Author's Note
This is the important part in case you want to skip the rest. This is my first story. Constructive or even scathing criticism is welcome as long as it has a point.
Okay, now for the rest. I've lurked on the site for several years, but haven't actually published or posted anything. Ever. I decided to write this because I was bored, and Celestia is my favorite pony. I look forward to feedback. Especially information about style. Particularly, whether or not my dialogue and formatting is okay. I also would like to know if this story is worth continuing. Happy reading!
A Warm Summer's Day
The castle gardens weren’t particularly pleasant this time of year. The summer heat made them almost unbearable. This wouldn’t be so bad if the day were not humid, but, alas, the air was as thick as butter.
At least that's how Princess Celestia would describe it. Perhaps her inability to come up with original similes was why she could barely slog along in her studies, but she’d rather not think about school right now. Her insufferable tutors were the reason she fled to the inhospitable gardens. Her parents certainly will not be happy when the find out. She can imagine them right now:
“Tia, how can you expect to ever run a country if you can’t pay attention for a couple hours?” her mother would begin. The future solar princess was less astute at predicting the dialogue that would follow, but it would invariably concern how her inaction would harm countless imaginary ponies in the future.
Celestia sighed. At least her mom had her heart in the right place. The same could not be said for her father. While she loved him deeply, the princess often questioned why he was so rude to her sometimes.
After her mother finished pontificating, dear old Dad would say something like, “Don’t worry honey, not everyone is cut out to be royalty. Why, we can always wait until her baby sister matures to pass on our responsibilities. Let’s not let one rotten egg spoil the bunch.”
Celestia’s eye began to twitch. Even thinking about her parents could drive her insane. It’s not as if she even did that poorly at school. Her only lackluster area was studying works of Equestrian literature, and how would reading the works of Homare help her govern a country? The fact that all her teachers were dreadful old bores hardly helped her quest for knowledge. Celestia loved learning about magic or even things like math or history. Unfortunately, educating a princess was apparently quite the status symbol, so countless nobles used their political clout to get their hooves in the door and left all the qualified candidates in the dust. It was therefore natural for her to blame inept educators for her poor marks. While she was privately tutored, she still had to take the same examinations as her peers. Something about “showing the common folk we can be just like them,” or so her father said.
“Common,” she harrumphed. An education past what is strictly necessary to be above the level of a fairly sharp nematode was a rare commodity indeed. Anyone still learning beyond the age of fourteen was at least upper middle class. Not that this was a bad thing: farming didn’t require a knowledge of advanced magical theory, and Equestria was a mostly agrarian society. Still, it made for rather stifling conversation. Celestia imagined someone she would speak to pausing to look up a word the princess used only to find himself unable to read.
She giggled. This was exactly what she needed: some time alone to think and be with herself. Her thoughts turned to what she recently began studying in magic. Not what her teacher gave her—she could do that with four hooves tied behind her back—but what Celestia had been teaching herself: how to conjure and manipulate electricity.
She was shocked at how difficult it was. Electricity was truly power in its purist form. The conjuring wasn’t that hard: it was the manipulating. Her normally pristine white coat had more than a few singe marks from some spells that had gone out of control. She wasn’t worried at all. Not in the slightest. Okay, maybe a little. But just about what her parents would say when they saw her. Spells always clicked for her eventually.
She had always been unusually proficient in magic. Most people chalked it all up to her being an alicorn, but Celestia knew better. In terms of raw power, she thought she might have as much as three, maybe four, unicorns. Impressive, yes; godly, no. Magic is all about finesse and experience. It’s not about using the most strength but using the strength you have efficiently. Celestia was rightly proud of her ability to learn new spells faster than anyone she knew, even if her teachers were not.
While she might find him annoying, her ultimate goal was to match her father’s aptitude for the arcane. Many ponies revered him as a god, but Celestia knew about the thousands of years of practice that must have made him who he is today. She was only sixteen herself but recognized this far-off goal was worth pursuing.
Eventually, Celestia grew tired of her musings and drifted off for a little nap after she laid down.
She awoke with a start. There was a crash off in the distance and she immediately moved to investigate. She heard someone talking as she grew nearer.
“Shit, fucking wormhole in the fucking lab! ‘Oh, don’t worry it’s safe. No, sir, you’ll never get sucked into another dimension’ Serves me right for trying to know what kind of experiments they are doing!” an angry voice yelled.
As Celestia drew nearer, she couldn’t help but wonder what on earth he was talking about. She thought he seemed upset, but she really wanted to know who he was and how he got into the most secure garden in the city. At worst, she would have a target to practice stunning with electricity. Or try to stun, at any rate. She couldn’t always get the voltages right, and the world can never have too much ash.
When she finally reached the clearing, she saw a bipedal creature hunched over and called out, “Excuse me, might I ask what you’re doing in the royal gardens? I’m afraid they’re off limits to the general public, so you’ll probably have to leave.”
As he began to turn around, Celestia observed a brief look of absolute panic on his face, but a stoic mask soon replaced it.
“Why, hello there, I’m in a bit of a predicament right now,” the man replied. He spared a moment to ponder what he should tell something that appeared to be a talking horse. Not the whole truth, that would likely sound ridiculous. Come to think of it, the whole situation was ridiculous. An incredibly dangerous experiment went awry, and he may have left everything he knew forever. He was aware he couldn’t spend too much time thinking about the current state of affairs. Right now he needed to deal with this new creature in a way that would not permanently destroy his prospects on this new world. He came to a decision. He would accept everything, however absurd, he saw as true and figure out whether or not it was actually real later.
As she caught full sight of his face, Celestia was a little startled. She had never seen anything like him. He looked vaguely like a minotaur but lacked fur on his body. She was happy to note he was not just some would-be daredevil who found a way to sneak into the palace. She was a little apprehensive but did not think he was an immediate threat. There was no dark aura around him. Pretty much every magical being has an innate talent to sense one, and it is part of the reason crime in Equestria is so low. It's not hard to find a thief when only one person in town seems unsavory.
“Well, I hope you will tell me what the problem is,” spoke Celestia, “but could you first give me your name and where you are from? I’ve never seen anything like you in my life.”
“My name is Rodney Barber, and I suspect I’m not from around here,” he responded.
“What do you mean?” Celestia pressed.
Looking at the medieval architecture and the unlighted torches around the shrubbery, Rodney sincerely doubted the horse had any idea what a wormhole was, so he tried something different.
“Do you know what teleportation is?” he asked.
“Of course, it’s basic magic,” Celestia replied.
“Magic,” he unconsciously whispered.
“What?” asked Celestia.
“Never mind, I’ll ask you later. Anyways, this might come as a shock to you, but I think I am from a world entirely different than your own. I was observing a device that malfunctioned and accidentally sent me here,” Rodney spoke.
"Was that the wormhole I heard you yelling about earlier?" Celestia asked.
"You heard that? I'm sorry if I offended you, but I was a pretty surprised at what happened. I didn't expect to run into anyone. Much less someone who could speak the same language as me. Anyways, a wormhole is—just give me a second" Rodney sighed internally. This would be like trying to teach a moose to play the accordion. "It's basically a temporary hole that can connect two places really far apart. I'm sorry I can't give you that much more, but the whole idea is pretty complicated. On an entirely different subject, do you have humans here? That's what species I am, by the way. What about you? In my world, we have these creatures called horses that look a lot like you. They don't have wings or horn, though. Plus, what did you mean when you said "magic?" We don't have any of that where I'm from. It's just all fictional," he said quickly.
Celestia’s eyes lit up. Not only had she never heard of a human before, he didn't even know what magic was. Her parents were always trying to get her to be more diplomatic, and she knew this was the perfect opportunity to show them she could gracefully deal with foreign creatures. Being the discoverer of a new species excited her as well.
"I’ve never heard anyone mention anything about humans before. We do have various monkeys that look like you, but they aren’t sentient. My name is Celestia, and I am called an alicorn. It's a combination of the other three races that inhabit this land: unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies. I've heard of a horse before. It's a distant ancestor of ours, but there aren't any left. To answer your question, earth ponies are basically strong horses, pegasi can fly, and unicorns can do magic. I can do all three. If you can understand me, I bet our languages use the same characters as well. I'm sure you have more questions, but there are some books that can explain it better than me. You can read, right?" Celestia said.
“Oh, definitely. Almost every human can read,” Rodney said.
“Really? That’s not how it is here. Most ponies can’t read anything more than a few basic items like signs or dates. Why do you think your society is better educated than mine?” Celestia asked.
“I don’t mean to sound offensive, but I think my home is a lot more technologically advanced than yours. For instance,” he gestured at the holders around the gardens, “we have electricity to light our homes instead of torches.”
“Electricity? You mean like this?” Celestia generated a ball of energy and held it in front of Rodney.
“So I guess that’s what you mean by magic,” Rodney replied. He reached out and nearly touched the orb but thought better of it and retracted his hand. The hospitals in such a primitive land might not be able to deal with any injures he got foolishly electrocuting himself. “Yeah, that is the same type of energy we use for a lot of purposes. I know you might be interested in me sharing this knowledge with you, but implementing any of it would require a great shift in your country. The kind of shift that takes hundreds or even thousands of years and may not necessarily be for the better.”
“That’s alright,” Celestia said. A look of disappointment crossed her face, but she still felt the man would help her out somehow. “I know you’re probably worried about your place in this world, and I think I can assist you. My parents are the king and queen of Equestria, the country you are in, and I am a princess. I would happily help you in this world if you could do something for me.”
“And what might that be?” Rodney said. He furrowed his brow. What could the princess possibly want? As long as it wasn’t too unreasonable, he’d happily comply. He couldn’t believe his luck. He survived a transit to another dimension. In this other dimension, he landed in a world full of organic matter and breathable air. In the world, there were sentient creatures who could speak his language. Of these sentient creatures, the first one he met was a princess and did not freak out when she saw an alien.
“I merely want you to assist me in my studies. I don’t really care for my teachers, and some concepts are truly universal. If your land is as advanced as you claim, you must have some knowledge of math or philosophy that would be useful." She puffed out her chest. "Since I am going to be a leader one day, its important I learn from the best. Who better to provide a unique perspective than some advanced alien? I also request that you allow me to study you. Nothing too invasive: I just want to understand what your species is like,” Celestia explained.
“Okay, that sounds like a plan,” Rodney said.
Celestia looked up in the sky. “It’s nearing dinner time, and my parents are probably wondering where I have gone off too. I’ll take you to see them, and we can proceed from there.”
Rodney saw Celestia start walking down a path in the garden and immediately began to follow her. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and he began to ponder what he should do next. The pony he ran into seemed nice enough, but there was no way he could guarantee everyone else would be. She also seemed to be fairly prominent. He hoped “Princess” was more than an empty title and her parents weren’t merely constitutional monarchs or part of some elaborate analogue to Disneyland. The former was a bit more likely than the latter, but Rodney had seen crazier things today. He happily recollected on how genuinely nice the princess was. It was another stroke of fortune. Maybe she just hoped to find a friend. Rodney knew how lonely it was at the top.
