-The Collection of a Foreigner-

“You’ve incapacitated three Royal Guards, trespassed on Royal property, ruined the streets of Our city. And finally, you’ve endangered a national hero!” Luna berated, her voice on the verge of yelling. She paced across the floor of her personal study, glaring down at the large pony cowering before her. The walls shook with her voice, both of the ponies in her chambers reacting by flattening their ears as much as they could.

She crossed the plush purple carpet in front of their noses again, stopping to look across one of the many bookcases lining her study’s walls. She kept a personal collection of both modern and pre-classical texts here for when she decided to follow a tangent in her thoughts. The room was lit by a lone lamp, it’s magically powered light doing little more than making the shadows in the room all the deeper.

“How should we punish such audacious crimes?” she asked rhetorically, glancing out of the corner of her vision toward the two pegasi in her study. “Perhaps you should both spend a fortnight in the dungeons to quell your spirit? Or perhaps that will not be sufficient for your friend, Rainbow Dash. He has, after all, demonstrated a distinct aptitude for exceeding Our expectations,” she finished, turning around to look down at them again.

Rainbow Dash and Coalback had plastered themselves to the floor, still dripping water from their dip in the garden pool. Their faces pressed into the carpet as they tried to ride out the storm of Luna’s anger. She allowed them to stew in their silence for a few more moments, taking the time to curb her anger.

“Rise,” she said simply, turning fully toward them. They followed her order, gingerly climbing back onto their hooves. Their guilty expressions remaining on their faces. Luna nodded to herself, satisfied that her speech had served its purpose. It had nearly been a half hour since she’d led them up here, all the while making her displeasure clear to them. She hadn’t even offered them an opportunity to dry off, and by now they were both shivering with the cold from the water.

A small punishment, extremely small compared to the damage to the city and the the distress they’d caused the ponies there. However, she knew that in this modern age, she couldn’t act too rashly. She’d been taking lessons in lenience from her sister, and wanted to put them to use. She had decided that the potential for a cold would be sufficient; there was no sense in punishing them with anything harsher.

“Now, since you find yourselves well enough to cause such a stir,” Luna started, her voice calmer and able to draw the attention of the ponies without causing them to cringe. “I do have several questions for you, Coalback,” she stated, moving across the room to her desk. Coalback’s ears perked up at her, though his eyes still aimed themselves strictly toward the floor. “Particularly,” she continued, turning her head toward a locked cabinet to her left, “on the subject of your … sudden arrival.”

Her horn glowed a dim blue as the lock’s tumblers turned, clicking into place and allowing the doors to be pulled open. The dark interior revealed little, a few small lock-boxes lining the floor. But the most significant item that was visible was the large chest that took up the majority of the hoof space within. The blue aura of her magic encased the larger chest, pulling it out of the cabinet and setting it down between herself and her guests.

They both looked up at the sound of the chest setting down, eyeing the chest curiously. They remained silent however, not willing to accidentally draw Luna’s anger back on them. It was a heavy chest, darkly stained wood held together with black, cast iron metal bands. A heavy, flat faced lock that appeared to be missing a keyhole kept the chest securely closed.

Luna’s magic once again sifted through the air, glowing around the lock as it activated the tumblers within. With several loud ‘clicks’, the lock opened, dropping off of the chest and thudding against the floor. With another flick of Luna’s horn, the chest opened to reveal its contents.

Piled within the chest were many black opaque bags. Corners and wrinkles dominated their shapes, each tied tightly with a copper string. Luna looked up at them from over the chest, gauging their reactions. When she saw nothing more than honest curiosity on either of their faces, she continued.

“We are most interested in these objects, which were found … near you … after your arrival,” she said carefully, several small black bags lifting from the chest and leaving the largest and bulkiest bags within. “We would like for you to describe some of these items; they are most curious in nature,” she started, carefully examining the bags and selecting one that held a square-like shape within. “This one in particular is vexing to Us, its purpose is lost to Us,” she explained, her magic gripping the copper string and pulling it out.

The bag was pulled away from the square shape within, Luna’s magic quickly taking hold of it before it could fall to the ground. It shone, even in the dim light of the single magical light. It was a square of metal, the edges rounded off and polished to a shine. Small dents and scratches were the only decoration to it.

Coalback’s eyes lit up as he saw it, standing slightly straighter as he examined it from where he stood. Rainbow merely squinted at it, unsure of what to make of the lump of metal that Luna seemed so interested in. “It is to make fire, to light fire … uhm … I think that light-er is good word for it,” he said after a moment, lifting one of his hooves to tap at his chin. He scrutinized the strangely lumped bags within the chest again, changing between looking up at the Princess and back down at the bags.

“Does it have a purpose outside of arson?” Luna asked curiously, setting down the newly proclaimed ‘lighter’ on the desk just beside her.

Coalback nodded, grunting out an affirmative before speaking. “Burn to make smoke” -he took a deep breath, motioning toward his muzzle- “to put in chest,” he explained, patting his chest with a hoof. “Bad thing, though. Bad when doing for long time,” he said, turning his attention back to the chest. “Did find little sticks? Not chalk sticks, they are paper,” he asked, pointing inside the chest at the collection of lumpy bags.

“Indeed,” Luna said, one of the few small bags still floating about her coming forward. A slightly larger square sat within, Luna’s magic once again pulling open the bag. She revealed a cardboard box, warped with water and flattened. Unreadable, blocky letters decorated its surface, a simplified image of a camel proclaimed proudly on the front. Several white rods poked their way out of the missing top to the box: they were wrinkled slightly with the paper wrapping barely starting to unravel.

“Yes. Burn those with light-er, and then breath smoke,” Coalback explained again, nodding at them with a slight look of relief. “Very much taste that needs to be used to, you would not like,” he said, keeping his eyes glued hungrily to the box of white rolls as she set them down on the desk beside the lighter.

“You breathe in smoke? And you like it?” Rainbow asked, finally deciding to put her word in on the conversation. She felt more relaxed now that Luna was only asking questions, she liked that much more than when she was yelling. But to her, the idea of breathing in smoke on purpose didn’t make any sense at all.

Coalback turned to her and nodded, smiling sheepishly and offering a shrug. “It is comfortable, but … what is word? Gross, I think?” he said, shaking his head. “I like it, but is bad for me to do,” he said, turning back to the Princess as she lifted another small bag.

“Does this item present a similar purpose?” she asked, the bag opening to reveal a charred chain. At the end, a lump of melted metal was fused to several links. “It holds small traces of a spell. Not enough, however, to be able to discern its purpose,” she explained, floating it up to Coalback as his expression dropped.

“Nu eto bistro zakonchilos'...” he mumbled dejectedly, one of his hooves reaching up to take the blackened chain in his hoof. His expression had fallen to one of sadness, or perhaps disappointment. “I wish it were not broken,” he said after a moment of looking at it, his expression changing from one of sadness to another neutral one. “Was this on me when you find me?” he asked distantly, staring at the charred lump.

“No, we found these things … around you,” Luna explained, examining Coalback’s expression. “And it would seem you have confirmed the claims from the guards, which is very interesting indeed …” she said, trailing off as Coalback lowered the chain to the plush floor. “We refrained from confiscating your other charms, for fear of breaking them. Pray tell, what are their purpose?” she asked, nodding toward the rings around his arm.

“They protect,” he said simply, switching his gaze to his arm. “Keep away too much energy,” he tried, seemingly struggling with his words. “Like storage, or … Sort of warning system? I am not sure how to explain. I get headache when there is too much, but I can get more by using these,” he tried, squinting his eyes as he tried to think. He shrugged as he turned back to look at the Princess.

The Princess’s eyebrows rose in suspicion, her eyes betraying surprise. “This ‘energy,’ do you refer to magic?” she asked incredulously, continuing to watch him with a disbelieving glare.

“I think that is right word?” he said, shrugging again as Luna’s eyes narrowed. “Anything more complicated than fire is hard, but I … make do? Is that right?” he said, interrupting himself as he looked toward Rainbow Dash for confirmation. He was slightly put off when he was met by another incredulous look from the cyan mare.

“That is impossible,” Princess Luna continued, shaking her head as Coalback looked back toward her. A look of annoyance had quickly grown on her face, making the Princess seem all the more intimidating. “You lack any of the physiology required to manipulate magical energies. We would not make light of this, should we stand where you do,” she admonished, one of her gilded hooves tapping on the carpet dully.

Coalback’s face twisted into an expression of confusion, one of his ears dropping to the side of his head. “I do not understand, why are you upset?” Coalback asked, shaking his head. “I tell truth. Look, I show you,” he said, his hoof lifting up to point toward the desk where his items sat. “Veni che,” he hissed, a gust of wind suddenly spraying across Luna’s desk and launching the package of white paper rolls toward Coalback.

Both of his hooves shot up, clasping the box between them just before it could hit him in the face. He huffed out of his nose, bringing the box down away from his face. He looked toward the Princess again, raising an eyebrow as he fumbled out one of the rolls. He took the white roll of paper in his lips, pulling it fully out of the box and idly twirling it in his mouth.

“You want me show more?” Coalback asked around the paper, tilting his head slightly to accentuate his question. Little in his voice or actions showed his annoyance, but the connotation was clear.

Luna’s eyes narrowed again, considering her answer carefully. Rainbow turned her disbelieving look from Coalback over to Luna, surprised to see the barest hint of fear in her eyes. Rainbow was baffled; The fact that Coalback had somehow found out how to perform magic was already more than unbelievable. But the fact that the Princess seemingly appeared afraid was one of the most frightening things she could think of.

“We … suppose that that matter will have to be discussed later,” Luna said carefully, collecting herself and hiding that spark of fear that Rainbow had hoped she hadn’t seen. “Perhaps you would like to these back as well. However, We are afraid that they seemed to have been destroyed during your travels …” Luna continued, seeming to have shaken off all evidence of her own surprise.

The last opaque bag lifted out of the chest, bulging with unseen shapes inside. It was particularly larger than the other bags had been, pushed wide by whatever had been forced inside it. And rather than opening it herself, Princess Luna set it down in front of Coalback.

His ears perked up as the bag settled before him, his eyes looking to it as if it were some sort of present. He set down his box, settling it between his legs with the piece of charred metal. His hooves fumbled with the bag’s opening, changing to using his teeth to pry open the knot that held it closed. The copper-toned string pulled away from the bag’s opening, allowing him to reach a hoof in and pull out the contents.

“My odezhde!” he exclaimed, pulling out the remains of what looked like a shirt. His face fell as he looked the single garment over however, a disappointed frown forming on his lips. “They are all bad like this? I wonder how?” he said, sifting through the rest of the bag. Several more garments fell from the bag, including what looked like that tatters of a saddlebag.

Rainbow shook herself out of her shocked state, still baffled over the idea of a pegasus using magic like a unicorn. The strange assortment of variably battered clothes catching her attention. She balked as the smell of burning, ozone, and sulfur assaulted her nose, wafting up from the garments that Coalback continued to sort through. “These clothes smell terrible, dude...” she muttered, taking a step back from him and placing a hoof over her muzzle to try and block out the smell.

“Strange, yeah? I was not even wearing some, most in bag. But the bag is all gone, and now all of them are … What did happen?” he asked, looking back up at the Princess as he pulled out a particularly thick burnt and tattered garment. He seemed just as confused as Rainbow was at this point, although for different reasons it would seem.

“Yeah!” Rainbow agreed, turning to the Princess to try and find the answers absent from the stallion himself. “What in the hay is goin’ on, Princess? And how did I end up in the middle of it?” she asked, looking incredulously toward the ruler of the night. She simply couldn’t stand being patient any more. If she didn’t get some answers, or at least a chance to burn off her frustration with a good training session, she would explode.

“Neither of you remember? It was quite the event, We had expected you to have at least heard of it, Rainbow Dash,” Luna said, returning the incredulous look. It seemed that the subject of magic-wielding pegasi had been thoroughly forgotten. “Perhaps you should look to the garden maze?” she suggested, motioning toward her personal balcony that faced the majority of the royal gardens. “We believe it would be most enlightening …” she said, trailing off as Rainbow began trotting toward the glass doors.

Rainbow was more than happy for an excuse to get the blood flowing in her legs again, darting over to the glass doors and pulling them open. She trotted onto the balcony impatiently, darting her eyes over the garden spread out under her. “What am I supposed to be looking … at …” she said, trailing off as her gaze fell on the northernmost side of the gardens.

Only the edges of the hedge maze that had once hugged the border of the mountainside remained, its center no less than destroyed. Chunks of brown sod stood out in the silvery green of the gardens, stone statues painted with the remains of the ground. A ditch stretched along the center of the garden, slashing through the dead center of the maze, a dark wound on the earth.

The roots of hedges had been turned skyward, those remaining upright weighed down with more soil on their leaves. She could see the beginnings of a remodeling project at the very edges of the impact, a few tools left out as the workers abandoned the site. A short path of cleared land led to the head of the ditch in the ground, the only thing remaining there a deep hole where they’d yet to fill it in.

A long whistle pierced through the air, ending as its source walked up behind her. Coalback edged into the corner of her vision, staring out with similar disbelief at the destruction of the gardens. He stared out at it beside her, his mouth slowly falling open in shock at the image presented to him.

“Behold the aftermath of Coalback’s arrival,” Luna said, her wings spreading to indicate the destruction before them. They tore their gaze away from the gardens, looking back at Luna with similar expressions of shock and disbelief.

“I did that?” Coalback asked incredulously, looking back towards the gardens and then back to the Princess. “How?” he asked, his brow furrowing as he waited for an answer. Rainbow reflected his confusion, waiting again for the Princess to give a straight answer.

“You fell from the sky, from hither,”  Luna said simply pointing to the Southern sky in the same direction that the trench pointed. “A ball of fire that was so bright it lit the streets as if it were day again. I directed its fall away from Canterlot and into the gardens, a small sacrifice in exchange for your safety,” Luna said, returning her gaze back to the ponies.

“No,” Coalback said, continuing to look at her with disbelief. “No! I would be dead! For a very long time. I would remember hitting the ground!” Coalback listed off, turning and walking past the Princess and into the room behind her. “And I could not have hurt because of this!” he continued, pulling up the charred chain in his hoof and presenting it to them. “I made friend who make this for me before I leave, she tell me that it protect me! I did not fall!” he said defiantly, waving the slag in front of him.

“It makes sense that you should not remember; you slept for a full day and night after we found you,” Luna said, trying to calm him down. Her wings spread slightly, and her walking came between Coalback and Rainbow as the other pegasus followed her.

“I was in a cage!” Coalback snapped, maintaining his Equestrian even though his own frustration was starting to get the better of him. “I was not welcomed by ponies,” he said with a half-hearted stomp of his hoof, looking angrily toward the Princess. It seemed like he was more confused than angry, but his face was hard to read with the Princess’s wings blocking Rainbow’s view.

“What’s going on?” Rainbow asked, unnoticed as Luna attempted to continue to calm Coalback.

“Admittedly, our actions were rash. But your arrival caused quite the stir among the castle, we acted as we saw wise in the moment,” Luna said carefully, squaring her stance in between Rainbow and Coalback. “But now we see that you are not as malicious as we assumed, and We are sorry.”

Rainbow paused, once again noticing that tiny string of fear that danced through Luna’s voice. Rainbow finally took notice of the stance the Princess had taken, a defensive stance that placed the Princess as a shield between them. “Princess, what’s going on?” Rainbow asked more loudly.

“Sorry does not feel like word that is strong enough,” Coalback protested, Rainbow’s inquiry ignored as he stared intently at the Princess. “I was in cage. Do you know how confused I was- What is word? Freaking? Yes! I was freaking!” he said, conviction returning to him as he spoke.

“Yet your actions after that show that we were wrong.” Luna responded, her voice carefully cultivated to express calm. She wasn’t trying to goad Coalback into a fury, even if his reactions didn’t fit that goal. “We still continue to hope that we were wrong in assuming how dangerous you are to Our ponies,” Luna tried, only receiving a snort in return from Coalback.

“What in Tartarus are you talking about?!” Rainbow yelled sharply, cutting off Coalback as he tried to respond to Luna. She darted around Luna, aiming a heated glare at the both of them. They both hesitated at the sound of her voice, turning surprised eyes back at her. It was like they’d forgotten she was in the room during their argument.

“You do not remember it?” Coalback asked, the anger in his voice suddenly replaced with confusion again. His brow was still furrowed slightly, and she could see an amount of disappointment painted in his features.

“Remember what? The last thing I remember before being roped into all this was training with the other Wonderbolt trainees,” Rainbow said, only becoming more frustrated as her question was dodged. She didn’t know where they could possibly be going with this, or how she played into Coalback’s existence.

“The dragon attack, Rainbow Dash?” Luna said, shaking her head incredulously. The words struck Rainbow however, making her suddenly freeze. “Perhaps your subconscious mind couldn’t accept the reality presented to you; it simply chose to forget what happened,” Luna continued, her wings folding back to her sides. “With the suddenness of the attack, it would be surprising if you remembered much at all,” Luna said, switching into a tone of voice that Rainbow would have associated with Twilight’s ‘lecture-voice.’

“That’s not the point!” Rainbow grunted, glaring at the Princess in frustration. “I’m a little tired of being left out of the loop. Enough riddles, give me a straight answer and tell me what’s going on!” she said angrily, stomping on the carpet and producing a dull echo from the floor underneath. She was tired of ponies waiting to explain things in simple Equestrian, sick of being left in the dust while everypony else seemed to just get it.

She was met with silence for a while, Coalback and the Princess trading glances as they silently tried to decide who would speak first. But just before Rainbow could burst out with an ‘Oh, come on!’ Coalback spoke up.

“Maybe ... I tell you then?” Coalback suggested, drawing surprise from both of them. Coalback looked between them, clearing his throat before explaining. “I was there, I will tell what really happened,” he explained, looking toward the Princess again. He received a nod of approval, taking a deep breath before starting.