Grand Theft Equestria: Friendship is Complicated
By: Blue Hour Pony
Chapter 1: Rebirth?
I do not recall my time spent in the womb. Nopony does. However, I was once told by a wise mentor, long ago in a land that no longer exists as anything other than splinters and ash and memory, that the reason we curl into a fetal position while we weep is that we are trying to recreate the warmth and darkness, the smallness and safety of the womb. Some part of our mind remembers that time and longs for it when the outside world becomes too much for us to handle. When something about this terrible world of harsh noise and glaring light frightens us, we desire to retreat back to that primordial night when all our needs were met for us by a higher power.
I am starting to think that that was a bunch of crap.
Do not misunderstand me; I have great respect for the zebra who told me this. Her lessons were probably some of the last things I had ever truly believed in before now. However, I do not think that she had ever had to spend days locked inside a crate bound for a faraway land the existence of which had been advertized to us zebras only by the incredulous effect radio broadcasts would have upon our ears and the appearance in our parts of the occasional pony traveler (none of whom I had never seen in person, but there are those who have; they speak of beings who, in all respects, look like us, but their manes and coats are colored in the most dazzlingly impossible of hues. Even those who had seen pictures of them beforehand or heard them described still took them to be the most preternatural of oddities upon meeting them).
Here inside this crate was, I figured, the most perfect recreation of the womb there could be. I could not see anything; the darkness was so deep that there was no hope that my eyes would ever adjust to it. The floor was lined with hay, enough, I was told, to last the journey. I was given a few bottles of water that I was to “use sparingly.” There was no way for me to keep track of time in here, so I tried my best to keep my use of either of these resources to a minimum. I already know what it is like to have to endure starvation conditions, so this was nothing. I know how to wait too. What was really starting to bother me was the lack of space. Inside the womb, waste management is a given. In here that was an entirely different matter. I picked one corner, and that would be the designated landfill. I was almost thankful I did not have to see it.
I could get no rest, neither in the waking world or asleep. My dreams, while carrying me from the confines of the crate, would either take me back across the sea to what I was running from or fill me with fears and uncertainties about what I was going toward. Equestria. The land of harmony. The land of friendship. Some nights I could hear my brother’s voice beckoning to me in all of his overconfident swagger.
“Come! Join me Izo. Do not be afraid. The best way to get something is to take it!”
Some nights I heard other voices, sad voices. The voices of zebras who had lost hope. The voices of predators who would pick at the bones of the fallen and ousted, stealing land and goods and taking advantage of our lost youth. Sometimes (no doubt a trick of my mind) the voice of the predators and my brother would seem to come from the same entity.
Being awake did not help me escape unwelcome voices. Before long I started seeing and hearing phantoms even while conscious. The hay beneath my hooves turned into snakes and I spent goodness knows how long stomping and kicking at them. I heard something laughing at me – a hyena, a clown, I could not tell. It would always laugh directly into my left ear. I would spin over in place or slap at it; however, the laughing would not cease, but only grow louder.
One night (or day?) I saw something that gave me the biggest scare yet. A zebra (or could she have been a pony?) with a ruddy, pink mane (the hair as straight as my mother’s would be when she would flatten it) and a coat that was only a tad lighter, would sit in one of the corners and stare at me.
I would ask her, “What do you want? Hello? Who are you?”
She would not answer. She would just continue to stare and she would not disappear even when I closed my eyes, for having my eyes open or closed were one in the same in this place, so dark it was. I felt that I was going mad. I could not stay here any longer. This womb was not a place of comfort, but a place of horrors. Far better, I thought, to face the world than to stay in here to die inside my mind. The demons of the world of light may appear adventitious and unfair, but at least you can try to fight them. What hope was there against dark apparitions such as these, beings who reflected no light but were as vivid to me as the moon?
Only one thought kept me together: the hope that the journey would eventually end. Eventually I would breathe fresh air saturated in light. I could see it. Soon I would burst forth from this crate and gallop off into the horizon, sun beams stabbing the ground in the distance. I would go where I want, when I want. I would greet my brother, and he would show me to his estate, with its gardens and fields and view overlooking a city rich in peace and splendor. I would be in Equestria, and I would have good friends and I would not have to hide, hunt, or deal with demons anymore.
***
My world shook. The crate began, without warning, to teeter back and forth. I do not know if I was fully asleep before then or just dozing off, but I was now wide awake in any case. There was a thud that jolted the crate from the bottom and the shaking stopped. Then, and perhaps more immediately startling than any vision I had seen in the dark for all that long journey, one side of the crate started to pry away, harsh white light stabbing through the opening where the wall was coming down. So accustomed had I become to the dark that this sudden development filled me with an intense terror.
It were as though my world were being intruded on by alien hooves, hooves that were pulling me out of my darkness and forcing me, exposed and dumbfounded, into the din of the unknown. This, for some reason, annoyed me more than it should have. When finally the side of the crate had fallen away I could see only a painful white; I could not tell if it were night or day. A voice, harsh and authoritative, as though impatient, sounded to me through the light.
“Hey. Hey, we’re here. Come on. Let’s go. Move it. Quickly now.”
I took my bag and walked – though it felt to me more like I had been pushed and had tumbled – out of the crate and onto hard concrete. I blinked rapidly and stood my ground, trying to appear unfazed. I did not like being at the mercy of others, and I felt too exposed now.
“Hey, you. Stay right there for a moment. I’ll get to you,” a voice said in my direction.
My surroundings were beginning to take shape. I recognized one of the voices as one of the zebras who had offered me passage to Equestria aboard his cargo ship. In between blinks I noticed that we were in an open area. It was night and harsh lights were glaring down on us. There were shipping containers all around. Never before had I seen so many. They were stacked one on top of the other with spaces in between the piles, looking like a veritable city.
“How many goods does it take to feed and supply Equestria?” I wondered. The sheer size and number of them somehow intimidated me. I saw zebras stumbling out of other containers looking as confused and unsure as I felt.
“Hey, you. Come here,” the zebra they called Coyote said to me. It was he who I had sought out in finding a way to gain passage. There were two other zebras waiting for us between two warehouses. They were dressed as though they worked at the port.
“So listen,” Coyote said, “we’re here in Equestria now. I know we said we were going to take you a little farther and help explain things to you, but something has come up. We’re going to need the money now and after that you’re going to have to get adjusted on your own. So we’ll be taking ten thousand bits up front. And make sure you’re careful leaving the port, all right?”
That didn’t sound right.
“Ten thousand bits?” I said. “But you know that the agreed fare was about a third of that, right? Ten thousand is all I have.”
“Yeah, well, things changed, all right Mac? We wanted to go through all the proper procedures and everything, but as I said, something has come up. We need the money right now and it’s gotta be ten thousand.”
I looked from one to the other. Their faces were as stone.
“It was all in the deal,” Coyote said after a pause. “I’m pretty sure the contract, as I understood it, allows us to take some leeway in the event of…uh…eventualities.”
Shaking my head I laughed out a cross between nervousness and defiance.
“In any event I don’t think I agreed to fork over everything that I have,” I persisted.
“Well, you see Mac, that’s where we’re gonna have a problem. We allowed you passage all this way. We risked getting in trouble with Immigration and the Royal Coast Guard. And now you don’t wanna pay up? We even let you have a crate all to yourself. You know how nice we were to you? You know, in some of these gigs they put you in a shipping container and they pack thirty of you in there. Some of them even die. We let you have a crate all to yourself with hay and water! It was like you were riding fucking first class!”
“Yes, how very nice of you. And I thank you good people for your hospitality. But I’m not paying you one bit more than what we agreed on, and you can take that to the bank and collect interest on it, all right Mac.”
I uttered the last word quite sarcastically and stomped the pavement with my hoof. I don’t think he liked that.
“You little immigrant fuck, you’re gonna to pay me my money!” Coyote said, stepping forward and putting a hoof on my shoulder, which I promptly removed before shoving him back.
The two other zebras with the stone faces stepped forward menacingly, but I clocked one in the face with my right forehoof and kicked the other with my hind legs. I ran as fast as I could away from the warehouses and, with no particular destination in mind, scanned the sea of cargo containers, looking for some way to lose those three zebras who I could hear giving chase behind me. I could hear someone shouting.
“Hey! Hey! Stop that guy!”
A zebra leaped out at me from behind some containers to my right. Tackling me and taking me by the throat he landed a few blows before I pushed him off. As I turned to run, he grabbed me by the bag I had tied to my back. I was able to escape from him easily, but not before he tore open my bag, spilling a good deal of my bits all over the ground. I wanted to scoop up as many as I could, but with Coyote and his goons still after me I could not risk it.
With a noticeably lighter load (to my intense disappointment) I was able to gain a bigger lead than I already had, for with my leaner frame I was much faster than Coyote to begin with. It was night, but the port was well lit with industrial lights; everything had a harsh orange tint. There was nowhere for me hide. I had to leave the port and find a way to meet up with my brother. He should have been around here somewhere, for he had said that he was going to be there to greet me the day I showed up in Manehattan.
Behind me I heard a series of pops. They were like fireworks or some other small explosions. It was a sound that I had heard enough times to readily conclude that someone was shooting. I could only assume that I was the target, so I kept going and didn’t look back. While not looking back I did, however, neglect to look in front of me (so concerned was I with finding a way out) and ended up running into someone.
We both skidded for some way and were stopped only by the cargo containers in front of us. I quickly looked up and saw in the orange and white glare a unicorn with a purple mane and coat, the first pony that I had seen not just since I had arrived, but the first pony ever. This surprised me enough to temporarily cease my thoughts on running. It was a mare, and she looked at me with an intense and searching glare that made me feel almost as though she had begun interrogating me. Perhaps I was right to feel that way, for that is exactly what she began to do.
“Oh my gosh! A zebra! Is it you? Are you the one responsible? Are you involved in the paranormal activity?”
“What?”
“The paranormal – ugh, it has to be. That would make sense…or at least that is one hypothesis. You’re still the first hard evidence I’ve found in a while. You have to tell me! What are you doing here? What do you know about it?”
“I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t? But you have to know something! You have to come with me. It’s important! The fate of Equestria might be at stake!”
“The fate of Equestria? What? Are you feeling okay?”
She looked rather insane, almost like she wanted to bite me. Her mane was unkempt and her eyes were wide and full of a glee I could not discover the source of. I was “evidence” to her? I wasn’t sure if I should like being called that or if that was really a good thing.
“You know what, I really need to go,” I told her and then took off running.
“No, wait! I need to know something!”
That something was hardly my problem. As I rounded a corner I saw two kiosks and a retractable fence. Above I saw a sign lit up in white light that said “Port Luna Container Terminal.” Underneath a caption said “A subsidiary of Ports Equestria and leased by the Port Authority of Manehattan and New Horsey.”
I saw some ponies run past and heard one of them shouting.
“No really! Something’s going down for real this time! Crane and Ray told me they called the Waterfront Commission and the Guards. Times like they are, they’re bound to call in the Royals too! Sweet Celestia, we gotta see this! Quick!”
They seemed to be ponies who worked here at the ports and they were dropping whatever it was they were doing to go to the scene of the disturbance. They abandoned their kiosks and, in their haste, left the gate half open. As I hurried past one of the kiosks I heard what sounded like a radio or transceiver that had been left inside.
“…repeat, possible Changling sighting at Port Luna, priority one. Shots or spells fired. Dispatch another unit to the waterfront in Horsey City. “
I really needed to get out of here. This was not the welcome to Equestria that I had hoped for.
I slipped through the half open gate and ran along the edge of the road and into the darkness. I had to find a place where I could safely stop and contact my brother. The road continued for some way and in the distance I could hear a larger road, perhaps a highway, being traversed by carriages and the occasional motorized car. I crossed a few roads, fearful at every moment that I would be spotted.
When I had begun to lay low and take a breather, I heard sirens wail off in the distance and felt further compelled to keep running. I was getting closer to some industrial buildings. Relieved that I may finally find a hiding place, but ever worried that I would run into somepony who would make things difficult, I ran along a darkened street, the pavement chipped and cracked beneath my feet, my heart pounding such that it felt like someone was taking their hooves and repeatedly shutting my ears.
A small light glared in my face. The hairs on my body stood on end. It was as though I was being pricked with a thousand needles. Standing on the loading dock of a nearby building was a uniformed pony with a handled flashlight in his mouth.
“You there, hold on a minute!”
I did not wait to see if he was a guard, an officer, or what. I ran about three blocks and turned into an alley. I found a dumpster and then threw myself in, hoping that I would be able to remain there undisturbed until the ponies settled the matter at the port and I could be reasonably sure that my presence would arouse no alarm. The inside of the dumpster smelled incredibly musty, but it was not worse than the crate. It was smaller though.
I could not see my bag, but I could tell from its weight that I had lost a considerable amount of my money. Hopefully, my brother’s earnings would be able to make up for this. Rummaging through my bag I was delighted to find that the side pocket that contained the communication tablets my brother had instructed me to make had not been affected by the hole. These tablets were a product of ancient, mind altering zebra alchemy that enhanced the reach of one’s thoughts. By biting into one of these I would take myself to a plane of existence that would allow me to contact my brother provided that he had bitten into one too and that he was within the proper range.
In his letters he had promised that he would spend the entire week of my arrival in such a communicative state so that I would be able to contact him as soon as I arrived in town. I had hoped to do this while I was still at the port.
Biting into one of the pale blue tablets my head tingled as I felt portions of my mind dissipate into the Grand Ether. It was still cognizant of my immediate surroundings, but it was like being perpetually distracted. Some of you was always here and some of you was always there. Happily, I found my brother’s presence and nudged at him. It took him little longer than usual to respond.
“Chama…Chama!” I called to him.
Slowly, as though arising from sleep, Chama became more coherent.
“Izo? Is that you?”
“Yes, it is me. Were you asleep or something? I can hardly see you.”
“Just a second, brother.”
Before long, I could see him in the ether. He was wearing a suit of the finest fabric, a top hat, and a silver watch on his left hoof. Or, rather, I couldn’t “see” that he was wearing such things. “Sight” in the Grand Ether was not sight with one’s eyes, but rather what one felt. In here, one “sees” things as they would see them in a dream. Though pictures form in your head, you are not seeing light reflect off of someone, but are instead seeing their essence. Chama’s essence seemed pretty swanky.
“Izo! How are you doing? If I am seeing you, then you are within range of the effect of the tablets, yes?”
“Yes, brother.”
“Hmm, so you are in Equestria now?”
“Well how else would I be talking to you, dummy?”
“Oh dear. My apologies, brother. I did not know that you were arriving today. I must have gotten the date mixed up.”
“So you’re not even at the port?”
“Oh no, brother. I am at home. Hahaha!”
“Stop laughing! This isn’t funny! It’s crazy out here! Coyote and his thugs tried to beat me up. They ended up taking a bunch of my money.”
“You weren’t being a smart ass, were you?”
“Wha…No! They wanted all of my money and I wouldn’t give it to them. They were ripping me off, brother.”
“Well, where are you now?”
“I left the port and now I am in a dumpster in an alley somewhere. There was a commotion down at the port and the guards were coming. I had to get out of there.”
“Well, I’ll try to get to you.”
“Try?”
“Yes, well…ah… it may be difficult right now. Just stay where you are. I’ll come find you. Hang in there brother! I’ll see you soon.”
With that, the image faded and I was left alone. I rested my head on my bag and stared into darkness. I was finally in Equestria and all I had to show for it was that I had lost my money and had traded in life in a small box for life in an even smaller box. But hopefully, it would get better. Chama was on the way. As I dosed off visions of shipping containers, purple unicorns, and nice suits danced through my head.
