Quest For Salvation

by Chrome Masquerade

Chapter 11: Cross Country with Autumn Blaze

There will be no skiing ponies.

So it was that we were coming down from the Peaks of Only-Slight-Peril. As we four were picking our way down, Autumn was, naturally, running her mouth off -with occasional injections from me-, until inevitably remembering that she was doing so and silence reigned for the next five minutes or so.

Repeat as necessary.

Needless to say, if she wasn't so amusing it would not have been as pleasant as it was. Thankfully, she was quite hilarious, at times! She even amused the twins with her antics. She felt like the little sister that I never had in my past life.

Eventually we got to the train station, only to find that there was a single stallion there, who looked like he used to be a pirate or something similar. He had only a few teeth, and was shuddering slightly, constantly. He was wearing an uncomfortable expression, pretty much set to 'Sleep Is For the Weak'. Not a pretty sight.

Autumn and I glanced at each other and smiled. We had the same idea at the same time. Letting our expressions drop to deadpan, like the oher Kirin used to constantly have, we stepped up.

"Well, well. If it ain't a couple'o Kirins wannin' ta leave the Las' Stop! The Fahnal Dess'nation! The End of the Line!" he cackled madly, but looked slightly annoyed when we looked just as unamused, blinking slowly.

"Still the sahlent types, huh?" he said with some disappointment.

We nodded in unison. My foals just waved, as if they were in on the plan too.

"I suppose ye'll be wannin'- hol' on, 'ere." he paused long enough to smack himself in the jaw, causing a full seet of teeth to reappear in his mouth.

It was REALLY hard keeping a straight face for that. Autumn just went for raising an eyebrow.

He flexed his jaw a couple of times before speaking again. "Sorry about that. It's part of the motif. Name's False Teeth. A bit on the snout, sure enough, but that's one of my quirks."(1)

Autumn pointed a hoof at the schedule. Upon seeing the stallion's puzzled expression, I rolled my eyes and with a spark of my horn, 'Ponyville' was highlighted. I placed eight coins on the counter.

"OH! I see." he said. "Let me just put a call in."

He picked up a hitherto unseen phone and dialed a number. "Hello? Yeah. Yeah. How did you guess? Whatever. Just esend a train over, ASAP." He hung up, mumbling something about Call Display.(2) At length, he sighed. "There's one on the way." He pushed a button under his counter and the entire booth started to rumble.

"You might want to step back." he suggested, something we had no trouble with doing.

At length, the booth filled out into an entire small station, complete with a rail circle to get an incoming train to turn around.

That, i couldn't hold a deadpan at. My jaw dropped, and both of Autumn's eyebrows lifted. She was really good at this! I was impressed.

"Impressive, eh? Technology at work!" he chuckled at finally breaking our straight faces.

Within about thirty minutes, a train came along and went around the impromptu traffic circle before coming to a stop.

"ALL ABOOOOOARD!" a loud voice echoed from insid the train. Nice set of pipes on that one.

False Teeth gave us two bits back. "Foals ride free on this line. Just keep 'em safe."

We nodded and stepped aboard the train.

"Thanks!" we called back in unison as the train started pulling away, just as .he was taking a drink of water.

It was SO satisfying seeing him splutter like that! We laughed hard for a good minute or so. Autumn was actually on the floor clutching her sides.
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After that moment of mirth, we sat down with smiles all around.

I decided to break the silence before she did. "So, Autumn, tell me about this 'Ponyville' place that we're going to."

"Well, naturally, I've never been there myself, but I did hear a little about it from Aplejack. Apparently there's quite a bit to be had. There are many shops, an arcade, a bowling alley -I've never personally gone to any of those, but whatever- florists, street vendors, a special event every other week.... It sounds just amazing!" she finished, clasping her hooves together over her chest.

"I was also going to ask..." i followed up with another question, "What was that stuff that you gave to the twins and I?"

"Oh, that? It was an extract of Foal's Breath flowers. A tea of sorts. Not only does it give you a really clear voice, it also takes away any nasty effects that you might be under if, say, you have bronchitis or just smoke a lot. It also allows a Kirin better control of their Anger."

"What do you mean by 'Anger'?" I queried. I could practically hear the implied capital A

""Autumn looked around before casting a spell that made my horn tingle. I could tell that the spell fire-proofed the area. When all was done, she nodded at her hand- hoofy-work? Whatever.

She started to explain again, "When a Kirin becomes really angry..." she burst into blueflame, becoming a sort of Negative version of herself. Her voice has this strange echo to it when she spoke again. "The become a Nirik, supposedly a creature of 'fire and vengeance'." she said, but then reverted to her regular form. "They have the fire part right, anyway. The Foal's Breath tea allows one's emootions better control, instead of just locking them up like the Stream of Silece."

That made sense, I suppose.

"Also, having control of my Flame, I can do THIS!" she exclaimed, suddenly juggling six or seven small blue balls of flame, much to the amusement of my children, who hoof-clapped at her antics..

"Thank you! Thank you!" she said, bowing.

Suddenly, upon her flank, appeared a trio of baloons, one white with an A, one red with a B, and one green with a C.

"OOH! a Cutie Mark! I wasn't sure if we get those, but we are related very closely to those Equestrian ponies. I suppose that we've just crossed into Equestria's borders. It has more such magic, so..."(3)

Then on my flank appeared a baby bottle and a small sword. In that instant, I realized that my calling was to raise Heroes. That while I wasn't an Adventurer as such, but had a lot of the advantages thereof. I could tell that for some reason Autumn had that as well.

"That." she finished, with a nod.

She cancelled the spell and my horn stopped tingling.

There was relative silence for a time, before Autumn asked, "So, what about your world? Tell me some about it?"

My ears drooped at that. "It's not a nice place." I began, "There's terrible stuff going on all over the place. Pollution, famine in some places, disease in others, rampant crime in others..." I trailed off, not wanting to continue.

"How awful!" Autumn said, showing sympathy, if not empathy. This made me smile.

"My family is here, now." I said. "My priorities are here." I finished, nuzzling my offspring.

She grinned widely at that. "I'm glad to hear that." she said shortly.

"You surprisingly never told me your actual story." I pointed out.

"It's a long one." she said, droopingg slightly.

"Rather not talk about that, I suppose?"

"Nah. I'd rather SIIIIIIING~!" she said, breaking into song.(4)

Oh boy.
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Having heard a version of what she presumable exposed Applejack to, she stopped with a bowed head. It wsas a kind of somber moment.

The rest of the train ride was mostly in silence. On the way, I fed my foals and took a nap.

"PONYVILLE STATION! COMIN' UP!"

Awakening with a start, we got up from our seats, me with my children on my back. Together we set our faces to the typical deadpan, ready for another prank.

Several ponies came and went by. The first pony that attemptd to talk to us was a pink mare with a bubblegum coloured mane. She had a Cutie Mark much like Autumn's. She proceeded to speak VERY quickly

"HI! I'mPinkiePie! Areyounew? YouMUSTbenew! IcantellbecauseIknoweveryponyinPonyvilleandI'veneverseenyoubefore! AndalsobecauseIgotakneetwithandanachyshoulder! Thatmeansthatsomeponynewiscominiiiing~! Butthat'sbesidethepoint! Doyoulikeparties? Doyoulikecake?"

Autumn and I shared a glance. Though little emotion showed, her look screamed, 'And they say I talk a lot'.

"Thesilenttypesaren'tcha?" she continued.

We nodded silently, much to the pink mare's disappointment.

A new voice said, "Aw, come off it, Autumn. We know ya kin talk." The voice belonged to an orange mare with three apples on her flank. I presumed that this was Applejack.

We both chuckled. "Sorry AJ. Couldn't resist." Autumn said.

Applejack smiled "So anyways, this here's Pinkie. The mare Ah told ya 'bout. She's the party planner fer the whole town. An' even beyond, sometimes." Pinkie nodded at this, pronking in place. Suddenly, she gasped and dashed back over to us. Applejack rolled her eyes and said, "Here we go..."

"OhmyCelestia! YougotCutieMarks! Doyouknowwhatthis-!"

Scraping it on my coat first, I placed one hoof on the loquacious mare's mouth, stopping her. "Deep breaths. THEN continue." I could see Applejack chucking behind a hoof.

Taking a few deep breaths, she eventually nodded. When I removed my hoof, she said, "A PARTY!!!" throwing a bunch of confetti into the air. Autumn grinned.

"Can I help?" she queried.

Sure!" came the answer, and they dashed off together. This party, whatever followed, was going to be interesting.

Author's Note:

1: Until such time as this character is named, i'm going to call him that.
2: MUMBLER!
3: I'm not retracting this unless Canon addresses it.
4: My favourite song of Season 8.