From the North

“He is a most strange creature,” Luna walked alongside her sister. They has just left the dungeon and she thought it might be best to not talk more to this Throm Scar-Hand for now. But she had to talk about him all the same.

“Yes, dear sister, he is, but what was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Well, I…” she started, but couldn’t quite find the words for it. How should she say this? That she thought this was all because of a misunderstanding? Actually, that might work. “I think this whole thing comes from a misunderstanding. He clearly thinks we are something we surely are not.”

“I agree. I suspected as much when we first brought him here, but I couldn’t be sure before we talked to him,” Celestia seemed worried and a bit distant when she spoke. Not that Luna could fault her for it, this ‘Skyrim’ and its armies sounded like they could be a more significant threat than anything they had ever seen. Maybe even Discord, with their apparent ruthlessness. “The more concerning thing is how do we reach through to him. If he thinks we are out to get him or something from him, being friendly will do little to persuade him. And if we let his hands free he might ungag himself.”

“What about Fluttershy, the friend of Twilight Sparkle? Maybe she could help? I have heard she is most excellent in her dealings with animals. And she did manage to turn Discord into a force for good.”

When her sister had first suggested sending Discord to Ponyville to be rehabilitated by Twilight and her friends, Luna had to admit that she found the idea preposterous. Discord was a creature of chaos and maliciousness by his very nature. The only way to change that would be for him to fight the very essence of who he was. A task that she would have deemed impossible, but Fluttershy succeeded, even when the rest of her friends didn’t believe in her. How she could not tell, but neither could she come up with any way to deal with this new creature.

“Fluttershy, you say?” Celestia still sounded distant in her speech, but she clearly considered what could happen. She had always been like that whenever a threat appeared, gazing in a distance Luna had never been able to see. It had led them to collect the Elements of harmony over a thousand years ago to defeat Discord, and it had led her to send Twilight Sparkle to Ponyville when the time of Nighmare Moon’s… her own… return to the mortal fold was at hand. “Perhaps. It is a possibility. She may be able to get through to this creature and convince him that we mean him no harm, as long as he won’t harm us.”

“And if she cannot, I say that we should turn him to stone, like Discord. He may not be evil, but if he sees us as such he is a danger to us all.”

“Perhaps you are right. I will send a letter to Twilight to summon her and her friends. I fear this will get worse, before it gets better.”

**

“Sister, a word with you?” the dark one said and gestured with her head for them to leave him once more. Before they left, she put the gag in his mouth once more with her horn. The dark one had almost seemed like she could relate to what he had said… No, that had to be a mistake. Some trick played by the lord of this Realm. The daedra were sly and dangerous, he couldn’t let down his guard lest he’d lose his soul and a chance to meet Shor in the halls of Sovngarde.

Still, he couldn’t help but to feel that something was not right with all of this. The two that had defeated him spoke as kin, something he had never heard of among the daedra. And they had treated the deaths of the ones that had tried to capture him before they themselves showed up as permanent. The same way the death of a mortal would be. If they were daedra, they would be reborn in the fires of Oblivion. Or so the Clevermen in the army had told him.

Throm let out a sigh as best he could through the gag. He couldn’t trust these creatures, at least not the ones who had locked him up or worked on their behalf, no matter what. The dark one had called herself the Princess of the Night, meaning she was a leader within this realm, and the white one was addressed as her sister. If he truly was in Oblivion, he was talking to those that would claim his soul if he struck the wrong bargain.

“And if he was not in Oblivion?” his mind replied. “If it was another kingdom in the mortal world?”

If it was, he’d still have no cause to trust them. If they were people, they were further from his own kin than even the cat-people of the southern kingdoms.

The image of Luna unwillingly taking a step back when he told her about Skyrim gave him something to smile about. She seemed to have been taken by surprise when he told her that his abilities were not rare among his people and that there were a great number of them, and she seemed to see it as a potential threat. How could she not, having witnessed his Thu’um firsthand?

**

“Twilight!”

A voice that sounded like Spike’s pierced her sleep. It wasn’t the first time he had woken her in the middle of the night. She couldn’t help but to wonder what it was this time, but he’d have to come to her. If it wasn’t important, she wanted to stay in bed.

“Twilight, a letter came from the Princess!”

What!? A letter form Princess Celestia? With her horn she threw aside the blanked immediately. If she sent a letter at this time, it had to be something of terrible importance. Maybe even on the threshold of disaster!

She spread her wings and ascended the stairs, down to where she heard Spike yell from. He had probably just been up to get a midnight snack. Again.

“Here.”

Spike was at the foot of the stairs and held out the scroll for her to pick up as she landed. What could be this urgent? Had Discord broken his promise and started to cause havoc once more? Or maybe the changelings had returned? Or…

With a gasp something hit her; it might be a surprise test she had to pass now that she had been crowned. She quickly opened the scroll with her horn.

Twilight Sparkle

Something important has come up here in Canterlot and I will need your assistance and that o your friends. The Elements of Harmony may be needed to serve Equestria once more.

Celestia

The Elements of Harmony may be needed again? This could be worse than she thought. She had to collect her friends and set the course for Canterlot as soon as possible.

“Spike, I need you to wake up Pinkie Pie and Rarity and tell them to meet me here, while I get Applejack, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.”

**

From a distance she could see Twilight and her little pet leave the house in a hurry. What where they up to? What had the message from Celestia been? She had seen the fire from the little thing that signaled that a message was sent to him. Dragonfire; it had strange properties.

Once the two of them were out of reach the observer ran up to the door that they had foolishly left wide open. She didn’t have a lot of time, they might come back at any moment. But she had to get that message, it might be what she was waiting for.

Inside the library it was still mostly dark, with a single lit lamp. Hardly the best light to search for a scroll in. Maybe she should just…  After some hesitation, she decided that she should.

A pale green light flowed from her horn. If anyone looked at the house from the outside they would immediately be aware that something was not entirely right, but she had little time.

On a table by the stairs a few scrolls lied. Might as well start there, she didn’t see anything else that might have been recently used.

The first one was mere notes form a book about some old magician named Starswirl. Nothing useful, unless you wanted a history lesson. What else was there? Chemistry? Interesting, but irrelevant. More history, astronomy, notes on a study of dragon. The later was very short, just a couple of paragraphs long. Seemed like the ponies knew about as much about dragons as her kind did. It came down to the last scroll ion the table.

Twilight Sparkle

Something important has come up here in Canterlot and I will need your assistance and that o your friends. The Elements of Harmony may be needed to serve Equestria once more.

Celestia

“So, something has happened,” she mumbled to herself and used her magic roll up the scroll again. This had to be the right one; now she only needed to get it back.

”Hey!”

The sound of someone she could have sworn she had met before came from behind her. An orange coated pony with a blond mane and tail stood in the entrance. Applejack.

“Get back here, ya thievin’…  Oh no. Not this again!”

The intruder spread her insect wings and flew up the stairs, Applejack short in tow. If she could just get out the window.

“Oh no ya don’t!”

A piece of rope twirled itself around her hind legs. No! She had to get out! She kicked and tried to get loose, but the ropes were being held together by Applejack, who had the other side of the rope. She could use that thing well, she had to admit. Too well.

“Now, what are ya doing here? Why have ya come back to Equestria?”

“I… had no choice,” she replied and stopped struggling. She had one chance to take her off guard; she had to make it count. She let a tear escape her eye, just barely visible to Applejack. “They… they have him…”

“Have who?” Applejack sounded suspicious, but there was a hint of genuine concern in her voice.

“My… my brother,” she let her tears fall a little more frequently, turning her head slightly towards the one who had stopped her and giving her the best desperate look she could. “They said that if I- if I didn’t do this, they’d… consume him…”

She let herself let out a sob. Judging by Applejack’s hesitation, it was working. Foolish pony, trusting too easily.

“Whose got ya brother?” She leaned in beside her, concern filling her eyes and voice.

“My Queen!”

As soon as the pony came close enough, she set her eyes in hers and cast the spell. Applejack’s eyes became distant, with a slight hint of a pale green color to them. While she was incapacitated, the changeling got free of the rope and flew over to the window. Before she flew out, she threw a glance back at the pony which now just barely were about to come to her senses. That went better than she expected and worse than she hoped.