My Little Pony: Forever Stranger

They took some getting used to, of course. The same way somepony who's lived in a cave gets used to a city- slowly. We were only separated by a decade, but they always seemed so much younger. She and Gear were always laughing, telling each other stories as they worked. Genius comes in all forms, I thought foolishly at the time, and I supposed not everypony was meant to escape the faults of youth...

My two sparkling assistants did a lot of the legwork, investigating local discoveries while I busied myself at the chalkboard. They usually didn't pan out- always some fraud claiming to have invented a weather controller or magic amplifier. It was bad enough they were selling lies, but that they claimed to be ponies of science? That made them even worse than my peers...

Machines and magic get along to an extent, you see, but eventually the former just quits if you push it too hard. You'd need a machine the size of Canterlot to replace one of the princesses, power not included. If only the Empire were still around. If I had just an hour with the Crystal Heart...

It was the best time of my life. The three of us were in a comfortable routine, and filled the year with research and the occasional experiment. We were making little progress, but I was fine with that. Better than Gear and Topaz were. They still had to learn that science isn't done in a day. I learned that lesson the hard way, and another soon after. Ponies aren't always who they seem, who they pretend to be when they know you're watching.
Ivory Slate, The Scientific Mind

Deep in the foothills lay a path that snaked into the mountains' cliff pedestal. The sheer walls refused to be contaminated with snow, so grey rock ruled his vision whenever he managed to look away from his hooves. A slick pus coated the trail- not smooth like an ice rink, but bumpy like when the watery slush that's been stepped on all day froze again. He knew he'd been adding to it. Clear, hot beads tumbled from his forehead, the cost of the thawing spell he'd used for four of the past six hours. Ten minutes ago, as he panted and grimaced, he decided to take his chances on the ice, rather than press on until he blacked out.

The path thinned, the cliff face gradually pushing on his left side, outwards. He crushed and ran his shoulder against the jagged grain of the rock, while the balls of his ankles rubbed and ground against each other with every step. Any less, and half his right hoof would've been hanging off the edge. He bit his tongue to pry away the panic, narrowed his eyes, and kept up his crippled walk, the sled dangling beneath him like an evil pendulum.

A slip on the ice turned into a flailing hop as he threw himself onto a small flat before a black-soaked cave. He lay there a second, in an undignified position, and levitated the sled onto the outcropping.

Then the void of the stone esophagus growled.

Without thinking Gale rolled onto his hooves, cast a flare into the cave- too tired for any lasting spell. In the spark of light he had seen a dozen pairs of hungry eyes. He drew his sword, and that's when the pack charged.

He'd never swung at anything more dangerous than a sandbag. To make matters worse sandbags don't have granite jaws and ice-spike teeth. He swung at the lead's torso, and his mouth rattled with the handle as the blade bounced off the stone that was the wolf's side. He staggered back, kicked his equally stunned attacker in the nose. It staggered, trying to balance on its hindlegs until its head smacked against the cliff and exploded in a spray of clear, sandy crystals.

The cloak yanked on his neck and sent him falling backwards. Another one had slipped behind him and tore into the cloth. He made a mistake and blinked, then the third was on top of him, shattering glass mouth snapping. His forehooves, pressed into the beast's neck, kept his head safe, but they were slowly compressing on top of him. So tired. His horn yanked at the cloak-biter's fangs. The beast popped off with enough force to send it rolling off the cliff. He screamed and kicked and rolled and came up blasting the one that had been on top of him. It shattered like its pack leader. Finally Gale was alone on the outcropping. With still nothing but panic between his ears he shot a lance at the cave mouth and buried whatever was left inside. The crunchy impact of the boulders reverberated in his skull, followed by whimpering and clawing from the other side. Quiet nails on chalkboards.

With mortal terror momentarily staved off, he sat in the crumbly piles of his victory and felt absolutely nothing, neither triumph nor relief. After five minutes of watching the ice and stone fragments slowly drift and pile together, turning into claws and legs and noses, he gathered his sled and marched on, the cold surging onto his back where the cloak was torn.

***

Another hour, and the path from the cave carried him past a small village in the decor of Ponyville: cobblestone porches, thatch roofs, purpled wood frames. He walked down the sole avenue, between the two rows of empty houses. Snow had long imploded their straw shingles, ice had warped the beams, and gusts of wind gutted the summery, open-air designs. As he finally passed through, he wondered who in their right mind would have built it. The town was as well-suited to Bovaria as a daisy to a desert. The oxen seemed smarter than that.

More than once he swore he was being followed. But whenever he looked closely it was always a boulder, a lump of snow, or the silhouette of the cliffs. Fifteen minutes later he arrived at the bottom of a barren terrace that was gateway to the mountains proper. Unlike everything else in Bovaria, the clam-shaped, stadium-sized farmland was only dusted. Fresh hoofprints pockmarked the black, brittle soil. Between the cobblestone stairs and black pine fence railings, Gale needed only to climb ten minutes to the top shelf, where the fog exhumed another surprise.

What..?

A tower with minaret lumbered over the terrace. Its marble shell, whiter than polished ivory, stood in stark contrast to the chalky cliffs, oblivious to the frost that crackled across its face. Gold paint swirled and checkered the building's facade, and a pair of royal blue doors sat recessed in the smoothstone wall. They seemed to invite Gale in rather than submit to the feeble glow of his horn, and when they finished their dramatic opening, a living statue greeted him in a sing-song voice.

"Good afternoon!"

The young ox was as bigger than a mare. She stood doused in a lavender musk fit for tea parties, and blue silks slicked the saddlecloth on her back. The sight of her made Gale look down at himself, at his dripping cloak, bow-legged and wobbling knees. He wiped off his badge, looked back up, and his seared eyes widened as the ox introduced herself.

"My name's Stray Frazil. What's yours?"

Gale ignored her as he took in the high-ceilinged hall: alabaster tile, marble columns, rose and spade-shaped windows. But there were cracks everywhere in the mortar and stone, some weather, some stress, and even some that looked like impacts. A brass chandelier swung overhead on a groaning chain, its gold glow failing to hide imperfections in the facade.

Frazil's smile widened. "Beautiful, isn't it? Slate always complained it was so dark in here."

Gale spun to face her. "You know Slate?"

"Of course! Every ox knows Slate. Here!"

Frazil led him slowly through the polished hallways, pointing out random things as she went: a stained-glass window, a reading lamp, a velvet rug. The oxen here had made every last one of them, she said, and it was all thanks to Slate's help. Gale ignored her for the most part, recording everything with eyes and ears in preparation for his report to the Princess. She'd have to be impressed.

"So I didn't catch your name?" Frazil asked again.

"It's Bearing Gale," he said to quiet her.

"It's nice to meet you! It's really exciting meeting another pony. Where are you from? Canterlot? Manehattan? You seem like a city pony."

"Where is everyone?" They had just passed a lone bull with his head down. The mop in his hooves squeaked and sloshed against the marble, supporting most of his weight. He couldn't have been any older than Gale.

"Oh, everyone's busy running errands for Slate," Frazil went on.

"What kind of errands?"

"I'm sorry, but I have to know. What's your special talent? I'm willing to bet it has to do with nature, or navigating. Are you some kind of explorer?"

Gale wondered if this filly was ever going to shut up and answer his questions. He had a job to do, and it didn't involve indulging every oxen he came across. He stopped. "Alright, that's enough."

Frazil cocked her head. "Huh?"

"Listen, Ms.-"

"Frazil," she whispered.

"Look, Frazil, I'm here to talk to Slate. I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in getting into who I am or what you all are doing here." He almost complained about Summit and his entourage. Better instead that this one think she was the first he'd met.

She drew away. "I was just trying to be polite. I thought that's what ponies liked."

"Not all ponies are the same."

"I guess not," she sighed. They walked silently for a time. "I'm sure Slate can't wait to meet you," she mumbled. "I bet you'll be talking for hours."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, he's just really smart. He's always talking about work, his research, everything that needs to be done around here. Oh, and before you meet him, you should know. He can be kinda short-fused sometimes."

They passed a slightly ajar door. Rows of hay, as well as crates of dried fruit and vegetables stuffed the room inside. Gale made a note of it. Frazil continued, "I guess it gets frustrating for him, being around all us oxen all the time. He's just so smart, we don't understand half the things he says."

"So is Slate in charge here?"

"Oh no, he uses his magic to help us grow food and build. So we help him with his work by mining, collecting plants, things like that."

"What kind of work is he doing?"

"Really important stuff. Slate can tell you more. You're even a unicorn like him." A splintery wooden door lay ahead. Frazil stopped. "Here we are. Did you want to leave your sled here?"

"I'd rather hang on to it."

"Don't worry, we'll put it someplace safe," said a voice. Before Gale could reach for his sword, two young oxen were behind him, hastily yet gently unfastening the straps.

"Slate really doesn't like it when we make a mess in his study," one bull said. "We'll make sure you have it when you leave."

"Come on in!" Frazil said. She held the door open for Gale to step inside. Like the hall the study was another slice of Canterlot. Polished wood bookshelves lined the carved walls, revolving around an empty cobblestone fire pit in the center.

Gale frowned. "There's nothing here."

Frazil's eyes cast towards the floor. "Yeah, it's been a while since Slate used it."

Gale spun to face her, frowned. "You said he was here."

"He is! I mean...I thought he was."

Beside the desk was a small door, which opened into a stone-carved corridor. Frazil led Gale through to a small cave with pumping pistons, test tubes, and cables lining the walls. Clouds and fog peered in through a bay window on the far side. In the center was a metal flower with a heartbeat. Crystal obelisks as tall as Gale blossomed from the center. They cast a pulsing green glow through the lab, and were warm to the touch.

With horn lit, Gale paced around the machine, taking note of the strong magical aura he felt radiating from it. "What is this?"

Frazil's hoof traced circles in the stone. "It's...something I've been helping Slate with. Do you want to see what it does?"

"Why don't you tell me first."

"It's...a lot like your empire's Crystal Heart. It projects and sustains magic over a large area."

"What kind of magic?"

"I don't know the exact spells , but it has to do with weather and fertility."

Alright, no booby traps, no dark magic. But this thing's giving off a lot of power for what she says. Gale beckoned, and with trembling hooves Frazil adjusted some dials and switches on the control panel at the machine's base.

The glow of the prisms grew. They began to spin, slowly at first, accelerating until the middle of the flower was a whirring, blazing pyramid. With a flash, a sphere of light shot out from the crystals. Gale blinked, then found himself standing in a ten-meter semisphere. His hooves were planted not in the stone floor, but in a patch of wet dirt and grass. Smell of apple blossoms filled the air. The hanging heat unloaded the cold from his face and body. Then Frazil flipped the switch again, and the morsel of paradise retreated back into nonexistence.

Frazil made a weak smile. "Not bad, huh?"

The heat left Gale slowly. "Yeah..." He shivered and snapped out of the daydream stupor. "So why did Slate build this?"

"To help us, of course! The oxen, I mean. We could really use your help with finishing it. Slate told me he just needed more magic."

"Why can't he do it?"

"I don't know, maybe his age?" Frazil bent down and from behind the flower produced a horn sheath, attached to the machine's base by a thick cord. "Here, you can see how the sphere grows bigger with more magic." She held the thing out.

Gale eyed the metal cone, but didn't touch it. He looked up at Frazil and waited, silently. Five seconds. Her eyes darted from him to the flower. She gulped, and her gaze fell. He narrowed his eyes, took a step back, about to shake his head-

The dull pound of metal on stone shouted from behind. Gale's sword was in his mouth, but the steel-clad faces of three bulls were already reaching out with their hooves. "No! I'm so sorry! Please, this isn't how we-!" he heard Frazil shout for the next few seconds. A burst of air from his horn threw one off balance, but the other two kept coming. Gale lashed out with the pommel. It smashed the helmet of the bull that had grabbed his foreleg, but left him open to the third. A second later he was on his back, thrashing and bucking like an animal in a snare. His horn flared as he blinded the gray hulk wrestling with his hind legs. Standupstandup. Before he could, a shadow overhead brought its hoof down on his chest. He spat out his sword, gasping, horn burning. The shadow held in its hooves the metal flower's horn sheath. A single blast from his horn was all he had left. He let the shadow have it, then rolled over to stand up, his vision little more than shadows and green light as he caught his breath.

The bay window shattered, distracting the four of them. Frazil had long disappeared. A brown blur stood silhouetted between him and the flower crystals. Grunts, the clatter of armor.

"Come on, pony," said Flint, grabbing him by the collar and hoisting him out the window. He had just the presence of mind to will his sword into its scabbard.

Seconds later a tan cord sped by his head. Above him was Flint with one hoof on the cord and the other around his midsection, which churned from the reeling screech of their descent. Overhead a voice- a new one, raspy and stern- shouted angrily as a pop rang in the air. The rope went slack. Flint yelled, and the two of them fell in a wind tunnel.

...density over velocity...pour the spell don't throw it...'cast with your heart not your head...' After two false-starts, his horn sparked and a thick cushion of air pushed up at them. They fell slower. He bit hard on the sword handle before hilting it in an ice patch. The shock and jolt made him hit his head and Flint flip over. Her hooves dug into his neck when she landed on his back. Wet whirring sound as the cloak tore.

The skewed, white blur of a snowbank lay to the right. With no words between them, and Flint throttling him, the two began to swing and lurch towards it. At the bottom of their arc the sword snapped in half, sending it, its owner, and ox passenger alike flying to the side, then tumbling head-over-hooves down the slope.