//------------------------------// // Of Magic and Smoke Alarms // Story: Retired to Equestria // by Yet Another Mask //------------------------------// “You’ll see! I will hound you to the ends of Equestria! I shall never falter in my unflagging determination! No matter what you do or say, where you run or hide, you cannot escape! For when the time comes I will be there and I will repay your generosity!” Damien shouted as his new cloak billowed out behind him as if blown out by the wind. “Do you always vow to repay ponies like that?” Rarity asked with a raised eyebrow. “Nah, just need to get the feel for the cloak,” Damien said with a laugh as he unclasped it and began to fold it carefully. “I will pay you back for this. The gods themselves cannot stand in my way when I fulfill my debts.” “You are not indebted to me the cloak is a gift,” Rarity said exasperatedly. “Bah, who are you to say whether or not one feels indebted to another. I feel I am therefore I am. Therefore I will pay you back. But how?” Rarity rolled her eyes. “If you must. Though I must say I did enjoy having a chance to prepare an ensemble for a griffon. I may be able to expand some of my lines to cater to griffons as well now! I had no idea of the differences between preparing an outfit for a pegasus and a griffon.” “I suppose that may pay towards my debt but it does not erase it!” Damien vowed as he carefully slid the cloak into his satchel. “Yes, yes. Do come again if you need anything else.” “Of course m’lady. After seeing your craftsmanship I doubt I could stand to go to a lesser tailor.” Damien bowed with a flourish and turned to the door. He smiled as he walked out onto the street. His eyes flicked back and forth along the street as he surveyed his surroundings and went over his mental checklist. Go to library? Done. Get spendable money? Extremely done. Get food? Done. He patted his satchel happily. Get some nice dramatic storytelling clothing? Check. Find a way to get Gilda out of the house so she won’t mess with the wards that need to be put up? Surprisingly done. Get materials for wards? Not so much. His next goal in mind he thought back to whether any of the stores nearby sold what he needed. A couple buckets of paint would probably be enough. He already had the most important ingredient with him anyway. He once again cursed his inattentiveness when it came to learning what stores sold what products in this town and resigned himself to asking for directions. “Excuse me!” he called out to a tan earth pony. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find some paint would you?” True to the genial nature of most of the town’s inhabitants Damien soon found himself with not only directions to the store in question but a temporary traveling companion. Unfortunately though his companion seemed to be mostly interesting in getting a surprisingly large number of worries off his chest and spent the entire trip switching between wondering if some cosmic force was out to get him and apologizing for complaining so much. Damien fought the urge to roll his eyes as the pony gave yet another apology when they parted ways in front of an enormous construction store. Damien’s eyes widened as he entered the store and took in the sheer number of tools, types of wood, paints, and other such items that lined the walls and shelves. He shook his head as he counted no less than a dozen different variations on one type of hammer on one shelf. It took him nearly ten minutes to find a paint that he felt would suit his purposes, even if he didn’t know what half the ingredients in this concoction were. In the end he brought two large cans of paint and a brush to the counter. The cashier looked over Damien’s purchases carefully before asking. “You already got primer?” “Primer?” “Yeah, you put the first coat of primer on the walls, then you use the paint that you want the walls to look like. You already got it or..?” Damien shook his head. “No and I don’t need it for what I’m doing.” “You sure? Not professional if you don’t use primer.” “I have no need for primer. How much do I owe?” “Forty-three bits.” The cashier paused. “You sure you don’t want primer?” Damien nearly slammed the coins on the counter and growled, “yes.” “Fine, no need to get mad,” the cashier huffed as Damien collected his purchases. “Thank you for your time,” Damien said politely as he left the store and headed home. <-[XXXXX]-> Once home Damien began locking every door and window he could. Pulling blinds and otherwise preventing anyone from seeing what he was doing or interrupting him. Once satisfied with his security he sat down and pulled the two cans of paint from his satchel and jimmied one open. He stared at the viscous liquid for several moments before placing one hand in the air directly over the can. With a smile he quickly drew his claws over his exposed palm, scoring a deep trio of cuts that gushed forth blood. He began to chant as the blood dribbled down from his hand and dropped into the waiting can of paint. As his chanting continued the paint began to swirl and glow, lighting the room with an otherworldly red hue. Before long the paint was no longer its original off-white color but a deep blood red and glowed like a bonfire. The three cuts in his hand quickly knitted together and faded from sight. Satisfied with his mixture Damien ceased chanting and delicately dipped his new brush into the paint. When he removed it not a drop fell from the laden brush and it glowed as if aflame. His smile faded into a grimace of concentration as he carried the brush and can over to the front door. A brief smile twitched as he recalled everything he knew about wards. Always start wards form the place of entry for it is the foundation of all comings and goings and should therefore be the foundation for your wards. He cleared a small spot near the door, rechecked that it was locked, and started chanting a long complex spell, each syllable brought a blazing black sigil into existence. In seconds the air around him was fully of twisting spinning sigils. With a final curt motion he ended the spell and a bubble of energy surrounded him, blocking out all sound, smell, and any other distractions from outside and keeping everything he did inside. Satisfied that he wouldn’t be disturbed he began to paint tiny half inch high sigils onto the door frame. As each sigil was completed a burning smell filled the air and the paint blackened before vanishing to all but Damien’s finely tuned arcane senses. Soon the air was filled with the smell of burning wood, blood, and paint. Damien breathed the scent in happily, the scent of job well underway. He glanced quickly at the door frame as a whole, at this rate it would only take him another half hour to finish with this ward. Then he could actually get started on the time consuming stuff. Satisfied with his progress he dipped the brush back into the can and started on the next sigil. <-[XXXXX]-> “Well this has been… relaxing I guess. Thanks for the tea,” Gilda said as she set down her cup. “I’m going to… well I don’t know. I guess I’m just going to head home and see if Damien remembered those apples.” “Are you sure? You don’t have to leave. It’s no problem, really,” Fluttershy said worriedly as wings fluttered nervously. “Yeah. If I’m gonna get Dash back I can’t just sit around in the middle of nowhere all day.” She caught herself. “Uhh, no offense.” “Oh, that’s okay. My house is a little far from everypony else and I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you and-” “It’s okay,” Gilda stated firmly. “O-okay.” Gilda groaned quietly. Even when she was being considerate Fluttershy made you feel like you were inches away from breaking her or making her cry. “Thanks for everything.” “Oh no, thank you for helping me so much with my shopping!” “Don’t worry, like I said it was a griffon thing.” Gilda shrugged her wings as she reached for the door. <-[XXXXX]-> Dash was outside the cottage wrestling with herself. She had already made the decision, why was this so hard? She should have been able to follow through ages ago! She was Rainbow Dash not Rainbow… slow? Nah that didn’t work. In any case she didn’t do slow, she didn’t do worrying, and she didn’t do overthinking things! Most ponies actually said she never thought anything through, let alone overthought it! Although that was more of an insult that anything else. And now she was getting distracted! What was going on today! First stalking one of her friends and an ex-friend, spying on them, and now she was…scared? That couldn’t be right! Rainbow Dash was fearless! Nothing could ever hope to scare her! She lifted herself up off the ground, a steely glint in her eye. After a couple determined strides she stood before Fluttershy’s door and reared back a hoof. At the last moment she closed her eyes, and her hoof shot forward. Through the now open door. A door opened by a now shocked griffon. A shocked griffon that was shortly on the receiving end of a rocket propelled hoof. Rainbow Dash cracked her eyes open when she felt her hoof make contact with something much more yielding than the sturdy door of Fluttershy’s house. She took in the scene before her with wide eyed confusion and guilt. “He-heh… Sorry?” <-[XXXXX]-> Damien carefully painted the last sigil onto the door frame with an air of great satisfaction. The acrid smell of burning paint, blood, and wood had so permeated his senses he didn’t even notice it anymore. He let his arcane sense run free as he looked at the door frame, now surrounded by sharp edged sigils spelling out defenses, protections, and charms. He felt as though a weight had been lifted from his chest. Even with this world’s peacefulness he hadn’t quite felt safe without a home base to call his own. With a proud smile he fished a small black gemstone out of his satchel and affixed it to the one blank spot above his door frame. Every time anyone used this door the gem would take a little energy and save it up. And given the sheer volume of energy the average Equestrian seemed to have this stone would grow very strong, very fast. Now which room to do next? He smiled as he waved away the shielding bubble that had kept him contained from the outside world. There was a rush of air as the smoke that had surrounded him burst free from its containment and billowed outwards. Perhaps the kitchen should be next? Spend a lot of time there and it’s always good to be well defended in a room you spend so much time in after all. His thoughts were suddenly cut off as a harsh screeching noise filled the air. He clamped his talons over his ears as his eyes shot back and forth trying to discern the cause of his suffering. The kitchen! Damien flew into the kitchen with murder in his eyes and lethal magic on his tongue. His eyes swept the room looking for assailants, pranksters, anything that might have caused this to happen. They finally came to stop on a small device sitting on the wall, blinking and screeching at him. He didn’t even bother with the words or the sigils this time as he reached out with his mind and smashed the unfortunate device. The extra costs the spell had demanded in exchange for abandoning his traditional method of spell casting were well worth it to destroy whatever that thing was. The screeching stopped the moment the device was crushed into scrap. Damien slowly removed his hands form his ears and looked quizzically down at the thing on the ground. He could feel the unicorn magic in its making but the spell was unfamiliar to him. He continued to stare at it as he followed the winding pathways of the spell, the pieces slowly falling into place in his mind. It was some sort of detection spell… Designed to detect… smoke? His eyes brightened as everything fell into place. It was some sort of fire safety device. If there was too much smoke there was probably a fire, the piercing noise would alert everyone in the house and allow them to escape to safety. He nodded in admiration at the device. It was a fine piece of work, something to commend the ponies for creating, something he could learn from. His face fell. Something he had seen in several other rooms in the house. As if waiting for his realization another smoke alarm began its cacophonous shrieking, soon followed by another, and another. <-[XXXXX]-> “Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap!” Dash found herself repeating over and over as she stared down at a half-conscious Gilda and a panicking Fluttershy. “Dash! What did you do?!” Fluttershy asked, her voice managing to actually reach a normal speaking volume in her concern and surprise. “I was going to knock on the door! I didn’t mean to punch her!” Fluttershy flitted over to Gilda’s twitching body and inspected her injury. “She’s alright.” Dash was visibly relieved to hear this, she might not quite completely trust Gilda again but she hadn’t wanted to start things out by decking her! As Dash continued to freak out a soft voice wavered up from the floor. “Heh. Forgot you had such a mean right cross.” Dash looked down at Gilda in surprised as she slowly managed to prop herself up on her elbows. “Are you alright?” “Of course. You think I can’t take one of your punches?” she said with a weak chuckle. Dash fought back a laugh; it was starting to feel like old times. “You should be more careful when you open doors. Somepony might be getting ready to knock.” Gilda managed a weak chuckle. “I probably deserved that too didn’t I?” Dash paused for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, you were kinda a jerk last time you were here.” Gilda finally managed to pick herself back up. “Yeah, I guess so.” She looked around awkwardly. Dash was doing the same for several moments before she spoke up again. “Hey, you wanna try hanging out tomorrow? I… uh… heard some ponies saying you’d changed and I wanted to see if it was true.” Gilda’s eyes widened at this. “Sure! I mean… I guess so. Not like I have anything else to do tomorrow.” Dash grinned at this. “Great, be ready to lose all your races tomorrow because you’re going up against Cloudsdale’s best young flier!” “What? No one else showed up?” Gilda responded. “Hey! Don’t make me hit you again,” Dash said jovially as she pantomimed throwing a punch. “Like you could hit me without cheating.” Gilda and Dash continued to banter for several minutes, each glad to be one step closer to rekindling their old friendship. In what seemed far too short a time Dash and Gilda went their separate ways, leaving behind a softly smiling Fluttershy. <-[XXXXX]-> “Hey freak! I’m back!” Gilda shouted into the house as she unlocked the front door. Her beak wrinkled in disgust as she was assaulted with an acrid smell she had never encountered before. She stepped cautiously into the house, her eyes alert for movement. “Come on freak. This isn’t funny.” She slowly made her way into the kitchen, alert for anything suspicious along the way. Halfway across the room she almost stepped on a small chunk of metal, gem, and wood. She picked it up gingerly in an attempt to discern what it was. “A smoke detector?” she asked the empty room. “Yes. A smoke detector.” She spun around to see Damien standing in the doorway behind her. He looked disheveled and out of breath but happy. “What the buck happened to you?” “Smoke detector went off. I crushed it. Then another went off. And another. And another.” His eyes glinted with suppressed anger. “So I crushed them all. All at once.” He looked pensive for a moment. “Might have gotten some of the neighbor’s as well. Wasn’t thinking straight when I cast the spell. Just wanted them all to be destroyed.” He chuckled mirthlessly, a mad glint in his eye. “And they are!” “Oookay,” Gilda said as she backed up slowly. “Food’s in the fridge. Help yourself. We’ll talk about room and board tomorrow. I’m going to eat the pie I picked up today and go to sleep.” Gilda was silent as he walked over to the counter and picked up an entire apple pie and carried it out of the kitchen. “Be sure to lock the door before you go to sleep. Wards work better like that.” Gilda could only stare after her landlord in confusion. After a quick glance at the crumpled smoke detector at her feet her stare held a small bit of apprehension as well. <-[XXXXX]-> Luna frowned at the pile of paperwork in front of her. The paperwork itself wasn’t the issue so much as the scroll on top. The scroll with a broken seal. She sighed and rolled her eyes. She really needed to get all the agent’s message delivery spells keyed to her magical signature and not her sister’s if she was going to return to her former post of head of Equestria’s covert operations. A purple nimbus enveloped the scroll as she levitated it into the air in front of her and quickly scanned it. She blinked and read through it again, much more slowly this time. Another human in Equestria? They had been showing up a good deal more over the last year if the reports were to be believed. Luckily most of them were found rather quickly and either sent home or integrated into society without complaint. But this one, if he really was a human, seemed to be a special case. To completely bypass the shield, the transformation spell, and all the other safegaurds that warned others of their status and made them easier to track. For one to come into Equestria and choose to be a griffon, to know the language and be able to actually fit into pony society, or rather fit in as well as one might expect a griffon to was very unusual. Of course Celestia would have already read this letter and probably already had some sort of scheme or plot bubbling up in her mind about this strange griffon’s presence. Luna looked at the letter again and glanced out the window. It was still a little early but in a few hours maybe… She smiled deviously to herself. It had been a long time since she had made proper use of those spells and it would do her good to get back into shape. Flex the magical muscles as it were. She carefully set the scroll off to the side and looked back at the imposing stack of paperwork. Maybe it would be more than just a few hours before she could start, she realized with a groan.