//------------------------------// // A Brief History // Story: Friendship is multi-dimensional // by Sliske //------------------------------// "What are they?" A high pitched voice practically yelled in excitement. "One calls himself a human, the other's a mahjarrat from what they said." A familiar voice said. A bright pink pony prodded Arwan. "Wake up sleepyheads!" "Ugh..." Arwan wiped the sleep from his eyes and looks over at his friend, still snoring away. "How can he sleep through this?" "Oh, you want him awake? That's not a problem!" The pink pony exclaimed, seemingly vanishing for a few moments. "Uhh... Rarity?" Arwan asked, recognizing her voice as one of the two who were speaking as he woke up. "Who was that?" "I'm terribly sorry for waking you, Arwan. That was Pinkie Pie. She's..." Rarity stopped. "Surprise!" Pinkie Pie yelled as loudly as she could, dumping a bucket of water on Azzanadra, waking him up instantly. "AAARRGH, COLD!" Azzanadra yelled. Pinkie Pie bounced up and down happily as Azzanadra stood up. "I'm Pinkie Pie! My friends call me Pinkie! I haven't seen anypony in Ponyville like you two. Actually, I don't know what you two are. What's a mahjarblabit? Never mind what a marjarbat is, you guys are new here and haven't had a party yet! As Ponyville's premier party pony, I'm gonna give you the biggest, bestest, most awesomest party EVER!" She yelled excitedly before vanishing again. "Gods, she's loud..." Arwan mumbled. "Indeed she is Arwan. Azzanadra, I'll go grab you a towel." Rarity said sheepishly, Azzanadra standing there dripping wet with a scowl on his face. "I am not a morning person..." Azzanadra mumbled. Rarity returned a few minutes later with a couple of towels for Azzanadra and floated them over to him with her magic. Azzanadra and Arwan looked at Rarity, stunned at how she floated the towels. "How are you doing that without runes?" Arwan asked after a brief moment. "I'm not sure I understand, Arwan. What's a rune?" Rarity asked in confusion. "You levitated those towels to Azzanadra. Levitation is a type of magic last I checked. Magic can't be performed without runes unless you're a Mahjarrat." Arwan said. "Or a unicorn, darling. Every unicorn in Equestria has access to magic like this." Rarity said, taking pride in her magic. "Intriguing, Rarity. Very intriguing. That pink pony, Pinkie Pie I think her name was, didn't have a horn, but she vanished near instantly. How does she do magic?" Arwan asked. Rarity chuckled a bit. "Darling, that's Pinkie Pie for you. No one really understands her. She's able to do many things that leave everyone who witnesses them utterly baffled." "But no one knows how she does them?" Azzanadra finally piped in, having finally awake enough to take interest in the conversation. "Not a single pony aside from maybe Princess Celestia knows much about her unique brand of pony magic, I'm afraid." Rarity said. "No matter, it'll make for an interesting case of study in any case." Arwan said. "Well, now that the two of you have finally woken up, I'll do the honor of showing you around Ponyville and introducing you to everypony!" Rarity said. "You already met Pinkie Pie." "Is everyone in this town as strange as she is?" Azzanadra asked. "This town is fairly quiet unless Pinkie Pie is up to something. Or Twilight for that matter, now that I think about it. Or Sweetie Bell and her friends." Rarity gets lost in thought for a moment, thinking about everypony in town. "On second thought, no one's quite as strange as Pinkie, but this town IS fairly strange in general." "Great..." Azzanadra said glumly, as Rarity escorted them out of the boutique into the town. "Hey Rarity!" A voice shouted over the general hubbub of the town. A little purple dragon ran over to Rarity, holding what looked to be a rather large sapphire. "This. Is. For. You." The dragon said between breaths, panting heavily. Rarity floated the gem out of the dragon's claws, eyeing it with interest. "Why thank you Spike! Such a lovely sapphire." The dragon blushed a little bit. "It's no problem, Rarity. I've had that one since I was tiny." Spike said looking down. When he looked back up to see Rarity, he noticed Arwan and Azzanadra. "Uhh, Rarity? Who and what are they?" "Did that dragon just talk?" Azzanadra asked. "It's purple too..." Arwan said, ignoring the questions. "Nice to meet you too," Spike said mumbling under his breath. "I'm Azzanadra. I'm what's called a Mahjarrat." Azzanadra took note of Spike's somewhat agitated demeanor. Arwan looked at Spike. "I'm Arwan. I'm a human." Arwan said without any emotion. "Okay. Hey Rarity, I'm headed back to the library. Twilight's up to her eyeballs with books, but she told me to give you that sapphire for some reason. She wants to see you later." Spike said. "Alright then, dear. I'll be sure to stop by." Rarity said as Spike walked off. "Rarity, you mentioned Equestria earlier. What is that?" Arwan asked. "Oh, dear me! I never told you? Equestria is our beautiful country, ruled by none other than Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the goddesses of the sun and moon." She replied almost immediately. "I see. Is there a way we could speak with one of them?" Arwan asked. "The best way would probably be through Twilight, dear. After all, she is Princess Celestia's most trusted student." She replied after a quick second of thought. "Do you think she'd mind if we came with you later on when you go to the library later?" Azzanadra asked, thinking the same thing that Arwan was thinking. "She probably won't mind. She usually enjoys company. Not to mention the fact that you two aren't ponies. She'd be fascinated by you more than likely." She replied. "Anyway, let's go introduce you to the Apples." "We're going to meet apples? Sentient ponies are strange enough, but there's talking apples too?" Azzanadra asked. "No dearie! The Apple family is responsible for the bulk of the apples here in Ponyville. Without them, we'd probably starve. Plus, one of the Apples is one of my best friends." Rarity explained. "Okay then. Let's go." Arwan said. After a walk to the outskirts of town that took all of ten minutes, the trio came across a rather large farm and heard repeated booms coming from somewhere on it. "That must be Applejack now, bucking the apple trees." Rarity said, walking onto the farm and up to the orange pony in the distance. "Hmm? Oh howdy Rarity. Who's that ya got with ya? Don't look like no ponies Ah've ever seen before." The orange pony said, extending her right hoof. "Ah'm Applejack. Who're ya'll?" "I'm Arwan, and this is Azzanadra." Arwan said, returning her hoof shake. "Pleasure to meet ya'll. Ah'd introduce ya'll to the rest of mah family, but they're off in Appleoosa helpin' the buffalo over there with some things." Applejack said, offering her hoof to Azzanadra. "That's a shame. So, Applejack, what was that you were doing right now?" Azzanadra asked, returning her hoofshake as Arwan did. "Oh, Ah was bucking the apple trees to get the apples offa them. Apple season's passed, but some of the trees Ah missed have some apples on them, so Ah'm getting them down before they go bad." She replied. "I see..." Azzanadra said. "Oh, Rarity! You heard about that party Pinkie Pie's plannin', right?" Applejack asked. "Why yes, I have. Are you going to be there Applejack?" Rarity asked. Applejack nodded her head. "Yeah, Ah'm gonna be there. Ah was wonderin' if you'd make me a dress, given this is a special occasion and all." Rarity's eyes lit up. "I'd love to, Applejack!" "Thank ya kindly, Rarity. Ah gotta finish buckin' these trees. Only got a few more to go." Applejack said. "Okay, dearie. We'll leave you to it then." Rarity replied, walking off as she said it. After another ten minute walk back into town, the trio decided to pay Twilight a visit at the library. Rarity daintily knocked at the door. A few seconds later, the door opened and Spike walked out from behind it. "Twilight! Rarity's here with the not-ponies!" Spike yelled. "Hey Rarity." Someone's voice said coming from somewhere inside. "Dear, I love the sapphire, wherever did you find it?" Rarity asked. "I found a spell that can create them. I figured you might want one." Twilight said. After a moment, she looked over to Arwan and Azzanadra. "And just what are you two?" Arwan looked somewhat annoyed at her attitude, and Twilight quickly apologized for her tone. "My name is Arwan. This is Azzanadra. I'm a human, and he's a mahjarrat." Arwan explained. "Okay, I've heard stories of humans, but what in the hoof is a mahjarrat?" Twlight asked. "We're immensely powerful beings from another realm. We have incredibly long lifespans." Azzanadra explained, deciding to leave out the fact that the mahjarrat race was an incredibly violent one. "I myself have been alive for around eight thousand years, but spent around half of it asleep." Twilight looked at Azzanadra, studying his features well. "You don't look like somepony who's over eight thousand years old. Now that I think about it, that'd make you two or three thousand years older than Princess Celestia!" Twilight exclaimed. Rarity looked as if she was in shock as well at the fact that Azzanadra was as old as he was. Azzanadra chuckled softly. "Well, like I said, I was asleep for more than half of it. Back then, times were..." He stopped for a minute. "Actually, I think I'll explain more later. Twilight, you seem like the inquisitive type, would I be correct in assuming that?" Twilight beamed at him. "I do like to say I'm an intellectual. Why do you ask?" "Perhaps you'd be interested in knowing of our world's dark history. I'd just rather not discuss it right now." Azzanadra said. "Arwan, you might wish to know this as well." "I'd love to, Azzanadra." Twilight said. She glanced at Arwan. "So, what's a human?" "Compared to most of the other races where we're from, we're rather short lived. Humans are known as being some of the only users of magic in the world, the only others being gnomes and Mahjarrat like Azzanadra." Arwan said. Twilight's ears perked up at the use of the word magic. "Funny you should mention magic, actually." She chuckled. "Princess Celestia actually tasked me to live here in Ponyville to learn more about the magic of friendship. But aside from that, I like to think I'm proficient at magic as well." "Magic of friendship?" Azzanadra asked. "How is friendship magic? I mean, I know friendship is good and all... But a source of power? I can't really believe that." "I'm trying to figure that out as well. From what I've gathered so far, friendship itself isn't really a source of power. It's more of an amplifier for it, the stronger the bonds between friends, the more powerful the effect is." Twilight explained, walking over to her desk. Everyone followed her over there. "Of course, that's just a theory. A while back, Equestria was threatened by an evil pony called Nightmare Moon. She was an evil pony who wanted to keep Equestria in eternal night. No pony knows why she did. Our records say it was because most ponies loved the daylight that Princess Celestia reigned over, while fearing and sleeping through the night. Nightmare Moon was actually our beloved Princess Luna, believe it or not. But according to our records, Princess Luna was envious of Celestia and threatened to shroud the world in eternal night, never lowering the moon. Celestia couldn't reason with her, so she was banished to the moon. A thousand years later, she escaped and came back here, to do it again, but Princess Celestia made me and my friends bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Even to this day, I'm not really sure how, but we all used the Elements and defeated Nightmare Moon, reverting her back into Princess Luna without destroying her. And even weirder is the fact we did the same thing to the god of Chaos, Discord. The Elements of Harmony are even more mysterious than the magic of friendship." Twilight took a deep breath. That was one of her favorite stories to tell, mainly because it had things she wasn't sure about. "It's true, you know. We really did all that." Rarity piped in. "Interesting." Azzanadra said. "Maybe you could teach us what you know about the magic of friendship, and how to utilise it." "We'll see." Twilight said with a gleam in her eyes. "I've told you our world's story. Tell me yours." Azzanadra sighed. "I don't really know too much about what has gone on in the last few thousand years. I was only recently woken out of my slumber, and that was actually because of Arwan." "I see. Arwan, what do you know?" Twilight asked inquisitively. "Where should I begin?" Arwan chuckled. "Do you want to hear about my exploits, or the history of the world up until recent events?" "Tell me what happened before your time, and work your way up." Twilight said. "Alright. We come from a world called Gielinor. We're not really sure just how old our world is, but everything that we know of can be put into five different ages. The first of which was the creation and population age. The gods created Gielinor and brought different races into the world by different means. No one knows who brought humans, or from where, but we were there." Arwan explained. "The only god we know of during this period of time was a god called Guthix. He represents balance of everything. After everything was said and done at that point, he went into a deep sleep, marking the end of the first age." "The Second Age is what is known as the age of Gods. At this point, the gods were able to directly interact with Gielinor's inhabitants. Each god represented something different. I already mentioned Guthix, who is the god of Balance. What we call the World Gate was also closed during this time. The World Gate is something I've been researching myself. It's what supposedly allowed all the races in Gielinor to enter the realm in the first place." Arwan continued. "During the second age, many different races flourished, creating nomadic settlements and the like. It was also during this period of time that Mahjarrat were introduced to Gielinor, though I'm not sure how they got there. Azzanadra says that a god named Icthlarin brought them there. The mahjarrat served the god Icthlarin for a long while, before seeing the god Zaros, an immensely powerful being, even for a god. Given the mahjarrat align themselves with whoever's the strongest, they switched their allegiances to Zaros for the time being. It's said that Guthix used an artefact called the Stone of Jas to shape the world, or if it wasn't him, another god. There were a few artefacts like that- mere trinkets that hold the power of gods for use by anyone who can actually control them. Another of these artefacts was the Staff of Armadyl, a staff imbued with the power of the God of Justice Armadyl himself. It fell into the hands of many people, before finally coming to rest in the hands of a mahjarrat named Zamorak. Zamorak made it so that each mahjarrat was forced to either ally with him, or defend Zaros. Those who defended Zaros were eliminated over time, save for a few. It was with the staff and the stone, and several other mahjarrat that Zamorak was able to overthrow Zaros, banishing him from the world, and stealing all of his power for himself. As such, Zamorak was seen as a major threat to the well being of the world at the time and was banished, marking the end of the second age." Everytime Arwan mentioned Zamorak, Azzanadra's mood darkened, until he finally had to excuse himself from the conversation. "The third age is what's known as the God Wars. Not much is known about this period of time other than the fact that after a short time being banished, Zamorak returned, waging war on every other god, and literally every being and every god fought in this war. It lasted for roughly four thousand years. During this time, what we know happened for a fact was that a weapon was forged. A weapon powerful enough to slay a god, aptly named the godsword. Each god participating in the war was aware of this, including Zamorak somehow. Entire races and civilizations were decimated in the wake of this war, forcing those hardy enough to stay alive to either fight or hide. This was also the time when Azzanadra was put to sleep. Azzanadra, even now, is immensely powerful, though not as strong as a god. Azzanadra single-handedly wiped out many armies of Zamorak's, which led to Zamorakian priests binding Azzanadra's very essence into four diamonds, forcing him into a comatose state for thousands of years. With one of the major threats gone, Zamorak's plans were starting to take shape. The world was on the brink of disaster, many places in the world even today continue to show unreversible damage from the god wars. At the peak of the God Wars, however, Guthix woke from his slumber and banished every other god in the world from Gielinor, no longer allowing them to directly interact with the world. Guthix shed many tears for the near-destruction of his world, vowing that if it happened again, he'd just destroy the world. That marked the end of the third age." Twilight took this in, revelling in hearing the darker parts of another world's history. She seemed especially fascinated with the god Zaros, her eyes lighting up slightly whenever his name came up. "The fourth age is known as the Age of Mortals. The god wars are finally over at this point, and the few remaining races alive were able to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and rebuild. Because the gods weren't interfering anymore, races were able to seek a more permanent place to stay, most races preferring to stay in their own parts of the world. Not every race was content with that though, and many attacked various other races for either food or to expand their own land. During this time, a threat called the Dragonkin were prominent, albeit in a different realm. They're linked to the Stone of Jas itself, gaining power the more it's used, though the increase in power causes them pain that can only be even somewhat be sated by causing death. A hero named Robert the Strong is thought to have killed them all, but more on that later. Towards the end of the fourth age, runestones were discovered, allowing humankind to make great strides in all fields, allowing them a solid defense against many other races by using magic." Twilight looked at Arwan. "So magic is a relatively new discovery for your kind?" "Indeed, magic has only been around for human use for maybe 200 years at most." Arwan replied. "But there are a few other races known to use magic, mahjarrat being a very noteworthy example." "Intriguing. Go on." Twilight said. "The fifth age, which goes from almost 200 years ago to the present day is the age of progression. Thanks to the ability to use magic, whole kingdoms are able to thrive and even expand, defending themselves from threats like vampyres and the like. Not everyone agreed that magic was for everyone though. A group of barbarians felt that magic was a tool best left for use by only the gods, and destroyed the temples that allow the creation of the runestones. As such, over time the rune supply began to dwindle. Contributing to the decline of runes was the burning of the wizard tower- a place where people could go to study magic in peace. A group of Zamorakians were refused complete control over the tower, and as such, they decided to burn it to the ground, eradicating the knowledge on how to create runestones altogether. The secret was lost for nearly a century. Recently, however, I managed to aid in the rediscovery of how to create runestones, despite the fact that the temples are destroyed." Arwan looked up at the sky and noticed the sun going down. "Wow, it's getting late." "It is, isn't it? Arwan, you can tell Azzanadra that the two of you can come back here and finish telling the rest of everything that's happened in your world. I have some things I need to do before I go to sleep tonight. Stop by tomorrow, okay?" Twilight said, pushing Rarity and Arwan out of her house with her magic. "Okay, Twilight! See you tomorrow!" Arwan said. "Ow! That really hurt!" Rarity complained softly, rubbing her flank with her front right hoof. "What's wrong?" Arwan asked. "I'm not used to Twilight using her magic like that. Honestly, she needs to learn to tone down the amount of force she puts in her spells, or she could really hurt somepony!" Rarity said. "Yeah, she really could. She seemed excited though. Wonder what's going on tonight that's so important for her." Arwan replied. "I saw Pinkie Pie zipping around town all day since I stepped out earlier. I tried talking to her earlier, but she wouldn't stop for more than a second before going back to zipping around." Azzanadra said, catching up to Arwan and Rarity as they made their way back to the Carousel Boutique. "Oh no." Rarity said. "That means..."