Engines of a revolution

I awoke with a groan.

“Ugh, my head” I muttered “I must have bashed it when I…” my eyes shot open, my memory returning to me like a flash. I tried to get up, only to find fabric straps of some kind holding me down. I struggled against the bonds.

“Cho woold knochte baan tuyut” a female voice said, I looked to the source of the voice to see a tall white horse with wings and a horn and flowing hair standing in the doorway.

“In English, please?” I asked, she looked at me, confused. “I don’t speak…whatever language it is you speak” she tilted her head in confusion before shaking her head slightly. Suddenly her horn lit up and I felt a presence in my mind.

‘Can you understand me now?’ I heard a voice, specifically the horse’s voice, in my head.

‘What the hell!?’ I exclaimed.

‘Calm down, it’s a simple temporary telepathy spell’

‘You’re in my mind?’ I mentally asked. She made a gesture similar to a shrug.

‘Yes and no, I can only hear your immediate thoughts, everything else in your mind is safe’ she explained ‘What is your name?’

‘Not sure what it is in your language’ I said ‘but in my language I’m called Luke’

‘I’m Princess Celestia, the leader of this country, I want to know why you’re here’ I sighed and let my head fall back onto the pillow.

“I don’t know” I responded aloud, hoping she could understand me ‘all I remember was going to sleep in my new home, then when I woke up Mrs Purple over there was at the front door’ as I said this I nodded to said purple horse, who ducked her head behind the door.

‘So you don’t know where you are or how you got here?’ I shot her a deadpan look

‘Do you think someone who intended to come here would faint when they first saw something like you standing in the doorway?’

‘Good point’ she responded. I gesturing to my straps

‘Are these really necessary?’ I asked.

‘We didn’t know what you would do’ she responded, undoing the straps ‘I’m sorry, but the safety of my ponies comes first’

‘Ponies?’ I asked, sitting up ‘is that what you call yourselves’ she nodded.

‘I’m a Human’ I said ‘now, would you be so generous as to let me get back to my home? It’s obvious neither of us know why I’m here, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to unpacking my things’

‘You’ve only just moved into your home?’ she asked, I nodded.

‘Last night, I’m literally living out of cardboard boxes right now’

‘Very well’ she said ‘I’ll need to arrange a linguist to teach you our language’

‘that can wait’ I responded, standing up ‘I’d rather keep myself busy, given the circumstances I’m not sure how long I’ll last before I have complete mental breakdown’

‘I’d say you’re taking this rather well’ she responded, I smiled slightly

‘my people have a saying’

‘And what’s that?’

‘keep calm and carry on’ I answered.

‘an admirable mantra’ she said ‘well then, if you wish to return to your home, then I won’t keep you. Twilight will teleport you back’

‘Twilight?’ I asked

‘the one you called miss purple’ she said, smirking

‘ah’ I said, I noticed the glow on her horn starting to dissipate “well then, as they say in my language, goodbye” by the time I’d finished my sentence the spell had seemingly worn off. Celestia nodded before calling to the purple pony, ‘Twilight’

“Daemrung, plase bagletung nashar gist, Luke, nazar deeme” she said, Twilight nodded and her horn glowed before my vison was filled with light. I felt the briefest sensation of falling and when I opened my eyes, I found myself standing outside my house. I immediately noticed there was what appeared to be a bubble of some kind surrounding the house. I shot her a look and raised my eyebrow she merely shrugged. I walked to my front door and opened the door…only to be tackled by a mass of fur and a tongue to the face.

“Sam!” I ordered “heel, boy! Heel!” Sam jumped off me, his tail a blur due to the speed it was wagging. I heard giggling and looked to see Twilight laughing. I smiled before standing up and walking inside. Out of reflex I flipped the light switch, and was surprised to see the light switch on.

“The fuck…?” I muttered, I quickly dashed to the kitchen and turned the tap on. I gasped as water flowed out of the tap and down the plughole “It still works” I let out a half laugh, I heard what sounded like hoofsteps and turned to see Twilight looking around in amazement. Sam was following close behind her.

“Deeze est…” she said, trailing off. I understood the context of what she was saying.

“yes” I said, smiling and nodding to affirm the meaning. She thought for a moment before speaking, trying to replicate the sound.

“Y…yis?” she asked, her accent was think, and almost sounded German with a few undertones I couldn’t place, I shook my head.

“Yes” I repeated slowly.

“Y…yes” she repeated, successful this time. Her face broke out into a grin, she then gestured to the house. “Deeze est deeme?”

“Yes, this is home” I answered, looks like we were beginning to understand bits and pieces of each other’s languages. “Deeze est Deeme”

“Dach!” she replied, smiling. Suddenly she held up a hoof, almost as if to say “one minute” before disappearing with a ‘pop’. I raised an eyebrow before going into the living room to begin unpacking. Seeing as most of the boxes contained stuff like clothes and other possessions rather than parts of furniture I’d gotten most the boxes out of the living room and had begun setting up my stereo system when Twilight reappeared with a large pile of books. She went to say something but stopped when she saw the stereo system.

“Wailtche est cho? she asked, pointing to the stereo system.

“A stereo” I said, she simply tilted her head in confusion.

“S-stairio?” she asked, sounding out the word.

“No no, Stereo” I corrected “It plays music” I then whistled out a tune. Suddenly she began barraging me with questions in her own language, too fast for me to understand what she was saying. Eventually I’d had enough

“I can’t understand you!” I snapped. Causing her to stop mid-question. “just…wait” I held up my hand as I said this, hoping she’d get the message. After a moment, she nodded meekly, before sitting down and watching me work on the stereo system. A couple of times I noticed her open her mouth out of the corner of my eye, as if to ask something, only to stop each time before the words left her mouth. Eventually I’d finished setting it up and retrieved my laptop from the sofa (I’d placed it on there when I’d started moving things about), and started it up. Upon start up, I was surprised and shocked to see that it had full bars of Wi-Fi.

“This day is getting weirder and weirder” I muttered, what? Did you think I would complain about getting internet “well, at least I’ve got that going for me, which is nice” I carried the laptop over to the stereo system ad connected it up before going into the music player app, it wasn’t long before some of my favourite songs began playing out of the speakers. With the music playing at an acceptable level, I began to put up pictures on the wall. After some time I opened the final box and gasped.

“Oh, you beauty” I breathed, lifting the large frame out of the box. The painting depicted a streamlined steam locomotive painted in dark green, pulling a train of red coaches, on the line next to it another steam locomotive struggled to keep up with it. I smiled before mounting it on the wall “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that mounted on a wall”

“Est cho ane dempthlachkemotar?” Twilight asked. The last word seemed very similar to the German word for steam locomotive

“A steam locomotive?” I asked, she levitated a book of some kind over, showing me a page. On the page was a picture of a twisted mockery of an American steam locomotive, from roughly the 1860s, I mentally cringed from how garish the colours were. ‘that solves the question of how advanced or crude this planet is’ I thought. I reluctantly nodded, then quickly pointed between the picture in the book, and the picture on the wall “yes, a steam locomotive. They are the same…sort of” Twilight nodded before sitting down and gesturing for me to do the same. I joined her and she levitated a different book over and began reading off words and showing me pictures associated with each word, before making me say each word, I quickly realised that she was teaching me using a children’s book, but I soon after came to the conclusion that had to start somewhere. During the process, we both discovered that we shared the same alphabet, something that greatly sped things up. Throughout the day I learnt the basics, ‘food’, ‘clouds’, ‘plants’, ‘Night’, ‘Day’, that sort of thing. We repeated this process until I could say a number of words, she even managed to teach me a couple of one or two word phrases like ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’ or ‘how are you?’. I even managed to teach her some of my language using a similar process, though she was a lot faster at learning, must be one of the differences between our species.

After a few hours we decided to stop for the day, she gave me what seemed to be an illustrated dictionary and I was just saying goodbye to her when a blue pony with wings kicked the door down and proceeded to tackle me to the ground. Whilst two other ponies ushered Twilight out of the house, despite her obvious protests

“Ha! Ick hab beck sien, sien moanstere!” the blue pony said, pinning my head to the floor with a hoof

“Knoc!” I exclaimed, my accent thick. Before I could continue, Sam shoved the pony off me and forced her out of the door with a shove to the stomach “Sam! Heel!” he didn’t respond, instead choosing to bare his teeth at the intruder, who seemed frozen with fear at the half-wolf. I quickly got up and yanked Sam away by the collar just as he was about to go for the pony.

“Bad dog!” I ordered, secretly I wanted to let him go for the pony for breaking down my door and pinning me, but my conscience would have never allowed it, plus I’m not sure that would put me in the princesses graces if I let my pet dog maul one of her ponies “Inside, NOW!” Sam whimpered before slinking inside the house. I turned to see the group of ponies, four in total staring at me with their mouths open to an almost comical level. I turned to the blue pony.

“What the bloody hell are you playing at!?” I asked, not caring that she couldn’t understand “Is that how you greet people here, by kicking down their front doors!?” I gestured to the door for emphasis.

“Ick…ick…” she stuttered, rendered speechless, partly by shock and from the language barrier. At this moment, Twilight stepped in and began talking to the blue pony. I frankly did not care for what they were talking about and walked back inside. I plonked down on the sofa and let out a sigh of frustration; I was stuck on another world and I couldn’t even speak the local language, the last thing I needed was the ire of the locals directed at me. Sometime later, I heard Twilight walk in and say something in her language, I nodded merely to acknowledge her, not even turning to look at her. I heard a sigh and hoofsteps retreating away from me, followed by a sparkling noise and the door shutting behind her. After a moment of pondering I got up and walked into the hallway, only to find the door back on its frames and fully repaired. I’d have to thank Twilight when I’d learnt the words to do so properly. For now though, I needed to continue with getting my house ready. With a sigh I walked into one of the other rooms to start unpacking, today was going to be a long day.