Contrast, First Impressions
Prologue: Trickster's wager.
In a distant plain of existence, where magic flowed even more naturally than air through lungs, two "gods," as mortals would call them, stood around an ethereally constructed globe, like two challengers at a chessboard.
"Honestly, Mercury, you're more well known among the higher realms as a messenger than a prank-puller," jested Loki as he finally placed his next piece down on their [three-dimensional,] planet-shaped arena. "The next time we find an unclaimed world rich with mortals to bend to our will, the Olympians may not want you as their team's trickster."
"And? What of it? I still have time before Kepler develops a sufficiently sapient race." Mercury strolled around to his opponent's side, bolstering great confidence.
Loki did not turn to his companion. Instead, he looked at the globe for another moment. "If you can't prove you still have your touch..." He released the [formidable/strategically powerful] creature piece he had in his grasp back into the ether and pulled out a smaller, more expendable piece. "...You may have to play the role of a lesser being."
Mercury stared Loki straight in the eyes. His own face sported a smirk that reeked of a challenge. "We both know you're not going to trick me into doing something rash by getting me worried. We were the ones who invented [that/the] ‘worry ploy.’
He turned and leaned on the edge of the table that held their mock planet. "Why don't you cut the small talk and get straight to your dare?"
Loki motioned Mercury to look at the globe and reset it with a simple wave of his hand. "It’s not so much a dare, but more of a way to stave off our boredom. Here, let me explain..."
"So, no matter which given path that the mortal chooses, they will still choose wrong. And, by having Equus as our stage..." Loki gave a sly look to his partner.
"We take the factors that normally prevent us from having fun there and use them to do the work for us," Mercury finished. "Now, that very well could prove to be entertaining,” he mused as the glint of mischief that had been dormant far too long resurfaced in his eyes.
* * *
Alexander sat at his desk. "Ugh..." he grunted. "I get that we can learn from history, but is cramming so much of it really that useful to someone not even pursuing a history major?"
Alexander gave a huff, stood up and went over to his dorm bed then grabbed a jelly bean from a bowl atop the mini fridge next to it. Popping the jelly bean into the air as he sat down, he felt a strange sensation.
The air was thick, yet it wasn’t at the same time. His hair felt like it needed to be standing on end, but couldn't. He got back to his feet with ease, and yet he felt like he had to fight something that wasn't there just to stay standing.
And then he noticed something else: Silence.
He couldn't hear anything. Not the traffic outside, nor the hum of his computer running. Even his breath made no noise.
Breathing the strange air as evenly as he could, Alexander did his best to calm down and understand what was going on.
"Well, that was pretty fast. It usually takes a mortal a lot longer to calm down enough to talk to them," someone called from behind him.
With no other sound in his ears at all, Alexander shot himself around as fast as possible, ready to fight off whatever was behind him.
Alexander's eyes fell upon what could only be described as the most convincing drama club prank ever. There, floating in midair on the other side of his bed, was some guy dressed up as the most realistic rendition of the Roman god Mercury he had ever seen. If it weren't for the bizarre air and otherwise unbroken silence, he'd chalk it up to just that and have a laugh. Instead, he backed down a little while his eyes quietly questioned the intruder. Clearly, this was not your run-of-the-mill intruder.
The floating figure gave a pompous smirk. "Since you have neither attacked nor dismissed me as illusion as many mortals have in the past when first gazing upon me, I'll return the gesture of respect and quell some those inquiries your eyes are asking."
The figure ceased floating and made a very loud thump on the dorm’s floor, breaking the deafening silence once more. "No. You are not dreaming. Nor are you 'on something,' as the modern phrase goes. I am very real."
Alexander stood there for a moment more with his fists still raised, though only as a sign that he still wasn't comfortable with the situation at this point.
*OK. So, what do you want with me?* Alexander tried to ask, only to put a hand to his mouth after no sound came out.
"Oh, All I want is the answer to a simple question," the figure answered with a knowing gaze. "There is no wrong answer, so long as it is an honest one."
Alexander looked at the figure with newfound resent. *You appear to have me at a disadvantage. Go on.*
The figure gave a small titter. "Very astute for a mortal. Very well, to the point: If you were to be given the chance to start over in a new land, would you prefer to hold fast to your roots and go exactly as you are, even though you would risk being scorned for being someone foreign? Or would you prefer a little help being accepted by the natives?"
Alexander just looked at the figure skeptically. He opened his mouth for a brief moment, only to close it immediately and turn away in thought. Finally, after a little meditation, he returned his attention to the figure that was still waiting patiently.
*You said that there is no wrong answer so long as it is honest, correct?*
"I did," the figure responded with perfect poise.
Alexander steadied himself and answered, *Then, here is my answer: I would choose neither. Both are too vague and have a risk of you hiding something. I'd rather go on as if you had never interrupted my life.*
Alexander braced himself for the worst, but nothing happened. Instead, the figure simply looked at him with pleasant surprise.
"Even better," was all the figure said before turning his attention behind Alexander and nodding.
Alexander tried to look behind him, but before he could, the strange air dissipated and he fell onto his bed, unconscious. The jelly bean landed on top of him.
Contrast, First Impressions
Alexander felt sore all over. Not that he felt hurt, just sore. Sore like you were on your feet for hours on end, sat down for a few minutes then stood up again and felt the bottom of your feet were on fire. Sore like that, but with any part he moved save perhaps for some shallow breathing.
Then a noise hit his ears and he almost bolted upright, only to have a jolt of pain make him settle for lifting his head. Half a second after opening his eyes, he was surprised that he wasn't given a headache from unfocused morning eyes. Had he been in a well lit room, he new he would have one.
Alexander carefully sat up and forced his body to wake up while trying to get his bearings. After a few minutes he was able to figure he was in an old fashioned prison cell.
"OK, Alexander Almond Barke, where the hell are you?" He finally spoke as he looked around the dark room cluelessly, barely able to make out the bars and bucket in the corner.
With the aches of his body subsiding to functional levels, his ears focused in on that same strange noise that woke him up; hooves on stone.
He went over to the bars at the front of the cell, finally noticing the shackles on his arms and legs. "Livestock? I'm probably not in the city anymore."
Looking back at the shackles, he gave them a once over. "Hmm... Wherever I am, I'm not getting out of these without a key or bolt cutters. But why do the cuffs have just as much chain as the legs?" He flicked his arms to cause the chains to do a brief outward arc in front of him. "Not very restrictive, I could choke someone with this."
The hoof steps quickened their pace and drew near. Alexander snapped to attention and stepped back as gently as he could as he heard a garbled noise from the creature approaching.
It made what sounded like a mutilated whinny as a horseshoe scraped against the bar nearest to the stone wall it came from. Sparks revealed a small horse head in decorative armor peaking out from behind the stone. He couldn't see much, but a quick image of bared teeth, flattened ears and one eye looking strait at him told him what he needed to know: This thing was not happy to see him in the slightest.
With a shot of adrenaline through his veins, Alexander's body suddenly didn't care about what little pain there was still lingering in his joints and his eyes got an emergency override to put a rush on waking up and focus. Noting every little detail of his situation as best he could in the near pitch dark, he took up a defensive stance.
He was glad that the bars were between him and the silhouette of a small, but still intimidating, war horse emerging fully into view. The creature continued to snarl strange sounds at him for a short time, but Alexander simply stood back up after a few seconds.
"Look, I'm not happy I'm here either little guy," He quipped at the tiny horse creature.
Alexander was already on high alert before, but upon the lighting of a weak flame out of his immediate view, he saw two things that took him strait from DEFCON four to DEFCON two; a quick unfurling of wings from the armored creature's sides, and a second horse like creature coming forward—somehow holding a spear in its twisted front hoof and spitting out a flint into a nearby bucket.
As the first creature reared up in a quite successfully intimidating fashion, Alexander couldn't help but fall back on the bed. "We're definitely not in Pennsylvania anymore, Toto."
The next few minutes were a blur as the second creature proved quite capable with the spear it had, jabbing at him while he dodged again and again. When the spear finally hit the bed along the grain and stuck, Alexander grabbed it and heaved upward, against the grain, while putting enough weight on the bed to make it pivot, losing the spear from the creature's grasp and bringing completely into the cell, out of their reach.
In one of the bedchambers of the palace, a pony lay peacably in bed. Slowly it opened its eyes and stared strait up. "OK," it tried to speak, only to be interrupted with a cough. "OK, Alexander Almond Barke, where the hell are you?"
Contrast, First Impressions
Alexander slowly came to with a sheer, relaxed smile. His body felt like it had gotten the best sleep in its life and then he had eaten some mythical golden apple or some other legendary super fruit on top of that. Indeed, he felt like he was barely clinging onto his clear head and not falling into a euphoric stupor. There was no doubt in his mind that his "Dam! I feel good!" was cranked up to a solid eleven.
Opening his eyes, he found himself staring up at the roof of a bed's canopy. He could have picked apart the details, but he didn't feel like it. Instead he just summarized that this wasn't some cheap knock off or even a medium priced bed. This was an actual, high quality bed that only really, really rich people could afford.
With a huff of breath that didn't quite turn into laughter, Alexander made a pleasantly confused smirk. "OK," he tried to say, only to cough. His voice was scratchy and came difficultly, His throat felt like he had just gotten over being sick and the mucus around his vocal cords hadn't gotten the message, making him sound like some person with throat cancer or something. He wouldn't even have recognized it as his voice, had it not been cut off when he coughed.
He cleared his throat as best he could and tried again, "OK, Alexander Almond Barke, where the hell are you?"
A soft, almost motherly voice came from the bedside to his right, "So your name is Almond Bark? I must say it is quite lovely."
Calmly and lazily, Alexander rolled his head to look at the person who had just spoke. But calm went right out the window when his suddenly widening eyes fell on the source of the voice.
The white horse with a horn and multicolored mane that was made of what he could only approximate as being made up of fire tried to speak again, "Hello there my little pony. I am princess Cele-"
"Aaaaahhh!!" Alexander screamed. With no feeling in hands or feet, his grip on the bed slipped many times as he did his best to scramble from under the covers and as far away from the thing that was in front of him. Upon making it most of the way off the bed, his left arm slipped for the ump-teenth time, but when he put it back down it landed on something that was bony and flesh-like instead of the bed. A sharp pain from somewhere on the left side of his torso made that side clench up, making him role over towards the edge.
Just as his face landed square on the bed, he felt like he had jammed into something and heard a tearing noise. The bulk of his body fell off the bed with some of the covers being dragged along with him, but something was keeping his head from following suit. For lack of better description, it was like something was entangled around a single spot on his forehead.
with a loud but painless thump to the floor, Alexander started noticing things. His neck didn't feel like it was the right length for one. It felt much longer than it should have been. Pulling up his arms, he could only scream again as he found chocolate brown fur and nubs meeting where his hands should have been. Finally noticing the muzzle at the bottom of his vision he screamed even louder.
The white horse came and poked its head around the bedside as Alexander just lay sprawled out, with his head somehow still caught on the bed, continuing to scream again and again.
After finally succumbing to the tightening of the mucus that was garbling his voice, he took several sharp, panicked breathes. His eyes never moved from the white horse as he did so.
A few moments later as his breathing started to settle, the white horse spoke up in a worried tone, "Are you all finished panicking now?"
Finally, Alexander's eyes unglued themselves from the white horse and did a quick sweep of his surroundings. With one final sharp breath and a cough to loose the mucus again, he answered, "Still thoroughly freaked out. But ya, I think I'm done panicking." His eyes finally looked up at the spiraled horn at the top of her head and the crown nestled behind it. "...For now at least."
