55 - 24 - Part Three
Letters From a Little Princess Monster
24 - Part Three
There was nothing like a dictionary to take all the fun out of a party. Spike obviously felt bad about his role in the emotional bubble-popping, and had gathered the girls together to give them the bad news (and lyric definitions to their musical parade) privately rather than out in the open. It made the embarrassment of their noon trek through town a little less, but still, the afternoon was beginning to look like six ponies hiding under six boxes if they planned on going anywhere. Well, seven boxes once Scootaloo heard the news too and volunteered to suffer along with the rest of them.
“I’m sorry we didn’t find any spells to put us back in the same bodies,” said Scootaloo, shoving a plastic fork through the remains of her party cake.
“Twilight will get it eventually,” said Diamond Tiara, stretching out a small wing and giving a cautious flap. “I’ll miss these when she does.”
“Yeah.” Scootaloo touched the top of her mane where the plastic ‘Party Princess’ tiara from the party had been placed. “It’s kinda nice to have other ponies listen to what I’ve got to say for a change, but I’d rather be flying. Did you girls check everywhere in town for a counterspell? What about Zecora?”
“Unicorn spell. Needs unicorn counterspell.” Monster slumped down on the floor with her nose in the few leftover bits of cake still stuck to her plate. “Twist brought a note. Lyra didn’t have anything.” Both ears perked up and Monster took a careful breath. “Lyra,” she repeated, keeping alert for the crushing feeling of weight in her chest which did not materialize.
“There are other alternatives to get this spell removed rather than a lazy musician who hangs out in the park,” said Diamond Tiara. “I’ll have Daddy write a note to…” She paused and looked at her wings. “I mean I’ll have Scootaloo tell Daddy to write a note to every importantest unicorn to find a way to undo this—”
“No.” Monster lifted her head up off the floor and licked the icing off her nose. “My mistake. I’ll fix. Just need a spell.”
“Celestia’s school in Canterlot has lots of spells,” said Sweetie Belle. “Rarity took me there once when we were talking about taking my exam. They’ve got whole libraries worth of them.”
“Too far.” Monster took a deep breath. “Too many other ponies.”
“There were a bunch of books in that old creepy castle,” said Featherweight. “Stacks and stacks of them, all stretching up to the ceiling. I’ll bet there’s lots of spells in them.”
“What bookth?” asked Twist. She looked over at the surprised pegasus with the rest of her friends. “I didn’t thee any bookth there.”
“Buks?” prompted Monster, remaining very quiet.
“I would have remembered a library,” said Sweetie Belle. “Although we did split up and run around quite a bit before our sisters caught us again. You know, Celestia was pretty upset when she lost her sister. Maybe she moved out of their castle without taking any of her stuff with her.”
“I didn’t get a really good look at them other than a peek in the door when I was running away from Rainbow Dash, but it was a really big room, full of books and spiderwebs,” said Featherweight.
“There’s probably nothing left of them anymore,” said Scootaloo with a shudder at the thought of that many bugs. Or possibly books. “You saw the number those beetles were doing on Trixie’s comics. There were these big holes in the roof all over that castle. They’ve been exposed to the weather and spiders for a thousand years.”
“But it was dry inside,” said Apple Bloom. “There weren’t no mold or weeds growing anywhere.”
“The castle could be magically protected,” suggested Twist. “Tho the rain won’t come through the holeth. It’th worth a try.”
“You know what this means?” asked Sweetie Belle with a gasp.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER CASTLE EXPLORERS!” they chorused.
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
Diamond Tiara was terrified, although she could not dare let anypony know. She was afraid of the Everfree Forest they were trotting through, but that was just the start. When Silver Spoon went away with her family on a vacation, she had been afraid of being alone without her best friend. She was afraid her Daddy was going to send her away for fighting with Scootaloo. The little purple freak with the wings and the horn would not do what Diamond said, and that bothered her more than just about everything else.
And the absolute worst thing of it all was she was not sure what she was really afraid of.
The entire group of little idiots were tramping along a path inside the Everfree Forest just as calmly as if they were racing down a street in Ponyville, although at not nearly their regular breakneck speed. Featherweight was on towing duty for the scooter and wagon while the rest of the girls traveled along in a generally cohesive clump with him, leaving Diamond to tag along at the back of the group along with their token adult and two pests.
“A-are you sure you’re not s-scared, Scootaloo?” asked Fluttershy, who had huddled up next to Diamond Tiara as they walked.
“Hey, no prob,” said Snips. “You girls ran through the forest in the dark to fight Nightmare Moon. This’ll be a walk in the park.”
“I just want to see the castle,” added Snails. “We brought lots of bottles to bring back bugs.” He shook his rump a little so he could listen to the clinking of the bottles in his saddlebags and smiled at the thought of so many new exotic little friends to add to his collection.
In the center of the little ponies, the freaky little purple alicorn seemed torn between running forward as fast as her little hooves would carry her and turning around to run back to town. It was a little like watching a magnet to see the way her little friends clustered around her. It was a little painful too, as the only real friend Diamond Tiara had was Silver Spoon, and there were little fragments of time where some of Scootaloo’s friends would forget which body she was in and direct an unexpected friendly look at her.
It was probably better than a field trip with Miss Cheerilee, as there was not an endless string of chatter from the teacher telling all of the educational parts of the trip and the unspoken realization that there would probably be a test at the end. Diamond was free to look out into the dark green of the forest as they trotted along in the afternoon sunlight, just enjoying the brisk trip out into unknown territory despite her best efforts. She only got a little dose of education from Fluttershy, who warmed up to the trip as they trotted along while pointing out clouds of colorful flying creatures or interesting bursts of flowers.
Although when Diamond Tiara leaned out from the path to catch a quick snack from a passing patch of blue flowers, she was almost brutally yanked back into the group by a powerful magical grab on her tail.
“No,” said the freaky little alicorn, looking terrifyingly intense with her ears laid back and her teeth slightly bared.
“What?” protested Diamond Tiara as the rest of the group stopped. “I just wanted to see what they taste like.”
“No,” repeated Twilight, although she straightened up and took a breath while some of the tension went out of her body. “Everything in the forest tries to kill or tries to keep from being killed. The flowers are bad.” She paused, seemingly looking for words, before adding, “Ask mom when we go back. Can’t remember. Just know they’re bad.”
“Everything in the forest can’t be all bad,” snapped Diamond Tiara. “We’ve been on this path for an hour now, and nothing bad has happened.” She stomped a hoof for emphasis, then paused and stomped again, looking down this time. “Why is there a path this big through the forest? And why does it look paved?”
The little alicorn hesitated with her mouth working and her eyes darting from side to side before she took a deep breath and turned back to the path. “I’ll show. Can’t tell. Words not there.”
The cheerful chatter as they trotted along turned into a long, painful silence, although after awhile, the whispers turned back into talking and then their usual loud discussions about silly things. Still, it caught Diamond Tiara by surprise when they came over a low rise and caught sight of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.
At one time, it must have been a beautiful sight, with tall towers and wide walls filled with princesses and princes, dragons and diplomats, culture and refinement, and all of the other things that made castles so important.
Now, not so much.
If she turned her head and squinted a little, it seemed as if there had originally been one large castle onto which a city had more ‘recently’ been attached, although quite poorly. What little remained of the doomed city was heaps of rubble and tangles of brush, but the huge stone castle in the middle remained for the most part, fairly intact, considering how large it was and how long it had been abandoned to rot in the forest. It looked inviting, filled with fascinating places to explore and treasures to discover that she could brag about to Silver Spoon when she returned from her vacation, but there was just one thing standing in her way.
“No way. I am not crossing that bridge.”
For all the size and scope of the crumbling castle, there was only a skinny rope bridge connecting this side of the chasm to the castle side. A frail rope bridge that certainly would break when they were part of the way across and drop them all screaming to their deaths on the rocks below, or at least where the rocks would be if she could see through the mist.
Most of the other ponies had galloped off to scramble across the dangerous bridge, but they came back when Apple Bloom put a hoof to her lips and blew a piercing whistle.
“There ain’t nothing to be afraid of. That’s a perfectly good, sturdy bridge,” said Apple Bloom as she strolled up to where the ropes were tied off and gave it a good shake, although waiting until all of her friends had come back first. The bridge swayed, but did not fall down, at least all at once. There was a rattling noise as a few of the planks dropped pieces down into the misty ravine, and then some more as Apple Bloom kept shaking the bridge.
“Thee’s right. That doethent look thafe,” said Twist, backing away from the edge. “Ith there another way acroth?”
Twilight nodded. From her pensive expression and the way her wings were clenched tightly to her sides, she had not really been looking forward to walking across the frail bridge either. She turned and led the group down a fairly wide path that descended into the ravine, which still did not look very safe to Diamond Tiara, but was at least solid beneath her hooves. Down and down they went until the path leveled out at the bottom of the ravine where the mist eddied and flowed around, even sticking to Diamond Tiara’s new wings until she flicked them as they walked.
“Whoa!” Variations on the startled theme echoed through the rocky area from all of the group of ponies as a huge crystalline tree became visible through the mist, lurking in a shaded depression next to the path. If generous, the rocky cleft could be described as a cave, but not quite, seeming all dark and mysterious in the mist but still lit up by a soft light that filled the area from the tree’s glowing trunk and branches.
“It’s just the tree,” said Twilight, not stopping her continuing trudge onward past the cave, although after a few steps, she looked back at the rest of the group with a sigh. She trudged back to where her friends were standing patiently while obviously wanting to go investigate the fascinating object, but unwilling to move into the cave without her. “Look. Don’t touch,” she added. “And stay quiet. Sleeping.”
“Trees don’t sleep,” scoffed Diamond Tiara as the rest of the group surged forward to gather around the huge glass tree. She had planned on following the rest of them, but the little purple alicorn held a hoof up to stop her.
“Path. Still want to know?”
Every instinct inside of Diamond Tiara screamed against the idea, but there was a little niggling itch of curiosity that made her whisper back, “Yes.” It was probably a side-effect of being mind-swapped with the flightless wonder and being around Twilight’s friends so long, and would probably get her killed someday. Still, Diamond could feel her heart pound with anticipation as Twilight guided her through the mist to the side of the cave with her stubby little horn lit up to provide illumination. She stopped in front of a shallow depression in the wall where a gentle dank breeze blew out, drawing herself up into a seated position with her eyes closed and just sat there, doing nothing.
After a few moments, the breeze reversed itself, drawing air into the shallow depression. Diamond wanted to ask just what they were doing there while the rest of the little ponies were climbing over the crystal tree and calling to each other (in indoor voices) about how it had Twilight’s cutie mark, but Daddy had taught her the value of patience and remaining quiet while bigger ponies were doing important stuff. There was always a reward.
Then the breeze reversed again, blowing past her face in a gentle stream of humid air, and something inside of Diamond Tiara’s mind clicked.
The cave is breathing.
Under the dim light of Twilight’s horn, certain features of the depression in the cave wall became abruptly clear. The shallow depression was one of two nostrils, both of which were large enough for an adult pony to stand in, and the closed eye above each one of them was much smaller, probably the size of a younger pony, which would make the rest of the monstrous creature about the size of…
She should have been terrified, running around screaming at the top of her lungs. Instead, having Twilight within reach made her heart calm down to a soft thumping, even when one of the huge eyes cracked open slightly and looked down at the two of them.
“Come,” said Twilight, standing up and taking a step forward. “Here.” The little alicorn guided her stumbling path forward across the rocky floor and lifted one of Diamond’s hooves up to touch against the rough skin of the massive creature. It was almost impossible to hear at first, but the sound of an unearthly chorus filtered quietly into her head, growing in volume the longer she held her hoof against the creature. There was a purity to the song that seemed to strike a resonance right down to her bones as Diamond held perfectly still, letting the music wash through her body and fill her heart.
“Landwyrm,” she whispered through her tears. “Her name is Landwyrm. She’s beautiful.”
“Shh,” whispered Twilight. “Listen.”
~ ~ ✶ ~ ~
The imagery and song stuck with Diamond Tiara long after they left the cave and climbed up the rocky path to the abandoned castle. It had been difficult to believe that the little stubby-winged alicorn had been the Monster of the Everfree before, even after seeing the huge hollow tree Princess Celestia had brought out of the forest for Zecora and her adopted daughter, or hearing all of the wild stories the rest of the ponies in town had told about Twilight, or even when she had showed up with Scootaloo and Princess Luna inside Diamond Tiara’s bedroom one night.
Now, she believed.
Those five little losers had voluntarily made friends with the terrifying destructive monster Twilight had been, freed Princess Luna from Nightmare Moon, and stayed by her side after she had been turned into a little filly again. It made her feel small and worthless, like a common stone next to six diamonds. Even the wonders of the ancient castle, filled with fascinating tile mosaics on the walls and huge empty rooms that echoed to the sounds of their hoofsteps on the cracked marble floors did not make her feel too much better.
For being a thousand years old, the inside of the castle was in better shape than the outside. Of course, ‘better’ was relative. Tapestries and banners which spanned dusty corridors and the destroyed throne room crumbled to dust at a touch, while the suits of armor jumbled around in various corners of the castle had all rusted solid to the point even Snips was unable to cut them open enough to crawl inside. Spiderwebs and scuttling insects were about the only life they could find as they followed Featherweight on his erratic course through the castle with pauses for photographs and interspaced with “No, not this way” and “That looks familiar.” Of course, this did not bother Fluttershy a bit, as she stopped to check out every little creepy-crawly scuttling through the dust and ancient stones, or Snips and Snails, who added a few of them to their collection after checking with the shy pegasus to make sure they wanted to have a new home.
“We’re close,” declared Featherweight as they slipped past a huge double-door labelled ‘Conservatory’ and into an open area that still had a few panes of glass in the tall framework overhead. Long ago, the area seemed to have been a greenhouse of some sort, filled with all kinds of exotic plants, but time had reduced the insides into a huge snarl of rosebushes in a rainbow pattern of blooms among the sharp thorns. Featherweight started to fly over the thorny obstacle, only to come up short when Twilight used her magic to grab onto his tail. “It’s just a short hop over these… Oh.” He fluttered to the ground next to his groundbound friends and peered into the dark and thorny mess.
“Books,” declared Twilight, taking a step forward and lighting her horn up even brighter as the thorny branches began to bend away. “Need help.”
“Okay,” ventured Sweetie Belle hesitantly before lighting up her own horn and helping create a tunnel through the thorny rosebushes. Most of the obstacles in their way were the old and very dry remains of rosebushes that were probably old when Ponyville was founded, but when one of Sweetie Belle’s sparks from her horn threatened to catch the woody refuse on fire, the little alicorn was quick to smother it. After a moment’s thought about how much dry wood was around them in all directions, Diamond Tiara could understand why. Still, lots of little fragments of dry rosebushes had gotten stuck in everypony’s manes by the time another problem cropped up.
“Who cut one?” asked Scootaloo as they continued down the created path. She waved one hoof in front of her nose while pushing the scooter and attached wagon in earth pony style, since Featherweight had gotten his camera out again to take pictures of the way the light filtered down through the thick bushes above. “It really stinks down here.”
“Yeah, like something died,” agreed Diamond Tiara with a flap of her wing to help move fresh air into the dark passage. She stayed quiet and followed along with the rest of them, but stopped when the procession forward ended with a startled scream from Sweetie Belle.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on up there?”
“It’s… dead.” With a little additional clearing from Twilight, the rest of the little ponies were able to see what had startled Sweetie Belle so much. It appeared to have been a small dragon about the size of a pony, who had been killed by some larger predator in the air and crashed down into the rosebushes afterwards. Horrid slashes traced long paths across the rotting corpse and a large bite was missing from the dead dragon’s neck, but what was really frightening was the number of beetles and bugs crawling around on the body.
“Eww,” declared Snips. “What was that thing?”
“She looks like a pygmy tree dragon,” said Fluttershy, who had tentatively pushed her way to the front of the group. “I don’t have any idea what could have attacked her, though. We’re an awful long ways away from the edge of the forest next to Ponyville and I don’t know what kind of creatures live around here.”
“Can… you help it?” asked Diamond Tiara, too frozen and revolted to look away from the bloated corpse. Despite being dead, it seemed beautiful somehow, with a two-toned skin all grey and lusterless with little patches of green and brown looking like lichen on its top section, spread out in a pattern that made the dead dragon almost seem to vanish in the shadows thrown by the snarl of rosebushes above them. The underbelly of the dead dragon was anything but subdued, colored in glittering shades of rose and topaz highlighted with little sparkles of embedded gemstones. Even the membranes which extended between forelegs and hindlegs instead of proper draconic wings shimmered across their undersides in reflective iridescence wherever the light could penetrate the shade of the overgrown rosebushes. Without wings, it probably could not fly up into the sky, but while gliding down from a treetop onto its prey, it must have been spectacular to watch in the air. When curled up or stalking along the ground, all of the beautiful sparkles would be hidden under the protective camouflage grey and green/brown of its top side, and it could have easily been mistaken for a simple lichen-covered rock or weathered lump of grey stone.
“No. It’s dead.” The little alicorn pulled some of the rosebush tendrils she had been pushing out of the way and used them to cover the body. Even Snails seemed to be moved by the gesture and made no effort to capture any of the insects in the vicinity, keeping the bottles in his saddlebags even after the group continued moving through the dense underbrush and found the doorway into the rest of the castle.
“I’m glad Spike’s not here,” said Sweetie Belle as she stomped her hooves and shook her mane to get out as much of the bits of rosebush as she could, although she kept looking down at the cobblestoned floor. “He would have been scared to see another dragon like that. Do you think they’re related?”
“No.” Fluttershy shook some rosebush bits out of her mane and sighed. “There are a lot of different kinds of dragon. Tree dragons don’t grow very big at all and I’ve never heard of one talking. Some ponies say they’re not even dragons at all, but drakes. They live in the forest and eat mostly bugs and nectar, and only gnaw on gems, so I’m not quite sure if they are really considered dragons by dragons. That had to have been an older adult, and Spike is going to grow up a lot bigger. Trixie told me when he got loose in the Royal Mint, he grew taller than the biggest building in Ponyville.”
“Wow,” said Featherweight. “Did she get any pictures?”
Fluttershy finally managed to smile as if she were holding back a tense giggle. “They both told me no, but I bet if you ask Princess Celestia sometime, she might be able to find one.”
“Books first,” declared Twilight with a sharp tug on Featherweight’s tail. “Where?”
“Do you think there are other dragons around here?” asked Sweetie Belle. “I mean it is an old castle, and all of Rarity’s stories with dragons in them have old castles that they make their lairs inside until the handsome unicorn prince shows up to slay the dragon and save the maiden. Then they go off and do kissy stuff.” She wrinkled up her face. “Eww.”
Fluttershy looked around the empty castle corridor, which if it had not been for the dust and the broken windows, might have been used by Celestia in Canterlot. “I hope there aren’t any more dragons or drakes around here, Sweetie. Dragons and drakes are fiercely territorial, even pygmy tree dragons. Normally dragons don’t leave their claimed territory except during the Dragon Migration.” She shuddered. “I prefer butterflies.”
“Books?” asked Twilight, looking up and down the corridor they had emerged into.
“Whoa! Check this out!” Snips had wandered down the corridor a ways to look at one of the broken windows in the way that colts always seemed to be attracted to anything sparkly or dangerous, and now he crouched down with Snails to look at a section of rubble that seemed recently disturbed. “Something bashed open this window and look what they left behind.”
He lifted up a thin section of rock that was all grey on one side but scintillated with all the colors of the rainbow on the other. There were several of the colorful thin rocks scattered around the loose rubble, and the little ponies each picked one up to admire the way the afternoon light reflected off them.
“They’re all curved,” said Sweetie Belle, holding up two of the thin rocks and pressing them together. “They’re like eggshells or something.”
“Cool!” declared Featherweight as he snapped off a picture of them holding the little pieces of stone. “We could be standing in a mother dragon’s lair, playing with her broken eggs when the ferocious dragon comes back and—”
“Buks!” declared Twilight, who had gone further down the corridor and was dancing rather impatiently next to an open door labelled ‘Library.’ “Come on!”
“All right,” said Featherweight after one last picture. He started to flap down the corridor with the rest of the friends while adding, “Yeah, that’s where I saw the books. But there were—”
Twilight bolted forward, through the doors and into the next room almost faster than the eye could recognize. The clatter of hooves died down rapidly, seeming more muffled than ordinary, as if there were a carpet in the book-filled room, or as if her hooves were accumulating a thick coating of something soft.
When Diamond Tiara reached the door and looked inside, the answer was obvious. And creepy.
Thick strands of webbing hung from every tall object in the room, from the remains of a crystal chandelier to the tops of all of the bookshelves, in long, silky waves that caused the other side of the room to fade into white much like the area had been filled with fog. Moving almost as if she were a hyperactive ghost, Twilight galloped through the spaces between bookshelves as fast as she could possibly travel, even vanishing and reappearing in little sharp pops of magic as she would spot something she could not wait to reach. Streams of webbing billowed behind her as she ran, not even pausing for a second as she touched one bookshelf, then another, all the while emitting a long muttered phrase that sounded vaguely like, “buksbuksbuksbuks…”
“Wow,” said Snails, standing in place and looking around the room in fascination, his wide eyes seeming to pick out every spider in the widespread webs and attempting to figure out which would be the best one to take home. He certainly had a large number to choose from as nearly everywhere the eye could see, little bits of dark chitin glittered against billows of white silk, with each of the long-legged creatures sporting a pale blue star on their back and cold blue eyes that glittered in the shadows like stars of their own. From little flecks of darkness looking like bits of moving dirt against the background of white to huge old spiders with distended abdomens who could barely crawl along the ground, they all seemed to cry out to be taken back to Ponyville and allowed to make a home with all of the rest of the creepy insects he had in his room…
Oh. At least he’s smart enough to recognize how dumb of an idea that would be.
As Snails consulted with Fluttershy on finding one of the beautiful little creatures to take home, preferably one who would not eat all of the rest of his little friends, the rest of his pony friends spread out and started to explore the web-strewn library, with Scootaloo being the most insistent on finding one particular object among the many available.
“There’s gotta be a spellbook in here somewhere to turn us back,” said Scootaloo, who had picked her way carefully through the webbing to the nearest bookshelf and was starting to pull books onto the floor.
Diamond Tiara strode forward through the wispy spiderwebs and struck Scootaloo on the back of one hoof, which turned out to be not as good of an idea as she thought because her own hoof promptly throbbed in reflexive pain. “Ow! Are you trying to keep us from getting put back in the right bodies? We need a careful, systematic search of this library for the spell we need, or you’ll just wind up with a huge heap of books.” She gave a brief squeal of shock and shook off the small spider which had crawled up on her foreleg, then danced in place to discourage a few curious little spiders who were trying to climb up her legs.
Once Diamond had gotten her wits back and the spiders shaken off, she added, “Apple Bloom, get in here and bring in the wagon. We’ll use it to bring back the books Twilight picks out.”
“B-b-but… spiders!” Apple Bloom remained solidly in the doorway, pointing with one hoof at everything in the room that had a spider on it or could have a spider on it, which was about everything.
“They’re just spiders!” Gritting her teeth and thinking about how soon she was going to be back in her huge, spider-free mansion, Diamond Tiara scooped up one of the moderately-sized spiders in one hoof and held it carefully out in front of her. It did at least seem to be relatively non-hostile, although it had an uncomfortable advantage in staring back at her with so many beady little blue eyes. The long, dark legs held onto Scootaloo’s little borrowed hoof gently, while two of the longer forelegs stroked the orangish hairs of her fetlock, giving a strange and somewhat nice electrical sensation that made it hard to hold still. “See!” she managed to get out from between clenched teeth. “Are you going to let me do something you’re too c-chicken to do? They don’t b-bite, they just t-t-tickle.”
As expected, the taunt shocked the little earth pony out of her dithering and caused her to take several steps forward into the web-strewn room in order to pick up a spider of her own, at least twice the size of the one Diamond was holding. After a few moments of tense, eye-closed trembling, Apple Bloom opened one eye and looked at the hairy little monster, who was rubbing its forelegs across her fetlock just the same as the one Diamond Tiara was holding, only possibly with a little more affection. “H-hey, you’re r-right. They’re like l-little feathers.”
“Good.” Diamond Tiara passed the creepy spider over to Snails, who had been watching the whole episode with a goofy grin. “Snips. Snails. Follow Twilight and help load the wagon. At least you can’t screw that up. Twist, you’re one of the best readers in our class. Take Featherweight for the top shelves and go around the library to figure out where the spell books were kept. Fluttershy, see if you can keep those icky spiders out of the way of the wagon. Sweetie Belle, I need you to… Sweetie Belle?”
~ ~ ✶ ~ ~
It was very quiet out in the corridor after the rest of her friends had gone off to the library, but Sweetie Belle was content to spend a few minutes alone while holding the tiny dragon eggshells in her magic. She could not help but think of Twilight Sparkle at her entrance exam into Princess Celestia’s school, and the resulting magical feedback loop which had nearly destroyed Canterlot. Twilight had almost died from the magic she had failed to control, and she was so much better at magic than Sweetie Belle had ever been.
“Diamond Tiara was right. I am just a no-talent loser,” she whispered to the sparkly eggshells. “I’d just blow up the egg or something if I take the test. Ponyville is a lot better than some dumb old school in Canterlot.” She bumped a few of the rocks on the floor around while listening to her friends in the library, but before she got up to follow them, she noticed something odd about one of the rocks. It was the same color as the eggshells she was holding, and fairly round too. In fact, it was almost exactly the same size and shape as—
“A dragon egg,” she breathed, looking at the little thing. It was about the size of a goose egg and totally unremarkable in all regards except for what her imagination could picture inside.
“Sweetie Belle!” Diamond Tiara’s voice echoed down the corridor, and Sweetie Belle jumped.
“Coming!” she called back. She fumbled with her mane, pulling out the bit purse that Rarity had gotten for her last Hearth’s Warming and dumping out the collection of pins, notes, and shiny pebbles she had stuffed into it. “It’s just an itty-bitty dragon’s egg,” she whispered, picking up the egg and fitting it into the small purse, still warm from where it had been nestled against her neck. “Spike can show me how to hatch it, and I’ll be ready for the test when they give me the big egg. It’s not cheating. Really. Maybe Trixie can even help. She raised Spike from when he was hatched.”
“Sweetie Belle, hurry up! We don’t have much time before we need to go back home or it will get dark.”
“Coming, Diamond!” she called back again. The little bit pouch clipped back on her mane without a problem, leaving the dragon’s egg nestled against her neck as she trotted back toward her friends. It should have been as cold as the ground it was sitting on, but the egg somehow seemed warm against her neck as Sweetie Belle finished tucking it under her mane, as if it was happy to have a friend after losing its mother.
~ ~ ✶ ~ ~
Butterflies. All Monster could think of was butterflies. Thoughts fluttered through her mind like a swarm of butterflies, darting and dashing from place to place as she rushed around in the room crammed full of books up to the ceiling. She wanted to read them all, right now, however many months or years it would take, but no more had she taken a step toward one interesting tome when a second would catch her eye from across the room, or a third, or a seventy-fifth. It took a considerable amount of running frantically around the room before her heart settled down and she could breathe in the dusty air without plunging across the room when another book caught her eye. Spiderwebs were draped all over her body from the pell-mell flight around the webbed room, but the spiders had kept the bugs away from the books really well. When she finally got up enough willpower to open one of the books, it seemed just as dry and well-kept as all of the books in the Ponyville Golden Oak Library, Open Eight To Six On Weekdays And Nine To Five On Weekends.
After catching her breath and shaking off most of the sticky webbing, including a few inquisitive spiders who seemed to be trying to groom their new purple friend, Monster began skimming down the books on the shelf. There really was not much time to find the books she wanted, even with Twist and Feather checking the layout of the library. Sweetie Belle was a great help too, checking around the bottom shelves after them and acting uncharacteristically quiet as she added possible books for Monster’s examination which the little earth pony and pegasus had overlooked. Still, she could only take a few of the spellbooks back to Ponyville, if she could find any in the massive room full of other kinds of books.
The wagon was full in a very short time, and there were still a lot of books left which could hold the potential key to fixing Scootaloo and Diamond. Monster stood and thought, carefully breathing in and out while trying not to be upset at the way Diamond Tiara shrieked whenever one of the spiders gave her an unexpected caress, which was often. They were useful creatures, even if the largest of them was the size of Big Mac’s hoof and seemed to be staring at her all of the time from all of their eyes. She petted one while thinking about putting some of them in the wagon and bringing them back to the library to deal with the beetles who had been in Trixie’s stored belongings. That way the library books would not get eaten up like the comics in the crates, but the big spiders would take up too much space. A few little ones would fit into the empty spaces in the wagon and would grow up to be able to eat the bugs, so they would have to do, but it still did not solve her problem with bringing back enough books.
Or maybe it did.
~ ~ ✶ ~ ~
“Bah! This place has too many trees!” Tallgrass tried to ignore the grousing from his fellow Imetabiriwa as they trudged slowly through the Whitetail Woods, somehow feeling vindicated inside that he was actually a changeling instead of such a quarrelsome zebra, but a little uneasy at the thought of the zebra he had taken as a bride. Hopefully, the annoying and conflict-driven behavior of their kind was a symptom of the Imetabiriwa remaining single until reaching old age, but he was still a little concerned. After all, he only had a sample set of five older Imetabiriwa to draw from, but side conversations with the burro servant and the two ibex who accompanied the Council only reinforced his negative opinion of zebrakind in general.
Several weeks of travel around Equestria with the five mares had given Tallgrass a new realization on just exactly why Zecora had volunteered to leave all of her peers and travel across the world to a place where there were no zebras at all. Still, despite all their backbiting and sniping at each other, the five of them had stayed together through their wandering tour of the Equestrian countryside on their way to retrieve the new Imetabiriwa na Anga and coincidently his new adopted daughter. Perhaps it was related to the way they had accepted him into their little bachelorette herd without a complaint, or at least a complaint louder than their regular ones. It was one of the many things he intended on asking his wife just as soon as they could get somewhere private to have a conversation. That is, provided she did not have different plans for their first few hours back together again. Twelve years of being single had built up a lot of… tension in her.
As they came over a familiar low hill, the distant town of Ponyville came into view. Despite his concerns during the trip, Tallgrass was a little relieved to see all of the buildings in more or less the same shape as when he had left, as well as the scaffolding around Town Hall having reached the very top of the reconstruction project. In just a little under an hour, he would be introducing his traveling companions to his wife and their adopted daughter, which would probably be a great shock to the wise zebras of the distant land to discover their Imetabiriwa na Anga of ancient lore who they wanted to bring back to reunite all of Zebrica in peace and friendship was actually a little purple alicorn who most probably would—
A burst of virulent swearing from Old Kavu abruptly cut off his idle musings. Weighted down by her golden neck rings, the elderly zebra had doubled over onto the grassy ground and was holding her foreleg ankle while increasing Tallgrass’ command of the Zebrican language. In particular, curse words.
“We’re only a quick dash from Ponyville,” blurted out Tallgrass. “I’ll run down to the hospital and bring back a stretcher.”
His quick steps in the direction of the small town were stopped almost at once as three of the greying zebra stepped in front of him, with the tallest holding out a precautionary hoof.
“Stop, you stupid male.
As one, we journey to Her.
You are with us now.”
“Obey her, fool,” hissed Old Kavu through bared teeth as she lay on the grass with the two ibex by her side. The servants were trying to get the old zebra to allow them to examine her leg, but she was having no part of it. “Mshairi is right. The Council must not be divided in our search for the Imetabiriwa na Anga. We can stay here for a day or two until my ankle feels better.” With a glare, the elderly zebra dismissed her unwelcome assistants and curled up to lie on her side, holding her injured foreleg close to her body.
“But… we’re almost there,” protested Tallgrass. “I can see my house from here. Well, tree.” He gestured towards the distant town and the tall branches of the hollow Everfree tree where his new wife and daughter lived, but as he posed with his hoof in the air and the welcome emotional scent of Ponyville tantalizing his senses, something did not seem right. He paused, surreptitiously digging one rear hoof into the ground and listening to the song of the happy spirits as the air whistled through the upper leaves of the trees and the ground thrummed in joyous counterpart beneath him.
In the end, it was not his rudimentary skills as an Imetabiriwa which cued him to the reason for his discontent. It was actually the lack of something his changeling side had been dealing with for the whole trip.
Other than the background aches and pains of age he had gotten used to over the last few weeks, he could not feel a single exceptional emotional twinge of pain coming from the old mare. If she had really twisted her ankle, he would have known even if she had not said a word. There was yet another of the twisted games the Imetabiriwa seemed to love so much being played here, in which the pieces and the board were ever mutable, and the old mare was a master.
He settled down next to Old Kavu, bowing his head in respect and slipping the bag in which he was carrying his worldly possessions down to one side. After due contemplation of whatever deep and contemplative thoughts the rest of the Imetabiriwa were contemplating while gathered in a circle around their ‘wounded’ peer, he withdrew a piece of paper and began to write. The little scratch, scratch, scratch of his pencil seemed to annoy the rest of his peers, so he turned the paper over when he got to the bottom and sketched some doodles of his companions until every bit of unmarked paper had been covered. Folding the resulting letter up and sticking it into an envelope, he stood up and stretched the kinks out of his back while the elderly zebra mares all pretended to ignore him even as they watched from beneath hooded eyelids. Finally, the tall form of Mshairi unfolded from the ground to stand in front of him.
“Words scribed by a fool.
Put on paper, never seen.
Wasting time and thought.”
“A wise pony once said, ‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.’” Tallgrass dug around inside his bag until he found the last element of his plan and held it above his head on the flat of one hoof. The elderly zebra with the ‘sprained’ leg gave him a skeptical look from where she lay, but after a few minutes of relative stillness, she seemed unable to restrain her acid tongue from adding to the commentary.
“Only a fool would speak to the air spirits by holding a muffin over her head.”
Tallgrass nodded, although he kept the hoof with the apple-nut muffin on it held just as high as possible while feeling the spirits of the air dance around the sky. “An Imetabiriwa is a wise one, as you know, but the secrets of this land, I am about to show. I am invoking an ancient ritual which will provide food and comfort to me, and peace of mind to the Imetabiriwa na Anga.”
All five of the zebra looked up and around the empty blue sky before Mshairi snorted and settled back down on the grass with her back to him.
“Fool and male you are.
Hold your food high in the air.
Hungry you will be.”
“Hi, Tallgrass!” The grey pegasus mailmare seemed to come out of nowhere and hovered in front of the offered muffin, taking it in her hooves and settling down in the grass to eat once he had given it to her. “Mmmm, apple-nut. I thought you were supposed to be in Zebrica,” she added, through a splatter of muffin crumbs. “You picked up all those special delivery stamps and everything, but I’ve been seeing your postcards for the last few weeks postmarked from all over Equestria. What happened?”
“It turns out I did not need to go to Zebrica after all,” said Tallgrass with an expansive wave of his hoof that encompassed all of the staring zebra mares. “Zebrica came to me. Ladies, this is Ditzy Doo, postmare for Ponyville, and mother of one of the Imetabiriwa na Anga’s friends, Dinky.”
“Oh, wow.” Ditzy swallowed the last of the muffin and tucked the empty wrapper into her mailbag. “Glad to meet you. If any of you need to send a letter home, the post office has special delivery stamps. They’re gold with a little pelican on them, and they taste like raspberries.” She rooted around in her mailbag and came up with a mouthful of letters. “Here you go, Mister Tallgrass, sir. Most of them are bills, but there’s a catalog from Nickeria’s Secrets.”
“Thank you, Ditzy. I’ve got a letter for Zecora too.” He put a stamp on the envelope and hoofed it over, trying his best to keep from grinning as the mailmare stamped ‘Cancelled’ on the fresh stamp and took off with a wave in the direction of his home. Settling down onto the warm grass in the afternoon sunshine, he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable question. After living around the zebras for this long and enduring all of their clever verbal twists and turns, he was determined to be just as blunt and forward to them as they had been devious to him.
“Excuse me, sur.” The taciturn burro who had had barely spoken a dozen words during the entire trip bowed to Tallgrass once he had opened his eyes. The two ibex maintained their fearful poise as far away from Tallgrass as they could, much as they had for most of the trip, but the burro had plodded up close enough for hints of deep concern and fear to be tangible to the changeling’s senses. “Imetabiriwa Kimya has confidence in you, but was wanting to know if’n this food you said was enough for her to have some. The grass ‘round here has been bothering her belly something fierce.”
“Does she like onions and chives?” asked Tallgrass.
The worry on the burro’s face vanished in the light of his sudden smile. “Oh, yes, sur.”
“Good.” Tallgrass settled back down in the tall grass to wait. “I’m more than happy to share with my friends. It should be here in an hour, or the next one is free.”
Zecora.
The five zebras I’ve been traveling with are camped up on Stargazer’s Knob. We may be here for a while. I have still not been able to convince them to give up on taking Twilight back to Zebrica.
Looking forward to seeing you again soon.
TallgrassP.S. Please go to Little Antonio’s pizza and have one of their extra large double-cheese specials with green pepper, olives, and onion delivered here, with extra love and nine orders of his cheesy chive breadsticks to share. If I have to sit here and listen to them gripe and complain, at least I can get a decent meal for a change.
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What better place for a changeling to set up shop than a pizzeria. After all, everybody loves pizza.
You may recognize that innocent-seeming egg from three fascinating stories by Kudzuhaiku, Trixie Lulamoon and the Horrendous Hypothesis which introduces Sumac Apple, Enter the Dragon where Spike and Twilight determine what to do with a pygmy tree dragon egg, and Princess Twilight Sparkle’s School for Fantastic Foals where the two meet. Sumac is the most adorable little colt, and Boomer is Best Dragon of Small Size.
Yeah, I’m afraid I
stoleborrowed a dragon (with permission). Go read the stories while waiting for me to get the next chapter in this arc posted. You won’t regret it. They’re both adorable as heck and when you add Maude’s kid to the mix, it will break your heart.The dragon/drake looks a little like the following images that K sent me: (just look at that tail!)
2.bp.blogspot.com/-cEEy685abXk/ToXIWEOoESI/AAAAAAAAA9A/Hai_XDDxZpY/s1600/draco_gliding_lizard.jpg
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Draco_taeniopterus_Gunther,_1861_from_Bulon.jpg
farm8.staticflickr.com/7173/6588494045_6be21b60b4.jpg
Maaaan, surrounded by a bunch of virginal oooooold priestesses. He is soooo not screwed.
....so Sweetie Belle is going to end up with Boomer? Oh, that could be fun.
why do I think the princess are going to show up when those 5 zebra try to take twilight away and put the idea down, but only after the adult elemental bearers and twilight's friend stand up and try to stop it and hide her......
I think Sweetie is going to have a little friend soon. But if it's as pretty as those pictures Rarity just might get some inspiration from it.
And the Zebra elders are stupid nags who will probably find themselves tarred, feathered, and run out of Ponyville. Add in the fact nothing majorly disasterous happened in the Everfree and the usual CMC luck could have them literally crashing into the Zebras and making them do a Team Rocket impression.
7122426 Because Celestia, Luna, and Cadence will want to get front row seats for the whole thing and then use Royal Perogative if needed.
7122561 agree but I think Cadnace will be first to step in, she is twilight's sister-in-law as well as her ex-foal sitter.....
Well, Twilight's in hog heaven and Diamond Tiara finally accepted the truth of the matter. We could be seeing definitive progress here... if the Imetabiriwa don't ruin everything. Of course, it appears that there are more than a few ways of dealing with them. I look forward to seeing which ones get employed.
Also, best summoning ritual? Best summoning ritual.
7122622
orig15.deviantart.net/cbc2/f/2012/201/6/c/derpy_muffins_by_paris7500-d57zws8.jpg
Tallgrass casts summon Ditzy...
It's super effective!
I absolutely adore this version of Twilight. I'm pretty sure you know that already, because I believe I've made that comment on this story before, but it definitely bears repeating.
7123141 Feel free to keep making it. I have to admit to an egomaniacal stripe about the size of a four-lane highway.
7123130 It's all relative. Try that stunt in Zebrica and one of the local Thunderbirds might just swoop by and take the muffin, hoof and all.
7122622 Darnit, you gave me an idea for a scene.
7122608 7122561 I think there's going to be a long line.
7122426 Just remember, all Monster really has to do is say "no" It's not like the old zebras brought a bag to stuff her inside. (Although if you look back an arc or two, the zebras back in Zebrica are getting impatient and are going to try summoning her.)
7122366 He's not going to be named Boomer. One of my editors came up with the perfect name. You'll have to wait.
7122344 And so close to home, too.
Buks are amazing, and it is both adorable and a touch sad that Twilight is pronouncing them that way.
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
I love you so much for putting in those "story so far" reminders, I really wish more writers would do those; I don't mind waiting a month or two for a story to update, not when I'm following so many of them, but by the heavens above is it annoying to try and remember what happened last time in some stories.
Twilight with a huge library of ancient books...she's either gonna be there for a while, or make up a plan to come back very frequently.
The zebras are finally just outside ponyville, which means shit is about to hit the fan if they're forceful, and stubborn, enough with taking Twi back to Zebrica.
Oh, Monster...
So Twi is going nuts with all of those books.
Let's see if that counter-spell is in one of those.
Also Tallgrass is finally (almost) home. Also I like his tactic - the others like to speak in riddles, so he'll be as blunt as possible to upset their carefully planned scheming.
It's genius.
Also, pizza. That in itself is a victory.
7125012 Ah, the sweet smell of victory, with garlic and onions.
7124611 Twilight's One True Love. With bookmarks.
7123904 Heck, part of the summary's job is so that *I* can remember where I was. Oh, and you're wrong about Twilight and the library.
7123585 She'll probably be pronouncing them in that fashion when she's over a century old and gets excited.
I smell Pizza...
And much kerfuffle.
Zebra dung may be liable to hit the air spirit sometime in the next few days...
Indeed.
Now he has the home advantage.
Lovely plan. But…solid food…changeling?
7568891 My General Theory of Changelingness is that changelings use love as a catalyst and to fuel their magic. As a catalyst, love magic allows them to digest even the most nutrient-poor and distasteful foods, while using it for their magic means giving somepony a brain whammy to drain their love gives less net love than just enticing it out. Except for Shining Armor, who's a real stud.
That's messed up... Literally 5 seconds b4 i read the 1st line of this paragraph i actually farted