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A Small Step2,202 words
A Tiny Skirmish1,623 words

A Tiny Skirmish

When Twilight arrived, Big Macintosh’s face was being stretched by a small humanoid using it's equal small hands to stretch the big stallion's cheeks in ways that Big Mac hadn't thought his face could stretch. It’s voice was high pitched, telling Twilight it was mostly likely female, and she seemed to be excited beyond all sanity by the fact that she could move Big Mac’s face with her own hands. She was babbling excitedly, saying things a little too fast for Twilight to understand, and she was instantly struck with the similarity the creature held to Pinkie Pie. She stood there, stock still, watching the creature, until she noticed something else was off.

Nearer to Twilight than she would have liked was another of the things, but this one wasn’t moving much aside from occasionally clenching and unclenching it’s hands. It looked on silent and watched the female as she busied herself having fun by making Big Mac make silly faces against his will. It’s face was completely shadowed by an impossible hat with a pair of staves were embedded in the ground next to it. One of them black and adorned with spikes while the other was made of simple wood. She raised an eyebrow at this, knowing that mages of other races would occasionally use staves to channel their inherent magic.

With one more glance at the being, to ensure it wasn’t looking at her, she began a simple spell to read how powerful the magic of the two beings was, if it existed at all. She casted it first on the one messing with Big Mac, to ensure his safety while she performed her spell. What she found was a sizable pool of magic, a bit more than the average unicorn would have, but she sensed nothing malignant about it, it seemed to be all nature based. With that decided, she withdrew her magic, and prepared to delve into the pool of magic that the other one now most definitely held.

She was, unfortunately, interrupted by a very upset Applejack who charged on the scene, running towards Big Macintosh. “Get off mah Brother!” She shouted angrily and narrowed her eyes. Lulu looked towards the noise and her eyes widened. She glanced towards Veigar only to find her staff already spinning through the air towards her. She caught it expertly and pointed it towards the earth pony. “Adoribus!” She exclaimed and before Twilight could act, her friend had been turned into a small squirrel.

The surrounding ponies began to back away as the fear center of their brains kicked themselves into overdrive. Twilight managed a single syllable before they all ran away in a panicked stampede, leaving only the squirrel, a stunned Big Mac, and Twilight to face the duo of spell casters. Twilight lifted the squirrel in a ball of magic and placed it on her head, hoping that she would be able to reverse the spell at some point later on. First, however, she would have to deal with the situation at hoof. She leveled her head towards her opponents and began to charge a spell.

The one in blue, the one she hadn’t had the opportunity to use her magic search spell on, leveled his staff at her, and she felt a chill shoot through her, his eyes were alight with insanity and she realized that the next spell he was going to cast could very well kill her and he wouldn’t regret it in the least. She took a step back, in fear, and watched the shining ball form in the end of his staff. He didn’t need to take this long to cast it, he was torturing her, she could see it in his eyes. He was drawing out this moment where he had absolute control, he was enjoying it, reveling in it.

Acting quickly, the female placed her hand upon the staff, brushing against the gloved hand of the being as she did so. Twilight watched as the irrational hatred melted from his eyes, though a spark of insanity always remained. He looked to the one who had stopped him, in response she smiled widely. Then, in far too good Equestrian for Twilight to believe they were foreigners, she began to talk. “We can’t kill anyone! It’s our honeymoon! Pix wrote the rules see!” She pulled a long list from her pocket and showed it to the would be murderer, who looked over it. He looked at it and frowned, though no one could tell, and let his eyes glance over the words.

“Fine.” He responded coldly. The magic in his staff’s point died away and he lifted it to it’s normal carrying position. He frowned and looked at the purple pony with a degree of regret. She, in turn, began to lift herself from her battle position, letting the magic in her horn die away. Just as she had taken a breath to relax herself she felt a sudden weight on her neck which slammed her head into the ground. “Oh, jeez, sorry Twi. I didn’ mean to do that!” Followed by hoofsteps quickly backing away. So Applejack was back to normal, that was good news.

“It’s fine A.J.” She said, lifting her head up once again. “I just wish I knew what was going on here.” She pointedly looked at the female of the duo, who turned to look at the her companion, who merely held gaze with Twilight.

“We’re here on our honeymoon.” He said, the high pitched-ness of his voice holding a shocking tone of masculinity deep within it. She hadn’t heard it the first time he had talked, it had been too short and too quick for her to get any info at all, but now she could scarcely believe it. She filed this oddity away and decided to address the two bigger but still small oddities in front of her.

“Honeymoon?” That couldn’t be right. She must have misheard. A Honeymoon was a time for the couple to relax, to get to know each other better. It made no sense for a couple of newly-weds come to a town where they had no friends of connections.

“Yes.”

Twilight seemed too stunned to respond, most likely due to the fact that it made absolutely no sense. So A.J. decided to fill in the conversation instead. “So let me get this right.” She began, a perplexed look covering her features. “You came here to celebrate your marriage, instead of a mountain resort or somethin’?”

“That’s the jist of it, yes.” Veigar responded, fiddling with his staff, desperately wanting to end the questioning one way or the other.

“Why?”

“I thought Lulu would like a world of ponies.” He answered, looking over to his wife who was bouncing around excitedly, looking at the world of bright colors around her.

“Lulu?” A.J. said, before following his gaze to his wife. “Oh. Well, that sure was thoughtful of ya.” She said, smiling to Veigar, who merely gazed back. “I suppose then that we should introduce ourselves. Mah name is Applejack, but you can call me A.J.” She glanced towards her friend, and proceeded to frown. “That one there is Twilight Sparkle. And lastly,” She paused as she looked at her brother who seemed completely frozen solid from fear. “That’s mah brother Big Mac.”

“He has a squishy face!” Lulu exclaimed excitedly. No one responded to the comment, mostly because AppleJack had nothing to say and Twilight and Veigar were staring each other down, though the emotions on each of their faces were several degrees different from each other. “OH!” Lulu shouted, snapping her finger and pointing upwards for a moment before jumping forward to land next to the twisted dark mage. “This is my husband,” She giggled at the word for a moment, and Twilight swore she could see patches of red show up against the black shadow. “Veigar.”

“...” It was an audible ellipse as the dark mage neglected to say anything. Instead looking towards Twilight and letting his grip move nervously over his staff, knowing with absolute assurity he could kill her before anyone could act. But alas, he was bound by the rules of the great and mighty Pix. Besides, it would probably ruin the honeymoon for Lulu if he went around making unicorns explode.

“Well, hello Veigar and welcome to Equestria.” Twilight said at last, and raised her hoof into the air, pointing it towards the dark mage. He raised his weapon out of muscle reflex, and Twilight flinched backwards. Veigar stopped himself and the air grew tense once again. Lulu laughed and bumped Veigar's shoulder with her own.

The dark mage looked at her from beneath his brim, and Twilight watched from the side. She watched in awe as that ever present dance of insanity faded away, drew itself away, and was replaced with perfect genuine care, something that seemed completely foreign to his evil, angry face. Her grin widened and Veigar’s grip loosened until he handed his weapon to Lulu, who placed it on the ground along with hers, small insignificant sparks forming between them because of their proximity.

Then, he turned back to Twilight and the kindness faded. Insanity didn’t replace it, not instantly, and the mage took it as a good sign. She raised her hoof once again and waited until, at last, the small creature reached forth his own gauntlet and shook. Signifying to everypony present that Veigar wasn’t going to kill them all to satisfy his own tainted blood lust.

Well, not today anyway.

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zelkova48

zelkova48 #1 · Jun 5th, 2013 · · ·

Aw, how adorable! So whose up for a bet? twenty bucks says Veigar can last the entire honeymoon without turning anyone in a thin watery paste on the ground

LucidTech