It's been a few years since you married the retired Celestia, and even longer since the biggest coincidence of all time caused your sudden appearance in the alien world of Equestria. You were told that there was no way home, and you eventually came to accept that. Since then, you've created a place for yourself in this fantastical society, and you couldn't be happier.
However, when you and your wife stumble upon the Return Scepter, an ancient artifact capable of teleporting its wielder to their home, you find yourselves in a world all-too-familiar to you. Humans are capable of great things and wield incredible technologies, but they can also be cruel. There is no telling how they might react to the alicorn princess's sudden appearance, and with no food, money, or transportation to work with, it's going to be difficult to do much of anything without drawing attention to yourselves. Now, you must travel across the country to your original home in order to return Celestia and yourself to the life you've left behind.
...But then again, didn't you leave this life behind, too?
Requested by AllBridge.
OH MY GOSH YOU ACTUALLY TOOK MY IDEA FOR THE STORY?!
THIS IS AMAZING
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THANK YOU SO MUCH
I FEEL SO PRIVILEGED TO HELP CONTINUE THIS SERIES WITH MY IDEA
Who would’a thought?
Oh, boy. This just got interesting.
Okay this is very interesting
Celestia is either going to get kidnapped by the CIA, or asked how much oil is in Equestria and how to get to equestria.
Hmm... While i like the story premise, i feel like there's some world building that's lacking. Back in the castle of two sisters, the overall plot for the two characters felt rushed, like the joke artifacts were fine and hilarious, but there was no discussion or detail in which wing they were, or how the human felt handling foreign objects. I do like your descriptor on Earth's pollution compared to Equestria, but i feel tia would be aware of this, given her overall age and having witnessed industrial age cities evolve. The next step would probably be in seeing if she can even live very long on our environment, given how much her body relies on the magical lifeforce of her world. Much like a fish outta water, she may need a crutch.
Great chapter, I'll share any ideas i have as time matches on.
This sounds like it'll be a fun story but it seems a little silly for him not to get mad or excited thinking it could of sent him "home" forever ago. Very convenient plotpoint artifact. Nonetheless I shall be watching
This looks promising! Looking forward to cap 2 :3
> New RunicTreetops story
>[Incomplete]
Aw yeah baby, I’m down for a multi chapter fic from you again.
I wonder what else is happening on the other world?
Prime opportunity for first contact with an extraterrestrial leader
Not gonna take that route? Noone ever does. I have more faith in humanity than most, damnit!
Fun start. Wonder how they're gonna get back. At least Twilight can control the sun and moon now...
New cap, nice!
Wonder what will happen now
Ooooooh, I’m loving where this going!
Well, this is an interesting concept indeed! Until now, I haven't thought much about how a human would react to returning to his Earth after a long period of time in another world. Anon and Celestia better watch out, however! If tv shows taught me anything, a top-secret-usually-American-but-can-be-of-any-nationality agency would basically try to capture them the moment the organization found out about their existence.
Double points if the SCP Foundation exists in this universe!
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It’s always the government that contain the unknown.
I got that reference!
Fun like last time! I still think he's 'bigging up' how 'bad' humans are. It's not like Equestria's much better...
It does make for some funny drama, though
I dont understand why so many humans in HIEs are misanthropic and put ponies on a pedestal.
Welcome to the PNW Tia, careful in the mountains and beware the beasts that roam them and the towns. Also, stay out of major cities if you can; your illusion will undoubtedly fail there.
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I think it's because we know ourselves very well, while most HIE people only get to see the surface level of pony life.
Lmao what. Who thinks like this
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Surface level? In the show it has been shown that ponies can be just as bad as humans actually even worse in some cases.
ooh, the tension!
I have read the chapter and got the needed dopamine. Thank you! Great Chapter as well! 😁
MOOGLE
Mixed feelings between how I expect this scenario would actually play out vs what story I think you're trying to tell. Tia has access to her magic, and if you check her documented feats and powers page over on spacebattles, it's very likely that she could solo conquer all of Earth without much difficulty if she felt so inclined. As if she'd need to. The fact that she was able to move the moon every day for a thousand years during her sister's banishment makes a strong case that her ability to move the sun wasn't just because of her cutie mark.
You have her conjuring up an illusion to hide her form, but in the show she was able to dematerialize her entire body to light and back again, similar to how Luna is often shown turning to smoke. You have them taking a train, but Celestia has a speed feat clocking her at mach 40+, which is fast enough to do a loop around planet Earth in under an hour. You have them having money problems, but demonstrated biomancy magics in the verse like Twilight turning her parents into plants, which Celestia fixed, is probably way more difficult than it would be to simply transmute any random rock into gold.
Plus, given the many instances of biomancy in the verse...Twilight's parents turning into plants, the infamous frog/orange hybrid scene, the mirror pool, the crystal mirror transforming ponies to humans and back, Twilight giving Rarity wings, Celestia and Luna both dematerializing and re-materializing their bodies entirely, the fact that it was Celestia who turned Twilight into an alicorn not Twilight, Luna at one point transforms herself into three ponies and operates all three bodies independently and at the same time...there are so many examples of body transformation magic throughout the entire show that it would be a huge surprise if Celestia couldn't turn herself into a human. Go watch the scene where Twilight turns the entire mane six into breezies for example. That's not a breezie-specific spell. She very clearly casts on her friends first, then the breezies, then back on her friends. It looks like a general purpose "turn this into that" spell, and that spell apparently came from a spellbook in the Castle of the Two Sisters. You'd think that Celestia would be able to cast it.
But this story is a comedy, and presumably the point isn't to showcase Celestia's ability to wave her horn and instantly solve every problem.
I suppose you could make a joke out of some of this. For example, maybe gold is so common in Equestria that it never occurs to Celestia to make any. Maybe she's even carrying a purse full of solid gold coins, but never thinks to mention it. Pennies aren't make out of copper because copper is especially valuable. Maybe Equestrian bits are made of gold for a similar reason: it's a common metal. Melting it down to sell it might legitimately never occur to anyone.
Bro, I’m LOVING how this is going so far
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It's pretty simple, actually. IMAGINE: Take all the bad of the average human. Do not exaggerate, that messes it up.
Now, reduce it. Then create an IMAGiNARY species that has invented (Idea: Or has been taught!) language and civilization (a.k.a. sapient), which is still not perfect, based on that. Congratulations, You IMAGINED someting better but not ludicrous. See, pony society is a near-utopia. You can't take conflict away, though, for the sake of the story.
What I don't get is when people get upset that others find something that is imagined to be better on average, better.
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I understand where you're coming from, but my problem with many of those magical abilities is that we as an audience either don't fully understand them or are shown spells that are inconsistent. First and foremost is the series' portrayal of Celestia being able to turn into light or go at mach 40+. After looking into where this occurred on Spacebattles as you suggested since I couldn't recall either of those occurring, I realized that both of these feats were referring to the same scene from episode 2, though I disagree with the post's logic. While others are free to disagree, when I personally watch that scene, I'm not seeing a Celestia-turned-ball-of-light shooting in from the distance, I'm seeing Celestia simply raising the sun and then teleporting into the castle with a bit of flair (as we know for a fact that she tends to like unnecessary drama and theatrics, it's one of the more fun parts of her character IMO). Otherwise, she should have been able to single-handedly (hoofedly?) defeat the vast majority of the show's villains and solve numerous other problems using that spell and her speed feat alone. The same is true for both her and Twilight when it comes to transmutation/biomancy (see the movie, where Celestia wanted Twilight to find the hippogriffs presumably to use their Pearl of Transformation to shapeshift because otherwise there just... wouldn't be a plot). Also, shapeshifting magic is almost frustratingly inconsistent. While Twilight does manage to do things like the Breezy spell and Celestia turns Twilight into an alicorn (a feat that, for all intents and purposes, makes so little sense that it partially inspired an entire series of fics that I've already written just to try and explain it), if Celestia was really that talented at shapeshifting, then the entire Golden Feather plot in the comics wouldn't have happened. If Celestia can't turn herself into a pegasus, I find myself doubting her ability to turn into a human. And personally, I would attribute the whole Shadowbolts ordeal to whatever extra abilities Luna received by becoming Nightmare Moon, as we see from the comics when Nightmare Rarity becomes a thing that the process does empower the afflicted pony, and that ability would have really come in handy a number of times throughout the series.
At the end of the day, we have to remind ourselves that this is, ultimately, a cartoon series where the abilities of certain characters is going to be whatever the plot demands (looking at YOU, Pinkie). I've mostly tried to just take it on the chin and depict characters as they are most consistently portrayed, which will ultimately require me to overlook certain feats and abilities. Plus, if I'm being honest, my goal isn't to be as 100% canon accurate as possible. I mean, I certainly try to make it resemble canon as much as possible, but Anon isn't exactly walking around Equestria in canon, is he? Not to mention that I'm conveniently ignoring the whole "mirror Sombra" plot for Anon's sake. No, I really just want to write fun stories with these characters that I love and, hopefully, share my works with people that enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.
I hope this comment doesn't come off as defensive or like I'm trying to downplay your comment. I really do appreciate you taking the time to read my work, and I'm flattered that you considered it worthwhile to write your hangups about the story. Criticism is one of the best ways to improve, after all! Still, if the story isn't to your liking, then I do apologize, and I thank you for choosing to read what I've made thus far in spite of that.
Celly using the computer, that was great haha thanks for the cap!
Two chapters in one day. That's a treat.
Who-hoho! Didn't expected a escape run already, that was thrilling
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Same thought here! I just hope the scepter hasn't been discovered/taken.
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The cetre... From what we know about it I'd expect it to have just throw itself close/on anon's house, and as he's away for sometime already so i wouldn't be surprised if the house has a new owner, and the chance of this person to find it would probably be... High
Well let's see right?
Fellow railfan??!!?!?!
Boxcars are way too cliché and rare, sorry to tell you. A better option would have been an intermodal car (not a suicide one) or a nice empty coal hopper. A grainer would be too small because its mostly a one person ride. But anyways, boxcar too cliché. Also, most boxcars you see nowadays are just the refrigerated ones. Other than my train criticism, great chapter!
The next chapter is going to be a huge stinky winky moment but also a wholesome one if I had to say.
Perfect.
Now it’s time for anon to explain where he’s been for the past decade and what he’s been up too
Loving this!
Oooh myyy the feeeels!!
Oooh I like the tension you had between anon and his dad. It makes sense, seeing as his son disappeared a decade ago and came back married to a pony god. Bestial laws in our world are pretty strict with this thing, and it is mostly frowned upon. But I do love that his dad came to terms with it in the end. I love it!
Amazing development!
Wonder what Celly and Anon's mom discussed about
Felt well paced, neither too short to be unsatifying, or too long to drag on, and is nice to see a well written 2nd person anon fic, since those genres don't usually vibe with me that well :3
The return scepter fits perfectly within Equestria and works well as the inciting incident of the story, giving Anon a chance to say goodbye to earth.
The romance between Celestia and Anon is quite cute as well, although maybe I would've liked to see more of what made them fall for each other in the first place, I recognize it probably wasn't one of the stories goals to go that deep into their romance, instead focusing on providing some nice, fluffy feelings that you conveyed quite nicely and the self doubt of losing loved ones is a potent one even when you rationally know it won't happen.
All in all, it was a fun and tender story, mate! Cheers
This was the perfect ending to the story! I loved every second of it and it me what a good idea can turn into. I’m proud to say that I had a hand in this story, but the credit goes to you, Runic. Thank you, so much.
And it's done!
Wonderful! Wonderful!!
Oooh how i want to see this scene, it screams that pacific, adorably cute vibe that i just love, thank you so much for this
Hopefully Celeestia nabbed a smartphone or something before going. CENTURIES of advancement right there
No, not the time?
Fun chapter!
Short and sweet
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I think this story is great, but it could definitely be better with some railroad knowledge and lingo. As a Railfan, the way trains are talked about in a story can make or break it for me. I’ll give this one a pass though since it was done so well done other than what I just talked about. Personally, a gondola could have worked good as well, and boxcars are still common enough, really. Just as long as it’s a manifest train.
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that is true, but most times boxcars are the refrigerated ones, and locked.
Why would his own parents call him Anon ?
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Fun fact, that's the character's name. The name his parents gave him is Anon in the story lol