Meta Gamer in Equestria: The Blight of Bane.

by reflective vagrant

Chapter 2, When the Fey Call, Part 2.

The little satyr simply looked up to me in hope while everypony else, except Zecora, stood there dumbfounded.

"The Fey of Far Everfree, here..." The young bookworm of a princess rasped in a barely audible voice, "There hasn't been a sighting of even one of the Fey in decades." It almost sounded like someone giddy over something they never thought they would see happen, like meeting big foot or something.

The Fey had twisted his ear to hear what she had said. He turned to her with a glare. "We are not fond of coming to the lands of those that go so far as to fold Æther." He pointed up to her horn. "Much less a land ruled by those that-"

He was lightly kicked by Zecora, causing him to stumble forward a little. He turned back to Zecora to see her shaking her head in warning.

He rolled his eyes, nodded and stood himself up. "Much less a land ruled by alicorns. We do like to keep to ourselves, and we are grateful for you leaving us in peace for all this time."

He turned back around to face me, dusting himself off, and gave one final message to her. "But desperate times call for desperate measures. Now, you have the right to arrest me for being in your lands if you feel you need to. Otherwise, leave me be, or at the very least remain quiet. I have nothing further to say to you, alicorn."

Despite the obvious vinegar in his voice, I could tell that he was trying to respect the fact that this wasn't his home. He was just holding onto a dignity of an unknown source. Probably deeply rooted. It didn't exactly bode well for my opinion of him, but I could respect that he was trying to swallow as much pride as he could.

"I'll hear you out," I called to him, "but first explain to me why you consider us 'brethren,' if you would be so kind, Mr?"

The silence that followed as he looked at me funny was awkward to say the least. I blushed in embarrassment, gave a quick gesture to ask for a moment, lightly pressed my amulet to wind up how much time I had with my outgoing translator and repeated myself.

"I'll hear you out, but first explain to me why you consider us 'brethren.' And what is your name, Mr..?"

He glanced at Zecora and sighed.

Zecora turned to me. "An impossible situation you have placed the satyr in. To gain trust, he has sworn to not lie to the beast-kin. But those in his village are called by title, not name. For with it, power over their soul, any could claim."

It was then that it hit me: The Fey weren't native to Equis. They were from the same world my familiar was from. That could complicate matters.

I looked up to Fluttershy, who seemed to be hiding whatever her true feelings were behind a synthetic, but genuinely supportive, neutral expression. With no help from her, I looked to Zecora, but lightly scowled at the idea of getting advice from her, then skipped over her to look over to the princess.

Her response was far more transparent. She showed eagerness to interact with the Fey, nudging her head to encourage me to continue.

I looked down and bowed in apology. "OK. So no names. But is there still something I can call you?"

He gave a nod and continued with a tone of moving past the awkward item. "Speaker. I am known as 'The Speaker.' Or more fully, the one who speaks to outsiders. It is the closest position we have to what ponies would call an 'ambassador.'"

"OK then, Speaker," I responded as I sat down on the ground in the park to listen, lightly gesturing to a bench he could use if he wanted. "Why do you call me 'brethren' and what aid were you needing?"

The Speaker looked at the bench, but then simply turned back and started explaining.

"As you may have surmised, we are not native to Equis. But the Animus Mundi, what the pony mages stubbornly refuse to recognize as the Soul of Equis, sheltered us in our time here, fleeing a great horror of our original world. In time, we came to recognize her as our new mother. Our surrogate mother. We still speak to the natives that are servants of our surrogate mother, such as the zebra medicine mare that escorted me to your location, but we try to avoid contact with others where possible. Both for their protection and ours."

With this, he pointed towards me. "You, however, have blood that is just as foreign as what runs in our veins. We were able to observe your first few steps into our world, as you first awoke in the wilderness. Our surrogate mother took to you more quickly than we had ever seen her take to anything before. She truly loved you at first sight. She blessed you with the ability to don the forms of her wild children within mere days of your arrival. We have to recognize that your bond to our surrogate mother is as valid as our own. This is why we call you both our brethren and the beast-kin."

I sat there, listening and, eventually, worrying. He made a point to be straight forward with me, and the standing hairs on the back of my head told me the strong luck charm I had was still active and telling me he was indeed being truthful. The thing is, I had a feeling he didn't have the whole story. My shape shifting abilities came from the fact my character was built as a druid. That was essentially a hack, cheating, not love at first sight.

"My abilities are... 'given', but they may not have been given to me out of love. This form was forced on me by the one that sent me here, and I think that they may have forced your... mother to fuel my powers."

At that moment, the Speaker, the princess, Zecora, and Tempest laughed in some way at my comment.

The princess was biting her lip to quell a giggle, Zecora and the satyr were looking at each other with big smiles and barely keeping the laughs from coming up their throats while Tempest was straight up rolling on the ground, laughing at me as hard as she could.

Once the laughing died down, save for Tempest continuing to giggle to herself quietly, the Speaker explained. "You truly must be an outsider to magic to not know this. The Animus Mundi has a will of her own, where as Æther does not. While Æther can be forced-" He gave a shutter. "-or as ponies may call it, 'folded,' it is well known among both servants and mages that Animus Mundi cannot be forced to do anything she does not choose to do. At most, one can work alongside her will to perform magic with her blessings. While what you say may have made it easier for our surrogate mother to affect you, nothing could have forced her. The choice to accept you was still hers. Thank you for reciprocating the spirit of honesty and telling us this."

I tried to ask, "So what do you need?" but I found the confusion had set in again. I pressed on my amulet, to more fully "wind up" the energy of the amulet with what energy it had left. I had been hoping to avoid asking Tempest for a recharge of Æther after this, but it couldn't be helped. Her horn wasn't exactly the most efficient, and tended to send out more than a few stray sparks.

He looked down and gave a deep sigh. "We seek your aid in battle. A menacing force has come to our forest and our abilities to keep them disoriented and lost will not last forever. We cannot fight, at least not very well with only one brave from the servants able to help us fight directly. The opponent is proving relentless in their attempts to re enter our woods again and again no matter how many times we turn them back around to the edges. Your battle prowess as a beast is formidable. Combined with our magics of distraction, we can whittle their forces down and eventually take them out."

"Wait a moment!" Tempest interrupted "I'm not letting one of my charges-"

"Actually, he's my charge," Fluttershy commented so quietly, no one besides me heard her.

"-go to slaughter somepony that might just be lost! I'm going too to make sure this isn't just a misunderstanding."

At this point Tempest and the Speaker were glaring at each other, bantering back and forth for reasons why her coming along should or shouldn't happen. In the meantime, my amulet had used up the last tidbit of charge I had left in it, because nopony seemed to hear me. Fluttershy finally gave me the signal that my amulet was shut off, and I broke up the heated debate with a strong whistle.

They both turned towards me. I raised my amulet towards Tempest, then lightly tapped my throat.

Tempest grew smug and put her horn to the amulet, recharging it with a great deal of sparks flying out and singeing the limbs I couldn't get out of the way.

"See? A unicorn is going to have to come for recharging his translator anyway."

At this point, I could swear I saw the Speaker turn a tinge of green. He looked at Tempest's horn, then back at me and the amulet. "Very well. Since you have lost your ability to 'fold' Æther, and can merely bend it, we will tolerate you out of necessity. But we will tolerate no other Æther user."

"Then that doesn't exclude me or Scraps, " Fluttershy called out.

Tempest was about to object, but Fluttershy shushed her with a hoof to the mouth and explained, "Moss is my charge, not yours. I have to go where he goes. And Scraps is your charge, so he has to follow you if you're going. And you're going, so we're all going."

With both the Speaker and Tempest sighing at the sudden expansion of the party, it was settled.

While I hadn't said yes, I would have, so I didn't argue. But out of curiosity, however, I pressed my amulet and asked one last question before we got to the pesky details of supplies for our sudden mission and whatnot.

"So, since Tempest wants to try to resolve this without a fight, what kind of creatures are invading your forest? What do they look like?"

The Speaker thought hard for a moment.

"Two legged, some very thin. They are hard for us to describe but if we were to put it simply, they look a lot like you, Beast-kin. At least when you are not assuming the form of a beast."

Everypony shy of Scraps stopped in their metaphorical tracks at the Speaker's words.

The princess's eyes were so wide I'd swear it looked like they were about to come out of their sockets.

"Some have gotten through our lines. The stalemate's been broken." She immediately nodded to Tempest—who nodded back in a knowing fashion—and the princess teleported away.

Suddenly, I had a bad feeling about this.

Comments

[reflective vagrant]

re post of a chapter, possibly causing an update, was from a misclick of accidentally unposting a chapter. Apologies.