“So, as you see Mr. Sight, Princess Celestia needs you to come to Canterlot with us as soon as possible,” Twilight finished her monologue with an encouraging smile. Rainbow Dash had long since found a cloud to take a nap on, Applejack looked around for her missing hat, Rarity inspected the marble masonry and Pinkie Pie was nowhere to be seen. Fluttershy was the only one to actually pay attention to any of the long explanation to the white and blue unicorn with the watch glass cutie mark.
“Yes, that would explain why clouds have been turning into orange mist,” said Over Sight bringing a hoof to his jaw. Twilight fought the urge to jump up and down in glee. It seemed like the crocodile infested maze, airship crash and mountain expedition would finally pay off.
“But I already knew everything you just told me,” the mage said off-handedly.
Twilight’s jaw dropped.
“What? You said it yourself: I am the most powerful scryer in all of Equestria,” the unicorn deadpanned.
The lavender mare slowly approached Over Sight, her eyes pinpricks and mane already looking disheveled.
“All… All of that for nothing?” she started softly, her volume building. “Do you even know what we’ve been through? Applejack almost died at least three times, Fluttershy caused a hedgehog revolution and because of Rainbow, we lost an entire night of sleep running from angry Griffons!”
“Yes, because of the pie incident. I know. I’ve been watching,” he said nonchalantly.
Twilight’s eye began twitching. Sensing her friend’s disturbance, Fluttershy quickly and gracefully glided over to the panicking mare.
“It’s alright, at least nopony got hurt,” Fluttershy whispered as Rarity joined the conversation.
“Mr. Sight, it seems we must have made a grievous miscalculation of your abilities. If you knew about this problem, why haven’t you already come to Canterlot with your Orb?” the white mare coolly inquired. With Twilight approaching a nervous breakdown, it was up to Rarity to keep calm. Besides, she had to abandon her fainting couch or that poor colt would have been a dragon’s breakfast.
“Yeah, Ah’d say that was pretty darn mean of you to make us go through all that. Why didja do it then?” the farmpony said with annoyance, temporarily abandoning her hat finding quest.
Over Sight just stared at the mares for a full minute, his face contorted in an are-you-bucking-serious look.
Every bloody time. No matter how many times I explain it, someponies still mess it up.
Sighing and bringing a hoof to his face, the master scryer began his tired explanation.
“Okay, I see the PRESENT. I can’t see the future. I literally have no idea what happens in the future. I can give pretty good predictions, since I can see a lot of things in the present, but there was no way I could predict what happened before it did. And, for your information, I was in fact working on the solution as soon as I noticed something was wrong. Did you know it takes 101 days for a draconic ruby to mature into something suitable for making an Orb of Adsorption? Anyway, I still can’t believe you came all the way here just to tell me what I already knew.”
He shrugged and turned back towards his writing desk, levitating a sheaf of papers towards the group.
“Since we have some time to kill, I might as well share this with you.”
Still in shock, Twilight levitated the papers and began reading them.
“Is… Is this us? I’m a little confused…” Twilight said, scanning the pages briefly. One page caught her eye and caused her to blush.
“Wow, I never suspected Pinkie Pie was…” she mumbled before Rarity snatched the page up.
“Oh… Oh my…” the fashionista began before realizing the underlying implication.
“Wait, so these are stories you wrote about us? This is quite… disturbing. Why would you even contemplate such thing? And I most certainly would not say this!” Rarity pointed out with her hoof.
Over Sight simply shrugged and replied.
“Look, it gets really, really boring on this mountaintop. So, I occasionally sp-, er, observe certain ponies and write amusing stories about them. And since you actually came up here, I’ll share them with you. So, gather ‘round and sit tight, because we’ve got about a couple dozen of these bad boys to go through.”
Over Sight began levitating pillowed to all the ponies as he took a seat.
“You… You’re serious, aren’t you?” asked Twilight incredulously.
The unicorn stallion simply nodded.
“You’re not going with us until you finish, are you?”
Over Sight gave another simple nod.
Twilight let out a sigh of resignation as she sat down.
“Let’s get this over with, then,” Rarity rolled her eyes and muttered as she sat down. How dare he peep in their live like this and write strange fiction about them. She should have protested more, but after all she had been through, she was far too tired to care.
“What are you talking about?! This sounds superamazingfun!” a familiar hyperactive voice called from right behind Applejack.
“Gah! What in tarnation?! Pinkie! Why are you wearin’ ma hat?”
“Because you really like your hat and when you lost it you were super sad and I thought to myself, Pinkie, you need to find Applejack’s hat so that way she can stop being sad and starting smiling her Apple smiles and then I thought about when you cut apple slices once and bit down on it so that the skin was outside your teeth and it looked like a smile made of apple and I thought that’s what Applejack must think about when she smiles and then I thought, no Pinkie, you need to stay on track and find that hat!” Pinkie said in one breath.
“Well, thank ya kindly, sugarcube. That was real nice of you to do,” Applejack smiled, taking back her hat and returning it to its rightful place.
“Although, I still cain’t figure out how I lost ya,” she muttered, looking up at her brim.
The five mares took their seats in a circle with their host opposite Twilight. Fluttershy turned to her purple companion and meekly asked if Rainbow Dash should be awoken.
“Good point Fluttershy,” Twilight said in a mock-happy tone, “If we have to suffer through this, then so does she. Rainbow! Rainbow Dash, wake up and get over here! It’s storytime!”
The winged napper suddenly bolted upright.
“Story? Like an adventure story?” she asked hopefully, not picking up on the annoyed tension from her friends.
“Some of them are,” replied the master stalker, “Come, have a seat, and we’ll get started.”
Rainbow did a quick loop and landed next to Fluttershy.
“Alright! This is gonna be awesome, right guys?”
“…”
“Right?”