"You wanted to see me?" She asked, putting enough disdain in her voice to sound upset that I had the gaul to make her come to me. The effect was diminished somewhat by the fact I knew she wasn't really bothered by it.
"Yes, my Queen," usually I would simply call her Chrysalis, it irks her when I treat her like just another Changling. But she likes it when I call her my Queen, willingly placing her above me. So I tended to do so when I needed her to do something for me.
I placed the last of the luggage into my saddle bags and turned to face her. Her chitin was darker than the last time I'd seen her, and had a healthy gloss to it now. I noted that she was standing especially strait, raising her eye level just a few inches higher than normal, even though she was already twice my hight. It was to make me look just that much farther up to speak with her. Her pride wouldn't allow her to lower herself for anypony, and I don't make an issue of it. Her pride had taken a hard enough blow by being in my debt in the first place.
"I was hoping you could supply me with a timetable for the recovory speed of the Hive. They certainly look healthier, but I can't feel them the way you can."
"I estimate it will be another month before they have the strength for this operation of yours. Though we could speed it up by rearranging the feeding schedule and allowing some to stay in the Farm longer."
"There's no need for that. The information gathering will take more than a month to finish anyway. I'm giving myself plenty of time to observe and refine my plans once I'm in Canterlot. There's no kill like overkill as they say, and I'd rather be too prepared than jump into this early." After putting on my saddle bags I started walking to the cave entrance, and from there the Ponyville train station. Chrysalis followed alongside up to the mouth of the cave, her long legs effortlessly keeping pace with me.
"Oh? Were you not the one who said, 'there is no such thing as too prepared', when you first told me of this plan?" She sounded quite smug at pointing out the way I'd just contradicted myself.
"Oh, ha ha. I'll see you whenever I get back. How about you keep working on my backup plan while I'm gone? If we can get those spells to work it'll make everything that much easier to salvage if plan A goes to shit."
It's been about five months since I took up residance in Ponyville. It only took me a few days after the welcome party to find a part time job choping wood for Emerald Glaze. She's an earth pony with an emerald green coat, presumably her namesake, and an orange and blue mane. She's a potter, and every few days needed someone to go get her more firewood for her kiln. She paid me five gold bits for a quarter cord of wood, which was usually enough to last her a week.
A cringingly small amount of money to live on, five bits a week. Firewood was pretty cheap in a society that can control it's own weather. But, being an undocumented worker, as well as a homeless hobo with no bills to pay, it was pure income. Enough to buy an apple or two a day while still eating mostly wild grass and flowers. I continued sleeping outdoors, making leaf pillows and ripping up the ground to provide a semi soft bed of dirt. I was quickly nicknamed the 'dirt pony' cause I was always covered in the stuff. I'd jump in the river every day or two, but a little dirt never bothered nopony. Except Rarity, of course.
This job was a real lucky break on my part, all that wood choping was a great workout for my magic. And I was always good with my money, never buying anything I couldn't afford and always thinking ahead with my spending. I'd usually end the week with one or two bits left over. I knew I'd need to have enough money to buy a two-way ticket to Manehatten eventually, in order to fulfill my story of teaching some magic to my little sister.
I, of course, had to change up my story a bit once Pinkie asked when my vacation would be over. She wanted to throw me a farewell party before I left. So I told her I was never on vacation, but had been fired after I got into an arguement with my boss and just didn't want her pity. She was quite upset with me for lying to her and started grilling me for information about my living arrangments for the last few weeks. She eventually forgave me for my lies after telling her the truth, but I made her Pinkie Promise™ not to tell anyone. I've never given to charity in my life and I didn't want any either. The townsfolk did stop calling me the dirt pony not long after though. I'm certain Pinkie had a hoof in that, as well as the tent I found in my usual sleeping spot when I came back from a two day stay in Manehatten. At least I wouldn't have to sleep in the dirt anymore. I had to buy a pillow though, putting leaves in the tent would have been messy.
Pretty much all of my free time was spent either in the library listening to Arial talk, another thing she had in common with all the old people I knew, or reading books on magic. The firework trick became one of my favorites because of the heavy emphasis on visualization. Just think about the image you want to appear while charging the spell, the book said. I had a lot of fun making more and more detailed pictures in the air with it. I had remembered that Trixie was able to make her firework pictures semi-animated during her ursa story, and a bit of searching led me to a book on illusory spells.
I was standing in a blank white space. Nothing around me. No distractions. Carefully I began to form the image of a simple box in front of me. I felt a trickle of sweat on my forehead and the illusion started flickering back to the inside of my tent as I lost concentration. It took a few seconds to restabilize it, before trying to make the box open up.
"Hey Cotton, are you in there!" The illusion instantly collapsed like a house of cards in a wind tunnel at the sound of Pinkie's voice.
"*sigh* Yeah, what is it?" I moved to unzip the tent and go outside.
"I came over to invite you to the 'Happy Retirement Party' I'm throwing for Arial Ace! It's gunna be in the library tonight at six!"
"Retirement?" I asked as I finished zipping up the tent. "I was just talking with her yesterday over tea for like, an hour. She never mentioned anything about retirement."
"I know, I only just found out too! She's going to go live at Cloudsdale's famous retirement community, the Olympian Hights!"
"Olympian Hights, huh? Sounds fancy. I didn't know librarians had such good retirement plans."
"Me niether! I gotta go now, there's lots more ponies to invite!" With that, she turned and started hopping away.
Retirement huh? I wonder why she never said anything about it... I began a nice trot towards town, it was lunch time anyway and I figured I'd splurge on a few apples today. The sky was nice and clear today, aside from one conspicuous cloud with a technicolor pony resting on it. Hmm, she lived in Cloudsdale for a while, I bet Rainbow knows something about this retirment place.
"Oi, Rainbow! Wake up, I wanna ask you something!" She just sorta rolled onto her belly and started pushing the cloud lower towards me.
"Okay, what do want to know?"
"You lived in Cloudsdale before, you must know a thing or two about this Olympian Hights place, right?" Apparently she did, because the mention of it got her excited enough to get off her cloud and start flying around.
"The Olympian Hights is only the premier retirement location! It's every pagasi's dream to get to go there when they retire!"
Odd that she'd be excited about something as boring as a retirement community "Well what makes it so special?"
"What makes it special? Oh, nothing really, it only has like, a dozen former Wonderbolts living there!"
And, there it is. "Oh. Well Arial is apparently going to be living there soon."
"Really? Wow, her kids must have some serious money to be putting her up at the Hights. Pinkie came by earlier saying something about a party, but I wasn't really paying attention. Was that what she was talking about?"
"Yep, she's having a retirement party at the library, it's tonight at six."
With the topic of importants out of the way we exchanged our farewells and she rocketed off into the sky. Probably to find a new spot to sleep in.
Arial never mentioned having rich kids either... this mystery bears investigating. Putting off my lunch for now, I made for the library. When I got there she had two large suitcases open on the floor and was carefully placing a bunch of random nick nacks into them. Must be things she braught with her when she first came to the library however long ago.
"Hey Arial, congratulations on the retirement. I hear your going someplace really fancy."
"Oh, thank you Cotton. I never thought I'd get to retire in the Olympian Hights, why, I never even dreamed..." She trailed off as she continued slowly putting things in the cases.
"Well your kids must really love you to be hoofing the bill for such a nice place to live huh?" She started chuckling at that.
"Oh. My poor kids can't even take care of themselves, little own me. I haven't even heard from my son in almost a year. Last I knew he was off gambling in Las Pegasus, the irresponsible brat."
"Well, how can you afford to go to this place then? Do librarians really get that awesome of a retirement plan?"
"Actually, it's the funniest thing. I got a letter last night, from Princess Celestia, if you can believe it! She said that she was impressed with how diligantly I've taken care of this old place for the last thirty years, and reserved me a nice little house in the Hights. Isn't that just like her? Taking such good care of all her subjects, even a rusty old mare like me."
Suspicious is the word I'd have used. Why would she care about-. Oh crap! How could I forget that summer thing is coming up! So that's how she 'arranged' for Twilight to live here... I guess it isn't that bad of her though. Arial gets to live high off the hog for what's left of her life in exchange for this move.
Leaving Arial to her packing, I went out to the market and baught some apples and a few carrots for lunch.
I finally had a cot of my very own! Misappropriated of course, not that anyone seemed to care when they saw me rummaging through the wreckage of Trixie's trailer. I also found a nice little white comforter. It reaked when I found it, indicating it hadn't been washed for some time. This made me question Trixie's financial situation, even before her livelyhood had been crushed under paw by the mighty infant space bear. Applejack let me wash it with one of her washing boards and it was now serving as a thin mattress on the cot.
The last few months had been rather uneventful for me, aside from my little salvage expedition. I went to the townhall to see Nightmare moon in person, which was far less exciting than I thought it would be, then just went about my day as usual. Seeing all the townsfolk running around in a big mob that one day was pretty entertaining, but it disrupted my plans to have a real lunch since all the stalls were closed. I actually completely missed out on the whole Gilda thing. I didn't even know she was in town until Pinkie invited me to a party for her, which I blew off. You can only handle so many parties before the sight of cake makes you sick, and I never had much of a sweet tooth to begin with.
I was continuing to practice my illusion magic, the clear problem now were my poor multitasking skills. I could now create and maintain several simple geometric shapes at once as well as color them. But whenever I tried making them move, they would all transform into whatever shape I was looking at at the time. It was quite frustrating, and a long ways away from being able to screw with ponies for laughs. I was at Zecora's, she was teaching me how to meditate, to clear my mind and sharpen my focus, when Twilight burst in and spit a Parasprite at us. Her panickiness was just adorable.
The snow came not long after, Winter only lasted about a week before it was time to clean it all up. I made a killing that week selling firewood. Well... relativly speaking. I was able to undercut my compitition for prices and made a healthy fifty bits that week. Everypony wanted to know where I was getting my wood, and no one believed my when I said the Everfree forest. I didn't try to make any of them believe me though, they didn't need to know about Zecora's creature repellent potion, and why would I help my compitition anyway?
After another few weeks of trying, and failing, to improve my control over the illusion world, I decided to give it a rest and learn something new for the first time in months. I began having ragular study sessions with Twilight as I tried to learn to teleport, something she insisted was too advanced to just jump into without reading half the library first. It sucks that all the cool stuff like teleporting, crystal enchanting, and transfiguration were right in front of my nose, only to be withheld like a mystical ball of yarn dangled just out of reach of a young kitten.
I was in my tent reading a book on enchanting magic crystals, Twilight wouldn't let me actually do any of it, but reading about it was so facinating. Storing a spell within a crystal, just waiting to be activated by a spark of magic. Apparently that's how hot air balloons work here. A crystal containing a fire spell, held in circuit with a sort of 'battery' crystal charged with magic. I wasn't sure how exactly it all worked yet, but I wanted to. Twilight called off our study session, said she had other things she needed to do today, so I was just relaxing, more or less.
I was called away from my reading by a knock on the piece of wood I keep outside the tent. This was strange for several reasons. Two of them being, not very many ponies actually know where I live, and the ones who do know, just ask if I'm in through the thin material. I unzipped the flap to find something I was not expecting.
Flat hair Pinkie.
Well, shit. what's up with this? "Uh, hi Pinkie. Something wrong?"
"*sniff* All my friends hate me and don't wanna be my friends anymore!" She started out fine enough, but by the end of that sentence she was tearing up.
"What??? Bull, I bet it's just a misunderstanding." Where the heck did any of this come from?
"No it's not! I talked to Spike and he told me it was true!" She was openly crying now.
God I hate my brain sometimes! I can't remember what the hell is supposed to be going on! All I remember was Pinkie being depressed about something and then it all worked out in the end. Fuck my life!
I awkwardly placed a hoof on her shoulder, "there, there Pinkie. I'm sure everything's alright. What did they say when you asked them about it directly?"
"They were all avoiding me! Rainbow kept running away, and Applejack actually lied to me! None of them wanted to come to Gummy's 'after birthday' party, and then they all started sneaking around, trying to hide something from me! I thought everypony loved my parties..." The last part was nearly whispered, and while she wasn't bawling, thank god, she was the absolute picture of depression.
Ugh, I've never been good at comforting people. I wish I could just say she needs to toughen up and send her on her way. That's what I told my sister when she came crying to me over the hassles of being in a long distance relationship... But I couldn't do that to Pinkie, I owed her for all times she helped me out.
After I told her that I was homeless and just scrapping by with the money Emerald paid me, there was a period of a few weeks where, every other time I saw Pinkie, she would just 'happen' to have baught too many vegitibles. I turned down many a mixed fruit and veggie basket, although I did take one early on when I needed to save for the train ticket. And even though she won't admit it, I know she was the one who put this tent here. I still haven't found a way to pay her back for that...
Placing my other hoof on her other shoulder I gave Pinkie a good hard shake before pulling her up off her haunches. "Come on, that's enough pity party crap! Let's go do something fun. Together!"
"*sniff* Fun? Like what?"
"Well... Your the one who needs cheering up, what's something you've always wanted to do? Anything, just name it."
"*sniff* Anything?" She asked, eyes wide and expecting and still full of tears.
I know I'm going to regret this, but look at that face. How do I say no to that? "Anything."
I knew I would regret it.
"This cord is your primary chute, this is your backup chute!" Shouted the pagasus diving instructor, the wind whipping by the chariot making it a bit hard to hear. "Remember! If for any reason those fail! Just remain calm, and light your flare! I'll grab you and bring you safely to the ground!"
It HAD to be skydiving didn't it?
"Ready! Jump!" And we did. My heart was beating a million miles a second and I thought it might explode, but after looking over at Pinkie, whooping in joy as she haphazardly tumbled through the air before managing to straiten herself out, laughing, I knew it was worth the trouble.
Our target landing zone were the large plains west of Ponyville, a great stretch of open grassland, it was quite lovely from this altitude.
"What the hay are you two doing!" Somepony shouted, I couldn't tell who through the wind in my ears.
"Hey Rainbow Dash! Cotton took me skydiving! It's great you should try it!" I started turning so I could find her, and there she was, falling next to Pinkie.
"I am Pinkie, my wings are already shut, see?" indicating her closed wings with a hoof. "But that's not important, We've been looking all over for you for the last hour!"
"What for?" Pinkie asked, all smiles again. Apparently the thrill of skydiving had purged all memory of her ealier depression, and the cause of it.
"We need you to come to Applejack's! I'm gunna go tell the others I found you! when you get on the ground go to Applejack's barn!"
"Okie dokie lokie!" Rainbow flew off, leaving us to finish our fall.
"Your windows coming up!" Yelled the instuctor, who had been falling with us, "ready your cords!" After a few seconds we both had the loops of our cords in hoof. "Pull!"
Thankfully, both of our parachutes worked just fine and we began the slow drift to the ground. As we drifted downward the diving instructor explained to us the procedure for landing safely.
"Wohoo! Wasn't that fun! We should go again!" Pinkie had somehow managed to get out of her diving suit before me, despite not having any magic with which to undo the bottons and straps.
"Oh, yeah... totally." Like hell. Once is enough excitment for me. I finally got the suit off me when I felt something rubbing against me along my neck. When I looked down to see it, I got a face full of pink hair.
Thu-thump.
"Thanks Cotton, for cheering me up."
Pinkie is nuzzling me..! I could feel my face getting hotter. "Uh. N-no, no problem Pinkie. Don't you have a, uh, *gulp*, thing to get to? At Applejack's?" She hopped back out of my personal bubble and turned to walk away.
"Yep! Bye Cotton! I'll bring you some cupcakes later!"
"Okay!"
thumpa, thumpa, thumpa, thum- Shut up already you stupid muscle! She was just grateful, don't get any crazy ideas you prick!
Cupcakes were had that night. Well, two anyway, so as to not look ungrateful while Pinkie was talking before she had to go back into town. They gave me massive heartburn, the source of my lack of sweet tooth, but they were damn good cupcakes.
The next several weeks became kind of awkward for me, as Pinkie started coming by more often to talk, which wasn't so bad in and of itself, except that her friends took notice. My study sessions with Twilight would often become silent reading sessions as I ignored her completely obvious attempts at 'subtly' questioning me about my time with Pinkie. And eventually they even started following her out to my tent, like they thought I was a rapist or something. I was very grateful when the night of the GGG came up for the break it gave me from all of them. I was pretty sure Rainbow had been following me around when I'd go into town too.
Unfortunatly, the following days were not going to be any kinder to me.
I had stayed up late last night, trying to transfigure a small stick into an umbrella. It was classified as a moderatly difficult excercise because of the multiple types of material involved in making an umbrella, as well as the mobile parts. When I woke up, I could see the sun shining through the material of my tent. But something was wrong.
It felt like I was on a boat, gently bobbing up and down, which confused me greatly. I got up and unzipped my tent only too see a sheer drop just a few feet away from me. Carfully I looked over the edge, and saw the dirt and tree roots underneath me, and past that by about ten feet, was the ground.
Well, looks like Discord's free. I bent my legs and prepared to jump down to the ground, but when I jumped over the edge, I didn't fall. Not down at least. I was drawn back to the underside of the floating platform like it was a mini planet with it's own gravity, and got a face full of loose dirt. After shaking it off I stood back up and looked up at the ground below me. I impotantly hopped up and down several times trying to get down there, but I always fell back up to the platform.
"Dammit Discord! You better not have me stuck up here forever!" He must have heard me, because at that instant I became disconnected from the pseudo planetoid and fell.
"Oof! Ow..." I stayed laying there on my back, thinking about just how much this was going to suck. Not long after a small cloud floated overtop of me. I found it to be quite strange because nothing seemed wrong with it. That is, until it started rotating and revieled the face of a sheep.
"Woof Woof!"
*sigh* This is going to be sooo much fun, I can just tell. Sarcasm, the best thing since sliced bread.