Brian jiggled the key to his dorm room, the door fighting back again. He sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy blonde hair. This was the third time in as many days that the lock refused to budge without coaxing. Maintenance had been informed, of course, but wouldn't be around to fix until "a non-committal shrug" of time had passed. He lifted the handle, twisted the key to the left, then back to the right, and the door unlocked, his key snapping in the process.
"Just... Why? Why do you hate fun, door?" he asked the object as he pushed the handle down and pushed the door open fully, only to pause in confusion. The floor was gone, a yawning black void replacing it. His things were also gone, presumably consumed by the void that his floor had become. All of this was processed in his brain in the 0.68 seconds before the pressure differential pushed him over the threshold and into the void.
The next thing Brian's brain could process was intense pain and confusion, a brief period of clarity where he saw too-bright roses and glossy leaves crushed underneath the remains of his once passably-comfortable bed. A shape moved towards him and covered him in shadow, to which he apologized around missing teeth and a broken jaw, "Sorry about the roses."
Of course, what actually came out of his mouth was blood and incoherent gurgling. There were of course the broken bones to consider, the brain damage, and of course, the brain damage. After that, his body and brain shut down all but emergency services and he passed into the realm of the nearly dead.
Whispers haunted him as he struggled through the blackness. Time passed in fits and starts, moments seeming like centuries sometimes as the young man clawed his way back to the world of the living. His addled mind conjured daemons and visions alike. Eventually the whispers turned to muffled voices. Terse statements, questions, explanations, and then nothing again for what seemed like ages.
Finally, he managed to hear something clearly for the first time in what felt like several millennia, "I think it's coming around," a male voice said quietly.
"Is the translator spell in place? Can it understand us?" came a regal, feminine voice that hid excitement and wonder behind calm royal demeanor.
"The spell has been in place since its brain waves became more active a week ago. I'm still amazed it survived its injuries," the male replied, sheets of paper ruffling, "Most of its bones broken, bleeding in the brain, punctured internal organs... If its arrival had not included anatomy books, there would have been nothing I could do."
Obviously the male was a doctor of some sort but the words still confused Brian. He tried to open his eyes but found only further blackness. Reflexively he twitched his fingers and groaned as the sensation of pain returned to him. It had been something that, in his coma, he was blissfully ignorant of. As his body realized that the brain was awake again, it began to send signals once more, all of them pain and worry.
He tried to make noises of distress but his throat was dry and he couldn't move his jaw. The pain proved too much and he lapsed back into unconsciousness as the doctor began to fret. He caught snippets of a discussion on pain relief before all returned to quiet.
He was unsure of how much time had passed before he next experienced what he could of the waking world. This time, there was far less pain, and again, those same two voices.
"Its coming around again. I've upped the dosage of the pain medication, he should be lucid enough though."
This time, he found himself able to form words, "W-where am I?"
The queen, as she'd been dubbed by his mind, replied, "You're in a hospital. You were severely injured in an... incident."
"Thirsty..." was all he managed to get out. Moments later he found a straw at his lips, which he sucked on greedily. Cool, shockingly delicious water, entered his mouth and he swallowed as much as he could before it was pulled away.
"Easy, too much might make you sick," said the male voice.
"Wh-what happened?"
"We were hoping you could tell us," the woman said, "I'd like to have Doctor Sable remove the bandages around your head, would that be okay?"
Brian tried to nod, but his neck spiked with pain so he settled for a whispered yes. In preparation, he closed his eyes against the impending light.
He felt the bandages being removed slowly, and the light began to filter through his eyelids. There were many layers of gauze cradling his head and he must have been drugged heavily because he never felt hands grasping the substance or lowering his head carefully back to the pillow after raising it to undo the wrappings.
He slowly opened his eyes. The light above him blindingly bright and what seemed to be a second radiance to his right where the female voice was coming from. Gradually, the room he was in came into focus, his eyes adjusting to the glare from the illumination around him.
He could see the ceiling and at the periphery of his vision, sets of medical monitoring equipment. He wondered if it was a trick of the light, his head injury, or the pain medication that made everything look brightly colored and almost like a cartoon. Brian giggled a little at that as the other two occupants of the room moved into his field of view. To his left, a small, brown coated pony with a horn on its forehead and short cropped blue mane with grey eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses. To his right, a radiant goddess who seemed to glow with the light of the sun itself, only muted so as not to incinerate a mere mortal such as himself. Her rainbow mane flowed in some invisible wind and she bore a longer horn than the pony to his left as well as a pair of wings held tightly to her side.
The human tried to smile, but given how chapped his lips were, it hurt a bit to even smirk, "These are some really good pain killers, Doc. I'm seeing pastel unicorns with wings."
The two glanced at each other and the Doctor raised an eyebrow.
"I can assure, that is how I really look. My name is Princess Celestia of Equestria."
"Oh cool, I guess that void lead somewhere new. My name is Brian. I'd shake your hand but I can't move."
"You were severely injured in your... fall," the brown pony said, "If it hadn't been for the books that fell with you, I don't think we could have saved you."
"Well at least my biology textbook was useful to somebody... I'm going to pass out now..." Brian said, a wave of exhaustion sweeping over him like a tsunami as he fell asleep once more.
Recovery is a difficult process when you're not from the environment you're recovering in.
Brian groaned and collapsed on the bed as the nurse moved his wheelchair aside and help him pull the blanket up, "You did well, Mr. Cartwright. Even with magical assistance, physical therapy and recovering from muscle atrophy is a long process."
"I'm still amazed my bones knit in a week instead of months it would have taken back home..."
Another pony entered the room and Brian was forced to squint as their radiance was a bit brighter than the florescent lights that hung overhead. It was a quirk he'd noticed a few weeks ago, when he finally stopped waxing in and out of unconsciousness.
The second time he'd come around, the world was still cartoonish and bright. He tried to play it off as more hardcore drug induced hallucinations, or related to his head injury, but Doctor Sable and Princess Celestia explained that his health was improving and he wasn't on any pain medications at that point. He'd had a violent panic attack and they were forced to sedate him.
The third time was a little better. Brian was being given mood stabilizers in order to keep him calm while everything was sorted. He'd just awoken and blinked around at the brightness surrounding him.
"Good Morning. My name is Princess Celestia. On your left is Princess Twilight Sparkle. We'd like to ask you some questions if you've calmed down."
The human blinked and squinted at them both. They shown with a brightness that he didn't notice in the nurse standing near his IV, replacing the bag with her hooves and teeth. She lacked a horn or wings and didn't glow nearly as brightly. Returning his attention to the two royals, he replied, "I feel perfectly calm. Although I probably have the medications to thank for that."
Twilight nodded, "After your... episode... we thought it best if we... eased you into the facts of you situation so you didn't have another. You very nearly went into cardiac arrest!"
Brian nodded, "I suppose I should introduce myself..."
Twilight interrupted before he could say anything further, "Brian Wilford Cartwright, age 19, born September 24th, 1999 which makes no sense to me you must use a different dating system than we do, Male, no corrective lenses restriction... I read your 'Driver's License'..." she finished with a blush.
"Well, then I guess that answers that," Celestia said, a bit reproachfully Brain thought, before moving on, "Do you know what happened to you?"
"Not really," he sighed, "I was coming home from work, opened my bedroom door, saw the floor had become a black void, fell for... a while... and then landed in... a rose garden. Then I woke up in this bed."
"Interesting. You say you fell for a while?" Brian nodded and Celestia continued, "When you initially sighted by my sister who happened to be in the garden near where you... landed... and you were suspended briefly before falling only about ten feet."
"Ten feet? And it broke... that much?"
"That's what concerns me, according to Doctor Sable and my own examination, you exhibited injuries far worse than what could have been attained in a short fall. Your possessions looked as if they'd been mauled by an Ursa Major and your injuries were... as if you had been tortured for some time."
Brian's head throbbed and he heard a high-pitched whine. Something in the back of his mind trying to claw it's way forward, "I don't remember anything like that... I just remember falling and then being here... wherever here is."
Celestia put a hoof on his arm, "Rest assured that I've started a full investigation into the circumstances of your arrival and the possibility of returning you to your home world."
"I appreciate that, I think. What's going to happen to me in the mean time?"
Twilight spoke up at this point, "Well, for now you'll remain in the hospital until you fully recover from your injuries. A few more days and the rest of your broken bones should be healed enough to start physical therapy."
"A few more days? How long have I been here?"
"Well you were unconscious for about a week, and then you've spent the last five days on extensive bone-knitting regimens while you were asleep or sedated..."
"You healed my broken bones in ... a week?"
"I didn't, Doctor Sable and his team have. It's taking longer since you're not a pony and your anatomy is unique, but it's still quite good progress. Do you normally heal faster?"
Brian gaped at the purple pony, "Princess, broken bones take MONTHS to heal where I am from."
It was the nurse's turn to gasp, "Months!? That's... barbaric. Next you'll tell me you don't use anesthesia..."
"For most of our medical history no. It's only been in the last century or so we regularly had pain relief during surgery, and safer anesthesia has been around for an even shorter time."
The nurse ponies eye twitched and she stormed out of the room, apparently intent on starting a crusade of proper medicine into whatever world her patient hailed from.
"We don't have magic either though..." he said a little belatedly as she left.
"Your world doesn't have any magic?"
Brian shook his head and stared after the nurse.
"Mr. Cartwright?" the princess inquired.
"Sorry, Princess. I was remembering something, what did you say?"
"I was asking if it would be okay for me to ask you some more questions about your world," Twilight asked, looking excited and moving one of his legs so she could sit up on the bed next to him. A position he'd acquiesced to early on since he couldn't really look her in the eyes if she stood on the floor next to his rather tall bed. It made his legs itch like crazy whenever she used her magic on him, and the rest of his skin tingled constantly. He surmised it was a side-effect of all the medications, magic, and therapy he was undergoing but Doctor sable was just as confused as he was.
"Actually, Princess Sparkle, I have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind."
"Not at all, and please, call me Twilight."
"Okay, Twilight... You may have noticed I squint at you and the other princesses... To use a phrase... What makes you so grossly incandescent? Princess Celestia especially."
The smaller alicorn tilted her head in confusion, "We... glow?"
"Not so much glow as project. For you and Celestia it's like trying to look at the sun if it were slightly muted. For Doctor Sable he glows brightly as well but Nurse Redheart barely glows at all unless she's angry."
Twilight scribbled some notes down, "Fascinating, I wonder if it's a difference in the spectra of our sun compared to yours or some other factor... Is there any other unusual sensations that you've experienced since arriving here?"
Brian nodded, "Doc says it's not related to my healing, but my skin tingles constantly where it isn't covered by cloth, and it itches like mad whenever one of you touches me with your little magic telekinesis. It's like I'm allergic to magic. I've also been getting flashes of something, but whenever I try to focus on it, I just... get a headache and the feeling eventually passes."
Twilight stared at him while she continued to process what he was talking about, "You... You must be sensing the ambient magic in the air and the spikes when it's used with purpose. Can you reach out and grab this glass for me please?" she asked as she levitated a glass over, completely coated in her bright purple aura.
He reached up and attempted to grasp it and winced as the intense itching made his hand twitch. Thankfully the glass didn't fall from the princess' grip, "That is... very unpleasant."
"There have been instances of ponies who were extremely sensitive to magic and expressed similar symptoms. I'm surprised from a magically null society you'd have any sense of it at all."
"Well we may not entirely be, but the modern society has basically 'proven' that magic doesn't exist," Brian sighed, "I'm of the view that magic definitely USED to exist on Earth long ago, but as it became studied and categorized, it became less magic and more science which ruined how it worked. Hell, half of the stuff science has 'discovered' in the last 100 years were used by 'primitive' societies for milennia. There is a device called the Antikythera mechanism that was used thousands of years ago and a lot of people think it was a sign that aliens had visited Earth. A lot of Earth's history is a habit of people rediscovering things that other people that don't happen to share a language have known forever... Sorry I'm rambling."
"It's okay, Brian. I understand, I do it to. I'd love to hear more about your world when you're well again. I think I'll let you rest for today, though."
"Thanks, Twilight. Physical therapy takes it out of me and thinking about home makes me mentally tired too."
"I must admit, beyond your first outburst, you've been surprisingly calm about your situation."
"Well, the way I see it. I'm either dead and this a moment-of-death hallucination brought on by all of my neurons in my brain firing at random, I'm in a coma back home from a stroke or aneurysm and this all a dream, or I'm really here and I have to deal with it until I can go home. If I can go home."
"Princesses Celestia, Luna (who you haven't met yet,) and I are all working on how you got here and how to get you back home. Your books have been a surprising amount of help."
Brain was a bit confused how she had managed to speak in parenthesis, "Heh, for once I'm glad I've kept my textbooks from last semester. I'm glad they've been useful. Which ones?"
"Your biology texts and a copy of something called 'Grey's Anatomy' allowed us to actually help you medically. Your body is a completely different configuration from our own. The doctors that were on the triage team had to do a lot of replicating of your own blood in order to give you the transfusions you needed to live. Your geography, history, and astronomy books have given us a lot of insight into your world and some idea of where you're from. Which does complicate matters but we can go over that when you're full recovered."
"What happens then?"
"A lot will have to happen. We'll go over it in time. Get some rest for now. You have more physical therapy tomorrow."
"Right... thanks, Twilight."
Another long week later, and Brian was finally given a clean bill of health, as far as they were able to discern, from Doctor Sable and Nurse Redheart. He was still feeling weak and tingled all over, but he was well enough to travel beyond the hospital. His escort from the ward was impressive. Two guardsponies flanked him and directed him straight from the hospital to the castle and into a private audience chamber with the three princesses. Twilight and Celestia seemed dimmer than usual but the third made him squint and raise a hand to shield himself.
"Sister, contain yourself..." Celestia chided, and the light dimmed.
Brian blinked as he was able to finally see the third princess, now glowing as bright as the other two. In the back of his mind he hoped this would be something his brain would learn to filter out, or at least get used to. The unidentified princess seemed somehow haughtier than the white-coated alicorn sitting next to her. This new pony was blue in coat with flowing black hair speckled with stardust.
"Brain Cartwright, allow me to introduce my dear sister, Princess Luna."
"We are honored to meet you, young Brian Cartwright. We have heard much about you in the past weeks, and we forgive you for what you did to our precious nightbloom roses as we realize it was not your choice that brought you here."
"Thank... you?" the human asked tentatively, sitting in a chair that a younger mare brought in before leaving immediately.
"You are welcome."
His thoughts were a bit jumbled by her old way of speaking especially compared to her sister, and the younger Sparkle. It would definitely be an interesting conversation.
"Now, to begin with, we should discuss your immediate future," Celestia began, "You'll be staying in the castle while you finish your recovery, which Nurse Redheart will be overseeing. During that time I have to ask you not to leave the castle grounds until you're back to whatever you feel is your full strength. At that point, if we have not already discovered how to return you home, we will arrange a more permanent living situation here in Canterlot or in Ponyville. You'll be provided a stipend for necessities, but we encourage you to find employment if possible. There are many jobs that your unique physiology might prove useful in doing.
Because of... certain aspects of your world's history and your species' predilections, you'll be carefully monitored for at least six months to determine if you present a threat. This is all standard for any new species that comes to reside in Equestria and is largely a formality. From my experience, and with Twilight's observations joining those of the hospital staff, you've been nothing but kind and friendly apart from your initial episode."
Twilight nodded in agreement, "I will be heading research into how to get you home, however it may be more difficult than expected. It seems, based on observations and investigation of your educational material that the world you from is... ours... in a way. The constellations are largely the same, and you could be from our distant past if we account for stellar drift."
"My stars do not drift, Twilight Sparkle," huffed Princess Luna.
Twilight blushed a little, "I was talking about the distant ones that you don't control directly, Luna... The other option is that you are from an alternate dimension, occupying the same world but with different rules at a different point in history. There are other theories but most of them can be eliminated. There is one I'm particularly-"
A cough from Celestia silenced Twilight instantly. That made Brian a little suspicious. A theory he shouldn't, or couldn't, hear about just made him want to hear it more.
"Well, Mr. Cartwright," The white alicorn began, regaining control of the situation with practiced ease, "Your quarters have been prepared by our maids. We salvaged what we could of your possessions in addition to the clothes you are currently wearing, and they will be waiting for you. We ask that if you require something, or wish to speak with one of us, you ask one of the guards. There are members of our society who... well, you don't want to be wandering around alone just yet."
Brian nodded, a knot forming in his stomach at the thought, I guess Xenophobia is universal, he sighed internally as a maid came in and motioned for him to follow. He bowed low to the Princesses as best he could, and followed the maid out of the hall and toward his new home for the near future.
