Time Traveling Kids of the Mane Six! Ch. 19

Chapter 19: Apologies and Potions (Rough draft. Will be eventually re-written)

Bismarck walked towards Zecora’s room with two drinks in hoof. While Zecora and Andromeda prepared a way for Andromeda to go into town without being noticed, he made his way to Berry, who was sitting by the room where Radiance lay, in case she needed something. It was his turn to take care of their friend while the others were busy, so Cherry slept on some floor cushions until it was hers. Bismarck handed Berry the soda and sat by his friend.

“Ah brought you a drink and something fer yer nose,” Bismarck said sheepishly. “Ah’m really sorry about all that. Ah don’t know what got into Tempest, but whatever it was, he was beginnin’ to scare me.”

“Yeah,” Berry replied as placed the ice pack onto his nose’s broken ridge, “me too. I know you didn’t mean it, Biz. We’re cool.”

Bismarck smiled.

“Yer a good stallion, Berry. Thanks.”

The pink stallion shrugged.

“What’s a few blows between buddies, right? Besides,” he said with a grin, “you do know I’ll get you back eventually, right?”’

Bismarck stopped drinking.

“Ah’d be worried if you didn’t,” he chuckled.

As they laughed together, a thought hit them both. For a few seconds, short as it was, they had just forgotten all of the horrible events that they had just encountered. The fear of death had been put on hold and for that brief period of time, it was as if nothing had ever happened in the first place. The two enjoyed their drinks in that moment of peace and watched as the pandemonium of the real world seemed to pass them in slow motion as Andromeda and Zecora hurried around the hut while adding ingredients to the cauldron. Remembering why he really came, Bismarck stood up and motioned towards Zecora’s room.

“Hey Berry,” he said calmly, “ah need to speak with Radiance in private. Can you, uh…give us a minute?”

Berry leaned up from his resting spot and stood to his feet in surprise.

“What’s going on?” he asked with a tinge of worry. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, everything is fine. Ah just need a moment with Radiance if that’s okay.”

Berry didn’t say anything, expecting more information.

“It’s personal,” Bismarck continued.

Berry’s sky blue eyes connected with his friend’s emerald gaze and saw no suspicious intent in them. Standing aside, he allowed Bismarck to enter the room. The large country stall patted him on the shoulder and passed.

“Thank you.”

“If she’s sleeping, be careful not to wake her. Zecora said that she needs her sleep.”

Bismarck nodded and knocked on the door lightly with his ear pressed against it.

“Radiance,” he said, “it’s Bismarck. Do you have a moment?”

There was no response, leaving Bismarck wondering if she had heard him or if she wasn’t listening. After a few seconds, he began to turn as her voice spoke up though the door.

“Come in,” the injured unicorn replied.

Opening the door, Bismarck saw Radiance on Zecora’s bed with her leg in a proper cast and covers all around her. Her light blue hair stuck to her forehead, which shimmered with sweat. He could tell she was in pain and the sight of it made him feel uncomfortable. He was overprotective of those close to him by nature and seeing his friends and family hurt often got to him.

“You going to come in?” Radiance asked, sensing his hesitation.

Bismarck stood at the door for a few seconds, fiddling with his hat a bit before closing the door behind him. He approached Radiance slowly and sat down beside her bed.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You look sicker than when ah last checked up on you.”

“I’m fine,” Radiance answered soothingly. “Quit worrying about me. I’m just a bit nauseous. Zecora gave me something to make me feel better.”

She looked paler than usual, making him feel even worse about her condition. Taking a moment to think about what he said, Bismarck took a deep breath and sighed.

“Radiance,” he began with a solemn voice, “ah need to tell you something.”

Radiance reached out for his hoof and held it. Her grip was still strong despite how weak she looked, but she squeezed nonetheless.

“You don’t have to say it,” she said.

“No, ah do…ah need to say it,” he replied softly. “Radiance, you didn’t deserve a single word ah said at the barn. Ah said some mean things that ah regret sayin’.”

Bismarck leaned onto the bed and rested his face by hers. Her sapphire eyes glistened as vividly as he had ever known.

“Ever since the argument, it’s been playing in mah mind over and over. It’s tormenting me, Radiance. Reliving the crushed look on yer face is too much fer me to re-experience like this. Ah’m….”

Bismarck paused. For the past few weeks especially, there had been so much tension between the two and it needed to be resolved. With all that was happening, now was the best time to change things while they could. Bismarck thought a moment and continued.

“Ah’m sorry. Ah’m… so sorry for allowing this….all of this to happen. Ah don’t want to fight with you like this ever again….especially since we may die soon.”

Radiance said nothing and slowly began to sit up. Bismarck drew closer to help her, but she declined his assistance, wanting to do it herself. With her back against the headboard, she opened her arms and motioned for him to give her a hug. No sooner did Bismarck do so did Andromeda appear at the doorway, knocking lightly on the door frame.

“I’ve finished the potion. I’m going to test it out in a momen…oh,” she said, realizing what was going on. “Is this a bad time?”

Radiance and Bismarck let go and stared at each other and then back to her.

“Maybe,” they said simultaneously.

Sensing that she was intruding, Andromeda did not ask why they were having a private conversation, backed away, and closed the door slowly. Radiance laughed lightly.

“Well that was awkward,” she said, her white face blushing red.

Bismarck’s gaze focused on her smile. It seemed like she hadn’t smiled to him during their entire time here. Her grin made him return one himself.

“Ah guess so,” he replied.

Outside their door, they could hear Andromeda and Berry whispering. No doubt it was about them. Taking it as his cue, Bismarck stood back up.

“Ah should probably follow her. She’s going to Twilight’s house in a bit so that we can work with her on getting us home.”

“Do you think she can help?” Radiance asked.

Bismarck shook his head and shrugged.

“Ah don’t know, but it’s worth a shot. In the meantime, are you gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine, Bismarck. Don’t worry about me. Go help Andromeda.”

Bismarck squeezed her hoof one last time and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Radiance blushed as he stood up and walked out of the room. Closing the door behind him, Bismarck ran into Berry, who was observing him.

“What’s with the big grin on your face, show Biz?” he asked with a smirk. “You seem happier than you did when you entered.”

“Where’d Andromeda go?” Bismarck asked without hesitation.

Berry was caught by surprise.

“Huh?” he said. “She’s outside with the potion. She’s about to use it.”

Bismarck thanked him and began walking towards the door.

“Come on, man,” Berry shouted, “don’t ignore me! What did you two do in there? Hello?”

Bismarck was already gone, leaving the pink stallion perplexed.

“Seriously,” he said to himself as he sat back down again, “what is it with all the secrets lately? Can’t a guy be in the know for once?”

“Who’s keeping secrets about what?” a voice added.

Berry turned to see Tempest closing the front door behind him. He may have been the forgiving kind, but the way Tempest had treated Andromeda earlier was inexcusable. Berry’s eyes narrowed.

“Has Andromeda or Bismarck seen you yet?” he asked curtly.

Tempest shook his head.

“No, they don’t know I’m here. I came back to apologize. Since you’re here, I guess I’ll start with you.”

Berry huffed with a smirk.

“Forget me,” he replied. “Andromeda’s the one you need to apologize to. You had no right to tear into her like that. She’s been a wreck since you were gone.”

“I know.”

“And you might want to stay away from Bismarck. He’s even angrier at you than I am.”

“I figured,” Tempest sighed. “All the same, I’m sorry, Berry.”

Seeing Berry’s reluctance to forgive him on the spot, Tempest took it as his cue to find Andromeda. As he made his way to the door and opened it, thoughts of what happened earlier began to fly through his mind.

“I don’t know what happened,” he muttered to himself. “It was like I had no control. I’ve never felt so angry in my life.”

Turning the corner around the hut, he stopped and watched from a distance as Andromeda spoke to Bismarck and Zecora with a mysterious vial in hoof.

“This is a color-changing potion, Bismarck,” Andromeda said, inspecting the liquid in the light of the slowly setting sun. “With it, I’ll be able to speak to my mother without worrying about being discovered.”

“But what if it runs out on you in the middle of a conversation?” Bismarck asked. “If you change back, she’ll know something is up.”

“It won’t. This potion lasts for twenty-four hours, give or take. That’s plenty of time to keep refilling here every day.”

“Well, shoot,” the country stallion said with an impressed look, “you think ah can have some of that there potion?”

“I’m sorry Bismarck,” Zecora added, “but these brews are for only unicorns to use. Only magic’s power lent can make it last for more than a moment.”

“Meaning,” Andromeda continued, “that the potion will only last a few minutes on its own. Unicorn magic can be used to boost the length of its use. As long as I use a small fraction of my attention on sustaining it, it will last a lot longer. Lucky for me, it’s easy to sustain, so we won’t have to worry about me forgetting to concentrate.”

Bismarck chuckled.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Drink it!”

Andromeda glanced at the vial one last time, her yellow eyes studying it for a while before she closed them and took a deep breath.

“Bottoms up,” she said before throwing her head back and taking a quick swig.

As soon as she had swallowed the colorful liquid, she began to cough and gag at its foul taste. Her head suddenly felt light and her stomach felt chaotic. Her friends couldn’t tell if the green look on her face was a result of the brew or a reaction to its disgusting flavor. Her skin tingled and burned from the sensation as the potion coursed through her veins.

“Ugh,” she wheezed, “I feel like I’m going to throw up! No wonder this potion never became popular. It’s gross!”

“Forget that!” Bismarck said excitedly. “Look! It’s working!”

Andromeda looked down at her front legs to see them slowly begin to turn red. Little by little, her purple legs blushed, leaving her in shock at the sight.”

“It really is working!” she exclaimed. “This is incredible!”

“Yeah it is,” Tempest whispered to himself from afar.

After her coat color had finally turned light shade of red, her hair and eyes began to change from amethyst purple and sunset yellow to orange and black.

“This is so cooool,” Bismarck said with a grin once the transformation was complete. “Do you feel any different?”

Andromeda pulled at her hair a bit and smirked.

“Not a fan of the black hair, to be honest, but it’ll do.”

“You mean you didn’t choose yer colors?”

Zecora shook her head.

“It is all random, the shade of hue. For one it’s yellow, another blue.”

Tempest slowly approached his friends and spoke up.

“I think she looks fine,” he said, desperately hoping to break the frigid ice of their stares. “The disguise looks great.”

Bismarck snorted a bit and turned towards his pegasus friend with arched eyebrows. Tempest stopped in his tracks and lowered his wings towards the ground, a sign of no defense for pegasi.

“Easy, Biz,” he said calmly, “I’m here to apologize to you and Andromeda.”

“It’s okay, Tempest,” Andromeda reassured. “I know you didn’t mean the things you said.”

“No,” Tempest replied with a look of confusion, “I didn’t. I’m really, really sorry, you guys! I don’t even really remember what happened. All I can remember is being really mad and ending up outside, fighting Bismarck. It was like I blacked out.”

Andromeda and Bismarck glanced at each other. Tempest may have looked sorry, but he seemed more scared than anything. Whatever he had done had gotten to him and it showed in his facial expression.

“I forgive you,” Andromeda replied.

“Me too,” Bismarck added. “Ah’m just glad yer feelin’ better now.”

Tempest sighed in relief.

“If it’s alright with you guys, I want to go to Twilight’s house with you. You may need a quick escape if anything goes wrong and I owe Andromeda for what I did to her earlier.”

Bismarck shrugged.

“It’s up to her. She’s the time-travel genius.”

Andromeda thought about it a moment.

“You can come,” she answered. “We need to hurry, though. We’re losing daylight and I need to speak with my mother as soon as possible.”

“Well what are we waiting for?” Tempest said. “Let’s move!”

“Wait,” Bismarck interrupted, “before we go, ah need to do one last thing.”

“Make it quick,” Andromeda suggested. “We don’t want to arrive too late.”

“It’ll just take a minute,” the country stallion answered as they all returned to the house.

Andromeda and Bismarck entered the house first and found Berry passed out on the floor with Cherry keeping guard. Looking up at them, she smiled and motioned them to remain quiet.

“It’s my turn to take care of Radiance,” she said with a soothing voice. “Berry and I have been out of it since we arrived. We think it might be a side-effect of the time travel.”

Tempest made his way inside and winced at Cherry’s mild shock at his arrival. He didn’t say anything, but rather walked towards Radiance’s room. Before he could even make it to the door, a hoof grasped his shoulder. Turning him around, Cherry’s arms pulled him towards her and held him tight, catching him off guard.

“I’m sorry you went through that, Tempest,” she murmered as she embraced him.

Tempest was confused and humbled.

“What do you mean? I said horrible things to Andromeda! I broke your brother’s nose! Why would you feel sorry for me?”

Cherry looked up at him with shimmering blue eyes. Though he towered over her, her gaze made him feel on equal ground with her.

“Because,” she replied, “I know that wasn’t you. What we saw wasn’t the Tempest I grew up with. He would have never done such things, no matter how angry he was.”

“It’s most likely the time spell,” Andromeda suggested. “It’s not only causing physical side-effects, but mental and behavioral changes as well.”

“Just another reason to go home,” Cherry added.

Bismarck entered the room and closed the door behind him once more, leaving the rest of his friends with time to wait and wonder what was going on.

“What’s with the privacy?” Tempest asked. “Did I miss something?”

Andromeda shrugged.

“I have no idea. They’ve barely spoken to each other all day, but now they keep having conversations alone. I walked in on them hugging.”

Tempest raised an eyebrow.

“They’ve been through a lot recently,” Cherry explained. “Bismarck carried Radiance to the barn when she broke her leg in the time jump. I don’t know what’s really happening, but whatever it is, they’ve been at each other somehow.”

“How can you tell?” Andromeda asked.

“Body language. When Tempest, Bismarck, and Radiance came here from the barn, they weren’t talking to each other. They seemed…”

“Cold,” Tempest answered.

Cherry turned her head to face him and tilted her head.

“Yeah,” she said, “that’s exactly it.”

“I noticed it too. Radiance is upset at him for something he did and she refused to talk about it. It’s probably just something they can work out together, but…”

“But?”

Tempest preened his still-regrowing feathers a bit.

“But maybe the time jump has altered their behavior too. Both Radiance and Bismarck have seemed a bit fiery lately. More so than usual.”

“We all have been,” Andromeda said. “I think none of us have gone unchanged by the spell.”

“Maybe, but I think it’s worth keeping an eye open, though.”

Just as Tempest finished his sentence, Bismarck walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

“She’s doing okay,” he announced as he approached his friends. “She’s gonna rest now, but she feels a lot better.”

“That’s great to hear,” Cherry said. “I hated seeing her in pain like that.”

“Me too.”

Andromeda and Tempest looked at each other once again and then back at Bismarck.

“You ready to go?” Andromeda asked.

Bismarck nodded and picked up his Stetson hat from the floor and handed it to Cherry.

“Ah’m leaving this here,” he told her.

Cherry looked shocked.

“You’re leaving your hat? You never leave the house without a hat.”

“Can’t risk looking even more like an Apple,” he said plainly. “It’s bad enough that ah have an accent, but the hat is too much. If ah can keep quiet and not look like a country boy, maybe ah’ll avoid attention. Can you look after it fer me?”

Cherry smiled brightly and took it.

“I promise,” she said.

“Yo, Bismarck,” Tempest called from outside, “we’re going! Keep up, slowpoke!”

Bismarck waved goodbye to Cherry and took off after them. It wasn’t a very long walk to Ponyville, but it was enough to spend some time thinking and chatting, and with all that was going on, there was a lot to talk about. As Bismarck pushed his way though some of the bushes and mossy vines and caught up to the other two, he listened to their conversation.

“I don’t know what will happen, Tempest,” Andromeda said, answering a previous question. “I’ve prepared for worst-case scenarios before, but this tops them all. I just hope mom and I can find a way back soon.”

“You’ll find a way,” the blue pegasus replied, looking ahead and not at her. “You always do. That’s something you get from Twilight.”

Andromeda scoffed.

“Mom would never allow this to happen. She was smarter than this. I made a stupid mistake and now you guys are going to pay for it.”

“Quit being so hard on yourself. If you were half as proud of your accomplishments as you are angry at your failures, you’d be able to work so much better.”

“But what if I can’t do it? What if I fail and we all die here? I can’t live with that!”

“You won’t,” Bismarck replied. “We’ll help you get it done.”

Tempest nodded in agreement.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, comforting her. “We promise.”

Andromeda didn’t believe him, but somehow his optimism did make her feel a little better. With a deep breath, she sighed and looked back in the direction of Ponyville with a look of uncertainty.

“I really hope you’re right.”