A not quite Equestrian adventure

A/N: sorry this took so long but I had soo much going on these past few days it made writing a near impossibility. I know that the grammar is crap but I’m trying to improve on it.

I open my eyes and I see grey… Sand? And Lots of it. It’s like a desert, it’s flat no hills or anything. I shift myself and try to prop my head up to get a better view of the landscape, the sand attaches itself to my face as I lift myself up onto my hands and knees.

The sky is pitch black. No stars. No moon, Just a black void. ‘Weird then how can’ I see I think. I push the thought aside as the grey desert I’m in grows in size.

I stand up shakily and fall over and face-plant the floor. ‘Weird it doesn’t hurt,’ I think as I slowly get back up standing like a toddler.

I feel a sound coming from next to me, HI.

A chill travels up my spine as I try and figure out how I heard something if I felt it instead of using my ears. I turn and look for the cause of my fears and I feel the sound again, SO, ARE YOU GOING TO TALK OR AM I GOING TO HAVE TO READ YOUR THOUGHTS.

The figure standing behind me… Is DEATH.

He wears a dark black cloak that covers his entire body, which is made of bones, only his skeletal hand sticks out as the one hand holds on to his giant scythe, which is almost an entire foot above him. He is about the same height as me and his eyes glow a bright blue that… flash? I assume that’s how he blinks I don’t see why he does that he doesn’t have eyes they’re orbs but I will dwell on that later.

I gasp and say, rather dumbly, “Am I dead?”

He sounds, NO. YOU ARE IN THE REALM BETWEEN WORLDS NOT DEAD NOR ALIVE YOU ARE IN THE DESERT OF LIMBO… BUT YOU… SURPRISE ME.

“Oh how did I do that then? I thought you knew when everyone dies that is part of your… agreement or something right?” dumbstruck that I’m able to confront death and actually surprise him.

YES YOU ARE CORRECT. BUT YOU SEE THAT IS WHERE WE REACH OUR DILEMA. YOU SHOULDN’T BE DEAD. With this he pulls out an hourglass which still has a large amount of sand in the top, but the weirdest thing about it is that it’s no longer flowing. He shakes the flask and the sand moves around in their separate compartments but none of them go into the other compartment. He sighs, well what would be a sigh if he could breathe. He has no lungs or organs. And sounds, SOMETIMES IT CAN BE SO FUSTRATING WHEN ONE DOESN’T FOLLOW THE RULES, BUT THIS TIME I CAN MAKE AN EXCEPTION… I WILL NOT PUNISH YOU, AS IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO WATCH YOUR JOURNEY, BUT I CAN’T JUST LET YOU GO BACK, OH NO THAT WOULD BE AGAINST THE RULES. YOU WILL HAVE TO FIND YOURSELF IN THIS DESERT, BUT I’M NOT CRUEL I CAN GIVE YOU ONE PIECE OF ADVIDE. He lifts up a skeletal arm and points into the distance. YOU ARE OVER THERE SOMEWHERE.

It is impossible for death to smile, as his skull is set into a constant grin, but if he could he would be doing so. I look carefully into his orbs and say logically, “but you said you can’t let me go back” if death was smiling he is now positively beaming with delight, as if he has finally met a person almost as smart as himself.

WELL PLAYED HUMAN WE WILL MEET ANOTHER TIME PERHAPS. A party hat appears on his hood and he sounds, WELL I HAVE TO GO NOW OR I’LL MISS MY OWN BIRHDAY PARTY. THEY WILL BE SHOOTING LIGHTNING BOLTS AT COWS TO SEE IF THEY WET THEMSELVES. I bink and he disappears.

“Gee I wonder if all gods are as confusing as he is.” I say to myself.

And I set off in the opposite direction he pointed at.

In the land of the living.

Baltar looks down at his friend and spoke, “you crazy bastard you just had to go and get yourself killed didn’t you.” A tear forms on his eye as he speaks, “Well at least you kept your promise, you saved us all from whatever those things were, so I kept mine. We found a nearby village that wasn’t raided and took shelter there, they didn’t take me in at first but they’re warming up to me. Daring is making a slow recovery, and her wound is healing. She’s finally up, the doctor says she shouldn’t but she’s too stubborn. So the doctor resorted to keeping her under supervision for a few more days, and that in a few weeks she’ll be fine. Whatever it was that you gave her had killed off most the infection and that it was just a matter of giving her some meds and time to heal.”

He sat in silence for a few minutes thinking of something more to say but nothing came, so he left the building.

The next day a mare with a tan colour coat trots in, rather slowly and with a noticeable limp, and sits down next to my lifeless body. She’s there for a few minutes as she is trying to hold back the tears before she speaks, “I’m sorry for being… You know…” it’s obvious that, even though I’m not living, she is struggling to confess, “selfish… I never got the chance to thank you for, well… never giving up on me I… I can’t… think of a better pony to be my friend… you’re the closest thing that I have to one and I was just so ungrateful that you’d be willing to help me.” tears are streaming down her fur and she is weeping openly. “I-I… I’m sorry for not giving you a chance.”

After a few hours of weeping she leaves and my carcass is left on its own for the rest of the day.

People from both villages gather round in a procession to mark the passing of a dear friend and hero to all. Baltar took to the stage to say a few words and Daring sat next to him both having trouble to calm their sorrow over the loss of their friend.

Baltar was talking about his friend and how brave he was when.

Thunk…. “Oww. Fuck what is this!”

Baltar looked at the crowd then at Daring to check he wasn’t imagining things.

“Why is it so fucking dark all of the time? Hey! Is anyone there?”

The crowd looks awkward and everyone looks at each other to see if anyone else was hearing this. Baltar and a few other ponies including Daring walk over to the coffin and unclip the clips holding it shut, when this happens the coffins lid shifts off to one side seemingly by itself, until a figure sits up and covering his eyes blinded by the light of day.

It swore and lies back down again, then laughs, “well looks like I’m just in time for my funeral.”

His laughter stops when Daring grabs him by his hair shouting, “Oh no you don’t I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” Sounding like a mother scolding a child whilst dragging him away, squirming. He mouths ‘help me.’

Back in the desert after the meeting with Death

‘FUUUUUUUUUUU I’m sooo bored’ I think as I trudge across the never ending desert. ‘Why do they have to make it so dull, it’s not like I’m some sort of unforgiven evil or something’ my mind is going numb from the lack of mental exercise.

My head is starting to hurt from seeing the same thing over and over again I feel like I’ve been walking for hours and traversed a few miles but when I look back all I see is the grey desert, I leave no imprint on the surface it’s like the sand never moves.

I stop walking as it’s no use going nowhere and start to think more carefully into what Death said.

‘He can’t help me get out so I have to figure this out on my own’ I conclude. ‘Well whatever he tells me, or shows me, should be false. But he knows the human psychology so he could trick me into thinking it’s a lie. But then would that count as letting me back and break the rule?’ I ponder.

I think hard about this and come to a conclusion that everything he tells me I can and can’t trust, therefore he told me something that would be a lie but the truth at the same time.

This makes me think even harder, my brain is now finally getting a challenge and it goes into overdrive to solve the dilemma.

Finally something clicks in my brain and I summon Death in the most obvious way I could conjure up.

“Death, I choose you!!”

Death appears and sounds, YES, YES ALRIGHT I HEARD YOU, YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHOUT. He pouts, the party hat disappearing from his head in a puff of smoke along with some confetti and other party stuff.

I grin and start with, “I figured out your little puzzle.”

YES GO ON. Said Death a little enthusiasm that shows that he’s ready to say I’m wrong.

I dive straight in with my explanation. “Well as you can’t just let me out and the advice would pretty much do that, so I can’t follow where you pointed to.” He nods. “Well you also said that you can give me some advice that says that I’m somewhere in that direction.” He nods again. “Well I can’t follow your arm yet I still need to go in that direction. So that’s the dilemma but what if there were two directions. Like up or around.

The up means that I’m underground or something so that means I need to reach the surface.

The around is like a sphere so I’m going to go in giant circles going nowhere.”

Death looks at me with a blank expression, well as close as you can get with a permanent grin, and sounds, YOU ARE CORRECT SO FAR BUT YOU STILL HAVEN’T FOUND YOURSELF YET.

I smile and say, “So for the past number of hours I’ve been going around. So I’ve been going in circles, which to conclude means that I’m no longer on this sphere.”

Death sounds, I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY. AND I MUST SAY YOU HAVE THOUGHT CUNNINGLY BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO FIND HIM BEFORE I CAN LET YOU GO.

An idea, a weird one at that but still an idea, comes to mind. “Well how about I tell you I found him all I need you to do is to get me there.” I smirk at my stupid idea, “All I ask of you that is, is to put me back at the start and to remove the gravity so my course cannot be altered and to throw me in the direction you pointed at first. So I can reach the surface.”

Death stares and snaps his fingers, I feel a pull and I close my eyes to prevent them from flying out of their sockets. When I stop I open my eyes and see Death holding me ready to throw me, I still feel heavy yet he’s holding me like I weigh nothing, and he sounds, YOU READY. It was a statement that didn’t require an answer as just after he said it he throws me with surprising speed.

I left the desert and I now enter the pitch black darkness, ‘wow is everything as confusing as what happened there’ I think as I twirl in the darkness around me.

The darkness goes on for a long time and I ponder on a way to pass the time to keep my mind off the constant darkness. I try whistling and I succeed on making a small melody out of it. I start to play jokes in my mind thinking back on the countless episodes of mock the week I watched at home.

I got to season three episode five when.

Thunk, “Aww fuck what is this.” Was the first thing that came to mind, my head hurts and I feel like I’m in a box.

Feeling rather pissed I yell, “Why is it so fucking dark all of the time? Hey! Is anyone there?” there obviously is as I hear mumbling and the clicking of locks, I don’t hesitate to lift the lid off me and I’m greeted by the blinding rays of light, I sit up and look around there’s a large crowd of ponies and crying ones at that.  I look at the box I’m in and I realise it’s a coffin.

“fuck.” I mumble and I lay back down. ‘I can’t believe they were about to bury me alive. Well at least I’m not a zombie.’

A large smile creeps onto my face as I realise why everyone’s looking shocked ‘they probably think I’m a zombie’ I think, I start to laugh at the thought thinking it hilarious as fuck, I don’t care I’m back and I’m alive that’s all that matters now.

I say in a joking manner, “well looks like I’m just in time for my funeral.”

I was about to act like a zombie and start to scare the ponies when a furious pony, who I think must be able to read minds, yells, “Oh no you don’t I’ve got a hoof to pick with you.” And with that a large set of teeth grab my hair and I get pulled out of my coffin and painfully get dragged away from the crowd. I see Baltar stare dumfounded at me and I mouth ‘help me’ at him but he just stares as I get dragged round a corner.

After I get dragged into the house the door slams shut and the furious pony, which I recognise as Daring Doo, pins me to the floor and yells in my face, “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT? EVERYPONY THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD.” Her voice softens but only marginally. “How are you alive? it’s impossible you had no pulse.”

I ask her, “Why’d you drag me here I could have told you and everyone else at the same time?” giving her a confused look.

“Because friends have to know first, do they not” her face so close forcing me to stare into her furious eyes.

“I… Well…*sigh* fine… but just to clarify I was in fact dead, for a while anyway.” I say momentarily shocking her, but gleeful that she admits we’re now friends.

She recovers and states flatly, “It was four days.”

“Wow was I dead for that long,” I think aloud, “Hmm… Limbo must affect time differently.”

“Sorry am I interrupting something. And what’s limbo” Someone asks from the doorway

I turn only to see Baltar now close and lock the door properly before shutting the blinds and lighting the candles. Daring blushes hard, and I think she must have burst an artery in her cheeks, as she jumps off of me and tries to explain what she was doing. Baltar waves off her rambling and says “its ok I was only kidding. Besides I think he likes it when you blush.” This causes her to blush harder which I think is a physical impossibility, and my cheeks begin to heat up as well, but before she can shout at Baltar he turns to me and asks, “Well you didn’t answer my question what’s this Limbo?”

I tell them to take a seat before I tell them.

I talk to them about how I went into limbo met Death, to which they bombard me with questions like who is he and what does he look like.

When I finish the story and all their questions had been asked and answered in full, Baltar turns to Daring and tells her to tell the village that I am in fact alive and that I will talk to them in due time and will answer their questions. Daring reluctantly leaves, leaving me and Baltar alone.

“Good to have you back you moron.” he said after she left.

“Hay at least I’m better looking than you.” We both laugh at this the tension evaporating before Baltar turns to me with a quizzical look on his face.

“What happened there back at the cave? Something clicked inside you I could see it as clear as day. It was different the first time your wings were white but back there they were dark, black even… I have to say even I was scared of you for a while,” Concern etched in his voice.

I knew this was coming but it still doesn’t make it any easier to tell. I sigh and begin to tell him, “To be honest it was mostly anger, but a small part was fear.” I admit, “Fear that I couldn’t help, I was tired of being too weak to save the people I loved when they needed it the most, like my father.”

Baltar says, with a comforting look, “I don’t know how that feels but there is one thing you should know.”

I wipe the tear forming in my eye and ask, “What?”

He says with complete honesty, “you are not weak, you never were. To be weak you must stop fighting” he pauses to allow me to let this sink in, “now tell me did you ever stop fighting for them.” I shake my head, he knows that I would never stop fighting for my friends. “Now come on cheer up, beside I’m sure you’re hungry as I know I am.”

I go to say I’m not hungry but my belly says otherwise letting out a loud rumble, I give an embarrassed look and I get up and tell him “what’s there to eat?”

“Well I don’t know what you eat so you tell me.” He said giving his signature quizzical smile.

“I’m an omnivore enough said. I eat everything, well actually that’s a lie I don’t like tomatoes can’t stand em.”

“Humph, well whatever Luke, well I need to try that new griffin bar in town. They say they have cooks to serve every culinary need.”

If I had a drink I would have sprayed it everywhere before I say, “you guys have griffins?”

“Well yeah, why somethin’ wrong with em we could go to another restaurant. Well you can I can’t” he chuckles, but frowns probably thinking that he won’t be able to study my eating habits.

“No, no it’s great really I’d love to go there.” This perks him up a bit.

“Well that’s great then I’d love to know how you can stomach grass as well as meat.” At grass I burst into hysterics and fall on the floor clutching my sides which I’m sure I’d just split.

“What’s so funny? I didn’t say anything amusing.”

I try and say between fits off laughter “I… I don’t eat grass, or trees for that matter… or anything that would require the expert belly of a pony… I only eat fruits and veg mostly, but not flowers and stuff…  Aahhhh my sides you’ve broken them.” I say in mock pain.

Baltar realising the mistake he made gave a little chuckle before kicking me and motioning for me to move on. Still in hysterics, I move outside into a large crowd of ponies eager to hear what I was talking about with Baltar and now also want to find out what was so funny.

We make it to the restaurant, proudly, feeling like we’ve earned a meal fit for a king. We sit down and a large group of ponies with notepads and quills surround us, I sigh and turn to one of the ponies and ask “what do you want?” this makes one or two squee for unknown reasons to me.

The lead pony asks politely, “what’s your full name, we kinda gathered that Luke was not your full name, and how do you spell it? And are you a mare or a stallion?” I turn to Baltar who also looks intrigued by this conversation.

I give an audible sigh and say, “if I tell you would you and the rest of the village stop following my every move.” The pony nods rapidly and pulls out a quill and paper using her magic.

Me never seeing magic before allow my eyes glass over and  reach out and try and grasp the floating feather in awe but it gets moved out of my reach as the pony hastily writes down something with a “hey girls you seeing this it likes feathers.” This makes a lot of the pegusi blush and fight for control of their wings some were unsuccessful and knocked over a few other mares as their wings flew open.

I shake my head trying not to get entranced by the magic, and think of the oncoming onslaught of gossip and rumours and such, “hang on a sec I never said that, oh never mind it’s probably too late for that now. Anyway back to what I was supposed to say. Now I’m what’s called a man.” I look at their faces, “that’s human for Stallion.” A large number of the girls start to squee again and I mentally facepalm. “And my full name is…” I take in a deep breath for dramatic effect, “Luke Peterson Charles Granger.” I see the confused looks on their faces and I fight to keep my laughter under control and I say. “Pass it here I’ll write it down for you to see how I write as an example.” I take the floating pen and paper as they watch in awe of my extremely flexible digits, some look at their hoofs and wish they had digits like mine.

I pass the paper back and almost two dozen ponies crane over each other to see my writing. Baltar then, being the good friend, starts to herd them out the door. The mare with the paper I wrote on looking in admiration and rambling to anyo…pony about how neat yet flowing and other things I couldn’t hear before they finally left. Though a large number of ponies remain some left to spread gossip and such, and a few unsuccessful attempts to keep wings under control.

I tell the griffin waiter to give me a large amount of steak and other delights on the menu.

I wait for a few hours and eventually the griffin brings up the food, I also told the waiter to bring the meat covered as I want to scare the crap out of the ponies. The dishes were served and the courses kept on coming, and I left the special dish where it was building up tension as to what’s underneath it. I ravage through the vegetarian meals like there was no tomorrow, and they are exquisite I have never tasted so much flavour like this in my whole life.

The tension built up too much for one pony who yells “will you lift up the dish already.” He is quickly silenced by the surrounding ponies, but they think the same thing, I tentatively grab the dish and lift off the cover, revealing the finely cut steak.

Ponies gasp in horror and whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire and the ponies on the edge began to flee, I don’t care as I am now engorging myself, tearing into the meat without a care in the world, I got half way through eating it, when a pony burst in shouting “for Celestias sake what are you doing. You can’t seriously be eating that?”

I laugh and laugh and laugh, before I come to my senses I reply “Yes. I am and I’m what’s called an omnivore so I eat what I want, well not everything I can’t eat hay or grass or tomatoes and things like that.” I see the scared face on the pony and I realise what I have done, ‘Oh balls they think I will probably eat them now.’ So I hasten to add, “well I also don’t eat ponies or any other sentient species like dolphins and octopuses and fish, I can’t stand fish they don’t look appetising at all.” I give him the most reassuring smile I could possibly give, without showing my teeth as this would probably scare them even more.

The pony now relaxes a little before another pony bursts in shouting “I can’t leave you two for two seconds before you do something stupid.” And with that the pony drags me out of the room with Baltar finishing both our plates in one gulp, ‘greedy pig I was gonna eat that’ I think, before he follows sniggering at me, I realised at her voice that It was daring and I think ‘we are probably seen as children in her eyes. Thankfully I had put on my shirt before I left to go to the pub or she’d have to drag me by the hair again’ as I get a tow down the street.

She opens a door with a solid buck and throws me inside, with a force I did not expect from such a small mare. I fall to the floor with a thud and Baltar follows suit, landing on his face. The mare closes the door and she turns to yell at us at the top of her voice, which she has unfortunately made a remarkable recovery from, “You colts are so immature. Scaring the entire town like that. I have the right mind to beat the crap outta your flanks. Do you have any idea what this is doing to my image?” me and Baltar both stare at the floor guiltily, this is probably the universal look anything would give if she/he was caught doing something wrong. “That’s what I thought. You don’t care do you? How would you feel if your friends were being complete jerks and you’d have to go and apologise to the entire town for their stupidity?”

I open and shut my mouth a few times, but everything I go to say gets frozen in my throat before I can say it, so I close my mouth and go back to staring at the floor.

Baltar, the more confident one who doesn’t really have anything to fear from a pony, says “well we had to stop most the town from following Luke everywhere he goes somehow.”

“So you planned this then. And this was the best plan you could come up with? I can’t believe I had made two friends that are the greatest yet the most stupid ponies around.” She sighs and says, “Right sorry for shouting like that but I had to, cause I have to admit I’m a little stressed out right now as a convoy of royal guards are going to be here tomorrow to pick us up and take us to canterlot where we will meet the two princesses.” She starts to speak a dozen words per second as she tries to sort us out to get us ready for the meeting with royalty, it’s obvious to me that this means a lot more than the little display we did a few moments ago. “Now I want you two too look your best for when we get there. I can’t have you making it any worse than it already is, You go have a shower get yourself cleaned up you stink,” she says whilst pointing at me.

I almost squeal with glee when I found out that I will meet the two most famous ponies in all of Equestria, but not wanting to get in her way I go and have a shower.