An alicorn, a princess, and an elf teleport into a castle courtyard. There is no punchline.

Seriously though, this place is in chaos compared to Ponyville. As soon as we arrived there were ponies running around in every direction all of them yelling over each other, but Celestia quickly went to work explaining what happened, who Luna was, who I was, what their public statement about the nights events would be. Meanwhile Luna and I ended up just slowly shuffling to the side where we’re now both sitting in the grass watching Celestia reign in all the anarchy in complete silence.

Finally I decided to break the silence, “I wonder why everyone was so calm back in Ponyville?”

“We were beginning to wonder the same thing. Perhaps the castle is just more aware of Tia’s schedule and more dependent on her for the day to day functions? I imagine the guards and staff were in quite the panic when the sun didn’t rise on time and none of the guards in Ponyville responded to the Sending crystal.”, Luna quickly answers.

Her mention of the Ponyville guards reminds me of something. With a frown I ask, “Speaking of those guards……. Are they alive? I remember watching them get hit by lightning, but didn’t stick around long enough to see if they were okay.”

“Yes, thankfully. It was the first thing we checked on before we came to retrieve you. Those guards were all pegasus which are especially resistant to lightning.”

“That’s good then. In the grand scheme of things that just means the only suffering caused was… everyone sleeping in for a few hours. I can think of worse crimes.” Foot, meet mouth. What in the absolute hell possessed me to say that? I’m almost scared to look over to Luna for her reaction.

Sure enough, I look over and she’s looking at the ground with a frown on her face. Before the silence gets awkward I let out a yawn and ask, “Are we supposed to be doing anything right now? Physically I feel fine, but mentally I am exhausted. Celestia mentioned there’d be a room for me here, but I don’t know if she wanted to discuss anything before I skedaddled.”

“You will definitely need to talk to her before you retire to your chambers. If you’re in a hurry to do so you can just go ask her. Things seem to have mostly calmed down for now.”

“Then I think I’ll do just that.” Standing up and awkwardly straightening out my cloak I turn to Luna and continue, “And uh, sorry for making that comment. It was thoughtless of me to bring that up so soon, and I imagine you’re already feeling enough guilt for what happened.”

“Think nothing of it. We deserve a fate worse than just feeling guilty.” I have some thoughts in response to that, but I really am tired.

“I’m not qualified enough to tell you otherwise, but either way it was nice to meet you. Happy birthday again.” Luna’s mood seems to improve a little. I give her a small wave and make my way over to Celestia.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’m exhausted. Luna said I need to talk to you before I hit the sack, so I was just wondering how much longer I’ll need to be on standby? And, if it’s gonna be a while I was hoping you could point me towards my room and I’ll just wait there instead.” I quickly ask when I hear a pause in Celestia’s current conversation.

The guard she was talking to just squints her eyes at me and glances at my blade while Celestia hums in consideration. “It shouldn’t be more than another hour, but if you’re tired we can just delay our conversation until dinner. Lieutenant if you could have someone escort my friend here to one of the guest rooms in the “Visiting Dignitaries” wing. Ignis I’ll have somepony come wake you when it’s time.” I give her a nod and the LT walks over to grab a volunteer for my escort. Once she’s out of earshot Celestia continues, “I will need your rapier though. Only guards are permitted to have weapons on castle grounds.”

That explains why the guard was giving me the stink eye. Celestia’s demand isn’t unreasonable, but it doesn’t sit right with me for some reason. The thought of giving away my rapier makes me uncomfortable, “I’d rather not. Forgive me for being argumentative, but I’m in a completely foreign world and you’re asking for one of the few things that brings me some level of comfort and security.”

Time stops and I realize it’s been a long time since I had to roll for something as a single d20 rolls into view.

8, +1 Persuasion. 9.

Time resumes and Celestia instantly replies with a stern look, “I’m afraid I must insist. This is non-negotiable. I can give you my word that you are safe in this castle, but I have no guarantee about the safety of my ponies in your presence.”

I decide to do a manual insight check.

INSIGHT.
20, +5 Insight. Natural 20, Critical Success.

She can’t really give me a 100% guarantee of my safety, but at the very least she truly has no malicious intentions. Just a ruler worried about her subjects. That’s what my gut is telling me. I still have the dagger hidden on my thigh and in the worst case scenario I have Shadow Blade.

I sigh and unclip the sheath strapped to my hip before grabbing the blade and pointing the hilt towards her. “I hope you can at least appreciate the amount of trust I’m giving you right now. Regardless of my comfort, that blade is from before I was brought here. One of the few possessions I still own.” This isn’t technically a lie, but she doesn’t need to know that this body isn’t mine.

A golden aura engulfs the rapier and it floats out of my grasp. “Of course Ignis, thank you for cooperating.”

After that a different guard approached us and led me to my new room. An uneventful walk, the guard kept glancing back and he looked a bit scared to be honest. I grab a key from him and thank him before going inside and laying down to meditate.

A knock at the door stirs me from the meditation. I look out the window and see the sun is still up, but it’s not far from the horizon. Glancing at my status I see my 3rd level spell slot is refreshed, so it was enough hours for a long rest. Someone knocks on my door again but louder this time.

Opening the door I see a maid and a guard, looking between the two for a few seconds before finally the maid speaks, “Your p-presence is requested in the dining hall.”

Stepping out fully so I can close the door I turn around and look at the maid inquisitively, is she really that scared? Let’s test it. I suddenly lean my head forward a bit and go, “Boo!”

18, +1 Intimidation. 19.

Ah shit, I didn’t want to actually intimidate anyone! Why are you making me roll?!

To my surprise the guard is the one that startles, he jumps back a foot or so and takes a deep breath before finally relaxing. “Not funny.” he finally says before slowly approaching me again.

“Says you, by the way I think the uh maid needs some assistance.” I reply while pointing at the maid. The guard looks over at the maid and realizes she’s frozen completely stiff with wide eyes. He waves his hoof in front of her face.

“Feather~, oh Feather~ come back to Equestria.” He finally gives her a little shake and she twitches before looking around.

“Oh. Oh! Sorry, what were we doing?” She asks, still a little dazed.

“Going to the dining hall.” Me and the guard reply at the same time.

“Right! Follow me sir.” They both turn around and start leading me down the hall. I feel a little bad now, I didn’t think she’d completely shut down like that. In hindsight it makes sense I guess, most of these ponies only reach the middle of my torso in height.

After we turn a few corners it bothers me enough that I speak up, “Sorry. I uh, I went too far there. I saw you were uncomfortable and thought that would ease the tension.”

She looks back to see me with a sheepish grin while scratching my cheek. “You’re forgiven. I suppose in the end it did help a little, I apologize for being frightened to begin with, it was unprofessional. Your stature just caught me off guard.”

We come up to a large archway with a pair of wooden double doors that are currently open when the guard takes 1 step in and turns to face the center of the archway before saying, “Your majesty,” he looks at me and gestures into the room as I walk past him he finishes “Ignis Ferrum.” After that he steps out and the doors close behind me.

Celestia must have recognized my look of perplexity because she spoke out to me, “Apologies for the formality, we typically announce nobles and dignitaries. With you being in that wing of the guest rooms he just followed protocol.”

“Ah.” Smooth response bro. I’m dumbly looking around at the fancy dining hall. It definitely meets my expectations, one unnecessarily long table with junk in the middle of it and a fancy chandelier hanging overhead.

At the other end of the room I see Celestia sat at the very end and Luna sat to her left with salads in front of them with a third salad placed to Celestia’s right with an unoccupied seat. I pop a squat and look at the food, it’s just a standard salad but with a few flowers mixed in? Welp, I start taking the flowers out of the bowl while I ask, “So what’s the plan?”

Celestia takes a moment to swallow her food before replying, “Well I have a few ideas I’d like to run by you, but before that I’d like to get to know you a bit more. Just so you know I am currently channeling a lie detection spell. If you don’t feel comfortable answering a question just verbally inform me and we’ll move on. After that I’ll have one of my top officers lead you to our training grounds and we’ll test your full capabilities in terms of spellcasting and sword play to determine your threat level.”

What? “That all seems a bit much. If I truly end up unable to return home I intend to live quietly and study the arcane. I can understand a bit of apprehension, but that's ridiculous.” I state before shoving a fork full of leafy green in my mouth. Oh wow, this is super fresh.

“Then let me ask you this, Ignis. Are you willing to have your bladesong sealed off permanently and agree to never perform one again?” She asks me with a raised eyebrow.

I mean… realistically I could agree to that, but I don’t want to purely on principle. Plus, I just got all this cool magic. If I'm stuck here forever I atleast want to use it! “Absolutely not. It’s part of me, I can’t just give it up.”

“Exactly, and I don’t want to ask that of you. However, you have to understand that means eventually the world at large will find out that there is a bladesinger. You might not be as powerful as the ones in legends of old, but that will still cause issues politically. Especially now that Luna has returned. From the outside looking in, that's too much power tipping the scales in our favor. In fact, just Luna's return will likely spark the invitation of a global summit to discuss treaty re-negotiations. So, when the world finds out you exist I want there to be a public record of your interview and threat level measurements.”

Okay, I think I see what she’s getting at. She wants a paper trail to prove I’m not a threat. “Fine, I agree with your reasoning. What’s your first question?”

“We’ll start with an easy one, what is your name?” Celestia starts.

“Ignis Ferrum.”

“How old are you?”

“108.”

I stop myself from taking my next bite of food when I notice the complete silence. Looking over I see both princesses looking stunned. Then they both look to Celestia’s horn, I guess to see if I’m lying. Nothing happens though. I decide to expand.

“I’m an elf. Specifically a High Elf, we perform the celebration to mark adulthood at the age of 100, and it’s not too uncommon for us to live up to 2000 years.” I just nonchalantly throw it out there and take another bite of food. I’m just going to continue answering in character since the lie detecting spell didn’t go off when I said my name. I can only conclude that means my real name will make it go off.

Luna and Celestia look at each other then back to me, “How long have you been learning the art of bladesinging?”

“I’m going to lie.” I pause for a second then say, “The first bladesong I used against Nightmare Moon was my first time ever using a bladesong.” Celestia’s horn illuminated a bright red light. Just as I thought then, this is going to be tricky because I didn’t completely flesh out this character's backstory, so I’m not going to know the answer to some of these.

“The truth is that I’m not sure. I don’t remember when I started.” No reaction. I can work with that.

Wait, I’m thinking about this all wrong I can use the lie detection to learn more about this body!

“Do you have any plans to take over, conquer, or bring ruin to Equestria?” Celestia calmly asks like this is something that happens enough to be a common concern. I just raise my eyebrows at her.

“No?”

“Please, answer as a statement.”

“I have no plans nor do I want to rule over, conquer, or bring ruin to Equestria. Or anything else for that matter.”

Celestia hums in thought, is she making these questions up on the fly?! After another bite of salad she asks, “Let’s say there’s two sets of train tracks and next to the tracks is a switch that determines which track the oncoming train will take. Currently there’s a train approaching and if nothing is done, it will run over 5 ponies. You can flip the switch to make it take the alternate track but doing so will kill 1 pony. What do you do?”

There’s no way this horse is hitting me with the trolley problem right now. Well whenever I normally answer this question I give the logical answer, but that’s never been my real answer. “I’d free the ponies from the tracks.”

“Suppose doing so is impossible, you’re also magically bound and all you can do is flip the lever.”

“Does the train have anyone on it?”

“Hm? No it’s a runaway train with no conductor and no passengers.”

“Then I’d stop the train.”

“Okay you are clearly not understanding the point of this question. There are only 2 options, you either do nothing and indirectly let 5 ponies die or you take action and directly kill 1 pony! You can’t stop the train!”

“I’d flip the lever when the train is halfway across causing it to derail.”

“That would kill all 6 ponies!”

“I know what you want me to say, logically I should flip the lever and kill 1 pony, because 1 life lost is better than 5. But that isn’t my answer! Every life has an immeasurable value, and I refuse to accept that I can’t save all 6 of them!” At this point I’m standing and leaning over the table looking Celestia directly in her eyes, almost yelling.

“Even if it kills you?”

“Even if it kills me.”

Celestia looks to her horn for any sign of deceit, before finally softening her gaze and laughing out loud. “Well, thank you for your honesty. That concludes the interview, but you’ve completely ruined my plan of submitting it to the public record.”

I’m once again confused, “What do you mean?”

“There’s no way I can convince any of the other countries you’re not a threat if I give them that interview. You displayed far too much determination and worst of all if any of them were to go to war with us your attitude is one they’d all fear. You want to be a Hero.”

“It’s not like I had an option! The logical answer would’ve triggered your spell!” I retorted.

“You’re right, it’s my fault for continuing to push for an answer. Your answer was just very interesting, it’s an answer I haven’t heard in a long time and I just had to test your resolve.”

After that the rest of dinner was mostly silent, the sisters had their own small talk, but I barely paid attention to it. Celestia levitated a cloth up to wipe her mouth as the doors to the hall opened and a white unicorn with blue hair walked in. “Luna, Ignis, this is Shining Armor the current Captain of the Guard. He’ll be the one overseeing your magical and physical tests. I’m going to go lower the sun and retire for the night. Luna, will you join me?”

Luna pauses and looks between me and Celestia, “Nay Tia, we are still too weak to participate in the ritual and would like to see his results first hand.”

Celestia smiles and nods, “Alright, just be careful. All three of you.”

During the walk to the training grounds I found out Shining is actually Twilight's brother. He was very worried when he first heard something had gone awry with the celebration in Ponyville, but was elated to hear that she had saved Equestria and made some friends.

As we approach what looks like a firing range I see a few guards firing thin bolts of magic at small targets at least 100ft away. It looks shockingly similar to a gun range. Shining speaks up, “Just pick an empty stall and use your strongest magic to hit a target, preferably aim for as far back as you can.”

“Do you have a different field we can use? My strongest magic isn’t really meant for a precise shot from far away.” I ask looking over to Shining. I mean I can use it here, but it’d look cooler if they had a target range for area of effect spells.

“No? The guard firmly believes in precision. The worst thing that can happen is us hitting an innocent because of careless magic. My old mentor used to say “Combat magic is like a letter. It should only be sent to and received by the specific pony that it was addressed to.”” He says with a proud smile.

Oh man I’ve always wanted to say this. “You know it’s actually quite funny. Back in my lands there was an old elf who said almost the exact same thing, but my mentor and I both disagreed.” I reach into my pouch and pull out a tiny ball that looks like it’s made of black tar and place it between my thumb and index finger before finishing my statement.

“Not all letters need to be read by just one person, sometimes you want 10 maybe 20 people to read your letter. Are you gunna write out 20 letters each titled and tailored to that specific person?”

“Yes. In your scenario it’s not the most efficient, but it’s the most secure.” Shining retorts.

The black ball sparks and turns into a small fire, “See that’s where you’re wrong. That’s completely unnecessary. Sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable to write a letter and just title it, TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, FIREBALL!”

The small spark of flame gets shot out and starts speeding down the range, by this point in our conversation the few other ponies present have stopped firing just to observe. They all silently watch as that small spark goes 30ft, 60ft, 120ft growing bigger and bigger as it speeds down range until at 150ft out the inferno expands fully as a huge 40ft wide explosion shakes the ground.

I turn around with a huge smile plastered on my face, to find a stunned Shining Armor with his mouth hanging open and Luna looks at me with a face that screams, “Not bad.”

“Cmon now Shining, you’re captain of the guard, surely this isn’t actually that impressive?” I ask him as I walk up and pat him on the back.

“No, you’re right there are definitely unicorns capable of that, myself included, but it’s not a lot. It’s certainly not what I expected from you. The reports based on the statements from the element bearers made it seem that your magical capability was just small bursts of fire and the ability to let out a short flame breath like a young dragon. It emphasized that your physical abilities were the more impressive of the two.” He writes down on his clipboard “Was holding back against Nightmare Moon??” and underlines it. I don’t really feel like correcting him, it’ll probably just bring up more questions that I’m not sure how to answer.

So, I don’t push it. I opt to move along instead, “So… how are we doing this swordsmanship test? Am I gunna spar with someone?”

“Yes actually. You’ll be sparring with me.” I look over and see Shining is wearing his full guard armor now as he floats the clipboard and quill over to Luna. He then floats over my rapier and I snatch it out of the air. Quickly pulling it out of its case and looking over it for knicks or any other blemishes they might have caused if they decided to study it. But, it looks just like it did when I surrendered it.

I follow him out on a flat field of dirt and the same ponies that were watching my fireball have wandered over to spectate the spar as well it seems. I guess I don’t mind, but I might get some performance anxiety.

“Shining, do i need to keep my rapier in its sheath or are you going to cast some kind of magic that dulls the blade for the duration of the spar.” I decide to ask, I don’t wanna accidentally kill the guy.

“I’m not casting any magic like that, but it’s a rapier so just don’t stab me and we should be fine.”

“Welp. I’m not really comfortable with that, but okay let’s do this.” I call out as I assume my stance and focus on Shining.

Roll For Initiative.

Author's Note

I'm still trying to get a feel for where I want the overarching plot to go for this story, but I think I have the next few minor events and the next major event solidified atleast.

As always, thanks for the comments and thumbs ups on the story, it really helps motivate me to keep writing. I also deeply appreciate all the people that have been adding this story to their favorties or tracking library. :)

Also, I'm not really happy ending the chapter here it feels like it's not strong enough to be a cliff hanger but there's enough happening that I feel dissatisfied not resolving everything. But, as I've always stated I write these chapters in 1 session and whatever I got is what I got. It's like 1am and I wanna go to sleep so this is where I'm ending it haha.