1 Not Your Usual Day
It had been a long and tiring day at work. Three kids had come in with severe depression and another was fresh from being put into foster care with his younger sister. All and all a day that was going to be ingrained in my memory for a long time. But, such was the life of a psychologist, doing what no one else could to protect and nurture the minds of kids day in and day out.
I groaned as I dropped my purse and keys on the kitchen counter, pulling my shoulder length brown hair out of its bun before shaking it loose. My grey-blue eyes were drooped with fatigue but I still managed to force them open long enough to walk up the stairs of my house and into my study.
Here was where I kept my personal inspiration space along with my work desk, given I always found it easier to work through boring paperwork when I was surrounded by the things I liked. Along the walls were posters and printed images of my own design, covering most of the available space with pictures of my secret guilty pleasure. The images were of a particular show I had enjoyed in high school and I had stayed within the fandom up to my current age of twenty-three, even though I had never told anyone about it.
I was, of course, talking about the My Little Pony memorabilia that littered my study like confetti from one pink pony’s party cannon. I was a pegasister in all forms of the word, and as I opened the lid to my computer I saw yet another reminder of why I enjoyed the show. I had left my word document open the night before, and had apparently gone to work without thinking to close it down that morning. What my eyes fell upon was the words of my latest story, left unfinished right in the climax of the plot, with the characters locked in deadly combat with the lives of the royal family on the line.
I smiled to myself as I sat down, taking a moment to remember how long it had been since I had started writing fanfiction, and the support I had received upon putting my work out there. It was one of the best ways I had to deal with the stresses of work during the most trying of times, and I placed my hands over the keyboard as my mind fell back into the world I had created.
Glimmering Shield growled as she raised her buckler and sword, ignoring the blood that dripped into her right eye from the cut above her brow.
“You’re going to die Prometheus!” She cried as she struggled to stay standing, “I won’t let you harm the Princes or my brother!”
The dark unicorn stallion chuckled as he gripped his staff tighter, the ruby upon the end glowing with black magic, “Oh but that’s where you’re wrong, young Captain. I will be this nation’s ruler, no matter how many pathetic worms like you stand in my way.”
Glimmer let out a thunderous battle cry, charging her horn with magic to bolster her defenses as she charged the wicked sorcerer. Yet, just as her blade came within an inch of the stallion’s chest, the gem on his staff let out a condensed beam of magic into her own, flinging her back and against one of the pillars of the throne room.
Glimmer cried out before sliding to the floor, barely conscious and struggling to breathe through her cracked ribs. She looked up just in time to see another dark blast coming at her, but lacked the strength to move. She shut her eyes, bracing for the inevitable, and prayed that somepony would save her from her imminent death.
“I’m sorry Dusk,” she whispered, “Forgive me.”
Then, all at once, the time of the throne room crawled to a halt as the sound of snapping fingers echoed through the hall.
I paused as I read the last line, “What? That wasn’t what I meant to write.” I backspaced and tried again, trying to get back my train of thought.
An amused chuckling sound could be heard as a draconic figure materialized midair above the frozen battlefield, “My, such a thrilling scene, I can hardly wait to see what happens next.”
My fingers left the keys completely as I stared at my computer, “Okay, I know I didn’t write that. Is my computer glitching out or something?” I tried to delete the last paragraph but was shocked to find I couldn’t. I watched in bewilderment as the words began to type themselves on my screen, and I felt my eyes widening with every new sentence as my mind tried to comprehend what it was witnessing.
The figure turned to the startled woman staring at the screen, a wicked grin on her muzzle as she reclined in the air, “Ah, such a wonderful story you’ve written here.” She snapped her lion fingers and a stack of papers dropped into her claws, “A thrilling read that I’ve truly enjoyed up until this point. You wouldn’t mind if I add a little of my own personal flare to it, do you?”
Unable to fully function through my shock, I typed my answer into the document before my brain could realize what it was doing, narrating my reply as my fingers moved, “Who are you? How is this possible?”
The draconequus chuckled to herself as she tossed the pages over her shoulder, igniting them into flaming butterflies, “Oh how silly of me, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Eris, but then again, you must have heard of me, given your, shall we say, specific interests.”
My mind struggled to formulate a response, but I managed to type out the first thing that popped into my head, “Are you real?”
Eris rolled in laughter as she wiped a tear from her eye, “Oh aren’t you precious, asking me if this is real. Oh I haven’t had a laugh like that in quite some time. To answer your question, yes this is all real, and I have a little surprise for you, courtesy of your number one fan.” She snapped her fingers, and a surge of magic enveloped the room as the form of Glimmering Shield was enveloped in a blinding ball of light.
I yelped as I covered my eyes, the screen of my computer having turned into a blinding wall of light pink energy. I tried to see through the glare, but was unable to make anything out other than a large black blob that seemed to be growing larger. All of a sudden, my body was impacted my something very heavy, knocking me back and onto the floor as a large mass settled on top of me. I shoved whatever it was to one side as I leapt to my feet, stepping back up to my computer just in time to see one last line appear on the word document once the pink light had dimmed.
Eris smiled as she waved her claws, “Have fun with my little present, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on you to see how things go.”
With that, the word document closed, leaving my normal desktop as my mind finally caught up with what had just happened.
“Holy shit.” I muttered to myself as I took a step back, “I just talked with the real Eris, there’s no way that could have been fake.” I turned around to pick up my chair, but stopped dead as my eyes landed on the form that was lying next to the overturned furniture.
The first thing I noticed was that the figure was very, very familiar. In fact, she was the main character from the story I had just been talking to Eris in. Her white fur was ruffled and dusty, while a small cut dripped blood over her closed right eye. Her two-tone blue mane was draped over the other eye and the majority of her muzzle, although it wasn’t enough to stop me from recognizing her face from some of the fanart hanging on my wall. It also parted around what looked like an eight-inch horn that sprouted from the middle of her forehead, marking my companion as a unicorn, but otherwise was unhindered from hanging over her face like a wet blanket. My eyes roamed further down and took in the dented purple and gold armor, the breastplate covering what had to be at least a C-cup bust while the battle skirt covered her upper legs and hips. Her tail, the same colors as her mane, was poking out of a hole in her skirt that looked to have been cut for that purpose, leaving it draped over her right leg down past the shin.
Her legs ended in hooves, while her arms ended in four fingers and a thumb, although every visible inch was covered in the same white fur as the rest of her. Speaking of hands, hers were occupied by a round buckler and a short sword, both made of shining steel and gold filigree. Resting next to her head was what looked like a helm, complete with holes for her horn and ears along with a dark blue crest running its length. It too was colored with gold and purple highlights, and I noticed that despite being made of metal, it looked like it would only weigh a half a dozen pounds or so if I put it on my head, such was the thinness of the metal plating. As my gaze returned to the sword and shield in her grip I wondered for a moment if I should remove the very deadly weapons from her person, but quickly dispatched the idea. I had an unconscious, anthro unicorn mare in my study. The fact she was armed was the least of my problems.
I bent down and tapped her on the shoulder gently, afraid of startling her if she woke up. She muttered softly in her passed-out state, but otherwise made no movement or other signs of life. I stood back up, trying to figure out what I was going to do with her, when I came to the realization that she was lying on the floor in the middle of my study. I knew she wouldn’t be comfortable if she stayed like that, so I bent down and hooked my hands under her armpits and dragged her body across the hall and into my bedroom. I grunted as every inch felt like a mile, not only because she had to be a good thirty pounds heavier than me, but also because her armor had to add at least another eighty to that. I managed to slide her along the floor until I could get her next to the bed, pushing her up and onto the mattress sidelong as I took several steadying breaths.
“Boy,” I muttered to myself as I straightened out her limbs and set her head onto the pillow, “not exactly a light-weight, are you?”
She made no reply, not that I expected one, but the fact her armor weighed so much made me remember a very important fact. Right before Eris had popped into my story, Glimmer had been smashed against a wall and cracked several ribs from the impact. Given the cut above her eyes was still there, it could be possible that the cracked ribs were there as well. Meaning, I had to get at them and do something to protect them from further harm if I didn’t want my newest house guest to break her ribcage the first time she moved.
I sat down next to her on the bed and gently reached out towards her, still somewhat hesitant to actually touch her for fear of waking her up. My fingers closed over the clasps that held the front and back halves of her breastplate together, and I paused for a moment to make sure she wasn’t going to wake up. When Glimmer made no movement other than to sigh softly, I undid the clasp and pulled the slab of metal off of her body. It came off reasonably easy, although it was still made of solid metal and therefore weighed at least fifteen pounds on its own.
I set the plate beside the bed and then pulled her body off the mattress so I could get the back half. This made her face scrunch slightly in what I could only assume was pain from her ribs, and I made sure to remove the armor as quickly as possible in order to prevent further damage. The purple cape that had rested over her back came off with the remaining piece of her upper body armor, leaving her body covered in nothing except a thin breast wrapping that looked to simply be a thick band of purple cotton wound around her chest. On a whim, I glanced down and compared her bust to mine, and was pleasantly surprised to find that mine was a bit bigger, although that could have been personal bias more than anything else.
Once I had the armor off her upper body, I glanced down at her hips, noting that the sword’s scabbard was clipped to the combat skirt with a thick black belt. I would rather not have her sword directly on her person when Glimmer woke up, but I also knew it would most likely be a source of comfort to have familiar items nearby. So, I compromised by removing the sheath and belt, sliding the sword into its home before resting it against the nightstand. The shield followed suite before I walked back into my study to grab her helm. It was given a resting place on top of the same nightstand for ease of access, and I wondered for a moment if it would be best to simply remove all of her armor. It couldn’t be comfortable lying there with all that metal on her body, but I also didn’t want to make her feel nervous if she woke up undressed. Then again, I had already removed the most important parts of her armor already, so it was probably a moot point.
My fingers slipped under the battle skirt, thankfully running against what seemed to be a set of undergarments as I slid the metal down her legs. I breathed a sigh of relief as her purple underwear was revealed, taking a little of my nerves and setting the skirt aside for now. Much as I had thought about seeing anthro ponies up close and personal before, I was not nearly in the right mindset nor was my companion in any position to consent to anything my crazy mind might come up with. The absence of her skirt also revealed her cutie marks, the same blue kite shield and three purple stars I was all too familiar with emblazoned upon her upper thighs and hips. Both were partly covered by her panties but the overall design was easily visible despite the obscuring cloth.
I shook my head to clear it as I placed the skirt over the sword’s hilt, “Focus Bethany, you’ve got an injured alien in your bed and you’ve got limited first aid training to deal with it.” I sucked in a deep breath and held my hand over my chest, pushing my arm away as I let out the air in my lungs. As I opened my eyes I realized I was in fact calmer, and I smiled as I glanced at my bedridden guest, “Huh, I guess it really does work, thank you Cadence.”
I made a quick visual inspection of Glimmer’s form, hoping that she hadn’t acquired any injuries other than the ones I had written into the story. That would complicate things beyond what my limited healing supplies could handle. Thankfully, it seemed the cut over her eye and the assumed cracked ribs were the only major concerns.
I walked down the steps and into the kitchen, grabbing the first aid kit I had there just in case of the more minor things I might do to myself while cooking, and walked back upstairs to deal with my patient. As I entered the room once more I saw that one of Glimmering Shield’s hands had moved to cover herself with the thin sheet that had been resting over her left side, and I realized that without her armor she might be getting cold. It was Alaska after all, so it wasn’t like it got overly hot even at the height of summer. I made a mental note to cover her up with some thicker linen once I took care of her wounds.
First up, I wrapped a bit of gauze over her eye after cleaning the blood away with a wet rag, hoping to stop the rather significant bleeding from getting any worse. She winced in her sleep but otherwise didn’t move, leaving me with a much more pressing issue. How exactly was I going to wrap her ribs if I didn’t want to move her?
Thinking for a moment, I came up with an idea that was likely to work, although I wasn’t sure how much pain it would put Glimmer through. I grabbed my largest wad of gauze and held it in my teeth before reaching down and lifting Glimmer off the bed by her shoulders. She whimpered softly as I moved her upper body into an upright position, resting her weight against my side as I moved my arms around her back to support her. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it worked enough that I could move my hands around her torso without having to stretch.
Pulling the wad of cloth out of my mouth, I began to wrap around her body in firm but gentle rings, covering as much space as possible because I didn’t know which ribs had been effected and which had not. She winced against my cheek several times when I had to tighten a ring or two, but otherwise didn’t stir as I tied off the final knot. I grabbed onto her shoulders again and slowly lowered her to the bed, noting with some satisfaction that my work didn’t look half bad.
As I stood up I thought I heard something come from her mouth, so I leaned over and rested my ear next to her lips. What she said next made my eyes widen in shock and surprise, although given the circumstances I guess it could be expected, “Forgive…me…Dusk…”
I pulled back and smiled, knowing from my own words how much she cared for her older brother, “Don’t worry Glim, I’ll make sure he knows you’re alright.” I pulled the sheets up and over her form, tucking it gently under her chin before adding a comforter to the linen for extra warmth. It might have been seventy-two degrees outside, but I always kept my home around sixty due to my inclination for colder weather. I had no idea what the temperatures were like on Equis, but if the show was anything to go by, I’d wager it was more like the continental U.S. in theme instead of our frozen climate.
I softly closed the door and walked downstairs, taking a moment to glance out the windows of my living room as the sun beat down on my front lawn in its brilliant golden glory. It was an absolutely beautiful day, but for a person like me who enjoys the dark more than the light, it was a migraine waiting to happen if I didn’t wear shades and a hat. I closed the blackout shades and flipped on the overhead light for more soothing levels of illumination, before sitting down on my navy couch and kicking my feet up on the oak coffee table.
It took all of about three seconds before my hands started to shake, and I held them up in front of my face as my arms joined them in their trembling. I felt my breath starting to quicken, and my heart pounded in my chest as the full weight of what was going on finally hit me.
I held my head in both hands as I bent over, my feet landing on the floor in a desperate attempt to ground myself, “Oh God, I have a real, breathing, anthropomorphic, pony lying in my bed right now with a full suite of armor lying next to her.” My breathing reached frantic levels, and I pulled out my phone as I fumbled to unlock it.
I somehow managed to get the right number in my phone, and I held it to my ear in a shaking grip as the ring echoed from the other end, “Come on, pick up.”
On the third ring I received an answer, “Hey Beth, what’s up?”
I sucked in a quivering breath, “Sam, I’m scared.”
In an instant Samantha’s tone changed, “Bethany, is everything alright? What’s going on?”
I swallowed thickly before finding my voice, “I-I need you right now. Everything is just happening so fast and I don’t know what to do.”
Without missing a beat, she answered back, “Stay right there, I’ll be over in just a minute. You’re at home right now, right?”
I nodded, forgetting for a moment that she couldn’t see me through the phone, “Yeah, I’m at home.”
Sam sighed before replying, “Alright, I’ll be right over. Don’t do anything until I get there, okay?”
I nodded again, “Okay.”
It only took ten minutes before my best friend of sixteen years came barging through the front door, her chin length black hair messy and her ice blue eyes wide with fright. She was wearing her usual black leather jacket over a red tang-top with a ripped set of blue jeans covering her legs. Her gaze landed on me and she immediately walked over to the couch, sitting next to me as she threw an arm over my shoulders.
“I’m here Beth,” she said softly as her eyes met mine, “Tell me what’s wrong.”
I chuckled to myself, realizing how crazy I was about to sound, “You know my study?”
Her look of worry changed into one of slight confusion, “Yeah, the room you never let anyone into under penalty of death? What about it?”
I stood up slowly, motioning for her to follow with one hand, “Come with me.”
She either didn’t want to argue with me or had no idea how, because she followed me up the stairs and into my study without a word, although her mouth gaped in shock as she stepped into my secret sanctum. I let her take in the room as her eyes roamed over the walls, her mouth slowly curling into her trademark smirk as she turned back to face me.
“So you’re a closet pegasister,” she muttered to herself as she placed her hands on her hips, “never would have pegged you for liking a show like that, although given the stress you go through I guess it isn’t too hard to believe you have some kind of coping mechanism.” She glanced at me again, “What exactly is going on here? Why were you sounding so frantic if this is what you needed to show me?”
I felt my heart begin to race again as I shook my head, “This is just the warm-up. Follow me.”
I led her over to my bedroom door and gripped the handle with my shaking hand, although I paused for a moment to look at Sam over my shoulder. “Do you swear not to tell anyone about this?”
Sam rolled her eyes, “Oh come on Beth, how bad could it possibly be?”
“Swear it.” I forced out, trying to put all of my stress and fear into it to convince her.
She held up her hands in a defensive gesture, “Alright, alright, I swear. I won’t tell another soul about this for as long as I live.” She crossed her finger over her heart, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
I nodded, turning the knob before opening the door and leading her into the room, “Just remember that when you freak out like I did.”
“Oh come on,” she said with an eye roll as she walked in after me, “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you thi – ” She froze mid-sentence as her gaze landed on the still form of Glimmering Shield. Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to scream, only to be muffled by my hand as I clamped it over her lips in an attempt to muffle her.
“Would you stop that!” I hissed as she continued to scream through my fingers, “You’re going to have someone call the cops on us!”
She stopped long enough to rip my hand off her face, spinning to face me with a frantic expression as she returned my hissed whisper, “Are you crazy?! This is exactly the time to be calling the cops! You’ve got an alien, pony, thing lying on your bed with a set of purple and gold armor straight out of a storybook! We should be calling the army, or the national guard, or something!”
“And tell them what,” I countered, “that I have an alien lying unconscious in my house that’s armed with magic and medieval-level weaponry? Oh, and did I mention that she’s a character from a book I’ve been writing brought to life by a goddess of chaos to mess with my life?” I slapped her upside the head to try and snap her out of it, “We’d be thrown into the loony bin faster than you could blink! And even if they did believe us, what do you think would happen to Glimmer? She’d probably be carted off to some secret government lab to be experimented on for the rest of her life.” I grabbed Sam’s hand and dragged her out of the room, taking a moment to quietly close the door before I began yelling at her in a more normal volume, “Don’t you think I’ve already thought of all that? Do you really think I haven’t been going crazy thinking of all the horrible ways this scenario could go wrong?!”
“Then why aren’t you doing anything about it?!” Sam shouted back, “For all we know that thing could be dangerous, it has a horn and a sword for Christ’s sake! We should turn it in and forget this ever happened.”
“I can’t just abandon her.” I said, letting my volume return to normal as my anger subsided, “She’s literally a character out of one of my books, brought to life by a goddess of chaos to mess with my life for shits and giggles.”
Sam paused for a moment as she tried to process what I had just said, “Wait, you were serious about that part? I thought you were just making crazy stuff up in the heat of the moment.”
“How else can you explain an anthro pony from a kid’s cartoon lying on my bed with cracked ribs and a bandaged head?” I countered. “This whole thing is fucking with my head and I can’t seem to get my mind to process all of it.”
“You’re not the only one.” Sam added, holding her head with one hand as she leaned against the wall. “So, what exactly are we going to do? If we can’t turn it,”
“Her,” I interjected, “Glimmer is a her.”
Sam rolled her eyes, “Fine, if we can’t turn her into the police, then what exactly are we going to do with her? She can’t stay in your house forever.”
I groaned as I rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands, “I don’t know. Everything is just going so fast. It’s all I can do to think straight at the moment.”
Sam pushed off the wall and held my shoulder with one hand, her eyes comforting as she leveled them with mine, “Think some coffee would help you feel better?”
I nodded, “Yes please. Straight with no cream and sugar.”
One eyebrow rose, “Now I know how bad you feel. You haven’t asked me to make you black since you broke up with that ass at the end of junior year.”
I grumbled under my breath as we made our way back down the steps and into the kitchen, “Don’t remind me. I feel just as bad now as I did then, only for a completely different reason.”
Sam guided me by the shoulders and sat me down at the table, rubbing them once before walking over to the coffee machine, “Don’t you worry honey, Momma Sam is here to make the nasty headache go away.”
I rolled my eyes as I rested my forehead against the table, “The voice is not helping, Sam.”
I heard her chuckle over the bubble and drip of the coffee maker, “But you love me anyway.”
I felt my lips curling into a smirk despite myself, “Yeah, best friends forever and all that rubbish.”
We shared a laugh as Sam poured the coffee, taking a moment to sprinkle in some sugar for her own as she sat down next to me. I thanked her softly as she handed me the mug, and I blew on the steaming liquid before taking a slow sip. The first drops were like the elixir of life as it warmed my body and soothed my frazzled mind. Sam chuckled under her breath as I hummed in satisfaction, but apparently decided not to comment as she sipped her own coffee.
Once we finished our drinks I felt much better than I had been all day, thanking Sam once again as she took the mugs and rinsed them out in the sink, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sam.”
“Oh, you’d probably be depressed to the point of locking yourself away like a mole in his burrow and then I’d have to come and bust your ass out of your funk like the humble and caring person I am.”
I couldn’t help the snort that escaped my nose, “Caring I’ll buy, but humble? You’re about as humble as a politician after getting a bill passed in Congress.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, grinning all the while, “You’re just mad because you know I’m right.”
I decided not to condone her comment with a response, much as I knew she had a valid point. “So what are we going to do about sleeping beauty upstairs?”
Sam glanced over her shoulder as she slipped the cups into the dish washer, “Don’t look at me, she’s your character and you were the one talking to gods of chaos. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just the sidekick that got dragged into the final showdown between good and evil by mistake.”
I groaned as I placed my elbows on the table, covering my face with my hands, “Not helping, Sam.”
She giggled as she walked up and rested a hand over my shoulder, “Hey, it’ll be alright. We just need to take this one step at a time and everything will work out for the best. You’ll see.”
I glanced up at her, hope gleaming in my eyes, “You really mean that?”
Her face split into a shit-eating grin, “Hell if I know, I’m just the supportive best friend, solving the big problems is your job.”
My head impacted the tabletop with a dull thud, “Buck my life.”
Sam just laughed, and I wondered how much of that was actually Sam, and how much of that was Eris echoing through the void to taunt my misery.
Sam ended up staying the night, after checking in on my guest to make sure she wasn’t going to randomly start doing magic or some crazy shit like that. Needless to say, Sam ended up sharing the fold-out couch with me because someone, or rather, somepony had taken up my own bed with her unconscious ass. Not that I had anyone to blame but myself, although I was glad Sam and I had slept in the same bed multiple times since we were little. It made the fact that we had to do so now a lot less awkward for the both of us.
I woke up the next morning to the sun shining brightly in my face through a tiny crack along the edge of the blackout shades. I grumbled to myself as I pushed the covers off of my body, trying my best not to wake up Sam next to me, “I just had to be cheap and not get those drapes to cover the edges of the blinds.”
I stumbled into the kitchen and somehow managed to pour myself a glass of orange juice before popping a bagel in the toaster. While that was cooking I managed to find the strawberry jam in the back of the refrigerator and a butter knife that wasn’t currently dirty. I was just fixing to create my breakfast when Sam stumbled into the room, her eyes at half-mast and her steps shuffling along the floor.
I smiled as she opened the fridge and took a large swig of the OJ straight from the jug, “Morning beautiful, how did you sleep?”
She flipped my off with her free hand, not even bothering to reply as she lowered the jug and gasped for air. The OJ was returned to the fridge and a muffin was nabbed from the platter I had resting on the counter, nearly vanishing in the first bite as Sam walked over and sat down next to me.
I stuck my tongue out at her with a grin, “Well good morning to you too.”
She grumbled a bit before looking at me, “You know I hate mornings.”
I nodded as I sipped on my juice, “Yes, but that doesn’t excuse your attitude when you get up in the morning. I feel like shit and yet I’m still trying to be nice. You should try it sometime.”
She snorted in disinterest, “Pass. I’ll be nice to the morning when it stops smashing me over the head with a frying pan every time I open my eyes.”
My eyes narrowed in concern, “Insomnia acting up again?”
She shook her head, “No, meds have been taking care of that real well for the last couple months. No, I slept all the way to the morning, but I had a dream that you and I got thrown in the slammer because of that thing upstairs.”
I rested my arm over her shoulders, “Hey, we talked about this. It’ll work out. We just need to take it a step at a time, right?”
She smirked, “My own words thrown back at me the next morning after I say them, that has to be a personal record for you.” She glanced at me with a full smile, “Thanks Beth. I know you put up with a lot of shit from me, but I’m glad you’re my best friend.”
I returned her smile, “You’re welcome, Sam. And if it means anything, I’m glad you’re my best friend too, if for no other reason than you’re here to pull my ass out of the fire when I had no one else I could trust.”
She pulled away and stood up, stretching her arms over her head with a hum, “Well, guess we ought to see if sleeping beauty is going to get up soon. Think she might want some breakfast when she wakes up?”
I nodded, “She’s been through a lot. Cracked ribs are no joke so she’s going to need energy to heal.” I stood up and walked over to the stove, pulling out a frying pan and a carton of eggs from the fridge, “Would you mind pouring another glass of OJ while I make some eggs?”
Sam pulled out the aforementioned juice as I cracked the first egg against the pan. “So how do you know what she can eat? She’s not going to get sick from any of this is she?”
I shook my head, “Given she’s from my book, I know pretty much everything about her. Her likes, her dislikes, even what she prefers to eat. I also happen to know some of what she thinks, so if she is awake when we go up there, let me do the talking.”
Sam shrugged, “Fine by me, I’m just trying not to have my head explode from all the crazy going on right now.”
We lapsed into silence as the eggs sizzled in the pan, Sam busying herself with making another bagel in the toaster with peanut butter and jam. Once that was all done, I piled the food onto a plate and carried it upstairs, Sam following close behind before opening the door for me.
I nodded my thanks as I stepped into the occupied space, noting that Glimmer was still out like a light on the bed. I walked over and rested the food next to her helm on the bedside table, talking a moment to look her over before stepping back.
Now that she wasn’t freaking out, Sam seemed to take a distinct interest in Glimmer’s form, “She’s actually not bad looking.” She seemed to catch the meaning behind the words as she said them, “Well, for a horse-girl that is.”
I smirked and elbowed her in the side with a grin, “Checking out the exotic side of love?”
Sam made a face with I had just spit in her coffee, “Eew, no thanks. You may be into that whole pony shit but I am most certainly not.” Her expression softened somewhat as she turned back to the sleeping mare, “Although I have to admit I can see some of what you find so appealing about them. She’s beautiful in her own way.”
I shrugged, “Well, we can’t all be part of the fandom.” I paused as Glimmer started to shift, Sam and I freezing in place as she scrunched up her muzzle and then slowly opened her eyes.
“Ugh,” she muttered as she slowly came to, “what happened? The last thing I remember was,” she froze as she seemed to remember what had been going on prior to her arrival in my study. She jolted upright and cried out, “Dusk!” only to wince and hiss in pain as her hand cradled her ribs.
Without thinking, I walked up and gently pushed her back down onto the bed, “Hey, settle down, Dusk is fine, as are the rest of your friends. You got pretty hurt during the battle so you need to stay still or it won’t heal right.”
Her eyes were wide with shock, so much so that she didn’t seem to notice my hand on her chest as I slowly took a step back. Her eyes roamed around the room, landing on Sam and looking her up and down for a moment before turning back to me.
“What happened?” She asked in a no-nonsense tone.
I glanced at Sam before turning back to the bedridden mare, “This is going to take a while, but the short answer is that you won the battle, but got transported to our world after Prometheus was destroyed.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, “And how do I know you aren’t just some illusion created by that bastard to keep me occupied while he takes over Equestria?”
I smiled gently as I spoke, taking a seat on the edge of the bed next to her hip, “Because I can prove to you that he was defeated, after all, I’m the one who gets to finish the story.”
One eyebrow rose in confusion, “Story? What story?”
I placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze, “You aren’t going to believe me, but Eris saw fit to mess with my life by bringing a character from one of my books to life. The story I wrote was about a mare named Glimmering Shield, younger sister to Dusk Shine and captain of the Royal Guard in Canterlot under Prince Solaris and Prince Artemis.” I paused for a moment to let my words sink in, taking her wide-eyed stare as suspended belief, “She was tasked with protecting the country and did the best she could for such a young soldier. But then came the unicorn Prometheus, bent on taking the throne for himself and ridding the land of all good magic. Captain Shield stood against him in a final stand to protect the Princes, but was unable to stop his powerful magic. Yet, in the moment of truth, a savior came to her rescue. Eris, who had enjoyed the story of Glimmering Shield beyond measure, granted the author of the story a gift, although it remains to be seen if that gift was meant in jest or sincerity. You were that gift, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the planet Earth, home of the human race.”
Glimmer stared at me for several moments before looking down at her folded hands, her fingers clenching the sheets in a tight grip as she took a few calming breaths. She glanced up at me again, seeming to take me in for the very first time as something bound in reality, although there seemed to be a light of suspicion flickering in the depths of her eyes. She let out a gusty sigh and lowered herself onto the bed, wincing as her ribs protested the action, “Wake me up in a few hours. If this is really real, then I expect answers when I come too.” She fixed us both with a penetrating glare, “Any funny business and I’m going to find out just how many hits this illusion can take from my sword and magic before it breaks. Am I understood?”
Sam and I nodded, Glimmer returning the motion before closing her eyes, he chest falling into a steady rhythm before even ten seconds had passed and her face smoothing out in the calm of sleep. I glanced at Sam and motioned towards the door, feeling it would be best if we left my new housemate alone as she had instructed. Then again, she needed all the rest she could get for the times ahead, because I had a feeling this was not going to be an easy ride.
“Well, that seemed to go better than I expected.” Sam forced out as we made our way back downstairs and sat on the couch, “The look on her face was unbelievable. I mean it started out like she simply didn’t believe what you were saying, but by the end it looked like she was about ready to take your head off!”
I rolled my eyes and cuffed her upside the back of the head, “Be nice, you’d act the same way in her shoes.”
She snorted, “Horseshoes.”
I groaned as I facepalmed, “You’re incorrigible.”
She gave me her signature smirk, “But you love me anyway.”
I rolled my eyes, “Yeah, just make sure to keep your feet to yourself tonight, you kicked me twice last night. I have a feeling we’re going to be having a sleepover again with Glimmer up in my bed, so I’d rather avoid getting my shins broken.”
Sam stuck her tongue out at me, “I don’t kick in my sleep. I just happen to have very active dreams.”
I grinned as I thought of a good line, “Chasing skirts while the girls run in terror is more like it.”
She matched my grin and raised me a wink, “Careful, love, you might just end up on my list if you keep talking like that.”
I batted her over with a palm to the face. “Oh, shut up you horny slut.”
It wasn’t the first time Sam had tried to get me into the girlfriend zone, and I had a strong instinct it wouldn’t be the last. However, we’d known each other for so long I was pretty sure we’d drive each other crazy before any kind of romance could grow. And I wasn’t interested in just mindless sex with her either, much as she would love to do exactly that for the fun of it. Either way, she chose not to retaliate with her trademark one-liners, and instead we passed the time by watching TV as the sun made its way across the sky. It was times like these that I was glad it was Saturday, because that meant I didn’t have to go to work until next week.
Around dinner time I heard a voice call from upstairs, although it was too faint to make out exactly what it said. However, knowing that the only other person in the house was my new furry companion, I knew it was something I’d better not ignore.
I stood up and glanced over my shoulder at Sam, “You coming to visit the invalid?”
She waved me off as she switched channels, “You go on ahead, I’m sure I’ll get to meet her properly once she’s up and about.”
I nodded, walking back up the steps before knocking on the door, “Are you decent?”
There was a soft chuckle from the other side, “Given you’ve seen me without my armor on, I’d say it doesn’t really matter at this point.”
I giggled as I pushed the door open, noting with some pride that the plate on her bedside had been cleaned completely, “Nice to see you awake again. I’m pretty sure there isn’t any kind of guidebook on how to deal with extradimensional beings coming out of a storybook in my private study.”
She rolled her eyes at me, “You sound so much like Dusk right now. Although that still doesn’t mean I believe you about that load of horse apples you tried to pass off as fact. I mean really, I’m some character in a book that you created, brought to life by the one and only Eris? You’d have to have some pretty substantial evidence to prove that and convince me this isn’t some elaborate illusion made to distract me.”
I smiled as I sat down on the bed next to her, folding my hands over my lap, “Well, I’m here now and ready to try my best to explain things. What would you like to know?”
A gleam began to shine in her aqua orbs, the light of someone who just got a particularly devious idea, “Tell me everything you can. If I’m right and this is an illusion, then there’s no way you’ll be able to convince me this is real simply by telling me so-called facts. I’ll be able to break the spell by using logic to tear your arguments apart. All I need to do is figure out the pattern to the spell and follow it out of this trap.”
My smile widened as I shifted into a more comfortable position, knowing for a fact that this was no illusion, although I had a feeling Glimmer would need some very strong convincing before she would believe me. So, I began at the very beginning of human history, and did my best to put as much detail into it as I could, knowing that Glimmer would be paying close attention. “Well, humans evolved from apes around two million years ago, during a great Ice Age that covered the world in miles of snow and ice. This was after a great disaster wiped out the giant lizards that had ruled the world for hundreds of millions of years, leaving the mammals to take their place as the dominant species on the planet. Over time we surpassed our ape ancestors, developing tools to help us survive and learning to make fire. We used spears and other tools to make up for our weak limbs and lack of claws or fangs and in time became to most powerful creatures on the planet, not because we were the fastest or the strongest, but because we were the smartest.”
“So, what happened after you began making civilizations?” Glimmer asked, shifting into a slightly more upright position so her head rested against the headboard.
I paused for a moment, thinking about whether to share everything with her. So far she seemed to be dismissing my words out of hand if the casual look in her eyes was anything to go by, although I knew as we got further into human history, things weren’t going to be as simple as the first few pages. Human history was rife with darkness and tragedy, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her. She needed to know about the darker side of my people in order to be ready for it if she faced it in the future. Assuming she even believed me in the first place.
“Well, we made great achievements in the arts and sciences.” I said carefully, “We built monuments that rivaled mountains in size and developed transportation that could carry a person around the globe in a matter of hours. But, it was not all bright and sunny skies for us. You see, humans are the only sapient race on our world, so when we weren’t using our weapons to protect ourselves from predators, we began to turn them against each other. Nation against nation and brother against brother in an endless war that has been going for all of recorded history. There has never been a time when no one nation wasn’t at war with at least one other, somewhere in the world. Twice there were wars that engulfed so much of our planet and so many nations that they were known as the World Wars. Millions of dead and millions more left without food and homes for decades after the fighting stopped.”
I saw the shift as her expression morphed into sorrow for a moment, the light of horror and sadness in Glimmer’s eyes taking the place of her disbelief for just a moment before her hard shell fixed back into place. I figured that things were getting off topic, so I decided to change the subject matter to something a bit more uplifting, “And yet for every invention of war, there was an equal invention on the domestic front. In fact, had it not been for the advances in technology during wartime, we would never have made the wonderful tools we now have as commonplace everyday things. For instance, did you know that we can communicate instantly from one side of the world to the other?”
Glimmer’s eyes widened in shock, “You have dragon fire messaging? But I thought you said that your people were the only sapient race on this planet.”
I shook my head, “Not quite. We don’t have dragon fire to send letters to each other. We use something called the telephone. It can take someone’s voice and transmit it through either wires or through the air as radio waves until it gets picked up by the phone on the other end. Doing that, someone can talk to another person on the others side of the world and hear their reply instantly without any delay in the conversation.”
Glimmer’s jaw dropped, “That’s amazing! What else can you do?” Apparently, her attention to my words had pulled her out of her disbelief at the thought of such technological advances, although I didn’t know how long that suspension of disbelief would last.
I hid my smile, glad I had redirected her attention from the gloom and doom I was speaking about earlier, “Well, did you know that almost half a century ago, we sent several missions to the moon, so we could learn more about it?”
At those words Glimmer’s mind seemed to break, “YOU’VE BEEN TO THE MOON!?!? How in Solaris’ name did you manage that?!”
I grinned, “We attached a really big rocket to our backs and launched ourselves into space. It wasn’t easy, but the amazing thing is that we now have tech that is powerful enough to run the entire Saturn Five rocket, and yet is small enough you could hold it in your hand.”
Glimmer’s eyes dilated until nearly her whole eye was taken up by her pupils, “Can you show me?”
I smiled, waving a finger at her like a mother would to her child, “Not unless you’re good and rest up. You’ve got several cracked ribs and I’m a half-baked medic at best. So, you need to stay right in that bed and heal or I won’t show you anything other than what you can see in this room.”
She pouted and gave me her best puppy eyes, “Pweeze miss human lady, I wanna see the cool technology.”
I rolled my eyes, “If we’re going to do that then you might as well know my name. It’s Bethany Winters, but you can call me Beth if you like. As for that pathetic face, I’ve seen images of the Cutie Mark Crusaders giving that same look to Dusk. You can’t hold a candle to them.”
Glimmer crossed her hands over her chest with a huff, “Damn those colts, I swear they can pester me even if they’re in another world.”
I smirked as I picked up the plate and walked over to the door, “See you later Glimmer. I’ll be back with some dinner for you, and maybe I’ll bring my friend in, so you can talk with her if you’re good.”
Glimmer rolled her eyes, “Yes mom, I’ll be good.” She sent me a smirk of her own as I opened the door, “Just so you know, that was a pretty good story. Doesn’t mean I believe you about that whole storybook thing. It’s going to take a lot more than simple words to make me believe something like that.”
I chuckled as I closed the door behind me, hearing Glimmer shifting around on the bed for a few seconds before I walked back down the stairs. “Not a bad start. Let’s see if things can go as smoothly once I bring Sam into this.”
I entered the living room, pausing to wave to Sam, who ignored me in favor of Law and Order, before walking into the kitchen to take care of the dishes. Things were looking like they might work out, now I just needed to figure out a way to keep my new houseguest entertained while I went to work. I knew I couldn’t call in sick forever, and I couldn’t do that to my kids when it was critical they get the help they needed.
I sighed as I slid the plate into the washer, praying to whatever deity that watched over my life that things would work out right in the end.
And don’t you dare do anything else to fuck with my life, Eris, I thought in case she was listening in, you’ve done enough damage for one lifetime.
Author's Note
Hello and welcome to another story!! How's everypony doing today?! In any case, I just wanted to say hi before we get moving on this new book of mine, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. Keep your saddlebags at the ready, because this ride is going to be a long and adventurous one.
I'll see you all next chapter,
Shadow Quill, Messenger of the Moon.
