Twilight Sparkle and her six friends stood in an airport located in the island nation Lumia. As it suggests the island belongs to a race of snake people. Their hair is live serpents. The snakes express an aspect of the emotion their owner feels. If the owner feels shy, the snakes will shrink back or if they feel fear they'll start looking for the nearest escape route.
These snakes also if the owner feels cold or distant even distrustful then that is a sign of a heart turning cold and those within a certain distance of the cold distant Lumia will be turned stone with a single gaze - direct or indirectly. "Why did the map send us here? All the Lumia I see are getting along for the most part just minor squabbles here and there?" Commented a Cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane and tale. A yellowish unicorn with a yellow and red mane and tail replied to her friend who was staring at a map.
"I think and I can't be sure but as we flew in I saw a clearing that looked like solid rock with a few dotted statutes."
"Sunset...how could you see that? We were like 3500 feet up in the air." A passing Lumia stopped and everyone saw her serpents slink back a little showing signs of being timid and Fluttershy stepped in.
"Do you know who lives in the clearing my friend described?"
"I do, a Lumia named Jade lives there she's very distant and cold we don't know exactly why. She became like that after her folks passed on and her aunt and uncle moved in with her; in addition, after that, we kinda quit seeing her around. My manners! My name is Agapè Here's my cell number call or text if you want a tour." Agapè suddenly lunged and gave Pinkie Pie who was now the closest one and Pinkie Pie returned the hug. When the Lumia left Pinkie was gasping for air.
" Twilight I think these folks are built like actual snakes when it comes to strength. " Twilight merely nodded and set her gaze towards the now visible palace belonging to the king and queen.
"I hope Luna and Celestia's email has been read already." The group called a taxi after getting their luggage and made it to their hotel. "Okay, girls in about thirty minutes we'll head over to the palace. When everyone got cleaned up and hailed another cab and rode to the palace. When both cabs rolled up the guard snapped to attention and the queen could be seen walking down the ivory steps to greet them.
"Greetings distinguished guests! Parsons for my husband being unable to make it here to welcome you; however he sends his greetings."
"Thank you, Your Highness, I do believe Celestia and Luna emailed you of our arrival and our task."
"Yes they had and I can guess your goal, we have a Lumia who no one has been able to get close to for some time and we worry about her."
"Your Highness, we ran into one of your subjects who mentioned something similar."
"My dear Twilight Sparkle my husband and I don't see these kind people as subjects really, we've treated them as friends and I am assuming you ran into Agapè at the airport?"
Applejack interjected at this point due to surprise. "How did you know?"
"Well, you must be Applejack, Agapè loves to sell her goods at the airport; she makes and sells bracelets and necklaces that she calls 'Friendship charms'. The bracelets were inspired by one of your people who arrived here by a cruise ship a while back and come to think of it the lass was firm like a diamond. I mean she acted cold and hard as a diamond but I could sense that she was deep down a good person. We even took a selfie together because she said she had friends she wanted to show trip pictures to. " The Lumia queen who hadn't shared her name yet presented the photo. Rarity gasped.
"That's our Diamond Tiara!" The queen nodded.
"Pardon me for sharing my name sooner it's that I needed to know if I could trust you myself from what can see. I know that your rulers told me about you and everything but our tradition here is that we don't share our names until we can see that you're able to be trusted. My name is Sapphire and my husband Tungsten will be here for dinner. In a couple of days, we'll get you as close as we can to Jade. Those stone statues are actually household staff that we've sent to check up on Jade and once they got within a certain distance they became stone. The only way to free them is to soften Jade's heart."
"How are we supposed to do that? if we can't get close to her then what would be a recommendation?"
"Well young Sunset, we don't know. We've never encountered distance to this extreme before...if it had happened, it wasn't recorded." The group chatted and discussed the mission with Sapphire the Lumia queen then when the meeting ended they went back to the hotel.
One Week Later
Everyone in Twilight Sparkle's group went out to obtain information and learn all they could about Jade. Twilight decided to pull Sunburst and Starlight into the situation for their advice. Stsrlighand Sunburst talked to Twilight and tried to guess what could cause a person to form this level of distrust. Sunburst excused himself and went for a walk and happened to be passing a building labeled 'News Archive'. Intrigued Sunburst entered and began to dig through the old papers. He suddenly froze as a Lumia slithered up beside him. "You're a studious type I see. I can tell when I have a teacher enter my small business. I deal in selling and buying antique news printing equipment and I also collect old newspapers. I'm known as Papes - a slang term we use here for papers."
"Nice to meet you Papes, My friends and I are working on a project and we've hit a roadblock."
"Your friend I assume is an Equestrian, I had one in her two days ago. I think her name was Applejack and she was with someone named Fluttershy. We know about your business, The queen has sent out a news bulletin to aid in any way we can."
"Thanks...." Sunburst trailed off as he noticed an article on a computer from about five years prior. "When Did Jade quit coming into town?"
"Five years ago, why?"
"On a crazy hypothesis!" Sunburst exclaimed as he typed in Jade's name into the vintage computer system. Sunburst found the answer to what was causing Jade to be distrustful he now needed to rush back to Twilight Sparkle and summon the group back to the hotel. "Thank you, Papes, I got to head back to the hotel. Can you clear the search query I just made? I don't want someone to find out what I learned just in case there is more than us Equestrians poking around." Papes did what was asked and as She watched Sunburst hustle down the street.
