A Crack in the Glass

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.”