Chapters THE MAGIC ORRERY
An MLP Fanfic
Friendship is a strange phenomenon. Growing up I always believed that friends were people who looked out for each other, who supported each other in times of hardship, and generally enjoyed each other's company. In my life, however, friendship has only ever had the opposite effect.
I didn't have any friends growing up- I made do with toys and stuffed animals, and I spent a lot of time daydreaming about magic adventures and other worlds. I guess part of me just wanted to feel like I had a purpose, a role to play in the massive, endless narrative of life. But in order to do that I needed to be driven towards a goal, I had to be confident in my actions, and most important of all, I had to be fearless in social situations. And I've never been capable of any of that.
I've always been shy, scared of interacting with others and unwilling to force my voice above the rest of the crowd. When I was younger, I always told myself it was because I was being considerate, but as I grew older that reasoning only became harder to believe. I've never known what I wanted to do with my life, and I've never trusted myself to make the right decisions when it really counted. I can only assume that my own relentless refusal to commit is what led to me breaking into an antiques store in the dead of night with three of the most obnoxious people I've ever met.
I grimace as I hear a heavy body ram into the wooden door behind me. Even after being warned beforehand it scared the bejeezus out of me- you'd think our plan to secretly infiltrate private property would involved a more clandestine method of getting inside. I say our plan, but I wasn't exactly involved. The others told me they'd devised a plan to break into the antique store near campus just this morning- they said they had it all figured out, and only needed me to come along as emergency back-up. I had every reason to believe that my role as "emergency back-up" primarily involved being used as a distraction for the police in case they had to ditch the scene of the crime, but they'd put me in worse situations before and I had always managed to escape unscathed. I was pretty sure I'd be ok, and I had just as much of a reason to turn them down as I did to accept.
But for the moment, as I'm crouching against a cold stone wall and leaning around the corner, frantically searching for any unwelcome activity in the vast darkness of the nearby parking lot, I have to wonder for a moment why I bother with any of these people. I cringe again as Kyle brings the full weight of his body against the door again, the force of the impact causing a flimsy nearby streetlight to quiver against the starless sky. I'm not a vindictive person and I've never held any ill will towards any of my friends, but I had every reason to. My party of four was infamous on my small college campus for being rude, contemptuous pricks- I was an outlier, but by affiliating with them their reputation had bled onto me as well, a fate I feel I've earned for myself. Kyle is the classic douche- constantly loud and annoying, always making jokes at the expense of others, visibly apathetic towards his appearance. Everything is funny to him, especially if it isn't funny to anyone else. His short brown hair is spiked up in the front- he's wearing khaki shorts and a blue t-shirt bearing the name of some sports team I can't be bothered to recognize.
"Good idea Kyle, if we can lure the police here they can break this door down for us," Jackie mutters under her breath. She's the least amiable person on campus, maybe even in the city, and she's definitely the most aggravating person I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Attempting to converse with her usually only leads to a steady stream of insults and pointed irritation- something she does of her own volition anyway if you try to simply leave her alone. She's leaning against the wall of the store with her arms crossed, staring out into the darkness behind the building, and clad in her iconic dusty black leather jacket.
One final collision with the door and it bursts open beneath Kyle's weight, cracking against an adjacent interior wall. "Alright, everybody get inside. The model should be in the basement," my third friend, Henry, quietly instructs from behind me. I turn around to see them all entering the store, and I follow behind them, closing the door behind me as I enter. Henry's wearing a black hoodie and black sweatpants like this is some sort of bank heist. It's a strange departure form his usual neutral sweaters and dress shirts.
Henry likes to think of himself as the leader of the group. He was valedictorian in high school and had a long history of good grades before that. Once he got to college his pride and sense of invincibility apparently got the best of him, and he descended into petty debauchery for fun, sometimes to get things that he wanted. The reason for tonight's escapade is even dumber than usual: the store had recently acquired a small model of a famous building from an anonymous source, and some historian had discovered that it was actually an original concept model built by the architect, making it worth millions of dollars. As a result, reporters had flooded the area, and our community college was doing its best to leech off of the attention. Henry tried to explain to me how the stealing of the model was supposed to bring him some sort of financial leverage, but frankly I couldn't care less, and zoned out for most of his explanation.
We slowly feel our way in the dark through row upon row of fold-out tables covered in the unidentifiable silhouettes of miscellany, the light of the moon piercing through the cracks in the old blinds and partially illuminating our path in cold light. Henry leads us all to the stairs behind the cash register desk, where we pass through another door at the bottom and into the basement storage area. This part of the store is normally inaccessible to customers, so we don't have any idea what to expect once we get inside. As Henry peers through the doorway he freezes, then visibly slumps in annoyance. "Oh for fucks... of course." He grimaces as he continues inside, Kyle and Jackie following suit. It isn't until I see the room for myself that I understand what got Henry so miffed.
The clutter of the above room is nothing in comparison to this mess. Object upon object upon object is piled high up to the ceiling against all four of the room's walls, leaving a circular cleared space in the center of the room. At least I assume they're piled against the walls- I can't actually see the walls behind all this mess. Kyle laughs and kicks a pile of old books across the floor towards Henry. "Nice plan, dipshit. How are we supposed to find a tiny model in all this?"
Henry scowls and glares at Kyle like an angry pet owner glares at a disobedient dog. "We'll find it when you pull your hands out of your ass and start looking for it. Jackie, Nathan, you too. We already went to the trouble of breaking in so get to work."
I roll my eyes and move to the opposite side of the room from the door. Normally we weren't this openly harsh towards each other, but seeing as this particular stunt could get us into trouble with the cops, tensions were running much higher than usual. Playing to my nature, I decide not to add my own fuel to the fire- I know I'll only burn up myself if I do. And to tell the truth, I don't want to fight any of them. They might be unusually abrasive people, but I always felt like they could be real, genuine friends if they gave themselves the chance, and on rare occasion I could see a potential break at friendship shine through. It never really lasted though, and at least for tonight, I'd prefer to leave them be rather than try anything that might have serious consequences.
To my left, Kyle appears to be picking items up one by one and sliding them across the floor behind him whenever they aren't a certain highly valuable scale model of a building. On my right, Jackie is sitting on the pile and toying with what looks to be a cross between a wine opener and a sextant. From the look on her face, she doesn't have any better idea of what it's supposed to be than I do.
"What even is that thing...?" I mumble to myself more than to her.
She doesn't even look up when she calmly responds, "How the hell would I know. Aren't you supposed to be looking for a house?" She looks in Kyle's direction with a hint of extra irritability in her voice, "Kyle, stop throwing your shit in my direction. It's just gonna end up back in the pile." Kyle responds by shoving his next discarded item in my direction instead. I chuckle and turn back around to my end of the pile.
As I take my first close look at its contents, I realize that the majority of the items were things I didn't even remotely recognize. Crystals suspended in bronze cages, little glass vials full of shimmering dust, wooden containers of all shapes and sizes with various foreign symbols carved into them. It was like sifting through a props bin at a fantasy ren faire. One particular item stands out to me though- it's seated on top of a tall, thin wooden table, butted up against the wall, the only item which hadn't been tossed into the pile with everything else.
It's like a small bronze orrery, about the size of a dinner plate. Its base looks like a flat bronze plate with a series of intertwining rings carved into its surface, and jutting up from the surface of the disc are 2 rods, each connected to a solar body at the end. At the end of one rod is a classical depiction of the sun, wavy triangular flames jutting out from it in all directions. At the end of the other rod is a full moon. If those are the only two bodies present, then this probably isn't a model of a solar system, unless the other planets all broke off at some point. I doubt that's the case, not only because the sun and moon are the same size, but because they're big enough to take up most of the room above the disc. Something about the contraption seems off... it's got a strange sheen to it that I can't seem to place.
"Wait a minute... what?" I turn around to see Henry holding a black binder full of spreadsheets in one hand. He's staring at the contents of one page, and the longer he stares the angrier he seems to get. "Kyle, this ledger says that the model was sold to somebody at 10:00 PM earlier tonight. That was 5 hours ago! We broke in to steal the fucking thing and it's not even here!!"
It only takes a moment for Kyle to crank up his own rage level to match Henry's own. "How is that my fault? You told me to keep my eye on the model all day and I did! By 10:00 PM the store had already closed!"
Henry clenches his fists and bites his lower lip. It's clear to me that regardless of how angry he sounds right now, it pales in comparison to the sheer amount of frustrated rage that he's managing to hold back. "It was your job to make sure it was still here! Because of you we just broke into a fucking antique store and dug through garbage for nothing!!"
"My job?" Kyle's voice is beginning to creep towards shouting volume. "Jackie was there too, she just as easily could've done something about it!"
Jackie throws herself up from the pile and points an accusing finger at Kyle. "Don't even try to pin this one on me, Kyle, you dumbass. It was obviously your job to make sure nobody bought that thing." She whips her head towards Henry with murder in her eyes, "But it was Henry's stupid plan that fell apart! Hell, it was his stupid idea in the first place! The only reason we're in this shithole in the middle of the night is so your selfish ass could get some worthless blackmail material!!"
Henry's control over his anger is starting to slip. "And my plan would've worked out fine if I wasn't forced to work with a couple of idiots like you two!"
I butt in before I lose the opportunity forever. "Hey, guys, I know that we're all under a lot of stress right now, but don't you think that rather than argue we should probably lea- WEE-OOH! "
My sentence is cut off by the short burst of a siren outside, followed by a calm voice through a megaphone: "Alright, step outside the building with your hands up."
Before I can even react, Kyle pushes past me and grabs the tall table holding the brass orrery. He rips it away from the wall and I manage to catch the device before it hits the ground, as he plants the table between the doorknob and the floor. I look back down at the device in my hands and I realize what about it looked so off to me: the image of my own hands aren't being reflected off the surface of the brass like they normally would. Instead, the brass is reflecting various shades of green, blue, and white. It's doesn't appear to be reacting to the actual light in the room at all. What on Earth am I looking at?
"Kyle, what the hell are you doing??" My attention is brought back to the more immediately pressing issue at hand by Jackie's voice as she passes by me to grab Kyle's shoulder. "Why would we barricade ourselves in here? There aren't any other exits!!"
"What else are we supposed to do?" Kyle stammers. I can't help but feel a little bad for him once I hear the fear in his voice, but that feeling fades when his tones transitions to yet more anger rather than panic. "I'm not getting arrested over a fucking model house! And if we go back up there we'll be in handcuffs immediately! Why do I ever listen to any of you, you're more trouble than you're worth!" As he says this, I feel the device in my hands begin to stir. I look down to see that the marks on the surface of the disc aren't just carvings- they're individual rings. They slowly begin to rise out of the base and around the two heavenly bodies.
"I'm more trouble than I'm worth??" Henry spits, "I'm not the frat house meat head or the fake punk lowlife! Why can't you two act a little less like grunts for once?"
Jackie is starting to get far angrier than I've ever seen her before. "Why can't you act a little less like a rich kid genius for a change? Why can't you just be fucking normal like the rest of us? You always need to act like you've got somewhere to be, yet you're going to school at a small town community college! Wake up!"
"Don't make me repeat myself. Step outside, with your hands up, now." I can sense the officer outside losing his patience, but it's nothing compared to what's going down in here. As the arguing escalates I feel the largest remaining disc in my hand start to get warm. The rings of the device are spinning around the sun and moon in various directions, and picking up speed, as the two bodies begin spiraling towards the center. I might just be seeing things, but... I think this thing is starting to glow.
"I'm the asshole, Jackie? You're the one who doesn't seem to understand how to stop being a massive dick all the time!"
"Oh, shut the fuck up, Kyle, nobody wants to hear what the meathead jock has to say. Why don't you gain a personality trait other than 'likes football'?"
Ok, yeah, this thing is definitely glowing. And spinning, very fast.
"What does any of this matter if neither of you know how to act like normal fucking human- NATHAN WILL YOU TURN OFF THAT FUCKING FLASH- " Henry and the rest of the room go quiet as everyone turns to look at me. Or at least, it would go quiet, if not for the increasingly loud whirring of whatever the hell I'm holding in my hands right now. "I... Nathan what is that?"
At this point I'm only half paying attention to everything else going on in the room. The machine in my hands has started to spin so fast that the rings are becoming blurs around the spheres in the center. The spheres in question, which at first were very slowly spiraling around each other towards the center, were quickly beginning to pick up speed. And the whole thing is glowing so brightly it's getting hard to look at it anymore. "Nathan... Nathan, Jesus Christ, dude, drop that thing. Drop it!"
"Alright, that's it, I'm coming inside!" I think I hear the distant noise of someone barging through a door, but I only barely notice. My hands let go of the large outside ring, and as it's released it immediately accelerates to match the other rings. It doesn’t appear to be very fond of physics, seeing as it also refuses to fall even an inch from where I let go of it, instead remaining frozen in space above the floor. It continues to glow brighter until all that remains visible are the sun, the moon, a blinding light, and the shadows of my friends on the pile of junk behind them. As the two bodies reach the center of their orbit, they do something that practically breaks my mind: like magnets snapping into each other, the two brass spheres pass through each other and merge , and in their place leave a tiny solar eclipse- a peach-sized blind spot in a sea of white. In the blink of an eye, a chromatic corona bursts forth from the void sphere, flooding everything in the room with rainbow light and forcing it out of existence. I can only barely hear the beginnings of screams from my friends, and the sound of footsteps running down stairs, as the very world around me is torn asunder.
It's as if I'm flying at breakneck speeds in all directions at once. I can still feel my body, my muscle, bone, and flesh, but it twists and turns against the onslaught of color in exaggerated, meaningless ways that I cannot see. In the distance, however, I can see a figure- an elongated, horizontal shade, almost like a ghost or a glare off a window. I can't parse its exact shape or size, but parts of it appear to be flowing outward from its center mass like hair in the wind, and an enormous spike protrudes from what I think might be a head. As I stare at the only thing left remaining in my personal world, I almost feel like I can sense it staring back. And then, as if to confirm my feelings, the shade opens its two blinding white eyes, bathing my consciousness in light and completely tearing it apart.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading! This is essentially the prologue chapter, but as it's my first story I'm going to publish it anyway just to make sure I don't accidentally lose all the progress. More will be coming soon, I assure you!
At first there was only darkness when I regained consciousness. I couldn't feel anything, see anything, hear anything- I was alone in the endless black. The first thing I regain is my hearing, and the first thing I hear is the wind.
It is so very, very soft. I have a feeling that, if it weren't for the absence of my other senses, I wouldn't have noticed it. It has all the force of a gentle whisper; its sound cascades over me in a tide of peace and calm. As I float here, listening, I can hear something else flowing to the rhythm of the air.
It feels like... grass. That has to be what it is. There's grass all around me, it sounds like, as I can hear the faint rush of their collective wave as it glides towards and over me from the distance, again and again. It's under me, too- I know because it's the first thing I can feel. Soft blades rest against against my body on all sides, with just enough force to tickle but not enough to irritate. My sense of smell returns to me, and they smell... strong. Not like, too strong, it's not an overwhelming scent, but it's... I don't remember grass smelling like this. It smells sweet- almost mouth-wateringly so.
What? That's not right, grass isn't supposed to smell delicious. I jolt my head upright to snap myself out of whatever strange funk I was just caught in. I open my eyes, and my breath stops in my lungs as the most beautiful vista I've ever seen spreads out before me.
I'm lying in some sort of meadow. Wave upon wave of brilliant emerald grass rolls out from under me and far into the distance, like a giant ruffled comforter. Bright yellows, soft periwinkles, and lush vermilions freckle the landscape in the form of hundreds of thousands of flowers. My current position on one of the higher hills gives me a perfect view of the surrounding area- beyond the edge of the hills below rests a tranquil wood, its twisting gingerbread trunks topped with a lush canopy of gold and green. And beyond that, far into the distance, bold lavender mountain crests tear into the sky, almost fully encircling the hemisphere before me. I squint. I think I can see something out there... something clinging to the face of the mountain ridge.
It looks like... a fortress. Like an elven kingdom, straight out of Lord of the Rings. But instead of white towers and silver arches, the castle before me looks like something out of a Mary Blair illustration, albeit many times more brilliantly rendered. Its tall gold and violet spires catch the light of the sun perfectly, and the whole edifice seems to glow with a divine aura. Water freely flows off the edge of the marble precipice the castle rests on, cascading downward and disappearing into the billowing mountain mists below. Stranger still, even from this distance I can see birds circling above the fortress, occasionally diving down into its walls or rising from them. If they are birds, then they must be big, big birds. After several minutes of staring, only one, clean question rings out in my mind.
Where the fuck am I.
I hear a muffled groan to my left and am startled out of my thoughts. A figure pushes itself up from the grass a couple yards away from me. It looks like... a horse, of some sort. Although I've never seen a horse with soft rosy fur and a shimmering silver and white mane. I get the feeling that very few people have.
It only manages to push its front half off the ground, its thin, elegant legs wobbling and struggling to stay up. The horse flicks its tail up from the grass and I see that it's much longer than a horse tail, and devoid of any hair except for a little puff at the end. Pink fluff billows around its small hooves, and piercing through its body-length waterfall of a mane is a long, spiraling pearl horn. I realize what I'm looking at: it's not a horse. It's a fucking unicorn.
My voice is caught in my throat and I'm unable to squee with excitement at the fact that I'm mere yards away from a mythical creature. Fortunately for me, the unicorn's voice fills the empty air for me.
"Guh, Celestia... what the buck happened?"
Ok, that's not exactly how I expected a unicorn to talk. I didn't really expect a unicorn to talk at all, but seeing as they're mythical creatures the ability to speak isn't much of stretch- its voice was about what I would have expected anyway, vaguely reminding me of wind chimes. I'm mostly surprised at the tangible exhaustion and acid in its voice. There were a couple words in there I didn't even recognize, but again, it should be more surprising that a unicorn can speak English at all.
"I swear to the sun, Henry, the next time you get us into something like this I'm-"
For a brief moment, I see a familiar flash of color reflected in the creature's eyes. Its pupils dilate slowly as it stares off into the distance for a moment. Its eyelids flicker, and then, as if waking up from a daydream, it shakes its head back and forth a few times, silver hair flailing everywhere. It quickly pushes itself up from the ground and onto its four tall, spindly legs, and I'm taken aback for a moment by the sudden change in dexterity. It must've still been sleep-addled the last time it tried to stand up. Wait a minute... did it say Henry?
"My mane!!" My reclining body jumps a little at the unicorn's sudden outburst. "GUH, Mellow Breeze, this is the LAST time I follow you on some foolish adventure into the meadows for long periods of time! I look terrible!!"
My immediate confusion at the unicorn's sudden change in demeanor is cut short as my attention is brought to another figure a ways away on my right. A smaller magenta figure rises out of the grass and stumbles back and forth on its legs for a moment, before falling back to the ground. Red and maroon hair tumbles over its eyes and muzzle.
"If you idiots had just followed my plan this wouldn't have happ... ened..."
The rainbow glow appears again in this other horse's eyes, but I'm too distracted by what it just said to really pay attention. Something about a plan? I distantly remember a plan of some sort, but right now my head feels like I've been rolling down a hill for the past ten minutes. Maybe that's what I've been doing?
"Your mane's fine, Glitterdust, you're just a pretty as you always are. Half the reason I brought you out here is so you could learn to chill out for a sec." The horse yawns and stretches her legs, as well as her... wings.
My mind reels again as two huge gold and red wings splay outwards from the sides of this tiny pony. I can see the muscles flex and turn underneath the fur, and the light passing through the very slightly translucent feathers makes the appendages look almost like stained-glass windows. It's absolutely gorgeous, and my heart stops in my chest. I'm looking at a pegasus, a real pegasus here, right in front of me, next to a unicorn. I think I might pee myself.
The unicorn blushes a deep, glittery shade of pink. "I-I... thank you! I mean, of course! Yes, no, of course, you're right, it's fine. I'm fine!" She twists her long, slender neck to the side to hide her face, still blushing, and mumbles quietly, "Pretty as always..."
The pegasus stops stretching and laughs cheerfully. "Well, I think we've been gone for long enough. We'd better hoof it back to Ponyville. Empathy, wake up. We gotta go."
I hear another groan, this time very nearby. I turn my behind me to see a little teal pony flutter its eyes groggily and raise its head. Darker teal bangs drift about its eyes on the right side of its face, and its mane in the back is put up into a tiny ponytail. It winces as its bright pink eyes absorb sunlight for the first time in hours.
"Kyle, Henry, when I'm done with you idiots there's not gonna be anything lef-"
The pony stops when his eyes meet mine. As the rainbow light glows in his eyes, the agitation and fury in his expression fades away completely. His pupils dilate and he stares at me, wordlessly. I can see the faint wisps of recollection forming in his mind, his brow twitching as the pieces come together for him. Finally, he whispers...
"...Grasswhistle?"
Um. Excuse me? Was that directed at me? I'm about to turn around to check if there's a fourth pony on my other side, but then I catch my reflection in the blue pony's eyes. It looks... off. Sort of stubby... with big eyes, pointy ears, and...
My stare shoots downwards at my own body. Or at least, where my body should have been. Instead of my arms and chest, below me I see two yellow-green horse legs, complete with fur and hooves. I spin my head around and accidentally roll myself over in the process- from between my legs, I can see another pair of legs farther back, and beyond that... a fluffy green tail flicks back and forth through the air.
Before my brain can react with words, I realize I'm already screaming.
I thrash around in the grass, desperately trying to gain my bearings, but these stupid horse limbs just don't bend like human limbs do, and I keep falling on my face whenever I try to stand up. The blue horse from earlier keeps trying to hold me still (or hug me, I can't really tell) but I'm far too panicky to adhere.
"Whistle! Whistle, please calm down, what's going on??" Much to my surprise, upon hearing his voice, my tantrum almost immediately peters out. There's something strangely calming about the sound of his voice, it's like my body can't resist. Suddenly, both his arms are around my neck, and he's pulling me upwards and against his chest, so that I'm sitting on my haunches. He's hugging me tight, and it's clear he's not going to let me go until I'm ok.
And... I am. I feel a lot better. I should be freaking out, I should be going crazy right now, I woke up as a green horse in a Disney landscape. But I can't help but feel profoundly safe in his arms. I return the hug to the best of my ability- I don't want to let go.
The unicorn and pegasus have run over to our side, looks of concern plastered on both their faces. The winged one squats down beside me. "Empathy, Whistle, what happened?"
"I don't know. Grasswhistle started panicking when I said his name." The little teal stallion turned back to me, and the worry in his eyes was palpable. It almost looked like he was about to cry- I almost started tearing up myself.
"I... I don't..." The sound of my own voice unnerved me. That's not what it used to sound like right? What the hell is going on? Questions and memories flicker about inside my head as I try to weave together some sort of explanation. I remember... something about a plan... we were... we! Kyle... Kyle, Henry, and... and Jackie! We were indoors... the antique store, that strange device... the police showed up, the rainbows...
I sit up a bit as I start to generate some real questions. I was indoors, in an antique store! How did I get here? And who were these three talking horses I woke up next to? As soon as I asked myself that last question, it dawned on me.
"...J... Jackie...?" I stare back into the teal pony's eyes. He doesn't appear to register that name at all. "Whistle, I don't understand what you're saying. What's a jackey?"
He doesn't recognize the name, but I can't resist the terrible feeling that I know who I'm looking at right now. I look back at the unicorn and the pegasus. "...Kyle? Henry?"
The unicorn winces and rears her head back a tad. "Empathy, is Grasswhistle speaking another language or is this headache I have more serious than I thought?"
"I don't know." The little stallion turns back to me. "Whistle, you look like you've seen a ghost. Do we need to take you to the hospital?"
I can't see my own face, but I don't doubt that he's right. It certainly feels like I'm looking at a ghost. And my hunch is cutting at me too deeply to ignore it any longer.
"Jackie..." I speak up, "...you three. Kyle, Henry, and Jackie, it's you isn't it? It has to be! What happened to you? What happened to me??"
The stallion, whom I'm pretty sure is Jackie but whom the other two keep calling Empathy, only looks more perplexed. "Grasswhistle, I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Those aren't our names and all we've done today is walk out to the meadows to take a nap. Unless that's what you mean by something happening to us?"
"Well, something definitely happened to him. He went crazy in his sleep." The pegasus' laugh is cut off by a small jab to the shoulder from Glitterdust... er, Kyle. "Mellow, he's clearly having a panic attack, show some tact for once." Mellow Breeze, the pegasus, just scowls and crosses her front legs. She has to be Henry... I know it.
"My name isn't Grasswhistle!" I huff, although saying that somehow feels like I'm lying to myself. "It's Nathan! And you three aren't horses, you're my three human friends Kyle, Henry, and Jackie! We were just in the basement of an antique store stealing a little house, like, what feels like minutes ago! How do you all not remember? You were all bickering about it when you woke up!"
My outburst receives nothing but silence and empty stares from all sides, even from Empath- ugh, Jackie. Pegasus Henry just turns around and starts walking away. "Yep, he's crazy."
Unicorn Kyle exhales and looks me in the eyes, not bothering to crouch down to my height. "Whistle, dear, not only have we been in this field nearly all day, there aren't any antique stores for miles around, not even in Ponyville. We aren't thieves! We aren't horses either, we're ponies, and we're certainly not..." She scoffs, "...hyu-ming!"
"I... what? Ponyville? Where are we? Why are you insisting you're not human?? How the hay did we-"
I feel a hoof gently fall over my mouth- stallion Jackie is softly shushing me. "Whistle-"
"Nathan!" That was louder than I intended it to be. For a brief moment, guilt washes over me, until I remember that Jackie was mean to me all the time and I never retaliated. She deserves my anger! But... right now she's being unusually kind, completely unlike how she ordinarily is. What's going on? Am I sure that these are my friends?
"Gra-" Jackie stops, debating something quietly in his head before continuing. "...N-Nathan. It's clear you're really scared right now. It's not safe for you to be all the way out here when you're in a state like this- we need to get back to Po... town, and get you some rest. I promise you, once we get there, we can start trying to figure this out. Ok?" He smiles gently.
I don't understand what sort of supernatural powers Jackie gained when she turned into a little blue male horse, but it is impossible for me to panic or disagree with him when he speaks to me like that. In stunned silence I simply nod and try to stand up, only to fall back down onto my elbows. Panic hits me again when I realize what had caused that flailing episode earlier: I don't know how to walk.
Emp- Jackie's gaze somehow looks even more concerned. "Nathan? Are you ok?"
Weakly, I lift my head to look up at the pony and unicorn that stand before me. "I-I... I can't walk." I look back down at the grass in shame. "...I don't know how."
The blood drains from Glitterdust/Kyle's already rather pale face. "Y-you can't? But... you walked all the way here? How did you-?"
Without warning, I feel a couple soft, magenta legs wrap around me and pull me into the air. "Doesn't matter right now," I hear Mellow Breeze/Henry's voice from behind me, "let's just get him back to Pony-... town, then we can figure out what happened. Hurry up, I can't hold him for too long." I start gliding in the air over the grass, Henry still latched onto me tightly. Kyle and Jackie follow behind and quickly surpass us, easily catching up to Mellow Breeze's carefree speed. Guess that's where she got her name.
Guh, no, but it's not her name. Her name's Henry! His name is Henry! My thoughts are interrupted by the loud growling of my stomach. Henry laughs quietly to herself. "Yeah, I'm starving too, Whistle. When we get back to Ponyville we'll nab something to eat."
I don't have the energy to argue with her anymore. Even though I desperately want my friends back, I quickly realize that I'm in a foreign land I don't recognize, and I have no idea how to get home. I'm going to need their help in order to survive in this place for as long as I'm here- then when the time comes, I'll bring their memories back. I have a terrifying feeling that I'm going to be the one that'll have to figure that part out... after all, I'm the only one who has any memory of my humanity at all.
Home Is Where Your Heart Was Supposed To Be
By all means, I should be much more terrified by the situation we've all ended up in, but for some reason I feel fairly calm and collected. I'd credit the peace to the two furry forelegs hugging me from above and holding me close, making me feel safe, if not for the fact that they belong to my brainwashed friend who, being human, shouldn't ever be in possession of two furry forelegs, let alone forelegs at all. I think back to my exchange with Jackie, and how her voice had centered me again every time I started to panic. I don't remember her being so calming. Of course, I don't think I've experienced any kindness from her since I've met her- until today, that is.
I twist my neck to look up at the pegasus carrying me, faltering briefly when it bends with disturbing dexterity. Fluffy locks of hair tumble about her face, reminding me of an alpaca whose bangs have grown over their eyes. Her expression is hard to read behind the tumbleweed mane, as well as (from my perspective) upside-down, but what I can make out reads something between 'boredom' and 'smugness'. I have to force myself to remember that the stubby winged horse holding me six feet above the ground is my stringent friend, Henry- apart from my own memories, there's no way to tell. I'm not sure how long I can hold on to my brief memory of when we woke up in the valley, the short moment during which their original personalities had shone through, before I start questioning my sanity.
We'd left the valley through the wooded area I'd seen earlier, at the base of the hills. The cinnabar light filtering through Henry's wings seems right at home among the recently fallen leaves scattered about the forest floor. The colors of this forest feel... wrong, to me. They're too rich, and too perfect, almost as if the trees had been painted upwards from the ground, the leaves stippled in between the branches, and the clouds, or at least those which I can see through the dense foliage, brushed and twirled across the sky. It just doesn't seem real, and in my head I toy with an earlier thought I had, that this all might be a dream. I wish that were the case, I really do, if it meant I could have my friends back- but there's just enough realness present to quash that theory. I can still feel the wind subtly brush across my fur, and I can smell something like dead leaves and (what I assume to be) horse. All too vivid to be a dream.
Part of me wants to say something to Henry, anything to break the silence. But I'm afraid of the pain I'll incur when the voice which responds isn't his. I have to wonder, without his voice, body, or mind, if this is even Henry anymore. Is it just his personality which has changed, leaving his consciousness intact and his old memories locked away somewhere? Is someone's personality integral to their selfhood? Was it possible that the small equine gliding above me actually wasn't my friend, at least not anymore, less Henry and more Soft Breeze... no, wait, that wasn't her name.
I twist my neck again to look up towards Henry. "Um, what did you say your name was again?"
She makes a face like I'd just claimed that Earth was flat, then turns her gaze downward to make eye contact with me, her lackadaisical expression replaced by one of genuine confusion. "You forgot my name? Did you hit your head on something in your sleep, Whistle?"
I mentally facepalm. Of course, you idiot, you forgot that they all seem to know who you are. Or at least, they think they know who you are. Maybe I'm the one who doesn't know who I am? I shake off that thought, I won't be able to fix any of this if I start confusing myself like that. "Right, sorry, haha..." I manage to stammer out. Hold on, why am I not just being honest with her?
"I mean-... well actually, um, I don't really remember anything. Like I said I don't... I don't think we're supposed to be here, or be tiny horses, for that matter..." I don't know why I'm sugarcoating it. We're supposed to be humans, not Candy Land side characters.
Henry stifles a groan, and I get the feeling she's trying to prevent herself from making me feel stupid, though I don't really think that's avoidable at this point. "Listen, um, whatever you said your name was. I really don't think I'm the best one to talk to about this, especially not now. Let's just hold off on it till we get back to town, okay? I promise we'll talk about it then." She doesn't say it with much confidence, clearly worried she's going to say something wrong or that'll make me freak out again. As much as I want to lash out at this nightmare, I feel like she's right, and I do trust her, strangely enough.
"...Okay, yeah, I'll wait. I'm sorry I brought it up." I try to force a smile but I doubt I managed anything convincing.
"Don't apologize, you didn't do anything wrong." She smirks back, but when she returns her gaze to the path ahead it quickly fades into dejection. "And... it's Mellow Breeze, by the way. Please... please don't forget it this time."
The genuine misery I can hear in her voice tears at my heart, and I can't even bear to say anything in response, instead opting to look back down at the orange and golden leaves soaring past and behind us. She doesn't say anything else, only hugging me closer to her chest. We glide our way through the remainder of the forest in silence.
I'm starting to nod off when I notice that the forest ahead is becoming less dense. Beyond the trees, I can make out a shapeless splotch of pink and gold, too far away to make out any more intricate details. Hoofsteps crunch the leaves behind us as Jackie and Kyle catch up to Henry and I.
"We're here, finally," the posh voice of the unicorn mare groans, "it felt twice as long walking back as it did walking there in the first place. My hooves feel like they're about to break off."
Above me, Henry chuckles under her breath. "You say that after every walk we go on, regardless of where we go. I'm starting to think your version of discomfort is everyone else's normal."
"Don't be so hard on her, Mellow..." I swivel my neck around in Jackie's direction. His somber expression and quiet voice show genuine concern for Kyle. "Different ponies have different levels of stamina. None are any less normal than the others."
Kyle scoffs derisively and flips her mane to the side. "She should hope you're right, seeing as she has the vitality of a salted slug."
Henry only groans, but Jackie turns towards the unicorn with shock in his eyes. "Glitterdust?! Is that any way to talk about a friend?"
"But she-!"
"It doesn't matter what she said, that doesn't mean you should follow her lead! What if you'd seriously hurt her feelings?"
"Oh, please, as if Mellow Breeze would ever be emotionally vulnerable."
Henry feigns a sob, "It's true! You wound me, Glitter! My innocent little heart has shattered!" I can't help but to laugh, though I stifle it as best I can. I can practically feel Kyle rolling her eyes behind me.
"Regardless," Jackie continues, "Mellow cares about you and you care about her, you shouldn't jeopardize something as important as friendship over a mean comment."
I twist my head around to my left side just fast enough to catch Kyle's blush before it fades. She turns her head away from us again and pouts feebly. "I... I suppose, yes..."
My brain still hasn't adapted to the huge differences between my friends as they are now and their original selves. Jackie, infamous on my college campus for being the only person we knew mean enough to kick a puppy, was now practically sporting puppy-dog eyes himself. Even aside from being transformed from a human woman into a diminutive blue stallion, his new personality couldn't be any further from his old one. The sparkling, sophisticated unicorn mare behind me, who apparently can't walk for 30 minutes without getting tired, was supposed to be the same guy that had gotten kicked out of his frat house for burning a coffee table on the roof during a weekly party. And Henry, the valedictorian-to-be and oftentimes insufferable prick, was now a pegasus mare who, judging by her complacent half-lidded gaze, looked like she had her head stuck in the clouds just as often as she flew through them.
"Empathy, you're right. Mellow, I'm sorry."
"It's cool, Glitter, don't worry about it. I'm sorry too."
It occurs to me, all of a sudden, why I'm not panicking over their sudden change in character like I should be, and not just because of Jackie's newly acquired powers of pacification. It's because my fear of losing them is being over-ridden by my anger and my jealousy. I deserved to tell them off, to get my revenge for how they had treated me and everyone else in the past. Though I hadn't spoken up or done anything during all that time, lying to myself that I wasn't like them, better than them even, I secretly understood in the pit of my heart that I was only biding my time before I struck back. And now that they're miraculously enjoyable to be around, I can't retaliate, or I'll suddenly be the bad one instead of them. Worse still, all three of them are blissfully unaware of what they'd done. The thought alone is enough to make me unconsciously grind my teeth together. My brain decides, then, that for the rest of the day I am going to be irritated, defensive, and unwilling to take shit from anybody.
"Here we are," Henry says, "home sweet home."
I turn back around, and what I see immediately blows my previous decision apart.
Before me sits a sprawling, colorful village that looks as if it jumped straight out of a Little Golden Book. The path beneath us transitions from dirt to what looks like concrete as we enter the town. It expands outward to become something like a main street, with smaller paths of varying sizes and shapes jutting out in seemingly random places like tributaries flowing into a river. The streets are surrounded on all sides by dozens upon dozens of thatched-roof, tudor-style houses. No two houses seems to share the same design: some of them are one story, some two or three; some are connected by arching wooden or stone bridges which seem to leap over the paths below them; some of them even look like two houses slapped together, with upper stories sticking out and looming overhead in ways that almost seem impossible. The rooftops, every one of them identical and golden yellow in hue, collapse slightly inward in the middle, giving them the appearance of a fluffy comforter draped over a pillow fort. Rosy pink shutters bookend the windows, and the otherwise plain walls are covered with decorative hearts and swirls. Shrubs and cypresses were jammed between the houses wherever there was available space. Looming over the wall of homes and greenery was a large wooden windmill, slowly but steadily spun by the light breeze. Judging by visual aesthetics alone, the village exuded amiability, if you ignored the faint ramshackle aftertaste.
Most surprising, I find, is that I'm less overwhelmed by the saccharine charm of the small town than I am by the people living in it. It'd be more accurate to say that there aren't people living in it at all. The entire town is populated by small, colorful ponies.
When my three hypnotized friends implied that this is where they lived, I suppose I should have figured that it would be filled with denizens who looked similar to them- or, I guess, us. I mean, the town is called *Ponyville*, after all. But I suppose that in my confusion over what had happened to us, my brain hadn't yet fully processed that we really were no longer human. Consequently, the revelation that the town is full of hundreds of sentient pastel horses hits me like a bag of bricks.
As we travel further into the village, the crowd starts to grow, and I desperately try to process everything I'm seeing. Stands and tents are set up all along the side of the road, and ponies of all shapes, sizes, and colors walk from booth to booth. I spot one of them dumping a bag of gold coins onto a table, pushing a few of the coins towards the pony on the other side as they do so. The shopkeeper then bends her neck down and comes back up with a bouquet of wildflowers wrapped in paper. The buyer takes the flowers with a smile, then promptly takes a large bite out of it and keeps walking down the street.
A few pegasi dip and soar in the sky above town, occasionally touching down and adjusting their wings a bit before merging with the rest of the crowd. From what I can see of Henry's expression, she looks a tad bit disappointed that she's stuck carrying me near the ground rather than flying through the clouds with her kin. I can't say I blame her- I'd prefer the air to the streets any day. Of course, I'd also love to know how to walk .
A couple of older ponies sit on small piles of hay underneath the shade of a balcony, engaged in a friendly conversation. Fillies and colts gallop across the main street, playing what looks to me like tag. A few of them are playing with a rolling hoop, but curiously enough the hoop seems to be rolling entirely of its own accord. I squint, and notice something... odd, about their toy.
It's glowing, almost as if it were made out of a glow-in-the-dark material, which of course couldn't be the case, seeing as the sun is still high in the sky. The glow also seems to illuminating the hoop, rather than radiating from it. It almost seems as if it's surrounded by a small, localized field of light.
Something else catches my eye, and I breath catches in my throat as I start to put the pieces together. The filly in the group furthest from the hoop is a unicorn, and the horn poking out from her crow's nest mane is surrounded in a similar glow of the exact same color. Her head is lowered slightly and, though she doesn't appear to be concentrating very hard, she's clearly preoccupied by something.
The dots connect, and my breathing quickens ever so slightly as my eyes dart around the square again, wondering how I could've missed something so substantial. Another unicorn, a green stallion, walks up to a stand and, as I watch, completely dumbfounded, a tied pouch floats out from the pack slung over his back, bathed in a magenta glow. Another unicorn approaches the door of a home and, just as she's about to reach it, a mint green aura engulfs the door and it swings inward. All around me, objects and furniture are being manipulated by lightfields in every color of the rainbow, and I clench my eyes shut as I force myself not to panic. After waking up in a fantasy world with a unicorn and a pegasus, telekinesis shouldn't really be that shocking, right? It's just another straw on the horse's back, though I wonder briefly how much straw I can hold before my own back breaks, along with my already shaken mind. I rub my sinuses with my fetlocks. When did I learn so much equine terminology?
"Brace yourselves, everypony." I'm snapped out of my burgeoning panic attack by the sound of Henry's voice. "I think the pink one is coming our way."
I trace her gaze with my own and spot a bouncing pink cloud in the distance. As it hops in our direction, it zips from booth to booth, waving and grinning widely at the ponies nearby, all of whom smile and wave back, as if greeting a cherished friend. As the cloud gets closer I can confirm my assumption that it is, in fact, a pony- entirely pink from head to hoof, though her mane and tail are of a significantly darker shade. She has a look on her face like she had just won the lottery, reunited with a long-lost sibling, and met Santa Claus, all at the same time. I almost shrink back into myself as she approaches, as if I'm getting too close to a storm.
Jackie trots in front of us from behind, with a big, cheery smile on his face, and says, "Hi, Pink-"
"NEW PONIES!!"
Jackie flinches, and Henry suddenly freezes in midair. Jackie turns around, and I twist my head around as well, only to see Kyle also glancing behind herself. There's no one else behind us that the pink pony could be referring to.
"Wh-"
"Ohmygosh Ohmygosh OhmyGOSH nobody told me there would be anybody new arriving today!! I'm so exCITED because today was already a great day but it was a little bit boring and normal not saying I have a problem with that but I wanted to do something FUN and I wanted to throw a party but there wasn't anything to throw a party aBOUT and I was GONNA throw a 'Pinkie Throws A Party Party' but Twilight told me I shouldn't because it would be 'paradoxable' and confusing and I was like 'parties aren't confusing, parties always make sense!' but-"
"Woah, OK, Pinkie Pie, slow down a sec..." I feel Henry's hold on me loosen as she lowers me down to the ground, onto my hooves. My knees buckle a bit when I remember I still don't know how to walk. I opt to just stand as still as possible instead. "You know I can't think that fast."
"Right, sorry! I'm just really super happy excited!!" Pinkie's bounce had lowered closer to the ground, and she's bouncing so fast it practically looks like she's vibrating. I know it isn't possible, but I ignore it, out of genuine fear that I'll lose it if I try to wrap my head around any more scientific impossibilities.
Jackie's brow is pinched upward in confusion. "Pinkie, um... the new ponies... where are they?"
"They're where you are, silly! Because they are you! Also wow I can't believe you already know my name, I must have even more friends than I thought I did! YAY!" Her grin somehow stretches even wider before it's replaced with a small frown and a raised brow. "Or I suppose you could have done your research, but nopony does research other than Twilight!" The grin returns. "She's an egghead!"
Kyle joins us on our left, looking equally confused as the rest of us, Jackie and Henry because this pony they supposedly know seems to have forgotten them, and me because I've never met anyone so incredibly energetic and... perplexing, in my life. At least, I don't think I have.
"Pinkie Pie," Kyle starts, "we aren't new ponies, we already know you. I'm Glitterdust, remember? I moved here from Canterlot three years ago to start a jewelry shop?"
Pinkie Pie frowns. "Nope, doesn't ring a bell! I don't ever forget a friend! And I'm positive I've never met any of you before in my life! EVER!"
The wide grin that follows this statement couldn't be in any further contrast to the borderline horror-stricken faces of my three friends. As for me, I almost have to hide a smirk, because I know for a fact that they're all reconsidering how they reacted to my 'episode' earlier. I could prove, now, both to them and myself, that we did come from Earth, we are humans, and we most definitely have not lived in this fantasy horse world our entire lives.
"...oh, except for Grasswhistle. Hi, Grasswhistle!"
...god damnit.
Author's Note
Hey y'all, thanks for reading! As my first story I want to make sure I fully understand what I'm doing with this before I continue. It might be a short while before I finish another chapter, but there will be another one. Thanks for sticking around!
Far, far below Canterlot...
Beneath the abandoned crystal mines...
An ancient and forgotten throne, untarnished by time, presides over an eternally empty crystal court.
The dark, frigid chambers of the ancient castle speak of power and conquest. Now, only silence rules these halls.
Deeper still, however, lies evidence of more recent occupation- a crumbling, abandoned laboratory. Ancient, yes, but practically modern relative to the crystalline tomb within which it lies.
Decrepit texts and brittle alembics litter the large room; runes circles marked on the floor in chalk have all faded away centuries ago. Standing in stark contrast to this pitiful display, however, is a colossal, bronze, house-sized orrery.
An uninformed onlooker might assume that the giant mechanical model of the celestial bodies is, in fact, only a statue. Its curving arms twist about in the darkness like the corpse of a phantom puppet-master. Runes and labels line every surface, projection and wheel, hidden beneath a thick layer of dust. Two colossal spheres dominate the structure- one imitating the sun, the other the moon, both resting quietly in the gloom like twin sovereigns awaiting their subjects. The room is frozen in time- every passing moment might as well have been the second before, or after.
Then, with neither warning nor ceremony, the silence is shattered. The Orrery awakens.
It stretches its sweeping bronze limbs, breathing deeply of the magic which permeates its structure. Gears and cogs are given new life, sounding a steady beat throughout the ancient fortress. The shadow of the space is pierced as the replicated celestial bodies begin to glow- softly, almost imperceptibly at first, but gradually brighter until the laboratory is illuminated as if it were being observed by the actual sun. The bodies, one blue and the other red, begin to move along mirrored paths, encroaching on the center slowly and surely but steadily increasing in speed. A soft whirring increases in volume, vibrating the crystalline walls and knocking books and apparatuses off of shelves in turn. The light of the great machine becomes blinding as the two spheres reach their destination in the center of the dais and merge into a brilliant, permeating magenta aura.
The orrery holds that final note for a glorious moment, then as abruptly as the performance begun, the entire contraption goes dark in and instant. Several silent minutes pass, almost as if the show hadn't happened at all. Then... color.
A burst of rainbow light floods the room, refracting though the crystal walls of the chamber and bouncing back in every direction. The colorful, victorious applause, however, is cut short.
The room freezes once again. Iridescent light flows and stretches through the room like cobwebs. Slowly, very slowly, the light is pulled towards the back corner of the room like blood draining from a body. In this corner lies a crumbling, diamond-shaped crystal altar, legendary in its time but forgotten since. The rainbow light draws past it, ignorant and uncaring of its history, towards the far edge of the chamber. Gradually, the entirety of the web is pulled into the shadows, seeps into the ground and is snuffed out. Darkness returns to the laboratory as the orrery twists back into resting position to resume its eternal slumber.
There is a brief minute of peace. It's ended when something in the floor stirs.
The orrery was the first ancient relic in the room to wake up this day. It won't be the last.
"I'm sorry, but I swear I've never met you before in my life."
The pink pony looks terribly confused. Kyle's stare tells me she's losing patience with me, Jackie looks like he's desperately hoping this is all some terrible prank, and Henry is floating upside down, batting something around between her hooves.
The pink one, who I've gathered is named "Pinkie Pie" (evidence so far is pointing towards all ponies having ridiculous names) tries again: "But I know you have! I threw you a party and everything! You didn't forget already, did you?" Panic and distress briefly surface in her expression, and I feel a little guilty even though I know I didn't actually do anything wrong. "I know it's been a long time since you've been in Ponyville, but I thought my parties were a little more memorable than that..."
Just as quickly, the pain falls away and is replaced by a wide, devious grin. "...or did you think you could fool your way into a second welcome party? " She throws herself up onto her hind legs and crosses her forelegs over her barrel, brow furrowed with purpose. "No way, mister!! Welcome parties are a one-time deal! Otherwise, they wouldn't feel as super extra-special, would they?"
Pinkie's grave expression is broken by a huge gasp, and she jumps in surprise, freezing in mid-air for impact. "Wait just a sugar-sprinkled second! Are you moving back to Ponyville?? "
I stutter a bit. "W... I mean technically I n-"
Suddenly we're muzzle to muzzle and she has a forehoof on each of my shoulders. "That means I can throw you a 'Welcome Back' party!!!" She emphasizes that last bit by swinging her arm through the air in a sweeping motion, and as she does so, confetti explodes all around us with a rather satisfying squeaking noise, and sending me rocketing three feet into the air in shock. Where had all that confetti even come from?
"And I can throw it at the same time as the other three welcome parties to make a quadruple supreme mega party!! " She catches me before I hit the ground and holds me up like a trophy. "Ohmygosh Grasswhistle I'm so excited I could EXPLO-"
"WOAH-ho-ho-kay, there, Pinkie, let's calm down a little before there are... consequences." Henry swoops in and snatches me from between Pinkie's hooves. "And did you forget that you already threw us all parties?"
Pinkie's forelegs remain in the air but she crosses her eyes in thought. "...nope, nothing's coming up! And believe me, when I throw a party I do NOT forget it! Pinkie Promise!" She glances briefly at Kyle and Jackie, "Especially since I match parties to faces! I'd definitely remember yours if I'd thrown it."
Jackie and Kyle's expressions could best be described as haunted. Kyle laughs sharply, and a strand of hair falls in front of her unblinking stare. "Ok... I get it. This, this is some kind of, of prank! Just a-a big, stupid prank to make that gullible filly Glitterdust look even crazier than she usually does!" Kyle stumbles around in place, glaring wildly into the surrounding shrubs. "But I'm not buying it! N-not this time!! I'm sick and tired of this nonsense!!" When her shouting isn't met with snickering, her panic only gets worse. "I-Is this Diamond Tiara again?? I-I s-swear, when I-"
"This isn't a prank!" Pinkie Pie looks hurt. "I would never prank someone by just, lying to them over and over again! That isn't funny at all!"
Jackie takes a couple steps towards Pinkie, face cast downward and struggling to make eye contact. "Pinkie, I believe you, but I do hope there's an explanation for all of this. We were just in town a few hours ago."
Pinkie, in response, stumbles back a step and tries to read my expression for some sort of reassurance. Judging by her reaction, I don't think she found any. "B-but... I would've... I should've..."
"Grasswhistle! Nice to see you again!" My ears swivel at the noise (an interesting feeling, but considering the context not particularly comforting), and my head follows shortly afterward to see a yellow pony with an orange mane smiling and waving at me from behind a market stall. I wave back and force a smile simply to avoid making it awkward.
Jackie smiles as well. "Hi, Golden Harvest!"
The pony flinches, but continues waving and smiling, though noticeably stiffer now. I don't think the change went unnoticed by any of my friends.
Henry looks as if she's thinking deeply about something, before turning carefully and flying over to tap another pink pony on the shoulder, this time with a bright yellow mane. "Hey, Lily- how's business today?"
The other pony glances to the side a bit before responding, "I-I'm sorry, have we met before?"
Jackie's jaw drops slowly and her face pales. Kyle appears to be frozen in fear. This is exactly what I expected would happen, and yet it's still managing to be incredibly eerie and uncomfortable to watch.
Sweat beading on her brow, Henry licks her lips and tries again. "U-uh, yeah, it's... it's me, Mellow Breeze. Y'know? Weather team? I mean, I don't really do much so I'm not necessarily surprised you forgot but-"
"You're on the weather team? Why haven't I met you before?" This one came from a pegasus stallion perusing the flowers at Lily's stand. "I've been working weather in Ponyville so long that... unless you only started recently, maybe?"
One look at Henry's face told me that she had not, in fact, started recently. She drops out of the air and looks like she's struggling for words, but before I can read her expression any further, Kyle stalks towards me with a deranged smile plastered onto her muzzle. "This is you, isn't it? W-what with the stealing, and the antique store and the jackeys! This is, y-you're getting back at us for something, a-and you, you got the whole town involved, or... or something, uh... I..." She's clearly more interested in convincing herself than accusing me, and doing a terrible job of either.
I resolve to answer her question anyway. "If you had just- oof!" I step forward and trip over my forelegs, remembering I still don't know how to use the stupid things. Henry rushes to my side and helps me up. " If you'd just listened to me in that meadow, I was trying to tell you that we're..." I shoot a glance at Pinkie Pie before leaning in and whispering so that only Jackie and Kyle can hear, "...we're not supposed to be ponies!"
That answer doesn't appear to be enough for Kyle- she looks furious. "That's- no!! That's ridiculous! Why should I believe that any more than I should believe that everypony just, spontaneously forgot who we are??" I'm about to tell her to chill out when I spot a tear rolling down her cheek. "Grasswhistle, I, I swear if you-"
Jackie wraps his arms around her and cuts her off. Kyle's cold, terrified glare lingers on me for another moment before it breaks away to stare off into the distance. A second tear rolls down her other cheek, leaving a damp streak in the coat underneath.
I've never seen any of my friends cry before. I ponder that. I don't understand what it means.
"...my name's Nathan..." I mumble.
Jackie speaks up again, muffled from around the other side of Kyle's back. "Whatever's going on. we'll figure it out. We'll go to town hall and find some of our records, and we can prove to ourselves that this is all just... a misunderstanding, or something." He leans back and looks Kyle in the eyes, his own shimmering. "Okay?"
Kyle nods, absently at first but with increased conviction as she makes eye contact.
I sigh and cut in. "That sounds nice and all, but I still don't know how to walk. Weren't we going to the hospital or something?"
Pinkie Pie gasps. "You can't walk? What happened??"
"I-... it-... it's a long story." I try to hobble down the street before almost falling again, grateful to have Jackie at my side to catch me. "If I see you later, I might be able to explain it."
Pinkie looks unsure, but before I can ask if she'll be okay, she furrows her brow again in determination and gives us all a big smile. "Okey-doke! I'm off to plan your ultra quadruple party- that'll be sure to cheer you all up!" Her genuine grin from earlier returns. "See you later, Grasswhistle, Glitterdust, Mellow Breeze, and, uh..."
Jackie manages a sincere smile. "Empathy."
Pinkie's grin widens. "Empathy, right! You'd better prepare for this party, because it's going to be AMAZING!" She strikes a dramatic pose as more confetti explodes around her. When it drifts back to the ground, Pinkie Pie is nowhere to be seen. I'd question it if I didn't already have so many other questions on my mind.
Jackie trots over and swings a foreleg under my barrel. "I'm sorry, Grasswhistle, we really are worried about your inability to walk, we just got kind of... distracted, by everything that's happened." He broke eye contact on 'distracted', and I can tell how hard he's trying to keep it together for my sake. Being physically supported and emotionally looked after by your friends is an experience I am entirely unfamiliar with, and it's made even stranger when I consider that the stallion supporting me had nearly exchanged fists with my other friends only a few hours ago. Now that I think about it, how long were we asleep in that field?
Jackie smiles and nudges me forward. "Come on, I've got you. Let's get to Ponyville General."
We continue walking through town in silence, Jackie and I in the lead with Kyle dragging her hooves behind us and Henry floating along after her. Every once in a while I get a concerned glance from the surrounding ponies, but I avoid eye contact with any of them. It still feels a little strange being treated like a familiar face, even though I'm in an alien world in an alien body.
During my effort to avoid eye contact, I notice another curious detail about the village's residents. Every single one of them has a tattoo of some sort on their upper thighs, the same one on both hind legs. From the looks of it, they appear to be part of a system, maybe a cultural thing. Each one is simple, yet colorful like the rest of their bodies, and they all depict either a recognizable object or, rarely, a simple shape or symbol. Paying even closer attention, I see a connection between the symbols on the flanks of the shop-ponies and the goods or services they're selling. A mare working a vegetable stall has a knife slicing a carrot on her hip, the stallion behind a nearby flower stand bears a bouquet of wildflowers on his. My immediate assumption is that ponies tattoo themselves with their line of work once they're settled on a career.
In my distracted state, I misstep and stumble over my hooves again, forcing Jackie to catch me. I give him an appreciative smile, which he returns, before leaning into my curiosity again and investigating my own friends' tattoos. Jackie's looks like two hearts, one purple and one blue, merging at an angle, reminiscent of a slanted Venn diagram. A glance back in Kyle's direction tells me that her's depicts a diamond or gemstone of some sort, circled by a comet's trail of sparkles, like the rings of a planet. Henry's looks like a wispy cloud blowing in the wind, and (although it requires significant concentration to keep myself from falling over again) I manage to catch a glimpse of my own tattoo: some kind of stumpy flute. I stifle a laugh- hopefully no one asks for a performance, or they're going to be sorely disappointed.
Empathy, Glitterdust, Mellow Breeze, Grasswhistle... it seems like our names- let me clarify, fake names- have a direct connection with our tattoos. Or is it the other way around? Does that mean that ponies have their future jobs chosen for them from birth... or am I missing something?
I apparently am, because as soon as I finish that thought, I spot another group of foals playing in the street, and not one of them has a tattoo. Before I can question this any further, Jackie informs me that "We're here."
Something in the floor stirs.
Slowly, it regains consciousness, weakened and dizzy after several millennia in death. The event which had flooded the room in harmony magic hadn't been a first, but it was the first time it had happened in such magnitude. The thing in the floor hadn't tasted the flow of magic in a long, long time.
When they had left his corpse here to crumble, those stupid, imprudent unicorns only had a fraction of an understanding of the power they had wielded against him. They had left him here, in the crystalline capital-turned-crypt of his own burgeoning empire, and in doing so they may as well have left the sponge in the pond. He was part of this place, now, and its crystal structure was saturating him with power- harmony magic, his lifeblood, and weapon of choice.
With an immense 'CRACK' , the back of the laboratory fissures and splinters, spraying shards of quartz through the air and vibrating the abandoned fortress like a tuning fork. The room continues to fracture and shudder, twisting and bending in ways crystal shouldn't be able to.
Something begins to take shape. An immense crystalline slab, roughly in the shape of a limb but striving for something more. It cracks and bends into a crude, twisted hand, clawing and pulling at the ground like a demon struggling to pull itself from the pits of Tartarus. Which, to be fair, it might as well be doing.
Over the course of several hours, the room contorts itself into a massive form, almost as large as the orrery. The figure is bestial and distorted, like an unfinished sculpture of an ursa minor. None of its four limbs are the same length: its gargantuan arms dwarf its stubby, almost vestigial legs. The figure did not place much priority in crafting a face, but the twisted quartz between its shoulders and beneath the towering crest of its back bears some resemblance to the frozen, distorted maw of an ape, teeth bared and grimacing in agony- a testament to its struggle to pull itself back into the world of the living.
The malevolent spirit residing within this crystal terror focuses its attention on the crumbling altar before him. He hasn't forgotten what it stands for- how they used his own source of power against him, let him here to rot and suffer in the corpse of his own failed, bygone empire.
His memory of that day was crystal-clear. And in the countless centuries since his death, his rage could do nothing but grow.
He brings both colossal, twisted fists down on the altar in a furious arc, and the entire room explodes around him. Bookshelves topple and splinters of quartz rain down from the ceiling. Where was once an ancient altar of profound yet forgotten significance, now sits only a crater.
It did nothing to assuage his anger. He sits before the crater for a long while, stewing in hatred. Eventually his monstrous arms drag his form across the broken floor, towards the orrery. He stops before it, leaning down and picking a tattered book off the floor: an old journal, its binding frayed and title faded, but the creature can just make out the words scribbled onto the cover.
'Studies into Harmony, its Elements, and their Forging'
The creature turns its gaze back to the orrery. It is incapable of expression, but if anyone else were in the room at the time, they would feel the temperature drop several degrees. They would also be the only one to receive the telepathic thought the creature would have sent throughout the halls of the abandoned castle, were there anyone still walking them.
"Interesting."
Author's Note
The story lives!! I've hashed out a basic outline from start to finish- though this story should be up-to-date with the show, it'll probably clash with canon unintentionally here or there, and I apologize beforehand when it does. Now that I have an outline, though, new chapters should appear slightly more often.