So, as a result of Discord’s…antics, I no longer had anywhere to sleep. Or rather, I did, only I couldn’t reach it anymore. Unless I suppose I tried that self-levitation trick Twilight used in King Sombra’s castle, but I doubted I could keep that up, not all night long, and certainly not while I was asleep. So I needed to do something about it.
Walking inside the seemingly empty room, I looked up at the furniture that was currently plastered to the ceiling, or rather, the floor which had now become the ceiling. As I said before, I was actually on the ceiling right now. The carpets, along with everything else, was above my head.
Well, I suppose this was a good opportunity to test my magic, I thought to myself. I knew I had magic, but I was a little curious to find out how powerful I was. Magic, as I already knew, relied on both strength and skill. I knew for a fact that, no matter how good I got, I would likely never be a match for Twilight. At least, not without using some crazy artifact that messed with your head like a certain unicorn once had. Still, Discord’s little prank would make a good test.
Reaching out with my magic, I took hold of one of the bedside tables. At first, I tried to pull it down back to the ground, but that seemed to have little to no effect. The table, which I ought to be able to lift easily enough, remained firmly stuck. I cut off my magic and paused to think for a moment. Discord was chaotic, as was his magic. So logic would play little part in solving any problems he created. I was trying to recover the bedside table by pulling on it. But given how everything was seemingly inverted, perhaps I ought to try the reverse?
So I did. This time, I tried pushing the table, as I was trying to lift it over my head, rather than pull it down to my level. And wouldn’t you know it, slowly but surely, it began to float down to me. It was hard work; like pushing it up a hill. It didn’t help that the suite had quite high ceilings. Still, in the end, I got it down to me and rotated it to be right side up. With a sigh, I let my magic fizzle out.
The moment I did that, the bedside table shot back up into the air, slamming into the ceiling with a thud. I winced at the impact.
“Well that makes a whole lot of sense,” I muttered to myself irritably. Why had that happened?
It took a few minutes, but I managed to work it out in the end. The whole room had been inverted. The floor itself, along with everything except the doorway in, was now where the ceiling ought to be. And when I tried to pull down the bedside table, it had been as if I was lifting it. The only idea that made any sense, and conformed to Discord’s love of chaos, was that gravity within the room had also been inverted. Down was up and up was now down, hence why everything stuck to the ceiling.
Well, I hadn’t the slightest idea how to undo any of that. I could use my magic to pick things up, open and close doors, and that was about it. Undoing crazy chaos magic was more an alicorn’s beat than mine. Closing the door, I was about to head out to look for one. Celestia was in court, Luna was most likely resting, but Twilight should be free. She was with Shining Armor and Lizzie somewhere, though where in particular I had no idea.
I was about to trot down the hall and hunt up a guard to ask, when I heard a pair of voices coming down the hall. I recognised them to be just the pony, and human, I was looking for.
“So how did you like Shining, Lizzie?” Twilight asked as she trotted alongside. My little sister looked to be a little spaced out, lost in thought.
“Or, erm, he was really nice, Twilight,” she replied, sounding just as out of focus as she looked. I was so going to use this against her next time she made fun of me for liking MLP. The two of them looked up as I cantered up to them.
“Ah, Lizzie, Twilight, thank goodness I ran into you,” I said. I turned to Twilight “I ran into your pal Discord in the gardens Twilight. And now that psychotic jerk has turned my room literally upside down.” Twilight balked at that before groaning and putting a hoof to her face.
“Argh,” she exclaimed. “He promised Princess Celestia that he wouldn’t do that after that incident with the Mareitanian ambassador. Let me see if I can help.”
The three of us walked over to my door, which I’d closed as I left. As I put my hoof on the door, I couldn’t help but hear that same sound of magic again. Don’t tell me…
Opening the door, I was half relieved and half annoyed to find that everything had gone right back to the way it was supposed to be. The only exception being that one of the bedside tables, the one I’d tried to move, now had a minor crack on it from ‘falling’ onto the ceiling when I let go of it. Lizzie took a look inside.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” she said, with puzzlement clear on her face.
“Hmm, me either,” Discord said, leaning down next to her. I think the both of us clocked what was wrong at the exact same moment.
Lizzie screamed and, like me, all but leapt out of her skin at the sight of the draconequus. She quickly scrambled behind Twilight, who flared out her wings to both offer her protection and some form of intimidation. Discord meanwhile, simply hovered in the air, his mismatched wings flapping, and doubled up in laughter.
“Oh, you should have seen your face!” he exclaimed, pointing at the now frightened girl.
“Discord!” Twilight snapped. “I was hoping that you could use meeting these ponies as an opportunity to make some friends, not terrorise them!” Discord stopped his laughter and landed on the floor.
“Why, Twilight,” he said with an air of dignity. “I’ll have you know that I’ve every intention of making friends. One of the key precepts of friendship is the ability to take a joke. You should know that.”
“Jokes that scare ponies aren’t funny, Discord,” Twilight replied with a frown. “True, there’s nothing wrong with friends playing pranks on each other. But doing it when you know they don’t like it will only harm a friendship, and it will ultimately leave a pony alone.” Discord smiled now, with an air of nostalgia.
“Ah, you’re so much like Celestia, Twilight,” he said wistfully. “Sometimes I think I only drop by to listen to these wonderful speeches of yours. In any case, Blade Star’s room is just how he left it; no harm, no foul.”
“Thank you, Discord,” I said, hoping to placate him a little. He smiled as he turned to me.
“You are most welcome, dear boy,” he replied, before snapping his talons and disappearing.
I spent the next half hour explaining everything to my little sister. After all, her first encounter with Discord had been a bit of a scare for her. Twilight and I did our best to reassure her that he meant no harm, and that he was more or less reformed. Still, I hoped he didn’t bother us too much. Discord was nice in small doses, and behind a TV screen, not so much in person. Although I have to admit, it was quite clever how he managed to literally invert gravity just to mess with me.
The three of us spent the rest of the afternoon in the library. Twilight had been meaning to go there to look at some of the new additions that had arrived. It also gave me and Lizzie a bit of an opportunity to brush up on our reading of written Equestrian. Our spoken language might be the same, but the written word shared few similarities.
It also gave me a chance to look at a spot of lore; things that the show never went into much detail on. I found the hours passing quickly as I buried my snout in a book on the fundamentals of magic. If I was going to be a unicorn long term, I might as well learn just how this horn on my head works.
It also gave me a chance to reflect on this short trip. So far, I’d met both princesses, become something of a friend to one of them, and garnered the attention of the physical incarnation of chaos. And it’s not even been a week since I got here. What fun times I live in.
Seven o’clock saw all of us back in the dining room for dinner. We were treated to an excellent meal, as before. We all happily chatted about what we’d done with our day. After all, all of my family, myself included, had been fairly busy.
Firstly, there was Dad. He’d spent the entire day sitting next to Celestia while she held her court, quietly making notes and comparing it to our own system of government. He now had pages upon pages filled with scribblings. While there were some glaring differences between our world and Equestria, he said that for the most part, it wasn’t too different from Britain; a monarchy at the top, supported by a democratically elected government. Their laws, while they may use different names, were more or less similar to our own, although, due to the more harmonious nature of Equestria, serious crimes were few and far between. He’d also taken the opportunity to have a conversation with the princess during the lunch recess, and had firmed up her offer of employment as an advisor on matters of law. Twilight had quickly jumped in and offered him access to her library back in Ponyville to help him study and fill any gaps in his knowledge. There were of course a few things he was a little unsure about; he was still a little perplexed about the legal differences between ponies and cattle or sheep, the latter still being effectively animals, rather than citizens.
Mum meanwhile had been down in Canterlot, and had returned, along with a couple of overloaded guards, with plenty of new clothes, specially made for herself, Dad and Lizzie. She’d even found a halfway decent tailor apparently where Dad could get some suits made. With his new job all but in the bag, he’d certainly need some to look professional.
Before she’d gone down into the city proper however, she’d had a chance to talk with Princess Luna, who was kind enough to lead her down, along with a couple guards. The pair had fallen into conversation about a fair few matters, with the subject of me coming up at one point. Much to my annoyance, it seemed that Mum had been swapping a few stories with the lunar princess. In particular, the subject of bronies had come up. I know for a fact that all three of my family members thought I was a bit weird. If I’m honest, sometimes I do too. Still, it was a little annoying to have Luna poking fun at me with fandom references. But then again, what had Discord said about taking a joke?
As for Lizzie, she’d spent the day with Twilight. They’d gone to visit the castle libraries in the afternoon, which was how they met up with me. But in the morning, Twilight had gone to visit her older brother, or BBBFF, as she put it. She’d introduced him to Lizzie, and the two really seemed to have hit it off. While she insisted that they were simply friends, I couldn’t help but laugh silently as she tried to hide that dopey smile of hers. While I doubted she was attracted to him, I knew for a fact that Shining was a pretty nice guy. After all, he had managed to catch the eye of the Princess of Love herself. I chalked it up to a harmless little crush, although I did make sure to drop in the fact that he was married. Now if only I could pass on my condolences to the members of One Direction.
With that, our conversation turned to what would be happening tomorrow. We’d be going back to Ponyville bright and early, just after breakfast. Celestia would accompany us and explain the situation to the townsfolk. Hopefully, the presence of their beloved monarch would help allay any fears about the ‘aliens’ among them. But then again, look how they all reacted whenever Zecora came into town. According to the princess, xenophobia was still a problem in Equestria, one she had spent many years trying to correct. For the most part it was simply ignorance, but there was a small minority who was openly hostile to other races. I silently hoped that there was nopony like that in Ponyville.
With dinner over, our little group began to break up to pack and get an early night. However, before I headed off, I felt that it was a good idea to talk with Princess Celestia, and let her know what was going on with Discord. Reformed or not, I didn’t fully trust him, and I was a little concerned that he might continue to bother my family in Ponyville. As we all headed our separate ways for the evening, I approached her.
“Excuse me, your highness,” I said. I still wasn’t too comfortable calling her Celestia to her face; it was like your old school headmaster asking you to call him by his first name. “Could I have a word?”
The white, swan like alicorn looked down at me and smiled for a moment.
“Of course, my little pony,” she said. I did my best to resist the urge to squee.
“I just thought that I should let you know that I ran into Discord today.” Celestia frowned at that.
“I thought as much,” she said, mainly to herself. “Discord came to my court today as well to annoy your father. I imagine that it’s merely his idle curiosity. Although I would have preferred to introduce you all to him after you were settled in Ponyville. I suppose you know a little bit about him as well.” I nodded.
“A few details, your highness,” I replied. “Twilight and the others turned him back to stone, and you later had them reform him. He’s now quite friendly with Fluttershy, who can more or less bring him to heel.”
“Then it may be the case that you should seek out Fluttershy if he does bother your family,” Celestia suggested. I agreed and bowed briefly before departing.
Heading back to my room, I decided to get an early night. It would be a somewhat early start tomorrow, and I didn’t want to be formally introduced to Ponyville with bleary eyes and bedmane. So, with the night drawing on, I climbed into bed and let sleep take me.
I’d set my alarm to wake me up bright and early at half past six. That seemed like a good enough time to wake up, come to, brush my teeth, get dressed and be ready to head back to Ponyville.
It wasn’t however, early enough for one Twilight Sparkle. As on the day we’d all left to come to this glimmering city on a mountain, I found myself levitated out of bed, courtesy of her magic. This time though, she was kind enough not to drop me.
Given how important today was, we were all going to be introduced to all of Ponyville after all, Twilight was being…well, Twilight. She’d already packed and repacked her bags a few times as a coping mechanism, but without Spike on hoof to help her calm down (after all, somepony needed to look after the library in her absence), she’d been running through checklist after checklist, trying to account for every possible contingency. Everything from what to do if the meeting went smoothly, to what we would do if the crowd broke out the torches and pitchforks and tried to kill us.
“Twilight,” I said, putting a hoof on the bridge of my nose. “How likely is any of that to happen? Princess Celestia is going to be with us. Even if something did happen, she wouldn’t let any harm come to us. Your friends are going to be there as well. Just relax.” Twilight however, simply continued pacing up and down my room.
“Blade Star, how can I relax?!” she exclaimed. “You’re going to effectively be introduced to all of Equestria today! What if I say the wrong thing, or what if somepony tries to hurt any of you? What if Princess Celestia thinks I’m failing as a princess and sends me back to…”
“Magic kindergarten?” I finished, giving her a deadpan look. That got her to stop her verbal tirade. I took a breath and did my best to try and calm her down, putting a comforting hoof on her shoulder.
“Twilight, do you remember the last time you got this stressed over something? If I recall correctly, you actually made things worse through a misapplication of a ‘Want it, Need it’ Spell. You can’t control how ponies are going to react to all this, you can however, reassure them. They trust you, just as they trust Celestia. Just focus on that that. Que sera, sera; what will be, will be.”
My little speech did seem to calm Twilight down. It probably helped that I spoke from experience. While I’d never inadvertently caused an entire town to become obsessed over a doll, I did know what it was like to get stressed before a major event. To be honest, I was probably just as stressed about it all as Twilight was. The only difference was my coping mechanism; find someone who’s more stressed out than me and take care of them.
With a little work, I was able to get the alicorn calm enough to go and have breakfast before we left.
After we’d all had breakfast and packed everything away, we were pretty much ready to head out back to Ponyville. We’d be going by air once again, with my family and Twilight in one chariot, and Princess Celestia following in her own personal transport. And of course, there would also be a few guards along for the ride as well. The princess may be an immensely powerful alicorn, albeit one too frequently subjected to the Worf effect, but she still had security protocol to follow.
As before, we took breakfast with her. Luna, sadly, had gone to bed early this morning; apparently it had been a busy night for her, with a few nightmares to quell. Still, it was nice to go over a few things with Celestia before we departed. At the end of the day, this whole introduction would have to be handled very delicately. Like I said before, just look at how Ponyville reacted to a zebra. Celestia outlined her plan to us.
“Once we take off from the castle,” she was saying. “I will use my magic to place an illusion spell on the chariot. That will effectively make you invisible to any passers-by. I’ll keep it up when we touch down in Ponyville, and then, one by one, you can step out of the chariot, where you’ll be visible again. That will allow us to introduce you one at a time.”
“That makes sense, Celestia,” Dad said with a nod of agreement. “What about crowd control though? You said before that the whole town will turn out to see you visit. Even if all goes smoothly, you’re still going to have a lot of ponies wanting to meet us.”
“Hence the guard detachment,” Celestia explained. “They will form a cordon around you. While it will be safe enough to let a few ponies get close, they will stop you from being rushed by a crowd.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” I said, bringing a bit more optimism to the table.
“You know that saying, son,” Dad replied. “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.”
That was really all we could do. How ponies reacted was entirely up to them, as I’d said to Twilight.
After breakfast, we collected what few possessions we had, and were escorted by guards to a sort of landing pad. In human terms, it was similar to a heliport I guess. This was where all the castle chariots took off from and where they were stored when not in use.
The five of us were led over to a fairly large model, similar to the one that had brought us here. After loading our luggage, we all climbed aboard, with Twilight using her magic to help Mum get up the high step.
Nearby, there stood Celestia's chariot. Well, it was more like a throne with wheels on it really. It was ornate with emblems of the sun dotted around the chassis, and was pulled by two pegasus guards. The large alicorn climbed aboard and settled herself down. We too prepared for take-off. This time at least, hopefully, Mum wouldn’t scream all the way there.
“Okay, is everypony ready?” Twilight asked. We all nodded.
The little alicorn nodded to the princess, who returned the gesture. Activating her magic, I saw her horn light up with a golden colour. A moment later, the air around the open top chariot shimmered for a few seconds. To us, there was no change beyond that, but a quick check with a nearby guard confirmed that, from the outside, the chariot now appeared entirely empty.
With our little security measure in place, the two crafts took off. Celestia’s personal vehicle went first, accompanied by a small flight of guards, who formed a ring around her. We meanwhile, brought up the rear. After flying straight and level for a few minutes, we began the steady descent down towards Ponyville.
It was a short flight back down the mountain. Ponyville slowly grew larger and larger as we dropped down toward the ground. I could see the town, with Town Hall in the centre. I could even make out Golden Oaks Library if I squinted. Off to the side, I could see the orchards of Sweet Apple Acres, and further south, the dark and foreboding Everfree Forest. We were going to set down in the main square, right in front of Town Hall. There wasn’t really anywhere else to set down, unless you wanted to be outside of town.
Drawing nearer still, I could see a large mass of colour around town hall. The better part of a hundred ponies were gathered outside the building, evidently waiting for our arrival. Slowly, the indistinct blobs became clearer, and I began to recognise the odd pony here and there, including a certain grey pegasus.
By now, we were all but skimming over the treetops and roofs of the town. We’d be landing any minute. I felt my heartbeat kick up and my stomach began to feel a touch queasy. I wouldn’t have too much to worry about; regardless of my origins, I still looked like a pony. A few ponies in town would even recognise me. Mum, Dad and Lizzie on the other hoof, they’d have a bit more work to do.
Our two crafts landed and quickly came to rest in the centre of the crowd. Ponies bowed as the princess stepped down. After a few moments letting the crowd quiet itself, Celestia began to speak.
“Greetings, my little ponies,” she said, her voice loud, but a far cry from the Royal Canterlot Voice, and still holding that same motherly undertone. “As I’m sure you are all aware, the Everfree Forest has been at the epicenter of some unusual activity as of late.”
The crowd murmured in agreement. Between the occasional pack of roving timberwolves, cockatrices, cragadiles, and that terrifying Ursa Major, the forest had caused more than a few problems for the residents of Ponyville.
“Two days ago, a group of creatures were brought before me and my sister, having been found inside the forest. They have come from a land beyond Equestria, indeed, even beyond our world.”
That caused everypony to kick off. Question upon question was being shouted at Celestia. How many were there? Where did they come from? What did they want? Were they good or bad? You know, the usual sort of questions when you effectively announce the existence of aliens. Of course, Celestia could hardly answer any of them. The noise was so loud that you couldn’t even hear yourself think. She took a moment before raising her hoof.
“Please, everypony!” she called out, in a voice ringing with authority. “Please allow me to finish.” The crowd once again fell silent.
“I have spoken with these creatures myself. I can assure you that they are no threat to us. There are only four of them, and they are a family; two parents, and two children. They are lost, and stranded here for the time being, and I have offered them sanctuary in Equestria.
“Three of them are from a species known as ‘humans’.” At this, I heard a startled gasp from somewhere within the crowd, followed by some quiet, excited whispering. “The other has been altered by magic, and now appears to be a unicorn. As different as these creatures might be, I ask you to do all you can to help them and support them, while I, along with my sister and Princess Twilight attempt to find them a way home. Treat them as friends, and I can assure you that they will respond in kind.”
As she paused, ponies began to quietly talk again. The fear had gone out of the crowd, replaced more by curiosity than anything else. Celestia continued.
“So, without further delay,” she said. “Let me introduce you to Equestria’s newest citizens. Blade Star, if you wouldn’t mind?”
That was my cue. Taking a deep breath, I stepped down from the chariot. I passed through the slight haze which represented the invisible barrier that had previously hidden us all from the crowd. All I could think was one thing.
Show time.