Chapter 2
Wherein I encounter a strange weapon. Mayhem occurs, and, long story short, I aquire some strange new powers, begin to learn why I am here(aside from my own curiosity) and I meet a certain purple unicorn.
The next morning, I awoke to the cawing of some exotic jungle bird. The soft rays of light filtered through the canopy and into my face as I stretched...right off the couch and onto the floor with a resounding thud.
As I sat on the floor rubbing my head, Zecora poked her head into the room "Oh good, you're up."
I looked at her and grinned, "Yeah, gravity makes an effective alarm clock. By the way, how long was I out?"
Zecora thought for a second. "About 10 hours, I'd say."
"Cool. So, not that I don't enjoy your company but..."
Zecora nodded knowingly "you want to know if there is a town nearby."
Well, I already knew, but I needed to keep my cover, besides, I needed directions. "Yes please."
Zecora led me outside and pointed a hoof toward the path we had take to her house last night. "Just keep following the path out of the forest and Ponyville is only about a 20 minute walk."
Unable to give her a firm handshake, I sucked it up, dropped to one knee, and gave Zecora a quick hug. I had a strong aversion to physical contact beyond what a handshake requires, and tried to avoid physical contact whenever possible, but heck, after giving me a place to crash, she deserved to be thanked properly."Thanks, Zecora. I owe you one. " when I got up, I saw that Zecora was blushing ever so slightly. 'why is she blushing, it was just a hug.' I thought to myself. I simply chalked it up to her living alone in the forest and disregarded it. After I hugged her, we quickly exchanged goodbyes, and Zecora gave me one final word of caution.
"Zach, whatever you do, don't wander off the path. It is magically protected to help keep travelers safe, but if you get off the path and don't know the ways of the forest, strange things can happen to you, and you may not get out alive."
With that cheery bit of advice on my mind, I set off to my new destination of Ponyville.
However, as Zecora made her way inside, I felt something drawing me towards the ruins. It was strange, as if someone or something were calling me, beckoning me to return. I knew that realistically, this was really a shitty idea, but hey, that's never stopped me before. You gotta go with what feels right, and where your hearts up in, you know? So, yeah, I started back towards the ruins.
I traversed the path for what seemed like hours. The scenery was beautiful and all, but I was getting pretty bored, so I decided to bust out the old I pod to help pass the time. I scrolled through my songs and put on Homestuck- vol.8.
After an unmeasured duration of jamming out, I reached my destination. The ruins were not quite as impressive in the daytime, but they were still quite impressive, nonetheless. I could feel a presence of some sort emanating from within. It beconed me forth like Finn to a Phat warrior beat. I entered the ruins with no hesitation, drawn towards the presence within. At this point, I have to admit, I've always been a sucker for ancient ruins. And these were the BOMB. The way the gentle sunlight filtered through the holes in the roof to cast shadows off of the collapsing pillars was just breathtaking.
I followed the feeling through the ruins until I came to a large door at the end of a long hallway. I tried to push it open, but it didn't even move an inch. My first instinct was simply to smash the door down, but I quickly discarded the foolish notion. To stay standing this long, the door was obviously enchanted, and since I didn't exactly have Grond with me, I was gonna have to think of a better way.(btw, if you know what Grond is, I applaud your nerd cred.)
I stood back, and gave the door a good once over. It seemed to have some sort of inscription on it. It was pretty old and hard to read, so I had to get up close to it to make out what it said, my hand tracing the letters. The inscription was as follows:
"Beyond these doors lies power untold,
From which, a legend shall unfold,
Of heroes who, through hoof and hand,
Shall vanquish evil from the land,
The six and the one shall then unite,
And fight for light, for what is right,
The one who takes that which lies in this hall,
Takes on the duty as protector of all,
To keep this world from falling prey,
From that which seeks to end the day
And starts a story that shall unfold,
Like no other ever told."
As soon as I finished the inscription, the doors began to open slowly, the feeling of the presence increasing tenfold. I quickly steeped back as the doors swung slowly out, slowing to a stop just short of hitting the walls to either side.
Behind the doors was another room, which, in and of itself was nothing special. What WAS special about it however, was that it was in pristine condition. The room had a number of small portals serving as windows, like in an ancient roman church. It was dimly lit, all except for a beautiful alter in the center of the room, on which a beautiful sword stood, plunged halfway to the hilt into a large rock, the sword seemed to glow with a radiance all it's own. The feeling of beaconing was all but irresistible now, my feet slowly carried me forwards, up the stairs to the altar where the sword stood. I reached the top and slowly approached the alter. I was no longer controlling my movements, the feeling spurred me forward. I reached forward and grasped the handle with both hands, and what felt like a thousand lightning strikes surged through my body. With one smooth motion, I pulled the blade free from the stone and held it high above my head, striking a thoroughly sweet epic pose.
Yeah, it was da shiznit.
After all that epic ruckus died down, I noticed that my armor had changed. It was now more like a regular set of clothes, but made out of a strange metallic fabric. I had a pair of grey jeans, a short sleeve white shirt, and a black duster, all made from the strange material. I didn't have a mirror at the time, but I was almost positive that I looked like a registered badass.
And the sword itself was pretty sweet as well. It was pure white, all except for the small crest on the guard, which was gold, and shaped like an elaborate pair of angel wings. It was a Falchion, an ancient and extremely rare type of medieval weapon. It also had a solid black sheathe, with the wing mark on it as well. Upon looking at my hands, I could also see that they had been branded with 2 small 6 pointed stars in the center of my palms.
/pretty cool, isn't it?/
I jumped a bit, startled by this sudden intrusion, then quickly looked around for whoever said that.
"Who's there? Show yourself!"
/Relax man, I'm the sword you just picked up./
(Oh, great. A talking sword, that really makes me feel better.)
/C'mon, man. Don't be like that. You might as well get used to it, because we'll be spending a lot of time together/
(Ok, fine. So how are you talking.)
/When you grabbed me, my magic created a copy of your personality and infused me with it so you could relate to me more effectively. Before you pulled me out of the stone all I was able to do was call you, as you know. Now that you freed me from the stone, we are bonded./
(What does that mean?)
/It means we are essentially connected, we can communicate, and only you can wield me. If anyone else tries, I will become impossible for them to lift./
(Cool beans. So, what exactly are you.)
/Well, you see, the thing is I'm not allowed to tell you stuff like that, your supposed to find out on your own to make it seem more "magical" or some stupid horseshit like that./
(Yeah, I kinda figured that was the case. What if We play hot and cold, would that work.)
/yeah, I think that'll work/
(Bitchin'. But first, let's head for Ponyville.)
/sweet./
And so I went. I quickly made my way down the path towards civilization, feeling unusually robust.
(Hey, sword?)
/What's up?/
(Did you do anything to my body, like, increase my stamina?)
/Yep./
(How about my speed)
/Bingo./
(Strength?)
/Correctumundo./
(Cool.)
/It's what I do, man./
(Do you have a name?)
/No I don't have a name as a matter of fact. You should probably come up with one, instead of just calling me "the sword" all the time./
(You don't want to name yourself?)
/Well, we are basically the same guy and shit, so we're probably both thinking of the same name, anyway./
(Very well, I hereby, christen thee... Caledfwlch(cal-ed-vulk) after one of my favorate swords of all time.)
/Awwww Yeeaaaahhh!/
(Awwww Yeeaaaahhh!)
/I would totally give you a fistbump if I had fists right now/
(That's okay, it's the thought that counts, man.)
Cal and I went on like that for almost an hour before we reached the edge of the everfree forest. From there we could see into town. It was really awesome, just like in the show. I could see all the little ponies going about their day.
I was about to make my way into town, when I had a sudden thought. It probably wasn't the best idea to go into town with a sword.
(Yo Cal.)
/Yeah dude?/
(I'm gonna leave you here for a while. Don't wanna make a bad first impression and all.)
/Yeah, I can see how a foreign creature walking through town with a magical Falchion might cause a bit of a ruckus. Go on ahead, man. I'll be fine. Besides, we're bonded and shit, remember?/
(Alright then.)
I placed Cal hanging on a tree branch and made my way into town.
Almost immediately, ponies started to stop and stare, as predicted, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Especially in a town where almost no one has thumbs.
(Well, since everyone seems to know I'm here, I might as well ask for directions.)
I walked up to one of the ponies. She was the only one who wasn't staring at me, probably because she was wall eyed. She had yellow eyes and gray fur with a blonde mane. Her cutie mark appeared to consist of several bubbles.
/hey, that's Derpy Hooves./
(I know, right! So sweet.)
Restraining my bronydom, I lightly tapped her shoulder to get her attention. She turned to look at me, apparently completely unfazed by my appearance.
Having her attention, I asked her for directions.
"excuse me, ma'am, could you please tell me where the library is?"
She considered for a moment, and pointed to the massive tree not 50 yards from my current location.
/dude, how did you not see that./
(I could ask you the same thing)
/it's because you didn't see it either. I can't see outside of your field of vision./
(ugh, fine. Let's get going)
I tipped my head to the adorable mare in thanks before making my way to the library.
When I reached the entrance, I knocked on the door.
/dude, wtf. It's a frickin' library./
(yeah, but someone lives here. You still gave to be polite.)
As Cal and I continued to mentally bicker over the proper edicate in this situation, someone answered the door.
It was spike. The young dragon stood about 3 feet tall. He opened the door and began to speak in a bored and slightly annoyed tone.
"can I help y..." the young dragon trailed off as he took in the full picture of who was at the door. He seemed to go even wider eyed than usual as he stared up at me.
Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice calling out and getting closer.
"Spiiiike, who's at the door?" in short order, none ther than twilight sparkle herself gently pushed spike out of the way to stand In the door. She stood about 4 feet tall.
Still no having noticed me, she quickly scolded spike."now spike, you know it's rude to stare" she then turned to look back at me "Can I help you..."
Of course, she had the same reaction as spike. Shrugging it off, I cleared my throat
"excuse me ma'am, is the library open?"
At the mention of books, she seemed to snap out of it. "of course it is. Please come in."
The young unicorn beckoned me inside, and I walked into the library. I quickly picked out a book, "Magic for Beginners"
/Dude, how did you know you could do magic now?/
( Well, I do have the symbol for pure magical potential tattooed onto both my palms, so I figured it might be worth looking into?)
/oh yeah, good thinking./
Now that I was all settled in, I sat down on what seemed to be a bean bag chair. I took a deep inhale and let the subtle smell of old paper and dust fill my nostrils before letting out a contented sigh. I had almost forgotten about Twilight until she gently tapped me with one hoof.
"pardon me sir, but if you don't mind me asking, what are you? I haven't seen anything like you before."
I gave her a warm smile "oh, it's fine, I don't mind. Why don't you pull up a chair and we can swap information, I'm pretty curious about you folk as well."
And so we went. We grabbed a couple of chairs, and twilight peppered me with questions. I told her a neat little yarn about how I was from a far away country, and I had come here to start a better life.
"so you weren't happy at home?" she asked slightly concerned.
"Not really. Things were starting to get pretty rough back home. My species has basically been on the brink of destroying itself for almost 50 years. I'm actually glad to have gotten away.
Of course, I got the whole,'wow, that's just terrible' routine for that little tidbit. But yeah, we went on like that for quite sometime before we both realized how late it was getting. The sun had set without us noticing.
I got up from my seat."well, I should probably be going."
Twilight also got up"So, do you have a place to stay?"
"nah, I was just gonna sleep outside, it's a beautiful night after all."
"no way, I won't allow you can stay here until you find somewhere else."
"really, I don't want to be a bother."
This went on for a couple of minutes, until I once again found myself on someone's couch.
"Man she's good." I found myself saying for the second night in a row.
Deja vu XD
