Pulse

-=Pulse=-

A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Tale

-=Part One: “A Gratuitous Amounts Of A Famous Italian Dish”

A pony started to move through the dusty library of one of the oldest libraries known in Equestria. Her hooves making light marks in the dust that had settled on the floor. The occupant of the castle had been away for quite some time, apparently for almost a hundred years. She walked over a red carpet, old and dusty with a stylized “V” over the centre of it. Star Sign coughed from the dust and the cold as she walked around an old pile of books and papers.

She tossed her medium-length light blue mane over her eyes as she walked over to the far-side of the room, levitating a small light around her horn to aid her in her search. Her magenta eyes moved about as the light reflected off her off-white body and her cutie mark, a bright star with a set of scales on it. She didn't believe in the ghost stories that other ponies told her about, Keeper wasn't here and he didn't set spirits to guard the place.

Star Sign was on a mission, Canterlot Castle had been covered in a strange cloud of black gas that choked you if you attempted to walk into it. The princesses were both trapped with all of the residents within and they were using a magical shield to keep the gas from overcoming the population. An old purple dragon named Spike arrived in Ponyville two days ago with a message from Princess Celestia asking for her student to go to Keeper's Castle to look for Keeper himself.

Princess Celestia gave her instructions specifically asking her to read through his journals to find out if anything he knew from his past could help out with the disaster that was befouling Canterlot, or if there was any clues as to where Keeper had gone to. Keeper mysteriously disappeared about a century ago, leaving his castle behind. Ponies claimed there were ghosts, Star Sign didn't listen to them. She was under orders to go to the castle, evil spirits or not. Granted it was an emergency situation, however the letter did state that time was on their side for now. Evidently the gas didn't float elsewhere, as if it only wanted to do... something to Canterlot.

She passed a few paintings that had bee placed between the massive shelving of the castle's den, There were quite a few ponies up on the walls that she recognized. There was her idol: Twilight Sparkle, one of the best minds of Equestria and one of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. She also saw Rainbow Dash, Head Captain of the Wonderbolts from almost a century ago, all dressed up and immortalized in paint. There were other ponies as well such as the musical-hit pony Vinyl Scratch alongside her companion Octavia. There was a painting of Princess Luna as well, uncharacteristically winking at whoever pained the image. She also noticed an artist's rendering of Discord, and she had absolutely no idea why Keeper would ever want to have the Draconequus on his wall. There were others too, but they were distracting her from her search.

Then she found them. Ancient journals of the great and mysterious human Keeper. One of the very reasons why he was even named Keeper was because he kept secret knowledge from everyone from an alien place. He once said that “Knowledge isn't something that one can force upon, or be forced to reveal. It must be obtained through an individual's will and desire to learn.”

He apparently said stuff like that to keep ponies confused, however it certainly was a nice change from the riddle of the Zebras.

She levitated one of the tomes from the shelf, bound in leather from some beast she didn't want to know about. She dragged it over to a table that was a bit too high for her and set it down. She then dragged over an old chair that was also built differently, certainly not for a pony like herself. She found it comfortable as she moved the chair closer to the table, making a very loud noise that reverberated throughout the halls. Dust fell around her and she sneezed, which also echoed loudly through the dark abandoned castle.

Placing her pack on the ground, she arranged neat piles for her notes, food and some other supplies. She packed enough to last her about four days, though she didn't think she needed that much time. Quite frankly the entire Magical Academy was focused on the properties of the strange cloud that was threatening Canterlot. She was confident that the problem would be solved eventually and that Keeper wasn't needed.

Lighting a few candles nearby, she turned off her magic and opened the book. Careful not to tear out any of the old pages, she delved into knowledge that very few ponies were able to know. She didn't know what she was going to find, but she hoped to know what happened to Keeper.

Some ponies ask me what I felt before I first entered Equestria. The answer I give them is “nothing”. A griffon once asked me what was the first thing I heard before I appeared in Equestria. The answer I gave her was “a scream followed by shattering glass”. A dragon once asked me what I thought before I fell into Equestria. I told him “I thought I was dead”.

However an Alicorn once asked me what I had felt when I did come into Equestria. I told her “I felt the grass upon my face, I felt the wind in the air and I felt the warm touch of the sun hovering over me”.

My name is Damien, I am known as Keeper thanks to the wonderful ponies that I have had the honour of being with. I have been living in Equestria for longer than I remember.

I am also the first and only human.

This is my journey.

~Keeper~

Star Sign found a small note in the pages of the book. “Get Twilight or someone to proof-read this. It might have to be re-written or something, I don't know if the grammar or spelling is right or not. It's been a long time since I have written anything, especially something of this magnitude. Also, buy a cake from Pinkie Pie, it's Tuesday and I want a fucking cake.”

“Well,” she thought “here goes nothing.”

I am not going to tell you an angst-filled story about how I was never loved and how I was some kind of basement-dwelling outcast who never fit in. I'm not going to tell you a story on how I found my true love and how I felt so complete and how our love bonded the Elements or some weird bullshit that makes fangirls cry. No, there are plenty of stories like that around. Heck I even got a few in my library that an anonymous pegasus wrote when he was young; talented author though when he really got into it, but that is something else to talk about.

I am Damien, I really don't care for my last name, and therefore it won't be said. Now as for what I was doing in Equestria or how I even got there, even I don't know exactly for sure. When I got here, I was twenty-five years old.

However my tale doesn't start in Equestria, it starts in Vancouver, Canada. This starts in a completely different world on a planet known as “Earth”.

I was an above-average guy really. I had decent looks, smart as hell, pretty popular with friends and not many problems in life. Sex life was pretty decent whenever I decided to spend some more money and go to bars. Work was never a problem, I was a jack-of-all-trades; a gifted student. I was someone of whom my parents wouldn't be worried about, that is if I actually put my time and effort into anything. I was your average man of great intellect: amazing potential, no drive.

So here I was waking up at noon after a long night of heavy gaming and almost equally heavy drinking. It was fun and all, but the hangovers were always killer. I checked my Blackberry and noticed I still had time left before I had to get up to go to wo-... oh no work today. Even though the sweet seduction of more sleep always tempted me, I decided against smelling like an old gym sock dipped in stale beer and regret.

Mumbling some curses and blinking through the light I managed to stumble into the shower. Taking in the hot water I retched and coughed my sleepiness away. My headache wasn't to bad this time and for a brief moment I thought to myself that I must have been getting used to it. I ran my hands through my dirty blonde hair and laughed. I was stagnating and I knew it. Nothing was going to kick me out of my routine though, I was a set as a stripped screw in a wall. The only thing that would be different would be a new job and even then I was too lazy to make a resume.

Drying off, I put some socks and jeans on and moved to the fridge shirtless. I rubbed my arm as I walked through my apartment, kneading my tattoo and sighing. Veni Vidi Vici; I came, I saw, I conquered. That was tattooed under the Assassin's V-crest from Assassin's Creed five years ago when I still liked philosophy. Oh what a full-time job and rent will do to a man.

I knew I was placing all the walls in my way, I just didn't care; what was there much to do apart from work until retirement? I didn't lose the spark for life, I just lost the admiration for that old flame. Maybe I was kidding myself, and the flame was long gone out and I was holding embers. Either way, I was in a repeating loop of work, sleep, eat, game, hopefully fuck, sleep and so on and so fourth. I never really had anything special pop up. Seriously, it was three years since I moved from London, Ontario to Vancouver and I couldn't remember much of what I have done. That was even including two relationships, five jobs and a lot of gaming.

Well, now that I am thinking of it, should I do something today?

Fine, I'll make a half-attempt at being productive on my day off. I took a semi-clean white t-shirt from the floor and tossed that on, followed by my U.S. Air Force desert camouflage jacket my friends picked up for me on my birthday. Wallet in my pocket, Blackberry in the other, headphones on my neck and I was ready.

I was also craving tacos, to the bigger mall it was.

Waiting in line for the bus wasn't too bad, my Blackberry was loaded with music. I hadn't deleted my music collection in over 7 years, and I had way too many songs to listen to and a great SD card to carry all of it. Soon enough the bus stopped in front of me and I stepped on, not even looking at my driver as I flashed him or her or whoever my bus pass.

Luckily the bus was nearly empty and I quickly moved to the back. Looks like today was looking up. I loaded up my browser and quickly went to YouTube, searching for “MLP, Season 2 finale”. Yes, I was going to watch My Little Pony on the bus. It was one of my dirty little secrets that I really never let anybody know about, I really enjoyed that show.

I also spent too much time thinking whenever I had time to myself. My imagination always ran off the charts and it caused a lot of hours being drained away into day-dreaming. For the past while I was in Tamriel whenever I had a minute to myself, which was a lot. Other times it is the Wasteland of Fallout or riding a horse in Hyrule. Now it was turning to Equestria since I was getting into MLP, and it was quite a nice change. I would think of concerts and me scratching up records with Vinyl Scratch herself, and I always had a Deadmau5 head when I did so. I would think of running separate of the royal guard and being a deniable asset to Celestia, though I think swordplay from Skyrim was tweaking that little fantasy. I also thought of just chilling in Pinkie's cake shop whose name I forget and simply relaxing and enjoying my day.

As the opening scene was playing I was checking my phone. Headphones were connected, volume turned down lower and finally check to see if anybody was beside me again... and I was clear. The theme song went through my head as I rode the bus to the same mall I worked at. Coincidentally, my ride was just a little bit longer than an episode, so I had that routine down.

The bus ride so far was uneventful to say the least. A few times I adjusted my hold on the screen to make sure that anyone who sat near me couldn't see I was watching a girl's show. I think a few of them thought I might have been watching porn, and thinking about it I don't know which would have been more awkward. I certainly didn't need gratuitous amounts of a famous Italian dish all over the bus.

Soon enough we were going over the Lion's Gate Bridge, spanning over a massive river that separated the core of Vancouver from it's North and West cousins. The episode was getting close to the end too, and Twilight just got Cadence back to the palace for the wedding. Thinking back on it, I might have been perfectly content at that moment. Everything was right in the world and I was happy. I was watching Twilight and her best friends do their thing and I was going to get a six-taco platter from the Taco joint near my work and I was going to pig out for once. Heck, I was feeling good enough to put on something nice and try to score later on that night.

Then there was a scream.

It was a scream ripped right out of hell that I could clearly hear through my headphones. The screeching tires hit that note that seemed to get right into your skull. Time slowed to an almost stand-still as an impact shook the bus and I was sent forward. Pain was sent right through my shoulder as I rolled into the seat across from me. There was another jarring shock along with crunching of metal as I slid forward. I saw a woman crack her head off of one of the hand-holds, blood splattering across the window as we tipped forwards. My head slammed on the floor as the bus lurched forward, blackening my vision.

All that I could feel was a sense of weightlessness, as if I was in zero gravity. I hit the ceiling of the bus and my headphones fell off my neck. My phone flew in front of my face as I saw Shining Armour and Cadence's horns touch. It was charming until I saw the river behind my phone and realized I was going to hit the water. There was a solid three seconds of chaotic sounds before the bus' front hit the salt-filled waters.

My body flew forward, my head hit one of the hand-hold bars and I fell into the black.

Faint sounds. Birds even. No water. Pain in my head. Wake up. You should wake up. Fuck. Why do I feel so groggy? It felt like my mind was in a fog, like I had to...

Wake up!

The first thing I felt was the sun beating down on my face. Thankfully it didn't seem too hot or humid, life in Ontario had me almost fearing summer. Summer? Wait, that didn't make any sense, it was November. My eyes reluctantly opened and I blinked rapidly to get used to the light. It was sunny alright, which was weird. The sky was cloudless and blue, but it seemed off. Like that colours were slightly wrong.

I struggled to get my arm in front of my face, and at the same time I tried to move the rest of my body. My left leg felt like it had been chopped off, and that sent fear and panic through me as much as the searing pain. I sat up as quick as I could and for a moment, my brain actually fried.

My leg looked like it was drawn from a cartoon, as if someone had used a computer to make me. So was the rest of my body by the looks of it. My head swam as my vision started to fade. My leg. It was broken and twisted at a bizarre angle.

I threw up some salt water to the side and started to black out. Before I lost all my vision, I saw a brief shimmer of the aftermath of an explosion.

Star Sign couldn't believe what she was reading, Keeper really did come from a different planet! Keeper was known for... well keeping things to himself and nopony knew if he was lying or not on where he really was from. Perfect example of him lying about things was simply his name: Damien. Why would he switch his name like that upon entering Equestria? It wasn't like Griffons had names like ponies, same with Zebras.

Plus what the hay was a berry doing telling the time? What was a “bus”, SD cards and tacos? It was somewhat confusing, but as he candle flickered she snapped out of her thoughts. She could think of all of this tomorrow, when she could really buckle down and do some reading. If anything, she was even more interested in who Keeper was and what he was doing in Equestria. She decided to keep on calling him Keeper, everyone else did.

She noticed night was coming and looked around to see if she could put any wood in the fireplace. She hopped off the strange chair and used her magic to see around the room. A little bit beside the fireplace there was a pile of wood logs. She inspected them closer to see if she could burn it without them falling apart from rot.

Lifting one with magic, she was surprised to find that it looked as if it was broken off a branch not too long ago. The top and bottom of the logs were broken as if by force and not the blows of an axe. They were also lightly covered in thick cobwebs, but that was probably from the length of time they were here. She looked around the room and noticed that there was a distinct lack of spiderwebs elsewhere, so why where these webbed? She was close to the Everfree forest, but most giant spiders stayed deep in the dark depths.

Thinking that she was putting too much into this, she tossed a few logs into the fireplace. Using the candle, she pushed her magic to amplify the flame's heat, and soon enough the fire was lit, burning the cobwebs away from the logs almost instantly. Relaxing in the heat, she brought the comfy human chair over and laid down on it, falling fast asleep in the fire's soft light.