Twilight and her friends find themselves in an alternate universe supiciously similar to their own.
The elements of harmony wake up scattered across a mysterious island. They soon find that it is inhabited by an enigmatic society with their own set of elemental protectors, and despite their best attempts to regroup and search out a way to return home, they find themselves increasingly involved in the problems of their benefactors. As a familiar darkness encroaches and astonishing parallels between the worlds are brought to the fore, escape seems less and less likely...
Episode 1: Strange Mares in a Strange Place (part 1)
Chapter 1: Arrival
Rainbow Dash stared at the volcano. It towered over her, looking both incredibly close and impossibly far away. If Twilight was here, she’d probably say something about ‘optical illusions’ or some other stupid egghead mumbo-jumbo like that. Whatever the purple unicorn might have said, though, it didn’t change the fact that Rainbow Dash had never seen a volcano in person before, and had no intention of passing up the chance now. It was more interesting than the telescope on the cliffs behind her, at any rate.
She stood on a beach, a sloping expanse of golden sand unbroken by any hoofprints. The sun was shining directly overhead, quickly drying her damp form, but she knew it wouldn’t be fast enough. Her wings were sticky, residue from the salty ocean messing up her feathers, and until she was dried off and had an opportunity to preen herself, she didn’t want to risk flying. She hated not being able to fly. It was like the time she’d injured herself and had to stay at the hospital…
Wait, the hospital was also when she’d read her first Daring-Do novel, and hadn’t her favorite intrepid explorer been similarly disabled throughout? Yet even without flight, hadn’t she managed to brave a temple full of ridiculously awesome traps, outwit the powerful Ahuizotl, and save the world?
Rainbow Dash didn’t need her wings just to take a quick peek at a volcano, so she set off, feeling reasonably pleased with her situation.
My Little Pony
My Little Pony
Ah ah ah aaah…
My Little Pony
I used to wonder what friendship could be
My Little Pony
Until you all shared it’s magic with me
Big adventure!
Tons of fun!
A beautiful heart,
Faithful and strong!
Sharing kindness is an easy feat
And magic makes it all complete!
Yeah, my little pony
Do you know you’re all my very best friends?
Rarity was less than pleased with the situation. She had woken up on a jungle-side beach, half-soaked and with no memory to explain where she was or how she got here. She soon, though, found that she was at one end of a wide bay, and further observation revealed that there was a crude-looking settlement near the back, furthest from the open ocean. It wasn’t ideal, but it was civilization, so she’d begun heading that direction.
But she was still far from happy, as the past half-hour of walking had given her ample opportunity to discover just how bad a state she was in. Her fur was dripping wet, the salt from the ocean making her delicate form itch all over, while her mane was coated in sand and nowhere near the careful style she had maintained so well over the years. At least she hadn’t been wearing a dress when she arrived; that would have been simply ruined!
…Although maybe she wouldn’t be so cold at the moment.
“No!” She shook her head at the thought. While she understood practicality perhaps better than most other ponies expected her to, she still wasn’t prepared to debase one of her works of art in such a permanent manner. Maybe if it was something she could fix later… but even then it wouldn’t be as good as before, most likely.
She stopped to ponder just how much dress abuse she could tolerate when a far off screech, sounding like some sort of predatory bird, shook her out of her stupor. “Ah, the point is moot anyway, Rarity.” She decided, chuckling, before realizing she was talking to herself, and shortly after that revelation, proceeded to have a full-on panic attack.
Twilight calmly released the strange crablike creature from her telekinetic grip, storing the notes she’d been able to make from observation alone into a mental filing cabinet for later scrutiny. The crab waddled away, walking straight into the surf and disappearing under the water.
The purple unicorn stood on a tiny beach, less than thirty paces long, which was encircled by looming icy cliffs that extended out several yards into the ocean. The sun was setting over the waters, turning the sky a beautiful coral shade, but with it had come a drop in temperature. Considering that she was still wet, as the tall cliffs had blocked her from the sun’s drying warmth, perhaps she should have gotten moving earlier. But she’d seen the strange biomechanical crab and just had to take a closer look!
There was a path cut into the cliff, looking like it had been carved by a since-dried up stream. It was her only exit, so on the unicorn moved, though not without wincing at the feel of the hard stone on hooves that were used to the library’s smooth wood floors.
She missed home.
Pinkie Pie had hardly given any thought to Ponyville yet, as she was too busy having fun exploring this new and wonderful place. Everything was so alien -only minutes ago, she’d seen a pair of giant, half-robotic hummingbirds flit overhead- and there was a distinct lack of Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, or Twilight by her side, but she didn’t worry. The party pony was always open to new experiences, and saw the different environment as a good excuse to kick back and have some fun, while there was a gut feeling, a sense of rightness with the world, telling her that her friends were safe from harm for now.
Maybe she was a teensy bit worried now that the sun had gone down and some dark storm clouds had rolled in, but it was still a minor concern as she frolicked among the trees, swinging from vines, hollering at the top of her lungs from the sheer joy of being alive.
Yes, she was doing just fine right up until the bear attacked.
Applejack ducked a swipe of the monster’s insectoid left claw, pivoting on her front legs to buck the creature right in its glowing yellow eyes. Its stinger tail came down, but she’d already jumped out of the way.
The farm pony wasn’t one to run away, and she really doubted she was fast enough to outpace the unnaturally swift scorpion-creature, but she needed time to think of a plan. Fending off another claw, she turned tail and retreated, her mind struggling to ignore just how quickly the monster was catching up. “C’mon, think, Applejack.” She muttered to herself. “Yer buckin’ ain’t hurtin it much, and its stinger cain’t pierce that darn shell of it’s.” Indeed, one of the first things she’d tried was to trick it into stabbing itself, but whatever that shell was made of, it was tough.
And it was also way faster than something of its size had any right to be. Somehow, while she’d pondered its seeming lack of weakness, the creature had managed to wind up in front of her, and she leaped to the side barely in time to avoid a quick snap of its mandibles.
The fight was not helped at all by the fact that it had been long past dark now, and evidently this thing had night vision much better than hers. Even late nights spent applebucking hadn’t prepared her for the darkness that the moonless sky held. While she hadn’t given it much thought even before the creature attacked, even the stars seemed dimmer, more blurry, as though some force had drawn a thin veil between the sky and earth.
Upon hindsight, she pondered while crawling awkwardly under the creature’s gross insect underbelly, wandering into the desert like she had perhaps wasn’t the best idea. At least it had been cooler by the sea, and there was some water, if extremely salty water, and she had no doubts that the beach was clear of these giant scorpions or similar monsters. Admittedly, she’d thought she’d seen a town out there, but by the time it had turned out to be a mirage she was well past the point of returning. So stubbornly, she’d continued to trek on, making good use of the stamina that came from a lifetime of hard honest work, even after the sun had set.
But then the creature she now fought had burst out of a dune ahead, and the past few minutes? Past hour? Had passed in a blur of hastily aimed kicks and barely-ducked swipes. The creature’s glowing red eyes were the only real illumination she had to go by, and dozens of times already she’d just barely missed taking blows that would have ended her life for sure.
Wait a moment. Red eyes? Hadn’t they been yellow before she ran? With a sinking feeling, the cowgirl backed off enough to risk a glance behind her. Sure enough, there was a pair of yellow pinpricks shining out from the top of a nearby dune, heading her way fast. Looking back ahead, she saw red.
That was when the storm that had been developing to the south finally broke, with a distant flash of lightning and a thunderous boom.
Fluttershy flinched as a huge cascade of thunder rolled through the cramped tunnel she’d been crawling through. She’d been hesitant to venture into the darkness, but the other options –sharp and uneven rocky boulders, or a freezing, sheet-grey sea- had been even less inviting. The yellow Pegasus had awoken during sunset to find heavy grey storm clouds forming ominously above, and in the end decided that shelter was the first priority.
But now she realized how lost she was, unconsciously ceasing the endless forward march, err, crawl she’d forced herself on, as the despair settled in. She had no idea where she was, how she got there. She was scared and alone in a strange, frightening place, and there was no sign that her friends knew where she was. If they had, she felt confident they’d have found her by now.
Then the second-guessing and self-doubt began to creep in. Maybe she should have taken the high road, so that she’d be more visible to potential rescuers. What if there were monsters down in these tunnels with her? Maybe her friends had given up trying to find her.
Maybe they hadn’t even tried in the first place.
Tears streaming down her cheeks and dampening the earth under her hooves, she resumed the miserable crawl, wishing desperately that this was just a nightmare… and somehow knowing it wasn’t.
So, first chapter. This isn't the best example of my writing, as this story is more to get an idea out of my head while getting me back into the habit of writing on a regular basis again. I have bigger and better (and more original, or at least as original as a fanfic can be) stories on the way, but until then, I hope you enjoy this one!
Episode 1: Strange Mares in a Strange Place (part 1)
Chapter 2: Rain(bow) Check
The path she travelled down with uncharacteristic caution was bordered on either side by high embankments of smooth black stone. Her hooves, grayed with ash, were aching from the hard ground, her wings prickling uncomfortably, the salt rubbing between her feathers and sending a constant stream of unpleasant sensation into her nerves. She guessed based on the direction the sun had set that she was currently heading inland in a south-southwest direction, and beyond the hulking form of the volcano, a nasty storm was brewing. It seemed that wherever she was, it was like the Everfree forest back home in that the weather was uncontrolled.
She hadn’t really given much thought to where she was or how she got here, but now that she thought of it, it didn’t take long to realize she was clueless. The last thing she remembered was cuddling up to Tank in her cloud home (It had taken lots of wheedling to get Twilight to cast a self-replenishing cloud-walker spell on the turt –err, tortoise, but it had been well worth it) to take a nap. Next thing she knew, she’d awoken lying on the beach.
Part of her knew she should probably be in the middle of some sort of panic attack, considering the circumstances, but giving herself the goal of getting to the volcano had proven a nice distraction, keeping her from breaking down at a time when she probably really couldn’t afford to.
One thing worried her, though. In Ponyville, there was always a kind of background chatter of birds or bees buzzing, and in the winter, there was often the sound of fillies playing in the snow or ice-skating. Heck, even in the Everfree Forest, there’d been the sound of crows or the distant rumbling of monsters. But here, there were no signs of life besides herself. The storm was beginning to rumble with thunder, and her hooves made a sound like a gunshot every time she took a step, but for all Rainbow Dash knew, she was completely alone in this strange place.
She hated being alone.
She was so lost in her uneasy thoughts that she nearly toppled into the river of lava blocking the path. It was just so abrupt. She simply turned a corner, funneled by the natural walls, and out of the blue there was a huge lava river. She took several awkward leaps backwards, wings flapping ineffectually, heart racing with surprise.
That is to say, she totally stopped way before the river because she already knew it was there through the power of her sheer awesomeness. If only. Yeah, Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to tell anyone about this little incident anytime soon.
Now, Rainbow Dash considered herself a mare of action, and while she had to admit reading was fun –especially adventure stories like those about Daring Do- but she still far from considered herself an egghead. Regardless, back at flight school there’d been as much lessons on physics as on how to flap your wings the right way, and while Dash hadn’t really paid much attention, she’d still gleaned enough to help with some of her more complex tricks for the Wonderbolts. And it was this background in mathematics that told her that without flight, she wouldn’t be able to cross the river.
It wasn’t even a matter of distance; if it had been simple water or something, she’d be able to jump straight across, no problem. But even pressed as far back from it as she could go, the heat was intense, sweat pouring out like buckets and getting her wings all sticky again. In order to jump across, she’d have to get much closer to the flow, and such proximity would probably give her third-degree burns, at best. And that wasn’t accounting for the fact that she was a Pegasus, insensitive to cold but also far more prone to heat than Unicorns or Earth ponies. Unless some alternative way of crossing presented itself, she was pretty much stuck.
You know what? Dash didn’t have to cross. Not at the moment, anyway. Maybe if Applejack were here instead, she’d stubbornly waste hours sitting here, trying to figure out how to get to the other side in this exact spot, but Dash wasn’t a stranger to adjusting her flight pattern when the wind changed direction. Turning to her left, she scaled the embankment.
It was now dark out, and all but the brightest stars were hidden by outlying storm clouds and the smoke blowing her way from the volcano’s top. Lighting flashed from the south, illuminating the landscape like a malfunctioning strobe light. The landscape around her was rugged and hilly, long shadows cast by the lightning contrasting with blinding white. The lava river flowed to her right now, casting its own hellish red, and the volcano itself loomed beyond, the distance stubbornly resisting judgment. Ahead, there was a charred forest, lifeless branches reaching into the sky like mangled arms.
Shaking her head to clear that particular bit of imagery, she headed for the trees.
It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened to the forest; all the limbs were bare of leaves and stained white, while small fires were scattered among what remained of the undergrowth, stubbornly refusing to go out. Like the badlands, the forest was devoid of any sort of life, and Dash’s uneasiness grew. Behind every tree seemed to lurk a phantom, every branch blocking the path seemed like a reaching claw, and at one point she’d come across a blackened skeleton of some unfamiliar creature.
She found her thoughts drifting to her friends. What would they do in this situation? Applejack would probably react the best; Rainbow Dash had to admit her part-time rival at least had some sense, though her stubbornness would probably result in some roadblocks like the lava river.
Twilight was an egghead, so she’d either wish she’d brought a wilderness survival handbook, or remember one she’d read before. And she was an insanely powerful unicorn, so she’d be fine if something jumped out at her. For the first time, Dash was almost willing to trade her wings in for a horn. Or maybe she could keep her wings… Then she’d be an Alicorn! Oh, that would be sweet; Rainbow Dash, princess of awesome! But she was getting off track.
Rarity wouldn’t last a second; Dash laughed at the mental image of the dressmaker stopping every five seconds to clean her hooves off.
Fluttershy… somehow the thought of the soft Pegasus scared and lost made her uncomfortable, and she quickly moved on.
Pinkie Pie. That girl had less sense than… than some sort of weird Applejack-y metaphor, but she had more than enough spunk and good cheer to make up for it. Dash was reminded of the night of the most recent Summer Sun Celebration, six months ago now. When they’d gone into Everfree to find the Elements of Harmony, and Nightmare Moon’s illusions had frozen the group in terror, –Dash hadn’t been scared, she’d just been unpleasantly surprised!- it was the pink party pony who had proven there was nothing to fear.
“When I was a little filly, and the sun was going doo-oown…” She began to sing to herself, straining to remember the lyrics. She ducked under another threatening branch without a second thought. “The darkness and the, um, shadows? They would always make me froo-oown…” She had the faint feeling she was butchering the tune, but the song was miraculously making her feel better, so she kept going. “I'd hide under my pillow from what I thought I saw, but Granny… ah, what the heck; Pie said that wasn't the way to deal with fears at all… She said, Rain-bow, you’ve got to stand up tall; learn to face your fears! You’ll see that they can’t hurt you, just laugh to make them disappear!” Bolstered, she began to trot faster, smiling despite herself as she sung purposefully off-tune into the trees.
In fact, she was so lost in the uplifting memory that she stopped looking where she was going, and so didn’t see the stallion until she’d already plowed straight into him.
Disorientation is a powerful thing. It has a way of pulling the cornerstone out of the tower that is your mind, sending all the carefully-laid brickwork, the wooden frame and rafters of well-ordered thoughts crashing down into a big heap, and you’re so busy building it back up again that outside influences you’d normally have seen coming a mile away, instead take you completely unawares.
Rainbow Dash’s earlier joy was now replaced by pure, unadultered confusion as she scrambled back to her hooves. The stallion, despite being a bit smaller than her, had barely flinched, and was resuming his slow, calm walk through the forest. He was a burnt orange color, a darker shade than Applejack’s fur, and spotted with patches of soot. His mane and tail, Dash noted with bemusement, was almost the same exact color, and grown out as long as Fluttershy’s; his tail in particular being nearly grey from having dragged along the ashy ground. What sort of stallion wore their hair that long?
Then she realized that she was looking at another pony. She wasn’t alone! If she’d been in a better state, she’d probably have swooped him up in a big hug, but as it was, she simply grinned hugely. “HI!”
He turned towards her, cocking his head to one side and inspecting the Pegasus, though he kept slowly walking along the trail. “Hello. I am Kapura.” He had a weird way of talking, overly formal, his words drawn out and carefully measured, and yet unfocused, as though he was thinking about something completely different and simply throwing these ones out for the sake of conversation. All that was offset by his voice, however.
After the incident with Discord, Twilight had done her usual egghead thing and looked up as much as she could find about the draconequus. There was one story, later proven false by Celestia herself, that Rainbow Dash had been forced to listen through. In it, while the sisters had been pursuing Discord, the chimera had tricked them into a cave and collapsed the roof, as one big slab, upon them. Their magic didn’t work against it, and they were forced to hold it up with their bodies or else be crushed. They eventually discovered that what they had mistaken for a cave roof was actually a giant pancake, and eaten it to escape.
But Rainbow Dash felt, in the first few moments after hearing her new companion’s name, that whatever titanic force of character and strength the sisters had displayed was nothing to the struggle to hold in her laughter. “K-Kap-Kapura? What kind of name is that?” She finally gave in, rolling on the ground and howling with mirth. The stress of the day had taken more of a toll on her than she’d thought, and now it was showing, the weird stallion with his weird name and stupid-sounding voice suddenly becoming the funniest thing ever.
“I, heh heh, I’m sorry, but you, he, are one weird guy.” Dash finally got out, getting back up again (again) and rubbing her eyes. Kapura just watched, yellow eyes following her with a vague sort of curiosity. He was now several meters away, and turned around and began moving back towards her with all the speed of a glacier.
“Are you the Makuta?”
At first, Dash was inclined to break down in laughter again, but she suddenly paused. That name… It had a subtle sort of menace to it, somehow inspiring the same sort of feelings of primal fear that Nightmare Moon and Discord invoked in their turn. She shivered slightly. “What is the Makuta?”
Kapura’s slow walk stepped up to a snail’s pace. “If you do not know what is the Makuta, then I guess you are not it.” When he reached a point further down the path, he once again turned and ambled back towards Dash. “That is good. Jaller says I have to be careful of the Makuta when I am in the forest. He says the Makuta is everywhere.” He paused once again, eyes boring into Dash. His thick voice was the exact same, the dreamy vagueness still there, and yet suddenly he was a different pony altogether. “He means Rahi. Monsters. Things you can see. But I know the Makuta is here now, in these burnt trees, and in the dead soil. All of these things were destroyed by the Makuta, but the Makuta never left them. That is how he becomes strong. That is what the Makuta does.” He got back to pacing, but Dash could see he was beginning to actually get riled up now. “He destroys things.”
Whoa. Dash stepped back; Kapura passed by again, now about as fast as Tank on a good day. “Hey, what are you even doing?” Indeed, he looked like he was more than just pacing; when Rainbow Dash looked closely, she could see that at either end of this segment of path, there was an unfamiliar symbol etched into the ash like somepony writing in the sand at a beach. When Kapura came just short of one, he’d turn around and start back the other way.
“I am practicing.” He lost all the odd intensity from talking about Makuta, and in fact sounded a little bit eager, like Twilight when she was explaining some complex magical theorem to anypony who’d pretend to listen. “Vakama says that even though I am slow, I may be faster than all the others, and travel very far. He says I must practice. Jaller says I am being silly. I practice often.” He actually smiled. Well, it was more of a tiny grin, but for him, Dash gathered, it must have been a huge outpouring of emotion.
Her fear of loneliness was starting to be outweighed by her desire not to be seen with this weirdo, but she decided to try to wrangle a few more answers from him. “So, ah, where am I?” And how can I get back home? She added mentally.
“You are where you are. If I practice, I can be where I am not. I think I can feel it. It is hot where I am, but where I am not is cold, and I think I can feel it. I must practice more.” He stopped near one end of the marked section, and tilted his head upward in thought. He looked almost whimsical. “The island has many places to visit. I want to see all of them, but the others do not like to travel. Mata Nui is very big. Vakama says that in the beginning of time, Mata Nui fell from the sky, and landed here. The Makuta came after him and made him fall asleep, and sent his monsters out across the world to control it, and destroy it’s beautiful things, and to make the Matoran his slaves. Vakama says the Toa will save us.”
Okay, this was too much weirdness, and Rainbow Dash had to dash. “Erm, goodbye…” she began to edge along the path.
Kapura just gave her another content grin. “I am practicing.” He reassured her, turning around and moving to the further mark. Dash ran.
There were many words that perfectly described the encounter, and for Rainbow Dash, all of them were synonyms for ‘strange.’ Still, it had provided some useful, if probably only fifty percent accurate, information. There were others, though they also had weird names. Jaller seemed like he was probably sane. Makuta was either a figment of Kapura’s imagination, or another bad guy that Dash was supposed to beat. She wondered who or what the ’Toa’ was. And she was on an island.
All that stuff about ‘practicing’ was weird. Snickering, Dash wondered if it was just an excuse that this ‘Vakama’ guy had made up to get him away from everypony else.
She came to a bend in the path, and beyond it, she found that the trees thinned out. There was a rickety-looking but short bridge across a gorge –looking down as she crossed, she saw the lava river from earlier flowing far below- and shortly beyond, a sign bearing the same strange symbols as had marked Kapura’s path, and one predominant glyph that clearly depicted a fiery volcano. The real volcano was dead ahead, looking considerably closer than before.
Dash was almost there.
I really hope I haven’t scared away all my readers with the long wait. I’ll admit I’ve kind of dropped the ball on this, though school and the joy of the return of unlimited internet access (Long story) have also contributed. I hate writing Rainbow Dash with a passion, too; it’s so hard to get her personality right! But anyway, this is here now, and subsequent chapters will hopefully be much sooner in the coming, though I make no promises. I’ve always been a slow writer, and as perfectionist as Rarity most of the time. No, I will not be having the characters replace the Toa; instead they’ll be… well, I don’t want to spoil things just yet. But there will be ponified Kopaka and Tahu and such. The Matoran are ponies too, but they still call themselves the Matoran. Alien cultures for the win! I think this chapter could have turned out better, and I really hope the conversation with Kapura isn’t too boring, but this is also the third and best attempt at that scene, so I decided this has delayed long enough. I also made a few changes to the Charred Forest and Kapura’s lines (otherwise directly copy-pasted from the MNOLG) but I think those edits are for the better. Comments, critisim, and outright flaming are all welcome below!
Episode 1: Strange Mares in a Strange Place (part 1)
Chapter 3: Waterlogged
Unknown Time
"I'm home!" Sweetie Belle hollered as she walked in the front door. Carousel Boutique looked as spotless as ever, though the lights in the main room being off, the 'closed' sign on the front door, and the whiny, repetitive sound of a sewing machine from upstairs told her that her older sister was hard at work, likely with some important order or another. That suited the filly just fine for the moment; she quickly made her way to the mirrored platform and shrugged her saddlebags off. "Opal!" She softly called out, "Here, kitty."
Now, Sweetie Belle normally was not one to call to the cat in such a manner; Opalescence got along with pretty much everypony as well as oil did with water, and Sweetie returned the sentiment wholeheartedly. But she had a plan today; no longer would she have to hide away from the cat in her own home. And with that in mind, she opened up her saddlebags and gently dumped the contents out across the plinth. There were two items; a number of short wooden planks wrapped in a cardboard loop, bearing the logo of 'Cotton Tail's Completely Safe Build-It-Yourself Rabbit Trap', and a small and slightly crumpled paper bag marked 'Time Turner's Clock Shop'.
Sweetie ignored the bag for now, turning to the rabbit trap and using her fledgling telekinesis to pull the sleeve off the wooden planks, and spreading the planks out across the floor like a set of cards. In the middle, formerly wedged between two of the wooden pieces, she found a wide mesh of metal wires, a small baggie with some gears, axles, screws, and other mechanical doodads, and a sheet of instructions. It was this last item that Sweetie pulled out, reading twice to make sure she understood; there was no way she would let her usual clumsiness interfere with something important like this.
Laying down on the floor, Sweetie began to assemble the trap, periodically checking on the instructions to make sure she was doing okay. She was surprised that everything was going so smoothly; Applebloom was the crusader who seemed to have the least problems with construction or building. Sweetie would have asked her to help, but she had a feeling her friend wouldn't really sympathize with her intentions towards Opal. Regardless, the hutch was actually looking like it was supposed to, so the filly couldn't complain.
Once it was done, she surveyed her work, making sure it matched the diagram exactly. The metal grid was the door, held open for now, while the wooden planks made up the walls, floor, and ceiling. The floor section looked somewhat taller than normal; it was designed so that once enough weight -say, perhaps, the weight of a rabbit, or a certain cat- was put on it, it would sink down, releasing a mechanism that would slam the door shut. If she wanted to release the occupant later, the top could be opened up and the animal lifted out.
Now that that was done, Sweetie pushed the contraption into a shadowed corner behind some dress-forms, and put the remaining packaging and instruction sheet, along with the paper bag from the clock shop, back into her saddlebags. Trying to look as casual as possible, she made her way upstairs, pushing open the door to Rarity's 'inspiration room.' "Heya, sis." She grinned, and said sister gave back a distracted greeting like always, hardly sparing a glance from whatever she was pushing through the sowing machine with carefully measured movements. Normally the abstract dismissal would leave Sweetie Belle slightly put-out, but today, she just repressed a wicked grin and walked down the hall to her own bedroom. Everything was going according to plan.
Once she'd hidden the evidence of the rabbit trap deep in her closet, Sweetie turned to the other object, the paper bag. Dumping it out onto her desk before also stowing it, Sweetie found what appeared to be a regular stuffed animal, a mouse to be exact, sitting under the lamp's glare. She turned it over, revealing a copper metal plate with a quartet of wheels poking out from the belly area. That confirmed, she placed it back down, picking up a small fold-out square of paper that had also fallen out of the bag, and began to read.
This day was going to be perfect.
This was decidedly less than perfect, Sweetie decided, glaring at the white ball of fur that was stubbornly remaining in her basket and making a show of ignoring the fake mouse.
It was night now; the moon shining in through the boutique's front windows and leaving a pattern of bright rectangles in the middle of the floor. By contrast, the rest of the room was dark and moody, shadows gathering in the far corners. Sweetie could almost imagine them morphing, black on black, making eerie images of ponies wailing in silent agony...
No, she had to focus here. She'd stopped being truly afraid of the dark a long time ago, and besides, she was down here so late to execute 'Operation: Behave', not make up stupid ghost stories. She knew she'd be in trouble if Rarity woke up and found her still awake, anyway, so she wanted to make this as quick as possible.
Which brought her back to the current problem: Opal wasn't taking the bait. A trail of sourceless illumination across the floor led from the basket to the hutch trap, and the mouse was sitting there, well within the cat's reach, waiting for a magical signal from Sweetie that would send it on it's way, but Opal refused to budge, taking turns glaring at the mouse as though it had insulted her family, and giving Sweetie Belle an eerily expressive expression of disdain. Do you seriously expect me to fall for that? the feline seemed to be saying.
Sweetie Belle wouldn't give up, though; she just returned to face and settled down to wait. Part of her was tempted to try casting a want-it-need-it spell on the mouse, but even if she'd known it in the first place, remembering the events of a few weeks ago thoroughly dissuaded her. She and the other crusaders had been leery of Twilight for a while after that incident; it had felt like she was forcing her way into their minds and overriding their own thoughts with the spell. Sweetie wouldn't wish such an experience on anypony, or even any cat in this case.
But it still left her with the problem of how to get Opal to chase the mouse. This was a difficult problem, but she was sure she'd figure something out.
It was four hours later, and Sweetie finally had to admit defeat. Her legs were numb, her eyelids were getting heavy, and Opal had long since curled up for a nap. Shakily getting on her hooves, Sweetie made her way to the mouse and picked it up.
The front door to Carousel Boutique opened slightly, and after a loud yawn, a small object came hurtling out of the crack, hitting the side of the trash bins with a loud clang before falling limply to the ground. "Dumb machine."
The next morning dawned; a weekend, so there was no school for Sweetie today. Rarity softly closed the door to her sister's room again; sympathetically letting the filly sleep in. All attempts to rouse her had failed, and the dressmaker had to admit her sister looked quite peaceful lying there, even if her snores were causing a somewhat worrying vibration in the ceiling. She must have worn herself out crusading after school yesterday.
Rarity herself had a number of items on her 'to do' list for this morning, a habit she'd picked up from Twilight at some point or another, so she made her way downstairs and began to bustle around the shop, cleaning here, moving things around there, and all the while cooking a rare and thankfully smoke-alarm-free breakfast.
Rarity was almost done with that now; two plates were set out; once she finished it up, she'd go back upstairs and wake up Sweetie Belle. Yes, having a morning without any cooking disasters was quite refreshing. On that note, she opened up the cabinets to find the salt and pepper. Instead, she found herself wrinkling her nose in disgust; a toxic stench was making it's way from the back. Blindly groping with one hoof, she finally resorted to telekinesis to pull out... something.
She couldn't even tell what it was; a glass bottle without any markings or stickers, containing some sort of awful brownish liquid. She turned it over, finding an expiration date printed at the bottom.
Two years ago. How had this thing sat there so long, and why was it only now releasing that awful stench? Well, it didn't matter either way; at least she'd found it now, and she knew exactly what to do with it.
The front door to Carousel Boutique opened slightly, and after a loud groan of disgust, Rarity walked out and carefully levitated the vial of nastiness into the bottom of one of the bins. She didn't want the glass to break and splash the stuff all over, naturally. Satisfied the situation had been dealt with, she turned to go back inside, only to hear a loud crack from under her hooves.
Shaking her head in distaste, -she must still be a little out of it this morning- she backed up to examine what she had stepped on.
It appeared to be a mouse of some sort, though closer inspection revealed it to be mechanical in nature, beneath the cloth exterior. It had some wheels poking out of the bottom, but one of them had had part of the edge snapped off; Rarity realized that was the part she had stepped on. It would still work, likely, but it's gait would be a touch uneven.
But what was such a thing doing outside? Perhaps somepony had dropped it by accident, but this close to the boutique? She took it inside with her, deciding she'd ask around later in case somepony had lost it. Anyway, back to preparing breakfast.
Rarity forgot all about the mouse for the next few hours, and for her part, Sweetie didn't mention it despite noticing it on the countertop. The attempt to get Opal in a position where she could lay down the law had failed miserably, and she didn't need her sister angry with her on top of that.
Finally, once Sweetie had been seen off with the other crusaders and the Boutique was opened for business, did Rarity finally remember it, and as nopony had come in yet, she decided to bring it into the main shop and examine it.
It was a curious device; clockwork running on magic. She set it down on the floor and rolled it back and forth a few times, and it produced a squeaking noise at regular intervals. Perhaps it was a toy for very young foals, or maybe cats. The way Opalescence turned her snout up at it, though, put that theory into question.
She soon realized what the lens was for; it could seek out and follow trails of magical residue. Rarity spent a few minutes amusing herself by making it follow increasingly confusing, spiraling, overlapping paths, the broken wheel combined with it's confusion giving it an almost pitiful disposition as it attempted to stay true to the path. So absorbed by this did she get, that she completely missed the sound of the bell tinkling.
"Um, what are you doing?"
Rarity looked up -when had she sat down?- to see a very confused looking Fluttershy staring at her. "Aheh, um..." A quick bust of telekinesis shunted the toy into a far corner, and Rarity stood up and brushed herself off as though nothing had happened. "I'm sorry, I completely forgot about Spa day! Let me just close things back up, and we may go."
Fluttershy nodded, but her eyes gravitated toward the mouse, sitting forlornly in the corner. "Are you-"
"Fine, just fine." Rarity interrupted.
"Are you su-"
"Yes!"
Present Day
Now, not so much walking as pushing herself along the beach, slogging through the sand as her vision danced and swayed drunkenly, Rarity was starting to feel like that little faux mouse, mindlessly following the shoreline and hoping she'd reach safety, hoping nothing would burst out of the jungle and put a violent end to her travels. Such a thought had ceased to be scary some time ago; in her exhausted and befuddled state, it was little more than an idea she tried to escape without really knowing or caring why.
After her panic attack earlier, she'd found herself emotionally drained, everything already let loose and washed away. So she was in some strange and unknown place, so she had no idea how she got there or how to get back home, so she didn't even know where home was in relation to her present location. So this, so that, so what?
All she really knew was that she wanted to find some sort of shelter, and that the village she had spotted earlier was the most likely candidate. She'd begun following the shoreline as the sun set, only to discover that the bay was actually much wider than she'd thought at first glance. It would take longer than she'd expected to reach the sign of civilization, and being the terrible swimmer she was, crossing the waters directly to it wasn't an option. And on top of that, she had no guarantee the inhabitants would be ponies, let alone friendly.
Still, she decided she'd rather take her chances in there than with staying out in the wild all night, so the long slog along the inner shore began. She lost track of time rather quickly after the sun set, as the sky tonight was moonless, but still she'd kept going, ignoring that some washed-up seaweed had wrapped itself around her left forehoof, or that strange lights were starting to appear in the bay's waters here and there. She couldn't care less about the lightning storm to the south, and seeing just how bedraggled she was looking, in the reflection off a tide-pool, failed to move her at all.
Then the exhaustion had set in, but she didn't really care that her path along the beach was becoming increasingly zig-zagged and meandering. She'd all but completely shut down, a vaguely Rarity-shaped shell plodding along despite being well past the limits of her endurance.
A vague thought crossed her mind about proving something to an apple, but then her legs finally gave out, and the proud unicorn slumped down onto the sand.
