> Can You Love a Demon? > by OtherWorldsCrazyMinds > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prologue > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction Around a half a decade after the happy day of Shining Armor and Princess Cadance's marriage, Princess Luna had made a breakthrough in dimensional portals and transportation. It had taken her a while and her belief was that if they breached newer world they could become allies and become more prosperous. This was a noble and well thought out plan, too bad the world that was on Earth's dimensional parallel was that of Zenonia. Zenonia is a very different from Terra yet is remarkably similar. For one, the land formation, land texture and composition (meaning minerals and bacteria etc.) are almost identical to that of Terra. The places where things differs is the animals and plant life. Zenonia had many different and more variety of animals and plant life. An example is in the land of Equestria, there are chicken and cows and bull and other such animals that can be domesticated. However in Zenonia, there were only three notable domestic-able animals; the frakans, a cow like animal that is a herbivore yet has more muscle tone and can breathe fire when threatened, the gargoyles, which act like dogs in this world ( the gargoyles are just around the size of an average German Shepard and walk on all four and have wings. The wings however are only for show for they aren't strong enough to actually carry them) and the chakari which are Zenonia's equivalent to chickens, they have large claws and very sharp beaks yet they are non-violent creatures they can fly but not for longer than a couples minutes. The rest of Zenonia's animals aren't domestic-able and are very violent and deadly, wild dexora are they're version of boars and they have to pairs of tucks which can rip through wood about ten inches thick. They have hydras, rathians and rathalos which are wyverns, biological cousins to dragons yet are less intelligent and are far more violent and prone to attacking. Earth and Zenonia share many traits yet there are different entirely. The people that inhabit Zenonia are called the dremorias. They are a humanoid race that is very varied race in size and strength; tallest recorded reached up to 7' 3, shortest reached down to 4' 1. They skin is varies from a black to a red color. They have powerful hand with retractable claws; the claws are sharp but not very durable only being able to puncture through the rough skin of a hydra that has very thin scales. The claws length is very varied as well ranging between one and half inches to a couple of centimeters. They also have opposable toes, yet for some reason the toes don't have claws. They are a horned race; they're horns being place on the top of the head just behind the pointed ears. The horns vary from size to shape and color; however, females will always have smaller horns the males. They have different traits and characteristic that are different from dremorias to dremorias such: hair color /length (the colors for their hair a more varied yet more subdue then those of ponies, colors such as; sea green, blood red and even ice) or number and shape of tails, female will always have more than four tails and theirs will be a lot longer. The dremorias are very different from the ponies of Equestria in appearance and in culture. Dremorias aren't peaceful beings but they are never the first to jump into war. They are very defensive and anything taken as an attack will be met with full force. They are very skilled warriors for people who aren't very aggressive in nature. One of the reasons that makes them such formidable fighters in the three ability that are born with any dremoria; their flight, shielding and healing powers. Dremorias are born with a sort of ability similar to the magic that resides within ponies except that it is not privy to only those with horns. This type of energy can be released in three different ways; flight, shielding and healing. They can turn this energy into a force that can carry the dremoria into the air. They can also use this energy to create shields which can deflect most projectile and if the dremoria trains enough can even deflects lighting. The final way the can use this energy is to heal injuries and wounds, the most any inexperience dremoria can heal is a small stab wound around an inch deep. With training they can heal stab wound that go right through the whole body and even remove poisons from the body. These abilities are privy to all dremorias and it is quite like the magical abilities of ponies. Of course using this ability does take a toll on their stamina, but they have many healthy fruits to counteract such things. They call this ability dark-light (reason shall be explained within next paragraph due to its cultural significance). The dremoria are a very cultured race, having a polytheistic religion and many story based explanation on many different aspects and thing in the world. There are many 'lords' in their system of beliefs. The most popular are Shorena lord of the hunt, Sertinvous lord of amusement and comedic debauchery, Hermonus Mera lord of fate and chance, Sedora lord of Life and death, Sheogalag lord of both order and chaos. There are many other but they aren't as popularly prayed too or thanked. There are many stories to which these lords spread their influences to the dremoria. The story behind there Dark-light is said that Hermoneus Mera had foreseen the dremorias would be annihilated be a sudden rise of wyrvens. He has no real love for the beings but he wishes to see them live on since they intrigued him greatly. Hermoneus then went to Sheogalag to grant a way to which they could have survived to which he granted them their dark-light ability. They also believe many other things such as ancestral spirits that can instruct the new generations. They are about as advance as the ponies where at first contact. The actually discovery was more of an accident and a bad one at that. A small squad of guards had been sent into the Lunar Gate as a reconnaissance group. They were tasked with walking in a direction for two days before returning. This was only reconnaissance mission so no weapons were brought. Upon the half of the second day they had stumbled onto a hunt of a Keydomath, a large monkey like creature that has the spike that can paralyze its attacker on its hands and tail. A small hunting party of around 5 dremorias who were chasing Keydomath had jumped the small reconnaissance and they were unsure and how to approach this problem. However one of the ten guards was hit by one of the spears that one of dremorias has thrown at the Keydomath who had dodge it. This made the guards’ assume a protective assault position and they began to fight back. The Dremorias hadn't realized the attack until the one of there had been killed. The dremorias attacked the guards and a small fight ensued to which there were no victor just two survivors, one dremoria and a pony guard. The guard knew that he was out matched even if the dremoria was injured which he was and so decided to flee from the scene. The dremoria had managed to heal himself with his dark-light and made it to a nearby town and had then asked for an audience with the king to which he recounted these events. The pony guard who had survived had recounted his battle and experience to the princesses. Both princess Celestia and Princess Luna did not know what to do. The king of the dremoria had no idea how to make of it either seeing as the trespassers had come from nowhere. However, the dremoria people where very protective of themselves and of their territory. This new found threat was knew and unexpected to the dremoria but they weren't un-defeatable. The dremoria had then begun to set up a wall around their land and had begun to set up camps of soldiers to defend themselves against these new threats. On the other side of the Lunar Gate the ponies had decide to for another excretions into Zenonia but it was meet with violence as the dremorias had seen then and hadn't understood their pleas for surrender and they were driven back through the gate. At this Princess Celestia thought that they were actually out for war to which she complied to. It was a long war that lasted 3 years. The reason it took so long was that no side every won. The dremorias were too powerful to be killed simply without them healing themselves with their dark-light. The ponies where many in numbers which made it so that the dremorias would fight long and hard before the other forces would cease. The tie breaker for this war ironically enough was something found in Zenonia. There is a crystal that the dremorias have in abundance, yet were never able to use, and is called Lachrymite. Lachrymite is a very strange crystal in that it is a living crystal. It can grow like a plant and will form in different shapes and sizes from crystal to crystal. It feeds off other crystals and minerals to grow converting it into itself. Another very interesting property about it is that it reacts highly with unicorn magic. It seems to absorb the magic directed into it and then multiplies it by ten. An example would be if a 15 kilowatts of magic energy was shot into the crystal, it would be absorbed and around 2 minutes later would be shoot out at 15 megawatts. Considering that a magical bolt requires around 25 gigawatts to be lethal thus made the war much easier to win considering that the unicorns now had a way to use less energy fighting the dremorias. It took just around another year for them to create a bomb that was powerful enough to blow the kingdom which the dremorias lived within. They sent the bomb within the heart of the kingdom. The king of the dremoria; Justinian, had been able to reach it and using his dark-light ability created a shield surrounding the bomb that manage to slow down the time with in the area. This bought enough time for less than half of the population of dremorias to escape through the Lunar Gate. The bomb exploded reducing to most of the kingdom ash. Yet the escaped dremorias could not return for the Lunar Gate had destabilized due to the explosion. The remaining dremorias were rounded up by the former prince now King, Tegthor. They managed to fend off the remaining ponies into a small stalemate and began to rebuilt their civilization within the land of their enemy. The dremoria built a wall blocking them off from the land they began to cultivate with the supplies they managed to bring with them having most of their native fruits and vegetables. It took two years to rebuild a city and began to go back to their normal ways. At around another year later King Tegthor began to make political peace trips with Equestria. He managed to stop the war between the two races and began his peace visits to learn more about the other being. This leads us today, where both race have started to integrate with the normal worries and racism in between them. The normal having only one race bars or clothing stores, specific places only for said race. King Tegthor believes however in the dremorian race, he believe that in time they will learn to get along with the ponies and eventually will be able to live without the racism and fear between them as he had learned to do. At the moment they have mange to create the television and the radios thanks to these amazing crystals. This is the setting of the world that we are in, yet there will be problems. It is time to follow the prince and her bride. > Marriage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bells ringing. People stand simultaneously. Three young fillies walk down an isle throwing down petals to some unknown flower. Yes, this is a wedding. My wedding. And it was a really well made wedding. There was crystal sculptures and amazing looking paintings that were hanging from the walls. It was a really nice made wedding, fancy, fit for a prince and his princess. My name is Hatseal and I am prince of the dremorias. My job is right now is to learn from my father how to be a good king so that I may one day walk in his footsteps and led me people to a brighter future. And to get married. My father and Princess Celestia have made a peace treaty but they needed a way for everyone to know and agree to the peace without having to have some fight or trying to disagree. So Princess Luna thought of the idea of political marriage. The idea was a good one for it made it so that, one; the people would see that they are at peace, and two; to show that they could get along and maybe even love. This, to me, is funny considering they have made arranged dates such as trips to the mall and walks in the park. These things are to give the impression that me and my soon to be wife are still in love. Problem is, who would love me? I don't mean looks wise, I mean personality wise. I actually look pretty well for a half breed. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that I am a half breed, half pony, half dremoria. I guess I was lucky or something because my appearance is almost all pony while my thought and inner organs are dremoria, but sometime they clash. For example; I have horns when normal ponies usually don't (and by horns I mean I have actual horns that stick out of my mane), and instead of the normal tail of the ponies I have two 1 and a half inch thick deep red rails with hose heart shaped tips (the ones with the sharp tips at the end). I also have fangs instead of the traditional herbivore teeth that most of them have. Also most of my organs come from the dremoria side of me. My stomach, heart, lungs, intestines, and liver come from that side. The rest are pony organs. But I am getting off track, there is no way anyone could love my personality. I am a terribly cynical person, not very caring, don't talk much, and I am a really down to earth. It is not the best combination but I said earlier, this is only a facade, a play, a front. Whatever you want to call it, it's still the same, a play for the people to show them that both races could love each other. And this is was what the wedding was for. To show this. Then my bride walked down the aisle and I would have gawked if I wasn't supposed to keep a straight face. Mia Amata Figlia Adora was her name and she was a beautiful ali-corn. Her coat was pure white, like snow and her mane was a nice soothing desk blue with gold and pink streaks. Her eyes where a lovely gold, not to strong and not too soft, but a nice bold gold. Her mane was tied into impressive looking and complex arrangement and was topped off by the veil she wore. Her dress was also very impressive. You know how white dresses are there just to make stand out more and make her the center of attention. Well the designer behind this had made a different take which was to make her dress very simple to make her look amazing. The dress could be considered only an accessory. I believe the designer was some by the name if Charity, Fairity, Suppulty, I can't remember just something with 'ity' at the end. But she did some amazing work. Then I felt a look that could change the 'glaring knives' to 'glaring blades'. I didn't want to look at the source but I did so anyway against my better judgment. It was the commander of the royal guard and armies, Shining Armor. He was the only one who still wasn't convinced this was a good idea. Yes, Princess Celestia and Princess Candance were opposed to it first but once specifics were made and everything was settle they agreed to it. He was the only one that definitely hated me for this plan and hated dremoria in general. I guess it makes sense seeing as we fought each other, but that's all water under the bridge. It's been a long time since then and I think the only thing that left in the kind if most is slight resentment from the dremorias. He was entirely different story, he hates them. With a passion, he doesn't show it openly but you can tell he does. He refers to us by saying 'them' in a low voice that just drips with unresolved hatred. He would probably kill me for even thinking of his daughter if it weren't for the peace treaty and the plan. Still the guy would love to lob my head off at any moment. He walked down the aisle with his beautiful daughter, project he air of protection a father always projects. The hole room was filled with ponies. Well it was a pony wedding, normal dremoria wedding involve more alcohol and is less formal. The ceremony is only around ten minutes where they give each other gifts and then something that each has made themselves, like a sword or tiara from the male, a well grown fruit tree or a well done painting from the female. Once they are given it is then that they are married and they live their life to their extent with each other. The only dremoria that was their was my father, King Tegthor. He was smiling. My dad is a really nice guy, he also a great king. He is compassionate, resourceful, intelligent, and when needed stern and decisive. He was always loved by the people who he rules with their help, making council of people from the towns to try and solve problems of land and dispute of grain. He is one of those people that can never go wrong due to his handling of the situation. He could convince a bretaskity that they have green and blue strips instead of the other way around (they are an aquatic quadra-peadic mammal that has strips to camouflage itself from predators from above). He was a really good leader. And he was a nice father, always telling that one days I would be destined for greatness. Yes this was very cliché but it was true and it was happening right now. My dad was smiling; it was one of those one-side-open smiles showing half of his gleaming fangs. He was wearing ceremonial armor. Not the full plate with gold inscription, this was more of a chain mail with the dremoria crest outlined with emeralds chain links. He also wore the first sword he ever forged which was called Thumer. My mother stood next to him wearing her white dress and whipping the tears from her eyes with a handkerchief. She was smiling tearful as we continued the ceremony. It didn't take too long since we weren't going to stay for the party. Once the carriage had taken us to where the church was just on the horizon, Adora turned to me and said to me in such a stern voice that you wouldn't really expect from a girl looking that good. "Listen. I don't like you and you don't like me. This marriage is purely political and has no inference to do one our social lives. We will not talk to each other when this is going on, the only thing we should say is 'Hello' and 'Goodnight'. Any attempt that you make to get closer to me physically or emotionally I will sick my dad on you and you will be dead within minutes. Do you understand?" I nodded not really paying attention. I was actually stripping off tuxedo and folding it nice in between us. She looked puzzled but didn't ask what I was doing which I was thankful for because you could never give a good reason when stripping down. Once everything had been taken of and folded nicely I open the carriage door and hoped out. I heard I small gasp from Adora but I didn't care much. I had needed this for a long time to be outside in the air. Right before landing on the ground I activated my dark-light and began to hover alongside the carriage for a while before blast up into the air. Flying was a peaceful thing to me. I don't know why but to me it felt very peaceful. This dark-light ability was one of those thing that dremoria don't use much because it just was never needed unless you wanted to cross large distances in a small amount of time. However dremoria don't go farther than just a couple feet of the ground, it was one of those things that you just didnt do, unless your me. I just found flying so fun and peaceful. Ever since I was three and found out I could do it, I had been doing it every time my head was spinning or had problem or could figure something out like lachrymite energy conversion or girls. Today was one of those days, I couldn't decide if this was going to be a good experience or a terrible one. "A well." I said to no one in peculiar, "It will be a new ride and that's what matter right?" I smiled. ADORA POV I am married. To someone who I just meet. What went wrong in my life? My name is Mia Amata Figlia Adora or just Adora because it’s easier to say. I had a pretty nice life. I had lots of friends. I was a good girl. I followed all the rules. Never broke any of the rules my father had made up. I never even went out past curfew unless I was already out and I got caught in traffic an stuff coming back home. So why was I being married to someone who I just meet? This is so infuriating. And now he just jumped out the carriage door. At least he had the decency to take off his tux before what I believe is suicide. I didn't really believe that he killed himself because why would anyone do that. Unless he was thinking the same thing as I which was 'MY LIFE IS OVER'. I decided to check on him just to be sure because if he did, then 'wow that was fast' if not then ‘boohoo’. I looked out the back window of the carriage and saw that he wasn't there. I thought that this was strange but didn't think much of it. It took about two hours for the carriage to drop me off at the new house. The place was called Chateau Diablo, meaning Castle Devil. It was built by two brothers that apparently never got along. It was terribly obvious because around halve of the place was an olden style castle while the other side was a sort of 18 century renaissance like style. And I mean it was blended into each other somewhat smoothly. I got out of the carriage and began to walk towards the house. A loud thud right next to me and I jump up in fear. I turn to see my husband who had just landed looking like he had fallen through a couple clouds. He nodded to me and said "Looks fun" in a voice that just plain. I could have hit and yelled at him about him stealing my life but then what would that accomplish. This was the first time I actually had a good look at him and it was a different sight entirely. He didn't look like any other stallion I have seen before. His mane was an ice blue and was interrupted every couple of centimeters by a bright flame looking streak. Then there were two horns protruding from the mane, sticking out parallel to his head. His coat was an interesting black with red rust on his legs. Then I saw something that almost frightens me. His tail wasn't normal. It was like a the devil’s tail. And there were two of them. They were right now just hanging there, curved up a bit. The ends looked sharp. The inside of the house wasn't that bad. It just didn't look right. There was furniture that didn't really belong there and there was things that were just out of place like there assortment of swords and axes in what j believe was a dining room. And the weird painting of people in the bedrooms. It just wasn't right. I had decided to get some moving people and move everything that didn't belong out. And that was a lot. Then I decided to set a couple of normal boundaries for me and him. I turned to him as he was checking one of the rooms "OK I believe we should set up boundaries. How bout I'll take the top two floors and you can take the rest." "It’s fine. All I really need is the basement and the outside courtyard." "Really? That’s all you want?" "Yeah, I was never one for big space. We share the kitchen though right?" "Yeah of course." I said making a mental note to wake up earlier than him to make my own breakfast. "Now for the important question." he said "What's that?" I asked "Where am I going to sleep?" I chuckled at that. He just said it in such matter of fact way that it sounded like an angry wife joke. "that’s up for you to decide" I said after he chuckles. He walked towards one of the couches in the living room on the second floor and said "this I'll do fine. I don't want to be too far from you just in case assassins, burglars, or other such things." this was somewhat unnerving. He wanted to protect me even though he didn’t know me. It was unnerving for some reason. He sat on the couch and bounced once or twice. He then got up, punched on of the pillows on it and said "Well now that that's straightened, I got to get some mover to move some stuff from my mother’s place." he walked out not looking back. This was going to be a long marriage wasn't it? > Morning Surprises, Beer and Some Technical Stuff > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADORA POV It's been a week and a half since the marriage and he is keeping to his end of the bargain. Actually I haven't actually seen him except when he's asleep. He wakes up at dawn. And I mean dawn. How do I know this? Because he woke up once by accident when he dropped a couple of pans on the kitchen floor. Oh that's another thing he does. He makes breakfast. And the surprising thing is that the food he makes is pretty good. It's not gourmet but its good and sometimes surprising causes he will some time use dremoria spices. It is very weird because he leaves some purposely for me. Other than that I can barely see his existence. He wakes up early then me and I only see him if he decides to hit the hay early which was only once this week. Today was different however. You see yesterday I had finally gotten all of that crappy un-stylistic furniture out and I had brought in some actually good looking furniture. I also had my parent send someone to bring over my pets. Yesterday they had given them to me as I had visited them for maybe the eighth time this week. I had let them out if their cages to get aquatinted with their new living space as I nodded off to bed. My pets’ names are Felix the minx and Sandra the phoenix. Felix is black with orange strips randomly around his body. He was very protective over me and Sandra because of Sandra saving him from a couple of dogs when they were younger. Sandra is a loyal and very inquisitive phoenix. She is very smart but her curiosity will always get the better of her. I had forgotten to tell my ‘husband’ about them last night because he had already fallen asleep. I figured that they wouldn't bother him and just continued to my king size bed and fell asleep. A loud yell woke me up from my sleep. I immediately got up and out of bed thinking that it was the cat. Then there was a loud hiss and some yelp of pain. I got downstairs to the kitchen to see that Felix had jumped on my husband’s head and was furiously swiping at his head. The guy obviously had no idea what to do because he was really just standing still as the cat just respectively scratching his face. "Felix. Stop." I said loudly. Both Felix and his prey jumped at the sound of my voice and Felix immediately jumped down from his head and walked behind me making one last hiss and the dremoria prince before disappearing behind me. "Are you ok?" I ask the beaten prince. He smiled and easily responded, "Never better" and then as if it was an afterthought "Well since you’re up, what would you like for breakfast?" "Oh um I don’t know, maybe an omelet. Your face looks a bit-" "Do you want it filled or folded?" "Um, folded I guess. You face looks a bit" he turned to me and I finally had a good look at his eyes which looked not pony, they were green like Felix's and had the same slit like opening. Then I looked at the scratches on his face. "Oh my, your face is bleeding!" "Oh is it?" he reached up to his face and touch one of the bleeding scratches. He wiped some of the blood on his hoof and looked at it. "Eh don't worry it’s not that bad. Just a couple of scratches." "But you’re bleeding!" "So what?" "So what!? What do you mean 'so what?' You’re bleeding!" "Don't make a big deal of it, see?" he turned from making the omelet and then I saw his face again. There were no scratches. None. They had just disappeared. As if they were never there. I took me a while to get it out but I asked "How did you do that?" he took a large knife and right before my eyes, he stabbed his hoof. I screamed in fright and yelled "Are you crazy?!?" he started laughing as if it was a joke. He pulled out the knife and took a towel and cleaned it. His hoof was still bleeding as he did this. He then said "Look" and he raised the hoof that was bleeding. There was a strange flow of energy that emerged from the prince and then an ominous feeling came over me even though there was nothing ominous about this situation. Then as I starred at the stab wound, it started to mend itself. The stab wound closed itself and then it was gone. "How did you do that?" "It’s a natural ability dremorian can do." he said shut off the stove and putting cutting the omelet in half and putting them on two separate plates. He gave one to me and said "If I train enough with it, I could heal any deadly poison, if it hasn't spread far enough into the body. Eat up" he started eating his share as it took me a while to start mine. It still bugged me that he could stab himself without a second thought. After breakfast I introduced him to the pets. Felix has obviously taken to hating the prince but Sandra seems to like him a lot. After that I got dressed and decided to call my boyfriend. I took the phone and called his work place. He works at an architecture firm and he was just starting to get noticed. "Hello this is Brother Seethe, welcome to Two Brother's Hammer architecture firm how may I be of assistance?" My boyfriend said in a fake cheery voice. "Yes um, I was wondering if you’re free for lunch today?" I said in different voice just to kid around. "Well I am but I need to know who's calling." he said. "Would you like to take a guess?" "Hmm." he said in mock concentration, "Do you have beautiful hair?" "Yes" "Do you have a pure white coat?" "Yes" "Do you have an extraordinary personality?" "I don't know. You tell me?" "Adora you know not to call my work. My boss does not like personal calls" "Oh screw him so do you want to come over to my new place for lunch or what?" "Aren't you married? Won't your husband be mad?" "I don't think so, he doesn't really show any interest in what I do. All he does is make breakfast and then I don't know." "So he won't mind me coming over?" "Yup" "You better have your cook have make me something big, I'm starving." I laughed and said "Sure thing. Why can't I cook something for you?" "I am sorry to say this but you know you’re a terrible cook." I frowned at this because it was true I was a terrible cook. I just could never get the ingredients or spices right and the taste would be off. "Fine. Just get here. And hurry I am getting a bit bored." "Alright see ya!" and then he hung up. Brother Seethe and I have been going out for around a year now. He is totally sweet and he pretty smart. He does have some moments but he is nice and caring, he doesn't surprise me much but hey, can I ask for something every day? I decided to go take a shower and freshen up for my day. After I entered the bathroom and let the water run till it got hot, I heard the prince calls from downstairs "Hey. I am going out. There is something in the fridge for the date thing." "You eavesdropped on us?!" I yelled back walking down the stairs. As saw him at the door and he turns, "No. Have you considered that there is only me and you in this entire house and that you’re pretty loud?" I stopped and I flustered. He did have a point. "Well what did you make?" I said still in a loud tone because I wouldn't give up my indignity. He smiled with a wry smile that he pulled off amazingly, "I made some fancy grilled cheese sandwiches. Five to be exact." "Well where are you going? I am your wife." "Wow. You pulled that card early. I am going to The Empty Bottle." "A bar? You’re a day time drinker?" this was crazy. He didn't look like the kind of guy that would go out drinking in the middle of the day. He gave a sarcastic smile and said "No but I do love a good drink" and he walks out the door. For a second I wonder if he is telling the truth and if he is, like me, seeing someone behind the scenes. But then I realize that the shower is still running and that he didn’t seem like a guy that would have those kinds’ secrets. HATSAEL POV I closed the door behind me and pulled my cloak up. It didn't look like it would rain but you could never be too cautious. I wasn’t someone who drank regularly, I only pull out the bottles when I know a day will go down the shit or when I can’t think of anything and today was one of those. For one I was a bit annoyed that Adora just calls her boyfriend up knowing I was in the room. I really didn’t know why this pissed me off but I was also I bit drained from the little demonstration that I performed today. I didn't think I would be able to work on the centurion. You see, I am a tinker. That's what my mother calls it. She says that I can find ways to improve and create things from what we have today. And it's true. In fact I have already created a couple things that would help everyone but I don't know how it could be misused. For example, I have created the first engine for chariots and carriages. There is the flying model and the ground model. They both run on Lachrymite which is easily renewable. I have created magical voice storing device; a voice record if you will. I am trying to complete a little project of mine but it never seems to work well. I can't get the magical and electrical calibrations down. And since me stabbing myself has drained me, I knew my mind would be able to think straight. So I decided to get some money while seeing an old friend. I summoned my dark-light and took off into the air. Today was a cool day; the signs of autumn were coming. The trees had started to change color and the air was cooler than a normal summer breeze. I headed south of the house and went about maybe two or three thousand feet into the air. Not really paying attention to where I was heading, I accidentally flew straight through a small class of Flight Academy students. I looked back to see one of them falling due to the air current that I had caused. I wasn't going fast. Maybe just a hundred or ninety mph. I decided to help the foal out. She did look she needed it and she was falling to fast for her teacher to catch up. I made a very skillful U-turn and managed to immediately go into a dive towards a point under the falling flyer. I got there a couple seconds early and wait arms outstretched. The little foal landed in them around a second or two later. "You ok?" I asked. It took a while for her to answer do to the fear she had felt. After a couple heavier breaths she cried "Thank you. Oh Celestia thank you" She said and hugged me tight. I really didn't know what do to so I just waited for it to be over and asked "Do you think you can get back up flying?" "I think so, thank you again!" she said starting flapping her wings. Eventually she was back in the air, she steadied herself and asked "Hey mister what's your name?" I decided to say my pony name and said "Frozen Flames" "Well I am Bright Streak. I am the daughter of Scootaloo the great explorer and the Living Lighting Bolt 4o9." "That's nice to know. Why are you telling me this?" "Because if we meet again I want you to know who will be the next great explorer! And I don't know but I have a feeling that were goanna meet again" I thought about her have some sort of premonition powers because it does feel like we would meet again. I smiled at her and said "Well that's sounds like fun. Let's hope so. See yah" and I blasted back to the speed I was going and traveled to my destination. I looked back and saw her waving, I waves back. After another hour I arrived at the Empty Bottle. I pulled my hood up because it had blown off during the way hear. I walked in and a bottle flew out the door next to where my head was standing. Yup the Empty Bottle. I heard my friend scream "Eh! What did I tell about throw'n bottle around the place? One more time and you’re getting thrown out!" "Geez. You’re never this lively outside the bar you know?" I said walking towards the bar. The bartender turns and smiles big, "Flames! Where have you been? I haven't seen you in a month or so." "I've been getting married Emerald" I said. Emerald Charm was her name, and she was the first pony friend ever and the only (sad right). She had a yellow tinted green coat and her mane was a dark green, her eyes were respectively emerald. Me and her became friends in kindergarten. Most of the students kept away from me due to their parents telling them not to associate with me. Makes sense since my horns had actually growing in and my tails was growing as well. Emerald Charm had actually decided to against her parents, her rebellious phase acting up early, and had decided to talk to me. After of couple of days she became my best friend. And I would usually confide her with feelings I wouldn't tell my parents. She was fun loving, caring person and she is really helpful in many things from girl problem to problem with your boss. Her parents were actually very strict lawyers, and she was supposed to grow up to be as well but she grew to be more of a rebel with care then a lawyer for hire. Eventually she found a job as a waitress at this very bar. She had got good with the boss and she had loved her job, once her boss died he gave the bar to her and let her run it. She did I bit of remodeling but that was for space purposes and she added a small cooking area so that it be more pub'ish then bar like. She has had great business and her customers had always been friendlier. In fact the was some kind of saying about this place, I think it goes like "A therapist cost a lot of bites, Just head down to the Empty Bottle, Where Emerald Charm can fix all the harms in your life, just make sure you buy a drink". It went something along those lines. "You got married?! And you didn't invite me to the marriage? Or even tell me that you’re getting married? Hey Flame I thought we were friends." She said. "He we are friends and trust me when I say I did you a favor not inviting you. Can I get a Blue Moon?" "And why is that?" she said passing me a bottle "A marriage is a marriage, no matter how boring it is" "Yeah but if it's purely for political reasons why have it? I hate it and there was no love from the start" "Wait let me get this straight. You married a high standing political figure for gain? I don't think you father would do that" "No my father wouldn't do that, no I married an important figure to show that both of my race and your race can get along. Yet it was a marriage as you would say, with no love and only money." "So who is the lucky gal?" "Princesses Mia Amata Figila Adora" I said chugging the rest of beer. I couldn't see her reaction but I heard a drop of a glass. Then the slam of her hooves on the bar jolted me into accidentally inhaling some of the beer and I started coughing. When I looked up she had a look of incredulity on her face, that enough made me laugh. "You are married to Princess Adora? The Princess Adora?" "Yes" I replied. "And you two have just married to show the public that-" at that point I put my hoof over her mouth cause she was getting louder. "Look, I trust you to keep that part a secret got it! That’s strictly between me, her, my parents, her parents and both of your princess'. OK? I told this to you because I believe I can trust you. You can't tell this to anyone!" I said in a low tone so that only she could hear. She nodded and I removed my hoof. She spat in the sink behind her and said "Don't do that again. So how are you two getting along?" "We barely talk to each other" "Wow that’s great" She said sarcastically. I laugh and said "Well except today. Today her darn cat, who I swear has grown a grudge against me in around a day, attacked me making breakfast. Then Adora got all bitchy about some scratches on my face and I showed her some of my dark-light" "What did you do?" "I stabbed my hoof" she laughed out loud then asked "Did she faint? I remember when you showed me it by hurling yourself down a mountain, breaking half of the bones in your body and then napping for a day." I laughed at the memory too. This was when we were teens and I was at the reckless stage and so showed her my dark-light. "So make anything new?" she asked. She was the only one I ever showed any my inventions too. For two reasons, one; she could work most of them and two; because she found them one day and had promised to keep it a secret unless I showed them to her. I thought about it and said "Well I got the new self-propelled carriage and its flying counterpart." "You made a flying carriage! Can I test it out, please?" she asked while making some drink for someone who just came in. "Well maybe, I don’t know. I have already set up the power source and everything, but ok. But I have to be there with you to guide you and everything ok?" "Got it! So what are you doing here? I don't think it was just to say hello." She said giving a wry smile. I laughed out loud, "Well I do need to make some more cash for my next experiment and I figured I could use your help." "Let me guess, either drinking contest or the darts" "Actually I was thinking drinking contest but maybe I could get a bit more with some darts." "Well let's get started then!" ADORA'S POV "Do you have to go now?" I asked. Seethe was leaving, and it was about a couple hours after his lunch break had started. He had loved the sandwiches that my husband had made. I didn't tell him that he made but I think it wouldn’t have matter. "Yes I have to go. I've stayed for too long. I'm sorry; look how bout I come over again next week will that make you happy?" "Of course it will! But why now?" "Because I am going to be three hours late back from lunch!" He yelled in mock exasperation. He smiled and brought his head down and kissed me. It was a deep kiss and it felt great. He pulled out and said "Sorry but I have to get you a gift." he said and began to walk out the front door. There was a loud thud outside, which both us turned to see. It was the prince; he stumbled a bit and shook his head. He walked into the door and saw Seethe he smiled and said "Hi, the name is Frozen Flame. And you are?" "Brother Seethe" he replied shacking Frozen Flame's hoof. 'So that was his name' I thought. "Question. Did you recently drink? And how did you fly without wings?" Seethe asked. Then I realized that the second question made sense, I had never really seen his wings even though he does fly. Frozen Flame pulled down his hood and showed his horns. He thought about it and replied, looking at me “Do I really have to answer this?” I was getting curious so I gave him a very stern and quirt “Yes”. He sighed in desperation and began, "Well remember the little trick I pulled this morning?" I nodded but Seethe said "Well I wasn't here this morning so can you explain". Flame sighed and then explain "Dremorias have an ability to summon up there energy and turn it three different states, healing which I showed you this morning, flight which I do all the time and shields. It would take too long to explain it all bit we call this ability dark-light. Doing any of these things takes energy, some more than others." he began to float a couple feet off the ground, "This takes about as much energy as it takes to blink. And that is how I can fly" he landed and bowed he began to walk towards the house, but Seethe was getting to get curious. I could see it in his eyes which would get a small shine when something peeked his interest. He asked "what do shields do?" "Really? You’re really asking that question?" Flame said a bit exasperated. I guess he gets a bit cranky if he drinks too much. "Well I just want to see how it works." Seethe said. Flame sighed and looked around, and then he went and picked up a huge rock. The rock was maybe twice the size of his head and he lifted it with only one hoof. 'Wow' I thought, 'This guy is strong'. Then he threw it straight into the air and stood under the rock's shadow. I looked at the rock which about maybe 20 feet high, then I looked back to Flame, standing under that rock could easily kill a pony. Seethe actually moved to get him out of the way but Flame held up his hoof, stopping him. "Get out of the way!" I yelled when it was about ten feet from him. Then there was a crack and then dust surround what I believe to be a scary sight. Then Flame walked out of the dust cloud, perfectly fine. "See?" he said. "No actually" Seethe replied. Flame looked to the heavens as if praying to his gods. He walked up to Seethe and said with utmost of seriousness "Hit me" "What?" "Hit me" "why should I-" "You wanna see how it works. Hit me"' "I am not going to hit you." "What if I insulted Adora?" "I would know your trying to provoke me so it won't wor-" "She a fat bitch" "Aw, buck you!" I said and Seethe almost immediately went to ram him. What happened next is hard to describe. A dark ominous feeling swept the place like the first time I saw him heal himself. Then when Seethe was around a couple inches from Flame, he bounced off. He did that kind of bounce off that you see when some pony hits a wall. Seethe almost fell but Flame caught him and pulled him to his hooves. "Now do you see?" "Yah. That's cool!" Seethe said impressed, “So how far can it go?” “As far as I need it too. Though it I can’t throw it around things. It’s basically a bubble that I can expand and shrink at will. I can make surround objects as long as they’re in my hands. I can also bring other into the bubble. I can use to push things, deflects objects, keep things stable, and other stuffs. The farther out it goes however the harder it is to maintain and the bigger the stress on my body. I could get it to surround the entire house but I would be able to do it for that long without it starting to hurt.” “That pretty handy, man.” Seethe praised. Then Seethe rekindle his nose, "Dude you smell like a bar, how much did you drink?" "82 beers, 28 bottle of vodka, a barrel of Tequila and a couple martinis" Flame said. I gaped. "How did you not succumb to Alcohol poisoning?" I asked. He smiled and replied "I am a dremoria, I grew up with dremoiran alcohol which compared to ours, your 'alcohol' is barley alcohol." and he walked past me, I almost gagged from the smell. "Wait" I said. He turned and I asked "Did you mean that? That I am fat" he laughed and only said "Actually it wouldn't be too bad have a large steak once and a while" and walked off. I huffed a bit and Seethe comforted me before he went back to work. I went back inside, and saw that Flame was in the kitchen poking his head in the fridge. He pulled out the gallon of orange juice and began to chug. I waited till he was finished which took him a while, "I have two questions. Do you mind?" "Yeah I do. I'm kinda of tired" "Ok here is the first one. What are you?" "Wow that was sudden. Well to put it simply, I was the first cross breed child of the dremorian king Tegorath and the doctor Heart Charmer. I am a pony dremoria. Does that answer your question?" I thought about it. Then nodded and said "here is the second question. Why did drink that much?" "I had to make some money" he said throwing the empty gallon jug away. I thought about what he just said, "So you drank the equivalent to three alcohol poisonings to make money?" "Yeah" he said without any thought. I could hit him, which I tried surprising him and me. He had his shield up in an instant, "Ow" I said. He laughed and said "Well that’s what happens, by the way what that was for?" "I don’t care much for you, by you could at least try not to get yourself killed!" I yelled at him. He smiled and counters by saying "Well thanks for the hate but really, if you really don’t care why are we talking?" he then walked off pass me. I was over flowing with rage and took a knife and chuck it at him, which just bounced off his shield. He laughed again and went to the basement. > Cars, Flying, and some Secrets > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADORA'S POV It has now been a month and a half since the wedding and things have gone by as usual. I have been redoing the house lately, changing the wall paper, bringing in new furniture and taking out the old and so I had to go collect it all. I have decided to take time out of my weeks to spend one day at home. This is to check up on how Flame is doing. Of course I never go down to the basement and check on him but I hang around the house playing with Felix and Sandra. The rest of the week would be going out with friends, Seethe and visiting my parents. Today was different. Today was the day that I decided to hang out at the house too keep an eye on Flame. Then the doorbell rang. I went to open the door seeing as Flame probably wouldn't hear it. "Hello Adora!" "Auntie Twilight!" I screamed and hugged her. She hugged me back. She smiled and said "I had meaning to visit you for a while but the princesses wouldn't let me go until I had given them the full reports on what I had found about the Lachrymite." "Oh its ok Auntie! You came and that’s what matters! Come, come, sit down, I had these couches important from my parent’s house.” We both sat down and Sandra flew down onto Twilight’s shoulder. Sandra had always liked Twilight, she like smart people in general. Felix then jumped up onto my lap and began to purr. Once the two animals were smugly resting on us, Twilight asked “So how have you’ve been holding up?” “I am fine, trying to get back into the normal life. It does take a while for these things to get back in shape. But never mind me how is everyone doing? Did Spirit and Spike get back from that trip yet? How has Scootaloo been?” “Wow, Adora slow down. One question at a time, please. OK well let’s see. Spirit and Spike actually arrived two weeks ago; Spirit is taking a break and is with Rarity at a spa/ hotel. Silver Fang and Crystal Secret had decided to follow in Spirit’s footsteps and are getting ready to go with Spike and Sweetie Bell to a place called Skyrim. It turns out that Spirit has been there already so he decided to take a break with Rarity. And I think that they are-” “Wow wow wow wow wow, wow. Why is Sweetie Bell going? I thought that she didn’t like going on those trips.” Twilight smiled and said “Well it turns out after the second year of Spirit and Rarity going out, they started to hit it off and eventually become a secret couple. They only just told us three days ago.” I squealed with happiness, I had always known that something was going on between them. Twilight however had to cover her ears due to her age making her a frailer. “Oops sorry. So how is Big Mac and Rainbow doing?” “Getting married next week.” I squeal again, this time is lower pitched. Then the doorbell rang again. I looked at Twilight and she asked, “Are you expecting some one?” I shook my head. Then I heard Flame’s voice from the basement who yelled, “Hey Adora, could you please answer the door!” I sighed and tried to get up, but Felix didn’t move. “So how is Hatseal treating you?” Twilight asked. “Who?” “Hatseal? The man you’re married too?” “His name is Frozen Flame.” “He hasn’t even told you his true name?” “What do you mean?” “He is a dremorian, so he has a dremorian name. His name is Hatseal. His name that his mother gave is Frozen Flame. She gave him this name so that when he was in town he would have a name that other ponies wouldn’t feel so afraid of him.” The doorbell rang again. I looked at Felix but he wouldn’t move, I turned to Twilight and asked “Well he isn’t a big talker and he is a bit mean. He called me skinny. In a bad way.” “Oh come on, he probably didn’t mean it seriously. I was told he is nice guy. Besides, different races will always seem a bit off.” Twilight said patting my shoulder. “Nope. I meant it. All of it. And sorry but I thought I asked you to get the door” Flame said, emerging from the basement. He took off a pair of goggles and rested them on his neck. He then opens the door and a mare said “God how long does it take for you to open the door.” “Hey it ain’t my fault I had to get the course ready.” Flame said and they hugged. He then turned to me and Twilight saying, “Hello. Adora this is my friend Emerald Charm. Emerald Charm, this is my ‘wife’ Mia Amata Figlia Adora. And this is her aunt, Twilight Sparkle.” Emerald bowed and me and Twilight bowed back. “So you said something about a course?” Emerald said, turning to Flame. He smiled and then gestured to the back yard saying, “Yeah I have a small obstacle course outside for the land automobile.” “What? You told me I would drive the flying one!” Emerald complained. I turned to Twilight who had same interested expression that I had. "I am not letting drive the flying automobile without going through a session of the ground one!" "Why? You promised!" Emerald complained. "Because driving either one is hard. Don't worry; you will still drive the flying one it's just that you'll have to go through the course on the ground first." Flame said. Emerald sighed and said "Fine!" he led her to the door to the backyard. Flame looked back and called, "Hey Adora, if you want you can watch. It'll be fun." he then continued through the door. I turned to Twilight. Her face was a blank slate showing no emotion what so ever, but there was a blazing fire of curiosity and excitement. "I think it would be interesting to see what they are going to do, don't you think?" I asked Twilight. She smiled and got up turning to go to the kitchen, "I'll get some drinks together. Should they be alcoholic?" "Yes!" I said feeling a little bit giddy at what we were about to see. I joined her in the kitchen, taking out some pitcher and filling them with water. "Lemonade or Ice tea?" I asked. "It's a bit too cold for that don't you think?" Twilight said. She did have a point, autumn was coming and outside was actually getting pretty chilly. Then I had an idea, I went into the fridge and took a block of dark chocolate and milk. "How about some hot chocolate?" I said bringing out a cooking pot and turning on the stove. "Hmm. That could work. Do you have any Vodka or Whisky?" Twilight asked. I thought about it, and then said "I think there is some in the alcohol cupboard it's under the silverware draw" it took maybe twenty minutes to make some hot chocolate spike with some old Jack Daniels. We then put it in a thermos and took it outside with a couple of mugs. The course was pretty large, considering the size of the place. It stretches around the garden and around the tool shed. The course consisted of many small obstacles such as traffic cones and large trash bins. At the moment the 'automobile' was rounding the corner of the tool shed. It was going pretty fast now and all it had to do was go around a sharp bend. It pick up speed and did a sort of slide like it was trying to stop by turning itself but not entirely, like a weird drifting motion. Then it stopped in front of me and Twilight with a cloud of dust. "See was that hard?" I heard Flame say as he exited the vehicle. This was the first time I had seen it and it did not look like a carriage much. It was a large box with a smaller more rectangular box at the front. It had two pairs of doors and it had a large glass screen at the front. The wheels at the back were not changed but the ones at the front were, instead of being connected to the larger box it was connect to the smaller box with a pole that stretched through the smaller box. There were also two flashlight looking things at the front of it. "No it wasn't. Now can we ride the flying one?" Emerald complained. "Fine let me just switch these out with each other" Flame said, Getting into the side Emerald exited from. There was a rev of magic and the automobile started and Flame drove it into the doors that lead into the basement. "So how was it?" asked Twilight. "It was fun. He really does know how to make the coolest of things." Emerald said. "How many times did you go around the track?" I asked. "Around three or four times. The first two were for getting the hang of the controls and the other two were for getting control of how fast I could go, and by Celestia's back hooves you can go fast!" "What’s is the fastest speed you can go?" I asked. "Well I was only aloud 20 mph, but Flame said that you could probably go over 95 mph." She said. Wow, I thought. Since when could this guy these things? He built two automobiles, the flying one and the ground version and I don't even know it's being made in my own basement. Then there was a large revving noise and the automobile came up from the little ramp that leads down to the basement. Flame drove the carriage out and set it up in the middle of them track. He gets or and says, "Ok so who wants to fly?" everyone got up and clamored to the automobile. Emerald got in the driver the seat will Flame got in the seat next to that one. Me and Twilight got in the back seat. "Ok so the only real difference between these two these things is that you this lever that can control the altitude. However it isn't a good idea to just thrust it up because it will do a backflip like maneuver that will send us crashing. What I suggest is that you go maybe ten, twenty mph and then gain altitude. And don't worry you don't have to keep your hands on the lever. Ok so let's gets started." Flame explained. Emerald got the big machine to start moving and it got faster and faster till it was about twenty five mph. Then Emerald took hold of the lever and slowly pushed it up. It wasn't obvious at first but after another couple of minutes of driving we knew that we were off the ground. We climbed steadily until the trees on the ground looked like leaves. "This is amazing!" I said. "Indeed it is. Now Flame, I am very interested on the designs of this creation of yours do you mind explaining it to me? I believe that this is flying with a levitation spell?" "Actually its self-producing cloud Lachrymite, the wheels are all in use with water walking Lachrymite that give it its flight. Here it will be easier to explain it up close, Adora come switch seats with me and can I get some got chocolate?" Flame replied getting up from his sear as he said he last part. It took a while but we finally managed to switch seats, I was next to Emerald who was amazed by the ability of flight while focused on driving properly. I figured now would be a good time as any to get some back story on Frozen Flame seeing as he did this without evens mentioning it to me, "So how long have you two been going out?" I asked Emerald. She almost spat out the hot chocolate that she was drinking. "Going out! Where did you get that idea?" "Well you are the only mare I have seen him with and you too do seem close"' "We were never going out. Granted we are close but that's because we have been friends for so long." "How long?" "Since kindergarten" "Wait, a prince has to go to kindergarten?" "Yeah but that's because his mom wanted him too. His dad took him away during the holidays and taught him the prince stuff" "So his mom is a pony," I said still a bit confused about this. She nodded confirming that fact, I continued, "And his father is king of the dremoria." she nodded again. "What does his mother do? I mean to get the attention of the king of dremoria is not something that anyone can do right?" Emerald laughed and said, "well his mom was the only that decided to help him after someone poisoned him." "What do you mean?" "Well you know that it took a while for that war to end right?" I nodded, "Well Flame's father had gone on some peace trip across Equestria. Apparently he stopped in town to learn our culture. So then one mare, who was either still mad at him for the war or was trying to avenge her husband, poisoned his drink. Flame's mother was the only one who had decided to actually help him. Seeing as she was a doctor decided to that he should bring her along. That's where they apparently fell in love and had Flame." "Well that's a nice story. You sure it's true?" "That's all they told Flame who told me." "I have another question. What is he like because I never have really talked to him much? I only talked once and he told that I was too skinny. To me that's a bit mean." "Hm, well he is nice it's just that you have to get to know each other for that to happen. When you start out, he seems to be a cynical bastard but after a while his cynicalness is actually him just trying to be nice or help you out in some way." " So when he was saying that I was too thin he meant it as a compliment and suggestion?" "Probably" she said smiling, "Flame is some pony who is really nice but just doesn't show it. Not because it will make him look weak, but because he really doesn't know how to show it. I have been his only friend for years so I have gotten used to it so he didn't need to change his ways. He is nice but it's hidden behind his cynicalness." She smiled as if remembering good times. I thought about if she had something for him but then thought it out. If they had been friends for so long why didn't she ever bring it up? Maybe she just thought of him as the brother that she never had, but I would never know. I began to think about Flame more, his cooking, and his simplicity at everything he did. Now that I thought about it, he really hasn't been mean to me. At least I hope. I looked back at him now and saw him enthusiastically talking with Twilight. I smiled, thinking that talking to people with the same intelligence is probably good for people. I sat back on the chair and enjoyed the ride and Emerald and I talked about many different things and she invited me to come to the Empty Bottle. Eventually we decided to turn back and land at our place. It was quite a fun day. HATSEAL'S POV Once the ride was over, I asked Twilight to try and help me out with another project of mine. "Hey Adora, Twilight is going to try to help me with something could you keep Emerald company for a while?" "As long as you don't hurt her I'm fine" she replied showing Emerald to her dressing room. I smiled thinking that they could get along and showed Twilight downstairs to my workshop. My workshop was pretty cluttered, I was never one for organization and so it looked like a tornado hit. "So what did you want help with?" Twilight asked, "Or was it the mess you wanted help with?" she joked. I laughed and replied "Well no but you're right I should get this fixed. No this is what I need help on" I went up to a statue with Lachrymite in many places on it. The statue was a large rendition of one the popular legendary hunters in old stories told to dremorias. It was a hunter known as Keldro the precise, a hunter of the lord Sherona who managed to kill a small herd of wyverns. He was in a simple half squatting pose with his bow stung out with an arrow on it. It wasn’t anything truly special but it was large, about eight to ten feet tall. “This is a great statue but I don’t know how I would get this appraised. I am not an artist” Twilight said. “Close but still no cigar. I need help with some magical calibrations. And seeing as you are the lead magical technician on Lachrymite I figured that you could help” “How did you know that?” “I do read the latest magazines of ‘Magical Do Das’” I replied throwing her a copy. I climbing up a ladder propped up against Keldro’s back. I took a large battery and instated in the statue, then climbed back down and said in a loud clear voice “Keldro, Activate. Scan vicinity and notify number of people and identify species” There was a loud buzz of electricity and then Keldro’s eyes opened and a wide beam of light that sweep the room from top to bottom. I turned to Twilight who had a look of fear and amazement, and then Keldro responded in a very metallic voice “Two beings. One pony. Specific; Unicorn. One Cross breed.” “Wow. You built this? This is really something.” Twilight said. I smiled and then said in a loud voice, “Assume protective procedure on the unicorn” at this the statue the got up and jumped of the pedestal and landed in front of Twilight and put his arm out in front of her like a large shield. She looked impressed and a bit frightened at the speed it possessed. “This is where the trouble come in” I said with a sigh and then called in the same loud tone from before, “Keldro return to disguise mood” The statue got and stood straight up, but then wouldn’t move any further. It just stood there like, for lack of a better term, a statue. I walked over to it, patting its legs and said, “It also has problems with its passive offense where it will shoot a magic bolt that will give off enough voltage to put most dremoria and ponies unconscious. It’s too low of a voltage to kill so I don’t have to worry about that. So do you think you can do it?” “I don’t know, it really looks like you just missed a couple of key magical junctions. Here let me look.” She climbed up the ladder and opened the back and with her magic began to survey the motherboard. She took out of pair of glasses and then asked “Let me guess, you used the new Unicron’s Magic Tools set?” “Yeah, as you can see, I really can’t use magic of my own so that the next best thing. Why? Something wrong with it?” “No, it’s just using those thing will never be the same as using actual born magic, and when using those tools you will accidentally cut some of the junctions which was only some of the problems here.” She said, stepping down and taking of her glasses. She sighed and said “Don’t worry, it really was something only and magical expert can work on, this was due to faulty tools.” She turned to me, “Can I ask you a question?” “I believe you do deserve something for helping me out. Shoot” I said. “Why are you building this in your basement? You seem to be extremely smart and capable but you don’t take advantage of this and get actual tools and other people helping you out. I am curious about your answer.” She said sitting down on the chair next to my desk. I sighed and then took the bottle of gin that was on another desk. I took a swig and then said, “To answer your first question. This is for my father’s throne room. I wanted to give him a birthday present and he was always complaining the fact that he never could get a guard that would accidentally kill the assassin or people getting past the guards. I thought that maybe I could create something that would do both and be pretty cool looking. The statue is the statue of one of my father’s favorite legendary warrior so I figured what if I turned him into a sentry. And that were this came from. Now the second question is a bit different. I don’t want to work on this with other people because then the will become a public project which will then unsewn for this to be used as a weapon which is what I don’t really want. This meant to protect people not to kill.” I looked over at her, “you can understand right?” She nodded and got up. “I know exactly how you feel. I don’t think I should tell you this but what happens now won’t change the past. You know the bomb that destroyed your world?” “Yeah” I replied taking another swig of the gin, still not looking directly at her. “Well, I created it.” I still didn’t look at her but it was clear that she was sad about the idea that she created the weapon of ending worlds. She took a deep breath and continued, “I know you’re probably mad and I can understand why. But it wasn’t my will to use it. Actually it was meant to be a world threat; if both sides didn’t surrender I would set it off right in the middle of the portal. This was just a bluff, I wouldn’t actually do it but my brother found out, Adora’s dad. He is the captain of the royal guards and army and so thought that this would help turn the tides of battle which would help them win. He took the bomb and, well, I guess you know what happen after that. I haven’t talked to my brother ever since. I just can’t stand to look at him and I guess the same because he can never look at me. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m rabbling it’s just… Never mind. I am sorry if you’re mad. I’ll fix the junctions for you. I should be going soon or I won’t be able to see some of my god child off tomorrow.” She said, her horn glowing as she began to walk away. I walked with her and went upstairs and saw both Adora and Emerald talking with each other animatedly. “I’m not mad.” I said to Twilight, she turned to me, looking a bit confused. “I don’t believe that you should be mad at your brother either. He did it to protect you from us and I really can’t blame him for trying to protect something important to him. He was trying to save his people and you; he would do what he had to do to protect it even if it meant the destruction of a world or the hatred from a loved one. He probably didn’t want to do it himself but there was a saying that my father told me when I was younger. He said ‘When there is someone of value to you, there will always be the unbalanced scale’ I’m pretty sure you can figure out what that means. His scale was either using the bomb to win the war or possibly lose you and the others he cared for; he made the choice that to him seemed right.” I turned to her and smiled, “Sibling should never have hat for one another, since in the end there is always each other” > Malls, Realizing truths, and Explosions > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADORA’S POV It’s been a week since the driving exams for Emerald and todays is the first fake, going out day. This was already planned out I believe. What was supposed to happen is that we meet up in the mall and then we just decided to turn it into date by going to around the mall together and then just going to a movie or something. I was walking towards the mall when I decided to stop for a second and think about him. Emerald told me that he was a nice but you had to see it through the strange way of speaking and looking at things. Emerald had told me that he had a different way of seeing things as he was brought up by multiple views on either race. The idea was that he was born in two places at once gave you two conflicting view which gave him his sarcastic views. I felt that trying to understand it would probably be very hard but if I at least wanted to friends with him I should at least try because the roommate thing was becoming a bit old and awkward. I then I remembered that if I had time to think I had time to get there or we would miss each other and this would ruin the image for the public. I got to the mall without much problem, which was good because that is how you know the news will be here soon. I decided to stand and sit out on a bench for a while. I knew Flame was going to be here soon so I decided to just sit down. I had been up for a while with my friends, going around town working. Yes I work; I am actually a fashion designer. I got my start with Rarity but then decided that living in her shadow wouldn’t satisfy me and when I proposed the idea to her she laughed and gave me large start up loan and said that having a rival in this makes life very interesting. This was around four years ago and now my company is around half the size of Rarity and growing. I had been running around all day making changes to dress and attending meeting with other fashion designers and arguing how to change the new fashion style. I was up all day and I was a bit tired. I had decided to sit on a bench and close my eyes for a bit. Just for a bit. I hear a soft thud and then I felt the bench I was on creek a bit. I was wondering what was going on and I smelled the smell of a sugar coated fruit tart. I got up immediately and turned to see Flame holding a tart in one hoof will holding a bag in the other. “Bout time you got up” he said. “Lunch?” He held the tart closer to me and I snatched it from his grasp, taking the fork magically and cutting into it. I could have cried right then but it hit me that he had brought my favorite kind of fruit tart. Then I looked at the bag and saw that it had the logo of the place I always go to get them. “How did you know?” I asked, when I had swallowed the rest of the small tart. “That this was your favorite tart that comes from your favorite little pastry shop?” He asked still not looking at me as he fished into the bad and pulled out a tree branch looking thing then stick it his mouth and began to chew bit by bit like a farmer would with straw. He chewed for a bit then said “Emerald told me, you mentioned it on after the driving exam. I figured that had worked hard all morning since most of the month you have been spending a lot of time in the house fixing and decoration it so once you got back to your normal job you had to get the whole thing set up again so you were going to be exhausted. So I took the liberty of getting lunch.” He answered. He did all will still looking away yet this didn’t give him the bad boy who cares glow but just someone pointing out the obvious facts and catering to the natural order of things. He got up and said, “So where do you want to go?” “Hmm?” I said, my head trying to keep up with the sudden change of events. My head was still sleeping and the sugar hadn’t got there yet. He held out his hoof and gentle pulled me up saying “Come on, I am supposed to give you your day out. You know” He then turned his voice into a whisper “For the people who still have racism” “Oh yeah,” I said. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, “Ok, well…” I took an actual look at Flame, he wasn’t wearing much other than that really old cloak that looked like it had seen more days than him. “Please don’t tell me you came in this on purpose” I said with almost contempt in my voice. He looked at his cloak and said “Well I don’t have many things to wear, and this was given to me by my dad, he said it was a hand-me-done from all of my people’s kings to avoid attention, works well in my opinion.” “Well right now we are not trying to hide we are trying to be seen. Ugh. Come on, where going to get you clothes.” Said and almost dragged him into one of my shops that was set up in this mall. I took the cloak off of him as we entered. “Hello Ms Adora, what shall we do for you…” The clerk who I had handpicked had fell into an interesting silence she was staring at the cross breed towering over her half in fear and half in shear incredulity. He did have an interesting prowess about him. He had the air of the king but it there was a sense that he could easily relate to and could solve your problems. “He-he-h-h-h-hello. T-t-t-t-thi-th-th-this must be th-th-the pri-pri-prin-prin-prin-prince o-o-o-of-” “Of the Dremorian people, please don’t be so surprised. Why are we here? Adora, I am pretty sure that you own this branch.” “Well if you must now then you need a new wardrobe, you don’t seem to have one and so I will make one for you. Chantal, get me the men full wardrobe.” “Right away Mis” “Please don’t do this” Flame said with a look that showed that he was going to hate this. I smiled and started on his transformation. It was really hard to actually get a right the style for him that would work. I had tried the royal look, giving him extravagant royal clothing with frills on the sleeves and neck but that didn’t work for him. I tried the suave look, with a simple jacket and button up but that didn’t work either. I realized the problem was two things, one I couldn’t get the right look because his aura was to abstract from the people I have done before, and two was his horns. I could get used to the unicorn idea because I was one as well but the fact that he had two that went up from his head parallel to it made it hard to get a get an good hat. I took a long good hard look at him as he was removing the bad resecting fashion I had given him inspired by the mafia movies. It was hard to get the actual relatable king aura into clothing or turn it to help the clothing I could give him. Then I thought if I couldn’t get the clothes to accommodate him, then I should get the clothes just to be there so that it could be bolstered by the aura he gave off. “Chantal! Get me the “Midnight travels” and the “Summer Rain” sets please” I said. “Yes milady” she said then speed off. “Finally decided on something have we?” Flame asked, “please don’t make it tight or with frills. I hat those thing most of all on clothing.” Chantal came back in with the sets and I looked through them, I took a white sports coat and then a nice mellow blue color shirt that had some breast pockets. I told Flame to put them on then looked the selection of hats, I decided to go with a nice small red fedora to match part of his mane. This was actually quite good but it the horns did mess up the but this worked with him. The colors are what really brought out Flame himself which brought his aura and presence. “Finally.” I said, “This actually works for you. How does it feel?” I asked Flame. HATSAEL’S POV God this was funny. I can’t say how funny this was to me. Adora was looking terribly flustered this entire time, like a little child who couldn’t quite say what she wanted but knew what it was. OF course it was tedious to change into multiple out fits again and again but it was worth it. This also struck a chord in me, to which I began to ponder about Adora’s personality. She seemed to be compassionate as she did keep many pets and as a colt friend I could easily conclude that. However today I saw two new sides of her, right now I was experiencing the determined side. It was amazing to see her try so hard to come up with a simple wardrobe for me. I, of course felt like I wouldn’t need it but she did it was very amusing seeing this happen. In the end, I was given around five bag that weighed at least en pounds each in clothing. Adora walked out of the store felling happy and I am guessing overjoyed at success in giving me a ‘look’ as she says. I was feeling the weight of the five to ten bags on my back. I didn’t feel like carrying these things, I decided to create a small weak shield that would act like a bowl to which I threw the bags in there. Adora turned and must have seen bag floating in the air own their own because she rubbed her eyes, opened them and then asked, “Darklight?” “Yup” I responded, she sighed then I heard a faint yet small growl from the bottom of her stomach. She turned as if nothing happened. I smiled and asked “Why don’t we get another snack?” “What do you suppose we should go for?” she said trying not to show that she was hungry. I took a sniff and smelled an array of odors and charms. I caught a small wife of a very pleasant yet simple smell. The baking of bread. I decided to follow my nose, and said “Come on this way” and followed the scent. It took a bit of time since there were a lot of perfume vendors throwing me off trail, but then we managed to arrive at a small little bakery with a lone dremoria taking bread into and out of the oven. He seemed to work very diligently and was making more dough once he was finished removing the others. I went to the small counter and rang the bell that there. The bell was quite loud for the size of it but I saw why because it didn’t seem to get his attention till I rang the bell again for a second time. At this he looked startled, like he was broken from a trans. “Um a. Hello. Oh” he said then immediately changing his composure he bowed and continued, “Good After noon prince what may I get you today?” “What are you selling?” I asked with a bit of exasperation in my voice. I hate being called prince. It makes me seem so much more important than just another pony. Hybrid. “Well we are selling bread with anything you like with in them. From meats and cheeses to chocolate and sugars. So what would you like?” “I would like a bread with some chocolate inside please.” Adora said. “Yes miss. And you prince?” “I’ll get the same.” I replied not really hungry myself. He nodded and then worked back into this trans making the dough and then mixing in the chocolate sauce half way into the cooking of the bread and then putting back into the oven. “YOU” I hear a familiar voice say. I turned to see the little pegasus who I had almost killed. “Hey there Bright Streak, what are you doing here?” I asked turning to see the little filly running up to me. “That is what I should be asking you, Frozy” she said, I thought about what she just called me as she went up to the counter and said “Hey there Mister Neptorus” “Hello child, what would it be today or do you want chocolate bread?” Neptorus asked as he took out the two breads out and handed them both to us. “Today I want to try the Jugya berry bread.” Streak said. The dremoira smiled and began to work on the bread. “So how did you meet Frozy?” Adora asked, deliberately putting emphasis on the ‘Frozy’ part. “Oh! Who are you?” Streak asked. I laughed as Adora looked taken a back, she had a look that was the equivalent if you had thrown some feces at her face. After a bit of laughter I manage to said “Streak, this is my wife, Adora, the granddaughter of Princess Celestia.” “Ah. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to forget it’s just I never seen in person.” Streak said bowing up and down rivaling the speed of dog’s tails. I laughed again. This time Adora gave me a nice swift hit to the stomach effectively silencing me. “So, now that you know who I am, tell me how you meet Frozy over here.” Adora said, again putting emphasis on the ‘Frozy’. And so she explained on how she was at flying school when I had flew in to fast through there school and how I saved her from becoming a pancake. When this was going on I heard some yelling. I decided to go find out what it was and got up sort of abruptly and walked towards where the sound was coming from. It took a bit of time but I found that it was coming from a hardware store, which mostly sold metal and wood materials. I look inside to see a pony screaming at a dremoria who was hanging his head as if he was being scolded by his mother. What was worse the dremoria was just standing there taking his criticism. I decided to step in the shop and listen to what the pony had to say. “YOU HAVE ONE JOB, WHICH IS TO LUG THE HEAVY STUFF AROUND AND YOU CAN’T DO THAT RIGHT? WHY DO I BOTHER WITH YOU, YOU ARE AN IDOT. I TOLD TO PUT THE STUFF IN THE BACK AND YOU TELL ME THAT IS FULL! HOW CAN IT BE FULL WE ONLY JUST STARTED RESTOCKING! YOU INCOMPITIENT BEING Y-” “Please stop sir.” I said in a defining tone. Immediately the guy turns around and say, “What do you want?” “I want you to stop berating the man here” I said again in the same tone, the tone my father used when he was addressing someone he didn’t particularly like or was being mean to others. I didn’t know I could actually pull it off. “Does he work for you? NO! So but out this is my employee and I will treat him the way I like too!” He said and turned back to the dremoria. “What is your name?” I asked the dremoria. The pony turned to me thinking that I was asking him and began to yell, “WHAT IS YO-” “It is Dorukoro” “Dorukoro do you mind showing me the back or storage room please” I asked not paying attention to the pony who was starting to redden. Dorukoro led me to the back to which he opened to reveal a very crowded room filled to the brim with wood plants and others things. I turned to the pony who was also looking at the room. “Now please do not insult and berate someone for doing their job, my people work hard and they don’t disappoint. Next time this happens you will deal with more than just me.” I said and turned Dorukoro, “Don’t let him fire you; if he does, please go talk to my father and he will handle this, I cannot as it is not in my power to do these things.” “Yes, prince” he said and bowed. The pony regained himself and yelled in my face, “Who the hell do you think you are, telling me what to do?” “I am the dremorian prince, Hatseal, next in line for the throne and the sole heir to it. You’d do best not to cross my path again or there shall be consequences” I said in a loud booming voice. This made the pony step back a bit and begin apologizing. I knew he was faking it all so I didn’t listen, I just walked outside where Adora and Streak were watching. “Enjoy the show?” I asked in a bit of cruel tone which I did not mean to put in. “YOU’RE A PRINCE?” Streak asked her eyes brimming with incredulity. I chuckled a bit, she was so innocent that it pained me to say “Well yes I am” “But you’re not dremoria” she said. I bent my head down a bit and said “did you see the two big horns?” “WOW” she said and grabbed onto them. She was hanging on pretty tight so I through my head around a bit. She started laughing as I spun her around. It felt nice, hearing her and Adora laugh. Huh, so this is how marriage was supposed to be? Seems nice, but then it hit me that this again was all an act for the people around us. Pretty hollow act to show that two separate races can at least mingle without the need to have any more violence. Then something bad happened. ADORA’S POV I was actually having a good time. I was going in here trying to get some information out of Flame or Frozy (sorry it’s just too cute to hear Streak say it) but it turned out to be more of a day to just hang out with him. OK, more of a day to give him new clothes. Although it did take most of the day we did feel satisfied. After shopping we made a detour to the bred shop where I got to meet Frozy’s little friend. I was actually well surprised at this because the story the Streaks tells me that he had some sort of decency before getting a little tipsy. This also showed me that he was at least nice and likeable with kids even though of his appearance. This would have been a nice day too if someone hadn’t decided to blow up the lower levels of the mall, making collapse in on itself. The first warning sign of this was the large explosion that shook the entire building. This caught all of our attentions, and everybody started to slowly stop. Then, in the silence of everything, you could hear a small cracking noise, as if someone was breaking crackers very slowly. Then out of nowhere Flame screams “Everyone out now! Get out now!” then there was a larger cracking noise and I felt the familiar ominous feeling and felt it surround me, Streak and Flame. Then there was a loud crack, I look up to see a large rock smashing into the air around us that was strangely tinted a black read color. As the rocks crumbled away Flame lowered the shield and yelled again, “Everyone out now!” he took Streak off of his horns and said to me “Take Streak and get out, I can hold the building up for about 35 seconds which should be enough time for the everyone to get out just hurry and get out!” “What about when the shield is up?” I asked urgently. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine just go!” he yelled and I took Streak and ran. Again an ominous felling surrounded us the cracking of the build slowed down. 30 seconds. People were beginning to crowd in the exits all trying to get through. 27 seconds. I pushed my way through the crowd hard, holding Streak’s hoof with a death grip. 20 seconds. The crowd had thickened and everybody was panicking screaming and yelling. 18 seconds. I could see the exit in front of me yet it was far do to the large crowds. 10 seconds. Me and Streak got through the exit and mad it to the other side. I pulled Streak into a hug and said “Don’t worry just close your eyes for a second” “But Frozy” Streak was saying through sobs and tears. “Don’t worry he will be alright.” 0 seconds. All anyone could hear for the next ten seconds would be the building falling down. After the ten seconds of destruction, the guards finally arrived and they started helping citizen with bumps and bruises. After I was checked out by a medical officer I began walking throw the wreckage. “Excuse me Princess, everyone has been evacuated please step out from the building.” A guard said. I ignored him and began trying to find sings of life. Using my magic, I threw boulders away to see if there was anything under them. I really couldn’t find him, and you know what the worst part was, I felt like this was my fault. I don’t really know why I felt this way. I didn’t really cause this but I somehow felt bad, like if he, Flame, died I was too blamed for his death. I became more frantic, throwing around more boulders carelessly forgetting the one rule about removing debris. Being careful on where you through it. Then I heard a very faint “ow”, I turned to where I thought I had heard it. There was a large pile of boulders at one side; I realized that I had been using this spot to pile all of the boulders that I threw out of the way on. “Oh my Stars!” I said and started removing the boulders carefully as to not make them all crashing down. Eventually after removing two or three of the boulders was removed other soldiers began to help me remove the boulders till there was a small clearing of debris and Flame was in the center of it. He got it up and then manages to brush off some dust but with a great deal of effort. “Told you. Didn’t. Need. To. Worry.” Flame said with a little smirk and then dropped to the ground. I sighed with a contented smile and hugged him tightly. He made a small intake of breath painfully, “Sorry” I said and yelled to the guards, “Hey! We have a live one here!” Immediately ponies began to help me. Apparently Flame weighed a lot because it took three guards to get him onto a stretcher which was then carried magically by two unicorns. “Will Frozy be alright?” I heard Streak ask from behind me. I smiled and said “Yeah he will, he just needs a nap” Then randomly, there was a conversion of dark clouds appeared which then circled into one, then a lightning bolt smashed the ground a couple feet away from us and a pony appeared. He had lightning colored mane and tail and his eyes were I believe neon orange. “Bright Streak? Bright Streak?” the pony said urgently. Streak turned and screamed with delight, “DADDY!’ and ran to him. The pony’s face grew into a relived smile and said “Don’t worry me like that again. I thought you said you would only by out for a bit?” “I did but I wanted to see Mister Neptorus” “You have to tell me these things ok? Now who do I have to thank for this?” he asked her. “Well there is Miss Princess and Frozy but he is in the amberlamps” Streak said pointing to me. In what could be considered less than the blink of an eye he was in front of me and bowed heavily, “Thank you so much! You have no idea on how much I am indented to you as of right now princess.” “Oh please don’t feel that way, it was just what any pony would do” I said trying not let my worry through. He smiled and then said “Well I leave you now, Princess, to ground this little trouble maker” “Wait daddy please, don’t-” but the rest was cut off as he did the lighting teleport thing and disappeared. I turned to see what happened to Flame. He was in an ambulance and was being given some sort of medicine. “Is he ok?” I asked the nearest doctor. “He seems to be fine, just some fracture bones. He will need to be bed ridden for some time though” I would say at least a month and a half. “Pfft not goanna happen” Flame managed to crock. I turned to him. “See, told you not to worry.” “You made me worry anyway you idiot!” I said with a little anger. “Sorry but somethings just aren’t that simple.” He said with a lot of pain. “But I ain’t staying in bed for that long” “You have too, at this moment you can barely walk in your condition right now” said the doctor. “Hogwash!” he managed to yell. He swung his legs and managed to stand. He took two deep breaths and said “Well Adora, I am going to head home and pass out on the couch. I’ll see you when you get back.” “That’s no way to say goodbye on our day out” I said in a mock tone. “Please, If I could I would fly you home but right now standing is a deal in itself” he said smirking. “Well then let me give you a gift for the nice day out” I said without the slightest bit of thought. I got up to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “That was new” he said “See ya later”. Then he took to the skies. I smiled then realized what I had just done. “Well today wasn’t that great but I learned a little about him.” Then I smiled again truly this time. > Waking Up, Explanation and Some Problems > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- HATSEAL POV I can't really remember exactly how long it took to get back to the house as I was fluttering between conscious and not conscious due to the exploding building thing. I couldn't find my key probably due to it being in one of my jackets that I left with the burning building. I wanted to get insides so I did what any sensible dremoria would do in these situations, break down the door. Once accomplished, I walked upstairs and fell down on the couch, falling asleep before actually hitting the bed. Let me give some info on the darklight healing factor. Small flesh wound bigger than 4 inches. Very easy to heal. Equivalent to doing ten jumping jacks. Small stab wounds bout a couple inches deep. Pretty easy to fix. The same as doing a small 400 yard dash. Stab wound that penetrate through the body. Harder to get rid of. The equivalent to sprinting half a marathon. Broken bones. Easier than full stab wounds through. About the same as a normal marathon without sprinting it all. Ruptured vital organs. Harder than bones. About the same as running a marathon with twenty pounds weight on your legs. Now, put a of those injuries together. Stab wound through the body, cuts, all bones broken, a couple ruptured vital organs. The equivalent of jogging every square inch of the world I stand on. Knowing this I don't know how long my body went into the recomposition state, or in other words, sleep like a rock. I woke up in the middle of the day groggily with Felix on my head napping since it was in the sun light. Felix was napping and as I woke up, I woke him up. He decided to greet my waking by placing his paws on my forehead and pull out the claws. "Come on Felix, I am trying to get better not worse" I said. He got off and gave me an angry look and then stalked off. I got up and looked outside. The sun was getting close to the horizon so I guessed it was around 5 or 5:30. Then I saw a sandwich on the coffee table. Felix had decided to gnaw off some of the bread but I decided that I was too hungry to care and finished the sandwich within two bites. I tried to get up but my muscles were sore due too no use. It took around three minutes for me to get up and another three to get down the stair into the kitchen. I looked into the fridge and pulled out a loaf of bread and some cheese. As I took it to the bread and cheese to the living room and listen to some radio music. I heard the click of the front door which I was surprised was put back up so fast. I hear a laugh that was familiar and then someone saying "He was the idiot who didn't realize that we were arguing for the same thing" I turned to see Adora enter from the front door accompanied by that guy who I couldn't remember. I would have to check for any internal head injury. One thing about the darklight healing is that it heals internal problems but stuff like concussion, amnesia or other head injures aren't healed. "So what did u do after that?" she asked still laughing a bit. "I told him if he didn't want the skylight then he should have had magic duel in the place. He said that he didn't want it and wanted a dueling room and not an astronomy quarters." "And you gave it to him?" "Well I had too but if I didn't give to him he would probably duel me and I don't wanna brag but," he said and flexed one of his arms, "he probably would have lost!" "Oh so strong" Adora said batting her eyes. "oh for Sertinvous' sake" I said not being able to take the sheer mushiness of the scene. She jumped in fright and he put down his arm hastily. She looked terribly embarrassed and then suddenly became surprised and exclaimed, "You woke up! When did you wake up?" "Actually a bit before you guys started getting it on" instant blushing from both parties. I laughed. Then I winced a bit. I pulled my hoof up to my ribs. It felt around them and then found that a couple of ribs still weren't fixed yet and still cracked in several place. "Are you ok?" Adora asked coming close to me and looking where my hoof was. I smiled and said, "Don't worry about me, I'm just going to eat and sleep." "Well before that you should probably go see Emerald. She’s been worried about you and has been coming a lot to check up on you” Adora said as she inspected me some more. “Well, there is a question I have been meaning to ask. How long was I out for?” I asked. “Um. Today makes two weeks I think.” Adora said. She finally stepped back from examining me; it took me a while to actually understand what she said to which I almost fell. She then got panicked and began to ask scared, “Hey, Are you alright? Do you need something? Should I get you some water or something? Should I get you to the bed?” The other guy (still trying to remember his name) walks over and helps me up on my feet. “Sorry ‘bout that. Just took me by surprise. And Adora, I don’t need anything, except maybe a beer.” I said and tried to walk to the fridge. I was stopped by a magical rope around my neck. For some reason, I just knew that this belonged to Adora and sighed. “You just woke up from two weeks of a comatose sleep induced by surviving and explosion. And you want a cold beer?” Adora said in a voice that I could tell was trying to hide so much anger. I looked at the stallion next to me who was backing away slowly. Dick, I thought to myself. Then Adora plunged into a long rant about the effect of alcohol and why I shouldn't drink it after this and how stallions are all idiots some times. I just sat there and nodded whenever she took a breath, only half listening. I was actually thinking about the bombing of the mall. The mall was nothing important nor did it have any real back story I think. It was just a mall. The only thing that made it special was the fact that me and Adora were in it. Which then led me to believe that someone or group knew two things. One; that me and Adora were just figure heads to create peace between the two races, and two; which was if Adora or I died with that demolition, then a war could easily spark as long as just a smidgen of evidence was uncovered. I thought why someone would do this and decided to go talk to my father about it. Then I heard that Adora was finishing up her rant. "You just went off and decided to stop a building, can't you just take a break and just wait for your body to heal?" she ended. I made it look like I was thinking about it, then said in a plain simple voice, "Nope" she looked into my eyes and I gave a smirk. She saw the realization that I would at least try to take a break and she smiled. I took another bite from the bread and then stuffed a bit of cheese into my mouth with it and said walking towards the front door, “Ok fine you win. I will take a break eventually. But right now I feel like someone doesn't like us being together and I don't want to stop another building going down. Have a good time and please just stop with the strong guy stuff, it's actually sad." I directed the last of it to the guy who name I still couldn't remember. Adora walked to the door and called after me, "Don’t stay out for too long!" I nodded and summoned my darkligt and began to float above the ground. It took a couple of seconds before taking off due to my muscles still hurting a bit. It took around an hour to get to the country that we dremorias have now called home, Felderon. I flew over farmlands and villages. It was grisly at a very fast rate as we have expanded towards the mountains and we even have colonies down in the deep jungle. Let me just tell you about darklight flight. Dremorias don't fly very often. The reason for this is because people only fly for two reasons as they find it useless on other occasion. The first reason they would fly would to be traverse large expanses of space in short amounts of time. The reason for this is because, surprisingly enough, even though are culture is very loud and extravagant, we enjoy peace and quiet just as much. So walking is meant more for enjoying the time and things around you. The only reason to fly is to cross long expanses, or to get somewhere fast. It took another hour to get the castle even at my top speed. As I landed one of the guards noticed me and shouted, "It's the prince! Raise the gate!" by the time I hit the ground the gate had been raised. I smiled and said to the guard at the top, "Morning Garen, how is the family doing?" "Well enough sir." "Is Vladimir enjoying the gift?" "Very much sir, he can't stop playing with it." he smiling, which in turn made me smile. I walked inside and was greeted by a very friendly voice, "Hello master, it has been a while since you have last returned to us. Are you remembering to wash your horns once a week?" "Hey Fioria. Long time no see" "I take it that you have neglected to do so in a while" "Sharp as ever aren't you" I said laughing. Fioria was first and only maid I ever had . Yet she was a lot then just a maid, she was also a cook, teacher and a pretty well martial artist. I kind of think of her as Alfred from the BatPony comic books. She has always been here when I lived at the castle, she would take care of me when I was sick and taught me a lot before I starting going to libraries and sneaking into science laboratories (they should really get better security). She would even come over to my mother place to remind me of my duties. She also taught me political and social relations, finance control and others kingly duties. She is the only servant that speaks her mind which I really find nice because she is smart and has nice input. Not only that but she is a looker too. She has a great curves, nice slender seven tails and cute horns. I think my dad specially picked her out for me, which means that my mother wouldn't be so happy about that. "Would you like me to fetch you anything?" she asked. "Not right now, is my father open?" "I am sorry but he is a meeting with the mining chief in Halshorwn. It turns out that they believe that there is a large mixture of gold and obsidian ores and they need more funding to extract it but they don't want it to cut into the funding of other villages." "When do you think he will be done?" "It started an hour ago, and something tells me that it won't be over soon." "Well I might as well get something to...." I was saying till I just stopped and swayed menacingly off balance and stumble till I hit a wall. "Prince! Are you alright?" she yelled running to my side and helping me keep steady. I laughed a bit, "Don't worry, its ok. I just didn't have enough breakfast. And my little feet from two weeks ago is taking its toll." "What feet? Did one of your inventions blow up again?" "Luckily no but there did involve an explosion. You didn't hear about it?" "About what?" "The mall that toppled down. The one that I stopped to get everyone out." "What?" “You didn't hear about this?" "No! What happened?" she said pulling me up to my feet. "I'll tell you over breakfast. Can I get some?” So I got the kitchen and she called the cooks to make a quick and decent meal. As the food was being cooked I told her about on the day of me and Adora fake date and how someone triggered and explosion to topple the building. She looked worried and asked, "Do you wish me to fetch a healer for you?" "Nah, don't need too. I slept enough for most of my bones and muscles to heal. Has there been any talk about any talk about a group of anarchist or anything?" "No. However there are been people who believed that we shouldn't have formed an alliance with the ponies. They think that we should have fought to the death and not let the warrior got to waste." "Why do they think that? We barely made out of the last fight alive. Do you know who is started these things?" "No, they don't seem to have a leader or an organized group. They just seem to be normal dremorias who do not enjoy what we have become. They haven't been much of a problem and they didn't seem to be a threat" "Until now. I have gone through it in my mind and in killing me or Adora they could potentially start a war between the two races are." "Then they must be serious. To immediately go for the figure heads of peace…." "That or they are idiots, just trying to cause anarchy." "That is always an option. But then there would have to be another event on your lives if that it's to prove that they are after you." "That's true but I don't think I am fine waiting for someone to go and strike me down with more bombs." I laughed as did she. After another bit of time, breakfast arrived and I ate all of it without break. Fioria and I also talked about what was going on in Felderon. Eventually my father's advisor came into the kitchen; Lyronteth. I never liked him for he was always looked like he was hungry, and not the normal hungry, the kind of hungry that can't be filled with just food and happiness. I could never guess what he was thinking nor could anyone else which had given him this sort of fear through all who walk in and out daily. My father bad picked him as his advisor for reason that I can't remember. He said it was something to do with him and his interesting ideas and ability to convey a large documents worth of information with a couple of words. "Hello, Prince Hatseal. The king is now open for you" he said in a cold tone. He never likes me either yet I don't know why. He knows I don’t like him and he knows why. I got up and Fioria and I went to enter the room. In an instant Lyronteh pulled out his sword and straight in front of Fioria. In that same instant I moved front of her and placed a darklight shield around my hoof and blocked the sword. We stood like that for a few seconds, his sword against me shielded hoof. "I said that the Prince may see the king. Not her." "She come with me, got it?" we stared down each other for a while. "You were a bit slow on that, you should practice your unarmed combat more" he said sheathing his sword with a snort. I shoot him a look of contempt as he walked away. I really didn't like him. ADORA'S POV When Flame left, Brother Seethe pulled me in and said "Now where were we?" I giggled and I gave him a kiss, "Well we could do some of that or we could just relax for a while." putting a bit of a stern voice at the last part. I don't know why but when Flame watched in on us, I had lost all excitement and was replaced by embarrassment. Seethe gave me another kiss and said "Well I think that we should relax but you have time for that. I don't." "You’re leaving?" "Sorry but I have work to do that I have been putting off for some time now." "Ok then bye." I said giving him one kiss. Today was a pretty hectic day. It was pretty clustered as I have three photo shoots to be in which I had to sprint to each one. After that I had to go to several meetings and to check up on some of the stores. It was a very long day. Which was made better by meeting Seethe in the middle of the stores checks ups. I made it looked like we were just old friends and we made a time later to meet up. I had to disguise myself so I used a shape shifting spell to change some feature so that the public wouldn't recognize me. After that me and Seethe went to a restaurant and walked through the park. It was a nice walk but it was interrupted by the intrusion of a dremoria supremacy group. They were handing out flyers about what they were doing. Their plan was to cut ties off with the other race due to them being to different and violent. They ground strangely valid point; referencing dremoira culture and the war. They also said that they were already stricking back as they blamed the mall bombing on the dremoria. Oh yeah. The bombing. The media was surprisingly aware of what had happened. The head line for it was 'Anarchist or Conspirator attempt to kill the Loving Cross Couple'. Apparently they knew that building had been bombed and they had gotten the information that Lachrymite wasn't used to do it. They had also found out the Flame was the one who had saved the pedestrians who had the misfortune of being in there at the time. However, the next pages of the newspaper was criticizing the dremoria and trying to find reason why they would bomb the mall and kill their prince. It was all pointing at the dremoria as the perpetrator. It was wrong considering that it was the prince of the dremorias who had saved me and a lot of other people. I tried to ignore them but they were persistent preaching the belief that when the time is right they will strike us back and that we shall be unprepared. We had tried to forget what we had gone through but it was really hard considering that we saw what just one dremoria had the power to do; stop an entire building from collapsing down. And they are saying that we should cut ties and avoid them at all cost. It didn't seem right. Then I had a nice surprise to see Flame waking up today. He had been asleep for about a week and was somewhat frightening as he didn't get up at all for the entire week. He just lay there with barely a pulse. I had a doctor come in to check up on him and he said that he had multiple broken bones (to many to be certain) and a couple of stab wound that were healing very fast. The doctor said that any ordinary pony would have died the moment he stood up but something was keeping him alive. I had been worried about him the entire time. I would leave a sandwich by him every morning I went to work and when it came back I would always come back and through the old one out and use a cleansing spell on him to wash him as he seemed to sweat a lot. As if he was still doing some sort of exercise. It was painful to watch as he just never seemed to decide now was a good time to wake up, not only that but he would talk in Deadric (his native tongue) and sound as if he was saying my name which was very scary. He was starting giving me nightmares of him in the coffin. It wasn't the best sight to wake up in the morning. I was very happy that he woke because that would mean I get some good breakfast and I wouldn't have to take care of him every time I come in and out. Plus I would like to ask what he was saying in his sleep, with my name in it, I think I would like to know what he meant. I waited around in the house alone playing with Felix and Sandra. I played with them till around 6 and then I decided to take my shower. My shower didn't take long and he still hadn't come back yet. I was starting to worry. 'What if his injuries started acting up and he fell unconscious? What if he got tired and fell out of the sky? What would I do? Could I do anything?' Then after 10;30, I hear a thump outside. I get up and stood in front of the door and put on a look of definite angry. He opened the door and stopped as he saw me standing there. "Um, hi" he said with look of surprise and confusion. "Hello indeed" I said, 'Why did I just say that?' "Why are you up so late? Considering your work I thought you would be in bed right now." "I was waiting for your return. What took you so long?" "Me and my dad had to send a message to Princess Celestia about the bombing." "Why? Was your father annoyed at you for what you did?" "More like annoyed at the Princess as you guys apparently hadn't told him." "What! That is not possible. Why would we not tell you about you’re prince just stop mass death?" "That what we were wondering. My father is annoyed because of me being injured and not telling him and because this was a missed opportunity." "Missed opportunity?" "Yup, he said that we could have increased relation by helping with clean up and assisting the doctors" "Your dad is really focused on making the dremorias look better." "He is and for good reason. The dremorian people have basically forgotten about the war that has gone on." He had a far way look in his eye as if he was peaceful, "Unlike you guys we don't hold onto hate or angry as tightly. When war happens and either side wins we mourn for our loose and then we rebuild. Making new friend ships and try to wash away the old with the new." "Wow. Where did you guys come up with that?" "One of the wise ones had given it to us" "Wise ones?" "Old sages, Dremorian druids. Basically the ones who spend years meditating to try to relieve all of the pain of themselves and to give advice that we should follow. Think of it as trying to seek purity in their lives as well as aiding ours." "Well were getting off topic here" I said trying to grab back at reality. “Your right’ he said, “I am going to bed. I have had a long day” “You’re not going to bed without answering of mine!” I demanded. “Again with the questions. Is this going to be a normal thing?” he said going to the fridge taking out a piece of cheese. ‘I somewhat hope so’ I thought but luckily I had the force of mind not to say it, “What took you so long to come back?” “I had to wait some time before my father was available. He is a busy man being the king and all.” I thought a moment before throwing my next question, giving him time to take a bit from the cheese. I finally decided to ask something that nags at every girls mind, “Are you seeing someone behind my back?” at this he chocked and started coughing. I went to help him but he put up his hand to stop me, “Why do you ask that?” “I ask the questions. You just answer them” “That hardly seems fair” he mumbled, “No I am not seeing someone behind you. Be realistic.” He finished in somewhat of an angry realistic tone. This tone took me by surprise and he seemed to have noticed and said, “What? You really think that anyone from either one of races would look at me straight in the eye?” “But Emerald does…” I said trying to bring some good to the question. He chuckled, “Yeah well she got to know me before I throw a bolder across a room with the smallest of efforts. You have to realize that most ponies get scared the moment I walk into a room and dremoria have to bow to me to say hello and are probably disgusted by me. It isn’t easy being a half of both races because I am not either one of you, there is just me and only me. Thanks for the rays of sunshine” he finished brushing past me. His touch was surprisingly cold. “I’m not done with you!” I said trying to put my fiery anger and command in my voice, but it just wouldn’t come. He kept walking and went to the basement and said “”But I am” > Poisons, Fruits, Some Nice Time Outside and Apologizes > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- HATSEAL’S POV It’s been three days since talking to my father. It hasn’t been eventful and I haven’t been able to think of anything to create yet so I made breakfast and left some for Adora as usual. I decided to see if anything would come to mind; just play around with some of the other automatons that I had created before. It was fun. Working with the autmatons is really fun. They work on a sort of crystal memory like thing, it really hard to explain. What happens is you basically input memories magically into the crystal that act as the main power source and the integral information complier. What happens is you continue to put a continues stream of magical energy that is also intertwined with memories which then creates one strand of sequence data meaning when activating, it will do that specific memory strand. So if you imbed the memory of stacking books, the automatons will do that when commanded. So say if you made a whole lot of stranded memories then you would have told it which ones to specifically do. There are ways to get the automaton to do some of these things automatically. This is called stranding. What you do is you get the strands of sequences and then make is like to a specific event or to a specific phrase or the finishing of an event and it will do another one or repeat another. This takes a long time for you have to attach every single strand and tell each and every single one to do a specific action once it is complete, like if you want it to redo the specific action or to continue this action until certain thing is over or link it to another sequence or a the return of one of the other sequences. This takes a lot of time so imagine how long it took for me to do the centurion. I decided to screw around with one of the older prototype and see if I could create a smaller device that would allow me to transmit a message of short to medium distances with it being noticed by anyone at all except of the intended recipient. Then rang the doorbell. I figured that Adora would get it but it looked like she was still asleep as the doorbell kept ringing. I got up and decided to open see who it was. “Hello. I have package for someone named Mia Amata Figlia Adora. Is she here?” a mail pony asked. “She is here but asleep. Let me sign for the package” he gave me the passage as I signed for it. He left and plopped the package on the desk and yelled upstairs, “HEY, GET UP!” I knew she had heard me and had woken up thanks to a low groan and steps moving across the floor of the upstairs rooms. I decided to leave it at that and go back downstairs to the workshop, I had just decided that if I modeled automaton after a bug then it wouldn't be noticed and I could get to either store voice recording or a message that it would in turn write down in the air. I heard a squeal from upstairs and then though to would be Adora opening her package. I figured I wouldn't go upstairs and ask what it was because of our little talk that happened at some time ago. I felt bad about it, I had just threw most of my trouble and most of my stupid emotional stress at her expecting to feel better but I didn't. I guess I knew it wouldn't help but everyone does some stupid thing. They do what they know won't help because of the thought that it might actually help. I felt bad for what I had done, I wanted to apologize but I really did t know how. You don't just say sorry for throwing your emotional trouble on someone. I thought about for some time before I heard a loud thump, as if someone had fell. I figured that it was nothing and that I should get back to work. After a couple minutes of me screwing around with the prototype, Sandra the phoenix came flapping down and started pecking and squawking at me. I tried to shoo her away but she avoid me lazy attempt and peck me again and again. "What do you want dammit?" I finally said. Sandra began pulling my horns toward the stairs and I followed her reluctantly. She took me upstairs and I saw what she was trying to tell me about, losing all sense of reluctances or annoyance. Adora was lying on the ground, no movement what so ever. I went down to her and checked her pulse; there but it was slow and getting slower. I decided to the try something Fiora taught to immediately distinguish the group of poison. I gave her a quick, hard slap to the flank. No reaction. Usually, even if unconscious, the body will react to more damage done to it. Then I did the other test, I closed her mouth, the nose reacted but I took some time to realize a steady flow of oxygen wasn't there. I went through the list of poisons that I was told taught when I was at the castle. There were only three I could think of at the moment that would exhibit these kinds of traits. I looked at the surrounding room and saw the package was ripped open and contain what seems to be a tart. From her favorite pastry shop. I went to it took a sniff. The smell of sugar and fruits were the first thing that come up but, the there was another smell that didn't make any sense. I smelled the greasy sent of cooked bacon, and the sour fragrance of an Oran berry which I knew wouldn't be used in a tart made by ponies because they haven't established enough trades with us to make that berry wide spread. For the bacon, that was obvious, ponies are herbivores, why would they have bacon on a tart? “Though that would taste amazing.” I said under my breath. I flung her over my shoulder and went outside knowing which poisoned they used. Luckily, thanks to the attack on the mall, Shining Armor thought that it a good idea to post guards around the estate and a carriage ready outside at all time. I ran toward it screaming, "Get set now! We need to get her to a hospital state!" I got in the carriage and laid her down on the seat opposite me. A guard came in and what looked like a field doctor came into the cart. He took out some medical equipment and began inspecting the normal things; pulse, the iris check, breathing. Then he use some sort of detection or identification spell as a magic blanket involved her. He turned to the guard and said, "She been poisoned. I don't know what it is so I am going to draw blood" he took out a needle and was about to put it in. "Don't!" I said commandingly, shielding her with my darklight. As I said this, the guard that was with us pulled out a Lachcymite pistol and shoved it below my chin. "Look mate. I am under direct orders to not let you near her if any harm comes to her, and being poisoned is harm. I am also under order not to harm you but I am pretty sure the General wouldn’t mind a shoot on you once or twice. I heard you can heal pretty fast." he threatened. "We can't risk doing anything just yet. We already took a big risk moving her into the carriage. The poison is from the poison berry known as Namaria's Kiss. The more we move her them more the blood with be poisoned. How long will it take for us to reach the hospital?" "It will be about two hour" "She will be dead by then!" I yelled. I slammed my hoof into the side of the carriage. "Can't we fly her over there? It would take twenty minutes" the guard said not removing his gun from my chin. "I already said that I don't want to move her any more than I have to. The poison works like a big off switch but it moves on blood. The more active you make her body the more the blood will go the worse she will get. Flying with her will make her immune system act up against the cold activating her shivering which would move more blood like crazy." "Then is she going to die? There is nothing I have to cancel this type of poison." "The only way to cure her is to remove the blood itself. It is easy to find where the source is as it will usually turn black." "I could check now where it is" the doctor said preparing to move her body. "Don't do that just yet. We have to get stabilized by giving her a certain fruit that stops the blood flow through the body." "What is it? I can have one of the men find some" the guard asked. "Nakatar fruit and also get some Duranga fruit, it's more common name is Blood fruit" untold him. He nodded and then opened the carriage door and yelled at the other guard who was flying with the carriage. He pulled his head back it as I was beginning to think of a way to slow down the process. I knew that my darklight wouldn't heal the poison or remove it, but I knew that I could slow down her blood to an almost stand still, I just wondered how long I could keep it up. Healing flesh wounds are generally easy. Broken bones are hard but bearable. Now healing the body from poisons is a lot hard because it requires focus and energy. Put too much darklight into it and the blood might boil. Too little, the virus or poison will be empowered. I went to place my hooves on Adora but the guard pulled his gun out again. "I am not allowed to let you near her." he said "Sorry, shot me if you must but I have to try to slow down the poison spreading, she is important....." I didn't finish what I was about to say since I really didn't know what was coming out. He put his gun back and I placed my hooves on her and began to summon the darklight. It took some time but I manage to get the perfect power stream of darklight to almost stop her blood flow. I knew that this was terribly draining for I could feel my body weakening; my back hooves were already becoming numb. It was also evident that Adora condition wasn't worsening either as her breathing remained steady for as long as my power was coursing through her. I don't know how long I stood there, pouring power I to her but I know that it was a long time, I couldn't waste my thought on anything else unless I wanted her condition to worsen. All I know is that it felt what seemed like years until I felt the guard's hoof on my shoulder said, "You can stop now we are at the hospital" "Thank you. Please save her. Give her the Nakatar fruit, this will stop the poison's spread, after a bit of time it will be visible which is when you use needles to extract it." he nodded and followed the stretcher that help Adora limp form. I smiled then passed out, falling out of the carriage and landing somewhere on the gravel. I woke up suddenly on a hospital bed with an some medical things attached to me. It took me a while to remember why I was in the hospital. Then it struck me with the force of a ranging hydra. 'Adora!' I thought and threw myself out of bed. However on the way down to the floor, I felt the terrible sense of dizziness and was unable to keep myself from falling over without latching on to the bed next to me. "I need to eat." I said out loud, 'But I need to check if she is alright first' my more caring side of me said. I tried to summon some darklight to see if I could fly there but there wasn't even enough for me to lift my own two tails. So I sucked on my pain and fatigue and started to walk out of the room. Exiting the room I was in, someone stopped me and said "Excuse me sir but, you need to lay down." "Can't. Need to check on her." I said hoarsely. The mare who I could now tell was a nurse looked over at some other doctor. The doctor came over and greeted himself "Hello my name is Cleans Song, I am sorry but I need you to please lie down. You conditions is-" "Not as bad as hers" I interrupted as I tried to move past the two ponies. They tried to hold their ground but it didn't work as I was managing to slide them forward. "Please sir, you can check on her after you have been checked up on" the doctor said. I didn't listen; I got to a desk till I realized that I didn't know where she was. I looked down at the nurse and doctor and asked, "Do you know where I can find Mia Amitia Figalia Adora?" The doctor look at the nurse, he thought for a second, then said, "Just wait here for a second. I'm go find out." The doctor back away slowly waiting to see if I would leave. He then turned and went around a corner, I stood there for a second before I grabbed the wall as I felt my body want to fall down and rest. 'Shut up!' I thought, 'Just wait till we have checked up on her. That all we have to do'. My body gave me another fit of dizziness before stopping. The doctor came back with a plate of food and drink and said, "Please eat this first." he gave me the plate, and the drink. I took the drink chugged it down with even tasting it. Then I took the plate and bent into a u shape and slide all of the food into my mouth, chewed once, and swallowed. "Now where is she?" I said, dropping the plate on the floor. "She is upstairs on the third floor in room 329" he said. I nodes and forced my aching and tired body to the stairs. When I got there instead of climbing them I bounced over most of them. I used my darklight flight to just throw myself just high enough for me to land on the other level. I did this till I reached the third floor. I then walk as hard as I could to the room where she was in. The room was at the end of a long hallway and I stormed to it. As I got to the room I look at the monitors there to check her vitals, which showed that they were fine and steady. A doctor came into the room and asked "Excuse me are you alright?" "Never mind that. Is she alright?" "Yes. We have removed the poison and she is just in an unconscious state for lack of blood. Are you alri-" he was about to ask again but then some on shouted from across the hallway. "Dremorian!" the voice screamed in rage. I knew who it was but I didn't really turn to see him. My body had done its task and knew it, I smiled in relief to know that she was ok and I fell sideways, passing out on the way down. This time however, I didn't wake up on a nice bed, or from my own volition. I was awoken by a swift punch to my gut and then another straight to the face. I don't think I was out for that long because it sound like the doctor that I was talking to was trying to persuade Shining Armor to stop pummeling me. It knew it wasn't going to work, he sound pretty mad. I felt another punch to the ribs and then felt as if I was flying for a second then slammed hard to the ground. I guessed that he just performed an over the shoulder throw. He pulled me back up for another one before I heard some else voice to tell him to stop. I heard it cut through the doctors’ persistence and Shining's ragging breath and whatever he was saying. I knew the voice well. "Hey. Mom." I crooked. I felt myself be thrown to the floor again, and then felt my mother hooves on me. Sound started to become clearer now as most of my body had been unconscious. "Oh, honey are you alright?" my mother earnest voice said. "You say 'yes' and I won’t make it so." I heard Shining Armor say from behind me. "Dear please, stop that. We are here for Adora remember" "And I can make so that you won't be able to see, so please Mr Armor refrain from injuring any more patients" my mother said putting a tremendous amount of authority in her voice. I smiled and said "Well I am in pain, most of my muscles are numb and I feel like a train hit me. So all in all I feel pretty fine." I felt a kick from behind me. I chuckle in pain as my mother gave Shining a glare as he replied "He was asking for it." I manage to get up and I nodded at Shining who came up close to me as asked in a very threatening voice, "What in Celestia name did you do to her?" I looked at him with a straight face, the I realize that he actually beloved that I poisoned her which made me laugh, "Do you actually think that I would do that?" "Give me a reason why you wouldn't, you damn piece of mule turd" he said even fiercer the before. "Wow, and here I thought you had some sense to you." I said still giving him that dumbass smile. He gave me a punch to the ribs. "Tell me your mistake" he said. I sighed and looked at Adora who was still unconscious. I turned to the crazy father and said "How about a reason why I wouldn't poison her? 1; what good would come out if this. 2; I don't kill without reason, and trust me; your daughter hasn’t given any. 3; I don't feel like causing another war. Is that enough for you? For crying out loud, I helped save your daughter." yelling the last part. "That's a lie!" "No sir. Its not." said another familiar voice. We all turn to see the guard that was with me and the doctor when we were on the here. He turned to the Shining and said "Sir, without this dremoira's help the princess probably wouldn't have made it here much less been cured." "Tell me what happened" Shining demanded, and so the soldier did. He told him about the poison and how I was one who told them what to get and how to treat it. He also told him how I managed to slow the poison down using what he called, black flames. The guard turned to me and said "I am sorry for doubting you" and bowed. I was a bit surprised but managed to say, "Thank you" "I still don't believe it. Why would you know about the poison when my medical soldiers don't know about it?" "It because it's a dremorian poison berry. We had brought it over by accident and I guess some people in the dremorian country are selling this as a poison." "Or it was used by the dremorias themselves." "That is true. There have been small groups of dremorias that have openly expressed their hate for the truce that we have created. But I don't think that this is possible since it was a poisoned tart that came from a fairly popular pastry shop and I don't think they would have taken an order from a dremoria much less let one into their kitchen." "Why would a pony want to hurt their own kind, much less a princess?" "Well I don't think it's just the dremoria that are angry about the war. And there could be a whole slew of other possibilities" I said feeling an onslaught of dizziness and black stars in my vision. I fell on to the wall, trying to keep steady. I knew that I wasn't going to up for much longer so I tried to finish the conversation, "look, I would really love to continue this conversation but I feel myself slumping away. Please, if you want to discuss more about this, please send me a clear date. Good night" I finished, walking into the room where Adora was being held and falling asleep on a chair. ADORA'S POV I don't really remember much of what happened, I remember eating something good but then not feeling anything and just passing out. It wasn't a very nice prospect, getting a favorite treat of yours that is poisoned. Really depressing because you really want to but you know it’s going to kill. Of course I didn't realize that the tart was poisoned till it was too late. I had believed that it was apology gift from Flame. I knew he wanted to apologize. He just didn't seem right; he almost burnt the breakfast twice and whenever I looked at him I would see him turning away to look at something else. Thanks to my mother’s ability to spread love; I grew the ability to apologize and get people to do it, mother also taught me to not do it a lot because it forces people to do it which is wrong. She taught me to help them by advising them on it, but Flame isn't the person who asks for help when he knows he can do it himself. He doesn't ask for advice nor does he ask for directions, I was taught this by Emerald. He never liked to accept help; even it was given to him on a silver platter with no consequences. I figured the tart was his apology. How wrong was I…… I woke up very slowly as my mind began working way before my body was even starting to wake up. My eyes were finally opening but the rest of my body was just waking up. I saw a doctor walk into the room and check on someone that I couldn't see. Then he turn and check the monitors that as strapped up to me. Finally my body wakes and I get up, stretching my body all the way. "Oh, your awake." the doctor said. She was a pretty, maybe mid-forties or older. It was surprising but it felt like I knew her, like you know those nice old ladies. Then I decided to ask what had happened when I was asleep, "Excuse but-" "What happened?" she cut off, "you were poisoned. Namarias Kiss. It is a dremorian poison fruit, it slowly shuts down the blood flow within your body and slowly begins to stop your organs from working. Quit potent as a poison." "How did I-" "Survive?" she cut off again, "You were very lucky. If my sons hadn't stopped your body blood for you, you would have slowly perished." "Your son?" I asked. "I believe you know who it is." She said somewhat surprising me, "He has been in this room since you were admitted here." I turn to see Flame's sleeping figure, slumped over the arm of one of the chairs. "He has been sleeping there for three days will you were recovering." she said. "I have been asleep for three days?!" I asked somewhat incredulously. She nodded, and then came over and handed me a cup of a yellow fluid that flowed more like syrup than water. I took a drink and was surprised at the taste as it had a very docile sweetness. I drank the rest down slowly as my body was still in a stage of recuperation. "What kind of medicine is this?" "It's not medicine. It's fruit nectar." "Nectar?" "Yup. It’s a dremorian fruit that has a specific amount and combinations of proteins that make cell reproduce at an accelerate rate. It is needed for you to drink since we had to remove around 2 and a half pints of blood from your body." "Why did you remove that much?" I asked somewhat worried. She took the cup once I had finished and refilled it while giving me some bread. While I was eating she gave me a small check up on my eyes and ears saying, "The blood was poisoned, the poison was stopped but the actual blood is still tainted so removing it is the only way to save you or else you would have to have to be attached to some sort of machine. It was either that or drain your blood. We thought this would be more efficient." she said. Then she walked over to Flame who was still asleep. "He cares for you." she said not looking at me. I finished me bread and said, "Maybe, but I don’t think so." "He does. You may not know it but he does." "Well how do you know?" "He did use the rest of his energy to stop the poison." she said giving me another piece of bread. I turned to him and said "He could just want to keep me alive for the peace." "True but then he wouldn’t have given you all of his energy for a straight two hours and wake up just too pass out after knowing your fine." she said with a wry grin, "You are another one of his cherished friends. He would let you go easily." she said. She walked over and gave Flame a kiss on the for head and whispered into his ear, "Wake up dear." his ears twitched and he began to wake up, she turned to me and said "Don't hurt him please, I think he has had enough pain to last life time" the she left the doom. I watched till she had escaped my sight. I then turned to Flame who was still somewhat asleep but only barely waking. I waited till he snorted and just decided to fall back asleep; I laughed throwing a pillow at him. Instantly he got up and caught it. Then realizing that he had done and seeing me awake asked "You better?" "I think so." I said. He smiled and then said, "Keep drinking the Blood fruit. It will help" and try to get up. It was meant with problems as he swayed like dangerously like very you g tree in the middle of a hurricane. "I think you might need some too" I said handing him the cup. He pushed it back saying "No. I don't need the blood as much as you do. I just need some food." "You can just call the other doctors to bring you some can't you?" "I am not a patient here unlike you." "Do you think I want to be a patient?" "Do you think I or them really care" he said smirking. I smiled back with more hidden anger behind it. He could be so infuriating some times. He managed to get up and offered me a hoof, asked "Need anything?" "Not really. Just a more secure escort" "ha-ha, very funny. Your colt friend came by yesterday." immediately I perked up. As he helped me up I asked, "What did he do? Or did he say anything?" at this he turns away and opened the door saying, "I can't really remember but he asked what happened and when you were gonna wake up. Then I think he kissed you. I don't really remember" I thought to it and it didn't really faze me now but I looked up at him and asked, "Hey, what is this fruit nectar? And where can I get some fruit?" "The fruit your drinking is called Blood fruit" "Why is it called that?" hoping that it wasn't for the obvious reason. "Well the story behind the name is pretty long. It boils down to a dremoria wanting to save his daughter from a poison procedure that didn't go to well. This was back before we could control the darklight well and poison removal was the old remove the blood trick. So he wanted to save his daughter from loss of blood as her bleeding had stopped but her blood was too little for her to live. So he prayed to the lord of healing, Trodenfuko, to give him something that would help her. The deity told him to make a large cut on his arm and let it bleed out onto the ground. He did so and then where his blood landed, grew a sprout and when his blood landing on an already birthed sprout it would grow. That’s where the story of the Blood fruit comes from." "Well that an interesting story. I didn't expect it to be so...." "Caring?" he said as we walked down the corridor. I looked at him who didn't seem to have any facial changes to suggest that he thought anything and said "No" but I meant 'yes'. Then I had a bright idea, "Hey where can I get some more?" he looked at me like I was crazy. He shook his head saying, "You actually want more or are you just knotting my tails?" "Knotting your tails?" I asked, trying to relate it to a pony saying. "I think it's 'pulling your leg'" he informed. "Oh, well actually, I really liked it. I want to try other fruits!" I said excitedly. He looked at me and shook his head smiling. As we got outside be asked, "Well I know a place but it's not on any main road. You still wanna go?" "How far is it?" "I would say a one or two hours fly if you can go around 25 mph." he said making the calculations in his head. I smiled, and spread my wings. He looked somewhat awed and I jumped into the air, I climbed for a hundred feet and said, "Well it has been a while since I have spread my wings. Dare to escort me?" he smiled and managed to jumped up into the air with me and replied "Yes milady." and he began to fly at a fast speed in north eastern direction. It had been a while since I had last spread my wings. I think the last time I did was sometime before the wedding. I didn't think I would ever fly again but it turns out I was wrong. It wasn't that long and we did pass over some really nice scenery. The closer we got to the dremoria farmlands the easier it was to tell as their farms seem to have more of free flow planting style to them. After another half hour Flame pointed down and began his decent and we landed in front of an old house with a large plantation that looks more like a forest. Flame looked at me and asked, "How was your flight?" "It was nice. I hadn't flown like that in a while" I replied with exuberance. He smiled and knocked on the door a couple of times. We waited for a bit an old somewhat angry voice called, "I'm coming. I'm coming" the door opened and a bitter looking old dremoria woman came out to the door way. She blinked a few times and looked at us. "Good day Esmeralda. How have you been?" "Oh Hatseal. You haven't been here in a while. What kept yah? You usually come here every two weeks. You been asleep for a month or so eh?" "No. I am sorry. I was actually getting married so I figure she wouldn't enjoy me bringing in some new fruits that she wouldn't like." "So what brings you now? Huh?" "Well it turns out that she would like to try some of the fruits." "Hm. Where is this wife of yours?" she asked rather harshly which made me dubious of presenting myself. Flame turned to me and smiled which somehow comforted me. I stepped onto the porch of the house and fretted myself, "Hello, my name is Mia Amata Figilia Adora, the betrothed of Hatseal." the old dremoria looked at me with very scrutinizing eyes. She walked around me a couple of time as if to judge my worth. Then she spoke to Flame, still examining me, "Huh! Not out of our own free will eh?" I was taken aback. I thought for a moment that she was insulting me. Flame laughed and replied, "Why yes. It's wasn’t my intention but it's for the people" "I thought so!" she said, "You would never marry a women who's good for yah out of your own free will." Flame was taken a back and stuttered out a "Ex-e-excuse me?!" "You heard me! You too stubborn for your own good. She’ll do you some good! And teach yah some good lesson while you’re still liven" she turned to me and said, "This boy may look like a genius and he smart in some but as dumb as brick in everything else" I laughed and smiled at me like a triumphant dog, "Teach the other stuff to him will yah? He's a rip old idiot he is." I burst out into more laughter as I saw Flame just smile and shake his head. Esmeralda began to float and hovered off the porch and started towards the garden. "Well!? You two coming or what, I think most of them fruits are rip." "How do you know her? She seems so...” "Literal. Straight forward. True. Outspoken." "Senile" we both managed to say at the same time. I was a little embarrassed but he smiled and began to walk to the garden. I followed and he explained, "I had decided to run away from once just to see more of the kingdom because back then, my father did feel it was right to exclaim to the dremorian world that their prince was a half breed. I flew for three hour till I felt my stomach call me for lunch and I landed in front of her house as she was making some soup. She let me have some without questioning me at all. But she did scold me a lot for doing things she didn't think was right or was straight out rude. Ever since then, I come here every once and I while to unwind and to get some more fruits. She never stops scolding me though." "Why?" "I don’t know but the reason she scold me always changes. It always changes; you’re too tall, you’re not eating enough, your trying to solve some else problem again, you need to drink less beer. Stuff like that. I think she'll start complaining about not bringing a guest here before." I looked at him a bit stunned asking, "No one? Not even Emerald?" "Especially her." "Why not? I figured since she is your friend for such a long time...” "It because she has been my friend for so long. I have to keep this place my own little hide out. You know how she is, talking a lot letting one thing just slip. It’s part of the job of a bartender to do that but she can't always keep it off." I thought about what he said but then asked, "Why me then? What if I blab about this hide out of yours?" "You wouldn't" he said flatly, "Not unless it was some sort of life or death situation" I looked at him disgruntled. "How do you know I won't?" "Because you are a trust worthy person who is good at keeping secrets." he said. I stopped and just watched him go, wondering how could he put his trust in me. I was known to be a very trust worthy person and was trustful towards many other but I never mentioned this in any of my talks with him. He was somewhat of a mysterious person when it came to knowing things. He turned and asked "You coming?" I smiled and trotted faster to catch up. "Well you two took your time now did ya'" Esmeralda said, "Come one I don’t have all day." she turned opening the gate to what she called a garden. What it really was is a giant forest as the trees were growing in every direction and vines grew up everywhere. As we entered the forest the light suddenly dimmed do to the denseness of the trees leaves. Esmeralda went up to one of the tree and picked three purple spiky fruits from it. She threw the other two to me and Flame and bit into hers, "Hmph. It's ripping pretty well" she said. I was somewhat dubious about eating something that was looked sturdy enough to throw at someone; I looked over at Flame who managed to eat his in one whole bit. "Go on!" Esmeralda said, "The Colbur Fruit doesn't hurt," I looked at her then back at the fruit and took a tentative bite. The mixture of flavors was interstate and new to say the least. The mixture was juicy and had a docile sweet to it that didn't make it too powerful. I unknowingly, moaned in delight and then realized what I had just done, blushed profusely. Flame laughed and said, "Well she enjoyed that, wanna take some home?" I nodded and he hit the tree with one hoof as it shook and many of the fruit that were rip just feel from the one strike. Instinctively I summoned my magic and managed to catch them all before any of them hit the ground. Esmeralda hovered over to Flame and hit a top the head with the cane she had carried, "You idiot! I told you to warm me before you go doing thing like that!" I laughed as did Flame. The rest of the time we spent there was going along through her 'garden' and trying new fruit. At the end of the day, Flame was carrion three ten different crates, each one holding a different fruit or berry. We had Colbur, Bulk, Sitrus, Chople, Enigma, Ganlon, Leppa, Lansat, Occa, Shuca and Ringo fruits. "Come again, ya hear?" Esmeralda said in an angry tone. "Ok, ok. I'll come back. I don't know when but I'll be back." Flame said with a smile. He turned to me and questioned, "Ready to go? Or do you wanna stay here for a bit?" I thought about it but then I yawned, which prompted me to think of the time. I looked at the sky which was becoming an orange purple, I looked at Flame and said, "No, I think that I have to go back to work tomorrow so I can't spend all day here. I am sorry Esmeralda but I can't stay any longer." "Well alright, you better come back too, got it?!" "I will don't worry" I replied chuckling a bit. She came closer to me and pulled me in, throwing her arm over my shoulders and said in a lower tone, "And remembers what I told. This kid is an idiot. You teach em what he don’t know ri?" I nodded and she smiled, "He is too smart for his own good and would never do anything to be happy so teach him that now would ya?" This statement didn't really make much sense to me I decided to think upon it later. When I looked at Flame he didn't seem unhappy but more unfulfilled, like there was something just always missing, when he seemed happy it was still there just hiding behind his feeling of temporary happiness. I decided not to go into more because then it takes time and will slow me down during our flight home. I looked at Flame who was hovering a bit above the ground, he looked at me and our eyes meet. There it is I thought, The emptiness of something. He motion for me to hurry up and I spread my wings and began to fly up to him, just as I got close enough to touch him, he moved up higher. I climbed to reach him as if playing a game. After another few try at this he stopped and let me get close enough to fly right next to him on the same level. "Look" he said, pointing with one of his tails. I turned to see what he was pointed at. The sun was setting, but it wasn't a normal sunset. The normal sunset was there with the orange hues mixed with the signs or the purples hues mixing in with the other hues. Though what the deciding factor on what made this one different was the garden/forest fruits and vines were giving of reflections. It was amazing. It was as if the sun was setting on an ocean bed that managed to have it's before sun set. It was beautiful. "Wow," I said without actually realizing it. "Yup. One of the reason why I came here." "The other for relaxing?" I asked. "And for the best homemade alcohol in Equestria." he said triumphantly. I turned to see him un-quark a bottle and take a swig of it. I shook my head, "Isn't a bad idea to get drinking while flying?" I asked. "True but I haven't had one of these in two years, she only makes them once a year so I got the first batch." he said, he turned away from the beautiful sunset and called, "Let's go before it gets dark ok?" I nodded and he escorted me all the way back to the Mansion Diablo. When we landed he use his tail to open the door and let me in first, all gentle man like, which wasn't like him at that me giggle a bit. Once he dropped the crates in the kitchen and we put all the fruit into an organized pile in the pantry, I felt extremely tired. This was natural as I had just come out of a poison endured coma, but I also felt energetic in an emotional sense. I don't really know what I meant by that but I felt like I could tell someone the meaning of love, which I know I couldn't. That's my mom’s territory but I felt like I could. I decided to go take a shower since it was getting late and due to the fall weather, I felt it necessary to begin to think up my new fashion line. As I headed to go upstairs I felt an ominous feeling appear before me and knew that Flame had set his shield up. I turned back to him as he was taking another swig of Esmeralda's brew. He either didn't seem to notice what he had just done or was pretending to do so. I coughed a bit and he turned a bit surprised and made a questioning face. "The shield, lower it" I said in a calm yet demanding voice like that one you would use for a small infant that would obediently do anything asked of it. He looked puzzled and then looked around the room as if looking for someone. Then he realized what he had done and then his face grew red, which is almost impossible to see as his coat was as blacker than night. I felt the ominous feeling pass and I turned again to leave but was stopped when he broke the silence by calling, "Adora?" I turned again to see him looking down at the ground. He took a deep breath and said, bringing his head up to look at me in the eyes, "I'm sorry" he paused for a moment and then continued slower as if getting the right words, "I'm sorry for unloading my feelings on you the other day. I didn't mean to do it but I wasn't have a nice day l entirely and I was a bit cranky for waking up a bit early and I guess the long day made me forget my sense of judgment and other crap." he stopped again, took another breath of uncertainty, and continued, "I know you were trying to help. And it is my fault for not accepting it. Again I am sorry. So....." he didn't finish and let the silence hang in the air. I don't think he really intending for the silence but he couldn't think of anything just yet so I smiled and said, "Well, I accept your apology, and I am sorry for trying to force you to open up to me and I am sorry about that." "So were back to being dorm-mates?" he said taking another swig of the drink. "Why stay roommates?" I asked, "Why can't we be friends?" I came close and gave him a hug. He didn't respond right away but after a second or two he brought up his arms and returned the hug. We stood there for some time before he let go. He let his arms drop and he smiled a bit, then my body just moved on it's on as I was supposed to do this. I got close and gave him a kiss. He didn't expect it and so was somewhat surprised it happened. He didn't recoil but he didn't move forward either. He didn’t try anything funny to which I was thankful for. We released each other after about the same amount of time when we hugged. I fled the room quickly yet I turned to look at Flame, he had a look of incredulity yet a relaxed one as well. He turned to me and just gave me a curt nod which was cryptic as it could be.