One Reality

by Aburi

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Ten minutes earlier...

Twilight could not decide whether to be nervous or excited as she paced in a tiny circle outside the strangers’ dwelling. The early morning meeting had been brief and to the point. It was decided that Twilight and her brother would make the initial contact, while the royal guard waited outside in case they were needed. Princess Luna would prepare some contingency measures and would signal Twilight when she was ready.

She was getting ready to work herself up to nervous muttering when she felt a claw on her shoulder. She hadn’t even noticed that Spike was next to her, but the small reminder of his presence was enough to get her mind back on track. Feeling a bit calmer, and finally finished pacing, she could concentrate on the changes she had made to the communication spell the night before.

Twilight was in the middle of her twelfth review when Shining Armor approached and caught her attention. “Twily, the guards report that the guests are about finished eating, and the Princess will be arriving momentarily. Are you ready?”

“Yea, Ok... I can do this... Spike, wait here for Princess Luna.”

“Nuh Unh,” Spike’s reply was almost instantaneous as he stepped in front of Twilight. “You know the deal, I’m going with you.” Spike crossed his arms and started tapping his foot.

“Fine, but you will follow behind us.”

“It’s a deal! Come on, Twilight, let’s go!” Spike’s assertive behaviour melted away, leaving behind the cheerful assistant that Twilight was more familiar with.

Armor was snickering behind a hoof though the whole exchange. “Since when was Spike the boss of you?”

“It’s a long story... or maybe a very short one... but either way, now is not the time for this. Are you ready?” Like Spike’s assertiveness, Twilight’s friendly and slightly silly older brother melted away, leaving behind a competent captain of the Celestial Guard.

“We’re ready when you are, Twilight.”

“Alright, let’s do this.” With no more excuses to delay, Twilight mustered as much confidence as she could and knocked on the door. Taking the odd string of sounds that followed as permission, she entered the dwelling with her older brother at her side.

Twilight didn’t pause as she approached the strangers, but the short walk from the door was enough for her to note some information about the beings before her. She’d seen dragons once or twice, and the canine was enough like a diamond dog that she could overlook its differences. The winged creature, however, was a complete unknown. And it was the winged one that broke the silence.

“Yalth, is tra. Kalrosh sta. Nanta, kelhoy so vudito de laftata so salo. Dratk, ko shuta hinufruta du fra sta kalrosh.”

Princess Luna was right, that’s definitely a girl. Twilight thought. Even with the harsh language, the strange girl’s voice made it sound lovely, even musical. Oh, they probably want some answers... I should get to work.

Closing her eyes to concentrate better, she cast her spell on herself as quickly as she could. But when she opened her eyes bare seconds later, the scene had changed dramatically. What before was a peaceful and relaxed gathering now looked like the prelude to battle.

Shining Armor had put himself between the strangers and Twilight, and Spike had moved up to her side, looking as ferocious as it was possible for a baby dragon to look. As for the strangers, the winged girl was completely blocked from view by the wing of the dragon, with the canine directly between Twilight and where the winged girl was, balanced on two legs with teeth and claws bared. The dragon was no longer lounging; it had risen slightly and had brought its head down to hover protectively above the others.

“Woah, WOAH! Everypony calm down!” Twilight shouted. The effect of her shout was immediate and impressive, as the strangers immediately froze and stared at her. In the following silence Twilight was starting to feel a little nervous. That dragon looked really big right then... and the wolf thing had really really sharp teeth.

Thankfully the silence didn’t last too long. The winged girl soon pushed the dragon’s wing aside (and climbed over its tail, ducked under its neck, and gave it a slightly indignant look when she was finally free) and started pelting Twilight with questions she could not yet understand. Since this was on Twilight’s list of expected actions, it actually helped her focus on the next step.

The girl fell silent as Twilight begin her prepared speech. “Please relax. Even though you can understand me, I cannot understand you yet. You may notice that you still cannot actually interpret the words that I’m saying. This is because a spell is transferring my thoughts directly to each of you when I speak. In order for two way communication I will need a volunteer from the three of you to have the same spell placed on him or her.”

The canine immediately started forward, but was stopped by the girl’s hand on its shoulder pulling it back into a discussion with the other two. It almost seemed to Twilight that the girl was simply giving them directions. After a few moments the girl approached Twilight and gestured towards herself.

Twilight cast her spell once more, being sure to keep her eyes open this time. She didn’t want a repeat of a few moments ago. Seeing the spell take effect on someone else was an interesting sight. Her horn had its usual lavender glow at the edge of her vision, and a barely discernible mist the same shade started gathering around the girl. As the spell reached its peak the mist gathered to a single point at her forehead, right where her horn would be had she been a unicorn, and vanished with a small flash.

The girl absently rubbed at the point the mist had vanished and started speaking.

“Vahh... Mela golobie tra kita kitantha ak da nyea.”
“... had something tickle my brain like that.”

Twilight couldn’t help grinning as her spell took effect partway through the sentence. She hadn’t been certain it would work on a non-pony. “Yea, my friend Ditzy told me about the funny feeling. It should fade in a minute or two,” Twilight said as she happily nodded.

“So you can understand me now?” At Twilight’s nod the girl continued, “This is amazing. I guess that means introductions are in order. My name is Amber, I am Regent of Convergence. These are my friends and protectors, Fero and Sam.” Each of the intimidating creatures nodded as Amber indicated them.

Twilight was a bit taken aback by the deluge of information that came along with that relatively simple statement. Not only did she get the simple information the words conveyed, she also caught how Amber cared deeply for both of her friends, who had looked after her for as long as she could remember. She also now knew that Amber was the sole ruler of a small country, as well as hundreds of nuances that Twilight simply couldn’t process quickly enough to make sense of.

“Ah, yes... um, my name is Twilight Sparkle, I am the personal student of Princess Celestia of Equestria and acting envoy of the crown. This is my brother and Captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Armor. And this is my close friend and number one assistant, Spike.” Twilight guessed that her statement, laden with new information, had a similar effect on the strangers as their own introduction had on her. Their reactions bore this out. Amber’s eyes widened, Fero’s head jerked up, and Sam’s rump hit the ground as he sat rather suddenly. She felt a little satisfied and guilty at the same time for inflicting the same information overload on them that she had just felt.

Twilight felt a small flare of magic outside as she waited for the guests to recover, the agreed upon signal that Princess Luna had arrived and was ready to enter.

Amber was the first, only taking a few seconds to organize her thoughts. “Can you tell me more about where we are? I don’t recognize the name ‘Equestria’.”

“I would be happy to give you more information, but before we begin, I’d like to bring in Princess Luna.”

“Of course, I would be honored to meet with your royalty.”

“Spike,” Twilight nodded toward the door, “if you would?”

“Sure thing Twilight,” Spike said as he quickly let the princess in.

All the ponies bowed respectfully as the princess entered the room, with Fero and Sam following suit. Amber respectfully inclined her head.

“We are pleased to see you up and about, and doubly so to be able to converse freely,” Luna said once everyone was upright again. “I am Princess Luna, co-ruler of the diarchy of Equestria.”

Now that the princess was here to handle things, Twilight’s job was primarily to act as an information funnel. (She had a hard time keeping a straight face at that mental image.) She cheerfully settled in to observe what would surely be a historic meeting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Star Shine was utterly fascinated by the anomaly before her. In the normal course of things a spell residue would fade over the course of minutes, but the residue of this... this... construct had lasted for more than three days. It was enough to make her forget that she was a thousand feet in the air, entrusting her safety to a flimsy cloudwalk spell and a cloud that her four pegasi guards had acquired.

After several hours of study, her attention was diverted by a shout from one of the guards. “Aack! What the buck was that?”

“Hrm? What was what?” Star muttered, most of her attention still on the residue before her.

“Something just zapped me...”

“Oh? let me see.” Her concentration now fully shot, she looked over to the scowling pegasus. It didn’t take her long to confirm her suspicion. “Aha! Here’s the culprit.”

“Where?” He asked, confusion written all over his face.

“Here,” She indicated a tiny insect that she had caught in her telekinetic grip. “It’s a zap sprite. They are usually only found in storm clouds, and this is quite a large specimen too. They’re usually too small to notice.”

“So why are they bother-” bzzap “Ow! Bothering us now?”

“Oh, grow up.... These things can barely generate enough-” bzzZAP “OUCH!” Star went a bit cross-eyed looking at the tiny scorch mark on her muzzle. “We may as well go down. I’m not going to be able to concentrate with a swarm of these things here.”

The four guards-ponies lost no time lowering the infested cloud. However, Star stopped them before they touched down. “Wait, look down there. Do you guys see something?”

“Wait here ma’am, I’ll go investigate.” The guard stayed in sight while he took several moments to investigate. “Looks like something killed a family of rabbits here. It’s not a predator, no signs that anything was eaten. It also looks like another small animal was killed a bit further.”

“... Two of you stay here and get as much information as you can. The other two get me back to Canterlot as fast as you can. I need to report to the princesses immediately. And be careful. I have a bad feeling about this.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Proofreading by AlicornPriest

Comments

[Wheelwright]

An interesting tale so far. I like the quirkiness of the translation spell, but I might suggest using it for any length of time would be headache inducing. Getting that much information all at once would lead to weird dreams if nothing else.

On how to tag the story... I'd probably go more with the 'crossover' tag than the 'human' one myself. So far there hasn't been a single pure human, and the multi-dimensional aspect seems to fit in with 'crossover' in a lot of ways. 'Adventure' might be another possibility given the high profile individuals already involved.

Story flow has been good so far, characterization has little trouble, grammar looked good enough that I never stumbled over it. I would probably have given better hints on the ultimate problem to be revealed by now, but you might have had good reason to stretch that out.

I was surprised they didn't call on Miss Doo to help with translation. Being both familiar with the spell and lacking powerful state secrets to accidentally reveal.. I can just imagine the nuances that would come with introducing Princess Luna, aka Ruler of the Night, aka Nightmare Moon, aka Sister of the Sun...

[Aburi]

830772 Thank you for the feedback!

It's good to hear that I'm getting at least close to getting the characters right, especially from someone so well read.

As for the lack of foreshadowing, I'm afraid the reason for that is that I'm simply not very good at it... Finding that balance of not enough and too much is something I'm still learning.

You are exactly right about the stress involved with sustaining the translation spell, I expect Twilight to be feeling it soon!

[SuperSexyRainbowDash]

830772 Well, wouldn't crossover apply more to games and movies and books in real life? That's the only use I've seen of the "crossover" tag so far.

[SuperSexyRainbowDash]

On another note, I'm liking the way the story is playing out so far. Very interesting premise I must say. Keep up the good work on it!

[Aburi]

839913
The story originally had the crossover tag, until someone pointed out that exact thing.

And thank you for reading and the compliment!

[Aburi]

891670

Thanks for catching those errors. My proofreader is awesome, but even he cannot catch all the mistakes I make.

Also thank you for the alternate wording suggestion there - I think I will use one of those.

[Magnum-opuS]

893758 This story could really use an adventure tag. Because that's what's really cracking up to be.

[Aburi]

894355
Yea, I'll be adding it with the next chapter - Unfortunately employment is hampering my writing time, it's still in the draft stages...

Edit: Ok, Employment and a unhealthy case of writers block

[Magnum-opuS]

894370

You are not alone in that regard. ugh!

Tell you what!

here's how to get out of the funk.

When you have the time, read a good book from a genre or on a subject you don't usually read into. Then go for a quick walk outside.

ply your plot and ideas and visualize the interactions of your characters in as lifelike a manner as possible. Imagine them as friends or acquaintances that act naturally around each other. This is the best way motives can be brought to the forefront,but conveyed subtly.

Also, listen to good music that you haven't heard before.

try some classical:
Carmina Burana Excerpts

[The Wandering Bard]

I have to say that I am wholly enjoying this story so far. Should you ever continue it, you have another reader.

As to what I like about it, you have a great grasp on how to portray a tuon, as the beginning just sucked me right in. You also have a fantastic grasp on characterization on both the established characters and your OCs. I can easily tell who is who just from how you describe them and how they speak. Bravo, my friend!