Stars Came Crashing Down
The attack came from my left side. I quickly ducked and could hear the blade swing above me. I charged towards the stallion but had to jump sideways to avoid his blade hitting me in the back. Damn Unicorns and their magic. I parried two other strikes and grabbed my enemy’s blade by the hilt. For a moment we struggled over the control of the blade, but in the end his magic aura shattered and I stood there with two swords.
"Now that's new. I didn't even know you could do that. And please Ser, never do that again, it hurts very much." Brave Steel rubbed her horn and packed both of the wooden swords into the bag we had been using ever since Celestia had assigned her to train with me. She was a great teacher and sparring partner. In the last three months she had taught me the basics on how to use a sword, bow, spear and even a war axe, should I ever use one. Since she's not a human she was only able to teach me theory but it still worked out. With the sword we went more into detail, and had started to train on a weekly basic. It was a nice distraction from my daily boredom. Since I was a knight, I was freed of most of taxes and I had received a pretty big amount of money when I received the title. But still, I had started looking for a job around a month ago, yet I hadn't found anything yet.
"Well, we both learned something new, I guess that's enough training for today."
"Very well. Now, I need to return to Canterlot. So until next week." And with that she picked up the bag and wandered off towards the train station. I waved after her and then went back inside. When I got into my living room, Fluttershy was there, pacing nervously.
"Oh, Alex, thank Celestia you're here, please you need to come with me, Angel and some other animals have run off into the Everfree Forest! Please help me find them."
"Sure. But, ah, could I put on a shirt really quick?" Even though nopony else was wearing clothes, it still felt wrong to walk around without them.
"Please, just come now. They could be in serious danger. I've been hearing the Timberwolves howl way more often than usual. Who knows what else could be off in there?" By the look she gave me, I realized that there would be no time to put on a shirt. If I wouldn't come with her right now, she was probably going to cry.
"Okay. Let's get to your cottage then." I grabbed my sword and followed her out the door. For once, she was actually flying. Since Fluttershy's cottage was on the other side of town, it took us some while to get there. When we reached her cottage I could see several animals running out of the Everfree, obviously running away from something. Fluttershy immediately rushed towards them and hugged all of them at once.
"Ohhh, my little friends, please don't ever run off into the Everfree again, okay? You really scared me." When I reached her, the hug was over and Angel was pointing at the forest, terrified. He then tried to imitate some kind of animal but neither I nor Fluttershy understood what he was trying to tell us. The answer came crashing through the trees a few seconds later.
A bear. An angry bear. And as if that wouldn't have been bad enough already, it wasn't a normal bear, no it was an Ursa Minor.
Fluttershy and the animals panicked and ran back towards her cottage. The Ursa locked its eyes on me, since I was the only target hat wasn't intelligent enough to run. I secured my stance and prepared myself for the impact. When it reached me, it raised its paw and swung it down on me.
It did not expect its paw to be stopped by my fist. It looked at me confused and I did what I always had done when I had met a creature in the Everfree over the three last months. I shot it a glare. That usually worked. Since my eyes were almost ice-blue, I could look scary if I wanted to and when I centered my magic in them, they started to shine and little sparks of magic would flow out of them. At least that's what Twilight told me. But it didn't seem to work this time. The Ursa simply tried to hit me with its other paw, which was blocked by my other fist. But now, my situation was pretty bad. Sooner or later my arms would give in, if my bones wouldn’t break before that. Or, if I was unlucky, it would realize that it could throw me. So, I did something very dangerous. I opened my hands, grabbed its paws as good as I could, shifted all of my weight onto my left foot, drew it towards me and kicked it with all of my force. It stumbled backwards and I got to draw my sword. I really didn't want to kill the Ursa but I wasn't sure what else I could do. It charged at me again and this time I jumped to the side and hit it in the back with my hilt. It stumbled again but only seemed to get even angrier. When it attacked again, I swung my sword, but it simply bounced off of the Ursa's paw. This time I was the confused one. It used its chance and hit me with its paw, sending me flying several feet. When I tried to get up, I saw three cuts in my side.
They did not exactly make it easier to get up again. When I was finally standing again, the Ursa was right in front of me and it knew that it had won. It reached out for the final hit, when a very determined voice came from behind me.
"Hey! Mr. Ursa Minor! What do you think you are doing, hurting my friend like that? Leave him alone!" The Ursa stopped dead and I turned around, only to see the one pony I expected the least to help me out with this.
"Fluttershy?!?"
"I want you to go back into the forest and think about what you've done right now!" The whole time she was talking, she stared at the Ursa. And to my complete surprise, it worked. The Ursa lowered its paw, now looking scared himself and walked off into the Everfree. My lower jaw pretty much hit the ground at that moment. Once the Ursa was gone, Fluttershy stopped staring at it and turned to me, now sounding like herself again. "Oh, I'm so sorry Alex, I should've come sorry but I was so scared. Are you alright?"
I sat down, trying to comprehend that Fluttershy had just told an Ursa Minor to think about what he'd done. "More or less. These cuts shouldn't take too long to heal. And thanks for saving me. But... how did you do that?"
"I-I'm not sure. We call it the stare. My staring seems to have a pretty big effect on animals, they always listen to me when I’m staring at them, even the ones that usually don't listen to any pony."
"But that was an Ursa Minor! That's not just your average snake or wolf or whatever, that's officially a mythical creature!" Her voice got even quieter than before.
"W-Well it worked on a Cockatrice, so..."
"You stared at a creature that turns you into stone when it looks at you? I give up. But once again, thanks for saving me." I got up again and flinched a little due to the cuts. This did not go unnoticed by Fluttershy.
"Oh my, you're hurt. Should I get a doctor?"
"No, no, it's okay. These are nothing serious. They'll be good again in no time."
"Please, at least get some rest before you walk all the way to your home again." I sighed. What could it hurt.
"Sure, thanks Flutters." We went inside her cottage and she told me to lie down on the couch. She then went into another room. If I didn't walk around too much, these cuts should be healed in half an hour. Well, at least I wasn't in a hospital. When she came back, she had a tray with some tea and some of Pinkie's cupcakes. I sat up.
"So, what type of tea would you like? I have lemon, apple and cinnamon. Or would you rather have some water?"
"Tea's just fine. And lemon please." She quickly filled the two cups she had brought and handed one of them to me. "Thanks Flutters." We both took a sip. "You said that you were hearing the Timberwolves way more often than usual. Have there been any other oddities regarding the Everfree Forest?"
"Yes. There were several times were I could watch a creature from inside strolling at the forest's border and I've been hearing fighting noises coming from the inside." This was not good. Of course, the Everfree wasn't save but you should be able to realize that from its looks and not from monsters strolling around at its borders. And that the creatures would fight against each other was also new. We sat in silence for a while, me racking my brains over the forest and Fluttershy nipping at her tea every then and now.
After a while she got up. "I need to feed the animals, if you need anything just let me know, okay?"
"Yeah, you do that. I'm getting sleepy again anyways." This was one of the major flaws of the way magic worked in humans: When it started to regenerate, I'd always become sleepy. If I overdid it I could pass out on the spot. I laid down again as Fluttershy left and fell asleep soon after.
I woke up again from the feeling of falling. Once I was fully awake, I realized that I wasn't falling but hovering upside down, covered in a purple aura. Also, I was getting shaked. "What did I do to deserve this?" The shaking stopped.
"Except from being a sleepyhead, nothing. But really, I tried every other way of waking you that came to my mind but you just wouldn't wake up." Twilight placed me on the couch and I suddenly shivered. Looking at my side, I could see the last bits of the wound closing, so I couldn't have slept for long.
“So, what’s the matter?”
“I got a letter from Celestia. It said that there seems to be a large amount of storm clouds forming around the old castle. She wanted you to find out what’s causing them to form and how they stay on the ground.”
“Something is definitely wrong in the Everfree. Fluttershy said that some of the creatures started strolling around at its borders. And an Ursa Minor even decided to attack the cottage.” As expected, this statement frightened her. Before she could bombard me with questions, I took a step ahead. “Fluttershy stared it away. She also said that she could hear fighting noises coming from the inside. Entering it at the moment could be pretty dangerous.”
“Probably. We should tell everypony not to enter it at the…” Her expression suddenly became scared.
“What’s wrong?”
“Zecora is still in there! Who knows what could’ve happened to her by now!” Oh crap. I hadn’t even thought about that. For the second time today, I grabbed my sword and ran out of the cottage, this time with Twilight right behind me.
Making A Companion
We rushed into the the forest as fast as we could. There was the occasional howling of a Timberwolf but also cries of several other creatures that wouldn’t normally just stroll through the forest, some of them I was even hearing for the first time. We were attacked several times but the beasts either ran away shortly after attacking us or were turned into wood splitters. After around 15 minutes Zecoras hut came into view. When we came into a radius of 6 meters to her hut, the ground below us started to glow. For a moment I was scared but nothing happened. We reached her hut and knocked fiercely. For a moment nothing happened. Then the door opened and a rather tired looking Zecora stood in front of us.
“Come quickly inside! Who knows what could hide, out of our sight.” The moment we entered the hut, Zecora slammed the door. “It’s nice to see I’m not forgotten, left out here to end up rotten. “ Zecora seemed pretty scared of what was going on in the forest around her. She had started collecting some ingredients and her saddle bags were almost filled to the top when she stopped. “We must go now, the protection spell won’t hold much longer.” At that moment a pack of Timberwolves started to howl and Zecora almost lost it. She really needed to get out of here.
“Twilight, can you teleport the three of us out of here?”
“Teleporting three people is dangerous. Limbs or organs could be exchanged or even lost completely. As long as the caster is good, two people don’t face that risk.”
I sighed. “Then take Zecora with you and leave. I can get through the forest on my own.”
“What?! Are you crazy?! We have no idea what is mingling outside at the moment. It’s way too dangerous to go alone.” While she was talking I could see how the ground outside stopped glowing. In an instant, something collided with the wall.
“There is no time! I can control nature with my sword, have you forgotten that already? The forest will help me out. Now leave!”
“Alex is right, we need to go. He is a knight; he’ll know a way through.” Twilight still wasn’t ready to go but the fact that the Timberwolves smashed a hole into the wall changed her mind. She stood close to Zecora and lit her horn.
“Do not die on me here, you got that?” I simply nodded. Then, they disappeared in a flash of light. I turned around and drew Nature’s Promise.
“Let’s find out if you actually work.” Twilight had tested the sword on the magical power and said it would work, I had never gotten around to test it though. It better should. The first Timberwolf broke through the wall. The rest of the pack followed soon after. They started circling me and suddenly, one of them jumped. He didn’t get very far before he was turned into a pile of branches but now the fight was opened. Timberwolf after Timberwolf attacked and what was worse, more and more of them came through the hole in the wall. For every wolf that was turned to splinters, two new ones came in. After around 15 minutes of this cycle, I could feel how I was losing strength. The Timberwolves were able to land several hits before I took them out and my situation was getting worse and worse. So, I used the rest of my power and poured all of my magic into sword.
I was not sure what would happen, if a tree would come to live or if roots would pierce the wolves. Nothing like that happened.
Instead, the Timberwolves stopped their attack and laid down, all at once.
For a moment, I just stood there, waiting for something else to happen. But nothing did. Then I took a step forward. Then another one. Then I started walking. When I reached the first wolf, he didn’t even get up but crawled out of my way. Each of them in my way did the same until there was a path towards the door. I stepped outside and saw that easily hundreds of Timberwolves were lying there, bowing down to me. Then I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Sit up.” In an instant, every wolf was sitting upright, with perfectly straight backs. I realized that they would listen to every command I gave them, so I put on my best superior kind of voice and said: “Begone!”
They all stood up and began to leave. They also returned to their normal packs and the groups slowly started disappearing into the forest. Then another idea came to my mind. I pointed my sword towards a pack of them. “Except for you seven.” The pack I pointed to immediately stopped and turned around. “You come with me.” I turned to leave and was soon after surrounded by seven Timberwolves. It seemed like I picked a good pack to be an escort, they all looked bigger than the typical Timberwolf and the leader was made of some dark type of wood.
After a good 30 minutes, we reached the border of the Everfree Forest. I decided to go to Fluttershy’s cottage, maybe Twilight would still be there. When I got closer to it, the animals suddenly freaked out. Oh god, was I an idiot. Of course the Timberwolves scared them. How could I think they wouldn’t. In less than 15 seconds, Fluttershy was outside and already trying to calm them down. Shortly after, Twilight came out the cottage, looking at Fluttershy first and then turning to me. If it would have been possible, Twilight’s jaw probably would’ve hit the ground.
“H-How… why are they not attacking you? Or the animals? Or anything? How are they simply standing there doing nothing? What did you do to them?”
“The sword works. But would you mind coming over here? I don’t want to scare the animals any more than they already are. Don’t worry about the wolves, they’re completely tame.” Twilight hesitated for a moment and then slowly approached me, stopping every few meters. When she finally reached me, Fluttershy had been able to calm down her animals, so there wasn’t any more noise. “So, what do you think? Nice escort, eh? Also, where's Zecora?”
"She fell unconcius when we arrived here, so brought her into the hospital. THe doctor said she was simply way too stressed out and hadn't had enough sleep for a while, nothing serious. Now about the wolves..."Twilight’s facial expression told me that she still couldn’t believe it. Her mouth had opened once again and she was trying to regain her composure. “So… Nature’s Promise did this?”
“Yep. The moment I poured my magic into it, the Timberwolves stopped attacking me and followed each and every of my commands since then. This is pretty cool.” Then I got a crazy idea. “Hey do you think I could keep one of them? That would be SO awesome.”
“Uuuh, in theory yes, but I don’t think that that would be a good idea. A Timberwolf strolling through Ponyville would probably freak everypony out.”
I gave her my best puppy eyes. “Oh come on Twilight, Pleeeaaaaase? I’ll always be around him and make sure he doesn’t attack anypony.” She did obviously not like the idea, but she also seemed interested in doing it.
She sighed. “Fine then. But you only get one, so pick who you want to keep and send the others back into the Everfree.”
My choice was clear from the moment I had the idea. I pointed towards the bigger and darker one and said: “You stay here. The rest of you return to the forest.” His comrades immediately turned around and left, leaving him behind. “So Twilight, how is this going to work?”
Twilight lit her horn. “You’ll be mentally linked and it’ll make him your servant. I could give you a big explanation about how it works in detail but that would take hours. And please don’t tell Celestia about this.”
“Why not?” Suddenly Twilight’s eyes turned green and a black kind of smoke came out of them.
“This is forbidden dark magic. Sombra used it to take over the Crystal Empire’s original leaders. Now if you would please touch him.” I decided not to question the spell and laid my hand on the wolf’s forehead. A strange feeling crept up my arm. Twilight’s eyes turned back normal and her horn stopped glowing. I let go of the Timberwolf. “There, now you just have to think up whatever he should do and he’ll happily do it.”
“Thanks Twilight.” I turned to the Timberwolf. ”He needs a name. You got any ideas Twi?”
“Not he. She needs a name. You picked one of the few female Timberwolves out there. I just remembered that only females are made out of such dark types of wood.”
“I think you should call her Lupa. T-that is if you don’t mind…” Twilight spun around.
“Flutters?! You saw that?” Fluttershy jumped back and nodded fiercely. “Please don’t tell anyone how I did that, okay?” Fluttershy nodded again.
“Where did you get that name, Fluttershy?”
“I just made it up at some point. I have plenty of other names if you don’t like it.”
“No, no, that’s not it. It’ just that in my world there is a myth about a wolf named Lupa. She raises the sons of a god after he kicks them out. One of the kids builds up a city which would turn into one of the greatest empires Earth has ever seen. I like the name.” I turned to the Timberwolf. “Yeah, from now on, your name is Lupa. Welcome to Ponyville.” Then suddenly, my vision became blurry and I started stumbling around. When I fell over, I was caught at my belt. When I looked up, I saw that Lupa had caught me. I smiled at her as I passed out.
