The sun came early one night.
Illuminating with such radiance.
The air became poison under its light.
The land became withered.
What life remained on our planet we spent fighting each other for the scraps of our civilization.
Jets flew, dropping bombs on ally and foe alike.
Armies ran on the whole desperation of trying to find a place where to sleep.
Fire engulfed what few countries remained.
Little hope remained in our hearts until one day we heard a song. One that called for us.
A wave of a wonderful new beginning took us.
Christians and Muslims claimed it was the call of God for reckoning.
Atheists tried investigating it, only to fall to their knees as hope overcame them.
In the end, we all followed without a thought.
Cities moved.
Families rushed.
Enemy armies stopped fighting, their vehicles ditching ammo to make space for whoever could ride on them.
For a moment civility returned, all hands helped each other to get into ships, planes, trains, or cars.
An exodus flew from all the corners of the world.
All to visit a glowing visage in the middle of the sea near Hormuz.
The sound coming from it eased the heart, it called us to seek it, clamoring for our arrival, so we might rest.
A ship that a day before was shelling Kuwait sailed through it.
On its prow were a man from London and another from Moscow.
Once on the other side, they both swam to the beach, followed by almost the entire crew.
The sand on their feet wasn't irradiated.
The sun over them wasn't obscured.
The air they breathed was pure.
So they said thank you in all of their languages.
For there they saw that humanity had another chance.
One which we would never even think of refusing.
- Words from an unknown refugee from the North American Convoy
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Celestia was going to be so happy!
Oh, and Twilight was gonna be so proud.
Anything bad about her would be outshined if she managed to do this.
For a long time she thought of so many methods of equalizing the opportunities between all ponies, and it always had been so easy! She was just too blind to see it.
One of the ways was that there were sometimes distances too long for anypony to walk through, thus trains became a thing. But not everybody had the bits to afford it, nor were they widespread enough to be the definitive answer.
Flight might’ve been the best idea, a transport method that used the all-encompassing air to travel everywhere, like airships but faster; to not limit that travel to those unicorns that knew how to levitate or the proud Pegasi. Sadly, she didn’t have the knowledge to work on them, so it was a dead end.
So the next best option to help with was using magic.
How so?
Simple! By making it possible for everybody to teleport wherever they wanted.
At least that was her first idea until she realized that it was impossible, since all would-be users would need some degree of magic proficiency to even know where they were to go.
Not to mention, all things teleportation were horribly taxing, even for her and Twilight.
The next best idea was to do something akin to a train, but instantaneous, a series of portals not limited by the constraints of railways, using magic instead of coal to fuel it. All by creating a constant flow of a teleportation spell between two waypoints where ponies would have to just enter, enjoy the ride through the limbo between two magically-connected locations; and appear on the other side!
The only problematic thing was to keep it open and constantly fed, otherwise it could collapse and… Yeah, she didn’t want to be somepony unable to teleport trapped in the middle of nowhere.
But she knew this was possible, Chancellor Neighsay could open portals to a similar degree, but the problem was the scale, and the permanency of the portals; which were totally different from the scope of his medallion.
For a moment she thought of using the magic mirrors to help her, only to fall in the same problem of scope and replicability.
She had to figure this out for herself, and also figure out how to make it affordable both magically and economically.
Because again, teleportation was intensive.
Trixie might’ve been able to help her, but she wanted this to be her endeavor in case she failed. That same reason was why she didn’t tell Twilight, who might be a little wary that this was just an excuse to not be making new friends.
Luckily for her, she had borrowed from Twilight’s lab a few crystals she’d enchanted to be able to help her with the enormous cost of magic she knew this would have. With that, a few of her books, and a lot of inspiration, she tried to do a little proof of concept as soon as she could.
She embarked on a small fishing trawler, the Bountiful Lurker, sailing off the coast of Baltimare; obviously after telling the greyish-blue old-timer manning it about her wishes to do her experiment. Because doing it in the middle of the sea meant that little damage could be done if she failed.
The old timer was obviously reluctant, she wanted to use his vessel to go through a magic portal that was to link this part of the Celestial Sea with one of the lakes of Canterlot, which seemed like a fool’s errand to him; luckily, a bag of bits was more than enough to convince him to aid her, despite his protest that she should be careful to not destroy his ship.
After carefully measuring that the sea was at its calmest point of the day to prevent any surge of waves from disrupting the experiment; she began to work on the deck, getting her reading material out just to be sure. Her calculations about the strength needed or how she should conduct things forced herself to lay surrounded by a sea of scrolls, personal notes and some amulets brought just to be able to carefully measure anything she could.
“Oh dear, sea ain’t the place to read up, lass,” the old timer said while he walked over to starboard with a fishing rod as old as he was. “Your pages are going to get all messed with this air.”
He then passed one of his hooves through the old Captain coat that covered most of his torso, and went on to throw the line right at the middle of the sea, after adding some chum to the hook.
She paid not much attention to him, for the nerves were getting to her, stealing her concentration. The pressure that something might go wrong was eating her up.
There was a need for precision, so as to not casually cause a rupture that went to damage Baltimare, even as far as they were from there; but with enough power to send this entire vessel through the other side in a round trip.
One slip and they might appear in the middle of nowhere, or get trapped in some sort of limbo.
Her ears fluttered, her body tensing as she kept reading the notes Celestia had written about teleporting objects for her.
Mister Placid Shallows, the old-timer, kept a constant eye on his line, waiting for any movement that indicated fish swimming nearby; but the minutes passed and nothing came by.
For a second he glanced to the side, looking for if the gal had made any progress.
By this point she was ruffling her hair, eyes slightly squinted.
With a sigh, he decided to give her a few words, some old man’s advice he’d stolen from a book.
“Girl, if you have any trouble, remember that the simplest solution is normally the correct one.”
He expected to only help her calm down a bit, and for a moment he got that, her eyes sat on him, her ears stopped moving, and even her mouth showed a smile for a second.
That disappeared quickly though, she rolled her eyes and immediately squealed anguished words.
“But even that is complicated! It seems easy but so many things could go wrong, so many things!” As she spoke, Mister Placid closed his eyes and listened attentively, maybe he could earn some tips if he helped her with this. “I need to make this work, even if for a few minutes, that way I can show it to the Princesses and they’ll give me support in this; I could really do so much good for everybody if I-”
‘She talks as much as my wife.’ - He thought while her words became white noise to him.
He spaced out while she spoke, trying to feel if his line moved at all, but no, this was a calm day, only stripped clouds in the sky, with no wind, no movement on the water.
It wasn’t until he noticed that she was looking at him, with eyebrows tilting up, mouth corners down, lips pouting a bit, that he noticed she was waiting for some words from him, probably advice on what to do.
Damn.
“Uh-heh… Yeah-hum…” He babbled before shaking his head and placing his rod on the deck floor to turn around and face the gal. “I think you should just do it, worst case scenario I lose my ship, but you gave me enough to replace this rust bucket.”
For a moment that seemed to do the trick, but this mare just wasn’t falling for his empty words of advice, though luckily she didn’t notice that he had paid no attention to her.
She pointed towards one of the scrolls she had surrounded by three magenta-colored crystals and then to the bunch of notes she had on said piece of cloth.
“I’m just afraid that this won’t be enough to maintain the teleportation spell. I know how to teleport things, but making a constantly open portal is something only I am crazy enough to think of, because of how magic-taxing it will be.”
There was a degree of confidence in her voice, he could see that she knew what she was talking about; but to him, this was such a no-brainer, so much so that he scratched his beard and happily shouted: “Then just fill it with as much magic as you can, lady, better to fail and see what went wrong than crying and doing nothing!”
She looked at him in awe for a second, her head tilting to the side.
He thought he had screwed up. She was obviously preoccupied because this was important to her, he didn’t know how much, but if she was able to spend a small fortune on this; it had to be a personal project of a high magnitude. The number of things she had brought to ensure it worked and how frustrated she was at her undecidedness spoke about it even more.
But no, she wasn’t offended or anything. She got up from the ground, standing on her four hooves, then her brow furrowed, a cheeky smile formed in her mouth and her cheeks became flushed with energy.
“You know what old man? You’re right! I didn’t come here for nothing. I can’t be fearful of this, if I make it through this, this will be start of something wonderful!”
This was just what she needed, she felt that this was a dumb idea, but better to do it than not. Her heart now was invigorated, decided.
“That’s the spirit!” Placid replied before clapping his hooves to celebrate her, giving her a warm smile now that she wasn’t going to be all gloomy on his ship’s deck.
As he was clapping, a glow came from her horn, celestine magic imbued the three crystals she’d brought to sustain the Baltimare end of the portal.
Then, from her bag came the other three she was going to use in Canterlot, tinted blue to differentiate them.
The look in her eyes spoke of determination, and the flow of magic only she could clearly see as from her very being came the energy to trap inside of these crystals fed off this determination.
And yet following the man’s advice, she knew something else was needed here.
“Mister Placid, can you get another crystal from my bag?” She asked while her whole being was concentrated in overcharging these crystals. “It’s a greenish one, it has five spikes. I think I’ll prepare it just in case something…”
“Goes awry?”
“Mhm.” She nodded in agreement.
He quickly galloped to the mess of magic studies on the floor to grab her leather bag, not noticing how his rod had picked off something and fell to the sea as the hooked fish ran away. He then rummaged a bit, resisting to grab some bits he found littered there before finding a barely ten-centimeter-long shard of magic crystal that glowed in lime tone, he took it with care between two of his hooves and left it just in the middle of the circle Starlight had made with the other six.
“Thank you.” She calmly said as the crystal then slowly began levitating with that turquoise aura around it, until it was in the air with the others, collecting the leftover energy the other almost-bursting crystals couldn’t take.
With this, the old mariner had nothing to do but watch in awe as slowly the connections of the magic threads feeding each of the shards were revealed to his eyes as the flow between them strengthened.
For an earth pony like him, who had devoted his life to just knowing the ins and outs of this Equestrian coast, this was a spectacle to behold. Even when he noticed that over starboard was his rod floating in the water he didn’t take his sight out of this show.
Starlight herself kept doubting herself, even as her whole energy was being put into securing that this will be all or nothing, but then she saw the gaping mouth of the old man, she couldn’t just give up now, she’d come too far already.
So she then focused, leaving the other four crystals on top of her main scroll and throwing them far away from the prow, all the while her horn prepared for one of the biggest surges of magic she’d ever put off.
Once the crystals landed on the water they began floating over it, forming a ‘V’ with teal chains of magic uniting them.
Placid went to take a sit on the bow’s capstan and Starlight on the furthest point of the bow to oversee this all.
“Are you ready?” She asked hiding her emotion.
“Just don’t blow up my ship lady.” He sarcastically replied.
After that, instead of what she’d do to teleport herself somewhere, she canalized the spell with the crystals to create a rift in existence.
From her horn emanated the strength to begin slowly forming a cut in the air and sea. The crystals separated, either sinking on the sea or going further into the air as the visage of teal magic began showing not the Celestial sea, but the mountains of Canterlot, the river that fed the lake where the second rift was opening, and the metropolis surrounding the Castle housing the rulers of Equestria.
Her heart fluttered with emotion, which only fueled more energy into this, causing the portal to grow in size.
She was trembling, this was weakening her, but it was worth it, she was doing the unimaginable, more than erasing Cutie Marks, this was one of the things that could mandate the future for all of ponykind!
It was just when she noticed that the crystals were beginning to get cracks due to how much magic she was flowing through them that she stopped herself.
In front was a portal as tall above the water as a castle, as wide as the rivers flowing from the Neighagra Talls, and flowing with untethered magic that caused the air around it to be blurred.
One sigh of relief and then giggles of satisfaction came from her; she had made it.
A portal, a real one.
The only thing that she needed to test now was how strong it was.
So she wasted no time and exclaimed: “Mister Placid, please move this ship at full steam!”
He had to be woken up from his stupor first, he was utterly fixated on the majestic show of prowess in front of him, but once he stood up he went to the cabin and re-started the engine of his ship.
Soon it began moving towards the visage in reality.
Both could smell the mineral water that flowed from the mountains of Canterlot through the portal.
It was so close, she couldn’t resist but squeal in happiness as she saw how the clear sky with the slightly lighter blue sky there contrasted with the open sea; a proof of how distant was her machination; which only filled her with more emotion and pride.
Then, the prow touched the portal. She held her breath in anticipation, closing her eyes…
Only the movement of the ship accompanied her.
“WE DIDN’T DIE!” She heard from the back of the ship.
She opened her eyes, breathing in, and marveling at the fact that they were indeed in front of the portal, but on the other side. Around them, there was still only water, but further away was Canterlot, the forests, the mountains, the countless rivers, the spongy clouds above, a rainbow far away; and the grace of this marvelous site.
Then, the wave of pride, of tear-provoking joy came, for she gritted her teeth so as to not fall into her emotions.
No, there was still work to be done.
“Stabilize the ship!” She ordered the Captain, and he obliged, turning off the engine, dropping the anchor.
With her horn, she levitated the blue crystals as she ran to the aft of the ship, where she then carefully led the shards into the same positions where their counterparts on the other side rested, for she saw how for a moment the portal wobbled as they went through.
Though she did it quickly, almost rashly, she made it, and the portal stabilized.
What’s more, now that her eyes moved up and down, inspecting any sign of weakness in her creation, she saw how some curious fish moved from the salt water of the ocean and into the freshwater of the lake, only to quickly realize the mistake of their actions and go back into the sea.
This was such a crazy idea, but she had made it!
Now the only thing to be done was to…
“Hey little girl, I’m sorry if this is a dumb question, but are your crystals supposed to crack?” The old timer had come to the aft to watch the portal and Canterlot for himself, but he quickly noticed what Starlight had done before.
But this time, the shards kept getting small fractures, they weren’t stopping, rather they were spreading quickly.
Her face filled with horror, mouth open, heart pumping heavily and with such speeds that almost hyperventilated her.
If she didn’t do anything her experiment would fail!
Just as she was starting to panic the old man again moved his tired bones as quickly as he could, to throw from the deck of the ship the green crystal Starlight had prepared just in case.
“Catch!” He shouted, alerting her just in time for her to conjure the levitation spell to catch it.
She sighed relieved before quickly aiming. She couldn’t just add it to the formation of blue or magenta crystals, that would cause an imbalance. She couldn’t divide the crystal either…
Do the simplest thing. - Her mind reminded her, and so, she just placed the green crystal in the middle of the portal just at the waterline, hoping that it would be good enough to stabilize it.
And it remained there.
The cracking stopped. She could still see the ocean in the other side.
Her legs began doing light steps as the nerves again ate her up,
The old man, breathing heavily since this much movement was alien to him, came back his eyes well open, revealing a tired sight that had an eyeball inflicted by cataracts.
“Did it work?” He asked, worried, both about the portal and the girl’s status.
“I-... I-think… I think so.” She said, still expecting.
“Hoo… Well, I think it did,” One of his hooves then moved to mess her hair up, like he was playing with his grandkid. “congrats lady, you just made a portal.”
“Ye-yes, I—... I did!” She happily announced smiling yet again. “I made a portal!”
So much happiness, that her horn glowed again.
Her magic, so influenced by her emotions, had to give just one speck more.
One grain of sand that made the whole dune fall into an avalanche of sediment.
Or in this case, causing the green catalyst crystal to break.
The energy contained in it, bridging through the other sides, was liberated with violence.
The spell maintaining the portal didn’t break though, instead, it expanded it, in another direction.
A third waypoint had been formed.
This time there was no clear blue sky with happy clouds over it.
It wasn’t pitch black, like a void, but there was an absence of light, as it was blocked by clouds with a glowing form, taunting the land under it as it couldn’t see the sun.
All around she could see something falling off, like pieces of paper, or ash, flying through the portal and into Equestria, bringing with them not pain, nor hatred, just a lack, for it was empty in feeling, numb to everything.
In the image the portal gave her were mountains, and a sea, both claimed by this dark-greenish pitch, with the winds that poured from there feeling oddly warm.
But closer there was a coast that told that this was the edges of a desert, for past the coastline the sand kept going and going.
What’s more, in that somber painting there were the finishing touches of countless columns of smoke, accompanied by what seemed to be thunders in the distance.
She looked to her left. Mister Placid was in awe, but he was analyzing this instead of merely standing in shock. He made a gesture with his hooves, like taking off a hat, and pressed one of his hooves to his chest.
“‘Tis the kind of thing I saw when I was a kid, feuds between Griffonstone fishermen and those from the Griffish isles,” He coughed between words. “they burned each other’s boats. But this looks worse.”
“Worse how?” Starlight inquired, afraid of the answer.
“This looks like a battlefield of the olden days of Equestria, in the navy we didn’t get to see this kinda stuff.”
His declaration felt as if he was talking from memory, which given his apparent age might just be the case, a few conflicts had occurred in Equestria in the few hundred years, he might have seen one by himself in his early years.
“Is this even on this planet?” She asked, dumbfounded at this culling discovery.
He hummed, looking in the depths of his mind for any kind of answer, but ended up swinging his head from left to right.
“I don’t think so, not even the land of the zebras looks this way. This feels like a cemetery.”
After his words, silence settled in between the two, only interrupted by the occasional ‘thunder’ going off in the distance.
For a moment, even the breezes of Canterlot seemed to stop to let the two see this place.
Then, she got what might be the worst idea ever, but one that followed a nature so deep within her that she couldn’t explain, one of curiosity, but duty; she had apparently not only created a way of making portals, but now she had discovered an alien land. It was her duty to at least go in and see what was happening.
“Pleas-se… Wait for me here.”
“You’re joking, right?” - He asked, brow tilted down at the seemingly stupid words of the girl.
He got no answer though, the attention of the unicorn was on maintaining a bubble of magic around her as she levitated herself through the portal.
“Dammit, she’s crazier than my grandsons, what’s up with these new ponies and—” She heard as she crossed the veil, not hearing a single word from Placid afterward.
Around her was the weird feeling that her skin was heating up, what mere light went through the clouds was strong, stronger than she had ever felt.
The air was heavy, her nostrils barely could filter out the ash that pierced her magical bubble, the sea below was impossible to see through, and if it were, she doubted she could see much life.
With a glimpse to her back, she could see the portal’s shine, but behind it there was another piece of land, one with tall mountains, with a smaller one nearby which seemed like an island or peninsula.
In front of her though, maybe a few hundred meters, was the nearest coast, where she could descry a pile of smoke from what seemed like a piece of machinery, one which she didn’t doubt may have its crew nearby, which meant that people were alive here.
As she approached she took glimpses at how in the distance there were flashes accompanied by thunders, followed by blurs in the sky that created screeches so loud that the magical bubble around her trembled.
It took her a minute to reach her destination.
Ten meters away from the shore, about a hundred more from the other nearest pile of burning metal; was some sort of vehicle, like a car, but armored up, with threads like a tractor instead of wheels, colored all black as the flames still raging on its inside had consumed it. It had many things over it, like some sort of blocks all over its front and sides, or a long tube coming from some sort of semicircle in the middle of the vehicle.
It was eerily reminiscent of the ‘Armored turtles’ or ‘tanks’ as the common pony called it, of the Royal guard
Prying further, she could see how thrown in the side, with scorches that had been quelled by sand covering it up, was a flag, one of three colors; though due to the damage she couldn’t make out its composition or pattern; all she could discern where some white and red parts.
Looking around this carcass she found something peculiar, with its back against the threads of the vehicle. It was some sort of bipedal being, like a minotaur or a gorilla, but far less muscular; though still taller than anypony was.
Cladded in burnt clothes that still held its faint tan colors, with a skin damaged enough to not make it able for her to see, and some sort of padded headgear.
The smell of charred meat made her heart sink, her eyes shrunk as a flurry of negative emotions began creeping upon her..
All to suddenly transform into hope once she saw that the chest of this being rose and fell, indicating life still being within it.
She landed on the sand right in front of it, it was coarse, hot, insufferably so; but the dread mixed with morbid curiosity and hope that drove her there eclipsed it.
She swallowed some saliva as she didn’t know what to do, what to say.
Until the very being in front of her moved its head to face her.
Two small hazel eyes met her.
Under them, its ashed skin showed lines where tears had run through, leading to a small pointy nose where there was still a single drop hanging out.
For a second its burnt lips separated to show surprise, only for pain to rise from that simple action, making the critter out a low pained moan.
It then struggled to smile at her, as if despite what it was feeling felt amused by her mere presence.
What could she do? She didn’t even know if this was a man or a woman, what this was, or if it could even understand her.
Yet deep within her, her heart ached as her eyes met this image.
Sadness, one so primal that even this critter in the sand knew she was going through, more when she closed her eyes, clenching every muscle in her face to contain a cry.
This was a feeling so much stronger than Friendship, than love. This was compassion. The drive to wish and do the best for someone just to see them rise from their pained state.
She had no idea of what to do.
Just one thing ran through her mind, she approached her head to this critter, and began rubbing her hair against the side of this being for a while.
After taking a step back she began feeling dumb, she couldn’t do anything remotely logical, and her show of affection felt like such a weird action.
That feeling changed once the slight grin of the being turned into a real smile.
It was enough for her to feel like she had done something good. These beings had hearts just like her, and in such a state it just wanted some care.
Before she could ask it anything though, she saw its right arm moving, ever if so slowly, with muffled groans of pain coming from it as it did, all to point to something just above its waist. some sort of hole in its clothes.
That’s when she noticed that the charred uniform it was wearing was somehow also damp, and that something of dark color was tinting the sand below. The realization hit her like a truck, her frontal hooves immediately going to cover her mouth before she could scream from the awe.
The critter, with no words, nodded, as if telling her that it was ok, there was no need in feeling bad for it.
No desperation. The stare in its eyes and look on its face was the one of a being that just wanted some company.
Starlight couldn’t understand it, but in respect kept silent.
The critter then moved its lips again, as if trying to talk; air got out of its mouth, but no words did.
Her heart overtook her mind, and thus she was able to speak without any thought interrupting her.
“Is-the-there anything, anything I can do?”
Her worried words elicited a smile from this being that knew nothing of her, yet somehow could understand her.
A pained groan came as it then struggled to move its arm, the sounds of gushing flesh slashing like knives what little mental fortitude Starlight had to not cry at this.
Then, just as it had pointed to its pierced torso, it pointed to her with a broken index finger.
“Me?” She asked, trying to not get confused.
The slightest of nods came from it.
Then, its finger pointed to its mouth.
She waited for words; yet it couldn’t get any out, no matter how it tried. So it instead did the closest thing it could. It whistled, so slowly, barely changing its tone from a Sol to a La, and just as suddenly as it began, it stopped, as even when breathing came pain to its system.
Her brain took control for a moment to process this, but keeping true to what Placid had said, she went to the broadest idea. - “You want me to sing you something?”
No nod, instead, a growing smile. That told her everything she needed.
This being just wanted a lullaby in its last moments.
She had to swallow hard as her body began to tremble.
Twilight had taught her, that helping others was one of the pillars of friendship, and now it’d be the pillar of her compassion. So despite her perception of unpreparedness to relieve the pain of this being, she knew that she couldn’t heal it, and there was no one around to help. It had to come down to her.
With squinted eyes she sighed, trying to minimize the shaking her body was going through before opening her mouth herself. She wasn’t a singer, but she did know of one lullaby, one her mother had once sung her, and it had to work now.
“I see your eyelids swing,
Feeling my chest at peace,
I can see in your beautiful iris,
And I feel my dream released
That because of your kindness.
And how all that you bring
Is love to my sleep.”
As she uttered every line, her horn glowed. From her emotion came the magic, and what she felt now was so intense that it had to come out, expressing itself in a mist that she hoped would soothe the heart of this being, and any other suffering here.
Then, as she ended her words, opening her eyes; she saw how a true smile sat on this deceased being’s face, and how its own eyes were closed forever.
Its body, limp, breathless, fell to its left side, forever hugging the sand beneath it.
She took a step back, keeping words for herself, no tears, only the hope that she had done enough.
Whether or not she did she would never know, for the peace of this space was cut off by a sizzling in the air, the space was calm enough to hear how the air was being cut by something.
That something proved to be explosive, as one of the rubbles of metal in the distance suddenly blew off.
The fireball got imprinted in Starlight’s eyes, and she knew she had to go now.
Enveloping herself again in her magic she began racing off toward the portal, to the perceived safety of Canterlot. The sand moved with her as she almost broke the sound barrier, the sea got cleaved as she went through, all the while in the background more explosions came by, and she knew they were getting closer to the coast.
All until she was meters near the portal, when she turned to see if the last vehicle was alright, and the body held against it intact; only to be surprised by an explosion that engulfed it, sealing the fate of the resting body of that critter.
The explosion somehow got to her despite the distance.
This threw her off balance, so much that she struck the surface of the sea, causing her to crash against one of the crystals as she crossed; causing her to lose even more control of herself until she was forced to stop by the mass of water she ended up lifting on her rushing flight.
The landing was rough, so much that she couldn’t just get herself off, she was intoxicated with adrenaline; her senses were heightened, but her body knew not how to react.
Her panic was so much that it wasn’t until she was grabbed by the gentle yet strong hooves of the old mariner that she got out of the water. And even then she was a shaking mess whose answers to reality weren’t coming out yet.
He dragged her onto the shore of the lake, where he collapsed right then, letting the waves caused by their ruckus wash over his old Equestrian Navy Captain coat and beard, while she, wide awake, looking to the clouds in order to get any resolution.
Too much had happened in too short of a span for her to be able to properly act.
And looking over to where the portal once lay she got slammed by the realization that no answers were going to come from there anymore.
Successfully creating a portal, only to screw it up, letting reality be shifted into an unknown realm where something was wrong, yet she could do nothing. It made her feel great but so small; the queen of a lonely kingdom as her success hadn’t brought the happiness she imagined.
Cough cough. - She heard next to her. “DAMMIT GIRL! What did you just see there!?” Was the angry shout of Placid, who under his utterly mad brow sat preoccupation, fear, for he had also seen the other side of the portal. “You almost drowned!”
She cowered between her hooves.
Mouth pouting, cheeks strained, pushing against her eyelids while her brow pushed down to still suppress the tears. She had no idea of what she had seen there, she couldn’t explain it, yet it was strong enough to shake her up completely.
In the end, she understood what she had seen but she wanted to know the why and the who. Because that entire scene was alien to her, so much so that she’d never forget neither the design of that charred husk of a vehicle and the person that… Died in front of her.
This was the harshest part. Even when she fought Twilight, it wasn’t aiming to do that, people like Discord didn’t even try to cause that directly; so what was happening on the other side that provoked that? Such violence that Equestria hadn’t seen in decades.
Placid had mentioned a battlefield, but why would they fight, and who were they fighting? Was it an internal conflict? Or were they facing an existential threat, as they did with the Changelings? Though even then she didn’t recall seeing any armed people fighting, save for maybe a few mobs hunting Queen Chrysalis’ infiltrated minions; and the royal guard just kept at bay in case Sombra’s Umbrum army or the Yaks came.
And moreover, the doubt of if she could have done anything to help settled on her mind. Her mind told her ‘no’, but her heart said otherwise.
What if she had ju-
“Kid! I don’t know what in Tartarus I just saw, I know you don’t either so snap out of it!”
Placid was wrathful, her rashness must’ve thrown him off. Or rather, he was preoccupied, because just afterward he dropped his angry brow to sigh heavily, panting as he recovered from these bursts of action to pat the head of this dumb girl.
She gave an awkward smile in response, but couldn’t quite beat the feeling off.
“Plus, you managed to move my ship to the middle of Canterlot, your bits weren’t lost.”
His attempt at humor was crude, but it got a chuckle out of her, which was enough for him to begin shaking in order to get some water off his body. Something which she didn’t follow, preferring to keep sitting in this lakeshore sandbank.
It was true though, just a glance forward and she could see the Bountiful Lurker still in the middle of one of the Canterlotian lakes.
Behind it all she also noticed that they had quite the audience, a lot of ponies must have seen this, and some of them had come forth to see from up close. Some pegasi were flying overhead, and a few airships from the newspapers also came. All in all, a good public to watch her… Success.
Yet, the curious eyes remained there, no one tried approaching them.
The old-timer immediately sprung out about this, trying to deviate from focusing on what had just happened with some more ironic comments.
“Well, at least you have more attention for your portal experiments, lass.”
“So that’s what you were doing?” A voice asked them, placid, calm, sweet yet somehow stern.
Starlight recognized it immediately, her spine straightening up, chin in front, hooves on the ground; but the Captain didn’t, instead he chuckled and decided to speak up for the gal who he glanced at and saw that was indisposed to talk.
“Yes, I leased my boat to this crazy girl and she managed to teleport it off from Baltimare to here! It was more entertaining than serving aboard the ESS Equus!” He said with the pride and emotion only an old man reminiscent of the past like him would, all to obviously hide the small fact that they had just seen… Something he didn’t think they were meant to see.
“Oh, I see.” The voice proclaimed, slightly amused. “So, how’s that, did she just teleport you with a snap, as some Unicorns do?” It then inquired.
The old man slapped one of his thighs and replied quickly. “Heh! Nah! This girl did some magical wishy-washy with crystals, some spells, and made it possible to go in and back through the portal, and it was soooooo quicker than my old rust bucket.” He joked, obviously, trying to also flatter the nerved-up mare next to him that he knew had a horribly heavy heart after she’d just witnessed.
He then turned to face whoever he was talking to, expecting to see some mature mare like his wife given the tone of the voice; only for his jaw to drop when he saw Celestia herself just passing by him and leaning in to pat Starlight’s back.
“That’s incredible to hear, I’m proud of you Starlight, I know it was just an experiment, but you’ve done something no one has done before.” Her sweet voice commended the girl with such tenderness, despite the ruckus she had made, and how worried she was seeing her still drenched in the lake’s water she felt that Starlight needed reassurance. “I hope that this is just the beginning, if anyone could do this, it is you, Twilight has other plans, and Trixie isn’t as… Disciplined, as you. I’m truly happy for you, dear; Twilight too would be proud.”
After saying this, her royalty turned to face the old timer, who quickly stood up, dusting his coat from the sand it had accumulated and moving one of his hooves to his forehead. “Frigate Captain Placid Shallows at your service, my Princess!” He said with full military honors, fully revealing the origin of that weird coat of his.
It was weird to see someone so old, who at the same time was younger than the Princess, and had even served in the Royal Guard as it seemed; for she had read up about the small detail of cutters and bigger ships the Royal Guard kept, mostly in a ceremonial fashion.
Celestia treated this with humor though still keeping the degree of respect he deserved, bowing in front of the man she faintly remembered meeting decades ago. “At ease, Captain, it is good to see you again.”
Then, after he again stood normally, she inquired. “Now, is there any problem she brought you?”
He glanced at the mare who was looking quite worried at this question, so he answered with confidence. “She didn’t, she was quite a good lass, a bit sharp on the self-confidence part, but she even paid me well enough so I ain’t gonna mind my boat being stuck in a lake.” After saying this, he squeezed some water off his beard and smiled at the Princess.
Of course, she had no reason to doubt the man, but despite the calm demeanor of the Princess, after nodding to Placid and turning around to see Starlight, she knew something had gone terribly wrong.
For someone that had made such an accomplishment, such a worried stance wasn’t proper; because behind that pressure of being in front of the ruler of the land she was sitting on there was something else. Possibly relating to why she was wet and had a thousand-yard stare on her.
The most problematic thing for her though, was that she smelled familiar. It was ashy, like sulfur, with a metallic hint, like that of blood.
The Princess then noticed that her hair had some blackish parts, like she had fallen into coal, or burnt herself, marked with the slightest details oof a profound crimson that meshed with the black spots.
Placid didn’t have these marks, so this must’ve been something relating to what she did to either make the portal or… Well, she didn’t really know; for in all of her wisdom, she only had the certainty that this girl had been affected by it.
So she approached her yet again, to whisper something into her ear.
“Dear, if something happened, please just tell me, I can help you with it; you don’t need to be afraid.”
It came from the heart. For she felt the heavy weight on her shoulders right now as she almost collapsed into tears hearing this; but she denied with her head and again gave her trademark awkward smile while her eyes shined with the reflectiveness of the water almost dropping from them.
“It’s alright, Princess, thank you… I’m just… Sad… That the portal broke after I went through.” She half lied.
Celestia could only nod at this, even if she knew she wasn’t being truthful, she couldn’t force words out of people, she’d eventually fix her heart, she was surrounded by people that would help her with that; she as a ruler could only hope that whatever happened would not affect Equestria at large.
So she kept with her words to try to alleviate her.
“Do not worry about it, dear, whatever materials you need you’ll have, you’ve brought me quite a surprise, making portals to transfer things other than just menial objects or single people is quite astonishing.” To finish it up, since she needed to talk to Twilight today about her retirement, she decided to lighten this up with a bit of a jest. “Just be sure of not teleporting retired navymen’s ships for that.”
“Dear Princess, I have not lost a single ship under my hooves, and this won’t be the first one! That old piece of rust can use a portal or two before breaking.” Placid jested too, amusing the Princess as she began to walk off, which he quickly noticed and commented about a bit more nervously. “Princess, uh-eh… Are you going to leave my ship there?”
She answered in but a second, continuing with her more friendly tone. “Starlight will make sure in the next portal you are able to get it to Baltimare again, I believe in her!”
Despite her comment being all about having Starlight push herself into continuing her progress, it instead served to give her the mental image of the portal opening up to that battlefield yet again, seeing the columns of armored vehicles destroyed and their crews.
Her body was tired, too much magic usage.
Inside there was only the call for calm to come to her again, but no one came.
So even as Placid laughed it off, she was still stuck in a stupor.
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It became night.
She was on her bed.
Morpheus wasn’t going to hug her yet, her mind still wasn’t tranquil, sleep avoided her like the plague.
Placid had decided to live off his boat for a bit until she came back to re-try the portal experiment, saying that his wife wouldn’t mind it as long as he brought back some bits, so she went back into the school where she worked.
There she spoke to no one.
She asked for some free time, despite some people trying to cheer her on and even a few colleagues going as far as throwing off a small party in celebration of the news that she had successfully made a transportation portal work.
The moonlight from Luna coming through her window helped alleviate it somewhat, because she was home, not there, she wasn’t seeing whatever had caused such suffering.
Under the blankets, there was her body’s own heat, around her, even if she didn’t pay attention to them, were all the people that loved her, her friends, family even. Sunburst was in Equestria, Twilight was in Equestria, Trixie was in Equestria, and her students were safe.
She wasn’t going to die.
No one was going to.
Luna will always be raising the moonlight, and Celestia the sunlight.
She only feared that when dealing with portals again, she might veer into that dark reality.
Then she realized something.
She had only closed the portal waypoint on Canterlot.
THE BALTIMARE WAYPOINT WAS STILL OPEN.
No time to waste, she didn’t even throw the blankets away, instead, she just teleported. Where? To about fifty kilometers south of Baltimare, since she couldn’t really think of any precise location, and appearing in the middle of the sea wasn’t a good option.
It was cold, in the middle of the night in the middle of a conifer forest with barely any moonlight coming through. She wished she had brought a jacket with her, but the necessity to know if the portal was under control, if anyone had gone from it; was eating her up.
She thought of flying to it, but when she tried enveloping herself with magic to levitate, she found out she couldn’t, her body was too tired, her mind too troubled, her sentiments too confused to properly work in magic; for feelings dictated her magic, and thus, she had to go in her own hooves.
That said, she still feared what lurked in the dark, as having nothing like a magical burst to deal with any threat was a horrible notice for a single mare in the middle of nowhere. So she applied on herself an invisibility spell to hide from any hunters.
That way, the only thing she needed to go was go due east to find the coast, as from anywhere she knew she would be able to see such a giant glowing visage if it kept standing.
Her muscles burned as they were forced to jumpstart themselves to let Starlight gallop, but the adrenaline going through her veins kept them at bay, working at a hundred and ten percent efficiency.
All sounds were heightened, but she was overwhelmed enough to not be able to discern the muffled sounds of the night and the forest or the hallucinations of those thunders going off nearby, looking for her. Her eyes scanned everywhere, she thought that in any place she could find a horrid surprise that’d kill her if she looked at it. The dread got into her so much so that at some point, she began running out of fear of being followed. Trees became menacing figures, and the occasional owl was an imp form the Tartarus prying on her.
Please, just let everything be alrigh-
As she was squinting her eyes, trying to shake off something that had just gone through her eyes, she noticed something just ten meters away from her.
She stopped dead in her tracks, even falling to the ground as her speed was too much to just press the brakes like that.
Nights were clear enough to see in Equestria, but still dim enough that illumination was required, yet what she had in front was indisputable.
Her heart wanted to come out through her mouth. She opened it to scream, but she couldn’t utter a sound, her breaths and pumps of blood being the only things coming out from her.
Please let this be a nightmare.
The portal wasn’t closed.
The figure took a step forward.
Then another.
Though the moonlight revealed its figure to be humanoid, it couldn’t reveal most of the details it obviously had. It was eerily similar to the one she found in the other side of the portal.
The difference was that this one didn’t have hazel eyes, it instead had four tubes coming through from where its eyes should be, with some sort of headgear a lot heavier than the one from that fallen critter. Moreover, this one had something in its arms.
It was a weapon, not a lance, not a musket either, but it was held closely, with a trigger just like a flintlock pistol would.
The clothes of this being too were weird, for it wasn’t of a uniform color, it had a pattern of grayish, tannish colors, browns, and greens. And it wore some sort of vest over its chest that seemed bulky, with all kinds of tubes with words written onto them.
As this critter approached, more and more details were revealed, as many as the trickles of fear kept coming, invading every ounce of Starlight’s body.
Why was this one approaching her? Had it noticed that it was there? How? She was invisible right now, not even Lord Tirek should be able to find her with mere sight.
Was it going to kill her, just like that critter died at the hands of whatever destroyed its vehicle?
All unanswered questions, for this beast stopped just centimeters away from her.
There she could see that in its chest, just above where all of its trinkets and tubes were, there was a flag, the design was lost in her, but it had red, white and blue.
Was it related to the one that died back in the portal?
More and more doubts came to her as her shaking body was then threatened by the looming menace of this critter’s right hand leaving the barrel of its gun, and approaching her.
She had to stay quiet, she didn’t know how to react. In the worst of cases, she’d just give all that she had and teleport back and tell the Princesses!
Her neck tried to move back, avoiding it, her legs were preparing to lash out a kick so hard it’d break some bones of this meddler
The gloved hand of this being was just above her head when…
It began patting her head. It wasn’t a coarse feeling, it was like a piece of rugged cloth going through her hair, making slight pressure on her scalp.
Suddenly, the terror seemed to be a stupid notion. She had prepared for the worst yet again, only to be met with a simple answer. This didn’t feel particularly good, it wasn’t a massage, but it was calming enough for her to enjoy it in a weird way. More when she could now see that with its other hand, the being got a piece of cloth it had over its mouth, showing that it was like that other critter she met. More surprisingly, it then got the tubes off from its head, revealing a pair of normal eyes just as she decided to drop the invisibility spell.
This wasn’t a monster at all. It was just from the same kind as that critter!
Then, as she began calming herself, she could hear the heartbeat of this being, it wasn't calm either, it was nervous too, it was alive, just like her.
Things had began with the wrong foot it seemed.
While patting her might be a weird way of starting, it was better than fear.
A grin grew in the two as the patting continued, her body stopped quivering, and the critter leaned in forward to pat her with two hands, gently rummaging through her hair threads.
Now all she had to do was ask what it was, or what language it spoke.
And it seemed like she was going to get those answers, because this being opened its mouth, revealing a masculine voice that said:
“Heh, you’re one fucked up-looking dog.”
As quickly as her fear came before, insult came now. She was in disbelief, utterly astonished, and even horrified by the language used, but she couldn’t let this slip, more when this guy seemed to be able to speak in fluent Ponish, so she quickly barked back with both nervousness and a bit of disgust.
“Ah-No! He-hey, I’m no-ot a dog! I’m–a po-ny, have some manners!”
After she shouted this, a silence crept between the two.
He retracted his hands from her head and he lifted his palms. His mouth then opened and his brows went up.
Following this, he screamed with all the air available in his lungs, utterly terrified of having met a talking horse-dog-whatever thing with giant eyes.
And she screamed too because she didn’t know how to react. And she thought this was some sort of war cry.
This was going to be a loooong night.
Author's Note
Goddamits those bastards at /mlp/ were such a great help at doing this, despite their degeneracy, they welcomed a fucko from /k/ like me with such open arms that I almost kissed em.
They helped me a lot, a lot, almost as much as my gf forcing me to watch some episodes with her, and steered me from just a general view on the world to a more methodical form of examinating cultural syncretism, with a touch of guns.
