And Did Those Feet, in Ancient Time

The six from Ponyville once more stood within the walls of Canterlot palace, requested via a hastily scribbled note from their princess. They were in a small waiting area, the far end of which had a large wooden door, the room on the other side being where Celestia and Luna were.

“What is taking them so long?” Twilight asked, tapping her left foreleg impatiently. She had asked the same question four times in the past quarter hour, each time with growing nervousness, and each time, one of the other five ponies in the room would attempt to reassure their somewhat neurotic friend.

“Oh darling,” Rarity said, recognising it was now her turn to try and assuage her worries, “You know how the princesses do so love to have their long discourses.”

“I know,” replied Twilight, “But this time there’s something more. Something big is happening, and the princesses know it.”

Attention now turned towards Applejack, for she was the only one who’d yet to give out some sage advice (or, in Pinkie Pie’s case, an amazingly well coordinated improvised dance routine).

“Look sugarcube, I ain’t gon’ lie to ya,” she began, “But I know what y’all mean. The princesses are acting all weird, and I ain’t seen Celestia this worried since, well, ever.”

“I’d say she was this worried about Sombra!” Pinkie Pie chirpily chimed in, not realising how much truth her statement held.

On the other side of that grand, imposing door, the princesses were locked in their own discussion.

“We can do it,” Celestia affirmed, “We’ve learnt how from Discord.”

“The question,” Luna retorted, “Is not can we do it, it’s should we do it?”

“Sombra’s horn is there!”

“So?”

“We both know the horn’s power, now imagine how it would be on a world that possesses no magic of its own,” Celestia explained.

Luna paused for a moment, considering it, then continued the debate.

“But,” she spluttered, “We’ve so much to do here! What of Starswirl’s book? What of Twilight’s   . . . ascension?”

“It’ll have to wait, or maybe it won’t,” Celestia enigmatically replied, then continued once Luna sent her a curious look, “Starswirl often postulated the idea of more than one world, parallel realms, he called it. It might not be what he wrote of in this book, but if Twilight and her friends managed to bring the magic of friendship to another world, especially one that doesn’t have magic to begin with, that’d really be something.”

The door swung open, and Celestia stood in front of Twilight Sparkle and her friends.

“I need to talk with all of you.”

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“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” Graham asked with considerable temper, “All of Britain has been cursed by an evil unicorn and you’re faffing about with Cornish pasties?” In a remarkable feat, that shocked both Graham and Charlie, his voice managed to turn downright shrill on the last two words of that sentence.

“I was going to give you one too,” Charlie answered ashamedly.

“Don’t you think maybe we’ve slightly bigger problems at present?” Graham asked rhetorically.

“You don’t understand!” yelled Charlie. The microwave beeped, and Charlie snatched a second pasty out of it, now holding one in each hand.

“The Cornish pasty,” Charlie babbled, waving one of the West Country pastries in front of Graham’s face, “Represents Britain. It is our pride, our culture, heritage, and above all, our spirit! The Cornish pasty embodies our fight! The Pasty shan’t submit, and neither shall we!” to emphasise his point, he took a good bite out of one of the pasties.

“When we first met, weren’t you the normal one?” Graham asked, thinking upon whether or not Charlie needed a proper smack in the face before they continue.

“I . . . but, oh you’re right,” Charlie said, “We’ve got to stay focused, come on!”

Charlie handed Graham the uneaten pasty, got Annette, the three of them piled into the rented Toyota, and they drove north, hoping to find Sombra.

As they drove, Charlie began to tell his girlfriend the story of his past few days.

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Twilight had been informed, Luna had been convinced, the Elements had been gathered, and Discord had been withdrawn from Canterlot. She was almost prepared for her incursion into the human world, if only to liberate them from Sombra. Only one matter remained to be seen to before she could leave.

Princess Cadence seemed nervous, standing in this room, as if she had grown unaccustomed to her foalhood home.

Celestia came up to her.

“My sister, are you alright?” she asked compassionately.

Cadence simply stood there.

“Are you worried about the Crystal Empire?” Celestia asked.

“No,” the younger sister replied with a weak smile, “The people love Shining Armour, he’ll have no problems.”

“And the people here love you,” Celestia finished, “You’ll have no problems running in my stead whilst I’m gone.”

“My worries aren’t about what will happen on this world,” Cadence spoke quietly.

Celestia reassuringly set her hoof onto Cadence, and told her, “Oh Cadence, you’ve nothing to worry about. Luna and I will be gone for barely two days. It won’t be difficult to find Sombra, he’s an extremely powerful mage in a world without magic.”

“Telling me that doesn’t really help,” she meekly commented, “What if you and Luna are defeated? I’ll be the last Alicorn.” A look of horror dawned on her face.

“We won’t be defeated, and there might be more than three Alicorns soon.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” Celestia said with a smile, “Just remember this: While only eight ponies will make the journey, all of Equestria is with us in spirit.”

Cadence smiled, and embraced her sister warmly before she trotted out the door, closing it with a sense of unmistakable finality.

Cadence sat there placidly for a few minutes, before a puzzling thought came over her.

“So, if Equestria’s with you in spirit, what happens to that spirit if you die? I don’t feel reassured at all,” she said to the empty room.

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Graham sat in the back seat of the Toyota, holding on to a Cornish pasty that had been encased in cling wrap. They’d left Dover about an hour and a half ago. For the first forty or so minutes, Charlie had, with the help of Graham, explained to Annette his experience with Equestria.

Annette had nodded and listened, occasionally asked a question, but it was evident to Graham that she wasn't even entertaining the idea that Charlie wasn't completely bonkers.

The M11 was completely empty, which unnerved Graham to no end. The emptiness of the motorway, combined with the silence of the other two in the car, only served to have Graham retreat into his thoughts.

He looked down, and saw the cling wrapped pasty. He was alone with the pasty. It was just him and the pasty. He stared at the pasty.

The pasty, thankfully, did not stare back.

What did Charlie see in the miserable little roll? To him, a Cornish pasty just looked like a pie someone had trodden on and squashed out of shape.

He looked out the window for a moment. The M11 still held not a single car other than theirs, but a sign informed them of their proximity to the village of Wendens Ambo.

He looked down again.

That pasty actually did look quite nice.

“I never thought saving the world would be this tedious,” Charlie joked awkwardly, hoping to break the silence.

“Don’t. Tempt. Fate,” Graham instructed clearly, punctuating each word.

He was just about to undo the cling wrap when a large black cloud appeared, blocking the motorway in front of them. Looking forward, Charlie could clearly see King Sombra’s face within the cloud, before a bolt of pure black lightning struck the bonnet of the car, sending it spinning out of control.

“What did I bloody tell you?” Graham yelled as Charlie struggled to regain control of the swerving automobile.

The car turned across the four lanes of the M11, making a semi-circular pattern. Charlie slammed his foot down on the accelerator, before making a U-turn, and speeding up yet again, barrelling towards Sombra’s crowd.

Annette shrieked, and Graham called Charlie an idiot, before accusing him of having an oedipal complex, although the language Graham used was much more colourful.

“It’s worth a shot,” was all Charlie said, before another bolt struck the car.

Next thing Graham remembered, he was sitting in the back seat of a Toyota that had crashed into a tree on the side of the M11.

Charlie and Annette were standing in the adjacent field, yelling at him to come on. He practically kicked open the door and bolted right past the two.

Unfortunately, about twenty metres from the car, Charlie slipped and landed face first into the muddy field. Annette ran over in an attempt to help him up, before turning around to find Sombra, now in his regular unicorn form, slowly trotting up to the two, his eyes filled with malice.

His horn began to emit black sparks, and he looked down at Charlie. Graham had to act fast.

He threw the Cornish pasty at Sombra. It landed perfectly, skewering itself on Sombra’s horn. Whatever sinister magic he had tried to muster was replaced by a gratifying explosion of minced beef and diced potatoes. Sombra was distracted, and so Charlie seized the opportunity to try and mount Sombra in what Graham assumed to be an attempted spear tackle.

Sombra’s horn was once again unrestrained, and so he tossed Charlie absent-mindedly to the side, like a young child playing with toy soldiers. Sombra slowly approached Charlie, who once again lay in the mud, and Graham couldn’t help but think they were back to square one, although their ammunition/pasty stocks had been depleted. It was immediately evident that all hope was lost, when a familiar voice was heard from near Sombra.

“Gotcha!”

Graham looked to find Princess Celestia, her lunar sister, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy. The six ponies were once again outfitted with the Elements of Harmony, and wasted no time in getting to work.

Six magnificent rainbow patterned beams shot straight up, illuminating the drab grey clouds above, and all six streams converged with one another, before striking down from the heavens, aimed directly at King Sombra.

“With my last breath, let it be known, there is none I curse more than Spike!”

With that, the precision strike channelled itself through Sombra’s horn, this time disintegrating his entire self.

In a small field, just off of a motorway in north-western Essex, south of Wendens Ambo, the magic of friendship, and the Elements of Harmony manifested themselves on Earth for the first and only time.

“Thank you so unbelievably much,” Charlie said, practically kneeling at Celestia's hooves.

“Don’t thank me,” Celestia responded with a warm smile, “Luna and I are just here to deliver these six to a timely rescue. Who’s this?”

“Oh, where are my manners?” Charlie asked, composure thus regained, “Annette, this is Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Rarity, Rainbow, Applejack, Fluttershy, and of course, Pinkie!”

Annette stood there numbly, and vacantly raised a hand in a half wave.

“I know it’s a shock, but don’t swear,” Graham instructed, “They’ll just think it’s your name.”

“It’s lucky you two left Ponyville when you did,” Pinkie said, “The very day after you arrived in Canterlot, a Manticore was spotted near town.”

Charlie smiled, “Thanks for keeping me up to speed,” he said happily.

“Well, this will be goodbye,” Celestia said, “Any more crossing and the border between us will be too weak. It’s a shame you can’t come back even once, you’ll miss Twilight’s coronation.”

“My what?” Twilight asked with shock.

“I’ll tell you on the way home,” Celestia replied.

After a few minutes of goodbyes, Charlie, Graham and Annette stood in the field. It was night now, but they could see the stars if they looked up.

The island was back.

They managed to push the car out onto the motorway, and drove back to Dover. The lights of Calais shone brighter than ever, and the town was full of Frenchman, eager to see what had happened to the vanished Britain. They pulled into Annette’s driveway, and Charlie said to Graham, “It’s been quite an odd few days, hasn’t it?”

Graham grunted in response.

“This might sound odd,” Charlie said, “But here’s my mobile number, if you ever want to get a pint or something. Actually, would you like to come in for some tea?”

“I’m alright,” Graham simply said.

He then pulled up his jacket, put the slip of paper in his pocket, and walked away.

______________________________________________________________________________

April 27th. The lost day. For almost twenty hours, the island of Great Britain vanished from the world, before reappearing at its usual spot in the North Sea no worse for wear. Nobody on Earth could come to an agreeable theory on what caused Britain to disappear, but disappear it did. The only popular theories were utter rubbish, ranging from a delayed Mayan apocalypse, a curse from the ghost of Princess Diana, and the ever popular act of God theory. The BNP laid the blame on immigration and whichever Middle-Eastern nation was in the news during the days before the event. In the days, weeks, and months following April 27th, a massive wave of media pertaining to that day came into existence. These included a multitude of papers trying to explain the event, hundreds of novels of speculative fiction about the lost day, usually involving the Illuminati or Freemasons.

There was even an episode of Emmerdale about the day.

Amidst the plethora of stories about the day, nobody noticed when one unheard of author from Dover published a mildly successful fantasy novel, written as if the author was recounting his own experiences relating to that day.

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Discord sat on the veranda of his new home, just outside of a sleepy village west of Baltimare, looking out at the idyllic rural scenery, alone with his thoughts. Those humans hadn’t been in Equestria for more than a fortnight, but the ponies wouldn’t stop talking about them. Add in that Luna and Celestia had gone to the human world, however briefly, and those humans be the talk of Equestria for years. The house they had stayed in achieved the curious honour of Ponyville’s first tourist trap, Appleloosans would tell stories about their unique encounter with a certain bipedal Zebra, and a fashion designer in Canterlot managed to make a fair amount of bits selling the only known photo of the two.

How excited these Ponies were, only now learning of other worlds. Discord found it rather cute, these little children were growing up. Whilst they grew, he was stuck in this house in the middle of nowhere. His knowledge of the humans could’ve brought him a lot of power, but his aloofness and impudence had caused Celestia to sever ties and have him booted out of Canterlot.

I’m really not good at political manoeuvres, he thought.

But even more had changed in the wake of the human visit, more than some new pony fad, even more than his exile from the capital. Discord was fed news from Canterlot, kept up to speed, probably so he didn’t go mad cooped up here. Well . . . wouldn’t go more mad.

If the news was correct, today would be the coronation day for the newest princess, the newly-minted Alicorn Twilight Sparkle. It was a grand, unprecedented day for Equestrian history.

Sitting here, on the veranda, as the sun massaged Discord’s scales and feathers and skin, it all seemed so inconsequential. He’d had a chaotic life, obviously, but for the first time, he felt content to just sit down and relax.

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One year and a few months after the incident with Sombra, and Graham stood in a small bookshop near his flat, browsing around. The owner, a peculiar Irishman who always wore a scruffy black coat, would often put out special boxes of books for extremely cheap prices. This time, Graham came to the end of a shelf, to find a large box, filled with various paperbacks. At the front of the box a piece of A4 paper was taped to it, with the message books about the lost day, £1 each, get ‘em cheap now while people are tired of it!

Graham had never had much of an interest in books about that particular day. To be surrounded by an ocean of ridiculous theories and know the only correct one irked him significantly. Still, he thought might as well look through; see what somebody else's theory might be. After a minute or two, a small white covered paperback instantly caught his attention by the title and author name.

How a cockney, eight ponies and I saved Britain, by Charlie Robinson.

Fascinated, Graham opened up the book, and found an author biography written on the inside cover.

Charlie Robinson was born and raised in Guernsey, where he developed an interest in writing at a young age. He studied at the University of Nottingham and currently lives in Dover with his wife, Annette, and their infant daughter, Celestia.

Graham dropped a one pound coin on the counter, where the shop owner was dozing happily, and sped out of the store to his flat.

That evening, he sat in his familiar chair, cursed how cold his flat was, made some tea, and began to read Charlie’s biography, disguised as fiction.

It was hardly Shakespeare, but it told their story with accurate detail. He hadn’t added any embellishments, but you didn’t really need to in order for the story to be fantastical. He couldn’t but feel a twinge of guilt, however, as he read the final passage.

Graham never did talk to me again. I wonder if he's still too rattled by the events to want to come to terms with them, or if he hadn't learnt from his time in Equestria. Sombra was defeated there through teamwork and friendship, and so too was he defeated on Earth. I hope he, who had the rare privilege of seeing Equestria, did not leave that realm without comprehending what the entirety of their reality embodied. Maybe he hasn't realised it yet, or maybe he's simply forgotten the lesson all of Equestrian civilisation sought to teach him.

Above all else

Friendship is Magic.

Before he thought of anything else, Graham had his mobile in his hand, and found Charlie’s number.

He rang.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end asked.

“Hey,” Graham said somewhat awkwardly, “It’s Graham.”

“Graham,” Charlie replied, warmly as if had been a few days, not months, “How’ve you been?”

“Alright, I suppose. I haven’t really done much.”

There was silence for a while, as though Charlie was unsure of what to say.

“Listen,” Graham said, “After all that with Sombra, you offered for us to get a pint sometime. I’d like to take you up on that.”

“Of course,” Charlie said evenly, “It’d be great to catch up!”

They arranged a meeting place; Graham set the phone down atop the paperback book, and put on the telly to watch some Doctor Who.

Maybe it was just him, but that cold London flat felt just a little bit warmer.

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