I’m sorry, what?”
The student and I all gathered at the Discord’s house after school hours. Spike spread out the photos Discord took up the symbols that were in the house. Next to the photos was the book that Cozy Glow had that was also open showing the symbols similar to the ones that were in the photos. We all took a brief moment to allow the students to look over both.
“So if I am right about the symbols,” Spike began to say. “You opened a door for Savannah to enter through.”
“If you’re right?” Smolder scoffed with doubt.
He gave a pitiful look and nodded. I heard a small chuckle from Discord who simply was flying around the room and occasionally stopping to stare down at the photos before resuming.
“Yes. You see, this book contains things that didn’t come from Equestria. As you all have learned we don’t really have any religions or beliefs like that. Equestria may have been around for a long long time but our tales, Traditions home from a time before Equestria. A lot of r history and beliefs come from the original 3 tribes of Earth Tony Pegasus and unicorns. And when it comes to the Earth ponies Some of the really earlier tribes did a lot of Trades with the Griffin back when Griffins were at their Peak. So a lot of the griffin's beliefs and traditions would blend in with a lot of the earth coming and some of that did carry into Equestria but many of it got Ross. This book comes from that time and it's not only very rare it's almost extinct. This book is possibly thousands of years old and I am very surprised that she was able to have a copy of this in such great condition and was able to keep it in such great condition. All of the spells in history that this book could tell is fascinating in ways that I don't know if Twilight could even believe.”
“How could she get ahold of something like this?” Ocellus was amazed by this. Despite the situation, she almost seemed excited about what she was being told.
“Most likely it was something carried in her family. Something this rare is not something you will find at a store or find add some abandoned building without it being in rough condition. Most definitely this was something passed down from her family it would make sense considering that she did live in a small village. Honestly, this is what made things hard for us because we couldn't really know what these symbols meant, and trust me it took a lot to be able to exactly find what these symbols mean and what spells could have actually been used with the symbols in the house. But after a little bit of digging and research, this is what I was able to come up with. I can't say I'm exact with this translation but is the closest I can get to.” He pointed at one of the symbols on a page. It appeared to be a cross within a star with a dot at each point of the star. “This means ‘to be let through.” He then pointed at another symbol. “This one means “to be attached to.”
“Attached to what?” Gallus asked. He picked up the photo with that symbol on it.
“Anything,” Spike answered. “Anything you want it to be attached to.”
Spike flipped the page. “These symbols, I believed to be what is keeping her trapped in the house.”
“What does this mean for us?” Gallus then asked.
“What this means is that whoever put those symbols in the house gave Savannah a temporary door for her to leave the house from and be able to follow you guys. That's why she was only around you guys but would always leave after a short while.”
Cozy Glow and Smolder shift their gaze away from the group; guilt shown on their faces.
“Great. Now we know what happened. How do we fix that? How do we make you aware she leaves us alone?” Gallus spoke both with relief but also a bit snappy.
“Wait. What does mean dead pony wants with Yona and her friend?” Yona asked.
Spike shrugged at them. ”Honestly, nothing.”
“Clearly she wants something considering she's been tormenting us all for like 2 weeks now,” Smolder snapped with disbelief.
“I really don’t know.”
I thought about what Savannah told me. She claimed that the kids were hurting her in some way. Making it where she couldn't leave. It seemed like this was all a misunderstanding since they had no real intention of summoning her or anything. But there had to be something that made her believe otherwise. My eyes locked onto Silverstream who was sitting on the floor not really paying attention to anything. She seemed lost in her own thoughts; her eyes gazed out into a void of her own nothingness.
“You okay, Silver Stream?” I tapped her shoulder.
Her body shook at the unexpected touch. She shook her head a little before staring up at me. her eyes still sharing the same dead look she had moments before. “I’m fine.”
I knew she was lying and she knew I knew she was lying but from my own experience, I knew very well not to push forward and gave her a reassuring smile. “Okay then.”
Discord laned in front of me and picked up the book from the floor. “So these kids just so happen to get themselves caught up In some mess-up love affair where are some nice guy couldn't handle rejection?”
“It’s not like we meant to,” Smolder said displeased.
“Back to my question see, how do we stop her?” Gallus said louder this time.
“It's not a matter of stopping her really it just seems like she wants to be free from this curse that's on her.” The vision that I saw with Timber Halls came back to me. “The problem is we don't really know if she's an innocent victim who was preyed upon and selfishly murdered or if she really is the murderer that they claim her to be.”
“Okay, then how do we get her to leave us alone?”
“If I'm reading this right,” Spike gestured to the book .”All we would need to do is close the door that you opened.”
“Meaning what?” Yona asked.
“Destroy the symbol that opens the door for her and reverse the spell that you guys placed on yourself. Doing so will make it where she can't leave the house and thus won’t be able to get to you,” Spike said with a heavy sight.
“You sure?” Ocellus asked.
“Yes.”
“That sounds way too easy,” Cozy wasn’t convinced.
“In the sense of getting her away from you all, yes it is easy. Be glad that it is,” Sike said annoyingly. “Not everything has to be difficult.”
“Wouldn't that be a nice change for once?” Discord laughed and nudged my shoulder.
“What's difficult is what do we do about Savannah. Do we keep her in the house or do we try to release her?” I knew Spike was saying this to Discord and me more than the students.
“As long as she leaves us alone I don't care what happens to her,” Smolder growled and crossed her arms.
“Yeah, same here,” Gallus agreed.
“What if she was wrongfully executed? Don't you feel a little bad for her?” Cozy Glow asked her friends who stared at her stunned.
“She hurt our friends wrongfully,” Smolder said madly.
“Maybe she doesn’t know,” Cozy Glow defended.
“Didn’t know what?!” Gallus snapped. “That she was attacking random children? Killed those ponies that went missing?”
Cozy Glow didn’t answer and put her head down.
“We don't know if she did,” Spike reminded them.
“Well considering one of them was talking to Silver stream, it seems like she did.” Smolder kicked some of the photos with her foot out of anger.
“Well, you don't have to worry about that.”Discord stepped in. “That's something we will figure out. For now, let’s worry about what we can do.” Discord sat the book down. He snapped his paw toward Spike. “What do we need to do?”
“Like I said we just destroyed the symbol that opens the door for her then you guys,” he motioned towards the students, “Will have to recite what you guys said but this time make it where she can't leave then everything should reverse.”
“We all have to return to the house?” Ocellus's voice began to sound shaky.
“Everyone who recited the spell and drew the symbols must be there to reverse it,” Spike confirmed.
“Even Sandbar?” Silver Stream whispered.
“If he said it, yes.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem for us,” I said.
“What now?” Yona and Cozy Glow said in unison.
“I'll send you guys back to Ponyville with Spike so you can get everything ready.”
Spike blinked unexpectedly at that response “What will you be doing?” Discord gave him a knowingly look. Spike gasped seeming like he understood what discord meant. “Okay, we see you in a bit.”
“We won’t be long,” Discord smirked at me.
I stepped back away from him. “We?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
Nothing more could be said as Discord snapped his fingers and the students and Spike were sent back to Ponyville.
“Savannah is maintaining her innocent?” Discord snapped his fingers again and photos on the floor began floating off the ground and started folding up into different shapes of origami. This was Discord's way of cleaning I guessed.
“It would appear to be so.” The photos flew around me, singing in some language that I don't understand and was pretty sure Discord didn't know either. “Is she a murderer or not?”
“I could tell you.” He flew in front of me, his back facing the other way from me. He then made a sharp turn. “But would be the fun in that if I could just show you?” He took two large steps and placed his paw on my cheek.
“What are you doing? We don’t have time for this.” I hit his paw away from my face.
“No need to be rude.” He put his hands at his hips. “I want to try a little something I been working on. Now stay still.” He put his paw on my cheek again. “Wouldn't wants to spoil the ending for you. I know how much you hate spoilers.”
“Discord, this really isn’t the time?” I wasn’t up in the mood to put up with his jokes. If you could even call them that. We were wasting time and we needed to focus on helping the children.
“Trust me. You are going to want to see this.” I felt his paw grab a piece of my now shorts mane. He rubbed his fingers together with the piece of my mane he was holding onto for a moment. “It feels different.”
“That is because it’s not wavy.”
“Interesting choice.” He resumed his paw on my cheek.
I stood there not really sure what I was supposed to be doing. I waited for him to say something but nothing came out. I was getting impatient and was about to say something when I noticed he was smiling brightly at me.
“There we go.”
I scoffed in disgust. I hate it when he would act like this. Especially in a time like this where we needed to be serious. I was about to shoot him out when I Stole something from the corner of my eye. It was me. It was Discord and I standing In a similar position that we were standing at some moments ago.
“Don’t worry. I thought the same the first time Spike did it on me.” I heard Discord laugh.
“W-what is this?”
Discord walked into the other Discord and walked right through him as if nothing was there. “The Closest you'll ever get to the Nethers. You can only get the glimpse from the outside and I can see from the inside.” He skipped up to me, grabbed my hoof, and started pulling me along with him to the door that led outside to his weird chaotic dimension. “This tricked, makes it where you can see it along with me. But unlike Spike, you are not just seeing it through a window. You are actually walking along with me through the door.”
There weren't any words I could form by what I was hearing. I knew some of the things that I was able to do but I never thought about what he could do. And even so, I didn’t think this would be one of them.
“You can only do this with me?”
Discord, still holding my hoof used his other hand to grab the doorknob. “Yes. Spike doesn't have a link to this world like you do. You have a connection between the living and the dead just as I do. It's just the connection we share.”
“I’m going to see what you saw?”
“Now you’re getting it,” Discord gleefully said. I looked at ourselves that were standing still. “Don't worry about us. Time works differently here. What feels like years here is only seconds out there to them. We will be fine.” He turned the doorknob. “You ready?”
Unable to say anything I just nodded at him. He smirked and slowly opened the door behind him. He then began to walk backward still holding my hoof. I felt my heart beating with every step as I got closer to it. There was no going back now.
I wasn’t sure where we were going to end up but where we did wasn’t where I was excepting. We were back in front of Savannah’s house. But this time it wasn't in ruins as when I first saw it. It looked like a normal house all patched up freshly built.
There she was. Savannah singing to herself as she was packing a small bag. She trotted past us and out the door.
Without saying anything, we followed her. Discord seemed to know where to go. I just kept behind him. She trotted up to what appeared to be a village. I saw this once before. This was part of the vision I saw the night of the attack.
She kept on trotting saying hello to some she passed by until she ended up at a house. It was then I realized that the sun was going down.
It was slowly coming to me what Discord was showing me. And when we entered the house the answer would be known.
I was just really hoping it wasn't the answer everyone else believed it to be.