The small impact crater now had a frame of stakes around it, all of them connected with twine. Maud moved around, taking measurements, and Tarnished watched her. The crater wasn’t very big, as far as craters went, and it had to be very, very old because of all of the growth that had overcome it. Everywhere that Maud moved, grasshoppers bounded away out of the grass, disturbed by her passing. Birds swooped down and snatched the grasshoppers—and so continued the circle of life.

“Must have been a tiny meteor,” Tarnish said as Maud put down another marker.

The mare paused in her work, looked around, her tail swished from side to side in a most fetching way, and then she shook her head. “No, Tarnish… this is just the center of the crater. Look around you.” Maud made a sweeping, all encompassing gesture with her hoof.

Tarnish looked around him, taking note of the rolling hills that surrounded him on all sides. He turned his head this way, then that way, then over there, then over yonder, and after taking in his surroundings, he realised that the rolling hills and ridges all around him, they were the outer banks of the impact crater. The ground itself had rippled like water in a pond, forming hills and valleys. He felt very small and insignificant as he took it all in. The destructive force was difficult to comprehend.

“Oh…” The word slipped out of Tarnish’s mouth like wind billowing through dry leaves.

“These soil samples will no doubt reveal iridium and other precious, rare metals.” Maud stopped for a moment, looked around, eyeing the hills, and then after a moment of taking in the sights, she focused her gaze upon Tarnish. “I could spend much of my life studying this place. The same could be said for other places. That’s the problem, Tarnish. My life is finite and there are so many interesting places I could be studying.” She made another sweeping gesture with her hoof. “Studying it will ultimately lead to its ruin though. If I send in these soil samples to learn their composition and precious rare metals such as iridium are found, various mining conglomerates will be tripping over one another to turn this place into a strip mine. Everything that makes this place wonderful will be ravaged in the name of profits and industry. I hate my job sometimes.”

Hearing Maud’s words, Tarnish opened his mouth, but no words came out. He realised that he didn’t know what to say. Back when Maud needed funding, he supposed that mining companies and the like offered funds to field scholars with the hopes of hitting the motherlode. It seemed that ponies never did anything out of the good of their heart. Well, most of them. There was always some ulterior motive.

He looked around him, taking in the trees, the green that covered everything, the rolling hills, the grasshoppers that scattered as Maud made her way through the tall grass. He imagined that it was gone, all gone, stripped away. The thought made him angry, real anger, the sort of hot, biting anger that got caught in one’s throat and made it difficult to breathe.

Whatever happened to the pony that had cried, “Nature sucks?” What had happened to the pony that had taken every opportunity to announce that he hated nature? Or that nature could go get horned? He was currently contemplating how precious nature was and how far he would go to defend it. Something had changed. He thought about the blue orb. The soothing, comforting, wonderful blue orb. The orb had answers, it had memories. The orb held the past, the present, and maybe the future. Without understanding how he knew, he knew that any futures presented were possible futures… possible outcomes. Statistical likelihoods. If you started rolling a ball downhill, it was reasonable to assume that the ball would continue to roll downhill. Nature operated in patterns. A series of events that played themselves out and concluded by an outcome determined by the events that had taken place.

Nature was paradoxical by nature. What fell, yet stayed where it was? A waterfall. A waterfall had a defined purpose with a predictable outcome. Water fell, rocks eroded, and it was safe to conclude that the water would keep falling. It was a pattern with a self predicting future, albeit, a simple one. With time and study, more complicated futures could be predicted from other series of events. It was the algebra of existence.

Snapping out of his reverie, Tarnish shook his head, wondering when he had learned all of the complicated thoughts rattling around inside of his head. The realisation boggled him. He blinked a few times, his brain buzzed like a beehive, and he had the peculiar sensation that his thoughts were not entirely his own. Once more, his thoughts turned to the blue orb. He had a teacher. Somepony he could potentially get answers from, but he would have to work for them.

Ignoring the orb, he pulled out the ball of roots instead. He levitated it up in front of his nose and peered at the curious living mass. Here was a riddle worth puzzling out. Perhaps he had gone about this the wrong way. He got comfortable, settling on his haunches, took a deep breath, and then, continuing to hold the root ball up to his muzzle, he began to breathe on it. When working with effigies, one had to breathe life into them and perhaps, this was no different. It didn’t hurt to try. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, what one of his books had called life giving air, that feeling of lightheadedness that happened when it was done right.

The magic around him was strong, chaotic, and gave Tarnish a peculiar sensation. He felt stronger here, more capable, and once more, his brain began to buzz with ideas in an almost overwhelming manner. As he breathed on the root ball, he was certain that something was breathing back. He could feel it tickling his nose. He didn’t have time to think about it however, as something had gripped his brain. He felt a strange tugging sensation just beneath his horn. Something was pulling at him. He did not feel panic, but relief. It felt right to let go, so he did. Letting go was easy, it was holding on that was hard.

Opening his eyes, he found himself in another place. He had been here before. He knew this place. And he knew the glowing white alicorn that shone like the sun approaching him. He had never met her before, not face to face, but he knew her. She was smiling and her eyes blazed with inner fire.

“It is not often I get visitors here,” Princess Celestia said as she looked down upon Tarnished Teapot. “Do you know where you are?”

“The astral realm?” Tarnish replied.

The smile on Celestia’s face vanished. “Correct. Hmm… I have sensed you here before, with another… now that I am close to you, I am certain of it… who were you with? He hides himself from me… he will not reveal himself.”

Clearing his throat, Tarnish summoned up his courage. “Perhaps he has his reasons.”

“You will not tell me?” Celestia lowered her head and peered at the little pony in front of her through narrowed eyes.

“Well, he has a reasonable right to privacy, right? I am certain that when he wishes to, he will reveal himself to you. If he hasn’t done so yet, he must have a reason.” Tarnish swallowed and he felt very small and tiny, almost as if he was a foal again.

“And you will not tell me.” Celestia’s eyes widened. “Very well. It seems that I shall have to have you brought before me and perhaps we can discuss this face to face.” The princess’ ears angled forwards over her eyes. “I have ways of making you talk, young Mister Teapot.”

“Are… are you… are you going to have me tortured or thrown in the dungeon?” Tarnish stammered.

“Stars no!” Celestia shook her head. “But I will feed you hot, buttery scones and tea with heavy cream. I would imagine that it will make your arteries harden at some point in the future. So… you might as well tell me what I wish to know, before I am forced to compromise your health, Mister Teapot.”

That wasn’t the response that Tarnish expected. He stood there, blinking, looking up at the blazing white alicorn of the sun. She was a very silly creature. If he tried to tell somepony about this, he was certain that nopony would believe him.

“I have felt a very strong presence. Something new and strange. Something old. Something has awakened, has it not?” Reaching out with her hoof, Celestia prodded Tarnish. “Surely you can tell me just a little… or else it will be the cream cheese tarts! No doubt, those will shave years off of your life, years that you will miss!”

“Huwha?” Tarnish huwhaed, as he stood there, confused and staring.

Reaching out with her wing, Celestia closed Tarnish’s mouth and gave him a gentle pat. “Very few ponies have the magic to come here. Tell me, my curious and steadfast little pony, how did you come to this place?”

“I was looking for my timber wolf,” Tarnish replied, “right now, he is trapped inside of a root ball and I am working on freeing him.”

Now it was Celestia’s turn to stand there, looking slackjawed. She stared at Tarnish, looking very confused. She blinked a few times, her ears rotated, and then began to gnaw upon her lip. After a moment of contemplation, she said, “Well, that might explain a few things.”

“Er, say what?” Tarnish, feeling a little self conscious, looked up at Celestia.

“I was assaulted by a great, blithering hairball a while back. He showed up in my sunflower fields. He’s all slobbery and rambunctious! I was quite annoyed with him, but I found that I just couldn’t send him away. He’s kind of precious.”

“Huwha?” Tarnish’s ability to understand what was going on bottomed out completely.

“Now that I think about it, I have some questions, Mister Teapot. Timber wolves are terrible, horrid creatures and none of them should have an astral counterpart, much less some great slobbery ear licking oaf… he’s a puppy, but that doesn’t excuse him! No respect at all!”

“Uh… I’m sorry?”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed and it seemed as though she was peering into Tarnish’s soul. “You should be…”

“Can you, uh, can you take me to him?” Tarnish gave Celestia a hopeful look.

“Well… I don’t know. You weren’t very forthcoming with helpful information.” Celestia stood there, body unmoving, but her mane and tail whipped about on volatile unseen currents. “You are a very peculiar little pony, Mister Teapot. You stink of strange magic. You just show up in the astral realms, unannounced and uninvited. You don’t even know how you got here. Some ponies spend their whole lives trying to come here and fail. It is a very difficult jump. You have to leap towards reality and miss, you see. You have some great and terrible beastie that projects itself from this realm into the physical world with the body of a timber wolf… and worst of all, Mister Teapot, you dare to keep secrets! It’s been driving me nuts trying to figure out who my unseen visitor is!”

“Does he feel evil?” Tarnish asked.

“No!” Celestia snapped in exasperation. “That’s part of what makes it so galling. I feel a strong sense of goodness coming off of him, but he refuses to reveal himself to me! It’s maddening!”

The little brown unicorn let heave a sigh of relief, which caused Celestia to glare at him. She stood there, tapping her hoof on a very solid sounding cloud, looking very cross. Tarnish gave her an apologetic glance and fidgeted like a lectured school colt.

“Maybe he is testing you, to determine your worth… he’s doing that to me,” Tarnish said in a low voice. “Which is why I am trying to find my timber wolf—”

“Testing me?” Celestia gave Tarnish an incredulous stare. “Testing… ME?”

“We all have something we could be learning,” Tarnish said in a helpful, but worried tone of voice as he backed away from the flustered looking immortal alicorn of the sun. She was glowing with severe annoyance and he didn’t want to get sunburned. He wasn’t sure that his thick chocolate pelt could save him from such incandescent radiance.

“I test others.” Celestia let out an incredulous snort while rolling her eyes.

“How’s that working out for ya?” Tarnish asked. When Celestia turned her fiery glare upon him, he knew he had gone just a little too far. He backed away, bowed his head, and tried to keep from grinning. No doubt, she had some pastries or dangerous foodstuffs that she hadn’t threatened him with just yet.

“You know, I think I can punish you best by giving you what you want… perhaps feeding you to the great, hairy lout will set you straight—”

“Huwha?”

“You keep saying that, my little pony.” Celestia’s eyes glittered with terrible mischief. “Come with me, into my private realm within this place. It is time for you to get what you deserve, Mister Teapot!”

Before he could protest, Tarnish felt a tugging sensation just beneath his horn once more, down inside of his brain. He had the terrible feeling that he was about to go and meet Grrrr face to face. The prospect was terrifying…

Author's Notes:

Next chapter... Grrr!