Crossing Over the Arcane Hiatus

Chapter 16: Reintroductions

I dropped the sword and it fell onto the table with a sharp clang.

“Dark magic? What’s dark magic?” I asked. After a deep sigh, Luna answered.

“Dark magic isn’t actually ‘evil’ as the name might imply,” she explained. “The word ‘dark’ just signifies the form of magic being an exact opposite in the way it works compared normal magic. We could say it’s ‘anti-magic’ but that doesn’t make much sense. Plus, it doesn’t easily roll off the tongue.” Luna levitated my laptop to demonstrate that yes, she can use magic, and set it back down on the table. “Dark magic is everywhere around us, just like normal magic is. The two balance each other out, allowing for cosmic equilibrium. The only problem with dark magic is that nopony can manipulate it in the same way as normal magic; it’s just how things work. Dark magic as far as we know can only be controlled by spirits, such as a Draconequus. Since there is a far fewer number of beings that utilize dark magic, it’s comes in stronger doses to those who can.”

“The magical powers of the Draconequus this sword was bonded to means that this weapon has the entire magical potential of that very spirit,” Celestia took over the lecture, “which is essentially infinite. Now that Cindersbane has been bonded to you, only you can use that magic. How to control this magic, what it can do, and what you can handle is anyone’s guess. Not that I do not trust you or anything, but I do not just want to give someone a weapon that cuts through anything but its wielder. However seeing as it won’t even be pulled out of its sheath by anyone but you, I do believe I have little choice but to set it in your care.”

“We could always lock it away,” Luna chimed in, giving the sword a disgusted glare.

“So it could only gather more dust?” Celestia huffed. “Besides, the Draconequus remains hinted that it was young, so its magical powers are nowhere near as extreme of that as a developed spirit such as Discord. And since dark magic and normal magic cancel each other out, I highly doubt that any dark magic that is used will come in any significant amount.”

Twilight looked at the weapon in curiosity. Some thought must have popped itself inside her head, and it didn’t look like it would be leaving soon. Twilight’s horn emitted a dull purple aura, and wrapped Cindersbane in it. Her eyes narrowed and she tried to concentrate, but whatever she was doing wasn’t working.

“I can’t even pick it up!” She cried out.

“Twilight, dear,” Celestia turned towards the lavender unicorn. “I don’t expect you too. As this is dark magic, it takes a lot of effort to overcome the balance and influence it with normal magic, even if it’s something simple like lifting it.” Celestia smiled, her horn glowing and a white aura floated around Cindersbane now.

“Why, even I-“ she stopped and looked to the sword frowning. Her eyes narrowed and Celestia leaned to where she was within inches of it. The magical aura became more profound, less faded and much stronger. Celestia moved in ever so closer, squinting as a cold droplet of sweat ran down one of her cheeks.

A small spark jumped from the sword to the tip of her horn.

“Augh!” Celestia recoiled back onto her haunches at the slight shock. Twilight and I screamed. The wooden doors were promptly kicked in and splintered as two dozen guardponies rushed in. The first thing they did was make a full on attempt to tackle me to the ground.

Luna reacted swiftly and immersed the four of us and the table in a dark blue bubble. The guards who were already in mid-leap harmlessly bounced off the shield and smashed on to the floor. The rest of the angry and confused mob halted after receiving a death glare from the deity of the night.

Celestia stood up on all fours, her free flowing mane looking more like the jagged teeth of a chainsaw than the waves of a gentle ocean. She pouted, staring at the motionless sword in surprise at the small electric shock. The sun deity shook her head violently like a dog would to shake off water and the swift motion fixed her mane of its rigidity. She blinked several times and craned her neck around to the group of confused guards.

“There is nothing of the matter here. Now that door better be fixed before somepony gets demoted,” she said half seriously and half joking. Hesitantly, the guards scurried out of the room. The unicorns used their magic to fix the splintered wood back into two double doors, secured them on their hinges, and closed them behind as the left in haste. Luna dropped the force field, and all eyes turned to Celestia as she sat back down, glaring at the weapon.

“I thought I was going to have a heart attack!” I gasped for air while clutching my chest. Twilight was sprawled out on the floor; desperately trying to get some oxygen of her own and her saddlebags were huddling under the table. Luna looked to her sister puzzled and the two alicorns exchanged nervous glances.

“Well, that was interesting. Minutes ago I was tossing it around in the air, yet now I can’t seem to pick it up either.”

“What’s interesting is that you squealed,” Luna joked with a sly grin, her words stinging in Celestia’s ears. “In all my life I have never heard you so afraid.”

“I wasn’t afraid!” Celestia barked, only for Luna to stifle a laugh. “Besides, I wasn’t expecting what happened.”

Twilight and I were finally able to sit back up. Dazed, Twilight looked up to her mentor, her chest violently pulsating as air continued to push its way into her deflated lungs. I sunk back into my seat constantly checking my heart to make sure it was still beating.

“I hope that didn’t scare you two.” Celestia turned to the two of us.

“Oh no, Princess! It’s fine! W-We just weren’t… *gasp* weren’t… we’re okay.” Twilight nervously reassured her.

Speak for yourself!

“Let’s forget about this for now and get to why we’re really here,” Luna spoke calmly. Celestia, content as always (save one incident,) nodded in agreement. Twilight sighed and looked to me with worry in her eyes. The two alicorns did the same, but more demandingly.

“I… I’m fine. Right. Technology. Show.” I sat back up, plucked Cindersbane off the table, and threw it aside onto the ground. The sword bounced a few times before coming to a dull stop in the corner of the room. I saw that the three equines made mental notes that I could still move the thing physically, but they turned their attention to me when I flipped open the laptop. Twilight motioned to the two royal sisters, and the three of them shuffled around the table and sat next me.

“A password?” Luna asked.

“Yeah, these machines are meant to be personal. You don’t want just anyone to have open access to it.” I quickly typed it in and the desktop showed up. They were probably confused by the Lamborghini that I had as a desktop image.

“That is a picture of a car, a really fast one at that. It’s sort of like a self-propelled carriage,”

I explained. Twilight’s jaw went slack once more, and by today’s track record it probably won’t be the last time either.

“This thing always amazes me,” Twilight confidently spoke to the alicorns, boasting on my behalf. “I’ve only seen it get passed here once. I’ve never been able to get through the password screen.”

“Wait, you tried to use it without my permission?”

“Just once!” Twilight blushed. “I was curious…”

“Right… Anyway, I figured you two would want to see the show, so here.” Celestia followed the cursor’s motion and my finger as it raced along the touchpad. I opened up the media player and scanned through for the first episode. Right before I clicked on it I stopped and turned to Luna.

“Luna, I don’t want to offend you, but seeing as the topic is probably delicate, the first two episodes deal with the return and defeat of Nightmare Moon.”

Luna bit her lip. “No, that should be fine. Thank you for warning me.”

“You’re welcome. Now, the show generally revolves around Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and the rest of the elements.” I pressed play on the screen.

”My Little Pony, My Little Pony, ahh ahh ahh ahhh…”

Much to the disappointment of everyone else, I decided to end the show after episode nine. Twilight would probably go insane with embarrassment if knew about the next one, Swarm of the Century, especially with the two princesses here to watch. Deciding no harm could come of it, I showed them the rest of what the laptop could do without internet connection.

I opened up a text document and let Twilight type a message to Celestia and saved it. I closed the document, getting a confused look Twilight as Luna did her best not to let her sister see the screen. Then I reopened it for Celestia to read aloud. Twilight’s eyes beamed with delight after hearing Celestia read what she had previously wrote, and went back to typing another document. Many happy smiles were exchanged between the three as the watched what they wrote disappear only to reopen and have everything else previously there intact. However, now there was a cluster of files cluttering the desktop. They were even more amazed when I made a new folder and shoved all the documents in there, and opened it up to show that I hadn’t deleted them.

After that, regrettably, I showed Luna Solitaire. She quickly figured out how to play and it was obvious I wouldn’t be getting the laptop back soon. So I turned my attention to my iPhone for the remaining two equines. Twilight took it from my grasp and showed her teacher Angry Birds.

While those two were distracted I went back to the laptop to see Luna sheepishly closing it, a blank stare across her face. I reached my hand out to reopen it but she planted a hoof on top in protest.

“Did the screen go black?”

Nothing but a brilliant poker face.

“Did it say the words ‘Shutting Down’?”

A small nod.

“Did it say anything about a battery?”

“Yes…”

“Haha! The battery’s just dead, probably from the three hours we spent watching the show. Don’t worry about it,” I nudged her shoulder. She smiled at the gesture and returned a playful punch to mine.

“Batteries?” Celestia looked up from the device she held, the white glow that engulfed it quickly faded but Twilight caught it in her own before it could hit the floor. “Like that larger one?”

“Yeah. All these run off batteries. It’s just that the larger one recharges these. Speaking of which, I need to figure out a way to charge that one up…”

Celestia looked to her golden boots and raised a hoof to her face, examining the bottom of it. She reached out and poked the iPhone Twilight was busy playing with, shrugged, and turned her attention to the iPod.

“So this is the music playing device, if I remember correctly. How does it work exactly?” Celestia shrouded the iPod in her ghostly aura, lifting it up for closer inspection.

“Yes. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I do not image a vinyl record fitting in there.” Luna leaned over to get a view of it as Celestia twirled it in the air.

“No, you’re right. Records can’t fit in there, so instead it works in similar ways to that laptop. Here, if you put these ear-buds in your ears you can hear the music. They’re like little speakers.”

The two alicorns each took one of the ear-buds and inspected them meticulously. Celestia looked at me in confusion as Luna got the general idea of what to do. She floated one and snugly settled it in her ear, and after a brief argument, got Celestia do the same with the other.

“Alright, what kind of music do you two like?”

Celestia started listing off; “Symphonies, Smooth Jazz, A Capella…”

“…Rock, Pop, Punk, and a bit of Metal never hurt anypony.” Luna finished off her interests, getting deathly glares out of her sister. She simply smiled at Celestia’s disapproval.

“I do not understand how you could enjoy that new-age rubbish.”

“I don’t get why you’re still listening to that ancient junk, ‘Tia.”

I intervened, “Sorry Celestia but I don’t have much of that. Let me find something you might like though.”  While the two deities were busy sneering at each other, I found a song that hopefully wouldn’t make Celestia go insane.

“This song is called Unwell, and it’s by a band named Matchbox Twenty.”

I think I found a band that wouldn’t make Celestia go nuts. However, Luna gained control over the iPod was busy tormenting her sibling.

“Oooo… ‘Rise Against’ sounds like a fun band!”

“No, that name makes them sound like a bunch of anarchists. And you chose the last one so it’s my turn. Hmm… ‘A Day To Remember’ sounds rather pleasant.” Celestia made a face. “No, let’s try something else.”

“Hey! That was getting interesting!”

“Too bad little ‘sis. Here, how about this one? ‘Coldplay’ sounds like a band that doesn’t want to mutilate my ears.”

“Fine. But after this we’re listening to another Metallica song.”

“Ugh…”

While those two were occupied, I leaned over to see Twilight playing with the camera. She waved her hoof in front of the lens and it appeared on screen. She squealed in delight and snapped a picture of her hoof. This was quickly followed by several more pictures of her hoof.

“Hey, can I see that for a second?”

“Hmm? Sure! It’s yours after all.”

“Thanks,” I turned to the alicorns and raised the camera. The two kept arguing over what song they should listen to, and Celestia mentioned violins so she must have just discovered Vitamin String Quartet, or so it was implied by Luna’s protests. Their images appeared on screen and I pressed record. Twilight watched the red dot appear in the corner of the screen, but eyed my fingers more intently waiting for them to take a photo.

“Are you going to take a picture?” She asked.

“Nope. I’m recording a video.”

“Video?”

“Here,” I stopped recording and lowered the phone back down and hit replay. The last twenty seconds played before Twilight’s eyes. She watched in silent shock as the video showed the two alicorns bickering over song choice, Celestia coming out victorious, and Luna pleading for it to be changed only to get taunting teases in response.

“That’s amazing!”

I chuckled at her amusement. “This little guy can do thousands of things, really. It just depends on what program you’re running.”

“’Program’? It’s male?”

The doors into the room opened again, but this time not into a thousand pieces. Twilight and I turned to see Ares sticking his head in. After I nonchalantly waved to him, he opened the door wider and let in three ponies donning white lab coats before closing it behind them. A few splinters of the recently repaired door fell off and onto the ground.

“Uncle Hadron!” Twilight squealed, running up to and hugging the physicist.

“Hey kiddo! Didn’t expect to see you here of all places! Then again you are Celestia’s protégée…” Hadron turned to the other two ponies who I assume are fellow scientists. A dark blue-green unicorn mare with a lighter sky-blue mane happily smiled at Twilight, brown saddlebags thrown over her back that were filled to the brims with who knows what. The other, an earth pony stallion, didn’t seem too enthralled to be here. His gray mane did little to contrast out his bleach white coat. If his lab coat wasn’t covered in the occasional stain, it would look like he wasn’t even wearing the thing at all.

“Hey, what do have here?” Hadron looked at the dark black rectangle Twilight had brought over with her.

“Oh! This is some of Chris’s technology! A phone!”

“Chris? The human is here?” The seaweed-colored unicorn looked around at the two deities who were currently arguing to each other over another rectangle shaped object. Beside them, I was trying to get them to stop their bickering.

“Uh, Princesses…”

“I’m telling you ‘Tia, just give it a chance!”

“No! I gave you a chance when you convinced me to suffer through Avenged Sevenfold. We are going to try this ‘Nickelback’ now.”

Why in the hell do I still have that? I yanked the iPod free of their magic auras. The two looked to me in shock as if I just did the unthinkable (for all I know I just did) but very quickly Celestia regained her calm, authoritative expression. Luna simply pouted at me.

“Trust me; I’m helping you in more ways than one.” I pointed to the group standing in front of the door. They two brought their heads up and suddenly became aware of the scientists’ presence.

“How long were they there?” Luna whispered in my ear.

“They just got here,” I shrugged. Celestia audibly cleared her throat prompting the three scientists to bow.

“My little ponies, thank you for finding the time to join us today,” Celestia gave a warm smile.

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world, Princess!” Hadron returned an enthusiastic smile, the other two scientists following suit. “I can’t imagine passing up an opportunity like this!”

“What ‘opportunity’?” I whispered to Luna but got no reply. Instead the group trotted up to the table and sat on the opposite side. Twilight came around the other end and sat by me again, setting the phone down on the table. Speaking of which, the objects on the table were the only things that broke the scientists’ eyes away from staring at me. All too eagerly they went in to pick them up, and all too fast I swept in and took back my possessions.

“Laboratory Department 7, it is nice of you three to join us.” Celestia began, “why don’t you go and introduce yourselves to our guest?”

“Name’s Hadron! But you already knew that because I met you before. Told you Strings…”

“His mere presence here doesn’t prove anything Hadron!” The white earth pony shot back. “Ahem, allow me. My name is Stings and I have one of the best understandings of the universe-“

“In your dreams,” Hadron huffed.

“Hey, Hadron! Listen here…”

“Foals! Shut! Up!” The mare snapped at the other two scientists. “For goodness sake, it’s bad enough that you bicker every day, but in front of Princesses of all places? For shame.” The two stallions slumped back, daring menacing glares at each other.

“Forgive their insolence Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, and… Chris.” The mare turned to address me. “My name is Tangent, and it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m the brains of Lab-7, both figuratively and sometimes literally, and I am also the lead engineer for the REC.”

“Nice to meet you too, Tangent. I don’t mean to be rude, but could someone tell me what you three are doing here?”

“I can do that!” Hadron grinned excitingly. His horn began to glow and pulled several items out of Tangent’s saddlebags. He pulled out a calculator, several textbooks, quills, pencils, and an Equine dictionary. At the sight of the later, Twilight’s eyes widened and she retrieved the English dictionary out of her own saddlebags. Tangent took out a quill and opened a notebook to a blank page.

“We have been told that our worlds are very similar, but the question is how similar? Anything you’ve noticed since you’ve been here that’s eerily the same in your dimension?”

I turned to Celestia. “Do they know-“

“No.”

“Should I tell-“

“No.”

“Alright… moving on!” I clapped my hands together. “Things I’ve noticed… appliances are basically the same. Refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, speakers, and even medical equipment and lighting fixtures are pretty much the same.”

“…as expected…” I heard Luna whisper into her sister’s ear.

“Most of our machines run off of magic,” Strings explained. “Certain things require certain levels of magic depending on how powerful they need to be to operate. For the most part by magic enchanted gemstones to be exact; or ‘Megs’ as we call them. Depending on the size, structure, type of gemstone and what it will be used for, a meg can last a few minutes up to several years. After they run out they turn to dust and you just pop in a new one. With some machines, unicorns can simply use their magic without the need for megs.”

“That’s why we were so perplexed by your machines, or ‘computers,’ Chris.” Twilight added on, “Yours somehow uses electricity and your ‘batteries’ are very similar to megs.

“What? You harness the power of lightning to fuel your machines!?” Hadron leaned on the table eyeing my devices. “Do you not know how dangerous that stuff is if it’s not handled properly!?”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “Humans have a very knowledgeable understanding of electricity. So much so, that we can create it artificially without the need for actual lightning.”

They’re jaws hung open for the nth time. I don’t even know how many times that’s happened today alone.

“So you power everything with electricity?”

“Yes, but not all the time. Electricity is a significant portion of humankind’s energy and there are several ways to create it. Namely there’s hydroelectric power, solar energy, geothermal, natural gas, wind turbines, burning of fossil fuels, even nuclear energy. Other sources of power come from things like steam and combustion engines.

“I didn’t understand half of what you just said,” Strings frowned.

“Do you actually expect us to believe your kind has harnessed nuclear energy?” Tangent said sarcastically, looking up from her writings.

“Yeah,” I deadpanned. Her eyes widened at the severity of my blank stare.

“Okay, now on to some of the juicy stuff, transportation!” Hadron rustled through one of the textbooks, opening to a page about the wheel. “I mean, come on. You can’t just walk everywhere.”

“A lot of people do, actually. But most people drive cars. If you’re going long-distance, people generally go by train, plane, or ship.”

“Car –noun; an automobile.” Twilight recited the text while flipping through the dictionary. ”Automobile –noun; a passenger vehicle designed for travel on ordinary roads and typically having four wheels and is commonly powered my electric motors or an internal combustion engine.”

“Exactly. The closest things Equestria has to those are wagons and carriages. But these are self-propelled and most are capable of doing 100mph. Some can even go over 200mph.”

Tangent smiled at this and jotted the information down. Hadron tilted his head trying to image anything going that fast across land. And Strings…

“Is that a dictionary? In his language?” He asked Twilight.

“Yup! He let me have it!”

“…Can I look at it?”

“But… I’m using it…”

“Please?

“Strings, give it up,” Hadron hissed. “Knowing my niece, she isn’t going to willing give something like that over anytime soon. I’m sure she’ll let us look through it eventually though. Right?”

“Of course!” Twilight bobbed her head up and down. “Just, not now.”

“Now, what about your aircraft and ships?” Tangent looked up from her notes. “While pegasi don’t use aircraft for obvious reasons, non-winged creatures prefer ballooning and zeppelins.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” I went on to explain, “Humans have several types of aircraft, the most common of which are planes. Some are driven by propellers but most modern planes use jet engines. Jet engines are essentially giant combustion engines. Most jet aircraft can go about 500mph, but some military planes are capable of going three times the speed of sound. Another common type of aircraft are helicopters. They got this giant spinning propeller above them that pushes the air down and generates lift. They’re pretty slow, but they can go almost anywhere a plane can’t. That is, except for outer space. You need special craft to do that.”

“S-Space!? Are you telling me, in complete honesty, that your world has perfect space travel!?” Hadron’s eyes widened in excitement.

“No, we haven’t perfected it. Most of the stuff that gets launched just orbits our own planet, so it doesn’t get far. And most of it isn’t manned either. It’s stuff like communications satellites and telescopes mainly. Another common thing to do is send probes into deep space and other planets. At one point in time we even landed people to the moon.”

Luna cringed. “Why? What would they have done that made them deserve that?”

“What? Oh! Nothing! It was forty or so years ago when we put man on the moon. It was about exploring, not banishment. And when they got back they brought tons of moon rocks and such.”

“You willingly sent people to the moon so they can explore it and they were able to come back on their own?” Twilight looked up. “That. Is. AMAZING!!”

“Well it hasn’t been repeated since. I don’t know why, but it probably has something to do with it being too expensive nowadays or lack of interest. Right now we were trying to figure out how to land people on a nearby planet, Mars. We send robots and probes there to explore all the time. Anyhow, that’s the just of human aviation.”

“Okay, now what about ships?”

“I can’t imagine ships being that different from yours, other than that they’re probably a lot bigger and are specially designed for certain tasks. Really big ones haul cargo, Aircraft Carriers can launch and land planes at sea, and others can plow through fields of ice. Submarines however can go underwater for extended periods of time and explore the ocean’s depths!”

Tangent hastily scribbled down her notes. “Nuclear power, automobiles, aircraft going three times the speed of sound, space exploration, and underwater ships? Well that’s something. I’d say your world is at least a century more advanced than ours, if not several.  It’d take an unimaginable amount of megs to create or sustain any one of those things.”

“Speaking of megs, I’d like to get back onto the topic of machines,” Strings pointed at my electronics. “Could you explain what those are and what they do?”

I picked up the laptop. “This is a computer, but the batteries are dead right now. I’ll need to recharge them before it’ll work again.” I sat the laptop back down and produced the phone.

“This is a smartphone, which does more functions than a regular phone. If you and someone else each have one, you can talk to each other without being in the same room. And my iPod…”

“…is missing.” I looked up to Celestia and Luna. Celestia sighed, and a small white flicker glowed in Luna’s ear canal. Out popped the ear-bud, and the rest of the iPod appeared from under the table. Luna innocently grinned and I looked down to see she was listening to. Bad Religion? This alicorn sure has good tastes…

“Anyway, this is an iPod. It plays music through these tiny speakers you stick in your ears and it can hold tons of songs. Right now I’ve only got a few thousand.”

“You have a few thousand individual songs on that tiny thing!?” Hadron blurted out. “Why, such technology could revolutionize Equestria!”

“Actually, since they’re mine, I’d rather you not dissect them.” I pulled back everything. Hardon’s horn began to glow and so did the iPod, but a quick hoof to the back of the head delivered by Tangent stopped that issue.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t play with them!” Strings reached out and grabbed the iPhone. Twilight was quick to react and ran over to the other side of the table, instructing the scientists on how to use it and what it could do. Luna had retaken the iPod and was happily basking in the foreign music.

“Wow, I wish Bunsen was here. Things just seem incomplete without him,” Tangent sighed.

“I’ll say! He’s missing out on all the good stuff!” Hadron smiled and watched Twilight try to give Strings an understanding of the device, but being an earth pony he couldn’t quite operate it that well.

“Who’s Bunsen?” I asked the crowd.

“Bunsen’s our ace when it comes to chemistry and biology. He’s in Sacramaneto right now on some business trip. I’m sure he’d be going nuts taking notes about you and gathering samples and whatever else it is he does.”

I shiver ran up my spine. Ugh… needles…

“Hey Chris, what’s a ‘Foo Fighter’?” Luna asked.

“It’s an old term that World War II aircraft pilots used when they encountered unexplainable phenomena.”

“World War Two?”

“Yup. There’s still a lot about my world that you don’t know, nor do you likely need to know.”

“Why would a band call themselves that?”

“Because they can? I don’t know…”

Luna reluctantly accepted the answer and went back to the device. Tangent was now in control of the iPhone with the rest of the ponies hovering around to see what she was doing. And Celestia was… nudging my shoulder? She had gotten up to retrieve Cindersbane and held the weapon by the grip in her mouth. She gently set it down and dropped it in my hands.

“It is extremely odd how it is no longer influenced my magic,” Celestia frowned at the weapon and awkwardly hung her head. Her eyes came back up and met mine. “There’s still a lot more we can learn about it now that it can be unsheathed.”

“So… it’s mine to take care of I assume?”

“Yes, and since it’s a priceless artifact I would like you to keep within reach at all times. However I don’t exactly like the prospect of you walking through Ponyville with a deadly weapon. Even if you never have the need to use it. After all, you saw how Twilight reacted to its mere presence.”

“When would I need to use it?”

Celestia rose back up so now she was towering over me. “Chris, I would like to extend my hospitality and relocate you here to Canterlot; for both your safety and for the research opportunities.”

Not quite sure how to respond to that. You can’t really just say no to the damn Princess…

“My safety? But, Rarity’s counting on me to-“

“I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s got plenty of friends to help her out with her work and I can send somepony to pick up your belongings.”

“I… I don’t really know. I can’t really just quit on Rarity after one day, and I agree with you about the sword. I just… I just don’t know. I feel like I’m not really being given a choice, and if I am it’s rather an impossible one. Why is this for my safety?”

“Tell you what. I’ll give Miss Rarity a compensation for your absence, and in the meantime you stay here in Canterlot for a week or two.”

“Well can I write her a letter? I’d like to get her input.”

“Of course,” Celestia nodded in approval.

“Chris? Is that you? Thank heavens your back so soon! I need your help with- oh. Hello Spike.”

“Heheheheeee… Hi Rarity…” Spike dragged his foot through the dirt in front of the boutique. Rarity stood in the doorway, drawing out the awkward silence.

“May I ask what you are doing here?”

“Huh? Oh! Right! I got a letter from the Princess for you-“

Rarity eagerly snatched the scroll from the love struck dragon, absentmindedly slamming the door in his face.

“Okay! Bye, Rarity!”

Back inside the boutique, Rarity ripped the ribbon off the piece of parchment and unraveled it.

“WHAT!? The Princess wants Chris to stay in Canterlot!? Without meeeee….? Why I have the… hmm? A compensation for is absence? I don’t really… Oh my. Those are a lot of zeros. Tell me she put a decimal… ah! She did! And it’s way over there...”