New to Equestria

New to Equestria - Chapter Six: Orchard

Somewhere within the castle...

"Wooooonnaaaa..." A singsong voice called.

The Lunar Goddess looked up from her book and about her room. It was the same, rich blue curtains covering the windows, ceiling portraying the stars above. The room kept its faint chill, and not a single lock on her door had been touched. Only two immortals dared to say that name, only one could appear within her room unnoticed.

"Discord." She mumbled.

"Oh what is the matter?" The draconequus said, dropping the singing tune and leaning in Luna's face.

"I am tired."

Discord tutted. "You poor thing, surely it is not due to mua?"

"For once, no." The alicorn sighed. "Somepony else, likely the most threatening mortal we have seen in a long time."

"Somepony huh?" Discord said sarcastically.

Luna looked at the being spitefully before continuing.

"I've used the same term for over two-thousand years, and I-"

"Minus the one-K you spent on the moon." The draconequus interrupted smugly.

"Thou suggests I was alone?" Luna replied, smiling wickedly and hushing the chaotic spirit.

"As we were saying," She continued. "Until we start receiving diplomats that're any more sophisticated that griffons we shall continue our constant use of the word."

Discord snorted. "I'm sure they wont keep you waiting."

Luna turned to snap at the spirit, but when she did, he'd vanished.

The room was silent and empty once more, the lunar goddess spared a few minutes to her thoughts before breaking the silence with a sigh and movement. She pushed herself up and left to speak with her sister.

...

~ Silver Tongue ~

"This still doesn't answer some of my questions." Twilight said matter-of-factly.

I cursed under my breath. "Alright, what else is there?"

Twilight caught what I said, I was able to tell by her scowl and the way her ear flicked when the curse was spoken.

"I'd be careful with words like that, a lot of places in Equestria aren't too accepting of them, and these questions are important."

She stopped in front of me and tilted her head. "For instance, how are we speaking the same language fluently when you were born on a different continent and sealed off from ponykind?"

I felt my eyes go wide at the revelation, and looked down at the pony staring up at me from chest-height.

"That's... That's a very good question." A few moments passed with me scratching my chin. "Well, ponies and human kind weren't always separated. I supposed some of the brass back in the Discordic Era wanted to have everyone forget life outside the walls. Hell, we threw out the Socialist regime hundreds of years after walls were complete and still had no idea about Equestria or anything  else. Just a year ago we had men guarding doors without a single clue about what was behind them, I don't think anyone knew until we pried them open after rescuing a merchant vessel on the horizon."

I thought about what I said for a moment. "That didn't answer your question at all did it? Basically, what I was trying to say is that back when we weren't separate, we must've held onto a common language."

"Okay. So... What's been happening behind the walls this whole time?" She asked and we began walking once more.

I shrugged. "We've just been living, I guess. Finding new ways to blow stuff up, prevent disease, fighting among ourselves, gro-."

"Hold on," Twilight interrupted. "Fight among yourselves?"

"Yeah. Human populace isn't completely harmonious, more-so than Discord, but still."

"Right. How big is the human-controlled landmass?"

"What?" I said dumbly, before shaking my head. "Oh. We're not too sure at this point, though what we gathered from the merchant vessel crew, Penates is probably twice the size of Equestria, if not bigger."

"That's..." Twilight shook her head. "That's huge! And it's name, Penates, I recognize that, ancient Equestrian."

I hummed. "The plots thickens."

"Still. You have a wall all the way around it? How'd you accomplish that?"

"Well," I began. "If my the records we dug up back in the capital are correct, our magi predicted "imminent chaos" about two years before the original reports of Discord, guess that was enough to send us into a scare."

I heard the mare chuckle a little, and couldn't help but frown on it. Did their other princesses act like this? Laughing at our need to feel secure? My legs stopped moving and my arms crossed as my annoyance increased from just thinking about it. My casual demeanor fell nearly instantly.

"Something wrong?" Twilight said, looking back and noticing i'd stopped.

"Can you blame us?" I said a little sharper that I should've.

"What? It's not like a wall would've stopped him..." Twilight said sarcastically.

"Obviously!" I snapped, causing the mare to flinch. "But sometimes it's more about feeling secure. Hell, without the walls Discord would've probably been about to sense the sheer amount of chaos when people are literally running over each other trying to get to boats, it took weeks to coax people out from corners in their homes!"

"The walls didn't protect you... They kept you in, like a prison." Twilight concluded sadly.

I shook my head. "Yeah, probably best that way, something tells me that if he decided to arrive, and the ballistics back then managed to hit him, it'd just piss him off."

"What about now?" Twilight said curiously.

I adopted a wide grin and made a "boom" motion with my hands. "Some pieces flying around the country, widespread happiness, and re-opening of sea-trade routes."

"O-Oh... Discord's death would... M-make you all happy? That's... Bloodlust!"

I shrugged. "We heard about the whole thing with Discord being turned to stone, most of the population and high-ups are content with that."

"Oh... Okay. Uhm. Let's keep going?"

"Yeah, daylight is burning."

The trip was boring, two or so hours of utter silence passed between us. There were no highwaymen, or big scary monsters, nothing that called the two of us to action. The clopping of Twilight's hooves and my boots were beginning to wear on my sanity, I was only granted released from now-repetitive sounds when we began to venture into a orchard of apple trees as the moon was rising.

"This is Sweet Apple Acres!" She enlightened me, the whole nervousness caused by the chatter of Discord forgotten. "We're almost in town!"

"Looks lovely."

We entered the rows of trees, all of them being planted in near-perfect rows and covered in what looked like very ripe apples. It started to seem as if nothing else would be getting in my way to town, until I noticed Twilight had came to a complete stop, when I looked back I saw her biting her lip and looking back and forth from me to the trees.

"Something wrong?" I asked her.

"I... Do you hear that?" She whispered, crouching.

"No..." I replied, dubious.

Twilight's ear flicked towards the source of an unheard noise, her neck twisted allowing her eyes to face the source, I followed her gaze but saw nothing. My eyes scanned between the near-perfectly planted rows of apple trees, looking extra hard at the occasional darker spot.

"I'm not sure if we should go this way..." She said.

"I can defend myself, and you, if need be. I'd really rather take the risk and have a roof over my head tonight."

She looked up to me and said nothing.

"But, your choice." I said with a slight sigh.

"I... Suppose we can."

Nodding, I offered her a smile.

"Alright, keep close." I told her, unslinging my rifle and resuming the trek.

It was only a few seconds later when I saw the monstrosities, hanging off the trees, vicious eyes glowing at in the dark with fangs bared. A hissing noise met my ears and I stopped dead.

"Wha... What are those things?" I whispered to Twilight.

She didn't respond immediately, she took several cautious steps, leaning forwards slightly and squinting to get a better view of whatever hung from the tree.

"Can't be..." She muttered.

Her horn brightened, emitting a low light, just enough to make out the enemy, then all hell broke loose as they hissed loudly and took flight heading straight for us.

"Bats?!" I screamed.

They swarmed us before I was capable of reacting, I felt the scraping of claws against my clothes and face, and i'm pretty sure I had something wet spat at me. I instinctively covered my face with my left forearm as over-sized furry bodies collided into me, visibility had been bad enough already, now I couldn't see anything but swiftly moving bodies, I gripped my rifle in both hands and pushed the stock against my shoulder before firing several unsteady shots, causing loud bangs to pierce the silence of night.

My balance was lost and I hit the ground, but the swarm dissipated. I looked about cautiously before rolling over and pushing myself back up with a small grunt.

"Twilight?" I called as I kicked a dead bat behind some trees.

"They're everywhere..." Twilight responded, looking up.

When I followed her stare I saw the sky covered with more of the small devils. Small black spots across my vision covering the night sky, flapping their leathery wings. Together they blocked off the light of the moon, shrouding us further in darkness. I tore my eyes from them and looked at the ground.

"Twi, light please."

The unicorn nodded and brightened the area once more with her horn, there was enough light for me to recognize the objects strewn about the ground as apples, very squishy juice-less apples.

I looked at the unicorn beside me. "I think your orchard has an infestation."