Somewhere in the middle of Twilight’s speech of righteous duty, Rainbow Dash had fallen asleep. Day couldn’t blame her. Unfortunately for him, she woke up just as she was explaining about the night before and heard the tail end of the explanation about him and Pinkie Pie. Comically, her eyes bugged out of her head and she immediately shot up to the ceiling to glare down at him. Rarity was taking the “news” a bit better though she had a dark expression on her face as well.
“You married Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash asked. Her glare was like concentrated lasers.
“Dammit, Twilight...” Day murmured, “No. Why does nobody get this? How could we have gotten married? At best this is an engagement.” He didn’t realize what he said until it had already come out of his mouth. A loud gasp came from behind him.
“Day, do you really mean it! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is the best morning EVER!” Pinkie Pie bounced next to him excitedly. Rarity’s restrained expression blossomed into full blown hostility.
“God dammit. No. Noooo. I’m not engaged. I’m not married. Pinkie’s making this all worse.” Day said frantically. Rarity looked like she was about to spike him through the chest and roast him.
Beside him, Pinkie Pie deflated and she adopted her unfair puppy dog expression once again. Day saw it out of the corner of his eyes and had to resist the temptation to look at it full-on... that way led to madness. From the table, the fillies - joined now by Spike - looked like they were about to explode from suppressed laughter. Spike had tears flowing down his face and he silently shuddered where he sat next to Scootaloo. Day frantically thought for a way to get out of the situation.
“Umm... uh...” Day stood up slowly, “well, this escalated quickly. Why don’t I go to Fluttershy’s and get my stuff? And um, you guys can talk this over?”
He edged his way to the door without incident. A moment later he slipped out and sprinted away toward the library.
“Oh god, oh god, they’re going to kill me. Never mind I can’t actually be hurt but still.” He talked to himself as he sprinted. His enhanced reactions made it so it was effortless to dodge any pony that was in front of him. He eventually reached the library tree without incident and used the wide trunk to bleed off his extreme speed and momentum. When he stopped, he had to take a moment to reorient himself. He was once again within range of the forest and it had an hour or so of information to pass to him along with a myriad of emotions and impulses. The core-deep loneliness he’d felt before completely disappeared in the wake of his forest, his home. It didn’t even bother him that he felt more familiar with the forest than anything else he’d encountered on this world.
For a brief moment, he considered just running into the forest and leaving everything behind. He still had time to do so; Luna wasn’t back yet. He could hide. He could escape the insanity he’d found himself in and just tend to the forest like every instinct was telling him too.
But he didn’t. Once he was finished, once he was free of whatever destiny had in store for him, then and only then he could rest. The forest called to him, sang to him now but he’d made a promise and he was going to keep it.
He followed a hunch and queried the forest for Fluttershy’s cottage. Immediately, the forest gave him a reply and sent him its exact location in a combination of visual and emotional data. Day smiled, “So, you do watch over Fluttershy, don’t you... that’s why she’s never had a problem with you trying to kill her... why is that?”
He hadn’t expected an answer, but he received one in reply. It was a different voice than the one he heard before. It was the forest but also not of the forest, like it was disembodied. Considering the voice was already untethered from a corporeal form, he was unsure how he came to that specific impression but he just knew it was right.
We see her as our child, a perfect match for a union between the families of royalty, wilderness, understanding, and time. See what we know, Guardian.
He saw.
~{}~
The trip to Fluttershy’s cottage was very quick. Unsurprisingly, the distances that he remembered would take him awhile to traverse as a human were trivial in his new form. Despite casually sprinting at an excess of 30 kilometers an hour many times now, he hadn’t truly appreciated the speed he was moving. It would have been breathtaking had he still performed that function.
He walked up to Fluttershy’s door and knocked. Inside, heard the soft sound of hooves clopping against wood that paused at the door. Then he heard a voice he didn’t expect to hear.
“Hello?”
Internally, a little voice was screaming at him to run, run away quickly and not say anything. Of course, he didn’t listen.
“Luna? It’s Day. Why are you here? And talking through Fluttershy’s door? From the inside?” His rapid fire questions came in a very nervous voice that he was sure she would catch on to.
The door opened and Luna stepped out before shutting the door behind her. He could hear a second pony moving about frantically. The occasional bump or mutter could be heard through the door.
“We... I... well, that is...” Luna looked around shiftily before meeting his eyes, “I and dear Fluttershy are... together...”
Day seized on the opportunity. He was saved! He could hold off on telling her about the others. At best he was running on borrowed time, but who cared, it was another few precious minutes where he wasn’t running for his life. Idly, he marveled at how messed up his morning was.
“Wow... talk about a conflict of interest,” Day said. He tried to act nonchalant, “totally going on a dangerous adventure and the person you want on it is conveniently your...”
Luna looked away sheepishly, “Marefriend or consort. No, royalty doesn’t marry. We are immortal, marriage would be painful.”
“Hmm, gee I wish I cou-” Luna cut him off.
“Oh please, you were, what is the phrase?” She raised a hoof and tapped her chin contemplatively, “Forever alone, is how I believe you will put it?”
Day opened his mouth then closed it.
“Fuck.” He replied. Then a thought hit him. “Hold on a fucking minute. You already know don’t you...?”
Luna’s expression burst into blistering fury, “Since about the time you opened your mouth... I explicitly said not to involve Twilight Sparkle. AND YOU DID BESIDES! WITH ALL HER FRIENDS NO LESS! AND YOU TRIED TO HIDE IT FROM ME!”
He didn’t bother replying to Luna’s shout. The very earth shook with her anger. You don’t stand up to that. He ran like the wind, ran like the devil was after him, ran like his life depended on it.
Within a few steps he could see his shadow in front of him. From behind, a wave of light and heat was building where he had left Luna behind. He could feel what it was - plasma. Star matter. He ran away from the forest, if he was going to die then he’d protect his forest. The forest watched silently, but Day got the distinct impression that it was laughing at him. He could figure out what was so funny as he was about to be vaporized in a cloud of ionized air.
In the space of a few seconds, he had moved a hundred yards. A few more put a hundred more. It wasn’t enough. From behind, he felt the roiling magic suddenly shift away. In a moment of clarity through his panic, Day made a note to examine his ability to sense magic so finely. Then the panic crashed down upon him when Luna and her floating ammunition of star stuff materialized in front of him. Luna’s eyes were closed, wings flared, and her horn alight with a dark blue glow. She opened her eyes. They shined with the color of the swirling matter above her.
A bright, impossibly fast lance of plasma shot toward him and Day instinctively raised a hand to intercept it.
His metal skin danced with eldritch light and electricity and the lance bounced off the back of his hand. The skin quickly heated up, the blue turned a bright white and shined the light of molten metal. He couldn’t believe it, but the shining white didn’t melt immediately off but remained cohesive on his body. The pain was incredible, like sticking his hand into a campfire.
“Owwwwww, son of a bitch!” Day yelled and swore. The lance expended itself and impossibly, the metal of his hand cooled in a second. The pain disappeared and was replaced with a bone-deep stiffness. He could barely move his fingers.
Luna’s plasma storm started to flash lighting from the edges to the surrounding area. Lightning arced everywhere: into the ground, up into clouds, into his forest. The thunder cracks that accompanied the electrical discharges were enormously loud. Another plasma lance slammed into his opposite shoulder and leg before he could react. Pain and numbness soon followed the strikes. He barely paid attention. Internally, the forest’s amusement had disappeared with the first lightning strikes against the treetops. Day could barely feel his body now, so consumed he was with damage reports and the fury of the forest. His own anger mounted.
“Enough!” He yelled after the next lance against his chest coincided with a nasty multiple strike against a tree that sheltered the burrows of some little ones. Around him panels jumped to life, manipulated by sheer force of will, the panels drew on his body’s magic to block the strikes. On the edges of the forest, thin earthen spires shot up into the sky and started drawing away lightning strikes from the forest. Tangible filaments of blue and vermilion light wove themselves around Day’s body in a shimmering armor. Panels morphed from information carriers into weapons and shields that rotated around him.
The next lance of hot gas slammed into a floating concave hexagon and ricocheted into the sky. The impact gave off the solid clang of a bell. Day retreated into his mind. Something other took over.
Thousands of wisps flew out from the forest to whirl overhead. The phantom lights’ swirling patterns stopped and redirected lightning strikes back at the combatants where Day’s shield intercepted each one and redirected them out into the sky safely.
The weapons changed into more shields as Luna continued directing her impromptu cannon at him. Strikes came faster and faster until the shields could not stop every strike and a few made it through. Day retreated farther into his mind and the other took further control. The wisps tightened their swirling dome and began redirecting strikes back at Luna. He wings snapped out and the lighting fell upon her with no effect. He entire body lit with electricity but it was efficiently redirected into her plasma. Strikes continued unabated.
The other attempted to move on the offensive, and a few panels returned to weapons and shot toward Luna. Each triangle bristled with more light filaments that curved wickedly like shining brambles and thorns. Each blasted into Luna’s wing joints precisely where they folded against her side and whirled around, tearing away skin and muscles. The burrs barely had any effect on Luna’s concentration. He body regenerated as quickly as he could damage it.
Other grudgingly acknowledged the amount of skill and experience the goddess must have to ignore the damage he was doing to the most sensitive parts of her body while simultaneously controlling her plasma and reabsorbing lightning strikes like they were candy. It calculated for a moment.
The earthen spires compressed and crushed and hardened. The line of thin spires shifted to solid iron. The shift in the other’s attention cost it dearly.
Day returned to his body as multiple shields failed and his armor disappeared. The hexagons shuddered under the immense heat and kinetic force of the plasma lances before simply disappearing from existence. His entire body flared white under the un-countered onslaught. Just before he lost consciousness, he couldn’t help but think - Well... this sure escalated quickly.