//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Arrival in Ponyville (Part 1) // Story: Legacy of the Sun // by IceColt //------------------------------// “So, who’s this Stone Quill fella anyway?” The Ponyville train station housed more activity than usual. The usually sparsely stop was filled with tourists and workers, all of them coming to Ponyville for the Summer Sun Celebration. Normally, the Ponyville train station had to deal with these kind of crowds only during the holidays, when everypony wanted to visit Canterlot, since the town was the last stop before the capital. The station’s employees therefore usually had only brief encounters with such crowds. Now, however, they had their hooves full with a multitude of ponies pouring constantly into town, barely able to keep up with greeting and checking the new arrivals. Long queues at the counters had become the norm in a matter of hours. It didn’t help that the train traffic towards Ponyville had been doubled to accommodate the increase in ticket purchases. They even had put up an interim train station at the town’s border, to handle the train traffic exclusively used for transporting materials and goods. Because of this increase in activity, stress ran high among the conductors and the travellers, susceptible to mood changes because of their excitement, found themselves infected with the staff’s high-strung morale. Tension and slight animosity permeated the air in and around the Ponyville train station. Even Applejack had been on edge ever since they had entered the train station. The fact that they had been waiting for an hour wasn’t helping either. Nor was Twilight’s inability to notice anything around her. A disgruntled sigh passed Applejack’s lips, earning her a reprimanding side glance from Rarity, before once more she tried to reach her lavender friend. “Twilight?” Twilight didn’t react. She stared towards the rails, every now and then catching hasty glimpses towards the train schedule. Not that she needed to concern herself with them. After all, there had already been two trains arriving from Canterlot during the time they had been waiting here and from the scarce information Twilight had given her friends, they at least knew that they were waiting for somepony coming from Canterlot. Still, they could sometimes hear Twilight murmur to herself: “Oooh, what if I’m already too late? What if he arrived and went ahead? The princess will lock me up in a dungeon, I just know it…” Applejack had been worried at first and maybe she still should be, but to be honest, she was the Bearer of the Element of Honesty after all, her patience was wearing very thin right now. How Rarity could keep her calm after standing around for an hour, Applejack honestly did not know. Yet before Applejack could say anything, a lightning bolt colored like a rainbow shot down from the sky and struck the ground right in front of Twilight. “Damn it, snap out of it, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash barked, letting her frustration vent freely. If not for the impact right in front of her, Twilight flinched back at least from the sudden yelling. A disoriented and helpless expression appeared on her face and Applejack couldn’t help but feel sorry for her friend again. “Tone it down, RD, Ah’m sure Twilight has her reasons for why she’s actin’ so mighty strange today.” Applejack rebuked Rainbow Dash, feeling also a little sting of guilt, since she knew she had been that close to being in Rainbow Dash’ shoes. The little sting grew into a burning sensation of embarrassment when she saw Rarity’s arched eyebrow and the farm pony raised her hoof to adjust her stetson while giving a slight cough to hide her abashment. Rainbow Dash had no such problems with her conscience. “Hey, I’m just as used to Twilight acting weird as any of us, but this is just ridiculous! We’ve been waiting for almost forever here and nothing’s happened, even though Twilight wanted all of us to be here immediately. I even had to cut short my forenoon nap to be here on time!” “I’m sure missing out on one nap won’t hurt you, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity answered calmly while stepping up to Twilight’s side. The cyan pegasus opened her mouth, no doubt to explain the importance of a tight napping schedule, but Rarity didn’t bother to listen. She turned her attention to Twilight instead, her dispraising glare changing into a concerned expression as she examined her good friend. “You, on the other hoof, look like you could really use a little bit of peace and quiet, darling,” the white unicorn addressed Twilight. “What…?” made Twilight, before finally realizing where she actually was and who she was talking to. The lavender unicorn shook her head to regain her bearings and then turned towards Rarity with an honest, albeit weak smile. “Thank you for your concern, Rarity, but I’m fine. I’m just a little bit distracted, that’s all.” Rarity’s arched eyebrow told the whole story of her disbelief. “Pardon me, darling, but I believe a ‘little distraction’ is not a believable cause for turning up one hour too early to pick somepony up.” “Yeah! I know you’re big on schedules and everything, but this is too much, even for an egghead like you!” Although there was still some frustration in Rainbow Dash’s voice left, she did not have the same drive of anger than she had just a moment ago. The two friends’ reprimands seemed to have calmed her down. “Um, I’m sure Twilight has her reasons for meeting us so early.” Fluttershy’s soft voice floated through the air like a gentle leaf, until it was met by another angry gust of wind from Rainbow Dash. “I don’t doubt that, but the least she could’ve done was telling us those reasons! We’ve been waiting here since forever and you haven’t said anything yet, Twilight!” “Rainbow Dash!” Applejack and Rarity exclaimed in unison, but Twilight raised her hoof in appeasement. “No, she’s right, it’s not fair of me to treat you this way. The least I should do is tell you who Stone Quill is.” “Oh, Me! Mememememememememe! I have a question!” Another lightning bolt struck besides Twilight Sparkle. This time, however, it was of a pink color and did not come down from the sky and instead had darted out of the pony crowd of passengers and conductors, eagerly jumping up and down the moment it had reached the purple unicorn. Again, Twilight flinched, before turning to Pinkie with a baffled expression, wondering how the pink pony had heard her among the multitude of ponies. “Er… yes, Pinke? What do you want to know?,” she asked hesitantly. “What’s Stone Quill’s favorite cake? I chose apple pie for the Welcome Wagon, because, let’s be honest, you can’t really go wrong with apple pie, can’t you? But I wanna make reeaally sure there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, what if he actually has an apple allergy? Although, that would be really silly. I mean, it’s a silly word to begin with. Apple allergy. Try saying that five times fast. Apple allergy, apple allergy, applelellergy— whoops, I stumbled.” “I don’t think he— wait, you brought your Welcome Wagon?” Twilight’s shocked stare was met by Pinkie’s happily oblivious look. The pink earth pony kept jumping up and down, not in the least bit swayed by the urgent tone accompanying Twilight’s question. “Well, duh! It’s the least I can do for one of Twilight’s friends coming down from Canterlot.” Twilight wanted to answer, but before she could do so, something reached her ears. Besides the constant murmur of the pony crowd, there was now another sound. The rhythmic chugging of a closer-coming train. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw the silhouette of a locomotive appearing at the corner and hastily, she turned to Pinkie again. “But, Pinkie! I told specifically to not plan anything special for him!” There was clear desperation in Twilight’s expression. Pinkie giggled joyfully. “Oh, silly Twilight. my Welcome Wagon is not anything special, it’s what I use to greet every new pony in Ponyville.” At this point, Twilight could barely hear her friend over the noise of the train slowly reaching the station, the breaks shrieking on the last few meters and the engine puffing wildly. It had almost reached full stop. In a mood that could be only as described as sheer panic, Twilight tore herself away from the arriving train, which was now as much of a welcome sight to her as the grim reaper, and she tried to once again reason with Pinkie. Yet before she could say anything, a high-pitched sound came from the locomotive. The train doors parted in perfect unison and let out the mass of passengers, who were eager to free themselves of the confining narrowness of the passenger cabins. Twilight’s eyes widened in shock at this sight, as if the train had just released Discord’s plagues and not a horde of tired and stressed-out travellers. The shock did not lessen when Twilight turned around again, only to find that Pinkie had managed to find some way to summon her Welcome Wagon directly behind her, as she eagerly watched the new arrivals, wondering who she should give her welcome to. Dismissing any caution, the purple unicorn jumped in front of the pink earth pony, desperately trying to cover the sight of her and the Welcome Wagon with her body, which she failed at miserably. “Pinkie, please, you have to promise me not to use your Welcome Wagon!” Twilight hissed, a small portion of fear entering her voice as she looked towards her friend and back to the arriving travellers. Pinkie’s excited smile dropped and was replaced by a baffled expression as she cocked her head and looked at Twilight in confusion. “But Twilight, I have to welcome Stone Quill. Don’t you want him to have a Ponyville Welcome?” Twilight groaned in frustration and tore herself away from the mass of new arrivals. She looked her pink friend dead in the eye, letting her see clearly just how much rattled the lavender librarian was. “No, I don’t want him to have Ponyville Welcome! I don’t want him to have any welcome! Believe me, Pinkie, this stallion is the last pony you want to give your Ponyville Welcome to! So just please, pretty please, don’t use your Welcome Wagon, just this once, before—” “Miss Sparkle.” Twilight froze. As far as she was concerned, this was not an exaggeration. She could feel her entire body get covered by black ice and her blood freezing in her veins, the very moment she heard this voice. His voice. The moment it took for Twilight to turn around seemed to be the longest in her life. Her mind was racing with thoughts and felt strangely empty at the same time. Breathing became difficult for her all of a sudden and her vision turned slightly blurry. The ground under her hooves started to feel unstable and there was static noise in Twilight’s ears that slowly grew louder with each heartbeat. Her panic had opened a door in her mind and chaos had taken up the opportunity to gain access to Twilight’s thoughts. A disjointed crescendo rose up in the purple unicorn’s head, blocking out any kind of coherent thought and taking away control of her own body. The feeling of stepping on the wooden floor of the train station with her own hooves vanished into a murky fog and everything seemed to slowly reel to the side… And then Twilight stood face to face with Stone Quill. The spectacled unicorn’s sharp stare went through her body like a lightning bolt, driving out every single feeling of confusion and panic, leaving her mind completely blank. A little bit too blank, in fact. “Oh… Magister Stone Quill!” The words felt strange inside Twilight’s mouth, wouldn’t sound quite right and the narrowing of Stone Quill’s eyes didn’t help. Twilight swallowed nervously, but tried to keep her gaze locked on the spectacled unicorn’s face. She lasted for ten seconds. “You’re here?” She asked, her eyes fixed on a spot next to Stone Quill’s right front hoof, a nervous smile playing around the corners of her mouth. She could feel his gaze on her, saw before her inner eye how he arched his eyebrow, adapting an expression of token surprise while having same judgemental look as always in his eyes. “Your keen observation skills are the same as ever. If I take the liberty to change your apparent question into a statement, that is.” An intense heat spread through Twilight’s cheeks and the plank besides Stone Quill’s hoof became suddenly all the more interesting. Yet before Twilight could even realize that she should probably answer, her worst nightmare came true. “Hey, I’m Pinkie Pie!” It took only those four little words to make the panic rush back into Twilight’s mind like it had never left. All kinds of alarm bells went off inside her head and it didn’t get any better when she looked up. Somehow, Twilight had no idea how, Pinkie had not only managed to  bypass her without Twilight noticing, she even had taken her Welcome Wagon around, so that it no longer was standing behind Twilight but in fact beside her. On the other side of it stood, of course, Pinkie, who wore the biggest grin one could imagine a pony to have, an aura of barely-contained excitement surrounding her. Normally, Twilight would have no problem for anypony meeting Pinkie like this. After all, she had met her in a very similar fashion. There was nopony in Pinkie’s circle of friends whose first meeting with the fluffy-maned bundle of sugar-driven energy had been anything short of unusual. For Stone Quill, however, the rules for normal ponies didn’t apply. That’s why, instead of resignation, unmasked fear now showed on Twilight’s face as she silently shook her head, staring at Pinkie. The party-loving earth pony didn’t notice her gesture at all. Instead, Pinkie poised to deliver the finishing touch for the disaster as she stood up on her back legs and placed her left forehoof on the big, red button on the side of the Welcome Wagon. She took a deep breath and then joyfully exclaimed her intentions. “And I want to welcome you to Ponyville!” The next moment, everything happened in an instant. Twilight stepped up, her mouth opening to try and stop Pinkie from using the Welcome Wagon, but Pinkie’s hoof was already moving to push the button. It had been pressed halfway in, when a third lightning bolt struck this day. A blue-black arrow darted out of the pony crowd, heading straight for Pinkie and taking mere fractions of a second to cross the distance. Yet when the blue-black bolt was only centimeters away from Pinkie, the first lightning bolt struck a second time. Too fast for the naked eye, the dark arrow and a rainbow-colored comet met in mid-air. There was a loud sound, and in the next moment they struck the ground, the comet skidding towards Pinkie’s hooves and the arrow sliding in front of Stone Quill, until they both came to a stop at the same moment. It was already over before it had even begun, so when ponies began to turn their heads, they only saw two pegasi opposing each other. Still, these ponies wouldn’t miss out on a chance to witness a little bit of action and soon a ring of ponies formed around the two opponents, the spectators eying them curiously and some eager fellows already placing bets. Those bets were not placed in Rainbow’s favor, given the state she was in. While she had successfully deflected the assault on Pinkie, the force of the impact had obviously been stronger than she had expected. She lied on her back, pushing herself up with her elbows. Yet there was still fire in her eyes when she shot a glare at her opponent, and she was recovering quickly, preparing herself for another attack. the other pegasus had no such difficulties. She had landed on all four hooves. Her dark blue coat was without any signs of an attack placed on her and her smooth azure mane was completely untouched. Her eyes, though not as ablaze with passion as Rainbow Dash’s, showed a clear willingness to fight and she had already poised her body to rush forward at the next possibility she found. “Hey, what’s the big idea, huh?!” Rainbow Dash yelled as she rose to her hooves and glared at the other pegasus. Her opponent did not answer and instead tensed up the muscles in her legs, spread her wings again and lowered her head. The spectating crowd held it’s breath in anticipation. “Moonbeam, that’s enough.” All of a sudden, every kind of movement in the pegasus’ body halted. Then, she relaxed and stood up normally, folded her wings and looked over her shoulder to Stone Quill, who affirmed his words with a silent nod. “After all, this doesn’t seem to be any kind assassination device.” Upon hearing his words, not only the dark blue pegasus, everypony else followed the direction of his second nod and looked towards the Welcome Wagon that was standing besides Pinkie, who was standing there with an expression of utter confusion on her face. Since it’s owner wasn’t accompanying the performance with her singing, the Welcome Wagon just stood there, it’s cabinet opened and happily playing the joyful music that normally accentuated Pinkie’s welcome song. In fact, it had even reached the end of it’s little musical number by now, so a few seconds after everypony’s gaze had settled on the wagon, a loud ‘bing’ was heard and the built-in oven opened, thrusting out the freshly-baked apple pie inside of it while fountains of confetti exploded out of the red-and-white poles at each side of the Welcome Wagon. suppressed laughter went through the spectator crowd, but the black blue pegasus didn’t seem to be embarrassed by her misjudgment in the least. She only blinked once and then just turned around to position herself next to Stone Quill. After making sure with a look that the pegasus stayed where she was, Stone Quill cleared his throat. “Well then, I suppose I an apology is in order. Dear Moonbeam here has been just recently dispatched to act as my bodyguard and therefore takes her new duty quite seriously. She only acted in my best interest and I hope we can quickly forget about this, seeing how nopony got hurt.” A moment of awkward silence hung between everypony, as Twilight tried her best to not look completely helpless, Pinkie still stood there, now back on all four of her hooves, and just looked from one pony to another, trying to understand what happened, Rainbow stared daggers at the pegasus behind Stone Quill and the spectators around them grew increasingly bored by all of this, since apparently there was no more scuffle to be had. Only Stone Quill seemed absolutely unfazed by everything that had happened and when nopony answered, he gave a satisfied nod. “Great. Well then—” “Hold just a second!” Had a few spectators already begun to leave the scenery, they now turned around immediately and looked on with renewed anticipation. Rainbow Dash had stepped in the middle of the makeshift arena, although being mindful of keeping herself between Moonbeam and Pinkie. An angry flame burned in her eyes as she jabbed her hoof forward in accusation, pointing at the dark blue pegasus. “You may have apologized, but I haven’t heard an excuse from her yet!” While the words were directed towards Stone Quill, Rainbow didn’t take her eyes off the other pegasus for one moment, glaring daggers at her. Moonbeam remained unperturbed and didn’t even meet Rainbow’s gaze. She just looked dead ahead, remaining completely stationary. “I’m afraid there also won’t be one,” answered Stone Quill nonetheless, despite being almost completely ignored by the rainbow-maned mare, “Moon Beam did what she deemed necessary for my protection and therefore only acted in her capacity as my bodyguard. I don’t think you can expect a pony from the Night Watch to apologize for doing their duty.” Of course that explanation didn’t help disperse Rainbow Dash’s anger at all. In fact, the cyan pegasus reacted like she didn’t even hear the elder unicorn’s words, piercing the night-coloured bodyguard with her gaze. Suddenly, a devious smirk appeared on Rainbow’s lips and the tension slowly left her body as she let her head roll from one shoulder to another, relaxing her neck as she spoke. “Oh, I see. So you’re one of the Looney Guard, huh?” Had Moonbeam not reacted to anything Rainbow had said before, this comment obviously got her attention. She let her head snap around and fixed her gaze on the colorful pegasus. Rainbow kept talking as if she didn’t notice. “No wonder you’re so chicken. I already heard the ponies of the Night Watch can’t do anything right.” The outer corner of Moonbeam’s left eye twitched once and then the dark blue pegasus took a step forward, the expression in her eyes changed. A huge grin appeared on Rainbow’s face when she saw this and the cyan mare stretched her wings eagerly before crouching down, making herself ready for an immediate take-off. “What? Don’t like what I have to say? Well, why don’t you come over here and—” “C’mon, Rainbow, that’s enough.” The two pegasi halted in the middle of their movements and blinked, Rainbow Dash furrowing her brow quizzically. Yet when she looked up, her confused expression changed into a disbelieving one as she saw that the one who had spoken was a white pegasus, clad in an ornate golden armor. For a a couple of seconds, the cyan pegasus stared at the stallion as if she could scarcely believe who had just talked to her. “Flappy?” Swift Wing, the white Royal Guard pegasus, grimaced in displeasure, but tried to not let it affect his friendly smile too much as he reluctantly gave a small, affirmative nod in Rainbow’s direction. The rainbow-maned pegasus stared at him one second longer, and then another huge grin appeared on her face, this time completely free from any ill intent. With one swift kick against the ground and a strong beat by her wings, Rainbow hovered besides the white pegasus the next moment, companionably punching his shoulder and knocking against the golden armor, all the while talking excitedly. “Gee, it must’ve been ages since I last saw you! What have you been up to? Is that a Royal Guard’s armor? Wow, you went places, huh? Seems like life is treating you all right. How’d you become guard anyway? Is it because of the armor? It must be the armor. How do you ponies keep it so shiny all of the time? Is it magic or do you just dump a ton of polish on those babies everyday?” Swift Wing smiled nervously the entire time during Rainbow’s ecstatic flood of words, nodding once or twice, but everytime he opened his mouth to answer, the cyan pegasus began another sentence, giving the guardspony barely even time, or room, to breath. “An acquaintance, Private Swift Wing?” The melodic voice flowed in between Rainbow Dash’s words completely natural, being perfectly audible while barely interrupting the mare’s prattling. Yet as soon as she heard that sentence, Rainbow paused, turned her head, and noticed that she had heard Moonbeam, who was once more ignoring her, speak for the first time. Swift Wing, obviously relieved about the break in Rainbow’s flood of words, breathed deeply and then nodded towards the Night Watch pegasus. Rainbow Dash set down on the ground again immediately and once more took on an attack-ready position. Yet before there could be any more hostility, Swift Wing put his left forehoof between the two pegasi, looking at Rainbow warningly and pleadingly at the same time. “Please, Rainbow, can you drop it? I know she attacked your friend and everything, but this is really not the best place or time to confront her about it. Right now, she’s on duty, so if you keep attacking her, I will have to step in to defend her as a colleague.” There was a brief moment of silence between the white and the cyan pegasus as Rainbow looked directly at Swift Wing, examining his expression. Finally, the mare let out a sigh and folded her wings. “Alright, I’ll drop it. For now,” she added as she shot a glare at the dark blue pegasus. Moonbeam met her gaze with no less hostile intention, before she turned around and walked back towards Stone Quill, who by now wore quite an impatient expression. As the two opponents stepped away from each other, there came sounds of disappointment from the crowd as it started to dissolve and the ponies turned their attention towards other things. In a matter of seconds the makeshift battle arena transformed back into an innocent, albeit overfilled train station and even Pinkie with her still opened, although now quiet, Welcome Wagon dropped out of the collective attention of the mass of ponies. The other Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, who had been pushed away by the enclosing crowd, now stepped forward as well, most wearing an alienated and cautious expression. Only Twilight was the odd one out with nervosity governing her every move and the desperation of how everything could have gone so wrong clearly written on her face as she stood between Stone Quill and everypony else. She let her eyes wander from her friends to the spectacled unicorn, who still seemed completely untouched by anything surrounding him, even the slight hostility harboured towards him. He only let out an annoyed sigh, gave both Moonbeam and Swift Wing a look that was only a little bit away from withering, and then turned towards Twilight. “Well, that has been quite the welcome, I have to give you that, Miss Sparkle.” Applejack, Rainbow and Rarity all furrowed their brows upon hearing this, but Twilight just gave a nervous laugh in response. “Yeah, who would’ve guessed things would turn so wild?” she replied, all the while laughing and rubbing the back of her head with her left forehoof. “Maybe that’ll be a good lesson not to bring strange contraptions to welcome somepony who is traveling on official capacity.” Stone Quill’s dry answer made it obvious he wasn’t willing to give any attempt to lighten the situation any chance. Twilight stopped laughing immediately, though she could not completely do away with her nervous smile. It, of course, did not put the elder unicorn in a better mood. “Anyway,” Stone Quill started again, walking towards the station’s exit while he talked, “let’s get started, shall we?” For a moment, Twilight was confused by Stone Quill’s words, but after organizing her thoughts she remembered what the spectacled magister was actually here for. “Yes, of course,” she answered hastily, walking besides the elder unicorn and everypony else following suit, though Applejack had to drag the still dazed Pinkie with her. “How about a tour through Ponyville first, Magister? You could familiarize yourself with the surroundings and with everypony else being a resident for some time they ought to give you some advice on the localities you could consider in the preparations.” Twilight’s friends exchanged a glance. This is why she had wanted them all to come to the train station this early? Sure, Stone Quill was a pony sent by the Princess herself, but that was hardly a reason to put six tour guides at his side. For better or for worse, however, Stone Quill declined the offer. “Actually, I was planning to first take a look at the documents to see what is done and what is still underway.” The elder unicorn passed a brief side glance to Twilight. “You have everything documented, correct?” “Of course!” Twilight’s answer was less carried by confidence and more by haste and the sound of her voice gave it away. The elder magister only made an ambiguous sound and kept walking. The rest of the way was spent in awkward silence. Stone Quill didn’t seem to have any more questions and, in fact, didn’t even seem to be in need of a guide. He didn’t stop at a crossroad or asked for the right way even once, very much to Twilight’s disquiet who seemed to  suffer greatly under the oppressive void of words. Even the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony didn’t dare to say anything, although they did exchange questioning glances repeatedly, getting all the more confused by Stone Quill’s behavior. The lack of any communication hung heavily above the little group when they finally reached the town’s library and the psychological pressure seemed to turn into physical force for Twilight, as she hung her head low and only sometimes dared to shoot a quick side glance at the elder magister, who kept his gaze strictly on the road or the town, examining everything with a critical expression, as if he had come to judge the town and not to help prepare it. That didn’t change with the library and so his eyes wandered up and down the tree turned into a building. This very library was one of Ponyville’s famous landmarks and, together with Sweet Apple Acres, the Carousel Boutique and Sugarcube Corner, helped elevate the small town above the rank of a backwater community with a declining population mostly comprised out of retirees. The treehouse was a magical unicum that had inspired replicas all over the land, but none were as well-made as this one. Yet Stone Quill regarded it with an expression as if he was looking at exactly one of those cheap knockoffs that originated from this magno-architectural marvel. Then, after about ten seconds of his examination, he clicked his tongue disapprovingly and turned around to the other bearers, who by now regarded him with an expression of wariness. “I have to thank you all for accompanying here,” he then began, wearing a mien that the ‘have to’-part was actually meant as it sounded, “but from here on out I should be fine with just Miss Sparkle. I will be in contact with you regarding any kind of special preparations pertaining your professions and your … station as bearer of the Elements of Harmony. You should expect my visit around afternoon. Have a nice day.” With that farewell, he turned around, opened the door of the library with a short glow of his horn and stepped inside without taking another look back. Moon Beam followed him without hesitation, but Swift Wing hesitated shortly, giving each of them an apologetic smile before hurrying after the elder magister, leaving Twilight and the gang by themselves. Once again, an awkward silence spread between the group, but after only a few moments of astonished silence, Rarity finally spoke up, breaking the stifling atmosphere that had persisted from the moment they had left the station. “Twilight, dear, I know he’s been sent by the Princess and I know that you have good reasons for not telling us anything about him, but I have to side with Applejack on this one and would just really like to know: Who is this Stone Quill?” The others’ indignation made way for curiosity now as well as they all turned to the lavender unicorn, the same question all written on their faces. Twilight looked at them by one by one, closed her eyes and then gave a deep sigh before she looked up again and nodded. “You’re right. I do owe you at least this after all what has happened at the station. But please, don’t tell him that I told you this, alright?” Twilight’s expression while she pleaded this from her friends was a serious one and so the other ponies nodded immediately, feeling a slightly bit oppressed by the seriousness of it all. Was Stone Quill’s identity something this dramatic? Twilight breathed one more time, collected herself and then spoke. “You see… Stone Quill is actually my old teacher.”