"I'm fairly certain its not blood," said Twilight Sparkle, "it doesn't respond to any of the life-healing magic I know of, and it certainly doesn't smell like blood. Also, it probably would have clotted by now... unless there was some kind of anti-coagulant... oh... what reference book do I have on anti-coagulants?"
At the Library-tree that was Twilight's home, Fluttershy stood next to a half-sleeping Spike. His chin rested on the table in front of them, while his drowsy eyes drifted closed at the incessant background noise of Twilight's monologue. Fluttershy for her part was not only awake, but very relieved to hear that it wasn't blood---since she had had to carry the glass all the way here in her mouth. While trying not to spill it or drink it, she had to walk very slowly and deliberately, and the too-pleasant fumes had made her want to sneeze.
"However, I can't seem to tell if its magic or not. The first two detection spells say no, but the third and eight ones said yes... Maybe it's 2/8ths magic? No, that's a stupid ratio, it would have to be 1/4 magic. Is that even a thing? Spike!"
The drowsing dragon awoke with a start, saying "I was just looking at it, I swear I didn't touch it!" After noticing the confused look that everypony was giving him, he responded, "I mean, yes Twilight?"
"Ruperts Guide to Potions needs to go back on the shelf, but I don't know what book I need. Maybe, Corcodilian Conocotions or Grandma Goose's Gilded Grimoire?" With that the little dragon sped off to the shelves. "So, what did you say the creature from your dream looked like? Was it taller than a minotaur? Did it breath clouds of corrosive gas? Were its wings covered with ice?"
"Um... no. No, it didn't have those things. It was only a little taller than I am, and it didn't have fur on its upper body, just little patches of black curly hair on its chest and front legs. It looked like a normal pony from the waist down, but the upper body was different. Kind of like Spike but without the scales, and a very pale cream color on its skin. Its face was round, with big cheeks, and it had a bigger beard than a billy goat. It played a pair of flutes at once, and danced."
"Is that everything you remember?"
"Also it's name was Silenus."
"It talked?"
"Oh yes! It told me its name, like it thought that I should know who it was. I don't though... I wonder if maybe I should... but I don't remember meeting him before."
"How did you know it was a male, if you've never seen one before?"
"Oh..." Fluttershy blushed, "um... well it is a normal pony from the waist down. Since it was standing up, it was kind of pointing right at my head."
Twilight momentarily dropped her writing quill, and her cheeks shone red through her purple coat.
"I almost forgot, it said something besides its name, it said: 'Come find me. It is time to enjoy tragedy once again.' I don't know what that means either..."
Twilight pursed her lips in concentration. What is the name of Starswirl did that mean? Her friend expected her to know... but really, how do you enjoy tragedy?
At that point, Spike came walking back, with a thick book under each arm, before setting them on the table. Both the ponies seemed preoccupied, so he instead of interrupting them, he took a moment to admire the pretty red liquid in the glass. It shone in the sun like the rubies that he enjoyed so much. He took a sniff of it, and sneezed vigorously. Flames shot out of his mouth and nose, and suddenly the glass was gone---consumed glass and all in the fire.
Twilight and Fluttershy stopped talking to stare at him. Twilight's mouth hung open wide enough that Spike could see the little hangy-thing at the back of her throat. He focused on that little hangy-thing, because so long as he focused on that, he would surely avoid the reprisal that awaited him.
"Spike! What did you do!?" Twilight shouted.
"I... ah..."
"Spike!" she said, making a face worse than she normally does when he eats her favorite snacks. "What. Did. You. Do?"
"I sneezed! I'm sorry!"
"Well, where is the glass?"
"I don't know, I just sort of smelled it, and it tickled my nose just so I..." he didn't get the chance to finish his defense. It was interrupted with a tremendous belch of green flames, from which a small scroll emerged. Before it could hit the floor, Twilight's magic snatched it up.
It was written in hasty handwriting, and seemed to be damp despite the dragon fire. 'My Dearest Student' it began. 'Did you happen to have sent me a glass a moment ago?' Just below Celestia's signature, the bottom of the paper dripped a red liquid.
"Oh horsefeathers! You just threw a glass of mystery liquid at the Princess!" she yelled at Spike.
He looked at the liquid dripping off the scroll and deflated a bit. Knowing how white the princess's coat was, that red liquid would probably stain.
With the snap-flash of teleportation magic, Celestia appeared in all her shining glory standing silhouetted before the morning sun coming into the library through a large window. Her mane of shifting rainbows formed an irregular halo around her head, and the gleam of one eye caught the golden sunlight. Spike, Twilight, and Fluttershy were all suitably impressed by her entrance, that they could not help but stop their conversation in awe. And then, she took a step forward from the shaft of sunlight, and dripped red liquid on the wooden floor and a small rug.
Spike couldn't help but laugh. The red liquid made a red bib beneath her chin than ran in irregular streaks down her otherwise pristinely white coat to follow her front legs down to the ground. When she walked, she left little red horseshoe-prints. From the half-disgusted look on her face, she knew that she left undignified tracks behind her, and was trying to avoid overmuch gesturing which would only spread the stain further on her alabaster fur.
"Does this," Celestia asked, levitating an empty glass from behind her wing, "belong to anypony?"
Fluttershy shrank slightly, envious of Tank's ability to hide inside his shell when she found nothing to hide behind. Celestia raised an eyebrow at her, and Fluttershy forced herself to croak out "Um..." while slightly raising her front hoof. With a resigned sigh, the princess floated the glass towards the little cowering pegasus, and placed it on the table nearest her. Fluttershy muttered out a thank you so quiet that the princess almost didn't hear it.
"I'm so sorry Princess!" Twilight said emphatically, drawing out the 'so'. "I know Spike didn't mean to throw a glass of mystery liquid at you!"
Effecting the gaze of an offended soveriegn, Celestia stared at the little dragon who had laughed at her moments ago. "Is this true, Spike?"
He shrank down to match Fluttershy under her gaze, while muttering, "I ah... It was... Not... Sorry, Princess! You see, I sniffed the red stuff that's all dripping down your nice white fur, and it made my nose all buzzy, and I ... ah... sneezed. Sorry..."
She continued to fix him with a glare that she normally reserved for clearing the petty nobles out from her Court.
"Um... do you want a towel or something, Princess? You're kind of dripping on the rug... so..." Spike pointed beneath her.
Celestia rolled her eyes and relaxed her imperial pose. "Am I still dripping?"
"I'll go get a towel!"
"You know Spike, I was in the middle of Court business. Receiving a report on apple prices from a growers' association."
Spike was nowhere to be seen, so Twilight spoke on his behalf. "I'm sure he didn't know that. We don't even know what that liquid was, maybe it was a sneezing potion of some kind. It seemed harmless enough. Sorry you had to come all the way out here Princess."
"Well, there's nothing for it now."
"Here, let me clean you up." Twilight's horn glowed dimly in the bright light, and Celestia was momentarily glowing more magenta than normal. With a flash, Twilight looked up at her mentor with a look of satisfaction. Instead of a bright clean coat like she had intended, Twilight saw that the cleaning spell had done nothing to cleanse the Princess. Her smile fell, and her brow furrowed. Had she cast the spell wrong? Maybe it wasn't powerful enough. Celestia's face showed mild surprise as her prized pupil suddenly began casting a much more powerful spell at her. Twilights horn glowed magenta, then white, and errupted in a torrent of light towards the unsuspecting Princess.
The room was quite spotless when Spike came back with purple towel. Everything smelled like lemons to him, and Twilight and Fluttershy both had fresh fluffy manes---looking like they just took a nice hot shower. Celestia herself just looked confused, as she continued to slightly drip red liquid onto the rugs. So long as she wasn't glaring at him, he was happy. He walked up to her, and held up the towel for her to clean herself up with.
Twilight grit her teeth and grunted as she saw that her spell had failed to clean Celestia's coat. "Stubborn stupid stain! What kind of freaking magic does it take to clean it!?"
"I think that it should come out if you dab it up with that towel and maybe put some club soda on it." said Fluttershy, before she realized that she'd spoken. "I mean... unless you know a better way to get out juice stains..." she dropped her gaze to look at the horseshoe prints on the floor.
As she cleaned herself with the towel, Celestia asked "Twilight, what was that liquid?"
"I..." she had to force herself to blurt it out, "I... I don't know! Fluttershy found it mysteriously at her house after she had a dream about the Everfree Forest."
The Princess looked to Fluttershy, who quietly nodded. When the Princess continued to look at her, she spoke unsteadily "I had a dream... with um this liquid in it... I don't know what it is, but I did find a glass of it on my windowsill this morning."
At Twilight's prodding, Fluttershy related the dream she had previously told Twilight about. For her part, the Princess of the Sun patiently listened to the odd tale. From her expression, it seemed that she didn't quite know what to make of it. Twilight continued the story, relating to her the tests she had done on the liquid up until it became a royalty-seeking projectile.
After hearing all of that, Celestia made the same confident face she always did when she didn't know what to do, but knew that everypony was looking to her for guidance. "Well, with semi-magical liquid and a name that sounds like its from a dead tongue to go with, I think you should go and see if anyone else had a similar dream. If they did, and you can figure out how to get back to this island in the Everfree, then you should go see if there really is a dancing creature." She nodded, inwardly pleased that she had found a nice solution that required no more of her time.
Gathering up her friends had really become routine by this point in Twilight's life, and she felt a certain petty satisfaction doing it efficiently. Always bring more than one person when visiting Rarity, to avoid delays related to personal fashion choices and new outfit fittings. Never go to Applejack's place with a group when the Cutie Mark Crusaders were around, looking as uninteresting as possible repels them. Don't get Rainbow Dash first, or else she'll complain about how long it takes to walk to get everyone.
Organizing these and other factors to make the constant trips around town as quick as possible helped her feel in control of the chaos outside her walls. Which is why having Pinkie Pie show up with everyone else in tow while Twilight was just about to walk out her front door to fetch them resulted in her making an expression of confused annoyance when she opened her door. It was quickly forgotten when Pinkie said, "Hey Twilight, do you want to help me find a thing I've never seen in the Everfree Forest?"
"Huh?" Twilight replied articulately.
"I'm trying to find a thing in the woods that I've never seen before. Also I don't know what it is, or why its in the woods in the first place."
"Wait, how could you be looking for something," Twilight began, seeing her friends shaking their heads too late to stop from asking her seemingly obvious question. "If you've never seen it and don't know what it is? That's illogical. I mean, you need to know what you're trying to find before you look."
"Well, my tail is a-twitch-twerking or it's a-twerk-twitching." she pointed with both hooves at her fluffy tail, which wasn't really moving at all.
"Oooh," said Fluttershy, "is it your Pinkie-sense again?" She had walked up behind Twilight and was looking expectantly at her friend's tail.
"It sure is! I just can't tell whether its the good kind of twitching or the bad kind."
"But Pinkie, your tail isn't doing anything right now..." said Twilight.
"Oh yeah, I forgot!" Pinkie said, before beginning to spin in place.
Twilight and Fluttershy just stared at their friend. If she was chasing her tail like one of Applejack's dogs, it would be something new but not that much stranger than the other countless oddities that occupied Pinkie's time. Twilight counted: 3, 4, 5, ... 8 times in a circle, and then Pinkie got dizzy and fell down. Her face was planted in the ground, with her butt in the air. While her friends stared dumbly, they finally saw her tail twitch. Sure enough, it twitched strangely and pointed at the Everfree like a pink fluffy dowsing rod.
"Ooo... Ohhh... My tail keeps pointing over there, but it was way stronger when I was closer to the woods."
One of the things that any cartographer will comment upon is that nature abhors straight lines. Rivers follow the gentle curves of the valleys they run through, mountains spring up in irregular clusters, and paths through forests seemingly follow no logic at all. Thus, although the dowsing rod of Pinkie's tail could provide a direction, it could not provide navigational information about the right or wrong paths to follow.
Cartographers often get eaten in the Everfree Forest. Most maps of it are inaccurate as a result.
For the six mares, walking in circles seemed to be the way of things. While they were otherwise indisposed, Fluttershy and Twilight filled everyone in on what had happened that morning. The obvious conclusion was that Pinkie Pie's twitching and Fluttershy's dream were somehow connected. Twilight almost didn't believe in the Pinkie Sense, but had sufficient experience with it to hold her tongue. If her friend wanted to be a dowsing rod, that was fine with her. She'd hate to admit it, but without this lead, she wouldn't have known where to start looking. The Everfree is big enough that finding "a strange creature" next to "a strange smelling puddle" wasn't really going to narrow things down for the purposes of search magic.
Presently, they were at a crossroads among the small paths that wound through the forest. Having only avoided manticore dens and fields of Blue Joke only from prior encounters with both, nerves were wearing thin. For Applejack and Rainbow Dash, the intersection that they stood at was symbolic as well as literal. While both of them agreed that they were lost, neither would compromise about what to do about it.
For her part, Applejack had a fairly strong case. Speaking as a member of the Apple family, generations of earth-pony wisdom informed her when she had to navigate on foot. Certain techniques could be used to get a better idea of how far they had come, and would also prevent them from wandering too far towards the more dangerous areas of the Everfree. The techniques took time and effort, but they were in no hurry--needing only to reach a campsite before dark. Her plan was to backtrack while taking periodic reckonings and measurements to work out not only how far they'd come, but about how far they still had to go.
As reasonable as her dear friend's plan sounded, it had one fatal flaw that Rainbow Dash pointed out repeatedly in their debate: it was boring! Seriously, with the fastest flier in Equestria to rely on, why bother with all of that earth-pony nonsense? The way the grown-ups do it---the ones with wings at least---is just to fly up and look around. It takes no time, gives you a birds-eye view, and best of all doesn't require a certain pegasus to twiddle her hooves while her friends play map-maker. What's more, she could just carry Pinkie up, and wave her around to figure out where her tail was trying to point at. Her suggestion even showed an inkling of higher trigonometry skills that she resolutely denied having ever studied when pressed by Twilight.
"If you go flying off, you'll just wind up like all the others that crash here." said Applejack.
"Nuh-uh! I'm a great flier! Flying over a forest is nothing for me!" replied Rainbow Dash, with a proud up-tilt of her chin.
"It's a magic-freaking-forest Dash! Dozens of pegusi crash there every year."
"That's just because they're not awesome enough to avoid magical obstacles. I do that twice a week on my training course. It's only really dangerous to weak fliers like Fluttershy. No offense Fluttershy!"
The butter-yellow pegusi quietly replied "None taken".
"Being strong or weak doesn't have anything to do with it! You're just too impatient to do it the normal way."
"I'll show you impatient!" Rainbow Dash yelled, jumping up to take flight. Since Applejack knew her friend well, she had anticipated Dash taking wing, and so Applejack managed to grab her before she got airborne.
Dash fell on top of Applejack, in a tangle of confused cursing and hard hooves. Rolling around in the dirt, elbows and forelocks wound up jabbed into sides and smacked into sensitive muzzles. And roll they did, each time one or another mare would get the upper hand, she would be pulled back down by the other, forming an unintentional rolling ball of pony. Said ball started in the middle of the hard-packed dirt of the intersection, but steadily worked its way south, following the gentle grade of the land like rain-water trying to find its way to a drainage ditch. Perhaps it was because they were in the middle of the Everfree forest, but this particular trail lacked a well-defined drainage ditch. Instead, it had a rather sharply sloped cliff.
Their friends watched mouths agape as the two mares wrestled. It certainly wasn't the first time it had happened, but it was rare enough of an occurrence that it stunned them into silence and inaction. They watched unmoving as the ball of mares flailed their way unerringly towards the edge. Twilight at least had the presence of mind to think that the two mares would notice the cliff, but sadly she was wrong. The pair vanished suddenly over the edge, with a cloud of dead leaves fluttering in their wake. As the leaves settled, a light brown stetson hat fluttered to earth with them.
Fluttershy called out a high pitched "Eep!" and ran towards the cliff. The rest of the mares followed, with Rarity telekinetically picking up the hat and dusting it off as they went.
The cliff was a steep enough grade that the mares found they couldn't walk or run on it, but merely plant their hooves and slide down. At the bottom, some fifty feet down, they could see two pairs of eyes seemingly floating against the brown background. When they got closer, it was obvious that the two mares had fallen into a puddle of viscous mud that covered them like wet clay. Simultaneously, Fluttershy asked if they were hurt, while Pinkie began a hearty belly laugh.
After a moment of embarrassment, Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked at one another covered in mud and being laughed at by their friends, and they nodded to one another. Following the nod, the two of them shook themselves like wet dogs, spraying the sticky mud all over. They weren't actually any cleaner, but at least their friends all had muddy polka-dots. Rarity gasped while Pinkie's laughing took on a choking I-need-air aspect. Applejack and Dash high-fived, and were friends again as always.
Once the commotion had died down, and it was confirmed that no-one was injured unknowingly, Twilight and Rarity took turns cleaning their friends with their magics. For some reason, the two mares that caused all of the commotion had to go last, but they didn't seem to care. The first to go after Rarity herself, Fluttershy had been killing time by watching the birds nearby. She had found a little green bird she didn't recognize, and stared at it while it flew to and fro, until eventually it disappeared into a briar-patch. Fluttershy looked at the briars with a sense of deja vu, knowing that she had seen them before, but not knowing where.
While her friends were clean, Rarity insisted on fixing their manes before she let them go. Fluttershy stood off to the side thinking---where had she seen those briars before? The little green bird darted amongst the thorns while she stared.
Eventually, they were all clean and forcibly primped, leaving their manes and coats looking freshly groomed. Twilight walked over to Fluttershy, to collect her friend from her birdwatching. When she approached to speak, Fluttershy suddenly exclaimed, "I got it! That's the briar patch from my dream!"
A half-hour later, Rarity was the last pony through the briar patch. It was a tough decision, but she pulled through for her friends, and ventured into the thick brush covered in thorns, burrs, and all manner of things nature specifically designed to ruin a good clean coat and mane. Grudgingly, she picked a dainty path through the briar; using her magic to push the worst of it slowly and deliberately out of her way. Yet, despite her efforts she arrived on the other side coated in sticky burrs and fluffy seeds. It made her want to shake like a dog, but she couldn't bring herself to stoop so low while her friends watched on.
Looking up from her troubled coat, she saw her friends at the bottom of a strange valley. From the top of the cliff where she stood, there was a sudden drop of a few feet, followed by a slope of loose gravel that ended at a red pond. The valley floor was mostly filled with the pond, aside from a small island in the middle of it where her friends were at, currently examining some kind of statue. Oddly, there seemed to be no outlet for the valley, trapping the pond within.
"Hey Rarity, you gotta check out this statue!" she heard Rainbow Dash call to her.
"On my way darling!"
"This thing's hilarious!" Dash replied. Rarity wasn't sure why, but she could see Dash trying badly to restrain a laugh.
Making her way down the slope wasn't too bad, after the previous one Applejack and Dash had fallen down. At the pond's edge, she could smell a strong odor that reminded her vaguely of juice and cleaning products. It wasn't as repellent as she would have guessed for that combination, but it was definitely not water. She stopped and looked at the pond water near her hoof, and she could have sworn that it was the same color as garnets. The calls of her friends pulled her on, and she hopped lightly over the liquid to the nearby shore of the island.
Her friends were arranged in a semicircle around the statue, staring at the side opposite her. Pinkie and Applejack were holding back laughter while Twilight appeared to be chastising Rainbow Dash. "It's not a joke, Dash. Princess Celestia personally asked us to come here and investigate." said Twilight.
Rarity could see that the statue was some kind of marble rather than the local stone she would have expected near Ponyville. While she would never admit it, her gems hunting had given her an appreciation for geology that Dash would tease her about. Pausing on her way past the statue, she touched a hoof to the flat surface that faced her, and felt its smooth fine grain underneath untold years of grime and moss. She walked around the statue slowly, seeing that it was a bust on top of a rectangular column. The bust was actually quite tall, likely taller than Big Mac but shorter than Celestia. Underneath a thick coating of bird poop and moss, the face of the bust was not of a pony at all.
She looked at the face of a creature that had proper pony ears, but lacked a muzzle, and had a flat round face. Instead, it had a big bulbous nose with a goat's beard surrounding a mouth that was depicted blowing a pair of flutes at once. Maybe... it would be an absurd instrument to play, whatever it was. It was probably a well detailed carving underneath the detritus that coated its head. The eyes at least seemed life-like, possessing the crinkle-lines of laughter caught in stone, and preserved for the ages. It touched the artist in her.
Her reverie was broken when the ponies behind her began moving around, so that Twilight and Fluttershy were facing the statue.
"Okay, there's a couple things we need to make sure of before I send word of our find back to Celestia, so I made a checklist. Now I know you think its funny Dash, but one of the things I have to ask is if this is really the pony from your dreams, Fluttershy. Does his face match?" asked Twilight, holding a pen and paper with her magic.
"I'm pretty sure." replied Fluttershy.
"And, is this" she pointed with the pen, "the penis that was waved in your face?"
Rarity turned as if struck. Did she hear right?
"Um... yeah. That's it, except it wasn't made of stone in my dream."
Apparently she had heard the words right, but her mind failed to understand what they could be talking about. Her eyes followed Twilight's pen, and found it pointing at a set of stone cock-and-balls. They were attached right at eye-level for a pony, and would be hard to forget in any case. She took an involuntary jump away from the statue, realizing that she had been right next to it. How had she missed that before? Ah yes... she'd been looking up and admiring the skill of the sculptor... lovely.
"Okay, next I'll scan it to see if it's magic." Twilight said, before pointing her horn at it and glowing a bit. "Hmm... it looks like it has some magic on it, but its very faint. I'm not sure, but it might be a spell to preserve the marble against weathering. I'll put a maybe on that one and come back to it."
The other ponies were wandering around the island, aside from Fluttershy, Twilight, and Rarity. While no-one was watching, Rarity stole a glance at the giant carved phallus, to see if the sculptor's skill and attention to detail extended to... uh... secondary carvings. Her eyes went wide and she started to chuckle at the completely unecessary detail and realism that the sculptor had obvious put into carving something as serious as a big stone cock-and-balls. How many months must have it taken to master such lines and proportions? Did other people see her art in the same light as she saw this sculptors?
"Alright, next is the archano-chronomatic dating. I just need to figure out how old it is and, " she again aimed her horn at the statue making a face this time like she was trying to get something out from between her teeth with her tongue. "Oh wow, this thing's old! I think it date's back to the Pre-Classical era. Just over two thousand years old, if I'm making the measurements right. That puts it early in the Reign of Discord, or late in the Pre-history of the Interregnum."
"So what the hay is something that old doing out in the woods?" asked Applejack.
"I think he was waiting for me." replied Fluttershy, with a dream-like expression on her face.
"How could he be waiting for you for 2000 years before you were born?"
"Oh... I hadn't thought of that. Maybe he just wants company?"
"What, like a party?" Pinkie exclaimed.
"No, Pinkie, I don't think the statue needs a party." said Twilight.
"I know that I'd want to have a party if I had to stand still for 2000 years while birds pooped on my head." responded Pinkie, like it was the most reasonable thing she'd ever said.
Before they could continue, a gust of wind blew through the valley, carrying leaves in a rush that made them spiral upward. The mares could hear the strangest strains of music carried with the wind. They looked that the statue, and could see it was the source of the small warped snippets of song that they heard. It obviously wasn't moving, and the music died with the breeze.
"That's the music from my dream!"
"Maybe there's more to this than I thought. This calls for extended observation, and the extra page on the checklist. We should stay here to see what happens after sunset. There's a lot of precedent for things becoming magically active at night."
"OOOHH OH! Does that mean we can have a camp-out?" Pinkie bounced up energetically, "Because I totally brought smores!"
With a resigned sigh, Twilight said "Fine, we can have a camp-out while we're waiting for this statue to do something. But once it starts doing things, the party is over, okay?"
"Okie-dokie!"
