“Hush now darling, I shall return before the end of this month. tis only one performance that the royal orchestra doth need mine assistances.” I tried explaining
“I know my love, but my mind keeps wandering over to the constant threats on the castle. If they be true, thou art in great danger. I doth not know what I would do if my love were taken from me!” A slim mare complained. Her soft voice was betrayed by the all too real concern. her hoof pushed through my light pink main softly, the gentle intimate touch ever so slowly calming me. I moved closer to her, the outline of her cherry-red main like the hearts that beat within us reminding me of how much of my soul belong to her. Every second of our sentimental union brought lifetimes of pain. My instincts warned me uselessly of our future, the pain of not seeing her again was too hard to bear. I fought to reassure myself that if I go and perform at this event, everything would be fine, and succeeded. “I am most certain that a poor future would be awaiting for our family. Doth thou wish this upon us?”
I paused, her remark placed guilt and judgment on me, twere as if I had abandoned my family for not but a penny. “Never! I shall heed thy warning, and be cautious of my surroundings. But I must go, less we suffer yet another winter hungry.” I had begun worrying for the well being of my family, twas a hard winter the year before and twould be tragic if we were forced to go through it again. “Cherry, my love, thou hath to understand why I must do so, threats or no threats. I doth not wish for our foals to starve another winter!”
With a defeated sigh Cherry gave in, “I understand, I thank thy for considering my concern. We almost lost thy once, I doth not wish for it again.” the sadness on her face was too much, I leaned over and hugged her.
Never could I have imagined that that would be the last time I would ever see my beloved wife. After having said my goodbyes and hugged my children, I started my walk towards the wagon convoy to the royal castle, I had to leave early in order to get there on time, from the small settlement of Manehatten.
After a week of traveling, by the fastest means, I finally arrived at Canterlot. After showing my letter of appointment, the guards allowed me in and I meet with the royal orchestra. After a quick rehearsal, we all got ready for the ball. Everything was sounding correct, and my nerves were begging to die down. Eventually we were ready and Celestia had welcomed her guests, she signaled for use to start performing.
Everything was going fine, twas a simple night for a nobles gathering. The first three songs passed nicely and it was time for the band to switch with the other half so that those who had played before could rest. I decided to leave the building to get some fresh air. After about two minutes of blindly walking I stumbled upon the royal garden. twas beautiful, there art only three things to have ever taken my breath away, and the royal garden twas one. I sat there and pondered about the colors and how they flowed so well together with the night sky.
“Where art my paints when I doth need them most?” I asked myself “I would love to paint this scene and add it into my collection.” Not realizing that I foolishly said this out loud, thou could imagine my surprise when I heard a sudden soothing voice reply.
“Tis most lovely no?”
Jumping into the air like a shooting star I stuttered a reply “Your highness!” I bowed down, still trying to recover from mine misfortunate fright! “I did not expect thou’s arrival, I apologize if I am trespassing!’
“No it should be I who apologizes! For I did not intend to frighten thy, my little pony.” Princess Celestia said with a hint of sincerity and concern in her voice. She easily towered over me as she came over and sat down, amareing the pond I happen to have been looking at before her arrival “Twas only admiring the garden when I happened upon a gentlecolt admiring my sisters work. Tis refreshing when I see others amarie her attempts at gardening, I doth recall a time, where she hath come to me upset and not understanding, why her garden and night sky was ignored. I informed her how wrong her statement was, for there twere many little ponies who loved her work..”
“Ey, tis most impressive.” I reply. “If thou would excuse me, your highness, tis almost time to get back to start performing again.” I explained
“Ah, so thou art one of the members of the orchestra then?” she asked, trying to make quick conversation.
“Not quite, your highness, I am only here due to, a gentlecolt named Andante Violin. He, misfortunately but fortunately for myself, was unable to attend the performance. Thus why my attendance to this celebration. For a mere commoner to attend such a party twould be frowned upon and laughed at.” As I finished explaining I started to trot back to the castle. she bowed her head to show she understood and continued marveling over the garden.
But when I got to the castle, twas not well for us all.
I entered the castle ball room to see everypony standing in fear, for a being known very well to us all, was standing on the stage laughing maniacally.
“...And now I shall take back what is rightfully mine, and thou will all be under the rule of, Nightmare Night!” the once Princess Luna, yelled as a wave of magical energy flashed through the entire room. All that I could tell where that the other where being incinerated by the blast, I tried to run away from the blast but I was too late!
All of my sense’s felt as though my entire being was being lit on fire, piece by piece then...
everything went black!
Nothing!
That twas all that remained, a vast expanse of nothing! I couldn’t comprehend it, twas but only darkness, as if I had forgotten how to open my eyes. I couldn't hear a noise, a sound, a thing, twas like I no longer existed. The only feeling I could understand was the massive fear inside my heart. Art I dead? Tis this death? Art this my punishment? twas I a terrible soul? If there twere anything in my past to make me deserving of such a fai...
A light!
For not even a second, a quick spot of white flashed in front of my eyes. I tried grabbing for the unknown source in the never ending expanse of nothing. I thought I were moving my body, but with the never ending darkness, twas as though I were frozen. Every turn felt as though I was cast in stone, like a chaotic being long forgotten!
THERE!
I saw what looked like a glowing orb, over time twas growing bigger ever slowly devouring the darkness. Just as i suddenly saw the light, I was aware of pain, searing pain all throughout my entire being. Everything hurt. Twere as if my body were being crushed slowly by a giants hoof. I doth not know how long my conscience was suffering but when finally the pain had subsided, I was fully aware of the lack of darkness in my surroundings. I slowly looked around. I appeared to be in some field far off from the castle and any civilization. Twas but only a simple breeze, allowing me the knowledge of being awake and not in a dream. The many wild flowers brushed against the offending wind, creating the most beautiful yet bizarre dance, it reminded me of a fair maiden during a good harvest celebration. Suddenly I heard, what I assumed to be, hoof steps. The offending noise was destroying the natural peace felt from the field. I looked back to see what twere causing the terrible sound, and with that, we are brought to the present.
***
“So, you’re from the past? Thats SOOOO COOL! What’s it like, Were there wars? Did ponies die from random monster attacks? Was there any princess nappings? Were there knights back then? Did you meet the original Wonderbolts? The ones that started the one and only great fliers of all of equestria?” The barrage of questions flooded my ears like that of a drummer colt playing a flute for the first time. The young orange filly with a main of purple seemed excited about the knowledge of my own time. Having awoken to a young filly explaining how you just fell through an inter-dimensional time vortex, and started screaming in pain; having blacked out for an hour and then being told you’re in the future is... a bit worry some. Maybe i should stay away from the child. Then again, she may be my only way to any kind of civilization. I reached up to my mane, noticing that my once fastened tie; now undone, rested within the tangles of my, no longer, maintained hair.
“Oih! thou speaketh to much young child. tis quite rude to speculate out loud without so much of a chance to counter thy curiosities with answers to them!” I stated after spitting out my hair tie, correcting her rude behavior. I finished tying up my light pink main and made sure it was in a proper state of elegance. At least my hair is quite alright! ‘Twould have been a disaster if my pink hair were destroyed, I could not, and would not, promise the safety of those around us if it was even remotely ruined. “ Aigh, twould seem as though that is correct. But I’m afraid your princess is in another castle, and there were a few occasions of monsters attacking villages! Though my time had known the ends of war and distrust, at least we were capable of speaking in a manor of proper grace.” I hinted my annoyance towards the young fillies show of improper manors. She flinched away from my venomous words. “As for knights? Nie, twere never a time for them, though they were brought back for war parades and noble celebration. But mostly for decoration and or costumed events. Now for the last question, what are these... wanderbilts thou speaketh of so highly? Are they some circus group?” I shuddered slightly when the thought of clowns invaded my peaceful thoughts. Terrible creatures, just terrifying.
The expression on the young fillies face could only be described as pure horror. The terror of a child who learned about the buggie colt for the first time. I wanted to laugh but knew twere a bad plan, for I still had no idea of where I was and she was my only source to finding my way home.
Seconds passed into minutes, and minutes into hours, or at least what felt like hours, never bothered learning how to read based off of the sun. There we were, just standing there, while the young horrified child starred frozen in time. Just me, the breeze, the warm sun, a completely horrified child, and flowers.... lovely scene, no?
“Well... It’s been fun kid.... but I need to find some way to get back home... if there still be a home” the thought of having lost everything frightened me, fueling my need to find a way back. I started to walk off into a random directions, when the filly grabbed hold of my hoof. I looked at her to see what she wanted.
“You’re going the wrong direction.” she huffed at me, clearly annoyed at my lack of knowledge on the ‘wonderbolts.’ That, or for my attempts at correcting her snobbish behavior.
“Well, uuuuuum.... do you have any parents around here? So I could possibly ask for directions as to where I need to go, and if not that maybe you could inform me of any knowledge of where a village or settlement would be?” I asked, hoping to celestia that she didn't smite me enough to just let me wander aimlessly.
“Settlement? Noooooo......? Don’t think there’s settlements anymore. Unless if you include the outer territories of equestria, such as Saddle Arabia or the Griffioen Republic! Though Ponyville isn’t too far away! I could take you there if you’d like?” she offered pointing off towards a forest as she started heading towards it, which was off in the exact opposite direction. But to be honest, I was hesitant to spend much more time with such an improper filly. But she was my only hope in finding civilization, so I followed.
We trotted north. According to the child, for about an hour. As to why the filly was an hour outside of a village unsupervised, I will never know. I would inform you of the entirety of our enthusiastic conversation but it would be much of a bore to force such a waste of time in reading. Just the young filly going on and off about how I did not know the wonderbolts and then continued angry silence, so im just going to skip the agonizingly slow trip back to this... ponyville and inform you of the rest then.
We had been walking through a very dark, and possibly frightening, forest. Not all forests have glowing yellow eyes suspended in mid-air, or trees with evil faces glaring down at you. As we continued walking I noticed what looked like an opening. Before I could say anything, Scootaloo, as I earlier found out was her name, informed me of our nearing of “Ponyville.” We stepped out of the canopy of trees, the first thing I noticed was a town, not that much bigger than Manehatten, was a bit of a trot away.
I thanked the filly, and was about to part ways with her, when I heard something shout out angrily. Turning I found myself staring straight at an oncoming cyan torpedo. I quickly braced for impact and soon ended up in a mud puddle with said angry cyan torpedo standing atop of me. I quickly noticed it was a mare pegasus, her rainbow mane looking as though she had been in a frantic search for more than a few hours. I was about to protest when she stamped on my gut and knocked the wind out of me. I wheezed in pain, confused as to the hostility present in this mare.
“HOW DARE YOU RUN OFF WITH A FILLY!” she shouted as she was glaring daggers at me. If looks could kill, I would have died one thousand times over before I even had a chance to defend myself. Scootaloo just stood there, shocked at the ferocity shown by this rainbow monstrosity.
As the beast started looking around I was able to recover my breath and attempt to defend myself. “One, there art not a single reason for thou’s sudden show of hostility!” I shoved her off me, had a bit of trouble getting up due to the pain caused by the assault. Also, did you know pegasie where very light!? Makes you wonder how they can pack such a punch! “I was merely lost when this young child found me and showed me my way here. Two how dare you assult somepony with no basis for your claims! Am I to assume you are the mother? I see now where the child gets her poor manners, such disgrace!” realizing that I looked awful, due to the puddle of water my face was rudely pushed into, I needed to leave as quickly as possible. I cannot stand having dirt in my fabulous main! “I apologize for my appearance but I’ve been through a bit of a rough day and would like to find an inn in which I may rest my aching head.” I stated calmly even though I was rudely pushed to the ground.
“There’s a hotel not to far from town center, its quite literally in the center of town, its also one of the biggest buildings in town so its hard to miss. Also no, shes not my mother, but shes my adoptive sister. Rainbow, he’s telling the truth, I was off on my own, when he just... appeared. I think he’s from the past.” Scootaloo whispered quietly into the ears of the rainbow explosion waiting to happen, whether or not she heard was not quite noticed for she still glared daggers at me. But as she slowly started to calm down she glared at Scootaloo, the anger slowly rebuilding in her eyes, her frustration on the rise to total destruction. The rainbow pony slowly stepped away from me and stepped closer to Scootaloo
A simple slap, but within that simple slap many emotions flew out at once. Not of just a few hours worth of fear, but more of a few years of anger, frustrations, stress, depression, sadness, and most of all... Love!
The amount of confusion on, not only my own face, but that of the poor filly was too much to bare for the runaway rainbow. I could see her cringe at the sudden realization of what she had just done. But, what I would assume to be years of practice, she played it off as if ‘twere nothing but an everyday occurrence. As realization partook me of the situation, I noticed a small group of five other mares had appeared around us. all of them looked just as confused as I had felt.
“Do you have ANY idea of how worried I was about you? I had to get all of my friends AND the weather team to search for you! Couldn't you have at least told me where you were going? We’ve been searching for over six hours! SIX! Can you imagine the fear I went through thinking something bad happened to you!?” Tears started rolling down her face when she realized how much pain she had truly been in over the thought of having lost somepony so important to them. I felt mostly at fault for this, though I should know I had nothing to do with it. I still felt bad for both parties of the situation.
“If I might step in for a few seconds, I would like to apologizing for any and all forms of miscommunications between us and I would like to assure you that at the time she was in safe hooves.” looking down at the now sore faced Scootaloo with a bit of a concerned glare. “This however does not excuse you from running off to Celestia knows where! Thou doth not realize the gravity of your actions! For shamed, young Scootaloo, for shame! To put somepony who cares so much about thee, in such pain tis unforgivable where I come from.” I leaned over to her and started to whisper in her ears. “Thou should consider apologizing immensely for thys behavior and for causing such issues for others.” I watched as Scootaloo ran up to the rainbow sister/mother and hugged her, they hugged each other so hard I thought they would burst like balloons. I stood there for a second, the awkward silence was getting to me a bit and finally the need to have a warm bath over took my quite vigilance of the scene playing before me. “Well, now that that’s settled, I shall bid you farewell.” I started to walk towards what I assumed to be the center of the town.
“Other way... Again!” “Thank you Scootaloo!” I answered sarcastically rolling my eyes. “Oh But before I forget to ask, and or embarrass myself, doth this time still use bits as currency?” I asked with a blush on my face. The thought of being kicked out for not having the correct form of money making for a confusing and rather awkward thought.
“Uuuuuh, duh! Where have you been? You sound almost as if you were from the beginning era of Celestias rule, you must be some kind of dork right? Or worst an egghead.” the rude multi color pegasus laughed at the idea of me being well read, while I looked at her with confusion as to how one, being well read was a bad thing and two, how she could guess so correctly and think it humorously wrong.
“Ummmmm..... Rainbow? He.... is... from the past.... I thought I mentioned this.”
“WHAAAAAAAT!” screamed one of the bystanders not to far from where I was standing. Her sudden outburst scared the living Tartarus out of me. I never jumped so high in my life, might as well have been a pegasus, I flew so high into the sky. As soon as my heart finished its race and cooled down a little, I was suddenly aware of a very happy and curious lavender unicorn with a light purple stripe in her main. Her face was right in front mine, almost touching. I backed up a few paces only to have the slightly alarming unicorn step close to me again. “Is this true!? Are you really from the past!?” She asked, hope and curiosity flowing from her voice. To any other pony it would sound like a simple question, to I however, it sounded like a burning poisonous creature waiting to steal my night away.
“I am afraid so, however I rea...”
“OH MY CELESTIA!!!! You’re coming with me! I have so many questions I need answered!” She rudely interrupted me. She grabbed my tail and started to drag me off to who knows where. But I pulled myself out of her magical grasp! I turned around facing her. She was confused as to why I looked at her with annoyance and anger evident in my eyes.
“No, I will not! I shall seek out shelter to which I can rest, and then if I so feel like, maybe shall I answer your curiosities. The only ponies allowed to order me to do anything other than such, are that of royalty and or nobility! Until then, I bid you farewell!” As I turned away to once again search for the hotel I stopped and gave a slight bow to both the rainbow pony and Scootaloo. “good night maddams.” I started to continue down the road.
“Ahem!” I stopped and turned around to see who had attempted, and succeeded, to gain my attention. What I saw was more terrifying than that of an army of clowns! I must have stood there, with my mouth stretched all the way to the ground, for what I saw was none other than the lavender unicorn, but to my surprise she was not a unicorn. She held out her wings, her face showing that of one who had won the battle. She stared at me and levitated a crown out of seemingly no where and placed it on her head.
“Let’s try this again, shall we? I’m princess Twilight Sparkle, and you are coming with me!” She stated flatly with a blush and a smirk painted across her face. I could only fear of what to come.
