Chapter 4: A Place to Call Home
So sorry for the delay, I forgot to post this when I completed it. I only noticed because I was wondering why I didn't have any comments on this chapter. Oh well, expect the next in 2-3 days as I finish self checking and before it gets pre-read.
Twilight couldn't believe what she was seeing. Standing before her was the very Draqconequus that a few months ago nearly destroyed Ponyville and enslaved all of Equestria. The very same Draqconequus that her and her friends supposedly encased in stone.
All Twilight could do was look at him in shock. “B-but h-how are y-you -”
“Here?” Discord said cutting her off. “Simple my dear, the elements only seal my physical body, they can't seal my spiritual body. That what happens, my body and powers are sealed away and I roam the planet until the spell wears off.”
The spirit of chaos chuckled a little bit a the lavender unicorns confused expression. “But enough about me, I hear you mortals have a human problem again.”
“Again?” Twilight muttered to herself before looking up at the Draqconequus with questioning eyes, “You know what that creature is that's been running around in the Everfree forest?”
He looked at the Unicorn and smiled, “Know what it is? They're my favorite species not native to Equestria! The violence, the war, the Chaos! Really, they make me have woody in my nonexistent pants.”
Twilight was going to ask what 'woody' meant, but she decided that it's best not to. “How do you know what that creature, a human as you called it, how do you know what it is?”
“I did say I'm a spirit when I'm encased in stone right?” Twilight nodded her head. “So, I obviously saw the other human when he arrived!”
Twilight looked at Discord, giving him 'you're full of B.S.' look. “There was no other human, I checked all the record books. There is no recorded history of anything that resembled the creature you call human in there.”
The spirit of chaos chuckled lightly to himself at her naivety. “If you checked the record books, then you would have noticed that 103 years ago, there is no history for almost three months.”
Not believing the Draqconequus, Twilight open up the record book closest to her a turned back to the records from that time. To her surprise, there was no history from May 1st till July 31st, Thinking it was just a coincidence, she open up another book and found the same result.
After going through every single record, history, and stat book in the library she found the result to be the same. “B-but how can this be?”
“How?”' The Draqconequus faked questioned, “Oh, I don't know. Say maybe a all powerful being used a memory wiped spell to erase the pain from her subjects minds. But who do we know that was around during that time that was strong enough to use such a spell?” He tapped his chin for added emphasis.
Twilights eye's grew wide when she got at what Discord was getting at. “Princess Celestia? But that doesn't make sense! She wouldn't go to such an extreme unless something...”
Twilight stopped talking when she realized what he was getting at, a look of horror upon her face. Discord just chuckled softly.
“Exactly.” Discord was now grinning devilishly ear from ear. “You don't think Equestria's history is peaches and cream, do you?”
“W-why are you telling me this?” A distraught Twilight asked.
“To cause chaos, why would I do anything to begin with? But in case you don't understand, I will spell it out for you. Humans are murderous creatures and the last one nearly wiped out the unicorn population in one evening.” Discord gave one last hard chuckle before snapping his fingers and disappearing into the unknown.
Twilight was now sitting on the floor of the library, tears flowing freely from her face. She had never experienced death and couldn't even to begin to fathom what that would be like. For the princess to have erased from everyponies mind means that it must have horrific.
Even in her sadness, Twilight still wanted to know how bad it had to have been for Celestia to go to such extreme measures. Putting on a brave face, she called for her assistant .
“SPIKE!” The lavender mare yelled, “TAKE A LETTER...”
In Zecora's hut, a severely groggy human was waking up after passing out from the pain of having his wounds sealed shut and his bones reset in the matter of a few seconds.
He was slightly confused and sore. For some reason, he felt like he was laying on a wood floor and not the soft dirt he remembered passing out on. Another thing was the smell of the place he was currently resting at. It didn't smell earthy more like herbal soup.
He slowly opened one eye gazed at his surroundings, what he saw shocked him. He was in sort of lean-too or hut. There were mask, giant witch doctor looking mask. A cauldron with a boiling brown substance in it. Jars of what he assumed to be herbs on shelfs.
“What happened?” The confused him asked no one in particular. He shook his head and started recapping the events before he passed out. “Alright, so I was eating berries... Then I was attacked... by a... um.... Manticore, yea that's it, a Manticore!... Then a hooded figure saved me with a stick.... and gave me a healing potion... blank.”
He couldn't shake the feeling like he was missing something important from this particular series of events. Hooded figures name, he knew that he knew it but he couldn't remember who it was.
Then, in a room down the hall, he heard a voice call out, “Who speaks with a voice that booms and shakes, can it be that my human is awake?”
Then, like a ton of bricks, it hit Aaron. 'Zecora, of course!' he thought quietly. “Um, yea. Is this the home of Zecora?”
“Yes this home is mine, but how you know my name has gotten me in a bind.” She answered back.
“Right, we'll get to that later, but first, are you physically able to not rhyme when you talk or is this gonna be how you're gonna talk?”
“I can stop rhyming, this is true. But I've done it my whole life so it may be hard to due!” She stepped out from back from where ever she was and into the Aaron was sitting in.
Aaron just deadpanned, “That's fine, just try. But to answer your question, I'm from another world and you creature here in Equestria are famous among certain groups. I can't really explain it much more than that without making me seem absolutely insane.”
“Well, I had known that humans aren't from here but I did not think we would be famous in your world. Especially considering the last one of your kind was so shocked at the appearance of the ponies that he nearly wiped out enough equines to make me hurl.”
Aaron just stopped and stared at the four foot zebra. “What do you mean, the last one of my kind? You mean to tell me there was another human in Equestria and he killed a bunch of ponies? Is that why the royal guard is after me?!”
Zecora was a bit taken back by the sudden out burst but she quickly regain her composer. “Well yes and no. You see human, he didn't kill a bunch of random ponies, he killed unicorns and buried them snow. To top it off, he killed the last descendent's of one of the greatest unicorns to ever be born, and on a necklace he wore his horn. And yes, thats why the royal guard is after you. More than likely, they will search for you until Celestia thinks your expiration is past due.”
“Peachy.” Aaron sighed. “So, you think that you could point me in the direction of a good place to hide?”
Zecora pondered it for a moment before looking at the tall human with gleaming eyes. “I think that I know of a place, but I will only show it too you under one condition that could bring joy to my face.”
Aaron looked at the smiling zebra before his curiosity got the better of him, “What condition?”
“You become my student. It is zebra tradition to teach at least two students in their lifetime and I have already started with tiny Applebloom, I just need another who is prudent.”
“I guess it is better than running..... I'm in.”
Zecora smiled ear to ear before running off to another room. When she returned, she had a map, a machete, and a crossbow with arrows. She dropped the items at Aaron's feet carefully an gave him the map. “This will lead you to a hut about a half from here, but beware. That is the most dangerous part of the forest, not even Celestia's guards will venture into there.”
Aaron looked the map over and smiled at the voodoo zebra, “Thank you Zecora, this means so much to me.” Aaron picked up the weapons and started towards the door before he remembered something he forgot.
“What about the whole teaching me thing? When do you want to start that?”
“Twice a per week starting one month from now, that should be plenty of time for Celestia to call off the search. Just be on look out from the hut's perch.”
Aaron looked at mystical zebra before walking out the door. Before he left he spoke one last thing and closed the door, “Thank you.”
When she was sure Aaron was gone, Zecora mumble one last thing before going back the hallway and going to bed. “I've seemed to have found my second grasshopper, but it's a shame that he's about as magical as a rubber stopper.”
After about what Aaron assumed to be a half hour of walking, he came across the hut that Zecora was talking about. It stood on stilts that were 20ft off the ground and about 6ft in diameter. The only visible way up was a rope ladder that looked like it had seen better days and so had the hut.
Aaron climbed the raggedy ladder top the top, gingerly stepping as to not make the thing fall down on him. After reaching the top and carefully hoisting himself up, he reached for the doorknob to view the inside of his new abode.
However, when he touched the door, the whole door and frame collapsed. Making a mental note to fix the the door somehow, Aaron continued his tour of the hut. When finished, he concluded that the hut had two bedrooms, a bathroom; Which was just a room with a hole in the floor; a kitchen that somehow had a wood burning stove in it and a living room.
After making sure the hut was stable, Aaron went to the large of the two bedrooms and set his stuff down. After two minutes of laying peacefully on the bed, Aaron drifted into a deep slumber.
Celestia stood outside the home of one Twilight Sparkle. She had received a letter hours ago the requested a audience with her personal protégé at her tree home in Ponyville. After finishing day court, the princess took the first carriage she could find and now found herself wondering what was on Twilight's mind that she would request to meet in private.
Celestia raised a majestic hoof to knock on the door to the tree house but before she could, the door was open by a disheveled looking lavender unicorn. “Come in Princess, if you would please.” Twilight said dishearteningly.
Celestia gave her a concerning glance before walking inside, unsure whether or not Twilight was alright.
Celestia took a seat at Twilight's kitchen table across from Twilight and waited for her to speak. To two sat for maybe 15 minutes before the silence was unbearable for the Monarch of the Sun. She looked a downtrodden with a bit of unease.
“Twilight.” Celestia said softly. The lavender mare looked at her with a bit of apprehension. “Something is clearly bothering you or wouldn't have asked to see me in private. What is on your mind student?”
Twilight gulped and took a deep breath. “Well princess, I was doing some research in my library. I know you asked me to, but I couldn't help myself. I was, kind of doing research, well more like trying to find anything that resembled them, on humans after Fluttershy gave me a description of what the one in the Everfree looked like. But then something, or should I say, somepony happened.”
Celestia was looking at Twilight with a unamused glare. She figured she would never satisfy Twilight's questions when she told her to drop it, and this little stunt didn't surprise her. She was still, however, mildly disappointed in her.
“*Sigh*, What happened Twilight.”
“Discord...”
Celestia just sat there in total shock. “But,thats impossible! He's looked away in..”
“His physical body is.” Twilight cut in. “His spiritual body as he put it, is free to roam the planet.”
“Well, this is a new development. I will head back to Canterlot immediately to get our best unicorns to find him and seal that away also.” Celestia started towards the door before she was stopped by Twilight.
“Wait! Princess, remember how I told you about me trying to find anything that resembled a human? Well, he claimed that his spirit was in Canterlot 103 years ago when he claimed that another human was present. I didn't want to believe him but the evidence suggest it's true. That's the whole reason I asked for you to come here in the first place.”
Celestia was again in shock. The cat was halfway out of the bag and the draw string was broke. “What did he tell you?”
“He said... he said...” Twilight was having a hard time spitting the words out.
“Twilight,” Celestia said in her usual motherly tone despite her current state of shock. “Just tell me what he said.”
Twilight took in a deep breath and sighed. “ He said that the last human killed a lot of unicorns and that you erased it from everyponies minds and from the record books. But, I don't believe him! Nothing could have been that evil, could it?”
Celestia looked down, memories of the traumatic event replaying in her mind. The looks of horror and suffering still fresh in her mind. She had hoped that the day would never come when she would have to relive those fateful days. Celestia took a deep breath, before sighing. "Twilight, its time we had a talk..."