A Shadow of Myself

Charlotte stood among the crowd, necklace on, staring up at the balcony of the Crystal Spire where Flurry Heart, flanked on either side by her royal parents, stood addressing the crowd.

"Now to kick off our annual Crystal Faire festivities, please stomp your hooves for the long-running acapella group from Earth, Voiceplay, joined by Equestria's own, Ponytones!!" Princess Flurry Heart announced loudly, pointing at a stage set up near the crowd, and concluding what had been a ten-minute long monologue about friendship, harmony, and the importance of this faire. It had been a bit academic, but the princess had enough enthusiasm in her voice to keep the speech from getting too boring. She made you feel her passion as she spoke.

The curtains of the stage rose, revealing several humans and ponies wearing suits. The crowd cheered and a singer stepped forward and started singing what Charlotte assumed was the Crystal Empire anthem. Two humans stepped forward and started singing harmony to it, and then the rest stepped forward and started singing another round of harmony. The voices were probably amplified by magic, so the crowd didn't drown them out. It was pretty; she couldn't deny that, but it still seemed strange to her that this festival was such a big deal and they only got this for musical entertainment. She really didn't know what was popular in Equestria, but she was sure they had other stuff.

Still, it wasn't a bad way to start the day.

"Happy birthday to me," she said to herself. Officially eighteen.

"Happy birthday, Miss Charlotte!" Empathy joyously said from beside her. She didn't scold him for getting too loud but wished he would be quieter. She was trying to avoid her parents, and he had already made her stick out like a sore thumb by following her around.

The song ended, and the crowd erupted in cheers and hoofstomps. She smiled at her constant companion. "Thanks. Want to see what kinds of activities and food these ponies have for this thing? Sunset gave me plenty of money for my birthday."

"Whatever you want to do, Miss Charlotte."

She gave a long-suffering sigh and looked him in the eyes. "We can do stuff you want to do too. It doesn't always have to be about me, even on my birthday."

"We're already going to do what I want tomorrow. We're going to go find Heavyheart!" Empathy said, practically bouncing.

She didn't want to tell him that the chances of them finding the Forest of Feelings quickly were practically non-existent. There was no telling where her magic was going to land them. They might wander for days before they found anything, if they were lucky. If they weren't lucky, something would find them, and they'd be running for their lives. Heck, she wasn't even sure they were going to end up on the right planet. Sunset seemed confident about it, but Charlotte couldn't imagine why a random portal shouldn't have more chance of opening in the vacuum of space than on a planet. Even if they did get the planet, there seemed more chance of it opening somewhere in the stratosphere, the ocean, or deep underground– there was more of those things.

Maybe she was just being overly pessimistic, but it was her magic, and she didn't understand it. Sunset might be puppeting it, but even Sunset had screwed up spells before or not realized some detail. Part of her wished Sunset would screw up, just so the older unicorn couldn't say she was better at using Charlotte's magic than Charlotte was. Sunset getting it right was deeply humiliating. Puppeting her magic was supposed to cause her pain, but the insult was much worse than the injury in this case.

Happy thoughts. she thought to herself as she took a calming breath. It's my birthday. There's a party going on– not related to my birthday, but still a party. I need to enjoy myself.

All the scouting team was supposedly in the city now. Tomorrow they would be going to another world. She was willingly putting herself, and Andrea by extension, in mortal danger. Heck, she was even willingly going to let Sunset do something that was going to cause her pain, even if her other self said there would be some numbing provided. Why was she doing this?

She looked at Empathy, who looked at her with nothing but adoration. That was why. She had this elephant that she had pulled across the universe that followed her around like a puppy. He only gave her encouragement, never said a harsh word to her, and practically lived his life to make her happy. He was concerned with trying to serve everyone and never complained about anything he was asked to do. It might be selfish of her, but if this was just for the intuits over there, she might not be doing this. She was a coward who didn't want to risk her life, even knowing how bad it was over there for those people, but Empathy deserved better from her. She never had a lot of friends. It was hard to have friends when you spent half your life locked up in Wabash Manor, but Empathy had been the best friend anybody could ask for. She was going to do this for him.

She gave him a warm smile. "What I want to do right now is treat you to some nice crystal berries that I know you'll like."

So, they wandered about and took in the sights. It was easy to spot Andrea from a distance, and avoid her; a giant crystal centaur stood out in a crowd. Since there were many human tourists in town her parents would take a little more work to avoid. Amicus would be especially difficult to pick out amongst all these ponies. Sunset probably wasn't even out and about, so there was no need to worry about running into her. She avoided her parents and Amicus because they were going to plead with her again not to go on this mission. She avoided Sunset on principle. She avoided her sister because her sister kind of hovered and it was annoying. She didn't want her sister playing foalsitter to her; she was a grown adult as of today.

The crystal berry vendor was busy. Every vendor was busy. That left her standing around in line to get served. She took her delay to glance around at what was available to do.

"We could go see the animal petting zoo. Would you like that?" she asked her companion, trying to think of innocent activities for them to do.

He frowned and took a step back, shaking his head. "No. Animals are weird."

She had forgotten that his world didn't seem to have any animals from what he described. The idea of an unintelligent life form other than plants seemed alien to him.

"So, how about checking out the hoofmade crafts?" she asked, pointing to a pony making birdhouses.

"No, crafts don't seem very interesting," he answered. "We could go look at the jousting."

"Jousting?" she asked in surprise. "Isn't that a little violent?"

"I want to see how ponies will fight the bears," he said with earnestness.

Probably not by jousting, she thought to herself. Why did they even joust? It seemed an unusually aggressive and dangerous activity for a day of friendship, good feelings, and fun. It seemed out of place in Equestrian culture in general. They weren't even trying to knock a rider off; they were doing a safer version of trying to skewer each other with a lance charge. They had archery competitions too, and ponies didn't eat meat, so those bows and arrows weren't invented or used for hunting. Perhaps it was some relic from an ancient and violent time. Jimsonweed had spoken about a war Equestria had conducted that had eventually escalated into a full-on genocide of a pony tribe, and the Crystal Empire had empire in its name, indicating a warlike history of conquest, even if it was just one city now. The Crystal Empire was also technically closer to those long-gone times than everywhere else, considering they still had older ponies here that were born more than a thousand years prior, even if their numbers were starting to dwindle with age.

Hey, it's a place where a significant number of people were born before me. If you count my age by birth year, I'm older than everybody on the scout team except for Andrea. Even Princess Cadence was born in the early nineties or late eighties, if I recall right. she thought with mild amusement. Maybe she should point out to her sister that Andrea could be seen as the eldest of the group if interpreted that way.

"We aren't going to beat the bears by jousting them," she informed Empathy. "It will probably be unicorns blasting spells and humans blasting guns if there is a war. I hope there isn't one. Ideally, we beat No Heart, and the bears surrender without a fight. You would prefer that, right? They could try to reform the bears, and you can all be friends again. Nobody wants a war."

"I don't know if I can be friends with a bear after the things they've done," Empathy replied with unusual grimness.

She grimaced. "You got sad for the bears when Sunset…um…took care of the bears that attacked the house." She did not want to make that play on words, but she didn't want to say straight out what her other self did while standing in a crowd.

He crossed his arms. "Nobody wants to see a line ended. She ended a bunch of lines that day, but the bears have ended a bunch of lines too. They ended the Braveheart Lion line."

"Oh, no, not Braveheart," she whispered.

Empathy turned and tilted his head. "How do you know Braveheart?"

"I really need to show you the second Care Bears movie," she replied with a sigh. "Not sure how to do that here."

It was still puzzling how there had been knowledge about the Care Bears that had been turned into greeting cards, toys, and cartoons. In their universe had there been cartoons and toys about ponies? She wondered if her sister was right and some person back in their time really did have some passive magic ability that let them see across universes. Did they know what they were really seeing, or did they just think they had a weird burst of inspiration?

"Mommy! It's an elephant!"

"I see that, Gail. Don't draw too much attention to us."

Charlotte knew that second voice and turned to see a middle-aged black woman with a pink mohawk coming towards them, a young ordinary black girl who looked about ten years old walking beside her.

"You have a kid?!" she asked Phobia's old bodyguard.

Tempest chuckled, which was as strange as Tempest having a kid. "Is that so hard to believe? I actually have two. Be nice and say hi to Miss Charlotte, Gail."

The girl, who was wearing what would be considered a blue Sunday dress, did a clumsy curtsy. "Hello."

"Hi," Charlotte replied. She looked back at Tempest. "Why are you here?"

Tempest bent down to a crouch, so she didn't tower over everybody. "I always intended to return to Equestria. The condition after my humanization was I was exiled until Phobia retired here, so ponies had time to forget I existed, and others wouldn't start asking about the process I underwent. My children's heritage is half here, and they should get a chance to connect with it, even if they aren't ponies."

"I didn't even know you were married. I thought you and Phobia had…a thing," Charlotte said uneasily.

"We do indeed have a thing, and my husband understands that and the limits of that," Tempest answered. "I've been with Phobia longer than him, and he accepts she is always going to be part of my life."

"What kind of thing with Auntie Phobia are you talking about, Mommy?" Gail asked in confusion."Are you talking about your old job?"

Tempest put a hand on her daughter's head and ruffled her hair. "I'll tell you when you're older."

"Ah! Stop it! You'll mess up my hair!" Gail protested, pulling away. "You always say that about stuff. How much older?"

"Older than today," Tempest answered. "Let's tentatively say…sixteen…but don't hold me to that."

"Ugh! That's so long!" Gail whined.

"Could be longer. Have patience," Tempest said with a shrug. "I promise I will tell you, someday, and you know I keep a lot of secrets from my old job."

"Speaking of…why are you here, speaking with me, exactly?" Charlotte asked. "You knew I was here, and you knew it was me, and not Sunset. I haven't seen you in years."

Tempest sighed. "I just wanted to stress that I want you to do everything you can to keep Phobia safe. I won't be there to protect her. None of her bodyguards will be there, either, and I worry. She was never just a job for me…at least, not after the first year or two. She's important to me. I want her to make it home safely. It's as simple as that. Rosetta would be here telling you the same thing, but she's busy taking care of Phobia right now."

"Is the dream realm here really freaking her out that much? Is she going to be okay to go on this mission?" Charlotte asked with concern. That other world's dream realm wouldn't be any better, and would lack Luna there to comfort the retired Dreamwarden.

"She'll have to be," Tempest replied, but the worry was clear in her voice. "Phobia does what is necessary, even if she's afraid. She'll manage."

"Miss Charlotte will bring her back safely, even if Miss Phobia is a big meanie who threatened Miss Charlotte!" Empathy asserted.

"And I know it tore her up to do that," Tempest said. "She had preparations in place for a long time. A sleeper agent was among the guards, ready to put a bullet into Charlotte if the order was given. It would have been my responsibility to communicate the order if it had come before I retired. I'm glad she never gave the order. I would have seriously considered refusing to follow it."

"Would you?" Charlotte asked. Gail looked at her mother, waiting for the reply as well. The girl didn't seem shocked that her mother might be asked to give such an order. How much did the girl know about her mother's old profession as Phobia's top henchperson-bodyguard?

"I don't know," Tempest confessed. "And I'm glad I'll never have to find out."

Well, that's just what she wanted to know on her birthday. One of the guards was set to murder her at the drop of a dime. She knew all the guards. Had joked around with most of them. Sunset treated them as part of the household. Now she knew one of them would have killed her, no questions asked. It was enough to give someone trust issues. Oh, and Tempest was fine discussing this in a public place, right in front of her kid and all these ponies! She was doing it without a care in the world. Was there anything normal about life?

"Well, we are going to have three seasoned adventurers, two of the most powerful ponies of their respective tribes, and a freaking alicorn princess with us. Andrea and I won't be needed for keeping Phobia safe," Charlotte said.

"I'll be there too!" Empathy reminded them.

"And Empathy," Charlotte added, although he could be lumped in with her. Andrea at least was very strong or could resist magic. Charlotte and Empathy were both non-combatants who were useless in a fight. "Sunset even gave me instructions on how to do an emergency withdrawal back home if things go bad. We'll be fine."

Tempest nodded. "An impressive group, still, I worry. I understand their desire not to make the group too big, so as not to attract attention, but I am still going to recommend another bodyguard to the princesses. I have just the guard in mind."

"Who?" Charlotte asked.

"Bursa. You've never met her. Her existence is classified. Sunset knows who she is since Bursa is one of Sunset's past sins, or at least, indirectly, one of her past sins. It's a little harsh to say, but that monster will jump at any chance to get off Equestria, and everybody else will be pleased watching her go somewhere other than Equestria or Earth."

"You want to send a monster along? Isn't that the opposite of keeping Phobia safe?"

Tempest shook her head. "Bursa isn't malicious. She is what she is, and what she is can't be allowed to get to Earth. Her ongoing focus is trying to figure out how to do just that, and that makes her troublesome. She isn't very bright, but she does have a wide range of abilities that could help in this mission. She resents being held on Equestria and will eagerly accept a chance to go to this other world, even if it isn't the one she wants to go to. Plus, it gives her a chance to study you. I'm sure she'll watch you like a hawk and make sure you are safe if you can make portals to other worlds. It is something that gives her hope."

"That's just cruel," Charlotte protested, nervously shuffling her hooves at the thought of some monster lusting after her powers.

"It's practical," Tempest replied. "She'll keep you and the rest of the group safe because you present an opportunity she doesn't want to risk losing. Cadence and Phobia will be able to keep Bursa in line. You just need to watch your back once you return. Bursa's going to be very eager."

Great, another long-term problem. Maybe she could convince everybody to leave Bursa out of this. She couldn't be that useful.