//------------------------------// // Chapter Twenty One: Giant Freaking Horses // Story: The Equestrian Venture // by TheCrimsonDM //------------------------------// THE EQUESTRIAN VENTURE Chapter Twenty One: Giant Freaking Horses Written by TheCrimsonDM Two days had passed since Rita had found that letter of Starswirl’s and yet she still couldn’t decide what to do about it. She could tell Twilight, and ask for some assistance with finding out more about what was going one, but Twilight’s obsession over the old stallion could prove to be a hindrance to her search. If only she could find more of these letters, there simply had to be some more of them out there. In other news Rita was spending an awful lot of time with Pinkie Pie, although neither of them felt ready to tell anypony about their relationship quite yet. Applejack might have figured it out, but Rita didn’t care about the orange ponies thoughts on the subject, in Rita’s personal opinion, Applejack could butt out. Rita still felt as though her relationship with Pinkie was weird, she was having a hard time looking past the fact that Pinkie looked like a horse. Rita really wished that she had thought this out more, at least gave it some time to think about what to do before just committing to a relationship with the pink pony. Then again she hadn’t fully committed to it had she? She had said that she was only giving her a chance, right? Fluttershy had been more quiet than ever before, in fact the silence was becoming worrisome. Today was the final straw and Rita could no longer sit back and do nothing, so instead of hanging out at Fluttershy’s she took to some opportune exploring of Twilight’s castle. Rita had been inside a few times but only glimpsed a few rooms, and with the princess’s intelligence, Rita just knew that there had to be some sort of lab somewhere. What she did not expect to find however was a computer. Rita stood silently in front of the crystal table which held a holographic display of the entire country of Canterlot. Rita reached out with a hand and carefully touched Ponyville’s spot on the map and grinned as the map zoomed in to the location to show Ponyville in its entirety. Six orbs of various hues could be seen across ponyville. An orange one at the Apple family farm, a yellow one near the Everfree Forest, a blue one was flying circles around the town at an incredible speed, and a purple one was inside the castle. It wasn’t too difficult for her to figure out that these were all of her friends, the elements of harmony. She found it amusing that Equestria had one piece of technology that was equivalent to what she was used to back in her world, and the best part of it was that she could use this computer in ways that Twilight probably didn’t even know was possible. As Rita knelled down to examine the walls of the table which conjoined with the floor she stopped as a brand new dot appeared suddenly on the castle. It was another purple dot, but that didn’t make sense. Maybe this one was Spike’s place on the map? After all he did have a seat in this room next to Twilight’s although it was rather tiny. Rita reached out and touched the castle on the map and watched the castle grow in size until she could see a 3-d display of the entire castle’s layout. The new dot was inside the map room, sitting right in front of the map table, right where she was. Rita also saw the other purple dot walking to the room and stopping only for a moment, Rita heard the door open, and the dot continued moving into the room. “Rita, what are you doing here?” Twilight asked in surprise. “I uh… was just using your computer,” Rita said. “My what? Wait we don’t have computers in this world, I’ve only seen them in the human world,” Twilight explained. Rita turned and looked hard at Twilight for a moment before turning back to her task and examining the sides of the table. After a moment she found a crystal that jutted out awkwardly and she pushed it in. a hidden panel on the side of the table opened up and revealed to Rita the various gems, and runes at work in this computer. Half of the gems were glowing while others were darkened with dull colors. Rita let out a sigh as she wondered at just how half of the gems had been burned out. “What are you doing to my table?” Twilight asked, concern laced in her voice. “My job, I’m going to fix this thing for you,” Rita said. “Well you can do it later, the princess’s are coming over soon and I don’t need you here while I talk to them,” Twilight said. “That’s good for you, I’ll leave when I’m finished. Shouldn’t take too long, I always carry some spare gems on me,” Rita said while reaching in and pulling out a rather pathetic looking gray gem. Twilight stomped her front hoof and said, “You need to leave, Rita.” “I’ll leave when I’m done,” Rita growled back. “But this is my house!” Twilight said loudly. Rita didn’t look back and instead choose to ignore Twilight. Rita would leave after she was finished using this table, but right now she had a way to actually examine the strange green crystal’s she had found. Twilight could simply wait for Rita to get down with her research; this could prove to be very valuable not just for her, but for Twilight as well. Twilight turned around and said, “I’ll be back with the other princess’s in a few minutes. I don’t want to see you when I come back, you got that?” “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be done in a jiffy,” Rita said. Twilight practically stomped out of the room while muttering to herself, Rita found it amusing that a so called princess would allow herself to act out like that. Honestly weren’t princess’s supposed to never show any anger, only kindness and stuff? Suddenly memories of Estella appeared in Rita’s mind. A sudden throb of old pain surged through her heart, and so she went back to work focusing all her attention onto the task before her. *** A few minutes later the room was completely silent, Rita had made her way onto the side of the table opposite of the door. When she heard the door open and the sounds of multiple ponies hooves clip clopping against the crystal floor, she knew that Twilight had returned even without being able to see them from her position. “Whew, I was worried there for a moment,” Twilight said with great relief. A kind and much more mature voice stepped in softly to say, “Oh, is there a problem we should know about?” “Just a friend of mine, her name’s Rita, she was being obnoxious and wouldn’t leave my castle earlier. I thought it very rude of her,” Twilight explained, Rita could virtually hear Twilight sticking her muzzle into the air in disgust. Another voice, one not so refined and rougher then the mature mare’s had been said, “You are a princess Twilight; you should not take this kind of attitude from serfs.” “Luna,” Cried yet another unfamiliar voice. “They are not serfs, that’s rude.” Luna replied, “Oh, but was this pony not being rude in the first place? And to a princess none the less? If I should meet this so called Rita, then I would very much like to teach her where her place is.” Rita found herself grinning at the challenge and loudly closed the panel she was working on. After hearing the notable gasps from the ponies in the room Rita rose still grinning and said, “Oh, I would like to see you try.” Then Rita looked at the ponies before her and only had one response, “GIANT FREAKING HORSES!” Rita quickly ducked behind the table, with her breathing rapid and heart racing. She hadn’t just seriously saw that, did she? Rita braved herself to look one more time and poked her head over the table. What she saw terrified her beyond measure, not just because there were giant horses in the room, but also because these were intelligent giant horses. If they were going to bite her fingers off, they’d be doing it out of malice, and that thought only made it worse for her. Twilight stood on the far left, next to her was a pink coated mare who stood a head higher then Twilight. The pink mare’s mane had strands of gold, magenta and violet colors. Next to the pink one stood another mare who was just a few inches taller than her, with a navy blue coat and a mane as blue as the deep sea. A purple aura surrounded the blue one’s mane and it seemed to be flowing as though being touched by a nonexistent wind. The most amazing part of the blue pony’s mane was the fact that Rita could see stars inside it. Finally on the far right stood a horse, there was no way the Rita could think of this giant monster as a pony, horse was the only term that she could use to describe it, but even that failed to properly convey its size. Standing much taller than anypony else in the room this white mare, with a sparkling mane of green, blue, pink, and purple, stood proudly at nine feet tall if not taller. The look of complete disbelief on the giant horse’s face held Rita’s attention for a moment, until the mare took a step forward causing Rita to shriek and hide behind the table again. The already silent room fell into an even deeper silence as nopony moved for the longest time. Finally Twilight spoke up and said, “Rita, it’s okay. These are the other alicorn princess’s… nopony is going to hurt you, I promise.” Although Twilight’s voice was full of kindness and that helped to calm Rita’s racing heart a little, in the end it just wasn’t enough to make everything okay. Rita poked her head up and over the table and watched the other ponies very carefully. Nopony moved an inch but aside from Twilight, they all looked shocked, clearly they had never seen a human before. “So Twilight, would you care to explain how a human got into our world?” The white one asked with a gentle voice. Twilight rubbed the back of her neck and admitted, “It looks like she built some kind of portal to Equestria. She is trying to find a way home, but it might take a few years.” Rita heard those words and even though she was still afraid she felt a tad bit guilty of having not told anypony other then Pinkie the truth. Rita closed her eyes for a moment and said, “Actually, Twilight, I… I’m not going to be able to get home. Even if I rebuilt the portal, chances are that it would just take me to another world, one that might be uninhabitable for me.” The blue one raised an eye brow and said, “Could we not send her to that human world that you discovered?” “That wouldn’t work, she comes from a completely different world, one filled with dragons, and magic, and well it’s very similar to our own world,” Twilight explained. Rita looked carefully at the three giant ponies, she might be able to handle the pink one, and the blue one, although being much taller than her they were still understandable, but the white one was a giant amongst these other ponies and that was not something she was able to cope with. Twilight quickly said, “Oh I’ve forgotten to introduce you to the princess’s.” Twilight cleared her throat and explained, “Standing next to me we have Princess Cadence, ruler of the Crystal Empire and my sister in law. Next to her we have Princess Luna, she rules the night and commands the moon. Finally we have the benevolent ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia.” Fear gradually gave way to curiosity as Rita stood up unsteadily and said, “So you are the pony that I wanted to speak too.” “Oh, I would love to speak with you,” Princess Celestia said with her expression being soft and kind. “Good because I have some questions about-“ Rita began. “We do not have time for idle conversation dear sister, there is a dragon attacking from the south,” Luna interrupted. Celestia closed her eyes for a moment, when she opened them again her expression had turned grim. “You are right. As much as I would enjoy speaking with you, Rita, we have more pressing concerns. Will you join us?” “Why would you want her to join us? Isn’t this supposed to just be royalty meeting about a common threat?” Twilight asked. Celestia smiled and gave a wink to Rita before explaining, “I have a feeling that, Rita, might have some very intriguing information that could aid us.” Rita wasn’t sure what Celestia had in mind but it was true that Rita did have experience in fighting dragons, as terrifying as they were, it would be helpful to have someone with information about them at a discussion like this. Rita smiled and said, “Okay, I’ll join.” *** At least a half hour of useless discussion about this dragon had commenced before Rita began getting bored. Even back when she was with Estella she could not stand these discussions for long, and usually she would end them early by forcing everyone at the table to make up their minds and decide on a course of action, that usually brought a small laugh from Estella. So far, as Rita sat as far away from Celestia as she could, Rita had learned that this dragon had come in from the north, flew to somewhere in the south, and then returned to begin causing trouble on one of the towns on the border. Dragons didn’t usually partake in this kind of behavior unless they felt threatened, but something was different about this situation. “What kind of dragon is this?” Twilight asked, finally a question that Rita could work with. “We do not know,” Replied Luna. “It is gray and seems to be carved from stone, its eyes are like great purple gems that can pierce one’s hart, and finally it has yet to use any fire breath. We do not know what the origin of this dragon is.” “Hmm, this sounds awfully familiar to the dragon golem that was made by Starswirl to guard my old castle’s treasury,” Celestia said. “So wait,” Rita said now standing up from the table. “This could very well be the dragon that flew away after I looted the Castle of the Two Sisters?” Silence again covered the room, and then Twilight broke that silence when she screamed, “YOU DID WHAT?” Celestia gave a soft chuckle which grabbed the attentions of Cadence and Luna. Rita looked at Twilight and said flatly, “I looted the castle, it’s not like anyone was actually using any of the weapons there.” Twilight jaw dropped and she stared flatly at Rita. Rita continued staring back at Twilight until she realized that Celestia was still laughing, Rita looked over and saw the giant pony holding her side and her eyes closed as she tried desperately to stifle the laughter, failing utterly of course. Rita found it amusing and hilarious that such a giant pony and ruler of a country would have such a hard time trying not to laugh, and so Rita ended up joining in the laughter. Luna and Cadence looked at each other in disbelief for a moment before nervously joining in the laughter as well. After a few minutes things calmed down again and Twilight looked at Celestia and asked, “How can you find this funny? She robbed you!” “Twilight, everything in that castle has been abandoned for such a long time. I don’t think that I will ever return to that castle, so if anypony finds something they want from it, I don’t mind in the slightest if they take it. Beside’s that, Luna has already grabbed everything she wanted from that castle,” Celestia explained calmly. “Yes I did, although there was not much left alone from the ravages of time,” Luna said. Rita sat back down and relaxed in the chair she had been sitting in, it was the chair with an apple on it. “So that was pretty awesome. I like you Celestia, you’re an awesome princess,” Rita said. “Thank you, I have not had many ponies call me ‘awesome’ before. I’m grateful for the complement,” Celestia said. “So this dragon golem, what do we do about it?” Rita asked the group. Everypony was silent for a moment before Celestia said, “I would like it if you and Twilight went to stop it. I’ve had somepony keeping tabs on it for me lately, but I’m afraid that she isn’t able to defeat it on her power alone, although her power is sizable.” “Oh, who is that?” Twilight asked. Celestia smiled gently and said, “It’s my new apprentice, Trixie Lulamoon. I assume you are familiar with her.”