Predictions & Prophecies

by Kinrah

7 - The Plunge

It had been a unique experience - Twilight had never come out of a teleport on fire.

Okay, so it wasn’t actual fire, but it was the first time she’d cast another spell mid-teleport. The Crusaders had been somewhat alarmed to see their friend burning merrily away, but Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie were unconcerned, as they’d seen it before, and accepted Twilight’s explanation. Whenever she got too stressed and had too much magic in her system, she’d burn it off. Simple as that. She was smoldering for a while afterwards, though, and her mane was fuzzed to the point where Rarity would faint on seeing it.

Their immediate concern hadn’t been her. Their immediate concern was with where they were.

Something with the spell had gone wrong, that much had been evident even as it was being cast. The ringing of the bell aside (she’d probably just loosened it), there was too much magic fueling the spell, which ought to have been impossible. Twilight carefully regulated her magic when she could, and she had definitely used the right amount for seven ponies, so where in Equestria had the magic for five additional ponies come from? More to the point, how badly had it affected her aim?

Obviously, the forest they were standing in wasn’t the mine entrance. Mount Canterlot towered above them; they weren’t quite at its base, that would be at least half a mile away, and the mine at least another one further. Also visible through a gap in the tall trees was the outskirts of Cloudsdale, so somewhere to the west? Earthen Forest then, where the earth ponies had tried to settle in the Hearth’s Warming tale. One of the waterfalls from Canterlot landing somewhere to the south corroborated that suggestion. Not quite as bad as in Celestia’s story; about a mile and a half wasn’t bad for a teleport overcharged by that much. On first arrival, she’d feared arriving on the other side of Equestria, or worse, outside of Equestria. She had her friends with her, true, but the last thing she wanted was to be the one who’d gotten them all stuck in somewhere like Zebrica or Airsia. That would’ve been difficult to explain.

“Can’t you just teleport us back?” Pinkie asked, after Twilight explained the situation.

“It doesn’t work that way, Pinkie.” Her magic was most definitely on cooldown now. She’d tested it with a small tree branch; lifting it had been much more of an effort than it would otherwise have been. “I’m not going to be able to teleport again for a while.”

Earthen Forest was another place she’d never been before. She’d nearly been there once, when she’d not been looking where she was going and fell off a castle balcony, but one of the Royal Guard pegasi had caught her before she had the chance to plummet to her doom. One of the scariest moments of her life, along with the Fire in the Library Incident and the Want It Need It Incident. A lot of her life seemed to be classified in incidents, as her brother had poked at her when they’d got the chance to meet after her last birthday.

At least a mile and a half from her intended destination. Not bad, but not in any way good either…

“Does that mean we have to walk?”

“How far do we have to walk?!”

“My hoof still hurts!”

…And they had three foals with them, and they, even earth pony foals, were not built for long-distance walking. They lacked any supplies, apart from Fluttershy’s first aid kit which would work in a pinch but otherwise wasn’t helpful. They lacked any solid evidence as to their precise location, and the most efficient route they should take to reach the mine. By now, it would be past lunchtime, so they were all hungry, and as evidenced by the previous week, Pinkie didn’t cope well with missing lunch. They were absolutely unprepared for any kind of survival trek at all.

Closer inspection of Sweetie Belle’s hoof did reveal a crack, and that was going to sting like mad while she kept standing and walking with it. That was the sort of thing Zecora could fix, though, so getting her back to Ponyville would be enough. If only the Earthen Forest wasn’t so far away with no nearby train stations… Mount Canterlot Junction was somewhere southeast of them, Cloudsdale was somewhere in the opposite direction, and hitchhiking from the nearest cart track would be futile, assuming they could even find one. Could she be carried? Applejack would probably be the best candidate for that, though Twilight had practice with Spike, and he weighed about the same, so she could if really necessary.

At least, he’d weighed about the same as her when Rainbow Dash had decided to try juggling. That had been fun to watch. Also painful. Rainbow Dash was never again going to try juggling.

Speaking of… “If only Rainbow Dash were here,” Scootaloo sighed, casting an eye up towards Cloudsdale. “She’d get us back in a flash.”

“Scootaloo, the last time Rainbow Dash gave us a ‘lift’, she broke your scooter,” Twilight pointed out. “And her nose.”

They weren’t going to get anywhere just by standing around, so she had a quick conference/battle planning/strategy meeting with the others to decide on a plan of action, estimated the heading they’d need to take, and led them deeper into the trees.

“Yeah, but I fixed it again!” Scootaloo protested, trotting faster to keep up alongside her. “And then Mayor Mare stole it again.”

“Ah fixed it,” corrected Apple Bloom.

“An’ the Mayor locked it up so you can pay off the stall ya demolished first,” finished Applejack. “Common sense, Scootaloo.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know…” The filly pegasus scowled. “(Not my fault Miss Spring set up her stall five feet further left than normal…)”

“What was that?”

“Nothing!”

“This place seems very familiar…” murmured Fluttershy from the middle of the group. “I feel like I’ve been here before.” She had; she’d fallen into the north-western part of the forest after Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom eleven years ago, and found her special talent. Twilight told her. “Oh, really? How wonderful! I’ve never been back here since that day. Rainbow Dash seemed very concerned that I get back up in the clouds as soon as possible.”

“Ooh, ooh, I remember!” As per usual, Pinkie was forgoing walking in favor of bouncing. “When she first came to Ponyville she was terrified of the ground!”

“Heh, as if Rainbow Dash would be scared of the ground.”

“But she was! She was all ‘ooh, aah, it’s all solid’ and I was like ‘so are you, silly!’ and then I pelted her with a snowball.” She giggled. “That snowball fight was fun.”

Even from the front of the group, Twilight could hear Applejack’s brow creasing. “Didn’t Rainbow Dash come to Ponyville a week after we finally finished wrappin’ up winter?”

“Oh, I always keep a freezer full of snowballs, in case anypony craves snowcones or if somepony wants to have a snowball fight.”

“That seems a little impractical— ow!” Something thwacked Twilight in the back of the head, and she could feel water dribbling through her mane. “Pinkie! Where did that even come from?!”

All three foals burst out laughing. “She got you good, Twilight!”

“Rule #1 of snowball fights: Never let down your guard!”

“We’re not having a snowball fight! We’ve got more pressing matters on our hooves!”

“Aww, you’re no fun anymore.” Pinkie suddenly ducked, as if she was anticipating something to hit her in the head. “Oh good, they’re not still upset about that.”

“Who?”

“The snakes!”

“S-snakes?!”

“I don’t see any snakes around here…”

“I didn’t think they were native to this forest,” Fluttershy put in. “I know there are some living in Whitetail Wood, but…”

Everything became brighter as they stepped into a clearing, though there were still no signs of any other ponies. The only signs of life were some birds and some rabbits, which hid as they approached. “Are we nearly there yet?”

“We’ve only been walking for a few minutes, Sweetie Belle.” The filly had opted not to take a lift, instead enduring the discomfort from her cracked hoof. “There’s still a long way to go yet.”

“Everypony back at the mine’s still gonna be lookin’ for us. Ain’t there any way to get there faster?”

“I don’t think so, Apple Bloom. I still can’t teleport, and I don’t know any spells that would speed us up.” None that were safe, anyway. Rainbow Dash had begged her to cast Accelerate on her, and just as quickly begged her not to when Twilight demonstrated with an orange, which had traveled the length of town in half a second and turned itself inside out. “We’re just going to have to walk and hope we find somepony with a cart traveling in the right direction.”

“Hold up a tick.” Applejack stopped, and the rest followed suit. “Ah knew Ah’d forgotten somethin’. Pinkie, didn’t you say you had your balloon on you?”

It took Twilight a moment to process, but when it did, her entire body froze. She’d been trying to avoid bringing up the subject of the balloon, and it had come up anyway, from the pony she least wanted to hear it from.

“Nope.” Phew, that was a close— “I said I had Cherry’s balloon on me!”

“Pinkie!”

“What?”

One of Applejack’s eyebrows had gone up, which meant that so had her suspicions. Again. Twilight had managed to avoid explaining before, but this time it didn’t look like there’d be any escape. “What’s got you so riled up, sugarcube? Ah was gonna suggest that Pinkie ‘n’ Ah could go on ahead to let the others know we found the girls.”

“Why, uh, why not just let Pinkie go?” Straws were being pulled, and Twilight was rapidly running out of them before she’d even started. “I’m sure she could get there quickly enough…”

“Well, and no offense here Pinkie, they might just think you’re…”

“Being Pinkie Pie?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, I get it. None taken.” Her ears did turn down a little at the tips, though. The town still hadn’t quite forgiven her for the Mirror Pool Incident. They still missed her fun and laughter, but they were just a bit wary when they thought she was trying too hard.

“Why not send Fluttershy instead? Or me?”

“Fluttershy’s got the first aid trainin’, and you can put up one of them beams of light to let us know where to find you.” Curse Applejack’s memory of her spell list. Beacon was exceptionally easy and practically a mandatory requirement in unicorn learning. “Come on, Twi, you ain’t normally like this.”

“I, uh, um…” Sweat ran down her brow. Stalling tactics! She’d forgotten them. Evasive maneuvers! Already exhausted. Lie! Don’t be daft, Applejack was a walking lie detector. “I…” Out of options! Abort! Abor— Thwack. “Ow! Pinkie!”

Said pink mare was sat back on her haunches, another snowball in her hoof primed and ready to be thrown. “Aw, quit being such a silly filly, Twilight!” Her ears were back up. “Lighten up already!”

“But Pinkie— ow!” The second snowball hit her in the side of the face. “Will you stop that?! I’m trying to stop Applejack from-”

“Stop me from what?”

Oh. Oops. “Uh, I meant… ow!”

“Twilight’s just being all twitchy and panicky ‘cause she looked into the future and she says that the future says you’re gonna fall out of the balloon if you go up in it,” Pinkie said, brushing snow off her hooves. Aaaagh! “And if she stops you from going up then logically you can’t come down again. I think that’s right. I might be paraphrasing. Did I get that right?”

“(Busted!)”

“(Shut up, Scoots.)”

Applejack put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Twi? Is what she’s sayin’…”

With Pinkie’s outburst, there just simply wasn’t any point in holding it in anymore. She had to tell her, come Tartarus or high water… “…Yes, it’s true.” Two would rise, one would fall, she would sink into the deep, her hat would be left floating, the parts of the prophecy that she’d left out of her original explanation. It was the future, the unavoidable future. Now, as she was finding out, even if she tried her hardest to prevent it, it was still going to come true.

“Twilight, my Granny Smith has a sayin’ she uses a bunch.”

One of the fillies took the moment to pipe up. “You mean ‘The loudest timberwolf is the most cowardly timberwolf’?” Apple Bloom scrunched up her nose. “That don’t sound right.”

“No, AB. She says ‘If’n you don’t like the future, change it.’”

It was profound, but… how? Twilight had tried, both this time and the time when she’d been time traveling, and both times it seemed the future was unavoidable. Every occasion, no matter what she did, despite her intentions, she ended up contributing to the future rather than preventing it. Her voice was resigned now. “…That’s just it, Applejack. I don’t see how.”

Her friend stood there for a moment, looking at her. Then… “Pinkie, get the balloon out and fire ‘er up.”

“Yessir, Captain AJ! I’m gonna need all of you to look away, just for a teensy-tiny moment. Can’t do this while you’re watching!”

Twilight stared at her.

“I was being serious, Twilight~!”

Applejack grabbed her and spun her around. “Work with me here, Twi. Just for a moment.”

“But Applejack—”

“Ta-da! One hot-air balloon ready and prepped for takeoff!” In the instant they’d all been facing the other way, Pinkie had retrieved the balloon, fully inflated it (how?!) and strung a banner from the basket that read ‘Congratulations!’. Cherry Berry’s balloon did look a lot like Pinkie’s own balloon, but there were still a few key differences - Cherry didn’t keep hers fully laden with party equipment or, bizarrely, commentating equipment - that had been enough for Twilight to identify which had been in Dinky’s drawing.

This wasn’t it.

“…Ah’m not even gonna ask how that’s possible.”

“It works because it would be boring otherwise!”

“Like Ah said: Not gonna ask.”

“But that implies you want to ask, and I just told you.”

“No— Pinkie— Ah— Forget it.”

“(I was watching and I still can’t work out what I saw,)” whispered Sweetie Belle.

“(It’s just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie.)”

Twilight tried again. “AJ, please— what are you doing?”

Ask any pony to describe Applejack, and the hat was always one of the first things they’d remember about her, along with the accent, and possibly the strength of her hind hooves if you’d happened to make a bad impression. She rarely left home without it. It was the same for her sister’s bow, or her brother’s yoke; you saw it, you knew who it belonged to, and knew they weren’t far away. (Twilight had experimented accessorizing similarly, but a ‘junior scientist’ pin didn’t really have the same effect.) Whenever she took her hat off intentionally, she meant business. She had taken it off.

And pressed it into Fluttershy’s grip. “Changin’ the future. If Ah’m not wearin’ my hat, how can it be left behind?” She winked. “C’mon, Twi, think a little.”

Gobsmacked, lost for words, Twilight watched as Applejack and Pinkie climbed into the balloon and took off. She had been despairing, there had been no way forwards, and Applejack was completely and utterly right. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Upon the surface, last signs float - because it had been that particular hat, she’d just assumed that it was Applejack. Nothing in that line of the prophecy indicated the last signs of who. Fluttershy had the hat now - she looked at Twilight, hat clutched tightly to her chest, the worry even deeper on her face - and she wouldn’t be falling out of a balloon into water.

She needed to update her journal entry, now.

“Come along, girls, let’s keep moving.” They entered the tree line on the other side of the clearing.

‘Two will rise, one will fall’: A hot air balloon. Dinky says there’s a pony that looks like Applejack falling out of it but I really can’t tell. Spike says it looks like Cherry Berry’s balloon, but I disagree, I think it looks more like Pinkie’s party balloon. Applejack has taken off in a balloon, but definitely not the one in Dinky’s drawing. With any luck, this disconnects it from my previous assumptions - or even better, averts that future entirely.

‘Upon the surface last signs float’: It’s Applejack’s hat, or apparel similar, floating on water. Probably no longer combined with the line involving the hot air balloon, as Fluttershy has Applejack’s hat.

Under normal circumstances, Applejack rarely let any other ponies wear her hat, with the exception of her sister, but Fluttershy had no alternative. Not that she would have minded right now… Something about that seemed very familiar, and no wonder - Fluttershy holding Applejack’s hat had appeared in Trixie’s prophecy. That one was starting to come to pass, too. Some quick edits there…

Fluttershy, looking worried, clutching Applejack’s hat: PASSED; Applejack gave Fluttershy her hat prior to taking off in a hot-air balloon with Pinkie.

And, she hadn’t even noticed it at the time - she’d been too worried, fearful, to make the connection:

The Cutie Mark Crusaders, huddled together in fear: PASSED (possibly): The Crusaders discovered an odd apparatus in the tunnels of the Canterlot Marble Mine, and were like this when my friends and I reached them. Still entirely possible that this is predicting an entirely different event.

Two in one go, both from Trixie’s prophecy. That didn’t make sense, Trixie wasn’t there for the resolution of either, so why had they been shown to her in the first place? Was it possible that she, and by extension Twilight herself, seen not their own futures but the future in general? That would explain how da Colton could have seen Princess Luna, if he looked forwards to after her return, and… actually… quite a lot of his paintings, really. She should have seen that coming. How, then, would she know if any of her own, or Trixie’s, passed in her absence?

The sound of rushing water was starting to fill her ears, the waterfall from Canterlot was getting quite close now. She’d seen them, the mountain rivers that had been rerouted to run through the lower levels of the castle, and sitting listening to them while reading was pleasant indeed. Some of them had reading areas constructed next to them for that very reason. Spike had fallen in one once, and the guard had to keep a close eye on the sluice gates where it fed out into the castle basin. If he’d kept going, maybe this would be where… he’d… end up…

Once more, the trees parted, revealing the fall’s destination - she now remembered, Skyview Lake, another place she’d read about but never been to. (Not that the lake itself was special, aside from the waterfall.) Just nearby, visible over to their right, were the ruins of the unimaginatively named Earth City, where Chancellor Puddinghead of the earth ponies had stubbornly tried to erect a capital before admitting that Canterlot’s site was more strategic, defensible, and a darn sight better to look at. (From the records that remained, virtually all of the earth ponies had been against it in the first place, but Puddinghead, coupled with some delusions of grandeur and absolutely no sense of scale, had ordered construction started immediately, and then just as immediately ceased some two months later.) Pinkie and Applejack weren’t too far ahead of them, already well over the water, not showing any signs of any trouble.

Again, Twilight had read about the ruins. What her gaze was stuck on was the column-lined avenue that led from the ruins to the lake, presumably once to some sort of dock. At least, it would have been column-lined, once upon a time. All that remained was a single, solitary pillar, that rose up where the avenue met the water.

The final pillar cannot stand.

She broke out into a gallop, and she could hear the others behind her trying to keep up. Had they just sidestepped one prophecy’s trap to fall straight into another one? It would collapse, but when? And with what consequence?

“Whoa,” commented Apple Bloom, once they’d all come to a screeching halt at the edge of the avenue. “That’s one big pillar.”

Chancellor Puddinghead’s lack of sense of scale was well-documented, for the little that remained from that period. He had led his ponies to settle in a large valley, which turned out to be a wheel rut with a dribble of water running down it. He had led his ponies to cross a small ravine, which turned out to be several miles across. Following unification, he’d drafted plans for a farming village, which still existed as a foal’s attraction in a Canterlot back garden. So, then, it should have come as no surprise that, now that they were closer to it, the pillar was actually some forty feet high.

“Twilight…?” Fluttershy murmured into her ear. “Is this the…?”

“Yes, I think so.” Even from this far below, there seemed to be an inscribed band near the top, like in Dinky’s drawing; also like the drawing, Twilight couldn’t make it out, but knowing its era of origin, the Royal Emblem was the most likely candidate. She suddenly realized that standing near it was a very, very bad idea. “I… I think we should move a bit further away. Just to be safe.”

“What about those ponies over there?”

Following Sweetie Belle’s outstretched leg, Twilight’s vision came to rest on a group of pegasi, another school class judging from the abundance of foals, making their way around the ruins towards them. Oh, darn. Of course, this was a place of historical importance, there would be other ponies here, why hadn’t she thought of that first? It wasn’t just them, either; multiple ponies were dotted around the main portion of the city in the distance, and another young pegasus filly wearing practically opaque sunglasses was approaching them along the avenue. If the pillar was going to fall - and it would - the last thing that she wanted was to have foreseen an event which caused casualties. (’She will sink into the deep’ notwithstanding; ‘the city by power be battered’ was one she now hoped to prevent.)

Only one thing for it, then; clear the area. The pegasus, who’d nearly reached them, would be a start, at least. “Excuse me—”

The pegasus completely ignored her, paused a moment to kick the pillar solidly (causing Twilight to wince, even though nothing happened at all), and took off over the lake.

“Hey, that was rude!” Scootaloo shouted, prompting Fluttershy to hurry and shush her. “But it was, though!”

Yes, it was, but Twilight wasn’t about to make a big deal of it; for whatever reason, the filly had seemed quite upset as she’d passed, and she’d taken up a sort of meditative position with her wings flapping steadily to keep her hovering some distance out over the lake. That, if her memory of a conversation she’d had with Ditzy at one point served her correctly, was a fairly common thing among pegasi who wanted to be left alone. From the expression on Fluttershy’s face, that would seem to be the case here. Alright, then. She could respect that, especially if she was upset enough to take it out on inanimate objects. The foals were a bigger concern, anyway.

How to go about removing them, then? As had been proven in Hoofington, very few ponies recognized their feats as the bearers of Harmony. Cloudsdale, which was probably where the group was from, was notorious in Twilight’s memory for ignoring her position as Princess Celestia’s student. None of them were wearing the proper safety equipment or high visibility jackets that could identify them as health and safety workers. (Though it was worth noticing, and she had it filed away in case of an emergency, that all five of them still had their mine bells on them, which in a pinch could at least attract attention. Really that would only work in the moments between the pillar starting to fall and landing.)

Which way would it fall anyway? It looked fairly solid, it hadn’t budged an inch when the pegasus had kicked it, even given her size, and if it had lasted this long, what could possibly topple it? The seismometer in part of the prophecy came to mind, but if there were a hurricane around, there would be signs of its genesis in the weather. Not that such an event would be organized this close to Canterlot without warning, well, the whole of Equestria first.

In her moments of deep thinking, the Crusaders had started to squabble. “Hey, why are we hangin’ around here, anyway?” Apple Bloom asked. “Shouldn’t we be movin’ on?”

“I don’t mind,” Sweetie Belle responded, sat on the grass. “It gives me a moment to take the weight off my hoof.”

“If your hoof hurts so much, why didn’t you go in the balloon with Applejack and Pinkie?” Scootaloo was probably the least happy of the three now, mostly due to the lack of her scooter. “They’d have let you go ahead with them.”

“Balloons fly faster if there’s less ponies in them.”

“And how do you know that?”

“She was probably payin’ attention when Miss Cheerilee was teachin’ us about hot air flight instead of sleepin’ on her desk.”

“I wasn’t sleeping! I was examining the woodwork!”

“Miss Cheerilee didn’t fall for that one either, Scoots.”

“Where did you get those glasses anyway? I asked Rarity and she said they looked ‘ghastly’, whatever that means.”

“Rainbow Dash gave them to me. They were hers!” Beat. “Not that I’m saying Rainbow Dash slept through all her classes!”

“Girls, don’t you think—”

“Ah’m pretty sure that’s the only use for them types of glasses.”

“I, I’m sure Rainbow Dash knew all that sort of stuff anyway!”

“What sort of stuff?”

“Girls…?”

“You know, stuff!”

Fluttershy gave Twilight a pleading look, one that broke her concentration. With no way to keep ponies away, and with the Crusaders getting antsy, they really had no choice but to keep moving. “Come on, let’s get going.” Still, she led them on a wide path around the pillar, just in case. She didn’t want to lose the Crusaders to potential injury twice in one day.

Walking around the edge of the lake near to the ruins, she tried to keep one eye on the Crusaders and one eye on the balloon in the distance, an effort that didn’t work very well and nearly took her to the ground over some loose rocks. Applejack and Pinkie had nearly cleared the lake by now, and there was still no sign that anything was going wrong. “You know, Fluttershy, I think we did it.”

“Did what, Twilight?”

She pointed towards them. “They’re in a different balloon, you’ve got AJ’s hat, I don’t see how those parts of the prophecy can come true now.” Closing her eyes, she beamed. The impossible was possible. “Together, we changed the future.”

BANG.

The subsequent windrush and earth tremor nearly took four of them off their hooves, and did knock Scootaloo into the shallows. Twilight knew that noise, the fizzing sensation in her horn, the color that was washing across the sky. What was Rainbow Dash doing, practicing her sonic rainbooms again? She could have chosen a better time, a better place, a better— Oh no. The pillar— agh!

“The final pillar cannot stand.”

Falling, towards the lake, towards the pegasus still meditating, undisturbed. Alert her. How? Bells. Only time to reach for two closest. She practically ripped them from their holsters and rang them as if her own life depended on them. The pegasus noticed, turned in her direction. Looked up. She could easily move in time.

Moved the wrong way.

With a noise that drowned out the sound of the waterfall, the pillar hit the water and disintegrated. But the pegasus— Twilight’s entire body went rigid. “She will sink into the deep.”

Any normal pillar by a lake, the water wouldn’t be that deep. One that was forty feet high, though… But she couldn’t do anything. Twilight’s hooves were rooted to the ground, her brain unable to focus properly. What would she even do if she could reach, though? By the time she’d swum out there, the pegasus would be at the bottom of a waterfall-carved lake, and though she couldn’t remember the exact depth, the word the prophecy had used was extremely apt: deep. She willed herself to move. Come on, Twilight, you can—

A yellow blur shot past her, out towards the bubbles popping on the surface of the water. Fluttershy? Why would she— Where was she—? Surely she couldn’t- Where did she learn to dive like that?

“Agh!” Suddenly, Twilight’s horn was red-hot, and the bells dropped. This had never happened before! What in Equestria was going on?!

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had darted forwards to help Scootaloo up, and now they stood, looking out towards where Fluttershy had disappeared, open mouthed. “Do you think she…” one of them started.

The volume of bubbles was lowering, indicative of… she didn’t want to think about it. Next to them, something brown, something familiar, appeared, and even before the prophecy spoke Twilight knew what it was. “Upon the surface, last signs float.”

“Twilight!” Apple Bloom had come back and was tugging on her mane. “You gotta do somethin’! Anythin’!”

Inside Twilight’s mind, her thoughts were racing, all of them trying to complete at once. Prophecy, three lines in less than a minute. Fluttershy and unknown pegasus, underwater. Sonic rainboom. Very painful horn. None of her limbs would respond. Just… how?! And what about…

“Come on, Fluttershy!”

“You can do it, Fluttershy!”

“Please!”

The fillies, they didn’t need this. They could cheer all they wanted to, but… there was no possible way…

With a gasp that must’ve been audible across the whole lake, and an equally loud cheer from the Crusaders, a yellow pony broke the surface, with a purple mane just visible between her and the water.

“Talk to me, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy had remained wordless, trying to get her breath back, ever since she’d reached the shore and performed CPR, swatting away the other ponies from the ruins that had come running to help. Some asking around had revealed that absolutely nopony knew the stricken filly’s name, nor any part of her identity whatsoever; she’d come to the ruins completely on her own, and as a guess from her state as she’d passed Twilight, she probably hadn’t told anypony where she’d gone either. When Fluttershy had been satisfied as to the condition of the mare’s lungs, she’d finally relented to let some stronger pegasi put her on a makeshift stretcher and begin a long ascent to Canterlot General Hospital. Only there then would her identity be revealed, either when she woke up or when her family recognized her and came forward.

‘The final pillar cannot stand’: PASSED; A sonic rainboom knocked the last pillar of an Earth City promenade into Skyview Lake. (Will have to follow up on this; when a pegasus kicked it, it showed no signs of moving whatsoever, yet the windrush and tremor from a sonic rainboom did; was that really all it took?)

Twilight herself had been stuck standing where she was for about five minutes after the event, battling the questions in her mind and desperately trying to settle her horn. The feeling had all the hallmarks of the tail-end of a magic cascade, which seemed to have no actual origin. A strong rise in the local environmental magic levels could have been the cause, but even though a sonic rainboom did have a remarkable effect on environmental magic - the one from eleven years ago had been testament to that - Twilight had measured that effect, and it had been nowhere near enough to cause a cascade, especially not one on that level. If it did, going supersonic would’ve been classed as harmful and Rainbow Dash would have been banned from doing it, not that she’d have been likely to pay attention to a ban anyway.

‘She will sink into the deep’: PASSED; Not Applejack as initially feared, but an unknown pegasus who was knocked unconscious by the falling pillar in the second line and sank into Skyview Lake.

Nothing had been as unexpected as three lines from the prophecy passing in more or less the same instant. Pillar, pony, hat. Speaking of, it had taken a while, but the hat had eventually washed up on the shore, where Apple Bloom had been all too eager to collect it. There was no longer any sign of the hot-air balloon, but if it had crashed on the lake, it would definitely still be visible, and if Applejack had fallen out of it, Pinkie would be trying to get their attention somehow, and if Pinkie wanted your attention, she got your attention. If Pinkie had fallen out of it, she would’ve been fine. She’d dived from higher and still somehow managed to use the water as a trampoline.

‘Upon the surface last signs float’: PASSED; Fluttershy was wearing Applejack’s hat when she dived into Skyview Lake to save the unknown pegasus.

“Fluttershy.”

“I’m… I’m fine…”

The Crusaders had their moments, but they knew when a situation was serious, and not Pinkie-serious, but super-serious. Fluttershy had silently thanked them for but turned down their offer of a massage (on account of Cutie Mark Crusaders Day Spa Attendants, Aloe and Lotus had banned all three of them), and it was hard not to appreciate the effort they were going to to make her comfortable. Twilight remembered well the incident in the Everfree Forest with the cockatrice (how couldn’t she? She spent at least an hour as a rock, an experience she had no desire to repeat), and ever since then there’d been some sort of understanding between the three boisterous fillies and the shy mare. It might well be down to Fluttershy being capable of scarier things than the entire Forest put together, but they still treated her with a great deal more respect than they did most of the ponies in town.

To all of their great relief, the other ponies had respected their privacy after the pegasus had been rushed away; the last thing Fluttershy needed, in any situation but especially this one, was to be crowded. Now it was just them, lying on the grass near the water’s edge, recuperating. (And in Fluttershy’s case, drying out.)

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t do anything, Fluttershy.” Twilight really was. Obviously she couldn’t have flown over, but maybe, just maybe, her magic would have reached if she hadn’t been petrified by Prophetia. Levitation wasn’t as effective underwater but anything would have made the difference.

Her friend smiled at her between breaths. “It… wasn’t your fault, Twilight. I’m just… I’m just glad everything turned… out okay.” She paused, looking up to where the specks of the other pegasi could still be seen on their journey skywards, though faint dots by now. “I’m not sure what came over me.”

“It was super awesome, though,” Scootaloo said. “I’ve never seen you fly that fast before, Fluttershy!”

“Yeah! You’re the best, Fluttershy!” Sweetie Belle took a moment to think. “Um. Apart from Rarity, I mean.”

“Sweetie Belle, Applejack don’t mind when Ah say another pony’s the best.”

“Apple Bloom’s right, you know,” Twilight interjected, to put off a comment from Scootaloo who was also having a conflict of interest over the question of best pony. “I’m sure Rarity - and Rainbow Dash - would both think that Fluttershy’s the best now too. I certainly do.”

Fluttershy’s yellow face turned bright red. “Oh. Um. Please don’t…”

“Fluttershy, you saved another pony without even thinking about your own. Right now, you’re probably their best pony too.” Twilight added a mental note to follow up on that, to ask either Nurse Redheart or possibly Princess Celestia to keep her appraised of the pegasus’s condition.

“Fluttershy’s the best, yay!” all three Crusaders shouted, apparently having made up their minds.

“Hey, girls, Ah got an idea.”

“What is it, Apple Bloom?”

“We should try bein’ Cutie Mark Crusader Lifeguards!”

Here we go again…

“Twiliiiiiight! Fluttershyyyyy!”

Huh? Pinkie Pie?!

For a moment, Twilight’s fears for Applejack sprung up again, but were quickly quashed by the sight of both earth ponies galloping around the edge of the lake towards them as fast as their legs could carry them. Why were they coming back? Applejack skidded to a halt before them; Pinkie overshot her marks, tripped and tumbled head-over-tail into a bush.

“(Apple Bloom?)”

“(Yeah, Scoots?)”

“(You can’t swim. Neither can I.)”

Being an earth pony and a farm laborer besides, Applejack had barely broken a sweat. Pinkie was a little more out of breath but over-exaggerating it to entertain the fillies. “What happened back here?!” the former demanded, eyes cycling between Twilight, Fluttershy and the lake.

“I thought you were going ahead!”

“(I can!)”

“(Not all of us have swimming badges, Sweetie Belle.)”

“Oh, we crashed,” explained Pinkie, pulling bits of bush out of her mane and tail. “We got blown into a big nasty tree and it put a ginormous hole in Cherry’s balloon.” She pouted. “Cherry’s not going to like that very much.”

“Then we saw somethin’ was goin’ on back here, so we rushed over quickly as we could,” Applejack confirmed. “So just what happened?!”

“I mean, two dead balloons in less than a week!” Pinkie gasped loudly. “What if I’m cursed?!”

“Cursed?!”

“You’re not cursed, Pinkie.” Twilight explained what had happened to them both, the pillar, the pegasus, the sonic rainboom, the parts from the prophecy, with Fluttershy providing input on a couple of parts and the Crusaders allowed to wander away a short distance and stand around in the surf being philosophical. “…and that’s about it.”

Applejack stamped a hoof. “Consarnit, Rainbow Dash! What’d you go and do that for?”

“I thought she was back in Ponyville.” Fluttershy murmured, putting a hoof to her mouth. “I mean… she wasn’t very happy, but…”

No, Rainbow Dash hadn’t been happy, and that was an understatement. While the Ponyville weather team remained in operation, the Forecast Centre had been extremely critical of the missing storm, and said they would be taking serious action - though what that action was had yet to be decided. The first time, they’d managed to get the equivalent of a slap on the fetlock, and the second, the pony deemed responsible had been demoted to the night shift, but this was the third strike and that warranted more than a severe talking-to. It was entirely possible that Rainbow had been summoned back up to find out what the action would be, and the answer had required an extra-fast return. Still…

“…So now we’re back to walking, I suppose.”

“Awww.”

With no balloon to go ahead, there was little other choice now. “How’s your hoof doing, Sweetie Belle?”

“It still hurts, but not so much as before.” Good, at least the pain from the crack was starting to dull down; by the time they could ask Zecora to mix a remedy she wouldn’t even feel the difference. “I wish I knew how to teleport.”

“Not an easy spell to master,” Twilight warned her. She did feel bad, putting down a hope like this, but it was better to tell her than not to. “A lot of unicorns don’t have the aptitude to learn it.”

“Well, I’m going to have the ap— the attit— the whatever you said!”

“Attagirl,” said Applejack. “Well, let’s get movin’. No time like the present.”

“Y’know, I’ve always wondered, why doesn’t time like presents?”

“Figure of speech, Pinkie.”

“That too - what sort of figure does speech have?”

“Pinkie.”

“There’s all these weird things that everypony says and then ponies accuse me of being weird. What’s up with that? I mean, I don’t hold it against them, I like being weird, though now I think about it it’s all really a matter of perspective and everypony is somepony else’s weirdo and ooh are we going to teleport again?”

It took Twilight a moment to catch up to the last part of that long run-on sentence. “What? No.” Yes, she probably could teleport again now, but after what happened earlier, she didn’t want to risk it. After walking this far, she didn’t want to accidentally undo everything by misfiring again. Why would Pinkie even ask that? Long range teleports took a while to charge up, she’d have to concentrate on it fully, and furthermore she’d have to be concentrating specifically on her why was her horn hurting again? Her magic hadn’t activated on its own since, well, since the time she’d accidentally transported herself and Spike away from a horde of ponies after her gala ticket. What was it doing? It was looping around the other six ponies, which would explain Pinkie’s comment as she’d start feeling all tingly and oh blast—

Flash!

“Aaaaagh!” Thump.

“My goodness!”

Groaning, Twilight opened her eyes and squinted out from underneath Fluttershy’s wings. A familiar face was bent down in front of her, concerned.

“Are you okay?” asked Cheerilee.

Author's Note:

This (almost) takes us up to the point where NaNoWriMo 2014 finished, and NaNoWriMo 2015 started with a rewrite of the next chapter.

Comments

[i_am_the_jam]

Why didn't Fluttershy fly to the pegasus filly and get her out of the lake before the rainboom happened, if there was a clear and present danger?

[Kinrah]

8634323
Because that's not where your mind goes. Fluttershy is dealing with a) this pegasus who she doesn't know taking up a position which she understands to be 'I'm very upset, please leave me alone', b) helping Twilight keep an eye on the Crusaders, and c) perhaps not entirely believing that the pillar's going to fall in the first place, especially in the direction of the lake.

And especially if Twilight's planted the idea that the future in which it happens has been averted entirely. Whoops.