Age of Exploration

[Cyan Hide]

Wylfen Shepard

"Well," Replied Applejack as they walked along. "Applebloom's in Canterlot with thuh rest o' the crusaders...that's her two filly friends...Granny Smith went to Appleloosa thuh moment rumors of an invasion started, an Big Mac went to Manehattan. He wanted to stay on thuh farm but in spite of his size, he ain't no soldier, no-sir-ee. Ah stayed back to defend thuh farm, an' Ponyville too as much as ah could, but ah ain't never seen so many Griffins. Ah had my hooves full jes lookin' after thuh farm. When Ponyville fell an' they geared up to invade Canterlot, I knew ah had to go there an 'protect mah lil sister.

What about you? Do you have any family?"

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
"Uhhhm... date first, gardens later!" Trixie said with a grin, before starting to make her way off towards the nearest restaurant! She wasn't really in the mood for any super expensive fancy restaurant, and there was a nearby inn offering free meals for injured veterans anyway, so that's where she was wanting to go!

Dumbledoof
Luna watched calmly as Expellix entered the ring, though if one looked closely enough they could see a slight smile on her lips. It wasn't often that she sparred with one of her troops, but every time she had done so, they always looked terrified. Even if there was no outward sign of fear, she could always see it in their eyes.

But Expellix didn't appear to show any of that. That impressed Luna a hell of a lot. She tapped the base of her scythe on the floor and the black starry blade disappeared, making it once again just look like a silver walking pole. She set it off to the side.

"Whenever you're ready, Expellix. I will only use weaker magics, you may use whatever you wish." She said while her horn began to glow, and 6 little balls of darkness appeared in the air around her.

 

[Dumbledoof]

Dreamweaver
Expellix was never really too sure about sparring with Luna. He trusted her, yes, but he was almost always pretty sore afterward. You don't just fight a night goddess without being tired afterward, and especially when she nails you with a really good hit. He was not looking forward to being hit.

No fear. It wasn't a part of him when it came to Luna. She'd helped him far too often, been with him for a bit too much, for him to ever be scared of her anymore. Despite only knowing her for a brief portion of his life, and an even smaller fraction of her own, she was a... friend. Somebody he could trust. That's what friends were, right, ponies that helped and trusted each other? He had to wonder how she felt.

He gripped Insight and Judgment tightly briefly, focusing on her, before relaxing and taking in a steady breath... then he charged forward. Expellix was undeniably quick when he was on her in an instant, bringing Insight in low—obviously, due to him being so small and she was so large in comparison—and releasing the weapon, holding it telekinetically to continue on its way. Hey, why put yourself immediately within hoof reach when you could just use your melee weapon like a ranged weapon?

 

[Dreamweaver]

Dumbledoof
Rather than move out of the way of the attack at all, one of the orbs of darkness around Luna came down to intercept the attack. It caught the axe as it tried to hit Luna, and then exploded; sending the axe flying away. It would be easily brought back thanks to the telekinesis holding it, but such a move was rather dangerous. An explosion sending away a telekinetically held object was an interesting trick, to be sure.

Another of the orbs of darkness flew at Expellix and exploded beside him. It had no forceful impact this time, not like it had on the axe, but instead a dark cloud of smoke surrounded Expellix and blocked his eyesight. The smoke was also extremely cold, and physically hurt to breath in. Such a thing was awful to be surrounded in, and he needed to get out as soon as possible. Every breath felt like icy knives stabbing him in the lungs.

 

[Cyan Hide]

Wylfen Shepard

"Yup, sure am," Replied Applejack in response to Cassius' question, before listening to his story. he seemed hesitant to start it, and AJ almost felt bad for asking, but if you can't talk about your family, what can you talk about? It started on a sober note, and another silence followed after he told her that he'd never met his parents. Applejack was never exactly adopted, but had spent most of her life raised by Granny Smith, ever since...Well, at least Cassian never lost his parents, even if he'd never found them. She smiled a sad smile and waited for him to continue when he was ready as they walked.

"Durgins have their ways. I ain't gonna comment on that. Twilight keeps givin' me lectures about that, so I jes' let other races do their own thing. Still, if they come to Equestria, they gotta be prepared to do things the Equestria way, is all ah'm sayin'. You, fer example. Ah'm proud to call you an Equestrian after all that fightin'."


Dreamweaver

Starlight followed Trixie into the restaurant...or rather, inn that was offering free food to those who fought in the battle. That was...good too? Starlight looked around for somewhere secluded and the slightest bit romantic where they could take their food over to. And it better be on china plates instead of trays. Starlight wasn't a picky mare but eating a school dinner in a packed hotel lobby wasn't her idea of a date. Luckily, the food was on plates (it was a hotel after all), and few people were outside on account of the view being battle damaged Canterlot and that was the last thing many soldiers wanted to see. As they were in the line for food, Starlight pointed the door outside out to Trixie. "Hey, let's eat out there!" she suggested casually, as if saying no wouldn't result in Starlight but Trixie through double walking training on purpose later.

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Considering the fact that this wasn't one of the wealthier taverns in Canterlot, the food was surprisingly good. The main reason for that was because the government was currently selling food off cheaply, so that taverns could do events like this. It cost the land slightly, but it also made the soldiers happy... and that was the most important thing, really. The soldiers had fought tooth and nail to keep Equestria standing, so they deserved something. There was also a massive amount of rebuilding happening in Canterlot and its surroundings. Especially Ponyville... which was a smoldering pile of ashes. Luckily magic would have it rebuilt in weeks.

Trixie was too high to even notice Starlight's little trick to get her walking more! Trixie just smiled dumbly and nodded her head, "Let's eat out there!" she mimicked, as they were served their food. It was an assortment of greens and fake meat, which tasted like the real thing but was not the real thing because ponies weren't carnivores! Aside from bat ponies.

Once they were outside, they found a nice bench with an umbrella and Trixie sat down with a loud thump!

 

[Cyan Hide]

Wylfen Shepard

"Well, ah can't speak for everypony, o'course, but yer okay in my eyes." AJ replied, as they came to the clearing. Applejack looked around. "So, this is the place?"


---

Dreamweaver

Starlight sat down opposite Trixie, and sighed happily. It was nice to finally be doing normal couple stuff after so long in a hospital, or in rehabilitation sessions. Starlight wasn't worried in the slightest about the menu right now. She was instead looking right at Trix. "It's been a while since we had a normal date like this, huh?"

 

[Dumbledoof]

Dreamweaver
So the trickery began. He suspected something with the orbs, but one of them just plain knocking his weapon away was a little different. Then again, he she blocked it with her scythe, maybe she would have accidentally cut through Insight, who knows. Regardless, going in with only one of his two weapons wasn't exactly what he had in mind.

The second orb coming at him gave him pause, if only for the briefest of moments, but it didn't deter him. Instead of moving backwards, he pressed forward and held his breath, spinning Judgment around in his hand to use the blunt end, and giving Luna a good whack in the knee. While the intent was to knock it inward so she'd fall down he, uh, didn't know exactly how that'd turn out.

Might as well stick to his guns. He continued forward underneath her, moving past her possibly downed left foreleg and smashing the same-side knee in as well. If it just so happened to knock her down, he twisted the blade around to came scathing down her belly horizontally, but... this time actually pulling his punch a little to only barely miss, sudden hesitation on actually cutting her. He saw that shit at the Griffon camp. No laser beams of death!

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Trixie was stuck between looking at the menu, looking at Starlight, and looking at whatever crazy hallucinations her hardcore painkillers spawned around her. "Holy shit a t-rex..." she muttered while looking to the side... at a dragon waiter. Definitely not a dinosaur. Trixie shook her head clear and looked back at Starlight with a smile. "It been a super duper long bit o' while yeah! Thinking you not used tah good food cus hospital food bad and not tasty at all..."

Dumbledoof
Expellix managed to... slightly nick Luna's leg. His weapons were by no stretch of the imagination powerful enough to cut deeply through her magically-powered muscles. The wound immediately mended itself and Luna teleported herself away from his next attack, disappearing and reappearing at the other end of the ring.

She couldn't just retaliate, or she'd kill him. The point here wasn't to hurt him, it was simply to test his abilities. When she reappeared, she conjured her magic into a bunch of little shards of ice and sent them toward him like heat-seeking missiles. They were small and mostly harmless, though they would cut his flesh if they connected.

 

[Dumbledoof]

Dreamweaver
Well, at least he didn't really have to worry about hurting her accidentally or something in that case. The sudden hesitation had kind of blindsided him. He'd never done something like that before, reluctant to actually attack somepony. Must be what happens when you actually like and trust somebody. You just don't want to hurt them at all. Not saying he actually wanted to hurt others before...

His ears flicked and he turned around, seeing the ice shards incoming... and vanished himself. It appeared as if he teleported but he did not immediately reappear somewhere, and the light flash was minimal. Instead, as the shards passed by the space he was in before, it was only then did he actually reappear. Flicking his wrist, Insight shot back into his paw and he readied himself to attack again.

 

[Dumbledoof]

Wylfen Shepard
It was turning into the afternoon when Asa decided to go off into town. Despite still bearing the injuries from her little voyage into the Everfree Forest, and the mental scars of being kidnapped and that same adventure, it felt kind of nice to be out of the castle. She couldn't just keep herself hidden in her room all day, only talking to Silva. That was no way to live!

So a resupply was in order. And resupplying meant getting candy! Being a princess meant that she had the perks of being allowed to pull from the treasury, but only in small amounts. Giving a child too much money was just a recipe for disaster. Buying sweets wasn't off the table though!

She had to come with guards, not that she had an issue with it. There were only two and they were meant to keep her safe. Asa has more than proven that she had a knack for getting into trouble as it was, which was shown by her crystal scales being cracked and torn. While the wound was healing nicely, remnants of the burn and clobbering she had gotten remained. It gave ponies she passed by pause, staring at the injury on such a young princess. She tried to ignore them, only waving and giving out greetings whenever a pony stopped to do the same for her.

Reaching the candy shop, she entered while one guard stopped at the entrance, the other following her inside. They couldn't really stop people from going in but looking at tall and menacing meant that bad guys were discouraged from doing so.

 

[Dumbledoof]

Wylfen Shepard
Asa jumped and squeaked when she heard her name suddenly called behind her, leading to the guard with her whipping around with his spear pointed directly at Cassian. He didn't know whether the other dragon was a threat or not, the instinct to do his duty and protect Asa was all he was thinking of right now. Asa shook her head, giving a half-hearted smile.

"It's... it's okay, he just scared me. P-Put down the spear?" The little princess seemed to have a hard time just looking at it. Seeing as she gave him the okay, the guard backed up and stood at attention, warily watching Cassian. Asa did her best to at least look cheerful. "Hello, um... Cassian, was it?"

 

[Dumbledoof]

Wylfen Shepard
Asa wasn't sure what to say. The general idea of this visit was just to go down, buy some sweets, and then get back to the castle as quickly as she could. While she didn't feel unsafe in Canterlot, she simply did not want to be out for long anymore. The last time that happened she got caught up in an adventure, killed a pony and a dire wolf, and then nearly died by bandits. Luna even had t come rescue her! Not a good time.

That wasn't even mentioning still recovering after being kidnapped by the griffons...

Cassian was nice, right? He had helped save her and the others from the griffons. "I... um... I was getting stuff because I wanted candy and Silva did too..." She mumbled. It was clearly evidenced by the bag she had clutched in her claws. She didn't like feeling eyes on her injuries, it just made her feel bad... worse than she already did.

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver


Starlight stifled a chuckle as she apologised to the Dragon waiter, before turning back to Trixie. "No, it's not. Of course, whenever I'd leave, I'd always take a detour to Donut Joe's. I tried to smuggle some back in but the nurses were very insistent on not letting you eat outside foods. After we finish here, maybe we could head over there. Anyway, let's look at this menu..."

She looked over at the Dragon waiter and smiled. "Excuse me, Mr. T Rex, sir. What is today's special?"

---

Wylfen Shepard


Applejack conversed with Cassian as they worked. AJ let Cassian handle the finicky things like picking things off the ground with his claws, and she...well, looked around, mostly. She smiled when Cassian conversed with the chick and its mother. Many a similar conversation had Applejack experienced with Applebloom.

The lightshow took her by surprise, and she darn near jumped out of her skin. "What in tarnation?!" she exclaimed as she rejoined Cassian's side. "This the, uh, magic thingamajig you were lookin' for?"

 

[Dumbledoof]

Wylfen Shepard
Asa wasn't too sure about accepting it from him. While sure, she did want to, and Silva probably wouldn't object either, maybe she shouldn't. She didn't know Cassian at all, maybe he had done something to that candy? Or was another bad pony in a stupid disguise to kidnap her again! Nope, no way, can't do it.

Instead she backed away, distrust in her eyes, into the guards. "N-no, that's okay! I got what I wanted already!" She looked up at the guards. "Let's go home!" She squeaked.

The nodded resolutely, forming up on either side of Asa. She gave him a wobbly smile. "It was nice meeting you!" She offered timidly before carefully making her way around Cassian and towards the door.

 

[Dreamweaver]

Dumbledoof
As the shards of ice hit the spot where Expellix had been, they suddenly melted and splashed water onto the floor. Obviously Luna wasn't looking to actually hurt him and didn't want to impale him with ice. She nodded as he teleported away, and when he reappeared she changed up her stance.

She slammed the butt of her scythe on the ground where it shimmered and turned into a scimitar, and a matching shield. The shield was pitch black and round, with a silver moon insignia in the middle, and covered Luna from chin to just below the knees. It was definitely modeled after the old pegasi shields... or rather, it was an old pegasi shield considering how old those artifacts were.

She just motioned him to try again. He'd have to change up his pattern now, to try and compete with the shield.

Cyan Hide
The dragon waiter looked confused at being called a t-rex, but took one look at Starlight and another at Trixie and just nodded his head. Another injured veteran, who was likely high on painkillers... he'd play along! He held his arms up all short like a t-rex would and said, "The specials today are a lettuce and mayo sandwich smoked above fresh lambshank and braised with honey... and a potato soup. Roar."

 

[Cyan Hide]

Wylfen Shepard


"When you say 'thuh tree', you ain't talkin' about thuh Tree of Harmony, are ya?" inquired Applejack, curious and hopeful that they might actually be talking about something that Applejack already knew about. It might make him feel a little better if she told him that he hadn't let slip something she didn't know. After all, how many extremely important magic trees could be in Equestria at once? Two different and distinct trees is coincidence enough. Maybe there could be more than two?

That's when Cassie was borderline assaulted by a very loud Breezie. It appeared the two knew each other. "Y'all know each other?" Applejack asked.

---

Dreamweaver


Starlight couldn't help but chuckle at the waiter's dry yet self-deprecating sense of humour. It kind of reminded her of Maud's style of comedy. "Thank you. We'll take two specials, please." she replied.

When T-Rex left them (that was his name to her now), Starlight turned back to Trixie. "I hope you don't mind me ordering for you but that sounded amazing, and you seem...a little out of it right now. Not that it isn't adorable. Some food should sober you up."

A silence settled over them, but it was a pleasant, voluntary silence, as Starlight stared at Trixie, smiling, just basking in the sight of seeing her happy, healthy and free again.

---

Meanwhile, Cadence was taking a walk in what was left of the Royal Canterlot Gardens. She vowed to oversee this place tended to. The craters will be filled and the barren dirt sewed with seeds. The statues and fountains to be repaired. The resplendent arrangements of flowers to be replanted. It was hardly a pressing matter with the current state of damage Canterlot suffered, but even so, Cadence thought that beauty had it's own useful place in the order of things, and this garden shouldn't be neglected. She sighed outwardly.

 

[Dumbledoof]

Dreamweaver
Expellix wouldn't really know what the old pegasi shields would look like anyway. He was quite old, yes, but also isolated for most of his life up until this point. That wasn't even mentioning his blatant hatred for ponies ever since Starswirl meddled with his life, particularly towards any unicorn. Sure, he was getting over it, but it lingered still in just how little he knew sometimes.

The entrance of the shield still required that he take a different approach. It not only made breaking past her defense difficult, she could also counterattack very easily. Being much bigger and stronger than him, all Luna really had to do was just swipe his weapon aside and then attack. This was... going to be interesting!

Going in with just his axes wouldn't really cut it here. So he released Insight, letting it float near his hand instead, gauging Luna's defense momentarily. Could try disabling her in some way, if only to at least sneak in past the shield for a moment, if at all possible.

His paw suddenly shot forward and a blinding light burst from his palm, aimed straight at Luna's face, hoping to blind her. Insight shot back into his hand and he dashed forward, bringing Insight in down low for an upwards slash, just to the side of her shield, while Judgment followed with one horizontally, aimed to just occupy her something to think about from her sword side.

Considering her height, that meant he also had a jump a little just to reach!

 

[Dreamweaver]

Dumbledoof
Using light to blind Luna was a pretty good idea, being one of the only ways to actually take her sense of sight away since darkness did nothing to her. Though she wasn't to be underestimated by any means even if she was blind. Insight would find no flesh to bite, as that side of her body turned to shadow and the axe drifted harmlessly through it.

Judgement was met by her sword, clanging it aside harmlessly. Luna quickly shook her vision back to normal and looked down at Expellix with a smirk. An almost proud smirk! Almost.

She then raised her hoof up and slammed it into the ground, causing the area around them to crack and shatter as well as sending out a small shockwave. She was interested to see how he dealt with that!

Cyan Hide
Apparently Trixie was hungry because she was starting to eat her hoof. And by that I mean she had her whole hoof in her mouth and was starting to suck on it. That was getting them a whole lot of weird looks from the surrounding tables, especially she she started slurping real loudly on her hoof.

She quickly snapped out of it and waved goodbye to the t-rex, who had already left but she had only just realized it. "Bye!" She said to the t-rex who was no longer there, before focusing back on Starlight. "Imma thinking that... what he saying sounded lots of good, really wanting that food..."
-------
It was at about that time that Silvanus came running out of the bushes and ran straight into Cadence's leg. She wasn't watching where she was going at all, instead looking behind her! Silvanus was pretty strong, but not really strong enough to just barrel over Cadence so the small nature goddess just stumbled to the side and face planted on the rocks.

She then stood up and brushed herself off, before grinning and running away again. Shortly after Luna came running down the same path, and upon seeing her daughter disappearing in the distance she just sighed and looked at Cadence. "... Oh! What are you doing here?"

 

[Dumbledoof]

Dreamweaver
Expellix frowned as Insight just went through air basically. No fair. And then he lost Judgment. Dammit.

Luckily, though, Expellix was still a resourceful little rabbit. Instead of just stopping his swing, kept it going and dragged himself along with the axe telekinetically, pulling him up and into the air, quickly flipping himself up and balancing on the top of the blade, minding the sharp spike protruding from the top.

Out of hand didn't mean Judgment stopped being a threat. He just grabbed a hold of the lost blade with his magic and wielded in that way from up above, bringing it back around to attack her from behind. Afterward, he just released it, allowing the weapon to work on its own for the moment.

Taking the haft of Insight, he pushed off it and released his telekinetic hold, launching himself at Luna and bringing it down to axe her a question. To the face.

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

Starlight looked around in embarrassment and gave a few strained smiles to the other tables as Trixie started sucking on her own hoof loudly and unabashedly. The sooner they ate, the sooner Trixie could sober up a little. When the food finally came, Starlight didn't touch hers as she watched Trixie like a hawk, making sure that she started to eat before eating herself. That said, the food was delicious.

When they had both finished the meal, Starlight leaned forward, grinning. "So, so you feel and better now? Some of that morphine worn off?"

---

Cadence moved to help Silvanus up before the young Princess got back up and happily ran off again. Cadence didn't even get a chance to tell her to be careful, or ask if she was alright. Not that Silvanus would have really paid attention anyway. That filly was just precious.

The Princess of Love turned to see Luna running towards her, but who then stopped and asked Cadence what she was doing here. Cadence smiled, and beckoned at the Garden. "Oh, I was just thinking about the gardens, and restoring them. True, it doesn't seem like a big priority, but I just think people need some beauty right now."

 

[Dreamweaver]

Dumbledoof
Rather than continue the fight, Luna quickly teleported to the other side of the arena and held up her hoof to signal a pause. It quickly became apparent why as a soldier entered the room and saluted, before explaining that a camp of griffon soldiers had been found just inside the Everfree's boundaries.

Luna quickly listened to what he had to say and then left to go deal with them, leaving Expellix alone in the chamber.

Cyan Hide
Trixie seemed to get the idea when Starlight stared at her, and began to munch on her food. It didn't take long for her to finish it all, and she sat back happily. It had definitely helped her shrug off some of the morphine, and she rubbed at her head tiredly. "Feeling... a bit better." she said with a nod of her head. At least she was talking normally now!

She rubbed at her stump and shrugged a bit. "It does not really hurt, to be honest. I think I'm just so used to the morphine that I keep taking it."
---------------
Luna decided not to keep chasing Silvanus, because that filly was probably under the ground by this point pretending to be a land-shark. "Fixing the gardens?" Luna questioned while looking around. Everything was kind of dead, having been burned or stomped on by the griffons when they had come here.

"I think Silva could use the help. She's been doing her best, but even with her nature magic she isn't really strong enough to regrow this entire land. Perhaps you could team up? I'd start with the vegetable and fruit sections, since a lot of that will be donated to the ones who lost homes."

 

[Dumbledoof]

Dreamweaver
Expellix just... when he just passed through thin air, he just rolled in with the weight of his axe to somersault, coming back down on his feet. Just a tad bit confused at what Luna had done, he turned around to see she was currently engaged with somebody else. Obviously he could hear it from all the way across the arena... his ears were that acute.

Seeing nothing better to do, his axes disappeared back into their pocket dimension and he went to go catch up. Maybe he could help! Beats sitting around reading all day again.

Gunnolf
While Expellix and Luna did that, Gunnolf was just doing his normal wolf thing. That normally was just laying around, finding ways to amuse himself inside of the castle. There was certainly plenty of space—he suspected ponies either planned for much larger things to be in here than even him, or... they just liked grand designs. The latter was more likely than the former. What else would you do with all of those bits?

For now, though, he had been resting. Had been was key, as he heard a rumbling in the distance. His ears twitched and the massive wolf's eyes opened, looking in that direction. What he saw was absolutely terrifying. Some... thing that was coming towards him in the dirt, upsetting the earth around it, and his eyes widened. Oh dear Luna not again!

'NO, I'M NOT BECOMING WORM FOOD!' He screeched, scrambling to his paws and literally trying to hide behind the tree. If the sight weren't so ridiculous, they might mistake his panic for simply playing around instead of being horrified meekly looking around it.

 

[Dreamweaver]

Dumbledoof
Silvanus had heard heard the story several times regarding how Gunnolf and Luna had met. It involved something called a 'Purple Worm' that Luna had saved him from, although Silvanus never really understood that. Gunnolf was the biggest thing she had ever seen, so why did he need saving from a worm? They were small!

Worms obviously moved underground, so she hoped to replicate that and scare him! The earth began to rumble and crack apart above her where she sped through, and she laughed internally as her senses found Gunnolf hiding behind a tree. Was he really that scared of a little worm?

She shot out of the ground like some kind of weird dirt-missile and soared right at him, latching onto his ear with her teeth and hanging limply at his side. Like an earring!

 

[Dumbledoof]

Dreamweaver
Gunnolf was certainly scared of Purple Worms after one had tried to eat him. Hell, he'd only survived that encounter because Luna and Celestia were there, especially considering his hurt leg. Damn Beholders were a bit of a nuisance to deal with. They got a lucky shot on him.

When Silvanus sprang out of the dirt and latched onto his ear, he recoiled slightly with a yelp. He wasn't quite expecting a tiny pony to come popping out of a hole in the dirt, but yet, who else should he have expected it to be? Of course it's just Silva playing around and trying to scare him. Bit of a mean prank to play on him really...

Sighing, Gunnolf flopped back onto the ground, belly first. 'You know, I could've done without nearly having a heart attack today, Silva.' He groaned, closing his eyes. He barely even felt her teeth. 'What are you doing?'