Twilight screamed horridly at the sight before her.
The black cobbles of Celestia’s dungeon were covered with markings, with several large; disturbing scratching’s carved deep into the ceiling. The ground was littered with old bones picked clean from the meat that was once on them, husks of the former ponies they once were, along with inedible stalks of corn and fruits, and the stench of fecal matter coating the room’s mood with another wave of nausea.
But none of these made Twilight scream more than It. The creature’s hoofs were elongated and ended in multiple stubs, each one like smaller hooves that bent in an odd direction. It seemed to have that ability to walk on its hind legs, but it kept the front two close to the ground, curving its long spine as it did so. It wore several shreds of torn cloth around what Twilight considered to be its waist that had toughness to it, thin cotton fibers connecting some of the holes and tears.
“Wh—wha-what is it?” Twilight’s voice cracked heavily as she implored her mentor to answer the question that carved the frontal lobe of her brain.
After a brief moment of silence the voice of Celestia, hardened by a century of burdens and trials, spoke. “It is called a hu-man. It first came here when you opened the box that led to your victory with Tirek. He had claimed to be from a faraway land he called Earth.”
The creature perked up at the sound of his native land, noticing the duo of alicorns for the first time. His voice, Twilight realized he was a male from his defined albeit hollow jaw, croaked aloud as his tired bones cracked as if he had not moved for years. “Cel…est…i…a,” his eyes set on Twilight, observing every sliver of moment, every silent shudder, every glance back toward the door.
Celsetia merely nodded in his vague direction as indication to her name. “When he first arrived here he was as civilized as your friend Rarity-” he extended his spine, eyes unmoving from Twilight, revealing his astonishing height of roughly two large ponies, and she also noticed his slender hooves were as soft as his coat, which had surprisingly little hair on it. “- and has since then disrupted our society by eating one of my personal guards, who was retiring to Saddle Arabia the next day, then mumbling something in another language. I have since then put protective spells on the guards, ensuring he cannot control their minds. I would recommend you do the same, Twilight.”
Twilight mind adjusted slightly, taking a step further from the door as she realized that those bones were not as old as she had thought, and a veteran guard helm was littered on the ground beside the figure that was still holding her gaze.
A voice suddenly rang clear into Twilight’s head, echoing off her thoughts but not escaping her ears. “Yá'át'ééh,” The voices strange word made Twilight jump slightly, stopping Celestia from continuing the list of pre-cautious spells Twilight needed to perform.
“Twilight, is everything alright? You looked confused, is there a spell that you don’t know?” Celestia showed a hint of concern for her student quizzical behavior. Twilight noticed that Celestia had not heard anything out of the ordinary, revealing that the protective spells have worked and prevented the communication.
The voice spoke again in Twilight’s head, and Twilight heard something familiar in the voice, not directly, but in the inflections in the voice, a tribal accent running in his words. “I mean you no harm. The one I have destroyed was a skin walker, or in your world what is known as a changeling. I wish to speak more, but first I must be set free. Please, purple one; free me from this cell of stone and darkness.” Twilight’s head snapped back to reality, her mind refocusing away from her thoughts to the scene before her. The figure held a skull, set it beside the cage door, backed away and said in his familiar raspy voice; the hint of an accent weathered by age and hunger in the single word.
“Look.”
Twilight, slightly less taken aback by the word spoken, was the first to break the silence and grab the skull through the bars. As she gripped the edges of the head case, she noticed that the teeth were sharper than the average ponies, and that there was a smooth hole in the back right lobe, unseen by Celestia or the other guards. Twilight quickly remembered from her anatomy books that this was definitely a skull of a changeling, more specifically a mature changeling on the end of its life cycle. Twilight looked at Celestia and asked slowly, “You said he was retiring to Saddle Arabia soon, correct?” At Celestia’s nod Twilight continues her speech. “Well then. This skull happens to actually be a veterans head alright, but not a true pony’s skull. This guard was a changeling informant that was returning to the hive. We must call Cadence in to be rid of them. And this man here could have saved your kingdom, so we should set him free. Or at least into nice quarters, like my castle.”
Celestia blinked repeatedly with the heavy overflow of information that her student gave her. Even though she had trained Twilight from the day she got her cutie mark, sometimes Twilight could begin to speak rapidly so that the only rival to that speed would be Pinkie Pie herself. She trusted her pupil to do what was best for Equestria, and if this man had helped in the revelation of a Changeling assault on Canterlot and has potentially stopped another Chrysalis incident from devastating Equestria’s central place of commerce and law. But she had her reasons to hold back as well. He had dervived into a state of madness upon his imprisonment, as if he had been detained before. She dismissed this cautiously, replying to her pupil and the human with her typical voice. “Alright, if you believe that this is in our best interest then I will put our friend here in your custody, whether as a prisoner or as a guest is up to you. I recommend that you leave as soon as possible, seeing as the effects of Cadence’s magic on his kind are unknown.”
Twilight’s castle was large and impressive, several rooms contrasting the crystal halls. One such of these rooms was the one Twilight and her esteemed guest sat, Twilight pumping him for as much knowledge as possible. As her session with him started after their hearty meal of apples and hay, or for him apples and honey bread, Twilight asked him one simple question.
“What is your name?”
His solemn face, slightly returned to a natural fullness of his cheeks giving them a rosier color, his skin adjusting to the sun quickly, oddly enough for Twilight changing from the pale ghostly white to a particularly deep tan, full of a richness and vibrancy not unlike the wood of her old home, replied with a story.
“My name comes from the one of the hills of my homeland.”- He moved his hands to gesture the image of mountains, painting a still life in Twilight’s mind. –“What my people called the Dinetah. The homeland. My tribe was quiet, less prone to grab the tomahawk than some of the others. I was raised to be a Shaman to my people, a healer. Though that was an eternity ago.”
His voiced loomed over the room in an eerie blanket, the tale he wove beautiful and terrible as he told the tale of the “Pale men” and how they devastated his tribe, forcing those left alive in slavery. He watched as they murdered his family and friends in front of his very eyes, giving him only a moment to weep before they pointed the sword to his neck and drove it down.
Twilight exclaimed to this statement was swift. “But your standing right in front of me now, you couldn’t have died. Your head is still on your shoulders, so to speak.”
He hushed her softly, his voice silencing her with a still grace that Twilight thought only Celsetia had, a powerful inflection indicating that he has spoken before. “Do you believe in spirits?” Twilight’s subtle nod urged him to continue. “Well when I fell to that blade I was reborn to darkness. I vowed vengeance on him and his bloodline, cursing him to damnation. Though, to my dismay, I could only watch as his line exceled. I watched as his family grew, none of them as horrible as the man that ended me. I grew regret for my thoughts, my actions. I travelled far to repent my sins, hungry for forgiveness. I watched and learned the new language, never aging as I did. I went back to my homeland and found a gate. It was wide, carved with a moving rock that screamed at those that could hear. They screamed of a land of hope, a land free of suffering. As I walked through the gate I ended up around a gate, a lone dog with many heads guarding it. The one you call Celestia and her sister found me, and took me to their home. Then you found me later on, after the skin walker incident.”
After a shocked silence, Twilight stood up, grabbed her notebook which she was writing furiously in, and said to the man, “Well, that is your story. But you never told me your name.”
He chuckled a bit and told the purple mare, smiling as he did so. “I don’t believe I did. You can call me Shaman; that shall be my name here.”
Twilight thought deeply for a moment about what to do next. Obviously she couldn’t parade him around town, but he needed friends. After all, that would help him adjust to this new world full of new stuff for him. She made a list in their mind. After crossing out several people, Twilight smiles as the image of her other tribal friend popped into her mind.
Zecora stooped over cauldron, deeply thinking. The potion she was trying create for a brief transformation to help in the incoming Nightmare Night festivities, but it was turning into something reminiscent to a cough syrup that also cured a runny nose. As she peered into the vat for answers, the sudden burst of two people into her hut she toppled over into her cauldron, spilling half of the mix.
As she surfaced from her cauldron, her voice resounding off her walls, making the rhythmic rhyming patterns sliding off the walls even more enchanting.
“Why, Twilight. You gave me such a fright. Who is your friend you bring tonight?”
Twilight, after a drawn out apology, introduced Shaman to Zecora while all three of them began to clean the mess that was beginning to soak into the wood. Zecora seemed interested in the human, growing around similar tribal groups such as him, and they would have plenty of time discussing similarities and differences between the two. But at the current moment Zecora’s mind was still on the potion, which she relieved the thought onto Twilight and her friend. As they debated what would and wouldn’t be a considerable addition to their potion, Shaman went to work with the ingredients strewn about the room. He tasted flowers, berries, and other materials, throwing in several things and leaving out a select few. He knew his medicines well; and there were some ingredients which were unknown to him, and probably held some mystical quality to them. When Zecora noticed what he was doing when the House received a familiar smell, the smell of potions and herbs mixed with the sweat of labor, reminding her of her father when he would make medicine when she was a filly. She and Twilight silently trotted over to the cauldron, watching the human perform feats that Zecora had only recently learned with ease and grace, as if he were a dancer at the Gala, or some painter sketching a freeform.
“Skilled with the craft, this one is. Over many years, he has learned the biz.”
“Where did you learn to do all of this, Shaman? You have been here for only a few days and I haven’t seen you read a single book on potionry, just history material. I don’t see how you can do anything that advanced as a transfiguration tonic,” Twilight implored, eyes transfixed on his steadily blurring hands that had begun to stir the pot, all while still adding ingredients.
A smile whirred across his face as he scanned the room for certain familiar ingredients. “Some habits don’t leave you when you die, I guess. Madam Zecora, would you happen to have any Ginger? And some Chile peppers would be nice as well.” Zecora nodded and scurried over to her pantries, grabbing what was asked for. “Good, good. Now, just a stir here, and a dash of this, maybe a pinch of this, aaaaaannnd there. I just need an ingredient of what you wish to transform into and it should work.”
Zecora, stunned by the integrity and prowess of the newcomers work, sniffed the potion that he had placed into a cup and held out to the duo of watchers. “How is this that you do? You have the minimal time for a proper brew.”
He laughed a short laugh at her disbelief, and replied with a hearty and confident tone, “Sometimes a different mix is all you need to prevent a long risk.” As he said this he plucked several hairs from Zecora, and mixed in with a drop of his own blood, and as he collected his blood he grabbed a jar and pour some of his blood inside it. As he dropped them into the glass, the mix turned from the pinkish green to a deep vibrant brown, cocoa as his skin, which had slowly returned to a somewhat normal color. He grabbed two other glasses and poured some water into them. “Alright, now to test it. Cheers then?” He passed the water towards Zecora and Twilight. “To life reborn.” He raised his glass to his mouth and chugged down to the last drop.
The changes were swift and violent. The first immediate change was his size, as he begun to shrink further down towards the ground. His fingers and toes merged into four single appendages, hardening into sleek hooves. He fell onto all fours, his spine lengthening and his face elongating. As his transformation begun to fade, small tufts of hair grew onto his body, giving him a sleek striped coat with a black and white bottle as what was referred to as a “Cutie Mark.” When the spasms were all complete, there stood before Zecora and Twilight was a large zebra stallion, looking slightly dazed but excited at the same time.
Speaking in the same voice he used when he was human, he replied to the two dumbstruck mares with a somewhat smug tone, “I guess it worked. How do I look?”
Zecora recovered first with a slight blush covering her face. “The potion had the desired effect, though I must implore, is the time frame correct?”
Twilight, also wanting an answer, asked as well. “Yeah, how long will this last?”
Shaman, still testing his new mouth, replied matter-o-factly, “I thought you wanted something permanent. That is why I saved some of my blood into the jar, so as later if I wish to return. Let me just grab some mo-” as he was talking he tripped, knocking over the potion completely.
And all of them tried desperately to regain some of the potion, to no avail, Shaman realized that he had used most of Zecora’s ingredients, and it would prove to be a long time before he would be able to return. He swore under his breath but then wished it away, seeing the miracle he was given. He was free from his old life. Free from his past sins. Free to life a new life. Free.
As he silently cheered, he looked at the two and feigned trouble. He apologized to Zecora, and asked if there was anything he could do to repay her. At her decline, he cleaned the hut quickly, still maintaining a slim version of the grace he held before, it slowly coming into him as he adjusted to his new body. Twilight grabbed a broom with her magic and began to sweep the broken vials and unused flowers littered around the floor. Shaman went outside, looking in awe at the forest that surrounded him, all from a new angle.
Zecora walked up slowly beside him, following his eyes and where they were looking. “The world is new from a different view, but as soon as we can you’ll be back to you.”
Shaman, after a brief moment decrypting her voice, replied with a grin. “No, I think this will do. I’ve needed a new path to follow, a new world to live in. Maybe now I can forget the past, settle down and-”He looked directly into Zecora’s eyes”-Start a family.”