A Crack in the Glass

Chapters

[Prologue] The Anxiety of a Pink Pony
[1] Petulance's Essence
[2] Dimensional Perturbation
[3] The Top of the Feer Chain
[4] Abrupt Introductions
[5] Eye of the Storm
[7] Out From Murky Waters
[9] Into the Abyss Beyond
[10] Heralds and Horses
[6] Unforgiving Nature
[8] Across the Sinking Sands

[Prologue] The Anxiety of a Pink Pony

Prologue: The Anxiety of a Pink Pony

The hands of the clock seemed to be moving faster with every time Pinkie Pie glanced at the vibrantly colored time teller. Her eyes rapidly switched back and forth between the entrance of Sugar Cube Corner on the other side of the room and the indicator of time, her patience dwindling as her worry inclined to a simmer. The breeze of the cool autumn wind blowing through the open windows of the store, which Pinkie could have swore she had opened entirely instead of cracking them a bit, released some of the nervous heat building up in the pink pony anxiously standing behind the shop’s cashier stand. The cold air had been the only thing from keeping Pinkie Pie calm and collected while she progressively became more and more nervous, and she could start to feel her jaw become sore from clenching her teeth as tight as she had been for the past ten minutes. The vibrant colors of the pastry store only pushed Pinkie further into wanting to burst into a nervous break down, all of the hues of pink and blue and green and red reminding her of the decorations set up at Applejack’s farm.

It was Apple Bloom’s birthday today, and Pinkie Pie had no intentions of missing the look on the young filly’s face at her surprise party. That is, if the Cakes returned back on the time they had said they were going to, despite already being a little over half an hour behind schedule. It was ten minutes past six o’ clock by now, forty minutes beyond the Cake’s established time of coming back, and Apple Bloom’s party was starting not only twenty minutes from the second. Pinkie Pie had told herself time and time again that the Cakes would only be a little late after the first few minutes of their delayed return, but her attempts to try and calm herself were negated within the next half hour. Six o’ clock had been the beginning of Pinkie’s mental breakdown, and it didn’t seem as if it were going to stop. The fact that Pinkie Pie had almost no customers within the time that she had been tending the shop made her feel as if she was only wasting time which she could be using to help with Apple Bloom’s party, but she knew that she had a strong, strong Pinkie promise latched onto her. It was bad enough that she had almost forgotten her arrangements with the Cakes about watching over the shop while they were off to Canterlot to deliver a cake with the foals, but the thought that she almost forgot about her own Pinkie promise pushed the pink pony to keep to her word and not run for Sweet Apple Acres in a split second.

A drop of sweat ran down the side of Pinkie Pie’s face. Her mind filled itself with the thoughts of missing Apple Bloom’s birthday party. She thought of all the fun she would miss out on, all of the smiles and cheers of joy as Apple Bloom’s friends and family rejoiced at her side. Nothing in the world made Pinkie happier than the enjoyment others had, and not being there to attend the party she had helped plan would surely crush her heart. The more time passed as she pink pony waited, the more she felt herself shaking with anxiety and fear that she would miss the party. She could feel her heart pounding away in her chest, and she could have swore she heard her heartbeat add an extra bump with how fast it was pumping. A strong gust of wind blew through the windows of Sugar Cube Corner. A few leaves twirling around in the wind floated into the shop as the single burst of air blew wicked and feral. The orange, yellow, and red crispy sheets of sharp and dry leaves fell flat on the floor as the gust of wind halted in its tracks as if it were just a single breath outwards. Something seemed unusual about the autumn breeze now that Pinkie noticed it had suddenly stopped, though the weather patterns outside were the least of Pinkie Pie’s concerns. Unless they would ruin the plans of Apple Bloom’s birthday party, which at the thought of it, Pinkie just about lost consciousness for a split second.

A pair of hoofsteps from outside intercepted Pinkie Pie’s thoughts. Were the Cakes finally home? Or were the hoofsteps owned by a passing couple out for an early evening walk? The wind had picked up again after taking a small break, cooling the pink pony’s heated little body before she got dehydrated from over-sweating. Pinkie stepped sideways after feeling a dampness on her hooves, thinking to herself if she had really sweat that much. The hoofsteps that she had heard had only passed by the front of the pastry shop, leaving with only a few chatters of laughter and bantering from their owners. The loneliness of the inside of Sugar Cube Corner was starting to get to Pinkie Pie, and not talking for so long was starting to make her consider talking to herself, though that would probably only drive the few customers that would enter the shop away. Figuring she would take a small break from standing behind the display case of the shop’s pastries, Pinkie Pie wiped away the sweat collected on her forehead and trotted around the cashier stand. She glanced at the clock as she walked over to one of the windows near the shop’s entrance. Six fifteen.

Pinkie Pie sighed to herself as she lifted her hooves up to the window. She pushed the wooden frame up to the very top of her mental escape, locking it in place with a small flick of a switch on the interior of the frame. The pink pony let out a longer, more exhausted sigh as she rested her head on her hooves in the window sill, tilting her head onto its side. The rest of Ponyville seemed to be at rest early for the time of day, almost no one walking around. Pinkie Pie found herself slightly shocked that there was no one outside jumping in piles of leaves or getting themselves ready for The Running of the Leaves, though the beginning of cold weather coming in for the season suggested that they were inside warming themselves up. Pinkie’s eyes came across Applejack’s kiosk, which usually had the orange mare standing right next to the apple stand, but she was more than likely setting up the finishing touches of Apple Bloom’s birthday party at the moment. Applejack was lucky enough to be able to take a break off of work to help with the tidings of the party, and Pinkie would too, if she hadn’t have made her Pinkie promise with the Cakes.

“Pinkie Pie!” a mare’s voice breached through the silence. “Thank Celestia you’re still here!”

The pink pony pricked up her head along with her ears. The voices were familiar, and the incomprehensible babbles of two babies brought a joy so intense to Pinkie’s heart that she almost fell over in relief. She leaned her head out the window and turned to the direction the voices had come from, and sure enough, off to the right of Sugar Cube Corner, Mr. and Mrs. Cake were walking along Ponyville’s streets with a foal on each of their backs. An empty cart followed behind them, the metal wheels squeaking with every turn and the frame of the cart rattling along the uneven dirt paths. A large smile found its way onto Pinkie Pie’s face and she waved at the Cakes, receiving two small waggles of foal hooves in her direction along with more babbling from the Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re finally back!” Pinkie Pie said as the Cakes drew closer to the pastry shop. “How’d the trip go?”

“Well, we had some issues coming back, as you might have noticed,” Mr. Cake admitted sheepishly as he walked up to the entrance of his home and pushed the door open, trotting inside afterwards followed by the rest of the family. “We missed the train coming back to Ponyville a little late, so we had to take a carriage back.” He motioned his head to the cart behind him, which was attached to a rope tied around his hind leg. “Which isn’t exactly built to carry carts for the cake we brought to Canterlot.”

Mrs. Cake set the foal on her back down on the cashier stand and glanced up at the clock. “We’re terribly sorry for not being on time, Pinkie Pie. I hope we didn’t make you late for anything,” she apologized.

Pinkie’s eyes snapped wide open. In the excitement of the Cakes coming back from Canterlot, she had forgotten what she was excited about. The pink pony took a brief look at the clock on the wall to her left. Six twenty. “Oh, horse apples!” Pinkie Pie whispered to herself. She turned to Mr. and Mrs. Cake, who were settling back into their home at the display cases for their pastries. “I’d love to stay and talk but I have to go now I’ll catch you later bye!” And with that, Pinkie Pie didn’t even wait a second for the Cakes to wave goodbye back, as she was already out of the window and half way down the block. The Cakes exchanged a brief look of confusion, though they brushed it off as Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie and went back to tending to their home.

______________________________________________________________________

The outskirts of Ponyville ran with the cool breeze of autumn. Along with the winds in their path, a pink pony sprinted across the dirt roads and tracks leading to the apple orchards near the borders of Ponyville. Clouds had begun to move their way into the tilting azure of the early evening sky over the town of ponies, bringing with them a small drizzle, though barely enough to be noticed so far. Pinkie Pie watched the sky as she set on the path that lead to Sweet Apple Acres, feeling a small raindrop on her head. Ponyville hadn’t have been scheduled for a drizzle, and the forecast was supposed to be clear and calm for the entire day and night. The winds, which seemed fine earlier in the day, had begun to pick up along with the weather gathering over Ponyville, scattering the settled leaves that were laying on the ground. The pink pony shook her head and continued running along the dirt road, quickly taking a glance at the watch around her right foreleg. Six twenty eight.

Pinkie slid to a stop as she felt another drop of rain land on her head, then another, and another. She stared up at the sky again, shutting her right eye tightly as a raindrop fell into it. The fluffy blanket settling over Ponyville slowly yielded more rain with every second, and soon enough, Pinkie Pie had found herself in a small downpour. The apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres were in sight, and Pinkie Pie, her mane starting to weigh her down as water collected within it, made a swift dash towards the closest tree. She backed up against the trunk of her shield against the rain and wrung her mane of water.

“That’s weird...” Pinkie Pie thought to herself. “I don’t remember there being any sort of cloud coverage planned for Ponyville today.”

She leaned around the trunk of the tree, peeking out at Sweet Apple Acres in the distance. She could see a number of ponies running inside to the Apple Family’s barn, carrying with them as much of the decorations that had been set up for Apple Bloom’s birthday party as they could. Pinkie Pie’s ears dropped and she sank her head down. She felt as if she had jinxed the horrible weather that had started up, even if she was completely sure that the entire day was supposed to be clear. Though, something seemed strange to Pinkie Pie. She leaned out from under the trunk of the tree and looked up at the sky, keeping a hoof over her eyes to protect them from the rain. She hadn’t noticed any pegasi moving the clouds into place, and the calm wind that had been blowing through Ponyville didn’t seem like it would be strong enough to move them on its own.

A crack of lightning snapped Pinkie Pie’s thoughts in half. The pink pony jumped and backed up into the tree she was under, letting out a frightened squeak. She quickly realized that being under a tree in a thunder storm probably wasn’t the best idea as another, louder strike of lightning burst into her ears. Hoping the party wasn’t ruined, Pinkie pushed herself off of the tree and continued on towards Sweet Apple Acres, her hooves splashing in the water collecting on the ground. The rain had picked up dramatically, pelting the pink mare running along the path leading up to the barn, now in which Apple Bloom’s party was being held. Lightning flashed and thunder roared what seemed like every second as Pinkie Pie ran in fright, trying to keep the thought of a lightning strike hitting her out of her mind.

Something compelled Pinkie to slide to a stop, however. As the pink pony saw a strange movement out of the corner of her eye, she got a foreboding feeling that there was a different reason for the sudden rainfall. Pinkie Pie scanned her eyes across the mountain tops overlooking Ponyville, searching for what she had saw. It was distant, and if anything probably just Pinkie’s own mind playing tricks on her, but she knew she had saw something. A large pair of wings, black, though the pair of eyes that caught them wasn’t quite sure if they were as dark as they were because of the lack of sunlight or because they were actually black. They didn’t appear to be the size of a normal pegasi’s wings, almost two or three times as large, but what haunted Pinkie Pie’s mind wasn’t the wings; it was their owner. The rainfall had obscured the image to the point of the pink pony wondering if she had just mistaken the creature she thought she saw as a crow or raven, but the sight of what seemed to be the limbs of a griffon itched at Pinkie Pie’s head. At the same time, though, the creature didn’t seem like a griffon, or a pegasus, or any type of bird Pinkie had ever seen. The instant that the wings had flashed into the pink pony’s peripheral vision had passed as quickly as it had come, the pair of wings seeming to dive back into the trees from where they had come from. Pinkie Pie stared unsurely at the mountains for a moment before she glanced down at her watch. Six thirty two. She was already late, and she didn’t want to be any more so.

Trying her best to get the strange sight out of her head, Pinkie raced down the dirt road leading to Sweet Apple Acres. She wasn’t far from the farm, and as she grew closer, she could see a certain orange mare outside collecting the decorations that were still standing. Her mane was as soaked as Pinkie Pie’s and the ribbons keeping her mane and tail collected were beginning to untie themselves. Her hat drooped over her face, Applejack trying her best not to drop it in the mud, or drop herself in the mud while she was at it.

“Applejack!” Pinkie Pie called as she drew close enough for her friend to hear her over the rain.

The orange mare looked up from the ground over to Pinkie, a smile forming on her face as the pink pony arrived at her side. “Well howdy Pinkie!” she greeted. “Weird weather, huh? I could’a swore that Rainbow Dash said the skies would be clear today.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie agreed. She looked past Applejack at the red wooden structure behind her. “Where’s Apple Bloom?”

Applejack motioned her head back to the barn. “She’s sitting inside with the rest of the party goers and getting things set back up again. Don’t you worry; she’s just as happy as she was when she first saw our little surprise for her. I’m sure we can still have the party even with this stinkin’ weather.” She looked up at the sky and sighed. “It is a shame, though. I was hopin’ we could’a done some thing outside. Oh well, hopefully the pegasi can clear out the sky soon.” She looked back down at Pinkie. “You didn’t see any pegasi movin’ the clouds around on your way over here, did you?”

Pinkie shook her head. “I didn’t notice any.” A quick thought jumped into her head. The black wings on the mountain side. Pinkie turned her head to the mountains where she saw the wings, though she looked back at Applejack and only shrugged.

The orange mare squinted at her friend. “Are you alright, sugar cube? You seem a bit distant. Something wrong?”

Pinkie Pie opened her mouth to speak, but she quickly shut it and smiled. “No. Everything’s fine! Come on, let’s go inside. We still have a party to throw!”

Applejack grinned and kicked in the direction of the barn. “Well why don’t you head inside. I’ll be there in a bit. Here, take these while you’re at it.” She handed Pinkie a couple packages of balloons and a party hat, though the colorful head ornament was soaked to the point of toppling over on itself. Nevertheless, Pinkie Pie strapped the party hat onto her head and carried the balloons in her mouth, bouncing her way to the barn’s entrance and heading inside.

Hearing the barn door close, Applejack’s smile faded away and she looked up at the sky. The lightning had slowed down quite a bit, though the rainfall stayed as heavy as it had been for the past few minutes. Applejack set her eyes on the mountain range standing in the path of the horizon, running her gaze across the tops of the trees. She wondered if Pinkie had seen the pair of wings as well, though she only brushed off the pink pony’s glance at the mountains as taking a second look at the clouds. Something wasn’t right, but for now, Apple Bloom’s birthday party was top priority. A sigh escaping from her mouth, Applejack turned around and headed for the barn.

[1] Petulance's Essence

Chapter Two: Petulance's Essence

“Ya’ll come back soon, now! Wouldn’t want to miss the barn raisin’ next week!” Applejack yelled after her and her sister’s cousin, waving from the entrance of the barn.

“Boy, I wouldn’t miss it!” Babs Seed managed to project her voice over the rain from her taxi carriage. “I can’t wait! Goodbye, Apple Bloom! Bye, Applejack!”

“Bye Babs!” Apple Bloom shouted from her sister’s side.

With a final wave of her hoof from the window of her taxi, Babs Seed and her family were headed back to Manehattan in the still pouring rain. The two stallions pulling the carriage splashed their way to the path leading off of Sweet Apple Acres, slowly making their way down the road and back to Ponyville’s train station.

“Some party, huh?” Applejack asked, nudging the filly next to her.

“You bet! I almost forgot about the rain,” Apple Bloom said. She turned to the rest of the barn. “Where’s Pinkie Pie? She didn’t leave yet, did she?”

Applejack turned around along with her sister, biting her lip at the sight of the rest of the barn. Despite Apple Bloom’s birthday party going quite well even with the rain continuing to wreak havoc on Ponyville, it didn’t end without a mess. Confetti dropped from the ceiling beams, deflated and popped balloons scattered themselves across the floor, numerous hay stacks were toppled over and some of them were even untied, and to top it off, a pink pony stood in the middle of it all, a damp party hat still on top of her head, grinning at the two sisters in the barn’s entrance.

The rain had never stopped ever since it started. The lightning that had been constantly blaring from the sky earlier in the evening died down eventually after the first thirty minutes of the storm, though the rain was persistent as ever. The storm had extended on into the later hours of the evening, lasting on to the night that was now settling in as daylight retreated. A few lightning strikes rumbled in the distance, some of the strikes closer than the other ones, but the storm, aside from the rain, was calming. The wind, almost at the speed of a tornado near the beginning of Apple Bloom’s party, was now just a subtle breeze blowing through the droplets falling from the cloudy, nocturnal, autumn sky.

“Nopey dopey lopey!” the pink pony exclaimed, bouncing up and down in place. “I think that party went even better than it would have outside! What do you think!? Wasn’t it just great!?”

Applejack exchanged a look of relief with her sister. Pinkie had seemed a little off somewhere else during the party, and her bubbly attitude coming back was music, though a bit squeaky, to Apple Bloom and Applejack’s ears. “I must say that you’re quite the party thrower, sugar cube,” Applejack acknowledged her friend. “I think all the other fillies think the same, too. I can’t thank you any more than I already have for helpin’ us put together my sister’s birthday party.” She brought Apple Bloom closer to her. “We all thank you.”

“Don’t mention it!” Pinkie said, hopping over to Applejack and Apple Bloom and wrapping her hooves around them tightly. “It’s what friends are for!”

The orange mare, starting to feel her circulation cut off, patted Pinkie on her back. Barely able to out of the pink pony’s death grip on her, Applejack tried her best to look back out the barn. The sky had grown darker outside, Ponyville barely in sight in the distance from Sweet Apple Acres through the rain. The lightning, beginning to pick up again, provided small flashes of visibility of the trees within the farm’s orchards, though they were barely discernible through the heavy rainfall.

“Speakin’ of what friends are for,” Applejack began as Pinkie let go of her and Apple Bloom, the yellow filly taking in a gasp of air as her face lifted off of Pinkie’s coat. “you can always spend the night here on Sweet Apple Acres, if need be. The storm out there is lookin’ a mite feisty.”

Pinkie glanced outside past Applejack. A few claps of thunder rumbled from off in the distance. “It is fairly bad outside,” she muttered. However, she had forgotten one thing: Gummy. After sitting in Sugar Cube Corner waiting for the Cakes to return home for about an hour, Pinkie had completely slipped her mind of her pet alligator. Despite Gummy having been just above her the entire day before evening, the thoughts of Apple Bloom’s party, and Apple Bloom’s party itself, had occupied Pinkies over everything else. She had only seen the little green reptile for about half an hour when she woke up before she had to go hang out with Rainbow Dash, and even when she had returned home to watch the shop while the Cakes were gone, Gummy had never crossed her mind.

“Are you alright, Pinkie? You’ve just been standing there for a few minutes staring outside,” Applejack said, moving her face into Pinkie Pie’s vision.

The pink pony jumped slightly at the sudden freckles and brown hat staring at her, along with the top of a red bow just barely standing up at the bottom of her eyes. “Oh, I’d love to stay, Applejack, but I gotta get home! Gummy’s gonna starve!” Pinkie announced, looking anxiously out the barn.

Applejack traded a glance with Apple Bloom. “Pinkie, I’m sure Gummy will be fine,” said the orange mare. “We’ll just send a letter to the Cakes and tell ‘em to feed Gummy. It’s a bit too dangerous to be walking around right now in this weather.”

Pinkie had gone into some sort of strange panic, holding her face. “But what if the letter doesn’t make it!? What if the mailmare gets lost in the storm and the letter falls in the rain and it never gets to Gummy!?”

“Pinkie, you don’t need to-”

“What if the Cakes don’t give him his favorite meal!? He’ll be sad for the rest of the night!” She had begun hyperventilating, her hooves still plastered onto her cheeks.

“Then just tell them in the let-”

“I haven’t given him a bath yet today!”

“Pink-”

“Bath!”

Applejack and Apple Bloom stared at the pink mare standing on her back hooves, who was glaring up at the ceiling while she stretched her bottom eyelids outwards. Pinkie’s hyperventilating had stopped, and she slowly let herself down onto her forelegs, turning her head to the two sisters glaring at her in silence.

Applejack sighed. “Are you-?”

“Bath,” Pinkie stated casually.

“Are ya done?”

“Yeah! I feel better.”

“Do you at least want an umbrella?”

“Nope! I’m good! See ya later, alligator!” Her own words getting her to start worrying again, Pinkie subtly gave Applejack and Apple Bloom a smile and trotted past them out into the rain.

Applejack stepped out of the barn slightly after her friend. “Pinkie, are ya sure you don’t want to stay!?” she yelled over the rain.

However, Pinkie Pie was already out of earshot, heading back to her home in the storm pelting down on Ponyville. Over the splashes of rain drops and lightning further off into the storm, Applejack listened to Pinkie Pie’s hooves run through the puddles formed on the ground. It would be useless to try and stop her.

“Is she gonna be alright?” Apple Bloom asked as she walked to her sister’s side, staring out at the stormy night.

“I hope so,” answered Applejack.

______________________________________________________________________

The trail back to Ponyville had been a bit colder than expected, and the darkness gave no aid to the pink pony walking through the puddles scattered along the muddy path. Regret was one thing that Pinkie felt constantly pounding at her head as she sloshed her hooves forward, though she knew that she had to get home. She had considered Applejack’s offer the more she trudged through the muck and mud, but finding her way back to Sweet Apple Acres seemed like a hopeless effort. The lights from Ponyville were barely visible from the constant rainfall seeming to put the town and its outskirts into a minor flood, so Pinkie considered that trying to spot Applejack’s farm through the trees and rain would be useless. The small flashes of lightning in the distance only reached over the tops of the mountains, giving Pinkie slight glimpses of the snow capped behemoths every once and a while. The cold autumn winds that gently nudged the rain one way and another every second chilled the pink pony’s body, Pinkie Pie beginning to shiver and think to herself that she at least should have taken an umbrella with her. She wondered to herself why she hadn’t grabbed some sort of clothing before she left for Sweet Apple Acres, but she remembered that she wasn’t planning on walking home in a minor monsoon.

A peculiar thought crossed her mind. The wings that she had seen in the mountains. Pinkie had almost forgotten about them during the entire party at Applejack’s, but now that she was back out in the pouring rain and frigid autumnal winds, the sight of the large, shadow-like pairs of wings crossed her mind again. A clap of thunder, which sounded closer and a lot more violent than the other ones, almost made Pinkie jump out of her soaked and muddy coat. The rumble of thunder afterwards seemed to moan with the wind, and Pinkie could hear a small ringing in her ears. She wasn’t sure if the ringing was due to the volume of the crack of thunder or she was just hearing things, and for a second she thought she heard a voice over the noise of the rain, but she carried on along the path. She had no idea where the wings had gone to now, and there was a haunting feeling clutching onto her head that the wings belonged to some sort of beast that had the ability to change the weather to the horrible conditions they were in now. Ponyville hadn’t been scheduled for the storm, Pinkie reminded herself. She could almost see the pair of wings as clear as day in her mind.

Another flash of lightning burst into the air, this one over the tops of the mountains. The light spread across the entire area that Pinkie walked through, lighting up every single rock, tree, and blade of grass in the field between the mountain ranges. Even a large, shadowy, limp pair of wings. The sight almost made Pinkie Pie scream at the top of her lungs, knowing that she had seen something, though as before, she couldn’t be sure. The lightning flash had gone and went before Pinkie could even react to the brief image of two wings laying, partially bent upwards, in the grass off to the right of the path. The ringing in Pinkie’s ears had returned, louder than before, though subtle and barely recognizable over the rumble of the previous thunder clap. The pink pony stood still in the middle of the swampy dirt road, holding her front hooves up to her mouth to keep from screaming. She tried her best to remember the song she had sung in the Everfree Forest when she and her friends had come across the sinister looking trees, but something about the wings blocked every thought about a happy jingle out of Pinkie’s head. She didn’t know if the wings belonged to a ghost, a griffon, a pegasus, an alicorn, a bird, or a dragon. She only knew that they were laying in the field, spread out across some sort of vessel that they were attached to.

Pinkie set her front hooves back on the ground, wiping her mouth of the mud she had unconsciously spread across her face when she smothered her scream. She tried her best to see through the darkness and the rain that blurred her vision, but nothing came out of her attempts to see past the obscurities. Visions of what the wings could have been attached to scratched and itched at Pinkie’s mind, though she tried as hard as she could to suppress them. A sudden realization ran across Pinkie’s eyes. She had only ever seen the wings unclearly, never gotten a clear image of what they looked like. Their size that they had appeared to be over on the mountains could have just been an illusion due to the rain, and maybe they were smaller than they actually were. Then again, Pinkie was sure that they seemed just as large when she saw them in the flash of light. She continued to stand still, running through the possibilities of what could be laying in the field. Maybe it was an injured pegasus, trying to get up but too exhausted to do anything. But the shape of the wing’s owner back on the mountain didn’t seem like a pegasus, rather, anything ever seen be Pinkie’s eyes. Pinkie, after finding her rationality that had somehow been lost in her head, made up her mind. Whatever the thing that the wings were attached to was, Pinkie knew that its laying on the ground wasn’t good. She had to do something, and she almost fainted accepting it.

The pink pony slowly moved her hooves through the mud, making her way to the grass along the side of the path. She tried her best to keep the constant worries out of her head, telling herself that it was only a pegasus that needed help. However, there was more to the pair of wings that made her want to run away and never look back. She drew closer, and with the closing proximity between her and the wings, she begun to hear something. A low humming noise, resonating with a few higher notes that seemed to slide up and down in pitch every once and a while. The noise had replaced the ringing in Pinkie’s ears, the pink pony starting to think that whatever the wings were sprouting out of was actually responsible for the weather. She continued forward. She had made it off of the muddy path, surprisingly to herself, her hooves now scrapping on the soft, wet grass off of the trail. The low humming persisted along with its higher pitch counter parts, and now that she was drawing closer, Pinkie could start to hear lower pitches, moaning as if they were in pain. They sent shivers down Pinkie’s spine, urging Pinkie to go back to Ponyville and never come back.

And all at once, everything stopped. Pinkie came to a stand still, staring at her surroundings, wondering if she had been struck by lightning or if she had slipped unconscious due to fright. The rain had gone, the humming had ceased, and the lightning had faded, and now Pinkie stood in a field of sunlight, pure white fluffy clouds soaring above. She had no idea what happened, but her surroundings looked familiar. Yes, it was the same path she had been walking along, but everything was normal. No storm, no darkness, no lightning, only an early evening autumn-tinted valley between two mountain ranges with a clear sky, flowing with a cool, gentle breeze. The sun was setting behind the mountains, its brilliant light shining over the tops of the snow caps on the stone giants. The mountains’ shadows stood tall over Pinkie Pie as she gawked at her surroundings, who began to convince herself more that she had been struck by lightning. But there was something else in the valley that told her that she was still alive. The pair of wings, laying on the ground a few steps in front of her.

Pinkie felt her heart skip a beat. She hadn’t noticed the large, black, feathered wings laying on the ground in front of her, despite the ebony appendages just about taking up a third of her eyesight. They laid atop a strange figure on the ground, covering the upper half of the figure’s body. Two long legs, outlined loosely with some sort of soft black cloth, sprouted out from the body that the wings were attached to. On the creature’s feet were a pair of simple shoes, black like the pants that rested on the legs of the, what looked like, some sort of bipedal life form. The figure didn’t move from its position on the ground, laying on its side with its back to the pink pony. The clothing on its upper body, which appeared to be some sort of dark green sweatshirt made out of a material a bit rougher than the cloth of the unusual avian’s pants, peeked out from under the large feathers of the jet black wings. Pinkie, growing uneasy as the figure refused to make even a single movement, stared at the peculiar being laying on the grass. It was no kind of animal she had ever seen before, no doubt, and she didn’t even know if it knew she was there. However, as the creature rolled onto, what Pinkie assumed to be, its stomach, it soon became apparent that the winged beast wasn’t just neglecting her appearance. It was sleeping.

An elongated sigh escaped the lungs through the creature’s nose, the rest of the beast’s body coming into view as its wings flattened out across the ground, their wingspan almost reaching to Pinkie’s hooves. Pinkie, if its stature hadn’t have been much of an indicator before, knew that, whatever the creature was, it had never crossed her eyes in the past as its upper body showed itself. The dark green cloth, now out in the open, was surely some sort of sweatshirt, the hood resting flat on the back of the winged beast’s neck. Atop of the creature’s head hung a scruffy silver puff of hair that spread across its scalp, parting a bit to the left of the center of its forehead to reveal its closed eyes, and just barely stretched past its ears, which were oddly shaped and hugged the sides of its head. Its eyebrows were a slightly darker shade of the silver its hair was. Its face retained similar characteristics of every other thing Pinkie had ever talked to: eyes, eyelids, eyelashes, a nose, a mouth, lips, cheeks, eyebrows, forehead, hair line, everything, though all of it was aligned on a surface relatively flat, rising up and sinking down in some areas symmetrically. Its facial features, along with the rest of its body, didn’t fit the criteria of qualifying for female physique, its face shaped masculinely while retaining a slightly angry implication, despite sleeping. The creature didn’t seem to have a coat of fur or layers of feathers on his face or body as the sleeves of his sweatshirt curled up slightly, exposing his hands and wrist to show his light tan, bare skin. His arms crossed under his head, the side of his face resting on his forearms, facing towards Pinkie Pie with closed eyes. He continued to breath calmly as he slumbered in the strange area of serenity around him, sleeping peacefully without even realizing that he wasn’t the only one in his dreamscape.

Thoughts conflicted, frozen with shock, and a little uneasy about the creature sleeping in front of her, Pinkie didn’t know what to do. Whether run, wait for the creature to wake up, wake it up, try and talk to it, ask it about the weather, Pinkie couldn’t decide. She had no idea if it could even talk, let alone understand her. The large wings spread out across the grass in front of Pinkie twitched gently, the pink pony jumping backwards a bit. Unexpectedly, she felt her tail become wet, and a dreadful, embarrassing feeling swooped over her. Pinkie clenched her teeth and stood still; however, as she backed up further, she sighed in relief that she hadn’t wet herself, though she still found the sudden dampness spreading across her flank strange. She backed up further and soon realized that the, rather peculiar, change of weather near the creature laying in the grass was some sort of magical sphere that replaced the stormy environment with a calm one. Pinkie, after finding the invisible edge of the sphere and facing away from the sleeping creature, moved her head in and out of the peaceful orb. The low humming from outside of the sphere came and went as Pinkie peeked her muzzle to and fro, beginning to get a little disoriented at the quick switching of darkness to light and storm to serenity. Giggling quietly, Pinkie stepped back into the sphere entirely and looked back at the creature laying on the ground. An unwelcoming aura seemed to radiate off of the winged beast as Pinkie Pie turned back to it, the pink pony slightly worried about what would happen if she woke it up. Would it greet her kindly? Would it try and get away from her as quickly as possible? Would it try to hurt her? Would it see her as some sort of annoyance and ignore her? The questions raced through Pinkie’s mind, but she slowly whittled them down to one single thought: She would only know the answer to her questions if she woke the creature up. And that was what she intended to do.

Standing at the edge of the sphere of tranquility, Pinkie swallowed a small clump in her throat as she uneasily looked over the sleeping creature. She stood not only five steps away from the tip of its left wing, the nearest feather to her twitching again. Its eyes remained gently closed, a subtle trembling underneath its eyelids causing them to shake. Slowly, Pinkie approached the closest wing of the beast, steadying her breathing and keeping her eyes on the creature’s face. It showed no signs of waking up, and it looked more as if it were going to start snoring rather than open its eyes. Pinkie continued forward. Her heart had started to beat faster than when she had been standing at the edge of the sphere, though she managed to keep it at a steady pace. Her hooves rustling the grass beneath them with every step set the pink pony on edge, Pinkie trying her best not to wake the sleeping creature up before she got the chance to even touch it.

The tip of the wing closest to Pinkie came within reaching distance of the pink pony. She came to a halt as she stood over the tip of the creature’s wing, switching her eyes back to the sleeping face. Sure enough, it was still in slumber. Pinkie looked back down at the wing near her front hooves. It seem to be even bigger than it had been from back near the edge of the calm sphere, the wing almost two times as big, if not bigger than Pinkie Pie herself. Out of what seemed like a natural instinct, Pinkie slowly creeped one of her hooves forward, and with only a small moment of hesitation, poked at the wing. She quickly shifted her eyes back to the creature’s face. Still sleeping. She looked back down at the wing and poked it again. Shifted her eyes back to the creature’s face. Sleeping. Pinkie Pie’s mouth shaped itself into a grin as she poked the wing one more time, her temporarily idle sense of judgement allowing her to continue poking at the black-feathered pinion without bringing a worry into her mind. She soon found her upper body underneath the creature’s wing, pushing it up and down as if it were a foal giggling with happiness. Her enjoyment did not last for long.

Her eyes closed, Pinkie washed over with a feeling of apprehension as, after she gave it a final push, the wing didn’t come back down at her. Smile fading and heart beating like a humming birds’ wings, the pink pony laying on the grass slowly opened her eyes. As she had feared, the black, feathery appendage was suspended in the air, stable, and surely being held up by something other than the pink pony laying under it. The quiet breaths of sleep had come to a halt in the air, replaced with the silence of regulated breathing and someone clearing their throat. Pinkie, almost scared to do so, gradually tilted her head toward the creature’s face, and to her worries, it had awoken, and was staring right at her. Its mouth was covered by its shoulder, though the rest of the winged beast’s face glared directly at the pink pony under its wing. Its eyes were different from any eyes that Pinkie had seen before. Its pupils were vertically oval and sharp, the upper tips of the thin slits of black invisible under the creature’s flattened and disgruntled eyelids. Its circular irises were red, seeming to glow with the intensity of their stare, and they were immensely bright against the dark green cloth of the sweatshirt beside them. The whites of its eyes, ironically, were black, deep voids of starless night skies that seemed to absorb any light around them.

Words were nonexistent in Pinkie’s head. Looking back, she realized that playing with a sleeping lifeform’s wing, in which she didn’t even know what species the creature was, without any sort of consent might have been the wrong thing to do, considering her current situation. Yet, despite Pinkie’s worries about the creature being hostile, it remained still, keeping its eyes on the pink pony laying on her back at its side. Anger or confusion, either didn’t matter as to which expression was being displayed by the eyes of the winged beast; all Pinkie knew was that it wasn’t quite happy to see her. A slow wave of heat built up in Pinkie Pie’s face as the stare between her and the creature beside her lasted for quite a while, both of them in complete silence, listening to the autumn wind blow the grass around them and rustle the leaves in the distance along the ground.

“Lex nel... porim foh,” the creature spoke calmly, his voice muffled in the shoulder of his sweatshirt. Relatively deep and smooth, his voice sent a small shiver down Pinkie’s spine as it reached her ears. The tone of the words, which Pinkie had no idea if they were actually words, didn’t sound friendly, and they sounded more like they were declaring war rather than making a friendly greeting.

Pinkie Pie quickly flipped onto her stomach and stood up as fast as she could, backing away slightly with a hoof raised limply in the air. “I- I’m sorry,” she spoke with an uneasy smile on her face, trying to sound calm, though her voice staggered. She briefly took a glance up at the wing above her, which steadily retracted to the creature’s back. The other wing stayed sprawled out across the grass.

The creature remained silent, following Pinkie with his eyes.

The pink pony tried her best to keep the smile on her face steady. The creature’s eyes felt as if they were peering straight through Pinkie’s skull and into her mind, judging her every single thought and movement. “Are you... new to Ponyville?” Pinkie asked unsurely, quickly thinking to herself afterwards how foolish the question sounded.

Casually, the winged beast yawned and looked straight ahead of him, stretching his arms and wings out. Pinkie stared up at the humongous instruments of flight as they extended into the air above the creature, casting a shadow large enough to cover at least three or four Pinkie Pies bunched together. The creature brought his limbs back to his body and pushed himself onto his feet, brushing off the front of his sweatshirt of the grass that had stuck to it. He was even taller than Pinkie had expected from his size on the ground, just about three or four feet taller than her. He turned towards Pinkie and fell backwards onto his behind, bending his legs up in front of him with his feet planted on the grass and his arms resting on his knees. Eyes fixed on the pink pony, he continued to stare at the small equine specimen standing in front of him. Silence, for the moment.

“Uh...” Pinkie Pie muttered, growing even more wary of the creature as it refused to move its tired eyes away from her. “What’s your-?”

Surprisingly, the creature’s lexicon switched to a more recognizable one, though the abruptness of his voice startled the pink pony. “I wouldn’t suggest that you were trying to kill me. Were you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at his company.

Pinkie opened her eyes wide. “N- no?”

The wings of the beast opened partially. “Were you?” His voice was much more stern than his previous statement.

Feeling her legs begging her to run away, Pinkie Pie locked them tight and stood up straight, but she could still feel a small tremble in them. “No!” She smiled. “Of course not! I don’t have a reason to!”

The creature’s wings slowly retracted to his back again, the lowest feathers of the appendages poking outwards to contour to the ground. “Good. Now get out.” He pointed behind Pinkie, and a small hole in the sphere creating an altered reality around him and the pink pony opened, showing the actuality of the valley, stormy and dark.

Pinkie’s smile disappeared and she glanced back at the hole, staring out into the pitch-black and rainy valley. She returned her eyes to the winged creature, who had his hand hanging from his wrist again. “But-” Pinkie started.

“Now,” pressed the creature, who’s voice was getting more and more irritated with every word that it pronounced.

However, before the winged beast could do anything more to force Pinkie out of his area of peace, something stopped him.

“Varkrai! Poxnu voh kimnor!” a woman’s voice seemed to speak out of now where. It sounded as if it were in the same language that the creature had spoken earlier, the hard consonants and sharp pronunciation of the words similar to the red-eyed avian’s earlier speech.

The visible creature turned his head away from Pinkie and stared at the air angrily. The pink pony off to the side, completely baffled by the two voices talking to each other, only watched in confusion. “Veta?”

“Vis’im giran vell balsto!” the woman’s voice replied. Her voice was high-pitched and slightly whiny and had somewhat of a harsh and pleading undertone.

“Lata?”

“Vah deraxni vos allet!”

“Veta heraxni fah oren?”

Pinkie only sat back and listened, watching the winged beast in front of her talk with a voice that didn’t even have a visible owner. By the tones of the two voices, Pinkie could tell that they were arguing about something, and with a few blatant assumptions, it was obvious that they were discussing the matter of the pink pony watching the visible contestant in the verbal battle. Another strange group of syllables after the previous one, Pinkie Pie had no other option than to let her ears soak in the, what seemed like to her, incoherent lashes of words back at each other.

“Nurin?” the female voice spoke. Her tone had calmed down along with the creature sitting in front of Pinkie Pie, and she sounded as if she were trying to reason through begging rather than force.

Letting a sigh out through his nose, the black winged side in the argument focused his eyes on Pinkie Pie, who instantly perked up and locked eyes with him. The creature ran his eyes across Pinkie’s form, seeming to analyze her every detail as if he were determining something about her. He looked back at the space to his side, shaking his head in defeat and closing his eyes

“Nera,” he said.

The female voice let out a small, excited squeak. “Ralin kah!” She giggled. “Fah yuna kah!”

The creature sitting in the grass smiled and opened his eyes. “Fah yuna kah, len.” He took a deep breath in as he turned his head back to Pinkie Pie, his smile fading. His language of choice switched back to a one that Pinkie could understand. “Two conditions if I let you stay,” he stated, bringing his legs closer to himself and crossing them. “One. Don’t touch me without my permission. Two. Don’t ask any questions. Am I clear on those?”

A grin keeping her from separating her teeth and saying anything, Pinkie could only nod.

“Then we have an agreement.” The creature leaned forward and stretched his hand out to Pinkie. “My name’s Varkrai.” He smirked. “Try not to stare.”

[2] Dimensional Perturbation

Chapter Two: Dimensional Perturbation

“I was scared! Ha ha! Can you believe it!?” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she trotted down the damp path leading to Ponyville.

“Mhmm,” the winged creature walking next to the pink pony grumbled, trying his best not to let his frustration get the best of him as he felt the need to let loose his anger in a swift, powerful kick. Varkrai stared down the dirt road at the town in the distance with his hands in his pants pockets as he walked alongside Pinkie, who had insisted he come with her.

The night before had been one of the more interesting that Pinkie Pie had ever experienced. She got to converse with a strange creature in which she had no idea where he came from, she got to stay inside of a bubble of some sort of reality altering force for the entire night, she even managed to pluck a few of the creatures’ feathers out of curiosity. Of course, there were some repercussions of her plucking the winged beast’s feathers, as she almost had herself thrown half way across Equestria should the female voice that had been talking to Varkrai not interrupted his actions. The language that Varkrai and the woman’s voice spoke still remained as gibberish to Pinkie Pie, and she had felt she couldn’t have held herself back from asking what they were talking about earlier during the night, but she knew she had made a promise to not ask any questions, no matter the situation. Pinkie had just gone along with the conditions as best she could, despite plucking the creature’s wings of a few feathers with her mouth, and with no questions asked the entire night as she and Varkrai waited out the storm, she only had the option to act as if he were anypony else she knew. However, that had appeared like something Varkrai didn’t plan on.

For the pink pony and the black winged, avian, bipedal, grumpy creature the night before, there was no sleep to be had. Pinkie Pie’s intrigues in Varkrai had kept her up all night, talking with him and learning as much as she could about him by simply conversing. He seemed lenient with what he deemed as a question or not, as Pinkie was able to find out a few of his interests, though she still had no idea where he came from, what he was, where the woman’s voice was coming from, what was going on with the weather, why they were in a weird bubble that sheltered them from the storm, why he was sleeping out in the middle of a field, or how old he was. The only things that Pinkie knew about him was that he liked to fly and that his clothes were made from the fleece of some sort of animal called a ‘caldance’, though Pinkie had no idea what a caldance was, considering that Varkrai only had stared at her when she asked him what it was. So, she stayed up the rest of the night, admiring the scenery and unintentionally waking Varkrai up with her talking time after time he began to nod off to sleep. The storm had passed as morning came around and Varkrai had been as cranky as ever, stuffing his wing into Pinkie Pie’s face as she woke him up from his longest run of sleep, which was three minutes. He seemed used to the annoyances of being woken up and being pushed around on the ground in an attempt to get him on his feet as if he dealt with it before. The only thing that persuaded him to get up and go along with Pinkie Pie to Ponyville was that she told him that there were more of her species there. Something about meeting more of the ponies piqued the creature’s interest, and now he found himself walking along with Pinkie Pie as the headed for the town ahead of them, fighting back the urge to play a game of Punt the Pony into Oblivion.

“You’re gonna love Ponyville! Maybe I’ll give you a tour!” Pinkie Pie suggested, bouncing up and down at her excitement. It was very little that she ever had the chance to bring someone new to Ponyville, more than that someone that she had no idea what species they were. All she was focused on was introducing Varkrai to the ponies of Ponyville and becoming his friend.

“Pinkie Pie?” Varkrai spoke, keeping his eyes at the colorful town.

“Yeah?” asked Pinkie.

“If you could shut your mouth for ten seconds, that’d be great.”

“Okey dokey lokey!”

Silence fell over Varkrai and the pink pony walking next to him, their foot and hoof steps filling in the lack of conversation. Pinkie continued to stare up at Varkrai, who was starting to get a feeling that she was counting down the seconds in her head, and sure enough, ten seconds later, Pinkie had her mouth spouting out words again.

The rest of the walk had been torture to the tall, avian figure making his way towards Ponyville. He began to develop a fear of even stepping a single foot into the town that he and his talkative companion were walking to, thinking to himself if all of the inhabitants of this world were as bubbly as Pinkie Pie. He almost threw up at the thought, but he tried to remain with an open mind. There was something he had to figure out about the colorful land he had found himself in, and with Pinkie Pie’s attitude, he had doubts that she would be able to stay on task for a single minute. For the duration of the walk, he endured the constant blaring of Pinkie’s ecstatic voice and the high-pitch sound of her hopping up and down in his left ear, trying to convince himself that the risk of having his ear drums pop was worth reaching the town and talking with the other ponies. He had a hard time doing so.

“And we’re here! Where do you want to go first?” Pinkie Pie asked as she and Varkrai arrived at the border of Ponyville, both of them coming to a stop.

Varkrai ran his eyes across the edge of the town. At least they’re somewhat sophisticated, he thought to himself, looking over the houses and buildings making the established network of Ponyville’s current structure. The ponies of the town were up and moving, making their way through their schedules for the morning. They greeted each other and some stopped to chat with their neighbors, a few of them conversing about the odd weather yesterday. The fillies and colts of the town ran around each other, playing in the small puddles strewn throughout Ponyville’s roads and streets as they splashed in the water and laughed happily. The sun peaking over the mountain tops in the distance was a sight for sore eyes after the inescapable storm that had pelted the town of ponies the day earlier, and the pegasi clearing out the remaining clouds in the sky were happy to finally see the blue of the ocean above them. Unbeknownst to all of the ponies, a strange figure stood next to one of their own, watching them and thinking to himself that he was going to be a bit more annoyed with these lifeforms than any other.

“They seem a bit too happy,” Varkrai whispered to himself.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Pinkie asked, causing Varkrai to flinch slightly as he wasn’t expecting a comment. “Ponyville is one of the nicest towns in Equestria! You’ll see!”

Varkrai sighed and scratched his head. “I’m sure I will.”

“Great!” Pinkie exclaimed. “So, where do you want to go? There’s the spa, Sugar Cube Corner, town square, the libr-”

“Oh! Oh!” the female voice poked in, which gave the black winged figure and Pinkie Pie a small start. The language she spoke had adapted to Pinkie’s understanding, and her suggestion of where to go made Varkrai grumble slightly. “Varkrai! Let’s go to the spa!”

The red-eyed creature put a hand up to his forehead. “Noitorum, not now. These creatures seem to be intelligent. Plus, I have a headache. I just want to find the one with the most knowledge and reason so I can find out if this dimension is-”

“Most intelligence?” Pinkie asked.

Varkrai peaked out from his hand at the pink pony next to him. “Yes. Do you know it?”

“Of course I do!” Pinkie Pie declared. “Everyone in Ponyville knows that Twilight is the smartest smarty-pants around! Should we go to her house first?”

Raising an eyebrow and putting his hand back down at his side, Varkrai turned his head to look at Pinkie. “The smartest in this establishment is twilight?”

“Yep!”

“As in the time of day?”

Pinkie giggled. “No, silly!”

A burning sensation coursed through the winged creature’s entire body and he felt his hands clench into fists. “Call me silly one more ti-”

The pink pony continued, “As in Twilight! Twilight Sparkle! She’s one of the ponies that lives here! Come on, follow me. I’ll take you to her!”

Varkrai stood still for a moment as he watched Pinkie Pie hop forward.

“I like them,” the female voice spoke.

Shaking his head and looking back towards the mountains, Varkrai finally had a moment to recollect his thoughts now that Pinkie’s voice was out of earshot. “I don’t. I’m just surprised that they speak English. Usually humans are the only ones that know the language.”

“Well, maybe these lifeforms are different!”

“Different, yes, but that isn’t always a good thing.” Varkrai turned his head back to Ponyville. “After all the years that we’ve been hopping through these worlds, I think you would have learned that it’s not a good habit to jump right into the cultures of the indigenous populations. Especially ones we’ve never encountered before.”

“Oh come on! Did you see the pink one!? She’s adorable!”

“She’s annoying.”

“Lighten up! I’m sure we’ll be fine. These ponies don’t look like they’re being tormented or are in some sort of war! Maybe we can have some fun for once.”

“If this dimension has been broken open before, maybe we will. I just want to find out if this world is undiscovered.”

“And if it is?”

Varkrai bit his lip. “Then we’re gonna have a bit more on our hands that we usually do.”

“Varky!” a voice called out from further towards Ponyville.

The burning feeling returned into Varkrai’s body, and he could almost feel himself tear apart with his anger. He centered his eyes on Pinkie Pie, who was motioning her hoof to him from the edge of the town. “What did she just call me?” he asked quietly

The female voice laughed quietly. “Let’s go, Varky. We don’t want to keep this ‘Twilight Sparkle’ waiting.”

Varkrai clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, trying his best not to dig his finger nails into palms. “You’re lucky you’re not in your physical form right now.” He begun to head for the town. “Besides, the one Pinkie named Twilight doesn’t even know Pinkie’s bringing us to it.”

______________________________________________________________________

“Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing that thing to me!?” Twilight Sparkle yelled, frantically running around the ground floor of the library as she searched for a certain book along the shelves lining the walls.

Pinkie Pie followed Twilight with her eyes as the lavender unicorn knocked her appliances on the floor with her careless sprinting. “Uh... I thought I would surprise you?” Pinkie said, giving Twilight Sparkle a nervous smile. “Surprise!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight slid to a stop in front of her friend. “A surprise is- is a party! Or a joke! What is that!?” She pointed her hoof to the window of the library, in which the back of a tall figure stood just outside.

His eyes slightly squinting in the sunlight as he stood outside of the library, Varkrai remained silent as he waited for Pinkie Pie to finish talking with Twilight. He gently perused the structures of Ponyville and the town’s inhabitants, managing to ward off a few of the ponies that were daring enough to even glance at him with a stare back at them. With his arms crossed, the top of Varkrai’s head sat in the shade of the tree while the early morning sun bombarded him with its light. The orange-tinted sky, after being in darkness for so long before with the storm, looked as if it were some sort of utopia in the sky for the winged creature looking up at it. So many times the worlds he had visited were dark and void of light, warfare and turmoil striking over everything else. Equestria was one of the exceptions as it seemed so far, though the daunting feeling that it wouldn’t last for long dangled in front of Varkrai’s eyes every second. He had to find out of this certain world he found himself in was in danger, and the only way he was going to find that out was speaking with one of the more intelligent of ponies. Quite honestly, it wasn’t necessary for him to speak to the smartest of the town; it was only personal preference of not having to explain as much as he usually had to. However, that depended on if the Equestrian dimension, as he now knew it, was undiscovered.

Pinkie looked back at the window Twilight was pointing at. In all honesty, she had no idea what Varkrai was, or what his intentions were, but she knew that he couldn’t be all that bad. To her mind’s extent, that is. “A... present?” Pinkie guessed, looking back at Twilight with another nervous smile.

Twilight Sparkle gave the pink pony a slightly frustrated stare. “For who? Spike? Me?”

A pause in her thoughts caused Pinkie to blank out for a second. “...the library?” she guessed again.

“Pinkie, we don’t even know what that thing is!” Twilight attempted to reason with her friend. “It could be dangerous!”

“But he didn’t hurt me!” Pinkie rebutted, following the lavender unicorn with her eyes again as Twilight searched around the bookshelves for something. “I know he doesn’t mean any harm!” She found herself rethinking her statement as she remembered herself being picked up by Varkrai and almost being launched into the mountains the other night. “Well... not a lot of harm.”

Twilight came to a halt in front of one of the bookshelves under the stairs leading up to her room, levitating down a blue covered book with a picture of wings etched into it. She flipped through the pages hurriedly, coming to a stop at a page, but quickly shaking her head and continuing through the book. “Oh, there isn’t anything in this about winged beasts like... whatever that is outside!” she yelled, frustratedly tossing the book away.

“I doubt there would be,” Varkrai spoke from atop of the flight of stairs above Twilight, sitting on the steps and looking down at her as he twirled a blade of grass in his fingers. His appearance gave both Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle a small heart attack. Twilight backed up to Pinkie’s side and stared up at him along with her friend. Even now that he was wide awake and attentive, Varkrai still seemed as if he were a little tired and irritable with his eyelids hiding the upper halves of his eyes. Despite being passive, his voice showed a hint of annoyance in it. “From the looks I was getting outside, I’m coming to the conclusion that this dimension truly hasn’t been touched.”

Twilight looked back to the window near the entrance of her home and quickly returned her glance to Varkrai. “How did you-?” she started.

Varkrai tossed the blade of grass in his fingers off to his side and watched it tumble down the steps. “If you’re wondering, no; I don’t mean any harm unless you’re looking for it.” He put his eyes back at Twilight, who was looking at him angrily for cutting her off. “How did I get in here without you noticing? I don’t know. Maybe you should be more aware of your surroundings.”

With a furrowed brow, Twilight Sparkle prepared a spell in her horn, a purple aura surrounding it. “You sure seem comfortable here already,” she commented.

“Comfortable?” Varkrai asked. “Not really. Sure, the environment seems nice,” He pointed a finger at Twilight’s horn. “though the population inhabiting it doesn’t. I’m just getting to know this dimension.”

Taking the hint, Twilight Sparkle let her magic calm down and the aura around her horn disappeared. “And we’re just getting to know you. How do we know you’re not up to something?”

“If I were up to something whatever that thing was would be done already,” Varkrai said. “Don’t take that as me being cocky. I’ve gotten to know my capabilities enough over my life time to know what I can do and what I can’t.”

“And how long would that life time be?”

Varkrai’s mouth curved into a slight smile. Cautious of Twilight’s uneasiness of him, he slowly slid his legs to the edge of the stairs and hung them over the side. Gently flapping his wings, he lowered himself to the ground and set his feet on the ground, folding his wings against his back. With him standing up, it was apparent to Twilight Sparkle how tall Varkrai actually was. He looked as if he were a half of a foot or two above Princess Celestia’s stature, though the few lone hairs sticking up from his head added an inch or so to his height. His wings managed to extend to even height with his hair now that they were folded, the black-feathered appendages peeking out from beside his arms and over his shoulders.

He slid his hands into his pockets. “How long is the day and night cycle here?” he asked, beginning to casually walk around the room.

Pinkie and Twilight glanced at each other. “Twenty four hours,” Twilight answered. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because the solar systems, typically in dimensions like these-” He paused for a moment and centered his eyes on Twilight. “This is a planet, I assume. The blue sky outside indicates some sort of atmosphere.”

“Yes... Equus. What else would it be?”

Varkrai returned to walking around the room, both Pinkie and Twilight watching him. “I don’t know. A giant void of flowing energy with remnants of a lost civilization floating in it. Empty space waiting to be reconstructed into a new dimension. A flat plane or universe that continues to grow and grow until all life halts. Layers and layers of different levels of constructed space hiding organizations of indoctrinated inhabitants that have no idea they’re not where they think they are.” He stopped and looked at the two ponies. “Need I go on?”

Twilight and Pinkie shook their heads, clueless as to what Varkrai was going on about.

The winged creature smiled. “Good choice.” Again, he began to walk in a circle, following along the shelves of books. “My asking of the length of the day and night cycle has to do with my age. Aside from a few other dimensions, I’m surprised that this one, too, has a twenty four hour cycle of day and night. Rather, a day and night cycle at all.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

Twilight’s question seemed as if it had passed through Varkrai’s head without leaving any sort of trace. “Take Demons, for example,” he continued, Twilight Sparkle rolling her eyes, though Pinkie seemed to be enjoying herself as she listened to Varkrai sputter what sounded like nonsense. “They tend to not like light, so they block out the source of light in the areas that they are and create their own artificial lights, which seem to please them more than the natural light source in the area they’re in. It’s not much of a precaution to save them from being harmed like Shades do; they just don’t like light. If you survive long enough in a Demon corrupted dimension, you start to loose track of the days and you don’t know how old you are any more if you don’t have some sort of clock on you. Primordials lose track of their ages before they even know it, with all the Demons running around and what not.” Varkrai sighed and stopped in his tracks again near the entrance of the library, looking down at his feet. “Does any of this sound familiar? Any of it?” he asked as he looked back up at Twilight and Pinkie Pie.

To his fears, however, the two ponies were in complete confusion. They only stared at Varkrai with blank eyes and partially hanging open mouths.

“Project Omega?” Varkrai asked. “Demons? The Omnipotent Force? Humans? Primordials? Feers? Zuktius? Rustnox? Duraknians? Shades?” He took his hands out of his pockets and turned his palms upwards. “Anything?”

He was only met with silence.

Varkrai closed his eyes and fell backwards, sitting down and scooting back against the door of Twilight Sparkle’s home. He put his palms up to his face and grumbled quietly, “Why? The one dimension I find myself in that’s decen-” He paused for a second. “-not trying to kill me... hasn’t been broken open before.”

Pinkie Pie leaned towards the lavender unicorn next to her. “I think he’s a bit upset,” she whispered to her friend, though both of them kept their eyes on Varkrai.

Twilight Sparkle nodded subtly. “Maybe, but he’s obviously going on about something that we don’t know about,” she whispered back. “Either that, or he’s lost his mind.”

“I can hear you,” Varkrai muttered from behind his hands.

The two ponies laughed silently. “Well, as long as you can hear us,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Why don’t you tell us about what in Equestria you’re talking about?”

Letting his hands slide down his head and flop onto his lap, Varkrai’s face emerged slightly irritated. He stared up at the ceiling of the library for a moment before he tilted his head to look at Pinkie and Twilight. “Are you sure about that?”

“We have time.”

Varkrai closed his eyes and took a deep breath in before he stood up and set his seemingly tired, cross stare on the pink pony and lavender unicorn in the center of the room. “You may want to take a seat, then,” he suggested.

Shrugging and supposing why they shouldn’t, since Varkrai didn’t seem to be the complete danger that Twilight had suspected him as, both Pinkie and Twilight Sparkle sat down on the floor and looked up at Varkrai.

“I can’t read minds, so I’m gonna need to know what you two want to know,” Varkrai began. “What’ll it be? A history lesson? Some equations? A demonstration? A board game?”

“Oh! Oh! Let’s play a board game! I call first!” Pinkie blurted out, grinning while she bounced up and down in place. A sharp glare from Varkrai instantly calmed her down, Pinkie smiling nervously and sitting still.

“I don’t know what I expected...” Varkrai muttered. He shifted his eyes to Twilight. “You seem reasonably tolerable. So? What do you want to know?”

Twilight didn’t know where to begin. Having known nothing about Varkrai for the past three minutes, she felt a boiling excitement in her as she conjured up questions in her mind. Varkrai’s hostility out of the way, Twilight Sparkle soon let her curiosity get the best of her. She had clearly learned nothing about what Varkrai was in her studies and lessons at school, or what he was talking about, and small squeaks of excited anticipation escaped her throat one by one.

Meanwhile, Varkrai only squinted at both of the ponies with his jaw partially hanging in a sort of confusion. Twilight Sparkle practically foaming from her mouth and Pinkie Pie rapidly flipping her tongue up and down with her hoof, spraying spit everywhere, the two ponies didn’t seem like the best candidates to be talking to for the creature staring at them.

The winged beast clicked his teeth together. “An interesting dimension, this one,” he mumbled through his teeth. Hoping Twilight and Pinkie wouldn’t freak out and start whinnying whilst running around the room, he stepped forward and barely lifted his right arm out in front of him. He turned his palm upwards, and with a flick of his wrist up and his fingers down, a large spark of a strange white fire snapped on the floor in front of Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie. The small explosion, despite it not harming them, caused the two ponies to almost jump out of their coats, though Pinkie left a good trail of her mane behind as she leaped into the air with enough propulsion to reach the moon.

Varkrai, a smile on his face while he saw Twilight Sparkle hyperventilating and Pinkie Pie landing back on the ground extremely confused, stepped backwards and crossed his arms. “Either your legs are stronger than I thought or the physics in this dimension are broken,” he remarked, lifting an eyebrow at Pinkie.

Clearing her throat, Twilight Sparkle fixed her mane while she recovered from her moment of panic. “Sorry,” she said. “I was... thinking.”

“I could tell,” Varkrai noted.

“What was that!?” shouted Pinkie Pie, looking around the room and stopping her eyes at the small puff of smoke rising from a blackened spot on the floor.

Twilight Sparkle furrowed her brow and looked at Varkrai. “Yes... what was that?”

“Oh, so now you pay attention!” Varkrai said, raising his eyebrows and smirking. “Am I gonna have to get closer every time with that, then? It sure woke you up.”

Twilight growled. “So? What was it?” she asked sternly.

His smirk growing into a full smile, Varkrai uncrossed his arms and put his right hand up as if he were displaying something. After a short second, a strange aura formed in the air above his palm, gathering in a ball that flickered like fire off of the top hemisphere. The fire, however, was not anything of the sort. Upon looking at the collection of the peculiar substance, the flames appeared to be some sort of energy, tendrils of the pure white aura coiling loosely into the air and disappearing after escaping out of a two inch radius from the collection’s center.

Varkrai eyed Pinkie and Twilight as they stared at the substance in his hand. So this dimension truly doesn’t have any idea of what’s around it, he thought to himself. “Something, huh?” he asked. Twilight and Pinkie looked back at him as the white aura above his palm disappeared. “What you saw wasn’t anything that you have here in your world, I can assure you. You might have something similar, but there are plenty of unique ways of manipulating energy and transforming it into something different out in the dimensional wastelands.” He put his palm up in front of him and recalled the aura. “This is an energy manipulation known as ‘Solance’.” Varkrai gave Pinkie a glare as she opened her mouth to say something. “It has nothing to do with a caldance. Not even close.” Turned his head to Twilight as she gained a confused look on her face. “I-” Stopped in his tracks and shook his head. “Don’t worry about.”

“So... what is this ‘solance’, then?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

With a snap of his fingers, the collection of energy above his hand fell down onto his palm. He kneeled down and rolled the ball over to Twilight Sparkle, who stopped it with her hoof and picked it up with curiosity shooting from her and Pinkie’s eyes. “Solance is a type of manipulation of energy into a lethal or recreational use. Physical or sub-dimensional, solance can be shaped into any sort of shape and can do a lot of damage in combat.” Varkrai made a twisting motion with his hand at the ball of solance in Twilight’s hooves and the sphere, acting on its own, twisted around itself to form a knot and tie around the lavender unicorn’s hooves. “Or just cause annoyance.”

“Cool! Let me try!” Pinkie Pie said, reach to the knot around Twilight Sparkle’s hooves and pulling. She flew backwards as Varkrai disassembled the rope of energy, crashing into the wall of the library.

“It can also be released back into its normal state, which is only a free flowing mass of sub-dimensional... stuff,” Varkrai said, shrugging. “I assume that the aura that I saw collecting in your horn earlier was a sort of energy manipulation, as well. Solance is typical in a race known as Feers, which is what I am, if that answers your question about that.”

“And what’s a... feer?” Twilight Sparkle questioned, rubbing her hooves and watching Pinkie Pie stumble back to her side.

Varkrai filled his lungs and gave Twilight a smile. “A biologically modified primordial descendant spliced with the genetics of several different human dimension and a small number of foreign dimension beings and equipped with a purified evolution of dark energy bonded to his or her soul through Trinostic technology other wise known as Solance.” He continued breathing normally. “Catch all that?”

Surprisingly, the explanation had even caused Pinkie Pie to stop what she was doing and stretch her mind.

“That’s what I thought,” Varkrai assumed. “Any more questions?”

“Mind explaining what all this talk of ‘dimensions’ you’re going on with?” Twilight asked.

“Now you’re getting somewhere,” Varkrai said. “Dimensions, as I have been talking about them, are different, very different, worlds. I wouldn’t exactly call all of them worlds, but they’re something of the sort. Anyways, a dimension is one of the universes, empty voids of space, flowing energy, all those, that are floating around you, me, and everything else that’s in this sub-dimensional space.” He put his arms up at his sides, horizontal to the floor. “What do you see here?”

“You!” Pinkie answered.

“Right. From the perspective of a single dimension, the space that a lifeform is in is just a place that they can see and interact with. Beyond that guise, however, are many, many more dimensions floating around, all of them separated by a one, single, force. The Omnipotent Force. This force is what is keeping all of the dimensions from cramming into one gigantic mass of mush, and what is keeping other dimensions from invading others. Granted, it doesn’t do a very good job, but it makes a decent cover-up for the actuality of dimensions. That is known as sub-dimensional forces. The entire Omnipotent Force is one big void of sub-dimensional energy. It’s there, but it’s not there at the same time. This force separates dimensions, yet keeps them in the same space, and if beaten and worn down enough, it can be ripped open and create something called a dimensional gate, which is just a gateway between dimensions. There can be some drawbacks to breaking through dimensions, however, and they can be lethal to dimensions that don’t know of the others. There are plenty of other dimensions that don’t have environments like this one, and they’ll do anything to take it.”

Varkrai stopped himself as he realized that he may have lost Pinkie and Twilight somewhere during his explanation, as both of them were staring at him like they were in some sort of trance. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, planting one of his palms against his face. “Strange,” he muttered. “It usually takes a day or two for me to be frustrated like this in virluth dimensions.”

“Vir... luth?” Pinkie Pie repeated, scratching her head.

The winged figure peaked an eye out between his fingers and focused on Pinkie Pie. He lowered his hand from his head. “Yes, virluth. Dimensional word for untouched or undiscovered. It’s one of the few words of the dimensional language. Don’t ask me to teach you the dimensional language; it’s complicated. I suppose you ponies wouldn’t know about it due to being in a virluth dimension.”

“Well, what’s a ‘virluth’ dimension?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

Varkrai thought to himself for a moment as he conjured up an example of a virluth dimension in his head, though the first thing that opened in his mind probably wouldn’t have been the best, or most decent, explanation. “Uh... hang on a second,” he said, sticking three fingers on one hand up out in front of him. The creature rotated around himself as if he were looking for something. His eyes pinpointed on a few sheets of paper atop a desk a few steps away from him, Varkrai walking over to the desk and picking the sheets up. He turned back to Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle after examining the thin pieces of paper, holding them in his index fingers and thumbs. “A virluth dimension is a dimension that has not been touched. By that, I mean it has had no contact with other dimensions before, which means it has never been... ‘opened up’. They’re like these.” Varkrai walked forward and held out the blank sheets of paper out in front of him to Twilight Sparkle, tightening his grip on them. “Try to push your hoof through them.”

The unicorn furrowed her brow. “Why?” Twilight Sparkle asked, confusedly staring at the paper held in front of her face.

“It’s an example, alright? Just do it,” Varkrai insisted.

Twilight Sparkle, after giving Varkrai a strange look, lifted her hoof up to the papers and pushed lightly on the pieces of paper. She only found that her hoof made a large, shallow indent within the sheets. “I can’t,” the unicorn admitted, beginning to get frustrated as she pushed harder and harder.

“As expected,” Varkrai said. He brought the pieces of paper back to him as Twilight lowered her hoof. “Virluth dimensions are harder to get through to other dimensions than others because they don’t have a ‘weak point’. They’re kind of stubborn, if you will. All they need is a weak link for the entire chain to snap and fall apart.” Varkrai held the pieces of paper within his longer fingers and pinpointed his thumbs in the center of the papers. He pushed his thumbs forward, a tear forming in the papers as his thumbs ripped through the multiple sheets. Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie exchanged a brief look of befuddlement as they watched Varkrai enlarge the tear in the sheets, both of them beginning to wonder if bringing him into the treehouse, or even approaching him, was a good idea. Varkrai held the papers back out in front of him to Twilight, the tear now a bit smaller than Twilight Sparkle’s hoof. “The hole in these papers represents what I have done to this dimension by breaking through the sub-dimensional forces. Granted, the actual process was a little less messy and more subtle than... well, this. As before, this dimension more than likely hasn’t been visited by any others, considering your lack of knowledge about them. What I have done is broken through the ‘stubbornness’ of the dimension, which is the hole in this paper. Now, try to push your hoof through the sheets.”

Twilight Sparkle, beginning to catch on to what Varkrai was saying, nodded and lifted her hoof up to the sheets. Not expecting the papers to have ripped open so easily, Twilight lost her balance and flew forward, letting out a startled squeak as her hind legs followed after the rest of her body. Twilight Sparkle braced for the impact, squeezing her eyes tight. Though, she felt a sudden feeling of relief as she felt a pair of hands catch her a few inches from the ground. She opened her eyes to find Varkrai staring down at her, his arms outstretched and his hair dangling from his head.

“Get it now?” Varkrai asked, slightly smiling.

“Uh... yes,” Twilight nodded. “Yes, I get it.”

“Good.” Varkrai flipped the lavender unicorn up onto her hooves and let her go, Twilight Sparkle stabilizing herself and walking back over to Pinkie’s side.

“The ease of your being able to push through the sheets of paper, which seemed to be quite effortless, represents the ease that other dimensions are going to have now that there is a weak point in the dimensional forces,” Varkrai explained as he brushed his hands off on each other, small hairs of lavender fur falling from his gloves. “Meaning you’re going to have a lot more company from your neighboring cousins.” He centered his gaze on the two ponies and gave them a small, somewhat sinister smile. “You better hope they’re friendly.”

“Wait, so you’re saying... that there are going to be more creatures from outside of our dimension... coming here?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“You got it,” Varkrai affirmed. “How are you defense systems here?”

“What do you mean how are our defense systems!?” Twilight yelled. She stood up. “What does that matter!? What matters is that you just put us in danger!”

“Your defense capabilities matter, as a nation or whatever you have here, because, if those dimensions that come through are hostile, you’re going to be up for a fight,” Varkrai said. “And besides, one of the rules of dimensions are that every dimension is broken through sometime during their lifecycle. It would’ve happened anyways, so don’t blame me.”

“Well... I’m blaming you! How long does it take for other dimensions to get through!?”

Varkrai glared at Twilight. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe if I could hear myself think I could give you some predictions.”

Twilight Sparkle calmed herself down and sat back at Pinkie Pie’s side, who was only befuddled and listening to the conversation. “Alright, fine.”

“Thank you.” Varkrai took a moment to think to himself and held his chin, staring at the floor. “In the virluth dimensions that I have been in before, the time periods that passed were somewhere between one and five months, going off of a twenty four hour day and night cycle. Out of all of them, only two of them were under three months; the other ten were over three.” He looked up at Twilight and Pinkie. “I’d give this dimension three and a half to four months, maybe more, maybe less.”

The lavender unicorn sighed and looked around aimlessly. “Well... what do we do until then?”

Varkrai stayed silent. He kept his eyes on the two ponies, who had grown noticeably quieter. Even Pinkie Pie, with her bubbly attitude, seemed to be preoccupied with wondering what could happen now that they were open to other dimensions. The two ponies seemed to have taken the information in well, despite their few pauses of brain activity throughout Varkrai’s explanations. They appeared to trust him, and Varkrai bit his lip.

“Varkrai,” a female voice spoke gently, cautious of the situation. Twilight, curious as to who was talking, and Pinkie, recognizing the voice, looked up at Varkrai. “What are we going to do?”

The black winged figure gripped his temples with his fingers and closed his eyes. “I suppose...” He shook his head and looked up at Twilight and Pinkie, who were awaiting his answer. Almost uncontrollably, he smiled. “I suppose we’re gonna have to give a helping hand here. It’s not all the time we come by dimensions like these.”

Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie grinned and stood up, both of them excited to hear that Varkrai was going to help them.

“Wait a second,” Twilight spoke quickly. “Who’s we? And where is that voice coming from?”

Varkrai smiled. “Noitorum, I think it’d be best if you showed them.”

“What!?” the voice yelled. “Really!?”

“Yes, yes. You can celebrate once you’re out here.”

“Are you serious!?”

“...Yes.”

“You’re not joking, are you?”

“Shut up and get out here before I change my mind.”

Not even wasting a second, the voice squealed with excitement as it began to act. The aura that Varkrai had showed Pinkie and Twilight begun to make a ring on the floor of the library on its own, glowing intensely as the solance grew in concentration. The voice had disappeared, though it was replaced by a high-pitched ringing noise that grew in loudness as its visible counter-part grew in luminosity. The library was filled with a pure white light as the ring of solance continued to gather more and more energy. Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie, both covering their ears, stared with squinted eyes at the ring in front of Varkrai, who was used to the display. As the library just about reached the point of no shadows and the ringing was almost enough to shatter glass, everything stopped. The ringing ceased as the halo of light on the ground shot up from the floor faster than Twilight and Pinkie could track, and in the center of the ring’s course into the air, a figure emerged from the fading light.

“Twilight, Pinkie,” Varkrai started, stepping off to the side to show himself to the two ponies. “This is Noitorum.”

Varkrai lifted his left arm up to the figure standing diagonal to him. The light gone and the ringing stopped, the lavender unicorn and pink pony uncovered their ears and opened their eyes completely. In the place where the glowing ring had almost blinded the two ponies stood a woman of Varkrai’s species, two pure white, feathered wings sprouting out from her back. She had on a set of clothes similar to Varkrai’s, but the sweatshirt she wore was purple. Her feet were bare of any sort of footwear, her toes wiggling on the floor. Her eyes were almost exactly identical to Varkrai’s, sharpened pupils and blackened whites of her eyes, though her irises were a white that seemed to gleam with their brightness. Like Varkrai, her complexion was young, and her stature was enough to be outlined by her clothing. She seemed to be just a bit under Varkrai’s weight, who appeared to be toned and had some muscular build under his clothing. Her long black hair flowed down her back between her wings and came to a halt just above her tailbone, swaying side to side as she did with her upper body. Two thick strands of her hair hung in front of her shoulders, either split or pushed off to the side by her breasts. Her arms behind her back and her fingers interlaced, Noitorum stood with her stomach outwards, trying to hold herself back from rushing forward and tackling the two ponies that she found so adorable.

“Well, Noi?” Varkrai said. “Are you gonna say hi or-?”

He couldn’t even finish his sentence before he was tackled to the ground and squished within the arms of Noitorum.

“Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!” she screamed into his face, continuously increasing her grip on him and kicking at his legs.

Varkrai could barely let out his words, “You’re... welcome. Now let go of me. I can hear my bones cracking.”

With one final squeeze, Noitorum leaped off of Varkrai and rushed over to the two ponies that were slightly startled by the woman squealing her head off. Varkrai, after taking a second to get his wind back in him, sat up and looked over to the woman over by Twilight and Pinkie. Already, Noitorum was holding onto one of the ponies, Pinkie, up within her hands, holding the pink pony out in front of her and rambling about how unbelievably happy she was. Pinkie Pie, even though she wasn’t used to being picked up, couldn’t help but feel Noitorum’s happiness reflect onto her, both Pinkie and Noi laughing and screaming at each other with excitement. Soon after she was acquainted enough with Pinkie Pie, Noitorum moved to Twilight Sparkle, picked her up, and cradled her in one arm and tickled her stomach with the other, though the lavender unicorn was a bit more resistant than her friend as her yells were more of embarrassment and anger.

Varkrai sat back on the floor of the library, watching Noitorum and the ponies play with each other. He leaned back and rested on his elbows, closing his eyes and putting his head back. The feeling of being able to relax for a while was one that Varkrai had missed, and the lack of being able to hold something adorable had started to make Noitorum hyperventilate with how excited she was. Varkrai took the moment to accept that he and Noitorum were going to have to do some more explaining down the road, though he figured that Noitorum could do most of that. For now, Varkrai let his mind relax, knowing that he and his pearl winged companion would be able to sit down and finally get some rest.

The lingering feeling of the susceptibility of the dimension, however, decided to take a room and settle down in his head as well. Whatever was coming through after Varkrai and Noi was unknown, and whether the dimension they found themselves in was prepared or not could only be known until their preparations were tested.

If Equestria would withstand the horrors of the dimensional wastelands, certainties were no where in sight.

[3] The Top of the Feer Chain

Chapter Three: The Top of the Feer Chain

A ripple spread out across the surface of a small pond on the outskirts of Ponyville, the hands that had disturbed the tranquility of the pond rubbing the water on the bases of their fingers. Varkrai watched the waves bound off of the other side of the pond and come back as he stood up, the water dancing just slightly. He leaned forward and looked down at his reflection when the water had calmed down, putting his wings out behind him to keep his balance. The sun, sitting in the middle of the sky now, gleamed in his eyes off of the settling water, sending its incandescence into his tired, exhausted eyes. He was used to not getting the sleep he probably needed, but he was still slightly jealous of Noitorum, since she had worn herself down into a deep, worn out sleep after letting her energy out by playing with Pinkie Pie and the less enthusiastic Twilight Sparkle earlier in the library. Despite having been with Noitorum for practically his entire life, Varkrai still managed to find her constant sleepiness a strange oddity. Though, he figured that the amount of sleep she got helped fuel her playful attitude. Realizing how tired he looked now that the brightness of the sun’s glare against the water adjusted in his eyes, in which both of their pupils had reduced to a small slit barely thicker than the tip of a sharpened pencil, Varkrai rubbed his forehead and sat down beside the pond.

A gust of wind ran over the fields surrounding Varkrai, blowing the winged creature’s hair to the side and lifting his hood up against his neck. He reached behind himself and flipped his hood back down as the wind relaxed to a smaller, gentler breeze, though enough to fiddle around with the feathers of his wings. Varkrai reached down to his feet and tapped a few times at his shoes. The smooth, hardened material that they were made of slowly let itself expand into a softer and more stretchy, fabric-like cloth. He stretched the material out and slid the shoe-shaped cloth aside of his right foot, doing the same with his other foot afterwards. Letting his feet out of the hardened, though quite soft on the inside, footwear managed to slide a smile onto Varkrai’s face, though the smell instantly turned the curvature of his lips downwards. Having worn the shoes for a little over two months straight because of the harsh landscapes of some dimensions, Varkrai had grown used to the feeling of them on his feet. It wasn’t until now that he realized that wearing his shoes for so long probably wasn’t the best idea.

Varkrai leaned forward and tilted his feet this way and that, examining them incase there were any side effects of him keeping his footwear on for so long. No repercussions in sight, he scooted his way forward and slid his legs in front of him, submerging his feet in the shallow water at the edge of the pond. He rubbed his toes and soles on the sand and dirt of the pond’s bank as hard as he could for a short moment. Convinced he had gotten the smell out, Varkrai sighed to himself and laid down on his back with his feet in the water, spreading his wings out across the grass.

The sky had been completely cleared of any clouds, letting the blue abyss showing its entirety with the company of the bright, shining sun. The storm during the night before had somewhat polished and perfected the mid-afternoon sky, taking away the delight of bliss for a while and giving it back when the ponies needed it the most. The rain had left the grass glistening and the sun shining exceptionally bright, Varkrai closing his eyes to get the light out of them. For an autumn day, the breeze blowing through Ponyville seemed slightly warmer, though for Varkrai it was all the same; he still had no idea what the weather patterns were like, but the storm yesterday may have indicated that the dimension doesn’t like new visitors. Despite barely any trees being around, a few leaves tumbled across the grass near the pond, all of them collecting water that eventually hindered their movements to a mere flop. A few birds chirped here and there throughout the fields around the pond, singing their songs as they flew about the air. Varkrai’s wings itched with the urge to fly, but his knowing that he was waiting for Twilight Sparkle to get a letter back from Celestia kept him grounded.

Varkrai had made it obvious, though a little harshly, that he wasn’t just an insane creature that didn’t like to be touched and had never been seen by pony eyes before. His talks of dimensions and all of the things that came with them were real, and the horrors that he knew that came with them weren’t an exception to the dimension he found himself in now. Keeping the information about the horrors, as he called them, from the ponies seemed like the best option. Panic was never a good state of mind to be in, given the situation that Varkrai had put the ponies into, and telling them about what might come through wouldn’t exactly be the best agent of comfort. He still didn’t know what compelled him to stay and help the indigenous creatures of his current dimension; he had left dimensions in the past, untouched ones, to deal with the problems themselves before. He had his own worries on his mind and, without any words from Noitorum, he left, gone without a trace and never looking back. There was no reason to stay. After all, all dimensions, once void of life or the Key Race, who hold the very life of the dimension, undergo the rebirth process and start their life cycles again. Another of the dimensional rules, but for some reason, things always seemed different in Noitorum’s eyes.

She felt for the beings of the dimensions and had pity on them. She wanted to help them and get them through the first waves of dimensional invasions before they adapted and were able to defend themselves. Then again, her mind was different, almost completely different than Varkrai’s, and she knew it. Whether just a quiet dispute or a full blown yelling-at-each-other fight, Noitorum always had known that, from her and Varkrai’s experiences, they were almost always on polar opposite sides of a situation. Noitorum knew quite well that Varkrai could easily open a dimension gate and take both of them with him through it, despite her yells and pleads for him not to. Even now in her sleep, laying in the vast abyss of Varkrai’s solance, she had in mind that Varkrai, even though he hadn’t said anything, was thinking of leaving, and she wasn’t wrong. Varkrai, staring up at the sky with closed eyes and his head resting on his hands, let a few thoughts of getting up, opening a dimensional gate, and leaving into his head. It wouldn’t be very hard; stand up, generate enough solance to tear open the forces holding him back from another dimension, and hop through. Effortless, after being done so many times, thousands even. But somehow, in some way, he held himself back, and he remained on the ground, silent as he listened to the air around him. That, and the sudden sounds of a large splash in the pond.

The small pounce of a spring popping open before the splash just now registering in Varkrai’s ears, his demeanor switched from peace to disgruntled in just a split second. He sat up and looked towards the center of the pond. A mass of pink fur emerged from under the surface of the water, giggling and splashing around in the pond. Varkrai growled quietly and slid backwards, taking his feet out of the water and sitting up straight with his legs bent up. He crossed his arms and rested them on his knees as he watched Pinkie Pie swim to the edge of the pond near him. She jumped out of the water and shook herself around, flinging water in every way.

A small sheet of a fiery white substance wiped through the air above Varkrai, the water that was descending at him stopping against the shield and falling onto the grass. “I can see that you ponies don’t exactly listen very well,” Varkrai said, watching as Pinkie Pie walked over to him. “I could have sworn I said that I wanted to be alone for a little bit.”

“And you were!” Pinkie said, coming to a stop at Varkrai’s side and grinning at him.

“For ten minutes...” he mumbled as he leaned his head forward and rested it on his arms.

Varkrai’s grumble ran past Pinkie’s ears. She stopped bouncing in place for a second as she let herself calm down. The winged creature staring out at the water, Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but examine him. She watched his hair blow peacefully in the small breezes running near the pond, and she admired the feathers of his wings as they twitched against themselves. Varkrai seemed to be naturally still, almost eerie as to how he managed to stable himself and barely make a single voluntary movement. Pinkie looked down at his feet. They were like hands on his legs she thought as she looked at the blades of grass sticking up from between his toes. She shifted her eyes to his hands. She had seen claws, paws, and talons before, but she had never seen appendages so nimble and thin. What seemed the strangest to her the most was the lack of any sort of prominent bodily fur or hair shown on Varkrai’s skin. There were small hairs sticking out from the skin on his wrists and the backs of his hands, but there was no fur nor feathers, just little, barely noticeable hairs. He seemed strange, though Varkrai could have said the same thing about Pinkie with her eyes just about touching his.

The winged creature didn’t make any movements, staring out of the corners of his eyes at the pink pony, who was not only the width of a hair away from him, looking closely at his hands. “Is this your species’ way of coming onto others or what?” Varkrai asked. “Because this is a little creepy if it is, and I’m not interested.”

Pinkie, slightly startled by his question, though she had understood that she was a little close to him after spotting a scar over his eye in which would have been invisible at any other distance, backed away quickly and sat down. “No. Why?” she asked.

“You seem to have made it a habit to constantly chip away at my patience,” Varkrai said, putting his eyes back out at the pond. “And by the observations I’ve made throughout the dimensions I’ve been in that are similar to this one, that tends to be a sign of some sort of affection. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not accusing you of anything; I’m just saying that you should probably stop before Noitorum wakes up.”

The pink pony looked around for the white winged feer, though Noitorum was no where in sight. “Where is she? I don’t see her.”

“That’s because she’s in my solance right now, resting. She wouldn’t be too happy if she saw my face buried in another lifeform’s face or other region, so I suggest you just stay put.”

Pinkie scratched her head. “In your solance? How does that work?”

Varkrai squinted his eyes and a low growl resonated in his throat. “There’s a time in the day where I just want to sew my mouth shut and crawl in a hole,” he murmured.

“When’s that?”

“Right about now.” Varkrai turned his head to glare at Pinkie. “But, there wouldn’t really be any point in delaying some of the explanations I suppose I’ll have to be giving.” He looked back out at the water. “Noitorum, if you hadn’t have realized it by the little display back in the library half an hour ago, isn’t exactly a typical lifeform. Alive, yes, but not a living organism, if that makes sense. Feers, such as myself, have an abnormality in our bodies. We were created from technology that tempered with our souls, and from that tempering came solance. Along with solance came secondary souls.” He straightened his right arm out in front of him and a collection of solance surrounded his hand like a glove. “Secondary souls are just as they sound. Noitorum is another soul within my, or our, body. Been there since birth, will be there until death should nothing interfere with her bond to our body. However, souls have the ability to manipulate energy or forms of energy, as they are floating around in sub-dimensional space. Noitorum, for example, manipulates our solance to create a body for her to inhabit, which is what almost made Twilight suffocate with hugs earlier in the library. The display you saw Noitorum do before she appeared in her physical form was her altering our solance into an inhabitable material, or a more inhabitable material. Noitorum tends to link her spiritual form with her physical form most of the time, so she feels physical stimulation even in her spiritual form. And since solance, when present in a feer’s body, is just a vat of energy waiting to be used, Noitorum enters what appears to be a sort of abyss of... I don’t know, white.” He crossed his arm back over the other. “Does that answer your question?”

Pinkie scratched her head slightly. “I think so. Could you-?”

“No.”

“Then yes.” Pinkie giggled and stood up. She looked out at the water, which was just coming to a stop from her jumping in the pond. A few squirrels had come to the water’s edge, the three of them running around each other as they made their way across the field, heading towards Ponyville. Pinkie smiled and looked back towards Varkrai. “I can still give you a tour of Ponyville, you know,” she offered kindly, walking closer to him.

Varkrai shot Pinkie a scowl as she got close, the pink pony laughing nervously and backing up a little. The feer looked back out at the water. Noitorum was still asleep, and she would more than likely be so for the next three hours or so. Getting a tour of Ponyville could give Varkrai the knowledge of the town’s layout so that he wouldn’t have to ask Pinkie to show Noitorum the design of the town later, and being away from the pink pony for any amount of time seemed like it would be a blessing on his ears. The tour didn’t seem like too much of a bad idea; Varkrai could get to know the general attitude of Ponyville and learn some of the other locations aside from the library. He still had a while to wait for Twilight Sparkle to get a letter back from Celestia, as the princess was still in a conference with Mayor Mare and a few other delegates from the cities throughout Equestria. He would only be wasting time that he could be using to get to know the new dimension if he were sitting around and twiddling his thumbs, so he managed to convince himself to try and adjust his mind to at least try to be welcoming.

The feer crossed his legs and reached to his side, picking up the two sheets of cloth that had been his shoes earlier. “Alright, Pinkie,” he said. “Take me on this tour you’ve been blabbering about.” He muttered something under his breath, though it hadn’t reached Pinkie’s ears.

The pink pony grinned and bounced up and down. “You’re gonna love Ponyville! Come on! There’s so much to show you! We can go to...”

Varkrai sat still as he listened to Pinkie Pie hop off without him, her excitement overtaking her initial intentions. His shoes back on his feet, the feer shook his head and stood up. “I hope everyone in this dimension isn’t as happy as her,” he whispered to himself. Pinkie already nearing the town a while off in the distance, Varkrai hovered off of the ground with his wings flapping casually, flying along the path that the pink pony had taken towards Ponyville.

______________________________________________________________________

“Ready?”

“Mmhm.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t wanna ruin the surprise!”

“You won’t.”

“So you’re ready?”

“No.”

“Tell me when you’re ready, then!”

“I’m ready.”

“Okay! I’m-!”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Okay now I’m ready.”

“Okey dokey! Here we go!”

The furry pink hooves in front of Varkrai’s eyes whipped away from his face, revealing the surprise that Pinkie had been talking to him about the entire way to Sugar Cube Corner. He had only said casually that he didn’t know what Pinkie was talking about when she mentioned candies and pastries for her to almost fall into a coma. The tour was forgotten for a while and the two had headed for the Cakes’ home so Pinkie could show Varkrai what he was missing out on, as she had phrased it. Now, Varkrai stood in the middle of a room full of multicolored decorations and spongy substances of food. The owners of the shop seemed to be out at the moment with their children, leaving the emptiness of the vibrantly colored shop with an eerie feeling in Varkrai’s mind, though one of the happiest in Pinkie’s. Pastries strewn about and the shop’s design even looking like them, Varkrai knew he would have a hard time getting used to the festivities of the dimension.

“I think I can feel my eyes melting,” Varkrai said, squinting slightly at all the colors of the shop.

“They look that good, don’t they!?” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, beaming and drooling at the numerous types of sweets. “I can’t believe that you’ve never had anything like this!” Pinkie hopped over to the display case at the cash register, sliding open the glass shield to let access to some of the treats tucked away in it. “Try one! They’re good!”

Varkrai scratched his head. The last time he had tried to eat something he didn’t know what it was almost suffocated him. Something about the vibrant colors, which were typically used as warning signs to ward of predators, made the feer staring at the cupcakes within the display case uneasy. “Uh... I’d rather not,” he spoke hesitantly.

“What!? What could tempt you more than this!?” Pinkie Pie reached into the case and picked out a rather heavily decorated cupcake, showing it to Varkrai. The small pastry, chocolate it seemed, was loaded across the top with icing, even more so with a rainbow of sprinkles across the icing’s surface, some of the multicolored dots of candy falling off due to the sheer amount of them. The surface of the shrunken cocoa cake glistened with a subtle moisture that almost made the cake slip out of Pinkie’s hooves, though it did a good job of holding the ingredients, baked to perfection, together.

Varkrai almost gagged at the sight. “Anything that looks remotely edible,” he remarked. “What is that? It looks like you took the very essence of the visible light spectrum and beat it into submission with a stick that was made of sunshine and happiness.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Pinkie said longingly, staring at the cupcake with eyes that emitted hunger.

The black winged feer shook his head. “Look. First of all, that thing looks like it could fuel a rainbow for sixty years without degrading in vibrance. Second, I’m not eating it.” He scanned his eyes over the other cupcakes within the display case. He stopped at a particularly plain one, a simple chocolate pastry with a blue paper lining. “There,” he said, nodding at the cupcake in his sight. “that one looks slightly more fit for consumption.”

Pinkie switched her eyes from the cake in her hooves to the one Varkrai had picked out. “That one? But what about this one!” She shoved the treat closer to Varkrai. “How can you not want it?”

“It looks like it has emotions. Look at it. I can hear it singing about how lovely of a day it is and how it loves to be alive.”

The pink pony sighed and sunk down a little. “Alright.” She put the cupcake back in the display case and took out the cake Varkrai had requested. She reached her hoof out to him, smiling. “Here!”

Varkrai gave the cupcake and Pinkie a cautious look before he carefully pinched onto the cupcake with his fingers. He looked over the small cake and sniffed it, flinching at the sudden and intense aroma of sugar and other smells of such that set his nose aflame. He looked back at Pinkie Pie briefly, who was grinning at him and waiting for him to take a bite out of the chocolate pastry in his hand. He could feel the cake start to squish in between his fingers the longer he held onto it, the somewhat wet texture of the cake flipping his stomach a few times. His throat a bit dry, he had a hard time letting a nervous gulp push its way down. Varkrai slowly peeled the cupcake of its blue paper wrapping and took a moment to examine the cake in his hand without its small covering. It barely covered the area of his palm, which gave him a brief thought that maybe the cupcake wouldn’t be all that bad, considering its size. He shifted his eyes to Pinkie again, her grin even larger than before. Delaying the consumption letting his mind think of more ways the cupcake could taste as foul as he thought it would, Varkrai figured that he would end the mental torture and pop the cake into his mouth. The moment didn’t last long.

The intense, sharp taste of all sorts of sweetness and sugar plastered Varkrai’s taste buds, though the result of it was the opposite of what Pinkie had expected. In a flurry, a storm of chocolate cupcake chunks flew out of the feer’s mouth and landed harshly on the floor, making a sound that edged Varkrai on even further to let his earlier meals wreak havoc on himself. His mouth feeling as if it were on fire and closing in on itself, Varkrai squirmed around the room with his hands on his lips, trying his best to keep the contents of his stomach where they were supposed to be. Pinkie giggled slightly at the sight of him doing some sort of dance as he flailed his wings around and bobbed his head up and down. The taste, which Varkrai felt provoked a hurricane of destruction and discomfort in every corner of his mouth, didn’t seem to go away, no matter how hard he had begun to spit and rub his tongue. In a last effort, Varkrai collected a ball of solance in his palm, came to a stop in the middle of the room, clenched his eyes shut, spread his wings out, got into a stable position, and rammed his hand into his face, mouth open.

The collision of face and hand sent a loud thud throughout Sugar Cube Corner and a while off into Ponyville, sounding as if Varkrai had stomped down on the floor as hard as he could. The solance that he had used to stop the havoc in his mouth that the cupcake had brought upon him continued past his head after the impact, spreading out into the air like water spraying from a garden hose and disappearing a short moment later. The force of the hit, which sounded like it may have broken Varkrai’s entire head, swept him off of his feet and pushed the upper half of his body backwards, landing harshly on the floor. Pinkie Pie, almost crying out of trying to hold her laughs back, slowly walked over to Varkrai, who was staring up at the ceiling with a blank stare. He shifted his eyes to Pinkie as she came close. His face seemed to have singed on some areas and his hair was blown backwards, partially blackened along with his skin. The incident was over, but Pinkie still couldn’t help but laugh.

“Do you engineer all of your food to attempt to kill others?” Varkrai asked as Pinkie Pie calmed herself down.

“You should’ve seen yourself!” the pink pony shouted, wiping her eyes. “I’ve never seen a cupcake do that to anything!”

“Oh, well good.” Varkrai sighed and looked back up at the ceiling, placing his hands on his stomach and weaving his fingers together. “It’s nice to know that my suffering can give you entertainment.”

Pinkie had calmed herself down, her giggles and laughs reduced to a quiet humming of her voice. The last tears of laughter were gone from her eyes and her face was only left slightly damp, though a little sore from the enormous grin she had on. Her eyes clearing of the cloudiness and haze, she looked down at the winged creature laying on the floor. He had his eyes closed, seeming as if he fell asleep with how still he had gotten. His chin moved side to side and up and down as his tongue moved around, subtly picking between his teeth for the remnants of the cupcake that had almost caused him to choke on his own mouth. Despite the panic he had been not only a minute ago, Varkrai looked as if he had gone into some sort of trance, lulling himself to peace without even doing anything.

Pinkie Pie looked over his stature, tempted to poke at his wings again as they gently moved around, spread out across the floor. She smiled as Varkrai opened his eyes again, the bright red circles shifting to look at her. “So... where are you from exactly?” she asked curiously, sitting down.

“Far away,” he answered almost too simply. He closed his eyes again and took in a calm, deep breath. “It’s impossible to calculate, or estimate, any distances between dimensions. No one even knows what is between dimensions aside from sub-dimensional space, which is just free-flowing energy that separates all the worlds, universes, and the likes from mashing into one big ball of mush. All that’s there is nothing. Well, it’s technically something, but the travel process between dimensions is too fast to be able to see what it is even for beings that have the ability to stop time. Some beings say that they have actually seen what lies between dimensions, but what they were seeing is more than likely a hallucination. Dimension traveling has strange effects, and even the oldest of beings still have yet to discover what exactly goes on in this mess. I guess some things are meant to be left untouched.” He peaked an eye at Pinkie. “What does it matter? Where are you from?”

“A rock farm!” she said, bouncing slightly with her statement. “I grew up there with my parents and sisters. Where did you grow up?”

Varkrai took a moment to process what he had just heard, though he shook it off. “In a field. Normal house, mountains in the distance. Quite pretty actually. No one else around, only the sounds of the few animals that passed by and the weather.” He opened his eyes and stayed quiet for a second, tilting his brow inwards. “I think.”

“What do you mean?”

The feer chuckled lightly and closed his eyes. “It’s been so long since I last saw that house that I can’t remember what it was like.” He paused again, the content look on his face morphing to a stoic manner. Pinkie could see his eyes squeeze a little as he remained silent, seeming as if he were trying to think. Either that, or he was trying to hold something back. “I don’t know if Noitorum would remember either, so I wouldn’t count on asking her.”

Pinkie Pie took a glance at Varkrai’s hands. The grip that they had on themselves made them lighten. “How long ago did you last see it?” she asked, looking back at Varkrai’s face.

Varkrai shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. Noitorum might know, but I doubt it. I’ve forgotten how old we are, and with all the differences of day and night cycles in dimensions, we’ve lost track. Us feers can live very long however, so I wouldn’t doubt that we’re somewhere along the lines of a thousand or so.”

The pink pony opened her eyes widely. She leaned closer to Varkrai’s face to study his complexion. “You don’t look very old. You’re not all wrinkly!”

“Feers aren’t your typical lifeform, Pinkie. A lot of the species throughout dimensions are not what you would expect them to be. It’ll be apparent as soon as more visitors come through here.” He smiled. “You’re going to be in for a surprise at how different things are on the outside.”

“Well, you’re not really like anything here in Equestria, aside from the wings.”

“And I never said I was. I’ve never come across one of these dimensions before, so this is all as new to me as I am new to you. You’ll understand more later on the road, but for now, you’re just going to have to sit and wait. Everything’ll clear up naturally, I can assure you.”

The door to Sugar Cube Corner slammed open. Varkrai, sitting up, and Pinkie Pie looked towards the entrance of the shop, slightly startled by the noise. A light purple mare stood in the doorway with her hoof on the frame, wobbling back and forth as her magenta eyes did the same in her head. Her face was tinted a bright red and she seemed to be mumbling to herself about random types of pastries. Her voice was slurred, and as she walked further into the store, she began to stumble around, trying her best not to fall over.

“Hiya, Berry Punch!” Pinkie exclaimed. Her voice seemed to catch the mare off guard, Berry almost falling over. “Are... you okay?”

“What kind of question is that?” Varkrai asked, giving Pinkie a weird look. “Look at her. She looks like she just came out of a coma.”

“A... a good one!” the purple mare shouted. Even her normal speaking had a hint of mumbling in it. She tumbled further into the shop, though she quickly stopped, still swaying, at the sight of Varkrai. She squinted at the winged creature sitting on the floor for a second, trying to determine if what she was seeing wasn’t just her blurred vision. “Who is?” she asked, pointing towards the feer.

“I see she can English well,” Varkrai said sarcastically.

Pinkie giggled lightly. “This is Varkrai! He’s new to Ponyville!”

Berry Punch stared at the pink pony for a second before switching to Varkrai, back to Pinkie, and back to Varkrai. “Whazza Vakrai?”

“You’ve got an interesting population here in Equestria,” the feer commented.

“Varkrai is a new arrival in Ponyville!” Pinkie answered. “I’m giving him a tour around right now. Wanna come?”

Berry slowly made her way over to the feer sitting on the floor, a crooked smile forming on her face. “Oh I’ll come...” She circled around Varkrai, looking over him with curiosity and interest. “You’ve got quite a...” She took a moment to hiccup. “...sexyful one here.”

The feer on the floor, now having his face being rubbed against with Berry’s, clenched his fists and growled quietly, though even he had a hard time interpreting his emotions. “Pinkie. I suggest you get whoever this is off of me before I do anything drastic,” he said. “I’d rather not get charged with assault this early on.”

Pinkie Pie laughed nervously and stood up, scooting over to Berry Punch. “Uh... Berry?”

The purple mare turned around to look at Pinkie. “Sh! I’m trynna do this!”

“Well...” The pink pony looked around, her eyes coming to a stop at the display case for the cupcakes at the cash register. “Why don’t you have a snack!” she suggested, looking back at Berry with a grin.

“I got my snack right here...” Berry Punch said, turning back to Varkrai and leaning against him.

“Pinkie...” Varkrai murmured. His wings were flaring and a small glow was forming in his fists, the quiet ring of solance becoming apparent.

The pink pony looked around frantically. She knew that Varkrai wasn’t just making a threat, and she wouldn’t be able to handle being responsible for whatever Varkrai would do to the mare rubbing up against him. The door of the shop still open, a movement from outside caught Pinkie’s attention, and a gleam swiped across her eye.

“Uh... Berry!” Pinkie said, looking back at the purple mare, whose flank was just about touching Varkrai’s infuriated, red, about-to-unleash-his-fist-onto-her, face.

The purple mare whipped herself back to Pinkie. “Whadoyawant?” the words poured out of her mouth along with a drop of spit. The repeated sound of her tail smacking against Varkrai’s head, added with the feer’s breathing in attempt to calm himself down, made Pinkie grow on edge.

“There’s a sale going on outside!” Pinkie pointed her hoof to the door. “Applejack’s giving out the rest of her cider at her kiosk! I’m sure it’s yum-yum-yummy!”

Berry Punch, in what seemed like an attempt to laugh, only blew air out of her mouth, causing an array of saliva to fly from her lips. “I’m... I’m good...” She turned back to Varkrai and fell into him. “I got myself a tall glassa hansome here...”

“It’s... uh...” Pinkie remembered an incident from last week when she had visited Sweet Apple Acres. She could still feel the headache. “...her special cider!”

“Where she at?” It wasn’t even a second before Berry Punch was stumbling towards the door, swaying back and forth in an attempt to move her legs. “Where is she?” Soon enough, and with a few miracles, the light purple mare had found her way to the exit of Sugar Cube Corner, heading off aimlessly to find Applejack’s kiosk.

Pinkie Pie let out a small sigh of relief, though she had a feeling that Applejack might have a word with her later. She looked back at Varkrai. He barely moved a muscle ever since Berry Punch had walked up to him, and from the look on his face, he was more confused and violated rather than angry.

“Are you alright?” Pinkie asked.

“Just... just let me think for a second...” Varkrai whispered. He laid back down on the ground slowly, staring up at the ceiling with a blank stare. His hands found their way through the air to his head and he covered his face with his palms. Perplexed beyond his own comprehension, he had a hard time deciding whether to roll into a ball and sob or try to understand what he had just been through.

“Has... anything like that ever happened to you before?”

Varkrai let his arms limp and they fell beside him. He turned his head to Pinkie and stared at her for a second before whispering, “No.”

Pinkie smiled nervously and looked back out the entrance of Sugar Cube Corner. Berry Punch was nowhere in sight and Applejack seemed fine at her kiosk in the distance, which caused the pink pony to wonder where Berry had gone to, though the tumbling hoof prints in the road outside gave a fair warning of where she was going. Pinkie quickly snapped her eyes to the direct doorway of the pastry shop, as Mrs. Cake had abruptly stepped in the frame. She was panting heavily, and she looked like she could barely stand up with how exhausted she was.

“We saw Berry come by,” she quickly said, almost in a panic. “She didn’t cause any trouble, did she? Last time she-” Mrs. Cake’s train of thought quickly crashed, burned, and exploded thrice at the sight of the creature laying on the floor, and her eyes snapped open as wide as they had ever been. “Oh!” She looked at Varkrai for a moment as he sat up before she stared at Pinkie Pie with a sense of worry. “Uh... Pinkie? Who’s your... friend?” she asked nervously, backing up out of the door slightly. The creature’s strange eyes, wings large enough for her to use as a blanket, soft appearance of his skin, disgruntled expression, and general presence put her on edge, and she begun to wonder if Pinkie had discovered a new type of species over night.

“This is Varkrai!” Pinkie reached out to him, though he only leaned away from her and gently slapped her hoof with his wing. The pink pony giggled lightly. “Varkrai, this is Mrs. Cake!” She looked past the blue mare out into Ponyville. “Where’s Mr. Cake and the foals?” She quickly gasped. “You didn’t go to the park without me, did you!?”

“Uh... no, Pinkie... we, uh... didn’t...” Mrs. Cake, after having a unintentional staring contest with Varkrai, turned her head out of the shop as fast as she could and yelled, “Honey! Can you come here? We have... visitors!”

“Is it Berry?” a stallion’s voice called back.

Mrs. Cake looked back into Sugar Cube Corner, though instantly put her head back outside at the sight of Varkrai. “N-no! Can you come here!?”

“Visitors? Don’t you just mean customer-?”

“Just get over here!”

“Alright, alright.”

Hoofsteps, accompanied by another pair of smaller trots, slowly approached Sugar Cube Corner. Mrs. Cake stayed securely in the door, seeming to be bend the wooden frame of the entrance with her tight grip on it. She only took quick peaks into the shop, which only pushed Varkrai to get what was going on. A small, mysterious smile grew on his face.

“What’s going on?” Mr. Cake asked as he neared Sugar Cube Corner. The slim yellow stallion came into view from the inside of the shop, and as he walked into the doorway partially, Varkrai almost gave him a heart attack. Mr. and Mrs. Cake, both of them frozen, stood cautiously at each others’ sides, keeping their eyes on Varkrai as best as they could. Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake weren’t far behind their mother and father, but they also didn’t get very far into the shop either. Both of them stood still as Varkrai came into their view, their eyes fastened to the red eyes that stared at them. The smile on Varkrai’s face had faded by now, and he only returned the Cakes’ wide eyes with a tired and angry connotation. The Cakes only grew further into caution and uneasiness as the winged creature stood up. No doubt, he was tall to them.

“Hi,” Varkrai said briefly, his mouth curving into a small smirk as he folded his arms. It wasn’t long before Pumpkin and Pound Cake burst into tears, nor for Varkrai’s smile to turn into the slight frown that typically sat on his face.

“Oh... uh, just let me take them... out,” Mr. Cake said unsurely, backing up and grabbing the two foals beside him. “Uh... honey? Do you want to... come along?”

Mrs. Cake didn’t say anything back; she only stood in the doorway, keeping her eyes, mixed between terrified and confused, on Varkrai, whose glare only kept her frozen in place. Mr. Cake chuckled quietly and lightly tugged at his wife, giving Varkrai a nervous glance before he pulled her out of the doorway. Their hoofsteps didn’t stay in earshot for long, and their presence was erased of ever being in front of Sugar Cube Corner. Pinkie Pie, who had tried her best to stay quiet to let the Cakes talk to Varkrai, exhaled a large breath of air that she had been holding in.

“Well, that was quick,” she said. She smiled at Varkrai, who only glared at her. “I think they like you!”

“Yeah, and so does that Berry Punch girl,” Varkrai remarked. He walked over to the entrance of Sugar Cube Corner and looked around outside. There hadn’t been too many ponies out in the street while he and Pinkie were walking to the pastry shop, but now that afternoon was at its peak, the visible population of the town had skyrocketed. Unfortunately for the feer standing in the doorway of the pastry shop, so had the attention put on him. A tall, large winged, foreign figure walking around Ponyville hadn’t gone unnoticed, despite the few numbers of ponies out and about, and the rumors had only put some of the town’s population into a sort of paranoia. Ponyville had gotten few new additions to its community, even less than that any visitors that stayed more than a week. The town had been silent for so long, and now that there was something unusual going on, almost the entire town became silent at the sight of Varkrai.

In less than a second, more than a hundred eyes slapped onto the feer standing in the doorway of Sugar Cube Corner. The noisy rumble of talking and hoofsteps that had been in Ponyville’s shopping area came to a dead, inanimate halt. Movement became an effort requiring concentration beyond reach, though it wasn’t even an action that came across the minds of the ponies. All they could do, and all they were thinking about doing, was staring at Varkrai and trying to figure out, over the inner-dilemmas in their heads, whether the feer standing and glaring back at them was as bad as they thought he was. A single twitch of Varkrai’s fingers and him clearing his throat caused a wave of flinches throughout the gathering of ponies, along with a collective, subtle gasp. A strange creature, whose likes had never been seen by ponies before, stood in front of them, glaring at them with cross, irate, slightly disturbing eyes. With a cloud floating in front of the sun’s light and Varkrai’s pupils at a seemingly normal size, the paper-thin width that they adapted to as the sun’s rays peaked out onto his face only caused even more fear to strike into the ponies.

Pinkie Pie slowly walked out beside Varkrai and looked around at the ponies gathered around. Most of them were standing completely still, though a small number of them were actually shaking. She hadn’t seen this kind of reaction to anything since the ponies didn’t know who Zecora was, and even then they weren’t welling up with nervous tears. At least, not to the extent they were now. A few of the ponies stared at Pinkie as if she were crazy to be standing so close to Varkrai, and some of them even subtly motioned to her to come out into the crowd away from the winged beast. Varkrai stood as still as ever, crossing his arms and scanning his eyes across the spectrum of faces staring him down. The situation wasn’t unusual to him, and if anything he had gotten used to it after going through so many dimensions, but it was everything but normal to the ponies around Sugar Cube Corner.

The silence wore away at Pinkie’s mind, and the only thing she could think of was to at least try to keep the ponies from panicking. “Uh... hi everypony!” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear, yet quiet enough to the point where they wouldn’t scream at the break of silence. Not a single word was muttered from the crowd. Pinkie cleared her throat. “This is Varkrai! He’s a fee-!”

“I don’t think it’s worth mentioning what I am,” Varkrai muttered to the pony at his side. “They look like they’re more worried if I’m going to turn them inside out or not.”

Pinkie laughed uneasily. “Are you?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Soon enough, however, Varkrai knew that he wouldn’t have to, as someone else would. A loud yawn erupted into the air around Sugar Cube Corner, originating from the feer whose face had developed a malicious smile. The ponies looked around at each other confusedly, finding another way to help their concerns about Varkrai. The winged creature’s mouth hadn’t moved, and neither had Pinkie’s, who was just about as confused as everyone else, but as she remembered the other visitor within the dimension, she felt happiness start to boil within her. Noitorum had awoken, and her wrath would not be kind.

A few lip smacks and yawns later, Noitorum’s voice finally spoke out, only further striking befuddlement into the ponies. “Varkrai? You’re still up?” she asked, coming out of a yawn. “I thought you would have been...”

Varkrai’s smile, the widest it had been so far, grew even wider, showing his bland, slightly sharp teeth to the ponies out in front of the pastry shop. Needless to say, the ponies began to shake even more. “What’s that Noitorum?” he asked.

“Varkrai,” Noitorum said flatly.

“Hmm?”

“Hold me back.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Hold me back, Varkrai. Hold me back.”

“Oh ho... there is nothing stopping you.”

Silence, and then screaming. Not only from Noitorum, but from the ponies as well. Shrill shrieks of terror erupted into the previously somewhat peaceful town of ponies. Most of them were of fear, panic, and all around turmoil, though one of the yells was of happiness, excitement, and joy. The ponies hadn’t hesitated to begin running around trying to get away from Varkrai, as half of the town was either sprinting away from him or just following the crowd because they had no idea what was going on. It didn’t take long for Noitorum to burst out of Varkrai’s solance and into her physical form, the white winged feer instantly chasing after the ponies while screaming that they were so cute. Varkrai, on the verge of suffocating due to his laughter already, only watched as Noitorum, completely oblivious as to what she was doing, put Ponyville into its biggest panic since Cerberus paid a visit. All the while, Pinkie Pie sat back, watching in complete awe at how much chaos a single woman could cause within a mere minute.

Noitorum came to a stop in the middle of the street in front of Sugar Cube Corner, her screams dulling to high pitched squeaks. She had her eyes closed throughout the entire ordeal, letting her other senses guide her through the street to try and pet the ponies. Now that everything seemed quite and only a distant ring of screams, along with Varkrai’s hysterical laughter, filled her ears, something seemed off to her. She open her eyes and looked around only to find that the ponies had quarantined the area of their presence, only hoofsteps strewn about on the ground showing any sign that they were ever there. No one was is sight, aside from Varkrai and Pinkie Pie, though Varkrai had tried to crawl inside to get rid of the sight of Noitorum terrorizing the ponies to calm his laughter. He had barely made it halfway through the door without having to stop and breath calmly, but even now he was having a hard time stopping the maniacal, uncontrollable laughter spouting from his mouth. Pinkie Pie was standing still, staring at Noitorum with wide eyes and a new caution of her. She knew that Noitorum was somewhat crazy before during the incident in the library, but now that she saw Noitorum could vacate an area just by yelling and running around in joy, Pinkie couldn’t even start to comprehend what awaited for Equestria in the future.

Noitorum took another look around the town before she set her eyes back on Pinkie. “Where did everyone go?” she asked, almost as if she was completely oblivious as to what she had done.

Varkrai could barely talk without interrupting his sentences by laughing, “They- they thought you were going to kill them! They were more scared of you than they were of me! You should have seen their faces!” He paused to not overwork his throat as another burst of laugher came through. “One of them tried to dodge out of your path! You- you decked him in the face! I don’t care if that was on accident; do it again!” The rest of Varkrai’s talking was only incomprehensible babbling and him pounding on his stomach to try and stop.

With Varkrai rolling on the ground, holding himself to at least dull the pain he was causing himself, Noitorum couldn’t help but smile. She only stood still, watching the black winged feer almost rip the frame of Sugar Cube Corner’s entrance off of the wall as he tried to crawl inside. Pinkie Pie, still confused as ever, sat down and looked towards Varkrai, whose face looked as if it had absorbed all of the blood within his body by now. He had finally managed to contain his laughter to a dull chuckle every second or so, and he had made a little more progress in pulling his way into the pastry shop, though the use of it was out of his mind. He wiped his eyes of tears and let his body fall limp after being tense for the last two minutes, resting his head on the ground and lifting his wings up off of him to cool himself. Noitorum’s shadow spread over him and blocked out the sun’s light, bringing him to a tranquil state that he had desperately been trying to cool down to.

“Varkrai,” Noitorum addressed the feer on the ground.

“Yeah?” he asked, looking up at Noitorum.

“I want one.”

“I don’t think they’ll appreciate slavery, Noi.”

“I still want one.”

Noitorum shifted her eyes to Pinkie as Varkrai shook his head and closed his eyes. The pink pony had slightly come out of her befuddlement, but she still showed signs of uncertainty when looking at the tall, white winged, bipedal, seemingly too happy feer glancing down at her. Noitorum had a sense of curiosity in her eyes that reflected the curiosity in Pinkie’s, both of them staring at each other in wonder. The woman slowly sat down and stuck her hand out to the pink pony, smiling and motioning her head to her fingers.

“I don’t think I properly introduced myself back in the library,” Noitorum said, a little of bit an apology sounding in her voice. “My name is Noitorum. Noitorum Roselend Clendestin.”

Pinkie, now seeing a bit of normalcy in the woman, smiled and reached her hoof out. The feeling of her thin fingers wrap around her hoof made her flinch a little at the foreign sense, but she ultimately went along with the shake and grinned. “Pinkamena Diane Pie!” She looked out at the ground in front of Sugar Cube Corner and nervously smiled at Noitorum as she let go of her hoof. “You really like us, huh?”

“Yup!” Noitorum smiled and reached back towards Varkrai, who gently slapped her hand away from him. She gave him a quick sneer. “Varkrai and I barely ever find any dimensions like this one, so you’ll have to excuse my...” She shyly glance out at the streets of Ponyville. “...behavior.” Noitorum let a squeak out of her mouth and pinched one of Pinkie’s cheeks. “It’s just been so long since I’ve seen something this adorable! Varkrai, look at her!”

“Noitorum you’re scaring her,” mumbled Varkrai. He had a wing over the top half of his body, his voice slightly muffled.

“Oh shut up,” Noitorum scolded, quickly punching Varkrai on his leg and letting go of Pinkie’s cheek. “We’re finally some place we can relax! Lighten up.” She smirked. “Varky.”

Noitorum barely had any time to react in the time that Varkrai had gotten up and tackled her thirty feet into Ponyville’s streets. Pinkie, who had only blinked in the time that Varkrai and Noitorum disappeared from her eyesight, quickly snapped her head to the area in front of Sugar Cube Corner. The recently settled panic that had disappeared from Ponyville had started up again, though there were only two participants in this one, dirt and dust kicking up in the air as the two feers let loose onto each other. The only sounds erupting from the what seemed like a playful fight, other than Varkrai screaming at Noitorum to not call him Varky, were the flapping of wings and Noitorum yelling at the top of her lungs the very same name that had caused the ordeal. At a certain point, what started off as an innocent debate slowly turned into a heated argument for a second, Pinkie Pie standing up and backing away slightly. Varkrai’s side consisting of something about home and Noitorum’s of explaining it was a joke, Pinkie prepared herself to intervene through the fighting. Varkrai’s eyes seemed to glow red, even brighter than they appeared like they did before, with the more frustrated he grew, and Noitorum’s voice became more pleading with the crescendo of Varkrai’s anger.

However, along with the frantic shouting and flying of feathers, laughing and playful bantering emerged from the arguing and teasing, both Noitorum and Varkrai developing smiles on their faces. Instead of bluntly hitting at Noitorum with his wings, Varkrai had switched to poking at her with his fingers, while Noitorum could only roll around, giggling as he tickled her. Pinkie Pie, relieved at how quickly they had resolved their dispute, sighed and sat down, watching Varkrai relentlessly conjure tears of laughter out of Noitorum by simply running his hands along her back. It was slightly strange for Pinkie to see the two feers play with each other, not only because they had been fighting ten seconds earlier, but because they didn’t seem like they would co-exist in one body. One soul, easily irked and constantly reminding those around him not to touch him, and another soul, unable to contain herself in the presence of something cute and a smile constantly on her face, living in the same body together, and they seemed completely fine.

The two feers had come to a standstill in between each other, both of them laying on their backs and staring up at the sky. They seemed as if they had forgotten about where they were for a moment, their wings wrapped around each other, ignoring their surroundings. Pinkie Pie looked around at Ponyville’s shopping area. Noitorum had managed to vacate the entire area of Ponyville with just her presence, none of the ponies that had seen the nightmare even daring to come back in fear of Noitorum coming after them again. For now, Pinkie just sat back against the wall of Sugar Cube Corner, waiting for the two feers to get back up. She still had a tour to give Varkrai, and apparently Noitorum now, too. Of course, the silence didn’t take long to take effect on the pink pony, and the build-up of not talking almost made her explode. Noitorum and Varkrai were too lost within themselves to even notice Pinkie Pie running towards them, and the next thing they knew they were holding themselves in pain from the pink pony trampling and jumping on them. Noitorum, despite the torment, was overjoyed to see Pinkie acting up again. Varkrai just about turned into a physical form his irritation.

[4] Abrupt Introductions

Chapter Four: Abrupt Introductions

“May I offer you some of our new brew of tea, ma’am?” the waitress asked with the handle of a kettle in her mouth, putting it out in front of the two ponies sitting across from each other. The two unicorns sitting at the table barely even lifted an eyelid in her direction, let alone even noticed her. The smile on the waitress’ face had disappeared faster than the stallion across from his wife waved his hoof at the waitress, muttering for her to go bother someone else in a snobbish accent. She set the tea kettle back upon her cart and propped herself up on the handle across its width, stepping away slowly from table she had been standing beside.

“Stuck up unicorns...” she grumbled to herself as she wheeled back to the window she had grabbed the beverages on her cart from. Her hooves crunched on the few leaves that fell from the tress within Canterlot’s borders, giving her a sickening feeling in her stomach that autumn was on its way. Even in the coldest of weather, the customers always seemed to enjoy eating outside, though whether it was out of cruel joy seeing the non-unicorn waiters and waitresses shiver in their required, barely warming outfits or because they actually liked the frigid temperature was questionable. The unicorns knew quite well that they couldn’t warm themselves with a simple spell, but they went on eating their food as always, smirking.

A smile, which was uniform now that the pale-pink-coated waitress had been working in the business of waiting tables long enough, returned as her boss showed up from inside of the restaurant at the window, the mare moving her faded yellow mane out of her face. The sharply dressed unicorn looked past the waitress and out into the tables, lifting an eyebrow and slicking his neatly styled mane backwards.

“Well, Honey Flower?” he asked, shifting his eyes back to waitress. “What did they think? Do they like the new tea? Are they happy? You didn’t add any of your spices, did you?”

“No, sir, I didn’t,” Flower responded, her ears falling against her head. “And they didn’t want any of it.”

The stallion adjusted his tie and suit. “Well, at least you managed to do something right. What have I told you before?”

Flower groaned quietly at having to recite the quote for the sixty seventh time. “Customers order what they order, not my spices and flavorings.”

“Good.” He glanced at the pocket on Flower’s uniform, catching a glimpse of a packet of her home-made ingredients before she turned away to hide them. He gave her a stern look. “You do remember what I said last time about this, do you?”

“But... that couple last week liked-!”

“I don’t care if they liked it!” the stallion yelled in a hush voice. He cleared his throat and scanned his eyes across the tables outside. “You get rid of it before I permanently kick you out of this restaurant for tampering with customer’s meals and beverages.” His eyes ran across the couple that Flower had stopped by earlier. “Now go back to them and offer them the tea again. They’re royalty; I want good word for this restaurant among them, and it’s going to come from that tea.” He looked over Honey Flower. Her mane was slightly frizzy from the wind and her eyes hung dull. “Try to clean yourself up. You look like a train wreck.”

Flower only nodded subtly. She turned around to the tables again as the stallion walked further back into the restaurant, sneering at the window before propping herself up on her cart again. The afternoon autumn weather was fairly warm at this time of day, though the cold of evening and night would soon come. The later hours of the day were the most common for the unicorns of Canterlot to sit around outside in their warm, fluffy clothing, watching the waiters and waitresses serve them in the frigid wind. Honey Flower, now working at Server’s Cafe for three years, had suffered through the fall before, but she always dreaded the sight of the leaves scurrying across the paved roads of Canterlot. The colors were nice and the scenery was fantastic with the sky matching the trees, but the bitter, unforgiving cold of fall never ceased to put Honey Flower into a frenzy of shivers.

The pale pink mare neared the table she had stopped by earlier, putting her front hooves back on the ground and dragging her cart with her. She feigned smile on her face again, despite the blatantly loud remark of the male unicorn of how annoying and persistent she was. It was already Flower’s fourth time visiting the table, and both the couple and her were starting to get sick of each other.

“Well you have some nerve, don’t you?” the mare at the table asked, staring at her through the corners of her eyes.

“Are you sure you don’t want any tea?” Flower asked, ignoring the question. “It’s our finest since the restaurant opened.”

“Oh well for Celestia’s sake, I might as well have a cup if it’ll get rid of you,” the mare accepted the tea. She held her chin high as Honey Flower leaned forward with the kettle’s handle in her mouth, gently pouring the beverage into the mare’s cup. Just barely, Flower could see the mare wink at her husband in her peripheral vision, a foreboding feeling sinking in her stomach. Flower stood up straight and looked to the stallion, who shook his head and motioned his hoof limply at her cart.

“Let’s see how ‘fine’ this tea is, then,” the mare spoke as she levitated the cup in front of her. Her put her lips out to take a sip, but to Flower’s surprise, the cup leaned, rather, threw in a completely different direction. As she turned back from her cart to the table, Honey Flower was met with a shower of tea descending on her, the hot liquid dripping down her face. She was left wide-eyed and shocked, staring at the rest of Canterlot behind the couple, who were laughing as mockingly as they could.

Honey Flower had been tripped, teased, called many different names, treated differently due to her not being a unicorn, even harassed by the few of the customers that found her attractive, but she had held her reactions in all of those times, burying them within her mind. It was only now that she couldn’t handle it any longer. The oranges and yellows of the trees in Canterlot deepened to red in her vision and she locked her eyes on the mare still laughing in amusement. Her nostrils flared and let out frustrated, embarrassed breaths in attempts to keep her emotions bottled, though it was all useless. The laughter had spread to the other tables outside, and Honey Flower had to put an end to it. The couple Flower had been serving quickly halted their amusement as two hooves slammed down on the table in front of them. They looked up to see their waitress seething, her face red and her eyes watering.

“Why do you think you can treat me like this!?” Honey Flower yelled at the top of her lungs. It had never felt so good to shout so loud, and the look of terror that quickly struck on the couples’ faces let Flower knew she was in control. “Just because I’m not a unicorn!? Because I can’t cast a simple spell to do anything I please!?” She heard the door of the restaurant open and slam in the distance, but she continued still. “I have to work for my living! I can’t use magic! I can’t sit back and watch others work and work while I watch them behind some stupid spell book!”

Over the silence that the area had come to, a voice shouted over Flower’s, “That is enough!” her boss demanded. “Honey Flower, you step off of that table and take off your uniform! You are fired!”

The waitress shoved herself away from the table, knocking it over in the process, and turned towards the stallion standing behind her. “And you!” she roared, walking closer to him. “Why can’t you just let me do what I came here to do!? Those spices and flavorings are what brought so much attention to this damned restaurant, but you didn’t want me to be so happy seeing others enjoy what I make! Why can’t you just let me be happy!?” She had made the stallion back up enough to the point where had tripped over a table and fell backwards, cowering on the ground with his head between his hooves. Nevertheless, she leaned down to him and screamed in his face, “Why!?”

Everything came to a standstill. The quiet, scared chatter around the restaurant had halted and Flower’s boss had stopped shaking. All that was left was Honey Flower’s heavy, furious breathing. Silence over the entire area, Honey Flower slowly let her breathing calm down and conform to the stillness. Her boss had stilled his trembles and his eyes were now open, wide with some sort of surprise and fear, but they weren’t directed at Flower; they were directed behind her. Now that she looked up from the stallion, she realized that all of the customers, previously staring at her, were now gazing at the area just a few steps back. A strange shadow casted itself on the pavement beside Flower’s own shadow, and slowly grew as the silhouettes of two enormous wings sprouted out from it. Had the Princess Celestia herself come to stop her actions in all of the commotion? Honey Flower wasn’t sure, but the figure that the wings originated from looked nothing like she had ever seen.

Before Flower could even look behind her, the stallion on the ground already began running to his restaurant, slamming the door behind him. The reaction of the unicorns sitting at the tables outside was similar, though they had no where to hide, so they continued running down the streets until they were out of sight. Honey Flower was left alone in the middle of the restaurant’s courtyard, her eyes plastered on the shadow of the figure standing behind her. She didn’t dare run away, but she at least had some courage in her to turn around and face what was there. Wincing a little as she turned around, what met her eyes took her breath away, and at the same time froze her in place.

Varkrai stared down at the pale pink mare with uncertain eyes, the same frown that sat on his face causing Honey Flower to become weary of him, even more than she had been at the sight of his shadow. His hair was slightly slicked back from flying all the way from Ponyville to Canterlot in half of an hour, and his eyes still had a bit of a glaze over them from the wind. He leaned on his left side just enough for his right heel to be barely lifted off of the ground, his hands in his pockets. He ran his eyes over the mare standing in front of him, who was starting to shake at his eyes dilating and shrinking due to them focusing, a few times before he moved a single muscle. He leaned down on one knee and stared Honey Flower in her eyes, the pink mare backing away a step.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Varkrai stated.

Too scared to think of anything else to say, Honey Flower barely managed to squeak out, “O- okay.”

The feer glanced at the restaurant behind the mare for a moment before locking eyes with Flower again. Her shaking had calmed, though she still trembled noticeably. “I don’t think it’s very wise for a waitress to be screaming at her customers like that, especially that loud.” He pointed a finger up to the sky. “You’ve got quite the voice if I could hear you from all the way up there.”

Honey Flower looked up at the sky and back down at Varkrai. “Up... there?”

Varkrai spread his wings out further. “I may not be the best to take advice from about this, but it’s probably something that you’re going to want to learn.” He looked to the restaurant window, in which the stallion that had confronted Flower earlier was just barely peaking through. He set his gaze back on the pale pink mare, staring into her dim blue eyes. “Keep your anger controlled. Don’t bottle it; don’t ignore it, but keep it within your grasp. No matter how hard you think things are, remember that you can always change it for the better. Never let your bitter emotions get the best of you, and never let them define you. Do you understand?”

Flower stared at him for a second. It was strange, no doubt, a sudden figure appearing out of no where and giving her advice, but he was right. It was almost like he knew what she was going through, and he had learned how to contain it himself. Despite the oddities that his eyes were, they conveyed a sense of comfort within them, trying their hardest to get their point across. Flower felt the words that he had spoken sink into her head and nestle peacefully, and she nodded in agreement.

Varkrai smiled and reached out to pat her on her shoulder. “Good.”

He stood up as he noticed a figure in the clouds above. Honey Flower tilted her head to the sky, though she found herself staring at Varkrai again very quickly as he lifted one of his arms above himself. A small beam of a flaming white substance shot from the palm of Varkrai’s hand into the air, traveling quite a ways into the sky before bursting like a fire work, making a similar sound as well. The blast from the shot was much larger than Honey Flower had expected, the shockwave and the wind blowing her back slightly, but Varkrai managed to stay completely still. The signal, Flower assumed it to be, became apparent as to who it was for as she spotted a pair of wings flapping the sky. They were far off, and barely within her eyesight, but she could see them slowly descending, coming down to Canterlot.

She looked back down at the ground to find Varkrai walking away. His footsteps were quiet as he casually headed for the opening in the restaurant’s outer table area, barely loud enough to hear. Honey Flower stepped forward hurriedly and spoke, “W- wait! Where are you going?”

Not expecting to hear from her, Varkrai turned around with a raised eyebrow, his hands back in his pockets and his wings folded against his back. “What does it matter?” he asked.

Flower had a hard time speaking. Even though she knew he wasn’t going to hurt her, she couldn’t help but feel he was still dangerous. “I thought...” She glanced back at the restaurant, but looked away as fast as she had turned to it. “I thought maybe you could point me to there nearest town?”

Varkrai chuckled lightly. “I’m not exactly familiar with this place. Don’t know your way around? You’re a citizen here, aren’t you?”

The pink mare sunk her head down. “I’ve... never really been anywhere else outside of Canterlot. I couldn’t afford a train ticket or a carriage. They’re both pretty expensive.”

The feer looked around the streets. With the name Flower had spoken, he assumed that the city he had landed in was what she called Canterlot. He pointed a finger in the general direction of Ponyville. “There’s a town not too far from here, back that way. Ponyville, I believe it’s called. I’d tell you how to get there by flight, but I see you don’t really have wings. I noticed a train station in it; maybe take that there once you get enough of the currency you have here.”

Honey Flower shyly looked at the restaurant again. “Well, that might be an issue.”

It didn’t take Varkrai long to figure out what had happened. The yelling earlier, her uniform, the sorrowful look on her face, the story told itself. He sighed and scratched his head. “Look, I have some things to do here. I’m sorry about what went on. I just have my own needs to take care of right now, is all. I’d lend you some money if I had some, but you’re gonna have to find some way on your own. Okay?”

Honey Flower didn’t say a word, but had her body do the talking. The small teardrops falling on the ground fell in silence behind her hushed sobs, which came out strained from her trying to stop them. Varkrai stood in place with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the crying mare. Her mane ducked in front of her face, catching some of the droplets falling from her eyes and hiding her. She had nothing else to do, with no job and no where to go, so all she had left were her tears. The feer remained where he was for the moment, putting a hand up to his eyes and shaking his head. He couldn’t just leave her there to become victim again to the stallion within the shop and the unicorns; he knew he had to do something, whether he liked it or not. He looked up in the sky and walked over to the mare sitting out in front of him as he saw Noitorum drawing closer.

A thin finger lifted Honey Flower’s chin up and moved her mane out of her face, bringing her watering eyes into sight of Varkrai, who was kneeling down in front of her. The feer smiled as Flower’s cries slowed down and she only sniffled, staring up at the winged creature gently looking down at her.

“Go to the city gates around midnight,” he said. “I’ll go ahead and assume that you know how to get there. Wait and be patient; I’ll be around to find you. Bring anything that you want with you in a backpack or anything of the sort if you want to leave here. I’ll take you to Ponyville.”

Honey Flower’s face lit up more than she had ever felt before, seeming to emit a glow onto Varkrai’s own. She couldn’t help but let an overwhelmingly happy feeling course throughout her body. She wiped her tears and took Varkrai’s hand to lift her back up onto her hooves, still sniffing. “Th- thank you,” she stammered, her voice wavering. “Thank you. My name is Honey Flower.”

Varkrai nodded and leaned forward to reach her hoof, shaking it. “Varkrai. I suppose I came around just at the right time.”

A pair of footsteps set down on the streets of Canterlot. Both Varkrai and Honey Flower set their eyes on the paved roads, finding Noitorum holding Twilight Sparkle in the middle of the street. Both of them seemed to have a somewhat worried look on their face, more so Twilight Sparkle than the woman setting her on the ground. They both sighed with relief at the sight of Varkrai not destroying anything yet, though Noitorum’s brief moment of comfort soon turned to frustration.

“I’ll see you later,” Varkrai quickly whispered to Honey Flower, giving her a wink before he begun to walk over to Noitorum and Twilight.

“Varkrai! What’s wrong with you!?” Noitorum shouted, fixing her hair. “Why did you leave? Twilight said that the princess was at a meeting. Why are we here?” She looked past him at Honey Flower. “And who’s that?”

“No one you should be concerned about, and I was getting impatient waiting,” Varkrai stated as he hopped over the low gate surrounding the outer area of the restaurant. “Besides, I think warning her about potential invasions from other dimensions is more important than whatever she’s doing right now.” He looked at Twilight. “What did you tell her in the letter? That there was some random guy walking around spouting stuff about dimensions and that it was no big deal?”

“Well...I didn’t say it was a big deal...” Twilight said unsurely.

Varkrai sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. Where is this Princess Celestia’s castle, or whatever she lives in?” he asked.

Twilight hesitated to say anything. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go barging into one of her meetings without notice. Maybe we should just wait for the letter and-”

“How strong are the doors around Canterlot?” Varkrai asked quickly.

Noitorum and Twilight exchanged a look of confusion. “Fairly... strong?” Twilight answered.

A smirk spread on Varkrai’s face. “We’ll see about that.” He pushed his way past Twilight and headed for the nearest door he could see. “Because I’m kicking down every single one of them until I find her.”

Twilight watched Varkrai get far enough away to where she could whisper to Noitorum, “Is he serious?”

Biting her lip, Noitorum bent her face at an uncertain angle. “I... I don’t think he’s-” The crash of wood flying into the air stopped her. “Okay yeah he’s serious. Varkrai! Stop it!”

Honey Flower still watched from the center of her old work’s outer area. She had gotten up, but the addition of another tall figure with gigantic wings kept her where she was. She had never seen anything like Varkrai and Noitorum ever before in her life, and both of them appearing out of no where without any sign of them coming made her start to wonder what else she was missing. Of course, after Varkrai had started kicking down doors, she was slightly scared of what laid outside of Canterlot, but she was excited nonetheless. The two feers accompanied by Twilight Sparkle growing out of sight as Varkrai continued down the street kicking doors in, Honey Flower took a quick glance at the restaurant behind her before she started running to her home. She didn’t have much in her small makeshift home near the mountains by Canterlot, but that didn’t matter any longer. She would be out of Canterlot and away from her nightmarish childhood, starting a new life in Ponyville. She wondered what would have happened if Varkrai had not shown up.

______________________________________________________________________

“I’m telling you that you’re putting out more rain than we need!” the mayor of Manehattan shouted, slamming his hoof on the table.

Princess Celestia shut her eyes tight at the sudden outburst, a spike of pain driving through her head. “Mayor Bright,” she addressed him, opening her eyes again and giving him a gentle smile. “If you could lower your voice, I’m sure everypony would appreciate you doing so.”

The stallion adjusted his tie and sat back in his chair, scowling slightly at Cloudsdale’s delegate. “Excuse me, princess,” he apologized. “But like I was saying, Cloudsdale’s weather output has been erratic this past month. Manehattan alone has gotten five inches of rainfall within the last three weeks, not including the two we got not too long ago.” He looked to the mayor of Cloudsdale. “Would you mind telling the rest of Equestria what that ‘little’ storm that rolled on by was last night? I don’t recall a scheduled hurricane to blow across the entire nation.”

The delegate for Cloudsdale, Mayor Flurry, leaned forward in her chair and looked Mayor Bright in his eyes. “As I have said for the third time, we don’t know. Our cloud systems were normal at the time, and as far as I know none of the weather teams were moving around any of the scheduled precipitation districts.”

“Oh, so the weather just suddenly decided to act on its own, then?” Bright asked, Mayor Flurry catching up on his sarcasm and sighing. “Just randomly spawned a monsoon across Equestria? No pegasi just decided to move the clouds along like it was a prank? Nothing at all happened?”

Flurry wasn’t the only one to notice his tone of voice. “Mayor Bright, this is no time for ridicule,” Princess Celestia intervened another time. She could feel her head throbbing from the constant voices blaring out into her ears. Once the storm had passed, she had been stuck within Canterlot Tower’s main hall around a long table she and the delegates were seated at now. The afternoon sun pouring through the windows reminded her how long she had been sitting there, listening to the cities’ representatives argue about what happened and who was to blame.

“Yes, can we please focus on the matter at hoof?” Mayor Mare suggested. “We’re all tired, but Flurry has made it clear that the storm was not intentional. Something else must have happened outside of Equestria or something went wrong with a spell of some sort.”

“A spell?” Bright asked. “What kind of spell would be able to conjure up such a storm? Who in the right mind would mess up that badly, more than that be able to do so? And if it was something outside of Equestria, how do we know that wasn’t some kind of threat? Are the griffons angry at us or something?”

“We have no known problems between them and us,” Princess Celestia assured. “Our relations with them are of no concerns, and we have been at peace for as long as we have known each other. Whatever caused the storm didn’t do it on purpose, I’m sure.”

“Right,” Mayor Bright said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like it drowned the entire city of Manehattan. I wouldn’t be surprised if it came back to blow down all of our doors.”

A loud slam shook the entire hall, even the royal guards who were trained so well to stay put jumping in their armor. The origin of the noise, as it was now so apparent, had come from the palace doors slamming open, the guards that were standing on each side of the enormous two-doored entrance just a few inches away from being crushed. A small commotion had started in the meeting among the delegates, but a subtle raise of Celestia’s hoof kept them quiet, the princess knowing the guards would be able to handle what was going on. However, when she got a glimpse of what had almost flown the palace doors off their tightly held hinges, a strange feeling ran through her stomach.

“One hundred and forty eight!” the creature yelled as he recovered from the drop kick he used to push the hall entrance open. He wiped himself off and ran his arm across his forehead to stop a drop of sweat running down his face. He peered inside of the hall, finding the alicorn he had been looking for staring at him as if he were insane. Unrealized to Celestia at the moment, she had found what she was looking for as well.

“Hey! Just the horse I need to see,” Varkrai said, giving Celestia a small wave of his hand. He turned to the outside of the hall, ignoring the royal guards pointing their spears at him from inside. “Girls! I found her! She’s still in the meeting; what do I do?”

“What in Equestria’s name is that?” Mayor Bright murmured to Celestia.

She couldn’t find the words to describe her confusion, and she only watched as her star pupil and another one of Varkrai’s species walked into view. Twilight Sparkle, her face redder than the bottom of Varkrai’s foot from kicking so many doors in, hung her head low as she walked beside Noitorum, though the feer beside her was more red with frustration rather than embarrassment.

“Well it’s about time!” Noitorum yelled from halfway across the bridge to the hall. “How is your leg not broken yet?”

“Oh I’m sure it is,” Varkrai said. He turned to the side and stretched an arm out to inside of the building, the guards by the doors tensing up and readying their spears. “But look! It all paid off. Here she is.” The black winged feer rotated himself back to the inside of the hall, only to find four spears aimed directly at his face, each of them glowing with a levitation spell from the guards standing at a safe distance. Noitorum and Twilight Sparkle stopped in their tracks on the bridge, a few steps away from the entrance.

“Uh... Varkrai?” Noitorum said, clenching her teeth worriedly. “I don’t think they liked you barging in on them.”

“I’ve noticed,” Varkrai replied, focusing his eyes on the closest spear tip almost touching his nose.

“Guards!” Princess Celestia called out from further down the hall. The stallions standing away from Varkrai looked back at the princess, nodding their heads and lowering their spears as Celestia motioned for them to do so. A silence took over the situation for a second, Varkrai carefully watching the royal guards staring at him. Even if they didn’t know what he was or what he was capable of, his presence didn’t send off a message that he was friendly, and his cold stare whispered for them to leave him alone. Nevertheless, they still had a job to do, and they kept their spears ready by their sides as they backed to the walls of the hall.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said sternly from the end of the table, pushing her chair away from her and standing up. Her eyes did all the explaining of what was going through her head. “Would you mind explaining what you have brought here?”

Twilight slowly stepped out from behind Noitorum, her coat already slightly wet from sweating. Her throat felt like it was closing in on itself, Twilight having a hard time squeezing a nervous gulp down her neck. “Uh...” she muttered, slowly walking up to Varkrai’s side. The feer looked down at her and waited for her answer, intrigued at what she had in stock. His stare, along with the royal guards’, Celestia’s, Noitorum’s, and the city delegates’ stares, gave her no aid in coming up with an answer. She let out a defeated sigh, and quietly spoke, “I don’t know.”

Varkrai smiled and looked back up at Celestia, “Fortunately, I do.” He centered his eyes on the alicorn at the end of the table and slowly began to walk forward. “You are Princess Celestia, correct?”

The princess squinted at Varkrai. “That would be me, yes,” she answered. “May I ask who you are and what you’re doing here?”

“Varkrai Solvus Dulensix, feerian species and blood, female secondary soul, and I’m not from this dimension, if that answers any of your questions. I came here through an inter-dimensional gate approximately nineteen hours ago and took a nap shortly after. Apparently this dimension is virluth and probably isn’t prepared for what is outside. Noitorum Roselend Clendestin, my secondary soul back there, and I have come to an agreement to stay here and help you get ready for what’s coming. I’m not quite sure of the time limit of what’s coming here, but it’s not very far from a month from now. Judging by the quite primitive weaponry you have equipped your guards, you aren’t ready for absolutely anything. I still have yet to study what your type of energy manipulation is, so you may still have a chance.” Varkrai smirked as he came to a stop at the opposite end of the table from Princess Celestia, propping himself on the tips of his fingers on the surface of it. He carefully examined the ponies sitting in the hall of Canterlot Tower one by one. The delegates, along with Celestia, stared back at him with uncertainty and perplexity.

“So?” Varkrai asked, standing up straight. “What’ll it be?”

“What’ll it be?” Mayor Bright asked tauntingly, leaning forward in his chair. “It’ll be that you take yourself out of this hall immediately before the guards force you out in pieces. Whatever you are, It’d be a good decision to get lost.”

Varkrai motioned his head to Bright. “You wouldn’t be angry if I threw him out a window, would you?”

“We’d be happy...” one of the other delegates muttered.

Mayor Bright crossly looked around the rest of the table, but brushed off the statement. “In any case, you just interrupted a meeting with the princess. I’m surprised you aren’t dead by now.”

Varkrai looked over the rest of the ponies. “Seriously, you wouldn’t be mad?”

Princess Celestia, despite her headache, couldn’t help but chuckle lightly, Mayor Bright giving her a worried look. “I can’t just let you throw one of my subjects out of the window. The glass is rather expensive. What was your name again?”

“Varkrai.”

“Yes, Varkrai.” Celestia looked past the feer at the other end of the table, centering her eyes on Twilight, who had come closer to the meeting with Noitorum by her side. “Twilight?” she called out.

“Um... yes, princess?” the unicorn asked, still slightly nervous.

“If you could accompany Varkrai and his friend outside for a minute, that would be great.” She glared at Mayor Bright from the corners of her eyes. “I believe we’ve found the reason for our quarreling.” She looked back at Twilight, a smile on her face. “I’ll be out shortly to see you three. We can discuss the matters of what Varkrai was explaining then.”

The feer leaning on the table grinned and nodded his head at Celestia. “Greatly appreciated. I’m sure I’ll be able to answer some of your questions.”

“And I’m sure I’ll be able to answer some of yours,” said Celestia. “If you can excuse us now.”

With a last nod of thanks, Varkrai followed Twilight and Noitorum down the hall. Their footsteps transferred to the exterior of the building and the doors gently shut behind them, and, along with the delegates, the royal guards gave Celestia an unsure glance now that Varkrai was gone. Princess Celestia looked around at the ponies around the table, smiling at each of them.

“Want to explain what just happened? You seemed calm about it,” Mayor Bright asked Celestia.

“Yes... I think we’re all rather... confused,” Mayor Mare said slowly, looking back at Celestia from the doors of the hall.

The princess giggled to herself. “I’m afraid I don’t know either,” She set her eyes on the entrance of the hall. “but I think we’ve found the reason for the storm last night.”

“What? That thing?” Bright questioned, slightly appalled. “It looked like a overly sized monkey with its fur stripped off and wings stitched onto its back! You can’t be serious.”

“He has a point, princess,” one of the other delegates spoke. “Whoever, rather whatever that was didn’t look like he even had the capabilities to utilize magic. Unless he alone could move thousands of clouds all across Equestria, it would be impossible to create such an immense storm.”

“In my time in Equestria, I have seen many things and heard of almost everything,” Celestia said. She paused. “I have never seen anything the likes of our two visitors before.”

“So just because you’ve never seen them before means that they’re suddenly the reason behind everything?” Mayor Bright asked.

“No, that is not what I mean.” Celestia sighed. “What I mean is that there might be something happening beyond even my understanding.”

[5] Eye of the Storm

Chapter Five: Eye of the Storm

The doors of Canterlot Tower’s main hall opened slowly, allowing a group of sharply dressed ponies to pour out into the early evening light. They stared in wonder at the two creatures sitting off on the side of the bridge leading to the doors, Varkrai glaring back at them with his back leaning against the wall beside the entrance. Noitorum sat on the ground in front of Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn holding one of her hands in her hooves and inspecting it as if it were a new type of spell she had found. The white winged feer’s smile faded as the delegates walked past her and Twilight, though she quickly gave each of them a small grin and a wave. None of the ponies even batted an eye at her in recognition, solely staring and walking the rest of the way across the bridge. Aside from one, the mayor of Manehattan. He was the last to walk out of the hall, and he was the first one to even dare to think about talking to the two feers off to the side, let alone take a step in their direction. However, Varkrai’s cold stare and his eyes dilating as they focused on the mayor prompted the stallion to continue down the path, though he didn’t leave without a subtle sneer and scoff towards both Varkrai and Noitorum. The delegates were soon out of sight, heading towards their private carriages awaiting near the train station.

The last pony out of the doors was Princess Celestia, who, in contrast to the scowls of the delegates, gave the feers a smile. “Thank you for waiting,” she spoke.

“Thanks for keeping the guards off me,” Varkrai said, pushing himself up straight with his wings and walking over to the princess. “I’m surprised they didn’t run away. Seems to be something this dimension is fond of.”

Celestia glanced at Twilight before she motioned for the three of them to follow her. “We’ll talk inside. Come with me.”

Twilight Sparkle followed as Celestia turned and headed into the hall, looking back at Varkrai and Noitorum. They walked in afterwards and the doors shut behind them as the royal guards stepped outside, following Celestia’s order she had given them earlier. Twilight forced a nervous gulp down her throat, wondering what Varkrai had in mind when he wanted to talk with the princess. She hadn’t heard anything more about other dimensions or concepts of the matter since the incident in the library, as Varkrai had been getting too impatient waiting around with Pinkie to talk about the subject. Now that she thought about it, Pinkie had been taking a liking to the black winged feer, despite his constant yells at her to leave him alone. She thought back to the incident before with Cranky and wondered if the same scenario was going on. Either that, or Pinkie was just trying her best to make him go insane, and from the look in Varkrai’s eyes when he even saw the color pink, it seemed to be working so far.

“Varkrai and Noitorum, was it?” Celestia asked as she reached near the middle of the hallway, turning around and looking at the two feers. Both of them came to a stop, Noitorum with her fingers laced together behind her and Varkrai with his hands in his pockets.

“Yes,” said Varkrai, sighing slightly. “I’ll get us nameplates soon so you won’t have to keep asking us. Sound good?”

Twilight Sparkle growled at the remark, but the princess nudged her with her wing and gave her a smile. Nonetheless, the unicorn kept a straight face towards Varkrai.

“That won’t be necessary,” Celestia assured. “but you could get a nameplate that has the information of what you were going on about back during the meeting.”

The two feers glanced with smirks at each other. “That’d be quite the nameplate,” Noitorum said.

Princess Celestia giggled lightly, tapping Twilight on her shoulder to wipe the solemn expression on her face. Celestia knew that Twilight Sparkle was protective of her as a mentor, but the formality that her student always used when in her presence had always bugged her.

“So then why don’t you tell me about it now?” Celestia asked.

“I’d be more than happy to as long as I don’t have to do it again later on the road,” Varkrai stated. “If something isn’t clear after all of this, go to her.” He pointed his thumb at Noitorum. “I’m sure she’ll be just ecstatic about it.” He leaned towards her and lightly pushed her with his right wing. “Won’t you, Noi?”

“As long as I’ll get to talk to more of the ponies!” she said excitedly.

“Great.” Varkrai looked back at Celestia, the alicorn levitating a roll of paper in the air beside her. “Where do you want us to start?”

Princess Celestia unrolled the piece of paper in her levitation spell, looking over the letter that Twilight had sent her earlier in the day. “Well, this letter has quite the bit of explanation of what went on in Ponyville on it.” She looked back up at the two feers. “How about starting off with where you came from?”

“Dimensional gate,” Varkrai answered instantly. “Strange piece of work; they’re quite the sight. Here, check this out.” With no further warning, the black winged feer raised his right hand into the air, collecting a field of solance around it. He smirked at the sudden startled expression that had become Celestia’s face, even more so at Noitorum’s chuckle at what he was doing. A high pitch ring announced itself to Canterlot Tower’s hall, and as the sound quickly escalated to a deafening screech, Varkrai rotated to his side, stepped away from Noitorum, and viciously slashed his hand down through the air, almost knocking him off balance. A blast of air exploded through the hall, blowing Twilight and Celestia back slightly, though Varkrai and Noitorum remained as they had been before. Regaining their composure from the abrupt wave of force, Twilight and Celestia stood up straight, slightly shaken not only at the strange performance, but also at its aftermath.

In place of Varkrai, an eerie black slash, its outline flowing like some sort of substance in between water and fire, floated in the air where he had been standing, humming lowly like wind in a tunnel. Its shape retained the path that Varkrai had moved his hand through the air, curved and slightly taller than both the feers standing next to it. The middle of the slash looked like a blind spot hanging suspended in time, pitch black and periodically rippling.

“What... is that?” Twilight Sparkle asked unsurely, staring at the phenomena with a hoof raised limply.

“This is a dimensional gate,” Varkrai explained. With a glove of solance around his hand, he daintily stretched the gate wider from its thin shape, forming it into a oval just big enough for him to fit through. “It’s not as scary as it looks or sounds, and it’s not going to harm you.” Varkrai smiled at Twilight, though Celestia seemed calmer given the situation. “You can stop shaking now.”

Twilight, realizing her body slightly trembling, cleared her throat and stood up straight, walking forward to stand by Celestia’s side again.

“This is what you came through?” Celestia asked, now along with Twilight convinced more than ever that Varkrai wasn’t spouting nonsense.

“It may not look like much, but this thing can take you farther quicker than the fastest thing you have here,” Noitorum assured. “As dimensional gates work, this is an opening to a, more than likely, entirely different world from the one you know. You may not be able to see through it, but there’s quite a sight on the other side.”

“Why can’t we see through it?” Twilight wondered out loud.

“Because what you’re seeing right now is sub-dimensional energy, the purest form of energy that will ever exist,” Varkrai said. “As I’m sure you’re wondering about what it is in the letter, what you’re seeing right now is The Omnipotent Force.”

Celestia looked at the letter. “How did you guess?”

Varkrai nodded at Twilight. “It’s one of the more complicated and thought provoking things of the dimensional vocabulary. I also covered it in my little lecture back in the library. I knew Twilight Sparkle would mention that somewhere in there.” He turned back to the gate. “The Omnipotent Force, as you can see it here, is one big vat of energy, though it’s not your normal type of it. It’s one of the primordial states and the most complicated form of energy that you’ll find and see. There’s little known about it, despite its accessibility through unused dimensional gates. All that is know is that it keeps all the dimensions from mashing into each other, despite all of them being in the same place, and it is also the source for all energy you can find. Watch.”

Varkrai extended his arm out in front of the gate. Like bees returning to their hive, a stream of a pitch black fluid slithered out from the gate, slowly making its way from the opening to Varkrai’s hand. As if it were escaping from some sort of barrier, the energy passed through a gradient around the feer’s hand, turning from white to black as it collected in Varkrai’s palm. The stream broke and quickly sucked back into the gate as Varkrai stopped the process, Varkrai left with a sphere of solance gently flaming in his fingers.

“As solance is a form of energy and energy is derived from sub-dimensional energy, what you saw is a slowed down process of what normally happens,” described Varkrai. He repeated the process again in his other hand, though this time the solance appeared in a split second with no visible connection to the gate. He looked back at Twilight and Celestia, both of them with wide eyes and completely still. “I can see you’re immersing yourselves in the moment.”

The princess and Twilight perked up and realized what they had been doing.

“Well... yes,” Celestia muttered. “What you’ve showed us here is quite new. I’ve never seen the likes of it before.” She motioned a hoof at the gate. “Is it safe to go through?”

Noitorum thought for a moment. “Not really,” she figured. “The process of traveling through the gate is harmless, but what could lay on the other side often isn’t. Chances are you’re going to run into something hostile rather than passive.”

“Also, if you don’t know a thing about dimension traveling,” Varkrai said. He lifted his hand over the gate. “you could end up missing this.”

In one swift downwards movement and with a field of solance around his hand, Varkrai closed the dimensional gate, the solance around his hand turning black and the slash through the air gone with the motion. He quickly squeezed his fingers tightly into his palm, his entire arm shaking as he contained the energy in his hand. After a moment, the energy around his hand sucked inwards into his fist, Varkrai exhaling in relief and opening up his hand to show Celestia and Twilight. A small, hardened ball of solance rested on his palm, though now, instead of the normal white fiery aura around it, the aura that had been flowing around the gate had taken over.

“This is a lamnirex, or ‘key’ in english,” Varkrai said. “This is the remnants of what the dimensional gate used to be, reduced to a small sphere. This contains a portion of the energy that was used to open the gate, now locked inside a field of sub-dimensional energy. The solance inside, which is a feer’s specific type of energy manipulation, contains the information of the dimensional gate it created, and it can be utilized again to open another gate that leads to the same dimension the original one lead to. This is the only way to certainly travel back to a dimension you have been in before. You miss it on your first time going through a gate, you’re lost forever from your home.” Varkrai grew quiet for a second. He sighed and closed his hand in on the lamnirex, the key gone from his palm when he reopened it. “There’s another one of them that is created on the other side of the dimensional gate, in the other dimension. That is the one you pick up to travel back; the one I had was the one that’s left behind, and is usually forgotten about when you go through a gate.”

“Wait, there’s one in another dimension?” Twilight Sparkle quickly asked. “What if something finds it? Won’t they be able to come to ours?”

“Not necessarily,” Noitorum answered. “It is almost impossible for a species from one dimension to perform an energy manipulation from another dimension. They’re simply not built to do so, unless they have utilities to simulate the manipulation. There are, however, some species that assimilate their targets into their own, granting the assimilated being the ability to use their energy manipulation. Though, typically these species are hostile, and tend to use the beings that they assimilate for an army.”

“Thus being said, unless the dimension on the other side of the gate contained feers within it, they won’t be able to open the gate again,” Varkrai guaranteed.

Princess Celestia smiled. The display was without a doubt fascinating, but slightly more than that foreboding. With the mention of invasive species and assimilation, she grew weary of the whole situation, a sudden trigger within herself pulling and putting her mind at a cautionary state. “This is all very interesting, but you never exactly answered my question, Varkrai,” Celestia said. “Where did you come from? Aside from a dimensional gate.”

“The dimension we were previously in was overrun by demons, one of the more common species out in the dimensional wastelands and a species that uses assimilates their foes for their benefits,” Varkrai explained. “I assumed that the world we were on used to be populated by Shades, a slightly less common species though still noticeable, and considering the world was almost pitch black save for a few lights created by the demons, it seemed about right that it was previously populated by them. We managed to separate ourselves from the demons long enough to open a dimensional gate and escape here. It’s not that much of an exciting story, and I doubt you’re picking up on any of this due to this dimension never being visited before, though I would assume that you’re interested in wondering what a demon is now.”

Celestia shook her head. “We can discuss that later, but what I’m asking is where you grew up, who you are. You two are something that Equestria or beyond has never seen before.”

“We grew up on our home world, Crillist, the feerian equivalent for the english word life,” Noitorum explained. “In another dimension, of course. Varkrai and I were raised in a home out in the rural areas of the world, though that was most of the planet considering its size. We never really saw any of our fellow feers other than our mother, who nurtured us until we were able to fend for ourselves. She taught us all about dimensional traveling, and once we were ready, we went out into the dimensional wastelands ourselves...” She went silent for a second, shyly taking a glance at Varkrai. He remained quiet, his arms folded and his eyes aimed at the ground. “...but she didn’t really teach us everything,” Noitorum continued, a solemn tone in her voice. “We never knew about lamnirexes until later on in our dimension jumping. We’ve been traveling through dimensions ever since, just wandering and hoping that we’ll be able to find our home again.” Noitorum quickly put a smile on her face and her tone of voice bubbled up. “Nevertheless, we’ve seen a lot and experienced a lot, so I’m sure we’ll be of some use as to helping this dimension to prepare for what’s coming.”

Celestia nodded, taking another glance at Twilight’s letter. “Yes, Twilight Sparkle mentioned Varkrai talking about other dimensions invading here. Would you mind explaining what is going on?” she asked.

Varkrai unfolded his arms and took a step forward. It seemed like he had been planning to take on a harsh approach. “A large number of your subjects will die,” he spoke abruptly. “I’m going to tell you that now. There is little chance that whatever comes through those dimensional gates will be passive, and if they are, they’re not going to be like that for long. This dimension, as I’ve found out that it has never been invaded by other dimensions until we arrived, has at least a month to prepare for an all-out war with an enemy that you have never seen before. It’s unavoidable, and it’s unpredictable to pinpoint when the first invaders are coming through. I can’t guarantee that you and the rest of this world is going to survive, but I can guarantee you that you’re going to put up a fight to do so. I’ve seen worlds crumble in defeat. I’ve seen the strongest of warriors turn to ash and fade away in an instant. You are no exception, whether you think you are or not. You’ll need all the information you can get to survive and learn more about your enemies before they learn more about you. This dimension from now on is the under the threat of extinction, and you can’t do anything about it.” Varkrai came to a stop, letting Twilight and Celestia soak in what he had explained to them. From the culture of the town he had been in and minds he has seen so far, the ponies didn’t seem used to the subject of war and destruction, and they seemed as if they would run from their problems rather than face them. He intended to change that.

Celestia sighed and closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again and glaring at Varkrai. “How can you be sure of all of this? What happens if whatever comes through decides to leave, and it continues that way? What would be the point of preparing us for something that would never happen?” she questioned.

Varkrai let his mouth creep into a smile. “Then you’ll be prepared for when it does happen. I’ve visited more dimensions than you have seen the sun rise and set. I’ve seen more lives extinguished than meals you have in a day.” He motioned his hand at Twilight Sparkle, who glared at him with anger. “You, me, her, them, we’re all the same when it comes to our final moments. Did you think that everything was perfect here, Celestia? That everything was going to be just fine?” He stopped to let her answer, but at the silence he was met with as Celestia hesitated to say anything, he shook his head and walked back beside Noitorum. “Don’t tell me. I already know the answer, and you’re going to pay the price for thinking so.” He turned back around to stare the princess dead in her eyes. “Either you accept our help to prepare this world for extermination or you die along with it. It’s up to you.”

Princess Celestia looked toward her student, who in turn looked back at her. Varkrai hadn’t intended to hold anything back about what would happen, and from the previous times he had been stuck in the situation, he knew it was necessary to get the worst out first. There wasn’t a single soul in Equestria or anywhere else on Equus that had a clue about the other dimensions, and Celestia knew that her subjects and the other nations were defenseless without knowing what they were up against. The decision of keeping Equestria and beyond now rested on Celestia’s hooves, Varkrai leaving her without any more options other than to accept his help. The princess didn’t know what she would do without it, and she didn’t plan to find out. Whatever was coming through the dimensions, Varkrai and Noitorum knew more about them than the ponies did, and Celestia accepted that what had been brought to her was real.

The princess set her eyes back on the two feers, both of them waiting for an answer. “At least a month to get prepared for another dimension to come through?” Celestia asked.

“At least,” Varkrai affirmed. “It could happen two years from now, or maybe a century, but when it does happen, you’ll be able to fight whatever comes through.”

“Even if they are passive, you’ll know what to do,” Noitorum added. “We can help you through this, no matter what it takes.”

Celestia nodded and brought Twilight Sparkle closer to herself, her student smiling at her and nodding as well. “We can discuss the terms of what needs to be done for preparation tomorrow,” Celestia said. “I’ll try to find a way to tell the rest of Equestria without panic ensuing for now. Until then, find someplace to rest. We’ll speak back here in the afternoon.”

Varkrai and Noitorum both smiled. “We’ll be waiting until then,” Varkrai spoke. “We’ll head back to Ponyville for now.” He focused on Twilight Sparkle. “I’ll take a guess that you’re gonna need a ride back home.”

The unicorn grinned sheepishly. “Uh... yes, I will,” she said.

“Well, I’m sure Noitorum will be fine with that,” Varkrai assumed, nudging her with his elbow. “Come on, you two, let’s head back to-”

A sudden poof of magic caused all four of the minds in the hall to jump slightly. A letter materialized in the air a short moment after, Celestia quickly grabbing it in a levitation spell before it hit the ground. She unrolled the piece of paper and read through it within a second, and a rough smile formed on her face.

“Before you do that, however,” Celestia announced, rolling up the paper and setting it aside. “There are some things I would like to discuss further.” She raised an eyebrow at Varkrai. “Something about a tall, black winged, bipedal creature running around kicking Canterlot’s doors of their hinges. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Noitorum gave Varkrai a small push. “I told you to stop,” she whispered.

Scratching his head lightly, Varkrai let out a sigh and a chuckle. “Yeah.... yeah you did.”

Princess Celestia giggled to herself. “And while we’re at it, I’d like to talk about the weather yesterday, as well. I’m sure you know plenty about that.”

______________________________________________________________________

After staring at the sun setting behind the mountains for so long, Honey Flower found a pain in her neck as she looked up at the moon. The watch around her hoof had itched more and more as the minutes passed, but it was fragile and falling apart, compelling her to keep it on. She didn’t want to lose it in the grass or accidentally step on it, for she wouldn’t have a way of telling if Varkrai had abandoned her or not. Two hours had already passed after midnight, and Honey Flower was growing more exhausted with every minute she sat near Canterlot’s gates. The guards had left her alone for the time being, though she was beginning to get the feeling they were going to ask her to leave soon. They had been standing at their posts near the sides of the drawbridge as the later hours of evening drew near, occasionally glancing at the pale pink mare sitting off in the field leading to the city before they were called to Canterlot Tower for a sudden meeting. Honey Flower had already given some of the ponies leaving Canterlot a strange feeling, seeing her just sit there, and the guards knew they had a job to make sure the citizens and the princess stayed as safe and comfortable as they could. Flower wouldn’t stay longer waiting for Varkrai once the guards got back, she was sure.

The cold air of the autumn night shook Flower with its frigid touch, the lack of any clothing aside from her barely managing saddle pack and a torn scarf forcing her to take the chill winds head on. Her mouth let out short breaths that scattered through the air and disappeared with the breeze, the moisture from her breath collecting on her lips and chilling them as the wind blew. She covered her mouth with her scarf, though her neck and upper body became just as cold as the rest of her, Honey Flower’s bleak shivers becoming more noticeable. She tried her best to keep herself warm by laying down and curling around herself, but the unforgiving autumn night kept her from staying so. As much as she desired to go back to her home near the mountains and be only slightly warmer, she knew it wasn’t what she truly wanted. She shook her head and cursed quietly at the thought of being trapped within Canterlot any longer, begging for work and living in a barely standing home made of rotting wooden planks and rusting nails. She needed to leave, to start a new life, and Ponyville was the answer, but the only thing that was going to get her there was Varkrai.

Honey Flower lifted her eyes to the sky. The light of the moon provided a glow for her to see around herself, and the stars gave her a guide to the tops of the buildings around her, though there weren’t many near the city’s borders. The mountain tops in the distance towered tall into the sky, spiking and curving up and down against the dim nocturnal abyss above. For the moment, there weren’t any signs of pegasi or any other flying creatures in the air, specifically the being that Honey Flower was waiting on. She had started to believe that Varkrai had forgotten about her not too long ago, and the thought grew in certainty with every minute she was left sitting in the grass, shivering and wishing for warmth. The option of walking to Ponyville from Canterlot barely crossed her mind, despite her yearning to be inside and under a cozy blanket, sound asleep. She knew the night was too cold to be away from any sort of help, and out in the plains, hills, and mountains of of Equestria wasn’t the best place to be in the weather she sat in now. Either way, she had no idea how to get to the town, and the thought of being lost during the night kept her still. The thought of Varkrai never coming to take her to Ponyville convinced her to stand up.

The rush of cold air through her legs quickly made up Honey Flower’s mind, the mare beginning to walk away from Canterlot’s gates. The cold had gotten to her and she didn’t want to fall asleep out in the open, exposed completely to the elements. Her legs felt weak under her as she slid them along the grass, making her way back to the other side of Canterlot where her home laid just outside of its borders. She dreaded to see the shack after her hopes of getting a home in Ponyville had been lifted, but now that they were out of her reach and fallen into darkness, her home was now again what it had been for almost her entire life. She felt a tear fall down her cheek as she looked back at the gate of Canterlot, knowing she was bound to the city for her life. Or so she thought.

As Honey Flower turned her head back in front of her, she jumped at the sudden sight landing in the field. Two pitch black wings spread out in the air, their feathers gleaming gently in the moonlight. They slowly retracted to the body they were attached to, Varkrai standing up straight and fixing his hair. His eyes came across the pale pink mare staring at him in partial anger and partial relief, but either way he could see a faint glow igniting in Honey Flower.

“Leaving so soon?” Varkrai joked, walking over to the pale pink mare. The reception of the question wasn’t quite as he had expected.

“I’ve been out here for three hours,” Honey Flower spat, furrowing her brow. “I’m cold and hungry and tired. Don’t make fun of me.”

Varkrai put his hands up warily. “Hey hey, take it easy,” he spoke softly. “I wasn’t making fun of you; it was just a small poke, okay?” He put his hands down as Flower lowered her head. “Not in the mood, huh?”

“Well... no,” Honey Flower murmured. She sat down and moved her scarf down from her mouth. “I was fired today and it’s just been really rough. I just... I just want to leave here.” She shivered and rubbed her hooves together. “Also getting somewhere warm would be nice.”

The feer walked closer to Honey Flower and reached his hand out to her. “You don’t seem very down about leaving. You don’t need another day to tell family that you’re heading out or anything? Or did you already?”

Honey Flower glanced at his hand before placing her hoof in it, Varkrai pulling her up onto her legs. “There isn’t exactly much to say goodbye to,” she said. “My parents live in Trottingham and... my brother here isn’t much of one.”

Varkrai’s hand closed in on itself as Flower pulled her hoof out of his, rubbing it on her other leg as she shivered again. “What do you mean?” he asked, putting his hand back by his side.

Flower shook her head and took a breath in. “It’s nothing. You shouldn’t have to worry about it. Let’s just get to the town you were talking about.” Her teeth chattered at the end of her sentence, another tremble coursing through her.

With the mare’s constant shakes and her clicking teeth, Varkrai looked over her in worry. “Do you need something to keep you warm?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow as Honey Flower adjusted her scarf again. “You don’t look like you’re holding up too well.”

“I’m fine,” she quickly uttered. A strong gust of wind convinced her otherwise, the cold air on her face stinging her skin. She shyly looked up at Varkrai. “Uh... maybe something would be nice.”

A smirk on his face, Varkrai spoke through his sweatshirt as he took it off, “It may not fit you very good and the hooves might be a little tight, but it’s something for you to put on.” Varkrai shook his head to straighten out his hair as he held the green sweatshirt in his hands. A simple, grey, woolen long-sleeved shirt was all that he wore on his shoulders, the feer holding out the green pile of cloth to Honey Flower. “If it’s not comfortable, you’re gonna have to deal with it. It’s all I’m taking off in this weather. Here, take it.”

Flower looked over him. “Aren’t you cold now?” she asked, limply raising a hoof to the sweatshirt.

“I can manage for the time being. Us feers may not be built to withstand cold weather, but it’s not fatal for prolonged exposure.” He bounced the cloth in his hands as the mare stared at him for a second. “Are you taking it or what?”

Honey Flower jumped. “Oh, yes.” The mare quickly grabbed the sweatshirt from his hands in her mouth. She subtly motioned back to her saddle pack, shivering slightly. “Can you lift that off for a second, please?”

Varkrai reached forward and pinched the strap of the saddle holding both two packs together, picking it up off of the mare and bringing it into his hands. He moved his fingers around on the cloth of the packs for a moment, though his curiosity of what she was bringing with was soon disrupted by grunts of frustration. He shifted his eyes to Honey Flower seemed to be having a bit of trouble putting on his sweatshirt, her face pressing up against the back of it and her hooves stuck in the cloth.

The feer chuckled to himself and set down the pack in his hands, walking closer to the struggling mare. “Stop moving,” he said with a touch of laughter. “You’re just making it worse. Hold still.” Varkrai grabbed ahold of the sweatshirt as Honey Flower stopped squirming around, a subtle nervous chuckle just barely escaping the cloth. He instructed Honey Flower to move her hooves around as he told, twisting the green cloth around her until it came to the correct orientation. One after the other, he stretched the wrists of the sweatshirt as far as he could, a few pops of the strings ripping causing him to wince slightly. With a few more adjustments, he slid Honey Flower’s head through the neck of the sweatshirt, the top of her mane coming out frizzy.

“There,” Varkrai exhaled. He looked over Honey Flower. The sweatshirt was quite baggy on her chest and stomach, though the stretches he made into the wrists managed to fit her hooves almost perfectly, still a little tight.The hood kept her mane balled up against the back of her neck, the mare flattening the stray hairs sticking up from her head. “That looks comfortable, kinda.”

“It’s a little big...” Honey Flower mentioned, inspecting the extra cloth hanging from her shoulders. She looked up at Varkrai, his arms crossed, and she smiled. “Thank you. It’s been a while since I’ve worn something like this.” She rubbed her hooves together. “It’s warm.”

“That’s probably because I was just wearing it, but as long as it keeps you that way then it’s fine,” Varkrai said. He picked up her saddle pack and stood still for a moment, Honey Flower pulling her scarf out from inside the sweatshirt and wrapping it around her face again. “Ready to get going now?”

Flower made a few adjustments to the sweatshirt before looking up at Varkrai. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Varkrai nodded and walked forward to the pale pink mare. “It took me about half an hour to get here from Ponyville with just me, and I doubt it’s gonna be very comfy with me holding you by your legs for that long, so don’t yell at me if I do anything that seems intimate, alright?”

Honey Flower gave him a weird look. “Wha-?”

Before she could even finish the word, she found herself being scooped up into one of Varkrai’s arms, her surprised eyes looking up at the sky the next thing she knew. Varkrai placed her saddle pack down on her stomach and put his other arm under her, cradling the pale pink mare to make sure he didn’t drop her. The sweatshirt around her not reaching back to her hind legs, she soon found that she didn’t mind being held the way she was, as Varkrai’s right arm kept her legs close against it, warming her completely now that he was holding her. She may not have been used to being suspended in air upside down with the only thing keeping her from falling being the grip of a creature she barely knew, but the sudden warm of Varkrai’s body heat against her kept her snug and comfortable for the time being.

Varkrai looked down at her in his arms, a corner of his mouth curved up slightly. “Ready?” he asked.

Flower, a little disgruntled at the sudden move, smiled anyways. “Yes.”

“Alright.” Wings spreading out and his legs bending in prepare to jump, Varkrai paused for a second. “You might want to hold on, just in case.”

He didn’t give the mare much time to decide what to grab ahold of. The suddenly wind rushing down on Honey Flower’s face sent her into a small panic as she looked over the edge of Varkrai’s arm, the ground seeming like it was falling away. In her attempt to grab onto Varkrai, she only found her saddle pack squished in her hooves, Honey Flower giggling nervously and looking around, feeling a slight lifting sensation. She felt heavy back in Varkrai’s arms as she realized they had come to a stable elevation in the air, the city of Canterlot visible below, though only as big as the mare’s hoof. She smiled as she blocked the city away with a single gesture, moving her hoof in and out of the way of the city. It didn’t take long for the city to roll under Varkrai’s arms and out of her vision, Honey Flower putting her head back on the feer carrying her. Though he paid almost no attention to her, Flower couldn’t look up at him without feeling like he was going to stare her down angrily. The normal, just barely so frown on his face and his naturally bent inwards brow urged Honey Flower to keep quiet. The flight was silent save for the rushing of air and Varkrai’s wings flapping, but Flower couldn’t help but smile the entire way, knowing she was away from Canterlot and heading somewhere new. She had no idea of what laid outside of Canterlot’s borders until now, and she wanted to keep her eyes open to see it from up in the sky, but the warmth she rested in, staying up two hours past when she usually slept, and the tranquility of the sky lulled her to sleep.

Varkrai looked down at Honey Flower as she heard a small snore from her, snickering quietly at how surprisingly loud she was for such a delicate pony. Nevertheless, he remained quiet for the flight, growing a little tired himself now that the concept of sleep had come to mind. He had barely slept since Pinkie woke him up at his arrival on the outskirts of Sweet Apple Acres, and he hoped that he would have some sort of place to sleep during the night. Of course, he would have to find Honey Flower some place to stay for the time being as well, and also find Noitorum in the town. He sighed at the slight obstacle, but shook it off and looked on the bright side. He would finally be able to get some sleep.

[7] Out From Murky Waters

Chapter Seven: Out From Murky Waters

The doors of the entrance to Canterlot Tower’s hall opened steadily with separate glows around their handles, the royal guards standing inside stepping off to the side as Princess Celestia walked out from the carpeted floor. The cool breeze of the fall air slid a smile onto her face as memories of past autumns slithered through her head, and the array of warm colored leaves dancing along the ground, scratching and crinkling against one another in the wind, whispered that her favorite time of year was passing by. While the residents of Canterlot wouldn’t dare touch a pile of leaves, without having to take three showers afterwards, Celestia couldn’t wait to visit Ponyville once more to see the joy that the ponies would have in the chilly weather, and she felt even more excited for going to see The Running of the Leaves again. Something about the fall seemed like it would be one of the best ones yet, though Celestia found herself thinking so every time the season strolled in. The city of Canterlot was already beginning the changes of the stores stocking up on supplies for fall, some of them already displaying some decor for Nightmare Night. It stayed true for autumn to be Celestia’s favored season of them all, and as always, nothing seemed like it would ruin it.

“Princess Celestia?” Cadence called out from inside of the hall.

Celestia turned to face the crystal princess and her husband, both of them making their way toward her. “Yes?” she asked.

“I know this may be getting a bit repetitive,” admitted Cadence, smiling uneasily. “But when is this Varkrai going to be here? It has already been an hour since the scheduled time. Is there something wrong?”

A sigh escaping her mouth, Princess Celestia looked out at Canterlot. “I was hoping that he would be on time, but I’m starting to think I should have given him directions around the city in advance,” she conceded. “Don’t worry, though. I’m confident that he will show up soon. He isn’t from here, after all. I’d have to assume that things may be different compared to where he is from.”

“Speaking of where he is from,” Shining Armor began. “You mentioned that he’s not of any kind of blood we’ve known in Equestria or our neighboring nations. Is there a... reason why we can’t know what species he is?”

Celestia giggled quietly. “I think it’s best if you see him first before I explain where he’s from. It’s probably for the best.”

Cadence and Shining Armor gave each other a subtle shrug before walking out onto the bridge. “Well, is there anything we should know about him other than his name?” Cadence asked. “We are going to be talking with him, after all.”

“I believe he has a bit of a negative attitude towards talking a lot without proper reasoning,” Celestia noted. “I wouldn’t expect him to be quite happy with repeating much of what he had spoken with Twilight and I yesterday. It might be best to ask his companion, Noitorum, about anything first.”

“In that case, princess, why can’t you tell us what they explained yesterday?” Shining Armor suggested, an uncertain and nervous tone in his voice.

Smiling, Princess Celestia turned back to Cadence and Shining Armor. “As I’ve said before, they are not from here.”

A loud stamp of two feet crashing down on the bridge shook the entire construct, the three ponies standing on it jumping in place at the sudden noise. Their eyes quickly snapped to the figure that had abruptly landed atop the pathway, curious as to what could have made such an entrance. The sight of two white wings spread out over a bipedal figure was familiar to Celestia, and she smiled at the sight of Noitorum showing up, but the situation wasn’t as comfortable to Cadence and Shining Armor. The eyes that glanced up at them from the tall figure, despite being surrounded by a surprised and cheerful expression, sent a shiver down both of their spines. Celestia’s earlier words were true in that they had never seen such a creature before, but both Shining Armor and Cadence hadn’t expected something so different.

Noitorum stood up straight, fixing her hair from sticking straight back to laying down on her shoulders. “Hi!” she greeted Celestia. “Sorry about the entrance. I got caught up with something on the way here. Had to make a bit of an abrupt stop.” She looked back at Cadence and Shining Armor. “Are these the ponies you said were going to join us?” Noitorum opened her eyes wide at the sight of Cadence’s wings and horn, glancing back at Celestia. “Oh! She’s like you! Is she your sister?”

Princess Celestia uncontrollably smiled as she heard Cadence stutter quietly. “No, we are not sisters,” she explained. “She is actually a princess of another nation here around Equestria. This is Princess Cadence a-”

Another loud crash on the bridge cut of Celestia’s sentence, making all three of the ponies jump another time. Noitorum grinned and looked down at her side to find Varkrai laying face down, a band of a white fiery substance tied around the tips of the larger feathers of his wings and also around his wrists. He remained unmoving for a second, the silence that became the bridge ringing of worry if he was conscious or not.

“As you can see, Varky here was caught up in something, too,” Noitorum said confidently, prodding Varkrai’s side with her foot. A muffled, frustrated yell escaped the pavement under Varkrai, but died as soon as it had come. Noitorum snapped her fingers and the bands around Varkrai’s hands and wings disappeared, Varkrai’s previously tied appendages flopping limply on the ground. With a blank expression, Varkrai cautiously stood up on his feet, letting his arms hang dead by his sides. He silently stared off into the building behind Cadence and Shining Armor, though the direction of his gaze appeared as if he were staring right at them.

“Is... he okay?” Celestia asked. She backed away slightly as Varkrai coughed out a few of Noitorum’s feathers, some of them sticking to his mouth.

“He’s gone through worse,” Noitorum assured, patting Varkrai on the back.

Beginning to get worried as Varkrai didn’t blink for a while, Celestia nodded unsurely and spoke, “I see.” She stepped to the side and smiled. “As I was saying, this is Princess Cadence and Shining Armor. They’ll be accompanying us today to hear about the situation and what needs to be done.”

With a grin, Noitorum skipped her way past Celestia and headed straight for Cadence and her husband, both of them shifting uneasily in place. “Hello! My name’s Noitorum!” She held her hand out in front of her. “We’ll clear everything that’s hazy up once we get started.”

Hesitantly, Cadence lifted her hoof up to Noitorum’s hand, jerking away slightly at the feeling of her fingers gripping it. “Uh... it’s nice to meet you,” said Cadence. She looked back at Varkrai, who seemed to be having a staring contest with Celestia. “Are you sure he’s okay? He’s not really moving.”

“I’m fine,” Varkrai mumbled. Finally unlocking eyes with Celestia, he casually walked over to Noitorum’s side and examined the two ponies in front of her. No warning given, Varkrai quickly mimicked the binds that Noitorum had put on him back onto her in a split second and, as hard as he could, kicked her to the side. He sniffed dryly as Noitorum fell over the edge of the bridge yelling angrily in shock, Celestia, Cadence, and Shining Armor running to the side and looking down. Her landing was familiar, though she didn’t seem as content with it as Varkrai had.

Varkrai joined the group looking over the bridge, all six eyes staring down quickly shifting to him. He reflected the stare accompanied with a satisfied smile. “She’s gone through worse,” he spoke confidently.

Not quite sure how to react, Princess Celestia backed away from the edge with Cadence and Shining Armor. “I’m sure... she has,” she started hesitantly. “But if we could get started, I would be grateful.”

With a nod, Varkrai snapped his fingers and the distant sound of Noitorum squirming around ceased. He stood still as Noitorum gradually floated up from under the bridge. Her arms crossed and her face scrunched in a pout, she set down on the bridge next to Varkrai, who stood with his hands in his pockets had a smug grin directed toward the three ponies. The feers subtly batted at each other with their wings before they came to a standstill, both of them setting their eyes on Cadence and Shining Armor.

“So, let’s start, shall we?” Noitorum asked with a newfound smile, shoving in one last feathery slap at Varkrai. Cadence, Shining Armor, and Celestia exchanged a quick glance before they nodded.

Princess Celestia began toward the building behind them. “We’ll talk inside,” she directed. Her voice elevated for the royal guards to hear, “Guards, we’ll need the hall with only our presence.”

A collective salute sounded off within the hall, and the guards gathered by the doors of the building began to march outside. They didn’t shy away from sneaking a glance at Noitorum and Varkrai as they passed the two, though their eyes snapped forward as soon as Noitorum waved and Varkrai glared intently at each of them. The hall was soon void of the royal guards’ presences and the doors slammed shut, leaving the ponies and feers facing each other in an anxious silence. The hall managed to echo with Cadence uneasily adjusting her wings as Varkrai refused to stray his eyes from her and her husband.

Celestia cleared her throat. “I’ve asked Princess Cadence and Shining Armor to come here today so the Crystal Empire may assist us in the task at hand,” she explained. “However, they aren’t familiar with the situation as much as I am. I decided it would be best if you two delivered the message rather than me. It would make more sense coming from the two that understand it and have had up-close experiences with the phenomena.”

Noitorum smiled and laced her fingers at her waist. “To be put short, this world is in danger of being destroyed, taken over or inhabited by force, absorbed, stripped of its population for slavery, used a war-zone between two or more potentially apocalyptic-level individuals or armies, abused for its valuable materials, or a combination of at least three of the previous a month from now! Varkrai and I are here to help stop that from happening and hopefully adapt this dimension to the dimensional wastelands that you have recently become a part of. We’re hoping that things don’t go wrong!” She set her heels back on the ground and took a breath in.

Unfortunately, the explanation hadn’t been quite enough. While Celestia, slightly disturbed by the new examples Noitorum had provided, understood her, Cadence and Shining Armor remained in place with blank stares.

Varkrai stepped forward and crossed his arms. “Why don’t we take a walk around outside,” he suggested. “This’ll take a while.”

______________________________________________________________________

“It’s kinda weird, really,” Varkrai spoke sloppily, trying to pick something out of his teeth. “They start doing this strange sorta chant thing and they get all riled up over one of them dancing in the middle with a pot on his head. I’m just glad before we left before the ‘fertilization’ process began. I heard it’s actually quite peaceful from one of the locals later on. You know, once you get past the gobbling like a turkey perio-” He turned his head to look at Shining Armor. “You do have turkeys here, right?”

A disgusted look remaining on his face as he stared at Varkrai, Shining Armor subtly nodded his head.

Varkrai clapped his hands together. “Yeah, it sounds like that, just more wet and angrier.” He stopped as he remembered what he was describing and stared out at the mountains in the distance. “What were we talking about again?”

“You were... telling me about a ritual in one of the species out in the dimensions,” Shining Armor reminded him, but he felt that doing so would only further lead to the description going on. “But, if we could, it would be nice if we could move on from that. Please.”

Thinking back on what he had been saying, Varkrai tapped his fingers together and agreed, “Yeah that’s probably for the best.”

The sun had already reached the point of falling to early evening. A cool breeze had begun to blow through Canterlot while Varkrai and Noitorum elaborated on dimensions to Cadence and Shining Armor, and the clouds above the city had slowly accumulated in a soft grey blanket. The large hill at the edge of Canterlot provided enough space for Varkrai and Shining Armor to be in silence for the time being, along with Noitorum and Cadence further off down the curve of the leave-ridden incline. The hill gave all four a clear view of the lower mountain ranges in the region, though Celestia remained shy away back near Canterlot Tower and the neighboring royal structures and buildings. She knew the time it would take for Cadence and Shining Armor to fully understand what was going on, and with how long her four guests had been away, her assumptions proved to be correct.

Shining Armor glanced at Varkrai out of the side of his vision. The newfound knowledge that Varkrai even existed and that he was from another dimension still remained strange to Shining Armor, and he never felt that he would ever get used to knowing that such vastly different worlds existed all around him. Life in Equestria was simple when it wasn’t under the threat of being taken over by some familiar force, but with the addition of the threat of being taken over by a force that he knew nothing of, Shining Armor couldn’t hold back the shadow of dread lingering over him. He didn’t want to know about what else would come through to their world, whether friendly or hostile. Equestria was full of adventure on its own with new friends to meet and new things to discover, but it seemed like it was the right amount, and that anything more would only be a burden and a hindrance. Varkrai and Noitorum were only a preview of what would happen later down the road, and even they didn’t know what would happen next.

A burst of laughter further along the hill caught Varkrai and Shining Armor’s attention. They both looked in the direction of the sound, catching Noitorum and Cadence in the middle of some sort of handshake. Varkrai gazed back out at the mountains. “She’s the princess of another nation around here? Cadence?” he asked as he leaned back on his elbows.

Shining Armor took a moment to answer as he watched Cadence. “Yeah, The Crystal Empire up in the northern parts of Equestria,” he explained, turning back to the mountains.

“Are there any other leaders that could be of help?”

“What do you mean?”

“From the amount of units within the royal guard here, there isn’t quite much of an army. It looks more like a large group of dedicated patriots rather than a full blown military. There are armies out in the dimensions, which I can guarantee, are one thousand and maybe even more times the amount of your royal guard, and I can promise you they have more advanced technology than just spears, swords, and that stuff they’re using to hold them.”

“Magic. It’s magic.”

Varkrai chuckled lightly. “Not very subtle with the name, huh?”

Shining Armor shot him a scowl. “Is there something wrong with it?”

Waving a hand lightly, Varkrai shook his head. “No, it’s nothing.” He let out another small laugh. “It’s just that ‘magic’ is kinda bland with all the other words that could be used to describe...” Varkrai got a glance of Shining Armor’s expression and sighed. “Nevermind. I’m not one to judge what goes on here. It’s not much different from some of the other worlds, quite honestly. I kinda like it.” Sitting up, he looked up at the clouded sky. “So? What else can this magic do other than hold things?”

His eyes drifted back to the mountains, Shining Armor smirked. “I think there’s a little too much to the point where I can’t think of what to say. Magic has been studied and hollowed out ever since it existed beside us. There’s so much that it can do and so much that it can offer, and its limits are so stretched and cut and worn out that it’s hard to single it down to just one or two things.” He looked to Varkrai. “That answer your question?”

“Well, no, not really,” Varkrai admitted. “But I get your point. Is it accessible to everyone?”

“Not everyone. I think you’ve noticed by now that there are three different, four including the princesses, types of ponies. Earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, and alicorns. Celestia and Cadence are what are known as alicorns, while I am a unicorn. Alicorns and unicorns can utilize magic to its full extent, but earth ponies and pegasi have a weaker link to it. They have passive abilities with magic, so it’s not completely accessible to everypony.”

“That so?”

“Yes.”

“You might want to start thinking up more ways of defending yourselves, then. A simple spear won’t do much against more than five hundred ton, flying, energy breathing leviathans with scales constructed out of the very matter they use to attack with. Not to mention they’re under the influence of a disease that drives them to absorb everything they can.”

Shining Armor felt his stomach flip. “Th- they?”

Laughing, Varkrai patted Shining Armor’s shoulder. “I’m just joking with you. I’ve only ever seen one ever since Noitorum and I have been jumping dimensions.” His face quickly straightened. “But seriously it won’t do a damn thing.”

Not sure whether to frown or smile, Shining Armor felt his mouth twitch confusedly. “Uh... right. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? Letting us know what we’re up against and hopefully helping us overcome it?”

Varkrai shrugged and put his arm back on his crossed legs. “We may have been doing this for longer than you think, but that doesn’t mean we’ve seen everything. For all we know, something that we’ve never seen before could come through. It’s not very likely due to the common concentrations of certain dimensions and their parallels, but there’s a possibility.” He twisted at the grass with a finger. “Which is why you’re gonna need all the support you can get. Whatever The Crystal Empire has in stock in terms of an army, it’ll be better than just what’s here. Do you know of any other nations around that have strong armed forces?”

“There are the griffons, I suppose. They could be of help. Of course, they’ll need a proper explanation from the proper... feers. It is feer, right?”

“Yeah.”

The two sat in silence for a second, staring up at the clouds shifting around peacefully. A casual drop of rain fell from the sky every few seconds, though it was barely noticeable even in the stillness of the hill. Shining Armor flinched as he felt a drop land on his hoof, a small quiver running up his leg.

Rubbing the drop away, Shining Armor spoke, “Celestia said something about you having an effect on the weather a couple nights ago.”

Varkrai stretched his arm out in front of him. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes. She didn’t go into too much detail, but she recommended that we asked you rather than her.” Shining Armor glanced at Varkrai. “So what happened?”

A drop fallen on his hand, Varkrai closed his fingers on his palm. “It’s a side effect of the dimensional gate. It’s hard to understand how, but elements and components that make up a dimension will leak through the gate, creating an area around the origin of the gate in the dimension jumped to similar to the dimension that was jumped from. Not that complicated in general, but so little is known how the process works and what causes it, since dimensions are separated even through open dimensional gates.” He let his arm back down. “From what I heard from Celestia, the weather here is controlled by the population, and that a storm such as the one that came with Noitorum and I wasn’t exactly planned. Don’t worry, though. The effect doesn’t last forever. This rain’s probably it beginning to wear off.”

Shining Armor thought to himself for a second. “What was the dimension you came from like?”

Varkrai lowered his eyes. “Pitch black. Rainy. Quiet. Hostile. Lonely. A generally horrible place to stay for a single minute in.” He lifted his eyebrows. “So compared to other dimensions, I’d say it was average.”

“Things are that bad out there?”

“Even worse than you think.” Varkrai tilted his head slightly. “And yet there are worlds such as this out there amidst the calamity. A haven surrounded by death and suffering.” He looked at Shining Armor, the stallion with a troubled expression. “You should feel lucky being able to live here. Well, then again, this type of world is a perfect example of what some of the most vicious predators seek.” Varkrai sighed and gazed back out at the mountains. “Good luck’s hard to come by, I guess.”

The sound of foot and hoofsteps drawing closer caught Varkrai and Shining Armor’s attention. Noitorum and Cadence made their way over from where they were sitting, both of them with a smile.

“Hey, you two,” Varkrai said as he stood up with Shining Armor. “All wrapped up?”

“Yeah,” affirmed Noitorum, bouncing with the word. “How are things with the royal guard? Are they a good foundation for a defense forces?”

His eyes tilted down slightly, Shining Armor shook his head as Varkrai remained silent. “Unfortunately for what Varkrai has told me, the royal guard isn’t going to be quite much of an army on its own,” Shining Armor confessed.

“What?” Noitorum asked, shocked. She looked to Varkrai. “What did you tell him? The guards seemed like they were good. They could use some reinforcements, yes, but it’s not like they’re completely helpless. The Crystal Empire has some forces, too! Cadence told me about their magic abilities! It’s very powerful, apparently. And the pegasiuses here! They can help, can’t they?”

“Pegasi,” Cadence murmured.

“Right,” said Noitorum, smiling embarrassedly. “But still!”

“Noitorum, I shouldn’t have to tell you what could potential come through from the dimensional gates,” rebuked Varkrai with his arms crossed. “I figured you would remember what happened in that dimension with the humans.”

Noitorum’s face instantly flushed red. “That wasn’t because of us!” she fairly yelled. She lowered her voice and her shoulders deflated as she crossed her arms as well. “I... I know it wasn’t.”

Picking up what Shining Armor and Cadence were thinking from the looks on their faces, Varkrai explained, “There was a dimension far back, about fifty years ago, that we landed in the same situation we’re in now. The main species there were known as humans, and if our luck is as bad as it is, you two might be able to get a look at them up close.” Varkrai honed his eyes on Noitorum, who looked away from him. “But, anyways, things didn’t exactly go as planned on the first visit from the other dimensions. The defenses that we had weren’t enough against what was coming, and the spread of the war zone rushed across the planet like a bucket of water on the floor. We barely managed to escape before things started to get even worse than they had already gotten.” He focused on Cadence and Shining Armor, both of them with worried eyes. “The reason we weren’t prepared was because we thought the preparations we had were good enough to withstand whatever was coming. Turns out even ten thousand units, fully armed with weapons able to level buildings, wasn’t enough to stop one hundred thousand beings known as ‘demons’, and along with them, we hadn’t anticipated an infamously strong and merciless demon known as the ‘Mother Demon’, in english terms.”

“How were we supposed to know she was coming?” Noitorum asked under her breath.

Ignoring the question, Varkrai continued, “It’s pure chance at what comes through to here first, and I’d rather not risk my life again because the forces ready to retaliate weren’t enough to do so. The amount of guards here isn’t enough to take down a group of anything out in the dimensions one half their numbers, not to mention that their spears don’t appear to be quite the most powerful weapons. There are plenty preparations needed to be made here, and I’m sure whatever your ‘magic’ can do isn’t good enough to bolster the guards by itself.”

Instinctively, Shining Armor felt his heart beat faster in anger. “I don’t know what’s out there or what’s coming to us first, but our magic is not as dull as you think it is,” he declared. “While the royal guard’s numbers could use some improvement, do not underestimate our capabilities.”

“Then don’t underestimate the next thing you come eye to eye with that’s not from your world,” Varkrai snapped back, leaning forward slightly. He put his weight back on his heels and nodded once. “I’d rather this not get hostile, so let’s just get back to your princess. She’s probably waiting on us. I’m sure she’ll have some input on what needs to be done around here.”

Shining Armor and Cadence didn’t wait to begin trotting their way back to the inner parts of Canterlot. The light rain gently coating the hillside began to pick up into a delicate shower, the dampness on Varkrai’s shoulders becoming apparent to him. He shook his head as he turned away from Cadence and her husband with both of them walking out of sight. Noitorum still stood where she was with the top half of her body aimed at the mountains in the distance, her shoulders bunched up and her arms crossed. Despite her hair in the way of her face, Varkrai could sense she wasn’t as cheery as she had been not too long ago.

“N... Noitorum, I didn’t mean to-” Varkrai began, walking forward a step.

“Don’t,” Noitorum abruptly spoke. Her hair blew backwards as a calm breeze swept across the hill, granting Varkrai a momentary glimpse of her face, though he wasn’t sure if her cheeks were damp due to the rain or her glistening eyes.

Varkrai felt his arm twitch forward. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But they need to know what can happen if something goes-”

“It’s not going to happen!” Noitorum quickly shouted, stepping up to Varkrai. “We’re not letting this dimension go! I don’t care what happens; I just don’t want to stand back and watch again!” She lifted her arms and grabbed her hair, pulling down on it as she turned away and walked towards Canterlot.

“Hey, wait!” Varkrai called after her. Noitorum’s pace picked up and she lifted off the ground, ascending over the buildings of the city and flying toward the mountains. His eyes flinching in the rain, Varkrai watched her disappear into the clouds. “I think you’d understand by now that everything can’t be given sweetly,” he whispered. He shook his head and began walking his way back to Celestia. “They’ll understand, soon enough.”

______________________________________________________________________

“More rain?” Twilight Sparkle asked aloud, tilting her head forward to look up at the darkened sky. The window panes in the library’s main room streaked with drops of water rushing crawling and down them, shining gently with the candlelight inside. The late evening sky was darkened further by the gathering of clouds letting a subtle storm fall onto Ponyville, a few of the clouds noticeably darker than the rest.

“Like we need anymore,” Applejack added, flipping through a book with an apple tree on its cover. “Sweet Apple Acre’s gonna drown if another cup settles down. Whatdaya figure is goin’ on in Cloudsdale? The pegasi must be crazy to think Equestria needs more rain.”

Twilight looked over the large puddles gathering throughout the streets in front of her home. “Either that or we missed more rain in the summer than we thought. At least this one isn’t as bad as the storm a couple nights ago.”

“Wouldn’t count on it being so easy goin’ just yet. The weather’s been mighty feisty lately, even before the hurricane that blew through. How do you think RD’s holding up with all this?”

“She can handle any storm, though clearing the skies must be a bit of a pain with how much cloud cover there must be.” Twilight turned away from the window and walked over to the center table where Applejack continued to read. “Where is she, anyways? I haven’t seen her in three days.”

Applejack scratched her head. “Pretty sure she and Pinkie have been doin’ something lately. I’m not sure what, but I’m startin’ to hear some ponyfolk around town about somepony pulling pranks. Not to mention Rainbow Dash has been clearing the skies with the crazy storms. I’d figure she has quite a bit of work on her hooves.”

The door of the library burst open with a heavy splash of rain. Twilight Sparkle and Applejack covered their faces from the monsoon invading the library, both of them gasping in surprise at the loud crash of the door slamming against the wall. The scurrying of hooves soon became apparent and Twilight and Applejack peaked out from behind their hooves. Pinkie Pie, soaked and shivering, laid flat on the floor in a ball, teeth chattering while she stared straight ahead of her with vacant eyes. She seemed unharmed, and more startled than anything, but the commotion she managed to cause, along with water she dragged in with her dampening quite a few of the books on the shelves, made Applejack and Twilight more upset with her than worried.

Pinkie Pie looked up at the two ponies, both of them glaring and their manes wet. Pinkie’s face instantly brightened. “Oh, hi! You’re home!” she greeted both of them, her teeth clicking in between sentences. “I wasn’t quite sure if you were so I just though I’d come in here anyways and ask Spike where you were and-”

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted, shaking her mane, though she only caused Applejack’s to weigh down even more. “That’s... fine. Why couldn’t you have just knocked?”

“It was cold, and I was already running at full speed, so I just thought I could use the door to slow down,” Pinkie explained confidently, standing up. Her whole body wiggled as she shook herself dry. Twilight put up a spell to cover herself from the water. Applejack stood in place with her hat sunk over her head, a low growl rumbling from her.

“I’m gunna go dry off,” Applejack spoke after a sigh.

A snicker managed to escape Twilight’s mouth as Applejack trudged toward the bathroom. “We might as well stay here, then,” said Twilight Sparkle. She glanced back out the window, the echo of thunder rolling in the distance. “Varkrai can find his way to the library from Canterlot.”

Pinkie Pie’s smile straightened and she tilted her head at Twilight. “I thought he was coming back tomorrow. Isn’t that what Princess Celestia said in the letter?”

Twilight Sparkle shook her head. “She said it might be wise to talk to him tomorrow. Celestia wrote that he seemed troubled while they were talking.”

“Do you think it was because of earlier?”

Twilight reached for a letter and settled it down on the table, unrolling it with a levitation spell. “According to Celestia, Varkrai and... the other one-”

Her mouth a frown, Pinkie quickly slid over to Twilight’s side and poked her. “Noitorum, silly.”

Twilight shoved a book in her friend’s face and focused on the letter. “Varkrai and Noitorum seemed a little off. After they went for a walk with Cadence and Shining Armor, Varkrai came back alone and didn’t answer to where Noitorum had gone. Cadence mentioned that Noitorum had been upset with him, so I guess there might be something else going on other than our situation with him.”

Pushing the book off her nose, Pinkie Pie walked back over to Twilight. “Did you tell the princess about what happened at Sugar Cube Corner?”

“Applejack suggested that we just asked the princess when he was coming back and that we needed to talk with him.” Twilight bit her lip. “It... it’s not very important, anyway. Celestia doesn’t need to know. Besides, Applejack had already talked with him a little when we were looking for him. I think he really was sorry.”

“Say what now?” Applejack asked as she walked back into the room, blowing her hat upright on her head.

“You saw Varkrai after what happened at Sugar Cube Corner, right? That’s why we’re waiting for him to come back?”

The sound of the name squeezed Applejack’s heart. “Y- yes, I did,” she stuttered.

Twilight nodded at Pinkie. “See? He’s helping us, after all.” She shrugged. “Not to mention he probably wouldn’t be happy with the situation leaving Ponyville. Equestria wouldn’t be able to trust him if everypony heard about it.”

“But why can we?” Applejack quickly asked. “You’re the one he confronted, Twilight. What has you so eager to be on his side? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe... he isn’t saying what he means?”

Words were at a loss for a moment in Twilight’s mind. The possibility of Varkrai lying to her, though she didn’t know what he would be lying about, had only stayed for a short time the first time her eyes came across him. Now that the idea of Varkrai deluding Equestria came back, the display he showed to her and Celestia in Canterlot, the lectures he had given her and Pinkie in the library, and the whole suggestion that he was going to help Equestria seemed questionable. Twilight, along with everyone else in Equestria, had no solid knowledge of where Varkrai had come from, who he was, what he was capable of, or what his intentions were in the first place. The only information of Varkrai had come from his mouth and Noitorum’s, and with Varkrai’s suspicion now apparent, Noitorum didn’t seem all that likely of being reliable. Noitorum could be using a friendly approach to gain Equestria’s trust, and at the same time building a foundation of knowledge of how ponies worked and what they were susceptible to. The entire talk of dimensions could have been an elaborate hoax, and the dimensional gate and Varkrai’s solance might have been some sort of magic unknown to pony eyes. Perhaps Varkrai and Noitorum were part of some sort of species forgotten about long ago in Equestria. Perhaps they were some sort of shape shifting monster planning some sort of attack on Canterlot. Or, perhaps they were telling the truth.

“I... uh...” Twilight muttered, the scenarios bouncing in her head starting to become overwhelming. “But... why would he want to fortify our defenses? Is he trying to take guards away from other cities?”

“Wait, now hold on a second!” Pinkie interrupted. “Varky isn’t lying to us! Neither of them are!”

“But how do we know that for sure, Pinkie?” Applejack questioned with a look of worry on her face. “He’s spouted all this dimension mumbo-jumbo at you and you never thought that he could be the ones he’s warning you about? What if he isn’t even from another dimension in the first place?”

“No no no no no, this can’t be right,” Twilight quickly spoke, holding onto her head. “There would have to be something about their species! They can’t just pop out of no where. I- I would have read about them somewhere. And Princess Celestia! She’s... old. She would know about them! Wouldn’t she?”

Pinkie stepped forward and pleaded, “He’s not trying to lie to us! They’re helping us, remember?”

A splash from outside stopped the commotion within the library. Three pairs of eyes fixated on the window looking out in front of Twilight’s home, searching in fear, curiosity, and anxiousness as to what lurked in the rain. Over the sound of the weather pelting the ground and just past the rumbles of thunder rolling through the sky, the sharp pronunciation of some sort of speech reached into the library, coating the interior with its foreboding owner’s presence. The silence within the homely tree remained with a sense of necessity as footsteps outside splashed around in the rain. A brief flash of distant lightning periodically brightened the streets for a clear view of Ponyville, though whatever stood in the rain amidst Twilight Sparkle’s home remained out of sight. Whispers managed to overtake the static of the droplets outside, and a small thud into the door of the library burst like shattered glass.

“Luth yu foh lex’ent...?” a man’s voice whispered in frustration just barely in the doorway. A light knock sounded from the front of the library. “Twilight Sparkle? You in there?” The tip of a black feather peaked into the window near the door.

Her neck tensing up, Twilight Sparkle almost choked on her own tongue when Pinkie nudged her. Twilight quietly spoke, “Y- yes. Come in.”

The door of the library slowly opened with a dripping hand poking it ajar. Knelt down with his hair hanging limply from his head, Varkrai peered into the library, his eyes squinting as the rain pelted his face. Sweatshirt torn, soaking wet, numb, and tired, his presence wasn’t bouncing with delight or enthusiasm, but aside from his entire body dripping with rain, he didn’t seem all that different to the three ponies staring at him. He seemed to shake with the silent steps that he took into the library, and he closed the door as carefully as he could. His movements took a considerable amount of time to complete as he stood up, though it was difficult to distinguish whether it was because he was trying to seem peaceful or because he was soaked and freezing. He took a brief moment to fix himself up before he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked over Twilight, Pinkie, and Applejack. All three of them, relatively in the same place when he had knocked on the door, kept their eyes intently fixed on him, yet they tried to be as casual as possible.

Teeth chattering in his speech, Varkrai spoke quietly, “I take it from the letter you sent to Celestia that you’re not permanently exiling me from here.” He clenched his teeth shut and tapped a foot on the ground. “Sorry about the mess.”

Twilight abruptly glanced at the puddle at Varkrai’s feet. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” she assured him.

Varkrai nodded. Able to almost smell the tension between the three ponies, Varkrai took a deep breath in and twiddled his fingers in his pockets. “I wanted to talk with you three so I could apologize for what happened earlier.” He took a hand out of his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s... become apparent to me that the kind of stuff that I tend to do isn’t quite normal here. I understand that the things I’ve said and done might seem strange on multiple levels, but it’s not intentional.” He let his arms hang loose as his sides. “You have to understand that I’ve come from places that aren’t like this. Noitorum and I have trained ourselves to keep a steady guard up in case of threats, and if that guard is needed, it’s hard not to react with force. From what I’ve seen here, you can go about your day without care or worry about something attacking you. There’s safety here, but I’ve maybe come across only one hundred dimensions out of fifty million that are like this. I’m not used to it, but you are. I didn’t mean to hurt you; I meant to protect myself.”

Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, all three of them exchanged a subtle glance. The sincerity of Varkrai’s tone and expression were real, and the three could sense it, but the question of the validity of him lurked just barely behind. Twilight and her friends remained still, continuing staring at Varkrai, but beginning to grasp his message.

“So why are you trying to protecting us?” Twilight Sparkle asked. “You’ve said before that you are going through dimensions trying to find your home. What’s the point of staying here?”

With a quick peek out the window behind him, Varkrai explained, “There isn’t a point. Quite honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing here, but Noitorum does. She finds sympathy in almost anything she comes across, and it’s something I’m a bit jealous of. Life isn’t very valuable in the dimensions, but to her it is. As much as I fight and disagree with her, I love her, and breaking her heart is something that I can’t do anymore.” He crossed his arms. “This may just seem like unneeded mushy-talk, but it’s the main reason why we haven’t left. She wants to help, and I’m with her from here on in. But if we’re to help you, your friends, and everyone else, you have to understand us and everything about dimensions if we’re to get along. I hope you can forgive my actions and move past them.”

Silence followed and the rain relentlessly went on. Varkrai moved his eyes across each of the ponies out in front of him, pleading without a single word. The regret that hovered on Varkrai’s face provided a mask for the three friends still wary of him, and they were finally able to feel like they weren’t being lied to. The ominous creature that stood before them now seemed more like them than they had known before, and the emergence of what his motivation was for staying, while still being faintly upsetting, made him sound more kind-hearted than what he had displayed before.

“You can mistrust me all you want, and I can understand why that is,” Varkrai continued. “But all I ask of you is to let us help you. We can seem cold and cruel, and maybe a little out of our minds at some points, but I think we’re more alike than you know. You want to protect your home and those you care about, everyone does. Noitorum and I just want to help and make sure everything pleasant out in the dimensional wastelands isn’t destroyed.”

Twilight Sparkle looked to Pinkie Pie as her friend poked her, and a smug ‘I told you so’ look grew on Pinkie’s face. A smile, no matter how hard Twilight tried to fight it, managed to force her mouth upwards. Varkrai had gotten his point across enough to where he could finally relax his body. Seeing even Applejack smirk just barely as Pinkie and Twilight looked back at her, Varkrai knew that his apology had been accepted, though unbeknownst to him, he had also given them a reassurance that they could trust him. Whatever fears they had were faded to where they didn’t feel a tremble in their body when they saw his eyes or when he spoke in his strange tongues, and even though he still carried the look of someone deprived of sleep and immensely frustrated, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack felt he wasn’t always angry at them.

“So where’s Noitorum?” Pinkie asked to break the silence, bouncing with her question.

Nodding to himself, Varkrai lowered his eyes. “We’re a little upset with each other right now. She’s just cooling off, I’m sure.”

“Varkrai,” Noitorum spoke softly. Ponies and feer alike opened their eyes wider as Noitorum’s voice whispered beside Varkrai. Oddly enough, she wasn’t in sight, but now that he heard her voice, Varkrai could sense her presence within him.

“Noitorum,” Varkrai responded, gently smiling. “I didn’t notice you came back.”

“Is that true why we’re staying and helping them?”

Giving Twilight Sparkle a nod, Varkrai smiled and said, “Yeah, it is. But it’s not just because I don’t want to hurt you anymore. It’s because I think it’s time we did something, no matter how small, to at least try and feel like we’re back home.”

“Thank you.”

______________________________________________________________________

“Myers? That you up there? Where’s everyone else?”

“About time you showed up. They’re in the back waiting. What took you so long? These masks are choking us to death.”

“Keep it on as long as you want to live. Got all the soldiers rounded up?”

“They’re set to go.”

“Good. The convoy’s comin’ in, so get those gates open nice and wide. Adrian’s got his hands full with a family that lost one of their children, so you and Nelson are going to have to operate the machine yourselves.”

“Ugh... fine. Where’s the convoy? Can’t see it through this damn fog.”

“They’re down the valley, I’m sure. You might want to start recharging your night lenses. It’ll be a while at the pace they’re going.”

“Why? What’s taking them so long?”

“The fog’s gotten thicker, and we’re trying not to lose any more trucks than we already have. Looks like It knows we’re leaving.”

“Well It better at least have the courtesy to say goodbye.”

“We’ll see. Hows ammo?”

“Locked and loaded. Still got a few crates left ready to be broken open.”

“Keep ‘em tight. We don’t want to lose them."

"Is everyone healthy in the convoy? No one's come in contact with the fog?"

"They're all fine since we last checked them. We'll run a test on everyone before they leave. We’re going to start back for the convoy and meet them halfway. Catch you later, Myers.”

“Hutch, wait!”

“What?”

“Are you sure this is going to work? What if we don’t have enough ammo?”

“It all depends on what we come across.”

“And if we’re not ready for it?”

“Then we can say we tried and that we finally saw a world that isn’t dead. If we’re lucky, we might even see a sun again. It’s all chance.”

“How’s our luck lately?”

“Not great, but it’ll do. We’re deserting this sonuvabitch one way or another.”

“Have any predictions where we’ll end up?”

“Wherever it is, I really just hope it isn’t cold.”

[9] Into the Abyss Beyond

Chapter Nine: Into the Abyss Beyond

The numerous pairs of eyes standing at the side of the street watched hesitantly at the center of the grassy field. It was strange, to most of the ponies in the group, that something such as a couple of complete strangers, two beings vastly different from them, would find it in themselves to be so nonchalant of their sudden arrival, disregarding that one of them couldn’t care less what impression he was giving off at any certain point. The couple’s laughter seemed as if it were too early for it to come out given the amount of time they had been in Ponyville, or Equestria for the matter. The group of ponies mumbled amongst themselves at the sight of Varkrai and Noitorum playing with each other, both of them running around and flapping their wings wildly in a frenzy. Granted, the ponies were somewhat relieved to see that “The Crow”, as Varkrai had come to be known as around Ponyville, wasn’t always an utter brute, and Noitorum, who still had a moniker pending, though “The Siren” had come up quite a few times, wasn’t always screaming her head off.

Nevertheless, all of Ponyville was happy to see the sun again. After the entire sky being covered in clouds the day before, it was refreshing to feel the heat of the sun on their coats against the cold autumn winds. Ponyville was starting to get its lively self once more with the weather clearing up, and even though two strangers walked amongst them, the ponies managed to cope despite their worries. They still had better things to do other than meeting new acquaintances, and while one of the feers wouldn’t like anything better than getting to know every single one of the ponies, the other’s mutual attitude toward the population kept the two species at a distance, for even the pleas of Noitorum’s friendship couldn’t get past her relationship with Varkrai. Even if the ponies wouldn’t have an entirely friendly conversation with Noitorum, the white winged feer still had confidence that she would win them over eventually, and she would make sure that even Varkrai had at least made a couple of friends. But for now, the ponies remained off to the side with their own affairs, keeping a faint eye on the new additions to Equestria.

All but one. As the group of ponies dispersed into their separate paths, one mare remained at the edge of the field, watching shyly as the ponies walked past and away from her. Honey Flower felt the dirt under her hooves shake as her legs suddenly became heavy. She was used to the feeling of being alone, but the still unfamiliar environment of Ponyville kept her uneasy. She slowly made her way over to a shady tree beside the street and sat down against it, looking out at the field as Varkrai and Noitorum continued to chase each other around. The vibrance of the, surprisingly still so, verdant grass and warm hues of the trees had almost been forgotten about in the dim atmosphere of the previous cloudy weather, but with the full shining sun now taking its turn to rain down on Equestria, nature once again was back in schedule. The birds sung and flew around in the late morning air, the wind blew through the leaves at a steady pace, and the pegasi ponies were finally given a rest now that the weather seemed to be acting normal and in their control once again.

Honey Flower smiled at Varkrai as he glanced at her for a second. The travel from Canterlot to Ponyville, as she was sure of it now, was one of Honey Flower’s best decisions she had ever made. She didn’t have the constant, pompous laughter of the unicorns splashing into her ears any longer, and she was finally away from the nightmare of the restaurant she had been working at before. It was amazing to her that she could actually make enough money from her job, as she had been hired very quickly after her departure from Sugar Cube Corner, to buy something worthwhile. She wore her new, warm, dark blue sweater snuggly around her front legs and torso, satisfied to be out of her old uniform and into a piece of clothing that actually protected her from the elements. The sweater may not have been her primary choice, and it still seemed a bit bland to her, but she kept it close along with a faded, tattered red scarf she had bought back in Canterlot. Even if the long strip of cloth reminded her of the disgusting city, it was the only thing that had kept her warm, and she couldn’t draw herself to dispose of it.

Not wanting to interrupt Varkrai and Noitorum, Honey Flower leaned against the tree she sat under and closed her eyes, listening to the peaceful conversations off in the distance and the grass sway and whisper in the wind. She just barely caught a glimpse of someone walking over to the two feers, a unicorn with a scarf wrapped around her neck, but Flower remained where she was and waited.

“Varkrai! Noitorum!” Twilight Sparkle called out over their playing as she drew near them. It was loud enough to get a hold of Varkrai’s attention for Noitorum to quickly dash forward and tackle him to the ground, making a loud thump as they both hit the grass.

“Ha! I win!” Noitorum gloated victoriously with a leg on each side of Varkrai, leaning forward on top of him and grinning in his face. Her triumph was short lived, as Varkrai didn’t hesitate to grab her knees and push them, sliding her legs out from under her and prompting her to fall face first into his newly stitched sweatshirt.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” suggested Varkrai. He looked to Twilight Sparkle as he held Noitorum’s head against his chest, her muffled giggling just barely escaping the cloth as he tickled the bases of her wings. “There something you need?”

Twilight Sparkle made sure to back up as to not get slapped by Noitorum’s flailing pinions. “Uh... Is this a bad time?” she wondered out loud, just barely dodging a giant white feather quivering up and down.

“No no no, of course not,” assured Varkrai, trying his best to keep Noitorum in place. “What is it?”

Worried for Noitorum, who seemed to be on the verge of passing out from laughing too hard, Twilight Sparkle hesitantly spoke, “I was wondering if you or Noitorum could help me with something later on today. It won’t take long.” Twilight pointed a hoof to the now red-faced feer desperately trying to escape, though Noitorum still managed to have a smile on her face. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it,” Varkrai ominously reassured with a blank stare. He eventually left go of Noitorum completely and looked down at her. Glad to just be out of Varkrai’s grasp, Noitorum laid on top of him limp and heavy, panting and trying to catch her breath while still giggling periodically. With her senses back, she quickly lifted up an arm over Varkrai’s head and let gravity smack him for her.

“I still won,” Noitorum muttered, prodding his nose.

Varkrai poked her hand off his face. “Uh huh.” He turned his head back to Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn still waiting for an answer. “What do you need help with?” Varkrai asked.

“I was hoping one of you could let me study your... solance, was it?” Twilight Sparkle requested. “It won’t be long, I’m sure. I just want to know the basics of it. Maybe I could also examine a dimensional gate?”

Hearing an opportunity to spend some time with one of the ponies, Noitorum perked her head up and locked her eyes on Twilight. “That’d be great! I wanna help!” Noitorum blurted out. She tugged at the collar of Varkrai’s sweatshirt as she stood up. “Come on! Let’s go! We can show her your armor! And we can do the thingy with the stuff! Maybe we can study her magic, too! It’ll be fun!”

Varkrai, wary of his sweatshirt ripping again, stood up with Noitorum. “Uh, Noi. You do know the properties of sub-dimensional energy, right?”

“Oh we’ll be fine! Don’t be such a wuss!” Noitorum scoffed. “It’s not like the entire town will be destroyed if we mess up!”

Twilight Sparkle felt her stomach sink. “Wh- what?” she stuttered.

Eager to not be the draw any more attention to himself in the future, Varkrai pried Noitorum’s hands of his sweatshirt and quickly explained, “It’s a hazard to mix two different energy manipulations at once. Sub-dimensional energy, the substance that makes up everything, is given unique sort of ‘codes’ to be one thing and one thing only unless manipulated otherwise, hence ‘energy manipulations’, which are possessed by technology or lifeforms. Those codes mix while being processed by manipulations, the results can be catastrophic,” Varkrai gave Noitorum a sharp glare. “and certainly not for recreational purposes. What I’m assuming to be your energy manipulation here is probably what you call ‘magic’. It wouldn’t seem to be anything else. It’d be wise to keep our energy manipulations away from each other.”

“Oh come on!” Noitorum pleaded. “I wanna see their magic!”

“And I don’t want to see us being vaporized,” Varkrai rebuked.

“On second thought... maybe I can just ask you questions about it rather than test on it,” Twilight Sparkle suggested.

Varkrai crossed his arms at Noitorum. “That’s probably for the best.” He nodded at Twilight. “It’s a lot safer than running the risk of annihilating the entire town because your magic nudged our solance.”

Her wrists bent upwards and her arms straight down, Noitorum pouted, “But we’re not that clumsy! I just wanna see-!”

Twisting a finger in the air, Varkrai formed a ribbon of solance around Noitorum’s head and tied it against her mouth. “Where are we going to do this?” Varkrai asked Twilight, ignoring Noitorum as she tugged at the band around her head.

Twilight kept a careful eye on Noitorum again as the feer careened off into field trying to untie the ribbon. “We’d likely just go back to the library and set up there. I’ve got plenty of quills and paper to record data on.”

“Sounds great,” said Varkrai. “We’re doing this now?”

“Yes. Is there something you need to do beforehand?”

Varkrai gave a quick glance at the nearest street by the field. Honey Flower still remained under the tree she had sat next to, though she was caught up in looking over a recipe booklet she had stored in her pocket. Varkrai quickly looked back at Twilight as she started to turn her head to the tree and said, “No. We can go now. Noitorum!” After no answer, he turned around and shouted again, “Noitorum! Come o- oh. Right.”

Already given up on trying to get the ribbon off her head, Noitorum was sat in the middle of the field bent over her knees with her arms behind her on the grass, her wings drooped over the ground and her forehead resting on a tree stump. Chuckling lightly at the sight, Varkrai snapped his fingers and the ribbon around Noitorum’s head disappeared, a sigh escaping her mouth shortly after.

“Come on, Noi,” Varkrai called out to her, almost in a hurry. “We’re heading out. Get your feathers over here.”

A sense of panic began to flow through Varkrai as he saw a twinge of movement over by the street close to the field. Before Noitorum had enough time to get up, Varkrai had already taken a few steps past Twilight Sparkle, motioning his hand quickly to both Twilight and Noitorum. He felt his heart beat faster with every step he had to place carefully in front of him, trying to angle his way towards Ponyville with his eyesight away from the tree he wanted to disappear. With either footsteps or hoofsteps coming up behind him, Varkrai wasn’t sure whether it was Noitorum, Twilight Sparkle, or the owner of the voice that stopped him in his tracks.

“Varkrai! Wait a second!” a familiar, quiet voice called out from not too far away.

Instinctively, Varkrai felt his wings spread out, but he suddenly stopped himself and let his jaw relax. He knew exactly who had been watching him at the edge of the field, who had been waiting to talk with him, and who he didn’t want to catch up with again. It was still in his interest to keep from getting too friendly with ponies that he didn’t need to be acquainted with, and despite having had the idea that the situation he was in would happen when he took Honey Flower with him to Ponyville, he wanted to keep that goal intact for as long as he could. However, stopped in place in the presence of a mare that he hoped wouldn’t have come across him again, the only thing he could do was sigh and turn around. Sure enough, Honey Flower stood directly behind, staring up at him with bright eyes and a smile across her face. With Noitorum and Twilight Sparkle standing beside each other watching him, Varkrai kept his feet where they were, and he painfully motioned his head to Ponyville.

“Why don’t you two just go on ahead?” Varkrai exhaled, trying his best to hide the fact he wanted nothing more than to fly as high as he could and never come back down. “I... need to take care of something.”

Staring directly into Varkrai’s emotions, Noitorum let a grin of pure satisfaction crawl onto her face. “Don’t mind if we do,” Noitorum agreed. “Let’s go, Twilight Sparkle. I wanna see what your magic can do.”

The mild back and forth questions of Noitorum and Twilight Sparkle had gone faster than Varkrai anticipated. The silence that the field had fallen into seemed to amplify Honey Flower’s quiet presence, augmenting her general existence to direct every single note of attention towards her. The wind even seemed as if it were drawing into her dim blue eyes that could peer through walls if they needed. Varkrai, for once, found himself feeling uneasy at the unmoving figure of Honey Flower’s haunting gaze. He began to wonder if the overwhelming heat spreading across his body was what others felt when he stared at them, but little else crossed his mind as he figured the best way to end the situation was to talk with her.

“Hi Varkrai!” Honey Flower spoke excitedly. “It’s good to see you again!”

“Uh... hey, Honey Flower,” muttered Varkrai, rubbing the back of his neck with an awkward smile on his face. “Is there something you want to talk to me about?”

The mare seemed a little too happy, continuously smiling and looking up at Varkrai. “Not in particular. I just wanted to say hi!” Honey Flower stood on her hind legs and clapped her front hooves together. “Look! I got a sweater!”

“That’s... great.”

“Yeah!” Honey Flower laughed lightly. “I won’t be having to borrow yours anymore, I suppose.”

Varkrai glanced towards Ponyville. “I thought you were low on funds.”

“I was, but I got a job at the restaurant near the center of town.” The mare stretched her head down to a pocket near her shoulder and brought out a card in her mouth, displaying it to Varkrai. “I get plenty of tipsh, and the job ishn’t that bad either! Here, it’sh a coupon if you ever want to come around and visit.”

“Mhmm.” Varkrai pinched the card out of her mouth and examined it, wiping off the saliva. Two bits off of any sandwich with a free beverage. “Bits?” he asked, stuffing the card in his pocket.

“You know, bits. Equestria’s currency. You live in Equestria, right?”

A sudden memory jumped back into Varkrai’s mind. He remembered back in Canterlot when he had first come across Honey Flower outside of her old work. She had never been outside of Canterlot or ever seen anything out of the cities borders. She knew nothing of other cities and towns, the way Equestria worked, or the dangers that loomed over the seemingly peaceful nation at every second. Her education was limited to a few books about the species of Equus and Equestria’s history she had read back in Canterlot’s libraries, but even then she had a hard time comprehending the words and barely got anything out of them. Having been living on the streets and outskirts of Canterlot for most of her life, Honey Flower had little information of her homeland or the beings within it. Varkrai, to her, was just another citizen of Equestria giving a helping hand to her along the way. It was apparent to Varkrai as to why Honey Flower had never really been afraid or wary of him. She didn’t know he wasn’t from Equestria or even the same world as her; she saw him as a normal, typical citizen, and as a friend.

“I...” Varkrai started. He felt a strange sensation travel through him, almost as if he had come across a long lost friend. “Of... of course I do,” he said at last. His mouth uncontrollably slid into a smile. “Yeah, I’m from Equestria.”

Honey Flower giggled. “Then you better start remembering the currency.” She lightly prodded at Varkrai’s sweatshirt. “Hey, you got it fixed! Sorry about ripping it, by the way. It was nice of you to let me wear it on the way here, though. Thank you.”

Varkrai found himself ceaselessly staring back down at the mare as she did at him. “It wasn’t a problem. It’s just nice to see that you have your own now.”

Quickly after a nod, Honey Flower’s eyes opened wide and her whole body perked up. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She reached into her pocket again, this time pulling out a small green gem attached to a silver chain just big enough to fit around her hoof. “I got this for you. A thank you gift for taking me from Canterlot to here. Take it.”

The jewel slid into Varkrai’s palm. The emerald barely spanned a length of his finger tip, and the green gem had some flaws in it that were hard to see past. The silver chain was tattered and chipped on a few of the links, and the casing around the emerald was faded partially with a few spots of rust.

“It was the only thing I could afford, but I didn’t know when I was going to see you again, so I thought I’d get it at the time,” Honey Flower explained. “I wanted to get you a better one, but this is as best as I could get with the bits I had.”

Gently, Varkrai wrapped the chain around his wrist and secured the silver on itself. He kept the emerald tight between his fingers. “You didn’t have to get me anything, so this is more than I could’ve asked for. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Honey Flower, reflecting the smile on Varkrai’s face.

______________________________________________________________________

“And the pegasus guards have had their spears updated?” questioned Shining Armor.

“Yes, captain,” the royal guard responded. “They have been issued the newer models.”

“What of their armor?”

“In the forgery, soon to be brought back to them.”

“Good. Tell the smiths not to overwork themselves. We still have plenty of time.”

“By your orders.”

Shining Armor stood still as he watched the pegasus royal guard descend from the balcony overlooking the courtyard. The masses of royal guards in the field below crawled and crept with their orderly movements in lines, each of them carrying out their orders from their captain who watched over them so carefully. The elegant buildings surrounding the courtyard guided their paths with separate stations of order set up for their supplies, each guard stopping periodically to gather their equipment after having been parted with it for a day. Their faces doing most of the explaining, the vast majority of the guards, whether pegasus or unicorn, were overjoyed to see the modification done to their armor and weapons. From a few tips given by Varkrai and Noitorum, their armor had been reformed with a new metal and shaped to cover the upper halves of their legs, a clink of metal sounding every time they took a step. The familiar spears they had been issued before barely looked the same anymore. With longer reaches, spearheads shaped to efficiently slash and thrust, and reinforced handles to block oncoming attacks, the newly designed spears had received a generally positive response. Even though their world was under threat, the guards couldn’t help but feel refreshed and excited.

“How are the guards doing?” Princess Celestia asked curiously, walking out next to Shining Armor onto the balcony.

Nodding, Shining Armor said, “They seem to be taking the adjustments well. They could use somepony down there to get them in order, however. I’ve run my eyes across a few guards that have been using their armor as a mirror for the sun’s light to shine it in each other’s eyes. Must be the new recruits walking through.”

A puff of laughter escaped Celestia’s mouth. “As long as they have some enthusiasm for being in the guard. I would hate to have them detest their occupation.” Celestia quickly surveyed the guards’ equipment from the balcony. “I see you’ve incorporated a fair number of Varkrai and Noitorum’s suggestions into their uniforms.”

“The smiths have been working hard, but the output of their work has proved beneficial so far,” Shining Armor elaborated. He lifted a leg up to show the extension to his armor. “It’s a bit hard to get used to, but hopefully Varkrai is right that we’ll need it.”

Celestia admired the metal slates layered over one another. “I’m sure they’ll be of use later on.”

The phrase seemed more foreboding than it should have been. Shining Armor frowned and looked back out at the courtyard. “Varkrai, the one with the black wings, he told me about some of the beings out in the dimensions while he was here.”

“What did he say of them?” asked Celestia.

“Nothing very pleasant,” Shining Armor admitted. “There was a particular type of species he named. Humans, I believe they were called. He went into detail of the weapons they possessed and the mentalities that they had of other dimensions. Varkrai told me of the atrocities they committed against themselves and those who stood in their way. He didn’t paint them happily.”

Scanning the courtyard, Celestia became curious as to why Varkrai and Noitorum suggested so many changes in the royal guards. “Varkrai had nothing to say about them being friendly?”

“He mentioned that a few of them had tried to accompany him and Noitorum on their way, but he never said anything else beyond that.” Shining Armor fell silent for a moment as he thought to himself. He looked to Celestia. “How can we be sure that what we’ll be able to gather for defenses will be enough for what’s coming? What if we can’t hold back whatever comes through? What happens?”

Princess Celestia strayed from the answer in her mind, but whether on purpose she wasn’t sure. It had only been two and a half days since she first even set eyes on Varkrai and the information he brought with him. From handling political affairs and arguments between the cities and towns to processing a dimensional gate, Celestia wasn’t sure where to stand to keep herself stable. Everything seemed to be settling down beside her without question or care of what she had to say. She still had yet to send out a public message of Varkrai’s warnings to Equestria, but she wasn’t sure if the nation would be able to handle such a drastic change of events. Every other threat that had been declared on Equestria was sudden and immediate; there was no time to think or plan, and thus there was only time to act. Now that Celestia knew that something was coming, something that she did not know she alone could keep back, she wasn’t sure of how to carry out preparing for when the moment Equestria faced its enemy.

“That is something I do not know,” Celestia admitted, sinking slightly. “None of this is familiar to me, and I’m sure Luna lacks the knowledge of it as well. Nothing can be certain of what is to happen once another gate is opened to our world. Noitorum has reassured us that we will be capable of making it through, but Varkrai doesn’t seem so enthusiastic as her. Even if he is saying that we have a chance, there is something in his voice that resembles doubt, and maybe even fear.” She managed to forge a smile upon herself. “But we have time to prepare ourselves, and with Varkrai and Noitorum’s help, we can do our best to protect Equestria and our neighboring nations.”

Shining Armor’s ears straightened up. “What about the griffons? Do they know what’s going on?”

“In due time I will warn them, and I’m sure the news about Varkrai and Noitorum will reach them eventually, but for now our importance is making sure our forces are at their peak.”

“Doesn’t that seem a bit selfish? We aren’t certain of when the next gate will be opened.”

Sighing, Celestia subtly nodded. “Yes, it may be, but as Varkrai has said, we have a minimum of a month to reinforce ourselves. He seems rather confident in his estimate. Knowing the the griffons, they are already well equipped for battle, but it’s uncertain how they will take the news.”

“Right.”

Princess Celestia looked toward the sun as it hid behind the mountains, casting a colossal shadow over Canterlot. “Princess Cadence has been handling The Crystal Empire’s guard, has she?”

Shining Armor smiled at the name. “She’s made sure that the crystal guards have had their time to process the situation and get their minds straight. They don’t seem too upset, considering the circumstances. I just hope they can stay that way.”

“We all do,” Celestia agreed. “We’ll need as many of the guards as we can to be at their full potential. Luna, as well, has been making sure her guards can be of service, despite their limited numbers.”

Curious, Shining Armor looked up to the early evening sky. “Princess Luna has already been told of the situation?”

“Yes. We have spoken about Varkrai and Noitorum’s arrival, though Luna seems a bit wary of them. I’ll have to arrange a meeting with the two and Luna at some point. I’m sure Varkrai can explain what is happening better than I can.”

His gaze in the direction of Ponyville, Shining Armor asked, “Have you heard anything from him or Noitorum since they left?”

A sparkle of magic twinkled in the air about Celestia’s horn and a letter floated down in front of her. She unraveled the parchment and examined the news from Twilight Sparkle she had received earlier. “Your sister has been keeping a watch over them from a distance while they’ve been in Ponyville, apparently. Whether it’s for her own sake of studying them or because she wants to keep a safe eye on them, I’m not quite sure, but it’s probably for the best either way.”

A chuckle fell from Shining Armor. “It sounds like her.”

Celestia continued, “This letter just came in today. She had some assistance from Noitorum in learning about solance, the ‘energy manipulation’ Varkrai’s species possesses. She states that’s it’s rather unique, and slightly identical to magic, but not as complex.” The letter disappeared in a cloud and Celestia looked back down at the courtyard. “Other than Twilight Sparkle’s letter, I know nothing of how Varkrai and Noitorum are settling in. It seems that I can’t direct any letters to them through magic.”

“I’m sure Twilight can keep you informed about them,” Shining Armor noted. He went back to watching over the royal guards still retrieving their equipment. “They can’t get into too much trouble, right?”

Celestia began to walk back from the balcony. “I hope so.”

______________________________________________________________________

The Crystal Empire stood strong amidst the blizzard, but the crystal ponies seemed slightly more concerned. They gazed from the warmth and safety of the Empire out at the snow uncontrollably whipping back and forth. Fortunately, they were safe within the magic that protected their city and some of its surroundings, but the crystal ponies couldn’t help but feel in danger. The weather in the arctic had been calm and quiet ever since King Sombra had been vanquished, and even the harshest of the snow storms that crossed paths with the Empire were somewhat calm. The crystal ponies remembered the horrible storms that rained down across the north when Sombra held them captive. They remembered the sky being blocked out by dark clouds and grey snow, the only light coming from the violent flames burning about the streets. Despite Princess Cadence’s comforting words that they were safe for now, the ponies felt it inside themselves that something was wrong.

They knew already of the phenomenon that had taken all of Equestria by surprise, the two strange creatures that came from a world not like theirs. It was by Princess Cadence, their beloved leader, that they learned of the threats that were soon to come, and it was by her words that a subtle terror loomed over the Empire. It was not a panic, and there was no chaos to be seen, but the stillness put against the ferocious weather just outside their home whispered that something wasn’t right. The crystal ponies remained in their homes for the majority of the day. There were barely any gatherings of friends for a walk in the park; there were no fillies or colts out playing in the streets. The Empire slowly learned to fear once again, even if they were reassured that nothing was going to happen for a while. The inhabitants of The Crystal Empire remained at the edge of their kingdom, watching from the warmth of their home out at the wilderness beyond.

The snow sifted wildly with the arctic winds playing in the open, mountainous landscape of Equestria’s northern regions. Blotted out with dull grey clouds and blindingly white snow, the frigid sky of the frozen plains pelted the ground and mountain sides with winds fast enough to move the rocky giants themselves, simultaneously piercing everything in sight with needles of ice and snow without any indication of relent. No animal, aside from an occasional beast of the ice, roamed across the surface of the arctic hills, valleys, and fields. The numerous crevasses and ravines spread randomly throughout the icy surface gave little protection from the glacial gales, and even if they brought shelter to those who sought it, the peculiar inhabitants would prove more of an issue than the wind and snow. The mountain peaks sent clouds of snow and ice into the air of the deathly cold and haunting sky, while the overhangs of the stone titans rained shards of ice and loose boulders to the ground below. Every instant the biting grasp of the withering frost searched for those who dared to walk among the arctic desert, and every second the frozen floor beckoned the company of those who were weak enough to listen. A shadow stalked beneath the ice, and its voice would soon be heard beyond its cage.

A hum began to yell over the whistling of the wind. The ground shook with the intensity of the low grumble spreading throughout the ice, and the mountains seemed to shift and lean in to listen to the origin of the noise. Almost harmonizing with the wind, the hum of some sort of dilapidated machinery grew louder at the lowest point of a valley not far from The Crystal Empire, yet the blizzard managed to keep it secret to any listening ears. Snow shifted along the ground not only in the wind, ice cracked in the mountains, and the sleeping arctic wildlife stirred in their slumber. As the hum, now heightening into a shrill screech, peaked in its intensity, a careful gust of wind ran across the mountain tops, and a lost corrupted relic slid from its rest.

A bright light shot through the snowy air at the bottom of the valley. Like a flash of lightning, it sent a crack of thunder out into the valley, just audible over the harsh winds. The echo lasted for a mere second before the blizzard engulfed it, and the valley was once again silent save for the arctic hurricane, and quite recently, footsteps. The new pairs of eyes in the snow peered out from the goggles fastened to them, only finding snow and the curvature of the land in their sights. The foreign figures in the arctic surveyed their surroundings as they took step by step in the heavy snow built up to their shins, their movement further hindered by the burdening black armor that covered their entire bodies. They kept their fingers close to the trigger on their weapons as they listened in the wind, each of them keeping a close eye and ear for anything that moved in the blizzard. The group of four soldiers halted in their tracks and looked toward each other after a moment of stillness, three of them shrugging.

“Son of a bitch!” one of them yelled through his helmet and mask, raising his arms in discontent. “Why here!?”

“Keep your mouth shut, Hutch,” another scolded him quietly. “We don’t know where we are yet, or if we’re even alone.”

“I think it’s fairly clear that we’re in a dandy-candy winter wonderland!” Hutch shouted. He started to dig in the snow. “Look at this! Snow! I’m sick of being cold! Where’s the lamnirex!? Adrian!”

“I got it, I got it,” Adrian, the slightly more light-armored of them, assured him. “Don’t start having a hissy fit. Besides, we’re not leaving here. You wanted to get out of the fog, so we’re out of the fog.”

“Yeah, I wanted out of the fog, but I didn’t want to go somewhere even colder than where we were!” Hutch argued. His speech turned into nonsensical rambling as he wandered off a few feet from the group, repeatedly throwing his arms in the air and pointing to the snow.

“He’ll be fine,” Adrian said as he turned back to the other two, moving his sniper onto his back. “Aimee, have a look at the temperature.”

The smallest of the soldiers knelt down on one knee and dug at the belt around her waist. She pulled out a small circular thermometer attached to a string and wiped away the snow accumulated on her goggles. “Below freezing, for sure, but this thing’s been broken for a while now. Maybe negative fifteen or something?” She let the compass wind back to the belt. “I can’t tell.”

“Well, I suppose we can be glad that we weren’t ambushed as soon as we came through the gate,” Myers, the only one of the group with a hood over his head, digressed, letting a folded turret in his arms down on the ground. He checked the ammo belts around his waist. “I probably should’ve taken more anyways.”

Sighing, Adrian looked up towards a higher part of the valley. “Just be happy we didn’t need to use them,” he noted. He turned to look at the heavily armored soldier off to the side, Hutch still kicking and batting at the air and snow. “Hutch, knock it off. We’re going to have to get moving before we freeze to death.”

With a shrug, Hutch shook his head as he settled himself. “Where? There’s snow, everywhere.”

“We can find some place to lie down and set up the gate again so the rest can come through,” Myers suggested. “It’s not like this entire dimension can be covered in sno-” He felt a small tap on his calf. Startled, he jumped and stepped away from what had touched him, Myers frantically searching the snow with his eyes.

“What’re you all so worked up about?” Aimee asked, scanning over the area Myers had been standing.

“Something touched me!” Myers quickly blurted. He examined the side of his leg and wiped off the spot where he had felt the poke. As he looked down at his leg, he noticed a small hint of color in the blank canvas of the snow, a dot of red blaring out at him through his darkened goggles.

“What?” Adrian questioned, grabbing ahold of his sniper again. “What is it?”

Myers quickly snapped his pistol into his hands, aiming at the red amidst the ice. He slowly leaned down and took is finger off the trigger, reaching his hand out to move the snow out of the way of the object. He narrowed his eyes at the grey and red, what seemed to be, horn.

“Uh... I don’t know,” Myers stated, picking it up. “It looks like some sort of tooth, or horn, or something sharp.” He handed it to Aimee. “Don’t know what it is.”

Poking at the base of the object, Aimee noted, “Looks like it’s been snapped off of something, judging by the dull end of it.” She looked up at Adrian and Myers. “Should we keep it? I don’t know why this would be out here, considering that there doesn’t seem to be anyone out and about. Maybe it was left behind.”

“Wouldn’t hurt much, I guess,” said Adrian. “Just keep it in your pack. Could possibly be of some use later on. This dimension’s inhabitants could find it intriguing.”

Hutch sulked his way in between Aimee and Adrian, his shoulders drooped. “Can we get out of here now? I’m freezing.” He pointed at the horn as Aimee stuffed it in one of the bags tied to her belt. “What’s that?”

“No idea.” Shivering, Aimee looked towards a shallow path leading up to the top of the valley they stood in. “Want to take that way up? Looks easy enough.”

With a quick glance at the path, Myers nodded and started walking. “Yeah. Let’s try and find some sort of cave or cavern on the way. Any shelter’ll do for now.”

“Sounds just fine to me,” Hutch agreed, getting a grip on his assault rifle. “Anywhere out of this wind is great.”

The team of soldiers headed their way up the valley, sticking close to each other to get some sort of warmth as they walked in the open. Luckily for a shadow in the ice, they were blind in the falling snow around them.

[10] Heralds and Horses

Chapter Ten: Heralds and Horses

The cupcake stood menacingly upon the platter like a dragon perched atop a mountain scanning the tops of trees in search for prey. The sprinkles rattled with every twitch and sway of the metal saucer stabilizing the moist, fluffy, intensely sweet pastry, taunting those who gazed up to the lightly colored, perfectly baked chocolate treat. It glistened in the sunlight piercing through the recently cleaned windows of Sugar Cube Corner, presenting its utter transcendence in a glorious display of vibrantly painted sprinkles and asserting its imposing stature of four inches height, excluding the creamy, yet solid vanilla frosting swirled in a flawless spring atop the light and crumbling surface. The cupcake still lightly steamed with the youth of a freshly baked pastry straight from the fiery chamber that molded it and shaped it so elegantly, so magnificently. Tempting the taste buds, howling out hunger’s name, and maligning any sort of mockery with its pure splendor, the cupcake faced no admonishment in comparison to its competing samples of Sugar Cube Corner’s sweets.

“Get this thing out of my face,” Varkrai mumbled through his teeth, staring down the cupcake at smelling distance.

Astonished, Pinkie Pie quickly brought the pastry back to herself, almost cradling it. “What!?” she shouted in disbelief. “How can you say no to this!?”

An eyebrow raised in contempt, Varkrai crossed his arms. “By combining the letters of the English language ‘N’ and ‘O’ in rapid succession to create the sound of the word ‘no’, thus stating my declaration of disdain for that...” He grimaced at the cupcake. “...monstrosity.”

“Monstrosity!?” Pinkie Pie set the cupcake down on a table and hid it behind her back. “This cupcake is my favorite kind of cupcake! How can you not want it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Varkrai started. “I guess it’s just that the last one of these what you call ‘cupcakes’ tried to suffocate me when I took a bite of it! I can feel the pain again just staring at the one behind you!”

Desperate to at least get one feer to like the pastries, Pinkie quickly turned to Noitorum, who stood shyly off to the side. “Noitorum? Will you at least try it?”

An uncertain laugh and smile formed across her as she stepped backwards. “I... Varkrai told me what happened when he tried to eat one. I- I think I’m fine without it, thank you.”

Wide eyes were all that Pinkie could convey. “But- but- but-!” She hurriedly grabbed the platter and held it out to Noitorum, a few sprinkles falling of the cupcake. “Please?”

Noitorum bit her lip and winced at the sight of the overly sprinkled and extremely sweet smelling treat. She looked to Varkrai for advice, but all she got were forebodingly worried eyes and a quickly shaking head that told her taking a single taste would be a massive mistake. “I’m gonna have to pass, Pinkie,” Noitorum restated, nodding as she looked back to the dejected pink pony.

Ears flopped against her head, Pinkie stood in silence for a second, staring down at the platter. That is, until she realized that if neither Varkrai nor Noitorum would eat the cupcake, it was all to herself, and the pastry was gone without a single second wasted more, but Pinkie’s usual smile was back for a while.

Exchanging a look of relief with Noitorum, Varkrai spoke, “Listen, Pinkie Pie. I said I was hungry, not looking for something that would choke me to death if I tried to swallow it.” He paused as he felt and heard his stomach rumble loudly, giving Noitorum a silencing glare as she held back a giggle. “I don’t know exactly what is edible here or not, so I’m just going off of what you say.” Varkrai warily squinted at Pinkie, still with a bit of frosting on her lip. “Though that’s somewhat unreliable.”

“Don’t be silly!” said Pinkie, waving a hoof at him. “I know just what you need! Applejack has her kiosk set up at this time of day, usually. I’m sure you can get something from her.”

“I don’t think I should have to remind you that I’m at a severe lack of money, or ‘bits’ as you call it. It’s probably not likely that the ponies are gonna willingly let me have something for free.” Varkrai reached into his pocket and fiddled around with its contents. A subtle chill ran up his spine as his finger tips ran across the familiar coupon he had received from Honey Flower, but he continued looking around anyways. He pulled his hand out to find a single bit along with a clump of dust in his hand.

“I’m sure he can find something to eat with... uh, how much is that, Pinkie?” Noitorum asked, walking over to Varkrai and examining the golden coin.

“A bit. One bit.” She furrowed her brow as she thought. “Uh... a single bit. That’ll get you an apple, I’m pretty sure. Maybe two!” Pinkie jumped slightly as Varkrai’s stomach rumbled again, even both feers opening their eyes wide at the intensity of it. Pinkie giggled and started off toward the kitchen. “I’ll go see if I can lend something to you.”

Varkrai let out a sigh as the bubbly pony left the room. He presented the coin to Noitorum and asked her, “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? I know you don’t exactly need it, but I’m sure it’s nice to get something in you once and a while.”

Closing Varkrai’s fingers on the bit, Noitorum gave him a light smile. “I’m fine for now,” she said as she poked at his stomach. “You seem more hungry than I’d ever be capable of. Besides, I can always get something later if I feel like it.”

“You know, it never hurts,” Varkrai persisted, wrapping an arm around Noitorum’s waist.

She let a puff of laughter out of her nose. “I think you tend to forget that I’m just a collection of complexly manipulated solance in the shape of a feer, Varkrai. I don’t want to take your food away from you.” Noitorum raised her eyebrows intently. “You actually need it, stupid.”

Smirking, Varkrai leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “As long as you don’t call me Varky, then I’m fine with being ‘stupid’ for now. I’m just trying to let you have some fun and do some new things while we’re here.”

“Vaaarrkyyy!” Pinkie called out from the back rooms of the shop. Varkrai’s tolerance shattering was almost audible. Pinkie Pie walked out back into Sugar Cube Corner’s main room, a small brown pouch atop her head and a grin spread across her face. “I have a few bits that I could give you! Here. Take it.” She leaned her head forward at the two feers she drew near.

Noitorum grabbed the bag and untied the red string around the top of it, peering inside. “Pinkie, these are gumballs,” she stated blankly as she pinched one out of the bag, looking over the red candy.

Surprised, Pinkie leaned forward and looked in the bag as well. “Oh! Uh...” Pinkie Pie quickly snatched the bag out of Noitorum’s hand and backed away into the back rooms of Sugar Cube Corner again, her face tinted red.

“What are they?” Varkrai asked as he examined the candy in Noitorum’s fingers.

“Gumball! See?” Noitorum abruptly popped the red ball into Varkrai’s mouth, smiling as he stood with a confused look on his face. “You chew it, and it turns gummy and stretchy, like taffy.”

“Gumball? And taffy?” questioned Varkrai as he began to chew on the gum.

“You never really explore the contents of the dimensions that we come across, do you?” Noitorum asked, crossing her arms. “It’s a type of candy that I learned about some time back when we were in the company of humans. You were asleep.” She giggled as Varkrai continued to maintain a befuddled and uncertain look on his face as he chewed loosely. “So, how’s it taste? What’s it like?”

With the gum stuck on his teeth and partially covering his mouth, Varkrai spoke sloppily and muffled, “Ith not exacthly the betht, but I think it’th alrigth. Geth this thing out of my mouth; it’th starting to freak me out.”

“Ew, no!” Noitorum backed away from Varkrai as he opened his mouth, his eyes aimed down to try and see his tongue.

Snickering to himself, Varkrai balled the gum and spat it out onto his palm. “What? Don’t you want some?” he asked, displaying his hand to Noitorum.

“You know, for a grown up feer that can responsibly handle himself, you sure know how to act like a child,” Noitorum stated. Her hand outstretched toward Varkrai’s gum, she surrounded the candy in solance and tossed it out one of the open windows of the shop.

“Says Miss ‘I can’t handle myself when it comes to cute things’,” Varkrai said, walking over to Noitorum and ruffling her hair. “Don’t think I’m gonna forget how you scared half of the town by just screaming excitedly at them.”

“I take pride in my bubbly attitude, thank you very much,” declared Noitorum, lifting her chin up confidently. “If it weren’t for me being friendly, I doubt the ponies would want anything to do with you with all your grumpy antics.”

“And it would be amazing...” Varkrai muttered off to the side.

“Excuse me!?” Hands on her hips, Noitorum leaned in to Varkrai. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Hm? What? I didn’t say anything,” Varkrai laughed, walking away from her casually. “You’re hearing things.”

The loud sound of a party popper echoed throughout Sugar Cube Corner. Out from the back rooms of the shop, confetti and balloons burst into the main room along with a brown bag similar to the one Pinkie had brought out earlier. Fortunately, it hadn’t gone flying out the front door and windows like the rest of the festive decorations, but its path was just precise enough to catch Varkrai’s face in the midst of the calamity. A low, muffled growl resonated from the fabric containing small metal coins slapped onto Varkrai’s head, and a soft, suppressed snicker escaped Noitorum as she stared at him with a hand over her mouth.

“Hey! It’s working again!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she walked out into the main room, her front hooves pushed against a colorful wheeled cannon. She and her heart stopped dead in their tracks as the coin bag slid from Varkrai’s nose and into his palm, revealing his red, irritated, and overall infuriated face, which only instigated Noitorum’s smile to leak farther.

“Pinkie Pie...” Varkrai exhaled rigorously, squeezing the bag in his hand. His eyes refused to blink or stray away from the nervous pink pony. “Where... exactly... is Applejack?”

Trying her best to conceal most of her body behind her party cannon, Pinkie meekly pointed her hoof out the door and squeaked, “Just down the block.”

Barely able to open his mouth again without biting his tongue, Varkrai simply turned around and gave Pinkie a feeble wave goodbye as he headed for the door. Noitorum, stuck between catching up to Varkrai and apologizing for him to Pinkie Pie, she only laughed nervously and flittered her fingers toward the pink pony, rushing out the door a second later. Relieved to not have gotten the coin bag thrown back at her, Pinkie Pie let out a sigh and propped her head against her party cannon as she watched Varkrai and Noitorum walk down the street.

“So... how’s your day goin’?” asked Noitorum, casually walking up beside Varkrai in the middle of the street.

A fiery gaze shot from Varkrai’s eyes at Noitorum, the blast radius extending to a group of ponies standing off to the side of the street and causing them to shift uneasily. The look itself was enough for Noitorum to look straight ahead and close her mouth. The early afternoon air was warmer than the days of autumn gone by, and the residents of Ponyville took the chance to get as much of the remaining warmer weather as they could. With the Running of the Leaves nearing its scheduled date for the fall, the ponies of Ponyville had already begun to practice their routes through Whitetail Wood and work on their endurance. Even with the strange happenings of the past few days, and despite Varkrai’s eyes pinning themselves on the town’s population whenever he stepped outside, the ponies still remained focused on traditions and holidays. Their lives were still normal for the time being, and there was little so far to make them think otherwise.

“It’s fine, I suppose,” Varkrai admitted, staring out at the houses and stores lining the street he and Noitorum walked down. “I could’ve gone without the stinging feeling in my face, but there’s not much I can do about that.” A passing couple jumped in fright as Varkrai’s stomach let out another rattling roar. “I could also go for something to eat. Where did Pinkie Pie say Applejack was?”

Suppressing another giggle, Noitorum pointed down the street. “Just over there. I think that’s her at the little wheel barrow thingy.”

Amidst the other stores and kiosks set up stood a orange pony with a white apron and brown hat, smiling and greeting ponies that walked by. Having just set up, Applejack’s kiosk remained stocked with apples and her attitude remained cheerful as she sold Sweet Apple Acre’s products. Accompanying her was Apple Bloom, the filly wearing the same outfit as her older sister, aside from her usual red bow atop her head. Customers came and went to them at varying intervals, and the system seemed to be as flowing and smooth as always. It hadn’t been anticipated that Varkrai and Noitorum would come along. It was like magnets against their opposite poles as the feers’ presences came close to the ponies, though a few of them at the kiosk remained put, yet slightly shaken.

Trying her best to seem as normal as possible, Noitorum made sure to keep a neutral expression across her face, but the same would be difficult to say for Varkrai. Hungry, face still burning, and somewhat tired, the black winged feer didn’t take his demeanor into account as he stood over the ponies lined up at the kiosk. It was difficult to tell if he was deliberately trying to scare the ponies away or not, but the intense, thundering rumble that sounded from his stomach overpowered any sort of reasoning that he was at least attempting to be friendly. The ponies in front of the kiosk had scattered in the mere seconds the resonant groan had lasted, and even Applejack and Apple Bloom were tempted to hide behind their cart.

Letting her shoulders droop, Noitorum sunk in distaste. “Well, I guess that wasn’t entirely your fault,” she admitted, wondering if the ponies would start to become apprehensive when Varkrai would grow hungry again.

Varkrai shrugged. “Either way, I don’t have to wait in line.” He turned to the sisters stationary by their cart, Applejack as silent and still as she possibly could’ve been. Apple Bloom only looked up at him with curiosity, watching the feathers of his wings twitch in the breeze. “Uh, sorry about that, Applejack.”

“It’s- it’s fine,” the orange pony assured him, adjusting her hat. Even though she knew Varkrai wasn’t going to hurt anyone, she still couldn’t help but get past the disgruntled and volatile look that he had about him. Noitorum’s constant smile didn’t help much with lightening his appearance.

“Hey, you’re that guy that Granny was throwin’ apples at a few days ago!” Apple Bloom said, quickly walking up to Varkrai with a smile.

“Really?” Noitorum asked, giving Varkrai a strange look.

“You were asleep,” noted Varkrai. “You tend to miss quite a bit when you’re napping.”

“Well, maybe you should wake me up so I can be there!”

Varkrai smirked. “That’s a little hard to do when you have more attitude than me when you’re tired.” He turned to Applejack before Noitorum could retaliate. “Anyways, I didn’t come here to chat. I think my stomach’s speaking for itself at this point. What do you have here?” He gave the buckets full of apples a disgusted look. “Aside from what ‘Granny’ was throwing at me.”

“Uh, well, this is pretty much all we got here,” Applejack admitted, smiling nervously at Varkrai. “Not much else I could give ya.”

A grumble was all Varkrai could conjure in response. “Alright, I’ll just have one of these things. What are they, again?” he asked as he dug in his pocket.

“They’re apples!” Apple Bloom quickly answered. She walked over to one of the buckets and flipped an apple onto her head, balancing it as she walked back over to Varkrai. “How do you not know what these are?”

Varkrai raised an eyebrow at Applejack as he pinched onto the stem of the apple and lifted it off the filly’s head. “I would’ve assumed that your sister would fill you in on that kind of stuff. I’m surprised she hasn’t.”

“What? What do ya mean?” questioned Apple Bloom, giving her sister a troubled look.

“Uh, nothin’, Apple Bloom,” Applejack hurriedly spoke. She strayed her wincing eyes from Varkrai. “We can talk later at Sweet Apple Acres. We still got plenty of customers to be servin’ right now.”

“Are... you okay, Applejack?” Noitorum asked softly. The orange pony was noticeably shaking despite trying to hide it, and she barely looked up at the two feers for more than a second. “You’re a little jumpy.”

“I”m just fine, thank you,” Applejack assured her. “There ain’t a thing you need to worry about me for.” She felt a drop of sweat run down her head as Varkrai placed his eyes on her.

“So, how much does this cost, exactly?” asked Varkrai as he reached into his pocket again.

“Uh- there ain’t a need for that, Varkrai.” An awkward smile on her face, Applejack motioned her hoof limply at the apple in his hand. “You can jus’ have that one with no charge. It’s the least I can do for a f- friend.”

While Noitorum smiled and her eyes lit up by the sound of the word ‘friend’, Varkrai remained with a neutral expression, though he felt his heart beat faster and his face redden. Not quite sure how to respond, Varkrai simply sighed and said, “Thanks, I guess.” He lowered his eyes to the filly standing in front of him and Noitorum, Apple Bloom looking up at them with a puzzled look on her face.

Noitorum kneeled down to come level with Apple Bloom. “Hi!” she greeted happily. “I don’t think we’ve met before. My name’s Noitorum. Sounds like you’ve met Varkrai here, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Apple Bloom confirmed. She paused at the sound of Varkrai taking a bite of the apple and afterwards coughing vigorously. He simply looked at Applejack and shrugged, bending his face as if he did nothing while he chewed. “We met him at Sweet Apple Acres a few days ago. Granny didn’t take too well to him being there, though.”

Applejack mumbled something under her breath as she briefly lowered her hat over her face. She stood upright and froze as Varkrai subtly scooted closer to her. He continued to chew the apple, though he made sure to make a note of his pupils narrowing and his wings flaring in an assertive manner.

“Did he do something?” Noitorum asked intently, furrowing her brow at Varkrai, who only stood with a blank face next to Applejack.

“Not that I saw. I guess Granny was just a bit loopy,” Apple Bloom suggested. “But I told my friends about Varkrai soon after! They think I’m just playin’ with ‘em, but I bet they haven’t seen him or you yet. Do you think you two could come to our treehouse so I can show them some time?”

“Uh, Apple Bloom,” Applejack hastily spoke, walking forward to her. “I don’t think it’s quite nice to be treatin’ Varkrai and Noitorum like a show and tell project.”

With a assuring smile, Noitorum stood up and said, “Oh no, it’s fine. It’s not all that rare for the populations we find in dimensions to be frightened or intrigued by us. It’s actually quite normal.”

“Seems like they tend to be a bit more frightened than interested,” Varkrai noted, running his eyes over Applejack with an apple core in his hand.

A small tap on the left side of Varkrai’s head almost caused him to knock over the apple kiosk as he spread his wings out and positioned himself in a combative stance. He scanned Ponyville’s marketplace as quickly as he could searching for the origin of the poke, though he only found empty space beside him and a rolled up letter at his feet. Quickly clearing his throat and casually standing straight again as Applejack and Apple Bloom stared at him, he kneeled down and picked up the roll of paper. From the look of one of the sides on the letter bent as if it had been crushed, he assumed someone had thrown the letter at him, but the mail deliverer had either hidden or ran away as soon as they saw who the letter was addressed to. Shaking his head, Varkrai unrolled the letter and looked over the contents.

“What’s it say?” Noitorum asked, standing on her tiptoes and tilting her chin up as she observed the paper.

A few seconds went by as Varkrai stared at the letter with a strained face. “It’s just a bunch of scribbles,” he noted, turning to show the message. Indeed, the letter was solely composed of horizontally aligned waves on the page along with a signature in the same format.

“Oh, uh, why don’t I take a look at that for ya,” Applejack offered. She carefully walked over to Varkrai and plucked that letter out of his hands, backing away slightly before she ran her eyes over the paper. She hastily read the letter and presented the letter back to Varkrai, the feer glaring at her and snapping the paper out of her hoof. “It seems like the princess would like to see ya as soon as you can. Somethin’ about a meeting at the castle.”

“Again?” Noitorum wondered aloud as she walked beside Varkrai to look at the letter. “She really seems to want our attention late- oh wow this thing actually is just scribbles.”

The letter in Varkrai’s hand lit up in flames as a flick of solance lit at the corner of it. “She also seems to want to get on my nerves,” Varkrai groused, sneering in the direction of the royal city. “If she needed us again so soon, I don’t see why she just didn’t keep us in Canterlot.”

“Uh, so that means you’ll be leavin’?” Applejack asked quietly.

“I’m sure it won’t take long. We’ll probably be back by the end of the day,” Noitorum assumed.

Apple Bloom walked up to the two feers again. “It’s been nice seein’ y’all here!”

“And it’s been nice meeting you two,” Noitorum said, patting her on the head. She looked up at Applejack, the orange mare practically hiding under her hat. “I’ll be sure to try one of these apples next time we come around. Sound good?”

Slowly, Applejack lifted her hat from her eyes and barely nodded. “Sounds great.”

All eyes turned to Varkrai for his goodbyes, but surprisingly, the still air where he used to stand kept Noitorum, Apple Bloom, and Applejack in an uneasy silence. The sound of Varkrai’s wings flapping in the air above Ponyville only now became apparent, and Noitorum stood not knowing what to do with her wings spread wide. She locked gazes with Applejack as they both stood frozen, Noitorum scrunching her mouth up and holding her breath.

“Uh... bye!” Noitorum briefly exhaled, and she launched off the ground.

The two sisters remained in their places, not quite sure what to do. Applejack sighed in relief and said, “Well, I guess we should get back to work, anyhow.”

Apple Bloom nodded and agreed, “I suppose so.”

The filly looked up at the sky as Varkrai and Noitorum slowly ascended. She still wasn’t exactly sure what to think of them. On one side, they acted like any other pony in Equestria aside from their figures, yet on another she knew that they weren’t quite normal in the world she was growing up in. Apple Bloom remained quiet about what Varkrai had said Applejack would tell her later, and the Ponyville market continued on as it naturally would. Even with a vague opinion of Varkrai and Noitorum, Apple Bloom still couldn’t wait to show them to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.

______________________________________________________________________

“Is it... a bird?” Noitorum guested, scratching her head with one hand and coiling the grass in front of her with the other.

“Uh, not quite. What kind of bird?” Varkrai hinted.

“A... a dove. No! A canary!”

“Keep guessing.”

“A chicken?”

“No.”

“An albatross.”

“No idea what that is.”

“A finch.”

“Nope.”

“A crow?”

“Yes!” Varkrai flung his arms in the air in celebration. He exhaled and let his shoulders droop with his hands on his folded legs, tempted to poke at the grass as Noitorum was. “A dove?”

“Oh I don’t know,” Noitorum said, swiping at Varkrai with a limp wrist. “There are a lot of birds with black feathers.” She furrowed her brow for a second before she looked up from her crossed legs and questioned, “A crow? Why have they been calling you that?”

“Beats me. Might have to do with symbolism or something, but I’m not exactly familiar with what means what here. I overheard one of the ponies in Ponyville talking about it. Well, me.”

“Huh. Kinda weird.”

A cough interrupted the conversation, and it also reminded Varkrai of the royal guard standing right next to him and Noitorum. He looked up at the guard. “Speaking of weird, I would have expected you to stand at least ten feet away from us. The least you could do is breathe quieter.”

The royal guard simply answered, “Princess Celestia has ordered me to stay with you until she is ready. She will be out shortly.”

“Did she also order you to hug us while we were waiting?”

With the royal guard remaining silent again, Varkrai only sighed and looked back at Noitorum, the white winged feer smiling and holding onto his hands. It hadn’t been too long ago that Varkrai had received the letter from Celestia back in Ponyville, but the time they had spent waiting outside her castle seemed like it should already be night fall. The sunny, late morning kept the feers awake as they sat in the courtyard and talked with each other, and the royal guards’ constant promises convinced them to not go wandering off into Canterlot, though it was slowly becoming apparent to both Noitorum and Varkrai that Celestia ordered the guards to do exactly so. However, even if they went exploring the city, it wouldn’t last long. Princess Celestia knew quite well that Varkrai had a hard time being patient from his first visit in Canterlot, and the thought of having almost all of the royal city upset with her because the guards didn’t stop the feers from intruding where they didn’t belong wasn’t ideal. The alicorn of the hour, however, wasn’t as aware as Celestia was of the situation.

The front doors of the castle finally opened. The majority of the eyes within the courtyard were directed to the shining figure that stood just at the edge of the red carpet inside, though a certain feer’s white eyes were distracted with a beetle crawling in the grass beside her. With a tap on Noitorum’s head by Varkrai, both feers directed their attention to the princess of the sun and stood up, nodding at her in recognition. At the motion of Celesta’s wings up at her sides and a smile, the royal guards within the courtyard that she had requested watch over the feers dispersed back to their usual stations in Canterlot, leaving only a small group of guards left watching over the meeting outside. Varkrai and Noitorum felt as if they were able to move freely again without a royal guard standing right next to them, and they walked forward to meet Celestia in the middle of the courtyard.

“Varkrai, Noitorum. It’s good to see you two here again,” Princes Celestia greeted them. “I trust I didn’t interrupt anything with the letter I sent earlier.”

“You didn’t do much harm,” said Varkrai. He could still sense a bit of a rumble in his stomach, but the roars had subsided into muted gurgles. “So how long is this gonna take? I was hoping I could find something to eat before my stomach starts convulsing again.”

A quiet bubbling noise gave Celestia enough of an impression as to what he was getting at. “I’m sure it won’t take long. I apologize for not explaining too much in my letter. I was hoping my sister would be here before you two made it to the city.”

“Sister?” Noitorum asked. “You mean you’re not the only princess here?”

Varkrai stared at her. “Of course not. You didn’t already forget about Cadence, did you?”

Quickly delivering a swift punch to Varkrai’s shoulder, Noitorum clarified, “I meant here in Canterlot and Equestria.” She turned to Celestia. “Your sister must be an alicorn, and thus a princess, right? That’s how this royalty thing works?”

Celestia nodded. “You seem to know about our statuses fairly well.”

“Yeah! I spent some time with Twilight Sparkle back in Ponyville. She told me about alicorns and their role as high royalty. Strange that she didn’t say anything about your sister.”

“There have been some disputes that have come up lately involving my sister and I, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some things are left unmentioned,” Celestia explained. “But they aren’t of importance right now. As soon as my sister arrives we will head inside and discuss matters there.”

The wait wasn’t as long as she had anticipated it to be. The clinking of an unusual sounding armor reached the courtyard and drew even the royal guard’s attention. They had heard the familiar steps of the lunar guard’s armor enough to realize what the sound of the particularly soft metal foretold, even if the dark coated, bat winged ponies had only been recognized for as long as Luna had returned from the moon. If the uniquely light sound of the lunar guard’s armor wasn’t enough to identify them, their sight, along with their princess, was. The edge of the courtyard away from the castle walked a group of three lunar guards, each of them equipped with a long, jagged blade sheathed at their sides. Their sharp lavender armor blended in with their dark grey coats, and their striking yellow cat-like eyes brought out the sinister atmosphere they dragged with them.

Amidst of the triangular formation walked the princess of the night. Her attention barely wavered from the direct line that she stepped toward her sister and the feers she had already heard so much about. Eyes narrowed, Princess Luna took no effort to hide that she was focused on Varkrai and Noitorum more than anything else going on within the courtyard, which wasn’t much now that she had arrived. With Varkrai providing as a mirror of Luna’s glare, the nocturnal princess remained stoic even as her sister smiled at her. Luna’s opinion of the two feers still had yet to form outside of the rumors she had heard from the lunar guards and Celestia, and she managed to keep her emotions toward the tall, avian figures neutral. It didn’t take long to change.

“So, I guess the guest of the hour finally decided to show up,” Varkrai stated as Luna and her guards drew near. He crossed his arms and faintly squinted at her. “I’d expect a leader of a nation to be a bit more tight on her schedule.”

Princess Celestia cautiously laughed as her sister glanced at her unsurely. “I’m sure Luna was on her way.” Celestia lifted a wing toward the feers. “Varkrai, Noitorum, this is my sister and co-ruler of Equestria, Princess Luna. She raises and lowers the moon here in Equestria for the day and night cycle. Luna, as I’m sure you have heard already, this is Varkrai and Noitorum.”

Lifting an eyebrow, Luna inspected the two feers, mainly Noitorum, who managed to keep a constant smile on her face. “I had anticipated them to be a bit more... imposing, from what I have heard,” Luna mentioned.

The grin on Noitorum’s face twisted and slowly withered to a weak smile. “Uh... I’m- I’m sorry to hear that, Princess Luna. It’s nice to meet you, anyhow.” She stuck out her hand toward the princess, but she was only met with a scowl from the three lunar guards behind Luna.

Varkrai stepped forward slightly as Noitorum let her arm down. Luna’s glare back at him almost seeming like a challenge, he smirked inside. “And I had expected an alicorn such as yourself to be a bit more grand, considering your status. But I suppose by your affiliation with the night you’re supposed to be a bit gloomy in appearance.”

A shift of Luna’s wings kept the lunar guards in their places as they stepped forward, and a subtle force of solance against Noitorum’s stomach held her from intervening. Celestia and Noitorum exchanged a glance of understanding as they both felt they had gotten a grasp of the situation. While the lunar guards shifted in subtle anger, they had too caught on to the verbal duel.

“It is my duty to watch over the night and maintain Equestria’s safety in its darker hours,” Luna declared, standing tall. “My appearance is a representation of my passion and my rank. I had assumed a creature not from this world would be ignorant of our culture and our purposes.”

“You assume wrong, princess of the night,” Varkrai proclaimed strongly. “Even though we are not of your world, we have been traveling between dimensions for longer than you know. There are cultures and governing systems that are not quite different from the one here in Equestria. It wouldn’t be surprising to me that someone that has only heard rumors of a stranger would be so quick to make such assumptions.”

“Rumors they may be, accurate they can still stand. A silver-haired, tall figure of black wings and similar eyes dotted with red, bearing a dark green cloak, and accompanied by a white winged companion of similar demeanor. Not far from you two, yes? There have been numerous accounts of you already disrupting the peace of Equestria in the past few days. It doesn’t say much positive about your ability to control yourselves.”

“Our ways are different from yours, and that should be known even without us having to explain our actions if your insight is functional. If anything, I should be making note of the quite primitive technology that this world possesses compared to others. If you equipped your nation with weapons and armor to be able to stop such interruptions in your casual life, I’m sure that none of our actions would have ever happened in the first place. Maybe the leaders of a nation should be more interested in maintaining a stable environment in their domain.”

“Your actions would have been an issue if the disturbances were worth our time.”

“Strange that you’re sworn to protect your subjects and you barely bat a wing at a hint of trouble.”

A squint reflected across both of their faces. The courtyard had become noticeably quieter, even more so from when Luna and her guards had presented themselves. Varkrai and Luna glared into each others’ eyes as intensely as they could. It seemed as if they were attempting to decipher a code across them locking their weaknesses, yet their unmoved expressions hid it from view. The two slowly relaxed themselves and stood up straight, though they still kept a careful eye on each other. A hidden, satisfied smile slid across them both.

“I think it is time we began our meeting,” Princess Luna suggested, nodding to her sister after one last peer at Varkrai.

Celestia and Noitorum both looked over the two now that they were done. Varkrai, who had been noticeably ill-tempered earlier, seemed much lighter and cheerful with his eyes lifted. Princess Luna wasn’t much different in that her mouth, instead of a frown, had turned into a subtle smirk. The mind games that were at play between Luna and Varkrai beyond immediate comprehension, Noitorum and Celestia simply nodded in shock and remained silent. Even the lunar guards, who knew Luna almost as well as Celestia did, were somewhat bewildered by their princess acting in such a way towards someone she had a diminished opinion for, but they were content now that Varkrai had halted his attitude toward her. They patiently waited in place as the two feers and two alicorns headed into the castle entrance, the doors shutting behind them.

______________________________________________________________________

“Alright, go.”

“M’kay. Shoot.”

“Uh... here. Go.”

“Let’s see... uh... here.”

“Right here.”

“Aaaand there we go. I win again.”

The wooden board and numerous pieces of paper flew up into the air as Hutch flipped the game table.

“Damn it!” Hutch shouted, pacing in anger. He pointed at Myles, who sat on the ground of the cave with a smug look on his face. “I know you’re cheating, you scrawny bastard! This is the tenth time in a row!”

Myles shrugged. “Not my fault I have better tactics than you.”

“I am going to-!” Hutch put a finger up to his ear as a buzz of static came through his radio piece. “What!?”

“Hey Hutch, if you can hear me over the wind, you’re a filthy little school girl,” Adrian reported. “Take the middle on the sides every time. It works, idiot.”

Boiling over with frustration, Hutch took the radio out of his ear and threw it on the ground. He turned to the entrance of the cave, where Adrian laid on his stomach looking out at the arctic through the scope on his sniper. “I hope you freeze to death over there!” Hutch yelled at the top of his lungs.

The radio on the ground buzzed again. “Copy that. Get good at tic-tac-toe, and then then I’ll take your advice seriously. Have fun fixing this thing.”

“Hey! Knock it off!” Aimee commanded from farther into the cave. “And Hutch, just accept that Myles is better than you.”

The rest of talking that came out of Hutch’s mouth was a combination of swearing and mumbles about tic-tac-toe. Aside from the disgruntled hum of Hutch’s voice, the rest of the noise within the cave oriented from the snowy entrance where the wind still howled. The inside of the cave remained out of the bitter, rushing air that swept across the open fields of the arctic, though a few gusts of wind managed to blow an occasional puff of snow into the deeper parts of the cave. Snow and ice blanketed the entrance of the four soldiers’ shelter, and wind pushed and pulled at Adrian as he stared out at the northern reaches of Equestria through his sniper. The barely operating thermal vision on the scope revealed nothing aside from the curvature of the mountains and hills of snow.

It hadn’t been very long since Equestria was introduced to more beings from a dimension very different from its own. The four soldiers had sought any shelter they could find after they were done surveying the area they had jumped into, and a cave not far from the valley had seemed to be their only choice. Having found the cave empty and big enough to set their supplies down with a fair amount of room to spare, they stayed the night within the still, dry, and relatively warm hole in the side of a mountain. With the entrance of the cave elevated, the soldiers could peer out into the arctic and scout out for anything that showed signs of life, though the blizzard that continued to whip back and forth blinding amounts of snow hindered their sight. Anything beyond the base of the mountain was a blank white canvas that cleared itself every second, and the use of a thermal sight was no use, as even if the snow could be seen through, there was nothing in direct view to find.

Nevertheless, Adrian continued to stare out at the snowy landscape in hopes of catching something in the scope. The objective was just about as productive as the rest of the activities being played out in the rest of the cave. Hutch continued to mumble distastefully about various things that made him frustrated, Myles still sat on the floor with the paper around him thinking about other things in which he could beat Hutch, and Aimee resided towards the back of the cave, marking into the rock walls the number of obscenities Hutch grunted to amuse herself. With the blizzard continuing to prevent any prolonged exposure to the open arctic, the soldiers remained within their shelter hoping that the sniper scope would find something amidst the chaos. They knew that even with their similar black and grey uniforms covering their entire bodies, and with the heavy black armor that they had stripped of themselves now that they were out of the wind, the ice and snow would eventually make its way to them if they made an attempt to search for another, more fitting shelter without direction.

Myles stood up from his spot on the floor and stretched. The cave felt more and more cramped the longer they stayed inside, and the walls seemed as if they were angling inwards the longer he stared at them. The sight of his brother, Hutch, was starting to look more like himself every second he had him in his sight, though it was hard not to do so in the first place. Even as identical twins they had enough differences to tell them apart. It was mainly the tones of their voices and their statures being the indications that one wasn’t the other, with Hutch being more muscular and deeper voiced and Myles just about being the opposite. Without armor on, it was difficult to tell since they both have short brown hair and blue eyes, along with retaining almost the exact facial features outside of subtle scars and muscularity. Aimee herself, despite knowing them for two years already, rarely distinguished them apart on first look without their usual layered black armor on. It was Adrian, having known them since they were both three, that intentionally switched their names around to annoy them.

The room on the wall Aimee carved her markings in was running out of space to scratch her combat knife on. She wasn’t sure if her arm was getting tired or if the blade was progressively getting duller, but the pitiful scratches that the knife was now making convinced her that Hutch wasn’t planning to stop any time soon. Aimee sheathed the scratched, yet functional blade away as she rose from her spot on the floor. She had put her long blonde hair into a ponytail not long ago due to the sporadic gusts that entered the cave every now and then, though she still held her hair in place as she walked toward the entrance of the cave to keep it from flailing about her back. Her green eyes squinted in the frigid wind near the icy mouth as it inhaled another breath, holding herself to try and conserve some of her warmth. The long sleeves on both her pants and shirt, the soft black and grey gloves, and hard black boots did little to keep out the cold. She looked down at Adrian at her side.

The rifle lazily swept side to side as Adrian pushed it gently. He had been the only one to assemble his armor back together and press the pieces into place along his uniform in the morning, using it as protection from the biting air that blew past the hole in the side of the mountain. Frost and ice had almost encased Adrian from how long he had been looking out at the arctic, and his sniper had to be shaken every second or so to free it of snow. The firm cloth mask about his light face, Myles’ hood, and a pair of black-tinted goggles protected Adrian’s head from turning an icy blue. The strands of his black hair that flailed in the wind had already frozen and seemed as if they were going to shatter, but he ignored the tapping of his hair against his forehead and still peered through the scope mounted on his sniper. Aside from the mountains and the snow, and maybe even an occasional arctic creature, there was nothing to be seen through the thermal vision, and there was even less with the thermal turned off. The staring contest he had been having with the blinding white snow still proved to be hopeless.

Adrian turned his head to his left as he heard Aimee sit down, the soldier smiling at him. He looked over her before putting his eye to the scope again. “Aren’t you cold? Where’s your armor?”

“It’s back in the cave. I can deal without it for a little bit,” she responded. Aimee stared out at the icy landscape. “Find anything? You’ve been at it for about two hours now.”

Sitting up and placing the sniper behind him, Adrian shook his head. “There isn’t a damn thing out there aside from snow, ice, and rock. Turns out there actually is some life out here, but they don’t seem like they’d be the type to have a conversation with. Some look like big silver centipedes, and another I saw looked like some sort of bird made outta ice, but they didn’t seem very intelligent. Just walked across the snow and looked around aimlessly.”

“Huh. Must be the wildlife, then. There’s nothing else than that, though? No cities, no houses?”

“Not from what the thermal can pick up. The geometry sight can’t do much with all the snow in the way, so that didn’t help. Normal sight is just about as good as what you can see here. Night vision I’m pretty sure would just blind me.” Adrian chuckled and he lifted the goggles from his head, his brown eyes instantly squinting in the cold breeze. “Even if it’s our worst option, walking blind is our best bet.”

The cave had gone quiet now that Hutch had stopped mumbling to himself. Aimee looked back toward Myles, who laid on his back and stared at the serrated ceiling. “What about Myles? He may be augmented, but carrying that turret around can’t be healthy for him in the cold.”

“The work’ll heat him up.” Adrian pulled down his mask and smiled at Aimee. “Besides, you underestimate us Alpha units. There’s more brawn past our appearances than you’d think.”

“Adrian!” Hutch called out. “Find something already! I’m bored! And Myles is planning something! He’s got the look in his eye again.”

Hutch’s radio cracked with static again. Adrian’s voice just barely came through. “Fix your radio if - bored. You - well do something while - on your ass.”

Another vexed mumble was all that came out of Hutch. Aimee’s earpiece cracked with Myles’ voice. “Tell Adrian Hutch said he was a blind cu-”

Giggling as her radio filled with Myles’ pleas for Hutch to get off him, Aimee whispered to Adrian, “Hutch says you’re a very nice lady.”

With a sigh, Adrian stood up and motioned for Aimee to follow as he headed further in the cave. “There’s something that makes me doubt that. Hutch! Get your hand out of his face, and thank you for the compliment. Both of you get your armor on and pack up your weapons. You too, Aimee. We have places to go, hopefully.”

[6] Unforgiving Nature

Chapter Six: Unforgiving Nature

“Twilight?” Pinkie asked directly in her friend’s ear. “Whatcha doin’?”

Focused on Sugar Cube Corner too much to even realize Pinkie, Twilight Sparkle almost smacked her head on the awning above her.

Twilight quickly gave Pinkie a sneer after recovering, the pink pony returning with a subdued and guilty smile. “What is with you and sneaking up on me?” Twilight asked.

“Well, you always have your head in a book! It’s hard not to!” Pinkie explained. She looked over to Sugar Cube Corner, an idea of what Twilight was doing popping in her mind. “So, whatcha doing?”

“Uh...” Twilight looked back at the pastry shop, stretching her mind for an answer that wouldn’t land her in a completely weird situation. “Studying, I suppose.”

“Studying...?”

Twilight Sparkle shook her head and continued to keep her eyes on Varkrai, who stood in front of the colorful shop talking with a pale pink mare. “His nature.”

Pinkie leaned in closer to her friend, her head barely an inch away from Twilight’s. “Find anything interesting?” She lightly gasped. “Does he secretly like cupcakes? Is that why he’s in front of the Cake’s house? I knew he liked cupcakes!”

Concentration becoming a dull trace in her mind, Twilight Sparkle couldn’t hold back shoving a hoof in Pinkie’s mouth. “I haven’t found anything ground breaking yet, but he’s definitely something that’s not exactly familiar with how this world works.” She took her hoof away from Pinkie and wiped it on the ground.

Pinkie watched as Varkrai gave a passing pony a menacing glare after he was done talking with Noitorum, who happened to not be visible at the moment. “He knows how to get others to leave him alone, that’s for sure.”

A realization quickly popped into Twilight’s mind and she looked to Pinkie. “Wait. Didn’t you spend an entire night with him?”

Nodding her head, Pinkie smiled. “Yup! Why does it-?”

Twilight Sparkle’s crazed eyes sent a force backing Pinkie’s head away from her, the aura of enticement radiating off of the unicorn enough to lean against.

“Are you okay?” Pinkie asked unsurely.

With a chance to learn more about Varkrai without confronting him, answering questions became a speck of dust as Twilight held a sand storm of questions of her own. “What was he like alone? Did you get to speak with the other one with him? How does he handle pressure? Can he read minds? What about that weird stuff he uses? Is it like magic at all? How strong are his wings? And that language you said he was talking about? Was it complicated? How do you say-?”

“Woah woah woah!” Pinkie Pie intervened, raising her hooves in front of her. “Slow down! Sheesh, you’re gonna give even me a headache!”

Feeling her mouth a bit numb, Twilight sat back down after forcing Pinkie just barely above the ground. She sighed lightly. “Sorry about that,” she whispered, rubbing her hooves uncomfortably.

“What’s got you so uppity about him?” Pinkie asked as she sat up straight. She nudged her friend and smiled smugly. “Is somepony seeking some exploration?”

A glass shattered within the unicorn’s mind. She quickly turned to Pinkie angrily, her face a bit red. “Of course not! Pinkie!”

The pink pony let her laughter out. “I’m only joking, silly pants!” She rustled Twilight Sparkle’s mane and giggled to herself. “What’s the matter, though? You’ve had your eyes on him for quite a while.” She leaned in closer to Twilight and hushed her voice. “You don’t have to be embarrassed, you know.”

“Quit it!” Twilight Sparkle shoved her friend a bit less than playfully, giving the pink mare a stern stare as Pinkie fell to the ground. “I’m not thinking about any of... that.” She looked back at Varkrai. He seemed to be wrapping up his conversation with the mare beside him, Varkrai holding onto a partially torn sweatshirt she had been wearing. “I’m trying to figure out what he’s like when not searching around for answers. He could be a bit of a hazard to Ponyville, since he’s not from here. Or anywhere near here.”

“A hazard?” Pinkie repeated, sitting back up again and brushing herself off.

“You know what I mean. He’s not familiar with how things work here. He obviously doesn’t know how to treat royalty after seeing his display for Celestia, and I don’t think he understands the general etiquette of Equestria. He could end up hurting somepony, or worse than that, put an entire town in danger.”

Pinkie kept her eyes on the mare Varkrai had been talking to as she walked away from him. The feer remained in place, looking around curiously. “He doesn’t seem all that bad. Are you sure you’re not just being a little too cautious of him? I mean, look!” She pointed to Varkrai, the feer sighing and focusing his eyes on his sweatshirt as he leaned back against the outside of Sugar Cube Corner.

A grumble escaped Twilight Sparkle’s throat. “I don’t know. It’s just something about some sort of being coming from another dimension all of a sudden bringing news of an imminent invasion being... troubling.” She glanced at Pinkie. “How are you so friendly around him? Aren’t you a little scared of what he’s thinking?”

The pink pony shrugged. “Not really. He can be a bit of a meany sometimes, but he isn’t all too bad. Besides, it’s hard to be scared when he has Noitorum around him. She seems to keep him in check, kinda. Although she’s not exactly the most controlled herself, either.” She laughed to herself quietly at remembering Noitorum’s outburst when she ran into the crown in front of the Cakes’ home.

Twilight Sparkle bit her lip and shifted her eyes to the ground. “I just hope it isn’t too much of a confliction when it comes to dealing with us. I doubt he handles situations the same way any of us do.”

“Uh...” Pinkie tugged at Twilight Sparkle, pointing out to Sugar Cube Corner. “I don’t think he does. Should we do something?”

Lifting her eyes back up to the pastry shop, Twilight Sparkle quickly found what Pinkie was hinting at. The commotion in front of Sugar Cube Corner had come apparent now that she saw what was causing it, and an understanding of why there was a crowd of ponies in front of the shop, their faces plastered with anger, absorbed into Twilight’s mind. At the focus of the crowd, and slightly off of the ground, floated Varkrai with his wings cascading wind down on the ponies below him. Dirt, previously raked leaves, and the ponies’ manes whipped back and forth with the large gusts of wind repeatedly crashing through the street, the ponies closest to the ground under Varkrai having to shield their eyes from the harsh gales. Some of the kiosks farther off managed to almost tip over should the owners not have been at them. All the while, Varkrai remained oblivious to the yelling below him, or he was just ignoring them completely. He peered off into the distance with his sweatshirt in his hands, looking over the tops of the houses and buildings of the town profusely.

“What’s he doing?” Pinkie wondered out loud.

“I don’t know, but they don’t seem to like the wind,” Twilight noted, starting to worry about the level of anger rising in the crowd.

Hoofsteps behind the two ponies drew their attention away from the crowd for a second. A familiar orange pony trotted her way into view from the awning, a sense of confusion on her face.

“What in tarnation is going on over here?” Applejack asked as she came close to Pinkie and Twilight. “It sounds like a riot from the-!” However, with the awning now out of the way of the air over the crowd, her eyes quickly diverted to the winged beast hovering over top of Sugar Cube Corner. She stood still for a moment before backing up a bit. “...kiosk.”

Picking up the hint of panic in Applejack, Twilight Sparkle quickly spoke, “Everything’s fine, AJ. You don’t need to worry. Well, maybe you can a little right now.” She looked back at the crowd and her ears fell against her head.

“Yeah!” Pinkie added. “Varky’s not gonna keep it up for much longer, is he?” Varkrai’s eye twitched as Pinkie looked back up at him.

“V- Varky?” Applejack repeated, taking a few more steps backward.

Twilight Sparkle motioned her hoof for Applejack to sit next to her. “It’s... a long story. I’ll tell you about it more later. You might not want to be in his line of sight.”

“Uh... some explainin’ now would be nice...” Applejack muttered, hesitating to take a single step in the direction of the pastry shop. She forced a lump down her throat as Varkrai glanced at her for a second, Applejack quickly stepping to Twilight’s side and into the shade of the awning.

“He’s a thingy from another dimension here to help us fight against other invading species so that Equestria isn’t run over by other worldy monsters here to take over us!” Pinkie Pie spouted out, grinning at Applejack. “Also he’s grumpy.”

Applejack worriedly kept her eyes on Pinkie for a second before she leaned to Twilight. “She hasn’t been gettin’ more of that stuff from Zecora, has she?” Applejack whispered to the unicorn.

“Zecora stopped making it after Ponyville had to be quarantined last time,” Twilight reassured quietly. “Besides, Pinkie’s not just talking nonsense. As crazy as the situation might sound, she pretty much just summed it up.”

Poking Twilight, Applejack leaned closer to her and raised an eyebrow. “Are ya sure Zecora stopped makin’ it?”

Twilight pushed the orange pony lightly. “I’m sure.” She looked back up at Varkrai. “Equus isn’t alone anymore.”

“Do you think we should do something?” Pinkie asked, pointing out at the crowd. “I don’t think they’re gonna stop until he gets down.” The crowd had grown noticeably louder, and some ponies were starting to yell threats rather than complaints.

“I don’t think it would do much,” Twilight presumed. “Not even they are getting his attention, and even you could hear them down the street, Applejack.”

“Well, I reckon we should at least try,” suggested the orange mare. “Them ponies don’t look like they’re gonna keep things to using their voices for much longer.” She blanched slightly at Varkrai. “Uh... as in we I mean you two.”

As Twilight and Pinkie stood up onto their hooves, Twilight tugged Applejack along with her. “Come on, AJ. He’s not going to hurt you. He hasn’t done anything to the crowd. He’s not going to do anything to us.”

“Uh... well... it’s just that...” Applejack tried to say as Twilight dragged her by the tail with a levitation spell. She sighed with defeat as Twilight continued bringing her along, lifting her hooves up slightly to stop them from digging into the ground.

The yells of the crowd grew to the point where Pinkie, Twilight, and Applejack could barely hear each other talk as they got closer. They shielded their eyes from the strong winds slashing down at them and tried to keep their manes out of their faces as best as they could. From the perspective of actually being in the crowd, the three could see why the ponies were so upset with Varkrai, not only because of the wind, but because he could hear them completely fine. He just didn’t care.

“Wow,” Pinkie spoke over the crowd to Twilight. “I don’t think it’s gonna be easy to get his attention, or convince him to stop, either.”

“Pinkie’s right, we should probably go,” Applejack nervously added. “I’m sure he’ll be just fine up there for a while longer.”

“And distract all of your customers away?” Twilight asked.

“There’s... always tomorrow...?” Applejack began, though she quickly nodded. “Alright, alright. I suppose it’ll be good to get him down. But how? He’s more caught up in what he’s doing than a fruit bat around zap apples.”

“I don’t think yelling at him’s going to do much,” Twilight concluded, her ears starting to hurt from the ponies around her. “What about your party cannon, Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie scratched her head. “It’s being repaired right now. I guess I didn’t design it for launching baby drago-” She quickly stopped and laughed uneasily as Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I mean... plates of... spaghetti?”

Shaking her head, Twilight looked up at Varkrai. “That explains why Spike hasn’t been quite himself lately.”

“Well, you’re a unicorn, Twilight! Why don’t you use some of your magical magicy magic stuff to get his attention?” Pinkie suggested.

“Doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea,” Applejack agreed. “Why not give it a whirl? Something has to get him down before all of Ponyville gets mad at him.”

“I... guess it’s worth a shot,” Twilight said apprehensively. She remembered back in the library when Varkrai had pointed out her magic as some sort of a threat. Considering his attitude towards Equestria and its inhabitants so far, she didn’t know how he would react to any use of magic, neither did she know if that reaction would be violent or not. Twilight Sparkle clenched her teeth as she stared up at Varkrai, hesitant to build a single levitation spell within her horn. With the rising anger of the crowd and threats becoming more common in the constant blares, Twilight Sparkle shook her head and concentrated on her magic. Careful not to directly hit Varkrai, she aimed her horn slightly off to his side, trying to get the timing right so she wouldn’t hit his wing. She didn’t want to know what would happen if she did. As his wings came up for another swoop downwards, she figured it was the right time to act. A light magic bullet concentrated at the tip of her horn, Twilight held her breath, and clenching her teeth as tight as she could, fired the spell. Varkrai’s reaction was one she was hoping she wouldn’t get.

As soon as the magic bullet raced past Varkrai’s head and just barely clipped his wing, his cold, sharpened, and flared eyes locked down on the crowd below, and the fury of the crowd died from an inferno to a petty ember. In what seemed impossible for his fixed position in the air, Varkrai shot down from the area above the crowd down to the ground within a second, just barely an inch away from crushing the ponies in front of Twilight Sparkle. It was clear who his eyes were fixed on, and he made his intent even more clear with his hand suddenly wrapped around Twilight Sparkle’s neck, lifting her up to stand her on her back hooves. The area around him and Twilight had cleared as soon as Varkrai had landed, though Pinkie Pie and Applejack remained where they were, and even though they wanted to do something, interfering with the situation would only make it worse. In the time that Varkrai had grabbed onto Twilight, his other hand had collected enough solance to engulf it, the flaming glove of solance suspended at the side of his head. His fingers spread out as if he were ready to crush something in his fist.

Twilight Sparkle, pulling lightly at Varkrai’s arm, stared at him as she attempted to move her head backwards. The grip he had on her was loose enough to the point where it wasn’t choking her, but tight enough to keep her in place. Varkrai’s pupils had narrowed to the point where they were barely thicker than the edge of a razor, focused completely on making sure that Twilight didn’t try anything else. Knowing this, Twilight Sparkle restrained herself from casting anymore magic, though her mind begged her to do so to get out of Varkrai’s grasp. The glove of solance around Varkrai’s right hand slowly convinced Twilight to stop moving around, and she eventually came to a stop, staring frightfully back into Varkrai’s surprised and antagonized eyes. The silence of the crowd around the two amplified the anger in Varkrai’s breathing, though he quickly silenced it on instinct. His glare didn’t falter as he maintained his sight on Twilight Sparkle, and it seemed to look at her with betrayal rather than realization at what he was doing.

His eyes relaxing, Varkrai glanced off to the side at Pinkie, who fretfully stood with a hoof raised, though she remained where she stood. Varkrai didn’t need to look at Applejack to know what she was feeling, as he could hear her muttering under her breath as she tried to say something. The crowd, despite their silence, let Varkrai know without words that what he was doing had them frightened, their trembles barely audible over the distant, oblivious chatter of the rest of Ponyville.

Varkrai looked back at Twilight and tightened his grip, Twilight beginning to move around again. “You have thirty seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t kill you and leave this dimension without help,” he spoke in a murmur. His hand beside his head twitched.

Feeling the pressure on her neck faintly lift, Twilight Sparkle tugged at Varkrai’s arm before she whispered, “I- I didn’t mean to hit you. I’m sorry, I am. P- please let go of me.”

“Then why did you do it in the first place?” Varkrai asked with his teeth clenched.

Twilight Sparkle looked around at the crowd for a brief moment. “You weren’t paying attention. I... I had to get you to stop somehow. Everypony’s work to get the leaves out of the street was being blown around.” She pulled on his arm again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want everypony to be upset.”

Varkrai squinted his eyes at Twilight. He could feel her trying to force her way back out of his fingers, and her hooves squeezed his arm to push it down from her. A silent, culpable exhale escaping his nose, Varkrai let his hand relax from Twilight Sparkle’s neck. The unicorn hurriedly backed away from him with Pinkie and Applejack quickly walking to her side. Varkrai slipped his hands into his pockets as he looked around at the crowd of ponies, each of them ducking down as his glare swept across them. Their worry had died down substantially, though they still remained cautious of him. Varkrai set his gaze back on the three friends gathered together. His eyes rested and his figure deflated slightly as he saw them huddled together, Varkrai glancing at the ground before he turned around and begun to walk.

All eyes remained on the feer as he calmly moved his way to the edge of the crowd, the ponies in his way stepping sideways and cowering subtly as he passed. Varkrai kept his eyes forward and his back to the crowd in front of Sugar Cube Corner, and after he was far enough away, he gently flapped his wings, lifting him up into the air higher and higher until he was level with the clouds. The crowd of ponies didn’t take long to disperse after Varkrai flew out of sight over the houses of Ponyville, some of them grumbling angry to one another and others thanking Twilight for doing something about him. Sugar Cube Corner was left with only a few ponies left, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack still watching the sky should Varkrai come back. The atmosphere remained void of the feer as long as they watched the clouds pass by, and all three of them looked back down at each other with a feeling of relief that Varkrai had gone.

“I think that could’ve gone better,” Applejack muttered. She examined Twilight Sparkle’s neck. “Are you alright, sugar cube? He didn’t look like he was holding back.”

“Yeah... I’m fine,” Twilight said, rubbing her throat lightly.

“Are you sure? You don’t really sound all that cheery,” Pinkie Pie noted.

“Yes, yes, I’m alright.” Twilight peeked at the sky for a second. “It probably wasn’t the best idea to shoot at him, anyways.” She shook her head and furrowed her brow. “Still, he could’ve at least taken a less physical approach.”

“You did kinda shoot at him,” Pinkie added.

“And he kinda-” Twilight began. She quickly stopped herself. “Nevermind. Where do you think he went?”

Applejack peered in the direction Varkrai flew off in. “Looks like he headed towards the east orchards of Sweet Apple Acres. I couldn’t say where he’s goin’ exactly. Should we go check the orchard?”

Stretching out her neck one last time, Twilight Sparkle nodded and looked up at the sky with her friends. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t manage to get into any more trouble. I don’t think he’s quite familiar with what’s normal in Equestria. Let’s go.”

______________________________________________________________________

“Eee-ya! Take that, ya darn whippersnapper! Whataya done with Apple Bloom!? Big Mac! There’s a hairless monkey in the orchard! Get the hose!” Granny Smith shouted from behind a wheel barrow full of apples, peeking over the top of it while hurling an apple every other time.

Varkrai stood still where he was with a null expression, kicking away the apples that rolled past while the others that struck him casually bounced off. The middle of the dirt road was littered with leaves and rotten apples, a pile of them at the feer’s feet. He remained still no matter the fruit being thrown at him, wiping off the juice that splattered on his sweatshirt occasionally with his other hand in his pocket. Varkrai kept his words to himself and only glared at the old, cranky mare launching apples at him as if he were target practice, though her aim kept Varkrai laughing inside.

“He’s a strong one!” Granny Smith called back to the barn. “Where’s the hose, Big Mac!? I heard these things don’t like getting wet! Douse ‘im!”

One apple after the other plopping against his chest, Varkrai rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, leaning to the side and lowering his brow.

“Give me back my darlin’ Apple Bloom! I know you took her! Where are ya keepin’ her!? I’ll give you all the apples you want! Big Mac! The hose!” Granny Smith continued. Starting to get exhausted, the apples she threw only fell in front of the wheel barrow and rolled to Varkrai’s feet.

“I don’t have your ‘Apple Bloom’,” Varkrai spoke loudly. He swatted an apple out of the air as Granny Smith used the last of her strength. “And you can stop throwing whatever these things are at me!”

“It talks! It communicates! Don’t let it brain wash you, Big Mac! Where’s the hose!?” Granny Smith shouted, panting profusely.

“Granny, what is goin’ on over here?” a smaller, yellow pony asked as she emerged from the trees around the dirt path. “You’re gonna wake up all the fruit bats in the west orchard!”

“We’re under attack! Get yer head down!” Granny Smith quickly pulled her grand daughter to the wheel barrow beside her. “Get some apples and let ‘im have it! He’s not takin’ us down without a fight!”

“Let who have it?” asked Apple Bloom. She peeked over the wheel barrow and the apples to find who Granny Smith was yelling about. Varkrai stood in the place where had he been for the past two minutes, eyeing the filly now by Granny Smith’s side.

“Don’t look in its eyes!” Granny Smith quickly yelled, pushing Apple Bloom back down behind the cart of apples. “He’ll turn you into creamed corn and mashed potatoes! Big Mac! Where are you with the hose!?”

“He’s gettin’ the apples from the last few sections of the orchard, Granny!” Apple Bloom said, dropping the apples that Granny Smith shoved in her hooves. “And why are you so uppity about... whoever that is? He’s not doin’ anything!”

“You’re too young to understand war, and he’s trespassin’ on our property! He’s tryin’ to steal the apples! I saw him sneakin’ through the trees!”

Apple Bloom looked over the wheel barrow again. The feer had an apple in his fingers, casually examining it as he held it cautiously by the stem. “He doesn’t seem like he’s tryin’ to steal them, Granny. I think he just wants to talk. Why are you bein’ so mean to him?” Apple Bloom asked.

“You don’t know what mean is until I get my hooves on tapioca!” Granny Smith flung another apple over the wheel barrow. “What’re you just sittin’ there for?”

“Are you done yet?” Varkrai called out, dropping the apple in his hand.

“Uh...” Apple Bloom murmured. She quickly grabbed an apple in Granny Smith’s hoof and tossed it behind her. “Sorry about my grandma. She’s a bit off her rocking chair today.”

“What?” Granny Smith blurted, looking around. “I don’t see my chair anywhere. Did he take over your mind already, Apple Bloom?”

“No, Granny. He’s not taking anypony’s mind!” Apple Bloom said. She turned to the orchards. “Big Mac? Big Macintosh! Where’s Applejack!?”

A few seconds after Apple Bloom’s call, Big Macintosh walked out from the line of trees to the side of the dirt path, a cart filled with apples attached to the harness around his body. He scanned the dilemma on the dirt path leading up to the barn, blankly taking in the situation.

“Last I heard she was at the kiosk in town,” Big Mac flatly spoke. He rested his eyes on Varkrai, who remained in place with his arms crossed, staring down Granny Smith. The pale green mare returned the beam to Varkrai, growling slightly. “Who’s this?”

“Uh... a visitor, I think,” Apple Bloom assumed. “Would you mind takin’ Granny back to the barn?”

“Nope,” Big Mac slowly made his way over to Granny Smith, gently dragging her backwards. Varkrai and the mare continued glaring at each other as Granny slowly retreated back to the barn, the low thumps of a drum almost audible.

Apple Bloom gazed at Varkrai as the door of the barn further up the path closed with Granny inside, leaving the filly and feer alone on the path. Varkrai shifted his eyes to Apple Bloom once Granny Smith was out of sight, drawing a few conclusions from his impression on her grandmother about what he would be like.

The yellow filly smiled uneasily over the top of the wheel barrow at Varkrai. He remained still. “Maybe I’ll try to find Applejack,” Apple Bloom thought to herself. “Hopefully she’ll know what to do.”

“Are you gonna start throwing more of these red things at me?” Varkrai asked suddenly. He had been surrounded by apples within the amount of time Granny Smith was throwing them at him, a few of them squished from him stepping on them.

“You, uh, don’t have to worry about that anymore, for now,” Apple Bloom spoke slowly. She walked out from behind the wheel barrow and hesitantly moved closer to the feer, though stopped ultimately as he uncrossed his arms.

Varkrai looked over Apple Bloom’s stature before sighing and raising his hands as if he were surrendering. “Whatever you think I’m going to do, it’s probably not gonna happen, alright? You don’t need to go all stiff whenever I move.” He let his hands slap against his sides and his shoulders drooped. “Is there anything in this place that you ponies aren’t afraid of?”

Not sure of the question was meant to be audible, Apple Bloom chuckled awkwardly and ignored it. “What’s your name? My names Apple Bloom, if you didn’t hear my grandma. And sorry about her. She’s a bit... cooky.”

The feer glanced at the barn in the distance after noticing a pale green shade hovering in the window. “Varkrai Solvus Dulensix, or just Varkrai to you.” He set his eyes on Apple Bloom. “You wouldn’t happen to know what time it is, would you?”

Apple Bloom looked to the barn, and slightly jumped at the sight of Granny Smith frowning out at the path. She shuttered and turned back to Varkrai. “No, I don’t. Sorry. If I can ask you, have you seen my sister Applejack anywhere around here?” She opened her eyes wider as Varkrai gave her a blank stare. “Oh, right. She’s orange coated, three apples for a cutie mark, yellow mane tied up with a red ribbon, same deal with her tail.”

Turning around to see which way he had taken from inner Ponyville to the orchard, he found that his answer would be quite simpler than he expected. “Unless your sister’s changed in the past half an hour, she’s coming down the path right now,” he replied as he rotated back to face Apple Bloom.

A smile on her face, Apple Bloom leaned to the side to peer down the path behind Varkrai. Applejack trotted down the dirt road in a hurry, though her pace soon slowed to a walk as her eyes focused on Varkrai. The feer stepped to the side as she came close and blankly stared at her, folding his arms.

Varkrai motioned his head to Apple Bloom, Applejack worriedly switching her eyes from the feer to her sister with her hooves halting on the track. “She’s been looking for you, apparently,” he spoke.

With a small nod in recognition, Applejack hurriedly trotted past Varkrai to her sister. Applejack, keeping her eyes on Varkrai, brought Apple Bloom behind the wheel barrow and hushed her voice, looking back down at the yellow filly. “I want you to go to the barn and stay with Big Macintosh, okay?” Applejack insisted to her sister.

“What? Why?” asked Apple Bloom.

The orange mare glimpsed at Varkrai for a second. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Who? Him? No, he didn’t. Why are you so jumpy? Did something happen?”

Applejack jumped slightly as she heard Varkrai’s feet shift around. “No, no, nothin’ happened. Just go to the barn, alright? I’ll be up in a bit.”

“I... I guess.”

Apple Bloom gave her sister a strange and troubled expression before she sulked her way up the path to the barn. She watched her sister take in a few deep breaths behind the wheel barrow before she kept her eyes ahead of her, gradually taking step after step up to the end of the path.

“So?” Varkrai called out. “Where did your friends go?”

Applejack slowly stepped out from behind the wheel barrow, averting her head from Varkrai slightly. She only took brief glances at him, the feer standing with his hands in his pockets. “They’re... looking for ya. We figured we’d come and find you. Twilight said that she wanted to ask-”

“I didn’t hurt her, did I?”

Startled slightly, Applejack peeked out from her side. Varkrai had his head lowered a little and his eyes at the ground, though he kept the same stoic expression on his face. “Uh... no, you didn’t. She’s quite alright.”

Varkrai sighed and picked his head up. “Good. Your name is Applejack, right?”

The mare nodded, lifting a hoof limply.

“You’re friends with Pinkie Pie and Twilight?”

She nodded again.

Varkrai scratched his head. “I have to get going somewhere soon. Next time you see them, I’d be grateful if you could tell them that I’m sorry for my actions. It’s just... I’m still getting used to everything not trying to kill me for once. You can tell them that I’d be fine with talking it out once I get back from Canterlot. You’re welcome to talk with us if they’re okay with the situation.”

Applejack’s words hesitated to come out of her mouth, “Uh... sure thing. I’ll be sure to let them know... what’s your name?”

“Varkrai.” He took a quick glimpse up at the sun. It sat just about in the middle of the sky, just barely leaning off center. He brought his gaze back down to Applejack. “Thank you, for doing this for me. I’ll see you some time later.”

The feer had already left before Applejack could respond to him, his wings sending the leaves on the dirt path twirling into the air. Applejack watched Varkrai fly amongst the clouds for a while until he faded through the sunlight. She took a deep breath in ever since she had been holding it when she first saw him on the path, starting to wonder why he chose to go to Sweet Apple Acres over anywhere else in Ponyville. The thought out of mind, Applejack recollected herself as she realized the mess that was the path she stood on. With a shake of her head, she slowly walked along the dirt up to the barn, occasionally twitching her eyes at the sky. The evening she had saw the wings on the mountainside, now knowing that they were Varkrai’s, sent a chill up her spine. She shivered at the thought of coming face to face with him again.

______________________________________________________________________

“Noitorum, wake up,” Varkrai spoke quietly, tapping at himself.

A low grumble resonated in the air around him.

“Did I just pick up some attitude?” asked Varkrai, tapping more on his chest.

“Hmmf...” Noitorum groaned. “You’re damn right you did...”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Varkrai extended his arm out and slammed his fist against his chest, smiling at the sound of Noitorum gasping and covering her mouth.

“Okay, okay! I’ll get up...” muttered Noitorum. “You know that’s so much louder in here than it is out there. Just give me a second.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Varkrai leaned his head back against the wall of a building behind him, closing his eyes and listening to the sounds of Canterlot from the alley way. Common topics seemed to be the events of yesterday’s door-kicking maniac and the meeting of the other cities’ representatives with Celestia, though Varkrai could barely tolerate the ponies’ accents. Hooves trotted along the paved roads and an occasional haughty burst of laughter echoed through the streets. Varkrai turned his head to the end of the alley way, taking survey of the ponies that passed by. With their heads tilted up and their eyes almost shut, they didn’t even take notice of the feer observing them. They continued on with their day as any other, and even through the rumors of yesterday, they seemed like they couldn’t care about anything else. It was obvious to Varkrai already that they were of the higher class, with the structure of the city and the royalty placed so near to them. The stability of the social class seemed odd to him, the majority of them unicorns, but nothing would save Varkrai’s growing distain for them.

“Are you coming or what?” Varkrai asked, looking back in the alley.

“Hang on, hang on. Don’t need to be so pushy,” Noitorum quickly answered.

“It’s hard not to when it usually only takes you ten seconds to get out here.”

A quick, loud ring shot into the air, Varkrai gently setting his eyes on Noitorum as she materialized beside him. She punched his shoulder as quickly as she could.

“What was that for?” Varkrai questioned as he almost toppled over.

“That was for rushing me,” Noitorum replied, a smug expression on her face.

Varkrai sneered at her. “You were gonna hold us back from speaking with Princess what’s-her-face. You’re the one that suggested we help them, aren’t you?”

Crossing her arms, Noitorum walked past Varkrai, staring him in his eyes. “Her name is Princess Celestia, and just because I suggested we help them doesn’t mean they need us at every single moment. At least a month before we need to worry, right? We have plenty of time to teach and prepare them for what’s coming.” She pushed against the walls of the alley as her wings wedged in between them. “Why’d you have to pick such a small place to wait for me? I feel like I’m getting crushed in here.”

“Because I didn’t want the ponies to start freaking out before I even took a step in the streets,” Varkrai explained, tucking his wings in and walking towards Noitorum. “It was hard enough to dive in here in the first place without any of them seeing me.” He poked at Noitorum’s stomach, who was having a hard time maneuvering her wings to turn around. “Can we go now?”

“Well, maybe if you would’ve picked somewhere where I wouldn’t have to do a front flip to turn myself around...” Noitorum muttered. “You know my wingspan is a bit bigger.” With a quick push against the wall, she shoved her way around in the alley, eventually facing the streets of Canterlot. She looked angrily back at Varkrai, the black winged feer grinning behind a hand. “If I didn’t miss seeing you smile...” Noitorum grumbled as she focused back ahead of her.

Varkrai placed a hand between her wings. “Let’s go. Celestia’s probably waiting for us right now. We’re not far from where she told us to meet her.”

The two feers slowly made their way out of the alley way, stepping out into the afternoon sunlight of Canterlot’s streets. The stores on the sides of the roads bubbled with overly dressed unicorns, almost all of them talking with their heads tilted back. With the city’s inhabitants stepping delicately on the pavement as not to scratch their hooves, the louder, rougher footsteps of the feers walking along the side of the street attracted quite the amount of attention. Anything out of the ordinary in Canterlot seemed to be stared down at with shame, and as Noitorum looked around at the ponies, she got a sense that she and Varkrai weren’t exactly welcome. Some of the ponies glaring at them with anger and others hiding away slightly in fear, Varkrai and Noitorum’s appearance back in Canterlot seemed refined from the day before, though only slightly. Varkrai wasn’t kicking doors down and Noitorum wasn’t yelling at him to stop, but Noitorum couldn’t tell if it was because they were being generally normal or something else that was keeping the ponies from running away.

“Varkrai?” Noitorum whispered, tugging at his sleeve. The noise of the area had grown noticeably quieter.

He maintained his eyes ahead of him, his hands tucked in his pockets. “Hmm?”

“Don’t stop whatever you’re doing. I think we’re somewhat less of a threat. Do you think Celestia said something to them over night?”

Varkrai ran his eyes over the ponies in the street. Most of them kept their heads up high, continuing with their day as if nothing was different, though some of them still had their eyes angled towards the two feers in curiosity. “I don’t know,” he spoke, looking back where he was walking. “I’m fairly sure she didn’t say anything about it when we were talking with her. Maybe she announced something about us earlier today. It’d probably be a wise thing to do. Trust might be out of the option if someone comes to your home and breaks down your door and leaves a second later. The residents didn’t look too happy, and the guards didn’t either when they were helping us clean up.”

Noitorum jabbed Varkrai’s side with her elbow. “I still have a splinter because of you. How did you not think that kicking down the city’s property would back fire later?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Varkrai lightly shoved Noitorum with his wing. “Oh I knew something would happen. I just wanted to see you get all flustered because of it.”

“Well you’re lucky she didn’t put us under any sort of punishment besides clean-up duty, not to mention the share of doors you’re gonna have to fix later. What would happen if she made you pay for all that?” Varkrai remained silent, his face noticeably trying to hide a smile. Noitorum growled, “You’re like a walking canister of aggravation and stoicism.”

“That’s it?” Varkrai asked with a smirk, nudging Noitorum’s arm. “I figured you would have a bit more to say than just that. Do I need to get into more trouble to get some of that anger out of you?”

“No, and I don’t need to let out my anger,” Noitorum declared, shooting Varkrai a menacing glare. “I know how to handle myself when it comes to frustration, unlike you. I’m surprised you haven’t taken it upon yourself to lash out at any of the ponies yet, although I suppose I might have had something to do with that.”

Varkrai’s smirk straightened out and he felt his hands loosen subconsciously. He gently sighed and put his arm around Noitorum, bringing her against his side. “Yeah yeah, and I thank you for it. You’re a part of me, aren’t you? I guess you manage to have a better grip on my good side than I do.”

“You have your own good side,” Noitorum spoke quietly, smiling. “And I have mine. Maybe you should learn to let out the good and give the bad a bit of a break every once and a while.”

“Oh? But what fun would that be?”

Noitorum giggled and lightly pushed Varkrai away from her. “Fun without all the verbal lashings and angry glares.” She poked at his side as he let out a snicker. “I mean it. You’re not gonna make many friends here if you don’t stop being such an ass. And speaking of friends, I see you might have made one, maybe? Who was that pony that you brought with you back from Canterlot?”

“She wasn’t a friend. Just someone that looked like she needed some help.” Varkrai shook his head. “I’m sure she’ll be out of my hair within the week.”

“Aw, come on. Why do you have to be so mean to the ponies?”

Rolling his eyes, Varkrai growled quietly. “Because I don’t like them, and they don’t like me. I don’t know what Pinkie Pie’s deal is, but I hope she’s only trying to get me on my good side. I don’t think I can stand another second around her.”

A smirk on her face, Noitorum leaned into Varkrai slightly. “You know, I think, deep down inside, you like being bugged.”

Varkrai stepped off to the side almost causing Noitorum to topple over. “And deep down inside I think you’re plotting to make me lose my mind.” He shifted his eyes up at a large tower sliding out from the corner of the buildings lining the street. “Looks like we’re almost there. Say we fly the rest of the way?”

Still collecting herself from stumbling around, a mysterious glint shimmered within Noitorum’s eye as she heard the question. Casually, she stood up straight and stopped with Varkrai as he turned to her, fixing her hair. “Well... I guess we could fl- race to the tower! Threetwoone go!”

The launch Noitorum made off of the ground sent the leaves around her and Varkrai sailing into the air, twirling in the wind as Noitorum gained a heavy lead on her fellow feer. Already behind far enough, Varkrai let out a puff of unimpressed laughter before he shot up into the air as well. A challenge was hard for him to pass up.

[8] Across the Sinking Sands

Chapter Eight: Across the Sinking Sands

Is this the place? Varkrai thought to himself.

The tall building stood out like no other within Ponyville. Slightly over decorated, brightly colored with different hues of purple and yellow, and the outside strewn with enough patterns to make Discord jealous, Carousel boutique was certainly unique compared to the rest of the town. The lack of any sign to distinct the structure as a clothing and design construct kept Varkrai hesitant of approaching the boutique, but the overwhelmingly complicated process that had seemed to go into making the building look like a dress was just about enough to give him a nudge. The pristine and shining condition of the building gave off the message that its owner had perfection down to an art, though it wasn’t always a good thing. But of course, Twilight Sparkle had told him that ‘Rarity’s boutique’ was the place to go for fixing busted seams, getting fitted for clothing, and generally getting a make-over should he be up for it. Varkrai had hoped she was only exaggerating.

“Yeah... this is probably the place,” Varkrai whispered.

He glanced down at the raggedy sweatshirt in his hands that he wore so loosely. From wandering dimensions and being slashed at to exploring Canterlot and having to be stretched to fit a pony, the sweatshirt had been through more than enough to have it withered down to a poorly held together piece of cloth barely able to withstand being pulled at. The zippers, the simple one in front and the harder-to-reach two in the back to slide wings out of, constantly got stuck in a few certain places along the metal teeth. Numerous cuts and slashes, while some only visible up close, had begun to come apart with the strings holding them together fraying and weakening at every movement. The hood held on to the rest of the cloth weakly and bobbed up and down with each step in any direction. The edges of the holes in the back of the sweatshirt were worn down to the strings from Varkrai flapping his wings. And, quite recently, the wrists were two sizes too big. Despite all of the imperfections within his clothing, Varkrai still held tightly onto it in his hands as he looked up at the red flag on top of the boutique. The sweatshirt was his only casual protection from the weather and curious eyes aside from the black, woolen, long sleeved shirt he wore underneath his overwear, and he didn’t plan on walking around much longer in the autumn weather in a flawed sweatshirt that barely held out the wind.

Giving the boutique one last look-over, Varkrai started for the front door alone. Confronting the locals hadn’t been the top of his concerns when it came to preparing for future problems, and having to visit a ‘master of fashion’, according to Rarity’s friends, by himself wasn’t on the top of the list of Varkrai’s priorities; nevertheless, getting his sweatshirt fixed was. While not being completely familiar with the fashionista type throughout his dimensional jumping, Varkrai still had an idea of what Rarity’s personality would be from the few designers he had come across in the past. Unfortunately for him, they hadn’t taken much of a liking to his attitude, and it was mainly Noitorum that did the talking. Unluckily enough, the afternoon he was fed up with his tattered sweatshirt happened to be the one in which Noitorum decided to look around Ponyville. She knew all too well that Varkrai always had trouble getting along with others, and seeing an opportunity for him to improve on his constant ill-tempered attitude, she decided that it was up to him to be the one to get his clothing back up to optimal shape.

The front door of the boutique was much more vibrant up close, though as with every other door in Ponyville it was only as tall as Varkrai’s chest. He leaned down to look through the diamond shaped window in the door. The inside of the boutique looked empty aside from the interior decorations and models, which gave Varkrai a slightly bigger sense of how into fashion Rarity was. The inside lights were on due to the cloudy weather from the weakening storm that had lasted through the night. The rain had passed in the middle of the resting hours for Ponyville, but the clouds managed to persist and hover in the sky. Ponyville continued to remain dreary for the early afternoon, though it wouldn’t last long as soon as the pegasi started clearing the weather up.

“Is anyone home?” Varkrai asked aloud, tapping at the door with his finger nail. No answer told him to turn back and deal with his sweatshirt the way it was, but the cold breeze running down his back told him to hurry up and go inside.

Hesitant to do so, Varkrai pushed the tip of his finger against the door and lightly poked it ajar. He slipped his head inside to look around. The inside of the boutique looked even more glamorous than looking at it through the window. The mirrors, gems, and delicate outfits strewn throughout the walls and floor gave the entire main room a glimmer. The sound of sparkles coming off of the cleanliness of the windows and mirrors was just barely audible over the wind outside, and it was hard not to notice with the stillness outside. A quiet humming of a song sounded in another room.

Quietly, Varkrai pushed the door open the rest of the way, but ultimately made as much noise as possible as he heard the bell above the door ring. Startled and suddenly on the offense, he dropped his sweatshirt and reached up to the bell in the middle of its ring, ripping it from the handle it was held on. As soon as it had detached, he flung it onto the floor and he stood in a stable stance on slightly bent knees, an arm extended outwards. A low hum sounded into the room as Varkrai brought a collection of solance into his palm, starting at the bell with full intention to launch the charge straight into it. Now that he saw what had gotten him worked up, however, he suddenly felt that he was being watched.

As slowly as he could, Varkrai rotated his head to the side. To his surprise, a unicorn stood at the bottom of the stairs across the room, staring right back at him. With the entrance bell mutilated and crushed on the floor, along with some strange creature holding a peculiar energy in his hand in the doorway, Rarity couldn’t decide whether to run, scream, or both. She stayed still for a moment, not even blinking, but her heart found a way to pump faster than her sewing machines still poking away upstairs.

Varkrai, cautious as to not make any sudden movements, stood as still as he could, and spoke quietly, “I... uh... thought it was... something else.”

Still confused with what to do, Rarity could only take a deep breath inwards and hold it. It was a second later that she figured she could let it out with the company of a high pitch, deafening scream.

The solance in Varkrai’s hand disappeared and he held his hands out to Rarity, ducking his head back a little as he flinched. “Wait wait wait! Don’t do what you’re going to do I can explain don’t scream please!” he sputtered. “Sunlight Sparkle! Applejacks! Pinkie Pie! They’re your friends! I know them! I’m not here to do anything harmful!”

Rarity only let out a small squeak from what she planned to be a glass-shattering shriek. Stuck with her mouth open and her eyes open wide, she managed to force a few words out of her mouth, “What- what are you doing!? Who are you!?” Still panicking, and slightly confused by the names Varkrai had spit out, her speech was constrained and rough with her neck squeezing itself.

The unicorn not the only one panicking, the only thing Varkrai could think to do was point a finger at the worn out cloth at his feet, still holding his other arm out in front of him as if he were shielding himself. “I- I came here to get this fixed,” he explained, still bracing for when Rarity actually did scream. “I was told that you were the ‘pony to go to’ when clothing needed fixing. You can ask your friends.” He parted his fingers to peak out at Rarity. She still stood in place, though the horrified look on her face was replaced with worry. “Just please don’t scream at me.”

With a last careful examination of Varkrai, Rarity slowly took a step down off the stairs and onto the floor of the room. She eyed the dark green sweatshirt on the floor while still keeping her distance from its owner. “Who... are you, exactly?” she asked.

The air within the boutique had settled enough for Varkrai to lower his arms and vigilantly pick up his sweatshirt again. “Varkrai,” he answered. Judging from the pristine and perfected condition of Rarity’s mane and coat, along with her flawlessly styled eyelashes, the conclusion as to who he was speaking with was almost instant. “It’d be naive of me to assume that you’re someone else than Rarity. This is your boutique, yeah?”

Rarity, trying not to keep her eyes off of Varkrai for too long, nodded and looked around the inside of the her store and home. “Yes, this is my residence,” she affirmed. She limply pointed a hoof at the tattered sweatshirt in Varkrai’s hands, though she found her gaze slightly more directed towards the appendages holding it. “What was it that you came here for...?” She had a hard time refraining herself from calling him dear.

Varkrai pinched the collar of his sweatshirt and let it hang loose, showing the fashionista everything that was wrong with it. “I was hoping you’d be able to stitch this thing back up to what it used to be. Your friends told me you were good at this sort-”

The sweatshirt was quickly yanked out of Varkrai’s hands by a strange force. Instinctively, he felt his feet plant into the floor, his wings flare, and his arms stiffen, but he gradually calmed himself as he drew the connection between the glow around his sweatshirt and Rarity’s horn. The unicorn seemed more interested in the clothing levitating in front of her than Varkrai’s sudden shift in position. She stretched the cloth this way and that, examining every corner and cave that she possibly could in mere seconds. It was more of the shape and general format of the cloth that caught her attention than the colors, which at first she had almost gagged at the sight of the simplicity. She looked back and forth between Varkrai and his shabby sample of attire, intrigued by the material the sweatshirt was made of. Hand in hand with the tears and loose threads, she also wondered how he managed to do so much damage to a simple piece of clothing.

“My, my!” Rarity exclaimed at the sight of a rather large cut barely holding itself together. She paced around trying to get better lighting on the sweatshirt, almost forgetting that Varkrai was in the room. “How in Equestria did this happen? Oh! This thing is an absolute mess! A simple stitching won’t do anything to fix all of this. What kind of stitches are these, anyways? I’ve never seen these before. They don’t look like they’re doing a good job of holding together, no less.”

“It’s hard to repair feerian cloth with just a stitch,” Varkrai noted. “Doesn’t help much that I had no idea what I was doing when I was fixing the cuts.”

Frightened by Varkrai’s sudden voice, Rarity stopped in place and turned to him. Now realizing how beat up his sweatshirt was, the lighter, though still noticeable scars on the shirt Varkrai wore became apparent. “Feerian?” Rarity asked curiously. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

The sweatshirt made a return back to Varkrai with a flowing white aura around it, almost causing Rarity to stumble backwards as she noticed the aura also around Varkrai’s outstretched hand. “The type of cloth this is. Feerian,” Varkrai spoke as his overwear settled in his grasp, the aura disappearing from both of them. “The material that it’s made of is only found on a caldance, which is a type of animal that has a strong yet soft coat. Unfortunately, it can’t withstand the edge of a blade very well, but the tip of a spear is easily warded off by it.” He lightly poked the tip of his finger into the chest of the cloth, pointing out how the material grew slightly stiff and firm.

“A... caldance?” Rarity sounded the word out. “Why, I’ve never heard of such a creature before.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Varkrai threw the sweatshirt back to Rarity, who narrowly caught it in the air before it landed on her head. “I just want it fixed.”

Giving Varkrai an unhappy glare, Rarity looked over the fabric once more. “I would have to gain a bit more an understanding of how the cloth functioned before I started to work on it,” she noted. She picked up a nearby needle and tried to force it through the material, though she only found herself bending the metal in an effort.

“You’re an ‘expert fashionista’, aren’t you? I’m sure you can find a way.”

Becoming frustrated as she bent another needle, Rarity looked to Varkrai and said, “While I may eventually, it would be helpful if you showed me how you managed to get a needle through, yes?”

“I think you can see how that worked out,” Varkrai mentioned, pointing out one of the bigger cuts in his sweatshirt he had tried to fix. The frayed and tattered holes he made for the stitches spoke for themselves.

“It is a rather messy procedure,” Rarity agreed, frowning at the damage that Varkrai inflicted. “Might I be able to ask what managed to... ruff up your clothing?”

“It’s probably best to leave that at a mystery.” Varkrai crossed his arms. “So? Can you fix it or what? I didn’t come here to stand around and talk.”

The tone of Varkrai’s voice noticeably growing irate, Rarity couldn’t help but form hers the same way. “Well I didn’t plan on having my doorbell broken today, so it may be a while until I find a new one. I suppose you’ll just have to wait for a little bit.”

“I wouldn’t think a doorbell is the most crucial thing in your business right now. I’m sure you have plenty of needles. Besides, it doesn’t look like you get a lot of customers by the way things are right now.”

A frustrated and surprised gasp escaped Rarity’s mouth. “I get plenty of customers! I’ve never seen you around here before; I doubt you know the basics of fashion! Obviously not, with such a bore of an outfit.” She turned away from Varkrai and draped his sweatshirt over a clothing rack. “Besides, I have a very important order I’m working on right now. I suppose you’ll just have to wait for a while.”

Varkrai could feel his blood heat up. “I’m not leaving here until I get my sweatshirt back, fixed,” he declared through partially clenched teeth. “However long it’s going to take, my feet are planted.”

“Why, then I guess you’re going to be there a while,” said Rarity, shuffling through the dresses on one of the racks. She looked back at Varkrai with an eyebrow raised as she heard his wings unfold and hang loosely off his back. Remaining where he was, he only glared at her. “And would you please stop staring? If you’re going to be here, then you might as well be of some use and fix the doorbell. It’s probably the most you can do.”

Suspecting the doorbell to be a bit troubling still on the floor bent and battered, Varkrai complied with hesitation. Now holding it within his hands, however, he could see why she would want to replace it so quickly. The shape it had been beaten into out of account, the golden bell was definitely crafted with care, and now that Varkrai had realized it was just a harmless mold of metal, it had created a noticeably unique sound that he had never heard before. Whether it be the extinction of doorbells, or rather just any type of bell, throughout the dimensions or just that Varkrai had never come across one, it was strange to hear such a perfected tone outside of his regular attuning with energy. Grown up with the perpetual ringing of his own toying with his solance, hearing a different yet similar sound raised some curiosity in if he could replicate the bell. He felt the need to ask Rarity a question about it, anything that he could to find out where she had gotten it, but her back turned to him and her silence gave him the answer beforehand. Nevertheless, he gave the unicorn one last glare and look-over before he found his way to a wall and begun fiddling with the bell.

______________________________________________________________________

A puff of dust rose off of the dirt track leading to Carousel Boutique as two feet planted on the ground. The air settled to its regular flow as Noitorum’s wings fastened against her back, and she shivered subtly now that she stood still. The autumn weather had been noticeably getting colder over the past few days, though the contribution of the clouds constantly in the sky were likely responsible on some level. Noitorum had expected that Varkrai was going to get his sweatshirt fixed sooner or later due to the cold wings, but she hadn’t expected it to take so long. The sun was already nearing early evening, and Noitorum wasn’t quite sure if Varkrai was still in the boutique. She knew that returning back to Varkrai through their solance would let him know of her presence, so she remained in her own form to search for him. She wanted to catch him by surprise, maybe find him actually making a friend for once, but she hadn’t anticipated on him spending the entire day within the boutique.

Having scoured all over Ponyville already, Noitorum’s only place to look was the very place she wouldn’t expect Varkrai to be in any longer. She had talked to many of the ponies around the town, some of them still a bit afraid of her, and she even spent some time shopping in one of the kiosk areas, though her lack of money availed her nothing to come out with. When she asked the majority of the ponies if they had seen Varkrai, either their answer was a blank stare and wide eyes or a question in return of who Varkrai was, though when she had given a description of him, the ponies only shook their heads and walked away hurriedly. Of course, Noitorum still had no information of Varkrai’s mishap with the ponies, but she could assume that they were still weary of her and Varkrai because of them being out of the ordinary within Equestria.

A rather unnatural, strong gust of wind ran down Noitorum’s back. She felt a shiver run up her spine and her entire body prick with goose bumps, Noitorum quickly turning around to see what had caused it. Somewhat expected, there was nothing there aside from a rather colorful-maned pegasus off in the distance kicking at the clouds, though an occasional sweep of her wings forward sent a small whirlwind off in random directions and cleared a line in the blanket in the sky. Slightly confused and startled, Noitorum simply shook her head and looked down at the town. A few ponies, dressed in light clothing, walked around the buildings and streets and others played in the leaves raked up in piles, but nothing too exciting was out in the open. Noitorum smiled at the sight and turned back to Carousel Boutique, eager to walk inside and meet the owner of the building along with seeing of Varkrai was still inside. Rarity being a friend of Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle, Noitorum was excited to meet another of the group.

The door quietly swung open as Noitorum pushed it with the top of her head, the feer standing back up straight as she emerged into the boutique. To her surprise, the main room seemed empty from the appearance, only the remnants of a few broken needles left on the floor indicating that someone was home. She scanned the room as best as she could as she walked further into the room, grabbing her hair with her hands and straightening it over her left shoulder.

“Hello?” called out Noitorum, leaning to look behind a clothes rack in the middle of the room. “Anyone home? Varkrai?”

A muffled, irritated groan from another room gave Noitorum a small start. She quickly locked her eyes on the stairs as a familiar voice shouted out loud, the talking seeming to come from upstairs. She had now noticed the amount of feathers laying on the ground, almost all of them black save for a few decorative ones. She leaned down and pinched one of them in between her fingers, examining it as close as she could. The tips seemed like they had been either bent, cracked, scratched, or just fallen off with no particular reason. On most of the feathers, the barbs had been squished against the shaft and frayed out in various directions, an indication as to what Varkrai had been doing with them, which was more than likely etching something with them.

“What is he doing?” Noitorum wondered to herself, dropping the feather.

Another loud outburst from the upper level of the boutique prompted Noitorum to quickly ascend the stairs. Despite being barefooted, she tried her best to be quiet on the tips of her toes as to see what was going on without disturbing it, even if it was just a casual argument. At the same time she did her best to go up the stairs as fast as she could, trying not to let her wings rub against the walls. She knew all too well about Varkrai’s behavior when he either got annoyed, frustrated, or for the worse, completely irritated. The feathers scattered across the ground, while Noitorum assumed that they were just being used for some sort of writing, were a sign that Varkrai had been on the borderline of anger, and she wanted nothing else than to keep him calm.

Noitorum crept quietly up to the doorway at the top of the stairs, leaning forward to just barely peek in the crack between the door and the wall. The circular room seemed to be intact despite the usual mess that Rarity had it in, with her models lined up along the wall and a few of the fabric racks slightly unraveled. Luckily, the room wasn’t in terrible danger, as Varkrai was remained seated at a workbench on the opposite side of the room, but she could see the fury radiating off of him as his wings and legs shook in his attempt to keep himself calm.

“No, no! If you’re going to ever thread a needle, you’re going to have to be steady!” Rarity instructed, putting a levitation spell on Varkrai’s hand to keep it still.

Already in a temper enough, Varkrai almost yanked his hand out of the spell before he caught himself and only jerked it slightly. “Then let go of my hand,” he forced through his teeth.

“Maybe if you would hold it still by yourself then I wouldn’t have to steady it!” Rarity let go of the levitation spell. “Now, make sure you hold the needle in place as well. If you think you can do this by yourself, you’re going to have to do it properly. I can see why you made such a mess the first time around.”

Varkrai slammed his hands down on the table, turned his head to Rarity, leaned forward, and shouted, “Veta lox’el kah muth vis, kah cryinsa noxtest!?”

“I beg your pardon!?” exclaimed Rarity, leaning back and putting a hoof to her chest.

“Varkrai!” Noitorum shouted from the door as she quickly burst through the door.

“What!?” yelled Varkrai, turning his head to Noitorum. Startled as to who had spoken his name, he soon grew cautious of what he was saying and unclenched his fists. He wasn’t the only one to become quiet at the sight of Noitorum, as Rarity quickly became frightened at another one of Varkrai’s species walked into her boutique unannounced.

“There’s no need for that type of language!” Noitorum scolded as she walked up to Varkrai and leaned over him, almost causing him to fall off his stool and tip backwards onto the workbench. “What’s wrong with you!? Why are you yelling at her!? And where’s your sweatshirt?” Focused on Varkrai, she almost forgot that Rarity was standing right beside her, the unicorn staring up at her with wide eyes and a partially open mouth. Self aware now that she was giving Varkrai a death stare, Noitorum quickly backed up from both him and Rarity, smiling nervously and bunching her hands together behind her back. She looked to the startled unicorn. “Uh, forgive me. You’re Rarity, right?”

A befuddled, hesitant puff of air escaped Rarity’s mouth in an attempt to speak. From Sapphire Shores to the casual customer, she had never seen anything of the likes of a strange, unfamiliar creature walk straight into her home and store as Varkrai had, and even then she hadn’t expected another one to accompany him six hours later. She also hadn’t planned on spending six hours trying to force a needle through a sweatshirt.

“Ha... plbu...babuda...” Rarity mumbled through her lips, confusedly looking between Varkrai and Noitorum.

The two feers gave each other a quick glance. “Is... that a yes?” Noitorum asked quietly, raising her eyebrows with hope.

A moment of silence fell over Rarity as she let her mind catch up with her eyes. She suddenly shook her head rapidly and opened her eyes wide, blinking a few times before she focused on Noitorum. “Y- yes, that is a... yes,” Rarity confirmed, wiping a drop of sweat from her face. “Do you two know each other...?”

“It’s not obvious enough as it is?” Varkrai asked blatantly as he sat up straight, though he flinched back against the bench again as Noitorum raised a wing in the air as if to hit him.

“Yes, we do know each other,” answered Noitorum. She let her wing back down and put her hand out for Rarity. “My name’s Noitorum. My companion here is Varkrai, if he hasn’t told you his name already.”

“I’ve been here for six hours,” Varkrai noted, standing up, but he managed to find his way back to the stool again as Noitorum shoved him back down with an extension of her wing.

Rarity hesitantly put her hoof forward, and Noitorum shook it gently. “It’s... wonderful to have you both here,” she hollowly spoke with a smile. “Might I ask what brings you, Noitorum, here?”

“I just thought I’d check on Varkrai if he was still here,” Noitorum said as she let go of Rarity’s hoof. “I didn’t think it would take so long to get his sweatshirt fixed.” She quickly caught herself and put her arms out. “No no, I didn’t mean it like that! I meant- I mean- I’m not saying you’re a bad-”

“She gets it, Noi,” Varkrai interrupted. Casually, though with some force, he stood next to Noitorum and pushed a wing out to his side, sending Noitorum half way across the room. He crossed his arms at Rarity, who gave him a glare. “Yet I would rather stick with the way you first let it come out.”

“If I must remind you,” started Rarity. “I’m not familiar with whatever kind of material that raggedy sweatshirt is made out of, thank you very much. How am I supposed to know how to properly work with it if the only way you can get a needle through is by making an even bigger cut?”

Taking a step forward, Varkrai pointed to what now was just a dark green heap of cloth on the bench. “Hey, at least what I did managed to fix it temporarily. All I’ve seen you do is break every single needle that you prodded it with.”

“Yes, ‘fixed it temporarily’ is a word for what you’ve done to it.”

“What? What have you done? Wasted half of your needle storage? Poked yourself numerous times because you broke them?”

“And what have you done? Sat there and watched and complained?”

“What do you want me to do!? Keep trying to hopelessly thread a needle that’s going to be broken anyways!?”

“At least I can thread a needle!”

“Stop it, you two!” Noitorum shouted, pushing her way in between them. “What is wrong with you!?” She poked at Varkrai’s chest. “Especially you! Why can’t you just be nice to someone for once?”

“Well that would require me to actually like whoever it is, first off,” Varkrai mumbled, peaking around Noitorum’s wing at Rarity.

“Varkrai!” Noitorum shouted. She reached out and latched onto the collar of his shirt, pulling him towards her. Her hands were distinctly shaking, both with anger and a vague sense of despair. “All I want is for you to be nice! Is that so hard to ask!?”

The black winged feer stared blankly into Noitorum’s eyes. He tried his best to hide any emotions from forming onto his face, worrying that anything would seem as mockery or disagreement towards Noitorum, but even remaining at a cold glare looked as if he wasn’t taking anything in. It was rare that Noitorum, the one being that he could put his trust into, ever had to use her voice to scold or yell at him, but it was something about Equestria that made Noitorum stray from her usual self. The environment, the ponies, the general feel of the world contributed to her growing need to settle down and relax, yet Varkrai’s branded disgust for those other than him and Noitorum held back the chance to live normally. It was the glistening of a tear in Noitorum’s eye that compelled Varkrai to let his fists loosen, his temper calm, and his eyes relax.

“Alright,” Varkrai whispered, gently wrapping his hands around Noitorum’s. He could feel her fingers let go of his shirt and he held onto her wrists, keeping her close. “Okay. I’ll be nice. I won’t yell any more. I promise.” He managed to sneak his mouth into a faint smile.

Noitorum stayed still for a moment before she nodded subtly. “You’re not just gonna bottle it up, will you?”

With a twitch of his mouth upwards, Varkrai shook his head and rubbed his thumb across Noitorum’s wrist. “No. I don’t think I can anymore.”

Smiling, Noitorum shifted forward and wrapped her arms around him. She squeezed him as she felt his hands brush against the bases of her wings. “I’m gonna keep an eye on that. I’ll determine if you can or not.”

Varkrai looked up from Noitorum’s shoulder. Rarity still stood in place a few feet away from them, watching with a slightly impatient, yet content look. “I’ll see to that you won’t have to,” Varkrai assured as he lowered his eyes. “But if it’s alright, I’m gonna need a bit more time to get my sweatshirt fixed. Are you staying?”

Noitorum rubbed her chin side to side on Varkrai’s shoulder. “I’ve been flying around all day; I think I need a rest.” She softly pushed herself back from Varkrai and looked in his eyes. “Please don’t get upset again?”

“I won’t,” Varkrai reassured.

Fitting one last hug in, Noitorum whispered, “Ralin kah.”

A flash of light burst into the room, and Varkrai was left standing with his hands folded over each other in front of him, standing alone. He shifted his eyes from the ground up to the unicorn watching him carefully. She remained quiet as Varkrai settled his weight on one leg and slid his hands in his pockets, clearing her throat soon after.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Varkrai suggested, motioning his head to the bench.

Rarity nodded firmly as she watched him walk over to his sweatshirt. “I suppose it would be the best course of action.” She watched as Varkrai picked up a needle in one hand and pinched a line of thread in the other. “I trust you’re sticking to your word to her, yes?”

Glancing back at the unicorn from the corner of his eyes, Varkrai spoke, “Don’t push your luck.”

______________________________________________________________________

“Stay awake, Hutch.”

“I’m awake, I’m awake. It’s not like I’m going to fall asleep, anyways.”

“I’m just making sure that you don’t. Where’d you put the scope?”

“It’s uh... around here somewhere.”

“Don’t tell me you lost it.”

“Stop whining. I got it right here. What for?”

“Just trying to keep the best eye out that I can.”

“It’s going to be a while before the last truck gets here, Myers. I’d advise you to just relax and keep your ass planted as long as you can.”

“It’s hard to sit still when I’ve been in this damn tower for a day.”

“And we’re all sorry for you, but we need someone with good eyes and a clean pair of goggles to keep an eye out for the rest of the soldiers coming in.”

“When’s the last time we heard from them?”

“Adrian got a signal a few hours ago. They reported they got caught up in some denser fog areas and had to take a detour. He said they’re about three hours away, so don’t get your gear all twisted up.”

“What about the civvies that were with them?”

“Lost ‘em in the fog. Got nothing from the driver’s radio.”

“Damn it. I just want to get out of here.”

“Well the machine’s up and running. S’just waiting to be put to action.”

“Have you sent anyone through a gate yet?”

“Last time we tried that Gale lost the lamnirex, so we’re just waiting until everyone gets here and we can all account for it.”

“Who did you send through?”

“A stuffed bear. We named it Phillip.”

“Cute.”