There was very little left to remember about that night. All that was there was the feeling of nausea and confusion, and the subtle hope of getting laid. Well, that was gone now. There was darkness, and silhouettes, they danced around and snuck in and out of sight, easing about like they were made of liquid shadow. Getting up, there was only one thing to do, evaluate the damage. Hiro felt over her body, and sighed. She was clothed, and that was good. At least that went right. Okay... so what was she wearing? Hiro closed her eyes and let her fingers identify fabric. She was wearing her signature outfit, typical, as she had gone out tonight (or last night, what time is it?) and she had worn her light jacket with the blood red colour, her pony shirt, and a pair of plain black Dickies. On her mohawk, she could feel her signature red sunglasses holding her hair down and in place, and on her feet, a pair of snug fitting travel boots, black in colour, with red laces. She laughed at the thought that she had a colour scheme of a bad cartoon OC. With her thoughts gathered and her mind still swimming, the only thing left to wonder was if she was even at the house where she had attended the party.
Looking around, there was really nothing much aside from darkness and what looked to be trees, and the smell was that of fresh un-tampered mud and trees, no sign of pollution, and yet to be soiled by human hands, and under her own, wet slick grass left moisture on her fingers. They washed away the sticky booze and any residue from drugs she might have laid her hands on. Moving her hands about more, she felt her full pack of smokes, the menthol blacks, just how she liked them, and as she wrapped her hands to grab it, her fingers grazed a mushroom. Well this surely isn't the place she had been. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she was 100% she wasn't home either. There was no concrete, no smell of trash, vomit, booze and weed as she had assumed, no cars or sounds of instant regret from partying so hard, no people laughing and moaning for more attention, no fights or drunken arguments, no boyfriends and girlfriends kissing, no sex, no buckets of puke lining streets as others pillage the single sad fridge of a single family, gobbling all the food from severe munchies. It was just dark... and natural... too natural...
Hiro's eyes widened as she realised something must have happened. What if she were kidnapped and thrown into the woods to die? Had she been drugged? Was her clothes in tact? Where was her phone? Patting her hands over her body, she felt her clothing, grabbing at her pants and feeling the belt tightly fastened and her clothes dirty, but not torn, and in the pockets, her wallet and phone were tucked comfortably away, and in her side pocket, her inhaler. Fighting wither her grubby wet hands, she forced the into the dry tight pockets and fished out her phone, only 15% left, better make it count. Reading over her phone, the screen of a familiar white unicorn DJ munching away on a bag of cool ranch Doritos sat in the background relaxed and calm. Perhaps being calm would be a more effective move here?
Okay, no service, and there is no WiFi? But she gets WiFi everywhere! She has hot spots! Okay, well maybe 4G? Okay, that's on... Maps... okay... what? No connection? Well, this is the woods... Maybe a call? Nope no service for calls either...
Hiro gets up from the filthy ground and looks around with the flashlight on her phone, everything is in order, nothing has been left that she can tell. With a sigh and another quick assessment of her body, she dusts herself off and wanders into the woods in search of a main road to charge her phone and call her mother.
"So you're sure there's going to be one this time?" a soft voice asked from behind a bush. With a rustle and a harsh "SHHH!" the talking and rustling ceased. In the woods lay a small group of curious creatures called ponies, all on the look out for the fabled woodland creature called a man ape. There sat in the bushes, the ponies waited, all four of them. In the group, Lyra, the team leader, well versed in man apes and their nature, Octavia, there for a nice tour of the Everfree while she was not working on any projects of events, Berry Punch, likely wandered into the group, but she wasn't being disruptive, so nopony really had the heart to tell her off, and lastly, Bon Bon, who was dragged along by Lyra to attend the "adventure".
Octavia sat, taking notes in a book about how she felt as they sat in the damp woods, her music sure to benefit from the observations, looking about and taking it all in. She smiled as she looked out through the bushes, and noticed things moving about in the darkness. Well, it wasn't like there were no animals here, but they were rather far into the woods. Octavia looked on longer, something compelling her to keep her eyes locked onto the movements. Her breathing soon hitched as she looked on harder, seeing a small light, that was growing larger as the movements seemed to come near.
"I just don't see the point in this, Lyra!" Bon Bon shouted in a whisper. Lyra gave another "hush" only to receive a nasty glare from the other mare. "Don't you hush me, Lyra! I told you this man ape thing was dumb! They don't exist!"
"Well maybe they don't," Lyra shouted back a little louder, "but you can at least support my dreams!" Bon Bon's eyes narrowed as she grit her teeth and shook her head.
"This group costs money! We have to buy rations, and supplies to camp out here with four ponies, and my shoppe isn't going to cover a weekly camping event where we just sit in bushes and make weird noises in hopes that some weird two legged hairless ape creature comes running out from the thick!"
"Uhm... guys..." Octavia began with concern in her voice. The light was getting more frantic, and footsteps could be heard.
"All I wanna do is find a damn ape man! I've just always wanted to do this!"
"Yeah, but why do we have to drag the shoppe down with it?!"
"I'm not dragging a damn thing with it!"
"Yeah you are!"
"Uhhhh... you might want to look at this...." Octavia spoke up much louder, but not loud enough as the light came closer, and a strange, upright creature came shuffling down through the bushes, huffing and growling, its paws emitting a strange light, and its eyes glowing in the light, a second set of red eyes above those.
"You just don't trust that I can find one! But when I do, we'll be rich!"
"Oh I'll believe that when Berry loses in a drinking competition!"
A sudden shout came roaring from the woods, a polite call, but startling to the ponies non the less. Lyra and Bon Bon turned to see a large beast wobbling through the woods, a bright light dimming out, and the four glowing eyes going with it. The light had gone, and the beast had been lost in the shadows.
...Silence...
"....Do you think that was a man ape...? Lyra asked with a shaking voice.
"L-lyra... t-this i-isn't t-th-the time.... -o-o-okay?" Bon Bon said with a shudder.
"H-hello...?" Lyra asked into the darkness. Silence again. Then:
"H-hey! Excuse me... my phone... ugh... it's dead... damn thing... can you help me? I need to refill it and I'm lost...." the voice called out. It sounded as if the beast was having a hard time moving.
"It's weak," Lyra whispered, "maybe we can capture it?" Bon Bon gave Lyra a pissed/terrified look, as if she couldn't even fathom the words that had just come from her lips.
"Are you bucking MAD?!"
"N-no... I'm hungover actually..." the voice called from the darkness. The shuffling suddenly stopped before a groan could be heard and the voice mumbled one last "Oh bloody hell..." before a loud thud echoed from the blackness. The beast had collapsed and fallen before the bushes, just close enough for the ponies to identify the body as a tall ape like creature, her hairless tan skin and strip of hair on her.. head? had been covered in mud and matted, and she smelled of some rancid smoke and leaves, and a thick stench of booze had radiated from her pours.
"I'm guessing these ape creatures drink... alcohol?" Lyra began as she stepped from the bushes, the other following nervously with mouths agape.
"Is that all you have to say for yourself right now? You think this mythical freaking BEAST that WANDERED out of the BUCKING WOODS drinks ALCOHOL?! I hope you're ready to have the whole COUNTRY ON OUR FLANKS!!"
As Bon Bon threw her rightfully earned fit, and berated and shouted at Lyra for her stupidity, despite her berating the stupidity of wanting to do this in the first place, Octavia walked up to the body and poked it, curious as to what is was and what it wanted. What was a phone? Why was it dead? Had she eaten it? What made that light? Was the "filling up the phone bit" just a ploy to lure them in?
"Perhaps..." Octavia began, this time the group actually stopped to listen lest she give them more important news, "Maybe it would be best to hide her for a bit, and then we can take her to Twilight?" Lyra laughed at this, her eyes rolling.
"First, how are we going to sneak a whole man ape into Ponyville, and where would we hide her?"
"I think we can figure something out..." Bon Bon said with a sly grin, her eyes turning to an ever nervous Lyra who couldn't help but feel this would not end well for her, or her lasting sanity.
It didn't take too long for Hiro to notice something wasn't quite right. It might have been the heavy scent of hay and fur, or the odd mix of dirt and unpolished wood hitting her nose like a champion boxer, or perhaps it was the feeling of a rough carpet on her skin, maybe it was the odd lighting, but it was more than likely the group of voices chatting away above her. They sounded strange, as if she could understand, as if they were speaking some sort of mangled English. It sounded English enough, the accents, the tones, the pressure put on words, it sounded so close... but it wasn't. Crawling up and dusting off her clothes, she looked around and saw that she seemed to be in some form of storage room. There was a single mop and bucket, some boxes with... words? Those looked like scribbles, but surely they were words? Shaking her head she moved on looking at the rest of the closet, it was normal, boxes and brooms and mops and such. Inching closer to the cracked door, Hiro could hear the voices talking to each other. One even seemed to have a British accent.
"Nah wahoo so cur?" a higher voice asked, as Hiro looked through the door she saw a small yellow horse speaking to a small group of other small horses. There was an unsteady deep red on, a worried looking green unicorn, and a lovely grey one with a pink bowtie. Hiro could swear she recognized these horses from somewhere.
"Denu, kep da coset?" the grey horse said in her lovely accent. Even the words that sounded jumbled up seemed so natural in her voice. Why did it sound so odd?
"Dabout woud?" the green unicorn asked, she seemed agitated. What was she saying?
"Deal cur totes." Okay so that sounded like actual words? Deal her what? Hiro groaned as she tried to understand. "Dor cakes? Man ape cake woud?" the yellow pony continued as Hiro listened. That... man ape? Okay, that is a word! That's a word! Man ape! Okay, so... was she a man ape? Is that what they were calling her? Maybe she could talk to them?
Crawling from her spot in the closet, she moved the door ever so slightly and snuck up to the small horses. It was only now, that she was mere feet away that she noticed how small they really were. Well... small for a horse. They weren't like the ones she grew up around, they were roughly the size of a great dane, with big eyes, elaborate and bright, their fur seemed velvety despite the obvious rustic and natural smells, they were almost artificially clean, and each crease and fold of their skin and fur seemed so perfect and even. On their flanks, Hiro saw small details that seemed more coarse than the rest of the fur. Almost like it was prickly, but still soft looking. The unicorn looked up, and noticed Hiro kneeling there, her eyes glued on the flank of the yellow pony as she looked over her curiously, however, it would not seem so curious to a bystander, and instead, looked more like Hiro had plans to either eat, or attack the poor thing.
"Bon Bon!" shouted the unicorn in fear as she knocked the small yellow horse out of the way. Hiro was terrified, this little horse thing was talking and jumping, it was a little more than her senses could take. Hiro fell back towards the closet and knocked her head.
"Shit!" Hiro shouted as she jumped back up again. Time to try and gather yourself, Hiro, try to do anything to fix this.
"Waloo wa?!" the green unicorn shouted, "Say Ba! Sai use magi!" Hiro blinked. Okay... it sounded familiar enough. Try to respond.
"I- I don't want to hurt you! I'm not dangerous!" Hiro scrambled back a little bit, her hands up in the air once her back hit a wall. The unicorn gave her a look, as if slightly confused.
"Waloo sa?"
"I'm... I don't want to hurt you... I'm good! I'm friendly!" Hiro tried desperately. Maybe try saying it like them? "S-sai guten? Sai.... Sai goo?" The green unicorn cringed at the butchering of the language.
"Mbe ti spik ni us?" the grey horse began stepping up. She came close to Hiro and looked her over. Hiro was shaking lightly, her arms still up and her eyes shaking as she looked over the small horse before her. "Sai Octavia, ser here is Lyra, Bon Bon, an Berry Punch. Heno, wallo called?" Hiro began to relax, her body less tense as she looked at the kind eyes of the horse. Those... were names? Wait.... those were.... no way. Looking down to her left arm, Hiro lifted the jacket sleeve and saw her tattoo. An image of the lord of chaos himself. Above that was a tattoo that held the likeness of Octavia playing her cello. It was obvious that little Octavia had taken notice of the portrait and blushed. "Sai... sai mua?" Hiro nodded and reached out a hand slowly. This was no ordinary tiny horse... this was a pony... a cartoon pony... standing before her....
"M-my name is Hiro.... Sai Hiro..." Hiro held her hand out, and Octavia nervously looked it over and placed her hoof in the strange fleshy appendage. Octavia winced a bit as Hiro wrapped her fingers and shook her hoof, it was gentle, but it was strange. "You're so pretty in person...." Hiro let slip out, that didn't seem lost in translation as Octavia's blush painted not only her snout but also her velvety tufty ears.
"Yat donswer walloo wa?!" Lyra shouted. Hiro shook her head and thought. Well, she knew this world well, she was a fan after all. Perhaps her knowledge would help her out of this?
"I am Hiro, I'm an all knowing creature from the world known as Earth! A Human world! I come in peace, and am here to learn your ways!" Hiro puffed out her chest a bit, a smug and confident look on her face as she looked over the ponies before her. Octavia seemed to be the only one mildly impressed by her declaration (could she understand her?), the others seemed confused. Lyra walked up and gave Hiro a once over before backing up and whispering to Bon Bon. With a nod, Bon Bon galloped out of the tiny room and out into what Hiro could only assume was the open vast world of Equestria.
"Twilight willa del wit yo..." Lyra said quietly with less fear. She stilled seemed cautious, but less tense. With a sigh, Hiro sat back comfortably against the wall, looking on as the last three ponies just stared at her. If only she could speak to them.
