Chapter Four

"My little pony, ah ah ah..."

"That's it," said Rarity. "Next time we simply skip the introductory segment. I'm all for a catchy tune, but..."

"Normally you're not expected to marathon episodes," I told her. "And the music's not terrible- you'd almost think ponies normally broke into song like that."

There were two awkward coughs, from Twilight and Rarity, and one giggle from Pinkie.

"Seriously?" I said, unable to stop the smile from creeping over my face.

"Ponies are inherently harmonious," said Twilight defensively. "Just... sometimes it's a little more literal than you'd think."

"And it's really fun, too!" said Pinkie.

"I am never, ever letting this go," I declared. Popcorn flew at my head from three different sources. Then Pinkie gasped and hurried over to collect the loose kernels. Thank goodness, I mused, that I'd started to keep my apartment cleaner with the constant stream of alien guests.

"About that inherent harmony thing," I said. "That has to have come back to bite you more than once. I mean, messing that up brought about the Windigos, right? No offense," I added hastily.

"You're right in that," said Twilight. "But then there's no advantage evil won't try to take hold of, according to Celestia."

"Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity," I quipped. "Hanlon's law."

"Ooh, I like that one," said Rarity. "Then again, much of my work is in customer service..."

A few chuckles spread about. I opened my mouth and asked, "Is this where we sing an ode to bloody-minded customers?"

More popcorn and a desperate Pinkie followed that.

The Valley was a massive area. Some called it the Paradise Estate. Most called it the only land available to ponykind, given how many of the other peoples of the land fell prey to the monsters who also called Paradise Estate home. Roving herds, makeshift villages, and hidden forts dotted it from the north to the south. Mostly it seemed to be the dumping ground for every fairy tale that had ended in a plot twist. Stories were told in every settlement of past heroes, and of better ages that had long since faded.

On the northwestern border, there stood a mountain populated by a strange race called the aurochs. Shaped much like minotaurs, but more gangly. Stretched-out, even. Their horns grew straight out from their skulls for several feet to either side, leading to the natural development of truly massive doorways.

In the highest, oldest auroch keep, there was a library. Of all the races, I mused, it had to be one of the most warlike that just so happened to sit on the greatest treasure trove of information within the lands known to any of the pony tribes.

"You are... quite sure of this, Lady Tham'ra?" asked the earth pony at my side. Wandering Hooves was my hired guide, and further proof that 'Tamara' was simply unpronounceable to the pony tongue.

Even to my own, damn it.

"Yes," I said, sparing a glance at the nervous, bottle-green stallion. It was rare for a male to have such a lone, far-roaming position, but he was good at his job and, more often than not, it was to my advantage to ignore the 'usual' customs. It wasn't as if they were usual to me, after all.

"I've spent six months looking," I told Hooves. "This is my best bet thus far. Is your auroch-linga good enough to get my request across to them?"

"Yes, but... but you've heard of their price, haven't you?" he asked.

I grimaced. "That won't be a problem."

My wings twitched under my cloak, and I was reminded of how much they needed a good preening. And a bath. I might keep my flank covered -still bare of a cutie mark, even after five years- but that didn't ward off the paranoid thoughts of lice. God damn, but I still hated bugs. Tham'ra, the fearsome and squeamish witch.

Keeping clean was hard in a medieval environment.

The arena was small, and its stonework was old and crumbling, just like everything else on the mountain. It seemed like all the known world was on the decline, these days. The unicorns could hardly keep summer following spring, and it was no great wonder that everything seemed to be dying. I wondered, sometimes, if I hadn't ended up some time long after the years depicted in 'My Little Pony', instead of my going theory of having been cast back to an earlier time. Either way, it was those discrepancies which had stopped me from immediately seeking out my friends, those first few months.

It was cowardly, in a way- if I didn't see, it couldn't effect me. Up until the world steam-rolled me with its normal shenanigans.

I approached the desk set up in the market just outside the arena. I had to consciously stop myself from pushing through the crowd of much larger beings, since aurochs tended toward a hair-trigger temper. Much like myself, sometimes, I mused.

"Go ahead," I told Hooves.

The stallion stuttered his way through his introduction of myself to the impatient bull, a bag of gold coins was exchanged, and I was pointed toward one of the auroch coordinators that spoke one of the pony dialects. Easy enough for me, I decided. I had learned about five of them, after all.

"Thank you for your services," I told Hooves, and handed over another bag of coins.

"This... this is more than I asked for, Lady Tham'ra," he said, feeling out the weight immediately.

"You did more than I expected," I said, shrugging. It wasn't as if it was strictly my money, after all. I'd gotten it courtesy of a group of bandits that hadn't known how to take 'no' for an answer.

That is, they hadn't known until after they'd met me.

He scampered off, and I found myself facing a massive cow of an auroch, with fur the rare gold hue that gave the species their name. She gave a cursory bow, nearly beheading a passing shopper.

"This way," she told me.

I blinked. "Unicorn?" I asked, matching her speech. "That's a rarity. Do they come this far west?"

She grinned with wide, flat teeth. "I traveled far, as a calf. Would you prefer southern pegasus, maybe?"

"It's all the same to me," I replied, and gestured for her to lead the way. It was considered polite, by them, to be able to turn their backs on a stranger. It made an odd kind of sense, even if I sure as hell didn't share the custom.

"What prize will you fight for?" she asked, sounding curious. Not one being in a hundred was a pony, up here.

"A boon," I replied. "By the city. I wish to access the archives- two fortnights should do it."

"Ha! A scholar, then? Or a fool seeking a treasure map," the cow said with humor. We passed under one of the arena's massive arches, past busy functionaries and the occasional working hostage.

"More a scholar," I admitted. "I'm looking for a number of things. Stories and records." And, because it couldn't do me any harm, added, "Of humans and other strange beasts. Of the prophecies left by the Moochick, and Queen Majesty."

"The mad bitch queen? Hoo! Never a unicorn with so may airs as her!" the cow crowed. "I had a scribe's education, pony. And the Moochick is long since passed, you know."

"That's why I'm looking for prophecies, and not his home," I replied with a grin. "Can't imagine living in a mushroom, myself."

The cow laughed. "Here, into this pen," she said, pointing toward some bleachers held behind a low, rickety fence. "Have you chosen to fight the rounds, or go straight for the champion?"

"The champion," I answered. "I'm tired and impatient, and wish to get this over with. And I don't enjoy fighting enough to drag this out."

"Ought I to bet on you, then?" she asked, leaning casually on the gate as I passed.

"Depends on if I'm famous enough to give you the kinds of odds you want," I called over my shoulder. "Tham'ra the witch."

Years of travel, years of wandering. Settling down had seemed like a pointless activity, in a world less politically stable than medieval Germania, so I had kept on moving. I'd stay with a group long enough to pick up on the language and scrounge up any useful or esoteric information, then I'd head to wherever else seemed more interesting.

It had been strange, and wonderful, and occasionally horrible. Like I'd noted, the world seemed to be in a kind of twilight state. There was nothing new under the strange, unsteady sun- just entropy. Just old things left like traps for the unwary.

I dug through the old forts and castles. Met the tribes who could trace their lines back the furthest back in history. I saw the blackened crater where the demon centaur Tirek had been buried after trying to bring about night eternal, and even once scaled the volcano that held the banished mass of the Smooze.

That, I think, might have been the worst. At the caldera's lip, you could hear the shapeless mouths below, shrieking threats against the world and all its peoples. Demanding that it be let out, threatening to devour the very surface of the planet.

I chucked a rock into it, which made me feel a little better, before I left.

I passed through lands belonging to ponies, aurochs, dragons, knids, sphinxes, pixies- insofar as the pixies would claim to own anything- flutterponies, and naga.

And in that time, I figured out magic. That is, I figured out enough to be dangerous to myself and others, at least. Enough so to get me branded as a witch- one of those few non-unicorn active casters. There were already stories going around about me luring children into candy houses, which was ridiculous. If I had that much candy, why would I need to eat children?

I had been rather cheerfully tuning out the crowd, reading the personal journal of some long-dead naga explorer, when somebody roughly tapped my shoulder. Once I would have flinched and apologized for having let someone bump into me- now I just glared and demanded who the fuck was taking up my time.

An auroch shouted and pointed out at the arena, where a massive bull of her species was clasping his fists together and taking in the crowd's blood-curdling cheers.

The announcer was bellowing something, probably along the lines of my opponent's impressive credentials, maybe. I ignored him. It wasn't as if I could understand his babble, and so whatever it was couldn't effect my nerves in the slightest. I was already keyed up enough by the fact that the guy in front of me outmassed my form by about four times.

All that meant was that I would have to keep from getting in close.

I stowed the book in one of my cloak's inner pockets, hopped the fence, and trotted out into the arena floor by a couple dozen feet.

The crowd was going wild. I doubted many, if any, recognized me, so I assumed that they were cheering on big boy.

A sharp gong split the air, and my opponent turned to face me, fists curled up and a look of rough, stupid amusement on his face.

I was feeling oddly nostalgic, just then, and had been sort of missing the internet, recently. Which was to say, I always missed the internet. So I scraped a hoof along the ground, snorted, and shouted:

"Come at me, bro!"

The auroch obliged, and I became uncomfortably aware that his heavy hoofsteps, carrying him on thick arches of keratin as big around as my entire barrel, were shaking the ground.

"This, here, is exactly the place for subtlety," I muttered.

I had, memorized and refined over the last five years, eleven spells. They were the ones I had shortened to the least amount of characters possible, committed to physical memory, and practiced repeatedly. Otherwise I had to work from scratch paper, or freecast, which tended to explode in my face if I didn't have time and space on my side.

Big boy assured me I had neither of those on my side, so I went with good old number three: Vapor Steps.

There were probably an unlimited number of methods to casting, if you discovered the kind of knack that I and those few other witches and sorcerers out there had. If I had to guess, they held onto their secrets as tightly as I did.

My method suited my body- I used my natural weather magic to shape the thinnest, all but invisible sheen of vapor into the string of symbols that represented a spell. Then, using the knack, I pumped energy into that string until I had the strength of spell that I wanted.

I pumped just enough, into this one.

My body took on the appearance of cloudstuff, and out of it poured a dozen ponies made of the same, until I was one of those ponies galloping hell-bent away from the original shape, and only a copy of myself was left behind to spawn still more images of me.

Predictably, the bull plowed through the construct, shattering it into mist. The crowd roared, maybe in disappointment -I couldn't tell- but by then there were already three dozen of me running around. Unfortunately, the images could only manage so much realism, so two of the moronic copies lasted only seconds before running face-first into the arena walls and dispersing themselves.

God damn it.

Still, I acknowledged, the fewer they were, the more effective they were. Having more than, say, six, was only useful insofar as it tended to create a disorienting fog. For a shallow, bowl-shaped space such as the arena for the fog to collect in? It was perfect.

Big boy was roaring and throwing his meaty fists around at any cloud image within reach, and there was still not a chance in hell that I would be facing him physically. So I moved on to spell number seven: Shock Webbing. More than anything else, I wanted this guy to stop moving.

I drew out the sequence, which was slightly shorter than for the Vapor Steps, and allowed the magic to seep down my hooves and into the dusty surface of the arena floor. Unfortunately, that meant I had to stand still for as long as it took to let the magic seep down. More unfortunately still, not a single one of my duplicates had been clever enough to stand still at the same time, meaning there was suddenly a big difference setting me apart from all the other 'mes'.

Big boy noticed, and began to charge.

I stood my ground, reflexively loosening my front hooves into their 'flexible' state to let the magic flow just that much easier. It still wasn't on par with what an earth pony could do through the same medium, but I thought it helped.

We were separated by about thirty feet. Hardly any time at all, considering the speed he had built up. I might, then, still have had time to take to the air and avoid him. Or to roll to the side, if I optimistically downplayed the kind of reflexes that made for a champion fighter.

I stood my ground.

That same ground then reached maximum saturation, and my webbing sprouted from the ground like they had been shot off from cannons. They crossed over one another, making a massive field of overlapping threads at every possible angle, leaving only the space around my body clear. Not a true web, yet, not without big boy's input.

He barreled another twenty-five feet forward, until he was literally within spitting distance. That meant catching every thread in a straight, twenty-five foot line, each one clinging to him, and each one delivering a small electrical shock.

The auroch was buried in the stuff. Every muscle in his body seized up. Air exploded from his lungs in a bellowing shriek that was pure instinct.

I let the threads fade from the rest of the field and, presenting a casual front, strolled around him at an angle. Now I heard the crowd. Very few of the dialects in this intercultural market hub were ones I recognized or understood, but I caught a few, specific lines. 'Used magic' was a common one. I glared, not at anything in particular, but I glared. I'd worked to earn my power as much as big boy had his muscles, and used the tools at my disposal. I had barely tapped my own tribal abilities!

Well. If they wanted something physical, then they'd have it- there would be no doubt.

I snapped my wings out and flapped twice. Once to gain height, and once to propel myself toward the back of big boy's skull. I countered the motion by putting a mule kick to the base of his neck. His bellowing cut out, and he slumped further into the webbing, still twitching. I dismissed the magic, and he fell the remainder of the way to the ground.

I turned to the balcony that hosted the administrators, bowed, and went back to the waiting pen.

A hour later, and the games had finally ended. I found myself back with my guide, whose name turned out to be Erma, and who turned to have, indeed, put a bet on me.

"I have a feeling I'll like working with you," she declared. "And if I don't? I have my consolation prize." She jingled a healthy-looking bag. "Now, as your representative, I've got the voucher. Your boon's a weird one, but it's pretty low tier. You probably could have just placed in the tournament and earned it."

"Probably," I agreed. "But I've come too far to leave things to chance. So I imagine the library is open to me?"

"One month, or two fortnights, as you put it," agreed Erma. "Don't try to steal anything, don't cause too much damage, and you have the run of the place."

"Excellent," I said, rubbing my forehooves together. Having wings to keep you level while you used both front hooves to make goofy gestures was a blessing. "Take me to where I can gather writing supplies, first, and let's get started."

"Sure. Ah," the cow rubbed nervously at her knuckles. "There are some poetry books I have been curious about. Would it do any inconvenience, in any time where I'm not assisting you-"

I laughed, and cut her off. "This is a boon for you too, isn't it? By all means, Erma."

So in addition to all the texts I'd been looking for since the previous autumn, which this year had been a mere eight months ago, my assistant was happier to help me than ever. It was nice to get what I wanted without... additional bloodshed, in any case, for once.

A week of searching. The first day had been mostly figuring out how, exactly, the library was organized. Mostly the system had been, 'throw every book of a subject in a given room'. Of course, the city archives, taxes and such, were 'important enough' to actually be in order.

'Philistines,' I grumbled.

Still, in those days I had managed to amass a good number of volumes that covered just what I was looking for, more or less. The whole thing was more hit-or-miss than my old neighborhood library, but I had to count what few blessings I'd had.

Written histories, and not just the mythologized oral histories that had been most of what I had previously come across. Books of prophecies by seers that were at least half-sane, and not simply sampling the finer mushrooms in life. Compendiums of legends and strange creatures. Books on spell lore, even.

Of course, a lot of this still had to be taken with a grain of salt. I remembered old woodcuts of exactly the kinds of peoples sailors claimed they had discovered, or claimed they would discover, in time. Mostly, those had read like exactly the kinds of things you'd imagine drunken sailors coming up with:

'Woah, they were people with, like, one big foot. Just one. They rode on them like surf boards!'

To which you could ask, 'Are you sure they weren't just normal folks on surf boards?' Then the reply would probably be, 'Nope, one big surfing foot. Drink your rum.'

Or:

'Headless people. But, with, like heads where their nipples should be. Eye-nipples. Hey, where's my rum?'

And none of them had bothered to apply scientific rigor to this, of course.

I had higher hopes about these texts, though. I assume that, in a world that already has magical talking unicorns, there was really only so much one could hallucinate.

"Erma," I waved blindly over my shoulder. "Erma, look at this."

The lady auroch wandered over, a book of her own already in hand. She peered curiously over my shoulder.

"Hyuman Kynde," she recited off the boilerplate heading. "Yes, you've found a calf's tale. Very nice."

"They're real," I said, happy to note this one was in low-unicorn script. That was much easier to read than those wing-dings their scholars used. "I used to be one."

"Ah. Is this a witch thing?" asked Erma. "And... why tell me?"

I couldn't tell by her tone if she thought I was delusional, so I just went on being honest. "What does an auroch care if an ape turns into a pony? And it's more of a 'me' thing. Did it to myself by accident while trying not to die."

"Ah. Good on you for not dying," said Erma, patting my neck. "And I suppose a pony might see you as a kind of changeling to hear that, as if you were a fae tale monster and not just a fae tale."

"Correct! Now I'm looking to trace human appearances on this world, and figure out how far away from home I am, in both time and space."

"Time?" Erma coughed. "You may have lost me, witch."

"Sit," I offered, blindly pointing. "I can read and lecture at the same time, and this might help you in locating more useful references."

She sat, and listened enthusiastically as I spun my story. This one obviously had gotten a scribe's education. I didn't share information about myself on a lark, really, and I wasn't sure I'd ever shared more than small tidbits over the past few years. There had never seemed to be a point to it, aside from dredging up painful reminders.

It took a few minutes to get to the end, but finally: "...and that's where I am, now. Tracing half-accurate stories from my own world to put together an accurate list of events, figure out my place in them, and maybe learn enough to see my friends again."

"Which friends?" she asked.

I shrugged, and sighed. "Any of them, really. It's been a long time."

"Out of curiosity, are any of these tales from your world of aurochs?" she asked, which I figured was only sensible.

"Sorry," I said. "They were pretty limited, and took place in a land 'far, far away'," I added, throwing in air quotes.

"Fair enough. And probably better to let the future... or past, perhaps, decide itself."

"You are a wise cow, Erma."

"Thank you, witch. Now, the nature of time, you said?" she asked, getting up. "And prophecy. I shall try the western wing. It might be among the fiction."

"Good thinking!"

Another week in, another pile of texts. Sleep was, as always, for the weak.

"More tea?" asked Erma.

I glanced up from the latest tome and rubbed at my eyes. It was important to get as much progress done as possible, which was wearing at me, a bit. I supposed I could always break another skull out in the ring, but that sounded like an unsanitary hassle. I blinked at Erma.

"How strong is it?" I asked.

"I stirred it with a silver spoon- the silver has tarnished," the auroch informed me.

"Give it here, then."

I sipped, gagged, and sipped again. From the corner of my eye, I saw Erma with a broad, flat volume as she took her own seat at one of the corners of the table I hadn't commandeered.

"Anything useful in that one?" I asked.

"Hmm?" The cow glanced down. "I shouldn't think so. It is a treatise on architecture. You, er, did say that I might pursue my own-"

"No, yes, by all means," I said. "Sorry if I've kept you too busy to hold to my word."

"Not at all, witch. I have time now, and a book, and now I shall see how my magnificent city has been built," the cow said with gentle amusement.

"There is a certain charm to mountain-top settlements," I muttered, going back to teaching myself pre-Majesterial unicorn. It was like someone had taken the mage script I was used to and applied a hammer to it, and then removed all the verb tenses. "Slightly impractical, highly defensible, lovely scenery."

"Ah ha ha, you might have the right of that. Ancestors know it's hard to get fresh leeks up here."

The tea began to hit me, and with a rush I dragged over one of the earlier tomes, and started to cross-reference. I remembered, not for the first time, that pony speech often had no place for harder consonants.

"Mehan Wiilhyamz, Haythuckee sdadts." I closed my eyes, and let my forehead rest against the page. "You know, Erma, if this had been translated from a draconic or, heaven help me, pixie text-"

"Pixies write?" asked Erma, astonished.

"...Probably no," I admitted. "But if they did, I would bet that this would read..." I clenched my jaw, and did my best to shrink my tongue. "Megan Williams, Kentucky State."

"That is significant?" asked the cow.

"That is nearly my home," I answered. "Somebody presumably from there, counter to all damned sense, and from no more than two hundred years before my time. Probably much more recent. And that there, in the book, was over four centuries ago from the present. But that..." I rubbed at my temples, to try to make the hurt go away. "I need almanacs. Anything that describes where... griffons live?" Another avenue of research, there, that I hadn't gotten to, yet. "Not now, but when you have time," I added. Griffons were close neighbors to Equestria, Twilight had once mentioned.

"What is a griffon?"

"...Faust take me now."

"Who?"

"Damn it."

I eventually got my almanacs, but they didn't make sense. I was half hoping it would be some sort of mirror-image of earth. That, at least, would have been predictably mind-blowing. It happened in all the cool science fiction novels, anyway.

"It was Earth all along, you damned dirty ponies," I muttered.

But no. And the almanacs barely covered the subcontinent I was on, and a lot of the southern areas seemed to be more of a 'fill-in-the-blank' puzzle than a real exercise in cartography.

More dead ends on human lore. The prophecies were... less than helpful, even if some had promise. 'Alicorn' was only mentioned as the stuff that made up unicorns' horns. Well, them and the species of kirin, at least. Nothing on the Elements of Harmony. Nothing on... basically anything. There was a wealth of information, but that wealth was all in Canadian dollars, to use a metaphor and stretch it to its breaking point.

I looked to the wall of scrolls- I hadn't even touched those, yet. And there were even older rooms, tucked further back into the carved chambers of the mountain. I had only days left.

"Tham'ra? Witch?" called Erma. "Are you alright?"

"Um, yes. Of course. Shouldn't I be?" I asked.

The auroch stood just outside the room, looking in with a hesitant expression. "It is only... have you not heard the fighting outside at all?"

"Some sort of festival?" I asked. "I guess I haven't been paying attention."

"There is fighting in the streets," Erma explained. "It is an invasion- the old auroch council is seeking to reclaim its old throne and remove the interlopers."

"The interlopers," I said, my mind catching up to her phrasing. "Funny thing to call your employers." She winced- jackpot. "Let me guess. You were looking up that architecture to find ways into the city for somebody. You've been looking for the opportunity, and I provided it just by being here. Now you're looking to sneak me out of here to avoid the fighting since you figure I'm not such a terrible mare myself. Am I right?"

Erma was staring. "Is... was that your magic?" she asked.

I laughed out of reflex, but sobered. "Nope. It's just a very familiar storyline, to me, I guess." I gestured around. "Are the books going to be safe?"

The auroch flinched. "I... I should hope so! But... there is fire outside, and a great deal of it, too. If some vandals take advantage of our noble cause, then yes, there may be damage."

I tapped at the tome in front of me and sighed. It wasn't as if I were about to decide any other way, but...

"Want to help me save a library?" I asked. "I can save... roughly eight times my bodyweight in books."

To her credit, she didn't ask me how. She did, however, say, "But that's hardly anything! The western wing alone-"

"Law documents, and tax forms, and ledgers," I interrupted her. "Then there is the science, art, magic and history. The city is burning- why are you worried about tax forms?"

She bolted down the hall.

I ducked through the low passage, grumbling about the cobwebs, filth, and protruding edges of the uneven stone walls. Erma, it turned out, had found two secret passages into the city. One had been perfect for the 'traditional' forces which had already overtaken most of the city. The other...

It turned out that one of the previous oligarchs had had a thing for pegasi, and built a smaller passage that only his paid-for lovers could fit through. I was truly traveling in style, here.

The low tunnel opened up over a sheer rock face. I made my escape through the simple use of gravity, that almighty mistress.

I flew out a couple miles and circled the mountain, hovering in place there and watching the great mountain city burn. Erma had called it a glorious return. I called it another point of civilization crumbling. Maybe not the best point of civilization, but still. Before leaving, I had promised to return the literature I'd taken as soon as the aurochs were stable as a people, again. I figured that would give me more time than I could ever need.

'Speaking of...'

With a flick of my hoof, I double checked to see that my travel bags were in place. In one, was an especially rare treasure- a Many Bag. Like a Bag of Holding from out of a game, it contained more space on the inside than seemed possible. Unlike that game item, you 'used up' the space. I'd filled it to the brim, and as soon as I removed its current cargo, it would be no more than an ugly purse. Fantastical, but unfortunately not an overpowered artifact.

"Good bye, Erma," I muttered. "And good luck."

I glided off into the night.

The unicorn keep was exactly as I had expected, even allowing for the embellishments made by the other tribes. Lots of stone, tall towers, and insular as hell. I had only made it in because it was a fair day, and because even self-righteous bastards with god complexes needed deliveries of fresh goods.

Spell number two: Ghostly Hand, was basically levitation. Honestly, if you went around with a hooded cloak and floated an apple along with you, it was just assumed you were a unicorn. Not bad at all. In a few years, I might get good enough at pure weather manipulation that I could mimic the effect -minus the glow- with air currents.

It was in the market that I got my first little blast from the past. Or future. Or... alternate universe? I was still struggling with that, to be honest, but:

"Apple Clan Apples?" I asked. The stallion at the counter nodded guardedly- the poor guy was obviously used to working with unicorns.

"The Apple clan?" I asked. Confused, he nodded. I grabbed him by the hoof and gave it a solid shake. "I met one of your kinsponies, a while back. Kind mare, really. What do you suggest, today?"

"Well! Any friend 'o a friend, I guess, is a friend!" he declared, looking a bit more cheerful. "Red galas would go down a treat. The wife is on some fritters already, if you'd wait a moment."

"Sounds good," I said. "It's been a few days since I've had hot food. I was up north."

The earth pony's eyes widened. "Gall, you hear about that bull city? Wasn't hardly one stone left on the other, the way I heard it."

I grimaced. "Saw it from a distance, yes. It'll be a long time in rebuilding, I think."

The stallion snorted. "Right. More time than I've got. Oh, here's the fritters. Say hi, Jackie, friend o' the family, here."

A rosy-cheeked mare had come up with a hot tray from out of the cart's little oven. I waved. "Hello! I'm Tham'ra. It's a pleasure. I knew a orange, blond mare by the name of Applejack. Sweet mare, told me everything I knew about home cooking was wrong."

"Sounds like an Apple," said the mare with a grin. "Er, wait. You said Applejack? There ain't been one of those in the family since Dream Valley, and you ain't..."

"The witch, Tham'ra?" asked the stallion, voice gone choked and low. Likely, he imagined that a 'witch' was likely old enough to have seen Dream Valley from a first person perspective.

I believed that there were only two ways to go about things, and I chose the nicer option. I chose to believe that I was in Equestria's past. I grinned, made a vaguely mystical sign with my right hoof, and bowed. "Your clan will know the earth and all its fruits for a hundred generations."

"Gosh!"

I smiled. "How about those fritters?"

It had taken a bit of doing to get the Apple couple to accept my gold for the food, and eventually I'd had to pull out the 'we witches have no need for your earthly metals' bit. Somehow, it didn't occur to him to ask why we had a need for 'earthly pastries'.

After that, though, I had a short but quiet journey through the keep, and there I reached my day's destination.

It was one of the seven great spell circles maintained by the unicorn tribe. Dozens of them gathered in each circle at dawn and dusk, doing their best to guide the heavens and keep the world on something of an even schedule. Their success might have been debatable, but it was generally agreed that they helped more than they harmed.

I settled onto a spot high up on the wall, and watched one of the world's greatest works of magic being done. Above me, the celestial bodies moved.

I'd had no other real purpose in coming here- it had been a detour. One well worth it, it seemed.

And yet...

'I wonder where I can get another Many Bag,' I wondered. 'And an unattended library.'

Author's Notes:

Here we have an original species, I think. I figured, since they have so many intelligent creatures in just the small area we know from the show (dragons, buffalo, zebras, diamond dogs, griffons, ponies of all kinds and so on) that there were bound to be more of them further afield.

Next chapter, we get a short glimpse into the 'present' as understood by our six heroines. All without having to switch perspectives! I thought it was a nifty enough idea, and I hope you'll like it once it's published.

On a personal note: I know it was short, but how was the fight scene? I was going for 'succinct' here. To be honest, fighting scenes are going to be few and far in between, so I want to get them right when I do include them.