Throwing the covers aside, I sat up gasping.
That small boy. That colt In Canterlot!
‘I can bring things, people, in with me!’
This was great! I mean, I didn’t lose my clothes when I dove into darkness so … if I could bring in people, then, even with the threat of being sucked into another world at any time, I had something I could do to earn money, some real money. To not be a leech. But first, I had to make myself presentable for whatever punishment I was going to receive this morning.
***
I was only halfway through laying out my clothes to dry, grateful for the cordless hairdryer but still trying, unsuccessfully, to not think about the squarish indentions along the rubber coated handle, when I felt it, or rather, didn’t feel it. For the last thirty odd minutes I’d felt the fears of Ms. Sparkle and her friends as they made their way into the castle, but now they were … gone. That in and of itself wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, Ms. Sparkle could teleport quite readily, though I’d never actually seen her teleport multiple ponies at once in the show or comics, just herself. Perhaps she could, but then, why now? Had Discord arrived and done it? I certainly hadn’t made a very good impression on him, so some sort of joke at my expense wasn’t out of the question. But, Ms. Fluttershy might have something to say about that.
No, I frowned, this wasn’t right. Especially considering it had come on like a wave, washing away any trace of fear in the castle, each of them disappearing one at a time, even Spike.
Pulling on my still slightly damp clothes with a silent, uncomfortable groan, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I was certainly looking healthy again. Enough meat on my bones, at least. In fact, I could even half-imagine I was still just me. Still just fresh from applying grey skin paint. The colored contacts would have been new, though the illusion was ruined when I caught sight of the stone-grey teeth between my cracked lips in the mirror.
Leaving the bathroom, I made for the door. Which, much to my unsurprised surprise, was locked. They had always come to get me before I left the room now that I thought about it, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Something was wrong.
Sinking into shadow, I made for under the bed and drifted through the darkness into the quivering shadows of the ceiling above the tree-root chandelier the floor below. Looking down, I could see the signs of half eaten and even untouched breakfast plates. From scrambled eggs to towering stacks of waffles with syrup, and it was all still steaming fresh.
I thought immediately of sweeping through the town, the Everfree, Canterlot, and beyond. I even considered, early as it was, bothering Princess Luna and Celestia with my problem when the cutlery began to vanish. Piles of toast began to disappear from the great tray in the middle of the round map-table when some began reappearing on one of the plates encircling the table’s edge, covered in butter, fruit, or syrup, only to vanish again. A spoon here, a knife there reappearing for an instant before disappearing again. That’s when the plates and bowls began to disappear too, some popping in and out of reality around the rest of the table’s spread.
I sighed. It all made sense now. It was Discord, whatever this was. Though, I wasn’t quite sure what the joke behind partially animating a bunch of spoons and food was meant to-
“How can this be? I have but just come by. How can the ward’s oil have run so dry?”
Fear flooded back into the room as seven mares, a dragon, and Discord as well, came to my senses. The plates and the rest of the utensils that had been blinking away now reappearing and resting squarely in the hooves and magic of the surrounding people.
“Please tell me that was your doing,” I asked quickly, already down and stepping out of the wall. My world shrinking to the zebra shaman staring wide-eyed at the small, baseball sized glass sphere held within a diamond pattern of thin, ropy vines as Twilight spluttered into her glass of milk.
I was really quite surprised at how quickly I was able to duck the staff Ms. Zecora thrust through just above where my shoulders had been. I was much faster than I thought I was, let alone had any right to be.
“Spirt of fear,” Zecora declared, brandishing her wooden staff as the row of heavy, rune-etched discs strung around her neck glowed with a yellow light, “you will not come near!”
“Yes ma’am,” I replied quickly, stepping back towards the wall, hands held out as nonthreateningly as I could. I had to keep her here. I had to know how she masked their fear.
Everything went quiet, with no one moving so much as a muscle save for Zecora, her eyes flickering between myself, The Elements of Harmony, and Discord.
“What new trickery has the Spirit of Chaos made, if my dear pony friends now house a -”
“Shhh!” Discord hushed, holding up his his lion’s paw as he gazed down upon the table. “Look at this.”
Everyone, save myself and Zecora, who was still keeping her eyes on me, turned to the table, no doubt waiting for the holographic display to sparkle up and show what great friendship problem two of them would get to solve.
“Discord,” Ms. Sparkle frowned, a warning in her voice, the others sighing or groaning in turn as the table remained unchanged. Looking back towards the draconequus, they found he still held his gaze firmly upon the breakfast table.
“Ooo hoo hoo, I haven’t seen this bit in ages,” he chuckled, taping his clawed fingers together as he bent down, eye level, to the glass of orange juice at the side of Ms. Shy’s plate beside him.
Everyone leaned in, as, for once, the jovial prankster prince himself grew quiet and … waited.
There were no polka dots. No stripes. No anything. It was just an ordinary glass of orange juice, and then, it moved.
For a moment the surface of the juice had jiggled and then fell back quickly and smoothly into place.
The only noise came from Discord as he sucked in another quick breath of air in anticipation.
Then, again, the juice wiggled, though everyone’s ears flicked towards the door, though I couldn’t place why.
That’s when I felt the fear.
A single, massive, and deliciously spiking wave crashing in from the outskirts of the Everfree and flooding into the town, the tiny echoes of the oncoming screams drowning out briefly to the sound of a great and shaking *THOOM*
Everything not nailed to the floor shuddered.
Something big was coming, and no one had to wait long as a great, serpentine shadow slithered up the windows, darkening the sky. Plates clattered as the Elements rushed out the room and to the open balcony.
“Oh come now Zecora,” Discord’s voice spoke in the air above the two of us as twin spirals of silver light whirled beneath us, sweeping us off our feet and out onto the balcony bringing up the rear, much to Zecora’s glaring displeasure. “One piece of drama at a time. I’ve only got a single set of eyes just like everypony else too you know.”
*THOOM*
A deep chime echoed through the castle, the deep ‘roots’ of Ms. Sparkle’s tree absorbing the brunt of the oncoming footquakes, shaking her own home all the more as the sky above was filled almost entirely with by thick, brown scaled face of a hydra, red fins flaring at the sides of its face until the remaining two heads forced there way besides the lead, filling the rest of the sky and forcing the middle’s ear fins into folded position. The air warmed with rotted nostril breath, sending each of the ponies into a coughing fit that made me all the more glad of the small tornado surrounding me as the three heads gazed down at us, seeming to take each of us in measure before all three of them focused their gleaming yellow eyes on me.
The left most head slithered back up the middle’s nearest head-fin and, nipping at something behind and revealed a small, spherical, green parcel held delicately in the tip of its monstrous jaw, laying it softly upon the balcony floor.
The package peeled apart, the green wrappings folding aside like petals, as a single roll of midnight parchment, free of whatever God forsaken slime had managed to stick to the rest of the parcel. Picking up the scroll in a sheen of violet magic, and keeping it at a distance, a small circle of equally black wax flaked off and shattered as it hit the balcony floor. Thin white lettering gleamed across the page, Ms. Sparkle read:
To the Master of the Dusted Black Emperors,
Your request is to be granted, and are hereby commanded to clear your kaleidoscope from the King’s lands.
Should you ignore this, the continued molestation of the King’s subjects shall be interpreted as an act of war.
You are allowed a single retainer in accompaniment, and will follow His Majesty’s guard, who shall wait but an hour upon the reading of the proclamation before returning, with or without your personage.
“and that’s all it says,” Ms. Sparkle finished, squinting as she turned the paper over in the air, wings ruffling at her sides.
“Well, I hate to interrupt,” Ms. Shy whispered from behind the rest of the girls in the ensuing silence, “but, what are we going to do?”
“Yeah, and what’s up with that thing about some foalhood toy?” Ms. Dash added, eyeing the three-headed beast before flapping a few inches back beside Ms. Sparkle before landing. Her fears whispering how stupid even she thought trying to kick it in the snout was. Though, obviously, she’d never admit it.
“Well, firstly, a kaleidoscope is the official term for describing a group of butterflies, and given what Wayde tends to shape his nightmares as, it’s no wonder they were thought to be some species of Lepidoptera.” Ms. Sparkle answered, the chance to give a lesson knocking her out of her stupor. “As for what we do next, well, first, we contact Princess Celestia. Second,” she whirled, turning back to me, “you need to call back your nightmares before we have a war with a hitherto unknown kingdom with Equestria on our hooves.”
I nodded, snapping my fingers. “It’s done.” I said quickly, A shiver running up my spine as the, now, orderless nightmares began wisping up from my boots. All of them, all of Equestria could have been put on the chopping block because of me, but Ms. Sparkle was already turning towards her trusted assistant.
“Alright Spike, take letter.”
***
Standing beside me on a flat pane of nightmares, Ms. Sparkle continued to hold her gaze forward, my own bouncing across the tree-tops passing around us. I didn’t like how much it felt like lying by bringing her with me when she wasn’t an actual retainer. Heck, I wasn’t even a someone who had anyone in their employ, let alone a retainer. But, Celestia had decreed that of the options available, Princess Sparkle was the best one. The briefness of said message leaving much for Ms. Sparkle to desire.
Though, she, to her credit, was holding up rather well. She certainly didn’t look as afraid as I could feel she was, deep down. Though, the way her right ear kept twitching, trying to fold back in on itself every time one of the Hydra’s heads turned to make sure we were still following wasn’t doing her strained smile any favors.
“It’s not you.” I said quietly. The sudden noise sending Ms. Sparkles wings to nearly pop out.
“Ehem,” she coughed, regaining her composure. “wHAt’s not. I mean, what’s not your fault?” She asked turning her head, ears perking up.
“She's not looking back to try and intimidate you. She keeps looking back because she's afraid I’m going to eat her.” I explained quietly, not wanting to scare the poor girl by letting her overhear us. Rolling up my sleeves from the growing humidity. “In fact, each head holds a particular worry. The left one is afraid leap out and worm my way under their scales and eat their heart like some sort of parasite. The middle one thinks I'll just jump through an eye and eat one of their brains. The last, afraid that I'll someone just grow to the size of a giant and eat her outright.”
“But why would it … er, she, oh, right. Fluttershy’s.” Ms. Sparkle said, her polite smile falling as she bit her lower lip, ears flicking as another small insect whizzed by them. “But it’s so big,” she squinted, “in fact, it’s practically an alpha-predator here in the swamps.”
“I don’t get it either,” I sighed, consciously holding up my posture. “Guess I just get to scare all the animals of the world from now on. Another lovely secret of this costume revealed.”
“Sorry,” she winced, “but, well, why dress up as someone like that at all?”
“Because villains typically look cooler than heroes,” I answered bluntly. “Though,” I added hastily, not wanting whatever opinion she had of me to drop any further from some misconstruing of my sense of aesthetics, “I’ve never had that thought without the next one being how much better a hero they would make if they but worked for good.”
“That’ssss … interesting,” Ms. Sparkle said, tilting her head away from me.
‘Wonderful,’ I thought, clenching my jaw, and jamming my fists into my pockets before I wound up smacking myself in the head. Now she's going to think I have sociopath, or worse, a fanatic.
Staring down at my boots, the hydra still stomping away at the top of my periphery, it wasn’t until Ms. Sparkle sneezed that I looked back up. “God bless you,” I said on reflex. It was the polite thing to do after all, no matter the circumstance.
“Huh?” was all she said, rubbing a forehoof across her nose before I was lost in the surrounding view.
Where had all the mushrooms come from?