A new world, another search

Penstrokes

part 3

*Sigh*

*Clop*

*Clip, Clop*

*Creak*

*Groan*

*Slam*

“Ow, One more for the collection.”

*Sigh* “Sure is a beautiful silver moon out tonight. I wonder if it’s common knowledge that it’s a giant reflector made out of rock and metals?”

(…)

“Well, I might as well try and finish this.”

I don’t know how long I slumbered in the dark, but I was awoken by the presence of light. Light that soon was followed by a little calling voice. I walked after the sound, rounded a corner and found myself face to face with the light source. A black fox looking thing with glowing golden rings. How that works, I really don’t know. She looked quite shocked to see me, an expression I’m pretty sure I mirrored. Some stunned minutes and a few reassuring words later, she practically pounced me. Obvious glad not to be both alone and lost anymore. I still wonder how long she walked about in there. With a light source, as strange as a luminescent fox cat thingy is for a light source, getting around became so much easier, and I only got a few bumps more, mostly because of slippery surfaces. I had hooves for Turners’ sake! I knew it was a bit of a bet, but I decided to follow the water, with a little luck it would run out into the blue at some point. I remember petting Shady reassuring from time to time, and getting a nuzzle back. When she’s not mocking me, she’s actually quite the friendly lap cat, albeit a little large for it.

Following the water was a rather dull obstacle course. Had to squeeze through gaps, crawl boulders and scale slippery rocks, even managed to turn the stream into an impromptu waterslide a few times. My plot’s still sore from that. Needless to say, Azuu, wasn’t exactly ecstatic. I don’t think we wandered that long when we finally found the place where the stream ran into the blue, literally. I found myself in an opening in a mountainside, with a free fall drop at my pa hooves. The view was amazing, a wild looking forest stretched down between mountain roots until it seemed to run into wide farmland like waves crashing on a shore. Little farms littered into the horizon, the rolling farmland broken by small streams, a larger river and a railroad that I figured wounded its way north. Large birds played under an unobstructed yellow sun, along with a few more, odd looking things. Ever seen a bunch of purple balloons fly against the wind?

As mentioned earlier, I had, have, wings, so why not use them? I figured I could at least glide in for a landing. So with an understandable sceptic foxy thing on my back, I took off, stretched out my wings, screamed ‘Geronimo’ accordingly, and dropped only a little slower than the infamous rock. With her clinging on for dear life, we hit the water hard. I’ve never been afraid of water, and I certainly wasn’t then, what I was more afraid off, was whether or whether not I could get my hooves on solid ground before my passenger made me black out. Where hooves flailed to get me moving, my wings proved much more useful than they had done in the air, and it wasn’t long til the two of us could collapse under the curtains of a large willow. I was hungry, wet and all around miserable. Shady, I’ve taken to call the living lamp post that, wasn’t much better, and I barely got a breather before the flying blue fur ball gave me a supersonic berating of the ages.

The forest offered some fruit and the water was clean enough to sip from. So after raiding a large black berry bramble I decided to head down stream. We passed beautiful butterflies, huge too. Took a few reroutes to avoid less friendly looking creatures and giant mushrooms with faces. I wasn’t sure I wasn’t somewhat delirious, it looked like something out of a morning cartoon, come to life. What the hell had I been smoking, right? Nothing I’m pretty sure.

I think it was around noon when the stream hit a larger creek. A larger fast running creek. I’ll admit I was a bit jealous of the orange otter thingy with the twin tail. It at least, had paws to grab with. I heard a cry and sounds of static electricity released. It made me turn and charge through the underbrush. Shady right behind and Azuu quickly taking the lead. What we happened upon, was not what I had expected. In a small clearing, a little blue and black cat, with a star on its tail, was facing a big blue, toad. They were fighting, and the sparks came from the cat. I stood stunned, while Azuu flew in and as Azuu does best, went supersonic on them. The toad swung an arm and Azuu went flying out of the clearing like a baseball ball. While I bolted to pick him up, Shady jumped in to the fray. The toad sent what looked like canon balls of mud towards the worse for wear kitty. Shady was all over the place. Though Azuu had hit the tree hard enough to be groggy, he seemed more indignified than hurt.

When I said that Shady was all over the place, I really meant that Shady was all over the place, as in in several places at once, or so it appeared. The bipedal Toad swung its arms violently every which way, occasionally hitting Shady clones and causing them to disappear. I ran in and threw the little cat up on my back. Little fellow thanked me by realising an electric spark upon me. It tingled and I’m pretty sure I looked like a dirty electrocuted plush toy. I stopped in a bush on the edge of the clearing to yell for Shady to break it off, just in time to have the words stuck in my mouth, watching Shady make a summersault, with her tail glowing white, as she smacked it right into a wide eyed big blue toad face. She landed nimbly back on her feet in the clearing, obviously proud of her work. The toad hit the ground hard, out cold. I was, and am still trying to process what the flying folly I had just witnessed. By now, I’ve started filing a lot of what happens around me away under the category; magic. Trust me it is a legal explanation here, and all I can do to keep myself somewhat sane. A relieved sound came from the little blue and black electrocuting cat on my back, and I turned my head just in time to watch the guy flat out from exhaustion.

I’ve named the little fellow Lyxo. She seems to like the name. Her and Shady are adorable together, though Shady tends to seem a bit annoyed. Probably something about keeping a cool image. By that time my mind had pretty much given up on giving a rational explanation for anything. So when we was attacked by a bunch of pony sized flycatchers, angry pony sized flycatchers, courtesy of yours clumsy only, I just followed Shady’s lead and ran. We ran, ran, out ran the flycatchers, and ran some more, till we hit a cliff, tumbled over said cliff, and into the creek below. Ouch. After scraping fur off my wing on a couple of sharp rocks, sinking my fangs, gently but firmly, into Lyxo’s neck and nearly being choked to death by Shady, again, we finally found a more gentle part of the creek, from which I could get some footing, and stumble ashore. A nice green patch seemed like a perfect makeshift bed.

You would figure that since I woke up as a ‘bat-pony’ and after all I had already seen, I wouldn’t be too surprised to be awoken in the late afternoon, by a speckled white unicorn mare with long evergreen mane and tail. I think my first impression left a lot to wish for. Yeah, for some reason, the fact that she was a unicorn surprised me more than the fact that she could speak. I deserved her sarcastic notion that I was in fact a bat-pony, you know, just in case I hadn’t noticed. Considering the fact that I had an electrocuting kitty between my front hooves, and a luminescent fox thingy I still managed to be dumbstruck when her horn lit up in a rose taint matching her eyes, and she hauled me to my p hooves with, magic.

With Shade and Lyxo on my back the unicorn mare, Vanilla is her name by the way, with help from a little green dinosaur thing named ‘Chika’ supported me through the woods to her home. She lives in this nice two stores cottage up a mountainside, with a pretty impressive and large garden. A garden apparently guarded by a determined mushroom and a living sunflower. Her son, erh colt, Sweet Heart, yeah, that’s his name, came charging down and met us. He’s the fluffiest pastel green pony I’ve ever seen. His rose shaded mane makes him look like something out of a candy workshop around Easter. His first reaction when he saw our little troupe? ‘Coool!’ Guess kits will be kits no matter where you go. His mother, Vanilla, hurried us all along inside, to the big treatment.

She sat us down and served herbal tea. Well, tea for me, bowls of lukewarm milk for Shade and Lyxo. Vanilla figured since they both seemed to be some strange sort of cats they’d like it. Judging by the way they attacked the bowls, heh, go figure. She really made a fuzz about me, it was almost nice, almost. I must have looked at her as if she had grown another head when she casually picked up a spoon, with one hoof! So, these hooves of mine have some inert touch triggered telekinetic powers, at least that’s the best way I can explain it. That means that I’m supposed to be able to pick stuff up, and hold on to stuff with my hooves, being a bat-pony, I’m apparently supposed to have a naturally stronger grip than certain other types of ponies. Guess once, I had no touch with such, at all.

Vanilla went and had me work on remedying that very quickly. She didn’t question it, took one closer look at me and decided that answered that. Yeah, probably wasn’t looking my best, in any sense of the word. I had a ball thrown at me, don’t ask me where she procured it, but she expected me to catch it, and not with my fangs. How do you think that went? I’ll give you one hint; my current method of writing! Argh.

“But by the First Fleet, if I ain’t gonna figure this out, and not a moment too soon.”

(…)

“Now, where did that ball go.”

(…)

*Boing*

While Vanilla had had us settled down with milk and tea, her son and Chika had prepared a bath for us. The bath tub? A large cylinder wooden tub, strategically placed in the middle of a washing room, so nothing got wet that wasn’t already moist. It was heavenly to melt into the warm water. Lyxo was splashing around in no time, while Shady preferred to just soak, not that that was easy with Lyxo jumping in and out of the tub all the time. Azuu was the only one who seemed like he did not enjoy the sensation of being dipped in warm water and scrubbed clean. I think I soaked in bliss all the way till a smell of boiling greens required someone to stop a water logged Lyxo from dragging water into all the other rooms of the house. It took a little teamwork working the towels, and yes we did you out mouths for that, and no, I’m not spitting hairballs, anymore.

* Boing* *Mph!*

(…)

“Oh crud.”

“No, come back here.”

(…)

“Stupid ball.”

(…)”*”

“By the infamous Folly, this world is absolutely impossible. No sense, no sense at all, how? No, I give up. I can’t hold unto a ball with my hooves, but I can catch it with my tail, which is supposedly just a whip of long hairs.”

*boing* *boing* *boing*

“Under the bed? Great, just great, unless.”

*swish, swish*

“Well, at least I can trust my tail. And...”

“Yay!”

“Umbreoon!”

“Sorry.”

(…)

“Look Shady, I’m hoo.”

*boing*

*Sigh*

“Umbreeoo.”

“Can’t all be night folks eh? Sweet dreams.”

“mmh”

“And she claimed the whole bed.”

*Creak*

“I’ll figure this hoof hold thing, somehow.”

We all looked a lot better after the bath, and smelled of fresh herbs. Then Vanilla, well, cast a spell that quick dried us, without the effect that doing so usually has. No fluff, no messed up hairstyles. I’m not sure how I still managed to be surprised by it, but at least it earned me a short lesson in unicorn magic. Something about focusing magic through designated spells and horns. It was, by all means, something straight out of a fantasy novel, only with horns instead of wands, and no need for funny movements or words in wanna-be Latin.

Vanilla went in the kitchen, and I found Sweet sprawled out in front of the fireplace with Chika and a hearty load of homework. Found my way down beside him. Spent the time until dinner just chatting with the colt. I helped him where I could while we snuggled with the creatures. Pokémon as they’re apparently called as a whole. Apparently, they weren’t indigenous to this strange world. Equus is its name, as I learned helping Sweet with his geography. Glad my abilities to read a map and plan flight routes translated over to exoplanetary geography. In other words, whatever caused them to appear, happened the same time as that which landed me inside a mountain. Coincidence? Not likely. I got a serious hand-out of questions myself, questions I had not a hair’s edge of chance answering. Like, what was it like to walk on clouds? How was life in a colony? How about Bat-ponies and cutie marks? Cutie marks? I have no idea what that is, and at this point, I’m afraid to ask.

They diagnosed me with amnesia, understandable and I don’t really mind. Listening to my recap of the day, they reasoned  head trauma and magical mishap. Partly true at least, I mean, no way I was going to try and explain the physics and technology I had delved in. Sufficiently advanced technology is magic for those who do not comprehend anyroad, heck, some of it was pure magic to me.

I, don’t particularly like lying.

Dinner was a very delicious mushroom soup, best I ever had, and was I starving. I think I ended up eating as much as the others combined. Luckily, it didn’t seem like I managed to break any unspoken customs. Eating heartily and thanking for a great meal, definitely scored me points with both members of the household. Sweet was beaming with pride, having been the one to pick the mushrooms. Apparently, he has green hooves in more than one way. I helped clear the table the best I could, dropping several utensils on the floor, that was when I discovered that I could wrap my wings around objects to hold onto them. Wish I knew that before dinner, would have saved me a moist muzzle, and the embarrassment of being unable to use a spoon. Not that Sweet bothered. Now that I think about it, he was doing his homework with the pencil in his mouth. Apparently, this holding stuff in your hooves can be tricky even for those born with it.

After Sweet was tugged to bed, quickly joined by Chika and Lyxo who hadn’t left his side all evening, I ended up just hanging back, chatting with Vanilla. She’s been incredibly helpful, I really don’t know how I’m going to make it up to that sweet missus. It was her who gave me this diary and suggested that I should use it to write down anything I could remember or might want to remember. It still puzzles me that she thought it a good idea to give the fella who can’t even hold unto a spoon, feather and ink to write with.

We all went in for the night and that’s pretty much it. Oh, yeah, I think I’ll add here; some of these Pokémon creatures are definitely smarter than they look. Shady drew a heart and spelled out cake while I was out looking for pencils. Still not sure if she was poking fun at me, or just informing us that she likes cake. Who knows, maybe learning more about this strange world will help me figure out what is really going on here, what’s really behind the curtain, so to speak.

(…)

“And I think that’s the end of that. Wow, that ended up being quite the entry, though, I think I’ve forgotten something, probably, something about a bear? Never mind.”

*clap*

*creak*

(…)

*Shuffle*

“Better ask Vanilla for a way to make sure that others don’t read that diary… later.”

*zz..z..z*