I Guardian

Needless to say, I didn't get very far in my endeavors to escape. After walking through the house, which seemed odd that a pony, talking or not, would live in a house, I arrived at the front door. I wasn't thinking of what I would see when I opened it, but the overly blue sky, with white puffy clouds being pushed by winged equine and the dirt road with four legged, candy colored creatures trotting next to humans was certainly not in any thought of what I'd see when I opened that door. A sloth riding a mouse while farting out a rainbow would have been more expected.

I must have stood at the door for a minute before I shut it.

“...the hell?” I opened the door again, still seeing the strange mixture of ponies and people. I closed the door, my mind blank, and then opened it again. Yup. Still there. Well shit.

“It's not going to go away just by shutting the door.” A voice told me from behind.

“I know.” I admitted closing the door. “But...” My mind was so wrapped up with processing what I had witnessed that fear and panic seemed to have missed the last train of thought. I was oddly calm about all this.

“Listen.” It was then that I turned around to see the purple unicorn, Twilight my dad called her, resting on a throw pillow behind me across the room. Her eye were red and puffy from tears, but the look in her purple eyes were strong and determined. “There's a lot I have to catch you up on, so if you please, I'd like to not draw this out longer than it has to.” Those strong eyes wavered. “And we still have to prepare for the funeral.”

A funeral. A funeral for a dad I never knew. For a parent who abandoned me and my mother. Anger boiled over.

“Right.” I snorted. “Yeah, sure. A funeral sounds great. Just the thing I want to talk about. Hey, I know, why don't we all sit around and talk about how great my daddy was? Oh right, he never was around!”

“He was a great man!” Twilight snapped back, rising to her hooves in his defense. “He meant the world to me and the girls, and we want to respect him properly!”

I couldn't help it. I laughed. A very hard, sarcastic laugh. “OH Riiiiiiight! Because he was such an upstanding guy. I see. It's not like his wife mattered. No. Or his son. Yeah, his son didn't mean a thing. Talking ponies on the other hand, now that really means something. Yeah, I can see how he was great. He always wanted to be an animal lover, or so people tell me. I wouldn't know, cause I never knew him. Well, I guess he got his wish, because he sure spent more fucking time with you talking things than he ever did with his actual family!”

I didn't mean to yell the last part, but with a chance to vent it all, it just came out. The other ponies, concerned about me yelling at Twilight I bet, came out of the grieving room to see us staring each other down.

“You know,” Twilight retorted. “If you knew of whom you spoke of, you'd see that he was twice the man you could ever hope to be! He was strong, caring, ki-”

“Blah blah blah,” I mocked with my a hand. “Right, accept for the part that the bastard didn't give enough of a shit to divorce my mom. No. It would be fine if he wanted to leave us penny-less. Perfectly acceptable, but you see he didn't. He just disappeared. He just fucking disappeared. It was like a magic trick. Now you see the failure of a father, now you don't. Where did he go? To a land where ponies talk and shit rainbows.” I clapped my hands. “Bravo. Bra-fucking-vo. Do it again! And now, we're going to give him cancer and make his son take care of his shit. Oh Encore! Encore!” I dropped all my antics, giving them all a deadpan look. “Do you get it? I don't know anything about him other than he fucked my mother and disappeared when I was eight. I barely remember him, and for that I could careless if he's alive or dead. The fact that I have to take care of you things just makes me hate him more. Want a funeral? Fine. Go ahead. I want no part. You ponies are on your own, while I try and find away back home.”

We all stood in silence as I finished my rant. The pink pony with the puffy hair, looked at me hurt, her hair somehow deflating. The cowgirl pony stood defiantly tall, which meant she only came up to my chest. The yellow pegasus just cried softly, huddling with the white unicorn, who was glaring daggers at me. The rainbow maned pegasus pawed the ground, like she wanted to attack, but I wasn't worried. I had taken over fifteen years of martial arts, and was black belt, so it would take little effort to redirect her charge away from me. Twilight, however, worried me.

The entire time I yelled at them, she had kept her composure. She didn't blink or flinch when I started cussing up my dad's 'good' name, and she didn't look worried that I wasn't going to 'take care of' them like daddy had asked. No, she just stood there, patiently waiting, as if something was going to happen.

A full minute went by, when reality set in. I wasn't home. I was in a place where ponies could talk and fly and shit! Holy fuck! What the hell was I going to do! It seemed that panic's brother, terror, finally hit me.

“You can go home whenever you like.” Twilight finally spoke, but now the strangeness that she could talk, and that we somehow shared the same language freaked me out so much, I flinched. “But when you do, let me know. I still haven't figured out that spell and I'm awfully curious how a human with no magic abilities could trans-locate himself across worlds on his own.”

There wasn't much point of conversation after that. Twilight left the room, followed by her five other herd mates, my wards I guess, leaving me where I stood. I couldn't go outside. No, I was not ready to face other talking things with hooves and tails, nor could I speak to my own kind because this wasn't my world. Hell, they could just look like humans, but really be bags full of tentacles that would rape me up the ass if they knew that I wasn't like them. Why did I touch that fucking letter? Really. My life was shit enough without all this. I had an over charged credit card, no chances with the ladies and my best friend was getting married to a chick I chased around when we were in high school. Talk about awkward.

In the end, I didn't see much of a choice in the matter. I followed them into the other room. The ponies were preparing a meal of some kind. Twilight was reading a recipe book while the cowgirl- or would she be a cowmare?- was whisking something in a bowl. I couldn't help myself. I snorted. All the ponies, with the sole exception of Twilight, looked up from their various tasks.

“How goes the trans-world relocation, Mike?”

That stung. “Yeeaaahhh, about that,” How do you tell a group of animals that you really don't know what you're doing right after you tell them that you want nothing to do with them? “It seems that I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I don't know how I got here, and that makes it a bit difficult in trying to get back home.”

“Have you tried pulling your head out of your plot?” Rainbow mane asked. I ignored that.

“Well, if you're just going to stand there, can you help Dash set the table?” She looked up, and her purple eyes met mine, stating very clearly that she sympathized with me about something and a deeper level than I knew. “I tend to make a little too much, so there will be some for you too.”

Oh fuck. I that wasn't a slice of humble pie, I don't know what is. Feeling more than a little ashamed, I helped rainbow mane with setting plates, forks and cups on the long oak table.

“Sooo,” I glanced around at the candy colored ponies. It was looking at a handful of skittles. “Sorry about earlier.”

“Sounded like ya' had a lot on yer' mind, sugarcube.” Orange coat replied, not taking her eyes off her work. “An' Ah'm sure that may be true from where ya' stood, but there's always two sides to the same bit, if'n ya' know what Ah mean.”

I didn't want to hear that, but if these ponies were going to give me a meal, I should just swallow what pride I have. Well, still have.

“I take it you have names?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Ah'm Applejack.” Orange coat announced. “Ya'h already know Twilight,” She nodded to Twilight. “The pink one is Pinkie Pie,” Saw that one coming. “The yellow pegasus is Fluttershy. The white unicorn is Rarity, an' that's Rainbow Dash.”

I nodded, taking in the face with the name. “I'm Mike.”

“Oh, we know.” Pinkie Pie, smiled sadly, tears still in her eyes. “James talk a lot about you.”

“He did?” That...surprised me. “Well...I don't know what about.” I brushed off. “He left when I was eight. Not like he saw me graduate college or win any karate competitions.”

“Karate, eh?” I looked over my shoulder to see Rainbow Dash had an eager grin on her face. “Got any moves?”

Without thinking I picked up a fork from the table and twirled it deftly through my fingers, flipping it up and...dropped it. Rainbow erupted in a fit of laughter, falling on her back, and rolling side to side. My face flushed.

“I like to see you twirl a fork with no fingers.” I muttered. Unfortunately, I said that a little too loud.

“Easy.” And with bound, she jumped to her hooves and snatched up the slender fork with a wing, and proceeded to flip it between the pinions of a wing. Figures.

“Dinner's ready.” Twilight announced, pulling the spotlight away from Rainbow, who was proving just how incapable I was at twirling a fork. “Come on girls, lets eat.”

The spread wasn't large, but it was enough. Roasted carrots, sprinkled with brown sugar, a kale, lettuce and cabbage tossed salad with some vinaigrette dressing, and some baked potatoes, with butter, salt and pepper. And to drink, we had the freshest, most crisp tasting water I had every had in my life.

I guess I was staring, because the yellow one, Fluttershy, gave me a kind smile. “I hope you save room for dessert later. Applejack makes amazing apple pies with whipped cream.”

Apple pie? Whipped cream? If it wasn't for that fact that I was in a new world where ponies talked, I'd be in heaven. I LOVE apple pie!

“If you don't mind me saying.” I smiled back, taking a bit of a cooked carrot. Tasty. “I thought you would be eating hay or something for dinner.”

That made the Pinkie Pie laugh. “Well, we live with humans, silly. I don't think I've ever seen a human eat hay for anything.”

“Fair point.” Looking around the table at all the others, sitting, talking amongst themselves, it almost seemed like something you'd see on earth, only people instead of ponies. With a sigh, I let my head sink into a hand. “Man. I just can't get over the fact that this is real.”

Twilight looked away from a quite conversation with Rarity, that was the white one's name, right?

“Mike. If you don't mind, can I speak to you in private?”

All conversations stopped around the table, as if they all understood a deeper level of the phrase than I did.

“Uhhhh, sure.” I agreed, slightly nervous about how the others were acting. I stood up and followed Twilight, who trotted into the next room, which was study of some kind. I wasn't really paying attention to what was around me, trying to focus more on the pony who wanted to talk to me. A pony that could talk. Oh boy, that was going to take some getting used to.

Twilight walked over to a throw pillow and indicated that I sit in the chair next to it. She stayed silent as I took my seat. I could see her thinking of how to put what she wanted to say into the right words.

“I need to explain a few things to you, and I'd rather be frank about things.” She looked up from where she sat. “Do you mind brushing my mane while we talk?” She asked, nodding her head to the stand next to my chair. Wordlessly, I picked it up and started brushing her mane. “It all started about two hundred years ago. The humans around her call it the Great Arrival. The Princesses who ruled the land suddenly disappeared, and in their absence monsters that we little ponies couldn't defend ourselves against started to rise up and attack us and our towns. Humans showed up out of no where, and beat them back before we could be overwhelmed.

“There has been much debate over who suggested it first, some say it was the humans who volunteered, and others claim that it was us ponies who asked them to, but after that humans started becoming guardians over us ponies. It was slow at first. More like what you would see in a community of equals, all offering what they could to help the whole. But as the years went by, those brave guardians started to become local heroes and were given praise by humans and ponies alike. It didn't take long for 'Guardian' to become a status rather than what people did, and us ponies became more of beasts of burden and property than equal beings.”

I paused my brushing. “Property? How so?”

Twilight thought for a moment. “You know how a King has a kingdom?” I nodded. “The King owns his kingdom and everything in it, wouldn't you say?”

“I guess so.”

“What if another King comes along and after a war takes over the kingdom. Who owns the kingdom?”

“The King that won the war.”

“That is exactly what has happened us ponies.” Twilight looked up at me, her eyes full of hurt, and yet a fire that I couldn't explain. “We have gone from neighbors to property. We're a status symbol. If a mare lives outside the protection of a Guardian they are considered the lowest class. Under the protection a Guardian, we're like a courtier, but only under the merits of the Guardian.”

I sat back. “That's a heavy load to take in, Twilight.”

“It's nothing enforced, or often spoken of,” She finished. “But at the rate things are going in Equestria, I'd give it another five, maybe six point three years before a Guardian proclaims himself king. There are already rumors that some of the stronger Guardians are drawing in their friends and communities to form little barons, but it hasn't happened yet here, in Ponyville.”

We sat in silence for a while. Well, shit. If it wasn't being stranded on a planet that I had no idea how I got to, it was being involved in strange, medieval type politics. Some people have all the luck.

“So, what does a Guardian do?” I asked. It was a dumb question, but one that needed to be asked.

“I'm getting to that.” Twilight snipped, though her barb seemed more affectionate than angry. “You should know first, I'm the Alpha mare of this herd. In short, I keep things running here. I take care of the day to day decisions, run the homestead, deal with all the expenses. You, as a Guardian, own the land we live on. You accompany me everywhere, defend us, take care of us by grooming and bathing us, and even send the other mares to go do odd jobs to pull in some revenue, if need be. We usually make do with Rainbow working on the weather patrol, Fluttershy working as an on call veterinarian, and Rarities boutique, not to mention Applejack owns Sweet Apple Orchard.”

I blinked. “Wow. It seems that we're pretty well off.” Maybe being stranded here wasn't such a bad thing.

“Indeed.” Twilight nodded, resting her head on my knee. “That is why you'll have many challenge you to the right of guarding us, since if he beats you in combat, he gets to take it all for himself.”

“Ah, I-wait what?!”

“Combat.” Twilight replied simply. “Usually with swords, though that's up to the individual Guardian. My guess, you'll get two or three challenges in the morning. They were holding off until James died, but...” Twilight's eyes misted over. “Word will spread...and they shall come in armor of dread.”