Where did you come from?

by Jeweled Pen

Chapter 7: So bright

Val struggled to contain his giggles. “Princess of LOVE and FRIENDSHIP? That has got to be the silliest BLEEPing thing I've ever heard! You're silly, you ponies are silly. Even paladins aren't this... goody. How have you not all been invaded yet?”

“Oh, we've been invaded plenty of times. Princess Celestia always repels them, or Princess Twilight.”

“Okay, your... sun raising pony, I will admit she might be quite powerful. For a unicorn.”

“Alicorn.”

“Yes, the thing with the wings and the horn. But how could friendship be powerful?”

“Friendship is a powerful force.” She paused and looked him over. “Let me guess, the drow do not have friends?”

That made his face turn pale. “F-friends? Of course I have friends! Why, I have... stop it with the hugging!”

“Oh you poor, poor child,” she said softly.

“I will blast you with fel magics of the highest caliber!”

“No you will not,” she said firmly and felt him stop resisting. She was discovering quite a bit about him. He responded quite well to teacher Cheerilee. She imagined his mother, as detestable as she sounded, had something to do with that.

For a few moments there was silence, then he looked up. “So... the pegasuses really change the weather, by themselves?”

“Pegasi. And yes, all weather is set up by the pegasi.”

“That's... not so stupid. We don't really have much weather underground. It tends to just be cold and...” He frowned and looked towards the window. “It's kind of... light here.”

“Light?”

“The colors. It's so... everything is so bright. I thought it would hurt my eyes, but it doesn't. Everything is bright, though. Even the wood is brighter than... wood is back home.”

She smiled and slowly let him go. Despite his threats and arrogance, he did seem quite mature for his age. In some ways he seemed more mature than most of her older students. But then, harsh lives had a tendency to age ponies quickly.

There was a light knocking on the door. “Cheerilee? Could you come here for a moment?”

“I'll be right there,” the teacher said before looking to him. “I'll be back in a few moments. Don't cause any more problems.”

He glared back. “I'll blast anyone who tries to come in!” he snapped angrily, before pausing. “Except... for you,” he grumbled. “Only because I'm merciful.”

“Of course,” she said before trotting to the door and closing it behind herself, then looking to Nurse Redheart. “Yes?”

“Some more tests came back. We did a horn scan when he was out, in case there was some kind of magical feed back hurting him.”

“And?”

“Well...” Redheart looked to the door, then to the teacher. Most of the staff had left already, probably to deal with other patients or tasks, leaving only two nurses by the door. “Listen, I wouldn't say this normally. But this is Ponyville. In the last few years we've had Nightmare Moon, Discord more times than we can count, Tirek, countless other problems that I've probably never heard of. Not to mention the Everfree Forest being right next to us.”

“You're stalling, what is it? Is... is the child going to be okay?”

“That's just it, we have no idea. His magic is...” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “We've scanned unicorn magic before. Not to mention dragon, pegasi, earth pony, have a few changelings on file, zebra, one yak, griffon--”

“What are you saying?” she asked again, panic rising in her voice.

“His magic is nothing like pony magic, or any other magic we've ever seen. In fact, magic like that shouldn't exist. It's as if it operates under a completely different set of rules and... this is so far beyond my pay grade I can't even begin to imagine. We've sent an aid to request the help of princess Twilight, but there's no telling when she'll get here or even if she'll get here today.”

Cheerilee gulped. “You... don't think that... there might be actual merit in what he says, do you? From another... place like that?”

She gave a slow nod. “There are plenty of places in the lands outside of Equestria we don't know about.”

That made Cheerilee lock up. “You mean a place like that could... exist HERE?”

“I'm saying his magic isn't like a pony's. Or that, according to the laws we know magic to follow, it shouldn't exist here. That... it's not completely impossible that he's from another species or another... place. It is still possible that his magic is different. It could just be that it operates on... a different level than ours does, that's why it seems to have different rules. One our tools aren't set to measure. We'd need an expert on that and fortunately there is one that lives in town.”

Cheerilee nodded and looked towards the room. “So... his ideas that... his lack of knowledge on ponies is...”

“It may make sense. At the very least, he's not from around here. He's likely not even from Equestria. Perhaps somewhere past the badlands.”

Cheerilee nodded and walked towards the room. “If... it would be okay, could we take him to Twilight?”

“?!” The nurse couldn't even speak, her mouth just fell open as she stared at the teacher as if she'd lost her mind.

“From another place or not, he's a child. All he's seen is a hospital room. I think letting him go out into the open world like this would be good for him. Let him see that we aren't being dangerous or intending to hurt him.”

There was a pause from the nurse, before she shook her head. “I'll... see what I can do. Maybe we can get a guard escort for you and him.”

Cheerilee nodded. “Thank you. I'd best go check on him again.” She took a deep breath before trotting back into the room.

Val was laying on his back, his eyes drifting closed a little. However, he sat back up the moment she stepped in. “I'm awake!”

She sat down besides him. “It's fine if you want to sleep, Val. You don't--”

“I'm not tired!” he said angrily. “Why do you want me to sleep, huh? Hoping to put another one of those... bindings on me? I won't let you!” He stomped a hoof and his horn began to flicker.

She glared and the flicker stopped, his eyes lowering. She then sighed and reached out. “Would you like to go outside?”

“What? Outside?”

“You said you lived underground before, right? Would you like to see what it's like here? There's... somepony I want you to meet.”

“Who?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

“Twilight, the princess of Friendship.”

“Really? Taking me to the royal family? Why not just take me straight to the queen, I'll take her surrender,” he said with a smirk.

“Err... Equestria has no queens. Just the princesses.” She decided to not touch the comment on surrendering.

He stared for a few moments, his mouth opening as he tried to process that. Finally, he just looked confused. “But... I thought... princesses become queens, right?” His voice was filled with doubt.

She gave a small shrug. “I'm not sure. But here, they never took on the role of queens. I believe it's because they wish for us to govern our selves as best we can. A queen just feels too powerful and dominant.”

He stared for a few moments. “That's... just... whatever. Fine, I'll come with you. This place is weird, anyway. But if anypony tries to put another seal on me, you'll regret it!” His horn flickered threateningly.

“Of course. Now stop that,” she ordered.

------

“Welcome to the Cutie Mark Crusaders official cutie mark finding headquarters!” Sweetie yelled as she held a hoof out towards the tree house.

“What took yah so long?” Applebloom called down from the window, Scootaloo standing besides her.

“Errr, I got busy,” Sweetie said quickly. She most definitely did not accidentally get lost and go to the wrong side of the field and spend twenty minutes wondering how and why they moved the tree and tree house after so long. Twice. “Meet my cousin, Silverbelle,” she said before motioning to the young mare. She just gave a feeble wave, staring up at the other two crusaders.

“It is... much good... to meet you?” the mare asked softly.

“She don't talk super fancy,” Applebloom said with a chuckle before motioning them up. “Come on up, we got it all ready for her initiation!”

“Come on!” Sweetie said before trotting up the ramp towards the tree. “You're going to love everypony here, and don't you worry. You'll have a cutie mark before you know it.”

“I... yes? See?” Silverbelle said nervously as she trotted up the steps.

“First part first,” Applebloom said once they came inside. The tree house was covered in little posters and lists, things they had once tried to find their cutie marks in. “Initiation!” She ran behind a podium and stood on her hind legs, looking down at the stack of papers. “Do we really gotta read all this again?”

Scoots groaned. “I'd rather we didn't. It takes forever.” She ignored the glares the others gave her. Just because she wrote it didn't mean it was her fault. “Just hit the highlights.”

“We welcome yah to--”

Silverbelle slowly raised a hoof, making the earth pony pause.

“Yeah?”

“What, err, is the going on?”

“We're gonna help yah get your cutie mark, of course!” Applebloom said with a proud grin.

“Why?”

There was a big pause then as the three crusaders shared a look. Then they looked to her. Then back at each other. Finally Sweetie coughed. “Don't, err, don't yah want your cutie mark?”

The filly just shrugged. “It... come when come?” she said nervously.

Sweetie finally understood why her big sister carried around a swooning chair. “But... a cutie mark is...”

The little filly backed up again, lowering her head. “No, I much sorry, no mean--”

“Ah, shucks, it's fine,” Applebloom said as she hopped down from the podium. “If yah don't want help tryin' tah get your cutie mark, there's probably loads we can still do tagether!”

Scootaloo nodded. “Yeah! You came all the way from Prance, so there's still loads to show you.”

Sweetie gave her friends a heartfelt smile before looking at the filly. “Yeah. How about we all go down to Sugarcube Corner?”

“Yeah! Come on, I'll pull the wagon. Sweetie, Applebloom, give me a hoof?”

The three crusaders walked out of the tree house, leaving the prance pony to wait. Once outside, they gave a little nod. “So, operation secretly help her get her cutie mark is a go?” Applebloom asked.

“Of course,” Scoots said with a grin.

“Err, what? There's an operation now?” Sweetie asked.

“Of course! We're makin' it up right now!” the earth pony said with a grin.

“Ohhhhh. Then yeah! Operation help her... all that stuff!” Sweetie said. The three jumped into the air and bumped their flanks together.

“Cutie Mark Crusader secret cutie mark finders!” they said in unison.

Silver just looked at the three, confusion etched on her face.

Comments

[Jeweled Pen]

6523292 Oh heavens no. I'm not sure Equestria would be ready for two claws! Or Claw trying to help raise himself... The horror... the horror!