//------------------------------// // Ch.1 Hello my old friend. // Story: Mirage on the Horizon // by Hope //------------------------------// Eris woke up and yawned, her bed in Golden Oaks a comfortable and familiar spot to wake up after a year of being Ponyville's head librarian and sort of mascot. She stretched, a claw on one hand and lion's paw on the other, both flexing to wake herself up. She could smell Spike cooking breakfast downstairs, and the sounds of ponies walking by outside of her window. In these early hours when it was nice and cool, the farmers that had all day to work were running errands and those who were nocturnal were doing their shopping before bed. Eris was the student of Princess Luna, ruler of the ponies and a friend in many ways. Even though Eris was a mishmash creature that wasn't quite pony or anything else, she'd somehow led a group of ponies into obtaining the Elements of Harmony, and as the Element of Friendship she'd found very quickly that the ponies of Equestria didn't mind her strangeness. She got out of bed and brushed out her wild tangled white hair, as well as the poof of hair at the end of her lizard-like tail. She briefly pondered putting something like a bow on her head, before shrugging the impulse off. She winked at herself in the mirror, giving a lopsided smile with her snaggletooth on proud display like a solitary fang, and then she opened her bedroom door. She stepped through it and out into the vast and endless desert that consumed the world as far as the eye could see. That was not something she expected as part of her morning routine. She paused and looked back at her bedroom door, standing in the middle of the dunes. Slowly and carefully she stepped back into her bedroom and closed the door. "Hm. Don't like that. Don't like that at all," she admitted softly, biting gently on her lip as she struggled to decide between fear and amusement. She turned next to the window, through which she could see ponies walking by on the streets below. Thankfully she'd been practicing gliding with her wings, with Rainbow Dash's amused but nonetheless attentive help, so she opened the window before falling with some small amount of grace to the ground below. "Hey Eris!" "Morning, Lyra," Eris waved to the townspony in passing as she kept her eyes on Golden Oaks, warily walking around to the front door and opening it, to reveal a fairly ordinary library. The front desk had a log book, a guest sheet, a bell, and a series of signs on it explaining that guests could browse freely during certain hours but needed assistance to check out for the first time. Beyond that, the main room of the library looked the same as it always did. Fifteen rows of double-tall shelves with reference and restricted books on the higher shelves. The balcony up above that acted as the entryway to her own room didn't look like an endless sea of sandy dunes, either! By all accounts she should have opened her door and been right there, safe at home. With an annoyed groan, Eris found the door to the sitting room, and from there passed into the kitchen where Spike was working on breakfast. Usually he made a plate for each of them, pancakes and eggs, but as she stepped in he was adding a fiftieth pancake to a massive pile on the table. "Uuhhhh... Spike?" she said as she took a step closer. "Hi Eris!" he replied with a rictus grin, turning to face her. Spike was a young purple and green dragon, about half Eris's height, and he was wearing something that put her on edge. The frilly pink apron he wore was to be expected since they'd found it at a thrift shop, and after some initial jokes he had become quite attached to it. But gently clipped onto the grill stop his head was a white silk bow that gleamed in the Dawn light, embroidered with a golden sun. "Hey Spike," she said with a timid smile, eyes fixated on the bow. "I haven make pancake!" he said almost nonsensically, pointing at Eris accusingly with his spatula. She took a step back before swallowing her fear and approaching him. "Uh... Where'd you get this bow, buddy?" Eris asked as she reached out towards it. As she did, Spike's grin only grew wider, and he began to chant quickly as though trying to rush through a quote before Eris could stop him, the words rushing out of him at a fevered pitch. "I am death, destroyer of worlds! Behold me and weep in despair as all is wrought to ruin upon--" Eris plucked the bow from his head, but instead of returning to normal, he dissolved into sand as Eris screamed and backed away, shaking. "No, no, where's Spike, what did you do with Spike?!" She shouted as she turned and came face to face with Spike, who looked scared. "Eris!" He shouted. She stopped and stumbled backwards. Instead of a bow in her hand she was holding a pancake, and Spike looked completely normal, pink frilly apron and all. There wasn't a pile of formerly-dragon-sand on the floor, and there were just two plates of pancakes and eggs on the table, minus one pancake that Eris was currently holding. "You're okay," Eris said, relieved, as she carefully returned the pancake to its plate. "I'm okay? Are you okay?! You scared the heck out of me. Wait, what are you wearing?!" Spike replied. Eris looked at herself, and found an ornate silk dress of white and gold, draped across her form and clinging to her curves. "Oh no," Eris whispered in horror. "Mirage has escaped." "Back up," Spike said, pushing Eris back into the kitchen and making her sit at the table. "One, who is Mirage? Two, what do you mean escaped? Three, why did she put you in a dress? Four, what does this have to do with you talking to the sink like it was me?" Eris paused, and took in the list of questions, before pouring a large dollop of syrup onto her pancakes, rolling them up like a burrito, and shoving them into her mouth. After choking on it a little but chewing and forcing it down, she talked while picking at the eggs, her claws covered in syrup, and shortly salt and pepper as well. "So Princess Luna had a sister, a long long long time ago. I used to hang out with them. At least, that's what I sort of remember. Being a pain in the butt, having crazy weird magic that was fun to play with... Then I messed up. I spent an entire year pranking her, making jokes about her, stuff I'd done before but..." She hesitated, looking at the dress she was wearing before wiping her claws on it and picking up her cup to drink some orange juice. "But I didn't understand how much it messed with her head. She snapped. She killed that version of me, and a lot of ponies. The sky burned and the world twisted for three years, before finally Luna gave up on trying to save her. She used the elements of Harmony to turn her to stone." Spike squinted around his fork of pancakes. "So you knew about the Elements of Harmony a long time ago." "No," she corrected, grinning. "I knew about some rocks that glowed and Luna had, that made me itchy when I got close to them. Clearly they like this version of me a lot better." "Alright, so turned to stone. That doesn't kill people?" Spike asked, arching an eyebrow. "Nope! The shiny rocks, er, elements don't kill anyone. They can't. According to Luna, they just try to make things fit into the world better. If that means that they banish you for a long time, like Starswirl, then fine," Eris shrugged. Spike waited, as Eris ate for a bit, until Spike became impatient. "Sooo Luna's sister. Crazy. Escaped from stone. Dress?" Spike asked. "Oh, right," Eris tugged at the dress. "We were briefly romantically involved, so she probably thinks I look good in this. Probably right." Spike dropped his fork, and got down from his chair, walking halfway to the sink before pausing, his head in his hands. After a bit he turned back to her. "What?!" He screamed. "Which part," Eris mumbled, eyes focused entirely on her plate. "You dated Luna's sister?! And you drove her insane.  Oh my stars this is actually starting to make sense," he said, slightly horrified. Eris jumped a little as someone slammed open the library door and started calling out in a shrill voice. "Eris! Eris! Help!" She ran out of the kitchen, licking her fingers clean before sliding into the library main room and spotting the pony who was calling her name. It was Sweetie Belle, Rarity's younger sister, and most strikingly her mane was shaved clean off. Through blubbering tears, Sweetie ran up to and hugged Eris. "She... She doesn't care," Sweetie whimpered, her muzzle buried in the fur of Eris’ arm. "Rarity said that my happiness doesn't matter... That I'm not real..." Eris put a hand on Sweetie's back, holding her close as she looked back to Spike, sharing a moment of apprehension at needing to figure out such a deeply disturbing change in their friend. "Sounds like she's not just after me," she said grimly. "I'll send a letter to Luna," Spike sighed as he turned away and Eris looked back to Sweetie Belle, bracing herself for what she would have to face.