Chapter Four: With The Help Of The Sun
It always seems impossible until it's done
-Nelson Mandela
Anon sighed, the quill dancing above the cheap paper of her journal in uncertainty. The only thing that seemed impossible to do was the usage of the damn thing.
Should have asked for my pen, too.
She willed the green aura enveloping the quill to move. Beads of sweat formed on her brow.
I got stabbed by a tree.
Again.
Ink stained the paper in an unsightly blotch. It had been far too long since using a quill, and she had never been any good with them in the first place. Add the unfamiliar magic to the mix and the result was basically unreadable.
Contacted the locals, got medical attention. Wounds are healing nicely. The locals made no overly hostile move yet - probably have them fooled. But they confiscated my stuff. Will look into getting it back.
The filly frowned. The quill made for incredibly inefficient writing, the little text she wrote already filling half the page.
Tired now, going to sleep.
End of day 1129ish. Signing out and see you soon.
Finding a comfortable position in bed as a quadruped was a bit of a novel challenge for the jumper, made even more difficult by one of her front legs being injured. She found out that laying on her side wasn't comfortable, and she hated sleeping on her back.
It took twenty minutes of fidgeting, turning and throwing off the blanket twice before she found an agreeable position. She copied the way her dog used to sleep, on her belly, with her tail tucked by her side and her healthy leg under her head.
Then something tickled her nose.
What the- Oh, that's just my tail. Note to self…*Yawn* shorten… your… tail…
Before she finished the thought, she had already drifted off to sleep.
"Good morning Anon."
Anon blinked groggily. Did she really fall asleep so fast? That was incredibly concerning. The combination of her injuries, being in a child's body, and good old exhaustion must have gotten to her more than she expected.
Nurse Red Heart entered the room and opened the curtains. The bright light causing Anon to hiss at the belligerent sun, eliciting a chuckle from the nurse.
Curse you, you overrated ball of plasma!
"Morning," she said tiredly, wiping the last remnants of sleep from her eyes.
"My-my, somepony is not an early riser," the nurse chirped cheerfully. "Did you sleep well, sweetie?"
"Better than well." She fought to suppress a yawn. "Best sleep I've had in years."
The mare smiled. "That's good to hear. I brought you breakfast."
Red Heart grabbed a tray with her mouth, balancing a glass of juice and a bowl of oats on it. The filly smelled it suspiciously.
No poison, but they added something to the juice. More dietary supplements is my guess. Well, that's the price you pay for living solely on magic for three weeks.
The nurse frowned a little at that. "I know foals don't like to eat their oats much. You don't need to eat it all, but-"
With a blur of green and a loud slurping noise, the bowl was cleaned of its contents. The filly licking her lips.
"Nevermind."
Anon gave a content burp. "Sorry."
She giggled. "You certainly have quite the appetite. I think not even Pinkie would manage to eat so quickly."
"Who?"
She waved her hoof. "Somepony I have a feeling you are going to meet soon."
Anon shrugged. As ominous as the statement was, what kind of damage could someone named Pinkie do?
She felt a shiver go down her spine.
What the hell was that?
"But first you need a bath, young lady. You will feel right as rain before you know it."
Bath wouldn't hurt. She took a quick dip in the spring near the ruined castle, but the prospect of a real bath, warm water and all, was nearly better than the food. "That would be great, thank you."
Red Heart smiled, relieved. For a moment she thought she would have to wrestle the filly into taking a bath, like she sometimes had to with younger foals.
"But I need to use the toilet first, if that's okay."
Anon climbed out of the bed before Red Heart got the chance to react, the filly still quite agile despite the injured leg.
The nurse led her to the tiled room, the sign on the doors singing to her the forbidden song of indoor plumbing and soft toilet paper.
Finally, after all these years!
"Do you want any help?" said the nurse, catching the filly staring at the doors labeled with some strange pictograms and a silhouette of a mare drawn on them.
Inner peace.
"Nope."
Her business done, she limped back to the nurse, who meanwhile had drawn a bath for her, including a copious amount of bubbles and a rubber ducky.
Anon was about to get in, when she stopped, remembering the bandages around her barrel and leg.
"Don't worry about those, the bandages are enchanted," the nurse reassured her, noticing her distress.
Anon raised an eyebrow. Waterproof bandages didn't sound like something that would, well, work as a bandage.
It's magic, and magic does as magic wants. No reason to question it, she reasoned in the end.
The filly hesitated for a moment, feeling the gaze of the kind white mare boring into her back.
It wasn't embarrassment holding her back. The only item of clothing she could reliably carry across worlds was her jacket. And she had done things far more embarrassing than being bathed. She did teleport butt-naked into public places on a basically biweekly basis. At this point she had stolen more pants than she had ever owned before she started jumping.
The room had no other exits than the doors. There were no escape routes. She felt trapped.
That, of course, was utter nonsense.
I can phase through solid objects. No chains can hold me, no wall can contain me. Breathe, calm down, and stop acting stupid!
With some trepidation, she stepped in. The feeling of hot water soaking her fur was heavenly. After a while, she closed her eyes and simply relaxed as Red Heart took upon herself to scrub all the gunk and filth from the foal's coat.
"I'm going to help you get all the dirt from your fur, okay?"
"Mhm," was the only answer she got from the filly. Hearing no further protests, she started to work, the clean water of the bath turning brown. The nurse had to be careful around the filly's back, not wanting to disturb… those.
Red Heart felt her heart sink. She had read the report, but seeing them was an entirely different experience. A deep, furious scowl wormed its way onto the nurse's muzzle. Her hoof shook a little, pulling some hairs.
"Ouch, careful."
"Sorry."
There were so many of them. Criss-crossing over each other in an ugly pattern, hidden by the green coat, and only revealed now that the fur was wet.
Scars.
Red Heart was at a loss. What was she supposed to do?! She wasn't trained for this! These things weren't supposed to happen! Not in Equestria! She knew nothing about dealing with this kind of trauma. She was just a nurse, for Celestia's sake!
But she had to do something.
"Anon… you know we will not let anypony hurt you, do you?"
Anon was caught off guard, shooting the nurse a questioning look. Did she do something wrong?
"Sure?"
Where did that come from?
"Come now, let's get you dried off."
After being enveloped in a snug cocoon of towels and having her mane brushed so she no longer looked like she survived a hurricane and carried the consequences, Anon let out a sigh of relief.
The village outside the hospital window was strangely familiar. The view looked as if someone took it straight from a postcard. Pretty, well-cared-for rustic houses with straw roofs and many colorful banners hanging out of their windows, with the locals frolicking around without a care in the world.
A sense of déjà vu struck her. This… she saw this village before. Just not like this, not so lively.
"Can I ask, what are all those banners for?"
"Those?" the nurse pointed. "Those are for the Summer Sun Celebration. To think our small town would have the chance to hold it, much less the- "
"Thousandth," Anon interrupted.
She felt her blood run cold. Dread gripped its icy fingers around her. If she was right, then the locals discovering her true identity would be the least of her worries.
This wasn't a parallel world to the three others she had visited, it wasn't just another branch on the world tree.
This was the root. The origin from which more realities would split. Worlds consumed by fire, by madness, and by the dark. Her hoof reached her bandaged chest, the burns underneath making themself known.
"What?"
Red Heart was confused, the filly's demeanor changed in a snap. From the mostly emotionless expression and the way her eyes kept moving, like she was trying to watch the entire room at the same time, to now, as if she had shut off everything around her, standing in place and staring into nothing.
"This is the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration," Anon said in a daze
It wasn't a question, but a statement. It explained everything. Why this world was still alive, why the village looked so familiar.
This was before the end.
"Yes? Why… were you going to the Celebration and got lost?"
She didn't listen, gaze glued to the outside. All of this, the whole village. All these people…
No.
There was still time to prepare, to warn Her. She could be the difference, for once. Maybe even save some of them…
"Listen, I need to get to talk to the-"
A noise got her attention.
Somebody was walking through the hall. She heard the telltale sound of metal plates scraping against each other, the faint smell of oil reached her nostrils.
Armored, plate armor by the sound. Four of them by the footsteps. Soldiers.
She nearly face-palmed.
They are horses, idiot. Four legs. There are only two of them.
There could be some benign reason for armored personnel to visit her. Maybe it was the local police force, and they were only here to investigate the sudden appearance of a lost child…
But she knew that was a lie.
Discovered me too fast. My powers are not at their optimal.
She was on the second floor, with two potential escape routes viable without the use of her powers.
This still can be used to my advantage. I have to warn them.
I need to speak to Celestia.
"Steel, do we really have to do this?"
Stalwart Shield stood before the doors, idly checking the device to see if they truly had the right location. But for once, the ponies at S.M.I.L.E. had done their job correctly and given them the right intel.
He just wished they hadn't.
"It's just a foal. I signed up for the guard to beat up bad guys, not to arrest hospitalized foals!"
His partner for the mission sighed and gave him a pat on the back. "I don't like it either, but orders are orders. Besides, we saw what kind of magical artifacts they had on them. This isn't a normal foal we're dealing with."
Stalwart's shoulders sagged. The guard was still unsure about the entire operation. It was all too sudden. A coded message for the nearest Royal Guards to secure anomalous items in Ponyville, only to discover that the primary source of the disruption was a mysterious lost foal found on a farm at the edge of town? It painted a bad picture in his head.
The Royal Guard mandatory reading material for the situation (Peering Behind the Veil: Extra-Dimensional Breaches for Dummies, First Edition) always specified that any items or beings from behind the veil were alien, dangerous and unpredictable. But this wasn't some many-tentacled beast, eating ponies whole. And the items in question didn't seem dangerous or alien, just kind of weird.
One of them was a spoon. A spoon! Spoon that could change shape into a fork, yes, but otherwise just a spoon. Nothing madness-inducing about that.
Except, maybe, if it ever got stuck as a hybrid between the two. Those always made him kind of mad.
"What if this is just some giant misunderstanding, Steel? I don't want to traumatize a little foal over nothing."
Steel Wind, the more experienced of the pair, was a stallion who ended up as guard through a freak incident of mistaken identity, booze and accidentally walking into the recruitment office instead of the pub next door. Never wanting to be noticed, he only hoped to be like wallpaper: something you know is there, but feel no need to talk to.
Unfortunately for him, Stalwart Shield was exactly the kind of pony to talk to wallpaper.
"Calm down. You're acting like we're going to throw them into the dungeon or something. We're just going to deliver them for questioning, the rest is for the Princess to decide."
The younger guard scratched the back of his head nervously. "I still don't know, it just seems… scummy, y'know?"
"Think of it this way, rookie. If they truly are what they claim to be, then all we are doing is bringing a little filly to have a personal audience with the Princess! That's a thing on the bucket list right there."
Stalwart smiled. Looking at it that way, it didn't seem that bad. He could live with that. But a question remained.
"Steel."
The older guard stopped, hoof lifted to knock on the hospital room's doors.
"Yeah rookie?"
"What's a bucket list?"
Steel wind opened his mouth, then he closed it again, the younger guardsman staring at him with his big teal eyes.
"It's eh, it's… An ancient griffon saying! Yes! Must be connected to how much griffons like buckets."
Stalwart Shield tilted his head. "They do?"
Steel shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe. Now focus on the mission, rookie."
"Sir! Yes sir!"
"Two things, Stalwart. Don't salute in the field. And we are the same rank, dumbass."
Anon listened from behind the doors, an increasingly puzzled look on her face.
This is either a brilliant strategy, made specifically to lower my guard, or I severely overestimated the threat these horse soldiers posed. And at this point, I don't know which one would be worse.
"Anon, what are you doing?"
"Somebody is at the door."
Before the nurse had a chance to contemplate the odd word choice, the knock of an armored hoof against the flimsy doors
"Who is it?" asked Red Heart. Silence filled the room for a few awkward seconds. A suspiciously fake cough and some whispering came from the hallway.
"Wait, that was my cue? Ehm, this is the Royal Guard!"
More silence.
"Rookie, did you forget the important part?"
"Oh! Would you please open the door? Pretty please?"
A deep, drawn-out sigh of a soldier wondering why they reenlisted reached Anon's ears. "Damn it, rookie. Just open the stupid door."
The door very gently and slowly opened, revealing a smiling, bright-eyed stallion with a vibrant blue coat. His armor shining to perfection, its mirror sheen blinding creatures far and wide, causing three cart crashes and four trip injuries just on their way there.
Next to him was his partner, who looked like death, if death seriously needed a coffee break and suffered from clinical depression. Bags under his eyes, coat matted, and his armor going so long without proper care that it now blended nearly perfectly into the gray of his fur. Each had a pair of wings folded by their sides.
Red Heart regarded the two guards with a questioning look. "Hello sirs-"
"Hi!" chirped Stalwart, earning a poke to the ribs from his exasperated colleague.
"-what brings you here? This is a place of healing. Royal Guards or not, unless you have some very important business here, I will have to ask you to leave the premises."
The gray stallion stepped forward, handing a scroll to the mare. It was covered in what to Anon were unreadable hieroglyphics.
Note to myself, written language did not transfer over.
"I'm Corporal Steel Wind and this is Corporal Stalwart Shield. We are here on official Royal Guard matter, under orders from her highness herself. We are to bring any strange artifact found in the last two days, along with the one who had them in their possession, to Canterlot palace for investigation and questioning."
Nurse Red Heart stomped her front hoof, the mare leaning onto the guards. "Questioning?!" she retorted angrily. "She is a little filly! Not a criminal!"
Stalwarts' ears drooped, and he took a step back. Anon could see why. That mare was scary when she wanted to be!
"Please, miss," the guard began, turning the attention of the outraged nurse to him. "We guarantee her safety. And we're not saying she did anything wrong, we're just gathering information."
"And that gives you the right to take my patient away?"
Steel Wind pushed into the room, earning a growl from Red Heart.
"Her presence here raises questions that must be answered, for the safety of Equestrian citizens. We're just following protocol."
"Buck your protocol! You-"
"It's okay. I'm going." Anon walked between them, trying her best to appear casual.
"What?! B-but-" Red Heart stammered.
The filly shook her head. "No need to fight. I'll take a guess and say you already collected my things."
Both of the guards gave each other a side-long glance. Steel Wind recovered first. "We did."
"But if you want to take anything else with you, I'm sure we can arrange that!" piped out Shield.
Anon shook her head. "Other than my journal, no. The sooner we can go, the sooner this whole thing can be over."
A firm hoof landed on her shoulder and sat her down, the filly recoiled slightly at the touch. Red Heart's eyes darted between the filly and the guards. "Are you absolutely sure, sweetie?" She tried to keep her tone calm and reassuring, but there was no hiding the concern in her voice. "You don't need to listen to them just because they're adults. If you don't want to go, don't."
Anon hesitated, feeling guilty for a moment for fooling the kindly mare. A nagging voice in the back of her brain screaming at the jumper.
This is a terrible idea! Don't you see how convenient it is? Too convenient! A trap, luring you in for the kill! Run you daft bastard!
But she wouldn't run. Not this time. And what good would running even bring her? Hiding in the wilderness, waiting until she could jump to some other world, and forget this place? Leave all these innocent people to their fate?
I may be a coward, but I'm not heartless.
"Yes, I'm sure. And… thank you. For being nice to me."
Red Heart smiled. "Be good out there, Anon."
"I'll try."
The guards stood by the doors, unsure of what to do next. Neither of them had really expected to get this far. Anon broke the awkward silence.
"Well, what are we waiting for? The Princess is waiting!"
For better or worse.
"Wow, you're good at that. You think you could tutor my little brother? He always struggles with his math homework."
They were flying.
Anon tried her best to ignore that fact.
The guards had a chariot, which wasn't that far out of the ordinary, until Anon considered that it was a pegasus-drawn flying chariot. Though the 'flying' part was detabatable. Flying was supposed to be a graceful, coordinated ordeal.
This was more akin to falling in multiple directions at once, including upwards.
She was eternally grateful for whoever had forgotten a book of sudoku-style puzzles in the back seat. While the local language wasn't familiar to Anon, the number system was, allowing her the distraction of devouring puzzle after puzzle and helpinpg her avoid any direct eye contact with the distant ground, which Anon felt had to have some personal vendetta against her.
"Rookie, don't get too buddy-buddy with the extra-dimensional entity."
The chattering of the guards pulling the chariot also didn't give her much extra confidence in their abilities.
"Why? She didn't do anything bad. There's no law forbidding being an extra-dimensional entity."
Steel Wind's retort died off as he thought about it. "Huh, I guess not. It probably never came up in the parliament."
Stalwart nodded along. "Yeah, those fools never do anything practical for us normal folk. Anyway, are you busy on Tuesdays, Anon?"
Anon looked outside the chariot at the clouds speeding by, and at the ground below, threatening the green filly with the unspoken threat of gravity.
"That depends. I might be preoccupied in the near future."
"Preoccupied?" asked the blue-coated guard. "With what?"
"Being dead," she said simply.
"Hey, I know this is all a little scary, and I don't know where you came from." The blue pegasus stallion corrected the course slightly to avoid a cloud. "But the Princess isn't like that. She wouldn't do that, ever! Even if you were secretly evil! Which, I don't think you're, but… just saying."
Steel Wind flinched as he heard the whole frame of the chariot shift and struggle in the wind. Another thing he would have to repair, great. "He's right, y'know. That's not how we do stuff over here."
Anon chuckled, bandaged front hoof close to her chest, to the searing burns there. They might believe it, but they didn't understand the full story, nor the full scale.
Deflect, no need to start an argument now.
"I was talking more about this flying piece of sadness. It can't be safe. I think I saw a few pieces fall off."
"Don't worry, this is a military-grade chariot. Nothing sturdier or more skyworthy." Stalwart reassured her, patting the poor vehicle, leaving him with a piece of railing in his hoof as the brittle wood fell apart. The guard tried to hide it behind his back with a sheepish smile.
An eternal constant across different worlds, no matter how otherwise bizarre. 'Military-grade' always meant the same: Cheap. Mass produced. And held together by duct tape, broken dreams, and the tears of whatever poor sod was charged with keeping it from falling apart.
That poor sod, in this case, being Steel Wind. "You afraid you might fall?" He inquired.
"Nah, but I'm terrified that of the sudden stop at the end of falling."
The flying nightmare of safety regulations, despite all common sense, arrived at its destination, landing on the white marble platform - and it didn't even lose a single wheel. A new record for the flying chariot.
The city of Canterlot was an impressive sight even to the jumper: its countless spires and towers reaching to the sky; the golden roofs of the palace and the exorbitant amount of white marble.
Anon didn't see much of it, sadly, as she was too busy kissing the ground.
"Thank the gods! Safety at last!"
"Hey! My flying isn't that bad," muttered Stalwart, slightly offended.
"At last!"
Steel rolled his eyes and gestured at the filly. "Okay, enough dramatics, the Princess is waiting."
The two guard-ponies led her through the winding corridor of the palace. A feeling of unease settled in her stomach. Maids and workers gave the strange trio looks before continuing on with their business.
You can handle this, you lived through worse, you can do this.
It only took a few minutes, but it felt like eternity had passed before they reached the end of the journey. The entrance was tall and foreboding before the small filly.
This could be it.
Seeing her apparent discomfort, Stalwart Shield offered her few, last words of encouragement as he opened the doors. "Don't worry. Princess Celestia is fair and kind, she wouldn't hurt a fly."
A field of ash, melted stone and sand turned to glass. This world was empty. This world was dead.
"Right..."
"Well, good luck!"
The door opened, and closed quickly behind her, leaving Anon alone in what appeared to be a private study. Bookshelves lined the walls, and a lit fireplace filled the room with warm light. A large desk sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by comfy-looking chairs.
Everything in the room screamed luxury and comfort. From the excellently made stonework, to the worn furniture that had clearly been expertly made and laboriously maintained over decades.
That furniture wasn't old, it was ripe.
She walked towards the fireplace, wondering who would feel the need for a fire in the summer.
Three large windows, plus the doors. The fire seems to be some sort of illusion, so the chimney is another possible escape route.
"The fire is heatless at her highness's wish. Our Majesty thinks that a lit fireplace brings the room together nicely."
A dignified-looking mare in glasses spoke, spooking Anon a fair bit. The filly frantically looked between the mare and the still-closed entrance.
I would swear that nobody was in here when I entered, and I didn't hear the doors move.
"Ehm, greetings. I'm… Anon."
The mare gave a small bow. "Raven Inkwell, personal assistant of Her Radiant Majesty. Pleasure to make an acquaintance."
A chair cushion squeaked as someone large moved in it, the jumper flinching as the magical presence revealed itself. This time she was sure nothing had been there a second before.
Are they… trolling me?
"Thank you Raven, that will be all."
It was Her.
The alicorn looked different from the version she had seen. Gone was the fiery mane, fangs and slitted eyes.
But the gaze remained the same. Unreadable, like if an alicorn was carved from marble. Anon felt like She was weighing, evaluating and judging her very soul, examining every nook and cranny of her heart, every little nick and jagged end left after every ordeal, all laid bare before the ancient being.
Princess Celestia, the bringer of the sun.
But the gaze softened, became something else. From the judgmental god of the old testament, who called down plagues, turned people into pillars of salt and made rivers red with blood, to something caring and motherly. Anon released a breath she didn't notice she was holding.
Whatever Celestia was looking for in her battered, craggy soul, she seemed to find it.
"You are weary." Her voice was calming, almost musical. Just hearing it felt like putting a balm on an old wound that had hurt for so long, you'd forgotten the pain was even there.
"Yeah."
Anon laughed. She had to, otherwise she would cry.
They let the silence be for a few precious moments. There was no need for words. But the respite had to end, like it always did.
"Sit down, please. Do you want tea? Chamomile. It's good for the nerves."
Anon plumped down into the comfy chair. It was too big for her, and she struggled to reach the similarly large table and see the alicorn, only her shaggy black mane and horn reaching over the edge.
"Thanks," she said, the scene eliciting a faint smile from the ancient alicorn. A teapot levitated towards a simple ceramic cup, the alicorn pouring the hot liquid into it with centuries of expertise, before the cup, too, was enveloped in gold and given to Anon.
A box filled with sugar cubes and a pair of silver tongs were offered to the green filly. "Sugar?"
"No sugar, please."
"Nonsense. Foals need their sugar."
Three cubes were lifted and dropped into the hot liquid, not a single drop escaping the cup.
"When I heard the news of a breach in the weave, I expected something… else."
"I get that a lot." Anon shrugged. "Honestly, I also expected a different welcome. You know, at spear-length, with the sharp end pointed at me? Or chains, or some other restraints. Hand, ehm, hoof-cuffs at least. I guess we both surprised each other."
"Indeed."
Enveloped in a golden aura, Anon's possessions floated into view. The jacket, the true spork, and, the infinite bandage, with the magelight orb in the forefront.
Wait, how did she get my stuff here before me? Thinking about it, I don't think I saw the guards carry it with them…
Celestia took the orb into her hoof, the artifact transforming into the shape of a diamond, its color changing until it had the same purple hue of Celestia's eyes.
Matching the one in her tiara perfectly.
"Do you know what this is, my little not-quite-a-pony?"
Anon took a sip of the tea. As she had suspected, it was excellent, if a bit too sweet for her taste.
"It's a special kind of magelight." Anon recited from memory. "Half of a pair of magical artifacts gifted to you and your sister by your birth parents, shortly before their passing. I must say, this tea is fantastic."
The alicorn gave her a courteous nod. "When I saw it, my first thought was that my magelight had somehow been stolen. And I'm still not fully convinced that it wasn't, just in a more roundabout way. This item is very… precious to me, but you seem to know that already. So how did it get to your possession?"
Anon took a deep breath. This would be the hardest part.
Having to remember Her.
"You gave it to me. Well, another you. From somewhere else."
A strange mix of emotions crossed the Princess face in a split second. Surprise, shock, and a third one Anon couldn't place.
"Our meeting, the me you encountered before. Tell me, if what you say is true…" Celestia's voice trailed off. There was a hint of anger in her tone, but not aimed at Anon. Her eyes focused on the bandages around the filly's chest. The hoof-shaped burns at the front and back, their magical signature speaking to the alicorn.
Her magic. Her actions.
"Why? Why did I burn you? What in Faust's name possessed me to do that to you?"
"Daybreaker."
The temperature in the room dropped, and the intense gaze returned, glaring right into her soul, looking for any sign of untruth.
"Your sister returned on the day of the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration. She appeared in the small town of Ponyville… and took away someone very important from you." Celestia's eyes drifted towards the windows, to an astronomy tower standing outside. "You blamed yourself. The rage, the power… you didn't hold anything back."
"Did anypony-"
"No, no-one. Nothing was left."
Anon took another sip. The princess did the same, her cup shaking slightly, just enough for the jumper to notice.
"You are not scared of me." Celestia said. "Not even after what you saw, after what I did. To Equestria, to Equus… to you."
The filly let the nostalgic taste of the tea wash over her, bringing back fond memories from a much simpler time.
"I came to that place, to that reality, the same way I arrived here. As a drifter, an unwelcome quest coming through. A jumper."
She wouldn't cry. That's just how it was, the way things were.
"You… you were lonely. The rage burned and burned until there was nothing left. And after that… there was just a hollow pit of sorrow. Not even bodies left to grieve over."
Breathe, in and out.
The princess extended her wings, the great canopy of snow white feathers hovering above Anon for a moment, trembling slightly before retreating.
"And I just fell right into your… her hooves. The only living thing she'd seen for decades. And she just…"
The princess watched her intently, her features unreadable.
"She let me go."
Anon frowned.
"No, she didn't just let me go, she prepared me, gave me everything she had left. I couldn't survive in that place. Not for long anyway. Daybreaker let me go. I… She could have used me as her ticket out of that hell, free herself from the prison of her own making, but she let me go."
She laughed, a bitter cold laugh. "Do you want to know the only thing she asked of me?" Her gaze drifted downwards, her voice a whisper. " A hug. That was all she wanted - to, for just a moment - stop being alone."
Anon's throat tightened, she gulped the last of the tea down. "She… she isn't lonely anymore."
Green eyes met purple, nothing but raw honesty and barely-held tears filling them.
"I don't fear you, Celestia. Definitely not as much as I should. I saw you at your worst, the most horrible version of you. And you helped me. You… You still had good left in you."
Celestia waited, weighing her words, but Anon was done. The hardest part was said. Now, she just had to deal with the consequences. A great weight was lifted off her shoulders.
"You came here for a reason, you still expected restraints and abuse, yet you came here willingly.
The filly placed the cup back on the table carefully. "I have a message to you. From Daybreaker, just in case I ever met another you," she answered, trying to remember the exact wording, just in case it was important somehow. "Teach your student teleportation properly… that's straight forward I think. The second one is kinda cryptic."
"Cryptic?"
"Check Star Swirl's last mirror."
Princess Celestia's expression drifted slowly, from shame to… sadness. "Tell me, what do you want, young one who lost their name. More than anything."
That was a simple question for Anon. She worked on it for the three past years of her life, the only goal she was left with.
"To return home. It's the journey I'm on. It… it's hard, but It's the only thing I wish for. Seeing home again."
The answer hung in the air, stifling and heavy.
"So, what do you plan to do with me?" Anon asked.
Celestia sighed. "That's the question, isn't it? You are not a danger to my ponies. I see that clearly. Right now, you are a foal. An abandoned filly with no pony who would look out for her." The princess gave Anon a genuine smile. "I offer you a deal. Mutually beneficial one."
A deal?
"Well, speak."
"You will assume the role of an adopted filly in the town of Ponyville. I even have the ideal pair of parents already picked. Keep your true identity secret of course."
Anon's mind raced, as much as she didn't like the idea of having to fool some strangers into caring for her by lying and having to pretend to be another age, it would allow her to heal from all her injuries and preferably fully charge her powers. And she could always get away if things got bad.
"Okay, where's the catch?"
"There are five very special mares in that town, with a sixth joining them soon. Keep. Them. Safe."
Anon stared at the alicorn, her expression speaking for itself.
It said: Dafuq?
"You want me, while stuck as a literal child, to become a secret bodyguard?!"
Celestia smirked. "Isn't it genius? Nopony would ever suspect that."
"Of course no one would suspect that, because it's stupid!"
The now full-on grin on the princess' face did not falter at that little remark. "You will have to keep it discreet. Those five mares hold the secret to a better ending for us all. But one cannot force fate, just… nudge it along."
"And how the fuck im I supposed to do that?"
Celestia waved her wing.
"Use your powers, I'm sure that somepony with the ability to stop time and manipulate gravity will find a way."
"How do you even-" she stopped herself. This was Celestia after all. She had her methods.
This is insanity! Celestia should gather all available forces to defend against Nightmare Moon, not do whatever this is!
But this… plan also afforded her quite the opportunity.
Nightmare will appear in Ponyville first…
Anon made a plan, a plan insane enough that it might actually work.
"I accept, but first. If I'm to infiltrate your society. It would be good to know something about it."
The princess nodded. "That's reasonable. What would you want to know first?"
"Okay, for starters, what's with the bum tattoos?"
"Was that wise a move your highness?" Raven asked in the privacy of the Princess study. Their new asset is already on the train to Ponyville with her newly forged false identity in hoof.
It turns out that when you are the head of the government, forging documents is very easy.
Celestia sat by her table, reviewing papers, plans and schemes. Everything has been set to motion.
"She spoke the truth, Raven. She didn't even attempt to lie. Anon has no ill intention against Equestria or its citizens. And with what I gleaned from her soul… she deserves a break Raven. To be happy."
"And what off her warnings?"
Celestia put down her quill. "That's not how dimension hopping works. The existence of those other realities has no bearing on how probable are the possibilities in them to occur. The chance our plan fails remains the same, only now the price of failure was fully revealed."
The seneschal raised an eyebrow. "If that's so your highness, then why have you spent the last several hours changing your daily schedule to include Lady Twilight's advanced teleportation lessons? Or requesting to have the ex-captain of the guard brought back from retirement to give your student private PE lessons, which are definitely not in any way poorly disguised training regimens?"
The princess gave the gray mare a sheepish smile. "It pays to be careful."
"You say that, your majesty," the seneschal said. "And yet you are leaving an extra dimension entity roam free without supervision."
This time, Celestia chuckled. "I said nothing about not keeping an eye out for her, did I? Be so kind and prepare the transmission array. Agent Sweetie Drops just got a new assignment."
"I'm sure she and her… Honey Bunny will relish the chance."
"And be our guest's new adopted family."
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Such a small amount of chapters and im already loving this. I cant wait for more!
OOOOOOOOO
I've already fell in love with this story and when I saw this getting a chapter I basically squealed! I love how much depth you've put upon Anon, how you portray his pain and slight remainders of near death situations as small details for us, the viewers, to catch. You make Anon consistent whilst allow comedy to surface in a natural way without making it overtly covering the horrors that a traveler as Anon has seen.
TLDR; You did great! Gold star with some cookies and milk!
I very much enjoyed this chapter thoroughly and will continue to read the amazing chapters that lie ahead.
That went better than I expected lol
Let’s go!!!
The bit with Daybreaker still being Celestia enough to feel remorse over a field of ashes, and try and help Anon was not what I expected from the previous glimpses of that world, but damn does that one work incredibly well.
Hats off on that one.
The guards' behavior is... a little nonchalant.
Is 'Weird Shit'TM happening that often in Equestria that an extradimensional entity gets such an easy treatment off the bat, or just ponies' easy-going nature?
Celestia comes off... pretty okay, actually.
It doesn't seem neither overtly character-bashing scheming "Lines and Webs"-type, nor taking her for a demented goof, like some stories do.
Obviously powerful and with centuries of experience, if not without faults still.
...I am not sure if making her seem hyper-competent and knowing ahead what the Anon is capable of is that good of a thing, though.
Anon's weird-ass abilities lose some of the impact of clashing with other ponies' expectations that way.
All in all, I do feel it was a good chapter.
Love it. No four chapter long cliffhanger, just straight to it. 10/10 content.
Oh, Sweetie and Lyra are in for it... and Anon is going to scar them for life.
Yeah, I thought that was a good portrayal of Celestia.
Staying with Lyra and Bon-Bon. I wonder what alias Celestia gave her.
)
(Also, if you're the head of the government, is any document you create really forged?
Pinkie Pie: "Soooooo, that's a hold on the 'Welcome to our Universe Party?'"
11353343
With Celestia, what I wanted to imply was not some hyper competency, but that she had some previous experience with dimension hopping and jumpers.
The guards well...
Bit of column A, a bit of column B. Take into account that the only thing they have to deal with are wild monsters and some weird magical accidents and they simply don't have the experience in how to deal with a situation like that. Which worked in their favor this once. It was put there mostly for contrast and a bit of comedic relief before the heavy stuff and I think it worked well enough.
It's a major theme of the story that the easy going nature of ponies may just be what Anon needs in her life so this also helps to reinforce it and show it in practice.
11353713
*Looks over notes*
... eh...ah...
Buck.
It's wasn't intentional. It's wasn't planned, but honestly, I can't argue against that assessment. It is kinda similar set-up. (Well, except assassin Lyra, that goes against the themes of the story)
As a sailor, I cannot argue against this claim.
(Hmmm... I hope that Anon and Sweetie and Lyra get the chance to be a real family... that would be cute. I can't help but feel that Sweetie's work would get in the way of that though, knowing what Anon is.)
11353384
And usually paid way to much for to begin with
... You have my attention. Continue...
.. please? :P
Lyra: Bonnie? Why did you buy a whole stock of aspirin to our house? You don't plan to use it on your candy, do you?
Shouldn't this sentence be "Hey! My flying is not that bad." ?
Well now things are getting very interesting.
What are the PE lessons going to do in the few days left till the Summer Sun Celebration? Unless Celestia has a secret Hyperbolic Time Chamber laying around, the only good it'll do is make Twilight sore before hand. The teleportation lessons would be more inline with the show though, as it looks like Twilight was just getting the hang of it before her standoff against Ninghtmare Moon.
Spy X Family. But with lesbian horses and genderswap naked lolita unicorn thing.
11353713
Lyra would have to be an assassin for that.
11353446
Army life for me
Eight hundred bit toilet seats
Cheap bit butt paper
Really looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Whew this was semi intense....holy cow.....straight talk with Celly...that was a surprise....and Filly bodyguard for Main 6? Oh the reactions when that truth comes out!!
I for once actually feel sad about a mlp villain.
That shit is rough, plus daybreaker is still an immortal alicorn so she will never die. A hug is all she wanted and that makes me hurt a little on the inside.
Nice
Actually Really Liking This.
11353987
Anon implies she killed herself.
11353648
Maybe it's just for the improved reaction and being able to act under pressure.
PE doesn't have to be just muscle training, something like dodgeball would train these things.
The TRUE spork is the best idea ever
11354258
While true that her reaction time could be what is being improved, the same point still stands. It would take longer then a few days to improve someones reaction time to any sort of beneficial level. The only way I can see this PE making any kind of improvement in the allotted time frame would being a more magical based PE. Make Twilight's special talent work for them in this instance.
Nice story so far. Maybe it's just me but I'm having a little trouble visually separating the internal thoughts (') from the dialogue ("). I usually see italics used for thoughts like that.
Also some corrections:
a wise move
unwelcome guest coming
what of her
11354589
Thanks.
This is exactly the reason why I started looking for a proofreader. Doesn't matter how many times I read it myself, I always miss something.
11354444
It sound good, just be careful...
11354253
Bro...
img.ifunny.co/images/1ea79b1230a935aa40a9eafceb9386cc3b3b2d4dbd8cde0eac87b01d6c336fe4_1.webp
I do have to wonder if they're actually going to play nice with Anon or of its just using them. And if they intend to just steal and keep all of their stuff.
And something I was wondering, even though Anon has been turned into a filly, are they a guy or girl? It's unclear what they were before other than human.
This is so damn interesting, I'm pleasantly surprised. *waiting for new chapters*
11354589
I agree, I think using italics to represent thoughts or italics plus quotes would make for some better formatting.
This was a very interesting chapter. Thoroughly enjoyed it. From the care and concern of Red Heart to the interplay of the guards and the interaction between Anon and Celestia it was entertaining to say the least. Yes I like chess master Celestia, so yeah. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
just found out about this chapter i love it though
Yes a lyra and bonbon parent story one of my favorite story thank u
Wait, this just came to me. If Anon has such an abilities, how comes she had such a hard time dealing with Timberwolves? Those abilities are so OP.
11356663
Well, she was already exhausted from nearly a month of unending struggles in nightmarish (hah) versions of Equestria. Her powers were not at their high, not to mention that timberwolves are uniquely suited to counter her in a way. She could break them apart fairly easily, but had nothing to deal with them permanently and prevent them from reforming.
11353777
Her lastname is heartstring. A good name for assassin's clan.
Just started on this and glad I got around to it. Very good so far, looking forward to your next chapter!
What could possibly go wrong? Oh, right. It's Ponyville.
Hmm, I Wonder why Trollestia used Wallflower spell on herself and Raven
11359994
A whole lot.
questioning
This guy watched top gear.
The feels from this little scene.
And tonal whiplash. But the good kind!
