There's A Trouble Brewin'
The town of Ponyville was bustling as I walked along the simple streets the crisscrossed every block or so, all leading to the main building, which was also the mayor’s office, in the middle of town. The ponies were of course very nice and polite, and it wasn’t so rare for one to give the little charcoal gray colt a smile when they saw him shuffling down the street, which of course he would then return even though he couldn't make it reach his eyes. Yes, I was in a funk, I had to believe that it was meeting Applejack that had put me in such a sour mood, but for some reason since then the world just seemed a little more gray. I couldn’t really explain it, but it was kind of like a wrongness that just sinks down to your bones and makes every step you take just that little bit heavier.
Still, I had something in town that I needed to do, and despite how much I just wanted to return to the Rich manor, or even go hang out with the cutie mark crusaders and my “brother” I was going to get this done. Twilight’s house was all the way across town and I was just feeling drained so by the time that I arrived at the large oak tree that doubled as a library I just wanted to lay down and take a nap, and in the late afternoon with a nice breeze blowing through I was very tempted to do so. I gave three knocks with my pint sized hoof and didn’t need to wait too long before the terrifying dragon Spike came and answered the door.
“Hey, what’s up Ashen. You are here for the book right. Twilight said she would be done with it in like ten minutes so why don’t you just come inside and wait until she is done,” Spike said as he stepped aside and gave me room to enter the building. I gave a little shrug and walked inside, admiring once again the rather impressive collection as I did so, before taking a seat at the table in the middle of the room. The weird craving of a huge unicorn head in the center of the table caught my eye for some reason, I thought remembered it killing Rainbow Dash in some fan fic, or maybe that was a different giant unicorn head. Now that I thought about it, there were a lot of different interpretations of Twilight’s home appeared in various fictions but the place was pretty simple just like it was shown off to be in the show. All of the books were meticulously placed on the shelved, save for the few stacked on the ground near said shelves. It was truly amazing that they were able to keep the tree alive and this carved out, though I supposed that since it was only really the very outside of the tree that was the living part then it could be possible, but still quite the feat. I wondered if…
“Helloooo, Ash…” Spike said next to me as my eyes refocused on the fingers he must have been snapping in front of my face for some time now.
“Hm? Oh what’s up, did you say something?” I asked as my mind began to focus once more on the now.
“Well yeah dude, I wanted to know if you wanted anything to drink but then you were like staring out into space not blinking.”
“Yeah...I tend to space out sometimes,” I admitted a little embarrassed.
“No problem, Twilight does that all the time and sometimes she needs a little water tossed on her to snap her out of it.” I snickered a little bit at that, sure this Spike might look scary as hell, but behind those killer lizard eyes he was a cool guy. It was a shame that I couldn’t get too close given who his roommate was. Or could I?
“That was a neat trick you did with your...claws. How did you do that again?” I asked motioning to his hand.
“Oh this?” he asked as he snapped his claws again, “Just something I picked up you know.”
“Not really,” I said flicking a hoof in the air and producing zero sound. “Digits must be awesome.”
“Well I have to admit that it is probably a lot easier to write than using my mouth, plus I don’t know where those quills have been.” I admittedly had to agree with that one, writing with your mouth was difficult and I was really trying not to think about where those pencils I had been using today had been.
“Quills, can’t even use those. I have to go for pencils or ballpoint pens, and yeah the mouth thing is gross but it’s something to live with,” I replied.
“Ballpoint Pen?” he asked with quirked brow, or at least I assume he did since the scales near the top of his right eye raised as he did so.
“Oh nothing, just something I am working on that will revolutionize writing and make the quill entirely obsolete. Except for when drawing artwork, though I am pretty sure that ink pens are the cornerstone of that medium.” I scratched my chin in thought as he just stared at me with the occasional blink. After a moment I felt the silence had stretched on long enough and decided to break it, “Forgive my occasional ramblings, I am told that I have a very vivid imagination.”
“Yeah, I am starting to get that,” he said with a nod.
“Anyways what were we talking about, oh yeah being a dragon must be awesome. Breathing fire and stuff sounds like the coolest thing ever.”
Spike puffed up his chest noticeably and rubbed his knuckles on his chest. “Well I don’t like to brag but it is pretty awesome.”
“All Earth Ponies got going for us is that we are kind strong, durable, and we can grow stuff,” I listed off as I propped my head up on a hoof.
Spike scratched his chin for a moment, “I thought that some Earth Ponies had like weird powers and stuff.”
“Weird powers and stuff?” I asked, it now being my turn to arch a brow.
“Yeah, like Pinkie Pie can predict the future with her Pinkie Sense. Although that might be just a Pinkie Pie thing and not an Earth Pony thing,” he admitted.
“Well that’s cool, but I don’t think that is a regular thing.” For some reason we both fell into a silence as we became lost in our own mutual thoughts. I was considering what he had said, maybe there was some secret special gene that Earth Ponies had access to and others didn’t, while Spike was thinking about...I don’t really know what Spike was thinking about.
“What are you two thinking about so intensely?” I heard a rather familiar voice call from the top of the stairs, and as I nearly gave myself whiplash I saw that it was in fact Twilight Sparkle looking down upon us. She was lavender of course, though there was a distinct magenta tint to her coat, and her mane and tail were perfectly straight and had their usual colors, and when I say perfectly straight I do mean that there seemed to not be a single hair out of place, probably some magic involved there, and she also lacked any discernible wings which I took to be a good sign. I had expected all this, but what was a little surprising was just how intelligent I could tell that she was just be looking at her. Her eyes seemed to take everything in at once and processes it in an instant, she probably had already formulated some opinion on me just by seeing me sit here. Not so say that she seemed harsh or judgemental, in fact there seemed to be an aura of kindness about her that I would have more expected of Fluttershy, it was no wonder that she was the element of Magic.
“Do Earth Ponies have special powers?” Spike asked as he turned to face her. I took the opportunity to stand from my seat as well and run a hoof back over my head to make sure that my mane was sleek and perfectly in place, I think she noticed that since her eyes flicked to the movement of my hoof a moment before she looked back to Spike.
“I’m not exactly sure what you mean by special powers Spike, there have been cases when mild magic has interacted with ponies and helped enhance some innate ability they already possessed, or have radically changed them.” She paused halfway down the stairs for a moment before continuing. “Now that I think about it in the cases I have read most of those ponies were Earth Ponies. I wonder if there is some correlation that isn’t purely circumstantial.” She trailed off at the last bit there, but I was able to catch it since she was pretty close now, standing at the bottom of the stairs. Sadly, Twilight was more than twice as tall as me and I felt pretty inadequate standing there in the library, afraid to give any input to the conversation lest it lead to my cover being blown.
“That’s pretty cool,” I said, not really knowing what else to add.
“I suppose it is pretty “cool.”’ Twilight didn’t make any air quotes, seeing as how she was standing that would have been impossible, but I liked to believe that they were there all the same.
I watched as she began levitating the books she was carrying back into place along the bookshelves around the library, and suddenly remembered why I had even come here to begin with. “Oh right, um excuse me,” I piped up, causing Twilight to stop her sorting and look back to me.
“Yes?” she asked, giving me a little half smile, not too unlike the one I had seen Cheerilee wearing.
“I came to check out a book this morning and was told that you were using it. Would you happen to be done with it now?” I asked, trying terribly hard to be as polite as possible.
“Oh that must make you Ashen Stroke then,” she replied, her smile growing fully as she levitated the book from the bottom of the pile over to me which I allowed to land on my hoof. Once the trademark magical aura had dissipated I raised it to inspect the cover.
“Mordakein’s Multidimensional Musings, sounds about right,” I said, tucking the book into my backpack I had been smart enough to bring with me.
“A very interesting read, and it should be particularly useful to a time traveler,” Twilight said.
“Well I hope it’s a good read and...wait what?” I began to reply before my brain fully caught up with what she had said.
“Yeah what?” Spike asked.
“Pinkie told me that a young colt by the name of Ashen Stroke came here from the future on a very important mission; top secret I heard,” She went on to say, I was about to facehoof before I realized that she was just playing along. She probably thought that it was some childish game that I had put on and Pinkie had been playing along with so now she was. I guess that meant that I also needed to play along with it.
“Oh yes, wouldn’t want to give away too much information and bring about a universal collapse would we. Though I honestly think the more likely scenario would be that just by my being here a separate timeline has already diverted from the prime so that the chance of a paradox is pretty much nil. Still, let’s be careful anyways,” I said with a nod.
Twilight looked down at me, her smiling expression morphing to one of confusion. “Yeah...let’s do that.” Spike, who was standing next to me just looked a bit lost. I must have overplayed my hand, and was far too serious about the whole thing.
“...You know I’m not really from the future right. Time travel is impossible.” Here was something I knew would break them out of their funk.
“Actually that’s not entirely true, I have time traveled myself,” Twilight said, hopefully glossing over that stupid thing I had said previously.
“Really? Where did you go? What did you do?” I asked, and as I did so I caught sight of Spike smirking next to me.
“That isn’t really important,” Twilight replied. “So are you new in town, I haven’t seen you around Ponyville before, and I think I would have heard of such a...smart young colt before?” Strange is probably what she meant to say, but you don’t put children down because they internalize that stuff. Not that it would particularly matter to me what Twilight thought of me since I was just playing a role here, but it was nice to see that she was at least conscious with her words.
“Yeah me and my brother got picked up a few days ago and are staying at the Rich’s place, but I bet child services will see to that soon enough. Tell me, do you hear about them splitting up siblings very often, or is that just one of those things that gets talked about but only happens rarely?” I had to admit that I could have easily just said we were new in town, but I kind of wanted to see how Twilight would react to such an uncomfortable confrontation.
“I’m fairly certain that the statistic is actually pretty low, around five percent if I am remembering correctly,” of course she would fall back on statistics. “But wait, are you saying that you and your brother are orphans and were found a few days ago here in Ponyville?”
“Well after we came out of the Everfree Forest, sure.”
“You and your brother were in the Everfree Forest by yourselves? How long were you wandering around in there?” Well she wasn’t confused anymore, but she sure as hell wasn’t happy either. If I had to put my finger on it, I would say that her expression was floating somewhere between angry and concerned.
“Two...three days? Honestly, I don’t know what everypony is so concerned about, it’s just a forest.” Did I stoke the fire? Sure. Did I do it for a particular reason? Not really. Was it just a little bit fun? Yes, yes it was.
“Just a...It’s...Excuse me I need to go talk to somepony,” Twilight said as she quickly left the library, and went off to parts unknown.
“I wonder what that was all about,” I said smirking to Spike, he however didn’t seem to share in my amusement.
“Dude, that was not cool,” he said with a completely straight face.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my smirk vanishing.
“You can’t just lie to ponies and freak them out like that. It’s just...it isn’t cool okay,” he said as he started walking off to the kitchen. “I’m not gonna narc on you, but you should probably go.”
I stood there, alone in the library for a moment. To be totally honest I was shocked that Spike had picked up on the bullshit I had been selling. Ever since I had woken up in Equestria it seemed like my words had the absolute truth behind them, but I guess that had just been a stupid illusion. I had pushed things too far and they had pissed of the only carnivore for miles around, so while it seemed that I had gotten off easy this time I would need to be much more careful in the future.
I turned back to the entrance, the door still slightly ajar from Twilight’s exit, and walked over to it, simply pushing it open just enough to get out, and subconsciously flicking it closed with my back hoof as I left. The sun was just touching the horizon as I looked out to the west, and there seemed to be significantly less ponies bustling about streets, though there were plenty still coming and going as they pleased. With a sigh I set back on my way towards the road that would lead to Sweet Apple Acres, a place that I was more than a little hesitant about stepping hoof into again.
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Love the chapter man! Keep on writing!
I had to admit that I could have easily just said we were knew in town,
New in town
“What are you two thinking about do intensely?”
I think you mean so?
Also, great chapter! I get goosebumps just reading about Twilight.
With what I have already planned out for this story I can honestly say that it only gets better from here.
If you ever need any help on the story, let me know! I sometimes help out random authors on the site, mainly because I want to see the stories so badly
but also because I love helping with proof reading and tossing out ideas! Plus I do write mainly child protagonist stories 
Well, looks like he just boned himself. Twilight's gonna be all helpful and stuff like a good pony and get those two tossed into Child Services'. Next stop, orphanage! All aboard the misery train.
If he really wants to screw up their "low profile", a few more choice words out of his mouth will get Twilight all sorts of interested in those two. As nice as she is, she's way too smart for the likes of them and their cover story will crumble. Heck, Luna could get in one this and spy on their dreams. Now, I can't recall if they still dream as humans or their transformation carried over to the dreamscape too. If they're still human in their dreams, then Luna's gonna narc them out.
At least ponies don't dissect aliens like humans do in all the movies. (Er, I'm pretty sure they don't, right?)
Hooray it is alive again!! <33 absorbs the chapter with a holy fevor!
The difficult part about a hollowed out tree house is firstly getting the trunk that thick. That tree would have to be >9000 years to get that fat around the middle. The second difficult part is structural integrity. Because that's the only thing the core does. So it's easier to break a hollowed out tree than a solid one. Other than that there's no problem to having a house built into a living tree, assuming you don't mind waking up with ants everywhere.
So, Spike knows Ash only spent a half hour in the Everfree, not a few days? I suppose that makes sense as Ash and Steel haven't been uh, devoured by the monsters in there. I wonder why Ash said three days. They literally like, ran over there and hey we're out of the Everfree. Not covered in bruises and scrapes, not half dead from running all night from the thing that would not stop chasing them, not bloodshot eyes, snotty noses, dissheveled fur, mane and tail full of sticks, leaves and questionable oozy fluids. It's pretty obvious that their experience in the Everfree was about the same as a couple of colts who dared each other to run into it, and then ran right back out. But only to someone who saw them before they had a chance to sleep and get cleaned up. Spike didn't see them fresh out of the forest, so how does he know they weren't lost in there?
Finally... another chapter.
i.imgur.com/XS5LK.jpg
Technically she didn't die...
Also, waiting for my prediction to be correct.
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Spike is the new Applejack?
1: recently I saw a segment of How It's Made covering that.
https://m.2: I am often told the same.
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Ballpoint pens are extremely simple in concept, just hard to physically make.