Chapters Equestria's First... Russian?
Chapter 1 - The Beginnings
Equestria’s First… Russian?
Chapter One
The Beginnings
The year is 2027 in Russia. Citizens from the world’s two superpowers at the time are constantly in fear. The United States’ discovery of Russian nuclear missiles in several countries world-wide has caused uproar between the two democratic nations Russia and the United States of America. The two countries practically have their nuclear missiles aimed at each other, fearing that the other turn their launch keys, press the large red buttons, and cause global thermonuclear war.
Several countries including Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Greece had all been completely destroyed by the two global superpowers’ fighting; nothing remaining but the charred rubble of ancient buildings and modern masterpieces. All countries by this point fear that they are next in line.
* * * * *
*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*
*SMASH*
“God… Monday…” the human grumbled.
Andrei Solovyov was not a morning person, or a Monday person for that fact. He stood at a staggering six foot six inches tall, slightly muscular build, and had the stare of a cockatrice; making all change their minds on a matter with a simple glare. He was constantly given the nickname “Monster” due to his terrifying appearance. Negating his terrifying appearance, he was actually a very timid and shy person. This is why he often related to Fluttershy when he watched My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
My Little Pony was the only thing he could use to escape what was going on around him at the time. Solovyov was a “closet brony” only due to the fact he was from Russia : the country that was home to some of the hardest bastards in the world. He never told a single soul.
Andrei sighed, “Well, just one more day, and our efforts will finally bear fruit.” He lived alone, so he paid no mind to anyone that could hear him speak aloud. As he grumbled and mumbled to himself, he walked into his bathroom, took a shower, and shaved his face in his family’s traditional way: shaving cream and a very sharp knife handed down to him by his father.
“ONLY SON OF NICHOLAS THE SECOND!” he shouted at the top of his lungs as he cut the mid-section of his cheek on the knife. “IT’S ALWAYS THAT SPOT; WHY CAN I NEVER CUT THAT AREA?!”
He eventually finished grooming himself for his morning commute, and made his way to work. Solovyov worked as a scientist - a physicist to be precise - in a secret, underground government test laboratory.
In said lab, the Russian government had been preparing for the worst because of the extreme tensions between the United States and Russia. They had gathered Russia’s most brilliant men and women to work together and create the world’s first trans-dimensional portal, just in case global nuclear war broke out amongst the nations, and they needed a safe haven in which they could evacuate. There was only one problem with the idea: where exactly could they go that had air, water, food and shelter? Solovyov had thought about evacuating to Equestria if needed, but he kept his idea secret. The group of scientists assigned to work on the portal voted unanimously on an alternate Earth in an alternate dimension by using the now-proven Multiverse Theory.
Solovyov walked past a newsstand on the way to the abandoned building which housed the secret lab. He noticed the headlines in every newspaper present:
“Сотни убитых в международном аэропорту Волгограда! (Hundreds killed at Volgograd International Airport!)”
It may seem cruel to just walk by that newspaper, not caring about what it had to say. He walked passed that newsstand every day, and it had a new headline about something terrible happening every day, whether it is anything from government corruption to mega-corporation scandals.
He made it to the abandoned building and walked inside. It was a four-story apartment complex with all windows nailed and boarded shut, bricks crumbling off the sides and countless gang symbols tagged on the front door and walls. Everybody had yet to discover the removable floor board in the corner of room A4.
“Open sesame, door to the secret,” he scolded to the voice recognition device under the floor board. After the device had recognized his voice, the old, worn and dusty bed in the room lifted up and into the wall, allowing a section of the floor to slide open. As the floor boards spread apart from each other, an elevator that could only fit one rose from the opening in the floor. Solovyov reached for the small keyboard that had many symbols, shapes, numbers and letters inscribed onto the buttons.
“Let’s see… three, f, e, r, Quebec...” This continued for a few more moments until the doors on the elevator finally opened to the right key code. Solovyov stepped inside and began his descent into the earth; all objects in the room sliding back into place as the elevator descended.
* * * * *
The elevator stopped descending after three minutes of nonstop movement. The doors opened, and Solovyov was greeted by the head scientist of the facility, Yuri Kozlov.
“Good morning, Andrei. Are you prepared for the final day of work? Today we are going to be testing the device, seeing how long it takes for the machine to fully power, and what the results are of transportation,” Kozlov explained.
“Yes, I am just as prepared as you, sir,” Solovyov responded. They walked down the plate metal steps in front of the elevator Solovyov rode down to the lab, making a loud sole-on-metal walking sound echo off the laboratory walls. It took about two minutes of nonstop walking, but the two scientists eventually regrouped with the others working on the project at the bottom of the steps. Before everybody stood the project all people in the room had put their blood, sweat and tears in to: the worlds’ first trans-dimensional teleportation device, which was the thought-to-be-impossible perpetual motion machine.
Kozlov sighed and stood upon the stage, scientists of all fields gathered around it.
“Today, men and women, we have proved the world wrong on all levels,” he started. “We have created the one device others have thought to be impossible. And who knew that Mother Russia would be the one to get to it first?” He lowered his tone to a tone barely above a whisper. “We knew. Today marks an incredible milestone in the history of science, technology, and the universe as we know it. Sadly, if the tension between us and the United States does come to global nuclear war, our efforts will have been for naught.”
As soon as he finished his last sentence, all present began to feel the floor beneath their feet rumble.
“Did you feel that?” one scientist asked another.
“Yes. Did you feel that, Gregory?” the other responded then asked.
“I did so!” a scientist from the other side of the crowed yelled.
“Fear not, my fellow workers. It was most likely an increase in subway train movement. I feel it quite often when I’m alone here,” Kozlov explained to the slightly-panicking crowd. At his words, the group began dissipate and head to their respective stations.
“Gregory, power levels,” Kozlov demanded.
“Power levels are at a maximum, sir!” Gregory responded.
“Vladimir, calibration statistics?”
“All prepared and ready for use."
The ground shook once more, this time, with enough force to bring force to being down several pieces of heavy plate-metal roofing. One scientist wasn’t lucky enough to dodge the falling ceiling, and was crushed and killed instantly.
“EARTHQUAKE!” several people shouted.
As soon as the people who had shouted stopped, the shaking ceased immediately.
“Oh, it’s over? Well, that certainly wasn’t-“he was cut off by a piece of the ceiling crushing him, and the violent shaking continued.
“Power up the device!” A scientist shouted coming out of a long hallway. “The emergency elevator’s cable line has been cut! We are all trapped!” Without hesitation, everybody began doing their part, and the machine was soon functioning; yet, it had to spin fast enough to actually open the portal.
“Everybody, please listen!” Kozlov shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to overcome the sound of the crumbling laboratory. “I have no idea what will lie on the other side, my friends! We can only hope that in time, the government will retrieve us eventually.
Solovyov ran to the terminal that controlled where everyone would appear after walking through the portal, and set the destination to the “alternate Earth”, as everyone believed.
“Everybody!” Solovyov shouted, standing in front of the portal. “The portal is ready! We must leave at once!” Kozlov was at another end of the laboratory helping someone who had their leg trapped underneath a fallen computer module, and couldn’t lead the way into the portal himself. All present grouped themselves together near the steps that led to the portal.
“Everybody on my mark of three! One! Two-”
“LOOK OUT ABOVE YOU!” A scientist shouted, cutting off Solovyov as he spoke. At hearing this, Solovyov looked upwards, only to find that a metal panel of the ceiling was barreling right towards him.
”It’s now… or never…”
With minor hesitation, he grabbed his laptop bag from a table as he ran, and jumped in the direction of the portal, teleporting him to Equestria. The metal ceiling panel came down, crushing the portal underneath its weight.
“Oh God... No… No!!” Kozlov shouted. He started to panic, knowing that this was the end for him and his crew. Within minutes, the laboratory was buried along with all pieces of evidence that the trans-dimensional teleporter and the proven version of the Multiverse Theory ever existed.
On the streets above, the city lay in ruins. Volgograd, Russia was turned to rubble by American nuclear missles.
Equestria's First... Russian?
Chapter 2 - First Meetings
Equestria’s First… Russian?
Chapter Two
First Meetings
Solovyov regained minimal consciousness, and didn’t have the willpower to make any movement. His vision was nearly gone, leaving him next to blind, his muscles didn’t respond, and he was filled to the brim with worry.
“I can…hardly see…” Solovyov mumbled to himself.
”I can feel soil making contact with my skin…I must be here…” He thought to himself. He tried to moving, but soon passed out cold from the extreme soreness in his muscles and restless nerves. ”Is that…my blood?” Solovyov had apparently arrived in at his destination directly above a tree, and fell nearly sixty feet to the earth below. He passed out from the sight of his own blood slowly dripping from his temples.
Solovyov awoke about four hours later from the bright rays of the sunset meeting his eyes. He once again made the attempt to move, and was successful: he still had soreness in his muscle, but not as much as before, and his nerves had calmed. He made his was to his feet, and peered trying to see what surroundings were about him.
“Okay… I see…many trees, some shrubs… and not much else…” Solovyov said to himself as he peered through his squinted eyelids. “If this is the alternate Earth, I must be far from civilization. Hopefully I am still in Russia…”
He heard a voice nearby. As a matter of fact, he heard a large group of voices nearby; and quickly approaching, too. He did the only sensible thing he could: grab his laptop bag from next to him and climb the nearest tree to hide himself from view.
* * * * *
“Come on, guys!” A female voice said. “We’ve been searching for nearly a week! If we don’t find the father, then nopony will!”
”Wait, for who are they looking? Is that… No. It can’t be… I’m in Equestria?!” Solovyov barely managed to keep a lid on his excitement. The female voice had belonged to a lavender unicorn named Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight had been attempting to raise the hopes of her search squad, due to theirs’ being nearly gone by now of finding the father of the family. The squad was comprised of Twilight as the leader, along with Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.
Recently, a family of three: a mother, a father, and a child, had gone on a picnic through a wooded forest area nearby. And yes, it was the Everfree. They were new to Ponyville, and didn’t know that the Everfree was a very dangerous place to travel. A friend of the family had noticed that they hadn’t returned for three days, and started to worry for them. After countless days of searching, the mother and child had been found, but not the father.
“Girls, he’s got to be around here somewhere. This is the only area we haven’t searched yet!” Twilight explained.
*snap*
“Everypony stop… did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” asked Applejack
“That snapping; it sounded like somepony walking. Hello? Is somepony out there?”
Solovyov sat motionless in the tree as he processed what he was hearing.
”Shit, they speak English here? Now I’m finished… Maybe coming here wasn't as good an idea as I had though. I must speak. This may be my only opportunity to come into contact with them…”
“Uh… Allo (Hello) ?” Solovyov quietly and timidly asked.
“Mr. Snapple? Is that you?” Twilight asked quizzically, searching from where the voice came.
“Govorite li vy russkii yazyk? (Do you speak Russian? )” Solovyov asked.
“It sure does sound like him,” Twilight said to her group. “If that is you Mr. Snapple, you must have hit your head pretty hard to speak like that.”
Solovyov could feel his heartbeat picking up its pace and his head start to bead with sweat.
”This is not good…” Solovyov thought to himself. ”How am I going to even present myself? They’ve most likely never seen the likes of me before; how can I be sure they won’t see me as a hideous monster?”
He thought for a moment while watching the four ponies look for him. He saw Rainbow Dash squinting very hard at his position, making him even more of a nervous wreck than before.
“Twilight, what’s that?” Rainbow asked.
“What’s what?” she responded.
“That!” Rainbow said while pointing a hoof directly at Solovyov.
”Oh no…”
Twilight stared long and hard to what Rainbow was pointing. She thought she saw a very dark silhouette sitting among the braches, but soon shook off the idea.
“Rainbow,” Twilight started, “I don’t see anything. Are you sure skipping your annual eye exam was a good idea?”
“Best day off in my life…”
Solovyov breathed a silent sigh of relief. ”That… was too close. I don’t think I’m quite ready to confront them yet…” Solovyov thought to himself.
Twilight let out a sigh if disappointment. “Mr. Snapple, if that is you please come out. We can help you. If it’s one of the few species in this forest that naturally babble incoherent noises in this forest that cannot comprehend a single word I speak, then never mind.”
Nopony responded.
“Well, he apparently he isn’t here,” Twilight said. “Since this is the only remaining area of the forest nopony has checked, we’ll come back here for one more day. If we can’t find him,” Twilight paused for dramatic effect. “We’ll have to presume he’s dead. Nearly every square inch of this forest has been searched. Come on girls, we’ll come back tomorrow.”
As soon as the group was out of earshot, Solovyov slowly climbed his way out of the tree in which he hid.
“Damn it, why can I never get over my shyness? Now I’m stuck here in this god-forsaken forest with no food, water, shelter and whatever creatures this world may house! GAH!” Solovyov yelled to nothing in particular. “Wait… They said they would return to this location tomorrow, correct? Maybe if I acted like I was severely hurt… That would certainly grasp their attention without me having to approach them directly.”
Solovyov thought about how he was going to pull off this act of his but he was cut short from hearing a noise similar to a jet engine flying.
“What the hell is that…?” Solovyov asked himself.
***
“AH-HA! I KNEW IT! I KNEW I SAW SOMETHING IN THAT TREE!” the hyper-active pink pony shouted, appearing out of nowhere.
“Shto shert voz’mi?! (What the hell?! )” Solovyov shouted. Because Rainbow had sacred him out of his mental stupor, he staggered backwards and tripped on a protruding root, causing him to smash his skull on the trunk of a nearby tree.
Solovyov was barely conscious, but he could feel his body slowly being dragged away; blood leaving a trail from his a wound on his head.
Equestria's First... Russian?
Chapter 3 - Rude Awakening
Equestria’s First…Russian?
Chapter Three
Rude Awakening
“T’fu…Gde ya…?(Ugh… Where am I…? )” Solovyov asked quietly under his breath, spitting out a few drops of blood from his mouth. He made his attempts to move, but was stopped by ropes tied around his legs, abdominals, wrists, and ankles to a wooden chair that was just big enough to seat him. He noticed that the room he was in was pitch-black dark, and the only light in the room was the one hanging above his head, shining a dull circle of light around him. They were in what appeared to be an abandoned building on the outskirts of Ponyville.
“You better start making some sense, mister!” Rainbow shouted as she walked from the shadows of the room they were in.
“Vy... (You… )” Solovyov whispered. “Chto chert vozmi s toboii? Vidite li ya ne govoryu na vashem yazyke? (What the hell is wrong with you? Can you see I do not speak your tougne? )”
“That’s the first thing I need to know; what are you even talking about!? All of your babbling doesn’t make sense! Is it a language or some sort of birth defect?” Rainbow yelled.
“Ya dumal chto ya prishel na al’ternativnoi Zemle! Nesmotrya na to pribyvayushchikh v Equestria byl neschastnyi sluchai ya dumal chto eto bylo by gorazdo luchshe chem eto! (I thought I would arrive on an alternate Earth! Although arriving in Equestria was an accident, I thought it would be much better than this! )” Tears were starting to form in his eyes as his voice became more and more shaky with sadness.
“Did I just hear you say… what I think you just said?” Rainbow asked Solovyov with a mixed look of shock and confusion on her face. “Did you just say Equestria ?”
“Kakaya chastʹ "YA ne znayu, chto vy govorite Vy ne ponimaete!?" (What part of “I do not know what your are saying” do you not understand?! )” Solovyov shouted at the near top of his lungs, even more tears starting to form in his eyes and starting to flow freely.
“And what is this ?” Rainbow asked pulling Solovyov laptop computer out of his shoulder bag.
“Klyanus , yesli vy... (I swear, if you… )” He was cut off by the sound of his laptop turning on, playing the small welcome tune loudly out of the speakers.
“What the… What is this?” Rainbow started pressing random keys on the keyboard as she saw the computer was finished booting. Random windows including task manager, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Word 2022, Notepad, Windows Explorer and the start menu started to appear.
“You stay right here… I think Twilight needs to see this,” Rainbow said mockingly to Solovyov. At this point, his cheeks were stained with tears of sadness and frustration; his face beet red. “Oh, and just for safety measures…” Rainbow trailed off as she pulled out a gag rag and made an attempt to silence Solovyov. He put up a good fight, but he eventually gave in, seeing there was no hope to fight forever.
”How can a pony be this arrogant? Well, I guess I would not blame her too much… she knows English and I know Russian.” As Solovyov finished his thought, Rainbow Dash flew out of the abandoned building towards Twilight’s house.
***
While Solovyov was alone, he decided to take this time to let out all of his frustrations and anger. He took in a large breath through his nose for a duration of seven seconds.
“MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPHHHHHH!!!” He screamed through his gag, hardly making an audible noise to the outside world. As he was finished, he caught his breath.
“There is only one thing that I guess could calm me until she comes back, or if she comes back…” He spoke to himself as he started to hum the base part of Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”. This was a song his parents used to play on their violins. The song used to put him to sleep every night as a child before he outgrew having his parents play for him.
He finished playing through the song in his head; humming the bass aloud and opened his eyes, only to see nothing but the blackness of the room. His heart grew heavy as his occasional bout depression reappeared, and a lone, single tear rolled down his cheek from his right eye.
”I will never forget you...” At this point, Solovyov was freely crying. Not out of frustration, but out of grief. (Sorry for fourth wall breaking, but this is explained later)
* * * * *
Twilight, as usual, had been in her library for the past two days studying advanced magic concepts.
“Spike, can you get that?” Twilight yelled across the library for her assistant.
“Yeah, give me a sec,” The small, purple and green baby dragon named Spike replied. He turned the small, golden door knob, revealing a confused and worried Rainbow Dash on the other side.
“Hey Rainbow, what’s up?” Spike asked.
“Hey uh… Is Twilight around? I kind of need to see het about something very important,” She replied while looking over Spike inside the library for Twilight.
“Yeah, she’s up in her room studying as usual. Come on in, I’ll let her know you’re here.” Spike walked up the steps towards Twilight’s room, grasping her attention.
“Who was at the door?” Twilight asked with a quizzical expression on her face.
“It’s Rainbow. She wanted to talk to you about something important?”
“If it’s about what I think it is, I’ll feel like I need to smack a filly...” She mumbled under her breath. Spike looked at her with a worried expression slapped on his face. “Philly…delphia… cheesecake! Yes, a Phillydelphia cheesecake!” She smiled a toothy grin at him, hoping he would buy it.
“Okay… I’ll just send in Rainbow.” Spike said as he left, Rainbow entering as he did so. She looked at Twilight with eyes filled with worry and total confusion. Twilight took notice of this.
“Okay Rainbow, what’s wrong this time-“ She was cut off by Rainbow interrupting her.
“It isn’t about who you think it is, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Rainbow said with annoyance present in her voice. “I remember you talked with Coal... about things from his world at one point?”
“Yes I did, Rainbow,” Twilight started. “Though some things were more pleasant than others, we did talk.”
“Good, because I think you may want to see this,” Rainbow said as she unfurled her right wing near the ground revealing a shiny, thin and light object that appeared to be a sheet of metal. Upon closer examination, Twilight learned that this wasn’t just any piece of scarp metal, it was a laptop computer.
“I... I found it...” She lied through her teeth.
“You do know that this world doesn’t have the technology to manufacture this piece of equipment, right?”
“Y-yeah.”
“From what Coal has told all of us, this... is a computer. And can you tell me how it just ‘happened’ to end up in our world without my help?” Twilight asked with high traces of annoyance in her voice.
“Look, I... I can’t explain it very well to you, but do you remember when we were in the Everfree looking for Mr. Snapple?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“Remember how I pointed something out in the tree near us, and you didn’t notice anything peculiar?”
“Yeah..?”
“I didn’t know if it was my eyes playing tricks on me again, but I knew I saw something in that tree. I’m actually surprised you didn’t notice him before I did,” Rainbow shoved her left hoof into her mouth, stopper her from speaking.
“What do you mean by him? ”
Rainbow sighed heavily. “Look, I’ll just have to show you if want to believe me,” Rainbow said as she started her way out of Twilight’s room.
“Where are you going?” Twilight asked.
“Just follow me, and you’ll see.”
Rainbow and Twilight made their way out of the latter’s home, suspense slowly building in her heart as to what Rainbow was going to reveal to her.
* * * * *
The wait was starting to drive Solovyov mad, as he was starting to believe the fact that Rainbow was never going to return to him. Either that or she plainly forgot about him.
”Damn it! What is taking her so long? I knew she probably wouldn’t come back...” He thought to himself, depression still lingering heavily in his heart from earlier thoughts. Very soon afterwards, he heard the front door of the abandoned building slowly creak open.
”Maybe I’ll be better off pretending I’m asleep...”
* * * * *
Rainbow and Twilight had approached the abandoned building where Rainbow had Solovyov bound and tied to a wooden chair.
“Rainbow, why are we here? Nopony has used this building for years,” Twilight asked.
“Trust me, everything will be explained in time. And by time, I mean a few minutes,” Rainbow replied.
Rainbow ever so slowly pushed open the front door, emitting a loud creak from its dry hinges. Every hallway and every room was lined to the corners with darkness, the only light coming from the windows with shades covering them. The two arrived at the room in which Solovyov was being held captive. Rainbow stopped Twilight before they entered, speaking to her in a voice just below a whisper.
“Twilight, before we walk into this room, I need to have you promise me something,” Rainbow said sounding worried.
“What is it?” She replied.
“Please... Don’t be mad at me when you see what’s behind this door.”
Rainbow proceeded opening the door, and Twilight literally couldn’t believe what her eyes were revealing to her.
* * * * *
After waiting for minutes that felt similar to hours, Solovyov opened his eyes as he heard very faint whispers behind the closed door on the other side of the room.
”She actually came back?” He thought. ”That or the ghosts haunting this building have come to invite me to their home.”
The door slowly creaked opened, revealing two silhouettes. One he assumed was Rainbow, and the other, he had yet to know. He closed his eyes, resuming his sleeping act.
* * * * *
“Rainbow, I’m not mad at you. I promised you that,” Twilight said. “BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO COAL?! WHY IS-“She was cut off by Rainbow raising her hoof to silence her.
“It’s not Coal, Twi’”
“Then who is that?!”
“That’s what I was hoping you could help me find out.” She walked over to Solovyov in his sleeping act, and prodded him in the side with one of her hooves.
“Hey!” She yelled. “Wake up!”
***
”I’m assuming she wants me to ‘awake’ now...” Solovyov thought. Thinking this, he pretended to ‘wake up’ after a ‘short nap’.
“..,Chto vy khotite? (What do you want? )” Solovyov asked in a fake dreary voice with hints of annoyance in it. He started to sweat slightly, noticing a new face was looking directly at him.
“That’s the problem,” Rainbow said. “Can you tell what he’s saying, if he even is saying anything? Because I sure can’t.” Twilight was hardly paying any attention to Rainbow Dash as she was astounded by the fact that another human had somehow made his way to Equestria.
“We may have to get Coal on this one,” Twilight said sounding unsure.
“My thoughts exactly,” Rainbow replied. She said with determination in her voice, “I’ll go get Coal, you try and see exactly what this human is saying, if he is saying anything.”
“We’ll leave that to Coal to decide.” Rainbow nodded to Twilight’s response and was on her way towards Coal’s home.
“Okay, let’s see what I can’t figure out about you...”
* * * * *
Rainbow arrived at Coal’s home, bursting through the front door, as it was her home too.
“Coal? You here?” She called throughout the house.
“Upstairs!” He yelled. Rainbow immediately flew upstairs in the house, went into his bedroom and saw he was lying peacefully on the bed. Coal was 36 years of age. Though Coal had been the first human to ever visit Equestria, some were not far behind him.
“What’s the matter?” He asked in a calm voice, eyes still closed.
“Um... I’ll fill you in on the details later, but we got another one.”
“Another what?”
"Another human. He doesn’t speak English this time.”
“Do you know what he sound like?” Coal asked.
“I literally don’t even know where to begin with what he sounds like!” She said with a slightly aggravated tone. “It’s all this mumbo jumbo, random little splotches of speech not even Twilight knows! Look, Twilight wanted me to come get you because she said you’d most likely know where he came from. Just follow me, I won’t fly.”
“I really need to write a book about different races of human...” Coal whispered under his breath. After he got up out of bed, he grabbed his dagger for a possible ‘just in case’ situation and they proceeded to the abandoned building where Solovyov was being held.
* * * * *
“Can you speak for me, please?” Twilight asked slowly and clearly.
“Shto? (What?)” Solovyov said. After he spoke, Twilight began her written list of the human’s phonetics.
"Do you speak English ?” She asked following his response. She noticed his head perked upwards after she said ‘English’.
“Yedinstvenoe slovo ya uznal bylo ‘angliiskii yazyk’. (The only word I recognized was ‘English’.)” He responded looking at Twilight.
“Rainbow was right... You do speak gibberish...” Twilight said to herself. “This is very strange. We’ve seen similar languages from your world as we have ours, but this is entirely... new.” The process of Twilight asking Solovyov questions and him responding with incoherent gibberish continued for about twenty more minutes. Soon afterwards, she could head the front door of the abandoned building squeak open very loudly.
“Good, that must be them. Stay right here,” she said to Solovyov. “Oh- uh, never mind,” she replied with a sheepish smile, noticing he was still bound and tied to a wooden chair. She left the room and proceeded to wait just outside. Coal and Rainbow soon saw Twilight, standing outside a closed door.
“You get anything, Twi’?” Rainbow asked.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t. All I did was record phonetics of what I heard him say, which wasn’t much to be honest.”
“That’s okay,” Coal started. “Since I know more about humans than you two combined do, I’ll see what I can do.” All three of them walked into the room in which Solovyov was alone, and waited for Coal to speak.
”Oh God... There’s another human here? I thought Russia would have been the first...” He thought as sweat started to drip down his forehead because of Coal staring at him.
Coal sighed. “I’ll probably need a few moments. Go wait outside, I’ll yell for you if anything goes wrong,” He said with a soft but serious voice. Rainbow and Twilight followed his order and left the room immediately.
Coal stared at Solovyov’s eyes and looked into them deeply. Solovyov couldn’t make direct eye contact, seeing he was now alone in a room with a total stranger. Solovyov looked into Coal’s eyes for a very brief moment and Coal saw all sadness in his eyes in that one moment.
Coal sighed. “Here, let’s cut you free first; I don’t know why they would tie you up like this in the first place,” Coal said as he pulled out his dagger from its holster on his pants.
Solovyov’s eyes shot wide open and started to whimper and sweat with no control, seeing a person who didn’t speak his language was approaching him with a sharp blade. He tightly closed his eyes preparing for what he thought would be the inevitable. His eyes opened immediately as he heard the sound of metal cutting rope, and soon was untied from his chair.
Solovyov looked to Coal with eyes of relief and gratitude. “Blagodaryu vas, ser, (Thank you, sir, )” He said in a quiet voice as he continued to sit it the chair in which he was restrained.
“Can you tell me your name?” Coal asked.
Solovyov paused for a moment, deciding that making attempts to speak here with others was futile. ”Oh, I know!” He thought. I am a fool: simple sign language!”
Solovyov preceded by standing up quickly and facing Coal. He held up his hands slowly to show that he was peaceful. Next, he pointed to himself.
“Sign language...” Coal said. “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?"
Solovyov pointed to himself.
“Oh, ‘I’,” Coal said. He pointed to one of his own eyes, and gave him a thumbs-up, showing Solovyov he understood what he was trying to say.
Next, Solovyov held out both arms and swung them back and forth across his chest, much like how a baseball umpire showing a runner was safe.
“Cannot?” Coal repeated.
Afterwards, Solovyov made a mouth-like formation with his fingers straightened outwards, and started to move them up and down; making it look like his hand was speaking.
“Speak...”
Solovyov continued by making thumbs-up formation with his right hand, while making a very happy expression on his face.
“Like...?”
Finally, he pointed to Coal.
“You...” He said, nodding his head telling Solovyov he understood. “Twilight, come in here.” Twilight entered the room and waited for Coal to speak.
“He can’t speak like us; he doesn’t know English."
“Well we know that!” Twilight said with sarcasm. “But were you able to learn what nationality he came from?”
“That I was, Twilight,” Coal said. “From what I've heard, he’s Russian.”
Equestria's First... Russian?
Chapter 4 - Learning Takes Time
A/N: Sorry for the long wait, I’ve been pretty busy recently up until now. I’ve had to work on a handful of projects, but I’m almost entirely done with them.
Equestria’s First… Russia?
Chapter Four
Learning Takes Time
“A Russian? That sounds like somebody who’s in a hurry all the time!” Twilight said joking with Coal.
“No,” Coal said. “Russians are people native to the country of Russia on Earth. I’ll have to try and fill you in later with whatever I know.”
“Yeah, that sounds okay. But we have a bigger problem at hoof: what are we going to do with him? He can’t speak English, and we obviously can’t speak his language,” Twilight explained.
“The only tidbit I know from his language is that ‘da’ means yes, and ‘ne-eht’ means no,” Coal explained. Meanwhile, Dash was in the other room with Solovyov sitting unbounded in his chair, attempting to give him an apology for what she did. She was being quite rude with him because she was frustrated at how far she came to getting him to speak her language, which was nowhere at all.
“Can. You. Say. One. Word. To me?” She asked. Solovyov’s response was a cock of his left eyebrow and a look from one side to the other with his eyes.
“Yas dieyoos, (I give up, )” Solovyov said not holding back any annoyance in his voice. Rainbow Walked back to Coal and Twilight who were talking in the hallway outside the room.
Twilight noticed her. “Well, how did it go?”
“Take one good guess,” Rainbow said.
“Not very well, I take it?” Coal intervened.
“Nope.”
“I suspected that,” Twilight said with a sigh, “Look, you two go home and get your rest. I’ll take this ‘Russian’ home and see what I can work out with him. With any luck there will be something of use in my library.” And with that, Coal and Rainbow left for home, and Twilight walked back into the room in which Solovyov was waiting patiently for anything to occur.
As she finished, her horn started to glow with a light purple aura. After every couple of seconds, a new magic restraint was placed on Solovyov, causing him to panic and make attempts to break free with no dice. First, his body was ensnared in four purple rings of magic, making him completely immobile.
“Kako echshorta tihd deelish sahm noy?! (What the hell are you doing to me?! )” Solovyov began to yell in extreme panic.
Next, his mouth was transformed into a zipper, and was sealed to prevent him from screaming for help. And finally, an invisibility spell was placed so nopony would panic if they saw him that way.
“This is going to be awfully weird if people see me using magic on nothing… Ah-ha!” Twilight said spotting an old, illegible book in the corner of the room. “Perfect! Now I’ll just pretend I’m reading…” And with that thought, Twilight left with the silenced and restrained Solovyov and her book in tow.
* * * * *
Twilight and Solovyov exited the abandoned building and she could hear Solovyov wince in slight pain.
”Good God… How long has it been since I’ve seen daylight with my own two eyes?” Solovyov thought to himself. ”The better question: where in the world is she taking me? I might as well just make peace with myself; just in case…”
Solovyov thought very long and hard about his life and what he has accomplished in the thirty-eight years that was his life: which didn’t go very far personally after he became a physicist. At this point in his life, he had absolutely nobody to call his wife. He had been seeing a woman a couple of years younger than him, but it never worked out in the end. He turned to My Little Pony: Friendship is magic when his one true friend, a German with which he played online games and took foreign language classes that included Russian, introduced the show and all its magic to him. He remembered every time he felt a glimpse of joy every time he saw his profile picture on a social media website they both used.
He thought back to the very day he heard the most devastating news he had ever heard: a four-car car crash had occurred on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany that killed nine people in 2021. He thought it was just another fatal accident to feel sorry for, until he read the names of those killed. And at the bottom of the list, his heart felt as if he excreted it from his body. He read the name of his friend Alexander Schäfer. Even though he was from Volgograd, Russia, Solovyov decided to take a week and a half off of work and attend the funeral/memorial service. The trip there and back, including the services took only four days, but he took off more time because he knew he would need to overcome his grief.
Before he knew it, Twilight and Solovyov arrived at the prior’s library, which was a tree.
”I will be with you soon, my friend… I swear on it…” Solovyov thought to himself. As the two entered, Twilight placed Solovyov gingerly on a couch beside a wall on the left on the left side of the library.
“Please, don’t move. I’ll be… Oh wait,” Twilight caught herself before she finished her sentence. She walked to a remote part of the library which included several cultural books, along with many books on foreign languages and translating spells. She hauled them over next to the couch on which Solovyov was residing, and started to scan every book around her, which was a total of about fifteen books that she thought would help.
Twilight was scanning every book; one page at a time until she nearly lost all hope of finding a spell that would help her in this situation. In the final book titled The Magic of Language: a Guide to the Translation of Languages , she found the one spell that she knew immediately would fix her problem by letting a creature that had the ability to speak to learn an entirely new lanugage, albeit it had a long waiting period of one week for the spell to fully take effect.
“Spike!” Twilight yelled for her assistance across the library.
“Yeah, Twilight?” He responded.
“I need you to stay here by my side; I found a spell that will hopefully help us with an issue I’m dealing with.”
“And that would be…?”
“This,” Twilight said as she removed the invisibility spell from Solovyov, leaving the magical restraints and zippered mouth alone.
“We got another one?” Spike asked with annoyance in his voice. “Geez, it’s almost like they know how to get here or something!”
“Just stay here by my side in case something goes awry. I’m going to be using a new spell I found in one of my newest books that will hopefully allow this one to speak English. He speaks a language known in the human world as ‘Russian’,” Twilight explained. “Stand back, this spell looks very difficult and it takes about a minute to fully charge. I don’t know exactly what the results will yield.”
As she finished explaining to Spike, her horn glowed in her magical light purple aura, signaling Solovyov that she was about to do something.
”It looks like this is… finally the end. When I realized this was Equestria, I thought this would be paradise. Looks like I was wrong. Mom… Dad… Alexander… I’ll be with you soon.” As he finished his thought, the zipper began to dissipate, and he spoke again with a quiet sigh of relief:
“Oht-che nah-sh, soo-scheey nah nee-bee-sah-kh. (Our Father, who art in Heaven. )
“Da svya-tee-tsah ee-mya tvah-yo. (Hallowed be Thy name. )” The spell charged quicker than Twilight had expected, and Solovyov was cut off by a very bright beam of light being connected to his skull. Suddenly, a variety of foreign words began to fill his mind to its very brim. His mind could take any more, and he passed out.
* * * * *
”Gah… Where… Am I?” Solovyov muttered as he felt the ground making contact with his skin. It was earth like he felt when he first came here, but it was cold and had a thin layer of dew covering it. There was also a very light, calm, and constant breeze wind blowing all around him.
Solovyov slowly opened his eyes and blinked twice to clear his vision. What he saw around him was nothing that he expected. He thought that he was going to go to Heaven, but he saw nothing but blackness around him; only surrounded in a dim light that barely illuminated the area around him, and seemed to move to wherever he moved.
”Is this… the afterlife? Was everything I believed a lie?” He thought to himself. He tried to speak physical words, but nothing rang from his vocal chords; almost like they were never there.
”Great, even is the afterlife I can’t hear my own language!” Solovyov yelled mentally to himself.
His frustration was soon overcome with pain as large gusts of wind began to blow towards his
”Sweet… Christ! What did I… do to deserve… this?!” As the winds continued to blow, he could see two very faint silhouettes through his squinted eyes walking towards him at a slow pace.
”Mom… Dad?”
* * * * *
Twilight sighed in relief. “Spike, can you stay here… and watch over the human? I need to go get somebody…” She said in a weary voice.
“No problem,” Spike replied. And with that, Twilight left to her destination. Due to the spell depleting nearly all of here energy, she walked slowly; swaying from side to side at times.
”I know Coal’s going to be busy for a while… I need somebody or pony that can keep him calm for after he wakes up…” Her trail of thought was interrupted as she accidently ran into a colt as he was walking by.
“Oh, excuse me, miss,” he said as he continued to walk. This event was enough for Twilight to shake herself out of her mental stupor for the most part. She walked to the outskirts of Ponyville, in the complete opposite direction of Coal’s house, and approached a rather small looking house with light yellow siding and a shingled roof. She approached the door on the front porch and gingerly knocked four times.
What would have surprised most unprepared ponies didn’t surprise Twilight as Equestria’s second out of three current human residents answered the door.
“Can I help you, Twilight?” The man said in a low, soothing voice.
“Yes, I… do in fact,” she started. “Another human arrived earlier, and I may need him to stay with you. I cast a spell on him that, well, made him pass out for a week, but should grant him the ability to speak English when he awakens.”
“He doesn’t speak English?” He asked in monotone. “And also, are you all right? Your speech is slurred and you seem to be a little bit tipsy.”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Twilight said. “Like most of the others, yes. He doesn’t speak English. We were lucky that you were multilingual, and we didn’t have a problem teaching you an entirely new language.”
The man thought about his decision. “Okay; I’ll let him stay here for the next week. I’m kind of busy at the moment; could you bring him to my house?”
“Yes; not a problem, Alexander. I’ll have him over here in a jiffy.” As Twilight finished her conversation with him, Alexander closed the door and Twilight left back to her home to retrieve Solovyov.
After about another half hour, Twilight returned to Alexander’s home with Solovyov in tow with an invisibility spell and no restraints over him. She once again knocked on his front door four times, and he once again answered his door promptly. He invited her in, and she took a seat on the couch next to the right wall of the living room.
So…” Alexander said, “Where is he?”
“He’s here. I’m just going to place him on the couch, if that’s all right with you.”
“Perfectly fine, but I still don’t see any human.”
“Here: maybe this will help…” Twilight said as she dropped the invisibility spell that was placed on Solovyov.
Alexander’s eyes grew wide with a wide variety of emotions filling him as he saw the human: shock, amazement, worry, sympathy, and many others. Twilight took notice of this and approached Alexander.
“Alex, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked with worry present.
“Twilight… I-I know this man. Oh Andrei Solovyov… What in the world happened to you?”
A/N: Soooo sorry for the long wait again. And listen, I'm going to be filling in plot holes next chapter. Not to mention I tried writing this trying to dispel a minor bout of depression.
Equestria's First... Russian?
Equestria’s First… Russian?
Chapter Five
The Reunion
“You still didn’t answer me,” Twilight said. “What do you mean you know him?”
“I’m sorry, Twilight. It’s just that… even though I’ve had many friends, in the past and present, this man was one of my closest. I never had a chance to say goodbye to him. His name is Andrei Solovyov,” Alexander explained looking at the unconscious man lying on his couch.
“Andrei Solovyov,” Twilight repeated. “Could you write that down on this paper for me? I wouldn’t know where to begin on spelling his name.”
“Um, sure,” he replied taking the parchment and quill away from Twilight and writing the man’s name down. “I can’t wait to finally speak to him again. It’s been far too long.”
“I bet it has been,” Twilight replied while taking a quick glance at the clock hanging on Schäfer’s wall, noticing that it was getting rather late. “Oh shoot, I’d better get back to Spike; it’s getting pretty late. Also, one thing before I leave that I forgot to mention. Make sure to speak to him in English if you see he’s awake. Whatever language he hears first he will know as him primary language. His other known language will still be there in his mind, but he won’t speak them commonly.”
“Nothing’s stopping you, and I’ll remember to talk to him in English first,” Alexander said. “Solovyov will still be here next week. I’ll see you then unless something else happens.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then,” she said as she walked out Alexander’s front door. He took one long, hard look at Solovyov lying motionless on his couch, the single tear’s trail still fresh on his cheek.
“It’s only a week,” he whispered to himself, eyes still intently starting at Solovyov, “Just one week, and after six long years… I’ll finally be able to speak to you again.”
* * * * *
The wind was still rushing into Solovyov’s ears just as powerful as it has been, and the silhouettes of his parents still stood before him, just staring.
Mom… Dad… Please, just say something… Solovyov pleaded in his thoughts.
As they played, Solovyov felt the soothing music slowly cover the sound of the winds blowing into his ears, and exhaustion began to overcome him. A single tear drop escaped from the tear duct of his right eye. He closed his eyes; the image of his parents slowly fading from view.
”I do not know what you both have done… But thank you…” he said as his eyes were nearly shut.
”You’re welcome…” The two silhouettes replied ever so quietly in unison. Hearing his parents’ voices again, for one last time, was enough for him to feel content with his life as it was at this time.
”Maybe now… I can finally be with them for eternity,” Solovyov thought to himself. His consciousness slipped into an ever-expanding black plane, where he retained all of his memories, but was unaware he was practically nowhere in existence.
---Seven days later---
It was late afternoon, and there was a light knock at Alexander’s door. He knew it had been a week, and was expecting Solovyov to wake up at any moment now. He answered the door to reveal a mildly anxious Twilight on the other side of the door.
“Hello, Alex,” She said. “Are you ready to finally be able to talk with your friend?”
“Yes,” Replied Alex. “You have no idea how long this week has felt to me, I’m just glad it’s finally time for him to wake up.”
“…You and me both.”
“Listen… I don’t think either of us knows how Andrei’s going to, well, ‘wake up’ in a sense. I don’t know if he will wake up in panic, or if he will wake up like he just got eight hours of perfect sleep. And who knows, will his memory even be there?”
“You’ve got a point there… The overview of the spell said that the subject should wake up peacefully. If not, you’ll have to do your best to calm him. As you suggested, he may or may not retain all of his memories, so I’ll just go into the other room and stay out of view. If my time estimates are correct, he should be waking up within five minutes. Good luck, and I’ll come out if things start to get out of hand.”
“Okay, thanks,” Alexander replied as he took a seat on the recliner across from the couch on which Solovyov was currently unconscious.
Alexander only stared at Solovyov’s eyes, checking for any movement while occasionally taking glances at the clock in the room. Every second that passed seemed like another minute to him, like time was playing yet another cruel joke.
“Well, I guess a little nap never hurt anybody,” Alexander whisper quietly to himself. He proceeded to close his eyes, just to conserve energy for when Solovyov awakens. He was actually about to fall into his own dreamscape, but was suddenly startled by a loud scream coming from in front of him. He sat up in his recliner in pure shock.
“AAHHH!” Solovyov screamed at the top of his lungs. “Aaeebooovgoohaahzzeerttaahh?!” Because the spell required a language to be spoken in order for the subject to know what language he knew best. Alexander calmly collected himself, and hastily spoke to Solovyov.
“Andrei, get a hold of yourself!” He yelled sternly. “You’re safe now, just relax and stay calm.”
All the gears in Solovyov’s head began to mentally turn as he heard the English spoken by his friend.
“Why can’t I speak Russ-!“He cut off his speech as he heard himself speak like everybody he had seen within the last two days, and grasped his mouth with his hand.
“I… can speak… English? But how do I… even know how to… speak it, or even understand it?” Solovyov stammered through his speech. After the few moments that had passed, Solovyov finally recognized the face of the man to which he was speaking.
“A-Alexander?” He asked. “H-How are you… Is this Heaven? I thought you were… dead…”
Alexander had thought about for a moment whether he should lie to his long-time friend and tell him this was Earth, and the last handful of years of his life was just a dream that occurred in one night. He decided not to make the situation any worse than it was, and told him the truth.
“Andrei… I actually have no idea whether this is a Heaven or not. I somehow… some way ended up here after I died in that horrific accident. I’m not entirely aware of how you came to arrive here-“He was stopped from speaking by Solovyov walking over to him and giving him the biggest hug he had ever given somebody. Alexander hugged back, ignoring the rules of bro hugs.
“It’s been too long, Alexander,” he said in a weary voice, a single teardrop extruding from his eye.
Alexander sighed, “Agreed.” The two separated as they both heard the sound of hoof steps enter the room.
“Well, I’m sorry to separate such a wonderful reunion,” Twilight intervened. “But we still have to get everything straightened out.”
“Like what?” Solovyov asked.
“We need to do with you what we’ve done with every other human that has arrived here: interrogate you, in a nutshell.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“Yes. I’ll go get my other five friends; they love hearing about how the humans come here out of nowhere.” Twilight said. “Oh yeah, I just remembered! Do you still happen to know how to speak your old language?”
“You mean Russian?” Solovyov asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, I still remember how to speak it, but not as well as I did before. It’s a feeling similar to knowing secondary language, but having only studied it for two to three years.”
“Oh well, once we’re all at my library, we’ll get you formally acquainted with you, and you can tell us anything and everything you want to.” Twilight explained. “Alexander?” At the sound of hearing his name, Alexander gave her full attention.
“Yes?”
“I need you to walk Solovyov here to my home, if that’s all right with you.” He nodded. “I’ll be with you two when I’ve rounded up all of my friends,” She said as she walked outside towards Ponyville. The door shut.
“Well, I guess we should start heading towards the library,” Alexander said.
“Okay,” Solovyov replied.
* * * * *
Alexander and Solovyov walked outside, as the evening sun was fairly high over the sunset. It was late, but not ‘sunset turning into night’ late. Only silence lingered between the two, and it was getting rather uncomfortable because one wanted to ask the other about how they got here, to Equestria. Solovyov eventually broke the ice.
“So,” Solovyov said. “Lovely weather we’re having.”
“Yes, the weather is quite nice this evening.” Alexander replied. Silence once again lingered between the two for a few more minutes, and Solovyov spoke again.
“There is just…” Solovyov spoke and paused, “so much I want to ask you, and Twilight.”
“Wait, how do you kno-“He stopped mid-sentence after his train of thought arrived at its destination. “Oh, I forgot. My Little Pony was a show. It’s just been too long since I’ve thought about anything from Earth.”
After a few more minutes of walking, they arrived in the actual town of Ponyville.
“Understood,” Solovyov replied. “When we get to the library, I hope we can get everything settled between me and the ponies.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem; don’t worry about it.” Alexander said in a reassuring tone. The two humans eventually made it to the library, which had a ‘closed’ sign in the window, opened the door and walked in. They saw the main foyer of the library had a couch and two chairs, so Solovyov took one chair, while Alexander sat on the couch.
* * * * *
“Rainbow, you up there?!” Twilight shouted to the cloud home above her.
“Yeah, yeah, what is it?” Rainbow called down.
“We got the new human to speak English!”
“Great! But why are you telling me this, exactly?”
“I’m rounding up all of my friends so we can hear what he has to say. Meet us at the Library, if you could.”
“Okay, I’ll be there soon.”
* * * * *
Twilight knocked four times on the farm houses’ front door, and Applejack appeared.
“Howdy, Twi’,” She said. “How’ve you been?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Listen, I’m gather you and the others at the library so we can see what the new human has to say.”
“Wait, new human?” Applejack asked. “What’s this about a new human?”
“Oh, right. Nopony has told you yet. Well, long story short, a new human arrived today and I think he’s sane enough to stay, unlike the others.”
“Ah.Well, I’ll be at th’ library soon. Meet ya there.”
“Okay.”
Twilight went to Pinkie Pie’s, Fluttershy’s, and Rarity’s house afterwards, and told them all to meet her at the library to listen what the new human had to say. Since Rarity was Twilight’s last stop for the night before going back to the library, she walked with her instead of leaving to meet up with her later.
* * * * *
After about thirty-five minutes, the Main Six eventually arrived at the library one by one, each taking a seat somewhere in the foyer of the library. Alexander took notice that Solovyov was getting more and more nervous with each new pony that entered. Though he knew exactly who they were, he still couldn’t overcome his shyness, even when it was the ponies he’s always wanted to talk to.
“Don’t worry Andrei,” Alexander whispered to him, “These are probably the nicest creatures you will ever meet in your lifetime. There’s no real reason to fear them.” At his words, Solovyov eventually calmed down a bit. At last, everypony arrived, and all eyes were on Solovyov.
Twilight left momentarily to go get refreshments for everybody and pony that was there. She retrieved a platter of cookies and a pitcher lemonade for all present to enjoy for the long talk that await them and placed them on a small coffee table in the center of the room.
“Girls,” Twilight started, “I would like to introduce you to a new human who might possibly be staying with us for a while like Alexander here. Please welcome Equestria’s first…” She paused for dramatic effect, “…Russian.”
All of Twilight’s friends stared at her with a clueless expression, much like how they did whenever she told them anything that had to do with magic or advanced studies.
“Well, go ahead! Go say hello; he won’t bite. Trust me, he isn’t like the others.” One by one, Twilight’s friends got up and went to go properly meet Solovyov. Applejack was first.
“Why hello, sir,” Applejack said. “The name’s Applejack, and I run Sweet Apple Acres down here in Ponyville.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Solovyov in a hardly audible voice, but still comprehendible. Applejack went back to take her seat, and Rarity was next to meet him.
“Hello, darling,” She started. “It’s very nice to meet a new human who isn’t like all of those other nasty ones. Anyway, I run the Carousel Boutique just down the street from here. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! Would you like some cupcakes? I could sure go for some of those right now. OH MY GOSH I just realized! You’re new, and I have to throw a party for every new friend I make! I hope we can become great friends, I just know we will! Oh, and I also run Sugarcube Corner while Mr. and Mrs. Cake aren’t around,” She said at a mile a minute.
“Uh… Yes,” Solovyov replied, not catching all of what Pinkie has said.
“Hi. I’m, uh, Rainbow Dash,” She said feeling slightly ashamed. “I’m a weather Pegasus and I wanted to say that I’m sorry for how I treated you earlier. I was just getting frustrated at the fact I couldn’t speak to you.”
“It’s okay,” Solovyov said, “It’s all in the past now; no need to keep worrying about it.”
“…” Fluttershy stood in front of the sitting Solovyov, and said nothing with her mane slightly covering her eyes. She nor Solovyov had said nothing for a whole minute, and the tension was starting to get think enough to cut with a knife. Neither one could find the courage to speak up first.
“Uhm…” Solovyov started. “I’m Andrei Solovyov. What’s you’re name?” He asked, already knowing her name, but just trying desperately to get this introduction done and over with.
“Um… My name is… Flutthumhm…”
“Come again?”
“My name is Fluttershhumhmm.”
“I’m sorry, one more time please?”
*squeal*
“Her name is Fluttershy,” Twilight intervened, “As you can tell, she’s very shy when meeting new ponies, or people in this case.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Just so that you know, the princess has asked me - as of a few encounters with other humans ago – to send a short bio of each human that arrives here to her. She’s very busy running a country most of the time, and doesn’t have the time to really meet new arrivals first-hand. If she likes the bio I write, then she may or may not take the time out of her schedule to come meet him or her.”
“…Seems reasonable.”
“Okay,” Twilight said, “Care to tell me and my friends a little about you?”
“Okay. Well… My name is Andrei Solovyov and I am a native to the country of Russia on Earth. I used to speak a language by the name of ‘Russian’, but due to recent event I can miraculously speak English as a primary language. I use to work for my government as a physicist and, to be honest, didn’t have much of a social life. I had only one true friend, but he was hundreds of miles away from me. I’ve been living my life one day at a time, just trying to make it without collapsing over my own depression.” He stopped, signaling Twilight that he was finished talking about himself for the time being.
“…Okay, finished!” Twilight said, wrapping the parchment and sealing it with a special royal seal.
“So… I was thinking about how this discussion is going to work. Do you just… ask me questions, and I answer them? Or do you want me to go through my life one day at a time?”
“I was planning on us just asking questions about you and your life, if that’s all right with you,” Twilight said.
“Oh it’s perfectly fine, just try not to dig too deep if something is too painful to talk about- OH YES!” Solovyov stopped midsentence, “I remember that I needed to ask you something: do you have my computer lying about somewhere?”
“Yes, it’s upstairs in my room if you want me to retrieve it for you.”
“Thank you, very much appreciated.” Twilight left the room after Solovyov said his thanks, and came back with a medium-sized bag on her back which contained his laptop. The bag floated with Twilight’s magic into his lap, and he took it out.
“Ever since I figured out this was-“He stopped himself before speaking, “Wait… do you all know that you’re all-“
“-A children’s cartoon television show in your world? Yes. You don’t need to really hide everything from us. The first human that appeared here told us all about… well, us , and just accepted it. Though it was quite an awkward feeling knowing that thousands of people were watching us, it passed fairly quickly. I haven’t even thought about it up until you mentioned it.”
“Ah,” Solovyov said flatly. “Well, as I was saying: ever since I figured out I was in Equestria, I’ve wondered if the rumors were true, that internet wasn’t accessible here.”
“What’s this ‘internet’?” Applejack asked out of the blue.
“Well, let me try and explain. Do you see my computer here?” Applejack nodded in reply. “Good. Well, imagine that millions upon millions of these were connected wirelessly, and information could be exchanged through those wireless connections with hundreds of thousands of other people.”
“I kinda get whatch’er sayin’: so it’s like our telegraphs, but wireless?” She asked.
“Yes, exactly, but it’s just with much, much more data than simple messages,” Solovyov said as he proceeded to power up his laptop. The others present, excluding Alexander, stared in awe as they laid eyes upon the first computer to arrive in Equestria.
“Now, if what I’m thinking will happen does happen-“He stopped short when he saw a small, yellow text bubble appear from the computer icon at the bottom, right hand corner of his screen.
“Sweet mother of all things good and holy…” Solovyov whispered in an anxious tone under his breath.
“What is it?” Pinkie asked. “DID YOU FIND A SURPRISE?! I LOVE SURPRISES!”
“Well… It’s a surprise, all right; just not the surprise I was expecting. Twilight, from what I explained earlier, the internet doesn’t exist here, correct?”
“Right.”
“I don’t even know how this is physically possible! A choodisak ya pokazvam! (Oh the wonders I will show you! )”
“What… was that?” Rarity asked as similarly as Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, but at a different time.
“Oh um… sorry about that. I got carried away for a moment. What you heard in the second half of my previous sentence was my native language, Russian. But, the reason why I was so excited?” Solovyov asked. “I’m excited because I have an internet connection, which should be physically impossible here! Back in my home world, Internet required two things: a modem and a router. In a nutshell, they take in and direct internet traffic, but since they don’t exist here, I’m not entirely sure how this even works at all. Answering your questions have just now become ninety-nice percent easier.”
“Why would the internet make answering questions easier?” Fluttershy asked.
“Why would it become easier?” Solovyov asked in an almost mocking tone, “The answer is simple: I search it.”
“How would you ‘search’ something?”
Solovyov turned his laptop on his lap so that all present could have a view of the screen while he could still see it himself.
“You see, people use a program call an ‘internet browser’. It allows people from all over the world to look through all of the information on the internet, and view whatever they want to see!” He opened his internet browser. “For example, let us just say I wanted to gather information on… let’s use a tree.” He proceeded to type ‘tree’ in the search bar. “When I search a term, this search engine automatically pulls articles, and practically anything that has ‘tree’ in it, and displays it all right here for me to view.”
All ponies present had their mouths agape from what they’ve witnessed. Who knew that information didn’t require the consumption of hours to look through a book?
“Twilight,” Solovyov said, “I want to show you a specific site on the internet I think particularly you will love.” He proceeded to go to the web address bar, and typed in Wikipedia’s web url.
“What exactly is this?” Twilight asked, tilting her head slightly to one side.
“This, Twilight Sparkle, is your new best friend.” Twilight was even more confused at this comparison.
“Why would it be my new best friend?”
“This is a place where you can look up nearly all information on anything you desire. Do you want to know about all dictators known to my race? It’s here. Need information on all species of trees in my world? It’s there. Want to see how the television show that stars you six came to be? All right here on a single page.” Twilight’s irises expanded wider and wider until nearly her entire eye was a black saucer with a slim violet rim.
“I knew you would love it.”
“Andrei?” Rainbow asked. “Would you mine if we watched, well, that television show that stars us? I don’t know about you guys, but I’m really curious to see it and how similar or different we are.”
“Same,” all other ponies agreed.
“Okay, okay, one moment,” Solovyov said as he began to type YouTube’s url and search the first and second episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. After an hour had passed, each ponies’ reactions was a grab bag of emotions: shock, confusion, worry and many others.
“So…” Solovyov trailed, “What do you think?”
“…” They all remained silent.
“It was rather… eye-opening,” Twilight said. “How exactly did they know… that much about us?”
“That I do not know.”
“Let’s not linger on this topic,” Twilight said, “Is there anything else you want to ask us, or have us ask you?”
“Yes, that was another thing I forgot: to whom exactly are you referring when you say ‘other humans’?” Solovyov asked.
Twilight shuttered at his question. “Oh, them. Well, as you can probably tell, we’re referring to the previous humans who somehow made it to Equestria. There were some good… and some which shouldn’t even be mentioned because of what they did. Girls, you know what I’m talking about, right?”
All of Twilight’s friends nodded their heads.
“From what we know, all humans who have been seen here arrived through death. So that leads me to the next question for you: how exactly did you come to be here?”
“You see, when a male and a female love each other very much…” Solovyov said jokingly. Everyone present, including Alexander, laughed until they started to shed tears.
“But in all seriousness,” Solovyov started. “I never really meant to come here at all. Remember how I said I worked for my country’s government as a physicist? We were working on my world’s first trans-dimensional teleportation device, only because of my world’s current situation: the world was being torn apart by the world’s two most powerful countries in war. We had to find a way to save some people by sending them to what we believed would be an alternate Earth, my home planet. Apparently an earthquake just happened to bury the lab in which we were working, and I jumped through the only change I received. I thought I arrived at the promised alternate Earth, but I was overcome with joy I was in Equestria.”
Solovyov paused to think about what to say next.
“And then everything that has happened to me recently happened, so here we are.”
“So what happened to everyone in the lab?” Pinkie asked with a sad expression.
“Well, I’m not sure. I presume they’re all probably dead. Twilight, I also wanted to ask you something. I-In my subconscious, while I was under that thing you placed on me-“
“-Spell.”
“Spell,” Solovyov corrected himself, “I saw something that I’m not sure how to explain…”
“If I read the description of the spell correctly, which I’m sure I did, the receiver of the spell might experience hallucinations. What exactly did you see in your subconscious?”
“…My parents,” Solovyov said, starting to develop tears.
“We’re they that important to you?”
He sighed in sadness, “Yes; they were the most important people I have known in my entire life...”
“It may seem rude of me to ask, but… did they… pass of natural causes?”
He sighed again. “No… far from it…” He began to tell the short story of what exactly happened on that fateful day.
* * * * *
It was a very beautiful and pleasantly warm summer day in Volgograd, Russia. The year in1998, and Andrei Solovyov is with his mother and father, the latter driving the family LADA 110. The sky was as blue as can be; cloudless and filled with sunshine. The birds were chirping their songs, and the mood everywhere was lively. At this time, Solovyov is the age of nine.
Today was the final day Solovyov’s father had before he was required to meet the President of Russia to discuss what was to be done with the Russian-American War. He was a General-Mayor (Equivalent rank of Major General) in the Russian military.
“Say… why don’t we all go out for ice cream?” Solovyov’s father asked in a care-free tone.
“That sounds like a good idea, Andrei?” His mother replied, and then asked.
“Yes please!” He replied in a giddy tone.
“Then it’s settled.” Solovyov’s father took a right on the next street, and drove about seven minutes until they reached the neighborhood ice cream parlor. They all got out of the car, walked inside to the counter, and started to place their orders. Because Mr. Solovyov was wearing his uniform, he was given a special military discount out of the goodwill of the cashier. “Okay, your total is-“She stopped because an armed man charged into the parlor with a loaded .44 magnum in his hand.
“We must not go to war with the Americans!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, “I will go to prison for murder if that is what it takes to spread the word!” He fired four shots from his pistol; one hitting each Solovyov’s mother and father, and one taking a good chunk of Solovyov’s left ear. He was tackled to the ground by a citizen, making the forth shot fire into the ceiling.
“Mother… F-Father!” Solovyov groaned as he crawled his way over to his parents’ sides.
“Oh my little Andrei…” Mr. Solovyov moaned in pain, “It does not… look like we will survive… I… I want you to have this.” He pulled out a small gilded cross on a gold chain from around his neck that was hidden under his coat. Solovyov, at this point, was bawling out his eyes from how much he wanted his parents to stay.
“I’ll hold on to it for my life,” Solovyov said chokingly through his tears. Police officers arrived and arrested the man who shot at him and his parents, paramedics arriving very soon afterwards to take the wounded to the hospital. Solovyov’s parents were pronounced dead on scene, and he himself was told he would have a large portion of his left ear missing, leaving a very noticeable would/scar if not covered by some for of headwear or hair.
Andrei Solovyov was eventually taken to an orphanage, and grew up to become the physicist he is today.
* * * * *
Everybody and pony had at least some tears in their eyes as Solovyov finished his depressing memoir.
“I… I’m sorry for asking…” Twilight said trying her hardest to hold back her tears.
“It’s okay, Twilight.” He sighed, “To this day… I still have that scar and my father’s necklace.” He turned his head to the right and moved his hair behind his ear, revealing an ear with much of the upper portion of it missing. He then revealed the gold cross necklace around his neck, still stained with his father’s blood.
“Uh… Please excuse me, I need a moment,” Solovyov said as he started to well up tears in his eyes and walk outside into the now late night.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Alexander said as he went after Solovyov.
Equestria's First... Russian?
Chapter 6 - The Grieving Process
A/N: Sorry for the wait, but I'm quite busy with summer school work at the moment, and sorry that it isn't longer. SPOILER: There will be some conflict later in the story. New chapter will be out later sometime. Also, this helps me think more clearly to write; helped with most of this chapter.
Equestria’s First… Russian?
Chapter Six
The Grieving Process
The night at this time was the most peaceful for anybody to ask: The sky was cloudless, the stars shone like bright candles in the window, the moon shone brightly, and the wind blew ever so gently across the town, creating consuming tranquil feelings to whoever’s skin it brushed. Absolutely nothing could ruin the night’s peaceful feeling; nothing at all.
All residents of the town were fast asleep and in their own individual dream lands, save for two humans, six ponies, and one baby dragon.
The door to Twilight’s library was opened by Alexander as he just stood in the doorway, looking out into the night. “I’ll return when I find him,” he said.
“Good luck,” Twilight responded. And with that, Alexander walked outside, gently closing the door behind him. As he stood outside, right next to the door, he closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled deeply, and heavily sighed.
Alexander walked slowly into Luna’s night, absorbing all of his surroundings while still searching for Solovyov. “He couldn’t have wandered too far,” he spoke to himself.
* * * * *
Solovyov was walking through the night, looking up into the stars as if he would see his parents’ smiling faces once more. He was sobbing quietly, careful not to make too much of a scene to wake up everybody else in the neighborhood. Some shops were still open, even at this late hour, but he didn’t care. He only wanted and needed some time to himself, which was usually all he needed to overcome the sadness created from thinking about his parents’ deaths.
“I know there is no need in grieving over it any longer, but… I just can’t let it go…” Solovyov sobbed quietly to himself. He stumbled across a building that appeared to be a restaurant of some sort. He didn’t care where he was at this point; he only wanted to be away from everybody for a while, so he entered. To his surprise, the thought-to-be restaurant turned out to be a small bar.
“Ponies have bars? Wow, never saw that one coming,” Solovyov said to himself quietly.
He decided to stay for a while, and walked up to the only other pony in the bar, the bartender.
“What’ll ya have?” The bartender asked. “Wait… You’re not from around here, ain’t cha?””You don’t say? When was the last time you saw a six-foot-six Russian walk into your bar at…” He took a quick glance at the clock above the shelves filled with liquor. ”Three-thirty at night?”
“Uh… Yes, I’m not from around here. May I please just have a glass of ice water?” Solovyov asked politely and in a saddened voice.
“Sure.” The bartender grabbed a medium sized glass and filled it with three ice cubes and water.
“Thanks,” Solovyov replied as he received the glass of water.
“Are you all right?” The pony behind the counter asked.
Solovyov sighed, “Yes, I’m fine. Old memories just… came back into my head, and I just want a moment to get away from it all.”
“Eh, Okay. I’ll just leave you to yourself, then,” he said as he walked into the back room of the bar.
Solovyov sat in the red-cushioned bar stool staring at his water for what felt like the longest time, his mind swimming in how own thoughts.
”I know, I know,” he thought to himself, ”Why I am still depressed now, I have no idea. Maybe because of my love life situation? I mean, sure! It’s a terrible thought knowing my parents were assassinated, but that was twenty-nine years ago! The assassin was killed for his crimes, but… I don’t know… it’s not something I like to bring up. All I just wish is to see their smiling, happy faces one more time-“ His train of thought was run off of its tracks as he heard the front door of the bar open behind him.
* * * * *
“Where the hell is that man?” Alexander asked himself, frustrated. It’s been about two hours now since he left Twilight and her friends to go look for him, and has not had any luck in finding Solovyov after he stormed away. He left virtually no trace of his presence anywhere, and that made it all the more difficult to find him.
Alexander stood in the street, eyes closed, thinking where Solovyov could have gone. ”If I were upset over my parents’ deaths, it’s late at night, and I storm out into the night in a town, where would I go?” He face palmed when he figured out the what seemed to be obvious answer. “A bar.”
Alexander picked up his pace and walked to Ponyville’s one and only bar. Since Ponyville was a relatively small town, and it didn’t have many drinkers, the bar was often bypassed and didn’t get many customers.
“Would he even know if a bar existed in this world?” Alexander asked himself as he approached the bar’s front entrance. He opened the glass front doors, causing a small brass bell to ring, signaling a customer had entered. Solovyov turned to see who had entered, and seeing Alexander somewhat did and didn’t surprise him.
The bar was beginning to feel slightly too humid for Solovyov, so the fresh breeze of air from outside was a pleasant feeling on his skin.
“Hey Andrei,” Alexander greeted.
Solovyov sighed, “Hello.” Alexander took a seat on the stool next to him. “Look, I’m sorry for just getting up and leaving like that. I know I said that it wouldn’t be a problem telling them about my parents, but even after twenty-nine years, I still can’t get over it.”
“Here; let’s get out of here and go to one of my favorite resting spots. I think on a night like tonight, it’s just what you need.” Alexander said.
“Fine…” Solovyov said, leaving his half-full glass of water on the counter and getting up to Follow Alexander.
“Alcohol really isn’t supposed to help any form of sadness you know?”
“It was water,” Solovyov replied in monotone.
“…Oh.”
Alexander and Solovyov made their trek through Ponyville, taking in any and all sights and feelings around it. The peaceful breeze gently blowing, the cloudless sky, the bright and beautiful stars, the crisp and clean air, and the perfect temperature made tonight one of the best nights anybody has ever experienced. Alexander didn’t feel it was necessary to tell Twilight and the others where they were and what they were doing just because he felt he should pay more attention to his obviously still distressed friend.
Eventually, after leaving Ponyville and walking about a mile, the two humans saw one lone, tall, wise and proud tree sitting on top of a fairly lush hill. The breeze was rustling its leaves and the moon giving it a chance to cast its shadow on the land below.
“So what do you think about my own personal spot?” Alexander asked smugly.
Solovyov stood in awe of the breathtaking sight before him. “It’s… beautiful. I wish I could describe it more, but that’s the one word that fits it perfectly: beautiful.”
“I come here to think whenever I need to. Anyway, let’s go take a seat near the tree.”
Both men continued their walk to the tree, all while making slight indents in the short, green grass as they walked. After ten more minutes of continuous walking the two reached the tree and took a seat next to each other, leaning against the trunk as a back support. The trunk was thick enough for both of them to lean on it while sitting next to each other, and not face entirely different directions.
Alexander released a soft sigh, and both let an uneasy silence wash over. After a minute had passed, Alexander decided to break the silence, “This may seem like an obliviously stupid question, but how are you feeling?” Alexander asked in a low tone of voice.
Solovyov sighed, staring into the night sky before him. “I don’t know how I should feel at this point. Should I really still be distressed over my parents’ murders? That was twenty-nine years ago… I feel like such a child just wanting to clutch onto this and not letting it go for so long.”
Alexander could pick up every trace of sadness in his voice. “I’m right there with you.”
“Wait, what?”
“I said I’m right there with you,” Alexander replied and sighed. “I’ve been gone for God knows how many years, and I can hardly get over the fact I was never able to say goodbye to my parents before I was… killed.”
“I don’t know if you were able to, well, look down on me or not after you died, but I attended your funeral.”
“In Germany? All the way from Volgograd?”
“Yes.”
“Wow… I really appreciate that, though it really doesn’t make much of a difference now,” Alexander said before pausing briefly. “I’m still dead,” he said jokingly. Solovyov gave a light chuckle in response.
“That is one thing that still baffles me, even now,” Solovyov said with genuine confusion in his voice, “I’m still alive, and you’ve passed. How can we, for lack of a better phrase, physically view each other? How can I put my hand on your shoulder? How can I-“
“Yeah… that’s something I wouldn’t worry about too much,” Alexander said cutting him off. “Just be glad we’re able to speak to each other.”
Solovyov sighed, “Well, getting back onto the reason we came here, would you like to know what I do to remember somebody I’ve lost?”
“If you think it helps you, then go ahead.”
“I always try to view nature as my loved ones.”
Confused by this, Alexander asked, “What? How exactly do you accomplish that?”
Solovyov started to develop tears as he remembered every way he remembered his parents. “I used to always feel the sun’s warmth as my parents smiling and hugging me. Whenever the wind blew, I always thought of my parents giving me a hug, or holding my hand,” Solovyov explained as his voice was started to become choked with sadness.
“And tonight, as I look up at the moon, they show me along the right path, even in total darkness. It feels as if tonight my parents prepared this night just for me.”
Alexander sat in silence for a few minutes as he took in what Solovyov had said to him, and tried to view nature as his loved ones.
“Wow,” Alexander whispered to himself. “I feel like… they’re all with me. Thanks, Andrei.”
“Andrei?”
Solovyov had his arms crossed across his chest, and his held tilted downward.
Alexander sighed in comfort. “Good idea. It’s getting late anyway.”
The two fell asleep together leaning against the tree’s wide trunk almost effortlessly as the night cradled them in her loving arms.
Equestria's First... Russian?
Chapter 7 - The Search Continues
A/N: Sorry about not getting this out earlier, but I’ve been distracted with Lord of the Flies (now finished) and several stories in my now-shrinking read later list, one of which was Yours Truly (very, very good read for 18k words). Bittersweetness. ‘Nuff said. Tell me if I accidentally made any mistakes; I wrote most of this after 11 p.m. to midnight on some days.
Equestria’s First… Russian?
Chapter Seven
The Search Continues
Late 2027, Moscow, Russia
The panic of the war had already set in among the citizens of every nation. Everywhere, houses were being boarded by their owners, and said owners stockpiled non-perishable goods, medical supplies, and various other items. Others were even building their own fallout shelters. There was only one man who still had faith in winning this war, even though over one-fourth of the country’s population had been exterminated.
The Russian President was in the presidential fallout shelter under the Kremlin Senate building in Moscow, Russia planning battle tactics along with his employees.
In the distance everybody could hear foot steps pounding against the tile floor, indicating that somebody was running very fast.
Eventually, the person who was running arrived where the President had been; sweat protruding from his armpits and on his legs, making his military officer uniform stick very uncomfortably to his skin.
He huffed and puffed until he caught his breath and was able to speak properly, which took about one whole minute.
“Sir!” he said though his uneven breaths.
“Yes, what is it?” the president asked.
“I have… some very good… and bad news…”
The President’s heart sank. “What. Is it?” he said more sternly.
“Bad news: the Americans are planning one final assault that will most likely end the war for us, and they will end up victorious.”
The President sighed at this new. “And the good news?”
“You remember the assault on Volgograd, correct?”
“Yes; it wasn’t one of our best moments. Not to mention our laboratory was destroyed along with the trans-dimensional teleporter inside.”
“Yesterday, we finished clearing out the entire place of debris and bodies, but we… came up one body short, and a government computer went missing.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“We recently discovered that the trans-dimensional teleportation device had been activated before it was crushed by debris. Somebody used it before it was crushed, Mr. President.”
“Could you please get to the point? I don’t have all day.”
“Fine. We picked up a connection from the missing laptop… In another dimension. We don’t know exactly how this is possible, but we believe the missing person from the wreckage of the lab was able to save himself before everybody was killed. That laptop that he took with him had very valuable information on it about the teleportation device; information that we need in order to rebuild a device that actually works.
“What are you suggesting we do?” the President asked.
“We had a second lab with another trans-dimensional teleportation device in the making, and by this time it should be finished. I’m requesting that we send a unit to the dimension in which the laptop is.
The President leaned over his desk and held his face is his hands. “Are you sure we need back that laptop?”
“Yes, we need it back in order to build a device that will function properly by sending us to the coordinates we want the first time, instead of sending us to some random place.”
The President sighed, “Fine, I’ll commission you two tanks and a squadron of twenty men. I’m not sure where this missing person is, and I highly doubt you do, so this is just for safety precautions.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. We’ll try our best to bring him back alive.”
“Who is the missing person, anyway?” the President asked.
“Andrei Solovyov,” the military officer responded.
”Solovyov?” the President asked in disbelief. “His father was the General Mayor of the President… three elections ago?”
“Huh, I can’t believe I didn’t realize that sooner,” the officer responded. “But do not worry; we will have him back soon enough.”
“Good, now please leave me to my work.” With that, the military officer walked out of the room leaving the President to plan out how he could make a comeback in this war.
* * * * *
Alexander and Solovyov were both deep in a peaceful slumber as they both leaned against the tree on top of the small hill on which they sat. A light layer of morning dew covered each individual layer of grass. The sun started to slowly rise in the east, and rays of sunlight glistened as they reached the dew. The gentle breeze had stopped blowing. Alexander had woken up when the day’s first light had reached his eyes.
He gently nudged and shook Solovyov to attempt to wake him from his slumber.
“Andrei? Andrei; wake up.”
Solovyov mumbled under his breath, “Urghm… I don’t wanna go to school… Five more minutes…”
“Andrei, Come on!” Alexander said raising his voice slightly.
“Huh, what?” Solovyov said as he tried to remember where he was.
“You fell asleep last night. We should probably be getting back to Twilight’s home, don’t you think?”
Solovyov smacked his lips in need of a drink. “Yes, I suppose it is time we head back. I suppose I should probably apologize to Twilight for keeping her waiting for us all night.”
“Pfft! That’s what she said!” Alexander snickered in glee.
“Suppose I walked right into that one!” Solovyov replied trying to hold in a chuckle. He and Alexander both got up. Solovyov cleared the highly uncomfortable eye crust that infested his eyes as they began their trek home.
Solovyov remembered that he still had some questions for Twilight, but abruptly left before he could ask.
“Alexander, could you answer a few more questions for me before we arrive at Twilight’s home?”
“Sure; what would you like to know?”
“It’s just that… I find it a little weird that I am walking around ponies in the streets. We’re all at least two and a half times their height. How are they not fazed by seeing us?”
“That’s most likely due to the fact that there have been other human’s here, even before me.”
“Exactly how many?”
“Including you, me and the other human, there have been exactly twenty-seven humans to have arrived in Equestria.”
Solovyov nearly fainted at the answer. “Twenty-seven?” he asked as if he was hearing that a wooden chair made from oak was priced at seven hundred and fifty dollars. “I do not even feel like asking, but I will anyway. What happened to them?”
“I’m not even entirely sure myself. All twenty-seven known humans have appeared at some place in this world, whether it is Canterlot, Ponyville, Manehattan, or any other settlement, they’ve been spotted.
Nobody and nopony really knows how they got here. Some of the humans that arrived here said they died in some way, shape or form, while some others that appeared to be mentally psychotic said they built this world out of their own imagination,” Alexander explained in detail.
“So where are they?”
“This may or not sound fortunate to you, but they were all either executed, or were thrown into dungeons for how they acted. A few of them even attempted murder because they were cold and hungry, wanting to use their meat for food and hide for warmth.
Princess Celestia and Luna tried everything in their power to prevent humans from being a known species in Equestria, but all attempts have failed to do so.”
“So is it because you, I and the other human have a good enough character the reason why we’re not locked in holding cells?”
“That reason is true, and because we’re from a more modern, civilized form of the world.”
“What do you mean?” Solovyov asked quizzically.
“Let me think for a moment,” Alexander said, ”Okay, Andrei was human twenty-seven, I was human twenty-six, Coal was human twenty-five, and from what time period did human twenty-four come? Oh, right!
The twenty-fourth human appeared to be from the early fourteenth century. Every human including him, before then, were people who hunted for their food. You, Coal and I were from a civilized world, about seven hundred years later, where we bought food from supermarkets and surf the internet on a daily basis.
Ponies around the world tried teaching them to be more civilized, but they all caved after the first week; and not to mention we didn’t have any translation spells to use, so we couldn’t understand what they were saying.”
“I understand,” Solovyov replied while massaging his temples with his index and middle fingers, “I’m staring to get a headache from all this information.”
“And right on time, too,” Alexander said as they walked up to Twilight’s front door.
“Wow. We’re here already? I didn’t even remember walking into town! Anyway, I have two more questions that are still bothering me.”
“Ask away,” Alexander said in a carefree tone.
“Why exactly was there a seven hundred year gap between human arrivals?”
“The alicorn sisters did try to stop them from arriving and succeeded for a while, but after seven hundred years of a magical redirection, they started showing up again for no apparent reason.”
“Have you tried sending any back?”
“Been there; done that. Doesn’t work. Trust me, we’ve tried before, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t succeed,” Alexander stated blandly.
Alexander opened the door to possibly the cutest d’aww moment he had ever seen. Before him were five sleeping ponies sprawled out around the library’s main foyer; Pinkie Pie’s head resting against Rarity’s side as a pillow, and Fluttershy making the most adorable snoring sound to ever reach a human ear. The only pony not asleep was Twilight, whose main was slightly frayed at some ends, and had bags under her eyes from staring at the bright screen of Solovyov’s laptop all night.
Twilight was so focused on whatever she was doing she didn’t hear Alexander speak, “Twilight?”
“Twilight...!”
No response.
”Twilight!”
“Wait, what?” Twilight asked becoming aware of Alexander and Solovyov returning. “When did you two get back?”
“We walked in not even one minute ago,” Alexander replied melancholy.
“Have I been using this thing all night ?” Twilight asked herself in disbelief.
Solovyov interrupted Twilight’s train of thought with a deep sigh, “Twilight, I’m sorry I stormed out like that, and for making the rest of your friends stay here if you all waited for me.”
“Oh don’t worry about it,” Twilight replied, “digging into that kind of subject is difficult for anypony; no matter how rock solid their emotions are.”
“Thanks for understanding. So… for what exactly have you been using my laptop?”
“I’ve just been doing typical research on your race and world: famous people, geography, society and whatnot. No offense, but your race is one messed up group.”
“None taken,” Solovyov replied.
“Twilight, I would hate to be a bother to you, but do you… have a shower I may use?” Solovyov asked, his face turning a light shade of red.
“Go ahead. It’s up the stairs, second door on the right,” Twilight explained.
Solovyov replied, “Thanks” as he proceeded to follow Twilight’s directions to her bathroom. Much to his own surprise, the room was not very far off from resembling a typical bathroom on Earth. Other than the size difference, the room had a toilet, sink, towel rack, a bathtub with a shower curtain, and a very small window used for ventilation.
Solovyov left his clothes in a pile on the floor and proceeded to take a shower. Once finished, he stepped out, dried off, and got dressed in what he’s been wearing for the past few days since his arrival. He walked back downstairs into the library’s main foyer, where Twilight and her friends were now fully awake; them being gathered around Twilight for a small pep talk.
“This is the last time we’re going out on a search. If we don’t find Mr. Snapple this time through, we’re done. I can’t think of any other place he would be.”
After Twilight paused, Solovyov asked, “Who are you looking for again?”
“The father of a family: Mr. Snapple. He’s been missing for at least a week now, and we’ve searched the Everfree Forest every day since he went missing.”
“Do you need any help?”
“Well, if you want to I guess you could come along and help,” Twilight said. “Be warned, if you’re really sure you want to help us, we’re searching the Everfree Forest. Since you ‘watched’ us on your world, you should know of its dangers?”
“It didn’t seem too scary from what I’ve viewed,” Solovyov replied cockily. “How bad could it be?”
* * * * *
Solovyov, Alexander, and the Main Six gawked upon the Everfree Forest as it stood before them. Solovyov could only stare forward into the ever-expanding blackness that resided among the trees. His expression very closely resembled the poker face on the internet as he remembered reading several creepy pasta stories.
”Why would somebody decide it to be a good idea to go for a picnic in this forest?” Solovyov asked himself mentally.
“Good question,” Pinkie said out of nowhere. Solovyov stared at Pinkie with a “what the buck?” expression.
“Listen,” Twilight said after Pinkie’s random outburst, “we’re going to split into two teams and search in the one area we haven’t searched yet: the ponies will take the west section, Alexander and Andrei will take the east section. Understood?” All ponies and humans present muttered an agreement.
Solovyov looked towards Alexander with a slight look of worry. “Don’t worry, Andrei. I’ve read a few books on the species in this forest; we’ll be fine as long as we have our light source,” he explained as he took out his oil lantern.
“We’ll travel along the main path for about one and a half miles, then we’ll split up then,” Twilight said.
Everybody and pony proceeded to travel along the main path while Twilight and Rarity led the pack with light emitting from their horns. They eventually reached the desired point at which they would split up, and did so. Solovyov felt even more fearful of the unknown as he and Alexander were left alone in the dark forest.
“What does this ‘Mr. Snapple’ look like, Alexander?” Solovyov asked as his voice trembled slightly.
“He has a black mane and a mud-brown coat. His cutie mark a hammer and chisel crossed together.”
“Sure, finding that will be easy to find in a pitch black forest,” Solovyov said sarcastically.
As they continued walking, Solovyov stopped in his tracks as he heard a very faint snapping in the blackness beside this. Instinctively, he clutched Alexander’s shoulder for minimal comfort.
“Did you hear that?” Solovyov whispered.
“No. Whatever you heard, it’s probably your fears getting the better of you.”
“I swear I heard something.” Just then, there was a faint, long creaking sound, as if a sneaking child was trying to avoid a squeaky wooden floorboard in the night.
“Now that I heard,” Alexander said turning to Solovyov with a face of concern.
The two continued to tip-toe their way forward for their own safety. They both stopped out of curiosity as the noises they began to hear earlier were directly above them. Alexander and Solovyov dived out of the way as a body entangled in vines fell from the branches of the tree.
They covered their heads with their hands after their dive was completed as they thought a dangerous creature of the Everfree was going to attack them. Alexander recovered from the shock first, and had the courage to look over his shoulders. He did so hastily, in case if it was a way to a quick death.
“Andrei, get up,” he commanded his friend as he saw what fell from the trees. Alexander shined his lantern onto what was before him; it was indeed Mr. Snapple. At first sight, Alexander and Solovyov assumed that he was dead from the look of his wounds: his face had been torn by claws, both forelegs bent in the entirely wrong direction, and a cut had been made along his abdominal area, under his ribs that allowed some of his intestine to slip through.
Solovyov held his hand over his mouth as he continued to gawk at the scene before him. He vomited whatever was left of his breakfast into the undergrowth of the forest.
Alexander sighed, “There is no way he’s alive from the looks of it.”
“Help… me…” Mr. Snapple said with blood gurgling in his throat.
“Sweet Jesus, he’s still alive!” Alexander shouted. “Quick, Solovyov! Help me get him down! I’ll stay down here; you climb the tree and get his limbs untangled.” With that being said, Solovyov quickly recovered and climbed the trees to remove the vines entangling the nearly dead stallion. With every inch he climbed, he tried his best not to breathe the air filled with the scent of blood and look at the body that looks like it should be dead.
Solovyov gagged as he accidently let a breath slip through his nostrils. He made haste and untangle Mr. Snapple as quickly as he could.
“Alexander,” Solovyov said, “be ready to stop his fall, he’ll most likely die if you drop him.”
“I will, just hurry and untangle him.”
Solovyov untangled the last vine around Mr. Snapple’s back right leg, and he fell about eight to ten inches into Alexander’s arms.
“Oof!” Mr. Snapple grunted in extreme pain. Solovyov jumped out of the tree, still trying to hold his breathe.
“We’ve got to get him back, and now; it doesn’t look like he’ll make it if we just sit here,” Alexander explained.
“Right, let’s just get out of here. I can hardly stand the smell of him much longer,” Solovyov replied with watering eyes.
The two proceeded to walk towards the area where the humans split from the ponies to go searching.
When they arrived, Alexander and Solovyov bellowed at the top of their lungs, “TWILIGHT!”
* * * * *
Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity were all searching the plants that lined the thin trail that slithered its way through the Everfree, until they heard two distinct voices call in the distance.
“Twilight…!”
“Ya hear that?” Applejack questioned in worry.
“Yeah, I heard it,” Twilight replied. “They may need our help. Come on, let’s go!”
They all ran as fast as they could towards the two humans’ shouting.
* * * * *
Mr. Snapple coughed up some blood while still being held by Alexander.
“Don’t worry. Twilight and her friends will be here soon enough.” Realization struck Alexander like a rock to the head. “Andrei, If Twilight and her friends don’t show up in about a minute, Snapple here isn’t going to make it. Can I get you to be brave for me?”
“Wait, what?” Solovyov asked quizzically.
“I need to rush Mr. Snapple to the hospital. Can you stay here and wait until Twilight shows up?”
Solovyov was speechless. He wouldn’t have even come here with them in the first place if he knew he was going to be alone. “You want me to be here… alone?”
“Yes. I know it may be asking a lot, but you need to stay here and tell Twilight where I’ve gone.”
Solovyov sighed heavily. “You owe me for this.”
“Look, I’ll make it up to you later, all right? I need to get him to the hospital. Be brave for me, okay?” Those were the words he left for Solovyov to ponder as he took off into the blackness that shrouded the forest.
With Alexander gone, Solovyov could finally breathe without gagging on the smell of Mr. Snapple. Now, he smelled the fresh oxygen that the plants emitted. It was able to calm him slightly, but not by very much as he was still anxious about what lied in the unseen forest.
Solovyov heard the soft rustle of bushes to his left and immediately looked in that direction, shining his lantern that way as well.
“Who’s there?” he called timidly. His body tensed as he physically and mentally prepared himself for an ambush.
“Who’s there?!” he called louder. The rusting continued to grow closer and closer. “Okay… there’s nothing to worry about. Keep calm. From the sounds of the rustling, the creature or whatever it is doesn’t seem to be very large. I think I could take it with my size.
The rustling was now a mere eight yards from his position. Solovyov prepared for the worst.
“There you are!” Twilight called as she and her friends emerged from the bushes.
“Sweet Jesus,” Solovyov sighed in relief, “you gave quite a scare, Twilight. I thought you were an aggressive creature in this forest.” Twilight’s face soon turned into a look of panic as she looked around Solovyov.
“Andrei… don’t. Turn. Around,” she said with a shaky voice. Solovyov felt as if holes were being burned into the back of his head as his arms shivered with immense fear.
“I- Wh-what’s b-behind me?” Solovyov asked.
“It’s a… cockatrice. Don’t turn around,” Twilight commanded.
Solovyov thought of how he and the Main Six could escape this predicament. “Well, people did say I have a stare that could kill if stares did happen to kill… it’s worth a shot…”
“Twilight,” Solovyov started, “I’m about to do something very, very stupid. I’m sorry if this doesn’t work.” Solovyov turned around with his eyes shut, mentally preparing himself for the challenge he was about to take on.
He inhaled and exhaled quietly, increasing the intensity of his breathing as he continued to repeat this process. He opened his eyes, and glared directly into the cockatrice’s eyes, the cockatrice returning the menacing glare. Solovyov wasn’t paying very much attention at all to what was going on behind him, but through the fog of sounds that reached his ears he heard all the girls gasp in shock behind him.
“How is he… not turning to stone yet?” Fluttershy questioned.
“I don’t know,” Twilight responded, “but this is incredible! Fluttershy, I think you might have to have a staring contest soon.” Fluttershy squeed in reply.
The ponies could see the how the staring contest between the cockatrice and the human was going. Somehow – probably through reversed magic – the cockatrice was starting to turn to stone from the feet upwards, but slowly. Solovyov’s feet were just now starting to turn to stone from the soles of his shoes.
Solovyov felt panic starting to rise inside him as he continued to stare, and he feared he may not be able to take on this challenge.
“Shouldn’t we help him?” Rainbow deadpanned.
“We probably should, but I believe he can finish this if he’s actually turning a cockatrice to stone, ” Twilight responded.
“Ah’m ready to buck that thing if need be,” Applejack said.
The fight of stares between Solovyov and the cockatrice raged on for what felt like hours, but in reality it had only been about half an hour. Solovyov’s legs, both of his forearms, and the lower half of his torso had been turned to stone, whilst the cockatrice’s entire body was turned to stone, only leaving his chicken head untouched. That was slowly changing as the cockatrice intensified his glare and sped up the process of Solovyov’s transformation drastically.
Solovyov still kept his glare in place, and intensifies his as well.
“That’s it!” Applejack shouted, “ah’m not standin’ by anymore!” She ran beside the cockatrice and bucked it in its side along its wing. She reeled back in pain as the cockatrice simply fell over in the opposite direction; lifeless and made of stone.
“The hay?” she questioned.
“It’s… stone,” Rainbow said.
“Wait, if it’s stone, then that mean…” Twilight said as she trailed off looking at Solovyov. He hadn’t made any move even after the cockatrice fell over.
“Andrei…?” Twilight said with worry.
“Still… here…” he replied weakly. Twilight increased the amount of light she emitted from her horn to see the full extent of the damage dealt to Solovyov. What she saw was a relief to her; Solovyov’s entire body was made of stone, everything except the area around his mouth and right ear.
“Nose… itches…”
“Well horse apples,” Twilight said, “how are we supposed to get him out of here?”
“We have six backs,” Applejack said dryly.
“Oh, well we’ll just carry him on our backs then. Forewarning; this is probably going to hurt. Everypony get in a straight line, and Rainbow, push the statue over onto our backs and get on the far end to stop him from crushing us.”
“Got it,” Rainbow replied as she proceeded to follow her commands. The almost-entire statue of Solovyov fell over, and Rainbow caught him in time to break his fall and gently lay him across the girls’ backs.
“WAIT!” Applejack exclaimed. “Where’s Alex?”
“Explain… later… not hurt…” Solovyov grunted. The girls breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief as they continued their trek to get Solovyov out of the Everfree unharmed. Well, without dealing any more damage than already done.
* * * * *
Alexander was sprinting as fast as he could, wind blowing back his hair and the buzzing of insect zipping past his ears. He ran towards the daylight at the entrance of the Everfree as if it were a shelter during a sever storm. He relaxed a bit as he reached the entrance, but soon realized he was in a hurry as he looked down at the near-dead stallion in his arms.
He sprinted through the streets of Ponyville to get to the hospital on the other side of town. His nose would have greatly accepted the scent of freshly baked goods as he sped past Sugarcube Corner, but instead was granted the scent of metallic blood that leaked from the stallion’s body.
“We… almost there…?” the stallion grunted through clenched teeth.
Between pants of breathe, Alexander replied, “Almost.” The houses were starting to thin out after a few minutes of nonstop sprinting, signaling that the hospital was getting closer.
“There it is!” Alexander shouted in one quick breathe. He finally made it to the hospital, quickly turned his back to the door, and charged it open before him. A nurse and a doctor were roaming the hallways of the hospital, making their usual patrols as always but stopped to take a glance at the human.
“Get this pony some help!” Alexander shouted. Immediately the nurse ran and got a bed for the stallion within fifteen seconds, and he gently laid the stallion upon it.
“Thank you,” the doctor replied.
Alexander breathed a heavy sigh of relief as they pushed the bed into an operating room, and collapsed on his back onto the floor, relishing the cool feel of the shiny, flat tiles against his skin.
“Almost… there…!” Twilight grunted as they approached the forest entrance slowly. Even with the help of her and Rarity’s levitation spells, they were all still struggling to move Solovyov.
“Gah! Finally!” Twilight grunted as she used her last reserves of energy and thrust Solovyov a few feet in front of the group.
“I think… we can… roll him… from here…” Twilight said between breathes.
“Agreed…” Rainbow panted.
“But first… a five… minute breather…” As she said this, she collapsed onto her stomach, stretching all four legs in a different direction. “When we get close enough… to Ponyville… we get every citizen we can on him… to help…” All ponies nodded their heads in agreement.
The “five-minute breather” turned into a “thirty-minute breather”. Eventually, the girls mustered the strength to push him, and pushed him to the outskirts of Ponyville. It was late evening by then, but still decided to knock on a few doors to gather the strength of a few stallions.
A few did decide it was a good idea to help, even if it meant rolling a probably-one-thousand-pound-almost statue of Solovyov through Ponyville, even in the dead of night.
After four hours - with the help of the few volunteering stallions – they were able to roll Solovyov to Twilight’s library. By this time, the Main Six wanted nothing more than to just collapse from exhaustion.
“Finally…” Twilight sighed in relief.
“Twilight! There you are!” Spike said while walking down the stairs.
“Sorry Spike; I didn’t mean to be out this late, but as you can see,” she gestured to Solovyov, “we ran into some trouble.”
“Oh, oka-“he was interrupted by a belch followed by a letter sealed with the royal seal falling to the floor.
“Oh, a letter,” Twilight said weakly as she floated it over to herself and unrolled it.
“What does it say?” Spike asked.
“All of us need to go see the princess as soon as possible… by tomorrow,” she said while skimming, she stopped mumbling as she read the next part.
“What is it?” Spike repeated.
“And we need to bring Solovyov…” she said with an “are you bucking kidding me” tone. "Great..."
Equestria's First... Russian?
Equestria’s First… Russian?
Chapter Eight
So It Begins
Twilight stared blankly at the letter she received from Princess Celestia. After hearing the news of what they had to do, all ponies present sighed heavily and wore an expression of either anger or annoyance.
“Can we request a chariot from the princess?” Rarity asked.
“Wait, let me re-read this. I stopped after the part saying we had to bring Andrei to Canterlot.”
She re-read the letter and saw a post script at the end of the letter stating that transports were not available at the time because of all troops being busy preparing for something important.
Twilight sighed heavily. “Nope; all troops are busy at the moment.”
“I take it we’ll start moving him in the morning?” Applejack asked.
“I guess so if she wants us in Canterlot as soon as possible. We’ll plan everything else in the morning.”
The ponies and one human in the room fell asleep. Ponies from exhaustion, and human because he had absolutely nothing else better to do.
* * * * *
Alexander could tell by looking out the hospital windows that the entire day had come and went. He still couldn’t believe that the pony was alive, even after who-knows-how-much time having been wounded like that. He had been sitting in the same waiting room chair for hours, doing nothing but soaking in his surroundings.
The tiles that made up the floor he walked upon were all either blue, white, or a sickening shade of green. The lights were all shining dimly, except for one magic-powered light that flickered ever few seconds probably due to a shortage of magic to power it. Everything smelled like it had been sterilized. Oh how he hated that smell.
After hours upon hours of waiting, the head doctor walked out of the emergency room; the door being the only sound made in hours other than Alexander’s breathing. He got up from his seat and walked over to the doctor.
“Is he alive?” he asked.
The doctor sighed, preparing to give an explanation. “Yes, he’s alive. You brought him in just in time, too. Any later and he wouldn’t have made it.”
“Thanks,” Alexander said while looking at a clock on the other side of the room, “wow, it’s really getting late. I guess I will get out of your mane for tonight.”
“Okay, and thanks again for finding Mr. Snapple. I’ll be sure to inform his family that you were the one who found him.”
“Okay. Goodbye.”
* * * * *
The morning sun slowly rose from below the distant horizon, creating more and more bright rays of morning sunlight that pierced through the windows of Twilight tree adobe. They eventually stretched far enough across the floor to reach each ponies’ eyelids, irritating them into their awake state.
Twilight lifted herself from the ground and said with a yawn, “Good morning, everypony.”
She stretched her joints as each pony and Solovyov responded with a dreary ‘good morning’ as well.
“Are you feeling okay, Andrei?” Twilight asked in concern.
“Yes… I’m fine… my back is… a little stiff though…” he said with a weak chuckle.
“Har har, very funny,” Twilight replied. “We have to get you to Canterlot somehow, which might be a big problem.”
“Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“For being such an… inconvenience to everyb-“
“You’re not an inconvenience, Andrei, and we’re leaving it at that. We’re getting you to Canterlot one way or another. We just need help.” She muttered under her breath so nobody could hear her, “And a lot of it…”
“Twilight,” Rainbow interrupted, “aren’t construction workers working on building a housing complex nearby? Couldn’t we ask them for help?”
“Rainbow, they actually have a job to do. But… I suppose asking never hurt anypony. I believe that they should be here by now, so I’ll go and see if I can get a few stallions to help.” With that, Twilight left her, her friends and Solovyov at her home after a quick breakfast of oats.
Twilight approached what looked to be a five-story housing complex that appeared to be mainly completed, save for windows, doors, and roofing. Three stallions were carefully looking over very detailed blueprints.
“Excuse me, sirs?” Twilight asked, slightly intimidated.
The three stallions directed their attention from the blueprints to the young mare who called to them. “Yes? Can we help you?”
“I was um… just wondering if you had a few stallions that are free to do some moving work for me? What I’m moving is extremely heavy and even with the help of five other mares and magic, it was nearly impossible for all of us to move it. Now I’ve been informed we have to move it to Canterlot. ”
The stallion on the left sighed as he observed his crew working on the building. “Well, I believe we have a few lackeys we could lend you,” he said while trying to look into each individual room of the building. “Hey! Steel Beams!” he shouted.
A head that belonged to a dark brown stallion poked his head out of a window on the other end of the building. “Yeah, boss?”
“I’ve got a job for you lackeys! Get you and your two friends over here pronto!”
“On it!” Steel shouted back. Within thirty seconds, the brown stallion named Steel, and his two friends – Copper Wire and Iron Hammer – arrived to see a smaller, lavender mare standing near his boss. “What do ya need, boss?”
“It’s not what I need, lass, it’s what she needs. She has some moving business that she and her friends are having difficulty with that they need to get to Canterlot. Care to help her out?”
“Sure thing,” Steel said with sarcasm. This obviously wasn’t going to be a good day for him. “What are you trying to move, Miss?”
“Oh, um… a statue.”
“Big one?”
“Uh… yeah, pretty big.”
Steel sighed in annoyance, “Okay; lead the way, Miss.” With that, the three stallions followed Twilight to her home.
Twilight arrived at her home with the three stallions to see her friends loafing around waiting for Twilight to get back.
“I’m back,” Twilight stated to get her friends’ attention. “Ready to get moving?”
Twilight’s friends released a sigh of disappointment as they all got up to get ready to move the statue of Solovyov.
“Wait, Pinkie? Can you do me a favor?”
“Yeah, Twilight?” Pinkie replied.
“Would you do whatever you do to get from one place to another very quickly, and go to Alexander’s house to see if he’s home? If he is, get him to come help if he isn’t busy.”
“Oki Doki Loki!” she said and she jumped behind a potted plant and disappeared from existence.
“How she does that, I’ll never know.”
* * * * *
Through the rifts of time and space, Pinkie flew from behind the potted plant to Alexander’s front door and knocked three times. He answer the door.
“Hello, Pinkie. How are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Twilight and we need your help moving something from her house to Canterlot. It’s really heavy, so could you help us out here?”
“Sure; no problem,” he said. “When are you moving it?”
“Now!” Pinkie yelled as she grabbed a hold of Alexander’s hand and jumped behind tree near their location.
* * * * *
“When is Pinkie getting back? She only takes about three minutes with this and she still isn’t back! It’s been five minutes!” Rainbow said leading against Solovyov.
“Rainbow, if there’s one thing I’ve learned being friends with Pinkie, it’s to never question her.” Twilight replied. As Twilight finished saying this to Rainbow, Pinkie appeared with Alexander from behind the same potted plant she jumped into to leave.
“What has been seen cannot be unseen,” Alexander murmured, lying on the ground. He turned his head towards Solovyov.
“Andrei? What happened to you?”
“I’m fine…” he muttered.
“He’s the reason why we need you here, Alex. We’ve been requested by Princess Celestia to bring him to Canterlot for an important matter.” Twilight explained.
“Are there any group transp-“
“No, there aren’t; they’re all busy,” she said, cutting off Alexander. “Let’s just get this done and over with before we all pass out from exhaustion.”
The three stallions, Alexander, and the Main Six all pushed their maximum effort onto the statue of Solovyov. Surprisingly, it was much easier to push along the ground than Twilight anticipated, although it was still quite a challenge to move.
Three hours later
“God, finally!” Alexander exclaimed as they managed to reach Ponyville’s local train station. Alexander being the largest being on the moving team, he exerted the most force in moving Solovyov.
“Now time to… take a much… deserved break…” Rainbow Dash said between breaths.
“Not yet Rainbow,” Twilight said, equally exhausted, “just need to get him… on the train.”
All ponies and the human were still in moving position on the statue. “All right everybody, push!” Alexander exclaimed as he and the others pushed with all their might on the statue to get it on the train.
Alexander and the others breathed a sigh of relief as they got the statue form of Solovyov onto the train. His back was turned towards the rest of the car, and he turned around to find at least twenty-five ponies staring at him. He could tell some of them came from very far off lands. He thought they have probably heard about the human stories, but have never actually seen one in person.
It was quite a sight to see a human, three stallion construction workers, and all bearers of the Elements of Harmony pushing a statue onto a train to most ponies there.
“Um…” Alexander said in thought, “d-don’t mind us; we’re only making a delivery.” As he said this, the ponies’ gazes slowly turned away from the human to anything else that could grasp their attention.
A four-hour train ride later
The train filled with ponies was stalled behind an odd grouping consisting of the Elements of Harmony, three random construction workers and a human as said group slowly pushed Solovyov out of the train. After a good few minutes of maneuvering him, they got Solovyov outside the train car and momentarily gazed upon the city of Canterlot.
“So… exactly how far is the castle from here?” Alexander asked. “I haven’t visited Canterlot before.”
For Twilight, she always thought the castle was relatively close to the train station, but that was just her mind being used to traveling to it constantly. Now that she was moving a very heavy statue with eight other ponies and a human, she realized how far the castle really was.
Twilight sighted heavily. “It’s… on the other side of the city.”
“And from the rate we’re moving… that’s going to take all day. Might as well get started.”
Because Canterlot was, well, Canterlot, there were many ponies roaming the streets going about their daily business. Grunting, gasping for breath, and sweating came nine ponies and a human down the street, which stopped some in their tracks to look at the odd sight.
Ten hours later
“Finally… the front gates…” Applejack said between pants of breath.
“Well, we’ve made it all this way… we can’t stop now,” Alexander said as he looked towards the sun that was now setting, leaving behind a variety of red, yellow, and even a hint of purple in the evening sky.
After twenty minutes, they were able to push Solovyov into the front doors of the castle. Solovyov hadn’t really visited any very large buildings in his lifetime, and as a substitute searched pictures of large buildings and tried to imagine himself there.
Since his vision was taken from him temporarily, being turned to stone and such, he tried to use his ear to listen to how long echoes took to reach him to determine how tall the interior was. He wasn’t very successful in doing so.
“Come on guys; we’re almost there,” Alexander grunted.
* * * * *
Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were in the throne room of the castle, the former pacing back and forth in constant worry and panic.
“Why isn’t Twilight here yet?” Celestia asked. “Maybe they got her along with the other Elements of Harmony?”
“Sister, relax and calm down. I’m sure they will arrive shortly. When would Twilight ever disobey you?”
Celestia stopped and raised her head from its slightly slumped position, as if focusing on something. Her ear twitched slightly, and in turn she turned her head toward the grand doors that shielded the throne room from the rest of the castle.
“Do you hear that?” Celestia asked.
“Hear what?” Luna asked as a low, dull stone-against-stone grinding could be heard from afar.
Afraid of what it might have been, Celestia stiffened her standing position facing towards the door, preparing for an attack. Luna also became alert and stiffened her sitting position. No guards entered through any of the many entrances to the throne room. Luna thought that this could be either nothing at all, or something very disastrous if no guards entered.
“They must be not be coming in because it’s either not a threat, or they’re all trying their best to defend us. This agony is killing me!” Luna thought.
Minutes passed which felt like hours to the royal alicorns. After each minute, the grinding noise continued to get louder, even to a point where the floor shook slightly from the widespread vibrations.
At last, after fifteen minutes of waiting, the grinding noise stopped at what sounded like just outside the throne room doors. After a moment, three light, weak-sounding knocks echoed from the grand, mahogany doors trimmed with gold.
Celestia and Luna looked at each other in total confusion as to why somebody would knock at the throne room door. Wouldn’t the guards have opened the door for them?
“Come… in?” Celestia said, not sure of what she should be saying. The door budged a few inches at a time with every shove. It was opened to reveal Twilight, her friends, three random construction workers, and one of the three civilized humans in Equestria.
“My word,” Celestia gasped. “What in Equestria are you moving?”
“Andrei, Princess,” Twilight responded weakly. “You wanted him to come here… but you didn’t-”she coughed for a moment. “You said you didn’t have any spare chariots for him… so we had to push him all the way here.”
“Twilight, if you would have told me the situation you were in, I would have gladly lent you a chariot,” the princess replied almost jokingly.
Twilight sighed loudly. “Well, too late now, I suppose. Before we discuss anything, please tell me you have a spell that can undo this?” she said gesturing to Solovyov.
“Hm…” Celestia hummed as she moved her eyes back and forth, as if she was trying to scan her memory. “Actually, yes, I do have a spell to reverse Cockatrice magic. Give me one moment, and stand back.” Everybody around Solovyov moved away as Celestia’s horn glowed its magnificent, golden yellow aura, forming a golf ball-sized ball of magic at the tip of her horn. It emitted beams of blinding light before she lowered her head and released the magic towards Solovyov.
Every human’s and pony’s vision oddly went black afterwards, despite Celesta’s magic creating the blinding white glow. Vision slowly but surely returned, and they saw Andrei lying motionless on the floor. Twilight gasped in shock, as she thought the magic had killed him.
After a few seconds, Solovyov’s arm started to twitch while he tried moving it.
“Ugh,” Solovyov grunted. “My arm feels like it’s made of lead.” He slowly and grogily lifted himself from the floor to get used to moving again. He got up too quickly and his head throbbed in pain, which he cradled with his right hand. Instead of feeling coarse human flesh against his temple, he felt solid rock. He positioned his hand in front of his eyes, twisting it in every direction to get a better look at it.
“What the hell?” he mumbled.
“Oh, well that hasn’t happened for a while,” Celestia said in amusement as she looked him over. “This is in the name of science, but could you please take off all of your clothes, except for your undergarments?”
“Um… okay?” Solovyov said, and complied to take off most of his clothing. What everybody saw amazed them. Every region of his body from his thighs to his neck was not solid stone.
Amazed and highly confused, Solovyov ‘experimented’ with his skin, pinching and pulling it in every which direction. Surprisingly, his skin still moved like regular human skin, but didn’t stretch as far.
Celestia took a drastic mood change as she started to tell everyone of the impending disaster. “Twilight, do you know the reason why I have assembled you all here today? Hold that thought,” she said as she turned towards the three construction workers. “You three need to leave. We all appreciate your help in transporting this human here.”
The construction ponies were still a little shell-shocked from earlier, knowing that the ‘statue’ was apparently a human.
“Right away, Your Highness,” one of them said as they all turned to leave.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Celestia spoke again with worry written over her face, “So do you know why I have assembled you all here today?”
“No I don’t, Princess,” Twilight replied. “I’ve… never seen you look this worked up before. Is something serious happening?”
“Yes, my student, there is. You remember how I wrote to you about the magical pulses I feel whenever a human enters Equestria, right?” Twilight nodded in response. “I have been feeling odd and strong pulses in my head for the past two days. I predict that there will be a large group of humans arriving soon, and I fear the worst of what they may do.”
“Excuse my interruption, Princess,” Solovyov stated, “But by any mystical chance, do you know any… characteristics of what they look like, or if they have anything with them?”
Celestia sighed. “If I did, I wouldn’t have called upon the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. I have no idea what’s going to happen, exactly where they will appear, or even if they have appeared yet. I can give an estimated range based upon the strength of the pulses, but I can’t say for certain.”
“So you’re telling us that a group of humans is possibly in Equestria, and you don’t know where they are?” Twilight asked to make sure she heard everything correctly.
“Yes, that is correct. I called upon you and your friends to keep vigil over Ponyville, along with other ponies. I’ve sent out around fifty Pegasus scouts around Equestria to look for anything out of the ordinary. No word has been sent back yet.”
Fear was present among everyone as they listened to Celestia explain how dire the situation was. Through the fear in Twilight, determination emerged.
“Princess, I swear that we as the bearers of the Elements of Harmony will protect Ponyville at all costs.” Each pony and human repeated exactly what Twilight had said, giving them the feeling of strength in numbers.
“Thank you all, my little ponies… and humans,” she praised, and then smirked. “I will send you all home on a royal chariot. Good luck; I fear we will need plenty of it.”
Equestria's First... Russian?
Chapter 9 - Insert Pun Here
Equestria’s First… Russian?
Chapter Nine
Insert Pun Here
Twilight, her friends and the two humans escorted themselves out of the castle as Solovyov continued to get used to the feeling of having skin made of stone.
As they walked, questions flowed through Solovyov’s head as water would through a river. “Twilight,” he began, the pony in mention turning her head towards Solovyov, “Am I going to be staying like this? I’m not complaining, I just want to know if this is something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”
“Well, probably. I wasn’t even aware there was a spell to reverse Cockatrice magic, let alone its side effects, so I don’t know if you’ll be staying that way forever, or if it will eventually wear off.”
Suddenly, Solovyov had an idea. “Do firearms exist in Equestria?”
“As far as I’m aware, no, they don’t,” Twilight replied.
Alexander, who was walking beside Solovyov this entire time, nudged him with his elbow. He still felt it as if he still had regular skin, which was odd. Alexander whispered to his friend, “I have a prototype firearm in my house. I only use it for home defense, as I’ve had a few wild animals tread onto my property, which were dangerous ones, of course. Why did you question if this world had firearms?”
“I want to see if my new skin is bulletproof,” Solovyov whispered back.
“When we get back to Ponyville, we’ll head over to my home.”
“Sounds like a plan, but first, I need to get my laptop back from Twilight.”
The group arrived at the train station, and as they stood there, the ground vibrated as the train slowly came to a halt in front of the crowd.
* * * * *
A large group of people stood in a large, open plain near a small village of nearly fifty. The group of people was slowly processing what they were seeing.
The village they viewed was similar to a small village that relied upon nobody. They had small fields where they grew their own crops, a nearby river for drinking water, and several homes lined the street that passed through the village.
“BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” They all chuckled and exploded with laughter as they processed what was before them. Several ponies came out of their homes to give confused, and some frightened looks the group of bipeds before them. The few farmers stopped their work in their fields to do the same action.
“OOH MY GOD, THIS IS TOO RICH!” one person specifically said as he fell on his hands and knees. He couldn’t continue to stand from how hard he was laughing.
Since he didn’t know any better, one farmer pony cautiously approached the group of humans.
***
The farmer pony approached without saying anything.
The leader opened the visor of his helmet, revealing his cold eyes. He approached the questioning pony. “Skahshetay, vey videli vysokogo belogo cheloveka, derzhashchego tonkim ustroystvom, kotoroye vygiladit byt izgotovlena iz serebra?” (Have you seen a tall white male walking around with a thin devices that looks to be made of silver?)
The pony stared back as he heard the speech he couldn’t understand.
“Parlez-vous Française?” (Do you speak French?) The farmer tilted his head in confusion.
“Hablas español?” (Do you speak Spanish?) Still no clear response.
“Sprechen Sie deutsch? (Do you speak German?) Do you speak English?” The farmer pony’s ears perked slightly as he heard his language. He raised his hoof and pointed at the man in front of him. “You speak English?”
“Yes, we speak what you call ‘English.’”
“Good, so we are on common ground,” he paused as he recalled all of his lessons in the English language. “Tell me, have you seen a man who is about this tall, and was holding a very thin device that looked to be made of silver?” he asked as he held his hand at about Solovyov’s height.
“Well, we haven’t really seen anypony like you around here and-”
“Sorry to interrupt, but did you say anypony? ”
“Yes, I did.”
“I don’t understand. What is an ‘anypony’?”
“Like... Anypony can think of a question? Anypony can open a door?”
“Gah, never mind,” he grunted in frustration. “So you are telling me you have not seen a man of my given description anywhere? Not at all?”
“No, we haven’t.”
The man sighed in frustration as he contemplated about what to do next. “Do you have a map of this world?”
“What do you mean ‘this world’?” the farmer asked. “You’re not from around here? Not even from the most distant lands?”
“No. I would love to explain everything, but we are all on a time constraint being here. Please, show me a map so we can be on our way.”
“Fine, I’ll be back in a second.” The farmer retorted. As he walked back to his village, he yelled, “Hey! Anypony got a map this fellow can use?” The ponies in the village scurried about their homes looking for a map, but to no avail; no pony had a map. The village had been isolation for so long, they no longer needed them.
The farmer pony returned to the man awaiting a map. “Uh… I- I’m sorry sir, b-but we don’t have a… a map for you to use.”
The man closed his eyes, and breathed loudly through his nose to display his frustration. “Fine; have it your way,” he said as he waved a command to his group.
“Prehodeetchya. Piedohm.” (Come. Let us leave.) The group of humans turned west and walk into the distance, leaving the town awestruck by the advanced technology the biped wore and wielded.
* * * * *
Twilight had already came and went as tiny starts speckled the sky. Sweat started to bead on Solovyov’s forehead as Alexander used his gun’s detachable ramrod to pound in the required musket ball into the barrel of the gun. “Just one more moment.”
“Are you sure this is safe, Alexander?”
“Oh trust me, everything will be fine,” Alexander said as he pointed his working replica of the model 1766 Charleville musket, as he stood in Alexander’s back yard with the gun pointed directly at his foot (from a safe distance, of course).
“Take a shot to the foot, he said. You’ll be fine, he said,” Solovyov muttered.
“Are you ready? Remember, the hospital is right down the street if something goes wrong.”
“Just get this done and over with. It’s better to face the pain now rather than later.” After stating this, Solovyov wrenched his eyes closed as right as he could, giving his best attempt to prepare for the possible immense amounts of pain that may follow.
“Firing,” Alexander said. The flintlock mechanism engaged as he pulled the trigger, making the hammer strike the frizzen, eventually igniting the main powder charge in the barrel, causing the musket to fire.
Solovyov couldn’t focus on anything else except the musket ball traveling at a very high speed towards his foot. In fact—he was focusing so hard—he saw every turn the musket ball made as it flew and as it left a blur in its wake. The musket ball connected with his bare foot, creating a sickening sound that was a cross between a crunch and a crack.
As soon as the sound reached his ears, Alexander lifted his head and examined Solovyov’s reaction. Though his skin was a light grey stone at this point, it gained a very slight red pigment. It wasn’t just on his cheeks; it was all over his body. The pain was that excruciating.
Solovyov’s head started to shake slightly due to his nerves being driven into maximum overdrive. Tears started to form on the rims of his eyes, and the upper layer of his teeth clenched down tightly on his lower lip. He closed his eyes, causing a few tears to roll down each side. Eventually, the pain was just too much to hold in.
“FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!” Solovyov screamed at the very top of his lungs. Any louder and his vocal chords would have gave way.
* * * * *
A loud, but very distance scream was heard in the distance.
“Did you hear something, Spike?” Twilight asked her assistant.
“Nope.” He lied through his teeth to avoid having to go and investigate the disturbance.
* * * * *
“Did you just hear that?” one human asked the group’s commander in chief.
“Yes, I did. Whatever it is, we’re well prepared to defend ourselves if need be. Come, we’re almost there.”
* * * * *
Somehow, Solovyov was still standing even though he felt as if a handful of firecrackers had been strapped to his foot and lit. It certainly looked as if that was the case as he looked down at his foot, expecting it to be now non-existent.
His foot was still there all right, but it had a musket ball lodged in it. About half of it was protruding from his foot, still stuck in there.
“Holy shit,” Alexander said. “Wow, that had to hurt.” He mentally and slightly physically cringed at having to witness a musket ball being stuck in someone’s foot.
“Please… for the love of Christ… GET THIS FUCKING BALL OUT OF MY FOOT!” he yelled in pain.
“On it,” Alexander replied as he went to the small tool shed in his back yard and retrieved a pair of metal pliers. He walked back to Solovyov and kneeled down to his injured foot. “Just like a band-aid, just rip it off. Except this isn’t ripping off a band-aid; we’re pulling a metal ball from your foot.” He chuckled lightly at the comparison.
Solovyov tightened the muscles in his leg as Alexander gripped the pliers around the protruding metal ball, and yanked as hard as he could. To the two men’s surprise, Solovyov’s foot hadn’t bled at all. Only a tiny crater roughly three centimeters in diameter remained.
“I’m not sure if it will help, but let me go get you some ice and some bandages,” Alexander said as Solovyov lowered himself to the ground to take a seat. He soon returned with a small bag of ice, a roll of white, cotton bandage and medical tape in tow. He kneeled down and wrapped Solovyov’s foot with the white cloth and sealed it with the tape.
“You don’t have a place to stay tonight, do you?” Alexander dryly asked.
“Umm… no, I don’t.”
“Do you need one?”
“Yes,” he said, feeling like he was asking for too much.
“I can let you sleep on the couch in my living room. It’s the least I can do since I left a hole in your foot.”
“Thank you,” Solovyov replied with gratitude in his voice as his friend helped him up and started walking him to the door, he himself hopping on one leg. As he usually did when he had a moment of silence to himself, his mind wandered to the farthest, most unused thoughts in his brain. “Heh, to think that we met each other on Steam who-knows-how-many years ago…”
That comment brought Alexander back to that same day they were both thinking. He chuckled lightly. “You sucked back then.”
“Oh shut up,” Solovyov replied jokingly.
They arrived in Alexander’s living room. Solovyov laid himself down carefully on his friend’s couch. Alexander tossed him a blanked that was on a chair adjacent to the couch.
“Goodnight, Andrei. I’ll see you in the morning,” Alexander said as he walked upstairs to his bedroom.
“Goodnight,” Solovyov replied quietly.
It was moments like these that Solovyov’s thoughts ran rampant through his mind: the fire burning brightly in the fireplace set a comfortable heat in the room, the stars and moon outside being the only lights to see by, and the sound of crickets and other insects chirping in the distance. Nights like these were ones that Solovyov believed made people fall asleep from the pure serenity of the moment.
As his thoughts continued to wander as he looked about the room, he remembered the song he played in his free time when he was younger. To him, it seemed to complement the night around him.
He drifted off into the black abyss of sleep.
