Bonding with the Moon

~~ Equestria: Canterlot ~~

The morning after the rescue of the strange bipedal being, Celestia woke up from her deep slumber—already planning her schedule for the day. She felt less tense, despite having only missed a few hours of sleep. Perhaps it was from Luna’s song of encouragement as she woke all of Equestria from another night’s slumber, or it was perhaps the fact that she knew that the being was rescued at the nick of time.

She put on her golden tiara, smoothing out her sparkling hair, and tucked it firmly on the crown of her head. As she was about to bring her yoke to her, she heard Luna’s hoofsteps on the balcony. She smiled.

“Good morning, sister,” she spoke calmly.

“We bid thee good morning as well,” Luna replied.

“Is everypony awake?”

“Yes. All is well.”

“And the guest?”

“He is awake as well.”

Celestia’s eyes glimmered in the soft, orange glow of the sunrise. “That’s good to hear.”

Luna smiled. “Perhaps it would be appropriate for us to greet him.”

“That would be swell. I almost forgot about that,” Celestia blushed.

“When shall we go?”

“When I’m ready,” she hinted toward the neckpiece floating inches from herself. Luna responded with a nod and flew off toward the hall from the balcony. Celestia sighed heavenly, sliding her head through the neckpiece and settled it just above her chest. ‘I do hope he’s having good company with Cadence and Shining Armor.’

~~ Equestr-What? ~~

Well, that was certainly a pleasant wake-up call. I kick-start the morning with a gorgeous pink alicorn (that’s what she referred to herself as) named Princess Cadence. If that didn’t sound weird enough, I woke up to her drinking tea, of all things. Now, that must get other people wondering: how in the cruddy blazes could a horse drink tea? Are they even supposed to? Apparently, this one found it necessary to do so. To add on to that, I felt compelled to join in with her. Why?

I’m not sure if it was her elegant posture—the way she sat on that couch, innocently staring into my own eyes, or if it was the fact that the warm brew smelled so enticing. It was probably the combination of both.

Oh, I don’t want to forget that she's ‘married’ to a white unicorn named Shining Armor. Now, he didn’t look like any ‘knight in shining armor’ in my eyes. She did say that he was the captain of the Royal Guard.

Wait, there’s a Royal Guard here? Did I somehow get transported to an alternate Earth, where Europe is colonized by talking pastel horses? To be frank, they didn’t have any sort of northern European English accent, which would’ve been vastly distinct from American English.

“So, Cadence,” I spoke, totally not in an awkward fashion (okay, I lied there—it was pretty awkward). She looked up at me, enjoying another serving of the intoxicatingly delicious brew from her cup. I must admit, it really was that good. “Where am I exactly?” I still tried my best to not be as awkward as possible. I don’t think it mattered much anyway, because I think she may have expected my tone to be a bit disconcerting, judging by the look on her face.

She took another sip, and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, in a slightly cute fashion. “You’re in our home. This is the Crystal Empire, which resides in the northern border of Equestria.”

Excuse me while my brain takes a huge dump of ‘holy shit.’ I’ve heard of some interesting and crazy names of fantastical locations in fictional literature. Okay, so it doesn’t sound like I’m in an equine Europe. In fact, I highly doubt that Earth had a city made entirely of crystals and/or diamonds. That’d be one fucking filthy rich city.

There’s also the case that there doesn’t seem to be any indication of dominating wealth or political scandals. I could feel an aura of honest sincerity from these two, which is not what I’d expect from individuals who lived in a home made out of the most expensive material known to man. That got me wondering as to how the rest of this ‘Equestria’ would look like. Do all of their royal figures live in crystal homes, or is there something even more exotic that I’m not aware of? Something tells me that my journey here has only just begun.

Let’s hope I can last that long.

I think I could hear Cadence giggling in the background of my intense thinking. I shook my head and refocused my vision to her husband whispering something in her ear. Probably everyday gossip, like I’m not familiar to that. If it wasn’t for me tilting my head to the side in wonder, they probably would’ve talked each other’s ears off without end.

Cadence looked at me, puzzled. “Is there something on your mind?”

I attempted to say something, raising a finger in the air, as my mouth opened wide. I really did want to say something, yet something else sprang up in my mind. “Well, uh… I’m just… uh, surprised, is all…”

“Surprised about what?” Shining Armor asked.

“Well, the fact that I came here to Equersia, or whatever—“

“Equestria.”

“Equestria. Thank you.” God, these ‘Equestrians’ (if that is theoretically correct) are so nice. I’d bet that we’d get along just fine if they ended up on Earth somehow, if animal control wouldn't get all up in their asses over talking winged horses and unicorns and what have you. It’s just a hunch, but after being rescued and brought back to my senses by these extraterrestrials, I just had that strange feeling that things would turn out alright.

I wonder if they knew about the circumstances of my arrival, though. Damn. I wished I would’ve asked that first.

“So, uh, Cadence,” I said.

“Yes, Mark?”

“Do you know how I got here? Not like in this room, but I mean here—in Equestria?”

She placed her hoof on her chin. “Eh, I’m not quite sure I follow. I do know Princess Luna noticed your presence. That’s about it.” She paused. “She hasn’t told me anything else, yet.”

Great, as if there was one more thing for me to continue worrying about.

“I’m sure we could help put that to rest,” said a voice from beyond the doorway. That frightened me a bit, causing me to sit up straight and look around the room for a second, before catching sight of a tall white alicorn and the shorter dark blue alicorn.

Cadence was sure excited to see them. She jumped out from the couch and approached them with her wings out in full extension—lowering her neck in a sort of formal praise. Shining Armor did the same next to Cadence.

“Good morning, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” Cadence said, excitedly. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Good morning to you as well, Cadence,” the white alicorn said, with a placid smile. The darker one also grinned happily. I think her interest was more towards me than the couple, as I could feel her eyes gaze upon me after their cordial introduction.

I felt awful about not showing any sort of formality towards royalty. If I was going to get any sort of respect around here, I’d better follow the leader. I found the courage to stand up tall from my chair on both of my feet. I felt my right leg ache, but it was easy to pass off the pain for that moment.

Before I could even begin to bow my upper body towards the two ‘princesses,’ I heard the voice of the white alicorn penetrate through my ears. Her voice was authoritative, yet gentle and relaxing.

“There is no need for you to bow, stranger.”

I couldn’t dare to look up. Deep down in me, I wanted to obey her, yet I felt a deep obligation to salute to the presence of royalty. It was an internal conflict—my body was fighting that urge to obey which side to go on.

“But…” I stuttered. “It’s impolite not to salute to those of… royalty.”

“Where you’re from, perhaps,” she continued. “You are a guest here. We do not expect you to know of our customs right off the bat.”

Well, I felt a little more relieved. Seems like they’re giving me a little breathing room, given the circumstances I was put through to end up all the way here. I exhaled, letting myself stand upward again.

I can instantly tell that I towered above everyone in the room, except for the white alicorn. It was confusing as to which one was ‘Celestia’ and which one was ‘Luna.’ I also found it odd that they had tattoos on their butts (I guess you’d call them ‘flanks,’ in horse terms). The white one had a tattoo of a yellow sun with orange squirrely lines jutting out from all sides of the circle. The dark blue one had an inky splotch on her flank with a crescent moon adorned in the middle.

If I understood it correctly, I concluded that the dark blue alicorn was Princess Luna, and that the white one was Princess Celestia. I figured, since the world ‘lunar’ came to mind when I thought of the moon. Thank goodness for the process of elimination. Then again, that was only a hunch.

‘Celestia’ walked over to me, carefully looking me over. I could tell that she was fascinated by my appearance. Man, they seemed just as gullible as we do when we spot our eyes on something we’ve never seen before. She held out a hoof, adorned with a golden metallic slip-on, and slid it down the length of my arm. For once, I tossed the whole ‘alien probe’ scenario out the front door.

She stood straight on all fours, all the while maintaining that same friendly smile. “Do you have a name that you call yourself?”

If it wasn’t for the fact that I’d already given my real name to Cadence, I probably would’ve considered giving her a nickname. I’d probably be thrown in jail for lying to a princess. I’m not sure what their level of tolerance for deceit was, so I had to play it fair by whatever means necessary.

“Mark. My name is Mark Haraway.”

“Mark,” she repeated. Her eyes glistened in the basking light of the sun reflected off of the crystalline walls. “What a lovely name. I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria.”

As if my brain hadn’t gone into meltdown enough times already. Not only was she a princess, but she proclaimed herself as ‘the’ ruler of this landscape. This just ushered in a whole new level of strange. At least she didn’t laugh at my name—in fact, she found it quite ‘lovely,’ to quote her use of that word.

The dark blue alicorn, or ‘Luna,’ stood forth and stopped just shy of me next to Celestia. She also had a similar friendly disposition toward me. “If you’re interested in such brief introductions, thou shalt call us Luna,” she said. There goes that Shakespearian conundrum again. In all honesty, it helped me differentiate between the two. At least they didn’t speak in the same exact tone and pitch.

Well, at least another mystery was solved. So, Luna was her name. Made sense due to the mark on her flank, which was also apparent on the other side as well.

“Well, it’s good to meet you both, princesses,” I stuttered, again. I don’t know if it was from the both of them being so unnervingly close to me, but I felt a tad shameful. For one thing, I’m improperly dressed to be face-to-face with those of royalty. I also felt naked underneath the thin cloth robe that I had draped over me. I’d probably be violating some indecency laws if they tried to strip me naked or some shit.

Oh, god. I hope that doesn’t happen in a moment or two.

“It’s good to meet you as well, Mark,” Celestia said. “Now, I know you may have some questions regarding the circumstances of your arrival.”

There’s the smoking gun. Finally, I was gonna get some much-needed answers!

“If you come with us, we’ll discuss all about it.” She ushered toward the doorway, and proceeded to walk out. Luna still stood next to me, making some sort of inquisitive expression.

“Well, art thou going to follow our sister, Mark?”

So, these two were sisters. That was certainly an eye-opener. I trailed behind Celestia, as Luna walked behind me rather closely—almost touching her nose against my back.

I ended up following Celestia out of the mazelike interior of the crystal tower. If I hadn’t kept up with Celestia, I probably would’ve gotten lost; perhaps not, with Luna behind me. We got out onto the base of the underside of the tower, and she approached what looked to be a chariot of immense size. There were rows of armored stallions surrounding us. I felt like as if I made any sudden moves, they’d all be on me in less than the snap of a finger.

To make things more embarrassing for me, I felt all of their eyes gazed upon me. In one brief moment, I almost felt like a criminal who committed some horrible crime. I was brushed out of my train of thought with a gentle bump against my back. Luna playfully bumped into me, causing me to briefly lose my balance. To be honest, she did collide with me rather hard, which felt more like a shove. I thought that was very unusual, especially coming from someone of royalty. You’d think she’d have a little more decency.

As a result, this sent me scrambling on my feet towards Celestia. I tripped on my bad foot, leaving all my forward momentum on one foot. Too bad I was already leaning dangerously forward, or I probably would’ve caught myself. I tumbled toward the ground, expecting to plant my face right on the rough diamond surface.

It was as if much of my body was floating freely in space the next moment. I opened my eyes to find myself a mere few inches away from the ground. My body was still in the same position just before I tumbled forward. I was somehow raised up by some invisible bear hug and it slowly brought me back on my feet. After the grip subsided, I checked myself to make sure I didn’t have any scratch marks in case it was all some sort of illusion.

Nothing. How in the…

“Luna,” Celestia urged toward her sister. “Please be more careful with him.”

I looked back to see Luna snickering silently, all the while blushing like a wild rose. I could make out the faint whispers of her voice, as she cowered to Celestia’s words. “Sorry, sister…”

Yeah. You go, girl. Wait—what did I just say??

~~ Equestria: ??? ~~

If there was anything more impressive than this new landscape I was in, it’d be the fact that there was another planet of intelligent life. What really bought the farm was that these ‘Equestrians’ seemed very kind and peaceful—much different from the movies that I’ve seen. Those movies depicted alien extraterrestrials as groups of aggressive, resource-robbing militants. It was a pretty silly stereotype, to be honest, but the human mind tended to lean toward that pathway, whether it’d be in our imagination or related to the real world.

Personally, I had no problems with stereotypes, as long as they didn’t intervene with my work. Speaking of work, how’d I be able to fit into the labor force here, if things did pan out towards that direction? I think it was a good idea for me to make side plans, in case there wasn’t a way for me to get back home—if that was even possible to begin with. I was in the right path to receive some answers, as I sat next to the two ‘rulers’ of this world.

I was sitting right between them, safely secured by their mass as we were pulled along on an exquisitely crafted golden chariot—dragged along by a fleet of armored pegasus guardians. That made sense for a princess to have her own garrison of troops to defend her in the event that someone or something would attempt to do any harm.

In retrospect, there were lots of familiarities with this world and Earth. There was the fact that while the landscape was completely different and unrecognizable, the general layout of the landscape looked relatively similar to Earth’s surface makeup. Huge expanses of vibrant wild grass plains stretched across much of the land, interrupted by small groves of wildflowers and trees, which looked remarkably similar to the deciduous trees found on Earth.

In the distance, there was a large forest that covered much of the foothills to the right. To the left, large mountains towered above the landscape, exposing the solid stone layers of the crust. To top it all off, the gravity of this place didn’t feel like it was crushing me, nor did I feel nearly weightless. It was actually quite similar to Earth’s gravity. I don’t think I’d have much of a hard time adjusting to this world, physically.

Socially adapting to this world, however, was going to be a bigger challenge. First impressions are always everything, at least that’s what I was told. Taking that into consideration, it seemed like my first impression of this place seemed pretty spectacular. For the most part, the princesses seemed pretty modest, though their behavior (especially Luna) did not come across as lady-like. They didn’t seem like the perfect, pretty princesses that I’d used to hear/read about in ancient folklore. Then again, they were horses—albeit slightly shorter than the average horse that I was used to seeing.

Not to mention colorful. As far as I have seen, their coats were dyed with a single, dominant color. I’d no idea if they were born like that, or if they just decided to randomly dip themselves in a vat of ink. I’d like to think the formal, since ink would eventually wash off, and it’d be quite uncomfortable taking a swim in a chemical bath. Also, their manes didn’t look like the normal, short, thick hair that you’d commonly see on a horse’s neck and tail. These ‘Equestrians’ had long, multicolored hair, almost accentuating their feminine side. The stallions also had unusually long manes, though the only stallion I truly saw in full color was Cadence’s husband. The rest were either obscured by armor, or were never seen.

I still couldn’t get that out of my mind. I hope I didn’t end up getting married with an Equestrian. That’d probably be pretty strange. Can you imagine a human and a horse bonding together for life? Yeeaaahh, time for me to switch gears now.

If it wasn’t for my constant train of thoughts and observations of the two princesses next to me, I probably wouldn’t have noticed that we were rapidly closing in on one of the mountains. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were deceiving me, but it looked like there was a castle-like structure built on the side of the steep mountain-side, completely riddled with cliffs that dropped off towards the base of the mountain. Was it even humanly possible to construct such a monument?

Apparently, it was possible here.

As we got closer to it, the architecture and decorations of the castle and its various structures became clear. It wasn’t surrounded by a thick protective wall, though being supported on a near-vertical cliff face was probably enough of a defense for it as is. The white walls which made up the various structures, big and small, tall and short, made it look like that one elven capital city—you know, the one in the Lord of the Rings trilogy? I forget the name of it…

Anyway, point being, this city looked amazing. I could barely even come up with any more words to describe it.

I’m not sure how long it took, since my mind was reeling from the precious pearl walls of the castle structures, but I felt the abrupt movement of the chariot landing in the middle of a courtyard, of sorts. There was a bigger procession of armored stallions, compared to our departure from crystal-land, in an even greater array of colors—mostly obscured by their gold or silver armor plating. They all shared that same distinct stare of loyalty and discipline. I definitely would not want to mess with any one of these stallions.

“We’re here,” Celestia said, tearing me out of my brief daydream of deep thinking. I swear, I’ve never daydreamed like this at all before. I was definitely gonna have to get used to this new way of thinking if I was going to learn anything new.

After all, humans are unique in that they can adapt to just about any environment. Being thrown out in the cold, though, takes some pretty extreme adaptation skills to endure.

With that said, I really had that overarching question in the back of my mind: how did I get here exactly, and why?

Well, how I got here was somewhat of a no-brainer, but specifically I wanted to know how it was made possible. Did something similar happen to them here? Did they get hit with an unexpected meteor shower that rained fragments of glowing space rock from some distant debris field or planet?

That’d be kind of scary and interesting at the same time, if it was from a planet. Perhaps the planet blew up, and, somehow, infused the leftover material with charged particulates that gave the rock its ‘special’ quality.

Now I’m just stepping far into the realm of the impossible. I really need to step back a bit and let reality sink in.

Regardless, my mind filled up with all sorts of theories. Let’s hope that these two princesses have some sort of an answer before I go completely bonkers. Anything would do, really.

Celestia beckoned me to follow her and Luna up a curving stairway that followed the side of a tiered flowerbed. I could identify tulips and lilacs among other things. Our progress was slow, but it allowed me to keep up with them, despite having a sprained ankle. It wasn’t as bad now—I could get around no problem. If I had to run (which I don’t really see any need to do at the moment), it’d probably be a little more difficult to keep my footing.

We got to the top of the staircase, and their pace quickened to a trot. Okay, looks like I’ll have to put in a little more effort to keep up with them. They trotted over to one of the large buildings, adorned with stained windows that were decorated with an assortment of symbols and characters. They almost looked like windows you’d normally see in a church. Was that what it was?

I’m not exactly a religious guy, though I did respect other people’s beliefs. I just hope that they weren’t gonna pull me into some sort of pagan cult of killer horses and offer me as a sacrifice to their ‘god.’ Great, now I’m losing my own mind already.

I walked through the threshold of the long building, which had no doors. A little interesting how that would work out. I guess since horses don’t have hands, it’d be pretty difficult for them to open doors. The inside looked even more spectacular than the outside. There was a long, purple carpet that stretched on for the entire length of the building. For every fifteen feet, roughly, there were even more stained windows—each depicting different images. Were they some sort of event calendar?

I walked up to one of the windows, depicting both princesses and six other, smaller ‘ponies,’ I guess. Did they do something important, or was that holiday coming up? Above them were symbols that took similar placements as all of the figures. Obviously, there was the sun and the crescent moon, but there were also butterflies, balloons, diamonds, apples, and a white cloud with a multicolored lightning bolt coming out of it. Engulfing those five symbols was a six-pointed magenta star surrounded by five regular stars in random positions. What did those symbols mean? They didn’t look anything like I’ve seen on Earth. Did these ‘Equestrians’ worship more than one god?

“Mark?” I heard Celestia from behind. It frightened me for that split moment, causing me to jump slightly. “Oh, I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“Nah, that’s fine,” I said, letting my mind settle a little bit. “I was a bit engrossed by this stained window.”

“Oh,” she said. She walked up next to me, staring at the window. The way she looked at it, to me, meant that she had seen it a whole bunch of times before—possibly. “These are the Elements of Harmony. They help establish peace and order across Equestria.”

She made it sound fascinating, as if I was some sort of student. To be honest, she did come across as a mentor of sorts. Oh, man. I am gonna have such a lore trip here. It was probably only a small taste, but a good start it was. Damn, I wished Earth had something like this. At least we weren’t completely blind-sighted—there was a small taste of pleasantries and harmony where I lived. This really started waking me up.

Here comes that question, though. I looked up to her in understanding, absorbing the knowledge she gave me. I held a new face—one of question, and one that seemed awfully familiar to her somehow.

“Celestia, do you know how I was brought here, and possibly why?”

I don’t know if she froze or if it took her a while to register the question. Did I not ask in the right way? And what is it with her always smiling at me? It seemed as though Luna was only smiling half the time I’ve been around her. Was Celestia always this happy—the ‘Little Miss Sunshine' around here?

“That is why we brought you here—to discuss about the circumstances of your arrival.”

Wonderful. “Well, my world was hit by an unexpected meteor shower, which caused some minor damage to equipment we had set up in our arctic region. Were you hit by a random meteor shower as well, with glowing rocks?”

“That was no random rock, and I’m surprised that it was split apart.”

What? “Umm, I’m not sure I follow, princess…”

“There was an old tradition that was passed down by our ancestors that they called ‘rock throwing.’ It was a form of communication with distant worlds by sending messages infused inside nearby rocks. Your world had intercepted one of these messages, which we also imbued a special power within.”

Okay… what?? “Uhh… so, in essence…”

“We were the ones that brought you here—or, rather, you found our message and you were brought here through the spell that was embedded within it.”

Holy shit. Did I just hear that or was I imagining things?

“Uhh… princess? What do you mean by… that?” You’re gonna have to cough up an explanation if I’m going to understand the situation. “W… Why did you… throw rocks at other planets?”

I think my whole view of reality has been up-ended rather drastically. I mean, why would you throw rocks at other planets? Were they also feeling left out like we were? Did they also have the ‘are we alone in the universe’ question?

It’s quite obvious that question no longer applies for either one of us now. There’s also the fact that these Equestrians aren’t your stereotypical ‘run-of-the-mill,’ big-headed, probe-a-holic, aggressive extraterrestrials.

Now it was Luna’s turn to speak. “We had a hunch that there would be others out in the stars that, like us, would value harmony as a way of life.”

Well, we aren’t the most harmonious creatures ever to live on Earth, but I could sort of get the picture down. That still didn’t explain why they chose to hurl hundreds of space rocks into deep space just to get their message across. Didn’t they think about the end result if they had somehow managed to get a reply in the form of aggression from any one of those stars?

Now I feel that we humans are the less gullible kind. These Equestrians, fool-heartedly, stepped out into the unknown, clearly oblivious to the fact that: A) they didn’t know what the hell was out there, and; B) they didn’t even expect what kind of a reaction they’d get. I know I might sound a little repetitive at this point, but the point had to get across. I mean, if you're just blindly sling-shotting rocks out in space, there's the potential to do some damage to something out there—maybe even pissing someone off and sending a 'less-than-kind' message back.

Oh, the hilarity of an alien shouting incoherent insults at another...

Then again, I’m oblivious to the fact that these Equestrians have ‘magical qualities,’ so they could as well defend themselves pretty well against some threats—maybe even dump them out into the arctic where I ended up. Speaking of ending up in places…

Where the hell did Erin go, if she didn’t wind up in the same place as I did?

As far as I was concerned, they seemed rather intrigued with me. Had they found her first before coming to get me? Was she still lost, in a completely different locale? Things just didn’t add up.

After all this hard thinking, I finally managed to get a grip with myself. “Well, Luna, I’m gonna be frank with the both of you. Where I’m from, we aren’t exactly a ‘harmonious’ society. There are a lot of good parts to our lives, but there’s been a few...” Oh, how shall I say? “…conflicts.”

“Oh?” Celestia said.

“Pray tell, Mark. What ‘conflicts’ dost thou speakest of?”

Well, that wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I thought that they’d despise of me right off the bat, yet now they seemed even more interested in me than just a few minutes ago. Seriously, what the fuck is up with these Equestrians? Did they not understand the concept of ‘consequences to their actions?’

And for the fucking love of god, could you please cut the pseudo-Shakespearian shit?? I’m not even sure what side of the planet she was born on, but it was really getting on my nerve at this point.

“Uhh... maybe that wouldn't be the best subject for me to touch up on...?” Considering that they believed in harmony and all that jazz, blasting them with information about civil wars, world wars, and the European Holocaust, for instance, would possibly frighten them out of their wits. Then again, they could likely just ship me back into the freezer for the rest of my life and pretend that I didn’t even exist. Then again, who am I to know for sure?

Either way, I felt that the possible outcome would be less than promising for me, if I treaded further away from subtlety. At this point, I had to play it cool and not cross any boundaries—most importantly, I couldn’t even dare cross my own dignity with theirs.

“Fair enough, Mark. I suppose our train of discussion shall continue down a different path.”

What…? Okay, let me back up a bit now before I get too carried away here.

“Right. So, you said that you were the ones that sent out the rock, right?”

They both nodded.

“And that rock had a ‘special power’ attached to it?”

They both nodded again.

“If that’s possible, is there a way for me to get back home?”

Celestia’s smile transformed to a frown. My stomach felt like turning inside-out.

“Well, yes, and no.”

I really hated those kinds of scenarios. I mean, seriously—it’s always the bad part that sounds worse than the good part. She could’ve just said no for fuck’s sake, and let that be the end of the discussion.

On the bright side, I’ve been looking forward to a vacation for quite a while. The only problem with that was that this was going to be a, potentially, life-long vacation.

So, here I am—I’m in Equestria, brought here by two, potentially, magically powerful mares, and now ‘sunny-bum-drums’ says that there might not be a way for me to get back. I guess they can only extend their powers so far. All extents of power had its limits. God, there are so many fucking similarities with this place that I already feel like I’m still on Earth—almost like nothing’s changed.

It’s like Planet of the Apes, except with horses instead! How about Planet of the Steeds?

In any case, I did the best I could to give her a questioning look without as much as a twitch in my eyes in frustration. Seeing my (totally legit) game face, she continued. “There was the possibility of you being able to move between worlds with the rock, but since you said that it fell on your world in fragments, I’m afraid that the spell can no longer function in the same way as it was intended.”

So, in short, the space rock became a one-way doorway to magical, colorful pony-land. Wonderful. Did that also mean that it had, unintentionally, spit me out into the middle of the freezer, instead of somewhere less harsh? Maybe that explained why Erin didn’t re-appear next to me.

I’d probably be having a much harder time deciphering all of this information if I had gone through alone. Maybe having two life forms falling through the rock would make things a little more complicated with the princesses. I had to say something about that.

“There was, actually, one other that came in with me as well.”

Now this really got them interested. Celestia looked up at me. “There’s another like you?”

“Yes—well, if you mean the same species, yes; in terms of gender, no. She was with me when the ice below us cracked and sent us both to our, potential, doom. That's kinda how we ended up here in the first place.”

“The other is a ‘She'??” Luna screamed. Was it just me, or did she seem legitimately concerned? I guess they were even more caring than I had recently thought. Before I could even say anything, Luna had disappeared, just like that, into a fine, dark mist. Damn, just like Batman, except he disappeared without any trace.

Celestia peered into my eyes, with a concerning look crossing her face. “Don’t worry, Mark. Luna will make sure that she is recovered safely. I must ask, though…” she paused. “Are you two married, by any chance?”

I wanted to laugh so hard; I really did want to, yet I felt a small amount of shame fill my heart. Goddamn, all of this sympathy just hurts my brain. Were these ‘Elements of Harmony’ starting to affect me somehow? “No,” I replied, calmly.

She cooed, innocently. I had to admit, that was pretty cute. That question was also pretty damn cute. It made me wonder if Erin would even consider marrying me. I mean, she was a pretty decent gal—scratch that, she was drop-dead gorgeous. The only thing that really irked me about her was the fact that she would think ahead of herself and lose track of her surroundings. What I had experienced with her staring at the space rock was actually the coup de grace of that unusual trait of hers. I’d never seen her behave in that way. It was almost shit-scary, now that I remember.

I wonder how she would react now if we were, somehow, reunited out of fate in this new world. Perhaps it’d be dumb luck. In any case, I’m starting to think that maybe an extra-long vacation would be so bad. At least I’d be able to spend the rest of my life, with the woman of my dreams, in a vibrantly pleasant paradise…

… hopefully, if all the cards played out right…