In a typical grocery in the heart of Canterlot’s market district, a young unicorn stallion was growing increasingly frustrated trying to make a series of atypical purchases. Trade Secret, a presently puzzled pegasus peddler, looked up from the shopping list unfolded on the counter in front of her, to the cherry red unicorn that had placed it there. He had a well-practiced look of apology on his face, the product of earlier shopping trips, hidden behind an unruly mop of brown bangs. She looked at the list again in the subtle hopes that its contents had been kind enough to make sense of themselves on the second reading.
“So um, the ‘sound of a cat’s footstep’... Is that, like, a new album or something?” she ventured in regards to the first item on the list. The colt let out a heavy sigh.
“I really don’t know, my mentor just gave me the list. Says he needs this stuff to make an unbreakable dog leash or something. Read about it in a book of ancient Scandineighvian mythology.” The unicorn eyed an item on the yellowed paper incredulously. “Like, who the heck has ever heard of ‘the root of a mountain’, anyways?”
“I’ve got some potatoes that were grown in the hills nearby,” the merchant offered, smoothly attempting to wrangle a sale out of the odd encounter.
The colt shrugged, “Eh, sure. I don’t suppose you’d happen to have any fish breath or bird spit as well, would ya?”
“You might want to try a pet store for those.”
“Hm, good idea. How much do I owe you for the potatoes?”
“Four bits should cover it,” the pegasus answered with a professional smile.
The unicorn retrieved the bits from his saddlebags and placed them on the counter. After a moment’s thought, he put an additional four down.
“Mind throwing in a cup of noodles as well? Shiokarasugi if you’ve got it.”
“Sure thing, I’m just going to need to see some I.D.”
The unicorn removed a laminated card from his saddlebags. After checking the date and photo, Trade Secret unlocked a glass cabinet behind her, producing a small, polystyrene cup.
“Neighpon’s finest, with 1800 milligrams of sodium per serving.” The merchant grinned. “Are you sure you can handle it?”
“Don’t worry,” the unicorn answered, “It’s not for me.”
---
In a dimly lit chamber beneath the surface of the earth, strange and potent magics suffused the air. From within haphazardly arranged, unmarked vessels, muted flickers of octarine could be observed filtering through their tinted glass, their contents a mystery only discernible by their eccentric owner. In one darkened corner lay an ancient pile of discarded noodle containers, the heady scent of vegetable broth wafting from its heart. As he lurked in the lair’s center, Gray Mane, the wizened unicorn that had fashioned it, allowed himself a moment of pride at the ambiance he had fostered. It had taken a considerable amount of effort to convert the humble basement apartment into a proper workshop of the arcane. He knew from the onset that the deposit on the place would be forfeit.
A knocking on the entranceway echoed through the room, before a young, cherry red unicorn stepped through with a pair of loaded saddlebags over his withers.
“Ye made me wait, lad!” the old unicorn croaked in a raspy voice. “Did ye find the reagents?!”
‘Eh, I found something.” The young stallion unloaded the contents of one of his bags on the stained floor in front of his mentor. Out poured a few russet potatoes, a vial of a frothy clear liquid, and a plastic bag containing a bright orange guppy that stared intently at nothing at all.
“Pah! What rubbish is this?! I see no beard o’ mare,” the relic fumed, “and ye would call yerself an assistant, Febre!”
“Not a lot of barbershops are too keen on strangers hoofing through their clippings,” Febre responded flatly.
“Hmph, I don’t see any bear sinew in here either...”
Febre rolled his eyes, before retrieving the cup of noodles from his other bag and tossing it over.
“Here. I got ya something better.”
The wrinkled eyes of the grumbling unicorn narrowed as he scrutinized the styrofoam package. Then they brightened in approval.
“Ach, not a bad brand!” he complimented. “Looks like ye’ve at least got some eye fer quality!”
“It’s not too hard when it’s the only thing you eat,” Febre sighed.
“Still, bloody shame about those spell components...” The old pony’s dusty face bunched up in thought as he rubbed his chin. It gave his countenance the appearance of a prune that had fallen asleep in the bath. It was an appearance he was actually rather fond of. He had gone from Black, to Salt-and-Pepper, to Gray Mane with an uncommon alacrity for the process of aging. To the crazed curmudgeon, youth was just that inconvenient transitory period between birth and EARP discounts. He rasped, “Ah, what the hell! What say we try to cast the spell with what we got anyways?”
“Mmm, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea...” Febre warned. “I mean, you’ve seen all those reports about magic gone wrong. All those botched group teleportations that keep showing up in the news? What if we get sent to some other dimension? Or turned into mares?”
“Haw! Then we pick up a pair of dresses! Quit yer worryin’!”
Gray Mane’s nonchalance did nothing to allay Febre’s concerns. The old coot, although eccentric as anything and ornery as hell, had an amicable side buried somewhere beneath the strata; it was one of the reasons that the younger unicorn stuck around. However, when it came to magical experimentation, it was as if somepony had taken his moral compass and firmly stuck a magnet to it. For Gray Mane, the end justified the means, regardless of what the end or the means happened to be. If he turned a mare into a frog, it just meant a chance for her to brush up on her breast stroke before meeting her Prince Charming. Febre knew his mentor would not be deterred by any argument, and resigned himself to simply going along for the ride. If he was lucky, nothing too eventful would happen and they’d get to eat the potatoes afterwards.
Gray Mane skulked towards a warped, cherry wood bookcase, and plucked out a heavy tome with a flicker of magic. With the text suspended in front of him, he fanned through the pages before finally settling on a passage.
“Lessee here... the focus of this spell is to create a binding. To borrow of the essence of the ingredients in order to manipulate the material planes, and form an anchor in the aether...” he spoke.
“Ah,” Febre added with a nod, in the tone of one who had no idea what was going on, but wasn’t about to admit it.
What color that was left in Gray Mane’s ancient eyes faded into white as he began to form the spell, his horn radiating an ashen light which cast sharp shadows in the aphotic chamber. Before him, the items brought by Febre began to tremble, before lifting a hair’s breadth above the ground, the guppy frantically swimming to and fro within its plastic prison. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the light faded and the items dropped unceremoniously to the floor.
“Gaha! Well that was a bust!” Gray Mane guffawed. “Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained, eh?!”
“If you say so,” Febre said as he moved to gather the components up, and to hopefully find a sanitary vessel for the poor guppy to call home. However, he stopped midtrot as once more the items began to stir.
Many times in history, the only thing preventing a momentous discovery has been serendipity. Two good examples would be the discovery of penicillin in a dirtied petri dish, or the discovery of dipping hay fries in a chocolate shake in a dirtied roadside diner.
Another prime example would be Tabun.
Whether by the guiding hoof of fate, the intervention of some otherworldly consciousness, or simple coincidence, Gray Mane’s exploratory attempt caused something to happen. Something which, given the commonality of the items used, had no right to happen. A spell was born.
However, it was nothing like the spell that Gray Mane had intended to cast. No, it was something different, something original, something not to be found referenced in a leather bound compendium or weather damaged vade mecum. And it was a doozy.
Miasmic tendrils of colorless wisp bled from the objects, which had begun to pulse with a cold, gray glow, their forms lost in the haze. The coils of vapor whipped around blindly until contacting their neighbors, whereupon they seized together, forming an amorphous mass. As the reagents came together, the extensions of wisp receded and left a brilliant, melon-sized singularity floating in the center of the room, flaring like a lump of magnesium. The coruscation hovered uncertainly for a moment, as if deciding its next course of action, then shot straight up, phasing harmlessly through the ceiling, and leaving the two unicorns rubbing their eyes in the sudden darkness. Febre eyed the spot where the light had disappeared despondently.
Well, I guess we won’t be having hash browns for lunch.
---
Storm Stunner entered into the castle atrium to find Crack Shot trying to coax a flame-colored bird out of a tree.
“Aww, come down, already! Do you want a treat or something? I could get ya a treat!” he entreated the bird. “Polly want a, uh... lump of charcoal? Or some lighter fluid?”
The bird cawed disapprovingly before flying to a higher bough.
“Huh. Woulda thought those’d be hits among phoenixes...” Crack Shot muttered to himself.
“I imagine bird seed might be more popular,” Storm quipped as he stepped alongside his friend.
“Oh, heya, dude!” Crack Shot flashed a grin. “Get that dragon back to Ponyville in one piece?”
“Yeah, he seemed pretty eager to get back too. Apparently every time he gets sent to Canterlot, the pony he’s living with goes off on some crazy adventure without him. I guess he’s tired of missing out whenever something exciting happens.”
“Huh, is that the same pony that wrote those books you were readin’ to impress that mare back in Basic?”
Storm flushed; the phoenix to tilted her head as she watched him.
“I’ll have you know I learned a lot from those books! About buffalo traditions, parasprite lifecycles, um... slumber parties...” he finished lamely. “So where’s Check Mate?” he added in an attempt to steer the conversation from its precipitous path downhill.
“Last I saw he was messin’ around with this old-school calculator that Princess Luna showed him,” Crack Shot answered. “Ever heard of something called a difference engine?”
“Um, can’t say that I have.”
“Yeah, neither had I.”
The two pegasi were interrupted by a surprised squawk from the phoenix. Following the bird’s startled gaze, what they saw made their jaws drop. One couldn’t blame them: anypony that saw what they did would have reacted the same way, and in fact anypony that saw it did. In the skies above Canterlot, the azure was slowly being scored by a swath of night. It bled what might have been starlight from tinsel points gathered into unknown constellations; the inky nothingness in between peered chillily at the world below. It was as if some overzealous tailor had taken a seam ripper to the fabric of reality.
After a moment’s silence, Crack Shot casually asked, “So uh... Twilight’s books say anything about something like that?”
Storm Stunner could only shake his head in response.
---
The average pony has a predisposition to panic at the sight of the abnormal or unfamiliar (and even the normal and familiar if it sneaks up at just the right angle). Indeed, in response to the odd fissure splitting the sky overhead, the streets of Canterlot had been evacuated, and the curtains in its houses and apartments had been drawn, save for the imperceptible gap in the fabric from which the occupants could watch the scene unfolding. The sidereal slash continued its slow expansion, looming ominously like a blackened eye. The citizens of Canterlot weren’t sure what to make of it. Some speculated that it heralded the return of Nightmare Moon.
Then that big, black eye began to weep. It wept tiny pinpricks of light which spread themselves like motes of pollen across Canterlot, across the surrounding lands, and then even farther than that.
Ponyanna, a perpetually chipper earth pony and inveterate optimist, was being walked by her corgi, Newton, when the whole business in the sky had begun. While other ponies had hastily fled the streets, she had remained, content in the belief that whatever was happening was probably supposed to be happening, and if not, then it’d be sorted out quickly enough by whichever department was in charge of such things.
Hers was an enviable sort of blissful stupidity.
As she waited for Newton to finish hydrating a lamp post, one of the falling lights came streaking down in front of her, revealing itself to be much larger, and much brighter than she would have anticipated. In defense of his charge, Newton tried to startle the effulgence away by yapping excitedly. When that failed, he rolled over twice in the most intimidating manner he could muster, inadvertently tangling himself in his leash. The light remained in place; the corgi had to grudgingly admit to himself that he had been bested.
The flaring figure slowly dimmed, leaving only a dark blotch in the center of the mare’s vision, and a pony standing behind it. At least it seemed to be a pony. Ponyanna had to rub her eyes to make sure.
The mare (was it a mare?) standing before her had all the right parts. There were four legs, attached to four hooves, each pointing the right way. There were violet eyes and cyan ears, a rainbow mane, a rainbow tail, and a rainbow cutie mark to match, all in generally the right spots. Just none of it looked right. For one thing, her almond shaped eyes were unsettlingly small and set too far apart, and her muzzle was abnormally large. Ponyanna got the feeling that she wasn’t from around the area.
“Hello there! Interesting weather we’re having here, aren’t we?” she greeted with the understatement of the year. The other pony furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Ponyanna took that to mean that she didn’t understand her, and proceeded with the logical course of action when dealing with somepony who might not have been fluent in the language.
She, of course, spoke louder.
“I SAID, ‘HELLOOOO THEEEERE! IN-TER-EST-ING-“
The rainbow mare cut her off. “Yes, yes, I understood you the first time, darling. You wouldn’t be able to tell me where ‘here’ is, exactly?”
“Colton Avenue,” she answered matter-of-factly.
“Err, thank you,” the mare tried to stifle a frown, “Perhaps though you could tell me what city Colton Avenue is located in? That would be simply dashing.”
“Why Canterlot, of course! Capital of Equestria? You’re really not from around here, are you?”
A disapproving look found its way onto the mare’s face. She replied, “No darling, I fear that I’m really not...”
---
Princess Celestia knew something was wrong before her eyes confirmed it. It was an electric sensation, one that sent a shock through her entirety, both the corporeal and the incorporeal. It was the feeling one felt before the coming of a storm. There was a break in the world, like a small, insidious fracture in a dam, threatening to rupture at any moment from the pressure.
First, she quickly penned a letter, and sent it off in a gout of magic. Then she left her chambers to go stir her sister, who she found to already be wide awake, bright eyed and bushy tailed.
She hadn’t bothered to brush it.
---
Ponyanna and Newton continued their walk down what the earth pony was increasingly less certain to be Colton Avenue. From the looks of things, a number of new buildings and structures had sprung up since her last walk down the street two days ago. Newton whined a high-pitched curse for wasting himself on the lamp post: here were all these brand new pieces of property, and he had no way to add them to his kingdom.
And it seemed that they were still springing up. In the center of the cobblestone road a few yards ahead of her, a gazebo suddenly erupted in a flash of light. It was a blindingly pink construct, with a roof thatched in dark purple slats. Stylized red hearts ran up its supports. Ponyanna shrugged and took a seat beneath the gaudy shelter, watching as a garishly-colored city rose up around her, like painted forest of bamboo.
---
At Princess Celestia’s request, all of the members of the Royal Guard had begun to convene in the courtyard to await her orders. The more senior members lined up somberly towards the front of the group, leaving the younger soldiers to whisper their theories in the back. It was then that Storm noticed, really noticed, just how few of them there were. He recalled Basic Training, and all of the empty beds and empty tables. He had thought theirs a small graduating class, but it seemed the ponies he had joined with made up just under a third of the group waiting in the courtyard. Corporal Kickstart had told him that there weren’t any more real crises; that might’ve affected enlistment. Now that there actually was one, Storm hoped that he and his cohorts would be able to handle it.
After a pregnant moment, Celestia finally stepped into the court, joined by her sister. The guardsponies knelt into an appreciative bow for their rulers-cum-commanders. One felt a certain sense of relief from knowing that millennia of experience and the power to move the heavens were on one’s side. It was like having a pair of professional players on your team in a game of hoofball.
“Please stand, everypony,” Celestia requested. The Royal Guard rose anxiously. “I shall be as succinct as possible. As each of you are aware, a magical disturbance has appeared over Canterlot. My sister and I have consulted with each other on this matter, and we are resigned to the fact that neither of us is entirely certain of its cause. This is the first time we’ve seen anything like this.”
That wasn’t what the Royal Guardsponies were expecting to hear. It was hard to imagine there were many things that could take a pair of goddesses by surprise.
She continued. “However, we do have our thoughts on the matter. Whether it has been created deliberately or accidentally, we believe that an errant form of dimensional thaumaturgy is responsible.”
Princess Celestia took a deep breath.
“As strange as it may sound, it appears that another world is beginning to merge with our own.”
Many of the guardsponies gasped in shock. Crack Shot gasped because everypony else was doing so. He thought the whole thing sounded kind of cool.
“My sister and I intend to dedicate ourselves to researching a solution to this matter, and I have requested the assistance of the brightest ponies in Equestria. However, this leaves us unable to personally perform a duty of the utmost importance: ensuring the safety of the citizenry.
"That is why we leave it to you, the brave ponies of the Royal Guard, to make sure no harm befalls anypony under your aegis. I have no doubt that you will succeed in this task.”
At that, the two princesses turned and departed from the courtyard.
Out of view and out of earshot of the guardsponies, Princess Luna looked sidelong at her sister, the corner of her mouth bent into the slightest of scowls.
“Was my presence absolutely necessary, Tia?” she asked, as they continued their hastened walk down the castle corridors, “I probably could have pored over a book or two while you performed your address.”
“Oh, come now,” Celestia pouted. “I thought I kept my speech short.”
“It was. I’m just a quick reader,” Luna stuck out her tongue.
“Still, thank you for being there,” Celestia said quietly. “You may not realize it, but your presence has just as much of an effect as mine.”
They walked in silence for a period, their hooves clicking on marble, sending echoes down the halls of the lower castle.
“You’re wrong, you know,” Luna spoke, drawing a concerned look from her sister. She quickly added, “About requesting the brightest ponies I mean. One of the unicorns in the Guard, Check Mate? He has a keen wit about him; he's a natural strategist.”
“That’s reassuring; we will need clever ponies not only in the libraries, but on the streets as well.” Celestia smiled as the two rounded a corner towards the royal archives. “And it’s nice to hear that you’ve made another friend.”
Luna huffed. “Please, you make it sound as if I were some dour old harridan.”
“Of course not, Lulu,” Celestia embraced her sister with a wing. “Though I believe with speech patterns like that, ponies will forget which of us is the oldest. Now, let’s get to work, shall we?”
The two alicorns stepped through ancient mahogany doors into the castle stacks, to hunt for answers they weren’t entirely sure were there.
---
“WELL I SAY WE OUGHTA GET DOWN THERE AND KICK SOME FLANK! OO-RAH!”
“For Celestia’s sake, Cacopony! Can you turn it down?!” The Staff Sergeant grimaced and flicked her ears back. “And kick whose flank? What exactly is going on down there?”
“FROM THE LOOKS OF THINGS,” Sergeant Cacopony bellowed in a voice devoid of humor, “WE GOT ON OUR HOOVES AN ALIEN INVASION.”
“Heh, you mean like little green ponies?” Corporal Kickstart chimed inn. “Nothing against green ponies of course, little or otherwise.”
The Staff Sergeant shot him a dangerous look.
“Not now, Corporal,” She turned to Cacopony. “Sergeant, can you clarify?”
“YES MA’AM. ALL ACROSS THE CITY THERE ARE SOME WEIRD LOOKING BUILDINGS POPPING UP. PINK AND PURPLE AND COVERED IN PICTURES OF RAINBOWS AND ICE CREAM. DURING MY FLIGHT TO THE CASTLE, I SAW THESE ODDBALL PEGASI WITH THESE FUBAR BUTTERFLY WINGS IN CANTERLOT AIRSPACE. WHEN I FLEW TOWARDS THEM TO ASK WHAT IN THE SAM HILL THEY WERE UP TO, THEY STARTED FLAPPING THOSE WINGS LIKE MAD, AND DAMN NEAR BLEW ME OUT OF THE AIR!”
“I don’t know if I blame them,” a pegasus whispered near the periphery of the group, out of earshot of the senior officers, and in fact out of earshot of the ponies right next to him, thanks to Sergeant Cacopony’s bluster.
The Staff Sergeant weighed Cacopony’s words carefully.
“So we can’t rule out potential hostility. Alright, we need to plan our next course of action, and swiftly.”
The Royal Guard ponies fell into a hasty discussion, deciding who of them should go into the city, how best to disperse their scant number over such a wide area, and which ponies should stay behind to secure the castle. The Staff Sergeant’s words had sent a sickly chill down Storm’s spine, and he quickly volunteered to help secure the market district. If there was an imminent danger threatening the city, he wouldn’t forgive himself if a certain unicorn came to harm.
---
Nomde Plume dragged a hoof down the center of her face. When the sky had split, many of the shoppers walking the market had come to the conclusion that her bookstore would be the perfect sanctuary from whatever was going on outside. Now her store was packed to the brim with terror-stricken ponies, huddled and trembling against the shelves, and knocking books to the floor. They were desperately trying to keep out of the sight of two oddly shaped earth ponies who had just appeared in the entranceway.
Nomde said, “Hello,” because there was really little else she could have said at the moment.
“Hi!” responded the pastel pink one with white spots on her flank. “What are you?”
Nomde’s felt her train of thought skip on the tracks. She supposed the question was fair enough.
“I’m a pony,” she answered. The two creatures stared at her blankly. She wasn’t certain if they wanted more detail, but opted to provide it nevertheless, “More specifically, a unicorn.” She then added, “And a writer, if that matters.”
“Really? But your nose is so small!” commented the blue one with bright yellow ribbons tied to her tail and mane. “I think you look more like a pig!”
Nomde groaned. She found herself in sudden need of a strong coffee. She asked, “You wouldn’t happen to know what’s going on outside, would you? Or why you’re here... in my shop...”
The pink earth pony spoke up again. “Well, me and Bow Tie were chasing waterfalls in Dream Valley, when all of a sudden there was this big, bright light!”
“It was really bright!” Bow Tie punctuated.
“And then?” Nomde prodded.
“And then we were here!” the two earth ponies answered in unison.
“Well, I suppose that’s as good an answer as I’m going to get,” the unicorn grumbled.
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden flash outside, and a sonorous outcry which rattled the storefront windows. The two ponies turned towards the outburst, and then began to back into the shop in fear of what they had seen, causing the other ponies to retreat inside even further.
“What is it now?!” Nomde had long since had enough. Just outside of her shop towered a slate gray quadrupedal creature with a blood red face, and blood red arms.
“I-it’s Tirek!” Bow Tie cried, “What do we do?!”
“Who?”
The creature looked into the shop at the sound of the pony’s whimper, and a cruel grin split his face.
“Ahh, yes. I recognize you two,” he drawled, as he stared past Nomde at the two earth ponies. “Because of your friends, I was robbed of my Rainbow of Darkness, and imprisoned by that cursed Rainbow of Light! But now it would seem I have a whole new world to conquer.”
The beast advanced into the bookstore, splitting the floorboards with his heavy hoof falls, and cracking the door frame with his bulk.
Nomde made a decision then and there. She had no idea who this newest intruder was, why, of all places, he had appeared outside of her bookstore, or why he was currently wrecking it. She had no idea what those capital ‘R’ Rainbows were, Light, Dark, or otherwise. However, she reasoned that they were probably weapons, and she figured she could do them one better. Whenever Nomde had faced a problem or puzzle in her life, she had always been able to find an answer in literature. She pushed through the shivering ponies towards the heart of her store, where she hoped to find a solution in just the right book.
Preferably one that was thick and heavy and with very sharp corners.
---
Check Mate and Crack Shot had insisted on accompanying Storm Stunner, and the three of them sped through the air towards the open air market of Canterlot. A surreal scene spread out beneath them: colorful buildings choked the roads, as if an impossibly large circus had decided to set up in all of the empty spaces. Vendor carts lay overturned and abandoned, and the entranceways of many structures were inadvertently blocked off, sealing their occupants inside. Strange ponies, no doubt Cacopony’s aliens, milled about pell-mell on the streets and in the air, no doubt feeling just as out of place as they looked. Storm had no idea how he or the others could hope to fix such a mess; everywhere he looked was bedlam. The only thing he knew was they had to do something, to start somewhere, to try to mend what was broken, even without a clear end in sight. It was their duty. Storm began to beat his wings furiously, and Crack Shot fought to keep up.
A strange sight caught Storm’s eye as a familiar bookstore came into view. A white unicorn, a unicorn he had come to know very well, was looming over of a huddled figure just outside of her shop. She seemed to be pummeling it with a blunt, rectangular object, while two other ponies cheered her on. As the trio neared, they began to make out her words.
“I - do - NOT - make - enough - for - you - to - come - in - and – start - trashing – my - STORE!” Each of Nomde’s words was punctuated by another blow from a hardcover encyclopedia. Curled into a ball beneath her, a gray and red centaur had tears streaming from the corners of his black and blue eyes.
“Wow, miss unicorn pig, that was amazing!”
“Yeah! Oh, Megan would absolutely love to meet you! Ooh, it just makes me want to sing!”
“Back inside!” Nomde screamed, startling the two ponies back into her store.
“Nomde!” Storm yanked himself from the chariot yoke, and galloped towards the unicorn.
“Whoa, Storm’s done well for himself!” Crack Shot whispered to Check Mate after catching his breath.
“Storm?” Nomde dropped her book and ran to meet the pegasus, pulling him into an embrace. “What in Equestria is going on?”
“I have no idea,” Storm admitted. “Apparently some rip in the space/time whatever. We’re here to try to help out, though—“
Storm watched as the centaur hastily limped away, his tail tucked firmly between his legs, and all thoughts of conquest pouring in rivulets down his cheeks.
“—You seem to be doing a pretty good job on your own.”
A rare flush appeared on Nomde’s cheeks. “Well, you should have seen what the brute did to my poor little shop,” she said.
“Well, whatever happened, I’m glad that you’re safe.”
Check Mate and Crack Shot stood a few yards away, allowing the two their moment. When Storm took notice of them, he waved them over.
“Nomde, this is Crack Shot and Check Mate.” He pointed at his friends in turn. “Guys, this is Nomde Plume.”
Check Mate bowed his head in greeting. “It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Nomde, though I wish I could have done so under more auspicious circumstances. The journals that you provided Storm with were a delightfully epistemic diversion during our time in Basic Training.”
“Charmed,” Nomde smiled.
“Nice to meet ya!” Crack Shot waved a hoof. “Glad to finally get a chance to meet one of Storm’s closest friends!” The pegasus winked in a way that didn’t even try to be conspiratorial.
Nomde cocked her head to the side and arched an eyebrow. Storm began to say something to shift the topic of conversation, but that was quickly taken care of by a cherry red unicorn with messy bangs racing towards the group. He was slowly trailed in the distance by what appeared to be a mummy.
“Oh Luna be praised, the Guard!” he exclaimed, “You’ve got to come help! Quickly!”
The three guardsponies scrutinized the suspicious figure plodding after the youth. Crack Shot scanned the street for any stones or other aerodynamic pieces of debris, just in case it came to that.
“What is that thing?” Storm asked, looking over the unicorn's shoulder.
Following the pegasus’s glance, the unicorn responded, “My boss.”
As the decrepit unicorn neared, it became obvious that he wasn’t actually a mummy, though the only distinction to be made might have been the presence of a pulse and slightly drier skin. When he spotted the golden barding of Storm and the others, the creases in his face deepened into a scowl.
“Pah! I don’t see why we need to be getting the law involved in all this!” he spat.
“Do you really think we have the time to find anypony else?!” the younger unicorn snapped back. The scowl on his mentor’s face lessened just a bit. After a moment he spoke.
“Blast it all, I can’t say I like it, but I suppose yer right...” the dusty pony sighed in resignation. It was a sound like sandpaper on wood.
“We’d be happy to help ya out,” Crack Shot offered. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Is it just clouds inside that tin can on yer head, colt?! Look up: that’s the problem right there!” The old unicorn gestured violently towards the starry strip in the sky, with a fire burning in his ancient eyes.
“Whoa, you don’t gotta bite my head off!” Crack Shot took a step back, then a surreptitious grin crept onto his face. “Or should I say: ‘gum it off?’”
“Impudent whelp!” the unicorn’s horn began to glow, before his younger companion intervened.
“Gray Mane, I think we may have more pressing matters at hoof than you getting yourself thrown in jail. Perhaps you should explain things to them?”
“Explain what, exactly?” Storm felt the sinking suspicion that there was more to the pair than appearances let on. “Just who are you?”
“Ach...” the unicorn called Gray Mane gave in. “The one that needs a haircut is Febre.
“As for me, I’m the one responsible for this mess.”
The other ponies stared at him in disbelief; even Check Mate seemed taken aback, and he voiced his doubts.
“Pardon me, sir, and by no means do I wish to label what you’ve said as a prevarication of any sort, but given the sheer scope of this calamity, it seems that an individual of your, er, senescence wouldn’t possess the magical reserves to sustain it.”
The old unicorn smiled a crooked smile. “That’s the thing, lad; magic is one of the most mysterious forces in the universe, and this spell seems to have a life of its own. Sometimes ye’d be best off not tryin’ to explain it.”
Check Mate looked unconvinced.
“Anyways, I’m goin’ to be needin’ to borrow one of yer winged friends. We just may be able to put a stop to this before it spreads any further.”
---
After a short walk from Nomde’s bookstore, the guardsponies found themselves in what might have been called an apartment at a happier point in its existence. A single firefly fluttered languidly in its lamp, its listless glow doing little as a source of lighting. The stained carpet seemed to fidget in protest when they stepped on it, and the air smelled like rancid soup. Storm tried not to breathe in.
Gray Mane and Febre led them into a room which, judging by the color and lack of sentience of the flooring, saw much less traffic than the rest of the apartment. On one wall hung a painting; it was the type of colorful, unmemorable wall art that one might find in a hotel lobby, and the kind that any burglar with a shred of experience would instantly know to look behind. Gray Mane levitated the pastoral scene to reveal a wall safe painted in runic wards. They appeared to be burnt out. Before opening the safe, the unicorn turned towards the guardsponies and considered them with narrow eyes.
“Alright, before I open this safe, know that yer only goin’ to get see its contents as a matter of necessity. I don’t want to hear any complaints about trifling matters like legality, understand?!”
Storm, Check Mate, and Crack Shot exchanged glances then nodded in agreement. Satisfied, Gray Mane spun the dial of the safe, and it fell open noiselessly. Immediately the unicorns in the room flinched, and the contents of many of the bottles lost their color.
“What- What manner of contraband do you have stored?” Check Mate asked with a shiver. Gray Mane retrieved a pair of tongs from a nearby shelf, and deftly plucked the safe’s contents, an innocuous jar of dark metals, and set it down.
“It’s my own personal recipe,” the old unicorn preened. “A mixture of primium and nanominium gloss, with just an accent of negatively polarized octiron.”
The well-oiled gears in Check Mate’s mind instantly clicked into place.
“So an amalgam of magic neutralizing agents, and rather illicit ones at that,” he deduced. “How did you come to procure them?”
“Fell out of the back of a trailer,” Gray Mane answered tonelessly. Check Mate decided not to press.
“But that’s gettin’ away from the point,” Gray Mane continued. “They’re useful for when a spell goes south on ye. Assumin’ of course that ye can get close enough to use ‘em.”
Crack Shot eyed the jar skeptically.
“Wait a tic... You’re tellin’ me a hoof full of metal is gonna fix up whatever the heck is going on out there? You might wanna call up that trailer of yours and get an extra shipment.”
Gray Mane let out a laugh, which quickly turned into a cough, “Ah, that’s the thing, lad! Yer problem is that ye think that what’s goin’ on out there is akin to a forest fire: each flame thoughtless, ubiquitous, and uniformly hot, not carin’ if its neighbor gets put it out, and quick to take its place. Think of the spell as like a beast: a beast with a beatin’ heart, one that can be stilled.”
“Are you certain of that?” Storm asked, Gray Mane’s gravelly voice sparking a bit of hope.
“Err, well I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case...”
And the spark was snuffed; the guardsponies collectively groaned.
“But ye can’t be givin’ up now! Yer young, yer spirits should be filled with spit and vinegar! If ye got a chance, ye oughta take it!”
“I guess you’ve got a point, and I suppose we haven't a choice,” Storm conceded. “You said that you needed a pegasus, right? What exactly do you want us to do?”
“Well, it’s a bit of a tall order. One of ye is gonna have to fly into the eye of the storm with those metals. I can’t tell ye what to expect up there, but it's gonna be a fine mess whatever it is, and ye might not make it back. I’ll let the two of ye figure out who’ll go.”
Storm was the first to speak. “I’ll go.” Before Crack Shot could argue, Storm looked him in the eyes and continued, “You and Check Mate work well together if that story about your fight with those two ponies is any indication. I think you guys would be a better defense if any other characters like that weird centaur show up and start causing trouble.”
“Heh, are you sure you just don’t want to be the hero, hotshot?” Crack Shot grinned, causing Storm to fluster. He nudged Check Mate in the shoulder. “Alright, Check, let’s let him have his moment. You and me can handle things down here.”
“Then it’s settled!” Gray Mane said. “However, this is nasty stuff yer gonna be carryin’, and even as a pegasus yer not gonna want it in close contact. Let’s see if I can’t throw somethin’ together...”
Gray Mane hobbled out of the room, and then returned a moment later carrying an old and abused mop handle and a square of worn linen. Laying the two together, he carefully used his tongs to dump the metals into the cloth, and then tie the fabric to the end of the mop handle.
“Oh no...” Storm uttered, looking at the makeshift bindle and getting swept up by a surge of unpleasant memories. “NO!”
---
Storm muttered poorly vocalized curses around the mop handle as he took to the air. The wood had an unpleasant chemical taste, and he could already feel a couple of splinters poking into his lips. He bit down and pumped his wings as hard as he could, eager to get the ordeal over with as quickly as possible.
“There he goes...” Crack Shot observed. “You think he’ll be alright up there?”
“Mmm, I believe so,” Check Mate answered.
“Oh yeah?" The pegasus turned to the unicorn. “Is that your talent talkin’?”
The unicorn was silent for a moment.
“No... not in this case,” Check Mate admitted.
“Heh, good enough for me,” Crack Shot smiled, “What say we go patrol the streets?”
Check Mate nodded and the two ponies took off in a gallop from the apartment, ready to face whatever challenges awaited them, and hoping for their friend’s safe return.
---
As he raced towards his task, the gravity of it weighed on Storm Stunner’s withers. Below him, society was in disarray. Ponies, both native and alien, were displaced, confused, and terrified. Menacing creatures from strange worlds were stalking the streets. That kind of chaos was the focus of many midday fantasies of his when he was a colt, the kind where when things were at their worst, he’d leap in and singlehoofedly save the day.
He realized then just what a silly, selfish dream it was.
To rise up against a threat meant that first others had to be threatened. To fix things, something first had to be broken. If this was the cost of being a hero, the price of glory, Storm would be just as content to pull chariots, guard doors, and keep out of the limelight. However, if he wished to bring back the halcyon doldrums that had thus far defined his experience in the Royal Guard, he had a job to do. He silently prayed that he would succeed.
Climbing higher and higher towards the dark, yawning maw, Storm learned just how far away and enormous it was. He felt his ascent slow, his wings fighting for purchase as the air grew thinner and colder. Flecks of frost formed on his lips and in the corners of his eyes, forcing him to constantly blink to maintain his sight. Each frigid draw of air tickled his throat. The world below him disappeared in a verdigris haze, and in some dim corner of his mind he noted that he had long ago soared above the point where lungs start to oversaturate with blood, where brains start to swell, where ponies start to die. He continued his climb, feeling a strange sense of familiarity.
Then, he was swallowed.
---
Storm was acutely aware that something felt different. It wasn’t necessarily an unpleasant feeling; it was just an odd sensation of something missing. He was floating inexplicably, gravity conspicuously absent, though that wasn’t what troubled him. On all sides he was beset by what looked to be stars; however, they didn’t behave like stars. They darted, danced, disappeared; they did things that stars don’t do. He suspected that they were related to the lights he had seen pouring into Canterlot, if not one in the same. In the corners of his eyes he could catch fuzzy glimpses color: ghosts of greens, blues, and puffy whites, but they forever remained on the periphery of his vision.
Storm realized what was missing. He hadn’t taken a breath since he found himself in the strange, astral milieu, and he found that he had no need to. He briefly considered whether or not he was dead.
Then a splinter jabbed his upper lip.
“Son of a—!” Storm surprised himself when the words came out clearly and echoed about him with no obvious means to do so. He then noticed an odd taste in his mouth beyond that of the mop handle.
Although one is not always aware of it, air has a texture, and it has a taste. It might be soupy and thick with humidity, or dry and chafing. It could be hot, cold, warm, cool, any temperature in between. It might be sweet with pollen, or rancid from smoke and dust. What Storm felt was something heavily charged, though it ran through him and over him, albeit without any of the unpleasant charring and loss of muscle control that would typically accompany a voltaic shock. It had a citric aftertaste, something like pineapple. Storm correctly assumed it not to be air, but rather a medium much more familiar to unicorns.
Storm attempted to maneuver through the aether in an awkward combination of flying, swimming, and trotting. The scenery around him shifted in turn, and he wasn’t certain if it was he that was moving, or everything else. He couldn’t make heads or tails of up or down, and his internal compass was reading north by southeast.
“Huh,” he said, and heard it repeated.
“Echo!” he added to the chorus of his voice. He suddenly felt very alone.
He didn’t know what he had expected to find. The pragmatist in him knew that it was ridiculous to expect bright, flashing signs pointing out his target, but he would have appreciated some kind of hint as to what he was looking for.
Well, it’s kinda hard to identify a big, glowing target when so many of them are zipping around you on all sides, Storm thought to himself. If everything is conspicuous, what the heck are you supposed to— He held on to that last thought. He wasn’t sure if he was on the right track, or if there even was a track, but he swiveled his head around regardless, scanning for something out of place, something— Aha!
Perfectly stationary in the distance sat a single, faint, grey glimmer; it would've been impossible to notice if you weren't looking for something like it. Storm began to tread towards it.
It was an innocuous little thing, no bigger than a pumpkin. Storm could hardly believe that such an innocent flicker of light could be responsible for so much trouble, but he was willing to take the gamble. He cocked his head back, grit his teeth, and thrust the bindle like a spear into its center, scattering its contents. The metals hissed violently, letting off high pitched peals as they greedily absorbed the magic of the rapidly dimming mass of...
Potatoes?
Storm blinked. Before him floated a hoof full of potatoes, accompanied by a vial of what looked like spit, and one very agitated fish. He started to say something, and then realized he had no words to do justice to his confusion. He wished somepony else was there to witness it, so he wouldn’t sound like a nutcase when he raved about it later.
That was assuming that ‘later’ came.
Nothing happened for an uncomfortably long moment, and Storm worried that he might’ve botched it. Then those worries were replaced by many of another sort as the void began to softly tremble, an intensely palpable act that seemed impossible for all of the empty space. The tremble evolved into a rumble, and then into long, jarring quakes as cracks of bright blue began to vein across arbitrary planes in the aether. As Storm struggled to stabilize himself in a world with nothing to hold on to, he was staggered by a violent eruption of color and a deafening rush of air as the cracks united and everything around him ruptured inward like a duck’s eggshell. When he recovered he was immediately made aware of the return of his sense of equilibrium, and, as gravity pulled him, he was made particularly aware of the downward direction.
Down was where the ground was, and it was coming up to meet him alarmingly fast.
Storm quickly twisted his body, turning his erratic plummet into a dive towards what he gratefully identified as Canterlot. At the edge of his vision, he noticed a small, glossy shape to his side as it rippled and warped in its descent, and he aimed his flight to coincide with its path. As the city’s towers stabbed towards them like spear tips, he deftly plucked it from the sky and fanned his wings, pulling out of his dive seconds before colliding with a balcony, only to face another set of challenges as the speed of his free fall was shifted in another direction. In the sudden, perilous obstacle course of edifices, he whipped about like mad between buildings and spires, fighting to reign in his speed. He felt an overwhelming relief as the air drag slowed him, and he finally regained full control of his flight.
Storm nearly collapsed as he landed into an unsteady trot, then he figured why settle for 'nearly' and promptly fell over. The small plastic bag dropped from his lips beside him, as a bead of nervous sweat ran down his brow.
The little guppy blinked up at him with big, expressionless eyes.
---
Princess Luna abruptly dropped the book she was reading, a copy of Pony Wheeler’s Lonely Multiverse, with a dull thud, startling her sister.
“Is something wrong, Lulu?” Celestia asked, looking up from her own text.
“Do you feel that?”
Celestia set down her book, “What do you mean? I don’t feel anyth— Oh!”
“Exactly!” Luna’s eyes lit up.
Somehow, and without Celestia noticing it, the omnipresent buzz of the rift had tapered away, like the quieting of a thunderstorm.
“But that seems strange; we haven’t done anything yet...” Celestia mused.
“Well, perhaps we didn’t need to.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to Princess Celestia that the incident could have resolved itself without their intervention, but she couldn’t deny the possibility.
“Hm, you may very well be correct... How about we go take a look for ourselves?”
The two alicorns hastily made their way through the halls leading from the archives and stepped out into the daylight. Gazing into the sky, they were greeted by a vast expanse blue, mottled intermittently with knots of cotton, with not a thing out of place.
---
“Shoop bee doo, shoop shoop bee doo...” Ponyanna sang tunelessly.
The melody had been stuck in her head since an odd meeting with a bizarre pony she had found swimming in the wishing fountain on the way back to her home. Although she had been disappointed to see the limbless pony leave so suddenly, she was rather impressed with the way she did so. Apparently sea ponies, as they called themselves, didn’t swim away, but instead vanished in a burst of sparks. Ponyanna probed her memory for any recollection of a horn, but didn’t recall seeing one. She shrugged; she had long ago learned that her memory was best taken with a grain of salt (though no more than that if she wanted to remember anything at all in the morning).
Although Newton was dejected by the loss of a potential expansion of his empire, the earth pony was pleased to see each of the poorly colored structures disappearing from the streets. She was not looking forward to figuring out a whole new set of landmarks, and apparently some other ponies must have agreed. She was surprised that they were able to get such an expeditious response.
They had probably written an angry letter.
Ponyanna merrily stepped through her apartment door (she always left it unlocked), content that everything in the world was just as it should be, just like it had always been.
“Shoop bee doo, shoop shoop bee doo...”
---
Storm knew that he should report in on his actions back at the castle, but he had a few stops he wanted to make beforehand. First, he dropped off the guppy in a nice, algae-rich pond; he figured it deserved at least that much after its ordeal.
Then, landing outside of the book shop, he was surprised to find not only Nomde Plume, but Crack Shot and Check Mate waiting for him. They gathered around him in an instant.
“Hey, took ya long enough!” Crack Shot clapped him on the shoulder. “Nice job, buddy!”
“Storm!” Nomde stepped forward and brushed his cheek with her own, causing his to pinken. “Your friends told me all about your exploit; I’m so glad you made it back in one piece...”
“Oh, ah, hehe,” Storm stammered, bowing his head. “It really wasn’t that big of a deal...”
“You’re too modest,” Nomde whispered as she softly kissed Storm between his eyes. His already pink cheeks flared bright red at the gesture.
He smiled at Nomde, and she smiled back.
“Dude. What’s up with your face?” Crack Shot inquired, adroitly spoiling the mood. “Oh snap, are you blushing?! Hah, oh jeez! Haven’t you two been dating for, like, months now?”
“Damn it, Crack Shot! Could you just— gah!” Storm sputtered; Nomde herself had turned a hint of rouge at that point. “Check Mate, help!”
“Err, ah, yes. Um, Crack Shot, maybe there is some byway that we’ve yet to thoroughly safeguard?” Check Mate suggested. ”Perhaps another patrol would be in order?”
“Yeah, yeah, I gotcha.” Crack Shot snickered. “We’ll be around when you finish up here, Romeo.”
Nomde and Storm watched the two other guardsponies trot off and round a corner. After a moment, Nomde spoke. “Subtlety is a word lost on your friend, isn’t it?”
“Yep...” Storm agreed. “But that’s what makes him a pleasure to hang around... Most of the time.”
“What about that older unicorn?” Nomde quirked an eyebrow. “Was he really responsible for everything that happened?”
Storm sighed. “Apparently he was. He definitely had a big hoof in fixing all of it, but... I guess when it comes right down to it, he was the cause in the first place.” The pegasus took a step forward and looked uncertainly at Nomde. “I suppose I’d better catch up with the others so we can figure out just what we need to do about that. Will you be alright here?”
Nomde smirked. “You saw what I did to that centaur; I’ll be fine. Go on ahead; I know you’ll do the right thing.”
“Thank you, Nomde,” said Storm. Then, feeling just a bit daring, he gave her a peck on the cheek, “I hope you’re right.”
Storm galloped in the direction that Crack Shot and Check Mate had travelled, and found them waiting right by the corner at which they had turned.
“Don’t tell me you were watching the whole time,” he moaned.
“I, myself, would never conspire to partake in such an ungracious—“
“Yes.”
“Whatever. What do you guys think we should do about Gray Mane?”
“That old geezer?” Crack Shot shrugged. “What about ‘em?”
“I believe Storm is referring to his role in everything that has transpired today,” Check Mate explained. “Primarily his culpability. Inadvertent as they may have been, his actions placed the city in peril. And there is the matter of his possession of those materials.”
“But in the end, if he hadn’t helped, none of us would've been able to fix this mess, right?” Crack Shot looked at the others with uncertain eyes. He didn’t like where the conversation was going.
“Be that as it may, it was by a stroke of luck that he found us,” Storm said, as much for friend as for himself. “Who’s to say something like this won’t happen again?”
Crack Shot was outnumbered two-to-one, but he felt he needed to come to the defense of the cantankerous old buzzard. Everypony made mistakes at some point in their lives (the pegasus knew he had made more than his fair share), it was just that some of them were bigger than others.
“That’s just a what-if though, isn’t it?” Crack Shot argued. “Why do we need to go and bug that old fossil now that everything’s said and done?”
Storm let out a long, solemn breath.
“Because it’s our job.”
Crack Shot slumped in resignation. Check Mate didn’t say a word; he simply patted his friend on the back softly. The trio retrieved their chariot from the front of Nomde’s bookstore and began the short walk to Gray Mane’s flat. A walk which, despite their slow hoof falls, went much quicker than any of them would have liked.
“You think the princesses will go easy on ‘em?” Crack Shot asked as they stood outside of the door to the apartment.
“I believe they will be just and fair,” Check Mate answered.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Crack Shot said as Storm rapped on the door. “Hopefully he’ll get to keep on shootin’ for his eudemonia at the end of it all.”
The door opened to reveal the young, cherry red unicorn, Febre.
“Oh, it’s you guys again! ... I think? You all kinda look the same.” The unicorn furrowed his brow in thought.
“Yeah... it’s us again,” Storm replied. “Would Gray Mane still happen to be around?”
“Yeah, he’s inside,” Febre noticed the forlorn looks on the guardsponies’ faces, “Why, is something wrong? It looks like you guys got everything cleared up.”
“Could we speak to him?” Storm asked, trying to avoid the young unicorn’s gaze.
Febre stepped into the doorway in an attempt to block it with his small frame. “Now hold on a second! Quit dodging my questions; what’s wrong?”
“It’s alright, lad, I know why they’re here,” came a gritty voice from within the flat; its wrinkled owner soon followed. “Step aside.”
“Damn it, why won’t anypony tell me what’s going on?!” Febre shouted.
“Heh, I would'na expect my assistant to be so daft.” Gray Mane laughed in his raspy way. “They’re here to take me away.”
“What?!” Febre’s eyes went wide, “They can’t! I mean, if not for you they wouldn’t have been able to do a thing!”
“And if not fer me, they would'na had to. Ye may not be able to tell by lookin’ at me, but I’m old enough to recognize and own up to my mistakes. Now step aside before I have to introduce ye to the business end of my horn, lad.”
Febre stepped out of the way miserably, allowing Gray Mane to exit and meet the Royal Guard.
“We’ll be sure to let the princesses know everything you did to avert this crisis,” Storm spoke as the aged unicorn stepped outside.
“Hah, I’m certain that ye will, and I appreciate it,” Gray Mane brayed as he stepped into the chariot, “Alright, ye gilded lilies; shall we be off?”
---
Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stared in curiosity at the hoary unicorn kneeling before them. The guardsponies that had brought him in had said little about the unicorn, only that he had a hoof in ending the earlier chaos that had threatened Equestria. They explained that they wished to allow him the honor of detailing the rest of his story.
The three of them stood near the entrance to the audience chamber, watching the unicorn’s actions anxiously. After a long moment in which the unicorn did not stir, Princess Celestia finally spoke.
“Please feel free to rise. Would you be so kind as to tell us who you are?”
“It would be my honor, Yer Majesties, and thank ye for taking the time from yer duties, both celestial and political, to hear my words. I am Gray Mane, a practitioner of the arcane arts, and I consider it to be a privilege to be under yer auspices.” The ancient unicorn kneeled once more.
“Oh my! So formal!” said Princess Luna.
“I was taught at a young age to always respect my elders,” said Gray Mane.
“Well,” Princess Celestia continued with a radiant smile, “would you please tell us what circumstances bring you here? We understand that it was in thanks to you that a crisis was averted today.”
“Most of the avertin’ was done by one of yer tin soldiers over there, Yer Majesty. I was just tryin’ to fix what I broke.”
The two alicorn sisters exchanged glances for just moment, before turning back towards Gray Mane.
“What you broke?” Luna repeated as she scrutinized the unicorn with narrowed eyes, “Do you mean to say that you, yourself, were the cause of a rip in reality?”
“Guilty, Yer Majesty- though I reckon I may regret that choice of wordin’... It was more of a slip up in an experiment of mine—”
“Fascinating.” Princess Luna stood and eyed the unicorn curiously. “To think that a single unicorn could conceive such an original spell—My sister and I couldn’t find a single related incantation in our library! You say you did this by accident; what components did you use? What were you originally trying to do?”
“Heh, well believe it or not, Yer Majesty, I was actually tryin’ to work out a new type of dog leash...”
---
Storm Stunner sat in a restaurant whose name he couldn’t quite pronounce. It had waiters dressed better than he was, and more than once they had pointed out the fact. The cost of each item on the menu was either printed crisply in two to three digits, or simply listed forebodingly as ‘Market Price.’ The pegasus had tried to mentally list the function of each utensil sitting in front of him, and had given up somewhere near the middle. He wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else in the world.
“So instead of imprisoning him, or banishing him, or any combination of the two, they gave him a job?” asked Nomde Plume from across the table. A soft flicker of orange candlelight from its center played over the green of her eyes.
“Not only him, but that apprentice of his as well,” Storm answered as he took a sip of his coffee: a decaf. “My guess is that they figured if he wanted to do his crazy experiments, he might as well do it close by where they can keep a handle on it. You should’ve seen what they did to the laboratory they were given; there’s styrofoam everywhere.”
“Hmm...” Nomde smiled, and her half lidded eyes twinkled as a light gust blew over the table, causing the candle’s flame to shudder. “I suppose I can’t fault the princesses’ logic.”
Their waiter approached with dishes supported in a cloud of his magic. The serving ware alighted in front of the two ponies, and the covers rose to reveal a salad of imported orchids for Nomde, and a plate of black truffles for Storm.
Uncertain of which fork to use, Storm reached for the one farthest to the left. Then he realized he had no way of using it, and simply leaned forward and took a careful nibble of the mushroom. He didn’t think it was worth its price tag.
“So, I have to ask,” Nomde began, after tasting her orchid salad and concluding that it’d be improved by decidedly less orchid, “with all of the strange and multifarious activities you’ve participated in with the Guard, did you ever find your special talent among them?”
Storm thought about that day filled with odd occurrences, and his part in ending them. He answered, “Yeah, I think I’ve figured it out. And I think it doesn’t really matter much. As special as a talent and a cutie mark may be, they’re only a small part of what makes a pony unique.”
“Well said,” Nomde noted as she picked a crouton out of her salad. “You know, if it were alright with you, I’d love to write about your experiences. What you’ve seen, what you’ve done... Everything about your life in the Guard so far.”
Storm began to laugh, causing Nomde to frown slightly.
“Heh, sorry about that, I appreciate the thought, really,” Storm apologized. “It’s just, a story about some grunt in the Royal Guard...”
“And just what’s so funny about that?” Nomde asked, plucking one of the truffles from his plate.
“I was just wondering: who would want to read it?”
THE END