The Festival of the Dead

Chapter 9: Do you see what I see?

Luna felt the dark water crash over her, engulfing her along with everybody else. Instead of being blinded by the black water, she found that she could see perfectly fine, if a little filtered. She saw everyone else, Avnas included, floating around for a few seconds before she felt a small pressure around her.

A split second later, she found herself approximately one hundred feet below the boat, floating freely in the water. The water shouldn't be this warm so far below, or even this far from shore for that matter. She looked to Avnas for an explanation, instead receiving a crude acting-out of him tapping a watch, telling her to just wait.

After a few seconds, they all started moving at once. Every member of the crew, about one-hundred-fifty in all, began to slowly gain momentum, eventually reaching blinding speeds. Aquatic cones began to form around each crew member as they raced through the water. It was both exhilarating and beautiful at the same time but the princess soon found a matter in dire need of being addressed. I can't breath!

The princess looked towards Avnas again, seeing him soaring through the water with his arms spread like an airplane, enjoying the feeling of the water. Eventually, he looked in her direction and noticed her puffed out cheeks. He gave her a slow, friendly nod, telling her it was ok. Hesitantly, she opened her mouth and started to angle upwards towards the surface without any input on her part. Right as she felt she was going to black-out, she crested over the water, shooting into the air like a rocket. Thankful for the air, she inhaled deeply, growing into a full gasp as she observed the view from the air.

The water was entirely different from before, shining golden in the light of the setting sun as she flew over the waves. The spectacle only grew more amazing as she saw the other passengers shoot out of the water, evidently in need of breaths of their own. She saw Avnas gliding slightly above her, face once-more full of glee at the experience. She started to angle downward toward the water again. No longer fearful of the odd experience, she enjoyed the crystal-clear view to it's fullest as she saw the sea-floor shoot by, occasionally shooting out of the water when whatever spell was pulling them felt her need for air only to be once more greeted by the equally amazing view above the water.

After about fifteen minutes of travel, they were able to make out a faint glow ahead, slowly growing brighter and brighter until they could clearly see a silvery portal, almost as large as the boat they were recently on. The sheer parameters for its size would have to be unbelievable. It was evident that this was the intended target of the spell. "This'll make you sort of feel like you have to pee! Don't." Yelled Avnas, apparently having... extensive experience with this kind of portal in the past.

Although the trip through the portal was short, lasting only a few seconds for each person, it did have a certainly unique way of making you feel the need to do several things at once. Heeding Avnas' words, everyone resisted the urge to give in to the portal's embarrassing requests.

Approximately one-hundred-fifty passengers sat in one of the plains surrounding Ponyville, landing about a half-mile from the town. Still dazed from the trip, nobody spoke up for several minutes while they got their bearings.

"That was... AMAZING!" Yelled Twilight from her spot on the ground. "I didn't even know magic could do something like that!"

"It was 'right beautiful, wasn't it?" Said Applejack, laying on her back while she just took a minute to relax,

Luna walked to Avnas, smiling warmly, "I'm guessing you know who was responsible for our sudden trip, don't you?"

"Which one? The 'hey I just kidnapped you, now you're pirates' trip, the 'getting out of a sinking boat randomly' trip, or the 'greatest free tour ever' trip?"

"The last one."

He smiled, "They should be around here somewhere, he always likes to watch the reactions from his trips. We should get the girls together first, I think they'll want to meet whoever gave them such a nice gift."

After managing to gather all of the elements once more, Avnas led them to a small grove of trees. In the middle of the clearing sat a thin man in a long blue coat. Even to another species, it was evident that he was quite majestic.

His hair was worn long, cascading over his long ears and into two small braids, its deep blue identical to the large coat he wore. He had a kind face, staring at the ground ahead of him, apparently content as he was. He seemed to hear them coming, turning his head slightly to face them. The girls were surprised to see that his eyes were a pale white, lacking almost any pigment whatsoever.

Avnas spoke in a soft, kind voice to the man, looking hardly concerned at the rather large group approaching him. "Hello, Shabriri. It's me. I brought some friends over to meet you. They wanted to thank you for the trip."

"Hello." He said it simply, choosing to stare at them for a while.

"Umm... Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, who are you?"

"I'm Shabriri. Did you enjoy the trip?"

"Yeah we did! It was really neat! Do you do that all the time?" Pinkie had charged right up to the man resting on the ground, smiling widely at him inches away from his face.

"You didn't tell them, Avnas?" He didn't even turn his head away from Pinkie's.

"Sorry, thought you would want to tell them yourself." He walked over to the man and sat next to him, draping an arm over his shoulder. "This is Shabriri, god of blindness and granter of spectacle."

The girls were silent yet again. He certainly didn't seem like much of a god at a glance. He didn't radiate the aura of authority like Andras did and yet had certainly showed his own impressive strength by transporting them such a long distance. They couldn't help but feel a little bad, blindness was extremely, extremely rare in Equestria. They had just been shown one of the most beautiful things in their lives and the one responsible wasn't even able to see it for himself.

"Avnas, they're doing it." He talked in his same gentle voice but the girls couldn't miss the hint of sadness laced in it.

"Girls, while he can't see, Shabriri is able to tell what people feel, that's why he stayed by the portal, to feel everyone's reaction and from what I'm hearing, you all are busy feeling sad about something as stupid as him not being able to see."

The girls felt a sharp surge of guilt over their quick assumptions toward the man. Luna felt foolish for letting herself get caught up in pity. Of course he doesn't mind. He has to be thousands of years old at the very least, he would have obviously either accepted it or never minded in the first place. "I'm sorry for our hasty thinking. We did not think the situation through very well."

He stared at Luna, managing to make eye-contact without actually being able to see her face. After a few seconds, he spoke up. "She means it." he stated simply, like checking an answer on a sheet.

"Well of course she does! She is our princess, what did you expect?" Rainbow dash was getting in his face, oblivious that the usually pointless tactic of intimidation was even more useless on her current opponent.

"That's just him thinking out-loud Rainbow, settle down."

Shabriri spoke again, "You all seemed the happiest when you came out, everyone else started thinking about getting home but you kept talking about the trip. It was nice. I especially liked how you were slightly annoyed at the fact that you aren't able to fly that long yourself, not that you would ever admit that." He exposed one of his hands from the depths of his coat and pointed to Rainbow Dash. "It was like a child losing a footrace." He added while adopting a smile.