//------------------------------// // 5. The Right Questions // Story: The Dark Side of The Sun // by Nopony of note //------------------------------// It didn’t take long for Twilight and Doctor Whooves to imagine the ramifications of their extrapolation. A few seconds of eerie silence followed the Twilight’s statement, before the both agreed it was time to tell the princesses. Twilight wasted no time in teleporting them from the large dome of the observatory straight onto the balcony from which the royal sisters controlled day and night. By chance, they materialized right as Luna was coming out to relieve her elder sister. Both Twilight and Doctor Whooves immediately began to sputter and stammer incoherently, desperately trying to convey the potential gravity of what they had just seen, until silenced by a calmly raised hoof from Celestia. The Doctor then explained as calmly as he could what he and Twilight had seen just a few minutes prior, and what it possibly meant. Luna immediately reached out with her magical senses once again to the object above them and confirmed it. Whatever non-magical presence that occupied the mystery object was no longer there. Celestia’s response consisted of only two words; “Find it.” She spoke softly yet so forcefully they evoked no question or response of any kind from Doctor Whooves, Twilight, or even Princess Luna. The regal alicorn then turned and silently disappeared into her private study, leaving the other three ponies under the quickly darkening sky. The Doctor and Twilight were slightly confused. Luna, however, nodded with a grave understanding, and turned to address the two other ponies left on the balcony. “If that thing has now come to the surface of our planet, we need to find where it is and confront it immediately.” “Princess,” interjected Doctor Whooves. “Do we really want to reveal ourselves to an alien race right away?” “I understand your hesitance, Doctor.” Luna replied. “But I have no doubt that whatever that thing is has been watching us since it first arrived. It knows we are here, and we must face it on our own terms, for better or worse.” “But Princess,” Twilight said worriedly. “We still don’t know anything about it. What if…” She paused, scared to finish her sentence. “What if they’re not friendly?” “That is a good question to ask in these times, Twilight Sparkle. We will merely prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.” Immediately after Luna’s response, Twilight silently asked herself the opposite question. What if it is friendly? Asking the question out loud, however, seemed all too contrary to the current tone of the conversation, so the unicorn kept it to herself. “All the same,” Luna continued. “It may be time to call on your brother and some of his companions.” Within minutes, Shining Armor sent out a detachment of the most well-trained pegasi stallions the Royal Guard had to offer to comb Equestria for anything otherworldly before daybreak. Seeing as how there were no reports of anything strange from any of the guard stations in any of cities or towns, they were instructed to avoid any settlements and surrounding areas, and instead start with the most remote regions of Equestria. It was only a few hours before one of the patrols located an object that resembled a massive, black and grey bird in a clearing in the Everfree forest. True to their orders, the guard pegasi did not land or even approach it, and instead returned as quickly as possible to report the location to Shining Armor and the princesses. Consequently, they never noticed the two beings in the clearing next to the alien machine; one lying flat on his back, out cold, and the other pacing nervously around the first, wondering what she had just done. A short time later, news of the discovery reached Canterlot, and some subtle but grand preparations were made for the first contact. Many guardsponies were roused and ordered to suit up, but not told the details of the mission. Before the departure, the princesses requested that Twilight and Shining Armor meet with them one last time.   Celestia had just broken dawn just a few minutes prior, and now she, Twilight, Shining Armor, and Princess Luna met in the tower of the Royal Palace that housed headquarters of the Guard, and on the table lay map with the location of the alien landing craft marked. Both royal sisters wore their custom-forged battle armor, which had been largely used as ceremonial decorations until now. Celestia’s golden plates sparkled in the rays of dawn streaming through the window, and the magical purple gem embedded in the center of the breastplate glowed and almost seemed to hum with internal power. The carefully-forged components fit the princess’s form perfectly. Each chest plate flowed and swept with all the natural curves of her body, making her seem even more beautiful and regal than normal. She also seemed  much more imposing and intimidating than Twilight or her brother had ever seen their benevolent leader. The ethereal mane that would normally billow serenely in an unseen solar wind was now clamped back and protruding out the back of a golden helmet that sported a dangerous-looking spike in front protecting her magical horn. Luna’s armor, conversely, seemed to be made for the sole purpose of striking fear into the heart of any and every enemy. Her pale, moon-colored plates covered more of her body than Celestia’s armor, and shifted silently with her movements as she entered the room. Similar to her elder sister, Luna wore a helmet that displaced her starry mane through the back, although her mane flowed a bit more freely than her sisters. Instead of a tall spike, Luna’s helmet boasted a curved crystal blade to protect her horn. Both Twilight and her brother knew they had nothing to fear from either princess, but both of them couldn’t help but be floored by the sheer power exuded by the appearance of the alicorn sisters and bowed humbly as they entered the room. “Be at ease, my little ponies,” Celestia said softly, and the siblings straightened up. It seemed strange to Twilight to hear the soft voice of her kind, gentle teacher coming from such an imposing figure. The unicorn had known her teacher to be a wise, caring, fun-loving, and even prankish pony at times, but now, Celestia had no mischievous sparkle in her eyes, and no kind smile. She was all business. “Captain Armor,” the royal alicorn continued. “Your guards did well, finding our visitor so quickly.” “Thank you, your highness.” Shining Armor was just as intimidated as his sister by the atmosphere Celestia and Luna created, but he was simply well-trained enough to hide it. “Whenever you want to make contact with it, I have several fresh companies of guards to go with you. If there’s any danger, we’ll be more than prepared to deal with it.” “Thank you, Captain,” said Celestia. “I also want you and Twilight to be there.” Seeing the flash of panic cross her student’s eyes, the princess quickly added, “You two will stay back and observe. If things appear to not be going well, I need you to immediately go to Ponyville, gather your friends, and use the Elements to deal with any threat that we may not be able to handle on our own.” “Princess,” Twilight spoke up, thinking of the question she had kept to herself the previous night. “I understand being prepared for anything, but it feels like we’re getting ready for a war.” She paused, trying to find the best way to ask her question. “What do we really know about all this?” Celestia inwardly sighed. She knew how bright her personal protégé was. She should have known Twilight would catch on immediately when things didn’t quite add up.  The golden-clad princess promised herself that after this mess was over, she would tell her student everything. Twilight, of all ponies, deserved to know what really happened so many years ago. But for now, there simply wasn’t time. “That is the problem, Twilight.” Celestia had to squash a pang of guilt that came from lying to her faithful student.  “We know absolutely nothing about who this is, what this is, or where it’s from. That’s why we have to be so careful. There could be no danger whatsoever, or this could be worse than any of us can imagine. Until we know for sure what came down from that thing, we must be prepared for the worst, and hope for the best.” Although Twilight didn’t press the matter any further, Celestia knew her student well enough to know that the inquisitive young unicorn wasn’t satisfied with the standard answer she had no doubt heard many times before. The creeping guilt the princess felt only strengthened her resolve to tell her student the entire truth when this crisis was over. That was, if Twilight didn’t somehow manage to find out on her own. And that something Celestia believed her student fully capable of. “Come on, Twiley,” said Shining Armor as he put a foreleg around his little sister’s shoulders. “We've got a ride to catch. I have to go suit up, so wait for me at Blaze’s chariot. I’ll only take a few minutes.” The stallion led his sister out the door and closed it softly behind him. As soon as the door clicked shut, Celestia let out the sigh she had been holding in. Her shoulders visibly drooped, and her head hung in exhaustion. “This lying business is more trouble than it’s worth,” she remarked to her sister. “It was you who said all this remained hidden for a good reason,” Luna calmly replied. “But I share your concern. Ponies won’t have to be as smart as Twilight to see the connections, and sooner or later, they will demand answers.” “And the one pony that is that smart was able to guess exactly where it came from.” Celestia had to sigh again. “I don’t know whether to be proud or frightened.” The royal sisters stood and approached the door, and as they walked side by side, a question popped into Luna’s mind. “Do you think ponies are ready?” she asked. “Are they ready to know what really happened? “I fear whether or not they are ready will soon make little difference,” the elder princess replied grimly.         “Do you think they will still view us in the same light after finding out what our parents did?”         “I’ve tried hard to preach love and tolerance ever since the Nightmare, Luna. I certainly hope that they will. But I can’t say for sure that I would in their position, so I cannot expect any more of them.” The soft chirping of birds was the first thing to penetrate Max’s mind as he slowly regained consciousness. It was followed by bright sunshine streaming through his still-closed eyelids. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, and then dared to open them.  He was lying on his back in the grassy clearing, and the sun was just starting to poke out over the tree line. The small stream that wound its way around the clearing flowed serenely a few yards away, making a pleasant, relaxing bubbling noise. The Birdie was sitting a short distance away from him, sunlight glaring off of some its polished metal surfaces. Max slowly sat up in the grass, groaning in the process, and tried to sort out his fuzzy memory. He thought of the successful landing and the other events of the previous day, going through his initial exploration of the forest, and then he remembered stargazing. A flash of panic rose in Max’s gut as he realized he had fallen asleep outside of his landing craft. Any number of things could have gone drastically wrong if he let his guard down on a strange planet at night. A curious predator could have stumbled upon an easy midnight snack, or he could be spotted by a wandering local before he was prepared to- Max flinched as a spot on his forehead began to throb painfully. He reached up and gingerly touched the spot that was the source of the pain. When his fingers gingerly brushed the spot, they found a small but still very sensitive bruise. The light contact sent a dull pain coursing through Max’s head, and he flinched again, sharply taking his hand away from the injury. He thought, When did that happen? Almost as if on cue, a chipper, female, sing-song voice from behind him quipped, “Hey, you’re awake. Is your head okay? ” “AAAHH!!” Max screamed in surprise and scrambled to his feet, simultaneously whirling around to face the source of the voice. And there sat the unicorn. She had been sitting a few feet away, just looking at him, but when the human in front of her leapt to his feet, she did likewise. “Whoa, what’s wrong?!” she asked frantically. “Wait, what?” Max’s mind took a while to process what he was seeing. The memories from the previous night trickled back bit by bit, and all Max could do was stare at the unicorn while she stared back at him, as if she were waiting for him to say something. The nightmare in the desert, the gun and the shriek, the one-sided conversation, and then the smack in the head- “Wait, where’s the other one?” Max said and looked frantically around him, searching for whatever had clobbered him in the face the night before. “The other what?” the unicorn asked. “It’s just you and me out here.” “Then what hit me in the head?” The astronaut gestured to the bruise on his forehead, and forgot all about the supposed language barrier. “You seem friendly enough, but something out here is NOT, and it hit me, hard!” “I’m sorry! It was an accident, okay?” said the green unicorn defensively. “Wait, what?” Max stopped his frantic search for a hostile alien and looked quizzically at the creature. “It’s like you've never seen a levitation spell before.” “A levitation…what?” The unicorn rolled her eyes. “You freaked out at my levitation spell. I just picked up my stuff and you started screaming.” “Wait,” Max stopped her. “That was you? The glowing, and the floating things was…you?” The unicorn sat on her haunches again, and looked at Max pensively. “You’re not from Equestria, are you?” “Well, I…” Only one word came to Max’s mind: Busted. “No, I’m not.” “So you’ve never seen a unicorn before.” “Nope.” “Have you ever seen a Pegasus?” she asked. The word ‘Pegasus’ sounded vaguely familiar, but Max wasn’t about to try and pretend he knew anything about what the green unicorn in front of him was saying. “Um, no,” he said flatly. “How about Earth Ponies? You have to know about Earth ponies, at least.” When she said the words ‘Earth Ponies,’ Max did a double take. Of course he had seen ponies on Earth, but that was Earth, and this was, well, not Earth. This was the complete opposite side of the solar system. Then, Max had a thought he would later be very proud of. The original definition of the word ‘Earth’ wasn’t the planet; it simply meant the solid ground. After it was discovered that people were living on a planet floating in space instead of a flat piece of land, people started calling the planet ‘Earth,’ after the ground they walked on. So, Max reasoned, the ‘earth’ that this pony was referring to wasn’t his home planet; it was the just the ground. Proud as Max was of his deduction, all it led to was a simple answer to the unicorn’s question: “No.” “Do you even know what Equestria is?” The word ‘Equestria’ also sounded familiar, but once again, Max thought it best to play dumb. He certainly wasn’t going to learn anything about this planet or its inhabitants by pretending he already knew something. All he could do was shrug. Now the unicorn began to look just as weirded out as Max had been the other night. “Are you from another planet or something? How could you have never seen or even heard of ponies or Equestria?” At this point, Max was satisfied that there was no hostile alien waiting to clobber him again, and sat down facing the unicorn. “Yes,” he said seriously. “Wait, what?” She continued to look at Max like he was from another planet, and that something Max considered progress, since he actually was. “Listen, um, you said your name was, uh, Lyra, right?” Lyra nodded, and slowly said, “Yeah…” “You asked if I was from another planet,” Max began slowly and deliberately. “And the answer is yes. I am from another planet. I’m an explorer, and this is the first time my kind has ever been here. So I have no idea what this Equestria is that you’re talking about, and I don’t know anything about unicorns, pega…um, Pegasus-es…” Having never really used the word ‘Pegasus’ before, Max didn’t know what the plural form of ‘Pegasus’ was. “Pegasi,” she corrected him. “Okay, so it’s Pegasi. I know nothing about them, or these ‘Earth’ ponies, either. I just got here last night, and I've only seen a few of the plants here. Also, you’re the first thing to talk to me in about a year, so I’m not exactly sure we’re speaking the same language. If you can understand everything I’m saying, just say yes.” The unicorn’s expression hadn’t changed, but she slowly nodded. “Yes, I can understand you.” Max breathed a sigh of relief. If this creature could understand everything he just said, it was likely that the local language was close enough to English that they could speak normally, and hammer out any potential misunderstandings as they came up. “So…” she said cautiously. “You’re like a, um… an alien?” “That’s one way to put it,” Max said, glad that he had finally shared some sort of meaning with another sapient creature, without the use of fancy procedures, decodings, or elaborate non-verbal communication. In the back of his mind, he imagined rubbing this in the communication specialists’ faces. For the first time, the unicorn actually understood. “Ooooh, okay. That explains a lot.” After saying this, she looked as if she suddenly remembered something, probably the negative connotation of the word ‘alien,’ and asked, “It’s just you, right? And you’re not here to invade or take over or anything like that?” Max actually chuckled at her question, and mentally noted to ask at some point if there was a science fiction community here like the one on Earth. “No, I’m all alone. And like I said, I’m just exploring.” “Well that’s actually pretty cool,” she said happily. “So what is that thing over there, really?” Lyra raised a hoof and pointed at the Birdie. Max had to think for a bit before describing the modern marvel of engineering that was the ACE Lander in simple terms. “Um, that’s a flying machine. It’s kind of how I got here.” Lyra’s eyes widened at his statement. “You mean that giant thing can fly? How does it do that?” “Yeah, it can fly.” Max actually smiled at Lyra’s disbelief. “It’s really complicated, and I had to train for months to learn how to fly it. For now, let’s just say it involves a lot of science.” “Well, if that thing can fly, do you think you could help me get home? I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I’m kind of lost out here.” Now that she reminded him, Max did recall her mentioning that she was lost in the forest, but it was before he believed what his eyes and ears were telling him about the planet and the pony, so the notion didn’t really stick in his mind. Even so, there was no way Max was going to let a creature from this planet on the Birdie yet, and it was even less likely that he could be convinced to fly it over any sort of population center unannounced. “Well, there’s a reason I landed out here,” he said, a sympathetic expression painting itself his features. He wanted to help the adorable little unicorn, but he still had a mission. “That thing is really loud, and it moves pretty quickly for something so big, and I don’t want to scare anyone into thinking I’m dangerous, so for now it has to stay here. And it’s probably a good idea if I stay out here for the time being as well. I don’t know how the rest of your kind will react to an alien walking around.” Lyra stared back at him pleadingly, and said, “I really don’t want to spend another night lost in the forest! It gets scary and dangerous when the sun goes down.” When Max dared to look Lyra in the eye, he learned just how persuasive a pouting unicorn could be. Her already disproportionately large eyes seemed to grow slightly, and became many times as adorable as they had been just a few seconds prior. That, in addition to her flattened ears and the almost imperceptible quivering of her bottom lip completely robbed the astronaut of his ability to even think about saying no. Back on Earth, Max prided himself in his ability to resist the puppy-dog eyes that children could give him, but a human child’s crocodile tears were quite literally child’s play compared to the almost-tangible cuteness that the astronaut was being bombarded with now. He could feel a few of his internal organs beginning to slow down just from watching the deadly-adorable look on the unicorn’s face. Max fought it for all of five seconds before he gave in, fearing a heart attack if he resisted any longer. “Um…” he said, surprised at how quickly and thoroughly Lyra’s face had disarmed him. “Wait here.” Max got up and briskly walked up the ramp of the Birdie, and disappeared through the hatch. Lyra waited where she was patiently, a little confused, but less worried about being lost in the Everfree Forest for the rest of her life. After a few minutes, Max emerged from the Birdie once again, holding the backpack he had taken with him on his initial exploration. “While I was flying in, I saw the whole area from above, and I made a few maps,” he said once he had returned to the spot where Lyra was waiting for him. He opened one of the zippered compartments and withdrew a few of the maps he had printed out on the Enterprise. “We are here,” he said, pointing to a spot on a map after unfolding it. “And if where you’re from is this little village here-” he pointed to another spot on the map at the edge of the forest. “Then it’s a couple hours’ worth of walking in that direction.” Max then pointed north. “Oh, thank you!” Lyra said happily before getting up and trotting over to where her saddlebags lay. She would have levitated them onto her back, but she remembered how Max had reacted to her magic the last time, and decided to do things manually, at least until she had properly explained magic to him. She gripped the strap in her teeth, and with a flick of her neck, Lyra tossed the bags back onto her back. “Hey, I’ve got an idea!” she said running back over to him. “Why don’t you come with me?” I can show you Ponyville and introduce you to all my friends and-” “Hold on,” Max said, cutting her off. “I said it’s better if I stay out here for now. I don’t think it’s a good idea for a big alien like me to just start walking around town.” “But…” Lyra involuntarily began to put just a tinge of poutiness into her voice. “I don’t think I can make it back by myself without getting lost again.” She began to make the face again, and, wary of an impending kidney failure, Max caved. “Okay, I’ll walk back with you so you don’t get lost, but I should stay out of sight when we get there, alright?” “Okay,” Lyra agreed happily, and began trotting in the direction Max had pointed out. The astronaut sighed in defeat, and, after slinging his backpack over one shoulder and picking up the gun belt that had been lying in the grass since the previous night, trudged after his new friend. In the back of his mind, he began to plan out his report on the apparently universal cuteness factor, and how potent of a survival mechanism it was proving to be.