Luna's POV
It was quite a story. It seemed a bit strange to know that I had slept next to an extra-dimensional creature, but they had said their DNA was transformed to that of a pony, so it seemed less… awkward. Not to say it WASN'T, as this morning was still enough to make me blush when I think about it. Besides, Kind Greetings had said that they were to live here if their superiors allowed it. For Skyblaze's and my sakes, I hope they do.
I could not help but take an occasional glance at the stallion, sometimes finding him doing the same, causing us both to blush mildly. "So, you said there were six of you? Where are the others?" I asked after Ben had finished
Ben put a thoughtful hoof to his chin. "Well, the portal was supposed to bring us to Ponyville or Canterlot. Skyblaze and I were sent to Canterlot, so the other four must be in Ponyville."
My sister smiled warmly. "I can arrange a carriage to take you both to Ponyville. If you would like help in your search."
"I could accompany them to the town, sister, and assist them in the search for their friends." Wait, what? Where did that come from?
"Of course, Luna. You can leave two hours before noon, so you will arrive in Ponyville for lunch. Oh, and when you get there, contact my faithful student. She will be more than happy to assist."
"Of course, sister. Come Skyblaze, Sir Ben, and we shall break our fast."
Ben moved for the doorway, while Skyblaze rolled out of bed, giving me the cutest embarrassed smi-- wait, what? To dispel the awkward moment, I chuckled at his misfortune. He stood and followed me out the doors. The walk to the dining hall was a short one, the palace ward being close to the large room. When we entered, the staff had just finished their meal and were cleaning off their places, save four plates on the end of the table.
"Oh sweet Celestia, are those… pancakes?" Skyblaze looked at the display with delight.
"Do you have something against flapjacks and apple syrup?" I teased.
"Apple… syrup?" His face had the look of absolute ecstasy. I had no time to answer as he bolted for the table, sitting down and looking to me for permission to turn the plate of syrupy goodness into a war zone. I nodded slightly, and he immediately grabbed the fork. Or tried to. "Aw, schist. I forgot I don't have hands anymore."
"Schist?" Ben gave Skyblaze a skeptical look, lifting a forkful of pancakes to his mouth.
"Yeah, it's what I say instead of-- Hey! Where did you get that?" he exclaimed, pointing at the magnetic bracelet Ben wore around his wrist. The bracelets were designed so earth ponies and pegasi could eat with as much civility as unicorns.
"You have one as well, Skyblaze," I laughed.
He looked down at his own set of utensils and blushed. "Oh, I knew that." He started on his pancakes as I brought my first bite to my mouth. After just three bites, I looked over in surprise as Skyblaze had finished his flapjacks well ahead of any of us and was wiping his face of syrup. "Ah… that was satisfying. Now, if you will pardon me, I need to find some coffee."
"But you have no bits," I pointed out, "Please wait one moment, and I shall escort you to a favorite coffee shop of mine." I heard the snort of a restrained laugh and looked over at Ben, who was smiling in amusement.
Shift's POV
There was an impressive collection of books in the library. Being mostly indoors-confined because of my injury, I had all the time in the world. As it turns out, Daring Do is a relatively quick read, taking only an hour and a half to read the first book. Afterward, Twilight and I had a sort of book discussion. Evidently, the first book doesn't give a good preview of Daring's past, simply jumping to the action.
All morning, I fed off Spike and Twilight's positive emotions that were directed toward me. Twilight's general giddiness from the book discussion, Spike's caring feeling as he changed my bandages, and both of their general friendliness toward me. It felt a bit wrong, but I wasn't doing it by choice.
Being a Changeling also allowed me to detect emotions around me, albeit not being able to taste or feed off them. Spike had a dutiful vibe for his, well, duty, and Twilight had a deep appreciation of books and magic. The two of them had this brother-sister relationship. "You two feel like brother and sister," I said, almost immediately regretting it.
"How can you tell?" Twilight asked curious.
"Oh, I… um," I stuttered, fumbling for an excuse or half-lie, "I can sense emotions." There. I wasn't lying, and the whole truth was spared, making my conscience give me a metaphysical pat on the back.
Twilight visibly blushed. "So then… last night you…" she stammered.
I nodded. "Don't worry, I mostly like to keep it behind closed doors."
"Thanks, Shift," she said, sagging in relief.
"Um, am I missing something here? What happened last night?" Spike asked, oblivious to the events.
"I… er… had a nightmare," I explained, "I would have froze to death in my subconscious if Twilight didn't share her body heat."
Spike raised an eyebrow.
"Spike, I just put myself near him," Twilight said, "he was shivering, and extra blankets didn't help."
Rolling his eyes, the baby dragon went back to re-shelving a stack of books. "Uh huh."
"Actually, Shift, it's getting close to lunchtime and I need to pick up some produce. You can come along and get some fresh air."
"That sounds great! Maybe my friends will be in town."
"Just let me change your bandages, and we'll be on our way."
After Twilight and Spike removed the old bandages and wrapped my still-healing gash in a new layer of gauze, Twilight and I ventured out to the market. Our first stop was the Sweet Apple Acres stand, being manned by a stallion I recognized as Caramel. "Hello Caramel," Twilight greeted, "Two bushels of apples, please."
"Coming right up Miss Sparkle," he said, fishing two buckets of apples from being the counter. He accepted the bits, but then turned to me, a curious look on his face. "Hey, you look like that one mare… what's her name, um…"
I perked up at the mention of my friend. "Storm?!"
"Yeah, she kinda had a crush on me, so I asked her to lunch. She should be here in--"
"Twilight, that's my sister! She's around here! We need to find her. She may know where Aegis, Sky, and R--"
"Shift?!" I stopped my excited tirade at the familiar voice. I turned to see Storm, Rainchaser, and Aegis running toward me. I laughed, abandoning Twilight to run into the group hug.
"Hey, sis. Taking care of these two?" I said, Storm giving me a brief look of confusion, quickly turning into realization. She was radiating a sisterly love, which was understandable, considering that we were both strangers to this world and fellow bronies in our own.
"I'm so glad we found you! I was worried you ended up in the Everfree or somewhere horrible."
"Don't worry, Storm. I'm alright."
She gave me a skeptical look. "Then how did you get that bandage?"
D'oh. "I, er… breathed in the time-stream," I whispered, then regained volume, "Twilight found me outside the library and took me in. I don't know what I would do without her." I looked a the librarian just in time to see her blush.
Storm did a double take. "Heh, I guess there is an advantage to having a mare's mind; being more sensitive to… certain things," she said quietly, but loud enough for me to hear, "Shift and Twilight sitting in a tree…" She sung, then paused. "Hey, isn't the library a giant tree? Wow I'm good."
Aegis interrupted my rebuttal. "Speaking of the library, we were just on our way there to get some books," he pointed out, "I need to read SOMETHING before I go mad."
Skyblaze's POV
I hate long car-rides. Or carriage-rides, whichever. One, I get motion sickness if I'm reading or working on a fic. Two, I get bored EXTREMELY easily. Three, I end up falling asleep half the time.
High altitude and low air pressure has nothing on my pegasus body, but the peace of the sky and the gentle rocking of the airborne vehicle was enough to put me in a dreamless nap. The ride to Ponyville is about an hour, so my catnap started twenty minutes in and ended ten minutes before landing.
But when I woke, it wasn't the amount of time I slept that came to mind. In fact, I don't think anything could outshine waking up leaning against an alicorn. I was lucky Luna was asleep as well, the interior of the carriage having conveniently placed padding for Luna or Celestia to rest their heads against. At this point, the Tenth Doctor would call it 'brilliant' and say something complementing and degrading at the same time.
Blushing furiously, I sat bolt upright in the seat, only to find Ben looking at me from the shotgun seat with an amused look. "Have a gneiss nap, Markus?"
"Can it, Greeny." Ben had been bugging me about my use of geological terms as replacements for profanity, mainly 'schist'. It was funny, really. My brother had been the one obsessed with crystals and minerals, and I was the one using it as a derogatory censor.
"We're about eight minutes out," he reported, "why don't you wake your fillyfriend and get your mane in presentable order."
I scowled at him, turning away to nudge Luna awake. She stirred slightly before opening her eyes, giving a tired smile that made me want to 'd'aww'. "Hey, sleepyhead," I greeted the midnight alicorn, "we're almost in Ponyville, Luna. Oh, and your ethereal wind is a bit out of sorts."
She stole a glance at her mane. Unlike it's usual smooth motion, the strands of starlight were in waving out of sync, some even falling limp at Luna's side. All it took was a blink and her mane fused together into the starry sea I had come to know and love.
Wait, what?
"I still can't believe they have a Starbucks in Equestria," I said, trying to dispel my own tension. The familiar coffee shop looked almost the same, except the logo was an earth pony bucking a cocoa-bean tree. "Although, the coffee is way better and the price is much more agreeable."
"Yes, it is. Yet your order seemed… odd. What in the name of the Fausticorn is a 'cappuccino'?"
"I still can't believe the concept is so hard to grasp for you ponies. It's coffee with tons of cream and at least a spoonful of sugar per cup!" I explained, "or at least, that's what it tastes like. I usually brew my own coffee."
"Hm… I must allow you to brew a cup so I may try some."
"Hey, lovebirds, final approach on Ponyville," Ben said from the front, "Sky, you might wanna see this."
I looked upon Ponyville in awe. It was so vivid, the pastel village I saw in my dreams even more beautiful in the depth of reality. "Wow, the city of a brony's dreams. And we're riding into it in the royal carriage," I said.
"If this ain't paradise, I don't know what is," Ben remarked.
In a fluid motion, the two larger pegasi stallions landed in front of the library. I was just about to leap off to see if the star of my favorite show was in the large home-tree, when I heard a familiar set of voices coming over a rise in the street leading deeper into town.
"Storm? Shift?!" I yelled as they crested the rise, Twilight on one side of Shift and an earth pony I recognized as Caramel next to Storm on the other. The four stared at the carriage.
"Sky?" Storm gasped, "Oh my Celestia, Sky! Ben!"
We ran for each other, meeting in a group hug. Laughing, we were soon joined by Aegis and Rain, both joining the large embrace and Aegis nearly knocking the whole assortment over. Our happiness released itself as we did, Luna, Twilight, and Caramel all standing outside our small circle as we began to gossip about everything that happened.
"We're staying with the Apple family!"
"They have a Starbucks in Equestria!"
"We still haven't seen Pinkie Pie yet."
"Have you tried apple syrup?"
"I figured out magic!"
"Storm's crushing on Caramel/Shift likes Twilight/Skyblaze is in love with Luna!" the three accusations all came out simultaneously, followed by stunned silence. I could almost hear the song:
Five ponies blushing
Two ponies staring
One stallion laughing
And a pegasus hiding under his wings!
Well, I can say that most of the surprise was either directed toward me or Storm. I think it was me considering that Storm herself was looking at me. Thanks, Ben. You traitorous son of a horse. "I, er… um…"
"Well, I find it quite cute when you are flustered," the familiar voice of a midnight blue alicorn came from directly to my right. I seem to do a lot of fainting lately.