The Universe

by SkyFlare

Chapter 1 - Arrival

Arrival

I looked down at the town of Ponyville; one of my oldest friends lived there. I slowly descended into the surprisingly populous streets. Ponies were walking every-which-way, saying passing greetings as they saw somepony that they knew. I, however, didn’t see my old friend.

“Hey, I’ve never seen you around here before!” a pink earth pony cried out, bouncing happily in front of me.

“Well, that’s because I’m new here. I was just looking-” I started, but the pink pony cut me off.

“If you’re new here, then that means you don’t know your way around, and if you don’t know your way around, then that means that you need a tour!” the pink pony shouted, grabbing me by one of my wings. “I’m Pinkie Pie!”

“I’m Sky Flare.” I said, raising an eyebrow at the pink pony’s upbeat attitude.

“Come on, I’m gonna give you a Pinkie Pie tour of Ponyville!” she said, pulling me along by the wing that she had hold of with her hoof.

“I don’t think I have any choice in the matter.” I muttered under my breath.
Pinkie took me on a tour all around the small town, pointing out specific locations that presumably, she enjoyed personally. Such as, Sugar Cube Corner, where she said she not only works at, but lives in, the Golden Oaks Library, which is where she claimed her friend Twilight Sparkle lived. She also took me to a place called the Carousel Boutique and Sweet Apple Acres. Pinkie showed me the town hall and the elementary school. Finally, she took me just where I wanted to go.

“And the last stop on the tour is this.” Pinkie pointed a hoof at a cloud home.

The cloud house was large and was decorated with rainbow water falls. It was currently deserted, but I could afford to wait.

“This is my friend Rainbow’s house!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Rainbow Dash?” I asked, tilting my head to the side inquisitively.

“You know her?” Pinkie bounced slightly.

“She’s the whole reason I came to Ponyville. I haven’t seen her since Flight School when I moved to Fillydelphia.” I explained to the overjoyed pony.

“Great, now we can have a ‘Reunion of Friends’ Party!” Pinkie shouted, leaping high into the air. “I’m going to go get everything ready, I’ll come and get you two when I’m done!” and with that the pink pony was gone, happily bouncing away in the impossible manner that she had been all day.
I let out a sigh of relief, being free from that crazy pony was a blessing that not even Princess Celestia could top. I pushed my hooves to my head and rubbed my temples, trying to ease off the headache that I had gotten from all of Pinkie’s shouting.

“Who are you?” asked a voice from the sky above.

I looked up and saw the rainbow colored mane that only two ponies I knew had, Rainbow Dash and her father. I slowly pulled my hooves down from my face, and prepared to say hi.

“Who do you think Dashie? It’s been a few years, but I didn’t think that you’d forget your best friend from Flight School.” I said smugly as I looked into her purple eyes.

“Sky?” Rainbow said back, the expression on her face was one that I couldn’t help but laugh at.

“No need to look so dumbfounded, I didn’t die or anything, I just had to move.” I laughed.

“I know, it’s just…” Rainbow paused, “I never thought that I would see you again.”

The cyan pegasus landed next to me. “Well, I got time off from my job and I figured, ‘why not check up on Dashie?’” I answered.

“I can see that you finally got your cutie mark.” Rainbow stated, taking in our meeting.

“And I see that you have yours too.” I replied. “Let me guess, the Sonic Rainboom?”

“How’d you know about that?” Rainbow asked, turning her head to me.

“I know some ponies that saw what you did at the Young Fliers Competition. I couldn’t go myself; work had me kind of busy at that time.” I started to evaluate.

“Well, that was the second time that I did it, the first time, I was trying to help Fluttershy. You remember her right?” Rainbow asked, but continued before I had a chance to say yes. “What’s with the sword for your cutie mark though, are you a warrior or something?”

“Something, I’m a member of the Pegasus Guard for the princesses. I got this cutie mark when I was accepted.” I answered. “And yes, of course I remember Fluttershy. You were always looking out for her, even though she’s older than you.”

“Bullies are bullies; nopony should have to deal with them on their own.” Rainbow answered.

“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement. “Oh, forgot to mention, somepony named Pinkie Pie is planning a party for us.”

“Awesome, I can introduce you to all of my friends here in town; you can even see Fluttershy again.” Rainbow said excitedly.

“Party time!” exclaimed the pink pony as she charged at Rainbow and me.

“Alright, let’s get going.” Rainbow nodded.

I followed the pair as we walked back into the main part of town. We stopped at the first place that Pinkie had shown me in the tour, Sugar Cube Corner. When we got in, I saw four mares, a filly, and a baby dragon.

“Hey everypony!” Pinkie shouted jumping through the doors to the bakery.

“Hey Pinkie.” said a clam voice. “You still haven’t told us who this friend of Rainbow’s is yet.”

“It’s me.” I said, stepping through the door behind Rainbow.

“Everypony, I’d like you to meet Sky Flare. She’s an old friend from Flight School, and Fluttershy, you might remember her.” Rainbow said, directing their attention to me.

“Oh, Sky Flare…” stuttered a yellow pegasus who bore a striking resemblance to Fluttershy. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Fluttershy, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it. I hope that after I moved, Dashie was able to keep those colts from bothering you.” I said, happily greeting the timid pony.

“Oh, without her, I wouldn’t have gotten my cutie mark.” Fluttershy said, somewhat more confident than she had greeted me.

“Howdy! I’m Applejack!” said an orange earth pony with three apples as her cutie mark as she extended her hoof for a hoof shake.

“Nice to meet you.” I said, accepting the offer.

The hoof shake was a rather violent one, the mare shook my hoof up and down with such enthusiasm, that I was caught off guard.

“Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle.” said a lavender unicorn who approached me as Applejack released my hoof from her grasp.

“Hello.” I sighed as I put my hoof back on the ground.

“I am Rarity.” said a second unicorn. This unicorn was white and had a well groomed dark violet mane.

“Hi.” I said, trying to keep up with all of the names.

I took a moment to look around. The dragon was a little preoccupied with getting himself a snack to say hello at the time and the filly was standing next to Rainbow talking to her. The filly was an orange pegasus with a purple mane and tail.

“Come on everypony, let’s play pin the tail on the pony and then we can have some cake!” Pinkie shouted grabbing the tail for the game off of a nearby table.

“I wanna go first!” shouted the dragon, his mouth full from a couple of cookies that he had just bit into.

“Spike, what have I told you about talking with your mouth full?” Twilight said, a motherly tone dominating her voice.

“But Twi, I had to call it!” the dragon replied, swallowing his cookies in one foul gulp.

“It’s a party Twilight, manners aren’t that important.” Pinkie laughed back at the lavender unicorn.

“Fine.” Twilight grunted back in a huff.

Pinkie tied the blindfold around the dragon’s eyes, blocking his sight. She spun him around three times and set him in the right direction to get the tail on the poster. Spike barely missed, placing the tail on the bend of the hind leg of the pony in the poster.

“Nice try.” Rainbow laughed as the baby dragon lifted up his blind fold.

“Who’s next?” Pinkie shouted.

“I’ll have a go.” said the orange filly that was standing by Rainbow’s side up until that point, but was now approaching Pinkie.

“Alright Scootaloo.” Pinkie said, finally revealing to me the filly’s name.

Scootaloo was spun around three times, just as was done to Spike, and was released. The filly stumbled her way toward the poster and smacked the tail onto it. Despite being blindfolded, she placed the tail spot on. There was a short set of applause, none more than Rainbow Dash, who seemed to be looking after the filly.

The party went on for a couple of hours before everypony decided they should call it a night. Rainbow and I went to Scootaloo’s house to drop off the sleeping filly who was riding on Rainbow’s back the whole way to her home. After that, we retired to Rainbow’s cloud home and she let me sleep in the spare room.

I arose with the sun the next morning. I quickly and quietly made my way downstairs to the kitchen of Rainbow’s home and began to work with her food. I was going to make her a nice breakfast, the way she made it sound; we had a full day ahead of us.

I heard the sound of hoofsteps working their way down the soft cloud stairs of Rainbow’s house. I flipped the pancakes one last time, allowing the finished product to smack down on a plate. One plate was already full and the other had just received its final piece.

“Hey Sky,” Rainbow yawned, rubbing her eyes with her forehooves, “what are you doin’?”

“Just making a breakfast. You know how I love to cook and you don’t get to do that very often in the guard. Usually there, every meal is already prepared for you, and let me tell you, t food there is not five stars, maybe one or to, but definitely not five.” I answered, going off track slightly with a rant about the awful food that the guards are served.

“Yeah, to be honest, I’m surprised that cooking didn’t turn out to be your cutie mark.” Rainbow replied, sitting down in front of a plateful of pancakes.

“Me too, I could have sworn that it would be, especially after all of those countless hours hat I spent learning everything about it.” I laughed back, taking my own place before the other plate.

“You always looked like such an egghead, never taking your nose out of those cookbooks. Even when you were flying, you had ways to read them, you built the strangest contraptions.” Rainbow continued.

“Wow, thanks. I always loved being called an egghead.” I said, making the sarcasm in my voice as blatant as I possibly could.

“Hey, I just call it like I see-” Rainbow was cut off mid cliché by a knocking at the door. “Who could that be this early in the morning?”

Rainbow glided gently over to the door and opened it. Two guards in night armor stood at the entrance. They were personal guards for Luna, and were only active during the night, meaning that they were sent by the moon princess overnight.

“We were told that we could locate Sky Flare here.” said the guard on the right.

“Yeah, I’m back here, one sec.” I groaned, swallowing the pancakes I had in my mouth.

“Ma’am, the princess wishes to see you in the throne room by noon.” the guard on the left stated.

“Sorry Dashie, looks like I’m gonna have to cut this short.” I apologized. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, but when duty calls, I kinda have to answer.”

“That’s fine. I understand, Twilight’s always getting called up by Princess Celestia.” Rainbow explained.

“Yeah, that’s understandable; she is Princess Celestia’s private student.” I replied.

“Captain, we’d best get going. Are you going to put on your armor?” the guard on the right asked, directing my attention to my saddlebags.

“No, it’s too bulky and it slows me down too much.” I complained as I had about the size of the armor so many times before. Shining Armor never seemed to get around to fixing it for the mares that were in the guard though.

“But it is protocol to-” the left guard butted in.

“Yes, I know that it is protocol, and you should know that it is ridiculous to expect a mare to wear this. It was designed for stallions, I’m surprised that it doesn’t slip off of me it’s so big!”

“I don’t think that there is any chance of either of you winning this argument.” Rainbow laughed at my shouting.

“Let’s just go please.” the stallion on the right suggested, acknowledging that Rainbow was right, and dropping his head.

“Alright.” I lifted my saddlebags and tightened them around me as I walked out the door. “See you soon Dashie.”

With that, the two guards and I took off into the morning sky. I couldn’t help but wonder what was so important that they needed me while I was on my vacation for. Whatever it was, I thought that there were ponies that outranked me who would be better for the job. Sure I was a Captain, but I only had five squads under my order and they were being led, during my absence, by their squad leaders.

Within an hour of flying, Canterlot came into view. I always enjoyed seeing Canterlot in the orange light of the morning sun; however the silver moonlight was right there with it. We flew into the landing area for guards inside of the castle gates where we met up with three unicorn guards.

“Captain Sky Flare, please come this way, the princesses will see you now.” said the unicorn in the center.

Both princesses were going to see me at the same time, not usually a good sign. Maybe I had done something wrong, or Discord was being, well, chaotic again. Whatever the problem, I wasn’t getting a good vibe for it, something was off.

“Okay.” I said, after a few moments of deliberation. It was one of those moments when I had a well thought out reply, but it just came out as “okay.”

I followed the three unicorns and two pegasus into t throne room, where they remained outside. I slowly entered the massive room and jumped slightly as the doors clicked shut behind me. The sound of the doors echoed through the nearly empty hall. The two princesses were standing at the opposite end, silently watching me as I approached them.

“You sent for me?” I asked, coming to a stop a few feet away from them.

“Yes. Sky Flare, my sister and I have seen that by nightfall tonight, a meteorite will be striking near the borders between Equestria and Saddle Arabia.” said the sun princess calmly.

“We have discussed it, and we think that you are best suited to investigate it upon its impact. You are the fastest flyer in the day guard as well as my night guard.” Luna added to her sister’s explanation.

“Alright, anything in particular that you want me to do when I get there?” I asked, looking up at the alicorns who towered over any normal pony.

“We would like for you to collect some samples. We will have our magic teams examine the samples that you bring us to further extend our knowledge about the meteor and its origins.” Celestia answered, remaining calm.

“Alright princesses, I’ll take on this task.” I nodded back.

“Thank you Sky Flare, we know how inconvenient it was for us to pull you away from your vacation.” Luna said appreciatively.

As soon as they were done speaking, I took the tools to collect samples from a table that was out in the hall. I could hear the princesses discussing something as I left, but I couldn’t make out any real details, only a couple of key words, like “legend” and “the end.”

I walked past the five guards who had escorted me here in silence. They didn’t try to stop me, only ask for information on what had happened while I was inside the throne room. I decided that it was best if I didn’t tell them anything, so I chose to ignore their questions. They didn’t follow me, so once I was out of earshot, I was free from the barrage of questions.

The flight to the borders of Saddle Arabia was a long and uncomfortable one. I was wearing the day guard helmet, which is the enchanted part of the armor that changes physical appearance, but it kept sliding down to cover my eyes. That was only part of the reason that the trip was proving to be irritating. There was also a strong gust of wind which was just enough to knock me off course and get sand in my helmet. I really don’t like being in deserts.
With the supplies that I’d taken with me from Canterlot, there was a map. The map told me exactly where I would need to be, and I made it there with only a few minutes to spare. If anypony else had told me where and when a meteor would be striking, I would have laughed it off as a joke, but the princesses were rarely wrong about anything, excluding the changeling ordeal at the royal wedding.

I landed on the ground and looked upward into the sky, which was in the phase of dusk. I pulled off my helmet and shook the sand out of it before putting it back on. I sighed slightly as I watched the desert sun set into the horizon. A black streak moved across the sun and plummeted toward the ground. The impact shook the ground with the violence of a strong earthquake; luckily, nopony was around at the time except for me.

“Well, that was just as climatic as I thought it would be.” I mumbled to myself as I approached the crater.

It was impossible to see through all of the dust, but I still crept to the edge anyway. That wasn’t my brightest idea ever. The ground was unstable and gave way underneath me. I didn’t have time to spread my wings and fly to prevent the fall; instead I could only use my forehooves to shield my head from the rocky pit that I was rolling down into.

My head was the first thing to hit the ground at the bottom of the crater. The smoke had risen off of the lowest part just enough so that I could see if I moved my head as low as I could. I slowly walked around the outer rim of the crater, collecting rock samples and samples of the sand. I slowly worked my way to the center and collected the samples at regular intervals from the center.

Soon, I was right upon the center, which was completely impossible. The center of the crater was elevated slightly above the lowest part, but that’s not the strangest part. Once the smoke began to clear, I could see a black and white mass, resting on top of the center. I couldn’t quite make out what it was for a few moments, but once I did, it hit me like a manticore. It was a filly.

“Hey there, are you alright?” I asked softly as I approached the filly.

Her coat was black and she had a short white mane and tail. Her eyes were white as well, so much so that even her pupils seemed to be glazed over. Her unicorn horn emerged through the soft white mane, and her pegasus wings were folded up on her sides, she was an alicorn.

The filly didn’t answer my question, she simply looked up at me with eyes full of fear, and who could blame her? She was lying down in the center of a crater, most likely not having any idea where she was, and she had a full grown mare standing in front of her. I slowly removed my helmet, which changed my physical appearance back to normal.

“Do you have a name?” I asked, staying as quiet as I could, and trying not to make any sudden movements.

The alicorn filly shook her head, and her eyes began tearing up.

“It’s okay, don’t worry. Do you want to come with me? I’m sure that I can help with some of your injuries.” I said, noticing the numerous scratches and scrapes that covered the filly’s body as I wiped her tears away with my wing.

The filly didn’t respond, it only shook in fear, eyes shut tightly.

“You can trust me, I won’t hurt you. I only want you to be safe.” the words were genuine; all I cared about at that point was helping her.

The filly opened her eyes and looked up at me. It felt as if her pleading eyes were looking straight into my soul, to catch me on a bluff, but it was the truth. I’m not sure how the filly knew, but when she was sure that she could trust me, she nodded her head a single time.

“Alright, can you climb onto my back?” I asked, due to a lack of unicorn magic, I had no way of getting her out other than to carry her.

The filly nodded once more. She slowly climbed to her feet, the way that a newborn foal would the first time it tried to stand up. Her legs wobbled under her tiny weight and she would have fallen, had I not caught her with my wing. Slowly, she slid down my wing and toward my back.

She curled u into a ball on my back, resting between the saddlebags. I put the helmet that I was wearing onto the filly’s head. The enchantment of the armor was actually cast on t helmet. It couldn’t change the build, but it would make her seem like a normal, white pegasus. It was the only way I had right now to hide her. I wasn’t sure where she had come from, and I wasn’t sure what would happen to her. I only knew one thing for certain, I needed to keep her hidden until I could find out more.

I slowly climbed out of the crater and looked back to the filly. Her eyes were closed, her breathing calm. There was no haste to anything about her. Not when I first met her, and not now. The filly had just as quickly fallen asleep as she had climbed onto my back. I slowed down slightly, not wanting to wake her.

“Goodnight.” I whispered quietly as I spread my wings.

I didn’t so much fly, as I let the wind carry me back toward Canterlot. The filly wasn’t the only one who was tired, but I was used to working all day and all night consecutively. I could handle it; also, I kind of had to, not for me, but for her.