Author's Note

This is only my first story. Please offer critical review and if you like, offer ways for me to improve.

Part 1: Arrival

Language.

It is perhaps one of the basic necessities of communication. When everyone speaks just one, and that one is all they ever hear, they take it for granted.

In the world of humans, there are hundreds, possibly thousands of languages, and in the old days, educated people were expected to learn to speak at least six fluently, and usually learned ten to be safe. Although modern times have reduced the number of languages required to learn to be successful, knowing more than one language not only is a mark of intelligence, but also a gesture of respect to the people who speak that language natively, and secondary languages are usually recommended in many schools.

In the realm of Equus, there is only one language typically spoken. Everyone from the diamond dogs digging in their mines to the Princesses of Equestria in Canterlot speak the same tongue. Although there is some holdovers and differences of dialect, everyone can understand each other.

These distinctions are perfectly normal for their respective universes. And the two worlds would never have met, and the ponies would never have had to deal with more than one language, until Fate stuck its finger into the pie one day ...

**************

Pain. And the smell of forest. That was the first two sensations that came to my mind when I woke up. Sitting up slowly, feeling the ache all over my body from ... whatever had happened, I tried to make sense of the situation. What had happened? Where was I? Sitting up, I held my head as it throbbed. I had no memory of how I had ended up here. All I knew was that first I was at home, then ... I was here. Had I been kidnapped and dumped somewhere to die? I was still clothed at least. So, that was a good sign.

Groaning, I roll onto my front and shuffle onto my knees and hands, slowly standing up. That simple act told me I had no significant damage, so I could at least look for shelter or find help if there was civilization nearby. Taking in my surroundings, I noticed the trees were conifers, so that meant I was in a northern type climate of sorts: short summers, long, cold winters. Or so I assumed. Still, given I was still warm meant that it was probably summer or at least a warm time of the year.

Crap. I tapped myself in the head. I really needed to stop overthinking things. Wherever I was, I needed to find shelter, food, and water. Not really in that order but all three were required. So I set off to find those three items. No point in staying here when it was clear this was unfamiliar territory after all.

It took all of an hour for me to find a way out of the forest. And lo and behold! A town! I sighed in relief. At the time, I was thinking that whomever had kidnapped me, if that had happened, must not have been too smart. Just an hour outside of a town? What were they thinking? Feeling far more confident, I began to stride towards the town, possibly ask the locals where I was.

As I got closer, I began to notice that ... things were wrong. For one, the people were all ... very garishly colored. As in, any sort of color someone less than six years old would vomit up on MS Paint. For another, most of them were either completely naked or scantily clad, and the few who were clothed didn't seem to be caring about their birthday suited neighbors. The final item of interest?

None of them were human.

I could only stare. Was I hallucinating? Did someone drug me? I pinched my face and my arm several times, and even picked up a fistful of grass and sniffed it. Nope. The grass wasn't making pretty colors and smelling like bass notes. So that meant what I was seeing was in fact, very real. Which was suddenly very concerning.

I could already start feeling my brain shut down. I was starting to panic. My thoughts began to loop. I sat there on the path and tried to calm down as this ... this new set of information flooded in and demanded attention. My distress attracted attention though. A couple of visibly female locals came over, asking if I was alright. I didn't respond at first, still in my shut down state. They decided to take matters into their own hands and picked me up, and I robotically walked with them to the local clinic.

Here, I was able to calm down a bit as a male wearing a nurse's outfit began checking me over. As he was examining me, I was looking at him. What I could identify was the following:

• His face resembled a horse or pony.
• He stood on two legs, and walked as a biped should.
• His hair, aside from the fur on his skin, was a mane.
• His fur was a sapphire blue, but his mane was a bright pink.
• He had a tail that was the same color as his mane.
• And finally, he had a horn.

With all this established, I was able to piece together what he might be: some sort of anthro unicorn. I found my voice again.

"Where .... where am I? What are you?" He was startled as he heard me talk.

"Uh, you talk? Well, you're in Stalliongrad." He had an accent I thought sounded Russian.

"I have never heard of a Stalliongrad in my life. Still, I am definitely not drugged or concussed, but I am not feeling too good." I said.

"Are you hurt? I didn't see any injuries." The nurse said.

"It's none of that. My heart is squeezing my chest and I want to just curl up and scream." I said bluntly.

"Oh. You're scared. Well, let me leave you alone for a bit." He pulled a blanket over me and set a bottle of water next to my bed as he left. I appreciated his gesture of being left alone, and eventually I sipped the water as I curled up a bit. Thoughts raged through my head, and I focused on unscrewing and screwing on the bottle cap. I knew I was panicking, and this was a bad one. My hospital environment did nothing to help, and my heart was beating in my chest like a jackhammer. My paranoid brain was running around my skull like a screaming mouse, shouting doom and death like a street soothsayer.

I had to focus. I remembered a little trick one of my friends taught me. I began counting lights on the ceiling, letting my logical side focus on that rather than the horrible situation I was in. It was not easy. At all. I knew that I was either having a terrible fever dream, or I was really in an alien world.

That last bit was too terrifying to comprehend. I began to cry, unable to hold it off as I realized I was completely marooned on a world I had no idea about, and with no way home. I buried my face in the pillow and wept like a scared, hurt child.

I might have stayed that way for hours had it not been for the fact my arrival had already been detected. And help was on its way. I heard women shout at the doctors and then I heard hooves running across the tiling. And then I was met by pink and purple. And oddly, the colors were relaxing.

This was my first interaction with Pinkemena Diane "Pinkie" Pie, and Princess Twilight Sparkle. And it was both the most insane yet the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

"Hi! We came as soon as we could." The pink one bobbed around, all smiles and joy. She introduced herself and Twilight, the latter of whom was a short distance away, waiting for Pinkie as this was her expertise.

"Huh?" I said unintelligently.

"Oh! Yeah, your coming here was a big oopsie, and we got here to help you." I also noticed she was deliciously chubby in all the right places. Especially her breasts. And she was tall too. I was starting to blush as I took all this in.

"An oopsie?" I asked her.

"Well," Twilight spoke at last, "that's a long story." I found she was this tall Amazonian figure, dressed only in a thin, Roman style dress that did absolutely nothing to hide her almost sculpted form. And here I noticed she had something else: a huge set of testicles and a sheathed penis. This confused me. Wait ... was she ... a futanari? I brushed the question in my mind to one side before I got awkward.

Twilight had ignored my staring at her sack. "Well, my personal protégé, Starlight Glimmer, was experimenting with a spell."

"So this is a magic based reality?" I asked. Now that I was analyzing the situation, my panic was abating. My brain was wrapping around as many cold hard facts as it could.

"Why yes. Yours isn't?" Twilight asked.

"Magic is merely deception and no actual magic is involved where I am from. It seems I hopped the boundaries between universes." I theorized.

"Well, hopped is the wrong term. You were pulled." Twilight said with a rueful expression.

"By who?" I asked. "Your apprentice?"

"Well, yes. Her name is Starlight Glimmer. She was ... well, asking for a boyfriend and all I could say was find him yourself. Males are rare here, only one in ten in the populace around here. Seems she ... must have used a spell to get one."

I stared in shock. After a long moment of silence, I lost my lid. First I was an icy calm.

"Are you telling me... that I was yanked across time and space and reality, just to satisfy some dumb bitch and her fetish?" I asked dangerously.

"Well ... I wouldn't put it that way..." Twilight said nervously. "But that's ... about right."

That was when I went Krakatoa. And I began cursing. But what I said was ... well, I understood the words, but it was like I had an internal universal translator.

Because I was cursing in Russian. And I shouldn't have known a word of it.

"YOU INBRED TRAIN STATION WHORE! I HOPE YOUR KIDS SHIT IN YOUR SOUP FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! YOU AND YOUR SO CALLED STUDENT ARE A PAIR OF WALRUS DICKS!" I shouted. Twilight was baffled. But the color seemed to drain out of Pinkie's face and her poofy hair went flat as if it had been ironed. The Princess looked her way.

"Um, what did he say?" She asked, darkly curious.

"You really don't want to know Twi Pie. And I instantly regret reading it." The pink pony said with a shiver. "Subtitles are really not fun."

I blinked at her. "What? What are you talking about?" I asked in confusion. Then I went cross eyed as I tried to figure out what I was doing. "Wait, why am I speaking in Russian? I shouldn't know a word of that. Yet I seem to know it like I have been speaking it all my life."

"Maybe the spell had some sort of side effect on your brain?" Pinkie asked, tilting her head.

"At least you can translate." I told her with a look of sympathy. "I am still very upset about this. I just hope Russian is all I have aside from my native English."

"I doubt it, but we can work through it." Pinkie assured me and she gave me a hug. It helped me feel better. And I reluctantly returned it.

Little did I know, Pinkie would become my touchstone to sanity.