I was bothered, dehydrated, unhappy, not in my lane, unfocused, and withering.
If Rarity was bad to work with then Twilight was hell.
For the past few hours, I had been helping Twilight research on Nightmare Moon, and by that, I mean I was finding whatever books she asked me to, and not only did she ask for books almost completely unrelated to the topic but she also made sure to read them end to end. Like, what the hell is she thinking? Is she stupid? Or am I stupid?
I offered to help her find relevant books and at least make the process more streamlined with my knowledge on how to finish long essays with decent quality hours before the deadline but no, she wanted to do it solo since 'I might miss something important'. I was just wasting time, getting bossed around, which I absolutely hated but put up with for some godforsaken reason. I couldn't even make shitty jokes to cope with this since this whole thing was supposed to be formal. The library which had been open and free now felt like a stuffy prison where I couldn't breathe.
"Yo,Twilight, I'm going out to get some fresh air," I announced for the fifth time, having been told that I was 'needed' the last four times. Twilight didn't react as she was too busy reading some book about folklore and how it evolves. I took that as an 'okay' and went outside. The air outside was cool and the stars were a welcome sight. The full moon was high up in the sky and a lot better to look at than the ceiling of the library.
"All good in there?" I heard Bloom ask. She stood guard next to the door and her voice was a welcome break from Twilight's noises of mumbling and page turning.
"Twilight has been 'researching' about a Nightmare Moon for the past... how many hours it's been, in perhaps the most inefficient way possible because 'it might be a security threat' and honestly, I feel like I'm gonna blow up or something if I stay in there any longer," I ranted.
"Nightmare Moon, as in the old bedtime story?"
"Yeah, that one."
"I mean, I know she's a bit weird but she's usually onto something, especially when she starts going solo. Probably not this time though. I'd say you cut her some slack, she's not really a social type; I heard that she's been into super hardcore studies since she was like twelve or something."
I was still unhappy, but I did think about how Twilight might be seeing the situation, and then I felt bad about my overreaction. She was an absolute genius even if she was eccentric and hard to work with, and she wasn't just doing what she was to annoy me. I really should try to not be a childish bitch yapping about things like this.
"Anyway, you guys should start packing up the nerd stuff since the celebration's starting in like an hour and the princess will be at the town hall in thirty minutes to get a final progress check from Twilight. Plus, I doubt that something from a bedtime story will come out and attack someone, and even if it did, we've got security."
I went back inside and to the central sitting place where Twilight was moving onto another book.
"Yo, Twilight," I said, getting her attention. She looked at me with this annoying face that I absolutely hat- no, I was going to be nice, not a bitch. "The princess is gonna be here in thirty minutes, so, we gotta start putting all this back."
Her expression morphed immediately from the annoying one to one that looked desperate.
"But I'm so close to getting the evidence I need! When the princess hears it, she won't just tell me that I'm 'looking too much into an old mare's tale' like last time and actually see it for the threat it is!"
From the way she spoke, she was genuinely concerned about the safety of the event and the princess, even though said threat was from a children's story. However, Twilight had other stuff to be done.
"I understand, but the princess will be here soon and she'll be looking for a 'final progress check' thing. I assume you know what that is?"
"..."
"...Are you fin-"
"I totally forgot the check! Oh my faust, if I don't get that done then she'll send me to magic kindergarten, or she'll banish me, or maybe she'll banish me to magic kindergarten. But she needs to hear about Nightmare Moon even if she doesn't believe me. Oh my faust, what do I do?! What do I do?! What do I do?!"
In front of me, Twilight descended into what seemed to be a panic attack. I didn't really know that she was that stressed but I had a rough idea from experience that she was probably feeling real bad right now. I could ask myself later whether she was overreacting or if the princess was that bad. Right now, I had to calm her down.
"Hey hey hey, Twilight! Listen to me, I'll need you to stop and breathe for a second, you understand?" I said, remembering tht telling someone to breathe was usually a good first step. Twilight did just that, visibly becoming better. I, however, had to improvise from that point since I didn't know any other steps.
"Okay, so, what's the things that less important among the two? I can finish that for you or at least help you finish it," I said, going for the root of the problem.
"Less important? Both are important, I have to do both!"
"Okay, umm, what will take less time to finish?"
"The check since I just have to go and find all those ponies in charge of the things we checked yesterday and make sure that they're still checked but how will I find them so quickly?!"
"Okay, look, Twilight, I know that it is important to you but you'll have to stop the research in some time. I can go out and find those ponies. Once you're finished here, you could go check on Applejack and maybe Rarity and then we can meet up at the townhall. You got that?" I said, offering a compromise.
Twilight considered this and nodded her head quickly. I didn't wait any longer and headed out to get the job done.
"What's the hurry?" asked Bloom as I exited the building.
"Gotta finish the checks for Twilight quickly," I answered as I fast walked to go and find Rainbow Dash.
As I walked around, the town started gaining more life as ponies started waking up to see the princess raise the sun. Unfortunately, I did have to look for long to find Rainbow. She was flying with a yellow pegasus.
"Hey, Rainbow!" I half-shouted, getting her attention. She noticed and came down to the ground with the yellow pegasus following her.
"What's up, Anya?"
"Just came here to finish a final check thing. You good on the weather?"
"Yeah, the weather's good, just finished clearing a few clouds earlier."
"That's good to hear, now I gotta go check on the music. You know where... the pony in charge of that is?"
"Yup, she's right here and she's got the music covered."
"Ah, great! Gotta go now, see you guys!"
"See ya!"
That was great, I got two down already and it had only been about fifteen minutes. Now, I had to go to the town hall and check on Rarity. However, the universe probably wanted to mess with me, and a large number of ponies came out of seemingly nowhere to block my path to the town hall. Another ten minutes of weaving through traffic later, I was at the town hall.
I entered and saw Rarity inspecting the decorations.
"Yo, Rarity, are the decorations good?" I asked, surprising her a bit.
"Oh, hello, Anya! Didn't hear you coming in since I was busy ensuring that the decorations were perfect."
"Okay, so, are the decorations perfect?"
"Well, yes, I do believe so."
"That's good. Now, I just have to wait for Twilight."
I sat down on floor, my tail serving as a cushion that separated my butt from the cold floor, and took a deep breath after all the fast-walking around that was so very taxing on my unathletic slob of a body and my low quality lungs.
"So... are you still angry with me?" asked Rarity, interrupting my rest. I had to think for a moment to figure out that she was talking about yesterday.
"Wasn't angry in the first place, just mildly annoyed."
"That's... good to hear."
The door opened behind me and I turned to see Twilight running in with a half-asleep Spike on her back, a paper and quill in her magic, and Bloom flying behind her.
"She's here! Is everything checked?" Twilight asked as she skidded to a stop in front of me, with Bloom landing beside here.
"Yeah," I answered. Twilight started scribbling some stuff down on the paper and looked absolutely relieved. She pulled me into a very tight hug, probably as a way to say 'thank you for getting my work finished right before the deadline', but the fact that she didn't ask me first and that she was sweating, led to me pushing her away quickly. She didn't seem to care, however, and continued scribbling stuff on her paper.
Rarity suddenly spoke as if she just woke up or something, "Wait, the princess is here already?! Oh no, I got carried away with my work. Oh, do I look presentable?"
"Yeah, you do," I replied, a slight bit annoyed that she asked that even though she always looked like she was ready for high society crap. But then, her reaction was justified since she was meeting the princess who happened to be an immortal goddess.
Rarity, however, seemingly wanted to fret about something, or maybe she was just worried about others like a normal fucking person and not whatever warped idea I had for one, and turned her attention to me.
"But what about you, Anya? Those bandages look hideous and your hair look awful and your glasses and that scar! You can't show yourself like that!"
I knew Rarity was just concerned, but as much as I wanted to believe that I was some superior sigma creature that took criticism in stride, I was not, and those words hurt.
"Wait, you have bandages and a scar?" asked Twilight as she looked up from her paper, totally confused. To be fair, the bandages and the scar blended in with my colour somewhat. She continued, "I thought you just looked ug-"
Twilight caught herself and coughed in her hoof, clearly used to being blunt with people, and tried to salvage the situation by pretending that she was going to say anything but ugly. I knew better and took some offence. It was one thing to know you're ugly but another thing to have someone just say it to your face.
All the attention, the negative attention, was starting to make me uncomfortable and I no longer wanted to be seen or heard and I wanted to be alone or with someone who was a friend.
"I think I'll just go for now," I said as I turned to leave, leaving Twilight sputtering. I was not fortunate, however. The doors opened and six ponies in golden armour walked in. Two were unicorns, two were pegasuses, and two were Earth ponies. All of them looked alike with blue hair and white fur, and each of them carried a spear. They stood in two lines of threes on either side of the door.
Followed by them was perhaps the tallest pony I had seen. She had bright white fur and a tricoloured mane that flowed unnaturally and looked more like smoke than actual hair. She had large wings and a long horn, and she wore a crown and some other jewelry.
Rarity and Twilight bowed, and I did as well. Twilight got up quickly and ran to the princess, almost dropping Spike who had fallen asleep on her back.
"Princess!" she almost shouted in greeting.
"Ah, my dear student Twilight, how has Ponyville been? Made any new friends?" the princess asked in a motherly voice.
"Ponyville has been okay. I've come to tell you that the preparations for the celebration are in order."
"That's good to hear," the princess said as she looked at the decorations in the town hall, inadvertently making Rarity quite nervous. "I must say, these decorations are marvelous." Rarity quietly breathed a sigh of relief and then became visibly excited.
"Oh, Rarity did them," Twilight said pointing to Rarity.
"Well, it's nice to meet you Miss Rarity. As I said, your work is marvelous and I'm glad you have done the decorations for this year's celebration," she said in a friendly tone and with a smile.
"Thank you, princess, it was my pleasure," said Rarity, somehow keeping her voice steady despite all her excitement.
The princess then turned to me. She was large and imposing and very powerful and I did not like that very much. I became nervous under her piercing gaze, questioning if she would somehow find out some secret about me. What if she finds out that I'm sent here by some eldritch thing?
I had to physically stop my ears and tail and whatever stupid body language things the pony body had from making me look like I had something to hide. Instead, I appeared normal or at least I hope I did.
"And who may you be?" asked the princess in the same friendly voice and the same smile that she spoke to Rarity with.
"Namaste, princess, I'm Anya," I said, reverting to default settings like an idiot.
"Yeah, Anya helped me with checking the preparations since the mayor was unavailable," added Twilight.
"Well, Anya, I'm thankful that you helped my student," said the princess before she turned and spoke to Twilight, "Speaking of the mayor, where is she?"
As if on cue, the mayor entered the town hall clearly in a hurry. She slowed down upon seeing the princess and put on a smile.
"Well, I believe that I have work to do. I'll see you all the celebration," said the princess, giving us the message to leave. I was happy to do so, and left the building. Unfortunately, by the way Twilight's hoofsteps sounded as I left, I could tell she was going to catch up to me and try to apologize. I didn't want anymore conversation with her for now and made my move, walking on to the increasingly crowded streets and disappearing among the people.
It was a few minutes of manoeuvering around, making sure no one bumped into me or anything, and I was out of the town square. The transition from bustling crowds to a relatively empty street was quick, allowing me to go find a bench to sit on. I did exactly that since I didn't want to stand out for staying at home during the celebration.
In the peace and quiet, I could finally rest, allowing the emotion from Twilight's comment, her 'research', and the brief talk with the princess die down until I was at my natural neutral state.
In the corner of my eye, I saw a very well defined dark figure slither out of a shadow. My first reaction should have been me putting a safe distance between me and it but strangely, I didn't, even though the memory of being attacked by something that crawled out of a shadow was still fresh for me. It was almost as if I knew it to be friendly... Was it Voth?
The shadow became larger and crawled onto the bench, taking a seat right next to me. In the next few seconds, it took on the familiar form of a dark alicorn with eyes all over.
Voth had returned.
The eyes all scanned me, in a way that was probably a lot more invasive than what the princess's might have done but I had no negative reaction. After a few seconds of looking me up and down, Voth spoke.
"WHAT. DID. IT. LOOK. LIKE?" Voth asked in a voice that simmered with rage. I was a bit scared at that but answered, knowing that he wanted to kill whatever attacked me in Sunday.
"Lik-"
"SPEAK IN YOUR MIND FOR I CAN HEAR YOU THERE"
'It was a dark moose thing with eyes on its chest and only a mouth on its head. It had antlers that were made out of all sorts of legs,' I answered in my mind. I could feel Voth mulling over the answer, probably trying to identify the assailant.
A movement caught my eye and I turned my head to it. A light green unicorn was coming my way. I almost panicked at the thought that she saw Voth but she continued on past me without even looking at us.
"REMEMBER THAT THEY DO NOT SEE ME OR HEAR ME FOR I AM IN YOUR MIND ONLY AND RIGHT NOW I HAVE MADE SURE THEY CANNOT PAY ATTENTION TO YOU" said Voth, making me feel dumb about panicking, because after all, Voth was in my head and not in the physical world and probably smarter than me in the way a human is smarter to an ant.
Suddenly, Voth's wing wrapped around me, pulling me into a wing hug. Voth then put one of their forelegs to the right side of my face, primarily on my scar. I, despite being pretty calm now compared to earlier, did not want to be touched and tried moving away. A sense of calm filled me, however, and the touch felt warm and friendly. I leaned too much into Voth and almost fell through since Voth did not exist in the physical world to have me lean on them. Voth moved onto inspecting my forelegs and I could feel their touch under my bandages.
'Why can I feel you even though you're not in the physical world?' I asked.
"I HAVE STIMULATED THE NERVES IN THOSE AREAS OF YOUR BODY WHERE MY ILLUSION TOUCHES IT SO THAT YOU FEEL A FRIENDLY TOUCH THAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER," answered Voth without much emotion as they were still inspecting my forelegs. I'm pretty sure that I should have felt a bit bad that the friendliness was artificial but didn't for some reason, not that I should have felt bad in the first place considering that Voth was rather nice even if they didn't care much.
'Why am I so calm around you?'
"I HAVE PLACED BLOCKS ON YOUR EMOTION TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU DO NOT FEEL NEGATIVELY ABOUT MY ACTIONS OR ME AND SO THAT YOU DO NOT FEEL TOO STRONGLY AND INTEGRATE WITH YOUR NEW ENVIRONMENT BETTER I WILL BE REMOVING SOME OF THE LATTER BLOCKS TO LET YOU FINISH INTEGRATING COMPLETELY"
'Why only some?'
"YOUR VESSEL'S SURVIVAL INSTINCTS AND PAST EXPERIENCES HAVE CREATED AN INFERIOR SECOND MIND THAT HAS LARGELY TRIED TO IMPEDE YOU THE BLOCKS WILL MAKE SURE THAT THE HUMAN MIND STAYS DOMINANT OVER THE PONY AND THAT YOU CAN KEEP WORKING"
Voth left my forelegs and spoke in a much more authoritative voice.
"YOU HAVE KILLED THE PARASITE THAT ATTACKED YOU AND I AM PROUD OF THAT HOWEVER YOU DISPLAYED FEAR AND CONSIDERED LETTING OUR DEAL BE KNOWN BY A STRANGER I WILL PLACE SPECIAL BLOCKS ON YOUR MEMORY TO ENSURE THAT YOU CANNOT REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT OUR DEAL IF SOMEONE TRIES INVESTIGATING IT AT ALL
NEXT YOU SHOULD AVOID INTERACTION WITH THE PRINCESS OF THE SUN IF YOU CAN SHE KNOWS OF MY KIND'S EXISTENCE AND WILL KILL ANYONE SHE SUSPECTS TO BE UNDER ONE OF OUR'S CONTROL OR IN A DEAL WITH ONE OF US IF SHE FINDS OUT ABOUT OUR DEAL SHE WILL KILL ME AND YOU
HOWEVER YOU WILL HAVE TO INTERACT WITH HER AGAIN IN THE NEXT FEW HOURS DUE TO AN EVENT"
'You mean the celebration?'
"I AM TALKING ABOUT THE RETURN OF HER SISTER THE PRINCESS OF THE MOON SHE HAD BEEN BANISHED TO YOUR CURRENT PLANET'S MOON ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO AND IS RETURNING AS WE SPEAK IN THE NEXT HOUR SHE WILL BE BACK AND I WILL NEED YOU TO DO EXACTLY AS I SAY AND INTERACT WITH HER AND CAST THIS SPELL ON HER"
At that, my head hurt and the image of a rune entered my head. I... couldn't really describe it in words other than 'scribbles', like it was something some made while panicking. Voth's form started dissolving as well.
"NOW GO THE CELEBRATION IS STARTING I WILL BE RIGHT BY YOUR SIDE"
Now, I just didn't have to mess up.