The Refugee

Chapter 3

There, there. (The scabby king of nowhere)

"Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens."

• C.G. Jung

Excerpt from "The Key, The Gate, and Infinite Exploration":

        "The tree of creation can also serve as a map to worlds that you can visit through the rite of translation without many negative consequences (though, as always, the rite should only be performed under an experienced opener for your own safety).

        Visiting a world higher up on the tree (a world from which your own was created) means you will likely be unable to comprehend many things, could go mad, or possibly die. In a word; it is unlikely to be an enjoyable experience.

        A translation to a world beneath your own (one created from your own world) is usually a safe bet barring any worlds created for the purpose of being unsafe. Why would one create an unsafe world? Because all worlds beneath your own are fictions from your perception, and sometimes a world filled with danger can be quite thrilling when compared to a world where everything is always fine. (More on lesser worlds and their relation to fictional stories, including some quite famous ones, later on.)

        If you use the rite to move yourself into a fictional world you are also granted certain privileges besides the obvious pre-emptive knowledge of the world (considering it's a world you probably wanted to visit, one could assume you are quite engaged in it's stories, places, and people). One of which is alteration.

        Being that your anchored existence is from the world that created the one you are visiting, through your proxy body you will have the ability to 'edit' or alter that world in some ways. This does not mean you should, only that you can. Different worlds have different restrictions (some even have safeguards placed by its denizens that will kill your proxy if the detect alteration and will thereby remove you from the world) and it can be assumed that the tighter a world's story is and the more of that world that is explained, the less power you have to change it. The opposite is true in worlds where much is left to the imagination, mysteries are abundant, and especially true of worlds where magic exists in any form. In some worlds, it is even possible to alter the minds of it's denizens through verbal incantatum."

*********

        "Are you...Zecora?" Seraf asked gasping for air. His heart was still racing from the macabre events of Manehattan and his mind was on full-blast wondering where he was, what happened, and why he was even alive.

        "Indeed, little colt, that is me." She said, wiping the sweat from his brow. She smiled, "The herbalist of the EverFree."

        He noticed that her accent was very much like a native Nigerian's from earth. Fitting, he thought, with her looking so much like a Zebra.

        He looked around the room as she continued to wipe the sweat from his face and chest, dipped the rag in cold water, and wiped again. He noticed the many tribal masks that lined the walls of this dark place of wood and straw he was in.

        "You have many questions, this I know." She said to him softly as she stroked his main gently, "You really should calm yourself down, though."

        The zebra had a concerned look on her face that for all he could tell was quite genuine. He recalled the dragon facing him down in the forest. Just as death became certain he heard the sound of glass shattering and passed out.

        And now he was in a hut. Heart painfully racing, but safe and sound with a zebra named Zecora. He thought about how strange it was that a zebra would even be present in a world where ponies were the obvious main inhabitants. And was she rhyming all her words? Though at the thought of Dragons and considering he was even alive at all, he put away his suspicions and decided to trust her.

        "What happened?" he said, struggling through panting and a throbbing heart to push the words out, "The dragon...he...I heard...glass..."

        "There there, little one. Be still, calm down." she said as she stroked his mane, "It's ok now. You're safe and sound."

        His breaths finally began to shorten, and his heart at last began to decelerate it's painful beating.

        Again she wiped the sweat from his head, "I was out in the woods picking laughadil blooms. When I heard, nearby, a dragon's roar boom."

        He noticed it again. The rhyming. Every sentence. What was wrong with this zebra?

        "The dragon's roar gave me quite a jolt." she said as she leaned her face near Seraf's and nuzzled his cheek, "Then I heard the scream of a little colt."

        "Always rhyming." he thought silently to himself. He was anxious to know what the hell happened to him, not hear narrative poetry.

        "I saw the green beast about to attack! So I threw a sleep potion to keep his jaws back."

        "And that's what I heard, a thrown bottle crack." He said through his now regular breathing. He could still feel the pain in his chest, but his heart was almost down to where it felt like he had been running.

        "And I scooped you right up and brought you to my shack." She said as she smiled at him.

        He laid his head back and stared blankly at the straw that made up the hut's ceiling. He started to wonder what could have happened if this stupid rhyming zebra hadn't come along with what must have been a "safety" sleeping potion he assumed she must have always carried for emergencies.

        That was when he noticed it. He had rhymed with her! He had been infected by this moronic behavior!

        He almost let loose his tongue in a flurry of insults for her irrationally inefficient way of speaking. But he felt a cold wet rag touch gently to his forehead and he remembered that the same chill that filled that damp cloth might fill his flesh if not for this zebra's courageous rescue.

        "Zecora?" he said slightly frustrated with himself for not speaking his mind. Mother had always told him that if something was true, there was no harm in saying it. And he always strongly valued his mother's wisdom.

        "Yes, little one?" She said as she walked over towards what appeared to be some sort of alchemy table.

        "Why do you speak that way?" he said with a sigh.

        Zecora laughed politely as she walked back to the colt with a ceramic jar full of blue paste in her hoof. "That's quite an answer that you seek." She said, taking a hooffull of the blue past from the jar and gently spreading onto one of Seraf's many burns. "This is how all us Zebra's speak."

        Until the paste touched the burn on his hind leg he had forgotten that he had nearly been cooked alive. Perhaps it was the fear of death from the dragon run-in, or the nerve wrecking (and seemingly mandatory) way this zebra spoke in rhymes that took the place of the agonizing pain and itchy scabs.

        "What are you doing?" he said as he looked down at the zebra's hoof slowly and gingerly spreading the paste all over his leg.

        "Putting ointment on these burns." she said having nearly finished covering his leg. Zecora shook her head and her gentle smile turned into a soft frown. "For your health, I am most concerned."

        He felt an icy cold relief began to spread all throughout his leg. The ointment seemed to be killing the pain as well as helping with the burns.

        He watched her as she looked over his leg with a frown still on her face. She looked up and down it several times. He could only assume she was assuring herself she hadn't missed any areas.

        He laid there. Silent. Wondering why someone he didn't know at all saved him when she didn't know him at all. She had the means to do so and he took that as reason enough to do the good deed, but he did not understand why she was still caring for him. But he knew he liked it.

        "What is that stuff made out of?" He said softly with a child-like wonder in both his eyes and his voice.

        She held a bit of the paste up to his face and explained to him that it was made from a mix of laughadil flowers and a rare blue moon rose, and that she used her last one to make it.

        Once he saw it up close, he realized how pretty the paste was. It was beautiful translucent blue-ish green slime. He adored the way it looked, and the cooling sensation it gave his itchy, charred skin.

        "Why would you use something so rare to help someone you don't even know?" He wondered aloud.

        "I do what I can to help, little one." She said, smiling at him and reaching for his other leg. "Life with these burns cannot be any fun."

        Zecora's hoof touched his knee. A sensation of warmth flooded his body nearly instantaneously. A good kind of warmth. The kind of warmth he felt when his mother would kiss his scratches and scrapes and make them better.

        He could still feel her gentle kiss. Hear her lovely voice, "There, there. It's not so bad now, is it?"

        He missed his mother deeply. Perhaps more than his father. Perhaps more than home. Perhaps, he thought, more than anything.

        He wondered that if she was still alive could he have someday taken her to this world with him. A world of friendship and happiness. Could it have saved her?

        He wondered if he would've ever tried the rite at all if she was still alive. "Mother in a land of these ponies and zebras...and dragons." he thought to himself, "That's so silly. Rather funny when you think about it."

        "Funny?" He heard Zecora's voice yank him back into reality as she chuckled kindly.

        "What?" He stalled, realizing he must've been thinking aloud. "Oh. I just...I was just thinking about my mother..."

        Zecora silently finished spreading the ointment on his last hind leg. She moved to his torso. "Where is your mother, little guy?"

        His mind raced a mile a minute trying to figure out a way to answer this question without sounding completely bonkers as Zecora's hooves gently covered his stomach with the blue gel. "Is she waiting for you somewhere nearby?"

        He tried to think as fast as he could. Coming up with no answer he decided he'd have to make up a town name on the fly and just stick to the story that his family lived there.

        "She lives...in...Pony...ville?" was what squeezed out. His eyes dilated and the nice warm feeling the previously filled his body turned to a fiery fear. He knew his cover was blown, and that the wither would come for him soon.

        "Ponyville you say, my dear?" She said, "It's only a days walk from here."

        He couldn't believe it. She bought it!?

        His suspicious nature got the better of him as his mind assumed that she must be having a laugh at him. Though his gravely confused heart would not allow him to snap at her for this.

        "Yes." he replied nervously, "Ponyville. I live there. With mother."

        Zecora smiled and explained that there was a small cart she sometimes used for gathering flowers that she would use to ride him to Ponyville first thing in the morning, after he had some proper rest.

        He smiled back at her and told her that his mother would understand, and that he was supposed to be spending the night at his friend's anyway, so she wouldn't expect him back until tomorrow afternoon.

        He felt the good warm feeling come back. Though he would never admit it to himself, for a moment it felt as though he was back at home. Safe, warm, and with the only woman he'd ever felt he couldn't live without.

        "Are there many Zebras here?" he asked her. She laughed and asked if he meant in Ponyville or Equestria. He closed his eyes and laid back his head on the pillow she brought over for him. Beginning to fall asleep, he managed to reply through a long yawn, "Either one...I suppose."