It was a normal day like any other. Ponyville town square was in the full swing of a market day, ponies passing through the stands doing their shopping. Among them trotted Rarity, entirely absorbed in her shopping list. She slowly made her way through the stalls, trying to remember who sold the best dandelion leaves, when something caught her attention.
She heard a whistling. Now, Rarity was no stranger to the occasional whistle in her direction from a passing stallion, but this felt different. It was constant, steady, and above her. Rarity looked upward, noting that she was the only pony who seemed to have responded to the noise yet. There was a tiny glint in the air, as if something metallic was-
The clang was almost ear-splitting as the object slammed into the ground with force, sending a cloud of dust and chunks of shattered cobblestone into the air. Rarity panicked and jumped back from the noise, debris flying up from the ground and peppering her with tiny cuts. The shock of it all was too much for her. She felt light-headed. Everything went black.
“Rarity!”
As she blinked back to consciousness, Rarity found herself looking up into a pair of rosy pink eyes, “Wh... “
Dash stepped back, checking her friend over for wounds, “Rare, you alright? I flew over when I heard the noise, what…”
Rarity could see Rainbow had turned, her eyes locked on something behind her, “I’m fine, Rainbow. I was just startled, is all.”
“You had me worried. I mean, after that noise, seeing you on the ground…” Rainbow trailed off, not really wanting to say more, but her eyes stayed locked on whatever she’d been looking at.
Rarity shakily stood, “I just fainted, darling. You know how I can b-”
The words froze in her throat as she saw what Rainbow had been staring at. A few feet away, no more than a few inches from where Rarity had been standing when she’d heard the noise in the first place, a sword had punched into the cobble courtyard, stabbed through solid stone and wedged in place. Her mind filled with thoughts she’d wished it hadn’t. If she had been just one step forwards…
“You’re alright, that’s what matters,” Dash replied, gently patting Rarity on the back.
Rarity was stuck, staring at the blade in the middle of the road. As the flashes of dark imagination faded from her mind, she slowly accepted the blade in front of her as a real thing. It was an ornate straight sabre, the blade shining and clean, with a hilt clearly made to fit around the muzzle when held. Even to her untrained eye, Rarity could see that the sword was the work of a master, with an almost impossible amount of etched filigree on the silver hilt and a glimmering red gem on the pommel. For just the slightest of moments, she was so drawn in by the beauty of it that she forgot it had nearly killed her.
Rainbow quickly looked Rarity over, clearly bothered by the way she was acting, “Hey… Are you alright? C’mon, we should probably get Nurse Redheart to look you over, clean up those cuts.”
Snapping out of her thoughts, Rarity touched a hoof to her face, tiny lines of blood on her hoof when she drew it back. Nodding in silent agreement, she wordlessly followed Rainbow, her mind still caught on trying to figure out what had just happened.
With only a few small bandages on her face and a diagnosis of minor shock, Rarity was quickly released and stepped back out onto the streets of Ponyville. She wasn’t really sure what to do and where to go next, her thoughts still scattered by what had happened. Rarity reached for her bags to grab her shopping list, only to find both absent. Her thoughts flashing back to waking up shakily next to Rainbow, she realized she must have dropped her things when she fell.
Rarity felt a tremor go through her, a part of her unwilling to go to the place she’d just… Shaking the thought from her mind, she slowly made her way back to the town square. She’d just grab her bag and leave. She’d just try to ignore the sabre in the ground. She’d-
When the spot came into view, she saw Twilight and Spike standing near the sword, Twilight clearly taking notes and Spike nervously clutching Rarity’s bags. The poor little guy looked so worried about her. Her previous hesitations vanished at once, replaced with wanting to reassure her little Spikey. She put on as calm and collected an expression as she could manage and trotted up to the two of them.
“-way this could have fallen with this much force and not shattered,” Twilight narrated as she wrote her notes, “Look at the way it went straight through this paver, it must have fallen from at leas- Oh, hey, you’re okay.”
Rarity grinned as Twilight abruptly noticed her standing there, her smile growing even wider as the little dragon dropped her bags and rushed over to give Rarity a hug, “I’m fine, darling. Just a few cuts and bruises, nothing serious.”
Spike let go and looked up at Rarity, “Oh my gosh, I was so worried about you. We heard that noise from the castle, and when Rainbow said she found you unconsc-”
“I said I’m fine, Spike,” Rarity interrupted with a soft nuzzle to the side of his face, just barely wincing as one of the bandages on her face brushed against his scales.
Spike was immediately far too distracted by the display of affection to remember what he was just worrying about, instead reaching back for her bags and offering them to her with a blush, “I, uh… you dropped this.”
Rarity patted Spike on the head in thanks, lifting the bags in her magic and setting them on her back again, before turning back to Twilight with interest, “What was all that about how far it fell?”
Twilight looked back up from her notes, “Oh, just that it had to have fallen from quite a bit higher than anyone usually flies. Also, I’m starting to think it has to be enchanted to have survived that fall.”
Rarity looked the blade over, her eyes lingering on the artistry of the handle once more, a strange thought flitting into her mind, “So… since it nearly fell on me, do I get to keep it?”
“What?” Twilight asked, turning to her in surprise.
Rarity seemed like she hadn’t thought the idea through fully, but continued, “I just… it’s a rather beautiful piece, no? I think it might look nice on my wall, perhaps above the fireplace. I mean, look at the artistry of it. The style and elegance...”
Twilight shot Rarity a serious, disapproving stare as the thought trailed off, “Rarity, I’m sure you can tell this is a priceless historical artifact. It belongs in a museum, not up on a wall.”
With a weak sigh of regret, Rarity admitted, “Well, it was just a thought, anyway. I don’t exactly have much use for it.”
Nodding, Twilight rummaged through her notes again before announcing, “Well, I think I have everything I needed from the scene. I’ll just take it back to the my lab, compare it to some histori-”
As Twilight was speaking, she had grasped at the handle of the sword with her magic, trying to pull it from the ground. She stopped and looked at it seriously, her eyes narrowing as she tried to put a bit more force into the pull.
“Wow, that’s really in there,” Twilight noted to herself.
“Sword in the Stone,” Spike joked.
“Oh, ha ha,” Twilight deadpanned, putting more force into trying to extract the blade.
It wouldn’t budge.
Once Twilight had given up and receded into staring at her notes, Spike took a step forward and put his claw on the handle, “Do you think…”
With an agonizing grunt, Spike struggled in vain to pull the sword out as well, before stepping back with a grumble. Rarity just chuckled at the baby dragon, knowing full well what legend he had hoped this was.
“Well, I suppose I’ll leave you to that, then,” Rarity declared, turning to leave, “I have more errands to run.”
Twilight stopped her before she stepped off, “Actually, there’s something I want to try first, if you don’t mind.”
Stopping, Rarity looked at Twilight in puzzlement, “What is it, dearie?”
“Well, I think it’s probably the enchantment that’s holding the sword in place,” Twilight explained, “We might be able to overload it if we try more than one source of magic.”
The idea made enough sense to Rarity, so she figured Twilight knew what she was doing and reached for the handle with her magic, “Fair enough. Ready when you are.”
Rarity felt the odd tingle of Twilight’s magical grasp joining hers, not entirely unlike the feeling of accidentally being brushed by somepony’s tail, but there was also a strange feeling coming from the handle itself. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but she figured she’d ask Twilight after they were done. It felt… familiar. Not to say she recognized the feeling, it was more that the feeling itself was familiarity. Rarity wasn’t really sure how that made any sense.
“On three, then,” Twilight directed, “One. Two. Thr-”
Spike was curious. He wanted to see something. He’d deal with getting in trouble for it later. Before Twilight began to pull, he leaned over and flicked her horn. Twilight’s attention lapsed, her telekinetic grip failing just as she was about to pull. Just as she was about to turn to Spike and complain, they both froze at the sound of metal against stone.
Rarity stood there, the blade floating in the air in front of her, having drawn it with no resistance at all. It felt light in her grasp, balanced like it had been made for her. That’s not to say she had any idea how to use it. Fencing, though elegant, wasn’t exactly in Rarity’s repertoire. Still, something just felt right about her magic around the handle.
“I… What?” Twilight blurted out.
Spike just smiled, “Sword in the Stone.”
Rarity, Spike, and Twilight sat around a table in the Castle of Friendship, staring at the ornately decorated sword. Twilight was flipping through a stack of books on old blades, furiously taking notes, while Spike and Rarity just looked at the blade for each their own reasons.
“Look at the craftsmanship,” Rarity gesticulated, “And the condition, as well. This is a piece of art more than a weapon.”
Spike leaned across the table, carefully touching his claw to the blade’s edge, “Dunno, Rarity, seems like it’d do the job just fine.”
“Spike!” Rarity exclaimed with a start, “Be careful, you’re going to hurt yourself!”
Looking incredibly smug, Spike flipped his claw over and gestured at his scaled palm with the other, “I might still be a kid, but I’m a dragon. I’ll be fine.”
The sudden outburst must have shook Twilight from her thoughts, because she looked up and said, “So the design dates back to a few hundred years after Celestia took the throne, but of course this one doesn’t have to be that old. There should me a manufacturer’s mark somewhere on it, so that would help narrow things down.”
Twilight calmly reached forward to pick up the sword once more, only to stop and glare. Despite it obviously not being caught on anything, it wouldn’t move in the slightest.
“Hey, you aren’t the chosen one,” Spike teased, “Rarity’ll have to do it.”
Twilight shifted her frustrated stare to Spike, “This isn’t some epic fantasy, this is real life. There’s no such thing as a ‘chosen one.’”
Watching Rarity lift the sword and offer it to Twilight, Spike retorted, “You sure?”
Twilight reached forward to turn the sword around as it floated in Rarity’s magical grasp, finding it moved easily now, “There we go, found it.”
Rarity just watched as Twilight made a quick sketch of the marking, confusedly positing, “So what, does it only move when I’m touching it?”
Sighing dejectedly, Twilight admitted, “It… looks that way. I’m not sure why it only works for you, but it certainly seems to be the case. I’m guessing it was made for somepony in particular and your magical signature is just similar enough to theirs.”
Spike added, “Or, you know, she’s the cho-”
Twilight cut him off with a tsk of the tongue.
Something about the sword’s artistry intrigued Rarity, and she pulled it back with a simple flourish to get a better look at it, “I’m slightly inclined to agree with Spike, here. It did fall from the sky at my hooves, and now only I can use it? That’s no coincidence.”
“Well, I can agree with the last half of that,” Twilight admitted, scratching her head as she thought, “but I’m not sure I can get behind assuming there’s a prophecy or something.”
“The real question right now,” Spike explained, “is where the plot hook for the main quest is.”
Twilight looked at him like he was insane.
“Um… guys?” Rarity asked shakily, “Is it just me, or does this filigree look like a map?”
The levels of smugness in Spike’s posture were truly something to behold, gesturing idly at the sword as he leaned back in his seat. Twilight just stared at him in disbelief, half for being so blatantly correct and half because she thought she’d raised him better than to act like this.
All three of them leaned in to look at the engraving, a series of river-like lines and jagged mountainous ones. It was, almost certainly, a map of somewhere. The most interesting part of it all was a single star in the center attached to a straight line heading through the mountains.
“I’ll do a rubbing of the map, compare it to other maps I have around, see where this is,” Twilight offered, clearly intrigued.
“And then,” Spike announced, dropping the tip of his claw on the star, “the quest begins.”