"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
— Joshua 24:15
"So... why are you still mad at me?" Malrick telepathically asked.
"Because Dad, if it weren't for your big mouth, we would've been in a regular room and not bound in chains!" Trevor sneered at Malrick.
"Relax Trevor, I would have never agreed to being so heavily bound by Celestia unless I know I can get out of this."
"WHAT ABOUT ME?! WHY WAS I BOUND?!" Trevor screamed.
"I told Celestia I wanted you slightly chained just to prevent you from helping my escape, plus I can use this moment to teach you about the deconstructive aspects of transmutative magic."
Trevor took a big, long sigh because even though he's lived with Malrick for over three years, he still does things that many people would deem "incredibly stupid" or "insane", and no amount of time will ever change that.
"Fine Dad, I forgive you, but how the heck are you going to get out of this? You can't use magic, you can't teleport, and you're turned to stone which makes all mobility impossible."
Malrick lightly chuckled, "It's the power of the mind over the flesh, how do you think I'm talking to you right now without opening my mouth and saying the words?"
"My brain cracked back in the bedroom and now I'm hearing voices because I've gone insane?" Trevor said with a blank face.
"Not yet, but no. I'm telepathically talking to you through means of psionics. Basically I'm transfering energy through my brain. Best of all, this act of communication requires zero magic! So even though telepathy by magic is much more powerful and efficient, I can use this even when unconscious or in a dead-magic zone!"
"Dad, that's great and all, but how is talking to me gonna get you out of there? I can't help you as I am also shackled." Trevor said while shaking his leg a little, making his chains rattle a bit.
"Who said psionics can only be used for telepathy?" Malrick smugly replied.
After a few seconds, Trevor watched in surprise as the anti-magic rings around Malrick's fingers began to slowly wiggle free from his fingers, each of them dropping to the floor.
Trevor looked at Malrick's unmoving from with wide eyes, "You did all that without magic?!"
"Yeah, I did, but these chains will be harder to remove as they are much more anchored to me. I would normally teleport away or disintegrate these chains, but these particular set of chains prevent me from teleporting and they can't be easily destroyed or broken down. Thankfully, I have a solution to this problem."
"What are you going to do?" Trevor asked in awe.
"This." Malrick simply replied. The moment he did, the chains gained a small purple aura as they began to wiggle a little before staying still once more. Trevor was a little confused at what Malrick did, but he was going to explain himself.
"Alright, I think I need to say this audibly for this to work." Malrick said out loud, transferring his voice echoing around the room.
"Hey, chains, buddy, you know I gave life to you and all, so can you please loosen yourself and let me free?"
Now, if you were an outsider in all of this, you would think Malrick is more insane than he already is, but one thing I forgot to mention about Malrick's skill set is his aptitude for bringing inanimate things to life. Suits of armor, piles of rocks, dead bodies, and even different kinds of energies are some of the many things he can bring life to, making them move on their own with a degree of sentience. In fact, it isn't too rare to see a walking table, a skeletal butler, or a living lightning bolt in his tower. Unfortunately, the chains don't seem to budge as they were focused on keeping the "prisoner" bound.
"Come on, I gave you the ability to think and move on your own! You should at least pay me back in kind!" Malrick pleaded.
"..."
"I did something for you now you should do something for me. Isn't that how 'tit for tat' works?"
"..."
"I'll... get you nachos?"
The moment he said that, the chains began to slither downwards and unwrap themselves from Malrick. They moved to one of the corners of the room and started to bob up and down happily, seemingly excited at the prospect of nachos. Trevor watched this spectacle with surprise and confusion.
"You bribed the animated chains with nachos?"
"Of course I did, food is one of the best ways to diffuse tension and bribe people. Besides, who doesn't like nachos? Now then, time to break free from this stone prison."
Trevor watched as the statue of Malrick began to slightly move and crack, scattering chips of rock and dust throughout the room. Slowly, but surely, the rock containing him began to fully break and released a very sore Malrick.
"Ack! Being turned to stone is so uncomfortable! I can't believe people can live through that for years on end! Not even someone as big of an asshole as me would subject someone through that."
Trevor looked at Malrick and was VERY impressed, he managed to break though something that seemed impossible to break out of, and yet, he did it in about thirty seconds! Trevor started to think about his apprenticeship with Malrick and wondered if he will be able to do cool things like that in the future.
"Trevor, you won't be able to do these things in the future because you can do them already. You have all of the tools, you just have to use them." Malrick telepathically said.
"Wait... you can read minds?!" Trevor thought back to Malrick .
"Well of course I can! How do you think I know exactly what to get on your birthday?" Malrick responded.
"And exactly what ticks me off?" Trevor replied bitterly.
---
Trevor was navigating his maze-like house as Malrick wanted to show him something on the eighth floor.
"Man, I wonder what Malrick wanted to show me, I just got finished watching a really scary movie on bugs so I hope it isn't anything bug related." Trevor thought.
As he arrived on the eighth floor, an animated suit of armor guided him towards a door that Trevor couldn't recall ever being there. As he neared the door, Malrick appeared around the corner and faced Trevor with a grin.
"Hey Trevor! How have you been doing?"
"Um.. pretty good? Why did you bring me here?"
"Well, I just made a new room in the tower and I want you to go inside with me so we can test it out."
"Um... okay?"
Malrick reached forward and twisted the doorknob. and slowly opened the door. Inside was a quaint little room with a wood floor a few wooden chairs and a large, stone table. There was a flower vase on the table and a nice carpet in the center of the room. There were a few paintings of different landscapes on the walls and a curtained window which showed some nice forested mountains.
All in all, it was a nice room. Too nice of a room...
"Alright, what's the catch?" Trevor asked.
"There's no catch, it's just a regular room without anything scary. It's the best fake-out don't you think?" Malrick replied.
Trevor was very doubtful that the room wasn't trapped in some way, but he slowly relented and sat on one of the wooden chairs in the room, to which Malrick followed suit.
"So Trevor, how's the room?"
"It's... nice."
"Hey, can I ask you something? Just like a personal question."
"Um, sure?"
"Do you like spiders?"
The moment he said that, literally everything in the room started to collapse into spiders. The chairs, the table, the paintings, the floor, the window, and even the air they were breathing started to break into piles of spiders. Trevor screamed and ran towards the door, but to his horror, as soon as he touched the doorknob, the entire door scuttled away as the spiders making up the door crawled all along the walls.
Trevor then promptly blacked out.
---
"Okay, I'm going to be 100% honest, I didn't read your mind back then. I just wanted to show you a room I made that can collapse into spiders." Malrick replied.
"Yeah sure..." Trevor coldly said, but the thing about Malrick that Trevor knew all too well is that you can never tell if he's lying, telling the truth, or saying something completely random without any thought put into it whatsoever.
"Well, you're still chained to the wall, so I can't do much until you get yourself out." Malrick said as he pointed to the chain that held Trevor's ankle to the wall.
"So... how do I get out?" Trevor inquired.
"Don't know, don't care, teleporting, disintegrating, oxidizing, slashing, bludgeoning, freezing, dissolving, melting... there are many different ways you can get out of those chains Trevor."
Trevor looked at the chains that held him. They weren't special by any means, no enchantments placed upon them and it seemed to be made out of iron, "Hmm... how about this?"
Trevor raised his hand in the air and slowly muttered an incantation. Blue energy gathered at his hand which he fired toward himself. The moment the beam struck him, he shrunk down in size considerably, easily slipping his leg out of the manacle that bound him.
"Reducing huh? That was quite unexpected." Malrick noted.
A few seconds after Trevor freed himself, he quickly grew back to his normal size, "Hey, that wasn't as hard as I thought it was!" Trevor said mostly to himself.
"You don't know how bad something truly is until you experience it yourself." Malrick sagely said. He looked around the room until he saw a barred door on one of the walls. "So we could leave right now... but I think Celestia would go into a panic if the overpowered alien was loose in her kingdom..."
"So, what do we do?" Trevor asked.
"Until she gets back, we make ourselves comfortable..." Malrick said with a chuckle as wispy, purple energy came out of his hands.
---
Celestia was walking down the stairs towards the dungeons with a group of guards. The Canterlot dungeons haven't been used in over twenty years, but they were still in top condition. Celestia was going to check on Malrick and Trevor in the dungeons as she wanted them to be released so they could talk with her. She doesn't know where they came from, why they came, or even the full extent of Malrick's abilities, so she decided it was for the best if she could gain this information through a friendly discussion.
"Maybe I was too harsh with the amount of measures to prevent Malrick's escape, but he did insist on me 'doing my worst' to contain him..." Celestia thought.
She chuckled a little bit as she was facing the door to the room that contained Malrick and Trevor, "Although, I shouldn't worry too much, he did agree to me doing this, plus, it should be impossible to break out of those bindings. I don't think there could be any way for Malrick too esca-"
When she opened the door, she saw a very escaped Malrick and a very escaped Trevor inside of a larger room that wasn't the stone dungeon it originally was. It was a very nice room with red walls, a white ceiling and baseboards, and a dark brown, wooden floor. Malrick and Trevor were sitting in leather recliners sipping on what looked to be cranberry juice in crystal glasses. Trevor was reading some sort of comic book while Malrick was reading a newspaper titled "The Daily Divine" which contained a bunch on unknown languages written all over the paper.
However, everything else in the room was a combination of random and weird. There was a large wooden table with human legs instead of wooden legs, long, rattling chains that were resting on a pillow in the corner while nacho chips were being grabbed and absorbed into it, and different paintings all over the room, some depicting Malrick and Trevor, others landscapes, and one which showed gruesome scenes of human violence.
On the floor, there was a tall lantern made out of stitched up flesh and bone, a fireplace where instead of a fire, was a huge block of black ice which somehow radiated heat, a large aquarium with pebble flooring, aquatic plants, and a little note which read "WNT 2 GO 2 THE BTHRM, BRB - Eels" inside it, a doormat which read "Shut Up" near the entryway, a grandfather clock where instead of numbers on the face were nine letters that spelled out "CRAZY TIME", a terracotta pot which housed a tall, blood red cactus which had many arms that grew in unnatural directions, and a large, grand piano that had frantic eyes on the sides which rapidly looked every which way and a row of pointed, yellowish teeth on the lid with it's tongue rolled out on the side.
On the table was a globe that had a few arrows sticking out of it with a bloody message on the wall near the globe that read "I shot an arrow in the air", a flower vase that contained a living squirrel that scurried in and out, a teacup that was shaped like a watering can with a few cups that looked like flower pots, a mostly completed puzzle of a castle inside a forest that had a lot of connected pieces that were shoved in incorrect places with a message written in marker on the puzzle saying "Don't follow the rules, create your own world", and a gramophone that had a human mouth in the horn that opened and closed in accordance with the ballet music it was playing.
Basically, just think of a bunch of random shit and that's a pretty good image of what's in the room.
When Malrick and Trevor acknowledged Celestia was there with a group of guardsponies, she had a face of utter bafflement. Whether it was because of their escape or the new room, they couldn't tell.
After a few seconds of VERY awkward silence, Malrick decided to break it, "Just so you know, I animated the chains that were use to bind me, so just keep that in mind when I give them back. Also just as an FYI, the next time you imprison me, make sure you put a lead helmet that's at least one inch thick on me."
Yeah, maybe not the best thing to say right now...
"HOW DID YOU ESCAPE?!" Celestia hollered in confusion. The guards that were with her wanted to ask the same thing but were too busy with covering their ears in pain after hearing the Royal Canterlot Voice near point-blank.
"I did something called T H E B I G T H I N K." Malrick said with a loud echo near the end.
"AND WHAT'S WITH THE ROOM?!"
"I got loads of magic and I'm lazy, what do you think? As for the random crap around the room... to be honest, I don't know, sometimes people give me their junk and other times I go seeking for it. It makes me feel... important..." Malrick mused.
Celestia breathed in and out multiple times to calm herself before speaking once more, "I need both of you to come with me."
Malrick raised an eyebrow, "Why..?"
"So we may exchange information about each other. This will help me determine the extent of your abilities and learn more about you and your world."
"So an interrogation?"
"More like a Q&A."
"Hmm... sure, why not?" Malrick shrugged.
Celestia smiled, "Alright, may you please come with me to a more private room?"
"Why not here? It's a pretty nice and private room and it's much closer than whatever room you have in mind. Don't worry I won't harm you, that wouldn't make me a very hospitable man now would it?" Malrick added in that last part after seeing worry on the faces of the guards.
"Malrick didn't do anything harmful to anypony in the hour or so he's been in Equestria and he could've easily ran away from Canterlot Castle after escaping, but he chose to stay instead." Celestia thought.
"Alright, I suppose I we can talk in this room." Celestia said while still smiling.
Malrick and Trevor flashed smiles of their own, but as soon as Malrick turned to face the squad of guardsponies, he faced another dilemma, "Um... since this is going to be a private conversation between me, Trevor, and you, they are going to have to stay outside." Malrick said as he pointed to the guards.
"We have to stay with the Princess to make sure she is safe from the likes of you." One of the male guardspony retorted.
Malrick sighed and decided he wasn't going to to hold out his thoughts any longer, "Alright, I'm going to be brutally honest here: Your existence will mean nothing if me and Celestia duel. All of you guys combined do not have enough power to match up with her and DEFINITELY not enough power to match up with me. Even if every royal guard were here, you guys couldn't even give me anything worse than a nosebleed. You will all likely die from the crossfire between the battle of me and her, so if you value your life, just... DON'T."
The guardspony sputtered, "B-But, we have to be with the Princess at all-"
"It's either stay outside or get turned into furniture, I won't mind if you choose the latter." Malrick said while his left hand crackled with foul transmutative power.
Celestia didn't want to find out if Malrick could do something like that, so she turned to her guards, "Don't worry, I will be fine. He had many opportunities to escape or harm me and yet he didn't, so please trust him for a little while?" Celestia said sweetly.
After a few seconds, the guardsponies relented, "Okay your majesty, we will stand outside of the room, but please be careful."
Celestia nodded and walked into the room, a few moments later, the door magically closed behind her.
---
When Celestia walked into the room, she noticed that Malrick had somehow conjured an additional leather recliner for her in the short time she wasn't looking. She was grateful for his hospitality, but she had to know something first.
"Why did you threaten my guards in such a manner?" Celestia asked.
"Because back where I lived, violence was the only way to make people do what I want." Malrick muttered grimly.
"You could've asked nicely."
"Try being nice to a group of weirdos who break into your home five times a week to wreck your shit and try to kill you. After the twentieth break-in, I gave up being nice to them since they just wouldn't listen."
Celestia was about to say something else, but Malrick asked something else of importance, "What do you want to drink? I have ordinary things like water, tea, and coffee, other things like soda, juice, and seltzer, I have all sorts of alcohol like ale, wine, and even cocktails, and more interesting things like lava, hydrochloric acid, and liquid space."
Celestia tilted her head, "Liquid space?"
"Liquid space it is then!"
"Wait, no, I was just-"
Malrick then grabbed the teapot and started pouring out a liquid that was black with dots of white. There were blue and purple nebulae swirling around the cup with a few larger, red colored giants. It was a beautiful sight all contained in a cup.
But beauty to the eye does not always translate to the touch, much less to the stomach.
She looked inside the cup in astonishment before carefully sliding the cup away from her as far as possible. Malrick was a bit confused on why she requested Liquid space for her to push it away, but was also a bit relieved that she didn't drink it.
"I'm really glad you didn't drink that, I know you're immortal and all, but I'm pretty sure ingesting something with the temperature of 2.7 Kelvin will give you some serious indigestion."
Celestia stared at the cup for a little while in slight fear before Malrick snapped his fingers and made the cup disappear, "Would you like something else to drink perhaps?"
Celestia smiled, "Just some tea please?"
"Okay, what kind?"
"... Surprise me." Celestia said confidently.
Malrick gave a light-hearted chuckle before pouring the teapot once more into a new cup, the liquid that poured out was a translucent, blue liquid. When Malrick finished pouring the tea, he levitated the cup towards Celestia, who had her horn glow a golden light as a yellow aura wrapped around the cup as she picked it up in her grasp. The moment her tongue touched the beverage as she took an apprehensive sip, her eyes started to dilate as her pupils grew three times larger with a sparkle in her eyes. The tea had a taste reminiscent of hibiscus mixed with lime and strawberries. A few seconds later, she immediately downed the tea in one go. Malrick and Trevor laughed out loud while Celestia blushed embarrassingly.
"It's good tea isn't it? The flowers used to make it only grow in certain conditions on the plane of Elysium. They are very hard to come by, but I have a private garden on the plane so they are much more available to me." Malrick explained as he poured another cup.
Celestia's eyes widened in shock, "Elysium?! As in the Blessed Fields?! The four layers of paradise?! The pony afterlife?!"
Malrick's eyes began to widen as well, "You know about Elysium? I guess that means some known planes are connected to here." Malrick said with a hint of worry, "As for what you said earlier, that's the place where ponies go for the afterlife?"
Celestia recovered from her shock and nodded, "That's right, it's the place where all ponies go to when they die."
"Hmm... we'll talk about afterlives at another time since it may take us a while to discuss... Hey Trevor! Is there anything you'd like to say to Celestia?"
Trevor, who has been mostly quiet throughout this whole ordeal, jumped a bit when Malrick called him out, "Not really... actually, Ms. Celestia, what did you do with all of those cards that were scattered all over your bedroom when we arrived?"
Celestia chuckled in mild amused at Trevor's childish ways, "You can refer to me as Celestia Trevor, as for the cards, some of the unicorn mages have them and are currently experimenting with them. They are laced with all sorts of magic and are very well-protected. However, what's interesting is that a researcher from Neighpon saw that the card text changed to Neighbonese for her while everyone else perceived the text as Equestrian."
"Yeah, there is some illusion magic mixed in the cards that changes the language of the words to the most proficient language of the reader. It's how those wizards make a killing on those cards." Malrick explained.
Malrick suddenly leaned forward with a dark look in his eyes. The light in the room seemed to dim and the air grew cold, "Are there any cards that were damaged or destroyed?"
Celestia was surprised at how dark Malrick's tone went, but she remained unfazed, "No, all of the cards are still in mint condition as they were."
Malrick then exhaled and visibly relaxed as he sunk back in his chair, "Whew! I was so worried you guys damaged our cards. They are all pretty expensive, one card costs around a silver piece... one silver is enough to buy an a pound of iron by the way." Malrick added in that last part as he realized that Equestrians probably don't use the same type of currency like he does. Normal people would see this as a problem, but over the years, Malrick has found a very general rule of economics in the multiverse: Every intelligent race likes gold to some extent, so it can always be used to trade for goods and services.
Celestia was sipping her tea until she took a sideways glance at the piano and how it was staring directly at her. It was starting to creep her out as the usually manic eyes were looking at her eyes like they were trying to burn a hole into her soul. Malrick must have noticed this as he gave a smile towards Celestia and calmly spoke, "Don't worry about the piano, it's just very curious. It is very well-behaved and hasn't tried to eat anyone... except for that one time." Malrick said as his smile faded near the end.
This did NOT calm Celestia, "I'm sorry what?"
Malrick scratched his head, "Something about a plumber inside a ghost mansion? I can't recall... I remember getting that piano from a group of spherical ghosts saying something about a painting portal that's a gateway to a demiplane and how this plumber was jumping through them to save the princess of a bunch of mushroom people from an evil turtle man? It was a VERY weird day and I am not sure if I was drunk or not..."
Now Celestia and Trevor were both confused on not only the origins of this piano but how when Malrick said the word 'plumber', the piano closed its eyes and its lid, making it look like a regular, old piano.
Malrick clapped his hands as he was ready to truly start the Q&A. The clap got the attention of both Malrick and Trevor as they faced a happy, grinning Malrick, "Well then, anything you want to know princess?" Malrick inquired.
Celestia smiled as she began to ask the first of many questions.
---
About thirty or so minutes passed with Celestia, Malrick, and Trevor in the room. They talked about geography, politics, magic, and preferred ice cream flavors (of course they talked about it, it's important information) among other things.
The guards outside were starting to get worried since Celestia has been in there for a good while now without any updates.
"What's taking her so long?" one of the guardsponies said.
"We haven't got any updates from the princess." said another.
"M-Maybe she d-died!" a guardsmare nervously stuttered.
"That's ridiculous, Celestia wouldn't lose to a battle to that thing!" One of the stallions exclaimed, albiet a bit nervously too.
"So what if they're both locked in a battle!"
"But wouldn't she have already won?"
"But she hasn't!"
"Then we need to go in there and help her!"
The royal guards all looked at each other with paranoid glances. Malrick already mentioned that he wouldn't harm Celestia and that if they were to fight they should run the fuck away instead, but when someone important to you is seemingly in danger, you forget about reason and do REALLY brave and/or stupid things.
On the count of three, the four of them all barged down the door to see the terrifying sight of-
"So I unturn my biomes at the start of my turn?" Celestia asked.
"Yeah, and you also draw a card and do the effect any items that trigger at the beginning of your turn-"
Malrick's head slowly turned to the left with an audible creaking sound. He showed an unnaturally wide smile which showed many pointed, white teeth as he faced the guardsponies. His white scleras of his eyes turned blood red as his pupils began to expand to the size of quarters, covering his brown irises. His eyelids lost their eyelashes and replaced them with small, white teeth, making his eyes look like two additional mouths.
Even though Malrick's mouth was closed, he still somehow managed to speak in an echoing, demonic voice, "And what did I say about staying outside?"
After seeing Celestia unharmed and Malrick's horrifying face (rude), the guardsponies decided to quickly slam the door shut.
Malrick's face turned back to normal as he faced Celestia once again. Celestia was in shock after seeing this terrifying transformation of his while Trevor had an eyebrow raised, not really reacting after seeing this display of... something.
"What was that?" Celestia asked in a quiet voice.
"Sorry about that, I just let the scary side of me blink in for a bit on accident." Malrick said a little embarrased.
"He uses it when he doesn't want to fight trespassers but still want them to get off of his property" Trevor explained.
"... Out of curiousity, what would've happened if they decided to stay?" Celestia asked.
"I they decided to stay, I would've done something very... illegal." Malrick said with the demonic echo coming back near the end.
"..."
"What? All I asked of them was to not enter the room while we were talking and they entered the room while we were talking. I get very irked when people don't do the simple things I ask of them."
"..."
"I wouldn't have killed them, I would've just turned them into furniture for a few minutes. I said I would do that in the beginning of the discussion remember? Besides, I'm pretty sure you and guardponies' friends and family would be very sad of their passing if I had killed them."
Celestia was very surprised that someone as violent, powerful, and utterly random as Malrick would have thought about the consequences of their actions, "You think about how others would be affected by a death you caused?"
"Not as much if it's a death that's caused because of my job, but yeah. Why do you think the first thing I say to those I'm about to fight is remind them about how much their friends and family would miss them? Before any major fighting starts, I tell them about how much their death will affect those around them and give them the opportunity to leave my house peacefully. Sure it works only about ten percent of the time, but I can say that at least I tried." Malrick said with a shrug at the end.
Celestia was silent as the new information of Malrick's considerate nature soaked in. After a few seconds of processing, she started to smile so brightly that Malrick swore she radiated light and brightened up the room considerably.
"I can't tell you how happy I am that someone of your power has so much compassion running through your heart." Celestia said while still smiling brightly. Malrick was a little confused on why Celestia was so happy that he shared pre-existing information to his opponents while Trevor started to smile as well as Celestia's happiness was extremely infectious.
"Umm... thanks? It's very uncommon for me to get praise so I don't know exactly how to react to it."
Celestia chuckled a little at Malrick's apparent discomfort at getting a compliment, "You know, we've discussed much in terms of our worlds, but we never talked about our own lives and stories."
Malrick seemed to tense a little at the hearing of that, "Yeah, I really don't like talking about my life, even more so now since unlike this world, my backstory isn't all sunshine and rainbows..."
Celestia's smile fell a little, "You know, even though I rule a kingdom of little ponies, my life story isn't all too happy either." Celestia replied.
"I assure you, whatever your tragedy is, it will pale in comparison to mine... but let's not talk about that yet. I'll tell you all about my life at a later date since this discussion went longer than I thought." Malrick said while looking at the grandfather clock in the room.
Celestia was a little confused why Malrick was looking at the clock that read 'CRAZY TIME', but still nodded in confirmation, "I suppose you're right. We can end the conversation here... but can we talk about one more thing?"
"What?"
"Can you finish teaching me how to play Sorcery the Assembling?"
Malrick and Trevor looked at each other in surprise, then smiled in realization: They will be getting a new opponent soon.
---
Malrick and Trevor were walking through the halls of Canterlot Castle. After explaining the rules to Celestia and playing a few practice matches, they decided to leave the room. The guradsponies were still waiting outside and may or may not have shit their metaphorical pants a little after seeing Malrick, but Malrick (after much encouragement from Celestia) apologized to them and promised that he will not kill them unless his job requires it.
It didn't quell their fears.
It was about two hours since the whole landing on Celestia thing in happened in the morning, so it is currently early afternoon. After the Q&A, Malrick and Trevor wanted to explore the castle, so after a little convincing and promise that nothing won't be destroyed, Celestia allowed them to wander around while she attended to her princess duties. She also asked the castle staff help guide them around and find their way back (which Malrick didn't need since he could just find locations, objects, and people/ponies through means of divination magic).
After a few turns, a set of stairs, and a no-clip here and there, Malrick and Trevor ended up in the Canterlot Castle Library, a grand and beautiful collection of thousands upon thousands of books. Where the most studious and powerful unicorns go to study magic perfected by great mages such as Star Swirl the Bearded, the most important-
"OW! FUCK! What the hell was that?!" Malrick screamed as a thick and heavy book fell right on his head. Trevor jumped at the loud and unexpected yelling while a chorus of shushes in the library from ponies who wanted quiet in the library. The ponies then started to stare in surprise, curiosity, and a little fear as they realized that there are non-pony things are in the library. Malrick didn't notice this though as he didn't take too kindly being shushed, he snapped his fingers which conjured a textbook above any shushing ponies' head, which resulted in loud yelps of pain throughout the library.
"Shhh! Quiet in the library please!" Malrick said obnoxiously, receiving a few glares from some ponies, "Yeah, hurts doesn't it?!" Malrick said spitefully.
"You know, you didn't have to do that." Trevor said.
"I didn't, but I did so anyways." Malrick replied. When he looked up to find the perpetrator who dropped the book on him, he saw a small, purple lizard on top of a ladder trying to balance a stack of heavy books, "For the sake of my head and your back, let me help you with that." He raised a hand as the books were telekinetically picked up and levitated safely to the ground. The lizard watched in surprise and awe as he saw this unknown creature do magic with a flick of a wrist.
"Thanks for that!" the lizard replied.
"How come you aren't running away in fear like most of the ponies were doing in the hallways?" Malrick asked quizzically.
"When you are the only dragon in Canterlot, you get a few looks here and there as well, so I didn't want to extend the same courtesy to another non-pony when I have experienced the same amount of mistrust and fear."
Malrick almost completely lost it on the prospect of this large gecko being a dragon, but he managed to hold it in and started smiled at the maturity of this... dragon (he'll get used to it).
"Hey! What's your name?" Malrick asked.
"I'm Spike the Dragon! Twilight Sparkle's best friend and number one assistant!" Spike replied.
Malrick turned his head sideways a little, "Twilight who now?"
Right on cue, a lavender unicorn with indigo hair, purple eyes, and a star cutie mark turned the corner while still rubbing her head (probably from the book Malrick conjured a few seconds ago), "Spike? Who are you talking to? Did you get those books for-"
This is Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Celestia and soon-to-be Element of Magic looking at... whatever Malrick is supposed to be (she doesn't know yet). Now, Malrick didn't have a good first impression with almost anypony in Equestria so far, but maybe after the first twenty or so failures, he'll be able to learn from his mistakes and introduce himself properly to somepony.
"So, what's with the slave?"
Yeah, remember what I said about hopes and dreams that involve Malrick in some way in the Prologue?