person trying to find his wife and get back home, and getting royal help is the best method of doing so,” I finished.
“Undead, mine patience spreads thin. We cannot know thou art not a liar from thine word alone. Now tell Us this: for what reason should We not incinerate thou where thou art?”
A clatter of hooves sounded down the hallway, drawing the attention of everyone. Celestia rounded the corner, looking extremely frazzled and panicked. She shot me a death glare, saying, “Luna, sister, please put Mr. Icara down. I need to have a word with him about disappearing.”
“Sister, this is one of the undead!”
She heaved a sigh. “I know he is, which is why I put his disguise up.”
Luna looked a bit flabbergasted. “‘Twas your work?”
“Yes, and I had hoped that it would last a little longer.”
Luna glanced between Celestia and me a couple of times before dropping me. The guards looked even more confused than Luna did, who moved to the side as Celestia approached me. I got to my feet and cracked my neck, eliciting a slight jump from the guards. “Mr. Icara, I was hoping that I could leave you be for a couple of hours without incident, against my judgement. Unfortunately, I’ve come to be disappointed.” She frowned at me, keeping her neutral mask on.
“Yeah, I mucked up. I started looking for you as the library closed-” she grunted in annoyance, “and I got lost.”
She mulled over what I just said. Turning to the guard duo, she said, “You two are to accompany Mr. Icara here and make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble than he already is.”
One guard snapped up in a salute, while the other stared at me slack-jawed for a second before doing the same. I rolled my eyelights at him, folding my arms across my chest. “So are you going to share my tale with Luna and send me off somewhere?” I asked.
“Oh no,” Celestia responded, “I’m going to have you retell your tale to my sister and the guards here.”
I exhaled, letting my arms fall. “Hope you’ve all got an hour,” I warned. With that, I began recounting my tale again, along with telling everyone what happened between me meeting Celestia and now.
“I’m going to get sick of retelling that tale, methinks,” I groused after I was finished. It was definitely nighttime by the time I finished. I had grabbed a stool while the princesses sat on Luna’s bed. The guards had opted to stand.
“At least you’re consistent,” Celestia commented dryly. “Guards,” she turned to them, “take Mr. Icara to a spare room for the night.”
They snapped another salute as she replaced the illusion. Luna’s horn glowed as well, and I could feel the illusion becoming… more real? Tangible? Something like that, anyways. Celestia looked surprised, and huffed.
“You always were better at that,” she faux-complained.
Luna smiled a bit, but her eyes were distant. I took that as my cue to leave, the guards having similar thoughts.
Down the hallway and around a bend, a guard said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“Walking an illusioned undead to his room granted by the crown?” I asked, making sure we were the only ones in the hall.
“Yes. That.”
“Well, I shouldn’t be much of a problem unless you’re hindering me.”
One of them rolled his eyes as we stopped at a door along the hallway. “Here’s your room. We’ll keep the maids out so they don’t stumble on a limb, or something.”
I rolled my eyelights, opening the door. “It takes about a hundred years before limbs start falling off, and I’m only thirty-five. Goodnight.”
“Thirt-” Whatever he was going to say next was cut off as I closed the door behind me. The room wasn’t too different from the princess’. Everything was plain, though.
I walked out onto the balcony. I don’t sleep very often, and the sleep that I do catch is used to sort out my thoughts.
I spent the night looking out into the night sky. There weren’t as many stars as I was used to.
Sometime during the night I retreated back inside to work on the spell a little longer. To my irritation, I didn’t get very far due to a lack of notes. When dawn broke, I squinted out the window for a moment, then scooped up the loose sheets of paper and stuffed them back into my pockets. I rose from the desk’s chair, cracked my spine, and peered out the door into the hallway.
The same guards from last night were still standing there, somewhat alert as well. I supposed they had the night shift. One of them turned to look at me, and the other snapped out of his daydreaming… nightdreaming? Before turning to look at me.
“Morning,” the first one said. The second one was giving me a funny look.
I raised my eyebrow at the second one before turning to the first one. “Good morning,” I responded. “What now?”
The first one frowned and sent a questioning look to the second. The second just shrugged in response. “Don’t know,” he responded. “We should go see Celestia.”
I nodded once, and we set off. Not a word was spoken in the hallways. Nobody but the cleaning staff, a few posted guards, and the odd wandering pony were up at this hour.
I was led to a dining hall, where Celestia, Luna, and a white unicorn were having their morning meal. Luna did a discrete double-take when she saw me.
“...you two talking abou- oh?” the white unicorn said upon seeing me enter. “Who is this?”
“This,” Celestia answered, “is Mr. Icara. He’s here after a magical mishap, and I’ve agreed to help him return home.” I snorted metally. Mishap indeed.
I gave a nod to the unicorn, my face betraying no emotion. I had seen his face in the papers once or twice. Prince Blueblood, if I recalled correctly. Blueblood turned to Celestia and asked, “Is this the guest you were talking about, then?”
Celestia pulled over a cushion for me to sit on, nodding an affirmative to Blueblood as she chewed on a bite of salad. She swallowed and asked me, “Do you want anything to eat?”
“No thank you,” I answered, taking the offered cushion. “I’m not hungry.”
She raised a curious eyebrow at me, but didn’t say anything. Blueblood was too busy studying me to notice. “An accident?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “My wife Ira and I were working on an extremely long-range teleportation spell. Something went wrong with the spell circle we were using, and I got dumped into the middle of a forest. I have no idea where Ira went.”
Blueblood hummed in thought; a single low note. “So how did you manage to contact Celestia in the forest?”
Celestia answered. “The poor fellow followed the path Twilight and her friends took as they made their way to the old castle. From what I hear, he had to cross a river, climb a landslide, and walk several miles all by his lonesome.” I nodded in agreement as she continued. “I found him peeking into the room where the Nightmare was defeated, confused and scared,” I couldn’t tell if the glint in her eye was from mischief or sorrow. “After I teleported everyone out, I went back to talk to him. And now here he is.”
I gave her a somewhat flat look as Luna looked to Celestia in curiosity. “Confused? A little bit,” I responded, “but I knew most of what happened. Scared of a forest? Irritated, more like.”
“A brave stallion,” Blueblood commented. “I can see why Celestia took an interest in you.” He took a drink. “But, I’m torn. On one hoof, I’m more inclined to believe Auntie simply because she’s Auntie...”
‘What a great way to describe your aunt,’ I thought.
“...but on the other hoof, she’s known for harmless pranks and jokes at other’s expense.” He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m torn. Auntie Lu-”
Luna snorted, taking a bite of her… I wasn’t sure what she was eating. I think it was a salad, but it was drowned in a red sauce. “We are not thine aunt, Blueblood,” she snipped.
“Er, right,” he stuttered. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and Luna glared at him. He threw his hooves up in mock surrender, a sweaty grin plastered across his face. Celestia just sighed in defeat, pushing her empty plate away and rising to her hooves. I followed suit.
“Is this normal?” I asked Celestia after we had left the dining room. The same guards were still following us. Made me wonder if they’d get a break.
She huffed. “I hope it won’t be. I’m busy enough as it is without the extra stress. Luna’s return, the Gala, the Elements, my faithful student, you and your wife…” she trailed off. “I love Luna, but I don’t want her to cause more problems because she can’t get along with Blueblood.” She muttered something else under her breath. I got curious.
“Blueblood is a problem too?” I guessed.
“Only during a party.” Her face suggested that there was more to the story, but she continued before I could ask. “I have no idea what to do with you,” she stated, stopping next to a massive set of wooden doors. “You drop out of nowhere during the busiest month of the year, the millenium, even. I don’t want you to wander off alone, and I can’t send you home in good conscience without your wife.”
“So what do we do?”
Celestia put a hoof to her forehead, rubbing slowly as she screwed her eyes shut. She groaned. “How quickly can you learn new spells?”
“Depends. I’d say I’m fairly adept at it, though.”
She looked slightly relieved at that, but it vanished in an instant. “Wait in the library until morning court is over. I’m going to show you how to use my illusion spell.”
My mouth was halfway open to respond when she zoomed her head forward, her eyes narrowed an inch away from my actual eyes. “Don’t abuse it, and don’t wander off again,” she stated before opening the doors and trotting through.
Inside was the throne room, a massive affair with a red carpet running down the middle of the floor, starting at the doors and leading up to the royal throne shaped like a couch. On the back wall, the couch-throne itself rested up against a giant, light pinkish-purplish crystal that stretched upwards to the top of the ceiling, and down to the raised dais the throne sat on. Four guards were already at attention, two on the base of the staircase leading up to the dais, and two flanking the throne itself. Stain-glass windows lit the room up, depicting important moments in Equestrian history.
“...Okay then,” I finished after she had moved out of earshot. My two assigned guards were still flanking me, their faces impassive.
“I’ve not seen the Princess this frazzled in a long time,” one of them stated. I cocked my head in curiosity as I began to walk towards the library.
I hope I was heading to the library, anyways. This whole place was a labyrinth. “Oh?” I asked.
The other guard also looked at the first one in interest. “The last time the Princess was in this state was when Blueblood decided about a year back that some socialite party wasn’t for him. That was the root cause, anyways. It resulted in so many tabloids and gossip magazines being spread around, all of them accusing Blueblood of doing something raunchy, or accusing him of having an affair with somepony’s wife, or-”
“He’s married?” the other guard asked. His face was twisted in immense confusion.
“No,” the first one continued, “but that didn’t stop the press. Anyways, the airheaded ponies latched onto the most fringe and ridiculous stories. ‘Blueblood’s an alien!’ ‘Blueblood’s a royal brat!’ ‘Blueblood’s sleeping with Nightmare Moon returned and seducing Twilight Sparkle!’ The media had a field day harassing the Princess about her parenting techniques and what sort of influence she would have on little Twilight.”
That made a few questions arise in my head, but I left them be for now. “So how did all of this actually stop?”
“It became old news. Easy as that. I think it was at that point that somepony accused Fleur de Lis of having an affair.”
“And all of this because Blueblood didn’t go to a single gathering?” A small grin was on my face at this point.
He nodded solemnly as we arrived at the library’s entrance. A few mages were up and about, or about to fall over asleep. “Uh huh. Does stuff like that happen where you come from?”
I chuckled softly. “I’d say so, but the stuff I read isn’t nearly as insane as that. How bored do reporters have to get in order to start writing that crap?”
“Not very. Mind you, most of this was printed in tabloid magazines, so not many actually paid any serious attention to it. It was the ponies who did that made all of the fuss, and boy did they fuss. I’m sure the Princess has dealt with this sort of thing before, but I think the fact that Blueblood just made the problem worse by not doing anything about it pushed it over the edge.”
“I think he did it because he thought it would be funny,” the other guard commented before yawning. “I know I would get bored if I had to stand through one of those ‘parties.’”
“He wasn’t laughing afterwards. Whatever the Princess told him, he’s going to every party he gets an invitation for just to make sure that little incident won’t happen again.”
“Any idea what she threatened him with?” I asked.
The first guard shrugged. “Everypony who knows about that little incident thinks that she threatened to drown him in paperwork.”
“Is he allergic to work?”
“You obviously haven’t seen the Princess’ stack of papers she receives daily,” he responded cryptically.
There was a lull in the conversation, punctuated by us moving to a table in the library and the other guard’s poorly-stifled yawn. I cracked my spine, stating, “While I’m normally a patient man, I can get bored if I’m not given something to do. I’m getting a book.”
And that was that. Midway through the morning and a pulp fiction, I realized that I would attract quite a bit of attention sitting around two guards, one of which was nearly asleep on his hooves. I got up, pulled two other books that looked moderately interesting, and placed them down in front of both of them. “Sleepy,” as I now dubbed him, looked at me in confusion while “Alert” raised an eyebrow before the same realization I had dawned on him.
“Try to at least pretend you’re reading,” I told Sleepy. He mouthed an “oh” before picking his book up with his hooves.
Half an hour later, Sleepy was asleep, curled up into a ball on the floor. Alert just rolled his eyes and kept reading the book he picked a while back.
Another hour or so passed, and Celestia arrived in a unicorn disguise. I didn’t notice her until she was at the table, looking much calmer than she did this morning. “Has he been any trouble?” she asked Alert.
He shook his head. “No ma’am. He got a book and fell asleep,” he answered with a wry grin. “This stallion hasn’t been a problem either.”
She blinked in surprise, then looked over the table at Sleepy. She was silent for a moment before she turned to me. “Come with me,” she said.
I nodded, closing the book and taking a moment to put it back on its shelf. Celestia took the time to give Alert some orders as he shook a discombobulated Sleepy awake. That finished, I followed her out of the library.
As soon as I was outside the range of the library’s wards, I flinched backwards as Celestia’s bright flash of teleportation light briefly blinded me. Opening my eyes, I found that I was in the throne room, now empty except for us. Celestia’s disguise was gone, and she had taken off mine.
“Now then,” she began, levitating another tome from over by the throne. She flipped through a few pages before continuing, showing me the open page. “Can you learn this?”
I scanned the page’s text. It didn’t seem terribly difficult, as all it was was an improved illusion. “I can do this,” I stated confidently. “What are you planning?”
“You’re going to go get a job for as long as it’s deemed necessary, which is going to be about three months. Me showing up every so often to refresh your illusion would look suspicious.”
“I’m getting a job? Where am I working?” I asked, rubbing my hands together in preparation for the spell. Channel mana like this, then take it and…
“You’ve got a number of options. There’s an alchemy store that’s hiring, a jewelry shop, metalworking, enchanting… would you like to see the job section of today’s newspaper?”
I paused in my spellcasting, raising an eyebrow at her. “Here I was, thinking you had some special, out-of-the-way place.”
“I couldn’t possibly have prepared for you. I’m no oracle.”
“I suppose I shall take the alchemy job. It’s the field out of the bunch I have the most exposure to, which doesn’t bode well for me,” I said with a self-deprecating grin.
“I thought you would have picked enchanting.”
“I’m no enchanter,” I said, continuing the spell. I started weaving it onto my arm, glamouring up the decay and rot that all undead were plagued with. “I can make portals and such, but I haven’t ever touched the enchanting field. Ira made a few potions on our trips across Azeroth, and I picked up a little bit. So while it’s still not much, it’s better than nothing.”
“So what do you remember?”
I scratched my chin with my arm. The illusioned portion was now visible, while the rest of me still couldn’t be seen. The arm itself looked far better than it did before, but the skin was still gray and disappeared at the wrist. I’ll have to fix that eventually. “Peacebloom and silverleaf make a healing potion.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “That’s it?”
I shrugged. “Cut me a bit of slack. It’s been years since I’ve even seen an herb in my lab.”
A huff. “I suppose that’s all I can ask of you on such short notice,” she said, examining my arm’s illusion. I had gotten my hand down, prettying it up, but it shared the same gray tone as my arm. “It looks like you’ve gotten the basics down...” she commented before poking it with a hoof. The illusion wavered for a moment. “...but you’re lacking in practice. Spend some time working on it, and come see me when you want to go apply for the job.”
I nodded. “I do have a question though. While I can see many reasons as to why you’re having me get a job, won’t I cause a massive scandal if someone finds out that I’m not exactly a pony? Or alive?”
“That’s why I’m having you work on the illusion. To minimize the risk of something like that happening, and to not raise any suspicion by having somepony come by regularly.” she told me bluntly. “If worst does come to worst, however, I can simply hide you somewhere until the time when Ira can be searched for.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Hmm.”
I didn’t say any more, now focused on getting the illusion right. After Celestia’s little break period, she broke down my slowly-improving illusion and teleported me back to the library with instructions to grab Sleepy and Alert, head back to my room, and work on the illusion spell some more. I found them eating lunch.
The rest of the afternoon passed by slowly. I continued to work on the illusion under the bored gaze of Alert and the drifting gaze of Sleepy, steadily improving. I would make my arm ‘visible,’ then have one of them poke it to see how it would react. I also found out that Alert’s name was Bulwark, and Sleepy’s name was Gold.
This was more studying and homework than I’ve had in a very long time. I wondered how Celestia’s student put up with it.
Come evening, Gold had fallen asleep once more and Bulwark was off to grab Celestia, leaving me alone with my boredom and thoughts. I had gone back to practicing illusions, only this time it was on Gold. I got tired of seeing my gray arm. I discovered that his armor actually had another illusion spell enchanted on it.
‘So that’s why they all look the same.’
So far, all I had done was change the color of Gold from his normal white to looking like someone had dumped a few buckets of paint on him. It was at this moment when Celestia walked in with Bulwark. They looked between Gold, then me, then Bulwark attempted to stifle a grin while Celestia just sighed in exasperation.
“Are you quite finished, Mr. Icara?”
“No. I haven’t gotten the illusion perfect. It still ripples slightly whenever I poke it,” I said, demonstrating on Gold.
Celestia just gave me a flat look before dispelling my hard work with a flash of her horn. Gold snorted, slowly waking up. He blinked at me in confusion before he turned his head and looked to Celestia.
It took him a few seconds, but it finally clicked in his head that he had been sleeping on the job. He bolted upright, snapped a salute, and began apologizing profusely to her before being shushed by Bulwark snapping out an order.
“Anyways,” I interjected, “is there anything else that needs doing?”
Celestia looked to me. “Dinner.”
I pushed myself off of the floor, popping a few joints. “Right. I suppose I should come along?”
“Only if you don’t think you can’t avoid trouble without supervision.”
“I think I’ll stay here then.”
“Hmm.”
With that, Celestia dismissed my guard duo and headed off to dinner, closing the door to my room. I continued to work on the spell halfway through the night, this time using a pillow as a test dummy. The other half was filled with me working on the portal spell once again.
* * *
“Status report?”
“We’ve gotten the basics of his circle down. Someone had a stroke of genius and deduced a fair portion of it, but we got bogged down with trying to figure out how to incorporate a seeker spell.”
“I suppose that’s the best I can ask of you so far. What of his boss and neighbors?”
“Nobody can tell if the magus is upset or happy. I think it’s both. Duran has been silenced. Ira isn’t anywhere to be found.”
“New priority. Find Ira Icara.”
“Yessir.”