//------------------------------//
// A griffin's brush with Death 
// Story: Stranger Things Have Happened 
// by Mulldragon 
//------------------------------//

		Edit: if you are here to read the rewrite, everything in the first part is the same. if you want to jump to where the changes start, use your search function to find the word "cyclone" it should take you to the right paragraph.



After the visit from Pinkie, Twilight and I continued talking, though really it was just me answering her many, many, many questions. Eventually, Twilight’s questions brought us to a topic that had Spike jumping to ask a few of his own.

“Tell us about the stuff you were saying when I answered the door! Tell us about your dragons!” Spike said with excitement clear in his eyes and voice.

I chuckled slightly at the little hatchling’s enthusiasm. “Well, sure I guess. First off, what kind of dragons do you want to know about?”

Twilight tilted her head slightly “What kind? what do you mean?”

“Well, do you want to know about red dragons, green dragons, silver dragons, gold dragons, amethyst dragons, or any of the others really. I’ve managed to gather a good bit of knowledge on them and actually have a book in here somewhere that was written by a researcher on the subject” I started digging around through my bag and pulled out a rather large leather book with no title written on it. When I looked back up everyone was staring at me in confusion. Nightshade was the first to speak.

“What does the color of their scales matter? They’re all dragons, they’re all big, breathe fire, and eat gems.”

I simply stared at the pegasus in disbelief. Twilight was staring at my book intently and spoke without taking her eyes off of it.

“Is that not what dragons are like in your world?”

I shook my head a bit to shake off my confusion and looked over at her. “No, not really.” I paused for a moment and put the book on the table in front of me. “Well, not all of them. First off, the dragons of Eberron don’t eat gems. They’re pretty much carnivores.” everyone looked a little surprised by this but Spike looked downright shocked. “Second, sure, all dragons get pretty big but their size varies depending on species and color is the most obvious indicator of that species. And finally, only a few of the draconic species are fire breathers.” By this time all of the pony’s jaws were on the floor and Spike was staring at me in utter bewilderment. Seeing no response was going to be made I prodded the conversation along. “So, you mean you don’t have multiple species of dragon?”

Twilight slowly shook her head “Not really, no. I mean, there are different races but they are even less different than the three tribes of ponies and the color of their scales has nothing to do with it.”

“Well then, we have a lot to cover.” I said as I flipped the cover of the book open, revealing one word scrawled across the page in cold letters, Draconomicon. “This is the most famous work of one of Eberron’s top researchers on the various beings on our world, and the Forgotten realms in his more recent copies. Now, in Eberron, dragons are classified first into groups, then species, then any subspecies or things like that. There are two main groups of dragons, the Metallic dragons and the Chromatic dragons. As the names suggest, the metallic dragons have scales with a metallic appearance where the chromatics are less lustrous. Aside from these two groups there are a few others, the largest of them being the gemstone dragons, amethyst, emerald, onyx, and the like.” I turned the page in the book, revealing a table of contents with pages marked for each of the groups as well as each individual type of dragon. “Which would you like to know about first?” I looked to Spike with this question as he was the one that brought the topic up in the first place. He hesitated nervously for a moment before speaking.

“Well, you were saying something about me being an amethyst dragon right? How about that?”

I hummed in thought for a moment as I looked at the young dragon “Well, at first glance I thought it was possible though you don’t really have that gemstone quality to your scales. If I had to place you just off of scale appearance I would name you a half-breed between a purple and a green, two chromatics.”

“Let’s hear about those then.”

I flipped to the first section of the book labelled for chromatic dragons and flipped through until I found the purple dragons. “Ah, the purple dragons, one of the most intriguing of the species and one of the least known. First off, the purple dragons are a species that naturally delights in exploration, especially of deep underground places where no other living being has ever trod. This is the reason that so few people know about purple dragons, because they are almost always deep within the earth and in the darkness of their caves, the few that ever do see one and live to tell the tale mistake them for a black dragon. Now, as for size, they are very average for chromatic dragons. At their largest, their overall length will reach about 85 feet, their maximum wingspan 80, and their weight about 160,000 pounds. The only thing that really sets them apart is their slightly longer than average neck at about 28 feet max, only matched by the blue dragons. The truly exceptional thing about purples though, is that unlike almost all other types of dragons whose breath weapons are an element of some sort, Purple dragons have the ability to instill pure psychic energy into their breath to cause pain to the enemy’s mind.”

Everyone stared at me in stunned silence for a moment before Spike again broke the quiet.

“So… they don’t breathe fire? They breathe weird psychic powers?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” I shrugged “Like I said, not all dragons of my world breathe fire. Now, on to the green dragon. I guess since it surprised you most last time I’ll get straight to the breath weapon now. Green dragons have a poisonous breath so they are also somewhat different from most others in that respect. Many people make the mistake of seeing the green coloring of their scales and thinking that greens breathe acid but that is actually the black dragon. Green dragons tend to make their homes in dense forests where their natural color will help them blend in surprisingly well for such a massive creature. They are cunning and also rather average in size but they have a few characteristics such as the shape of the horns on their head that make it easy for them to push their way through the densely forested areas they prefer to call home. Green dragons also tend to use their poisonous breath to trap the thorns around their domain and anything else a hapless passer-by might scrape themselves on.” I closed the book and looked at it for a moment before picking it up and holding it out towards Twilight.

“There’s a lot about dragons and I don’t want to sit here talking about them for hours on end so here, feel free to borrow this.”

Twilight’s eyes widened and she hesitantly reached her hooves out to grab the book, staring at it reverently. “A-are you sure?”

I shrugged as the book left my hand “Yeah, why not. I already know the basic information in that and from what I’ve heard about you, I’m pretty sure you’ll treat it well.”

“Oh, I will! I’ll make sure nothing happens to it while it’s here.” she immediately opened the book and started reading. I coughed quietly to get her attention and she looked up before closing the book with a sheepish chuckle, sitting the book aside with a muttered “Sorry”

“Now, anything else you’d like to ask before I start asking some questions of my own?”

Twilight hummed in thought for a moment and tapped her hoof with her chin. “Hmm, now that you mention it, there was something you said earlier that I’ve been meaning to ask about. You said that you kept your soul because you ‘did things differently from other liches.’ what did you mean by that?”

I leaned back, straightening my arms behind me to support myself “Well, first let me tell you about the usual ways to become a lich. The most common, and the easiest way is the one that pretty much created the bad reputation liches have. It is to offer your will to a higher power for their help. This gives a bad reputation because most of the beings willing to do help are evil deities looking for undying servants. They basically do everything for you but you become their servant and they are able to destroy your phylactery or control you whenever and however they choose. Some people do it out of desperation, some desire power no matter the cost, and some already serve the being with such loyalty that doing this changes nothing, but all of them are puppets if the power desires it.

“The second method is harder but it’s independant. It’s also more costly in some ways. You have to put your entire soul into the ritual and creation of your phylactery in order to make up for a lack of power, because the ritual requires too much power to handle without some kind of compensation no matter what method you use.”

I leaned forward again “And now, for the method I used. I wasn’t willing to pay either of these costs because losing my entire soul is unacceptable and being the puppet of some deity would entirely defeat the purpose of my goal if they wanted me to do something evil, so I went with a third option. I researched, extensively. That’s actually the reason I’m so old, I was in my mid seventies when I managed it, near the end of a human’s natural life. I worked for years, combining the methods, testing, and exploring. I eventually managed to find the perfect conditions and created a process which I thought would work. I still used a piece of my soul for the phylactery as usual but I didn’t have to use the full thing. I had spent all of my life accumulating as much power as I could and looking for the area with the most saturation of dark magic, and I eventually had what I needed. I had found a place that was so saturated with darkness that the dead would rise on their own, I had power of my own and even a few trinkets that amplified said power, and I had the altered ritual. I set up, began the ritual, and then…” I paused with a sigh “Well, that’s when I realised the true reason no mage had ever done this on their own before.”

All of the ponies were staring at me, eager to hear what I had to say next but I decided to see how long it would take for one of them to ask. Unsurprisingly, Twilight didn’t wait very long before her curiosity got the best of her. “What reason?”

“The sheer, unfiltered pain of fragmenting your soul.” at the wide eyes and splayed back ears of the ponies around me I continued in an emotionless monotone, explaining things as scientifically as possible. “When a lich is made on it’s own power, the entire soul is placed in the phylactery because severing a portion of the soul itself is too painful for any being to possibly concentrate on even the simplest spell, let alone such a complex ritual. When it’s done through an outside power, the potential lich is first killed for a brief moment, long enough for the deity in charge to fragment the soul while there is no physical body to harm. There is still pain, but less than there would be if there was a physical body connected to the soul which would also be harmed by it.”

Twilight looked at me with confusion clear on her face “Then how did you do it? I mean, obviously the spell worked or you wouldn’t be here talking to me right now, but you just said it was impossible.” I sighed and leaned forward holding my head.

“Honestly? I have absolutely no clue. My memories of the ritual itself are fuzzy and fragmented at best. All I remember is the pain, blacking out, and then waking up inside my ritual circle, now burned out and smoldering, with my completed phylactery in hand and realising that I wasn’t breathing, my heart wasn’t beating, and all of my nerves felt… dulled. I could barely feel the ground beneath me. I could tell my back was touching the ground and I could feel something in my hand but I couldn’t distinguish textures very well and everything just felt… I don’t know, even after six hundred years of feeling things like that I still don’t have a way to describe it other than that my nerves felt, for lack of a better word, dead.” 
I looked up from the table and saw that everyone was staring at me with mixed expressions. Was I seeing sympathy? Pity? Surprise? Horror? I couldn’t tell. I may be able to pick up on obvious expressions but I couldn’t read a pony’s face well enough to figure out what they were feeling in that mixture.

Surprisingly enough, the awkward silence and stillness of the room was broken by a dark blue hoof suddenly poking my arm. I simply looked down at the hoof in question and then up at the face of the pony it belonged to. After a moment of staring Nightshade withdrew his hoof and shrugged.

“What? You said your nerves were dead so I wanted to see just how dead they were.”

I sighed and shook my head as my hand went up and met my forehead. “Well, for your information, I can still feel when someone pokes me. Like I said, I can feel enough to know when I’m touching something or something’s hitting me, it’s just that most sensation is just overall dull unless it’s a particularly strong sensation, then it breaks through.” The sensations strong enough are almost always pain but I didn’t feel the need to add that little bit of unpleasant information. “Anyways!” I said with a clap of my hands, suddenly shifting the conversation to my control “Enough about my unpleasant past, time for my questions.”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she spoke in a slightly frantic tone “But wait! What about how-!” I cut her off quickly.

“Ah ah, nope, You asked what I did different, not what made the ritual work. It’s time I got my own questions answered, you can ask me more about it later.” Huh, so that’s how it felt to be on the other end of one of Maywild’s little conversational tricks. Always hated it when she took the conversation away from me like that. And from Twilight’s expression and the little huff she let out, she wasn’t too fond of this trick either but I continued on anyways.

“Now, the first thing I want to figure out is how hard it’s going to be to gather these materials.” As I said this, I reached into my bag again and pulled out a thick rolled up scroll and held it out towards Twilight. “I would’ve asked the princesses but Celestia wouldn’t let me speak with Luna alone and being around Celestia is… unpleasant for me.” NIghtshade scowled at me as I said this, as if I had just offended him greatly. Seeing as I had just said something negative about his deity, I probably did offend him. I was, however, a little surprised that Brightblade didn’t share that reaction, but figuring out the why of that can come later as Nightshade wasn’t all too pleased at the moment and I needed to take care of that before he got really an-

“And what do you mean by that exactly?” Well, too late for that, guess he was already angry. Damage control time.

“I meant no offense but it’s a simple fact and if you think for a moment you’ll understand what I meant. I am a being of dark magic and she is the embodiment of the sun. That comes with a surge of light magic being around her at all times. This makes being in her presence physically uncomfortable at best. Hells, if it weren’t for the fact that she was probably suppressing that whenever I was near, it would have been downright painful to be near her. Honestly, now that I’m out of Canterlot I realise just how far that little fluctuation she causes reaches. If I’d stayed there, I wouldn’t have the slightest hope of ever getting back to my full power.” NIghtshade at least looked a little bit less angry at me now so I turned back to Twilight and saw that she had already taken the scroll and was reading through it thoughtfully while Spike was standing behind her and staring wide-eyed at the admittedly long list.

“That’s all for one spell? Just how powerful is this thing that you’d need that many focuses?!”

Before I could respond, Twilight spoke up, still reading through the list. “It’s not about pure power, Spike. The foci are probably there to help with just how complex the spell would be.”

I nodded at Twilights words “For the most part, yes. Though, it does take a rather large amount of power to cast as well. Needless to say, I wouldn’t be willing to have a novice try to cast this spell no matter how good they are with complexities.”

Twilight nodded as she finished reading through the list, apparently having forgotten her earlier frustrations at my shift of topic in light of the list of information I’d handed her. “Understandably so, I’d imagine. Now, as for these materials.” she pulled a quill and ink well from a nearby desk, making a few marks on the list. “A couple of these are rather common and should be easy to get. Other’s could be a little difficult but doable. What worries me though, are these particular items.” she levitated the scroll over to me and I noticed that about five or six of the items had little x’s next to them. “I’ve never even heard of these. I’ll do a bit of research later, maybe they’re just known as something different here or I just don’t know about them, but it’s possible that they don’t even exist in this world.” I was a little worried about this but didn’t let it show.

“I’ll look into it as well, but if they don’t exist then I’ll just have to find a suitable replacement. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to improvise something after all.” I sighed and rolled the scroll back up, returning it to my bag. “I’ll have to get started gathering those as soon as I know more about this place. Hopefully it doesn’t take me years like it did last time. If even one of these is commonplace here, then that’s an improvement on back home. Every single one of these was next to impossible to get. Now, I have one final question for now and then I should probably move on to getting some other things done. After all, I still have to meet the other element bearers if I plan on studying those interesting artifacts and I should probably find somewhere to get lodgings. I don’t care if I’m out in the open but I’m pretty sure these two would prefer a bed and a roof to a blanket and a tent.” I gestured to the two guards who simply shrugged indifferently.

“Well, you could use my basement. I’d have to move some of my equipment around but there should be enough room down there.” I waved off her offer with a small shake of my head.

“No offense, but I think it’d be best if I didn’t take you up on that. I’m not exactly a good roommate.” Nightshade snorted at that and mumbled something along the lines of ‘you can say that again’ but I ignored him. “I don’t sleep often and I don’t spend time doing idle things. If I’ve got nothing to do I’m usually experimenting with spells or doing research or practice and that’s not always exactly a quiet or safe exercise. If possible, I want to find a place that’s near either the edge of town or an abandoned building I can use while I work.” Twilight hummed in thought and put a hoof to her chin.

“I can see why that might be a problem. The noise is easy enough to work with but I don’t work with spells dangerous enough to have a prepared area for them all that often. Back in Canterlot I used the facilities in the School for Gifted Unicorns but here the only place I’ve seen is the field between Ponyville and the Everfree Forest.” I perked up at the mention of the forest.

“The Everfree, that’s where I showed up right?” at Twilight’s nod I continued. “In that case, I’ll need to look into that area at some point as well. I have a few theories and ideas about why I lost consciousness. I’m not sure if it was the shock of passing through an intact part of the world barrier, if it was a result of the Elements, or if it was something else entirely but I intend to find out.” I thought about that for a moment before I remembered the question I had intended to bring up before we got off on this tangent.

“Anyways, back to what I wanted to ask you, I can find lodging later. For now, I have a few theories about something that’s been worrying me since I got here. My spells haven’t been working all that well-” this time both of the guards snorted but before they could retort I just glared at them. When they made no sign of interrupting further, I continued. “As I was saying, my spells have been having issues since I got here: a fireball coming out as nothing more than a spark of flame, my teleportation not accounting for vertical distance, and a featherfall spell giving me the ability to stand on a cloud just to name a few. Now, two of these can be explained by other potential variables but with the sheer amount of miscasts I think it’s something more… fundamental.” I looked at Twilight for a moment, my gaze particularly directed to her horn as it glowed and the cup in front of her, apparently having been refilled at some point, began to glow with an identical light.

“Now, this may sound like a somewhat pointless and obvious question but please answer it seriously.” I paused for a moment and Twilight nodded in agreement. “Okay, well I think it might be something to do with how we channel magic. Please, tell me, how is it that you channel? I don’t mean how you cast a specific spell or anything, but how you do the most basic thing any mage does and just simply channel.”

The purple scholar raised an eyebrow at this question and spoke hesitantly “Really? that’s what you want to know?” at my serious nod she continued much less hesitantly “Well, I’m not sure how it’ll accomplish anything but I guess it won’t hurt to answer you. Okay, well, in order to channel magic a unicorn needs to simply focus through their horn and reach through the inborn connection that they have to the ley lines. They then find the ley line they wish to draw from and pull the magic into their body through their horn, process the magic in their mind into the spell they want, and release it back through their horn to produce the desired effect.” I nodded soberly and spoke.

“Well, there’s the issue. Our methods of channeling differ. The magic of this world must be harder to work with in my manner.” Twilight’s eyes widened as the implications of my words sank in.

“What? We channel differently? The foundational concept of all arcane manipulation is different for us than for you? And you’re saying that magic here is different from magic in your world?”

“Well, somewhat different at least. First off, the way we channel differs in one major way, Humans don’t take the magic into their body to cast. In fact, doing so is harmful to the human body and even damaging to the mind with prolonged exposure unless it’s an already refined and channeled spell. The only kinds of magic that I know of that draw raw, unchanneled magic into the body are those of arcane beings, blood magic, and the very select few divine magics that use arcane power as a sort of catalyst.”

“You can’t take magic into your bodies?! Then how do you control it?!” Twilight was frantic at the sheer contradiction these ideas posed to everything she’d studied. Honestly, it was a little disturbing to me to but I was handling it better. Probably because their method was still used in my world for some things whereas it seems mine was unheard of here. I raised a hand to try and forestall any more questions from Twilight and calm her a little. It didn’t seem all that effective but at least she didn’t look like she was going to interrupt what I was about to say.

“Okay, now, first off there is one other exception back on Eberron to the usual method. Wizards, bards, swordmages, and pretty much every other user of the arcane channels magic through something other than their body or even just weaves it with hand gestures but there is one type of arcane user that not only can but will sometimes unwillingly channel magic through their own bodies. These people are known as sorcerers and they are born with a natural connection to one or more of the arcane ley lines and get their ability to channel through both this and some sort of arcane lineage, be they dragonblooded or the distant descendant of a djiin. No matter how they came to be born with the connection they are born naturally channeling magic and sometimes they aren’t even able to fully control it.” I paused to give Spike a little bit of extra time to make sure he had all of this written down before I continued. 

“Now as for how the rest of us channel we use various methods. The most basic is what we call the somatic component of a spell. Almost all spells require one and the ones that don’t are either so close to pure unchanneled power that they don’t need to be weaved as intricately or are so simple that it takes almost no effort to weave them. A somatic component is pretty much a gesture or movement that is specific to the spell you want to cast and if you want a way to visualize it then you could compare it to weaving threads made of magic in the air to create a spell. Other methods include material components to stabilize a spell, implements to channel the magic through in a similar method to your horns, or arcane foci that not only direct but contain the magic and help to shape it. Now, for the most part, implements aren’t absolutely necessary they just make things infinitely easier. A bard can weave a song through the air without an instrument but they can focus more on the spell itself if the music is made by an actual instrument. And material components and foci vary on whether or not they’re needed and what they are if you do need them. Though, through improvisation I have managed to stumble upon the fact that certain materials will work for many spells, they just aren’t as effective as the component usually used for them.”

Twilight just stared at me in disbelief for a moment before she managed to compose herself enough to speak. “So what you’re saying is…” she started off slowly and with more than a hint of disbelief “Your race can just… weave spells through thin air? No taking the magic into their body? Not necessarily needing something to channel it through or something to stabilize the energies?” I simply nodded and Twilight’s jaw dropped open “B-but... THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!” She then started ranting about various reasons that the very fundamentals of magic I studied were impossible. I decided that if she wouldn’t take my word for it, I’d simply show her undeniable proof.

I reached out to the ley lines and drew a small amount of power out of the central line which is linked to no element in particular and weaved a spell without a word or even a gesture. Well, it was barely a spell really, just a cantrip, the most basic of magics any apprentice learns before anything else. A brief moment later a shimmering purple hand of pure force appeared in the air in front of me and promptly closed Twilight’s mouth, effectively cutting off her words as her eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“Are you going to calm down now?” she nodded her head slightly, almost imperceptibly, and I removed the ghostly hand from her muzzle, floating it near the center of the table. “Now, look at the lines of magic. You should be able to see the usual connection from the ley line heading toward me and feeding the spell but if you look carefully you’ll see that it only gathers around my hand.” I lifted my right hand to show her. “It never enters my body at all, instead leading from me in small threads as a channeled spell connecting to the simple Mage Hand cantrip you see there.” I made the hand wave at her and she calmly examined the spell with the practical mindset of an experienced spell caster. When she was finished her eyes widened again but they didn’t reach anywhere near the size they were before.

“This is incredible. No, it’s completely unheard of! I have to study this further! I need to report this to the princess! I-” the hand quickly cut her off again before she could start another rant but this time instead of looking shocked, she glared at me in annoyance.

“I thought you said you were going to be calm.” When she continued to glare at me I decided to go ahead and remove the hand from her muzzle again but kept it near her just in case. “Now, I’m just as interested as you are about this subject. I mean, look at it from my perspective. It’s dangerous and potentially even deadly for people to take magic into themselves but your entire race, and any other magic-using races of this world from the sounds of it, are only able to channel magic in this way? Naturally, I’m going to want to study this as well. However, that can wait until I’ve gotten started on my more pressing goals. And as for reporting it to the princess, I doubt that will be necessary. I weaved a couple of spells in front of Celestia the first time I saw her and it wouldn’t surprise me if she noticed it then and there.”

Twilight finally stopped glaring at me as I was talking and instead shifted to examining the purple hand floating by her head. After a moment, she turned away from the hand and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “So, you promise you’ll let me study this some more later?”

“So long as you help me to study the magic of this world.” This answer seemed to satisfy Twilight enough for now as she nodded before asking another question.

“You said that most of your spells were miscasting, understandably so if the fundamentals of magic are so different for us, so is there anything wrong with this spell?” she gestured to the hand which had become the center of the conversation by now.

“No, that’s a perfect casting, but it’s just a cantrip. From what I’ve seen so far it’s comparable to the telekinesis that unicorns use, something learned early on and eventually becomes second nature to cast. If I couldn’t properly control the magic enough to cast even this right then I doubt I would have even made it a few inches with my teleportation and probably wouldn’t have achieved anything more than a minor warmth with my fire spells. It seems that the weaker spells are casting with little trouble and the ones that are personal enchantments don’t seem to be having difficulty either, likely because they directly affect me instead of trying to manifest some greater outside effect.” 

I continued on to explain some of the other cantrips that apprentices learn and the conversation followed through to simple topics like the schools of magic and up to a few of the more complex theories. Surprisingly, aside from the basic method of channelling, the theories and laws of magic were nearly identical between our worlds. We continued talking for an hour or two before we heard a knock at the door. This time Spike went down to answer it himself and came back a moment later with a pink envelope in his claw.

“It was Derpy delivering the mail. Looks like a Pinkie Pie party invite.” he quickly handed the envelope off to Twilight and she opened it, reading aloud.

“You are all invited to the double welcoming party of Gilda the Griffon and Yetagain! The party starts at 2:00 in Sugarcube corner!
-Pinkie Pie”

Nobody else spoke but it didn’t take long for me to break the silence with a single word.

“No.” everyone turned their attention from Twilight and stared at me in confusion.

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean no way, nuh-uh, not gonna happen. Just walking through town resulted in ponies staring and a few of those stares were in fear. There is no way I’m going to be stuck in a room that’s going to be crowded with ponies.”

“And why not?” Nightshade asked with a raised eyebrow.

“In tight quarters fear can easily turn into aggression and a party into a mob.”

Brightblade snorted at that. “Maybe one in twenty of the ponies looking at you were scared and they didn’t look near scared enough to suddenly decide to attack you. And even then, you will be with not only the two royal guards but also Princess Celestia’s personal protege herself, if that doesn’t assuage their fears than the crowd of friends and family will.”

Before I could respond Nightshade cut in. “And it’s a party, everypony will be in a festive and happy mood, not exactly ideal mob conditions.”

“Plus it’ll be a great way to get yourself introduced to the town.”

“Not to mention that it’s being hosted by the Element of Laughter who would probably be pretty sad if you refused to go to her party.”

The two of them just continued to roll on with reason after reason for me to go and I couldn’t stop them.


It was another hour before I finally gave in and agreed to go but on one condition, we were to get to the party early so that I could get there before the crowd and let everypony see me before the party actually got started. That way, instead of me suddenly walking into a crowd, each pony would see me as the came in small groups and get their questions out of the way before the party started.

As we were walking down the road I got curious and sometimes fearful stares from almost everyone we passed by but the sight of Twilight, the two guards, and the baby dragon walking with me seemed to calm most of them down. When we got to Sugarcube Corner I stared up at the building as yet another strange architectural design stood in front of me. First a treebrary and now this? Really, this town had some unusual buildings.

The bakery in front of me was, to put it simply, designed to look like it was made from pastries and candy. There were white lines resembling frosting, the walls roof looked like it was made of chocolate and was covered in something resembling sprinkles and gumdrops, and at the very top there was a giant cupcake with three fake candles sticking out of it. The building definitely left no doubt to the observer just what kind of business it housed without even needing the cupcake sign hanging next to the door.

Twilight was the first to enter the building with Spike on her back and I followed in behind her with the guards at the end. The moment I walked into the building I noticed the entire area was brightly decorated for what looked to be a child’s party and there were absolutely no customers. The only pony in the room, in fact, was the pink pony from before who was setting up the last few decorations with a large smile on her face. When the bell above the door chimed she saw us and her smile grew even wider. The next thing I knew she had suddenly appeared right in front of me from the other side of the room. I leapt away and took a defensive stance and most definitely didn’t scream a string of obscenities in my surprise but the mare, Pinkie Pie if I remember correctly, simply started bouncing in place and happily let loose a torrent of rapid words.

“Hi I’m Pinkie Pie and I’m throwing this party just for you! Well, not just for you. It’s for Gilda too but it’s still your welcoming party too!” she stopped for a moment as her muzzle twitched a little “Huh, twitchy nose? But that usually means something sad’s about to happen but what sad thing could happen? I mean, we have cake! how can you be sad when there’s cake?” as she said this I suddenly found a piece of cake being shoved into my mouth. I promptly spit it out and glared at the pony who’d forced it into my mouth only to see her staring in wide eyed shock as if I’d just committed an act of horrible blasphemy.

“What? What are you staring at me for? You’re the one who just shoved cake into my mouth, if anyone should be upset it’s me.” it took a moment before Pinkie spoke but when she did her voice was as filled with shock as her face.

“Do… Do you not like cake? No, that’s impossible, how can you not like cake? It must be something wrong with my cake. What’s wrong with it?”

I just shrugged nonchalantly in the face of her surprise. “I don’t know, I’d have to be able to taste it in order to know that.”

And just like that everyone was silent and staring at me almost as surprised as Pinkie was. Spike, however, just scratched his head and asked the obvious question on their minds.

“What do you mean? Didn’t you just taste it?”

“No, I didn’t. In fact, I couldn’t if I tried. I can’t taste anything, haven’t been able to for five hundred and thirty some-odd years.” as I said this I knelt down and cleaned up the cake that I had spit onto the floor. When I stood back up the looks of shock were still present but Pinkie’s eyes looked like they had tears building in the corners. “What? Why is everyone so surprised? A sense of taste has no practical use for a lich so my tongue’s been useless for anything but talking since I performed the ritual.” When someone finally spoke it was Pinkie whose voice made it clear she was on the verge of tears.

“Yo-you can’t t-taste? Anything? You can’t taste cake? Or candy? Or sundaes? Or sassparilla? Nothing at all?”

“Nope, can’t taste a th-” I couldn’t get any more words out as I was suddenly tackled by a pink blur and wound up with a pair of hooves wrapped tightly around my midsection. “Uh… why are you hugging me?”

“Because it’s so sad! How can you not be sad when you can’t taste any of the yummy things out there?!” I couldn’t really understand why but this pony sounded so damned sad. It’s like she couldn’t even comprehend the possibility of someone being happy without a sense of taste. I was confused but I really didn’t want her to start crying into my stomach so I did the only thing I could think of at the time and patted her awkwardly on the head.

“It uh… it’s not really all that sad. I mean, I didn’t really care all that much about food for anything other than nourishment when I was alive so when I found out I couldn’t taste it anymore it didn’t really faze me. I mean, sure, it came as a little bit of a surprise when I ate a biscuit and couldn’t even tell I was eating something other than the texture but that’s about it. Trust me, I may not have the ability to taste but I’m perfectly happy without it.” I put on a fake smile as Pinkie looked up at me with big watery eyes.

“B-but… how?”

I shrugged “I just am. Besides, if I really wanted to taste again I could probably figure out a spell to get my tongue working again without too much trouble.” She suddenly stepped back with a smile on her face.

“Well why didn’t you say so?! If all you need to do is a little magic and you can taste again then problem solved! Just cast the spell and taste some of this delicious cake!”

“Hey, I said I could figure a spell out, I didn’t say I had one already. And besides, I said if I wanted to, I don’t really see a need for it.” Pinkie’s mood shifted again int he blink of an eye from happy to a stern, determined demeanor and when she spoke her tone gave no room for argument.

“You are going to make your spell, you’re going to cast it, and when you do I’m going to make you the biggest, bestest cake ever to celebrate you being able to taste again. You got that?”

I don’t know why I didn’t argue, maybe the surprise from all these sudden mood shifts, but at Pinkie’s words I just nodded my head and she went back to smiling again just like that.

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” with that she bounced off to another room which I assumed was a kitchen and left the five of us standing in the middle of the store surprised. Eventually I turned to Twilight and said one sentence.

“Gods above, she acts just like Maywild.”



After the ordeal with meeting Pinkie I went off and stood in a corner, the two guards choosing to take up positions on either side of me, and soon ponies started to trickle into the store. A couple of them came over and tentatively asked me questions, one particularly enthusiastic mint-green unicorn came over and asked me almost as many questions as Twilight but she eventually left after making me promise to answer some more of her questions later, but most of the ponies just warily kept their distance.

That is, until an orange earth pony mare walked up to me. She had a blonde mane and tail and her mane was tied back in a ponytail. She had a worn-looking brown stetson on her head and she looked a little more muscular than the other mares I’d seen so far, either she work out or she’s no stranger to manual labor. Finally, her cutie mark was a set of three apples and her eyes were emerald green. When she got to me she reached one of her forehooves out to me and looked up at my face with a warm smile and when she spoke it was with an accent that reminded me of the farmers in some of the farthest outlying villages back home.

“Howdy there, you’re the feller we found out in that old castle right? The names Applejack, nice ta meet ya.” she chuckled a little “Well, to meet ya when you’re actually awake an all.” as she finished, she still had her hoof held out and I felt stupid as I realised what she wanted. I reached out and grabbed the appendage and she shook my hand rather vigorously. As I took my hand back I spoke.

“Well, hello. So, you’re one of the ponies that found me? So that means you’re one of the element bearers, excellent. My name is Yetagain, and it’s nice to meet you too.” I paused for a moment and tapped my chin with a finger, thinking back on the descriptions I’d been given of the bearers back in Canterlot. “Let’s see, if I remember correctly you’re the bearer of Honesty right?”

“Eeyup, reckon that’s me. Me an my family run Sweet Apple Acres out at the end of town, you should stop by sometime an I’ll introduce ya.” I raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly.

“Offering to introduce me to your family? That’s awfully trusting of you. Aside from that Lyra mare I’ve barely held a conversation with anyone but Twilight.”

“Well, I figure if you’re gonna be livin out here, you’re bound ta meet em eventually. ‘Sides, you seem like a nice enough fella so far.” I made a little shallow bow and smiled down at her.

“Well, thank you for the offer, I’ll definitely have to take you up on it in the near future.” We exchanged a few more pleasantries before Applejack wandered off into the rest of the party. I glanced around and saw two more mares that seemed to match the description of two of the other element bearers talking to each other in the opposite corner from me. One was a rather elegant looking white unicorn with a violet mane and tail styled to curl around while the other was a yellow pegasus that looked to be trying to hide behind her curtain of pink mane. The unicorn looked at me and smiled nervously before turning back to the pegasus who was noticeably keeping her mane blocking vision in my direction. It seemed like she was trying to coax her into something... 
I decided to leave them to their conversation and continued to just scan the crowd from my corner. It wasn’t long before the other person this party was being thrown for arrived, or at least I guessed it was her since she was the only griffon I’d seen. She came in with a blue pegasus with a very distinguishable rainbow colored mane and tail, obviously the last of the bearers, kinda hard to forget her description. Surprisingly, she didn’t even seem to notice me as she was distracted spending time with the griffon. I decided to leave them to their devices as well, after all, I figured I’d probably be meeting all of the bearers soon enough so I might as well let them have their fun at this party.

So, I continued to simply watch from my corner. A few ponies occasionally came up to me but for the most part I just watched as events unfolded. It wasn’t long before I started seeing a pattern in certain events. Namely, almost everything that Gilda did resulted in a prank of some sort being triggered on her and she looked to be getting more and more aggravated by the second. It seems griffons may be sentient here but they’re still easily made aggressive. I didn’t think she’d actually do anything too extreme in the middle of a party like this unless she blamed all the pranks on someone she was already angry at but I decided to take precautions just in case.

I lifted my arm and checked the bracelet around my wrist, checking to see that it still had all of the crystal cones attached, and then called to mind the words of a simple holding spell in case I had to stop her from trying anything too crazy. After all, there’s a new and unusual being standing in the corner watching all of these pranks happen and who just so happens to be sharing the guest of honor position at this party, it wouldn’t be a big leap for her anger to be misplaced at me and think I set the pranks up. The spell should be able to keep her in place long enough to… disarm the situation.

To my surprise, however, her anger never got directed towards me. I watched as the situation came crashing down and she became furious. She blamed Pinkie pie for all of the pranks and when Rainbow Dash said the pranks were actually hers she went into denial. And then Dash basically told her that their friendship was over and the griffon just… snapped.

“No! No way! This is all her fault!” She screamed as she pointed at Pinkie who stared at her wide-eyed, likely scared at being stared down by an angry predator right in front of her. And then something that none of the ponies seemed to expect happened. The exact thing I’d been predicting this whole time but was hoping wouldn’t happen. Gilda stepped forward in the blink of an eye and raised her claw to swing at Pinkie in her misplaced rage but that’s as far as she got before I acted.

My voice rose above the crowd in a shouted spell as one of the crystal cones on my bracelet tugged at it’s chain and pointed at Gilda. The cone quickly disintegrated and the dust flew towards her as my spell finished but surprisingly, instead of simply binding her in invisible force as I had planned, the dust swirled rapidly, creating a cyclone that shot out toward her. The cyclone connected, and the downward angle sent her slamming into the ground and sliding rapidly into the wall, hitting her head both times.

All movement stopped and all sound ceased as the griffon lay unconscious against the wall. For a brief moment, time seemed to stand still. Then, I acted again. I swore quietly as I moved to step forward towards the likely injured creature, but I was stopped by the flat of Brightblade’s sword slamming against the back of my legs. I collapsed forward and found the massive blade, which shouldn’t be possible to move so quickly, pressed against my throat.

“Don’t. Move.” He spoke calmly and with emphasis. 

I went to speak but was stopped as Nightshade shot across the room like an arrow. He flew over the crowd to land next to Gilda and quickly inspected her for injury. After a moment he looked up with a slightly relieved expression and called into the room.

“She just got knocked out, luckily nothing seems to be broken. However, somepony should get her to the-” He didn’t get to finish his sentence before another blur shot across the room, this one polychromatic. The next moment, Rainbow Dash was next to Gilda and attempting to lift her onto her back.

“I’ve gotta get her to a hospital!” And in the next moment she was out the door with Gilda on her back.

The entire room was silent except for Nightshade’s hooves as he walked calmly back toward me and Brightblade.

“What exactly do you think you were doing?”

“Stopping an attack.” I replied flatly, my expression equally so. “I’m sure you saw it too, you seem to have pretty keen eyes. That griffon was about to claw Pinkie’s face off.” at my… less than gentle words I felt the sword press a little more firmly against my throat.

“And blasting her across the room, through a crowd of ponies, and into a wall was the only answer you had?”

“Not the only one, no. And not the one I was going for.” At the confused expression of the pony in front of me I elaborated before he could speak. “Remember when I said my magic was mis-casting? That was supposed to be a harmless holding spell. Nothing more than a binding of force and air. And before you ask, me moving toward her? What this lovely sword prevented? That was me moving to check on her and make sure I didn’t injure her.”

“And if she had been injured? Or worse?”

“It was unlikely to happen. That spell isn’t really deadly without some kind of environmental hazard and even if it was, a miss-cast can never reach the power of the true spell.” I said dismissively.

“But if it had? What then?”

“I would have done what I could to right the situation.”

Nightshade looked over my shoulder and for a few moments it seemed as if he was having some silent exchange with Brightblade, before he nodded and the blade was returned to its sheathe. I stood up slowly and dusted myself off as I glanced around the room. Every set of eyes was locked on me, near-universally filled with fear, and many with loathing. I sighed and took a step towards the door, the ponies all parted away from me.

“It would seem I am no longer welcome here. Let’s go set up camp for now.”

And with that I walked away, the guards following me. After a particularly long walk, putting as much distance between me and the town as possible, I began silently setting up camp. The guards, equally silent, setup their own tents and returned to their rotating shifts. I walked into the open fields just a short way from our tents and immediately began experimenting with spells to distract myself, all the while thinking of what is to come when I return to the town, because there is no doubt I must. The Elements are the only clue I have as to a way out of this mess, and the bearers are in that town. I’ll simply have to find a way to earn their trust. It won’t be easy after today, but I’ve faced harder situations before.

With newfound determination, I worked on through the day and night.