Fandom MLP - Age of Exploration (Discord Chat Available)

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
It was a rather bright and beautiful day in Equestria, when Eira finally decided to go out and introduce herself to the other farmers in the area. Yet as it turned out... there was only one other farming family in the area! That was a little weird to Eira. Where did Equestria get all of its other food from? They couldn't all survive on apples. Oh well, she needed to at least introduce herself. She knew who she was looking for at least, since the Elements of Harmony were rather famous.

After wandering around the apple fields for a while, Eira finally found Applejack! The mare was working on apple bucking right now, so Eira didn't want to take too long. Or she could offer to help, if things went well enough! "Oi Applejack!" Eira called out as she approached. She wasn't armed or anything because that would be weird. "I see yer workin' hard! I been meanin' come say hello. Names Eira!" She held out her hoof. It was obvious she wasn't from around here because not only did she speak with an accent, but she also skipped words sometimes. "I making a wheat farm up near 'ere. Figured should come 'n' say 'ello!"

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

Applejack wiped the sweat from her brow and put the bucket of apples on her back, and was about to head back to the farm when she was approached by a stranger. Though the fact that she was dressed, and talked, in a similar manner to Rockhoof made Applejack suspect that she was from the north. Applejack rinned and shook the smaller pony's hoof.

"Why, howdy, Eira. Mighty neighborly of you to come say hi! A wheat farm, you say? About time those old pear fields got put to some good use. Carrot Top ain't interested and we didn't want to take' em cuz then it'd almost be like we owed the pears. So yer a farmer where you come from, ah take it?"

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Eira couldn't believe how warm of a welcome she just got! Where she was from, ponies were never this nice to each other. Everypony was suspicious of everypony else. Equestria really was a place of magic and friendship as far as Eira could tell! She felt much happier here. Though she still needed to go to Canterlot and see what Equestria was really all about. There was no better way for her to get to know Equestria, than to go to Canterlot!

"Yer right!" Eira said with a grin and a nod of he head. She turned around to show Applejack her cutie mark, which was a golden laurel of wheat!

"I been farmin', most o' my 50 years, lassie. Started reeeaaaal young. Though farmin' aint my only job! Also helped defend th' town from all sortsa things." She nodded a bit. If Applejack looked really closely, she could see all sorts of scars under the mares otherwise picture perfect fur. "How 'bout yerself? How long ye been farmin'?"

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

Applejack looked around and gestured to the trees around her. "How long? Since I could walk. Ah can't remember a time before I was an apple farmer. I guess I've had other jobs since. I was a teacher aroundabout ten or so years ago, and if a bad guy shows up and the elements get called on, obviously I'll have to go an' take care of that. But I always come back to this here farm. There's nowhere else in Equestria I really belong. Guess you feel the same way about wheat farming as I do about apples."

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Eira was looking around at the trees while Applejack gestured and smiling a bit. She had... never actually seen an apple orchard before. She had tasted apples, sure, but apples just weren't grown in her area. Wheat was really the poor villages main source of food. It wasn't like Equestria, where everypony could just go to the store and get whatever food they wanted. "Ah, I could see ye bein' a teacher! And... I think ye feel stronger fer apples than I do fer wheat. Truth is, I ain't much carin' anymore. All the stress of feedin' my village before... killed it for me."

She shrugged. "Hopin' I can restart here. Somewhere that zombies 'n' ghouls ain't wanderin' around, ye know?" She pointed over at a full apple tree and looked back at Applejack! "... Would ye be offended if I tried?"

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

Applejack frowned upon hearing that the pleasure of farming had been lost for Eira. Farming at Ponyville, where there's no pressure and no nasty critters (at least usually) would likely be a welcome change of place from the harsh volcano-filled north. "Killed it for ya?" Applejack exclaimed in shock. "We can't have that, now, can we? If y'all ever need any help fixin' up a barn or anything, Just give me a holler. Ah'm right next door. We'll git yo back in love with farming in no time!"

She looked to the apple tree that Eira was gesturing to, then back to Eira, and nodded. "Of course! Why would I be offended. Ain't no harm in trying!"

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Applejack's words got another huge grin from the mare, who nodded her head! "Yer right 'bout that one. I jus' gotta get into it again. I'd be lovin' some help, friend!" Eira said with a little sparkle in her eyes, before grinning even wider when Applejack said she could go try and applebuck a tree! This was so exciting! She never got to do this before... bucking wheat wasn't exactly effective. That's what scythes were for.

Eira walked over to the tree and inspected it for just a moment, before turning around. She gave it a light kick at first just to get a feel for it... and then really bucked the thing! Her hooves hit at the wrong angle though and slid off the trunk, sending shards of bark out behind her. "Wha'the?!?" She looked back at the tree, feeling a little bit of anger rising in her heart. She'll show this tree! She went to buck again, only this time she was too far away and missed by a few scant milometers!

"TREE!" Eira screamed out, and bucked one final time!

.... Her hoof went about 4 inches deep into the tree. She looked totally shocked, and then pulled her hoof out. Applejack would notice that the hole where her hoof had struck was all rotted out, like something had sapped the life from it. "... Sorry!"

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

Applejack watched as Eira tried to buck the apples from the tree several times. Applejack just watched, not judging or offering to step in. Bucking apples wasn't easy if you didn't develop the knack for it. It was only wen Eira was starting to lose her temper that Applejack approached her. "Hey, now, it's alright. You were gitting the hand of it a lot faster n' I'd probably take to git the hang of harvesting wheat. Now we just..." Applejack stopped as she noticed the rot in the hole. She looked into the tree, then backed up and looked at the branches, then look back at the rot. "Now that don't make a lick of sense. This tree's healthy as a hay-fed horse from Hope Hollow. Why's the inside so rotten?"

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
"Uh..." Eira scratched her head a bit ashamedly and pointed at the rot inside of the tree. "... That's my fault." She said with a small frown spreading across her face as she stared at the rotted hole. "The area I used to live at, was real tainted lassie. It got into m'crops, everythin'. I'm guessin', after so long o' eatin' the tainted crops, it tainted me too. Sometimes when I get real mad, that kinda thing happening." She felt pretty bad about it, but at least the tree was more or less okay. A small rotted hole wouldn't kill a healthy tree!

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

"I ain't never heard of anything like that before in my life," replied Applejack, still staring at the hole, before returning her attention to Eira, and looking more concerned than annoyed. "It doesn't affect you, does it? Don't make you sick or nothin'?"

Applejack took a chisel out of her saddlebag and started to scrape away at the rot whilst Eira answered her. Tree rot was not a rare problem and she always carried tools to help deal with it whenever it would crop up.

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
"Yer concern is touching but it ain't made me sick yet. I'm still just a young healthy mare though. Maybe one day it'll hit me." Eira said with a little shrug of her shoulders. It hadn't bothered her so far, so she wasn't terribly concerned about it. It only came out when she was mad so she just had to... not get mad? She didn't really know what the solution was here. At least it hadn't physically altered her body.

Eira just watched Applejack scrape away the rot with a little smile and nodded as the mare worked. She was really quick at it, and impressive! "Is there anythin' I can do for ye, AJ? Ye need help on th' farm?"

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

"Well, I hope that day's long off," Applejack replied as she finished scraping out the mold and put the tool back in her bag. "And sure! You can help me carry these here baskets back to the farm. Ordinarily, it'd take me two trips but with your help we could git them both home in one. Ah take it you can carry a lot."

The difference in muscularity was notable. Applejack's rear legs were jacked but every other part of her body looked, if anything, soft and squishy, in contrast to Eira's more lean, ripped build where almost all of her coat was contoured with muscles. It was telling that although Eira had a lot of practice in combat, Applejack was mostly a farmer. In truth, Applejack's foreleg punches weren't as strong as Rainbow Dash's.

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Not only had Eira been in a lot of combat, but wheat farming as a whole was an incredibly physical job for the whole body, not just the rear legs. She had to plow the fields manually, she had to dig up any rocks in the way and pickaxe them to dust. She had to plant the seeds and maintain her farm... it was a lot of work for one mare to take care of. Wheat farming was definitely not for the feeble.

Eira picked up the baskets pretty easily and followed Applejack back to the barn! She kept looking all around her as she did so. This farm was unlike anything she had ever seen before and was many times larger than any farm she'd seen thus far. "Ye must make enough tah feed all o' Equestria..." Eira mumbled out quietly as they walked.

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

Applejack chuckled at that remark as she looked around her own farm. She supposed it was a very large farm if you weren't used to it. But by the time the apples were made into their assorted apple products, there wasn't quite enough to export to other places. Baked goods don't travel well. Their apples, on the other hand, were a modestly popular export to nearby towns, notably Canterlot.

"Not quite as much as that. We send some over to Canterlot but most of em end up here in Ponyville," she replied as they arrived at the farm, and Applejack put her baskets down and wiped her brow. "Hooo-ee! Ah appreciate yer help. Why dontcha come inside for a glass of water. It's the least ah could do."

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Eira was a little shocked to hear that! Just how many apples did these ponies eat, exactly? Ponyville wasn't an overly large town compared to most, and they took most of the apples from this farm? This must all be eating a ton of apples! Eira hoped Ponyville would eat her baked goods like that someday, but probably not.

She smiled when Applejack invited her in for water and nodded her head a bit. "Aye, a glass o' water sounds wonderful lassie." Eira said with a grin, following Applejack inside whenever the mare led her there. After a moment they each had a glass of water! "Ye can ask me fer help anytime AJ. Do ye mind if I call ye AJ?"

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

"Don't mind at all!" answered AJ as she drank her own glass. "So, I know you're from the North, an' I know you're a fighter, but what else you got going on? Any family? Friends? What's your village like? I don't actually know much about you."

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Eira finished her glass of water really quick and then grabbed another! Seeing as how Applejack wanted to chat, she came and sat at the table. She had never really talked about her history with an Equestrian before, but she felt comfortable enough to do so. "I ain't got no family. My mum is a long time dead, eaten by ghouls when I was jus' a foal. My father died a few years ago to sickness. I could no' handle the farmin' alone, so I packed my bags an' headed for the mythical land o' Equestria!"

"As fer my village, it was... somethin'." She said with just the slightest amount of disgust. "My homeland, ain't like what yer used ta. Hundreds o' years ago, a great darkness fell o'er it. It's real hard to farm crops there, an' the undead roaming around make it real difficult to survive. Ye best bet I was outta there as soon as my father passed. In between the fuckin' undead and the griffon savages, I'm real surprised I survived the journey."

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

Applejack listened to the somber story, nodding and looking pensive. She knew more than anyone that, although it hurt to revisit it, these things were in the past, and a pity party was the last thing Eira wanted by telling this story. They were both orphans, though at least Applejack had siblings and in-laws, whereas Eira had no family.

"Ah know what losing your parents is like. I'm sorry...Your village don't sound like a nice place to live in neither. But did you say Griffins? How long ago was this? Last thing I heard, ponies and griifins were in a truce. If they attacked ponies after the war, that's troubling."

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
Eira nodded a bit for Applejack's own loss, but didn't comment on it. She was of the same mindset and thought that a pity party would be the last thing either of them want! She had something else to focus on anyway. At the mention of a war, Eira cocked her head and looked obviously confused.

"Ye may not o' noticed, but... I ain't from Equestria, AJ. What ye Equestrians take as normal, ain't normal 'round the world. There are plenty o' places where griffons hunt us. And what's this war yer talkin' about? I ain't heard o' no war, though I don't know Equestrian history much at all."

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver

Applejack shuddered, trying to imagine a part of the world where not only is the Equestria-Griffinstone truce meaningless, but Griffins actively go around hunting ponies. Between that and the literal zombies, and the blight, no wonder Eira had come south! In fact, why had a mass migration not happened sooner?

"Oh," Applejack answered, "Well, there was a war between Equestria and a Griffin nation straight to the east, called Griffinstone, about ten years ago now. We won, an' there's been an uneasy alliance ever since. Definitely no huntin' going on. I ain't never heard of anything like this north you're describing. If that's what Pre-Equestria used to be like, no wonder we founded this place."

 

[Dreamweaver]

Cyan Hide
It was probably a good thing that Applejack left out the part where Equestria took over Griffonstone and it is now technically part of Equestria. The superstitious and racist mare would be even more incredulous. "Ye say there's an 'uneasy alliance'? Well that's jus' because the griffons are gonna stab ye in yer back soon enough. Yer princesses should have wiped this 'Griffonstone' from the face o' the planet. Trust me when I say, ain't no such thing as a good griffon."

Eira sipped at her water a bit more and just frowned. It was fairly obvious that she hated griffons, so this might not be the best topic of conversation! Applejack might notice the scars under her fur if she looked hard enough, most of which were made from beak and claw.

GeneralTyrus
The shadows seemed happy with Sombra's answer. His master said nothing else, which was probably the best reaction Sombra was going to get. Sombra should be able to tell that he was becoming dangerously close to being let go by his Master. Which, of course, meant death. Failing again would likely prove fatal, and any chance of seeing his family would be gone.

As Sombra stepped outside of the cave he would immediately notice it as the crystal kingdom! Far away from the main city of course, so nopony would know he was here. What did he want to do now?

 

[Cyan Hide]

Dreamweaver


"Ah hear that!" answered Applejack, chuckling. "Well, the Princesses sure did a number on Griffinstone, and I'm fairly sure they ain't trying any funny business because they're scared of whut might happen. Truth is ah don't trust a Griffin to play nice either. Ah jes trust them to want to stay alive, and they'll do that by staying as far away from us as possible."


MEANWHILE IN FILLYDELPHIA:


A heavily armored figure wanders through the streets of the port city, getting stares and mutters every where he goes, both for his garb, and for his face. He is a Griffin, come to Equestria despite the stigma simply because there is no place for him in the ruined hovel he called home. He has no family, no friends, no money, no reason to stay. He'd rather risk his life here on the off-chance that it might acquire some meaning. The guards don't stop him. He has claws and a sword, and seems like he knows how to use it. They retreat to their buildings and try to work out whether Griffins coming to Equestria was ever officially prohibited now that Griffinstone *is* part of Equesria.

Gallus smirks, and continues his gait through the streets of Fillydelphia.

 

[GeneralTyrus]

Dreamweaver

Sombra waited quietly for roughly five minutes, standing in place, letting no thoughts enter his head. After a few deep breaths, he'd growl, spitting on the ground. For a very long time, he'd wondered about everything he was doing for him. For a very long time, he's been beaten, and whipped, then coddled. He'd let out a growl. He'd look to the Crystal Empire, feeling a violent headache. He'd rub his head, grunting deeply. Looking around, he didn't think it would be smart to go to Crystal Empire at the moment. The Crystal Heart was their, and with it, an intense amount of power to Cadence. He'd look in the direction of Equestria, using magic to figure out where it was.

He'd morph into a shadow, tearing off towards Equestria quickly. He was planning to head towards Ponyville, figuring he could maybe spy for a bit. Something to give him time to formulate a good plan.

 

[Avedon]

Dreamweaver
The last 10 years had seen the Lunar Commander in his office less and less. While Avedon never shirked his important duties, he would occasionally receive news that would see him vanish for weeks or even months at a time to Luna knew where; always coming back a little more withdrawn, a little more grim as those who knew him saw him long saw him slip further and further towards his demeanor in the early days of joining the first recruits of the Night Guard upon Luna's return. While this attitude never seemed to last long around those closest to him, it lasted long enough, and a little longer with each passing year.

His secret and ceaseless vigil to find any sign of Nightmare Moon resurfacing had led to many dark corners and many tragic tales across the world, but none to the object of his search. He'd found monsters and things best left forgotten in history, mad cults and desperate ponies. With each he found he left his response to them a little crueler than the previous, but all with a finality that only a lesson taught in blood could produce. He began to wonder why this had turned into such an obsession, the restless stirring of something calling him in the dark nights stealing away his sleep. His rest. Waking an old thirst for blood, an old malevolence that had always been only tenuously restrained by discipline.

He was a beast of two faces, even in the war-torn days of his youth. A drive for control and order on one side, and a thirst for the purity of carnage and chaos that hid itself as mindless zealotry. Those two halves had never lived easily against one another, but somewhere along the way that two-faced beast had remembered what it was to be a pony after finally being given the chance for the first time in his life.

He had loved, he had found friendships, he thought he had found his way through. An island of peace in a long and stormy life. He had even tried to retire from the warfare that was his forced birthright, the only inheritance given to him.

The Griffon War had seen an end to that short-lived fantasy. The years had stolen that pony away. Like a thief in the night, each sunset dawned to an older stallion. One who saw his daughter slowly wither over the years unto her death. That saw his friends die or hurt and left him further and further alone. That lived in a world he was struggling to recognize and find his place in. In that void of purpose the bloodlust only howled louder. It felt he had gone to sleep one day and never woken. The night called him more. The yearning to find something he didn't understand, the fevered dreams, this rising taste of evil so familiar and so despised.

Had all this just been the lie? His “father's” face haunted him everytime he looked in the mirror. He looked so much like the mysterious stallion that had sculpted him into a weapon. With his eyes as cold as they had gotten, as hungry, he didn't recognize his own reflection, he only saw that long-dead bat-pony.

He felt that strange yearning peak in his blood again, He threw his legs out, striking everything from his table and leaning over, unable to ask for help for something he did not understand, unable to weep when he didn't even know if the true or false him was dying alone in these dark nights. He had never feared any battle or foe, but he wasn't sure he could defeat himself. Would his past-atrocities finally consume all the good he had meant? He could just laugh. He didn't know if he was a good man anymore or a bad man. He just became increasingly certain what he was becoming was a mad man.

 

[Dreamweaver]

Avedon
On those dark journeys to find any sign of Nightmare Moon, Avedon was never truly alone. Although he may have thought himself alone, Luna was always there to keep an eye on him. Watching from a clouded sky, creeping through the dark bushes as a cloud of inky blackness, or simply following him invisibly... she never made her presence known, but was always there for him and learning about him.

The more that Avedon had pulled away from everypony, the more concerned Luna became. She had been there before, surrounded by fading friends and a bloodthirst that she couldn't totally control. Nightmare Moon had been inside of her for hundreds of years, but Luna always fought it off. She fought it for so long, until her will started to shatter. Losing so many loved ones to old age, failing time and again to protect Equestria, it had all caused the lunar goddess to shrink away from those around her. Until eventually she became a lost and tired mare, and let the darkness inside take hold.

She no longer took friendship for granted after those experiences. And she knew that now, more than ever, Avedon needed not his Goddess, but his friend. He needed comfort, and advice. And even a shoulder to cry on, if the stallion broke like that in front of her.

Luna was just about to enter when she heard books and glasses hit the floor from the other side of the door. She let out a deep sigh and slowly pushed open the door, her eyes glowing a gentle blue in the torchlight. She closed the door behind herself and levitated the stuff back up onto Avedon's desk, teleporting away whatever was broken beyond repair.

She wasn't even sure what to really say! Luna was not the best with words, never had been and never will be. "... What's wrong, my Champion?" Luna asked with a frown, coming over to sit beside Avedon. She could sit on the ground and still be eye level with him in the chair, so that was nice!