//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 - Ponies, meet human. Human, mee- GET BACK HERE! // Story: Golden Grace, Headless Headaches // by Thadius0 //------------------------------// It wasn't long after the lavender alicorn left that there was a rush of golden fire in the air, and Auric reappeared. His body was no different, but his clothing was another story. The gathered trio noticed that it was far more colorful, this new outfit of his. The right side of his new pants were colored orange, while the left side were colored yellow, and the sneakers he'd suddenly acquired matched them. The unusual shirt he'd picked up had the colors swap sides, so as to create a checkerboard effect. In the middle of the shirt was the symbol of an eclipse, and the hood currently drawn over his head was orange, so as to contrast the yellow cape that lay on his back, which also had an eclipse on it. In short, it was a mismatch of orange and yellow with an eclipse emblazoned on it both front and back, but Auric wore it proudly nonetheless. Back so soon, boy? Where did you go that such a fashion was the norm? Auric tugged at the shirt with a slight grin on his face. "Did you not hear the voice as well? Typhon called on me, and quite frankly, I don't regret it in the least." His smile faded a bit, "It was...tense, for a few moments..." And then it was back again in full force, "But I got to learn so much. About him, about my strengths, abo-" Auric's eyes widened as he gasped. "Oh, that's right! Dully, meant to ask. Can I have the sword, please?" Silence hung in the air for a good ten seconds, as everyone processed what Auric had just asked. Finally, the armor made to respond. And why do you need it? "My skills are more freeform, unfocused without it. I need a focus, and that's the only one left, seeing as how the stars were consumed to light the Lights. Besides which, can you honestly tell me you want to wield that much Understanding?" The armor drew the blade and paused for a moment. Can you craft a replacement? Auric grinned at that. "Not I, but my friend? Most likely. Do let me know if he shows up." The armor let out a sigh as it carefully unbuckled the scabbard from its hip, sheathed the blade, and presented it to the boy. Honestly, you're right. I don't want all this power. I would be happy with a simple steel blade. However, if your friend can make a straight up replacement, I'll take it. In the meantime, guard it well, boy. Understanding is not to be undertaken lightly. Auric carefully nodded as he buckled the sword to his hip. "Hmm. Understanding would cause some confusion. And Madness might be insulting to a certain Lady thereof, or one of the others in that triad." Just as the others were about to ask what Auric was going on about, he snapped his fingers. "Aha! Eureka, that's what I'll call it!" Call what? "The blade, I'll call it Eureka. Greek for 'I've found it', also known as the moment when you realize the answer to your problem. That fits the blade perfectly." Surprisingly, the armor nodded. You are right, it does. I do hope you figure out how to deactivate its unique function, though. Wouldn't want anyone else to experience moments quite like yours by accident. Auric waved a hand dismissively.. "Easy enough. Was there anything else?" A certain lavender alicorn tracked you here and wanted to apologize for her enthusiasm. She'll be waiting in Ponyville library...if you decide to go. Auric sighed and looked at one wall as though he could see through it to the village in question. "Yeah...The longer I put it off, the worse it'll turn out to be." And with that, the boy was gone again, in another burst of golden fire. The trio looked at one another before Silver coughed. "Ye think we should have told him?" Shiver shook his head. "We'll do fine without. Heck, the princesses might ask him to parley with us when we show up on their doorstep." Dullahan nodded at them. Gather a Venus and Mercury adept before you go, though. It would serve to have one of all four elements, for every situation. The dragon looked thoughtful for a moment. "I think there's a pegasus named Snow Fluff, he's a pretty good Mercury adept, head of the weather team in these parts. The town might be able to deal without him for a few days. And Silver can probably convince Aboyami to come with." As the stallion shouted in indignation at the dragon's insinuations, the armor only chuckled. ----- (Ponyville library - Still 3rd POV) The lights were out in the library. This was not unusual, seeing as how night was starting to fall. Either the lights hadn't been turned on yet, or the proprietor had decided to close up for the day. What was unusual was the hushed whispering from so many ponies lying in wait for the guest of honor. Two in particular stood out. "Pinkie, all I did was tell you about the offer I made! Why does that mean you have to throw a party?" "My Pinkie Sense told me that someone new would stop by in town, but I just didn't know when! So when you told me about what you did, I realized it lined up perfectly, because this Aury's not a pony, and my Pinkie Sense for somepony new coming to visit hasn't gone off either!" "...For you, that makes a surprising amount of sense. By why the library?" "This is where you told him to meet you, silly! So this is where the party has to be!" Any further discussion was cut off by a flash of golden light shining through the front windows. "Shh! That's what his teleporting looks like! He's here!" Indeed, there was a knocking noise at the front door not a moment later. Twilight rolled her eyes and sighed before speaking in a slightly angry tone. "Oh for goodness sakes, this is a public library! No need to knock!" Another moment passed before the front door creaked open, and the voice of Auric filled the air. "Well, yes, but seeing as it's also a residence, and a currently dark one at that, the polite thing to do is-" "SURPRISE!" The lights came on to reveal that somehow, Pinkie had wrangled quite a few ponies besides the Bearers into coming to greet Auric on his first official visit to Ponyville. Noted amongst the crowd were Lyra Heartstrings, Time Turner, Ditzy 'Derpy' Doo, Colgate, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Berry Punch, and Bon Bon. However, besides the aforementioned guests and Bearers, one thing quickly stood out. Auric had disappeared. "Wow, he's fast! I didn't even see him move! Where'd he go, Twi?" Twilight quickly cast her gaze around, looking for the errant human. There hadn't been a flash of gold, so she doubted he'd cast any spells. Just as she gave the room and immediate area outside the door another glance, she heard a scratching noise from above her. Realizing what may have happened, she slowly craned her head back and looked directly up. Clinging to the ceiling was the form of Auric, his eyes darting between all the ponies that were there. And when he spoke, Twilight instantly realized what had gone wrong, as his voice held an edge of panic to it. "You're here to pay me back for all the things I did, aren't you? That's what this is, a highly compact mob ready to overpower me, isn't it?" Twilight opened her mouth to offer a rebuttal, but Auric's paranoia would not be denied. "I've not survived my duels with the Sisters for no reason! You'll never take me alive, and it'd be darn hard to kill me now!" And before anyone could reassure the human he was so in the wrong, he vanished in a burst of flame, while another one appeared at the front door, revealing Auric again as he began to run away from the library. Twilight sighed. Auric was proving to be more trouble than she'd planned for, but still within containable parameters. "Dash, Pinkie." The two stepped forward and gave a mock salute, to which Twilight responded by rolling her eyes. "Find him and stop him from going too far, I'll catch up, and we can all explain. In the meantime, if you all would please not make a mess until we retrieve the guest of honor?" The murmured reassurances and nodding heads set the librarian at ease as she and her friends went out to find and hopefully retrieve the wayward biped. ----- (Auric POV) Too many ponies, too small a room, too much, too much, too much! Need a place, need a safe place, need somewhere I can catch my breath, need- Is that a lake? That'll do. It's pretty calm and still, it'll make for a nice thing to focus on. Okay Auric, breathe. In, out. In, out. Control yourself. Calm down. Good gods, when was the last time this happened? I haven't had a panic attack like that in... ...Well, ever, here. Guess it has something to do with not being technically alive for all that time. And now that I am, being around unfamiliar ponies in tight spaces without my meds... Yeah, that was bound to happen. Maybe they have a pharmacy I can visit to get something to help me control myself. Can't be running off every time I feel unfamiliar eyes on me. Wouldn't get anywhere. "Pinkie! He's by the lake!" "Okie dokie! Hey Aury!" Are those- yep. Rainbow and Pinkie. Gotta say, Twi does pick the right ponies for the job. Rainbow's supposedly the fastest pony around, and Pinkie...let's not get into Pinkie. I'll have to run some tests around Pinkie to see if there's any explanation for what she does. The two came to a stop in front of me, and I let out a sigh. "So. You're here to ask me what that was all about, I guess." They nodded and made to ask me a question, but I held up my hand to forestall it. "Allow me to tell you. I have a...condition. If I'm in a small space with too many people I don't know, I tend to have a panic attack. I used to have medication to help me control myself before it got out of hand, but I haven't had any for some time. Frankly, this was bound to happen sooner or later." Twilight made her presence known off to the side by clearing her throat. "Interesting. So what would you say is the threshold for these attacks?" I looked up to the sky and hummed for a moment. "Five unfamiliar faces are enough to cause me to feel uneasy. The smaller the room, the faster it happens. I sorta know of you and your friends the Bearers, but not well enough to call any of you my friends. So really, my mind went out of control with the first panic attack I've had for some time." Twilight nodded, and then a look of confusion crossed her face. "For some time? And all those things you said...Auric. Will you tell us about yourself?" I pursed my lips, thinking. "Ummm. At the party, for sure. Once I get my breathing under control, I'll be good for a little while. So long as the ponies there make an effort to introduce themselves, then I should be able to cope. They won't be unfamiliar anymore." And so, the four of us made our way back. ----- The party was fairly tame and a bit childish, and I only had to breathe deeply three times. First was when I walked in the door and all the ponies stared at me. Hello, blurred vision, it's so nice to meet you. The second time was when I started having flashbacks to my last night on Earth. About the party and suddenly vanishing, only to reappear in the Everfree Forest, when this whole mess started. Probably didn't help that Eureka was hanging off my hip. And the third was when Twilight suggested a Q & A session, so that we could each learn about the other. Namely, I would point at a pony, they'd introduce themselves, which would essentially be my question anyways, and then they'd get to ask a question about me. I really had to breathe deep when I realized I was trying to acclimate myself with an entirely alien culture. And not just punish the ponies in it, but rather, live with them. Eventually I calmed myself and nodded at Twilight, signaling I was ready to begin this minor interrogation. A plum-coated earth pony stepped forward then. "Berry Punch, I run a winery in town. My question is, what are you? I don't think many of us have seen something like you before." A few murmured assent at the question, and I ran a hand through my hair. "General name, Human. Scientific name, Homo Sapiens. Bipedal, mammalian, and for the purposes of this question, I break the norms. Normally, humans have no access to magic at all." Here I lit up my right hand with a bit of power, catching their eyes, but most notably those of a brown earth stallion in the back. "I'm not normal, though. My story is a bit more complex, and it's not what you asked about at all, so I'll skip it for now. Humans have no flight, no magic, just our bodies and brains. And yet, in my home dimension, we became the dominant species." A few ponies whispered at that, and I pointed at the next one, a light blue coated unicorn with a dark-blue and white mane and tail. "Minuette, but everypony calls me Colgate, I'm the dentist. I notice you have a rather odd dental structure. Can you tell us what humans eat?" I sighed and let my hand drop. "Okay. Minuette, c'mere and take a look in my mouth. They'll believe you first, then I can step in." The pony let out a nervous gulp before inching forwards. Once she was close enough, I crouched down, she reared up, and I opened my mouth. About ten seconds passed while she just looked in my mouth, not saying a word. Finally, she let herself drop to the floor, and looked at me with only the vaguest hints of fear in her eyes. "So. Both?" I nodded and turned back to the crowd. "Humans can digest most of the same plant matter you can, save for grasses and flowers. However, they do require a source of...protein to stay healthy. And a while back, the easiest, best way to go about it was to gather it from...readily available sources. Such as animals." There was silence for a moment as the ponies realized they were standing in the same room as an omnivore, and I held up a hand to try and forestall the panic. "Now, granted, just because I need to consume protein, doesn't mean I will attempt to do so to any of you. Humans do have this sort of rule where we don't eat anything that can talk back to us. Though, it is quite lonely back in my home dimension, seeing as how they're the only sapients there. Regardless. You all can talk, and as such, I would never attempt to eat any of you." There was a uniform sigh of relief at my statement, and I was relieved as well. That could have gone very badly. I pointed to the sea-green unicorn, and she stepped forward with a wide grin. "Lyra Heartstrings, I play the lyre, and I also study non-equine cultures. The prospect of learning about yours is absolutely fascinating. Would you let me?" I chuckled a bit and pointed to Twilight, who appeared to be taking more notes than a court stenographer. "If you two can work something out, then yes. Don't want to exclude either one of you and have you feel slighted." Lyra did what I can only call a hoof-pump in victory as she trotted over to Twilight's notes and began reading them. I pointed to a cream-colored earth pony with a blue and pink mane next, and she stepped up while rolling her eyes. "Sweetie Drops, but everypony calls me Bon Bon. I run a candy shop in town, and I apologize for Lyra. My question is, why are you wearing so much clothing?" There was a pause while I tried to work out not only a good way to explain my answer, but why she would ask that. Then I realized. Oh yeah, ponies have coats. They don't need clothes as often as humans do. "Okay, first let me observe that ponies have a coat of fur to keep their temperature more or less regulated. Humans don't have that good fortune; a while back, when we were still evolving into what we would become, the style became less hair, more clothes. Somewhere along the way, we attached a taboo to going around unclothed, which, frankly, I appreciate. We don't have a way to hide anything without clothing, and I don't think you'd WANT to see it anyways. So its one part survival, one part modesty." A short bark of laughter erupted from some parts of the room as the answer made its way around, and I took note of those that gave it. Mostly so I could know who to avoid drinking with. I motioned towards a white unicorn with a two-toned blue mane and purple-lensed goggles. "Vinyl Scratch, my stage name is DJ PON-3. What sorta music you humans got?" I thought back. "Well, if you can name a genre, I can tell you that someone not only found a way to record it, but someone else would find a way to make a subgenre of it. Humans are inventive like that in almost all things. But personally, I like a song with a beat, one that I can listen to and understand. Sometimes I let the music flow through me, but more often than not, I want to understand it and be touched, not blasted. Just moved." Surprisingly, she and the earth pony she'd been standing next to nodded in unison at that. Pointing at the grey-coated black-maned pony revealed another interesting query. "Octavia Philharmonica, cellist for the Canterlot Orchestra. Why do you have a sword attached to your hip in Ponyville? It's a relatively safe place." I sighed and placed my left hand on the hilt. "It's...a long story. Suffice to say, Eureka isn't exactly safe to be around. I keep it with me to make sure others don't fall victim to its curse." There was a small current of muttering before Twilight spoke up then. "Don't be silly, there's no such thing as curses." I glared in her general direction. "Eureka does have a curse. I should know, I contributed to it. And if I recall correctly, you lot are treating a Guard-Captain for the effects of being touched by it." Octavia spoke up then. "You mean the Captain of the Los Pegasus guard that was found in front of the hospital? The one who is obsessed with rules and law and order? That happened because he touched your sword?" I nodded then. "No two cases are the same, but the curse remains. I could try to explain how it works, but it's a part of my extremely lengthy story, which I think I'll just record and give to Twilight to look over." I cast a glance at her before saying the next bit. "You can record it, right? Please tell me that. I'd hate to have to recite it more than once." Twilight actually giggled at that. "Yes, I have the appropriate magical crystals for recording audio already. No worries." I sighed a bit in relief then and motioned for a grey-coated, blonde-maned pegasus to come forward with the most interesting eyes. Like mine, they were golden, but they couldn't seem to focus. "I'm Derpy the mailmare! Do you like muffins?" I paused for a moment, considering the upbeat nature that she'd said that with. Now, I'm not going to say she was...disabled. Just...well, look. I worked with kids who had...mental impairments that were no fault of their own. And if not for the one with autism, you'd think they were all normal enough kids. And all of them, hearts of gold. They didn't let something they were born with get them down. The schools considered putting me in with them, but a bit of medication and deep breathing exercises, showing them that I did not need (nor would appreciate) someone trying to tell me how to manage my panic attacks got me out of it. I still helped them around, but there was a...subtle distinction. One I appreciated. So my first response was to crouch down, right in front of the mailmare, and make a show of thinking out loud. "Do I like muffins? Hmm...Well, I haven't had a muffin from a pony yet, so how would I know?" Derpy let out a gasp and somehow procured a muffin from her mane. No, I won't question it either. Just another thing on my list of things to test. "Nopony should be without a muffin! Well, you're not a pony, but you get what I'm saying, right?" I gingerly took it from her and set it on a nearby table. "Well, I'll let you know how it tasted later. I think there's still someone here who has a question." I looked from her to the stallion nearby, oddly enough, the only stallion in the entire gathering. He blinked a few times as he realized I was talking to him. "Oh, me? Oh, well, my question was both going to be a more private one, and one you've rendered moot. However, if Miss Sparkle will let us borrow a reading room, I would like to have a chat with you." Twilight opened a door with her magic, and we both walked in, him first. As I closed the door and turned about to face him, I realized there was something about his eyes. Those light blue eyes. They suddenly seemed to not only look at me, but be looking into me, as though he were measuring my character with just his eyes. And then he actually spoke to me, which didn't help any. "You still have a purpose here." I blinked and shook my head, trying to clear it enough to ask critical questions. "How would you-" "The power you have unleashed on the land will soon be turned against it, and you will be called on to defend it and yourself in more ways than one. Take heed, Knight of the Eclipse. Ready your sword arm and your mind, for both are the most deadly weapons and stalwart shields this world can hope to find." And with that, the pony pushed past me and left not only the room, but the library. Derpy stuck her head in with a slight look of befuddlement on her face. "Why did Doctor Hooves leave?" My puzzlement just got worse. Did I just get future information from a pony version of Doctor Who?! ----- (Location: ??? POV: ???) "Amazing. Subject six seems to have an inborn response to being drained to the point where it is physically harmful. When the machines are turned off and the subject is given time to recuperate, the first thing the power does is heal the subject's physical ills." There was a scratching noise of quill on parchment. "Additionally, the captive stallion that was fed love poison and forced to look at the subject seems to be doing well enough for the subject's love requirements. This and a small bowl of mushrooms and bread three times a day, along with all the water the subject asks for, is enough for the subject to survive." The slightly-larger-than-average changeling panted as it fell back against the table it was strapped to. Above her glistened an array of machines that would have been an impressive, shiny, and sharp array, but she couldn't come to marvel at them. They were coated in her blood at the end, after all. "Yes, the subject is doing wonderfully for my procedures. I am even now learning more about this 'psynergy'. However, seeing as how the subject claims there are four different strains of this power, I will require three more subjects. And I have no guarantee that they will survive the procedures like this one." There was a disappointed sigh from somewhere behind her, and the changeling knew the crazed scientist was giving her a more in-depth examination. "Still, one will be enough for me to confirm or deny my ideas or theirs as to how this power works." The nymph let out a hacking noise as she tried to speak. "You will...rue the day...you crazed mare..." "Oh really, subject six? And why is that?" "They will...find me...or my name isn't...Princess Vespula..."