//------------------------------// // 11. Introductions Are In Order // Story: Longest Night, Longest Day // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// “Trixie, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest,” Lyra said as they trotted through the Everfree. Trixie stopped on the rough trail, looked around, and then let out a long sigh. “Yes,” she said, knowing what Lyra was going to ask. “Yes. I’m lost. Or at least I don’t know where I’m going. When Princess Luna brought me here, we flew in, and it was years ago, and I wasn’t trying to remember the way.” “Great,” Carrot Top declared, rolling her eyes as the rest of the ponies all came to a stop, and all six tried very hard not to think about the fact that they were standing idly under the gnarled, twisted boughs of the Everfree Forest. Something was wrong with the Everfree – no, not quite that, Trixie thought. Something being wrong with the Everfree implied that there was some outside force causing its peculiarity. Trixie was fairly certain, however, that instead something was simply wrong about the Everfree Forest. The trees and plants grew on their own, according to their own designs. The creatures – the animals, yes, but also the other things in here – took care of themselves. And the weather, as Trixie had recently learned, also moved and changed seemingly randomly. Theoretically, the eerie feeling of the Everfree should have been lessened by the sun hanging high overhead. It may have been midday, still, but it was also the middle of winter, even in the Everfree, meaning that the trees had no leaves on them and plenty of sunlight was shining into the forest, lighting its darkest corners. On the other hoof, not only was the sun shining in the clear blue skies – still faintly studded with stars beyond the disc’s glare – but it seemed to be burning with more intensity than was natural for the season. The snow and ice that blanketed the Everfree was melting quickly, making the air unexpectedly stifling, especially for six ponies clad in winter capes and hats. The two unicorns in the group, at least, were grateful that they had thought to leave their additional articles of clothing behind at Carrot Top’s. “Hang on,” Raindrops said, beating her wings and rising. “I’ll see if I can get us a point of reference or spot the ruins…” The other five ponies watched her rise into the sky, then looked between each other awkwardly. So far, their valiant quest to save Equestria and its ponies had amounted to a walk through a humid forest full of melting snow, bothered only by their imaginations and the stories of the place. The silence stretched. After a moment, it continued to stretch. And eventually, it proceeded to continue to stretch. “Somepony,” Carrot Top broke the silence at last, eliciting a startled jump from Trixie and Ditzy Doo both, though the others handled it somewhat better, “please just say or do something so I can stop thinking about the past few hours.” There was a pause that threatened to become another bout of awkward silence before Cheerilee spoke up. “Well,” she said. “Apart from Lyra, I don’t know most of you very well. So how about we start with that?” She nodded to herself at the thought. “Just like on the first day of class, or when a new student comes in, they introduce themselves and say a little about…” she trailed off after a moment at the looks from the other ponies, and hung her head. “Sorry…stupid idea…” Ditzy Doo shifted uncomfortably for a moment, before stepping forward. “Hi everypony,” she said, her voice somewhat monotone. “I’m Ditzy Doo. I deliver the mail to you,” she pointed to Lyra, “and you, or I will once you start getting some,” she pointed to Trixie, then finished by pointing straight up, “and to Raindrops. I have a very severe case of strabismus – walled eyes – and have since I was born.” She thought a moment, scratching the back of her head with one hoof in thought, before chuckling. “And I’m a horrible judge of character when it comes to stallions.” Her low laughter prompted similar chortles from the other ponies. Trixie assumed that Ditzy was referring to whatever circumstances saw her carrying and raising Dinky Doo at so young an age. It was probably a good sign that Ditzy Doo was able to laugh at the situation. Cheerilee nodded. “Oh!” she said. “And your cutie mark? Your special talent?” Ditzy Doo blinked. “Um…” she said, looking at her flank, where seven bubbles floated. “Air currents. I’m really good at feeling air currents, even tiny breezes. I’d probably be a weather pony if not for my disability.” Cheerilee offered a polite series of hoof-stamps for Ditzy Doo, and the other four ponies, despite themselves, joined in. “Okay,” she said, “who’s next?” “Me,” Lyra volunteered. Trixie did not find it surprising that the two ponies who’d personally lost somepony were the most eager to take part in Cheerilee’s little exercise, to try and forget about Corona stealing their loved ones. “Lyra Heartstrings. My special talent is music, especially strings and especially the lyre, but I can play just about anything you put in front of me, and I’m a good singer, too. I’ve just spent three years at Luna’s magic academy on a music scholarship. And I…” she got up on her hind legs, wobbling a little before balancing, “can do…” she began leaning backwards, almost falling over, but her forelegs arched out over her head in a thoroughly painful-looking position, “this!” The five ponies stared at Lyra, now with her horn nearly brushing the ground beneath her, legs splayed out unnaturally and with a grin on her face. “Ew,” Trixie declared. “Ew.” “Doesn’t that hurt?” Carrot Top asked. Lyra let herself fall onto her back, before picking herself up. “Not really,” she remarked. “I’m double-jointed pretty much everywhere.” “Ew,” Trixie repeated. Lyra stuck her tongue out at her, prompting another round of low laughter from the group. Thankfully, Lyra didn’t seem to have – or else chose not to demonstrate – any facial contortion talents. “That was…interesting,” Cheerilee decided. “I’ll go next. I was born in Ponyville and I’ve lived there my whole life. I teach the elementary school there. My cutie mark,” she turned slightly, presenting her right flank to the other four ponies, showing off the trio of blossoming yellow flowers, each of which had smiling faces on them, “represents my love of seeing my students learn, grow, and eventually blossom into whatever livelihood they want.” There was a moment of silence. “And?” Carrot Top asked. Cheerilee offered a slight chuckle, blushing. “Um…that’s really it, actually. I’ve kind of been so concerned with getting a teaching license over the past few years, and then making sure that my first school year was going well, that I haven’t really done much else or…anything…” “Oh, come on,” Lyra objected. “Even I’ve had time to see BonBon every now and then, and you were never that shy before I left...there’s got to be somepony…” Cheerilee was probably blushing, but with her coat color it couldn’t be seen. She shook her head. “Not really, no.” “We’ll have to fix that,” Lyra said, tapping a hoof to her mouth in thought. “Oh, here’s an idea. Trixie’s really friendly after a few drinks, she’d probably – ” “Excuse me?” Trixie interrupted. “Hush, I’m speaking for you,” Lyra commanded. That prompted considerably more earnest laughter from Carrot Top, Lyra, and Ditzy Doo, while probably Cheerilee and definitely Trixie continued to blush furiously. “I’m not into mares,” Trixie interrupted. “That’s not what you said a few nights ago…” Lyra observed. “Me, and BonBon, and Pinkie Pie…” “That was the bourbon. The bourbon is equal-opportunity. I’m not into mares.” Cheerilee managed to laugh at that, and even Trixie couldn’t suppress a slight grin. “I’m not either, actually,” she assured Trixie, as she turned to Carrot Top. “Okay, Carrot Top, how about you?” Her fellow earth pony followed the established pattern of showing off her cutie mark. “You can probably guess what my special talent is,” she said of the three carrots emblazoned on her flank. “I was actually born in the city, though, in Fillydelphia, but I used to come down to Ponyville to help my grandparents during the summers and the harvests. I was studying to be a…” she trailed off a moment in thought, before shaking her mane. “I don’t even remember. It wasn’t important, never really held me much. I loved the farm too much, and I earned my cutie mark there when I realized how much, when my grandparents first told me how good I was at planting and tending and harvesting and so on. When my grandparents passed on, well, my parents have their own lives in Fillydelphia, but all I wanted was to keep Golden Harvests – that’s my farm’s name – in business, didn’t want the farm just sold off. I’ve…been managing.” She grimaced as she looked to Trixie. “In all honesty…the festival helped. It helped a lot. You were right, the smaller farms in Ponyville shouldn’t just sit on the sidelines and let the Apples run roughshod over us.” Trixie shook her head. “That doesn’t make what I did right.” “It means you did the right thing for the wrong reasons,” Carrot Top countered. “You said you were sorry. That’s what’s important.” By now, everypony was looking expectantly at Trixie. The blue unicorn blinked as she realized this, looking up. “What is taking Raindrops so long?” she asked nonchalantly. “Come on, Trixie,” Cheerilee said. “The rest of us have opened up. You’re the one I was most curious about, though.” “Yeah,” Ditzy Doo confirmed. “I mean, we all knew about each other in some ways already even if we didn’t actually know each other. But apart from Lyra, I don’t think anypony here really knows you all that well.” “And not even me,” Lyra noted. “Nothing besides a few rumors and the past two days, anyway.” Trixie looked between her companions, then let out a long sigh, slumping a little. “Alright,” she conceded. Everypony else had opened up, she supposed it was only fair that she did – though when Raindrops went back she made a mental note to make sure that the weather pony was also pressed into this. “My name’s Trixie Lulamoon but do not call me Lulamoon, ever. I was born and raised in Neigh Orleans, but I’ve lost the accent since I’ve spent the past ten years in Canterlot.” “Except when drunk,” Lyra noted. “When it’s okay to call you Lulamoon, too.” “Apparently,” Trixie observed in a dry voice. “How’d you become Luna’s student?” The mint unicorn continued. “I mean…was there, like, some kind of contest that I missed or something? Or some special test for Luna’s school for gifted unicorns?” Trixie shook her head, and grimaced. “My grand-père – grandfather – was Quartermoon the Magnificent, the greatest magician to have ever lived. His cutie mark was the same as mine,” Trixie brushed aside her cape so that she could show off the crescent-shaped nebula of stars and magic wand that was her cutie mark. “He was an earth pony.” “An earth pony who’s special talent was magic?” Carrot Top asked incredulously. Trixie nodded. “He was a stage magician. Sleight-of-hoof, smoke and mirrors, rabbits from a hat, chop cup, making things disappear from plain sight, you name it, he could do it better than anypony else. He always had some new trick. Whenever Grandpapa came by to visit, he used to tuck me into bed and, rather than read me a bedtime story, he’d put on a private show. Everypony loved him, including one pony in particular, who made it a point to see every one of his shows whenever he came to Canterlot, though always in disguise: Princess Luna.” Trixie should have been saying what she was with immense pride and happiness; instead, her tone of voice was somber. The other ponies looked between each other as Trixie paused. “What happened?” Ditzy Doo asked. Trixie shrugged. “He got old,” she said. “But wouldn’t admit it. Until one day, on stage in Canterlot, he collapsed – liver failure. Luna dropped her disguise and personally took him to the nearest hospital. My entire family was rushed up from Neigh Orleans to see him. Nopony wanted to tell me what was happening, but I figured it out, or at least put things together as best I could for a filly. I knew he was dying, and I knew that meant he was going to go to sleep and he wasn’t going to wake up, ever. And I knew that if that was happening to me, that I’d want him to give me a magic show before I went to sleep. So I somehow managed to convince my aunt and uncle, his doctors, and Luna to let me put on one for him. It was while I was doing this for Grandpapa that I earned my cutie mark, since I realized how much I loved doing magic – spells and sleight of hoof both – and loved doing it for an audience, for ponies in general.” The other ponies glanced between each other. The earning of a cutie mark was usually something joyous and filled with wonder and glee – very often it ranked as the happiest moment of anypony’s life, or close to it. For Trixie, though, there didn’t seem to be any happiness. “So…so you earned your cutie mark…” Cheerilee observed, “while basically telling a bed-time story to your own dying grandfather…that just might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard…” Trixie laughed at that – not ironically, but a full, deep laugh at the memory, which startled the ponies from their somber thoughts. “I haven’t told you about the show yet, that was the sad part,” she reminisced. “It was the worst ever. My sleight-of-hoof was awful, even for just a filly. I botched one trick in particular and flipped a bedpan and it ended up on my head, thank the stars it was empty…” Trixie leaned forward a little, one hoof at her stomach as she laughed. At the thought of a filly Trixie wearing a bedpan for a hat, the other mares began laughing as well. “Grandpapa heckled me something awful,” Trixie continued after the laughter had died down, “but he also gave me pointers, and he was enjoying my show and what it meant. After I was done Grandpapa said that I was the worst magician alive, but that I had potential and more talent than he’d had at the same age, and to not give up. And that was the last time I saw him alive. He died early the next morning. After the funeral, Luna came up to my family and I. She said that ponies with magic as their special talents are rare, but ponies with doing magic for others are one in a million. She offered me her personal apprenticeship. My family agreed, I accepted, and…well, here I am, saving the world.” “And trying to ruin festivals,” Carrot Top observed. “No, that was before,” Ditzy Doo pointed out, before Trixie could respond. “Now it’s saving the world. She can get back to ruining things later.” “Are you kidding?” Trixie asked, suppressing her desire to snark at Carrot Top over her comment. “If we make it through this alive, I’m going to lock myself in a distillery for a week.” Lyra chuckled at that. “Lulamoon’s more fun than Trixie, anyway.” “We are not calling drunk me Lulamoon,” Trixie insisted, blushing furiously. “We’re not.” “You’re not,” Cheerilee corrected, tapping a hoof to her mouth as she considered it. “I think we’re going to.” Everypony began laughing at that, even Trixie. The comment wasn’t all that funny in and of itself, but given the stress and pain of the last few hours, it felt good to just unwind and laugh, even if only for a little while, forgetting the dire situation they were in and pretending that they were just by themselves in a warm home somewhere. “Hey, what’d I miss?” a voice called from above the five ponies. Looking up, they saw Raindrops overhead, coming in for a smooth landing beside the other five. Cheerilee pointed at her. “Cutie mark and embarrassing personal details, now,” she ordered. The other mares, besides Raindrops, burst out into a fresh round of giggles, as Raindrops simply looked between them like they’d lost their minds. “O…kay…” the pegasus ventured. “So we’re just going to sit here laughing instead of saving Equestria and the kidnapped ponies, then?” That managed to kill the mood rather thoroughly. “It was Cheerilee’s idea,” Carrot Top explained. “We were getting to know each other, rather than thinking about…well. Everything. And it was working.” Raindrops opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a new voice from behind the ponies. “How strange it was to hear laughter in my ears,” the deep, though still obviously female, voice said, “when this forest usually brings out ponies’ fears. But I found it a pleasant sound though danger presses all around.” The collective mares all turned to look, and found themselves staring at a pony, or at least a being with a pony’s shape. Her coat was striped in light and dark gray, standing in stark contrast to the bright golden rings at her ears, around her neck, and around her front right leg. She was wearing a brown, hooded cloak, though the hood was laid down, showing off a mane – striped as she was – that was styled upwards in a tall Mohawk. “Um…” Trixie ventured. “Hi?” “This is Zecora,” Raindrops said, trotting around her companions to stand next to the newcomer. “And…” she looked around, checking behind Zecora. “Where did…? Did he fall behind?” “My companion you seek? A good pace he normally keeps,” Zecora said. “He remained behind, I’d wager, to…see to a call of nature.” Raindrops nodded at that. “Ah, got it.” She looked back to the other mares. “Anyway. This is Zecora, she’s a zebra. Apparently she lives in the Everfree.” “A zebra?” Cheerilee asked, eyes wide. “What are you doing in Equestria?” “My people’s traditional shaman test,” Zecora said, nodding her head. “I have come here on my spirit quest. Great power did I feel stirring, and so I came here unerring.” The zebra grimaced as she glanced upwards. “Though I did not know I sought the sun spirit. You ponies are right to fear it.” “And you live in the Everfree?” Ditzy Doo asked. “How is that even possible?” Zecora offered a knowing smile. “Compared to the dangers of my homeland, the perils of the Everfree are easy to stand.” “I found her while looking around,” Raindrops observed. “Plus her companion. They said they know the way to the palace ruin and they’re willing to help us get there.” “Z’s willing,” a new voice said. “I don’t want to go near the place, but no one cares what I think…” Being the third time somepony had appeared out of nowhere, the gathered mares thought themselves prepared for whoever was trudging through the path covered by melting snow. They were wrong, for several reasons. He was about half as tall as Lyra, the tallest pony of the group. He was colored purple and green. Specifically, he was covered in purple and green scales. He also walked upright, on two legs, and he was emphatically not a pony, instead a being with a large-eyed head, a mouth full of sharp teeth, two short arms ending in four-fingered hands, and a short tail, with green spines running down his back. Unlike everypony else, he wasn’t wearing anything to ward off the cold of the snow, but he didn’t seem particularly bothered by it, either. “Ah,” Zecora observed, “in this foreign land he has been my boon companion: I would like to introduce Spike, the baby dragon.” “Hi,” Spike said with a wave. The ponies stared. Spike stared back. After several moments, he started making poses, flexing his muscles. “I know, right?” he asked, waving his brow slightly. “B…baby dragon?” Lyra observed, trotting forward. “He’s…you’re…what’s a dragon doing in Equestria?” Spike shrugged. “I dunno.” The ponies stared. Interestingly enough, Zecora was among them. “What?” Spike asked. “I don’t remember what I was like when I was a hatchling. Do you remember what you were like when you were all newborns?” “Okay…” Cheerilee said. “How about afterwards?” Spike shrugged again, then pointed to Zecora. “Don’t remember anything before meeting Z. We were both strangers in a strange land. So we’ve been hanging out.” Trixie blinked. “And thus was our surrealism quota filled for the day,” she observed. “With due respect to you pony folk,” Zecora said, “The sun spirit’s freedom is no joke. I do not wish to appear callous, but we should make haste to the ruined palace.” The mares tore their gazes away from Spike, then nodded almost as one. “Alright,” Carrot Top said. “Lead on.” “Okay…” Spike said with a sigh, as Zecora and the ponies turned and the latter began to follow the former. “Let’s go back to the place filled with all sorts of horrible death traps…”