//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 Magic... (Revised) // Story: Dreaming of the Moon // by BeardedRedMane //------------------------------// "Sister, are you not hungry?" Celestia questioned, Luna however continued to push her fork around her plate before letting out another long sigh. "Luna." Celestia repeated, this time gaining her sisters attention, "Is your meal unsatisfactory?" Luna looked up from her plate just in time to notice Celestia flick her ear toward a very nervous stallion, beads of sweat were rolling down his face as he trembled to meet her gaze. "N.. not at all!" she half shouted before digging into her meal, "We were merely admiring the work of art that Iron Chef hath prepared for us." Iron Chef could have melted, thus was the relief that ran through him. Iron Chef not only oversaw food preparation for the Castle but personally made the meals for the Princesses himself as his father and his fathers' father before him. His family alone for countless generations held the prestige of preparing food for the ones who raised the Sun and Moon. With a small napkin Iron Chef dabbed the sweat from his forehead before bowing and exiting the dining hall with a sigh of relief. Celestia stifled a giggle before turning her attention back to Luna who had nearly finished her meal in an effort to help the poor stallion save face. 'It's like one step forward and two steps back...' Celestia mused, although her sister seemed to come out of her shell a bit yesterday, today Luna seemed off. "Is there something on your mind? You seem a bit distracted." "N..Not at all dear sister." • • • "Go, Go! Rainbow Dash! If you can't do it, no pony can!" Somehow… While Anon wasn't looking, Pinkie Pie melded into existence decked out in a complete cheer-leading outfit while waving rainbow colored pom poms in the air. To make things even stranger she was bouncing back and forth on only her hind hooves whist she cheered. "Freaky.. Magical half-bipedal ponies…" Anon muttered to himself as Pinkie Pie preformed a series of cartwheels. "So, how are we even going to measure Rainbow Dash's speed? Last time I checked the most technologically advanced thing you guys had here was the wheel." Anon said as a smirk appeared on his face. Twilight raised her brow in annoyance but instead of responding she choose to turn her attention toward Dash, whom was currently preforming wing stretches, "Alright Dash, all you have to do is keep this strapped to your head and it should be able to accurately gauge your speed… Just be careful, I'm not all too sure that this device can keep up on you." Dash responded with a nod while Anon sat back and scrunched his face into a frown. He was no electrician but Anon was pretty sure that device Twilight strapped to Dash's head couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't work. Not only did it seem to lack any visible way to track her speed it also lacked a way of displaying said speed, if anything it was a glorified steampunk headband. Anon didn't even want to get into the fact that it probably had no power source, programming or any of the sort. "Magic…" Anon deadpanned before turning his gaze back to a pink pony that was currently doing a walking hand stand while cheering. "Yup… Magic." "Alright Anon!" Dash exclaimed, tearing Anon's attention from the impossibility that was Pinkie Pie. "Better keep your eyes peeled, or you'll miss it." Dash boasted as she flared her wings and stood on her two hind hooves. "Pfft, miss what? Do you somehow expect to go from zero to sixty in ten seconds fla--" Anon's sentence died in his mouth as Dash rocketed into the sky while simultaneously his jaw hit the ground. He hadn't even blinked, yet his eyes strained to follow her movement, hell Anon could barely follow the visible light trail Dash left behind. Faster than anything Anon thought possible Dash began to zig zag at angles and speeds that should have torn her silly physics breaking body to shreds. Dash managed to glance back at Anon in the middle of one of her aerial tricks and couldn't help but smirk. From the look on his face she had blown these 'cars' and his perception of speed out of the water but there was still one thing left she had for him to see. Speeding vertically up into the sky, Dash climbed higher and higher intent on showing off her best move. "Wait until you get a load of this." Had Anon been a physicist he probably would have been shaking in rage at the number of laws Dash seemed to outright shatter and would have voiced his complaints had Twilight not spoken up first, "Dash Wait!!" she began in a panicked voice while waving her hooves into the air. "My device isn't study enough for a Sonic Rainboom!!" "A Sonic what?" Anon asked as Dash began to crackle with power, a cone beginning to spread out from her. A second later Anon heard a shattering sound as Rainbow Dash looked like she collided with something tangible in the sky and was launched backwards at an incredible speed, trailing wreckage that was once Twilight's speed monitoring device. "My invention!" Twilight cried out before being engulfed in a purple sphere and disappearing in a flash of light. Anon just stood there for a moment his face scrunched up in a mixture of confusion, anger and worry. "Don't you mean, 'Oh no Dash!' I mean she's definitely going to hit the ground and--" at that moment Dash hit a cloud, skipped off of said cloud and onto another before rolling to a stop. "Fucking magic…" "Poor Rainbow Dash, she was sooooo close to pulling off a Sonic Rainboom!" Pinkie exclaimed as she trotted up to Anon, "What were you saying about magic Anon?" "Nothing. On another note though, even if Dash landed on.... clouds. Is she really going to be alright?" "No need to worry about Dashie, she's tough! A little spill like that isn't enough to keep her out of the sky." True enough to Pinkies words Dash was dusting what looked to be cloud residue off of her coat as she stretched out her wings. "See?" "Right... Well I guess if my friend was that resilient to pain and injury I would be more worried about my device" that shouldn't work! "Instead of her well being. That being said how long do you think it will take Twilight to gather all of those pieces?" "Well usually I would say that she could do it quick, fast and in a jiffy but my front hoof is all shaky shaky and my tail twitched three times followed by an ear flap so Twilight might be a while." Anon blinked, "Right, enough time to make myself scarce. Tell Dash she's--" got a fucking jet in her wing, "pretty fast but we humans have built faster jets." 'That's right Anon, maintain that pride for the human race, cheating ponies and their physics ignoring magic.' Anon then turned around and proceeded to walk away. He wasn't sure where he was walking but he planned to keep on walking until he reached a place that made more sense. He turned his head back for one last look at Pinkie and grimaced. 'Might be a long walk.' • • • As Luna wandered the halls of Canterlot Castle she couldn't help but sigh. Anon is actually here, in Equestria. Yet I'm here pacing the corridors like some nervous school filly. Though to her credit even if she were to muster the courage to talk to Anon where would she start? Anon! It is I, Luna, doth thou not remember all those nights we've shared? It seemed impossible, Anon failed to recognize her when she delved into his mind the day before or at least part of him did not. His mind had been a fragmented mess and she couldn't tell whether it was from the Nightmare he fought or-- No.. something like that should not only have lacked the power but the time to so severely fragment his mind. "Not that it matters anymore..." Luna mused, "What would you do in this sort of situation, Anon?" • • • After enjoying a long mind clearing walk, Anon found himself in a small field overlooking a giant forest. The field was covered by an assortment of wild flowers and near him was the stump of a long passed tree. "This place is unrealistically peaceful..." Anon sighed before settling down on the grass with his back against the stump, "Still... Am I really here? In a land of magical talking pastel colored ponies? Even for me this is too much for a lucid dream." raising his hand Anon reached for his cheek and tugged hard before frowning and closing his eyes. "If I were on Earth I would probably just be getting home for lunch..." Anon smiled as he thought. "I'd open the door and standing there would be Zane and Riley, those guys would be barking their heads off while wagging their tails... I'd let them run around outside while I went inside and fixed their lunch. Nothing but the best for those two, chopped chicken and rice." "They would run in smelling their food and devour it. Afterward they would try to get me to play with them... Even though they knew I had to go back to work..." Anon sighed as he pulled his knees to his chest and gazed out at the forest. "I hope they're eating properly without me there." "I hope they are alright too." came a voice to Anon's left that made him flinch, turning to meet the speaker he saw a cream colored pegasus with a pink mane. "Oh... s-sorry I didn't mean to startle you." "It's alright Fluttershy." Anon flashed a smile, "I was just spacing out a bit but I'm fine." "Are you sure? I mean I know how it stressful it can be to be away from your pets for a while..." "Yeah, they'll be fine, I live with my mom so she'll be able to feed them while I'm gone." Anon stated with a smile that faltered for a second before turning his attention back to the woods, "Although Zane is a big baby, and doesn't eat properly when I'm not there." The grass crunched next to him and Anon glanced over to see Fluttershy had taken a seat next to him. "Don't worry Anon, Twilight and the Princesses are going to do everything in their power to get you back so I'm sure that you will be back home in no time." Fluttershy said as she placed a hoof onto Anon's shoulder. "Thanks." Anon turned toward Fluttershy and for a moment saw Zane instead, sitting there wearing a silly grin on his face with his paw resting on Anon's shoulder. Absentmindedly Anon reached up and ruffled Fluttershy's mane before scratching her ear. "Oh..Uh... uhm.." Fluttershy stammered reminding Anon that he wasn't scratching the ear of some mindless animal. "Er, right. Personal Space." Anon said as he stood up cursing under his breath, "Sorry about that you guys just remind me of Zane-- just smaller and... colorful." 'Twice in one day, really need to stop that.' "Smaller?!" Fluttershy practically yelled, "Oh my just what type of dog is he? I mean the largest domesticated breed in Equestria is only a few inches larger than Winona-- although in the wild there are cases of them reaching nearly two feet and that isn't even including wolf hybrids. Oh! I can only imagine the multitude of animals that your world must have, breeds that we've never seen here in Equis. I would really like to see your world one day!" "Oh... Well breed, right." Anon stammered, slightly taken back at her enthusiasm. "He's a Great Dane, which I think is the largest breed of dog we have on Earth. Although it might be the Mastiff instead...I don't really know, humans have breed dogs for so many centuries that I really haven't a clue. Last time I weighed him in I believe he was around a hundred fifty pounds. I think he's around three and a half feet tall but I haven't really measured, he was always growing so fast that I gave up trying to keep track.." Fluttershy was beaming as she took the information in. "I take it that you're a dog person?" Anon was met with a blank stare, "Prefer dogs over cats." "Oh no, I don't prefer any one animal over another. I believe that each animal has something special that only they can do and it's my job to take care of them and help them reach that potential." "Right, I take it that this has to do with those Cutie Marks..." Anon stated while rubbing his chin, "I don't really understand the principle of it though. So you gain these when you find something that you're really good at, right?" Fluttershy nodded, "And they just like... appear out of thin air?" Fluttershy nodded again, "Why?" "Why what?" "Why do they just... appear? Why are they pictures of what you're good at? What if you find something that you're even better at after you get that mark, does it change?" Fluttershy opened her mouth to speak, "--and don't you dare tell me magic. That isn't an explanation." A few seconds of silence passed before Anon pinched the bridge of his nose, "It's magic, isn't it?"