"Well, at least I'm finally getting used to walking like this."
From the dark depths of the Everfree forest, emerges a pony. An earth pony to be precise, and a most unlikely one at that. The mare has a pale coat, and a wavy blonde mane and tail. On her head rests a black pointed hat with a white ribbon tied around it, and her cutie mark shows several brightly colored stars, each overlapping the other.
⎾Extremely Ordinary Magician - Marisa Kirisame⏌
"Ah, that wasn't the Forest of Magic after all," she says to herself, "But still a good morning workout."
After spotting a cottage near the clearing of the forest, she begins trotting towards it. The cottage seems to be made within a tree however, making her wonder whether someone actually lives there. As she draws closer, she can see a yellow pegasus talking to the animals gathered* around her.
⎾Timid Beast-Master - Fluttershy⏌
Marisa trots up to her, "Hey."
Fluttershy startles and turns around, causing the group of animals to disband and scamper away.
"Oh, hello! I didn't know anypony was there..."
"Ah, well, I came from that forest," The newcomer responds while watching the animals flee the scene, "I can't seem to remember anything around here."
Fluttershy gasps at what she just said, "You came from the Everfree Forest ... with all the timberwolves there ... and without getting hurt?"
"Timberwolves? You mean those wolves made of wood?" she asks, getting a confirming nod from the timid pegasus, "I beat em up, they were a good warm-up."
"You ... chased off timberwolves? Oh my ... that's amazing," Fluttershy shouts, or as close as her voice can get to shouting.
"Yeah ... so do you know where the Forest of Magic is?"
"Forest of Magic? I don't think I've ever heard of such a place."
"Ah, what about the Hakurei Shrine?" The now slightly embarrassed mare seems to cower away a little at her lack of knowledge, "Bamboo Forest of the Lost? Youkai Mountain? Sanzu River? The Great Hakurei Barrier?"
"I'm sorry ... I've never heard of any of those."
"Is there anyone that would know?"
"Well ... I guess you could see Twilight, she knows a lot with all the books in her library."
Marisa grins, "Library huh? Where is it?"
Fluttershy points her hoof up towards Ponyville, "It's the big oak tree near the center of Ponyville."
"Thanks, be seeing ya," the strangely ordinary pony says with the grin still on her face, as she takes the broom off her back and sits on it. Much to Fluttershy's surprise, the broom floats and seems to be carrying the mare, who promptly flies off towards Ponyville.
Flying over the buildings of Ponyville as various ponies look on, Marisa easily spots the great oak tree in the village. Seeing a pony without wings flying is of course always peculiar. As the black-white witch lands before it, she can’t help but feel disappointed at its size, “Is that the library? I imagined it to be… bigger. Maybe it’s underground though.”
She opens the door and trots inside, putting her broom and hat next to the door. Looking inside, all that can be seen is a distracted purple mare.
⎾Friendly Librarian of Ponyville - Twilight Sparkle⏌
Walking up to her, Marisa shouts, “Hey!”
Twilight startles at the sudden greeting, knocking over a small pile of books before turning to the unexpected visitor, “Oh, hello! I’m so sorry, I didn’t hear you come in!”
“Good, then I still got it,” the pale pony says with a smirk, eliciting a confused look from Twilight.
“Aaaanyway, is there something I can help you with?” The accommodating librarian puts on a friendly smile.
“Are you Twilight? Someone told me that you could help.”
“Oh, yes, I’m Twilight Sparkle. And what's your name?”
“Marisa Kirisame.” the now grinning magician confidently states.
“Alright, so what can I help you with?”
“I can’t find my home, do you know where the Forest of Magic is?”
Twilight thinks for a moment, “I don’t think I do…,” before turning around and seeing the pile of books she tipped over. She puts the books back on her desk before calling out, “Spike!”
In response to her cry is a voice, followed by the entrance of a purple and green scaled dragon! A small baby dragon though.
⎾Faithful Assistant - Spike⏌
Waddling over, Spike calls out, “Do you need something Twilight?”
“Yes Spike, can you get me the ‘Encyclopedia of Everywhere in Equestria’?” Twilight responds.
“Right away!” he says with a raised paw, before walking off towards the bookcases.
As he moves a ladder over to climb up along the bookcases, Marisa can’t help but chuckle, “I’ve never seen a little guy work hard. But then again I never see a guy working.”
The helpful dragon pulls a book out of the bookcase and brings it back to Twilight, who lifts it up with her magic and opens it, “So, the Forest of Magic was it?”
The curious mare nods, inspecting the strange glow on the book curiously. Behind the two, Spike takes Marisa’s broom to do some sweeping, unaware that it’s not his own.
After flipping through the pages, Twilight looks up to Marisa, “That’s strange, according the the Encyclopedia of Everywhere in Equestria there isn’t any place called the Forest of Magic.”
“What about the Hakurei Shrine? Or Youkai Mountain? I would even settle for Hakugyokurou.”
“Ehh, how do you spell the last one?” the perplexed pony asks, unaccustomed to such a strange name, “Oh, there actually isn’t anything with ‘Hak-’ as a start. The other two don’t to exist either…”
“Try ‘Gensokyo’,” Marisa tries to peek along into the book, seeing all kinds of names for places that sound weird to her. Twilight once again flips through the pages, “Gemstone Valley… I don’t see that either, I’m sorry.”
“Well, that sucks,” Marisa chuckles.
The librarian shoots her a strange look, “Was this all a joke?”
“Nah, it just seems more like a dream to me. I go to sleep normally one day at my house in the forest, wake up the next as a small horse in a different forest, and end up in a town full of other small horses while talking what seems to be another language fluently.”
“You mean you weren’t a,” Twilight clears her throat, “Pony before?”
“No, I was a human.”
“A human?! Then you’re in a completely different world! But the portal to the human world doesn’t open again for many moons…”
“I’m actually not from the human world though, Gensokyo is a separate place. And as far as I know only the gap hag can go back and forth freely.”
The purple mare is deep in thought, muttering, “Gap…” before being interrupted by what seems to be a hurricane flying into the house, “Twilight!”
The one causing the gale is none other than Rainbow Dash, one of Twilight’s close friends.
⎾Prismatic Pegasus - Rainbow Dash⏌
“Rainbow Dash? What’s the matter?” the startled bookkeeper asks, shielding herself from the wind with her wing.
“You gotta come Twilight! There’s this strange filly that froze the lake I always chill at!” the hurried pegasus responds.
“Freezing a lake? A young filly? Did she really cast a spell like that?”
“Well, that’s the weird thing, she’s a pegasus, but with strange wings, I don’t really know how to explain it. But you have to hurry! She’s attacking anypony that gets near it, including me!”
“Oh dear, do you mind waiting for a short time miss Marisa?”
“Huh? Oh, I don’t mind, I can spend plenty of time in a library,” she responds, already looking at the various books around her.
“Thanks, let’s go Rainbow Dash,” Twilight follows her friend out and the two fly off, Marisa looking after them with a grin.
“I guess I can’t really sit back when there’s an incident, ~ze,” the witch says to herself as she walks towards the door to put her hat on, before holding a hoof out to pull her magic broom back to her. While running outside however, she doesn’t realize that the small and scared dragon is still clinging onto the broom’s bristles even after taking to the skies.
It doesn’t take her long to catch up to Rainbow Dash and Twilight. The two are talking about what’s happening when Marisa pops in on the side with a “Hey!”, causing Twilight to startle again. After balancing herself, the surprised mare turns her head to the unexpected aerial visitor, “Marisa? How are you flying?!”
“With the power of love!”
Both the other fliers look at her questioningly, making Marisa laugh, “It’s just magic, since I AM a magician.”
“A magician? But you’re an earth pony!” the cyan pegasus responds, making a loop over the other two to get a closer look, “Oh, hey Spike.”
“H-hey Rainbow Dash…,” the terrified dragon responds, clutching the broom firmly in fear of falling off.
Twilight slows down a little to get Spike on her back, but is quickly pushed aside by the broom riding lunatic, preventing her from getting pelted by a flurry of icicles.
“Flying icicles? What in Celestia’s name…,” Twilight mumbles, focusing on the filly floating in front of them. A surprisingly small filly, wearing a blue and white patterned dress. What seems even stranger than the blue bow in her similarly blue hair, are the wings of ice fluttering behind her.
⎾Ice Fairy - Cirno⏌
While the icicles narrowly avoided Twilight and Marisa, one manages to hit Rainbow and forces her to land.
“I won’t let you Sagari do any harm to me!” the ice fairy shouts, holding up what seems to be a card.
⎾Ice Sign “Icicle Fall” - easy⏌
“Stay back, I can handle this,” Marisa says to Twilight before zooming off towards the imposing wall of ice shards coming from the fairy.
“Spike! Be careful!” the worried mare calls out before flying down to see if Rainbow Dash is alright.
“A-are you sure about this? That looks dangerous…,” Spike peeks around Marisa, cowering behind her from the sheer amount of ice flying at them.
“Don’t worry, I know this spellcard, the idiot leaves a huge blind spot right in front of her,” the determined witch says reassuringly. She flies past some of the icicles and stops right in front of Cirno. And sure enough, the waves of icicles all pass behind them, not getting any closer, “Now how to deal with her… I don’t have my mini-hakkero, so I can’t use that….”
“You can never time out my spellcard!” the far from threatening ice fairy calls out with confidence.
“Don’t worry, I will capture it,” Marisa smirks, thinking for a moment before looking back to Spike, “You’re a dragon right?” to which Spike nods, “Can you breathe fire?”
“Well, not that much, but I guess I could.”
“Good enough,” she smirks, picking Spike up and slipping a mushroom from her hat into his mouth, then closing and holding his jaws shut forcibly. As the purple dragon starts to turn red, Marisa calls out...
⎾Dragon Sign “Master Spike”⏌
… Before holding him forward and releasing the fury built up in his petite body, letting a gigantic blast of green fire burst over the unlucky fairy in front of them. Cirno can’t handle the flames and melts in almost an instant, the lake following her example.
“Wow, that worked even better than I expected,” the victorious mare chuckles, taking a moment to readjust her hat.
The two grounded ponies fly up, both amazed and shocked at what had transpired. Twilight grabs her dazed companion, hugging him and asking if he’s alright. All that Spike can answer is, “That… was so awesome….”
“Did you just…,” Rainbow asks, looking at where the filly was previously.
“I exterminated the fairy, or she would never stop,” Marisa proudly replies.
“But, but you…” Twilight begins, but is soon interrupted by a screeching filly flying back into the scene.
“Waaah! You were cheating!” Cirno cries out at the top of her lungs.
“W-wha? How is she….”
Marisa grabs the exhausted dragon back and holds him out to the returning nuisance, “If you freeze this lake again, you will have to face the mighty dragon’s wrath!”
Putting up a warrior’s face, the supposedly fierce baby dragon stares down Cirno for a few moments before the ice fairy grumbles and sits down with an unexplainable squeak.
Marisa sighs, “Is there another lake somewhere that she can stay? As long as nobody bothers her she won’t do any harm.”
Twilight starts to think, but Rainbow quickly comes up with an answer, “A lake nopony will bother her at? I guess there’s a lake next to the Everfree Forest. Nopony ever goes there cause of the mist and… well it’s next to the Everfree Forest!”
“I guess she won’t do much harm there,” Twilight muses, Spike immediately following up with, “Or the big bad dragon will put her in her place!”
Spike’s statement makes the group giggle, until the pegasus interrupts them, “So mind telling me what in Celestia’s name is going on here? I mean, you’re an earth pony and you’re flying and she was making ice!”
“Well, she IS an ice fairy; ice fairies freeze stuff, it’s common knowledge,” Marisa replies, acting like it’s normal.
“But then how did she come back after you… exterminated her?”
“Fairies do that when you exterminate them, they always come back right away somewhere. That’s why the only way to make them stop doing something is by exterminating them.”
“But,” Rainbow Dash starts, but is quickly interrupted by the little ice fairy letting out a very impatient grunt.
“Let’s talk while flying to that lake huh, I will tell you more about where I’m from on the way.”
And so, Marisa Kirisame, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash and Spike bring Cirno to a new lake. The strange new (but completely ordinary) magician brags about herself plenty, explaining fairies, youkai and various other things about Gensokyo and herself along the way.
⎾Stage Clear Bonus!⏌
