Pathfinder 5

Pathfinder 5

Chapter 12: Meeting the Princesses

David tried to move as she slowly came awake before he realized that he couldn’t move again. The dark was nearly complete but he could make out that he was on his back and something was cuddled up against him. He raised the lights slightly and he wasn’t surprised to see who it was. She was cuddled up to him breathing softly.

He had to admit that she did look kind of cute sleeping like that. He reached up and ran a hand through her hair, or was is called a mane? It was hard to tell as it was stylized like hair. It certainly felt more like hair. His fingers found the back of her ear causing her to moan slightly. He paused not sure if she was awake or what he was doing to her. He tried it again and she sighed as she smiled and snuggled him more closely.

“Huh, guess you liked that,” He removed his hand as he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate or not to do that. He shook her slightly. “Time to get up.”

She moaned but didn’t get up, apparently she was a bit of a heavy sleeper.

David sighed looking up wondering how to get her up, he smirked as an idea came to him. It was time to see if she was ticklish. His fingers went to her sides as he started a search and soon she started to react. She snorted and suddenly she burst out laughing, what he didn’t expect was her flailing hoof to hit him right in the face.

“AH!” His head went back as he fell out of his bunk and landed on the floor. “Fuck!” He cried out when he hit the ground.

Twilight suddenly looked around as her brain started to catch up to her. She had felt herself striking something and in the low light she knew she wasn’t in her bedroom. A groan from below caused her to look over the side of the bed and saw [David] holding the side of his face.

“Oh no,” she got down next to him. “Are you okay? I’m sorry I don’t know what happened!”

“Okay, I at fault,” David said in his broken Equestrian. “Tried to wake, learn lesson.”

Twilight still felt guilty about it plus what if he had some kind of mark on his face when he met the Princesses? She took a look and saw a nasty red mark on his cheek. Her ears fell flat against her head as she saw it. She gently touched his face as she bit her lip.

“Let me try something okay, please?” She asked him.

David nodded his head not sure exactly what she had planned but he saw her horn light up. Then he felt something against the pain in his cheek, it was a tingling sensation and the pain was slowly fading. Then just like that the pain was gone, he reached up and touched the skin and it felt a bit tender but otherwise it felt fine.

“Oh good it worked,” Twilight sighed to herself. She wasn’t sure that healing spell would actually work. Healing spells weren’t exactly her specialty after all. Plus it was a basic one at that, thankfully it should make sure that there would be no mark on his face that she would have to explain.

David got up and looked at the mirror to see that his face looked okay, it was a little tender but you’d think getting hit in the face by a hoof would have done more. Had she done something to him? He knew that they would move objects with their horns so far but was that only scratching the surface? Just what else could they do?

He was going to have to give himself a full medical scan just to be sure. He left the room as a worried Twilight followed him into a room that he had said something about it being a ‘healing’ room. Maybe it was called something else but it was a small room that didn’t seem to have much in it when he showed it to her.

“Uh…what are we doing in here?” She asked him.

“Looking.” He told her and then pointed at his face. “Use this, look deeper.”

Twilight blinked not sure how this room could do that when she watched him touch something into a control panel in the wall. Then that’s when the walls opened up, one side slid away showing secured devices, packages and other things. She noticed something odd though, there were red crosses on white surfaces and another one. Twin snakes wrapped around a single rod with wings on it, it was a caduceus, the universal symbol for medicine. It was also known as the Rod of Asclepius after an ancient story of a special pony of healing.

How was it possible that the same symbols that were used on her world were used by him? Have they been watching them or was there a deeper meaning to all of this.

A humming sound got her attention as she looked that the other wall had pulled away to show something that looked like his bed only inside of the wall behind a screen. He pulled the screen away as he slipped in. He spoke to the ship, she only knew a few of them but then a light washed over him. It only lasted a moment before he slipped back out. He went to the flat screen against the wall as Twilight looked to see a recreation of his face on it.

She watched with wide eyes as the details were amazing and then the skin disappeared showing the muscle tissue and then even the bone. There were words and results but she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. That machine had taken images not only outside but inside of his body, only magic could really do something like that.

Sure they had x-ray machines but nothing like this. The computing power alone would have to be so much further than what they had here today.

David looked at the data and from what the computer was telling him he was somehow recovering from a bruise to the face that should be a week old. Okay that was a little freaky for him but it also very intriguing as well. So she had somehow sped up the recovering of his body. Well this was going into his next report, hell he was going to have to make a whole report just about this.

“Are you okay?” Twilight asked him hoping that he was, she was sure the spell worked but then again she didn’t know anything about his biology she realized. She could have missed something that the spell wouldn’t have fixed up.

David nodded his head, “Yes, good.”

His stomach growled a bit as he smiled at her, “Time to eat.”

Then he heard another and looked down at Twilight who was blushing. “Yeah time to eat,” he chuckled as they left the medical room.

While he started breakfast she went to the bathroom for a quick shower and freshen up. She checked and rechecked herself in the mirror, normally she didn’t care much on her appearance but this was an important day. Both Luna and Celestia would be there to meet them and for a moment like this she wanted to make sure everything went well.

Breakfast went well and David took his turn to wash up as Twilight offered to clean up. After a quick shower and shave he found himself a change in clothing before getting Twilight to meet with him up in the cockpit. Although he only had the one chair that was secured to the floor, he wasn’t planning on any crazy flying. Still he would have felt better if Twilight had a decent place to sit with at least one safety belt. He had to made due with one of the spare chairs next to the holographic workstation.

Normally he would put them away and secure them but he placed it next to his pilot’s chair. She sat down at it while he went through his pre-flight checklist.

Twilight watched in silence as he seemed to be working at the center controls of the ship.

The way his hands and fingers danced along the controls, it was obvious to her that he was checking out the systems, what systems exactly she had no idea but there did seem to be some kind of order to it all. She hoped that she could get the chance to know what he was doing in more detail later. She could hear the ship humming to life like a dragon slowly waking up.

Twilight could barely contain her excitement as she felt the ship slowly lifting up.

“Shinning would love this,” She muttered to herself her older brother loved sci-fi stories and comics and when he would find out about an actual alien and an alien ship, he was going to hit the roof.

She watched as the forest trees slowly moved out of sight and they were above the Everfree. His hands went to the floating energy controls as he manipulated them with easy movements as the ship slowly moved forward. She got the feeling that he was being extra careful since she was here. His chair seemed to have straps on it that would keep the pilot in the chair while hers didn’t.

Maybe she could make one and he could take her into space?

Her eyes widened at that thought, to actually see space. Sure Princess Luna technically was the only one to do it but being put into the Moon wasn’t the same thing as trying to explore space. Her mind raced at the possibilities of what was out there. She watched as they sailed over the forest and Ponyville came into view. She looked and soon saw a large crowd just outside of the town.

“Over there,” She pointed out the window. David nodded as he moved the ship towards that direction.

-Ponyville-

In an open area just outside of the town the population of Ponyville were quickly making preparations, the Pegasi were clearing the skies, Pinkie and the Cakes had food out as well as Pinkie’s usual party decorations. She had made a huge banner that read “Welcome to Equestria and welcome Princess Celestia and Princess Luna” written on it. A lot of the population was waiting as an area had been marked off so no one would go into it.

Mayor Mare had been scrambling to get everything ready, she had everypony in their places, she had the musicians ready to play the anthem and everything seemed to be going well. She still felt nervous, not only were the two Princesses coming here but this would be a moment that would be recorded in their history forever. She felt giddy with excitement and also felt butterflies in her stomach from worry.

It was an odd sensation of two opposing feelings as she looked out over the area. She could see various emotions across the faces of her fellow ponies. Some were obviously nervous, some were eager especially the children as they were all excited and she could hear a few asking questions that their parents would have no way of answering. Some Pegasi had moved some of the clouds off and were sitting on them away from the area either for safety or for better seats.

The Mayor tried to mentally go through her head what might happen, a speech she had done just in case it was needed, when the royals were arriving but she found it hard to concentrate. She sighed as she remembered how things had gone at the town meeting yesterday.

-Flashback to Town Hall, Yesterday-

The Mayor was pacing behind the large curtain as she could hear everypony behind it, by the sounds of it most of the population was here. She took a deep breath as what she was about to tell her ponies was something that would be life changing. Taking a moment she checked the time and it was time for the meeting. She walked through the curtains to the podium as the crowd saw her and slowly started to quiet down.

She cleared her throat as she looked at the notes she placed in front of her but looking at them she wasn’t sure what she had planned to say would be enough. She looked out over the crowd as it suddenly hit her what she was about to tell them would change everything for them.

“First off I would like to thank you all for coming,” Mayor Mare said with a smile. “We have a lot to do as the Princesses are both coming to Ponyville tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!?” Cried out several individuals.

“We have to start baking!” Mrs. Cake cried out suddenly realizing they were going to be busy tonight.

“But we have cloudy skies for tomorrow!” Someone from the weather team said next knowing this was going to play hell with their weather schedule. Every time you had to change the weather you had to balance it out down the line or else things could get nasty.

Various other voices were heard saying various things as the Mayor clapped her hoof onto the podium getting all their attention.

“Please everypony I know this is last minute but they are coming here to meet with a visiting…dignitary.” She had paused on how to explain him and this seemed like the most appropriate way. Plus in a way he was a visiting dignitary of a whole new culture.

“Why’s a dignitary coming here?” Someone from the audience asked.

“Well he’s been here already for a little while,” The Mayor started to explain. “He’s been in the Everfree and he’s asked if he could move his…transportation closer to the town.”

She could see various other questions coming and decided that she couldn’t avoid dancing around the topic. She took another breath before she called to order and when everyone was listening she spoke up again.

“You see this is a very special dignitary, he comes from a land very far away, from a place none of us have ever heard about.”

“There’s such a place?” Someone asked. “Is this a land from beyond the ocean?”

Although much of their continent was mapped there were still undiscovered areas across the ocean but they were far away and hard to get to. So there were many places on their world that were still undiscovered.

“Much further,” Mayor Mare told them. “You see this individual has crossed the stars themselves to come to our world. Yes, from the looks I see some of you understand, this dignitary is actually not of our world, he’s an alien from another world.”

That sent everybody talking at once asking all kinds of questions, she felt overwhelmed as she tried to calm everyone down and get some kind of order back to the meeting.

“Please, everypony, there is nothing to be worried about!” She cried out.

“We’re all going to get probed!”

“The horror! The horror!”

“Is this an invasion? Are they going to take over our minds or bodies!?”

“What does it look like?”

“Is it all weird and gross looking?”

“How many are there?”

“Everypony please!” The mayor cried out. “I can answer some of your questions.”

Finally slowly everyone started to calm down as she took that moment to try and lightened the fear in the room. “Now as far as I know there is only one, he’s tall and walks on two legs, he’s a bit odd but he’s not some hideous monster either. Miss Twilight is with him right now and I don’t think she would trust being alone with him if he was untrustworthy.”

“He’s not a bad alien!” Apple Bloom spoke up at that moment. “He’s really nice.”

“Yeah plus he’s got all these cool things.” Scootaloo spoke up after her.

“Yeah [David] is a nice alien,” Sweetie Belle said finally.

The Mayor blinked and looked at the three of them. “How do you know his name? I never said it, in fact I only just learned it today.”

“Uh oh,” Sweetie said as the three suddenly realized everyone was looking at them especially Applejack and Rarity.

“Somethin’ y’all wanna tell us?” AJ asked them.

“Um…Twilight asked us to keep it secret,” Bloom replied.

“Ah think she would understand,” AJ told her as she was not letting this go.

The three Crusaders looked at each other before giving a very abridged version of what happened when they were at Fluttershy’s for a sleepover together. The two older sisters were a bit concerned that not only they had gotten into trouble and didn’t tell them, but that Twilight had asked them not to.

“We are goin’ to have some words when we get back home later.” AJ told her sister.

“And I suspect we’ll have a talk with Twilight when we can,” Rarity sighed. “Honestly she should have known better than to keep this from us. I know she wanted to keep this quiet but still she should have told us.”

“Well he sounds nice to me,” Lyra Heartstrings spoke up next. “plus the music they have is nice.”

“Yes he obviously comes from a cultured society.” Octavia spoke up.

“Wait how would you know about their music?” Bon Bon asked her best friend her eyes narrowed.

“Uh..well…you see…” Lyra’s eyes shifted back and forth trying to think of a way to explain it.

“You knew about this as well, the both of you!?” Bon Bon asked them both.

“And me,” Vinyl spoke up without a care. “Twilight asked us to listen to some alien tunes she got from him and some were pretty cool.”

“Okay is there anyone here that doesn’t know about the alien before now?” The Mayor asked looking around. Most of the town raise a foreleg which made her feel a bit better but she was the mayor damn it, she should be told these things. She felt a headache coming on as she pushed forward, she had a lot to get done.

-Present-

The Mayor was brought out of her thoughts from the sounds of various ponies excitement as she looked up to see one of the golden royal carriages being carried by a team of royal guard Pegasi while being flanked by another squad of the same soldiers. She quickly made her way to where the chariot landed. She bowed as everyone else in the area did as the two sisters walked among them.

“Please rise everypony,” Celestia said softly to them all.

“Your majesties it’s an honor to have you both here today,” Mayor Mare told them.

“This is a historic day, we wouldn’t miss this for anything,” Luna replied.

They were soon joined by others, those that bore the Elements, the CMC and Spike the dragon all approached them. No one else would ever normally dare approach the royal sisters so easily but all of them had personally met the princesses in various ways. Spike had been around the castle with Twilight for so long that Celestia was a well known friend to him. To the girls they had also met the rulers multiple times and being the ones that had helped save Equestria including helping to return Luna back to her usual normal form.

“I’m glad to see you all well,” Luna said seeing them all.

“How are you all?” Celestia asked them.

“I can’t wait for the super party I have planned to welcome the first alien to all of Equestria!” Pinkie bounced full of energy, more so than normal.

“I certainly am eager,” Rarity spoke up. “I took some time to think it over and I hope he can show me what kind of fashions his culture has, why just the thought of seeing never before seen designs I have to admit has my imagination going.”

“Ah need ta thank him for looking out for my sisters and her friends apparently,” Applejack said next.

“He seemed nice at tea,” Fluttershy put her thoughts into it. “He was nice to my animals and I wonder what kind of animals he’s seen so far.”

“Oh yeah if he’s been to other worlds than he must have seen a lot of cool animals!” Scootaloo thought about it and wondered if he had seen any cool monsters or anything in space.

“So he seems like a nice alien?” Luna asked them hoping to get some kind of insight into their visitor from the stars.

“Yeah he was really nice to us,” Sweetie told her.

There was a sudden sound as it got everyone’s attention, all the ponies looked to the source as something in the distance glared from the sunlight hitting it. It came from the Everfree as it got closer the noise got louder. The Apple family and Rainbow knew that sound, they had heard it that same night with the strange light. Now that it was within view everyone saw the alien craft. It flew through the air by some unknown means as it flew like a bird.

It made a slow circle around the landing area that had been marked off with ropes to show where the area was and to keep others from being in the area.

“This is really happening,” Luna breathed out softly seeing the vessel that was flying towards them.

“Yes, yes it is,” Celestia spoke back just as softly as they watched the vessel come to a complete stop as it just hovered there in midair.

The ship slowly started to descend as the grass below it billowed in a powerful wind that seemed to come from the ship. Strange leg like devices lowered from the bottom of the ship as he neared the ground as it slowly landed. It sank down a little as the weight settled, the roaring of the engines slowly started to fade. There was a moment of silence as everyone waiting with anticipation for what was going to happen next.

Slowly a ramp came out of the side of the ship as a door opened. There was Twilight at the entrance as she looked round. She wasn’t surprised to see the entire town out for this but it was still a bit daunting to see everyone so focused on her.

Twilight looked behind her as she nodded to David as she went out first. Princess Celestia and Luna came forward to meet with her. Twilight bowed before them as they nodded their heads. It was then that the Princesses saw the form in the doorway.

Celestia and Luna both looked with wide eyes at the tall figure standing there, he was just as Twilight had described but even with that description seeing him in person didn’t do her report justice. He walked down the ramp as the sisters could already hear various ponies reactions, Celestia noticed that a few of her guard twitched but didn’t make a move. That was good, she picked out those that knew how to remain calm under pressure and would not go against their training.

Celestia had to admit it was unique to see someone that was at her eye level, he was about as tall as she was, the face was a bit odd but just as expressive as any pony’s but it was the eyes that got her attention. Although they were smaller than pony eyes, they were just as expressive.

As David made his way down he saw a lot of the locals were gathered around, he had seen them while piloting but now on the ground with them he could see their expressions. There were a lot of them and for a moment he put himself into their position. How would he act seeing an alien for the first time if he was back home? He had to admit he had grown used to the idea by this point but this had to be one of those days they would look back on and would be telling the story of where they were the day the alien came.

He could see a lot of white aliens in armor that kind of looked like Roman legionnaire armor for some reasons. They seemed to have swords and spears, which thankfully were not pointed at him, but that was odd that they were still using them. They had electricity but they didn’t have at least gun powder? Then again he wasn’t sure how they would use it unless they strapped canons to themselves.

He saw [Twilight] in front of two larger and very important looking aliens. The white one was as tall as he was and the blue one was a bit smaller. It was odd how their hair and tails seemed to move on their own. They also seemed to be dressed a bit fancier than the others. Then he noticed that on top of their heads were crowns or at least what looked like crowns to him.

So far this world had a lot of parallels with Earth and its culture, there was that castle he had explored, that one he could see on that mountain with that city in the distance so crowns meant royalty. He took a good look at them and noticed something, they had horns and wings. He quickly looked around but so far there was no one else with both of those. He remembered those tapestries in that old castle with a winged and horned alien, one white and another blue.

What this some kind of royal blood line or maybe a caste system? So what was he meeting? After spending time with [Twilight] he got the feeling that both of them were female, they certainly had a female kind of build to them. If so that meant that he was meeting with what? Was this a mother and daughter? A queen with the princess along with her or maybe they were of two separate kingdoms?

He had to stop that line of thought as he ended up in front of them both, he did his best to bow before the two of them bending at the waist, he certainly hoped he didn’t have to do it exactly like how Twilight had done it, he wasn’t built for it.

They did seem pleased when he straightened back up so he guessed he passed, once social faux pas avoided apparently.

“I am Princess Celestia.” The elder sister spoke up.

Luna took her turn for introductions, “I am Princess Luna, co-ruler of Equestria. What may we call you?”

David wasn’t sure what the word [Princess] was but from the fact both used it to him it might be a title of some kind. He got their names and he guessed they wanted his in return. “I am Commander David Miller but you can just call me David.”

He smiled easily at them relaxing his body hoping to convey that he was here peacefully. It seemed to work because he could see a little tension go out of them as they smiled in return.

“Ah damn it,” He muttered to himself. “Why the hell couldn’t I have remembered to say ‘take me to your leader’ to someone? I just wasted a golden opportunity because I think they’re right here too.”

He thought about what to do next, he wanted to show that he was friendly and open up some kind of dialogue. With a mental shrug he decided to just keep it simple he could get into more detail once he had a better grasp of the alien language.

He stuck out his hand towards them and said one simple word he had learned that felt appropriate.

“Friends?” He asked them.

Celestia smirked at the simple question but she didn’t sense any kind of malice out of him, although his features were odd they weren’t so alien that she couldn’t tell his emotions on his face. She saw the outstretched hand and figured he was going for a hoofshake, or well handshake if she remembered the Minotaur version of it. She reached out as his hand gently grasped her hoof as they shook.

“Yes, I believe we could be friends.” She said with a smile.

Next up Chapter 13: Welcome Party