The Danger Within

by Loganberry

1. Smoke and Mirrors

Author's Note:

This story is being written primarily to get me past a block that's been stubbornly hanging on for ages. Also because I like Fancy Pants, admittedly. I was thinking about keeping the fic as a private exercise, but a couple of friends said they'd like to read it. I'll be putting the story's chapters out much faster than normal, so don't expect miracles. Still, maybe you'd like to join me on the journey. If so, hang on: it's likely to be a bumpy ride!

“We’re not under attack, then? Good show.”

Fancy Pants got to his hooves and looked around. There was still too much smoke drifting around to see very much, but there didn’t seem to be any strange and eldritch monsters – or indeed ordinary, common-or-garden monsters – bearing down on him. He spotted an elegant white hoof and trotted over to make its acquaintance.

“Well,” said the cloud from which the hoof protruded. “Well.”

Fancy couldn’t help but agree, though nodding seemed somewhat pointless in the circumstances. Instead he said to the cloud, “I do hope you haven’t been hurt.”

“Oh no,” said Rarity. “I’m just wondering what this ridiculous display was in aid of. Twilight,” she added darkly, “will be getting a piece of my mind when I see her.”

The smoke had cleared a little more and Fancy spotted a green mane sprouting from a bush in the middle distance. He opted not to tell Rarity about it. He considered going to speak to the princess himself but held back; friendly as she generally was, she was Equestrian royalty and there was a time and a place. At this moment, a thought struck him.

“Er… Rarity,” he ventured.

“Yes?”

“Where is everypony?”

“We’ll have to wait until we can see before we know that, won’t we?” said Rarity, the irritation clear in her voice. “And then we can see what damage this silliness has done to the castle garden.”

Fancy coughed as politely as he could. “Well, that’s just it, you see. I’m not at all sure that this is the castle garden.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The smoke was much thinner now and the grass was clearly visible for several yards in each direction. It was a beautiful shade of green, the stalks fat and juicy. An iridescent blue beetle clambered among the stalks close to Fancy’s hooves, and he regarded it solemnly for a moment before turning back to Rarity. Her head was still lost in the haze, but the rest of her body was visible. She really was not going to be impressed when she saw the state of her dress. Still, there were more important matters to discuss, although Fancy would not have put it in quite those terms.

“Dash it all, where are the croquet hoops?”

There was a long, heavy silence before Rarity answered.

“The croquet… hoops?”

“Well… yes. Where are they?”

The last word ended on a jumping upward note as a pegasus almost landed on top of him. He bit back an expression of annoyance as he realised who it was.

“Ah, Fluttershy,” he said. “I’m awfully relieved to see you’re all right. Do you know what’s going on? Is this one of Princess Twilight’s more spectacular party tricks, perhaps? Can you see better from aloft?”

“Oh no, I don’t think so. Twilight would never teleport her friends without a warning – it would be ever so dangerous.” Fluttershy brushed a twig from her mane and patted down her beautifully simple yet utterly exquisite green dress. “I still can’t see very well even from the sky, but I managed to get up high enough to see the last of the coruscations dissipating.”

There was a squeak from Rarity’s direction. Fancy ignored it, asking, “Coruscations?”

“Oh, goodness, of course you don’t know. I don’t understand it very well myself, but Twilight calls them ‘the visible protrusions of runaway translocation magic’. Um, I think.” She blushed slightly, in a way that would have set dozens of ponies swooning had they been there to see it.

A nasty feeling somewhere between ice and slime ran up Fancy’s neck. He took a deep breath, but the sound of Rarity walking purposefully towards him hurried him into his next utterance.

“So she has been teleporting us without permission!” said Fancy, with rather more vehemence than he intended.

“She,” said an icy voice, “is the cat’s mother.” Rarity at last appeared fully, her gaze locked on the stallion’s. “Princess Twilight Sparkle,” she continued, enunciating every syllable as though she were the poshest Canterlot filly at finishing school, “has not been teleporting us at all. Nor, might I add, Mister Pants, does she need permission from monocled fools like you to cast magic. I dare say she knew more spells than you do now when she was a mewling filly in a crib.”

Fluttershy put out a conciliatory wing and turned to Rarity. “Maybe we should tell Mr Fancy Pants—”

“Just Fancy, please, my dear.”

“She is not your dear!” spat Rarity, but Fluttershy’s gentle hoof on her shoulder took the sting from her anger. “I am sorry, Fluttershy. Please continue.”

“Well,” said Fluttershy, “maybe we should explain to, um, Fancy about coruscations?”

Rarity humphed. “That’s easy enough to tell. They are gleams of light—rather wonderful in their way—that appear when a very particular type of mirror is smashed.”

Fancy thought about this for a moment, then grimaced. “Ah.”

“Indeed,” said Rarity. “Ah.”

“Quite so.”

“But why?” said Fluttershy. “Twilight would never play that kind of prank. Pinkie Pie would be absolutely furi—”

“And where is Pinkie?” interrupted Rarity. “And where is everypony else, for that matter? Come to that, where are we?”

With the mist now not much more than scrappy patches floating across what for comfort’s sake Fancy had continued to think of as the lawn, the stallion looked across to where he’d seen the green mane. There was no sign of it now; indeed, there was no sign of anything Fancy recognised. No castle, no boating lake, no ornamental shrubbery. And certainly no croquet hoops.

There was, however, a road. It ran from west to east, and in both directions disappeared into low grassy hills before it had gone much distance. It was a well made road, smooth and dark, wide enough for two carriages to pass at speed without much difficulty. There was no signpost.

“Now what?” asked Fluttershy.

Fancy scratched his head. “I am rather flummoxed,” he admitted. “This certainly isn’t the Canterlot road, unless the work parties have really been putting in the hours lately.” He paused. “Look… shall we go and find that green-maned pony?”

The two mares turned as one to look at him. “What green-maned pony?” they said in unison.

Fancy explained what he had seen. The others agreed that they should find this pony, but after a long search there was no sign and they reluctantly left off. It was either that or camp here, in what for now at least remained a completely unknown land.

“I think we should leave a marker,” said Fluttershy as they reached the road. “We could make some twigs into an arrow to point the way. If that pony is still here, she’ll know which way we’re going and she’ll be able to catch up with us.”

Rarity pointed out that right now, they didn’t know which way they were going. Before they could decide, Rarity insisted on removing her grass-stained and torn party dress, and further insisted on doing so behind a tree “as we are in mixed company”. Fancy caught the tiniest giggle from Fluttershy but said nothing.

A short discussion followed and in the end the ponies chose east simply so that they would not have to squint into the low late-afternoon sun. They placed two arrows, one of twigs and one of pebbles, on a stump by the road.

“Time we were off, I’d say,” said Fancy. “Though off to where is quite another question. Ah well, I imagine we shall find out.”

The unicorns set off at a moderate trot, and Fluttershy chose to do the same rather than fly. The air was pleasant and the weather mild, and with a fine road beneath his horseshoes Fancy caught himself almost enjoying being out in the fresh air in the middle of whoever-knew-where with two such elegant mares.

Fleur doesn’t know what she’s missing, he said to himself. A pang of the heart reminded him of what he was missing, so he forced himself to engage in small talk with Rarity and Fluttershy. Rarity was still a little curt with him, and Fluttershy though charming was unwilling to be drawn into deep conversations. He settled for chatting in a bright and brittle way about nothing in particular, much as he had done at the garden party itself.

After a while Fancy hung back a little and allowed the two mares to talk among themselves while he filled his mind with a hotch-potch of half-remembered poems from his school days, his favourite rustic folk songs and the intricacies of the Schleich-Holsteiner Prob—

The sudden darkening of the sky was not due to the sun slipping behind the hills. It was caused by two extremely large stallions blocking the road. They were both sand-coloured and lightly armoured, although the Earth pony to the left didn’t look as though he’d be stopped by anything short of an army of hydras. Fancy’s attention was however more drawn to the unicorn, whose horn-tip was already crackling with pink power – and it was pointed directly at him.

Rarity and Fluttershy were nowhere to be seen.

Comments

[Loganberry]

8663280
Two different definitions? I'm referring to "sudden gleams or flashes of light" throughout, though it is true that none of the characters understand what's happening in quite the way Twilight would, so to that extent the lack of precision is deliberate.

[Loganberry]

8663599
Ah, I see your point. However, that isn't a mistake. Let's just say for now that (for once!) I know what I'm doing there.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Certainly an interesting opening. Though I'm not sure if Rarity is cross with Fancy over just the accusation or something else; her attitude seems a bit much if the former. In any case, looking forward to more, especially since I'm not sure if I've ever seen Fancy Pants and Fluttershy interacting for an appreciable length of time.

[Loganberry]

8665343
Rarity is a little... diverted by the fate of her dress. That maybe sounds a little shallow for S7-era Rarity, but (though this isn't said explicitly) she's still just a little embarrassed for the way she behaved around FP back in "Sweet and Elite". It's probably fair to say I might have made things slightly more nuanced if this had been through the usual editing/pre-reading process. As for Fluttershy, yes, that's something I'm looking forward to as well. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for giving this a look, anyway!

[Rocket]

A promising beginning, although I'm another who found Rarity's behaviour a bit inexplicable.

[Loganberry]

8667744
See my response to FoME, really. Part of it is that when I rush things out (deliberately, in this case) there are more rough edges than usual. Whether there's anything else on Rarity's mind... that you'll have to wait and see about!