So, I haven’t slept in either form for more than twenty four hours. But I don’t feel that tired, so I guess that this Alicorn magic stuff coursing through my body makes sleep a lesser requirement. I spent half the night trekking my way to the base of the mountain of Canterlot, or as I’m going to nickname it until further notice, Mt. Canterlot, and the sun has just started to peek the horizon. I’m currently at the base of the mountain, and according to my Shield it’s about 7:05 in the morning, and seeing as the sun began peeking only a few minutes ago, Celestia must have some sort of obsession with being on time, even though she’s had more than a thousand to grow lenient about timing. I’m with one goal right now, and that is to Get up to Canterlot and speak with Celestia, preferably before midday hits on the Earth time system. I don’t know what sort of clock system ponies use, or if they use any sort of clock system, so I shall keep human time references to myself until further notice.

I’m staring upwards at the city, pondering how I should get up there. Should I find the train and hitch, or should I climb?

‘You walked this far, surely you can climb.’ Samantha answered inside my head.

The logic denied any argument. ‘Ah, what the hell. Why not?’ I replied.

So, I found a reasonably sized edge on the stone, and placed my right hand on it. I looked upwards and found another, but I could barely reach it, so I heaved myself up to grab it, but before I could register what had happened, I found my left hand, no, my whole me flying an approximate twenty feet in the air. I felt my heart leap in my chest, not unlike that sensation I always got when riding a good roller coaster, as I began my descent.

“Shit shit shit SHIT!” I screamed as I fell, landing on the ground with a hard thud, “Oh my god... Wait where’s the pain? THE FUCK AM I NOT HURTING FOR?” I had recovered unusually quickly, and hadn’t felt an ounce of pain from the landing.

‘Hmm... Super strength, ethereal flight that I can’t do much more than hover with, some ridiculous pain tolerance, the ability to use magic, and apparently either hard bones or quick recoverability. I could get used to this. Hmm...’ I trailed off in thought as I regained my rationality.

‘Since you can’t do much with the wings outside of gliding, maybe you could use the strength to try to jump to Canterlot, and if you fail to make it all the way, you can glide.’ Samantha brainstormed.

Again, the logic of the idea fared no argment, so I agreed to try it. I got into a squat and jumped as hard as I could. My heart leaped in my chest again from the momentum, but I resisted it. Soon enough I found my head making concussions against the bottom of a slight ledge that stuck out of the city. I managed to only fall about an inch or two before I recovered and stuck my arms out over the sides of the ledge, grabbing the top. I pulled myself up, making sure to not fling myself like last time I did that, and found myself staring at the back of a white fancy building.

‘Your logic does not fare argument, sis. I’m glad that we got a good sense of that.’ I replied in thanks to my twin soul.

‘Sometimes I wonder how you survived without more than a personality link with me.’ Samantha retorted sarcastically.

Keeping the internal conversation serious, I returned the comment with ‘Likely because I didn’t have many life or death situations back then other than the suicidal thoughts I had in my pre-brony depression.’

‘Good point. We should probably get moving, we don’t want to waste the last four and a half hours we have left unless we can, and the castle and the market district are probably close to each other, so we can waste a little time when we find that area.’ Samantha finalized.

Looking around, I found an alley beside the building I was behind, and proceeded to get to the main road through it. That is, until about halfway though it, when I found myself on the ground with a hooded figure on my chest.

“Give me all your money and possessions or you will die a horrible death.” the hooded figure claimed with venom in his voice. Great, a robbery. Nice to know that Equestria has to deal with a petty crime rate as well as... Tirek and Nightmare Moon to name a few.

“Ah, I just walked for half a night and did a sort of super jump to meet the Princess and all I get is a robber? I guess that a human like me isn’t seen as much of a threat. I would commend your judgement, if it were anyone else. But me? I have power not unlike that wielded by the mares of your triarchy, in similar amounts as well. There’s also the fact that I don’t have a single bit on me, nor any valuables other than the casual clothes on my back that I got for dirt cheap in my homeland.” I replied nonchalantly.

“You’re bluffing. A puny... whatever, like you, couldn’t have that sort of power. Impossible.” He spat, denying what I had just said.

I brought my hand to the nape of his neck and pinched the skin under the fur, lifting him by that grip as I rose to my feet.

“Ow ow ow ow ow ow stop that hurts! Put me down! Owwww...”

I dropped him, causing him to land on all fours with a stagger, before he brought a forehoof to the back of his neck to attend to it wih a rub. “Not only do I have immense magical power, I come from a race of normally non-magical beings. These beings are determined to be able to do anyting they wish, and have made many advancements without a trace of magic. Surely you don’t want to see your hometown be destroyed by a human weapon that’s made history with its ability to obliterate citis and leave them, as well as the area around them, less habitable than the Everfree for years afterwards?”

“Y-your bucking bluffing!” he retorted, the venom he once had shifting into terror.

I looked behind the terror-shaken pony to see a small metalworking station that just so happened to be there and levitated a small and long iron brick, most likely a piece for a small dagger or something, towards me. “Is this bluffing?” I put my hands beside each other in a grip on it and bent it to an imperfect right angle.

“N-no!” and with that, the nameless stallion ran off.

The deadpanning stare I had been giving the stallion quickly erupted into a manic grin. “He thought... heh... I was gonna... heh... nuke Canterlot! Hahaha! Oh my god, that brought tears to my mental eye.” I burst out into an uncontrollable laughter fit over the joke. Admittedly it was not funny for both parties, and most of what I said was sadly in truth, but it was still funny.

I recovered from the laughter, and tossed the iron boomerang aside, pulling my hood up and walking out from the alley. Maybe if I had my hood up I’d pass as an unusually built Minotaur as I made my way to the castle, which was in plain sight mostly due to it’s size. I definitely wanted to be early, and I wanted to be before midday, so I rushed a little. I pulled out my shield and checked the time, and found it to be about 8 A.M., which meant I had plenty of time before midday. However, I was too eager to meet Celestia, I just wanted to get to the castle and speak with her, there was much to discuss, and possibly have mild fangasms or something over, about Equestria. Of course, I was more of a general brony rather than a favorites chooser, but who said I couldn’t fangasm over everything in general?

It took another half hour to make my way through the city and find the market district. Obviously, there were shops all around the city, the metalworking stand being a good example, but the market district had much more. There were shops, stands, restaurants, and... ponies staring at me. All of them, at me, just because I entered the vacinity. The roads were only with occasional ponies coming to and from their houses, so it wasn’t much of a problem. But here? The roads were much more densely packed, even if not to the point of a traffic jam of ponies, and they were all staring at me. Maybe the market district wasn’t going to be as great as I imagined.

I quickly made my way past, soon finding myself in front of the gate to the castle grounds. There were two unicorn guards on either side of the gate, each staring at me attentively. “State your business, odd being.”

I injected eloquence into my voice as I spoke, “I must have a chat with your sun princess, Celestia. I have important matters that I must discuss with her.”

“Very well, I shall seek approval with her as my co-worker watches over you. I will return momentarily.” one of the guards stated, trotting through the gate to supposedly approve my audience.

“Geez, are all guards like that?” I stated out loud, much to the other guard’s amusement.

“Yes and no, it’s a sort of... unofficial requirement. The Princesses and ex-Captain, as he’s been a prince for the Crystal Empire for a little over a decade now, Shining try to dissuade the formal part, as well as the silence even if provoked part, but we’re trained to use stoicism. I remember being stationed near Sugarcube Corner back when I first got the job during a party that Princess Celestia herself attended, and one of the Element Bearers, as they’re called, Rainbow Dash I think it was, attempted to provoke the door guards to at least talk, but the... Other parts of the unofficial requirement took place. Oh I still remember the lecture that Shining gave them when he found out about it... a lecture about publicizing... you better believe it was funny. Only about half of it made sense and part of the lecture was based on pony voice box biology, a biology subcategory I didn’t even know existed until that day.” the guard explained with a manic grin.

“That’s... interesting.” I stated speechlessly.

“Yeah, that definitely was an interesting day of my life, still remember it clear as day... and speaking of day, look who’s coming back with your answer.”

The guard that had left was approaching rather quickly. When he was in talking distance, he quickly stated, “You may pass. The princess is rather eager to meet you. Please make your way to her quickly, I’m not sure why but she is... very eager to meet you for some reason, so as to restate.”

I wasn’t shocked to hear this... I suspected that Twilight may have had something to do with that. I’ll have to consult her later about that. “Great. Also, what happened to formalities?”

“Does that matter? Anyway, the hearing chambers are straight ahead, though I suspect that she may take you somewhere more private if her unusual lack of stiocism says anything.”

“Well that’s disturbing... anyway, I guess I should be on my merry way. oh, and other guard, I like you. What’s your name?” I said as I began to walk the path to the hearing chambers.

“Cranial Conundrum the scatterbrained, at your service.” He replied.

“Wow... you have an interesting name. I would get a nickname if I were you. By the way, Samuel Lyons, or Sam for short.” I told him.

“I hope your conversation goes well Sam!” he almost yelled as I left.

I wonder what ‘Tia’s got in mind for me? Sounds like it could get really bad...

Almost as bad as me nearly tripping on a well-placed rock. Thank god I was always a natural for balance, possibly due to years of running around on wet floors.

Author's Note

No, this is not a teaser to a sex-tag-requiring chapter. But it is something that Sam is gonna not enjoy. But it won't be a CeleSam (or Salestia) sex scene. And yes, when I was a kid, I'd take every chance I could get to put on a fresh pair of socks and go do stupid stuff on freshly mopped floors.Sometimes I didn't even wear socks. Anyways, as a side effect of doing that, the last time I remember falling was at least seven or more years ago? I've had people purposely trip me, with nothing to grab in front of me, and I barely even stumbled in most cases. But I never fell.

You know what? It's about freaking time that I got this chapter out; and I had to deal with a combination of demotivation, distraction by other stories (I read and am reading a LOT of stories, nearly all of them above 25,000 words, most of them in the 100,000+ words range), school, AND losing all my progress to get it. thank god I made that giant spoiler on my blog; I used that to write a chapter that was vaguely similar to what I had before. Except that I'm pretty sure I put more detail into this version than what I had done of that version. So yeah, I did that. End of story. No, not the story that this AN is in. Whatever, I'mconfusing myself. Maybe I'll get more chapters done more quickly in the future; I don't know.