It's a little known fact that inter-universal travel is a pain in the backside. Granted I suppose landing on your backside doesn't help much for the tailbone either, now does it?

So here I was minding my own business on some random city sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon, when this guy in a dark hoodie runs past me at mach chicken and nearly bowls me over. Guy doesn't even so much as look back or apologize; instead, he throws some light refracting orb at me before beating tracks around the nearest corner. That's not even the best part.

Best part comes in when I find out that this crystal thing is actually stolen from some scientific laboratory or whatever; of course I find this out when every cop and their dog appears out of nowhere and tackles me to the ground. They're arresting me, they're shouting at me, they've got rather beautiful guns pointed at me -call me a gun nut, I don't care- and this crystal thing is still in my hand, despite being handcuffed.

All of a sudden, a gunshot goes off. That's it, I'm dead. I have to be.

Of course, I'm not dead.

No, i’m instead lying on my back and looking up at a foreign sky whose clouds don’t seem to be moving whatsoever, despite the wind I can feel brushing my brown- why is my hair silver?

“Oww.” I hissed to myself, shutting my eyes against the burning sunlight and the fire in my backside. “Sun-uv-a-bia-”

“You would do well to avoid such language before me.” a female voice demanded in such propriety I wondered if I was in Buckingham Palace. The -i’m totally guessing here- owner of the voice appeared from above my field of vision, looking down at me with disturbingly bright blue eyes set into an even more disturbingly dark blue muzzle, attached to a similar blue neck.

“What the fu-” a hoof came down over my face, threatening to cave my skull in with any more pressure should I decide to continue my sentence. “Okay, okay! Ow! Enough with the stepping on me!” I shouted, flailing about to try and remove the hoof from my face.

“Thou art now a prisoner unto the kingdom of Equestria!” she declared, glaring at me from above.

“Woah, wait what?” I demanded, trying to sit up. At least I would have if there weren’t two sets of gold plated hooves pushing me back down again.

“Thou shalt be detained and removed from my presence, to be unceremoniously thrown into the Palace Dungeon!” the creature declared as I was lifted entirely off the ground, still on my back, and dropped onto a wooden cart before being tied down and covered with tarps or rags.

“On what charge!” I demanded, lifting my covered head to try and shake it off.

“The charge of infiltration of this palace, strange creature!” the female bellowed as her voice drew further away, the bumps coming from the cart indicating I was being removed from the present location against my will. Great start for a new world.

~~~

“Day 24, no change. Still trapped. Still don't know why.” I groaned as I marked the date on the wall near to the other marks that I had made in the last 24 days. The first week consisted of an entirely Equine diet of flowers and grains and oats but after persistent nagging, I had finally convinced my unicorn guards to at least remove the flowers and turn the grains into a proper bread.

I had been visited by the Princess Luna over the last 24 days, however that was only once and I believe approximately 7 days ago according to my estimations. If I am correct I should be getting another audience with the princess sometime today, hopefully- and there she is.

“So, art thou ready to speak to me, and explain how thyself has infiltrated our world?” Luna almost demanded as the guards magically pushed open the wooden door to the dungeon.

“Are you going to tell me how long you plan to keep me in here?” I rebutted as I lay upon my self made mattress of straw and a white sheet. Slowly but surely I was achieving a level of humane living, even if I was still a prisoner against my will.

“Tell me what I wish to know, and thou shalt find thyself provided with another tool.” Luna replied half-heartedly, telekinetically producing a small rounded chisel from wherever she had it hidden.

“I’m just going to tell you the exact same thing, Princess.” I huffed, trying to ignore the floating tool. “All I know is what I've told you already. I was attacked, I had some kind of crystal ball thrown at me, I was arrested, then I was shot. I arrived here dazed and just as confused as you are.” I explained for the umpteenth time.

“If you were -as you call it- shot, then how are you still alive? Are you an immortal being? Eternal perhaps?” Luna inquired, raking the chisel head against the bars to my cell. I grit my teeth at the thought of her ruining a chisel head before I could get my hands on it.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m dead and this is hell.” I finally turned my head from my lying position towards the Princess. “Some deity wants to fuck with my mind by making me live the rest of my unnatural days in the dungeon of some creepy-ass pony world? I can deal with that.”

“Then what is it you can not ‘deal with’?” The Princess stopped destroying my precious chisel to mock my tone of voice eerily well.

“The fact that you repeatedly come down here to demand information from me that I do not have. Obviously you have no plans to kill me or you’d have done so by now.” I explained, sitting up on my meager bed to face the princess head on as she sat back on her haunches.

“What makes thou so sure of thine self?” Luna demanded defiantly, turning to head to look at me from the corner of her eye and over her upturned muzzle.

“You keep teasing me with new tools and equipment,” I remarked, pointing out the chisel hanging from Luna’s dark blue magic. “Why do that if you’re just going to have me killed?”

“Perhaps we wish to tease you with life, only to strip it away from you in the end when you’ve regained some shred of hope for normalcy?” Luna replied, looking straight at me with a creepy grin.

“Well then we’re never going to reach that end given that I have no hope for anything. I just live day to day.” I replied in a long slow breath, leaning back onto my mattress again with my arms folded behind my head and my leg crossed over the other.

“Then perhaps it would be better to end your pitiful life now!” Luna declared, her voice raising into what’s been established by the guards who occasionally visit call, “The Royal Voice.”

"Whatever, just do it quickly.” I replied, all but ignoring the attempts to frighten me with death. This all but completely deflated the princess and I could almost, almost, hear the air being released as she did so while she looked on at me in sorrowful shock.

“Have you truly no value for your life?” Luna asked in a surprisingly soft voice. Where did hell did that come from? I looked over at Luna again and immediately noted the concern for me in her blue eyes.

“No, I can’t say I do. I started off in this world as a captive, was force fed an equine diet of flowers, oats and grains -none of which is a compatible human diet- and I’m kept in a cage underground with only the faintest of daylight coming in from a window that doesn’t show me the outside world.” I explained sternly.

“Before that, I was in the human world. My parents died, my girlfriend left me when my parents didn’t will me anything of their fortune, I had no real friends to begin with,” I had been recounting my fateful experiences on my fingers, simply to make a point.

“And then I get tackled by the police, arrested and finally shot! So no, I do not hold much value on my life!” I finished my explanation sitting up and breathing heavily from my one sided shouting match with Luna.

After a minute of silence broken every few seconds by the sound of moisture dripping from a relatively nearby stalactite, “Why do you keep living then? Why don’t you just end your life on your own?”

I appeared at the bars before Luna could react, gripping them with enough force that I felt like I could break them through sheer fury alone.

“Did you just ask me why I haven’t committed suicide yet?” I demanded through grit teeth. “You think my life is unfit for living so I should just give up and kill myself; is that what you think?” I was nearly to the point of seeing red. Luna backed away shaking as she held the chisel pointed at me between us.

“I- I did not mean to-” Luna stuttered before dropping the chisel altogether and breaking down into tears. Why was she crying? I thought as I began to cool down. Getting down on my hands and knees, I reached out and took hold of the small metal carving tool before bringing it back into my cell.

“If there’s nothing else, Princess?” I demanded, turning back into my cell and taking a seat on my straw bed. Luna took the cue and galloped out, her wings held aloft in an attempt to remain formally royal however the streams of waterworks did little to maintain her appearance. “Have the guards bring me large blocks of wood,” I shouted after her before thinking quickly and adding, “Please?”

Author's Note

So here I go again; just posted the first chapter of something no one's read yet, and already starting on something else!

Truth be told I have no idea where this is going, just like Lonesome Road I suppose, so for now i'll call it a compilation of short stories? Actually this one I might continue sooner; gears are already grinding away, heheh.

If another author wants to provide some ideas I say go for it!