//------------------------------// // Chapter Four // Story: Detour While Delivering Binks' Sake // by LucidTech //------------------------------//         “So you say that you’re from another world...” Celestia said. Stirring her tea for a moment before she glanced toward the skeletal horse that sat across from her. It nodded in response and Celestia took a sip of her tea as she mulled over the idea in her head. “And you said you wanted to get back home?” Another nod. “And you don’t want to harm any of my little ponies correct?” This time Celestia’s eyes glanced to Twilight after the undead being had confirmed her thought once again. The lavender unicorn also bobbed her head up and down.         Celestia took another drink of her tea, going over the final contemplations of what she was about to say. “Then I’ll see what I can do to help you. I’m sure that we’ll be able to find a spell to send you home somewhere in the Canterlot Archives.” The solar alicorn stood, Brook copying the movement out of respect. “In the meantime, I can return you to your old form if you so wish.”         “Though I thank you for your offer, Your Highness, I respectfully decline.”         “Oh?”         “It is probably a once in a lifetime chance for me to have this form, and as long as I don’t need to use a piano I think that I would like to enjoy this while it lasts.”                  “Indeed. I’ll make sure to change you back before you go home. In the meantime...” Bright yellow magic started to spin around Celestia’s horn, forming a ball at the tip of her horn until she brought it down and hit against the ground, where it let loose a hollow echo. Retracting her magic the alicorn revealed a topaz rock that rested on the floor between the giants. “If you feel that you need to take your old form again, at any time, just shatter the stone.”         “Thank you. I'll make sure to keep it safe.” Carefully Brook reached down and balanced the stone on one hoof even as he pressed the other against the side of his skull. After a moment of fumbling he opened his skull along the crack and placed the stone inside, knocking against a seashell as it did so.         Celestia and Twilight both looked at Brook with wide eyes, then at each other to make sure they weren’t imagining this encounter, then back to the skeletal horse. “Yohohoho.” The laugh broke them from their moment of awe. “I, too, have had a moment where a cat has got my tongue. Oh! But I’m a skeleton, so I don’t have a tongue. YOHOHOHOHO! SKULL JOKE!”         Celestia smiled softly and took another sip from her tea, leaving the empty tea cup behind on the table before she looked to Twilight. “I must be going, I’ll see about getting Luna to help me research ways to send him back. In the meantime I want you to make sure he enjoys the time he has in Equestria while he has it.” Twilight nodded confidently and the princess turned to Brook. “I must be going, it was nice sharing a tea time with you though, Brook.” “The pleasure was all mine, Your Highness.”   With the quick farewell done, the white alicorn cast a teleportation spell and left. Twilight had decided that it would be for the best to introduce Brook to her friends first, and then expand outward so that the town would know he was no threat. Given that over half of her friends had met him all that was left was Pinkie Pie, and in that same visit she could have the excitable sweet-maker set up a wonderful welcome party for the odd skeleton. As they were on the way to sugarcube corner however, they saw something completely odd. Pinkie falling from the sky. Twilight was about to turn to tell Brook, but when she looked he was gone. She looked back to Pinkie Pie only to see she was no longer there either. Trying not to freak out about having gone crazy, Twilight started to run towards where she had seen the falling earth pony last. When she arrived she was relieved to see the familiar gargantuan horse holding a dizzy-faced Pinkie Pie in his teeth, which he promptly released onto the ground. “Yohohoho. You taste like candy. Are you a candy devil fruit user?” Pinkie had recovered just enough that she could answer the tall pony’s question. “Of course not silly, then I wouldn’t be able to swim. That would be horrible if I went ice skating wouldn’t it? What if the ice cracked early?” “Oh yes, that would prove unfortunate.” Brook nodded. Twilight, meanwhile, had no idea what either of them were talking about and decided to direct her attention toward the more appropriate question. “Are you alright Pinkie? What were you doing up in the air in the first place?” “Oh, Rainbow has a new friend. Well I guess she’s an old new friend. Her name is Gilda and she’s a griffon and she’s a meany weany pants.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, she’s totally selfish and rude and-” “Are you sure you aren’t just jealous?” “Well. I don’t think so...” “Just because Rainbow has a new friend doesn’t mean that that friend is mean Pinkie.” “I guess you could be right Twilight. I’ll try and be more open minded.” “Thank you. Now... what was I going to talk to you about...” her gaze wandered to the skeletal horse who hovered over Pinkie’s shoulder, a scary shadow striking across his face. Pinkie followed her gaze to Brook and jumped back. “Oh! The revive-revive fruit?” Pinkie said as her tail started shaking out of it’s own will. “Yes, but how did you... Yohohoho. You are one very strange pony.” Twilight eyed the skeleton who had just called someone else strange, but decided to move on. “Pinkie, this is Brook. I was wondering if you could hold a party for him so that the town would know about him and be less scared should he show up in public.” “Of course. Oh, an ‘everyone this a walking, talking skeleton with an afro party’! I’ve never thrown one of those before! I’ll need to think about this over a shake down by sugar cube corner. Why don’t you come too Brook? It will help me think.” “Of course.” “Great. You two go do that. I need to go finish some reading, I’m a bit behind right now.” With a synchronized nod the trio split, Twilight going back toward the library while Pinkie Pie and Brooke walked next to each other toward the building. For a brief moment Twilight worried about the ‘plaza’ in front of Sugar Cube being to public but shook it off, trusting that if anyone could pull off having a giant of a horse skeleton invisible in a public place it would be Pinkie. “Say, how did you catch me while I was so high up?” “Oh, I jumped. Since I’m light.”