Another Everfree?

By star rise, I had already given up on the lull of dreams, in fact actively avoiding it, as I knew Sunset whom had seen my memory of Luna invading the dreams of fillies would as well. Something I knew because although she had gained the ability to read the memories of another she could not hide from them what memories she saw as the target of her reading, in this case, myself, would still revisit the memories albeit without knowledge of why unless aware one was being read. Being such the memory of Sweetie Belle's dream and of the Tantabus had been the ones I brought to mind when she did, being the one I remembered most clearly of the three. Thus being awake as I was, eliminated the commotion of Sunset having to wake a slumbering pony beyond shaking me from my thoughts. “We head north by train for as far as it runs,” I condensed my monotone thoughts in a whisper to Sunset.

“You don’t look so good Grimoire, couldn’t sleep?” Sunset Yawned in reply.

“Same to you, you ought to see if some pony can spare a cup a’ coffee. After that I’ve got a bit of light reading I’d like to pick up at the library.” While saying this I realized my body was stiff and hurt terribly just from rolling to my hooves. “My everything hurts, I sure hope the train can get us to Filly Delphia,” I groaned stretching slightly enough as not to strain myself.

Before Sunset could get a word in Silver’s hooves clicked on the wood under the archway from the stairs, “Filly Delphia? Wasn’t your story that you were getting to Celestia?” Silver stumbled over her hooves stabilizing with her wings. One look at Silver crescent showed that she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep beyond Sunset and I, no doubt up all night watching us for suspicious behavior. “You two don’t look like you slept at all,” Silver squinted stifling a yawn herself.

“Honestly,” I raised a brow, “well it hasn’t actually been 48 hours yet for me so I should be fine till we get there.” Remembering Silver’s presence I looked to her adding verbal addendum, “No time for sleep in Griffonstone.”

Again before Sunset could speak Silver’s hooves clacked across the floor. “Why were you in Griffonstone anyway?”
“Well I spent quite a bit of time further east than that actually, You’d be surprised at what’s over that far, well I was anyway,” I lied, but presumably would have been true had I actually seen anything East of Griffonstone. “Before you ask the intention was to come in at Horseshoe Bay, dragon related issues, however, landed us further south, and we got lost. Now, about some breakfast,” I looked over my saddlebags which currently remained sealed shut with an anti-theft spell of Sunset’s making. Deciding I didn’t want to try putting them on without magic I looked away from them and back to Sunset and Silver before starting a slow unstable pace about the room. “Last timber wolf I fight without magic, your plenty brave doin’ that Silver.”

“You did better than I did.”

“Na’ that was just recklessness on my part, ahh, there we go I got the feeling back in my rear legs. Hate when that happens.”

“So,” Silver Crescent slowly started with a contemplative pause, “you weren’t a pony when Nightmare moon sent you out, but you are now? That’s still the story you want me to believe?”

“It’s complicated, long story short, we were, then we weren’t now we are again. She trained more in magic though, so she remembers it better, while I can do it but my results aren’t always what I want anymore,” I lied, having considered the question during the sleepless day. “Just another of the crazy things that happens when some pony ventures too far out. Seems to come with a bit of an amnesia spell on the other side too had to write everything down. It’s awful. Still havin’ a bit of an effect actually.”

“But you talk as if you know things about ponies as if you’ve already seen the events unfold? Look at me and tell me that’s not suspicious,” Silver demanded, while Sunset had contented herself to open her pack to grab a snack from it and enjoy the show.

“But it is suspicious,” I stated blankly blinking as if she had spoken a foreign language. “Do you want me to tell you it isn’t? Suspicious-ness though, doesn't make it any less true.”

Silver just stared at me, while Sunset continued to fish for snacks. Soon after Fluttershy came in with her mane untamed, but clearly more rested than the rest of us. “Oh, everypony is up. Well, um, I’m going to report in after I wash up, you three should too everypony must be worried about you being gone so long,” She cutely fumbled hiding behind her mane during the last part.

“Well they are headed north and I’m really worried about their mission so I’m gonna go with them they’ll need a trained guard like me, especially with the shape Grimoire is in,” Silver finished by shooting a distrustful glare my way. “Anyway I’ll write up a report before you leave so if you could, I’m sure my idiot brother is panicking by now.”

Holding the door to Golden oaks open far longer than necessary I thought aloud “ol' Golden Oaks, I sure have missed you.” And a moment more I waited before casting the monotone announcement “Well Silver, are you gonna get in here and help us, or not?” To which she emerged from the hay bale she had hidden in; as if no pony would notice a single conspicuous Hay bale tailing them, or generally being out of place.

I did in traversing the place, find it interesting to note that Ponyville didn’t actually look nearly as different as I would have expected, though some places had been hastily and amateurishly patched up, others one would have to be actively looking for signs of destruction to see. It was still early star rise though, so the lack of activity in the usually colorful place failed to come as a surprise. As the three of us looked around the Library which I had fed Silver a lie about being a past dweller in the living quarters of, as far as Silver knew we were looking for basics of magic so I could ‘regain’ my magical ability during the journey before confronting Celestia. Sunset and I, however, were actually looking for more advanced, and offbeat spell books, in my case looking for a few specific particularly dangerous spells, Persuadere, Similo Duplexis, Accelero, and so forth which had been cast by Starlight in the episode I had most recently seen. This search, unfortunately, found that most of the books on magic had actually been brought in by Twilight therefore still being far from Golden Oaks, safe from us giants with those things we call hands.

Having scoured the shelves Silver had come up with two books about teaching young unicorns about their horn and how to control simple magic they would need such as levitation and writing with an implement such as a quill as exampled within. The second of the two had clearly been targeted at slightly older but still young ponies as it was less of a picture book and more informative regarding responsibility with magic, taking care of one’s horn, and magical fluctuations every young unicorn has at a certain time. As well as the Golden oaks copy of ‘Predictions and Prophecies’, a book which I instructed Silver to promptly burn, sad as I was to give up the opportunity to own such a historic piece and see it burn again as it had when Tirek returned in the original timeline. Sunset had found the book holding the cure to poison joke, one on advanced magic, and two books regarding Equestrian history where the rest of the subject seemed mostly to contain the histories of Ponyville, Dodge City, and Appaloosa, as well in one case a bit about a certain rock farm to the south-west. I had found one book on theoretical and uncommon magic, which for reasons I believe obvious I stored in my saddlebag without revealing to silver, and a survivor’s cookbook supposedly containing recipes that can be foraged from around Equestria. Once Silver had gone to dispose of 'Predictions and Prophecies' ridding Ponyville of record concerning the only thing that had brought down Nightmare Moon in recorded history, I scanned the table of contents of the magic books Sunset and I had found for a specific spell I had read about in an adventure one unfortunate Sweetie Belle endured. Unfortunately, the spell to expand the usable space within the bags without physically having them altered was not present. The spells Accelero, and Persuadere, curiously along with the incredibly dangerous and evidently also incredibly complicated want it need it, however, could be found in its pages.

“What are you looking at over there,” Sunset paused as she had still been looking back over the shelves for more useful books, and glimpsing over the page to which I had opened the book I found.

“Something dangerous that I would under normal circumstances say should be illegal to cast,” I rolled as an off-hoof comment attempting to analyze the page.

“Let me have a look,” Sunset strutted over, before glancing at the page and nickering a small sound. “You can’t expect me to believe you understand what that says it’s 5-dimensional psychological spell casting.

“Five? Well, I won’t claim to know what any of the numbers are, but I will say that it looks to be mostly a mix of geometry as most magic is, at least as far as I’ve seen in these books and Psychology, which is the part I don’t know how to read. Now that you tell me there was a fifth plane to look at the geometry part makes more sense somehow, still don’t really know where it’s supposed to be though,” I gave only slight apathy to the page. “Unless the fifth plane is in-constant and actually is dependent on a tangent or cosine, or… well, this one I don’t think is a parabola anyway? I’m only any good at the geometric part of math, the rest of that nonsense that’s usually useless in the other world, I’m just lost,” I snorted trying to close the book in resignation. The book did not close immediately however as Sunset stopped it with a hoof, glanced over the page, let go, and shrugged.

Packing only the books that most interested us, Sunset conjured fakes of the books we were taking that would disappear after a few hours, then we attempted to sneak out while Silver Crescent was still managing the flames. We got as far as the station before Silver had tracked us down.

“Don't Think any pony I find suspicious can get away,” Silver Crescent panted hovering across the platform from us.

“Oh, I love games!” I began weaving one spell I had specifically looked at for this scenario having decided Persuadere looked too complex for now. Without so much as the time to blink twice, I turned my head and struck her with it right in the face. “At such short range though even I can hit you,” I added as her wings suddenly stopped and she fell in the empty station like a pin drop. Hearing Sunset’s reaction I added, “It was just a small concussive spell, she should wake up soon enough to keep pursuing us, but we can lose her or cast a bit of Persuadere her way by the time we reach our switch point, I just want a bit of peace and quiet. Or another possibility, I guess, is that she’ll come with help and we can have an action movie style fight on top of the train cars for some reason, even though being inside is far more to our advantage as unicorns. Also, I don’t like heights, I don’t fear them but moving at high speed on the outside of a train is not my idea of safe, also that timber wolf hurt.”

We quickly hid Silver’s unconscious body and waited for the train to arrive from where we could stow away without the notice of the conductor, putting a scarecrow we had quickly fashioned with Silver’s armor at the station so the train would stop, and a note apologizing to Silver for knocking her out.

During the train ride, I practiced Telekinesis by floating bits of rock, something I found myself incapable of without the book open to the page detailing the geometry and physics of the spell. Even though I only knew what some of it meant, the ‘logic’ I suppose it’s fair to call it, of the pages seemed clear while the spell was being cast as it had been when the concussion spell was cast. It hadn’t been long into the trip that Sunset suggested I remove the paper band wrapped around my left foreleg on which I had transcribed a few elements of the spell I had prepared to remind myself. A thing which I considered but quickly waved off in continual preparation for unknown events. Eventually I got bored of playing with rocks, and adjusted the book again, put it open on the floor and focused on the parabolic arc the pages would take and a slow starting velocity, considering the points in the arc in which the direction of the page might change or environmental factors were there any that would influence the page being moved aside from gravity. Concluding that it had been placed so that the inertia of the train itself would not hinder, or assist, I focused the magic mostly on the edge of the page as one would with a hand and turned the page. Slowly I made my way through turning at higher speeds as I went 'till I had reached a speed with which I found comfort, not too slow, not too fast, just ri… well, it was a bit slow but I was new to it so I was content. Well as content as I could be having not found a caffeine spell anyway. Finding myself able to manage the basic ability to turn the pages in the book I returned to moving the rocks around telekinetically now including tossing them as hard as I could manage, much to Sunset’s amusement.

“I’ll get it,” I sighed in frustration.

“Are you sure you don’t want some help?” Sunset teased.

In reply I picked one of the rocks back up in my magic, giving it a purple glow. This time however rather than try throwing it like a ball I took a deep breath focusing a small cone of magic behind it sucking the rock into the vacuum that created and released the breath inverting the cone, like one of those pop dome toys, launching it hard enough to indent into the train’s wall. “Ya! I did it!”

“Not too loud Grimoire, you’ll attract attention from the other cars,” Sunset scolded. “Way to go though,” she smiled.

“Alright that’s enough magic practice, for now, I might need something in reserve, besides that I don’t want my magic pollution to go an’ cause another Dark Water incident.”

About three hours had gone by the train came to a slow stop, and inspectors boarded before letting any pony off. Sunset teleported both of us out of the train to an alleyway in a dazzlingly blinding flash of light, from which both of our tired minds took a moment to recover. After said action sunset conjured black cloaks over us to hide our identities until we had lost our trackers who had given chase upon being alerted to teleport magic having been used.

With Sunset’s knowledge of the streets, we quickly made our way through the city, our saddlebags each now sporting Celestia’s cutie mark emblazoned on their sides by a spell sunset told me contained a code Celestia would recognize from her magic lessons that they had used before, boldly stating our allegiance to everypony. We, while still tired, looked better than we had now that we had brushed our manes since arriving in the city, and Sunset had figured out a Caffeine spell. Hungry though we were, being without bits we made our way past restaurants and food stalls to the castle where we were met at the gates by two guards whose names I did not know. After a considerable amount of deliberation and an agreement to have inhibitors placed on our horns and all belongings searched and separated from us during it, Sunset and I gained an appointment to meet with Celestia, partly due to Celestia’s own curiosity when word had reached her that a pony claiming to be Sunset Shimmer had arrived at the gates.

We, Sunset and I had found a couple of bits some pony had lost and were now sharing a two-bit cucumber sandwich and the snacks we had left, as I continued to pour over the basics of magic, and Sunset pondered what to say to her once mentor while we waited as the hours ticked by.

“You know Grimoire, most unicorns don’t actually pay much attention to the specifics of magic, you could try learning it that way.”

“Most ponies can use telekinesis, illumination, and whatever their special talent is, unicorns like us who have a talent in magic can and therefore should expand that list. That’s an excuse; I feel like I’m meant to do it this way though, given my mark. Oh! That reminds me,” I jumped wincing in pain from my earlier exhaustion when I did, and sat back down. “I haven’t actually told you what I plan to propose to Celestia for us to do, have I?”

“No, you have a plan now?”

“Oh, ya. I’m not really sure what order we should do it in or even where everypony is now, but the idea is that basically, we are gonna travel around Equestria gathering the most powerful unicorns who aren’t already military, six or seven of which including ourselves have a talent in magic, it’s more common than one would think.”

“Oh, well you’re going to need more than that for Celestia. Do you have a list?”

“Yep. The two of us, this world’s Twilight Sparkle, an underclassman of Twilight's, her name’s Moon Dancer, a mare who we should be able to find if we travel northeast who has started her own community without cutie marks, to clarify she actually created a spell to remove cutie marks, the whole system she’s got going is misguided and terrible but she’s a good pony at heart, just her moral compass is a bit… a lot off, her name is Starlight Glimmer. There might be a pony named uh…,” I checked my list, “Sunburst, who was a foal hood friend of Starlight’s. He isn’t really so good at practical application though, more the realm of theoretical magic is his thing I think. He could be in the Crystal Empire again if Celestia has claimed that from king Sombra again. I don’t know. And finally Trixie Lulamoon, who goes by The Great and Powerful Trixie. She isn’t actually all too powerful, but she, like Starlight is creative, unlike Twi.”

“I’m not sure about a lot of those ponies, but you mentioned Twilight do you know where she lives? Perhaps we should start with her?”

“Kind of. I have seen Moon Dancer’s house, so it's probably similar, not that it matters Celestia will, and I do know Twilight’s study tower.”

“Study tower? Oh, is it the same one I was using before I left. Would you happen to know?”

“It could be, never saw you in it. Do you know what the weird red contraption in the back is, I’ve been trying to figure that out?”

“The what?”

“The thing by the window, I have no idea what it is, it’s just there.”

“Oh,” Sunset realized. “That was mine. It’s essentially an over-designed to the point of being useless tea kettle. I bought it on a whim, though I can’t imagine why,” she clarified.

“Finally, I know what it is! I have been waiting 6 seasons to find out what that was.”

“Sure Grimoire, I didn’t know any pony would care so much about that thing.”

“Well, it’s a conversation starter and a bizarre piece of art. You don’t have to use all those syllables every time though, just call me Grim if ya’ want.”

“Well that will be one less syllable I guess, but if I’m calling you by a nickname won’t that be,” Her sentence was cut short when I interrupted.

“It’s fine, I’ll just call you Sunny, or Sunny bunny if you like.”

“Please don’t,” she immediately responded with a hard expression despite being exhausted.

“I wish we could go sleep someplace while we wait.”

“It won’t be too much longer we may as well go on over now,” Sunset shrugged looking up at the cloudy sky.

Silver Crescent shook herself as she returned to the waking world, only to find that she was tightly between the ground and a low wooden platform. Crawling out from under said platform she came to realize it was actually the boarding platform for the train and that a paper had been tied to her hoof.

When she unraveled the note it read:

Silver Crescent, Sorry I had to knock you out. The pony we are meeting with, in Filly Delphia is distrustful of unscheduled guests, and we are already late as it is.

-In hopes, we can still be friends

“Who signs a letter without a name?” Silver brought herself to her hooves, dusted herself off re donning her armor, and took off towards Filly Delphia.

I gulped as we trotted through the white halls of the palace keeping pace to stay between the four guard ponies that had been assigned to escort us, not to the large double doors of her court as I had expected but to the single still oversized door that led to Celestia’s personal chambers.

As soon as we stepped in I bowed my head as far as I could ignoring the pain still present from fighting the timber wolf, feeling on my entire body a heavy pressure like walking from air conditioning out to a particularly hot and humid day. Celestia slowly approached us from across the room with an even methodical pace slowly lessening the pressure with each step of her hooves against the soft carpet. Although the pressure was lessening I didn’t dare stand or speak before she spoke.

When she did no malice met her tone, only love. “Sunset, I’ve been waiting.”

Sunset and I both paused a moment. “All this time, you were waiting for me,” sunset spoke first in a low volume confirming to herself what she had heard.

“Sunset gets a reset then,” I spoke softly rising slightly but remembering it actually hurt to do so.

“Of course Sunset, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well Celestia,” I started at a normal volume picking myself up to a normal height. “You, not to be rude but you could’ve given a bit more attention to Sunset, and Luna, and probably Twilight. I may as well tell you that I’ll be asking about her latter so you can prepare for that. Sorry, I know you have a lot to do being the princess and with Luna I know there was a lot going on 1000 years ago too with Sombrero and whatnot, so don’t beat yourself up over it. Ah, how rude of me! I should introduce myself formally. I am Grimoire Dusk. I spent many years as something of an observer watching from two days before the stars aided in her escape, to present day of a timeline in which the Elements of Harmony had been restored, and Luna returned to rule beside you, as well as many other versions of reality. I tell you this not because it is particularly useful information, but because it is interesting, and in hopes that you can find some comfort in that a reality in which harmony returned does exist. I know a lot about this land including the reality of the wendigos and the draconequus. Although I, in all honesty, want to make myself easier to understand. Now Sunset, I know you both missed each other go give your mom a hug.”

“Mom!?” Sunset & Celestia shared their surprise.

“Well, she raised you after all didn’t she? I mean I know that for as much as she loved you she couldn’t show it, so it doesn't seem that way, but there’s no reason you can’t make up for that now. Anyway, I’d like to leave you to that and get some much-needed sleep now that we are out of your sister’s territory, if I may in your graces find a place to lay my head Princess,” I bowed again to Celestia.

Celestia trotted up to sunset, but looked over to me for a moment, “Go my little pony, rest,” Celestia pointed a hoof to a door through which I exited after thanking her and bowing again. “Your coltfriend is… interesting,” Celestia commented in a surprisingly light-hearted tone.

“He pfft what, he’s not…” was the last thing I heard before closing the door and falling immediately asleep as soon as I had flopped onto the sun princess sized bed.

When I stirred from my slumber I first realized I was in a soft, and warm yet powerful embrace. Then I realized it was because Celestia was laying between Sunset and I on the bed covering us with her wings. Coming to this realization I decided that for now all was right in this small part of the world, and returned to the embrace of sleep with no reason to stay awake. Sunset, had apparently done a better job than I had at explaining our situation, not that I had ever been good at summing up events in a logical, or convenient way. “I’ll go gently into this good night,” I yawned snuggling up to the big pony princess like a big fluffy carnival prize.