Taken

by CanterlotGuardian

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Human, Sad
Length: 32838

If you found yourself in a harsh, unforgiving land, what would you do?

A human wakes up, shivering uncontrollably. He is not in the same place that he fell asleep at, just a little while previously. Before he knows it, he is thrust into a nightmarish hell. Monstrosities trying to kill him, the wind threatening to freeze the blood in his veins… and what of the whispers he soon hears, prompting him in ways he'd never imagined?

And then there's the creature who has become his unwilling companion, the one who calls herself Twilight Sparkle…

—

NOTE: Unless specifically stated otherwise, all characters and places in this story are purely fictional. Except for New Hampshire. It actually exists.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-02-04 22:28:56 UTC

A Prelude to the Insanity

The wind is cold, chilling my joints so that they are stiff when I awaken. I am not sure how long I have been asleep; I know that when I finally dozed off, it was somewhat close to midnight. I have no way of telling time, sadly; my watch broke a few weeks ago and I haven’t had the drive to go get it fixed or to get another one. I don’t want to replace this watch; it has a lot of sentimental value to me. It was given to me by my now late girlfriend, two days before she was killed by a coked-up fiend robbing her house to try to find something to sell, so he could go score some more coke.

The police tried their best to find the guy, but they never did. Not that I expected them to, mind you; my town’s police force is inept at their best days, and downright homicidal at their worst. The town I lived in was called Decesne, a small town in the northern part of New Hampshire. The locals had a different name for it, though. They called it Purgatory, mostly because anyone who moved there soon wanted to get out, but couldn’t. It was like it sucked you in and left you there to rot for eternity.

Needless to say, nothing interesting really ever went on there.

Slowly, my senses start to come back to me. In a few minutes, I am fully awake- though not to say I am rested fully, not in the slightest. I open my eyes. It’s still dark outside, so my eyes take a minute to adjust to the lack of light. When they do, I’m surprised to find myself outside. I suppose I shouldn’t be; when I was eight, I was clinically diagnosed with somnambulism, or sleepwalking as it is most often referred to as. I’ve been taking medicine for it for awhile, and it’s helped somewhat, but occasionally I’ll have a recurrence and wake up someplace where I don’t know where I am.

I look around to try and figure out where I’m at. Normally, I can at least see one or two identifying landmarks, and then I’ll be able to deduce where I find myself. Here, though, all I can see are trees. That at least tells me I’m in a forest somewhere. That in and of itself is odd; whenever I sleepwalk, my body takes me to some urban area, without fail. I think it knows that if it just left me out in the wilderness when I awoke, I would never find my way out. So why did it do this to me this time?

I stand and stretch. My joints protest in silent agony, but soon they capitulate and begin working properly again. I move them around a bit to get the blood back flowing to them, shivering just about uncontrollably the entire time.

It then hits me: when I fell asleep, it was the middle of summer. July 24th, to be precise. Five days before my 26th birthday. The weather was hot and muggy, like it always was that time of year. So how the hell am I now shivering uncontrollably, buffeted by chilled winds?

Where the hell am I?

I look around some more, trying to see if there’s anything else besides trees in my current line of sight. No such luck. I sigh and pull out my cell phone to use the GPS tracker that I have on it. It was really the whole reason why I got a smart phone in the first place, just in case my sleepwalking hits and I need to find my way back to my house.

My phone, however, is dead. Another weird occurrence; I fully charged it right before I fell asleep. There’s no way it should be-

Wait. I was in my house, with the phone on the charger, resting on my bedside table. So how on earth did it get into my pocket? I must have grabbed it subconsciously before I left; it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve taken things with me before I go on one of my sleepwalking journeys. But my cell phone? That’s a first. I’ve never taken it with me before.

With no landmarks and no way of finding out where the hell I am, I simply decide to start walking. Maybe soon I’ll come across something I can use. Until then, I pray my legs don’t fail me.

One foot in front of the other. Step, step, step. I walk slowly at first, bracing myself against the chilly wind. Soon, though, I pick up the pace, as my body starts to ever so slowly adjust to its surroundings. Evolving, if you want to use that term.

On a whim, I call out: “Hey! Can anyone out there hear me?” I don’t expect an answer, and my expectations are fulfilled. Not a single sound can be heard out here, if you don’t count the biting wind whispering all around me. I sigh and keep going.

I begin to notice things as I walk along what maybe used to be a path a couple hundred years ago, but is now just another part of the forest bed. For starters, it feels like winter temperatures out here; there should be snow on the ground, or at the very least a thin layer of ice. My boots, however, crunch nothing but the dried branches and twigs that have fallen to the forest floor.

The next thing I notice is what I am wearing, and more specifically that it isn’t what I was wearing when I dozed off. I had gone to sleep in a pair of thin pajama pants and an old cut-off T-shirt that had been passed down to be by my dad before he left my mom and I. It is one of the only things I kept when he left; everything else of mine that used to be his, I tossed in the trash. I wanted as few reminders of his betrayal as could possibly exist.

But back to my current predicament. What I am wearing now, resembles nothing that I had on at the house. I am now wearing a thick long-sleeved shirt, with army-issue fatigue pants and combat boots. All of them are the traditional camouflage pattern. I own none of these things back at the house; my dad does, from back in his army days, but I have never wanted anything to do with that stuff, and besides it was all way too big for me. These clothes fit me perfectly, like they were made just for me.

It's all very strange.

I shiver again. I can feel the cold seeping into my skin, chilling me from the outside. I was never a “big kid.” Hell, right now, I’m standing at 5-foot 8, and barely breaking 130 pounds soaking wet. Needless to say, I am not an imposing presence, and neither am I one that could just shrug off the effects of cold. I have no real fat on my body to speak of, mostly just flesh and undeveloped muscles. So this cold is really getting to me.

I call out again to try and get a response. Again, nothing. I sigh, watching my breath condensate in the air before wisping away like it had never been there. I pull out my cell phone to check it again, just to see if by some miracle it was working now. It wasn’t.

I am just about to curse aloud, when I see something skitter to a halt in front of me. I look up from my phone to see what it was, and I about empty my lungs out. What is in front of me is obviously something that does not exist at all on this planet, not anywhere that I’ve heard of at least. It has six legs, spindly like a spider’s legs, but the front two were raised off the ground (and thus useless for walking) and ending in sharp scythe-like claws. Its body is furred like a rat, and the head seems like a cross between a lion’s head and a lobster’s head.

This thing is ugly.

I shout at it to get it to go away. It shouts back and charges me. Yelling out loud, I scramble backwards to avoid it, but end up tripping on a tree stump and falling flat on my ass. As it keeps on coming towards me, I fish awkwardly in my pockets, trying to see if there’s anything around for me to defend myself with, against it. Luck is not on my side today; my cell phone is the only thing I have on me.

It keeps coming, and I pray to God to save me. I have never really believed in God, but now that I was about to die, it seems like a pretty good time to start.

When it is about five feet away from me, it snarls again and jumps. It looks like it’s ready to kill me, then eat me for lunch. I cry out one more time as I await my final breath, and close my eyes so I don’t have to see what it’s doing to me.

Seconds pass, and no rending of flesh is occurring. I chance a glimpse to see what is going on, and I see it suspended in mid-air, a pinkish glow surrounding it. It’s not moving, though I can tell by the muscle tension that it’s struggling mightily to escape.

Suddenly I hear a voice from beside me: “Oh wow this thing is nasty… Are you ok?”

I look beside me to see something else I’d never seen before. It looks like one of those miniature horses you see as a part of a circus, the ones they let really little kids ride on for a dollar a ride. Except this one was a lilac purple color, and its mane was three or four different colors. Not to mention the weird design on its flank.

What the hell is this thing? Well, at least it’s trying to save me.

“I’m not hurt,” I answer. “I think I can owe that much to you.”

“You owe me nothing,” the creature says. She flicks her head, and the creature vanishes. It’s only then that I see that she has a horn. So this thing is a unicorn? I suppose I should be more shocked than I am. I see that her horn is glowing with the same pink light that the creature was, before it disappeared. A second later, the light around her horn faded into nothingness.

I look at her oddly. “Thank you,” I say.

She smiles. “I couldn’t let that thing hurt you.” She is studying me up and down as she speaks. “I must admit, I have never seen anything like you before.”

I laugh softly to myself. “I can say the same for you.” I look around us. “Where are we?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” she says. “I was asleep in my house, then I woke up out here in this chilling cold.”

Obviously, that is exactly what happened to me, and I tell her as much. She seems to be very concerned that something as odd as this could happen to two separate entities at the same time, seemingly randomly.

“Where to now, then?” I ask. She shrugs. Apparently she doesn’t know the lay of the land any better than I do.

“I guess we’ll keep walking, then,” I say. She nods, and we walk off together. We try to stay as quiet as we can, just in case any of those things are around, that she wasn’t able to find. At least, I assume it’s a she; I’m not just going to out and out ask her what her gender is.

What I do ask her, though, is what her name is. She says she’s Twilight Sparkle. I think that’s kind of a gay name, but again I keep that bit to myself. I tell her my name is Matthew Keenan, and she says it’s a pleasure to meet me. I’m not sure if I echo those sentiments, but for pleasantries’ sake I tell her the same.

She shivers. “Have you seen anything that remotely resembles a house?” I shake my head, and she grimaces. “Nor have I…” She starts to look up in the trees, and I do the same. I estimate we’ve been walking for about half an hour now.

Suddenly, she stops, and I do the same. She points up to one of the tree branches, and I look as well. When my eyes catch on to what she is pointing at, I can hardly believe my eyes. Sitting on that branch is what appears to be a full-on one-story house. It’s not acting like it’s balanced precariously or anything; in fact, it seems to simply be resting there with no troubles at all.

We look at each other and nod, then begin to climb the tree. In a few minutes, we’re up to the house, and she knocks on the door. No answer can be heard, not even footsteps coming to the door to see who is disturbing them at such an ungodly hour. She tries the doorknob; it opens, unlocked.

We both walk inside. The house is heated, thank God, and I immediately start to feel better. I close the door once we’re both in, to try to keep as much of the cold air outside as we possibly can. I check to see if I’m wearing anything underneath my outergarments; I do have a pair of underwear and a pair of socks on, but no shirt. I’m not about to keep this long-sleeved shirt on, though; I’ll be sweating my balls off in a minute or two. So, I take the shirt off and toss it on the couch.

She comes back into the main room. “It doesn’t look like anyone is here at all. No clothes, no nothing… The beds don’t even look like they’ve been touched in a very long time.”

That doesn’t make sense. Obviously there’s still electricity, or the lights wouldn’t be on. Obviously, there’s some kind of gas power being pumped into the house, otherwise the heaters wouldn’t be working. For all intents and purposes, somebody lives here.

I go to the kitchen to check on the food supplies. Here is where I encounter what I think is our first real problem, aside from being in a completely unknown location with negative-degree temperatures and freaky rat-monstrosities trying to kill us. On top of all that, there’s no food in the house. Nothing in the cupboards, nothing in the ice box. There’s no real refrigerator to speak of, but I assume that’s what the ice box is for. I holler out to Twilight and tell her what I’ve found.

“No food??” she responds, sighing. “We’ll just have to go out and get some more in the morning.”

“From where?” I ask.  She gives me a look that says she doesn’t know, but we will figure it out. Suddenly, I feel very tired, even though I just woke up not too long ago. Maybe it was because of the heat. I tell her that I’m going to sleep, and she says she will be doing the same. I go to the couch and arrange it how I like. I lay down and feel myself drifting off almost immediately.

I can’t tell how much later it is when this happens, but later on I feel something light settle down on my chest. I open my eyes and I see Twilight curled up on my chest, breathing deeply and evenly. It strikes me now that in spite of the fact that I’ve never seen anything like her before, she is a beautiful creature. I smile and close my eyes again, and drift back into oblivion.

Revelations

The next morning, I wake up and look around me. I’m halfway sure that last night was just a really bad dream, that I’m going to get up and everything will be back to the way it was before. Sadly, I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, because everything is the same as it was last night. The house is the same, Twilight curled up on my chest is the same…

Everything is the same.

I smile again as I thought about how surprised I was to find Twilight sleeping on me. I’m not exactly the most comfortable body in the world, but it seemed like she had no problem whatsoever with sleeping on top of me. I didn’t mind, either; her fur was soft, so it wasn’t bothering me in the least.

My smile fades as I remember just what kind of predicament I’m in. I have no idea where I am, the fauna of wherever I’m at is most likely trying to kill me, and no matter how much I try to avoid thinking about it, we have no food. Which sucks, believe me.

I pick Twilight up gently and place her on the far end of the couch. She doesn’t stir at all; dead to the world, I guess. I stand and stretch, then walk slowly over to the window. The blinds are shut, which is odd; I don’t remember doing that last night. Then again, I was pretty tired, so it’s always possible that I just did it without thinking. It’s habit for me at my house; there’s a street light just outside my window and if I don’t close my blinds at night, the light streams right into my room and I can’t sleep at all. So maybe this was just me acting like I was still at my house.

At least I didn’t have a sleepwalking bout last night. Who knows what condition I’d have been in come morning?

I open the blinds so I can see outside. It looks lighter than it did last night, which at least tells me that there’s some sort of sun wherever we are. That’s about all the good news, though; dark clouds cover the sky in its entirety. It’s all very foreboding, like some giant storm is about to come and sweep us all away.

I sure as hell hope not.

I’m about to turn away, when motion catches my attention. I turn slightly to see what it is, but whatever it was is gone now. Suddenly, I get a feeling of dread, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Quickly I shut the blinds and walk back over to the couch, sitting down. Twilight still hasn’t woken up yet.

I sit for a moment, pondering what my next options are. I’m pretty sure I can’t stay here; what if the people who live here come back? Plus, we have no food, though we do have running water so at least we won’t die of thirst. Plus, as I am very quickly starting to realize, I know nothing at all about Twilight. What is she, where is she from, is she some kind of spy sent here to watch over me while I go through some sick and sadistic game like Jigsaw put his captors through in the Saw movies?

So many questions, not enough answers.

I know that Twilight already made a cursory exploration of the house last night, but I feel like I need to do it myself. Not because I don’t trust her, necessarily, but just because of my own curiosity. I’ve never been one to let other people tell me what something is like; if I want to know what it’s like, I’ll go out and experience it for myself.

The first room I check out is what appears to be the master bedroom. It’s got one king-sized bed in the center, with a few chests-of-drawers along the wall. Each of these is straddled by pairs of bookcases, all of which are filled to overflowing. Well, at least I know I won’t be getting bored for a little while.

There’s a door on the far side of the room, which upon further inspection leads into a walk-in closet. This in particular I think is cool; I’ve always loved walk-in closets. They’re so roomy and spacious; you never have to scrunch things up to make room for other things. My closet in my room is so tiny, I can’t even fit my clothes in there most times, and I own the bare minimum when it comes to my clothing. Something like this… it seems like a dream, almost.

There aren’t any clothes in the closet, just like Twilight said. There is another chest-of-drawers in there, though, and I open everything up to check them out. All that’s inside is one single letter, sealed in an envelope. I don’t want to open it for fear it’s someone’s personal mail, but then I see the back of the envelope has already been opened, so I don’t feel too bad about taking it out.

I start reading:

To my dearest Mateo,

I am truly sorry that you have to find out like this, but by the time you read this note I will be long gone. There is no reason why I should keep living, especially with how I treated you and Anamaria.

Please forgive me,

Your darling mother

Is this… a suicide note? Holy shit. I’ve read about these things all the time, but never have I ever actually held one in my hands and read it. Why would the mother want to kill herself? Did she not know how devastating it would be to Mateo and Anamaria, whoever they are?

I put it back in the envelope and place it back in the dresser. The last thing I need to do is worry about some woman who’s obviously dead and gone, and her kids who probably are six feet under themselves. Shaking my head to try to clear it, I search the rest of the closet and find nothing.

Going back into the main bedroom, I look in the other two chests-of-drawers. The first one has nothing in it at all, but the second one contains a book. It’s a weird-looking thing, with a blood-red front and back cover. It’s written in some language that I’ve never seen before, so I’m not even going to try to read it. Maybe Twilight has some idea of what the language is. She seems pretty intelligent.

Speaking of her, I should probably go check on her. I go into the living room to find her laying on the couch, awake; she’s laying like a cat lays when it curls up on someone’s lap.

“Good morning,” I say. “Did you sleep well?” Twilight nods. “Well enough. How about you?”

“Not bad,” I reply. “Hey, random question: how good are you with languages?” She looks at me oddly, but replies, “Depends on the language. Why?”

I tell her about the book I found in the chest of drawers, and how I can’t read it for the life of me, because I don’t think there’s even a language similar to it in my world. She looks at me oddly again, and I ask her what’s up.

“I just looked in that chest-of-drawers last night,” she responds, “and that book, whatever it is you’re talking about, was not in there when I looked in there.”

That is kind of weird. How can something that wasn’t there before, suddenly be there now? I’m pretty sure that no one snuck in last night to put it in there; either Twilight or I would have heard them come in. Though now that I think about it, Twilight did that make that rat-thing just disappear with… whatever she did, so wouldn’t it be possible to do the opposite- make something appear?

It almost makes my head hurt, thinking about it. I try to be rational in what I think about and how I approach situations. Problem is, nothing about this situation is rational at all. I ask her if she wants to see it, and she says she does. She hops down off the couch and walks in the room, me leading her. I take the book out of the drawer and lay it on the bed.

She takes one look at it and recoils. “What-? What are you doing with that thing?!”

I’m thoroughly confused right now. “Um… I take it you recognize the language?”

She nods. “That’s… that’s the language of the Changelings.” This means absolutely nothing to me, and I tell her as much.

She motions for me to come into the living room with her; she’s visibly shaking, so I can tell that whatever this is, it’s pretty serious. “I’ll tell you everything…” she says, barely above a whisper. This can’t be good.

I go into the living room and sit down on the couch; Twilight sits beside me and rests her chin on my knee. She’s still shaking, so I rest my hand gently on the small of her neck to try and calm her down a bit. Amazingly enough, it starts to work after a few minutes. Soon, she looks up at me and begins to explain things to me.

She starts with who the Changelings are: servants of an evil queen who calls herself Chrysalis. She tells me how these Changelings can change their physical appearance to look like another person in an individual’s group, thus making it so that no one can tell who is who at first glance. She explains that even though Changelings have no spoken language, aside from very basic grunts and growls, they have developed a simple written language, which is what the book is written in, according to her.

My first question, naturally, is why I have never heard of any of this stuff. She explains that as far as she knows, Chrysalis and the Changelings have never left her dimension, so she’s not surprised that I have no knowledge of any of this. Makes sense, so I move on and ask her if she can read it. She says she can, but it gives her chills every time she tries to do so. She says that she can translate the front cover without any issues, and that the title of it is, “A Dissertation on the Evils of Ponykind and How to Eradicate Their Presence from Equestria.”

That’s a really fucking long title, especially one that’s translated from something that’s only eight characters written. I don’t say this, though. What I do ask, is how something like this could have been brought from her world to this one. She looks at me, scared, and says that she knows that she didn’t bring it with her. To her kind, she explains, books of the Changelings are a corruptive influence, and rumors have it that if one pony reads the entirety of a book that is written by the Changelings, they turn into one themselves.

Holy shit.

I get up and start pacing. “What do these Changelings look like?” I ask. In response, she grabs a piece of paper and a pencil; putting the pencil in her mouth, she starts to erratically sketch, occasionally pausing to erase an errant line. In a minute, she flicks her head towards me, indicating she’s done and she wants me to see it.

As I get there, I look down at the paper. I can immediately tell two things: one, that Twilight is actually a pretty talented artist; and two, that these Changelings are some seriously ugly motherfuckers. They look very much demonic. Something catches my eye, and I look puzzled at Twilight. “You drew a whole bunch of them.”

She nods. “Changelings are never found going solo. They always travel in packs. That’s how they have the greatest advantage when they hunt.”

Her words strike me like a ton of bricks. “So these Changelings… what do they eat?”

“Meat,” was all she replied with.

Oh great. So not only can these things change their appearance to look like anyone they want to, basically, but now I find out too that these things are freaking carnivores? I ask Twilight if that thing that attacked us last night was a Changeling.

“No,” she replies. “I don’t know what that thing was. It wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen before, nor have I ever read about it in any of my studies.”

“You’re pretty well-read, though, aren’t you?” I ask.

She nods. “I was in the royal academy in Canterlot at one point, before Princess Celestia decided my studies would be better  applied if they took place in Ponyville.”

This makes no sense whatsoever to me, and I am about to brush it off, when the reality of what she said sinks in. “Wait… you’re not actually telling me that there are more of you… are you?”

Twilight looks at me oddly. “Of course, there are. More than anypony has bothered to count.”

This blows my mind. What kind of weird world did she come from? I know this is going to be a stupid question, but I ask it anyways: “Do they all look like you?”

I’m amazed when she laughs. It’s not a derisive laugh, but a genuine, I-find-this-funny kind of laugh. “No… thank the Powers. We come in an astounding variation of sizes and colors.”

I remember now that I was supposed to have been pacing; I’d forgotten completely about that. I walk over to the window. “So how do you defeat the Changelings?”

“Any way you can,” Twilight responds. “Just as long as they aren’t allowed to feed off you. They drain emotions primarily, but I have seen a rare few who consume flesh as well as soul. Those are the ones you need to watch out for the most.”

So she was serious when she was talking about the Changelings being carnivores. Great.

I stare out the window for a good two or three minutes before I notice something odd. “How long have we been awake?”

“Well I assume you got up before me,” Twilight answers, “but according to my biological clock, I’ve been awake for about two or three hours. Why?”

I point outside. “Because it’s already dark out.” Twilight has no idea what I’m talking about, so she walks up to the window and sees that yes indeed, it is dark outside already. “How…?” she asks in abject confusion.

“There has to be a logical explanation for this… Maybe we were just talking for the whole day, and we just didn’t notice the time fly.”

She smiles at me, as though remembering something. Was it her sleeping on me last night? Was it her resting her head on my arm? Something completely different? I can’t tell; I don’t read minds. In a moment, she snaps out of it. “I’m going to go to sleep, ok? If I need you during the night… I’ll come out again.” She walks away, leaving me by myself.

I sigh and go back to the couch, sitting down again. My stomach rumbles a little bit. I then realize that it couldn’t have been all day already; otherwise, my stomach would be making more noise than a Mack truck. I know this for a fact because it’s happened before; I’m not just talking out of my ass here.

I open up the icebox and take out a few ice cubes, putting them in a cup that I find in the cupboard. I go to sit back down, when I notice that the house has a back porch. Funny, I didn’t notice this at first, either. I get up to go look at it. It’s pretty spacious, with two padded benches for reclining. It looks very much inviting, and I reach out my hand to open the door and-

Wait. I pull my hand back at the last second. What the hell am I thinking? It’s freezing out there; if I go out there, what if I get sick and Twilight can’t come out to get me in time? It’s a long shot, I know, but it’s something I have to think about.

Suddenly, I hear a still small voice in the back of my mind: “Open the door… Come outside…”

Fuck. Now I’m hearing things. I shake my head to clear my mind. The voice only continues, though: “You can’t get me out of your head now… Your new friend opened you up to me…”

Now I know the voice is lying. Twilight wouldn’t use her... whatever she has, on me to open me up to evil influences… would she? The voice in my head was still now, but the desire to go outside was greater than ever. I figured what could it hurt, and reached out to open the door.

When I did so, I was surprised to be greeted by a pleasantly warm breeze. So apparently, it’s only deathly cold during the deep night-time; when it’s early on in the night, I guess it’s actually bearable to be outside. Good to know. I step outside and shut the door. Suddenly, I get a craving for a cigarette, which isn’t good at all. I quit smoking two years ago because neither me nor my mom could afford to keep buying them, and I thought I’d kicked the cravings for good. Now they’re back? Fuck.

I look around in what I think is a futile gesture, but it’s not! On the left bench, there sits an unopened pack of cigarettes- Marlboro Red 100s, aka Cowboy Killers. My favorite kind! But wait, what the hell are they doing here? Ah well…

I open the pack and fish one out. I fire it up with the lighter that’s conveniently placed next to the pack, and inhale deeply. God damn, that tastes good. I take a few more puffs before calming down a bit, then turning around and-

Oh. Oh, fuck. What the hell is this thing? This creature that I’m staring at is even uglier than the thing from last night. This one seems to be some kind of… chimera. Except not. It seems like each of its body parts was taken from a different creature. It definitely has wings; it wouldn’t be able to fly if it didn’t. This thing is scary as fuck.

It smiles at me. “Do you like my gift to you, my new friend?”

I’m almost speechless, but I manage to get one whispered word out. It’s more of a comment on the randomness of its body than anything else, but I’m soon to find out that I am more right than I could ever have imagined.

All I can say is… “Discord.”

Intrigue

The thing in front of me looks at me curiously. It is almost as though it had never seen a human before. No, that couldn’t be it. In spite of its monstrous appearance, I see intelligence behind its eyes; this thing is not stupid, not in the least bit. Maybe it’s heard of humans, but has never gotten the chance to see one up close and personal. Yeah, that’s it. I think.

It’s smiling at me now. “I wasn’t aware that your friend has already told you about me.”

Now I’m confused. Twilight hadn’t mentioned anything to me about this creature. “She hasn’t said a word about you…”

“Oh is that so?” it asks. “Then how did you know what my name was, young one?”

What? Oh… “Your name is Discord? What kind of name is that?”

It grins. “An appropriate one.” This is getting annoying. Not only is this thing being very cryptic, but I’m starting to get the feeling that maybe there’s a reason why Twilight didn’t mention him to me. I think this thing is up to no good.

I want to try to keep this conversation as civil as possible, for now at least; I’m pretty sure that this Discord character has access to some of the same… whatever it is that Twilight has access to, so that automatically means that he’s stronger than I am. I don’t want to piss him off. So I get out another cigarette and fire it up. “I’ve never seen anything like you before,” I say. “What are you, exactly?”

By the look in his eyes, he was more than happy to talk about himself. “I come from a long line of noble creatures. In our world, we are referred to as draconequi. Half dragon, half pony.”

I take a puff, then exhale. “I can see the dragon and I can see the pony, but… where did all your other body parts come from?”

“Oh, here and there. Various things that didn’t deserve to live. I gave them higher meaning in forming them to my body. Or should I say, the one who made me did so.”

Curious. So this thing isn’t entirely natural; at least part of him is manufactured. “Who made you?”

“Not important.” He dismisses my comment with a wave of his hand, which appears to have been taken from some sort of bird of prey. “What is important is you, son. You are a very interesting specimen.”

I realize I’m shivering now. It’s getting colder out; I shouldn’t really stay out here for very much longer. “Me?” I ask. “I’m not really all that interesting.”

Discord smiles. “You may not think you are, but I can see something in you that you cannot. A flame, to be precise.”

So now I’m on fire inside? Wouldn’t that mean I’d be warm, and not freezing my ass off? It then occurs to me that he’s probably not talking literally. That doesn’t mean I can’t let him know that I know that, though.

“A literal flame?” I ask.

Discord laughs. “No, no… A spiritual one. You have something inside of you that I have only seen in one other human before.” Oh. So he does know who humans are. Granted, he hasn’t had all that much experience with them, but then again that’s not surprising considering from what I’ve been able to gather, humans aren’t found in the world where Discord and Twilight come from.

That’s a bit of an assumption, though, so I kind of want to clarify this for myself. I ask him, “Now let me ask you something. Do you and Twilight come from the same world?”

“We do,” he confirms. “I am like a god in that world, but here… there is no ‘like’ about it. As far as I can tell, you humans cannot perform magic like we can. Thus, a person who can use magic is automatically going to be stronger than anything a mere human can throw at them.”

Magic? I get the sense he’s not talking about Penn and Teller-style magic, but more along the lines of Harry Potter magic. Which is bullshit, because magic like that doesn’t exist. Or maybe it just doesn’t exist in my world…

Hold on a second. Something is confusing me. “You said you are stronger than humans in this world… Does this mean you know where we are? That you know what else is here, besides us?”

It laughs again. “Of course. Why would I not? If I didn’t know where you were, I would not have been able to come and find you.”

Makes sense. “So, where are we, then?”

“Oh that much, I can’t tell you. Well, more specifically, I don’t want to tell you. Oh, you will find out in time, but until then, it’s on a strictly need-to-know basis, and well… you don’t need to know.”

This thing is really getting annoying… Playfully bantering with me the whole time. Does he ever take anything seriously? “Did you send Twilight and I here?” I ask.

“Maybe, maybe not,” it says with a grin. Yeah, this Discord thing is definitely pissing me off now. “What I will tell you is that you were chosen for a reason, as was Twilight Sparkle.”

“And what reason would that be?” I counter.

Discord shakes his head. “Not now, my friend. That will be revealed in time. For now, be happy that I am nice enough to allow you to engage in your vice. Soon… everything will make sense.” He grins one last time, then flies up into the air and away from the house. Before he should have gone out of line of sight, he simply vanishes, like he was never there.

I sit down on one of the benches. Okay, so I need to try to get this straight to myself. Apparently, Twilight Sparkle can use magic, which is probably how she stopped that thing from attacking me. Can all unicorns from her world use magic too? Probably, I would guess. But not only do we have Twilight who can do magic, we have this Discord thing who’s apparently evil… and he can use magic.  He didn’t seem all that evil to me, though…

I wonder what Twilight would have to say about this. I finish my cigarette and walk back inside. Laying on the couch is a note. I figure it’s from Twilight, but when I read it, I find out that I was wrong: “Enjoy your life, son. That one pack is all you’ll ever need.” The note was signed, “Discord.”

So what, did I just receive a never-ending pack of cigarettes? What is this, a smoking man’s version of the Endless Decanter of Dwarven Ale? Oh wow… damn, I haven’t played D&D in years. How the hell did I even remember that?

I then notice Twilight, laying on the couch. She is looking at me fearfully. “You saw the note, I guess?”

She stands. “When were you going to tell me you were in contact with Discord?”

“As soon as you woke up. I just got finished talking to him for the first time and-“

She leaps off the couch and lands in front of me. She has a fiercely determined look in her eyes, one that I’ve never seen on her before, and quite frankly it’s a bit scary. “Tell… me… everything,” she demands.

I go and sit down on the couch and she follows me. I start from the beginning: the weird feeling to go outside, the randomly spawning pack of cigarettes, all the way through my whole conversation with Discord. When I finish, she is looking at me with pity in her eyes.

“Oh don’t look at me like that,” I say. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Maybe not,” she says, curling up on the couch, “but Discord is a trickster above all else. He will try to manipulate you into doing his bidding. He did it to us before, once… It is a feeling I wish to never have to go through again.”

“What did he do?” I ask.

She sighs. “My friends and I all fell under his spell. He changed us, if only temporarily… We became everything that was the opposite of our true natures. I became very depressed and morose, Applejack- who is normally the most honest and kind soul anypony has ever known- became very evasive and distant, Rarity was tricked into being very greedy and miserly when in reality she is a very generous and giving pony…” She shivers. “Discord is the greatest evil I have ever faced. I’m lucky to have survived it.”

Shit. And I had a full-on conversation with this thing. I reach over and start to rub gently behind Twilight’s ears. A light smile plays across her face, and she begins to calm down some. Good. I’m glad I can do something to ease her tension.

“So what would your suggestion be?” I ask. “Seeing as you’ve dealt with Discord before, and I haven’t.”

She thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure if I can tell you anything,” she says. “Ponies are by their very nature different from humans, so naturally Discord is able to affect each one differently. The problem is, there are no recorded instances of how Discord affects humans, so I can’t tell you what to watch out for. I can tell you, though, that this is not the only time you will see Discord. He doesn’t give up very easily, and he’s absolutely ruthless when it comes to hunting down what he wants.”

I nod. “I’ll be sure to keep that in-“ I just happen to glance out the window at that point, and what I see causes me to stop in mid-sentence. “What the fuck is that?” Twilight follows my gaze out the window and gasps in shock.

It’s already been established in my mind that the creatures native to this world are like nothing that I- and apparently Twilight, as well- have ever seen. This thing that I’m seeing now, though, is just beyond belief. It looks to be similar in body structure to… well, the only thing that comes to my mind is the AT-AT walkers from the old Star Wars movies. Except these things look downright hideous. They’re covered in some sort of brown spiky scales, each one of them looking sharp enough to kill. The head is almost like a hammerhead shark’s head, but flatter and wider. Two eyes are in the center of its head.

“Holy shit…” I murmur. I hear Twilight say beside me, “That thing… I’ve never read anything about something even similar to that before.”

It’s only then that I notice that it isn’t alone. There are two more of them standing just past the treeline, trying to stay out of our line of sight. I can just barely see them, so obviously they’re doing a decent job of it. I motion to Twilight, pointing them out to her; she nods.

Just then, the one in the middle looks to the other two and barks out a harsh noise. They both come out from the trees and stand with the one that was already visible. “They saw me,” I say out loud in amazement. “From all the way over there, they saw me motion to you that I saw them. They knew that they couldn’t hide anymore, so they came out…”

Twilight was in amazement, but I could sense a definite fear in her as well. “What are these things?” she repeats. Suddenly, without warning, all three start running as fast as they can towards the house. I curse and pick Twilight up, starting to run towards the door.

“What are you doing?!” she yells. My only response is, “Trying to save both of us!”

I throw open the door and jump from the high branch. Immediately upon impact, I realize that I’d messed up. I can feel my ankle break as my whole body weight goes down on top of it. I cry out in pain, but somehow manage to make it to my feet. I motion for Twilight to follow me, but I can only make it a single step before I fall again. The pain is just too much.

Twilight, I think, can see that it’s broken, because she runs over to me and quickly dips her head towards my ankle. As soon as her horn makes contact, it glows again, and I can literally feel my bone beginning to mend itself. In a brief moment, it is no longer broken.

Well fuck. She just saved my life again, probably. I look at her gratefully and she smiles. No words need to be said. The creatures’ thundering footsteps zre shaking the ground as they came closer, so Twilight and I take off running.

We hear the splintering of wood, as the creatures gallop through the house, demolishing it in their wake of destruction. I can even hear the tree falling, a once-majestic thing reduced to kindling in the rage of some great beast.

I don’t care where we’re going. All I know is that we need to get away from those things, and the only way we can do that is to run. I look straight ahead, trying not to look back at the devastation. It’s only because of this that I see the creature further up along the path. Discord. He is motioning towards a cave, smiling then disappearing.

“There!” I yell, pointing the cave out to Twilight. I’m not going to mention to her that it was Discord that pointed it out to me to begin with. No need to add insult to broken ankle.

In a minute we reach it, and duck inside. We both huddle up close to each other, trying not to make a sound. The creatures run right past the cave, their footfalls thundering into the distance until we can barely make them out.

I look at Twilight and am about to say something, when the shock of the whole situation comes crashing down upon me all at once. I can’t even get the first word out before I slip away into unconsciousness. The whole world goes black, and I fade away.

Bloodlust

When I awaken, it is light outside. I don’t mean you to take that literally; I’m starting to think that it’s going to be too much to ask for a little sunshine around here. It’s not the dark of midnight, though, so I can at least see what’s around me.

Mostly trees, that is. Occasionally, there is a fern or two, but for the most part it’s just trees. That, and the rock wall of the cave that I’m in.

I stretch carefully, not wanting to wake Twilight up. It’s only when I look directly beside me that I realize she’s not there anymore. Shit. Did she lose faith in me because I blacked out? Is she out there all by herself, with all those things ready to kill her for the meat on her bones?

Not to mention that Discord thing. Fuck, I’d almost succeeded in forgetting about him.

I would swear that he could read my thoughts, because at that exact moment, his voice once again echoes in my mind: “Sorry, friend… You won’t be getting rid of me that easily. I’m not a readily forgotten being.”

“Yeah…” I murmur to no one in particular. “No shit.” No response is forthcoming, which I’m thankful for; I don’t particularly want to have a conversation with Discord at the moment, especially when there’s a slight chance that Twilight might be coming back soon-

Okay, so maybe more than a slight chance, I see… Twilight is coming up on the cave, using the trees for cover. I motion to her that I’m awake, and she smiles and nods. Okay so maybe she isn’t too mad at me.

When she reaches me, she sits beside me. “Have those creatures come back yet?”

I think she means more than just the things that chased us last night, but my answer is the same regardless: “Nope. It’s just been me here by my lonesome.”

She gets a sad look on her face. Damn, I didn’t mean to make her feel bad. “That wasn’t meant as a guilt trip,” I say quickly. “I enjoy being by myself, just as much as I enjoy being around others.” That was pretty much a lie; I’ve always liked being by myself much more than being in a crowd. I’m just trying to make her feel better.

She’s still looking a bit downtrodden, though. “I know, and I appreciate the gesture, but… the only reason why I left was to look for some food. I didn’t think you’d wake up so quickly.”

“Quickly?” I’m confused now.

She nods. “It’s only been about four or five hours since we had to leave the house.”

Oh. So apparently night is brutally cold here, but not all that long. Maybe six or seven hours tops. I’m used to eight or nine hours of darkness, at least.

“So did you find any food?” I ask hopefully. As I do so, I fish out my pack of cigarettes and tap one out into the palm of my hand.

Twilight completely ignores my question. “What are those?”

Shit. “They’re cigarettes,” I tell her. “It’s how I keep myself calm.” She’s looking at them rather funny. I hold out my hand, and she sniffs tentatively. A quick sneeze later confirms what I thought she’d feel about them all along.

“No thanks,” she says. “I’ll pass. I doubt I could hold one anyways. No fingers, you know.” She dips her head in the direction she just came from. “I think I may have found some food. It’s in some weird storage building, just a mile or so down the way.”

By now, I’ve fired up my cigarette and taken a few puffs, so I’m ready to go. I stand, making sure to not hit my head on the cave ceiling. I walk outside and stretch again. “I’m ready when you are.” She smiles and leads the way.

A mile is more than enough time for me to finish a cigarette, so I’m already onto my second one by the time we get close enough to see it. She points to a rundown building a few hundred yards ahead. “That’s it. That’s the building with the food in it.”

I recognize the building, or at least its general structure. When I laugh aloud, Twilight looks at me curiously. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s a grocery store, silly. You don’t have those where you come from?”

She shakes her head. “We have open-air markets where we conduct most of our shopping business. Occasionally you will find an actual shop building, but for the most part it’s all out in the open.”

I love open air markets; I always have. This realm that she comes from is sounding more and more to me like I would love to go there. “Maybe someday I can visit you in…”

She looks at me oddly again. “Our land is called Equestria. And no, I don’t think that’s a good idea… Not that I don’t want you to, mind you; I would really like that. I just don’t think anyone else would.” We start walking towards the store.

“Why not?” I ask.

She sighs. “As a species, the ponies of our universe do not hate. It is not an emotion that we are capable of feeling. However, mistrust sometimes abounds amongst us. Whenever a creature of a different species reveals itself to us, our first general instinct is to view it as an enemy; thus, we cut ourselves off from anything good that it might have to offer us, at least at first. It was how we treated Discord, it was how we treated Queen Chrysalis… Granted, those two had nothing good to offer us at all, but they’re excellent examples nonetheless.”

I’m silent for a second before responding. “That’s the way our world used to be, in the very distant past. Now, though, we’re much more accepting… Somewhat.”

She looks confused, so I go on: “We still have problems fully accepting those of our own kind, who are different from ourselves, if only in the color of our skin.”

“Wait,” she says, cutting me off. “So there is prejudice amongst your people, where you actually hate those of your own species? For such a trivial reason as how they look?”

“It’s sad,” I reply, “but that’s just how it is. That’s how it has been for as far back as I can remember- as anyone can remember, really.” She looks like she’s genuinely saddened by this. I wish I could do something, but I simply keep quiet and walk.

We reach the store. She pushes the door open with the tip of her horn, and we walk inside. It’s funny; just from looking around, it doesn’t seem like the store has been touched in awhile. There are still canned goods on the shelves, meat and milk are still in the refrigerated area… Not like the store actually needs one; it’s a damn icebox in here.

Over the next half hour or so, we methodically make our way through the store, picking up things that we think we will need to survive. I caution Twilight not to bring too much, as we no longer have a house to take it back to, not for the moment anyways. She nods, and we go about our business.

When we have everything we think we’ll need, we go to leave when I stop suddenly. Outside there is another person, walking towards the store. I motion for her to stop, and she does so.

“Another of your kind?” she asks curiously. “I wonder if he’ll be able to be of any help to us.”

“I don’t think so…” I reply quietly. “He seems a bit… out of his mind.” And he did. His eyes were rolled back into his skull, so that only the whites of the back of his eyes were showing. His skin looked frostbitten and patchy. What really scared me, though, was the machete that he was carrying. It looked like there was frozen blood on it, too.

I look at Twilight. “We might have some problems getting out,” I say dryly. I tell Twilight the plan, and she agrees, so while she keeps a look-out at the front of the store, I go to the manager’s office to look for some kind of firearm. As I’m searching, I light up another cigarette.

Bingo! In the manager’s desk drawer, I find an old 9mm pistol. That’s fine; it’s really all I need. I check the magazine, and find all ten bullets inside. I do a bit more searching, and find three boxes of ammo. Good; we’ll need these. I stash the ammo in side pockets, then walk back to the front of the store.

And just in time, too; Twilight has backed up by one of the stand-alone shelves. Broken glass lays everywhere at the front of the store, where this deranged person used his machete to shatter the glass before coming inside. I level the pistol at him and yell, “Stop right there, before I shoot!”

It does stop, which is good, but then it looks directly at me, which isn’t so good. Before I yelled, it had no idea I was there; thus, I still had the element of surprise over it. Not anymore. Dammit, why do I have to act without thinking?

I shout again: “Put your weapon down!” It’s doubtful that he’s going to do what I say, and I’m not surprised when he doesn’t acquiesce. I see him suddenly raise the hatchet up high, and as I dash towards him, I see him bring the blade down with alacrity towards Twilight.

My vision goes red as this is happening, and things seem to slow down to the point where the madman isn’t even moving. I reach him in a matter of seconds, and with one solid motion, I kick the blade out of his hand, while simultaneously jamming the gun into the underside of his chin and firing a single bullet.

One is all it takes; his brains explode out of the top of his head, and he falls to the ground, blood and brain matter raining down upon his now-lifeless remains in a fine red mist.

My vision starts to clear, as the adrenaline begins to empty itself out of my body. I’m breathing heavily and I feel like I just had a heart attack, but I’m still alive, and so is Twilight. I look over to her, about to say something, when my heart freezes in my chest.

Twilight lays on the ground, motionless. The blade that the man was wielding- the blade that I kicked out of his hand- has speared her through the side of her flank, near the very southern extremity on her right side. I rush to her and look her over. She doesn’t appear to be bleeding, which I find alarming, considering the blade has her pinned pretty much to the floor.

I don’t want to move her, so I dart back to the manager’s office, trying to look for a first-aid kit. The entire time, I have tears streaming down her face. This is all my fault; if only I’d paid more attention to where I was kicking the blade, instead of just riding the wave of my rage and letting things happen how they would. I grit my teeth as I search. I find the kit and run back towards the front of the store.

“Hang on, Twilight,” I say through gnashed teeth. “I already let you down once… I’m not going to do it again.”

Moving On

The wind is cold at my back, another chilling reminder of the predicament that I’ve been in since that day. I fish around in my pockets for my pack of cigarettes and, upon finding it, pull one out with freezing-cold fingers, lighting it up with the same. Sad as it is, Discord was right when he said that it was basically a never-ending pack; every time I smoke what I think is the last one, they’ve all re-filled themselves the next time I go to the pack.

This is at once a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because those cigarettes are the only thing that’s keeping me sane at this point. Bad, because they can’t be good for my health, and I’m up to about a pack a day at this point.

I don’t really care about that last point all that much, though; I’ve got much more pressing concerns on my mind. It’s been close to a week since that deranged son of a bitch tried to kill Twilight in the grocery store. She isn’t dead, I know; every once in a while, I can hear her whisper something in her coma of shock. Sometimes, it’s names: sometimes it’s Rarity, other times it’s Rainbow Dash, or Fluttershy. I have no idea what any of this means; maybe they’re names of other ponies from her world.

I’m pretty sure her magic, if that’s really what it is, is the only thing that’s keeping her alive at this point. Her wound is healing, though very slowly. I’ve tried to give her all the care she needs; I’ve even tried to apply a poultice to her wound to speed the healing. Unfortunately, it was lacking aloe, which happens to be the main healing-inducing ingredient; I just can’t seem to find any anywhere in this world. It doesn’t even seem like they have lotion here.

It’s getting colder, too.

I have Twilight bundled up in my coat, pressed up against my chest.  It slows me down some, but I don’t mind. If it can help her out at all, then fine, I’ll make those sacrifices.

There’s one other problem that’s weighing me down, too, and that’s my lack of food. Back there at the grocery store, I wasn’t able to take everything that we’d gotten, due to Twilight becoming unable to carry her portion of the burden. So I basically had to take only half of what we’d found.

I ran out of that stuff a few days ago, and I haven’t seen another grocery store since then. Right now, the only subsistence I’m getting is my cigarettes, and though they take the edge off my hunger, they’re hardly nutritious.

I curse out loud at my situation. Fuck it all, I say. And especially fuck you, Discord. You’re the whole reason why I’m in this shit to begin with, and if I had the chance, I’d-

“You’d do what?”

The voice startles me, and I look up from my constant staring at the ground. Sure enough, the bastard is flying right in front of me.

“I’d do… something…” I murmur. Truthfully, I didn’t know how I was going to complete that sentence; there’s really nothing that I can do against a being like Discord. He can use magic, and I can’t. In that aspect, he is right; he’s more powerful than anything I can ever hope to become.

Discord laughs. “You’re starting to see, aren’t you? You can’t fight what it is that I’m putting you through. You just have to accept it and go on with your life.”

My face contorts in anger. “You call this living? Are you fucking serious? I’m freezing my ass off every night, and for what? Your own amusement?”

He looks genuinely hurt.  “For my amusement? Oh my friend, you misunderstand me wholly… This is not being done for my amusement. I am deriving no pleasure from this. All this is being done so that you can see what I see in you- and what I see about you, that I don’t like.”

“Oh?” I ask. “And what might that be, exactly?”

Discord looks around, as though he’s looking to see if anyone’s eavesdropping on our conversation- like that could be possible. There’s no one around here for miles. This place is a frozen hell-hole. Finally, he replies: “I’m going to break one of my cardinal rules and let you in on a little secret. You’ve been through a lot of shit in your life, Matthew- so much so, that you find it incredibly hard to trust anybody. And that’s eventually going to kill you.”

“What do you mean? I trust Twilight…”

“Only because she saved your live, and twice at that. Up until that point, you didn’t think any higher of her than you would the average bum on the street. And I’m thinking that it’s not trust that you have in her, merely an acknowledgement of her power, and that it’s greater than yours. And while that’s all well and good… it’s not good enough. Nor will it be good enough in the end, when all is required of you.”

See, I thought he was actually starting to be truthful with me now, but I guess it was just temporary. Now, he’s just slipping back into his regular cryptic bullshit.

“Speaking of your friend, how is she?” Discord asks. “Is she healing properly?”

I can’t help but be honest, in spite of how pissed off I am at him. “Very slowly. She’s in some kind of coma, and I can’t wake her up out of it.”

Discord nods. “Not surprising. That’s entirely normal in cases like this, though it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen it happen. It’s her body’s natural reaction to a severe trauma like the injury she received. She’s letting her magic heal herself, though that’s not a very fast process.” He smiles oddly. “Though, if someone else with magic were to use it on her, they could heal that wound in a few minutes. Then, she could come out of her coma and be awake again.”

I smile wryly. “Yeah, but why would you do that? You’re the bad guy, remember?”

He laughs. “All too true- but then again, if that were truly the case, would I even have told you about being able to heal her with another source of magic?”

I think for a second. “As a matter of fact, yes, you would. And do you know why? To torment me. To give me a false hope, one that I know can never come true.”

Discord laughs gleefully. “Oh, wonderful! You’re becoming more and more cynical by the minute! I do believe this deserves a celebration. I’m going to let you in one more thing: the magic I was referring to is not mine… It’s yours.”

This throws me for a loop. “I have no magic, none like yours. I’m just a normal human.”

He shakes his head, as though becoming exasperated with me. “Do you not remember what I’ve already told you? You have a flame inside you. Access it, and you’ll find what you need to continue- and to help Twilight do the same.” He looks at his arm, as though glancing at an imaginary wristwatch. “Would you look at the time… I must be on my way. For now, farewell.”

Before I can protest, he vanishes again. Fuck him, seriously. His teasing me like that really got to me, I realize. I want to save Twilight, in some ways more than I want to save myself. She’s got so much going for back in… Equestria, was it? And me… well, if I get back home, then I’m just stuck back in Purgatory.

I realize my cigarette has long since burned all the way down to the filter, making it completely unsmokable. So, I toss the butt to the ground- what could it hurt? it’s not like I can cause a forest fire or anything- and draw out another one, firing it up.

The crisp smoke hits me like a truck, and I have no choice but to hack and cough as the smoke comes out of me. Damn, that sucked. I’m about to walk forward again, when I notice something on the ground. It looks like… blood. My blood.

Oh fuck. I just coughed up blood. This can’t be good. I look around desperately; I’ve got to find someplace to bunk down for the night. I can’t be out here in this freezing cold weather, especially when the really cold times hit. I’ve been walking for too long; it’s almost dusk.

Plus, Twilight doesn’t need to be out in the icy cold of night. She’s already endured too much; I can’t force any more upon her.

I scan the horizon for any kind of shelter. There’s something up ahead, but I can’t tell what it is. A house, maybe, or another grocery store? Either way, it’s something other than outside, so I’ll take it. I trudge on, though I can feel myself slowing down because of a lack of energy, and probably also because of the cold.

A few minutes later, I reach it. It’s a house! I almost jump for joy, but hold myself back at the last minute. I can’t risk somehow hurting Twilight. I’ll just have to settle for running as fast as my almost-numb legs can handle.

It seems forever before I reach the house, but finally I’m there. I knock on the door twice, before realizing it’s probably a futile gesture. I try the door like I did last time, and once again it’s open. I go inside.

I’m greeted by a large cardboard box with a note on it. It says simply, “Enjoy your carnal pleasures. I can’t have you dying off before I’ve been able to teach you the lesson you need to learn.” Again, it’s signed with Discord’s name.

I don’t get him… I really don’t.

The house is freezing cold, so I go to the thermostat and turn it up to a comfortable level. The heater creaks to life; maybe it hasn’t been used in a really long time. I take a bit of time to explore the house. It’s not much; a master bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a small living/dining area. There’s only one place to sleep in the whole house, and that’s a small bed in the master bedroom.

I lay Twilight there. She can have the bed; I’ll just sleep on the floor.

After I make sure she’s comfortable, I go to the kitchen. I don’t expect there to be food in the cabinets or ice box, so I’m pleasantly surprised when I find an abundant supply of frozen meat in the ice box, and a whole bunch of boxed pasta and canned vegetables in the pantry.

I’m almost crying tears of joy. I’m pretty sure, though, that if I did, they’d just freeze onto my face. Nevertheless, I’m incredibly grateful. This is going to be good for both of us.

I look around for an oven of some sort, and I find it on the opposite side of the wall that houses the ice box. I flip it on once I get to it, and by Jove, it works. Luck is just on my side, I guess-

Hold on. I’m starting to think that something isn’t right. These houses that I’ve been staying at, haven’t been lived in for quite a while, or at least that’s how they’ve looked. So how are all of these things still working: the heat in the first house, the gas and stove in this one? This couldn’t be Discord’s work… could it?

I suppose it’s possible; he did say he wanted to keep me alive as long as possible, at least until I learned my lesson… whatever the hell that’s supposed to be.

Speaking of Discord, what’s in that cardboard box that was in the front part of the house? I go there and look inside it. It’s empty… what a fucking surprise. I kick the box, mostly because I can.

The house is getting warmer; that’s a good thing. It’s about to get even warmer, too. I head to the kitchen and fish out a pan from under the sink; I fill it with water and put it on the stove to boil. While that’s going on, I get a can of peaches from the cabinet and open it up, then start munching on them as I head back to the bedroom.

Twilight is still lying on the bed, in the same state that she was before. Shit, this can’t be good. I tenderly unwrap her bandages to check on her wound; they need changing, anyways. When they’re all the way off, I check her wound out. Just like I expected, it hasn’t healed much since I last changed her bandages last night. At least the wound isn’t oozing anymore, like it was for a while. That was what really scared me; I was worried about infection setting in, and lord knows how long she would have lasted then.

She’s not from this world, I know, and thus she’s not used to the bacteria and everything that this wonderful world has to offer. I’ve seen War of the Worlds; I know what can happen in cases like that.

I re-dress the wound with what little bandaging I have left, using up the rest of it. Damn; I’ll just have to search the house a little more thoroughly, maybe see if I can find a first-aid kid somewhere. ‘Til then, though, I hear the water boiling, so I go into the kitchen and put some spaghetti on to boil. There isn’t any sauce that I can find, but that’s cool; I don’t like putting sauce on my spaghetti, anyways. I prefer eating it plain.

While that’s cooking, I go off in search of the first-aid kit. I shouldn’t be surprised when I find one, but I am a little bit nonetheless. I look inside and find a few good-sized rolls of bandage tape. That’s good; now I can keep dressing her wounds as need be.

A few minutes later, the pasta is done, and I drain it and put it onto a plate. I take the first bite, and about collapse with joy. It’s fucking delicious… nice and hot- just how I like it. I keep eating as I go back into the bedroom. I can’t help it; I don’t want to leave Twilight alone for too long, in case something happens where she needs me there beside her.

She’s got magic, yeah, but I’m pretty sure she can’t use it to defend herself while she’s in this coma.

I sit beside her, still eating and savoring that delicious pasta. I feel a twinge of guilt as I’m doing so; I don’t know what kinds of human food she can eat, but I’m pretty sure pasta would be ok with her. Which is why I feel so bad; we’d had a conversation a while back where she indicated she wanted to try some kind of pasta while we were together.

Here I am, now, eating it to my heart’s content, while she lies there, unable to see or feel anything… My heart breaks when I think about it.

I finish the pasta as quickly as I can, then set the plate off to the side and look over at Twilight. The words of Discord echo in my mind… Can I really save her with the flame that’s inside me? I don’t even know if I have a flame inside me, but I suppose it’s worth a try.

Anything to save her…

A friend of mine, a follower of witchcraft, had once told me about searching inside myself, and bringing a light to the surface in order to ward off spirits’ evil influences on me. I’m not really trying to ward anything at the moment, but I suppose it’s the same basic concept…

I close my eyes, and try to visualize the flame inside me, coming out and resting in my cupped hands. A minute passes by, and I feel nothing. I’m about to give up, when something inside whispers to me to keep going. It kind of sounds like Twilight… is she speaking to me through her magical coma? Even if not, it re-invigorates me, and I keep on concentrating.

Finally, after about five minutes of feeling nothing, I sigh and open my eyes. Wait. There it is! The flame, resting about an inch or so above the palms of my hands. I did it! I transfer it over wholly into the palm of my right hand, then almost as an automaton I lower it down towards her wound.

The dressings unwrap themselves, as though willing to release her in order to allow her to be finally healed. I touch the flame to her side, and it glows with a seething heat. I gaze on in wonder as her wound begins to stitch itself up; flesh connects to flesh, then skin to skin. Finally, the skin becomes smooth and soft, eradicating any trace that the wound was even there.

I can’t help it anymore; I’m crying now. With tears coursing down my face, I bring the flame back to my chest, and it enters back into me. It warms me, more now than it ever had before. Maybe because it’s actually been used now.

Suddenly I feel like I’m about to faint. How can this be? Did I use too much? I look at Twilight, to see if she’s awoken yet. She hasn’t…

Maybe I failed. Maybe she’s already gone on… These are the thoughts that cross my mind as I fade away, and the blackness consumes me.

Scream

“Oh god…” I wake up slowly, and my hand instinctively goes to my head. Fuck, I’ve got a splitting headache… I probably did take too much out of myself yesterday. Then again, I don’t know if it’s even tomorrow or not. I could’ve been out for an hour, a day, or a hundred years… I have no idea.

I sit up slowly, trying not to have a migraine flare. It seems to be working somewhat well, so I figure I’ll stick with this plan. I look around; I’m still in the master bedroom. Good; that means my sleepwalking isn’t flaring up. It’s odd… I guess I’m over it now? Maybe?

I steady myself, arms stretched out on either side of me, and try to stand up. Immediately I’m racked with sharp pains in my skull, and I sit down quickly again. Not a good idea, I guess. I look towards the end table, to see if the first-aid kit has any painkillers in it.

It’s not there. Huh? What happened to it? Oh… I bet I know what happened to it. I’m pretty sure Discord came and took it while I was out. That sneaky son of a bitch… He does want me to suffer. I’m sure he knew exactly what he was doing when he told me to use my flame; I’m sure he knew the side effects, too.

He’s too smart to not know.

It’s only then that I realize that something- or more specifically, somepony- else is missing. Yeah, that’s right. Twilight isn’t next to me anymore. Now the panic starts to set in. What if Discord got her when he came to collect the first-aid kit? My head is throbbing now, and I inhale sharply through my nose-

Eggs. What the hell? Why do I smell eggs? It seems like the smell is coming from the kitchen… Somebody cooked eggs for breakfast? It wasn’t me, so it had to have been-

Twilight. She’s alive! This news makes me happier than I ever thought possible, and I quite literally jump off the bed in joy. This proves to be the worst possible move I could have made, because as soon as I hit the ground, my legs buckle and I fall with alarming speed. I throw out my arms to shield myself in the fall, but all that serves to do is to whiplash my head forward once I hit the ground.

My forehead smacks the floor with alacrity, and agony sears my mind. I can barely fucking think straight. All I can do is curl myself up on the ground; I can’t move, I can barely breathe… Shit.

I hear a voice from behind me, but it seems to be echoing from a million miles away. “Oh no,” it says. “Are you ok?” I try to call out to answer, but no words escape the prison of my lips.

At this point, it feels like the floor throws itself out from under me, and it takes all my effort not to start flailing around erratically in my freefall- But wait. I’m not falling. On the contrary, I’m being levitated… I get set back down onto the bed, and turned to face over towards the doorway.

Sure enough, Twilight is standing just inside, a very concerned expression on her face. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks. I try to answer, but again I can’t speak. The pain is just too much.

She comes up to me and touches her horn to my forehead; it feels cool, and yet somehow warm at the same time. Like an Icy-Hot patch that’s having a malfunction and sending out both waves of pain relief at the same time.

Her voice echoes in my mind: “I’m sorry… I should have known you couldn’t speak. Here, just think what you want to say. I’ll hear it.”

I groan in my mind, then think, “I’ve never been happier than right now… in spite of all the pain and misery that I’m in.”

Twilight looks confused. “That makes absolutely no sense… How can you be happy, when you’re obviously so miserable?”

I give off an impression that I’m smiling at her. “Because you’re okay… I was so worried about you… I tried everything to bring you back to health, before-“ I catch myself; no need, once again, to let her know about Discord’s help… “-before I finally figured out what it was going to take to save you.”

“Save me?” Twilight looks at me bemusedly. “Save me from what? Did something happen to me?”

She doesn’t remember? Maybe that’s a side effect of the magical coma: memories getting kinda skewed. I show her in my mind, what happened to her: the man and what he did to her, all I did to keep her alive, and finally the trick with the flame.

She gasps. “No… how could I not remember any of that? And you really did all of that… for me?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “I was so scared… I didn’t want to lose you. You’re quite literally all I have here, and if I were to lose you… I don’t know what I would do.”

I think this pushes her over the edge, because at this point she just absolutely breaks down into tears. She jumps up onto the bed and lays beside me, trying to snuggle up as close to me as she can. This shocks the hell out of me; she’s never even shown any kind of physical affection before, but here and now…?

With quite a bit of effort, I roll over so that I’m laying on my back, while at the same time picking her up and placing her flush against my chest. She seemed to like it before; there’s no reason why I should think she won’t like it now. I was right, and for a long while we just lay there like that, her on my chest and in my arms.

Eventually, I drift off again. When I wake up, Twilight is still on my chest, sleeping peacefully. She looks like this is completely natural for her, in spite of the fact that before she met me, she had no idea what interaction with a human was like. This is all so foreign for the both of us.

My stomach gurgles, and I laugh softly to myself. Of course I would be hungry; I haven’t eaten in god knows how long. Suddenly, something occurs to me, totally out of the blue: I wonder if Twilight could re-charge my cell phone with her magic. It seems to be able to do pretty much everything else; why not recharge a smart phone?

In spite of the fact that I really do need to get some food, I don’t want to get up, mostly because I don’t want to disturb Twilight. Though, if I’m being honest with myself, it’s also kind of selfish, because I really am enjoying laying here with her like this. It’s very comforting.

I’m laying in bed for another- probably- fifteen minutes or so before I go back to sleep. When I wake up again, Twilight is no longer on my chest. I have to quash a knee-jerk reaction of panic; she’s probably just out in the living room or something.

I get up, very slowly this time. I very quickly notice that nothing hurts now, which is very odd. Even my splitting headache is gone. Did Twilight heal me while she was asleep? I’ll have to be sure to ask her about that, the next time I see her.

I start to walk towards the door, when something else hits me: I need a cigarette. Badly. I fish around in my pants for my pack and lighter; both are right where I left them. This is good. Instead of heading towards the back porch, though, I go to the kitchen area, to see if that’s where Twilight is at. She’s in the dining room, setting two plates of eggs on the table.

Something occurs to me, just then. “Hey, Twilight…? Where did you get those eggs? They weren’t in the ice box when I checked it the first time.”

She sighs. “It took me awhile to get these. When I woke up, you were still out cold, so I went out in search of a grocery store or something. I had to walk for about eight or nine miles before I found one, but when I did, I picked up a whole bunch of food.” She smiles. “My magic can carry a lot, so I ended up taking about half the store. We have enough here to be able to sustain us for at least three or four months.”

I don’t know which I’m happier about: the fact that we have food now, or the fact that Twilight was willing to do all of this for me-

Which kinda makes me angry, too. “You’re saying you went out there? By yourself? I know you don’t remember what happened to you, but I’m sure you know that there are some pretty blood-thirsty creatures out there wanting us for breakfast. If something would have happened to you…”

“I have my magic, you know,” Twilight replies. She seems a bit miffed. “I’m not as defenseless as you are.” The look on her face says that she immediately regrets saying that. “Oh no, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did-“

I know she’s just lying to cover her tracks. “Don’t BS me. You mean every word you say… And for the record, I’m not too mad because you’re right. I am very much defenseless, especially against those creatures…” I silently add, “And against Discord…”

“But, the flame… What about it?”

I shrug. “Hell if I know. Apparently it can be used to heal, but healing is generally a defensive capability. I’m not sure what kind of offensive shit it can do, if anything. It may be pure defense.” I sit down at the table and look down at my plate. “This looks absolutely delicious.”

“Thank you,” I hear from behind me. “I’ve never tried cooking eggs before, so I wasn’t too sure of the proper procedures… Hopefully they don’t taste too terrible.”

I pick up my fork and dig in. Surprisingly, they’re actually really good. They’re very fluffy and flavorful; in fact, they remind me irresistibly of my mom’s eggs, which are by far the best eggs that I’ve ever had. I wait until I’m done chewing to respond: “They’re delicious. Was this your first batch?”

She blushes and turns away a bit. “No…” she replies. “I burned the first three batches, before I finally got this one semi-right…” Oh. That would explain the slight burnt-egg smell in the air.

“No problem,” I reply, digging in some more. “You really should try these- or do you not think you can, with you being a pony and all?”

She sits down at the table. “I’m not sure how eggs are composed in this world, as opposed to the way they are in Equestria. I’m relatively sure they’re ok, though.” She levitates a fork, then uses it to somewhat clumsily scoop some eggs into her mouth. “Hey! These are good!”

I smile at her. “Told you.” In a few minutes, we’ve gotten them all finished. I take the dishes to the kitchen and wash them up, while Twilight clears away the remainder of the mess from cooking. After all this is done, I go outside and fire up a cigarette.

Aah, bliss…

Twilight comes out and shuts the door behind her. “Are those things good for you?” she asks.

I laugh a bit. “Not really, but like I said, it’s how I stay sane. Plus, they take the edge off my appetite most times, which is how I’ve been able to stay as skinny as I have.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” she replies, sitting down on the ground. “We need to get some more weight on you. You’re entirely too skinny.”

This kinda throws me for a loop. “What about you? You’re how old, and you’re the size of a miniature pony back on my world?”

“I’ll have you know that I’m fully grown,” she says with more than a hint of pride. “Very few of our species actually grow to be taller than what I am right now. The only ones that get taller are the alicorns. Think of a cross between a unicorn- like me- and a regular horse from your world. Over in Equestria, we refer to them as ‘Earth ponies’ though.”

“So you have pegasi, Earth ponies, unicorns, and alicorns? Am I missing anything?”

“Well, there’s the zebras, though I’ve only met one of them: a shaman named Zecora.”

“Zecora?” I ask. “Interesting name… I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

She nods. “Some of the beings in our world have some very… interesting attributes about them. Like there’s this one pony that looks like he’s been pumping steroids since he was still a foal-“

Wait, what? “You all have steroids in your world, too?”

“Not exactly; I was just trying to paint it in terms that you would understand. I recognize that not everything that is in my world is going to have an exact translation into your world.” At this point, I’m noticing that she’s wincing a little bit.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” I ask.

Though she’s obviously in a bit of pain, she nods. “It’s my flank… It’s acting up, which is weird… It never does this.” I tell her that it’s probably because that is the area that her wound was at, which makes her look at me funny again. “I swear I should remember this… I mean, I believe you when you said and showed me what happened, but that still doesn’t make up for the fact that I, myself, don’t remember it…”

I shrug. “It was a pretty traumatic experience; maybe it’s just temporary amnesia. It’ll probably come back after not too long.”

She nods. “I hope so. Knowledge has been my best friend since I was just a foal, and to know that there’s something so important that I’ve forgotten… It’s rather unsettling.”

I’m about to respond, when I hear a faint knocking sound. “Did you hear that?” I ask. Twilight indicates that she has no idea what I’m talking about. “I thought I heard someone knock on the front door. I’ll be right back…”

I cut through the house and make my way out front. The knocking is getting louder and more incessant by the second. “Hold on a damn second!” I yell as I reach the door and open it. No one’s there? What the hell? I step outside and look around, but there’s nobody around. I make my way out onto the front lawn-

And everything goes black. It’s almost like I’m enveloped in a thick shadow, so thick that I can’t break out of it. I feel myself sinking, and I cry out for Twilight’s help, but I don’t think she can hear me. I can only keep screaming as I’m dragged down into the earth, the darkness my unwilling cage and sanctum.

Crossing Borders

I awaken to voices around me. They’re voices that I don’t recognize, so I’m automatically wary of them. My common sense portion of my brain is active enough, though, to tell me that just maybe I should listen to what they have to say. So, without moving a muscle (and thus, alerting them to my awakened state), I listen.

“You’re not getting what I’m saying, are you, Princess Luna?” the first voice said. “We got the wrong one. We were supposed to get Twilight Sparkle, but instead we got… him. A human.”

“It matters not,” another voice replied. Without being able to see, much less know who the hell any of those voices belong to, I can only assume that this new voice belongs to the aforementioned Princess Luna-

Wait. Princess? So if what my mind is telling me is correct- that these are other ponies that I’m listening to- that must mean… I’m in the presence of pony royalty? Holy shit, that’s deep. Now I really don’t want to piss them off. I focus back to hear Luna still talking.

“-must have gotten him for some reason. Maybe he has Twilight’s scent on her, which is what we locked onto. We weren’t very thorough with the scent distinction in the scan; we thought that it would be able to distinguish between human and pony scents with ease.”

Okay, all of this is getting a bit too weird. So now, I’m hearing that they have some kind of advanced technology that can search for ponies just based off of scent? That’s a hell of a lot more advanced tech than what we have on Earth…

“I don’t want to be rude,” the first pony replied, “but this isn’t something that we need to take lightly. This human can provide us with valuable information. Let’s question him and see what he has to say.”

I chance a glance now. There are four ponies in the room, all standing near to each other. One of them is taller than all the others; she has a dark coat, with the symbol of the moon both on her chest and on her side. I’m guessing that one’s Princess Luna. The one who is speaking is sea-green with an image of a harp on her side; one of the other two is white with a musical note on her side, and the other is blue with rainbow-colored hair and a lightning bolt/rainbow combination on her side.

“I agree,” the blue pony said, grinning a bit too maniacally for my tastes. “Anything to help us find Twilight-“

Princess Luna holds out a hoof, and the blue pony falls immediately silent. “I understand your wanting to do anything you possibly can to find your friend, Rainbow Dash, but we must not jeopardize our chances. If we scare him too badly, he may shut down, and whatever information he has will be lost to us. Do you want that?

The one that she called Rainbow Dash shakes her head slowly. Princess Luna turns to the white pony. “Vinyl. How close are you to getting the trans-dimensional echo-locator online?”

She thinks for a second, then responds: “Well, with all of the technical difficulties we sustained after that last Changeling attack… I’d say it’s at least another two weeks out.”

Princess Luna lets a very un-princess-like word past her mouth. “That may be too late… We must find her another way.” She turns to the first pony, the one that she was speaking to originally. “Lyra, go wake him.”

I don’t want anyone waking me up, so I sit up on my own. “There’s no need for that,” I say. “I’m already awake.” I cross my legs into the Indian-style position, but that’s about the extent of the movement I take.

Princess Luna swings her head in my direction. “Aah, good, you have awoken. Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is-“

I hold up a hand to stop her. “I already know who you are, Luna. What I want to know, is where am I and what am I doing here?”

Luna looks at me sort of affronted, like I just slapped her in the face. “You dare speak so insolently to me? The ruler of the night over all of Equestria?” Man, she can be a bitch.

“I’m sorry,” I say, holding my hand out in a conciliatory fashion. “I didn’t mean any offense at all. I guess I’m just not used to dealing with royalty…”

Some of the anger in her eyes fades out, but I can tell that she’s still pretty pissed off. I’m glad when she takes that anger and directs it someplace actually useful: “So. Tell me everything that you know about your situation. Where have you been, what has happened, tell me everything!”

I figure this is going to take a while, so I get out my pack of cigarettes and go to light one up. Before I can do so, the one called Rainbow Dash flies over to me. “What’s that?” she asks.

“A cigarette,” I reply, firing up the lighter and setting the tip of the cigarette ablaze. “You might not want to be near me; I don’t know what kind of effect cigarette smoke has on pony lungs.” As much as I can tell she wants to stay near me out of curiosity, she nods her head and flies back over to where Luna is stationed.

Now that I’m getting that all-important nicotine into my system, I’m much more willing to cooperate with her demands. I start from the beginning and run through everything that I think is important. She lets me go on, until I get to the point where I mention Discord. That’s where she flips out and cuts me off.

“No! That can’t be!” She starts pacing; it reminds me of what I did back at the house. “You’re not seriously trying to tell me that Discord is back, are you?”

Back? Was he dead or something? I describe him to Luna and say, “Is this the same Discord we’re talking about, here?” She nods silently. Well damn.

“What’s going on with Discord?” I ask now, taking another drag off the cigarette. “You just said that he’s ‘back,’ as in he was gone before. What happened to him, and why is he back?”

“I can answer the first question easily,” Luna replies. “It was only through the combined influence of the Elements of Harmony- and him being weakened from a well-timed blast from Vinyl’s bass cannon- that we were able to defeat Discord and seal him back away.” She turns to Lyra. “Check on something for me. Is the Discord statue in the cemetery still intact?”

Lyra bounds off to check, and Luna turns back to me. “As for your second question… it will be more difficult to answer. I do not know why he has returned, or how. All I know is what you have told me, about this ‘test’ that he is putting you and Twilight through.” She looks me straight in the eye, and it creeps me out big time; it’s like she’s staring straight into my inner-most being. “Tell me, human one: do you know what test he is trying to put you two through?”

I shake my head as I take another puff. “I specifically asked him to tell me what the test was, and he said he wasn’t going to do that yet. All he’s revealed to me, is that he’s trying to make me more cynical, and that he’s happy that supposedly I’m slipping further towards the Dark Side of the Force.”

Luna looks at me a bit perplexed. “The Force? What is this Force of which you speak?”

I almost slap myself. I used that reference entirely too casually; I didn’t even stop to think that maybe they didn’t have Star Wars in this universe. “It’s something from my home world… Regardless, what I said still holds true. He does think I’m headed towards the side of evil, or whatever side he’s on.”

Luna breaks her gaze and walks backwards a few steps. “Discord is most definitely evil… We thought we had gotten rid of him for good. I guess we were wrong…”

Lyra comes back in then, and she has a very odd look on her face. “Princess, this doesn’t make any sense at all… The statue isn’t broken. It’s still just as whole as it has been since he was sealed away.”

The color seems to drain from Luna’s face. “Then… what on earth is going on?”

Something occurs to me, and though it’s an incredibly  far-fetched idea, so is the notion that I’d be sitting in a room that I have no idea where it is, having a conversation with four multi-colored ponies from a different dimension. So, I bring it up: “Do any of your kind have some kind of ability that allows you to project yourself into a different place, without your physical body ever leaving?”

Vinyl looks at me. “What, like a forced out-of-body experience?” For some reason, she gets looks of shock from the others. She quickly adds, “What? I saw a book about it in Twilight’s library and it looked interesting!”

I held up my hands, trying to show her she wasn’t going to be getting any shit from me. “But does any pony have that power?”

Luna is silent a moment before answering: “No, but we also have to consider that Discord has powers that no other pony can even dream of possessing. He is a master illusionist, but also a fine wielder of the magic arts. He can summon clouds that rain chocolate milk and cause tumbleweeds of cotton candy to roll everywhere; he can-“

“Okay hold up,” I say, standing up and dropping my cigarette to the floor. I stamp it out under-foot. “Chocolate milk clouds? Cotton candy tumbleweeds? All of that sounds absolutely harmless. How does Discord go from that to putting myself and Twilight through a game that by the way has damn near gotten her killed-“

Luna jerks her head in my direction, a look of shock on her face. “Twilight Sparkle nearly died? Tell me how!” I recoil a bit at the force of her demand, but nonetheless I tell her about the encounter with the machete-wielding madman, and how I helped her along her path to recovery.

Rainbow Dash flies over and lands beside me. “So you saved her life, basically, right? You helped her get all better?” I nod. I hadn’t told Luna about the Flame, and I don’t plan to, either. Not unless she finds out from another source and confronts me about it. I want that little secret to stay between me, Twilight, and Discord- at least, until I can explore my Flame more and figure out everything that it can do.

At this point, Rainbow Dash does something that pretty much surprises me: she rears back onto her hind legs, standing up on them- and she gives me a hug. It only lasts for a few seconds before she drops back down onto all fours, but I could feel the warmth that she was radiating.

“Thank you,” she says. “I feel so bad not being able to be there for her, so I’m glad that she has somebody as strong and loyal as you by her side.” Something tells me that she normally doesn’t say things like this, so I smile and pat her on the head affectionately. She closes her eyes, like she’s enjoying it, so I leave my hand on her head for the moment.

I turn my attention now to the one that they keep calling Vinyl. “Someone had mentioned earlier about an echolocation device?”

Vinyl’s ears perked up. “Yeah, are you interested in hearing about it?” I nod.

She grins. “Alright! So this is basically how it works. If I input the basic wavelength of someone’s vocal patterns, my machine can look through a whole bunch of different wavelengths to identify the exact place that someone is at.” She trots over to me. “And the best part? It can cross dimensions!”

Wow. So apparently pony technology is way more beyond ours, than I’d first expected. “So what’s stopping you from using it?” It’s only then that I remember what she said. “Oh, yeah, the Changeling attack. Ugly motherfuckers.”

I suddenly have Luna’s one-hundred percent undivided attention again. “You know about the Changelings?” she asks. “Where have you seen them before? I don’t think you’ve ever been to Equestria before; I would remember seeing you…”

“Never been to Equestria,” I reply, “though like I was telling Twilight, I’d love to go sometime. But anyways, Twilight drew me a picture of them and told me all about them. Plus, there’s this book that I found, that I guess is written in the Changelings’ language. Twilight didn’t want to read it, but she said the title had something to do with eradicating ponies from existence.”

Luna nodded. “They are our sworn enemies, the minions of Queen Chrysalis. They attacked Equestria again not too long ago. They hit our weak point for massive damage, including just about trashing Vinyl’s echolocation machine. Luckily, they didn’t find our interdimensional matter transporter, which is how we brought you here to us.”

Inter…dimensional? “Wait so I’m not in that dimension anymore?”

Lyra is looking at me funny now. “No, silly. You’re in Equestria.”

I… am in… Equestria?! Holy fuck.

“Why did you bring me here? Why didn’t you get Twilight too? You could have brought her back, too, so why d-“

Luna holds her hoof up to silence me, and though I’m starting to rage pretty hard right now, I bite back my words and fall silent. She nods in approval, then speaks: “We track with this machine based off of scent. We thought we had a lock on Twilight’s scent and so we captured the source of the scent and brought it back here. Unfortunately, that turned out to be you, and not Twilight.”

I sniff my shirt. It doesn’t smell any different from usual. “Twilight slept on my chest a few nights. That’s probably why you caught her scent on me.” I suddenly get a whiff of an angry aura in the room; I don’t have to search, really, because Rainbow Dash is giving me the evil eye. What’s going on with her? I didn’t say anything-

Oh. So her and Twilight are lovers, or something? Okay, that’s good to know…

Luna is walking up to me, now. “What do you suggest we do, human one?”

I’d figure the answer to that would be simple. “Easy. Get Twilight and bring her back here.”

Luna is shaking her head before my sentence is even finished. “That’s not going to be possible at this time. The machine is powered by a very specific form of magical energy, that is incredibly hard to come by… It would take us at least another month to be able to find enough energy to be able to re-charge it enough, at least to the point where we could get her back here. With what energy is left, we only have enough to send you back-“

“Then do it.”

She looks at me like I’m crazy. “From what you have told me, human one, that world you and Twilight are stuck in, is not very hospitable. You can stay here, and be with us until we can get Twilight back, and then we can decide what-“

I don’t care at this point if she is the Princess of the night or not; she’s talking some serious shit. I get where she’s coming from, but I disagree completely. “No deal. Twilight is out there in that world alone, and I don’t feel like sitting around here while she could possibly be getting killed.” I ignore the slight whimper that escapes Rainbow Dash’s lips.

“Send me back there, and then you all can get back to finding out a way to get enough magic to bring Twilight back. Besides, I’ll be of absolutely no help to you here; this is pony technology, and I can’t work it. I’ll probably end up fucking things up even more. So do us all a favor, and send me back there.”

Luna shakes her head. “If that is what you wish, then it shall be done. Before you go, though, keep this with you. Give it to Twilight when you see her next.” She hands me a necklace that has the symbols for the sun and the moon on it. “This will give her a link to us; that way, she can contact myself and my counterpart anytime she wants to.”

The sun symbol looks familiar to me, for some reason. It takes me a minute to place it. “The sun symbol… Is it in any way associated with some pony named Celestia?”

Luna nods. “Celestia is the ruler of Equestria, as well as being the ruler of the sun and of the day, as I am the ruler of the night… She is also my sister. The sun is her symbol, as well as being her cutie mark.”

Her what? What the hell is a cutie mark? I’ll have to remember to ask Twilight about that later, when I see her next.

Luna looks at me. “Are you ready?” I nod, and she walks over to a giant machine that for some reason I didn’t notice at all up until that point. She flips a switch, and I see the shadows come up out of the ground. I breathe in one last time, and the shadows engulf me, causing me to see and feel nothing again.

“Hold on, Twilight,” I mutter. “Here I come!”

This Is The Part Where The Needle Skips

I feel grass underneath me when I get my senses back around me. My front yard, I remember, is where I was taken by the beings that turned out to be Princess Luna and her cadre. I groan as I sit up; even though I did pretty much nothing to contribute to coming back from Equestria, my body feels like it’s been vampirized. Weak and listless, in other words.

I look around me as I think about everything that’s just happened to me. I was just in Equestria… Granted, all I saw of it was the single room that Luna practically kept me in, but still… Me, in Equestria. Just from what Twilight’s told me about it, it seems like an amazing place.

I’m making it my goal now to get back to Equestria, and to experience it the way that I should. A proper experience. Until then, though, and speaking of Twilight… I probably need to get back to her.

As I stand up and stretch my limbs, I notice that something feels… different. It’s almost like there’s a palpable tension in the air. Something isn’t right. I walk as fast as I can to the front door and open it up.

Immediately, I see one reason why things don’t feel right: the house is trashed. It looks like someone came through there with a fury, maybe looking for something. There’s no signs of blood or anything, so I rule out the possibility of a fight having taken place there.

Either that, or someone took the time to clean up. I try to push that thought out of my mind, though; I don’t want to think about Twilight getting hurt again.

I hear voices now. They’re coming from out back, so I make my way out to the back door. When I hear who the two voices belong to, though, I stop. Oh crap. This isn’t good…

“I don’t need to be listening to this,” Twilight is saying. “I know what he is. He’s a good person; he’d never do anything to hurt me. He saved me, for Celestia’s sake!”

“Are you sure?” the other voice replies, which I can pretty much immediately identify as belonging to Discord. “Do you really believe you know him that well?”

“I’d like to think I do,” Twilight replies, no hint of hesitation in her voice. She really does believe what she’s saying, I realize. She feels more for me than I realized… “He hasn’t given me a reason to doubt what I feel for him.”

“Oh?” Discord asks. “And what would that be, specifically? You have piqued my curiosity, young pony…”

I sneak a glance at Twilight’s face. Oh shit. She’s feeling the same things that I once did: that she can’t help but tell him the truth, even though it may end up being detrimental to her. Why does Discord have to have that way with his victims?

Twilight is silent for a moment, which is encouraging; maybe she is resisting Discord’s sway. After another moment, though, my heart sinks when she speaks again: “It’s… complicated.”

“Well yes, I suppose that would be a good way to put it.” Shit. Discord knows more than he’s letting on. He’s just questioning Twilight to see if she’ll admit to… whatever it is he’s trying to get her to admit to.

She picks up on this too, I see. “You already know the answer, don’t you…? So why ask me?”

Discord, I see, grins. “I want to hear it from your own lips. I want you to admit it to me, seeing as you’ll never admit it to anyone else. And also, I want him to hear it for himself.” He gestures to the house. “And by the way, Matthew, it’s not nice to listen in on a conversation and not let us know you’re there…”

He knows I’m here, I guess. I hear Twilight call out, “Is that true? Are you there?” Damn it all. I was just going to pretend that I didn’t hear him, or that I wasn’t here at all, but now… there’s no way that’s going to happen.

I open the door and step outside, closing it behind me. “Fuck you,” I say to Discord. “You’ve been nothing but trouble this whole time. Why are you here, anyways?”

Discord sighs. “See, that’s your problem. You hear, but you do not listen. And yes, there is a difference between those two. I have already told you the basics of my purpose for being here. It is to test you, and to show you uncomfortable things about yourselves. You will need to know, and to overcome, these things before you die.”

“But that’s not all, is it?” Twilight asks him. “You haven’t told us what you want us to learn.”

Discord grins again. “Oh, and take all the fun out of the game? Sorry, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen.” He turns to me. “So, my new friend… Where have you been? You almost missed the party.”

I look at Twilight, who has a fearful look in her eyes. Back to Discord now. “I’m not hurt, Twilight. You don’t need to worry about that. I was safe in the hands of your Princess.”

Discord’s grin fades. “You… were where?”

It’s my turn to gloat to him. “Oh, so you’re not omniscient? And here I thought that’s what you were trying to make me believe… Though I am telling the truth.” I turn to Twilight. “Princess Luna sends her regards, as does Rainbow Dash. They all can’t wait for you to come home.”

Twilight is reeling from this new revelation. “You… talked to Princess Luna? How?”

“She took me to Equestria. I spoke to her there, along with a few other ponies. Lyra and Vinyl, I think she said their names were.”

Discord butts back in: “There’s no way you could have gone to Equestria, human liar. No human has ever gone to our world, and for good reason: no one wants them there!”

Twilight bucks up to him. “You have no right to say that! We do not hate. As long as he did no harm to us, we would allow him to do what he wanted, and you know it.”

Discord looks at her with pity. “That’s what you’d like to think, and by all means keep thinking that. Unfortunately, that’s just not to be… I know more than you think about this individual. I know what he’s capable of, and I know that he doesn’t even know that. And once everyone finds out what I know… no one will want him. Just like no one has wanted him up until now.”

Twilight grits her teeth and steps up a bit. “Don’t… say… those things about him. There is someone who wants him…” Her horn flashes pink. “And she’s standing right here!”

I feel a rush of warmth through my body, and I can’t help but smile. I’d suspected as much, but I never thought I’d hear her say that she cared about me. I look at Discord, still smiling. “See? I do have somepony on my side. And no matter what, they’ll stick with me. Unlike you, who has no one.”

Discord is looking pretty pissed at me. He holds his hand up and conjures up a ball of what appears to be cotton candy. I’m about to laugh and make a comment along the lines of “Is that the best you got,” when he launches it at me.

When it hits my chest, I’m knocked off my feet and hit the ground hard. Dammit, that hurt! My chest is on fire right now; it feels like I may have broken a few ribs. I should have known better than to underestimate Discord and his magic. Harmless, my ass…

I stand up to see Twilight sling a bolt of magic at Discord. It hits him and causes him to go backwards about a foot or so, but he recovers quickly. “Come at me, Twilight!” he says with a grin. “All this could belong to you! Just reach out and take it!”

With this, Discord and Twilight start staring each other down. I’m about to ask them if they can’t just get along, when Discord makes the first move and conjures a dark storm cloud above Twilight’s head. Immediately, it starts to rain, drenching her from head to… hoof? I guess that would be the proper terminology, seeing as ponies don’t have toes, technically…

And wait. Why is Discord just making it rain on her? I guess just to aggravate her. He is a trickster, from what I’ve been told.

Twilight is getting tired of this, I see as well. She shoots a bolt of magic at him, but he dodges it, still smiling. He’s playing around with her.

“I’m not leaving until you admit it, Twilight,” Discord says with his usual grin. “Not until you say what’s truly on your heart. Or are you too much of a scaredy-pony to tell him how you truly feel?”

How… she truly feels? That makes no sense. I look at Twilight and see that she’s ready for all of this to be over with. So, I resolve to help her any way that I can. I close my eyes again, and concentrate. When I open them a few seconds later, there it is. The Flame.

I wonder what else I can do with it. I imagine it taking the form of a baseball bat, with spikes driven into it. Before my eyes, it happens! Wow. I can’t help but grin as I turn to Discord. “Hey! Over here!”

Discord turns to me, about to say something, when he sees the Flame weapon in my hand and stops before he even gets out the first word. I just grin and run at him. I’m not high enough to hit him in the head, but I do score a solid body shot.

Discord howls in pain as he flies up to avoid my new-found weapon. So the Flame can be used for offensive purposes. That’s good to know. As he flies up, Twilight shoots another bolt of magical energy at him, causing him to have to duck it, which put him once again in range of my basher.

This goes on for about another ten or fifteen seconds, before Discord finally howls in rage and lets out a wave of magical energy, knocking us both flat on our asses. He then disappears in a flash of blinding light, but not before yelling out, “You think you’ve won this one…? No. You’ve just lost more than you’ll ever believe possible!”

When the light cleared, Twilight and I looked at each other. “I didn’t think you had it in you,” I say.

She tilts her head. “You didn’t think that I had what in me?”

“The ability to fight,” I reply. “Well, it’s more along the lines of the will to fight. You seem so docile and peaceful, for the most part…”

“I don’t like to fight,” she says. “Nopony does. When it comes down to it, though, those who can fight do so, no matter what their personal views on the subject may be.” She sighs. “Let’s just go inside. I want you to tell me everything that happened after you disappeared.”

I nod and open the door, letting Twilight go in before me. When I have the door shut, I turn to her. “Are you hungry?”

She nods. “When I use up magic like that, it not only depletes my magical reserves, it also drains off a little bit of my physical energy as well.” Ah. That’s good to know. So she’s not just this limitless fount of magical energies. She’s a little bit… human.

I make my way into the kitchen. “What do you want to eat?” I ask.

“If you want, you could make some of that spaghetti. I never tried to make it while you were gone. I figured you could make it a lot better than I could.”

I laugh. “You got it. In fact, I’ll cook up some of the ground turkey that we’ve got in the freezer. It’s really good, I promise,” I say quickly, upon seeing her skeptical expression. “Or do ponies not eat meat?”

“We’re not really meat-eaters,” Twilight says slowly.

“That’s cool. I’ll just cook it up for myself, then.” I go to the kitchen and turn on the stove, starting to get all of the pans and everything ready for cooking. While I’m doing this, I ask her, “So what went down here while I was gone?”

“It was utterly boring,” she replied. “It was just me here by myself, wondering incessantly where you’d gone off to… I thought one of those creatures had gotten ahold of you…”

So she had been worried about me… “No, nothing like that. I was summoned by Princess Luna to Celestia. She wanted to-“

“So she called you there? And not me?” There was a hint of sadness in her voice.

I put the pasta into the now-boiling water. “It wasn’t on purpose. She meant to lock on to you, but she got me instead. Tell you what. Let’s talk about something different until we get the food done, and then once we’re situated at the table we can talk about what happened to me.”

Twilight nods, and we spent the next few minutes chatting about her life in Equestria, and a little bit about what my life was like in my world. The conversation wiles away the minutes, and soon everything is ready for dinner. I put everything onto the plates- just the spaghetti for her, the spaghetti and the cooked turkey for me- and set them onto the table.

Just then, I realize that I’m nicking pretty badly, so I motion to Twilight that I’m going outside to smoke a cigarette. She hops up and follows me outside; I figure it’s because she wants to know pretty badly, just what happened during my time in Equestria.

Sure enough, as soon as we get outside and I light up my cigarette, Twilight looks at me. “Okay, so: tell me everything.”

I begin to recount everything that I could recall: meeting Princess Luna and her cadre, finding out about the Changeling attack that damaged the machines, and finally being sent back to this world. I remember the necklace, and I hand it over to her. “Princess Luna said that that necklace has some sort of spell cast on it, so that you can stay in contact with herself and Celestia at all times.”

She looks like she’s about to cry. “This… I wasn’t expecting at all.” She looks at me. “Did they give you anything similar?”

I shook my head. “I’m a human, obviously; I’m not a pony, much less a pony who means as much to them all as you. Especially the one who looks like she got pushed through a tie-dye machine when she was young- Rainbow Dash, I think her name was.”

Twilight looks at me with an interesting expression on her face. “Why do you single Rainbow Dash out?”

“She was giving me some vibes that… well, that she felt more for you than just friendship.”

She looked confused. “Like what, she’s in love with me? That’s… highly unlikely. Not to mention highly illogical.” I take another puff and flick the ashes down onto the ground. “I’ve known Rainbow Dash longer than anypony else, well except for Fluttershy, and-“

This is new. “Who’s Fluttershy?” It’s only after I ask, that I remember that she’d mentioned that name in one of her comatose mutterings.

“She’s one of my best friends,” Twilight confesses. “She’s basically Ponyville’s veterinarian. She has a way with animals that nopony else that I’ve seen even comes close to…”

I smile. “She seems nice.”

Twilight laughs. “Oh, you have no idea. She’s the most loving pony I’ve ever met. She is very… timid, though. Nopony has a problem with that, really, though sometimes it causes… issues for us. Like when we had to get rid of that dragon that was threatening to run us all out of Ponyville with its smog-“

Wait. What? “A… dragon?”

She looks at me funny again. “Yeah. They’re somewhat common in our world. In fact, my assistant back in Ponyville is a young dragon named Spike. He’s also the unofficial mail-dragon, when it comes to my correspondences between myself and Princess Celestia.”

I stamp out my cigarette butt and light another one. “So, is Celestia like your teacher or something?”

Twilight nods. “She’s been that way since I was a filly. She’s taught me so much… She’s been more of a parent to me, in some ways, than my own parents have.”

I can relate to that, and I tell her as much. For the next few minutes, we just talk about ourselves, content to make small talk. When I’m done with my cigarette, I stamp it out and we go back inside. Upon sitting at the dinner table, we dig in.

Twilight looks like she’s died and gone to heaven, and that’s just from the first bite. “This… this is delicious. Where on earth did you learn to cook like this?”

I shrug. “Necessity, I guess. Spaghetti is cheap where I come from, and inexpensive foods are the best kind when you’re on a hella tight budget. So, I learned how to make spaghetti really well.” I dig in a bit more. “Though I will admit, I’m normally not as adept at making grilled meat, especially not from memory… Heh maybe I should start calling myself Jace.”

I can tell she doesn’t get it, but she doesn’t say anything. After we get finished, I do up the dishes and then go sit down on the couch. Twilight jumps up and curls up in my lap, closing her eyes contentedly. That reminds me of something.

“Hey, Twilight,” I say a bit cautiously, not wanting to offend her in any way, “there’s something I’ve had on my mind since earlier today.”

She looks up at me curiously. “Oh, and what’s that?”

I brace myself and speak what’s on my mind: “Was Discord right?” Her expression is one of confusion, so I decide to throw caution to the wind and just ask her.

“Twilight… Are you in love with me?”

World So Cold

Twilight’s eyes grow wide. Oh shit. I really caught her off guard with my question. I didn’t really intend to do that…

“Sorry,” I say quickly. “That was probably too personal of a question-“

“Not really,” she says quietly. Her eyes are starting to slowly start going back to their normal dilation. “It’s natural for you to be curious…”

Something occurs to me. “Can ponies even fall in love with humans?” I hope this will allow Twilight to formulate a proper response, and it seems to be working. I can practically hear the gears in her mind turning.

“I don’t know,” she says, getting up and hopping down onto the floor. “Lyra would seem to think so, but then again she’s the supposed expert on all things human… Even though, come to think of it, she’s never seen one before…”

“Maybe she has,” I suggest. “You all have books in your world, don’t you?”

“Well, yes. I am Ponyville’s town librarian, and you can’t exactly have a library without books. I don’t think we have any human-related books though…”

I shrug. I’m at a bit of a loss. “Hey, hold on. There was a pony there with Princess Luna, that she called Lyra. She’s got a harp as her… what did Luna call it? A cutie mark?”

Twilight nods. “Cutie marks are basically physical representations of what each pony’s special talent is. For me, it’s magic; thus, the sparks that make up my own cutie mark.” Oh. That kinda makes sense. “And yes,” she continues, “Lyra’s cutie mark is a harp. She’s really talented at music.”

“So why is Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark a rainbow and lightning bolt?”

“Well, she’s the fastest flyer in all of Equestria, for starters. And the rainbow, I think, is indicative of how she got her cutie mark. She was able to pull off an aerial stunt called a Sonic Rainboom, which up until she did so, only one pony in history had ever been able to accomplish.” She chuckles. “Funny thing is, she’s done it once or twice since then, as well.”

“And Vinyl’s?”

She thinks. “No one really has much to do with her. She’s sort of the town oddball. She does a lot of DJ work in her spare time, her and her partner Octavia. I think her cutie mark is a reflection of that. And before you ask, Princess Luna’s mark-“

“Represents her role in raising the night. I kinda figured that much.”

She looks at me oddly again. That seems to be becoming more and more common as of late. “So you really did go to Equestria? You really did talk to Luna and the others?”

So she did have some doubt. “Yes, I did. Didn’t you confirm that with Luna or Celestia? Or have you not talked to them yet?”

“I talked to Luna for a minute, but she said she couldn’t stay long because she was coordinating the clean-up from the latest Changeling attack. She explained everything that she’d told you as well, though I think she was a bit more technical with me than she was with you.”

Fine by me. Technical shit confuses the hell out of me, anyways.

Suddenly, Twilight looks me straight in the eyes. “I don’t know, really…” is what she says.

“What don’t you know?” I ask. I think I know what she’s referring to, but in this particular case, I’m kind of channeling Discord a bit. I want to hear her say it for herself.

“I don’t know if I’m in love with you,” she says. “I… don’t even know what being in love feels like.”

This kind of surprises me. “You’ve never been in love with anyone? Not even Dash?”

“You keep mentioning her. Why? Is she in love with me? Did she tell you that?”

“Well not verbally, but she definitely was giving me those vibes. She even gave me a hug when I told them about how I’d saved you from that madman with the blade.” Something occurs to me. “Hey, speaking of… how is your side feeling?”

“No pain,” she answers, “but also no memories still…” A note of sadness tinged her voice.

“That’s really getting you down, isn’t it?” I ask. She nods solemnly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not unless that Flame of yours can restore memories…” she says as she looks around the trashed living room. “Man, he really did a number on this place…”

He? Oh. “Discord?”

She nods. “He just appeared out of nowhere. Just the force of his appearance trashed pretty much everything in here.” She starts using her magic to levitate everything back into its proper place.

I hate having to watch someone work and me just stand around, so I start helping her with the clean-up. Now that I’m involved, I also remember that I don’t like working in silence, so I ask her: “Do you think it’s possible? That Rainbow is in love with you?”

“It’s possible. She and I have known each other for a very long time. Besides, in our world, we don’t have any restrictions placed on relationships between members of the same gender. I mentioned Vinyl and her marefriend Octavia earlier; Lyra is also involved with another female pony, named Bon Bon.”

I smile widely. “That’s good… I’ve never had a problem with those sorts of things. Okay, here’s a better question: do you want her to be in love with you?”

“I don’t care whether or not she ever falls for me,” Twilight replies curtly. Shit, I think I hit a nerve. “Her feelings aren’t going to change the fact that I see her as nothing more than a best friend. Like I said, I’ve never had time for falling in love. My studies have always come first.”

“Oh yeah,” I reply, “your studies with Princess Celestia. What exactly does she have you study?”

About this time, she’s finished with the living room, so she goes to the couch and sits back down. I go and sit next to her. “In the beginning,” she says after a moment, “it was just the basics of magic. How to control my abilities and what not. When I relocated to Ponyville, my studies shifted to the power of friendship and how it relates to magic.”

“So in your world… Friendship is magic?”

She nods. “In a very real way, your relationship with your friends directly influences how strong your magic is. At least, that’s one conclusion I’ve come to.”

It’s only at this point that I realize that what she’s saying is really starting to piss me off. “So what, do you think that those who don’t have magic can’t have friends or something? Or that friendship can’t be magic to those who don’t have your kind of magic?”

“No, no…” she says hastily, “that isn’t what I intended to imply at all. I was just trying to say that in our world, friendship strengthens our magic. Besides, you have magic, too-“

“What, my Flame? Like I said, it can’t do anything offensive. It’s pretty much useless, don’t you think? I meant it when I said I wanted to protect you, and if I can’t do anything about that-“

“Being defensive can be just as protective as being offensive.” She sounds a bit exasperated. “Your healing me allowed me to regain consciousness. If I wasn’t awake, and Discord had attacked you, something could have happened to you… You could have died.”

I stand up. “If I’m weak, I might as well be dead.” I walk outside before Twilight can respond, and shut the door to be able to have some privacy. I reach into my pocket and pull out my cigarettes, lighting one up. I need to quit these things; I’m smoking way too much lately.

A voice echoes in my head: “Oh, you need that? You need to waste my gift to you?”

Discord… Fuck. Maybe I can communicate with him the way I did with Twilight. Telepathy, was it called? “It’s not a gift. It’s a death sentence. If I don’t die from the creatures, or from the cold, I’ll die from lung cancer from smoking so damn much.”

Discord laughs. “I didn’t tell you how much you needed to intake, nor did I even force you to partake in the first place. I just provided them for you. You could have turned them down.”

It’s a hard thing to admit to myself, much less Discord, but it needs to be said: “I’m weak.”

Discord ignores this apparently, instead choosing to ask me, “So how comes the transformation? It seems like my work is being done even in my absence.”

That reminds me of something I wanted to ask him. “So how are you here in this world, if your statue in Ponyville isn’t broken? Can you project yourselves across dimensions?”

“Oh, I can do much more than that,” Discord answers, “but that is not how I am appearing to you now. It is no magic at all, well not really. Indirectly, yes; directly, no.”

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

“So you think I’m getting closer to your goal?” I ask. “Shouldn’t that warrant a celebration like last time?”

Discord is silent for a moment, then he responds: “Not quite yet. However, I am willing to answer one question for you. Any question you’d like.”

My answer is immediate: “Where did you take Twilight and I? Where are we?”

Discord sighs. “You just will not let up off that, will you? I’m not going to tell you that. What I will say, is that your question doesn’t need to be ‘where are we?’ It needs to be ‘when are we?’”

That doesn’t make any sense. “Right now, of course. We can’t be any other time.”

I get the feeling that Discord is looking at me right now with a visage of pity. “Think about it,” he says. “I have to go. Happy trails.” I feel a sort of a severing of a link, and I’m pretty sure he cut off our telepathic link.

Once again, my cigarette’s burned down to the filter, so I flick it out into the yard and go to light up another one. I’ve got the cigarette to my lips and am about to fire up the lighter, when there’s movement from the woods in front of me. I stop for a moment and look up.

Wolves. Motherfucking wolves. Quite a few of them, too, from the looks of it. They’re coming out of the woods in droves. They’re fucking huge, too. Like, the size of Great Danes, huge.

Fuck my cigarette; I’m going inside. I hurry inside and close the door. Twilight greets me with, “You saw the wolves, too?”

I nod. “How are they that big?” She shrugs. “Great…”

Twilight looks at me with big eyes. “We have a bigger problem to worry about, though. Come look what I found.” She leads me into the kitchen and shows me a newspaper sitting on the countertop. “I was trying to make a sandwich but I dropped the knife, and when I reached into the trash can to get it… I found this.”

I look at the paper. It looks relatively old. “Okay, it’s an old newspaper. So what?”

“Look at the date,” she replies. I look at it, and immediately ice flows through my veins. Was this what Discord was talking about when he said I should be asking “when are we?”

I look at Twilight with fear in my eyes. “This has to be a joke. There’s no way this is real.” I swallow unsteadily.

“There’s no way we’re in the year 2073…”

Chapter 9.5 - Pinkie Pie Nukes the Fourth Wall

Author’s Note: This chapter of the story is not meant to be taken seriously (no pun intended), neither is it an actual official canon chapter. This is just me messing around and wanting to make an announcement in a fun and silly way. Also ponies. Because always ponies.

Pinkie Pie was out walking in the moonlit Equestrian night. Beside her was Ponyville’s most famous DJ, Vinyl Scratch, though she was better known to the late-night community as DJ Pon-3. On her other side flew a particular grey pegasus.

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie stopped and stared off into space for a bit.

“Pinkie?” Derpy asked curiously. “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing’s the matter, silly!” Pinkie replied, still gazing off into nothing. “I’m just getting a message from the author of this story!”

Vinyl looked at Derpy, who shrugged. “Um, Pinkie dear… What story? And what author?”

“The story we’re in right now, Vinyl! Though it’s kind of odd that we’re in it now, because we haven’t been in it at all up until this point. Until now, it’s just been Twilight Sparkle and some random human.”

On a park bench a few feet off, Lyra’s ears perked up. “Humans? Where?”

“Nowhere, Lyra!” Vinyl called out quickly. “Pinkie’s just talking crazy again!” Lyra looked back down at her book, a bit of a let-down look on her face.

When Vinyl turned back to Pinkie, she wasn’t staring into space anymore. “So?” Vinyl asked. “Is it over?”

“Oh no, silly, not even close! This story still goes on for another nine chapters!”

“What… STORY?!?! There is no story!!!”

Pinkie looked a bit taken aback.”Well, it certainly isn’t the story in which you wear a dress, that’s for sure.”

“Why would Vinyl wear a dress?” Derpy asked. “That really isn’t her thing.”

“Thank you, Derpy.”

“Why, for her date with you, of course. But like I said, that’s a totally different story.” Pinkie closed her eyes and started to hum, causing her to totally miss Vinyl’s face turning beet red at the prospect of going on a date with Derpy.

“Anyways!” Pinkie said, opening her eyes back up, “The author wanted me to let everypony know that the final chapter of the story is going to be… Drumroll please… A Q&A SESSION WITH THE AUTHOR HIMSELF!!!” Fireworks exploded behind her.

“Um, Pinkie…” said Fluttershy, who’d appeared out of absolutely nowhere, “What’s a Q&A session?”

“Well, Fluttershy, it’s basically where the readers of the story send in questions to the author, and he answers them, along with any other questions that he himself makes up to simulate more viewership than he actually has.”

“Oh… Well, that sounds rather fun. Though… what story are you referring to?”

“Thank you!” Vinyl exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to get her to tell me that for a while!”

“All the readers have to do is send him a Private Message with their question(s) and he’ll compile them all and answer them for the final chapter.” Pinkie looked like she was about to continue, when a thought occurred to her. “Oh darn, I’m late!” She sped off like a rocket, leaving the other three ponies there. While Derpy and Fluttershy talked to sort things out, Vinyl was oddly quiet, deep in thought.

“You know, if it was for a date with Derpy… I probably would wear a dress.”

Author’s Endnote: Yeah, like I said, this was totally anti-canon. Do not think this is an actual part of the storyline, ‘cause it isn’t. Well, not for this story anyways. The whole “Vinyl’s dress” portion of it is actually a part of another story I have going, called “My (Brave) Little Toaster”.

Just to be clear, the end-of-story Q&A bit is actually legit. It is in the plans, so I hope you all will send in your questions!

I Am You

I drop the newspaper on the counter in shock. There is absolutely no way that I just read what I thought I just read. Yeah, that’s right. My eyes just deceived me. It didn’t say 2073…

I’m almost scared to look back down at it, though. What if it really was what I thought it was? How am I going to reconcile this? This shit ain’t logical, man.

Speaking of logical… “What do you make of this?” I ask Twilight, chancing a glance over at her.

She looks about as confused as I do, but there’s something else about it. Something that I can’t exactly put my finger on. It looks like she’s confused for a different reason than I am.

“You don’t look surprised,” I comment.

“I am surprised,” she responds. “Although I want to know why your reaction was so strong…”

“Well, it’s like this: before I woke up here, I was way further back in time than this. It was the year 2012 where I was.”

She mulls this over for a second before responding: “Yeah, that’s the same year it was for us, as well…”

“So what, is this some kind of time-travel shit? Like that H.G. Wells story or something?”

Twilight turns to the side, and at first I think it’s because she’s mad at me for something- though for what, I can’t imagine. After a second, though, I realize that she’s just finishing up making her sandwich.

“Can you make me one while you’re at it?” I ask politely. She nods, and I go and sit on the couch in the living room. While she’s still in the kitchen, I’m trying to figure all of this out. My mind is racing a mile a minute.

Suddenly, I get an urge to do something that I swore I’d never willingly do. I try to tamp it down at first, but it’s getting too big to ignore. I have to find out answers somehow, but to do something that drastic? I don’t want to…

I feel Twilight settle down onto the couch beside me, and nudge a plate over in my direction. This is enough to bring me out of my reverie for now, and I pick up the sandwich, taking a bite out of it.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

I can’t help but laugh a hollow laugh. “Am I alright? No, frankly, I’m not. I’ve just found out that somehow I’ve been transported sixty-one years into the future, where apparently the world’s come to an end or some shit like that. We’re being hunted by maniacal creatures that want us dead, and I’m assuming these things didn’t just evolve to look like they do… And on top of all of that-“ I turn and look Twilight dead in the eyes. “You still haven’t answered my question yet.”

“W-what question?” She tries to avoid my gaze, but I know for a fact that she knows exactly what I’m talking about.

I’ve brought it back up to the forefront, though, and I know it’ll stick in her mind for awhile. So I decide to take it on a slightly different tack. “Well, let me ask you this. Do you have a special someone back in Equestria?”

She shakes her head. “A few ponies I know have feelings for me, but I’ve never reciprocated any of them.”

“Seriously? No one? I mean, even I’ve had a few girlfriends back in the day, and I’m about as socially awkward as they come.”

“You have no problem talking to me.”

I’m about to respond, when I stop myself short. She’s actually right. I have no problem whatsoever conversing with her. She’s actually the first female that I’ve ever had that experience with.

“Point. Maybe it’s because you’re of a different species than me? I don’t know…”

She gets up and takes the dishes out to the kitchen. When she’s put them into the sink, she comes back out. “I want to go talk to Princess Celestia about something. Don’t leave… please.” With that, she goes into her bedroom and shuts the door.

What did she mean by that last part? I really don’t care, truth be told. I decide I need some fresh air, so I step out back. Immediately, the crisply cool air hits me, and I smile. I’m not smiling for long, though, as I see those fucking wolves at the edge of the woods, staring out at me. I can only see their eyes, but I’m sure it’s them. Sure as I’m alive.

I try to ignore them as I sit down. I don’t know if these wolves can sense fear or not, but just in case they can, I don’t want them to start seeing me as weak prey… and maybe decide to attack me.

Instead, I sit outside for a second, staring down at my hands. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Obviously, things are much more serious than I’d first realized. I’m not going to be able to survive without information.

I think it’s high time I got some answers.

I don’t even know if he can hear me, but I call his name out all the same. Just one word.

“Discord.”

Before I can even say another word, the draconequus- is that what he called himself? I think so- has appeared in front of me. He’s holding a glass of something that looks like chocolate milk, and he’s grinning like a madman.

“Well, now! This is a pleasant change…! Usually, it’s me who’s having to force myself upon you, but now you’re calling upon me willingly!”

“I wouldn’t be having to do this if you’d been honest with me up to this point,” I argue. “You haven’t really given me all that much information to work with.”

“But, of course not. If I’d have told you everything right from the very beginning, then it wouldn’t have been fun at all. Well, not for me anyways. I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make it fun for you, not at this point.”

I glare at him. “You’re not kidding.” I stand up so I can face him like a man. Well, that’s kind of a misstatement; I’m not even close to his height. I can get up as close as I can, though. “I want some answers.”

“And I’d be happy to provide them, if you were ready to hear them.”

“Oh, I’m ready. I’m past ready.”

Discord grimaces and shakes his head pityingly. “Oh, you think you are, there is no doubt about that. But you aren’t. And do you know why?” Before I can answer, he continues: “Because you are still alive. What I have done to you- and for you- if I were to reveal it to you, you wouldn’t want to stay alive anymore. You’d want to kill yourself just to escape, and I can’t have that. Not yet.”

“Why? Because I haven’t learned my lesson yet?”

Discord smiles a bit. “Has Twilight told you what she’s doing when she goes into her room to ‘talk to Princess Celestia’?”

“I assume that’s what she’s doing. She does have that-“ I stop myself. If Discord doesn’t already know about the amulet that provides her with that direct link to the Princesses, then he doesn’t need to. “That method of contact.”

“I know that. But do you really trust that she’s really doing what she says she’s doing?”

I’m about to reply in the affirmative, but something prompts me to stop and think first. When I do so, albeit reluctantly, I realize that Discord actually has a point. I have nothing to draw upon to come to the conclusion that Twilight is actually telling me the truth.

Still, I don’t feel like inflating Discord’s massive ego any more than it already has been. So like I’ve been having to do way too much lately, I decide I’m going to play innocent. “Like I’ve already said, she hasn’t given me any reason not to trust her. So until she does so, I’m going to believe her.”

“You shouldn’t.”

The abruptness of his statement surprises me somewhat. “What do you know, that I don’t? Specifically relating to this topic of conversation.”

“Twilight has her own loyalties, let me just put it to you like that. She doesn’t want to protect you for purely unselfish reasons. She wants to get back to Equestria, just like you want to get back to your time. She feels, correctly by the way, that she cannot survive without you and your Flame.”

“But she has her own magic, and that’s gotta be one hell of a lot stronger than my Flame ever could be.”

“It is powerful, yes, but it can’t do anything. For one, it can’t be used to kill, because killing is not a part of pony society. Because it is a part of yours, though, your Flame can be used to kill. If you wanted to, you could kill Twilight without breaking a sweat. In the same way- well, no I can’t say that. You couldn’t kill me. You could try, and you’d probably be able to do quite a bit to me. But you couldn’t kill me. Not with your power at the level it is.”

“But if I were stronger…?”

Discord laughs. “Don’t press your luck.”

My eyes involuntarily flutter over to the edge of the woods, where sure enough, those wolves are still lurking just inside the field of my vision. Damn, it’s creepy, just seeing their eyes floating out there in the darkness.

Discord apparently can sense what I’m thinking, because he speaks up now: “That’s not a bad idea, Matthew. Why not try your powers out on one of them? I’m sure it won’t matter if one of them is dead. I mean, look at how many of them there are. They won’t miss one dead wolf.”

“They haven’t done anything to me, though. They’re just sitting there, watching us all the time.”

“I could make one of them do something, if that would be enough motivation for you.” As if on cue, one of them steps out of the woods, its hackles raised and sharp teeth bared. Now that I’m really looking at it, I realize just how big it actually is. Its head probably comes up to my chest, and its body looks lithe and muscular.

“Well?” Discord asks. “Nothing?” I shake my head.

He snaps his claws, like a regular human would snap their fingers. Suddenly, the wolf growls deeply, then charges at me. Its eyes reflect the light of the moon, and they look… evil. Like a red moon is giving off its light, even though the moon is its regular color.

I don’t have time to react before it lunges at me, knocking me off my feet and pinning me down onto the deck of the patio. It snaps at my face, but I manage to get my head out of the way just a split second before my nose would have been in its jaws.

“Are you not going to do anything?” Discord taunts. “Are you just going to let it kill you?”

As it’s coming back down for another snap at me, I raise a hand and summon the Flame. I blast it in the face with a bolt of the Flame energy, and send it flying off the deck. It lands on its feet, skidding for a few yards, before it shakes off the initial surprise and charges again.

“You don’t have it in you, do you?” Discord asks. “You really can’t kill. You’ll never survive if you can’t-“

Before he can finish, the wolf lunges again. I’m getting sick and tired of his antics, and I just want it to be over with. So, I channel my rage into the Flame, and rear back and throw a punch. As my fist is coming forward, I can see that my Flame has turned from its regular light blue, to an almost jet black.

My fist makes contact with the wolf’s snout, then keeps on going as its head practically explodes into a fine red mist. Its body falls down in front of me, missing everything above the neck.

Discord laughs gleefully. “You did it! You killed, finally! Well done, my boy. You’re gonna go far, kid.”

I turn to him, still letting my anger control me, and he actually cringes a little bit. “Fuck off.” I fire a bolt of the death-Flame at him. He disappears right before it’s about to hit him. Of course he wouldn’t let it just kill him. He’s smarter than that.

I let the Flame disappear and go back inside me. All of a sudden, I feel very drained, very tired. I sit down hard onto the bench area. As I do so, I sit on something very hard. It takes me awhile to fish it out from underneath me, but when I do I’m rather surprised as to what it is.

“This… this is Twilight’s communication amulet… But if she doesn’t have it, then how is she talking with Princess Celestia?”

I think it’s about time I got some answers from her now. I go to walk back inside. As I do so, I think about the wolf that I killed, and I come to a conclusion that quite frankly scares me.

Now that I’ve made my first ever kill… I realize that I liked it.

Your Blackened Heart

I enter back into the house, making sure to wipe my feet off on the outside doormat. Even though I have no idea how long we’re going to be staying here, I don’t want the place looking like a pigsty.

Though, now that I think about it, Twilight probably wouldn’t let it get to that place, anyways. She seems like she values cleanliness.

Speaking of that poofy purple pony, though… What the hell was she thinking, lying to me like that? Didn’t she have some kind of inkling that I’d someday find out that she hasn’t been talking to her beloved Princess every time she goes into her room and shuts the door?

What has she been doing, anyways?

I go straight to her room and knock on the door. “Twilight?” I ask aloud. “You in there?” Stupid question, dude. Of course she’s in there. Where else would she be? She has nowhere to go, really.

Maybe out to get food, but the food she got has really been lasting us awhile. We have about half of what she got, and that’s still a pretty damn good bit.

“Seriously, Twilight. We need to talk.”

No answer. She might be asleep. I need to check up on her anyways, though. I get the feeling she’s been having more conversations with Discord than just the one that I caught her in.

I try the doorknob. Locked. Of course…

Hmm. Maybe I can look in through the window and find out what’s going on. I go back outside and head over to the window. Just my luck, the blinds will be closed-

Wait. They’re open. Okay, so maybe I can find out what’s going on. I go over to the window and take a peek inside.

Twilight’s sitting up on the bed; it’s kinda funny, she almost looks like a human when she does that. What was that pony’s name that she was telling me about, the one who sits like that all the time? Lyra, was it?

Yeah, ‘cause it was that same pony that I met when I got zapped into Equestria by Princess Luna. The green one with the harp cutie mark. Does she have some kind of knowledge of humans or something?

If so, then it’s knowledge that no other pony has, I think. Not even Princess Luna had seen a human before they brought me there.

I know Discord’s seen one, but then again I’m not entirely sure he was telling me the truth when he said that. I kind of tend to not believe much of anything he says, or at least I take it with a  grain of salt.

Twilight’s eyes are fluttering a bit. Is she asleep? Or in some kind of trance? This kind of thing is way outside my realm of expertise.

“Do you really want to know what your friend is doing?”

That fucking voice in my head again… God damn, he is annoying.

I don’t even bother trying to keep my response in private thought; I know he can hear me, anyways. “It’s only curiosity. It’s really none of my business, anyways.”

“But what if she is talking about you to Celestia? Would you want to know then?”

Why would she discuss me with the sun goddess? Oh yeah, she did say something about being her personal protégé…

“Her discussions with Celestia are none of my business, either. Besides, from what Twilight’s told me about her, I don’t quite like her to begin with.”

His laugh echoes in my head. “Oh, so you are finding that not all ponies are likable? Is that it?”

“I knew that whenever I first met you, Discord.”

“Well, yes, but I am not a pony. I have transcended anything and everything those simplistic ponies could ever even dream of becoming. Even the alicorns, like Celestia and Luna, the one you met… Not even they have the power that I possess.”

Something occurs to me. “You must be pretty powerful, to be able to transport yourself across dimensions while you’re still trapped in that statue.”

“Trapped?” He laughs again. “My dear friend, there is nothing trapped about me. I am as free as I was the day I was made.”

There he goes again, with that “made” nonsense. Though, hold on. I remember reading something about this in an old mythology book I used to have. It was by Edith Hamilton, I think.

“So… you’re a chimera, then?”

“That would be the closest approximation of what I actually am, yes. Though, I doubt my creator had even heard of that term when he fashioned me out of whatever spare parts he had laying around.”

“That would make you more like Frankenstein, then.” Man, what am I thinking? Discord probably has no idea what, or who,  Frankenstein is-

“Ah, that lovely creature. Though, I believe Miss Shelley had her dear anti-hero go about it entirely the wrong way.”

So maybe he does know about it. Well damn. “How do you mean?”

“Well, my friend, think about it. If you are going to create a human being and give it life, why on earth would you even give it the opportunity to leave the confines of your home? It would be much better to make it a slave- completely and wholly obedient to you.”

I think I remember seeing a movie about this once. “Why on earth are you even talking about this to me, Discord? I already know that you have knowledge about our world and customs-“

At this point, I feel something clamp down lightly onto my shoulder. I look, even though I should already know what it is. That damn eagle claw. Which could only mean one thing…

“I am trying to show you something,” Discord says from behind me. “I am genuinely taking an interest in you. If I had no interest in you, then I would just show up every once in awhile to utter some cryptic bullshit nonsense, then fly away and leave you to simmer in your anger.”

Huh. I could’ve swore that’s what he was doing already.

I motion into the window, making a mental note to ask Discord later about why he’s suddenly using human curse words. “So if you know so much, then what’s going on with Twilight in there? Is she asleep, or something?”

“Oh, no, not in the slightest. She is speaking with Princess Celestia, just as she has been telling you that she’s been doing.”

“But…” That makes no sense. “So she can speak to ponies in Equestria across dimensions now? Can she cross dimensions, as well?”

“She does not know it yet, but yes she can. The power is within her; all she has to do is develop it enough. Then, someday, she’ll be able to escape this world- and leave you behind here forever.”

“She wouldn’t do that.” Or would she?

Discord takes his hand- claw?- off of my shoulder and flies over to where he’s just visible in my peripheral vision. “Matthew… You must realize something. A human will never be accepted in Ponyville, or anywhere in Equestria for that matter. You are not a pony, and thus you will never truly belong.”

I look at him fully now. “I’m not talking about me going to Equestria. I’m talking about me going back to my time, my world. I have a family, too, you know.  Not much of one, granted, but still… I have one.”

“But you did not truly belong there, did you? You had secrets that you did not want to get out, and thus you pushed potential allies away… You made your own prison. If that were me, I would be dying for a second chance somewhere else.”

“You assume I want one…” I head over to the door to go back inside. “I’m leaving now, Discord.”

“Goodbye for now, friend. Remember, I am always but a word away.” I hear a crackling noise behind me, and I turn around just in time to see a white flash of light fading away.

So he can teleport now? Oh yeah, he did that already… When he was flying away that one time. Maybe he’ll teach me how to do that. That’d be pretty-

Wait, what the hell am I thinking? Why on earth would I ever want him to teach me anything? He’s supposed to be the bad guy… Right?

Come to think of it… I really don’t know all that much about him. All I know is what little Twilight’s told me about him, and what even less he’s told me about himself. I mean, I can’t really make an accurate judgment on someone- something, even- if I don’t know enough about them.

Huh. There’s that book that Twilight was all freaking out about. That Changeling book. Maybe, I wonder…

Oh yeah, that’s right. Twilight’s got her room locked up. Which really doesn’t make any sense. I mean, is she that easily disturbed that she can’t have any distractions whatsoever? Or is that just to keep Discord at bay? Well, that doesn’t make any sense, either… He can teleport, which pretty much makes walls and doors useless against him.

Then again, he has magic, so… pretty much everything’s useless against him.

I take the amulet out of my pocket, where I’d stuck it before coming back outside. For the first time ever, really, I take a really good look at it. The design on the front plate is really intricate; it’s almost like my world’s Celtic knotwork, and yet… it’s got some kind of mystical quality about it that the Celts never really were able to perfect.

The background is a rose-colored red, but there are hints of black in it as well. It’s really rather beautiful. I wonder how long it took whoever made this to craft it.

I’m wondering now what’s inside it. I try to open it up, but it’s sealed shut somehow. Magic, probably. Whatever the reason, I can’t get it open. Just something else I’m going to have to ask Twilight whenever she comes out of her magical little trance she’s in.

I go back inside and head to the kitchen. Upon a cursory inspection of the fridge, I find an unopened package of chicken legs. Twilight doesn’t eat meat, as far as I know, so it’s pretty safe to assume she got these just for me. I smile as I set them on the counter.

“You know what would go really good with these chicken legs?” I say out loud to the air. “Spaghetti. I wonder if we have any more.”

I go over to the cupboard and check it out for myself. Success! There’s at least five more boxes of it left. Oh man, I’m gonna eat good tonight…

Night. It’s almost night-time. Or is it? I have no idea what time it is. If my damn cell phone would recharge, I could actually figure out what time it was. That’s not really my main concern right now, though. I’m hungry, and I need to cook myself some food. I fire up the stove and get ready to start cooking.

All of a sudden, I hear some motion coming from inside Twilight’s room. So she’s out of her trance, I guess. I wait a second to hear if the door opens up, but nothing. All I hear is more commotion from inside the room.

What the hell is going on?

I run over to the door and try to open it. Stupid me, totally forgetting she’d locked the door-

Wait. That door locks with a key. And considering she doesn’t have fingers… How did she lock it? And a better question, where did she get the key to begin with?

Man, shit just does not add up with this pony…

I curse aloud and run outside, looking in the window. Holy shit. Twilight is thrashing like crazy on the bed, like she’s having some kind of Grand Mal seizure or something. And-

What… the hell is that thing on the bed with her? Is that… a dragon? But it’s so small…

I don’t fucking care. If that… thing is going to hurt Twilight, then it’s going to have hell to pay. I run back inside, readying my Flame. When I reach the door, I lower my shoulder and use it as a battering ram, breaking the door down.

“You… Step back, now!”

Elated That Disaster Struck

The thing on the bed freezes and slowly turns to look at me. I see now that it actually is what I thought it was before. A dragon. But it’s so small… Maybe it’s a baby dragon. But what would one be doing here?

A better question would be, I guess, what is it doing existing at all? Is it something else native to this world, something that I just haven’t encountered yet? I guess I shouldn’t really be questioning why it exists; I mean, I’ve pretty much come to accept Twilight and Discord as being actually there.

Why not a dragon? It’s not that big of a jump.

My Flame is still up, though. I don’t know this thing’s intentions, or anything about it really. I don’t want to let my guard down, then suddenly find it at my throat about to tear it out.

It’s looking at my Flame now, a bit more intently than I’d like. After a moment, it speaks, its voice wavering a bit: “Your Flame is starting to turn black. Twilight warned me that this would happen eventually…”

It knows about my Flame? More importantly, it knows Twilight in some aspect- if I believe what it’s saying, that is. I don’t lower my Flame, but I do shift it to its regular blue color. I don’t want to kill this thing anymore, but at the same time I want to have that option available to me, should things go south.

I see things going south somehow.

“Who are you?” I ask. Like it’s really just going to volunteer that information to me. We just met and-

“My name’s Spike.”

Whoa. It actually told me what its name was. Maybe it’s not as rabid and kill-minded as I initially thought. I glance at Twilight for a second. Whatever grand mal seizure she was having seems to have passed. That’s good, at least.

“How do you know Twilight?” Seems like an appropriate next question.

“We come from the same world,” Spike replies. “I’m her number one assistant.” He seems to put a good bit of stock in his position, I’m guessing, just judging from the tone of his voice when he said that.

“You both come from Equestria?” I ask. “So there are more species than just ponies there?”

He visibly recoils at my words. “You… you know about Equestria?”

I smile thinly. “More than you realize, friend.”

“How much do you know?” he asks.

“Well, let’s see. You have a princess named Luna, and she controls the night-time and the moon. I know the names of at least three other ponies, besides Twilight: Lyra, Vinyl, and Rainbow Dash. I’m figuring Dash has some sort of romantic feelings for Twilight, but I have no idea if Twi even knows it or not-“

“Hah!” Spike interrupted, pumping his fist into the air.

“Did I say something you like?” I said, smirking. Against my better judgment, I let my Flame fade. He seemed to be of no threat, really, not immediately anyways.

“Yeah, you told me that Rainbow Dash has a crush on Twilight. I’ve always figured she did, but I could never get any kind of confirmation from either of them.” He grinned. “Pinkie totally owes me those ten bits now.”

“Bits?”

He looks at me a bit funny, but then straightens out his expression. “Oh yeah, you’re not from our world. Bits are what we call our money.” He pulls a gold-ish coin out from pretty much nowhere. “This is one bit.”

“Impressive magic trick,” I comment. “What’s next, pulling a rabbit out of a hat?”

“Already tried that once. Angel wasn’t too happy about that.”

“Who’s that?”

Spike chuckles. “Angel is Fluttershy’s rabbit. She’s always getting into some kind of trouble. Kind of physically abusive towards Fluttershy, but she never does anything about it. She’s way too timid for that.”

I vaguely remember Twilight mentioning something about Fluttershy some time ago. “Is she friends with Twilight?”

“Oh yeah. She’s one of the Elements of Harmony, her and Twilight both are.”

It’s my turn to look confused. “The elements of what?”

“Oh, has Twilight not explained that to you yet?”

“No,” I reply, shaking my head. “We’ve been having a lot to do over here, what with everything trying to kill us and Discord and all-“

Without notice, Spike jumps from Twilight’s bed in my direction. I see the look in his eyes, and he looks fit to kill. I put the Flame up as a shield, and he bounces off and lands on the floor by the bed.

“Are you ok?” I ask. “I didn’t mean for it to-“

“What does Discord want with you?” he demands. “Tell me!”

I lower the Flame-shield. “He wants to put me through some kind of test- well, me and Twilight, really, but it’s intended primarily for me. He wants me to learn something before I die here.”

“What does he want you to learn?”

“I don’t know; that’s the whole thing. He refuses to tell me. Obviously he cares if I die here before I learn my lesson, because he’s been rather benevolent towards me. He’s provided me places to stay, food to eat, even teaching me a bit about my Flame- which is really weird, because he knows more about it than either Twilight or I do…”

“He’s playing with you.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Spike hops back up onto the bed and looks at Twilight for a second. He has an almost forlorn look on his face for a moment, but then he goes back to looking like normal and turns back to me.

“I’m going to tell you about Discord, so just sit back and let me talk. Twilight had me doing research on him at one point, so that’s how I know all of this. I wasn’t a part of Discord corrupting the Elements when he was released the first time, but Twilight has relayed that information to me as well.”

I nodded, encouraging him to continue. He did.

“Discord is what is known as a draconequus. He embodies the spirits of chaos and disharmony, which naturally puts him at direct odds with our Elements of Harmony. Just for future reference, there are six Elements: Rainbow Dash, who is Loyalty; Twilight, who is Magic; Applejack, who is Honesty; Rarity, who is Generosity; Fluttershy, who is Kindness; and Pinkie Pie, who is Laughter.”

“Alright.” I’m going to have to try to remember that for later. Don’t ask me why, but it seems like something I’m going to have to know sometime soon.

“Ok, so for the most part, what Discord does seems to be pretty harmless. Creating cotton candy clouds and chocolate milk rain- Pinkie Pie especially enjoyed that one- and turning the gravity off on Ponyville, making mazes appear out of nowhere… Like I said, it all seems harmless, but all of it fits his end objective.”

“Chaos.”

Spike nods. “And disharmony. His ultimate purpose in life is to drive ponies apart with his antics and magic. He, as far as we know, can do no real good for the universe.”

“So then why does Celestia allow him to exist?”

He sighed. “I honestly wish I could tell you the answer to that question, but… I can’t. Not because of any direct order from the Princess, mind you, but because I simply don’t know. Celestia is a benevolent goddess, and I’m sure she has her reasons. I just can’t see them for the life of me…”

“Well, how long has Discord been around?”

“Longer than any records we have, can indicate. Our earliest records mention him as being fully-grown and already pretty powerful, so obviously he’d been around much longer before then.”

I lean back in my chair, making so that only the back two legs are supporting the full weight of my body. “So what does he want with me? I mean, he kidnaps me and Twilight and drops us both here in this goddess-forsaken wasteland, with everything wanting to kill us-“

“Um yeah, about that… What are you talking about? I was walking for at least a few days before I finally found you guys, and the only thing I saw was this really weird rat-like thing-“

“Let me guess: six legs, beady eyes, tried to rip your flesh off the moment it saw you.”

Spike laughed awkwardly. “You’ve been in contact with it too, I guess?”

“Yeah, the first night I found myself in this… dimension, world, whatever it is. Twilight saved me from it. Hey, how did you defend yourself against it?”

Spike looks kind of sheepish now. “Um… I burped.”

I can’t help but laugh at the thought that passes through my mind at that particular point, and apparently my mind decides to speak it as well: “Damn, Spike, is your breath really that bad?”

Spike laughs at this, luckily. “No, it wasn’t really that. You see, I have a very unique thing that I can do. Whenever Twilight or somepony else wants to write a letter to Princess Celestia, they give me the scroll and I send it to them with my fire-breath.”

“So it’s like using the fireplace Floo network in Harry Potter, right?” Spike is looking  at me now like he has no idea what I’m talking about, and it takes me a minute to realize that once again, I made a reference to something that more than likely doesn’t even exist in Equestria.

“Heh. Sorry ‘bout that. It’s not important. Basically, you use fire to send the messages?”

“Yeah…” Spike replies. “Anyways, whenever I get a response back from the sender- usually Celestia, like I said- I burp and flames come out. Well, it just so happened that when that thing was just about to get me, I got a letter from Princess Celestia for Twilight, and the flames scared it off.”

“A letter for Twilight?” That reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to ask him since he got here. “So, Spike. How the hell did you get here to begin with? Is Luna finished with her inter-dimensional transporter?”

Spike shook his head. “Nope. That’s still a ways off. That changeling attack- I assume you know about that already- really took a toll on everything, in terms of the damage it caused. Luna and Vinyl still haven’t been able to get the energy they need to power it.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t tell me how you got here.”

Spike suddenly starts looking a little shifty. “Um… technically I can’t say… The Princess told me not to.”

“She told you not to tell who? Me or Twilight?”

“You. She specifically mentioned you.”

Oh. So the goddess of the known pony universe knows about me. Great.

“Why doesn’t she want me to know? I’m of no harm to-“ Something occurs to me, then. “It’s not actually me that she doesn’t want knowing about how you got here… It’s Discord, isn’t it?”

Spike nods, obviously relieved that he didn’t have to come out and tell me himself, but rather that I’d made the connection on my own.

“But according to Lyra, Discord is still a stone statue in Equestria. How can he even be here, but still be sealed away? I’ve asked him that once or twice, and he’s always skirted around the issue.”

“That’s Discord for ya,” Spike replies. He’s about to say something else, when a soft voice is heard from the bed.

“Why am I not surprised to see you here, my number one assistant?” Immediately, Spike’s countenance rose, and he turned to see his best friend with a grin.

“Twilight! You’re awake!” He runs up to her and hugs her tightly around the neck. She laughs softly.

“It’s ok, Spike. I’m back.” She looks at me for a moment. “You took care of me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Didn’t really get the chance, to be honest. I had another conversation with Discord, then I saw you through the window in some kind of grand mal seizure, and Spike was standing above you watching you. I honestly thought Discord had sent him to kill you or something.”

Twilight smiles. “No, Matthew. Spike is my faithful friend. He would never do anything to harm me-“

“But I’ll bet they would,” Spike interjects, pointing outside the window. I look outside. Oh shit. You remember that armed deranged man, who nearly killed Twilight earlier? Yeah. Now there are a couple hundred people outside, and they all look just as deranged- and dead- as he did.

Oh, and they’ve all got weapons of some kind. Even the women and children.

I look at Twilight and Spike fearfully. “This… is not good.”

To Say Her Name

Twilight is looking at me fearfully as she hops down off the bed. She doesn’t know what to do, which I guess is odd because I guess I thought she always had the answers to everything. Now that I think about it, though, she isn’t perfect, so there’s no reason to expect her to be.

“What do we do now?” she asks. “There are so many out there…”

I’m trying to think fast. “Spike.” I motion towards the door. “Go and check all around the house. I need to know if they’ve got the whole place surrounded.” Spike nods and runs out the door.

Now my attention goes to Twilight. “Have they moved at all?”

She shakes her head. “They’re all just… standing there.” I don’t really know what to make of this. If this really was Discord’s work, they wouldn’t just be standing still. Or would they? This sounds like more of his tricks.

“What was Discord like in Equestria?” I ask. “Did he ever do anything like this?”

“Oh, no… Not even close. Yes, he was very chaotic, but almost all of his antics weren’t destructive. Nothing like this…”

Spike comes back now. “Yeah, they’re all over the place. They’re keeping their distance, though.”

I sigh. I was really hoping there was going to be some kind of way that we could get out of this. They aren’t making it easy on us, though. I duck down below the window and sit down with my back against the wall. Spike and Twilight do the same.

“Okay, so we’re going to have to prepare for the worst. We have to assume that these things are here to kill us. Which means we’re going to have to defend ourselves.” I look at Spike. “What’s the extent of your magic?”

Spike begins to look very much sheepish. “Um… not very much… I can send letters to Princess Celestia, and occasionally I can make a bit of fire just as a general thing, but other than that…” He sighs. “Twilight is much better at the whole magic thing than I am.”

“That’s only because I’ve had more practice at it than you have,” Twilight said in a conciliatory voice. “Besides, you’re still really young. You shouldn’t be expected to even be close to being on par with me when it comes to magic. And think about it like this: dragon magic is naturally stronger than pony magic to begin with. So when you get to be about my age, you’re going to be way more powerful than I could ever be.”

I don’t know whether to be touched or pissed off. “Um, guys, sorry to bring you back down from cloud nine and a half, but this doesn’t help us out in our current situation… Those things are still out there, ready to do Luna knows what to us, and-“

“Wait. What did you just say?”

“Luna knows what… Why, is that a bad thing?”

Twilight’s eyes light up. “No, not really, just odd… But that does give me an idea. Spike! Get ready to take down a letter to the princess!” Spike nodded and produced a pen and quill from out of nowhere.

I can’t help but gawk. “Where in the living hell do you keep pulling those things out of?”

“An alternate dimension.” I honestly can’t tell if he’s serious or not. So, I just am content with turning around and-

Seeing the Molotov cocktail being thrown at my face, via the window. Fuck. I barely have time to dodge out of the way before it crashes through the window, eliciting screams of surprise and fear from both Twilight and Spike. The bottle crashes through the window, sending shards of glass going everywhere. When it hits the floor, the carpet lights ablaze.

“No!” Twilight cries out. Her horn glows briefly, and the flame is snuffed out before it can spread any further than what it already had.

I look at her gratefully. “Thank you…” She nods and then turns back to Spike. I look out the now-shattered window, as Twilight begins to dictate her letter behind me.

“Dear Princess,” she starts out, “if you get this at all, we need to know what to do. There are beings outside the place where I am at, and they are most likely about to kill us. They appear to be under Discord’s control. Please, Princess… you know Discord better than any of us. Send us some kind of information as to how we need to proceed. Your student, Twilight Sparkle.”

Spike finishes writing the letter, then seals it up with an official-looking ribbon. What he does then rather intrigues me: he belches out a green flame and it consumes the letter, causing it to disappear.

“Um… didn’t you just disintegrate it?”

Spike laughs a bit. “Nope. That’s how I send my letters. It’ll appear right in front of her, completely and totally intact.”

Twilight looks outside. “They’re still just standing out there. I just don’t get it. Why are they even here if they’re just going to-“ Suddenly, she cuts herself off and ducks down. “Discord!” she hisses.”He’s out there!”

I look up a bit. Sure enough, he’s hovering over the mass of people closest to our window. He’s got such a smug grin on his face, too. It really infuriates me, and before I know what I’m doing I stand up.

“What are you doing?” Twilight hisses, this time at me. “Do you want him to see you?”

“He already knows I’m here,” I retort. “And besides, I need to do something… I can’t just sit in here and do nothing.” I start to walk towards the door.

“Matthew…” Twilight’s voice is more pleading now, and I stop again. “Please… don’t do this. I… I need you…”

That last part in particular threw me for a bit of a loop. She… needs me? Haven’t we already been over this? The whole she’s-got-magic-and-I-don’t thing? But then again…

I reach out and grasp the door handle. Before I step out, I turn my head towards Twilight one last time. I smile at her as kindly as I possibly can. “You know it as well as I do… Rainbow Dash is a much better fit for you than I’ll ever be.” And with that, I opened the door, leaving Twilight inside gasping in shock, and Spike standing beside her, an ever-vigilant guardian against all that would harm her.

Which at this point, was just about everything.

I walked outside and shut the door behind me. Discord, I knew, could probably sense the fact that I was scared absolutely shitless at that particular point. I also knew that there was no way in hell that I was going to let him see that. So, I pulled out that damned pack of cigarettes- when was the last time I even smoked one of these? Had to be a few days at least- and pulled one out, lighting it.

“Oh, aren’t you just a regular Marlboro Man?” Discord taunted. “You know, I’m starting to regret ever giving you that ever-refilling pack. Maybe you would have broken a lot sooner if I’d actually taken them away from you a bit sooner.”

“Naw,” I replied, taking a puff. “I’m more resilient than you give me credit for.” I gestured to all of the… zombies, were they? All of the whatever they were, standing outside. “So what, you have to bring an army to face a lonesome human, a pony, and a baby dragon?”

“A baby dragon?” Discord begins to laugh hysterically. “Oh my, this makes things much more interesting! So it would appear that the moon princess’s spell actually worked…”

Fuck. Another new development. “What spell?”

“Oh, it’s just something that she’s been developing at a very rapid place lately. She doesn’t trust either you or Twilight Sparkle to get the job done by yourselves- and by job, of course, I mean surviving long enough for the two of you to get my message across to yourselves and return to your home dimensions- so she was going to send one other member of Twilight’s world to aid you in your journey. But Spike…? It seems like an odd choice, to me.”

“He definitely has his merits,” I counter. “Like that thing he can do where he sends those letters to Princess Celestia. Speaking of, we should be getting a reply back any second now…”

This definitely seems to be news to Discord. “Hmm… So the baby one has a direct line to Celestia herself?” He chuckles to himself. “Foolish goddess. She thought Fluttershy could reform me… How wrong she was.”

“Well, I guess we’re both learning new things today.” I take another drag. “How did Fluttershy try to reform you?”

Discord looks at me oddly. I smirk at him. “Oh, was I not supposed to know that? Well, I suppose that-“

Suddenly I’m looking at Twilight again, and I’m back inside the house.

“-I’ve got some… thing… Um, Twilight? Why did you pull me back in here?” I know I must look a bit aggravated, but that’s just due to the fact that my current emotional state is a bit in flux.

“I’m sorry, Matthew, but I just couldn’t risk any more interaction between you and Discord. He already knows too much the way it is, and if you slip up and tell him something you’re not supposed to tell him-“

“Like what?” I snap at her. “I don’t know bloody fucking anything about your world, your kind, not even where you fucking go to the bathroom-“

“We go outside, silly. It’s excellent plant fertilizer, really.”

“-Because… you haven’t trusted me enough to tell me any of this.”

Twilight gawks at me for a second. “I… haven’t trusted you? What do you think I’ve been doing since the minute I found you? If I hadn’t trusted you to protect me, I would’ve left you to die out there in that cold-“

“Yeah, speaking of which…” I shiver a bit. “It’s been getting colder and colder lately. I hope it doesn’t start getting as cold again, as it did when we first got here.”

“Me either…” Twilight responded in an almost-whisper.

I really don’t feel like talking to Twilight any more for now, so I look for Spike. He’s standing up by the broken window looking forlornly out at the army that has amassed itself outside with Discord as its commander-in-chief.

I stand up and walk over to him. “As cliché as this sounds, Spike, we’re gonna make it through this. We’ve got my Flame, Twilight’s magic, and your… well, whatever it is that you can do-“

“Which apparently is nothing…” Spike turns and faces away from the window, and at the same time away from me. “Princess Celestia hasn’t even sent me back a letter yet, and usually she doesn’t take half this much time to respond… What’s going on, Matthew?”

Something occurs to me at that point, and I’m about to point this out to Spike when all of a sudden, a scroll appears right in front of him. He sighs in relief and opens it up. As he scans its contents, the look on his face grows from one of elation to one of confusion.

“What is it?” Twilight asks, as she starts to read it. “Oh… I didn’t even think of that…”

“What does it say?” I ask.

Spike clears his throat and begins to read: “Dear Spike, I do not appreciate such a joke being played on me. You know just as well as I that Twilight has been gone for a very long time-“

“What?” Twilight asks, as though she’d just heard that part for the first time.

“-and besides that, you just saw me at my castle a few hours ago. There is nothing wrong with you- or Discord, for that matter, as he is still sealed away like he always has been- and I do not appreciate you wasting my time like this. Yours truly, Princess Celestia.”

Spike looks in horror at what he’s just read. “Why…? Why would the princess respond like this? Knowing that it isn’t true…”

I can’t stand to see the little guy this sad. Even if he is pretty much annoying… “Um, Spike. Yeah, about that… It is pretty much possible. See, here… we’re in the year 2073.”

“What?!” Spike looks at me incredulously. “You’re seriously telling me we’re that far in the future here! Wait. So that means…”

None of us want to say it, but Twilight does anyways. She’s almost silent, and we can barely hear her, but her words are impactful nonetheless: "It means I may not survive to go back to Ponyville."

"Twilight..." Spike urges quietly. "Don't say things like that... I don't like it."

"We have to consider the possibility though, Spike," she replies, closing her eyes.

"I might die here."