//------------------------------// // You Made It to Centaurworld! // Story: Centaurworld’s Shining // by Twinkletail //------------------------------// The ringing in Shining’s skull refused to stop as he opened his eyes, letting out an exhausted groan. He ignored it, however. It wasn’t anywhere near important compared to everything else. Even though his body ached, he leapt to his hooves. His surroundings were completely unrecognizable. Bright green hills sprawled out towards the horizon, meeting a pleasant and cloudless blue sky. The only things marring the clean greenness were a few scattered huts and trees. Shining was used to this kind of sight, as much of the more populated areas of Equestria were roughly this idyllic, but at the same time it didn’t look the slightest bit familiar. Wherever he was, it wasn’t anywhere he recognized. Even that wasn’t what troubled him the most. What troubled him the most was the fact that he had no idea where his family was. “Cadance!” Shining shouted, his voice echoing across the plains. “Flurry!” Possibilities began to race through his head. Had he blacked out from the magical output of the artifact and been captured? It seemed unlikely, as Sombra’s soldiers would have likely taken the artifact, which still dangled from his neck. Plus, they would have probably moved him to some kind of dungeon, rather than an admittedly pleasant field. Perhaps he had fired off a teleportation spell? No matter what the circumstance, he had to find his family. Shining tried to cast a location spell, but nothing happened. It was an elementary spell, one which he was usually able to cast easily, but it simply refused to work. An attempt to levitate a nearby rock ended similarly. Wherever Shining was, he was no longer connected to Equestria’s magic, and that was only slightly less worrisome than the whereabouts of his family. Before Shining could ponder any of this further, his thoughts were interrupted by a face popping up in front of his own. “Hello!” Shining’s eyes widened. The creature before his eyes was like nothing he’d ever encountered before. Long brown hair framed a flat pink face, and two giraffelike horns protruded from its forehead. In fact, giraffelike was a very apt description, as said face resided stop a long neck of similar origin. Its–his?–torso and buff arms copied the colors of the face, standing tall and basically interrupting the giraffitude that the rest of his body exuded. Was that a word? Shining wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t sure of a lot of things right now, to say the least. Faced with such an unfamiliar and jarring sight, Shining reacted in the first manner that came to mind. “Aaaaaah!!” The giraffe thing pondered this reaction for a split second before reacting in turn. “Aaaaaaaaaahhh!!!” Shining backed into a defensive position. Given the panicked screams of the creature and the way that he shrunk backwards, neck curling back to hide his head behind his hands, it was possible that defense wasn’t needed, but he couldn’t bargain on that assumption. Looks could be deceiving. “What is happening?!” Shining shouted amidst the less intelligible shouts. “I don’t know!!!” the creature shouted back. The two stared at each other. Now that the screaming had subsided, Shining tried to assess the situation. This…being…didn’t seem like he wanted to harm him, or else he would have likely launched an attack by now. In fact, Shining was relatively sure he’d scared the daylights out of him, and dangerous warriors looking to inflict harm upon their adversaries were notoriously hard to scare the daylights out of. Either way, he had to be certain. “Are you attacking the Crystal Empire?” Shining asked, though it was more of a demand than a question. The creature stared blankly at Shining, just long enough that Shining considered asking again, before finally responding with a smile. “No.” “Are you sure?” Shining asked. “Yes,” the creature replied, much quicker this time. Shining eyed him carefully. “Do you even know what the Crystal Empire is?” Shining asked. “No,” the creature responded. The uncomfortable silence lasted for a scant few seconds before Shining decided he’d had enough. This wasn’t helping him find his family. Without another word and with no idea of where to go, Shining took off running. The creature simply watched him as he left. Shining bolted through the strange unknown land, looking for some manner of hint as to where he was or how to get home. The unicorn dashed over the pristine green fields, scanning the area as he ran. Wherever he was, it was a place where nothing seemed to make sense. A tall mushroom off to his left turned to him, smiling brightly and waving at him before running in the other direction. What looked like a family of giant bees idly chatted with each other to his right, and he just narrowly avoided trampling their picnic blanket. A building shaped like a horse with an upper body similar to the creature he’d just interacted with faced away from him, an entry door placed square on its butt. That last one really threw him for a loop. “Stranger danger!” So distracted was Shining by the butt door that he barely registered the voice. Finally looking where he was going again, the sight of another bizarre creature directly in front of him. This one was shorter than the giraffelike one, though only slightly. Atop a long, pencil-thin neck sat a small head with huge eyes and ears and a tuft of blue mane. A more feminine upper body transitioned from brown to pink, ending in a more deerlike lower body. Shining had no idea what this one was either, but made the conscious decision to stop in his tracks before he steamrolled it. For its part, the new creature seemed even more panicked than the giraffe one had been. Her long neck scrunched up, and she grabbed her head as she began to shriek. Despite Shining making no further moves towards her, her panic only worsened as she tugged on her large ears and let out a louder yell. “Whoa…uh…” Shining stammered. He may have wanted to get out of wherever he was and find his family, but he certainly didn’t mean to send what seemed like a harmless bystander into hysterics. “You…uh…don’t have to…” “Outta the way,” came a deep voice from behind Shining. He turned around just in time to duck a tiny orange creature. The thing was just a bit smaller than Shining’s head, and flapped its arms as if they were wings, somehow able to fly just by doing that. Like the others, his lower body was more animal-like, resembling a blue bird of some sort. The little guy flew up to the deer one, dropping a paper bag into her flailing hands. “Calm down, Glendale. Use your words.” The one that must have been Glendale pulled the bag to her face, breathing into it and muttering nonsense as she did so. Shining attempted to back away from the two, but was stunned by the sudden emergence of another creature from the nearby bushes. “Hello!” This one had a darker masculine upper body and the lower body of a zebra. He let out a haughty little hum as he turned, appearing to pose in front of Shining, who was now starting to feel even less at ease than before. They didn’t seem hostile, but were they to become hostile, he was outnumbered. “There you are!” The giraffe man galloped back onto the scene, now leaving Shining at a four-to-one disadvantage. Glendale was starting to recover, and the other two were looking him over, the zebra more critically than the bird. “You ran away so fast, I didn’t get the chance to tell you my name!” the giraffe said, smiling a pleasant little smile as the bird perched atop his head. He closed in on Shining, the others beginning to do the same. Shining was a royal guard, trained to defend himself and those that he cared about, but even he was starting to become unnerved by the pack of bizarre beings. He planted his hind hooves, gritting his teeth. “Don’t get any closer,” Shining stated. “I’m a royal guard!” “Where'd it's arms go?” the zebra asked as he leaned in for a better look. “And what's wrong with it's butt?” “Oh, it’s got a picture on there!” the giraffe said excitedly, pointing at Shining’s cutie mark. “Did you draw that? Because that is, I mean it’s very impressive! I can’t even do that so well and I have arms!” Shining whirled around to get his hindquarters away from the invasive giraffe, and was suddenly face to face with Glendale. “And look!” Glendale said excitedly, seeming to have shaken off her bout of panic. “It’s got a weapon on its head!” “It’s a horn!” Shining said, eyes darting left and right as he realized he was surrounded. “Pf, doesn’t look like a horn to me,” the bird muttered, still atop the giraffe’s head. “Bet you can’t even play music with it. Dumb horse horns.” “That’s not the same…” Shining began, finding himself sneering at the bird’s tone. “You know what?” the giraffe suddenly said. “…What?” Shining asked, not sure whether he wanted to know the answer. “I think I want to touch its face!” the giraffe replied, the fingers on both hands wiggling eagerly. “What?!” Shining exclaimed. “No! Get away! Stop it!” His efforts and words were futile as the four descended upon him. He barely dodged the giraffe’s hand, only to feel Glendale’s fingers wrap around his horn. He wrenched his head away, ducking under the zebra’s hands as he did so. “I’m a highly-trained warrior!” It was taking all of Shining’s willpower not to attack these creatures. It was more than fair to call them invasive, but they didn’t seem malicious in any way. Though the bird did call his horn dumb, but that was less malicious and more rude. Either way, a rude comment did not warrant any kind of violent recourse, no matter how much he was beginning to consider it. “Everyone, stop!” A new feminine voice rang out, and the four creatures immediately stopped in their tracks. Shining breathed a sigh of relief and looked in the direction of the voice of whoever had just saved his sanity. He was beginning to get just a bit used to how odd this world’s inhabitants looked, so the dark pink creature with the bubblegum-pink fluff all over its body didn’t strike him as hard as it might have moments earlier. In fact, were it not for the extra limbs, he could almost mistake her for an inverted-color Pinkie Pie. “Oh, thank goodness,” Shining said, slipping away from the other four. “These four are all trying to-“ “Is that…” the pink one interrupted, before her eyes went wide. “A new friend?!” The comparisons to Pinkie Pie were growing by the moment. Shining decided that he didn’t have time to waste waiting for the next moment. “Finally!” the pink one cried out, oblivious to the fact that Shining was making a hasty exit behind her back. “Oh, it's been so long! Finally someone to nurture. Like a baby! Not…not like a literal baby. More like a spiritual baby. No! A metaphorical baby!” The others attempted to break through the pink one’s musings, but it wasn’t until Glendale’s attempt that they were finally able to get through to her. “Hey Wammawink?” Glendale called out. “You know that metaphorical baby you were just talking about?” “Yeeeees?” Wammawink asked. “Well,” Glendale continued. “He gone.” Wammawink finally turned back around, and her face fell as she noticed her new friend was no longer with them. “What?” Wammawink stammered, sweat starting to bead on her brow. “But…where did he go?” “He said he had to rush off in search of some people that he said he called Cadance and Flurry Heart,” the giraffe told her, the bird still perched atop his head and looking for all the world like he didn’t care about a single thing that was going on. “And if he didn't get back in time he’d be too late, because the last he saw-“ “Durpleton…there’s so much happening…” Wammawink said weakly, pressing her hands to her temples. “He also said he needed to get back to some war that he was in the middle of,” Glendale offered, nudging up to the zebra, who looked a lot less bothered than one might usually be by someone pressing their head up against them. “Because he and his Fladance-person-people-things were doing some pretty important stuff, and also other words that I didn't really understand the meaning of.” “He also said you were Pinkie Pie times five,” the zebra said. “Whatever that means.” “Oh, he said that, did he, Zulius?” Wammawink asked, gritting her teeth. “Well I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.” “Didn’t sound nice,” the bird said, shaking his head. “Typical horse.” “Well, Ched,” Wammawink said calmly. “Our new friend just needs a proper welcome. So why don’t we give him one right…noooooow?” With that last word, Wammawink launched herself into the air, in a way that should have been completely impossible for someone without wings to do. Shining, meanwhile, was already quite far away. He still had no idea where he was going, but running seemed like a good option regardless. For one, he couldn’t find an exit if he was standing still, and running meant that logically he would find an exit earlier. It also didn’t hurt that running got him away from all the grabby creatures and the pink one, who he could already tell was more than a bit clingy. Visions of Shining’s family passed through his head as he frantically tried to find a way out of wherever he was. He shuddered to think what could have happened to them, what with Sombra’s shadow soldiers pressing down on them. He could still hear Cadance’s shout clearly in his hea, as if she was still right next to him. The second he got out of here and back home, he was going to make those soldiers pay for even thinking about laying a hoof on her and their daughter. Anything that Sombra could do to him would pale in comparison to what he would do to Sombra if his family was hurt. Shining’s train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the flump of something soft and heavy landing on his back. He looked back and was met with a huge smile from Wammawink, who only further likened herself to Pinkie Pie by bursting into song. The rest of the creatures backed her up, dancing and clapping to the rhythm. Shining found himself desperately trying to escape this frantic group of centaurs as they sang. He was more than used to a group of people bursting into song; he never would have been able to survive in Equestria if he couldn’t handle a spontaneous musical number. Cadance and Twilight had performed one just last week while baking biscuits, and frankly it was adorable watching Flurry, who still hadn’t spoken her first word, attempting to join in. It was something about the way they were singing, however, that was giving him pause. There were an awful lot of references to him living here and being smothered by their friendship, and he was not signing up for that. In another situation, he might have been okay with becoming friends with them, but getting home to Cadance and Flurry and making sure that they were safe took priority over pretty much everything else, even his own safety. For the briefest moment, Shining found himself hesitating during the song. Something about what that Glendale sang…did she say that they were “at war with a ruthless horde of invading warriors?” Was there a chance that this Centaurworld place was also under attack from King Sombra’s troops? Shining had no idea where Centaurworld was or how he ended up here, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was out of Sombra’s reach. As soon as he was able to reunite with his family and assure their safety, Shining would have to look into this and see if he could help them as well. But, as stated earlier, his family came first. Shining carefully watched the group as they continued singing. At least one of them had eyes on him at just about every moment…until the finale. With all of them in a final pose, he had his chance. The herd of five, meanwhile, posed together, all catching their breath after their musical display. “That was awesome,” Ched said, flapping next to Zulius. “Hey, where’d it go?” Sure enough, Shining was nowhere to be found once more.