Twilight would like to say that she had the best sleep since she arrived at the human world thanks to a proper bed and comfortable sheets, but the truth was that for the whole night she had terrible nightmares of herself having to fight that undead Demon all by herself.
Waking up at 3 in the morning once and having to remember that Sunset was alive –or what passed as alive in her situation- and that she was not in trouble, mostly to calm herself, even though she knew nothing was right in the world.
She never thought that the Elements of Harmony had such power as to take a person and transport them into a new world. It was certainly an eye opener, but what truly scared her was the fact that they had straight up killed someone. It was more than the young princess could process.
Twilight frowned at the idea of killing. Although she knew that Ponykind in the past had been immersed in both civil and global wars at various points in the past, the centuries of peace and harmony had brought a feeling of wrongness, of taboo, to the whole concept of the death sentence.
She sighed while looking at the blinking clock at the nightstand. The modern human gadget showed her in red numbers that it was 6 o’clock, not an unusual time for her to get up, but knowing full well that she would not be able to get back to sleep she decided to get up knowing that the Apple family would probably be up by now too.
And it seemed that Twilight kept on thinking that by knowing the Apple family in her world she knew everything about this one, so imagine her surprise when instead of a family of four already eating breakfast before going into their orchard to work diligently like every time, there was only one woman preparing a big enough breakfast.
The woman had long flowing blonde hair, pale skin and a light array of freckles across the nose. It was clear the woman was an Apple family member. Twilight had to contain her gasp of surprise when the other woman looked and smiled at her. The princess would swear that this was how Applejack would look like in the future.
“Well, nice to see awake and up so soon. Breakfast will be done in a couple of minutes so you sit down. I’m Anna Apple by the way, Applejack’s mother,” the woman said and it answered the question about the similarities with her daughter.
“Oh, I am… Twilight Sparkle”
“I know dear, Applejack told us about you yesterday after you went to sleep. You were pretty much out like a light by the moment you arrived,” the woman said, examining Twilight closer. “You know, for being someone from another universe you do look remarkably like a human”
“It’s the effects of the portal I went through… Wait, you know about that?!”
“Of course, Applejack has never been good at lying and her father and I have always known how to get information from our kids. Although if what I understood was correct, she is the chosen to be Truth or something like that?”
“She’s the bearer of the Element of Honesty,” the princess said surprised about the nonchalant way in which the older woman reacted to the information of other universes. Maybe that was the source of Applejack’s attitude in life.
“That would explain so much. Applejack always looked like it physically pained her to even lie. I’m sorry that your stay in our world wasn’t the most comfortable, but as long as you remain here you can stay at our house.”
“I don’t want to impose on your family,” Twilight replied but the woman simply waved away any kind of excuses the pony princess would say.
“Nonsense. Winston and I would love to have you here, especially after we heard you were from another universe, so don’t feel bad. Besides, we have a guest room that we barely use these days.”
“Well in that case, I would love to stay in your house Miss Anna.”
“Please, not the Miss Anna bullshit, I already get enough of that at the office,” the woman said with such aplomb that Twilight didn’t even recoil at the cursing and instead smiled at her.
“So what do you work in?”
“I have a Law Firm with some of my old classmates, meanwhile Winston and the rest of this wacky family produce fizzy cider with the apples the other Apples make way south”
Twilight and Anna continued to chitchat and get to know each while the later put an assortment of finished products on the table. Some of them were very familiar to her like pancakes and hash browns, but others were rather interesting considering they were made of meat.
Twilight’s good mood lasted until the moment a plate with strips of bacon was placed on the table. It may have been silly and funny to correlate immediately the redheaded girl with bacon, but once Twilight saw the meat product she finally understood the joke several students have said yesterday before the voting. Now, it only reminded Twilight of what she and the other girls have done.
Anna followed Twilight’s eyes when she went quiet and quickly understood the situation. Everything that had happened to her daughter and her friends was beyond any kind of comment or parental advice she could give them. The only thing they could do was be there for them as the situation unfolded.
It was at that moment that they heard quick steps on the stairs and Applejack, still wearing pajamas, appeared with a rectangular object on her hands and a shocked look on her face.
“Twi! Quick! The tablet! Sunset!” she exclaimed showing the other side of the rectangle and Twilight understood what the blonde tried to tell her.
Being hold in the air by a flying giant raven, there was a tired and immobile grey robed figure as the bird flew through the air, with the grey sky giving a melancholic tone to the whole scene.
“This object is working as the portal! We are capable of watching Sunset through it!” Twilight said holding the tablet in her hands as Applejack took two plates and began to fill them with the different products. Meanwhile, Anna knew how much this meant for both girls and silently understood her daughter’s actions.
“You can go and watch what’s happening to your friend in your room, just don’t forget to bring back the plates.” Applejack nodded as she and twilight moved up the stairs.
“Sunset isn’t mah friend. Well, I’m not sure really, but please, don’t tell Apple Bloom what we’re doing. Ah don’t think she should watch this even though she already knows what’s going on,” she said to her mother before both teenagers finally arrived at AJ’s room and sit down to eat and watch.
“Do you think we are the only ones with access to this?” Just as the princess asked that Applejack’s phone began to vibrate, indicating a message had been received.
“Well, that answers your question. That was Rainbow and Rarity. They all talked with the other gals and seems like they are all watching from their house,” the blonde said sitting down at her bed with Twilight at her side, watching the moment the crow landed at a small clearing.
The flight had been boring for the most part to the teenage girl and she quickly found out that raven’s weren’t exactly the best conversationalist, so there wasn’t much in the sense of entertainment. Most of the time Sunset found a way to simply sleep the time away. It wasn’t easy, but it at least helped her keep calm and collected.
Finally, after the grey mountains were left behind, the raven had arrived at a pretty unique place. From the distance it seemed like a medieval town, full of towers, aqueducts and homes, but the raven didn’t land in there, instead choosing a clear area full of green not too far away from one of the aqueducts.
Feeling her feet once more on solid ground Sunset took a deep breath and inhaled the clean air, enjoying the difference it made from being either in the air or in the Undead Asylum. With that out of the way Sunset then took a look around the clearing, noticing the broken stone walls all around it, its current state, and quietness.
It seemed that just like the undead Asylum, Sunset had arrived at a place full of loneliness and bleakness, so without even blinking she prepared to shoulder on before a cough interrupted her first step forward.
It seemed as if she wasn’t as alone as she thought. A person began to descend a small set of stairs and Sunset could do nothing but observe how different the person looked in comparison with the place. Wearing a long white robe with a hood the figure was clearly feminine. Under the robe Sunset could see that instead of clothing the woman was wearing a set of light armor which barely made a sound as the woman walked to a wall close to the bonfire and sat down. Sunset knew that the woman was looking at her under the robe but the undead girl couldn’t really see any facial feature from the woman to say.
“Well, look what we have here, another undead ready to make pilgrimage to good ol’ Lordran,” the woman said in a tone of voice that took Sunset by surprise. It sounded so much more relaxed than the ill-fated knight she had met in the Undead Asylum. “Sorry that there is no welcoming party but the current residents are not very big on celebrations these days. Lordran has become so dull and boring lately, although that probably has to do with the fact that everyone abandoned this place. Now the only ones remaining here are the undead and the few crazy humans looking for adventure, guilty of the second one myself,” the woman said clearly finding something humorous by the tone of her voice.
Sunset took several seconds to get back her wits since the woman’s words just took her out of balance. So there was no one alive anymore in the land? Then she had her work cut out for her.
“So there is no one that could help me?”
“Well, there used to be a man that was seated in here, just right where I am in fact, but he just went a little, you know,” she said spinning a finger at the side of her head making the universal signal for crazy apparently. “He lost all hope and let his condition turn him hollow, although there was not much difference with how he acted normally. He was such a crestfallen knight to begin with”
“What’s that? I mean, what’s the meaning of hollow? I got to know someone at the Undead Asylum that told me I was undead, but never quite explained the difference to me,” Sunset said sitting down by the bonfire. The ashes of bones around the standing sword simply filled her with peace. It was indeed a weird sensation, but that probably had to do with her condition, right?
“So you are a new at this. Guess I could help you a little bit. Prepare yourself because this is quite the story that I have to tell you and it goes back to the beginning of time for humanity itself,” the woman said, walking to the bonfire ready to tell the story of Lordran and the beginning of the Age of Fire.