Time to Shine

by Easysnuggler

43. Meeting of the Celestial Spheres

“I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen.” – R. Dash

—“Reflections”, Autobiography by Starlight Glimmer

43. Meeting of the Celestial Spheres

Swift Spear decided to stay in Bridlewood. His brother was a judgmental jerk.

Sturdy Spear decided to go where his unrepentant and possibly deviant brother wasn’t.

The cooks were glad to be rid of both. Even if the brothers had poked that manticore a bit and gotten it to back off. It hadn’t been worth it. In Bridlewood once they found a unicorn willing to join their culinary adventure the three cooks hired of Sheriff Porter’s deputies for the trip back to Zephyr Heights.

The unicorn Tasty Treat was aloof, quiet, reserved, and taciturn. When offended she used the silent treatment. Sugar Paradise and Apple Glory found her to be simply delightful company.

—

Sturdy Spear was looking for adventure, and so had set off with a shiny blue and white pegasus he had met who found him far less annoying than the cooks had. The pegasus said he was on a quest to help a maiden, and that sounded adventurous enough. Sturdy Spear had offered to come along and the pegasus had said yes.

Said pegasus had a blue tail and mane that clashed horrifically with Sturdy’s own yellow body and green mane. The yellow mane stripe just made matters worse. He found Sturdy less annoying because so far, he hadn’t noticed how Sturdy never shut up. This was because he himself had hardly stopped talking, and the two kept up a constant conversation for miles as the road went by.

“So, your queen will really hire just anyone, regardless of tribe?” That didn’t sound like how he’d been taught Pegassai were. They were supposed to be mean, vicious, swooping down from the air to force earth ponies to do whatever they wanted.

“That’s what she said, unicorns, earth ponies, pegassai, no problem. Just like the old equestrian EUP. Some sort of technology exchange. They’re putting up cell towers between Bridlewood and Maretime Bay. Queen Haven’s even got that big Alphabittle fellow and your Cloverleaf and their friends making the old airships go. I rode around on one before I flew out here. It was like something out of a story. Earth ponies revving it up and doing all the hard pulling and hauling, pegassai flying around, adjusting everything, and keeping it trim and unicorns keeping it running and charging the big crystal spinney thing.”

“What’s that do?”

“Beats me. It makes the propellers go somehow and they push it.”

“And this Knight Silver Shine, she really wants an earth pony squire?”

“Ser Shine said she wanted someone to carry her stuff. And she loves to spar. Maybe a little too much. She kicked my tail in basic and about flew my wings off. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind teaching you. If you can keep up.” Diamond Flitter looked at Sturdy Spear. “No offense, but you don’t look all that fast.”

“I’m fast enough in a fight. You should have seen me with that manticore.” He made Smack, smack, slash, stab, stab motions with his spear.

“Sure, sure, we’ll see. Anyway, Knight Silver Shine. Technically I am Ser Shine’s senior squire, and I can hire other squires to help me. She was my sponsor to the Royal Courier service – it’s part of Queen Haven’s guard. Only now we’re expanding to cover Bridlewood and Maretime Bay. She said I was too pretty to be useful. And not to brag, but I know I’m easy on the eyes. All the attention from mares and even a few stallions is great, but I want to do more than just be someone pretty in a uniform. I want to stretch my wings, go on adventures and see things now that Queen Haven says its ok to fly wherever we like.”

“She used to restrict that?”

“Yea, well it’s a real old law, like 800 years old. We weren’t allowed to fly so far from Zephyr Hills than we lost sight of it. That’s like 200 kilo lengths. That was right after the Twilight’s Folly fell.”

“What was that?”

“You don’t know about that? Well like 800 years ago, there was this big tower Twilight Sparkle made before she vanished. It was this magical tower that went right up into the sky. It was supposed to be a kind of giant travel hub, to like everywhere. It took Equestria like forever to build. It had all these crystals and magic constructs. It was supposed reach even higher than the atmosphere.

“Dad said it had called elevators – moving platforms that went up and down, and all these magical doors that cut travel time to other places in Equestria, and even other worlds. He said it was supposed to bring everyone closer together. Anyway, after Equestria broke apart, pegassai and everyone still used it for meetings and stuff. It was easy to get to, and it all still worked. Anyway, the special doors, we had one in Zephyr Heights. But then the whole thing just came crashing down one day. Weird thing was, you could still use the door, but now a huge wind blew through it so you could only go through the one way, and it just opened out into the sky. So darn high it was hard to breathe. Every so often whoever was king or queen of Zepher Heights would send a pegasus or two through it to see if anyone else was coming to the meetings, but then it was a long flight back. It was way harder to get back to home from for other creatures. Because we’re close to Canterlot you see. Most critters don’t have wings, so they just stopped coming. That was right around the time we stopped being able to do more than glide.”

“Wow that’s crazy. I have trouble even picturing that.”

“Yea I know. Well, the tower used to be in Canterlot, and that’s where I’m headed.”

“So, this Blue Blossom you said you were on a quest to help. Who is she?”

“Oh, well she’s the maiden daughter of these Bridlewood ponies. Their house almost burned down. Anyway, she told her parents she was going to Canterlot to save the world and stop some tragedy she could foresee by looking up at the stars in the sky.”

“That sounds farfetched.”

“She told her parents her brothers were going to burn the house down before they did.”

“Huh.”

“And she said her brother was going to get into a fight.”

“Kids fight.”

“With a specific kid.”

“Still not proof.”

“Her mom said we were going to meet her on the road to Canterlot at the bridge over winsome falls at dusk.” Landing he pointed down the road with both his wings and hooves.

Sturdy Spear looked up. There was a pale light blue unicorn standing at the start of a stone bridge over a small waterfall. She appeared to be meditating and waiting patiently.

The day was dying in the west. Blue Blossom’s light blue coat shone with all the colors of the sky as the sun set.

“Wo-o, that’s freaky.” said Sturdy Spear.

--
Bluebell looked up just then and smiled. Draco’s avatar had succeeded in asking one of the servants of Terra Equuleus to aid the children of Taurus in their quest to reach Canterlot. The servant was not a pony… not exactly. Though she felt a close kinship to her, the old servant had been – very different than what she had expected. Another, like her coming into her own in adulthood, or in the servants case late adulthood.

But now finally the children of Pegasus and Terra Equuleus had arrived. Events were once again unfolding as desired by Immortales Alicornis and Harmony. It was time to make some new friends. She stood up and greeted the two newcomers warmly.