Time for a Little Magic

by Sketch-Pad

A Quest for Everfree

Starswirll had grabbed a small amount of things almost right after the sun had risen. He knew that he should probably make his way over to Everfree and see the queen as well as the princess. He knew that he would have to be quick, so he could beat the pair there and back.

He grabbed his blue cloak, the one with a hood. If it was supposed to rain soon, it would surely be useful. He didn't bother to bring a tent with him, because he knew that he wasn't going to stop. All he had with him was the letter, his cloak, and a small supply of food. He left his building with his head held high, leaving his two guards to close the tower and to take the weekend off. One of them had asked to accompany him, but he declined. He knew that he could handle himself.

He had only made it a quarter mile out of town when he felt raindrops on his back. He couldn't help but smile. Unlike most unicorns he actually liked the rain, because he found it soothing, and the noise it usually made was also rhythmic and comforting. However, it always wasn't the best thing when it was raining buckets.

He passed a tree on his left, and he spotted a traveler's wagon perched underneath it. He looked at it for a few moments, trying to recall when that wagon had been there. It wasn't there last week, nor had it been before. Perhaps it was the wagon that Clover had come in, but his questioning was stalled as rain was picked up. He didn't exactly want to get soaked, so he walked over to the wagon, and gently knocked on the door, seeing if anypony was inside. A few seconds had passed before a small red muzzle poked out from the crack in the door.

"What do you want? We're not preforming right now, so you can leave," She said in a brisk tone, and then shut the door in his face.

He proceeded to knock on the door again, and this time she answered right away.

"I said to leave! what part of 'we aren't preforming' don't you understand?" She was sour and sharp, and clearly didn't like visitors. This time when she had opened the door, Starswirll had quickly noticed a little golden chain on the door, which prevented her from opening it all the way.

Starswirll had quickly placed his hoof in the door, and took on the pain in his hoof as she once again tried to close it. He could now see the mare's face. She had a scar on one eye, but it was covered by a a strapless eye patch. Her visible eye had beautiful golden irises, and her long Black mane almost touched the floor. But the biggest shock to him was the fact that she had no horn. This meant that she was either an Earth Pony or a Pegasus.

She looked up at him with scared and angry eyes, and he lowered his ears in sympathy.

"All need to ask is for a little shelter, just until this rain lightens." He looked back behind him. "And if you can't offer shelter, then perhaps you have an umbrella I could use?"

There was a low mumble that was heard from inside the wagon, and the Mare had turned to look behind her to listen to something. She muttered something in another language, one that even Starswirll didn't understand. She eventually turned to look at him again, and after a look up and down, She closed the door again.

He frowned at first, until he heard clicking behind the door. She opened the door all the way, and cautiously let him inside. What he saw greatly surprised him. He saw that the mare he was talking to was a pegasus. The lower voice he had heard earlier was an Earth Pony, and there were two unicorn ponies, a male an a female, asleep on a bed. However they looked almost Identical, so Starswirll was right to suspect that they were twins.

He looked up at the pegasus mare, and expected an explanation. All three types of ponies didn't get along at all, and they were rarely even caught giving another so much as a sideways glance. So the fact that these three ponies were living together confused him a great amount. They didn't look at even closely related, so that option was probably out. The only mare that had visible injuries was also the pegasus, so the possibility that they might have been fugitives or something was very slim. His thoughts about the group were interrupted by the earth pony, who had a rather low voice.

He was a golden yellow stallion, though his hooves were green under the yellow wisps of hair that dangled from his ankles. His mane was also two shades of green, and from what Starswirll could see he had blue eyes. He tried to see the stallion's cutie mark, but he was unable to do so with out being awkward.

"Are you going to report us?" The stallion asked.

The mare cursed at him in the language she had spoken earlier, and then rolled her eyes. Starswirll only grown more confused, until he was able to realize what the language was. He recognized it as Runaeic. It was very close to a dead language, and while he himself had been able to read most forms of the language, he had only been able to sound out a few syllables, because he knew that most of the syllables were very complex and not at all like the language that everypony else spoke.

Starswirll had raised an eyebrow and looked back to the mare again. "Where did you two learn how to speak Runaeic?" Starswirll asked, almost ignoring the yellow stallion's question.

The mare had lowered her ears and her eyes had grown narrow. "How did you?" she countered.

Starswirll wasn't even affected by her reaction. "I am a very knowledgeable unicorn scholar, thus I have studied a few other languages other than my own."

The two ponies exchanged a glance with each other, before the stallion asked, "So you know what we are saying?"

"While I can read the language like it was my own, I cannot speak it effectively." Starswirll replied honestly.

They nodded, and then The pegasus sighed. "My name is Tornado, or Torn for short. I am the daughter of the high Commander Hurricane. The yellow stallion is Forest, and the twins sleeping on the couch are Sugar and Plum." She had explained.

If this pegasus was truly the daughter of the pegasus commander, then something strange had happened. It was not known to any unicorn that he had a child, with any of his three wives that he had over the years. And the fact that she was living with these other ponies that were not of her race.

"Well, how did you end up coming to be with these other ponies?" Starswirll asked her, as well as the rest of the group.

She closed her eye and walked over to the couch that forest was resting on, and she sat next to him.

"I was patrolling one day on the lowest sector of our city. I had only one other stallion with me, a close friend. On our patrol, we had come across the twins, Sugar and Plum. We watched them, as they were clearly nervous. There were noises in the distance, so we had figured that they were being chased. I watched as the two of them panicked, and then they cast a spell of some kind on themselves. They helped each other onto the clouds, and that was when I sent my patrol partner to get reinforcements. I flew closer to them, and saw that they had possession of a valuable pegasus artifact that was supposed to have been owned by our first leader. But they had not stolen it from us, they had stolen it from the unicorn government that had stolen it from us."

"I confronted them about it carefully, And they explained that they stole it because not only did it never belong to the unicorns, but they also wanted to prove to themselves and to others that they could steal anything. seeing what they had did and with their reasoning, I decided to bring them to my father to have them personally return the artifact. The troops that my partner had called joined us at this time, and the help in the escorting."

"When we met my father, while he was relieved and thankful, he also knew that these ponies had trespassed onto pegasus land, even if they were doing the pegasai a favor. He put them in prison, practically starving them. I took on pity on them after about a week or so, so I devised a plan to help them escape. In doing so was when I had damaged my eye, since things didn't go entirely according to plan."

"Since the three of us were running from our countries, we fled to a little house on the edge of the earthpony's country. We hid in the attic, and we stole some of the homes goods so that we might stay alive."

She turned and looked at Forest, who would continue the story. "Yes, I had discovered that my food garden was being taken from, and the evidence showed that it wasn't stray rabbits or other forest animals. This went on for several weeks, so one day I decided to get to the bottom of it. After digging through my house, I had finally found the three of them hiding in my attic. I had been told many bad things about pegasai and unicorns, but after finding them scared and in such poor of condition, I decided to care for them until their health had returned to normal and then allow them to leave in peace. How ever, as their health grew, so did my kindness for them. I felt bad that I would have to throw them back out into the wilderness, especially since winter was approaching at the time. So I had changed my mind, and told them that I would allow them to stay in my house, as long as they helped me with my farm work. They agreed, and both of us kept our promise."

"But my friends were growing suspicious that I was hiding something in my house, something that was not meant to be there. They were asking to come over more and more often, and they found it suspicious because I was usually very social and would never turn people away from a get-together at my house, at least until the three of them showed up. I declined more ponies away, and my friends actually threatened to have my house searched by the government if they weren't allowed over. It was ridiculous."

He cleared his throat, and looked at the twins as one let out a loud snort, and the other had rolled so much that half of her body was hanging off of the bed they were laying on.

"I decided to sell my house, and I was thankful that it was sold rather quickly. I bought this wagon that we are in now, and we left to another city. We have been roaming around the countries for a while, living on the outskirts of cities. If we are ever met with militia, then we tell them that we are traveling performers that wear costumes. It usually works, but in one case that it hasn't, we had to preform a few stunts to get them to leave us alone." He smiled, and look at the three other ponies.

"In fact, staying and living with these ponies has changed my opinion on them, and I know they are not as bad as we are told they are, or at least some of them aren't." Tornado smiled in agreement. "I'm very thankful that I have met them, and that we have become friends."

Starswirll nodded once. It was very different seeing all three races living together, but it was actually quite a nice site to see. It was a change from the hateful stares or turned up noses in disgust every time one race would see another that was not themselves. If this was what living with other races would turn into, then perhaps something needed to be changed. But that was easier said that done, especially since some are more hateful than others. The only way he saw a way that they might join would be if there was a leader to represent all three of them., but as far as he knew, there was no pony like that, and simply breeding them together would not work either.

"What did you say you needed again, by the way?" Forest asked, though he was looking at the one twin who was so close to falling out of the bed and landing on the ground.

"Oh, well I was looking for shelter until the rain lightened, or to perhaps have an umbrella to use in the rain. Even though my cloak has a hood, after some time in the rain I will get soaked anyways, most likely ruining the context of things in my bag."

"You should have thought about bringing an umbrella before you left," Tornado said, as she walked over to a small bag and pulled out a blue umbrella. She handed it to him, and smiled. "You take care now, alright? A handsome stallion like you shouldn't be risking his life too much."

Starswirll blushed a little bit, and then gave a thankful nod. "Thank you for letting me borrow an umbrella, and it was nice to meet both of you. I wish you well on your endeavors."

And with that, he turned and went to walk out the door. The rain had lightened a small amount, but it was still on the heavy side. He gave a nod to the ponies behind him, and as the door closed, he could hear the unicorn fall onto the wagon, and then a yelp quickly followed.

He put up the umbrella, and began to follow his path. Only two hours had passed, so he still had time to pass Ember and Clover if he was quick. he knew that he would pass them at night, since they were farther ahead. He kept walking, the clicking of his hooves turning into a melody as he stepped on the gravel road, which only added to the pitter-patter of the rain against his umbrella. He hummed to himself as he walked, creating a little song as he went along his way. It was the best way from him to make his long journey a shorter one.

Comments

[Nocturnal Soul]

Good story. I'm really curious to see how the presence of Twilight in the past may affect it.
Can't wait the next chapter ^^

See you soon ;)

[Moonlit Oasis]

Yay! An update!
It's nice to see them all getting along.

And one thing I wanted to point out,

He hummed to himself as he walked, creating a little song as he walked along.

You said "walked" twice there.
You could change the second "walked", to something like, "went".

[Sketch-Pad]

4269295 thanks I just fixed it

[crossr]

Just found this story and I have really enjoyed it.
I hope that you will return to it and continue the story. I'm following it in the hope that you do come back and finish it.