//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6 - An Equestroid in Equestria 
// Story: My Little Equestroid: Stompin' is Magic 
// by ForeverChasingRainbows 
//------------------------------//


**Twilight Sparkle**


Twilight realised something strange was going on as soon as the enveloping shadows did not immediately recede from her vision. After a moment's consultation of her magical senses, she realised that the flow of time had stopped entirely - at least, for everypony else within the spell at any rate.

That meant Luna wanted a private conversation; and given what had happened to her just a few hours before, Twilight was pretty sure she knew what it was going to be about. She had slept since then, however short and fitful it might have been. Almost certainly dreamed about what had happened, if Luna or Celestia hadn't sensed it in some other way.

Now that it came to it, the anxiety she had been trying to ignore abated. The time for hiding was over. She wouldn't have to work up the courage to confess, and look her mentor in the eye at moment Princess Celestia's trust in her shattered. They already knew, and her punishment had arrived.

The tone of the veiling shadows altered slightly as a few pinpricks of light appeared in the distance. As more of them appeared, Twilight realised she could see stars in all directions, above and below. Her hooves were just barely visible under her in the faint light - standing on nothing.

Luna's form appeared out of the darkness between stars in front of her, stepping forward with an expression of surprise just visible in the starlight.

"Twilight, you're not..." Luna visibly sagged, before wrapping up the younger alicorn in a bonecrushing hug. "Oh, thank goodness," the Lunar diarch exhaled emphatically as she loosened her grip, "Tia will be so relieved. We would have come together, but she could not stand the thought of facing the beast while it was wearing your face. Hopefully this glorious piece of good fortune will help allay her guilt, as well."

"I'm not sure I understand," Twilight said carefully, "what exactly is going on?"

"You must have noticed the assault that was made upon you earlier this night?" Luna asked, standing back and looking a little confused herself. "Had my sister realised that there was a malicious entity of that calibre behind the rift she would never have sent you here. You should not have been exposed to anything like that kind of power at your age. Celestia was beside herself when we realised what it had... well, evidently tried and failed to do to you, but we were not aware of that happy circumstance at the time. I was intending to use this opportunity to take the foul thing unawares and free you, before anypony was the wiser. How in the world did you escape him?"

Twilight was so confused that everything fell out of her mouth before she could think. "I don't think there was any sort of creature behind what happened. I'd been tapping into little bits of dark magic all day, just like I practised, but by the evening it was starting to get to me. I was thinking and wanting things that were just... wrong. I should have been more careful, paid attention to the signs like I was told, but-" Twilight paused, tears welling in her eyes, and forced herself to finish what she had started. "Everypony tried to calm me down and then I lost control. Again," she said quietly, "but this time I wasn't just going to turn a few ponies into potted plants and supercharge a dragon egg, I was going to do something terrible. Then Rainbow Dash smacked me in the horn and stopped me. If she hadn't done that, I'd have-"

"Twilight Sparkle," Luna declared firmly, "you are not to blame for what transpired, regardless of what you may think. Trust that I speak from experience when I tell you that you did not fall. You were pushed." Luna's tone softened as she continued, "There was an adversary at work here against which none of you could hope to contend alone, and yet you and your friends have emerged victorious once again. The method used hardly matters if you are all safe. Do not blame yourself for this, you simply lacked the experience with dark magic necessary to detect and repel the thoughts he was forcing into your mind." Luna bowed her head. "I am sorry. Celestia and I have both failed you in exposing you to a risk like this."

"But how can you know it wasn't me?" Twilight asked, despondent. I remember thinking those things, and feeling good doing it.

For a brief instant, the starlight dimmed and Luna's shadowed form grew. Her turquoise irises flashed with an inner light, turning a colder shade of teal as their pupils contracted to vertical slits. Then, as soon as it had come, the shade was gone.

"Trust me," Luna said, embracing the younger alicorn once more, "I know."




**Rainbow Dash**


She wasn't too sure about the whole jumping-through-shadows thing - it was cool, but also a little on the creepy side - but Rainbow Dash was definitely down with not being in a cave any more. Doubly so because she hadn't had to go back through that stupid tiny passageway. Although, now she thought about it, that prospect didn't seem to bother her as much as it had a few minutes ago. Maybe there was something to that whole mood-influencing thing Twi had been going on about.

"Fresh air!" she whooped, launching herself into the sky for a quick loop or two. It was now mid-morning on the surface, and there were a few loose clouds hanging around. Some lazy weatherpony in Appleloosa had probably just shoved them out into the desert instead of breaking them up properly.

Silver lining though, she thought, free pillows for Rainbow Dash!

There weren't any decent trees around in the rocky wilderness, so a low-flying cloud would have to do for the time being. Somepony had said something about waiting for some guards or whatever, and then Rainbow had stopped listening, but if they had to wait for something then it sounded like it was naptime.

Rainbow plopped down gratefully onto the closest cloud, gripping her prize loosely with her spread legs as she used her wings to push it back towards the group on the ground.

Dark magic thingy fixed up, not in a stupid cave, sort of met a real live horse, found a loose cloud to nap on... yep. Everything's coming up Dash!

As Rainbow drifted back into earshot of her friends, she caught the tail end of Twilight still talking to Princes Luna about something.

"Before you go, if you don't mind my asking," Twilight was saying, "I know that it's a private thing, but did you learn anything about our visitor from his dreams? Should we be worried about him? I mean, he didn't seem dangerous when Fluttershy was bandaging him up but..." Twilight looked towards the creature's prone form. "He is pretty large, and after what you said about the thing on the other side of the portal I-" She paused, turning back to Luna. "You don't seem too concerned about leaving him with us."

Princess Luna's brow furrowed, her star-studded ethereal mane drawing in a little closer to her body. "You are correct that a pony's dreams are a very personal and private thing, Twilight Sparkle," she replied, voice free of rebuke, "but I understand your concern. Although our mysterious companion's mind is unfamiliar to me, I did manage to glimpse a few things. I cannot in good conscience repeat what I have learned by those means, but I do not think he would begrudge me telling you that he is both opposed to that entity and thoroughly committed to his friends."

"Oh. Oh, good!" Twilight said, happily. "So he's not dangerous then?"

"I did not say that, Twilight Sparkle," Princess Luna warned. "He upholds the law in a harsh world, and is most assuredly dangerous. There may also be some..." Luna paused, as if looking for the right word, before a slightly mischievous grin tweaked one corner of her mouth, "'fun' in store for you and him both when he wakes. But he is an honourable stallion. If you give him no cause for it then there will be no conflict, although I believe he phrases the sentiment somewhat differently."

"So," Applejack said thoughtfully, "Don't start none, won't be none? Sounds fine t'me."

Rainbow Dash suddenly saw the family resemblance between Princess Luna and her sister as the small grin on the alicorn's face bloomed into a full 'I know something you don't know' smirk.

"If there is nothing else, then I should really be heading back to Canterlot," Luna said, putting the conversation back on track. "It might be best if our guest awakens here in slightly more familiar surroundings before being exposed to any more new and strange things. I assume you are all eager to learn more about him, but he will likely desire to be returned home in short order. Our curiosity can wait until he recovers, and should not take precedence over our efforts to send him home again. My sister and I shall begin the necessary investigations posthaste."

"Oh pickles, that's gonna make sorting the party out even harder," Pinkie complained, before stifling a giggle. "Heehee, pickles."

"Thank you Luna," Twilight cut in, trying to ignore Pinkie, "that sounds great. Thanks again for getting us out of that cave. And, you know... the other thing."

"Think nothing of it Twilight Sparkle, I am relieved that talking was the only thing for which I was required. If you feel the need to speak more of what happened, then I will be more than happy to listen."

Still belly down on her cloud just above the group, head hanging over the edge, Rainbow Dash added her own thanks to to round that followed. It was hard to tell but she thought Princess Luna might have been blushing a little when she made her final farewell. Rainbow noted that Luna seemed to have gotten over the worst of the thee-ing and thou-ing stuff too, although she thought that had been sort of cool in its own way.

I still owe her one pranking for last Nightmare Night though.

"Well, I for one am glad that's over," Rarity declared once Luna was on her way. "Hopefully we won't have to wait too long, all this dust is positively ruining my coiffure. And speaking of ruined," she went on, looking around the campsite, "we should probably do something about this mess." A dust-streaked curl of her purple mane flopped in front of her face, and Rainbow Dash was pretty sure Rarity turned just a little bit whiter. "Once I've done something about that," the unicorn said shakily, staring slightly cross-eyed at her dishevelled mane.

The camp didn't look all that bad to Rainbow Dash. Sure, her tent was in a hole, but that wouldn't take long to fix. Plus, she wasn't going to need the tent until it got dark again anyway, and it was the middle of the morning.

"Sounds like a plan t'me," Applejack agreed, as Rarity fled wailing into her tent. "Sun's up, and we got a job to do. Might as well get to it."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. This was exactly why she avoided Sweet Apple Acres in the mornings. Sure, the trees were comfortable - right up until somepony bucked you out of them for being 'lazy', Still, sounded like it was camp tidying time. As much as the timing was annoying, Rainbow wasn't going to sit about while her friends did all the work. Even if the cloud was super comfy. With one last longing glance at her perch, Rainbow headed down to her capsized tent.

Applejack had already kicked free the pegs and grabbed the nearest end of the blue-and-yellow tent to begin dragging it out of the hole when Dash arrived. The sight of the undermined end of the tent - still full of the tangle of blankets and other stuff that had fallen into it - snagging and catching on the ground gave Rainbow an idea.

"Hey, AJ, hold up a sec." Swooping to the far end of the tent, Rainbow grabbed the peak and lifted. Wings straining, she managed to get the collapsed portion of the tent on a level with the rest of it. "Ugh," Rainbow grunted in complaint, "is somepony still in here? This thing is heavy. 'Kay, try now."

Without the weighted section dragging up the slope out of the sinkhole, moving the tent proved a simple task for the pair. "Thanks for the spot RD," Applejack said, spitting out the corner of the tent she'd been tugging on, "Ya need a hoof sortin' out the insides?"

Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. "Nah, I'm good. Where's Fluttershy gone? Half the stuff in there is hers, we should probably sort it out together."

Looking back towards the rest of the encampment, it seemed the others had been occupied with building a makeshift shelter for their extra-large extra body. A couple of piles of rocks served as supports for the picnic blanket. With two corners held down to the ground by a couple more stones, and two tucked into the tops of the rock piles, the blanket formed a simple but effective little shelter that was just about big enough for the huge stallion to lie down in. Rainbow assumed that he had proved too heavy for the others to manage, as the impromptu shelter had been built around him where he lay.

Pinkie Pie had produced a strawberry cupcake from only Celestia knew where, and left it on a small flat rock near the horse's head. It looked almost comically small next to him, but Rainbow guessed he'd appreciate it anyway. She definitely liked waking up to cupcakes when she'd had a bad day, even if it was a mystery how Pinkie got them into her cloud house in the middle of the night without waking her up[1].



[1] The cupcake-sized holes in her walls had almost always closed up by the time she awoke, and Dash could sleep through much worse than the sound of distant cannon fire. The real trick, as far as Pinkie was concerned, was making sure the cupcakes only penetrated the one wall - several ponies in the countryside outside Ponyville had been unexpectedly assaulted with cake in the middle of the night before she'd figured that one out. Sub-calibre CPCBC (Cloud-Piercing Confectionery, Baking Cased) munitions were a surprisingly underdeveloped facet of bakery, but Pinkie never let things like that get in the way of cheering her friends up.



Fluttershy was fussing over the stallion's bandaged shoulder, so Rainbow landed nearby to wait while she did her thing. Pinkie seemed to have disappeared, and Twilight was sat off by herself. The alicorn looked to be doing some kind of magic exercises - levitating small rocks for a few seconds before dropping them again. Dash decided not to bother her friend, thinking she'd done enough interfering with Twilight and her magic stuff for a while. Applejack sauntering up from behind her to enquire about their guest pulled Rainbow out of her brief moment of introspection.

"So how's the big guy doin'?"

"I think he's okay," Fluttershy replied uncertainly, "I wish I understood what was going on with his legs though. I don't even know where to start with checking if there's anything wrong with them. I tried moving them around a little, but they're really heavy - and I don't want to risk hurting him when I don't know what I'm doing."

Rainbow stepped a little closer to the oversized stallion, examining the large metal plates covering his thigh. "Do you think they work? I mean, if they're just metal legs, then how does he even stand up or walk around? Wouldn't all these joints just fold up? And speaking of weird stuff," Rainbow went on, glancing at the top of the stallion's hind leg, "where's his cutie mark?"

"Maybe giant horses don't get cutie marks," Applejack offered. "Seein' as how the alternative is he's a young colt, and the adults are even bigger, I'm gonna hope it's that. He's plenty big enough as it is."

"He's extremely unlikely to be a foal," Twilight interjected, walking up to join the group. "The artificial parts wouldn't grow along with him, so there's no way anypony would attach anything that permanently to somepony that was still growing. Plus Princess Luna referred to him as a stallion and not a colt, unless that was what she was being all mysterious about. If I had more of my books with me I could probably find a medical spell that would let me take a look at the insides of his legs, but as it is I guess we'll just have to hope for the best. Besides, I'm not sure if we'd be able to fix anything ourselves if we did know they were damaged somehow. Even if they're just solid metal with hinged joints we'd probably need a forge and an armourer to do anything useful, and I guess they're more complicated than that. Wouldn't be much use if they just folded up under him when he stood up."

"He did try to reach out to me at one point when he woke up," Fluttershy said. "He stopped pretty quickly because of his shoulder, but it certainly looked like he can move them around somehow."

Applejack turned to Twilight, asking "So they ain't magic then? I just sorta assumed they'd be some kinda enchanted thing. Stuff that complicated usually is."

Twilight started to answer in the negative, then paused. "Wait a second... I didn't pick anything up when I tried grabbing them, but that might actually be because the metal on the outside is some kind of magical nullifier!" Twilight gently bonked herself on the head with a hoof. "Of course! That makes so much more sense. Applejack, you're a genius!"

Rainbow Dash glanced at Fluttershy and Applejack, and recognised the same lack of understanding she was feeling. Well, if nopony else is going to say it...

"How exactly?" Rainbow asked, resigned to the lengthy and boring explanation - which she probably wouldn't understand either - that would inevitably follow.

Twilight's self-satisfied grin at figuring out a potential solution to a difficult problem widened into a full smile as she launched into an explanation. "Look at where the metal parts stop - none of them are connected, each of the limbs is separate from the others. Four strongly enchanted objects that close together would be leaking magic all over the place and causing all sorts of undesirable resonance effects. You'd have to shield and contain each one to make sure they would all keep working, leaving a small opening at the top of each leg to connect it to his body!"

Twilight almost skipped towards the sleeping giant, her horn lighting as she began examining his metallic legs in as much detail as she could from the outside. "Oh, this is simply amazing! It's almost inconceivable that somepony could build a set of enchantments this complex, but when you see it and stop to think about it it's so... so obvious," Twilight trailed off weakly. "And so totally wrong," she went on after a moment in a disappointed tone, sitting down on the rocky ground. "It's not that at all, there's no magical leakage anywhere. I should be able to pick up the enchantments from some angle, wherever it connects to his body, but... nothing."

Then, Twilight's pout turned into a fresh smile. "Well, that hypothesis is a bust, but that means the truth has got to be that much more fascinating!" she said happily, rubbing her forehooves together. "You just wait till I get you back to my lab, mister. Then it's time for science!"

Rainbow Dash couldn't help it. "Yeah, 'cos that went so well when you tried it on Pinkie Pie."

"And ya might wanna think about maybe askin' the feller first," Applejack added.

Twilight cringed a little, a nervous giggle escaping her mouth. "I'm doing the intense thing again aren't I?"

"Maybe a teensy bit," Fluttershy said quietly.

Then a thought occurred to Rainbow Dash. "Hey, actually, AJ might be on to something with the asking him thing. Can you do some sort of translation thing so we can talk to him, Twi? I mean, the poor guy's gonna have to meet Pinkie Pie when he wakes up again, and that's confusing enough even when you understand the words."

Twilight looked uncertain. "Well, I'm not really sure. Translation spells are notoriously difficult, and that's when we're talking to somepony from the same world. It's bound to be even worse dealing with a completely alien language. Plus we have no way of knowing how he might react to it - it's mental magic that skirts the edge of a very murky area as it is, because it has to dip into the minds of all the parties involved in the conversation." Twilight shifted uncomfortably. "The spell has to take the mental concepts behind what one pony is saying, then find the words that mean the same thing in the other pony's language by taking a peek inside both their heads. Plus it has to really root around in there if you want a halfway decent translation, to get things like context and cultural references, and that'll only be made worse for a completely alien culture. There are plenty of individuals, ponies and otherwise, that aren't comfortable with that sort of thing."

"And if'n he figures out what you're doin', and he takes offence to y'all bein' in his head..." Applejack piped up.

Rainbow noticed Fluttershy shift on her hooves, then open her mouth as if she wanted to say something, before reconsidering.

"Exactly," Twilight agreed, "We could ruin everything before we even start. And even if he did consent to it somehow, I'm not sure if I... hold on."

Twilight closed her eyes and bowed her head, a soft pink glow encompassing her horn. Slowly the glow intensified, and then small sparks began to jump from the tip of Twilight's horn as she braced her legs against the ground. Then, just at the point where Rainbow would normally made some sort of spark/Sparkle related joke, the glow vanished altogether with a faint snap. The alicorn groaned and rubbed at the base of her horn with a hoof. Another small barbed shard of guilt settled itself into Rainbow's chest.

"Nope, still hurts," Twilight said. "We might be able to do something with writing though, that uses the mental impression left behind by the writer and some complex cryptographic analysis to parse the text into several likely-"

Rainbow Dash guessed that everypony looked as confused as she felt, because Twilight paused before saying "It works differently, and it might be easier," with a hint of disappointment. "It'll be one-way too," she added, "unless he can somehow do magic without a horn, he's not going to be able to translate anything we write back. The spell will be relying on just my own language skills to make the messages readable, so I won't be able to translate messages into whatever language he speaks."

"So we might be able to talk to 'im by writin' messages?" Applejack asked.

When Twilight answered in the affirmative the farmpony wandered off, declaring that she'd had an idea.




**Applejack**


Applejack liked practical problems. They had practical solutions, and those she could do. Twilight was probably busy concentrating on the magical side of the problem, so she wouldn't realise that the group actually had nothing to write on until it was too late. Seeing as that was something Applejack could fix - or get fixed, at any rate - it seemed like a good job to start on.

Pinkie and Rarity had been strangely absent for the last few minutes, and Applejack was going to need Pinkie to help sort some rocks out. Rarity was probably in her tent trying to get some of the dust and dirt from the cave out of her hair, but that wasn't going to be any help in locating Pinkie Pie. Just as she was about to call out to Pinkie, Applejack stopped. Whenever she did this, Pinkie Pie was always stood right behind her, just close enough to scare the daylights out of her with her inevitably cheery reply.

After turning round - not once, but twice - to check nopony was behind her, Applejack gave up and took a deep breath.

"Hey Applejack, what'cha doin'?"

"ARGH!" Applejack yelled in surprise, "Consarnit Pinkie Pie, don't sneak up on me like that."

Pinkie Pie just stood and grinned at her. Well, as close as she ever gets to standin' anyhow, Applejack thought. The pink pony was bobbing up and down slightly, like she was trying to bounce but not quite managing to get off the ground.

"Look, Twi thinks she can do some translatin' stuff fer our big friend over there, but it's only gonna work on writin' for now. And probably only one-way, too, so we'll be able to figure out stuff he writes fer us but not th'other way 'round. But that means we're gonna need somethin' to write on. Think ya can help out?"

"Really?! That would be awesome! We could find out what kind of cupcakes he likes. I gave him a strawberry one, because those are my favourites, but they might not be his favourite so I'd really like to be able to find out what flavour he wants so I can start figuring out what kinds to bake for his surprise welcome party and then I've got to co-ordinate the colours of the decorations with the confectionery and figure out who I'm supposed to be inviting and whether or not I can send invitations back to where he came from and why are you looking at me like that?"

Land sakes, does the girl even need to breathe?

"Yer babblin' again."

"Oh. Oops." Pinkie grinned. "What were we talking about? Oh, right. Writing." Pinkie Pie sat down and shoved both forehooves into her chaotic pink mane, rummaging around for a few seconds before producing a ring-bound notepad and a small stubby pencil. She offered the items to a surprised Applejack with a bright, "Here you go!"

"Well I guess that'll work too," Applejack commented. "I was thinkin' ya could help me find some chalk and a piece o' slate lyin' around here, what with you bein' a rock farmer an'all, but this'll prob'ly be better anyhow."

"Oh," Pinkie Pie said, pausing thoughtfully, "do you need chalk? We can probably find some slate out here but chalk's sedimentary. There isn't any for miles and miles. I might have a piece somewhere if-"

"No, no, it's fine," Applejack interrupted, "this stuff is perfect. I jus' thought you'd be the one t'ask when I got the chalkboard idea. Didn't even remember that pad and pencil 'till just now."

"You never know when you'll want to jot something down! I have the greatest ideas at the strangest times, so I have to write them down before I forget."

"Are ya sure you wanna give this up then? What if ya think o' somethin' amazin' while we're usin' it?"

"Oh I've got spares," Pinkie said, yanking a fresh pad from the depths of her hair to demonstrate. 

Sarcasm is just a seven-letter word t'you, ain't it. "Well alright then, if you're sure."

Applejack picked up the pad and pencil, then headed back towards the hastily-constructed shelter with Pinkie Pie pronking along behind her.

"'Ere ya 'o," She mumbled around the pad as she dropped it next to the cupcake by the horse's head, "That do ya for writin' on, Twi?"

Twilight looked confused for a moment, before she evidently connected the dots in her head. "Oh! Thanks Applejack," She said, levitating the pad over and flipping through it, "I hadn't even considered the actual writing part yet, and a pad full of, um..."

The pad span around in the air, turning some incomprehensible collections of tightly-written symbols towards Applejack. "Are these ballistic trajectory calculations?" Twilight asked, obviously confused and slightly concerned.

Applejack was pretty sure she couldn't spell 'ballistic trajectory', never mind calculate one. "Don't look at me sugarcube, it's Pinkie's notebook."

If Twilight's wide-eyed expression of mounting horror was anything to go by, that answer just made things worse.

"Hey, the party cannon doesn't aim itself you know!" Pinkie responded, slightly indignant. "I can't just go firing the thing off willy-nilly. Well I can, but the last time I did that they took my license away for two whole months. Apparently dropping surprise parties into other countries 'could be construed as an act of war' or something," she said, inserting the scare quotes with her hooves. "If you ask me, the Saddle Arabian royal family are just a bunch of party poopers."

"You know what," Twilight said, "I think I'm just going to ignore that whole train of thought and hope it goes away. Thanks for the pad and pencil, Pinkie Pie."

"No problem!" Pinkie offered happily.