//------------------------------// // Chapter. 1 – The Fateful Day Out // Story: My Most Faithful Mortifer // by hamishwarfare //------------------------------// Chapter. 1 – The Fateful Day Out The sun shone down beautifully upon the grand and majestic city of Canterlot; and though its radiant golden rays swept over the city without thought, it almost seemed to linger upon a single park more than all the others. Perhaps this phenomenon was made possible thanks to Princess Celestia and her ability to manipulate the sun; after all her latest protégé was currently running around its soft green grass playing with a small purple biped dragon. Watching over the two playing together was Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, or Cadance as she prefers to be known; the friend and foal sitter who was currently responsible for them. The end of summer is fast approaching and though most young colts and fillies are not looking forward to the new school year, the one lone filly playing with her sitter cannot wait for fall to start. The start of fall brings with it the new school year, and that in turn brings new lessons from Princess Celestia. It has been a little over a year since this young filly’s life had changed beyond her wildest dreams and it all revolved around an egg and an explosion of colour in the sky. This young filly had done something none of her fellow examinee’s had achieved; she had hatched a dragon’s egg and passed the examination beyond anyone’s expectations. There was just one slight problem; this test was not meant to be passed. More accurately, this test was a test of character. A test to see how these young magic users acted when it came to impossible odds; would they act responsibly? Would they lash out? Can they be trusted with the potential power they would be learning within the hallowed halls of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns? These were the questions meant to be answered. The dragon egg for this test had been brought out of storage year after year for more than a century; it was donated to Princess Celestia herself upon its discovery within an abandoned nest. There were enchantments placed upon it to both monitor the magic output of the child as well as to dissipate any potential damage the egg may receive. All this on top of the natural resistance to magic that dragon eggs naturally possess should have made this test impossible. Not even an adult unicorn would be able to actually hatch such an egg. And yet a young filly, Miss Twilight Sparkles, had done what only thought possible by Princess Celestia herself. The test had gone exactly as planned and expected; young Twilight Sparkle honestly was doing as well as all the other examinee’s and appeared to be giving up when everything went to Tartarus. There was a loud deep explosion of noise from the sky followed by a swathe rainbow of colour that came careening through the amphitheater's windows and startled the poor filly which in turn caused, something. Along with the explosive wave of rainbow came a torrent of power from the young filly that not only hatched the impossible egg, revealing a very much alive and well baby dragon. She also turned her parents into plants, managed multiple person telekinetic lifting before enlarging said baby dragon beyond the capacity of the examination room. It was a disaster. Raw magic was firing out of her horn left and right delivering random effects to whatever they struck. The magic holding the examiners in the air was too powerful for them to break free with their own magic and the young filly herself was suspended in the air as well within a field of raw magic. If it wasn’t for the timely arrival of Princess Celestia, who knows how much worse this might have become. The Princess managed to put the young filly to sleep temporarily, but it was enough to disrupt the flow of her magic, and allowed Celestia to undo all the spells. The school had no place for her; she was too powerful and lacked sufficient control for her to be taught in a classroom environment. Had she been brought to their attention years prior then maybe they could have accommodated her, but then she would have been far too young for the school system; would she have even been able to read or write at that young age? While the child peacefully slept surrounded by her parents - and the baby dragon strangely enough - the examiner’s told the Princess the unfortunate news. The Princess, however, showed how loving and wise she was; she offered to take the filly under her wing as teacher in order to give the young girl a future. “Twilight, Spike, get over here already! Giggle I’ve got the picnic set up and waiting. It’s already past lunch time and at least I’m getting hungry; I’d have thought you two would be starving by now.” If there was ever such a spell more effective at summoning the young it was the prospect of a picnic lunch sitting under a tree on a beautiful summer day. The young filly was currently assisting the even smaller bipedal dragon to learn how to walk. Since the hatching of his egg a little over a year ago, the young dragon had imprinted upon the young filly as a mother. While the Twilight was indeed very mature for her age and would have been of great help in raising a younger sibling; it is entirely different, however, to actually raise a child. The adults in her life, including Princess Celestia, had tried to wane the young dragon away from her –perhaps reshape the image into an elder sibling– but so far nothing had changed the instinctual need to be with his mother. The adults could feed him, change him, play and even scold him; but the very first thing he did was to look to his mother, Twilight Sparkle, for approval, for comfort, and everything else in between. “Give us a minute! Come on Spike you can do it; see your almost there. Just a little further and you'll be on the blanket nibbling on a tasty gem.” The young dragon was still too young to really be walking upright on his hind legs, but full of determination and with the assistance of a helping forehoof from his mother, he had taken his first few steps. “Yes, see look at you Spike, your walking. Sure I’m keeping you upright with my magic and almost dragging you along with my right forehoof, but you're walking!” the smile and encouragement was everything to the baby dragon. He did not understand a single word being spoken but the smile, the tone of voice and the slight sparkle of his mother’s eyes made every wobbly step worth it. “Gently Twily, you don’t want Spike to fall and hurt himself, do you? He’s still a baby and has a ways to go before he'll be able to do this on his own.” The young filly appeared to take no notice of what her sitter had said, instead focusing entirely on her young charge as he finally made it to the picnic blanket. “Great job Spike, look at you. You walked a full three point six meters with only a moderate amount of help from me. Keep this up and you'll be walking all by yourself in no time. But it looks like someone wants his reward now; so here it is a nice juicy emerald.” With her horn glowing the raspberry hue of her magic a small green emerald was lifted out of Cadances wing grip and brought it over to the waiting dragon; whom, upon reaching the blanket, had dropped down onto his diaper and held up his two front paws in the universal sign of gimme gimme gimme. Now that her small charge is happily gnawing upon his reward, the young Twilight walked the remaining distance and flopped down next to her sitter Cadance; an air of grumpiness and frustration around her. “Being a mum is hard, and it takes up so much time. I mean I could have been reading up on advanced visualization techniques to improve my magic; but instead I’m out here playing with Spike.” Cadance just giggled again as she brought out a plate of sandwiches, cut into triangles, as well as a small basket of apples before finally two bottles of water from the large thatched picnic basket. All of these floated into position surrounded by the light blue colour of her magic. With a satisfied smile of a job well done she joined her younger charge in lying down upon the chequered blanket. “Well I think you're doing very well. There are some adults who do not look after their foals nearly as well as you do with Spike. Besides, aunty all but forced you out of the castle today; saying something about you never getting natural light on your coat or something.” The smile on Cadance’s face had more than a hint of mischief about it, and the twinkle in her eyes certainly contributed to the feeling as well. Twilight just huffed before sitting back onto her haunches and took a big bite out of the sandwich that she had brought over to herself. Full puffy cheeks, eyes that screamed frustration and annoyance; all this on such a small face could be nothing else but adorable. Seeing such a reaction from her young charge caused Cadance to gently shake her head with a laugh before taking a much more reasonable bite out of her own sandwich. The small group ate in peace and enjoyed the end of the summer air, listening to the birds that flew about the place on top of the distant sound of foals playing. Without noticing Spike had crawled over to the two ponies and had settled down next to Twilight, still slowly gnawing away happily at his lunch. The young filly, almost unconsciously, responded to this invasion of her personal space by bringing her front hoof up and gently started to stroke it down his back. The radiant smile upon Cadances face told Twilight that she had noticed what the young mother was doing; Twilight just huffed again and turned her face away from her sitter and into another sandwich. Though, she did not stop stroking her ward. Small idle chatter started up gently to break the silence as the picnic continued at a sedate pace. Once Spike had had his fill of his gem he let out a large yawn before curling up into a ball; falling asleep right between the two ponies, though actually touching the smaller one. This brought the idle catch up chatter to a stop for a period of time so as to not disturb the young dragon. They needn’t have bothered, he was asleep the moment his eyes shut. “Sigh, maybe you right about all that walking I had him doing; but according to mum I was up on my hooves and running all over the place in less than a year. He’s one year and three weeks old now and still struggling. I hope he’s not a moron.” “Twilight! That’s not a nice thing to say about Spike. He’s a dragon, he walks on two legs. Us ponies walk on four legs if you hadn’t noticed; giving us much greater stability and requiring less balance to walk. Dragons and other bipedal beings have a much less stable base and require much more balance to walk than we do; I believe it takes Minotaur foals two to three years on average before they can walk.” Twilight had the decency to lower her head at this realisation and uttered a sad apology. “Twilight, none of us adults wanted you to be a mother at eight years old for reasons like this. Your trying I know; that you asked you mother about when you started walking was a good idea, but you must remember that she raised ponies and you're raising a dragon. There will be things that she’ll have no idea how to handle –such as when he start breathing fire for example– and they’ll be other things that Spike will ether not do or will need time to learn, his walking being a prime example of this. “It’s good that you're asking these questions and when you show the patience from earlier, or the small affectionate gestures like rubbing his spines, it fills all of us with so much pride. But please stop going straight to insults when something does not go as you expected. You’ve got me, your mother and father, and even aunt Celestia willing to help you raise Spike to be as wonderful as you are; and he will get there, as long as you are patient with him and come to us for help and advice.” During her disciplinary lecture Cadance had lifted Twilight off the blanket gently before bringing her over to slowly comfort the now crying little filly in a hug. This was not the first time Twilight had put her hoof in her mouth when it came to Spike, and it’ll probably not be the last time ether; though she has gotten better as the year’s gone by. All the adults in her life were hoping to have stopped these outbursts before Spike could understand what Twilight was saying, or even remember them. Only a year or two left before then…oh dear. After receiving a slightly tearful promise to be a better mum to Spike Cadance returned Twilight back to her position next to her adoptive son and brought out the final treat from the picnic basket; a book. “Now I know auntie wanted you to have the same schedule as your peers from her gifted unicorn school, so that you can make friends; but I know you better than she dose. This is a tome from the Royal Archives, somewhere you're not allowed in just yet but, I think you’ve earned a small sneak peek. Now this is a collection of writings on alternative magical theory; and while most of this book is available to the public, there are enough obscure pieces that are best not known. I’m not expecting you to get all of it, heck even I don’t fully grasp some of the deeper stuff, but I thought we could read it together so we can help each other learn. So, how about it?” ‘A book she’s never read, from a library that she’s not allowed access to and the prospect of helping somepony learn; there is no way she’ll refuse. Hopefully this will brighten her mood up a little; she never was good with summer vacations.’ Almost prophesied from the stars themselves at how effective this piece of bait was at landing fish that said fishermare had her prized catch land between her two front legs; the back of the skull resting against the base of her throat with its back leaning against her barrel in an odd angle. Small front hooves trying desperately to reach for this small morsel of ambrosia the dangled just that little bit out of reach and already occupied with magic too strong for it to overrule. Repositioning everyone, including Spike to be gently touching herself, Cadance got comfortable before finally opened the book and allowed Twilight to read. This wonderfully peaceful and tranquil state would not last forever; could not last the day even, but eventually it was interrupted by a royal guard addressing Cadance for a private word. “You can keep reading Twi, I'll be just a moment.” She gave a warm smile to the filly that did not even see it; her head was still too deep into the juicy book. Getting up from her position on the blanket without disturbing either of her two young charges, she followed the guard far enough so as not to be heard by the filly while still keeping an eye on her. The pure white coat of the guard as well as the gold armour he wore was dazzling in the sun, so much so that Cadance had a little trouble keeping eye contact. “Princess Cadance, I bring a message from Princess Celestia. She has requested that her protégé, Twilight Sparkle, not return to the castle tonight.” His voice was the same generic tone as all of the other royal guard, so much so that Cadance was seriously beginning to wonder if the glamor spells altering the appearance of the guards for their anonymity, was also changing their voice to be the same generic tone. “Sigh, let me guess the Griffon ambassador is acting up again with the ambassador from Zebraica. Or is it that the Minotaur ambassador has once again managed to find a barrel of Sweet Apple Acres cider and now wants to show off?” A light breeze tried to calm her now fraying nerves, but it was quick to pass, short lived and far too gentle to do anything against the building frustration. “Umm. The latter, ma'am. Apparently he brought two barrels with him as an apology, and somehow managed to convince the other ambassadors into a drinking contest.” A look of mild panic crossed the guards face for a brief moment before continuing. “As I was leaving with your message I fear I heard a shout of triumph coming from the kitchens.” “Yes, and we received a shipment of cider just last week, didn’t we.” A quick nod of his head blinded Cadance for a moment as the sun reflected of his helmet. “Thanks for the warning. I'll be sure to take Twilight to her parents’ house instead of the castle. Hmm, I wonder if they will let me spend the night as well.” Even if Celestia was willing to teach Twilight Sparkle all year round, there are times when it just wasn’t possible and the annual three day gathering of allied nations was just such a time. It is meant to gather all of Equestria’s allies together to strengthen bonds as well as to hopefully resolve any potential issues that may have arisen between nations. Cadance was beginning to suspect that it was just an excuse for her aunt to throw a party. Any other discussion was derailed as a large wailing noise pierced the air; Spike had woken up and was now crying. Quickly trotting over, Cadance picked up Spike and cooed sweet nothings to try and calm him down; using her magic to slowly bounce him in the air. “Aww come on Spike, who's a big nasty dragon? Shhh, Shhh, there we go. See; look at those tears drying up. You're a big scary dragon, yes you are.” A quick nuzzle and a gentle tickle and Spike had quickly calmed back down. Turning around, still with Spike in her magical grip, Cadance noticed that the guard had followed her over to the blanket. “Sorry about that, Spike gets a bit upset when he wakes up and can't find anyone. Heh, the amount of times I’ve had to calm him down like this when Twily’s…Wait, where is she?” Looking around the area showed no sign of anyone nearby let alone a small purple unicorn filly wandering about. “Perhaps she went to the public bathrooms?” Cadance wanted to believe him, however looking at the picnic site revealed one fatal flaw to that idea. The book they were reading together was still there, lying splayed open, cover up. Cadance was beginning to panic. “No, she would have taken the book with her. She’d also never leave a book lying like that. Search around! I hope I’m wrong but I don’t like how this feels,” and with that she launched a red flair up into the air, signalling distress. The single guard did not hesitate and was in the air searching before Cadances spell had even fully formed. The two adults had been talking for less than a minute before noticing her disappearance, additional spells flying out of her horn revealed no magic had been used in the area so no teleportation, and she had one guard already searching and dozens more already arriving at her position; ‘wherever Twilight is she’ll be back soon.’ Within a matter of minutes almost a tenth of the Royal Guard were searching for her; and even more were joining in the effort as the time of her disappearance lengthened. They would not find her. One minute twelve seconds after the discovery of a missing Twilight Sparkle a gruff and dishevelled brown coated pegasus crash landed at full speed into an alleyway on the outskirts of Canterlot city; its only cargo an unassuming brown sack tied off at the top, had a much gentler landing being on top of the Pegasus. “Well, well, you were cutting things rather fine, weren’t you? So, what have you got for me here?” The voice was soft with a slight accent of a faraway land; it was difficult to tell, but the voice belonged to a stallion. Everything about the voice was placid and gentle, but the reaction of the pegasus when it spoke said something else entirely. “I-I I got a young filly for you like your looking for,” the pegasus was terrified and refused to look anywhere else than the cobble stone floor. “Puh. Please just take her and leave my family alone. That all I want.” Suddenly the bag was taken from his back; there was no noise of hoof steps, or flapping wings, no flash of light signalling a spell, nothing. From being alone in the alleyway to having the bag taken from his back without any indication of someone's presence in an instant caused the pegasus’s eyes to shoot up in disbelief. Standing right there looking into the brown sack that said pony had given the pegasus not ten minutes before, was an earth pony. His coat's colour appeared to be a very deep red from what little could be seen; he was wearing a pair of black saddlebags that covered his cutie mark. His mane and tail were both longer than expected for a stallion and was a bluish slate grey in colour. Covering his chest and forelegs was a black jacket made out a strange thick and rough looking material that just had to be hot to ware on a day like this. The face quickly shot out of the bag and his front hooves were quickly tying the sack shut once more. From the second that it was open you could hear the child inside crying, but as soon as it was sealed all the crying stopped as well. The look on this earth pony’s face was unreadable; his piercing green eyes a void of emotion. There was a toothpick in his mouth and it was being worked on quite severely before a slight smirk appeared on his face. “She’s got her cutie mark. I believe I said no cutie marks,” the eyes of the pegasus opened wide in panic but the earth pony continued. “However, you managed to find a very interesting one. So very well, I'll take her.” Relief washed down the back of the pegasus, he had managed to survive and save his family. “S-S so can I go? Is my family safe?” The earth pony kept staring at him, like he was debating something. Finally a single picture was dropped in front of the pegasus. The photograph, clearly taken from a distance, showed his wife and two daughters, all pegasi , as well as himself. He was the only one with a red cross covering him. Before anything else could happen the earth pony stallion spat the wooden toothpick out at him. It was such an innocent, if revolting, gesture but the result was oh so much more. It launched with shocking speed and pierced through the pegasus’s windpipe. With an almost reactive inhale of shock, he started chocking. “Your families safe; you gave me the Princess’s little pet. You'll be dead in moments.” He held the sack in his now free mouth before launching himself up to a wall before using just his hind legs repeated the action towards the opposite wall of the alleyway. This continued to happen until he hit the roof tops and was out of site. The pegasus found it hard to breathe now, liquid was filling his lungs and pain started to spread throughout his body. It wasn’t much longer before he choked to death on his own blood as the toothpick stabbed his lungs with each attempt to clear the lung. Up on the roof it took the earth stallion only a few more jumps until the wall that separated the non-flying public from a vertical drop all the way down to the base of the Canterhorn was reached. And with one final leap that is exactly what he did. A few moments of freefall and his target was in sight; a simple cart filled with countless generic brown sacks filled with feathers of all sorts. As he drew nearer the ground, it was clear to see that there was nopony around that could possibly see him; anyone further afield would only assume he was a pegasus and hence he was also clear from distance. At just the right time with barely a couple of meters spare the large saddle bags he’s wearing burst into life with a magical aura slowing him down from terminal velocity to a fairly comfortable landing all within a blink of an eye. Removing himself from the pile of sacks that had just finished braking his fall he dumped the brown sack that was actually important to him onto the ground. With one last reach into his saddle bags to pull out a small pouch before opening his prize. “Ah good, you did not pass out from the G forces of landing. Tha-” As soon as he looked inside his whole body was surrounded by a purple light and his hooves were slowly beginning to leave the ground. “Let me go!” “Spirited too. You might just survive your new life.” “LET! ME! GO!” the magic surrounding the stallion was growing more intense and if anyone was to have a guess at what was about to happen, they would expect the stallion to be launched to the stratosphere. And just like that the purple magic was disrupted leaving everything as it was. The stallion grinned down at the now completely terrified filly, “I hope you can keep this spirit; you will need it. For now sleep. Oh and welcome to the end of your life,” a pouch of green glittering powder was dumped over the young girl sending her to sleep almost instantly. Sealing the bag up once more the stallion earth pony carefully inserted the bag at random amongst the sea of other brown bags. Before hitching himself up, however, he removed the black jacket he was wearing as a small trail of black smoke was escaping from the confines of the inner pocket; removing said jacket caused quite an interesting transformation. His fur colour changed to a dull yellow, with his mane and tail shifted to become a dark aqua; his green eyes looking over the piece of clothing before stuffing it amongst the sacks. Feeling more like himself he finally hitched himself to the cart before trotting of into locations unknown. From meeting that Pegasus for the last time to hitching himself to the wagon, all done within a seven minute period; ‘Man I’m getting rusty.’