“Ee she who in dah, den ee paw ow!”

“Er yoo er nah ing ls ah pen?”

“Es! I ame in ah fter ee screemd.”

“Well, I’ll need to investigate. Do you think it’s awa-”

“Um, actually, I think it’s a he, not it.”

“Fine. Do you think he is awake yet?”

“I can go check.”

“Please do, Fluttershy.”

As my mind slowly began to make sense of the world again, I heard a door to my right open, someone or something walk in, then, close the door behind themselves. The multiple footsteps approached, paused for a moment beside me, then turned around and exited. Now more aware, I opened my eyes. I looked around, noting the same features of the room I had noticed when I last looked around.

Well, this is either somehow not a dream slash nightmare, or it’s my first lucid dream in a long, LONG while.

Best to test the latter theory first.

I brought my arms up, both very stiff and sore, and was about to try stretching them to both sides of the room at the same time when two things happened at the same time: the door to the room opened, and I noticed the color of my forearm.

The scene froze in that position, an equine-like creature at the door staring at me with my arms up, while I stared at my arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that it was not the same one from earlier- the color of this one was a pleasant lavender, not a soft yellow. This was not, however, my main focus. My arms, normally a polished oak color, were a mottled blueish-greenish brownish-yellow. They were fully bruised which explained the stiffness and soreness. On closer inspection, though, the worst of the injuries were on the top of my forearm, not on the bottom. My biceps were even less bruised. It was then that I realized I had no shirt on, since I could see my biceps in the first place. This piece of knowledge was quickly taken, examined, and filed under “NOT FUCKING IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW”. The good thing was that they wouldn’t interfere with my arm usage too much. Satisfied, I looked back over to the door.

Again, the eyes were the first thing I noticed. They just seemed too big to be natural. This time though, the eyes were a violet shade, more of an accent to the color. My eyes drifted further up: this one had a horn. A bloody horn. Not bloody in the sense that it had blood on it like it had stabbed someone, which it looked too dull to do anyway, but...

This thing was a goddamn unicorn. And its mane looked like it had been stylist dyed.

After a couple of seconds, I decided to break the silence, mainly because she (at least I assumed it was a she- it had a body type that said feminine, along with the hairstyle) was still staring at me.

“Can I help you?” I asked, not sure how I should put the tone of my voice. I settled on bored.

She (?) blinked, pupils and irises both shrinking somehow, shook her head like she was clearing away something, then gave a small smile with a blush.

“Sorry, no- I mean yes- well, I...” she began to stutter out, paused, then recollected herself.

Yep, definitely “she”.

“Sorry, I’m just a bit excited. I don’t believe I’ve come across anything like you as a species before! I mean, you have individual digits, elongated hind legs, you’re capable of vocal communication in our language, and- This is just such a momentous event! And I’m the first one who gets to be a part of it!” she finished, sounding like a schoolgirl who gets excited over giving makeovers. You know the type, the, “Oh-my-gosh-we-can-like-do-makeovers-and-talk-about-boys-and-stuff-and-be-best-friends-forever!” girl everyone knew in high school. Sounded strange when the subject was about human anatomy and capabilities.

“Right... Well, as wonderful as that sounds, everything I’ve seen up to this point is doing a bad job convincing me that this is real. Pardon me while I test something,” I said, bringing my arms back up. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and imagined my arms stretching across the room and touching both walls.

I felt nothing but air.

Frowning, I opened my eyes. My arms were the exact same length, if a little thicker due to swelling. Groaning, I let my arms fall back down by my side, wincing a bit as they hit the bed.

It then occurred to me that I hadn’t actually tried sitting up yet. Tentatively, I moved my arms back, attempting to prop myself up. I pushed up with one arm-then promptly fell back into the bed. I looked back over at the unicorn, who was once again staring openly at me. I raised an eyebrow, mostly to no effect.

“A little help, maybe?” I asked in the classic, “stop standing around and help me” tone. She gave a small start, blushed for the second time within five minutes, then trotted over, to use the proper term.

“Sorry! I just got distracted by... whatever you were doing,” she said, reaching the bedside. She closed her eyes and appeared to start concentrating.

“I was testing to see if it was a lucid dr-” I started saying, but abruptly stopped when I felt myself slowly starting to rise from my hips upward. Without any noticeable physical contact.

“What the hell is going on?!” I said, starting to panic.

“I’m helping you up,” she said, opening her eyes and looking at me strangely.

“With WHAT?!” I exclaimed, looking left and right for some kind of platform that was pushing me up.

“With magic, of course,” she replied, once again sounding confused at my question. “What did you expect me to do, lift you up with my hooves, when I ca-”

Suddenly she gasped, and I felt the force moving me up disappear, and I fell back down to the bed. Again.

“Unless you don’t have magic in you world! That would make so much sense! It would explain the digits on the hands, which would be used more for grabbing than anything else. It would also mean that you walk primarily on two legs, which in turn explains their length, and the-”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but being in weird-ass place with a bunch of technicolor talking horses is trying my patience. I don’t know what the HELL is going on, where the HELL I am, or even what the HELL happened, but I’d like to start by sitting up, if that’s not too much to ask for,” I blurted out, my patience actually running out. Seriously, what was with this thing and all its nerdiness?

Despite the prelude to my outburst, she did look mildly offended, and, somehow, blushed again. I began to figure that blushing was either more common wherever the hell this is than on Earth, or these horses aren’t used to people being this direct.

“Well fine then, Mr. Bossy. Tone it down a bit, will you?” She replied, once again summoning the force that started lifting me up again. “And for your information, we’re not horses, we’re ponies.”

“Well excuuuse me for not being politically correct,” I snarked as I began to be eye-level with the pony. “If we’re correcting people here, then my name isn’t Mr. Bossy, it’s James McKendick.”

“Really? That’s an... interesting name. My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she replied, a smirk starting to grow on her face. “And if we are correcting, then the proper term would be “ponies”, not “people”.”

Yeah, you’re one to talk about INTERESTING names. Of course, it had to be “Twilight Sparkle”. It couldn’t have been Princess Rainbow Shimmershine, that would have been too sophisticated.

At this point, I was now sitting up, and a couple of pillows from across the room were flying over, held in some kind of purple aura. I had to assume that it was this magic Twilight Sparkle mentioned a minute ago, because when I looked back over to Twilight Sparkle, I now noticed her horn had the same color around it. She placed them behind me, propping me up. The force then vanished from behind me, and I was placed down on the pillows.

Once again, I was intrigued by the eyes of these... ponies. They seemed to be far too big to normal. Twilight Sparkle’s in particular seemed odd, because they had a point in the iris where they split into different colors. That in and of itself wasn’t strange, what was strange was the fact that it seemed to be a solid separation, not just eyes with different colors in them.

...Weird. Definitely not THE weirdEST, but still weird.

She noticed I was staring at her, which would be uncomfortable for me if she was a human, but as she wasn’t... yeah, whatever. She’s still an animal.

An animal that seems to be capable reading (or misreading in this case) other people’s faces, given that she blushed again.

FUCKING. AGAIN.

“So...” I began, breaking the silence for the second time, “A good question to start off with is, ‘Where am I’?”

Twilight Sparkle seemed to come back to reality when I started talking, and shook her head like she was trying to get rid of a fly.

“Specifically? You’re in Fluttershy’s cottage. In a broader sense, on the outskirts of Ponyville. Broader still, in the country of Equestria, and to round it off, on the planet of Equus,” she said, sounding like she was reading from a textbook with a sense of humor.

“...Right. I don’t know what any of that means.”

“It means you’re in Ponyville, one of the towns in Equestria,” she replied, this time deadpanning it.

“Thanks. Next question: How the HELL did I get here?” I asked, hoping to finally get some answers that made sense.

Twilight Sparkle looked at me, then looked away. I metaphorically held my breath as I waited for an answer.

“I don’t know,” she said at last, and my heart sank. “All we know is that when we found you, you were bleeding badly, you had glass all around you, and you were near a big, gray, metal thing that was burning, and-”

My heart must have hit my other organs when it sank, because my stomach dropped a few notches.

“Wait, a big, gray, metal thing that was burning? Did it look almost triangular, with a couple of fins sticking up in the back and picture of a flag on them?!” I asked, beginning to panic again. If my jet was here, fine, whatever, but if it was destroyed...

“To answer those in order, yes, but the fire was put out, we didn’t want it spreading, yes, it looked almost triangular, and yes it had a flag on it. Why, is this important to you?” Twilight Sparkle said, looking a bit confused.

“Yes, it’s important to me! That’s my jet, it’s fully modified and it was just on FIRE?!” I shouted at the end.

“It wasn’t just on fire, that was three days ago! What’s a “Jet”, anyway?” Twilight Sparkle replied, backing up a few steps, yet still looking curious. I ignored her question.

“I can’t believe this! First test flight and it crashes! Ken is gonna ki-” I started, but dropped off immediately. At that moment, the memory of what had happened just prior to my first blackout came back to me in detail: I saw the smoking pile of rubble that used to be the air traffic tower, the open space where the Garage was, and the deck burning.

Ken...

I felt a tear fall from my eye.

Virgil...

In any situation, strong soldiers aren’t supposed to show emotion.

Well, looks like there’s going to be some rewriting of the rules now.

I threw the blankets off to the side, and tried to swing my legs off the bed, ignoring Twilight Sparkle’s objections. Only, I momentarily forgot what happened last time.

I screamed again as the pain in my legs exploded and bright lights flashed in front of my eyes. I fell back to the bed, tears flowing non-stop from my eyes. I vaguely heard the door fly open and another person come in. I continued to cry, not only for the pain, but for my jet, my situation, my friend. Though I had been unconscious for a while, it was not resting, and I began to fall asleep.

All I could think was:

Why me?

Author's Note

Beginning Translation:
(James was the equivalent of drunk on pain here)
Fluttershy: He said "what in the", then he passed out!
Twilight: Are you sure nothing else happened?
F: Yes! I came in after he screamed.

I am so sorry for the delay with this chapter. I hate exposition. I'd like to have somebody else write it for me, but then it wouldn't be me. So yeah.

To adress a few things: If the thumbs down are because of the countries I picked in the beginning, well, I'm being politically imaginative. I didn't say Russia, so I'm not totally stupid. I CAN change the countries if you'd like, it's not a problem with me. Also, if you see any problems or errors, PLEASE point them out. I have a high standard for my writing, and I'd like to keep it that way.