Hopes 'n DreamsVerse: A Better Beginnings

by The HopesnDreamsVerse

Chapter Two: A Meteor Hits Ponyville

Author's Note:

I don't know what to put here lol

Meteor Star was jolted awake by the sound and feeling of the train screeching to a halt and throwing him forward. He used his hooves to stop himself from hitting the wall in front of him before sitting back in his seat. He rubbed his eyes and straightened his glasses before standing up.

The ride, in his eyes, had been dreadful. There were a group of other ponies in the same car as him and he swore he could hear them whispering and feel them staring at him the whole way, which was to be expected when you were royalty, but knowing it was in such an enclosed space with no way to get away from it all made his coat prickle.

Now he was here. Finally. A wave of soreness struck his hindquarters and spine, and all along his back popped as he stretched out his legs. Chariot rides are much more comfortable. He thought; though sleep usually lulled bitterness and spite, Meteor found himself to be in just as sour of a mood as before his nap.

Before he could go anywhere, ponies began to rush past him to get out the door and he had to wait to avoid being trampled. If only they knew who I was, then they wouldn't be in such a hurry to get out first. He thought, though he knew it was better that they didn't, he didn't want to get swarmed by ponyrazzi as soon as he left the train.

Finally the wave dispersed and he broke out into the next car, making it out the door narrowly as it was closing. Steam rose around him and he wrinkled his nose at it, it fogged his lenses and smelled of metal, and he had to remove his specticals to rub them clear again. Stupid train, stupid steam, you just don't have these things back in Canterlot Palace.

Pesky steam wasn't really his main focus however, the strange surroundings were; He had been to Ponyville before with his mom but he had either never left the chariot or stayed inside the Castle of Friendship, so this time it was much different, for one, this way he was on the ground and level with the buildings.

He walked up to the wooden platform and looked around, trying to figure out where to go next. Most of the rows of houses were behind the station, and in the distance, on what looked to be the far side of the town, towered a huge purple castle with a big star at the top. That's the Castle of Friendship alright. He thought. Guess I'll just head there.He huffed and began his trek across the village.

Walking down the main street was strange to him, earth-ponies and unicorns milled about while pegasi soared up in the air. It was mostly ponies but he did catch sight of a griffon and a hippogriff swinging what looked to be a hybrid chicklet between them by his little forearms. There were a couple whispers but for the most part no pony seemed to realize who he was. The chatter was loud and definitely annoying though, he groaned at everyone's. . .social-ness. How could anypony be so cheery if they weren't studying their interests?

"Look out!" A squeaky voice sounded from behind him and he jumped out of the way just in time as three foals of each different pony breed barreled past, a orange pegasus and a brown unicorn seemed to be pulling their hot pink-headed earth-pony friend on a sled behind them. Meteor was both annoyed and puzzled. They do know Winter Wrap Up was a week ago right? He thought. He continued on, grumbling about almost running over royalty. Honestly seeing so many different kinds of ponies together was strange, Canterlot was mostly populated by unicorns, with pegasi and earth-pony's sprinkled among them, and of course the other types of sapient creatures.

He passed ponies standing around and talking to eachother in groups or in pairs, wether in the street or by their houses, there were some shops, foals were chasing eachother around the streets, and up ahead stood what seemed to be a stage, a large group of ponies gathered around it. Meteor tried to steer clear, community theater meant lots of sociable ponies. Yet he still caught the obnoxious voices of the two stallions on stage.

"Hey dudes! Up for some jokes?" The orange earth-pony asked the audience. "No!" The crowd answered, but something about the way it was said made you think it was all part of the show.

"Well why not? You all know when I start joking, you almost always want s'more." The earth-pony cracked a handsome smile. Meteor, who found himself going a bit slower than usual out of subconscious curiousity, didn't have any context, an therefore, didn't understand why that was even funny.

"Not today, the crowd wants to see trickery! Pranks! Something more sly than verbal comedy!" The other stallion, this one lanky and pink coated, hissed. "I, a comedic genious, present a banana peel." He said, holding up said peel in his hoof. The shorter, orange stallion turned his head to look at the audience, one thick maroon brow raised and face expressionless besides the ghost of a smirk at the corners of his mouth. A few ponies giggled, mostly young foals.

Meteor for one, didn't think the act so far was all that funny, and stuck his nose up at it. He certainly didn't want to stick around any longer, in fear that he soon would; he had glimpsed the shorter pony's cutie-mark, the well-known symbol for comedy, and he didn't want to take any chances.

He continued on, he could see the Castle up ahead now. Finally, time to get away from all this foolishness. Only one thing stood in his merry way now: a dragon.

It wasn't a big, kinda scary looking dragon like Uncle Spike, no this one seemed to be a teenager, maybe around thirteen or fourteen, with aquamarine scales and almond shaped ember-colored eyes. She was kneeling on the ground studying a trail of ants that were crossing the path, her face focused. Meteor, like he did with the stage preformers, tried to avoid her and gave her a wide berth as he headed for the Castle.

However, seems life wouldn't be coroperating with a anti-social colt such as himself today. The dragonets head suddenly shot up as if on cue and he could feel her eyes fixed intently on him. He couldn't just ignore it, he turned his head reluctantly to look at her as well. She was staring at him alright, in pure awe and wonder. She slowly got to her feet, fore-claws clasping together in front of her torso. Meteor, weirded out, began to walk away faster.

"Wait!" A shy voice called after his fleeting steps. "Are you really the Prince?"

Meteor tried to ignore her, but he could hear her claws pounding the ground as she ran to catch up with him. "Oh please wait! You can't deny it, I know you're the Prince and I've always wanted to meet you!" She continued. Meteor sighed and lowered his head, ears flattening. "You must have the wrong guy." He called back, he just wanted to get to the Castle already, why couldn't the universe understand that?

"Don't be modest, please! You don't need to pretend with me! I get it! I'm royalty too! I'm a princess! Princess Emerald at your service!" She called back. She caught up with him in that moment and he looked to his side to see her walking beside him, looking up at him with wide eyes, talons still clasped together.

"Sure, uh, kid." Meteor said, he had never found a reason to call anyone 'kid' before -usually it was him being called that by his father- and using it on another creatures kind of thrilled him. He obviously didn't believe such a claim from the little dragoness, and continued walking, picking up the pace just a little bit more.

The dragon, Emerald, continued to talk. "I've seen you in the paper, how smart and hardworking you are, nothing like how I would imagine a prince to be. My Aunts take me to see the Festival of the Two Sisters every year and I see you there next to Princess Twilight and I think how regal and brooding you look- oh! Forget that last part!" She gasped, reaching her talons to her mouth to stop herself, scales blushing furiously.

Meteor felt his own face heat up under his fur.

Emerald shook her head, recovering quickly. "O-oh, oh please won't you let me assist you? I'm good at cleaning, and cooking, and carrying stuff! I could carry your book! I could carry any books you ask me to in the Castle library any day if you'd like? I may be a princess but I'm very resourceful! I can-"

By this point, Meteor had walked up the front steps and reached the door, opening it with his yellow aura. Before the dragonet could continue to speak, he rushed inside and closed the door practically in her face.

He leaned against the other side of the door with an exasperated sigh before slumping to the ground, recovering from the awkwardness of it all. Our race must be crazy! Dealing with folks like that all the time. Friendship, pah! He thought, frustrated, not only with the situation, but also with himself. He was here on a mission, an assignment, and so far he was failing at it. He shook his head, too stubborn to let those thoughts reside in his mind for very long at all.

He looked around at the empty front room and long halls, suddenly realizing that he had nothing with him. Twilight had sent him to Ponyville with nothing and everything wouldn't come in until tomorrow and he was already starting to feel cold under the daunting crystal walls and ceiling. I'll freeze through the night! He thought, increasingly becoming more irritated. At least it was pretty clean, rainbows danced on the crystal floor from the prismatic stained glass windows and there were a few chairs along the foyer walls.

Of course, how could he forget? His Uncle Sunburst and Aunt Starlight took care of this place, they lead tours here, and Meteor would have to live here while ponies went in and out on exploration of this place. He groaned, could today get any worse?

There was a knock on the door. Meteor grumbled about how ponies didn't just come to the Canterlot's Palace and knock on the front gate whenever they felt like it, before standing up straight and opening the door just a crack, not wanting that pesky dragon to see him if it was indeed her standing on the other side.

It wasn't her however. Instead stood a gray coated pegasus mare with a blonde mane tinged with hints of silver and wearing some sort of uniform. "Packages for Prince Meteor Star?" She said uncertaintly in an airy voice, looking down at her clipboard as if perplexed on why a prince would even be here. Meteor Star nodded slowly, not familiar with civilian postage and looked around at the different sized boxes all around the mailmare's hooves. Sure enough one said: "Prince Meteorite Star - Castle of Friendship. Shipped from Canterlot.

He couldn't believe it! He kicked the door open and picked up a small package in his magic aura. Had he misheard what Twilight had said? Had the package just come earlier than anypony expected? He opened it neatly and beamed down at the collection of books and star charts that resided in it. Thank Celestia! He thought, before using his magic to slide all his stuff inside the Castle.

"Oh, uh thanks." He said before turning away and closing his door. He looked through a peep-hole he had just now noticed was there and saw that the mare was now retreating back into the sky. He turned away and began ripping open his boxes. All his books, blankets and pillows, his astronomy stuff, it was all here. I guess that means at least one thing did go right today after all! He thought, he was still sour about the move, but all his woes we're pushed to the back of his mind In his moment of glee.

One package however, he realized once he had opened all the boxes he recognized, had a different decent address on it: Sweet Apple Acres. Thats weird, where the hay is that? He wondered as he opened it. Inside was a smaller, squater looking box in white and red checkers, on top there was a small note. He opened it and read it to himself:

"Dear Meteor Star.

Nice to hear that you're moving to Ponyville for the time being! We at Sweet Apple Acres are mighty happy to greet you to our humble little town, it may not be the glamour of Canterlot, but it's your mother's home, and ours too, so we hope it can be forgiven. Anyway, here's a little something to welcome you, would have come myself but I'm very busy today, life sure can be a crazy ride. Anyway I hope you find life in Ponyville suitable and wish you the best of luck.

-Sincerely, your Aunt Applejack"

Meteor Star stared for a moment longer. He had met all his aunts before, they came once a month for the Council of Friendship after all, yet he still hadn't expected any of them to greet him so warmly, or help him out much. He looked down at the red and white box and opened it, grinning at the contents: a delectible smelling, still-warm apple pie. I guess having someone to rely on can be useful sometimes. . . He thought with a shrug as he picked it up and drew in a long breath of it's scent.

He sneezed. Though the Castle looked pretty clean, it was obviously still a bit dusty. No matter. He lit his horn and preformed a spell. A feather-duster, a broom, and a dust pan appeared and began to clean up the foyer in officiant, swift motions, before they all whisped down the halls and into the various first-floor rooms.

He had learned this spell from Sunburst one time when they were both in the Crystal Empire. Twilight often took Meteor to visit the Crystal Empire to visit his actual Aunt and Uncle, Princess Cadence and Shinning Armor, along with his much older cousin Flurry Heart, her fiance Pound Cake, and his younger cousin Princess Mi Luce Pura- yet just like Princess Cadence, she prefered to be refered to as the Ponish version of the name, Pure Light, despite this she also didn't seem to mind the nickname of Pura.

Sunburst visited often, as he was Pura's crystaler and a magic teacher to Flurry Heart, so he had no qualms about teaching Meteor Star some useful tricks when he could.

Meteor brought himself back to the present, he had to get his stuff into his new room. He'd been inside the Castle before and he remembered the interior as clearly as if he had lived there his whole life. But first, he was eager to have some of this pie. He found the kitchen and magically cut a slice, ate it, and put the rest in an empty cake stand to save it for later. It was then he noticed a note hanging on the fridge with a magnet. He lifted it up and read it:

"Hey Meteor, you may have already noticed but I took the liberty of setting up the kitchen for you so you aren't just dropped here with nothing to eat or eat with. Your mother has sent me all the furniture that used to be in the sitting/living room too so I've put everything back the way it used to be, I hope you like it! Also, I've toned tours down to only being open once a month so you won't be disturbed every week, as for the monthly tours, I'm sure you can easily just clear out, y'know, spend that time with your new friends. Speaking of friends, come visit me in the School of Friendship, there's all sorts of creatures and ponies here that would love to meet you, it sure would make your assignment easy! Anyway, that's all for now, your very attentive aunt and friend: Starlight Glimmer."

Meteor sighed. He was grateful to her setting stuff up for him, but it was just so typical of Starlight to want him to make friends with someone she's suggested. Back in Canterlot, his mother was always putting Starlight up to finding him a perfect friend match, and Starlight was definitely good at trying to push it. She'd find ponies his age who he had never seen before and set up dates to get them to talk and get to know eachother. He couldn't imagine why Starlight would have agreed to do such a thing, since he had heard the story of how Twilight had tried to do the same to her before she had found her own friend in Trixie and proved that you can't force ponies to be friends, but he hadn't really given it much thought, maybe Twilight payed her to do it or something, he didn't know.

Meteor always won the fight of course and avoided even trying to make the friendships work, driving the other pony away either from boredom with all the mathematics he spoke of, or being as unresponsive to them as possible. He put the note back on the door for now and exited the kitchen, ready to unpack his things.

He decided to take up Twilight's old room, which thankfully still had a bed with a mattress in it. He sat on it and ovaluated the rest of his surroundings. It was a decent sized octagonal shaped room, bigger than his in Canterlot alright; with crystal pillars, a tall window beside the bed, and the wall a few feet away from the door, as well as a few on the opposite side, all still covered by some dark purple curtains. I guess she left some things here, for her overnight visits she sometimes does.

He stood up and began dragging his boxes in with his magic. He made up his bed, unpacked his bookshelf and disassembled desk -and took a too long time trying to put it back together again- and placed his bookshelf between the bed and the door. Afterwards he unpacked his books, brought all his star charts and desk supplies to the desk that he decided to put near the back wall between two tall windows, and put his O&O book on the bedside table where a leftover lamp still stood.

Finally he allowed himself to sit down. That's when he started to get cold again. In one side of the room he noticed a fireplace, no doubt run by unicorn magic as the castle didn't have any chimneys. He hopped off his new bed and lit the fire with his horn, warmth immediately started to creep through the Castle, and he smiled softly as the heat returned to his coat.

Now with nothing else to worry about and his room starting to feel more like home, he decided it was a good time to return to his book. He laid back on the bed, switched on the lamp, and opened his book.

Knock, Knock, Knock

Meteor scowled, as yet another knocking on the door reached his ears. What now? He had spent the last couple hours setting everything up, and he just wanted to get off his hooves, he wasn't used to so much physical activity. He wondered for a moment if he should just wait for his interupter to leave, but he realized quickly, that he didn't want such loud knocking to grace his ears longer than it had to.

So he got up, dragging his book with him in the air as he headed for the front door. He grumbled as he opened it.

At the sight of this strange new visitor, he immediately slammed it back closed. Eyes going wide and breath hitching in his throat. Nope, definitely don't need visitors and definitely not paranormal creatures thank you very much! What is it? What does it want? Why is it here?! He thought frantically, before taking a deep breath, just like Mom had taught him to do in a stressful situation, hoof to his chest before slowly pulling it away.

There was another knock. He groaned and decided to take another look through the peephole. Okay, maybe this wasn't so bad, it had shocked him in the first time, but now that he looked at it again, it wasn't too bizzare looking, why it looked almost like a normal pony. He decided to open the door just a crack.

The creature beamed at him. She was definitely more pony-like than he had given her credit for at first. Before him stood a pale yellow mare, with ruby red eyes, and swath of rosy red hair that curled on her forehead before hanging limply down in an ending of silky curls beside her chest. She had two short blue horns peeking out in-between her ears, one covered by a silky red rose that she had woven behind her ear, as well as two fangs poking out under her dainty top lip. On her back we're two bat-like wings folded on her back and her front hooves were. . .lion paws.

Meteor immediately knew who this was now that he saw the creature, which was clearly a hybrid, more closely. This was one of his honerary cousins, the daughter of Aunt Fluttershy and Uncle Discord. There was no doubt about that.

Comments

[Thyrrnatf]

Two good chapters, looking forward to more :)

And also to see all the other pairs you have made :p