• Published 29th May 2020
  • 3,272 Views, 239 Comments

The Distant Princess - GMBlackjack



A purple comet appears in the sky and vanishes mysteriously. Twilight Sparkle can't handle all her unanswered questions, so she travels to the Candy Kingdom to get answers. But all is not well, for the comet heralds great change...

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IV - Spooky Roads

The definition of “undead” is a slippery subject that sires many arguments, usually ending with “I’ll know an undead when I see it.”

Beyond that, it’s a mess. Zombies are clearly undead, since they were dead corpses that were re-animated. Ghosts would be the same, right? Except there are some loose spirits that were never a living thing. Then there are vampires. For some reason, people think they’re undead, but they never really died. They were just transformed into something else that lived in a different way than normal. Some mummies suffer from the same confusion. I myself know of three separate individuals who were mummified alive.

Don’t get me started on the Lich. That’s a completely different can of worms.

~~~

The stench of burning oil was what woke Twilight up. Her skull felt as though it were about to explode from the pressure. So intense was the pain that her mind couldn’t draw the connection between burning oil and impending engine explosion.

Luckily for her, she was not alone. She was vaguely aware of somepony’s leg scooping her up and placing her into a narrow, cylindrical space with cold walls. She was thankful for the closed interior; now she didn’t have to deal with the noxious smell or the noise. Everything was fine. Her mind even started to clear up, thankful for the removal of stimuli. At first.

Wait a minute… cold… cylindrical… narrow…

Her eyes shot open, taking in the sky blue of the metal surrounding her. There was only one opening to the cylinder and it was pointed right at one of the airship’s windows. Even in her semi-delirious state, Twilight was able to put two and two together. She was inside Pinkie’s party cannon.

Suddenly the pounding headache seemed insignificant.

“Pinkie, wait, n—”

Pinkie either paid her no mind or, more concerningly, had waited for Twilight to voice her objection before firing the cannon. Twilight couldn’t be sure, and she didn’t exactly have time to think deeply about the possibilities. With a burst of confetti and a festive noise, the party cannon launched Twilight at the window. She crashed through the damaged glass easily, though this did no favors to her headache. Twilight’s wings flared out as she attempted to right herself, but she was no ace flyer. The muddy ground met her with a disgusting squelch, all but completely swallowing one of her legs and coating half her face.

With a grunt, she managed to roll over and look back at where she had come from. The airship had crashed nose-first into the muddy ground, having uprooted a half dozen trees and lit a few of the high and dry branches aflame. The cargo hold was suffering the most from the flames, the balloon had so many holes it was definitely unsalvageable, and Rainbow Dash was out cold and flying directly at Twilight.

Oh.

Their heads met, knocking Twilight further into the mud and waking Rainbow up instantly. Her pegasus instincts were tuned much finer than Twilight’s, allowing her to avoid a muddy bath by entering a hovering pattern. “What in Equestria!?”

“You’re all welcome!” Pinkie called, bouncing next to them.

Rainbow glanced at the burning wreckage of the airship. “Wait… what happened?”

“You and Twilight smacked heads when we crashed, leaving it to me to get you out!” Pinkie grinned as though they hadn’t just been through a tremendously dangerous ordeal—though if Twilight knew her friend, she was just trying to distract the two of them so they wouldn’t panic.

Rainbow flapped toward Pinkie. “Pfft. I wouldn’t get knocked out from a simple hit on the head.”

Twilight sat up, trying and failing to scrape mud out of her mane. “She shot you out of her party cannon and you were still out cold.”

“Yeah!” Pinkie agreed. “I had to smack you two together to undo the damage!”

“That’s not how it works,” Twilight muttered, rubbing her head. “Anyway, Pinkie, did you salvage anything else?”

“No, sorry,” Pinkie said. “I’ll hop back in a—”

The cargo hold of the airship exploded, mixing with the magical enchantments to create an impressive violet mushroom cloud.

“...At least it’s pretty,” Pinkie laughed nervously.

Twilight’s left eye twitched. “Okay… everything’s fine… we just lost our ship and all our supplies and we crashed in the Everfree Forest! Everything’s great!” She laughed nervously.

“Bah, we’ve dealt with worse,” Rainbow said. “We can take any wild monsters, no problem. Actually… where’s that dregon?”

“Probably nursing a splitting headache…” Pinkie shook her head. “He hit us without realizing it! Poor thing…”

“I’m having a little difficulty empathizing with the dregon right now,” Twilight grumbled, rubbing her horn with a hoof in a vain attempt to nurse the headache.

“Same,” Rainbow agreed. “That bozo wrecked everything! I was looking forward to some of those cakes you packed!”

Pinkie pulled a cupcake out of her mane and raised her eyebrow.

“...Twilight, why did we even pack food?”

Twilight forced herself to smile. “Why, Rainbow, we can’t subsist entirely off sugary substances Pinkie produces with aggravating irregularity, due both to health reasons and ‘Pinkie’ reasons. Furthermore, it wasn’t just food back there, there were tents, blankets, surveying tools, magical resonators, and… and…” She drooped. “And all our equipment for figuring out the mystery of the Sparkling Comet…”

“Aww, Twilight.” Pinkie slid up to her friend and put a gentle hoof over her back, a gesture that Twilight accepted readily. “Don’t you worry, we’re still going to do everything we came here to do! This is the start of Dashie’s adventure, we’re closer to the Candy Kingdom side of the Everfree than Equestria so I’ll get to see the candy, and you are the most accomplished wizard in the world! Who needs magic devices or other silly things like notebooks when you’ve got everything you need right here…” She pointed at Twilight’s chest. “And here!” She pointed at Twilight’s horn.

Twilight couldn’t help but smile. “...Thanks, Pinkie.”

“Any time!”

“All right…” Twilight took a breath and rose to her four hooves. First, she cast a spell that enveloped her body and removed all the mud and grime. It did nothing to fix the newly mangy nature of her coat and mane, but she could deal with that later. Turning to Rainbow, she pointed upward. “Rainbow, take a look around, see if you can find a path.”

“Aye-aye Princess!” Rainbow saluted with her wing and blasted into the air.

Twilight glanced at the sun, frowning. It was currently early evening; only an hour of daylight remained, maybe less. “Pinkie, scour the forest floor for edible plants, we will need to establish a sizeable food sou—”

Rainbow returned, having completed her mission far faster than expected. “There’s a path out of the forest about a fourth of a kilometer that way. I can see the edge. We could easily make it on hoof.”

“Huh. Maybe things aren’t that bad after all. Pinkie, hold off on the edible plants, we might have a…”

Pinkie looked up from the blueberry bush she was raiding, having already filled half a bucket with the delectable fruits. Her lips were painted purple from samples. “Aww, I was just getting into it.”

“Celestia, you work fast,” Rainbow said.

“If you’re in the party planning business you gotta wrangle up food fast. Food is one of the most important parts!” She grabbed the bucket with her mouth and threw it into the air, expertly catching it on top of her head. “I’ll bring these along anyway. Lead the way, Dashie!”

It was surprisingly easy to get on the path. After stumbling over a few roots and loose rocks, they came to a simple dirt path running between the trees of the Everfree. It looked almost identical to their side of the Everfree, except the sun was setting toward the way out of the Everfree, not the way deeper in. It was messing with Twilight’s navigation instincts.

Twilight and Pinkie trotted down the path while Rainbow hovered nearby. Twilight didn’t even bother chiding her on saving energy; if that pegasus wanted to fly, she was going to fly, and there was nothing she or Pinkie could do to change her mind.

A few minutes after they’d started along the path, the sun dipped behind a cloud clinging to the horizon. It was still more than bright enough to see, but the chill of the night was upon them.

“Are you sure we can get out before nightfall?” Twilight asked.

“Absolutely,” Rainbow said, smirking.

“If you say so…”

Even though it was still day, technically, the sun’s current position made darkness fall upon the land faster than would have been expected. There were no stars, but the bright greens and blues of the forest became muted, and the cheerful sounds of day birds began to be replaced with those of far-off crickets that were just barely loud enough to make out. Shadows vanished, replaced with the cover of darkness usually reserved for night.

“...This isn’t night,” Rainbow said.

Twilight smirked. “I didn’t say anything,”

“You were thinking it.”

“I will neither confirm nor den—” Twilight stopped short, ears perking up in alarm.

Rainbow's ears perked up in response. “What is i—”

“Shhht!” Twilight hissed, holding up a wing. Carefully, she scanned the forest surrounding them. She knew she had heard something, but she had no idea from where. The only information she had was that it had been close. Too close.

Her initial inspection of the surrounding forest brought up nothing dangerous. There were numerous plants she couldn’t identify, a few orange flowers that glowed softly, and a single firefly. There was nothing of note besides her and her friends.

“Twi—” Rainbow started.

Twilight held up a hoof, scanning the scenery once again—it never hurt to double-check. Once again, she turned up nothing.

Maybe I just imagined it.

Relaxing slightly, she lit her horn to perform a basic magic sense scan. Such a spell rarely turned up anything of much interest, but she wanted to be thorough.

All of her relaxation vanished in an instant. There was a store of magical energy comparable to her own right in front of her, where her eyes told her there was absolutely nothing. Something invisible.

Before Twilight could even think about doing anything, the invisible something revealed itself. Two legs, two arms, gray skin, a massive red axe, and a face with so many sharp fangs it would have made lions jealous. It screeched, sending spittle all over Twilight’s face.

Screaming in panic, both Twilight and Rainbow turned and ran—though in the case of the pegasus, she flew away at speeds so impressive a few trees buckled from the rush of air. Once Twilight noticed Rainbow pulling ahead of her, she glanced back to check on Pinkie.

Pinkie wasn't moving.

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted, fear for her own life quickly being replaced with fear for Pinkie’s. She turned around, creating four divots in the path with her hooves. Her horn surged with lavender energy as her flight response became fight. Her magic surrounded her, taking every molecule in her body at once and teleporting right behind Pinkie.

“Get back!” Twilight shouted, prepared to take on whatever unholy monstrosity of the night was threatening Pinkie, no matter how much magic was stored within it.

Both Pinkie and the “monster” ignored her.

“Wow, you’re a vampire?” Pinkie gasped. “That’s so cool! A friend of mine was one too! Well, uh, a vampony, and it wasn’t really the blood-sucking variety, but still!”

The vampire looked a lot less threatening now that it wasn’t screeching right in Twilight's face. It—no, she—was a bipedal creature with gray skin, pointed ears, and a guitar made out of an axe. She wore a simple gray shirt and tattered jeans that made her look more normal than a creature floating a foot off the ground should have been.

Her voice was normal too. Twilight could imagine it coming from a random mare she met on the street.

“I don’t have to suck blood either. I eat the color red.”

“Whoa! I’m pink, can you eat me?”

“I could but I really don’t think you want me to,” she chuckled.

Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Duh, I was just curious!” She extended a hoof. “I’m Pinkie Pie, the pony behind me trying to process what has just happened is Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash will be back eventually.”

The vampire shook Pinkie’s hoof. “You’re cool, Pinkie.”

“Awww, stop it!”

“I’m Marceline, the Vampire Queen.” Marceline tossed her hair back as if this title were supposed to strike fear and awe into the hearts of the two ponies. “Welcome to the Candy Kingdom!”

“You make a great welcomer!”

Twilight coughed. “My still-racing heart would beg to differ.”

“You should have seen the look on your face!” Marceline curled her arms around her chest and started laughing. “You knew what was coming but knew you couldn’t do anything about it! Priceless!”

“I wonder if I got it on camera…” Pinkie said, riffling through her photos.

“Oh, don’t worry, I got it.” Marceline held up a rectangular device to Pinkie’s face. “I always have my phone ready in case of a proper pranking opportunity.”

Pinkie snickered. “Twilight, your face! It really was the best!”

Twilight tore the device out of Marceline’s hand with her magic. “This… This is an ancient ‘smartphone’ device! These… do you have any idea how valuable this is?”

Marceline swiped it back. “Uh, yeah, that’s why I don’t let just anyone hold it.”

“Oh.” Twilight flushed. “Sorry… It’s just so rare to see a functional one, and those are always locked behind museum displays.”

“I’m surprised you even know what it is. You must be quite the scholar, Twilight.”

“She is!” Pinkie agreed. “I’ve known her to lock herself in a library for days on end, never talking to anypony!”

“...Did you just say anypony?”

“Uh, yeah?”

Marceline blinked. “You know that sounds silly, right?”

“Yep!” Pinkie said, as though this explained everything.

An awkward silence fell over the three of them.

Marceline coughed. “Well, you girls seem cool, and I’d hate to see you get eaten by some kind of monster. A friend of mine has a cabin nearby, I’m sure she’d let some intrepid explorers like you spend the night.”

Twilight bowed. “We would be most honored, Marceline.”

“...Wow, no need to get so formal.”

With a soft chuckle, Twilight rose. “That’s what I’m always saying, but no, everything has to be so formal all the time.”

“We aren’t in Equestria anymore!” Pinkie declared. “Who needs formalities?”

“Exactly!” Marceline grinned. “Let’s turn this disastrous crash of yours into a vacation!”

“Yeah!” Twilight agreed. “Wait, how did you know…?”

“Dude, I heard the crash from, like, several miles away, That was loud.”

At this point, Rainbow Dash descended from the sky in a predatory stance. “All right you galoot, get your teeth out of my friends!”

Pinkie, Twilight, and Marceline stared at her.

“...Did you two already make friends with the monster?”

Marceline snorted.

Rainbow deflated. “Once, just once, I’d like to give 'em the ol' Dash special without any warning, y’know? It’ll be so… satisfying.

Twilight chuckled. “Rainbow, this is Marceline. A friend of hers owns a cabin where we’ll be spending the night. Which…” Looking up at the sky, she determined that the sun had sunk below the horizon. “It is now. And we’re not out of the Everfree yet.”

Marceline broke out into an undignified fit of laughter. “Oh, oh man, she’s really not letting that go!”

Rainbow Dash groaned. “Let’s just get to this cabin already.”

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