The Severed Dimension

by StarPrism

Chapter 4 - Reflections

As I was putting all of my concentration into healing the burns on Fluttershy’s side, the little green creature was watching with worry.

“Is there anything I can do to help at all?” he asked again for the fifth time.

“No, little one. I am trying to concentrate right now.” I said.

“Spike. My name is Spike.” He said. “Is she going to be alright?”

“I’m going to be fine” Fluttershy spoke up. “and I’m sure Lorane here knows exactly what she’s doing.”

“Stop talking Fluttershy, you need to save your energy for this healing. My spell only helps the healing process but it’s up to your body to heal itself.” I said. The burn wasn’t the worst I’ve seen but I am not too sure about how ponies handle injuries like this. In fact the fact that it looked charred in the first place worried me to no end until I saw it was her wing that was charred, and her side was singed with a first degree burn. The spell was almost finished, as the burn disappeared quickly I asked “So Fluttershy, your wing… Will your feathers you know, grow back?”

“Oh yes, and I appreciate your concern. The pain is gone now, that is you can stop… if you want to that is.” Fluttershy said.

“I’m not going to stop! What’s wrong with you? You need medical treatment and I don’t see a hospital anywhere.” I said.

“Oh I’m sorry. You know the hospital isn’t too far from here.” Fluttershy said. Her burn was almost completely gone now, it has only been a few minutes, finally a colt who witnessed the whole incident came back, I had told him to get help when Edel ran off, and he was surrounded by three stallions, one with a stethoscope around his neck and wore a white top half of a doctor’s scrubs, with a caramel colored coat and a short brown mane. The other two were completely outfitted in what could be best described as paramedic suits and both held a stretcher on either side.

“Hello I’m Doctor Stable, we’re here to escort miss Fluttershy to the hospital.” said the caramel pony.

“Hello again Dr. Stable” Fluttershy said “Thank you for coming all the way out here for me but I’m feeling much better now.” She definitely wasn’t lying; the burn was completely gone now, and she was only missing a large patch of butter-yellow fur under her wing, which is the most damaged area due to the feathers being burned off. As I stopped the spell I began to think of different spells that would help her wing.

“Fluttershy?! Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash’s voice rang loudly, as I looked she was a good distance away and Regal was right behind her, both flying.

The doctor trotted forward, looked at Fluttershy’s wing and then the patch of missing fur. “This looks like you were suffering from an incredible burn, but it’s completely gone! This is very high class healing I’ve seen in a long time. Young filly what is your name?”

“She’s Lorane. She’s new to ponyville.” Fluttershy said, standing up and smiling.

“Fluttershy! Your wing! What happened?!” Rainbow Dash landed next to us as she nuzzled her friend and looked at the damaged area.

“Oh I’m fine now, thanks to Lorane here.”

I couldn’t think of a spell and looked over at Fluttershy “I’m sorry but I don’t think I know a way to fix your wing.” I said, now thinking of Edel. “Something terrible must’ve gone wrong in there if there was a monster in this place. I’m going to see if Edel is okay. Regal are you coming?” I said as Regal landed next to Rainbow Dash.

“Of course. What happened to Fluttershy? And where is Edel?” Regal asked.

I explained the whole situation as I finished Spike finally spoke up.

“Miss Lorane, thank you for helping our friend. I can tell everypony what happened inside, just minutes before Fluttershy opened the door –”

“Spike let me explain that.”

I looked around to see a purple unicorn trotting in our direction from the library. Edel followed closely behind her, his face bore the expression of victory. The unicorn had a purple mane with a bright pink highlight, and had bangs that covered some her brow but her horn was still exposed. She had a long matching tail, and very deep purple eyes.

“Lorane! Regal!” Edel said. “Fluttershy are you okay?”

A few minutes later we were in the library’s foyer, Edel sat next to me and Regal on his other side. Spike was picking up the books that littered the ground, Rainbow Dash was on the opposite side of the library looking at the front cover of what looked like a novel, Twilight and Fluttershy were talking in front of a makeshift pedestal with a thick black book on it.

“I do know of a spell that can mend your wing, but I’m not sure if it’ll work right away.” Twilight said

“Oh it’s okay really, you don’t have to –” Fluttershy was cut off as Twilight said something and began to cast the spell. A purple aura lit up around her horn followed by a flash of green light that filled the room emanating from Fluttershy’s wing. After the light faded, a few seconds later, her wing sprouted feathers and she looked like as she did before the incident.

“Well I guess the effects were immediate after all.” Twilight said, grinning with pride.

“Thank you Twilight. I feel like a new mare!” Fluttershy said.

“Well now that that’s out of the way, I suppose I owe you all an explanation.” Twilight started. Dash looked up from the book she was looking at, and Edel, Regal and I were looking towards Twilight. I was amazed at the spell she used, and I wanted to remember to ask her how she did that. “Princess Celestia has been very busy lately, and I have started to study other means of travel. As you know there is a teleportation spell, my idea is to create a magical leyline that connects two points with a teleportation spell, virtually creating something I call a Wormhole. However doing this is very difficult, so I decided to try out an easier spell with a similar architecture called Scrying. I can go into a lot of details but I know you guys would get bored, so it essentially creates a sort of window that allows the caster to see a distant area using this window.”
In Durandel the spell she is describing is Far Sight. I have tried this before; it’s much harder than anyone would think. She would make a very talented mage, maybe even an Archmage. I thought.

Twilight walked towards the middle of the room as she continued “I was able to cast this spell multiple times in various locations. Then I got curious and wondered how Tartarus would look. I took a trip to Canterlot a few days ago to borrow this book.” She levitated the black book that was on the pedestal in front of her. “This is an ancient book that only a handful of Druids wrote back before Equestria was founded. They wrote about an ancient land called Tartarus and how evil creatures spawned from the depths. I used this as a guide to find the correct magical leyline for Tartarus, and when I was certain I found it, I casted the scrying spell. However some unknown factors and chaotic energies actually turned the scrying window I created into a portal of sorts.

“As soon as I realized the mistake, that’s then the creature – you saw Edel, and you too Fluttershy – made its move. It attempted to flee Tartarus, it damaged much of the library and Spike began to run away towards the door, then as its arm, as Edel calls it, flew outside I made it recoil back inside and I was able to repel it back into the portal. At this point I realized I needed to find the magical anomalies that bound the portal on this side and the other side of the portal, so that’s when I decided to jump in and find them.” Twilight finished.

“I jumped in on instinct, found Twilight, and helped her find those anomalies. Long story short, let’s just say Tartarus has made an enemy out of me.” Edel said.

“Yes if it wasn’t for Edel here I probably wouldn’t have made it back in one piece.” Twilight added.

Spike looked at Edel and nodded in approval. He then turned to Twilight and said “Can we eat? It’s past lunch time and I haven’t eaten since breakfast!”

“Oh yes. Is everypony hungry?” Twilight asked.

The lunch that was prepared a few minutes later was something to get used to. For one I had a dandelion and hay sandwich, and judging from Edel’s grossed out face, he was the only one who didn’t like the taste of grass and hay. It is different to pony taste buds for sure, for me at least the dandelion tasted sweet with a hint of mint flavor while the hay tasted like dried oats. Regal had a look on his face that was hard to determine if he actually liked the food or not.

“Well I would love to stay and chat but I need to finish practicing and my daily work routine with clearing the skies.” Dash said, then looking at Regal added “I’ll be back though so don’t leave!” and with that she flew out an open window.

“And I need to go too, I need to feed the animals and make sure they are okay. Thank you for lunch Twilight, and I hope you can help out our new friends.” said Fluttershy, as she began to trot to the door. “Oh and please come by my cottage if you need a place to sleep, it would be my pleasure!”

“You’re too kind miss Fluttershy.” Regal said as he began to bite his fourth muffin.

“Yes well… Lorane? You saved my life today, I will have to make it up to you. I’ll see everypony later then!” Fluttershy said and exited through the front door. I am truly glad she turned out to be okay. It seems the pony body heals much faster than humans, so my healing spell is magnified on ponies. That is an excellent fact to know.

“Well now it’s just us.” Twilight started.

“Well miss Twilight Sparkle, let me start by saying how nice it is to meet you. I’m Regal, this is Lorane, and you know Edel already.” Regal said, being as polite as he could. It’s gotten painful for me to listen to him introduce people like this, it’s almost a staple every time we are guests in a castle or in a household, just about anywhere really.
“Well somepony knows good, royal manners. Yes nice to meet you all, now Fluttershy said something about you three needing my help?”

I wondered if I should speak up. Edel usually handled situations like this. But to tell the whole story, the truth would make us sound a little crazy. Then again these ponies seem to be a very accepting community. As Edel began to talk about the events in the castle my mind began to wander elsewhere. I began to think about the past, how we all got here in the first place.

I remember Edel, we grew up together. Well we grew up on the same block at least. I met him on my fifth birthday, my mother and his father were old friends and coworkers at the local weapon factory.

“Lorane this is Edel, he’s uncle Bertram’s son! Say hi.” I remember my mother saying. We were both five.

“H-hello.” I said.

“Dad! A girl? What are we gonna do play dolls?” Edel cried.

After a few glaring looks, Edel and I were playmates for the celebration.

6 years later, on my eleventh birthday was when the first of the Xinon raids started. Xinon was a rivaling nation who wanted control over the continent. The raid on my town was terrible but the militia was able to drive off the invaders, however I lost my mom and dad, Edel also lost both of his parents. Edel’s older brother, Alistair had to take both of us in as guardian until we came of age to fight in the war. When we both turned fourteen it was time for us to enlist in the military cadets. That’s when I learned I was born with high levels of mana which meant I had the capacity to use magic. Alistair had become like a father to me, and he even trained me how to use magic and basic spells. We turned fifteen, Edel was the top of his unit while I was one of the youngest fully fledged mages to ever walk the ranks of the Cadet Infantry Militia. The day of our first mission, Edel and I were placed in the same group: Squad 715, and we were to quietly deal with a small uprising in a village of only 100 inhabitants. However the other tree people in our squad were corrupted and evil, they took advantage of the mainly peaceful village.

Some events unfolded, and we ended up having to kill the other three and to flee in order to save the village. As we got back home we found Alistair had been killed in his sleep in previous day, overwhelmed with grief we fled. We went towards the capital hopefully to find the good King Joseph and maybe he could see our loss and why we chose to kill the other three members of our squad. The night we left however, as we were lost in an infamous forest, we found a young man, naked and with no memory of who he is or where he came from. He wound up following us, even saving our lives from a warg, so we adopted him into our group and continued travelling. The man we found, in fact, is sitting in this room with us. Regal, the name we gave him based on his ‘regal’ demeanor, to this day still has no idea where he came from or what he was doing in that forest. The only thing strange about him is his strange connection with the paranormal and he becomes a completely different person, that is, he adopts a whole different persona when he is in a corner and death seems imminent. All the while Durandel is at war. The war continues to this day.

“Lorane? Equestria to Lorane!”

I looked up, snapping out of my flashbacks. Edel, Regal and Twilight were all looking at me. “Hey she’s back!” Twilight said “Well you three are in quite a strange predicament it seems. Having been from a different reality than ours, I wonder how many culture shocks you have experienced!”

“Um, not too many. Lorane seems to be adapting the best of us like I was saying.” Edel said.

“Well since this ‘Gladius’ bad guy sent you here to be imprisoned it seems, I need to research more about alternate dimensions and realities. If we are to get you back home there’s a need to haste about this isn’t there? If he is as scary as you say, then your home is in danger if he’s heading in that direction. Assuming there is no time difference between here and there it’s been a full day-and-a-half correct?” Twilight said. I nodded as she continued “Well I just so happen to have a book about something similar to your ‘Gate’ in Durandel called a dimensional rift. However it’s a natural occurring phenomena and it’s extremely rare and nearly impossible to predict where it will show up.”

“That sounds promising.” I said.

“We need to keep our eyes peeled.” Edel whispered.

“For what?” I whispered.

“Edel didn’t mention that Gladius was going to come looking for us. Remember what he said?” Regal whispered.

I did remember. He said when he finds the Stones he will let us out. But if he doesn’t, he will find us and kill us. I gulped. Somepony – I mean somebody that evil entering Equestria… I really don’t like the thought of that!

“We need to get away from Ponyville. When he comes wherever we are will be in danger.” Edel continued “As soon as we get any sign that he’s here we will have to be ready and expect the worse. Who knows when this will be.”

“Why don’t you just tell princess Celestia?”

All three of us flinched and we looked down to see Spike was listening in on us.

“What? Tell who about what? We weren’t saying anything!” Edel said with a sheepish smile.

“I heard every word you said you know. If you’re in danger just tell princess Celestia. She’ll protect you.” Spike said with a dull look. “Twilight, should I write a letter about this? …Twilight?”

Twilight was concentrating on a book, reading.

“No we can’t let anypony get hurt because of our presence here. Regal, Lorane, let’s go now.” Edel said flatly.

“Now?” I said. I agreed with Edel but I kind of wanted to stay. This place is peaceful, almost a utopia. However I trotted behind them out the door. It was almost night time, the sun was just setting over the horizon.

“I’ll fly ahead, let’s head back where we came from, I believe south-east.” Regal said and with a heave jumped in the air and flew in the direction we were going.

We continued on a steady gallop, losing sight of Regal as the sun went down completely. We were a good distance away from Ponyville now, on the edge of the Everfree Forest. “I still don’t see Regal. Should I send sparks in the air to give him a signal?” I said.

“Yeah. We haven’t had any hostilities so far except that Scintillian, I think we are safe enough to sleep here.” With that answer I sent orange embers flares in the air, bright enough to light the surrounding area for a few seconds. A minute later Regal landed next to us.

“There you are! How far ahead did you go?” I asked.

“I just went to scout the forest, it seems more… alive at night. I would suggest someone stay awake and keep watch if we sleep here.” Regal replied. Edel grunted.

“Fine I’ll take first watch. Regal you get second, go to sleep now and I’ll wake you in a few hours.” Edel said. He then began to trot around the immediate area.

“Well goodnight then.” I said. I fell asleep almost instantly, beginning to dream about what it would be like to live in Ponyville.