The One Who Leads The Way

by TundraStanza

Damage Trigger Check

It looked like dry grass. It felt like dry grass. It even smelled like dry grass. So, when Céri took a bite of the fast food sandwich, imagine his surprise when he tasted... dry grass. If it weren't for the other fixings, he probably would have spit it out right on the spot. As it was, it was just tolerable enough to choke down.

"I've seen that look on other ponies' faces before," commented Redheart. "I'm guessing you don't like it."

"Hey, I'm hungry enough," he insisted. "I'll probably finish eating this hay burger. I'll just need an extra grape fizz to wash it down."

"Well, I suppose I can give you at least that much." She walked over to her fridge and pulled out another can.

At least the French fries tasted right, even if they were ridiculously shaped like mini horseshoes.

"Have you thought about what you're going to do around here?" she asked. "I get that responding to the call to other universes is important, but does your time here have to be all about waiting to fight changelings and monsters somewhere else?"

Céri took a few chugs from his soda before exhaling. "What would you suggest?"

"I can think of at least two things." Redheart chomped down a couple of the fries. Her own sandwich had been devoured minutes ago. "You could head to the castle library and fill yourself in regarding Equestrian society and history, and you could walk over to Town Hall and see if any small job openings are available. I could write down directions to those places if you like."

Work to eat, I suppose. "Sure, that sounds alright."

Her eyes fixated on something else. "That's an interesting bracelet."

"Careful." He pulled his wrist a little away from her approaching hoof. "Yoko said it would give a terrible rash to anyone that isn't the wielder."

"Hmm, well... it is covered in a few thorns here and there," she admitted. "Doesn't that hurt you?"

"No, my wrist feels normal, as if the Gauntlet Thorns weren't there." He wiggled his hand and fingers around to demonstrate.

"I fail to see how making somepony else itchy would be a useful tool." Redheart tossed the Hayburger wrappers into the basket.

"Yeah, I don't know either." Céri shrugged.

---

"How did I not see this before?" Céri stared in awe at the giant crystal tree.

The structure in question was huge! Various windows lined the upper branches and canopy. There was even a giant star adorning the top like that of a Christmas tree. Heck, the bright variety of colors might as well have been the holiday's decorations.

After staring for an unprecedented amount of time, Céri shook his head. He slapped his bandaged cheek to get back his focus. Slowly, he walked over to the really tall door. He lifted his fist and knocked twice. Idly, he tried pushing the door while he waited. He nearly fell as the door easily budged open.

He leaned a little farther inside to get a look. It was a really long hallway... a really, really, really long hallway... with doors every yard or so. What was with all the charcoal black and purple coloration? It made the place feel like a cliché villain's lair... or at least home sweet home for his Shadow Paladin Units.

Céri unfolded his paper with Redheart's directions again. It even told him how many doors down and to the right where the library was. He sighed. This was going to be a long walk.

---

After about five minutes, if his phone's perception of time was to be believed, he made it to the twenty-third door. He had to rest against the nearby wall for a few seconds. He was not looking forward to the return trip.

There was some muffled noise. As he pressed his ear against the wall, it sounded like the voice of a woman. But, he couldn't tell what she was talking about or to whom. Carefully, he reached for the door and opened it as gently and quietly as possible. Peeking into this room, he could see that it did have several shelves of books. That much was right, but he was a bit more curious about the voice. Was it a public place? If so, why weren't there more ponies walking or sitting around?

He walked past a few of the bookshelves. Finally, he saw a candidate for the mystery voice. It was a pale magenta pony hunched over a scattered pile of notebooks. She kept looking back and forth between the piles.

Her words sounded like, "Be there for... don't look in mouth... be true... even before she..." an incomprehensible mess.

"Excuse me," Céri spoke up.

"Wah!"

The pony's exclamation and sudden twist of her body sent several pieces of paper floating through the air. Though, Céri did get to see the extra feature on her forehead: the horn of the unicorn. He also saw it glowing, somehow suspending a few of the sheets from naturally falling to the floor. So, that was magic's typical form, huh?

"Sorry to bother you," he followed up. "Do you work here?"

She sighed. "In a manner of speaking, yes." The sheets that were in her magical field shuffled around a bit before realigning themselves into neat, suspended stacks. "Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for some information on Equestria's history and culture." He moved his hands around for emphasis. "The small amount I do know isn't much more than someone who has been living under a rock."

"Oh, well that's quite the coincidence." She floated up about four different hardbacks. "I just finished brushing up on some of that and I was going to re-shelve them as soon as I was done with my other studies. But if you need them now, I suppose I can let you look through them first."

After he grabbed the books out of the air, her magic faded from them. "Huh, well, thank you."

She cleared her throat. "I'm Starlight Glimmer."

"My name's Céri Dylanson." He reached out his left hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Pleasure's mine." She smiled gently.

"So... Starlight, huh?" He walked over to another table and set the books down. "Any relation to Twilight?"

"Funny story there..." She coughed. "Legally speaking, she's my parole officer."

That gave Céri pause. "Your what?"

Starlight rubbed her hooves against each other nervously. "Well, I kind of... sort of... stole her cutie mark and the cutie marks of her friends, wrongly imprisoned them, subjugated them to brainwashing, and tried to write their friendship out of existence by using a spell that altered time itself."

Céri backed up enough to sit on the table. His eyes and mouth were wide open. "What?"

"Yeah... that wasn't exactly a highlight in my list of achievements," she admitted.

"Back up... just one minute..." Céri opened both hands out in front of him as if trying to hold a box. "You tried to write a person-pony as she was... out of existence - which is essentially a form of premeditated murder - and your only punishment for that and everything else... is probation?"

"I know." She mirrored his expression of shock and awe. "I was certain that she and her friends were going to deliver righteous vengeance upon me for all of my transgressions. But... all of them showed me a way that I had long-ago convinced myself was closed to me: the door to friendship." Starlight was getting all teary-eyed.

"Um..." Céri looked to either side of him before speaking again. "Forgive me if I don't feel comfortable being in the same room as you right now. I mean... magic that can rip apart time and space?! How am I supposed to defend myself against that?"

She lowered her head and sighed. "I don't blame you. Honestly, I find it difficult to trust me right now too. I've already learned that I can't be friends with everypony. But that's okay." She lifted her head back up. "I have new friends now, and as long as they're willing to give me a chance, I can live with that." She glanced to the side. "It also doesn't hurt that the only copy of Starswirl's time spell was lost forever after that whole fiasco. Now, I can't possibly harm anypony on a temporal level."

She turned around with her tail toward him. "Enjoy your research. I have reviewing to do."

The unicorn trotted back to the desk where Céri had found her. Meanwhile, he edged himself and the textbooks so that he was on the opposite side of the table. That way, he could quickly look up and see her even in the midst of his reading. For a few seconds, he had one hand on his deck. He contemplated the idea of bringing out Blaster Dark just for an intimidation factor. Though, he then figured it might be difficult to explain to a ruling princess why this stranger from another world had spilled her custody's blood all over the library floor. He shook his head and pulled his hand out of his pocket.

---

Céri wasn't sure, but he could have sworn that he heard a musical note every time he discovered an aspect of Equestria that Courtney's "cartoon show" details hadn't quite covered. It was improper etiquette for magic users to eat fork and knife meals without actually making use of the cutlery. Wielding dark magic to enslave an entire population was considered punishable by love-based execution. An entity known as "Discord" was apparently imprisoned twice and was... allowed free as long as he exemplified good behavior. These were just a few things among the facts that Céri was able to retain.

The young man figured now was as good a time as any for a break. He looked over at the desk and briefly around himself. Starlight was nowhere to be seen. Uneasiness crept into his fibers. It didn't help when he heard a door slam. Footprints echoed in this hard-surface room.

Finally, a familiar face showed up. The unicorn on probation had a small item in her levitating field. Actually, it was two items: a small plastic rectangle and a feather quill. Wait, what was going on?

Starlight cleared her throat. "I went ahead and got a library card for you. Just sign... here." She pointed the quill at one corner of the plastic. "Then, you can borrow what you need and go on about your day... if that's what you want, of course."

It was odd hearing the good point coming from the very pony that he feared. It might be a lot easier to continue any necessary studying in the safety of Redheart's house. That nurse may have been nonchalant about danger, but at least there was very little chance that she would cause it directly.

Timidly, he grabbed the quill out of her magic hold. He went about scribbling his name, connecting his letters in the somewhat proper method of a signature. When he was done, the unicorn picked the card up via magic and looked at it briefly.

"Well, it's more legible than most of my signatures," she admitted. "Here you go. Make sure to bring any books back by next week."

"Alright then." Céri took the card and picked up a couple texts which he hadn't yet read. He strolled as calmly as he could to exit the library... which practically turned into a sprint after passing two bookshelves.

Perhaps his shaken nerves were what blocked out the fatigue of traveling past the twenty-three doors to the castle's exit.

---

After dropping his evening reading material off inside Redheart's place, Céri briskly followed the written directions to Town Hall. He felt that he needed a distraction. Besides, his phone's battery was getting low. Five minutes of Bejeweled (based on his estimate of the time that said low percentage of battery would last) was not going to be enough to forget the self-proclaimed, time-erasing pony. He needed to kill at least a couple more hours.

Some of the ponies he passed gave nonplussed stares. Though, as soon as he had taken a few more steps along his way, they went back to their own tasks as if he wasn't even there. Perhaps Redheart's non-reaction to weird stuff the other day was not an exception to the typical local response after all. Conflicting emotions of unsettled and relieved drove him forward.

The door was open and a light amber pony was busy balancing a few scrolls and files atop a single book in her mouth. Céri probably spent at least ten seconds just watching her walk with concentration. He shook his head and walked inside the circular building. Upon seeing that there were hallways farther in the back, he was starting to wonder if all of the important buildings in this town had a Tardis complex.

Looking around the peripherals further, he spotted hanging board that looked promising. It was covered in papers and pictures that were tacked onto its surface. He gave all of them a glance over. He wasn't really going for anything in particular. It just had to be something he could do. After mentally rejecting a few leaflets that specifically asked for winged job-seekers, he sighed as he grabbed hold of a picture of a mop that had directions on the back.

---

The Hayburger manager was a little confused at first when the smallest minotaur he'd ever seen walked in and asked about the open position. Still, he'd seen weirder stuff in his time. This Céri person seemed to demonstrate how to wipe up grime and rub down tables without excessively complaining, unlike that green unicorn that had moved on last month due to garbage-related differences. When Céri asked what that was about, the manager quickly pointed out a new soda stain that he totally didn't just make to distract his new employee. What was he talking about?

Céri looked at that as not so bad. After all, he'd watched his acquaintance undergo a worse hell in various fast food joints before. So, he just sighed and went about the duties as a part of his occupation title "Sanitation Maintenance".

Contrary to what he was used to, however, this employer actually paid his workers after the end of the day. So, Céri was physically given twenty-four bits for his three hours of work. Not that he was complaining, it was just different from the end-of-week or end-of-month payment policies.

---

...

"Data error."

"Lock!"

"I... require... my friends..."
---

Author's Note:

You can probably skip this chapter. I'm sure nothing happens in it.