And Suddenly, I'm Fluttershy

Whale Noises and Magic Scarves

Bartholomew

I followed Celestia's directions back to Twilight and Co. She informed me that we were getting on a train again, this time to the frozen north, a land simply called "The Crystal Empire."

Not only does that sound like another bad Indiana Jones movie, I was expecting a horse pun! Nice job universe, you failed me again!

On the bright side, no groaning over the name.

Evidently the kingdom had been lost for a very long time and had only recently been resurrected. This interested me greatly. There was so much mystery about this land, so much excitement over what I could find there.

I might actually enjoy this escapade.

The train ride was horrendously long, over four hours. You heard me right;

Four. Hours.

Actually, it was closer to five. You heard me right;

Five. Hours.

I don't know what it is, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.

By the time we reached the train station, it was late evening, nearing seven. And for the last half-hour, everything outside the train was covered in snow.

A voice called out of the intercom, "And here we are, the Crystal Empire. Almost. A guide will be at the station to escort you to the Empire itself. Please take all belonging with you, and thank you for choosing the only state-sponsored railway in Equestria, the aptly-named Equestrian Rails. And now a word from our other sponsor, Bad...

I stopped listening to him babble about what's-his-face and picked up what I brought with me; toiletries, and a book on world history that Twilight lent me before we left.

Eeyup, I was pretty much set for a couple days, assuming I could find food on the tundra. Or shelter. Or wood. Or matches. Or...

Ah well, I wasn't set if things went badly. But when did that ever happen?

As I waited patiently for a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere to devour me, I walked onto the station itself.

The others filed out being me. The only other soul in this island amongst a sea of snow was a large pony in a scarf and goggles.

Having fur is a wonderful thing. Except I was still freezing to death. Honestly, I'm surprised he wasn't. Come to think of it, Rarity also had a scarf. She didn't seem to be having much trouble with the cold.

Perhaps scarves are magic in Equestria?

But I'm getting off-topic here.

We were standing in the middle of a blizzard and a mysterious white pony with a scarf was trotting toward us menacingly. By trotting, I mean stumbling through the wind.

"Twilight!" He (his voice was very deep,) called.

"Shining Armor?" She asked. Seeing that it was this "Shining Armor" person, she ran toward him.

"Hold on, am I missing something?" I asked Rarity, as she was the only one unbothered by the cold thanks to her super-scarf.

"Well, Shining Armor is Twilight's dear brother," she replied.

It seems she has a brother. I wonder if he's getting married?

He called to us, "We'd better get moving, there are things out here we really don't want to run into after dark."

I barely resisted the urge to say "dun-dun-DUN!"

We trotted along for a bit as Twilight and Shining gave a bit of exposition. You know, why we're here (why we're in the Crystal Empire, not the meaning of life), who Sombra was, the fact that there's a demon unicorn named Sombra, and the fact that we will probably end up fighting him.

You know, unimportant stuff like that.

I absently wondered if he was a giant alien. Even if he wasn't a flea, it fit my expectations well enough.

Suddenly, in the middle of the exposition, there was a random whale sound. I kid you not, it sounded like a whale. In a blizzard.

"We have to get to the Crystal Empire now!" Shining shouted.

Yes, because giant space unicorns from nowhere that make whale noises are a threat to public safety.

As it turns out, yes. Yes they are. In fact, I daresay that we make it law that if a giant space unicorn comes out of nowhere, we need to nuke it from orbit, because the one that appears right after I joked about its existence tried to kill me.

And the others too, I suppose, but they aren't the ones telling you this story, are they?

So yeah, we had to run all the way to the force field. It didn't seem to resist objects, which is interesting because no snow got through it.

I wonder if magic scarves protect agains the snow because the snow itself is magic?

Winded by the run, I stumbled and fell to the ground.

"Everypony okay?" Twilight asked.

All of us replied with a tired "yeah."

After a few seconds to recover, I noticed something.

"Hey, where's Shi-"

I was cut off by said stallion flying through the forcefield.

He slowly and shakily stood up.

"Shiny, your horn!" exclaimed Twilight upon seeing him.

Sure enough, his horn was covered by black crystals.

You know, because it's the Crystal Empire.

We walked into town, Rarity gushing over every detail of both the city and the palace.

I think Rainbow's statement about it being another old castle fit remarkably well.

"Another old- have you lost your mi-"

"It's just sparkles, Rarity," I groaned, rubbing my forehead with a wing.

Those things are quite useful.

We walked to the throne room at a brisk pace. We entered the room to find a pink alicorn sitting in the throne, looking as if she would doze off at any moment.

"Cadance!" Twilight shouted, running towards her.

They promptly did a strange dance of sorts. My mouth hung open at the sight.

"It's Twi's old foalsitter," Applejack explained.

Damn these horse puns. Damn them all.

They had finished their strange ritual when Cadance joked,"One of these days we need to get together when the fate of Equestria isn't hanging in the balance."

I'll admit, I chuckled.

Shining explained that Cadance used the magic of love and light to keep Sombra away. As childish as it seems, it must of been working, 'cause it was flowers and lollipops inside the shield.

"I want to help her, but my magic has been countered by King Sombra," said Shining, gesturing to his horn.

"Wait a minute! You're telling me that you can't help her because your magic has been countered by Sombra, correct?" I asked him.

"Yes."

"But your magic was only cut off five minutes ago! You mean to tell me that you could have helped her all this time, but instead you bummed around doing nothing? What were you thinking?"

"I have been working my flank off to-"

"That's enough!" boomed Cadance. "Shining has been running the day-to-day affairs of ruling a nation in my stead for the past week. The only thing keeping me awake is my magic, and that's been near empty the last day or two. We can't hold out much longer."

"You wouldn't need to be running on empty like that if you just traded off! It wouldn't be pleasant, but it would've allowed us much more time to think of a solution to this mess!" I yelled.

Everypony stood in stunned silence. I wasn't sure if it was the sense of my words, or the fact that I just yelled at a monarch.

I resisted the urge to capitulate and instead stared back at them.

There was a long pause.

"Celestia damn it!" Shining yelled.

"Shiny!" Cadance and Twilight exclaimed in unison.

I continued to make my stand.

"I told you, Cadance!" he exclaimed. Letting out a deep sigh, he continued, "I'm sorry guys."

I relaxed a bit.

"I think the best course of action would be to start figuring out how to fix this mess," I said.

"That's it!" Twilight shouted.

We all cocked our heads to one side.

"A research paper! This must be part of my test!" she said. "Is there a library where we can get started?"

"I'll have one of the guards escort you," said Shining.

Once we arrived at the library, Twilight spoke up.

"What we need to do is split up. Two of you need to interrogate the ponies, the rest of us will search the library."

"I volunteer for library research!" I blurted.

There was a general vote on who was going to ask the ponies questions. Myself and Rainbow Dash were chosen.

"Oh come on! I specifically volunteered for the option that didn't require social interaction!"

"Myself and Pinkie are excellent finders, and Rarity will just swoon every twenty seconds at the crystals," she responded.

"What about AJ? Or Spike, even?"

She paused for a long time.

"You need to make friends."

I facewinged to prevent brain damage from facehoofing. "My God, I wish I had hands again," I muttered to myself.

That, my friends, is why you don't argue with royalty. You end up playing extremely incompetent cop to a rainbow-colored pony's downright evil cop.

About halfway through the routine I came up with a response to the friends excuse to get me out of the library.

I promptly quoted Shining Armor, replacing Celestia with my go-to deity.

Ultimately, though, it was a lost cause, as we were retrieved when Twilight found the answer in a book.

Just goes to show you, nothing that is important cannot be found in a book somewhere.

Two aesops in a day, I am on a roll!

So yeah, some weird tradition about a crystal fair. Basically, it was like the Fourth of July back home, except nationalism literally powered the defenses of the "Empire."

This universe is starting to get on my nerves.

And then, we broke out into song.

Princess Cadence needs our help

Her magic will not last forever.

I think we could do it

But we need to work together.

We have to get this right, yes we have to make them see

We can save the crystal ponies with their history.

History: it saves lives.

It says that they liked jousting

They flew a flag of many hues

Made sweets with crystal berries

"Wait, they had a petting zoo with tiny ewes? That rhyme was so forced! What idiotic god decided that these would be good lyrics for a song?" I attempted to shout over the chorus.

"Meghan McCarthy!" Pinkie shouted.

"Who?" I replied before getting drowned out by the chorus.

Oh we have to get this right, yes we have to make them see

We can save the crystal ponies with their history.

There was a crystal flugelhorn

That everypony liked to play.

And the crystal kingdom anthem

Can you learn it in a day?

Oh we have to get this right, yes we have to make them see

We can save the crystal ponies with their history.

I must amend my earlier statement; I despise this universe.