A Journey

by Bronythegreat

prior exchanges

9 hours prior to the events of chapter 3

Apollo awoke with from a cold sleep with a pounding in his chest… and his head. He was very warm, and was laying on something quite soft, and pink. And warm and… alive!!! Piper snorted in her sleep. Apollo jumped off her as fast as possible, allowing her chest to fill with air more fully. He sighed, and using the bit of magic that had regenerated while he slept, he levitated her up the stairs. Sweating from only this small exhaust of magic, he realized he needed a rest. Holding Piper in midair, he slumped down on the step he resided on. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he trekked once more up the seemingly endless case of stairs. When he rested, a small bit of the cloth from Pipers dress became undone. The scum-soaked rag that was once a beautiful dress, now un-furled itself, revealing her cutie mark for him. He stared at the strange weapon-based insignia, and then coming to his senses, blushed furiously. Normally, staring at her flank would have been more-or-less fine, usually they were naked anyway. But the fact that she was in fact wearing a dress made him feel as if he was 'peeking' at her, and felt that it was wrong. After putting her in his room, he realized what was happening.

“Quick recap,” he told himself. “So, number one, alicorn mare named Piper, mysteriously teleports onto a battle field, with no recognition of who she is. Number 2, he helped her a great deal, and they were even attacked by changelings in a seemingly secret tunnel. Three. She was in her bed upstairs right now, she has an odd cutie mark, she was extremely cute, and she had a nice flank.” He tried to shake the last two things from his head at once. He could not become romantically involved with this mare; he didn't even know who she was. “Four. He resumed his recap. “She is a very important pony. That much was certain. Why else would queen chrysalis want her as bad as to send her troops directly at her? He needed to find out more about this mare. Only one pony could help him do that. Princess Luna. Being the princess of the night, and governor of dreams, she had to know something about her.

He pulled out his quill and paper, and went to work writing a letter. He normally would have Spike do this, but as far as he knew Spike was having lunch with Rarity. Or was it dinner? Not that it mattered; he wasn't here now, and that’s all he needed to know. He levitated his quill to his face, dipped it in ink, and began to write.
Dear Princess Luna. I have come into contact with an alicorn mare, and I fear that she is one of the royal families. As far as we know, her name is Piper. She is pink; and has a very odd, weapon-themed cutie mark. We don’t know anything else about her, as she appears to have some form of collective amnesia. If you know anything, please send word at once.
I await your quick response, your friend and worshiper,

Apollo Sparkle.

“There.” he said to himself “All done.” he neatly folded up the letter, and called to his bird companion.

“Syracuse” he yelled, his voice echoing through the building. A piercing caw greeted him as his bird-friend swooped down from a banister, and landed on Apollo’s shoulder.

“Send this to Princess Luna.” He paused, and seeing the bird roll its eyes added “Please.” With a caw, Syracuse hopped off his shoulder onto the table, looked at the letter, and gave a stare so violent, that it could rival Fluttershy's. Following this intense stare, the bird shrieked in the letters direction, which caused blue and black sound waves to emanate from its beak. They washed over the note, and in a puff of smoke, not unlike Luna’s mane, it vanished.

“Good boy” he said, “you deserve a treat” he said as he pulled a jar “Gryphus’ best fish eyes.” He threw it up into the air, and Syracuse promptly caught it, returning down to his master, munching happily, yet disgustingly, on the treat. They were only available in the griffin domain of Gryphus, so they were rare for him to have around. He walked upstairs, periodically to check on Piper, before having a fifth realization. He had no weapons, except his bow. All his arrows were spent, and all his beautiful, hand-crafted knives were either broken or used. He groaned. Making weapons was always a tedious task, usually getting him burnt from his forge or sparks. Last time, he nearly crushed his own hoof with an n anvil, and the time before that, well, He didn't think Syracuse would ever forgive him for that. Cringing at the memory, he pushed the thought out of his head. He had worked to do. He walked into a massive circular room, with a large table in the middle. He walked over to the carved head on the table, and flipped it up wards, revealing a small brownish-red button. He pressed said button, and heard a click behind him. The small trap door opened, and he went down to his locker to get some raw building materials. Levitating at least a half ton of iron and steel, as well as firewood up the stairs, he brought it into a room adjacent to the circular one. Placing the materials down, he set to work. After about three hours of working, ha had managed to create eighty-seven arrows, and six knifes. He was now out of materials, and he still had around thirty arrows to build, as well as six more knifes for his belt. Sighing, he walked back down the wooden secret steps, preparing his magic for some heavy lifting. As his store of raw materials came into view, he enveloped them all in a purple aura, and began lifting the objects. This was a strenuous task, and many people didn't know it, but lifting things with magic was hard. It feels as if your on steroids, not as if the objects are weightless, just as if you are stronger. It still feels as if you are lifting the object, not magic. He began moving his materials up the stairs again, when something caught his eye. A small, jewel studded ceramic box. Curious, Apollo, dropped his objects, and walked over to the box. He tried to undo the latch, but found it locked. Closing his eyes, Apollo concentrated. He concentrated on how the lock looked, the inner mechanisms, and how it would look when the tumblers fell into place. With an audible “click” the latch undid itself, and the case popped open. Inside, he found an oval shaped purple, um… thing. He had no idea what he was looking at, and he wanted to touch it. Gingerly, he picked it up in his hooves, and ran one along the side of it, and shrieked. His bloods covering the oval, making it turn scarlet. The odd purple now scarlet oval had cut him. He dressed his wound and returned to the thing. He cleaned his blood off it, and picked it up to examine it further. He levitated it up the stairs, where at the top of said stairs, he found a picture. The picture was of his mother, and her friends. Aunt Rarity and Aunt Applejack were sitting next to each other, jostling each other about playfully, with huge smiles on their faces. Aunt Dash was flying overhead, with an expression so clearly of laughter, that he could almost hear it. Twilight and Aunt Fluttershy were standing next to each other, smiling lightly. He noticed, after further investigating the picture, that Rarity’s horn was charged. After further examining the picture, he saw that she was levitating the purple oval. So it had belonged to Rarity. The setting was a clearing, with a very large lake in the background. The sun was setting, which beautifully illuminated the boats in the background. At least they looked like boats, but upon EVEN FURTHER an investigation, he found that it was actually one very large body, which went in and out of the water. It was purple, the same shade as the oval-thing, and it had a face. And a mustache. And a mane. He nearly overlooked the fact that the mustache was half purple. Nearly. The other half was dirty blonde, the same as the creatures mane. It was only then that he realized what he was looking at. He mentally slapped himself for not realizing sooner. It was a scale, and the creature in the back ground was a sea monster. That explain why it was so sharp, and why it felt light as air. He stared at the purple, shiny, almost reflective surface. He saw his barely visible reflection, and gasped. He hadn’t even realized it, but he was filthy. He was grime caked, and now that he thought about it, smelled worse than Fluttershy's animal’s bathroom. He ran up the stairs, and realized that piper was filthy to, and she was in his bed. Not that he cared; he could clean it later, but that he had left that rag of a dress on her. He ran up to his room, to find her in R.E.M, pupils moving around at a rapid pace, and a small moan escaped her lips. He blushed, and closed his eyes. He levitated her into the air and undressed her, with eyes still closed. After the deed was done, he placed her back into the bed. He went up further still, to go and shower. While in the shower, he thought and reflected on his life. I mean, what else are you going to do in the shower, right? In this act of thought, he realized the potential of the scale. With a sudden burst of thought, he turned off the shower and ran down stairs, still dripping wet, but not caring. He could clean up later. He grabbed the scale with his levitating aura, and ran it to his workshop. He ran over to the grinding wheel, and placed the scale against it, hoping that he would be able to carve it into a suitable dagger. He pushed the scale against the wheel, and turned it on. There was grounding all right, but not of the scale. The wheel itself was being ground down, and it was getting smaller, and the scale was not. Once the wheel was reduced to a small pile of pebbles, he gave up, and the scale didn't even have a dent in it. He moved on, and on, and on, until every tool in the shop was reduced to a similar state of the grinding wheel. All except his machine which he used to make daggers, but that one was far too valuable to risk braking. He was about to give up, when he remembered his sun forge. As of writing this there are currently seven sun forges in existence. The sun forges were portals that opened up on the direct surface of the sun. They were enchanted so that when opened, they would not ignite the very oxygen of the planet, thus destroying all life as we know it. That would be about 5,778 degrees Kelvin. He only possesses one because when Celestia found out that he was a builder, after all of the favors from his mother, it was given to him as a gift. He put on his special equipment, and entered the room the forge resided on. He picked up some heat-proof magical tongs and dipped the scale into the fire. Instantly, it melted into a purple, burning gelatinous blob. He quickly moved the melted scale to a dagger mold, and it froze almost instantly. However, just because it hardened, does not mean that it was not hot. Oh no, scales had a very high melting and burning rate, and he knew that it was still around 4000,000,000 degrees Celsius, so didn't touch it. Instead, he levitated it to his Lunar cooler, which was given to him by his celebrity crush, and friend princess Luna. The cooler came with the forge when it was given to him, and when opened, it released the temperature of the freezing vacuum of space onto whatever object was placed inside. When he placed his newly forged knife inside it, it sizzled and went cold. He removed it from the cold and examined his handiwork. It was still razor sharp, which meant he didn't need to ruin his sharpener to. He turned around, and slashed at a column. The column was cut in half, right where he had hit it. At first, he thought he had, missed, but upon further examination, he found a very, very fine cut, followed by the wood sliding off each other. He went to work, adding to the dagger, giving it a leather handle and an oiled sheath case for her belt. He was just praising his handiwork, when he heard a screech. He turned to see that it was Syracuse and he was holding a letter. It was from Princess Luna! Wrapping it in magic, he pulled it away from Syracuse, nearly tearing it in half from opening it so fast. The letter read:

Dear Apollo Sparkle, it is good to hear from you my old friend, but as I’m sure you know, the castle is under siege, and this letter must be quick. Though we recognize you alicorn friend’s description, I can’t say that we know her name to be Piper. Check her memories, if there is one of her birth that could be quite helpful. This problem perplexes me, and I feel that we should inform the other Princesses on this matter. As of right now, Princess Cadence is a prisoner of war, and shining armor is doing all he can to keep the changeling army back. I fear for my life and if I never see you again, it was good to send a final letter to you. Somepony who might know the mare in question lives in Gryphus, by the name of Talon. I amend my previous statement to inform you that he is in fact a griffon, not a pony; you can find him in gryt—

The letter ended there. The rest of it was burned off.

“Oh Luna, why are these things never clear. Couldn't I get a straight location, for once?” He groaned. “I may not even have to go, I mean, maybe she has no memory of her birth, making it impossible for her to be of any value, let alone a princess.” He trekked back up the stairs wholeheartedly, wondering what to do. He returned to what was left of his sharpener, resuming his weapon building. He heard a creak behind him, and turned to see Piper. It was time to know once and for all.

Author's Note:

sorry for the long delay, but as you can see i think it payed off. the coming chapters will be more intenese, I promise, these first few re just getting-tknow the characted type chapters, the cool stuff is on its way. thanks for reading, and be sure to like it up.
~BtG