On a moonlit twilight, in the city of Las Pegasus, Mordane walked into a bar of moderate repute and sat down, keeping his hood low. When he had arrived in the small ground district of the city, there had been no intention in him to drink. After haggling with the exchange office he had exchanged the old coin and promptly found a bank with a lock box where he could deposit the large sum overnight, along with his three books.
Six hundred bits for expenses may be a little extravagant, but the jingle of bits as they weighed at his side helped, at least in a little way, to fight the onset of sadness. Hotels for earth bound ponies were far more common than you would think in a city that was mostly found in the clouds, so with time he found one. Its plain white walls, however, allowed memories to come back of a certain mare.
"Three days since she died...no, don't think about her. Just dissipate the pain. Let it flow to the far corners of your mind. Take away its power and dampen your memories."
He bolted upright. Isolation was not what he needed. No, he needed something to distract, maybe a show or restaurant but...some part of him knew where he was really going. Having found himself in front of the bar, drinking just seemed like a good idea.
Sadness can make ponies do stupid things. He knew that this was not dealing with his loss and would hurt in the long run, but another part feared looking back. Not when she was there.
His parents had always talked about Celestia with fear in their voices. Why they feared her so, he could never figure out, and he had never bothered to try. Most likely it was just caution, but how could he be certain? If leaders in humanity's past were any example she would likely try to control him. Most likely killing him rather than risk competition. His nature seemed to demand that he would always have to be on the run from somepony he had never even met. It was always a possibility she would use his parents, but that was a bridge he would have to cross when it came. He would always have to be alone.
Then she showed up. He had met a mare who was both smart and kind. Even after learning of his past and the truth of his age, she had not said no. Instead her response was to ask him to wait.
Ever since coming to this...place he had felt cheated. Life had been comfortable back on Earth. He was...content. After her however, he now was glad that he had made such a stupid mistake.
"One hard cider please," he said to the crusty bar keeper who looked him up and down.
"How old are you son?" The bartender was genuinely concerned about giving the colt alcohol until he saw those sad eyes, with tears just barely being held back. He paused. During his many years behind the tap he had seen many kinds of drinkers. Some did it for fun, others to socialize. A few however, they did it to forget.
"Old enough." The hoof placed twenty gold bits on the bar. "Keep the rest as a tip. I won't drink that much away." Mordane mentally congratulated himself for remembering to raise his hood. Many would guess him to be about sixteen with it up and a few carefully chosen words.
The bar pony nodded his head and took the coin. The young colt sat there, drinking and thinking of her some more. What use was strength without something to protect.
"Hey buddy don't you think you have had enough?" Mordane looked down at the five empty mugs before him. The bar pony hated to throw ponies out, but the young colt seemed able to drink like a pony three times his size.
"You know what ah think?" There was a slight glaze in his eyes. "I thank y-you don't understate... understand me."
The bar pony threw him out on his flank.
Wandering around, he found another bar and repeated the events from before. There were minor variations, but in the end it came out the same. He would go in pretending to hold his liquor as best he could.
"Alicorns must be better able to procss, processs...use up beer."
With each bar the human-made-pony became drunker and drunker. Soon he found himself in an alleyway as the darkness above him just touched the sky. It had not even turned dark when the drinking had begun. Looking up into the air he began to follow the path of papers. He sat there for an hour. In his meditations he had looked at the air before, but now that his perception was altered it seemed so much more. The wind was alive.
The shape of the wind moved like a curtain in front of him. His drunken mind reached out and followed the flows. Soon he noticed a pattern. The wind looked like her.
Then it WAS Star Charmer. She floated over to him and began to speak from beyond the grave.
At least that is what Mordane thought at the time.
"Mordane, Mordane my love! I have come back to... Are you drunk?" The voice of hers switched from other worldly to normal as soon as her eyes focused on him. Mordane smiled.
"Hey pretty lady I remember you... pretty lady. You look stupid."
The mare facehoofed while floating above him, not believing the state he was in.
"Celestia buck it Mordane, you're a mess! Just look at yourself. Is this how you are going to remember me?"
"Heheha Celestia... I never told you what I thought of her... I never told you a lot of things... never had the chance."
Some part of him knew it was not real. That part was currently battling sea pirates on an ocean of toffee.
"Look Mordane... We weren't together long, but at least we knew each other right?"
Mordane had been barely looking at the image treating it as a passing fancy, but at those words his eyes flared in anger then focused on her.
"NO! No... you get to just... just... you don't have ta worry anymore or... hurt anymore. You're dead!" He threw a bottle at her and didn't seem to care when it passed through. "You don't have ta go on. So don't give me a buck about putting the past behind me little girl! I was twenty years your senior. Do you think I don't know pain!? Do you think you are the first woman I lost!?"
The mare looked at him with sorrow in her eyes. She came down and hugged him as he cried into her nonexistent shoulder. Time, time flows ever onward. No matter how much we may wish to stay in a moment we must move forward. He found himself alone and stood again.
Warping the magic that was disguising his wings, Mordane expanded the illusion until it altered his appearance completely. Going into another bar he began reaching out. Others came around. At first it was because of his money, but in time the alcohol flooded his senses and inhibitions fell away. He spent money freely and manipulated others to do so as well. A combination of the false image over him and his natural charisma made others flock around.
He tried to forget. The rest of the night passed by like scenes from a damaged film, only discernible in bits and pieces that came with barely any rhyme or reason.
Mordane laughing at the questions of his strange body...
Some of these ponies really know how to party...
Him handing his bits over to a stallion...
Four stallion carrying kegs of alcohol past as he dances with a mare...
The vibration of wubs pulsing through his bones...
A pony was passing out sugar cubes...
Him standing over a crowd of ponies. One asks him his name. He strikes a pose and says "I am the Party King."
Dancing with three mares at once...
Guards come in... they join the party...
He is making out with a pink mare who has three balloons for a cutie mark...
Darkness...
"Oh kill me now!"
If the princess had appeared in front of him at that very moment and declared his death he would have probably thanked her for the release from his misery. Opening his eyes proved nigh impossible at first. He focused his will and forced himself to find a center.
Opening his eyes he was confronted with a disaster area.
"What the bloody bucking hell..."
It was as if Discord himself had come down and smited the large room with all the chaos and fury he could muster and then it was absorbed by the party. At least a hundred individuals sat in various positions and different levels of consciousness.
He looked around and saw that he was sitting on a large purple couch with three mares, one of each race, all around him and a party hat on his head.
The DJ, a blue haired mare with sunglasses, was passed out on the turning table. A minotaur sat in the corner giggling to himself about something.
"Haha Iron Will...You wana lern to speakk ehehe then take a drink!"
Looking down, he froze, at first thinking with his hung over mind that he had been revealed. However it took only a moment to notice irregularities. His body was huge and... neon green even the horn and wings. The mane on top of his head seemed to be fire red. On his flank sat a keg sporting a fireman's helmet. It was only a moment more to realize that it must be caused by the Clandestine Bracelet.
I must have changed its parameters while still drunk. What possessed me to choose an adult alicorn male? One of the mares shifted. Oh yeah...
Looking around the place seemed to be some kind of public meeting house or convention center. A few ponies would smile and give him hoofbumps which he absentmindedly returned as they walked toward the main auditorium. It took some time, but eventually he was able to find a place alone within the building.
Inside the empty closet he focused and changed the amulet's parameters back to normal. As an afterthought he removed the cutie mark. After all if he met somepony from Ponyville on the way there it would be hard to explain.
He was making his way back to the main room as many of the ponies were beginning to stir. During his trek to the door, avoiding still sleeping guests and such, he overheard them as they began speaking to each other.
"I don't think that was sugar in those sugar cubes," groaned an earth pony as he pried himself out from behind a couch.
"Hey where did the Party King go!?" exclaimed a pegasus stallion who had half his coat shaved off.
"Who?" questioned a mare near him with bloodshot eyes.
"You know--the pony who threw this party. This guy..." The stallion pointed his snout into the air then regally placed his hoof flat on the end of it.
"Oh ya! That pony knew how to party!"
Mordane's face grew red as snippets of the night before came back to him. Many were rousing others and trying to find him. They seemed intent to party with him again and in some ways that almost seemed appealing.
The shock from when he first woke up did not compare to when he finally made it out the front door. It seemed that the party extended far beyond one building. Around him hastily stitched green banners with a beer bottle in the center hung from lamps and out of windows. Graffiti declaring the Party King's glory were painted on nearly every wall. When he listened carefully, music could be heard faintly in the distance, accompanied by hollers and whoops.
He moved through the streets as quickly as possible. The party zone stretched on for a full block before ending at a barricade set up by the local guards. They seemed intent to inspect him at first but allowed him to pass unsearched after he pretended to be a kid trapped from the night before.
After cleaning himself up at the hotel he went to the lockbox to get his money and then went looking for the local warehouse. Once there he was directed to a red stallion with an apple cutie mark unloading crates labelled Sweet Apple Acres.
"Why is he still wearing a sombrero?"
He answered simply to the questions put to him by the colt and when asked if he could ride in the empty cart back.
"Eeyup."
Mordane woke up in the back of a rickety wooden wagon. His hood was drawn up over his face. The colt suppressed the pain of his loss again and felt guilty when it was easier. He decided to take stock, lest the stallion had taken something while he slept.
"Let's see, two bags with five thousand bits and three books I got out of the lock box at the bank.”
“Two are brown while the other is black and sealed shut. My cuff still has Star's hair behind it. My cloak and travelling pack are still intact. My sack of rocks is still here. Wonder why I didn't think to pack any food? Oh well, need to be careful don't want to have to explain where I got this money. Hmmm, well I guess I could read this first book and see if it has a way to open the black one."
Opening to the first page he was surprised to see it was a journal.
Log#1 Day 45 Year 1 AM (AGE OF THE MOON)
We... I am Luna, avatar of the moon, the bringer of night and the bearer of three of the Elements of Harmony.
Equestria is at war. I declared the independence of the southern cities this morning... all of the cities up to and including Las Pegasus and Baltimare have declared allegiance to me against my sister.
We last met one week ago before I left for the 'magic conference'. I tried one last time to make her see reason. Star Swirl must be released! I argued, I pleaded and yes, I even begged her to release him. But she would hear none of it. According to her the magic was too damaging. Its effects too deep to repair. When she said I was blinded by love and declared, DECLARED, that I would no longer have any duties.
That I would 'take time to think' as it were.
I finally understood. Our relation has been strained for some time before this most recent transgression. We barely talked. Celestia has been suppressing Equestria's progress for years. I would suggest a mining colony in the badlands and she would say it was too hot and far, that those ponies would be isolated there. While the journey may be difficult the rewards are uncountable. She hampered research of new spells and isolated knowledge. I argued for weeks against the criminalisation of commoners teaching war magic outside of the state, but still it was labelled 'too dangerous'.
On that night, however, when she refused to release my love and then condemned me in front of the masses it finally confirmed what I had feared.
Celestia, princess of the sun, guardian of the day, has gone mad. She seeks ever more power. I now think she wishes to see me gone, put out of the way so that she may rule alone. However I will resist. Though my forces may be fewer in number I do have one advantage. Star Swirl's journal. It is magically sealed with a mind lock; however I know the way to open it...The key is a first kiss.
Mordane closed the brown book and sat there in shock.
A journal from Luna before her banishment. How impossibly rare can this thing be!? Why was it hidden in a fort behind a wall?! Not only that, she seems oddly... sane. Discussing politics and this war magic, I would not believe she was mad. Star said that Luna went insane and started calling herself Nightmare Moon. There was no mention of war--and what is this mind lock? A lock of the mind? A thought of a first kiss is the key. So I use the thought of a first kiss to open the journal somehow. How can a thought are used as a key?
Mulling over the issue he was unable to make any progress, so he continued to read.
Log#2 Day 247 Year 1
War... fifty ponies dying in a single battle. Three of Celestia's captains knew war magic. Equestria has not seen so much blood in a thousand years. So many ponies have been willing to lay down their lives so that we may all live free. How can I not be willing to risk as much to bring back my love? Tomorrow I begin my study of the fundamental magic. With it I should be able to smite my enemies and free Star Swirl. I only need the three jewels on my sister's neck.
Log#3 Day 300 Year 1
The last day of the year. I have been studying Star Swirl's notes for some time now. Winter has stopped most of the fighting and given me ample time. I can feel it wearing on me. This magic--manipulating the fundamental rules--was something no normal pony could do. Yes, even I feel its pull, but I can resist. I will not be corrupted. I will save him.
Mordane reread the passages a few times. It seemed a bit off to him.
Didn't Star Swirl live well over two thousand years ago? Is this just something that's been made up? If so then why would it be left in that place.
He, however, did not get time to finish that thought as the stallion pulled to a stop.
"Hey, you up? We’re here, just follow the road and you'll be in Ponyville in a bit."
Mordane thanked him and held out a few coins while smiling to what would surely be somepony he would meet again within the town. He simply shook his head.
"'T’aint no trouble to bring you along. Now you get on youngen."
Mordane nodded and placed the money back in the sack before trotting off to the town proper.
It was a bright day in Ponyville. Mordane was comforted by the simple nature of the structures. Yet there were some strange things. There was a building that looked like it was made of candy. Another one struck him as Japanese in design. Then there was that massive tree with a patio coming out of it. Strangest of all was the fact that most of the ponies were naked.
Now in Equestria he was well aware that there was no social distaste against nudity, but in most places they still wore clothes. The poor did it for warmth while the rich did it to raise themselves above others. Many ponies fell into these categories. The only ones who went around without clothes were the middle class, Rich enough to be able to heat their homes but poor enough to not be able to afford fancy clothes
Ponyville must be a middle class town.
A question to a nearby pony directed him towards the mayor's office.
It was a strange looking building, but he did not let that distract him. The inside, however, was an absolute mess. There were ponies running everywhere it took forever to find the mayor's office and even longer to get in to meet with anypony.
Eventually a kindly old mare made her way over to him.
"Oh I'm so sorry, Mordane was it? I'm so sorry, we’re trying to reorganize the entire system in order to account for the new princess."
”A new princess? Why would that require reorganization? Did some noble have a kid or something. An hour waiting and she passes me off on a subordinate.” Mordane mentally grumbled but smiled warmly to the mare as she checked her clipboard.
"Yes, that's right, Mordane. Your father wrote, saying you would be coming, let's see, I need to give you this.” She said passing him a piece of paper” This here is a letter for the headmaster, give it to her when you get then. Just follow this map dearie."
She pressed another pieces of paper into Mordanes hooves and shooed him out the door and into the waiting room.
This series of events had not instilled much faith in the government into the colt. In fact, the idea of sharing a cot with a bunch of children did not sound promising in the slightest.
Well, with such and ineffective governing body, it is likely that there are a few estates owned by the government. Probably pretty cheap as well.
Mordane wandered the halls until coming onto a room labelled 'Ponyville Land and Property Department'. Going inside he was not surprised to find a mare sitting behind a desk reading a magazine. He pulled up his hood and tried to put forth an air of maturity again. If she did not pay attention it just might work.
"Hello, I am Mordane Stronghoof. Would you please show me a list of the local property held by this government office?"
The mare barely glanced up before turning around and pulling out some folders on local properties. Many were in the ten thousand bit range but one stuck out. The shack seemed to be situated on the edge of the forest and was only five hundred bits, despite being rated as in good condition.
"What about this one? I assume it includes the property around it?"
"Ya," she said not even looking up. "It's that cheap because of the Everfree forest right next to it. How much does it say it costs on there?"
"Five hundred bits."
"Well that one's been around for years. Tell you what; if you want it I'll give it to ya for two hundred bits."
She can do that? What government would allow that?
"What’s the property tax?"
"None, that only applies within the town limits."
Mordane filled out the proper forms, even putting in the correct birth date. Her eyes moved over the paper and then told him to sign the back bottom corner. Then his picture was taken, with the hood still up. She handed him the deed, and with that, their business was done.
I wonder if she could tell someone if I was a colt or stallion without checking that document.
The weight of the deed felt good in his pocket as he walked out of the building. He made his way through town trying to pass unseen when a pink mare appeared him front of him, seemingly from nowhere. Her hair was the straightest he ever saw and a small stream of tears rolled down her face.
" WHAAAA sniff. Hello, welcome to Ponyville." she blew her nose. "I'm Pinkie Pie and I... I... I'M SOOOO SAAAAAD."
The mare collapsed, crying on his shoulder. It was like standing under an open faucet.
”What’s her issue?” He placed an awkward concerned look and began comforting her.
"There, there, Pinkie Pie. What's wrong?”
"Snrkt--I was at the town over yesterday and I met this colt. I... I, I LOVE HIM. WHAAAAA!"
Her crying was getting out of hoof, the tears were literal streams coming out of her face. He was already completely soaked.
"Look, Pinkie, calm down. It will be ok--I'm sure he'll like you back."
"No... No you don't understand. He's gone!"
"Gone?"
"Yes. THE PARTY KING IS GONE!"
The mare continued to cry on his shoulder as he stood there is shock. Quickly an orange mare showed up to comfort her and move her away from the frightened colt.
"Oh darn it Pinkie Pie. I ain't never seen you so sad before."
"He--HE--he's gone! WHAAAAA--OH a pie" Her hair went from flat to poofy instantly as she saw an apple pie on the stand the second mare had come from.
Mordane wisely decided to withdraw before the bipolar mare noticed him again.