//------------------------------// // Ch.5 Getting to Know Your Hero (interlude) // Story: Hero's Never Die, They Just Get Older // by Hidemain //------------------------------// “Sooo this… is a train” Sereda emphasized waving her hand towards one of the strangest machines she’s ever seen. “Yeap that’s it!” Twilight with glee. “Is it supposed to look like that?” Twilight looked at the train then back to Sereda “Yeeees. Why? What’d you think it looked like.” “I don’t really know, it’s just it kinda hurts to look at. Though I don’t know why.” The train was pink with hearts running along it the whole thing was generally brightly colored. “Let’s just get a move on.” Twilight, Sereda and the two guards found their seats on the second car. Many of the passengers gave them a wide birth as they weren’t used to Sereda’s presence. The swords and armed guards weren’t helping either. Heavy helped the sleepy bat pony into her seat where she promptly curled up and went to sleep. Heavy just raised an eyebrow at the pony before taking his seat next to her, Twilight and Sereda sat across. They were supposed to be on the train for a hour and Twilight decided it was the best time to start her research. Twilight turned to Sereda and summoned her note book and quill. “So since we have some time before we reach Ponyville, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind telling me about your world?” Sereda looked at the oddly energetic pony and raised an eye brow. “Sure, I suppose. What do you wanna know?” “EVERYTHING!” Twilight pushed muzzle practically in Sereda’s face. The paragon calmly pushed the excited pony back into her seat. “Well I don’t know everything but I’ll tell you what I can.” Sereda leaned and looked at the ceiling as train started to move. “Hmmm where to begin. Well I suppose I can start with my world in general. The planet’s name is Earth. It’s home to many sentient species much like your world. The majority and those who hold the most political powers worldwide are humans, elves, dwarves and qunari. There are other sentient beings but I can talk about those later. Anyway our races are similar to you ponies in that we all have similar base structure but key differences point us out right away. “We dwarves are characterized by our short stature, and beards if their male. However, the biggest difference of all is that all dwarves have a large resistance to magic. This resistance has lead us to becoming the best at rune crafting and an inability to dream. There are ways to diminish this resistance which I will go over later. We dwarves are a tenacious and hardy sort. No matter what we are doing we always put our all into it no matter what. From selling wares to crafting armor we put absolutely everything into it, to do less just isn’t in a dwarf. It often leads to us being prideful and stubborn.” Twilight stared at the dwarf in horror. “You sound like a race of Applejacks and Rainbow dashs.” Sereda raised an eyebrow. “Who?” Twilight shook her head. “Their friends never mind please continue.” “Anyway, next we have the Elves. You can spot an elf by their lean bodies and pointy ears. They are taller than us dwarves but shorter than humans and the qunari. Out of all the races they are the most spiritually gifted leading many of them to become mages.” “Oh so they can do magic!” Twilight shouted ecstatically. “Well yea them as well as the humans and qunari. Really the only ones incapable of being mages all together are us dwarves. Anyway elves are highly attuned to nature making them experts in spirit and as Wynne once categorized it as unconventional magics. They are often either skittish or untrusting of others. Not unreasonable given their history.” Twilight hummed a bit. “Fluttershy might like them if they as in touch with nature as you say.” “Then there are the humans, best I can say is their taller than us dwarves and the elves. From what I experienced and from what Wynne told me humans are like a blank slate in personality, magic and ability. There is no general rule with humans they will keep you guessing no matter what.” Twilight shivered, “They remind me of Pinkie.” “As for the qunari, they are the tallest and physically strongest of the races and their mages have special sort of “force” magic. And as for recognizing them imagine me being seven feet tall with bull horns coming out of my head. You can’t miss them even if you tried. As for personality traits good luck finding them, I didn’t even think they actually had personalities until ran into the inquisition. But I’d hardly categorize anyone in that group as normal.” Twilight had continued to write furiously in her little note book. “Well that covers our general races now let’s get into the fun stuff. Now I won’t be able to tell you the details of the other races but I can tell you a great deal about us dwarves so I’ll be starting there again. Although I think that will have to wait till next time.” Sereda motioned toward the window where they could see the small town of Ponyville coming in close. The sound of the cabin door opening drew their attention. A pony wearing a loosely fitted grey suit entered the car and black cap entered and started checking the passengers for tickets. Once the ticket pony came to their seats he looked curiously at the fully armored dwarf before falling back into professional stoicism. The pony checked their tickets and informed them to gather their belongings and that they would be reaching the Ponyville train station in roughly ten minutes. The train made a loud screeching sound as it pulled in to the station. Twilight had to help wake Sharp as she seemed insistent on sleeping even though she was on a mission. Stepping out on the platform the group was met with ponies either rushing to get on or off. Once they left the train station Twilight waved a hoof over in the direction of Ponyville. “Welcome to Ponyville! Friendliest town in Equestria!” Sereda could see the plain it laid in and the multiple strange houses. The village rested at the edge of a dreary forest that reminded Sereda of the Bracillian forest back in Ferelden. Twilight then took the lead taking them into Ponyville proper.