Eris' game

by Java Joe

New Beginnings

In the months that followed Twilight's departure from Equestria life slowly returned to normal in the quiet little town of Ponyville. Often times the fillies would get together over lunch, or for an informal afternoon and as time went by Twilight and Rick became topics that didn't come up very often and then they did it was a wistful but short lived memory. But that does not mean that all was well in Equestria, far from it. There was some bad stuff going down only problem is, nopony really knew about it.

A few short weeks after Twilight left Equestria, a slightly disheveled pony staggered into the fishing town of Mareseilles, she was haggard, bleeding freely from a dozen cuts all over, her cutie mark looked like it had been burned away and she had a far-away, empty look in her eyes. Ponies rushed up to her, she collapsed a little theatrically and whispered in a voice that sounded far away, "help me" before passing out.

A little while later she awoke in the hospital, hooked up to an IV and her cuts all bandaged up. A nurse, noticing this called for the doctor who immediately came in to check up on her.

"Good afternoon, I'm Dr. Sunrunner, " the earth pony with an image of the sun as his cutie mark informed her. "Can I ask your name?"

Her face screwed up as if trying to remember then said, "I don't know but the name 'Eris' seems to be familiar for some reason."

"A bit of an uncommon name 'Aeris', but why don't we use that for the time being" the doctor said totally mishearing the name and adding extra vowels to the front while writing it down. "Do you remember what happened to you? Where you came from or where you were going?"

She shook her head and said, "I'm sorry Doctor, it's all just a blur."

"Typically, ponies that have been through a trauma can expect their memories to be a little scrambled. It might take some time, but your memories will come back. There is however something else I need to tell you."

"What is it?" she asked.

The doctor sighed heavily and simply said, "your cutie mark has been removed. It looks like it was burned away. I'm sorry."

She looked stricken and tears came to her eyes. A cutie mark was as much part of a pony's identity as their name. Without a cutie mark, they weren't much better than a donkey, cow, buffalo or any other creature that inhabited Equestria. Fighting back the tears, she said in a pained voice cracking with emotion, "I think I'd like to be alone for a while Doctor if you'd be so kind..."

The doctor excused himself and walked out the door just as the first few sobs escaped her lips. He paused, as if to turn around to give her solace but decided the best course of action was to allow her to come to terms with her loss and he'd have a nurse check back on her later.

When the door closed and the pony was all alone the tears stopped and a sickly smile came to her lips. "This is going to be fun, " Discord thought as "Aeris" lay back and thought about the next part of his plan. Trixie, by virtue of being a unicorn, was a magic user but Discord in her body was unable to fully grasp it. He had to work on increasing discord amongst the ponies. The more acrimonious they got, the more power he had and the more power he had the more damage he could do. As he lay there formulating plans he yawned broadly. Looks like throwing this body down a small cliff to give it the battered and beaten look caused more damage than he thought and needed some repair. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Meanwhile on Earth.

"Here we are, our new home!" Rick said enthusiastically.

Twilight didn't know what to say. It was an old, abandoned farmhouse that had fallen into disrepair. She knew that Rick was attached to this place, after all it belonged to his grandparents but it had been years since anypony... anybody she corrected herself had lived here.

Rick walked around to her and hugged her from behind. He spoke softly in her ear, "It's not much to look at right now but we can fix it up or even tear it down to redo it and make it our own. I know you don't like the noise and the pollution from the city so this is a good compromise. It's far enough out in the country that we have some peace and quiet but not too far that we can't drive back to the city if we need to. The skies out here are clear, so much so that at night the stars fill up the sky. We have acres of land to do with as we please, we can even rent or sell some to the local farmers or we could try our own hands at raising some crops or if the soil is right, grow some grapes to make wine. But I still need to show you the best part." He kissed her lightly on the cheek, then taking her hand in his led her behind the house, through the long grass, behind a large apple tree down to where a creek cut through the land and Twilight just said, "wow."

The term picturesque is bandied about quite often when somebody sees something that they feel is deserving of a picture, or a painting or simply conjures up an image from simpler times. That was the scene in front of them in a nutshell. The gurgling creek, the meadow just beyond it filled with wildflowers, the butterflies, honeybees and other assorted insects flying from blossom to blossom just seemed to speak to people in a way they didn't realise what they had been missing all this time. It was simply a perfect scene and a perfect moment. Twilight turned around to face Rick and with a smile kissed him and said, "when do we move in?"

There was still paperwork to be filled out for the new home, the old house needed to be put on the market, contractors to contact and see what could be done to restore the farmhouse and how long it would take but they had time not to mention a lot of money to work with. The farmhouse was essentially free and would have eventually come to Rick anyway assuming his parents had not simply sold the land first. Their current house would fetch a good price after fixing it up and there was still more than enough money in the bank not to mention a whole mess of Equestrian gems that Rick had safely hidden away for a rainy day.

After meeting with some contractors and getting a good price, they were told the house could be redone in a matter of months. The outside would remain the same, but the inside would be gutted and modernised. Their house was sold rather quickly and as it would still take several months before the farmhouse was completed they decided now was the perfect time to get all that other business out of the way before moving in. Namely, they still needed to get married.

When Rick had proposed after Twilight came to Earth permanently, they had run into a bit of a problem. Namely Twilight was a non-entity. She literally did not exist and this made for some problems especially when it came to her legal identity. As far as the government was concerned, she didn't exist and had no way to prove citizenship from another country. They had considered trying to find some underworld contact that could help them bridge the gap but they were afraid that this could attract some unwanted attention and "Guido" or "Big Tony" would want to muscle in on the jewellery business and find out where they got "all 'dem pretty rocks".

Twilight actually came up with the perfect solution, which used both their skills in a way that Rick would never have imagined. They called it, "technomagic" based on an episode of "Babylon 5". Essentially it involved Rick using his computer programming and hacking skills along with her magic in a sort of 1-2 punch type combination. Within a day of setting this up, Twilight now had not only a paper history, but an electronic one including tax records and all the legal ID she needed. Records would show she grew up on a commune, had eventually gone to college, gotten her degree and had worked as a librarian for the past few years.

They collapsed on the couch when done, both of them tired but happy that this part of it was done. The next step was of course to get married. Neither one wanted a large ceremony, in fact they agreed that a simple meeting with a justice of the peace would be for the best. After all, they might have a hard time explaining why it was that nobody from Twilight's side of the family not to mention her friends had shown up. No, they would do the legal thing at city hall and a week later they walked out of city hall as having been legally wed. No time to waste, they went back home, grabbed their bags and made their way to the airport for the honeymoon.

Rick had promised her a while ago that they would go to Rome and relive "Roman Holiday" but they'd also travel around Europe for a while, cruise the Mediterranean for two weeks then fly back home right about the time the house should be ready that is, if everything went according to plan.

Yes, that sound you just heard was as if millions suddenly facepalmed at the same time then went quiet. Rick should have realised by now that even though they were on Earth he shouldn't tempt fate because fate was still kinda pissed off at him. But he didn't know that.

Twilight was of course nervous about getting on the plane. She kept thinking how could such a large thing actually fly, much less stay in the air. When she asked Rick, he was actually ready with an answer.

"Easiest way to understand it is that the wing of the airplane is curved on top. As air passes over this and under this it needs to move faster along the top portion. This causes a pressure differential which gives the wing lift. As the wing lifts, they lift the plane and the rest of us along with it. Tell you what, you can read up on Newton and his laws of motion and Bernoulli and his work with fluid dynamics. Both of their ideas work for this given situation."

"So you trust this?"

"I trust the science behind it and I trust that people have been flying commercially for a long time now without a problem. I'd say I trust it well enough."

"Okay. If you insist." Twilight still didn't sound convinced.

"Babe, we'll get on the plane. You might feel a little scared at first but I'm there with you and after we take off, you'll see that it's okay. Also we're flying first class, so we're going to be treated really well and get the best possible food and drink on the way. Actually I should warn you about airline food, it's not very good. Well, the first class stuff is better but it's not going to blow your socks off. At best it will be good, but there's lots of free booze, we'll have our own private little suite as I told them we were on our honeymoon, we can watch movies, drink ourselves silly, mess around or just kick back and relax." He kissed her, "trust me. We'll be fine."

Getting the boarding passes went without a hitch, Rick was worried for a moment that her passport wouldn't work or that alarms would go off but they got their boarding passes with no issue. They passed the security checkpoint with minimal fuss. Again. Rick had told Twilight what to expect luckily there was no incident so they headed to the lounge to await the time their plane would leave.

It was nice, not too crowded and the cold buffet looked adequate but Rick could tell that Twilight was still a little nervous. She didn't want to admit it but even though Rick had assured her that this was going to be okay she still had her reservations.

"Do you want me to get you a drink?" he asked.

Twilight just shook her head and looked away. Rick thought for a moment and came up with an idea. It was a longshot, but anything to get her mind off the issue.

He pointed over to the corner of the room and asked, "how about a shower?"

She looked at him a little strangely at his recommendation. "How is that going to help?"

He smiled at her and said, "I'll sneak in there with you. We don't have as much time as I'd want, but I can work on those tense muscles of yours and maybe help you work some of that out so you're a little more relaxed."

Twilight thought about this for a moment, then grabbed his hand and made their way to the shower rooms. The attendant behind the desk smirked a bit when Rick mentioned he actually needed the room to give her a full body massage which is why both of them needed to go in. Then he leaned in conspiratorially and said that they had just gotten married, were on their honeymoon and couldn't wait till they got to Rome. Passing the attendant $50 to look the other way, the attendant snatched the money and gave them a key to their shower room.

Once safely inside and the door was locked, Twilight turned to Rick, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him savagely. He held onto his new bride and returned the kiss with equal passion. Her body was pressed into his, hands practically clawing at him in a way she had never done before. This was a new side of her and Rick had to admit he liked it.

Coming up for air he asked her in a breathless way, "didn't you want a massage?"

Twilight went straight for his belt, pulling it off and practically jerking his pants down. "I've got a better way to deal with stress, " she said a little out of breath. Her clothes quickly joined his on the floor and they came together, flesh to flesh. She was ready, so was he and they made love for the first time as man and wife.

A lingering shower later, with lots of soapy touching and caressing of the other's body, they walked out of the shower room a lot more relaxed and rather refreshed as well. Back in the lounge, they relaxed a little longer with some wine and cheese before their flight was called. Packing up their things they made their way to the departure gate and the front of the line.

"Oh, welcome aboard!" the stewardess said when she saw their boarding pass. "This way please, " and personally led them to their cabin. It was a fair size for an airplane at least. There was room to move around in, a bit and once the bed was made it would take up most of the cabin but they didn't complain. After all how many people can claim to have had their own private room on a commercial airplane?

Rick held Twilight's hand, or more accurately she held onto his for dear life. The plane pushed back from the terminal, they taxied down the runway and with a mighty whoosh were airborne. After a few moments Twilight's breathing seemed to go back to normal as she finally accepted the fact that this huge metal thing could actually fly.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. It was an 8 hour flight to London then another 2 hours and a bit to Rome. They dozed, watched movies, had a reasonably good meal and some very good wine and did manage to not only sleep in the bed provided but fool around a little too. Twilight had heard of the so called "Mile High Club" and wanted to join. She was a little put off after when Rick told her it wasn't an actual club and there was no card or secret handshake. But even still with all that you can only do so much in a plane and they were happy to get back on the ground.

A quick taxi ride took them to their hotel, they showered and while it was tempting to take a nap considering the jet lag, they decided to see some of the city first. Actually the first thing they wanted was coffee. Not just any coffee though, the thick, black essence of coffee that only Italian espresso could achieve. They found it practically next door at a small sports bar.

"Due caffe per favore, " Rick said in highly accented Italian.

"Cinque euro, " the bartender said as he passed the cups over.

"Grazie, " Rick said as he passed the money and small tip over.

"What is it with you and languages?" Twilight asked as they moved their cups down the bar a bit.

"I learned French a long time ago, Italian and Spanish are rather close so I use the same pronunciation and intonation for them. It doesn't sound local but then most places don't care provided you can speak it and I don't sound like a regular tourist when I do. Cheers!"

They drank the espresso and it was marvelous. Usually espresso back home was bitter and sour and you need something to smooth it out. This was pure and needed absolutely no accompaniment. It was espresso that tasted as good as the freshly roasted beans themselves smelled. It was a once in a lifetime almost transcendental experience that made the espresso they made at home a weak and pathetic thing by comparison.

Rick walked back over to the barman and thanked him for the excellent coffee saying it was one of the best he had ever had and they would gladly come back again while they're in Rome for another. The barman, a little embarrassed yet proud of this thanked them back and promised the next one would be even better.

They walked out into the Eternal City hand in hand, not looking specifically for any place or direction, just a desire to explore and immerse themselves in history.

Things back in Equestria however were anything but happy. While the majority of ponies didn't know anything bad was going on, a few in Mareseilles did notice some small isolated incidents from time to time. As of yet, nopony suspected the poor amnesiac Aeris as being the source and why should they? If some weeds choked out a flower bed, or some fresh milk soured to quickly, or if a dozen ponies got sick from some tainted seafood there was no reason to suspect the recently released unicorn with no cutie mark. Currently she was simply the pony that Dr. Sunrunner had graciously invited into his house. There was talk that they were romantically involved but that was just idle gossip. What was happening behind closed doors was a lot more sinister.

Comments

[Shpoople96]

Yay, a sequel!

[PxDnNinja]

Just finished the prequel to this. I'm excited to sit down tomorrow and give it a good read between working on my own stories. Loved the last story!

[Bronybro 117]

awesome

[Umachan]

Cool! Sequel time!

[Gyvon]

Seems a little bit rushed, to be honest

[rainbowdash_25]

>>Gyvon right now it doesn't matter it's just leading up to the main plot. But anyways this is a good start. Great work

[Genesis1212]

A SEQUEL?? Ok that's it I'm following you xD

[Sbattymadri]

I'm liking the sequel so far, but 5 euros for 2 coffees? I mean i guess cafes frequented by tourists are a bit more pricey, but here in Rome anything more than 80 cents for an espresso is a theft