Chapter 6
Sweet Sauce had little reason to be impressed with a teleportation spell, even one cast without preparation on an entire group to travel several miles at once.
Okay, maybe he was a little impressed. They reappeared in Ponyville without blowing out his ears with displacement, or freezing the ground with the sudden shift in temperature. But part of that might just be the change from what he was used to, after living in a world where being able to read a bus schedule meant greater than average competence.
He didn't recognize the room they appeared in, but even so it took him only a few seconds to figure out where they must be. High walls and a vaulted ceiling made of blue crystal, strange thrones near the back surrounding a flat object that radiated more magic than most ponies in the room combined, and stained glass.
While the other ponies needed a second to recover from the transport, Sauce only rolled his eyes. "You're so subtle with all this. I simply must talk to your interior decorator."
As usual, nopony reacted. The other young ponies were far too disoriented from the transport, shaking themselves out and reconnecting with their three spatial dimensions.
The adult ponies were all apparently used to this, but only the white unicorn even glanced at him. He was too small, they just didn't care.
Maybe he could've tried to run for it, slipping away from the castle and vanishing into the darkness. But as much as these ponies ignored what he said, he had a reasonable idea of how strongly they would react if he tried to flee.
If there was one mercy here, an execution would probably require all the princesses to be gathered to pass judgement. He would get to say goodbye.
But the next few hours brought no execution. Instead, the families of the ponies who had followed him arrived, fawning over their missing foals and carrying them away. They didn’t seem to notice him lingering there—if they blamed him for leading their children away from town, they concealed it well.
They didn't linger in the throne room, but moved him downstairs to a blank, nondescript storage room, with mostly empty shelves smelling of fruit. Over the next few hours, most of the rescue party slipped away, until only a single pegasus remained—the yellow and pink one with butterflies for her cutie mark. What was her name again?
Sauce didn't much care. He slumped against the wall, ignoring her attempts to talk to him and staring off into space. There was no sense trying to negotiate with these ponies, not after what he'd done. Might as well just face whatever fate they had in mind for him.
At least when they brought lunch for his captor, they had a plate for him, too. He could enjoy one last meal of equestrian produce before he went to the gallows.
It was late afternoon before they finally came for him. Not the escort of a dozen royal guards they should've used, in case he went to the effort of trying to escape. No, this was two mares. Both were older than his rescuers, though like all ponies they aged more gracefully than primates.
Maybe the one with the pen and scroll cutie mark just had a mane that color. Both were dressed more formally than most ponies, with coats and white shirts. Strange to see something that almost mirrored the word he'd been banished too, except for the obvious lack of pants.
"Mayor Mare," said the pegasus, standing. "You found this poor pony's parents?"
Sweet Sauce remained on the ground, resting his head against the shelf. He closed his eyes, and went back to pretending to be asleep. Maybe it would even work.
"I'm afraid not," said the pony. Like her clothing, she spoke with a forced formality the princess hadn't used. Twilight doesn't need to put on an act for ponies to know she's important.
"I apologize for the delay, Miss Fluttershy. We've been waiting to hear back from Family Services in Canterlot. Their telegram just returned: there is no missing foal matching his description. They're still searching, but—"
She lowered her voice to a whisper. A valiant effort, but it was nowhere near quiet enough that he wouldn't still overhear. "It probably means he has no family to report him missing, or his family doesn't want to find him."
"He, um..." the pegasus began, her voice shaking. "He did say something about his parents not being around anymore."
"They're not," he said, sitting up suddenly and glaring across the room as the three mares. "My parents are dead. I have no extended family. And my siblings want nothing to do with me."
The white-haired pony jumped a few inches as he spoke. The others merely looked at him. But she recovered quickly enough. "Welcome to Ponyville, Sweet Sauce," she said. Barely deviating from her forced formality. "I'm sorry we haven't been able to help you yet. But there's some good news!" She gestured, and the other pony stepped forward. "Let me introduce you to Honeydew. She's our representative with the Department of Family Services."
This one wore a brown satchel over her shoulder, and a pair of thick glasses. She smiled, and it seemed far more natural than on the other mare. "Hello, Sweet Sauce. Nice to meet you."
He didn't meet her eyes. "Where are the soldiers? I'm ready to stand trial. On the condition that the Princesses of Equestria act in judgement, I wave my defense. I will face what I deserve."
Honeydew twitched once, looking back. "Is there something I should know about this case?"
The pegasus shook her head. "No... he's been saying things like that since we found him. Nopony can figure out why. He didn't want to answer our questions."
"Miss Honeydew will take care of you now, Sweet," said Mayor Mare. "Will you go with her?"
No threats. No soldiers. Once he got away from this tower, he could probably escape whenever he wanted. But maybe he wouldn't want to. Whatever the Department of Family Services was, it was obviously part of the government. Maybe he could use it to reach Celestia.
"Sure." He stood. "Whatever you say."
"It was nice meeting you, little pony," the pegasus said. "I hope you can... I hope you can be happy here. Ponyville is a wonderful town."
"I'm sure it is," he said, still not looking at her. He had nothing more to say.
So it was that Sweet Sauce left the stupid tree castle behind, without chains or warmages or even Royal Guard following behind him.
There was only Honeydew, who didn't even seem fit enough to keep up with him in a foot-race. But she was a dirt horse, which probably made her stronger than she looked.
I only get one chance to escape before they know I'll want to, he thought. I have to pick it carefully.
So not right now. He could make a run for the train station, now that he knew the princesses were in Canterlot instead of their castle. But trains needed bits, and he didn’t have any yet. He would need to swipe some.
"Where are you from, Sweet Sauce?" she asked, as they approached a nondescript building near the center of town. It looked just like the houses to either side, except that it lacked any personal touches. There were no gardens, no unique colors on the trimming.
He gestured vaguely into the Everfree. "I grew up in the Castle of the Two Sisters. I was born in Unicornia, but I left too soon and too young to remember much about it. Just... cold. Snow. Gale force winds."
That had the expected reaction. The earth pony nearly tripped over herself, but managed to stay on her hooves as she made her way up the lane. "That's... quite the active imagination you have there, Sweet Sauce. Unicornia? I bet most ponies your age don't even know what you're talking about."
He followed her into the office. Despite its plain exterior, great effort had obviously been taken to make it seem comfortable. The walls were pink, the furniture was all soft and cushiony. There was a single desk, but even that had rounded corners. There were no open doors, no pictures of anything that wasn't smiling and happy.
"Standing in here is going to give me diabetes," he said flatly, hesitating in the doorway. "And I should know, I worked in the royal kitchens. Well... lived in the kitchens more than worked. I wasn't paying myself."
Honeydew was already catching on, because she didn't stop this time. She walked with him to a set of comfortable-looking sofas, covered in fluff and padding. "Well, Sweet Sauce. I'd like to get to know you a little better. From the, uh... from the smell of it, you were in the Everfree for a while. So I'll keep our conversation brief, then you can use the facilities. Would that be okay?"
"Sure," he said, settling glumly into the chair. Though given the environment, he didn't really make much of an effort. Instead, Sauce stretched over both edges of the seat, with legs hanging off into empty space. The colors might be so bright they burned, but at least it was comfortable here.
Prison in Equestria is better than going back to that desert. I'll take a bright pink cell over yuccas any day.
Maybe she expected him to say more—he didn't, just closing his eyes and letting his mind drift. Whatever else was in this office, he hadn't seen any big piles of bits. So there'd be no stealing a train ticket right now.
"Are you sure you couldn't tell me more about where you grew up?" Honeydew asked. "It would make finding any family you have much easier."
He looked up, meeting her eyes with a sudden glare. "Just say what you mean. You think I'm lying to you and you're asking for me to tell you the truth. I did, that's the problem."
She froze again, pen stopping in whatever scribbling she was doing. Her ears flattened—apparently she wasn't expecting confrontation.
This childcare pony had done nothing to him. But that didn't mean he felt particularly cooperative. Not after today. "I'm not sure if Mayor Mare told you I walked out to the Castle of the Two Sisters. Why do you think I did it? It was supposed to be fully staffed. My family should've been waiting for me. But the castle's gone. My friends who worked there have probably been dead for... centuries."
He trailed off, slumping back against the couch. It hadn't felt like centuries. Sweet Sauce hadn't needed to resort to strange magic, hadn't needed a new body.
There were temporal incongruities between divergent spacetimes. Starswirl had been right about that, the crotchety old bastard. At least he wouldn't be alive to gloat.
"You sound... very serious about all this," Honeydew said. She might as well have just burped for everything it meant. "How long have you been from... the ancient past?"
How long? The question took him a second to process—how could he ever be from somewhere else? But there was one way. He could be a child with a delusional fantasy.
He had one chance to cut through all this—one chance that might end with him going where he needed to go.
Sweet Sauce hopped down off the couch, and looked up at the earth pony with her stupid clipboard and quill. "Listen to me, Honeydew. My name is Sweet Sauce. It is imperative you deliver me to my older sisters—Princess Celestia Radiantis and Princess Argentia Luna. Send a messenger on swift wings to deliver them my message. I have crossed the iridescent veil by force of intellect and magical will. The terms of my banishment are done. I wish to apologize for—"
He came to a choking halt, stuttering. He kept the tears from his eyes, but not his voice. "For what I did. I accept whatever punishment they find fitting. May Faust have mercy on my soul."
Stats
Page generated in 0.018 seconds
Total duration
1,027 users online
1,461,610 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
i will say if luna can get away with just comming back and a blast of the elements then if they punish him would it be exessive? i mean he was banished during a time when luna was still around so over 1 thousand years ago and also has lost his age and horn. Im pretty sure that would be punishment enough as we know that luna got off for what she did for less
heh, won't be that bad, Sauce
11249673
To quote from Winning, and the Pitfalls Therein:
personally i find it idiotic twilight handed him over like that, they sensed villainous magic with no source and you got a unknown colt sprouting about necromancy and talking odd, twilight just sent him on his way without proper investigation, while it easy to underestimate the young twilight experience as the element of harmony should had given her the sense to not let him out of her sights
11249711
It's called common sense. rather than assume an earth pony who are known to be unable to do magic to have done said magic and furthermore the pony itself is foal. she assumed something else must have done it as the place is the Everfree forest. and following that logic she gave the orphan to the foal services to take care of him.
Hmm, does this story take place around or after Season 9?
11249744
Because if it does, then considering the fact that Equestria has been threatened by a hornless foal of prodigious intelligence in the past, perhaps it's not too much to expect Twilight to take a little more interest in Sweet Sauce's quirks this time around.
derpicdn.net/img/2020/1/14/2246881/full.png
11249789
We only know that she is an alicorn, not that this is after cozy glow is revealed to be evil so just going up and calling twilight idiotic is not only mean and judgemental but show a lack of awareness. most people don't suspect children and in equestria the land of harmony and all that is good. Foals that are not the cutie mark crusaders (know trouble makers in their crusaders days) or cozy glow are literally angels. even diamond tiara was only "bad" because of her mother.
So why should twilight's actions be considered idiotic ? She made the good adult decision of handing over an unknown foal that said that his parents are dead to the authorities that are the most apt at dealing with what is in her mind a lost and orphan foal.
11248692
welll... it's actually much more complicated than that.
Looking up the etymology of the english word 'Focus' the modern english definition including being a center of activity or energy doesn't show up until nearly the 1800s and before that it's use in English as a convergence point is questionable until 1640.Until that point it would have been a Latin loan word used in scientific contexts.
Latin, as it happens, has a case called the 'genitive' for nouns to show possession, and the genitive singular of the Latin word focus is foci
Given the plastic nature of language it is not entirely inappropriate to use the Latin genitive singular 'foci' to refer to a personal tool like a horn used as a 'focus' , especially in the context of magic and fantasy.
Welp, cat's out of the bag. Or, it's supposed to be. Nobody's believed him about any of this so far—how long will it take for someone to actually look into his claims? I'm most curious about how Celestia and Luna will react when the message finally gets to them…
Cant wait for the next chapter
Thanks for the chapter 😼
I am so confused why twilight has the Idiot ball in this story.
IMO that outburst would have had better impact to the reader if it was directed to her and the group after the teleport.
And she’d probably be one of the few who’d recognize those forms of names.
Yes
He's actually been quite forthcoming.
I mean, his sisters would be pretty hard too miss
Yeah, about that
I wonde how many modern ponies even know about Celestia and Luna having that second part in their names?
Okay, this feels a little off. After years of dealing with the Crusaders, I'd at least expect Rarity to keep an eye on a foal who thought it was a good idea to traipse into the Everfree. Of course, Sweet may be underestimating just how closely he was being watched.
Heh. About that...
I do feel bad for Honeydew. "How long have you been delusional?" isn't the most helpful question, but she clearly was not prepared for this.
And Sweet finally accepts the reality before him, and that it hasn't accepted him. (Though deploying his sisters' full names really does highlight the disparity between his and theirs. Unless his actual name is something like Ambrosia Dei.) Something tells me Honeydew won't compose a letter to the diarchs any time soon.
11249852
That's true, but that's not the issue here. Twilight's already indicated that she thinks there's something strange about Sweet Sauce beyond him being just lost and orphaned.
In the previous chapter, she said that she wanted to have a chat with him about his knowledge of necromancy. There was no follow-up to that train of thought in this chapter; not even a throwaway line to indicate that Twilight had either found a way to rationalise his behaviour or gotten distracted by something else. 'Idiotic' might be too strong a word for Twilight's actions, but I can't really blame people for feeling a bit put off by her inaction. It feels like we skipped an important plot point.
It also doesn't help that Sweet Sauce is oddly half-arseing his attempts to explain his situation. He's obviously not trying to hide the fact that he's more than a mere foal, but he's also not going further than making vague, sassy remarks that can easily be misdiagnosed as 'problem child' rather than magical prodigy. Spouting magical theory too advanced for any foal to casually pick up probably would've gotten Twilight's attention, possibly to the point where she couldn't just dismiss him as some foal with an overactive imagination.
But instead of seizing the opportunity with Twilight, he's content to be unhelpful and/or unresponsive in her presence. It's only once she's passed him to someone else (a pegasus who probably lacks the background necessary to verify his knowledge) that he finally opens up. It's almost like the story's bending over backwards to try to keep the misunderstanding going, just to keep him in Ponyville where the plot is supposed to happen.
Admittedly, I could be misreading the whole situation and where the plot is going (wouldn't be the first time), but these are the main reasons why I think people are a little confused or annoyed by Twilight's behaviour.
11250614
I pretty much think that this whole situation is presented from the view of the unreliable narrator here known as sweet sauce. Because from what we know using the show as character witness just ignoring him like that is in no way something rarity and twilight would do.
So I advocate withholding judgement until more is revealed to pass sentence upon the accused twilight sparkle and rarity bell.
signed by
----RELICZEXIDE
Fun, thought I wonder if we will visit his early days in Pre-Questria era and how he arrived there back them. From the sound of it he also arrived there as a unicorn foal and what indoctrinated pretty heavily in the prejudices to the other tribes and eventually gave in, despite originally coming from human modern values. I wonder what is the relationship with Celestia and Luna?
There was a very sneaky line in the first chapter about Sweet Sauce not feeling wings on his side when feeling out his body. I think that his crime was turning himself into an Alicorn like his sisters through illegitimate means, such as stealing the magic of a pegasus and an earth pony.
Regardless, it seems pretty messed up that Celestia and Luna were princesses ruling over the nation and they apparently had their brother working for them as a lowly chef.
Now I wonder if this is going to go the rout every single other story takes where no one believes him, or if this one will be different and they actually send the message to the sisters.
On that note, if this does go down the "No one believes him rout" I hope the Author does something different with it. Like making him actually powerful or unusually competent. It would be nice to see a story of "No one believes the foal" where the foal takes down the hydra into a smoking mass in front of the stunned town. You know, something different. This does have the makings for that. He has a group of competent friends that could be built into a support force, perhaps to help him build his armor, or power gems, and be used as a sort of actual staff, much like how the sisters have Raven inkwell for a secretary. After all, Twist is a competent candy maker, button mash is a competent remote control/ drone pilot/gamer. Foals in equestria can be a force in and of themselves just based on their talents alone.
As for the complaints on Twilight, Thats really not to big a deal. I just want to see the story do something different from the typical and the way this is set up, there are tons of options for this to be a really fun ride
Monk
"I could kiss this guy right now, but I should probably not, I doubt these guys are Italian." -Dadecious
You know for a magical prodigy or atleast someone with knowledge of lost magics I'm surprised he hasn't shown anyone what he can do. Heck since equestria is more magic filled why not go the ritual incantation route and show he knows rather than being ignored. At the minimum casting magic as an earthpony should show he isn't a delusional foal.
11248890
My first advice to anyone thinking about an idea is always to write it themselves. But if they come to me with something they're struggling to get onto the page, I'd not turn it down. I think Boopy is just writing so many stories it's hard for her to get to all her ideas.