Nuada smiled as the portal from Starswirl left him right on the beach where they had left. It was a little later in the morning than he expected but not too bad. Nuada visually relaxed as he took in his world, it just felt right to be home. Bestla and Cinder arrived right behind him, and slumped down to the sand, the fatigue of the trip finally catching up with them.
“That was exhausting.” Cinder complained leaning against Bestla, “so much running.”
“I’ve been neglecting my own training.” Bestla said rubbing her legs, “but we saved Sparkle and helped stop an alien threat. We can take pride in knowing we did good.”
“Helps you got a bunch of new toys to mess with.” Cinder joked.
Nuada nodded, chuckling some, as a voice called to them. Ushio ran up and tackled Nuada in a hug, “Welcome back.”
“Thanks.” Nuada said giving her a hug back, then a thought crossed his mind, “how did you know we were back?”
“Kirito told me.” Ushio said smiling, causing Nuada to raise an eyebrow.
“Let’s talk over food, we’ve been gone for 7 hours and missed lunch.” Bestla said nodding everyone towards the tree, and helping Cinder up.
“Oh I can make us an early lunch.” Ushio said skipping across the stones, and into the portal that opened by the tree.
“So then Princess Celestia is able to move the Sun not by power alone, but because she has an affinity with it that makes it easier for her to do?” Bestla asked Twilight as they sat in her ship’s cargo hold turned lab.
“Yes I did some research after our last conversation, Princess Celestia informed me that we are infact a Geocentric world, and that our Sun and Moon are in fact orbiting Harmony.” Sparkle explained, “you confirmed this with your model of our system on your computer. What is happening when the Princess is moving the Sun is she is touching the mana the makes up a part of the sun and coaxing it into moving a little faster or slower, in orbit, but maintain the orbit. Luna is doing the same thing with the moon. They also told me that they think both are made of an ultra light mineral as they seem to have little gravitational effect on Harmony’s oceans. Our tides are mild but do happen. Based on your records, if we had a moon as dense as your home moon the gravity would cause large tidal changes everyday.”
“That makes sense, we have been researching these geocentric systems, and what we always see is no extra planets in orbit, and the mass from what satellites are in orbit seems very low. Our scanners state most of these have ‘sun’ like satellites made out of a core of Oganesson, holding a field of Argon around it. The slow breakdown of the Oganesson mixing with the Argon creating the ‘solar’ rays.” Bestal explained, “but the whole thing has a very short life in the cosmic view of things, only about 10,000 years.”
“Oh no does that mean our Sun is going to go out? Wait we have ruins here from 15,000 years ago what does that mean? Wait if the sun goes out will that hurt Princess Celestia?” Twilight started to freak out.
“Calm down, the readings from my ship was saying that the sun you have here is still very young, based on our data from other similar systems. What I think is happening is the magic is somehow stabilizing the sun and renewing it. From what little I’ve gathered the sun will be around for a very long time. But I’m curious how the Princesses are moving the Sun and the Moon.” Bestla said, “the moon could be the same but with a hard shell over the top of whatever core it has. If only I had my main ship, I could use its sensors to probe deeper.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask what is wrong with this ship, why can’t it fly?” Twilight asked.
“I’m not sure, I fixed the main drive unit but everytime I try to power it up it starts to overload and forces a shut down. The read outs don’t make much sense, as it says it’s over producing, but it’s only running at minimum settings. There are all sorts of wavelengths coming off of it that doesn't make sense. Then there is the fact that even with my comms array working all signals are scrambled. It’s frustrating, I haven’t told Nuada because I don’t want to trouble him too much more, but it’s looking like I am very much stranded here. At least until command comes looking for me, but it seems they haven’t come here yet and it is way past search and rescue time.”
“Don’t worry I’m sure they’ll be coming for you soon.” Twilight said giving her a hug. When she did this she noticed something odd on one of Bestla’s monitors. “Hey Cinder is acting strange on your viewing monitor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Right there, looks like she’s hiding by the potato field.” Twilight said a quill floating over and pointing at the screen.
“What are you doing there?” Bestla asked the screen.
Cinder sat and watched Nuada swing a farming tool at the dirt, some dust and earth flew off but nothing all that great. The power he had shown in the Collector ship wasn't in the swing. The way he walked was very relaxed, everything about him was like when she first started getting to know him. Very casual and relaxed, as she lived with him she sometimes forgot that he had actually beat her so soundly.
“But what about when he beat the collectors?” Cinder asked herself. Her heart was fluttering in her chest. She knew she was crushing on him, but didn’t really know much about him despite the last couple months she had spent with him.
*CRACK*
Cinder’s eyes widened, the handle of the hoe Nuada was using snapped and the head went flying straight into the air. Her body tensed as she was about to try and knock Nuada out of the way of the falling object. She made a whole three steps before the object landed in Nuada’s hand that somehow was over his head already.
“I guess I should consult a professional.” Nuada said with a sigh, “tool making is a lot harder than I thought. Or is it because I used wood from a dead tree in the forest for the handle?”
“Nuada is quite fast.” Bestla said after watching the event.
“Yeah, I noticed it when I first met him. He looks really weak and relaxed but he can move in such a way that guards look like foals.” Twilight said blushing at the memory of her attack on the human.
“Yeah it’s odd all readings I take of him make him seem totally average, when comparing to most space faring races, but then in rare cases like this I see his real reaction time and wonder if he’s faking on the tests.” she said looking at some data lines on another screen.
“Yeah, did you know he actually trained the original royal guards.” Twilight said as they watched Cinder stalk Nuada.
“Really now, I know he said he’s over a thousand, and adopted the princesses as siblings. He never mentioned that though. He doesn’t really act like a guard that I’ve seen.” Bestla said thinking back to the couple times she managed to get him to blush, and all the tests she ran on him.
“Yeah I asked the Princess about him when he first showed up, and in our Equestrian history books, volume three, obscure facts section, section 2 it explains that the one who taught our guards combat style basics and organized them acting as the first captain was a bipedal creature called a human. Not sure why his name wasn’t used.” Twilight wondered, after finding his real origin she delved deep into early equestrian history, but while his deeds were mentioned they never mentioned his name.
“Bet it’s because he asked to not be recognized.” Bestla said as she watched Cinder sneaking behind the farm shed. “Nuada is a very humble person, he will answer questions about himself and things that he has done, but he doesn’t brag and he downplays his actions.”
“Makes sense I guess, still curious how someone who shaped so much of our history can be so absolutely absent from the records.” she complained.
“I am more surprised that someone as strong as him can hide it. Look here.” Bestla pulled up the strange multidimensional energy residue from Katagos’ defeat. Next to it was an active feed of Nuada’s vitals.
“What’s this?” Sparkle asked.
“This is the energy he used to defeat Katago, and this is what he is currently putting out.” Bestla said showing the two feeds. Twilight saw that the current output matched into the first screen but that screen had some data flowing in strange ways.
“I don’t get it but the snapshot on the left looks to be feeding back on itself, but that shouldn’t be possible. Data can only flow in one direction.”
“I would normally agree, however my sensors can read energy in four dimensions.” Bestla said grinning, “I can read temporal fluctuations.”
“So then Nuada’s power is reaching back in time on it’s self, but that would be…”
“A paradox, yes it should be, but what is crazier is this is only partial data, it seems that this energy he manifested is reaching into other dimensional levels. I can’t even guess how far up it goes. His power may even allow him to cross over and affect other worlds.” she explained, “isn’t it fascinating?”
“We need to research this, it could change everything we know about magical science.” Twilight said eyes glueing to the screen.
“Trying, I only have this piece of partial data. I trust Nuada but even now I sometimes question if it really was him.” Bestla said, “Even Celestia collaborated the story, but I have investigated pretty much everything on that guy but I can’t find any of that power.”
“Very interesting, so do you know why Cinder is doing that?” Sparkle asked seeing Cinder take off running to the house ahead of Nuada.
“Doing what?”
I wonder how long she’s going to follow me? Nuada thought to himself as he kept a fraction of his focus on Cinder, she’d been following him just about everywhere sense they got back from helping Sparkle. Wait could this have to do with that thing Ryoko went through? Nuada dredged up the old memories of the show, they were getting clearer each time he thought of them. Nuada smirked realizing what must be happening, one of two things, and he could test it very easily.
“Man today was hard.” Nuada said aloud to the trees, “let’s see before I’m done with work I still need to clean up the toilet, and clean out the food storage for the harvest in a week.”
Nuada noticed Cinder trying to stealthily run off and towards the house, by the time he got back she should be part done with one of the chores if his guess was right.
“Kirito question, do you think there is any chance that Cinder was replaced by some strange marionette?” Nuada asked the tree.
“With the exception of your trip offworld she has not left my sensor range. There has been no strange activity around her beyond her infatuation with you.”Kirito told him.
“So she is crushing on me then, I thought that may have been the case. Well I can’t be surprised demons are biologically attracted to power.” Nuada said, “keep an eye on her please.”
“Of course I monitor everyone in and around the subspace. On that subject, Bestla has been monitoring you for a while now, are you comfortable with this or should I remove her access?”
“Let her be, you know I have no secrets here.” Nuada said waving it off and started walking to the house again.
Cinder was sweating and huffing after having cleaned the toilet by judiciously heat-sterilizing the whole bathroom without scorching anything, which was very tiring, and was now curiously looking at the food storage, completely at a loss. “How do you know if something’s gone bad? Or...is that what he was talking about at all?” Fresh food was a scarcity in Tartarus, at least where she was from, so she had absolutely no clue how to go about this.
Hay, she had little experience with any sort of chores, or housework, or anything domestic to be honest. Now that she thought of it, Cinder was starting to hyperventilate in panic, realizing she had no marketable or desirable skills of a lover outside of giving pleasure as her species was wont and known to do. “How can I impress him? I have to have some way to get him to marry me, not just because we’re bound, but I want him!”
Nuada wasn’t just powerful, he was kind when he wanted to be, fair otherwise, and was incredibly attractive by the standards she understood for minotaurs and satyrs which helped her easily find him attractive herself among everything else. Just thinking of him with her all heated-up from cleaning the bathroom and her rising panic was getting her-!
“Hey, someone cleaned the toilet, how thoughtful.” Nuada’s voice echoed down the hall, getting Cinder’s body to seize up, her heart pounding in her ears, steam rising from her nose and mouth as her long prehensile tail whipped about in anticipation. “It was kinda warm in there, did you do the cleaning Cinder…?” Nuada paused, seeing the literally steaming hot mare slowly turn a lascivious look his way, getting him to step back from memories of that look haunting him.
“Hello love~...I think it’s time we started talking about our marriage~....” Cinder cooed, before Nuada instinctively bolted down the hall, and her expression turned from come-hither to rage-lust. “GET BACK HERE!” Cinder demanded as she began chasing the frantic Juraian out of the house, across the fields, and out the portal into the Everfree heading towards Ponyville.
Bestla was face-palming watching Nuada tear through the forest dodging trees and the resident creatures. Cinder was burning a path through the flora and left some creatures tending slight burns. “Well at least we’ll have an easier road to town after this.”
“We should help him.” Twilight said watching the screen.
“He’ll be fine, and we can study him. Look at this data.” Bestla said the readings coming of Nuada were changing in addition they were noticing that his reaction time to speed was beyond normal means. The rate he was moving should have left him milliseconds to respond to seeing branches, however he was dodging them, moving with such grace that it was like a dance through the trees.
“Look at this read out.” Twilight said causing Bestla to change focus. The active energy signature Nuada was generating was starting to change slowly it was beginning to match up to the residue energy she had recorded from the wreckage of Katago’s ship. It wasn’t a perfect match yet but it was starting to take shape.
“Interesting.” Bestla said watching the energy feed, it was obvious to her that if this process continued it would match the energy he had used before. Just a few more minutes by Bestla’s estimation, and she would have verification of the multidimensional power he had used.
And at that point her feed went dark.