So. The mare who rules Equestria, is Twilight Sparkle's mentor, and who also, apparently, has enough magical power to literally control the sun, just kicked me into a wall and is pressing her horn against my neck. Not the best introduction in the world. Normally in this kind of situation I'd either run or fight, but with her magic and my broken bones I doubted I'd get very far.
'I wonder if she'll boil us alive with our own blood. Ooh, or maybe she'll just make us explode? And I bet she could actually send us to the surface of the sun! I've always wanted to go there.' Obviously, Ataxia, was not as concerned about the situation as I was. In fact, the only time he really seems to even try to stop us from being hurt is when Wrath is the one causing it. Though I'm sure that's just because it pisses him off to no end.
"Princess, what are you doing?!" Shouted Twilight from across the room.
"Do you have any idea what this thing is, Twilight?!" Celestia screamed back at her, sharp eyes still on me, looking quite deranged.
Twilight flinched at the tone her mentor was using. "Y-yes. He's a human. He told us himself."
"Do you know what they are? What they've done?!" Her eyes were watering, and she was speaking through gritted teeth.
"W-well, the books that I've read don't really go into detail, but they tried to conquer Equestria?" She was inching closer to us, careful not to aggravate her further.
"Not just Equestria, the entire world. They did something awful during that time." Her eyes had softened and had calmed down considerably. I interjected with my own two cents.
"What harm could a bunch of monkeys with some sharp sticks do against something like you?" It turns out that I may be borderline retarded. Celestia's eyes sharpened in an instant, and jammed her horn back into my throat, harder than before.
"What harm? WHAT HARM?! You killed my entire race! All the Alicorns! Mares! FOALS! MY ENTIRE FAMILY! The only ones left were me and my sister! You destroyed our entire civilization!" She was glaring at me really hard. I knew that if I said the slightest thing to upset her, I'd be dead.
"Oh. That's pretty bad." Personally, as I recall these events, I'm under the impression that I literally did not have a brain. No other explanation can rationalize my stupidity. She pulled her horn back from my neck and pointed it at my face, before it started to glow a sickening purple-green.
'Welp, I guess we're gonna die. I suppose the largest shock about this is that I'M the one who caused it. Thought for sure it would be one of you.'
'I know, man. You fucked up big time.'
'Hey, you two, shut up! I know what to do!'
'What.'
'That's impossible, you don't know how to know things.'
'No time, just shut up and let me do it!' I mentally shrugged. There was literally nothing he could do to make this situation worse for us. I feel my eye twitch as he takes control. The instant he does, he leans forward and licks up the length of the top half of Celestia's horn. Death is seeming that much more pleasant all of a sudden. Surprisingly, the aura around her horn dissipates and she takes a few steps backwards in utter shock, wings flared out behind her. Ataxia smacked our lips.
"Not bad. Tastes a bit like kiwi fruit." I boot him out of control and look around at the others. While the non-unicorns were still reeling from Celestia's little tirade, Twilight and Rarity were both blushing heavily. I kept myself from dwelling too much on how Ataxia most likely just sexually assaulted their ruler. Twilight came to her senses first and teleported in between me and the princess.
"Princess don't hurt him! I-I didn't know what humans did all those years ago, but James isn't like that! He isn't even from this world! What happened back then isn't his fault!" Celestia snapped out of her confusion (HA) and looked between Twilight and myself, studying us for a moment before bowing her head.
"You're right, Twilight. I shouldn't have let the wounds of the past seep into my judgement...or my actions. I'm sorry you all had to see that." She turned around and started towards a doorway close to her throne. "If you'll excuse me, I need some time alone." She disappeared down a hallway, footsteps faded away. Yes, I know she doesn't have feet. I just don't care for pony terminology.
Twilight turned around and tried to examine me, but Fluttershy rushed in first. I had three cracked ribs and a nasty head wound, but they were healing quickly like always. I managed to convince her not to wrap me up in bandages for the time being, at least. I turned back to Twilight, only to find myself being slapped by a white hoof. I was just impressing all the ladies that day, it seems. "Okay, I know I deserve that. Which part was it for?" I said as I rubbed my cheek, gently pushing Fluttershy away to keep her from inspecting it.
"Well, it was clearly for your uncouth behaviour towards the Princess! I mean, you can't just touch somepony's horn like that! I'm all for spontaneity in romance, but there's a time and a place! You should have taken her out for dinner at least three times first." Everyone shot an eyebrow up at Rarity.
"Yeah, I'm sure I'd have a great chance of wooing her from hell. Because that's where I'd be. Dead." I really hated admitting that. I know Ataxia will never let me live that down. I got up on my feet and rolled my shoulders.
"Ah can't believe you're standin' after getting bucked like that, and by a Princess at that." Giggity. "Ah reckon she's prob'ly stronger than me an' Big Mac combined, an' we're pretty dang strong."
"What was it like? How'd it feel?" Rainbow Dash asked as she flew in my face, causing me to lean back against the wall.
"It felt like I just got kicked in the chest by a goddess, slammed against a wall, and nearly killed by some freaky ass magic. In retrospect, I'm probably doing better than any other person in my position. Thank god for this healing factor." Speaking of inexplicable phenomenon, the Pink Menace popped out from behind me, despite there being a wall there.
"So did her horn really taste like kiwi fruit?" she asked, instilling a fresh supply of blush on our unicorn companions.
I shook my head. "No, I think it was her magic that tasted like that. Kiwis, and something else...don't really know what. Also, I didn't know that horns had fur on them."
"I know! I find out weird stuff all the time! Like when I was a filly I tasted my tail, and it tasted like cotton candy! Now I make sure to keep it nice and clean, so I can taste it every day!" She was shaking her rear towards me. Ataxia tried to divert our eyes downward, so I punched us in the face.
"So is there somewhere we should be going?" I asked to distract them as I rubbed my cheek. "As much as I enjoyed meeting the princess, we didn't actually discuss the whole thing about rifts in reality spewing out dangerous monsters."
"Well the moon should be raising soon, so Princess Luna should be in the royal dining hall eating...breakfast." I gave her a questioning look. "Well she IS the Princess of the night. It makes sense that she's mostly nocturnal."
She led us away from the throne room and started off towards our destination. The palace had a design structure that reminded me of the Romans. The large walls of the hallways broke away, revealing various courtyards lit by torchlight, some with elaborate fountains and others with interesting statures. Naturally, Twilight explained everything about the architecture and history of everything we walked past. Or tried to, at least. Only Fluttershy and Rarity were really listening to her.
Rainbow was trying to teach me some fighting techniques in case I ever had to fight a flying enemy, but all of her manoeuvres required the user to also have wings. It was still fun to watch her flip about in the air, like my own personal air-show. Applejack was trying to rope me into helping her with harvesting the apple orchard. I guess since most ponies only come up to my waist, I suppose she was figuring that my height advantage would somehow be of help, but the way she described "apple bucking" she could shake all of the apples out of a tree using a single buck. Unless Celestia was deliberately holding back, I couldn't imagine her being stronger than the orange mare.
After that we walked in silence for a few minutes until I realised something. 'When did Pinkie stop talking?' I turned around and saw her pouting. Why do these ponies always have to be so cute? "Hey Pinkie, what's up? Aren't you excited about getting to taste the same food the princesses eat?"
"Well duh," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's gotta be the bestest tasting food ever! But I'm trying to come up with a party idea to help fix the Princess' sadness."
I raised an eyebrow. "You want to throw a party to help the princess feel better about losing her entire race thousands of years ago?" She grinned and nodded very quickly. "And you see nothing wrong with that line of thought?" Still grinning, she shook her head side to side just as quickly.
"Nopie dopie! A party fixes everything! It just has to be the right kind of party." I punched my forehead. A palm just wasn't painful enough.
"Pinkie, that isn't the kind of thing you can fix. Ever." She tilted her head and looked at me like I was crazy. I am, but she didn't know that.
"You can't? But everypony feels better when they're with friends."
"Well yeah, but feeling better doesn't fix what happened. It just makes you ignore the pain for a little while. It'll still come back."
"Oh yeah? Then I'll just throw her a different party every week until she's better." She went back to pouting cutely. I blinked repeatedly.
"Wow, she just tried to kill me and I feel sorry for her. Good job, Pinkie." She waved at me with a hoof, but didn't say anything. I couldn't even imagine the tortuous scenarios she was coming up with, so I hurried along to join Twilight in an attempt to distract myself. "So how far away is the dining hall?" I asked her.
"Actually, it's right through that door." She pointed to a large mahogany door at the end of the hallway.
"First of all, that was disturbingly convenient. Secondly, how didn't I notice that?" She just rolled her eyes and rudely ignored my rhetorical question. before walking up to the door and opening it with inwards. Inside was a long table lined with enough room to seat a hundred ponies. There were only a handful of them strewn around the table, however, each enjoying a very tasty and filling looking meals. You'd think that it'd be similar to a fancy restaurant with small portions and large bills, but I suppose the royal chefs were actually good about what they fed ponies. I was quite happy about this, as I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, and almost dying twice tends to work up an appetite.
At the head of the table sat a mare similar in stature to Celestia. She had both a horn and wings, a dark blue coat, as well as a mane that shimmered like the reflection of the night sky in a lake. God, I really need to tone down on the sappy exposition if I don't want Wrath to beat me up. "Hello Princess Luna!" Twilight called out as she trotted up beside her, drawing the mare's attention away from her meal.
"Ah, good evening Twilight Sparkle. I trust the day has been forgiving to you and your...." she trailed off as she caught sight of me standing among the group. "...friends. Twilight, do you..."
"'Know what that is'?" She interrupted, and I tried not to feel indignant. Luna nodded. "Yes I do, he's a human, and he's our friend." She punctuated the last word with a stomp of her hoof. Luna raised an eyebrow at her before turning back to me.
"Please don't try to kill me." I said with my hands held in front of me. "Two near-death situations in one day is more than enough for me."
She ignores my quip and stood, sighing. "Does my sister know that you're here?"
"She a larger, whiter version of you, rainbow mane, tattoo of a sun on her butt, top of her head comes up to around my shoulder? Surface temperature of around 5778 degrees Kelvin?" She scowled at me. Madam Grump seems to not like jokes. At least it got a giggle from Twilight. "Yeah, I met her. She was one of those situations I mentioned."
She nodded and sat back down, and we followed suit. Turns out they don't sit on chairs, but rather pillows. They were comfy, but I was missing the back support. "Considering that you aren't a pile of ash right now, I assume you managed to calm her down."
Rarity turned her nose up at me looked away. "That is one way of putting it," she muttered as she poured herself a glass of water. I ignored her and turned to Luna.
"So what exactly happened? Between Alicorns and humans, I mean. Your sister didn't go into much detail before storming off."
She hesitated for a moment, seemingly unwilling to share the story, but told it regardless. "It is...difficult to remember. We were both quite young when the war started. Our mother had brought us to the newly formed Equestria to act as emissaries between our two lands. Neither of us had our Cutie Marks at the time, so we were more or less simply observing the proceedings as a part of out royal training. Once we had gotten word about the attacks on various cities in Ambrosia, our homeland, our mother rushed back to help, leaving us in the old Equestria capital, under the care of her good friend, Star Swirl." Twilight perked up at this.
"You knew Starswirl the Bearded?! What was he like? Is it true that he was the one who discovered the Elements of Harmony?" Twilight noticed that her loud voice was drawing everyone's attention, and shrunk down with an awkward smile and a cute blush.
Luna waited for her to calm down before continuing, smiling at Twilight's little outburst. "Yes we knew Star Swirl, but he wasn't very bearded back then. As I was saying, my mother entrusted him and his student, Clover the Clever, to watch over us as she saw to things back home. Unfortunately, that was the last time we saw her. The humans were naturally resistant to most magic, and used strange weapons that they couldn't defend against. They laid siege to the entire country, killing everypony within a matter of days." A gasp came from the rest of the ponies present, though Fluttershy's came out more as a sob. That confused me a bit, but I'd forgotten that death didn't seem to be as prevalent in their culture as it was in mine.
'Perhaps we shouldn't joke about death anymore. It probably makes then uncomfortable.'
'Boo!'
'Boo!'
'What, so you want me to just be an inconsiderate jerk all the time?'
'...duh. It's not our fault they're all pussies about the inevitable.'
'So are we! We just find it easy to joke about it.'
'No, that's just you. We don't really care. Seriously, I thought you'd know that by now. Wait, maybe we've forgotten again?'
'Yeah, we do forget a lot of stuff way too often.'
'Yeah I know, stop reminding me. I prefer blissful ignorance to depression, thank you very much.'
'We know.'
'It just gives us further reason to antagonise you.'
They started to piss me off, so I chose to ignore them and focus on Luna's story. "Shortly afterwards, as Twilight studiously asked, Star Swirl did indeed discover the Elements of Harmony. To this day neither I nor my sister know how, but he somehow managed to figure out how to work them. The Elements change according to who the most suitable ponies to bear them are. At the time, that was me and my sister, so they took the form of two crowns. Mine harnessed the Elements of Honesty, Loyalty and Laughter, while Celestia's harnessed the Elements of Magic, Generosity and Kindness. We used them against the humans. At that time, they had all fled their overcrowded homeland for a more pleasant life. That in itself is a good cause, but what they did to achieve it was despicable." I nodded. If anyone knew just how much of an ass-cancer humanity could be, it was me.
"When we used the Elements, it took away their magic resistance, and turned all of their strange weapons into rubble. They were defenceless. We didn't attack them, of course, but the humans had made some very powerful enemies, namely the dragons. Humans apparently used to see it as a matter of pride and honour if they were able to kill a dragon. Naturally, this made the dragons quite upset, but all they could do was hide. Not even the dragons were immune to the human weapons. Of course, once they realised that the humans couldn't fight back, they took revenge."
"Wait, couldn't you and Celestia have done something to help?" Twilight interrupted. "Made some kind of peace treaty, or used the Elements to protect them?" Luna shook her head.
"The Elements were designed to dispel unnatural disharmony and chaos. There was nothing they could do to prevent war, or death. As for me and my sister....our magic was currently the most powerful in the world, and together we could have protected the humans, but Celestia....didn't want to."
"B-but...why wouldn't she help? Sh-she didn't just let them all...you know..." Fluttershy whimpered quietly.
Luna nodded her head sombrely. "I'm afraid so. Please don't think badly of her because of it. We had just lost everything. Not only did they kill everypony, but in the few short years they had control of the country they destroyed all Alicorn culture. Every book, every painting, gone. All that was left were the pieces we had brought with us to Equestria as gifts. Despite her being older, I handled the situation far better than her. That whole period of her life was a dark one, and if she hadn't sought help and guidance, then I am positive that she would have become corrupted and fallen, just as I had when I became Nightmare Moon." I raised my eyebrow at the ridiculous name, but made no comment.
"I believe that she still holds some resentment towards humans, even after all this time. Of all the texts I have studied since my return, only one has mentioned them, and it did no more than name them, and present a brief summery of what they did."
"Ooh, was that Starswirl the Bearded's Unabridged History of Early Equestria?" Twilight called out, once again revealing her inner bookworm. I swore I was going to need an insulin shot sooner or later; these ponies are just too cute for my own good.
"Yes, that Is the book." Luna snorted and rolled her eyes. "Quite ironic that Celestia chose to keep that title, despite how much she omitted from modern copies while I was away."
"Well who could blame her? She obviously didn't want her subjects thinking of their ruler as a species annihilating potential she-devil. Things like that tend to hurt people in the public eye." Everyone around me turned and raised their eyebrows at me. "As hard as it is to believe, that actually wasn't sarcasm. Imagine if one of your princesses went nuts and had to be stopped. No offence, Luna." She gave me a nod. "Then, in the panicky years that followed, what if they read a book and found out the only princess they had left could suddenly turn evil as well if she suddenly regressed. There'd be utter chaos."
"Which would have freed Discord!" Twilight yelled.
Luna nodded in acknowledgement. "Yes, that is the reason she gave for altering what went into books. Considering that she wouldn't have been able to stop him without the Elements, it was perfectly justified. Besides, she still has all of the original texts in her private wing of the archives, all with a protection enchantment to prevent them from ageing, or becoming otherwise damaged. I'm sure she'd let you have access to it if you asked her." She directed that at Twilight, whose face filled with barely restrained glee. Seriously, I'm getting diabetes just remembering it. Too damn cute.
I leaned back and stretched. "So princess, what can we get for dinner? Whatever you're eating smells nice." She looked down at her forgotten meal and poked it.
"Well it WAS nice, but it seems to be cold now. Just as well, I had better go. Night Court will be starting soon. It was a pleasure meeting you...." She trailed off awkwardly as she stood up, realising that I hadn't given her my name. I simply smiled and waved goodbye.
This got me an irritated whack on the head from Twilight. "His name is James Douglas, Your Majesty."
I poked my tongue out at her. "Spoilsport."
Luna rolled her eyes, obviously used to this kind of behaviour, probably thanks to Discord. "Good night, James Douglas. I will send a waiter over. Pleasant dreams to you all." She walked away, but didn't leave before directing a unicorn stallion in a suit over to us.
"Hello sir and madams. What might I get you this evening?"
I looked to the others, but they were all looking at me, expecting me to choose first. If I wasn't so hungry I might have made a comment about ladies first. Except I was hungry and therefore had no energy to be snippy.
"Well what have you got?" I asked the waiter.
He sighed tiredly, as if it was a great effort to recite the meals. It wasn't my fault that they didn't leave out menus that I could actually read. No I don't care if that's an unreasonable thing to want, I was freaking hungry. "Tonight you have your choice between a hay dish, an alfalfa dish, and a beetroot dish."
I grimaced. "Oh god. I hate beetroot. I..I might just sit here and chew on my arm."
The waiter raised an eyebrow. "You can just order something else, sir."
"Mno fanpks." I mumbled from around my arm. "Mm gooph." Everyone apart from Pinkie face-hooved.
"What's that taste like?" She asked. I let my arm out of my mouth, smacking my lips.
"Not bad actually, if I'm honest. I should resort to self-cannibalism more often." I went back to my meal.
"Please tell me ya'll serve alcohol." Applejack asked, looking like she was developing a headache. I didn't care. I was delicious.