//------------------------------//
// Innital Investigations. 
// Story: Children of Equis. 
// by reflective vagrant 
//------------------------------//

"But you could get hurt if you're right, and if you aren't, then it could be somepon-"  Twilight pleaded with Princess Celestia before being promptly interrupted.
"If.  If it is somepony friendly then that gives me all the more reason to be weary, Twilight," Princess Celestia scorned her.
Turning around, she dropped her war face and gave her protege and fellow princess a weary but nonetheless warm smile.  "I know you want good relations with other worlds but not all can be trusted.  The first time this taint was sensed, its bearers came with promises of peace and prosperity, only to later reveal their true motives of squandering Equis's resources in their own wars, eventually trying to occupy Equis by force and nearly succeeding."
Twilight shook her head and then hung her head downward.  She had latched onto Celestia at this point and started crying. "Ugh!  This is so confusing!  First you tell me there's another type of magic that alicorns, including myself, tap into that I've never even heard about and that an ancient war predating modern history has the potential to return."
Twilight then pushed off Celestia and started matching towards her, backing her into a corner.  Her voice turned angry.  "And then you tell me that you are going alone?  A potential invasion from an entirely different part of the universe with armies upon armies hardened with generations of strife and war, each potentially setting their sights on Equis for our resources is at stake, and you're going on a suicide mission with absolutely no backup!?"
Spike and Applejack came over to pull Twilight back.  "Now now, she only said she's scouting to get a better feel for the situation."
"Yea Twilight. She's not going to start a fight. She's just flying over the crash site to see what's going on.  Besides, she's not going alone.  Discord is going with her."
Twilight shifted her head over towards the draconequus with a glare. "While he has proven trustworthy and has his talents, being quiet or careful in a delicate situation isn't exactly one of them."
The draconequus simply shushed a scowling Fluttershy from across the upside down tea set and looked over to Twilight.
"Twilight, Twilight.  You know my nature is chaos and I do admit that I've enjoyed making a good era of strife or seventeen in my day and lavishing in countless more I only pushed over the edge.  But you also need to realize I among all of us have the most to lose."
He then got up and stood upon the map table dramatically.  "I am the sole surviving member of the turncoats that helped Equis drive out the-"
"Earning your free ticket to stay here and cause trouble instead," she interrupted in a snarl.
"Yes, yes, yes."  He quickly slapped the ruler that was suddenly in his paw on the desk that wasn't there a moment ago, both quickly vanishing again.  "The point is that I am a traitor in the eyes of those that were kicked out of Equis long ago and there are beings that are so powerful that they could squash even me like a fly, and will want do a lot worse to me if they catch me.  Equis is my one for certain sanctuary I have from them as long as their followers, and in turn their eyes, stay out.  So naturally I want it to stay that way."

Twilight just glared at him as Celestia came up next to her from behind.  "I know you have reason to doubt Discord's reliability in not escalating a situation, but he is the only one still alive that knows their tactics from experience and he is at his best when he's working with as few ponies as possible."
As the three of them went to the balcony, Celestia continued.  "He will make sure I stay safe as we scout the area and will help me make a preliminary assessment of the situation.  Any larger a group would be recognized as an aerial search party and provoke them."
With this, Discord snapped a surfboard and a pair of swimming trunks on himself and dove into Celestia's hair while shrinking to the size of a mouse and started riding it like a surfer in the water.
Celestia rolled up her eyes, closed them and gave a huff.
"Oh don't be such a party-pooper, Celestia dear. I'll be a good little soldier when we get there.  Mustn't drain my chaotic nature any more than necessary or I might not be able to give it a full one hundred and eleven percent when it matters most."
Just as they took off, Pinkie could be seen sowing up what looked to be a patch of thin air.  When the others looked at her, she just said, "Trust me when I say, 'You don't want to know.'"







"Huh...  You know, I thought the forest that my seeds promoted the growth of would blend with and take over the Green Hills Forrest quite well when I set my seeds on the tree of harmony," Discord called as he held a complex set of alchemist's goggles to his face while sticking his head out of Celestia's mane.
"But it seems that my corruption wasn't strong enough to fight off the fay of the Green Hills Forrest and the lingering energy in the tree of harmony at the same time." He let the goggles poof in the air and slid out of her main onto her back with his arms crossed and a disgruntled look on his face.
Celestia gave a pained sigh as she did her best to humor him.  "If it's any comfort to you, Discord, the Everfree Forrest is now the official name of both regions despite the Green Hills region having always been far tamer.  And it seems I now know why the local fey have largely moved on in late centuries."
"Really Celestia?  I thought you said you were going to leave them alone?  What's this about you monitoring them?"
"No official treaty was formed that keeps me from doing so and I only do it from a distance.  It is a shame though.  The Fey refuges were the only outsiders that truly lived by a live and let live policy.  They have as deeply rooted a fear of Æther users as they do with Quintessence.  Respecting their privacy by keeping my ponies mostly out of their forest was the best I could do."


As they flew indirectly over the crash site, discord held his enlarged ear out tensely.  "Odd... I don't detect any activity on the local rift.  If anything the fabric over the rift is even stronger now than it was before."
"Are you sure, Discord?"
"In order to be sure I'd have to get a closer look, which isn't in the cards with our flight plan.  But it could be..."
Celestia closed her eyes as she turned to return to Ponyville. "The star could have been laced with a spell to create a stable rift, which couldn't be detected from this distance and would only look like a thickening of the fabric.  We'll have to look more closely soon."
Celestia started lowering the sun when discord spied something from the confines of Celestia's main.
"What's this?"
"What's what?"
"That creature down there, it's positively soaked with the fallen star's signature."
Celestia made a strong couple flaps of her wings to gain altitude. "How many?"
"...One."
"One squadron?  Have they spotted us?"
"Not one squadron, just one.  And it doesn't look like it has spotted us.  But we had best hurry along before it does."
"Just one?"  Celestia pondered aloud as she finished lowering the sun.  "...Then we need to make a detour on our way back.  I have a favor to ask of somepony far more suited to this task than myself."







Zecora was nursing her blown ear drums slightly better than her headache.  It would take the entirety of her powdered mother of pearl stash to make enough rejuvenation potion to even let the ears heal at all, but she knew she could do it if she just kept to her medicine and treated it right away.  While she had been saving it to make venom and poison treatments for the infestation of cockatrices as of late, making sure she could hear them coming was kinda vital, as she couldn't use her eyes against them.
If she could get her hooves on some actual pearls, they would be a lot easier to use in potions and even one ounce of pearl could do more than an entire ten pounds of refined shell, but pearls were also far, far more expensive.  So she would just have to ask the ponies of Ponyville to keep an eye out for more shells she could extract mother of pearl from next time they were at the coast.
It wasn't until her door disappeared and Celestia came in calling to her in a yell she couldn't hear, did Zecora realize that she had company.

A few odd conversations later with the aid of Discord's odd mechanisms acting as crude temporary ears for her, which she wasn't too pleased about, she managed to get the gist of the request they were making.
"I shall ask the Fey to help keep an eye on our new guest. I will report back what I find, but for now I must rest."