It took all of a few minutes to find the trio getting dragged by magic down the road. I looked ahead of them to see my favorite seamstress, Rarity.

"But we do have an adult!" Sweetie Belle cried to her sister. "Chris is taking us!"

"That's right, I am." I walked up to them with a raised brow. The sight didn't seem to be odd at all to the surrounding ponies. If I have only rumors of these three find to be true, then clearly I had correctly labled them as the kids from Holloween Town. "Is there an issue with the future king of Equestia taking these three on an adventure?"

Rarity eyeballed me like I was the Joker coming into a store with a nuke strapped to his back. "I'm sorry Chris, but Sweetie Belle was grounded just yesterday, she was supposed to come home after school. When she didn't, I already knew what was up."

"What'd she do?" I asked her while giving Sweetie a disapproving glare.

"She helped these two set fire to my oven a couple days ago. She grounded until I get my new one next week."

I sighed. I was in a hard spot here, so I did what any future father would do. So I made sure no one was looking at us then smiled. "Well, I think they should be pardoned." The Crusaders looked up at me with newfound respect. "Sure they may have-"

"And they did..."

"May have! Burned your oven to a crisp, but really Rarity? What were they actually doing?" She was stuck it seemed and even looked off, and away from me. I stomped my foot, gathering her attention. "Well?"

"T-they were trying to bake a dozen cookies to sell...to pay for their 'next big thing'."

"It was to pay for the new capes!" Scootaloo protested. "We worked days on the design so when we got enough bits, we could get a new set of capes because our old ones got torn up!"

My glare was shifted to Rarity, who looked rather guilty right about now. "Come on girls." I beckon them over. "Rarity, how much will it cost to get a set of new capes for them? Material wise?"

"Three bits each..."

"Alright girls, you must give her six bits from whatever treasure we find? How's that?" They all had bright sparks in their eyes as they nodded. I clapped my hands together and smiled. "There, problem solved. We'll be back before dinner time." To that they gave nods to the older mare.

"Fine...I expect eighteen bits by dinner. If not-...Well...let's not try to burn down the only home we have next time girls? Next time, cook with somepony responsible?" Rarity-although sorely defeated- seemed to smile and walked on without the girls in tow.

"Wow! You're the second most awesome pony I know!"

"Heh! Who's the first?"

"Rainbow Dash..." Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom droned.

"That's right! She's the only pony who can do a sonic rainboom!"

It was roughly an hour later before we actually got to the edge of the forest. Looking deep within, I felt something stare back at me. It felt so strange looking within the dense wood and brush. The girls seemed to be slightly afraid by the fear in their eyes, but none of them seemed to be willing to back down.

Pulling my sword out of my sheath that was tied to a belt loop, I pointed it forward. It felt like I was commanding an entire army when the next words fell out of my mouth without thinking. "Onward! To the great beyond!" I actually had to cover my mouth in shock. It seemed strange for those words to fall out of my mouth like they had. I looked down at my sword which seemed to point on its own, or at least commanding my arm towards the forest path.

At first the girls took the lead, but with a quick shake of my head to push away the feeling I had just felt, I ran ahead and retook the lead with the girls following closely behind me. "Were you ever part of the royal guard where you were from?"

I shook my head, but smiled. "Nah, as much as I wanted to, you had to pass many tests in order to get through. I wasn't trusted with a weapon back home."

"Why?" Apple Bloom asked.

Again, I shook my head. "You're too young to know, sorry. Let's just say I've been though some tough times that caused me to fight my own inner war." I looked on into the dark wood. "A war that still rages inside, even to this very day. As peaceful as it may seem on the outside, I'm a wasteland inside. Bombs have been dropped, words said that weren't meant to be..."

Scootaloo stepped up to the plate. "I lost my parents, now I live in an orphanage. If it's anything like how I feel some days Chris, I think I have an idea."

"No, you may never know what it's like. Let's hope you don't." I looked down at my sword, thinking quickly to change the subject. "There were tons of legends about swords back where I'm from. Many were really big tales, but a lot of them were very true in many ways."

They all seemed excited to learn about it, so I continued. "There were two types of swords, you know what they are?"

"I hear Saddle Arabia has curved swords...CURVED SWORDS!"

I chuckle at her. "No, no, I mean the number of sharp edges it has?"

"Well I know that there's a sword called a Coltana." Sweetie answered with a large smile. "My daddy had one before I broke it with a magic surge when I was a little younger."

"Well, there's a...Coltana, and then there's a broad sword, like this." I hold up my blade. "Many knights loved them, and hated them. Others knew the true meanings behind a single edged sword, and a duel edged sword. A single edged sword on my world meant that you were truly at peace of yourself and that you had a pure soul." I tapped my chest. "At least, that's what I believe. Then there's a duel edged sword. A wise human once spoke of a weapon that could cut into the soul of you and your opponent. No one knew what his name was, but he said that a duel edged sword was like signing a deal, you can't back out of it until it's completed. 'Either you lived for the sword, or died by it', meaning if you didn't give it what it needs, it will take you instead in the end. One way or another, the sword would get its payment for being used in battle."

"You act like swords are alive..." Scootaloo said harshly.

"Scootaloo, let me tell you this, everything has a soul. A rock has a soul, a tree has a soul, the moon, the stars, everything in the entire universe has a soul. It was created atom by atom just like you or me in the same instance the universe came to be. Everything that has came, or what is to come, has a soul." Looking back down at my sword, shining from the few streaks of light through the trees. "Swords have souls, even this new sword. Though it is unnamed, it still has a destiny, like how you three haven't found your cutie marks."

"Ohhh...." It seemed as though they were catching on, thankfully. I don't know how to explain it any other way.

"Want to know something else cool?"

"What?"

"We're made of star stuff." I chuckled. "When a star dies, it gives itself to the universe in one massive explosion. That star stuff will fly across the universe until it falls onto a rock in deep space, or like a planet like this one or like the one I used to live on. Each atom, molecule, strand of DNA, cell, organ...all of you..."

"So we're all dust in the wind?" I wasn't sure if they were doing this on purpose, but referencing so many things from each was starting to get rather uncanny, quickly too.

"Not quite, dust yes, but dust with purpose."

"So a rock as purpose?"

"Either it has done its purpose, or it's yet to come." I answered.

Author's Note

So in this chapter, Chris gets a little philosophical....just a little bit, but it's all necessary as to his mentality later on in the fic. The next chapter is quite a bit longer, I had to split it apart into two other parts besides this one. Each being over three thousand words each, sitting all their lonesome in google docs. Just got to edit them a bit and one'll be up on Sunday, and the other next Wednesday. Till then, I bid you all ado!

PS: The rock has a purpose XD