//------------------------------// // 2.Human? // Story: The Unbroken Spear // by Jamis //------------------------------// “Whats a human?”, Sky Ray asked innocently receiving a glare from Steal Gait,”Sorry I have just never heard of them before?” Sky smiled slightly toward her mentor in hopes of calming her stare. “Neither have I.”, Steal agreed, "What exactly is a human? You look like a earthpony though you have no tail or cutiemark." “And I would ask how you are ponies? You all look like nothing I have ever seen that is even related to that. If I may also ask another question? What is a ‘cutimark’?” Deciding to ignore the idea that pony could mean anything other than what they were, “A cutiemark is the mark that appears when a pony finds out what they are talented at.” Sky answered cheerfully, “my cutiemark is a cloud with a beam of light coming there it because I’m talented at brightening situations and manipulating clouds.” Filing that second part away for another question later. He glanced at the arms of the people around. Atreus saw that they did indeed have a arms bearing a sort of what he would describe as tattoo. “I see, I do not mean to be to presumptuous. However, if we could move our conversation to a more private location so I may converse with the local leader. I would be grateful.” Steal sighed, “I suppose since it appears you don’t mean any harm you should speak to Tough Dough, being the oldest pony around makes him the elder of of town.”, she motioned Atreus to follow and asked the crowd to go to their homes. ‘He may be a bit of a crazy stallion but Dough always makes wise choices.’ As they moved through the small port town Sky walked beside Atreus who had reclaimed his spear and held his helmet under arm now. “So, what was it that you had to confirm when you asked us about Equestria?” “Ahhh, your memory is clearly better than mine Miss Ray. I wanted to see what you said to my question about the world. Where I am from the name of the world is Runeterra. I may be a bit premature on this but given all of the differences we have discussed I may not be from ‘Equis’.” Pantheon theorized to her with a small frown. “Really?!” Sky yelled, drawing the attention of those still outside. She blushed in embarrassment and put her head down a bit to hide her face. Atreus chuckled at her with a smile now on his face, “I have a question as well, when you were talking about ‘cutiemarks’ you mentioned that they represented your talent.” Sky nodded and Steal listened carefully to them as they made their way towards an older looking house. When compared to the rest of the other houses it wasn’t that old, just not new. “You said one of you talents was manipulating clouds, what sort of magic do you do this with?” “Oh with my pegasi magic.” Sky looked at him and answered almost automatically. Upon seeing his confusion remembered he wasn’t a pony. “You see each of the three tribes has an attribute that makes them able to preform a task the other can't. Earthponies are very strong and have a connection to plants and the soil which all makes them great farmers. The pegasi fly, change and move clouds in order to manipulate the weather, and another thing we can do is simply walk and sit on clouds like they were solid.” Atreus was impressed, both of these tribes would be very powerful and helpful if they existed on Runeterra. "Finally the unicorns can use magic to cast spells, levitation, changing things, teleportation. I don’t exactly have a great understanding of it. But I do know that back in the old days before Princess Celestia, unicorns made an elite group dedicated to moving the sun and moon to change day to night with their spells.” At this piece of information Atreus choked, “Did you say they manually moved the sun and moon?” he asked shocked if only slightly. Sky nodded confused at what he meant. ‘Truely, when I said that mortal strength was greater than the stars. I didn’t think it would be so soon before I saw something to confirm it.’, “You said before Celestia they did this, what happens now?" "Oh princess Celestia moves them all by her self.", Sky responded as if it were obvious, "she is definitely the strongest pony I can think of. Maybe even the strongest living being on Equis." Atreus frown at that, he had sworn to destroy all things with power so great it could only destroy. This one person was in control of the very cycles of night and day itself. That put even the aspects to shame, they embodied their elements but the elements could exist without the Aspect. Or else we would not have had any war after I was freed, "It must be frustrating for non unicorns to be ruled by a unicorn." Ray Ray paused before face palming, "Oh my Ceslestia how could I forget?!", Pantheon was a little concerned that this Princess Celestia was using her power to be revered as a god. "Princess Celestia is an Alicorn, she has the traits from all of the tribes and from what I've heard is really tall. Shes a great leader and has been for her entire rule." This began to multiple the man's worries as he spoke again, "How long has she been in power?", he continued his thoughts without stating them, 'And what will happen when she dies, who will take her place, who will rule, move the heavens, and unite the tribes with a leader they all love? This is a problem, not necessarily in her, but in her absence after she had been so important.' He kept these questions silent for now waiting for her to answer. "Oh about a thousand years, Equestria hasn't had a war in centuries under her rule. Everything is peaceful crime is almost nonexistent, and everyone's standard of living is good." She stated proudly, her nationalism for how well her country was doing complete caused her to miss the look of eye widened shock. Atreus prayed that was true, if an immortal being who had that much power wasn't truly so kindhearted it would become his problem. He would have to consider paying her a visit to make sure. "I hate to interrupt your history lesson Sky. But we are here now." Looking forward the pair noted they had reached the house of Tough Dough. "A word of warning he is a little... odd, it would be best if we ask to inform him of the situation and all our information fully, before we partially inform him and he jumps to an embarrassing conclusion." She knocked on the door and after a moment an older earthpony stallion answered with a small smirk. "Well hello, I assume you're the foursome I ordered.", Steal frowned and put her hand to her head slowly. Sky flushed and stuttered ever so slightly, unable to process what she just heard. Pantheon kept a stoic expression and merely gauged the other's responses. "Atreus this is Tough Dough, despite his terrible sense of humour he is rather knowledgeable and hasn't lead the town astray before.", Tough Dough smiled and motioned them in closing the door behind them. As the group sat down in the wooden house with decent lighting around a kitchen table Atreus spoke, "It is nice to meet you Mr. Dough.", he could help but think of baking now that he kept hearing the word dough. Though most people couldn't summon loafs of bread from the stars so I made sense why bread was on the mind. "Like wise, care to tell me the problem or are we just going to have me butt into conversations with partial advice?" Tough joked.