//------------------------------// // 2: Pony Town // Story: The Night's Shining Armour // by Appleody //------------------------------// Chapter 2 Upon breaking through the treeline, a beautiful sight met my lack of eyes. Lying before me in the early morning sun was a town. A proper real, hopefully occupied town. No ruins like the castle I awoke within. Every home was in fact very well-kept with even the lawns being mowed and weeded. The only real issue was that there wasn’t anyone out and about. That does make sense, seeing as it’s so early. Well, that just gives me an opportunity to explore before I meet the locals. With that thought, I happily tapped my fore shoes together, before making my way into the quaint village. As I walked through the town, its interesting architecture stood out to me. Many of the homes had been built with a very old-fashioned design, consisting of wooden walls and possibly even thatch roofs. Then there were the more modern homes consisting of bricks with tile roofs. Those seemed the most familiar to me. Then there were the complete outliers from the town’s rustic aesthetic, like one built in to a carousel and another that was carved into a tree. Evidently, those last few houses were where the crazies probably lived, but that doesn’t matter. Being crazy people still means they are people, so I’ll get my friendly face on and introduce myself. Once they get out of bed anyways. At that, a delightful sound met my earless helmet. A door to one of the particularly strange homes, the one made of sweets, swung open allowing its occupant to exit. I stood to attention, ready to great my hopefully first new acquaintance and then paused in surprise. What exited the building was not what I was expecting. A pink horse, around half my height, just casually bounced outwards while shouting behind it, “don’t worry Mr Cake, I’ll get some more flour.” I was so surprised by the talking animal, that my attempt at greeting her faltered causing me to stand in place as she happily bounced past me, minding her own business. Really should have known this place had sapient horses just from the look of myself. As I finished my thought, the unmistakable sound of a car’s brakes screeching occurred behind me. There was just enough time for me to turn around and have a look before my vision was filled with pink and a loud bubbly voice began. “Hey tall dark and scary, what ya doing? Are you looking for friends? Ooo look at all that smoke. How do you stay up? Are you hiding? Why are you so tall? Are you related to the Princesses? Do you like parties?” The horse then stood in front of me clearly resisting the urge to bounce in place excitedly. During the entire exchange, I tried and failed to say hi and only really caught the first sentence. Not knowing what to say I just sort of stared at her for a minute, while trying to figure out how not to be rude. Probably not the best course of action. Anyway, the horse creature clearly started to become impatient with me, as she started to poke my shoe with a hoof. “Earth to smoky, there is somepony in there, right? Somepony new?” once she finished, she could no longer contain her excitement and started to bounce up and down in front of me. Okay, I’ve got this. “Yes, small horse, I’m new… erm, hi.” There, that was pretty good right? Okay, what next? Maybe I should ask how her days going? As I mused on what to say, the small horse’s pupils shrunk down to tiny pinpricks before her mouth opened wide allowing her to take a huge gulp of air. Is that normal? Once her gasp ended, she suddenly rocketed away from me down the road. Right, I probably freaked her out. Maybe it’s my voice? It doesn’t really sound like a horse’s, its got a bit too much reverb to it. That constant changing pitch probably didn’t sound too good either. Well, she wasn’t freaked out until I spoke, so that was a learning experience. Let’s say that was a neutral encounter, the next ones will be better for it, possibly. Once the small horse had escaped my presence, the sound of yet more activity met me from all directions. Seems these horses all wake up around the same time, as within moments the street started to fill with a variety of brightly coloured horses. Each one with there own colouring and unique glow. Some of them even possessed some more interesting traits like a horn or even a set of wings. It does seem to check out that magical horse land would have many different types of magical horses. As I sat off to the side watching the creatures milling about, many who walked past casually glanced up at me before continuing on with their day. I would love to talk to some of these people, but, how weird is it to just have a random stranger stop you and say hi? Not to mention one that is almost double your height, lacking a face and sounds like a busted record. There has to be some way to start a natural conversation. A little way down the path, I spied a few small horses setting up stalls on streets and starting to pedal various goods. Ah, that’s perfect, I can just act as a shopper myself. The perfect reason for a natural social interaction. Nothing can go wrong. Except for the lack of any money. Once I left my perch, a few voices of the passing horses became apparent to me. *Gasp* “That statue just moved.” “Who built that thing anyway?” “Probably Twilight again.” “Is that a pony?” I tried my best not to pry into their conversations and set my eyes upon my target. A friendly looking crème coloured horse with red hair was manning a nice little flower stall. That’s probably the perfect target. Upon reaching the stall, a few horses politely moved out of my way, so I didn’t even have to que. Right here goes. Putting on the friendliest voice possible I asked, “so, how much for a set of roses?” That still sounded wonky, it was way too high pitched for my liking. Next time I’ll try it a little lower. The horse in question looked up to me with a bright smile and started to say, “that would be ten… bits.” Her pupils then shrank similarly to the first horse I met, which wasn’t the best sign. Okay, try and be friendlier. Smiling isn’t really a possibility so let’s just… I don’t know, make eye contact, that’s respectful. “Ah, that might be a little pricy for me. Would you be up for providing me some directions? I’m, erm, new to the area.” That was a little better, probably a little deep at the end. To be honest my voice kind of sounds a little musical. Maybe, that’ll be a good thing. Apparently, it wasn’t, as the mare decided the appropriate reaction was to scream at the top of her lungs. Not only that, but she immediately turned and ran, haphazardly knocking over her nice flour stall in the process. That’s a pretty bad way for a conversation to go to be honest. What made it worse was the sudden amount of staring I was receiving from the other present horses. Each stare going steadily from that of inquisitive, to terrified, before each of their owners reacted in the same way. Wow, this is probably the worst conversation anyone has ever had in the history of ever. “Erm, it’s fine, I’m just a horse like you guys,” I said in a pointless attempt to calm the panicking herd animals. As was expected, my words fell on deaf ears as they continued to flee. “I’m really sorry, I’m not dangerous. Could I maybe try again?” They were probably to far away to even have a chance of hearing that last part. Seeing them run away from me like that sure was disheartening. It really felt like they were running for their lives. It’d probably be best for me to leave this place, don’t wanna cause them any more trouble than I already have. Maybe there’ll be another town near by that will have a better reaction? As I began walking towards what was hopefully the towns closest exit, a sudden gust of wind over my head displaced some of my mist. The cause of said gust, suddenly halted mid air right in the centre of my path. A blue winged horse with a rainbow mane. From the look on her face, I’m pretty sure she’s a bit cross. Okay, attempt number two. Let’s not screw this up. “Hey small horse, erm, how’s it going?” My words seemed to confuse the creature for a moment before it’s anger returned full force, “What’s the big idea scaring everypony like that?” “It was kind of an accident.” What else could I have done? I was as polite as physically possible. “An accident? Everypony is practically galloping for their lives! You must have done something,” the irritable horse said in reply. Her words caused me to look down in shame, “I can see that, it’s pretty clear. My appearance doesn’t seem to agree with them.” Hey, this one doesn’t seem afraid. Maybe that’ll work in my favour? The winged horse seemed to look me over for a second. Her eyes lingering upon the mist flowing around me. “A Nightmare wannabee’s looks would do that,” she said sternly. “Nightmare?” Is she saying I’m a bad dream? “Do you live under a rock or something?” the horse said, while idly flying side to side in front of me. No, I’ve been living in a dark hole called the void for however long. Things may have occurred without me noticing. Rather than say all that, I simply said, “sort of.” The rainbow horse was confused for a second, before appearing to roll up imaginary sleaves. “Welp, seems I’d better get you out of town until Twilight can figure out what to do.” Hmm, Twilight? That must be their leader. “That’s fair, I was already leaving. Should I follow you?” I said happy that some progress may have been made. Sadly for me, the horse didn’t seem to have paid attention to my final words as she had begun psyching herself up for something. “Okay, removing a tin can is nothing for Equestria’s fastest flyer. You look pretty light anyway.” Looking down at my metallic form caused me to feel some doubt about that. Wait, is she going to try and pick me up? A sigh escaped me at the thought. At least it’ll show how safe I am. “Okay, I’m ready.” What happened next was a bit too fast for my conscious thought. One moment I was looking up at the hovering horse. The next, I felt a hard collision with my chest piece and the horse was laying on the floor in front of me quietly groaning. It would seem metal chest plate beats soft horsy head. “Erm, horse? Are you okay?” I awkwardly said, while standing over her prone form. Clearly, she wasn’t doing to great, seeing as she wasn’t moving very much. Okay, this is bad. Maybe one of the other horses can help her? They can’t have gone too far. As I reached down to pick up the unconscious horse, a loud shout echoed from behind me. “Rainbow!” the shout was followed by incredibly rapid hoof beats. Upon turning around, I saw an orange pony with a cowboy hat running towards me at a terrifying speed. Just before she reached me, I managed to get out, “this isn’t what it looks like.” The horse was sadly on a mission to save its distressed friend and chose to continue its plan. Upon reaching me, it spun around so it’s rear was facing me, which is a pretty weird thing to do. Before I could say anything else, I found myself suddenly experiencing flight. Let’s just say flight as the result of being kicked by a terrified horse is not the best experience. Nor is the landing that occurred a few seconds later. I think my leg might have fallen off. Wish that winged horse managed to lift me. As I laid out on the ground looking back at the horse who’d launched me, a third one appeared. A white unicorn no less with a purple mane and tail. She ran straight to the downed pegasus and started shaking her, “Rainbow Dash! What has that ruffian done to you? Please, say anything.” Thankfully the Rainbow horse garbled back, “did anyone get the number of that carriage?” Seems she’s going to be okay. As I started to stand up, the orange horse took position between me and the other two, quickly shouting, “get Rainbow to safety, I’ll hold this thing off.” Behind her, I could see a bright blue aura surround the pegasus, before she floated into the air and was deposited carefully onto the unicorn’s back. That was a neat trick. That glowy stuff looks pretty interesting. The unicorn then started to run down the street in the opposite direction to me, “I’ll be back with help.” Okay, more horses are going to be coming. That is either good or bad, let’s go with bad for now. With the retreat of the unicorn, I was left alone with the orange horse. Said horse appeared to be getting ready to attack me from the way she was hunched forwards. Right, let’s just disarm this situation. “So, erm, is that blue horse going to be okay?” In response, the cowboy scraped the floor with a hoof and narrowed her eyes. “No thanks to you ya varmint.” Okay, this feels like a repeat of last time, except somethings off. Oh, that’s it. To my side lay one of my forelegs. That kick really was strong. With nothing better to do I used my other fore shoe to pick it up. This caused my assailant to wince in apparent sympathy. Hmm, maybe this can get us talking. “Don’t worry, you didn’t hurt me.” To prove my statement, I then returned my leg to its rightful place. “See?” That seemed to mollify the horse slightly as she returned to her aggressive stance. Simply staring at me, waiting for something to happen. Is she waiting for me to attack her? Suppose she thinks I attacked her friend. At least she isn’t charging in. That’s better than last time. “Sooo, little horse, what’s your name?” well, let’s take this opportunity to get to know each other. The horse just blinked for a second at that and said, “Did you just call me… a horse?!” Have I said something wrong? “Erm, yeah?” That earned me a slight eye narrow but at least gained me a name. “The names Applejack. What’s yours?” Oh whoops. I took the opportunity to take a few steps towards the horse as we spoke. “It’s nice to meet you Applejack. Erm funny story, I would tell you mine, but, I can’t actually remember it.” “Take off the helmet,” the apple horse suddenly said, causing me to stop my approach just a couple of metres away. “W-why?” “I don’t trust a pony who can’t say his name while looking me in the eye,” Applejack said plainly. That’s fair enough. If a stranger won’t tell you their name it’s pretty suspect. That’s a shame. Well, maybe being honest will get me through this situation. “Okay, I’ll lift the helmet. Please don’t freak out.” “Why, would I…” the horse began before being interrupted by my helmet raise. “What in tarnation!?” She then started to look a little nervously at my hollow insides with her mouth threatening to fall open. “You’re no pony.” “I guess not.” It’s pretty obvious considering my leg fell off. I used her stupefied state to allow me to close the remainder of the distance, while letting my helmet return to its rightful spot. Standing beside her, I was almost double her height, allowing me to tower over her. This is probably pretty intimidating to the little creature. “Still, it doesn’t mean I’m a threat to a little horse like you.” She could just kick me again. “Could ya’ll quit calling me a horse, it just ain’t neighbourly,” the small horse said in exasperation, while looking up at me, still ready to pounce. What’s wrong with that? “Aren’t you… one though?” she has four hooves, a mane and well… other horse traits. What’s the best way to describe a horse? A hoof went to the not horses face before she sighed in irritation, “no I ain’t. We’re ponies, got that?” That’s a small horse, right? I decided to look at her a little closer causing her to take half a step back. Pretty sure that’s just a small horse. Rather than arguing with the pony I simply said, “okay then,” before sitting down to wait for whatever was going to happen. That at least got the Apple pony to relax her stance a little. Small victories. As the time ticked on, Applejack periodically stopped her watching of me to look behind her. Clearly hoping for a swift arrival of her reinforcements. Her unease was clearly increasing. In an attempt to reduce it I said, “just so you know, that flying pony hurt herself. She can tell you when she wakes up.” The response I gained was a curt, “uhuh.” Not sure if she believes what I said or not, but at least she isn’t calling me a liar. The seconds of waiting turned into minutes and I became increasingly aware of ponies looking out of their windows in fear. “Erm, Apple, how long till your friends get here?” “They will be here,” was the slightly defensive reply. These constant fearful looks are really starting to get to me. Maybe we should wait for the others outside of town? At least then the ponies won’t feel the need to hide. With that thought I stood up and started to continue my earlier trip out of town. Sadly, my walk didn’t take me very far. One moment I was walking, the next I had an incredible weight on my back pinning me to the ground. “Where do ya think ya’ll are going?” came my new restraint. It would seem the Apple pony had taken a dislike to my attempt to walk away, causing her to literally leap into action straight onto my back. “I was just going to the edge of town. I don’t want those ponies to be afraid.” Really should have said something before moving. Maybe she’ll walk with me. Rather than choose to let me up, Applejack decided to remain seated upon my back, holding my fore shoes to the ground. “Be patient, Twilight will be here soon, ya hear? Then we’ll sort this mess out.” “Fine.” Well, laying here is only a little bit uncomfortable and I tried my best not to scare anyone. With my new position underneath the pony, I noticed something interesting about her. She had an orange glow in her chest similar to that of those wooden wolves. It kind of made me, a little, I don’t know, hungry? With nothing better to do, I used some of my mist to investigate the glow. Upon touching it, a noticeable shiver shot down my riders back, but apart from that nothing else occurred. She just kept waiting for her friends. As I kept investigating the glow, I started to feel slightly less hungry. “Something don’t feel quite right.” Came some slightly weak words from Apple, before she suddenly collapsed on top of me. That immediately caused me to stop whatever I was doing to her. The glow had diminished quite considerably from it’s original brightness, but was at least still present. Oh no, this is bad. With nothing better to do, I rolled the pony off of me and stood up to investigate. She was thankfully still breathing and her dim light had started to steadily increase in intensity. Hopefully that means nothing permanent occurred. The worst part about this one, is that it was my fault entirely, she didn’t bash her head into my chest like someone else. Well, this looks really bad for when the cavalry arrives. Should I run away? That could make it worse. Maybe I can wake her up. With that, I started to gently shake the small pony. “Come on Apple, work with me.” “APPLEJACK!” came the sound of a brand-new voice from behind me. Almost immediately after, a small object hit me lightly on my back. Okay, let’s try for the third time. Upon turning around, there was the same white unicorn from before with two newcomers. One nervously shaking pegasus off to the side and in the middle was a purple one with a tastily glowing horn. “Step away from Applejack, we can still handle this peacefully.” The purple newcomer said. Peacefully, I like the sound of that. In the interest of said peace, I immediately moved away from the collapsed pony. “Now I know how this looks, but she just, erm, fainted.” “We’ll figure out what went on when the Princesses get here. For now, your better off asleep.” Asleep? I’ve been asleep forever. Not sure I can just do that on a whim. A moment later, a purple light shot from the pony’s horn and collided with my helmet. Huh, that must have been what hit me before. Seeing me still stood up didn’t sit to well with the three ponies, especially the middle one who started to bite her lip. Well, enough is enough. I know how to get through to them. With that I began walking towards the group, who seemed to slightly panic. “Hey, stop, I won’t let you harm our town.” She then quietly said something to the other two ponies prompting them to run in different directions. She then resumed shouting at me with the occasional light show, but became confused at my next action. “I’m warning you; Princess Celestia is on her way and if you don’t surrender, you’ll be sorry?” The last part was said as a question due, to my sudden falling over and laying on the ground. She didn’t move and kept her horn alight until I said, “I surrender.” “Excuse me?” she stuttered in slight disbelief. “I said I surrender,” do quadrupedal animals roll over if they surrender? I’m sure I’ve heard of dogs doing something like that. And so, the big scary metal smoke monster that I am, rolled onto its back and stuck its legs in the air. “See? Purple, I surrender.” “Okay?” the unicorn said in a slightly confused tone before immediately regretting it and saying, “I mean, remain where you are until the guards arrive.” “That’s fair enough.” As I finished my sentence, a purple dome formed around me. When I poked it with a shoe, I found it to resist my passage like some sort of barrier. With nothing left to do I again attempted to start that long awaited conversation. “So, Purple, how’s your day been? Mine has been relatively interesting.” “It was okay until a few minutes ago. Could you just be quiet until the Princesses get here? I need to concentrate,” she said with a strained look on her face. She then quickly added, “please,” at the end. “Okay purple, I was just hoping to pass the time and maybe fix some of the damage,” I murmured from my glowing prison. Behind me I could hear the sound of galloping hooves and upon looking, the sight of the two other ponies attending to Apple met me. They must have planned to distract me in order to rescue their friend. That would have been a good plan if they were dealing with some mindless monster. Right, time for my best showing of remorse. “Hey Rarity, sorry about earlier.” Maybe remembering her name will score me brownie points? Her horn was currently glowing and somehow interacting with the prone pony. My words seemed to distract her from whatever healing or scanning ability she was trying to use. “Why did you have to be such a brute? You didn’t have to hurt anypony.” “I know, but to be clear I never did anything to the first pony, she crashed into me. I wish you lot would stop blaming me for that.” This is really getting old. Can’t believe this started because I just wanted to meet some people to talk with. “I believe you,” came a quiet sound from the other pegasus. She was the exact opposite of the previous boisterous one. She’s so quiet I’m not even sure anyone heard what she said. “Well, we only have your word on that. So you’ll have to stay in there for now.” Clearly, the purple pony hadn’t heard her but she was much further away. “Spike’s already sent a letter to the Princesses before we got here, so they’ll be here soon.” Hope that Spike is a fast mail man. Wait a second, when they say Princesses, do they really mean royalty? Can’t believe this has gone so bad that the ruler’s kids have to be sent out. Well, hopefully once I’ve been arrested, I can plead my case more effectively. “Okay, I’m going to promise right now I won’t try and escape.” A whisper seemed to echo on the wind towards me in a familiar jovial tone. “You should Pinkie promise, ooo spooky.” “Pinkie promise?” I said while looking around for the energetic pony from earlier. None of the other ponies seemed to notice. Well, okay then. “Hey, I’ll even Pinkie promise.” That got everyone’s attention, maybe they’ll think it’s funny? “Okay so erm, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. I won’t try to harm anyone here, or escape unless someone means to harm me. Is that acceptable, maybe?” As I spoke and looked between the various ponies, each had a different reaction. Rarity looked a little disturbed, the yellow one was hiding behind her mane and the purple one just had a slightly strained smile. Huh, probably just weirded them out a bit more. Oh well, nothing better to do but wait for the leadership. During the wait, Apple’s glow returned to its full vibrance accompanying her thankful return to consciousness. I also continued to try and make small talk. Now the small talk was a little bit one sided on my part, but actually talking to real people was still making my day, it probably made my past few centuries. The void is pretty lonely. Even if they barely talked back, I still managed to get through a few topics. Like how the weather was nice today, how the yellow pony’s mane was pretty and how their town had an interesting design. Hopefully my ramblings made me seem a little less like a scary monster and more like a lost idiot. Eventually, after a lot of silent unsure staring aimed in my direction. A large carriage arrived, pulled by four armoured white pegasi. Out of the carriage emerged two big horses from the skies. When I say horses this time, I mean horses as the bigger white one of the two almost matched my height, while the other blue one was just a head shorter. Both of them possessed determined facial expressions ready to face the incalculable evil of me. “Fear not dearest subjects, thy Princesses are here to aid thee!” bellowed the navy blue… pegacorn, “this monster shall be dealt with post haste. With that declaration, she started to take hoof steps towards my prone position, before turning to the purple pony. “Twilight, thy shield is most impressive, managing to capture and contain such a mighty beast such as this cannot have been an easy task!” Wow, she sure has a set of lungs on her. Just behind the blue pegacorn, the white one was beaming with pride. “Come now sister, you know my personal student and her fellow Element bearers have handled far greater threats than this,” she said while gesturing to me with a hoof, “but still, a congratulations is in order for the lack of collateral damage.” She then patted the increasingly embarrassed purple unicorn on the back with a wing. “Ol Twi sure came through in the end,” chimed in the recently lucid Apple mare, “but I say if she hadn’t put up that shield, I’d of managed to hog tie that varmint. When I regained my breath anyways.” Well, that’s a clear misinterpretation of events. Applejack was unconscious in the first five minutes. Hope they don’t realize it was my fault. “Actually, I didn’t defeat it,” Twilight replied while looking over to me, “it just, kinda surrendered after I found my magic didn’t affect it. Then it rolled onto its back for some reason.” Ah, ponies don’t roll over to surrender, it did seem to do the trick though. Maybe I should roll back over? That seemed to intrigue the bigger pegacorn, causing her to approach the barrier with a raised eyebrow. “Did it now? For what reason I wonder?” she said while looking through the barrier into where my eyes should be. Right, attempt number four I think or five? I’ve lost count. “To show I mean no harm?” I then made an attempt to smile, which due my lack of a face ended in failure. My vocalization did have an interesting result causing the white pegacorn to blink at me in surprise. The blue one had a slightly stronger reaction. “Twilight, thy message never stated this creature was sapient.” That pegacorn really loves her ye olde English. “This makes it even more dangerous than We first thought.” That isn’t the reaction I want to hear. “Sister, did you not hear its words? This being has surrendered. Maybe a misunderstanding has occurred?” Thank goodness for the pegacorns. Hopefully this gets the ball rolling on my freedom. “Celestia,” came the shocked reply. “Regardless of whether or not it meant it, harm has come to our dear subjects and this creature must be taken to account for its actions.” Ah, dammit, why did I have to try and eat Applejack? “I agree Luna, we shall take this creature back to Canterlot to get a full account of what has occurred here,” Celestia said before turning to me with a serene smile, “I shall, in the name of friendship, hold an optimistic outlook for the result.” This seemed like my que to stop sticking my legs in the air, so I steadily rolled over before standing giving my best attempt to bow at my saviour. This was met with limited success. Note to self, keep at least three shoes on the ground at all times. “Thank you for the chance to prove myself your majesty.” That’s hopefully the right way to talk to them. Maybe I won’t be beheaded after all? Saying that, removing my helmet before didn’t seem to affect me. With that, Twilight nervously dropped her shield, while her friends all gathered together. Likely to defend themselves if I was bluffing. Those ponies really don’t trust me. Ah well, if I can win over the royals, it’ll all work out. With a bright golden glow, Celestia opened the door to her carriage and requested I climb aboard.