What are They?
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A New World (Discontinued)

What are They?

Princess Celestia's day was excruciatingly boring as usual. Ponies were coming in for Day Court to pitch ideas for better governmental organization, asking for funds to repair buildings, and many other things. This was a repeat process until all of a sudden the Guard Captain, Prophet, barged into the throne room.

"Princess! You must come quickly! Something has fallen from the sky!" Celestia sat up quickly. if something new has entered her kingdom, she must deal with it now, else something bad could happen.

"Day court is now over. If you wish to wait for my possible return, then you may, but if I do not return, your questions and concerns will have to wait until tomorrow. This is a matter I must attend to." As the nobles talked amongst themselves, wondering why Celestia would have to cancel Day Court so abruptly, the Princess walked up to the Guard Captain.

"Captain Prophet, what is this thing that has fallen from the sky?" Celestia inquired.

"It is a creature that has two legs, and has robes on that feel as if they are made of incredibly strong metal. It has weird pointy ears and a tannish coat. We thought about moving the creature to a safe place for you to look at it, but it was too heavy for the guards to lift, even with magic. There is also the matter of the weaponry it carries." Celestia's eyes widened at those words. "The creature has what seems to be a rather large sword strapped to its back, and a hammer, as well as a sword and shield rest nearby. The weapons are also much too heavy for us to lift. Fortunately, the creature seemed to be unconscious."

"Thank you captain, for the report. Let us go see what this creature is. Please, lead the way, and hopefully, we can get this all figured out."

Prophet saluted and led the princess through the halls of the castle to her private garden. Upon enter the garden, she saw the creature, almost exactly as Prophet had described it, however, the creature was awake and wielding a giant sword. Something the princess saw that the guards did not, however, was that the creature's eyes were a solid, light green. Guards had surrounded the creature in attempt to contain it. The creature looked fearful of the new pony that enter the room, and only said these words.

"Anaria shola!" The princess was taken aback. The creature could speak? she wanted to respond properly, but did not know what language the creature was speaking. For a moment Celestia thought about possibly using a translation spell. after a quick battle of reasoning going on in her head, Celestia decided it would be best to try and communicate with the creature. She channeled her magic into her horn and cast the spell, however, as she did this, Celestia noticed the creature change into a sort of battle stance.

"I must apologize for the rude awakening. My guards tell me you fell from the sky unconscious. Might I ask who and what you are?" Celestia tried speaking in a calm and nonthreatening tone, but the creature held its supposed battle stance.

The creature raised an eyebrow in question. "You can speak my language? A horse of all things can speak my language?" The guards in the garden looked offended and ready to attack, but Celestia raised a hoof to stop them, knowing that things were likely different where the creature was from. "Speak, before I decide I'm done waiting and make you speak."

"No I cannot speak your language, you are simply hearing the language you best understand through a translation spell." This caused the creature to raise it's eyebrow once more.

"A spell? You can use magic?" The creature seemed to be even more wary than before.

Celestia noticed this and tried to make the situation less stressful. "Yes, those of us with horns on our heads have access to numerous spells, such as translation, levitation, and teleportation. Most only know basic levitation though." Celestia lifted a potted plant off the ground as she mentioned leviation. The creature had hardly moved so she decided to put the pot down. "Anyhow, do you have a name? I am Celestia, Princess of the Sun."

"Thelmai, Highlord of the Silver Hand." The creature, now know as Thelmai, seemed to relax a bit as the conversation got started.

"Well then, Thelmai, I have a few questions, but before I ask them, Guards, you may be dismissed." The guards looked at her in confusion, however, they knew better than to disobey the princess. After Celestia watched the guards leave, She turned back to Thelmai and started talking once more. "Please, answer me this, what are you, and how did you get here?"

"I will answer those once I know where I am. What is this place?" Thelmai had many questions herself, but would wait until she knew where she was, and that she knew Celestia wasn't a threat.

"You are in Canterlot, capital city of Equestria. Now please, what are you, and how did you get here?"

Thelmai held her stance, ready for a fight, and answered in a less than simple way. "I am of the Sin'dorei, or Blood Elves, as we are often called. I would get into the story behind what we are, but quite frankly, I still do not trust you." Celestia nodded her head in acknowledgement. "As for how I got here, me and a few others of great power were trying to create a gateway across multiple worlds. We wished to help worlds that had fallen to the Burning Legion, an army of demons. We both succeeded and failed at the same time it would seem. The gateway brought me here after it exploded with too much arcane energies. As for the others, I am unsure of their fate."

"This, Burning Legion; what exactly did they do? The name sounds terrible, but surely a name isn't everything." Celestia seemed slightly wary about asking this question, but knew she had to know most everything if she were to trust this, 'blood elf' , as it described itself.

"They corrupt and destroy worlds. They were on a crusade to destroy all life in our universe, and nearly did just that, but we stopped them at our world. Other worlds were still salvageable, but we needed to reach them fast else we would have lost them to the corruption." Thelmai had dropped out of her battle stance and out the sword on her back, realizing that the horse meant no harm.

Celestia's eyes wandered momentarily to the weapons before asking another question. "How did you stop them? I've noticed you carry large weaponry, so surely that played a part?"

"Correct, the sword I currently wield is known as the Ashbringer, and it has never failed to slay the evil of the legion with it's Holy magic. The others you see are unimportant at this time, however, should they be needed, they will be explained. All carry large amounts of Holy magic." Celestia looked a little scared if all it took was this one creature and her weapons to stop the horrors that Thelmai had described. "I will also say this because of the wariness I see in your eyes. I am a Paladin. I follow a strict code, and would never use my connection to the light and Holy magics to harm you. I only harm those would would do harm unto others. Please do not worry."

A Paladin? Celestia had not seen one of those in a long time. It had been reported years ago that the last Paladin had died in battle against Sombra before she and Luna sealed Sombra in ice, so this was not an unwelcome sight. She cleared her throat. "Well, um, thank you for the clarification. Anyhow, I have some more questions, would you follow me to my study so that we may discuss things more?"

"Certainly."

Things were going as they normally do for Twilight, however, fate decided that today was going to be anything but normal for the purple Alicorn when a explosion went off in the distance.

BOOOOOOM!!!

It was off in the direction of the Everfree Forest "That's strange, not many things could have made the castle shake like that, or make an explosion of that magnitude. Discord is off on a vacation across Equestria so it couldn't be him. All magical artifacts are watched over by Daring Do, so unless something got past, it couldn't be that, and with Daring being who she is, nothing but Discord could get those artifacts. The only other thing I can think of is a magical explosion, but that would mean..." Twilight's eyes went wide. A gateway had opened into their world. Their world was filled with magic. Only something like a collapsing dimensional gateway mixed with their worlds magic could match the artifacts that Daring Do held. "Oh no."

New creatures in their world was always bad news, but if they arrived by gateway, it was even worse. That meant they possessed magic, powerful magic. Twilight grabbed her things and thought about teleporting around town to find her friends so they could deal with whatever came through the gateway she heard explode. Luckily, her friends all happened to be at Applejacks to test the Apple Families newest batch of Cider.

"Girls! We need to hurry! Something crazy happened off toward the Everfree Forest!" Everypony noticed that Twilight looked rather distraught, however, they did not notice that Fluttershy visibly tensed up upon hearing about something crazy off in that direction.

"Twilight? What's goin' on? I thought ya were going to busy with reorganizing your library today." Applejack was the first to speak up.

"None of you felt that explosion of energy from earlier? It shook the castle! Not just anything could have done that!"

They all looked at each other quizzically. "I cannot say that we did Twilight. Why? Is it important?" Rarity spoke up this time as they looked back at Twilight.

"Yes it's important! Meet me by the Tree of Harmony in 5 minutes!" With that, Twilight teleported away to The Castle of the Two Sisters in order to prepare. When she arrived at the castle everything seemed normal. However, just inside, she could feel something giving off great power. Twilight stepped inside and gasped at the sight before her.

There was a biped wearing what looked to be glowing robes. It had pointy ears and purple skin. There was a sword at the biped's hip, and two staves lay nearby. Twilight approached the body and placed a hoof on it's midsection. It looked dead, then Twilight heard a pained groan come out if its mouth. Again, A gasp came out of Twilight. She backed up quickly. It was still alive! How could have it survived the explosion?

Twilight didn't know what to do. She wracked her brain for ideas, and only one thing came to mind, but that was because she heard her friends in the distance heading down to the Tree. She had to get the creature to safety. Even though she knew nothing about it, she couldn't just leave it there to die in the Everfree Forest. She knew what had to be done. She grabbed the creature, and almost forgot the staves, but the realized that a lot of the power she had felt was coming from the staves. She grabbed them as well, and teleported them back to her castle. She didn't feel safe leaving power like that alone.

Twilight had to get back to the castle soon to make sure the creature was ok, but unfortunately, her friends chose that exact moment to show up at the steps just across the chasm. She knew she had to to something otherwise the creature may die.

"GIRLS" They all looked over in the direction of the sound and saw Twilight running at them. As she reached them, panting and out of breath, they all thought to themselves why Twilight was over at the castle.

"Um, Twi, why were you at the ruined castle? I thought we were meeting at the Tree of Harmony." Rainbow spoke up above everypony else.

As Twilight caught her breath, she responded. "You can head back girls, I found the source of the explosion already and took care of it. I cleaned up the area as well, you can all head back to town if you want." They all exchanged looks and just shrugged at each other. They decided not to question Twilight because she seemed to be unscathed. They journeyed back through the Everfree Forest and headed back to Ponyville, and as the girls reached the edge of it, they turned to have Twilight join them back at Sweet Apple Acres, but Twilight was already headed directly to her castle.

Twilight didn't need a town wide panic created by a new creature. As she arrived at her castle, she felt chills run along her spine, almost as if something was climbing in power. Once she opened the door, she witnessed a rather scary sight.

The creature had awoken and had what felt like a magical hurricane surrounding it. It seemed to be in a meditative state. She could feel the raw power in the room climbing to levels she hadn't ever felt before, not even when facing off against Tirek or Discord. She slowly entered her castle in a quiet manner, hoping to subdue the creature without incident. However, as she moved quietly and slowly around the room, Twilight felt almost as if she was always being followed by the power in room. As she neared the creature to try and put it back to sleep with a spell, it spoke up in a language that Twilight, surprisingly, understood. "What do you hope to accomplish by sneaking around like that? I can track your every movement because of the magic in the air, so please, do not make this hard on yourself."

Twilight froze. The creature spoke her language, and not only that, but it could track her movements? What kind of creature was this? Twilight could only think of one way to continue without her getting hit by the power the creature was outputting. "What are you?"

"I am of the Shal'dorei, or Nightborne, as I am often called. I would divulge more, but before I do, I must ask your name." The creature was straight to the point.

"I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship. I meant no harm. I had found you in a forest outside of town and teleported you hereto try and tend to your wounds, but when I arrived here myself, you were awake. I had thought you should be sleeping because of how hurt you looked." As she said this, the creature scoffed.

"I thank you for your concern, but so far, I have detected nothing on this world that could possibly harm me extensively, with the exception of yourself and 3 others that display similar power to yourself." The creature seemed to shrug off the notion that anything compared to its power. "Anyhow, I am Theryne, Conjurer of the Guardians of Tirisfal, and Archmage of the Kirin Tor."

"What do you mean that nothing can harm you? Everypony in Equestria can use magic in some way or another, and I bet that most ponies could harm." The creature laughed at this.

"Twilight, is it?" Twilight nodded. "I have fought and killed those who command the dead, colossal dragons that command power over the earth itself, and even gods. the only creatures on this planet that come even remotely close to my power are you, and like I mentioned before, 3 others that carry a similar magical signature to yours." Twilight looked rather upset at the notion that her magical prowess was less that great, but before she could speak up, the creature continued. "I will say this now, the only reason I am giving you any leeway on my power at all, is because I have not fully connected to the leylines throughout your world." Theryne conjured two images, one of herself, and one of Twilight. One was large, while the other was about the size of Theryne's arm. "Let me put this into perspective for you. The images you see now represent our power difference at this moment." Twilight's image suddenly started to shrink to about the size of Theryne's finger. "This is our power difference once I hit full power."

Seeing this sent Twilight into a silent rage. There was no way a single creature could hold that much power. "Listen here you--." A Letter appeared in Twilight's face. It bared the royal seal. Twilight quickly opened the letter knowing that only one pony would use the royal seal to send her a personal letter.

Princess Twilight,

I require your presence in Canterlot at once. Please arrive as soon as you possibly can and treat this situation with the utmost urgency. I also require the presence of your friends so that they may witness what you will witness as well. I trust that you will will arrive within the next day or two.

~ Princess Celestia

What could the letter possibly mean? What was so urgent that she basically had to drop everything and go to Canterlot? "I will be going with you." This comment made Twilight freeze up in both fear and curiosity. How had Theryne read the letter? How had she even gotten close enough to read it? Unfortunately, Twilight would never know.

"WHAT?!?" Twilight did not want Theryne following her to Canterlot. She had the idea in her head that Celestia would do something horrible if this new, rather powerful, creature appeared in her throne room. "You will not be coming with me! If something is urgent enough to require my friends and I, than you should not be coming along, curiosity or otherwise!"

"Miss Sparkle, I am going with you to meet the princess. It is only fitting that I introduce myself to her if I am to be in this world for an extended period of time. If you were in her position, wouldn't you prefer knowing about my existence rather than me showing up at random?" Theryne put forth a solid argument. Twilight could not find any fault with her reasoning. "Besides, I can cast and hold long term invisibility spells. The time may be shortened because I have not fully connected to your world yet, but it is a simple spell to cast should I need to re-apply it."

Twilight groaned in frustration. "Fine, but stay out of sight, and if you feel your spell fading move somewhere secluded on the train and cast the spell again. I don't need you causing widespread panic."

"Very well, I will abide by your rules until, at the very least, we get to the castle. Is that fair?"

"I would say stay hidden until we get to the throne room, but I guess the guards would notice you anyway." Twilight sighed. "Alright, let's get going."

A clearing inside the Everfree forest held what appeared to be a glowing blue cat. It was almost as if a mist was covering it. It also had what appeared to be armor covering it's back legs, a set of large metal claws on it's front paws, and a crown like piece of armor upon its head. Its last discernible physical trait was that of the large two canine teeth, similar to that of a saber-tooth. Unfortunately, the creature was covered head to tail in scratches, bruises and cuts. This creature was Caylsse, the Archdruid.

The magic of the Everfree was not reacting kindly to the newest member of its domain. This was especially evident with the number of timberwolves headed the way of this new creature. As they rapid closed in on the area however, Caylsse stirred and was beginning to wake up. "Ohhhhhh. My head." Then the creature heard it. the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. 'What could that be?' The creature thought.

The cat creature got it's answer much sooner than it would have liked. A group of what appeared to be nearly 100 timberwolves surrounded the clearing and began advancing. The cat looked like it almost raised an eyebrow. "Really? you think that you wooded, wait, what are you, wolves? Interesting, anyway, you things think you are any match for me? Well then, by all means, bring it on." With that, the timblerwolves jumped on the cat all at once. The creature was slowly buried under the bodies of the wolves, and they began to howl in triumph, however, something interesting happened. The pile of wolves began to shake.

The glowing cat burst out of the pile, seemingly without a scratch on it. It held a renewed vigor, and it looked as if it's wounds had healed. "Really? You think that could possibly hurt me? You creatures must be dumb if you think attacking me with nature based magic was a good idea. I'm a druid, I control magic like that with ease, and all you did was regenerate my reserves and heal me by attacking me like that." The timberwolves looked at each other in a confused manner, until one of them fell apart. At this, the timberwolves understood the severity of what the creature had done, and did the smart thing. They started to run away.

"Looks like they smartened up." In a flash of smoke, the cat transformed into a bipedal creature with pointy ears, pinkish skin and glowing white eyes. It had purple hair and what looked like red paint around it's eyes in pointed design. It was in a robe that held large amounts of orange, and what looked like large shoulderpads with heavy padding. The most interesting thing, however, is that there seemed to be a miniature moon floating on the creatures head."Alright, where are we? Last thing I remember is that gateway exploding, and I certainly don't remember Azeroth having any wooden wolves."

As she was contemplating where exactly she was, Caylsse heard what sounded almost like a train whistle in the distance. "A train? Alright, at least there are people here; Question is, are they friend or foe? I suppose I should go find out, otherwise I might be stuck here. I can't seem to shapeshift into Storm Crow or Lunarwing Owl."

Caylsse traveled through the forest, but as she neared where she heard the train whistle, she felt a burst of power, and it was power she recognized. 'Theryne? What is she doing here?' Caylsse thought to herself. 'She's using her invisibility spell? she almost never uses that. Something powerful must be nearby then, but I can't sense any power greater than Theryne's and my own.' Caylsse was really confused. What could Theryne be doing in the direction of the train she had heard? She had to find out.

As she neared viewing distance of the train, Caylsse shapeshifted back into her cat form, and entered invisibility. She had to do some scouting before she revealed herself to possible enemies. She ran across the small field between the treeline and the train in a rapid fashion, hoping to get there before the train set off. As she neared the train, Caylsse could feel Theryne's power move inside the train. 'Why is she getting in the train? I should hop on as well so I can find out.' Caylsse thought to herself.

Caylsse hopped up on the train , however, once she did, she noticed that there seemed to be an unusually high number of equine life forms talking and walking around the train platform. 'What are these creatures? They look like horses but they speak a cohesive language. If Theryne is walking around in the train with these creatures, hopefully she can tell me what's going on.'

The train blew it's whistle signaling that it was departing shortly. Caylsse took this opportunity to quietly sneak into the train and make her way to the caboose. As she reached the caboose, she decloaked and shapeshifted back into her bipedal form knowing that she was safe and hidden. As she did this, Caylsse started talking out loud to herself. "How can I possibly contact Theryne? Normally we could set up some kind of mind link, but without access to the full power of our magic... Wait. That's it! I could grow some kind of vine on the train to tell Theryne I'm here! Only one thing could possibly grow some kind of plant life on metal like this train, my magic!" Caylsse must have shouted because as she was celebrating the birth of her idea, she heard what sounded like hooves outside the door to the caboose.

"Are you sure you heard something? Nopony ever comes back here. Also, you can lose the invisibility, the only pony back here is me."

"Yes Twilight, I'm sure of it, and the voice sounded familiar for some reason, but I cannot place my finger on it. Also, I appreciate the thought about it Twilight, but I am not taking any chances, not yet." Theryne spoke in a whisper as to avoid suspicion.

That voice.. It was Theryne! 'Crap, I need to hide, and fast, If Theryne found someone to talk and bond with, they must hold some kind of power. Uhhh, oh right. Cat form and stealth.' Caylsse quickly shifted forms and hid herself from any prying eyes. It was at that moment the door opened and revealed the form of a purple pony with wings and a horn. 'Huh, that's new.'

"I told you it was nothing Theryne, you must have been hearing things." Twilight seemed rather proud at proving Theryne wrong.

"No, there's something here. It was just a voice earlier, but now I feel the presence of a large power." As Theryne said this, she cut her invisibility spell, and spotted a vine growing rather quickly at her feet. She smiled. "Only one thing could grow something like that in a place like this."

"What do you mean? Something like that is impossible! Even with any kind of magic!" Twilight looked frustrated and perplexed. There was nothing in the known world that could possibly grow plant-life like that without some kind of soil.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that Twilight." Theryne turned from Twilight to the back of the caboose. "Caylsse, I know it's you. You are the only person I know with the power to pull off something like that, and I must say, I'm glad you survived the explosion."

"What the heck is a Caylsse!?!" As Twilight said this, the air at the back of the train car rippled and a blue creature slowly started to appear. "What is --." Twilight gasped in shock. Standing five feet in front of her was a a heavily armored blue cat. She was about to question Theryne when the cat spoke.

"Hey Theryne! Good to see you survived as well." Caylsse projected her voice in a telepathically to Theryne and Twilight.

"IT CAN TALK!?!" Twilight opened her mouth and make some weird noises as if she was in shock.

"Well, not in this form, I'm just projecting my thoughts telepathically." As the cat creature said this, a puff of smoke took it's place, and after the smoke settled, a creature, similar in stature to Theryne was standing in the cat's place. Twilight looked back and forth between Theryne and Caylsse, having a hard time processing the fact that there were two overly powerful creatures standing in front of her.

"Caylsse, this is Princess Twilight. We're heading to the capital city of this land called Equestria to speak with another ruler who has summoned her. Some kind of urgent situation." Theryne was getting straight to the point.

"Equestria, huh? That would explain the sentient ponies." She turned to Twilight and closed her mouth. "Careful, you'll catch flies." At that, Twilight fainted and Caylsse turned back to Theryne. "Do you think Thelmai survived like we did? I mean, I know she's tougher than us, but that was A LOT of magical feedback that hit us."

"I'm sure she survived. She was always out front getting hit by things harder than that magical feedback explosion. She probably just lost her mana reserves and needs to connect to the new leylines on this world to restore it, same as us."

"Where do you think she is?" Caylsse looked and sounded worried.

"If I had to guess, she's probably somewhere where her connection to the light is its strongest." Theryne sounded certain that Thelmai was alive and well. Little did they know how right they were.

Author's Note

I could not find a literal translation for 'Who are you?' in the Sin'dorei language of Thalassian, so I went with something that mean something similar.

Anaria shola translates to 'Speak your business.'
leylines are conduits that help mana and magic flow freely throughout worlds.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated!