The Warlock

The world stopped. Not in the metaphorical sense, or in the sense where adrenaline floods a person’s veins and they perceive the world moving at a much slower pace than before. No, the world stopped in a very real, and very literal sense. The chocolate rain stopped mid air, the houses stopped spinning, and the leaves on the trees in the distance stopped moving in the ever-present wind from the valley Ponyville was nestled in.

I felt the coils of ducks loosen. Not enough for me to reach my pistol, but enough that they were no longer crushing my chest and stomach to the point where I swore I heard something crack.

Little did I know at the time, but it was the vial of “Booster” I had found in Mzark.

There was a flash of light from somewhere behind me. Even with my new found freedom, I was still unable to move my head enough to see what it was. I felt two hands grasp me by the shoulders. These, I was able to see. The one on my left shoulder looked to be a prehensile bird’s claw, while the other was a lion’s paw.

“You have no idea just how long it has been since I have heard that name.” The voice seemed to originate over my head. The coils of ducks finally removed themselves from my frame, as did the hands.

There was nothing in front of me, so as soon as the hands left my shoulders and I had full mobility, I dove forward. I took a short leap from where I was, and landed in a crouch. With a quick spin and draw of my pistol, I was looking down the sights of what held me just a second ago.

The creature was at least ten feet tall, and looked like some horrific amalgamation of a dozen animals. It’s legs were that of a goat and some kind of clawed lizard (Utahraptor, maybe?). It had the tail of a snake with a pom-pom on the end, the body of a weasel, and it’s head looked like a donkey’s from back home, only with more human features. It had a crumpled unicorn horn, and a deer horn on it’s head. On it’s back was a set of wings, one feathered, and one webbed. The whole thing was rounded off with the aforementioned arms.

“Is that really necessary? Come now, if I really wanted to hurt you, I would have done it already.” The thing spoke in Q’s voice.

“What the fuck are you? You’re not Q.” I demanded, pistol remaining trained on it.

The creature bowed. “I am Discord. Avatar of chaos, father to the Chaos Gods, and the dynamo of change!”

I was unimpressed, and my gun showed it. “Ah-ha! It must be the draconequus form! One moment,” He (as I had assumed at the time) snapped it’s fingers, somehow. There was a great flash of light, and within a second, he had changed. Instead of the amalgamation of various animal parts, the figure now looked exactly like the curly haired form of Q, including the red shirt and comm badge pinned to his chest. “Ta-da!” Q exclaimed with vigorous jazz hands.

I replaced my pistol in it’s holster with a heavy sigh. I was more receptive of Q’s new form, not because he was human looking, that played no part in it. I realized that this was Q, and there was nothing I could do to hurt him even if I tried.

“I knew that you were in the human city, but I’ve been down there. It should have taken you a day at most to reach the weapons testing facility.” He saw my startled look and laughed. “Don’t worry, little human. I know about the weapon, and I have no interest in it. I just want to know why it took a month and a half for a two day job.”

Despite the situation, I smiled. “They put me in charge of navigation because they couldn’t read English. My pay was what I could loot from the city. So I made sure we visited was the weapons research facility last.”

Q and I were having a good laugh. We really had visited every building in the city, and it was a ton of fun on my part, but I was starting to wish that I had just taken the money. We stopped laughing after a bit. Q was standing straighter with a grim look on his face.

“As fun as it is to talk with you, I have some business to attend. And I can’t have you getting in my way.” Q snapped his fingers and vanished in a flash of light. At the same time, I could feel a kind of creeping numbness rapidly crawling up my legs and starting to reach my chest. I had just enough time to look down at my now stone legs and torso before my head was encompassed and my world went dark.

O0o0O

I awoke to a sound that I was ashamed that I had become accustomed to. The steady pulsing of the heart monitor told me just how badly I had messed up once again. I had only been in the hospital once in my life before I had come here, and that was embarrassing on its own.

Propping myself on my elbow and fumbling for a moment to retrieve my glasses from the bedside table, I got a look around the room I was in. It was a fairly barren room. Two chairs on one side, some equipment, and the bed. From outside the door, I could hear the faint clip clopping of hooves on tile. Resting on the foot of the bed was a single, pulsing light.

Before I could further examine the light, the sound of multiple sets of hooves against tile clattered from right outside my door. Seconds later, the door opened, and in walked Twilight and her friends.

“Gareth! You’re awake! Thank Wuotan!” Twilight called out to me in heavily accented English. Before I could respond, she wrapped her forehooves around my torso.

She broke from the hug and looked me in the eye. “What happened? Discord tuned you to stone, then you were asleep for two weeks. We didn’t think you would wake up at all!” Her eyes got misty at this point. Looking over to the rest of them, guilt hit me like a brick. All of them were in similar states. Even Rainbow Dash, though she hid it well. So Q froze me in stone huh? At least he was nice enough to keep me alive I guess.

“How long have you been waiting here?” I asked, voice crackling and raspy.

Applejack answered. “We came here every night for ‘bout an hour or so.”

My mind blanked for a second. These mares had taken an hour out of their days to sit in a hospital waiting on someone they barely knew to wake up. It made no sense.

I had to know, so I looked to Twilight and asked, “Why? You hardly know me.”

She gave me a confused look. “Why wouldn’t we? Yes, we don’t know you well, but you are still our friend. Of course we are going to visit you when you aren’t feeling well.” She gestured to one of the walls, “We came to visit you every day, but some ponies have dropped those off every day. Ponyville is a very close community, and we look after both guests and towns ponies alike.”

Resting on a table I did not even notice the first time, was a pile of flowers, cards, and presents from the various residents of Ponyville. A lot of the cards looked hand made, like they were from the same person. The flowers were in bags adorned with glowing blue runes. Surprisingly, none of them had wilted yet.

I was utterly baffled. This was so unlike anything I had ever expected. Humans were so different in regards to friends and neighbors. The one time I was in the hospital back home, after a bad car accident, the only person to come to see me was my family and my girlfriend at the time, and only my mother actually stayed with me in the hospital the whole week I was in there. My friends did not even send me a card, and my neighbor did not even know my name, let alone care that I was injured. I have to admit, this was a major bit of culture shock for me. This was camaraderie on a scale that I only thought existed in military units and The Communist Manifesto.

I will admit, it moved me a bit. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and slowly stood up, ignoring the protests of the mares. I braced myself against the bed, but even then I was barley able to hold myself up. I could feel my strength returning slowly, but I was majorly week. I heard Twilight try to use magic on me, but placed my free hand on her back, and shook my head. “Please don’t. I need to do this.”

By then I was more confident that I would not fall, so I took my first hesitant step towards the ponies. I almost fell, but was able to recover. Eventually I was able to make it over to the others, where I allowed myself to kneel down.

I drew each of them into a hug and gave them a heartfelt, “Thank you.” After this, I was fully able to stand up and move around a bit.

I made a split second decision, and realized that I needed help with it. “Twilight, can you teach me German? I want to be able to talk to the rest of the town.”

Twilight’s face lit up, “Of course! I’ll get a lesson plan ready, and get some primers, and a...” She was muttering at this point, and had a quill and paper out and was jotting a frightening amount of notes down.

I was regretting it already.

O0o0O

We left the hospital a few hours ago. The crown had taken care of the bill yet again (I was really racking up a tab in that regard), because I was still cash free. There were some well wishers, but it was late, so not many were out, just a few thestrals and the ponies with night shifts. Fluttershy and Rarity left for home to get some sleep, but the other four were still with me. I was not tired in the slightest, and was not interested in going to sleep just yet.

We got back to the tree house, where the other three pealed off to get home. Twilight let us in, but was still mumbling to herself on lesson plans. I was then nearly knocked over by a knee height mass of scales, teeth, and barney.

“Gareth! You’re of being back!” He called out in heavily accented English, though this time, it was a Russian accent. Twilight at this point had left for her room to make up lessons.

“Yep. I’m back.” I said as I flopped down on one of the plush cushions Twilight had for visitors to sit and read on.

Spike pulled up a smaller cushion and sat down in front of me. “So, why did you come here? To Ponyville. Is Canterlot not of good?” Spike asked.

I sighed and wormed my way deeper into the cushion, trying to get comfortable. “There was a treat on my life by the Changelings, so Celestia sent me here.”

Spike nodded. “Yes, I no like Bug-Horse,” I learned from talking with Gust that Bug-Horse is the most derogatory term for a Changeling one can use. Most would never even considering using such a slur against anybody, even a Changeling. “They have killed many my people.”

“I was gonna ask you about that. Can you tell me a bit about your people?”

Spike smiled and sat up straighter. “Of course. Ahem, where start? Oh yes! There nine continents on Earth. Antera, where most of life on Earth live. The Chill, frozen tundra where Fire Dragon live to far north. The Scorch, almost barren wasteland to south west. The Old World, to south west where most of ancient species live, like the Zebra, Deer, Camel, and Fey live. The Dragonlands, to north west, where Ice Dragon live. Is also biggest continent. The Ti Island Chain, to west. Not much known about Ti islands, but where most Daring Do series based. That six continents, other three weird.

“First of weird one is Breach. Breach tear in universe to far west. Breach also where ley line barriers come from. Ley barriers are three hundred kilometer tall deadly magic fountains that cut off known world from last two continents. Kill most, but Magic Dragon immune. The second is Echo. Echo cover almost a quarter of planet. Only Humans survive because they live underground. There constant wind, miasmas, poison air, meat eating plants, and almost no water. But worst there no sound. Magic of Echo keeps plant, wind, and animal sound from being made. So anything you do make constant echo. We know this because there gap in lay barrier that humans escaped into. The third and last one The Lost World. Lost World cover over half of planet, and is nothing but scorched land, and ruined city with nothing living there. There evil magic that keeps anything from living there, and kill anything that come there. We only know of place from Princess Luna, when she lead campaign to kick Cyka humans off of moon. There is no way to Lost World, except over the ley barrier or through Echo.

“Of the nine, Dragons live on three. There are three types of Dragon. Ice, Fire, and Magic. Ice Dragons live in desert of Dragon lands, and are oldest type of Dragon. They live in desert because Ice inside would freeze them alive. They use heat of desert to keep themselves from dying. Fire dragons live in Chill, in the arctic tundras. Fire burn them up if live anywhere else. Ice cool down Dragon fire. These two types of Dragon live thousand of year, if nothing bad happen.

“Last is Magic Dragon. I Magic Dragon. Magic Dragon different from normal. Magic Dragon must be hatch with magic stream. Only magic species create Magic Dragon. Egg given to magic species, then hatched with magic. Can be Fire or Ice. Mine Ice. Magic poured on egg for three days, and how power mage is, make how power Dragon is. Twilight hatch me, and is most power Unicorn in world. Since she four. She hatch me when she twelve. I only eight, but I more smart and power than other Magic Dragons a hundred time my old. Magic Dragon, once hundred year, can change shape. Not like Cyka Bug-Horse, but can change form. After hundred year, Magic Dragon no age. Magic Dragon born knowing Dragon tong, and have hard time learn other tong. Almost impossible. I may know Gryphic and Germane, but I always have accent, forever. After we twenty, we learn how to magic. We no can learn before then. Magic Dragon also only Dragon that no wing. After Magic Dragon old enough, most move to Honalee, magic land of Magic Dragon. It deep in ley barrier, but we okay. Only two hundred Magic Dragon, no friend with other Dragon, and we no have egg, but that okay.”

Well before Spike finished, I had pulled out my scroll tablet and started taking notes. The Dragons were fascinating, most needing help from the environment to maintain homeostasis. The Magic Dragons were amazing in their own regard. No aging, they can use magic, and they have a country named, of all things, Honalee.

But what was more fascinating was the continents. It sounded like most of the planet was barren, toxic wasteland. The Lost World especially sounds like they learned the hard way what nukes do. I think that the ley barriers aren’t some kind of magical accident, or a human sabotauge to the world. It sounds like an immune response from the planet itself. Like it was keeping its living inhabitants from dying from the horrors of what was out there.

I looked up from my scroll to ask Spike what else he could tell me, but he was already asleep. Not that I could blame the kid. He was only eight. There was a pile of blankets in one of the corners that were clean, so I draped one over Spike and made my way upstairs. I wasn’t tired, but I had a lot of things I needed to think about.

“If Twilight doesn’t have her lesson plans ready by tomorrow, I think that I might go visit the others.