Several screams and chase scenes later Maire and I were solemnly walking down the dirt road of Ponyville making our way to the train station. My hair was a mess from her pulling at it with her magic while she had attempted to whip my arse. The chest was one thing, I had the chest fur to provide cushioning against the attacks but my arse was a definite no no zone. I was given a new pair of black pants that Rarity assured me in her note were water, dust, and food proof. Though a little longer than I would have liked the extra height I gained from the fabulous boots she had crafted kept the bottoms of the legs from touching the ground. The final piece she had made was by far the strangest. I'm the kind of guy that likes flannel and button ups, most of the time over another shirt or open faced if I was after the ladies attention. Rarity in her infinite wisdom had opted to make me a solid navy blue button up shirt that was enchanted to automatically and perfectly fold the sleeves up when I wished it. To finish my new look, which I wasn't sure if I despised or not, was a simple tie that was black as my new pants.
I hate ties.
Maire on the other hand looked worse for wear than me. Her mane was a mess and a small bruise shown through her fur on her flank were I had slapped her as hard as I could to stop her from hurting the twins. She had told me a million times I didn't need to wear her hoodie when she dried it off but after some choice words and a chase around the library I had succeeded in convincing her to let me wear it over the new set of garb. Not because I wanted her to feel good about it mind you, it was just that being so posh when inside I was a cussing, drinking, flirting, home wrecking bastard made me feel like I was lying. At least wearing the hoodie made me feel a bit like my true self.
"If you ever, ever try to bite my ear again Killian I swear to Celestia I will find a way to make your remaining days among the living worse than any torture they can put you through in Tartarus." She hissed as her right ear flicked back and forth in the breeze.
Awe yes, pony hell. Religion how I missed you!
"I told you it was spur of the moment! You can't really expect to have a chase and expect a guy to not be a little feral."
She rolled her magnificent eyes and hoofed my leg.
"Ponies have flat teeth, you have sharp ones. I'm surprised you didn't take off my ear."
I laughed heartily drawing stares from the ponies around us doing their business. Growing a daring smile and seeing them staring a mischievous plan was put into motion in my twisted pea brain. Turning around I threw my hands into the air and waved my fingers about before pointing at the loveliest couple I could find. The purple stallion and his cherry red partner widened their stare and jumped as I lunged at them
"Beidh mé ag ithe do císte agus urghabháil do adharc!" [I will eat your cake and seize your horn!] I yelled as I gnashed my teeth together and swung my head like a mad dog with rabies.
I never got to see them run, one moment they were there and the next a dust cloud replaced every pony around us. Naturally Maire had her face in her hoof as she let loose a string of expletives that made me blush.
"Do you have to alienate yourself from every creature you meet?"
I put my hands behind my head and looked down at her with a soft smile.
"What can I say Maire? I"m an outcast here ya know? Besides," I groaned as I walked past her, "It let me meet you right?"
I wish I hadn't kept walking because right behind me was the reddest mare in all of Equestria and on her face was a smile so wide and shy a death lord tyrant would have said "aaaaw."
"You coming?" I yelled behind me.
Sure enough the sound of beating hooves came from behind and the unicorn too her place back at my side.
"Ok, maybe that was a little funny."
I smiled, it was all I needed to hear.
"Killian! Maire!" Came the resounding cry of the one pony I didn't want to see.
True enough a purple flash of light set fire to my corneas as I let out yet another scream. I had singlehandedly screamed more in three days here than in my entire life at home.
Go figure because it's Hell.
"Dornan damn it Twilight! Do you have to blind me every feckin time you pop your sorry ass into existence?"
The purple alicorn smiled sheepishly and wrapped a hoof around Maire and I with an excited gasp. The look on her face may have appeared innocent but in my mind I knew for a fact that it was bad news.
"You won't believe what Princess Celestia has done for you guys!"
Pimped out a BDSM club I imagine with the way she looks at me.
Maire was far kinder than me and looked at Twilight with genuine interest. I wondered if maybe treating the tiny demon with kindness was the way to stop her from trying to kill me.
"Alright I'll bite. What did Sun Butt do for us?"
Twilight could defnitely not contain her excitement.
"She found and enlisted Bishop to join you guys on your trip to Saddle Arabia! I've only ever heard stories of him from the archives and I'm just.so.excited! He's a legend!" She screamed jubilantly.
What the feck is a Bishop? Don't tell me they were sending some priest to join us.
I was confused and was about to open my mouth when I looked to Maire who looked like she had just eaten a jar of pickled potatoes and drank a fourth of Guinness as a chaser. That is to say she looked downright sick for someone that wasn't from the true homeland.
"Um Twilight? Who the feck is Bishop?" I finally asked knowing I'd never get a reply from her without asking.
Her eyes inflated to impossible levels as did her smile.
"He's only one of the elite of the elite! I heard he went to Yakyakistan before they extended a treaty of friendship and singlehandedly took on an entire troop of their finest warriors! He was at the Hydra Invasion of Lily Marsh and took down a den mother hydra! He's a legend, a pure legend!"
Then why does Maire look so worried?
"That's all well in good Twilight but I'm not sure why your princess is sending Rambo with us in that case."
Twilight blinked and raised a hoof before scrunching her muzzle.
"Human person."
Twilight insisted in giving me the entire history of the guy meeting us but to be honest I could care less. Her voice droned into nothingness as my eyes kept going back to my silent... friend? I was considering Maire as a friend. She was different from the other ponies. Where most of the ponies I met were made of neon paint and baby vomit Maire had some substance to her, especially in her fla-
ABANDON THAT THOUGHT SOUTH WING!
Anyways, Maire had a lot of qualities that just made her seem more human to me. She was a flare, an angry and destructive force that didn't baby anyone and everything around her. She didn't give a flying feck in any sense of the word and that was... Incredibly appealing to me.
"So that's how you'll want to introduce yourself gotta go bye!" Twilight yelled as she shoved me through an open door that I wasn't expecting. I nearly tripped into what looked like a small cafe near the train station. The light and the decor suggested a middle class place but without sweet sweet booze it looked more like a doctors office to me.
"Maire? I was kind of dozing so I gotta know... What the hell are we doing here?" I asked as I looked down at her pale face.
"You're here to meet me." Came a voice with a growl that reminded me heavily of my old man.
The sound made me physically sick and judging from the quivering mare at my side it yielded the same effect on her. I suddenly realized there wasn't a single damned sound resounding in the shop. Nobody was around except the voice that was coming from a person I was having a hard time bringing myself to look at.
"Bishop." Came Maires' wavering whisper.
I finally turned to see who she was looking at and found my mouth beginning to fall open. Seated at one of the empty tables in front of me was a cloaked figure menacingly angled at us. Whatever the thing was it stood taller than me when it got to it's feet. The heavy sound of hooves striking the floor made my heart thump louder and louder as the bizarre shape approached. The fact that it had the four legs and build of a large pony was normal enough after all of this time but the additional three to four feet of hooded body was what caused me alarm. Finally it stood before me, the top of the hidden face meeting my own as one menacing horn protruded from a golden loop on the hood.
"Y-you're a..." I began as Maire placed a hoof on my hip.
"A centaur." She completed as a ragged coffee colored arm stretched out from the blackness and pulled the hood back.
I've been reading and watching television shows from the UK for years mind you. I've seen Doctor Who, Toonami when I was bored, and my uncles kids loved some of the more adult animations but never in my whole damn life had I seen a face like Bishops.
It was built like the stallions I had seen but longer, more slender. A large tuft of dark oaken fur hung from his chin giving him the semblance of a very well treated beard. His eyes were gold around the irises and so similar to my own kinds that to look into them was to forget that he wasn't from my own world. Well toned muscles accented his arms that went from the same shade of his beard to a light coffee pallet. His clothing was plain, a simple Red tunic adorned with strange medals and at least a half dozen necklaces of varying material and size. The hair was much like my own except black as the darkest moore evening and long enough to cascade from his shoulders.
Gods I hope he likes Maires. my mind pondered as the obviously NSFW department wondered about the size of such a creatures co-
"Maire Strings. I never thought I'd see you again after your last performance." He said with a monotone voice as dry as the bloody desert.
The unicorn next to me seemed to find her voice as she nodded.
"Same here. I thought you'd be in the Castle tending to the princesses." She said with a touch of insinuation.
The centaur smiled a hair and a spark crossed his eyes as he looked to me. His hand extended out and one back hoof stomped on the ground yanking me from my phalactic calculations.
"I am Bishop. I serve the Ordained Princess Celestia and have been assigned to care for you on your travel to Saddle Arabia and back."
I went to grab his hand in a firm "man-shake" but was stopped as one of his eyebrows raised and he retraced it to reach into a saddlebag to draw out a small vial with a green powder contained within. Taking the vial he popped the cork out and poured a small pinch of the stuff before placing it into my hand which was tiny compared to his.
"Eat."
Wait what?
"Why" I asked as I looked at the small pile of powder.
He huffed and pointed to his nose.
"You're bleeding."
I reached up with my free hand and touched my upper lip and drew it back to see a small smudge of red on my fingertips. Horror and fear ran rampant taking out the NSFW Department, the south wing, and even the president as I stood in shock.
Oh now folks will say I got a nosebleed looking at him. As if having feelings for a horse wasn't bad enough.
"Eat." He ordered softly.
I tilted my hand back and felt the dust hit my tongue which was dry but pleasant compared to what happened next. My tongue immediately caught fire hotter and more painful than any damn pepper where I came from. My eyes poured almost instantaneously as I fell to my knees in the world's worst coughin' fit. My vision blurred, my skin felt like it caught on fire, but the worst pain was coming from inside my head. It felt like a thousand pissed off drunk drag queens were having a stomp party in my skull and every single one of them was wearing stilettos.
"Bishop help him!" Came the frightened cry of Maire as I barely felt or heard her.
Words. I heard words being muttered as a hand gripped my shoulder so hard I thought I might break in two. The words were deep and old, ancient even if I had the brain cells to think on it. My father used to tell me of the old Gaelic, of the old sages and druids in our ancient lineage. "Ovates they were called, healers, seers of power. I felt the power of Bishops words even if I could not understand a feckin thing he said.
The pain grew a billion times worse for a fraction of a second and then simply washed away starting from my head and then out through my feet. If I ever had to feel such pain as that I knew for a fact I would not survive.
That frightens the shite out of me.
"Can you stand?"
I felt a hand wrap around mine and I was pulled to my feet. Stars blinded my vision as my brain tried to do a hard reset. Man if the boys downstairs were confused earlier then as of now they were probably dead.
"What in the nine hells was that?" I rasped as he led me to a chair to sit down.
"A test. Celestia summoned me here for a abnormal circumstance and I am glad I got here in time."
"That..." I panted loudly, "Still doesn't explain what the feckin christ all that was!"
"Perhaps I can explain." Came Twilights voice as she walked from behind me.
Leave it to science horse to lie only to stick around and watch me.
I glared at her as hard as I could as she stood next to Maire whose face was so contorted in fear and worry that it made my chest hurt.
"Ahem, when you first came here what was the first creature you encountered?" Twilight asked as she looked from me to Bishop.
"Lyra, mare damn near beat me to a pulp and I would have won if she hadn't surprised me!"
Twilight nodded and cocked her head towards Maire.
"And then when you left to go... relax, who was near you the whole time when Lyra and Bonbon left?"
"Maire naturally, she couldn't get enough of me." I tried to joke but coughed through it.
"So we're unicorns, what does that have to do with anything?" Maire asked as she placed a hoof on my back gently.
"What I just gave you blocks the body from arcane essence." Bishop explained as he put the vial back into his saddlebag.
"For only a moment you were completely cut off from the powers of this world. It would have felt that way if you hadn't come here."
I sat up straight and gave Maire a reassuring nod. My body no longer ached but the damn echoes of the pain lingered fiercely. No words in Gaelic, English, Spanish, or even Russian could describe the pain I went through. It felt like a whole eternity in the fraction of a second and I would rather have my boys repeatedly hit with a wet towel than deal with that for another microsecond.
"But why? Why isn't he feeling it now?" Maire continued as she frantically looked to Bishop and Twilight.
"Because he's absorbing the magic around him. While he's around Unicorns or other magical beings he is constantly absorbing tiny amounts of energy and storing it somewhere inside of him." Twilight explained with all of the enthusiasm of a kid who won their first science fair.
Thankfully Bishop cut in as one of his huge hands gently clasped around the maw of twilight.
"As long as you are around the arcane born your sickness will cause you no ill effect." His grave stare sent shivers down my spine. "But it only masks your pain and destruction. What you just felt is you're body fighting the mind rot."
It felt like I was dying!
"All of that," I wheezed before taking a deep breath, "Is from the cancer?"
Bishop nodded once. Damn he had a more serious look than a doctor telling a parent that their child was gonna be born with no arms or legs.
"Which is why I am accompanying you to Saddle Arabia. I will serve as your guardian, your healer, and your translator."
Oooooh like Dungeons and Dragons.
I suddenly thanked Celestia in my head and hoped it didn't come at the price of dinner and a strip show.
"This will take some time to explain, so please sit." Twilight managed to edge in as she sat on the chair next to Bishop. Gods above she looked like a mouse compared to him.
"Saddle Arabia and Equestria are incredibly similar but not. While magic is restricted to unicorns in practicality there are only earth ponies there. We focus magic through years of practice and formulas, math, and history. That being said the best word to describe Saddle Arabian magic would be primal. They use power from the things around them and to be honest I don't understand much of it myself." She said as she looked down at the table.
Wow something purple smart doesn't know.
Bishop took over as he pulled a flask from his bag and handed it to me. While it wasn't what I hoped for the water inside made me feel a whole world better.
"Our magic is similar in practice to the Zebras that practice healing. We communicate with the world around us and we do not command it," He enunciated as he shot a glare to Twilight and Maire, "We ask for it's guidance, help, and in turn we give back however much we can. We gain our power from the unity of ourselves and the djinnshi that wish to help."
Djinnshi? Like Genie?
"Well perhaps when you come back you'd give us a lesson." Twilight said with a touch of hope.
This caused the centaur to glare once more at her.
"I have told you Princess. The power can never be attained by someone that commands instead of asks. That is all I will say on the matter." He snorted.
For the first time in my stay I saw Twilight freeze.
Wow.
"You have a primal power inside of you." Bishop said calmly as his eyes rested on me. "You receive power through existence, drawing upon the energy that sees you as its host, as its guide. Like a candle draws the attention of moths so do you draw magic towards you. To touch another arcane born is to draw even more power from them."
"Like... when you... t-touched me." Twilight interjected as her wings unfurled and folded again.
"Wait, hold on. When I slapped your arse and you went all misty eyed that was from my cancer?"
"Well partly." She whispered.
I looked down at Maire and the only reaction out of her was a blush and a cough expertly put to break the tension.
"You possess a great gift. Though in all of my travels I have never seen such a creature as you I know the power inside of you as I do the land around us. It is old, it breathes like the trees and the sky. Should you wish it, I shall teach you control and in that lesson you shall live well enough for our travel to reach its destination."
I felt my mouth twitch into a grin.
"You can teach me magic? Like what purple arse and Maire use?"
Bishop frowned. Wrong question.
"No. I will teach you harmony, not control."
Who the feck would say no!?
"Well feck yeah I'll learn!" I cried as I laughed.
The pain from laughing elicited a groan from deep inside of me. Bishop seemed to like that answer and snorted with a smile. Seeing him was like seeing my pa or Cole. I felt like he was a good... man? He was a good person and my senses told me to trust him.
"Well. The train to take us north is here. We will meet you in the back since the Princess has been kind enough to give us our own car." He stated as he pulled his cloak back over himself.
He took his leave and brushed past us like a midnight wind, silent and gone before you could think.
He's like Batman.
"Well. I suppose I should get going as well. It was um... n-nice to see you again Killian." Twilight said as she extended a hoof.
"Good luck."
I took her hoof and shook firmly as I smiled.
"Take care you dumb purple mess."
Twilight left and once again it was me and Maire alone in a cafe with no one else around. I sat down and looked at her face filled with worry and fear even still. Without thinking I wrapped an arm around her and brought her in for a hug. She was warm, soft, still a big breathing plushie. She quivered as her hoofs wrapped around my neck and the waterworks started.
"Quiet now lass. I'm alright, I'm here." I said reassuringly.
She sobbed. Damn it hurt me to see her like this. It hurt me to see a perfect stranger cry but this, this was torture.
"I thought you were dying..." She whimpered as she sucked a right big glob of snot into her muzzle.
"Well technically I am dying." I joked.
She pulled back and glared at me with puffy eyes and a scrunched face.
"Not funny Killian."
I smiled warmly and pulled her back in as I let my free hand stroke her back.
"I ain't goin anywhere except a hot as hell place with a centaur and you right?"
She sniffed and I felt her gently nuzzle my neck.
"You still want me to come with?"
I chuckled and felt my cheeks grow hot.
"Well yeah, I mean did you see what I'd be like if you weren't around? Christ you got even more stones over my head now."
Her eyes were filled with hurt but her smile was warm as she socked me in the chest.
"That has to be the corniest, lamest, and laziest pick up line any stallion has ever said to me." She whispered as she rubbed her face with a sleeve.
"Well..." I muttered while scratching her left ear.
"It worked didn't it?"
Her eyes widened and her cheeks grew hot against my hand as she tried to open her mouth.
Oh boy, time to come clean about thinking of boinkin a horse.
"I'm not saying... anything yet, ye know? But if you were ever into ugly aliens that like to drink..." I managed to choke out while looking like a right fool. "Then maybe I'd be into young mares that play music and like to pretend to be dominant."
Her soft laugh eased my aching body.
"Well we will have to see." She whispered as she nuzzled my chest. "You are kind of... growing on me."
She leaned up and I felt soft lips brush against my cheek.
WE ARE BACK ONLINE ALL SYSTEMS GO, GO, GO!
She chuckled and sighed as she shook her head. Her eyes looked into mine as one eyebrow rose and her teeth flashed me in a grin.
"You're poking me Killian."
Welcome to Shitesville, population me.