He stood at attention. He was the bearer of bad news, best not to add insubordinate posture to the reasons his lord might cause him to “disappear”.
“My Lord First, we have received a communique from one of our field agents. An interdimensional contact. Rumors of blasphemous powers.”
The shadowy figure that was his lord paused as the report ended.
“The other members of the Council?”
“Divided. Fourth and Sixth see the newcomers as an opportunity, potential slaves. Third and Seventh believe the plans must be accelerated before these foreigners can impact the situation here, lest all our work be for nothing. Second and Fifth see these aliens as the ultimate threat to the operation, and that we must delay any action until our machinations can be adjusted to account for them.”
He stood there, sweating, spending potentially his last moments in existence remaining extremely still and quiet, ignoring urges to either fly or fight.
“We await further information. Changing anything before we know more would be worse than changing nothing. We cannot risk exposure through rash decisions. Inform the others that this is why I am First, and they have power only so far as I allow their advice to affect my decrees.”
“Yes, My Lord First.”
And then he fled.
Night 3
Fluttershy arrived last again, this time with a small bird perched on her head. “Sorry I'm late, but this little guy showed up just as I was about to leave. He's looking everywhere for one of his friends, and I said I'd ask you guys about it, if that's alright.”
Twilight squinted at the avian. “What kind of bird is he Fluttershy? I don't think I've ever seen one like that.”
“Me neither. He says he's from a long way away, perhaps that's why?”
Twilight nodded, accepting this explanation for the mystery bird. “Well, much as I enjoy bird-watching, that's not why we're here.” Twilight turned to her prone guest. “She's just sleeping off the last effects of the spell now, it should be safe to cast a translation spell so she can understand us when she wakes up.”
Her horn began to glow, the aura of purple light building up in preparation. Then, a flash as the spell's beam pulsed out and struck the foreign mare. Twilight turned about to check the pre-awakening checklist one last time, but was interrupted as a blood-curdling shriek rent the silence of the night asunder.
The light-gray mare was writhing about, obviously in agony. Purple sparks danced around, the mare twitching in pain each time one touched her.
Applejack looked on in astonishment. “Twilight! What did y'all do!?”
“I, I-I don't know, I've never cast this spell before! All it's supposed to do is temporarily overwrite the subject's original language with Equestrian, with a slight siphon on their inherent magic to maintain the effect!”
Fluttershy stood riveted with sympathetic pangs, oblivious as the bird lifted off her head, red-tipped tail feathers trailing as it zoomed out Owlowicious' normal exit as fast as its wings could carry it.
At this point, Rainbow Dash zoomed over, but her eagerness to help was curtailed by Applejack grabbing a mouthful of her tail. “Hrld jrsht r srcnd shgrcb. Lrt Twrlrght frx thr dngrrsh mrgrc thrng.”
With that, Twilight did so, firing a counterspell into the writhing melee of purple sparks and roan mare.
The magical backlash ceased, but the strange mare continued struggling on the floor for a second, before rolling over and raising her head, all four quarters still on the floor. As the stranger's eyes adjusted to the light Twilight turned to her stack of spellbooks, rifling through them looking for something in particular.
Rainbow Dash inched up cautiously towards the grayish mare and spoke, slowly, waving her wings about for emphasis. “Hellooooooooo. My Naaaaaaaame, is Raiiiiiiiiinbooooooooow, Daaaaaaaaaaaash. Whaaaaaaaat's Yoooooooooooooooours?”
The former statue's eyes had riveted upon Rainbow's wings with a look that could not be mistaken for anything other than astonishment, except perhaps for sheer terror.
Seeing this, Rainbow decided a little fun could be had. “Boo.”
With that, the mare jumped to her feet and backed up until her blank flank was against the couch, and she continued retreating as Rainbow advanced. They continued in this manner until the bemused pegasus felt an unseen gaze boring into the back of her head.
The Element of Kindness had cast a deep, unsettling scowl upon her iridescent fellow pegasus, who thankfully took the hint before any further unpleasantness could ensue.
Meanwhile, the gray mare had backed herself against the wall, and a stream of gibberish poured forth from her mouth like the panicked burbling of a stream that had just burst its dam. This continued as Rarity and Pinky Pie came in from the kitchen.
Before they could ask what was going on, Twilight reared and exclaimed in triumph as she found what she was looking for. A brief look at the new spell, a short blast of magic into one of Spike's uneaten quartz crystals, and the gibberish was suddenly rendered in perfectly understandable Equestrian.
“ck is going on here, and why, by every single one of the Sunbird's pyroclastic buttfeathers, did you dye your coat teal?”
Rainbow Dash looked at the newly vocal mare askance for a second before replying. “I'll have you know I'm a natural blue!”
Any further belligerency was cut off by Twilight Sparkle interjecting herself, physically and vocally, between her guests. “I think we got off on the wrong hoof here, my name is Twilight Sparkle. What's yours?”
The other mare had taken a step towards Rainbow when she heard words she could understand, although her demeanor was still of one whose flight-or-fight reflex was ticking away at full speed. “Shale Hearth Coalmare, Mapper, Chalk Son Consortium Survey, under Captain Hard Trail of Trakhenia.” The response had an automatic sound to it, like it had been said rapidly and frequently until it was memorized.
“Can we call you Shale?”
“That's what my friends do.”
“That's all we want to be. There's no need to be scared, just calm down. I'm very sorry for the pain you awoke in, it was an accident. I also promise Rainbow Dash doesn't bite.”
The roan mare inhaled, closed her eyes, and let the breath out, calming her thoughts along with her respiration. These strangers hadn't killed her yet. Panic was probably the worst option.
“Are you hungry?” a voice asked. Before Twilight could object, Pinky Pie had bounced up level with the mage, a cupcake balanced carefully on her head. “Twilight says we should hold off on the party until you've had time to recover, but I figured in the meantime a little dessert wouldn't hurt!” Pinky set the confection and accompanying saucer on the floor, nudging it so that it slid over to Shale, who was looking at her oddly.
The roan mare sniffed at the small pastry. It didn't smell poisonous.
“I even peeled the paper off for you, as it might be your first cupcake, you being from another universe and all, and the paper's sometimes difficult for ponies like us.”
Shale looked at Pinky like she'd just said that a hat made a wonderful pet.
“I also left off the hot sauce, Twilight says it's an acquired taste,” Pinky added.
“Thank you,” Shale replied cautiously. She carefully picked up the saucer and, having examined the cupcake again, brought it to her mouth and took a bite. A few seconds of hesitant chewing, swallowing and icing-licking later, Shale gave her verdict. “It's very good, I don't think I've ever had something quite as sweet.”
Shale was about to take a second bite when she realized the others had fallen completely silent, and were staring at her like she'd grown another head. Or rather, they were staring at the saucer and cupcake like they were the ones that had sprouted superfluous crania.
“How are y'all doing that?” Applejack asked, as she and the others looked with complete lack of understanding at the pair of objects that were apparently levitating around Shale.
Twilight finally picked her jaw off the floor and summarized the situation with a complete understatement. “I think we all have a lot of explaining to do.”
An entire universe away, a small green and brown bird was sitting on a branch, and a patchy dun pony was conversing with his superior. “Near as I can tell, he had an encounter with another whisperer.” The officer remained silent.
The implication of a whisperer strong enough to break the conditioning these birds went through to make them resistant to enemy influence was unsettling.
“While that means anything I get from him is suspect, here's what I have:
-There's a settlement on their side of the portal, which is patrolled by several of those fliers we saw when we probed the other day.
-He spent about a day moving through the settlement looking for Shale before running into kindness, which I think means the other whisperer.
-They were able to cure Shale of whatever happened to her. Whether this means they can depetrify the victims of something from mythology or if they can just cure a venom-induced paralysis is down to Pathmark's testimony.
-Shale was in pain from something. Whether it was a consequence of their medicine, torture, or an accident, I'm not sure. He didn't understand everything that was going on.
-A signature that's almost congruent with a Precog, but off. Strong association with pink.“
The recipient of this monologue was quiet for a moment, eyes narrowed in concentration and thought. “Well, this has officially gone above my pay-grade. We turn back and get a proper diplomatic party, or better yet, the army, in here as soon as possible.”
He turned to the others under his responsibility. “Everyone, we're moving out! Let's get as much distance as possible between us and that bucking portal.”
There was no hesitation, even though Shale Hearth was one of their own, who had been believed to be dead. When her bodyguard had come galloping into camp in with terror dancing in his eyes they had known something awful had happened.
Pathmark was still in a funk about it, keeping the mapper safe was his primary responsibility, after all. His remorse was tempered with a slight bit of resentment that his compatriots did not believe the alien creature had turned Shale to stone though.
Each weapon was readied. Nothing had been routine about this expedition since its beginning.
This universe, named Eranax after the discoverer, had been declared a dead-end, the last in the Shell Bay chain. The group that was here had been a routine geological survey right up until its portal hounds had started wailing, and when they had stopped howling the huge mastiffs had started whining in the unmistakable sign of a portal.
So, told to “seek”, the dogs had led them on. Over hills and dales, past what in the home universe was known as Whitewater Gorge, through days of wet and raining conifer forest to the site of Trakhenia itself. Several of the ancient superpower's citizens were among the expedition, which meant the destination left them with a certain taste of irony.
That the location of the most powerful of the civilized cities would yield them fame and fortune as actual universal pathfinders rather than mere surveyors had been the height of cosmic humor. Now, they were withdrawing without even setting hoof in the new world. Worse, they were leaving one of their own behind.
That last point grated most with one Pathmark Neighra. Granted, he should feel no especial attachment to his charge, and his sense of duty to his orders to protect the mapper was no stronger than professional pride. What made the fact they were leaving her behind chafe was a small spark that had been settling at the bottom of Pathmark's belly ever since the team had set out from Eranax's Portal Fort.
It wasn't a prohibited feeling. He'd never acted upon it though. His own shyness and Commander Hard Trail's policy of monopolizing the time of his security troopers had combined to keep any admiration strictly whistful, nonverbal and from outside the fifty meter radius.
Rather than pine, he'd desensitized himself. At least, he'd thought he had. But the Commander assigning him to bodyguard that particular mare had dropped the bottom out of his little fortress of insensitivity. That wink at the end of the briefing hadn't helped dispel any sense that Hard Trail could see something his trooper did not want him to.
Now, he, Pathmark, had bucked it up. Sure, there had been no way to anticipate a creature jumping straight out of ancient legend and petrifying Shale. That hadn't made his subsequent panicked flailing, firing and running any more excusable.
So, up to his ears in disgrace, secure in the knowledge he'd botched the first ever inter-universal contact, the light brown stallion limped on through the drizzling rain, bringing up the tail of the gloomy column.