“Again”
“Really- I don’t see what I have to gain in doing this, Miss Fleur-”
A resounding smack rang out through the fields of Sweet Apple Acres as Applejack was whacked lightly by Fleur’s unicorn magic. This had been going on for a few days- Applejack having to explain how she had gotten some of her new friends to her family being the easiest to do. The extreme training regimen that Fleur created to 'whip her into shape' being a tad more confusing and painful than she expected.
The explaining of her new friends wasn't completely easy though. That had been an awkward situation since one of those ponies was Princess Luna. Which her mere presence made her family confused if they should treat her like one of their own or if they should treat her like a Princess. Her family gave up and quietly accepted that they should just let this pass and see what in the world was going on.
So that just meant that everypony had to see Applejack get her Iron Pony competitive streak get slowly beaten out of her with Fleur Di Lis’ quick training regimen that would make a Royal Guard exhausted.
“Applejack- do you know what I see in you?” Fleur levitated Applejack’s stetson over to her. “I see potential. You have what it takes to be a knight that Luna would like to see. I see a well built foundation but after scanning your files-”
Applejack raised an eyebrow at this. “I have what? What files?”
Fleur dodged the question with a wave of her hoof. “After seeing your ‘friendship reports’ I see a pony that doesn’t seem to learn anything but apples and apple related accessories. And seeing that I believe there is such wasted potential. Or should I remind you of Manehattan?”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Applejack blushed. She didn’t like bringing up the whole Manehattan summer that she got her cutie mark for.
“Well I was just saying that the training you got with dealing with your family there will come in handy when we have to deal with the backlash from appointing you as a knight of anything. Especially an earth pony.”
Fleur sighed. Celestia hated the insular aristocracy with their racism and general snootiness. Probably a holdover from Princess Platinum's short reign and general terrible handling of the three tribes treaties- unicorns came out on top every time. And that sense of one upping the starving earth ponies and pegasi after the near destruction of Equestria had a sense of 'we survived and came out on top so worship us' mentality. And still, to this day- Princess Platinum was hailed as a kind of Saintly Queen of a lost empire.
Applejack sighed. She still wasn't all for now being a knight and all but she felt her weapon hover deep within her mind and it called her name slowly and methodically it wanted to be used and knew that Applejack knew that as well. Arguing with a weapon that literally personified your soul was a bit difficult. Breathing slowly, Applejack stared down at the ground and drew magic into herself.
"Sing, Volsung."
She quickly pulled the ax out of her own body in a blinding orange light as it formed in what ponies termed reality. The problem with most ponies was that they were limited into believing what they could see or measure- even with magic and dreamscapes converging into a plane of reality like soulbound weapons tended to pull their dream versions into a complex form of solid matter. It was like Twilight's magnum opus idea of creating pure matter out of ephemeral nothing.
Fleur just chuckled and shifted her weight. "So you finally want to get serious after days of me just owning you? Now I could be a bad instructor of everything and actually try to beat you right now, no sweat. But if you got your fun little weapon out- even if in my opinion it does look a little bit too simple for my tastes- why don't we try something a tad more like real battle? Wouldn't that just be a fun little display? I'd get to beat your cute little ax and brag about it to Luna."
"No." Applejack charged forward in rage. Bouts of fighting with Rainbow Dash sprang to mind as she let her reaction time slow and let her strength out full force again such a pony that had been so in her face about training for days and while she was being completely off her rocker.
"Fine. Fine. Have it your way, let's do this fight a bit more evenly matched. What if I have a handicap? I could even not use any unicorn skills cause that'd just be cheating. I mean if that's okay with you." The unicorn deftly pirouetted around the ax swings and ducked as Applejack tried to stop the unicorn talking so much. Sliding to a stop, Fleur breathed slowly and gathered her weapon to herself. This whole soulbounded weapon thing wasn't that difficult if you knew what to do- and thanks to being a Royal Guard Captain, was pretty much a mandatory thing. Though she did like that her weapon had a bit more pizzazz than that gaudy ax. She did have to say that it was a tad unfair. Though she did like performing it because of its perverse beauty.
"Dance, Totentanz. Col Legno March."
Her weapon shot out of her quickly in a ball of condensed darkness that spun around Fleur just slow enough so Applejack could follow its path easily. Which was weird cause that would make it so useless. Chalking that up to her ax being much cooler than she expected or something- she hadn't gotten the whole weapon versus weapon idea yet since it had been only what felt like five minutes since this battle started, Applejack shrugged and gripped her weapon tighter. Quickly she charged and struck at the silly little ball and found nothing.
Slowly backing away, Applejack noticed that Fleur had disappeared entirely. Glancing around and keeping up her guard, she felt a tugging sensation at her legs. Looking down, she shuddered as the ground spat out skeletal remains that still waved about like living roots. A few clawed hands grabbed onto her as the ground writhed in agony as the dead rose. Skeleton bones lightly clicked against each other as the army of skeletal remains slowly advanced onto Applejack. Skeletal griffons flanked her escape in the skies as a large tatzlwurm quickly trapped her in its large embrace turning its own plated bones into the limits for the arena. Bone dragons slinked around the skies as the area became an acrid wasteland. Wet earth turned to blistering sand as the sun rained down its burning heat.
"Oh Celestia. What is going on?"
Everything slowed as Applejack tried to block some of the bony attackers with some swings but there was just too many. As they began to enclose her in some scary death thing that Applejack really didn't want to think about, she felt a dripping sensation on her coat and opened her eyes to the normal Sweet Apple Acres air.
And Fleur was calmly staring at Applejack, a black rapier just ever so slightly marking Applejack's coat with the faintest hint of red as many small cuts took their toll on Applejack. Trying to catch her breath from something out of her most terrifying night terrors, the farm pony looked up at her opponent and slumped.
"You win."
Fleur slowly broke out into laughter, her countenance shifting for poise and grace into a raucous mare.
"Seriously? I'd say you won- especially since my little Totentanz here when at full power is a tad overwhelming for most. And you stood in there for an hour- if you take into count that that was all mental gymnastics and illusion for most of that and normal ponies fall apart super quick from their brains trying to comprehend something that breaks the happy looking world they are accustomed to."
"Um, okay. I don't really feel like I won that and I don't know what I learned from this."
Fleur groaned. This mare will be the death of me. Shaking that thought from her mind, Fleur quickly waved a hoof and tried to outline it the best she could since Applejack's file didn't make her out to be stupid- just very focused on certain things like apples and family. "Well this was just a test to see if you could deal with some of the most unsavory things you have to live with. Sure, Totentanz is my soul- but it didn't always have the skeletons and all that."
"Oh. Well that's sad to hear." Applejack
"Well that's what happens when you come to terms with being in charge of something. Sometimes you have to deal with your mistakes and failures that you never forget. Take it from me- this knight stuff Luna and you have going sounds nice now, but at some point, ponies you care about will be hurt. It's a fact of life. Things are out there that are willing to do whatever they can to survive and thrive. Now I think our little training session is done for the day or at least the sunset hints that's the case."
Applejack quietly left the corner of Sweet Apple Acres that the two had been using with Fleur's silence following her every step. The words of the Solar Guard Captain echoing through her head on repeat as she quickly ascended the hill that the rest of the farm was located on heading towards a nearby hose to wash off some of her more matted coat.
Fleur watched Applejack gallop up the hill and the unicorn turned and watched the setting sun. The sky began to shift from Celestia's warming day into Luna's cool night. Gathering up her things, Fleur floated her rapier in front of her and tested the flimsy looking blade a few times. She loved her blade, even with it reminding her of every battle she was in, every thing she killed, and every pony she lost while commanding them to rush into battle. The skeletons were the remaining memories she had of her battalions she had failed to protect.
Her soul's dead lights showed her constant inner struggle.
***
On the other side of Ponyville, Luna and Pip were having a way better time.
Even if what Pipsqueak thought of as helpful to attract some ponies so Luna could help them was to put up a little stand with a sign calling Luna, of all ponies, a doctor.
Luna thought that she should have been a Princess on the sign. But Pip won when he stared at her for a full minute pouting. Luna was dead set on having the correct title- but Pip's adorable face did her in.
So that's how random ponies came up to marvel at a Princess in the midst of Ponyville and talk about their problems. Sure most of them didn't have anything of note and Luna almost nodded off a few times thanks from being awake in the daytime and messing up her sleep schedule, but this was nice. Nopony was judging her for being Nightmare Moon and she was having some fun.
While she was lost in thought, she felt a little tap on her forehoof and she glanced over to Pipsqueak who was currently drawing a chart that showed all the problems of the town with relevant informatseion in a nice easy to follow crayon form.
Luna glanced over and saw a small orange pegasus wearing a red scarf who looked exhausted. Her purple mane hung limply against her neck as her eyes were surrounded by dark circles that told of insomnia and late nights awake.
"Princess Luna. I think I might need your help with my dreams." Scootaloo slumped against the stall and began to shake violently as she tried gasping for air but finding nothing. Her scar began to slide off of her as the spasms began, which slowly uncovered two sets of gills that made Luna very worried.
Seaponies were supposed to be all gone and a hybrid was supposed to be impossible after all the things Celestia and Luna had done.
"Pip we have a problem." Luna grabbed both him and Scootaloo in her magical aura and sped off to the Golden Oaks Library. Luna trusted that Celestia's student knew more than most ponies on how to stabilize a pony suffering from a magical change. Weaving a mental link with both Fleur and Applejack was a quick separation of her mind to project some sense of calm urgency.
***
Twilight, for her part, was having a nice relaxing day. There had been no bad things that had to have her input and curling up with a book about technical uses of magic and hypothetical alternate realities was her idea of fun. Right before she could sit down in a comfy chair and crack open her book, her library door exploded into a mass of splinters. Peering over the destruction, and carefully stepping over the books that had been thrown around, Twilight lowered her shield and began counting down from ten. Thinking that Rainbow had somehow aimed her tricks at the library, the unicorn turned and saw Princess Luna standing in her regal glory.
"Twilight Sparkle, we pray that you are well and we are sorry about the door but this is urgent."
Twilight just balked and stayed silent as Luna floated Scootaloo over to Twilight. Twilight's aura meshed with Luna's and she could feel that there was something wrong with the orange pegasus. Sure, Twilight knew of the problems that Scootaloo had with flight, but she could feel that they were now gills and with more probing- and testing- that Scootaloo didn't seem to have any lungs now.
Which shocked the unicorn since she had just seen Scootaloo meet up with Sweetie after Sweetie's magic lesson. Thinking back a few days, Twilight hadn't seen anything that should have caused this change and carefully she let Scootaloo sit comfortably on a chair while firing up an intermediate spell for stabilizing her breathing.
"Now what is going on Luna? And do tell me everything about this because I don't want to go into this and change something that could hurt Scootaloo."
Pip trotted over and handed Twilight the little crayon graphs and doodles that he had gathered on Scootaloo- for while Luna had been mostly awake for the important bits of Scootaloo's talk, she had been mostly asleep for the first half. "Here you go, Mrs. Sparkle. She said she got a dream of water and woke up with this all happening."
"Its just Twilight. . ." Twilight trotted around her library, pulling off books and scrolls that might tie to the idea of dreams and magical changes. Stories of mass hysteria and hallucinations, pulling on magics from another realm of existence, and anything at all tied to sea creatures, she pulled off the shelves. Her eyes quickly scanning a whirlwind of books for any hint that there was a connection. Finally, in the smallest, most obscure tome about a fishing village on the edge of Horseshoe Bay being overrun by large sea monsters, she found something. After that attack, ponies began to change into fish ponies and the whole area was put under guard. There was no other mention of the town of Seamount ever again. Twilight dropped the book sat there in silence as her mind raced about the new possibilities that Celestia had actual records expunged and changed.
Luna floated the book over and read it and sighed. She knew that Celestia had to deal with a lot of Dreamlands business while she was sealed away, but an influx of Deep Ones causing more seaponies was unexpected. The fish creatures that had created the glassy eyed seaponies that sang in their high pitched warbles about the glory of the deep made her skin crawl. And their ruler Dagon and his consort Mother Hydra were not the most pleasant to talk to since they believed that the fish deserved to control the land.
They were supposed to be sealed at the deepest trench in the midst of the ocean. And if they were being roused from slumber, that meant somepony was doing risky business with trying to bargain with something that was too unwilling to be reasoned with. Luna trusted that her sister did right in dealing with the seapony menace, but armies and diplomacy could be worked around and possibly a hybrid had slipped through- five hundred years diluting Deep One stock might have caused this Scootaloo to be sickened. Though that was only a hypothesis since changes normally happened slowly and took a while to manifest. But no matter, if this started thanks to a dream- it could be fixed or controlled via the Dreamlands. Luna looked out over the night and heard the pattering of racing hoofbeats coming to a halt. Turning to the gaping hole that was the doorway, she saw Applejack and Fleur panting heavily.
"We got here as fast as we could, Princess."
"And we appreciate the concern because we have your first mission here, Applejack."
Applejack glanced over to Scootaloo who was breathing, but just barely. She knew of Applebloom's friend well enough to be worried that if she failed, it would be a really bad experience because she liked the kid and Rainbow doted on Scootaloo- even though the blue pegasus didn't care to admit it. Taking a breath, she nodded and saw Luna's hint of a smile.
"Now if you care to hold out your hooves, we can get going."
Applejack and Fleur held out their hooves and Pipsqueak quickly ran over and put his hoof on his mother's. Luna raised an eyebrow at Pip's decision but she didn't object. While she didn't get why colts and fillies nowadays weren't trained in the art of war and survival like she wanted, it seemed that Pip had a good head on his shoulders. Firing up her dream walking magic and pointing it straight at Scootaloo, the quartet disappeared.