Prologue: Show me the way to go home...
The Skeptics' Guide to the Multiverse: Prologue: Show the the way to go home...
They stand around the vortex, it's swirling light casting their faces in light and darkness rhythmically. They stare, waiting for the portal to reach it's maximum before venturing closer. One to many tragic mishaps with such anomalies have taught them an uneasy patience. He has his shoulders weighed under the heavy backpack, while she has her saddlebag draped over her back. Her wings are tucked tightly against her.
He looks at her. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
She looks back. "I'm sure. You got to see my world, so I want to see yours."
He sighs, and looks back at the vortex. "Alright, if you're sure."
"I'm sure." She looks at the vortex. Given all that's happened, the other ponies weren't particularly up to the task of seeing them off. Even Princess Celestia had opted out, leaving only Princess Luna to see Twilight Sparkle and her companion off. Luna was obviously distraught, despite her best efforts to appear in control of her emotions.
"You promise to take care of her?" Her voice wavered faintly. She had long ago stopped using the royal form of her language in the presence of Taylor, and had also long ago stopped pretending to be an emotionless robot. "You promise she'll be safe?"
Taylor looks back at her. "Yes, she'll be safe. Hell, she'll probably be safer than me." He looks at Twilight, and he chuckles. "Probably."
"This is not a joking matter," Luna said sternly. Beside her sits a filly, looking at the clouds. The filly looks just like Twilight Sparkle, sans cutie mark and wings. "Twilight has responsibilities back here at home."
Twilight looks back at the filly. "I know," she coos. She trots over to the filly, redirects the filly's attention to her. "Listen, Mommy is going to go away for a while, okay?"
"Okay, Mommy," The filly looks sad. Although the filly doesn't fully seem to understand what is going on, she seems aware enough to be sad, and slightly. "You'll come back?"
"Yes, Mommy will come back."
Luna looks at the man. "And you? Will you.... come back?"
The man looks at the vortex, then back at Luna. The rhythm of light-and-darkness plays off of her flowing mane, which suddenly seems to have lost volume. He sighs. "I don't know. I want to come back, but honestly.... I just don't know."
While Twilight plays with her filly one last time, Luna walks over to the man. She looks at him, eyes equal, her vision blurring with tears. She forces them closed. A tear runs down he cheek.
She steps closer to him, forcing her head against his chest. She nuzzles him, fighting back tears. "Please don't go...." she whispers between silently flowing sobs. "I'll miss you so very, very much."
He rubs a hand down her neck, his fingers intertwining themselves in her hair. "I have to."
Luna doesn't respond. Twilight looks back, meets his eyes before blushing and looking back at the filly, playing again.
The man places his free hand on Luna's head, still stroking her mane. He holds her close to him. "Shhhh....." he hushes in her hair. Her ears fold back, her body trembling.
The silent sobs subside, but her body is still trembling. Enough sleepless nights are enough for the man to tell that the lunar princess was falling apart inside. He knew. The princess, the younger of the two sisters, had always been more emotional, and ever since his arrival in Equestria had had a very deep affection for him. Many sleepless nights he had held her while she wept over her ruined past.
Perhaps it is fitting that now, as he leaves, he is holding her again as she weeps. Finally, she is in control enough of herself to pull herself from his chest, to open her eyes and look at him. "Just promise me you'll be safe. Please."
"I'll be safe. We'll both be safe." The man looks at Twilight. The vortex light reflects from her eyes. He kisses Luna's forehead, then nods to Twilight. "It's time."
Twilight kisses her filly goodbye then joins the man at the edge of the vortex.
"Here we go," the man says.
"Here we go," Twilight echoes his thoughts.
"Come back to me," Luna says behind them. "Both of you."
Together, the man and the alicorn step through the vortex, leaving Equestria behind them.
Intelligence, Part 1 [Raptor Red]
She moves through the forest, her eyes alert, her belly hungry. The feathers which cover her body dance timidly in the wind, undulating with every step, with every head bob. Beneath the feathers, her thick hide helps keep her warm. She raises her head and sniffs the wind, the cool mountain air carrying minute scent particles into her spacious nasal cavity.
She is a Utahraptor ostrammaysorum, a large predatory therapod dinosaur. She is at the top of the food chain, a very inquisitive predator who actively hunts her prey. Her greyish-brown feathers, thick over her body, give way around the head, where scales predominate. A crimson stripe runs the length of the muzzle, form her nostrils to her eyes on either side.
She's not hunting today. She's broken from her mate for a day of intelligent wandering. The chicks are able to fend for themselves, wandering close to their nest. Her mate is somewhere, but Raptor Red doesn't know where her mate is. She stops and looks around, gazing through the trees.
The raptors will soon have to leave. Being relatively warm blooded - in the future, scientists will argue whether they are mesotherms or endotherms - they must eat regularly. When they first settled the mountain valley, prey was plentiful, but it has slowly grown to be very poor indeed.
She sniffs the air again. Her efficient nasal cavities send a message to her brain - the faintest smell of ozone. If her thought process could translated into English, it might sound something like this: Ozone - lightening - storm. Blue up - no clouds - no storm. Confused!
Raptor Red cocks her head. She listens, but senses no imminent danger. There is only a very faint, very curious sound. It calls to her. She begins to make her way towards it, picking her path through the undergrowth very carefully.
Intelligence, Part 1
They emerge from the vortex, their skin freezing and their insides burning. They look around themselves, trees towering above them and the forest floor a carpet of brown and green. Calls, some animal in the distance, echo throughout the forests' chorus of bird calls.
"So, this is your home?" Twilight asks.
"No," the man looks around. The light from behind them is suddenly cut short as the vortex closes. He turns one full circle, eyes wide open and mind reeling. "No, this is not my home. I've never been here before....." his voice trails off.
He looks at Twilight. "You're sure you opened the right votex?"
Twilight stares back at him, clearly concerned. "Yes, I'm positive. The energy signatures for the anomaly you came through and the vortex I opened are the same. We should be where you came from."
The man continues to look around. The forest isn't level, instead incredibly slanted and curved. They are in the mountains. "This definitely isn't home. Are you sure you opened the right one?"
Twilight glares at him. "Yes!"
He sighs. The air is cool, filled with bird calls, and the ground beneath them is saturated with moisture. It smells.... different than what the man is used to back home. Cooler, more moist, more.... primal.
Raptor Red is stalking quietly toward the source of the scent when it suddenly ends. Now she can hear the calls of something unknown. Her mind, working in its raptorial, predatory way, tries to identify it.
Sounds - rhythmic - animals voices. One pitch - two pitch - two animals. She cocks her head as she moves closer, her feet falling silently onto the moist forest floor. Her tail slightly sways behind her, rigid but not stiff. Through the foliage, two figures become to clear. One stands on two legs, like Raptor Red, but lacks a tail. The other figure stands on all fours, like the Gastonia the Utahraptor has encountered before, but it looks all wrong. It's far too sleek to be a Gastonia. The colors and overall shapes of the two figures don't correspond to anything in Raptor Red's brain. Instinct, as well as her learned experiences, are absolutely failing her in the revelation of this brand new sight.
She cocks her head, watching curiously.
"I don't understand," Twilight shakes her head, looking around. "Everything matched! This should be where you came from!"
"Well it's not!" The man shouts. He raises his hands, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Look, there's no point arguing about this. Clearly we're not where I started, but that's not reason to fall apart. We'll just have a look around, and then we'll try again, alright?"
"Alright."
A light rain is falling. Mists soon rise, and the forests through which Taylor and Twilight Sparkle hike becomes almost enchanted. The churning mists echo the sifting truths of the sands of time.
Raptor Red has been silently trailing the alien creatures through the forest as they meandered downhill. It watches, with intelligent curiosity, as the two-legged thing turns over rocks and looks beneath them. Sometimes the horn on the four-legged purple thing glows, and rocks lift and the creature looks underneath it. This second creature, even more than the two-legged creature, makes Raptor Red very nervous.
Lift rock - no hands - very strange, Raptor Red thinks as she cocks her head. She sniffs the air - the scent of these new trespassers is strange, something absolutely foreign but bearing the unmistakable signatures of the small mammals she is used to hunting. Once, about an hour ago, the two-legged thing looked intently in Raptor Red's direction. Her feathers had stood up instinctively, and she had ceased all activity. Although curious, Raptor Red is also incredibly cautious.
Now night is almost completely in control of the sky, the first stars breaking through the gaps in the storm clouds. Taylor looks up, as does Twilight. In their bond, forged over previous trials, they understand what needs to be done almost without thinking. From the distance, and unseen and unnoticed Raptor Red sits on her haunches and watches. Unlike most dinosaurs, she sits up straight, her trunk perpendicular to the ground because of the shape of her hip bones.
"I'm getting some firewood," Taylor says as he unslings his backpack and pulls out a head lamp. He straps it to his skull and turns it on. "I won't go far."
"Alright," Twilight glances at him while she magically unpacks the two small tents stored in her saddlebags. She has to focus more strongly on using her magic than she had to in Equestria. It's been this way since they came through the vortex. She can't help but feel worried, her brain flipping through all of the ways in which her companion can be brutally killed.
So far there have been no signs of any animals in the forest except for birds and whatever made that long, lonely howl on occasion. The howls had died off during the twilight hours, and had eventually stopped altogether. Twilight finishes one tent, and pushes the stakes into the ground with her magic.
Further away from camp, Taylor is looking through the damp wood for anything remotely dry. To him, this is something of a challenge, perhaps even a fool's errand. Nevertheless, he is diligent, and resourceful. He pucks up smaller branches and places them beneath his outermost layer to dry them off. From the darkness off to his left, unseen and unheard, trails Raptor Red. She watches him intently.
She is not hungry, although the faintest inklings are beginning to form inside of her consciousness. She is still primarily curious, because she can see the intelligence in the beings she is following. They are not hunting, they are searching. Raptor Red herself has done this. As far as she knows in her primal brain, only raptors have ever done this thing.
The man stands up, his arms full of damp sticks, even more drying beneath his shirt. He looks like he has a cancerous belly. The turns around and makes his way back to camp, watching his step and listening for any signs of trouble. Without incident he makes it back to camp, where Twilight has set up both tents and his waiting for him, laying down in the near darkness in hers. A small light shines beside her.
Taylor drops the sticks before pulling the mostly dried wood from beneath his shirt. He crouches and begins to clear a space for a fire, looking around. He looks at Twilight. Twilight looks at him.
"Something's following us."
Her eyes flash wide at him, concerned and worried and frightful. "What?!"
"Shhh! Don't freak," he says. He continues to build the fire, leaning sticks against one another. He then pulls out his knife and begins to turn the last remaining stick into dry kindling. "It's been following us all day. Pretty much since we've got here. I'm not sure what it is, or why it's following us."
"How can you be so calm?" She hisses in his direction, concerned. For much of the time in Equestria, the man depended on Twilight for protection, guidance and, later, for a deep emotional connection. Now, outside of her element and very much frightened, she dearly depends on him. "It could kill us at any moment, couldn't it?"
"Not likely," the man says. He looks around. In the distance, Raptor Red sits, still watching them in the utmost curiosity. She is unaware he knows of her presence, and has no reason to be anything more than instinctively cautious. The man looks down, pulling out a lighter and getting it ready. He doesn't light it. "We were just separated, and while we had some light, we were alone. It could have taken either one of us. Whatever it is, it sounds.... relatively big, so if it wanted to kill us, we couldn't argue much either way."
"Can you light the fire, please?"
"The fire will probably drive it away, most likely." The man holds the lighter up in front of him, flicks the wheel. Him and Twilight watch the flame jump to life, flickering in the light drizzle. "With the fire, we'll be safe."
"Then please light the fire, Taylor!"
"Alright, alright, I'll light the damn fire." He holds the flame to the kindling, and it jumps to life. Even in the drizzle, the flame is strong. In the distance, Raptor Red feels an instinctive fear, sudden and dreadful and powerfully urgent. The dancing flame entrances her, her breathing heavy and her mind racing.
Orange light dancing - flames - no good! She immediately stands up, more noisily than she should. A distance away, she sees the two intruders into her world look in her direction. She instinctively knows she runs the risk of being seen. She turns and flees.
Dawn finds Twilight awake. She could hear the man snoring beside her, took comfort in his presence. But she also felt annoyance - how could anypony sleep when something following them? She slept only winks, here and there, and is very tired. Next time, she thinks to herself, we sleep in shifts.
The man shifts in his tent, his feet rubbing the dewy canvas. He yawns, stretches his arms out. They stick out of the tent like pale, moving sticks. She looks over in his direction.
"So, how did you sleep?" she asks him.
"Pretty good," he says through a yawn. "What about you?"
"Not good. One of us had to keep watch."
"You should have woken me, we could have taken turns." Twilight shoots the man's tent a glare. She crawls out before standing up fully and stretching her wings out. In this posture, she looks almost massive, despite her lean build. She yawns. The man crawls out of his tent, pulling his pants up his pale legs.
"Oh no," he says. "You're lying back down!"
She looks at him. "What?"
"You said you didn't sleep. Well, now you're going to sleep."
Rain still fell around them, relatively hard. Raptor Red had returned to their site after returning to her nest where she had nuzzled her mate and checked on her chicks. After that, and a quick meal of small mammals - Utahraptor finger foods - she had hurried back to where the strange beings were sleeping. She continued to watch them through the night.
The two-legged creature had gone to sleep, but in the orange glow of the firelight Raptor Red could see the purple four-legged-thing had not fallen asleep. She kept looking around in the darkness. It made Raptor Red uneasy, but also even more curious.
Raptor Red tilts her head in the misty rain of the morning. She opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again and then snaps it shut. She blinks rain out of her eyes, scratches her snout with a claw.
Twilight stands there, looking at the man. "Excuse me?"
"Get in your tent," the man says to her. "Get in your tent and go to sleep. I'm telling you. Get a few hours rest, and then we'll keep going, alright?"
"Oh, yeah, go to sleep so you can leave and explore," Twilight says sarcastically. "And then that thing will come and get me!"
The man walks up to Twilight, places his hands on the sides of her head and looks her in the eyes, his face inches from hers. "I promise you, I will not leave you here alone."
"Are you --"
"I promise," the man interrupts.
Twilight looks the man in the eyes. Despite her fears of abandonment and of being hunted, she can't help but trust the man. His eyes are soft and nonthreatening, yet protective. She knows he will not abandon her. They're connection is too strong.
She sighs. "Alright," she says. She pulls her head from his grasp and walks towards the tent. She ducks and goes inside, turns around and lays down. She looks at him. "I trust you," she says. She lays her head down and closes her eyes. She is soon asleep. The man looks around. He won't leave her, but he - just like Raptor Red - is curious. He wants to know what has been following them.
The man stares at it. About 100 yards from camp it lies in the mud. It fills the man with all sorts of emotions - fear and excitement and confusion and bewilderment. But most of all, the emotion the man feels most is recognition. He recognizes the print in the mud as the print of a raptorial dinosaur. A large one. He stands up and walks to camp.
He walks to Twilight's tent and bends over, opening the flap and peering inside. Although she is sleeping peacefully, he must wake her up. He knows this, without the slightest doubt, although he hates to remove her from whatever dream is her current distraction. "Twilight!" he whispers. "Twilight! Wake up! I know what's following us!" The man looks around, stopping when his eyes reach the other side of the fire-pit.
Twilight lifts her head up. She is groggy. "What?" The man doesn't answer her, staring intently across in the opposite direction. Across the now dead fire pit. "What is it? What's following us?"
"Shhhhh!" He touches a finger to her lips. He is still looking intently into the forest. "Right there, about two dozen yards away. Don't move too quickly." Twilight looks to where he is staring, but doesn't see anything of any interest, only the green and brown and grays of the forest.
"I don't see it."
"Look, Twilight. It's there. It's staring right at us."
Twilight feels fear in her stomach. It's staring right at them, and she can't even see it. Wait a minute, she thinks to herself. I haven't seen a single grey thing in this entire forest! She looks back at the grey. It seems to stand out from the forest, it's outline fuzzy and ill defined and far too straight to be a tree or a bush. Then she sees it.
The eyes. Staring right at them. The eyes are focused, intent and curious. It looks like dragon from Equestria, but is far too small. Plus, it is covered in feathers.
"I know where we are," the man says. "At least, I think I have a very good idea of where we are."
Twilight doesn't take her eyes off of the creature. "Where?"
"North America," the man says. "The vortex worked. It took us to where I came from, but it took us to the wrong time."
"The wrong time?"
"Yes, the wrong time. This is 130 million years before I was born."
"What is it?"
"Utahraptor."
"What's that?"
"A predator from the Cretaceous. Very dangerous and very intelligent."
"Oh god......"
"Don't worry. It's just watching us. If it were hungry, we'd probably be dead by now."
"That's just wonderful, Taylor. Please, try to sound less excited?"
"I can't help it," the man says. "Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to see a dinosaur."
"You must be so excited."
From her spot, Raptor Red watches the two strange creatures. She is fidgeting. She is very nervous. Before this, she has been trailing the two creatures out of sight and unnoticed. Now, she stands in full view, frightened but also excited at this new development. She dares not venture closer, but she knows better than to turn and run. Such a reaction might invoke a predatory reaction from the alien visitors.
She blinks and tilts her head. Taylor and Twilight watch as the raptor turns its body broadside to them. They can see the feathers move as the animals walks around them, staring.
"What is it doing?" Twilight asks.
"It's probably checking us out. If it's been trailing us, then it's probably trying to figure out what we are."
"Can it do that? Can it figure it out?"
"Probably. As far as Cretaceous era predators are concerned, these things are pretty smart."
"Just perfect." Twilight's voice dripped with sarcasm.
Raptor Red continues to circle the two figures, eyeing them intently.
