Chapters Mark was laying on the ground, motionless. His mind was racing back and forth between the past and the present, trying to find what went wrong, at what moment he lost it. He was looking for a sign, something that would show him a difference between before and after he lost his grasp on reality. Talking horses were an obvious difference, but aside from that everything else looked so real. He couldn't have imagined his space mission and his five years training, they were too detailed and not something a sick mind could come up by itself. The crash was real too, his painful broken leg remembered him this. But was really the station in any danger to begin with? The forest was as real as he remembered any forest. Was it? Maybe he always had been insane to begin with, and this situation was the only way the healthy part of his brain found to make him understand that.
His head hurt. He remembered he lost a good amount of blood from his head meeting the station's wall. His normally white suit was all red on his chest and shoulder from being socked with his own blood. How much blood did he lose? Was it the moment? Did the station kick him in the face or did he bang his head by himself?
His inner voice couldn't say any word. Only flash of memories went on and on, coming back on the images again and again, trying to spot what he could have miss before.
Enough! You're a scientist, act like it! Everything can be explained if taken the time and the effort.
He sat up against a tree.
Possibilities... Insanity is only one, and for now I have no way to prove or disprove it, so let's just leave that aside. Theory number one, I felt in an unexplored part of Earth where some unknown species live.
He looked around. The forest wasn't dense enough to hide the small town he notice earlier while crashing the escape pod, and the fact he did notice it means satellite imaging would have picked it up too. An unknown settlement was quite farfetched.
So much for the first one. Second, something happen while I was on the station.
He remembered the look on the adjacent station module. Something cut trough it straight.
Too straight. The metals should have bended and the composite materials should have shattered. Even cutting it with plasma should have left burning marks. A... quantum shift?
Like many things, he knew his fellow scientists liked to theorize on improbable scenarios. But suddenly changing the quantum state of a part of the station would be a good way to slice it in half and leaving no traces on it. If so, the unaffected part of the station would still be up there. As a material physicist, he read his share of article about the theory of what could be done if it was possible to control the quantum state of an object. But like many theories, it lacked much basic information. Like what would happen of the object? Where, when and how would it look like once shifted? Do those questions even manage to describe the final state the object would be in?
I should have taken notes of the other experiments onboard. It could have been an accident from another test.
He sighed loudly.
If it was something like that, no way to know where... what state I got myself. Could be a different time, different place or for all I know a different reality.
He always laughed at papers that talked about multiverse theories. Why write about something that is complete fiction as there is no way to prove or disprove that kind of thinking. He always considered those to be on the same category as religion or magic. But right now, he wasn't laughing so much and the few more scientist articles he read on parallel universes came back to his mind.
"Bleh." he let out loudly.
"Hey! I think I heard something!" made out a voice.
Mark slapped his hands on his mouth, mad at himself for drifting like that in his thoughts. He had no idea how much time had passed since the equine entities left.
It's the same voice from before... Applebloom was it?
He quickly checked around and saw no one. He was behind some bushes and couldn't even see the pod from his position. Good chance whoever was there couldn't see him too. He slowly released his breath, finding he had held it for what appeared an eternity. His heart was beating hard.
"I didn't hear anything Applebloom. What did you want me to see?" asked a new voice.
Mark slowly moved to his left, trying to see pass the bush hiding his view. Finding no good spot to see through it, he started to slowly raise himself on his left feet, using the crutch to push on ground.
"This! It felt from the sky this night!" replied the younger one.
He was half standing up when his head managed to see above the bush. The filly and the zebra he saw so far were fairly normal aside from their speech abilities. The zebra had those black and white strips and the filly was a bright yellow, similar to some mustang Mark saw on television. At least visually, they appeared normal.
But the new one standing aside the crash site didn't even look normal. It sported a bright purple color with an almost black mane and tail. He thought he also saw a pink strip in its mane, but from the distance he couldn't be sure.
Great... Next what? Pink elephant?
The new comer was looking at the pod from every angle, but it was obvious it didn't know what to make out of it. It took a long look inside then looked at Applebloom.
"I don't know Applebloom. It's obviously ponymade, but I have no idea what's its purpose. I don't even know what it's made of."
"It's maybe magic!" claimed the filly jumping around the purple one. It stopped and looked at the purple one. "You surely have some detection spell to see if it's magic... Right Twilight?"
Twilight left an obvious sigh out.
At this point Mark was now pretty sure they were both female. He hoped the high pitch voice were a good enough sign for this. He was staring at the scene, trying to not miss anything out of it. Twilight was staring at the pod and half closed her eyes.
He thought he saw something glow on Twiligt's head. He moved a bit more left to get a better view. He did noticed right, there on her head was some kind of horn. It was glowing of a purple tint similar to her body. The glow quickly enveloped the pod, and started to glow brightly.
"Woah!" let Twilight while looking at the pod. It was obvious she was expecting a reaction, but not that intense.
Purple unicorn? Should I really be surprised at this point? Next won't be pink elephant... Will be flying pink elephant.
He felt his thinking about insanity coming back, but he quickly pushed it aside. He knew if he would let his mind run around this concept, he wouldn't be able to think straight and take some actions on whatever would happen. And right now, drifting in his thoughts was the last thing he wanted.
That's so irrelephant right now.
He stopped for a second, his eyes wide, rethinking about what just passed in his mind. He put his hands back on his mouth trying not to laugh. The situation was so ridiculous his shoulder started to shake. Finally he let a chuckle pass his mouth.
Twilight and Applebloom jumped back and stared at a bush the noise came from. Twilight was sure she heard somepony laughing, but in this forest she wouldn't take any chance. She put herself between the bush and Applebloom trying to shield her from whatever was inside.
"Who's there?" she asked loudly.
Mark was so stunned, he even stopped breathing. He wouldn't move a finger, all those efforts to stay hidden destroyed by a very bad joke his mind came up with. He swallowed hard.
Come one... That was nothing. You haven't heard anything. That's not the bush you're looking for.
He closed his eyes, of all moment, why his brain decided to think of jokes right now?
But the time passed and both ponies were still staring at the bush. Twlight's horn started to glow again. Mark was sure he saw a small rock being lifted off the ground, bathed in the same purple glow. It stopped going up around the height of Twilight's head.
"Last chance! Who's that?" she asked again.
Mark noticed she appeared more scared then himself. He simply didn't want to be found and they appeared to be expecting some kind monster to come out. He lowered himself slowly, trying to take as little space as possible.
Without warning the floating rock shoot toward the bush.
What was that??
He felt something hit himself on the right leg. He looked down and saw the rock slowly roll off after it bounced off his broken leg. By some kind of very bad luck, it hit him almost at the spot where his leg was bent. His tibia was now bent slightly backward.
He was surprised it didn't hurt right away, but when the pain finally came, it was overwhelming. His left leg felt like it was made of jelly, it couldn't hold him up any longer and he started to fall on his left side. The scream he was trying to hold inside came out in force. Even before he hit the ground the world was fading in black again.
I really have to stopping passing out...
His first thought was how good he felt at this very moment. He was dry, warm and didn't feel much pain, which was a much welcome change from the last day. His mind slowly came back online and he quickly remembered all that happened.
He slowly opened his eyes. They felt like they stayed shut for days and his mouth was terribly dry. The room he was in was dark. From the window to his right he could make it was the night again and the only light bathing the room was from the moon. Even without a good source of light, it was obvious the room he was in was painted blue.
He was laying in a comfortable bed and to his left the rest of the room was blocked by a long closed curtain. He didn't need a doctorate to understand he was in some kind of hospital but the size of the room made him think more of a small clinic.
A solute was plugged in his left arm.
He raised his bed sheets to find that whoever brought him here removed his blood and mud soaked suit. His right leg was now in a white cast that covered him from his foot to his knee. At least they left him his underwear. He checked his head, to find it had been washed and a huge bandage covered a part of it.
Someone found him and the country he was in was kind enough to take care of his wounds. They would surely ask him questions later, but for now he had the impression nothing bad could happen.
You know what brain; I'm really not made for that insanity stuff. I hate passing out.
He felt back in sleep.
He was waked up the next morning by a male voice of someone in the room, behind the closed curtain.
"You are doing great progress. One more day, maybe two and you will be on your way." said the voice.
Mark looked around. The room's walls were indeed painted blue, but the ceiling was green. Both were covered in some kind of hand painting of some kind of vegetation. However the curtain was of the standard bland greenish clothing used in medical facilities, the kind that were easy to wash off whatever could end up on them. He noticed the solute was gone. Whoever removed it did it smoothly enough to not wake him up.
"Thanks Doc. Will be more careful next time." replied a female voice.
Whoever it was, they trusted him enough to put him in an open room with another patient. He felt some luck actually coming back from all this. He wasn't locked in and with some hope he could find a specialist to explain him why he kept seeing ponies.
He felt like he ran a marathon. While his body was in an amazing shape, better than he ever was in his whole life thanks to the training for his space mission, but his muscles painfully reminded him to not do more crash landing. He didn't know at what speed he hit the ground, but it was obviously faster than the intended Soyuz design.
I guess I was lucky landing in trees and dirt. At the speed I was going, a rock or a building and right now I would be dead.
He started thinking how he would ask the doctor about his little problem.
Is there any good way to explain that your mind is slowly drifting off in crazy land?
He stretched his arms and yawned. He didn't know how long he slept, but it felt good.
"Ah! I see our new guess is awake." said the doctor coming around the curtain. The doctor was a tan pony with a brown mane and tail. The horn on his forehead was quite obvious. He was wearing a doctor jacket, a stethoscope around his neck and some small armless glasses.
Mark's body instantly went in overdrive, as a flow of adrenaline blurred his senses. He automatically tried to get away, pushing off the bed with his hands. But even when his butt crashed on the floor he didn't care much of the pain, he kept pushing off. What felt hours for him but was only a few second, he ended up in the corner of the room.
"Is something wrong Mark?" asked the equine doctor, worried by the weird display of fear.
"How do you know my name?!" he almost screamed.
He was looking around scared as hell. Even if he would try to escape this, his broken leg meant he would be caught again almost instantly. Even then, he never was good at running, his thing being more swimming. With a broken leg, the best he could do would be to crawl anyway. He started to sweat and shake, the adrenaline pushing for physical action, but he mind couldn't decide what to do.
The doctor stepped back a bit, surprised by the reaction. "Well, it was written on your clothing. Mark Nasa, isn't it?" he asked.
"Oh. huh... just Mark" replied Mark in a shaking voice. His name was indeed written on his suit, right above the NASA logo. But why they thought his second name was NASA, he couldn't think of anything.
He looked around, finally noticing he was curled up in the corner of the room, shaking, in his underwear.
Great, for a first impression, you really got a talent to make it as worst as possible.
He moved slowly to the left, keeping his eyes on the doctor, and pulled the bed sheets off. Using them he quickly covered his body. He noticed the doctor didn't seem moved at all by the display.
He probably saw far worst, like any medical doctor. Come on, man up Mark!
Using the walls, he slowly got on his left foot, wrapping himself in the bed sheets. Once on his feet, he found out he was a good head taller than the doctor. He slowly moved back to the bed, using the walls to keep his balance as he jumped off his left foot. He slowly lay back in the bed, never leaving the doctor off his sight. He was in sweat and the adrenaline rush was slowly fading away.
"Huh... heh... Sorry for that outburst." he excused himself.
The doctor looked at him puzzled then shrugged his front shoulders, in a quite human way.
"Not a problem." he said, sounding obvious he had experience with much weirder behavior or more excited patient. "If you don't mind, we got a few questions about yourself."
"Well... I have one myself first, if you don't mind." asked Mark back.
"Go ahead."
"Huh... Do you have... a psychologist in this clinic?"
The doctor looked surprised by the request. He was used to weird behavior, but someone asked help about it right away was unusual.
"We are a small clinic here. We don't have one on site. I usually take care of that kind of problem myself and when a case is too complex I ask for a specialist to come from somewhere else."
It made sense. The small village he saw in his crash wasn't big enough to require a permanent psychologist. Did this place even have a thousand people? Why would you have someone just for a case of depression once or twice per year.
The doctor slowly moved toward the bed. "However, I'm fully qualified to do basic psychologist diagnosis. What's troubling your mind?"
Mark was about to open his mouth when something bluish ran off in the corridor. It was barking loudly and if he could believe his eyes, it was wearing some kind of white containment suit.
The doctor ran to the door and screamed, "Nurse Redheart! I told you to not let her off her room without supervision! Screw! Go back to your room!"
"I'm sorry doctor Stable, she ran off after seeing a squirrel off her window." replied a small white pony with red head that ran after the blue mass of crazy.
Mark didn't think his eyes could get any wider. He felt like if anything was to happen, his eye balls would simply pop off his head. He was back in a state without any rational thinking. He then noticed his mouth was handing open the whole time. He quickly closed it off.
No need to make them think you're a drooling idiot on top. Sanity... I already miss you.
Satisfied the matter was handled, the doctor went back to Mark's bed. He stared at him a bit, noticing he was looking at the door with eyes almost as big as anypony.
"Hmm, sorry for that. You were about to say about some psychological problem?" he asked like if the barking pony wasn't anything to care about.
Mark slowly turned his head to face the doctor.
I'm not in a hospital, I'm in an asylum. At least I won't look out of place.
"Yeah... doc, about that... I'm... huh... Seeing stuff." he replied with a trembling voice.
"You mean Screw? Don't mind her. She likes to make us run around."
"No, I mean... I'm seeing... impossible stuff. Like... ponies?" Mark said laughing. He was feeling very small right now. Like if his bed was swallowing him.
The doctor was looking at him puzzled.
"Heh?" said Mark, looking desperate.
Seeing he was serious about his claim, the doctor let out a small laugh. "Well at least your eyesight is good. So for right now, the only thing I can tell you is, no you're not insane. At least not yet." He turned around toward the door and while walking off continued, "Try to keep it calm for a few hours. I'm gonna call Twilight. She's the closest pony we got to a diplomat around here, and she wanted to apologize, from what I understood."
On that the doctor was off the room leaving Mark thinking.
Sorry Doc, but for now I won't trust my earring anymore than my sight.
Without thinking, he grabbed hold of the curtains and pulled them off to see who his room neighbor was.
The grey pony with a blond mane in the next bed looked as surprised as him from the sight. She had her front right hoof wrapped in a bandage. They just stared at each other for what seemed an eternity.
"Huh... Sorry." Mark said, closing the curtain.
"No... No problem." replied the pony as stunned as he was.
The next two hours, from what he could see on the wall clock, passed quite fast. He simply didn't think about anything. He knew there was nothing he could do, and he didn't felt like theorizing about his condition. The doctor didn't say anything about his wounds but he didn't sound worried about that. They didn't hurt much anyway.
He's probably more worried about my head than my leg anyway.
Nobody else showed up and no other event took place. He thought he heard barking outside, but he couldn't say for sure. He stayed all under the bed sheets, only having his head out, like if the sheets could protect him from this strange world.
Looking around, he noticed the place was clean and didn't look much aged. It was obviously well cared for. At some point he was sure he heard his neighbor fall asleep. He didn't want to check and repeat the awkward moment of staring. He didn't know what to do, not that he could do much right now.
He was about to get up to the window and look outside when the door opened. The purple pony or unicorn, he remembered himself, came slowly in the room. She stopped at a few feet off his bed. For a few moments they just stared at each other.
"Hey." She simply said.
"Huh... Hey." replied Mark almost automatically.
Improvements here... I didn't freak out this time. Next step, not looking like a frighten child.
"I wanted to say I was sorry about throwing you a rock. You scared us and it was pure bad luck that hit you on your leg." she quickly said in one breath.
She's as scared as you. Maybe more.
"No need to be. I shouldn't have stay hidden like that. And for the leg, it was already broken." he replied quickly with a small smile.
She let a small nervous laugh. "Well Mr. Nasa..."
"Anderson" he cut. "NASA is an organization, not my name. But just call me Mark, will be simpler."
"Oh." she let out. "Well, Mark, we got a few questions for you."
"And I'm pretty sure I got some for you too." he replied.
The tension was still there, both were still nervous, but with every sentence they felt more at ease. She shocked her head like she forgotten something.
"Where's my manner, I'm Twilight Sparkle, nice to meet you Mr. Mark"
"Just Mark. Nice to meet you too." he replied automatically. He never felt good being called mister, doctor or any title for that matter. M. was for his father and almost nobody called his doctor anyway, not that he didn't earn it with a double doctorate.
"Alright... Mark." she let a small uneasy laugh. "If you don't mind, first thing first, what are you and how did you get here?"
Mark sit himself up, careful to keep the sheets to cover him from his shoulders. He was a bit surprised by the question, and started to think about how to answer.
Good chance they never saw someone like you to begin with. Would be pretty stupid to assume they knew while you never saw one of them before.
"I'm a... human. A kind of mammal, a primate. The technical term is homo sapiens, or if you prefer "wise man". We are sentient being from a planet we call Earth. We have two genders and numerous races. We are mostly pacific and..." noticing he started babbling he stopped to take a few deep breaths.
Breathe dumbass. And speak slower!
"As for how I got here... I was in the International... huh... A space station, when something went wrong. I used an escape pod. Pretty sure you saw where it crashed. As to why I'm here and not on a planet full of human... My guess or lack of it is as good as any."
She looked at him puzzled. "What's a space station?" she simply asked.
Oh right, another civilization. How far are they in their technology? If they don't even know what space is, good chance they are for nothing for my presence here.
"Huh... That's kind of a good question." he said, wondering how to reply. "You see... if you shot something upward fast enough and far enough, you can get off the planet and in what we call space."
"That I know of." she cut him. "It's where there's no more air to breath."
Good! At least they don't think their world is flat or something. That would have made it very hard.
"Good." he smiled. "If you shot something fast enough and high enough, it gets in what we call an orbit. If it's traveling as fast as it's falling back toward the ground, it can stay up there. A space station is a place to live put in orbit to make scientific experiment in an environment without gravity."
Mark didn't know her eyes could get any bigger. They were already big enough to freak him out. He noticed she looked amazed by his story.
"So... you're a scientist?" she simply asked.
"Eayup. I was up there to run some experiments on new composite materials." he said nervous, noticing he slowly backed away from the pony, since she had moved toward him. She noticed her move too and back off.
"And how do you get up there? I somehow doubt you can fly." she asked looking skeptical.
"Do you... have any rockets?"
"You mean like fireworks?" she replied wondering what he meant.
Well, you got it. You ain't going back up there any time soon!
"Yeeeaaah... But thousand time bigger. Big enough to care tons of material upward at about twenty time the speed of sound." he said with a smile, like it was nothing to be impressed at.
She looked stunned. "Twenty time?"
"Well yeah, that's for low orbit. For higher orbit you can imagine in the higher twenty four, twenty five time the speed of sound and for escape velo..." he said. Saying that, he noticed she didn’t believe him. "But once you clear the atmosphere, there's no air resistance to slow you down, so you can get quite fast." he finished with a grim.
You not going anywhere with that.
"So... Where did I crash, and what are you guys?" he asked, trying to diffuse the awkward skeptical look she was giving him.
Her face went back to be a bit more joyful. "Oh yeah. You landed in Equestria, one nation of... Well we call it Earth too. It's mostly inhabited by ponies. Equus ferus sapiens if you prefer. We also have two genders and have three distinctive subspecies in the pony branch." she said with a smile. "We are quite friendly too."
"That's... good to know. You said three subspecies?" he asked.
"Oh! Yeah. I'm a unicorn." she said proudly pointing at her horn.
Well... duh! Wait... how did she move her leg like that to point at her face? Her shoulder joint is obvious far more complex than our horse's.
"There are also pegasus ponies. They have wings."
Wings? If I was drinking something right now, I would have spit it all over the place.
"And earth ponies. Which are normally bigger and stronger." she finished, obviously happy of her quick sum up.
"Wings..."
She looked at him, and even if he was of a different species, the skepticism was obvious. She blinked a few time, obvious trying to think of something. Having found something, she turned around and went to the curtain and talk to his neighbor.
"Hey, would you mind showing off your wings a bit?" she said.
A sincere laugh came from the other pony. "Alright."
Twilight pulled back the curtain, displaying the other pony like an event. The grey pony was up on her bed, only on three legs, careful to not land her wrapped hoof. A bit embarrassed from being looked at like that, she flapped her small pair of wings she had on her back and slowly took off. She slowly started turning and did a full circle over her bed, she was showing off! She landed back with an obvious smile.
"Thanks." said Twilight while closing back the curtain.
"No problem." the other pony replied while laughing.
As for Mark, it took him a while to find he jaw was hanging low. As soon as he found out, he closed his mouth, a bit ashamed of looking like a drooling idiot again.
What... what was that? Wings? But... They were too small to lift anything. Surely not enough to lift a pony!
He also noticed he had let go of the sheets, displaying his naked chest. He quickly pull them back on to his shoulders, blushing hard. The ponies didn't appear to care much for his nakedness.
Well, aside from the doc, I haven't seen any clothing so far. But they got that kind of colorful fur... So they aren't really naked... Right?
"Well, sorry I kinda didn't believe you on that." he excused himself with a small ashamed smile. Slowly getting back from that stunning new information, he went back to more present concern. "Huh... You wouldn't know where my suit is?"
She blinked a few times wondering what he meant. "Oh! That white clothing? It was full of dirt, mud and blood. I think they might have sent it to be washed. I will ask the doctor to send you it back if you want."
"Please."
If they don't know any human, chances of finding any fitting clothing is close to none. And I'm not going out of this bed in underwear! As for shoes... Whatever, one thing at a time.
"If you don't mind, I got to go. I will be back tomorrow." She went to the door and turned around. "Oh, by the way, the doctor told me physically you're doing well. He said he should be able to remove the cast in a few days."
"Great!"
And off she was.
Wait... what? A few days for a broken tibia?
Mark lay back in his bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to assimilate all that new knowledge. The idea that he was fully insane was still in the back of his mind, but for now he felt everything felt too real to just think he was a full nut job. And almost all the pain was gone from his leg.
They can't go in space, but they can fix a broken leg in a few days...
Twilight left the clinic deep in her thoughts. This new comer appeared to be a mine of knowledge unlike any she encountered before. She didn't want to push him or anything, but knowledge was so attractive and she never had enough. That new creature was quite weird, and unlike any they got so far. No doubt it would be hard to make the others accept somepony like him.
Is "somepony" even the right word in this case?
She had no idea. Deep in her thoughts, she wasn't really looking where she was going, walking automatically toward her home. What had to happen happened, she bumped into somepony.
"Oh! Sorry!" she apologized herself, raising her head to see who she pushed. "Doctor?"
The one who kept asking to simply be called Doctor turned around to see who rammed his flank. "Oh, hello Twilight. How it's going?" he asked, not caring much about the sudden impact.
"Not... much. I guess. Wait... I haven't seen you in months. Where were you?" she asked.
Why is that pony always showing up when something is going to happen? But he is never there when everything is fine... I don't even know where he's living.
"Months you say? That... Oh my... It didn't feel that long. I was in a business trip. You have no idea how many pony need a clock to keep track of time." he answered with a smile, oblivious that he was the one having an hard time to keep track of it. "But you said something happened?"
Twilight sighed silently; there was no discussing with this one. She said nothing about something happening, but he just knew. He would find out sooner or later, and would get himself in trouble, she was sure of it. "Some kind of weird creature felt from the sky. He broke a leg and he's resting in the hospital." She couldn't say if the Doctor was interested or not in what she just said.
"Ah." was his only answer, and then left, walking toward the center of Ponyville speaking to himself.
Weird creature I was saying? Who's really the weird creature?
The remaining of the day passed without any fuss. Mark was pretty bored from doing nothing, but he had a lot of thinking to do. At some point in the afternoon a nurse came with a tray of food and put it on his bed. When he tried to thanks her, she let out a little squeak and ran away. He remembered how even Twilight was frighten when she first came. So far, only the doctor Stable appeared to not care about who or what his patient was.
I guess I will have to get used to it. Imagine if the roles were reversed. What the government would...
He swallowed hard, thinking about all the stories of government cover-ups. For all he knew, dozen ponies could have ended up on his Earth at some point, but knowing how humans are relatively afraid of anything different; their chances of survival would be slim. Would humans really managed to react better than the ponies had so far?
They didn't cut me into pieces and they didn't put me in a jar. I'm better get used to some fear from them, would be the least I could do.
He looked at his tray, wondering if he could eat that food safely. After all, he was lucky the atmosphere itself was breathable. What were the chances the food to also be edible? He lifted the cover to find a salad of carrots and cucumbers. There was a glass of water and a big bright red apple in the corners. Aside the apple was standing what appeared to be a blueberry muffin.
Well that's uncanny. What are the chances of the same vegetables evolving on two different planets?
He remembered reading how life tends to always find a way, but he didn't remember any articles about life always finding the same way. He once read some kind of theory about sentient life having to ends up in a somewhat similar shape, but at the simple sight of the ponies, he knew it was wrong. They didn't look like anything human, and they didn't even look that much like what he knew of his Earth's horses. However, their facial expressions were quite close to any human's.
Let's not forget they speak English. Alright, enough proof I'm on Earth. So... Parallel universe or time travel?
He took a slice of cucumber and stared at it.
Here goes nothing.
He put it in his mouth and chewed. Not only was he surprised it tasted exactly like any cucumber, it also tasted better than what he remembered. It was crispy and obviously quite fresh. Looking at his plate, he found out everything was so fresh, that it could have been picked off a field in the morning. He engulfed his whole meal, quite happy to eat something so tasty after over a day without eating or drinking. On top, the food in a space station was never known to be tasty. He was happy to eat anything else than the dry junk they pack for space mission. While drinking from his glasses of water he thought,
They grow their own food. A small town have to.
Looking at his empty plate, he wondered for a minute about the lack of meat.
Equine are herbivores, right? I should ask one day. Maybe once I know them or they know me enough. Not that I would want to make it more awkward.
A flash of memory came to his mind, a month before his mission, at a restaurant with his teammates, eating a burger of horse meat. His eyes grew wide and he put a hand on his mouth. He never been found of eating meat, but he sometime enjoyed it. His teammates kept repeating it was the best burger in town, but he didn't find it that tasty. It was too chewy and didn't taste much.
I'm gonna be sick. Good time to start a vegetarian diet.
Somehow he had lost all appetite. There was only the apple and the muffin left. He decided to keep the apple for later. He put the tray on his bedside and the apple beside it. He wasn't near lacking food anyway. He could skip a meal or two without problem.
He heard coughing to his left, and found the grey pony had opened the curtains a bit.
"You're gonna eat that muffin?" she asked, her sight locked on his tray.
Mark laughed inside. He didn't care much she watched him. He would have done the same. He took the muffin and handed her it. "Be my guest, all your."
Her eyes brighten while she took the muffin with her left hoof. Mark didn't think it was possible to balance a muffin that way on a hoof. Between two bites she said "Thanks! I love muffin!".
He honestly laughed. "I can see that. Enjoy it."
It was well past midnight when he woke up. Something woke him up, something nearby. It was actually close enough to breath in his face. He waited until he was fully awake before turning his head to face the intruder. On all four above him, was standing the same filly that was in the forest. She was deeply staring at him.
"Morning already mom?" he asked with half a smile.
The filly jumped back a little. "You ain't that scary!" she said with a sound of bravado.
That scary? So I'm a bit scary? Kids are the same everywhere.
He laughed. "I'm not? Don't you know I'm a big bad monster that eats foals for breakfast?" he said, trying to sound serious, but he started to laugh again.
"That ain't funny!" exclaimed the filly while punching him in the chest.
"Oww, alright, alright." he said between two laugh. Tears of laughing were starting to show up. "Who said I was scary?"
"My big sis said so. But she says the same for everything she doesn't know." she claimed. She then stared at him from up close. "You're weird, but you ain't scary."
"Thanks... I guess." he said with a big smile on his face.
I better get used to the unexpected around here.
"It just means that she loves you so much that she doesn't want anything bad to happen to you." he explained.
She looked around, obviously thinking about the statement. "I know. But I'm no foal anym..."
"Applebloom?" said a voice in the corridor.
"Oh no! Sis!" whispered Applebloom.
Mark finally understood, she went on their own to prove her worth by facing that new frightening creature in town. But she was still afraid to be caught by her sister. "Quick! Under the bed!" he whispered back.
"What?" she asked back puzzled.
He winked at her, hoping that sign would mean the same in this reality. "Trust me. Quick!"
Finally catching on, she jumped off the bed and slid herself under it. Meanwhile Mark made sure he looked as asleep as possible. Just in time as a beam of light lit the room.
"Applebloom?" said a scared voice again, almost whispering. "You're in there?"
Mark took a deep breath, and doing the deepest voice he could, he screamed "Who's there? Who's gonna pay for disturbing my sleep?!" He was sure he heard a faint laugh coming from under the bed.
The lantern felt on the floor and whoever was holding it was now running away as fast as possible. He started to chuckle. The filly came from under the bed laughing and started bouncing around, "That was funny!"
When laughing managed to get under control, he said "You should go now. I think she will be back to take the lantern she dropped. If you do it right, you can be home before she is."
"You're right! Thanks mister! Name's Applebloom by the way." replied the excited filly with a wide smile.
"Just call me Mark. Good night Applebloom."
"'Night!" on that, she was off the corridor, looking around trying to not meet her sister.
I could get used to that. he thought while falling back asleep.
The next morning he found that someone came in while he was asleep and replaced the empty tray with a full one. The breakfast tasted as amazing as it looked, composed of pancakes and eggs covered in some kind of blueberry syrup.
If hospital food was that tasty back home, I would have been sick all the time.
He was about to bite in the apple leftover from yesterday when doctor Stable and Twilight entered the room. He put the apple back on his bedside. She was wearing a kind of small saddle with a bag on each side.
"Good morning." he said, surprised to have such early visitor.
"Good morning." they both replied in tandem.
The doctor went around the bed, and lifted the bed sheets covering his broken leg. He then lowly pushed his feet aside, checking him for any reaction. Mark was ready to scream in pain, but was surprised to only feel some numbness his in leg. The doctor put the sheets back in place.
"Good. You should be good to go tomorrow morning." he said, obviously satisfied.
He was about leave the room when Mark found back his voice. "Wait! Two days for a broken leg?" he asked, skeptical.
"Well, yes. How long were you expecting? Months?" he replied with a smile. Pointing at Twilight he continued, "Well I guess it is kinda fast. But you got Twilight to thanks for it. I wasn't confident performing on your species, so I asked Twilight to assist with the healing spell. I admit she would make an amazing doctor." On that, he turned around and left, leaving a blushing Twilight facing Mark.
For the first time Mark noticed the doctor had some kind of tattoo on his flank, what looked like a crude display of an electrocardiogram.
"Spell?" he asked raising an eyebrow.
"The doctor is too modest. The spell he casted was quite complex. I only gave him some support on the power output." she said trying to stay modest.
"Spell??" he asked again. "As in... magic?"
She blinked a few time, unsure of how to answer that. "Yes. As in magic." She looked at him with a grim. "You sound like you don't believe in magic!"
He crossed his arms on his chest. "Maybe because I don't!" he said with a face that expressed he was challenging her to prove him wrong.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. She then looked beside him and her horn began to glow. The apple on his bedside floated up to her mouth and she took a bite in it. While chewing on it, the apple went back to its initial position. She didn't say anything but her face was loudly broadcasting her satisfaction.
Mark managed to stay physically unmoved by the performance, even if inside his mind was racing with the display of telekinesis. "That doesn't prove existence of any magic." She almost chocked on her piece of apple. "For all I know, it could be a trick of some kind or some unknown technology."
She swallowed. "There was no trick!"
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." he simply claimed. "Yesterday you couldn't believe we could go at twenty four times the speed of sound, and we did it without any magic."
"That kind of speed is impossible!"
"Magic doesn't exist!"
They stared at each other, not giving up an inch of terrain to the other one.
Mark had a smile on his face. "I'm a scientist, I only trust what can be explained and proved under controlled condition." He move his right hand toward her, "Can you explain what your magic is?"
A smile grew on her face. "Magic is a field generated by life. It bounds matter and energy and allows the transition between the two. Everything alive has some otherwise it wouldn't be alive." he explained by heart like if it was written in a book. "It allows transportation and transformation of matter among other things." she said, quite satisfied of her explanation, like if she was in front of a classroom.
"Bullshit." replied Mark while slicing the air with his hand. "I, for one, don't have one bit of magic, and I'm quite alive." he claimed while pointing his chest with his thumb.
"What? That's... I... I can prove it to you!" she said angry. That human was pushing her even if she didn't know what cow poo had to do with it.
"Go ahead!"
She did a step forward, looking at him. Her horn started to glow again. Slowly Mark's body started to glow of the same purple tint. At first he didn't feel anything.
Nice trick when you need to walk in the dark.
But all of sudden, it was like he swallowed some lava, his guts were on fire and it was spreading outward. He felt his eyeballs were about to be pushed out by some kind of inner pressure. He did the only thing he could, he screamed. He was sure he screamed, but he couldn't hear anything, his ears ringing madly.
She's killing me! Alright, I believe! I believe!
As suddenly as the pain came, it went away. His whole body was numb and the room was spinning in front of his eyes. He felt like he went in an electrical storm and he was sure his hairs were straight on his head. He coughed, letting out a small cloud of black smoke. He was sure he saw some kind of golden energy arcs run across his forearms.
That can't be good.
He looked at Twilight. Her eyes were wide open and she put a hoof on her mouth.
She looks more in shock than me.
"I'm so sorry... I..." she could only say before doctor Stable stormed in the room.
"What's going on? What are you doing to him Twilight?" looking concerned of the smoke coming from under the bed sheets.
"Not... nothing doc." Mark managed to say. His voice felt weird. "Just... just a little burst of magic."
The doctor looked at him like if he suddenly grew a second head. Then he looked at Twilight, which was still in shock. "Twilight, I would appreciate if you wouldn't kill him, at least not in this building. I'm responsible for his well being while he stays here."
Twilight only managed to nod. The doctor looked at the two again, shrugged, then left the room.
"I'm deeply sorry! It wasn't supposed to do that! I never saw it do that before! It's a basic spell we use on unicorn filly to help them spot their source of magic!" she explained in one breath, her eyes still wide open, having an hard time to believe she almost cooked alive this creature.
Mark could feel it. It was a valve that always been there, that he never noticed before. But even if he knew, he wouldn't have known how to open or close it. But now he knew where it was and how to work it out. Not that he wanted to do it, considering what just happened.
Maybe you need to be a pony to control that? Well, that gives some insight on spontaneous combustion.
"It's... It's alright. I kind of asked for it. Or maybe not." he said half laughing. His mind wasn't clear.
"Oh! I almost forgot." she pulled a book off her left bag. "Guide for new comers to Equestria. I thought you might want to read while having nothing to do." She quickly put the book on his bedside. "Well... hehe... look at the time! So late already!" she said nervously looking at the wall clock. "I got to go! Enjoy the book!" On that she almost raced off the room.
Mark noticed she too had some kind of marking on her flank. While the doctor's one was obvious, he had no idea what those white and purple stars meant. His head finally stopped spinning.
I will ask her next time.
He took the book in one hand, surprised to find it written in English. He was stuck to this bed; the best was still to learn more about this civilization.
What's smelling like beacon?
A pony was standing in front of the crashed pod. With precision he took what looked like a long metallic pen out of a little bag he was carrying. Pointing it at the wreckage, he pushed a button on the surface using his teeth. The tip glowed blue for a few moment. He read some kind of result out of it that only he could see.
"They really did it? How unusual..."
Then he felt it, a kind of motion from his guts, like if he was on a ship rocking on huge waves. As suddenly as the feeling came, it stopped. But it was enough, he had experienced that feeling a few time before. He turned around looking at the distance; from what he thought was the source of his discomfort.
"How unusual..." he simply repeated before leaving the burned sphere behind him.
Mark read the guide for most of the day. While it was an interesting readout on the current political system in place, it lacked information about the social structure. It listed the biggest cities and main touristic attractions, but failed to explain some basic concept like the markings he saw on their flanks. He was surprised to find many cities names to carry similarities to cities of his own reality. However there was no information about demography or social protocol, aside from a few lines about how to behave if you were to meet the royalty.
The princesses raise and lower the sun and the moon. For some reason he only wished to find a table and violently flip it.
He was especially interested in the map of the country in the middle pages. But all he could make out of it was that Equestria wasn't a huge one, a few times the size of Texas at best. There was no map of the planet and no major ocean could be seen, at least from what he could make out of it. There were only a handful of large cities, but most of the population appeared to be rural.
I need a bigger map, a way to know if it's the same planet.
He was almost done with it when he felt he was being watch. While keeping the book in front of his face, he slowly looked over it. He was right, in the corridor he could see the faces of three fillies whispering to each other while staring at him.
"Hey Applebloom, how are you?" he said while closing the guide and putting it on his bedside, while a smile grew on his face.
She simply trotted in the room, head rose, looking so courageous for her friends. "I'm all right, and you?" She stopped close to the bed, only her head being above it.
"Quite good, the doctor said they would remove the cast tomorrow morning. Who's your friends?" he said nodding toward the door. "It looks like they are afraid of something."
She let a small laugh. "Yeah, they can be a bit chicken." she said looking at the door to see if they would bite at her provocation.
The orange filly jumped in the room, her head lowered and her wings deployed. "Hey! I'm no chicken!"
Mark and Applebloom looked at each other and started laughing. "This is Scootaloo, and the one still hiding is Sweetie Belle. This is Mark. He looks a bit weird, but he's quite fine." she said while putting a hoof on his bed.
White, yellow, orange, purple, grey. I really wonder if they have a limit to the tint those ponies can take. I'm not sure I want to know. He mentally shrugged. And I'm the weird one.
The last one, a white unicorn with a purple and pink mane, finally came in the room. "Nice to meet you mister Mark." she said sounding more mature, almost noble.
"Nice to meet you too miss Sweetie Bell. But you can simply call me Mark, I'm not found of the formalities." he replied, trying to sound as aristocratic as possible.
She sounds almost like someone of the high society. What's the protocol while meeting a lady? Hand kissing? Hoof kissing... Bleh!
He noticed that the three had no marking on their flanks, unlike the grownups he saw so far. He started to wonder if they were gained from some kind of adulthood ritual. Were they chosen by the pony or decided by the society? Marked when you get your first job? He didn't like the idea much, considering his first job was in a fast food restaurant.
"Hey, I wonder if it's alright to talk about that... But I noticed you had no marking on your flanks. Twilight gave me that guide" he said pointing at the book. "But there's nothing about those."
The three fillies looked at each other. From their look he wondered if they were happy or sad. Or maybe both, he couldn't say. Applebloom looked at him and claimed quite proudly, "We are the cutie mark crusaders. We are looking for our cutie marks."
"Cutie mark?" he said puzzled by the unusual term.
They better not do any joke about my name.
Sweetie Belle took turn to explain. "It's a symbol that represents your special inner talent. It shows up by itself when you find out what you are good at."
"By itself? Like... magically?" he asked. They nodded back. He kept himself from looking skeptical. "What happen if you get your cutie mark, but later find out you're better at something else?"
They looked at each other wondering how to answer. They never thought of that before. They always assumed once some pony find his talent he would simply stick to it. They never heard of a cutie mark changing for another one. But can it happen? Can a pony find something he is even more talented in than his cutie mark or once found he can't be better at something else?
Their trains of thoughts were cut short when a voice in the corridor whispered. "Applebloom?" He noticed it was the same voice as last night.
"Sis? Oh, not again." said Applebloom in desperation.
A bright orange head wearing a cowboy hat showed up trying to stay hidden behind the door frame. "Applebloom! Come here!" she whispered louder, giving him some scared look.
A bit over protective aren't you?
He started thinking about how to get out of the situation. He wasn't used to deal with someone or somepony so scared of him. He quickly put aside any idea of simply talking it out, she wouldn't listen a word. So far he enjoyed talking with the fillies as they were giving him an insight on this society that adult couldn't give him due to their fear. On top, he had the feeling they would get a lecture about talking to strange creature. It wouldn't be right to let them be lectured without trying something.
Gonna have to be creative on this one.
While pointing at the intruder, taking his most authoritative voice, he screamed "You!". The orange mare jumped back, more afraid than ever, but she didn't flee. Her little sister was there and she had to do something. He pointed at the right side of his bed. "Here! Now!".
It took a few moments before she decided to move, but she finally made it. She was shaking hard of fear. What would that monster do to her? It was staring at her, looking mad.
Mark looked at the fillies. "Hey crusaders, can you go for a few minutes? I got to talk with Applebloom's sister." While they were leaving, he was sure he saw Applebloom winked at him. He turned back to stare at the orange pony. He noticed her flanks had three red apples. Her green eyes were wide open; she was shaking more than ever.
Going back to the authoritative mode, he screamed "Sit!". Without even thinking she sat down on the floor.
It took a few moments for her to react to the fact she followed his order without even thinking. Fear was taking most of her mind and she act without consciously knowing it. "Hey! I'm no dog!" she said, but even then she stayed sit. She was still shaking, but the awkwardness made a crack in her wall of fear. She looked about to run away.
Not an easy one? Time for the extreme measure.
Mark leaped forward as fast as he could and grabbed her, hugging her. She immediately started to push back as hard as she could, more frighten than ever, her eyes wide open. He felt he was dragged off the bed. He quickly used his left leg to grab the left side of the bed, using it as an anchor. He was in great shape as he trained hard at the NASA, but that pony was pulling much harder than he thought.
Got to hold!
The tug of war lasted a good minute. His arms were in fire from holding that crazy pony in place. His left leg was shaking from the effort and he felt a cramp coming up in his calf. That pony was far stronger than he thought. He could feel her muscles working, like strips of steel under her skin. He was about to let go when the pony stopped pushing.
She was breathing hard. What was the creature doing? Was that an attack? It sure didn't feel like one. She was confused but also surprised it managed to hold her in place. "What... What are ya doing?" she finally managed to ask.
"Hugging you, silly." Mark said between two breaths. She wasn't shaking anymore, but his forearms were.
She was more confused than ever. "Huh... Why?" was all she could say.
Mark didn't answer. He kept hugging her for another minute, letting the confusion sink in her mind and his own muscles rest for a while. When he noticed she was looking around he finally asked "Feels awkward?".
"Well... yeah." she answered.
He let her go and sit back in his bed. "Good. Now you aren't afraid anymore."
"What in tarnation?" she said staring at him, more confused than ever.
"Fear was clouding your mind. Even if I tried to talk to you, you wouldn't have listened. Am I right?" he said looking at her. She didn't answer. "Only way to crack that wall of fear is with another strong emotion. I'm not good with jokes, so I thought confusion and awkwardness might do the trick." he said with a smile. "And I was right. Now we can talk." He offered her his right hand. "Name's Mark, nice to meet you."
She looked at the raised hand, wondering if it was some kind of trick. She hated to admit, but he was right. She was still cautious, but not frighten anymore. He took the problem head-on and she could understand that. She wondered if she would have acted the same way. Probably not. "Ah shoo..." she said rolling her eyes. She grabbed his hand and shacked it hard. "Nice to meet ya. Name's Applejack."
When he finally got his hand back, he felt like his forearm was close to the breaking point. A few more shake and he might have needed another cast. "Wow, you are a strong one." he said while massaging his forearm. He could notice a smile coming up her face. "I guess I got you to thanks for those tasty apples, right?"
"What?"
He turned around and grabbed the apple resting on his bedside. He took a small bite out of it. "They are quite tasty."
Her smile kept growing. "How do ya know?" she said half skeptical. He pointed at her flank. She looked down at her flank, then back at him. "Well duh."
Being serious again, he put the half eaten apple back on the bedside. "Look... I know it's not my business, but it never stopped me from giving a friendly advice. Applebloom? She's a smart one." he said crossing his arms.
"Yah, that she is." she admitted back.
"And I'm sure you want to keep her from harm." he asked.
"Of course!"
"The more you're gonna keep her from doing something without logical explanation, the more she's gonna try to do it. I guess kids are like that across realities. She would never admit it, but she's expecting you to go ahead of the unknown and by experience tell her why something is dangerous, not only that something is. You're the big sister. If you try to block her many time without a real reason she will simply assume you don't know and she gonna try it." He sighed. "At some point, she might do something really dangerous and an accident might happen. It’s something that could be avoided if she learned to trust your judgment. But trust is never implied, it's gained with time."
She was looking at the floor. "Ah! I'm not good at lecturing people. Never been. Cheer up!"
She looked up and stared at him. "You're a weird one mister."
He sighed again. "Not the first time I hear that one today. Guess I have to get used to it." He pointed at the door. "I guess she's waiting for you."
"Yeah, I guess so." She started to go but stop and turn around. "Thanks, I'm gonna think of your advice. But..."
"But?"
"Never hug me like that again." she warned him with half a smile trying to look as threatening as possible.
He raised an eyebrow. "Will I have to?" he asked back.
She sighed, rolling her eyes. "Ah... I guess not. Good day sir."
"Good day miss Applejack." he said with a large smile.
Applebloom was waiting at the entrance of the clinic. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle went home, leaving her to face Applejack alone. She did it again; she could expect a lengthy lecture from her and Big Macintosh about taking risk. But this time she was right, that new creature wasn't frightening. He was quite friendly. She was expecting to be grounded a few days and be ordered to not see him again.
Not fair.
She was looking at the ground when Applejack finally came out of the hospital. She stopped in front of Applebloom and was about to say something when she closed back her mouth. She simply stood there looking at her.
I guess I really did it this time. She doesn't even know what to say.
After a few moment of silence, she finally looked up to her big sister. She was in sweat and her mane was all messed up but she had a small corner smile.
Did... Did they fight?
Applejack finally spoke up. "Your... Your new 'friend'... He's quite a weird one." On that, she turned around and started leaving. "Let's go home." she said with an obvious smile.
That's it? What the hay happened in there?
She started trotting behind her sister, looking at her confused.
Gonna have to ask him what he did to her.
It was the second night in a row that something woke him up. But this time, no matter how hard he tried to fully wake up, he simply couldn't. He was in a thick haze and everything looked blurry. He couldn't move.
Beside his bed was standing a brown pony, holding something in his mouth. The moonlight reflected on it, something metallic, technologic. A small blue light flashed, forcing him to blink.
The moment he opened back his eyes, he was fully awake. Whatever was holding him down was gone. He sat up and looked around, the room was empty, no proof anypony was there seconds ago.
Was that a dream? Am I starting to dream about ponies?
His guts were telling him it was no dream. The memories weren't fading away like dreams used to. He had no idea what to make out of it. He layed back down, having no clue of what this visit meant. Going back to sleep proved harder than expected.
When things go the way the heart wants
It was moving as fast it could, in this endless darkness. It couldn't think, didn't understand, all instinct. Hunger was the closest way to describe it. It used to have food everywhere. It used to have many like it. Not anymore. Each new source of food was further away from the last one, each new travel harder to complete. The next one was like a bright jewel in the darkest night. An entity was slowly destroying it, time. So much had passed since the last source of food that was that appealing.
It didn't wish anything or knew anything. Thoughts or even memories were a concept far beyond its abilities. Food was over there, it would go to get it, survival at the most basic form. Similar to a piece of iron attracted by a magnet, there was no decision involved, only action.
Mark woke up tired for his third day on this strange world. He quickly ate his breakfast and then proceeded to let his mind run wild. It's not like he had a wife or kid waiting for him back home, but he was starting to miss his own place and his own people. He was a scientist specialized in advanced composite materials and good chance he couldn't use any of his knowledge here. He wasn't even sure they had electricity. The chances of reproducing the event that brought him there were unlikely to ever happen.
While not his specialties, he had enough general knowledge about science to make the pony society leap forward of one or two hundred years. But would that be a good thing? While humanity was fairly young, he thought he understood the dangers of pushing an unprepared civilization forward. What if mankind had nukes in the First World War, or even before? The ponies looked like a friendly species, but he wouldn't take the chance of messing their future. They had to make their own discovery and their own mistakes.
Prime directive they call it in that sci-fi show?
His presence could be a danger for ponykind, not from what he could do, but from what they could learn from him. It made him feel that his presence was at best an error.
Was it only a freak accident?
His line of thought was cut short when the doctor Stable entered the room. "Good morning." He was carrying his suit on his back and dropped it on the bed.
"Morning doc." he replied. He looked at the suit, it had been clean. It was as white as the first day he got it. The arms were still torn off, but having it a bit more open could be a good idea while not floating in a space station.
The doctor got to the right side of the bed and lifted the bed sheets. Looking intensely at the cast, his horn began to glow of a light brown color. The cast slowly got the same tint. With extreme care the doctor made the cast crack on top following the direction of his leg. The cast broke into two on each side of his leg. The place where the bone broke was still red, but Mark felt no pain and he could move his feet freely.
"I don't know your species enough, but I would say it looks as normal as it should be." he said with a side smile. "Try to not run or jump on it for one or two more days. It's still fairly fragile."
"Thanks doc. I was wondering... What kind of payment are you expecting?" he asked, worried he would have to take a loan or something to pay him back.
"Nothing at all Mark. Healthcare is free in Equestria."
"But I'm no Equestrian citizen. Healthcare is free for every... everypony?" he asked back, surprised that such thing was even possible in a society.
"True it is not. But Miss Sparkle managed to setup something for you. Don't ask me how, but she is the private student of the princess." He shrugged. "She got connections at the right places I guess." Looking at him, he continued "If you don't mind, we would need the bed for somepony else."
Mark smiled. "You're kicking me out doc?"
"That wouldn't be nice of me, wouldn't it? Let's say I will show you the way out."
"Fair enough. Give me two minutes alone to dress up."
Mark put up his suit. While it wasn't particularly hot in the morning, the additional breathing from the torn arms of his suit helped him stay cool. He found out that whoever washed his clothes didn't remove the content of his pockets. His pen was still in good shape, thanks to some space age technology that made them immune to soap. However his cell phone was definitely gone, not that he would find a way to charge it back anyway. He shook it to his ear and heard some liquid left in it. He pocketed it back, as he thought leaving it where somepony could find it might be a bad idea. His Swiss knife was still wet. Using his suit he took time to dry it, to be sure it wouldn't rust.
He stepped out of the clinic to face his hardest challenge yet, he had no idea where to go. The doctor told him he only needed to ask and he would point him the direction, but he simply had no idea. He sit on a rock near the entrance of the clinic and looked at his bare feet. He wouldn't go far like that anyway. For that he was a bit jealous of the ponies. What would be a life where clothes or shoes are totally optional? Even with his suit he felt slightly naked, it wasn't made to be worn on a planet.
He knew he would have to move sooner than later. At some point a yellow mare came toward the clinic with some kind of pet in her arm. Seeing him, she lowered her head and slowly backed off. When she was far enough, she turned around and sprint to where she came from. He was expecting the doctor to tell him to move away to not frighten the patient when somepony tapped on his shoulder. Turning around he found himself face to face with Twilight.
"Oh hey! I didn't see you coming."
"Yeah, I took some kind of 'shortcut'." she simply replied with a proud smile. He wondered what she meant by that. There was only one road to the clinic and almost no forest around it.
"I have to thanks you twice it seems."
"Oh?"
"For once, the book; it was quite instructive. Maybe you could point me toward a library of some kind. There's still plenty I wish to know." he explained while handing her the guide. She put took it with her telekinesis. "As for the second one, for clearing my fees with the hospital." he said pointing the hospital over his shoulder. "You didn't have to."
She shied up a bit. "That was the least I could do. I managed to hurt you twice in that many day." she said with a small smile. "And it only cost me a letter to the princess. But you might have to thanks me a third time."
"Oh?"
"I found you a place to live, at least temporally." she continued with a smile growing on her face. "And it should solve your book problem at the same time." Now he was confused, maybe she found him a way to live in the basement of the some library? "I managed to get you some space in my basement."
How living at her place would solve his books problem? "I... I'm very grateful, but you really don't need to. Don't feel obligated because you hurt me, you did more than enough for that."
"Well, to tell the truth, I'm also doing it by obligation." The excuse sounded flat to him. "If you were to walk around Ponyville without somepony, everypony else would only run in fear." That was somewhat close to the truth. "And I'm the student of the princess and I have to report to her everything I learn." He finally understood on the word 'learn' as she said with much joy in her face.
Ah! Curiosity!
He rose up from the rock he was sitting on; to find out that Twilight's head only reached the height of his chest. "Thanks from the bottom of my heart, miss Twilight." he said lowering himself. She blushed at the display. "It might sound silly, but is there any place you think I could find shoes?" he said pointing at his feet.
"Aren't they made to walk?" she asked confused.
"Of course! But mine are far less resistant than pony's hooves. In a space station, I didn't need any as I was floating around." he explained.
"Well, I will check with a friend later, I'm sure she can make something up. But for now you won't need to walk." she replied with a bright smile.
She won't levitate me up to her house? He didn't like the idea of being displayed at a floating human around town.
Just as he was about to ask, her horn started to glow brightly.
Shhhhhiiiiii...
One moment he was in the bright day light, the next he was in a dark room. He felt to his knees, feeling like if his stomach was hung upside down. He wasn't hurt, but he looked like he played Santa in a rather dirty chimney.
What was that? Did we... teleported there?
Matter transport wasn't a new idea to his knowledge. Quantum mechanics were known to allow in theory the transmission of the definition of an object somewhere else almost instantaneously, in theory. The fact that to his knowledge no human ever managed to do that on an atomic scale, and much less on something as big as him, suddenly gave him a huge respect for the little pony in front of him.
"Are you alright?" she asked him, looking at him apprehensive.
He did a rapid check of his body parts. Finding nothing missing he tried to reassure her. "Yeah, sorry. Was just not expecting that." He slowly got back on his feet. "Are all unicorns able to do that?"
She thought for a moment before answering. "I guess... All unicorns have the ability. But few has the training or the knowledge to do it." she said with a part of pride.
She got my curiosity there. What is magic? What's its limit?
He looked around. He was in a small dark room made out of wood. The more he looked at it, the more he felt it was carved out of a tree. In one corner he could make out a small cot. The other corner showed some kind of piled up experiment materials and random equipments. But everywhere he looked; there were always books in his field of view. The ceiling was surprisingly high and roots were growing down from it.
"You live in a tree?" he asked looking at her.
"It's the town library." she explained. "I took it over when I came to Ponyville. I don't really know why they built it in this tree. I live on the second floor, so you just need to ask if you need anything." she finished with a smile.
He sat down on the cot, trying it out. "Thanks a lot Twilight. It means a lot to me."
She showed him her home, which was basically a small bedroom and a kitchen glued to an average size library. It had no logical structure and was instead following the curves and shapes of the tree it was carved in. Mark was surprised to find that the tree was still fully alive.
But what surprised him the most is when he stopped in front of the fridge. Of course they had to have a mean of keeping food fresh. Even in a small town that produces its own food, people might need to keep it for more than one or two days. What really surprised him was the presence of an electrical appliance. So far he didn't any electrical socket or any sign that they had an electrical grid network. He checked the back of the fridge and found no cord. It wasn't connected to anything and yet it was keeping the food fresh.
"Twilight... It might sound stupid but... What's powering your fridge?" he asked. He felt a bit stupid, was it something really obvious he should have known?
She laughed. "Sorry, forgot you had no magic in your world." She opened a small trap on the side of the fridge and pointed at the white crystal trapped in some kind of socket. "This crystal can store a good amount of magic. After that, it slowly releases it under the form of electricity. The size and shape of the crystal control the voltage it can output."
Mark was simply amazed that such a small crystal could hold some much potential current. "Amazing. And I guess someone has to refill it once in a while? How often is that?"
"Once every one or two month. Depend of the energy drawn from the crystal." she said closing the trap. "Some unicorns prefer to recharge them by themselves. For others unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies we have unicorns who specialize in charging them. It's a rather big industry."
He thought of the huge electrical framework his species built. Their solution was far better, but also useless if you had no magic pony around to charge them back. The crystal looked like basic plain quartz. Had humans managed to generate magic and store it like them, things would have been much different.
Magic... It's obviously providing much more energy than the chemistry limits, but it's not as powerful as nuclear energy. Or does it? No wonder they use it so much.
At some point in the morning, Twilight started to write list of things to buy at the market. She would obviously need more food than usual with the new one in her basement. She was writing the list like she always did, using her magic to make the quill float and write on a piece of paper, dipping it in the ink bottle every few lines. She felt like she was being watched.
"A quill?" Mark asked, staring at the pony. He was sitting on the stairs going to her room.
She blinked a few time, unsure of how to take that question. She understood his surprised at the sight of the electrical crystal, but surely his species managed to learn how to write. She let the quill drop beside the ink bottle. "Well yes, don't tell me you don't write." she said teasing him.
He rolled his eyes. "Of course we write. But a quill? That's so... special?"
She blinked again, finally understanding. "Well, what do you use to write if not a quill?"
He thought a few second, and then snapped his fingers. She was actually surprised of the sound it made. He pulled some kind of black stick off the pocket on his chest and removed the top. "Try this." he said handing her the largest part of the stick. The top was sharp like a needle. She took it with her magical grip and made it float to the piece of paper she was using.
She found that the small dark stick could write as well as her quill and it allowed for a far better control of the line. But she didn't understand where the ink was coming from, it wasn't dripping any and yet it was writing correctly.
By habit she was about to dip it in her ink bottle and Mark covered it with his hand. "Wah! Stop. No need to put my pen in that ink!" The pen floated just above his hand.
"You got to put some ink on it once in a while. No?" she asked. Suddenly she was feeling the same way he was when facing the fridge. It was so similar and so different at the same time.
"The ink is inside. As you write, it keeps flowing. You do have to refill it... Once in a while. You can write a lot of papers with the ink it has inside." he explained.
She was stunned, such an interesting concept. Eliminating the need to carry an ink bottle with her sounded like an obvious advantage. On top, this 'pen' was easy to handle with her magic and didn't drip any ink, unlike her quill.
That's amazing! I have to think about it more!
She was looking like a kid who just discovered candies. Mark smiled. "Keep it."
It was late in the afternoon and Mark was lying on the cot reading a book about the other geopolitical structure of the planet. There were about twenty other countries, bigger or smaller than Equestria, spread on three continents. They were all stacked close to the North Pole. All he could understand was that from some point south there was only huge desert unclaimed from any country. However the book wasn't keeping itself from stating that Equestria was the most important of them, on biggest part because of its princesses.
That sun and moon control again? It's the third book that make reference to that.
He was surprised to find that hooves-kissing indeed existed as the book mentioned it was improper to perform with the princesses. Actually the book claimed any physical contact with them was to be avoided and was quite frowned upon.
He felt being watched once again. Looking at the bottom of the stairs, he saw some kind of roundish lizard standing on his back claws. It was purple with a green belly, eyes and spine.
Does Twilight have a pet?
The staring continued.
Don't assume anything! You did that mistake already.
"Hey!" Mark simply said.
"Huh... hey." the lizard replied, looking confused.
Talking lizard. Great!
"I'm Mark. And... you are?"
"Spike."
"Well... nice to meet you." he said. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you?"
"I could ask you the same. You're nothing like I ever saw."
"I'm a human. From what I heard, there's no other like me." he replied, closing the book he was reading.
I will have to get used to that concept... Being alone, the only one.
"Ewwman? Weird name. Anyway, I'm a dragon." he said pointing at his chest.
A dragon? Seriously? I think I now fully understand how Alice felt in wonderland.
"That's... awesome. You breath fire?" he asked, partially kidding.
"Kinda." Spike replied. He scratched his head with his front claw. "Ah! You're that creature Twilight talked about. I was somewhat expecting a critter or something. With Twilight I should have known." he turned around and started to climb the stairs. "Diner will be ready soon by the way." he said over his shoulder.
At least that one didn't freak out on sight. He sounds like he is used to see weird stuff with Twilight.
After the meal that the dragonling prepared, Mark was back in the basement. He was quite surprised how tasty it was and thought it would be quite easy to get used to his new vegetarian diet. He also found out Spike had some kind of really twisted sense of humor which mostly revolved around making fun of Twilight. His ability with sarcasm was quite impressive.
It was too dark to read and Mark had no idea what to do. He kept thinking about all that magic stuff.
We always saw magic as some kind of uncontrollable supernatural story that had no place in science. Were we wrong all along? It could very well be some type of field or energy we never encountered. A whole different field of science! Maybe a fifth force?
He thought back about what happened in the hospital. He was quite sure the pain he felt wasn't from Twilight's magic. Twilight was quite clear that every living being had a pool of magic, but that only unicorn could use it in a practical way. Since that moment he could feel that where that source was. It was closed, blocked by a wall, but he knew it was there.
Damn you and your curiosity! You're gonna burn both of us!
He frowned.
Shut up brain. I do whatever I want. And why am I talking to myself.
He opened that inner valve as little and as slowly as he could, being ready to close it back at fast as possible. He felt something drip inside him. At the hospital, it was like he was hit by a tsunami while right now it felt like he was watching a rain drop dry on the ground.
He had no idea what to do with it anyway. How can you describe a new sound if you never heard before? How could you play a piano if you never had hands before? He felt like a baby with a new toy, it was interesting, but he was clueless. He felt the drop of energy vanish.
Twilight surely got some book about magic. Gonna check tomorrow.
The next morning Mark was a bit disappointed reading his first tome about magic. Twilight gave him this one to read saying it was the first one foal unicorn usually get. While he understood the thought, it was quite pointless. It was similar to explaining to a first grader what physic is. It's colorful, amazing and can do all sort of crazy things. But Mark was very patient, and he was memorizing everything he read, in hope it would be useful later.
He was about done with the book when Twilight came down with another unicorn. This one was white like snow with curled indigo mane and tail. Seeing her move and behave gave Mark a sudden idea of who this pony might be related too, but he wasn't sure.
"Good morning Mark!"
"Good morning Twilight." he replied while keeping his sight on the new pony.
"This is my friend I told you could help with your shoes problem. Rarity, this is Mark. Mark, Rarity." she said doing the presentation.
"A pleasure to meet you Mark." Rarity said with a noble voice. Mark noticed she raised her right front hoof almost out of habit.
Here goes nothing!
Mark kneeled on his left knee and took her raised hoof in his right hand before she could move back. He lowered himself and silently kissed her hoof. He raised himself back up. "It's my pleasure, my lady." he said with his most charming smile, which he knew had never been great. Looking to his left he saw Twilight was quite surprised. He didn't think her eyes could get any bigger. He thought she was blushing, but being purple was a good way to hide that. However, her mouth hanging open was a good sign.
As for Rarity, the blushing was quite obvious on her white fur. Then an uneasy awkward silence settled in. Mark kept his smile up.
Oh great. I screwed up. Should have read more before. Maybe it's not a sign of gallantry.
"Oh my!" Rarity finally broke the silence. "What a gentlecolt you got there Twilight!" she said with a small laugh. Twilight was still stunned and didn't manage to say anything.
From her way of speaking, Mark saw his theory almost proven. "Miss Rarity, would you be a relative of Miss Sweetie Bell?"
"How do you know?" she asked even more surprised.
"I must say, your gallantry and your amazing white fur give it away." he replied lowering his head.
"How do you know Sweetie Bell?" simply asked Twilight.
Sitting back on the cot, he replied "She came at the hospital with Applebloom and... Scootaloo?" He wasn't sure if that name was right. "Long story short, Applebloom came to face that new scary creature. Anyway, the play time was cut short because her big sister came looking for her." he laughed. "I had a few words with her about scaring her sister."
Twilight and Rarity looked at each other. "You talked to Applejack?" asked Twilight. She had a hard time to believe that. First that Applejack managed to overcome her deep fear of the unknown and second that they talked to each other.
"Yup! That's her name. Orange with yellow mane and three apples on her flank." he explained.
Twilight looked at Rarity again then stared at Mark. "I'm surprised she talked to you... And that you're in one piece."
He laughed again. "I didn't say it had been easy! Let's just say it took a small strength contest." He looked at them. It was obvious they didn't believe him.
Oh come on! Do I look that weak?
"I will go see A.J. later." simply said Twilight, closing the topic. "As for now, Rarity is the best tailor of all Equestria."
"Oh Twilight" said Rarity putting a hoof on her mouth.
"If someone can solve your shoes problem, she is the pony you need."
Mark took some time to think about it. "My species... got used to wearing shoes as protection. Our feet are quite soft and sensitive. In our case, shoes are needed when we walk on rough grounds or for long distance."
Rarity looked down at his feet. "Oh my!" She looked back up at Twilight. "I'm not sure where to begin. I never did shoes to fit that shape or shoes that were not decorative. I'm not even sure what they should look like!"
Twilight's eyes moved to the floor, she was deeply thinking about the problem at hoof. "And if... If you could see what a pair of those should look like, would it help? It would at least give you a base to design on?"
"Well yes. I'm not sure how I could do it without knowing what shape they should be." Rarity explained.
"Good!" said Twilight with a smile.
Mark started to be worried. He learned that this specific smile from Twilight wasn't a good sign. He knew it would ends up with magic applied to his person.
"Mark, I want to close your eyes and think deeply of what those shoes look like." she explained.
I don't have a word to say in the matter?
He didn't say a word and closed his eyes. He thought of his last pair of shoes he wore before the launch of his mission, some plain sport running shoes. He tried to visualize them with the most details he could remember. He always found the pattern on the underside to be pretty. The colors weren't anything amazing, black with a white soul. He felt something warm and familiar come in and out of his head.
When he opened his eyes he saw an exact image of what he was thinking floating in front of his eyes, up to the silver logo on their sides. Twilight's horn was glowing to keep the image floating.
She took that from my mind? I know by now I shouldn't be surprised... but... Wow.
"How interesting." she Rarity, fully focused on the floating shoes. Somehow she put on some red glasses while Mark had his eyes closed. "Quite plain... Without colors... But the shapes... the... hmmm..." she turned around and started climbing the stairs. "Yes... yes... of course!" she was still deep in her thought when she left the basement.
The floating shoes vanished when Twilight stopped the spell. "What just happened?" asked Mark.
"I think she got some ideas. You know... the artists." she shrugged and left a confused Mark behind.
Two days later, early in the morning, Mark was woken up by screams and a persistent taping sound. Still in the sleep haze he rushed upstairs as fast as he could, trying to be ready to face anything this world could throw at him. He opened the door to the basement to find an excited Twilight bouncing around and screaming.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"
On the other side of the room he saw Spike had been awaken the same way. The adrenaline rush started to fade away and now he was fully awake. He checked the clock on the wall to find that it was only three in the morning.
"What's up with all the jumping and screaming Twilight?" asked an annoyed Spike.
"I did it!" was all she replied before resuming her jumping around.
Spiked sighed loudly. He noticed Mark had sit down against a wall and was yawning. "What did you do?" Seeing she wasn't answering he raised his voice. "Twilight!"
She stopped jumping around only to take Spike in her front legs, hugging him and she started spinning with him. "I did it! I made a spell!"
Spike didn't like the sudden hugging frenzy and tried to push her back as hard as he could. "What are you talking about? You make new spell all the time."
She put the little dragon down and explained "No, no Spike. I learn new spell all the time! This time I created a new one! One that didn't exist before!" She let out a squeak of excitement.
"You mean... like... totally new?" asked Spike.
"Yes!"
Mark wasn't sure to understand the scope of creating a new spell. He imagined that as time passed new spell would get harder and harder to create as somepony would have thought of them before. Or maybe she was quite young to create a new one? He didn't have much reference on the ages of ponies. Before she started bouncing around, he asked "Twilight, how about you show us that new spell?"
She turned around, finally noticing him. Her smile was as wide as possible. "Of course! It's because of you, so it's only fitting that you would be the first to try it out."
Spike was about to laugh.
Oh great. Mark mentally face palmed himself. But he kept his smile, her excitement was contagious.
Twilight levitated a piece of paper and a quill to him. With a nod of her head he took them. "And... what do I do?"
"Write!" she replied happily.
He started to write some random sentences but quickly ran out of idea. He then simply drew random shapes. He continued for a good minute before raising his head to ask "Well... and?" He was confused. The sheet of paper was full of words and lines.
She squeaked again, happier than ever. "The ink!" she let out.
"What?" Mark didn't understand, his brain wasn't fully started and he was still getting used to waking up without any coffee.
Spike trotted up to Mark and looked at the paper. "Where's the ink coming from? He filled a whole page!" Mark looked at the dragon finally understanding.
"You did a spell out of my pen?" he asked.
"Yes!" she did a few turn on herself giggling. "I linked my quill with my ink bottle. When the spell detects someone is writing, it transports a tiny amount of ink inside the quill."
Mark had no idea of exactly what was involved in creating such spell, but it did sound complex to perform. She told him the teleportation spell was a hard one that not many pony could perform. In this case it was a passive teleportation linked to a triggering event.
She's maybe a genius of magic?
"Wow, that's great Twilight! I will be able to write checklist even faster." said the dragon while grabbing the quill and examining it.
A few days later Mark finally found out what was bothering him since he started reading science book from the library. In some scientific aspect ponies were quite close to the level humans were when he left. However, on some other they were decades, if not centuries behind. He had a hard time to understand how something like that could have happened.
He finally understood when he found out that most scholars were unicorn. Every science branches that could be linked in some way to magic and spells were far ahead of others. He found out numerous ideas and concepts were simply put aside if they had no practical magic application. Advanced mathematics, for one, was terribly lacking, while knowledge about electromagnetic waves, energy or matter were far more impressive.
But even then, he found out that much knowledge that could have leaded to new inventions just never did. For one, they had no indirect way of communication even if their knowledge of sound, wave and electricity were quite beyond the limit needed to create a phone. Simply they never felt the need for such invention. When Mark first saw Spike burn a scroll with his breath, he was confused about that behavior until the dragon explained it was a special teleportation spell he could perform, sending the piece of paper to somepony else.
They had newspapers and basic mail delivery services, but no radio, phone or television. The only mean of transportation was some kind of carriage pulled by ponies. He actually laughed at the idea of ponies pulling other ponies, but he quickly remembered that in some part of his world they had people pulling other people in very busy streets where cars couldn't go. Their knowledge in mechanics and chemistry could have allowed them to perform farming task in a much more efficient way, but he found out they were still doing almost everything by hand... or hoof.
He was in the library alone, reading some book the history of magic when he heard the front door open. He was about to go hide himself as he learned most ponies were not used to his presence even if most knew about it when he saw Rarity come in, levitating a small red box beside her.
"Oh Good Morning miss Rarity. I'm sorry, but Twilight is out right now." he said, trying to sound as much as a gentleman as he could.
"Please Mister Mark, only Rarity." she said with a smile.
"Only if you call me Mark too."
"Obviously. However I'm not here to see Twilight, but you."
Mark was quite surprised. The last time he saw the unicorn was days ago when Twilight performed the mind-imaging spell. "Would you enjoy some tea?" he said pointing at the kitchen.
"With pleasure."
She sat down at the table and put the red box in front of her while he was boiling some water. "I must say" she started. "That shoes thing, it was probably the hardest challenge I ever had."
Mark looked over his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to cause you trouble. Might take a while, but I guess I can get used to walking outside bare feet."
"Oh no, no! Silly me, I meant it in a good way. It was a good challenge. Something I never did. It gave me so many new ideas. I hardly slept in the last few days." she said. Mark noticed she did look tired. "Using shoes to protect yourself? Such a wild idea!"
"Green leaves, blueberries or raspberries?" he asked.
"Pardon?"
"Your tea." he said.
"Oh! Blueberries if you may." she replied with a smile.
He sat down and handed her a cup of tea. "How is protecting your fee... your hoof such a wild idea?" he asked while taking a sip of his tea.
"My dear, I simply don't know! It’s probably because nopony every thought of it before. We do have boots and shoes, but they simply exist to be pretty. Not that there's anything wrong with that!" she explained. "But when I saw your shoes, it was obvious it wasn't a simple piece of clothes. There were many layers and each had a role! The soul was made to protect from rock and sharp object, while the sides were obvious made to keep your... feet... warm and dry." She took a pause to drink a bit of her tea. "In winter ponies tend to stay inside, snow isn't so great for our hooves. Now imagine a whole line of fashion boots that keep your hooves warm and dry, even in deep snow!" She giggled. "A whole new line of fashion that never existed before!" she said with a huge smile.
"I'm happy I gave you some ideas." he said, impressed that such simply request may lead to new inventions.
She pushed the red box over the table. "It took me many tries, but I think I got them right."
He took the box cover off to find out a pair of shoes quite similar to what he had in mind. However, they were blue and the silver logo on their sides was replaced by a series of incrusted yellow topaz. He took them off the box to find out there were quite heavy. Looking under them he found out they had a kind of long stretched steel horseshoe blended in the soul.
Heavy, but I got the feeling I won't break them easily.
He looked at them from every angle, the craftsmanship was simply amazing. They were covered in small details but never anything that would be of bad taste. He could see the shapes of leaves embedded in the blue velvet.
"So?" she asked impatiently.
"To tell the truth... They are simply amazing. I never saw such fine details." he honestly said.
"Try them on!" she said with a huge smile.
He moved his chair away from the table and gently put the pair of shoes on the floor. He slid his feet in and tied them on, finding out they were of the perfect size. "Wow... They fit perfectly! How did you do? You never measured my feet!" he asked looking at her.
"As a tailor, I got a good eye for sizes." she said proudly.
"Or two." he joked back. He looked at his feet, they were perfect. He untied them, removed them and put them back in the box.
Rarity looked puzzled at the box. "You don't like them?" she asked disappointed.
"What? Of course I do! They are simply amazing." he said. "But I don't have any currency, and those topazes probably cost you a lot." He shook his head. "I'm sure I will find a job at some point and then I will manage to buy your amazing craftsmanship."
She blinked a few time. "Oh silly!" She pushed the box toward him. "It's a gift. A gift to a new pony around, a gift for giving me that idea for a totally new line of product." She laughed.
"But... gems... Aren't they very expensive in here?"
She laughed even more. Moving around, she pointed at her flank. "My... 'talent'. I'm able to find gems in the ground. I know where they are even without digging." she explained with a smile. "Aside, I had some left over from my last dress, and topaz matches so well your eyes." she said winking at him.
Is she flirting? Wait... my eyes?
"My eyes?" he asked. "I'm no artist... but how is a yellow topaz matching my green-brownish eyes?"
She looked at him confused. "Green? But your eyes are yellow my dear, almost golden."
"What?" he simply asked. He ran off the kitchen and climbed the stairs to Twilight's bedroom. He faced himself in front of her mirror, looking himself deep in the eyes.
Holy! She's right!
His eyes were a dark yellow, almost golden.
When did that happened? Am I sick?
He passed his hand on his jaw.
Great, I need to shave too. Doubt I'm gonna find a blade.
He then noticed his beard was pepper and salt instead of his usual dark black.
What the hell is going on with me? At least my hairs didn't change color over night! Still dirty blond.
"Is something wrong Mark?" asked Rarity from downstairs.
"I wished I knew." he simply answered.
The next two weeks passed quickly. Mark found himself reading as many books as he could. He was devouring anything related with history or geography. However his frustration and his host's frustration were rapidly building up. He wasn't finding anything related to human and the planet's land masses were not really clear. His lack of geological knowledge wasn't helping. On the other hand, he was deflecting every advanced questions Twilight was asking him. His research was going nowhere and he felt his host was about to kick him out.
He talked a lot to Twilight about the generic stuff about his species; biology, social interaction, psychology, geography or demography. But anytime the pony would ask about mathematical or physic questions, he would first check the books in her library to make sure they had first achieved that knowledge before talking about it.
One morning, he was sitting on the cot reading some kind of pony theory about continental drifting when Twilight came down. She sat on the floor in front of him and stared at him. He put down the book.
"Good morning." he said. Moments passed and he knew something was wrong as she wasn't replying. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Why?" she simply asked. He was about to open his mouth when she continued. "Why aren't you answering my questions? I got so many! I answered all yours as best as I could." She could feel that Mark had an amazing amount of knowledge, but he wasn't sharing it with her. "Isn't knowledge made to be shared?" She wasn't crying, but he could feel she was on the edge.
He opened his mouth again, and then closed it once more. He took time to think about his next words. He knew this would come sooner or later. She was friendly with him and he was starting to enjoy her company too. He hurt her without really noticing it. But was there any other way?
"Twilight... I..." he thought he was ready to answer that specific question, but the look on her face made him understand he wasn't. "My species... Learned that knowledge can be quite dangerous." he started. "Some knowledge that looks armless can be turned into terrible things." She was confused and he knew he wasn't doing much progress. "Let me explain. One of our most brilliant scientists once found out a formula to explain... to explain the equivalence between matter and energy. The formula was simple, elegant and quite amazing. It was the result of years of thinking and math. It was brilliant." He knew from her books ponies hadn't found it yet and were lacking some of the knowledge needed to come up with it.
He took a deep breath. "Decades later, other scientists found out a way to put his formula in practice. They put it in the form of a bomb. They were seeking practical application of that specific knowledge because our world at the time was at war." he looked at his hands. "It was detonated twice in populated area. Hundreds of thousands died in a flash. There was almost nothing left of both cities." He paused. " 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.', that scientist said once he saw the result of his creation."
"It ended the war, somehow. But the cost was terrible. For decades following that, people tried to prevent countries from building more of them. But two of them continued to build them because 'the other side' was doing it too. At some point, the device had been improved so much; it was thousand times more destructive than the first two explosions. There was enough of them to completely destroy our world many time. We actually came quite close to that." He raised his head and looked at her in the eyes. She was crying.
Pat yourself in the back, idiot, you managed to make her cry.
"We learned those lessons the hard way, but it was the only way to learn them. That knowledge is now used for good, to generate energy for cities. I could propel your civilization's knowledge a hundred year forward. But would that be a good thing? If we had that knowledge a hundred year before, we would most likely destroy our self."
"But we are peaceful... We..." she tried to say.
"Can you say the same thing about your neighbor countries? What if one of them was to build one of those device bases on that knowledge? I wish I could show you all the marvels we created and invented. I truly want to show you, you're curious and it's contagious. But would that be a gift or a curse? I'm terribly sorry; I'm not made to have the future of a civilization on my shoulder."
He looked at his feet. "I'm so sorry. I truly wish I knew a way to show you everything without any danger." He did wish he could watch her eyes glow in amazement from new concepts, inventions or ideas. Some time passed in silence. He could hear her sob. His story and the two week of growing frustration collided in a flow of emotions.
He was surprised to feel his face pushed in some purple fur. She was hugging him and careful, he hugged her back. "I... I think I understand." she started. "Every time somepony found a new type of magic or a new spell, some other pony would misuse it. Sometime on purpose, sometime by accident. I guess... I guess we almost destroyed our self a few times too."
She does smell good. If back then I had meet someone like her in college...
She let him go and continued. "If I was to go in your world, and teach magic, good chance you would also have to learn the same mistakes we did, but in an accelerated way. It... it could destroy your world. I... understand."
It was the morning of his 18th days living in Twilight's home. He entered the kitchen and unrolled a map on the table.
"What's this?" asked Twilight.
"Took me a long while to understand, but I finally found out. I think." he said. He pointed at the map. "This is your best map of the planet. From what I learned, ponies aren't much going around on sea." He pointed at an ocean. "So most likely lot of islands or even a small continent might still be undiscovered."
"Yes?"
"I had an hard time. This map, from my point of view looked nothing like my planet." he explained. "However..." he said while unrolling an second map on top of the first one. "This is the map drawn by one of your scientist. He theorized that in the past, the planet had frozen poles and that the water level was much lower."
He shrugged. "My planet did have frozen poles. But even with a much lower sea level, while it does look more like my own, it's still not that." He unrolled a third map. "This map was drawn by one of your geologist to display the continental drift. While quite interesting alone, it's still not my planet."
He finally unrolled a forth map on top of the stack. "This map... It took me a while. I draw it myself, so sorry if it looks terrible." he apologized. "This one is the combination of the continental drift and the different sea level. This one is very close to what my planet looked like. The shapes in red are what would be missing to be my planet." he said, pointing at a red Australia, a missing American west coast and a good part of the south of Asia.
Twilight looked at the map. "So... you think you traveled in time?"
He sighed. "I think so. It's still no solid proof. And if I really did, with the continental drift, we are talking tens of thousands of years. Maybe more." He crossed his arms. "But I got an idea of where to go to find proof." He pointed at the south of North America. "There. We used to have a city in the middle of the desert. From what I understand, it is still a desert. The sands could have preserved something."
Her eyes were wide. "You can't go there! That desert is dangerous. It's not accurately mapped because nopony goes there. And nopony goes there because there's nothing to eat or to drink within thousands of kilometers."
He sighed again. "I got to try. I got to know. Not knowing where or when I am... It is slowly eating me inside."
It felt itself accelerate. It finally reached the gravity limit of that system. Gravity was now pulling it toward its center. It currently helped it move but when it would try to leave it would hold it back. As weak as it was right now, it couldn't escape it even if it tryed. However, once it feed it would once again strong enough to escape toward another source of food.
It could sense other smaller gravity pits on his path. It would use them to navigate toward its target. If emotion it had, the closest thing right now would be excitement. It could smell the food, so close.
Mark was watching the full moon. It was the first time he came out of Twilight's house in almost three weeks. It was time to go and find answers. He decided to leave in the middle of the night to avoid frightening the other ponies that never saw him. Aside, he felt like a freeloader and he didn't like that. He was deeply impressed on how the ponies welcomed him and helped him understand the world he felt on. He doubted he could ever repay their kindness.
He had a fairly good idea of where to go and how to get there. He studied many maps and reports about the other countries he would have to cross. When he was in college, he did a journey across a few states on foot. He really enjoyed the experience, but it was only a fifth of the distance he would have to walk and he never tried to do it in a desert.
He knew it was silly and that it could very well kill him. He had no idea how he would survive the trip. Water and food was one of his primary concerns but he felt he would find a way. He felt he was in a world he didn't belong to and he needed this to know the past to be able to look at the future. He could stay with the ponies, but deep down his heart would be in pain for the rest of his life not knowing.
"The moon is quite pretty tonight." said Twilight behind him. He turned around to find Twilight, Rarity, Applejack and Applebloom in line looking at him.
"Hey. What are you all doing here?" he asked.
"Twilight told us you were leaving." answered Applejack. "And well... I never managed to thanks you."
"Thanks me? What for? If someone... or somepony has to thanks others it's me thanking you all." Mark countered. "You were all so welcoming and helped me more than I would ever expect. If I was in your... hooves, I don't think I would have acted like you, and I have no way to ever repay you."
Mark was telling the truth, he felt lucky to have fallen around this town and have meeting them. In another time or another place, he wouldn't have been so lucky. They helped him without asking anything in return.
"Don't be silly." said Rarity. "You did already. I never had so many requests for a line of winter boots. Twilight got a new spell recorded in the magical archives of Canterlot, few get this honor these day. As for Applejack... You know already. Just get back alive, will you?"
"Why are you leaving?" Applebloom asked before Mark could answer Rarity.
Mark kneeled in front of Applebloom and looked at her. "Why are you searching for your cutie mark?" he asked.
"I want to find my special talent!" she said proudly.
"You're seeking what defines you. It's the same thing for me. I must know the past and how I fit into all this." he simply said. He stood up.
He was about to turn around and leave when he felt himself pushed forward. He was laying face first in the dirt and grass when he heard "How could you do this to me?" from above him. He turned around, laying on his back to face a mass of pink, standing over him. He thought the new comer was talking to him, but he noticed she was looking at the four other ponies.
"There was a new pony in town for three weeks and nopony told me!" said the new one, obviously hurt. "Why?"
Twilight moved forward. "He is not really a pony, and others have been frightened by him."
"That's no reason! He should have had a welcome party like any other pony!"
"Huh-hum." coughed Mark. "If you don't mind?"
She looked down to him. "Hey! I'm Pinkie Pie!" She stared at him closer. "It's true you're a special pony. I do a welcome party for everypony who are new in Ponyville! Since you're leaving, I can do a welcome and farewell party at the same time! I never did one like that. Maybe writing something like 'Leaving so soon' on the cake? You will see my parties are the best parties. After it you won't want to leave anymore." she said in one breath.
"Mind if I stand back up?" he asked.
"Oh! Of course. Silly me!" she said moving off him.
He stood up and dusted himself off. "I... huh... I was thinking..."
Seeing him in problem Twilight finished for him. "He was leaving right now. He doesn't really have time for a party."
"Not even a tiny little 'ty?" she asked looking sad.
"When I come back, you will be able to throw the party the size you want." he said.
"You promise?" she asked staring at him.
"I..." He wasn't expecting that. This new pony was pure chaos in pink. He saw her for the first time a few seconds ago and she was already acting like they were the best friends in the world. "I... I promise." he said. He felt she wouldn't leave him go if he didn't do it.
"Pinkie promise?" she asked back.
"Huh... what?" He was confused.
"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." she said moving around and finishing with her left hoof in her eye.
What the hell is going on?
"Huh... alright. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." he said doing the same move. But the hand on his eye felt more like a face palm.
"Good! Now I know you will be back. Nopony break a Pinkie promise." she claimed with a huge smile.
Why I have the feeling she would find me and drag me off the desert if she has too? Why am I so scared?
Mark turned around to face back Twilight. "That being settled, Well, time to go."
"You're sure you don't want to stay a week or two? The princesses were sounded very interested in meeting you." Twilight asked. "I don't understand why, but they said they were too busy the last three weeks. It's weird but..."
"Sorry, I'm not waiting." Mark interrupted her.
"Oh... Alright. I understand." she said with a small smile. She turned around, grabbed something with her mouth and put it in front of him. It was a kind of dark blue backpack. "Walking in the desert, I still think it's a stupid idea. But this should help you." she explained pointing at the bag.
Mark was surprised. He kneeled and opened it. It was obvious it wasn't made for a pony. He saw them using some kind of saddle-bags before. This one was made for him, the straps being made for human shoulders. The blue velvet was the same as his shoes. It was made with great care and quality. "Rarity? You made this? I... I don't know what to say."
"Just say thanks silly." she replied. Mark was sure he saw a tear to her eye.
"Thanks a lot." He check inside the bag and found three items, a small metallic canteen, a red wooden box with a ruby inlaid on top and finally a purple and gold metallic star with the same red ruby encrusted in the middle. He opened the box to find it empty. He was confused by the used of the items beside the canteen. "I'm... I'm not sure what those are for." he said with a smile.
Twilight laughed. "It's normal. They are not what you would call standard objects. I made them myself and each of them is magic in some way." she explained with a smile. "I used the same spell as the auto-filling quill on the canteen. It's linked to a nearby river, so you will never run out of water."
Mark was truly stunned. She created a completely new spell that sounded really complex for a quill and quickly adapted it for a canteen. He would guess teleporting a few drop of ink everyday was on a different level as teleporting enough water for him to drink; it would require far more energy.
"As for the box, it's an old spell. I have the same box in my bedroom and if you put something in it and close the lid, it will transport itself to my box. And vise versa. Applejack offered to send you food once in a while."
Wow!
"Thanks a lot Applejack. I will find a way to make it up to you." said Mark, a bit overwhelmed.
"Nonsense." she simply replied.
"As for the star, it's a teleporting beacon. Normally self-teleportation is a bit tricky, takes time to setup and is quite limited in distance. But the beacon gives me a reference point, a kind of anchor. So I will be able to come to you if you need help." she finished with a wide smile.
Mark blushed; it was hard to stay unmoved by such display of generosity. "I know I repeat myself but... Thanks a lot." He grabbed his backpack and put it on his shoulders. "I have a feeling we will see each other again."
He was about to turn around and go when Applebloom came close to him and motion him to get closer. He lowered his head and she whispered "What did you do to my sister? She's the one who proposed that I come tonight and she offered the food on her own!"
Mark laughed silently. "You wouldn't believe it."
"Come on! She's been acting weird since she was with you at the hospital!" she prayed him.
"Alright, I hugged her." he simply explained. He stood back up and started to walk away. He waved his arm. "See you around!"
He was already far away when a confused Applebloom finally managed to ask "What?"
He first thought the first few weeks were the hardest. He was in the best shape he has ever been, but he wasn't prepared to walk weeks long without stop. His legs and feet quickly grew resistant to the long distance, but not without pain. He found out his new shoes were as resistant as they were pretty. He was afraid his lack of socks would hurt in the long run. But the inside of his shoes were soft and worked almost like it.
Every day when the sun would go down, he would sit down beside a fire and open the red box. He always found some food made out of apples in it and sometime a letter from Twilight. She was writing about her day and stuff that happened in Ponyville. Some of their adventures sounded too crazy to be true, but after all he saw and learned, he wasn't questioning those stories. He would sometime reply to her letters and send them back in the box.
He learned about two other ponies he didn't meet before leaving, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. He was sure he saw the former in front of the hospital. One letter talked how Rainbow Dash performed a Sonic Rainboom, which he understood as the pegasus breaking the sound barrier in a very flashy way.
Once every few days she would send him a book. He always let her choose the topic, and so far he never regretted it. She would send book about almost anything. He found out ponies had a great and original literature. Once done with it he would send it back with sometime a few written questions.
Sometime at night, he would open his inner magic reserve and play with it. His best achievement was to be able to move that energy around in his body. One day, in a painful flash, he managed to push the energy out of his right fingers. It did a small golden arc of energy. He quickly learned it was a bad idea as his thumbs and forefinger were left burned and numbs for days.
In some books Twilight sent him, he found out unicorn had a special brain structure. Their horns were not hollowed, but full of neural connection. They were directly linked to their brains. It was basically an extra member dedicated to concentrating and channeling magic energy. Its surface was made of a special material that would support the stress of huge quantity of energy going through. It wasn't unheard of a unicorn horn take fire under more powerful spell.
He took great care avoiding any city or town. A few time he meet ponies that would simply run away on sight. He felt no need to scare them or mess with their daily life. Sometime it would take him days to avoid larger cities, but he had time.
Not like I need to call the job to tell them I'm sick.
More than once he would stop and watch the environment. Ponies were more integrated and respectful of the nature than humans. He didn't see any pollution or trash.
He got a hard time to getting used to not being able to wash every day. He would try to wash anytime he would find a river or a stream. He knew once he would get in the desert his chance to bath would be very slim. His hairs and beard were getting long. He was only half surprised to find out his hairs were getting the same color as his beard, a kind of silver with dark streak. It was strange, but he had no idea how to find out what was happening to him. Aside from this change of color, he felt better than ever. If it was some kind of strange sickness, it had no other side effect.
He had a few encounter with the wildlife, but most of the time the animals would run away not knowing what to make out of him. Maybe he simply didn't look edible, he couldn't say, but not having to fight for his life with some of the weird creatures he met was an obvious bonus. On top, he had no idea which one was sentient or not. He knew from some books many species reached that but at different levels. Zebras and dragons were two he saw firsthand.
It took him almost a month to reach the limit of the desert. He was doing good progress before reaching it. He found out that walking in mountain of sand was no easy task, it was close to relearning how to walk. The sand would slip and move under his feet, making it difficult to keep a steady pace. The sun was burning his skin and he was happy his beard was now long enough to give his face some kind of shadow.
A week after entering the desert, his head started to spin. The sun wasn't giving him any break. That night he asked Twilight for a hat, any hat. The hat that came through the box was more suited for a lady, but at this point he didn't care. His brain was cooking inside his skull. He decided to walk mostly in the morning and in the late afternoon. It was slowing him down, but he had no choice, the sun in the day was just too hot.
However, the nights were close to the freezing point. After a few days not being to sleep correctly because of the temperature, he asked Twilight for a blanket. He received it within the hour. He couldn't write enough 'Thanks you' on his letters to her.
It was his third month of his journey when he received nothing out of the red box for four days in a row. In the previous weeks he took the habit of carrying some extra food with him but he was worried by this complete shutdown in communication.
Maybe I'm out of range? The canteen still works fine. Or I pushed my luck too far and asked one too many thing?
He was running out of food when an apple pie came in the box with a note saying they were sorry. Twilight explained him in a letter that they had some problem with a god-like creature named Discord. He was turning physic laws upside down and ponies against each other. Mark was somewhat happy to not have experienced that. He didn't know how they managed to stop that creature, but it did sound like one impressive challenger. She talked about some kind of element of harmony, but from what he understood it was similar to a magic periodic table. He took a mental note to ask her once he would be back.
It was his fourth month of his journey when he reached the place he was looking for. From his map to the position of the stars, he was sure it was the spot. However, he looked around only to see endless dune of sand. Maybe he was simply wrong from the start? For all he knew he could be at the wrong place, or simply there was nothing left to find.
He searched for a few days, turning in circles. He was getting disappointed and climbed a huge dune to have a better view around. At the top, he was welcomed with the same sight as of the last months, sand. He let himself fall on his rear. Something broke under him with a sound of shattered glass. He found himself falling deep inside the dune, sliding in a tunnel of sand.
He reached the bottom hard and felt the shock up in his back. After a minute, his eyes trying to adjust to the darkness, he found out he was in some kind of cave. The light coming from the hole he slid in was just enough to give him a view around. He tried walk around but quickly found out he wasn't seeing enough in the darkness, and the day was quickly ending. His light source would soon be gone. He was about to get out of the hole for the night when the lowering sun lit up something hung at the roof of the cave; "el ome to L s egas". A few letters were gone, but the message was quite easy to understand.
Mark found himself on his knees. It was his Earth after all. It was some kind of future, a future where mankind disappeared in some way, and where the dominant species was now some sentient ponies. His hands were shaking and his mind was empty when he put down the teleport beacon on the floor and pressed the gem in the middle. He sat down against a wall of sand and started to wait.
It was well into the night when a flash of light woke him up. "Mark?" asked the first voice he heard in four months.
"It's a cave Twilight. Sorry, I got nothing to light it up." he replied. His voice sounded weird after so long without talking to anybody.
A purple glow quickly grew brighter, up to the point he could see Twilight and she could see him. He didn't think about it much, but his beard and hair grew enough that Twilight didn't recognized him at first. But his suit, now of a dirty sand color, still had the NASA logo and his name above it.
"Wow, your mane grew a lot!" she said.
He laughed. "I guess it did." He stood up. "But I didn't call you to talk fashion, sorry. I found proof."
"Here?" she asked.
"Yes. Can you light up the roof?" he said pointing up. He saw her focus and her horned glow even brighter, sending a beam of light upward.
She looked up at the letters and asked "What's that?"
"Welcome to Las Vegas. It was one of our cities. For some reason I don't know, it was built in the middle of the desert. I was right, the sand somehow sealed part of this place and destroyed almost everything else." he said looking around. Now that Twilight was providing a source of light, he noticed the cave was much bigger than he first imagined.
There was sand everywhere, but he could make out walls and a curved ceiling in the distance. "Think you can keep that light working for a few minutes? I would like to look around." he asked.
"Sure. I'm actually quite interested too." she replied.
He started to walk around. He found out the floor was some kind of concrete but the time had taken its toll on it. It was cracked and broken in some places. When he reached the wall he saw it was had at some point ceramic tiles, but almost all of them were gone.
Along the wall, he found a flat bump covered in sand. Something was hung on the wall. Carefully, he started to remove the sand that was covering a huge glass panel. "Twilight, can you come over here?"
"Coming!" she replied.
As she was coming closer, Mark could now see that there was a kind of plastic map behind the glass. It was a crude map covered in what appeared to be colored lines. As he managed to remove the last bit of sand covering the glass, it was obvious the map was of North America. Surprisingly, a huge part of the south west coast was missing. In the top corner, he could read "North America Maglev Railroad".
"What's that?" Twilight asked staring at the map.
"A map for some kind of very high speed railroad. A maglev is a train that float a few inches above ground. But when I left, we didn't have anything like that... only prototypes. Surely nothing that covered the whole continent." A spot in the middle of the map caught his attention. All colored lines were converging toward that spot, and from what he could see, it was a huge city.
Colorado Springs? But this place didn't even have half a million people. How could it become the central point of the continent?
His sight was running around the map, trying to find some important information. His eyes finally stopped at the bottom right of the map. "2142!" he screamed.
"What?" she asked backing off, surprised by the sudden scream.
He let himself fall on the floor, his back against the wall. He tried to think for a few moments but nothing would come. "The... the map. It was made in the year 2142." he said, like if it was explaining everything. After a few moments he looked up to see that Twilight was confused by his statement. "Sorry, I'm from the year 2012. This map was made 130 years later." He shook his head. "My species only survived 130 years after I left?" He looked at his hands like if some answers were carved into them. "What happened to them? How long ago was that?" he asked aloud, like if the cave could answer him. By the look of things, it happened a very long time ago.
Twilight didn't say anything but just stood there.
After a few moments Mark sighed and stood up. "Yeah... Sorry about that little breakdown."
"No need to be. If I would learn my civilization would disappear in 130 years... I don't know how I would react." She looked at him in the eyes. "I don't think I would take it as well as you if our places were reversed."
"Thanks Twilight."
"Now, do you think you're coming back with me?" she asked.
He sighed again and stared at the map. Somehow, that central point was calling him.
Colorado Springs? What's there? Cheyenne Mountain?
He snapped his fingers. "Cheyenne Mountain! Of course!" Twilight stared once again at him, confused from this second outburst. "Sorry. Cheyenne Mountain is the name of the mountain that stand beside that city." he said pointing at the colorful middle node on the map.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Back in my time, we had a base built deep under the mountain. It was like five or six hundred meters deep. It was chosen because it was one of the most geologically stable sites on the continent." he stopped to let his brain think a few seconds. "If... If my species knew that something would happen, they would have left information behind. And this would have been the perfect spot. It already had huge infrastructures." He backed off the map and crossed his arms.
"You're going there, aren't you?" she asked a bit disappointed.
"Yes. It's not very far from here. Two... maybe three weeks at most." He looked back at her. "Don't worry; I'm not breaking my Pinkie promise." They both laughed.
"I will hold back Pinkie for another three weeks, but it won't be easy." she said with a smile.
"Don't worry. I have a feeling that if I don't find anything over there, it's because there's nothing left to find." he said. It took a few moments for his brain to actually understand what he just said.
It's true, sadly.
"Take care." she said before vanishing in a flash.
He was getting used to walking in the desert. Only two weeks after the discovery of the Las Vegas train station, he could see a reddish mountain in the horizon. He wasn't sure what to look for, but he guessed that he would know when he would see it. From what he remembered, Colorado Springs was on the east side of the mountain and there was forest all around it. Nothing was left of the city or the forest, both replaced by the same desert he saw in the last three months.
He didn't know where to look for what could be left of the NORAD base, so he started circling the mountain.
A day later, he was about the northern part of the mountain when he found it. He had no idea what 'it' was. It looked like a stainless steel wall of a dozen meters high and twenty wide. It was perfectly flat, spotless and looked somehow built directly in the mountain. The floor in front of it was black and looked like some kind of carbon fiber. Somehow, something was keeping the sand away from it. As he moved closer, he could feel some kind of static electricity pushing him away. He could feel the hairs on his arms raise and the sands on his skin being pushed away.
This is it. This has to be it.
He was about to touch the metallic surface when he heard a loud noise from behind the wall. It sliced itself in half, opening itself in two. The huge doors, he noticed, were moving silently. From what he could see, they were about two meters thick, and yet they moved side way without any apparent effort.
I guess it means I'm welcome.
Beyond the door was waiting a long corridor that appeared to be made of the same material, black carbon floor with stainless walls. Mark couldn't find any source of light and yet the inside was perfectly lit. He walked toward a wall and tried to touch it. He couldn't feel anything, like if something was in between the wall and his hand.
He walked down the corridor. About a hundred meters later, he faced a second set of doors that opened as he got close to them. Once they were retracted in the walls, he couldn't see any difference between the walls and the doors. They fitted perfectly and he couldn't see any rails or any device that they would slide on. The corridor simply continued in a perfectly straight path.
He continued to walk, crossing a set of heavy doors every hundred meters. After the second set, he turned around and noticed the previous set had closed behind him.
A kind of airlock?
He crossed a fifth set of doors when he found the corridor stopped only twenty meters from them. He went to examine the wall that was blocking the corridor when he saw motion behind him. Turning around he saw the last doors closing behind him. He tried to rush to them but quickly stopped as he was about to be crushed between them.
He was trapped in a steel box of twenty meters of sides by twelve high. He knew he wasn't really trapped, as he could probably asked Twilight to teleport him out, but he decided he would call her only if he couldn't find any way out. Why would someone build such a complex trap?
He suddenly felt lighter. He couldn't feel any motion or acceleration, but he knew he was going down. He was in a kind of elevator, which like the doors moved without any sound or effort. And he felt it was going down pretty fast.
He didn't really know how long the ride took, but it felt like hours. When you're stuck inside a metal box, time is kinda hard to keep track. At last, he felt the elevator slow down, then stop. One of the walls opened on another corridor. He walked down the corridor, which looked like a few hundred meters long.
He was about half the length of the corridor when he noticed a figure ahead. He slowed down, unsure who it was. It was obviously of human shape, and it was waiting in the middle of a cylindrical room of about thirty meters in radius. Mark took all his courage and stepped inside the room.
"Welcome. We were waiting for your return." simply said the figure. Now closer, Mark could see it was a male, about six feet tall and in a very clean and straight black shirt and pants. But he couldn't make out his races; it looked like a blend of all of those he knew about. He wasn't black, but wasn't white ether. He had Asian eyes, but not really.
Mark took his time to answer. "Hey. Sorry, I'm not sure to understand."
"It is expected. With time, we understood that memory of this complex would be forgotten." The figure was staring directly at Mark. "After all, it is our purpose. You can call us Memento."
Mark wasn't sure to understand anything. "Alright... Memento... Who... or what are you?" he managed to asked.
"We are the visual representation of the sixty four artificial intelligences linked to the four time-capsule complex." he simply replied.
He finally understood, in front of him wasn't a human, but a robot, or a hologram of some kind. It was an A.I. of some kind, built to keep this place running.
"What's a time-capsule complex, and what does it do?" Somehow, he felt like he was asking question to a quite advanced computer.
"The four complexes were built to keep knowledge and history of mankind as they left Earth behind. We were expecting human's return far sooner." He kept watching Mark as he was walking around the room. "We have two roles. The first is to remind humans of their heritage once they come back. The second is to be a source of information about humans for new sentient species that are bound to evolve on Earth. You're the first one to come since we came online."
Mark stopped walking and stared at Memento. It was hard to only see it as a computer. If it didn't tell him what it was, he would have had a hard time to know. He could see it watch, blink, smile. "How long ago was that?"
"One hundred twenty-eight thousand five hundred and eighteen years ago."
Mark felt his knees weaken but he managed to stand. He knew the number would be high, but he wasn't expecting it to be that high. "What... What happened? Why humanity left?" he managed to ask.
"Forty years before we were put online, human scientists discovered mankind had destroyed Earth's ecosystem's balance. It was known for decade before that that human were damaging the planet ecosystem. However, it is only once it was too late that advances in quantum computer was finally enough to model the damage. Humans always thought they could repair or undo what they did. However, they found out they were wrong. A planet ecosystem is such a huge system with a tremendous momentum that once it's fully pushed in one direction, it is almost impossible to stop or reverse it. Earth temperature was raising fast and wouldn't stop for the next few thousand years."
As it was talking, the curves walls lighten up, displaying information about its speech. Images of forest destruction, flooding, icebergs melting, deserts spreading over burning crops kept coming in, too fast to see details.
"Earth would become almost uninhabitable within the next fifty years, and there was nothing human could do to prevent it. For the first time in history, mankind was united under the idea of survival. Models predicted that the only way Earth could become once again fit for humanity within twenty-five thousand years is if no human was there to influence it. And so, they were forced to build massive spaceship and seek a new home."
The walls displayed huge spaceships being built in orbit, views of other planets, space charts pointing dozen of distant system.
"They knew that by the time they would come back on Earth, they would have changed or forgotten. They put massive efforts and resources into the creation of four massive complexes used to host their histories and their dreams. Right now, only two of the original four complexes are still active."
Mark was stunned. "We... destroyed Earth?"
"Yes."
He simple sit down right there in front of Memento. The A.I. didn't appear to care much for his display of weakness. After a few moments trying to catch his breath, he looked back up. "Why... Why humanity didn't come back before?"
"We have no information about this. However, we are predicting there's a good chance it is linked with our second role."
"What?"
"Twelve years before we were put online, scientists managed to model genome's evolution. It was then discovered that mankind becoming sentient was an evolution error. In Earth ecosystem, dozen species were bound to become sentient sooner or later. However, mankind becoming sentient thousand years before them put their own evolution on halt. If it wasn't of this 'error', most potential species would have reached sentience within a relatively short timeframe from each others. We think humans didn't come back to give those species a chance at evolution."
The walls showed DNA and some kind of evolution simulations. Again it was going too fast to grasp the information present.
Mark took his time to digest this mass of information. Thinking back about the ponies and other sentient species he met in the last few months, it kinda made sense. "I take you're also there in hope to prevent them from doing the same mistakes?"
"Correct."
After a few moments thinking, Mark couldn't find other questions to ask. He would need days to think of what he just learned. He almost jumped back when Memento moved toward him, so far it only stood in the middle of the room. "May we ask some questions?"
Mark somehow felt the A.I. wasn't at ease with asking questions. Was it even originally programmed that way, or could A.I. evolve on their own? "Of course, go ahead." he answered.
"We, the different A.I., are divided as to who you are, and most propose something that is logically impossible." The face of Memento twitched into a weird smile. It looked like it tried to gather his courage, which was quite weird on the artificial visage. "Are you Mark Anderson, astronaut for the NASA?"
Mark was surprised by the question. He thought about it for a few seconds. They were basically a huge database of the human knowledge. No doubt they are information about him. He thought he could lie to them, but then there was nothing to gain out of that. "Yes... I am. How do you know?" he asked back.
The walls displayed front pages of numerous newspapers, with his face on them.
'Astronaut lost in space. Unexplained disappearance. Whole ISS module vanish. Scientists can't explain.'
"Your suit, the NASA logo on it and your name above gave us a very limited number of people that could fit this description. Back then, it was theorized that a quantum displacement occurred on the ISS module, but no source or proof was ever found."
Mark smiled, he had guessed right. He was kinda proud of that, even it didn't help him one bit. Looking back at Memento, "Well... Sorry I'm not the humanity you were expecting." he stood back up. "But I'm quite sure you will have new species visiting this place sooner than you can imagine."
"Really? How is Earth? We lost our last imaging satellite over fifty thousand years ago." it asked back.
"Some parts are really going great. I meet some of those new sentient species. Some look really friendly I would say."
Memento nodded. Mark was surprised how human it looked from up close. "We are looking forward meeting them when they are ready." it said with a smile.
Mark started to walk toward the elevator. "Come back anytime you want." He turned around to see the A.I. vanish. He could have sworn that he saw sadness on his face.
How would I take being alone for over a hundred thousand years?
Mark took back the elevator and walked out the time capsule base. The more he was thinking about it, the more it made sense. Had he been there, he would have done the same thing if he would have faced the same problems. Time capsule wasn't a new concept. He knew back in his time they made some that could last a few thousand years.
Obviously, tremendous efforts were put into those so they could last over a hundred thousand years. He was wondering if he could even understand a fraction of the technology used into building them. He knew that if humanity pooled their abilities into a common goal, there was almost nothing out of reach. How would technology evolved in the hundred years after he left? Aside maybe from preventing the destruction of Earth.
'Destruction of Earth' was such an abstract concept. Even if everything living would disappear, Earth itself would still remain, and with time, could once again support life. Of course, being unable to live on it for a hundred thousand years was a pretty good idea of destruction.
The last set of doors opened in front of him. He closed his eyes, the brightness of the desert sun burning the sand. When his eyes finally managed to get used to the sun glare, he could make out the shape of someone in front of him. Whoever it was was wrapped in a perfectly white cap with a hood covering more of its face. The small part of the face he could see was also as white as its clothes.
Mark moved closer. The figure was biped and almost a head smaller than him. "Who are you?" He asked, but he somehow doubted it would understand him.
To his surprise, it answered back with perfect English with no accent. "We are." He was sure he didn't see his lips moving. He was kind annoying by the answer. He was about to dump all his frustration on this one creature when it continued. "We are all the species that managed to reach the stars into one. We are those who watch over new species and help them reach us, at their own pace." It spoke very slowly, like if it wasn't used to talking.
Mark crossed his arms. The cryptic figure didn't make him at ease. "Are you human?"
"Yes, humans are part of us." it replied. Mark had no idea if it even had a gender. The voice was genderless and what he could make of the shape under the cloths gave him no more hints.
"Do you have anything to do with me being here... now?" he asked. For some reason, the tone of its voice made him think of someone who think they know everything, and he didn't like that.
"Yes, we brought you here and now." it simply replied, like if it was reading the morning newspaper. Mark felt more emotions from Memento than from this one.
"Why?" he asked hard. He was pissed; finally he could face whoever put him in this mess.
"We are not used in making our presence known. But we had no choice, your presence would have prevented your species from reaching the stars and in time, become part of us." it said. After a few moment of silence like if it was thinking or talking to itself, "You would have created a new compound that would have drained pollution from your atmosphere."
"That would have been a good thing, no?" he almost screamed.
"No." it simply stated without an ounce of emotion. "Instead of seeking refuge in the stars from raising temperature on Earth, they would have stayed and died in a new glacial age your discovery would have brought decades earlier. A loaded system such as a planet ecosystem cannot be simply reverted without massive damage."
Mark started to walk around, he felt angry. He noticed the figure wasn't looking at him. It wasn't moving its head. He couldn't even see its eyes. It continued "Earth mended itself with time. Had it undergo a new glacial age, it would have taken close to a million years before it would come back into balance. Dozen sentient species were at stake."
"Take this." it said, as a small metallic sphere appeared in front of him. "It will help you when you will make a choice." it continued, as impossible to understand as ever. He took it in an automatic way and put it in his pocket without thinking about it. His mind was on something else.
How could his person have that kind of effect over such long term? He had an hard time to believe all that. Why him? Someone else could very well come up with the same discovery. "Why didn't you simply kill me?"
For the first time, it moved his head to look at him. Mark felt like he was watched across dimensions, picked apart by beings of powers he could not understand. "Because you still have much to do." Mark blinked, and when he opened his eyes, the figure was gone.
"Wait! What... WHY!?" he screamed, but only the sound of the wind replied.
He sat down on a rock nearby and stared at the ground. He got answers, but he felt they didn't make much sense or too much sense. How would you feel if God came to tell you; you were the one who would doom mankind, that he had no choice be to move you in another reality? His emotions felt like a tornado. He was angry at everything, but his logical mind kept telling him it made some kind of sense. He didn't want it to make sense, any sense. He preferred when his crash landing was only a freak accident, at least his future was his own.
Those... bastards without a name, they knew what would happen, or what would have happened. Had they really no other choices? He felt an headache slowly coming. The sun was slowly going down at the horizon. He didn't feel like moving off his seat. He could always call Twilight, try to forget about all this and start a new life.
He took the sphere off his pocket and looked at it. He couldn't feel it and it looked like a perfect sphere. It was about the size of his thumb and was a perfect mirror.
Make a choice? A choice about what? What a piece of cr...
His thoughts were interrupted by a shadow covering his feet. He looked up to find a man looking at him. From what he could see, he was in a blue suit with a white shirt and a brown tie. His brown hairs were a mess. He had his hands in his pockets and he simply looked like he always been there, oblivious that he was in the middle of a desert in a suit. He looked around, like he was noticing the scenery for the first time.
"Hey!" he said with a clear and joyful voice and a large smile. "I thought you could use a lift."
"Look... My day so far has been one hell of a mess. Actually, my last six months have been deeply testing my sanity." he explained trying to stay calm. "My mind has long stop trying to piece things together. Who the hell are you?" he almost screamed.
The guy in the blue suit stared at him and then started genuinely laughing. Mark felt he would only get angrier, but somehow his laugh calmed him. He even started laughing too.
"Sorry for the outburst. I did have a rough day." he apologized looking at his feet.
"No need to." he said balancing on his toes with a huge smile. "For someone dumped in all this, you're holding pretty well, I must say." He walked to Mark and sit on the rock beside him. "I'm the Doctor." he said while giving him his hand.
Mark looked at the hand for a few moments. It looked surprisingly human. He admitted, of all the things he faced in the last six months, this was by far the least strange.
A guy in a suit in the middle of the desert is the most normal thing? Kui kui kui...
He took the extended hand and shook it. He was somewhat surprised to find a warm firm human hand in his own. "I'm Mark. Ex-astronaut. Maybe last of my species." he said raising an eyebrow.
The Doctor looked at him in amusement. "The last one? On no, no, no. Humans are a persistent bunch. Trust me, there are still plenty of them out there." he said with motion of his arm pointing at the sky.
"Are you?" Mark asked, surprised he didn't take the hint. "I have the feeling you're not human."
He looked at him in surprise. "You are an observant one." he simply said.
Mark stared at him in silence, waiting for further explanation which never came. "You want me to ask, right?"
The Doctor laughed again. "Ah alright, alright. You're not easy. I'm a timelord. And I am the last of my species." he said pointing his thumb at his chest.
Mark stopped a few moments to think about his claim, but couldn't think of anything constructive. "And... what is a timelord?"
The Doctor stood up and looked around before looking back to Mark. "What is a human?"
He thought about it for a few moments. "I... I don't know. Genetic... or historical, maybe."
"Ah! If it's genetic, then you are truly the last one. Genetic change too fast to keep track. History? Might be hard to sum that up, since humans survived up to the end of the universe. Billions of years of history, I wonder how many books it would take." He looked at Mark smiling. "Do you know why you're a human?"
Mark was confused, but in a kind of good way. He felt this Doctor had a huge amount of knowledge and experience. Somehow, he felt that not judging a book by its cover was amazingly accurate with him. Thinking a bit about what the Doctor just said, he finally understood. "I'm a human... because I call myself one."
"Ah!" The Doctor slapped his own leg. "I'm gonna give you that, you're quick." He sat back beside Mark. "I'm actually impressed. You got the Universals out of hiding and they actually directly changed the timeline by moving you here."
"The Universals?"
"Well, they don't have a name. But I like to name things." he explained. "A very weird group of people made of a melting pot of hundreds of species. If we can still call them people. They tend to influence history from the shadows. Changing very small details. They help... in their own weird way. First time I see them take a direct approach and actually interact with someone."
"And you, what's your take in all this?"
The Doctor stared at Mark, looking surprised. "I like to meet people and see new places. And people tend to be the most interesting when facing something unknown." He put his hands behind his head and he looked up at the sky. "And well, I do like the unknown."
"You were stalking me?" Mark asked skeptical.
"What?" The Doctor blinked then started laughing. "Oh, no, no, no."
"You just happened to be in the neighbor?"
"You would be surprised." he answered with a smile.
Mark sighed. He couldn't sense any bad intention from the Doctor, and somehow he felt he was always telling the truth. He sounded like a kid, amazed of everything he would discover. However, he had the weird feeling he already saw him somewhere. "You were offering a lift?"
"Since I'm around, it's the least I could do. Ponyville?"
"Sounds good" said Mark. He stood up, opened his bag and took the purple star. "If you don't mind." He went to the time capsule doors and once they were open let the star on the ground behind them. Turning around, he saw the Doctor staring at him. "I'm sure Twilight will want to explore this place one day."
"No doubt." answered the Doctor. He turned around and started to walk away. Mark didn't feel the need to ask how he knew about Twilight. He was a mystery, and his answers were only bringing more questions. Mark followed him in the desert.
While walking, Mark asked "Hey Doc, I was wondering. How comes those ponies speak English?"
Looking over his shoulder, he simply replied "They don't."
"Come on! I'm pretty sure we talked to each other just fine. Was it some magic from them?" he asked back.
The Doctor stopped walking and turned around. "Apple. Apple." he simply said.
"What?" Mark was confused. He heard twice the same word, but somehow they sounded different. His ears were telling him it was different, but his brain was convinced it was the same word.
"I said it in English, then in Equestrian. I would guess 'they' did some tweaking in your brain so you could talk to the locals." he explained with a shrug. He turned back and continued walking. "So far you only talked to me in English. However, I have the feeling you will talk Equestrian as soon as a pony is around." he started laughing.
"Should I be concerned about this 'brain tweaking'?"
"Probably." The Doctor continued laughing. "Here we are." he said pointing at a blue box somehow stuck in the middle of a sand dune. Mark recognized it as an old British police phone box. The Doctor turned around he looked at him with a huge smile, obviously awaiting some kind of reaction.
Mark wasn't really surprised, he was expecting far stranger than that. "I hope you got a bathroom in there."
"Hmm... Yes, you do need a shaving." he replied walking to the blue box with a key in his hand. He unlocked the door and made sign at Mark to enter first.
Mark was trying his best to not look surprised, but the inside was far bigger than he expected. In the center of the room stood a circular control panel that looked everything but simple. To the left and right corridors connected to other rooms. His mind was trying to find scientific explanations for this difference in size between the outside and the inside without much luck. His best guess was warping space on itself. The Doctor passed beside him and pointed to the right. "The bathroom is down two floors to your right."
Two... what? How big is this thing?
Half an hour later, Mark looked at himself in a mirror. He managed to wash and shaved himself. He found a pair of old plain scissors and cut his hairs, which were getting pretty long, down to two inches. He was surprised to not find any electric razor. Since he cut the part of his hairs that were still brown, he was left only with his new silver color.
I look old, and I'm not even thirty.
His new eye color was bothering him, he felt they were way too bright and didn't look natural. He thought they looked sick. He exited the bathroom to find his spacesuit folded on a chair with his shoes on top. Somehow, The Doctor washed them and they looked brand new, like he didn't just walk four months in the desert. He suited himself up and went back to what he decided to call the control room.
He found the Doctor sitting on some kind of bench reading a thick black book. He looked up to Mark. "Hey! You almost look presentable."
"Funny. I was wondering, know any sickness that would change hairs and eyes colors?" Mark asked with his hands in his pocket.
The Doctor blinked a few time. "Well... A few actually. But none from Earth. Why do you ask?"
Mark sighed. "You would be surprised to know yellow isn't the eye color I'm used to."
He stood up and went to stare at his eyes. "Do you feel ill?"
"Not really."
"So all good!" he cheered. "Ready to go?"
Mark looked at the ceiling. Somehow the Doctor reminded him of Pinkie Pie, only slightly less excited but as much unpredictable. "Allons-y!" he cheered back at the Doctor with a fake smile.
The Doctor stared at Mark for a good moment. Mark was surprised to have muted him. He took note to ask him later what he said wrong. The Doctor walked toward the console and started pushing and pulling things in what appeared to be a completely random order.
Does he really know how...
Mark slowly opened his eyes. He was laying on his back staring at an alien ceiling. He closed back his eyes, he wasn't feeling good. His forehead hurt. "Welcome back." said a voice to his left.
He slowly reopened his eyes and turn his head toward the voice. The Doctor was sitting on the small bench, staring at him. Mark slowly sit down on the metallic floor and put his back against the console. He touched his forehead to find a painful bump. "What happened?" he asked.
"You tell me. You just collapsed and hit your head on the commands." the Doctor replied. He crossed his arms and waited for an answer.
Mark tried to remember, the memory was there, he knew it. He put his right hand on his face, as it could contain his headache. "I... felt... I don't know. I never felt something like that before." the memory wasn't pleasant, and he started to understand why he collapsed, it had been very intense. "I felt... I guess... If I had to put words on it... Ripped off reality?" he stopped a few second to think about what he just said. "That sounds really crazy." He shook his head, trying to make a weird feeling in the back of his head go away.
The Doctor blinked a few time and pulled what looked like a long metallic pen out of his jacket. Pointing it at Mark, he pressed something on its side and the tip started to glow of a bright blue color. Look at his device, the Doctor raised an eyebrow.
I'm sure I saw that thing somewhere...
"Two on the same planet at the same time." After putting it back in his jacket, he put his hands on the back of his head and stared at the ceiling, obviously thinking. After a few moments he slapped his knees. "I think you're ready for a little physic teaching."
"What?"
"In the universe, what are the different states of thing?" he asked.
Mark thought about it a few seconds, the buzzing in his head wasn't going away. "You mean, like matter and energy?"
"Right. You got two of the five states." he replied. "Having met the ponies, I would guess you can come up with the transitional state?"
"Wait... you mean... magic?" Mark replied, shooting in the dark.
"Correct!" he said pointing at him. "The third stable state beside matter and energy is time. As for the last one, the best way to explain it... Well let's say the superstring theory isn't that farfetched. It's not right, but for now let's just say it kinda works."
Mark was confused, how is this had anything to do with him collapsing, and the Doctor was talking like if time was something that could be touched and played with. He decided to simply shut up and listen, after all it wasn't every day that he could get some physic teaching from an alien.
"Magic isn't stable. If you leave it like that, it tends to transform itself toward the stable states." he continued. "Do you know the pony princesses? Celestia and Luna?"
Mark had a hard time to follow; he wasn't used to that kind of unannounced jump of topic. "Huh... I read about them. Some crazy things about controlling the sun and the moon."
"Right." he replied. "I'm sure you also know 'Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, and everything is transform'"
He had done it again, jumping to another thread of thoughts. Mark sighed. "Yeah. The law of conservation. I think." he replied, his head wasn't giving him a break to think clearly.
"Exact!" the Doctor cheered. "This law, at least the version written by human, was for energy and matter but it also hold true for magic, time and... 'strings'. So, can you guess how the princesses can move some celestial bodies?"
Mark waited a few seconds to be sure he correctly heard that. "What? You're telling me they really do move the sun?" he asked skeptical.
"Well... No. They control the rotation of the planet, but I guess the result from someone on the surface is pretty much the same." he replied scratching the back of his head. "So, any guess?"
Mark sighed again. "I... no. No idea."
The Doctor jumped to another topic once again. "Magic is generated by living creatures. As they eat matter and convert them in energy, a bit of that is turned into magic. It somehow regulates the transition between matters toward energy. But you can imagine the pool of magic someone has is fairly limited."
"I... guess?" Mark replied getting more and more confused.
"So, how a pony could get enough magic to change the speed of a planet?" he finished staring at Mark.
Mark looked around for an answer. He felt like a little kid back in school when a teacher would prove him wrong. "They eat a lot?" he said half laughing.
The Doctor blinked a few time and started laughing. "Oh, I will remember that one. But no, it would be impossible to generate enough magic from food alone." He smiled, keeping the suspense of his revelation. "Their magic pools are on the same frequency as another huge source of energy. They directly draw energy from the sun itself. Oh, they don't really know about it, but maybe after a few thousand years they started to guess."
Mark blinked in disbelief. "The sun? A few thousand years?" He took a deep breath, there was no point arguing. He was walking in a path of knowledge he had no idea about and questioning everything wouldn't help. "And... how is it linked to me collapsing on your floor?"
The Doctor had a huge smile. "Your magic pool is also on the same frequency as another source. Can you guess it?"
Something in his head whispered him the answer. "Time?" he said.
The Doctor raised his head back, obviously surprised. "I... well... yes. How did you guess?"
Mark closed his eyes and tried to listen to the presence in his head. It was talking, not in words or images, but in concepts. His mind had a hard time to follow, but in the mass of blurred information sometime came up some simpler idea. "Your ship..." He opened his eyes finally understanding and stared at the Doctor. "It... She? it's alive!" For one, he was happy to see the Doctor as confused as he was a few moments ago.
The Doctor started to genuinely laughing. "Yes. Yes it is. But don't listen to much to her. She can be a bit manipulative."
Mark kept thinking. "Does someone having his magic pool linked to time something common?" he asked a bit worried.
After a while, the Doctor managed to stop laughing. "No. It is not, as far as I know. You're the third one I meet who has this connection."
"You talked of a second one on this planet?"
"I think you know her already." he said with a huge smile.
Once again the voice whispered him something about a purple stars surrounded by five white stars. "Twilight?" he replied, without even thinking.
The Doctor stood up and started walking. "She doesn't know about it. She knows she can perform spells that other ponies can't do, but she doesn't really know why. Most of the time she blocks instinctively the flow from the time stream, as it can be damaging to a living body. But a few times it went... berserk. Her parents know that first hand." he said laughing. "If she were to learn how to correctly use it, she could be more powerful than the Princesses." he explained.
"How about me?"
"Well, sorry, but human can't do spells. The best you could do is probably live a bit longer than most people." he shrugged.
"Alright... I think I figured that much." he said looking at his right hand. "But how is that making me collapse?" he asked back.
The Doctor sited back. "My TARDIS... my ship, stands for 'Time And Relative Dimension In Space'. Basically, when you felt 'being ripped of reality', it wasn't a matter of speech.
Mark thought for a few moments. "So... You could bring me back to my time?"
The Doctor smile disappeared. "Going against the Universals? I don't think I would do that. Aside, they would probably bring you back here as soon as you step back in your time."
He sighed. "I guess you're right."
The Doctor stood up and offered him a hand. Mark grabbed it and got back on his feet. "Come on, there's some ponies waiting for you."
Mark stepped out of the TARDIS with his backpack on his shoulder, founding himself close to the market square of Ponyville. The sun was high in the sky and he couldn't see a single cloud. Looking back, he saw the blue box was stuck in a small alley between two houses. The Doctor locked his ship behind him and turned around smiling at him.
"Nice day." he said.
"Yeah. But maybe you should land closer to Twilight's house?" Mark turned around and peeked at the market. It was full of ponies going around buying and selling all kind of things. "I doubt two humanoid walking around here will go unnoticed. Scaring off a whole town of ponies might not be a good idea."
"Oh, they won't notice a thing." The Doctor said behind him.
Mark turned around and jumped in surprised. The Doctor was now a light brown colt with an hourglass on his flank. "How did you... You know what; I don't want to know right now." Mark stared at him for a good moment. "I'm sure I saw you before! You... you were in my room at the hospital one night!"
The Doctor blinked surprised. "Sorry, it must have been someone or somepony else. I never met you before running into you in the desert."
Mark sighed and scratched his forehead. "Alright, whatever." He was sure of what he saw almost six months ago, but there was no point accusing him. "So, you can go around, but as for myself, I can't just change of shape like that."
The Doctor laughed. "Neither can I. I didn't change, only you think you're seeing something different. Right now, the perception filter makes you look like a pretty nice stallion." The air flickered in front of Mark's eyes and almost instantly the humanoid Doctor was back. "Better?"
"Much, thanks." He looked back the market. "A stallion, right?" Without waiting he stepped in the open and intercepted an aqua mare with some kind of lyre on her flanks. "I'm sorry, do you know where's Twilight's home?"
She only slowed down a bit and gave him a quick look. "Of course, simply go toward the central tower, her house is in a tree nearby. You can't miss it." She got her pace back and left without a look behind.
"Thanks a lot."
"Your Equestrian is much better than mine." said the Doctor behind him.
Mark sighed looking at the sky. He didn't notice switching from English to Equestrian, for his brain he spoke the same language. "Mind if we take it slow? I wouldn't mind watching them in their social life. I don't know the next time I will be able to walk around like that."
"Sure." the Doctor said with a huge smile. "After you."
Mark was walking around, enjoying the life of the square. The ponies were mostly joyful, saluting each other and talking about nothing and everything. He wished he could stay right there at that moment and simply enjoy it forever. Of course, nothing was ever simple and his mind quickly brought him back to his current concerns.
He knew Twilight wouldn't mind him living in her basement a few days, maybe even weeks. But as much for her as for himself, he needed to find his own place and get something to do of his hands. But as much right now he could walk around without scaring off all those ponies, he knew if they were seeing him like he truly was, they would run away. It’s hard to make a life for yourself if you can't interact with others.
He was deep in his thoughts with something purple caught his eyes. He felt weird, confused, like if his mind was in a haze. Nothing had changed around himself, but he was sure he was seeing everything in double. Out there, about four hundred meters away, he saw Twilight walking away.
He was about to raise his arm and shout at her when he noticed who she was walking toward. He blinked a few time, trying to remove the fog off his mind, but he was sure he saw himself over there, in the same white space suit he was currently wearing. His other self raised his head and stared at him for a few moments before leaving in a dark alley with Twilight.
Mark raced toward the alley, but when he turned the corner, it was empty of life. The fog on his mind was gone as fast as it came. Someone tapped on his shoulder. "What's wrong?" asked the Doctor behind him.
Mark swallowed hard, did he really see that? "Did you see that?" he asked while turning around to face the Doctor.
"No?"
"I think..." he turned around once again, staring at the alley. "I think I saw myself."
The Doctor crossed his arms and stared at Mark. "Alright. Time travel rule number one; don't talk with yourself. If you see yourself, stay away. Understood?"
Mark frowned and looked at the Doctor. "Why is that?" he asked.
The Doctor pointed at him trying to look mad. "Hey! You're not the one cleaning the time stream once it gets messed up!" On that, he turned around and left a confused Mark behind him.
"Huh... Ok. Whatever you say Doc."
"I feel like the maid, I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for like 10 minutes? Alright... I'm gonna go get my paradox vacuum."
Mark was standing in front of the town's library, which also served as Twilight and Spike's house. The Doctor left him there, going back to his ship. He was slightly nervous, the first time he got in her house, she teleported him inside without asking first. He always hated to ask for help, but after six months talking and writing to each other almost every day, he felt they started to know each other quite well.
He couldn't stand there much longer; the Doctor told him the perception filter would fade off pretty quickly. He moved forward and knocked at the door. After a few moments, Spike opened the door. "Oh hey Mark! I thought you were still in that desert." he asked frowning.
"Hey Spike." Mark instinctively put his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, I was. Bit of a long story actually."
Spike moved off the door. "Well, come in. Twilight should be back from the market soon." Mark entered the library.
So, she was really at the market...
He stared to walk around, looking at the rows of book to see if there was some new one. He lost count of how many he read in the desert. "So... you think you're gonna stay here for a while?" asked Spike behind him.
Will I?
Mark scratched his head. He didn't want to stay here too long, but now that he knew the past and that he could probably never go back, he needed some time to think what he would do with his future. He could always build himself a home enough far away from Ponyville that he wouldn't meet random ponies. He knew for once that Zecora had her house in the forest. But he would need to come back to Ponyville to buy food once in a while; the last thing he wanted was to be dependant of some other ponies. Twilight could maybe make a spell that would work like the perception filter of the Doctor. But remains the problem of the currency, what can he do in this civilization that is not linked to advanced material or space travel?
"Actually Spike, I don't know. I was hoping you guys might have ideas for work I could do or a place I could call my own." he said while he kept looking at the books.
Spike thought about it for a few moments. "Well, I..." he was interrupted by the door swinging open.
"Hey Spike, I'm back. Anything new?" asked Twilight while walking in with an opened scroll in front of her face, obviously a checklist of some kind. With the lack of answer, she lowered the scroll and looked at Spike. He simply pointed at Mark.
"Oh, hey Mark.... Mark? How did you come back here so fast?" she asked surprised.
"And... that's about it." he concluded after almost an hour of talking about what happened to him the last five months, sitting at the table of Twilight's small kitchen. He skipped a few things, like some of his discussions with the Doctor. He was still unsure if he was real in some way. What's the chance of an alien who just happened to crash land in the middle of the desert at the exact moment you would need him?
"So... A creature just showed up and brought you back here?" she asked skeptical.
Mark sighed. If he was still in the middle of the desert, he wouldn't really question it and just assume he dreamed it. But somehow he was back in Ponyville, shaved and cleaned. "I'm not saying it doesn't sound crazy. But I am here, right?" He took a breath. "I left your teleportation beacon inside the mountain, so one day you could explore it on your own."
"Alright... So?" she asked after thinking for a while.
He took a deep breath. "I was removed from my own time on purpose. I don't know if they didn't just dump me here to not kill me or if they actually choose this moment. So... I don't think I can go back." He looked around, the idea starting to really sink in. "I... I might live and die here." He looked at his hands. "I will have to find some work to do... and a place to live. A real way to fit in, otherwise I think I will turn crazy."
She looked at him with a smile. "You can stay here the time you need to find out."
Maybe I was dropped here because they are that nice?
"Thanks. I will think hard and find something as fast as I can."
Two days later, in the morning, Mark was in the basement on the small cot. He was trying to list potential works he could perform.
Maybe I can ask Applejack for some work? I'm sure my hands could do things they would have an hard time with hooves. Maybe they got some mechanical stuff I could repair. Maybe I could build a kind of small house beyond her farm. Nopony would really notice it.
Mark never been really good with his hands, but in this reality, even his clumsy hands could potentially outdo hooves.
All of a sudden he heard a loud crashing noise from upstairs. He jumped off the cot and ran upstairs. As he opened the door of the basement, he found Twilight and Spike had come down from their room to investigate too. In the middle of the room lay Applejack, shaking and in sweat. Her mane and tail was a mess. She was crying and trying to catch her breath.
Looking around, he noticed she probably crash head-on on the front door as it was broken in half. He didn't think about it and jump forward to try to help her back on her hooves.
"Applejack!" shouted Twilight. "What's going on?"
Mark was holding the orange mare up, her legs shaking; she would fall back on the ground if he let her go. She was sobbing, tears flowing out of her eyes. She was still trying to catch her breath, like if she sprinted from her farm, which was a good twenty minutes of walk from here. He could feel her heart beating hard and fast.
"It..." She tried again to get enough air to talk. "It killed Apple Bloom!" she managed to scream and she broke again in tears.
For a few moments, everybody in the room stay silent in surprised. Twilight broke the silence. "What did?" seeing that Applejack wasn't listening, she shouted "Applejack! Are you sure?" Applejack only managed to nod between two sobbing.
Mark put Applejack down on her side with care and stared at Twilight for what felt like an eternity. No words were spoken but the mare and the man fully understood each other. They both sprinted toward the door. Mark let her take the lead as he didn't know where Sweet Apple Acres was.
His logical mind kept telling him there was nothing he could do; he was slower than the pegasi, weaker than the earth pony and could do no magic. He was exposing himself and other ponies would freak out. But he didn't care, his heart kept showing him memories of the small filly and those of the emotionally broken Applejack.
Even if his legs were in the best shape they ever been after months of walking in the desert, he had a hard time to keep up with Twilight. His legs started to hurt, but he didn't care, he accelerated. He had no idea how long the race took when he finally came in sight of the fence circling the apple farm.
He and Twilight instantly stopped in surprised. There was nothing alive left, the grass was burned and there was almost nothing left of the trees, only smoking broken trunks. A huge black cloud was hovering above what was now a wasteland.
"What happened?" only managed to ask Twilight while catching her breath.
Mark looked up at the cloud. It was black, but he could see white sparks moving inside it. As he looked, the cloud started to move and change shape. "Twilight!" he screamed afraid. He pointed at the cloud and she looked up. "I don't think it's a normal cloud."
They both started to back off as the cloud was slowly moving toward them. "What's that?" asked Mark.
"I... I don't know. I never read anything about something like that!" managed to answer Twilight with a frighten voice.
Something above the cloud started to fall down, accelerating faster. "Rainbow Dash! Don't!" screamed Twilight as loud as she could.
Mark stared up and saw a cyan pegasus doing some kind of dive straight toward the cloud. To his surprise, the pony kept accelerating, and he could see ripples around her.
Can she break the sound barrier? Incredible!
As Rainbow Dash passed the speed of sound, a prismatic explosion spread outward. Mark was stunned by that display of speed, power and how pretty it all looked. But as the blast spread, it stopped and started to shrink, absorbed by the cloud.
Seeing her plan fail, Dash tried to dodge the cloud. Somehow the cloud moved a tendril of smoke toward her, slightly touching her in flight. Her mouth and her eyes opened wide in terror as her colors were drained toward the smoke. Mark was sure she would have screamed if she could. But moment later was only left with a gray pegasus that broke down into an arc of dust, following her initial momentum.
"Rainbow!" screamed Twilight, while tears were coming to her eyes.
In a very short moment Mark saw a healthy pony die without a sound. He was stunned; there was nothing he could do against something like that. He tried to pull Twilight back as the cloud started to move toward them again, but she wouldn't move.
A double flash of light blinded him. When he managed to see once again, two huge ponies with both horns and wings stood in front of Twilight. One was of the purest white while the second was of the deepest blue. Both their amazing manes were flowing on their own, from an invisible wind. It didn't take long for Mark to understand those two were the princesses.
"Twilight!" asked Celestia. "What happened? We felt the element of loyalty die?"
Twilight couldn't answer, her eyes were full of tears and she was sobbing hard. Mark was beside her and he once again pointed up, behind the princesses. They turned around as one and gasped at the sight of the cloud.
They looked at each other, like if they were talking telepathically. After a moment, they stood by each other and closed their eyes. They horns started glowing, gaining in brightness. They moved their heads close to each other, and a huge beam of white and black shoot upward, hitting the cloud with force.
The cloud stopped moving, like if it was surprised to be attacked in such a way, but it was obvious that huge display of magic wasn't doing much effect.
Mark felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around in surprised and found the Doctor behind him. "Do you know what this is?" he said doing a motion toward the cloud.
"No time!" screamed the Doctor, taking his arm and pulling him back. Mark could see the TARDIS only a dozen meters away.
"What are you talking about? We must help them!" Mark turned his head and saw the cloud sent a tendril along the beam of magic, using it like a line to find its way. The Doctor kept pulling him toward his ship.
Moment before the smoke touched their horns the princesses opened their eyes wide in surprised and tried to back off, but it was too late. The same way colors were drained from Rainbow Dash, both princesses saw their sucked toward the cloud, but unlike Rainbow, they didn't try to scream. They turned fully grey, stopped moving and were slowly blown to dust by the wind.
Before his eyes, Twilight screamed. "No!" She started to glow white, her eyes were opened, but they were also glowing white, making impossible to see her pupils, but it was obvious she was crying all their tears of her body. She started to float above the ground, her horn turning into a miniature sun.
The Doctor pushed Mark in the TARDIS. "What are you doing?" screamed Mark. The Doctor ignored him and turned around toward the door. The moment he closed the door, the outline of the door glowed brightly. It felt like the ship was slapped sideway by a giant, Mark found himself flying toward the furthest wall.
He tried to block his fall but he crashed hard against the wall. He stayed there a few moments, like if gravity in the ship was gone. The lights blinked madly. After a few moments, he felt falling toward the floor, and his leg collapsed under him. He quickly stood back up, but found it was a bad idea. Gravity was moving madly from side to side, like if he was on a boat in the middle of a storm.
Once the TARDIS stopped rocking back and forth, he walked toward the center of the room, to find the Doctor had crashed head first on the console. He helped him on his feet; he was bleeding from a deep cut on his forehead.
"What was that?" asked Mark. His ears were buzzing.
The Doctor didn't answer but walked toward the exit and after thinking for a while opened the door. Mark could hear him sighed heavily. He moved beside the Doctor and looked outside. All he could see was the vastest of space. "Where are we?" he asked.
The Doctor lay against the door frame. "At the same place and at the same time we were." he answered softly.
"What are you talking about? Where's Earth?" Mark asked loudly staring at him.
The Doctor pointed up. As Mark followed his sign, he saw the moon out there. Its surface was burned, like if an explosion took place on it. As he watched, streaks from the center started to widen. The moon broke into a dozen fragments that slowly drifted away from each other.
The Doctor took a deep breath. "She... she managed to kill it. Which is surprising. But... I... I fear she blown up the planet in the process."
Mark stared at the Doctor, trying to understand what he just said. He slowly turned toward the blackness of space. "No. It can't be." he whispered.
Mark walked to the console inside the TARDIS. "Alright Doc, one step at a time, what was that thing?"
The Doctor followed him. "I'm not sure." He sat down and watched Mark pace around the controls.
Mark stopped and stared at him. "But you sound like you might have an idea?" he asked.
He sighed. "Maybe." he took a deep breath. "I told you only living things can generate magic?" he waited for Mark to nod. "Well, some life form doesn't. Keep in mind I never saw one before, I only know from stories. What I do know, is how the universe was formed." he looked at Mark, waiting.
"The big bang?" he asked back frowning.
"While somehow a crude idea, it is correct. But unlike what humans thought, it wasn't an explosion of energy." he explained. As he saw Mark didn’t understand what he meant, he continued. "Magic. The big bang was an explosion of magic. Back then, there was literally nothing, no time, no matter, no energy. But when you leave magic alone, it tends..."
"To transform toward the other stable states?" guessed Mark, remembering what the Doctor told him.
"Exact. It's almost a constant in the universe, if you have enough of a source of something, life always show up in some way. You would be surprise of the life form that exists on eating gravity in a black hole. Anyway, the first life form that showed up were quite simple, they ate magic... But at some point, magic became rare. I thought they all died." He took a deep breath. "This one looked pretty weak, it was dying."
"What?" Mark didn't understand how it could have been weak.
"Some stories are hundred millions years old, and they talked about a huge cloud covering a whole planet and draining its magic in matter of hours." the Doctor explained. "I'm not sure this one would have survived another travel toward another star."
Mark crossed his arm, angry. "So, just back luck his last meal was Earth?" He was working hard to keep his tears inside. He didn't know the ponies for that long, but he was growing fond of them. Twilight curiosity and the happiness of all of them were contagious. Aside, Earth was also his planet, even if mankind left it so long ago. How many more species and individuals Earth could have hosted? "How do we fix that?"
The Doctor stared at Mark. "Fix that? I doubt we can!"
"Twilight! She did it once." Mark said pointing at him. "She could do it again."
The Doctor looked skeptical and crossed his arm. "Blow up the planet again?"
Mark walked toward the TARDIS exit and pointed at what was left of the moon. "We get her up there, and we intercept that thing before it reaches Earth."
"She lost it! She went berserk. It would still destroy Earth." countered the Doctor.
Mark looked down at his feet. "She did because she saw her friends and her mentor die." He sighed. "If what you say is right, I think she killed it by drowning it in magic. Too much of anything is never a good idea, if you're right and it was that weak, she might be able to kill it without blowing up the moon!"
"Drowning it in magic?" The Doctor jumped on his feet. "Alright."
"What?"
"You convinced me. Let's try it." He looked annoyed. "It will take me months to clean the paradox we are about to create." He said shaking his head. He moved toward the controls.
Mark came beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on Doc, I will help you with that."
"You better."
Mark stepped out of the TARDIS once more. It was that day at the market, sun high in a cloudless sky. From the Doctor's numbers, the creature would cross the moon gravitational pit in a matter of hours. The Doctor took his time to explain to him that as soon as he would meet Twilight, it would create a new timeline. The old one would become parallel to the new one, and to help him smooth that transition he would need to activate some kind of temporal beacon at that moment.
He turned the beacon on his right hand. It wasn't even the size of a cell phone, but knowing how size didn't really matter with his ship, who knew how much components were in there. In his left hand rested a even smaller switch, a control for the perception filter. He looked around, from his past experiences two days ago; he knew roughly where Twilight should be.
He started to walk toward the market. After searching around the booths for a few minutes, he finally found the purple mare, she was buying some fruits. He would need to wait for her to be away from the crowd, as he would need to turn off the filter for her to recognize him.
After twenty minute of following her, she finally left the market. Mark waited in a nearby alley. "Hey Twilight."
She stopped and look toward him. For what she saw, a weird colt was calling her, but she never saw him before. "Do I know you?"
"Yeah, give me a second." He turned off the perception filter and activated the beacon at the same time. For Twilight, the air flickered and in matter of second the colt turned into Mark. He put in his pockets the two devices.
"Mark! What was that?" she asked surprised.
"It's nice to see you too." he said. Not even an hour ago she was dead. He was really happy that he was given a chance to save her, and all of them.
"Huh... Yeah, it's nice to see you too." she said laughing.
He crossed his arms and stared at her with a serious look on his face. "Do you trust me Twilight?" he simply asked.
She blinked a few time, unsure of the question. "I... I think I do."
"For the next minute, I want you to follow me without asking question. It is really important, understood?" he asked her.
"O... ok. Is it some kind of game?" she asked right away.
"Twilight! Please!"
She did a motion of zipping her mouth shut. Mark started to walk toward where he left the TARDIS. Looking at his right, he saw himself, standing in the middle of the market, staring in his direction. He shook his head; meeting himself a second time wasn't any easier than the first one. He dashed toward the alley and didn't look back; hoping Twilight followed his request and simply followed him.
The ship was standing in between two houses with its door wide open. Mark ran in it, followed by Twilight. He could feel the number of questions in her head quickly growing. He turned around once she was inside and closed the doors behind her.
"Let's go Doc! My other self is running after us."
The Doctor flipped a few switch, putting the ship in some kind of temporal stasis. It didn't move nor changed time, but simply wasn't visible from the outside.
Twilight stood in the middle of the room with eyes wider than Mark ever saw. "What's going on? Other self? What is this place?"
Something broke in Mark heart. He simply kneeled in front of her and hugged her while crying. She stopped talking and starred at him. "Mark? You're alright?"
After a few moments he let her go and dried his eyes. He sat down in front of her.
"That's crazy! I don't have that much magic! Vaporize the planet? That's insane!" she shouted after Mark had explained the whole story. "And what do you actually plan to do right now?"
Mark looked up to the Doctor who was leaning against the wall. "We... we go on the moon, and you stop that thing from reaching Earth." he said with a smile.
The Doctor coughed and said "You're directly linked to the time stream. If you were to truly use it, you could destroy a good part of the galaxy. I think it would be possible for you to kill it without blowing up the moon."
"Humans are crazy! You're both crazy!" she shouted. She was starting to freak out. Mark noticed she was shutting off from them.
"Twilight!" he screamed. She stopped moving and stared at him. "I'm human, he is not." he said pointing at the Doctor. "He is a timelord." He sighed. "Please Twilight, keep it together. This is really important. We are talking about the life of everypony on the planet." He looked up at the ceiling, then back at Twilight. "If... if you don't want to try to stop that thing... it's fine. We'll... I'll find another way."
Twilight was calmer. "How about we get the element of harmony? It should be powerful enough?"
The Doctor moved forward. "It's true they are powerful. But the elements are a scalpel, they aren't really destructive. Remember every time you used them, you never destroyed anything. Right now, we need a canon of raw magic."
She looked insulted. "You're saying I'm destructive?"
The Doctor looked angry. "When you lost control at your entrance exam, you broke my ship. It crashed near Canterlot and it took me almost two years to fix it."
"Huh... Hmm... Sorry?" she apologized, unsure of herself.
"Well, no harms done I guess. I actually enjoy the time I spend with ponies. Just to say, I don't think there's any other creature alive right now that could do it." said the Doctor shaking his head.
She looked at the floor a few moments. "Alright... Alright, let's try."
Mark looked at the Doctor as he moved toward the command panel and started flipping switches. This time he was ready for the flow of feeling linked with the TARDIS spatiotemporal transition. From the corner of his eyes, he noticed Twilight falling on her left flank. He dashed toward her and caught her before she hit her head on the floor. He sit on the floor and let her head rest on his leg. "Should have known Doc."
"Nice catch. My fault, sorry. Yeah, she reacted the same way as you did." He continued to flip, pull and push things. "There. We are on the moon, and in theory, on its path."
Twilight slowly opened her eyes. "What... What happened?"
Mark helped her to get back on her four shaky legs. He stayed close in case she would fall back. "The same thing occurred to me the first time."
"What... What's that voice talking in my head?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Try to ignore it."
"I kinda like it... It says you're an idiot, Doctor." she said with a small smile.
"Yeah, just ignore it." he said as he focused back on the controls.
Mark whispered to Twilight. "It's his ship; it's alive in the time stream or something like that."
The Doctor clapped his hands and looked at them with a smile. "Alright! The TARDIS is generating a bubble of breathable atmosphere in a fifty meters radius. It's also controlling the temperature and shielding us from the radiation." He looked at Twilight. "And just in case, I raised a double field of protection around my ship."
Mark stepped out of the ship, trying hard to not squeal like a little girl. He turned around, a huge smile on his face, to watch Twilight and the Doctor come out on the dusty plain. "You have no idea how often I dreamed of this. Walking on the moon, wonder if Apollo 11 is still there."
Twilight looked at him confused. "What's an Apollo?"
"It's the space program that brought humans on the moon, before I was even born." said Mark with pride.
"So this is where Luna lived for a thousand years?" she asked looking around.
The Doctor was standing beside the blue box. "Technically, not really on the moon, there's nothing to breath here. She was locked inside the moon, on a quantum level." Seeing Twilight didn't understand. "Huh... In some way, she became the moon."
Mark was jumping around, in the same way astronauts used to do it when they first came on the moon. He was surprised how instinctive it was to hop around. The Doctor was laughing watching him bounce around. "Wow" said Twilight. They both turned around to see what surprised her. She was staring at Earth, slowly rising above the moon's horizon. They both walked beside her.
"It is quite a sight. It might be a bit simple saying I became astronaut for that view... but truth is, I did." explained Mark.
"In the entire universe, it is one of the prettiest planet." said the Doctor, staring at the blue planet. Sensing Mark eyes on him, he explained "I talk by experience."
"I'm a bit envious of both of you. Seeing this kind of beauty on a daily basis." Twilight said. Mark didn't try to explain that he worked really hard for years to get on a space station very close to Earth, and that human didn't come back to the moon in his time. On top, on his first mission he was brought in the future. They simply stood there watching the blue planet slowly move in the black sky.
Something produced a bipping noise similar to a cell phone in the Doctor's pocket. He took out his sonic screwdriver and looked at a display only he could see. "It's coming. It should be on top of us in a few minutes."
Twilight had a hard time to take her sight off her planet. She turned around and positioned herself at about thirty meters in front of the TARDIS' doors, legs firmly planted on the dusty ground. Mark came next to her while the Doctor retreated inside his ship. "Don't stand there Mark, it's gonna be dangerous." shouted the Doctor.
"I know." he replied. "It's silly, I know. But... I will stand here. If only for moral support." he explained.
The Doctor had a weird smile on his face. "I understand more than you can imagine."
Twilight looked at him and nodded. "Thanks."
They stood there watching the sky, trying to find where the black cloud would come from. "There!" shouted Mark as he pointed in what looked like an empty part of the sky. "Something is hiding stars as it moves."
Twilight stared where he pointed, and surely enough a star disappeared, hiding by a moving mass. "I see it!" Instantly she lowered her head and aimed her horn at the black cloud. She focuses, doing what she did thousand times before, channeling magic toward her horns, but this time she didn't try to model it to her will. The goal wasn't to shape it or bend it, but to release as much magic as possible. She kept channeling it to her horn, which started to glow brightly in a purple color similar to her coat. When she felt she had enough to support a viable beam, she let it go forward.
Mark watched impressed, he saw her perform magic dozen time already, but this time it was different. She was using her power in their full might, in a raw and unrefined form. The beam of bright purple magic shooting toward the sky took him by surprise. He looked up and saw the beam hitting right on spot in the middle of the cloud. The beam was bright enough to light up the creature and Mark could finally see its true size. It was slightly smaller than the cloud he saw above Sweet Apple Acres.
After a few moments, it became obvious it wasn't working as intended. The creature wasn't stopping and simply continued on its original path. It didn't appear affected at all by the mare's efforts. "It's not enough Twilight!" he shouted.
"I'm just warming up!" she shouted back without losing her concentration. She closed her eyes and tightened her lips. The beam of magic grew in size and in brightness, slowly turning toward a fully white color.
She wasn't really in pain, her body was used to channeling magic, but she was feeling close to her limits. She knew she couldn't allow herself any weakness right now, too much depended on her. She remembered her entrance exam, years ago. That day, she casted dozen spells unconsciously, most of which were of levels far beyond what she thought she could perform. Days later, when she tried to redo some of them, she found herself simply unable to, having not enough magic to cast a single one of them. She knew the sonic rainboom somehow awaken something inside her, something powerful and uncontrollable. She trained hard for years to never again lose control over her abilities.
She was at her limits, but she wasn't tapping in that source. She was still afraid of what could happen if she did. From what Mark told her, her planet was vaporized by that energy.
Everypony's lives depend on you! No time to be afraid!
She reached inside, at that place she sealed away years ago. She slowly opened it, finding the golden energy she knew was waiting inside. She tested it carefully, sending only small amount of it toward her horn. After a few tries, she found out she could keep control over it. She progressively increased the flow as much as she could. The beam of magic doubled in size and took a golden tint.
Her body started to hurt; she wasn't used to channeling that much magic for so long. She opened her eyes; she could see that the creature stopped moving. But it didn't matter, as it was still there, its size and shape not changing at all. She was sweating and her legs started to shake.
"It's... it's not enough!" she managed to shout.
Mark looked at her worried, her face displaying her pain. He knew she was at her limit, more and her body would take a toll, she could get seriously hurt. He knew she was doing it in full knowledge of what would happen if she failed. In front of his eyes, he saw the beam grow even more, she was obviously going beyond her limits. Sparks on her horn showed that it could ignite at any moment.
Mark looked down at his hands, deep in his mind. He wasn't thinking, he was only feeling. He took a deep breath and let it go slowly. Looking over his shoulder, he could see Earth could now be fully see in the Moon's black sky.
You're probably about to do the stupidest thing you ever did. But...
Without thinking more about it, he grabbed Twilight's horn with his right hand. She gasped at the unexpected contact, but she didn't lose focus. He instantly felt the magic beam numbing and burning his fingers, but he didn't let go, he tighten his grip. He remembered what the Doctor told him, humans can't do magic, they can't cast, channel, shape or bend it. But like almost every living being they can generate it. His hope was that with direct contact with her horn, he could send his own to her.
He closed his eyes and reached inside at that place he learned to ignore. The first time, he remembered, back in the hospital, he almost ended up cooked alive. Every time he would try to probe it, he received burns or other painful reminder that his species wasn't allowed to play with it. He could see what he pictured as a valve blocking a flow from a dam. He took hold of it with his mental hands and without giving it more thoughts opened it as wide as he could.
The pain almost took him by surprise, but after the hospital incident, he knew what to expect. He wanted to scream, but he shut his mouth close, his jaw shaking from the effort. He felt his inside burning from the magic flow. From his personal training in the desert, he knew how to move that flow around and he aimed it at his right arm. His arm sent him message of intense pain he simply ignored.
He opened his right eye to see that the beam almost doubled in size, but he quickly noticed his right hand and arm were literally on fire, surrounded by a golden glow that was flowing toward Twilight. He looked elsewhere, trying to forget that he was losing senses in his body, that he couldn't feel anything from his right arm anymore and that it was spreading, he was beyond pain. His brain tried to tell him he should give up, every ounce of self preservation screamed at him to stop and remove his hand. He could feel his body shutting down under the assault of the magic he was streaming across it. He looked up in the sky and saw the creature shrinking on itself. His heart jumped in his chest.
It's working! But... Not... not fast enough! We won't hold that long.
He was somewhat surprised his legs didn't let him go yet, the low gravity of the moon probably helping. He looked at Twilight, and surely enough her body was at the limit of what it could do. She was shaking and it was also surprising her legs didn't let go. "One last push!" he managed to say in a whisper. She slightly nodded back without opening her eyes. He looked inside himself, at the source of magic. It was wide open, he couldn't open it anymore than that. He looked around, trying to find any source of energy left.
It was small, hidden much deeper inside than he ever went. At first he didn't understand what he found, what was that small dark blue sphere? Probing it, he finally figured it out; it was his own pool of magic. Not the one generated from the time source, but his own, created by his living body. It was puny to say the least, but right now he needed every ounce of magic he could find. He carefully took it and threw it in the golden flow of magic.
Twilight was also searching deep inside her for any hidden resources. She felt it was only moments before her legs would fail her. "Friendship is a powerful magic." once said her mentor, she remembered. Right now, she deeply wished all her friends were here with her. At the memories of her friends, a spark lit up inside her. She knew it, she saw it before. It was her link to the element of magic. The Elements of Harmony, which in front of Nightmare Moon and Discord had united them as one.
She understood, for the elements, distance had no meaning. A true friendship stays strong no matter where you are. She could feel the other five mares; they were worried about her, as they could feel her pain sent over their connections with the elements. She couldn't talk to them, only send her emotions; her deepest wishes that she needed them. They replied without questions. She could feel them sending back all their supports, smiling back and sending their own magic and strength through their bonds.
She could see it inside her like never before, a rainbow of magic from her friends; orange of honesty, yellow of kindness, pink of laugh, blue of loyalty, indigo of generosity. She pushed all their magics toward the flow of golden magic. She knew it would be enough, that it would work, because there's nothing they couldn't do when united as one.
From the Doctor's point of view, the display of magic and time looked breath taking. Timelords were gift with the ability to see the time stream, but most of the time they wouldn't notice it. Only larger perturbation could really be seen. It allowed them to track paradox and other dents that other uninformed travelers could cause. In front of him, he could clearly see two vortex of time being sucked toward the man and the mare, similar to a bath being drained. As he watched, the two vortexes started to swirl around each other, like two tornados meeting in an open field.
The two finally merged, amplifying their forces, far more than the sum of them. He was happy to be there to witness this, as he knew any other creature would have missed the full beauty of the show. He was quite sure no timelord ever experienced something like that before. Living beings linked to the time flow were extremely rare occurrence, two meeting each other and using their abilities in unison was unheard of. He could feel the very fabric of space vibrating under their combined will. He didn't know how, but he felt five other wills join the fight.
He didn't think it to be possible but Twilight's horn glowed even brighter. At this point, her horn and the beam of magic were simply painful to watch. He closed his eyes, but he could still see the beam behind his eyelids. Even behind the double shields of the TARDIS, he could feel the magic stream released, like a warm summer sun. He feared they would lose control and destroy the moon, but their focus was greater than what he thought possible for their species.
Everything went black and silent. The Doctor opened his eyes but couldn't see anything as they were trying to adjust to the sudden darkness. The magic attack was over, he could barely see Mark and Twilight standing in the grey plains, but he could feel it inside, it worked.
Mark didn't know how he managed to open his eyes as he couldn't feel anything from his body. He looked up at the sky and only saw shining stars, no sight from the dark cloud. The sky started to rotate in front of him. He understood he was slowly falling on his back, the low gravity of the moon softly pulling him down. He saw what was left of his right arm in front of him, it was burned out, black like charcoal. The fall felt like an eternity, but he was happy. Once he hit the ground, he could see it high in the Moon's sky; Earth, glowing like a bright blue gem. He tried to smile, but his face didn't answer his wish.
Was worth it.
It was traveling toward the source of food. Suddenly, it felt food closer to itself. It altered slightly its trajectory to pass over it. The food was on a much smaller gravity well, it would make the last stretch of travel toward the bigger one much easier.
It was getting close when a container of food sent it its way. It was a lot, but nothing its current weaken state could not eat. As it got closer, the quantity of food sent kept growing. It stopped, there was simply too much to absorb. It tried to eat everything, but it couldn't. The left over started to burn it. It tried to escape, but it kept coming its way.
Even more food came, burning it faster. Something else was mixed inside the food, something toxic. It was about to disappear when the food stopped. It was only a fraction of its original size and its nodules dedicated to processing food were burned off. There was no way it could eat anymore, but instinct pushed it to find a way to survive.
There was nothing left on the small moon as it pushed itself toward the blue planet.
Consciousness slowly returned to Twilight. She was warm and she felt safe. She could feel the bed sheets wrapped around her. She didn't want to wake up; fighting to go back to sleep, but it was a losing battle. There was a noise nearby disturbing her rest, like a very slow beat that kept going and coming back. As she moved, her whole body felt of some kind of soft pain, similar to what she experienced the day after she ran that marathon a year ago.
She finally decided to open her eyes. She looked around the dark plain room. She knew that room, she was sure of it, but she found out her memory was still asleep. She raised her head to find the source of the unpleasant noise that now sounded even closer.
Rainbow Dash had her head on the foot of her bed and was deep asleep, snoring loudly. She softly pushed her with her rear legs. "Five more minutes..." she said softly before snoring louder than ever. Twilight pushed her harder. She lost her balance and started falling to the floor. By instinct she automatically started flapping her wings and her front legs rocketing and crashing head first in the ceiling. "Ouch! What?" she asked now fully awake holding her head in her front legs. Twilight wondered if it was an instinctive reaction learned from sleeping on clouds. Did she ever fall off one while in a vivid dream?
Twilight couldn't hold her laugh. "You're snoring, and I would like some sleep."
"Twilight! You're awake!" she said as she dived and hugged her.
Twilight tried to push the cyan mare away. "Rainbow! What's wrong with you? Can't... breath!" She finally managed to get free by pushing Dash with her four legs. "And why are you on my bed in the first place?"
The door of the room opened to let doctor Stable in. "Would you mind keeping it quiet? It's the middle of the night and it is a hospital." He turned on the lights. "Ah! Twilight, happy to see you're finally awake."
"Finally?" she asked. Rainbow Dash was staring at her with a huge grin, which only served at making her feel more awkward. She tried to ignore her.
The doctor took the clipboard at the feet of her bed with his magic, wrote a note and put it back in place. "Yes. You got the longest magic exhaustion induced coma I heard of. You've been out for over three days." He moved around the bed to get a better look at her. "It took our magic specialist almost twelve hours to stabilize your magic levels. To your credit, she said she never used that much magic only to bring someone back a bare minimum. I think you got yourself a fan." He took a deep breath. "Do you feel rested enough for a few questions?" he asked.
Three days? That... That wasn't a dream! Did it worked?
"I guess." she simply replied.
"Good." the doctor exited the room without looking back. A few moments later she heard galloping in the corridor and soon enough four mares rushed in the room; Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and behind them, Fluttershy. Following them all, the doctor Stable entered the room again. To Twilight's surprise, they didn't bombard her with questions.
"Darling, don't ever do that again!"
"Good to see you kicking, sugarcube!"
"Woohoo! We will do a super-duper-huger party!"
"Happy you're alright Twilight."
"They waited in the hospital for the last three days." The doctor stood clear of the circle of friends. "Now, if it's not too much asking, what did you do all? It's the first time I get seven cases of magic exhaustion at once. I also checked the medical record; it's the first time ever earth ponies and pegasi also get that kind of symptoms."
Twilight tried to remember, but her memories abruptly stopped at a particular event. "Maybe you can tell us what happened in the last three days?" she asked back.
The doctor looked slightly annoying. "Fair I guess. At around eight in the afternoon, three days ago, you and that human... Mark? 'Appeared', I guess is the best word..." he sighed. "At the entrance of the hospital. Nopony know how you got there and nopony saw you come in. While we were treating you in emergency, your five friends right here also... 'appeared' one at a time in our hall with the same symptoms, you were all passed out from magical exhaustion. However they all recovered pretty fast, unlike you."
He moved closer and pointed at her face. "I will be blunt, no magic for you for a few weeks. At least! I never saw magical burns like that before. Your horn will need time to recover." For the first time Twilight noticed her horn was wrapped in a white bandage. "Now, that was from my point of view... I would like to know your, Twilight. Your friends already told me they didn't really know what occurred, aside that they helped you using the elements of harmony?"
Twilight went deep in her thought, carefully trying to choose her words.
How do you explain something like that?
"You were on the Moon, no?" asked Pinkie with wide eyes and a huge smile.
"How... how do you...?" replied Twilight. How Pinkie could know that? She knew the pink pony had some special power, like predicting generic future events, but could she read minds?
Rainbow Dash flew over her bed. "Wow! It's true? That's so awesome!" she said doing a looping on herself.
"But... How do you know?" she managed to ask. The six other ponies looked at each other. The doctor went to the window beside her bed and pulled the curtains. Low in the sky, the Moon was slowly moving across the sky. Twilight knew it by heart; she looked at it so often with her telescope. She had map and charts of its surface.
"Oh... wow..." was all she could say. The upper right quarter of the Moon was almost black, burned off, like if a huge explosion took place on its surface. She had a very hard time to get her eyes off it.
Did I? Did I really? Oh no! Princess Luna will be mad! What did I do to her moon?!
With a lot of efforts, she managed to get her eyes off the celestial object.
"I didn't see it as I was working inside the clinic, but from what I heard witnesses from all over Equestria reported a very bright light on the Moon's surface." explained the doctor.
She was about to explain them what happened when suddenly her mind spotted something missing. "Huh, doctor? Where's Mark?"
The five mares beside her decided all at once to look elsewhere, only the doctor managed to keep his sight on her. "Twilight... I'm sorry..."
"Don't tell me he is..." she said getting a hoof to in front of her mouth.
Mark woke up. One moment there was only darkness, and the moment after his eyes were open and his mind was working. He didn't even remember opening his eyes. It was as if something had turned the switch of his mind on. He only saw white wherever his eyes looked. He thought he was blind until he put his right hand in front of his eyes.
He stared at his right hand. The last thing he remembered was the Moon, his charred right arm and Earth in the sky. His hand was spotless, even an old scar on the back of his hand was nowhere to be seen. Looking at his wrist, he noticed the arm of his space suit, it was perfect like the day he received it. And yet he remembered ripping both arms of his suit to hold his broken leg in place.
He sat down and looked around. Even if he felt like he was sitting on a floor, he couldn't see any. Everywhere he looked was of pure white with no details whatsoever. He examined himself to find he and his suit was in perfect shape. But if he thought the past six months was a dream, the shoes he was wearing quickly reminded him the truth. His dark blue shoes were shining the same way the day Rarity gave him them.
He stood up, surprised how effortless it was. He didn't remember feeling that good before. He kept trying to look around, trying to see any difference in the endless white background. He kneeled and tried to touch the floor, but while his fingers were stopped by something, he didn't feel anything.
"Welcome."
He stood back up and looked behind him. The voice came from all around him. After doing a full turn on himself, he decided to look up. Above him, a bright yellow sphere the size of a bowling ball was slowly going down toward him. It stopped a few meters in front of him at eye level.
"Huh... Hi?" he replied.
The sphere slowly changed shape, elonging itself toward the 'floor'. Within a few seconds, the sphere was in the shape of a humanoid, but its color didn't change. Details slowly appeared on its surface, like if someone was sculpting it in front of his eyes. Finally, stood in front of him a slim and short female, still in gold color, about a head shorter than him. Her eyes appeared to glow.
"Am... am I dead?" he asked.
"No." This time he knew the voice came from the figure, but he didn't see her lips moving.
"Am I... dying?" he asked once more.
"Yes."
He took a deep breath, but somehow breathing didn't feel the same, like if the air inside him wouldn't do enter his body. While staring at the woman, he stopped breathing; quickly finding out that it didn't change anything. He counted up to thirty and yet his body never asked him to take a breath.
"Who are you?"
He didn't feel threaten in any way by the golden figure, but he wasn't at ease with the new environment. It felt too strange, too different to not put him on the defensive.
"I'm the living component of the TARDIS." the figure replied without hesitation. Her voice had absolutely not inflection, like if she was stating fact without an ounce of emotion. He couldn't see her breathing or moving at all. He did a few step around, to find out she was always facing him, even if he didn't see her moving. He did a step back and he wasn't surprised to find that she appeared at the same distance as before.
He started to think about the situation. He knew the Doctor's ship was alive in some kind of parallel plan of existence, not that he really understood what it meant. He wasn't sure what to ask her, but he felt she wasn't about to hide him anything.
"Why... am I here?" he asked tentatively.
"I'm giving you a chance to be saved." she replied.
"From?"
"Death."
He sighed, it wasn't going anywhere. She wasn't hiding anything, but she wasn't making it any easier. He looked down at his suit once more. "It's not my real body, isn't it?"
"Correct, it's your mind, or what human call a soul." she answered.
He pondered her words for a few moments. "If... I... What's happening to my physical body?"
She didn't answer, instead on her left an image appeared out of nowhere. It was as if someone had cut a slice of another reality. Mark could see it was a white room with a hospital bed in the middle. As he watched, Twilight entered the room supported by Applejack.
Twilight passed the door of the small intensive care room of Ponyville's clinic. Her right leg was over Applejack's back as she supported her, she was feeling too weak to walk alone right now.
It's good to have strong friends.
She looked at the single bed in the middle of the room. The doctor Stable told her Mark wasn't dead, but it was obvious by the way he said it that something was wrong. On the bed, Mark was in bad shape. Tubes were coming out of his nose and his left arm. They ripped off the top of his suit for good reasons, the right half of his chest, his whole right arm and a part of his face were wrapped in bandages.
Stable walked in the room and placed himself beside Twilight. "How is he doctor?"
He sighed. "I'm not sure." Seeing the look on Twilight's face, he continued. "I'm not sure if we can save his right leg... arm? He also got severe burns on his chest and face." He put an annoyed face. "All that shouldn't be a problem, even with his own magic exhaustion. But all the healing spells we tried had no effect what so ever." He pointed at the bed. "Something is disrupting all our attempts."
"But even without outside healing, he should be able to recover?" she asked back.
He took a deep breath. "Normally yes, but whatever is preventing us from healing him is also killing him. I could show you the results of the tests we did, but to sum up, his cellular structure is slow breaking down." He looked at Twilight. "He is dying, and there's nothing I could do about it."
"Don't say that! There's always a way!" she snapped back.
He looked at his hooves. "Maybe, but if there is, it's outside our knowledge. I've sent the results to specialists all around Equestria and they never saw anything like it." While leaving the room, he looked back. "I'm sorry. He has a week, maybe two." He closed the door behind himself, leaving the six mares in the room.
Applejack helped her sit beside the bed. "Now sugarcube, would you mind telling us the whole story?"
She looked at her five friends, which were deeply staring back.
"So, that's it? I'm gonna die?" Mark snapped at the TARDIS.
"It is a possibility." she answered, as enigmatic as ever.
Mark felt angry at the golden woman. "Can't you see the future? You already know if I die or not!" he shouted. She turned to directly face him, for the first time he felt she was looking at him instead of pass him.
"I can see potential future, it is true. But I can't tell which one will happen. You might die or you might live. The future is never set. Each individual has the ability to change it."
His anger faded away as his mind was trying to understand what she said. He lowered his shoulder as he gave up trying to make sense of it. "I don't understand."
"The quantum structure that makes one's mind works beyond the constraint of time. Traveling to the future is visiting a potential timeline. At any moment, one can decide to change his actions, creating a totally new one."
He frowned. "What?"
A second image appeared to her right, Mark automatically recognized the Doctor. The image displayed what appeared to be a bad recording from an old camera. "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint; it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... timey wimey... stuff." the image explained before fading away, his words echoing in the white void.
Mark took all that and went inside trying to make the pieces fit together. He found before that while the Doctor sounded weird, he was right in his own special way. He felt that within his words, there was a lot of hidden wisdom, only he wasn't able to give them meaning he could easily understand. He shook his head. "Do you mean I need to choose to live?"
"No. You don't have that power. Your will to live will be tested, but what can change the balance is your faith in your friends." she answered without moving her lips.
He blinked while staring at the immobile statue. "My friends? What are you talking about?"
The five mares stared at her; they simply didn't know what to say. Rainbow Dash was the first one to come forward. "Wow! That's awesome. But are you sure it wasn't a dream or something?"
Twilight was expecting some kind of skepticism. Applejack bumped Rainbow Dash on her side. "What Rainbow is trying to say, it's a lot to accept at once... And you did stay in coma for three days."
"I didn't dream that!" she snapped back.
"I sometime have very weird dream too, you know? I often think they are real too!" said Pinkie Pie with a huge smile.
Twilight felt tired, she didn't have the energy to fight back incredulity generated by her story. She couldn't blame them; time and time travel, the moon, monster that eats magic? If she didn't experience it herself, she wouldn't have believed. Or would she? After all they lived and fighted against, after Discord, she could accept almost anything. She remembered how she reacted on the TARDIS after Mark's explanation; she actually did far worse than her friends.
"I can vouch for Twilight story." said a voice coming from an empty corner of the room.
Rainbow Dash instantly snapped in defensive position between the corner and her friends. "Who's there? Show yourself?"
The air flickered a few second to reveal the Doctor, standing against the wall in his blue suit. "Doctor! How long have you been here?" asked Twilight as she kept the cyan mare back.
"Since I brought you all to the hospital after you passed out." he explained while crossing his arms.
That explains how we all got in here. But I would really like to know how he got to find Rainbow Dash as she was probably on some clouds...
Something pink jumped in front of her. "Oh! Oh! A new pony! Or something else. You need a welcome party!" said Pinkie Pie as excited as ever.
The Doctor laughed. "No need Pinkie, you already gave me one when I first came in Ponyville."
"I did?"
"Yeah, I just didn't look like that." explained the Doctor.
"Oh. Okey-dokey!"
"So you're a spy!" shouted Rainbow Dash just before Applejack put a hoof in her mouth.
"This will wait for another time spy-hunter." She nodded at the timelord. "Sorry for that."
Twilight pushed Rainbow Dash aside. "Doctor! Do you know what's happening to Mark?" she said pointing at the bed.
He didn't answer; instead he went to the window and closed the blinds. Turning around he noticed the light switch was behind Rainbow Dash. "Could someone close the lights?" he asked. Fluttershy who were standing in the back of the mares turned around and flipped it.
Twilight was about to ask why the Doctor wanted the room to be dark when she noticed a glow coming from the bed. She came closer to inspect it and found that Mark's body was slowly releasing a kind of golden vapor. "What's that?"
"When he helped you, his body wasn't ready for that. You probably know more than any other that generating magic is like a muscle, your body got to be trained first." he explained as the six mares stared at him. "At some point, his body stopped converting the time stream into magic, and it flooded his body." He crossed his arm. "Time is separated from the physical world for a good reason; when it come in contact with matter, they both slowly disintegrate each other. Unless, of course, if you can transform it into magic right away." He moved his hands above Mark, pushing the golden vapor around. "This glow is the visible part of the decay of matter directly touched by time."
Applejack shook her head. "Can someone translate that?"
"I will explain it later Applejack. Right now I need to think." said Twilight. "If what you say is true, I can drain it and convert it into magic?" she said with sparkles in her eyes.
The Doctor looked at Mark. "Yes, you can drain it, but you will kill him at the same time." He looked back at Twilight. "His atomic structure is unstable, if you remove the time flowing in his body, he will age a million years in a fraction of a second."
Her eyes widen at what it would be if she did it. "There's no way to stabilize it?"
He sighed. "I'm sorry. Rare are those who touched time itself and survived to talk about it."
She felt tears coming to her eyes. She kept thinking about what the Doctor just explained and what she said to Stable.
There must be a way!
She tried to remember everything she learned in the past; something, anything she could use as knowledge to save him. She knew it; knowledge was the key to everything. How many time she saved the day by knowing what others didn't? The answer was there, close to her reach.
While trying to think, her memory started to flow in. She tried to push them aside; she needed a clear mind to tackle that puzzle. She remembered the month Mark passed with her in her house. How she brought him unconscious from the forest. His face when he saw Derpy fly. How she almost burned him with a spell. How happy he looked with his new shoes...
Wait! That's it!
"But he touched the... the time before and he was stable! Sure he got burned, but he survived it!" she almost screamed.
At first the Doctor didn't react, his ears heard what she said, but his brain was still trying to analyze it. He was expecting grief and to help comfort the mare. "What?" he simply said, unsure of what she meant.
"The first time he was in this hospital, I casted a spell on him to show him his magic source." she said pointing at Mark. "He got burned badly, but he survived it!" she said, trying to pass her point that he did survived a contact with time before. "Actually, I'm pretty sure it's about that time his eyes turned yellow... But I'm not sure of that." she finished, digging back in her memory.
The Doctor stood there silent, staring at the purple unicorn. "Twilight! You're a genius!" he exclaimed himself while snapping his fingers. He ran toward the door he was about to cross it when he turned around. "I will be back soon. Twilight, you get as much rest as you can. I will need your help to save him when I return." On that, he ran off the corridors, oblivious that his perception filter was offline.
They heard a scream of terror and noise of something hitting the floor. "Sorry! Sorry! I'm just passing by!" apologized the Doctor while running away.
"Twilight, dear, where did you find such weird... creature?" asked Rarity. "But I have to say, the cut of his clothes are of impressive quality!"
"I don't know." she replied while staring at the door. She didn't know what to think of what happened, but she felt there was hope.
"Friends?" asked Mark while looking at the TARDIS. He didn't remember anybody who he could call a friend before. He always felt on his own. He got to the NASA and in space by his own work, his own efforts. He knew the six ponies, but he only lived a month with Twilight. In his mind, a friend was something you get by putting years of effort in building a relationship. He never felt the need to invest himself that much into someone else. "I don't think I have any. People bails out when things get too hard."
"From your point of view, a friend is someone you know well and support you in time of need." she said. "From my point of view, it is when a magical connection is established between two individuals."
He blinked a few time. "That doesn't make any sense." He shook his head. "How can you call someone a friend if you don't even invest years in learning who they are?"
"Did you feel close to Twilight?" she asked.
Mark was stunned by her first question. "I... I don't know." The conversation was moving toward grounds he never felt at ease talking about. "I guess... I guess we are a bit alike." He closed his eyes, on the Moon he put himself at risk for others he never meet before. When he joined her effort with his own magic, he felt the presence of the six mares, but Twilight was like a bright light in his mind.
Back then, he pushed that feeling aside, thinking it was a side effect of that magical connection. But if the TARDIS was right, this connection existed way before that moment. They helped him while never asking anything in return. Sure, he did a pretty great sacrifice on the Moon, but he never felt he needed to repay them and he never took that into account while making his decision. He wished to repay them for their kindness, but he knew they would never accept it if he was thinking of it as clearing a debt.
"Maybe you're right. I don't know. I need to think more about it." he said.
"You will have lot of time to do so." she said while her form was fading away.
"Wait!" he said moving forward. "Where are you going?"
"Nowhere, but the Doctor needs me now."
Mark was left alone in the big white void, pondering on what he just learned.
The Doctor stepped off the TARDIS in the middle of the night. If his calculations were right, it was two nights after Twilight made her first visit to the hospital. He checked that the perception filter was online. He didn't want to scare the nurses again. To everypony, he appeared to be that brown colt with an hourglass on his flanks. The filter that could keep him invisible never worked well with moving objects, so he was better in his pony form.
His plan was simple, get in the hospital unnoticed, get some quantum reading hoping they would be enough and get out the same way. He walked toward the hospital and stopped behind a bush, just in time as a light could be seen moving around the building. A unicorn guard walked up to the front door, his horn glowing to light his path. It stopped glowing as he stepped inside the clinic.
The Doctor followed him and entered the building. He was about to turn a corner in the first corridor when he heard a discussion between the doctor Stable and a white mare, both standing behind the reception desk. "I don't care what he is! You will do your job as if he was any other pony." The Doctor stopped to listen.
He heard sobbing. "I... I can't Doctor. It's just too weird!" replied the mare.
"I'm not asking you to chat with him and become the best friends, only to bring him meals twice a day. As long as he is in this building, he is our responsibility." Stable explained.
"But... but why did we accept it... him... in the first place?"
Stable sighed loudly. "Alright, but what I'm about to show you must stay confidential. From everypony, Twilight Sparkle included!"
The Doctor guessed she nodded because she asked "What... What is that?"
"A communication from the Princess Celestia." he explained. The Doctor moved around, trying to get a view on the two ponies. He could only see that Stable was levitating a scroll with his magic. "A courier came in a few hours before Twilight brought the human here. She explicitly requested that we take care of him, and that we don't tell anypony about it. If you want to go explain to her that you didn't follow her orders, it's your choice!"
The Doctor could see the nurse reading the scroll with her eyes wide open. "How... How did she know he would come here?"
"How the hay should I know! She's the Princess, we probably don't understand a third of what she does!" he spitted back. "So do you job! You can always bring his meals when he is asleep, I don't care. And remember, not a word about that letter!"
The Doctor started to move again. He was surprised by what he just heard. It was obvious Twilight couldn't have warned Celestia that quickly and requested for medical care. But why Celestia wished it to stay secret? He never meets the Princess before, but after his problems with a specific Queen, he had sworn to himself to never get involved with the royalty again.
At the third room he looked inside, he finally found out Mark. He was deep asleep. The Doctor quickly entered the room and closed silently the door behind him. He didn't know how long he would need to scan him to find what he was searching for.
He took his sonic screwdriver in his mouth and aimed it at the sleeping form. With his teeth he pushed a few buttons and the tip glowed blue as the device started searching for a compatible match. Mark turned around in his sleep, making the Doctor jump in surprise.
"I'm sure I saw you before! You... you were in my room at the hospital one night!" the Doctor remembered Mark telling him that.
Just as the screwdrivers biped, claiming to have found a positive stable signature, Mark moved again, trying to open his eyes. The Doctor froze; messing up with the past was never a good idea. He noticed Mark had closed his eyes again, and he took the opportunity to leave the room on the tip of his hooves. As he closed the door behind himself, he noticed Mark waking up and sitting on his bed, looking around the room.
He was right! He did see me!
Coming out of the hospital proved far easier than coming in. Ten minutes later, he was back in the TARDIS, transferring the data he collected to the computer of his ship. He was checking the data passing in his front of his eyes when he noticed something different. He quickly stopped the flow of information displayed and scrolled back.
Twilight! That pony... she knew!
In front of his eyes was glowing the graphic of a complex quantum signature, but different from all the others the screen had shown before.
How is it even possible? The degeneration from contact with the time stream is obvious, but it is not decaying any further!
By instinct, he tapped a few commands on his console, changing the display. He asked the computer to scan for any trace of magic or other unusual radiations. To his surprise, the computer took a long moment before complying with his demands. Finally, the screen changed back to the image of the quantum signature, but over it laid a complex webbing of purple lines. At last, some words showed up besides the purple marking and a line linked the two.
Does she even know she saved his life that day? Did she even do it consciously?
He put his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling, a smile slowly expending on his face. He laughed for a few seconds before slapping his thigh with his right hand.
Her friends forced Twilight back to her room, convincing her that she would be of no help if she continued to fall asleep every two minutes. She protested, claiming to be alright, but almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, she felt in a dreamless sleep.
Six hours later, she woke up to find Spike reading a book beside her bed. "Good morning Spike."
"Morning Twilight! Or afternoon." he closed the book and put it on the bedside. "Are you hungry?"
"You have no idea!" He stood up and walked off the room. He returned a few minutes later with a tray of food which he put in front of her. "Any news?"
He shook his head while sitting back on his chair. "Nope."
Between two bites, she asked "Did you send a letter to the Princess to tell her what happened?"
"Sure did, the day you were found unconscious." he replied. "And six hours ago with your story."
"And?"
"And what?" he asked unsure.
"What did she reply?" she said, starting to be annoyed.
The little dragon scratched his head with his right claw. "She wished you to get well soon. And..."
"And?"
He sighed. "And that she was too busy to leave Canterlot right now." he finished.
She pondered the information for a minute. "That's weird; it's the same thing she said when Mark was living in my basement. What could be so important that she couldn't drop by for a whole month and now for three days in a row?"
"I don't know Twilight." said the dragon, unaware that her question wasn't asking for an answer.
A brown colt entered the room, diffusing the tense situation without knowing it. Seeing Twilight awake and eating brought a smile to his face. "You look better Twilight!"
Before she could answer, Spike jumped up in front of the intruder and blocked his path. "And who would you be?" he asked trying to look as menacing as possible.
"Spike!" Twilight shouted.
The colt started to laugh; he reached something on his chest with his right hoof. The air flickered a few second to reveal the Doctor in his blue suit. "You got quite a guard Twilight." he said with a smile.
"What are you?" asked a frighten Spike.
"Doctor, this is Spike. Spike, this is the Doctor. You know, from the story you wrote to the Princess?" she explained.
Spike turned around and stared at Twilight. "What? You mean it was all true?" The Doctor and Twilight nodded. "Wow, so you really went on the Moon! That's kind of awesome."
She ignored the excited dragon and focused on the Doctor. "Did you find anything Doctor?"
He nodded once more taking his screwdriver from his suit's inner pocket. "You were right. He did enter in contact with the time stream six months ago. But he should have died back then." He set his tool on some specific setting and pointed at Twilight. Between them appeared a complex blue image, floating in midair. "This is a stable signature. As you can see, it's quite orderly and doesn't move much."
Both Spike and Twilight stared at the image with wide eyes. The Doctor pressed a button and the image changed. "This is the same signature once it came in contact with the time." The image switched to the same complex image, but instead of being orderly and moving in slow motion, it was vibrating and pulsing wildly in complete chaos.
"Mark should have died six months ago. But look what I found out." he said while changing the setting of his device. The same chaotic image stopped moving and was trapped in purple webbing. "Those lines are one of your spell Twilight. The magic signature matches perfectly your." he explained. He shut down his screwdriver and crossed his arms. "This spell kept him stables for long enough for his body to heal himself and convert the remaining trace of time stream into magic."
"So I can redo it!" she exclaimed herself.
The Doctor swallowed. "Yes and no." he put his tool back in his suit. "He's been exposed for too long for your spell to be effective alone. And his body isn't in shape to transform anything to magic right now."
"Come on Doctor! You surely have a plan!" she shouted while hitting her food tray with her right hoof.
He looked around. "I do. But it's a long shot."
"Spit it Doctor!"
"Sadly, you're the only one who can do it." he put his hands in his pants' pockets. "You drain the time off his body and at the same time cast that spell to keep his structure stable. That alone won't be enough, he is too far gone. However, while you do it, my screwdriver will rewrite his quantum signature to the same reading I took six months ago." He took a deep breath. "But even then, I can't guaranty that it will work. And on top, I'm worried that you might not be in shape to do it. It will take days to drain off his body and rewrite his signature." He looked at the floor. "And even if you succeed, he might not be the same anymore. Direct contacts with time tend to disrupt the mind too."
Twilight took a last bite off an apple on her tray and pushed it aside. She jumped off her bed. "What are we waiting for then?"
Spike walked in front of her. "Twilight! You need to rest!"
Twilight looked angrily at the little dragon. "Listen very well Spike; you're alive because of what Mark did. I will accept no argument regarding this. Understood?"
Spike stepped aside, he never saw Twilight that angry before. "I understand."
She walked off the room without looking back.
Her horn didn't look in good shape to begin with, but now with the Doctor's screwdriver taped on top of it, it looked somewhat ridiculous. But right now she didn't care much as only the Doctor and Spike were beside her.
"I know I repeat myself, but you must cast the two spells at the same time. If you drain without stabilizing, his cells will age almost instantly. If you stabilize without draining, the time stream remaining in his body will disrupt your spell." the Doctor explained while finishing the settings on his device.
"I know Doctor. It's not the first time I do multiple spell cast."
"Yeah! You should have seen her when she controlled that ursa minor. She casted like four or five at the same time!" said Spike.
The Doctor looked at the small dragon. "I'm not saying she can't do it, only that it won't be easy. It might take days of casting to go over his whole body." He turned back to Twilight. "The screwdriver is on autopilot. It will do quantum rewriting as soon as it detect your spells."
"Alright." she moved to the left side of the bed and put Mark's arm in front of her. "If you don't mind?" she asked looking at the two who were staring at her.
"Come on Spike, let's go. She will need all the focus she can get." the Doctor said while pushing the dragon toward the door.
"But... but..." Spike tried to counter.
"Come with me, I will show you something funny." the Doctor said mysteriously. He closed the door behind him.
Twilight closed her eyes, trying to gather all the concentration she could. She jumped when she heard screaming from the corridor and Spike laughing hard. She rolled her eyes and went back to her spells.
Won't be easy with those two around.
"That's awesome!" said Mark while looking at the floating image of the hospital room. "She will do it!"
"Do you truly want to live?" the TARDIS asked him.
Mark stared at her unsure how to take that question. At first, she only answered his questions, but lately, she started to ask many surprising one. He started to understand that the ship was old, very old and in her own special way, very wise. "On the Moon, I gave it all. Back then, I think I was ready to die."
She stared at him, waiting for him to finish his thoughts. With time, he found out she was also very patient. "But the truth is, I felt like I started to live... Really live, only six months ago." he looked down at his hands. "Dying for peace, for survival, for honor, for a cause... That's all meaningless. I did it because I chose to do it, because I couldn't accept them being hurt."
He sighed loudly. "That's so stupid, now that I'm dying; I want to live more than ever. People who say the true heroes are the young people giving their life for a noble cause, are the worst evil. A young one dying is a mountain of potential wasted." he stared at the floating image. "So much to do, so much to learn, so much to see." He turned around and stared directly at her eyes. "I truly want to live." he said with a smile.
She stared back for a few moments. "You're like the Doctor in many aspects."
He frowned. "I will take that as a compliment."
She lost track of the time, sleeping only when she needed to, eating only when her body forced her to do it. Her friends came out after the other trying to force her to rest more. She knew of the time only when Spike told her it was the fourth day since she started.
Her horn and her head hurt more than they ever did, but she didn't care. The doctor Stable tried once to explain that if she pushed too hard, she could lose her magic ability permanently. But that only pushed her to sleep a few more hours.
She had two third of his body done when a monitor started to bip beside the bed.
Mark felt on the white floor, simply unable to stand. He felt weird, like if he was fading away. His arms were transparent, and he had a hard time to think straight. "What's going on?" he asked looking up at the TARDIS.
"You're going in cardiac arrest." she simply answered looking at the image of his body.
"I thought you removed my mind from my body!" he shouted back.
She stared at him. "Yes, but one cannot live without the other."
He looked at his body. "No! I want to live!" he screamed as hard as he could.
Twilight was staring at the heart monitor, she had no medical knowledge, but she knew exactly what it meant. She stayed stunned a few moments, passing in her mind all the knowledge she had about biology. She knew enough about a pony to help one in distress, but she had no idea what to do with him.
She could feel the adrenaline rushing in her veins. The doctor Stable rushed in the room, but he only stood there, unsure of what to do. She stared at him; she needed to do something, anything. "No." she whispered.
"No!" she screamed. Using both hooves, she smashed them on his chest. To her surprise, the heart monitor stopped its constant noise and started back to bip silently. She felt on the floor, tears in her eyes. She was tired.
Stable trotted to the right side of Mark and checked his chest and his breathing. "He don't have much longer, I'm afraid. One day... maybe. At most." he said looking at Twilight. Seeing she wasn't listening to him, he left the room.
She stood back up and wiped her tears.
I can do it!
Mark was relieved to see his heart was beating one more, but he heard what Stable said. "She won't make it. She needs at least two more days." he said closing his eyes, sitting on the floor.
"Do you have faith in your friends?" the TARDIS asked him.
He took a deep breath; he knew shouting at her wouldn't do any good, even if he wanted to do it. He opened his eyes and looked at her. "I don't understand what that has to do." He remembered she already talked about faith and friends before.
"Your body is resisting her spells." she explained.
"What? What are you talking about?" he asked slowly standing up. He looked at his body, nothing could show that it was the case, but he decided to simply trust her.
She stared at him. "Your mind is set to live, but live on your own. This prevents your body from fully accepting external help."
He shook his head. "I'm not sure I see the difference. Wouldn't I die if I 'let go'?"
"No. You need to fight, but fight with her."
He sat down and closed his eyes. "Why say that now?" seeing she wasn't answering, he sighed. "Never mind, you told me about that days ago."
He sought inside himself, and found that spark of magic that was born from friendship. At first he wanted to simply ignore it, he was used to live on his own. But right now, he felt he couldn't ignore it anymore. He knew he had another choice to make.
To give up your life to someone else, not as a sacrifice, but as a gift; is there anything harder to do?
A sacrifice sounded so heroic, somehow easy, but a gift sounded so personal. That friendship was born independently of his choices, but making it grow asked of him to give part of himself.
He closed his eyes. He dived in.
He slowly opened his right eye and stared at the white ceiling. His left eye wasn't responding. His body felt terrible, like if he was hit by some lightning before being thrown around by a tornado. He didn't feel anything from his right shoulder. He couldn't move his right arm or hand. He felt like he had a broken rib or two.
He tried to look around, but the bandages on his face kept him in place. Breathing was hard and the light hurt his eye. His mouth and noise were dry. He heard someone sleeping soundly near him.
He looked down and saw Twilight sleeping, her front legs on the bed and her head resting on them. Her horn looked terrible while still wrapped with the Doctor's screwdriver. He put his left hand on her head.
"Thanks Twilight."
He closed his eye and felt back in sleep. His body hurt more than it ever did, but his mind was feeling better than ever.
It slowly descended in the atmosphere of the blue planet, seeking a refuge. It used the planet as a shield against the ray of the nearest star that was now hurting it as its protective shell was gone. It needed a place to regain strength, to heal in order to be able to launch once against in the cosmos. It flew around the planet, searching.
It finally found a place to rest; a place full of food. Coming near it, it found a breach, a fissure in its integrity. It was small, but with its diminutive size, it managed to slip in. Something was already there and without knowing it, they got stuck to each other.
For an entity that never saw, never knew, never felt, the gift of sentience was a surprising one. Its previous life was over, and it was reborn as a new entity with a particular view on the world.
Mark woke up in the middle of the night. He had no idea how many days had passed since his healing. His body felt numb, as if he ran a marathon, but surprisingly the pain was mostly gone. However his right arm and hand refused to move. Removing the bed sheets using his left hand he was surprise to find out that they didn't discard his whole suit but cut off the upper part.
He put his feet on the floor and carefully stood up. His body didn't move for at least the last eight days and standing up wasn't so easy. After a few tries and a few minutes of losing his balance, he slowly walked to the windows. Opening the blind, he looked outside. The town was peaceful and from the look of it, it was almost the morning. The Moon caught his eyes. He stared at it a few minutes before letting out a silent. "Wow."
"Yeah, you sure did quite a mess up there." said a voice behind him.
Mark turned around. "Doctor? I'm surprised you're still around."
The Doctor was standing beside the bed as if he always been there. "What make you say that?"
Mark leaned against the wall, his legs were getting tired quickly. "You sound like the type of guy who doesn’t stand long in one place." he said with a smile.
"Something makes me think it's not over. Beside, I wanted to check something about you." he explained.
"Oh?"
The Doctor crossed his arms. "What you experienced tends to have some nasty side effect."
He remembered what the TARDIS told him. "You mean the disruption of my mind quantum pattern?" he said while pointing his head with his left hand.
The Doctor looked surprised. "What? How do you know?"
"Your ship... she worries a lot about you. You used to talk to her more often." he said enigmatic.
"What?" The Doctor blinked a few time.
He laughed. "I'm surprised how much I enjoy knowing something you don't. You probably feel like that quite often."
The Doctor shook his head. "What?"
"Alright! Twilight saved my body. Your ship saved my mind." he explained.
The Doctor frowned. "Huh... I... what?"
He rolled his eyes. "Come on Doc. I don't know how, but your ship pulled my mind's quantum pattern off my body and... 'stored' it in the realm it lives in. It prevented it from being messed up like my body." Seeing the Doctor was staring at him in disbelief, he continued "How did you say it... 'People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint; it's more like a... big ball of wibbly wobbly... timey wimey... stuff." he frowned. "A ball of wibbly wobbly... Seriously Doc?"
The Doctor laughed. "Actually, the Timelord's shortest paper about how time works is just a bit short of a thousand pages long. And from my experience, 'wibbly wobbly timey wimey' pretty much sums it all."
"Fine, I won't argue with you on that one." he took a deep breath. "Doc, how's Twilight?"
A smile cracked up on the Doctor's face. "She's doing pretty well, considering she got a second magic exhaustion in just over a single week. The doctor Stable is pushing hard to be able to write a paper about all that; earth ponies and pegasi being able to be exhausted magically and the effects of multiple magic exhaustions. I think he got topics for years of medical writing." He looked at the ceiling. "Her horn is in bad shape, but she won't lose it or lose her magical ability. She's an athlete in that field. Well, as long as she doesn't have to fight another big bad monster in the next month."
"How long it has been?"
"Since she finished with you? Almost two days."
Mark walked back to his bed. "I think I'm going to rest a bit." While he sat on the bed, he looked at the Doctor "If you see Twilight and..." He stopped of that word that drastically changed of meaning lately. "and my friends, would you mind telling them I would like to talk to them?"
"Sure." The Doctor turned around and started to leave. "Good night."
"Going toward another adventure Doc?"
He shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. I can feel my TARDIS wouldn't let me leave right now. She’s stubborn like that." On that, he left the room.
"Good morning." Mark said with his eyes close. The noise of somepony putting a food tray on his bedside woke him up. Hearing no reply, he opened his eyes. A white pony nurse was staring at him, half surprised half scared. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
"I... I..." she only managed to say while slowly walking backward toward the door.
His shoulders dropped, knowing very well he should be used to that reaction by now. "I passed enough time in this hospital for you to get used to my person. Thanks for the food." he said while taking the food tray and putting it over his legs.
"Is it true?" she asked, while being almost outside of the room.
Mark raised his head to look at her. "What is?"
"They say... they say you saved us..."
He raised his eyebrows. "Minute butterfly! I helped, but Twilight did the majority of the work." He looked at his motionless right hand. "And because I was reckless, I almost died and she got hurt while saving me."
"But... they said they will have to amputate your foreleg." Mark noticed that while saying that, she moved a bit in the room. He knew it would come to this, he didn't feel anything from his right arm and he understood quickly that one day they would need to remove it. It wasn't a happy feeling, but he knew it would put his life at risk to stay like that for too long.
He smiled. "I guess that's the price to pay for using magic while not being a unicorn. But I don't regret it, this is my planet too..." He looked at the window. "Or used to be. I would hate seeing it destroyed."
She nodded.
"If you don't mind, what's Twilight's room?" he asked while removing the cover of the tray. It smelled delicious, but right now he didn't know what he would give for some bacon.
"Room one o four." she said while leaving. She stopped and looked back. "And... Thanks."
"If you want to thanks me, get over your fear of me. I know it's silly and I know it shouldn't, but it hurts every time I see fear in some ponies' eyes." He said with a large smile.
"I'll... I'll try." she said while closing the door.
After eating, he stood up and did some stretching. He found out his right arm was getting in the way, flapping around without any control. Using some leftover bandages, he wrapped it against his chest. He was right handed, so everything asking for some precision using his left hand wasn't easy.
His body was screaming for some exercise and he did his best to move as much as possible inside the small room. However, there's a limit to what someone could do inside a small cube in which a bed take most of the space. Looking outside, he saw the day was going to be bright and sunny.
Enough with that. I've been in a room everyday I've been in Ponyville. If I'm to stay in this world, I better know the place.
He went to the bathroom and checked himself in the mirror. They removed the bandages of his face, but the right half was still recovering from severe burns. He hadn't shaved in nearly two weeks and it was showing. He didn't have a shirt, but the bandages on his chest covered him enough.
He exited the hospital without meeting anypony, it was still pretty early in the morning, the sun barely visible above the far mountain line. He quickly warmed up and started jogging slowly toward the village. He was going rather slowly because he wasn't sure his legs could keep up after a week in bed. Also his wrapped arm made his balance a bit harder than usual and the last thing he wanted was to fall.
He found out Ponyville was much smaller than he expected, small houses spread over without much structure. He had a quick view of it when he ran to Sweet Apple Acres in what felt like years ago.
It hasn't been two weeks. Feel like it was a different time... Maybe because it was!
He greeted with his left hands the few ponies that he came across. He got a few salute back but mostly some staring. He didn't mind much, with time they would get use to him, like he is getting used to them.
As his legs got used to the pace, he slowly accelerate.
They must think I'm terribly slow.
As the Sun started to warm his skin, he felt more alive than he has been in years. He wasn't sure what tomorrow would bring, but right now he didn't care. He came across the Cutie Mark Crusader, obviously going to some kind of school by the look of their bags. They cheered as he sprinted pass them.
It only took him an hour to circle the town and be back to the hospital. He was sweating and his hairs were sticking to his face. As he came close to the building, he saw a pony waiting outside.
He waved his arm. "Hey! What's up doc?" he said to the medical pony.
"Where were you?" Stable asked back.
Mark frowned, he wasn't expecting that kind of question. "Running around. I will go crazy if I stay inside. And I need the exercise." he explained while stretching his legs. "Is something wrong doc?"
"You're my responsibility and I..."
"Come on doc! I came too close to death to stay locked up. Beside, since I'm stuck here, I'm not gonna hide anymore." he cut him.
"...and I think your heart is not in shape for extensive training right now. You had a cardiac arrest a few days ago." he finished.
"Oh. Good point. Sorry." Mark apologized. "How's Twilight this morning?"
The doctor growled looking up at the sky. "She woke up just fine about an hour ago. But my magic specialist is requesting a month of vacation. Bringing Twilight's magic reserve back to her minimum again, really worn her out. I don't know what exactly she did to you, but my specialist had to redo it all over again."
Mark laughed. "Deeply sorry. You can always tell her she managed to bring back in shape a pony that has more magic potential than the princesses."
The doctor was shocked. "What are you talking about?"
Mark bit his lips. "Sorry, is it taboo or something? Don't talk against the royalty in any way?"
"No, no, nothing likes that. But why would you say Twilight has more magic than the princesses?" he asked in disbelief.
"Well, look at the Moon. She wasn't shooting at it, but off it. And yet the leftover turned a good part of it into charcoal. Considering, I'm pretty lucky I survived with only an arm burnt off." he explained while touching his bandaged arm. "Beside, I know for a fact that if she really wanted, she could vaporize this planet." He started walking toward the building's door. "Just saying, don't get on her bad side." He entered the clinic, leaving a speechless doctor outside.
He walked toward Twilight's room. On the way, he encountered nurse Redheart. She jumped back seeing him, but she didn't flee. He gave her his best smile, which she tried to reply to.
Coming in front of her door, he knocked hoping she was still awake. "Come in!" she said on the other side.
He opened the door. "Good morning sunshine!" he said while entering. She was in her bed, he horn once again in bandages. She looked tired, as if she studied a whole night.
"Mark! You're up!"
He smiled. "Yeah, you sure did quite a number on me." he came close to her bed. "You don't look that bad yourself." He pointed at her bed. "Mind if I sit?"
"Go ahead." he replied.
He sat down and stared at his feet. "I..."
Why is it so hard to say what's important?
"I know." she replied with a smile.
"I know you do." he said in a small laugh. "But I got to say it."
"Alright."
"I could thank you for the rest of my life, and it wouldn't be enough to express my gratitude." He took a deep breath. "You're a great friend Twilight." He looked at her with a large smile.
"See? Wasn't that hard?" she replied with a huge grim.
He stood up. "You probably have more experience with that friendship thing. Was it that easy with your first friend?"
She thought about it for a moment. "I guess not."
Mark's eyes drifted away while he took his jaw with his left hand, as if he was thinking very hard. "Hmm."
"What?"
"Since you can't do magic for a while, I would guess you will need some help. And you know, Spike is only one dragon." he explained with a smile.
"You're offering to help?"
He laughed. "Actually, I came to a decision..."
He was cut by the opening door and five "Twilight!" as four mares trotted in the room and one flew in. They stood in circle around the bed, staring at Twilight. Mark leaned against the wall watching the scene with a smile.
"You had us worried, honey! Don't ever do that again!" said Rarity as the four others nodded in agreement.
"Alright! Alright!" Twilight said with a grim. "I won't."
"Pinkie promise?" asked Pinkie Pie.
Mark coughed. "Don't ask her that." He put on his most serious face. "She would risk her life to save any of yours. You would hurt her by asking her to not act when she feels the need to." He smiled. "Have faith in each others."
They all stared at him. "That's deep, sugarcube." finally said Applejack, breaking an uneasy silence.
"Had time to think about it." he explained.
Pinkie Pie bounced around the bed and stopped in front of Mark and stared at him angrily. "And you mister, don't think you can break your promise!"
His eyes widen. "I'm not. I told you I would be back and that you could throw a party." He smiled and looked at Twilight. "You might even be able to do a double one to also celebrate Twilight's recovery."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "All that put aside, were you not saying something about a decision?" she questioned him.
All six mares stared at him. "I... it can wait, you're all here to see Twilight."
"Now what? You got our curiosity, so spit it out." pouted Rainbow Dash.
"Well, it's nothing complicated. I decided to stay in Equestria, maybe Ponyville. I'm sure I can help with some work around, if you want to." he explained. "I got some good mechanics, sciences and writing skills, I'm sure I can find something."
They all six stared at him intensely without replying.
Is it that surprising? Was I mistaken and they don't want me to stay around?
"Hmmm... Dear, what's going on in your pants?" finally asked Rarity pointing at his crotch.
"What?" he asked while looking down. Something in his pants' left pocket was moving and glowing. He put his hand in his pocket and quickly grabbed the metallic sphere. He had forgotten about it in the last week. As he removed his hand from his pocket, the sphere slipped from his grasped and hovered in front of him.
"It will help you when you will make a choice." He remembered. A choice, what choice? To stay here? To help?
The sphere shot bright ray of lights in his direction, bathing him in a glowing rainbow. He felt himself lift off the ground as if the gravity decided to forget about him. He wanted to scream and to run, but his body didn't answer his call. His mind calmed down all by itself, as if the sphere switched his fears off. He could see the six mares staring at him, too surprised to do anything. He felt himself slip asleep.
Not again! Come on, give me a break!
His eyes closed only for a moments. The next, he was lying on his side on the floor. His body felt weird, as if it wasn't his own. However, the first thing he noticed was the presence of feelings in his right arm.
"Well, I wasn't expecting that!" laughed a voice he knew well.
As he opened his eyes, he saw six mares staring at him with their jaws hanging low and the Doctor in background laughing his ass off. He wasn't surprised to see the Doctor, as he had a gift for showing up from nowhere. Automatically he noticed something was off, the colors and the shape appeared different, brighter and more flat.
"Not fun Doctor. They did something to my eyes! I'm seeing all weird." he pleaded.
Twilight was the first to manage to close her mouth. "Not just your eyes I'm afraid." she said.
"What?" he asked. But as he said that, he noticed his nose. It was longer and wider than before, but more importantly, it was dark blue. Instinctively, he tried to grab it, only to punch himself in the face with something hard. He looked down to what just hurt him and saw what looked to be a hoof. His eyes followed the leg to the body of what appeared to be a pony.
For the first time in his life, he really freaked out. "No! No, no, no, no, no, no... No! Why? No!" he screamed.
He was freaking out on the floor, his legs beating the air, eyes looking around in despair. He was breathing hard and looking around in fear. They all looked at him, not knowing what to say or what to do. It was Fluttershy who moved forward and hugged him. "Calm down. There..."
He felt his mind calm down on his own once again, but his heart was still beating hard and fast. After an eternity or two, he pushed her off. "Thanks. I think I'm feeling better." He looked down at what used to be his arms. He felt the panic come back, but he pushed it away too. He couldn't explain why he lost control like that. He was a grownup, and even if the events of the past six months were hard of his nerves, it couldn't justify his reaction. He was a trained astronaut, ready to face the unknown.
Is it those changes? I know horses of my time were easily scared... Does it mean I can't control myself like I used to? No! My mind is mine and I control it.
He looked up. "Doctor! What the hell was that transformation?" he shouted.
The Doctor took a deep breath. "I'm not sure, but it looked like some kind of quantum restructuration."
Mark felt hope coming up in his mind. "So you can reverse it!"
The Doctor looked away. "Well... without knowing exactly what it was and what it did? I'm afraid I can't."
"Can't you analyze the sphere? It should tell you what they did!" he asked back as he tried to sit down in his new form.
He stared at him. "I'm afraid it disintegrated as soon as it was done with you." he said shaking his head. "Beside, you're kinda cute as a unicorn."
Mark looked up and he finally noticed a small horn standing on top of his head between his silver manes. He was surprised that his hairs didn't change color.
He was about to scream insults to the Doctor but he closed his mouth hard in anger. He couldn't accept that there wasn't a solution to back to normal. He looked up once again. "Twilight! Do you know any spell that could help?"
She looked up at the ceiling, thinking hard. "Well, with magic the problem is different from the Doctor's. I could change your form without knowing what happened, but I simply don't know any spell aimed at changing somepony into a human." She sighed heavily. "And that's just the first part. I could probably change your visual aspect to a human and that kind of spell would only last a short while. For something permanent, I would need deep knowledge of human's biology and years of crafting for the spell. The only other way was if somepony already made such spell."
He closed his eyes in despair. They all stood in silence.
Somepony knocked at the door. "Come in!" shouted Twilight.
The grey pegasus Mark remembered as being his bed neighbor entered. She was wearing a blue cap and a saddlebag with a mail icon on it. She looked around, confused at the scene of six mares, a royal blue stallion sitting in a corner and a human in a blue suit she never saw before. "Huh... Maybe it's not a good time?" she asked.
"What is it Miss Hooves?" asked Rarity.
"Oh... I received order to deliver a letter to Miss Twilight Sparkle here at..." he looked at the wall clock. "Ten in the morning? Well, about now." she said with a grim.
The six mares looked at each other before staring back at the mailmare. "A letter?" asked Twilight.
"Yeah!" she answered while taking a scroll off her bags and bringing it to Twilight. She dropped it on Twilight's lap and trotted back to the door. "Have a nice day!" she claimed happily while walking away.
They all examined the scroll. "It's the royal seal." simply stated Twilight. Even Mark was surprised by the event and carefully managed to move toward the bed, as he quickly found out walking in his new shape wasn't given.
"Come on! Open it!" almost screamed Rainbow Dash.
Twilight pointed at her horn and looked at Rarity. "Would you mind?"
"Oh! Sure, dear." she said while her horn took a blue glow. She broke the seal of the scroll and unrolled it in front of Twilight.
She cleared her throat and began to read. "To my faithful student Twilight Sparkle. I would like to apologize for being so busy lately and being unable to come visit you while you were recovering. I've heard of your adventure on the moon and of the risks you took to preserve our planet. Everyponies are aware of the courage you showed in face of such danger. I couldn't be more proud."
Of course, Spike wrote her letters explaining everything. thought Twilight.
"I've prepared a little ceremony in your honor in a week from now. I would like you to come with the two stallions that helped you..." She stopped to re-read the sentence a few time. "... in this quest. I'm looking forward to meet this stallion you've been talking about for the last six months. With affection, Princess Celestia."
Rarity brought the scroll in front of her to read it again. The six mares simply didn't know what to say. The Doctor took his jaw with his left hand and hummed loudly.
Twilight finally broke the silence. "That makes no sense! I was very specific that a timelord and a human helped me, not two stallions. And I was very clear in my past letters about Mark species!"
"I think she wanted us to know she was aware ahead of time of the specific event that took place here." the Doctor explained.
"What?" asked the seven ponies.
The Doctor crossed his arms. "She appears to know a lot more than that. When Mark was first brought in this hospital, I overheard the doctor Stable talking about orders he received from the Princess... Orders to take good care of him, he received an hour before Mark arrived."
"That's impossible!" countered Twilight. "I wrote about Mark only after I brought him here."
"And they came in by courier. Which imply she knew hours ahead. Without magic, it takes a few hours for a rapid courier to do the distance between here and Canterlot." he finished.
Twilight thought about it a few moments. "I admit something else is maybe wrong..." she started.
"What?" the six ponies and the Doctor asked.
"Mark stayed in Ponyville a month and it's been almost two weeks since you're brought us in the hospital Doctor. In those six specific weeks, the Princess have been too busy to receive me or to come over here. But the day after Mark left in the desert, she sent a letter asked if I wanted to see each other." she explained. "It never happened before."
"Really? That's weird." said Applejack.
"Wait, wait, wait..." said Rarity, still reading the scroll. "Who is the second stallion she is writing about?"
Mark coughed loudly. "Doctor?"
The Doctor shook his head. "Oh no, no, no. I stay as far away as possible from royalty."
"No choice Doc! You're the second stallion, and you did help Twilight." he rolled his eyes. "I know very well you're dying of curiosity to know what's happening."
As everybody left the room to let Twilight rest, Mark found himself in the corridor with a heart breaking problem; he wasn't able to walk correctly. After falling face first for the fifth time, he stayed there lying on the floor along the wall. His now four legs hurt as they kept hitting each other. Someone who would end up finding him there, but at that moment he didn't care much.
He knew very well it was only the first of a collection of problems he would have to face, some as simply as picking and handling items. He saw ponies take objects with their mouth before, but he was obviously not very fond of the idea.
How such a pretty day could turn out so bad? Why did they do this to me? Why now and not before the trip to the moon, and what does that princess has to do with all this?
He wanted to cry, to scream, to punch a wall, but he simply felt like he had no energy left. He knew he would have to find a way to crawl back to his room. Right now, he only wished the universe would forget about him.
"Are you alright?"
"No, I am not 'alright'!" he screamed. He turned his head around to see who asked. "Ugh... I... I'm sorry Fluttershy." he apologized at the sight of the yellow mare that jumped back from his screaming. The last thing he needed right now was to alienate his friends. She looked about to flee and that sight made Mark felt even worst.
She took all her courage and moved forward. "huh... What's the problem? If you don't mind saying..." she asked with a soft but firm voice.
Mark closed his eyes. "I feel weak, I can't walk, I'm naked... I feel... vulnerable, manipulated." he explained while dropping his head on the floor. "I want to find a hole and disappear."
She stood silent for a few moments. "I fully understand."
"What? How can you..." Mark stopped noticing he was about to scream again.
"I'm not strong like the others." she said with a smile. "I'm afraid all the time." She put a hoof on his shoulder. "Let me help you."
"So, that's where you were the last week?" asked Twilight as the train rocked slightly to its side.
Mark was sitting on the bench in front of her. "Yeah. I stayed a week at her home. She trained me to walk... and to eat." He put a hoof on the table that stood between them. "You have no idea how hard it is to hold stuff with those."
"It's not that hard!"
"You were born with them. I had fingers to grab objects." he explained. "Anyway, she has a lot of patience, more than I will ever have. I was ready to give up about a hundred times, but she kept pushing me to try again."
"And?" she asked.
"And now I can walk almost normally. Don't ask me to run, I will need weeks or months to be able to. Pony's walk cycle and run cycle are really different. And... I can eat by myself once more, but not without dropping stuff once in a while." he explained slightly annoyed.
She thought for a few seconds. "If you were unable to walk, how did you reach her home?"
He rolled his eyes. "She grabbed me and carried me while flying. She is far stronger than she appears."
"Oh my..."
"Yeah, Fluttershy carry an unknown stallion with no cutie mark to her home." He shook his head. "I really hope the town won't gossips or spread rumors." The last thing he wanted was that Fluttershy would be ashamed from helping him. "Anyway, how are you? Your horn is looking much better."
She looked up. "Yeah. It is almost back to normal. A week without magic is pretty hard, I was used to do everything using it." She laughed. "Other ponies write with their mouth, but I never did that. I decided to write a letter to the princess without Spike's help. Not a good idea." She stared at him. "Which make me think, since you got a horn yourself, you will need to learn how to use it."
He sighed. "You make me think when I first saw myself in a mirror. Finding something stuck on your forehead that wasn't there before is pretty weird. As for magic, I'm not sure it's a good idea."
"How so?" she frowned.
"Seeing I had such a hard time to pick up object, Fluttershy thought it would be a good idea for me to learn telekinesis. I think she asked Spike a book about it or something." He shook his head. "A very bad idea. I might look like a unicorn, but normally you're trained from your young age."
She raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure to follow, how was it a bad idea? I'm pretty sure learning some magic will help you a lot."
Mark focused on the glass of water that remained from their meals. His horn started to glow in a deep blue color. The same glow bathed the glass. All of a sudden, the water caught in fire.
"Woah!" she shouted jumping back. She stared at the blue flame that appeared to slowly consume the water. "How did you do that?"
"No idea, and that's the problem. I don't know what's going on, and objects tend to catch fire a bit too easily for my taste." he explained. "At least, Fluttershy had the presence of mind to make me try magic outside." he said with a small laugh.
"Well... it could be useful..."
"To light a fireplace." They both laughed at the poor joke. "Why you said the princess might have ideas on how to turn me back to norm... human?"
"She lived for... Well nopony know her real age, but she is at least over a thousand years old..." she started to explain.
"Impressive! Hey! Doctor, how old are you?" asked Mark while poking the sleeping brown stallion beside him.
"You don't want to know." the Doctor answered while turning around and going back to sleep.
"... and if somepony know, it must be her. She knows some old and secret spells, some dangerous." she finished.
Mark stared at the purple mare. "I see..."
"What?"
"You're in admiration." he said.
"Of course, she's my teacher and..."
"And you got a crush on her!" he exclaimed. He noticed that she blushed very hard and didn't deny it right away.
"I don't!" she countered a bit too late.
He understood his faux pas right away. "I'm sorry, I only meant to tease you. I can understand the attraction, she is quite pretty."
The red disappeared of her face almost instantly. "How do you know?"
"I had the chance to look at her when you blew up the planet." he threw a glance at the sleeping Doctor. "Even if you and her don't remember it. She is much taller than other ponies I saw so far, is it normal?"
"Frankly, I'm not sure anything is normal about the princesses." She rested her head on her hooves. "They are both very old. For what I know, over ten times what a pony is expected to live. They are both pegasus and unicorn, as they have wings and horns, and all other case of 'alicorn' are from their own children. But as far as I know, even their own children don't live as old as them and are not as powerful."
"Sounds pretty amazing. Any idea where they came from?" he asked back.
She sighed. "Well, no. They surely know, but they never said anything to anypony. Scientists of all over Equestria gave all the possible wild explanations you could imagine. We don't know where they came from, how old they are... Or even how they found the elements of harmony. They..."
"Elements of harmony? It's not the first time I hear you talk about that, but I never came around to ask you what it was." he cut her.
"You don't know?" she asked surprised.
"Should I?"
"Well..." she shrugged. "I guess you can't know if nopony tell you. The elements are..." she stopped to think. "They are... Actually I'm not even sure what they are. The best way I could sum them up is, they are powerful artifacts that symbolize harmony. From what I understand, they choose by themselves who weld them. Honesty, loyalty, generosity, kindness, laughter... and magic. I have no idea who made them, where or when they were made... Or even if they were 'made' in some way. There's not much information about them, as their previous users were the princesses a very long time ago."
"Previous?" His instincts were telling him some wild idea that his logical mind couldn't accept. "Would you be the element of magic?" he asked in a playful tone.
"Yes. But how do you know?"
He rolled his eyes once more. "Sorry, I was teasing again, I didn't know. Well... not true, my heart told me about it, but my brain couldn't believe it." He crossed his foreleg, a motion he found to not be as easy as it was with arms. "The other elements... Your five friends? I felt their presence on the Moon, somehow..."
"Exact."
"Crazy stuff." He leaned back on his seat. "Not the first time, and I have the feeling it's not the last, even if I would prefer to stay out of all that."
"You could."
"I haven't been given the chance to bail out so far." He looked out the window. "I think we are almost there." he said as he watched the city made of ivory and gold come closer. "It doesn't look very big, you know?"
"A good part is inside the mountain and other parts of the city are on the other flank. What you see is mostly the castle." she explained.
"Well, time to wake up the sleepy one if we want to get there on time."
"I was sure stallions were bigger than mares." noted Mark as they were walking in the street of Canterlot toward the castle's gates.
"They are. Look at the Doctor." said Twilight.
Mark turned around to stare at the Doctor. "We both know it's not his real appearance. Beside, what I meant is why I am as small as you Twilight?"
"Actually, she's a bit taller." noted the Doctor.
"Whatever!" he shouted. "It makes no sense."
"You're maybe not done growing up?" Twilight said trying not to laugh.
He rolled his eyes and tried to forget about that specific topic that bothered him for the past week. "Is it my imagination but ponies are staring at us?"
"Twilight Sparkle is the student of Celestia, I would guess she is well known." pointed the Doctor.
She shook her head in negation. "No Doctor, I came often to Canterlot, but I'm only one student among many. Sure, I'm the personal student of the princess, but I'm not really known. And trust me, it’s fine with me." She stopped walking and looked around, noticing the ponies' stares. "Mark is right." She turned around and looked at the Doctor and Mark. "Oh."
"What 'Oh'?" asked Mark.
"A stallion of your age... or the age you look like... whatever! A stallion without a cutie mark is obviously a rare occurrence."
He sighed. "How rare?"
"Well, I never heard of something like that before." she answered with a smile.
"Great! They must think I got some kind of sickness, curse or whatever." he replied half angry.
The Doctor shrugged his shoulder. "Let's just move, shall we? You forced me to come here, how about we get over with it."
They followed Twilight up to the gates of the castle. Two stallions in golden armor stopped them at the doors of the royal court. "The princesses are expecting you in moment."
"Princess Luna is here too?" asked Twilight surprised.
The two guards looked at each other. "Yes." finally answered one of them.
"What's wrong Twilight?" asked Mark.
"Well, nothing is wrong. Just that Princess Luna tends to the night court, it's only unusual to see her in the middle of the day." she explained.
Mark shrugged. "You said she was a friend, maybe she just wants to see you."
A smaller stallion in a gold and red suit came to them. "The court herald." Twilight whispered. "I didn't expect it to be an official visit."
"Welcome Twilight Sparkle. It's good to see you again." the herald greeted her with a noble tone. "Who should I announce?" he asked looking at the other two ponies.
"Mark and the Doctor." she answered.
"Very well." The herald turned around and entered the court room.
Twilight looked nervous. "Stay close. Bow down when I do. Let me talk. Alright?" she quickly said.
The Doctor and Mark looked at each other. "Of course." they both answered. From behind the closed door, they could hear the herald shouted their names. At that moment, the two guards pushed the doors open. Twilight didn't hesitate and walked in. They two others followed her a few steps behind.
Mark looked around in awe; the outside of the palace was impressive, but not as much as the throne room. Every column, carpet, wall or ceiling pieces looked different from each other. Each wall was decorated of huge stained glassed that covered them from the floor to the roof, each of them displaying some kind of epic scenery. A dozen guards in golden armor were standing still on each side of the room.
At the far end of the room stood two massive thrones, one in gold with small waterfalls on each side, the other in black marbles with white and blue gems inlaid in it. Both had detailed engraving of leaves, clouds and other patterns Mark couldn't figure out.
But as much as the room was impressive, he couldn't get his eyes off the two massive ponies standing on the thrones. Both were far bigger than the guards, and maybe even bigger than what Mark remembered from the last time he saw them. Their manes were moving along an undetectable wind, one made of pastel colors, the other of a calming light blue.
Twilight stopped in the middle of the room and Mark had to move aside to not collide with her. He stood by her right side while the Doctor walked to her left side. She bowed down with her eyes closed. Mark closed his eyes and was about to do the same when he felt his hooves leave the ground. He opened his eyes in surprised to see that he was in fact floating about a meter off the ground. He looked around and saw that the Doctor was in the same situation.
Mark and the Doctor looked at Celestia as she walked off her throne, her horn glowing the same yellow color that was surrounding them. Twilight finally understanding that some was off, looked up in surprised at the flying stallions. "Princess?" she asked confused.
Celestia was slowly walking toward them, her eyes becoming white and her horn started shooting bolts of energy randomly around. She looked angry, some deep and old rage coming to the surface. One bolt burned off a good part of the carpet while another blasted off a column, making a guard jump back in fear. "After all you've done, you show up here?" she shouted. Her voice was amplified by magic, and the whole room vibrated enough to drop clouds of smoked off the ceiling.
Mark looked in despair at the Doctor. "Doctor, what have you done?"
The Doctor looked back with his eyes wide open. "I've done nothing!"
Mark frowned. "…yet?"
"I'm talking to you, Mark!" shouted the Princess. Mark's head snapped to stare at the angry princess as she kept walking toward him, her eyes locked on him.
"I... I..." he said, unable to formulate a complete sentence.
What's going on!?
The Princess looked away as both flying ponies disappeared in a purple flash. When she opened her eyes again, her horn had lost its glow and her face its angry look. Twilight could have sworn the Princess looked sad as her own horn was losing its own purple glow. For the first time, she noticed Luna was lying on the floor sobbing.
"Go with them Twilight." Celestia said to Twilight in a voice much tender then she was used too, as her shoulders dropped low.
"But..."
"No question, please." she almost whispered.
Twilight wasn't used to the Princess begging her for anything. She focused on the same spell she just used on Mark and the Doctor, and casted it on herself. With a flash she vanished from the court room.
Celestia turned around and walked to Luna.
"Tia... Do you... Do you think she will ever forgive us?" asked the Princess of the night as tears rolled off her cheeks.
The white alicorn looked back where the three ponies were standing. "I... I don't know Lu. Time will tell."
Luna raised her head and stared at her older sister. "But we are sending him to his death!"
"I..." she started, but couldn't finish. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. "I know, but I wish there was another solution. Any other solution. We... we have to have faith in them."
One moment Mark was more scared than he remembered ever being, and the next he was falling head first in a haystack. He found himself stuck upside down, his four legs beating the air aimlessly. After rocking his whole body a few time, he managed to roll on the stack, hay still stuck to his coat and manes.
"Doctor?" he asked looking around. He didn't know where he was, and the dark lighting of the large room didn't help.
"Yeah. Right there." the Doctor answered while coming out of a similar haystack across the room.
"What was that?"
"A teleportation spell. And quite a complex one I must say, she is quite something." he answered while trying to shake off the hay for his body. "Teleporting yourself on a short distance is fairly simple. Teleporting others on long distance without following them is a completely different level of magic."
"Thanks for the information, but I didn't mean that." he replied back, slightly annoyed that the Doctor ignored that they almost died a minute ago.
"Calm down. I'm sure we will have..." he was interrupted by a purple flash as Twilight materialized in between them. "... more information soon." he finished with a smile.
"Twilight!"
She turned toward Mark with an angry look. "What have you done?"
He stood there looking at her, too surprised to answer. "Nothing! I swear, I've done nothing!"
"...yet." finished the Doctor with a laugh.
Both Twilight and Mark stared at him. "I don't see how this could be fun Doctor." reprimanded Twilight.
"Alright, sorry." he apologized. "I might know what's happening, but before, what the Princess told you Twilight?"
She looked away. "To follow you..."
"And?"
"It's not important." she countered.
"Twilight, please!" asked Mark.
"Any detail could help at this point." added the Doctor.
"She said to not ask any question."
The Doctor put a hoof to his jaw. "Interesting."
Mark couldn't stand in place, he jumped off the haystack and walked up to the Doctor. "Come on Doctor! Spit it out! Why the Princess tried to kill me?"
The Doctor laughed once again. "She did not try to kill you."
"What?" both asked Mark and Twilight.
The Doctor pointed at Twilight. "You know the Princess more than me, but I'm pretty sure if she wanted him dead, right now, he would be. She could have teleported him on the Sun or simply turn him into a rock. And even after Twilight teleported us away, she could have replicated Twilight's spell with ease and follow us here."
"Alright, then why she brought us to Canterlot?" asked Twilight.
The Doctor hit the floor with his hoof to show the certainty of his affirmation. "To give us a message."
Seeing he wasn’t finishing his line of thought, both Mark and Twilight shouted. "Doctor!"
A wide smile light up his face, seeing how he was pushing them. "The message was in two parts. First, Mark... or us, did something in the past. Something important enough for the Princess to plant clues to awake our curiosity and summon us to deliver this message. Second, that we must not ask questions here and now, as he would influence our choices and judgments in what we are about to do."
"Or did." said Twilight.
"So, she is sending us on a quest, but cannot say what it is... Because we might refuse it?" summed up Mark.
"Or do it differently." finished the Doctor.
Mark thought about it for a minute. "That's pushing it, no?"
"Yet all the clues point toward that. She knew ahead of time what would happen and made sure to let us know that she did." explained the Doctor.
"But I don't understand... Why the display of rage?" asked Twilight.
The Doctor shrugged. "That's easy, to force us to flee and to seek answers. If she was all welcoming, she wouldn't have been able to send us on our way without a barrage of questions."
"Alright." said Twilight. "You convinced me. When do we leave?"
"We?" blinked Mark in surprised. "Aren't you afraid we might do terrible things? Doctor, I had the feeling messing with the timeline wasn't such a good idea."
The Doctor laughed. "In this case, I would say we already did. Or will do."
Mark sighed, as he felt that his destiny was written in stone before he even knew about it. "Ok. First, where are we?"
Twilight walked toward the end of the room and pushed against two massive doors. "Applejack's barn. I put a teleporter beacon in here in case I would need an emergency teleport." The sun light up the inside of the barn, showing haystacks and buckets of apples.
The Doctor took the lead and walked toward Ponyville. Mark trailed behind deep in his thoughts. Somehow, he was caught once again in a situation that he simply had no idea how he was fitting in. He felt he wasn't a doing a great pony as his hooves kept hitting each other.
At least I'm not falling on my face anymore.
Twilight slowed down and walked along him. "What's wrong?"
Mark kept his sight on the ground just ahead of him. "I feel small, weak, naked, manipulated, caught in a storm of events beyond my control, as if something decided of my faith without asking my opinion."
"At least you won't be alone in that storm." she replied with a genuine smile.
"True. But I'm not seeing you trying to walk on two legs." he said returning her small smile.
She stared at him. "Still bothered by the lack of clothes?"
"And the size, coat, manes, tail, horn, hooves and..." he listed slightly annoyed.
"And?"
He rolled his eyes. "The eyesight."
"What?"
"Ponies don't see like humans do, obviously. Colors are brighter, but now I see fewer details. Everything appears more flat as you got a larger field of view, but less of it overlaps in the middle." he explained. "How would you react if your eyesight just changed?"
"I had no idea."
Seeing she lost her smile, he decided to drop the topic. "And the flappy ears." he joked.
Surprised, she blinked at him . "What?"
"The ears! Pony's ears move around wildly on their own! It's so annoying." he said while moving his ears around. "See? Flap, flap, flap... With enough training I could probably take flight. Maybe if I was to spin my tail it could push me forward?"
Her smile returned. "You're kidding me."
"Only a bit. But I admit that's a lot to get used to at once." He looked ahead. "Hey Doc! Where did you park it?"
The Doctor looked over his shoulder. "Behind the next yellow house." he said nodding in a direction.
As the Doctor went around the house, he stopped in his track. Mark and Twilight almost collided with his rear. "Hey oh, Doc!" said Mark as he moved around the immobile stallion.
"It's about time you get here!" shouted Rainbow Dash.
Mark, Twilight and the Doctor stared at the five mares that were standing in front of the TARDIS. Each of them had saddle-bags, hats and clothes as if they were going on camping. It's Twilight who finally managed to break the silence. "Why are you here? How did you know?"
"Honey, we each received a letter from the Princess just after you left for Canterlot. She asked us to get ready to help you." explained Rarity.
"But you don't even know what it's all about." countered Twilight.
"Sugarcube, since when does that matter?" asked Applejack.
Twilight smiled. "Alright."
"I knew there was lot of things I didn't know or understand... but... I..." said Fluttershy while looking around the control room of the TARDIS with wide eyes.
"Overwhelming?" asked Twilight.
"A bit."
"There's nothing to be afraid of Fluttershy." said Mark trying to reassure her. "Besides, it's not a simple machine, it's alive." Mark didn't think it was possible for her eyes to get even bigger.
"Oooooh... I need one of those." said Pinkie Pie joyfully while bouncing around and inspecting every angle of the ship. "I could throw party everywhere!"
"So, where are we going?" asked Rainbow Dash while flying above the console.
Mark looked at the Doctor. "More like, when are we going?"
"I might just be a farm pony, but you sure sounded like you were talking about time travel." said Applejack.
Mark and Twilight looked at each other with a smile. The Doctor coughed. "The question is valid. When and where are we going?" Everypony turned around to see that the Doctor was back in his humanoid form, standing behind the ship's controls.
Something was whispering in Mark's head, something he knew very well. A little voice he got to talk with for a whole week. He opened his eyes, surprised he had closed them. He looked at Twilight to find she was staring at him. "You heard it too?" she asked.
"Yup." He turned around and smiled at the Doctor. "The TARDIS will get us when and where we need to be."
The Doctor pouted. "I hate when she does that."
"Come on Doc!"
He laughed. "You're right." He started to push and pull buttons, levers and other contraptions in what appeared to be completely at random.
"Allons-y!"
-- End of Book 1 --
"There we are." The Doctor claimed after a few more pushes of buttons.
"Really?" a skeptical Rainbow Dash asked, "I didn't feel anything. This trip is already lacking some g-force." She flew around the controls. "You sure this thing is working correctly? I didn't feel us moving."
Pinkie Pie laughed. "Of course it moved, silly filly!" Her face became serious, "Quite a lot, actually."
Twilight ignored the cyan mare and Pinkie Pie being... Pinkie Pie and focused on the Doctor. "So, when and where are we?"
The Doctor looked troubled as he kept pressing buttons. Finally, he took some small glasses off his suit's pocket, put them on his nose and continued to examine the different displays. "This is odd. I know where we are but not when. There was a massive temporal disturbance. From the decay, I would say it happened a few weeks ago."
"We can always ask somepony the date!" a joyful Pinkie Pie said.
Twilight ignored her and asked "So, where are we?"
The Doctor pulled a lever and the screens went dark. "From Ponyville, we are on the other side of the Everfree forest, about a day’s walk from the tree line."
"So, we’re almost at the gryphons’ kingdom's boarder?"
"Why so far away? I thought this was about the Princesses and Equestria?" a puzzled Mark asked, "And did I heard gryphons?"
"Of course, it's a country quite friendly to Equestria." Rarity explained.
"Wait... wait... Gryphon as in... Gryphon? Body of lion, head and wings of an eagle?"
Twilight Sparkle smiled at him. "What else?"
Mark rolled his eyes. "This world is full of crazies." he said while walking toward the exit of the ship.
All the ponies stepped outside and the Doctor locked the TARDIS behind them. It was a foggy morning on the almost empty plains, as only few trees were cutting through the fog. The only sound that could be heard was the slow beat of Rainbow Dash's wings. She gasped loudly as she didn't really believe in that whole time travel thing. Pinkie Pie bounced past her. "Told you!"
As the Doctor walked in the front of the group, everypony could see that he was back in his stallion form. "Where do we go? Walk to the Everfree forest or toward the griffins’ kingdom?" Twilight asked.
"With this fog, I doubt we would know which way to go." Applejack countered.
"How about we go in the direction the door of the TARDIS was aiming at?" Mark offered. Seeing everypony was staring at him, he continued. "What? At this point, it's as good as any."
"Any of you already visited that gryphons’ kingdom?" Mark asked while walking. They all answered with by shaking their head. Mark looked around at each of the ponies. "Any of you ever left Equestria before?" Once again, they all shook their head.
"Ponies are quite sedentary by nature," the Doctor explained, "Unlike humans, they don't have those urges of exploration... or the dream of stars."
"The dream of stars?" Twilight asked.
"Why would you climb a mountain?" Mark asked.
Twilight looked at him confused. "I don't understand."
"Because it's there." he explained with a smile.
"You're not making any sense sugarcube." Applejack countered.
Mark laughed. "A man sees a mountain and decides to climb it simply because it's a challenge. He wants to test himself and the mountain is on his path."
"Humans do stupid stuff only as a challenge?" Rainbow Dash asked.
Applejack poked the side of the flying pegasus. "Look who's talking."
"As for exploration... Humans have those urges of learning what they don't know." Mark continued.
Twilight smiled. "I can understand that!" They all laughed at the outburst of the purple mare.
"When they get a new idea, they must prove it or disprove it at all cost. This include exploration, one would wake up one morning and ask himself; if the world is round, what's the best route around it? That desert to the south, humans would chart it only because it's there and that no one charted it before." Mark explained.
"That's quite odd." Rarity commented.
"Young ones would leave their family and go explore other countries, just to see what it is like over there. Dream of stars... it's the same thing. Some would gaze at those little dot of distant fire and wonder; what if?" Mark explained, noticing he had his head pointed up at the sky. He lowered it and stared at the road.
"I see someone had that dream before!" the Doctor cheered, making Mark blush. "That's why I love humanity so much. Everything in their eyes is new and worthy of going out there. They believe the risks never outweigh what could be gained from learning."
Mark frowned. "So why do you stay around the ponies so much?"
"You forgot I'm not human?" the Doctor laughed. "I need a pause once in a while and you can hardly find more peaceful species."
"Be quiet!" Rainbow Dash suddenly ordered. Everypony stared at her while she looked at the sky, her ears twitching around.
After a few second Twilight coughed. "What it is?"
"I think I'm hearing somepony flying over us." She raised her right ears as much as she could. "I think... I think they are circling us."
"Who could..." Twilight started, but she couldn't finish as a huge net made of heavy rope fell on them, forcing Rainbow Dash to the ground. It was heavy enough to prevent them from walking.
"What the...?" Rainbow Dash asked confused.
"Let me get rid of that." Twilight offered as her horn started to glow. However, as soon as her horn gained enough magic, it vanished as if absorbed by the net. "Oh!" was all she could say.
"I would say we went the right way." the Doctor joked.
At this point, everypony could clearly hear the sound of multiple wings and it was indeed all around them. A mass dropped from the fog and landed in front of the trapped ponies. It was a gryphon with its wings wide open. It was wearing blue and yellow armored plates around its neck and body. Its helmet, made of the same metal, was obviously shaped for flying, it was aerodynamic and its long lines were for speed and air control. Two slices in the front let its owner deep blue eyes see while the bottom was bent to cover its beak.
Oh my... He is at least four times my size! Mark thought.
The gryphon bent forward and removed his helmet with his claw while a dozen other gryphons landed around the net. The other gryphons were not as big as the first and sported less complex and polished armors plating. However, all of them had a golden stylized gryphon engraved in their breast plates. By how he walked and smiled, the big gryphon was obviously the leader as he stepped forward and stopped in front of the Doctor. "What have we got here? I guess we missed the ocean, but we still managed to fish out eight ponies!"
All the gryphons started to laugh, but never left their rigid stance, ready at all times to take flight or to block an attack. "They don't really look edible. Maybe we should throw them back in the ocean." offered the gryphon to the right of the leader. On top of his golden gryphon logo hanged two smaller blue wings.
The leader looked around and examined each ponies. "Three earth ponies, three unicorns and two pegasi. Quite an odd mix. Let's take them." On that, each gryphon stepped forward and grabbed with a claw a rope that was hanging around the net. Mark noticed that they each had a sheathed sword on their side. As they pulled the ropes back, the net closed under the ponies' legs, forcing them close to each other. With one last pull, the net was closed under them. Each gryphon passed their rope to the next until each had the rope of the gryphon facing them.
The leader took flight, quickly followed by the twelve others. As they lifted the net, now working as a huge bag full of ponies, it flipped upside down, the opening now being on the top. The whole maneuver didn't even last a minute, proof that they did it multiple times before. All the ponies fell on each other, upside down and stuck, unable to move.
"Whose horn is stabbing my flank?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Sorry! But someone's hoof is pushing my head!" Twilight apologized.
"I thought somepony said gryphons were friendly?" Mark asked.
"Doctor... you're crushing my wing. Would you mind?" the soft voice of Fluttershy was heard.
"Oh my! Deeply sorry." the Doctor apologized as he tried to move around, freeing her wing.
"Gryphons are quite friendly. Or will be." Rarity explained. "But those are quite rude."
The leader of the gryphons lowered himself to the level of the ponies and shouted. "Silence!"
"Why did you capture us?" Twilight asked.
"I said silence! And if you don't comply I will start stabbing that big bag of ponies randomly." he shouted again drawing his sword with his right claw. Seeing nopony was answering him, he flew back up toward the other gryphons.
Mark was at the bottom of the bag, his legs hanging between the ropes of the net. He would have a good view had it not been for the thick fog still covering the field. However, on the horizon he could see the sun slowly going up above the fog. The gryphons were flying pretty fast toward a huge brown and black mountain. The top was covered in snow. As they got closer, the flying gryphons gained more altitude and went above the mountain's top. Doing such, Mark could see that the mountain was in fact an old volcano, as the top was chopped off and the middle was a deep bowl of almost a kilometer in diameter.
Inside, he could see thousand houses and other buildings constructed along the inner flank of the volcano. Gryphons were flying around the city by hundreds as groups of guards were circling the city. A waterfall was slowly flowing inside the volcano's crater from a taller peak, providing water to a small lake in the middle. As they got closer, the guards flew toward a larger building with an opening on top. Mark could see the population of gryphons staring at them and he didn't like the angry look he could see in their eyes.
What's going on? They are afraid of us.
The net was slowly lowered inside the huge tower made of grey blocks of rock. As the ponies hit the ground, the twelve guards landed around them and drew their swords, aiming them at the ponies. Before the leader landed beside a huge wooden door, it opened and let a quite old gryphon enter the room. He wasn't wearing any armor but only a large brown bag on his side. "What are you getting me now? More ponies?" the old one shouted at the leader.
"They were deep inside our territory, walking toward one of our city." the leader explained.
"Whatever." the old one countered stepping forward. As he got closer, Mark could see he was missing his left eye as a large scar was covering his face. There was no feather around the scar that started above his skull and finished low on his neck. "You could have killed them instead of bringing them here. You know very well what will happen to them."
"Exactly, and we need the work force. Now do your job jailer."
"Then what are you waiting for? I don't have all day. Get them off the net." he spat back.
The other guards came forward and opened the net. Each of them grabbed a pony and placed their sword on their neck. They were lined up in front of the other gryphons. "At least you got some in good shape this time. They might last longer than the others." said the old gryphon as he looked at each of them.
He stopped at the first in the line, Rainbow Dash, and he took something off his bag. It looked like two plate of metal linked to each other with a metal cord. Rainbow Dash seeing the device tried to move away but the guard holding her kept his grip firm. The jailer strapped the plates on top of each of her wings and locked the device on her back. As long as it would stay there, she would be unable to open her wings. He repeated the same process with Fluttershy.
As he got to Rarity, he took a small metallic ring out of his bag. The guard forced her to lower her head as their new jailor clipped the ring on the grove of her horn closest to her head. By the look on her face, it was obvious she didn't appreciate the feeling.
He was about to do the same with Twilight when she started moving back, her eyes fixed on the ring. Her horn started to glow as she started panicking. The leader of the group stepped forward and slapped her face violently with his closed claws. Her horn stopped glowing as her eyes spun from the shock. The old one closed the ring on her horn while she was unable to think or move.
Mark saw red from the violence he just witnessed. He trusted his head backward, happy to feel the beak of his guards on the back of his skull. The guard dropped his sword as Mark jumped forward. In two steps he was in range of the leader and he gave him a punch in the face with his right hoof. His helmet was pushed off his face, but it was obvious surprise was painting his face more than pain.
To Mark surprised, he started laughing. "Well, look at that. I don't remember ever being challenged by a pony before!" he shouted. He drew his sword with his right claw.
Well, that was stupid.
The gryphon raised his weapon above his shoulder and was about to trust it down when Mark noticed the old gryphon throwing a small dagger toward him. Without thinking he grabbed it and blocked the leader's swing. The impact made his body shake violently and to his surprised he was left unarmed. He opened his eyes, not noticing he had closed them from the clash of the metallic weapons.
The large gryphon stepped back laughing ever louder than before as he sheathed his sword. "You obviously don't know who you challenged small one. But the law is the law and you confirmed the challenge. You have seven days to get ready." With that, he turned around, grabbed his helmet off the ground and left the room. The other guards followed him, leaving the ponies with the old gryphon.
Applejack coughed to get Mark's attention. He looked at her as she pointed at his hooves. "Your... hoof."
Mark remembered the dagger he was holding and he looked down to his right hoof. To his surprise, the dagger was held by a blue glow in the shape of a human hand, linked to the underside of his hoof. Just as he noticed it, the glow disappeared and the dagger felt to the ground. Still quite confused about the event, he turned around and nodded at the old gryphon that was watching them. "Thanks a lot."
The gryphon chuckled. "Don't thank me. I have the idea that you truly don't know what you just did."
Twilight managed to make her head stop spinning and she stepped forward. "I agree. That was reckless and stupid."
"What?" Mark shouted, surprised she was agreeing with the gryphon. "What exactly did I do?"
Applejack stepped beside Mark. "I would like to know too. I just don't know what's going on."
Twilight turned toward Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow, I'm sure you know more about their customs them me. Care to explain?" Hearing her name, she stopped messing with the metal sheets that were covering her wings.
She looked at the floor, avoiding the eyes of the other ponies. "He put in question his honor. The captain thrust his sword to test if the challenge was valid and by blocking it, you confirmed it."
"Captain?" Mark asked.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "The markings on his shoulders identify him as a high ranked captain, of the royal guards if I'm not mistaken."
Applejack frowned. "Alright, and what will happen in seven days?"
Rainbow Dash avoided her sight once again. "They will fight to the death to see whose honor is right."
"That's absurd! How is killing one another will show any honor?" Rarity shouted.
Rainbow Dash sighed loudly. "It's an old tradition. In our... our... 'time' it's not used anymore. And if he backs down, the captain has the right to slash his throat open to wash the insult." she explained.
"He was about to slash me in half!" Mark shouted.
"No, he would have missed on purpose." the jailor countered. "Had he harmed you with his sword right after a challenge was casted, it would have been seen as dishonorable." He stepped forward with a metal ring in his claw. "If you swear on your honor to not use your magic to escape, I will not put a constraint on you. Because I would guess you will want those seven days to train yourself."
Mark looked down at the ring, unsure what exactly it was, but it was obvious he didn't want it on his horn. "I swear on my honor." The jailor smiled as much as it was possible with a beak and put the ring back in his bag.
"Follow me." he said while turning toward the door.
"You're not afraid we would try to escape?" Applejack asked.
The old gryphon laughed. "No insult, but I've handled far bigger stallions than you. Beside, even if you were to manage to hurt me, you're in the biggest fortress of this city. It's well guarded." He pointed toward Rainbow Dash and Twilight. "You cannot fly and cannot do magic. It would be pretty stupid of you to try anything." He exited the room. "Now, follow me."
The Doctor stood beside Mark. "You sure have a talent to get yourself in some impossible situation."
"Thanks Doc. I think I got a good teacher."
The old gryphon led them deep inside the fortress, following huge curved stairs. He stopped in front of a cell closed by metallic bars and opened the door. The room smelled like as if something died and rotten for weeks within its walls. "Sorry it's not the best place ever, but you will stay there." The eight ponies entered the room and the jailor closed the door behind them. "If you work well, you will get enough food. It's as simple as that." He looked at Mark. "I will make sure you don't get to the work camp. I imagine the King wouldn't appreciate the show if you were not able to stand on your legs." On that, he turned around and climbed back the stairs.
The room wasn't very large and the only source of light was a small window along the back wall. Like the other corridors and room they saw of the fortress, it was made only of grey block of rock. It was dirty, dusty and water dropped from the ceiling at a few places. Critters could be seen moving quickly in the shadows.
"Great! I'm as good as dead!" Mark shouted. He turned around and stared at Twilight. "Why did he say you can't do magic? What's that ring?"
She was obviously not happy about it. "The metal of the mage, or 'magium'. It's a special alloy, it absorbs magic and turns it into heat. The ropes of the net were also full of it. The more magic you try to use, the hotter the constraint ring would get. If I were to try to do a very powerful spell, it could burn my horn off."
"That's terrible!"
"In the future, those devices were outlawed after some treaty between Equestria and the gryphons’ kingdom." she explained.
"Terrible! This dungeon is terrible! Are we supposed to sleep on those?" Rarity shouted as she pointed some very small stack of dirty hay.
"I admit, even my barn is cleaner than this." Applejack agreed.
"You're being quite silent Doctor." Mark commented. "Why I have the idea it's not your first time in a dungeon."
"I'm silent because I have nothing to say." he replied with a smile. "And yes, been in one a few times."
"Any advice on how to get out alive?" asked Mark. "Don't you have your sonic screwdriver?"
The Doctor trotted around the room, looking at everything. "I do have it, but the old gryphon is right. Trying to escape not only a cell, but a fortress and a city is something we might not be able to do." He stopped and stared at Mark. "As for you, I would advise you to learn how to replicate what you did with that dagger."
"The Doctor is right, if you can't wield a weapon, you won't last long in the arena." said Twilight.
Mark's sight passed from the Doctor to Twilight. "You got to be kidding! Are you saying I got any chance of winning this?" He turned around toward the cyan mare that was kicking in disgust a small pile of hay, forcing critters to flee it. "Rainbow! Is there any loopholes in that honor law?"
Rainbow Dash turned around. "Not really. It's a pretty straight forward fight to the death. And you know what they say, being ignorant of the law doesn't make you immune to it."
All the ponies stopped and stared at Rainbow Dash. "What? I was young and... and... And whatever."
Mark wasn't sure he wanted to know what Rainbow Dash did in her youth.
That afternoon, the jailor and a few guards came to get the ponies to bring them to the work camps. They all left Mark alone in the cell. He wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not, but he intended to use that time to get as ready as he could. Mark got to the cell's door. "Guards!" he shouted.
After a few minutes the old gryphon got in front of the bars. "What do you want?" he asked with an angry look.
"I was wondering if you had a metal bar or anything I could train with." Mark asked.
The old one didn't answer and left. Mark was wondering if he would ever come back when he reappeared with an old rusty sword in his claw. "There. Try to not cut yourself with it." he said as he passed the sword between the bars and dropped it on the floor.
"Thanks a lot."
The gryphon pouted as he left. "And call me Keeper. Everyone calls me that."
Mark looked at the weapon; it was an old and short one hand sword that probably couldn't even cut bread. He tried to grab the sword with his mouth but quickly stopped to spit the terrible taste of rust.
How do ponies manage to carry stuff with their mouth? It's disgusting!
With his hooves, he managed to push the sword along the floor until it rested in the middle of the room. He placed his right hoof on the handle and focused on grabbing it. After a few minutes without any result, he sat down staring at the piece of metal. He concentrated on the telekinesis spell he trained with Fluttershy.
Maybe with something bigger it...
His thoughts were cut short when the blade caught fire. He quickly pushed dirt over it to extinguish it before the fire could spread. After stepping on the last bit of flame, he sat back once again staring at the rusty and now burnt blade.
The Sun was going down at the horizon when the seven ponies came back. They were all dirty and all in different states of exhaustion. Rarity was supported by Applejack as she brought her to one of the pile of hay and she laid her down on it. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were holding Twilight Sparkle upright and they too helped her to some hay.
"What happened?" Mark asked, quite concerned by the aspect of weakness shown by the two unicorns.
Applejack turned around to look at the blue stallion. "Unicorns ain't made to do physical work."
"That's an understatement!" Rarity said. "I can't feel my hooves!"
"What did they make you do?" Mark enquired.
"Twilight and Rarity were spinning some wheels to fuel air to a forge." the Doctor explained as he lay on the ground. "Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were carrying basket of ores. As for the earth ponies... we dragged block of rock used to build fortresses." He sighed. "I'm sorry you had to pull harder Applejack. I might look like an earth pony, but I'm not built like one."
"Ah shoo. Don't mention it. It only felt like a normal day of work." Applejack countered. "But Pinkie Pie surprised me. You sure have a lot of energy."
"Need to! Party is hard work!" the pink mare shouted with a huge smile.
"I'm actually a bit envious of Fluttershy. She almost did twice the work I did and she doesn't look tired." Rainbow Dash said as she lay on her side.
"Don't beat yourself over that sugarcube. She feeds and takes care of hundreds of animals every day. She's used to continuous physical work." Applejack explained. Fluttershy blushed at the praise.
Twilight rolled around and looked at Mark. "What's that burnt chunk of metal?" she asked trying to point at the middle of the room, but she gave up too tired to lift a hoof.
"It was a sword... Until I set it on fire." he explained with a small smile.
Twilight frowned. "Telekinesis?"
Mark nodded. "I didn't manage to replicate what happened with that dagger."
The Doctor lifted his head. "What exactly did you feel when you did it?"
Mark pondered the question a few moments. "I don't know. An intense desire to not get sliced in half? I guess it just felt like holding a sword with my hand. Everything happened so fast."
"Ghost limbs?" Twilight proposed.
The Doctor nodded. "That's what I think."
Mark looked at them puzzled. "I'm not following."
"Your body changed and it's wired differently. But your mind didn't. When your subconscious asked your body to grab that blade, it reacted the only way it could to achieve it." the Doctor explained.
Mark thought about it. "So... The only way to make it work would be to not think about it?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Who knows?"
Mark continued to try to grab the sword, with no success at all. He tried to visualize the attack the captain did, replicating the feeling and emotions linked to that dangerous situation. However, no matter the efforts he put into it, the sword stayed on the ground. He tried to not think about it or to deeply think about it. The disgusting food they got didn't help. The others didn't mind that much the plain grass and flowers but Mark wasn't used to going that deep in the pony's diet. He knew very well horses and ponies of his time used to eat exactly that. He didn't mind much the vegetarian meals he was served back in Ponyville as they never really included grass.
As the days passed, Mark grew more and more concerned with the wellbeing of his friends. Each day, they would come back from the work camp more tired and hurt. After the fourth day, even Applejack started to show sign of exhaustion. He tried as hard as he could to focus on replicating the spell, or any spell for that matter, that would allow him to hold a weapon. However, his mind kept drifting toward their difficulties.
On the fifth day, Rarity came back with her front hooves bleeding. The Doctor used his screwdriver to remove the constraint ring off Twilight's horn so she could cast some healing spell. But it wasn't that effective as she would have hoped. She was as tired as the others and couldn't perform well the delicate spell. The only good news was that the bleeding stopped and it didn't look like infected with whatever could be caught in a dirty dungeon.
"We must escape!" Mark shouted. "Someone is gonna die in here!"
"We have been over that already." Twilight countered.
"Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash can probably escape by flying away. Twilight, you can escape by teleporting yourself a few time and reaching the outside of the city." Mark explained, feeling useless.
Rainbow Dash jumped forward. "I ain't running away!"
"I'm not leaving you." Fluttershy’s smooth voice added.
"Accept it Mark, we are in this together." Applejack added.
Mark shook his head, he couldn't accept them dying for no reason. He wasn't even sharing their pains and efforts while they were forced to work for the gryphons. The week was almost over and at this point he didn't care much about his body being sliced in half as they would all die soon after.
"Listen, I got an idea, but you won't like it." offered Twilight.
Mark turned around and stared at the purple mare. "Any idea is better than none."
A small smile brightened her face. "You win the fight and ask for our freedom."
"What?" all the ponies asked.
"The captain said the challenge will take place in front of the king. It's a long shot, but you could ask for our freedom." she explained.
Mark's eyes widen. "You're mad! I can't even hold a sword!"
"Mark! Catch!" Applejack shouted.
Mark turned his head around to see what was going on. He saw Applejack taking hold of the rusty sword in her mouth and throwing it at him. It all happened so fast that he didn't have any time to say anything, even less dodge it. He only managed to raise his left leg to protect himself. He closed his eyes awaiting the impact, which never came.
After a few moments, he slowly opened his eyes. He found the sword stuck to his left hoof in the same way as he took the dagger five days ago. This time, his mind quickly got in gears analyzing any feelings or emotions he could get from the situation. Focusing on the current feelings, he was a bit surprised to find out he could keep it in his grip.
"How did you know?" Twilight asked Applejack.
Applejack laughed. "You and Pinkie Pie aren't the only one who can have a hunch you know." She sat down and pointed at Mark. "Last time he did it was while being attacked. A kind of protective reaction?"
"No..." Mark started, deep in his thoughts.
Applejack banked her head. "What?"
He raised his head to look at her. "I tried that already, that feeling of being attacked. It simply never worked. Both times I was focused on defending another pony. It's true both times it happened while I was directly targeted but my mind wasn't thinking about that." He swung the sword a few time, finding his grip to be firm. "It sounds so cheesy. I tried the whole week to focus on the attack the captain thrust toward me, that instinctive reaction of protecting myself."
He sighed loudly. "I guess that settles that."
"Good morning, sister," the younger one greeted.
"Good morning."
"You're up quite early today."
"Yes, I'm going to the front lines. The soldiers need me," the older sister explained while eating her breakfast.
The young one had a hard time to stand in place. "Could... Could I come too?"
She stopped eating and stared at her sister. "You know you have to stay here. We can't both leave."
"I... I know. But..."
"By the way, I like what you did with your mane. It looks... more mature," she said while standing up and leaving the room.
"Thank sis," the young one replied to an empty room. She hated how her sister only noticed her mane now. It somehow changed by itself almost a month ago. She tried to bring the issue with her many time, but she was such a busy mare. She didn't want to impose, after all there was so many things happening that were far more important.
Mark stood in a kind of dark tunnel made of very large blocks of black rock, probably cut from cooled lava. In front of him the light was too bright for him to make anything out aside the large metallic portcullis blocking his way. To his left stood Keeper, a kind gryphon in his own rude way. He learned over the week that the old gryphon always tried to make things better for the prisoners but it wasn't always possible. Behind him was the two gryphons guards that took him out of jail early in the morning. They didn't let any of his friends come with him and in some way he was happy that they wouldn't be there to see him die in this pointless fight. Not that he wanted to die or that he would make it easy for his opponent, but the cards were stacked against him.
He kept replaying the events in his mind and how he could have done things differently. Sadly, it all happened too fast and deep down he knew he would have done the same thing. He never liked pointless violence and now he got stuck directly into it. He wondered what got into him to follow blindly what the princess told them in a non-verbal manner. It would have been quite simpler to simply stay where and when he was and not move a single muscle. But he knew Twilight and the others would have made the journey even without him and he would have hated himself if anything happened to them.
"Deep in your thoughts?" Keeper asked while looking at him with his valid eye.
"Wondering how my life got so crazy in that last year. What I could have done differently that would have changed the outcome," he explained.
The old gryphon hummed. "Probably nothing. No point in crying over the past."
"Or the future." The gryphon stared at him surprised and confused. "Any advices?"
"Die with honor."
Mark kept himself from rolling his eyes. He looked at the dirty ground wondering how many other passed here asking the same questions. "No way out of it, right?"
"Not any I know of. Not if you want to save your friends."
Over the week, Mark spoke a few time with the old jailor and found out that a challenger dying in honor could have a last request. It wasn't guaranty that it would be granted, but from what he understood, as long as it wasn't against the honor or the safety of the kingdom, most were accepted. That's why the old one was standing there with him now, once he would be dead, Keeper would stand forward and express his last wish. He promised on his honor that he would do it and Mark felt he would keep it. The old one was keeping honor as a value above all else, even if Mark understood something in his past made him fall in disgrace.
The portcullis slowly raised and stopped half way, but even then it was enough to let two gryphons on top of each other pass the large opening with ease.
"It's time," Keeper said.
Mark started to walk, followed by the two guards. They didn't try to push him, they simply stood beside him. There was never any violence done toward a honor challenger as a injured fighter would invalidate the fight. Gryphon or not, nobody touched him in the last week. He thought about hurting himself, but that would only postpone the inevitable. Beside, the others didn't have time to waste, everyday brought them closer to exhaustion.
His eyes took some time to adjust to the bright midday sun. Once he could see clearly, he got his first look on the large arena. Somehow it remembered him on the old Roman's circus, similar in shape but different in color with its black stones. He could see thousand gryphons standing in the bleachers. They were mostly silent and were eyeing him, but some were whispering to each other and pointing claws at him. He could see anger in all their faces, but he couldn't say if it was because of him or they were looking forward the bloodshed.
To his left, a similar gate let his challenger enter the ring. There was no doubt he was proud and confident as he stared at Mark. He didn't try to keep his sight on the captain, there was no point in some staring contest.
In front of him, high above the ground stood on a large black throne a very old and large gryphon. Mark couldn't say how old a gryphon was from another, but it was obvious to him this one was much older than any other he met so far. The silver crown he was wearing made it hard to hide his royal status. The king casted an aura of power and strength and somehow Mark felt he was lucky to not have to fight him. Even on his face Mark could see anger, but somehow his appeared to be directed at the captain.
Mark could say the captain didn't notice any of this as his eyes were still locked on his price, the dark blue pony. Both challengers walked toward the king. In front of them, two swords were stuck in the ground. Mark did as Keeper told him to; he stopped in front of the right sword and kneeled. He noted with a glance to his left that the captain did the same thing in front of the other sword.
"You should be happy, I chose a weapon you could lift," the captain whispered to him. "There is no point in killing you if you can't even fight." The grin on his beak was quite obvious, it was one of a predator and he expected to enjoy the fight.
Mark swallowed hard, he knew the gryphon wouldn't make thing go quickly.
The king stood from his throne and walked to the edge of his balcony. He put his right claw on the railing. From up close, Mark could really see the king was anything but happy about what he was seeing, but again the captain was oblivious of the emotions displayed.
"Many witnessed a challenge being casted and confirmed," the king shouted with a deep voice that made Mark's bones shake. "The challengers kneel before me and the gryphons of this kingdom. We all shall witness their honor." Mark felt the king almost spitted the last word. "Fight well." On that, the king went back to his throne.
The captain and Mark stood up. The first one took his sword in his right claw and made a few swings with it. Mark focused to keep his hooves from shaking. He grabbed the sword with the aura of his old hand. He could feel sweat going down his face and cursed his dark coat for heating up so fast. The gryphons didn't appear to have any problem standing in the heat coming up from the dark stones. The only good thing was that his astral hand didn't sweat and his grip on the blade was as good as it could get. He did a few slow swings and found that the sword was light and well balanced, he would have no problem using it. But it wasn't a decorative weapon like he had in his room a life ago, this one was plain without any marking, but sharp and made to kill.
The two challengers faced each other.
The captain did a weak swing that Mark easily blocked. "Remember, you can alway give up. I will slice your throat. It will be quick and as painless as possible."
"Not gonna happen," Mark spitted out.
The gryphon took a step back with a large smile. "I'm happy you're taking the hard way. I will take my time with you."
"So be it." Mark used his rear legs and jumped as high as he could while slashing down with his right hoof. While surprised by his aggressiveness, the captain wasn't one to be caught off guard that easily, he blocked the slash with ease. He pushed the pony off him. Mark felt to his side but used the motion to roll off on his back and get back on his hooves.
Mark did a few years of fencing in college and while it gave him the experience needed to block, parry and counter some basic attacks, it was with a foil, not sword. It was obvious the gryphon in front of him had much more experience over him. On top, he felt very weird to fight on three legs.
He pushed his body off the floor with her left hoof and stood on his two back leg. He saw ponies standing on two legs before, and while his mind was used to standing like that, his body wasn't. He pushed his discomfort away. He put his right hoof in front of the other and moved his sword forward in a standard fencing position. He felt as stable as his new body could be.
His opponent was obviously quite amused by his posture. He trusted his sword forward which Mark easily parried to the right. He stepped his left hoof forward and slashed above the gryphon's sword. The gryphon was again quite surprised by his move but managed to use the motion of his own sword to dodge to the right. The smile on his face disappeared when he noticed a few half feathers lying on the ground. Mark had managed to cut off a few off the top of his right wing.
The gryphon took no time and slashed down on Mark. He blocked the best he could, but the attack was much stronger than he expected. He was still trying to keep his balance when he noticed the gryphon raising his left claw and slashing it in the direction of his face. Mark pushed off his sword but didn't manage to move back in time, the claw dug two deep lines on his face just above his right eye. However, he felt lucky that the attack missed his eye until some blood started blurring his sight. He was surprised the pain took so long to appear.
The captain didn't let him any time to breath, he slashed from the left, pushing Mark's sword out of the way. The gryphon moved to show his flank to Mark. The pony didn't understand the purpose of this move and quickly got his sword back ready to attack. He only noticed too late the gryphon's tail lifting his legs off the ground. He painfully landed on his back.
Human, I could have jumped over his tail. Maybe it was stupid to try to stand up on two like that.
Mark rolled off just in time to avoid an attack that slashed the ground. He stood back up, this time on three legs. "No more fancy moves?" spitted the gryphon.
"We'll see." In truth, after whole week thinking about it, Mark didn't come up with any useful idea. He hoped to score a lucky hit on his first strike, but that didn't work.
The gryphon started turning around him to his right. Mark quickly understood the gryphon was fully aware of the blood that kept his right eye from seeing clearly. He tried to blink to remove the blood, but more just dripped down. The gryphon leaped forward and Mark didn't manage to block in time. His opponent’s sword dug deep in his right flank, but to his surprise the gryphon pulled his sword before it got too deep. The pain burned in his cut muscles but he refused to scream.
He has a much greater reach then me. If only I could levitate that sword and stand back. I'm sure Twilight would already be done with it. Maybe...
Mark pushed the heat and the pain out of his mind and focused on his opponent sword. While the spell was in theory a levitation spell, he knew very well it wouldn't work. The gryphon, surprised to see the pony's horn glow stopped and put himself in guard. It gave Mark the time needed to cast the spell. The captain let out a bark in surprise and dropped his weapon as the blade caught in fire.
Mark didn't waste time, he leaped forward and swung his blade downward. Once again, the gryphon was faster than him, he caught the moving blade with his right claw and punched the pony in the face with his left.
"You're full of surprise. I can't hold my own sword, so I'm taking your," the captain said calmly.
Mark did a few steps back, his head was spinning from the impact. His sight was blurred by the sweat and the blood and now he was seeing stars. It took a moment to notice he wasn't holding his weapon anymore. He got his focus back just in time to roll side way to avoid another attack. Looking around, he noticed the captain's sword, still burning on the ground. He jumped in its direction just as another attack cut the tip of his tail.
He grabbed the sword. The heat created by the burning metal wasn't comfortable, but the space between his hoof and the sword created by his magical hand was enough to keep it in grip. If he had real hands, he would have been unable to hold it at all.
He lost no time, feeling the captain behind him, he spun around and slashed downward. The gryphon easily blocked once again, but was rewarded by a rain of burning metallic shards on his face. He raised his left claw in an attempt to remove the burning bits off his beak. Mark trusted his weapon forward, but even blind the gryphon managed to dodge at the last moment. A dozen more feathers dropped on the ground, cut off the gryphon's neck.
The captain wasn't happy at all, the fight wasn't going the way he planned. Sure, the pony was bleeding and had a hard time to stand on his hooves, and in the end he would win, he had no doubt about it. However he was still as aggressive as he was when the fight started. He wanted to break his moral first, but it wasn't happening. He trusted his sword forward with all his strength.
Mark didn't manage to parry or dodge in time, he only managed to change the attack's trajectory. The blade cut deep in his left shoulder and bounced off his clavicle. This time, he didn't manage to himself from screaming in pain. Over the pain, he tried to focus once more on his opponent's weapon.
"It's not gonna work twice," the gryphon spitted as he kept his claw moving around.
The motion was too fast for Mark to focus on. Instead, he stared at the ground right behind the gryphon. The ground caught in fire and the captain jumped in surprise as his tail and rear legs were hurt. Mark hoped he would look behind to see what was attacking him, but instead the captain deployed his wing and took flight.
Right, they can fly.
The gryphon dived with his sword pointed at the unicorn. Mark knew he couldn't dodge in time so he pointed his own sword at the diving creature. At the last moment, the gryphon slashed sideway, putting both weapon out of the way. Mark was also pushed side way by the force of the impact. The captain brought his rear legs forward and attacked the exposed flank, leaving six deep bloody marks.
The captain landed on the other side of the pony and turned around. He was surprised to see the pony already trying to face him and attack. He used his left claw to attack his jaw, cutting open his left cheek. The strength of the attack made the small pony spin in the air, his weapon flying away. He landed hard on his belly.
Mark felt blood in his mouth and the heat from the black stones burning him as he laied on the ground. He opened his eyes and saw his burning blade only a few hooves away from him. His whole body was screaming in pain. He started to crawl toward the weapon, his only goal was to grab it and block the next attack.
"It's time for you to give up little one," the gryphon said behind him.
"Never!" Mark managed to answer between his teeth as he was only a few second off grabbing his sword.
"As you wish." The gryphon moved forward and grabbed his mane with his left claw, forcing his head backward and exposing his throat.
No!
While the motion didn't feel natural to his mind, it was for his body. He put his front hooves on the ground and pushed his rear one as hard as he could. Much later, he would remember this equine move as 'bucking', but at this moment, his mind was only focused on pushing the captain away and grabbing his weapon. He was happy to feel his hooves connect with his opponent and he felt his mane free once again.
He felt back face first on the ground. He lost no time and crawled the last remaining distance to his blade. He grabbed it and rolled around to block whatever attack would come. He couldn't keep a scream of pain as he rolled on his wounds. His legs were shaking and he was out of breath. Only then he noticed his weapon was no longer burning as the dirt had put it off, but he didn't care much about that.
After a few moments, he noticed no attack was coming. He looked around and from his point of view, he couldn't see his opponent. He took that moment to try to catch his breath and blink the sweat and blood away from his eyes. After he was sure he wouldn't be victim of a surprise attack, he rolled around once more wincing at the pain. His left leg had a hard time to keep him up as the cut on his shoulder made it shake violently.
Once back on his hooves, he looked around and found the shape of the captain lying on the ground not really far from him. Keeping his sword between him and the gryphon, he slowly walked around it until he saw his face. His beak was cracked in the middle half and his eyes were closed. Mark poked him with the tip of his sword and the gryphon didn't react.
An upward kick to the nose... It would knock out cold a human too. One very luck shot.
As the adrenaline dropped, it took all his remaining strength to not simply collapse on the spot. His body started shaking violently. He put his sword on the neck of the unconscious gryphon.
"Do as you must," the king said, standing behind the railing of his balcony. Mark was surprise to see that all anger was gone from his face, replaced by what he could only described as sadness.
Mark managed in pain to raise his head and looked at the king. "His life is mine to decide," he tried to shout, but it didn't come out very loud. Somehow the king managed to hear his word and nodded. He stared at the gryphon before him and after a moment threw his sword away. "And I decide to spare it." He took a few steps back.
"Are you sure?" The king questioned him.
"I challenged him to defend my friends. I won and that's enough. I see no point... no honor in taking his life now that he cannot defend it. However, I do have a request great king." Mark managed to shout. After all that, he was surprise how the thousand gryphons in the audience managed to stay completely silent.
"I'm listening."
"Me and my friends were taken prisoners for reasons we are unaware of. We are from far away and are no threat to this kingdom. We would like our freedom."
The king hummed and nodded. "You spared the life of my son. I will..."
"Your son?" Mark shouted as he stared at the gryphon lying before him, completly forgetting his manner while talking to royality.
The king simply ignored the interruption and let a small smile. "You're really strange, little one. You got in a fight with another you knew nothing about. As I was saying, I will take your request into consideration. You will have my decision by the end of the day."
On that, the king took a polished metallic sphere in his right claw and smashed it on the floor. The loud noise was the signal that the event was over and the gryphons of the audience started leaving the arena. While they were silent the whole time, the moment the king announced it over, they all broke down into loud discussions.
Mark felt himself falling to his left, he had no strength left and the heat of the sun finally got to his head. However, his fall was cut short when he got his head deep in some feathers. Looking up, he saw Keeper standing beside him.
"You fought well today. Much better than what I expected of your kind."
"Thanks, I guess. Do you know why the king didn't answer my request right away?"
"Here, no king takes a decision right away. He will go seek the advices of the elders and make his mind after that. But I know the elders, they saw you fight. They won't ignore you." The old gryphon straightens himself. "Sorry, but you will have to get out of the arena on your own legs. I'm not carrying you."
Mark sighed.
The great king Stormwings was holding a cup of the best wine made by his kingdom, but today the dark beverage brought him no pleasure. How could things get out of claws like that? He couldn't say. When he was younger things was so simpler; fight for survival, war against dragons, battle against the storms and nature itself.
What he was about to do was the hardest thing he ever had to. He would face a dozen mature dragons right away instead of doing what was to come.
When he heard knocking, he put his silver cup on a table and faced the door.
"Come in."
His only son came in, his once proud face bowing down in shame.
"Father! My king," he said while bowing down.
The old one turned around and walked to a small balcony with a view over the volcano city. He didn't want his son to see his tears, even if he had cried them all a long time ago. "I'm no more your father, nor your king."
"What? But..." tried to ask the captain, confused by his actions.
He turned around once more, anger painting his face. "Had I known who you were challenging, I would have canceled the fight before you stepped in the arena," the king shouted.
His son looked at him confused. "I don't understand."
"You fought a child, not even old enough to be allowed to work," the ruler spitted in disgust.
His eyes widen in surprised. "That's impossible... I..."
"You have sharp eyes but you can't see. He is smaller than a grown mare and he has no marking on his flank. He's twelve... Fourteen at best," the old one explained without containing his fury. "For the first time in over two centuries all the elders agreed unanimously on this. You brought dishonor on yourself the moment you sealed that challenge. Winning or losing this fight would have ended the same way."
Stormwings walked to his table and sat behind it. "I questioned the guards, you captured six defenseless mares, a colt and an old stallion that isn't even able to pull a block of rock. The mares tried to cover the old stallion by doing his work for him." He stared at his silver cup. "It might be a good thing you lost. Had you win, the dishonor would have been put on the whole clan. The crown would have been taken to another one. Losing, the dishonor is only on yourself." He took time before staring at his son. "All the elders agreed, this pony now owns your life and we are releasing him and his friends."
Tears he thought dried long time ago formed in his eyes, but he didn't care anymore if his son saw them. "You are exiled from this land. You are to never return as long as I live."
"Father, I..."
"Freewind... my son. You've always been impetuous and you always acted without thinking. Maybe... maybe this little pony will be able to show you that honor isn't just about slashing your enemy down. Had you been at his place, can you really say you would have acted with as much honor as he did?" The former captain saw a broken gryphon in front of him. He couldn't remember a past moment where his father looked that weak and helpless. "Maybe one day you will come back, stronger and more mature. I hope you do. But I won't be alive to see it. You gone, my enemies' claws will soon be around my throat."
"Now go. You have a new master to serve."
Her sister has been gone to the frontlines for weeks now. Or was it only a few days? She couldn't remember as days started to blend with each other. Her mane kept growing and while she did enjoy its new look and feel, its changes worried her. Her sister wasn't around for her to express her concerns.
She always been the lone type, this situation wasn't new. So why was she feeling that desperate? It was as if her heart was now a vast void and when she would probe it she could feel billion years of loneliness. The simple idea of such a long span spent alone was overwhelming, making her head hurt and spin. It was as if an unknown entity had taken residence insider her. Of course, that was quite a silly idea, isn't it?
When would her sister come back? She couldn't say.
As hard as she tried, ignoring it just became harder. Somehow, as her mane grew so did her powers. Spells that would require her efforts and focus were now performed in a blink and without a sweat. Others were now looking at her with far more respect in their eyes, something she didn't mind much.
She looked outside her room at the city, brightly lit by a morning sun. She always loved that sight. Something inside her twitched and hurt. She backed away from the window and hid in the shadows. Why were the sun rays hurting her? It never happened before, it was as if her head and mane were on fire.
She needed her sister.
If he wasn't close to passing out, Mark would have thanked Applejack and Rainbow Dash from keeping Pinkie Pie off him as her first reaction was to hug him. Right now, he was only happy to be there. When he came back in the prison cell, they were all happy to see him alive, even if he wasn't in an amazing shape.
"I knew you would win." Applejack proclaimed.
Mark rolled his eyes as he was lying on his unhurt side. "You know you're a terrible liar?"
She laughed, "I think I heard that before."
"He fought well," said the jailer while standing in the doorway.
To Mark's confusion, Keeper didn't look surprise and made no comment when the Doctor removed Twilight's constraint with his sonic screwdriver. She didn't waste time and start casting some healing spells on his wounds.
"Don't move," she said. "I'm not a good healer. I'm afraid you will keep some scars from that."
"That's good. He will look like a pirate," Rainbow Dash claimed.
Twilight frowned at the comment and simply decided to ignore it. "Once we are home, a real doctor will be able to remove them."
"If you don't mind, I would like to stay away from any hospital for a few years. I got my share of those."
After about ten minutes of focus and spell casting, she moved back. "Well, that should be it," Twilight said. She noticed Mark had passed out or felt asleep, she couldn't say which.
"Already? You're a far better healer than you say," Rarity commented.
She rolled her eyes and pointed at Mark. "No, his wounds weren't very deep. Only his shoulder will probably need more work later." She turned around and looked at the old gryphon. "I thought it was a fight to the death?"
She was surprised to hear the gryphon laugh. "He was playing with him. I don't think he took him seriously. The prince obviously didn't expect that little pony to have that much kick in him."
"Prince?" five mares shouted as one.
"He kicked a prince? That's awesome!" Rainbow Dash said with a huge smile. "What?" She asked seeing everypony else staring at her.
"That's bad!" Twilight shouted in horror. "Mark killed a prince of the kingdom?"
The old one stopped laughing. "No, he didn't. But no doubt he will have a shattering headache for a few days." A guard interrupted the gryphon and whispered to his ears. He looked at the guard with surprise while this one shrugged and left. "Well, that was unusually fast." He turned toward the ponies. "The king sent his decision; you're free."
"Just like that?" Rarity asked.
"Just like that," the jailor answered. "Well, you might get more than what you bargained for, but it is not my place to say. I will go fetch your bags while you wake him up," the gryphon said while pointing at Mark. He turned around and left leaving the door unlocked behind him.
Rainbow Dash pushed Mark and got no reaction. "I don't think he is sleeping."
"Maybe the heat got to his head?" Fluttershy proposed.
Twilight frowned. "He walked across the desert, I think he got a good resistance to that."
"He wasn't a pony back then," Applejack proposed.
Rarity moved closer and stared at Mark's face. "He's faking."
"No sport. Can't a guy rest two minutes?" Mark said while trying to look angry.
Twilight poked him on his hurt flank making him winced in pain. "No. Time to go sleepy head."
Two guards came with their bags and escorted them outside the city. While walking across the city, the crowds of gryphons stopped talking and shot angry looks at the ponies. Some whispered while pointing claws at them while other would keep their younglings from even looking at them.
"Why they look at us like that?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"I don't know," Applejack answered. She looked at one if their guards for an answer but he only reply with a sharp move of his head, signaling to move. "And I think our friends here are the non-talkative type."
"I noticed the same thing when we were captured," Twilight added.
"And in the arena," Mark said.
"I was sure this city was much bigger than this," Rainbow Dash commented. "What?" she asked after noticing the look of her friends. "Stop staring at me every time I talk!"
"Well duh, we are in the past, silly filly!" Pinkie explained as if it was the most obvious thing.
While walking, they couldn't shake off the feeling that they were seen as dangerous monster, invaders or even some kind of traitors. All the gryphons kept their distance, the crowd letting them an empty path as if they were carrying some sickness. After a walk without any incident, they arrived at the edge of the city, which was also the wall of the volcano. A large and long tunnel was dug directly through it. The black rock, cooled lava, made the passage very dark. After a minute walking in the tunnel, the sun light couldn't reach them anymore. It was obvious that the gryphons had a better eye sight than the ponies.
At the end, two huge doors made of blackened steel were closed. One of their guards went to talk to the dozen soldiers that were keeping the entrance to the city. After what appeared to be an intense discussion, the guard came back while some soldiers disappear in smaller tunnels around the doors. Sounds of gears and chains impacting against each other reverberated in the tunnel while the doors were slowly moved apart. They stopped moving almost as fast as they started, leaving only a space large enough for a pony to go through.
One of the guards simply made a rude motion toward the doors, the message was clear, leave and never come back. The ponies crossed the doorway one after the other. As soon as the last one was clear of the doors, they started closing and shut with a loud bang. Outside, they were blinded by the sun, but once their eyes were used to the bright light, they could clearly see they were not alone. Mark was the first to recognize the gryphon.
"You! What do you want now?" He spitted out in anger.
"My life is your," the gryphon with a cracked beak whistled while slightly bowing down. The motion was clumsy as if the gryphon never really executed it before.
Mark looked at the other ponies, but he could clearly see on their faces that he wasn't alone left without any understanding. His sight stopped on the pony that looked the less confused. "Rainbow! You know gryphons better than us, what is he talking about?"
"I'm not sure."
He could see he wasn't alone with no idea how to handle this new situation. He looked at Twilight but she simply returned his own probing look and shrugged in a way that said 'your problem, deal with it'.
"Huh... Yeah, about your life... I decided to spare it, remember?" For some reason the bowing gryphon wasn't making him at ease at all. The fact that he was still much taller than him even while bowing wasn't helping. "So... Shoo... Huh, go back doing whatever a gryphon does."
"You're my master. I will follow you and do as you ask."
Mark's eyes went ballistic, that was the last thing he was expecting or wanted and from the look of thing the other ponies were in the same state. Except one, which the loud laugh managed to get everybody's sight locked on her, Rainbow Dash was lying on her back obviously having a hard time to breath.
After some long awkward moments, Rainbow managed to control her laughing enough to ask "When you spared him, you claimed his life?"
"I did not! I only said what Keeper told me was the ritual words. Something along the lines 'his life is mine to dec...'" Mark's face went cold when he understood the underlying meaning of that sentence. Seeing his face, Rainbow Dash started another round of laughing.
The Doctor put a hoof on his shoulder and with all the seriousness he could gather, claimed, "Well, now you have a new friend." The distress on Mark's face pushed the other ponies overboard and they all joined Rainbow in laughing.
"Come on! It's..." He decided to simply not say anything as nobody was listening anyway. He could see that the gryphon looked as annoyed as him. "You! Since I'm your... bleh... 'master', can't I just order you to go back to your life and leave me alone?"
The gryphon looked weak and defenseless. "I can't. I've been exiled."
"What? Exiled for losing?"
"No. For casting a dishonorable challenge," he explained.
The ponies managed to stop laughing and stared at Mark and the gryphon. "What are you talking about? You're not allowed to fight ponies?" Mark asked more confused than ever. That made no sense to his mind, if there was such a basic law, the prince of the kingdom would have known it. Remembering the reaction of the king when he stepped up in the arena, that explained the idea of a dishonorable fight, but not the no-pony rule.
"No..." The gryphon stared at the ground as if he was deeply ashamed of something and he was caught in the act. He pushed a pebble with his claw. "We are not allowed to challenge a child."
"What?" He shouted but no one heard him. The damage was done, the seven other ponies were all on the floor laughing.
At some point the Doctor managed to get on his hooves and put one back on his shoulder. Mark could see tears coming from his eyes from laughing too much. "You know... kid," was all he managed to say before going back to the ground laughing. Mark shot him an angry look.
He simply decided to wait for everypony to calm down before trying to say anything. Once the noise was almost gone, he turned back toward the gryphon which obviously didn't enjoy the laughing party. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm probably older than you. Thinking about it, the only one who's older than me here is the Doctor."
"I'm twenty one cycles," claimed the gryphon with whatever remained of his pride pointing his chest with a claw.
"And I'm almost thirty. So scram! Exile lifted!" Mark shouted back, obviously losing his patience.
"But... you have no marking on your flank and... you're so small!" The comment made Mark put a hoof on his face as the others went back to another round of laughing.
"Look, I'm not gonna argue about that. Point is, I'm older than you. That's it. Go back to your life. Now," Mark managed to say calmly but with a huge dose of irritation in his voice.
"I'm sorry, but a decision made by the king and the council of the elders is always final," the gryphon answered while looking genuinely disappointed.
Mark's right eye twitched as the others kept laughing, he couldn't find a way to get rid of the gryphon and he looked quite determined to not leave him alone. "Fine!" Mark screamed while he started walking away. "Whatever! One more crazy, I'm sure no one will even notice."
Since there wasn't any fog, they didn't have any problem getting their bearings and they walked in the direction they hoped would be the Equestrian's boarders. They were released late in the afternoon so they only had a few hours before they stopped for the night. Twilight got her magic working and soon they were lying or sitting around a bright fire.
When asked, the prince claimed the news of their released was broadcasted to all the patrolling guards and they wouldn't try recapturing them. They were all relieved as none of them wished to be caught again.
Somehow, the gryphon managed to sit beside Mark and was staring at the fire. Mark felt the gryphon choose this place on purpose, but he had no way to prove or disprove it. But one place or another, the simple presence of the creature that not even a day ago wanted nothing more than to kill him was making him nervous.
"Seriously, I have no idea how you manage to eat hay." Mark said looking at no pony in particular.
"What's wrong with hay?" Applejack asked raising her head from her own meal.
Mark dropped his bowl on the ground. "What's wrong? It's dry, tastes nothing and feels like I'm chewing on wood or something."
"I guess it's an acquired taste," Rarity commented.
He tried to get rid of some hay stuck in between his teeth. "I guess they forgot something when they changed me."
"Fried hay is good!" Rainbow Dash added.
"Wrapped in bacon maybe." Mark whispered. He looked at the gryphon who appeared confused by the discussion. "What's your name?" he managed to ask.
The gryphon moved around but kept his sight away from the pony. "It's not important," he finally came to answer.
It almost made Mark crack a smile. "Well, I can't just go around and call you 'hey, you' or 'gryphon' or even 'mountain of feather'."
The poor attempt of humor went totally unnoticed by the gryphon. "I'm Freewind, but you can call me whatever name you see fit, master."
Mark noticed that Twilight's head raised at the mention his name, but the last word made Mark go ballistic. He decided he would ask Twilight later if she knew that name. He stood up and walked in front of the gryphon. "Alright! Listen very carefully, this will be my first and last order; you will never call me master ever again. You will never act as being under me or under my command. Is that understood?" Mark shouted while pointing a hoof at him.
"Everyone is commanded by another, no one has no leader," he replied.
Mark sat down. "I don't deny that!" He shook his head. "But having a leader never meant a slave-master relationship." He felt Freewind didn’t understand him, so he decided to talk in words the gryphon would understand. "Blindly following someone's order display no honor, only stupidity. Honor can only come if you communicate with your leaders, understand their motivation and truly believe in what they say."
Freewind looked down as he thought of the pony's word. He wasn't expecting any kind of wisdom coming from a pony about honor and somehow he felt his claim about being older than him was true. "Why didn’t you kill me?"
Mark's hoof moved almost on his own as he slapped the gryphon. Both slightly moved back in surprise as the gryphon held his jaw with his claw.
"You truly have no idea, do you?" Mark asked angry. He remembered of how the gryphon acted in the arena. "Honor... I think I start to understand you problem. You're mixing honor and fame." He sat back and stared at the much bigger creature. "Alright, what is honor?"
Freewind looked around in surprise, he couldn't predict any of the pony's action. He was expecting him to answer that he spared him to humiliate him or to gain control over him. Instead he slapped him while it was obvious the other ponies were minding their own business. "I don't know."
"You're lying. You have you own idea of what it is. Whatever, I will give you my own point of view." Mark moved closer and stared him in the eyes. "There is only one creature alive that can tell you if you're acting with honor or not, it's yourself. The actions that bring you the most honors are those no one sees you do, because they are the only one you perform without ever thinking about what others think about you."
"The only thing you are never allowed is to give up. The only moment your death bring you honors is if you die for someone else survival. If you were to die by any other way, it would be dishonorable. Do you understand why?"
Freewind looked around for help, but it was obvious there wasn't any. "I... huh... no."
"Because when you die, you prevent yourself from performing more honorable actions in the future. You can do mistakes now, but you can always fix it tomorrow. You can dishonor yourself today, but you have the rest of your life to gain it back. Giving up is never an option, when you survive while you should be dead, you're thankful for the chance you were given and you move forward."
"It... It doesn't explain why you let me live."
"Knowing how I see honor, what kind of honor do you think I would have gained killing one that wasn't anymore a threat to my friends' lives or my own? Do you really think preventing someone else from performing potential future honorable acts would bring me any? If you want to go by the numbers, I would say I would lose as much honor as you could do."
Freewind didn't answer and only stared at the ground, but his eyebrows, which in his case were only a line of small feathers of slightly darker color, were hard at work moving around as he was deeply thinking about Mark's speech.
Mark offered him his right hoof. "Name's Mark Anderson."
He took the hoof with his right claw and shook it. "Mark... that's not..."
"A pony name, I know."
Mark left the gryphon deep in his thought and walked up to Twilight. "Hey."
"Nice speech," she replied. "But I'm afraid all that stuff about honor isn't much in ponies mentality."
"Replay the last part of my speech and replace the word honor by friends or friendship."
Twilight frowned. "That's... weird."
Mark laughed. "Probably. I saw you react at his name. What is it?"
She came close to him and whispered. "It's terrible; we are doing a horrible mistake." Her face was proof that she meant it.
"Why?"
"Freewind, I know this name because it’s in the history book. He is not supposed to be exiled, he is to become king!"
Mark's eyebrows rose up. "You're sure? Like he couldn't be another Freewind?"
She shook her head in negation. "Another one who is prince?"
"Well, might be a common name in the royalty." She stared at him, obviously skeptical. "Right, not likely." He looked at the gryphon which was lying on the ground his eyes closed. "Anything else those history books said?"
"Sorry, I don't remember much."
"Wait! Do you mean you know when we are?" Applejack asked who obviously overheard their conversation.
"I'm not sure, gryphons have very long life span and most of Equestrian's books about their history are written in a myths and legends way. They never talk about dates and era," she explained. She lowered her head in shame. "And I never learned their calendars, which is quite different from ours."
"Hey!" Everyponies turned their head to look at Pinkie Pie who bounced in front of Freewind. "I'm Pinkie Pie! Want to be friend?"
"I'm surprised she waited that long," Twilight whispered to Mark.
The gryphon was looking genuinely confused by the bouncing mass of pink in front of him. "I'm sorry, but not now."
"Oh! I know this! You want some space, right?"
"Right," he replied eyeing Pinkie as if it was some kind of trap.
"Freewind," Twilight asked, hoping to divert his sight from Pinkie. "I noticed all the gryphons were giving us some angry look as we were leaving the city. Any idea why?"
"Well, you're the enemies," he answered as if it was as obvious as water being wet.
The ponies all looked at each other wondering what he meant. After a moment they all locked their sight on the gryphon that suddenly didn't feel quite at ease. "What the hay do you mean?" Applejack asked back. "I thought the gryphon’s kingdom was friendly and all," she said while looking at Rainbow Dash, who simply shrugged in answer.
"Allied? We are at war. We have been for almost a decade."
All the ponies turned their head to stare at Twilight. "I... I don't know! I never heard of any war! There are no words about that in any of the history books I've read. There have been... disagreements, battles even, but no war!"
The gryphon looked at each of the pony one after the other and found the same confusion painting their faces, except for the brown stallion that was standing a bit away from the group. "Where do you come from for not knowing that war? And why you keep talking about history?"
"Oh, this is gonna be interesting," the brown stallion simply said with a smile.
"You're not helping doc," Mark replied with a quick angry look.
"We come from the future," Applejack simply answered.
All the ponies stared at her with their eyes wide in surprise while the Doctor was laughing. "Well, that's honesty for you alright," Rarity commented.
Freewind's head was moving quickly as he tried to find any sign of them trying to lie to him, but couldn't find any. "What... What are you?"
The Doctor managed to stop laughing only a short while. "It's only getting better," he said between two chuckles.
"He's human," Rarity said while pointing at Mark. "The laughing one is a timelord and for the six other, we are the bearers of the elements of harmony," she explained with a huge smile. She slightly bowed down. "At your services." She winked at Applejack. "I can be honest too."
"What is... I don't..."
"Oh, no fun! You messed up the brain of that poor Windy!" Pinkie Pie said while looking concerned about the gryphon.
"The poor thing!" Fluttershy said with a soft voice.
"And for months, I thought I was crazy," Mark said with a smirk.
Freewind, his eyes wide in panic, was stepping backward as Fluttershy and Pinkie were moving toward him. In a final step, he turned around and took flight, fleeing fast in the dark night.
"Way to go girls," Twilight said.
"He lost it," Applejack added, but she was pointing at the laughing Doctor who was now on his back trying to breath between two laughs.
"Try to get some sleep. We still have days of walk to reach Equestria," Twilight added as she pulled a blanket out of her bag. Doing so, a piece of paper slipped out of her bag. Taking it in her magical aura, she examined it and sent it flying toward the Doctor who was slowly managing to get back on his legs. "Letter for you, Doctor!"
"What?" the Doctor said while taking it in his hooves. He opened it and quickly read the few lines that were covering the paper. As he read it, his hooves started shaking. He dropped the paper in surprise and kept staring at it as it lied on the ground. Tears were coming to his eyes and he didn't bother to wipe them. They felt down and quickly started to cover the paper with wet spots.
The ponies looked at each other in shock, the Doctor passed from the happiest pony to crying rivers. "What's wrong, Doc?" Applejack asked.
"Wrong? Nothing's wrong! It's..." The Doctor said before he finally noticed the tears. "It's alright! Amazing even!"
Twilight picked the paper with her magic and glanced at it, but quickly found out she couldn't make sense of the weird symbols covering it. "What it is?"
"It's... Keeper! He's a timelord!" The Doctor almost shouted with a large smile.
"Our jailor?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Yes!"
"Well... That's great," Rarity said, unsure how to take the news.
The ponies lied around the fire, each with their blankets. They didn't know how to take the Doctor's sudden burst of emotions and none felt like pressing him to say something he didn’t on his own. Before any other pony managed to fall asleep, Pinkie Pie was already snoring.
Mark walked up to the Doctor, who was standing in his humanoid form in a distance of the fire. He was staring at the night sky with a huge smile on his face.
"I hate this. I almost look like a big dog compared to you now. And to know that I was taller than you before," Mark said.
The Doctor just stood there silent.
"Come on Doc! Spill the beans! You told me you were the last of your kind! What that letter said exactly?"
The Doctor finally stopped staring at the stars. "It's a long story."
"I have time and you look like you could use a listening ear."
"I do?" the Doctor asked with a small smile.
Mark pouted. "Well no. You look somewhat happy, but I'm curious."
"I destroyed my species," the Doctor simply said.
"What?"
"There was a war, a horrible one. All wars are horrible, but this one was hell," the doctor explained while sitting down, his face almost leveled with Mark. "The last great time war. Time, in some aspect, is like a road. If too many people use it at the same place, it gets worn out and can break down. Or if there are too many paradoxes or changes in it. In this war, millions traveled in some specific moment and place to try to do or undo events; two sides trying to destroy each other by preventing the other from existing in the first place. When time itself break down, we call this a timelock. Nobody can enter or exit a place that is timelocked, both by traveling in space or time."
The Doctor sighed and looked at his hands. "Imagine if you made a wrong turn, stepped in the wrong direction and you would age a thousand years in an instant. The timestream regulates how matter age and when it's damaged or destroyed... A timelocked planet is simply a place where nothing can live anymore and all that lived on it is erased from existence... from history"
"That's terrible!"
The Doctor nodded. "This war covered countless planets, hundreds of species. The enemies were numerous and without mercy, religious zealots that believed their species was the only one worthy of living. At first, we fought to protect the other species that couldn't but as the war went on, we fought to survive. At the end, my species decided to 'ascend' at the next level of consciousness to survive it. Their idea was to destroy time itself to get rid of the other side and prevent them from doing the same."
"Is that even possible?"
The Doctor let out a weak smile. "Yes. And they had the will and the means to do it. Had they done it, all species in the universe would have been destroyed, but the timelords would have survived. I understand why they came to this, the horrors I... and they witnessed were beyond what people should ever face in their lives."
Mark sat down and stayed silent.
"I used a weapon, a terrible one. It erased from history both sides of the war. Doing so, it timelocked my planet and hundred others in an instant. I... I couldn't accept what my government had decided. It ended the war. I, and another, were the only ones to survive 'the Moment'. He was dangerous and insane, but he died a while ago. So I was left the lone survivor of the Timelords."
"I know it may not count for much, but I, for one, I'm grateful you did," Mark said. "Thousands species lost... That's a lost that can't be counted. But isn't there billions in this universe?" Mark blinked as he thought he saw something move in the dark. After noticing what it was, he looked back at the Doctor.
The Doctor smiled and closed his eyes. "Yes. That’s why I did it."
"So who is Keeper? Someone you know and managed to survived?"
"No. That weapon was special; it targeted every Timelords and their opponents. It was... instantaneous across time and space. And I knew no 'Keeper'," the Doctor explained.
"How do you know that letter was from a Timelord?"
The Doctor took the letter out of his trench coat and showed it to Mark. He could see the symbols glowing with golden energy. The flow of yellow particles was giving him a headache as he looked at them. "Is that..."
"Yes, only a Timelord can use time itself as ink. Well, that and the fact it’s written in the Timelord language."
"Good enough I guess." Mark thought about it for a moment. "Call me crazy... But aren't you alive?"
The Doctor frowned. "Well yes, I don't..."
"As long as you survive, the timelord does too, no? Well, it's a weird idea, but how about he is your children or grand-children or very remotely grand-grand-grand children?"
"I don't have any!"
"Yet."
The Doctor let the thought sink in his mind. "Well... who know. The universe isn't done surprising me. I doubt I will know, his letter said he would leave as soon as we left the city."
"Doctor... Aren't you named like that because you try to heal or mend the time flow or something like that?"
The Doctor let a small laugh. "It's a way to see it."
"I wonder what Keeper is keeping. Or protecting?" Mark saluted the Doctor and left him too surprised to answer. The Doctor's mind was wiped clean by the pony's last comment. The implications were frightening, but it also awoke something the Doctor thought was dead inside him; hope.
Mark walked away in the dark, toward a lone tree in the plain. The shadow that was moving around froze when it noticed it had been discovered. "Come on Freewind, no need to hide."
"Stay back!"
Mark sat down. "Don't tell me you're afraid of one small pony."
"You're no pony! I saw him transform!"
Mark looked back at the Doctor, who was once again stargazing. He signed. "Yeah, but I'm as pony as one can be."
"The others said you are not!" he shouted back.
Mark let out a long sigh. "Look, I don't have time for a scared chicken. No matter how big the chicken is."
"I'm no chicken!"
"You're the one hiding in the dark and I just don't know what to tell you to snap you out of your fear. What are you scared of anyway?" Mark spitted out while losing patience quickly.
"Strange creatures like you!"
"Oh, that's priceless," Mark let out in between his teeth. "I fought you in that stupid arena, if I wanted you dead, you would be already. Should I swear on my honor that you don't risk anything with us?"
"I... I guess that would be a start," Freewind agreed.
"You lost your 'my master' quickly. Whatever, I swear on my honor that you don't risk anything hanging with us," Mark said as serious as possible. "Beside maybe madness," he whispered to himself.
The gryphon pondered his words for a few moments. He decided that it was the best he could get and stepped out from behind the tree and walked with caution toward the pony. "Seriously, there's stuff out there far more frightening then me or the others. Up to a week ago, I had never seen a gryphon of my life. Shouldn't I be afraid of you? After all, you're many times bigger than me."
"Well... Maybe."
"And you tried to kill me. No doubt, this last year made me insane."
"What?" Freewind asked.
"It's a long story and I'm not sure you're ready for it."
"And then the sphere disappeared and he was now a pony!" Rainbow Dash explained flying above the other ponies with Freewind. They were all walking, or flying, in the direction they hoped was the Everfree forest. It was almost noon and while there was no fog, the cloud level was low and hiding the sky.
"Wow!" Freewind exclaimed. He turned to face Mark. "You really went on the Moon?"
If he wasn't walking right now, he would have put a hoof on his face. "Maybe you were ready to hear that story, but I think it was me who wasn't." He sighed. "Yeah, went on the Moon. In retrospective, it wasn’t the most brilliant idea." Mark was grateful that Rainbow Dash didn't try to explain where he came from, or maybe he simply didn't care or remember. It was hard to say what the cyan pegasus was thinking about. Trying to explain how this was the human's planet a very long time ago didn't feel like a challenge he wanted to take.
"If it sounds stupid but it works, is it really stupid?" Twilight asked.
"Even if it works, it can still be very stupid," Rarity said.
"You should have seen when they nailed his first shoe on. I never saw somepony being that nervous!" Rainbow Dash said laughing.
Mark sighed and rolled his eyes. Trying to explain to Rainbow how human shoes were not nailed on would obviously be a waste of time. Seeing somepony coming toward you with nails and hammer would make any human nervous, he was actually pretty proud of how he didn't just run away screaming.
"And before you looked like the Doctor?" the gryphon asked.
"Yeah, a bit like him."
"You looked weird then," Freewind said and quickly turned to the Doctor. "I didn't mean any insults."
The Doctor rolled his eyes and shrugged. "I heard far worst."
"I mean, walking on two legs and no tail to balance yourself? That's very odd! It does explain what you tried to fight me on two legs," the gryphon added.
"You did what?" Applejack asked in surprise.
For once Mark was happy of his dark coat as it hid his face turning red in shame. "Sounded like a good idea at the time."
"Did it work?" Twilight asked with a laugh.
"Would have... If I had been in my human body."
"So, it was stupid and it didn't work?" Applejack added.
Mark sighed. "Pretty much."
"I'm pretty sure the gryphons will speak of the crazy blue pony for years to come," explained Freewind. "But while it was pretty epic tail Rainbow Dash, it doesn't explain why you came back in time."
Rainbow scratched his neck. "Well you see... The princesses gave us a kind of indirect message and..."
"Princesses? What princesses?" the gryphon interrupted her.
The six mares exchanged a look. "Celestia and Luna, the two princesses who rule Equestria," Twilight explained.
"Really? You call them princesses in the future? Here the ponies call them goddesses,"
All the ponies shared a concerned look. "Well, they are powerful... and old. But they are no goddesses," Rarity countered.
"Well, the war was started in the names."
Mark got close to the Doctor and whispered to him. "Religious war?"
"The worst kind," the Doctor replied with a sigh.
"That doesn't make any sense!" Twilight shouted. "Why would the princesses start a war? And then take centuries after that to hide it only to send us here to find all about it! Ponies are no religious zealot, we are peaceful!"
"They will be. But can you really claim they never were?" Mark asked.
"I... I don't know."
"Maybe we are here to stop it?" Pinkie Pie proposed.
"Eight random unknown ponies appear and just like that stop a decade long war?" Applejack asked skeptical.
Pinkie banked her head. "Why not?"
"The ponies are conquering our lands and destroying our villages in the name of their goddesses. They refused all kind of peace talk or any compromises. Then the war turned into a long stalemate. The lines between our forces and theirs hadn't moved much in the last three years." Freewind explained. "Thousands died on both sides."
"Well, maybe it would cheer you up to know that in the future we are allies," Fluttershy said.
The gryphon didn't look impressed by the idea. "Well, I..." he started but was interrupted by a loud nearby sound. About a dozen meters away from them, a round sphere made of iron had landed in the dirt. A hole on its side was spitting sparks.
Mark stared in surprise at the intruding object. "Oh sh..."
Don't Have Time For This!
Mark didn't finish his sentence before the crude device exploded. He didn't have time to dodge, duck or even move. He was only quick enough to blink before the blast would reach him.
He was expecting bits of metal shredding his body, the heat of the explosion burning him or the blast making his ears ring but nothing of that happened. By the time he understood his brain already went over all that and that was far more time than it should have taken for the blast to reach him, he opened his eyes and saw some purple glow.
He had no idea how Twilight reacted that fast, but she casted some kind of force field between the ponies and the metallic sphere. On one side the grass was burning, on the other the ponies and one gryphon were happy to be alive.
"Nice one, sugarcube!" Applejack cheered.
"Don't lose focus! They will drop more!" Freewind screamed.
Twilight didn't waste time, she rose her head and cast flow of magic upward which after a few meters felt around them, enclosing them in a purple dome.
"Who will?" Mark asked.
"It's a gryphon bomb," Freewind explained. Just as he finished, a metallic bang was heard from the dome as another sphere bounced off it and exploded before reaching the ground.
"Will this shield hold?" Rarity asked.
"Easily," Twilight replied while not losing focus. "It's a family's specialty after all," she said with pride and a large smile.
"That's pretty neat. You will have to teach me that spell," Mark said.
The Doctor poked him. "With your luck, you're gonna set the air on fire." Mark pouted at the comment.
"Freewind, I thought you said the gryphon's patrols had orders to leave us alone," Rainbow Dash asked.
The gryphon was staring at the ground, obviously unhappy. "Yes. The only way they can attack like that is if someone gave them the order. It means... it means my father is dead. But there is no way a new king was elected already..."
"I don't understand, he looked in great shape when we left," Mark countered.
"Without an heir, one of my father's opponents probably felt his position was weak enough to challenge him." It was obvious the gryphon was putting forth tremendous effort to keep his tears from flowing. "How could I mess things up like that?"
The gryphons hidden high in the clouds obviously noticed their sneak attack failed and decided to go with the brute force, dozens of metallic spheres started raining down. The shield started to show cracks and weakness.
"I thought you said it would hold?" Applejack shouted at Twilight.
"I... I thought it would!" she shouted back. She casted a second layer of magic just as the first one shattered. "I guess I'm still a bit tired from last week," she tried to apologize.
"Enough!" Rainbow Dash screamed. "Twilight, I need to be outside the shield."
"What?" asked the seven ponies.
"That's suicide. Gryphons always attack in packs of twelve, and from the number of bombs, there are two full packs up there," Freewind explained.
"Trust me," Rainbow replied with a corner smile.
With a flash of purple, Rainbow Dash was teleported above the shield. She quickly dodged a ball of metal.
"She's gonna get killed!" Freewind screamed, ready to take flight.
Applejack put herself on his path. "Woo there, big one." Freewind was surprised how the small mare actually managed to hold him in place. She was much stronger than she appeared. "She knows what she's doing." Just as she said that, Rainbow dashed upward, quickly accelerating toward the high clouds.
Freewind knew that pegasi were in general slightly faster than a gryphon, but he didn't remember seeing any going that fast. He turned his head toward Twilight. "There are at least twenty fully armed gryphons in the clouds. What does she think she can do?"
Twilight looked uneasy. "I'm sorry Freewind, but some of them might not survive."
"What?"
Rainbow Dash stopped accelerating and kept her speed, she needed to know where her targets were first. Just as she entered a cloud, she noticed one gryphon had seen her coming and was holding a long spear toward her. She dodged it at the last moment and continued her ascent.
Looking around, she found out most of the gryphons were packed in a tight circle above the ponies on the ground. It looked like the gryphons simply ignored her, they looked at her but they didn't try to give chase. No doubt a single lone mare was no threat to so many trained soldiers. Besides, she was fleeing away at speed none of them could match with their heavy armors. One high ranked soldier looked at her and gave an order she couldn't hear as she was speeding away. But the gryphons only grabbed more bombs from their saddlebags and lit them up. It was obvious their primary focus was still on the ground, they could track the blue pegasus later.
Rainbow Dash grinned at the mistake the gryphons did of not trying to catch her. She stopped at what she felt was the right altitude and aimed at the packs. She jumped down and speeded up. In the last year, after her second sonic rainboom, she had trained harder than ever to be able to perform them on command. It had been the hardest training she ever did, but it paid.
She speeded up as much as she could, only holding off as she felt the sonic threshold. Her goal was to break the barrier just as she was passing the gryphons. One of them noticed her and pointed a claw toward her. Their leader looked up, but it was too late to give any order or to try to break off their formation. Rainbow Dash pushed forward and broke that wall that would keep other pegasi at slower speed. The rainboom prismatic hue spread outward, clearing the clouds and blasting the soldiers away. She had done it perfectly and the blast happened exactly in the middle of their formations.
She couldn't see any of it as she was busy slowing down, but many of the gryphon's devices didn't react to well at the sonic boom and secondary explosion could be seen across the sky. As she came close to the others on the ground, most of the clouds were gone.
For Mark, it was the second time he saw her perform it. He had to admit that it was far more effective against gryphons than against some kind alien space cloud monster.
Twilight teleported Rainbow Dash inside the dome as gryphons, weapons of all kind and other equipments felt all around them, some of them bouncing off the shield. "I think you overdid it Rainbow," she said with a weak smile.
A very frighten gryphon stared at Rainbow Dash. "What was that?"
"A sonic rainboom for you, aww yeah!" she replied with pride. "You go very fast and when you break the speed of sound, everything goes boom!" she explain with a quick motion of her hooves. "And Twilight, I know gryphons. They are quite strong, I'm sure they will survive it."
"They might survive the rainboom, but not the fall from that height with their armors or the explosion of their bombs," Twilight explained while looking around in hope of seeing a gryphon alive. She removed the shield to have a better view.
Rainbow Dash's face went pale. "I... I didn't... I only want to knock them out."
"I see one alive!" Fluttershy shouted as loud as she could, which was still not very loud. At a fair distance from them, one gryphon was trying to stand up. They all raced toward him.
As they got closer, Rainbow noticed it was the leader of the group. Having no bombs and lighter armors allowed him to survive the fall. However it was obvious he was having a hard time getting up and his ears were bleeding. Reaching him, they could see his left claw was twisted at a weird angle.
The gryphon also noticed the racing ponies and tried to show himself as menacing as possible. "Freewind the weak, still alive. I failed my mission," he hissed.
"The weak? That's what I'm called now?" Freewind asked obviously unhappy.
The gryphon laughed. "You brought dishonor to your kind. It is only fitting that the new king would order your death."
"There's no way the council of the elder elected a new king already!" Freewind shouted. Looking at the face of the other gryphon, he finally understood. "You attacked without valid orders!"
"Thunderrage will no doubt become king! He wanted to get rid of the dishonor you brought by losing against a child!"
"I was defeated by stronger than myself." He pointed at the soldier. "Thunderrage is giving orders to the army while he is not king yet, what honor there is in ignoring the councils or ordering sneak attacks?" Seeing that the gryphon didn't want to answer, he made a motion toward the ponies. "None of them are what they appeared to be. They are exsercy , Thunderrage would be wise to remember that." The ponies looked at each other but it was obvious none of them understand the weird term.
Surprise painted the other gryphon's face for a second. "There's no such thing!"
"I saw them. And you, you will have to explain the death of your soldiers, killed by a single mare. I wonder what kind of honor you're bringing back to the kingdom."
Seeing the heated discussion was coming to an end, Twilight moved forward in order to cast some healing spell on the wounded gryphon. "Stay away from me, pony!" the gryphon screamed while trying to back off.
"You need healing!"
Freewind put a claw on her shoulder. "No, he won't have any. He is too proud for that."
The soldier turned around and took flight with pain. "You're weak Freewind!" he shouted without looking back.
As the gryphon flew away, Freewind turned around and faced Mark. "I think I begin to understand what you meant. But I feel it might be very hard for the other gryphons to understand that."
"What's truly worth it is never easy," Mark replied with a smile. "By the way, what was that word you used? Exsercy?"
To everypony's surprise, Freewind blushed, which in his case some red was showing up behind his feathers. "It's an old gryphon dialect. Very old... and it dates of the time gryphons had not a full language on their own and had problem speaking complex words."
"And... what does it mean?" Applejack asked.
"Creatures of legends. Or if you prefer in a more literal way, creatures that only exist in stories."
"That's... That's how you see us?" Twilight asked incredulously.
Freewind stared at the ground. "You have to admit you're not everyday ponies."
"Eep!" Fluttershy let out before collapsing in front of one gryphon's corpse.
Rainbow Dash became even paler as she saw first hoof the result of her rainboom. "Oh my gosh!" she kept repeating. As the others came close to her, she turned around and stared at Freewind. "I didn't mean to! I swear!"
"Hey!" a voice screamed from afar. Everypony turn in its direction and saw a large group of armored ponies of all kind and color galloping and flying toward them. As they came close two of them ran toward Freewind and draw their spears to his throat. "We saw the explosion and came as fast as we could."
"Woo there!" Mark shouted. "He's with us."
"What do you mean?" asked the same voice, which the ponies could see was coming from a bright steel blue unicorn in golden armor.
"He's my slave," the Doctor said as he stepped forward. All the ponies frowned and stared at him while Freewind shoot him an angry look.
The large unicorn came close to the stallion and locked sight on him. The Doctor returned his stare with ease. "And who might you be?"
The Doctor produced a small wallet and flipped it in front of the soldier. "I'm her Goddess' scribe. I record all events of importance for the generation to come."
The unicorn stared at the wallet in surprise. "I... I didn't know of your visit. I apologize for my rudeness," he said while quickly bowing down. "I'm Dawn Sparkle, sergeant of the tenth battalion." Without turning their heads, everypony's eyes went toward Twilight. She was quite uneasy with the captain's name, but she managed to keep a smile on her face.
"Is he your?" Applejack whispered to Twilight.
"I don't know! Sparkle is quite a common name for unicorn, like Apple for earth ponies," she whispered back.
He pointed at Freewind. "Sir, your slave has lost his collar, I would advise you to find new one or some soldiers could see him as a threat." Noticing the change in behavior of their leader, the two soldiers lowered their spears. "And... Who are they and who did all this?" the unicorn asked pointing a hoof at the other ponies and the destruction around them.
"They are my mares," the Doctor said with pride not looking directly at the soldier. Rarity put a hoof on Applejack's mouth before she could say anything. "And my son," he said while pointing at Mark, who rolled his eyes. "As you can see, we were attacked and we dealt with it," he said as if it was nothing. The other soldiers looked at each other, skeptical of the crazy claims.
"You... you did?" one of the pegasus soldier asked.
"Oh no, no, no. Not me, I'm a man of scrolls and quills," the Doctor claimed with a noble tone with a hoof on his heart. "One of my mares did it." He came close to Dawn and lowered his voice just enough that it sounded like a secret but high enough that most would hear him. "They are chosen personally by the goddesses for their... special abilities."
"Huh... one... one did?"
The soldiers that were close to the mares took a few steps back and suddenly showed a lot of respect for them. Applejack, Rarity and Twilight who silently decided to play the game raised their heads trying to look as proud as possible. Pinkie Pie did was she does best, she showed her largest smile. Rainbow Dash was still too much in shock to react. One of them pointed at Fluttershy that was lying on her back. "Is she alright?"
The Doctor nodded. "That poor one isn't used to the battlefield yet," he explained. "But she wasn't chosen for her fighting skills." He looked at the unicorn suggestively. "If you see what I mean."
"I... see," was all he managed to reply feeling more uneasy by the minutes. He blinked a few time as he if just remembered something important. "You missed the goddess by a few hours. She is going back to Canterlot."
The Doctor hummed with a hoof on his jaw. "Well, I guess we must move on earlier than I thought. We will be on our way then." He moved his hoof around in a sign for the ponies to gather up. Freewind picked the unconscious Fluttershy and dropped her on his back. Just as they started moving, the sergeant sprinted ahead of them.
"Wait!" Dawn said. "I will escort you to Canterlot."
"There is no need for..."
"It's alright, my troops are going back to the barracks for their patrol rotation and I'm to report to Canterlot for my next assignment," the unicorn explained. "It would avoid any confusion if you were to meet other soldiers."
The Doctor didn't expect it and was a bit confused by the sudden display generosity, it was obvious the soldier was hiding something and it was clear the sergeant wouldn't take no for an answer. "Well, such a kind offer, we would be stupid to not accept it. Thanks a lot."
The platoon of soldiers left them and they walked in direction they hoped would be Canterlot with their new escort. Fluttershy had woken up soon after they started walking and she said she was feeling better. It wasn't the first time she saw a corpse as she had to deal with animal feeding off others, but the reality of the battlefield took her by surprise. Twilight felt she wasn't telling everything and hoped she would talk about it later.
Rainbow Dash was a mystery, she was staying at the back of the group talking to herself. Twilight was concerned for her, but it would have to wait for them to stop for the night. She knew Rainbow, while rude, wasn't a violent pony. The death of so many gryphons happening so suddenly must had taken its toll on her mind. She actually didn't know what to say to her about that specific problem. By the past, they always managed to overcome their challenges without resorting to killing.
Twilight was blaming herself for what happened. How could her shield fail so easily? She was obviously tired from her week of enslavement and quite annoyed that she couldn't cast a protection spell properly. Had it not for that week of forced labor, her force field could have withstood all the bombs those gryphons had and far more. While not as talented as her brother, he could cast one around a whole city. She couldn't forgive herself that such a small dome shattered only after a few weak and primitive bombs. She had no doubt that if she casted it correctly, they could have walked up to Canterlot with the gryphons over them without giving them any thought.
On the other hoof, those soldiers came very quickly. No doubt they heard or saw the explosions. A fight between them and the gryphons would have no doubt happened. She couldn't shake off the idea that she was walking with her ancestor, even if she had no proof of that. Would he have been killed if he fought the gryphons?
Rarity and Applejack were walking beside each other. They didn't appear to be moved too much by the sad scene they left behind them. They were whispering to each other and Twilight hoped they were trying to cheer up the other.
As for Pinkie Pie, she was Pinkie Pie, smiling as if nothing happened. Twilight had no idea how the killing affected her. She had the feeling Pinkie was trapping her emotions deep inside and that at some point in the future she would have to help her overcome them. Hopefully it would happen before they would overcome the pink pony.
But what concerned more Twilight was how Dawn and Freewind were looking at each other. Dawn took the lead of the group, obviously knowing the direction toward Canterlot more than them while Freewind walked behind. Every time they would get anywhere near, Twilight could swear she could hear them growling at each other. She only hoped they wouldn't do something stupid.
They walked for almost two hours before Dawn suddenly stopped in his track. He drew his sword with his magic, spun around and placed it on the throat of a surprised Doctor.
"Now, no lies. Who are you and what are you doing out here?" He asked angry.
"Well, I..." the Doctor started to answer.
"I've been a guard of the goddesses for five years. There is no scribe or ponies chosen by them for some special abilities," he explained while pressing his sword harder.
"We don't have time for this," Twilight said while she continued walking. She didn't stop and the others followed her.
The Doctor pouted. "How about some help?"
"What for? I don't even know what he his pointing his sword at. For all I know, he is threatening your leg. Beside 'dad', aren't you immortal or something?" Mark asked with a large smile while walking passed them.
"I'm not immortal! I can die... Well, I would regenerate, but that's not the point!" the Doctor explain while rolling his eyes.
"As your slave, I will go seek some help. It might be back in a week of two," Freewind commented with a weird smile while following Mark.
"As your mare, I will cry on your grave my dear," Rarity added, trying very hard not to laugh.
Dawn was utterly confused by their reaction. He was expecting them to try to rescue the stallion, to flee or even to try to kill him, but they simply flat out ignored him, as if he wasn't a threat or important enough for their attention. Even his target didn't appear to care that much for the floating sword. "Alright, you had your fun," the Doctor said. "May I pass now?"
The sergeant learned a long time ago to never trust what he wouldn't understand, and right now the whole group of ponies and gryphon was a variable he couldn't explain. He charged up a spell and with a blue flash disappeared from in front of the Doctor.
He reappeared in front of Twilight who was will still in the lead of the group and aimed his sword at her. "I need answers!" he shouted with as much conviction as he could.
The mare didn't stop walking and her horn briefly flared up. The moment the sword would have touched her, it turned to ashes and was blown by the wind. Dawn was only surprised for a second and just as he was about to charge an offensive spell, he found himself stuck inside a purple bubble of magic. Shields were his family's specialty but the one holding him was far stronger than he thought possible to cast.
"I said we don't have time for this," Twilight snapped while walking. Her impatience was showing up, since they came to this time they were threaten by every living being around. The trapped soldier was following her stuck in his sphere, floating a meter above ground. "If you want answers, you will ask your questions when we stop for the night, understood?" Dawn nodded, quite impressed with the purple unicorn's abilities. If she wanted him dead, she wouldn't have to try very hard.
The sphere disappeared with a pop and the sergeant felt hard to the ground. "I'm terribly sorry, she's a bit cranky right now. But you know, having gryphons drop bombs on you can do that," Rarity apologized while passing by him.
"I'm so sorry!" Fluttershy apologized as she stopped beside the soldier. As he looked at her, she let out a small "Eep!" and sprinted to catch up Twilight.
"Seriously Doc, what's up with creatures in this time? You know, when I came here I thought everything was a bit too colorful and peaceful, but this is getting ridiculous," Mark commented to the Doctor while walking beside him. He just shrugged in a way that said he already saw far worst.
When they stopped for the night, they actually had made some good progress. Twilight thought they were only a day away from the tree line of the Everfree forest. However, she wasn't sure which Canterlot they were trying to reach. As far as she knew, 'old' Canterlot was in the middle of the forest, where they found the Elements of Harmony almost two years ago while 'new' Canterlot was beyond the forest. The fact that she never heard of a war between Equestria and the Gryphons made her believe far enough in time to aim for the old city.
She lay beside the fire and started reading a book she brought with her. It was a very general overview of Equestria's history and while she had read it a few times already without luck, she was still hoping to find any kind of clues as of their whereabouts. She was expecting Dawn to ask lot of questions, but the stallion looked uneasy and was standing clear of the others. Again, she hoped that whatever questions he would like to ask, he would have the decency to ask them before they would fall asleep.
From the corner of her eyes, she noticed Rainbow Dash going toward Freewind. She obviously wanted to speak with him. Twilight guessed it was about what happened today and with a bit of luck it would help Rainbow to feel better. She wanted to talk to Rainbow first but she didn't know what word to use. The gryphon was a far better choice, he lived in a decade long war and probably saw first claw some gruesome death.
"Hey, Freewind... I would like to talk a bit," Rainbow Dash said while walking toward him.
Twilight noticed how Dawn's sight snapped on the gryphon at the mention of his name. Checking her memories of the day, she remembered that noponies ever said his name in front of the pony soldier. It was a good bet that ponies new the names of the gryphon's royalty. She hoped that he wouldn't do something stupid, but just as she thought that, she noticed he was strolling toward the gryphon in the most natural way possible.
"Sure Rainbow," Freewind replied, unaware of the pony that was walking toward him from behind.
Dawn stopped when he felt close enough and drew a small dagger off his armor. He leaped forward screaming. "For the goddesses!"
Before it could connect, his dagger disappeared in a flash, only to reappear in between pages of Twilight's book. "Thanks, I needed something to keep my page," she simply said while she continued reading her book.
Dawn bumped harmlessly on Freewind's flank. The gryphon spun around and grabbed the soldier's head with his right claw and slammed it on the ground. On his back, the pony bucked hard the exposed stomach of the gryphon, which was forced to back up in pain. The gryphon and the pony quickly stood in front of each other, trying to find an opening in the other's defense. None of the ponies stood up and were simply watching them.
"Five bits on the gryphon!" Applejack shouted while lying on her side.
"Taken!" Rarity replied.
"You're not gonna stop him?" Freewind asked.
"Why would we? You were looking to kick each other's faces the whole day long. We will sit back, enjoy the show and make you feel as awkward as possible," Mark explained with a smile while laying his head on a dry trunk.
"Popcorn?" Pinkie Pie offered as she produced a large bowl of it. Nopony tried to explain where it came from or even how she managed to cook it without anypony noticing.
"Pinkie, you're a miracle worker," the Doctor cheered while taking some.
"He fooled you all!" Dawn scream. "No doubt you didn't know, but he is the prince of the gryphon kingdom! In the name of the goddesses, he must die!" He was sure his speech had work as the ponies looked at each other in surprise. All his hope went crashing down when they all started to laugh.
"Of course we know he is the prince, duh!" Pinkie Pie replied.
Dawn desperately wanted to attack the gryphon but the eyes' of the ponies looking and judging him made him feel quite uneasy. They all acted as if he was a kid doing something stupid but didn't want to stop him so he could make a fool of himself. He knew also he wouldn't stand much chance against a gryphon of this size without any weapon. He wanted to do a sneak attack and end it in one strike, but once again the purple mare got rid of his blade with ease. He could use magic, but he had the feeling the purple one wouldn't let him do much with it.
"He's chickening out," Applejack said.
Rarity raised her hooves. "Oh, come on! Throw some punch!"
"Why do you all make me feel like I'm doing something stupid?" Dawn asked.
Twilight raised her eyes from her book. "Maybe because you are doing something stupid." She closed her book. "Now, both of you, hurt each other as much as you want right now. But after that, I want you both to promise to not touch the other one after tonight."
Freewind stepped back. "I promise. It's not like I wanted to hurt him, I was just being cautious, like when somepony try to stab you. But if he truly want a beating right now, I won't mind."
"Pinkie promise!" Pinkie Pie shouted.
"What?" Dawn asked confused.
"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!" Pinkie rehearsed.
"That's silly! You're not serious, that's for kid..." Dawn tried to say.
Rarity laughed. "Darling, nopony break a Pinkie promise."
"Nopony!" Pinkie shouted with a deep voice while standing in front of Dawn, her nose touching his. Dawn backed up in fear, he didn't see the pink pony move and yet she was standing in front of him, a dozen meters away from where he thought she was. He could have sworn her eyes were yellow and red, but a shadow passed and they were back to bright blue. He was a trained soldier who survive countless battle, how could anypony manage to get up close without him noticing, an earth pony no less?
"I promise too," he finally managed to say once he managed to silence his fear.
Twilight opened her book once more. "Good boy. Now come enjoy some popcorn."
"Popcorn?" the soldier asked confused as he came close to the fire.
"Hey Dawn, I got a question," Mark said. "If you knew we were not what the Doctor pretended, why didn't you attack us with your troops instead of being alone?"
The soldier sat down. "My first duty is to protect my ponies. Somepony or something killed lot of gryphons back there. I would not put my troops in danger to face something completly unknown... I had to investigate on my own," he explained.
"Logic," Twilight agreed.
"Doctor! What's that wallet you showed Dawn?" Rarity asked.
The Doctor swallowed a mouthful of popcorn. "Psychic paper," he finally managed to say. "You see on them whatever I want you to see." He took his wallet out and showed it to Rarity. On it she could see the blazon of Canterlot's royalty.
"Impressive," she said.
"Oh! Oh! I want to see!" Pinkie Pie cheered while bouncing close to the Doctor. He showed her his wallet. "That's just white paper, silly! Aren't there supposed to be something on it?"
The Doctor stared at the pink pony in surprise and his smile faded away. "It... it must be broken." he said while putting it away.
Dawn finally got enough courage to step forward. "So... Who are you?"
All the ponies looked at each other. "Here we go again," Mark said.
Freewind and Rainbow Dash retreated away in the shadows. "I wanted to talk to you. About what happened today," Rainbow started. "But... but I don't know what to say."
"Then don't say anything and listen," Freewind replied. Rainbow looked at him in surprise and nodded. "You all make me feel very weak, and I must say it never happened before. When you flew off, I wanted to stop you. I thought you were insane but Applejack held me down as if it was nothing."
"Yeah, AJ is pretty strong. You should pray to never be on the receiving end of one of her bucking." Rainbow said with a small laugh.
"I thought you were gonna die in vain up there. Gryphons are not known to give up easily. Once they start to hunt a target, the only real way to stop them is to kill them. Had you only knocked them out, they would have come after us later." Freewind lowered his head. "You saved my life today. All our lives. Thanks."
"But I'm a murderer now! I've killed..."
"No!" Freewind almost shouted. "You're a hero, and a hero makes the hard call that no one else would. The fact that you feel bad for what happened prove that you did right... A hero would never brag... about... it..." he finished deep in his thought. He looked down at his claws.
"What?"
"Nothing. The more I think about it, the more I understand how Mark is right about honor. There's far more about it that I ever thought possible," Freewind explained.
"I'm sorry, but I never understood that honor stuff."
The gryphon laughed. "I guess you don't need to, you follow your heart and that's enough."
"Well... I..."
He grabbed the flying mare by the shoulders. "You did good Rainbow. What happened was terrible, but you did what you had to. Never believe otherwise," Freewind said sincerely.
"I... Thanks."
Even the servants stopped coming to see her. Watching herself in the mirror she could understand why, the changes that started a few months ago were speeding up. She didn't recognize the pony the mirror was reflecting. Her mane was now bigger than her and was flowing around almost on its own. Her coat and eyes also changed and now she could see clearly in the darkest places. But she was partially responsible for others not coming, she had barricaded herself in her quarters, only to come out at night where the Sun couldn't hurt her.
She had lost track of time a while ago, she wasn't able to sleep correctly. For that, day or night didn't matter, there were wordless whispers in her head and pain in her heart. There was no doubt, her sister had abandoned her. As for the other ponies, they fled from her at the only moments she could come out, the night. Ponies were never known for being night creatures, but right now it felt painfully obvious.
She always been a lone pony, why would it hurt her now and not before? She always has been in the shadows of her sister and she preferred it that way, until now. Where were those transformations coming from? She wished she could always get a partial answer but her mind was clouded by something she couldn't describe, she only knew it was old and powerful. That loneliness was a bottomless pit and there was no breaking her fall in it.
She needed a solution, a way to relieve the pain, to calm the whispers... Any way.
"Hey, Twilight," Applejack asked while lying on her back. Most of the ponies were asleep but Twilight was still reading her book.
"Anything wrong Applejack?"
"I just noticed... There's no Mare in the Moon," the orange pony explained while pointing a hoof up at the sky.
Twilight's head looked up and there was the Moon slowly moving, high in the sky. Applejack was right; the Moon's surface was clean. How could she not notice that before? "I guess it means we are over a thousand years in the past."
The inspection of the troops went better than she expected, the reports of the lack of moral were obviously exaggerated. Celestia entered the temple as she did the last twelve centuries, with the guards bowing down while her escort went back to their barracks. At least it was until she noticed the gate's guards were missing, but she was already inside when her brain recorded this strange omission. At this point, the missing guards were the least of her concern as she looked around the temple.
Every window had been covered by sheets which was obscuring the inside of the old building. It was so dark she couldn't make out most of the temple's furniture. It was obvious the servants were as missing as the guards. She was about to pull the sheets off with her magic when she felt a presence nearby. She wouldn't let herself feel fear; after all she was a goddess.
"Hello? Luna, are you there?"
"Welcome back sister," a voice replied from the darkness. It was Luna's voice, but not really at the same time; it was deeper and full of emotions, different.
"Did you do this? What's going on?"
Something moved in the shadows. "You left us in the dark. All alone. Everyponies did," the voice hissed in pain.
Celestia was more confused than she would ever admit it. "What are you talking about? Is this a prank?" Something passed back her left side and she spun around to face it, but she was rewarded with an empty corner.
"You never felt loneliness. Ponies play under the Sun. But they sleep or fear the night," Luna said in her back. Celestia jumped around but once again there was nothing in front of her.
"You know it's not true!" she shouted. "There are ponies that live in the night too."
"I'm trapped. Trapped in a nightmare, in which I'm alone. Alone forever, since the beginning of time," the voice said from every corners of the room at once as if Luna was everywhere.
"You’re not making any sense!"
Something was very wrong and Celestia felt the need to flee the temple. At that point, she didn't care what the ponies would think of their goddess running in fear. She could always explain it was for the best. But first she needed to see where she would run. She focused on one of the nearby sheet and pulled it off the window. Morning light batted the room and while her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she ended facing Luna.
At least she thought at first it was Luna, but the pony in front of her was taller, slimmer and darker. If it was her sister, her deep blue coat was now deep black and her kind soft look was replaced by mean green snake's eyes. But far more frightening was her mane which somehow was flowing all around Celestia similar to a vaporous mist, it was several time the size of her sister’s body.
"Luna, is that you?"
The black winged unicorn winced in pain. “Luna… No. No, I’m not. Luna was a fool, trapped in your shadow, a naïve filly that for centuries hurt in her corner while her sister played god.” She stepped forward. “But now I know, I know how to make the pain go away, how to make it stop.”
“Luna! Snap out of it!” Celestia screamed.
The black pony roared. “Luna is no more! If I’m to be trapped in the nightmare, then everypony will be with me!” Her mane leaped toward Celestia before she could run or charge a teleportation spell. Celestia tried to move, escape or to cast some spell but something was disrupting all her attempts, she felt her strength being drained.
“If trapped… I’ll become… I am the nightmare!”
"He did take it well." Fluttershy said about Dawn who was walking in the lead of the group. The tree line of the forest was now in sight and they were moving toward it at good pace.
Rarity shook her head. "Dear, I think he simply does not believe us. Or taking us for a group of crazies.”
"You have to admit it's a lot to take at once," Freewind commented. Last night, Dawn sat down and asked a bunch of questions which everypony tried to explain as best as they could. It ended up with them recounting a good part of their adventures, almost from the beginning. Lot of smaller details were skipped but they didn't feel it would affect his view on the subject. They were not sure if Dawn was actually listening to them as he just kept nodding to their story. Twilight knew what was happening in his head as her brain worked the same way, he would take all the information in and let his neurons sort them all out. She was quite sure the blue unicorn didn't manage to sleep that night.
Dawn stopped and spun around. "I just... it's... I... you don't... Arg!" He turned around and continued walking.
"Well, that was enlightening," Twilight said with a smile.
"I think his brain needs a reboot," Mark said to the Doctor.
"At least he didn't do a blue screen of death," the Doctor replied. Mark laughed, surprised the Doctor would know that reference.
Twilight frowned. "What are you two talking about?"
"Computer stuff," Mark replied without thinking.
"And what is a computer?"
Mark and the Doctor looked at each other quite uneasy with the question. The Doctor looked back at Twilight and blinked a few time. "Well, it's complicated. It would take a lot of time to explain." Twilight shot him an angry look.
"Once we are out of all this, I promise I will explain it all. Alright?" Mark proposed.
Dawn stopped once more. "Look, it's not that I believe you or not," he said speaking to nopony in particular. Everypony stopped and stared at him, which didn't help putting him at ease. "I'm a soldier, it's not my role to evaluate that kind of situation. I will bring you to the goddesses and they will decide what's true or not." Twilight pouted, so much for his brain sorting information like her, he blocked it all out and ignored whatever he couldn't understand.
"Good enough for me," Rarity said with a smile.
"You could drop the nervous look, sugarcube," Applejack added while pointing at Dawn. "We ain't gonna hurt you."
Freewind walked pass them, his ears twitching around.
"Now what?" Mark asked while looking at the gryphon.
Freewind gave a quick look back. "I'm hearing a pony crying," he answered before looking once more at the forest line ahead of them. "A mare or an old filly. It's coming from the forest."
The six mares looked at each other and then sprinted or flew toward the forest without a word leaving the males in the dust. Dawn and Freewind quickly followed.
"Oh come on!" Mark shouted. "I can't run that fast!"
The Doctor started trotting toward the forest leaving Mark behind.
"Bleh!"
Rainbow Dash was without a doubt as fast as her reputation says, as she arrived to the source of the cries way ahead of the others. However, what she found made her stop in her tracks and stared at the mare rolled on the floor crying. Applejack, sprinting as fast as she could, turned around a tree and almost collided with Rainbow.
"Ow, Rainbow! Don't just stand there!"
Rainbow didn't answer and simply pointed at the crying mare. Applejack looked passed Rainbow and had to work double time to prevent her jaw from dropping on the ground. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Twilight finally caught up with them and they all stood silent as they watched what the two found in the forest.
"Princess Celestia!" Twilight finally shouted.
The white mare with a pink, green and blue pastel mane, slightly smaller than Fluttershy, turned around to face the source of the shout with her eyes red of tears. "I'm a goddess and you will show the respect I deserve!" she tried to shout between sobs.
The mares looked at each other and with a silent accord bowed down in front of the small winged unicorn.
When Dawn Sparkle and Freewind caught up with them, the first one flatten to the ground trying to not look at the divine mare while the gryphon simply stood there surprised. "That's the pony goddess?" He whispered to himself. "I thought she was bigger."
"Hey Doc! At least I'm running faster than you." Mark came out running out of a bush, looking back and almost collided with Celestia. He stared at the white mare that was as small as him. "And who the hell are you?"
"I'm your goddess and you will bow before me!" she screamed very close to a nervous breakdown.
"What? I don't know what's wrong with you but you won't get anything by shouting at people's face," Mark said not knowing how to deal with the crazy in front of him. This close to the her, he was unable to see any detail of the mad pony beside her face.
The mare stepped closer to him and screamed with a voice strength Mark never thought possible. "You will bow and show me respect!" His whole body vibrated under the verbal assault and his head hurt. His hoof moved on his own to defend himself from the attack and slapped the hysteric mare in the face.
"Calm the hell down!" he screamed back with the same intensity, surprised at his own voice. The mare stepped back and sat on the ground with a hoof on her cheek, obviously more stunned then hurt. She was staring at him with tears coming back to her eyes. "I can't stand spoiled brat," he added more calmly while looking around. He noticed for the first time Dawn lying on the floor with his eyes wide in surprise and six mares displaying faces of pure horror.
"What?"
Freewind starting laughing but still managed to say "You punched Celestia!".
"You really have a way to introduce yourself," the Doctor said behind him as he finally caught up with them.
"And screaming at someone's face is better? Well, I'm not sorry, after all she put us trough, she deserved it," Mark said.
Twilight rolled her eyes. "No wonder she will threaten you in the future, Mark."
"Your name is Mark?" Celestia asked with a soft voice.
Mark looked at Twilight, who displayed the same surprise he did. "Well, look at that," he said facing Celestia. "You can be a good pony when you don't take yourself for a goddess. Yeah, name's Mark." He extended his right hoof forward, which put Celestia on the defensive. "Nice to meet you."
She stared at the hoof and after a while raised her own and bumped it. Her face took a pastel pink color as she took a few steps back. "I'm Celestia. Don't you... Don't you remember me?"
"What? Yeah, you're Equestria's ruler," Mark answered confused as Celestia wasn't acting like anything he thought she would. "Right?"
Celestia appeared to shrink down at the answer. "Yes, I am," she said with a voice as soft as Fluttershy as she looked at her hooves.
"Aren't you supposed to be bigger?" Freewind asked while leaning against a tree.
Dawn jumped on his hooves and ran in front of the gryphon. "You will show respect to her divinity!"
Freewind grabbed his head with a claw and pushed him aside. "You have a weird notion of respect. I'm a prince... or was, and your first reaction was to try to stab me."
"Will you two cut it out?" Twilight snapped with anger. "I can't believe how you're acting." The gryphon and the soldier looked away like two kids who were caught fighting. She turned around and faced Celestia. "Princess... I... I mean goddess, what are you doing alone in the forest? Why are you crying?"
As time passed, Celestia appeared to regain her composure. "I was attacked." The mares and the soldier gasped at the news. "My sister... Goddess Luna, something happened to her. She transformed in some kind of monster."
"Luna attacking Celestia, why I already heard that somewhere?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Silence! Let her finish," Rarity replied.
"Her mane... was weird, unlike anything I've seen before," Celestia continued. "It grabbed me and drained me of my power." She looked at her small body. "I guess it's the reason I'm so small now. At some points she... her mane dropped me and I ran with what little strength I had left. I couldn't find any guards or soldiers in the city, so I decided to run to the nearest camp of the army." She looked down in shame. "With the emotion... I... I guess I got lost."
"Fear not Goddess! The reinforcements are here!" Rainbow said as she punched her chest with pride.
The winged unicorn appeared skeptical. "You are very young and you are no soldier. You are obviously not fit to face this kind of challenge."
Rainbow Dash deflated in midair and was ready to say something rude when Applejack got in front of her. "What she meant is, we will only escort you to Canterlot. No doubt the guards are hiding near the city and are waiting for orders."
Dawn stepped forward. "Your highness, I agree with them. Canterlot must not be left without your presence."
Celestia sighed and closed her eyes. "Fine. But you shall take no risks," she said as she looked at the ponies. "You are not suited for this kind of situation."
"We would never do that, your highness," the Doctor said with a huge smile while nine pairs of eyes rolled at the comment.
She nodded. "Soldier!" she called while pointing at Dawn. "Take the lead."
They were all walking on some kind of small dirt road, following Dawn Sparkle who were obviously used to the path leading toward Canterlot. Celestia was in the middle of the group while Mark and Twilight was ahead of her, talking about shield magic.
"...and that how you cast a force field," Twilight finished.
"I'm surprised, it sounds easier than levitating objects," Mark commented.
"In theory, it is. The spell is simpler. However, it requires far more magic than basic telekinesis and a finer control over it," she explained.
Mark looked disappointed. "I see." He walked a bit in silence before talking about what he had on his mind. "Sounds like you know why Luna attacked Celestia."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Maybe. You know Luna was sealed on the Moon for a thousand years?"
"I think... I think I read something about that in one of your history book."
"History is a bit... vague about what really happened." She sighed. "A bit over two years ago, I found out her banishment was about to end by some kind of weird prophecy. That story only said there were two sisters ruling over Equestria and that at some point, the younger one, overseeing the night, decided to prevent her sister from raising the Sun. The eldest was forced to use the Elements of Harmony to seal her on the Moon."
"That's all?"
Twilight grimed. "Yeah, the history books has no detail what so ever on what really happened. There's about a dozen loopholes in that story. I never managed to find out what really happened."
"You never asked Celestia?"
Twilight looked away. "I did."
"And?"
She looked uneasy. "She didn't want to talk about it. I always assumed she felt terrible for sealing away her own sister."
Mark thought about it for a moment. "So you think we are living that event?"
She sighed. "I don't know. Nightmare Moon, the way Luna was calling herself, is an experience I don't really wish to repeat."
"You talked of loopholes in the story?" Mark pressed.
Twilight looked at the bright blue sky as two small birds raced each other. "Yeah. When we faced her, we used the Elements of Harmony to free Luna from Nightmare Moon. I still don't know what truly happened. Wasn't Nightmare and Luna the same pony? Didn't Luna changed by her own choice?"
"What make you say she didn't?" He asked.
"Luna is a very kind and intelligent pony. I meet her a few times after we defeated Nightmare. I still don't understand how she could decide to become that... monster. Or even how she could change that much, Nightmare was physically different from Luna too."
"Magic?" Mark said with a smile.
Twilight rolled her eyes. "It's not the answer to everything you know."
"And?"
"Why Celestia sealed Nightmare on the Moon while we managed to free Luna? Couldn't Celestia do it as she was using the same Elements?" Twilight pointed out.
"I admit that is weird."
"Also, every time we used the Elements of Harmony, we had to be six ponies that each represent an Element; kindness, honesty, loyalty, generosity, laughter and magic. When we faced Discord, at some point Rainbow Dash was missing and we couldn't make the Elements work at all. How did Celestia managed to do it alone, but couldn't do it after?"
Mark blinked at the revelation. "I... I don't know."
"Luna was said to be a bearer of the Elements too. Why didn't she fight back with them? Some say when she became Nightmare Moon, the harmony was broken and she couldn't use them. If so, if the harmony was broken, how could Celestia use them at all?"
"Good question."
"On top, why the Moon? A seal spell is already complex enough without the need to teleport it that far away. She could have sealed her in a mountain, a forest or even a rock! Some say Celestia was too weak to heal her sister, but sealing her on the Moon, such a distant object is probably harder."
Mark stayed silent, not knowing what to say.
"And who wrote that prophecy? It was weird, it said Nightmare Moon was sealed forever, but a thousand years after her banishment, four stars would release her. I saw those stars releasing her, but I still don't know what they were. Obviously not real stars! I'm guessing some kind of spells, but who cast it?"
"That's... disturbing."
"Celestia knew that Nightmare would be released that night, she probably knew that prophecy better than me, and yet she pushed me to go around in some quest to make friends. How did she know I would make five friends and would find the Elements of Harmony? That's really big! Leaving the safety and future of the whole planet on six very young mares. She's not the kind to stay out of the fights for the safeties of everyponies!" Twilight almost shouted.
"Keep it down, she could hear us," Mark noted. "Alright, that's loopholes the size of a house."
"Want to know the biggest part?" She asked. Mark nodded. "She didn't fight back when Nightmare Moon was released."
"What?"
"Two unicorn as powerful as them make quite a mess when they fight with magic. Yet that night, there was no fighting, no spell casting, no fireworks, no nothing. For all I know, Celestia let Nightmare seal her in the Sun without any resistance."
"She gave up or she knew?" Mark asked.
Twilight thought about it for a while. "I think she knew, she’s not the kind to give up. But she is not a prophet; somepony told her everything... wrote that weird prophecy."
Mark hummed. "You obviously thought a lot about it."
"Yeah, quite a few nights without sleep thinking about it," Twilight admitted.
"Got any theory?"
She looked down. "That's the problem; I got nothing, nothing that matches all the loopholes, nothing that makes sense of it all. Every time I get something that solves one or two of the inconsistencies, it doesn't fit the others."
"Well, if we really are to live that event, you will know what truly happened," he noted.
"I told you, Nightmare isn't something I wish to experience again. And I still don't see why we are here... or now. Right now, I just feel we are messing with the timeline more than anything else. We probably messed up Freewind's future."
Mark looked back at Celestia, who was walking behind them. "You know, Celestia doesn't really look in shape to do any kind of fighting."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Why? Because she's as big as you?"
Mark pouted. "That's low. I meant, she said Luna drained her magic or something like that."
"I guess that's why she's going to use the Elements."
"Yeah, I guess. You want another mystery?" Mark asked.
"One more... At this point, I don't think it's gonna change anything. Shoot!" she answered with fake enthusiasm.
Mark looked at Twilight and nudged his head in Celestia's direction. "Why is she staring at me?"
"She is not! She..." Twilight gave a quick look behind her. "Alright, she is."
"So?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "That's no mystery! You slapped her. On the face! She's thousands years old and rules Equestria. I doubt many pony slapped her before."
"Over such a long life, I would have guessed many did." Mark noted.
"Would have done it when she is at her normal size? You know, when she 'threatened' you? I doubt your hoof would have reached her face."
Mark swallowed hard. "I guess. So... you think she's plotting my death or something?"
Twilight gave another quick look at Celestia. "No, she is not like that. I think she's surprised. Maybe mad. Yeah, a bit mad."
Mark looked up at the sky. "Alright, I guess I need to apologize after all."
"Would be a good idea. Before, how did you manage to use the royal Canterlot voice?"
Annoyance showed up on his face. "Why do you always assume I know what you're talking about?"
"How did you shout like that, the same way Celestia did?"
"Don't tell me you don't know how to shout?" he asked, puzzled.
She rolled her eyes. "It's a magic enhanced shout."
"Really? Sorry, didn't notice. I guess I learned it from when I stayed with Fluttershy. She is pretty good at shouting too."
"What?"
He ignored her question, waved a hoof and slowed down. After a while walking slower, he ended up beside Celestia. He noticed in her eyes that she was pondering between running away and staying beside him. He also noticed that Dawn, a few meters behind Celestia, was giving him a dangerous look. No doubt the soldier didn't take it lightly that the small unicorn touched his divinity. The message was clear that he would be in a world of pain if he tried to repeat his assault on Celestia. Mark kept his sight forward and cleared his throat. "Dear goddess," he started, but the words sounded wrong to him. "I would like to apologize."
Celestia looked at him surprised. "You don't need to. I don't normally act like this and you only defended yourself from an unprovoked... verbal assault."
"Still, I want to apologize. I've been in way too many fights lately and some could have cost my life."
"Then I accept it."
"Thanks... goddess," Mark replied.
Celestia stared at him for a while. "You sound like you disapprove of my status as divinity."
"I... Hmm," Mark managed to say while looking away.
"Speak your mind. I prefer that, but nopony does."
Mark stared back at Celestia and noticed for the first time something weird in her eyes, but he couldn't place it. "Alright. You are no goddess."
She let out a soft laugh. "That is honest. And why do you say that?"
"Because I've met creatures more powerful or older than you and they are no gods."
"Really?" She asked with a skeptical smile.
"I know you're getting some extra magic from the Sun." Mark pointed at the purple mare in front of him. "Twilight, she is getting her own from the time flow itself. She has more potential power at her disposal that you will ever have. She just needs to learn how to use it properly. I saw her vaporize a whole planet when she lost control."
Celestia raised an eyebrow in surprise.
Mark nudged his head backward. "As for the brown stallion back there, his appearance is only an illusion. He is no pony, he is a Timelord. He is most likely much older than you. He traveled to countless worlds. At some point, he took part in a terrible war that devastated hundreds of worlds."
Both eyebrows were now high on her face.
"So yeah, and I doubt any of them would call themselves god."
Some time passed before Celestia spoke again. "Never judge a book by its cover. I guess that's quite true with your group.
"I'm surprise you accept my words like that."
She smiled back. "I sense no intention of deception from you. And how about you, what's your special talent?"
Mark swallowed. "Not much I'm afraid. No crazy power or... Well, I guess if I say I was born a hundred twentyish thousands years ago can be a bit impressive, but I'm not even thirty. Or am I? I kinda lost track of time with all this crazy traveling. And that I used to not be a pony." Mark stopped. "Sorry, I'm babbling."
"Not used to be a pony?"
"It's a long story."
They walked in silence for a while and she didn't push the topic forward. Something about Celestia was making Mark uneasy, as if there was something familiar with her. Someone in the back of his head kept him on his guard for no obvious reason.
"Do you think I'm bad for being called a goddess?" She asked with a weird smile.
The question caught Mark off guard. "I... Probably not if you take it only as title like any other title. But you started a war that cost the life of thousands of ponies and gryphons and nopony managed to give us a good reason for it."
Celestia's smile faded as she looked down at the ground and it took a long moment before she spoke again. "When everypony call you a goddess for well over a thousand years... I guess... I guess you start to believe it yourself. When the gryphon's king came to Canterlot and refused to bow in front of me and my sister... I... Everypony..." She looked up. "No, it's my fault; I decided that this offense could not be tolerated. Everypony accepted my decision without questions."
"And things spiraled out of control."
She stared at him. "Yes, it did."
He stared back. "How far are you ready to go to protect the lives of your population?"
She took a step back, surprised by the question. "I... I'm not sure."
"Then yes, I think you're a bad leader." Celestia looked truly shocked by his words. "You should take their lives and safety above your pride, your title or even your own life. The only war that is acceptable is to defend their lives."
"You truly believe that? How about their pride?"
"Their pride in what? Their country? In you? I've never been the leader type, so take what I have to say the way you want it." He took a deep breath. "Countries, flags, titles, names... They all come and go. People stay, always. People love to have an icon to gather under, it's normal as it put a visual representation of their feelings. But it's never for the image that you fight, it's for the people. There's no country, flag or whatever without them. You can become an icon, that's not a problem. It becomes one when it's put before the well being of the people that support it."
She gave him a weird look. "Are you sure you're only thirty?"
Mark laughed. "Yes, quite sure."
"You looked much younger."
Mark pouted at the comment. "You don't look very old right now."
"True." She looked up. "You remind me of someone I used to know, a very long time ago," she commented.
Mark looked surprised. "That's why you were staring at me?" She nodded back. "I see. What happened to him?"
Celestia looked uneasy, the memory was obviously painful. "He died, eaten by a wild beast."
He looked away. "I'm sorry."
"No need to be. After so long, I've learned to accept that other ponies would not live as long as me," she answered back. However, something in her face made him think she wasn't telling everything about those feeling she claimed to have come to accept. "I have a few other questions if you don't mind."
"Of course I don't mind! From what I understood, we are still an hour of walk from Canterlot."
"Yes. We should reach the city just before the Sun set." She looked behind. "I'm not ignorant of the gryphon's royalty and if I remember well, the one following us is the only heir of the throne."
Mark nodded. "He is. Or was."
She looked surprised. "Now, how did he come to follow your group like that?"
"First of all, I would say Twilight is more the leader of the group. As for why... It appears I claimed his life after defeating him in a fight to the death."
Her look went back and forth between the unicorn and the gryphon. "Really?"
He smiled. "I was lucky and he was overconfident."
"And as for one of my army's sergeant, I don't think he would leave his duty," she asked while looking at the armored unicorn.
He grinned. "He did not. We were under attack by a large group of gryphons..."
"And he saved you," she interrupted him.
Mark laughed. "No, he came after the fight was over. Since there was corpses of over twenty gryphons and an unknown threat, he decided to protect the ponies under his command and sent them back to their base. His idea was to face us alone."
She laughed. The sound reminded Mark of birds singing. "That's an impressive feat. You got my curiosity, that should have been a impressive fight."
Mark didn't look happy at how lightly she took their death. "Gryphons are living beings the same way ponies are. Rainbow Dash didn't mean to kill them."
"You have to admit that ponies are superior to..." She stopped when she noticed anger painting his face.
His voice was dry. "They are not. Different, yes, but not superior. I'm not a pony and to the timelord's eyes, we are probably not much more than primitive beasts that can't even travel to other worlds. Compared to some species living out there, we are nothing."
"I... I'm sorry."
They walked a long time in silence.
"Rainbow Dash, I would guess this is the mare with the prismatic mane?" She asked, uneasy with the tension between her and Mark.
"Yes, she is."
"How did she?"
Mark sighed. "I guess they were very..."
"Overconfident?" She interrupted him.
"Yes. They were in a tight formation and she performed a sonic boom in the middle of their group," he explained, understanding she would not drop the topic.
She frowned. "A sonic boom?"
"She calls that a sonic rainboom. When something is traveling faster than the speed of sound, the compression of the air increases its density to the point where it's similar to the shockwave of an explosion."
Celestia stared at Rainbow Dash for a moment. "Is that really possible?"
"I thought it was impossible for a living being to fly that fast. Well, that was until I saw her do it."
She blinked a few time. "I understand now why she looked unhappy when I said she couldn't handle the situation."
He smiled. "She's quite proud and she acts before thinking, but she always has good intentions."
"I see." She raised her head. "We are reaching soon Canterlot."
Mark looked forward and noticed a wall of blocks of rock coming over the tree line, not unlike human medieval town. "I will go see Twilight. Thanks for the talk, I enjoyed it."
Celestia replied with a weak smile. "So do I."
Mark sprinted forward and reached Twilight in a few quick steps. She didn't miss the wall and looking at it. "Old Canterlot?"
She nodded. "Yes. You would be surprised the lack of information about this place in history books, even if it was the capital of Equestria for over a millenium." She looked at him. "How was the princess?"
Mark thought about it for a minute. "I guess... I don't know. Not what I was expecting." She laughed.
Dawn walked back to the town square where the others were waiting with Celestia. They had promised to defend her on their lives as he walked away to investigate the absence of guards and soldiers at the city's gates. When he came back, he found them in a dark corner, trying to avoid attention as much as possible, which proved quite hard with a large gryphon and a winged unicorn mare that shared striking resemblance with Celestia, if only for her size. Other ponies were whispering and giving them weird looks as they walked by.
Rarity somehow produced several cloaks from her saddlebags which somehow helped camouflage their more visible members. Pinkie Pie was trying to make Celestia laugh with some joke only she found funny. However, the goddess appeared to genuinely enjoy the effort and was politely laughing at some of the bad puns. When Dawn came to them, Celestia, Twilight and Rarity moved closer to him, while the others listened from further away.
"It's like we saw when we entered the city," he said. "There's no guard at the gates and the barracks are empty."
Twilight nodded. "We overheard some ponies talking. After some royal guards fled the temple, a group of soldiers entered it in formation, but they never came out."
"A merchant said he saw soldiers run out of the city. He assumed they were couriers, but was surprised at their numbers," Rarity added.
"My goddess," Dawn said his sight fixed at the ground in front of Celestia. "I'm afraid I was wrong. There's no presence of the army in the city or near it. It would be safer to go to the nearest army outpost."
Celestia shock her head in negation. "You were right back then, my place is here. I think I'm quite safe with..." She was interrupted by a loud voice that appeared to come from every corners of the city.
"My subjects, your presence is required at the temple."
The voice was loud enough to shake the glasses of the buildings' windows. Fluttershy curled in the smallest ball she could become. The other mares looked at each other, as they knew that voice before.
"Hey!" Pinkie Pie said, almost joyful. "Was that..." but she was interrupted by Applejack's hoof on her snout.
"Yes," Celestia said while looking at the sky. "It’s my sister, the goddess of the night." She looked down. "Even if her voice changed as her body did, it was definitely her." She closed her eyes and sighed. "We should go see why she wants everypony at the temple."
"Your divinity!" Dawn shouted. "It's not safe! She already attacked you and..." He stopped and backed off when she shot him an angry look.
"We can always blend with the crowd," Twilight said. "Rarity, you got more of those cloaks?"
The fashionista smiled. "You know me, I'm always prepared for those situations."
They were standing at the edge of the crowd of ponies that came to the large esplanade in front of the temple. The crowd was buzzing with whispering of ponies wondering why they were summoned. Some recognized Luna's voice while others claimed it was too different to be hers. All in all, over five thousands ponies were waiting for answers.
"I thought the city had more population than that," Mark whispered to Twilight.
She looked at him from under her dark purple cloak. "And I was expecting the city to be bigger. It's only about twice the size of Ponyville."
"And I must say," Rarity said while wearing a white cloak embroidered with golden leaves. "I never saw a city so dirty. The smell is terrible."
"Well, many things we take for granted, like running water, will only come in a few centuries," Twilight explained. "But I admit, the salubrity of the city is far worse than I imagined."
"I thought you all looked a bit too colorful when I first meet you," Mark said. He noticed somepony staring at him. "No offense, Rainbow."
"None taken," the mare replied with a weird smile.
"But this... They all look grey, depressed." He noticed the soldier unicorn looking around. "Dawn, how is the war going on?"
"Well, it is..." He quickly stopped when he noticed Celestia waiting for his answer. "It's going great!" he said with a forced smile.
"Well look at that," Applejack said. "if I aint found a worst liar than me."
"I want the truth sergeant," Celestia said with a voice that could cut rock.
He swallowed hard. "I'm sure the goddess knows how the war is going more than I do."
"And I want your honest opinion," she said staring at him.
The soldier was sweating and looking around for help. "It... It's... It's terrible. We are losing, slowly but surely. Gryphons are stronger than pegasi and since three years ago, their warriors use armor plating that nullifies all unicorns’ magic. The only reason we still stand is because of the earth ponies’ resilience. They are cutting our supply routes one by one and it's been over a year since we managed to do any kind of successful attack," he spitted out in one breath.
"Really? I didn't feel we were making any kind of significant progress, and not just because my father was holding back," Freewind noted.
"We are great to cover our defeats," Dawn countered. "But lately, we were putting more efforts into that than into battles."
Celestia sat down on the ground and looked at her hooves. "I knew the generals were lying to me."
"But we cannot lose, goddess! You are to support us. You are testing us and we will overcome the difficulties you put on our path. We know you will make us prevail!" he said with a weak fanaticism, trying to cheer her up, not really believing it himself.
She stared at him as if she saw a ghost. She then slowly turned her head toward Twilight. "Twilight... Your name is Twilight?" The mare nodded back. "What's your honest opinion of the situation?"
"Well... After seeing both Canterlot and the gryphon's capital, I must say the ponies aren't in good shapes." She took a long breath. "The gryphons are mass producing magium alloy, no doubt that within a year or two all their troops will be armored with it."
"Seven months," Freewind added.
Celestia frowned. "Magium?"
"A metal that turn any magic that touches it into heat," Twilight explained. Some part of her brain wondered if she just historically named that metal, but she quickly remembered that Gryphons were already using it and had already named it.
"Is there anything to do against it?"
Freewind shock his head. "We are mixing it with our best steel. It makes it slightly more brittle, but you don't need a huge quantity of it to render any magic useless. The only downside is that after a long battle, the metal can become quite hot."
"So, with enough magic it could melt it?" Celestia asked.
Freewind shrugged. "In theory. But nopony has that much magic. Maybe a hundred unicorn aiming at a single gryphon could overcome his defenses."
She closed her eyes. "I should go on the front line."
Dawn jumped forward. "You can be serious!" he shouted. He stopped in his tracks once he noticed her staring at him with an angry look. "It's... It's dangerous," he managed to add in a whisper.
Celestia turned around and looked at Freewind. "Did your father ever go in battle?"
The gryphon sat down. "More times than I can count. He made sure to always be in the frontlines."
"Why?"
He let out a small laugh. "When I was assigned to a platoon, I asked him the exact same thing." His sight drifted away. "If you can't be out there and share the pain and death of those who carry your orders, you don't deserve to give them in the first place." He smiled. "Back then, I didn't understand his words. When I got a command on my own, I had lost enough friends to understand he was right about that. Besides, he was the best warrior, his presence alone on the battlefield meant far better chances of success." He looked down and his shoulders dropped. "I... I missed him."
It didn't take long before Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy rushed to hug him. He was surprised by the sudden support and didn't make him at ease, but he didn't push them away.
Celestia frowned. "The king is..." but she was interrupted by a loud shout.
"Population of Canterlot."
Everypony turned to look at the source, a tall black mare standing on a balcony, high above the esplanade. Behind her, the Sun was going down, quickly hidden by the temple. As the Sun disappeared, her mane poured out of the temple and spread around her. The crowd of ponies was now fully silent and focused on the new comer.
"Luna," Celestia whispered, her eyes locked on her sister.
Mark got close to Twilight. "Is it?"
"It is," she answered.
"Why does her mane look like the space creature we defeated on the Moon?" he asked, as calm as he could.
"What?" Twilight almost shouted while staring at him.
"Well, it's smaller and the color is slightly different. But the shape, sparkles and motions are the same," Mark explained. "Doctor?"
The brown stallion stepped forward. "I admit this is uncanny. The temporal disturbances could have been it being sent back in time."
Twilight's eye couldn't be wider. "You mean... You mean we created..."
"I am Nightmare Moon," the black mare shouted, interrupting Twilight and sending shivers in her spine.
"I remember her to be much smaller than that," Rarity noted. "Her mane could cover the whole esplanade!"
"This explains how she drained Celestia's power," Mark added.
"I'm here to bring you great news!"
"Ten bits on 'bring you eternal night'." Rainbow Dash said. Applejack shot her an annoyed look.
"From this moment forth, the night shall be eternal. We shall live under the Moon, forever together!" the Nightmare shouted as she took flight. The Moon rose from behind the temple, following the mare's altitude.
The crowd of ponies started whispering loudly, unsure of how to take the news. Some ran away, but most didn't understand what was going on. Once the Moon was high in the sky, Nightmare Moon flew back to the balcony.
"We know my ponies. It is a great change and it will take time to accept it. But in time, we know you will come to enjoy the gift we offer you today!" she shouted. After a while, she turned around and disappeared in the temple.
"Oh, this is bad," the Doctor said. Everypony turned to look at him. He standing back in some shadows in his biped form and was looking at something off his screwdriver only him could see.
Celestia's eyes went wide in surprised and she put a hoof to her mouth. She looked at Mark. "What you said was true?"
"All of it," he answered, slightly insulted that she thought he was joking.
"Quite bad..."
"Doctor?" Twilight asked.
The Doctor raised his head, suddenly aware he was speaking his mind. "Oh, sorry." He pocketed his screwdriver and in a blur he was back as a brown stallion. He gave them a fake smile.
"Doctor!" Twilight shouted.
"What?"
"What is bad?"
"Oh... Hmm... I have a good and a bad news. Which one you want first?" the Doctor said with a playing smile.
"Doctor!" Twilight shouted again.
"Let's go with the good one first," Rarity said.
The Doctor bowed down slightly. "The good news is the Nightmare didn't just stop Earth's rotation. She tilted the planet's axis."
"And how is that good news?" Applejack asked.
"It is a good news because the tidal waves will continue and there will be enough air current to mix the atmosphere a bit. Stopping Earth's rotation suddenly could have been devastating," the Doctor explained.
"And the bad news?" Fluttershy asked, still clamped to Freewind and shaking from fear.
The Doctor chuckled. "Ah yeah... The bad news." He put a hoof behind his head. "The planet's part facing away from the Sun will lose about fifteen degrees Celsius every day. In two days, snow will start to fall and in four, we will freeze to death."
"I admit, this is a bad news," Rarity commented in surprise.
OUCH! What's happening? Why is the station shaking so violently?
Mark just woke up from bumping his head on the ceiling, if there was such a thing as a ceiling in a space station. He quickly removed his sleeping harness, made to prevent him from flying all over the place while sleeping.
"Eric! What are you doing?" he screamed. No answer came back. Instead, the station rocked once more and the lights shut down.
"ERIC!" he screamed as loud as he could. "This station ain’t a plane!" Once again, no answer came back. Which was quite unusual considering the station was supposed to be manned with ten people right now; eight scientist and two pilots. It's possible they were too busy dealing with what was happening to answer.
The only light he could see was coming from the small feet wide windows. And by the look of the light beam dancing madly all over the small room, the station was doing some insane spinning. For an instant, the beam lit the back of the room, where the sas toward the other module of the station was locked.
That explains why nobody answered.
He tried to reach the nearby wall to give himself a push. At the same moment the station appeared to roll on itself, if such a thing was possible for such a huge structure. The "wall" punched him on the head, sending him flying in the opposite direction. About in the middle of the room, the station changed direction again. He crashed heavily on the wall, losing his breath. Something was hiding his vision. He tried to remove it with his hand only to find it was some kind of liquid.
Juice?
After all, he did sleep in the "kitchen", as space inside a multi-billion dollar station wasn't really the primary concern of governments. People simply slept where there's some space left to hook an harness. The others made him sleep in the kitchen because they say he was snoring a bit too much. Mark kind of liked the excuse, because it meant he could sleep alone.
The light from the viewport lit his hand quickly, showing a dark red liquid.
Blood...
His throbbing head suddenly reminded him of the trashing he just got. He wasn't seeing well, and there were too many stars in his field of view. A nasty cut on his forehead was slowly spitting small bubbles of blood that were slowly floating away. Some actually tinted his white suite with small red spots.
Get out of here! You're at one of the extremities. Reach the center of the station. If the station is rotating around it's center of mass, you're in danger here. he told himself.
The rocking appeared to have slowed down, but he wasn't take any chance. He pushed the wall to propel himself toward the airlock node, a small sphere with an airlock door on each axis. He entered it and quickly grabbed the locking mechanism of the next module, just in case the station would try to another dance move. Putting his feet on the "floor", he pushed the lock as hard as he could. It wouldn't budge.
He stopped to think, the only reason the lock would be hard to open, by design, is if the other module was decompressed. The system would prevent him from opening it. He didn't like that idea one bit. He checked on the panel to the right side of the door. It was all red, a clear sign that the other side of the door there was only the vacuum of space. No matter how hard he would try, the security built inside the door would never let him open it, which in this case was a good thing.
Keeping himself close to the walls, he moved toward the viewport and peak in it. Looking in the direction of the airlock, where he should have seen the huge solar panels and dozen other modules, there was nothing. Well, not nothing as he noticed, the module adjacent to his own was there. As the station continued to spin, the sun finally lit the neighbor module.
"Oh..." was all he could say. The module was only half there, spitting debris around. The hull appeared to have been cut clean. As if someone sliced it with a plasma torch.
He looked around more and couldn't find any debris bigger than a fist.
That makes no sense. If it was destroyed, there should be lot left of a thousand ton station!
Looking down, he noticed the escape pod was still attached to the airlock node. It didn't appear damaged, at least at first sight.
Everything was still spinning madly. Earth, the moon, sun, Earth again... Watching it all swirl made him close to letting his dinner come back to his nose. He pushed himself away from the window just in time to not be sick. At least all the normal celestial entities were still in the right place.
There wasn't much choice to go around. The lack of any light or sound from the air recycling unit made it very clear, there was no power left in this module. There was no way to send any distress call. There weren't any space suits ether. He couldn't use their integrated communication system, but even if it had, they didn't have much range anyway. He looked around. There was some science equipment discarded from previous experiment, but nothing he could use in his situation.
The station, or the module he reminded himself, rocked again and hit something. The impact was big enough to be heard from the inside. Suddenly, the sound came. He remembered his training with expert pilots before this mission. They all told him what a decompression would sound like, and what to do in those cases. The idea was quite simple, you don't take anything, you don't pack, you don't think, you just move out of there.
He moved as fast as he could toward the airlock node. He didn't try to open the same lock as before. Instead he moved to the lock of the escape pod, a simple Soyuz module with only enough reserve to make it back on ground. The lock didn't resist at all, proving the pod was still pressurized and hopefully in one piece. He quickly entered it and turned around to lock it again. Something burst on the other side and the "kitchen" started to lose atmosphere quickly.
He was already not feeling very well, and the lost of pressure didn't help. The few stars in his sight multiplied as he pulled as hard as he could on the door. The air flow was keeping him from close it. Finally the inner door locked into place. He quickly closed the Soyuz door and pulled the emergency handle that released the small spacecraft from what was left of the station. With a metallic noise, the Soyuz slowly moved away.
He sat in the pilot seat and buckled himself up. Not being a pilot, it would be hard to land this thing. But being built in the purpose of an escape pod, the procedure was almost all automatic. He pushed the button that should have launched all the procedure. Instead of a dashboard lighting up and the altitude thrusters firing, nothing happened.
What? No electricity here too? But this thing has its own power source! Whatever hit the station also disabled the pod.
Any idea of using the pod to contact Earth, ask for help or just explain what just happened vanished. It also meant he didn't have much time. Without air recycling, the small space of the pod would only allow him to breath for an hour, or two, maybe less considering how much air got sucked out while he was closing the airlock.
He put his hands under the dashboard and pulled a hidden handle. A few second later, the thrusters lit up and started to slowly push the pod toward Earth.
I will thank the Russian engineers when I'm back. If I get it back. Good thing they never trust the high tech stuff!
The handle simply turned on the manual system. Exactly like an airplane system, the remaining hydraulic pressure would open the thruster’s valves and force them to light up without any help of electronic or electricity. The pod started slowly turning away from the blue horizon.
Oh... right!
The teaching he got about those pods came back. Once turned on manually, he would have to pilot it... manually. Some mechanical parts would make sure he wouldn't do anything really stupid, but with no computer, he would have to enter the atmosphere on his own piloting skills, which he quickly remembered were close to none.
That's why we have two pilots normally! Always a spare! Hope they are all right... Somewhere. He thought about Eric, the main pilot and that Russian pilot whose name he never managed to pronounce correctly.
He put both hands on the two pilot sticks on each side of him. He push it slightly and nothing happened. Pushing harder, he finally got an answer as the pod stopped turning. Then slowly started turning in the other direction. Without the fly by wires system, he would have to manually push the hydraulic to move the thrusters around.
Mark quickly remembered the teaching he received. What angle, speed and dozen other variables he should be looking for in this situation. He looked at the small viewport in front of him. Some lines where printed on the glasses.
Got to align Earth's surfaces with the third... or is it forth line?
"ARG!" he screamed. "Third line it is." He pushed the right handle forward, making the pod plunge down.
Time passed by, as he kept checking the planet position compared to his orientation. He was quickly reviewing again and again all the technical data he could remember about this kind of situation. They made him train for months about all those details.
Earth started to get close and closer. On top of the whisper of the altitude thrusters, there was now an high pitch noise made by air rushing around the pod. Then all of a sudden, the sound of metal being ripped apart, right behind him.
"Oh sh... Forgot!"
He bent forward, grapping a huge red handle from under his seat, and pulled it as hard as he could, as if his life depended on it. He forgot to dump the propulsion unit of the pod, which wasn't made for atmospheric reentry. With a bang, the rear of the Soyuz pushed itself back and sideways to prevent collision with the habitable pod.
The release of the engine unit also trigged the released of the parachutes, which a few minutes later found enough air pressure to deploy themselves. Mark almost lost consciousness from the abrupt change of speed. But the pod was still going too fast. The late release of the engine unit put too much speed on the pod which was hurling toward the ground at dangerous velocity.
He checked in the window, clouds were quickly leaving the sky for a view of the rushing ground.
At least I'm landing on ground. The ocean might have been a bad idea.
But he had no idea where he was about to land. The shapes of the lands didn't ring any bells. He didn't see any huge city or anything of consequences that could allow him to identity which country would be his host for the next few days. The ground was definitely moving toward him too fast for his liking. However at some distance of where he was heading, he noticed some golden lights.
Not a city... a small town maybe. Better than landing in a deserted place!
He looked back where he was heading. The last thing he remembered seeing in the glass, was a huge forest.
He had no idea how long he passed out. The first thing that came to his mind was the sharp pain in his right leg. Mark always saw himself as a pretty resistant guy. He normally didn't mind physical pain, but this was different. Tears came to his eyes as he looked down and saw nothing.
At first he didn't remember where he was or how he got in a position for this kind of pain. Why did he have dried blood on his eyes? Why is it all dark? He couldn't make any details of what was around him. Everything was in the dark, until some light came from the window in front of him.
Moon light?
Then everything came back to his memory, the station and the crash.
He unbuckled his harness and looked down again. With the light of the moon pouring in, he could see a bit of his right leg. The hull of the pod was crushed inside, and his leg was in the way when it happened. It was bent in a very weird way toward the outside. He tried to move it a bit only be to answered by the same sharp pain. He lost his breath and almost passed out again.
Alright. Left leg it is.
He slowly moved off his seat and landed his left foot on the crushed hull. He left himself fall to the left, resting his shoulder on the hull for a moment, taking some deep breathes.
When he felt his head was spinning less, he took hold of the airlock handle and pushed it hard. Not without much surprised, it was much harder to unlock.
I guess even Russian mechanics got their breaking point.
He put as much of his weight as he could on the handle and it finally gave away. The pins all around the airlock retracted. He took another deep breath and pulled the door toward him. He didn't let the door slam down, afraid it could touch his broken leg. He slowly lowered the door to the floor.
He took his time to exist the spacecraft, taking good care of his right leg. Once fully outside, he looked around. Like he spotted before the crash, he was in a forest. A dark and dense one on top of that, the moon light he saw was coming from the dozen trees his crash broken in the path of the pod. The light couldn't reach the ground elsewhere.
He pulled himself toward the nearest tree and sat his back to it. Breathing deeply a few time, he got a good look at his right leg. It wasn't that bad, no bones or blood to be seen. The tibia was obviously broken, but probably only at one place. He knew exactly what he had to do, but it wouldn't make it any easier. If someone was putting his leg into place, he could always passed out, but since there was nobody around, he had to do it himself.
He quickly found two stick about the length of his leg, probably broken by his "landing". He put them on each side of his leg, careful to not touch it. He then tried to rip off a part of his suit without much luck. The material was too strong for his hands only. He dug in his right pocket and pulled out a small Swiss knife.
A small grin appeared on his face as he remembered that technician on the launch pad saying he was an idiot bringing a knife in a space mission. You never know when you would need one. Opening the knife, he quickly cut off the two arms of his suit. He then carefully split the arms in two, giving him four strips of clothes.
He used the first two to tie the branches to the top of his legs, securing them in place for the next part. Slowly passing the next strip under his right foot, he tied it very loosely. He held each extremities of the strip in each hands for a few minutes, afraid of the next part.
He took a very deep breath, then two... then three. Holding this forth breath, he pulled on the strip of cloth as hard as he could. The strip pushed the two branches toward each other, and in the same time pushed in leg back in a straight position.
He breathed and screamed a few more time. He was in sweat and his hands were shaking, but the pain in his leg slowly moved from the "insane" toward the "it hurts too much".
He don't know how long it passed until the pain was once again manageable. But once it was, he slowly sat back and tied the forth strip of cloth between the top two and the bottom one that was now holding his leg straight. He hands were wet and shacking, making very hard to tie it correctly. Once done, he felt back on his back and continued to breathe deeply.
He felt drained, wet and tired. The adrenaline rush was now all gone and it left him light headed. The moon, the trees were all spinning.
Maybe I should...
He simply passed out there.
He woke up hours later, morning dew dripping on his face from the tree he was under. He had no idea how long he was off. The morning sun was slowly rising above the destroyed tree line, warning up his body. The birds were singing and the wind was slowly moving the trees.
I could have landed in far worst place I guess.
He slowly sat, careful to not move his right leg. He took a good look at his yesterday's work, almost expecting a mess to be redone. Instead he found the makeshift splint to be solid and well attached.
Good, won't have to redo it.
Next he did a quick check of anything he had in his pockets, a few pens, his Swiss knife, some ID card, his cell phone which he mostly used as music player. He quickly checked it, finding it also empty of any power.
Of course, whatever hit the station didn't go in detail. It drained everything. No cell phone, no distress beacon. There's simply no way for them to know where I am. Well, not much choice, I got to find some people.
He looked around, his sight quickly snapped on his feet.
No shoes? Of course no shoes. Who need shoes in a space station while sleeping. Walking anywhere in that forest is gonna be fun.
He finally took his first real look at the crashed pod. From the look of it, he was kind of surprised to still be virtually in one piece. The pod lost parts of its hull on the impact. It was half buried in the dirt and a trunk actually managed to punch a hole in it. There was no marking left and it only looked like a huge chunk of charcoal. The temperature the hull lived through was obviously above what its creators had in mind. The dirt and some trees were still smoking.
He slowly pushed himself toward the still smoking wreckage and looked inside. There wasn't much left intact inside. The control panel was mostly there aside from the trunk embedded in it. The emergency supplies were destroyed, water and some dehydrated food on what was left of the floor. There was a flashlight which he quickly found was also drained of any power.
Once the engine unit removed, that pod wasn't made to keep people alive long. A few hours at best, just the time it would take to land. The fuel, oxygen and power unit were all in the rear section. There wasn't much left in one piece. His sight went toward the pillar that was supporting the copilot's chair. It was normally welded to the hull, but the impact broke it off. It was a meter long tube of metal that shaped in a Y on top. The top was supposed to hold the bottom of the seat in place. He looked around and found that seat stuck in the rear, crushed between two pieces of warped hull. Had someone been sitting there, he would have been crushed in half.
He pulled the metal piece of the wreck. He inspected it and found the bottom to be hollow. He looked around and found a rock of the right size, sticking it at the bottom of the tube.
Not pretty, but that should make a good enough crutch.
Using the nearby tree, he very slowly raised himself on his left foot, careful to not move his right leg too hard. Using the makeshift crutch, he managed to make a few steps around. The crutch was obviously too short, but he didn't care much. He could put his weight on it and not on his leg.
His socks were wet and started to quickly gather mud and dirt, but running, or more likely walking very slowly, in a forest bare feet wasn't such a good idea. But even then, walking away from the crash site could maybe not a good idea. If rescue were on the way, leaving the pod simply meant his chances of being found would evaporate. But that was a big "if", as without distress signal, the only way someone would find him is if they saw the crash or at least the atmospheric reentry. On the other hand, he had a good idea of where the town he noticed was, or at least in which direction.
Where did I land? Which country? For all I know, I landed in one of those last few small country with a sick dictator.
He looked around, looking at the trees, but he couldn't remember where those species grew. Botanic was far from his specialty to begin with. For all he knew, he could have been in his backyard without knowing it. On top, distance wasn't easy to evaluate from a crashing spaceship. For all he knew, that town was days of walk away.
He was truly unsure of what to do, stay and hope someone noticed the crash or go and hope he would make it to any friendly town.
His thought process was cut short when he started hearing voice in the distance. He couldn't make any distinctive words and the voices intonations were of no kind he heard before. One part of his wanted to scream and ask for help, but his careful nature took over. He went to hide himself behind a few bushes, as fast as his very slow motion would allow him. He made sure to keep a line of sight on the crashed pod.
He waited a few minutes. The voices were obviously from two distinctive people, but he still couldn't make anything from their discussion. They stopped talking, but whoever it was, was now close enough to hear their footsteps.
Four footsteps sound?
At this moment, a zebra came around a tree at the edge of his vision, slowly walking toward a much smaller tree with small red flower on it.
What the... Where did I land? Africa? Great, finding a phone won't be easy. But that make sense. The two extra footsteps sound is that stripped fellow.
Whoever was speaking was bound to show up sooner or later. He watched as the zebra kept looking around, almost looking like it was seeking something. He then noticed that it was wearing jewelry, some kind of crud golden necklaces and rings around one of its leg.
But who dress up a zebra? What kind of backward country did I fell in?
Finally a voice came close enough to be understood. Although he still couldn't make the whole sentences, he managed to hear a few words.
"... comon... got... me! I saw something!"
English? Zebra and English? But what country is this?
However prepare for the unexpected, no book or training could prepare him for what came next. A small horse came after the zebra, bouncing around like a rabbit on caffeine, most likely a very young pony by the shape and size.
"I tell you Zecora! I saw a meteorite crash nearby last night!" claimed the small filly.
There was no doubt where the voice came from. Mark even saw its lips move. As a man of science, how could he believe what he just saw?
The training, the selection process to choose an astronaut, it was long and painful but needed to only take the best. Someone displaying mental instability was automatically rejected. They needed people who could keep their head straight even in the worst situations. What would happen if an astronaut, once in space, would lose it and start to hallucinate? He knew very well he never had any hallucination in his life. Why would it begin now?
Was the last 24 hours that stressful? He could remember weeks of training far more intensive than that. Sure he wasn't used to having his life put in danger and his leg broken. Did he just hallucinate the whole thing? Maybe the station was still in one piece and his teammates were wondering why he went insane bumping his head around and flee in an escape pod?
He shook his head. How do you notice from an hallucination from reality? Everything around shout it was real, the bird singing, the wind in the tree. Is a hallucination so detailed?
"Applebloom my dear, what you say I hear. If you saw a meteorite, we will find it, right?." said the zebra, turning around to face the filly on spring.
That's it. I lost it. Completely. A zebra doing rhymes. I dunno what happen, but I'm ready for a good padded cell. But rhymes? What's up with you my brain? Back in school I couldn't make any. Now you spit some in my hallucinations? Can a concussion really make someone go wacko?
He noticed he was holding his breath for almost the last minute. His heart was pumping hard and his brain refused to give him any answer about the situation. He was suddenly worrying about his health. He started to think he might have lost more blood than he thought or eaten something very bad.
He was still deep in thought and lack of when the filly started screaming.
"Found it! Found it! Told you!"
He looked up to see that "Applebloom" jumping around the crashed pod. But what would two equine do of a burnt out pod? There wasn't anything left salvageable. For now, he decided, he would only watch. For all he knew, those two were humans and his brain decided to play some nifty trick on himself. He couldn't simply walk up to them and ask them what the hay was going on.
He almost started to laugh at the bad joke his brain came up with.
"It looks like you did Appleboom, but what is this contraption of doom?" said the zebra coming up near the young one.
"I dunno Zecora." She quickly entered her head in the pod and removed it even faster. "Ewww... Doesn't smell good in there. Like something nasty burned. You think somepony was in that thing?"
"I couldn't say but if you may, on this Twilight I think could put some light. It could have been created by a spell. I'm sure she would be able to tell." she said looking down on that huge sphere of charcoal.
"Oh! That's a good idea!" exclaimed Applebloom while starting to jump around again. After a few jumps she stopped and looked like she was deeply thinking. "I heard sis saying she was coming this morning to help repair the cider machine. She should be at the farm right now! We can get her here before noon!" She started running from where they came from, stopping a few meters later and looked back. "Come on Zecora! I want to know what this smoking thingy is!" She signaled her to follow her.
"Alright, alright, little one. I'm following, you won." she replied while following the jumping filly.
"Sometime I wonder where you get all those rhymes..."
Zecora didn't care to reply.
Mark was still stunned of the encounter. What just happened? He knew almost nothing of psychology, but he was sure right now he could be diagnosed with a dozen mental illnesses. His mind was blank, he couldn't think of anything. Less than ten minutes ago, he was seriously wondering if he should go seek a town or stay there waiting for rescue. But now, he couldn't think straight. He couldn't think of anything.
But... but... what... what was that!?
