The Equinid (Undetermined Prologue)

Twilight and her five friends sat in Appleloosa’s town square. She had asked them to come with her and report if they see anything interesting. It was a relatively large plot of dirt and sand hardened by years of hooves pounding on it. In the center stood a large wooden pole bearing the Appleloosan symbol on a flag at the top. The square was bordered by the bank , the courthouse and jail (neither of which had ever been used), the sheriff’s office, and the post office. Unsurprisingly, everything seemed normal.

Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity shared one bench while Pinkie and Fluttershy sat on another. Rainbow Dash circled overhead, sentineling the square as well as her short attention span would allow.

Though they had all been enjoying themselves thus far, Twilight was growing confused over Celestia’s motive in sending her here, and when she grew confused, she convinced herself something was wrong, and when she convinced herself that something was wrong, things could get out of hand.

Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie had mostly stayed in town while Dash and Applejack would occasionally venture out into the orchard or the desert, often accompanied by Little Strong Heart, Braeburn, or both of them at the same time. They had found nothing of particular interest save “Derrick”, which Applejack and Rainbow Dash hadn’t told anypony about.

Other than a few chance encounters and polite nods in the lobby of the inn, none of them had seen any trace of Carton. While it was true that they were no longer traveling with him, they still found it odd that he could be so elusive in such a small town.

Twilight was, at the moment, seated on a bench, bent over Celestia’s letter. She had been in this position for at least fifteen minutes. The look on her face was pained by the simple fact that she was having difficulty of any kind with a task from her mentor.

Applejack turned to Twilight as she sighed, put away the letter, and began tapping her hooves together in both apprehension and impatience.

“Ya know, if it’s somethin’ real important that the princess wants us ta see, Ah bet we’d hear about it; ya know, as in, we shouldn’t need ta look for nothin’, it should be big enough ta travel round by word a’ mouth.”

Twilight sighed. “But we don’t know whether or not it will be big or seem important, that’s the problem.”

“That, and nothing ever goes on around here. Can me and AJ go play with Little Strongheart and Braeburn now?” Dash asked.

Applejack answered instead. “Come on, RD; Twi asked fer our help, an’ Ah ain’t gonna back out just ‘cause it ain’t exciting.”

“Okay, well then why don’t you stay here, and I’ll go hang out with them?” Dash posed.

“You know that ain’t what Ah meant.”

The pegasus crossed her forelegs dejectedly. “Fine. So what is it we’re looking for again?”

Twilight scanned the note. “Something unusual.”

“That’s it?”

Twilight nodded.

“What the hay kind of info is that? What are we supposed to do with ‘something unusual’?”

Before Twilight could respond, Rarity opened her mouth. “You know, Twilight, Rainbow does bring up a rather good point. Why the secrecy? Why wouldn’t Celestia even describe what it is she wants us to see, or retrieve, or… did the Princess even specify what we were to do once we found this… er, event, or object?”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t know what to say, girls. It’s not like her to be so vague. She’s always given me clear-cut objectives and assignments in the past; I was never taught what to do with instructions like these,” she proclaimed, peering at it once more as though answers to the many questions in her mind might magically appear.

“Maybe she wanted us to take a vacation!” Pinkie chirped.

“Except we were already basically on vacation back in Canterlot.”

“Well, what if-“

Twilight held her hoof over Pinkie’s mouth as two stallions galloped by at a brisk pace, chattering excitedly as they went.

She looked to Rarity. “What do you think they were talking about?”

The white unicorn shrugged. “It’s hard to tell so simple a town, dear; it could very well be little more than a new apple tree being planted.”

However, as three more earth ponies galloped past, Twilight rose to her hooves and began trotting after them.

Rarity prepared a complaint as the other mares curiously followed Twilight, but stopped herself, knowing that it would get her nowhere. She hopped off of the wooden bench, dusted herself off indignantly, and began cantering after Twilight, who hadn’t traveled further than fifty feet.

She picked up her pace but slowed down once she had matched her fellow unicorn’s pace. She turned her head to face the unicorn. Twilight predicted Rarity’s question and shrugged. “It’s not like we were getting results by sitting around all day.”

Rarity cocked her head. “Fair enough.”

As the group reached the outskirts of the town, there was a definite emptiness. The usual goods peddlers, idle porch chatters, and rowdy saloon patrons seemed oddly absent.

“Looks like something’s up,” Dash remarked, hovering just above Twilight, who nodded silently.

Though they had lost track of the group they had seen anxiously galloping by, a multitude of fresh hoof-prints in the dirt street of the town was enough to clue them in to where everypony seemed to be headed. A few more turns through the wooden-lined streets of Appleloosa brought them to the very edge of town, where they beheld the event that was leaving the rest of the town so empty.

A clamorous horde of Appleloosan citizens was gathered where one of the town’s dirt roads departed from the town and wound far off into the desert. Mares and stallions alike craned their necks, shifted back and forth, and bumped into one another in order to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that everypony seemed so excited about.

The six fillies approached the crowd with expressions that were somewhere between curiosity and apprehensiveness.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, simply flew until she was high enough to see over the communion.

Twilight called up to her, “What do you see, Rainbow Dash?”

Rather than responding, Dash floated closer to the epicenter of the group, as if in a trance. Twilight prepared to repeat herself, but shook her head instead. Pushing through a throng of ponies was easier than trying to get Dash’s attention.

She started nudging her way through despite the constantly morphing shape of the crowd as new ponies came to view the object of interest, lowering her head and right shoulder as she muscled through.

The wall of equines before her started thinning out as she grew closer and closer to the core of the group; between the chattering and darting heads of the ponies before her, she caught fleeting glimpses of gleaming shapes, hard to see for what they were as the sun’s light reflected blindingly off of their surfaces.

“Excuse me,” she murmured as a particularly large stallion turned his head back to face her.

“Can ya see it?” he asked, grinning like a schoolfilly as he did.

Twilight shook her head.

Without another word, he swept her off of her hooves with a single foreleg and place her on his back. Though she prepared to protest as she was lifted into the air, her attention was immediately diverted by the sight that came into view.

A wide wooden carriage, flanked by a number of stallions and large enough to have two harnesses at the front, sat in the epicenter of the crowd. The gleaming that Twilight had perceived from a distance was revealed to be a pile of gemstones, far larger than any she had seen. The hoards of gems that they had retrieved after their encounter with the Diamond Dogs could not even begin to compare with the mountainous batch of glimmering, precious stones spilling off of the cart.

She was so captivated by the glittering mound before her that she forgot she was standing on the stallion’s back until he perceived her awe and spoke.

“Ain’t somethin’ ya see everyday, is it?”

Twilight shook her head. “I’ve never seen so many in one cart.”

The stallion laughed. “That ain’t it. Two more ‘ready came in. The miners are just showin’ this one off.”

Twilight uttered a “wow” before raising an eyebrow inquisitively. “Miners? I didn’t know Appleloosa had any mines.”

He nodded. “Just the one. They don’t make daily hauls, though, so ya probably didn’t hear about it. They were either off at the mine or dilly dallyin’ around town. They bring back some good stuff, though; it’s the talk a the town, especially when they bring back something real nice, somethin’ like all this fer instance.”

“Do they often bring back this much?”

“M-m. They ain’t never brought back a haul like this ‘un. Not even close. On average they might halfway fill one a them big carts; just fillin’ up one is a feat. But three? Hay, we never thought we’d need any a them extra carriages.”

Shortly after they both turned their attention back to the precious stones, the stallion let out a low grunt and stumbled.

“Hi Twilight!” Pinkie Pie chirped from behind the unicorn, draping her forelegs over the purple mare’s back. “Didja see the jewels? Aren’t they pretty? There are so many! I was like ‘oooh’, and Fluttershy was like ‘wow’, but all quiet, and Applejack was like ‘well I’ll be’, and Rainbow Dash was like ‘whoa’, and Rarity didn’t say anything but she almost fainted because you know how much she likes jewels and stuff, and-“

“Wait a second… Pinkie!” Twilight scolded, realizing that her friend had joined her on top of the stallion’s broad back without invitation.

“What is it, Twilight?”

Twilight leapt down from the stallion’s back. “Sorry about that, sir,” she apologized, looking back to him.

“Ain’t no thang,” he replied, stretching and flexing his spine as Pinkie hopped off and he was relieved of the mildly uncomfortable weight of the two fillies.

“What were you saying, Twilight?”

Twilight sighed. Even though she knew that Pinkie meant harm to nopony, she doubted that explaining why it wasn’t polite to jump on top of other ponies would prevent her friend from doing the exact same thing in the future.

“Nevermind, Pinkie. Do you know where the other girls are, by any chance?”

“Oh yeah, right by the big wagon, right over this way!” she shouted, waving a hoof before bounding off into the crowd.

Twilight stumbled as quickly as she could after her comparatively nimble friend. Though they had only traveled a matter of yards when they came to the wagon, Twilight could have sworn that she had been walking through the thickest underbrush of the Everfree Forest.

Upon their emergence from the slowly dissipating throng of ponies, the two mares found the rest of their friends accompanied by both Braeburn and a slim stallion who Twilight assumed was one of the miners.

The two joined the circle, greeting their friends. Twilight nodded politely to the stranger, who responded in kind.

“Well hey there, Twilight!” Braeburn welcomed her. After a moment, he slapped his forehead. “Now hold on, Ah ain’t introduced y’all yet! Clay,” he turned to the miner, “this here’s Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie. Twilight an’ Pinkie,” he turned back to them, “this here’s Clay Carver; he’s one a the fellas that mined out this here loot!”

“Pleasure,” Clay said with a voice that curiously lacked any western accent. His coat was a moderate brown color, not particularly light or dark, and his mahogany mane was similarly neutral in vibrancy. Over his standard-issue miners’ shirt he wore a weathered leather saddlebag and a sheath for tools made of the same material. His cutie mark depicted a prospector’s pickaxe with its tip sunken into a stone.

“Nice to meet you,” Twilight smiled. “If you don’t mind me asking right away, where did you find all of this?” she waved a foreleg to the wagon.

He laughed. “I don’t blame you, it’s a hay of a find, huh? To be honest, I don’t choose where we mine, I supervise from time to time, but that’s it. A prospector from somewhere way west of here came in and told us that we should start digging in this cave he found, so we did. We’ve been at it for a year or two with mostly average results, but when we started setting up vertical shafts this last time, well that’s when we started running into this.” He paused and patted the cart. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff we’re seeing down there. Trenches deeper than any pegasi are willing to explore, whole caverns made of gems, all sorts of things.”

The group, Braeburn included, produced intrigued mumbles as Clay described the deep caverns.

“Oh, and look at this,” he added as he hopped up to the side of the wagon and started searching among the pile with his forelegs. He jumped from the cart and went back down on all fours once he had retrieved the object he was looking for.

He held out the item on a single hoof before the rest of the ponies, turning it slowly so that they could all get a good look at it.

It was a small stone idol of sorts; a four-legged creature with circular, hollow eyes and a similarly rounded mouth lined with pointed teeth. Though none of them said it aloud, each of the fillies figured that it bore a vague resemblance to something halfway between the famous cave paintings found in the Everfree Forest and a crude, kindergarten-level scribbling of a monster hiding in a closet.

Rainbow Dash walked closer to inspect it, her interest sparked as the idol was not dissimilar in appearance to a number of the countless relics found in her favorite book series. “What is it? Is it like a magic treasure or something?”

Clay chuckled once more. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t bet on it. We found loads of these little stone statuettes down there. The subjects vary, but they’re definitely all cut from the same rock; or, same type of rock, at least.”

“Lil’ Strongheart took one back ta the tribe ta see if her ‘elders’ know anything about it,” Braeburn added.

Twilight spoke, “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but I’ll be right back. There’s just something I’ve got to take care of.”

While Braeburn and Clay regarded the statement with curious looks, neither pressed her for information. Her friends, however, nodded knowingly.

She turned and found that the formerly solid crowd was now only a thinning circle of spectators heading elsewhere to resume their business.

She departed from the pack easily and set off towards the inn.

One or two turns later, Twilight passed a small gathering of stallions chatting outside of one of the numerous saloons of the town.

“Hey, Twilight!” a voice called out from among them.

Twilight turned to the source, wondering who might have business with her until the one-day travel companion of her clique trotted out from among the pack.

She gave a friendly smile. “Hi Carton.”

“Twilight,” he greeted.

“Where have you been, Carton? We’ve been all over town and haven’t seen you anywhere.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry, did you need me for something?”

“Well, no, but it’s nice to bump into friends every once and a while.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense, I could see that being the case.”

Though she was slightly befuddled by his objective response, Twilight didn’t bother asking him about it. “Did you see what the miners brought back?”

“No. I heard about it, apparently it was huge, but I didn’t go see it myself. Sounded like the crowd was too big, anyway.”

“The crowd wasn’t too bad. Most of them are gone now, if you hurry, I bet you can catch it before they stow it away.”

He considered it for a moment, but then, with a stern inward voice, prohibited himself from doing so. It came to his attention at that moment that the six fillies he had come to Appleloosa were exceptionally good at distracting him from his business. He would have to make a note of that later.

“It’s tempting, but I’m afraid I’ve got to decline. Work takes priority and all that.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” They both sat silent for a moment before Twilight spoke once more. “So, what did you need?”

“Oh, right,” he nodded, “you said you like books, right? Or, I mean, maybe you didn’t tell me in particular, but I saw that you had a lot in your saddlebags.”

“Yeah, of course. Why?”

He pulled a sheet of paper out of his coat, unfolded it, smoothed it out as best he could, and exhaled loudly. “I understand that this is probably a big stretch, but have you ever seen this book?” He handed the paper to Twilight.

A sketch in what appeared to be pencil greeted Twilight upon her reception of the sheet. A thick book, embroidered with metal rivets and plating, was drawn with painstaking detail. Flaps hinged on the cover and back of the book prevented one from even seeing the sides of the pages, and gave the book the appearance of an ornate box rather than a text. A circular device which Twilight also assumed to be metal was fastened on the cover of the tome, slightly off-center to the right. From her years of studying spells and reading books, she recognized it as a lock. And she knew that whenever a book had a lock on it, whatever was inside of it was important.

“If it helps at all, it’s purple, and the metal is silver,” Carton offered.

Twilight frowned. “Sorry, Carton, I’ve never seen this book at all, and I definitely haven’t seen it anywhere around here.”

He shrugged and stuffed the paper back in his coat once Twilight handed it back. “You wouldn’t be the first. Don’t worry about it, it’s not your job. I came here for this, and you came here for… whatever it is you came here for. But I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that it isn’t this.”

“I don’t think so,” Twilight agreed.

“You ‘don’t think so’?”

“It’s complicated.”

Carton smiled. “I can respect that.” Without any further conversation, he tipped his hat and bid her farewell, cantering back into the saloon.

Twilight furrowed her brow. It was an odd encounter, not what she would expect when meeting up with a friend after a couple days of separation. Usually everypony had plenty of time to stay and talk for a while.

She brushed it off and determined that his work must have been important enough to require him to rush. Twilight turned her attention back to her own business. What was important was that she had a note to write, and she couldn’t wait to see how proud Celestia would be.