//------------------------------// // The Truth of the Matter // Story: One Bolt, Moving Forward // by Boltsinger //------------------------------// Twilight woke up, more rested than she had felt in a long time. She looked around the bedroom, stretching and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Wow… I must have really been out if they had to carry me up here! I wonder how everypony is doing?” She went through her standard morning routine, then headed down the hallway. Her mind wandered between various things that had happened recently. Starlight had shown up, and they conducted the first test of a brand new long-distance teleportation method that was so simple to use that any creature in the world could access it. She also had an in-depth conversation with her and Sunburst about the school she planned to build. After a while, they had lunch, but the rest of the day was a blur. “So, do you think she’s woken up by now?” The soft voice of Fluttershy asked from the throne room. “I’m not sure.” Starlight’s voice replied. “I’ll go check!” From there, she heard hoofsteps approach the door, Starlight exiting the room and looking around. “Ah! You’re awake!” She exclaimed. “How do you feel?” Twilight stretched her wings with a soft flutter. “Actually, I feel great!” She said with a smile. Starlight’s face soured immensely. “Really? After all of that you feel great? Twilight nodded. “A night’s sleep that good? How else would I feel?” She walked past Starlight and into the throne room, where all of her best friends looked rather coldly at her. “I don’t know, maybe a bit of regret?” Starlight stated, reaching her hoof out for emphasis. “Perhaps remorse for what you said? Nopony has seen Bolt since your fight, and that was two days ago!” Twilight’s surprise was about as obvious as the Cutie Mark on her flank. “Two days? Wait, we had a fight?” She shook her head to try and make sense of things, rubbing her temples with her wings as she made her way to her throne. “You two got into a screaming fight over some soup!” the pink Unicorn fumed. “I mean, I know you two are married, but do you really have to get so mad just because he cooked by himself?” Twilight’s wings left her head as she heard what her friend had to say. At that moment, she understood what she had been missing, as the details of the argument came to her in force. “I got mad because he wasn’t giving me a choice! He’d been checking in on me every ten minutes while he was home, and when he wasn’t, he had Flash doing the same! I’m a grown mare, and I can handle myself just fine!” “You’re a grown pregnant mare, darling.” Rarity corrected. “That foal is due any day, now, so it’s easy to see why he’d be so worried about you. Especially with you depriving yourself of proper rest!” “Then why didn’t he just say so?” The Princess asked, looking around at her friends. “He knows he can tell me anything!” Rainbow Dash and Starlight each tensed up, one turning her gaze to the ceiling while the other pawed the floor with her hoof. “Unless… Do you two know something?” “What?! No! I don’t know anything!” Starlight lied with an adamant head-shake. “What about you, Rainbow Dash, you know anything?” “Uh… Nope!” the Wonderbolt confirmed. “Don’t know anything at all!” Applejack leaned towards Rainbow Dash, putting on her sternest expression. “You sure ya don’t know anything we might need ta hear?” “Totally! I haven’t heard anything!” Rainbow continued. “And I’m sticking to it!” Applejack turned to look at Starlight, joined by Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Twilight. Every pair of eyes, save for Pinkie’s, seemed to bore into her, poking at her resolve until it finally began to ebb. “What? I haven’t heard anything! Nothing about nightmares almost every night, or him having doubts and fears and worries that were so bad that they brought back a monster that lives in his dreams and now he’s got so much of that thing’s influence in him that he’s almost back to the way he was when he first got here!” “WHAT?!” the Alicorn snapped, recoiling and splaying her wings. “But Princess Luna and I destroyed that thing! And… How come he told you, but not me?” Rainbow Dash groaned, giving up her charade. “Because he thought that you were dealing with a lot of stuff already and he didn’t think his ‘little problems’ would be worth distracting you.” Twilight looked down at the map, the image of the land having faded to reveal her own reflection. “But it wouldn’t be a distraction… I’m happy to help him sort things out! But… why was he so worried about me, anyway?” “Maybe because ever since Rainbow Dash got mad at you all those months ago you’ve been trying to push yourself to do everything you normally do even though you’re pregnant and were told by the doctor to take it easy as much as possible and he got scared for both you and the baby and had to do things like cushion your landings when you fly or help your research go faster or just do extra extra extra stuff until you actually started doing what the doctor says?” Pinkie rambled, walking nonchalantly towards the Princess of Friendship. Applejack nodded. “He did say sumthin’ like that at least once.” Twilight looked at her baby belly, rubbing it with her hoof. “I suppose I haven’t been the most careful pony out there, have I?” “Well, why don’t you tell us what happened that made him fly off?” Fluttershy suggested. “Didn’t you hear all about it from Starlight?” Twilight wondered. “I was… pretty mad once all was said and done.” Starlight admitted, rubbing her mane. “I don’t remember the actual argument all that well…” Twilight closed her eyes in reflection. “Okay…” She went on to explain the events of the day, how Boltsinger had been helpful to a fault for several days before, and then how the day with Starlight and Sunburst had gone. “Then, in the dining room, Boltsinger insisted that he had to do all of that cooking by himself, and that turned into an argument… He talked about the… fact… that I’ve been pushing myself too much, and then I said that I don’t need him hovering over me. Then he backed off and… well… ran off.” Fluttershy’s soft eyes widened like never before as she listened. “Wait a minute. You said what?” “I said that I didn’t need him--” the Alicorn began, her mouth suddenly covered by a yellow hoof. “You told him that you didn’t need him?!” the pink-maned Pegasus inquired. “Why did you even think that?” Twilight moved the hoof from her mouth, recoiling defensively. “I said that I didn’t need him hovering over me! I never said that I didn’t need him at all!” “And with the state he was in, do you really think he heard all of that?” Fluttershy reasoned, getting ever closer to her royal companion. “I get that you know how to handle Boltsinger when he goes into a panic, but do you know how he thinks when he’s scared like that?” Twilight shook her head, failing to understand the mare’s meaning. “When he’s like that, he’s a lot like I used to be! Do you remember how we met, Twilight?” Twilight thought back, searching through the years to find her first day in Ponyville. “You panicked at the sight of me, hiding behind your mane and refusing to say anything higher than a whisper.” “Exactly! And I was too scared to hear everything you were saying!” she added. “I’ve talked with Boltsinger about his past a lot, and when he wasn’t being forced into a certain way of thinking by his lightning, he used to be the same way. And when that kind of panic sets in, we only hear key words! Words like…” “Like ‘I don’t need you’...” Twilight finished. “That’s right.” the Pegasus said. She brought her wings forward, pulling Twilight’s head to look straight at her as her eyes turned fierce, a look of immense disapproval in them that sent shockwaves of guilt through the Alicorn’s very being. “Now, I think you owe somepony an apology. So you need to find some way to track him down and say you’re sorry right to his face!” Everypony in the room stared at the staring pony, all of their mouths agape. “Whoa…” Rainbow commented. Whispers regarding ‘The Stare’ began circulating amongst the group, Fluttershy and Twilight oblivious to the lot of it. As the shock subsided, Twilight’s wide eyes blinked. She hung her head sorrowfully, looking at the pendant dangling from her neck. “You’re right… I need to find him.” She looked back at Fluttershy with a genuine smile. “Thanks. I think I needed that.” Fluttershy smiled back, pulling her friend in for a hug. “Happy to help!” After a hearty meal provided by Applejack, Twilight returned to the throne room, her mind set on her task. Finding Boltsinger. This was beginning to become a yearly thing, but she knew that he never goes away like this while he’s thinking clearly. Plus, he was going to have a much better reason to stay around soon. She sat down at the map, looking at the various locations for any sign of his Cutie Mark. “He’s still got his pendant, and Starlight says that he took off with his lightning… He has to have shown up on here! But where?” The door creaked open, small footsteps coming in slowly. “Twilight?” Spike began, approaching his throne. “How’s it going?” Twilight looked at her dutiful assistant with a bit of surprise. “Spike? Aren’t you supposed to be in Fillydelphia?” Spike folded his arms and gave her a stern look. “You think I wouldn’t come back for you after what happened? Starlight sent me a letter all about it, and I got on the next train as soon as I could!” Twilight pulled the dragon close, nuzzling him affectionately. “Thank you, Spike. I’m trying to figure out how to track Bolt down right now.” “Hasn’t he shown up on the map?” he asked, looking at the image of the nation. “If he’s got his pendant, then he should have shown up by now!” “Normally, yes, but the map did transform recently.” She stated. “I’ve been pouring over it for a while, now, and there’s not even a little bit of lightning. I could use it to get an estimate if I knew what direction he flew in, but I was unconscious while Starlight only saw him fly out the door…” “Huh… So no luck there…” he affirmed. “But you’ve got friends all over the place! Why don’t you send letters to each of them asking to keep an eye out for him?” “Are you sure you’re up for breathing that much fire?” she queried. “Does a dragon eat gems?” He retorted, flexing his muscles as best he could. “I could send a hundred letters and still not get tired!” “Okay, then. Be prepared to put your money where your fire is!” Twilight declared, hopping up and starting to the library. Spike gave her a cocky huff, standing up and following her. “You got it!” Several hours later, Spike was on the floor of the library, clutching his chest in pain. He gave off a loud groan, sitting up and wheezing. Twilight looked back at him. “You okay?” “I’m… fine…” he answered between breaths. “How many letters does that make?” “All done! That was the last one.” she replied. “We should get a response any time now!” An hour passed. “Any time…” Another hour. “Just gotta be…” One more hour. “... Patient…” Spike yawned into his claw, finally standing up and stretching. “Well, I’m going to bed. I hope you hear back from somepony soon!” Twilight groaned in frustration, stomping on the table in front of her. “Why isn’t this working? The first time he flew off like this, the map showed me where to go! Then the next time, the simple fact that I need him brought him back!” Realization struck as her statement concluded, and her face showed just how dumbfounded she was. “But he thinks I don’t need him…” She lifted her pendant with her wing, taking a long, hard look at it. “But I do need him… and he needs me! Now, more than ever!” Her face grew more determined as her wings began tingling. She looked back at the suddenly-rigid appendages, seeing sparks of magenta lightning surging out of them. Knowing full well what this meant, she went into a gallop for the nearest balcony, speeding past Spike. The dragon spun from the turbulence the Alicorn created, left sitting on the floor. He looked at her quizzically, reaching out. “Twilight! Where are you going?!” “I’m going to get Bolt!” She announced, not slowing for a second. Spike jumped to his feet, running after the Princess on all fours. “Not without me you’re not!” He leaped forward, quickly clutching onto her tail with all of his might as he felt an electric shock run through him, holding him in place as she took off with a clap of thunder. Finally, he landed. This had been the first lightning-induced flight in a long time to last two whole days, but he was on the ground at last. Boltsinger shook his head as he sat up, his hooves slipping a little on the shifting sand beneath him. Looking ahead, he saw a large city that looked like it was scraping to keep itself together. It was built into a large plateau with little more than a dingy grey stone and wood that seemed old enough to be rotting. The sun was hot overhead, turning the sky orange, even though it was midday. As he listened to the goings on around him, there was nothing that struck a chord of familiarity to him. Not a pony in sight, nor in earshot. He stood up, getting his bearings in the sand and walking forward. “Okay… wherever I am… I don’t think I’m in Equestria anymore…” he told himself, looking around. As he entered the town, he spotted many different creatures, all of them filthy and ragged. Each time one of them would look at him, a chill would pass down the stallion’s spine. As he started to understand just how large the creatures around him were, he started to understand why his kind were often referred to as… “My little pony, would you happen to be lost?” a grimey voice called out. Boltsinger looked to the source of the words, seeing a fishlike scaly creature with beady eyes looking at him, offering out what he could only guess was a fin. “We don’t get much of your kind around here. Could fetch a fine price if you did the right job.” “A-A job? What kind of job?” he asked, taking a step towards the creature. “Something only a little pony like you can do!” it answered. “Come with me, and I’ll show you!” Boltsinger took a step back, shaking his head. “On second thought… I-I-I think I’m fine…” He flapped his wings again, flying up to a nearby balcony. “Hey! Watch where you’re flyin’ there!” another, angrier voice yelled. Boltsinger turned around, seeing a bipedal turtle creature looking furiously at him and shaking its fist. Boltsinger let out a yelp, jumping off the edge of the balcony and zipping down to an alleyway. He put his rump on the ground, curling up as he shivered in fear. “I’m sorry!” he cried out, beginning to repeat the words as often as his breath would let him. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he continued, earning nothing but scoffs from those who passed him. “And what are you so sorry for, my little pony?” another, slimier voice inquired, crouching down next to him. “Is there something I can help with?” Boltsinger raised his head, getting a glimpse of the speaker. He looked like a hairless rat creature, wearing goldenrod goggles. Unlike the other residents of the town, he was as dressed to the nines as one could get while still looking haggard, wearing a red tailcoat over a tan vest and white shirt, all tied up with a red bow tie. He wore black pants  with a single patch on the left leg. On the top of his head was a tattered black top hat with a bright red band. “I don’t know if any… um… anyone can help me right now…” he stated. “Well, why don’t you come with me, and I’ll see what I can do?” he offered, extending his claw. “I’m Verko, and you look like you could use a friend…” Boltsinger eased up, putting his hoof forward. “A friend would be really nice right about now…” he admitted. He stood up and reached for Verko’s wiggling, antsy claws, noting a smile that was beginning to widen on the creature’s face. “I agree! You certainly do look like you need yourself a friend, my little pony!” a suave voice declared from above. The two looked up to see a tan-coated Absynnian in a red coat standing on the roof. His paws, face, and the tips of his ears and tail were all a darker shade, while also bearing a tuft of lighter fur on his chest. He gave them a side-glance with his bright green eyes, jumping down from window to window until he landed on the ground between them. Getting a better look at the cat, Boltsinger could notice a piece of purple bandaging wrapped around a small part of his tail, with what he could only think of as a mane of indigo hair forming a curly-Q sitting between his ears. “But this guy? Not who you wanna go with. Not if you ever wanna see home again!” He flourished his tail, gesturing to himself. “Now, me, on the other paw…” “You, Capper, had better leave well enough alone!” Verko spat, stepping between the cat and the pony. “I found this one! And you still owe me for that airship!” “Trust me, Verkey, you don’t want this pony.” Capper retorted, reaching into his jacket. He produced a scroll with a red ribbon and a gold horse shoe seal. “You see, I just got a letter from royalty to be on the lookout for a pony in these parts. Sounds to me like she’s pretty desperate to have one, too!” He leaned in close to the hairless creature, giving him a sly smirk. “I bet she’d pay handsomely for him…” Verko looked back at Boltsinger. “Royalty, eh?” He huffed and turned back to Capper. “You’d best know what you’re doing! I expect your debts be paid sometime in this lifetime!” Capper chuckled, taking a low bow. “Of course! I promise you’ll get everything that’s coming to you!” Verko turned to leave. “All right. I’ll leave this pony to you.” Capper waved, walking up next to Boltsinger. “Bye Verkey! You have a good day!” As the rat creature left their view, Capper looked over his shoulder, where he saw the equine rising into the air. “Hey! Don’t fly away, little pony!” He reached up and grabbed Boltsinger’s tail, attempting to yank him down, but instead finding himself lifted up. “And why should I stay with you!” Boltsinger snapped, looking down at the cat. “You’re just gonna sell me!” Capper gasped in mock offense. “Now who said I was gonna sell you?” “You did! To some… ‘royalty’!” The stallion barked, flapping harder and shaking his tail. Capper tightened his grip, shimmying up the pony’s tail. “Okay, I admit I wasn’t totally lying! But I said it that way to get Verko to back off! I promise I’m not planning on selling you!” Boltsinger shook his whole body as they cleared the rooftops, throwing the Absynnian off of him and to a nearby building. “Good!” He yelled, looking down at him. “It’s not like anypony needs me, anyway…” “That’s not what I read.” Capper pointed out, opening up the letter. “In fact, it looks to me like you’re exactly what this Princess wants.” “Exactly?” he repeated, landing in front of the cat. “That’s a laugh.” Capper grinned, going over the letter he had received. “Let’s see… orange coat.” He peered over the top of the parchment. “Sure looks like you already. Blue hair?” He swiped his tail against the stallion’s mane. “Well, ain’t that a coincidence, you have blue hair! Purple eyed and a pendant that looks like a lightning bolt?” He moved the letter aside, flicking the pendant with his tail. “I see ya got that covered, too. Larger than average wings?” He laughed to himself. “Well that does explain how both of us got up here. Finally… Hm. a ‘Cutie Mark’ of a microphone with a lightning bolt on it… Those ‘Cutie Marks’ are the little pictures you ponies got on your butts, right?” Boltsinger’s face took on a state of shock as his tail coiled around his flank, covering his Cutie Mark. “Um… Yes, that’s the mark on our… It’s called a ‘flank’, you know!” Capper snickered, sitting next to the equine and putting his arm around him. “Listen, Boltsinger, isn’t it? That Princess that sent this letter? She’s a friend of mine. And she also said you might not be in your right mind. Why don’t you come to my place, and you can tell me what went down?” He raised both of his paws so that they were in plain sight. “I promise, no one is gonna sell you.” “No one at all?” Boltsinger stressed, looking suspiciously at him. “No one, period.” he confirmed. “Least of all, me.” Boltsinger glared suspiciously at the cat, trying to get a read on him. He seemed genuine, but there was something about him that said he wasn’t this way often. “If you really mean that, then… okay.”