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His Departure2,697 words
His Explanation2,498 words
His Explanation Cont.1,672 words
Her Interrogation3,913 words
Their Journey- Part 12,080 words
Their Journey- Part 22,510 words
The Start of Something More2,076 words

The Start of Something More

''That's not at all what I meant by arguing in her favor...'' I thought to myself as I escorted Kyna through the halls of His Majesty's castle.

"I'm sorry Inquisitor, I... didn't intend to give the perception that I was qualified to become an Inquisitor. I'll make sure to pay attention so you won't have to deal with me for long..." Said the Girl, who's name I had just learned- Kyna, a rather traditional name, tribal. It made a bit more sense as to why she had joined Frey's little Heresy Club.

It took a bit of time, but we eventually reached the Inoculation chamber, where we met a very traumatized looking Twilight Sparkle, standing with her back against the wall and pointing her horn at any of the female Faerens who dared come close to her.

"Twilight! Twilight! What are you doing? These women are merely here to make sure you pose no threat to His Majesty. Don't threaten them, you risk a political incident." I shouted, appalled that the Princess' personal envoy would behave in such a manner.

"Political incident? Those buckers frisked me! EVERYWHERE! They checked my teeth like a Griffon's farm animal and combed through my mane as if they were looking for ticks! Who do they think they are?" Retorted Twilight, who had just attempted to run one of the Faerens through.

"Oh Christ." I muttered to myself, before taking several large steps forward and tearing the hood off of one of the offenders. "Faeren! What is the meaning behind treating a royal envoy as if she were a prize mule? Simply because she has a bit of a bray-"

"Hey!" I heard Twilight say, as Kyna snorted.

"- does not mean that she actually is an ass. I expect the both of you to beg her envoy's forgiveness immediately, lest I drag you to the Supreme Counselor's office and hang you by your belts." I snarled, giving both women cause to back away. Immediately they apologized, and quickly shuffled out of the room.

Twilight huffed and turned away from me, using her magic to fix her mane, which had been ruffled up in the previous encounter. "Thank you Aston." She said, though she was clearly still offended.

"There is no point in thanking me, that was in all actuality genuine protocol. I just simply can't allow you to turn a sour eye to our species as a whole, and potentially botch and diplomatic possibilities that our King may desire. Let's go, Twilight and Kyna, we should not keep His Majesty waiting."

"Kyna..?" Twilight began, before making the connection and smiling. "Ah. So your name is Kyna. Well then, it's nice to officially meet you Kyna, my name is Twilight Sparkle."

"Um... Hello?" Kyna muttered, confused as to why Twilight was introducing herself. "Why are you..."

"Because now we actually know your name, and we can become friends now! I could teach you all about the Elements of Harmony, the power of friendship, and everything that me and the girls have done in the past couple of years..."

I tuned out the rest of Twilight's introduction and began to leave, walking toward the throne room where we would meet my ruler. It only took a few minutes, thankfully, as Twilight was blabbering on the entire time about how 'friendship' had made her life so much nicer.

Once we reached the throne room, a young squire quickly left to inform His Highness that we had arrived- it only made sense that we should wait on him.

Before long, the same squire came bounding out of a side chamber, and stood at rigid attention, facing us, before calling out in a formal tone "His Majesty, the savior of Mercia, has chosen to honor you with his council, and-"

"Oh, shut up you. There's no need to announce the fact that I'm walking through the damn door."

The speaker came into view, an elderly man wearing a forest green tunic and holding a cane. Not the royal scepter, but... a cane. He sat on his throne, ignoring his attendants attempts to place a pillow beneath him, and stroked his beard, allowing his simple golden crown to slant ever so slightly. My liege, my ruler, His Majesty Offa.

I immediately kneeled and bowed my head, ushering for Kyna and Twilight to do the same.

"No, no, no, please, stand and be recognized. I wish to speak to you on equal terms, Mr. Fisk, and to your guests, whom I have been told include a newly apprenticed Inquisitor and a diplomat from... Equestria, was it?" As I slowly rose to my feet, Twilight quickly answered Offa, assuring him that Equestria was correct.

"Excellent, good. Mr. Fisk, may I simply call you Aston? It's much simpler that way."

"Certainly, my Lord. I hope that I may be able to answer any questions that you have quickly and accurately." I responded, bowing my head.

"Thank you, Aston. And please, look me in the eye when you speak, I am an old man, not some self righteous gundygut. Now, could you please relate to me the story of how you stumbled upon our new friend's... ah... world, and what you did from there? I was informed of what Mr. Garret had found, and was worried that you had perished. It's narry a happy day when one of my Inquisitors is killed."

"Well, your Majesty..."I begun, and once again related my entire story starting from my short stay at the inn outside of Chester.

Celestia looked around at the rest of the Mane 6, and Spike, watching their expressions change from a happy farewell to worried. They had been idly waiting for nearly an hour.

"Ah don't know about this, Princess. Do ya' think it was really right to send Twilight off on 'er own like that, to that Human world? Jus' because Aston is helping us with the mess HE started, doesn't mean that his feller men are on our side too." Applejack said, turning her head to speak to Princess Celestia.

"Yeah... I gotta agree with AJ on that one. Aston is cool and all but... if his friends are anything like him, then they might be a bit of a hoof full to deal with." Rainbow Dash said, nodding her head in Applejack's direction.

""I understand, my little ponies. But at the current moment, it would appear to be the best way to formally recognize each other's worlds. And if this problem is anything like what Mr. Fisk mentioned, then our own Celestial and Lunar guards might not be able to handle it. Don't worry too much, I'm sure Aston will take excellent care of Twilight, and they'll be back soon. Time moves faster in their world, remember?" Celestia said, and began to turn away. "I would suggest coming and waiting in the throne room with me. I'll be sure to post a guard to tell us when Aston returns."

"Um... Everybody... There's something happening with the portal..." Fluttershy said, and pointed to the portal, which had begun to shimmer and wake, as if a rock had been dropped into a pond.

"Oh, is somepony coming through the portal? How quaint, we've only been waiting for an hour! Maybe Twilight has finished her business already." Rarity said, taking a few steps toward the portal, which was steadily shimmering at a faster rate.

After only a few seconds of the entire party watching, a figure appeared in the portal, blurry, but sharpening, until a blue hooded head surfaced from the portal, quickly followed by two more. As the three figures exited, the company of ponies noticed that none of these three were Aston, nor Twilight or the Girl.

They wore the same blue and mottled gray cloaks that Aston did, but these men had dark brown leather spaulders strapped on outside of their robes, and dark leather half-masks, hiding their identities.

"Who are you?" Celestia asked, stepping forward suspiciously.

"Queen Celestia?" The lead Inquisitor asked, observing the half circle of ponies around him.

"Princess." She corrected. "Has Aston sent you-" Celestia began, until the lead Inquisitor stepped forward and jabbed her in the neck- a three fingered strike that temporarily halted her air flow and caused her to pass out. She had only enough time to watch as the other two Inquisitors systematically bound and gagged the last five of the Mane Six, and watch one that had hit her picked up spike and tied his hand and feet together, muzzling him so he could not use his fire breath.

When Celestia awoke, she immediately looked around, noticing that she was in the throne room, laying down alongside Spike and the rest of the Mane Six. They had all been unbound, and were slowly and steadily coming to. Lifting her head, she saw Princess Luna standing protectively over her, watching the center of the room closely.

She staggered to her feet, coughing every so slightly, before asking "Lulu... what happened? Where.... where are those humans?"

"We discovered thou and the rest unconscious in the throne room. After checking to assure that thou were alright, we gathered the guards to find who assailed thou. It was not long after that these humans returned, admitting to their assault and dragging behind them a bound and gagged figure. It would seem that this is the very same human that our acquaintance Aston reassured us he would find."

Upon hearing that, Celestia jumped to life, shaking her head and rushing around to aid her subjects in standing. Once she was finished, she turned to glare at the four men in her throne room- three were standing in line, facing her, while the fourth was kneeling, a burlap sack covering his head. He had severely torn clothing, and various bloodstains covered the remaining areas of his clothes.

"Who are you? Why did you assault me and my subjects? Who is that human at your feet?" Celestia demanded, pointing her horn at the three Inquisitors and preparing a spell.

"This is the man that Fisk described to you. We were ordered to travel through the portal preemptively, find Frey using instructions from apprentice Kyna, and execute him. Fisk and our lord will be coming through the portal shortly, and we are expected to have his head on a pike before then." The lead Inquisitor answered, kicking Frey at his feet.

"That doesn't explain why you attacked us! What the buck?" Rainbow Dash shouted, hovering nearby and readying herself to attack.

"Twilight Sparkle took the liberty of describing the pacifist nature of your nation. As we could not take the risk of your preferred way of dealing with this scum interfering with our preferred method, we made sure that you could not order us to change our methods in your territory. Now that we have him, we will wait for you to acknowledge being a witness, and will summarily execute him."

"Now wait! No, that isn't the proper way to deal with treason!" Celestia shouted, Luna watching attentively behind her.

"He is in our possession now, it is of our concern. We simply need a witness of this world to acknowledge his death."

"No! We can not allow you to commit such a heinous act, especially in the presence of innocents!" Luna asserted, charging up a spell on her own horn as well.

"Your reluctance to accept will be treated as acknowledgement, your highness." The Inquisitor said, before yanking the sack off of Frey's head.

The Inquisitor's hands began to glow a dangerous red, and he placed his hands over Frey's ears. Within seconds, Frey began to scream and writhe, before he collapsed to the floor, blood leaking out of his mouth, eyes, ears and nostrils.

Author's Note:

Now, just to kind of aid in the way I imagine the characters and settings of the human world (which is based off of the real-life Anglo-Saxon nation), I thought I would find a whole bunch of relevant images and give you the links, if you're interested. I just think it would help with the visualization of the characters.

First off, I did some digging into what my preferences for a wise, old king would look like and figured that King Offa would look visually similar to Sir Henry Taylor, depicted with a crown here-
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Study_of_King_David,_by_Julia_Margaret_Cameron.jpg

Secondly, the Faeren Inquisitors are intended to be sort of mysterious and secluded from the rest of the characters, but still powerful in their own right, though they're hardly mentioned so far. As such, I think the Shapers from the Geneforge game series accurately depicts their physical appearance.
http://www.benresnick.com/images/geneforge_shaper.jpg

And then there were the guards of the castle. I took the design of their uniform from the Portrait d'un carabinier à cheval, by Géricault. The guards are intended to look almost identical to that man in the painting, barring facial hair and such, of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:G%C3%A9ricault_-_Portrait_de_carabinier_-_Louvre.jpg

Lastly was the castle itself.I hardly described the structure or location, but it's in Tamworth, the capital of Mercia. And, what better castle to serve as the Mercian King's residence than an actual Mercian castle? I figured the real-life Tamworth Castle made a-plenty of sense for the scenario, even though RL Offa died quite a while before the castle was even concieved.
http://applebyparkhotel.com/_asset/1055/Tamworth_Castle.jpg

As always, please comment your opinions and keep sending those notifications!

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