The Journey Ends
The alien mare did end up checking out some basic reading, and expressed her utter delight that Twilight’s library home wasn’t blown to kingdom come anymore. Twilight remarked rather sarcastically that perhaps this mare’s altiverse viewer was pointed in the wrong direction, but the mare was most insistent that the verse it viewed was uncannily like their own. And that’s all she would say on the subject. Twilight tried wheedling her, cajoling her, teasing her, yet she didn’t budge once she’d realized what she was saying. She didn’t seem to like talking about what she knew of them, and nothing at all about her home in the human world.
Twilight at least managed to infer from accidentally leaked half sentences, that the alien lived in a human city, in a human apartment. Twilight came to conclude from that, that an advanced dimension faring civilization still had cities, and apartments, instead of some form of a higher order social organization. The mare certainly seemed normal, and not in any way advanced or enlightened beyond pony ken. She honestly seemed completely clueless, when Twilight tried to find the simplest things about her world’s potential for bispatial transception. The traveller claimed not to be a research subject, nor was she any kind of mad genius, so Twilight was at a loss to imagine how the alien got here in the first place. That left Twilight at a loss of how to help her, with whatever quest brought her to this strange land.
The mare never returned to the library, understandable since she only ever had the most basic of reading levels, but still it was disappointing. Twilight wanted to learn more about her and her world, before this human’s journey had ended, and the opportunity had passed. Twilight wanted to study with the Trotwood students, who were even now divining more and more about the human’s home in an attempt to find out how to return her there. Twilight wanted to help this alien mare, not be stonewalled by her ignorance, and reluctance to divulge the true nature of her verse!
But for better or for worse, Twilight Sparkle simply was not the pony destined to help this mare complete her quest.
“Twilight, a moment?”
“Oh, Applejack!” Twilight said, turning to look over her back with a smile, “How was the frontier symposium?”
The stetson bearing cowpony wasn’t smiling though, but had a look of honest worry on her face. “Met some ponies in a right pickle,” she said, walking staidly into the warm confines of Ponyville’s tree library, “And ah think they need our help. You ever hear of a town called Hayshire?”
“Aww,” Pinkie Pie whined, “But I wanted to play some more with Rosy first! Can’t we wait until next week, or next month or something?”
“Rosy?” Twilight responded blankly for a moment, while levitating a pack onto Pinkie’s back, “Oh, you mean the human?”
“Well, she’s not a human right now, but yeah?” Pinkie responded cattily, shouldering the supplies deposited on top of her.
“Be that as it may, the Trotwood team have the human situation well under control,” Twilight replied curtly, levitating another pack to go on top of Pinkie’s back. “We can’t wait another week, because the Hayshire township needs to harvest their crops now, or they’ll lose them to the first frost.”
“But I wanted to make friends with Rosy more!” Pinkie whined, adjusting to the weight of the new bag. It was really heavy, probably full of books. “She’s so fun!”
Twilight paused in her packing to regard Pinkie thoughtfully.
“I don’t know how close you want to get to the human,” Twilight replied with concern. “Remember she’s not going to be around forever. She has a family, and a home, and friends of her own, and she lives very far away from here. There’s going to be some point where you’re going to have to say goodbye.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Pinkie sighed, looking at the floorboards. “I hope she gets back to her real friends soon, so that she can start making friends again.”
“Don’t worry Pinkie,” Twilight said kindly, putting a hoof on her withers. “She has a big adventure of her own in front of her, and I’m sure she’ll pull through admirably. That’s what she’s here for, to learn an important life lesson, and find her way back home.”
“I thought she was here because her tee-vee exploded,” Pinkie asked, glancing at Twilight in confusion.
“That too?” Twilight said a little less confidently. “But... these quests have their way of working themselves out, so don’t feel like you need to go out of your way. I know you want to make everypony’s lives as full and happy as possible, and sometimes that means giving them space to find their own way.”
Pinkie nodded without further protest, and Twilight went back to packing her books and gear and stuff on top of the pink party pony.
“I wonder why their soil went bad?” Pinkie said, pulling the strap on the latest pack tight around her barrel. “That’s not a thing that usually happens to soil!”
“That’s why they asked Applejack to lend her expertise,” Twilight replied. “It could be any of several dozen issues including aether wellups, blights, fungal intrusions, imbalanced humours, stellar convergence, or even something regarding this dimensional boundary nonsense. I’ve packed whatever relevant texts I could,” she levitated a third, smaller pack on top of Pinkie’s second one, wincing at the pink pony’s burden, and saying, “Sorry, it’s just—”
“No... problem,” Pinkie said bearing under the strain. She sure wasn’t used to carrying around loads of books like this. It’d take her at least the afternoon to adjust.
“Anyway I have faith in Applejack’s judgement regarding such matters,” Twilight went on, levitating a medium sized pack onto her own back with an apologetic grin. “And if she can’t... find the problem,” Twilight said, testing her hooves underneath her, finding them sound to carry her own load, “Then I’m sure if we work together, we can find a solution!”
“You said it, Twilight!” Pinkie said cheerfully, “Now let’s go meet the others, and go make those plants grow, and those smiles glow!”
Their friends were waiting at the train station for them, Applejack with her packs full of seeds and tools, and galoshes, Fluttershy with her carriers of gophers and moles, Rarity with some emergency hats and jackets, as well as some tasteful gifts for ponies they might see. Twilight and Pinkie contributed books, more books, and some food too but Twilight didn’t have to know about the treats Pinkie had snuck along, instead of a few books that probably weren’t all that important anyway. On top of their individual contributions, everypony had a sleeping roll, and a cloak for any unreported snow storms.
“Oh my goodness,” Fluttershy said softly, in great excitement. “I’ve never been across the lunar ocean. Oh what strange and wonderful sights we may see there!”
“You mean strange and wonderful creatures, ” teased Rainbow Dash, making Fluttershy squeak, but not apologetically. They were the least loaded up of all of them, for two very different reasons.
“Personally, ah am looking forward to this,” Applejack said confidently, watching the train pull into the station. “About time somepony asked an Apple to oversee things down thattaway. Ah’m real sorry to drag y’all along with me like this.”
“It’s okay, Applejack. That’s what friends are for!” Pinkie Pie giggled liberally. “We’re going oversea to oversee!”
“Who knows what we might find there,” Rarity said a little less enthusiastically. “But whatever it is we encounter, we’ll be with you the entire way.”
“Shucks, what’d ah do to deserve y’all?” Applejack said with a blush and a hat tilt.
Twilight looked upwards, ticking off in the air on her hoof, “Well, you organized the Ponyville resistance, then you helped save your friends so we could imprison a spirit of chaos back in stone, then you—”
Applejack plugged her mouth, saying, “Ah didn’t mean literally.”
“There’s literally, and then there’s twi-literally,” remarked dryly a little purple dragon, wearing an adorable gem packed backpack of his own.
“All aboard, for Vanhoover!” the conductor called out, as the train made ready to leave the station.
“Is everypony ready?” Applejack asked, a lazy smile on her snout.
“Ready!” Pinkie cheered.
“Yeah!” Rainbow agreed heartily.
“You bet!” Spike said, giving the thumbs up.
“I sure hope so,” Twilight demurred.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Fluttershy admitted.
“Let’s hurry it up before the train leaves,” Rarity said impatiently.
“Well okay then,” Applejack said happily, rearing up to charge onto the boarding platform, “C’mon everypony, and let’s get her done!”
Several weeks later, a half dozen weary ponies and a baby dragon crawled up a long road into town. For the thousandth time, Applejack groaned to herself quietly, “Never... again...”
Nopony saw fit to question her.
It was a droopy eared, exhausted Applejack who approached the quiet town of Ponyville, along with a very worn out looking Pinkie Pie, a tired Rainbow Dash, a frazzled Rarity, a hungry looking Spike, Twilight Sparkle without her nose in a book, and a blushingly happy Fluttershy.
“Oh, I can’t believe we got to see a strocnocerous stampede!” Fluttershy continued to whisper excitedly. “And the wyvern spiders were just like I imagined! And—oh, would you look at that.” Fluttershy finished, falling silent and staring, as the bleary eyed Pinkie basically ran face first into a road sign without noticing it.
== P O N Y V I L L E ==➤
“Oh thank the heavens, we’re home! ” Applejack said in immense relief, pushing an unresisiting Pinkie Pie out of the way, “Oh Ponyville ah’ve missed y’all more’n a skeeter in a hurricane!”
She then proceeded to rear up and cradle the sign, kissing it tenderly
“Applejack, don’t you...” Rarity said wincing at her unusually enthusiastic friend, “Think maybe that your family would like to see you—”
“Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted, pushing off from the sign. “They don’t even know we’re here yet! Ah sent a letter, but ah ain’t got no way to know if it arrived!”
“I’m sorry, Applejack,” Twilight said apologetically, shifting the supplies she was still carrying with her on her sore back. She’d levitate them but... not after that massive stop spell yesterday. “Spike did his best,” Twilight explained, “But I never thought to ask him to practice sending letters to Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Hey, I almost had it!” Spike protested a little irritably. “Dozenth time’s the charm!”
“I don’t know about you all,” Rainbow Dash declared, “But now that we’re here, I’m just gonna find a cloud and catch some zzz’s. I don’t even want to think about building myself a house again.”
She flapped heavily up into the air, proceeding at a more stately pace once she was airborne. Fluttershy looked after Dash with concern, but ultimately couldn’t help much, since ponies like Rainbow Dash were out of earshot before Fluttershy even took in a breath.
“I for one enjoyed the airy lands,” Fluttershy said to those who remained. “It was a lot of hard work, but we did so much good for those ponies!”
“Yeah... great parties,” Pinkie said agreeably, totally not swaying on her hooves. “I still have to get the recipe for their knock-out punch. It was like a flavor explosion!”
“Well, that partially explains their soil problems, at least,” Twilight said frankly. “Explosive fruits were the least of their worries, though. I’m glad we got them on the road to recovery.”
Pinkie’s nose still smelled like soot.
As the 12 returned to their home, Pinkie Pie went bounding off happily in search of Sugarcube Corner, in complete defiance of her still hefty encumberance. The lighter packed Rarity took Fluttershy, to see if the cottage keeper had survived taking care of her animals or not. Rainbow Dash was probably already konked out on a cloud somewhere. And Applejack went trotting straight for Sweet Apple Acres. That left Twilight and Spike to walk down the streets of Ponyville alone together, heading for their old familiar home, the Golden Oak library.
“I hope they found a librarian while we were gone,” Spike said worriedly. “I did not think that was going to take that long.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you to say, but I’m sure they managed,” Twilight said, smiling down at him, “We did manage to mail a letter to Amethyst before leaving for the Aeriolian fields. I’m sure she got somepony to at least take care of the place.”
Twilight’s stare turned serious as they trotted and strode forward respectively, and she grumbled somewhat more darkly, “But I’ll bet I’m going to need to spend at least a week getting all the books back in their proper places.”
“Huh, maybe I’m just forgetting,” Spike said curiously, “But do ponies usually act like that?”
“Huh?” Twilight said, lifting her gaze and looking to where Spike was pointing. He was pointing at a group of ponies who were walking along the street, but looking at each other anxiously, trotting hastily back in the other direction any time they started to get close to each other.
“Hm, that isn’t odd in of itself, but now that you mention it,” Twilight said, looking around. It was a bright sunny day, which was odd because all the grass and flowers were quite dry looking. It definitely should have rained a while ago. And ponies were taking odd routes, circituous paths that avoided going directly from point A to point B.
They might have continued on, but at least one pony noticed who was walking through town, along with a very distinctive little purple dragon.
“Twilight!” came the shout from Amethyst Star, “Don’t go into the shadow!”
Twilight was in far too pleasant a mood to comprehend that statement. “What?” she asked, looking at a very frazzled Amethyst stumbling towards her, Twilight stopping in her tracks. Was that why ponies were... wait. She looked at the building’s shadows, very short in the noonday sun. How long had it been noon...?
“Shadows... poisoned,” the less purple unicorn said, looking like she hadn’t slept in quite a while. “It got all over town, just a few days ago. Some kind of creature that lives in shadows. How did you... trains are running again?”
“We um... walked here,” Twilight said worriedly. “What’s going on? Should I be getting my friends?”
“Sorry, it—” Amethyst winced and put a hoof to her temple, saying, “It can give you a horrible headache if you don’t give in—it can move ponies around like puppets, it—I haven’t even been inside in days!”
“How did this happen?” Twilight asked in alarm, looking at the poor Amethyst, who moved back as Twilight approached too close.
“The human!” Amethyst exclaimed bitterly. “They said something came through the rift! That it was after her. She went—to go find help.”
“That sounds like a quest!” Twilight replied in fear and yet hope. If it was, then there had to be a way to solve this problem. “Does she—hold on, I have to go warn my friends.”
Ignoring the strain, Twilight pulled herself into a teleport, leaving everything she was wearing behind for maximum efficiency. She mapped a course through the cosmic field, struggling from weariness, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle, not as a princess’s principle pupil, and sometimes savior of the world. That’s what the slim winged unicorn told herself as she ignored the ache of her exhausted horn, teleporting straight into what might be an absolute disaster. Applejack!
The instant before Twilight vanished, she had made a mental checklist of her friends. Rainbow Dash would be out of any shadows, and possibly beyond what a Void creature could reach up there. Rarity and Fluttershy were relatively stately in their movement, and would be keeping out of the town proper if they were heading towards Fluttershy’s cottage. And with the sun in the sky as it was, even the shadows of these buildings were easy to avoid, also considering Pinkie’s love of the warm sun. That left Applejack who was currently about to trot right underneath her beautiful shaded apple —
Twilight appeared at the mouth of Sweet Apple Acres. Her horn blazed with light for a moment, before she confirmed that she was out of any shadows. Then, she went running in the opposite direction, hoping she would find Applejack along the way.
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the trotting orange pony come round the bend, heading for her home. “Applejack!” Twilight gasped, “Void incursion. No time to explain. Do not touch any shadows, anywhere. Stay in the sun! Meet me outside the library!” Twilight closed her eyes then and her horn sputtered, but she focused it fiercely, and tried a teleport and... she lost it. Twilight popped out right in the middle of town. Darn it! She’d been aiming for Fluttershy’s cottage, but she just couldn’t hold it! Why did this have to happen when she had a strained horn? Why did she have to go and try to stop time yesterday?!
Of course Pinkie Pie was right there where Twilight appeared. “Pinkie!” Twilight exclaimed in relief. “The shadows are poisoned!” she shouted to the wide eyed pink pony. “Don’t let any shadow of anything or anypony touch you. And please just... drop your bags and hurry. I don’t know if I can warn Fluttershy and Rarity in time—”
Twilight cut off as she learned she was speaking to the empty space beneath a hovering supply pack, bedroll, pots, water canteens, shovels—you get the point. All that crashed to the ground prompting Twilight to jerk her hooves back. She reared up thinking her backpack was still weighing her down, and overbalanced backwards, right into the grasp of her own magenta magic. Twilight grunted with the strain of catching herself, but then shoved herself back down to all fours, right at the edge of a shadow. That was too close for comfort.
Well, Pinkie was gone, and if Pinkie reached the other two in time, it’d be more reliably than Twilight’s pitiful attempts to overstrain her horn even more. So instead, Twilight went looking for a pegasus. And there were very few pegasi in town, but Twilight did find one, sitting at a table with its parasol folded up, looking like everypony else did: hot and glum. She was a pretty pink thing with yellow blond locks of hair.
“Excuse me,” Twilight said to her. “But I need to warn my friend about this shadow problem, and she’s up on a cloud right now. I don’t suppose you could help?”
“What clouds?” she said miserably in a wobbly voice. Twilight... huh. Twilight looked up again, noting there were also no clouds in the sky. This was a distinctly unsustainable situation.
“Well, hopefully she’s gone out of town then?” Twilight asked uneasily. The pegasus mare just shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I can’t fly like this.”
Twilight peered at the pegasus’s perfectly healthy pink wings curiously. Seeing this, the mare clarified, “It jerks around every pegasus who tries to escape their shadow. I’d fall out of the sky before I even got off the ground.”
“Oh, this is terrible,” Twilight said sympathetically, touching the mare’s shoulder in a way that wouldn’t get their shadows intersecting. “I can’t believe we just left that rift unattended...”
The pegasus laughed tensely, saying, “That sure explains it then. I thought you Trottingdale ponies had been watching it!”
“Oh!” Twilight yelped, blushing with embarassment, “No I meant... me and my friends, you see, we’re... um... a friend of mine and I discovered the rift, and that’s who I was talking about, not Trotwood. I’m sure the Trottingdale ponies were very diligant, in fact. They’re the best research team in the kingdom.”
“Then why are we all jerky and headachy and sick inside?” the mare asked bitterly in return. “They should have stopped this!”
“Maybe there was something else involved,” Twilight suggested. “Something we don’t know about that explains it.”
“Oh, I don’t care I just wish this Faust-darned thing would let me fly again,” the mare groaned, putting her head in her hooves. “I’d never touch the ground again!”
“I’m terribly sorry you have to go through this,” Twilight said sympathetically, “All of you. I don’t know if my friends and I can help, but we’ll do everything we can.”
“You sure seem to have a high opinion of yourself,” the pegasus grumbled, glaring Twilight’s way. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Oh, where are my manners,” Twilight said with a blush, and a hoof to her shoulder. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. What’s your name?”
“You’re the princess?” the mare said, sitting up with interest. “You ca—agh” she winced, and held her hooves to her head. “Fluff—you should go. I think it—it’s trying to get me to—ack” her hoof spasmed away from her temple, reaching for Twilight suddenly. No, reaching for her shadow!
Twilight backed up, and the mare got a hold of herself. Well, in a manner of speaking. The mare started crying, collapsing against the table she was trying to stand at, but she wasn’t being compelled to move anymore. So, it was about the opposite of getting a hold of yourself.
Now that Twilight looked around, she could see other ponies who she recognized were few and far between, and keeping a very wide berth around her, far wider than any pony’s shadow would extend. And... it broke Twilight’s heart, because she had to watch this unknown pegasus mare just lose it, from something she never deserved, and Twilight couldn’t even go comfort her, because it was too dangerous to get near her!
Twilight’s mane blew in the air as Rainbow Dash landed behind her, shouting frantically, “Twilight! Something’s wrong with the shadows! Pegasi up there told me to never touch them, and that they’d get you all if you were down here!”
“Get the others,” Twilight Sparkle stated firmly, but quietly. “Applejack is in the sun outside her orchard. Pinkie and Rarity are with Fluttershy, away from the shadows in their cottage. I need you all to meet me at the library. Please hurry before it tries anything else. We need to use the Elements of Harmony.”
“Tha—that bad, huh—I mean, yes ma’am!” Rainbow stuttered then saluted, probably. Twilight didn’t even get a chance to face her friend, before Rainbow Dash had blasted off again into the sky.
Then Twilight sighed and started to trot towards the library, where her own supplies were lying crashed on the ground, when she’d teleported out from under them. It was time to get her Element of Harmony, and check on Spike as well. Spike was probably worried stiff, with all this shadow business throwing them immediately back into the fryer.
She found him huddled by Twilight’s discarded pack, looking scared but alright. Her little dragon was still quietly cowering there in the middle of the square beside it. “Spike!” Twilight said in relief, “I’m so glad you’re safe.” Spike looked up in fear, but his fear broke into a relieved smile. He stood up, and started running towards her, arms outstretched. The poor guy was so scared he just wanted a hug. Amethyst kicked him across the square.
Twilight stared in outright disbelief as her substitute planner outright kicked Spike across the square. “Stay back!” Amethyst shouted squaring off with Twilight. “He doesn’t—know to resist! It’s trying to make us—ahh!” She fell to one knee then, and Twilight saw in horror now, that Amethyst’s shadow was distorting jaggedly, like something was pulling it around, like it wasn’t even a pony’s shadow anymore.
“Twilight!” came Rarity’s voice, as she, Fluttershy and Pinkie came trotting up. “Thank heavens you warned us! We’ve stayed out of the shadows.” Each of them had already put on their elemental focii, a golden collar that each of them carried with them at all times.
“Ah’m a’comin’ Twilight!” came Applejack’s voice from the other direction.
“Hold on just a little longer,” Twilight whined to Amethyst. “We’ll banish this thing so hard it... will get banished really hard,” she didn’t have time to quip. She turned towards the others, Dash zooming down with Applejack in tow.
“We’ve been through the drill before,” Twilight said, “You’re all ready to use your Elements?”
“Ready!” Rainbow Dash said confidently.
“Ah won’t let you down,” Applejack agreed.
“Any time you’re ready,” Fluttershy said modestly.
“We’ll banish him so hard his butt will turn inside out!” Pinkie quipped.
“I’m ready to do whatever it takes!” Rarity replied.
“Good!” Twilight smiled, “Then let our powers com—wait hold on,” She lit her horn, lifting a flap in the packing supplies she’d been carrying and levitating out her own collar, its sparkling lilac star crowning the center. With that latched on her neck, she shouted, “Let’s do this!”
A cringing pony made a desperate break for them, as did Spike, but it was too late. The Harmony surged around them, holding the others away as each collar came to life on each pony’s neck, and all of Twilight’s friends remembered the deep power that lay within them all. All Twilight’s aches and pains faded away as she could feel her friends as one, surrounding her in a oneun pointed star of good will. One by one each of them lit up with readiness, and Twilight always felt privileged to join them, to open herself up to the friendship she never knew she so desperately needed.
Her friend Rainbow Dash flickered as her voice sort of... came, asking for all of them, “What do we even attack?” But Twilight smiled, as they all already knew the answer.
“We attack the darkness!”
Twilight’s only regret was she didn’t get to observe the effects of the Elements when she was... caught up in them. When the light had faded, and she had descended to the ground again, her first recognition that all was well was a collective cheer going up around her. Everypony was okay! Everypony was okay? It didn’t look all that different in fact, other than the expressions of absolute relief on the face of every pony looking their way.
“We sent that mean old darkness packing!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully.
“That sure was a close’n,” Applejack said, looking around nervously.
“Is everypony okay?” Fluttershy asked, while Rarity asked, “Is everypony okay?” loud enough for anypony to hear.
“I think so!” somepony shouted from the crowd.
“I think you did it!” Amethyst said excitedly, stepping in place and watching her normal, passive, un-corrupted shadow do the same.
“That should clear up any extradimensional incursions!” Twilight called out loudly, looking around. “You can all go about your normal lives now!”
“Or we could have a party!,” Pinkie called out even louder. There was another collective cheer from the herd.
“Oh, thank you so much!” said that blonde haired pink pegasus, turning loops in the air. “I thought I’d never be free!”
“Seriously, Twilight, next time you go on a trip can you not leave extradimensional rifts lying around?” Amethyst asked wryly. “That was a serious problem!”
“I’ll do my best,” Twilight replied, “But how did it get this bad? No wait, we should save it for the town meeting.”
“Yeah, I really don’t know the details,” Amethyst admitted. “Shadows just started to act weird, and some ponies were being puppetted around. And the more it happened the sicker everypony got. I’ll go find the mayor and gather the other ponies so they can tell you the full story.”
“And I’ll just... find somewhere to sleep,” Twilight said, sagging under her accumulated exhaustion.
Amethyst blushed and said, “Don’t mind me, then,” trotting hurriedly off to make preparations. And finally, like her friends, Twilight Sparkle got to make her way back home. With great pleasure, she returned to her beloved tree library. After checking on Spike to make sure he got back okay too (he cleared the gems out of the pantry, and passed out in his basket), Twilight brushed her teeth, then ascended the crystelline staircase to her old bedroom. Snuggled up and fading into an exhausted slumber, Twilight had never felt so happy to lay in her warm, soft bed. There really was no place like home.
With the entire town in such relief, a little Pinkie Pie magic turned the town meeting into a big celebration, with balloons, and streamers, and one pony named Twilight Sparkle looking rather unamused, as she tried to get everypony to stop partying long enough for her to give her announcement. There were ponies who were very interested in Twilight’s announcement though, so it wasn’t too long before she had a decent assembly paying attention to her. Tapping her note cards perfectly aligned on the podium, Twilight happily told them all the good news.
“Greetings everypony!” Twilight said joyfully, “It’s not every day that I expect to run into great peril on my way back from the adventure, but with Void incursions you can never be too careful. If my measurements are correct, and trust me I triple-checked them,” she said, a nervous chuckle going through the crowd. “You can rest assured that all intruders, dimensional incursions, dimensional diversions and spatial anomalies have been patched up and removed from Ponyville, thanks to the Elements of Harmony, with a little help from the ponies who bear them.”
“But our research!” a pony in the front shouted in outrage. Twilight smiled and—wait, outrage? Not gratitude? She stared uncomprehending for a moment as the pony said, “We moved our entire operation from Trottingdale University in order to study this rift! And it’s just gone, just like that? There was so much we could learn from it!”
Oh. Trotwood. Of course.
Twilight smiled uneasily at the unfamiliar stallion. She hadn’t thought ponies would be upset at a time like this, but it kind of made sense in hindsight. “I... don’t know how to break this to you,” she said to the guy, “But when a Void creature has corrupted the shadows of all the ponies in Ponyville, that’s a little more important than just sticking your head in a portal to who knows where.”
“As it so happens, the probe spells we sent through the portal were measuring counter-rotational antispatial harmonics,” the stallion said snidely. Wait, what? Really? “To the laypony, that means—”
“A stable tri-decimal dimensional manifold?” Twilight exclaimed in shock. “That’s impossible! Did you use Dwell Deep’s Darkness Distinguishment to—”
“To remove any chance of cross-temporal current, yes, and we were about to employ Studious Stead’s—”
“Serial Shade Severance to remove the dynamic malquifescence,” Twilight said excitedly, “Which if below nanometers VQQ would conclusively prove the existence of a stable tri-decimal dimensional manifold, but—”
“But the shadow... creature, as it were, slipped in without our knowledge,” the stallion said, eyeing the confused crowd worriedly as the princess stared at him eagerly. “And it truely was an offensive foe. So as much as you could put it a little more politely, you do have a point. We can conduct our research on less... volatile things. We do have a lot of data collected to analyze anyway, and perhaps with it we can learn to prevent more such Void incursions, the next time it happens.”
“Let’s just hope there won’t be a next time,” Twilight said frankly, a little disappointed, but she could definitely restrain her thirst for knowledge to help these ponies feel better. “But... it’s a good thing to know diligent ponies like you are working so hard to be ready for it.”
She turned toward the greater populace again, announcing confidently, “Don’t worry, everypony! We may have lost a (priceless scientific opportunity) little bit of progress, but the Elements of Harmony will have returned all extradimensional travellers to their home dimensions, and closed the rift that their presence generated. There will be no more shadows coming from the woods to plague you.”
Most of the ponies seemed greatly relieved at that, but a blue mare with a head of wavey blonde hair caught her eye. “Miss? Um... Princess Sparkle?” the pony asked uncertainly, stepping forward.
“Twilight is fine,” Twilight said.
“Okay, Twilight, okay,” the mare said, collecting her hooves a moment, before looking up and asking worriedly, “What about Rosy?”
Twilight winced.
“Rosy was a... dimentional incurser pony,” the mare continued worriedly, “What happens to her?”
“Miss um...” Twilight prompted uneasily.
“Bluebell,”
“Bluebell,” Twilight said, “Rosy had a home of her own. She had friends and family to return to. The Elements would have done nothing other than send her safely home, because... she doesn’t belong here. Her presence was an imbalance in our world that would have held the rift open. I’m sorry if you thought she was going to be with us longer, but those shadows forced our hoof. If we had arrived sooner, we could have done something, maybe. But I’m not going to put ponies in danger, just to keep a traveller from her home.”
“So she is gone...” said Bluebell, her ears wilting. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry you thought she was going to be around longer,” Twilight said gently. “We all loved ehm... ‘Rosy’ while she was with us. But Rosy will be reunited with her friends now. Her family. She’s in a better place.”
“I don’t think she wanted to go,” Bluebell said resentfully. She stared up at Twilight’s podium in a sudden defiance.
Twilight’s smile was full of sympathy though. “Could you come up here and tell me the story of how you came to be friends with Rosy?”
“I—no I-I...” Bluebell looked around nervously, backing into the crowd.
“No need to be nervous,” Twilight said soothingly, “Just tell me if I’m on the mark here. Rosy had... problems when she first came here, didn’t she?”
“S-she was clumsy as a foal at first, but she was getting better,” Bluebell said in a somewhat offended tone, “She learned how to do pretty well at the shelter. Helping other ponies, who didn’t really knew her. B-but she didn’t seem to know how to make friends at all. She just didn’t know how to get close to anypony.”
“Then, I’m guessing there was some sort of crisis that challenged that?” Twilight prompted hopefully.
“Y-yes actually!” Bluebell replied in surprise, “My foal broke her wing flying into a tree, and she was too ashamed to tell anypony, until it healed wrong. I-it needed corrective surgery, and the only surgery pony I could find who could do it was in Vanhoover. I was scared to go, because maybe it would... g-go badly, and my foal she was scared too and it was breaking her heart, a-and Rosy caught me crying about it one day.”
Bluebell seemed to brighten at that, losing a little bit of her nervousness as she told Twilight, “Rosy told me she’d walk with me all the way to Vanhoover, just like that. And she did. I’d never even done anything for her before! S-she even pulled the cart, and... we got to talking, and it turns out she was really nice!”
“Wouldn’t you normally fly your cart to Vanhoover?” Twilight asked curiously.
Bluebell started to nod, then shake her head, then look a little confused, finally saying, “I was gonna, but Rosy’s an earth pony, so we walked. M-made Rainy feel better, because she’s scared of being up too high with only one working wing.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t have an uneventful trip on your trek to Vanhoover,” Twilight postulated.
Nodding, Bluebell said with honest admiration, “Yes, princess! T-the cart broke down once, and Rosy was the one who found somepony to fix it. She just walked off and c-came back with another traveller, a handsome stallion too! He knew just how to fix the b-broken axle. She was so calm about it, you wouldn’t knew that she was shy at all!”
Bluebell rubbed a foreleg under her chin, before looking up and adding, “And Rosy also made little Rainy feel better. She was scared about the surgery, and that she couldn’t fly, but Rosy wouldn’t let her stay scared. She kept t-telling Rainy all about how she was gonna be able to fly again. She said that when you’re doing everything you can, and you’re still scared, that’s when you’re supposed to... laugh. And even fake laughing really helped her feel better. Helped us both. I’m not um...”
Bluebell blushed heavily, mumbling shamefully, “I’m not good with foals. I just sort of... had one. So... it turns out Rosy is good with foals, and Rainy really liked Rosy, so she’s been babysitting her since then, a-and Rosy and me just got along really well after that.”
Nodding, Twilight asked, “I trust your foal’s wing is better?”
Bluebell nodded, with a relieved smile. “She’s flying again i-if a little more carefully,” the yellow haired purple pegasus said. “Still scared of trees though.”
Twilight stepped back from Bluebell, and declared more for the crowd overall, “What you’ve told me is a tale told time and time again. A traveller finds themselves stranded in a strange land, where they learn the lessons they need to succeed in life. They make fast friends, they journey together, overcoming obstacles along the way, and ultimately they return triumphant. It was just the natural progression beyond that, for Rosy Pink to have to return home. She completed her quest, bettered herself, and it was time for her to return where she belonged.
“I know it might have seemed like Rosy didn’t want to go,” Twilight said to the purple pegasus, “But that shows what a caring pony she was. She didn’t want you to think she was suffering, but I can assure you that deep inside, her home was calling to her. She may have seemed to be happy to be here at the moment, but once the novelty wore off, you know as well as I do that she’d have been pining for her home.”
“I suppose so,” Bluebell said, looking away from the princess.
“Her heart was in returning home,” Twilight assured the mare. “That’s how these sort of things work. Ponies may travel to strange and wonderful places, but be it ever so humble...”
“...there’s no place like home,” Bluebell recited. “I guess you’re right. Sorry, princess. I just... kind of miss her already.”
“Miss Bluebell,” Twilight said, thinking back to her own motivations. “Have you heard the tale of Lighthouse Paul?”
“Can’t say I have, princess?” Bluebell said curiously.
“About years XG ago, a pony known as Nora Nother was lost at sea one day in a terrible storm,” Twilight said, again speaking louder for benefit of the whole crowd. “Everypony thought she had been taken by the waves forever. But back in her hometown of Pollack Spear, she had a special somepony named Lighthouse Paul, who ran the local lighthouse along with his father Lampie, to keep the ships from crashing into the rocks in stormy weather.
“Though ponies said she was lost forever, he never joined another herd. Every time he shone the lighthouse when there was a storm at sea, he never stopped hoping this was the one where she returned. Well, one thing led to another, and he took in a runaway orphan, who happened to be good friends with a dragon. And the dragon was so moved by Lighthouse’s devotion, that he went searching for the missing mare, to find what became of her, whether it was the bottom of the ocean, or a distant port city in Saddle Arabia.
“He found the mare in that port city, and the reason she’d never returned was she sustained a head injury in the shipwreck that robbed her of her memory. She’d built a new life for herself in that city, made new friends, and found new love, but she never could stop feeling like she was missing something, or somepony. The dragon managed to restore her memory, and she knew what she had been missing, were all the ponies she cared so much about back home.
“She was on the first ship to return to Pollack, but as fate would have it, that was also when a terrible storm blew in, and a great wave crashed into the lighthouse, dousing its wick and putting out its light. Her ship was sailing blind, so to speak, and they could not find the shore. It looked for sure that they would be dashed upon the rocks, so close to being together again.
“That’s when the dragon arrived, and used his flame to dry the damp wicks, and light the lighthouse. You might see a statue of him should you ever travel to Pollack, for his dedication and bravery that saved a love that might otherwise have been lost forever.”
Twilight paused for effect, and because the story always made her feel like crying. “Rosy was in the same situation as Nora, Bluebell,” she said, reminding the pony standing at the base of the podium that she was being directly addressed. “Lost in a strange land, far away from home. She had her own Lighthouse Paul, and Lampie, and the mourning townsfolk from her home, who all needed her to return. So I know she was...” Twilight grimaced inwardly, “A lot of fun to be around, but this wasn’t her home, and there were other creatures of her kind who needed her to return.”
“I never knew, princess,” Bluebell said, her own eyes shining with tears. “To think we was keeping her away from her special somepony!”
“You did nothing wrong in befriending her, Bluebell,” Twilight said comfortingly. “She’s back home where she belongs, thanks to the Elements of Harmony, and we can all get on with our lives now, with our real friends.”
“She was my—I mean, yes your highness, that makes sense,” Bluebell said in a torn sort of confusion. “I’ll try to get over her, with my friends. I was just disappointed, on account of it happened so fast I couldn’t even say goodbye. Thank you, princess. Sorry, princess.”
The mare backed back into the crowd before Twilight could think of any more ways to comfort her. Then somepony else came forward and shouted, “Are the rumors true that you fought the legendary air whales?”
Twilight’s ears went flat. “You don’t fight aeroceta,” she corrected the purple and white pony, “But it has been quite an exciting season. And it’s a story that I owe you all, after you went through so much in our absence. Rest assured my friends and I aren’t going to be leaving you again any time soon, barring of course any unexpected threats to Equestria.
She turned to the crowd and said, “It all started when the crops of the Hayshire township mysteriously started to fail, just when they needed them the most...”
As the evening wore on, and ponies of Ponyville began to turn in after the party, for their well earned rest, a lone figure crested the hill overlooking Ponyville from the northeast. She looked down at the quiet town settling down for the evening, and shouted, “Oh no! We’re too late!”
The mare attempted a clumsy run, but then stumbled, and almost fell over her own hooves. Choking back a scream of frustration, she trotted at a more careful pace, eating up the distance between her and the town. As the evening shadows grew long, it became apparant that not all was normal about this mare. Her saddlebags in particular, one of them held a soft, calm glow of light to it. As soon as she reached the edge of town, she whispered to her glowing saddlebag, “This is as close as I can risk. Come on out little guy, and do your thing.”
Without responding in words, a sinuous, 12 legged creature popped its head out of her saddle bag, whose fur glowed with that soft light her saddlebags had emitted. It scurried up her mane, to perch on her head, looking around while the pony stood beneath it looking up in concern. Then, it climbed down her body, and she held out a hoof as it leaped off of it and then just melted into a shadow. The shadow itself disintegrated like smoke at the creature’s passing, only slowly pulling itself together seemingly from bits of scattered darkness. The mare waited there, her soft pink tail curling close to her rump as she looked around at the long shadows, and the total lack of anypony in distress at all.
She blinked, her head tilting in puzzlement at the few ponies up and about, laughing, talking to each other, and striding around calmly in the evening. She looked down at a flash of light, as the creature seemingly climbed out of a shadow. Standing aground and lifting its first pair of legs up to face the mare, it looked at her and shrugged cluelessly.
“I... think we’d better go find Berryshine,” she remarked to the thing. “Everything looks... just fine around here.” It scurried up into her saddlebag in response and perched there while she trotted further into town. As an afterthought, she added, “And maybe Bluebell will know what’s going on.”
Well, I guess I’ll just throw all these chapters about the epic of Hayshire that totally exist and I’m totally not bullshitting you in the trash. The things I sacrifice for my art! 
Long one coming up next week...
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Oh, Twilight Sparkle. . . You are too genre-savvy for your own good.
Why isn't there a human tag?
u know twi doesn't mean anything by it.. but she keeps acting like being friends with rosy isn't real. the way she says it. and then when bluebell tried saying it- but stopped. seems twilight is the one in need of life lesson.
8142891
She's very very well read!
8142916
Because... none of the characters are human?
8143104
Nah, I'm sure Twilight knows what she's talking about. We might as well roll the credits right now.
8143431 LOL... nice xD i like bluebell. she thinks like me. just cause she belongs in an alt verse doesn't make bluebell any less of a real friend.
Oh no Twilight now you did it and finished Rosies sidequest
"They were the least loaded up of all of them, for two very different reasons."
Hm. Low carrying capacity for Fluttershy and a greater need for lightness and mobility for Rainbow?
...Huh. The train out, but the road back? Wonder why.
"Twilight said apologetically, closing her book"
What book? She was specifically said to not have her nose in a book, so...
"I don’t even want to think about building myself a house again."
Cloud structures decay (relatively) quickly if untended, I expect?
"that avoided going from point A to point B"
"going straight from"?
"Fluttershy and Rarity on time"
"in time"?
"Wwith great pleasure"
"With"?
"returned to beloved tree library"
"her" or "the"?
"happy to lay in her warm"
"lie"?
"You can rest assured that all intruders, dimensional incursions, dimensional diversions and spatial anomalies have been patched up and removed from Ponyville"
Um. Uh.
"we send through the portal"
"sent"?
"of progress but the Elements"
"progress, but"?
"nothing other than sent her"
"send"?
"didn’t really knew her"
"know"?
...Well. Some unexpected things in this chapter. :D
I love it when things go pear-shaped. It means fun. Here's to hoping that the villain wins this time.
8143896
Twilight is such a no-good rotten lousy kill stealer!
8143905
Yeah, pretty much.
Because the train never came, they didn't know why, and they wanted to get home.
Darn it Twilight, stop sneaking books into the narrative!
That was the implication, yes. Also that Rainbow Dash doesn't have an awesome house just because she's rich or something.
That's just Bluebell
Thanks for the rest of the corrections.
8143987
Pear-shaped... heh heh it's funny because it's not an apple.
8144135
"Yeah, pretty much."
Thanks.
"Because the train never came, they didn't know why, and they wanted to get home."
Ah, yes, makes more sense in hindsight.
"Darn it Twilight, stop sneaking books into the narrative!
"
Well, if any pony would... :)
"That was the implication, yes. Also that Rainbow Dash doesn't have an awesome house just because she's rich or something."
Right.
...Though now I'm imagining Rainbow, at some point in the past, going through a brief but intense phase of studying architecture, because an awesome pony like her having a not-awesome house would be even more lame than the books she had to look through.
Oh, and perhaps there was once a famous pegasus architect/engineer named Vitrhoofius? :)
"That's just Bluebell
"
Ah.
"Thanks for the rest of the corrections."
You're welcome!
Nice Pete''s Dragon reference
8147320
I give the gal credit for trying
I am recently starting to read this and the whole "alternate number" thing is already annoying the heck out of me. I get it that it's more logical for THEM to use it, but why must you put it even in the narrator's part? I'm not even having trouble with it or anything, except the letters since I'm not even bothering to puzzle out what number they are supposed to represent, but it's still grating on my nerves for some reason...
Maybe the shadows of my old language teachers are nagging me from the aether, or maybe I just hate base four because it's not as intuitive as base ten, simple as two, or haven't gotten used to it as sixteen, but it's really bothering me.
8196424
8510756
Sorry it's annoying you. The reason I'm using it is because I find that sort of stuff fascinating, and it sorta makes sense for ponies so why not? The only tricky part in my mind is it's a little weird to call them the main 12.
I do somewhat dislike base 4 because of how quickly numbers get big, but on the other hand memorizing the multiplication tables is 16 times easier than with hexadecimal. So it's both good and bad. Ponies could've easily went with base 8 to get similar sized numbers to us, but in my story they do something different. The only thing I really disagree with you on is that base 10 is not intuitive. At all.
Twilight doesn't seem to understand the concept of making a new home for yourself. Especially strange, since she moved from Canterlot to Ponyville. So, based on her logic, Twilight should have stayed in Canterlot, since that's 'where she belongs'.
I like the world building on how the pony brain thinks…
8510974
Instantly pulls me out of the story, is confusing, is actively anti-intuitive (because an ordinary thing is suddenly something entirely else and you have to remember that every time), forces your readers to memorize a table of conversation to understand what's going on, it's actually not clear to me casually reading it what numbers mean anymore, requires reading the comments for an explanation, etc.
I like math, but what I would suggest if you must do this is to just make up new words and symbols instead of re-using ones that have hard coded meanings in people's minds. That is, '12' on its own will always parse to me as 12, not 6. Even though I've worked with other bases.
...That said by the time I noticed a single example of 'oneun' I had already forgotten whether than meant 11 or 5. So it's kind of painful even if you do it that way too...
Honestly it comes down to user experience. If your readers repeatedly run into a pain point and complain, that's a problem that might be a good idea to fix. Or maybe not, depending on what else you're trying to do.
--
Of course as a writer you can ultimately and should do whatever you want. You obviously have a particular set of things you're trying to do with the writing style here, so it's hard to make an evaluation of whether that is accomplishing what you intended without knowing why you thought it was a good idea in the first place or what objective you want to accomplish.