//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Questions // Story: Reliquiae: After Earth // by Kalushar //------------------------------// Chapter 6: Questions I cleared my throat, drawing the attention of both Discord and Twilight, bizarre names, I thought. “What are you,” I said bluntly. Both of them stared at me a moment before glancing at each other. “I believe he’s addressing me,” Discord said. I nodded my confirmation, “yeah.” “I’m Discord.” “Yeah… I gathered as much.” Discord narrowed his eyes a moment before they lit up suddenly. “That’s what’s off,” he said suddenly as he snapped his fingers. Suddenly he appeared next to me, making me jump in surprise. “I do believe you are an aberration,” he continued. “You are not a pony.”  “What do you mean he’s not a pony?” Twilight interjected. “I mean,” Discord said, snapping his fingers again. “They are the inhabitants that I couldn’t find.” Suddenly everything around me seemed bizarre and yet normal at the same time, I got taller until suddenly I looked down at my legs and saw that instead of hooves I had something else in their place. “I’m human again!” I yelped suddenly. My toes and my fingers were back, I ran an appraising eye over every part of my body, it was all as it should be. Except I had no clothes and no fur. I quickly covered myself with a nervous laugh and looked back up. Discord seemed interested in my reverted form and Twilight looked like a fish with her mouth gaping open, her eyes flicked back downwards a moment and I felt my cheeks get hot. I cleared my throat again and she sputtered before looking back up at me, her cheeks glowing red. Russel seemed astounded at my sudden change, then started to snort behind a hoof as he held back a laugh at my predicament. “Shut up,” I barked. He gave another snort and then exploded into laughter. I rolled my eyes and Discord stepped up to me, examining me like a judge examining a prized breed. “Very interesting.” Before I could respond I very suddenly felt a sharp pain as once again I shrunk suddenly back down to my changed size. I looked down at blue hooves again. “Well, fu—” “What are you? A new breed of changeling?” Twilight said, regaining her composure. I noticed her eyes again unintentionally flick down again before her cheeks turned even redder, some things I noted thankfully didn’t change. “What do you mean, I’m a human like you.” Twilight seemed confused then a sudden look of realization took shape, “I’m a pony, no spell changed my shape. This is how I’ve always looked.” I felt my throat grow dry. Always? What did she mean, how could a race of intelligent ponies exist without humanity knowing? Discord, as if reading my mind, said, “we aren’t from this world, we are from another where there are none of your kind.” He snapped again, “here I’ll show you.” The world around me flashed quickly before I was overwhelmed by a strange feeling, a sickening feeling, like I was being pulled through a tube of toothpaste, squeezed out of a hole just too small. I shuddered as the feeling ended. Discord cleared his throat, “right, so—” I interrupted him unintentionally while I retched up my lunch. Discord frowned and looked down on my pitiful form, “is that meat?” In what had once been my lunch obvious chunks of meat stood out. Russell also seemed to be feeling the same effects I was, but he managed to keep his lunch down, “yeah, we had burgers for lunch.” When I finished my retching I looked up to see a look of curiosity on Discord’s face and a look of horror on Twilights. She stuttered out a scared question, “you’re c-cannibals?” Through my nausea I felt a sense of confusion, what was she talking about? Did she think we’d been eating others who’d turned like us? “No,” I assured her. “It was beef, cow not horse or pony, I know some people eat it, but personally I think now is not the time to try it.” Twilight just shrunk back towards… Wait, was that a throne? I turned around, taking in my surroundings, I was in a castle throne room. What was going on here? Behind me stood several other ponies wearing strange sets of what looked like golden knight armor. They held spears and seemed rather surprised at seeing me appear in the middle of what I assumed was somewhere I probably shouldn’t be. My hunch was confirmed when they readied their spears at me and Russel and yelled at me, “stop trespassers! How did—” “Guard,” Twilight said loudly. Immediately the guard’s spears went back into the air. “Your highness!” They said as if just noticing her. “Is this pony with you?”  “Yes. Now if you would, please leave us.” The guards seemed skeptical, but they bowed and left the room, shutting the door behind them. As they left I finally took in the beauty of the massive throne room. Or rather I tried to until Twilight's word broke through my ascent thoughts. “I do believe that you have a story to explain your predicament?”  “You mean the whole ‘pony’ thing?” “Yes,” she said reluctantly. “The ‘pony thing.’” I spent the better part of an hour trying to explain how the world hadn’t been the way it was until very recently when everyone found themselves in a strange body that didn’t belong to them. Twilight listened intently and even began taking down notes, meanwhile Discord wandered off after about five minutes and just started playing racquetball with a ball and racket he pulled out of nowhere.  When I finished Twilight took a moment and just looked me up and down, “that is quite the story, and all of it’s true?” Russell spoke up from behind me, “yeah it’s all true. Personally I saw most of it.” I suddenly had an idea strike me, “could you turn me back,” I said turning towards Discord. “You did it before, could you do it again?” Discord stopped playing his game and put a hand on his goatee, “hmm, it may be possible, but I'm not sure why it didn’t work before. The reversal should have been permanent, perhaps the natural levels of chaos magic inhabiting your bodies have made you inherently immune to mine thus leaving you poorly prepared for an enigmatic effect by harmony magic.” Discord let out a sigh as he finished his spiel before continuing, “the universal variable seems to be an adequate explanation for the—” “Discord,” Twilight interrupted. “Are you trying to imitate me?” “Well how will I come to a conclusion on friendship if I don’t think like the princess of friendship?” Twilight raised a hoof about to respond, but stopped and dropped with a relenting sigh. It kinda reminded me of how some people did the same thing with fingers instead of hooves, the similarities between our worlds were odd.  Bronze Shield downed a second cider and dropped some bits onto the bar, the bartender, an old grey-coated stallion named Pickled Mug, just grunted and grabbed the bits, putting them away quickly. Bronze recognized a few fellow off-duty guards and made his way over to the table. “Hey, Maple Stake, how goes it?” Maple, a white-coated Pegasus smiled in return, “great Bronze me and the colts were just listening to our friend, here's an interesting story.” At second glance Bronze realized that his partner Quick Fletcher was also seated at the table before he spoke up, “I was telling the colts here about what the princess and that beast were talking about earlier.” Quick had never liked Discord… or Griffins, or Dragons, or Diamond Dogs, or most other races beside ponies, though Bronze knew that he made an exception for Buffalo, because supposedly his uncle was one. Though that was old news, the new news that was spreading was of a world untouched by any other sentient creature. “You shouldn't be spreading rumors Quick. We have to maintain security.” “Listen,” Quick said, setting down his mug. “Is it not important that if we were to claim such a place that we’d know what we're in for beforehoof? What would happen if the citizens were kept in the dark? Decisions would be made that could destroy the very nation!” A loud sound rang through the room making the entire bar fall still. A sound that the bar's walls hadn’t heard in nearly a century, the bartender frowned and watched as Bronze’s shoe settled inches from Quick’s mug. A challenge, not seen since the early days of the kingdom, and though not illegal, they were generally unheard of in modern times. Quick looked down at the shoe just as the other at the table did. “You don’t want to do this Bronze.” Bronze slammed a hoof down on the table so hard he spilled more than a few drinks. “Shut your mouth! You think I don’t know a thing about protecting my kingdom? You think just because I’m younger than you that I don’t know pain? I’ve killed stallions and mares for my kingdom and I’d kill you if I was ordered to by her highness. You are an entitled pony feather eating plothole! I watched stallions, good stallions who had a family die, while you were sitting around waiting for the smoke to clear!” Bronze was universally thought of as the most laid back stallion on the guard while still retaining the seriousness necessary to do his job, but very few ponies who knew him ever tried to fight him, or insult him. He had fought at the battle for the crystal empire and watched as Sombra was cast back into shadow, he’d helped repel the changeling invasion, and he’d fought against Tireks invasion. Bronze was not a pony to be messed with despite his usual demeanor. The low light accented the small nearly unnoticeable scars that healing magic had been able to all but erase. “Pick up the bucking shoe.” Quick leaned forward and picked up the shined shoe and tossed it at Bronze who caught it. The whole table stood as Bronze walked trotted out, before following him outside. As Bronze trotted along his ears turned as he heard a peculiar noise. Fluttering, from above him a single feather floated and landed on the ground in front of him. “Well are we going to fight or not,” Quick asked annoyed. “You’re the one that—” Quick never the hoof as it smashed into his face and sent him sprawling. Bronze lowered his hoof back to the ground and held up the feather. He rubbed it, smelled it and even tasted it, much to the disgust of the other guards. Unmistakable, he thought. Griffin. “Return to the castle,'' he yelled at the others. “Find the princess, now!”