Tales of Valor - Part 1: Through the Looking Glass

by Scribble Script

3: Tracks to the Past

3rd: Tracks to the Past

“I hail from a faraway land”, Valor began to tell. “But that is likely clear to thee already. Back there it was not that peaceful, like it is here. My country had been broken by dark creatures and… evil ponies, I guess one could say. But we never surrendered. We fought, a hard, costly war. And at last, we were victorious. Against all doubts and all odds, we were victorious.
Finally, after two decades of subjugation we were free.”

Valor felt silent for a bit. He could not tell Applejack everything, no, truth to be told he didn’t want to tell her everything. He was not ready to share his past entirely and if it was only because he wasn’t too sure his memories wouldn’t betray him. After all, there seemed to be a big white hole in his mind where the last years should have been. Plus he had the vague feeling that even his earliest memories may have been altered. In what way he couldn’t tell. Not yet, that was.

“Howbeit, as my land was free, rebuilt and back in order, time came for me to say farewell and continue on.” He tried his best to banish the sadness from his voice. Moving on hadn’t been an easy decision. He had more been dragged into it…

Applejack looked at Valor with big eyes. “And what about yer family?” she asked, her voice low. Valor hesitated for a moment, startled by the look on her face. She almost seemed… grieved.

“My family is long since gone”, he then said. That was why he had left eventually. A furtive glance at Applejack told him his words had gotten her under a strain.

“So awfully sorry.” Her voice now was barely audible. Valor couldn’t get rid of the feeling that this wasn’t just about him. She herself must have suffered a great loss in her past, he concluded.

“Regardless”, he said to not startle her grief any further. “Each night eventually sees its dawn. And the sun will shine even brighter at this new day!”

Applejack raised her head and blinked a few times to fight her wet eyes. Then she smiled at Valor. “Yer really strange, Valor. Ah just remembered… Um, never mind. In any case, ya somehow got me psyched up again. And dammit, ah ain’t gotta clue watcha just said.”

Valor Edge laughed silently and took another piece of pie. Now Applejack grabbed one, too. Because she was of the opinion that cake tasted better if it was shared, but also because sweet apple pie was a good remedy for her melancholy.
“Sure shome kinda pony y’are” she mumbled with her mouth full. She champed noisily before continuing: “Tell me, where d’ya get that scar from?”

Valor darted an uninterpretable look at AJ. This particular question he already had expected. Sooner or later their curiosity always got the best of them and they all asked.

“Rainbow wants ta know…” Applejack added quickly, but she wrinkled her muzzle in way Valor instantly figured out she was telling a fib. But it didn’t make a difference. He rose his hoof to the scar and said:

“Well, if ‘Rainbow Dash’ wants to know so desperately, then I shall tell: It was a dragon’s claw.”

“You’ve fought a dragon?” Applejack looked at her counterpart skeptically.

“Foolish, I know. One slash and the battle was over. But in my defense, the dragon was a true beast in league with dark and fiendish forces.”
At least that part of his memories was too dauntingly clear to be completely false.

Applejack however seemed to worry a bit about these news. “I oughta tell ya somethin’, Valor” she began carefully. “Ya know, Twilight’s assistant Spike is a dragon. That ain’t a problem or is it?”

The answer didn’t come down easily to Valor Edge. He already knew about Spike because Pinkie had told him. Yet, he had consciously avoided to think about the dragon. His homeland once had had to suffer a lot from dragons and he didn’t think he could forget it that easily. But Ponyville and its ponies, especially Applejack and her friends as he had met them eventually turned the balance.
“Even if he happened to be the son of the Black Dragon himself” he answered seriously. “Just as little as it would be justified to accuse a child for the crimes of its parents it would be to condemn a whole race for the crimes of few. I bear no grudge against Spike.”
If they could trust a dragon, so could he.

And yet again Applejack wasn’t too sure to have gotten Valor’s motivations right. It was good to hear that he didn’t have anything against Spike, anyway. After what Valor had told her and judging by the condition he had been in when he appeared on her doorstep, the swordstallion could fairly use a little quiet and peace.

She would have to talk with her friends about if it wasn’t possible to find a place for Valor in Ponyville. Though the last year had been a little chaotic, at least for the last few months life had been pleasantly peaceful again. They could only hope that it would stay that way…

<0>

“Question number one” Twilight stated. “Why is there a hole in this rock?”
Hole was an understatement and not a little one. A whole corner of that boulder had vanished. The cavity was about as tall as a pony and perfectly circular. The said boulder was located at the boarder of Sweet Apple Acres and the only clue Twilight had been able to find about the strange phenomenon of last night. Well, apart from a mysterious and slightly confused warrior. And while Applejack took care of Valor Edge (a hopefully was questioning him a bit) Twilight followed the other trail. Which in plain terms meant that Spike and she had towed her whole equipment for field measurement, an analytic trunk and in general half the equipment of the library out here.

“Extraordinary.” She was downright fascinated with this riddle and stroke the cut face carefully with her hoof. “Perfectly smooth.”

“Which means…?” Spike wanted to know. He scratched his head in a baffled way.

“Whatever has cut through this rock, it was nothing mechanical”, Twilight explained. “It must’ve been a very powerful kind of magic. In any case an enormous amount of energy is necessary to burn a hole of that size in massive limestone.”

She lowered her had to closer examine the surface and, to Spike’s blank astonishment, licked it. “Yes… yes…” she murmured absently. “Tastes like iron.”

She spurted back to an apparatus that looked like a protractor and gazed through. Then she said: “No angle of entrance and apparently no trajectory. So this phenomenon was localized then. It must had been spherical, at least the shape of the hole indicates that. Maybe a singularity… Nononono, modern magic-experts agree that point singularity projection as postulated first by Starswirl the Bearded is by no means possible. I de facto don’t know anything able to inflict something like that. What about you, Spike?”

Spike shook his head, but from bewilderment. He wasn’t sure if Twilight had used real words or just made some up. “Singulawhatsit?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Spike just wasn’t the right counterpart for a scientific conversation. Even worse Twilight was seemingly unable to solve this mystery. At least in the usual fashion.

“Maybe I’ll need to question Valor Edge, after all. Though I’d rather avoid that. He’s somewhat strange and I don’t know if his condition is stable.”

“And you’re sure the new pony is involved? Y’know, it could just be coincidence, couldn’t it?”

Twilight was just about to tell her number-one-assistant what she thought about such ‘coincidences’, when something else caught her eyes. To her hooves, in the grass, lay a small, rectangular object apparently made of brushed golden metal. Twilight looked closer and noticed that it was decorated with curved lines. Right in the middle a convoluted y-letter was carved in.
“What in the name of Celestia is that thing?” Twilight asked herself. With her magic, she picked up the little, golden thing. It was a lighter. “If that isn’t curious… Coincidence? I call such a thing ‘evidence’!”

“Um, Twilight?” Spike tried to catch her attention.

“Now, I really have talk to Valor and ask him if he knows anything about any golden lighters!”

“Um, Twilight?”

“That kind of energy must’ve come from somewhere. And maybe Valor knows what said source is. If I only…”

“TWILIGHT!” Spike now shouted at the lavender unicorn. She reluctantly looked up from the lighter. But as she looked at her assistant, she saw he was frozen in fear. She now followed his gaze.

“Twi, please tell me that Scarecrow over there didn’t just move”, Spike whispered horrified. Yes, it could have given the impression the straw-pony over there at the carrot patch had just risen his head and was now staring at them with its empty eyeholes.

“It’s just a scarecrow…” Twilight began but each other word stuck in her throat for the scarecrow really was actually moving. It freed itself from its stake and staggered with uncertain, stiff steps towards Twilight and Spike. And it wasn’t alone. Twilight never paid attention on how many Scarecrows existed around Ponyville but a round dozen of them were about to join in with their straw-filled comrade.
The straw-pony on the front lifted its foreleg and pointed at Twilight. Then they all started to march forward.

<0>