Chapter I: Bored to Horses
A Friend from Eternity
Chapter I: Bored to Horses
He was dreadfully bored.
Beyond bored really, more like overwhelmed with an overpowering tide of drollness. It was as if the entirety of all reality had schemed to force him to commit suicide just to try something new. Although, suicide wouldn’t be new, but no need to let reality know that.
“Oh, what to do, what to do?” He picked up a magazine entitled Incorporeal’s and flipped through the pages, thoughtfully humming to one every so often, but dismissing each with a “nah” and resuming his search. He did this for sometime before finding one that suited him:
Equestria.
A land of magic, sentient ponies, and such wonderful locales as Canterlot, a mountainside castle, and Ponyville, the home of resident nerd Twilight Sparkle and Co.
See your locale gatekeeper for more information.
Satisfactionnotgaraunteedsomeassemblyrequiredsomerestrictionsmayapplypleasedon’twalkonthegrassthesurgeongeneralwarnsexcessiveponymaybehazardoustoyourhealth.
“Hmm, I could go for some fantasy. Maybe some horse puns, yeah. You have yourself a deal magazine!”
“Thank goodness, I thought you’d never get done.”
“You just don’t appreciate me magazine.”
“What I don’t appreciate is the chafe you gave me. Now get out of here. Yeah, scram!” At that point the magazine started shouting some very rude things and throwing dishware.
The man huffed and began sulking toward his local gatekeeper.
“Finally. Now it’s just you and me baby.” Incorporeal’s picked up A Beautiful Gaia Garden and they proceeded to “dog-ear” and “bend their bindings” and do other such dirty things that magazines are wont to do whilst left to their own devices.
“Hello.” The man looked to the black man behind the counter.
“Yeah what about it?” The man behind the counter looked to the sky with an accusatory face.
“I’d like to purchase a ticket to Equestria.” The would be traveler made no notice of the counter man’s outburst.
“That’s probably because he’s not a racist like you.” The counter man continued to accuse the sky of bigotry as the would be traveler attempted to gain entry to the magical land heard of only in myth and magazine advertisements. “Why do only white guys go to Equestria? All you pasty crackers sitting behind your screens too afraid of looking racist by saying ‘black’ and having people acknowledge that? The only black guy I know that went to Equestria was a zoology major on pot.”
“Sir, can I please buy a ticket?” The traveler continued to futilely petition the counter man for a pass to the land-o-talking-horse.
“I’ll give him a ticket, but I’m going to have a word with administration about this. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer for making me this racially sensitive.” With a huff the man sat and resumed reading his copy of The Somewhat Ethnic Journal. “That’s just stupid.”
A ticket appeared on the counter and the traveler eagerly plucked it up, “To Equestria. One way. Present to Gatekeeper for stamping and transportation. Sounds good.”
It had been a quiet day. Not too many travelers, just that weird couple that always talks like pirates and wear fake parrots on their shoulders. Well there’s one. She thought to herself as she noticed a young man approaching. “Hello, Sir, looking for passage?”
“That I am, madam. One to Equestria.” He presented the ticket.
“Hmm, Equestria. Let’s see, that’s a nice one, very primitive, but very interesting. Will that be all?” She looked up from her book, The Gatekeeper’s Standard Listings, and inquired.
“I think that’ll be all. Long Live the Empress!”
“Long Live the Empress!”
And with that the woman sat back down from her attention stance assumed to salute the Empress and the man set off through the nondescript metal door behind her.
Inside the door was pure blackness and smooth jazz.
It wasn’t everyday that a door appeared from the depths of space time and ejected an alien into the throne room of Princess Celestia, but it wasn’t everyday, it was Tuesday.
The alien creature calmly walked out of the metal door, which was emanating music from its inky depths, and looked around the throne room as one does when deciding whether to buy a house.
Her guards slowly picked their lower jaws off the ground and advanced toward the creature, spears drawn, as the door disappeared in a flash, a lone jazz note dissipating in the air.
Then, just as if this was standard fare, he said, “Hello. I’m #99785460634876128523. You can call me 93.”
This made some of the guards stumble a bit, and then they all stopped advancing. They were holding a perfect circle around him, about thirty of them, and some of the younger guards were shaking.
Princess Celestia wasn’t exactly sure what to do, but with a quick scan she realized the being in front of her was incredibly powerful; the snap your finger and destroy the universe kind of powerful. Probably best to be courteous, and hopefully not get on the thing’s bad side. “Greetings, um, 93. I am Princess Celestia, ruler of this land of Equestria. May I inquire as to what and who you are?”
The creature smiled graciously at this and bowed slightly, “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am a human and, as I have stated, I am #99785460634876128523 of the Empire of Eternity, ruled by her Most Excellent Imperial Grace, the Great Empress Senatashia.”
The guards were still posing menacingly at the human, though he seemed to take no notice of them.
“That is very fascinating, I thank you for indulging my curiosity. May I ask as to why you are here?”
93 seemed a little unsure of himself but said, “I am here to, hmm how would I put it?, vacation, I suppose. Got a bit bored back at the old place and thought your fair country looked pleasantly inviting.”
Celestia was still mind-bogglingly confused, but millenias of crisis management and negotiation, which tend to go hoof-in-hoof, had tuned her reflexes to such a degree that she was currently operating purely on instinct. Best to get to a more private place her reflexes commanded her, “I apologize for my guards, but I hope you can understand their caution. Please follow me to my study, I hope we can discuss much. Guards give me and our guest some privacy, and please inform the Captain of this.”
93 was walking toward her even before she told her guards to stand at-ease, this resulted in a most unfortunate incident. One of the more junior guards saw the creature advance and his reflexes kicked in, before he even knew what he was doing he had driven his spear into the creature’s abdomen.
Everyone in the room went pale white, and the guard who had attacked let go of his spear and took a few steps back in abject fear.
93 looked down at the steel tipped spear lodged in him quizzically before grabbing it and forcefully yanking it out. He examined it meticulously even as the wound that was the spear’s previous home gushed blood.
Celestia rushed toward him with a healing spell already firing, “Please lie down, we must stop your bleeding. I apologize profusely for my guard, and I will take all actions necessary for your full and complete recovery.”
She continued to ramble for a few seconds asking forgiveness and assuring her hospitality when her voice caught in her throat at the sound of 93’s voice, “This is a fascinating implement. So primitive and simple, yet painstakingly crafted with similarly basic methods and tools. Oh, my apologies, you can have it back now.” He handed the spear back to the guard that had stuck him. The guard promptly fainted, to which 93 frowned slightly and tilted his head in puzzlement.
Celestia had finished patching the creature up while that had transpired and, hoping to avoid anymore confusion or prompt a reaction from the creature, ordered her guards out post haste. They did so promptly and without fuss, carrying their incapacitated comrade with them with Celestia’s assurances that she would be fine. They left the spear with 93.
He spoke again, “That was very odd. Have I acted strangely or frighteningly?”
“Well, yes, you aren’t exactly a common sight. It’s not everyday I get an immensely powerful visitor teleporting into my throne room. And I do apologize for my guard’s actions, he was simply frightened and was acting on basic instinct.”
“Apologize? Was he not simply offering up his odd implement for my inspection?”
Celestia had an urge to lie to the creature, but she highly doubted she could keep him fooled for any long period of time, “I’m afraid he wasn’t. He was attempting to attack you.”
At this 93’s face lit up, “Ahh, that makes sense. This implement is in fact a spear designed to penetrate a victim’s hide and inflict pain and damage. Most fascinating.” He twirled the spear in his hands, an act Celestia found somewhat entrancing, and mimed stabbing with it. “Hmm, how elegantly crude.”
Celestia watched 93 toy with the spear for several moments before she realized that he wasn’t going to stop on his own, “If you do not mind, I would like to ask you some questions about yourself and where you come from.”
When he heard her say that he took the spear, stabbed it into the rug in front of him, and used it to fling himself forward over it, landing nearly nose to nose with Celestia. With wide a grin he said, “Sounds like fun. What do you want to know?”
Celestia watched the spectacle with yet more awe, at this point she wasn’t sure how much she had left in her, and asked reflexively, “How did you do that?”
“The flingy thing?”
She nodded.
93 responded in great detail. Starting with basic human anatomy he explained the biochemical and bioelectrical processes that activated and controlled his muscles, which prompted him to go into the physics of the gymnastic feat, which then led him to explain the particle physics and quantum physics of it all, and which ended in, “all relatively speaking, of course.”
Scratch her earlier thoughts. She was no where near out of awe. The creature in front of her had just described in definitive detail every biological and physical process that he had just undertaken with terms and formulas she couldn’t barely start to comprehend, and he had done it all without missing a beat and with a smile on his face.
Tuesdays were weird.