20| The Butterfly Effect
Five days.
I lifted my head from my desk, then let it drop back down.
Bang.
Nickering in frustration, I raised my head again, and let gravity take over.
Bang.
Inland from the North Lunar Ocean on the furthest western border of Equestria, nestled amongst the Smoky Mountain Highlands was a little village called Beinn Nèamh-Bhathais, which roughly translated to ‘Mountain of Heaven’, according to Veloce.
“Please stop hitting your head on the desk, Princess,” Veloce pleaded, flinching when I did it again.
“A five day flight to get there,” I groaned, sitting up properly.
Velo’s ears pinned against her head. “I’m sorry, Princess…”
“Oh, it’s not your fault,” I said as I pulled out the map of Equestria to look over. “I’m just trying to think of a way to get half a dozen hunters to the castle within a week when it takes ten days of travel.”
“The most obvious answer would be teleportation,” she offered.
I sucked the inside of my cheek and considered the idea. While it would be great to do some more travel in Equestria and record it in the journal, walking three weeks in both directions was out of the question, and I couldn’t very well fly ten days out my way and leave Celestia to run the castle, especially considering how delicate things were.
Then, the idea bulb went off in my head. I jumped to attention, startling Veloce as I brushed aside the mess on my desk to make a big enough space for a large sheet of parchment, then I levitated over a couple spell books from the shelves, rifling through them until I found what I was looking for.
“What are you doing?” Veloce asked, peering over my shoulder as I began to write out a spell.
“A complicated problem tends to invoke a complicated solution,” I began, keeping to scribbling over the parchment so I didn’t lose my train of thought. “Teleportation usually works based off of visual cues; where you’ve been, where you’re going, and so on and so forth. Since I haven’t been to your village, the spell I’m writing uses what’s called a Star Map. It takes into account the position of the stars at any given point in time and directs you to a specific location, often of the caster.”
Veloce seemed to pick up on what I was saying. “Like how sailors use the stars to judge their position at sea?”
“More or less,” I replied. “It’s more advanced and requires a lot more magic than normal teleportation, though I’m confident I can pull it off. I need a few hours to double, triple, and quadruple check the array so we don’t run the risk of sending your father to the opposite side of the world.”
“That… would be less than ideal, and would earn you the ire of quite a few ponies,” Veloce said with a bit of dry humour.
“Indeed,” I replied in kind. “In the meantime, see if you can locate Jackal. Tell him to come find me when I’m done writing the spell. I need him to leave first thing tomorrow morning.” I couldn’t afford something throwing a wrench in the works at that point. Since it was already late in the evening, Veloce’s father would arrive at the castle on Saturday at the earliest under ideal circumstances. Knowing my luck, that was unlikely to happen.
“By the way, I didn’t catch your father’s name,” I added. “I need to know so Jackal knows who to ask for.”
“Gilleasbuig, though most ponies just call him Gill,” Veloce said.
I wrote that down along with any other information I needed, then Velo left to relay my message to Jackal while I hurried to complete the spell.
I wound up pulling charts from the secret vault that had two atlases of constellations, one of which was about four-hundred years old and written by someone named Star Swirl, and the most recent one the real Luna had made about ten years ago. There were a number of differences, mostly due to the planet’s position and how it rotated over the centuries, but I don’t think the ponies would’ve known that at the time.
What I didn’t expect to find, however, were the several pages that detailed a star which burned so bright, it outshone the moon during the night and could be seen during the day, for three months. The event took place one hundred and nine years ago, which, according to some of Luna’s earliest journals she still kept, coincided with the time she got her cutie mark.
Even though the ponies had absolutely no idea what exactly happened with that one star, I knew enough to confidently say that Luna had gained her cutie mark when it had gone supernova. It made sense that Luna could use her latent connection with the stars and moon to feed spells which related to the heavens. I almost wanted to call it Heavenly Body Magic, but, I digress.
It took me a few hours to write out the spell, then I had to feed it mana I pulled from the stars and moon to charge it, considering natural evaporation, with enough energy that the spell would last until Jackal could get it to Gill. By the time that was said and done, it was approaching midnight. As much as I loathed taking that long, I only had myself to blame in the end.
Jackal found me as per Veloce’s instruction, bags filled with supplies and ready to go. I didn’t expect him to be ready then and there, but he probably figured the sooner he left, the better, considering the deadline. He told me he would fly a couple hours west to stay at an inn until dawn, then continue onwards until he reached Gill.
Come Monday, the crates of equipment for the gold machine were taken over to the mining site under Celestia’s supervision. While she was busy organising that, I was left with throne room duties. Out of spite against Celestia, I tried to enjoy myself at the expense of the petitioners by going for lunch five minutes early, and coming back five minutes late just because I could. Some days I wondered how such air-headed nobles and likeminded ponies managed to survive without someone telling them to breathe.
After all the crates arrived on time and in one piece, earth ponies from Mercy were contracted to dig the actual mine, and stockpiled ore during the machine’s construction. Pegasi gathered clouds as a water supply, and the unicorns from Aes who built and designed the machine focused on maintenance and construction. Celestia had the head of her guard, Cirrus - a strikingly handsome and capable pegasus - to supervise the site in her absence. Alongside Cirrus, I sent Ares and some privates from my half of the guard, the official excuse being security against anyone that would want to muscle in on the operation.
Politely put, I greatly disliked how secretive Celestia was being with the issue of the dragon. I believed that the workers had a right to know about something as dangerous as that, but Celestia didn’t want me saying anything because she needed the workers to stay. I honestly couldn’t fathom why she was being so careless; it was like my brain was a record and the needle was skipping whenever she spoke to me.
But what Celestia didn’t realise was that she’d given me the ammo to use against her if the dragon reared its ugly head. If I chose to publicly expose and call her out, I’d gain more credibility with the kingdom depending on how I played my cards. Credibility was the scale, and Celestia’s misdeed was the weight. For the sake of the ponies’ welfare, I hoped that didn’t come to pass.
The rest of the week went by relatively smoothly up until Friday. No incidents at the mine or with the machine, but I couldn't help but feel an impending doom on the horizon. It was as if the Devil himself was sitting on my shoulder, chuckling darkly in gleeful anticipation.
It was the Saturday that Jackal, Gill, and the rest of Gill’s posse was due to arrive. I had lowered the moon, then gone down to the dining hall for breakfast. Firefly and Bastille were sitting either side of me while Celestia was sitting opposite us, engaged in a conversation with Slipstream, one of her guards.
I got excited when a scroll popped into existence before me, but grumbled when it fell on top of my toast and jam. I counted myself lucky it didn’t land in the extra big mug of coffee.
Celestia noticed that and turned her attention to me. “Is that your Instant Message scroll, the one you sent with Jackal?” she asked, giving me an encouraging look.
“It is the I-M scroll,” I said with confusion, “but I didn’t send one with Jackal.” The only message I sent with him was to get Gill and company to the castle as soon as possible.
I had only given out two scrolls: one to Mayor Granite and one to Harvest. I was overcome with a disquieting sense of anxiety as I opened the scroll, expecting the worst.
Written in ink which had spilled across the scroll, I barely managed to make out the word "dogs"
Then, the second one landed in my breakfast. My unease grew tenfold as I unfurled it too. My heart sank into my stomach.
help
It was written in crayon.
“Luna,” Celestia asked carefully, “is everything alright?”
“Guards. Mercy. Now.” I immediately teleported Firefly and Bastille to the town square.
Wielding torches and crude mining weapons, an entire horde of bipedal canines were running through Mercy, chasing ponies young and old as screams and cries for helped rang out from every direction. Food from knocked over carts littered the streets, vendor stalls had been destroyed, thatched roofs were ablaze from thrown torches, and the sounds of windows breaking nearby rattled my thoughts.
“What the heck is going on?!” Firefly blurted.
“Watch out!” a voice called from behind, causing me to instinctively drop to the ground as a massive boulder flew over my head, colliding with a dog.
When I turned to look behind me, I was amazed to see Granite and his broken horn hurling chunks of earth at dogs like ballistae.
“Princess!” he exclaimed. “Dogs, kidnapping, slaves, mine, sorrygottago!” He ran off out of sight down an alley just as Celestia and an excess of a dozen guards teleported in, and were rather taken aback with all the commotion, but Celestia didn’t hesitate in dishing out orders.
“Pegasi, put out the fires; earth ponies, engage the dogs; unicorns, aid and evacuate the wounded!” She knew that we’d need more guards to deal with the dogs’ superior numbers, then teleported back to the castle for reinforcements.
While those guards dealt with the immediate situation, all heads present turned towards a deafening explosion from across town.
I was screaming internally Could this day get any worse?!
I teleported as close to the location of the boom as I could, and heard a familiar voice shouting obscenities and laughing maniacally.
“Come at me you mangey mongrels, no one tries kidnapping me and getting away with it! Ahahahahahaahaha!” Powder Keg ran from the smoking debris that was his shop and chasing half a dozen diamond dogs, all of whom had burnt and singed coats, yelping and running away from the mentally deranged zebra with their tails in between their legs.
Keg didn’t let up. He pulled a round clay pot out of a bag, lit a piece of string using his burning mane, then tossed it just short of the fleeing dogs. I realised exactly what it was when the string burned down, barely reacting in time to throw up a shield to protect us from the explosion and clay shrapnel while Firefly consumed the flames on reaction.
“Orders, Princess?!” Bastille shouted.
Overhead, the pegasi that had teleported in with Celestia were hastily gathering rain clouds, then bucking them to unleash a deluge to put out the fire. Down the street, I saw an earth pony guard swiftly despatch several dogs with strategically places punches and kicks while the unicorns ran from behind me levitating injured and bleeding ponies.
What the fuck happened here?
“Princess!” Bastille shouted more urgently this time, snapping me out of my daze, “now’s not the time to get flustered!”
I had to trust Celestia to get the town under control while I rescued Harvest and his family.
I then teleported us to the house’s front yard. “Bastille, door!” I shouted.
Bastille took off running as Firefly and I followed close behind. The burly stallion ran head first through the door like it was made of tissue paper, stepping to the side to allow me to barge into the house.
I heard Nebula cry out from the living room. “Don’t hurt my baby!”
I skidded through the door, to the sight of two huge dogs. The dog on the right held a shovel in one paw and Hayseed in the other by his hind legs, the poor guy thrashing about and screeching to be let go while Nebula’s rear hooves were kicking out, failing to gain traction on the floor in a futile effort to escape, the dog’s left arm around her neck while his other paw held a rusted knife against her throat. They were backed against the rear wall, and off to the left, I saw Harvest’s unconscious body lying limp on the floor. I had no idea what happened to him, but I was about to get a major crash course in hostage negotiations.
“Pony no move!” the dog holding Nebula snapped, his grip on the knife tightening. “No magic, or mare pony get it!”
Bastille, Firefly and I skidded to a halt. Bastille growled low with the handle of his hammer in his mouth, and I could feel heat building up around Firefly’s horn. I held out a foreleg to stop them from going any further, then looked back to give them both a subtle nod and a knowing wink.
“Lemme go you dumb dog!” Hayseed bravely hollered in spite of his situation.
I was internally rooting for the brave colt. You tell ‘em, Hayseed!
“What do you want?” I asked the dogs.
“Want leave, get little colt and go!” the one holding Hayseed said.
“I am not letting you take anyone!” I countered, sneering.
The dog with the knife pressed it into Nebula’s throat, threatening not only her, but her foal’s future. “Must take colt to Alpha, Alpha need pony worker!”
“Luna, please,” Nebula begged breathlessly, “don’t let them hurt us!”
I noticed the very subtle glow of Firefly’s magic on the dog’s knife. I trusted that Firefly and Bastille would deal with the dogs without hurting anyone. “Don’t worry, nobody’s getting hurt here today. Isn’t that right, Firefly?”
I couldn’t protect Nebula and Hayseed from the bright white light and loud bang of Firefly’s flashbang spell that momentarily blinded and disorientated them and the diamond dogs. There was a roar of pain from a dog and something crashing through the back wall. When Firefly’s spell wore off, the dog holding Nebula had let her go and she’d curled into the foetal position to protect her baby, his paws clawing at the molten metal of his knife that Firefly had flung in his face, only making his situation worse by getting the slag on his paws. The other had been knocked through the wall thanks to Bastille’s hammer, and laid motionless, splinters of wood all around, his chest crushed. Defused in a split second. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Hayseed, who’d been unceremoniously dropped on his head, began to pick himself up, rubbing his head in the process.
“Momma!” Hayseed called out, running over to her.
The knife dog was roaring in pain from the second degree burns over his face and paws, skin and fur singed from the cooling metal. I figured that Firefly would know a thing or two about burns, so I ordered her to deal with him as best she could while I turned my attention to Harvest. I rolled the stallion over, seeing he had a nasty bump on the head, probably from being clocked by that dog’s shovel. Nebula might’ve been suffering from shock, but I had no idea how bad Harvest’s injury was. “Firefly, Bastille, make sure Nebula is okay. I need to take Harvest to the castle’s infirmary immediately.”
Radiant wasn’t amused that I brought her another patient out of the blue, and was even less thrilled when I told her that she was going to be expecting a... fair few more. That gave her enough warning to scramble anyone she could manage at the time while I went back to Mercy.
Above all the commotion, I still heard Powder Keg tossing what I assumed to be his clay pot grenades, small booms reaching my ears from the outer limits of the town. I’d need to have a serious chat with that zebra about collateral damage, and then hire him at the castle. He might’ve been rather unhinged, but he damn well knew his stuff.
There were a lot more ponies and fighting back against the dogs, giving the guards more of an opportunity to help anyone who needed it. Damage control was a foregone conclusion at that point; Mercy had been rebuilt once before, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to help them rebuild again. The fires had been mostly put out, leaving smoldering roofs and partially gutted buildings billowing smoke. Earth ponies and pegasi guards were giving the dogs the what-for, chasing them out of town while the unicorns hastily escorted everyone out of town, and teleported wounded to the castle.
That’s when I saw the familiar form of my guard captain flying in the air. “Comet!” I shouted up to him. He noticed me and flew down. “Sit-rep!”
“The dogs have been almost driven out of town. Stragglers are being detained, and most ponies have been evacuated. I will have a full report by the ti–”
“Po-nays!” a voice boomed over the town. I heard heavy footsteps thunder from nearby, followed by a scared shitless Powder Keg running from the same direction.
“I’m nopeing the fuck outta here now!” he screamed as he shot by. He tripped over some wooden debris as a dog emerged from the smoke of a burning building. He was absolutely massive, three times the size of a normal dog and easily as big as Minos the minotaur. It was the Alpha.
Keg scrambled to his hooves as best he could, but to no avail. The Alpha picked Keg up by the scruff of his mane, brought his oversized shovel to bear, and swung like Babe Ruth, sending the zebra crashing through a nearby building.
Seeing someone so mercilessly beaten like that… I almost snapped. I grabbed the Alpha with my magic and flung him into the air like a ragdoll, and he landed against the ground with a colossal thud. I kept Alpha pinned to the ground, hovering over the mutt and staring daggers down at him.
“Comet, make sure the zebra is okay,” I ordered the captain, who obeyed without question. The Alpha was struggling valiantly. He was stronger than he let on too, for I was having mild difficulty keeping him restrained.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” I shouted at the canine, who tried to wrest his arm free to clobber me with his shovel.
“Po-nay have mine, other po-nay say Alpha could have gems, lots of gems!”
No time for diplomacy. I slogged the Alpha in the face. Hard. “Who? Was it Lumen? Wintergreen?”
“Alpha no tell, po-nee princess just hurt dog more!”
“I’m gonna do a lot more than hurt you if you don’t tell me exactly what you’re doing here, and who sent you!” I screamed in the his face, charging my horn with enough mana to vaporise the dog. It was only to put the screws to him really. To make my point clear, I bent his arm at an awkward angle, forcing the dog to drop his shovel, which I then kicked clear away from him.
“Aaaaaahhhhh, okay, Alpha tell! It was black pony, he come to dog and ask to dig, say Alpha could have lots of gems!” For someone as built and as buff as Alpha, I was slightly amused at how fast he caved.
Celestia picked a prime opportunity to teleport in, right before I could do anything I regretted. “Luna, what’s going on? Who is this?”
I kept my magical grip on Alpha. “Lumen contracted the diamond dog Alpha here to dig the mine we set up.”
Celestia glanced to me and then settled on the Alpha with a deadly piercing look. “Is this true? If anypony has died today in your failed takeover of this town, then so help me I’ll...”
“Princess Luna, over here!” I heard Comet call out from across the way.
“Restrain him,” I told Celestia before galloping over to Comet.
Laying in a pile of debris cradled in Comet’s forelegs, a piece of wood had pierced Powder Keg’s abdomen just below his ribs at an upward angle. He was paler than usual, and blood was dripping from the wood like a leaky faucet.
“I’m sorry, Luna. He’s lost too much blood,” Comet said solemnly, ears pinned against his head.
Meanwhile, Keg could barely move, though he did manage enough strength to turn his head to look at me. “T-tell, T-T-un–” he coughed and hacked a few times, crimson mixed in with his spittle. “T-Tundra, I, I, I’m s-s-orrr…”
His head unceremoniously slumped against Comet’s chest, the rest of his body falling limp.
If I didn’t want to beat the Alpha black and blue, I sure as hell did at that moment.
With a dark scowl on my face and rage in my eyes, I launched myself at the Alpha, but Celestia must’ve been watching me, as she managed to completely stop my momentum with her magic in an instant.
“Lemme at him,” I seethed through clenched teeth, “he killed Keg!”
“Then you’ll be no better than him, Luna!” Celestia snapped, her voice taking on a zero bullshit tone. Celestia’s magic was crazy strong. As well as keeping the Alpha completely immobilised, I couldn’t move a single damned muscle, no matter how much I tried. “Now calm down before I deal with you too!”
I was about to pop an artery if she didn’t let me go. “Calm down? Calm down!? He killed someone!”
Celestia was too fixated on me to notice my faux-pas. “He faces execution for what he’s done here today, is that not enough for you?”
I managed to relax my muscles slightly when she said that. An eye for an eye; it seemed only fair. Then, an ominous smirk etched its way on my face as I stared the Alpha down, thinking of the revenge I would get against Alpha and Lumen for Keg.
“You can let me down. I promise I won’t do anything stupid.” I could feel Celestia’s magical hold on me gradually lessen, and she eventually let me down to the ground. I stood in place, contemplating my next move. It wasn’t going to end well for Lumen and Alpha.
“Tie up Alpha, chain and ball, and whatever else. I don’t want him going anywhere. Put him in the cell next to Lumen’s. That bastard is going to cop a major ear full from me sooner than he expected.” I looked up to Celestia. “In the meantime, I need you to take care of things here while I go check up on the mine.”
“The mine is secure,” she said. “The unicorns there managed to fend off the dogs I assumed were sent to capture it.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat and looked over to where Comet and Powder Keg were. “Any others deceased, or injured?”
“The guards and I will make a full sweep of the town and escort anypony who are to the castle,” Celestia said, casting a forlorn look over her shoulder.
“I’ll meet you back at the castle.” I turned and walked over to Comet. “I need you to be my eyes and ears here while I need go and make sure Hayseed and his parents are alright.”
“Of course, Princess. What would you have me do with, you said his name was Keg?”
“I need to talk to the mayor about him once things have settled down. Maybe he’ll know more about who Tundra is, or where I can find them.” Given Keg’s eccentric nature, I had my doubts if anyone knew anything comprehensive about the stallion, or if it was just hearsay based on what people could figure out.
I left Celestia and Comet to do their jobs while I went back to check in on Nebula and Hayseed. I couldn’t help but grimace when I walked through the vaguely pony shaped hole Bastille left in his wake. I could feel the weight on Powder Keg’s death on my shoulders, causing me to slump slightly as I walked down the hall. For a once in a lifetime opportunity at a holiday on another planet, I never thought I’d have to tell someone news as bad as the death of someone they cared about. I had to wipe a tear from my eye; Keg told me to pass on a message with his dying breath and I’d be damned if Tundra, whoever they were, didn’t get that message.
“Firefly, Bastille?” I called through the house, my voice breaking a bit.
“In the living room, Princess,” Bastille called back.
I rounded the door into the room wearing a doleful expression, where I saw Bastille standing sentry while Nebula laid on the couch, taking it easy while Firefly was minding Hayseed to keep his attention. “How are you feeling, Nebula?”
Nebula smiled and looked up at me when I entered the room, but it quickly vanished and her face paled when she noted my expression. “Is everything alright, Luna? Please don’t tell me something happened to Harvest…”
“Oh no,” I said, waving off her concern. “He’s still unconscious when I took him to the castle, though I don’t know how long he’s going to be out.”
“Did something happen in town?” a concerned Bastille asked.
“A lot of things happened,” I spat, making everyone in the room flinch. I exhaled deeply, rubbing my brow. “Sorry, I… I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just that… Look, I’ll fill you guys in later, I need to take Nebula and Hayseed to the castle while Celestia wraps up business in town. In the meantime, you should go and help out.”
“Sure thing, Princess,” Firefly said simply, getting to her hooves. She and Bastille headed out the living room door as Nebula shifted around on the couch, hind legs moving to the floor as she tactfully rolled off the couch to stand up, but I wasn’t going to have any of that.
“Woah there, you sit right back down, I’m not–”
“It’s fine, really,” Nebula said with an exhausted huff, cutting me off. “I just want to get a couple things for myself and Harvest. Hayseed, can you pack a few things for the castle?”
“Okay momma!” the colt exclaimed, running out of the room as he screamed; “I get to go see daddy at the castle!” That kid’s spirit in the face of something saddening was truly something to behold.
I kept my eye on Nebula and followed her through the house to her bedroom. Rather, her and Harvest’s bedroom. The bed was in the middle of the room pressed up against the far wall under a set of outward opening windows with wooden window hatches. Either side of the bed were a set of bedside tables, and off to the right was a closet, which Nebula opened and began rifling around with her magic.
She pulled out a rather full looking bag, then a smaller, empty one which she then proceeded to fill with a few items; Harvest’s hat and signature battered vest, a couple small boxes, then my eyes widened when I saw the two pillows and the comforter from the bed shrink and fold before being placed into the bag.
“What… how did you just do that?” I balked.
“What, the thing with the pillows? It’s a spell I learned. Helps with packing things, heh.” She went to throw the bag over her back, but her legs buckles slightly.
“You’re a week late to give birth, Nebula, I’m not letting you carry a thing!” I grabbed it from her aura, but I wasn’t prepared for the weight of it, and it escaped my grasp and hit the floor with a thud. “What the heck is in here?!”
“Baby stuff,” Nebula said, rubbing the back of her head with mock embarrassment.
“Did you use that spell on this bag too?”
“I did. Want to learn it?”
“Seems like it’d come in useful,” I commented.
“Two steps: First, imagine you want to put a big thing inside a small thing.”
“Right, and the second?”
“And then you do it!”
I deadpanned. “You what?”
“Yeah, it’s the second point ponies tend to get stuck on.”
Despite the day going to complete shit, I couldn’t help give a good natured shake of my head at that.
“Hayseed, are you ready yet?” Nebula called.
I heard Hayseed trotting down the hall before he rounded the door, his saddlebags packed with things he either needed or wanted. It was hard to say what a kid thought they needed. “Come on, let’s go, buddy. I’ll take you and your mum to a room in the castle, then we can go see your dad.”
“I know daddy’s going to make it. He once fought off a manticore!” the colt proudly exclaimed.
I did a double take at that, then glanced over to Nebula for conformation. “It’s true,” she said. “One tried attacking me, but Harvest drove a pitchfork through its head.”
Considering what I’d read about manticores, I couldn’t help but be impressed at the size of Harvest’s balls to do something like that. Then again, I’d probably do whatever I could to protect someone I cared about too, just like my dad used to do.
Writing the report at the end of the day was a nightmare. I was still shocked from Powder Keg’s death, and had a hard time collecting myself as I wrote the report, though being numb for the rest of the day helped, but not in a healthy way. I saw it as a poor choice of words to say that it was fortunate nobody else died. I had to take statements from all the guards involved, Nebula, Hayseed, Granite, amongst many others. The injuries incurred from the diamond dog’s failed takeover amounted to first degree burns from the fires, cuts and deep lacerations from glass and wood, as well as broken bones. The most severe injury was a compound fracture.
Mercy itself was another story. The outlying farmsteads and fields went basically unscathed and were repairable, such as the damage to Nebula and Harvest’s house. Keg’s bombs and clay pot grenades ended up causing a lot more damage than I initially released, but he was hugely successful in driving back the dogs. All the burnt houses and damaged shops had to be pulled down and rebuilt, and that I estimated that would affected trade at Mercy for months. The buildings that had cosmetic damage were given temporary repairs so the town could at least do some business to make money for long term repairs.
The thing that really got under my skin, like an annoying parasite that I wanted to dig out, was that Celestia decided to keep working on the mine. The worst part? I couldn’t disagree with her either reasoning. We needed all the gold, silver, and gems we could get from the mine to pay for medical supplies, to import food from further afar than we normally would. Not to mention we would need to pay to have Mercy rebuilt
As I sat at my desk going over the accrued statements of everyone, I couldn’t help but feel that all this was my fault. If I had just left well enough alone and not stuck my nose into things, then maybe none of this would’ve happened. If I hadn’t arrested Lumen and his gang, then he and the dogs would be running a mine without having the casualty of destroying half a town. If I had just waited, then Celestia and I could’ve just captured the mine and confiscated the precious metals and gems. In a roundabout way, it was my fault Keg was dead. What sort of person would I be if I’d just end up forgetting about him when I went back to Earth? He had family out there, and I had every intention of finding them.
Back to business, Celestia put the Alpha dog in a cell next to Lumen’s so I could question them both when things quietened down. Radiant had her work cut out for her, that was for sure. Firefly helped the cause by using her magic to help with the burn victims, and even Celestia used some complex healing magic I didn’t know she had to help treat the more serious cases, the kind of spells that put a damper on her mana if you could believe it. I also used Luna’s sleep spell on ponies with more severe injuries so Radiant could anaesthetise and treat them. Since it was Celestia’s turn for solo court the following day, Saturday, I volunteered to stay up late to make sure all the injured and displaced were well looked after.
Once again to my dismay, the rooms in the castle were full to capacity, and we had to break out the camping equipment and bed rolls for those who chose to sleep under the stars, and it was the least I could do to make sure the pegasi cleared the sky that night so there was no rain or wind. I made an exception for Nebula and Hayseed, and let then stay in one of the luxury rooms usually reserved for visiting dignitaries and royalty from other nations/kingdoms.
It wasn’t until well into the night that I crawled into bed, lethargic, and completely drained of energy. I sighed miserably when I pulled the covers up. It was going to take months upon months of work to rebuild Mercy and get it up and running to where it was at the beginning of the day. I made a mental note to give detailed instructions to Luna for her return on how to handle things, something which I could take care of on Sunday.
But that was another issue in and of itself: going back to Earth. I was almost forced to put my faith in Luna and Celestia to keep things on track. Then there was Harvest, who tried defending his family, Hayseed, the brave and precocious little colt. I would be lucky to see Nebula’s baby before I left in two weeks, too.
But that was what memories are for. Something to cherish and hold close. Every day you meet new people, some of whom have profound effects on your life, and vice versa. Some of it good, some of it not so good, but all for the better.
The thing that stuck me in the heart was that nobody apart from Boreas knew who I really was, but that was okay, I liked to think I’d shown everyone the best side of me during my stay.
Saying goodbye to everyone and everything was going to be hard.
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She’s not gonna go back is she?
I doubt Luna wants to go back either. It's only been what,like a week?
9347264
Luna would have about 5-6 hours left on Earth at this stage in the story.
9346909
That much is evident in the description.
9347810
Oh yeah, I’d forgotten. It’s been so long since I read it.
9350604
I honestly find it hard to believe that the recruitment process would involve the removal of toenails.
I'm pretty sure that's your job
Ah.. I love this deranged zebra so much
Nooo!! Damn it! He was one of my favorite characters...
I find it ironic that he took down a manticore but got knocked down by a diamond dog
So basically a Tardis spell.
I would really like her to find a way to bring her body to Equestria so she can stay.