Luna murmured to herself, her horn still alight with sapphire magic. She gave one last noise of approval before releasing her spell, the residual magic dispersing into the air. "Well?" asked Twilight, eager to hear the the results of communicating with an entirely different species.

"The human accepted our proposal," Luna replied, "and he apparently wanted the payment as well."

"Perfect!" Twilight cried, "So when can we finally get my "problem" dealt with?"

"Well since the human's realm is over a mere 27 light years away from Equestria..." Luna pulled up a board formed out of solid magic with a piece of white magic marking the original blue with various white dashes. "Now...," Luna mumbled, as she began drawing lines connecting insignificant dots to one another. " avoiding the toll booth on Apophis 15," she muttered, drawing an X through a bright red dot, "we have to navigate past a basic supernova, hopefully that idiot in his blue box isn't talking to another one of his lost companions." she grumbled., "Through the Bermuda Tetrahedron in the fourth dimension..." she stood back musing on her progress so far. "we'll defiantly have to avoid Runeterra," she stated drawing more X's, "the toxicity of that planet's atmosphere could melt an entire asteroid belt!" Twilight could only observe the lunar princess at work, mark their course throughout the unfamiliar universe. Luna bobbed and weaved around the map, continuing the white dashes on, around, and through the map until she set herself back down onto the tree house floor and pinpointed one green and blue dot. "And there we go!" she concluded, huffing slightly. "One straightforward route to EA 14867, or as the locals liked to call it, Earth!"

Twilight stared at the anything but straightforward path. She decided to not argue against the curator of the stars about what a path in space should look like, but instead hoisted the sack of bits onto her back, the weight nearly making her knees buckle underneath her. "So when do we leave?" she asked Luna, even now the weight causing sweat to bead on her fur.

Luna snapped the board out of existence and converted the magic into a pocket watch. Luna analyzed it quizzically, tapping it a couple times with her hoof. "Based on my calculations," she replied, "we should of left five minutes ago."

"What ?!" cried Twilight, this proposition of lateness being an outrage to the unicorn. Even when she was on time for something Twilight assumed that she was late, so a betrayal of her morals like this made her brain want to commit mutiny and slap the puzzled look off of Luna's muzzle. "We need to go now!" Twilight cried to Luna, hefting the large bag of bits onto her back and trying to walk forward, her knees trembling at the unfamiliar weight. It was at this moment that Luna's mane swirled with an unfamiliar hue, this section of her mane then split off, pooling onto the floor. A familiar figure emerged from the darkened mane, it was no bigger than a dog and was the spitting image of Luna if Luna was made up entirely out of her own ethereal mane. "Tantabus!" Twilight cried, and forgetting about her current affairs, tried to cast a small bolt of magic. What Twilight expected was for the Tantabus to be captured quite easily from a simple barrier spell. What she got however was a bouquet of flowers sprouting directly from the tip of her horn, that died soon after her failed casting."Horsefeathers!" she said, and pardoning her language quietly, tried to squash the Tantabus with the large sack of bits.

She almost succeeded to, but at the very last second the large burlap sack was caught by Luna's azure magic and was placed with a dull thump onto the wooden floor. "Do not worry Twilight." Luna said, walking over to the lavender unicorn and comforting her, "The Tantabus is fully tamed, and she is actually quite helpful when you get to know her. Now Tany, why did you scare poor Twilight like that?"

"Luna," began the Tantabus, her ethereal mouth not shifting, but nevertheless her silky voice filling the room, "You know that we have discussed your tardiness streak. No matter the occasion you always have the habit to find something that impedes your progress on maintaining strict schedules. Last month you tried to justify that you needed fifteen hours of sleep rather than appear at your own birthday. Three days ago you, instead of attending the royal court service, decided to start working on your model of the S.S Zaria airship, even though you have not touched it in five years. Even last night when I encouraged you to go to sleep early in order to meet with Ms. Sparkle this morning you decided to challenge Celestia to a wine and cake eating contest. As I recall, the first thing you said to me when I attempted to wake you up early was, "This hangover hurts so much that I think I might just visit the human world with Twilight to pick up some Ket..."

It was at this moment that Luna dashed back over to the Tantabus' side, slapping one solitary hoof over her mouth. "I don't remember saying that Tany..." Luna said hastily, her mouth constricted into a straight line and her eyes darting across the room. Luna removed her hoof gingerly, and the Tantabus continued. "I would recommend", the Tantabus said, taking a glance at Luna, "taking a leaf out of Ms. Sparkle's book and that we should leave for the human world posthaste."

Luna stared at the traitorous Tantabus, then Twilight, then back at the Tantabus, weighing the sudden intervention that had broken out from what was supposed to be a simple journey. "Fine." Luna said, pouting slightly like a chastised foal, "I guess that we can leave immediately, but before we travel I need to..." The Tantabus, from what Twilight could assume, glared at Luna with ethereal eyes, "I.. mean.. we need to do something about the human's payment." She nodded her head at the heavy sack. "I do not know what our travels would do to an un-shielded container, but luckily I came prepared."

"I came prepared." The Tantabus piped up.

"Shush you." Luna said pulling, from what appeared to be from nothing, a small simple wooden box. "This will work." Luna said, lifting the sack of bits as easily as she would a foal, and positioned the opening of the sack above the chest. "Learned this trick from a rather gifted human, I think her name was Hermioninny or something... Anyway, observe...", and Luna unfurled the drawstring from the sack, releasing it's torrent of golden coins. Before Twilight could react, or even think about how much of a mess Luna's antic would cause, the coins came flying out as a singular mass. Rather than however falling around their hooves the coins instead became attracted to the open chest. The coins began disappearing into the small box as fast as they would fly down a ravenous dragon's gullet. Twilight gazed with amazement as the previously massive bag shrank further and further down as it's payload was released. Soon enough the bag was depleted of gold, and Luna tossed it aside haphazardly. Twilight wasn't even phased by the untidiness that the bag now caused, but instead marveled at the magical display that had just happened. As she was about to ask, Luna shut the lid suddenly, sealing it with a golden lock. "VERY gifted human..." she said smugly. "Trust me, that trick amazed Celestia as well when she first saw it. Now shall we leave?"

Twilight nodded slowly, still admiring the miniature chest. "I must learn about this brand of magic..." she thought, images of microsized filing and sorting mechanisms for scrolls, books, potions, and personal projects dancing in her head. Luna touched the air in front of her gingerly with her horn, the space unzipping to show a roiling vortex of random colors and shapes. The Tantabus flowed over her hooves and settled back into her mane. "Follow me precisely, you do not want to get stranded in this vortex. Last time it happened to me I ended up in some ship called the S.S Borealis. Took me a week to finally persuade the human who was guarding me that I was not some part of their experiments." Twilight took note of this, and filed this potential conversation under "Things to ask Luna when she's drunk.", and followed the alicorn into the vortex, it snapping silently shut behind them, leaving only the scent of blueberries, an old rugged sack, and a very perplexed Trixie peeking through a window, her mouth almost hitting the sill.

Author's Note

By Jove it has been quite a while since I uploaded something!