Realms Undreamed Of

by Ardashir

Chapter 13

Realms Undreamed Of

Chapter 13

No pony would speak of her
Or their part in her doom;
No pony would speak of her
Or their part in her doom;
But all would be known
To the Mare in the Moon…

Darkness reigned deep within the Everfree Forest. Night lay on the land of Equestria, and honest ponies – and griffons, dragons, minotaurs, and more – were asleep in their beds.

While in the depths of the Everfree, the cursed ponies of Sunny Town repeated their last night alive for over the 366,700th time.

Timber and log houses of a style not seen in Equestria for centuries circled around a village green. The leaping flames of a bonfire lit the green, surrounded by the tables and decorations of an Earth Pony festival. Except there was no aroma of ale or fresh baking or even ponies, just that of a musty graveyard with a hint of carrion.

A small Earth Pony mare, golden of mane and gray of coat, faced two Earth Pony stallions. Fear pinned the ears of the larger and closer, and tears streaked his cheeks; behind him the smaller grey’s face held a lurking sneer. Behind the two of them, wilting flowers drifted from the green mane of a green-coated mare; beside her, a mare and stallion in archaic wedding finery backed away. And in a ring around them, the rest of the herd kept their distance from the small grey mare, who alone bore a Cutie Mark.

“The Pox…” they whispered and whickered to each other, twitching as if they were about to stampede. “The Pox!” Afraid and yet tired and weary, like actors doing a scene for the thousandth upon thousandth time.

Except for the small golden-maned mare at the center of the herd, a new-born Cutie Mark like a small seeing-glass glowing on her flank.

“Father Grey Hoof,” she neighed in a voice mixing grief and boredom. “Three Leaf.” Her ears turned back for a moment. “Gladstone, Roneo, Starlight. Must we do this? Again? Even the accursed dead may know tiredness at feeling their last moments of life over and over—“

“Tis the Pox!” hissed Gladstone in Grey Hoof’s ear. “Strike swiftly, or we are all dead!”

“Nay,” the large grey said, his voice a wondering rumble. “This, this has happened aforetimes... Has it not?” He looked to the others around him, lit by the dancing firelight, their shadows shimmering on the walls of the houses. They returned him confused nods as he said, “I, I do seem to recall... My daughter Ruby found thy lost wedding gift, Roneo...”

“Yes! 'Tis true!” The little mare, Ruby, nodded with a sudden rising hope. “Father, all of ye, do try to remember! Always and always this ends with my death, even the time the one called Thorn came here. He laughed to see thee slay me – Father, remember, and do differently this time!” Ruby stepped forward and leaned in close to her parent.

As she did with a shrill neigh of fury Gladstone reared and brought both his hooves down on her head. Ruby fell, her head crushed. She kicked once and lay twitching.

“Now!” Gladstone turned on the others, frantically scraping his forehooves against the grass as his voice changed to a rasping croak. Their own forms began to wither, turning to shrunken hide and sunken eyes that burned like coals.

He finished scraping his hooves clean, pointed one at the twitching figure lying before him. “To the firepit! She must be burned!”

And the noonday sun came down into the clearing.

A debt to the Nightmare
Sunny Town must pay;
A debt to the Nightmare
Sunny Town must pay;
For killing pretty Ruby
And hiding her away…

“NOOOOOOOO! NOT AGAIN!” the scream rose from the throats of the entire herd, their equine forms melting away into charred bones and rotting burned flesh and empty eyesockets filled with red fire as the buildings around them went to charred ruins. Only the small grey mare lying twitching in her own blood looked freshly dead.

The midnight sun broke through the canopy – a shining white Alicorn Major, the sun on her flank and tipping her horn. Then a spiked iron chariot, drawn by Night Guard ponies winged like bats. Then more Night Guard and other chariots, two of which seemed to burn the Sunny Towners even more than Celestia’s light.

The Sunny Town ponies were skeletons now, shards of stinking rotting flesh and hair clinging to black-charred bones and blazing red empty eyesockets, screaming as the earth itself dragged them down and swallowed them up, back into their graves until the next midnight.

“I hate thee, harlot!” Gladstone neighed as he sank again into death, the dirt seeming to almost recoil from his corpse-form. “May thy sister be torn from thee for another thousand years! I – ” He was gone.

“Daughter! Beloved Ruby!” Grey Hoof whinnied in something like joy. “I, I did NOT strike thee this time! – ” Then he was gone, along with Three Leaf and Roneo and Starlet and all the others.

Except for Ruby, who lay on the forest floor amid gnarled roots and traces that a thousand years ago might have been foundations where a village had once stood.

The first chariot – the large spiked one – grounded.

“Ruby…” the small blue alicorn in the chariot looked down at the still form, already starting to fade. “I did this to thee…” Luna made as to step off the chariot, then settled when a bipedal form beside her set a reassuring hand on her withers.

Ruby and her pool of blood faded to translucent, then to transparent, then she was gone as if she’d never existed.

Luna stared at the spot where Ruby had lain until the hand on her withers guided her off the chariot.

Royal-sabatoned hooves met dirt, followed by those of Night Guards. Spellguard unicorns leaped off chariots as they grounded, light spells streaming off their horns as they backed up the Night Guards establishing a perimeter.

The fell darkness of the Everfree retreated, banished to a distance where shadows with pale-glittering eyeshine moved under the trees and did not dare approach. Night Guard Thestrals and Spellguard Unicorns pinned ears and rolled eyes at the sight, but held their ground as more chariots filled with ponies set down behind them.

Well, mostly ponies. Among them stood one two-legged being unlike any other in Equestria. Tall and lean, long-maned and with bare earth-toned skin instead of a pony’s coat, she stood with the Elements of Harmony next to the two alicorn Princesses.

“Twilight,” Celestia said to her, sweeping the sunlight from her horn through the surrounding woods. “You and the Elements should work the spell quickly. The less time wasted, the better.”

“I agree,” Twilight said, dropping to the dirt of the Everfree forest floor. As she did a long moan came from deeper in the forest. It dragged on for several moments before fading. Despite themselves the ponies shivered.

“Umm, Twilight, not to try and tell you how to cast magic,” Fluttershy moved to stand a little closer to her friend and the Princesses. Full saddlebags thumped against her butter-yellow sides, as with her friends. “But maybe we can hurry it up a little?”

“I have to agree with Fluttershy, dear,” Rarity cringed a little as another groan echoed from the woods. “I have been in more pleasant places than this.”

“I’m hurrying as much as I can,” Twilight said. Luna’s magic held the spellbook before her eyes, containing what Luna could remember of the conjuring circle once used to call her to John’s world. She very carefully used a long stick to recreate them in the earth at her feet. A soft chill wind blew around the ponies, bearing the scent of sweetish stink of decay and worse, a hint of wood smoke. “This would be a lot easier if I still had my own magic.”

“I dunno why ya didn’t just change when ya went to John’s world, like you do with Canterlot High,” Dash said as she hovered just off the ground. An irritated twitch ran along her side.

“Because this is not like using one of Starswirl’s mirrors, Rainbow Dash,” Celestia said, scanning the treeline. “They were enchanted to modify their user to match the main race of the world they went to, as a way to aid explorers in blending in. This other world you go to has no Equestrian magic. Your native abilities as Equestrian ponies will be vastly weakened there.” She looked into Dash’s eyes, and then to the others. “Possibly even useless.”

“My wings? Useless?” The cyan pegasus dropped to the ground, wings frozen in mid-flap.

“I’m not very eager to face the unknown without even basic horn magic, either, dear,” Rarity said, levitating a mane-brush out of her saddlebags. “But Twilight and Princess Luna told us what sort of threat John and his friends face.” Mane properly teased into a curling amethyst ribbon, the marshmallow unicorn returned the brush to her saddlebag. “Even without any threat to our own world, we can’t leave the Shonokin to do whatever they like to John.”

“Yeah, I know, but,” Dash looped in place. “I feel kinda naked without my wings. Like you will without your horn,” she got a sly smile. “An’ Applejack without being able to talk ta plants or whatever it is that Earth ponies get.”

“Don’t y’all start, Dash,” Applejack snorted in mock anger. “Ya know what we get. Next Runnin’ of the Leaves Ah’ll be happy ta show ya.” At Dash’s laugh, Applejack stomped forward, pinning her ears back.

Twilight turned away from the two as they bickered as only old friends can. The Everfree looked almost as dark as those forests she’d seen in John’s memories. Luna’s moon peeked through the trees overhead, full and glorious. Twilight wondered if it looked brighter and bigger than the one in John’s dreams. She shivered a bit at the chill in the air; it felt much colder out without a coat of hair. At least the Polymorph worked. Her new form was based on the one she had through the mirror, with one important difference. From what she’d seen of the humans in John’s dreams, their skins and manes seemed to all be drab earth tones; she’d compromised on a medium one, based on Chief Manco’s dream-form. Rarity had hurriedly sewn a set of clothing for her, based on the ones in the second dream-world.

She could feel, deep within, a sort of uneasiness that the memory of her magical senses told her was her original form trying to reassert itself. It would take at least a day before it could force her body back to normal, and that was with the normal background magic of Equestria. In John’s world without that magical flux, keeping her new form ought to be no problem at all.

And if not, Princess Luna should be able to restore me. Twilight relaxed a little as she recognized the trail from three years before, the one where John had walked out of Equestria and back to his world. “Okay,” she wondered out loud, “and now what? John, I hope you're ready where you are.”

# # #

The afternoon sun sent shadows creeping and crawling with what looked like long claws over airy thing as I stood on the trail outside my home cabin. I held my guitar in my hands, and I felt right glad to be feeling it. There'd been one-two times I wondered myself if I air would again.

“John,” Evadare said behind me. I looked back and saw her standing aside old Chief Manco before the cabin, stout log walls chinked with clay on a foundation of stones mortared together, like any good mountain house. “John,” she said again, “you sure your friends will know how to let you know when they're being ready, where you and Chief Manco say they are?”

“I think she doubts yet just a bit, John,” Chief Manco smiled and nodded me, his long gray braids bobbing beside his wise old face. “I don't blame Evadare. If I hadn't seen what I saw – but well, now what?”

“This, I reckon,” I told him back. My fingers started moving on my silver strings, and I began a-playing those five notes I'd first heard three years gone. Five notes in a rhythm I nair heard afore, then the same five notes once again, then five chords in a different rhythm as I walked away from the house past Chief Manco’s pickup truck and towards the spot I'd come back on, three years afore.

Did Twilight and her friends hear me where they were, I wondered?

# # #

A soft faint warm breeze blew through the charnel stink of Sunny Town. Twilight lifted her head to smell it, and as she did, heard five notes on the wind. “Girls! Princesses! Do you hear that?”

Celestia shook her head, but slowly, as though something tugged at her memory.

“I hear naught,” Luna said, “yet I almost do feel something familiar.”

“Ah shore hear it!” Applejack hurried up beside Twilight. Then Dash beside her, and on Twilight's other side Rarity and Fluttershy and Pinkie, bouncing for joy. “Now what do we do?”

“I'm not sure,” Twilight looked down the trail leading away from here, maybe away from Equestria itself. “But I think...”

She began to sing back to those faint notes. Her friends joined in, neighing 'Dream Valley' back to that breeze. Two more voices joined in, Celestia and Luna singing the oldest of Equestria's songs.

# # #

I stopped my playing and listened my hardest. A new sound along with my music and the wind overhead and the birdsong in the trees all about.

Eight voices singing back to me, six of them that I knew. Brash Rainbow and soft Fluttershy, cultured Rarity and happy Pinkie, Applejack's so like ary mountain woman I knew and educated Twilight's. And two more I nair yet knew, one smooth and strong and minding me of how some folks say the sun dances at dawn on Easter Sunday, and the other softer and lower but just as fine, like a cool breeze under a full Autumn moon.

I minded me of stories of men said to have just up and vanished here-there through the mountains like Sol Gentry, vanished and gone yet folks could hear their voices sometimes a-calling for help but nary sign of them. Was that what I was a-hearing here?

I listened a heartbeat long, and then set fingers back to my guitar and played it back to them whereair they were.

# # #

“I hear it,” Luna said softly, walking forward to stand beside Twilight. Her voice rose along with the Element Bearers. 'Dream Valley' was coming to them on silver strings, coming from another world entire.

“Celestia,” Twilight dared break the song for a second as her friends began to walk down the trail leading away from Sunny Town. They walked out of the radius of the light spells, darkness closing in around them. “Celestia, good luck.”

“Little sister, my student, my little ponies, all of you be careful,” Celestia called after them before she stared singing again. Twilight nodded agreement and returned to the song herself. Faint hints of rainbows shimmered along and over their coats and Twilight's mane as the Elements awakened. The sound of those guitar strings became louder, more distinct. 'Dream Valley' for certain now, and no mistakes.

# # #

It was just like hearing fairy-music all about, there under those old trees and me hearing what sounded more like seven voices now, with that dawn-singer going quiet. Loud and distinct, and sounding like they were a-getting closer. I changed the pitch on my playing like that time with Donie Carawan and the Little Black Train. The Doppler effect, I think science folks call it, making it sound like something is getting closer to you.

And this was a-getting closer and louder air second.

# # #

“Oh, dear!” Rarity seemed to flinch. “Darlings! Does it feel to the rest of you like we were walking through a spiderweb?”

“Yes, and keep singing!” Twilight yelled back to her. The darkness all about them was suddenly lifting, growing brighter as though Celestia stood beside them, “Remember, this is how John said it felt for him!”

Their song, his music, so loud now it was like he stood among them. New trees all about, like Whitetail Woods with more Northern Forest conifers, late afternoon sunlight slanting through the forest. Birdsong among them, a strong raw scent like Autumn right before the Running of the Leaves, conifer needles beneath their hooves and feet.

About a hundred lengths away, a log cabin like in Whitetail Woods peeked through the trees beside a red clay road; beside it something like a four-wheeled wagon crossed with a locomotive cab.

And standing right before them – “Twilight? Ladies, is that you I'm seeing?”

# # #

“John! It's you!”

That was what I heard right when six ponies and one young lady that looked kindly familiar to me shimmered out of nothing all about me, like the summer heat from a blacktop highway. Maybe a heartbeat long or so I saw a vast dark woods all about, but then it was all gone and just me and six excited ponies rearing up around me. With the most excited of them jumping her pink self right up onto me.

“Hi John, we missed you so much!” Pinkie took herself a deep breath and then it all came a-rushing out like I remembered. “Gosh it's been so long and gee your hair has some more gray in it but not a lot and I'm so glad we got to see you again and maybe this time we can have that We-Saved-The-Day party like I wanted to and – ”

“PINKIE!” That young woman pushed her way up atween Pinkie and me. “Let him breathe!” Pinkie dropped back, still smiling. The young lady sighed. “I'm sorry, John, but you know how Pinkie is.”

“Twilight?” I took a longer look. “That is you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said, and she tugged lightly on a strand of her hair. Thick and dark it looked, with maybe a sort of purple-blue streak when the sunlight hit it right. “I didn’t know how the Polymorph spell would work with this world. Do I look okay?”

She wore clothes like you’d see on young town women from the lowlands coming up to summer in the mountains, but better made, maybe. Twilight looked like any other human girl, only a little dark. Most places they’d think she came from Spain or Italy or some such place off beyond the seas. Here in the mountains, she looked part Cherokee, like she might be a niece or even grand-daughter of old Chief Manco himself.

The rest of her friends were trying to stand up and look me in the face, all of them talking at the once. I took Applejack by the hoof and shook it, and maybe it felt just the least bit weaker than the first time I’d done that when we met in Equestria. Pinkie tried to bounce but she didn’t go quite so high as she used to.

“You look fine,” I told Twilight right as the door opened behind me. “But are you feeling poorly? You all feel,” I tried to find the words, “just a little less than you did when I knew you, back in Equestria.”

“That's from the lack of magical energy in this universe.” She looked like she wondered something. “That won't be a problem. I think.”

“I see you-all here,” I said as I looked around on them all. “But whereair is Spike at? I can't kindly see him letting you all run off into danger without coming along to help.”

“He's not here,” Twilight said, and she looked sorry to say it. “We left him back in Equestria. He wanted to come, but draconic biology is so magic-intensive I had no idea how it would react to the shift between worlds.”

“I did convince him to stay,” Luna broke in. “I warned him that should the worst come to worst, Ponyville would need a defender ‘gainst whatever may assail it.” Maybe I just thought they looked worried a mite as Luna said, “Even a young dragon would be a fearsome foe and a loyal defender.”

“John – Lord have mercy!” That was my Evadare’s voice, sure enough. I turned to look at her; I just purely did have to see the look on her face right now. Her blue eyes were wide enough that they looked to take her whole face up. The ponies looked at her, sort of cautious. Except for Applejack, who reared up to look her in the face. Evadare reached out cautious-like her own self and was about to scratch Applejack along her ears. Then she stopped and took her hoof with her hand, shaking it.

“You’re the one he called Applejack, aren’t you?” Evadare said, her voice soft and kind of hushed. “John told me what good you and these others here did him and he did for you, but I shame to say, until now I nair did believe him all the way.”

“And it's a pleasure ta meet ya, Miz Evadare,” Applejack responded her and shook Evadare’s hand back. “John told us how much he favored ya and wanted ta get back home, an' now Ah can see why.” I saw the other ponies behind her nodding their politest. It made me just a little proud, silly as it sounds, to see how whatair troubles they might be in, they took the time to notice Evadare and make their manners afore her that-a-ways.

“I reckon I know the rest of you, Rarity, Fluttershy,” Evadare nodded at them with the good manner she always has, better than mine. Rarity made a sort of little bow, Fluttershy half-hid her face behind a wing and smiled. Evadare said, “Miss Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash… Miss Twilight?” She made it a half a question. Pinkie grinned her best, Dash puffed herself up like she was proud to be known, Twilight took Evadare's hand and returned her handshake. Evadare looked at Luna. “And yourself, Miss? I apologize, but you're a stranger to me.”

“And thee to me,” Luna said in her old-time speech. “But any who stand by John the Balladeer is a friend to me.” Evadare hesitated, then set her hand on Luna's head and scratched her gentle-like by the ears. It looked like most any person gentling an unhappy horse, save I'd nair seen it done to a horse with wings and a horn.

I reckon I heard Dash make a little laugh, and someone shushed her. Luna flicked her ears and made a half-snort like any annoyed horse, and Twilight choked right aside me.

She whispered her words out like she was in a church. "Does she know just who she's scritching? The Princess of the Night!"

I thought her words quiet enough, but I reckon Luna heard them all the same. Her eyes went wide, and with a snort she walked away to stand afore the others.

"Twilight, fellow ponies," Luna said. "We must needs see to our resources, and how much magic we still possess." She spoke like someone used to giving orders and being heeded. "Rarity, attempt a casting. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, attempt to take flight.”

Rarity nodded her back and Dash saluted as sharp as someone taking orders from a top officer.

“Applejack, test thy strength. Pinkie Pie…” Pinkie smiled wide, her mane maybe looking the least bit limp. Luna seemed to be a-hunting for howair to say it, and finished with, "See if thou can do – whatever it is thee does. And Twilight, cast Analyze Magic on us, and gauge how much we have weakened."

“Are you sure you can, dear?” Rarity said. I saw her horn shine faint, like the last few bits of wood in a fire burning itself out. “I can feel where my magic used to be, if you know what I mean. You're the Element of Magic, but even so!”

“I know I can.” Twilight looked determined. “I can manage it here, but we’re going to have to concentrate.” She knelt down in the midst of her friends and Luna. I saw how she furrowed up her brow and began to say some words that sounded the least bit familiar to me. Luna came over to her and touched her forehead, her horn and eyes glowing a soft pale moon’s glow.

Evadare caught her breath quick, crossed two of her fingers and set the other hand in her skirt pocket. She started to say some words I’d taught her under her breath. Luna seemed to twitch the least little bit and snorted at us. I took her gently by the arm.

“There’s no need to be saying any words out of the Long-Lost Friend,” I told her. I think she only half heard me, the way she stared at the ponies, but she nodded me yes. “This is no evil or wicked thing when they do magic. It’s more like what Chief Manco can do sometimes, or me my own self. Or maybe more like when we turn a switch and get light. It’s a natural thing for them.”

“Natural, but still fascinating,” Chief Manco said where he stood. I’d not even heard him come out the door. “It reminds me some ways of things I read about in Albertus Magnus and other medieval and Renaissance grimoires, about the difference between magia and goetia – natural magic versus unnatural sorcery.”

“Like the Shonokin do?” I asked him. He looked at me.

“Exactly like that,” he said.

Rarity looked around her, frowned and furrowed her brow like some folks do when they think hard. Her horn glowed in fits and starts, like some fancy electric light down in town hen the power isn't running well. The sticks and rocks rose, a little. Some few dropped and I saw Rarity wasn't the least bit happy to see it.

"I'm not as strong as back home," she said in that elegant voice, as those sticks circled in the air. "And my fine control isn't what I would like, Highness. But I have some of my magic here."

“Tell me about it!” I knew Dash’s scratchy voice. She flew over to hover near Luna, but she beat her wings harder than I’d air seen her do back in Equestria, like some big buzzard trying to take off. She gritted her teeth and tried flying higher, kicking up leaves and grit. Finally she stopped and just dropped down to the ground. “"Great, I flew better than this when I was a foal! I fly as bad as Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy's wings were beating even harder. I closed my eyes at the grit and dirt they blew at my eyes, but she just raised her front half off the ground a handspan of inches afore she dropped back down, gasping like she’d run all the way to Sky Notch. "I can't fly at all!"

"Ah'm no better," Applejack called over. She stood aside an oak tree, maybe a century old by how tall and broad it was. She looked at it like she whispered or maybe just thought some words, and I minded me of how some old mountain folks used to say a prayer afore they cut a tree down. Applejack kicked out like a little orange donkey with her back legs. A few leaves came down from that tree, but naught else. She saw how I looked. "Sorry to be hurtin' yore trees, John, but Ah needed ta know what Ah can still do." She looked back at her tail the way some old folks do the first time they can't be doing something they always could. "Guess Ah know how Granny Smith felt the first time she couldn't buck apples any more."

We all looked to Pinkie then. Except she wasn’t where she’d been standing.

Afore anyone could say anything else she’d jumped up in front of Evadare. Evadare gave a start, but Pinkie just paid it no mind and starting a-talking, bouncing all over like she was a rubber ball.

“Hi, Miz Evadare! It’s great to meet you! John talked about you a lot when he visited our world, and he missed you so much and we were afraid we’d never be able to send him back to your world…” She took one almighty deep breath, “But we did and he helped us a whole lot against that mean meany-pants Thorne and I wanted to throw him a We-Saved-The-Day party but never got to but maybe we can this time!” Pinkie gave her the biggest smile you air did see, on either a human or a horse.

“That’s… right kindly of you, Miss Pinkie,” Evadare said. She looked at me like to ask for help. I just nodded her and let it go. Airy soul that met Pinkie Pie was a-going to go through this. “I purely do hope you get to give him that party afore you leave, this time.” Evadare said those words the way air person would to mean them.

“Done!” Twilight sounded tired, like she’d just run a footrace. She reached and I took her arm, helping her to stand. I saw how the sweat shone on her face like she’d been working hard in a field. “It shouldn’t have taken that much out of me, either. I guess this world’s magic really is that different from Equestria’s.” I saw how the others gave a shake like a uneasy horse. “It took more out of me than I expected. No offense John, Miss Evadare, Mister Manco, but the sooner we deal with the Shonokin and the Tantabus the better.”

“Aye, ‘tis different here,” Luna said, and she near panted those words out. I saw how she fought to raise her head, like some tired horse. Her mane hung and her tongue did too. She shook herself like it shamed her. “I had forgotten how much effort lay in working Equestrian magic here.” Then she looked on Evadare and myself.

“It is good that we have met,” Luna said, and nodded her head to point that horn at the door. “But perhaps we may speak more within? I sense the defenses on thy home, good John, and any more that must be said is best said behind such protection.” She looked around, taking in air thing she saw, and I got the feeling she saw more than air human man or woman would.

“She’s quite right, John,” Chief Manco said to me. “Besides, we have some food inside for your guests. Best we attend to dinner before more problems arise.”

“Dinner?” I saw how Applejack’s ears pricked up. Chief Manco and Evadare were leading the ponies inside, leaving me with her at the end of the line. “What sort o’ dinner?”

“Not too much, sad to say,” I told her. “Just some apples, oats, a bit of honey fresh from the comb, and some biscuits Evadare and I were able to cook up. Water and coffee to drink and some eggs, but I doubt you ponies want those.”

“Some of us eat them,” Applejack responded me, “though not too many and – well! Y’all got a nice place here for just the two folks, John!”

It was no more’n most folks have in the mountains, the ones like Evadare and I that live off away from towns like Sky Notch anyway. Wood shakes for the ceiling, logs and planks and stone for the walls, a good floor beneath. The cast-iron stove and some shelves for the books I have – only a dozen or so, but I wish it was a few hundred, even if that’s greedy to say. And the wood-frame bed in one corner, big enough for Evadare and I, piled with the quilts she makes at her loom. I suppose we’re modern enough to have a bathroom off in a lean-to on one side; I slipped my way through enough deep snow in my time at night not to want to use either the outhouse or a thunder mug.

The ponies looked around on it all, their eyes wide, taking it all in.

“Miss Evadare, you made these quilts here, didn’t you?” Rarity went to the loom, looking at it the way someone does when they know what they’re doing. She turned and nodded her head low to Evadare, making her manners. “You have created truly lovely work here. I wish I’d thought to bring some of my patterns and cloth, I would dearly love to trade them in exchange for some of these patterns.”

“There’s no need for that, Miss – Rarity, is it?” Evadare looked right easier about these ponies then. She takes pride in her cloth, and maybe it’s prideful for me to say she deserves airy bit of what she gets for it. Evadare showed her some of the quilts. “See, now this one is Witch Blazing Star, and here’s Summer Morning…”

The other ponies were by the table, looking at the bowls there. Apples in the one and fresh oats in the other. Dash tried to hover over the table, finally snorted and set herself down She tried taking the one apple in her hoof, but it was like it was slippery for her. She pinned her ears and snorted, but finally got it between her two front hooves.

“Wow, Jackie,” she looked that apple over, “this one’s kinda small compared to the ones you grow.”

“Dash!” She winced as her friends gave her a yell. Twilight took the apple from her and said, “Mister John and Evadare are giving us their very best. This isn’t much different from what I saw at Canterlot High when I went to that world! It’s a little better here. Show some manners.”

“It’s kindly all right,” I tried to calm everyone. “I saw the kind of apples Applejack’s family grew, and they were a sight bigger than these ones. I know that’s just Dash’s way of talking.” Dash still made me and Evadare an apology. When she’d done Evadare spoke up.

“Miss Twilight, you say you were here in this,” she had a hard time with it, but no more than my own self the first time, “this world, aforetime?”

“Err,” Twilight glanced at Luna, and then looked at Evadare. “Not here, no. This was another human world. I tried to find John there, but,” she looked like she felt the need to hide something, “he didn’t exist there.” Except as a character in a storybook…

“Well,” I responded her as I sat at the table, “I exist here. Let’s have some food afore we talk about those Shonokin.”

That took some of the good feeling out of the room. Ponies and humans, we settled down to the table. Evadare and I said our grace. Chief Manco bowed his head and spoke to the Cherokee gods, thanking them and maybe a-asking them for whatair help they could grant us. The ponies looked on curious. I said what I usually said when I’m about to eat good food, that I’m grateful for it. Though this time I added a little something for whoair might be on the other end, to watch out for these good friends of mine and take care of them the way I hoped Evadare and Chief Manco and myself would be taken care of. I saw how Dash fidgeted a little bit during it, like an impatient little child. Somehow I wasn’t a bit surprised.

We ate then and if the ponies didn’t like what was afore them they made no sign of it. We gave them the water in small bowls, and the food on wooden dishes that us human folks used. If it seemed unchancy to them they made no sign. They just ate it down.

“This is right good food, John,” Applejack told me when she finished. “Hits the spot right where it oughta. Ah do wish Ah’d brought some seeds from ma trees back home; be interestin’ ta learn how well they’d take root here. An’ Ah’d like ta give ya somethin’ for the dinner.”

“You’re a friend of mine, Applejack,” I responded her. “You being here is all I’d ask for.” I was about to say more but right then Luna walked over to me. I minded me that she didn’t have that feel of night and dark around her now like she did afore the Tantabus stole her strength. And when she spoke, it was more any young woman’s voice than something that echoed against the walls.

“Thy speech is true, but still, we thank you.” Luna lowered her head to me and Evadare in what I reckon you’d call a bow. She made the same to Chief Manco, who gravely returned her a nod. Speaking to him and Evadare, she said, “I will also tell ye that good John is a friend of Equestria and the crown; and as ye are friends of his, so too shall you be so deemed. So decrees Luna Selena Nocturne, Princess of Equestria, Alicorn of Moon and Night.”

“Thank you kindly, Ma’am,” Evadare said, as she and I gathered the dishes. She patted me on the shoulder. “I reckon I owe all of you an apology, too. John told us all about you and what he did in your own place, but we nair did believe all of it.”

“That’s alright, Miss Evadare,” Twilight said where she sat. “I’ve seen enough to know how hard it would be to accept a story like that, even from someone trusted.”

“True, but we art here now,” Luna said. She looked out one of the windows, and I saw how the shadows outside were getting longer. “But best we speak of the Shonokin now. I do not care to think of what my other self may do among them once darkness falls. Where do these villains even make their den? Goodman John, Chief Manco, do you know?”

“We have our ideas,” Chief Manco said. He stood up afore us like some schoolteacher. “The Shonokin have to be nearby, since the sort of magic they were working on John would require it.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Manco,” Twilight spoke up then. “But are you sure? I’ve seen, and done, mind-affecting magic back home…”

“Indeed,” Luna said in what sounded like a sly sort of voice. “My sister didst inform me of the ‘Smarty Pants Incident’.”

Twilight blushed hard then, her cheeks a-going dark, and the ponies made a sort of short whicker like a little laugh.

“Anyway!” Twilight hurried right along. “Most of it needs you to be close, but some spells can be cast with a delay and take effect a long time after. Or cast with a trigger, and not activate until you encounter that trigger event. Could that be what the Shonokin did to you, John?”

Those words gave me a turn, more than a turn. I didn’t fancy a-having to hunt those Shonokin down across the whole mountains, or maybe further. It must have showed on my face. Evadare set her hand on my arm.

“It can’t be that far. Can it?” She said the last to Chief Manco. I felt some better when he shook his head.

“I doubt it, Evadare, Miss Twilight,” he shook his head. “First of all, longer range like that would make it harder for them to keep their connection unless they had something physical, a lock of hair or cloth with John’s blood or sweat in it. And since he’s smart enough to know why people would want those things, I doubt very much that he’d allow any of them to get lost.”

“What that man who wrote the Golden Bough called the Law of Contagion,” I spoke up. Chief Manco nodded me. The ponies just watched, and I reckon Twilight wished she had a pencil and notebook to write it all down by how she looked. “Like when someone tries witching you with a doll, what they call a poppet, with some of your hair or blood in it. I’d nair be such a gone gump to let such a thing happen, to either me or Evadare.”

“And you keep your copy of The Long-Lost Friend around,” Manco picked it up from my bookshelf. He flipped it open to the front. “Whoever carries this book with him, is safe from all his enemies, visible and invisible; and whoever has this book with him cannot die without the holy corpse of Jesus Christ, nor drown in any water, nor burn up in any fire, nor can any unjust sentence be passed upon him’. You’ve told me how Hohman’s book has helped you time and again, John.”

“That it has,” I answered him. I pointed at something framed on the wall. “That himmelsbrief and haus-segen I got from an old Army friend in Pennsylvania nair did any harm, either.”

“What an’ what?” Applejack said. She trotted over and peered at them. She smiled when she looked away. “Cain’t read th’ words, but it’s got pictures o’ ponies an’ apple trees, so I reckon it must be good.”

“You would, AJ,” Dash snorted and rolled her eyes. Applejack didn’t make her any answer, she just trotted right back to standing close by Evadare.

“Those words mean ‘Heaven-letter’ and ‘house-blessing’, or so the fellow that sent them to me said. He’s also named John, John Siegfried. He told me that he copied them both from the ones in his family’s old place in the Lehigh Valley, and even when the houses either side of theirs were burning twenty licks to the minute, theirs didn’t even char nor get smoky.”

“It does remind me of folk magic done by some Earth ponies before my – madness,” Luna looked sad. The ponies began a-trying to tell her she’d done no harm, but she just shook her head. “Yet among us such defenses could be broken by a strong enough attack. Or one made from nearby.”

“Yuh,” Chief Manco nodded. “What you say is true here as well. Which is what I strongly suspect is happening with John. The Shonokin are somewhere nearby. They attacked from there once but with your fortuitous help they were defeated,” Twilight looked right pleased, “but unfortunately, they retreated back there with Luna’s power. And now we need to find it and return it to her, before they can use it on everyone they want revenge on. Or as your folk say John,” and he didn’t nair smile then, “It will be Katy bar the door.”

“Katy bar the door,” I said after him. “I think it won’t be air easy thing to do, barring the door on what they took from you, Miss Luna.” I thought me and I said, “Just what sort of things can that power of yours do, with the Shonokin a-calling the dance?”

Luna sighed and lowered her head. When she spoke, she sounded shamed and frightened all at the once.

“My sister and I claim no title higher than ‘Princess of Equestria’, but we are much, much more; both of us are addressed as ‘Her Immortal Highness’ and as alicorns, we are immortal. We cannot die naturally, but can be killed if overpowered by a powerful enough attack. Our apparent age is due to the amount of magic we embody, not the passing of years. Ye see me now as a young filly, without my full power as an Alicorn Major. Ye would call us “goddesses”, my sister of Sun and Day, myself of Moon and Night. Equestria’s sun and moon rise and set by our wills; when we hold naught back, we are each capable of great destruction.”

If I hadn’t seen the things I’d seen afore, I might have gopped at that. I minded how learned men once spoke of an order of angels who moved the sun and moon and stars, and Celestia seeming like a horse-angel the one time I met her, and how the Good Book says that one angel slew a whole army in one night, and how some have welcomed angels unawares.

“After the First Age of Discord, his subcreations rampaged throughout land and sea. All the monsters of today, plus those unheard of before or since. All of them preying upon ponies. For centuries we hunted them down, drove them away from what is now Equestria, into the Wastelands. Monsters, predators, even ponies who fancied themselves the next Tirek or Grogar or Discord and acted on that fancy. Centuries of fighting and blood and death until the land was returned to Harmony and our little ponies could live and thrive.

“We were dark and terrible then, Celly and I, for ‘twas dark and terrible times. My sister could call down sunfire that could burn a city to ash – or do the same to a Dragon Lord and his seven sons, great wyrms all. In my prime, I could arrange the stars in Equestria’s night sky, raise tides which could level mountains, or bring Night itself down as all-crushing darkness. As Guardian of Dreams – and later, Bringer of Nightmares – I was able to alter the dreams of thousands. All in different ways, all at once. I could have forced Equestria’s moon to blot out the sun, or keep the sun from rising e’er again.” She looked upon us like she wondered if we thought she was a-telling some tall tale. “I wonder if ye believe what I say.”

“I’m not sure, madam,” Chief Manco pulled on his chin and frowned. He pointed a lean brown finger at her. “If you were that strong, how were you ever defeated in the first place?”

“By a greater, deeper magic, the greatest and deepest in all Equestria, the Elements of Harmony,” she answered him, turning and looking at Twilight and the others. “My sister and I once bore them, but when I became corrupted, she was granted control of them all to stop me. She told me later that she gave up control of them, fearing lest she would follow my path if the temptation to abuse their power overcame her. Henceforth they would be borne only by mortal ponies. I think, also, she felt herself unworthy of them for what she did no matter how needful. Later, Twilight and her friends were able to call upon the Elements and use them to heal me from my madness.” Chief Manco frowned, and I felt Evadare shift beside me like. She wanted to be asking some questions herself. Luna must have seen them, for she said, “As to why I did not use more violent attacks both times, I suppose I held enough self-control not to simply slay either family or other ponies.” Twilight and her friends looked happy until she said, “That, or I wanted to make them suffer, and a swift death would not satisfy. To this day I know not which, ‘twas my depths of madness as Nightmare Moon.”

Manco frowned some more, the wrinkles in his face deepening. “John,” he finally said, “if the Shonokin are allied with even a fraction of this young lady’s power, then the sooner we restore it to her the best for everyone involved. There are deadly enough weapons in this world; a thinking one that could rearrange the entire solar system to suit itself is one I would rather not have under anyone’s control.”

“You and I think alike there, Chief,” I got up and went over to my bookshelf. I came back with a map in my hands, one of those county maps you can get from the local or state government if you know who to ask. “The one good thing we got so far is that the Shonokin have done nair such a thing. Which means they maybe can’t.”

“Or that Nightmare Moon, the Tantabus, is refusing to help them,” Twilight said. She saw what I was about and came closer, motioning for Luna to follow her as we spread the map on the table. “Or even that with Equestrian magic weaker here, that it can’t do that.”

“Maybe not ever,” I responded her, “and maybe just not the yet. Airy way, the sooner we get Miss Luna’s magic back to her, the better.” I flattened the map down, set some cups from dinner at the corners to hold it down. I went back to my bookshelf, got a box of a few things I keep that are right hard to find for times like this. I took one out, a little stone with a hole right through it, and hung it on a cord. I went and gave it to Twilight, and she looked close at it.

“No chisel ever did this,” she said after she was done. “That hole was made by water, wasn’t it?”

“It rightly was,” I told her. “I forget me the right name for them stones, but they work right well for these doings. You remember, don’t you? Like how we did it aforetime.”

“That’s right,” Twilight said. She took the cord atween her hands, held it over the map. “Like back in Equestria when Spike and the fillies were taken by Thorne. But now we just use Luna here to help track down her stolen magic.” Luna looked right wary. Twilight turned to her and said, “You’ve still got a connection to your magic, Princess. We can find where it is through you. I mean, with your permission.” She half bowed saying the last part.

“Very well,” Luna said, taking her place right aside Twilight. “If this must needs be done, then let us be about it.” I saw a shiver run along her, like a horse that just got bit by a big old horsefly. “I do not wish to see what the Tantabus can or will do if they gain full control of it.”

We set everything up, putting that map in the middle of the table. I ran a thread through the middle of that stone. Twilight took it and hung it over the center of the table between her hands, like what you’d call a pendulum. She looked at it like she concentrated with all her might on that stone.

“Girls,” she said, her voice soft enough you had to strain to hear it. “Call on your Elements. Not hard, but gently. Enough to wake them up. Luna and her magic is part of Equestria’s harmony,” she explained, more for my and Evadare and Chief Manco’s sake, “so the Elements will want to see that restored.”

I took Evadare by the arm and drew her back. Chief Manco didn’t need to be told, he’d seen what those Elements could do back in the dream-castle. He stood back by us as the ponies closed their eyes and Luna’s horn began to shine like moonlight. They tilted their heads back like they listened to some faint song we couldn’t hear, and it seemed like they shone just the least bit brighter there inside our house.

We started to feel something that I’d felt afore, like a soft warm breeze that minded you of all the good and fine things you air felt or saw or did in your life.

“I’ve seen this before,” Chief Manco said it softly, like in a church, “but I’m still impressed. This reminds me of things I’ve only ever heard tell of in legends, and few of those.”

“It makes me think of fairy tales my old granny told me when I was a little girl,” Evadare said, just as soft. Myself, I just nodded them both and watched.

That stone swayed back and forth over the map like any stone at first. Then it began to swing in a circle, and I saw how the string vibrated like a current ran through it. Twilight furrowed her brow and just kept concentrating. I saw her lips move like she whispered and wondered me if she prayed whatever prayers ponies said.

The stone swung in tighter and tighter circles until it finally stood right over one spot on the map. And once it was there, it stayed there. I even saw Twilight try moving it. It nair did.

“That’s it,” she said, sounding like she’d run a race. I saw how the ponies seemed to sag, like they’d been hauling a plow for hours in rocky ground. Twilight picked a pin from Evadare’s pincushion on the table and put it right careful on that spot in the map. “That’s where the Tantabus is.”

“I hope we don’t have ta do that many more times,” Applejack tossed her mane and blew like any tired horse. “Feels like Ah ran a whole race and did a day’s worth of apple buckin’ on top of it.”

“Tis as my sister and I explained,” Luna said, walking to nuzzle one of her friends after the other. “Equestrian magic works with difficulty in this world. The Elements should replenish what you have lost, but you should rest.”

Dash looked like she wanted to go racing off for maybe just a second or two long. Then she nodded, a-looking tired, and sank down on her belly. “Maybe I will, just this once.”

Her friends went down with her, all save Twilight. She kept looking on that map. I joined her, and when I saw where that pin stuck, I frowned.

“Chief,” I pointed at the spot. I waited for him to look, and he frowned mighty hard when he did see it. “I’d say that’s a right bad place for the Tantabus to be in, isn’t it?”

“I’d say so, Brother John,” he answered me. “That place is what my ancestors would have called very bad medicine. And if the Shonokin are there, that just makes it worse.”

“Huh?” Twilight looked from one of us to the other. “Why? What’s so bad about it?” She looked and read the name off. “Litchfield Mine? Ch-Chor,” she worked at the word, “Chorazin?”

“Um, it doesn’t sound very scary,” Fluttershy said where she lay.

“Not airy bad thing sounds or looks bad,” I answered her. “That town used to be a mine patch until they had theirselves a mine fire. Killed all the men down in the mine. The folks they left behind moved away after, and it’s been abandoned ever since.”

“Until now, apparently,” Chief Manco nodded. He rubbed his chin while he spoke. “It’s close by your home. Most people wouldn’t go near it or the little town, more just a collection of houses close by. If the Shonokin wanted a nice quiet, dark place for their lair, they could do worse than a ghost town.”

“Ghost town?” Twilight looked at him, then at me.

“No,” I bespoke her. “Nothing like Sunny Town. That’s just what we call a town that’s been abandoned and left to rot.”

“Well, we’ve got one advantage,” Twilight gave a smile to say it. “They don’t know we’re on to them, or that we,” she swept her hand out over her friends, “are here.”

Right about then there came a sound like heavy sheets fluttering in a high wind. Something pounded hard right by my front door, and whatair did the pounding made one sudden wild whinnying laugh as it did.

I was up and running afore anyone else. Twilight was hard on my heels, and Luna and Chief Manco were right behind her. I fetched me a wood axe on my way to the door, to see if whoair made that laugh would think it was funny when I gave them a knock with it. I got their first and hauled on the latch, flinging it open to the early evening outside.

No one at the door, man or pony or Shonokin. But two things that made me go still.

One was a great big hoofprint right afore my door, pounded down hard into the packed dirt there. I wondered if I could have put my little finger into the hole it left and not reach the bottom.

And the other stood out from my wooden door, driven hard into the planks. A long nail, shining a dull red-yellow in the light, and a-hanging from it tied with some cord seven switches made of deadly nightshade.

“They know,” Twilight said where she stood behind me, and I just nodded her yes.

Comments

[fractalman]

Yay! an update!

“Done!” Twilight sounded tired, like she’d just run a footrace. She reached and I took her arm, helping her to stand. I saw how the sweat shone on her face like she’d been working hard in a field. “It shouldn’t have taken that much out of me, either. sounde dtiredI in the poniesm doubleut up her brow and began to say some words that sounded thI guess this world’s magic really is that different from Equestria’s.” I saw how the others gave a shake like a uneasy horse. “It took more out of me than I expected. No offense John, Miss Evadare, Mister Manco, but the sooner we deal with the Shonokin and the Tantabus the better.”

Er, I think your hands shifted while you were typing that or something.

Edit: ominous ending was ominous.

[Ardashir]

9260211
Ouch! I thought I got all the typos; very sorry about that.

Glad you enjoyed the rest of it, and thanks for letting me know.

EDIT: It's been corrected. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

[fractalman]

9260877
iir There was one or two other minor ones-I think a ." with no space-but only that one was truly awful.

[Jordan179]

Wow, I somehow managed to miss the posting of this chapter!

I really liked how you did the Sunney Towne scene.

More to say but I'm about to go to sleep.

[Ardashir]

9290320
Thank you! I hope you can say a few more words later when you have the time.

[redmar]

The Shonokin may know they are there but they will still underestimate them. They will likely think that now that they have stolen Luna's power there is little the Equestrians can do.