Sabrina Spellman sighed as she piloted her flying car through space. To the mortal eye, it looked identical to a red Cadillac. But of course, this car was fitted with a 1,000-cylinder hydrogen turbo engine.
The Other Realm, a collection of planets populated by witches like Sabrina, spanned several galaxies and it was dotted with magical gateways, which allowed near-instantaneous transport across interstellar or intergalactic distances. Seeing as there was not yet a gateway set up where they were going, her Aunt Hilda had provided the flying car for the trip, which she had acquired through a connection with a divorced housewife from Venus.
With the windows and top down (surrounded by a magic air bubble, of course), it was like driving through a peaceful, moonless night in the desert. Not a sound was to be heard in the blackness except the gentle rumbling of the engine and the quiet breathing of her new husband as he slept soundly under his blanket in the passenger seat.
She looked over at him lovingly. Yesterday, she had married her soulmate, and she felt like she was floating miles above Cloud 10. In spite of all they had been through, Harvey and Sabrina had come together and found each other again. She had left her mortal fiancé Aaron at the altar and run off with the man of her dreams.
Sabrina had wanted to go somewhere exotic that was not part of the Other Realm, so she had scheduled a honeymoon getaway in Epsilon Eridani, a system only recently settled by witches but already a somewhat popular vacation spot. Harvey had naturally followed along with Sabrina's idea, all of his own suggestions having been rejected outright. After all, there was no way she was taking a trip to see "The World's Largest Roach Motel."
As she drove, she eventually noticed a blur in the distance, a splotch of black against black. She squinted, but she still had trouble making out what it was. As it grew in her field of vision, her eyes widened as she realized it was a planet. She swerved violently to the right to avoid it, but at several hundred times the speed of light, she would be lucky not to punch straight through the core.
Harvey woke up suddenly as he felt Sabrina swerve the car, flailing his arms in panic as best he could under the incredible G-forces. He screamed loudly, but his own noises of terror were lost to Sabrina's.
Just when she was sure they were going to impact and cause a mass extinction, she managed to swerve just enough to barely miss the planet. The car scraped past by the metaphorical skin of its teeth, the belly grazing the top of the atmosphere as it did so and igniting a massive, miles-wide fireball behind it from the friction.
Finally, they were clear of the planet, and they were able to relax now that the ordeal was over.
"What happened?" panted Harvey, out of breath from all the screaming. "Are we there yet?"
"No," Sabrina grunted. "I almost crashed us into a rogue planet and now we're way off course, and I don't know how to get back. At the speed we're going, we must have gone 10 billion miles off course already."
"Doesn't this thing have an autopilot?" Sabrina glared at him.
"Do you know of any cars with an autopilot?" she retorted. Harvey threw up his hands in defense.
"Alright, I'm sorry. I just don't know anything about witch technology."
"Yeah, well that makes two of us," she grumbled.
It was true. You see, Sabrina was not a full witch; she was actually half-mortal, her father being a 638-year-old witch from the Other Realm and her mother a mortal archaeologist. Due to the Witches Council's general disapproval of mortal-witch marriages, half-mortals were not allowed to access their magical powers or even know of their heritage until the age of 16. Sabrina was forced to quickly come to grips with her life undergoing a drastic paradigm shift as she struggled to grow accustomed to her magical powers while at the same time keeping them secret from her mortal friends, coworkers, and love interests.
She had met Harvey on her first day at Westbridge High School, the day after she had been informed of her witch heritage and magical abilities. He was the only mortal aside from her mother who had ever known her true nature. And despite the difficulties of coming to grips with that, they had eventually ended up together.
"So what do we do now?" asked Harvey.
"I don't know," replied Sabrina. "Epsilon Eridani could be in any direction!"
"Don't you have a map or something?" Sabrina looked like she was about to cry.
"No," she said, her voice breaking. "That's why I stopped at Neptune for directions; I had no idea which way to go!"
"Okay, okay, calm down." Harvey put his hand on his new wife's shoulder. "Would you be able to zap one in?" She waved her hand dismissively.
"No, it's too far. I wouldn't have enough energy."
"Well, I'm sure we can get through this. We just have to... wait until somebody rescues us."
"We won't be missed on Earth for days, Harvey! And I seriously doubt the people at the resort are gonna call it in!" Suddenly, they heard the sound of sputtering. Sabrina looked down at the fuel gauge, and the needle was pointing at the E. She felt a burning behind her eyes as she struggled against the urge to weep. "And now the fuel is gone," she said through barely restrained tears.
Now that they were drifting aimlessly through the vacuum of space, the dam finally broke and Sabrina began to sob, holding her head in her hands. Harvey leaned over and wrapped a comforting arm around her, holding her close.
"Shh, it's okay," he whispered. "It'll be alright."
*~*~*
A few hours passed, and there was no sign of rescue or civilization. Utilizing her bare-bones knowledge of spacewalks garnered from movies and comics, Sabrina had managed to access the trunk and had found a deck of cards and a few large bags of chips. She had also grabbed a second blanket for herself, since their heater was now kaput, and the two of them had wrapped themselves up to ward off the encroaching chill of space. They had been playing Go Fish in the backseat for the past three hours, and Sabrina was currently winning by a wide margin.
"Got any twos?" asked Harvey.
"Go fish," replied Sabrina. Harvey drew a card from the deck, and he grimaced. Sabrina, however, kept her face stoic and blank. That was Harvey's weakness; even in Go Fish, a good poker face could make the difference.
"Any sixes?" asked Sabrina. Harvey sighed, rolled his eyes, and handed her one of his cards. "Yes!" Sabrina made a small fist-pump and set the card facedown on the discard pile along with three others. "The score is now Sabrina—29, Harvey—12," she said triumphantly with a smirk.
"I think Amanda might be a bad influence on you," said Harvey.
Suddenly, they tensed as the car seemed to lurch, like an airplane experiencing turbulence. The discard pile scattered on the floorboards and the open bag of chips spilled across the seat.
"What was that?" asked Harvey in a mild panic. The car began to very slowly spin to the right, and they had to shield their eyes as a bright yellow star rose over the edge, much closer to them than it had any right to be. It was a dead ringer for the Earth's own sun, but Sabrina was certain they hadn't gone back toward Earth when they had flown off course.
The car spun further, and Sabrina's eyes widened as a gigantic planet suddenly rose into view, the blue-and-green ball of rock looming above them like a giant about to stomp them into oblivion. She threw off her blanket and scrambled to get back in the driver's seat.
"Harvey, get in your seat!" exclaimed Sabrina as she buckled herself in. Harvey climbed forward into the front and did the same, pulling the strap taut and gripping the armrests as if they were life preservers.
"Are we gonna crash?!" he asked frantically. Sabrina pressed a button and the top began to extend, covering the cabin and its fragile occupants. She also rolled up the driver's side window. Harvey saw this, took a hint, and rolled up his own window as well.
"We're caught in the planet's gravitational field... so yes!" She gripped the steering wheel and stared forward intently.
A few moments passed. Nothing unusual happened. The car continued to spin ever so slowly, and the planet and sun seemed to revolve around them.
"Are you sure?" asked Harvey, his grip on the armrests lessening a bit. Then suddenly the car lurched again, and he once again grabbed the armrests tightly.
"Pretty sure," said Sabrina.
The car's rotation brought the planet right below them, and the car tilted forward. All of a sudden, they could hear what sounded like a windstorm outside. As they looked, the air around the car began to glow a dull red as the sound of wind increased, and the car started rattling as it penetrated the top layers of the planet's atmosphere.
They could see the planet growing larger in their windshield as they plummeted toward the surface like a meteor, and they both grimaced as the rattling of the car grew almost unbearable. Their teeth rattled in their skulls and their bones rattled in their bodies. The car spun faster, and Sabrina turned the wheel every which way in an attempt to stabilize it.
"Sabrina!" shouted Harvey over the roar of the wind. "Just in case we don't make it, there's something you should know!"
"I love you too, Harvey!" Sabrina shouted back. Harvey shook his head.
"No, this is something else! I... I... I was the one who ate your pickled eyes of newt, not Salem!"
"What?!" Sabrina shouted angrily.
"I'm sorry, I thought they were pickled eggs! And they just tasted so good!"
"Seriously, this is the kind of thing you tell me in the face of death?!"
As the car plummeted toward the surface, they passed through several different types of cloud cover, passing first through sheets of cirrus, then through lumpy mounds of cumulus. Finally, they exited the final clump of clouds and were immediately greeted by the sight of a thick forest barely 50 feet below them.
Sabrina shrieked in surprise as she swerved to the left to avoid a particularly tall tree. Then another tree came up almost instantly and she swerved again, but she was not quite able to avoid it. As they passed by, the car's left side scraped against the trunk of the tree with a painful screech of wood on metal.
Soon, they flew past the edge of the forest and out over a meadow. They sank closer and closer to the ground and Sabrina tensed.
"Hold on!" she yelled as they impacted the ground with a loud thump. The car continued to move through the dirt as it expended its remaining momentum, and they were tossed around like ragdolls by the extended impact, only held down by their seat belts. The car skidded over a hill and briefly became airborne once again as it crested the top of the hill, but its short flight ended as it landed at the base of the next hill. It then skidded partway up the slope, slowing down all the while, before eventually lurching forward and then finally coming to a complete stop. Harvey looked around as if for another sign of danger, then turned to his wife.
"Well, that wasn't so bad," he said uncertainly, as if he were trying to convince himself. "I mean, the airbags didn't even deploy."
But he was proven wrong as the aforementioned airbags suddenly blew up in both their faces with a pair of loud puffs, as if summoned by his previous words. Harvey looked at Sabrina apologetically, but Sabrina simply stared deadpan at the offending safety device in front of her. She blew a lock of hair out of her face with a huff.
"We should probably get out and inspect the damage," said Sabrina after a moment. She moved her right hand toward her seat belt to unbuckle it, but winced and drew in a sharp breath. "Argh!" she groaned, shaking it in front of her. "I think I hurt my hand." She raised her hand to reveal her index finger bending at a slightly disturbing angle.
"Gah!" exclaimed Harvey in a mix of shock and disgust. "What happened to your finger?!"
"I don't know! I must have broken it in the crash!" She gave it a small flourish, and there was a sound rather like a light short-circuiting. Nothing happened. "Oh man! I can't use my magic to fix it!"
"Well," said Harvey, shrugging, "I probably could have told you that."
"Not helping!" she snapped. Suddenly, they were interrupted by a rustling in the backseat. Sabrina let out a small yelp at the sudden sound.
"Ah! What was that?" She unbuckled her seat belt and turned around, reaching into the backseat with her left hand and taking care not to disturb her right. She could swear she heard the rustling coming from inside her suitcase, along with what sounded like muffled grumbling. She unzipped the main pouch to reveal a very familiar face poking out from among the blouses. He noticed Sabrina and stopped grumbling, giving her an uneasy smile.
"Oh, uh... hey, Sabrina," the black cat said nervously.
"Salem!" Sabrina exclaimed indignantly. "What are you doing here?"
"I, um... Uh..." stuttered Salem. "I... stowed away?" Sabrina smiled sarcastically, speaking at first with mock sweetness.
"Well, I hope you'll forgive me if I'm out of line on this, but Harvey and I weren't really planning on having a convicted felon accompany us on our honeymoon!"
Salem Saberhagen was a power-hungry witch who had attempted to take over the mortal world. As punishment for his crimes, the Witches Council had sentenced to him to 100 years as a witch familiar—in his case a black cat—and placed him in the care of one of his soldiers, Hilda Spellman, who also happened to be Sabrina's aunt. Though he was somewhat infamous among witchkind for his genius war tactics and brutal interrogation methods, that fact was difficult to reconcile with his general personality.
"I'm sorry, Sabrina," Salem wept pathetically, looking at the floorboards in shame. "I just wanted to get out of the house."
"Well, congratulations! Now you're out of the house and stranded on an alien planet!" Salem looked up and his ears perked up in surprise.
"What? Stranded? You mean we're not at the resort?"
"Of course not, we just crashed the car! What did you think that was, a 'water landing?!'"
"To be honest, I just thought you were a bad driver." Sabrina's eyes narrowed at him and she growled. She was about to strangle the cat when Harvey placed a calming hand on her shoulder.
Restraining herself, Sabrina closed her eyes, then took a deep breath. She held it for a few moments, then slowly and gently let it back out, sending away her stress with it. Afterwards, she was not completely calm, but she was a fair bit more so than before.
"Salem," she said with a carefully neutral voice, "I hate you." He nodded sagely.
"That's good," he said in a tone reminiscent of a psychotherapist. "Work through your feelings." She raised her left hand suddenly and he flinched, his fur fluffing up, but she was not holding up a fist as he had expected. Instead she held two fingers a small space apart, and she squinted and spoke in a low voice.
"You are this close to being Chinese takeout," she hissed. He swallowed nervously. Sabrina then lowered her hand and turned to Harvey. "Let's get out and see if there's a hospital or at least a First Aid kit around here. I'm pretty sure I saw a town when we were crashing, so there must be aliens somewhere. I just hope they're friendly." She then turned around and opened the driver's side door. However, it only opened about a third of the way due to being blocked by the mound of dirt dug up by the car's impact with the ground.
"A-aliens?" stuttered Harvey nervously. "There's aliens?" He crouched down slightly and tried to hide behind Sabrina, but she shook him off.
"Quit being such a scaredy-cat," she admonished him. "No offense, Salem," she added, glancing at the cat in the backseat.
"None taken; it's a pretty reliable stereotype. Chickens, on the other hand, can actually be pretty aggressive." She raised an eyebrow.
"You really shouldn't do trivia." With that, she carefully climbed out through the narrow opening, with Harvey nervously following close behind, looking around for any sign of bird-like aliens that could swoop down and attack from above.
As she climbed out, Sabrina looked around, taking in their surroundings. They had crashed in a large area of verdant grassy hills. There was nary a tree in sight, with the exception of the thick forest roughly a half-mile behind them. Several vibrant flowers also dotted the grassy plain.
She looked back toward the car to survey the damage caused in the crash. It did not look good. The body of the car was covered with dirt and dented all over, especially near the bottom where it had ground into the soil. There was a huge ugly scratch along the side where it had hit the tree, running all the way from the driver's side front door to just in front of the left taillight.
One of the afterburners was smoking, and the other had actually fallen off completely and was nowhere to be seen. She was also certain there was all manner of unseen damage to the interior parts, but she didn't exactly have the know-how to fix it, or even to check if it needed fixing.
She turned around, scanning the horizon for evidence of civilization. When her eyes reached a distant mountain range, she gasped. A majestic castle rested on one of the mountains, all white marble and slender spires. Despite the apparent size of the distant castle, it seemed to hang off of the steep slope of the mountain with no visible means of support.
"Whoa," said Harvey from behind her, having obviously noticed the castle. "Talk about fancy. It's like that thing was taken right out of a fairy-tale storybook. I know I was scared before, but I don't think anything that would build something like that could be scary.
"Oh man, I hope there's a town closer than that. I can't zap us and it looks like at least two days' walk."
"Not to mention we don't have the equipment to climb a mountain," added Harvey. Sabrina turned to face somewhere to the left of the distant castle and pointed. The direction she was pointing was about perpendicular and to the right of the path the car had taken as it crashed.
"I think I saw a town somewhere in that direction. Seeing as the castle on the mountain isn't really an option, we can grab a couple bags and hike that way. Better than just staying here." She and Harvey managed to open the trunk and back door to grab Sabrina's suitcase and the duffle bag with their toiletries in case they were gone longer than the rest of the day. Harvey also grabbed the chips and cards and placed them in the duffle bag as well.
"Where are you going?" asked Salem when he realized they were packing.
"We're gonna try and make it to the nearest town so I can get some medical attention," replied Sabrina, "not to mention shelter. No offense to my Aunt Hilda, but I don't want to have to spend the night in that car."
"What about me?" he asked as Harvey hoisted the duffle bag onto his shoulder.
"You can walk behind us," she said, extending the handle on her rolling suitcase. "Consider it your punishment for stowing away."
"Aw man!" whined Salem. "Do I have to?" One glare from Sabrina answered his question for him, and he hopped out onto the ground as the couple began walking. "Alright, alright. Just don't walk too fast, you two. I have tiny legs!"
*~*~*
Hilda Spellman looked up from her book suddenly and her eyes widened. She felt a cold chill run through her body and a sense of dread fell over her.
Something terrible had just happened.
Hilda had been sitting in the living room of the large Victorian house in Westbridge, reading Huckleberry Finn for what she guessed was the seventeenth time. Though she and her sister Zelda had loaned the house to their niece Sabrina for roughly the past year, it was still technically in their names, and Sabrina had asked them to watch it when she had gone on her honeymoon with Harvey. And considering it was a magical house, it certainly needed the supervision.
She jumped up from the armchair she had been sitting in and ran into the kitchen. When she ran through the door she saw her sister Zelda hunched over her quantum LabTop ready-made laboratory open on the kitchen counter, working on some scientific thingamajig or another. She was wearing her favorite white lab coat and looking at something through a microscope.
"Zelly!" said Hilda in a mild panic. "I need help! Something's happened!" Zelda replied to her sister in a terse, impatient tone without looking up from her work.
"Hilda, I already told you, I'm not cleaning up any more Silly String!"
"That's not what I'm talking about," said Hilda. "You know that reaaaally bad feeling I get when something bad happens?" Zelda's tone was more patient this time, but still brought to mind a parent listening to their child complain about a classmate stealing their cookies.
"You mean your so-called 'Hilda Sense?' The feeling you supposedly got before Salem got caught by the Witches Council?" Though she did not look up at her sister as she spoke, she lifted her eye from the microscope and donned a pair of plastic safety goggles. She then grabbed a beaker full of blue liquid and carefully poured it into another colored a rich ruby red.
"Yeah, but this time it's worse; like, multiply the Salem feeling by a thousand. I think something really, really bad has happened. I think..." Hilda's eyes began to tear up as she struggled to speak. "I think something might have happened to Baby!"
This time, Zelda did look up. First she stared forward at some undetermined point in the distance, her eyes seeming to glaze over with confusion. Then she looked up at Hilda. After a couple seconds, a light of comprehension seemed to spark in her eyes, along with no small amount of annoyance.
"Please don't tell me you mean that infernal flying car of yours," she said. When Hilda nodded, she groaned and held her head in her hands.
"You have no idea how much I love that car! I just don't know what I would do if something were to happen to it!" Hilda grabbed the edge of her shirt and began wringing it in her hands nervously. "I hope Sabrina didn't crash it or anything."
"Oh my goodness!" Zelda gasped, lifting her head straight up. "Sabrina!" Hilda's worry seemed to turn to boredom.
"Oh yeah, Sabrina," she said almost dismissively, her nervous behaviors disappearing. "Well, I suppose we should call the resort to make sure they got there alright." She walked a couple of steps and moved to grab the phone off the wall, but Zelda jumped up and grabbed her hand, stopping it an inch away.
"No, Hilda, we can't!" she said. "You know how the time zones work: the resort is two days behind Earth. If we were to try and contact Sabrina now, it would violate the laws of causality and cause her to explode yesterday!(1)" She let go of Hilda's hand and removed her safety goggles as a worried frown appeared. "As much as I hate to say it, we won't be able to safely call the resort for two days, and we can't file a Missing Witch report for a day after that, which means three days of waiting before we can do anything.(2)" Zelda caught herself and her expression became much more controlled. "If... something really did happen to her, that is." She sat back down at the counter to resume her work, and Hilda grinned triumphantly.
"You just listened to me," she said excitedly, as if she had somehow won a first-place ribbon after trailing the entire race. "I can't believe it! I told you something had happened and you believed me! You never do that!"
"What?" said Zelda in a poor attempt at aloofness. "Oh, of course not. Your assertion was founded on an unscientific 'gut feeling.' We can't know anything's happened until there's proof." Despite her best attempts, Zelda could not quite manage to sound completely convincing. Hilda adopted a knowing grin.
"Say what you want, Zelly, but I know you listened to me for once." She turned and walked back into the living room. When she had left the room, and Zelda was sure she would not be coming back, the elder witch stopped pretending to do her experiment and sighed.
I can't work now, she thought. Sabrina may be in danger. And I think I might know someone who could help. She gathered up her materials and closed up her LabTop, then picked it up and walked up the stairs to her bedroom. She had a letter to write.
Chapter 2: Take Me to Your Leader
As the alien sun gradually sank in the sky, Sabrina had realized that it was afternoon where they had landed. The sun was to their left, meaning they were walking north, and the dense forest they had flown over before they crashed was to their right. They were keeping their distance, though, because the dark, dense foliage gave Sabrina the heebie-jeebies.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Sabrina jumped when she heard the voice. She looked over at Harvey as he walked beside her.
"Sorry Harvey, I was miles away," she said. "What'd you say?"
"Your finger," he said. "Doesn't it hurt?" She nodded.
"A bit. But witches deal with pain a lot better than mortals. I mean, yeah, it hurts, but I'm not gonna go crazy or start crying or anything. If I broke a leg or something, though, that'd be a different story."
"Oh," said Harvey, sounding not quite satisfied with the explanation. "Are you gonna be able to do magic once it's fixed?"
"Yeah, but I won't be able to get us back to Earth or anything. I'd be able to zap water out of the air, but we'd have to find our own food. Everything I conjure has to come from somewhere. You know, conservation of mass and all that."
"Oh. I guess I thought magic could break rules like that."
"Sometimes it can look like it, but no. Aunt Zelda gets all technical when she explains it, but basically, magic is just another force like gravity(3). Except instead of making planets orbit, it can turn an orange into an apple. At least when I can focus." She chuckled.
"Or it can turn a cat into a waffle," said Salem with an accusatory glance toward Sabrina. Soon after their departure from the crash site, Salem had convinced Harvey to pick him up, and now he was riding around in Harvey's duffel bag with only his head poking out the front.
"Aren't you ever going to let that go?" she asked.
"Only when you let go of the Sunspot Incident." Sabrina immediately fixed him with a glare.
"You took advantage of me and you know it."
"I don't exactly recall doing much of the planning."
"Why, you little—"
"Guys?" Harvey interrupted. "What's that?" Sabrina and Salem looked where he was pointing in the northeastern sky. Something was flying toward them from the direction of the castle in the distance. The sun glinted off of the object, obscuring it somewhat, but Sabrina recognized it as some kind of metal vehicle.
"It's the aliens!" she exclaimed. "We should get their attention!" Sabrina was about to start waving, but Harvey stopped her by stretching his arm in front of her.
"I don't think we need to," he said. Sure enough, the vehicle soon got close enough for them to barely make out the large creatures sitting in it, and they were looking directly at them.
It was indeed made of metal, either brass or something gold-plated. The four white creatures pulling it looked almost like pegasi, but they were much too small and rounded to be the ones she was familiar with. Sitting in the carriage itself were two similar creatures, but with horns like unicorns.
The one sitting on the right was about the same size as the ones pulling the carriage, with a vibrant lavender coat and a navy-blue mane with a hot pink streak running through it. The other creature was a different story altogether.
It was much taller in stature than the other five creatures, looking about the same size as a horse from Earth. It had a brilliant white coat and long, slender horn, and its face was framed by a beautiful multi-hued mane which seemed to flow serenely despite the speed of the open-air vehicle.
The carriage turned and spiraled into a gentle landing some distance away from them, and Sabrina got a closer look at the creatures. Despite only having just encountered them, Sabrina could easily distinguish their sex. The four pulling the carriage were definitely male, likely some sort of guards judging by their gold-colored armor and helmets.
The two creatures sitting in the carriage seemed to be female, and now that she had a closer view, she saw that they also had wings which were folded at their sides. She also took notice of the sun marking on the white one's flank and the pink starburst on the flank of the lavender one. Surprisingly, the white one's prismatic mane still seemed to be flowing in the same manner as before in spite of the nearly complete lack of any breeze or wind.
Their horns both briefly glowed with an ethereal light, the lavender one's horn magenta and the white one's horn gold, and corresponding spheres of colored light encased each of them as they exited the carriage and stepped onto the grass. The white one's horn flared again, and a similar gold dome covered the four guards.
That's magic, thought Sabrina, the realization casting the creatures in an entirely new light for her. If they know magic, then they'll probably be able to fix my finger with no problem.
The two creatures walked slowly forward, their shields moving with them, and they stopped a few paces away from the trio. After a moment, the lavender one made a series of sounds that sounded like an otherworldly mixture of gibberish and horse noises. Though she had no idea what was being said, Sabrina recognized the upturned tone at the end that was indicative of a question.
I bet she's asking if I can understand her, Sabrina thought. She pointed to her ear with her left hand and shook her head to show that she could not understand. The alien's horn glowed with a magenta light and Sabrina's vision was obscured by a brief flash of purple. Then the creature spoke again, but this time Sabrina knew what she was saying.
"Can you understand me now?" asked the alien in a light, decidedly feminine voice. Sabrina nodded.
"Can you help us?" she asked with a bit more panic in her tone than she expected. "Our vehicle crashed on the edge of the forest and we're stranded here." The lavender alien nodded.
"Of course," she replied. "Is there anything specific that you need help with?" Sabrina nodded again and raised her right hand to show them her broken finger.
"Can I get a doctor?" The alien's eyes widened in shock. The white one did the same, though her expression was much less pronounced.
"Oh, my goodness!" gasped the lavender alien. "That needs to be fixed immediately! I can teleport you to the local hospital at once." She turned to the taller white figure. "Princess, can you take care of the other one?" The white one nodded serenely, a stark contrast to the determination and panic of her companion.
The purple one dropped her magical shield. Her horn then glowed brightly, and both she and Sabrina disappeared with a flash of magenta light and a crack of displaced air, leaving behind the witch's suitcase, and leaving Harvey and Salem with the remaining alien.
"Come," she said simply, her voice as soothing and serene as her appearance. She turned and walked towards the carriage, dropping the shields around herself and the guards, and Harvey had little choice but to follow. He sighed and walked after her with Salem in tow, pulling Sabrina's suitcase behind him.
When the light surrounding her dissipated, Sabrina was in a room that looked very much like a hospital room, though all the machines and furniture items were adjusted for the size of the creatures and were a bit too small for her. The lavender alien pointed to the paper-covered bench/bed that Sabrina recognized from every doctor's office.
"Sit here. I'll summon a doctor." Her horn flared magenta again and she disappeared in a flash of light. Sabrina walked over and sat on the bench, not even needing to jump up onto it due to its smaller size. In fact, when she sat down, she found that it was the perfect height for her to sit comfortably.
A minute or two later, the lavender alien appeared again, this time accompanied by a light orange male in a white doctor's coat with an EEG marking, only a horn poking out from his brown mane rather than the wings or horn-wings combo shown by the others. The doctor's eyes widened when he saw her, but nothing else in his body language betrayed his thoughts.
"Good evening," he said. "My name is Dr. Horse. Princess Twilight has informed me of your alien nature, and I have agreed to complete secrecy in order to treat you. You are currently in an isolated hospital room reserved for criminals, though I assure you it is only to prevent ponies from seeing you and becoming frightened. Now what seems to be the problem?"
"Um..." Sabrina stumbled a bit. Everything had happened so fast that her brain had to take a second to catch up, but the "ponies" (which she guessed must be their species name) were quite polite and waited patiently for her to reply. "Uh... m-my finger, I guess." She presented the digit to the doctor and he drew in a sharp breath through clenched teeth.
"Oh, goodness," he said quietly. His horn glowed cyan and a corresponding glow surrounded a dull metal plate as it floated over to her. "I'll need you to place both your hands palm down on top of this and hold them very still. Do you think you could do that for me?" She nodded and he set the plate down on her lap, with Sabrina then resting her hands on it as she had been told. She winced in pain as her right pointer finger touched the plate, but she managed to find a position that did not aggravate the pain.
The pony doctor's horn glowed again and a cyan beam of magic scanned across the metal plate. The doctor retrieved another different-looking plate from another part of the room and scanned it with the beam as well, apparently depositing an image on it. Sabrina marveled at the plate as she realized that the image on it seemed to be an x-ray of her hands. In addition to the bones, however, there were also a large number of glowing lines covering her hands. Most of them were flowing and smooth, but they formed a knot of sorts around the crack in her finger. The doctor gazed at it for almost a minute before turning back to Sabrina.
"After briefly studying the anatomy of your opposite hand, I believe I have sufficient knowledge to fix your finger. Just to warn you, this will almost certainly hurt. I will attempt to realign both your bones and meridians so that they may heal properly. I will also administer a mild healing spell, so you will feel a bit drowsy for several hours. Rest is encouraged, but not required, considering this seems to be a relatively minor injury. Are you ready?"
The doctor walked up close to her, and eventually she nodded, mentally bracing herself for the pain. His horn glowed again and an identically colored glow surrounded Sabrina's injured finger, accompanied by a slight tingle that she recognized as the touch of magic. The doctor counted down from three, and when he reached zero a searing pain shot through Sabrina's hand as he set the bones back in place. But then the pain subsided as the effects of the healing spell took hold.
"Try not to flex it for at least six hours, and if that causes anything more than a dull ache, extend that time to twelve hours. You should also avoid using magic for at least a full day just to be safe. Other than that, you're good as new." Sabrina tensed.
"Wait a minute, how did you know I can use magic?" she asked the doctor. He blushed a bit at the intense look the witch gave him and glanced at the floor.
"I-I-I assumed, because of the-the meridians, that your species are magic users. Was I wrong?" She relaxed when he gave his explanation.
"Not exactly. It's just, I live with people who aren't allowed to know about magic, so I get a bit tense whenever it's brought up."
"That's horrible!" said the lavender pony, "Princess Twilight" if Sabrina remembered correctly, speaking for the first time since she had brought Sabrina to the hospital. "Why would anypony be forbidden from knowing about magic?"
"It's a little complicated," said Sabrina. "So... what happened to Harvey?" When the ponies gave her blank looks, she elaborated. "My husband?"
"Oh, the male!" said Twilight. "I sent him with Princess Celestia to my castle. They should be waiting there for us when we're finished."
"You mean that white castle on the mountain is yours? Wow, how do you get it to stay up?" Twilight blushed slightly.
"Actually, that's Celestia's castle which she shares with her sister Luna. As for how it stays up, I'm honestly not sure. The architects who originally built it are long dead, and nopony else knows except Celestia and Luna. You'd have to ask them, but I doubt they'd tell you; it's kind of an unofficial state secret. So are you ready to leave?" Sabrina nodded.
Twilight first teleported Dr. Horse out of the room, presumably back to whatever he had been doing beforehand, and then the glow of her magic encompassed herself and Sabrina and they disappeared, only to rematerialize somewhere else.
Sabrina looked around to see that they were in a large meeting hall, possibly where the princess kept council. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the room were made of some sort of crystalline substance, and it seemed that the rest of the building was made of it too. A large, open doorway led to a giant hallway apparently made of the same colored crystal. But by far the most notable feature of the room was her husband standing by the table next to the white princess.
"Harvey!" shouted Sabrina, running over to him. They joined in a brief embrace before Sabrina leaned away. "Have they introduced themselves?"
"We were actually waiting until we had you together to formally introduce ourselves," said the white princess in a voice like a gentle river. "I am Princess Celestia, Sister Ruler of Equestria, Steward of the Day, Guardian of the Planet Equus and All Her Inhabitants." The princess honored them with a graceful bow that seemed much longer than they deserved, before glancing to her left.
A pony Sabrina had not seen before and only just now noticed stood to Princess Celestia's left. She sported wings and a horn like the other two, as well as a midnight blue coat and striking teal eyes that seemed to pop against her dark fur. Her mane flowed in an intangible breeze much like Celestia's, but instead of stripes of color it was black with dark blue borders and filled with a myriad of stars, as if an actual chunk of the night sky was visible through it. But no night sky seen from the ground could ever hope to match the brilliance of her starry mane. Her flank was adorned with a black, smoke- or cloud-like patch as well as a mark of a crescent moon.
This was clearly Celestia's sister, Princess Luna. Though she stood quite a bit shorter than her sister, she had a powerful presence in the room due to the way she held herself. Where Celestia gave the impression of a loving mother, Luna came off as a strict but kind teacher. She gave off an air of regality, but she would drop it in a second if it better allowed a student to learn.
"I am Princess Luna," she bellowed in a deep voice touched by some unidentifiable accent, "Sister Ruler of Equestria, Steward of the Night, Painter of the Sky, Guardian of the Dreamlands." She bowed to them as well, though she was much more formal about it and bowed for noticeably less time than her sister.
Next was another unfamiliar winged unicorn, a female with a coat of rosy pink and a purple, pink, and cream mane, her flank adorned with the mark of a blue gemstone heart. This one was much closer to Twilight in appearance, lacking the stature and flowing mane that Celestia and Luna exhibited.
"I am Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, Ruler of the Crystal Empire, Steward of Love, Guardian of the Crystal Heart." She bowed as well.
Finally, their attention was drawn to Twilight, who now stood to Princess Luna's left. She took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She closed her eyes, then recited her title as if from a book.
"I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, Steward of Friendship, Head to the Council of Friendship, Bearer of the Element of Magic. On behalf of ponies and other species everywhere, we welcome you to our planet with open arms and the offer of friendship to all who seek it." Twilight bowed, and the other three bowed together as well. Then they all lifted their heads in sync as they completed the bow. Twilight let out a sigh of relief and opened her eyes, gazing at Sabrina and Harvey eagerly. Eventually, Salem broke the silence.
"Well, no pressure."
