Chapters A Natural Order to Things
"Runt!"
"Squirt!"
A group of Angel children surrounded the rainbow haired Angel. She was new and just wanted to make friends. She sniffled and stayed on the ground, not wanting to get punched again.
"How could you think we would accept you?"
"You're that bastard traitor's daughter!"
"Or did you hit your head one too many times, Rainbow Crash !"
The girl flinched at that name and their jeering. It was not her fault what her father did. He was doing what he thought was best. The Praetor accepted the duel. It did not matter now. She and her mother had been kicked out of Haven and now, even Astrous would not welcome them. One of the kids kicked her in the back. She howled in pain. The kids laughed at her anguish and her torment. Her skin began to sting and she realized they were throwing rocks at her.
"If no one else will do something, then I will do something about it myself ," her father's voice echoed in her head.
Her blood began to boil. Her rage began to seethe. Her eyesight turned red.
"Dash!"
Rainbow Dash blinks.
"Decurio Dash!"
She turns around and salutes the angry looking Tesserarius. "Sir!"
"Get your men ready for scouting. Preliminary scans show smoke on the horizon. We need to know if we are too late. If we are, find evidence of the attackers. These attacks must come to an end."
"Yes, Soarin, sir!" Rainbow Dash salutes.
Soarin salutes and adds, "Be safe. We already lost contact with First Wing."
"'Safe' is no fun!" Rainbow remarks and takes off running.
Soarin sighs and shakes his head.
Rainbow Dash soars over Fort Nimbus, taking in the view of her station. She spots her soldiers in the courtyard training. She smirks. She folds her wings against her body and dives toward a sparring duo. She flares her wings out to stop above them and blow a gust of wind in their face.
She laughs and the other Angels laugh. She sets down on the ground and claps a hand on Lightning Dust's shoulder. "Ready for your first mission?"
Lightning Dust smirks, "I was born ready!"
The other members of her turma start to circle around Rainbow Dash at the word "mission."
"We are close to Wharfton. Wing One has not reported back which could mean trouble. If we do not catch these attackers, soon they will attack Seattle." Rainbow Dash informs her charges.
"Sir," Wind Waker speaks up, "What if we are too late?"
"Wing One may be engaged with the attackers, we can only hope our wings and the wind carry us fast enough to support them," Rainbow Dash says.
"Sir, how did monsters get this far west? Doesn't the Wall keep them at bay?" Surprise questions.
"It should. I don't know how they got this far," Rainbow answers.
"Isn't Legion Legate Spitfire's sister, Blaze, apart of Wing One?" Cloud Chaser voices.
"Yes. Primus Blaze leads Wing One. Which is even more reason why you have two minutes to gear up," Rainbow orders.
Her men scramble to the armory and she waits patiently for their return. In record time, her fifteen charges retrieve their gear and assemble front and center. Surprise hands a spear to Rainbow Dash, who accepts the weapon with a nod.
Rainbow flares open her wings and crouches low, ready for take off. "Wing Two, let's fly!" She shoots up into the air in a rainbow blur and her turma follows suit.
Half an hour of flying and Wing Two hovers above the remains of the front gate of Wharfton. Rainbow Dash immediately recognizes the tracks as being similar to the other three attack sites. Wolves are out of the question, these were too big, wargs seem likely but the tracks belong to a bipedal creature not a quadruped. No sign of Wing One and no sign of recent battle. Rainbow signals the turma to spread out and search the desolate town.
Lightning Dust lands in the middle of the gateway and swallows the lump in her throat. The monsters tracks were three times the size of her foot and they ripped apart the gate like twigs. Rainbow Dash had steeled her stomach but the torn bodies and littered entrails made her want to wrech. More than a couple of her charges had spilled their dinner onto the bloody ground.
Rainbow Dash is gawking at the bodies hanging from the market place archways when she hears a blood curdling scream. She zooms into the air and heads for the scream. She freezes when she gets to the source of the scream.
Thunderlane had been searching the houses for survivors when a sound catches his ear. He walks across the way to a church and pushes open the hanging door with his spear. The sound he had heard? Crunching. His eyes grow wide when he realizes what the grotesque monster is munching on: Primus Blaze.
He drops his spear. The monster fixes its red eyes on him. He freezes when the monster gets up. He screams when the thing jumps on him.
Rainbow Dash roars and charges at the beast with her spear, several of her charges do the same. The beast swipes their spears away and pulls in Surprise by her spear. Rainbow Dash digs her heel into the jaws of the monster and Surpise flies away. Rainbow slices one of its pointy ears off and lunges at its exposed throat.
The beast grabs the blade and snarls at Rainbow. Rainbow brings up her knees which connects with the lower jaw of the beast and makes it stumble back. Cloudchaser stabs her spear into the belly of the beast which only breaks in half. Cloudchaser backs away from the monster with her hands up and chuckles nervously. Screams catch Rainbow's ears and she turns around to see more of the monsters surrounding them and waiting on top of houses.
"Retreat!" Rainbow orders and shoots into the sky.
The monsters leap into the air and five Angels are caught in their grasps.
"Nooooo!" Surprise screams.
The monster above her opens its jaws to clamp around her neck. Surprise closes her eyes. She feels something wet splash on her face. She opens her eyes and sees a headless beast on her with its crimson blood dripping on her. She kicks the monster off her and hears fighting.
A heavily armored person is fighting the monsters and freeing the other Angels. This person's swords slice through the beast without difficulty. The beast charge at the new threat and are cut down one after the other. Within seconds, the twenty odd monsters had been cut down by the armored stranger. The stranger sheathes their swords and looks around at the Angels before walking off.
Rainbow Dash dives down to intercept the stranger. "Who are you?" she asks.
The armored stranger pulls back a bloody brown hood to reveal a mask. They take off the mask next to reveal the face of a woman. The woman's pale yellow eyes stare into Rainbow's soul.
"I am Shade Nìzī Kūàmírà Whulphe, Emissary of the Werewolves. I am on a mission to hunt down and kill these Ferals," the woman with short white hair informs.
"A 'Werewolf?!' They haven't been seen in centuries!" Cloudchaser awes.
"They only sent one of you to hunt the 'Ferals' down?" Rainbow questions.
"My hunting pack is on the heels of the Ferals. I came back when I noticed tracks heading back here," Shade answers. Shade cocks an eyebrow at the dark haired woman examining her and steps away from her.
"I thought Werewolves were supposed to be… taller?" High Winds says, while extending her right hand above her head.
"Not all of us are lucky to be seven feet tall," Shade growls. She puts her mask on and covers her head with the leather hood.
"Where are you going?" Rainbow inquires to the she-wolf walking away.
"To catch up with my pack," Shade replies without looking back.
Rainbow Dash watches the she-wolf jump on top of a house and disappear behind it. She heaves a heavy sigh.
"High Winds," Rainbow Dash speaks and the woman steps and salutes in front of Rainbow Dash, "Return to base and inform them of the situation. We will stay here and clean up."
"Sir!" High Winds salutes and takes off.
"Cloudchaser, Surprise, Wind Waker, Lightning Dust, gather the remains of Wing One and Thunderlane. The rest of you, find as much of the townspeople as you can so they can receive a proper burial," Rainbow Dash orders solemnly.
"If Shade hadn't come to our rescue…" Lightning Dust begins.
"We would've ended up like Wing One," Cloudchaser finishes. "We got lucky."
Rainbow Dash watches her new recruits walk away. She bends down to examine a 'Feral' by her feet. The beast is easily eight feet tall. She draws her sword and pokes at the hide of the Feral to no avail. Her steel sword did not penetrate it.
"No wonder the spears had no effect," she thinks to herself. She stands to her feet, sheathes her sword, and flexes her wings before helping the others with the grizzly task of rounding up the dead.
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A Natural Order to Things
She Loves the Smell of Gunpowder in the Morning
Gunpowder, an unintentional byproduct of an alchemical experiment created by the Daemon. The powder is quickly weaponized and further refined by the Werewolves. When the Western World of Daemon, Elf, Werewolf, Dragon, and Vampyre met the Eastern World of Terran and Angel, an exchange of ideas and culture happened. The new people united together to bring down Discord and his army of monsters.
From the ashes of the Eastern World rose a new civilization of unity between Elves, Daemon, Angels, Terran, the new Empire of Equestria, named for all the wild horses that called that land home. Gunpowder helped secure the new land. Dragons, Vampyres, and Werewolves travel back to the Western World to try and reclaim land sacked by Discord.
Gunpowder weapons advance for the next three hundred years from mere tubes of metal to refined, deadly rifles. Flintlock, muzzle loaded rifles, and pistols are the norm nowadays—in the East; in the West, Werewolf ingenuity and weaponsmithing have advanced guns and armor by a hundred years. A solitary and secluded West keeps all information in their borders from passing to the East.
Terrans build especially well rifles and pistols and much more powerful gunpowder, mostly out of necessity, since they can not use magic nor have Dragon like strength. With a gun, the playing field is mostly even for them. A well-placed shot could drop even the largest of monsters.
Applejack is a Terran, a well known Terran, from a well-known family. Her family was the first to settle Ponyville and established an apple orchard. The town grew around the Apple family farm, Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack is the middle sibling of three; her older brother is called Big Mcintosh, and her younger sister is named Apple Bloom. Applejack's parents had died in a monster attack when Apple Bloom was a baby; Granny Smith Apple takes care of her three grandchildren. Big Mcintosh hopes to inherit the farm from Granny Smith.
Another famous Terran from Ponyville: Pinkamena "Pinkie" Diane Pie, a well known/respected ordinance operator and munitions expert—she loves things that go "Boom!"—in short, and is highly skilled in that field. She designed the defense cannons and mortars for the capital of Canterlot and the cannons that keep monsters at bay on the Wall.
Pinkie Pie was born and raised in a small town called Quarry, on her parent's homestead called Rock Farm where her family harvests… rocks. That life was not destined nor liked by Pinkie Pie, and she moved to Ponyville to become an apprentice to Wrought Vulcan, a blacksmith, and gunsmith. She excelled in creating guns and explosives and later invented the breech-loading cannon.
Pinkie Pie and Applejack became close friends over time. Applejack is an avid outdoors-woman and with Pinkie Pie's rifles in hand, has defended Ponyville from many monsters. Pinkie Pie loves inventing new weapons and explosives.
Ponyville lies ten miles from the Wall. The Wall—a sixty foot tall, six thousand miles long, granite fortification that took two hundred years to construct. The Wall stretches from the easternmost city of Equestria, Baltimare, heads west to central Ponyville, and then south to Arid Bia, Beu-heyrit, the southernmost part of the continent of Equus. Many lives were lost in defense of building the Wall, but the Wall has protected more people than without it.
Applejack is doing rounds around Sweet Apple Acres when she notices wolf tracks and a broken section of wooden fence. She furrows her brow and spurs her horse to race back to the farm, the direction the tracks lead. She hears her animals in a panic. The sound of gunfire catches her ear. From the top of the house, Big Macintosh takes up a position to fire on the brown wolves below. Apple Bloom sits behind him to reload rifles while Granny Smith throws junk at them from inside through a window. The wolves begin to scatter, a couple charge at Applejack and her horse. She fires her rifle, drops the wolf on the right, and quickly draws a pistol to shoot the second wolf that launches itself at her.
Applejack dismounts her horse and starts checking on the goats where the wolves had amassed. Half of the flock gone and a quarter had sustained injuries. She kicks up dirt in frustration and mutters an expletive under her breath.
"Eeyup," Big Macintosh comments as he inspects a dead wolf.
Applejack narrows her eyes in the direction the wolves ran away. "Big Mac, I'm gonna go and rid these varmin for good," she states as she storms into the house.
"You can't go out there alone, Applejack," Granny Smith tells her granddaughter as the blonde walks past.
"I know that, Granny. I'm gonna round up a posse and get Pinkie to help," Applejack hollers from her room. A few minutes later, she descends the stairs with three extra pistols, an additional rifle, ammunition, and flasks of gunpowder. She bends down and kisses Granny's forehead, "I'll be back later, Granny."
"You better!" Granny exclaims and shakes a fist at Applejack as she rides off. She sighs and looks over to see Big Mac's green eyes. He nods his head and walks away with two wolves in his arms. "Mother, keep that girl safe," Granny prays and walks back into the house.
Pinkie Pie stands up from crouching and looks back over her shoulder at Applejack. "Yup. The wolves dug under the Wall here," Pinkie Pie affirms. She skips back to her noble brown steed and pulls herself up into the saddle.
Applejack points to the five men to her left, "Y'all stay here and fill in that hole. Make sure none are in there and none come out."
The men nod and dismount from their horses to start their assignment.
"The rest of y'all, we got some varmin that needs culling," she snaps the reigns and her horse lurches forward. The other twelve people and Pinkie follow after the cowgirl.
An hour later, the group finds themselves on the other side of the Wall, officially in Monster Territory. Applejack leads the posse of fellow ranchers and friends into the dark Everfree Forest. Blood and tracks lead them to a cave twenty minutes into the forest. Applejack begins to load her rifle and the others begin to do the same. Applejack looks to the right and nods at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie's face lights up as she lights the fuses of three grenades and quickly lobs them into the cave. Pinkie Pie throws tar bombs that cover the front of the cave with thick tar.
Wolves run out of the cave after the explosions spook them. They slip and roll in the tar. Pinkie lights an incendiary grenade and throws it. The Terrans whoop and cheer watching the wolves burn. Snarls mix with screams from behind Applejack and Pinkie. The other half of the pack had returned, catching the mounted Terrans by surprise.
Applejack drops four wolves and Pinkie Pie shoots two. The men fight back with their empty rifles, bludgeoning the wolves but the wolves outnumber them three to one. Applejack spurs her mount and Pinkie follows her friend. The wolves leap out of the bushes and pull riders off their horses.
"We sure kicked a hornet's nest!" Pinkie Pie exclaims and drops grenades behind her.
"No kiddin'!" Applejack replies. "Whoa!" she interjects and ducks under a flying wolf.
"C'mon, A Monkey's Uncle!" Pinkie Pie urges to her horse.
Minutes later and the two women explode out of the bushes with their horses. Applejack pulls out a flare gun from her hip and fires a red flare into the dark sky. Wolves growl and howl after them. Just when the closest wolf was about to bite A Monkey's Uncle, shots erupted from the ramparts of the Wall. Applejack and Pinkie heave a sigh of relief as the brown wolves start to retreat. Pinkie Pie holds out her left fist to Applejack as they crossed the drawbridge over the Moat. Applejack shakes her head and smiles, bumping fists with her friend.
"We will hold a service for all the men who didn't make it," Applejack says solemnly.
"Hopefully, that is last time we'll see wolves for a long time," Pinkie remarks.
A Natural Order to Things
When Your Mother Wants Genocide
Some time ago. . .
Crunch!
Crack!
Snap!
The Werewolf looking beast ripped the throat of his last victim. He wiped his mouth across his arm which stained it with the blood of his latest prey. This dark gray Werewolf differs from his prey; he is a halfbreed, he carries the genes of his Werewolf father and Vampyre mother.
He could care less about his ilk. Which is quickly apparent as he piled up the several Werewolf corpses to burn. If there ever was a way to dishonor Werewolves, the fastest way would be to burn their bodies. Cremation went against Werewolf law. If his Elven mother taught him anything, it was that Werewolves were monsters that needed to burn. As the black smoke rose in the air, his heart soared with joy as the echo of his mother's voice cheered him on.
Voices nearby alert him, and he went to investigate. Centuries of experience aid in his stealthy approach. He reached a wide oak tree where his crimson eyes fixed on the grandest of Werewolf prizes: the King of the Werewolves, Grey Whulphe. A wicked grin revealed his snaggled teeth. The Werepyre decided against running out of the trees now since two hundred yards of grass and trees separated him from his quarry. He will bide his time and skirt around through the trees to close the gap. Without the cloak of night, nor the time to wait, he would have to attack now or never.
* * * *
King of the Werewolves, Speaker of the Tribe, Grand Alpha, and the First Werewolf. . . to Grey, those titles meant nothing. Today, the only title that matters to him is father; today was a day to spend with his two--he took a second to look around and count heads--yeah, his two daughters and wife; today was a day to unwind and family bond. His thirteen-year-old daughter walked beside him with a bored expression.
"What's eating you, kid?" he asked after he nudged her shoulder.
Her pale yellow eyes look up and lock onto his, "We are exposed out here to an ambush. We could all die out here and the Whulphe legacy will be over. This place is not defensible and you did not nearly bring enough guards."
"Wow. You really need to learn how to relax, kid," Grey laughed and tussled her long white hair.
"I really need to continue my training," his daughter huffed and crossed her arms.
Grey knelt before his daughter and stared into her hard eyes. "Are you sure you are my daughter?"
The young teenager stared back at her father. She pretended to bite off his face and continued to walk past him. A roar made him stand up and eye the trees to the west. A Werewolf charged at his guards and pushed them aside and leaped over the second wave of guards. Grey orders his royal guards to protect his wife and daughters. Grey would have to teach the intruder the strength of the First Wolf.
* * * *
For the second time in the span of a minute, he found his eyes locked with the sky. A tug on his leg brought him down to the ground, albeit, much harder than he would have liked. He spotted the whelp leap at him, and he kicked her with a foot that covered her entire torso. The female grabbed his foot, swung her leg over his, and broke his ankle. She hopped off his leg and landed a few feet away. He was passed infuriated.
He ignored the pain and got to his feet to swipe at the female with his massive hands. She ducked. He lunged. She dodged. A kick to the back of the knee made him kneel. He saw her fist fly toward his jaw and he clamped down on her thin arm. An unexpected taste covered his tongue, the blood of a Daemon.
"Shade!" a woman shrieked. "Why are you just standing there?! Save your daughter, Grey!"
"Well, she wanted to train," Grey shrugged nonchalantly.
The Queen gawked at her King. "What if he kills her?"
Grey turned and smiled at his wife. He pinched the cheek of his baby daughter gently in the Queen's arms and remarked, "There is always Nightshade."
The Queen slapped Grey's hand away. "Go save Shade!" she demanded.
"Nah. Shade would hate me if I interfered," Grey smiled and returned to watching his daughter fight.
With the Werepyre's view of the monarchs gone, he growls in pain as the whelp dug her thumb into his left eye and bit his left ear. He shook her off and grimaced when she left with his ear. With his right eye, he saw her spit out his ear, and she punched her shoulder back in place. She glared at him with a neutral expression. He roared and charged at the whelp.
He caught her leg when she tried to leap out of the way. He used her body like a hammer against the earth. He grew angrier with each swing when he did not hear her scream nor bones break. He felt her wrap herself around his arm. He leveled his arm in front of him and howled in pain when she snapped his arm in half. Out of his grasp, she fell to the ground, collapsed his knee, grabbed his head over her shoulder, and drove her shoulder into his jaw as she brought his seven-foot frame down the two feet it took her to reach the ground. His head snapped back, and the rest of his body followed.
He stared up at the sky, stunned and in pain. He heard the whelp panting and the crunch of grass. Footsteps draw closer to him, and the visage of King Grey Whulphe filled his sight.
"What is your name?" the King inquired.
"Fuck y!" His voice is cut off by the King stomping on his chest.
"Name."
"Luçstan," the Werepyre growled.
"'Luçstan,'" the King repeated and stroked his black beard. "I, King Grey Whulphe, hereby banish you from Massenda," was the last thing Luçstan heard before darkness filled his vision.
Luçstan groans as he awakens to a throbbing head. A long yawn leaves his lungs. He shambles to his feet and braces his frame on a tree as he inhales the fresh early morning air. That memory has not plagued his mind in centuries. His ear perks up to screams on the wind. Howls follow. He shrugs off sleep and runs to the sounds of battle.He had spent the week lazing around Port Sallem, and now the town was under attack, by Werewolves no less. Nothing helps to forget memories like losing yourself in battle. He runs down the hill to slay the slobbering dogs.
A Natural Order to Things
"Concentrate! Concentrate!" the demoness chants to herself as she struggles to maintain the spell.
A bead of sweat rolls down from her forehead where her two stubby horns reside. Strands of dark blue hair stick to her forehead hidden strands of pink hair mix in along with dark purple. Her hands stretch before her as she focuses her mana into an egg on the table. The previous nine students did not hatch the egg, but those previous students were not Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight Sparkle had spent the last five years of her young life preparing for this moment: graduating from Princess Celestia's School for the Magically Gifted and Talented. Hatching the egg is not necessary for graduating, only seven students have successfully performed the spell: both the ruling princesses, Starswirl the Beared (the only elf to have grown facial hair), a student she had only been able to find a name—Factual Theory, Prince Blueblood, Princess Cadance (Twilight's babysitter), and Princess Celestia's current student—Sunset Shimmer. Twilight knows ambition and yearning alone will not make her dreams come true; today, all her training will bear fruit… at least that is why she is straining to completing the spell.
Princess Celestia watches as the young demoness performing the spell earnestly. The princess smiles at the girls hard work. As she steps up to the child to ask her to quit, an explosion outside catches her attention. A rainbow expands across the sky. A smile finds itself on her lips. A cheer from behind makes her turn around.
"I did it!" Twilight Sparkle cheers. She leans forward to smile at the purple baby dragon. "Hey there, little guy! I did it! I made you hatch!"
So the surge of magic was not only from the sonic rainboom but also from this child , the princess thinks to herself.
"Princess Celestia, I did it!"
Hearing her name shakes he princess from her thoughts. The smile on the child's face spreads to the princess. "Well done, my little student. Congratulations on performing the spell. You may keep the littl guy as your pet."
"Thank you!"
"I am also inviting you to become my personal student. This means moving to my castle and—"
"I accept!" Twilight's exclamation interrupts the princess. "I accept a thousand million times!"
Princess Celestia chuckles. "Very well. I still have to talk to your parents about this."
"They will agree wholeheartedly!"
Which Twilight's parents did. Twilight Velvet, Twilight Sparkle's mother, had reservations about letting her little girl move away but her husband's persuasiveness and remark on Twilight "only being a ten minute walk and appointment away" eases her reservations.
Princess Celestia had noticed Twilight Sparkle's potential but the demoness far exceeds her expectations. The demoness blows past any and every test and her quick ability to grasp complex magical concepts greatly impresses the princess. Within a matter of three years, when Twilight Sparkle is sixteen, the princess declares her a protégé. By eighteen, Twilight earns a knighthood for her theories and for rescuing children from a monster with a new teleportation spell.
As Twilight grows closer to the princess, another student grows distant and bitter. Sunset Shimmer turns on the princess and as punishment is sent away to a far away land. The princess is more hurt emotionally than physically at the end of the ordeal.
When Twilight Sparkle turns twenty, the princess allows her to move into Canterlot Library where Twilight focuses on her own experiments and research.
"Spike! Come get your breakfast!" Twilight calls out. The young woman runs about the library searching for her best friend. She heads up stairs to the second floor, the only place she has yet to search. "Spike!" she exclaims when she finds the young purple dragon with green spines gnawing on a book.
She uses her magic to open his jaws gently and remove the book. "Spi~ike, what have I told you about chewing on books?"
She glares at the drake and his emerald eyes smile back at her. She groans in defeat and hugs the young lizard. When she sets him down on the ground, the book in her hand catches her attention.
"Hm? I've never seen you before," she muses.
She turns the book over looking for a title but fails in her search across the pale white leather binding. She opens the book where black letters, almost like jet, sparkle on the first page, "The Desolation of Discord," she reads and then gasps. "The day after tomorrow is the Summer Sun Celebration which also marks the thousandth year of Queen Aurora Borealis' death," she talks to Spike.
The reptile blinks at her.
Twilight sighs and smiles sadly at the dragon. She pets his head and says, "Sometimes I wish you could talk."
She sits on the ground where Spike curls up on her lap. She flips to the next page where another set of jet-like letters decorate the page, "'And the accounts of those who were there.'" Twilight's amethyst eyes grow wide and she flips through the pages feverishly. "Just as I thought! Some of these are Queen Borealis' writings along with the other Heroes of Gaia: Grey Whulphe, the King of the Werewolves, Onyx Blueflame, the Lord of the Dragons," Twilight looks down at the dragon in her lap, "They are your larger, bipedal cousins of sorts. They were Elves who changed themselves into dragons and over time they started looking like dragons."
Flipping through more pages she finds Commander Hurricane of the Angels, Chancellor Puddinghead of the Terrans, Clover the Clever, royal advisor to the Demon King, and King Sombra of the Vampyres. Each of the heroes mention "the Elements of Harmony" and how using them had been the only way to defeat Discord. She also discovers that King Grey Whulphe is the only one that writes about Queen Aurora's death and sacrifice. Twilight feels as if King Grey had developed feelings for Queen Aurora during their quest just by the tone of his writing.
Just as Twilight gets to the part about the King holding a secret and wanting to share it, Spike jumps out of her lap, belches green flames, and a scroll hangs in the air for a moment before falling into Twilight's hand.
She pets the dragon's head. "Thanks, Spike." As Twilight unrolls the scroll, Spike rubs his head against Twilight's knee akin to a cat.
My dear Twilight, there is more to a young woman's life than studying, so I'm sending you to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration in this year's location: Ponyville. And, I have an even more essential task for you to complete: make some friends!
"What?!" Twilight exclaims which startles Spike and sends him flying off her lap. "Sorry, Spike," Twilight apologizes and returns to reading the letter.
I know you already have Spike as your friend and your former sitter, you would benefit greatly interacting with others your age. With the recent wolf attacks, I would also like you to inspect the integrity of the Wall and I give you the power to change anything if necessary.
I have made arrangements for you to stay at the local library there, Golden Oaks, since I know you would be more at ease surrounded by books. You are more than welcome to take Spike along with you. So try to have fun, my dear student.
Sincerely,
Princess Celestia
Twilight huffs and stands to her feet slowly. She walks over to her desk which has piles of parchments, rolls of vellum, mountains of books, and several books lay open. Luckily, the oak desk is large enough to support all the clutter. Twilight sits in the desk's accompanying red velvet oak chair to begin writing her response to the princess. After a few minutes of writing, she sets the quill down, stands up, and tosses the letter to an eagerly waiting Spike.
Spike blows his green fire on the letter and the letter disappears. He follows after Twilight on her heels.
As Twilight finishes packing her last suit case, Spike belches out another letter, this one an informal reply. Twilight uses her magic to bring the letter to her. Princess Celestia writes her enthusiasm for Twilight accepting the task and that a coach will be waiting outside to take her to Ponyville. Twilight walks over to the window and sure enough she sees a red coach with two white pegasi in gold armor attached to the coach along with two guards sitting on the coach and two guards waiting at the doors of the coach.
She groans. She has a sinking suspicion that the princess had arranged this so that people would approach her and recognize her as from Canterlot.
With a sigh she levitates her trunk and suitcase with magenta magic and totes it behind her as she leaves the room. Spike follows her and also has his own luggage on his back. The two guards at the door load up her luggage and Spike's luggage on top of the coach. With Twilight safely inside the coach, the guards close the doors and take their seats at the rear of the coach. A whistle later and Twilight feels the coach lurch forward.
"It's not like Gaia depends on me making 'friends', right, Spike?" Twilight pets the reptile in her lap as she watches Canterlot grow smaller. Spike licks Twilight's cheek and makes her giggle. "Yes, Spike, you're the only friend I need."
