Master of None

by Dalken Starbyne

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Human, Drama, Original Character, Comedy, Adventure, Violence
Length: 14901

A guy named Jack goes on a walk in the woods and gets lost. Really, really lost. And then weird stuff happens. He proceeds to write about it.

Jack Swanson is just a guy trying to scrape by in the world. One day, he goes on a hike and gets lost in the woods. When he realizes he's a lot farther from home than he ought to be, he'd really rather just find a way back, but that could prove much easier said than done.

Published 2018-07-29 01:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2019-05-16 09:44:13 UTC

Prologue

Dear Journal,

I’m not very good at this sort of thing. Christie, my cousin, said I should keep a journal of sorts. Said it’d be good for my mental and emotional health or something. So here it is. My name is Jack Allen Swanson, and if you don’t like what I have to say, well...why are you reading some random private journal, anyway?

I’m from a little town on the outskirts of Spokane, Washington, USA. I’m in my mid-twenties, and I game professionally. Yes, you read that right. I go to tournaments, I compete, and occasionally I even do well enough to bring home some cash. Game depends on the year, usually. Look, I don’t like sticking to the same thing forever. I’ll get bored, alright? Maybe it’s why I don’t routinely win championships or anything. Maybe I’d even be able to afford more than sandwiches and canned soup on a regular basis. But whatever. Gaming is about a lot more than just winning as far as I’m concerned. Don’t judge me.

When I’m not making enough money to live from doing that (which is most of the time, in case you hadn’t guessed already), I get temp jobs or what-have-you. Retail, food service, yadda. Doesn’t really matter. Even if I could stay longer at a given job, I usually don’t. I can’t stand this samey, repetitive crap. It’s mind-numbing. Call me lazy, call me unmotivated, call me whatever you want. I just can’t stand doing the same thing over and over and over again. Beginning to see a pattern here? Variety, spice, life...blah, blah, blah.

In fact, on the whole, my life is not exactly what most folks would call glamorous. I don’t have a fancy car. The one I do have barely runs. I can barely afford to pay the bills. But I manage, and what I have is mine. I’m proud of that. My folks would rather I’d have some salaried job with a degree or whatever. Suffice to say I don’t often bother going to family gatherings anymore. It’s just a chance for practically everyone there to berate me about not doing enough or not having enough. ‘No, Mom, I don’t have a girlfriend.’ ‘Yes, Dad, I’m still in that crappy little studio apartment.’ Most of them live down in Phoenix, so at least coming up with excuses to avoid them is usually pretty easy.

Christie is pretty much the only one in my family I still talk to on a regular basis. Like I mentioned, she’s my cousin. On my mom’s side, if that matters. Neither of us had siblings, but we might as well be brother and sister. She lives closer to me, over near Seattle, and she likes to check in just to make sure I’m doing okay. We catch up. We play some games. She doesn’t judge. Sometimes her boyfriend comes to visit, when she has one. Except for the last few times. Then it was her girlfriend. She didn’t say as much, but c’mon. I’m not blind. I haven’t said anything, though. If you think our family gets on my case...well, let’s just say that I don’t see any reason why both of us need to be estranged.

And that pretty much catches you up on the status quo. Things stay pretty quiet around here, and I like it that way. Loud means drama, and, as you might’ve already guessed, I don’t much care for drama. It’s why I like hiking. It’s very quiet. Oh, sure, you’ll occasionally see other people on the trails, but usually the most you’ll get is a smile and wave and then everybody continues on their merry way. That’s just fine with me. Give me trees and a breeze over hustle and bustle any day.

It’s the little things.

Dear Journal - Today I Almost Died (Chapter 1)

The day started out like most Tuesdays. I got up. I donned my glasses. I poured a bowl of my favorite cereal (Jack tested, Jack approved). I sat at my tiny dining table, started looking through job listings on my phone, and, naturally, promptly decided that watching YouTube was a much better use of my time. I finished breakfast, brushed my teeth, showered, and got dressed. Y’know, the usual stuff.

Most of my clothes are black. I’m not goth or anything like that, in case you were wondering. I just like black. Plus it’s just easier when you’ve got jet black hair, pasty skin, and weird hazel (-ish?) eyes like I do. Seriously. Sometimes they look gray, sometimes they look brown, sometimes green...sometimes they change to even more odd colors. I swear to you they were purple once. I don’t know, and no one I know knows, either. We just call ‘em hazel and leave it at that. And so I just stick with black rather than making a real effort to coordinate colors based on my complexion or whatever. I don’t like spending a lot of time getting ready in the morning. It’s why I like keeping my hair really short. Like, ‘who has time for a comb?’ short. It’s practical. You don’t have to fuss with hair that short. It dries off really quickly, too. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about long, dangly strays getting everywhere.

With that all in mind, I spent all of about three seconds picking out a v-neck t-shirt and some jeans--yes, the jeans are black too--and grabbed my leather trench coat (I bet you’ll never guess what color it is). It wasn’t necessarily cold enough to need it yet, even on an October morning, and especially not on a hike, but I like wearing it.

Make fun if you want. I don’t care what anyone says. It makes me look cool.
So, with my clearly dashing outfit all ready, I tied my hiking boots and got in my cruddy little sedan to drive up to one of the local hiking trails. It was one of the ones I hadn’t been to except for maybe once or twice, and that meant there would be plenty of new stuff for me to explore. I even brought my compass and binoculars with me, just in case.

Okay, yeah, I’ve hardly ever needed them, but having them always made me feel more like some kind of intrepid explorer.

I parked the car and made sure I had all of my exploring gear (including my phone in case I got really lost). I also brought a water bottle, one of those tall, aluminum ones--hydration is important, y’know--and some snack bars, just in case I was out that long.

Oh, I also brought a cheap bluetooth speaker so I could play music from my phone. I mean, c’mon. I may enjoy quiet, but that doesn’t mean I need to be in total silence for the entirety of a several-hour hike. And before you start up about earbuds or headphones or whatever, talk to me after you’ve worn them when the cord got caught on a tree branch.

After I finished my double-checking, I locked the car, shoved my keys in my pocket, and started out on the trail. The first couple of hours or so came and went pretty uneventfully. I hit a couple of forks along the way and took the longer route each time, as indicated by those signs so helpfully placed by the park service or whoever’s in charge of that. Unfortunately for me, when I came to the third fork, the sign was missing. It had clearly been there at one point; the post was still there, but the sign board itself was nowhere to be found. Not even in the brush beneath. Just my luck. It must’ve broken or something and they hadn’t gotten around to putting up the replacement. Or someone had stolen it. Worse, this far out, I couldn’t easily tell which trail led back just by looking at them to see which was more worn, nor did I necessarily want to make my trip another hour and a half longer by heading to the next trail marker. After a few more minutes’ inspection, however, a clearer solution had yet to present itself, and the sheer density of the trees made my binoculars essentially useless. I’d just have to pick a direction and hope for the best.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Well, Jack, why didn’t you just turn around and go back the way you came?’ And, y’know, that probably would’ve been a great idea if I’d thought of it at the time! Hindsight is fantastic that way.

At least I brought those snack bars.

The battery on my speaker had already run out half an hour before, and I didn’t feel like putting any extra load on my phone battery this far into the middle of nowhere, so I plodded along in silence. I chose the left trail, which my compass said headed in a predominantly northwesterly direction.

It was another hour or so and several winding turns later before I realized I’d lost the trail altogether. They don’t always really address in movies and stuff just how alarming a realization that is. See, the trail doesn’t just suddenly disappear on you. It gets gradually less and less worn until eventually there’s more grass and underbrush than dirt, and then the underbrush that had been pushed out of the way by other people isn’t pushed out of the way anymore, and before you know it, you’re just standing in the middle of the forest with absolutely no idea where you are. And then you’re left wondering if you just didn’t pay attention to where the trail swerved off, or if you’re still standing right on it and simply can’t see it anymore.

I didn’t let panic set in, of course. Being the calm, collected, and rational veteran explorer that I am, I resorted to my cunning and guile to get myself out of this situation.

Which is to say that I dug my phone out of my pocket so that I could call for help.

My phone, however, apparently thought that was cheating and saw fit to respond by helpfully informing me that I had no signal. Not even emergency service. On top of that, when I checked my compass, I discovered that it had decided it wanted to pull a move from the Twilight Zone and spin uncontrollably.

Desperate, I decided to rely on the sun. According to my phone, it was a little after 4pm, which would mean the sun would be West-ish. So I started to head in the direction I thought was mostly southeast...ish.

This proved to be a mistake. By the time the sun had begun to set, I still hadn’t found the hiking trail. I’d gone through my snack bars and so wasn’t quite as hungry as I’d be otherwise, but that wouldn’t last. And I was lost. In the forest. In what was becoming night time at an uncomfortably rapid pace.

Oh, and to top it all off, I was pretty sure I heard howling. I was pretty sure there weren’t wolves in this part of Washington, but at the time, the phrase ‘pretty sure’ was not as comforting as it would have otherwise been.

~*~*~*~*~*~

With darkness came the cold, and I found myself thankful that I’d brought my coat. Fashion statement became necessity as the evening breeze picked up, tempered though it was by the surrounding wood, and I buttoned up and flipped up my collar to better shield myself against the elements.

The sun had long since settled down beyond the horizon, but I found a small mercy in the form of a bright, full moon. The shadows were deep and long, my surroundings even more alien than they were during the day, but at least I could still see. New scents and sounds had come with the transition as well, somehow both more strange and serene all at once. Water vapor from the day condensed into dew as it chilled. Nocturnal animals of all sorts began calling out into the night, and, among them, I heard those howls again.

I was still as lost as I had been since that afternoon, and checking my phone again revealed a little yellow “12%” right next to that ever-persistent circle-slash reminding me that I still had no way of calling anyone. Staring up at the sky, I looked for any familiar constellations. I seemed to recall my dad saying something about the Big Dipper pointing to the Little Dipper and the North Star...or maybe it was the other way around. I lamented the fact that I couldn’t Google it without a cell signal, although it didn’t really matter since I couldn’t seem to recognize anything through the forest canopy, anyway.
My focus broke when I heard something rustling in the brush maybe a few yards away. My head snapped to where I thought the noise came from, but the night had gone back to its usual stillness. I continued on.

A part of me knew I ought to have been looking for shelter by this point, but there was nothing to be found save for trees and more trees. I could’ve tried building a fire, but I didn’t have the skills to start one with what I had on hand. Plus I was already exhausted from hours upon hours of walking, wandering, hoping I’d find my way closer to the path. I had built up pretty good endurance by this point, but I’d been out quite a bit longer than I was used to. For all I knew, I’d gotten myself well and truly lost, where it’d possibly be days before a search party could find me. And it could be days more before they even knew to start looking for me. I have friends, sure, but I don’t always keep up with them on a regular basis. I’m a very private person, you see.

I’d sat down against one of the larger pines, coming to this realization, when I heard a rustling from the brush again. I looked up, ready to dismiss it as the breeze and my imagination messing with me. Instead, my eyes locked onto a pair of glowing, sickly yellow-green orbs floating in the shadows from across a small clearing. Alarm bells went off in my head as that deep, primal part of me shouted danger, and it was all the rational side of my brain could do to keep me from bolting then and there. I knew enough to realize that if a predator had me in its sights, running would only set it off, and my black wardrobe, though it helped me blend in with the darkness, wouldn’t do much to hide me from its other senses.

I heard a quiet rumbling coming from a different direction, and my initial panic settled into dread as I realized I was being surrounded. I managed to fight it off and force myself to assess my situation as more pairs of eyes came into view, cutting off potential escape routes. Looking up, I saw that the branches in the tree I was backed against were too high for me to reach. As I slowly turned in a circle, however, I saw my only chance: a gap just large enough that I might have time to run past whatever was sizing me up for dinner. I tensed, slowly positioning myself on that side of my tree and getting ready to sprint. Once I was in place, I put one foot against the trunk, coiled up, and then launched myself from it. The burst of speed wouldn’t give me much of a head start, but I’d take anything I could get. Snarls and howls followed after me. I wasn’t really motivated to slow down before, despite my fatigue, but the sounds certainly encouraged me to keep up the pace nonetheless.

Now, hiking is one thing. Running, and especially sprinting, is a whole different prospect. See, with hiking, you can more or less keep your own pace. The important thing there is long-term endurance, and the slower you go, the easier it is to go longer, and you can more or less keep going until you stop. Humans are just kind of built for long-distance walking like that. I remember watching this thing on History Channel or whatever, y’know back before it was all those weird reality shows. They mentioned something about humans having evolved to be pursuit predators. We’re really good at going for a long time compared to most other animals. Plus, when you’re hiking, you usually have nice, flat trails to make things even easier. Not so with sprinting. You go fast over a relatively short distance and then that’s it. You’re done.

It’s even worse deep in the forest, and especially at night. There are rocks and stray plants and errant roots to catch your feet on. The ground is uneven. And though the moonlight made it so I could more or less see where I was going, the shadows made it all but impossible to see where I was actually putting my feet, or to make sure I kept going in a straight line. To top things off, the wolves--I was pretty sure they were wolves, by this point--were clearly better at this than I was. I could hear them behind me and then coming up alongside me, working to cut me off. I gained a new, fundamental understanding of why so many fairy tales took place in forests, and especially at night. It’s an utterly terrifying proposition.

I kept stumbling as I went, barely able to see, and my heart raced from panic and the rush of adrenaline. I thanked what few lucky stars I had left that my coat didn’t catch on any stray branches. And then I saw a clearing. I went for it. It wasn’t necessarily the smartest idea, but I knew that if I just kept going as I was, I’d be dead in a matter of moments. Plus, with the wolves on either side, I had precious little else in the way of options. I had to think of something, and fast. The opening in the canopy did exactly as I’d hoped and let the moonlight in so I could actually look where I was running, granting me a greater burst of speed.

That wasn’t all it let me see, though.

As I glanced aside at my pursuers, I could see that they were not, in fact, wolves. At least, not of any sort I’d ever read about. Or seen on TV. Or even heard about, for that matter. Their eyes still glowed that sickly yellow-green, but it was more like a fire in the sockets than actual eyes. Their bodies looked to be made of the same stuff as the trees in the surrounding forest, all branches and bark, covered in leaves and moss, held together (so far as I could tell) by little more than a vague idea that they ought to be shaped that way.

I screeched to a halt little more than halfway across the clearing. Apparently, the “wolves” were able to take as much advantage of the open ground as I was, and they had promptly surrounded me. I was done for.

As one of the pack stalked toward me, I closed my eyes and wished for a miracle. I was never exactly the religious type, you see, but if there were ever a time for a lightning bolt to randomly strike from the heavens, I’d have loved it no more than just then.

That all said, I practically jumped out of my boots when a crack of thunder actually did explode through the clearing. Now, if you’ve ever been in a thunderstorm--I mean really in one, where strikes come within less than a mile of you--then you know what I mean when I say that the boom of thunder rocks you to your core. When it’s right next to you, it’s loud. You feel it more than you hear it, and at that range, it leaves your head pounding and your ears ringing. It rattles your bones, and the rest of you shakes as if you were made of jello. Simply put, you’re left stunned as you process what just happened. Few things impress the sheer power of mother nature like that, and when I opened my eyes, I could see that the wolves were impressed, too. At least one of them was on fire, and all of them were booking it back to the tree line as fast as their legs would carry them, yelping and yipping the whole way.

As I shook it off, it took me a few more moments to realize the night sky was still clear. Oh, sure, there were a few wisps of cloud, but nothing anyone could confuse for a storm. While I was still looking up, though, a flash of crimson sparks exploded above the forest canopy, immediately followed by another earth-shaking kaboom! This one was a little less intense than the first, but I realized as it was followed by another explosion--a brilliant viridian, this time--that what I had mistaken for thunder was actually, in fact, fireworks. They were the big kind, too, like you see at those big, city-wide Fourth of July celebrations. Which made sense, I supposed. They’d have to be big and close to be that loud.

I sat there in the middle of the clearing for several moments. I’m not sure at what point I’d left my feet, just watching more of those huge fireworks go off, roman candles and those mortar shell things that explode into smaller ones all over, and swirls and stars and all sorts of patterns in all sorts of colors. I recall thinking it was rather surreal, especially after the encounter I’d just had. I concluded that I must have been having some sort of bizarre dream. Surely, I’d never gone out at all, and any time now I’d find myself back in my cramped little bed in my cramped little apartment, ready to take on a new day. More or less.

When I finally broke from my reverie, I found that the pyrotechnic display had come to an end. I was left looking at the open sky once more, all stars and moonlight, occasionally occluded by shadowy wisps of smoke drifting on the wind.

“Nice night, huh?” asked a voice from somewhere off to my right.

I hummed and began nodding absently for a moment before suddenly remembering that I’d been lost in the woods all day. Look, if you’d had the day I had, you’d be a bit distracted, too. And it was, evidently, not over yet.

I turned to face who I had to assume was my rescuer. She (at least, so I presumed based on her voice) stood at roughly eye-level to me, which may not have been all that remarkable except that I was still sitting down. Her eyes were huge, in vibrant amber hues. She stood on four legs that ended in hooves, and she was covered in midnight blue fur, with a mane and tail that practically exploded--not unlike the show a moment earlier--in a mess of fiery red and yellow tangles. Topping off her tiny equine visage was a unicorn’s horn protruding from her forehead.

And, if her expression and canted head were any indication, I appeared almost as odd to her as she did to me.

I, meanwhile, was at a loss for words.

She sat upon her haunches as we regarded one another in silence. She was the first to break it as she extended a hoof. Out of habit more than anything, I took it in my hand to shake.

“I’m Pyra. Pyra Technic. Nice to meet’cha!” She greeted me cheerily, as if it were the most ordinary of circumstances.

I nodded again, operating predominantly on autopilot as I attempted to process what I was seeing. “Jack,” I replied. “Jack Swanson.”

She furrowed her brow, staring at me. “You okay, Jack?”

I had to think about that. I mean, I was pretty sure I wasn’t dead. Always a plus. I still had no idea what the hell was going on, or if I was hallucinating.

“I’m alive,” I said finally. “Thanks to you, I assume?”

Pyra beamed with pride. “Yep, that was my show, alright! Did you like it?”

I stared at her for another moment. And then I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. Between my near-death experience and the bizarre nature of my current situation, I was overwhelmed, and laughing felt better than screaming. When I sobered up enough to answer, I replied, “Best fireworks display I’ve seen in my entire life.”

Her smile grew at that. “So what’re you doing out here all by your lonesome?”

“Lost.”

“Where you from?”

“I live in Cheney.”

“Never heard of it! Is that in the Undiscovered West?”

I sighed. Why was I not surprised? Clearly my compass pulled a Twilight Zone earlier because I actually had entered the Twilight Zone. “Uh, no? Maybe? I don’t know. Okay...what have you heard of? What’s nearby? And where are we, exactly?”

I watched Pyra look across the clearing behind her. She raised a hoof in the same direction as she gave her answer. “Well, we’re in the Everfree Forest. Ponyville is a bit of a trot that way. From there you can take a train to Canterlot or pretty much wherever you want to go. Plus we can take you to the hospital to get those scratches looked at!”

When I raised my eyebrow at her, she pointed at my face. I raised my hand to my cheek then and realized quite suddenly that it hurt. My coat had mostly protected me from the worst of my dash through the trees, but I could tell that I had still gotten scratched up a fair bit.

I pushed myself to my feet. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I haven’t heard of any of these places you’re talking about. Do you know where Washington is? Or the United States, for that matter?”

She took a minute to think about that. I perked up with her a couple of times as she went to answer, only to take another moment to ponder. Then, finally, “Nope!”

I sank. Again I considered the possibility that this was some kind of dream or hallucination, but this felt too real. But then, I wouldn’t really know if I was hallucinating, would I? I guessed, regardless, that my only choice was to go with it until another option presented itself.

“Alright,” I said, taking a few steps in the direction Pyra had indicated a moment ago. “Can you show me to Ponyville?”

Dear Journal - Today I Met a Princess (Chapter 2)

I’m not sure what I expected from a place called Ponyville, but I suppose ponies ought to have been on the list. We arrived very early in the morning--the sun had only barely crested the horizon--so the streets were rather bare. I had to assume Pyra was a more adventurous type of pony though since the few that I did see eyed me with what I could only interpret as fear and suspicion. Several retreated into their homes. I supposed that made sense; she found me in the middle of a dangerous forest at night. I wasn’t sure if I should have been concerned or relieved that they were afraid of me. I settled on glad that Pyra was there to save my life in the first place.

“Why were you out there, anyway?” I asked as I took in the sights of the town. It was a short walk from the edge of the forest. There were some other homes dotting the outskirts, including a cottage by the path we’d taken to exit the forest proper, but they were few and far between. We hadn’t spoken much since we met in the clearing. I was exhausted from hiking, and running, and just being awake far longer than I really ought to have been, and it was all I could do to focus on walking some more. The sight of something other than trees and foliage, however, restored some of my mental stamina.

Pyra shrugged the weight of her saddlebags into a more comfortable position. I hadn’t even noticed them until partway through our trek together, but the clasps were shaped to match a peculiar image stamped into the fur across her flank: a box, or maybe it was a crate, from which an assortment of fireworks was in the process of exploding. “I like exploring sometimes,” she answered, looking up at me for a moment as she trotted along. “I heard there’s a really old castle somewhere in that general direction. I haven’t been able to find it yet, though.”

“An old castle?” I replied. All of this other strangeness going on, and she still managed to further pique my curiosity. I brushed some stray dirt away from my coat and shook it out to free any loose leaves and debris left from the forest. “Sounds cool. Is it haunted?”

Looking down, I saw Pyra grin. “Some ponies say there’s a Pony of Shadows that lives there. I wanna find out!”

I barked out a laugh.

We made the rest of our way across town without incident. Our destination was a large, plain building some distance from the main cluster of homes and shops surrounding what I assumed was town center. The sign read “Ponyville General Hospital” in blocky, red letters, punctuating a massive, red cross adhered to the front wall several stories up.

“You know, it just now occurs to me how improbable it is that we can come from two places so far from each other as to not have heard of the other and yet speak the same language as if we were neighbors,” I said, stopping in front of the entrance to the hospital. I still had no idea what had happened on my hike to bring me here, but I had since begun operating on the assumption I was not, in fact, hallucinating.

Pyra looked up at me again. “I wasn’t gonna say anything,” she beamed up at me. “But yeah, it’s kinda weird. But you’re kinda weird in general, anyways.”

I frowned and looked down at myself. I flexed my hands. I wiggled my toes. Now that I’d had a few hours to process everything that happened in the forest, my rational brain was finally catching up to my instinctual one. For everything I thought was odd about these ponies and the place I now found myself in, they must have seen something equally strange about me. No wonder the ponies back in town were so afraid. I wasn’t just a stranger. I was plain old strange.

I suddenly found myself that much more thankful that Pyra had been the one to find me.

My technicolored companion led me through the hospital doors where a bored receptionist was waiting, reading a magazine. For what felt like the dozenth time, I insisted that I was fine, and for the dozenth time, Pyra insisted I get checked out. We approached the counter. Without looking up, the pony behind the reception desk pressed a button on a console and informed whoever was at the other end that they had a walk-in patient waiting up front. She then instructed us to take a seat by the wall. Issuing our thanks, Pyra and I did just that. I’m not sure exactly how long we waited, but it was enough for me to doze off.

“Oh, my.” The voice came from my left. I blinked my eyes open and went to rub the drowsiness away, only to startle myself by accidentally hitting my glasses. I sighed at the smudge I’d left. I gathered up some of my shirt to try to wipe it away, but I’d forgotten about the day’s grime. So, instead, the smudge went from taking up the center of the right lens to obscuring it in its entirety. I sighed again. I put my glasses back on. And, finally, I looked up to see a pony standing in the hall just past the reception desk. She was dressed in a nurse’s scrubs, a white coat and pink mane underneath, and her flank bore a stamp like Pyra’s, although this one resembled a cross with hearts around it. She was staring directly at me.

My hand rose from my lap as I brought it to bare for a little wave from my fingers. “Uh, hi,” I said, forcing a smile.

The nurse looked from me, to Pyra, to the receptionist, and back again. The receptionist, apparently picking up on the sound of alarm in the nurse’s voice, finally turned her gaze away from her magazine long enough to properly take notice of me. The magazine fell from her hooves, dropping to the desk in a forgotten heap.

I watched the pair of ponies for a moment, feeling their gazes practically bore through my skin. I turned to Pyra. She shrugged. I turned back to the hospital staff.

“We--we have a room ready for you,” the nurse eventually managed, breaking the silence. “If you’ll just follow me. I’m Redheart, and I will be your attending nurse this morning.”

I stood, offering my thanks, and took up a position behind the nurse called Redheart. “This really isn’t necessary,” I insisted yet again. “It’s just a few scratches, and I don’t even have any money.”

Pyra, who had followed after me, papped my leg with a forehoof as Redheart gave me an odd look. “He isn’t from around here,” Pyra explained, as if it wasn’t patently obvious. Then, to me, she added, “The crown pays for medical care, silly. It’s a guaranteed service for all creatures in Equestria.”

That gave me pause. I really shouldn’t have assumed that things would work here the way I was used to. It was easy for me to, seeing as we happened to speak the same language. And the crown? I’d have to have a serious talk with Pyra about the ins and outs of life here. Especially since, I realized, I would probably wind up being here a while.

“Jack?”

I returned from my introspection to find Pyra and Redheart staring at me from down the hall, and I detected no small hint of concern from the both of them. I muttered an apology as I hurried to catch up. The nurse was holding open a door, which I promptly stepped through. The examination room was not unlike others I’d been in. A table, an exam bench, a counter equipped with a sink. All of the usual dressings were present. And it smelled as sterile as the rest of the hospital. So, I guess not everything was entirely alien, either.

Nurse Redheart instructed me to seat myself on the bench as she went for a clipboard. I removed my coat, folded it, and left it on the table and then hoisted myself up. Wax paper crinkled beneath my weight, and I became acutely aware of the fact that the patients here were usually much closer to half my size. Per the nurse’s request, Pyra returned to the waiting area in the lobby. Then Redheart asked if I’d rather a stallion perform my physical. I supposed they’d guessed my gender the same way I had presumed theirs. It occurred to me then that I had not even considered the possibility of nonbinary genders. I almost asked, but I decided instead to file that away as a question for Pyra when we had time for a proper talk. And after I’d had a proper night’s sleep somewhere. Jeez. I’d have to find a bed.

I told Redheart that I’d be fine with her examining me. If you absolutely must know, she acted in a manner befitting a consummate professional. Once we sorted out my basic anatomy enough to get through a roughshod checkup, the biggest snag we hit was when she was attempting to discern my medical history. At first, there wasn’t any real issue since I didn’t appear to be symptomatic--excluding the obvious from my recent ordeal--but when I got into the unusual circumstances surrounding my place of origin and arrival, she explained that there were certain procedures regarding screening visitors with unclear travel history. Nothing I had to be worried about, she assured, but she’d have to check the books. This sort of thing didn’t happen terribly often. Go figure.

She asked me to wait while she went to check on some things. I took no issue with it. Considering my situation, I wasn’t in any particular hurry. After she left, I laid back on the exam bed, legs dangling off the edge, and closed my eyes.

I really was very tired.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I yawned. I stretched. My hand hit a metal rail.

Wait. My bed didn’t have rails.

I rubbed the sleep away from my eyes and tried to get some bearing on my surroundings. Without my glasses, I had to squint, but I could still easily tell I was in some kind of recovery room. I’m proud to say I only panicked a little bit before I remembered my trip through the forest and everything that happened afterward. They must have moved me here after I fell asleep in the exam room. That was embarrassing. I could only imagine how Redheart reacted after coming back in to find me passed out, but I elected not to.

After another moment’s search, I found my glasses gingerly folded up on the table beside my bed. I noticed, when putting them on, that they’d been properly cleaned. I couldn’t recall them having been so free of dirt since I first got them. The next thing I noticed was that the recovery bed I was in actually fit my size. Finally, I realized I was dressed in a patient’s gown, and that my clothes were laundered and folded in a chair not far from the bed. Maybe I really had been hallucinating. I got out of bed and plodded my way over to the window.

Nope. That was definitely Ponyville. Mid-afternoon, if I had to hazard a guess.

I yawned again and sniffed like the graceful creature I was and then decided to get dressed, trying not to ponder the indignity of being carried across the hospital and subsequently undressed by a bunch of half-pint ponies. Part of me wondered where Pyra was. She probably had better things to do than wait around on me all day. It was not unreasonable, I thought, to assume she had gone on her way after leaving me to the care of the hospital staff. It was not as if we knew each other that well.

I grabbed my coat, which was draped over the back of the chair, and put it back on. I felt my speaker, compass, and binoculars thud against me from various pockets. I felt a brief moment of panic rise up again as I realized my phone and wallet were missing, but I promptly deflated when I saw they were sitting on the bedside table right next to where my glasses had been, along with my keys. Checking them over, I realized there was not much for me to panic about anyway. As if any of it was likely to be useful here. Even my phone battery had run out completely at some point since the last time I’d checked it, and I didn’t have my charger with me. Still, I felt naked without them, so I pocketed the lot back into my jeans.

In that moment, my stomach helpfully reminded me it had been close to twenty-four hours since the last time I’d had anything to eat. Patting myself down to be sure I had everything on me, I made my way to the door and opened it.

A pair of spears promptly fell into my path, causing me to jump back a step in surprise.

I totally didn’t yelp in terror, though. That would be completely undignified. Utterly unbefitting someone as calm, collected, and level-headed as me.

Clearing my throat, I readjusted my coat and peered through the doorway. A pair of ponies were blocking the way, holding the spears. And they were in full sets of armor. Or barding? I had a hard time really remembering all the proper terms for horses. I learned how to ride one when I was a kid and that was about it. I was fairly sure these ones would not take too kindly to me trying to ride them, anyway.

“Uh, hey,” I said to the pair, putting on my best hey-I’m-totally-a-stand-up-guy face.

They responded with silence. Aside from shifting the spears to block my path, they hadn’t even moved a muscle. Turned out I wasn’t very good at faking the whole hey-I’m-totally-a-stand-up-guy thing.

I waited another moment before continuing. “Could I, like, get a sandwich or something?”

They didn’t even shift their gazes to meet mine.

“Okayyyy...could someone please tell me what’s going on?”

Still no response. Not so much as a twitch.

I sighed. Alright. I was being held prisoner. On the one hand, I could try to escape, but then I’d be an extremely recognizable fugitive in a strange land, and while my size would give me a decent advantage against these guys, I wasn’t very good at fighting. On the other hand, the other ponies I’d met had been pretty nice to me on the whole so far, and it wasn’t as if they’d chained me to the bed or anything. They even let me keep my stuff. I decided that it would be best to wait. So I did.

I spent probably an hour staring out the window, taking in the sights with my binoculars. Aside from the town of Ponyville itself, there was something on a mountain far off in the distance. My binoculars revealed it to be a whole city, complete with a palace and towers, suspended on the mountainside. I had to marvel at the engineering that must’ve been required. ‘Breathtaking’ didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Admiring Canterlot, are we?”

I about shot out of my seat. I was glad my binoculars had a neck strap, or I’d have dropped them on the floor to shatter. Instead, they just thunked painfully against my chest as my chair launched a couple feet away and tumbled onto its side. I rubbed gingerly at the bruise as I turned to face the owner of the surprise voice.

She was much taller than any of the other ponies I’d seen so far. In fact, she was about as tall as I was standing up. She had a brilliant white coat and a sparkling, pearlescent, multihued mane that blew in the breeze. Even though we were indoors. Moreover, she had the horn of a unicorn and the wings of a pegasus. I also noticed a mark on her flank like the other ponies I’d seen. This one was unmistakable as an image of the sun. I blinked a few times, but I struggled to find any words. I had largely been unintimidated by the ponies thus far; they were, after all, barely half my size, and most of them very unbrazen in their attitudes toward me. This one, however, was at least as big as I was, and she practically radiated confidence. Kindness also, yes, from the softness of her smile, but there was a clear strength there that told me I should not take advantage of that kindness. The last thing I noticed was her regalia. There were golden shoes adorning her hooves, a large piece on her neck to match, and...oh.

She wore a crown.

I swallowed. I had no idea what the proper protocol was here. Was I supposed to kneel? Or did you bow if you were not a citizen? What did she want with me? Was I under arrest? Did they think I’d come here to invade their land? I bumped up against the window sill, and though she hadn’t moved from her spot by the door, I suddenly felt trapped in a corner.

And then she giggled.

At me.

She giggled at me!

“Relax. You’re safe here,” she assured. Her voice, as it was from the start, was quiet. Calm. And kind. It bore the same poise as the rest of her. There was never a more appropriate circumstance in my life to apply the word ‘regal’ as in that particular moment. “Jack, wasn’t it?”

She knew my name. How’d she know my name? Was she psychic? Oh my god, could she read my mind?

“Pyra filled me in on some of the details while you were sleeping,” she said. She never dropped that smile of hers. “It seems you’ve come quite a long way to visit us here.”

Pyra. I relaxed somewhat. That made more sense. And that meant she hadn’t just run off. For some reason, I found that thought more comforting than anything else. “Where is she?” I asked a little more forcefully than I’d intended.

“She is downstairs. I wanted a moment to address you privately.” The tall pony took another step into the room and then sat on her haunches before gesturing for me to take a seat. Taking a breath to calm my nerves, I pulled up the chair I’d toppled earlier and sat down. I met her eyes, and we regarded one another for a moment. Though we were about the same size, I felt so small then. I listened as she continued. “I am Princess Celestia. The ponies you’ve met, and all in this land, are my faithful subjects. It is my hope that we might get to know one another better, but I must ask: who do you represent, and what are your intentions?”

Oh god. Did she think I was some kind of dignitary or something? “I don’t--I mean, I’m not a representative, your...highness?” She canted her head, but she still smiled. I guessed that meant it was an acceptable mode of address. It was hard to tell. She hadn’t stopped smiling since I first saw her. “I’m just a guy. I got lost in the woods and wound up here. I have no idea how. Or where ‘here’ even really is. I can’t explain it. I kinda just want to go home.” I paused. My stomach rumbled. “And find something to eat.”

She let out a dainty chuckle. You might think that would be the same thing as a giggle, but you’d be wrong. “I think a meal can be arranged. The doctors guessed your diet would be omnivorous, based on your teeth,” she said, turning about to signal a pony I had not previously noticed waiting beyond the doorway. “Is that correct?”

I nodded. “Fruits. Certain kinds of vegetables. Nuts. Eggs,” I stopped. Slowly, I leaned over to watch the assistant beyond the doorway. She was writing something down on a piece of parchment. These were ponies. Which meant they were probably herbivores. “...Among other things.”

“Would, perhaps, something from the bakery be sufficient for now?” I couldn’t tell if she’d picked up on where I was headed. She just. Kept. Smiling.

“Uh.” I didn’t have baked goods very often. Though, thinking about it, I did like those huge muffins from that one big wholesale chain. “A muffin alright?”

Celestia turned to nod at the assistant, who promptly trotted off down the hall. “As for returning you home, that may be more complicated. If you would start with what you were doing when you arrived?”

Yep.

I was definitely going to be here for a while.

Dear Journal - Today I Rode in a Balloon (Chapter 3)

I wasn’t sure exactly how long we spent talking. I told Princess Celestia everything I could remember from waking up the day before to the moment I met Pyra. Celestia hummed and nodded along with my story, waiting patiently for me to finish. Then she asked me about Cheney, the USA, and Earth in general. She asked me about my life. I had never before encountered someone so interested in what I had considered a rather unexciting existence. But, in turn, she answered a variety of questions about Equestria. Apparently there were more than just ponies living here, and I wouldn’t be stuck eating muffins forever. She explained the basics of governance in Equestria, as well as generally what I might have to expect from living here for an extended period. Frankly, if I had to be suddenly and unexpectedly stranded somewhere, I could think of worse options than a place where the weather is literally scheduled and manufactured. These ponies must’ve had some seriously advanced technology to manage that, and it was something I definitely wanted to see for myself.

As things got late, the princess asked me to excuse her for a moment. It wasn’t as if I was about to argue, so she stepped over to the window beside me and began concentrating. I turned around in my chair to see what she was looking at.

And just like that, I saw the sun drop from the sky and the moon take its place.

All the other things wrong about it aside, it was anything but gradual. Not the way it should have been, at least. I mean, it was by all accounts a graceful and fluid motion, but it was still as if someone had grabbed the sun, pulled it very abruptly from the horizon, and then scooped the moon up so they could hang it in the night sky. I’d thought the sunrise this morning had happened rather quickly, but I’d attributed that to being extremely tired and unfocused. Now, however, I’d slept. I’d eaten. And there was nothing mistakable about what I had just witnessed.

I stared. I was at a loss. I eventually got my mouth working enough to utter a very confused, “What.”

“Hm?” Celestia gave me a sideways glance.

I pointed out the window. Well, more appropriately, I stood up and promptly committed aggravated assault against the window with my finger. “The--the sun, and the moon...but gravity...and...it’s not...with planetary rotation--” Okay. A wordsmith, I was not. “It’s not supposed to do that!”

The princess regarded me for a moment. “What is it supposed to do?”

“The sun! The moon! They’re not--they don’t work like that! The planet rotates, the sun rises, crosses the sky, and sets. And the moon does its whole orbit thing and, y’know, sometimes it’s visible in the sky and sometimes it’s not,” I replied, attempting--albeit, admittedly, failing somewhat--to subdue my rising panic. “They don’t just bounce around like ping-pong balls! How does that happen?!”

I was doing my very best to slow my breathing down to a rate at least somewhat visible to the naked eye while Princess Celestia assured the guards alerted by my outburst that I was not about to try to stab her in the neck. It took a minute or so, but the room returned to a relative sense of serenity. I sat back down, and Celestia offered me a bottle of water.

I got about halfway through muttering my thanks when I noticed the bottle was just floating in the air. I stared at it. Then I stared at Celestia. Celestia stared at me. Then she stared at the bottle of water.

“Well?” she prompted.

I gingerly accepted the bottle with my thanks.

“Magic is not common where you are from,” she observed. She was right, of course, and I nodded to confirm what she had already deduced.

Magic? I couldn’t think of any more rational explanation for it. I was not just very far from home. I was so impossibly lost that the fundamental laws of reality were different from what I knew.

“That would explain your confusion with arriving here,” Celestia continued. “Though it does raise further questions in regard to how this could have happened at all.”

“So what you’re saying is not only could I be stuck here forever,” I began, twisting the cap off my bottle. “It’s the more likely outcome.”

For the first time since we’d begun our conversation, I’d noticed her smile was gone. “I’m afraid so,” she answered.

I took a very long drink. She had just delivered the gentlest gut punch I had ever received.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The hospital cafeteria was practically barren. Its total population consisted of myself, Pyra, and a single pony handling the register and cleaning. I had a feeling it normally would not have been open, but there were a lot of exceptions being made in my case lately.

I’d finished my tray, which consisted of a granola bar, potato chips, and an assortment of mixed vegetables. I missed meat already. I expressed my lament by dropping my dead phone onto the table repeatedly.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

I felt a force stop my arm. I looked up to see Pyra eyeing me with concern.

“Sorry,” I sighed. I laid the phone out on the table and started pushing it around with my fingers. “Just processing a lot right now.”

Pyra watched me for a short while. “What is that, anyway?” She asked finally, pointing a hoof at my makeshift finger skateboard.

I pushed it towards her. “It’s a cellphone. A smartphone, actually, if you want to get technical. But it’s,” I paused, trying to think of how to actually explain a smartphone to someone who had zero context for what one was. “It’s a lot of things, really. When it has power, at least. But the battery’s dead, so right now it’s basically just a brick.”

The phone floated into the air as Pyra grabbed it with her telekinetic grip. “It’s shiny,” she noted, peering at the black, lifeless screen. I’d bought one of those thick, drop-proof cases for it, so its silver backing wasn’t especially visible beneath the green plastic, but Pyra seemed satisfied with her mirror image in the screen.

That is, until said screen suddenly came to life, causing her to drop it back to the table with a loud THUD.

On the screen, I could see its powered-off charging indicator. Just a large image of a battery, partway filled with a solid red bar, and matching bold text beneath reading “1%”. It blinked back off again moments after Pyra let go. I picked it up and stared at it.

“What’d I do?” Pyra asked. I glanced over at her. I wasn’t positive, but I had the impression she was worried she’d damaged my phone somehow.

“You charged it,” I replied, looking up at her. “Your magic charged my phone.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Pyra bobbed along to the tinny music coming from my phone’s integrated speaker. I still had no signal, which didn’t really surprise me. But it was a connection to home all the same. I found myself wishing I’d taken more photos. I had practically no pictures on my phone at all save for ones I’d downloaded to use as backgrounds. The vast majority of the space on my phone had been reserved for music. Other than that, I had a couple of games. Solitaire. Mahjong. Y’know, the kind of stuff you use to kill time when you have nothing better to do.

I was still getting used to the whole magic thing. I wasn’t really sure what to make of it. I could’ve spent ages trying to rationalize it within the scope of what I already knew, but I got the feeling that was a pointless endeavor. So, as far as I was concerned, these ponies and this world really did have genuine fairy tale magic, and that was all there was to it. And it got my phone working again, so as disconcerting as watching the ruling monarch play with celestial bodies was, I had to concede that it wasn’t necessarily bad.

I was still musing on the potential implications of being in a world of magic when I felt something wrap around my waist. I turned my head downward to see Pyra hugging my midsection.

I blinked. “Pyra, what are you doing?”

Pyra looked up at me, but she didn’t let go. “What’s it look like? I’m giving you a hug.”

“I gathered that much. Why?”

“You looked like you could use one.”

I huffed a burst of air through my nose. She wasn’t wrong. “Thanks,” I said, wrapping an arm around her to return the hug the best I could from my cafeteria seat.

Her fur was surprisingly soft between my fingers. Plush, even. I hadn’t realized it previously, but I’d expected something shorter and more coarse, like the horses from back home. This was fluffy, more like a cat’s, though I wasn’t sure if that description even did it justice. It was almost impossibly soft.

“Sorry. I’m not good with...this. With people,” I told her. “I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for saving my life. So, y’know, thank you. I wouldn’t be here to mope around if it wasn’t for you.”

She smiled up at me. It wasn’t often someone smiling at me made me smile back. Without even thinking, I began petting and scritching her behind the ear.

That was when she pulled away from me, grabbing my arm in her telekinesis and giving me an odd look. I gave her one in return. “Don’t do that,” she said.

I freed my arm and looked at it briefly before setting it on my lap. “What’d I do?”

Pyra rubbed her hoof behind her ear. “That. It was...well, please just don’t do it.” It was hard to tell with her fur, and I was still getting a handle on her body language, but I thought she might have been blushing.

“Oh,” I replied, leaning away from her. I felt bad. I hadn’t meant to, but I’d still made her very uncomfortable. “Okay. Sorry.” I made a mental note to be more conscious about the way I touched.

Pyra returned to her spot just around the table, and we sat quietly for a while, with only the music from my phone filling the air.

I picked it up and opened the camera app, putting the little pony sitting across from me into frame. “Mind if I take a photo of you?” I asked, pulling Pyra from her own thoughts. She canted her head at me in an unspoken question. I explained, “If I ever find a way back home, I want to be sure I have a picture of the pony who saved my life.” I paused, lowering the phone to look her in the eyes. “And was such a good friend to an absolute mess of a stranger who probably didn’t deserve that kindness.”

Pyra smiled at me again. “It can do that too?” She sat up, apparently intrigued.

My heart lifted at the sight, and I nodded. “Oh, yeah.” I’d barely known her a day, but already her opinion was far more important to me than most. I wasn’t terribly sure why. She’d saved my life, sure, but that wasn’t it. Not entirely, at least. I just liked her.

She stepped out of her seat and posed dramatically. That got a chuckle from me. I raised the phone up again and took a snapshot. I sighed in frustration at the blurry preview image and then took a few more shots. Much better. I waved Pyra over to come see the results. She trotted over and beamed at the images of herself.

“I’m a rockstar!” She proclaimed, pointing at the screen enthusiastically.

I grinned. Yeah. She certainly was.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I was discharged from the hospital the following morning. Celestia had requested I see her in Canterlot to follow up on finding me a way home, and though she stressed that it was not a decree, I was still not sure how you were supposed to say ‘no’ to a princess. Spending time with her was intimidating. I told her I’d think about it.

Pyra and I made our way through town, and as before, most of the ponies seemed very anxious about my general presence. Several were at least willing to interact with me, or, more appropriately, with Pyra despite me being nearby, including a very excitable pink one whose idea of a standard greeting was, evidently, coating me in confetti. Still, I had to admit it was a warmer welcome than most I’d gotten that day.

We stopped at a cafe for lunch and then wandered around town for a while before sitting down at a decorative fountain for a break. I had to admit, this place was beautiful. Not just Ponyville, but everything I could see. Even if I could find a way home, I thought it would be nice to come back and visit if I could.

I told Pyra about Celestia’s invitation. “Well, if anypony is gonna have an idea of how to get you home, it’s those book-nosed unicorns in Canterlot,” she said. “I think I might know somepony in Fillydelphia who can help, too. Ooh! We can take a balloon there!”

My eyebrow shot into the sky. “A balloon?”

Pyra nodded and pointed past several buildings down the street. Sure enough, there was a small dock with several hot air balloons tied to it, including one that was inflated and ready to take off.

I stood up. “You know what?” I said with a clap. “Let’s do it. If I’m gonna be stuck here, the least I can do is try to enjoy myself.

Pyra grinned. “That’s the spirit!”

We waltzed over to the balloon dock, and Pyra commissioned a flight to Fillydelphia. A pony behind the counter at the kiosk attached to the dock took a minute to reference a big map with a bunch of suns and clouds and such stuck to it, but it wasn’t long before we were getting into the balloon, ready to go. Once the pilot had time to get used to me, anyway. He reviewed some basic safety procedures, and then we all climbed in and took off.

I was not prepared.

The view from the basket was the best I’d had yet. I could see for miles. I could also see that Ponyville’s population stretched out a fair distance further than I’d initially realized. But not only that, there was a humongous apple orchard on one end of town that occupied acres and acres of land. I pulled out my binoculars and could see some of the ponies working the farm, as well as the ones wandering around Ponyville now that they weren’t hiding from me. It was a bustling little community, all things considered.

I could also see the expanse of what I now knew to be the Everfree Forest. According to Pyra, it was a rarity in Equestria: a wholly untamed area where even the weather did whatever it wanted. I was already used to the weather doing basically whatever it wanted, of course, but I had to wonder if that had anything to do with why I emerged there, of all places.

Pyra and I passed the time playing ‘I Spy’, as well as just conversing and watching the scenery pass by.

“So you manufacture fireworks?” I asked, poking at a bottle rocket sticking out of one of her bags.

“Manufacture, sell, and operate!” She replied proudly. “I can also reproduce a variety of pyrotechnic effects magically, but I can show you that later.” She pointed at the balloon above us and stuck her tongue out at me.

I laughed. Yeah, Pyra. Setting our ride on fire would probably not have been the best idea in the world.

Pyra and I stood up to get another view out of the basket, only for my coat to catch a gust of wind strong enough that I had to grab the edge of the basket to maintain my balance. Ahead of us, I saw a set of dark, angry storm clouds rolling across the edge of a mountain range not far away. “Hey, yeah,” I said, pointing at the weather system. “Do we need to be worried about that?”

The pilot nodded. He had to raise his voice as the wind picked up even more. “It wasn’t on the schedule. Tryin’ to see if I can get us around or take us down, but that thing came outta nowhere. Gonna have to have a serious talk with the folks over in Cloudsdale about this one. Hold on. We’re in for a bumpy ride.”

I watched the storm with a grim expression. I’d been on a plane in a storm before, and that was fine.

But we were not in a plane.

My coat whipped around as the wind picked up even further, and I exchanged glances with Pyra. The basket began to rock violently as the storm’s intensity grew, and I took hold of one of the ropes for safety.

Lightning arced through the clouds and thunder roiled. The wind had become a gale, and even ducked back down into the basket, the storm assailed us for all it was worth. The rain came, and I held Pyra close to me beneath my coat to keep her safe and dry.

Now, do you remember when I mentioned the sensation of thunder striking right beside you? How it rattles you to your bones and turns you to jello?

Well, this time, it really was thunder. I also felt a jolt of electricity run through my body as the lightning struck the balloon. Every muscle in my body tensed up at once, ‘causing my legs to jerk and my grip on Pyra to tighten as, involuntarily, I ejected the both of us from the balloon. Unfortunately, I had no more motor control in the split second following the strike as during it. Pyra tumbled out of my coat and away from me. I shouted her name as I reached for her, and over the sound of the air rushing past my ears, I thought I heard her shout mine, but it was too late. She was already beyond my grasp.

The last thing I saw was the flaming balloon coming down behind me as we tumbled to the woodland below.

Author's Note

I want to welcome aboard my first pre-reader, Silverlight Pony! Thanks, friend.

Also, next chapter does get a bit intense. I'll be adding appropriate tags. Just be warned.

Dear Journal - Today I Was Kidnapped (Chapter 4)

I groaned as the world came back to me. Darkness parted from my vision, and I saw the raging fire of the balloon caught in the trees above me, though the rain from the storm was doing its best to douse the spread. It felt almost like a dream. I fought to recall where I was and why.

Rolling over, I saw the balloon basket turned over on the ground. Right. Pyra and I were flying to Fillydelphia. And then the storm hit. I recalled the pilot trying to hide his terror at the size of the unexpected storm. How could everything have gone so wrong?

I crawled over to the basket to see if the pilot was still inside. I didn’t have to lift it up to check. I could see his brown leg protruding from beneath the corner of the basket. It sat at an unnatural angle, and the side of the basket was stained red where a branch had pierced it. I winced; there was too much. It was too late for me to do anything for him.

I could only hope that Pyra had managed to survive the fall as I had. I went to stand up, but my right ankle and the lower leg attached to it refused to support my weight. I totally didn’t scream when I tried to stand on it. I also absolutely did not cry while reeling from the pain, either.

When I had recovered enough to gather my senses, I called out Pyra’s name, but I heard no response. I tried again. Still nothing.

I was on my own.

Based on the spread of branches around me and the bruising all over, I guessed the trees had slowed my fall. I was glad they were so tall and spindly, otherwise I might’ve broken in half when I came down. Worming my way through the wet grass, I grabbed as much extra rope from the balloon basket as I could, cutting it free with a sharp stone I found nearby, and then I tucked all of it and a bundle of branches together into my arm before crawling away from the crash site as quickly as I could. The fire came crashing down behind me moments later. It was far too close for comfort.

Once I was away, I used several sticks and a portion of rope to frame up my ankle into a splint. I was suddenly very grateful for the wilderness survival trips we’d taken in 5th grade, even if I had come down with a flu and missed one, but it was still really hard to work at that angle. After I’d finished securing the splint as best I could, I used much of the remaining rope to tie a few larger branches together as a crutch, wrapping the extra around the top to use as a poor man’s cushion. It wasn’t what I’d have called comfortable, but it gave me a good grip.

With my leg splinted and my crutch assembled, I managed to get myself upright. I was slow, but at least I was mobile. I began hobbling around the perimeter of the crash site, calling out for Pyra, but still there was no response. And despite the downpour of rain, the fire was beginning to spread. I had to get some distance before I burned alive. I kept calling for Pyra as I made my way toward the nearby mountains. I hoped I could find shelter there. A cave or something, maybe.

Just then, I heard a loud pop echo from somewhere off to my right. I looked up and saw a shower of red sparks, followed by a crackling of fireworks muted by the wind and rain. I hurried my way towards it at the fastest hobble I could muster.

“Pyra!” I shouted over the wind and rain. I could barely even hear myself, but I had to keep trying. “Do that again! I’m coming!”

Blue sparkles exploded into the air. Not far now. I practically launched myself with every step, almost losing my balance several times. My splint started to come loose, but I didn’t care. I just had to get to Pyra.

There. I could see a splash of red and orange through the woods ahead of me. She was being accosted by some kind of shadow, and I could make out voices shouting as I got closer.

“Give us the sky gems, pony!” Said one, somehow shrill and gravelly all at once.

Another, this one somewhat deeper. “Yes, gems!” Was Pyra being attacked by goblins? Did they have goblins here? They had magic. I wasn’t going to rule it out.

I also didn’t wait to see what, exactly, it was. As soon as I was in range, I put all of my weight on my good leg and swung my crutch as hard as I could at one of the shadows accosting my friend. The wood cracked against the skull of whatever it was, and the creature crumpled to the ground. I swung myself out from behind a nearby tree to get a better view of the scene.

Aside from the one I’d just accosted, there were three more creatures surrounding Pyra. They looked, by all accounts, not entirely unlike dogs. They even wore collars. But they also wore sparse clothing, vests mostly, walked upright, and had massive, clawed hands where their front paws ought to have been. Their tails appeared vicious, but I wasn’t sure if they could be used as weapons or just especially mangy. The two were not mutually exclusive, I concluded.

Taking advantage of my distraction, Pyra bucked one of the canid creatures in the face. It reeled back, grabbing its muzzle and yowling in pain before it fell over. I grabbed a branch on the nearby tree to support my weight as I chucked my broken crutch at one of the other two remaining. I missed, but it gave Pyra an opening, and she took it, launching the dog-thing a few feet into the air with another well-placed buck. It landed on the ground in a heap. The last of them upended itself and burrowed into the ground almost faster than I could blink.

I panted and checked around for any more of them. When I was satisfied that we’d dispatched them for the time being, I looked to Pyra with concern. “You okay?”

She returned my expression in kind. “I’m not the one with a busted leg,” she remarked. I felt the rope from my splint tighten as she took my leg in her telekinesis and re-tied it much tighter than I was able to manage on my own. With her help, I was able to find a new branch to repair my crutch with as well. She examined the dog creatures for a moment before looking around. “Where’s the pilot?”

My face told her everything she needed to know. Her ears drew back.

“We should get out of here before that thing comes back with friends,” I said. I began hobbling toward the mountain once again.

Pyra nodded her agreement as she moved with me. “Diamond dogs,” she replied. “They usually keep to themselves, but if they think you have something they want, they can be very aggressive.”

“Oh. Great,” I replied. I shook out my coat, which had taken surprisingly little damage considering what we’d just been through. Still, it had definitely seen better days, days when it wasn’t scratched up and covered in mud, grass, and soot. My compass fell out of one of the pockets. The plastic lid was cracked. I sighed and opened it, expecting the face to be shattered.

It was not. The case had done its job protecting the equipment inside. Moreover, the magnetic face was not spinning around wildly. “Hey, uh,” I started, holding up the compass experimentally to be sure it was in fact still working correctly. “About what direction is Fillydelphia from here?”

“East, I think. Past the mountains. I saw the rail line not far from here, south I think,” Pyra replied, pointing. “Why?”

~*~*~*~*~*~

We walked for hours. With my leg the way it was, we moved at an agonizingly slow pace. Worse, we didn’t know exactly how far Fillydelphia actually was. Any maps our former pilot may have had went up in flames with the balloon. However, eventually, we did find the rail line Pyra had mentioned, and the rain had let up as well. There was hope.

“I don’t suppose...there are any smaller towns...on the way in...to Fillydelphia,” I said between hops on my crutch.

Pyra shook her head. “Dunno,” she replied. “Sorry.”

I took in a breath and pointed at a large rock up ahead. “I need to stop again. You mind?”

Again, Pyra shook her head. We made our way to the rock and I sat down on it.

I hiked my pant leg up to inspect my ankle. I was no doctor, but from how ugly and swollen it was, I suspected it wasn’t just sprained. Also, it still hurt. A lot.

“Is it supposed to be that color?” Pyra asked. It was my turn to shake my head, and she frowned. “We need to get you to a doctor,” she said.

I couldn’t argue with her. This was a tad more serious than a few scratches; although, I had acquired plenty more of those, too. I did my best to shuffle my pant leg back down so the rough sticks making up my splint wouldn’t scrape at my leg, and then I removed my water bottle from my belt to take a pull from it. It was a bit dinged up, but the aluminum had proven sturdy enough to keep it from puncturing during my plummet of doom. There wasn’t much water left inside. Between the two of us, and how much I had been exerting myself just to get anywhere on my crutch, it had emptied fairly quickly.

I offered the last of it to Pyra, who pushed it back at me with a scowl once she realized how low it was. “You’re hurt, Jack. You need that more than me,” she insisted.

“And if I’m gonna make it to a hospital, I’m gonna need your help,” I replied, shoving it right back at her.

Pyra sighed and, making it entirely clear with every ounce of her body language that she disapproved, finally relented before drinking up the last of the bottle. She made a point of clipping it aggressively back onto my belt.

After doing my best to avoid Pyra’s glaring, I pulled out my binoculars and scanned the horizon. The rail line was at the edge of the woodland, though I thought I could see the border of another forest some distance to the south and east. There was also another tall mountain a long way almost directly south, but the rest just appeared to be plains. I couldn’t see anything in the intervening hills that indicated signs of civilization beyond the rail line itself. I put my binoculars away.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anything out there. We’ll just have to keep walking,” I said, stowing my binoculars and pushing myself up onto my crutch. I looked to Pyra.

Or, at least, I looked to where she was.

I scanned the area. “Okay, very funny, Pyra. You can come out now.”

I was met with only the whistling of the wind. Even the birds had stopped chirping.

I cupped my free hand to my mouth as I called out again. “Pyra?” I started to make my way around the boulder. I absolutely was not afraid of being left alone or anything, but I was beginning to worry for my friend. “Joke’s over. This is n--”

I was cut off as I tripped over something. I lost hold of my crutch on the way down, and it was all I could do to brace myself for the impact. Brushing myself off, I turned over to find where my crutch had fallen, as well as look at what I’d tripped over.

I saw my crutch standing upright in a loose pile of dirt.

I leaned over to grab it, but it refused to budge. I tried to wiggle it free. Nothing. I put both hands on and tugged with all my might. Still nothing. I leaned myself back as I pulled to get better leverage, but the crutch remained steadfast. What the heck had I gotten it stuck in? Certainly not just some dirt. I let go to crawl around and see if I could get a better angle on it, or even dig the thing out, but almost as soon as I did, it disappeared into the ground before my eyes.

I stared at the patch of dirt where my crutch had been, dumbfounded. Without my crutch, I couldn’t even hope to look for Pyra, much less continue on to Fillydelphia on my own. I had to get it back.

I began digging.

All I had available was my bare hands, but the loose dirt gave way easily enough. I’d gotten a few inches in when I felt a sudden tug on my forearm. Like my crutch before it, my arm had embedded itself in the dirt and refused to come back out.

I did not like where this was going.

But I was calm. Collected. On top of my game. I did not panic. And I certainly did not flail about trying desperately to yank, pull, and push my arm free from the mysterious force that had latched onto me.

Okay, fine. Maybe I did.

A little.

As I was attempting to extract myself, the force pulled the rest of me under. In an instant, all light had gone, and my first priority suddenly became holding on to what breath I had in that moment as the earth swallowed me whole.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to hold my breath for long. I emerged into a tunnel, though I only knew as much from feeling the dirt fall away. All was pitch black. That didn’t seem to matter to whatever was dragging me through the tunnel, though, and as I attempted to find any further clues as to my surroundings, I felt something hard strike my head.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When I came to, I could smell the mineral dampness of a cave. I was also vaguely aware of the orange, flickering glow of torchlight. I attempted to push myself off the floor, but a hoof met my chest.

“Easy there, Jack,” I heard a voice say.

It was Pyra’s.

I did my best to push the disorientation away. Everything was still fuzzy. No doctor was I, but I would not have been surprised to discover I had a concussion.

I opened my eyes properly to see Pyra staring at me, brushing the dirt out of my hair. I was covered in the stuff, and so was she. Behind her, I saw a set of iron bars set into a surrounding wall of solid stone. We were in a cell, and a crude one at that.

“What--” I croaked, and I shooed the frog away from my throat with a cough. “What happened?”

“They caught up with us,” Pyra explained, helping me sit up enough to find a wall to lean myself against. “The diamond dogs. They brought us here.”

“Wherever ‘here’ is,” I replied. Pyra nodded. I leaned my head back against the wall and sighed.

This was not my week.

I sat there for a while, mulling over just how I’d gotten myself into this situation. I found it hard to believe this had all started with nothing more than a simple walk in the woods, and I had to wonder what Christie would think of the whole situation. ‘It’s real weird,’ she’d probably have said. ‘But you always did want to go on an adventure. Here’s your chance. Take it.’ I liked my life before, but she would have been right, and I supposed I didn’t have much choice at this point anyway. And if I was going to be on an adventure, I sure wasn’t going to die in some dingy old dungeon.

Pyra, meanwhile, had apparently taken it upon herself to examine the locking mechanism keeping us in here. Like the rest of the cell, it was a simple affair, but effective. A large, iron lock built into the door. It looked a bit rusty, but Pyra assured me she had already tried to kick it free. Naturally, it hadn’t budged. We would either need the key, or some way to pick or destroy the lock. I learned then that unicorn magic apparently did in fact have its own rules; Pyra couldn’t just melt the lock. Her magic, at least if it was more complicated than telekinesis, could only produce effects specifically tailored to the creation and exhibition of pyrotechnic displays. As such, anything that would have been hot enough to get us out would also have been big enough to cause other problems.

Having narrowly avoided burning alive just hours earlier, I was not terribly enthused by the idea.

“These diamond dogs,” I said. Pyra paused her inspection of the door to glance back at me. “They thought your fireworks were gemstones? They don’t sound terribly bright.”

She shook her head.

“I might have an idea,” I continued, and Pyra quirked a brow at me.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Help! Please! I don’t think he’s breathing!”

Pyra’s voice resounded throughout the tunnel system, and it was not terribly long before I heard footsteps pad up to the door of our cell.

“What do you want, pony? We’re busy!” My eyes were closed, what with my playing dead and all, but that didn’t stop the grating voice of one of our captors from stabbing my poor eardrums.

“Please,” Pyra’s voice countered. I hadn’t ever thought her voice to be displeasing by any measure, but compared to the diamond dog’s, it was as heavenly a sound I’d ever heard. “He’s stopped breathing. Please help!”

There was a brief pause. I unconsciously gripped a loose rock I’d grabbed earlier a little tighter than I meant to. Then I heard the sound of a heavy lock unlatching and the squeal of ancient metal hinges. The footsteps padded closer, and then I stilled my breath as I felt a weight on my chest.

“Yes,” the voice said. It didn’t sound terribly concerned about my well-being (or lack thereof). “He dead.”

I inched an eye open to see the diamond dog’s head turned toward Pyra, his paw on my chest. Immediately, I swung my hand up to bring the rock to his skull with as much force as I could muster. He yelped and fell sideways, and I swung again. At the second impact, he fell still. Turned onto my side, my raised arm shook with the rush of adrenaline, ready to strike a third time, but my perceptions caught up with my instincts, and I dropped my arm and the rock to the floor. I didn’t pause to check his condition. Instead, I grabbed the crutch they’d so helpfully tossed into the cell with us and promptly made my way with Pyra out into the dungeon. She looked at me askance, but I was more concerned with finding a way out of here.

It was a maze. I realized immediately that I had no idea which way to go. Beyond this room, which held several more cells but little else, the tunnels all looked largely the same. Though as I scanned further, I did notice one other item of interest.

A minecart on a set of rails.

I hobbled over to it and tested it. Despite its otherwise decrepit appearance, the wheels still ran (mostly) smoothly. There were a few loose gemstones inside that were rather shockingly large to my eye. At the moment, however, I was much more interested in the cart itself. Hoisting myself on my crutch, I swung myself into my newly acquired vehicle. I looked to Pyra and grinned. “Hop in.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Riding in a minecart was a lot less awesome and a lot more uncomfortable than TV and video games had led me to believe. Despite the bumps and bruises however, it was still much faster than if I had been trying to make my way by foot. I used my crutch to push the cart along, which kept us going at a significantly more consistent pace than my previous hobbling through the woods. The tracks gave us a direction to follow, and I had to hope they actually led somewhere, particularly because I was getting tired. I kept half expecting to suddenly come across a dip in the tracks that would turn our ride into a terrifying makeshift roller coaster. As time passed, the torches quickly gave way to the dimmer illumination of walls studded with huge, glowing gems, even bigger than those that sat in the cart with Pyra and me. I might have stopped to appreciate how beautiful it was if I wasn’t also terrified of being recaptured by the diamond dogs.

Much to the chagrin of my aching arms (and the relief of my inner pragmatist), much of the tunnel was either level or a steady uphill climb. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when we reached the end of the tunnel, but I was elated to discover that there was, in fact, an end in sight. Sunlight spilled in through the opening, overpowering the glow of the gemstones. As I pushed the cart through and the sky reached out above us, I saw that there was hardly any trace of the storm left save for some dampness in the grass outside the entrance to the mine.

Pyra caught my attention as she bounced a bit in my lap. I winced as the motion bumped my ankle into the side of the cart, and she gave me a look of apology before directing my gaze to our right. Buildings! There was a small town not far from the mine. I couldn’t resist the urge to hug her, though once I realized what I’d done, I broke the embrace with a blush, even if she had hugged me back. We exchanged a pair of sheepish grins, and with Pyra’s help, I climbed out of the cart.

Author's Note

Sorry it took so long for this update. I promised myself I wouldn't let this slip and promptly proceeded to fail. Long story short, life ate my face. Can't promise it won't happen again, but I'm going to do my best to keep at it. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy!