Author's Note

I'm trying to get back into writing, and I've had this project on the back burner for a very long time. Don't know why, but something wanted me to try and pick up at least one of my projects, so I'm hoping that this'll kick things off and I can restart some of my dead ones here...

That said, I really, really really need something to go on. Feedback drives me, shows me I'm not doing this for the lulz and someone actually likes what I write...

Arc One: Day of Black Sun, Chapter One: Part One

The sun was high, my adolescent body drenched in sweat from the work I was doing and the harness holding me secure certainly wasn’t helping to cool me down. I drove another nail into the timber I was sitting next to with the air-nailer I had brought with me.

~~~

“What’s an air-nailer?” Twilight interrupted as she looked up from the first paragraph on her page.

“It’s like an automatic hammer that fires the nails into the wood with either pressurized carbon dioxide gas, or some other kind of pressurized gas.” Hybrid explained briefly before turning back to the memories he was watching in his mind.

~~~

I had been working on this particular bit of framing for the last couple days with the help of the other framers on the crew. As such, we were currently four floors up and without much in the ways of floor joists under us, it was quite a fall when I lost my balance while moving along the framework.

The harness, while it was supposed to have saved me from death, had apparently been equipped with a faulty lanyard because it snapped when I hit the point when I should’ve stopped in the air. As such, the lanyard broke and I plummeted to the earth.

Now, I don’t know if I had actually died when I hit the ground, then came to Equestria or if I was suddenly teleported to safety before I hit the ground, but either way, I blacked out.

I woke with the strangest sight, the furry muzzles of five ponies all staring at me while I laid on my back. You must keep in mind that this is not normal for my world, not even in the slightest, so you’ll have to understand when I say that I woke up screaming like a little girl.

Yes, yes, laugh it up. You try falling to your death one minute, and then waking up in a dank, dark cavern with five alien faces hovering over you watching you breathe.

Right, so anyways, my moment of hysterics passes and I’m able to finally address the aliens above me. They all part enough that I can at least sit up and try to rub some feeling back into my face.

Doing so warned me that I was still wearing my harness and work belt, and that only… Half of the stuff that were in the pockets were still there. While I still had my twenty-two ounce hammer and a couple pockets full of loose nails and a pocket of strip nails for the Air Nailer that was nowhere to be found, I was however, missing the air-nailer like I said, a couple pencils and my chalk line. I did, somehow, end up with a hand saw, which was nice. Bonus, I even had my little military surplus pocket multi-tool.

“Sec, tea muu’la tig nev’ohra?” one of the ponies spoke, dropping my jaw at the ability for tiny horses to actually speak. Granted, I couldn’t understand a word they had just said.

“Git, tig neo vey sig nev’ohra.” another pony replied, looking up from me to the first one who’d spoken. The voice was definitely male in nature, while the first one was mostly female. He looked down to me and seemed to address me full on. “Tome’negara, nev’ohra?”

“What?” I asked in confusion and lifted a hand to scratch at the back of my head. “I don’t understand you.” My words seemed to have had the same effect on the horses that their speech had had on me as they all gasped and stepped back a few more steps. I took the opportunity to examine my surroundings, and found them lacking.

I truly was in a cave, a dank, dark cave that smelled like mildew and… well, nothing pleasant, let’s just say. There was, to their credit, a pool off a ways illuminated by torchlight in which I spied a couple ponies bathing.

“Where am I?” I asked in vain, already aware that I’d never understand anything the ponies said.

“Suetetia Cale, en fid.” the first pony, the female, replied amazingly enough.

“You can understand me?” I asked for clarification, apparently taunting the gods as she tilted her head at me like I was speaking a foreign- oh, wait. “Right, of course you can’t.”

One of the horn-heads who hadn’t yet spoken illuminated their horn (I totally wasn’t about to piss myself for the sudden light show) and shut their eyes for a few seconds. They aimed their horn at me and the light began to condense on the tip of the horn before firing their load off in my face.

Stop snickering.

The light struck me, stop laughing, and began to seep into my eyes,

~~~

Hybrid stopped to wait while the ponies all tried to collect themselves from where they’d fallen over in their seats, with Celestia and Luna trying to hold back snickering of their own behind their hooves. Maddock looked clueless, Blitz’s face was bright red, Karen was chuckling and patting the human on the back while Vic and Sen merely sat and waited patiently.

“Did,” Rainbow began to pull herself up from where she lay on the ground, tears in her eyes. “Did any get into your mane?”

“Very funny.” Hybrid remarked and rested an arm on the table and his head in his hand.

“Did- did’ja spit or swallow?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow of Hybrid as she pulled herself up from the floor.

“It was kind of rammed down my throat, thank you.” And with that line came an entirely new fit of raucous laughter from those gathered at the table, though for their credit, Celestia and Luna both held it in. “When you’re all finished, we can continue.”

A few minutes and a couple glasses of water later, those who had been laughing were situated again but noticeably avoided looking at Hybrid lest they break into giggling again.

~~~

Anyways, the light sunk deep into my head and must’ve done something, because all of a sudden, I could… Kind of understand them.

“Can… understand… now?” The female began again, speaking slowly as if that would ever actually help. I simply stared at the mare, mouth shut but eyes wide as my mind tried to fill in the gaps.

“Maybe, but can you understand me?” I asked in reply and earned a quintuple of nodding horsey heads. “Cool, then let me ask again, where am I?”

“Mountain, cave.” Was all I could really understand through the gibberish I still heard. That was the weirdest thing, I could hear them talking their weird language, but I heard what sounded like English in my head…

“Okay, I gathered that, but where on Earth, am I?” I tried the question again, hoping to get the question through their thick skulls this time.

They replied with a single word and tilted head, suggesting to me they had asked me about the planet name.

“Yes, Earth. You know, the planet we all live on?” then a thought struck me. “Or… The world I’m supposed to live on…” I went silent with that thought, considering the implications that came with it and let the ponies discuss something in their language.

The female approached me again, either looking imposing or like she wasn’t fond of looking at me. I couldn’t blame her, I thought I was sitting in shit.

“You dangerous?” She asked while the other ponies around her took off to do their own thing. Having not given an answer, she tried again, “you dangerous to us?”

“I’ll be frank with you, after that little light show of yours, I think you’re more dangerous to me than I am to you.” I admitted with a sigh and adjusted my toolbelt a bit so that it hung off my harness a little better and so that my hammer and saw didn’t fall out of their loop or holder.

The female stepped up to me and nosed at the hammer, then around to my right to nose (carefully avoiding the teeth in the process) the saw before looking up at me expectantly. “What are?”

Pulling the hammer from it’s holster, I showed it off a little to the pony. “A hammer. It lets me build things.” Switching the hammer for the saw, I paused as I noticed the pony wince at the sharp cutting teeth of the tool before holding it so it wouldn’t be a problem. “This is a saw, it lets me cut hard things.”

“You build things?” the pony tilted her head at me yet again in question but seemed to be somehow impressed. I nodded, which prompted the next question, “You build… dangerous things?”

“No, I just… build things…” I shrugged back and put my tools away where they were supposed to go.

A little rumbling coming from my body told of needs yet unsated and I groaned in protest as I felt the feeling of my stomach tighten under the need for sustenance. A sigh from me and I looked down upon the miniature horse thing only slightly pleadingly.

“I don’t suppose you could supply me any food, could you?” I felt my question be enhanced by yet another churning rumble, only adding to my weak and defenseless appearance.

“See Caretaker. He cares for lone ones.” The mare replied, pointing with her hoof off to some other part of the cave. I followed the gesture and found a stallion with wings standing amongst a group of mostly really small ponies, presumably the children, with only a few adults in the mix.

Taking my leave with a nod of my imaginary hat, the pony I had been talking to took off to do her own thing while I approached the Caretaker; my tools swinging around and creating a little racket as I did.

I noticed upon quickly looking over the other ponies in the cave that there were only two or three of the ones with wings, and maybe nine or ten with the horn while the rest of the… hundred or so with neither.

I did notice that there was a small part of the cave that had strange lights glowing blue hovering on top of posts surrounding what looked like small growing plots. I wouldn’t call them farms or even gardens, it was like the farmer had merely dug a hole in the ground and dropped something random into the hole to see what would happen. It was here and at similar spots in the cave that most of the default ponies gathered.

Putting those thoughts aside for the time being, I approached the Caretaker and noticed him look up at me as I approached. Many of the littlest ponies all stopped chattering away over their vegetable meals to stare up at me with wide eyes as I loomed over them like some kind of monster.

“You need food?” the winged one in the middle asked, already reaching into his side pouches to look for something.

“If you can spare it, yes.” I cautiously stepped through the masses of little chromatic bodies until I stood before the Caretaker so I could kneel before him, make myself a little less threatening.

“Preference?” He asked, glancing up at me from his bags as he paused his rummaging.

“No coconut or…” My eyes caught the sight of a pair of fillies, one white with a pink mane and the other blue almost entirely, munching away on a hoofful of what looked like wheatgrass. “Or grasses of any kind. I’m not built for that.”

The pony spoke some word in his language as he drew out a raw potato which still had it’s roots firmly attached to it’s white skin. Offering it to me, I took my multi-tool and opened the little knife so I could cut a piece of the vegetable off and inspect it. Aside from the fact that the meat of the potato was red -not something uncommon on my world, we had these kinds of potatoes as well, though the skins were usually a different colour- the potato seemed perfectly fine so I bit off a nibble and tried it.

A moment passed and I wasn’t dead, writhing in pain or vomiting so I supposed that meant the potato was safe for me to eat. With a ‘thank you’ nod, I took my meal and exited from the group to find a rock or something I could sit on.

By the time I had broken off the roots from the vegetable and had finished the little bit that I’d cut off, I had decided that I would probably want to cook the vegetable over a fire or something, make it a little more palatable to my stomach.

Foregoing finding a rock to sit on, I instead navigated towards a fire that a couple ponies were laid out on their sides around, chatting away in their language. As I couldn’t understand them from how far away I was, I figured that whatever was done to me made it so that I had to be within a certain range for the translation to arrive in my head.

My approach did not go unnoticed, I must say, for as soon as the ponies facing towards me noticed my approach a warning was issued and the ponies nearest to me opened a spot, almost herding behind the ones across the flames from me.

Taking a seat by the fire, I took out my multi-tool’s knife and jammed the knife blade into the potato lengthwise before holding the potato over the flames. I’d have preferred a long stick or something, but this would have to do.

The ponies muttered to themselves, thereby establishing the theory that instead, the ponies had to be addressing me for me to understand them rather than the proximity idea from before.

~~~

“How has that changed throughout the millennia? Have you learned our language that you don’t need that spell anymore?” Twilight held her hoof up to break in and ask her question once she’d finished writing her last paragraph.

“Nim, orenba thek norestes tiv thim.” Hybrid replied with a huge grin, making Celestia and Luna both raise their eyebrows at the response given. When Twilight merely stared at Hybrid like he’d grown a second head, he translated himself, “Not exactly. See, here’s a fun fact that I bet you never knew: you’re all speaking English.”

“Your native language? How?” Rarity intoned her thoughts next, looking as confused as Twilight was. “I thought this was always our native language.”

“Nim.” Hybrid shook his head firmly. “You’re actually all speaking my language and your native language from when I arrived have fallen into the rankings of dead words. Matter of fact, Albionic is the basis for which Arcane Writing is formed.”

“Why did we change to your language?” Twilight pulled out a separate sheet of paper to begin her new notes on the new topic. “If you were the visitor, the alien, why did we give up our traditions to accommodate you?”

“I don’t know.” Hybrid shrugged back nonsensically. “I think it had something to do with my language being much more… open? Creative? Lengthy? English allows us to explain ideas a lot more than Albionic can, but Albionic has the little extra bonus of turning words to magic. English can’t do that.”

“Do you remember, Twilight, the motto for the School of Gifted Unicorns?” Celestia turned to look down at her ex student with a small smile.

“Sure, Nev’ohra sem let thek, Nim vor’nattel, nim urruba, nim yeresta.” Twilight recited perfectly, before her eyes went wide when she made the connection. “That’s Albionic?”

“It is, yes. Roughly it means, ‘We are friends of the truth, not its enemies, nor the darkness, nor do we fear the unknown.’ A very fitting motto, if you ask me.” Hybrid replied with a nod and his arms crossed over his chest, resting on the table. “Anyways, shall I get back to my story?”

“Yes, please.” Luna nodded agreeably and resettled herself comfortably.

~~~

It wasn’t long until one of the ponies who’d moved out of the way to let me sit nervously approached me, gaining my attention with a nicker.

“What doing to vegetable?” she asked, glancing from me to the potato on the knife slowly heating up.

“Cooking it. Potatoes raw are slightly too hard for my tastes, so I cook them to make them more edible.” I explained and flipped the root crop over to start on the other side.

“Can… do with other things?” she asked next, pulling a carrot out from somewhere I wasn’t too sure I wanted to be made privy to.

“Sure, find a stick and you’re good to go.” I shrugged back and pulled the potato away from the flames to poke at it with a finger and judged that nothing had actually happened to it yet.

A surprisingly straight wooden stick suddenly appeared at my feet, with another stick resting on the ground next to the carrot to my right.

“That works.” I judged agreeably and pulled the potato off the knife and jammed it onto the stick. I did the same for the carrot, spearing it in its side before setting both vegetables directly into the flames with the stick braced against some rocks and under my feet to hold them in place. Some of the other ponies in the group seemed to get the idea and did the same with their own foods, though the pony trying to toast her sheaves of grains found out the hard way that not everything cooks.

A half hour later and the smells of a few potatoes, carrots, some broccoli of all things, and some apples hovering over the fire began to fill the cavern. We’d accumulated a small crowd of curious, before they all worked things out for themselves and began experimenting on their own.

By the time that I pulled my potato and the mare’s carrot off the fires, the entire camp had started cooking their food once they’d all gotten a crash course on what burned and what grilled from their superiors around our little fire pit.

The mare with her stick between her hooves stared at the steaming carrot, wondering if the blackened skin was still safe to eat and glanced up at me for instruction. I merely held the stick in one hand and carved out a piece of potato with my knife so I could eat it that way.

Soft and surprisingly sweet. Much more agreeable than before. Having found that I wasn’t dead -again?- the ponies all looked to relax a little and continue their own cooking while I ate in silence. The mare with the carrot took a tentative bite off the tip of her vegetable and nearly spat it out again due to the heat, if the fact that she was trying to keep the piece of hot vegetable moving around in her mouth was any indication.

Not long after, the rest of the herd had completed their cooking and their meals and soon most ponies were grouped up into their families to nap off the nourishment. It was at this point that I gained a true understanding of the Caretaker, and what the first mare had meant when she said ‘The Lone Ones’. A small group of children had all huddled together to nap, no signs of parental figures around. Even the Caretaker had gone off to group up with the other to winged ones nearby.

A small pang to my heart at the sight of the lonely children, but the logical side of my mind told me that it wasn't my business, and so I took off as quietly as I could in an echoing cave to explore and maybe see if I could find an exit.

My walk seemed to take me only deeper into the cavern, and my journey halted abruptly when I nearly walked off the edge of a sheer drop into a black void below. It was through sheer willpower that I didn’t shit myself right then and there; the memory of falling to my death with something that was supposed to have saved me but didn’t, was still fresh in my mind. Scooting back away from the ledge on my hands and knees having fallen to my backside, I took a few minutes to calm myself with the sound of calcite dripping from ceiling to floor.

Okay, I began to think to myself, How the hell did I know that pit was there when it’s dark as shit in here and I forgot a torch? I light-heartedly chuckled as I searched my pouches with my hands for the little flashlight I hoped was still there. It wasn’t there.

Dammit… I sighed to myself and relied on my natural night vision -which didn’t work since there was no little light to use- to make my way back towards the sleeping ponies.

I somehow managed to get to them, with only a few slips and falls whenever I’d run into something or trip on a rock, but the sight of a hundred sleeping ponies was a welcoming sight to behold. Approaching a lit torch that rested between a couple rocks nearby, I took the source of light and returned to spelunking in the passage ways I’d already somehow navigated.

The main corridor of the cave went on for quite a ways before ending in the pit of death, however it did have a few splits or indentations that held nothing of any value but did oftentimes hold shimmering stalagmites and stalactites that reflected the light of my torch off it’s wet surfaces.

As I delved deeper, I became more and more aware of how close I was holding my torch to my body as I soon couldn’t hold out any longer and my bare arms began to quiver and shake at the nearly negative temperatures I had subjected myself to.

That suffering seemed to have been worth the pain because as I travelled down one stoney hallway, I began to see a faint glowing blue light ahead of me. Curious, I continued on, doing my best to ignore the cold as it drew colder and colder the further I went in.

By the time I rounded past what was apparently the last corner, my breath was rolling out in a dense fog and I had hugged the torch to my body without actually burning myself as I folded my arms across my chest to keep somewhat warm.

Ahead of me lay a fairly small room of sorts, more of a dead end than anything, and in the center of that room sat what looked to be some kind of plinth surrounded in glistening snow and ice. On that plinth, the source of the bright blue light originated and shone brightly, nearly blinding me in addition to probably putting me into early stages of first degree frostbite.

Approaching the plinth and stepping up to the source of light, shivering the entire way, I gazed down at the little trinket that rested on a sort of frozen stone altar and carefully reached out to touch it. My arms protested the entire time, the feeling of my joints having likely frozen and were now probably cracking under the action of movement sent raging spikes of pain coursing through my body up until I actually touched the little thing.

Then suddenly, warmth. My body thawed, the room thawed and proceeded to flood the floor, and the light died down to nothing. I took the opportunity to almost devour the torch in my possession, trying to claim every last scrap of heat it provided so that I could speed up the thawing process in my body.

Taking a seat on the warming stone dais with the torch in one hand, I took a better look at the new little thing I had found and held it up to the light. A small golden pendant with a perfectly round cut sapphire, about as big around as my palm, hung off a bluish silver metal square link chain.

Setting the pendant down on my knee, I ran my hand over the stone and wondered how, or where the cold had come from. I was semi familiar with enchanted items having played a good couple video games, so the thought that there may have actually been magic involved in this thing was certainly one of the first few hypotheses I had.

Okay, well there’s certainly nothing happening with it right now… I thought to myself as I stood and draped the chain over my head with a single hand. Continuing the thought as I dropped the pendant down the front of my shirt, Might as well hang onto it, maybe those horse things might know what it is.

Backtracking the way I’d come, I re-entered into the main passageway that lead both to the pony camp and also the Sparta Hole in the opposite direction. For lack of options, I took the track that lead back to the little settlement and this time passed through the encampment to the other side for hopes of actually finding an exit.

To my pleasure, the only other passage leading out from the settlement did, in fact, lead to an exit. As it so happened, I found myself having emerged from the side of a very high mountain. It was also about mid afternoon, if the sun above was any indication. On the very horizon, only just peeking above the edge of what I could see, looked to be a rather large moon on the rise.

“Huh,” I grunted to myself and stared out into the expanse below me. Trees. Massive trees for what had to have been at least a couple kilometers, then open plains beyond that. “Well that’s certainly…” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to call the sudden landscape to be a surprise, after all, what would I have been expecting? “That’s new.”

To my left, cave wall. To my right, a narrow passage apparently carved right out of the stone of the mountain itself. With a facial shrug of the mouth and eyebrows, I decided the best course of action would be to try the path and see where it would take me.

Setting the lit torch down on the ground near the mouth of the cave, it’s light still going so I knew where I had come from and where to return, I took off down the stonework pathway as carefully as I could.

By the time I had reached about the base of the mountain, the sun hadn’t moved but I knew from my internal clock that it had taken at least a couple hours to hike down from the mouth of the cave.

About halfway down, the treeline had began climbing up the face of the mountain, so I at least had some shade from the scorching rays of the sun above. In addition, there were also the occasional bush or varied plant life that had sprung up and apparently flourished in the forest.

There also looked to be a good number of tracks leading towards the path up to the mountain, and only a couple pairs that lead away from it. With nothing else to do, I opted to follow the tracks leading away to see where, if anywhere, they lead.

The gentle wind carried with it the aromas of pine needles, fresh grasses and the sounds of birds and bugs that buzzed or made other, strange sounds. The sun, having been hidden away behind the trees, was much more bearable and I found myself cooling a little -while the sun that did manage to get through kept me from becoming too cold.

The subtle crunching of plant life under my steel toed boots was a welcome change of pace to the sounds of the cave, or even before that, the sounds of heavy construction. I was by no means a nature-lover, I had spent most of my natural life in a city or town of some degree, so I always had the buildings and noise pollution to keep me company. Out here, there wasn’t really anything that I found familiar, and through that I found some semblance of peace.

As I delved deeper into the forest, I was lead towards a relatively small clearing in the middle of the trees, with many bushes lining the edge and a pair of vaguely familiar fillies zipping around between the foliage. I could hear the squeaks of their cute little voices, but couldn’t understand what they were talking about even a little.

Getting a little closer, I stuck to the treeline and merely observed, simply to try and get an idea of what it was they were doing. The white furred one poked her head out of a bush nearby, her mouth flapping and stained red as she looked out over the meadow for her sister. A noise from her mouth and the blue one popped out of a bush a dozen feet away, her muzzle somehow stained even darker blue and even had splotches of it in her lighter blue hair.

~~~

All eyes were suddenly on the oldest princesses, who both blushed to themselves but nodded to the silent question.

~~~

What are they eating? I wondered to myself, trying to get a little closer without being detected however a snapped branch stopped me short and my eyes became pinpricks. The ponies apparently heard the same thing and their heads shot towards the sound coming from the forest line with fear in their eyes.

They weren’t looking in my direction. They weren’t even looking in the direction of the mountain cave.

The two of them carefully climbed out of their bushes with berries clinging to their fur, or staining them, and approached the middle of the meadow with eyes trained in the same direction I was facing, directly away from me. From the treeline came a massive black bear lumbering towards the two ponies in the middle of the meadow.

I don’t know anything about bear attacks! I thought to myself in the few moments of clarity before panic would begin to set in. Just, don’t run! Don’t run! I urged myself and began to back away slowly while making mental notes about the largest of trees I could… No, they were all pretty barren and I wouldn’t be able to climb them. Then the reminder that I wasn’t alone out here stopped me in my retreat.

Those two were probably going to die.

That bear was likely hunting them, they were going to die and I was going to run away.

They’re not my problem. They should have been watched by their par- Those two were part of the Caretaker’s group, weren’t they? They don’t have parents.

“Fuck!” I hissed to myself and while the girls both slowly backed away in fear, I stupidly stepped forward out of the trees to try and establish myself as more more fearsome predator to the bear.

I was going to die trying to save a pair of little horse things I hadn’t ever even met. At least I had weapon options…

Arming myself with my hammer, spinning it so the claw was forward for good penetration, I opened my mouth and spoke, “Hey there, buddy. You looking for a light snack?” I mustered up the best fake grin I could as the fillies spun around with eyes even wider as they found themselves pinned down from both sides, only one was a bear and the other was something they’d never seen before armed with something else they’d never seen before.

The bear finally noticed me and seemed to narrow its eyes at me, as though warning me off from his potential snack but he persisted and drew nearer.

I stopped and the girls chose me as the relatively safer option, bolting behind my legs to use me as a wall. Or decoy while they escaped if I proved ineffective in combat…

“Why don’t you go pick on something your own size?” I suggested a little louder and with hand clenched around the grip of my hammer to keep the sweat from making it slip out of my grasp. The bear seemed to take this idea into consideration as he reared up on his hind legs, now towering over me by a good couple feet.

“Right…” I mumbled to myself as I stared up at the aggressive bruin. “I suppose I am something more your size, aren’t I?” I gave a sigh as the beast dropped back down onto all four and charged at me and my apparent charges, roaring at me in the process.

I spun on my feet and swept the kids up off the ground, only to launch myself into a shoulder roll just as a black paw came down where I almost was and hit the ground.

“Don’t run.” I warned as I set the two shaking fillies down on the ground, not entirely sure if they could understand me anyways, but at least I felt better having given them both my warning. I addressed the bear once again and evaluated my chances of living, even with my weapon.

The bear, having slid past without a meal on its claws, had to take a second to collect itself and attack again, giving me enough time to lower myself into a vague wrestling stance.

I was going to wrestle a bear… Yeah, I was going to die.

Anyways, against all odds and better judgement, I managed to take hold of the charging bear and stretched my legs out behind me, thereby putting my entire weight down on the creature’s head. The subsequent grounding gave me just enough time to bring the head of my hammer down on the back of the head of the creature under me with all the strength of seven years of framing afforded me.

The strangest thing happened when I hit the bear, by the way. See, when I hit it the first time with the hammer, nothing extra happened. I just whacked it with the hammer and raised the weapon up to do it again. The second time, I brought it back down again to do as much damage as I could while on the bear’s head and imagine my surprise when a flower of ice erupted from the strike, sort of enlarging the head of the hammer for me for a third strike.

A strike which never came as the bear managed to lift itself back up and threw me from it’s back over its shoulder with an accompanying roar. I hit the ground and bounced a few times before landing on my back in quite a bit of pain although thankfully the saw had been thrown free of my belt and as such, I didn’t find myself with a longer ass crack.

I was given only a second of internally bawling before the sight and sound of a charging bear had me roll to my left a couple times to avoid death. Ending up on my chest, I stood and was about to avoid when the mammal swung out at me and knocked me away with its claws, cutting deep gashes into my chest and cutting a couple straps of my harness all at once.

“Mister monkey!” I heard the two fillies scream as I ragdolled across the ground a little before coming to a stop on my back with a groan while my nerves all screamed at me to just lie there and die. “Nim yeresta!” No idea what they said, but they said it with such conviction that it was absolutely empowering.

I rolled over and pushed myself up to find the two horn heads firing little beams of yellow and blue light at the bear, striking it in the side though it only seemed to irritate the behemoth.

“R-” I coughed up a mouthful of blood and had to clear it out before I could continue. Great, internal bleeding now… “Run!” I shouted as best I could despite my weak voice. I hauled myself to my feet with the hammer almost slipping free from my grasp, but the adorable faces of the fillies with their conviction to save me kept the weapon from slipping. “I’ll hold it off!”

“Nim! Nim!” the slightly larger white one shouted back and fired her horn again, striking the bear in the paw which only served to cause a little sizzle as I willed my legs to move faster and faster.

With a roar of my own, I lifted the hammer up over my head in both hands and put all my strength into the temporarily distracted bear and brought the hammer head down on the neck of the bear.

I was weak, I was dying, and the hammer flew from my grasp when it hit the meaty flesh of the bear when it turned to end me all at once. It head butted me, charging through me and into a tree where I was forced to let out a very manly squeak upon contact with the trunk.

“Nim!” both girls screamed out in fear and anger as I slumped to the ground, too battered to fight any longer. The two of them both took aggressive stances and charged their horns with as much magic as they could muster before pouring it all into the bear as a pair.

The bear seemed to have lost all interest in me as it suddenly whirled around on it’s new aggressors who’d just barreled in from the forest line, only a half dozen coming in from above on wings of fucking angels. Or pegasi, they work too.

“Worry not, we help. We save.” a voice shouted into my ear, though it sounded more like a whisper in the ear that they had spoken into. I wasn’t sure, it could’ve been hallucinations but I swear I saw most of the herd from the cave rush into the meadow with the hornheads glowing with power.

“Save-”

~~~

“‘Well, obviously you didn’t die, because you're right there.” Rainbow complained as Hybrid took a moment to pull a mouthful of water from the glass that had been put before him. “So, is that it? That’s how you met the Princesses? I thought you were their father?”

Swallowing, “I am, but that’s only a little part of how I met my daughters. As you may recall, I never gave names, nor did I ever call them my daughters.” Hybrid remarked simply and placed one hand on his lap while the other gently played with his glass. “Anyways, no, I didn’t die from that little event. Besides, I haven’t even brought up The Day of Black Sun.”

~~~

The feeling of weightlessness was the first thing to greet me this time. Opening my eyes, I found I was lying on my back staring up at the ceiling of the cave and I could only lie and wonder how I got back here. Moving my hand to clear something from my face told me I was floating in a pool of water as the sound of moving liquids and tiny droplets struck me on the nose, giving me something else to wipe from my skin.

Turning my head to get a sense of where I truly was, I found that while I was still in a cave (not the same cave as before, nor in a section of cave I’d explored in my wanderings), I was mostly alone if it wasn’t for the two little forms of the two fillies I’d helped save floating nearby on their own backs with eyes closed and forelegs crossed over their chests.

The pool that the three of us were floating in was certainly large, had to be at least thirty feet in diameter though looking down past my shoulder had me wonder if the pool seemed to only be a foot deep, or if it was a trick of the eyes brought on by light reflections originating from… somewhere that made me think that the bottom of the pool was only a foot down. That being said, the two fillies were floating on their backs like otters near to each other, but far enough out of reach of me that I’d have to tap into my imaginary olympic swimming skills to reach.

“Hello?” I called out, swishing the water around with my hair as my voice echoed around the room, bouncing off every stone, ceiling and floor. “Is anyone there?”

“You not wake yet.” The whisper was that of one of the fillies near to me, but I couldn’t quite tell which one. “Injured bad, sleep more.”

“Oh okay.” I breathed out in a single breath and closed my eyes once more, clasping my hands together and laying them across where I remember the bear’s claws raking across me. The action provoked a thought to me: what had happened to that injury, exactly?

Opening my eyes again, I glanced down at my bare chest I found three things: One, I was completely naked and that the water felt great on my bare ass, and three, there was only a trio of diagonal scars running from my left shoulder to my right side. Only the thing was, the scars themselves looked like they were the only remains of maybe a small knife barely cutting the skin; they didn’t look like a massive bear claw had nearly gutted me.

“How am I completely healed so quickly? Presuming that it has been a quick healing?” I asked next, remaining perfectly calm in this serene environment.

“Waters of Life, heal everything.” Came the response from the second filly floating near the first. Sisters, perhaps?

“Waters of Life, huh? Sounds like some kind of legend if you ask me.” I sighed and went back to merely floating in the water. “How long have we been in here?”

“Long time.” The first female replied in short form; though, of course, the words she spoke were almost three times longer. “Someone comes find us soon.”

“Got’cha.” I mumbled back and settled in to float in silence some more, not a care in the world.

What felt like at least two hours later, water ripples lapping against me roused me from my nap and nudged me away from the origin a little bit with each crest. The ponies near to me seemed to be talking about something, and if my “Alien Translation and Communications” skills were anything to be proud of (hah!), I could sort of (not-really) make out the confusion and vague worry in their voices.

“Is something the matter?” I kept my eyes closed and remained unmoving while I spoke, though a few more gentle waves broke over my left arm and side as the two females supposedly moved in some way.

“Late. Should not gone long.” The white one explained, though I only pinpointed the voice’s owner when I turned my head and opened the eye that wasn’t suddenly immersed in water. The blue one was barely breaking the surface, the bottom half of her muzzle under water and the top half dry as she paddled around the pond contently.

“So… where are the adults?” I wondered out loud next, no longer able to rest as my mind was filled with wonderings about who left us here, why no one was coming back, and where my clothes were. At least the water was cold enough that I wouldn’t have to teach a pair of children about biology.

“Don’t know.” The white one replied as she and her friend began swimming towards the shore. I flipped over onto my chest and hissed to myself as my scars began to sting a little bit in the water, but swam the pace regardless and identified my possessions sitting on some rocks nearby to the shore.

With a huff of effort mixed with relief, I aimed myself towards the new destination while the blue one hit land and pulled herself out. Shaking herself off like a puppy, the blue one was left with fluffed out fur and water sprayed everywhere, hopefully not having landed on my clothing.

While the white one joined the blue one, I hastily pulled myself up and over the lip of the pool and skittered across the floor in long strides to grab my underwear and pants, pulling those on first before doing anything else. Of course, doing so meant that both became soaked as I hadn’t been able to dry off. Without much in the way of options, I used my shirt to dry the rest of my body and took a moment to check out my new chest scars.

Slinging my toolbelt around my torso and doing up the buckles, I draped my shirt over my shoulder like some silly runway model and addressed the two with me and found them mostly dry, ready to go and waiting on me.

“Any idea how long we’ve been here?” I asked, looking around for the medallion that I’d had been wearing. I found it in one of the tan leather pockets of my tool belt and draped it over my neck as well, centering the medallion over my scars. Had to say, it looked pretty cool for such a simple and effeminate thing.

“Long time. Come, we go.” the blue one requested this time, waving towards an open section of the cavern with a hoof while her friend lead the way. With nothing else to go off of, I nodded and followed after while doing everything in my power to try and mentally record every little detail in my mind about where I was.

The cave soon ended with a window to the outside, and given by the shadows on the ground, I figured we’d had to have been in there for a whole day, or not long at all for the shadows to have apparently only moved a little bit since I’d first left a cavern.

“So, what. We were in there for a full day?” I wondered aloud and braced myself on the edge of the cave opening with a hand to the wall to peer out into the surrounding landscape. It took me a minute or so of trying, but I was able to orient myself to where I approximately was.

If I had it correct, I must’ve been about a kilometer away from the cave opening where the other horse things had set up camp which would’ve been on our left at the moment.

“Guess half day, close to sleep time ad best.” The pink hair glanced around for a path down and soon found the closest thing to a path being a straight shot down a rough hill that looked ready to slide at a moment’s notice. She approached her companion and spoke to her in their language for a bit before the two lined up at the edge with clear intentions to jump and slide down.

“Okay hold on,” I cried out and swept down to scoop the two up off their hooves, carrying them by their barrels like a pair of footballs. “I still have so many questions, and there’s got to be a safer way down that just sliding down…” I glanced down at the treacherous slide. “Down that...”

“No choice, must fall.” white one replied, hanging completely limply in my arms while her friend looked to be preoccupied with examining my hand and arm; she kicked her hooves out a bit and caught them on my pouches, ensnaring herself almost completely.

Noticing her fighting, I lifted her up and out of the pouch before returning her to a more secure carry under my arm.

“Fine, then i’m sliding. My pants will keep us from getting injured all over again.” I announced and worked myself to a seated position with my legs hanging over the near-sheer drop-away. Adjusting the girls so they were both over my chest, just in case I’d have to curl up and roll down, I inched forward with hesitant trepidation and drew in a deep breath.

The girls both stared down the trip with eager grins and shifted around in anticipation, though the fear was still gripping me from earlier.

“God, fucking dammit.” I whispered to myself and took the plunge, bucking my hips forwards until I didn’t have anything to buck forwards onto.

The girls whooped and hollered while I held in most of my screams of terror. I did have the sense of mind to keep leaning backwards with my legs bent to act as a buffer for anything large that I could either push off of to avoid, or almost jump over given the angle at which we were sliding.

Honestly, it felt like I was in some kind of video game, avoiding large boulders or the stray bush which defied the laws of nature and grew through a crack in the rocky surface. I did seem to hit the interim level when I came to a halt on a tree trunk, landing with my feet and coming to an abrupt halt, breathing heavily.

“Why stop?” the girls both giggled in my arms, but it was the blue one who spoke up to me with those adorably blue pleading eyes

“I’m getting sore from taking all those rock hard boulders in the ass.”

~~~

The girls were all, once again, on the floor laughing their asses off with Celestia and Luna both giggling away like schoolgirls at the very early memory. Hybrid had to sigh to himself as he caught what he’d said to make even Sen smirk at him.

“Okay, ya had to have done that’n on purpose!” Applejack gasped from where she’d fallen over, her hat having been thrown aside in the landing near to Rainbow who was too busy busting a gut to even breathe.

“No, that one was accidental.” Hybrid mumbled to himself, rubbing at the back of his head with a hand while he swirled the trickle of water left in his glass. He muttered something to himself under his breath before taking a lungful of air to calm himself down.

“Anyways,” he continued,

~~~

I suppose it was through grace alone that the two girls didn’t seem to understand the innuendo I’d let slip and decided to keep it that way by never speaking of it again. Anyways, after a few minutes of rest and massaging my ass to restore some feeling and ensure that my pants hadn’t ripped in the process, I took another deep breath and leapt from the trunk of the tree with the girls once they were ready again.

The rest of the slide was just as the same, a game of avoiding the larger, dangerous objects and occasionally stopping to restore feeling in my ass before continuing. Soon enough, we finally came to a rest and as an added bonus, I hadn’t lost any of my tools in the process.

Setting the ecstatic girls back down, the both of them hopped around chanting “Again, again, again, again!” over and over again before I sighed and held my hands palm out to settle the two.

“Maybe later, okay? We should find the rest of your kind. And, you both still owe me some answers.” I announced, pushing my hands into my jeans’ pockets all too casually.

“Food?” The little ball of blinding white asked eagerly, suddenly hopping up to prop herself against my right leg while the blue ball of adorable propped herself up on my left shin.

“I’ve got nothing, best I can do is maybe help you forage for food.” I replied with a show of empty hands. The two fillies took these words to heart and shared a glance, an unintelligible word, then took off into the forest. Throwing a hand up after them in exhaustion, “Really?”

With a shake of the head, I planted my hands down protectively over my tools and took off after a light jog behind them, intent on trying to keep some kind of pace with them as best I could. The two youngsters eventually disappeared into the treeline out of sight, however the squealing and general horse-sounds kept me going in the vaguely correct direction.

To my surprise, I found myself breaking out of the treeline where we’d been attacked by the bear, if the dead bear carcass was anything to go by anyways, and it took me a moment to identify the movements in the nearby bushes as bodies wriggling around in them rather than the wind rustling them.

“Okay,” no names, right. “You two, wherever you are,” I worked at projecting my voice out a ways without raising it, just in case anything else wanted to come and make for a repeat of… however long ago the bear attack was. “Let’s not forget this is hostile territory.” I added as I approached the prone body of the bear and gently kicked it with a foot to see if it’d move.

Nothing, thank god. Passing around the corpse, I approached the bushes and nearly lost myself right then and there as I finally made out what the girls had been staining themselves with earlier.

The wonderful sights of blueberries and raspberries. Granted, the Raspberry bushes, for as full as they were, was currently being assaulted by a tiny white miniature horse and the blueberries were being equally ransacked by the blue one.

I had nearly lost myself in the wonders of the berries as I began working at picking the ripest of the raspberries from near the top of the bushes, which were all as tall as I was standing at five foot nine, and stuffing the ones that didn’t make it into my mouth into my pouches before moving onto the blueberries to raid their stores just as equally.

“Food?” the girls both poked their heads out of their respective bushes again, their muzzles stained red or blueish purple according to their snacks. Sure, mine was probably nearing the same level of colouration, but I still had a way to go before I was as red as the Raspberries or Blueberries themselves.

“Oh yeah, definitely food.” I grinned back and stuffed another handful into my pouches. The girls seemed to pick up on what I was doing, and soon began depositing hooffuls of their own pickings from the lower branches into my pouches.

As a thought, I tried an idea. Picking up a raspberry, I held it up to the red-muzzled one and got her attention with a snap of the fingers. “Raspberry.” I enunciated slowly and clearly.

“Mastanema.” she replied with a tilted head, wondering what I was getting on about.

“No no, Raspberry.” I tried again, hoping she’d get it.

“Ra-. Rasp… Rasp-nema?” she tried, her words coming out strangely and blended with her own language.

“Rasp,” I began, separating the words this time. She repeated it slowly, looking at me with wide, uncertain eyes as though a child who was simply mimicking sounds rather than pronouncing words. “Berry.”

“Bawwy.” the little tike repeated as best she could, a firm nod of the head showing confusion or confidence.

“Berry.” I tried again, parroting myself now.

“Bewwy.” yet again she repeated, yet again failing ever so slightly, though she was slowly getting it.

“Ber- -ry.” I drew the word out this time, separating it into syllables in hopes that that would work.

“Ber…” she began, lifting my hopes. “...wy?” I dropped my head and lightly flicked the sweet little treat at the filly, making it bounce off her nose and to the ground.

“Raspberry.” the little blue one surprised me completely as she echoed the entire word perfectly, almost verbatim. I dropped my jaw and looked down at the blue one who held a fat, ripe blueberry up to me in her little hoof. “Raspberry.”

“No no, that’s a Blueberry.” I grinned and switched students, now squatting before the younger of the two. Raspberry seemed to lose interest in the english lessons and went back to foraging, using my pockets as her storage units.

“Buu…” she began, and I held a finger up to pause her effort.

“Blue, bloo, bluu.” I started over, at this point just making funny sounds to try and find something that caught on with her.

“Bluu..” she droned out, testing the sounds with her mouth and a little adorable frown before looking back up at me. “Blueberry?” she asked with a raised eyebrow of confusion. I cheered and pumped my arms into the air in victory.

“Yes! That’s a Blueberry!” I replied, sweeping the little thing off the ground and into the air, swinging her around like a toddler. She squealed at first, then got into the swing of things and began giggling much like a toddler would’ve done with her little legs splayed outwards.

“Blueberry! Blueberry! Blueberry! Raspberry!” she chanted almost like a mantra, before I set her down at the insistent prodding by the other one.

“Bloooooberry?” she almost got it, so close! But most heart wrenching of all was the look on her face, the kind of look like she was searching for approval, for recognition from someone older than her, someone who cared. Good god I nearly died of a heart attack right then and there.

“So close,” I began with a grin, setting the one in my arms down to go back to my attempts with the older one. “Not so long, okay?” I requested. Her sister came down and joined her friend, sitting down next to me like my little assistant.

“Blue,” she recited, getting a similar response from the white, pink and red one. “Berry.” Perfect recitation.

“Blue, berry.” the older tried again, before putting the two together. “Blueberry.” I let out a celebratory clap and a massive grin became fixed on my features at the successes we were making. She pointed at the blue girl, and tried again. “Blueberry.”

Close enough, I say. Pointing to herself, she thought a moment, furrowing her brows in contemplation before looking up at me. “Raspberry?”

“Sure, you can be a Raspberry.” I grinned and ruffled the mane of both girls before looking down at the blue one. “And you can be a Blueberry.”

“Raspberry,” Blueberry pointed to her friend, while Raspberry pointed to the other.

“Blueberry.” she announced, earning a giggle from each child as I gave a celebratory Yes in exclamation.

For the next half hour of collecting berries, the two of them repeated the word every time they either picked a berry, deposited a berry into my pouches, or deposited a berry into their mouths.

As the day grew long, and the sun didn’t move, my pouches filled to capacity and we stood full and grinning like idiots. Sitting on nearby stones to digest, the girls seemed to get the idea of using my own trick against me and both circled around to face me.

“You teach us names, we teach you names, yes?” Raspberry requested eagerly, looking to Blue for an agreement which she got.

“Sure, go for it.” I gave an agreeing nod, just in case and got comfortable where I sat.

Pointing to herself, “Alia.” Why didn’t this translate with whatever was in my head? Oh well, that made this easier. Pointing to Blueberry, “Aylin.”

“Alia,” I was genuinely surprised to find that these words were so easy to say, though I made sure to gesture towards the correct child per name. Alia nodded affirmatively, and I swung to gesture towards Aylin. “Aylin.” she nodded as well.

“Alia et Raspberry,” Aylin explained in a mixture of languages. “Aylin et Blueberry.” we all nodded agreement and sat back at our simple victories.

“What does Alia and Aylin mean?” I wondered aloud, mentally wondering if they could explain. Both girls merely remained silent, however they each shoot a hoof straight upwards, then looked up to aim a little better. Alia aimed towards the sun, and Aylin had to work a little harder at finding, but eventually aimed at, the moon.

“Oh, Alia is sun, Aylin is moon?” The puzzle only pieced itself together after a minute of silence while I thought to myself to try and figure out what they were actually pointing to. Could’ve been the sky, could’ve been the trees, could’ve been some random insect that Aylin was pointing at and I wouldn’t have gotten it.

As it happens, my guesses were spot on and both girls beamed at how quickly things were progressing. Clapping their little hooves together at our victories, we soon began spending the next couple vague hours (seriously, what the hell is with the sun not moving?) pointing at things and teaching each other our languages.

By the time we had decided to return to the pony camp (that’s another thing I was taught, they’re called ponies. Alia and Aylin are both unicorns, which I should’ve picked up on immediately, thinking about it now), we had learned enough things that we could point out most forest items and name them in both languages. The climb up the side of the mountain was just as eye opening as we began identifying things like rocks, boulders, mountain, cave, passage, goat, mountain lion (that was a long way away and I had to describe with charades) and other things.

Soon enough, we came across the mouth of the cave and delved inside, already feeling the cool air of the underground cavern through our bodies given that we were no longer under the influence of the Alia.

“Alia and Aylin,” Aylin began, in english, as she stared at the ground in thought. “Est sis… ters…” she explained, motioning between herself and her apparent sibling. I listened with rapt attention as she and Alia spoke about their situations being Lone Ones. “Famia,” I corrected her on this, “familia,” close enough, “attacked, protect Alia, protect Aylin.”

“I’m so sorry, it must have been terrible.” I replied with fullest condolences, placing my apologies on the backs of both heads with my hands as we walked deeper into the cave.

“Don’t remember, too young.” Alia sighed as she plodded alongside me, opposite her sister. “Barely speak.”

“Oh, I see, so you’ve never had any kind of parents that you remember?”

“Nim, ven shet torestaneb Gol’steq lin vec.” Alia explained, telling me that for as long as they could remember, the Caretaker had been their stand-in parental unit. Speak of the devil, the first group we could see as we entered into the main settlement was the group of children playing in the area around the Caretaker who was busy helping aid a filly who looked to have scraped her knee on something.

As before, the same croppings of random plantations sat where they had been however long ago when I left, a dozen fires strewn about the gargantuan room with circles of ponies visiting around them.

“You two!” I could actually understand the Default pony mare as she trotted up towards the three of us, though I suspected she was talking to Alia and Aylin. “Where have you been?”

“Cave of Health.” Aylin reported in English, dropping the mouth of the mare who’d come to get them. She looked up at me, and I shrugged in reply. She scowled, setting me back a step at the sudden hostility as she pulled Alia and Aylin away from my with her hooves. “You left us there, remember?” the translations were coming in much fuller now as I’d been taught the translations by the sisters.

“You speak in it’s tongue! This is unacceptable!” the mare insisted, scolding the two for picking up a few lessons and spending time in education. There’s a twist, huh? “It is dangerous! It fights brown demons! It can hurt you!”

“He saved us from the bear.” Aylin returned sharply, yanking her hoof away from the mare as did Raspberry.

“Nim, We saved you from the demon, he was nearly killed! He is not suitable for staying!” Oh, I did not like where this was going. I narrowed my eyes and made to follow, try to protest, intervene or protect myself, however a small gathering of about seven or eight ponies, three who were unicorns, one who was a pegasus and the others were defaults, appeared and halted my approach.

“I have to help those two!” I insisted, holding a hand over their heads to indicate to the girls who were being led away, almost forcefully as they too began to protest and pull away though their strength did not match their elder and were dragged towards the Caretaker.

“No, you must go, stranger. You bring your strange ways, you force your dirty language upon those two, you carry an instrument of destruction with you.” The apparent herd leader explained with darkened eyes and a lowered head, as tough preparing to charge me. The group collectively lowered their heads or spread their wings, all with just as grim looks on their faces.

Let's see if this would turn their minds, “Nim, seo thek nim nev’ohra!” I shouted, earning a surprised gasp from those nearby and even from those who were further away who could hear me from their positions. “Seo thek vor’nattel!”

“Do not dirty our tongue with your foul mouth, creature!” the leader roared, rearing back to her rear hooves and flailing her forelegs about to force me further backwards. “You are no friend of ours! Begone!” and with that, the entire group forced me backwards the way I’d come, towards the mouth of the cave.

A look over their angry shoulders showed a pair of teary-eyed fillies named Alia and Aylin being hauled away by the mare.

What could I have done? Should I stay and fight? Should I have tried to reason with them? What could I have done, but willingly leave the cavern, leave the girls behind who’d taught me so much in only however many hours? I didn’t want to, but what were my options?

So, I left. I kept my head held high and my back straight. I don’t know what possessed me to do so, but at the last moment, I spun on my heels, dug into my pockets and extracted one Raspberry and one Blueberry, then chucked those motherfuckers as hard as I could. The girls apparently saw me do this and broke free, sprinting hard after me but came to a stop where the berries landed and watched through bleary eyes as I took my leave from the cave entirely.

~~~

The room was silent, not a sound was heard as Hybrid looked over the solemn faces of the girls he’d only just met. Gone were the smiling faces, the laughter, the joy. Celestia and Luna looked to be only a little better, clearly remembering the memories just as the storyteller was, only from their own perspectives.

“So…” Twilight’s voice was barely a whisper, but it still sounded like standing next to a jet engine. “That was how you met the Princesses? But, at what point did you become their father? Why were their names Alia and Aylin?”

“Alia and Aylin are both their Albionic names. I didn’t realise until much later that they vaguely meant Celestia and Luna.” Hybrid explained, just as low-toned but sounding just as loud. “They didn’t become my daughters until much, much later.”

“I do hope that the story picks up a bit after your… departure…” Rarity hopefully looked up from her teacup.

“Not for… Oh, I’d say about three years.” Hybrid sighed and leaned back, putting the depressing thoughts aside, no matter how often they’d come back to haunt him. “I wasn’t allowed to see Tia and Luna for three years, even though I’d set up my own camp at the base of the mountain, in the patch which earned them their nicknames.