If you already read the rough draft of this chapter, just bewarn that this is the same chapter just edited to sound better.
No one said anything after Tessith introduced me. Sure I’m used to being stared at, but this was getting really uncomfortable. I was about to say something, but the blond stallion spoke out.
“What are you, some sort of freak?” I felt a bit of my fire come up my throat which I had to swallow to keep down. ‘This isn’t the Empire. Burning some rude noble won’t end in an apology to the Court here.’
“Blueblood, that’s rude of you to say to our guests.” Celestia scolded him. Blueblood flinched at her comment, which made me smirk. Celestia looked back at us, giving us a sheepish smile.
“I’m sorry for my nephew’s choice of words, please forgive him.”
“Oh I don’t think that would be a problem, Princess Celestia, it’s always a bit of a shock when someone first meets her.” She smiled at Princess Celestia. “Besides, if she was really ticked off she would've blasted him to the moon.”
I whacked her with my tail again, She turned and glared at me.
“Ow! Hey, what was that for?” I rolled my eyes and glared at her.
“For you saying that I would blast anyone to the moon if I was ticked off.”
“But you would!” She snorted and looked back at Princess Celestia, who was giggling at us. The immortal, Unconquered Sun, was actually giggling at us.
“As delightful as your conversation is, I believe introductions are in order.” Celestia gestures behind her with a hoof. “These two are Captain Shining Armor and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the bride, and groom of the wedding.” Amber looks toward them giving a toothy grin.
I smiled politely, but something about Princess Cadenza was giving me a bad feeling. There was just something… off about the way her magic felt.
“It’s good to meet you Captain, and congratulations on your wedding.” He looked at me and just stared, nearly on the verge of tears. If all guards are like this, thank Bahamut that we brought our own.
“Honey, are you alright?” Cadenza asked him. He blinked a few times then looked at her.
“Huh? Oh sorry, I just have something in my eyes.” He rubbed his eyes and looked at me. “I’m glad to meet you, Archmage Twilight.”
I smiled at him and then frowned. He felt so… familiar to me for some reason, like I already knew him from somewhere.
“Umm Twilight, you ok there?” I heard Amber ask. I blinked and looked at her.
“I... I’m fine it’s just… it’s nothing.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Princess Celestia studying me and I unconsciously shifted my wings a bit.
“Well then, next is-” She began until the blond stallion walked right up to Amber.
“Prince Blueblood my lady, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He used his magic to lift Amber’s claw and give it a kiss. It might have even been charming if he hadn’t just called me a freak. Instead, Amber just looked uncomfortable.
“Umm thank you Blueblood,” she said as she wiped her claw on the ground. I stifled a laugh
at Blueblood’s shocked expression.
He grumbled under his breath as Princess Celestia moved over to the yellow and red haired mare and moved her in front of us.
“And this is my personal student and the bearer of the Element of Magic, Sunset Shimmer.” As she bowed to Amber, Amber smirked and raised her eyebrow.
“You know, you remind me of someone. Do you spend every night reading until the crack of dawn?” Sunset looked up at Amber and blushed a bit.
“I, ummm, well…” She looked away in embarrassment, meanwhile, Amber and the two dragoons laughed a bit. I turned my head and glared at Amber.
“Yup just like her, I remember one time I tied a book to a string and had her chase me all over Netherscale, boy was she mad,” She shook her head and chuckled at the memory. I went to whack Amber with my tail again, only she ducked out of the way this time.
“Ha! You missed.” Then I hit her with my wing”
“Ow! Why are you hitting me so much? Actually, why are you always hitting me!?” I rolled my eyes.
“Because you make it so easy to hit you for doing stuff that you shouldn’t be doing.” She looked at me with wide eyes.
“Abused by my best friend, oh woe is me, how can I possibly go on?” I just rolled my eyes again.
“Are you done yet?” I asked she just stared at me and crossed her forelegs.
“...yes.” I turn and see Sunset frowning at me.
“Why are you treating your friend like that, friendship shouldn’t be violent.” I snorted and Amber chuckled.
“Oh don’t worry about that, we like to tease each other. And besides, I’m her only friend back home, right Twi?”
“Don’t make me hit you again.”
“See! She loves me.” Everyone chuckled a little awkwardly, except for Blueblood, who just looked impatient.
“Yes well, as wonderful as this little chat is, I insist that we move this talk somewhere else. The docks are filthy, and I don’t want peasants listening in on us.” Amber frowned at him and I glared, but he didn’t pay any mind to it.
“Well I don’t agree with the last part but I do believe we are in the way so we should move to the castle,” Celestia said.
As Princess Celestia led the way to the castle, she and Amber were talking together about something, with the bride and groom just behind them. I was walking behind everyone else with Sunset, Derolth and Tessith bringing up the rear.
There were pony guards all around us, It was all a bit over the top if you ask me.
“So Archmage Scintillula…” I heard the orange mare began.
“Miss Shimmer, you can call me Twilight, I know ‘Archmage Scintillula’ is a bit of a mouthful.” She nodded at me and smiled.
“Only if you call me Sunset, but I wanted to ask you. I didn’t know that dragons could use magic.”
“That’s because they can’t, Dragons have a wide range of abilities, but magic isn’t one of them.”
“But you're the Archmage and you’re a dragon,” she pointed out.
“Actually, I’m half dragon, I was born a unicorn, but raised by dragons.” I saw Sunset was about to ask another question but I cut her off. “And before you ask, yes it’s kind of weird for a unicorn to transform into a kirin. I have some personal theories about how that happened, but nothing certain yet.” She closed her mouth and looked forward, After a few minutes she had another question.
“Umm if you don’t mind me asking, what’s a kirin?” I tilted my head a bit.
“A kirin is a hybrid between dragons and ponies, specifically, a dragon-unicorn hybrid. According to Draconic Hybrid Races written by Tharos the Bright, kirins used to be relatively commonplace, but as far as I know I’m the only one currently in the Empire,” I told her. She nodded as a note pad and a quill appeared in front of her.
“That name sounds familiar,” she said. Princess Celestia chuckled a bit hearing our conversation and she turned back to address us.
“Clover the Clever and Tharos the Bright were contemporaries, and occasionally worked together. He was a remarkable scholar despite having no natural affinity for magic.”
“You’re familiar with Tharos? He’s fairly obscure even in the Empire,” I asked her.
“Of course, I met him on one of his travels.” I was going to ask how, but the how was obvious once I got over the shock. ‘Of course she met him, she’s an alicorn, she’s probably over five thousand years old.’
“I know how it feels, I made the same face when she told me that she met Clover the Clever,” Sunset said to me, I shook my head as we continued walking.
“You said the book was called Draconic Hybrid Races, so I’m guessing there’s more than just kirins?” Sunset asked, I smiled and nodded at her.
“Of course, there are many draconic hybrids, but if you’re just asking about the pony hybrids, then there’s three, kirins, longmas, and quilins,” While I waited for Sunset to finish writing all of that down, I caught a glimpse of Amber pretending to gag at me.
“Like I said before, a kirin is a hybrid of a dragon and a unicorn, all have a unicorn horn, dragon wings, and claws. Because of the presence of wings and horn, kirins have occasionally been mistaken for alicorns, especially from a distance.” I told her. She nodded as I saw the quill write down everything I just said.
“What about the other two? I assume one is a pegasus hybrid and the other is an earth pony one?” Sunset asked. I tilted my head and tried to recall everything I’d read about them.
“You’re exactly right, longmas are the offspring of a dragon and a pegasus and were known for their feats at flying and their massive wingspan. Longmas would often have a wingspan close to the size of an adolescent dragon, making their wings significantly larger than their pegasus parents,” She nodded.
“Wouldn’t that mean that longmas would have to eat more?” She asked I chuckled at her.
“Well yes they do, all three of the race must eat more than a normal pony, longmas even more so, since they’re typically stamina flyers and can go for hours on end without resting,”
“What about the one with earth ponies?” She asked me, and I couldn’t help but smile. It was nice to be able to have a discussion like this with another scholar.
“They are known as quilin, and they’re notable for being both larger than either kirins or longmas, and they’re the only hybrids that don’t always have wings. It’s also claimed that they could control the very ground itself, but I wasn’t able to find any specific examples as to what that means exactly,” I continued explaining, and Amber groaned loudly.
“Princess Amber are you alright?” Princess Celestia asked. Amber turned to look at me and Sunset.
“No, I just found out that there’s two of them,” she said to Princess Celestia.
“She reminds me of one of my friends,” I heard Sunset mutter, I snorted at that and she giggled.
“Do you have any other questions?”
“I have one more, If kirins are part unicorn, can’t they use magic?”
“I assume that kirins are able to use magic, but I can’t say for sure. I’m capable of performing magic, but the fact that I have a pair of dragon horns rather than a unicorn horn suggests that I’m not a typical kirin.”
It certainly wasn’t like there were other kirins out there for me to study, so I’d probably never know what normal kirins were like anyway. I noticed that Sunset was thinking about another question, her ears folded back and looked nervously at me.
“This might be a little personal, but if you were raised by dragons, what happened to your, ummm... real parents?” Time seemed to slow down. I just stared at her as the question bounced around in my head.
My real parents...No one back home asked me about it, but as I was growing up I could hear the other dragons talk about it. They probably still do when I’m not around to hear them. I licked my lips and looked straight ahead.
“Look if it’s too personal you don’t have to say anything...”
“No it’s fine, I.. I never met my real parents. I don’t even know if they're alive.” Several ponies gasped at that, and I saw Amber looking back at me with a frown. I gave her a look that said ‘We’ll talk later’ she nodded and went back to her conversation with Princess Celestia.
“Umm, let’s change subjects shall we?” We talked about more innocent personal things for the rest of the trip to the castle, like favorite books what life is like in the Empire. Sunset looked a little green when the topic of meat came up, but aside from that, we got along well.
When we arrived at the castle gates there were twenty guards posted around it standing at attention as we approached. The sheer number felt a bit unnecessary, but it’s a royal wedding I suppose they were just being cautious.
“While I would like to chat some more, there are some matters that require my personal attention before the wedding. It’s nice to finally meet you, Princess Amber.” Princess Celestia said to us, She lightly bowed to Amber and Amber returned in kind.
“It’s an honor to meet you as well, Princess Celestia,” Celestia smiled at that and then disappeared with a bright flash. I saw Blueblood walked into the castle with five guards following him.
“So, what does everyone want to do now?” Cadenza asked us, Sunset looked at her and frowned. I narrowed my eyes at the pink princess, I still get the feeling there’s something about her that’s not right.
“I need to go check on some of the preparations for the wedding, so I’m afraid I will have to see all of you again later. It was nice to meet you, Twilight,” Sunset told me. I nodded to her and she went off into the castle. I saw Cadenza look at her and smirk, I narrowed my eyes.
“So Twilight what do you want to do now?”
I turned to Amber and thought about it for a bit. “I’d like to explore the city, We don’t get many chances to leave Netherscale, let alone to see the capital city of a foreign land..”
“Well then, mind if I tag along?”
I raised an eyebrow at her.“Don’t you have to go meet the rest of the nobility?”
She just snorted at that and looked away.
“Please, if they’re like Blueblood, it’d be better if they waited. He was so full of himself, I bet if you put a mirror in front of him he would both insult and praise himself.” Luckily Blueblood wasn’t here to hear that, or I’m sure he’d have made a scene.
“Well if you’re going to see the sights, I think it would be best if you had an escort,” the pink princess said to us and waved over two guards. I looked at them and frowned.
“Thank you for your concern princess, but I’m sure our dragoons are more than enough,” Amber said to her. The two dragoons saluted as she looked at them.
“Oh I’m sure they’re excellent guards, but none of you are natives of Canterlot, what if you get lost?” I narrowed my eyes at her and looked around. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I didn’t want her personal guards following us around. My eyes landed on the black stallion who’d been nearly silent since we arrived, He’d be perfect.
“What about him? he seems like he’d be an excellent guard.” Both the pink princess and Shining looked at the stallion I’d pointed out, who looked surprised that I had even noticed him.
“You mean Sergeant Sparkle?” Amber snorted at the name. “I don’t know, Sergeant, are you on duty at the moment?” Shining asked. The sergeant looked at Shining and straightened.
“Presently, my only duty is to be your aide, sir,” he replied to his captain. Shining nodded.
“Well then, I want you to escort Princess Amber and Archmage Twilight around the city.”
“Sir, yes Sir!” The sergeant saluted to him, The captain turned to face us.
“Is there another guard you would like to accompany you, or shall I pick one?” He began to look around but Amber waved her claw dismissively.
“It’s fine Captain. One is enough, thank you.” He stared at her for a moment then nodded.
“Well I better get going, there’s still some things that need to be taken care of before the wedding, it’s nice to meet you all.” He bowed, turned and walked towards the doors that lead into the palace, He stopped and looked behind him. “Honey, are you coming?”
“Yes dear, I’m coming. Have a nice tour of the city, Princess Amber and Archmage Twilight.” I smiled at her and bowed. When she turned and walked up to Shining I dropped the smile and narrowed my eyes at her. Derolth walked up beside me.
“Dragoon Derolth, what are your thoughts on Princess Mi Amore Cadenza?” He looked up at the doors as they closed and rubbed his chin.
“Well for one, her name is complicated.” He chuckled a bit. “Other than that, she seems alright, perhaps a bit rude, but I suppose that’s to be expected when you’re getting married.” I nodded a bit and looked at the doors.
“I’ve always heard that guards sometimes get gut feelings, so tell me, what does your gut say about her?” He looked at me and blinked a couple of times.
“When I first looked at her she seemed fine, but I get the feeling that she’s only telling half truths, the way she talks feels off.” I nodded at him and narrowed my eyes at the door, drumming my talons on the ground.
“You're not the only one that thinks that.” He looked at me and bent down a bit to whisper to me.
“What do we do then? Should we tell Princess Amber about this?” I shook my head at him.
“No. If we tell her she’ll just worry even more than she already is about this entire thing, and it’s not like we have any proof that she’s up to something. We should keep this to ourselves for now and keep a lookout and see what happens.” I looked over to the guards. “Also, keep an eye on the guards, something about those two guards that were called by Cadenza also seemed off.” He nodded and smiled.
“You sound a lot like Captain Nessonth Archmage,” I smiled a bit and turned to face Amber.
“Well what are we waiting for, there’s a city to see!”
Sgt. Sparkle showed us many shops and landmarks of the city. We even saw the great library of Canterlot, and I was about to go inside and see what I could find when Amber gave me a stern look.
“I don’t want to repeat what happened back in Netherscale Twilight.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that bad.” She raised an eyebrow at me.
“Your uncle had to get ten of the guards to pull you out, and you put half of them in the hospital,” I muttered a bit and made a note to return later when I had time to myself. We all moved on and got to what looked like a park of some sorts.
“And this is the grand park.” The Sergeant told us, Well fancy that I looked around and saw lush trees, beautiful flower bushes, and a pond that wrapped around a corner. I could also see some ducks in the pond.
“So… what’s so grand about it?” Derolth asked. Tessith smacked him on the shoulder and glared at him, “What, what did I do?”
“Don’t be rude about it, if they call it the grand park then we shouldn’t question it.”
“Yeah but still, what’s so grand about it? Did something happen here that made it so grand? If not then what’s the point of calling it grand then?” Tessith looked like she was going to smack him again but the sergeant stepped in.
“Well, that’s not really it’s name, It’s really the ‘Celestia’s sun flower bed’ that’s due to the fact once every thirty years a huge group of ‘Celestia bloom’, will...well bloom, it’s a rare sight.” He nodded at himself for knowing that. I heard of the flower but back in the Empire, it’s called the Sunlight flower, I giggled a bit.
“Okay then, but why is it then called the grand park?” Derolth asked. Sergeant Sparkle rolled his eyes.
“That’s because it’s also the biggest park in Canterlot and someponies say that Celestia’s sunflower bed park doesn’t sound right, so the Grand Park or the Grand Sun Park works as well.” Derolth nodded at him and looked at Tessith who was still glaring at him, He shrugged and started walking.
We continued walking and came upon a garden, It looked like a rainbow circling the sun. I looked and saw the flowers swaying as the wind picked up, It looked like the rainbow was the ocean and the sun an island.
“Beautiful isn’t it? This is known as Celestia’s sun island.” I turned to see the sergeant standing beside me, I nodded to him and looked back at the garden.
“It’s very beautiful but I’ve got to wonder, there're two princesses that rule over Equestria so where’s the garden to Luna?” I asked him, he chuckled at my question.
“Oh well, that’s the thing, the gardeners come out here to change the flowers when Celestia lowers the sun.”
“Really? how do they do that? This is a big garden and it would take a long time to do that.” I asked. He just shrugged at me.
“Hey I don’t know, I’m a soldier, I don’t know anything about gardening.” We laughed a bit at that. “You know, I thought nobles from the Dragon Empire were going to be like the nobles here, but I guess they're a bit nicer there.”
“Oh no, their not nicer. Truth be told they're maybe meaner than here. You’re just lucky that you got me and Amber to come here if it was any other drake it would be bad.” He raised an eyebrow at me.
“Out of the scale of one to Blueblood, where do dragon nobles sit?” I thought about it for a minute. Blueblood seemed he was a snob on the highest caliber and compared to dragon nobles…
“Well I think around Blueblood level, they aren’t really that snobby but they’re just downright mean at times.” I said to him, “Well, not every noble in the Empire is rude, some are nice if you get to know them, they just act all high and mighty for appearance.”
“Huh, I wished the nobles here were like that. Nice nobles are so few and far between,” I snorted at him. He looked at me with an odd look and I rolled my eyes.
“Trust me, you don’t want to meet with dragon nobles, they are still mean.” He looked at me then sighed, and frowned at the garden.
“If the peace treaty goes through I would have to meet them. Oh well, can’t do anything to stop it but just roll with the punches,” I nodded at him. We followed Amber and the two dragoons to the pond and watched as the ducks swam by.
“I have to say your friendship with princess Amber is quite, how do I say this… mean spirited,” I rolled my eyes at him again.
“We grew up together as friends, sure I may yell at her and she pokes fun at me but we don’t really mean it. As she says, it keeps the friendship guessing or something.” I rolled my claw at the last part, He nodded and smiled at me.
“You know, I’m always blundering up my words up when I meet someone new, but with you, I feel like I’ve known you for a long time,” He then frowned and knit his brows together. “It’s kind of odd really.”
I looked at him for a moment and was about to ask him why but stopped for a minute. I was having a feeling that I should know him from somewhere, I just couldn’t put my claw on it.
“Umm Sergeant Sparkle…” I began and he chuckled.
“I may be a sergeant but I still get chuckles from my name, mostly my cousin.”
“Your cousin makes fun of you?” He nodded.
“Of course, he does, when he’s not on the job, it doesn’t look good when the captain is making fun of someone lower rank than him.” I paused and started to think, After connecting the dots I blinked at him.
“Captain Shining Armor is your cousin,” He nodded and rubbed the back of his head.
“Yeah and before you go accusing and stuff I’d like to say that I earned my rank in the guard. Captain Shining didn’t do anything other than help me train and study,” He huffed a bit and grumbled.
“I wasn’t accusing, I never thought you two were cousins,” His features softened a bit. He shrugged and we kept walking.
“Sorry, I just get a lot of ponies accusing that Shining pulled some strings. He asked me if I needed a sparring partner and I said yes, I needed one since no one would.” He looked off and frowned. “And to keep his mind off of it,” He added. I frowned a bit, better change subjects. I started to think of something else when I remembered something from back at the airship, then during the walk to the castle.
“Sergent, can I ask you a question? it’s about Captain Shining armor and you can say no to it,” He looked at me and nodded. “Back at the docks I saw him staring at me, almost to tears, can I ask why?”
He stared at me for a minute and looked away from me, We walked in silence for about ten minutes before he spoke again.
“Look, I would like to tell you but if I did my cousin would have my flank,” Sgt. Sparkle said to me, I nodded and we continued walking. I watched the two dragoons looking at a bed of flowers. Derolth reached out to pluck one of the flowers but Tessith slapped his claw away, I chuckled a bit.
“I got to say, I’ve never seen dragons look like those two, normally dragons are huge.” The Sergeant said to me, I chuckled a bit at that.
“That’s because the dragons you’ve probably seen are either dragons that are native here or wild dragons,” I told him, He stared at me for a moment.
“Wait, there’s a difference?” He asked me. I just stared at him.
“... Yes there’s a difference, did you really think that dragons come in the same size?” I asked him, Just how much do these ponies know about dragon kind?
“I see, well then,” He said as he made a note book and a quill appear out of thin air. He opened it and began writing in it, he glanced at me. “Do you mind if I asked some questions about dragons, Sunset would have my head if I didn’t get info about them.”
I paused for a moment, she didn’t really ask about dragons. Sure we talked about other stuff but never really dragons. Another thought came as I looked at Sgt. Sparkle.
“If you don’t mind if I ask some of my own,” I asked him.
“Go ahead,” He answered. I went silent as I thought of the words to say, I decided to use the blunt approach.
“This might be blunt, but do you have a thing with Sunset Shimmer?” I asked. He stared at me for a bit.
“Why do you ask?” He asked me.
“Well, I saw you two glancing at each other when we walked to the castle and I just thought you two were a couple or something,” I told him. I heard him click his tongue and looked to the side. he then leaned in close to me.
“Can you keep a secret?” He asked me. I blinked a bit and stared at him for a minute.
“You just met me a few hours ago and you’re trusting me with a secret, isn’t that a bit too trusting of you?” I told him. He just shrugged.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” He asked.
‘So many things,’ I thought about it and decided to humor him.
“Sure, I can keep a secret,” I told him. He frowned at me.
“Promise?” He asked I rolled my eyes.
“I promise,” He frowned at me again.
“No, you have to Pinkie promise,” I tilted my head and stared at him.
“What the heck is a Pinkie promise?” He chuckled at me.
“Oh one of my friends made it up and it kinda stuck, it goes like this ‘Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!’” He went through some motions of this promise.
“Ummm ok? ‘Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my--AAH!’ “ I jabbed myself in my eye. I rubbed my eye a bit and blinked the spots away, “So I did this promise, I guess I have to keep it.”
“Yeah, it’s not a good idea to break it. It is said that if you break a pinkie promise, you would lose your friend-”
“FOREVER!!!” We both turned to see a neon pink earth pony standing in a bush. She made the I’m watching you gesture at me and slowly slid into the bush as it moved towards the trees.
“Bwah?” Was all I could say, The sergeant shook his head.
“Just don’t question it if you prefer a sane mind,” He stated. I looked back at the trees and blinked a couple times, My left eye started to twitch a bit. I felt the sergeant nudge me.
“You’re thinking about it aren’t you? Trust me, Sunset tried to figure it out and almost burnt down a part of the Everfree,” he said. I stared at the trees and shook my head.
“Right~ anyway I did the pinky promise so what’s the secret?” I asked him, He looked at me and smiled.
“The whole thing between me and Sunset is just a joke,” He said. I stared at him as he continued.
“You see the whole relationship between us is just us messing with them, no other pony knows about it so we keep quiet and see how long until they figure it out.” He explained to me. I was going to say that it sounded both mean and dumb, but I remembered Amber doing somewhat the same thing to me when we were young.
“Okay, I have to ask why?” I asked him. He chuckled at me.
“Well it’s mostly Sunset’s plan to do this, I think Princess Celestia is a bad influence on her.” He said, I just stared at him again. “Oh right you don’t know what happened a few years ago, well you see-”
And this was the second time that my mind was blown, Princess Celestia, The immortal, Unconquered Sun, who was giggling at me and Amber at the docks likes to play jokes on others. We continued on walking as Sgt. Sparkle asked a few more questions.
“-and that’s about it really.” Our tour of Canterlot ended in one of the more modest areas of the city. It wasn’t as flashy as the noble districts, but that was fine by me.
“So what now Sergeant?” I asked. He was about to answer but Amber cut him off.
“That’s it! This has been going for long enough,” Amber turned and pointed her talon to him. “What’s your name?”
“What do you mean?” He asked. I saw Derolth and Tessith glance at each other and look at the sergeant with curious looks.
“We’ve been calling you sergeant all this time and I’m starting to get sick of it, so what’s your name?” Amber asked again, the sergeant stared at her and chuckled.
“Very well Princess Amber, my name is Shadow Sparkle,” He told us. I frowned a bit at his name. Mostly his last name, sure I had been calling him that but I never thought about it, but now...
“Sparkle…” I had heard it before but I couldn’t place where. There was something about that name, Something familiar. I turned my head to look down the street, I don’t know why but it seemed familiar as well.
I continued down the street that I knew, until I finally recognized it; it was the street from my dream, in nearly perfect detail, right up to the alleyway it always ended in. As uncanny as the resemblance was, my senses were screaming at me that there was still more to this. I heard noises coming from behind me, and turned just in time to see the others catching up to me.
“What was that about, you took off as if you saw a ghost,” Amber said. I looked at her and back at the alley.
“I don’t know I just… I feel like I’ve been here before.” Then they all walked into the alleyway. Derolth stopped and looked down and tested the ground a bit.
“Derolth, is something wrong?” Tessith asked him. He kneeled down and poked at the ground some more.
“The ground is a little soft here,” He then dragged his finger and made a circle on the ground. “This spot mostly.”
“How did you know that?” Shadow asked. Derolth smirked and wiggled his talons.
“Magic,” He said. Tessith rolled her eyes at him and looked at the sergeant.
“We Dragoons are trained to be the royal guards of the king and go off on dangerous tasks since birth, that also means that we can see things that others can not,” She explained. I looked at the circle and frowned.
“What was here?” I asked, Shadow looked at me and sighed.
“Many years ago, there was a foalnapping, A diamond dog came into the city and stole a foal from her crib.” I heard a lot of venom in his words when he said Diamond dog, He looked at the circle. “Well a few days later somepony found a hole that led to a tunnel, and it leads to Celestia knows where.”
“So why did they fill it?” Amber asked.
“We didn’t want anypony to fall down and hurt themselves, but before we did that the captain sent a group of guards to see where it led, as it seems it leads outside of Canterlot, on the other side of the mountain!” He explained, I still stared at the circle.
“It’s odd, why did you come down this alleyway, you could have gone down any of them, but why this one?” He asked. I blinked at him and looked at the others, they are all staring at me.
“I… I don’t know, I just feel like I’ve seen this alleyway before, in a dream,” I told them. I saw Shadow stare at me and narrow his eyes, Amber looked behind us and frowned.
“As much as I would like to stay and chat I think we should get moving, we’re drawing a crowd.” I looked passed her and saw some of the ponies were looking this way, I frowned and looked at Shadow.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I said to him. He just shrugged.
“It’s no big deal, stuff like this has happened before, but I do have to say that we should get moving,” He shifted a bit and looked at the group that was forming. “I’m not really good with crowds.”
We headed off in the opposite direction of the alleyway, After a few minutes I looked behind me and saw that no pony was following us. We slowed down a bit and continued on, I didn’t pay any attention to where we were going, my mind was elsewhere.
“Hey what was that about?” I heard Amber ask me. I looked at her and I saw that she had a worried look on her face, I sighed and shook my head.
“I don’t know Amber, I feel like I know this place but I can’t put my talon on it, maybe I’m stressed about this whole thing more than I thought,” I told her, She playfully bumped my shoulder.
“Hey, if anyone should feel stressed around here it should be me. If you’re getting stressed about this then I will have no chance at this peace treaty going through,” She told me. I started to laugh and she joined in.
“Thanks, Amber, I needed that,” She nodded at me.
“Hey, isn’t that the same mare that met us at the docks?” I heard Derolth ask. We looked up and saw that Sunset was sitting at a table with five other ponies.
With her, there was a white unicorn mare with a purple mane, a yellow pegasus with a pink mane, a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane, an orange earth pony with a blond mane and a brown hat, and the same pink pony that I saw in the park. I turned my head and noticed a young purple dragon there as well.
“Well it sure does look like it, I think we should go say hi,” Amber said.