Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Star and Chain

Stella bit down on her own teeth, horn buzzing as she tried to detect the trail of Twilight's magic, almost growling in anger.

"Not fast enough, eh?" came the voice from somewhere behind her.

Immediately the alicorn snapped at attention, turning to stare down the stallion while still searching for the trace Twilight's teleportation had left.

"You know, I could have had a much more enjoyable chat with Twilight if you hadn't been so insistent on eavesdropping," the Charioteer said. He had a silent look around the ruins surrounding them. "Look at the mess you had me do instead."

"It's easy to be at peace with your actions if you're always putting the blame on someone else, isn't it?" Stellaria said to him in return. "Don't waste my time more than you already have, unless you plan to actually answer some of my questions." Her tone betrayed her growing annoyance, each second she lost of Twilight's conversation with Sunburst more frustrating than the previous one.

"It's easy to be at peace with your actions when you think you matter more than everyone else, isn't it?" the Charioteer replied. He sighed through his nose, however that worked, and lightly shook his head. "You're every bit as stupid as your mother, and every bit as wrong as the pony you're a copy of isn't."

"My mother was a fool and she died as one," Stella snapped, suddenly baring teeth too sharp to be those of a pony, "don't you dare compare me to her."

"Or what?" The Charioteer blinked out of existence and reappeared centimetres away from Stella's face. "What are you going to do about it, you failed experiment?" His tone was perfectly calm, as it usually was.

Stella stared at him and growled, but didn't do anything else.

"Thought so," said the Charioteer, suddenly lying prone on a pile of rubble behind the alicorn. "Are you planning to stay here much longer? Don't you have some innocents to exorcise your trauma on or something?" He looked much like a cat in his position, perched there on the debris.

Suddenly, on a set of crumbled pieces of walls just in front of him, a new alicorn was resting in roughly the same position as he was. "Hello," she said, looking with marvelled eyes at the Charioteer. "I'm Starshine Flicker."

"I am familiar, yes," he politely replied. "The spawn of Sunburst's own troubled feelings towards the many mares in his life. That boy sure is a mess, isn't he?"

"It's not very nice of you to say that about my dad," Starshine replied, pouting. "That's my thing. You shouldn't be the one doing it."

The Charioteer chuckled. "Well, at least he's not the human one. Then again, magic existing in this world probably causes enough added problems to make up for the differences between the two."

Having quietly given up on tracking Twilight, without actually admitting as much to herself or anyone else, Stellaria watched the conversation happening before her with a mixture of confusion and interest.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Hmm. Whatever could be going on with human Sunburst? Also, nice job ruining everything, Stella. I can only guess as to why the Charioteer didn't mention her to Twilight. Well, it's not like it's his job to help. Not directly, anyway. Seeing him interact with Starshine should be quite interesting.

[Saix]

Stella remains the worst. Don't really want to imagine a Sunburst more messed up than the pony one when Starshine Flicker came from his mind.