To Start At Home And Go Afar
Author's Note
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rHGBhPXJyxz1Zl41wIubEhivLdixfIKXTx_uaqAathU/edit?usp=sharing
Please leave your correction comments here if it isn't too much trouble.
To Start At Home And Go Afar
It was a simple thought really; not one that normally would’ve received a real response. It was the kind of thought one would have on a lazy summer day when there was nothing better to do.
“What would it be like to live somewhere else?”, Charlie sat down in the grass. He was tired of living in the same town he had spent his entire life in. It was a small town with a small population and not a lot ever happened anywhere near it. Sure he had moved from his parent’s cottage to his own when he became old enough, but they were always just a dirt road away. He could throw a pebble onto their doorstep if he wanted to. No, to Charlie moving only one road away didn’t really count as moving.
“I’ve spent the first half of my life here,” said Charlie as he felt the texture of the grass,”but now that I think about it I’m not so sure I want to spend the second half here.”
There was a momentary pause between that last statement and Charlie’s next action; to Charlie though, it felt like an hour. In that perceived hour Charlie thought he could see the sun move through the sky. He felt the wind blow on him and the heat starting to collect on his body. Life felt good and Charlie knew it.
After Charlie snapped out of his trance, he remembered that he needed to go wash the dishes he was too lazy to do the previous night. He proceeded to get up and make his way to his cottage. When he entered his front door he proceeded directly to his sink.
Charlie began to wash dishes. He wanted to be doing anything other than chores so he did anything he could to speed things up. He used his mouth to hold a plate while he used dishwashing detergent to wash two more plates in the sink. He was starting to make good progress.
However, not one minute after he had started on his chores Charlie said, “Oh how I miss the grass already.”
In fact, Charlie wanted to get back to laying on the grass so badly that it almost seemed to be calling out to him, “come here, Charlie.”
Charlie stopped washing his dishes and said, “Ok that was too real to be my imagination.”
The voice repeated itself, “come here, Charlie,” That time a little louder and clearer. In fact, it was just loud enough that it confirmed Charlie’s claim.
“Hello?” Charlie began to dry his hands as he looked around “Who are you?”
The voice responded again by repeating itself, “come here, Charlie” this time, loud enough, that it had become clear where it originated from.
Charlie began to move to his hallway. He believed that the voice he was hearing had come from the bathroom right next to his kitchen. He tried to move as quietly as he could without making a sound. This was physically hard for him particularly on hard-surface floors, nonetheless, he managed.
“creeek” was the sound he heard as he opened the door to his bathroom. He stepped inside and looked around, only to be greeted with what he would normally expect, a regular bathroom.
Charlie’s downstairs bathroom was a half-bathroom. It didn’t have a tub like his upstairs bathroom had but it had a sink, a counter with drawers, and a mirror. The mirror was the most defining feature of his downstairs bathroom. It was given to him by his parents when he moved out of their cottage and got his own.
In all honesty it was a simple mirror. It wasn’t much to look at. It didn’t even really have a frame. However, if one were to look on the back of that mirror they would see a message written by Charlie’s parents. The message read, “From us to you, a mirror for you to look at everyday to remind you of how proud we are of you and to remind you that you are now an adult.”
That message and the memory that came with it meant a lot to Charlie. He understood that a mirror was a weird present for his parents to give him and the message an even weirder one but his parents were always rather strange in their actions.
Charlie stood there for what seemed to be hours looking at that mirror and thinking about his parents and how much he loved them. Eventually he remembered that he was looking for a voice and that he thought that he had tracked it to his bathroom. He looked around once more and stated the obvious, “I was wrong, there is no voice in this bathroom and probably not in this entire house.”
Charlie let out a loud sigh. He began to have doubts about his previous judgement call that the voice was too real to be a figment of his imagination. He was just about to turn around when he heard the same voice say, “come here, Charlie.”
This time Charlie froze for a moment. He distinctly heard the voice coming from his mirror and turned his head only long enough to get a glance of a face that wasn’t like any other he had seen before. Seeing this face shocked Charlie. It wasn’t a bad face, quite the opposite it was actually much nicer than any face he had seen before. But the fact remained that it was still strange. He didn’t have any more time to ponder what he saw because he suddenly vanished.
Flash!
In less then a second Charlie no longer stood in front of his mirror in his small cottage. He had disappeared from the only place he had ever lived and was taken to a place he couldn’t even imagine. Charlie had started the second, longer, half of his life. He was going to get his lazy summer afternoon question answered, and he was going to have it answered in the best way it could possibly be answered.
The Ponies Here Have Set the Bar
Charlie awoke suddenly to find himself face first in the grass. "That's strange", Charlie thought. He knew that he was just in his bathroom a minute ago and there was no grass in his bathroom. At least that is what Charlie remembers the case to be. Regardless, Charlie began to lift himself off of the ground when he suddenly found himself almost literally face to face with a being's face just as strange as the one he saw in his bathroom. This particular being however had a green face while the being Charlie saw had a darker gray face.
"Ahh!", yelled this new green being as it jumped backwards, "who are you!?" Charlie picked himself up the rest of the way and answered in kind with his name and a greeting, "My name is Charlie, nice to meet you".
It was at this time that Charlie noticed something about this green being. It appeared to be some kind of four legged creature with a horn on its head. The being also happened to have markings on its side in the shape of a lyre and a tail to go with the hair on its head. All of the colors on this creature seemed to complement each other which was a stark contrast to the mismatched colors of his black hair to his peachy skin.
As Charlie was studying this creature it too was studying Charlie and when it finished doing so it said, "you look kind of funny". To this Charlie responded, "I could say the same about you".
"Lyra", said the green being, "Lyra is my name just so you know".
"What are you Lyra?", Charlie asked to which Lyra responded by saying, "I'm a pony, a Unicorn to be more specific. Couldn't you tell?"
"No", Charlie responded "I have never met a pony before. My world doesn't have talking ponies".
"Your world?", responded Lyra. "how do you know your from another world? ", she inquired.
"I must be", Charlie responded as he looked around, "This place doesn't look like anything from my world at all" Granted Charlie has never seen a lot of his world but he was pulling from his personal knowledge and didn't believe such a huge revelation as talking ponies would go on unnoticed or wouldn't come up in conversation.
"Regardless, I did not come here of my own free will", Charlie explained "I saw a pony just like you but with a dark gray coat just before I woke up here". He then paused and asked a question of Lyra, "Where is here exactly?"
Lyra responded in kind, "This is the outskirts of Ponyville, the town that I live in. Would you like to go there now and look around?"
Charlie would have liked to asked some more questions before he went but Lyra seemed to be very insistent on the subject of going to this town and so he responded with, "Sure. I'll go visit but then I'll need your held to get my barrings in this new town". To this Lyra agreed and they went into town to help Charlie discover for himself what life in Ponyville is like.
Needless to say the citizens of Ponyville did not respond very well to Charlie's appearance. "Run for your lives!", yelled one pony while another proceeded to do so. As ponies saw Charlie they fled. Charlie didn't mind really. He never much cared for what people thought of him so why should he care what ponies did at a first glance. As he thought this he simultaneously said, "Ponies around here have never seen a human before have they?"
To this Lyra responded, "Human, so that's what your called. Well, no. No pony has ever seen a human before. Don't worry, we'll make sure to get you introduced properly so everyone understands that your not dangerous".
As she said this Charlie began to notice that he and his new friend were heading to a particularly large building that didn't look like any of the others. Upon noticing this he asked, "Is that where we are going?" in order to do this.
Lyra responded, "ya. That building over there is home to an old friend of mine. She'll be able to talk to the ponies on your behalf".
"Is she the mayor of this town?", asked Charlie.
"No, she's a princess but I know her well so she will be less likely to be in a hurry to judge you because you're with me.", Lyra responded as she was trotting along, "The mayor is less likely to react like that".
Finally, as Lyra had finished that last statement they had arrived at the castle and knocked on the door. The door quickly opened just enough for a small dragon to be able to see Lyra. When he did spot her he began to talk and only after opening the door a little wider did he notice that a very tall thin being was standing next to her. In a quick fit of panic this dragon called out to someone in the castle, "Twilight, Twilight come quick something is at the door and it captured Lyra!" Quickly afterword a lavender pony with wings and a horn came running toward the door only to stop upon seeing that nothing was happening. The being was just standing there and Lyra was waving.
"Hi Twilight", said Lyra as she continued waving.
"Hello Lyra. Lyra, who is this?" puzzled Twilight.
"This is my new friend Charlie. He's from another world and he just arrived here today. He came into town with me and scared the townsfolk. Could you come with us to the town square to gather up everypony so we can explain this silly misunderstanding?", Lyra explained.
Twilight happily agreed and in a few minutes the townsfolk were gathering up to hear Twilight speak. After the speech all the ponies breathed a collective sigh of ease and one by one went up to meet the new being.
Charlie responded to each question thoughtfully and each greeting with one of his own. As he was doing so he began to understand that if he was to remain in good standing with these ponies he would have to put on very good behavior to overcome the initial negative reaction to someone like him. The next town may have somepony try to hurt him or worse. Lots of difficult decisions would have to be made.
As he finished up this thought Twilight came up to him to ask, "would you be willing to come to my castle after the introductions? I have a lot of questions I want to ask".
Charlie looked over, "sure, in fact may I stay at your castle at least for a few days while I get myself situated? ", he said.
Twilight agreed to the request and the long line of ponies looking to meet the human was starting to look short. At the very end of the line were some of Twilight's other friends. When it was their turn to come up Twilight introduced them, "Charlie, this is Applejack, Rainbow dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity".
"Nice to meet you darling", said Rarity.
Pinkie Pie was brimming with energy as she blurted out, "hello new friend your going to love Ponyville. We have lots of games and parties and cake and fun and-"
Applejack interrupted Pinkie saying, "what she's trying to say in less words would be Howdy".
Rainbow dash was looking more forward to competing with Charlie then talking with him and made her intentions known when she asked, "so, just how fast are you? Can you race me sometime?"
Charlie responded with, "I'm fairly fast for my species but we are more long distance runners than fast runners compared to other creatures". When he finished saying so he noticed Fluttershy had slipped behind Twilight. When he asked who she was she manged to squeak out, " I'm flutter-flutter-fluttershy"
Twilight tried to comfort Fluttershy, "don't worry Fluttershy, we already met and made sure we are on good terms. Just think of him like any other pony.....who you aren't shy of ".
"So what now", said Lyra, "Charlie now has a place to stay and has made friends with the whole town but what happens now?"
"now.", responds Charlie, "now I go to sleep and tomorrow I start to think where I go from here".
As he finished this statement Charlie suddenly felt his muscles release from under him. His eyes were starting to close and the last thought that he had was, "time for sleep, now" before he collapsed on the ground. The ponies began to panic. Their newest friend had just arrived and he was already in trouble. After a few checks however the figured out that he was just very exhausted and there wasn't really a problem. The ponies put Charlie on their backs and made their way to Twilight's castle for Twilight to put him into a bed. Charlie would have to catch up on his sleep before he could figure out the new problems that came with living in Ponyville and it would be some time before he got his next clue as to who that strange pony in the mirror was.
Author's Note
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Agnfy83FRyIpI5hsZcX7Wp7zSFt-vP7UF40q01eyR2c/edit?usp=sharing
Please help me correct my story's grammar and spelling Thank you.
