Stolen Soul on the Passage of Home

by Kaffeina

I - Chapter Nine

I
Chapter Nine
Fading Shade

“...Well, that’s curious,” Aranea said, leaning forward and picking it up in hand. The old paper of the folder nearly crumbled in her hands. Carefully, she opened it and looked at the front page. “Dimensionally Misplaced? Also known as… Displaced.”

“Now that is odd,” Celestia muttered, walking over to stare at the folder, “I do not remember Starswirl mentioning this.” Celestia moved a hoof up to tilt the folder itself so it was visible to her eyes.

To you who find this folder-

If you are reading this, you are what I refer to as a Displaced. Some of us are being held here, in worlds not our own, by one known as The Merchant, a Void-Dweller of great power. If you can use these notes to find your way back to your relative home, I wish you the best of luck. Either because The Merchant is not to be trifled with, or because finding your relative Earth in all the Multiverse is like trying to find a grain of sand in a sandstorm.

Personally, I do not desire to leave. True, abandoning my life on Earth seems cowardly. But the power I now wield confers a responsibility, one that I fulfill willingly. And life in Equestria is more likely to be peaceable than life on Earth.

To those that want to return, I wish you the best of luck, and tell you that the best of results could be gathered by using something that you brought with you.

To those that wish to remain, I tell you that these notes can easily be reversed and used to shield your home from intrusions. Most notably, Discord could find them useful.

To those of you that wish to try to fight The Merchant, I tell you that he will likely not go down easy. Your best bet is to find the one known as Xante and team up with him.

And to those of you that wish to drag us all back...

Do not test me.

-Auric Fulcrum, Master of Psynergy, Wielder of the Flames of Alchemy, Slayer of the Wise One, Knight of the Eclipse, Lord of Eureka, Blade of Understanding.

“Do not test me?” Aranea muttered, “talk about showboating. He’s like Discord with an ego the size of a full grown elder dragon.” Celestia nodded and Magnus kept digging through the books remaining silent.

“I do not believe anyone in this world uses quite that many titles,” Celestia muttered, “though the dragons and minotaurs come close.” She shook her head as Aranea sighed heavily.

“The term Golden Bastard has come up in my head,” the woman said, setting the folder down. A slight cough disguising a chuckle came from Celestia as Magnus nodded. He, in his hands, had gathered several books, each just as dusty as the last.

Aranea set the folder back down, before turning and picking up one of the tomes. “For as important as that sounded, it gave the baseline information. It’s almost like he’s gleefully pissing on people from the clouds.” Once again, a coughing chuckle came from Celestia and Aranea looked at the next book.

“The Lore of the Multiverse?” Aranea paled as the tome started extending downwards, slamming into the floor with immense force. She immediately pushed it off to the side and shivered, “I have no idea what that was, but I feel like I would need several gallons of brain bleach for each chapter.” The book shrank back down and she left it on the floor, cautiously moving away.

“Brain bleach?” Celestia asked.

“I would need to wipe my mind of everything in that book if I read it,” she answered, wincing at a book titled Cosmology and a few others with varied titles. The only one that didn’t try expanding when she picked it up was one about renegades, to which she gave a sigh of relief as she set it off to the side.

Magnus eyed a book in his hands closely, “I believe this explains how I can get home, or at least back to where I came from.” The book, less thickly covered in dust, was a deep blue with a single silvery star on the spine. The name Starswirl was stitched into the star and the title was on the front. A Study In Displaced shimmered on the cover, whilst a simple name hung underneath.

“The Doctor?” Aranea muttered, frowning before shaking her head. “No clue who that is, but if the Princess’ teacher, protege, uncle or whatever he was had a book from them, then we might as well believe it can help.” Magnus nodded and opened it.

A momentary silence was the response before Magnus flipped through a bunch of pages, “...Apparently I can get home using the mirror.” Aranea frowned whilst Celestia nodded.

“It did react oddly to your presence,” the alabaster alicorn answered, pressing her hoof against the cool surface of glass. The mirror remained silent and still as Magnus read a few more pages.

“What an oddly simple solution,” Magnus muttered, “Literally all I have to do is walk through it.” Aranea raised an eyebrow before being handed the book. The yellowed pages of the old tome spoke of a few other topics, but the message on how to return home was quite clear. As she watched, Magnus stuck his arm through before removing the satchel from his shoulder and setting it on the ground.

“I suppose this is it,” Aranea said, shutting the book and walking over with her own hand outstretched. Grabbing Magnus’s, she shook it slowly. “Been a pleasure, Magnus, thanks for the help. Feel free to visit if you can.”

“I feel quite the same,” Magnus bowed slightly, “Goodbye, warrior.” The dark haired man turned and walked through the shimmering glass, disappearing as if he had walked into a pool of silver. Reaching out, Aranea tapped it, but nothing happened.

“Strange,” Celestia said, “I wonder why it reacted in such a way to him but not you.”

“I’ve been here for awhile, Princess, it’s probably used to me by now,” Aranea muttered, looking back to the book in her hands. Starswirl the Bearded, the stallion who had created a portal between worlds before Equestria was properly founded once more. How strange, how odd. She slipped her satchel back over her shoulder and slipped the book inside.

“Come on,” she said, moving towards the door, “we still need to discuss how to stop this disease.” Celestia gave a curt nodded and walked past her, and the guards ignored them as they passed. Having reached another large room, Aranea was greeted by a large wooden table.

“Food?” Celestia asked, getting a head shake from the warrior. Celestia nodded before taking a seat herself, leaving Aranea to position herself on one of the odd chairs. Mildly uncomfortable, she finally grabbed one of the glasses of water from the table. The room remained quiet as Celestia munched on a sandwich of dandelions.

Aranea finally cleared her throat and looked up towards Celestia, eyeing her critically. The alabaster alicorn sighed deeply and spoke up, “I assume you still want to discuss the Daemos?” Celestia continued eating as Aranea stared in silence at her.

“Obviously,” Aranea answered, waving her hand dismissively, “but I am not quite sure where to start.” Celestia nodded solemnly. “Although, I do need to ask. How long had Luna been absorbing the disease before she…” Aranea waved her hand a bit and gave Celestia a look.

“A few hundred years,” Celestia answered softly. Aranea frowned, looking down at the table before biting her lip. Both of them remained silent for a moment.

“And yourself?” the warrior asked.

“I stopped a few years before she returned, so well over a millennium,” Celestia answered, getting a deeper frown from Aranea. The warrior’s face scrunched and she began muttering quietly and looking at her fingers as she moved them.

“Maybe it’s because she is directly connected to the night?” Aranea questioned, before sighing. “That’s the best reason I can come up with.” Celestia nodded as Aranea stood, “And, I’ve realized that you aren’t any more knowledgeable on the information as I, only more so on the events.” Another curt nod and Aranea stood up before started out of the room.

“You are leaving?” Celestia asked, a dandelion leaf falling from her face to the the table below. Aranea waved her hand back, opening the door with the other.

“Yeah, see you around I guess,” the door slammed shut and left the puzzled alicorn behind with her sandwich. A longer silence hit the room and Celestia frowned, looking at her sandwich and sliding it to the side before downing a glass of water. The alabaster alicorn stood up and moved towards the door as well.

“I really should move the mirror.”

---

Discord, lord of chaos, stood in his concrete prison huffing to himself. It had been ages since he had been able to visit Equestria itself, though other worlds still seemed to be fair game. Like that one world where he was human, a very boring change if he did admit. He was both their janitor, and their chemistry teacher? What horrifyingly clean idea, an absolute chemystery. He laughed again.

Puns, how he loved puns. Those princesses didn’t seem to appreciate his puns, nor had most ponies. That human he had found might have loved them, but he doubted he’d be seeing her any time soon. Counting again, this time creating sheep and dropping them onto the clouds of various worlds where they would frolic amongst the water vapors as he did so, Discord was so distracted he did not notice the figure as it approached his prison.

A loud thump permeated his prison, which Discord couldn’t figure out why he kept returning to. Looking around, he couldn’t see anything, though a voice finally came through.

“Discord, locked up just like all those years ago. The garden is an upgrade,” the effeminate voice, though moderately husky, said. Discord frowned, that was odd, he thought he knew the voice but he couldn’t place it. “You need to tell me how many humans are in Equestria.”

The draconequus frowned, “Not nearly enough,” he yelled.

“How many exactly?” the voice, more demanding and slightly pissed, asked.

“One,” he answered, hearing another loud thud. The draconequus huffed and returned to his counting. The voice grumbled loudly and faded out. If they weren’t going to be any fun, why should he care?

Aranea, in the garden of the palace, was now cursing far louder as she neared the edge of the garden. It was good that Discord could talk, she had only barely guessed at that, but the fact her pendant was here, but she wasn’t? It was outright depressing and had Aranea moderately pissed off.

“How the hell am I supposed to find her?”

Author's Note:

Again, sorry this took so long.

Comments

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

I see what you did there...

[Voldine]

How long had Luan been absorbing the disease before she

Luna. This is the first typo that I noticed in the entire story. I've been reading a few of these Displaced things whilst awaiting the sequel to Hollow Shades, and now I have an idea that refuses to leave my imagination...