//------------------------------// // CD&SA (04) // Story: DK Has a Big Heart // by Horatiojones //------------------------------// Well, this was going to be interesting, if those two ponies where who I thought they were, this was my first, total and utter, confirmation that I am in the world I had seen on the show. I stood, preparing myself, and began to tell tales of love, like I had done before. I walked slowly back and forth atop the wagon, while looking down at my pony audience, all enraptured in my presentation. The rest of the circus was in full swing, and I could hear the sound of drums erupting from the big top tent, and smell cotton candy, and other carnival foods, although I was quite surprised when I smelt something along the lines of a Philly dog. I finished the most memorable scene of Titanic, Jack descending into the depths as Rose watched on helplessly, seamlessly changed to ponies. I saw those ponies listening to me, a tear in many an eye, with some openly crying. The pink alicorn, however, was merely conversing with her partner, every so often glancing up at me. I finished this story, then sat, and said it was time to break for lunch, before I re-entered my wagon, and sat upon my barrel seat, eating a collection of fruits. I was deep in thought, not really, I was just day dreaming about Kami, when I heard the distinctive sound of somebody regal clearing their throat. I turned, and found the pony I believed to be Princess Cadance, and the pony I believed to be Shining Armour. She spoke, saying “good morning, DK was it? I am Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and this is my husband Prince Shining Armour, we would like to ask you for a favour”, before looking back at me in the eye, while her husband the whole time stared at me cautiously. I turned and eyed them, then said “Princess Cadenza, Prince Armour, I would be delighted to help the monarchy of Equestria, yet I will do no such thing unless I would receive a favour in return, so before you tell me what it is you require of me, know that the only thing that would divert me from my goal is if you are aware of a spell that allows a spirit to be physically manifested, if you do however, there is little that I would not do for you”. They looked at me in surprise; I smiled at them, stood up, and walked out of the wagon. Shining Armour stepped between myself and his wife, still eyeing me, before Cadance said “DK, I am indeed aware of the spell you sought after, in fact, my aunts have been making me practice it often lately, for some reason, so what you ask will actually be possible for me to do, firstly though I must ask, have you anything to do with the Griffin character who was at my wedding?” “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about Princess, now, what is this favour you would have from me?” I responded truthfully, curious to say the least, about why she would think I was similar to a griffin in anyway, but I put that aside and awaited her response. “DK, as I do not know your story, I do not know why, but your body, it exudes love, to the point where it seems you were created by love, out of love. My husband and I would like to use this, as bait, for changelings that have not returned to their homes after the event of our wedding, as the princesses has tasked us with doing this. The Changeling queen was apparently too weak to do it herself, after what she went through during the wedding, and so Princess Celestia told us to help track down the ones around here as an act of diplomacy”. Well, this was surprising, but I guess it makes an odd kind of sense, I mean, its magic, I probably won’t ever fully understand it, but still, if she could help Kami, then I was all for it, besides, how bad can changelings be. Shining Armour had, the whole time his wife was talking, been protecting her, blocking between myself and him, physically, I was sure I could easily take him, but I was extremely worried about magically, still, I was being polite, so he was, at this point at least, being a bit rude. “If you can help me with my spirit, then I shall help you. Regardless though, Prince Shining Armour, I’m fairly sure you can stop with the protective stance and all, I am a sentient creature, and I’m not going to attack you unless you give me cause”. They both blushed slightly, and Shining Armour seemed slightly surprised, as if he didn’t even realise he was doing it. They moved themselves, rearranged so they were now standing shoulder to shoulder. “Sorry about that, you’re just a very daunting creature, the like of which I have never heard of, let alone seen. Also, please, in the future, just call me Shining; I don’t think I will ever get used to being called Prince. Now what we want you to do is to travel with us, near the Everfree forest, as many of the changelings are dying, from lack of love, around there, and then help us return them to the Changeling Wastelands. The fact that you basically broadcast love, will attract them to you, and once they do, we can give them some concentrated love, that we have been given by Celestia, before sending them on their way, back to the wastelands”. He and Cadance nodded in unison, and smiled up at me, I nodded my head slowly, pondering. I replied “So, if I understand correctly, you just want me to walk around the outskirts of the Everfree Forest, waiting to be, wait will I be attacked or what?” “Oh no, they won’t attack you, they will merely try to subdue you, but trust me, from the way you look, they won’t be able too, Tartarus, it took a few hundred of them to stop my sister and her friends and their half your size” Shining responded, chuckling after the last part, while his wife stood silently beside him. “Ok, I’m in. Just remember as soon as where done, you accompany me to Kami. Don’t, and you will regret it. I’ll go find Big Top, and Show Stopper, and tell them I'm out; their the owners of the circus, before you ask, then we can leave”. As luck would have it, as soon as I turned around, I saw the two brothers approaching. They walked up, bowed at the Cadance and Shining, and then Big Top asked “So, Shining, we haven’t seen you in years, you really ended up marrying Cadance, wow, I remember when you first came to us after she broke up with you, that was hilarious. Then your parents came, and dragged you kicking and screaming home, oh Celestia, and you were going through puberty, so your voice kept cracking, I don’t think Show Stopper and I have ever laughed so hard”, and he started laughing, alongside his brother, who was chuckling quietly. Now Show Stopper asked “so my lieges what brings you too our humble circus, I assumed you would go somewhere warm for your honeymoon, not to the back of the beyond, like here. And also, I must ask, what do you think of the newest addition to our circus, not only is DK here a pretty decent story teller, but he is really scary, it’s like listening to Diamond Dog sing lullabies”. Shining then responded “it’s good to see you guys too, but my wife and I are here on palace business, which is actually why we were talking to your friend DK, we wanted his help with something” They looked at me so I said “Yeah, sorry guys, but this looks like it’s where we stop, it was fun while it lasted, thanks for everything”. After that, Shining and Cadance, bought the heightened wagon off the two brothers, because as of then, they only had the wagon that Shining himself was hauling, which they were fairly sure was too small for me, even if they weren’t in there with me. We left the circus, after I said goodbye to the few ponies, griffins and Minotaurs whose names I remembered. I was dragging the wagon behind us, with a rope attached to my waste, and found this to be actually incredibly easy, while we went shopping for supplies, I bought a large amount of fruit, both fresh and dried, cider, both non-alcoholic, as well as a blanket, a bed and some pillows, no more straw for me. The two royals, meanwhile had gone to a café and where sitting there feeding each other with their magic. It almost brought a tear too my eye, Celestia I miss Kami. Eventually, we left the village, and headed towards the Everfree, I had hooked myself up to both wagons, with the couple’s wagon at the back. Who was I to interrupt a honeymoon, even if both Princesses deemed it necessary? Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being played, the way they had been acting around me, made me feel as if these changelings where more dangerous than they said, even if I knew he wasn’t lying about how easy the mane 6 had found fighting them. As I walked, consumed by my own thoughts, mainly of Kami, I noticed, a buzzing sound, coming from the forest around the path we travelled on. I turned and looked into them, but saw nothing. I continued hearing this noise for a while, but I just kept walking, trudging along, pulling everything like a pack animal. Eventually, I reached a large clearing, so I went of the path, and pulled the wagons into the clearing, which was surrounded by forest. I called out to the couple, who I could only assume where distracted by other activities, in their wagon. They came out, after a long moment, and began trotting alongside me, as I went about setting myself up for the night, building a fire from sticks around us, then pulling out my barrel seat. “I heard a buzzing noise” I explained, whispering quietly to them, “I’m not sure what it is, but from what you have told me about them, it seems likely that is what it is, how would we go about capturing them”. “No, that’s not what where doing, you see we have a crystal with a message recorded upon it, in the Changelings language, by their queen Chrysalis, as soon as they come to us, I will play it, and the Changelings will come to us for the concentrated love, which we have in vials in our wagon” Cadance responded, whispering like myself. “Ok, well, what will cause them to come to me, to I just, I don’t know, think about Kami, or what?” I asked. They chuckled, and nodded. Cadance cleared her throat, as if wanting to ask something, then paused, and nudged her husband. He looked at her, then back at me, before saying “look, we don’t mean to pry, but, you being in love with a forest spirit, well, it’s never been hear of before. I ask, because, well, we want to understand how something like that could occur. Not many people even know there are nature spirits; we only do because Celestia and Luna are worried about Terra doing something, they won’t say what, but yeah, something, and since the spirits are basically her kids, she figures they will be involved”. Well, nuts, I hadn’t even thought about Kami having parents, but I guess it made a certain kind of sense, I wonder what this Terra is like, figures, she probably won’t like me, most parents don’t, although that was probably because all I used to look for was sex. I stood thinking about this for a moment, hand on chin. Finally, I responded “well, she needed help, and I was there to offer it. Beyond that, there’s not much else you need to know. Now, back to these changelings, you guys get on top of the wagon, and play that crystal thing, I’m sure that there’s a fair amount of them in the forest around us by now”. They both looked at me for a minute, as if wanting to pry into my life further, but then appeared to decide against it, and instead followed what I had told them to do. My thinking was that, it would probably be bad to tell them I came from some kind of alternate world, or dimension, or whatever. Cadance flew up on top of my wagon, and then produced a small yellow crystal from her wagon, through the use of telekinesis. Once she had done this she placed her horn upon it and immediately, a buzzing started ringing out from it. Almost exactly after this, a large group of changelings gathered around the wagon, surprising all of us. Hey looked sickly, their dark bodies seeming ridiculously thin, and any movements they made slow and tired. Cadance then pulled some deep red bottles out of her wagon, which she passed out to all of the changelings. They drank from them deeply, and seemed to perk up instantly. After this, Cadance showed them all a map of Equis, and pointed to them in the direction they had to go to get home. They flew of, disappearing easily into the rapidly approaching night. “Well, that was easy. So, we’ll stay here tonight, then continue on in the morning, that okay?” I asked, while sitting in front of the fire. Both of them nodded, and walked back to their wagon, then came out a moment later, ladened with foods and cooking gear. They began roasting vegetable on the fire, while I myself passed out mugs of the non-alcoholic cider. We sat there waiting for the food to cook, in silence. Eventually, I got bored, so decided to strike up a conversation “so, how did you two meet”, I asked, knowing full well they probably met when Cadance was babysitting Twilight, but I wasn’t supposed, to, and I was still curious about specifics. They explained how, at first, it had just been a very usual thing, with Cadance’s royalty not changing anything both of them finding the other attractive, after meeting while she babysat Twilight. Then after this, when they had become more serious, trouble had started emerging, what with Cadance being 40 years older than him, causing her to break up with him, after he acted childishly one too many times. But eventually, they got back together, and had been ever since. I was shocked by how honest they were being, and decided to say this. Once I had though Cadance just said that they felt like they could trust me with matters of the heart, just a gut feeling of some sort. After this, Cadance decided we should sing campfire songs, although I and Shining were startled by this. She began singing a very relaxed and happy song, with music seeming to come from her horn, yet surrounding us on all sides, like a surround sound system. Her voice was delightful, mournful, yet innocent, truly wondrous. Almost too soon, her song was done, both Shining and I clapped, although his made a more, clopping sound, than anything, which made me smile. Cadance then asked me to sing something from my homeland, saying that she believed if my singing voice was any like my speaking voice, it would be quite a treat. I wasn’t wanting too, my singing was, at least when I was human, cringe worthy at best, but eventually they convinced me to. I asked about getting backing music, to which she produced another crystal, then held it against her horn for a moment, before handing it to me and saying, “It will play whatever you want it too, just say the words Muscia a memoria, and it will play” I nodded, said the words, and began to sing Little Green Bag, an inconsequential song, that I had always liked, and besides, it’s always easy to lead with something you know. As I was singing, the music played, and my two pony companions seemed to, surprisingly, be enjoying my singing. We talked after this; rather, I asked questions about Equestria, confirming what I already knew from the show, just to make sure, and they answered them. I knew they wanted to ask about my history, but once I had finished my questions, and eaten, I went to bed, explaining that, after pulling both wagons all day, I was tired, which, since I had been doing it for them, was a perfect excuse. I stared out of the cage, looking at the surrounding forest, thinking, seeing those two today had really made me wonder about Kami. Sure, she had brought me here, for what an outsider would probably perceive to be selfish reasons, yet, had she not; I would still be selling drugs, and screwing up other people’s lives. Even if I had only known her for just over two months now, those two months where the happiest of my life, so, being in Equis would probably only be better. I was thankful to her, I realised, for she had quite literally given me a whole new life, something I was quite willing to spend the rest of my life repaying, however long that may be. Read, Rate, Review, Do What Ever, You Want To Do