And Did Those Feet, in Ancient Time

Graham and Charlie opted to wait one night at a hotel in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, based on the rationality that they should wait, and just adjust to being back on Earth. Charlie had also said that Llanfair PG was small enough that they wouldn’t feel overwhelmed jumping back into to reality, which Graham somewhat agreed with, stating, “This place is so small, I might as well be stuck with those bloody ponies again!”

Their time in Equestria had taken up only day, them having been sent over in the early hours of Friday, and being plonked down in Wales near to noon on Saturday. It was evening now, and Charlie was standing in the corner of the room on the phone, talking to Andrea, or at least that’s what Graham thought his lady friend was called. Graham himself was sitting down on the edge of one of the beds, watching the telly.

“Can you believe this?” Graham asked as Charlie walked in, gesturing to the box.

“Something wrong?” Charlie answered evenly.

“Look at this,” Graham said, happy to have found something to complain about, “The news was just talking about that guy who’s disappeared from that farm in Cambridgeshire, and this programme’s talking about a monster running around there eating people. It’s tasteless, that’s what it is.”

“D’you think we made the news when we disappeared?” Charlie wondered aloud, trying to steer the conversation away from one of Graham’s rants.

“It’s doubtful,” he replied, “We weren’t gone for that long, and the case on the news is bizarre. This guy just leaves his house, and not five minutes later, his wife goes to look, and he’s gone. They follow some footsteps into the swamp and they just. . . stop.”

“Maybe he’s gone over to Equestria too,” Charlie suggested, half-jokingly.

Graham grunted, as he always did when left with nothing to say, and his attention drifted back to the TV screen. It was one of those shows about supernatural beings and creatures, written by people who’d never seen enough of a Scooby-Doo episode to realise the scary monster is actually just a scary sex-offender wearing a costume.

“Described as a large dog, known for its sinister red eyes, the Black Shuck is a cryptid that lives within the countryside of East Anglia. The locals we’ve spoken to in rural Suffolk and on the fens of Cambridgeshire have told us the Black Shuck is considered a portent of terrible things to come. The appearance of the Black Shuck has been documented since at least the 1500s, leading us to believe that the Shuck being immortal is the only logical conclusion.”

“An immortal swamp dog is the only logical conclusion?” Graham asked, as if the telly would answer his question. Instead the programme carried on, now interviewing one man who claimed to have a photo of the creature.

“I’ve seen it, twenty years back, took the photo m’self I did,” a very stolid looking farmer with a rough grey beard declared, “Look here.”

The screen turned to a photo, showing a dark, blurry image of a forest at night. After a few seconds, the camera zoomed into the lower-left part of the photo, and cast a red circle around a shadow, virtually identical to every other part of the photo.

“I am in shock,” Graham announced disinterestedly.

“Although the Black Shuck has previously been known as a dog,” the host said woodenly, keeping with the standard of quality the show had set so far, “After a rise in people sighting the Shuck as recently as this week, many have now described the Shuck as having an equine appearance.”

Graham and Charlie’s eyes shot up at the mention of the word “equine”, just in time to see an artist’s rendering of the new Black Shuck. Graham and Charlie looked upon King Sombra, tyrant of the Crystal Empire, a vanquished being of pony legend, as told to them by Twilight Sparkle.

And he had followed the two back to Earth.

______________________________________________________________________________

Celestia and Cadence strode into the room at Canterlot palace, which at this point seemed to be evenly divided between being a banquet hall and an interrogation chamber.

“Hello!” Discord greeted the two chirpily, unflapped by their stern demeanours.

“Listen to me, Discord--” Celestia began, but was interrupted by the Draconequus.

“Cadence! What a pleasure!” he exclaimed, “How are you feeling? All recovered from your honeymoon night with Shining Armour?”

Cadence shrunk back behind Celestia.

“Why does everyone bring that up?” she asked weakly.

“Discord!” Celestia yelled, hoping to get some form of reaction from him, “We thought you were reformed!”

Silence swept over the empty dining hall like a winter gale.

“Fine,” said Discord quietly, “Why’d you bring me here?”

“When you sent the humans back home,” Celestia spoke flatly, not as accusation, but as fact, “You ended up in the Crystal Empire. Now, King Sombra’s horn is missing.”

“That’s false!” Discord yelled, beginning to mount his defensive, “You’ve no proof I was at the Crystal--oh wait,” he stopped and looked at Cadence, “You do.”

At that point, Celestia’s facial expression was one that Discord could describe as one that screamed “I will turn you back into a statue”, so he decided it best to appeal to the princess with less vexation and anger in her eyes.

“You’ve got to believe me,” Discord said, now dead serious and looking at Cadence, “My appearing in the Crystal Palace and the horn disappearing weren’t my fault! I didn’t mean to!”

“He might be telling the truth,” Cadence suggested.

“Do you swear?” asked Celestia, still with that ‘statuesque’ look in her eyes.

“Pinkie Pie swear?” Cadence asked, after Discord nodded to the previous question.

“I don’t even know what that is, but all right,” Discord replied hesitantly.

After the rigmarole of explaining to Discord the concept of a Pinkie Pie swear, Discord promised to cross his heart, hope to fly, and even to stick a cupcake in his eye. Discord, slightly less afraid of “statuetisation”, explained to the princesses that it would be possible for Celestia and the Element of Harmony holders to briefly go to the human world, and make sure Sombra wasn’t causing problems there. When his explanation was finished, and he asked Celestia if he was to be encased in marble once again, Celestia’s expression softened for the first time in the interview.

“Look,” Celestia said, “Personally, I’m not quite sure you’ve fully reformed. But Fluttershy swore by you, and you’ve done nothing to the calibre of the old you. But you’re certainly not cut out for Canterlot life. I’ll arrange a home in the country for you.”

Celestia left with Cadence before Discord could respond, happy that the interrogation technique of “good princess, bad princess” had proven effective.

______________________________________________________________________________

Graham sat in the passenger seat of a hired 1990s Toyota, looking out the window. Charlie was in the seat next to him, driving down the M20. The sun was setting now; they’d been driving since morning. The original plan had been to stop for lunch in Swindon, but upon seeing what Swindon was like, they decided to drive through the city, slightly faster than any other they’d passed.

The shock of seeing Sombra was fresh in Graham’s mind, and had left Charlie quite disturbed too.

“We’re going to find him,” Charlie had declared, right after seeing the Crystal Empire’s greatest nightmare on the telly.

“What? How?” Graham had asked.

“You see,” Charlie had explained clearly, “We’re going to hire a car. We’re going to drive to Dover, I’m going to talk to Annette, and then we go north and find Sombra.”

“North?” Graham had asked.

“North.” Charlie had answered, annoyingly calm.

“East Anglia is quite a big place.”

So, despite their lack of a proper plan, the two had crossed the breadth of Great Britain, now no more than five minutes away from Dover. The further they’d gone into England, the more Graham noticed a certain sort of darkness that seemed to be present. He hoped it was just his mind playing tricks, a result of his nervousness about Sombra. Unfortunately, Charlie’s opinion on the matter seemed to mirror his.

“Something’s wrong,” Charlie said, brow furrowed, as the car drove along the Dover waterfront.

“What is?” Graham asked.

“It’s a clear night; we should be able to see the lights from Calais.”

Graham peered out the window, across the straight, and he too found only darkness in response.

Not long after, they pulled into the driveway of a small house, and Graham followed as Charlie knocked on the door.  A woman about Charlie’s age opened the door, and embraced him warmly.

“I was so worried,” she said by way of greeting, “Wait, who’s this?”

“Annette, this is Graham, he’s a friend,” Charlie said.

Graham waved awkwardly, and followed Charlie as he entered the house.

“Come look at this,” Annette instructed, voice trembling.

In the corner of the main room was a TV, set to the BBC, with breaking news.

The presenter looked noticeably worried, his normally stiff upper lip trembling as he read the story.

“--totally unprecedented isolation. For those who have just tuned in, Great Britain has lost all contact with the outside world. Several attempts have been made to restore communications with mainland Europe and the United States. One attempt has also been made to restore communications with Belfast. There have been reports of failed attempts for boats to cross the channel, but at present, it is reported we cannot even see Ireland or France. All flights have been grounded for risk of crashes, and the Prime Minister will be giving a speech at the top of the hour. Right now, the best advice for all Britons is to stay calm, and stay indoors.”

Graham stared at the telly in disbelief. This was starting to sound exactly like Sombra’s curse on the Crystal Empire, only now, it was Britain’s turn.

“Misery and suffering to all of us,” Charlie said to himself, evidently thinking along the same lines as Graham. He then turned to Graham and asked, “What do we do?”

“We could trying going to Glasgow; they probably won’t even tell the difference.”

“Look,” Charlie said, more to himself than anyone, “We’ll go to Cambridgeshire, like where that programme said he was seen, and just figure it out from there.”

He then went over to Annette, and explained to her they needed to go north, and they knew what was going on. “I’ll explain everything on the drive,” he said. Charlie then went into another room, where Graham heard him exclaim, “Ah-hah!”

Thinking he’d found how to stop Sombra, Graham rushed in after him, only to find Charlie ecstatically ripping through the packaging on a Sainsbury’s microwaveable Cornish pasty.