The Ursa Minor Incident

by suplup

The First Chapter: An Indeterminate Number of Hours Remain

Location: The Everfree Forest
Time: Unknown

Enigma had been walking through this forest for quite some time now. In retrospect, walking to Ponyville was probably not such a good idea. There was, of course, a train that lead there. Ponyville was in the dead-center of Equestria for Celestia's sake! However, the allure of adventure was not something to simply be ignored. Plus, it wasn't that hard. There was a river that lead from Ponyville to Horseshoe Bay in Baltimare, all Enigma had to do was follow the river.

The Everfree Forest had other plans.

Being the Everfree, it was highly unpredictable. While it is true that the river did not suddenly realign itself with say, Vanhoover, simply walking through the Forest with no known destination was asking for trouble. At present, trouble was certainly presenting itself.

"Jacques!" Enigma cried into the darkness. At her call, shadows formed together into the ethereal being known as Jacques.

"You called, Master?"

"Indeed, I am suffering dearly from a plague known as hunger. Fetch me sustenance."

Jacques looked like he raised an eyebrow. "Umm, you are hungry, so you want me to find you food. I bring your attention to the fact that we are in the middle of a seemingly endless forest with no sentient beings anywhere remotely near us."

"Interesting, but I still hunger."

Jacques slammed his face into his palm. So hard, his palm went through his face. "Sweet Celestia that hurts!" he screamed.

Assuming a posh, most-definitely-not-mocking-any-shadow-creature's accent, Enigma voiced her desire for tea and crumpets.

"Is it safe to assume you're mocking me?" Jacques was no fool. The Master had mocked him many a times before, it is no different here.

Actually it was different here. Here is in a forest, usually there is something nearby to distract the Master from mocking him, but no such thing exists at the moment. Jacques sighed.

"What flavor of tea would you like, Master?" he asked, complying. Enigma looked at him funny.

"Is there something wrong?" He looked around for anything that might be suspicious, but found nothing. He looked to his Master for clarification.

"You never do what I tell you to this quickly!" she replied, shocked at his servitude. "Usually you try to distract me."

Oh dear, she's caught onto me. Jacques thought. "Well, I am not in the mood to argue at the moment, it's been a long walk."

Enigma eyed him warily. Returning to the more pressing problem of needing edibles, she thought over which specific tea she wanted, but was coming up blank. "What flavor do you suggest?"

"As if I can taste tea, let alone drink it."

"Regardless, you must know of some types of tea for me to drink."

"Well, there is black tea, raspberry green tea, chamomile tea, and that's all I can recall at the moment."

Enigma thought over her plentiful options. "I'll have raspberry green tea."

"Very well, let me just conjure up some raspberry, some green, and some tea." Jacques quipped sarcastically.

"You can do that?! Splendid!" Enigma responded back.

Jacques' palm found itself passing painfully through his face again.

"And which is your favorite crumpet?" he queried, trying to maintain his sanity. Long walks with the Master were not all that healthy.

"I'm not sure. But if I had to pick a favorite, mine would be chocolate." Hearing a sigh, Enigma turned to look at Jacques.

"Why dear Jacques, your arm seems to have skewered through your face."

***

A time later, Enigma saw light. Not light from the few openings in the canopy, which she could count on her hooves, but a bright light in front of her.

"Hey Jacques, is this the end?"

Jacques coalesced next to her.

"Why I believe it is, would you like to be decapitated? Or should I just remove your soul?"

"That's a cool story. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Hoooooooooooooooooooooo!" Enigma screamed out, reared up, and charged towards the opening.

She emerged from the forest and saw that next to her was a thatched cottage. Surrounding it was a flock of birds and various other animals fleeing for their life, after hearing Enigma's exclamation. Enigma was not worried however, she had found a new civilization! Who knows what interesting ponies could live here?

"I believe we have arrived in Ponyville," Jacques mentioned as he looked around.

Well there goes that theory.

Anyway, Enigma, undeterred, strode up to the cottage confidently, assured in her fantasy of new civilization. She knocked on the front door, and heard a very soft squeak.

The door opened, and Enigma could faintly see the colors yellow and pink.

"Hi!" she said excitedly. The door quickly slammed closed. "Bye!"

"What could you have possible done to scare that pony?" Jacques asked, quite shocked.

"I dunno. Let's go see what else there is!" With that, Enigma walked away from the cottage and down the path.

***

After some time, Jacques and Enigma arrived in Ponyville proper, and it was fairly lively, as it was midday.

"I told you we were in Ponyville," Jacques reminded Enigma.

"Well you never know when you could come across a lost civilization, frozen in time, untouched for millennia."

*Le gasp!*

In front of the Master/Servant pair was a pink pony with a pink mane and not pink eyes who was currently floating in air, stuck in a gasping position. Enigma blinked and the pink pony was gone. Shortly after that, a grey pegasus with a blonde mane and a bubble cutie mark flew down to her, handed her an envelope, and flew away.

"Umm, what? How could I possibly have mail the second I get here?"

"Perhaps your landlord forwarded it here."

"They don't even know who I am!"

"Well, you said we should go to city hall, so I suggest we go there first."

"I will, but after I open my letter." Enigma was giddy. She had mail. She's never had much mail before, unless you count spam. She got a lot of spam.

The envelope contained an invitation to a 'Welcome Enigma and Jacques to Ponyville!' Party.

"Umm, what?" Enigma was utterly blown away at how someone had not only seen Jacques, but also somehow magically knew his name. No one has even seen Jacques before.

"Let me see that! What is it?" As Jacques read the card, his eyes widened. "Who sent this?! How do they know who I am?! They must be after me. Whoever did this shall know the fury of ten thousand suns! I will rip their heart out from their chest!"

Jacques was screaming extremely loudly, but no one heard him. In fact, no one was even remotely nearby. Both Enigma and Jacques were very worried. In the distance, they heard a loud 'Boom!' noise, like a cannon firing.

Comments

[suplup]

This is my first submission, and my first written work as well. Let me know what you think?
Please?

[UseFistNotMouth]

OK, first, welcome and congratulations on your story being published.

The story was well edited with no noticeable mistakes and very clear when reading. The writing itself seems simplistic and very stiff, with most descriptions being statements rather than evocative.

The characters are bizarre and warrant a "Random" tag being added to this story. Enigma, having a unique, unexplained appearance, a demonic familiar, and apparently being a highly skilled detective puts her dangerously close to "Mary Sue" territory, only offset by her odd personality, random behavior, and strange naivete making her somewhat of an outcast. So good job balancing there.

The dialogue is where this story stands out to me and in my opinion warrants a "Comedy" tag, most assuredly. And is the main reason I will be keeping an eye on this story for future updates. Not Favoriting it yet though, that is pending plot development.

[suplup]

1402150

The first comment to my story, I will love you forever, thanks for the notice on adding the tags. And your explanation on Enigma and her 'Mary Sue'-ness. I hope you enjoy the rest, once it becomes available.

[suplup]

1428744

Umm, wow, that's a lot. Sweet.

Anyway, the prestory info is just something I felt that readers should know, yet doesn't fit in with the prologue. All it really is is the mare character reading the newspaper. But I'll delete it, it's not too important.

As for the introductions, I thank you for honestly saying it's not as good as it could be. I'll take your advice and spruce it up. And I'll get rid of the trademark thing.

[suplup]

1428744

Tried my best to fix up what you suggested; I hope its better now.