Elixirs are a guardians best friend

Prologue

Elixir is a seemingly bold pony who, although her tough exterior, is actually a shy and timid mare on the inside. Her story is begin about one thousand years before the current bearers of the Elements of Harmony, telling her tale right in the time of Nightmare Moon.

"Oh why has it been getting so cold recently?", she complained to herself, "Everypony is getting scared, the nights are getting longer and ponies are going missing! While the Wanderers are speaking of strange creatures stirring around…”

Wanderers where the mares and stallions brave enough to patrol the borders of the Kingdom given the most recent circumstances.

Elixir kept going for a little longer but her mind brought her back to words spoken and deeds done that made tears to roll over her cheeks, “Oh if only I could be free to run and fall in love, but... Father doesn’t  want me to, not after what happened to Mother…”

But the mare she got lost in thought and tears, the more she lost her way of going before ending up in the Old Forest. Eventually she crawled back to reality while blinking at her surrounding under a small sniff, "Oh what have I done now?”, was all she could bring out before turning herself into every direction, trying to figure out where she came from.

Eventually she just went into the complete opposite direction then needed and soon enough came to a small field. Her eyes fell upon the peace of the plain but her ears caught up a low growling sound. Elixir carefully made her way over to the middle of field, right into the belly of the beast as something was lurking from the nearby bush.

Without a warning giving of any kind, a loud roar of a Cerberus fell in the mare her ears, freezing her on the spot as the beast jumped out of the bush, having its jaw open to slaughter her almost instantly.

A deafening scream left the mouth of the mare upon the revealing of the Cerberus  and she ducked to the ground covering her head with her forelegs.

But something happened to the mighty creature as its fur began to change into a gray coloring and appeared to be turning into stone. The massive, by now, statue dropped to the ground where it cracked softly before looking like a rock that stood there for ages.

While the dust began to clean itself, Elixir carefully peeked at the happened events before standing back up on all four of her hooves and turned her attention to everything there was to be seen, the coolness of night, the moving leaves in the wind and the clouds moving past by their own.

But as she turned back to the rock, something unexpected had come from behind it and was glaring directly at Elixir. A deadly Cockatrice was staring her right in the eyes, “Oh Fiddlesticks…”, was all she could say before trying to get away. But it was already too late, her hindlegs had been turned into stone which resulted in her falling down to the ground, giving the creature free game.

The more the poor young mare tried to pull away the more she seemed to be embraced

by the cold stone imprisonment. One last scream of pure terror did its turn through the haunted forest as faint words followed, “Help! Hel…”

There she laid, trying to escape the deadly gaze of the Cockatrice, one of her forelegs trying to prevent it as the other was used for supporting her body, but everything was for nothing. The last thing Elixir would see for the upcoming thousand years, was the sight of the creature bounding her to stone set on her retina.

Chapter 1

“Oh my, you poor thing! Hey Fluttershy do you mind if we bring this lost pony to your cottage?”, a mulberry Unicorn mare spoke to a yellow Pegasus. The Pegasus just had finished subduing the, or a, Cockatrice and therefore might have saved a lot of lives.

The mulberry was standing before the statue of Elixir and was fearing the worst as the Pegasus came up as well, allowing her eyes to fall upon the mare, “O-okay then…”, was all she could bring out, “But be careful, please Twilight.”

She gave a small nod before summoning an immense amount of magic through her horn in order to levitate the stoned statue. After a lot of mental stress, the imprisoned mare came off of the ground for the first time in a millennium as Twilight softly mumbled, “Wow I never thought such a skinny pony could weigh as much as stone!”

After a long but careful walk through the forest, the Unicorn and the Pegasus did reach the small cottage and the statue was placed in the living room. Fluttershy began to take care for her little critters where Twilight began to do her best to unstone the mare, panting heavily from the already burned up magic.

More and more magic slowly began to surround the statue as the stone started to drip off of the body, revealing a truly feared Elixir underneath it. She slowly regained the strength in her limbs while her bones all cracked from not moving in ages. She wanted to scream from the Cockatrice, but then blinked a couple times as she saw where she was, “Ugh where... Am... I?”, she softly groaned.

“You're in my house”, spoke Fluttershy as she returned into the living room in reaction to the second voice coming from it, “My n-name is Fluttershy and this i-is Twilight Sparkle.”

“And who are you?” Twilight butted in.

“The name is Elixir, and I didn’t realize there was a big town like this around these parts…”

“But PonyVille has been here for years, ever since my grandmother for sure.”, replied Twilight.

“PonyVille? I’ve never heard of it.”, said Elixir as her mind began to think about the name.

“How can you never of heard of PonyVille?”, queried Fluttershy.

“Well last thing I remember is being attacked by a huge three headed dog that froze to stone, but that must just be a dream because that's impossible right?”, stammered

the fatigued Elixir.

“Hmm a Cerberus you say? But they haven't been seen in around a thousand years! But as you say it must just be a dream.”, Twilight eventually concluded, “But how did you end up in the forest?”

“I can’t really remember but in my dream I was wandering around before getting lost… But as you say it must be a dream as I wasn’t alive one thousand years ago!”

Fluttershy then had an idea but she didn’t want to say it in front of her guest. All of the sudden Spike bursted into the normally so quiet cottage. The slamming of the door nearly gave Elixir an heart attack as the little dragon began to speak in a blurted manner, “Twilight, what's the news? Can I help in any way?”

Twilight released a small but thoughtful moan before speaking again, “Well you can start by showing Elixir here around town and introducing her to some of our friends. Come to think of it… I never asked you, Elixir where are you from?”

The mare also began to grind her mind again as she said, “I... I...can’t remember, I just can’t... But you’re saying about a tour around town that sounds nice...”

Once Elixir had left with Spike in order to meet the rest of the group of friends the mares had, see everypony’s houses and the disco of Vinyl Scratch, Twilight hastily turned her attention to Fluttershy and spoke,  “I think that when she was talking about her dream I think that it really happened!”

“But that’s impossible, you said it yourself right?”, quivered Fluttershy, “You said a Cerberus-thingy hasn’t been seen for one thousand years right?”

“Yes…”, came the reply, “But remember when she talked about the Cerberus turning to stone? Maybe she was frozen along with it one thousand years ago by a Cockatrice.”

Fluttershy looked a little questioning before saying, “So she’s ad ancient pony, that explains her not knowing about PonyVille…”

“Well done, yes but if a Cerberus was also frozen doesn’t that mean that it’s somewhere in the Everfree forest?”

Fluttershy her eyes grew small as she managed to stutter forward, “Ohhh noooo, think of all the poor bunnies out there, we have to tell someone, or at least you have to...”

After some quick thinking Twilight made up her decision, “We can’t send a message to my brother as he is still in the Crystal Empire so as soon as Spike gets back we have to send a message to Celestia at Canterlot and hope she sends aid in time.”

Time passed by and still no sign from Spike or Elixir. Twilight was about to go and find Spike herself and tell him off for being so long when right at the moment he burst through the door looking rather pleased with himself. “And what is the meaning of this lateness and where is Elixir?”, queried Twilight.

“When we were visiting ponies, Applejack suggested that, because of Elixir’s interest in nature and science, that she should take potions lessons with Zecora, I came back to tell you once we reached her house, she should be coming back soon enough.”

“What?”, yelled Twilight, “Quick, send this to Celestia.” She frantically scribbled down a

message explaining the whole situation down on a piece of paper Fluttershy had laying around. When the dragon was given the message, he rushed out of the door and sent the letter on its way with his breath. But as he did, he was still wondering what he had done wrong.

Fluttershy was quivering in the corner while Twilight was pacing back and forth as her mind was trying to come up with a plan.

Around half an hour had past as Elixir was trotting back home, or to Fluttershy’s cottage, after her first lesson in potion making. But as she wandered through the forest, a familiar roar did its turn in the distance, the mare looked up to who, or what it might be before her brain remembered just what it was.  “Oh no, not this again!”, she began to change her pace into a gallop and just ran away from the sound. But it seemed like the more she moved away the closer it got, heart was pounding in her throat as her hooves were moving like a blur.

Elixir sped through the woods until she stranded upon an small area she knew all too well, on into the woods until she entered a strangely familiar clearing. “Oh please, Celestia help me! Why me, why is it alwa...”, she was abruptly cut off by a blood-curdling roar as the massive Cerberus leaped over the trees and landed right in front of Elixir who was trying to keep calm while slowly backing away until a crack of a dead branch breaking did its turn through the small plain, “Dammit.”, Elixir muttered  under a her breath.

The monster turned two of its heads around which both snarled, spinning on the spot, this resulting in large marks to be left in the in the sickly green grass. It snapped at Elixir whom was close to crying. But her mind brought back many memories from her past, memories suppressed so long ago. Memories of how her family was cast out of the settlement they had once called home, how her mother had died trying to fend off a small band of changelings, how she made the mistake of wandering too far and how her father must of felt.

Then in that second a spark of fire appeared in her eyes. Without a hitch she confronted the beast head-on, firing bolts of magic into its eyes before leaping out of the way of giant paws just in time.  But then it was over, the fire had been put out and the monster was just even more enraged.

“Oh fiddlesticks”, she panted before bolting away, weaving past trees and animals, leaping over fallen trees while dodging and ducking the beast’s every strike, but she couldn’t keep this up for long, Elixir was slowing down while realizing what was going to happen, she decided that she would use the last bits of her strength on fighting the beast. She was not going to let PonyVille be destroyed.

As she reached the clearing where it all started again, thus having walked in a circle, she skidded round and summoned an immense amount of magic to form a giant chain, it wrapped itself around the Cerberus, tightening and squeezing the beasts three necks and enveloping its legs in a red mass of writhing metal. But then the inevitable happened as Elixir couldn’t maintain such a powerful spell for long which as a result had the beast shattering the chains. As it stumbled, the mighty beast tried to take a hit at Elixir who began to scream in pure terror.

She was just about to be mashed into pony pulp when a white Pegasus broke through the trees and began to fly circles around the monster, Elixir witnessed this sight and just stared at the bold pony, both relieved and love-struck. The Pegasus was of average height and had a grey and turquoise mane, he wore dark shades, his cutie mark was of a Spartan helmet and he had straight, calm features and was risking his life for no reason, thought Elixir to herself in her lovestruck state. But if he knew what was going on, why didn’t he brought any form of extra support, but she couldn’t hate him as he was risking his life for her and being quite the dashing stallion in her eyes.

But then an idea formed in Elixir’s head, she waved frantically to the Pegasus and he seemed mesmerized for a second but then shouted, “You should join the other ponies back at the border my guards will keep you safe.”

Elixir thought for a second, discarding the idea and shouted back, “I have a plan that doesn’t involve you flying aimlessly in circles without even damaging the beast, I learned how to make a sleep potion that will cause anything to dream the deepest dream you can”, the now known to be guard nodded before she shouted again, “It will take a few moments to prepare the concoction, so keep the beast occupied!”

Elixir rushed off into a bush in order to find the necessary ingredients, “Let’s see what do we need?”, she muttered softly, but luckily for her, Zecora was so kind enough to give her some of the required ingredients. “All that is needed now is a few red berries and something to hold the mixture.”, Elixir quickly found the berries in the buses and improvised with a small flask that contained some apple juice from Fluttershy’s house to hold the sticky paste, “Not exactly perfect but it will do!”

At that moment two other ponies burst into the scene while galloping on their hooves, Elixir didn’t think they would be much help as they just stood amazed at their captain doing circles around the beast and diving at its eye. But just then Elixir ran back into the clearing and raised the flask with the very last of her magic.

While she did this, the captain asked to her, “Is that small flask going to be enough to bring down this behemoth?” As much as this was the question indeed, Elixir didn’t give any answer and instead dropped emptied the contents of the flask down one of the Cerberus’ snapping mouths.

As the monster crashed to the ground Elixir saw the beast look her in the eyes and then she had memories of it chasing her and she became weak and lightheaded. The last thing Elixir saw was the guard captain swooping down to catch her fall.