I felt myself gradually rising into consciousness. Although I would have been perfectly happy to keep my eyes shut and sleep in until someone decided that they wanted to go through the effort to wake me, I could feel the signs that my body had needs to be taken care of. My stomach growled silently. Fine, screw it. Step one: get up.
I opened my eyes and laid there for a moment. Something wasn’t right. Normally when I woke up I was in my fold up bed that I’ve been using while I am home for the summer after my first year of college. To my right would be a white canvas and wood framed folding room divider. Above me would be a painted white ceiling. Instead the ceiling had a different look than usual. It seemed to be a smooth white with a sterile look. To my right was a simple curtain.
A steady beeping noise pushed it’s way into my awareness. Oh, don’t tell me...I looked down at my right where the sounds was coming from. I saw a white band stretched around my right arm that let out a small spark in time with my heart beat. I don’t even- Several other things became apparent at that moment. First off, I was wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday. The second thing was that the bed I was in was really quite close to the ground.
I heard a rapid tapping that seemed to move around and stop somewhere beyond the foot of my bed. “Right, I might be dreaming. Let’s put an end to that,” I spoke out loud. I reached my left hand towards a spot on my right arm and pinched lightly.
Ow. I let out a quiet growl. I brought my hands up to my eyes to get rid of that gooey stuff that always accumulates over night. “Not dreaming. So where does that leave me? I could be hallucinating or insane...or lost somewhere. There is no way our hospital looks like this on the inside.”
“I can’t speak for the contents of your head but you can probably cross that first item off your list. The last one seems to be spot on though,” a female voice said to me. What. I lifted my hands from my face and raised my head off the flat surface to look at the speaker. I froze.
There is no way my mind can fabricate something so cute. My mental fortitude nearly shattered. I am very lost and I don’t have my glasses.
I shot into a sitting position and scooted myself backwards until I met the wall. The band on my arm was beeping and flashing rapidly. A part of my mind noticed that it displayed a red circle that was slowly disappearing like a dial being turned.
What had my focus though was the pink furred individual who was giving me a guarded look. Her tall ears on either side of her head were each pointing in my direction. Her eye’s were amber and oh yeah, she’s a quadruped. I couldn’t see finer details due to my lack of corrective lenses that are usually a constant companions.
“If I were you I would avoid sudden movements. Not only is that the fastest way to get in trouble, you might also overwhelm the pain blocker.” Things were quiet for a moment why my heart rate went down and the red circle finally disappeared. I sat there trying to get my adrenaline high under control.
“Um where...no. How did I get here?”
“I am not the one to be asking those kinds of questions. My job is to keep you in working order. Is there anything you need? You have some time before your questioning.” My stomach was still kicking up a storm and I couldn’t see clearly.
“Yes um, I am pretty hungry. Oh, and there is a personal item of mine that I sort of need.”
“And that is…?”
“My glasses. You wouldn’t happen to have them around here somewhere would you?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Stay here until I come back okay?” I nodded in response. She exited the room with what almost seemed like a flourish of her red hair and tail. I also noticed that she had a mark on her side but she was a bit too far for it to be clear.
Before I knew it I was left with my own thoughts, the constant noises from my arm band, and the now tapping sound that was obviously her hooves impacting the tile floor as she went down the adjacent hallway to parts unknown. I reflected on what in the world I was just talking to. She definitely had that equine look but she was unlike anything that I’ve seen before. She was also pink. She did look mostly like a pony but there was no way that she was one. Her head was too round and her eyes a tad too big and intelligent.
I sat a bit lower in the bed and examined myself. I was wearing a pair of black cotton shorts and a plain dark blue shirt. I still had my socks and shoes on which I found to be a bit surprising. I leaned forward to put my hands on my head. When my left hand touched the area above my left temple I was struck with blinding pain. I whipped my hand away and held myself still while it faded, which it did surprisingly quickly. The red circle on the armband was full for a moment before it blinked and started shrinking again. The pain was already gone.
After that little episode I sat for a minute or two just trying to piece together what I knew about my situation. I didn’t have much time to ruminate over it before the pink...nurse returned carrying a tray in her mouth. As I watched she came up right next to the bed and stepped on a heretofore unnoticed pedal which caused a small table that was attached to the side of the bed to rotate upwards before swinging flat. She placed the tray on the table and stepped back towards the foot of the bed all while watching me warily.
I looked at my hospital food and found a small bunch of grapes and a pair of carrots next to a small pile of hay which caused me to snort at the hilarity of the situation.
“Something wrong?” The nurse asked to which I swiftly replied.
“Can’t eat hay.”
The nurse gave me a look. “Okay then, we will hash out your diet during the questioning. Anyway did you see your, em, glasses?” She inquired.
I looked back to my tray and found them folded up in a groove along the right side. “Oh, thanks.” I picked them up and swung them into position on my face with a flick of my wrist. In an instant the world shook off its fuzziness and I looked back at the nurse. Yep, there is no way my mind can just fabricate something that cute. My thoughts wandered a bit as I observed the four foot tall creature.
I noticed that she was watching my hands closely, which I just assumed was curiosity. As I grabbed a carrot to much on I decided to make some small talk. “So, I never got your name.”
“Nurse Vinegar.” I raised my eyebrow at that as I considered the name. In my head somewhere I knew that vinegar had medicinal uses.
“Works for me. I’m Tom,” I said, “ignoring the context, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Sure.” I didn’t know much about vinegar but I decided that it described her well. “When you finish eating we can take you to have a chat with the royal guard that’s waiting for you,”
It occurred to me that it wasn’t a good idea to keep the guard waiting. I finished the carrots which tasted pretty okay for carrots before switching to the grapes which were fantastic. I didn’t expect that for hospital food. Naturally I skipped the hay and stood up. The nurses eyes widened as I dwarfed her. I guess I surprised her for some reason. She quickly got a hold of herself and led me out of the room.
The ceiling was lower than I was used to but still high enough that I wouldn’t touch it unless I reached for it. I wondered why the ceilings were so much taller than everyone here. Speaking of everyone, I was getting a lot of stares from the equines that worked in the hospital. I realized at that point that they were all sorts of colors and that some of them had horns and some had wings. I saw a few others that had armbands and when they say me the armbands alway began to chirp as a faster rate. At that point the idea that I was pulling a stranger in a strange land move was starting to get to me and my nerves were on edge. Luckily we chose that moment to reach our destination.
“In here.” Nurse Vinegar nudged me to get my attention. She opened and walked through a door on our left. As I followed her I spotted a white unicorn with a two toned blue mane wearing a red uniform sitting at a table and looking down at some paperwork.
“Nurse Vinegar, I thought you were going to bring…” He looked up and he eyes grew wide when he saw me. Although one would expect a more dramatic reaction to an alien. “Nevermind nurse, you’re excused.” She promptly turned to leave. When the door shut he looked to me. “Sit,” he commanded curtly.
On the near side of the desk was a sort of low couch that was obviously designed with small equines in mind, but I made do. “This is the way this is going to be, I’ll ask you some basics about yourself before discussing the incident that brought you here. Understand?”
“Yes, though in exchange I’d like to ask my own questions.” He narrowed his eyes and gave me the most suspicious look that I’ve ever had pointed at me. “Just things that an uneducated foreigner would know. Super simple things.”
His expression relaxed slightly. “Fine.” With that settled he looked down at his paperwork. “What is your name?”
“Tom. Can I get yours?”
“Shining Armor.” Heh heh, I wonder if he’s rescued any princesses? “Species?” A quill glowed and lifted itself off the table, dipped itself in a pot of ink and started writing. I stared at the spectacle. I then realized that his horn was doing the same.
“Human. How are you doing that?” He looked up at me.
“This?” The quill bobbed in the air.
“Yeah.”
“Magic.”
I couldn’t decide if that was weirder than the existence of talking equines. “Ok then.” Shining armor kept his eyes on me as he turned his head to look back down at his list before reading his questions off again.
“Age?”
“Eighteen.
“Height?”
“Five foot eleven and three quarters.” He looked at me for a moment and sighed.
“Stand up.” Of course. They don’t have feet to name a unit of length after. “You’re about six hooves tall. How many parts does a foot have?” It seemed that hooves were considered to be about the same length as a foot. Looking at the unicorn, I realized that the length from his hoof to his knee seemed to be about that distance.
“Twelve inches.” I replied. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. Did horses always have eyebrows? I couldn’t remember.
He asked about hair, eye, and fur color which I had him correct to skin color. I answered brown, blue, and white which I corrected to light tan/brown when he insisted that I didn’t look white. He sighs again, obviously bored with our little talk that had barely been going for a minute.
“What do you eat?”
“Lemme think.” I decided to lay it on easy considering the obvious fact that they were herbivores. I mean look at those teeth! It’s like having thick molars sitting behind your lips. You can’t eat meat with those. “Fruits, vegetables, dairy products, beans, eggs, wheat products, and well that last thing that makes me an omnivore.” To his credit he writes it all down without batting an eye. “Oh, I can’t eat any sort of grass, like hay. I don’t know if I missed anything but I should be able to answer on a case by case basis.”
“That’s good enough. Do you want to ask anything else before we get to talking about your arrival?”
“Em, yes. You are some kind of equine right?” He looked as if I just asked if he walked on four legs.
“Yes, I’m a pony. Where could you possibly come from for you to not know that?” Asking that question seemed like the most vigorous thing that he’s done all day.
“A place where my species is the only sapient one around and where ponies, and all equines for that matter, are just run of the mill ordinary animals without the slightest spark of intelligence or self awareness. They are also a heck of a lot less colorful there too,” I retorted without missing a beat.
Shining Armor doesn’t respond for a moment. “Fine. I don’t care enough to get the details. That would be something that my sister would be interested in.” A fire lit in his eyes. “And if you do find yourself having a chat with her, don’t do anything that I wouldn’t approve if you don’t want to find a new home in a dungeon!” He sternly ordered me.
It’s not like I actually needed the shotgun talk to realize that pulling anything would be a bad idea. “Hey now, I like having a future and I would never do anything to jeopardize that okay?” He kept his glare up for a moment before relenting.
“Fine, let’s get this over with,” he says and looks to his lis. “What do you know about the event that brought you here?”
“Um,” for the first time since waking in that hospital bed, I actually tried to think back to the last time I was conscious. The room was silent for a moment except for the pulsing noise of the armband “I was on my way home from a trip I took to visit some friends a city over and…” I replayed the journey through my mind. I was heading east on I-395 from Sacramento, California when...what? I pushed my memory as far along my route home as I could. I remember being all alone in the freeway in my brother’s Toyota Highlander heading through the forested mountains with a river far below on my right. It was coming back to me. “There was a sort of flash and I felt like was pulled sideways. After that I woke up down the hallway. I don’t remember anything else” It occurred to me that there was now a great big spiderweb crack on the driverside window.
“There was some commotion on the edge of the Everfree forest yesterday where a large metal object was found wedge up against a tree. You were found inside and brought to the hospital and the items on you were confiscated. A quarantine has been set up around it until a decision is made about what to do with it. Now, I am going to ask you about the things that we can’t identify. Okay?”
I nodded in reply. “Good. Now I want you to identify these items.” He was perking up a bit with his own curiosity. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a brown wallet and my cell phone.
I pointed towards my wallet. “That is my wallet. A normal person uses one to store their person identification, money, and other paraphernalia that they think is important that they can fit.” I then pointed to my phone which was one of many new things that my aunt bought for me recently. “This is a device that let’s me communicate with others that have a similar device in several ways but mostly verbally. It’s long name is cellular telephone but these days it is shortened to just phone or cell phone. Over the last few years the actual number of things you can do is a cell phone has grown immensely but mostly it’s just for talking with people far away.” I felt pleased with myself for describing my things without getting stuck and rephasing anything. The cellphone that I had was a Nokia Lumia 1520. A big monster of a phone with a six inch touch screen and awesome camera. I had intended on getting a smaller and cheaper one but my aunt got it for me anyway. She insists that I am not spoiled.
Shining Armor looks at it with an appraising expression. “What’s the purpose of the dark round part right here?” He asks while pointing at the currently face down cell phone with his hoof.
I smile. “It’s a camera lense. You have cameras right?” He nods. “Would you like to see the kind of picture it can take?” He nods again. I pick up the red phone in it’s white case. I let the screen cover fall open and unlock it. The screen changes from a starscape to a bunch of squares. I press the button on the side of the screen that turns on the camera and I level it towards the unicorn. “Hold still and consider smiling,” I ask. To my surprise he does smile.
By default I leave the flash off and due to the lighting of the room with white walls and archaic looking electric lights with only a desk, two seats, and a door to furnish it, I decide to leave it off. Holding the phone oriented to get a wide picture rather than a tall one, I press the take picture button and the image freezes for a moment. I lower the phone and bring up the new picture. Shining frowns and pauses for a moment before asking, “No flash?”
“Nope. I usually don’t need it so I leave it off.” Before he has a chance to comment I turn the phone towards him. His eyes get really wide as he looks at himself.
“Why...why would such a device have a camera in first place?” He asks in a daze. I don’t know how I would have reacted in his place but I don’t know if that would have been my first question.
“Well necessity is the mother of invention and that probably came in the form of an order from a boss to an employee to come up with some slick new thing to tack on, and it most certainly sold. Do you want to know more about the phone or do you want to move on?”
His discipline rapidly reasserted itself as he cleared his throat. “Yes, we really should move on. There is only one thing left for me to ask about. What is that metal contraption that you arrived in?”
“Oh, that is a machine commonly referred to as a car. It is a self propelled vehicle that is used to travel quickly from location to location around cities or between them. It can carry several people plus cargo long distances,” I lectured. I hoped that I was using words that someone who had no connection to modern human society could understand.
Shining Armor muttered, “He sounds just like her,” before continuing. “Alright that’s it. I’ll endorse the plan where you are consulted to identify any other objects in your vehicle and to be interviewed for other things you might have to say. I’m going to guess that the interviewer is going to be my sister and that she will be in charge of your living arrangements. Remember, if you hurt Twilight then you are going to answer to me after she’s done with you, and you won’t enjoy making either of us angry. At least I won’t burst into flames.”
I decided to take that last part to mean that he would be very cold with me. “Trust me, I don’t want to cause any more of a stir.”
“Right. You will be transported to the library she lives in. Cooperate and do as you’re told and everything will be fine.”
We exited the small room. I discovered Nurse Vinegar along with a pair of bulky looking pegasus ponies in what appeared to be golden armor. If that is actually gold, then not only would that be really heavy to fly in, it would be too flimsy to offer much protection. I decided to leave my musings behind me when Shining Armor directed me to follow the guards. The nurse fiddled a bit with my armband and got the beeping to stop before leaving without doing anything else with it.
In no time we exited out onto a wide uncovered balcony that had a chariot. It also looked like it was made of gold with a smooth floor and a swept wing design on the sides with a low railing at the front. The were some simple bars out front which seemed suitable for pushing the chariot.
The guards each took a position behind the bars before turning towards me with an expectant posture. I took the hint and carefully climbed onto the two wheeled contraption despite the questions of safety buzzing in my mind.
Then the small pony guards with their small pony wings surged forward in a cacophony of feathers and wings and then we were airborne. I was surprised at how calm the whole event felt. There was almost no sense of acceleration or of changing altitude and despite the maneuvers pulled by my little golden entourage.
For the first time since my last memories behind the wheel, I could actually see my surroundings. We were pulling away from a blocky white structure and heading out over what appeared to be a small city at least by my standards. Not too far away appeared to be a genuine castle with some especially tall stone towers. The city below me looked like something you would expect archaeologists to dig up complete with marble buildings and stone statues. The whole city was on a level plateau sticking out from the side of a mountain no less.
I was rather enjoying the ride in spite of the lack of safety restraints. The smooth ride combined with my no-hesitation attitude towards rollercoasters and small planes quickly put a stop to that queazyness in my stomach.
The panorama gradually shifted until I realized that our destination was somewhere outside the city limits. Along the mountain was a railroad track that led down into a plain shrouded in patchwork forests and grasslands. Dead ahead was what appeared to be a small town that we would reach in only a few minutes.
I thought about where I was which led to thinking about how I got there. My train of thought quickly led to thinking about what I left behind. No. I can’t afford to think about that. I can’t. Worrying will just make me think about my fam-. I cut my own thoughts off there. I wasn’t quite ready to have a breakdown.
Luckily by that point we had closed in on the small town of old style homes with thatched roofs and, well, ponies. We swiftly passed over the rooftops before the guards decided to make a left turn before setting down next to the largest tree that I’ve ever seen in my life. Naturally I’ve seen tree’s that were taller or had branches reaching out to cover a huge area, but this took the cake in trunk thickness. You could fit a home or two in there! It took me a brief moment of staring before I even realized that there were windows and balconies poking out of its natural exterior. In front was a sign that read Golden Oaks Library.
Without saying a word, one of the pegasi removed himself from the chariot and walked (trotted?) up to the door and knocked a few times with his hoof.
“Coming! Hold on!” A voice called from somewhere inside. Who knocks to go into a library? Maybe I’ll have a chance to ask.
Author's Note
So here is my first chapter of my first pony story ever. If you want me to write more, telling me so would provide more than enough motivation. I'll admit that I am writing this story because of how much I want something like this to exist, rather than how good of a story I think it will make.
Chapter 2 - Introductions.
Author's Note
It has arrived! Now I know why authors take so much time to upload things. It's a lot of work! Please keep an eye out for issues you may have with the story and tell me what they are. Otherwise please enjoy! Yay 2am!
Chapter 2 - Introductions.
“Oh, you’re here. Did you bring it? Did it survive?” Asked the unicorn standing at the entrance to the library. Hold on. Since when did unicorns have wings?
“Yes to both, princess. It’s in the chariot,” the pegasus stated flatly. She looked towards me and I looked back. After a beat the ‘princess’ cleared her throat and looked back at the guard standing next to her.
“Do you have something for me?” The guard quickly retrieved a few papers from a slim bag attached to his armor on his side facing away from me. Twin lavender glows appeared on both the as of yet unidentified winged unicorn’s horn and around the small stack of papers. She looked at the front page for a few seconds as they were gently held in place by the wispy flow of color. Something caught her eye that caused caused her to giggle loud enough for me to hear. What could there possibly be that would get that kind of reaction? She continued, “Thank you. Our guest will be staying with me. The two of you may go.”
The guard quickly reciprocated, “But princess. What if it’s dangerous?”
“Don’t worry, I have plenty of passive defences in the library now. Besides, any threat that gives me enough time to react won’t be a threat for long.” Simultaneously the guard relaxed while I became a great deal less so. I didn’t want to have to stay on my toes for my stay while I tried to find a way...home.
During my brief moment of thought, the guard and the pony from the library walked to the chariot that I was still sitting in. A voice that was clearly directed at me interrupted my reverie. “Hello! My name is Twilight Sparkle. You’re Tom right? If you would come with me, I could get you settled and these gentlecolts can be on their way.”
Taking the interesting vocabulary in stride, I stood up off the chariot which was airborne within the next heartbeat. “Em, alright I guess. Lead the way.” I followed her back to the library. I noticed that she was not the slightest bit put off by our size difference. I also realized that this is the sister that Shining Armor gave me the shotgun talk about in spite the lack of any shotguns mentioned.
As we walked into the library I had to duck down a bit to avoid the door frame. I might have been able to walk through it upright but it was a bit close by my standards. When I looked up I had one thought. And the winner of the world record for bizarre architecture goes to… this place. Inside was a large round room with ceiling high bookcases that were either carved into the walls or they grew like that. I couldn’t tell. On the far side of the room was a stairway leading up to a second floor and to my left was an alcove that seemed to lead to a downward stairway
“So,” I began, “you work here?” As good an icebreaker as any.
“Yes I do. I also live here with my assistant, Spike.”
“Spike? That doesn't seem to fit with the normal naming conventions around here.”
“That’s because he’s not a pony. He’s a dragon.”
“A dragon,” I deadpanned.
“Yep. Anything wrong with that?” I didn’t respond. “Okay, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking of a creature of mythology that is so dangerous that it could accidentally burn me to ashes assuming it wasn’t trying to in the first place.”
“Mythology? Why- no, later. Anyway, Spike is just a baby and wouldn't hurt anypony. Er, or you for that matter. I think he’s actually quite cute.”
I don’t know about dragons, but I hear that mirrors have cuteness in them. You should go look at one. Outloud I said, “Speaking of ponies, as far as I’ve seen, you are unique. Why is that?”
“Oh I am not entirely unique. Each of the other princesses are also Alicorns and there are four of us. Princess Celestia and Luna are the diarchs of Equestria while Cadence is in charge of the Crystal Empire. While I am not in charge of anything, although I am still young by even normal ponies’ standards.”
“Wait, I’m confused now. How long does a normal pony live?
“A bit over a century usually.”
“And how old are you?
“Twenty.”
“And how old is the oldest princess?”
“I don’t actually know, but I would give a minimum of fifteen hundred years.”
Oh wow. I knew it was a moot point but I added yet another inquiry. “And how long are your years?”
“Three hundred and thirty six days.”
“A bit shorter then.” I paused for a moment as I stood there next to Twilight. Each of us were still in the library main room and hadn’t done anything but talk. “Actually it’s possible that we are almost the same age, considering that my year is three hundred and sixty five days.”
At that moment Twilight decided that we had things to do and people (or ponies I suppose) to see. “I think we should come back to this later. Let me show you the rest of the library and take you to meet my friends. Is that alright?” She asked out loud despite the fact that her big expressive pony eyes told me that she would rather keep talking until the end of days.
She led me of the wide stairs that were a bit awkward for me to climb. A railing would also have been appreciated.
We entered another round room with more bookshelves and several exits. There were more stairs on my right. “Spike and I sleep up on the loft behind us. That door leads to the kitchen, that one the bathroom, and that one leads to the balcony. From there you can reach the top platform.”
I took it all in. There was a nice yellow filigree on the wall above the her desk on my left and below the loft. “So, where is Spike?”
“I gave him the day off so I could handle you myself. He’s probably with one of my friends. Why don’t I take you down to look at the basement?”
I nodded in assent and followed her back down the stairs.
The basement followed a similar design to the other rooms in the sense that is was round and lined with books. “The basement also has a bathroom and a closet. Although I think the closet is full of equipment. Anyway this will be your room for as long as you need it until circumstances change.”
Well it seems like the question of what I am going to be doing with myself for the time being answered itself without the slightest bit of effort on my part. Although there are still some things I need. “Is there a possibility of getting a hold of some of my stuff?” I asked. Twilight furrowed her forehead in confusion.
“What stuff?
“I had some things with me when I got here. Don’t tell me that you don’t know what I’m talking about.” It stands to reason that if I was removed from the car then everything else inside would have been investigated also.
“Um no, we can’t actually get in and it might be dangerous to force our way in.”
“Huh? Then how did you get me out?” Million dollar question there.
“I teleported you out.” Million dollar answer to go with it.
Teleportation. That’s cool, spoke my sarcastic thoughts. “Alright then. Is it far from here? I’d like to give it a visit before too long.”
“We can do that after I take you to visit the others. How does that sound?” She suggested. I decided to agree.
Before we left I tactfully arranged a moment to investigate the bathroom that I would be using. Thankfully it appeared to be usable for someone like me. The sink would be irritating since it was barely a foot off the floor but it had normal looking handles and running water and a wooden soap dispenser. I found that the faucet was made of copper which I thought was strange but I decided to ignore it.
After that we swiftly made our exit and set course to anywhere, or more specifically to ‘Rarity’s.’ After only a moment of walking a presence above made itself known to the world and bestowed it its wisdom, or to put it more precisely:
“Watch out Twilight! There’s a monster! I’ll get it!” It wailed. In response I had one thought. Oh hell no.
I kicked both my legs out backwards and put out my arms. My landing was cushioned by my hands and legs in something similar to a pushup position and in barely a moment I was on my stomach and smelling the grass. The next things I become aware of was a great blast of wind and the noise of flesh skidding across the ground.
I looked to my left to find out that Twilight had been tackled by an exceptionally colorful (but mostly blue) pegasus. For a moment I was worried that she was hurt but fate quickly but that thought aside.
“Rainbow Dash! He’s with me!” She levitated the interloper off of her before standing up and magicking her main and tail back into order and the dirt off of her fur. “Now would you apologize for assaulting us?” She sternly requested.
“Um, sorry?” She wasn’t sorry.
Twilight took a calming breath. “Fine. Would you come with us to Rarity’s, Rainbow? I would like to introduce both of you at the same time.”
“Sure, whatever.” She flatly responded while glaring at me. Twilight seemed to find that acceptable and released her from her telekinesis. Rainbow began to hover in place off of Twilight’s back left leg. She seemed fine but I was still concerned.
“That was a hard hit, you okay?”
“Yeah. Once upon a time that might have broken a rib or two, but since I became an alicorn I gained the traits of pegasi and earth ponies, which includes flexible bones and both strength and resilience respectively among other things.”
So she used to be a unicorn? In any case I guess there is nothing to worry about. It seems that this Rainbow Dash is in good condition also. I deducted that ‘Earth pony’ referred to the mostly ordinary looking ones rather than the planet that I am familiar with.
We continued our way through the town and threaded our way between homes with thatched roofs and the occasional expression peeking out of the windows. Frankly I expected a more dramatic reaction to my presence. “Twilight, I don't know about ponies but where I come from, strange or even alien individuals would generate a lot more fear or curiosity than this,” I spoke as the bystanders didn't do much more than glance at me.
“Believe it or not, stranger things have happened than somepony suddenly appearing in a metal box. It would take a lot to outdo our first experience with Discord.” I decided to forgo asking about that until we finished with our trip around town.
We soon arrive at the second craziest looking building in town (second to the library of course). Some bells rang as the three of us walked in. I nearly knocked
A voice called to us from another room. “Welcome to Carousel Boutique! I’ll be with you in a moment!” I heard the shuffling of materials and some talking that I could only barely hear. A moment later a white unicorn with a purple mane and tail walked in bearing a smile.
“Hello Twilight, Rainbow, and-” Her eyes finally met mine and she froze. Her eyes widened a bit while her smile remained plastered in place. “-and guest.”
Smooth.
“Hi Rarity. This is the one we found and sent to the Canterlot hospital.” She smiled a devious smile. “His name is Tom.”
Rarity’s right eye twitched. Rainbow dropped onto all fours and started snickering into her hoof. Okay, now this is just weird. It seemed that I was out of the loop and I fully intended to rectify that.
Before I could voice my concerns, Twilight continued. “He will be staying with me for the moment. Oh, and do you know where Spike is, Rarity?”
The plastic smile finally vanished. “He went with Sweetie Bell. She asked him to go with her to do something for the Crusaders. I’m sure he’s around.”
“Thank you Rarity. We need to get going. We’ll see you next time.” They exchanged their goodbyes while Rainbow sat in the background looking bored. We made our way back outside and set course for another of Twilight’s friends. Rainbow made some excuse about the weather and flew off.
“What was that all about?”
“What?”
“The thing with my name.”
“I’ll explain it to you but I would need to explain what happened with Discord first.”
“And who’s Discord?”
“He’s the spirit of chaos.”
“...Yep, this can wait ‘til later.”
Things again went quiet as we walked side by side. Twilight had the papers floating in from of her that the guard had provided. She flipped through all of them a few times.
“Just so we’re clear, you do know that I can only house you while you can and are willing to answer whatever questions I can come up with. I am under orders from Princess Celestia to learn everything I can about ‘the strange visitor’ and I don’t actually know how long we can make this last.”
That was actually a relief to hear.
“That’s not a problem. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know quite a lot for my age. It would probably take weeks for me to run out of things to talk about. I have have always liked to learn more along my lines of interest and they don’t call it the information age for nothing. While I really do think sharing what I know would be fun, I wont be spending my time being idle. I do want to find a way home because… things I am not ready to talk about. I haven’t had a chance to think or even try to cope with it.”
She looked up at me, her irises and pupils were huge and she had quite the concerned look on her face. She pressed her body up against my side in a semi-successful attempt at comforting me. “Don’t worry. The event that brought you here is already being studied by the Princess’s top scientists and academians. Besides, once we run into Pinkie Pie, she will make it her personal mission to see you smile just like with everypony else. Just be prepared, she’s a hoof full.”
I gave a light laugh at the strange wording. I realized that with words like everypony and hoof full that there were probably going to be a lot of conflicts of vernacular.
By then we were approaching what looked like an apple farm, or maybe an orchard. Whatever. We reached the door and Twilight knocked. The door was answered by a miniature pony. That thought sounded funny in my head. I guess it’s just a child. Although I couldn't remember the equine name for those who are young and female.
"Hey Twilight! Um what's this fellar you have with ya?"
"Hello Applebloom. This is Tom. He's the one in the object that I told you not to go near. I also already know you went near it."
"What!? How'd you know?" She frantically replied.
"You just told me."
"Okay, now I'm confused."
"Don't worry. Do you know where Applejack or Spike are?"
"Yep. They are together with the other crusaders. They should be on their way back." She paused and looked pass us. "Oh, they're here!"
Behind us was what must have been Spike, Applejack and the other 'crusaders' which includes a small white unicorn and an orange Pegasus. There was something different between them and the adults, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
"Twi? What's that you've got with ya?” Applejack said around a lasso in her mouth. I didn’t like the look of that.
“This is Tom. He’s the one I rescued yesterday from the metal thing. He’s staying with me while I learn what I can from him like the Princess asked me to.”
I turned to her. “I hope that’s not the only reason why.”
“Actually she gave me the job because there was nopony who wanted it more. She also trusted me to handle it well.”
Applejack chose that moment to butt in. “Hold on Twi, I don’t trust it. It might be dangerous. It can attack you in your sleep! We should have guards around to make sure it doesn’t do anything it will regret.”
She was starting to irritate me. I decided to one up her tongue lashing skills. “Thank you Agent Orange, but I’ll have you know that I do have common sense to the point where I know that my ability to go home probably depends on my good behavior! Do you think that I would hurt someone for no reason? I really do want to go home eventually. How do you think my family is doing? They are probably torn and grieving my death and that isn’t where it ends!”
It went quiet. Everyone seemed stunned by my outburst while I found it to be therapeutic. I also had the perfect follow up.
"But I choose not to dwell on that. I'm here to meet Twilight's friends. So what do you think about that?"
guilt·y
adjective
Applejack’s face.
“I’m sorry sugarcube. I was just lookin’ out for Twilight. Could you forgive me?” She spoke in what I thought sounded like an old western accent, or at least what the movies portrayed it as.
I sighed. “It’s fine, I forgive you. You couldn’t have known how I would act. Especially considering what I know. Just...let’s forget about that okay?”
Twilight apparently decided that this was enough for our visit. “Well, we still have to go see Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. Then we will go finish preparing for his stay so I think we should get going. C’mon spike!” Twilight monologued while nudging me away from the front of the farm house.
The three of us began our trek to another place on the outskirts of town. Once we cleared the edge of the farm Twilight spoke to me again. “What’s Agent Orange supposed to be?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you said it like it was the most insulting thing you could think of. You sounded mad.” I didn’t really feel like answering that but I didn’t want to lie per se. Though from what I knew of the Vietnam War there was no possible way I could spin this in a positive fashion.
“Basically it’s a very dangerous herbicide that can change jungles into wastelands and keep them that way for decades.” I would rather not explain the hundreds of thousands of lives that it has taken or ruined.
“Why would anypony use such a thing?” If that was much louder then it would have been a shout.
“Don’t ask me. It was banned from use like thirty or forty years ago. I am pretty sure that it was only used once in secret and it didn’t go over well when people found out.” While I am sure that that was a likely story, I was just winging it.
“Fine,” she said. Up ahead a regular house with leaves for a roof could be seen ahead near a pretty crazy looking forest. The sun was approaching the horizon, signifying late afternoon at that point.
It was only then that I realized what the difference between all the young and adult ponies was. It made me feel especially dense to not notice it earlier but it gave me a good idea for redirecting the mood. I did wonder if Spike who was on Twilight’s back would ever contribute to the conversation.
“Twilight,” I started, “what’s the deal with the marks on your sides?”
“Oh that’s my cutie mark. A pony’s cutie mark magically appears when they figure out what their special talent is. Don’t human’s have something like them? It wouldn’t be a stretch for a magic using species like you.”
I didn’t actually remember telling her that I was a human. She probably got it off the interview papers. In any case, I had a much bigger misconception to clear up.
“Twilight, nothing I said in the interview gave you any hint that I could use magic.”
“What? Yes you did! What was all that about your, um-” She searches through the papers again. “-phone and… car...thing. I am certain that if I could be near either of these objects while they are active then I know that I’ll be able to sense the magic!”
I smirk, “As a matter of fact, I still have my phone with me, but that will have to wait because it seems that we are here.” We were standing at the door of another of Twilight’s friends. Twilight seriously looked disappointed.
Spike finally made an interjection. “Cheer up Twilight. You’ll still be able to look at it, but you need to put on a good face for Fluttershy or else she will think it’s her fault or something.”
Twilight forced herself to perk up. “You’re right. Thanks Spike.” She knocked on the door.
Yellow pegasus peeked out of the door. I heard a small gasp. A fraction of a second later I had pink mane in my face.
“Oh Twilight, I’ve never seen a creature like this before! Does it need my help? Oh it must be so hungry and lost and it needs some love and care and I will make it all better,” she insisted in a diminutive voice.
“I doubt that I qualify as an animal in need of shelter,” I said pass\t the facial prodding I was getting from Fluttershy.
Twilight came to my rescue. “Excuse me Fluttershy but this is Tom who was inside the object that crashed in the forest. He is staying with me for a while and you probably shouldn't be touching his face like you are.”
She froze and dropped to the ground. “Oh, um, I’m sorry Mr Tom. Sometimes I get carried away.”
Her cuteness was clawing painfully at my heart. “Well, it’s fine, just ask before getting up in my business. If you need to cuddle with something then you can try asking.” I would have thought about what this meant for my manliness if I didn’t think it was entirely worth it.
Fluttershy smiled for a moment. “I would but there are some things I need to take care of. Thank you.” She then turned and headed back inside. While the door was open I heard a ton of birds making all sorts of noises which was sharply cut off when the door closed.
“She takes care of a lot of the local wildlife. She is also the one that heard the commotion of your arrival. We will head there now if you want.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“But I also want to see this ‘phone’ of yours.”
I retrieved my red device that was sporting a white case. “Alright, do your sensing. I am going to do what I did with your brother and take your picture. Smile!” Shining Armor must have recorded that aspect during the interview from earlier because Twilight’s only reaction was a smile to go with her glowing horn. I got a great picture of a lavender equine with a luminescent horn. I lowered the phone to examine the picture.
Twilight was still holding her smile and spoke through her teeth in confusion. “Are you sure it’s working? I’m not sensing anything.”
I smiled widely and turned the phone towards her. Her face went slack and her jaw went wide. I could easily see her thick front teeth that were obviously made for grinding plants and such. At the same time Twilight was looking at her own smiling face in the clearest image she had even seen outside of a mirror.
“How…?”
I knew the answer to what she wanted to ask.
“Well they say that necessity is the mother of invention, and when someone decided that they wanted to talk to others far away, they found a way to do it. Then when someone else decided that they wanted something small and mobile, they found a way to do it. At the end of the train of reasoning, we have a market flooded with awesome devices like this that can do so much more than the craziest science fiction writers ever thought of. Oh, and you’ll like this.”
I swiped to the picture of her brother. When she saw it she just smiled. “That is amazing. You make it seem like my entire world is boring in comparison.” We both turned and continued on our path to the forest.
“Actually no. Where I come from the only magic that we see exists in fiction. Granted, it could be the act of having magic preventing your civilization from progressing like mine. You don’t actually need or want a lot of the same stuff because you have abilities that work just as well.”
“You're probably right, but it certainly doesn't make me any less interested,” she declared.
A small campsite came into view. I could see guards similar to the ones from earlier standing like statues, looking outwards into the fields and into the forest. As we approached, Twilight nodded to the ones in front of us which prompted them to stand aside. As soon as we entered the small base, my SUV came into view among the trees.
The beige car was snugly pressed against a tree. The front drivers side window did not have the huge spiderweb crack like I suspected it would, although I probably still hit it. The back left door was was bent slightly inward from where I hit the tree. For some reason it didn't seem as if the airbags had deployed. The ground was torn up in pathways that followed the tires. They seemed to originate from a circular area on the ground that looked like it had all melted and cooled.
There was a small herd of scientists in what must have been protective suits despite not being made of plastic. They were each wearing a fully covering white suit with zippers and fishbowl helmets with some sort of magnetic or screw on clamp around their necks. I also noticed that each of them were unicorns. They had all sorts of archaic scientific equipment from simple microscopes to other boxy devices that I couldn't identify. Some of them seemed to run off of electricity but I didn't see any wires. I just wrote that off as magic.
As we approached the scientists took notice of us and each of them turned to face us, but between the princess and me, I had the most attention/scrutiny.
Twilight cleared her throat. “Excuse me gentlecolts, but our guest has asked to retrieve some personal effects of his to which I agreed. If you would allow him access then it would be most appreciated,” she gave a thinly veiled order.
I turned to her. “Twilight, if nobody has a problem, I’d like to turn it on to see if it works, although I don’t want to move it while it’s stuck on a tree.”
She smiled. “I can probably move it for you if you want.”
“That’d be great.”
She bent her head down and my entire car went purple. She grunted with effort but after no more than a few seconds it was lifted off the tree and placed down a decent distance away.
“Wow that was heavy.” She was sweating lightly. “What’s it made out of?”
“Steel and aluminum mostly I think.”
“Ok hold on, one at a time. What’s steel?”
How can you have a railroad without steel? “It’s a really strong metal made from iron and carbon. It’s used instead of iron when strength is important. How do you not have steel?” I heard scribbling coming from the scientists.
“We just use magically enhanced iron. Also, how do you have enough aluminum to make anything with? It’s extremely rare!”
“Um no, where I come from it’s one of the most common things there is. I think it’s usually found in bauxite ore or something.”
“Ok, then. Go and do whatever it is.”
I began to walk to my car when one of the scientist walked past me. I stopped to listen to what he had to say.
“Princess, if you could ask the, um… our guest to operate the machine for a while, it would provide us some great data on how it works. I know a spell that lets me see the workings of a device which my father taught me. He is an inventor of mechanical things. I’ve taught the others -”
I spoke up, “I’ll do it if it works. Do you want me to move it anywhere in particular?”
The scientist looked at me. “Into that nearby field. It would be easier to study and to guard against the creatures in the Everfree.”
“Ok, does anyone want a ride?” The scientists were all quiet. Not the case with Twilight though.
“I’d like to if it wouldn't be a problem.”
I smiled and led her to the car. I heard one of the scientists direct a guard to lead me to my destination. Twilight looked at the massive ‘dent’ otherwise known as the entire back left door and volunteered to fix it. I was skeptical but agreed on the terms that she avoids making it worse. She lit her horn and explained that she was going to use a mix of levitation and time magic to simply ‘undo’ the damage. I was very impressed and relieved. I did not look forward to the cost of repairing that.
I directed her to the passenger seat. I was glad that no alarm went off when I opened the door but I was slightly worried. I moved to the driver seat and got in. I saw that the keys were in the on position and that the car was still in drive. I shifted to ‘park’ and twisted the keys to the off position. I was evenly split between hope and dread when I tried to turn it on under Twilight’s close attention. It immediately hummed to life. I saw that everything was alright and that I had two thirds of a tank of gas.
“Well it works. Would you like your window open?”
“Um, sure.”
I pressed the button on my left and her window sunk into the door. She watch in rapt fascination.
I put the car in reverse and lifted my foot off the brake and slowly pointed it out of the forest. I flipped to drive and edged my way around the trees and out to the campsite. There was a clear path through and there were scientists on both sides with their horn glowing and their eyes distant.
I maneuvered us to the edge of the camp and stopped. I could easily see the pegasus guard holding position at some point quite a ways ahead. I watched as Twilight stood up on her seat and leaned her head clear out of the window. “Doing okay Twilight?”
“I am. This is enjoyable but it seems to be a bit too slow to be practical.” I smiled an unseen smile at that.
“Brace yourself then!”
“Wha- eeek!” She squeaked as I put my foot down and accelerated us right up to thirty five miles per hour. I was probably putting more pressure on the car then I should have and I didn't have any off road experience but I couldn't resist making her eat her words.
We zoomed forwards as I avoided some of the low hills and went right over the others. The bewildered scientists were running after us like they've never ran before ,I bet each of them were setting personal speed records just then, but we swiftly left them behind. I was happy to hear Twilight hooting and hollering in excitement. She was easily holding herself in position despite the crazy ride.
To my mild disappointment we quickly arrived at the location where the guard was waiting. It was a flat area much closer to the town whose name I still didn’t know. It was several minutes before the scientists and guards arrived with all their equipment. They probably gave up the chase when we got out of sight and went to gather their stuff. During the whole wait I just sat next to Twilight who was breathing heavily and sitting on her haunches in the passenger seat.
“So, whaddya think?”
“That was…quite the ride. You could get anywhere in no time at those speeds.”
“Would it surprise you if I said that we weren’t going all that fast?” She had a stunned look about her. “On our largest roads we usually go about sixty five or seventy miles per hour. The fastest that we went was forty miles per hour.”
The switch flipped from shock to contemplation.
“How far is a mile?”
I guess I should have expected that question. “Five thousand, two hundred and eighty feet, and from what I hear, a foot and a hoof are about the same length.”
“Hmm, we have trots which are twelve hundred hooves long. Why so many feet?”
“I actually looked that up once. There was some group five centuries ago who made the decision about that. I don’t remember much but I know that my countries measuring system has components derived from ancient monarchs and the roman civilization which was around like, two thousand years ago or something. Nowadays most countries have the metric system which has all its units in base ten so it’s organized and mostly better than the one I’m used to but it doesn’t matter to me too much.”
She sighed wistfully. “You must have some nice libraries to look up something like that.”
I had a sheepish grin on my face as I thought about what she said. “Well, no. We have libraries but I used something called the internet which… is very hard to explain. Let me think about how I am going to do that for a while. Anyway I think we've hung out here enough. I’ll grab my things and we can get out of here. Let me let you out.” I leaned over and opened the door for her. Then I unfastened my seatbelt and climbed out. I opened the back of the car and first grabbed the case which had my clothes and such. It was a hard blue plastic with four wheels and an extendable handle. Then I grabbed my laptop bag and threw the strap over my shoulder. I almost left my guitar but at the last minute I decided to grab it. I held it in its bag by a small handle over my shoulder. So, with my stuff in order I turned back to Twilight who was inspecting my baggage.
“Let’s go in a moment. I need to say some things to these scientists.” I looked towards the group who was also watching me closely. “Whatever you do, make sure that anything you mess with is in the condition you found it in when you’re done. Also don’t leave the doors open for too long because it drains the battery that powers the lights. If the battery is used up then I won't be able to use the car. Aaannd, that’s it. Have fun.”
At that the scientists nodded in agreement. Probably glad the owner (sort of) gave such simple conditions for examining such a marvel of magicless technology. Twilight and I (and Spike who was with the scientists) left the renewed flurry of activity and headed back into town. Her library quickly came back into sight.
“I would have expected us to run into Pinkie by now. She always knows when there is a new pony in town and she always throws a welcome to Ponyville party too-” Her last word was cut off by a screeching noise yelling at us.
“Twilight! Twilight!” We each look around for the high pitched speaker fruitlessly. Suddenly from above a pony leaned down into my face. In front of me was an upside down eyeful of pink. “Twilight who’s this is it a new friend oh I love it when you bring new friends I’m going to throw a party for your new friend and then we are all going to be friends oh I can’t wait but I guess it’s too late for a party today so I’ll throw everypony one tomorrow at sugarcube corner and I hope you’ll both be there we will have have cupcakes and streamers and games and more cupcakes and everypony in town will be invited-!” She yammered on.
It was only during the stream of words that I felt the four hooves upon my head. It was interesting that there was no real force on my neck from the extra hundred plus pounds of pony above me. She continue to punish my eardrums with a message that basically said ‘party tomorrow’ until Twilight had enough.
“Pinkie! We get it. This is Tom and he is staying at my place. We will be at your party tomorrow. Can you get off his head please?”
“Okie dokie loki!” She bounced down off my head and spun towards me. “Here’s a cupcake to make sure you come back!” From the nowhere behind her she summoned a cupcake with the pinkest frosting and shortest path to diabetes. I let go of my luggage case and gripped the cupcake. Over span of the next five planck seconds she vanished by bouncing off into Elsewhere.
“Twilight, could you, um, magic my luggage into the library? It seems that I suddenly lack spare hands.” She nodded and floated my blue box over to her. We began to walk over to the library as I took my first bite of the cupcake and then I went blind...with sugar and awesome. I knew at that moment that nothing I could eat on Earth would taste quite as good as it used to. It was worth it though.
While I was suddenly sucked out of Nirvana when I smacked my head against the doorframe. I also discovered that my hand was empty and then I was sad. I ducked through the doorway and made my way down the stairs. It seemed that Twilight had gotten there ahead of me and had somehow retrieved a bed from somewhere and set it up.
“You handled Pinkie really well. Are all humans so level headed?”
“Heh heh, no. Even in my case, I would have gone nuts to get her off if I wasn’t carrying what I was.”
“Regardless, you are handling everything well. You even seem to enjoy talking with me which I don’t really expect from anypony except maybe Celestia.” She paused. “You know, except when certain things are brought up, you seem to be handling your sudden arrival pretty well.”
“Thanks. If you got another random person, you could easily have had someone who would have gone into shock, or actually go insane. They also could have turned violent and lashed out at anything they didn’t understand. I for one, am very rational. I think about most sudden situations before reacting except for when hesitation could be dangerous, then I am the polar opposite. Anyway, with all the things I’ve read and thought about, I have yet to actually run into any concepts that I am unfamiliar with or was unprepared for.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You were prepared for this.” She stated incredulously.
“There was a time where I randomly thought about what I would do if was suddenly whisked somewhere far away. I decided on my first question and how I would act. Then I forgot about it until recently.”
“Right. Well it’s starting to get late. We can probably grab something to eat from the kitchen and then watch the sunset if you’d like.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We walked up two flights of stairs and walked into the kitchen. Twilight was standing at an open pantry and was reading my interview papers again.
“Can you eat flowers? It doesn't say.”
“Um, for the most part, no.”
“You're missing out. Does a couple apples sound good?”
“Sure. Do you have Galas?”
“I do.”
“Awesome.” She sent two my way. I really did like gala apples above and beyond any other of the read fruit.
She whipped out some daisies and bread slices and threw them together like a sandwich.
“Come out here with me. I think you’ll like this.” We walked out one of the doors and climbed to the higher platform from the balcony. There was a small telescope mounted on the railing. From up there I could see the whole town. The sun still has a small distance to go. So I pocketed one of my apples and pulled out my phone which was still at 83% charge. I opened up the camera and set it to record. I slowly spun as I caught a panoramic view on my phone. By the time I had pointed it towards Twilight I realized that she had been watching me.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll show you.” I stopped the recording, sat down next to her, and crossed my legs. I replayed the video of ponyville rotating itself until Twilight was in front of the camera.
A voice spoke. “What are you doing?”
Another. “I’ll show you.” The video ended.
I looked at Twilight. “ You better catch your jaw before it gets away.” She used her magic to lift her mouth shut. She released her magic and her mouth fell down again. It was another beat before she got control of herself.
“Will it ever end?”
“Maybe sometime.” I was pretty sure that we were either talking about the number of awesome things I can show her or the number of times her mind would be blown.
The sun was setting. It looked pretty nice. The sky was a gradient of bright pink to dark blue stretching away from the horizon. The sun speedily sunk past the horizon and the stars began to make themselves visible. Twilight turned her head to look behind us and I followed her gaze and saw the full moon gently swimming up the edge of the sky.
“You make it look like clockwork.”
“Well it is with Luna raising the moon and Celestia setting the sun and the reverse each morning.” She looks at me. “Is that not normal?”
“...Not where I come from. Tell me. How far is the sun?”
Her eyes spoke guarded curiosity.
“Over a million trots. Why?” That would be about a quarter million miles which is the orbit height of Earth’s moon and probably the local one too.
“Well for one you have a tiny sun. Where I come from, the sun is looks the same size, but it’s massive, and far. Like ninety three million miles far. That’s like four hundred million of your trots. Our days go by because the whole world spins. The moon is also different. Rather than once a day, the moon takes twenty seven days to orbit my planet.” I was almost done eating my apples at that point. “Although it looks like a once a day deal because the world spins but that doesn’t matter. Am I right in guessing that you don’t have any nearby planets?”
She nodded. To her credit she still has control of her jaw.
“Wow, it’s boring here.” I looked at the sky. There was a whole bunch of stars alright but they were off too. It took a moment before the reason clicked into my mind. They were all identical. Absolutely no difference in brightness or color. “Ok, the stars seem to be weird also. Can you tell me what you know about them?”
“Well they are also controlled by Princess Luna who keeps them arranged as a navigational convenience and sometimes adds a meteor shower or comet, but she mostly keeps things the same.”
“So the stars are just magical lights or small objects right?”
“Just lights.”
I contemplated that. As I watch the sky, I realized that it never truly went black but instead held a navy blue color. My mind connected it with a cloudy look.
“I don’t know, there is something weird about everything.” I decided to leave my contemplation of the local universe for another time.
Twilight on the other hand (or hoof) was busy puzzling out what I told her about the universe as I explained it.
“What’s it like where you’re from?”
“Well, the universe is big and lot of people including me are fascinated with the idea of space travel and all sorts of things. Apart from that, I live in a crazy world where technology is advancing fast. One country is always in a conflict with another. We are dealing with overpopulation issues. Etcetera.“ I yawned loudly. “I’m getting tired though. II can tell you more tomorrow and show you some of my other things, and I am pretty sure that you will need some tape for the jaw of yours.”
“Count on it. Well, I’ll stay out here for a while and appreciate Luna’s efforts.”
“I’m telling you Twilight, the most amazing things happen on their own. Oh, and magic is cool too. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” Twilight made herself comfortable.
I made my way down to the basement. I got dressed for bed and brushed my teeth. It was still early compared to my normal time for going to sleep but maybe the local time zone is different from the Pacific time zone and I am actually experiencing jet lag.
I went to lay in my bed. I was asleep in seconds.
A set of hooves landed on the upper platform.
I watched as Twilight made her way back up the stairs. It was apparent that she was thoroughly fried from all the things we spoke of. She lifted her mess of papers, quills, and ink pots which had seen quite a bit of use over the discussion. Her possessions bobbed through the air after her. I was worried when an open inkpot bumped the wall and the ink splashed out. Rather than stain the wooden stairs and/or wall, it merely fell to the bottom of a pink bubble that had suddenly popped into existence around it. The inkpot was released from the bubble and was maneuvered underneath where the bubble suddenly morphed into a funnel which deposited all the ink back where it came from.
That’s impressive. That was another moment where it really struck me that I was playing the role of stranger in a strange land, but I was coping fine in spite of that. Yeah my disappearance is probably a minor catastrophe and I am having chats with colorful alien equines, but I’ve already learned that worrying is pointless in all situations except maybe as an expression of stress.
That wasn’t important. The only thing on my mind was what I was going to do until the next interview, meal, or in this case, party came up. I was in the middle of a library and I was also quite the reader so I decided to look around. I walked around the library and scanned the bookshelves or something interesting. There were whole sections of textbook subjects: history, math, writing, science, etc. I was hoping to find something interesting in the science category but most subjects were either basic by my standards or mixed in with magic to a degree where I couldn’t get into it. A cursory examination revealed equations that I couldn’t read and diagrams of gemstones and how they did magic… stuff.
I came across a fiction section which had most of the regular genres that I could’ve expected, although did discover that fantasy was was instead labeled as adventure while science fiction was split between sci fi and fantasy in a manner that couldn’t tell the difference between. I gave up and decided to head back down to the basement with my laptop bag to find some sort of electricity free way to entertain myself.
In spite of the fact that I had gone to visit my friends in Sacramento, I brought some books with me as a holdover from a time when I was much more introverted. With me were the books Atlas Shrugged and Star Fist: First to Fight, each of which I had been meaning to read for a few months. I had also brought my guitar. The only other things that I had brought from my car was clothes and toiletries etc.
Upon weighing my options I decided to give my guitar some attention. I unzipped the bag that housed it along with some sheet music that I printed out from the internet. I sat on my slightly undersized bed with my legs crossed and the music leaning up against the headboard and begin to strum away.
A while later I hear the tapping of hooves on wooden stairs coming my way as I continue to fiddle with my guitar. As I finish I turn to find Twilight standing several feet away, taking in everything she could.
“Decided to come investigate?”
She quietly nods. “What kind of instrument is that?”
“It’s a guitar. I’m assuming you want me to tell you about it?”
She was amused at this. “How did you guess?”
“A hunch.” She approaches and hops onto the bed in front of me. “Let’s see. I guess I’ll talk about how I got it. My aunt gave it to me as a graduation present. It originally belonged to my cousin but she hurt her left hand. She was really into music and could still play and perform but knowing guitars, a damaged left hand would be quite the painful liability.”
“So what did you graduate from?”
“High school last year. I’m going to college now.”
“Interesting, I ask about that next time we do one of our talks. For now I would like to know more about this guitar of yours.”
“Right, well normally a guitar is either acoustic or electric, but this one is actually a hybrid of the two. It works like a normal acoustic guitar but it can be plugged into an amplifier to get all the normal crazy business of electric guitars.”
“Crazy…?”
“Well, they are much more intense. I actually have a few songs on my laptop that are good examples. I can pull it out again.”
“What if it runs out of power?”
“We can probably get that dealt with but I think this is as good of a time as any.”
I retrieve my laptop again and boot it up. After a minute I login and navigate to where I have my music. I decide to start up one of the first metal songs that I enjoyed before I actually learned to like the genre. It started as soft bass sounds which quickly led into low singing before quickly getting to the good stuff.
I had the volume on fairly low, concerned about how sensitive her ears might have been and whether or not she would enjoy it at all. I was surprised when she asked, “Is this as loud as it can go?”
“No, how high would you like it to go?”
“Just act as if you were enjoying this for yourself.”
I raise an eyebrow at this before leaning down and pressing fn + f12 to raise the volume. I had decided to stop if it got painful or if Twilight reacted poorly but that didn’t happen even as the volume reached 100%. At that point it was pretty darn loud and my laptop speakers were not something to be sneezed at. We listened to the rest of the song without either of us having an issue.
“So you listen to stuff like that all the time?”
“No, I have all kinds of stuff and I usually have a headset to keep it to myself.”
“Can I see that?”
“Um, sure.” I pull out the wireless headset and its little transmitter and put everything together. “Would you like to try it?” She nods in suppressed excitement. No doubt thinking about what a great cultural exchange it would be.
I decided to put together a quick playlist of some of my calmer songs. I told her how to adjust the volume on the headset and to press the big empty button on the keyboard to pause or play it. I helped to arrange the headset in a manner that would work, which turned out alright with the part connecting to the earmuffs resting on her neck.
I started the playlist off with Building Worlds which quickly moved onto Owl City, Space Oddity, and Glorious Morning 2. I let her listen to them loop a few times to her obvious enjoyment. I set my guitar aside and lounged on my bed until she decided that she’d had enough and paused it by pressing the spacebar with her magic.
She magically pulled the headset off her head and set it down next to her on the bed. She looked to me and asked, “I heard some rather interesting things in that third song and I was hoping that you would explain them to me.” I leaned down towards the screen and looked passed the tiny blurry smears on my glasses at the screen.
“Oh, I know all about Space Oddity. What do you want to know?”
“Well the singer mentions being in a tin can ‘far above the world’ and I have my ideas about this but I wanted to ask about it first.”
“Ok, well the singer was a Canadian Astronaut named Chris Hadfield. He recorded the song while he was on the International Space Station. The song was a reimagined version of another song with the same name that’s like thirty years old or something.”
“So what’s a space station?”
“Um, it’s like a building in space. As opposed to a spaceship, it’s not meant to actually go anywhere outside its own orbit.”
“Space… ships? As in ships that sail through space? How could something like that possibly work without magic?”
“With exorbitant use of Newton’s third law.”
“Which is…?” She ushered me on.
“Any action is met with an equal and opposite reaction. In that case it means a directed explosion shoots out of the back of a rocket pushes it forwards.”
She was quiet after that. Pondering my favorite concept.
“I suppose I’ll add that to the list. Pinkie’s party starts in a few hours so I think we will have to put it off until tomorrow.” She sighed. “I have some errands that I need to go run. When I get back we can have lunch and later we can go to the party. How’s that?”
“Sounds peachy.”
Several hours later, after a meatless lunch and idle chatting about magic. We left to go to Pinkie’s party.
As we walked through town, I noticed that there was not quite as many ponies out and about as there was the day before. As we maneuvered our way to Sugarcube Corner, I discovered that it was a perfect facsimile of a gingerbread house.
As we approached we could hear Pinkie’s voice, “-he’s really tall and he be with us for a while. Introducing-” She somehow timed it perfectly with our arrival. The instant we walked through the door she screamed, “-Tom!”
We walked in to find a huge crowd of colorful ponies surrounding a table that Pinkie Pie was standing on. They all turned their heads to look at me. Some of them seemed to recognize me while others looked confused or worried, but that certainly didn’t hinder the party at all. Not with Pinkie at the wheel, who zipped right to me and started leading me around.
It was odd to be the tallest individual by far in the room, but things quickly got underway. The very first thing that Pinkie had me do was play pin the tail on the pony. Some of the ponies there were worried about whether I would be able to keep standing but I waved off their worries. I was quickly blindfolded and spun in circles until I was dizzy. I bent my legs to help my balance as I waddled forwards and held the tail at what I hoped was a good height. I felt the tack touch a hard surface so I just push it in where it first touch the wall and removed my blindfold.
Yes, pure skills here, I thought to myself when I saw that the tail was attached to the stomach of the paper pony on the wall. I turned around and handed off the blindfold and looked for something else to do at my welcome party when I saw a trio of ponies scrambling towards me.
I didn’t recognize them but I knew that they were young, considering that they were only a bit taller than my knees.
“Hey, we have a question!” The orange one shouted over the din of the party.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Do you have a cutie mark?”
Ω Twilight’s Perspective Ω
I watched as Tom got into a discussion with the crusaders, probably about cutie marks. I couldn’t exactly hear over all the noise but it’s always a foregone conclusion with those three.
I turned back towards Rarity and Rainbow, fully intending to continue our conversation about our esteemed guest when spike went into a familiar fit. He promptly coughed up a scroll. Gripping the corners of the paper in my magic, I unrolled it and read it to myself.
[insert]
Dear Twilight Sparkle
I have just been informed that progress has been made in unraveling the spell-form that was used to summon Tom. The scientists have expressed a desire to examine Tom and to present their results to you face to face.
Unless you have prior commitments, I would appreciate the presence of both you and Tom here at Canterlot before noon of tomorrow or the next day.
Sincerely,
Princess Celestia[/insert]
“What’s it about dear?” Rarity inquired.
“Tom and I have been summoned to Canterlot. It seems progress has already been made in analyzing the spell used to summon Tom. The princesses probably want to meet him too.”
“That’s wonderful darling! I can say that he is handling his situation far better than I would if I were in his hooves.” She glanced at Tom’s feet. “Or the equivalent.”
“Pfft,” Rainbow interjected, “If I were in his place not only would I find my way home faster, I would be awesome while doing it!”
I rolled my eyes and grinned at the boastful comment. I doubted that it would be the kind of ‘lost’ that could be solved by having wings.
I looked back to Tom to find him giving two of the crusaders a ride on his shoulders. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle each held on by the crooks of their forelegs while they each tried to use their hind legs to grip his waist. They were both giggling madly.
Over the next few hours, Tom managed to experience most of what the party had to offer and had met a few other ponies. Meanwhile, Spike had managed to scoot all the way around to Rarity’s side of the table. I did spot the pony I wanted to talk to about Tom’s electrical needs. He was a unicorn named Spark Eclipse. I arranged for him to pay a visit early tomorrow morning to talk with Tom.
When the end of the party began to near, Tom sat down at my table. All of the others had already left while I elected to stay near Tom.
He sighed when he sat down, “I’m so tired of standing.” He laid his head down on the table and sprawled his arms in front of him.
I smiled. Carrying around one’s full bodyweight on two legs probably wasn’t the easiest thing ever done. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. Did you learn anything new?”
“In Soviet Russia, pony rides you.”
Huh? “A pony rides me where?” I think that came out poorly.
Tom just snorted in amusement. “It’s a joke people use when they see something that’s backwards in some way.”
That certainly piqued my curiosity. “What do you mean by backwards?”
He lifted his head off the table and sat upright. “Well, remember how I said that humans are the only sapient species back home? Well that is not the same as saying that there are no equine species to be found. I don’t know about here, but back home we have horses, which I guess are much larger versions of ponies, and by being sturdy and easily domesticated animals, they were at one time used as beasts of burden. I don’t know all that much so don’t be offended by anything I say.”
“I’m not offended or anything but it does make things a bit awkward.” Our conversation went silent for a moment until I remembered the letter. “Oh, Tom, I did get a letter from the princess asking us to visit Canterlot. Apparently some progress has been made and the scientists want to report to us directly for whatever reason and Princess Celestia wants to meet you.”
“Oh, I suppose that will be interesting. I’ll admit that I was worried that we wouldn’t see results for a long time. Well, not worried per se but concerned.”
“It may still take weeks or months to figure everything out. So with that in mind, I took an opportunity to ask Spark Eclipse to pay us a visit. He is going to see if it’s possible to meet your electrical needs before we leave tomorrow so he can work on something while we’re gone.”
“I think I did get to talk to him something like an hour ago. He seems like my kind of… well, pony I suppose.”
“Well, we should get to the library and get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”
“Sounds good. I want to move my car to the library though. It’s not a good idea to leave it sitting out in a field unattended.”
I yawned as we walked out into the crisp, cool air of the Equestrian night. “Well, you do that. Make sure that you are ready to go in the morning.”
“I will.”
Author's Note
I am going to set this on a fast track for completion it since I want to get it out of the way so I can focus on Pegasus Mating Dance. Also I am reformatting the story. I no longer want it to be a compilation of anything so I will change things up in the description a bit.
