Per Mare, Per Equestria

I cracked my eyes open slightly, groaning slightly as I tried to roll over and get back to sleep, but the damage was already done. Grumbling, I stretched my arms out to the side, only to find them stopped about halfway, the clinking of chains coinciding with the cold pressure of metal cuffs around my wrists.

My eyes instantly snapped open all the way, peering into the near pitch-darkness. For a second I was confused by the lack of light I’d been expecting, before regaining my senses and looking at my wrists. As I had feared, both of my wrists were secured to thick chains by heavy metal manacles, the chains giving me some movement, but not the full range that I usually enjoyed.

After a few minutes of tugging fruitlessly at the chains and trying to slip my hands out of the cuffs, I finally leant back against the wall, taking in my surroundings as best I could. The cell wasn’t massive, but it wasn’t tiny either, and I could quite easily lie down on the surprisingly soft floor. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it wasn’t like lying down on concrete back on earth either. I was also the only occupant, Jenkins being nowhere to be found. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried, but I couldn’t exactly do anything about it at the moment anyway, and the Lord Militant…horse had seemed to take it on board that Jenkins needed help. I just hoped that they knew what they were doing medically.

Next my attention turned to my own body, and I got yet another, much more annoying shock.

“Why the fuck am I naked?” I asked the darkness, before shivering slightly. I could see taking my gear, but did these horse things, take my clothes? The worst part was I couldn’t even cover myself up thanks to the chains.

Sighing, I began to try and process some of what had happened between being blown up on Earth, and arriving here, wherever here was. The horses had said something about a set of transport runes, and that the Minotaur’s had been trying to complete them when they were interrupted and presumably killed or driven off by the ponies. The leader had also said they were powerful, and that it could possibly have a long reach. Could that be why Jenkins and I were here? If so, it added ‘being pulled from our world by weird talking animals’ to the list of possible reasons why we were here, right beside this being an afterlife. I still didn’t know which one I preferred.

That lead me to another series of thoughts, mostly what I knew about the species on the planet so far. I had thought that the Griffons and Minotaur’s were just tribes, but I was now inclined to believe that they were the actual creatures, and the horses were at war with them. As for the horses, I’d seen three types, Unicorns, Pegasi and normal ones, if normal was still usable for multi-coloured equines who could talk and wield weapons.

I assumed the Pegasi could fly, and the normal ones had all looked like they were better built physically, so maybe they were stronger, but it was the unicorns that really interested me. They seem to be able to manipulate objects from a distance, as well as apparently knock me out. They would probably be the most dangerous if it came to a fight between me and them, something that I hoped wouldn’t happen, as without allies, even Jenkins and I fully armed, armoured and fighting fit would be quickly eliminated.

Becoming wrapped up in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the sound of keys scraping in the lock of the cells door. The first thing I knew about my captors coming to find me was when the door was flung open and my body was bathed in light. I instantly scrambled to my feet, before realising I was naked and trying to cover myself up again, only to be stopped by the chains, leaving me open for all the world to see.

“Don’t suppose you’d give a guy a little privacy would you?” I asked, looking up at the three horses that had just walked into the cell. The central one was a unicorn, while the other two were some sort of massive cart horses, towering over the unicorn, looking like they came up to my chin. All of them were wearing gleaming gold armour, a sun stencilled into the front and on the flanks.

The two cart horses looked between themselves, before looking at the Unicorn, who I assumed was in command.

“I’m sorry, I’m only authorised to move you between here and the throne room,” the unicorn shook his head, the voice giving him away as a male.

“If I’m going to a throne room, that means you’re taking me to meet royalty,” I pointed out. “Allow me some common decency, one soldier to another.”

“Very well, go and retrieve some of the prisoners clothing,” he ordered, looking at one of the horses, who nodded and walked out of the room.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me what’s going on here?” I asked.

“No,” the unicorn shook his head.

I nodded with a sigh, before watching as the cart horse returned, bearing my trousers, combat shirt and my assault vest. With a gesture from the unicorn, the clothes were but down before me.

“Only what you need to cover yourself,” the unicorn ordered. “I wasn’t told to do this.”

I nodded, before running a hand over the assault vest. Most of the pockets had been searched and emptied, but there were two zipper pockets that looked like they hadn’t been touched. Through the fabric I could feel two pistols, one on each side, and I momentarily thought about drawing one on the guards. I knew I could do it before they could react, and getting off three shots would be easy, but that would put Jenkins at even more risk, and I couldn’t do that.

Grabbing my trousers, I awkwardly slipped them on, before handing back my shirt and the vest. “Here you go, only got what I need on.”

“Thank you,” the unicorn nodded, before his horn lit up, and I felt the chains around my wrists tightening, before they moved towards the cart horses, locking onto loops in their armour. “Now, follow us.”

The two horses began to walk, and I quickly caught up, walking in between them with the chains held slack, making sure they knew I wasn’t going to try anything.

We passed by numerous horses who I assumed were acting as guards on the way down the corridor, all of whom stopped whatever they were doing and stared at me. If I had been anywhere else, it would have made me nervous, but considering the fact that they were horses and I was a human, a species they didn’t seem to know anything about, that was hardly surprising. Eventually, the four of us reached a massive door flanked by two Pegasus, clad in the same golden armour as the others had been. As we approached the door, they quickly pulled the door open, allowing us to enter the room beyond.

         Without missing a step, the three guards walked inside, prompting me to follow their lead. As soon as I passed through the door, I found myself in a huge room, hundreds of horses of all three types lining each side, while at the very front stood two thrones, both occupied by a single pony, one an alabaster white, and the other a midnight blue.

At first I thought they were just larger than any other unicorns I had seen, looking like they were at least the size of the cart horses, if not bigger, their horns actually looking sharp, rather than rounded, but on closer inspection I saw that they also had wings as well. This raised all sorts of questions in my mind, mainly if there were more of these Pega-corns, and if not, were they only in charge because they had both horns and wings? Maybe this was the mark of royalty in this weird place, a physical symbol of their right to rule.

As I advanced down the centre of the room with my guards, I took in more of the features of the two rulers, making even more distinctions between them and the common ponies. Unlike the others, their manes and tails seemed to flow naturally, as if they were caught in some sort of invisible breeze, and both of them were flanked by four ponies, armoured in gold armour for the white horse and purple armour for the blue one. Both had two unicorns guarding them, and the white one had two Pegasi with it as well, but the darker one had a pair of thestrals with her, opening up a fifth species for me to think about. At this rate I would have to make a list.

I was eventually jerked to a halt as the two cart horses stopped, standing at attention, a pose I decided to copy, standing upright as I looked at the two Pega-corns. A second later, they both rose from their thrones, and as one, the assembled ponies fell to their knees, their heads resting on the floor. Unsure of what to do in the presence of royalty, I made to bow, before realising how awkward it actually was, and instead opted to simply salute, the chains just about allowing me to.

“RISE, MY PONIES,” the white one spoke in a ridiculously loud voice, causing me to recoil slightly as I let my arm fall to my side.

“You have the honour of standing in the presence of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Diarchy of Equestria,” one of the Golden armoured unicorns spoke, taking a step forward and indicating the princess he was talking about, and I suddenly recognised him as the one who I’d been knocked out by.

“Thank you Lord Militant,” Celestia nodded, her voice becoming a much more normal level as she looked down at me with a mixture of interest and stern determinations written across her face. “What are you creature? Dost thou have a name?”

“Royal Marine Commando, Major Matthew Wood, first company, four-three commando battalion, three commando brigade, service number 365917501. I’m a human.” I responded automatically, before remembering I was addressing royalty. “Your highnesses.”

“Clearly thou knows how to address royalty,” the dark one, Luna, spoke. “Your nation has royalty as well?”

“It does,” I nodded. “Her majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, soverign monarch of the British Isles and the Commonwealth. If I may…where am I?”

“You stumble across an armed patrol on the boarder of two warring nations, and thou expects us to believe you don’t know where you are?” Celestia asked.

“That’s correct princess,” I nodded. “My colour sergeant and I have no idea where we are, what’s happening in your land, or what you are. I’ve travelled all over my world, and I’ve never seen anything like you.”

“Is’t thou trying to tell us you are not of this world?” Luna asked with a disbelieving tone.

“At the moment it’s one of two prevailing theories I have,” I nodded. “That and being dead. I’d rather not be dead your highness.”

Celestia and Luna exchanged glances between each other, before nodding.

“Very well, we will humour you,” Celestia looked straight at me. “Thou are on Aedrides, more specifically thou are in Equestria, bordering the lands taken by the Griffon Dominion.”

“Thank you,” I nodded. “What are you?”

“Remember who you are speaking to human,” one of the purple armoured guards spoke.

“It’s Matthew, or Major Wood,” I shot back, before raising a hand. “Sorry. With all due respect, what are your highnesses?”

“That’s better,” Celestia nodded. “We are Alicorns, the immortal rulers of the Day and the Night.”

“And the other species your highness?”

“You really don’t know, dost thou?” Luna asked.

“I can honestly say I don’t know what any of them are outside of mythological representations,” I shook my head.

“Mythological representations?” Luna asked.

I nodded, letting out a soft breathe as I tried to decide how best to explain this. “Yeah, on my world we had myths, stories that may or may not have been true. They included Pegasi and Unicorns and Thestrals. We have normal horses and ponies, so the cart horses…”

“Earth ponies,” Luna corrected.

“Sorry, earth ponies look similar to horses,” I continued. “I’d like to know if I’m right, if I really am in a world populated by multi-coloured, talking Unicorns, Pegasi, Thestrals and god-knows how many other mythological beasts.”

“The three main tribes are the Unicorns, Pegasi and Earth Ponies yes,” Luna nodded.

“We have answered your questions,” Celestia began. “Now, I believe it is your turn to…”

“Please, one more,” I took a step forward, straining against the chains. “Just one more question your highness.”

“No, you forget your place,” Celestia replied sternly. “Prisoner and captor, we ask, you answer. I have given you liberties, now you will answer my questions.”

“I’ll fight you for the right to ask,” I retorted quickly.

“Pardon?” Celestia asked.

“From what I can see, your county is at medieval time period, which means you probably place more stock on honour than my people do,” I began, taking another step forward. “To quote a great member of a family with very odd bowel movements, I demand a trial by combat. If I win you answer my question then I answer every question you have, if you win, I’ll answer every question you have.”

For a moment, Celestia looked stunned, the rest of the room falling silent, before Luna began to chuckle softly.

“He does know how to bargain does he not? He has the right sister, will you deny him his rights by our own laws?”

“He is not a pony,” Celestia protested. “He has no right to a trial under our laws.”

“Then will he be tried under his own laws?” Luna asked with a smirk.

“That’s not possible and you know it sister,” Celestia snapped.

“Then he is being tried under our laws, and has the right to a trial by combat.”

“Fine,” Celestia snapped. “You can chose the champion sister, and I beseech you to choose well. Do not make a mockery of our country.”

“I understand,” Luna nodded, before turning to one of the Thestrals. “Nocturne, Show my sister why my guard are the elite, not hers,” Luna chuckled softly, shooting a snide glance at Celestia, while ushering a scarred bat-pony into the makeshift ring that had been formed around me by the guards in the room. My chains suddenly fell away, surrounded by a silver aura, an identical one of which was surrounding Luna’s horn, and I gave her a curt nod.

Massaging feelings back into my wrists, I looked at the bat-pony in front of me. Slowly, he started to circle around me, and I did the same, keeping my eyes on him. Without warning, he lunged at me, taking me by surprise and bowling me over. He hit like a freight train, and landed on top of me, drawing a hoof back to strike out at my face. At the last moment, I moved my head, making his hoof impact with the floor and giving me the time I needed to push him off, allowing me to kick his legs out from underneath him, bringing him crashing down. Not giving him a moment’s respite, I lunged at him, grabbing his un-helmeted head and slamming my own into it, dazing him. Instinctively, I reached for my knife, groping around before remembering that it had been taken from me. In the moment I had been pre-occupied, the pinned guard had come to his senses enough to be able to smack me away with one of his leathery wings.

Rolling across the circle that had formed, I sprang to my feet, brining my fists up in front of my face and stared at the bat-pony as he got up. Once again we circled each other, before he launched himself at me. It was a good move, but it was already the same as his previous move, and it wasn’t too hard to counter it now, moving slightly to the side, before sticking both of my arms into his path, grabbing him by the throat as he flew past. The sudden change in momentum was enough to shock him, but coupled with the strain on his neck, he simply couldn’t take it, and collapsed to the floor again. Raising one fist, I slammed it into the stallions’ muzzle, being met with the sound of cracking bone. The stallions’ eyes rolled back in his head, as I let him fall, and stood up, looking at Luna and Celestia.

The room was deafly silent for ages, and I began to get very nervous, as some of the guards were beginning to tighten their grips on their weapons. Curling my fist into balls, I prepared for which ever guard was going to try something first. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the silence was broken by a laugh from Luna.

“Well, if our champion is going to lose, then it is at least in an impressive manner,” she chuckled, before looking at the two unicorns beside her. “Please take Nocturne to the infirmary, and bring back Major Wood’s compatriot.”

“Luna, we did not agree on allowing him to see him,” Celestia pointed out, raising a wing and stopping the two purple armoured guards. “He asked for details, and he shall have details.”

“He fought well sister, allow him this,” Luna shot back, turning to her guards. “Go.”

They nodded, quickly walking towards me. As they approached, I raised my hands up, causing them to flinch back, their swords being grasped in their horns grip.

“Well if you don’t want to put the chains back on, I won’t complain,” I smiled slightly, before I felt the chains roughly snap back into place, Celestia’s horn lighting up. “Thanks, your highness.”

The guards quickly brushed past me, lifting the groaning form of Nocturne behind them and disappearing out of the room, while I stared straight at Celestia.

“If thou really does have royalty, you would know that it is not correct to look straight at them,” Celestia said in a terse tone.

“On my world, it is only the monarch of your own country that you don’t look in the eye, your highness,” I retorted.

“If we could keep things civil,” Luna suggested.

“Civil, your highness?” I asked, before smirking. “When my Colour Sergeant arrives, that may be difficult.”

“What do you…” Luna began.

“Get off me! I will fucking gut you! I will rip of your head and shove it down your throat!” Screamed Jenkins, as he was dragged through the door.

Like me, Jenkins had been stripped of his possessions, clad only in his trousers. Unlike me however, he had been treated for his injures, his entire midriff wrapped in bandages, with only a few spots of red showing through. I did smile at the rest of his predicament however. Like me, his ankles were chained together, hobbling him and making running impossible. However, unlike me, his wrists had been chained directly to a belt he was now wearing, making moving his arms further than his waist.

“This one is…difficult,” Scowled one of the unicorns that had gone to collect Jenkins.

“Explain,” Celestia ordered.

“He didn’t take kindly to being ordered about. He managed to get a few blows in before his injuries allowed us to get his chains attached to the belt,” the unicorn holding the chain said, rubbing a bruise that was forming on his chin.

“Jenkins, report,” I ordered, turning to look at him.

“I’m being treated like an animal by animals, how’s that?” Jenkins snarled, glaring at Celestia and Luna. “Are those two in charge?”

“Yes, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” I nodded. “I’ll bring you up to speed later, right now I’d suggest you go back to the hospital and recover. Now please, don’t hurt the ponies, we are sort of outnumbered, and the last thing I need is you to rip your wounds open and die of an infection.”

“But…”

“Colour Sergeant, this is order,” I cut him off. “And Jenkins, say sorry to the guard you punched.”

“You want me to apologise?” he deadpanned.

“That’s right,” I nodded.

“To a talking unicorn?” he added, raising an eyebrow.

“You’ve got it,” I smirked.

“Fine,” he grunted, before turning to the unicorn he’d punched. “I’m sorry that you were bad at your job and let an injured prisoner punch you.”

“That’s about all you’ll get,” I sighed, before watching as Jenkins was dragged away while an Earth Pony approached me.

“His wounds were extensive, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. We managed to remove some sort of metal from his stomach and stitched the wounds, and we’ve done what we can to stabilise him. Of course, if he keeps fighting with guards, he may do more than split his stitches,” the pony, who I assumed was a doctor, spewed out, looking me over. “I assume that you two are both the same sub-species?”

“Bit personal there?” I snorted. “Yes doc, we’re both humans, there aren’t sub-species. Black, white, male, female, we’re all the same.”

“Thank you,” he nodded, before turning to Celestia and Luna. “With your permission princesses, I would appreciate if he could be brought to the hospital so I can get some accurate medical data on his species.”

“Thank you doctor, depending on how the trial goes, he will be brought to you,” Luna nodded.

“Thank you princess,” the doctor nodded, before trotting out of the room.

“We have fulfilled our side of the bargain Major,” Celestia scowled at me, placing an awful lot of emphasis on the last word. “Now, you will answer our questions.”

“Of course, your highness,” I nodded. “Are we going somewhere more private?”

“Why?” Luna asked, narrowing her eyes.

“This amount of ponies are going to hear information I assume will be classified?” I asked, looking around. “Doesn’t sound like a good way to keep state secrets your highness.”

“Thou has a point,” Luna nodded, looking at Celestia. “We could move this to somewhere more secluded from the eyes of the nobles.”

“Very well. You three, bring him with us.” Celestia snapped, looking at the guards who were assigned to me, before turning to the assembled ponies and raising her voice to the deafening pitch she had used when she had first spoken. “THIS SESSION IS DISMISSED. YOU MAY RETURN TO YOUR ASSIGNED TASKS OR YOUR OWN CITY.”

With that, Celestia rose from her throne and headed down the central isle with Luna and the eight guards following them closely. I quickly followed behind them with my three guards, ignoring the hushed whispers from the noble ponies as I was escorted out of the room.