Pulse

-=Pulse=-

A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Tale

-=Part 2: *“Don't Call me Shirley”*

Star Sign yawned as she woke up, the sun's rays barely leaking into the library yet still managed to hit her smack dab in the eyes. She scratched her face with her hooves as she tried to wipe the sleepiness away. Stretching her legs she hopped off the chair and decided that this would be a perfectly good time to check out the castle she was in.

Most of the masonry outside was built into the rock itself, while the rest of the castle was carved out as it was built. She wondered why Keeper decided to have that instead of Canterlot's castle which was more out in the open.

As she munched on an apple she thought back on what Keeper had written down. Buses, shows and other stuff just didn't make sense and didn't warrant any thought on. Thinking of what a bus could be was like making up a word and telling someone else to find the definition only you would understand. One thing that did stand out to her was the Royal Wedding between Shining Armor and Cadence. A lot of powerful magics were at play that day and that could have pulled him into Equestria; however magic was fickle and it could simply be because it was a certain time and a butterfly crossed a flower when the wind was in a certain direction.

Keeper's Castle was simple in its design, but being enclosed caused most of the rooms to remain dark and foreboding. Star Sign shook her head in an attempt to get some of her fear out of the way before casting a small amount of light with her horn. This was an old abandoned castle and who knows what could have taken residence in the long years. However since she slept in it and wasn't eaten, she was thinking it was more on the abandoned uninhabited side.

Remembering that she forgot the journal she trotted back to the library and slung on her pack, slipping the journal inside. Walking a bit further away from the library, she noticed a dark blue gemstone that was set into the wall. She reached out with her magic and could tell that the stone was magically made, but not a lot of magic was put inside. She looked around and found a small stick in the hall and poked the gem with it thinking it was a better idea than to touch it with her hooves.

The gem slowly started to glow a light blue hue almost instantly when she touched it. Star Sign quickly brought up a small magical shield in order to defend herself from any incoming attacks that the gem could possibly unleash. Instead it just glowed the soft blue glow that illuminated a small section of the hallway. She noticed a second gem lighting up, then a third, then more as the hallway illuminated with a soft blue light and revealing a set of stairs.

Sighing in relief that she wasn't assaulted by shards of glassy minerals, she let down her shield and proceeded up the staircase. Trotting up at a decent pace she couldn't help but feel almost claustrophobic with no windows to look out of. Reaching up to the top she was on a small landing that had three different stairs that had a shaft of light shining on a floor with random designs. Looking back where she came she noticed the top light gem was a slightly different shade than the rest. Poking at it with a hoof caused it to go off, followed by the rest of the stones of light.

Deciding to take the left flight she tapped the base crystal, admiring the gentle light that was shining off the gems as she ascended. Climbing a short way she came up an open door that lead to a study. With the soft light from the door she was able to spot a candle. Igniting it, she used the light to spot more candles in the dark room and soon enough she could see clearly.

It was certainly smaller than the library that she was reading in earlier, and it smelled of old paper, ink and a bit of rot. A sudden realization sparked within her; it was here that Keeper must have authored his books! With even more fascination she searched the room. There were a few bookshelves on one wall that was jammed with stuff. Quite a few were sketching books, but almost all of them had 'Keeper' on them.

Pulling some of the books from the wall she read the titles, one shelf in particular that was dedicated to 'In Case'. 'In Case if Zebras are Forcing War' had some notes on a pony named “Goldenblood” as well as how to avoid world war with the Zebra race. 'In Case of Ponies Travelling to Other Dimensions' had chapters on some human girls called “Powerpuff” as well as Rainbow Dash being a filly and appearing in a box for some reason. 'In Case of Earth Portal' had a huge chapter on making sure that absolutely no pony ever attempts to make contact with humans 'no matter what'. All of them seemed to be well thought out, even if they did seem outlandish.

She though long and hard on that one, what could Earth have the could affect ponies in such a way? Was it to do with Buses? She had no idea, buses seemed to be deadly though. She noticed there was a space in the books in that series that was missing. She giggled as she bet herself that it was 'In Case of Keeper's Disappearance” or something similar.

Opening the only book she had on Keeper himself, she continued to read his diary; this time in Keeper's study.

I never liked hospitals. I hated the lighting, the food was terrible, the shitty interior paint job, the food was abysmal, the smells, the food being inedible and most importantly: I knew the doctors couldn't afford to care. Even as a Canadian with pretty good medical care I avoided that place at all costs. Plus I never knew how bad waiting times were for Americans, but we certainly had to wait a long time to get care.

Plus the food sucked.

So imagine how fucking thrilled I was to find out I was waking up in the place I hated the most. At first I was mostly confused as if my broken leg was all a dream; however everything still had the weird colouring and shading as if it was Flash-made on a computer. I kept myself from sitting up just so I didn't throw up whatever was left in my stomach. I hovered my arm above my head to block out some of the lighting and stared at my hand.

Have you ever had to write a single word down multiple times to the point where the word doesn't really seem like it is supposed to exist? Wondering if those combinations of letters really made up the sounds that symbolized and represented an actual thing? That's the sensation I was having with my hand except more intense. My fingers moved to my own mental commands like normal but everything just seemed wrong. My scar on my left wrist from when I fell through a glass table when I was young was still there, and it seemed to stand out in colour a lot more than it used to. I also seemed to not have any hair on my arm.

I had to stop staring at my arm, time to stare at everything else.

After I tried my best to get used to it I sat up and examined my room. It was actually nicer than I originally thought, though it still was a hospital room and I would always hold that against it. The walls were an off-blue and the air didn't smell a lot like disinfectant. Taking this time I decided to try and look at my leg before I moved it. I didn't feel any pain now per-say, but the last thing I needed to do was much up whatever happened to it. I was in a hospital, so I assumed something did happen to it and I hoped it was for the better.

Looking down on my blanket I noticed that my bed looked like it had been extended a bit. It just seemed off from that a bed's proportions were supposed to be. I picked up the blanket and noticed I was only in my shirt and green boxers. Second thing I noticed was that my left leg was completely healed up, and only had light bandages on my shin.

That there was really messed up, because I clearly remember it being bent on a ninety degree angle from my body on my shin. I tried moving it, and apart from the muscles feeling a tad bit sore, I felt as if I could actually walk on it. I felt quite a bit better about my situation before thinking up of something else to derive details from on where I was.

It was at that time I noticed the paintings on the wall. What was flooring me was that apart from the brilliant cross-hatch design in the frame, the painting was of a pony. A very special pony to be exact, and it made me think I might have been in the kid' wing. Princess Celestia's smiling face was drawn quite well on paper that was slowly yellowing from age. I looked at the two other frames, one being a pointillism painting of a purple pony with a white mane and the other being a 'normal' painting of a few fillies playing in a rolling hill landscape.

It was at this point in time that I had actually considered questioning my sanity and wondered if I had some strange hallucinating day-dream like Deadpool or something. Okay, I was in a hospital, with paintings of ponies with my legs healed as if by magic. It was then that I noticed motion in the little window that was on my door. I couldn't make out who or what it was, so I did what came naturally to someone in a strange situation.

“Who are you? Who is there? Where am I?” I yelled out after it, okay, probably not the most convincing argument to the 'running away' response.

A few moments later I heard a few faint words and bits of a conversation that was getting very close to my door.

“..not even a pony... could be danger-... I know... could be.... that changeling...” came the first voice, male and deep voiced.

“As far... I am still... charge here... loyal to... stop questioning my judgement today! We are safe and everypony else is too!” at this point an older feminine voice was speaking and just outside my door. “We have everything under control with the rest of the Royal Guard. If this creature is hostile we will deal with it, but considering what happened we need to keep our heads cool and minds open about the magic that has transpired here today. Besides, there are much more cunning disguises than a strange creature that nopony has seen before.”

“Yes your royal highness, I apologize.”

“Good, now stand guard while I talk to the creature.” said the female as the door slowly swung open.

“As you wish your highness.”

A unicorn walked through my door, and she was simply stunning. Not so much as 'she was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen' kind of stunning but more of the 'holy fucking shit a goddamn unicorn with wings is right in front of me' kind of stunning. She was pure white except for her mane, and tail, that moved strangely as if a blue sky and a sunset decided to flow from her.

Sweet Lucifer, I was looking at Princess Celestia.

“Um... hello.” was pretty much the only thing I could say as my brain tried desperately to get control of the situation.

“Greetings to you as well, how does your leg fair?” she asked as she sat down.

Celestia spoke with a professional demeanour and I quickly responded, “Considering the last fifteen minutes of consciousness was extremely erratic and painful, I'm actually doing quite fine. How did you fix my leg?”

Celestia chuckled slightly. “I can not take all the credit, it was a unicorn named Redheart. She has a special talent in the way of fixing bones. Even my power is limited in some regard.”

“Ah, well can I give her my thanks?” I really did want to thank the nurse pony, I really enjoyed my leg not looking like it was put on wrong.

She looked to the side. “Well she was all right with tending to you while you were out, but I think she is scared senseless of you. We have never seen a creature like you before, where are you from?”

Well, no need to lie to the Princess. “I'm from Earth, a country called Canada.”

“Strange, we have never heard of the country called Canada.” She said with some surprise.

“Well Celestia, I... don't really know how to explain it...” I stuttered out, trying to chose my words.

“That is Princess Celestia to you, and how do you know my name? Please start explaining yourself, I have had one problem after another today and I really am not in the mood for games.”

Well, I could have said 'Well your Highness, you are from a show designed for six year old girls and sometimes I masturbate to a humanized version of you and your sister fucking a pony Twilight Sparkle with strap-ons and feel weird about it afterwards.' However I suspected that it wouldn't go down well.

I instead decided that the best route was the kind-of-truthful one and I started talking to her about where I was from. Soon enough we realized that the Earth that I was currently on was a different Earth than the Earth I was from in all forms and sense. This wasn't even a different reality from Earth, there were never any humans whatsoever. So we both theorized on how I could have possibly travelled through a dimension in order to arrive in Equestria. Needless to say, we both had absolutely no idea what the answer was after discussing it for almost an hour.

So after a bit I agreed to tell Celestia more about where I was from, but she didn't like the fact that I had to hold some of the details back from her. From watching the show, they had an almost seamless blend of magic and technology. Almost everypony had a specific role in society and I really didn't need to start overloading them with ideas or inventions. Nor did I need to add a corrupt economy to one that just might be doing quite well on its own.

I kept the whole 'My Little Pony' show but made it a book series made for everyone to enjoy. I told her that it focused on a set of ponies, the main one being Twilight Sparkle. She seemed both surprised and happy to hear that about her favourite student. We spent a while discussing how connected the stories were to what actually happened. A few things were off, one of them sadly being the dragon that Fluttershy pacified in the show actually went on a rampage and killed a few ponies. The Royal Guard had to put it down and even though Fluttershy partially got over her fear of dragons, she was in a depression for almost a month; which was depressing even for me.

We discussed other things that were close to the show; the most recent event being the wedding. Strangely enough, that was yesterday. Apparently I was out for over twelve hours. Princess Celestia was becoming more and more relaxed around me as we talked much to my elation. Either I was making a good impression or she was trying to make herself seem like a kind pony. So we kept talking.

I certainly didn't need to give ponies ideas on how to rebel against Celestia or to start their own religions and faith that would probably upset Celestia's rule. However I did tell her about Earth's religions. I told her about Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Satanism and even the Pagan Gods of the Romans and Greeks. Quite honestly she was horrified at the atrocities made by most of them. I tried to rationalize more of the loving actions of a lot of religions, however she would have none of it.

“Deeds done to appease anyone, whether it be a God or somepony else will never be as genuine as one who performs a service out of their own goodwill. I would rather have one pony do a good deed out of their own heart than a hundred ponies doing it for my favour. Plus it certainly does not make up for the atrocities done either.” Celestia said, and pretty much that was the end of that.

She did acknowledge the value of Buddhism, LaVey Satanism and a few others that I had mentioned that were more of an Atheist point of view. I personally found that funny because some were polar opposites of one another, but I think she just didn't like anything that tried to justify killing for someone else. Needless to say I had to reflect on how great we humans were on that subject. However I pretty much wanted to leave that whole part behind with the rest of humanity, and Celestia made me give my word. Apparently that meant a lot around here and I didn't want to give her any provocation to send me to the moon.

We talked well into the afternoon discussing matters regarding government and politics. To that extent I learned that the government in Equestria consisted of a small amount of actual elected officials excelling in fields that they were in charge of. However all major decisions rested upon Princess Celestia and her word was absolute. I considered that when you have a wise leader that lived a few thousand years or so you get to appreciate how things were run. Pretty much it was a democracy that was still under a monarchy. Every pony had a voice, and every pony listened to the voice of Celestia as well.

My stomach rumbled very loudly, and Celestia actually suppressed a giggle. “What is it that you humans eat?”

I thought it over on what ponies ate in the show. I definitely know that they were vegetarians, but did they eat hay? I couldn't remember. “Fruits and vegetables are pretty core in our diets, but we also eat meat and such. We cook it beforehand though.” I remembered suddenly that Fluttershy once fed fish to ferrets and quickly added “Fish and the like is perfectly fine too.”

Celestia sent word out to somepony who was outside the door and I heard their hooves clop down the hallway. In the meantime we continued the conversation with the topic leaning more into music and the like. I countered with asking what the music was that Equestria had so I could compare it.

Apparently they had close to the same musical tastes, but it was more leaned towards what I would classify as pop music and classical. Of course it would have to be judged by myself, because pop music without corporate claws digging it's way into every person singing would most certainly be interesting. Then I realized that most of the music on the show was probably the same songs these ponies sang and those were made up by people who were employed by a mega-corporation. Not that bad to put up with, but I would seriously go insane without other forms of music.

She did mention a few musical ponies that were seeking other forms of sound. Apart from the normal 'classical' music that was popular in Canterlot, there was a newer form of sound that was being developed by a pony named Vinyl Scratch that was getting kind of popular. Well at least I had that to look forward to when I got out of here.

That is of course, if I could get out of here.

I got dinner not too much longer after we discussed music differences between our races. The fish wasn't spectacularly well done, but what would you expect from a bunch of vegetarian ponies? It came with some bread, cheese and an apple.

I ate the fish happily, pausing to remove the bones. The bread was absolutely divine and the cheese was delicious, and confirmed they ate at least dairy. I wasn't really a big fan of apples, but this one was utterly fantastic! “Do you not have apples where to are from?” Celestia asked me.

“We do, but they aren't nearly as amazing as these.” I said as I devoured the fruit. Maybe being more of a vegetarian wouldn't be so bad; I would still go for fish that I cooked myself if given the choice however.

“Well they are from Sweet Apple Acres, I'll make sure I send a message along.” Celestia said as she magically conjured up a piece of parchment and some ink.

“That the message? I could just as easily go there myself to give them a compliment. Might need to look into getting a job there as well or something, I'll need the bits.” I commented off-hand, hoping that it would poke at an answer to where I was allowed to go.

“Oh? Now why would you want to do that?” Celestia looked slightly amused while she wrote something down at quite a good speed by the looks of it.

I tried to to pause for too long. “Well, if you grew something and you considered it the best in the land, wouldn't you want to know that they are the best in two lands?”

“Pride can be most unbecoming of a pony you know?”

“Oh I know all about the Great and Powerful Trixie, she certainly takes the cake on that one. I do know that taking pride in a job well done is a great motivator to not only continue your great work, but to take happiness knowing that you make other ponies happy? I'm working on making sure I say ponies instead of 'people'; seeing how I am the only 'person' around that seems to make more sense to me.”

Celestia chuckled for a bit before turning to me. “Well, you certainly will fit in well, at least I hope. Please try to keep the more...” she paused as if trying to find the right word “brutal parts of your species to yourself okay? I am not one for violence. How about you try to stand.”

I nodded and slowly sat up on the side of the bed. My leg did feel slightly numb and tingly, but I was happy that it wasn't causing any pain. I shakily stood up, holding my hand against the wall as I got to my feet. It was supporting my weight well enough and I was able to take a few steps before I got my confidence back. I turned to smile at Celestia, when I noticed I was actually a few inches taller than the pony princess; of course that wasn't counting the horn she had. I wondered how tall I was going to be around other ponies.

A flame and electric crackling sound popped beside me as I saw a green flame burn up what's left of the parchment Celestia was writing on. Time to play a bit ignorant. “Why did you burn that?”

“Oh, well I didn't. It's a magical spell that will send it to Spike. Seeing how he is a dragon he can spit out the flames and get the letter.”

“So he throws up stationary?” I said jokingly. “Princess, would you know where my clothing has gone to?”

She pointed with her hoof to a small chair on the other side of my bed. “I needed to send a letter to my student, Twilight Sparkle. She's very consistent in trying her best to fulfil my requests. Plus she probably wants to know everything about you seeing as how she could get some new knowledge and another friend. Never hurts to also speak to somepony who doesn't live in the same town as you, or even the same planet.”

I just nodded and put on my jeans and decided to carry my jacket. If it was summer outside, I most likely wouldn't need it. I quickly checked all my pockets to see if I still had anything from the incident. My Blackberry was gone and so were my headphones, then again I should have expected that since I saw them fly in front of me before I blacked out. My wallet was gone too, though I seriously doubt that my MasterCard would have worked here. The only thing I had left was a tactical army four-inch blade that folded; and considering how I paid sixty bucks for the thing I felt as if that was pretty damn fortunate. I didn't bring it up since if the Princess didn't want me to have it, it would have been removed in the first place.

I got to meet Nurse Redheart, a nice white pony that actually had a Red Cross-like sign for a cutie mark. She was scared before I knelt down to her level and shook her hoof. It was then I was able to compare my height against a normal pony rather than an Alicorn. Giving a quick comparison I guessed that most ponies were about four feet tall, Celestia was about five foot ten, and Big Macintosh would probably be about five foot six. Luckily the architecture in this world had lots of space. It was as if it was made for humans in the first place and ponies just kind of kept up the appearance. I suspected ponies just built it that tall in case the Princesses or some other races wanted to go to their house or something.

The whole time I was escorted by two of the Royal Guard. They were pretty good at looking forward and looking out for threats. However they considered me to be just as much of a threat as well, and their horns got quite close to me. I could almost feel the energy coming off of them. I guessed they knew combat magic, and they gave off an aura that certainly made them imposing.

As I walked around I considered that my compatibility in this place was most certainly not going to be messed up. I could eat some of the same foods and walk most places. They even had electricity pretty wide-spread too, and I assumed that without huge corporations developing the tech for money, it was probably super-efficient. Knowing how Pegasi controlled the weather, they would either have clear skies for solar or even channels of wind for turbines.

The whole place felt strange to me; as if they knew how to be the most cutting-edge of technology but something was holding them back a bit. Even in the hospital, things felt as if they were from the distant past, yet with some of the tech from the future. It was immediately connected in my brain; I could compare it to Fallout. Even though the Fallout universe had advanced robotics and laser rifles, they still kept a forties' mentality to architecture and design.

Then again, if you had magic, there wasn't a real reason to keep pushing technology in areas that could be accomplished by magic was there?

As we exited the hospital I was exposed to more ponies and was hit with a kaleidoscope of colours. It was intense seeing pretty much every single colour moving about on its own. On Earth you expected some of the more stable colours such as brown, green, black, grey and white everywhere. Here it was as if the universe took every single pastel colour and went 'Yeah, all that shit moves now'. Princess Celestia looked at me with some concern. “Are you okay, or does your skin change from peach to pale quickly?”

“It's nothing.. just gotta get used to seeing so many colours at once. It's like I am having one hell of an acid trip.” I said as I stumbled to grab something, I was able to get a hold of a railing almost too small for me.

“What's an 'acid trip'? One of those human secrets you will be keeping?”

“Oh yeah. I'll be keeping a lot of secrets, and that one is something to keep to myself or Zecora.” I said as we walked along a main road.

“We might as well call you Keeper with all of these things you have to keep from my subjects.” Celestia said off-hand as she smiled and bowed slightly to a couple of ponies.

It was more than a couple of ponies to be exact. I just realized that we might be in Canterlot. Ponies were staring at me, some gawking with their mouths hanging wide open, a few running to the nearest shop or building, and some just taking a peek before passing on with whatever they were doing. Seeing me in the presence of a smiling Celestia must have calmed a lot of them, since if she was smiling I wasn't some kind of threat. Whispers were going back and fourth too among the ponies; that was to be expected really since I was the first human they had ever seen.

I ignored them as much as possible as I thought about what the Princess had said. What if ponies called me Keeper instead of Damien? It would be easier to explain why I had to keep loads of things to myself, especially when pony names were close in relation to what ponies actually did. My name could be Keeper, and I keep secrets. It actually sounded great and I told that to Celestia.

“That is a sound plan, I'll introduce you as Keeper then. Now have you ever flown on something before, I think you mention a thing called an 'airplane' before.” she was leading me to a chariot.

It was the same chariot from the show, lead by two pegasi Royal Guardsmen. Oh boy, first I had to get used to being in a completely different world, now I get to fly in a freaking chariot. “I will have to tell you the difference between an airplane and a chariot someday Princess. I am sure that if I brought up earth technology for aircraft for ponies, you will completely forget about your chariot.”

“Surely you can't be serious.” she stepped up onto the golden vehicle.

I tried making a joke to calm my nerves, and instantly my mind came up with “I am, and don't call me Shirley.”

She looked puzzled, “I didn't call you Shirley.”

I smiled and shook off the question. Ten years and I finally could say the line and the only being I could say it to didn't even know what I was talking about. “Trust me, that's comedic gold back on Earth.”

Star Sign was flabbergasted. Keeper was able to meet the Princess just like that? She seemed to trust him really quickly though, and Star couldn't think of the exact reason why. Was it because he hadn't actually done anything to harm a pony? Was it because she knew he couldn't be a changeling? Maybe she took pity on him, seeing as how he was the only human in the world. Only the Princess knew the answer to why she let him live here.

The room was starting to feel a tad bit claustrophobic. Star Sign decided that she could take some more time to explore the castle before reading further. Reaching for the door she noticed a small spider crawling across it. She was about to squish it when she noticed it seemed like it was regarding her for a moment. Shaking her head she carefully opened the door and closed it softly as she passed through. She didn't know why she did that, maybe reading about Princess Celestia giving Keeper some mercy was rubbing off on her.

Walking back into the main landing at the top of the stairs, she looked around her. What other places could be in here? She only needed to choose.