Meta Gamer in Equestria: Champion's Folly

by reflective vagrant

A Mare and Her Dog (An Uneasy Not-Homecoming, Part 3)

Author's Note:

Minor note I need to correct for people that read the last chapter before this one came out. Due to being a bit on the tired side, I accidentally said "Flash Sentry" instead of "Sharp Sentry" for the guard present at the tutoring lesson.

I don't intend it to come up, but I suppose I could say they are loosely related (like cousins sharing a family name). But it was Sharp Sentry at the library last chapter. Silly mistake but felt that needed corrected.

A few days later, I found myself doing my best to sing my heart out.

"You make me happy, when skies are grey."

I felt so awkward. There I was, sitting in the middle of Fluttershy's chicken pen, singing the most calming song I knew to the chicken hiding and shaking in my lap.

My refinement of understanding my portent good luck trick had gotten good enough for me to almost always put each charge of the trick within a range of one to two numbers on a D-twenty. Knowing I had two pretty good roles, I used the luck to push my performance to what I felt would have been a natural nineteen in the game.

I took a deep breath and put as much feeling as I could into the song. Oddly, I found the tingle on the back of my neck leading me to think of Fluttershy as the luck pushed me to sing as strongly as I think I ever had before.

"You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take, my sunshine, away." Placing the perfect pauses in the beat at the end, I finally felt the chicken stop shaking and calm down enough to look up.

The chicken had no idea what I was singing, of course, but my tone and patience had finally calmed it down while Fluttershy and Tempest were taking care of the rest of the chaos outside.

I heard Fluttershy call from the chicken door of the coop, "That was beautiful."

I quickly had to pull out my fifteen portent to keep myself from jumping out of my seat and startling the chicken all over again. She still felt me tense up, but luckily it was enough to keep her from panicking.

Instead, in response to my sudden discomfort, she calmly jumped out of my lap and went back to her eggs.

I shape shifted into a chicken to fit out of the gate again, then back to my normal form as Fluttershy waited for me outside.

"Sorry to startle you. But that singing was nice, especially right at the end."

I pressed my amulet then shook my head skeptically as I started back to the cottage.

"Thanks for being nice about it, Fluttershy, but we both heard how bad I sing by pony standards at your friend's birthday party. You don't have to sugar coat it for me."

Fluttershy turned to walk with me.

"No, really. Ponies have to put more than rhythm, melody and harmonics into a song. We can also hear the sincerity in the voice of a singer. What you sang just now had the ring of great sincerity to it."

I thought for a moment on this as we walked.

"So ponies can tell when another pony is lying in song?"

Fluttershy gave me that familiar blush that cued me in on how I had guessed something so wrong it seemed silly to her, but she would be patient with me as always.

"No, it's nothing like that. With enough practice some ponies can fake the effect. A few even can use it to lie or deceive. If the message just doesn't resonate with the audience, then they may hear the effect but they likely won't be affected by it."

She looked at me with a somewhat pride filled smile. "It just helps us relay our feelings. What was that song about to let you put so much feeling into it, anyway?"

It was my turn to blush as I walked through the door and saw Scraps still sitting with his nose in the corner as he had been told.

"It was a common nursery rhyme from my home world. One I actually know how to sing decently, given it's flexibility. I just let an old emotional attachment enter my mind as I finished."

"Flexibility?" Fluttershy asked, continuing on to the kitchen to get started on lunch, again.

I nodded as I got the flour out to work on making the cookies to go with the tea that we would bake along side our lunch to conserve on costs. Feeding four mouths on just Fluttershy's income and the modest compensation that Tempest, Scraps and myself got from the missions was quite doable, but we agreed that we needed to try to be economic about it.
"Not all songs can do this, but it can relay a comforting tone when sung in a medium tempo, cheer with a fast tempo or sorrow with a slow tempo."

I lifted my head from the table I put the flour on and looked at Fluttershy.

"Change of subject. I saw some job offers in the trash for some spas. Why were they there and not with the others? Last time I checked, minotaurs with their hands fair pretty good at it and I could be too."

With my fame, ponies had actually warmed up to me, but selecting a long term job had been on the back burner while I was assisting with the roundup missions. Now that I was done with them, the job search had been brought back to the forefront again.

Fluttershy looked at me with an embarrassed surprise, then gave me a very serious face and a tone to match. "Please just trust me on this, Moss. Those are not the kind of spas you want to work at. We'll find you a job that wants you for the right reasons, but I'm telling you now that it's not with them."

I looked at her dumbfounded for a moment before widening my eyes in realization.

Before I could even blush, Tempest came in and addressed Scraps rather loudly.

"Thaddeus 'Scraps' Rex," She emphasized his full name to make sure she had his attention, "I'm too angry with you to deal with you just yet. So keep that nose of yours in the corner until I get back to you."

Scraps had already been hunching over in a submissive pose as he kept to his punishment before, but now he was so low that his nose may as well have been touching the ground. He knew he had messed up big time.

Stomping into the kitchen, Tempest went over to the unlit oven, thrust her horseshoe covered hoof at the solid stone sitting on the floor just in front and called out "_Fo^me_s dⁱs_si^li_o."

Immediately, the horseshoe she wore was entrenched in a bit of green flame, which added to the scorch mark on the stone set aside for it, then immediately hopped to the tinder inside the furnace, getting it started.

"It's my fault, I taught him how to use magic."

She solemnly started loading the oven with proper logs.

"Hey, I had a hand in it too." I called out to her from across the room. "His style is more like mine than yours anyway. Aside from the tricks you picked up mimicking my style to cast without using your horn, I mean. And technically it was the spell that he learned from me that he spooked the chicken with."

She turned to me with a bitter glare. "You're right, it's all your fault." She then rolled her eyes and let out a bitter sigh to show her sarcasm.

"I mean it's my fault for teaching him so much about warfare. I'm his Rehabilitation and Reintegration Escort officer. I'm supposed to be teaching him how to get along, not how to fight. Now he's worse than before, knowing even more things that could get him in trouble."

I spoke up with my counterpoint as I mixed my dough.

"Those three little spells of his and the maneuvers prince Shining Armor's personal instructor taught both of you have saved our butts on multiple missions. I still can hardly believe you managed to parry that axe that was already digging into your chest before it hit your heart."

Tempest stopped loading wood at Fluttershy's signal and rubbed her barrel self consciously. "Thanks again for the quick heal back then. Don't think I could have kept going for much longer with a wound that big and only one functioning lung."

She shook her head and looked back at Fluttershy and me. "But it's still drawing him away from what I'm supposed to be teaching him. I mean look at you."

She gestured towards me.

"You're going to be able to be declared to be fit to stand on your own any week now. Scraps..."

She looked at Scraps still cowering like a child despite being a full grown adult for his kind.

"He's going to need at least a couple years to get anywhere near where you are. I'm a former soldier of one of Equestria's enemies. When I was accepted back, I abused the system with your Astral Judgement. And now as his RRE officer I've taught him more on fighting than getting along. I should be the last pony assigned to help him."

Fluttershy stopped in her preparations and came over to Tempest.

"Tempest, you grew up in a situation similar to how Scraps grew up. You understand his reasoning for why he does what he does better than anypony. You were the only guard that saw past the label of diamond dog and treated him with respect when you worked at the prison. You also were the only one that saw something worth defending in him when you were made into his cell mate as a prisoner."

Fluttershy looked at Scraps for a second, then back to Tempest. "You're the only pony he ever formed any kind of positive bond with, and it has grown quite deep. For all of your shortcomings, you are the only pony that can help him."

This was why I cared so deeply for Fluttershy. Seeing her set her own needs aside, regardless the inconvenience, and being willing to help another creature with that sheer, raw passion couldn't help but move me. Ponies, while still flawed, had proven to be far more harmonious in general than my own kind had ever been. Fluttershy, however, took it to a whole new level. She could touch hearts with her kindness but still be able to dip deep into her inner strength and stand her ground when creatures tried to take advantage of that kindness.

To me, such a combination of traits was something so rare that I never thought I'd find somebody like that. Most people I met who tried to be like that were often corrupted or broken in a world that wanted to take advantage of such people. I wanted to be something not too far off from what she was, growing up, but just learning to survive among my kind made it so hard to even hold onto the seed of such a concept, much less let it grow.

Her coming into my life was like being allowed to finally come in from a lifelong snowstorm to a warm fire.

Tempest took a deep, stoic breath and then calmly called out, "Scraps, come here."

Scraps quickly came into the kitchen with his head and posture as low as possible while still moving.

Anticipating Tempest's question of "How was what you did wrong?" Scraps spoke up.

"Using practice magic that friend Moss teach to make sparks that scare animals out of hole is not-"

Scraps was cut off as Tempest pulled him into a tight hug.

"Yes, yes, yes. You're right on all that, Scraps. But I'm so sorry."

Scraps simply stood there in the embrace, stunned.

"Why is boss Tempest sorry?"

Tears were rolling down Tempest's normally stoic, bordering bitchy face as she hugged him tighter.

"I'm sorry for not teaching you better. I've taught you too much on how to fight your way out of trouble, and not enough on how to avoid trouble in the first place. I'm a terrible teacher."

Not fully getting the point, Scraps put his paws around her and hugged her in return. "Boss Tempest best teacher Scraps ever have. Boss Tempest almost as protective as big brother Nicknack, but teach Scraps so much more. Scraps know how to fight for Scraps now. Scraps never able to do before."

Tempest pulled back a little to look Scraps in the eyes with a pained expression.

"Scraps also love playing gentle with tiny ponies. Scraps love learning how to make friends by not taking what Scraps want but trading small coins in market to ponies for what Scraps want. Much less scary. Boss Tempest teach Scraps these things."

Upon hearing this second part, Tempest squeezed him tight to her barrel again and broke down into a sobbing mess.

---

Hours later, Zecora and Speaks with Talons came to visit. I was sitting in Fluttershy's flower garden with Zecora, trying to get one of the early buds to bloom as one of our lessons.

"I still don't see how I'm going to-"

My words stopped as I felt my mind whisked into the familiar fog like state that the Animus Mundi would take me to when she would infuse me with another druid level.

Indeed, I felt the magic of two new cantrips and the secrets needed to cast the speaks with animals spell on my own flying into me. What was more pressing than the Animus Mundi calling to me based on my actions in the past as she infused me, however, was the fact that I could hear another voice calling to me.

"Son of Gaia," I heard from a less imposing, but still potent presence.

I saw flashes of several scenes of Zecora tending to the needs of multiple zebras, ponies and I could have sworn I saw her tending to a minotaur with a bottle of smelling salts at some point.

"Godmother of Lost Souls,"

I saw a young griffin moving protectively over another, smaller framed griffin of similar age, fighting off what looked to be a larger adult griffin who was clutching a bleeding arm. Another scene showed that same protective griffin moving his talons to cast a spell in front of a dog that was tied up and suddenly perking his head up at the griffin, listening.

"Speaks with Talons."

Countless other names could be heard being called at the same time, but they were faint, as if being called over a great distance.

With each of us addressed, the lesser imposing voice called out to us in an urgent cry.

"Disaster Bringer. Oncoming Storm."

Pictures of a den full of creatures that looked like Scraps appeared with a hazy spot in the fog that couldn't form properly. That absence of a clear picture, however, was the point that a sense of dread was coming from. A familiar castle appeared, with the scene zooming into a room made of crystal with a large circular table. A sense of urgency to gather there imposed itself upon us.

Just like that, I was back in the garden with Zecora, only surrounded by fully blooming flowers.

"Oh my..." was all I could think to say as I saw Zecora and Speaks with Talons come out of their own trances.

"That was amazing!" Fluttershy called out to us before seeing the sudden worry on our faces.

"Wait, what's wrong?" She asked before the cutie marks on her and Tempest's flanks started pulsating.

With wide eyes at seeing this, Fluttershy gently declared, "Oh my..."

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