Visitor

My hand hurts. The castle physician, Neat Stitch, told me it shouldn't take too long to heal upon repeat visits. He looks old for a pony, the oldest I've seen. I'm not sure how wrinkles manifest in fur, but they sure did on him. He kind of reminded me of my old man a little bit, not that I knew him that well. I told him about my issue... issues, and he told me that was outside of his area of expertise.

"I can fix your skin, son. Not your brain," he said.

I have a suspicion that's going to be a long and drawn-out process.

It isn't all bad news. The cast is about ready to come off. I haven't divulged the fact that I should not have mended my bones that quickly, but then again, there's a lot of variables to consider. Magic can't be understated as a big influence in my recovery, and I'm not a doctor, so I'll just have to roll with what the x-rays say.

Guards are to be put on rotation throughout the day and night, one inside and one outside. There's very little privacy in the arrangement, but the guard here does his best to pretend I don't exist when I'm looking. Princess Celestia says it's for my protection, but that's a flowery way of obfuscating the truth; I'm my biggest threat at the moment.

Stitch said that he's contacting a specialist in 'Philly' this afternoon to talk about my condition. I can't imagine the guy will be here in the immediate future, so I need to maintain some sense of order amongst all the chaos in my head. Or try to. My ego is bruised, my hand is cut up, and my brain feels like it has the consistency of a bad batch of brownies.

The only thing I know for certain is that it's never going back to normal, that I'm going to be addressing the symptom, not the sickness. It's a little more pervasive than that. I sigh and creak back into my chair. The sinking sun is baking the land, the room is getting a little too warm for my liking.

I'm writing another note for Twilight concerning what I remember of the totality of human history, right until everything went to shit. I've glanced at a few files here and there that indicate there's a lot of ambiguity in our distant past, but nothing comprehensive enough to put down a timeline. I'm just going to put down what I can remember from the history books.

Well, when I get these stitches out, anyway.

I look over to the guard, a pale blue pegasus with gray hair and gray eyes. That gold armor looks heavy. Isn't gold really malleable? It must be decorative. I awkwardly grab at a paper cup on the desk and sip some lukewarm water from it, the cast hinders my hand movement considerably. He's staring at a position on the wall, stark and unmoving.

"Hey, uh," I say lamely at the guard. His eyes shift over to me, inspecting me clinically. I clear my throat and lean back again, chair shifting beneath my weight.

"Would it be possible for me to leave this room," I sigh, "get a tour of the castle or something?"

"Not without an escort, sir."

"Well, you'd be my escort then, right?"

He shakes his head.

"No. I'm under orders to keep you here, sir."

I stare at him blankly.

"Look, I'm... I need some fresh air. I've been isolated to this room and the hospital room."

He stares at me for a minute, then opens his mouth to speak. For a few sharp moments, no words are uttered. He seems frozen in place, stopped in the midst of speaking.

"No," he says flatly.

I frown.

"Sir."

"Can you not call me that? Call me Liam."

He says nothing and I huff.

I drum my cast-burdened fingers on the desk as well as I can and he turns to stare at that same spot on the wall, pretending I don't exist. I push out my chair and stand, stretching with a groan. He does not shift his eyes. The idleness is getting me antsy. I can't really do anything with my hand just yet.

"Would um," he turns to look at me, "would I be able to get a book or something?"

He regards me silently and nods. He knocks on the door twice, and the door opens a hair. Another guard outside. He murmurs something and looks over to me. The other guard nods and the door shuts quietly. Silence resumes.

"Not much of a talker, are you?"

Silence prevails.

Okay, then.

The minutes pass by slowly, but eventually, a book is slid through the door. The guard presents it to me almost ceremonially. The entire exchange is oddly formal and I finally get the book down onto the desk and flip the blank gray cover open. The pages are yellowed slightly from age, but the work on the spine and the handling of the book has left it in good condition.

It's been a very long time since I've held a hard-cover book in my hands like this. Written in a big bold header at the top of the second page is the title, it takes a moment for the letters to rearrange themselves in magical fashion into something legible. The effects of this amulet are insane to think about, and I have a few moments to afford to the possibilities of such a device back home, the amount of anomalies that could deciphered with the help of this magic.

The History of Equestria
Fourth Edition
by Starswirl the Bearded
edited by Clover the Clever
modernized by Page Turner

Well, this ought to be interesting. A lot of unfamiliar names and a compiled history of a fantasy land. I just hope the whole thing doesn't read like a fiction novel or something. I had a hard time getting through The Lord of the Rings, so I imagine a similar experience will yield similar results.

Let's do this.

This...

This is some of the craziest shit I've ever read in my entire life.

Three disconnected kingdoms of ponies warring, the three subspecies, unified by an alicorn named Astral on an unrecorded date. Information passed down by word of mouth for centuries upon centuries beyond that date, wars sprouting up with unknown aggressors in disjointed and brutal campaigns far to the north, the Frozen Lands of the Crystal Empire.

It seems, though a fairy-tale land, Equus shares many of the same struggles of Earth. It's honestly kind of unsettling. I don't know how much of this has been censored, but God damn there's a lot of brutality in some of these tales. The Griffon-Pony War, the Yak Rebellion, the Caribou Crusades...

The sun is floating just above the horizon by the time I've cleared the first few chapters, and I've still got quite a bit to go. There was an exchange of guards during the read, got a new one with a white coat and blue eyes. He doesn't talk much either. Is there something on that wall that they're looking at that I can't see?

There's a knock at the door. I look up from the page and turn over my shoulder to see the guard shimmy aside as the door opens slowly.

"You have a visitor, sir," the guard says neutrally.

Through the doorway trots Orange. She's still wearing her cowboy hat, golden hair pulled back into a ponytail and green eyes shining at me. She stops a few steps into the room and narrows an eye towards me. I push my chair back slowly and stand cautiously, doing my best to keep my movements as transparent and unthreatening as possible. When I stand at full height I notice one of her hind legs instinctively plod behind her.

I raise my hands just above my shoulders and open my palms. My right hand doesn't like that very much and I grimace and grunt, breaking my posture.

"Yer still hurt?"

The hat, coupled with the drawl and the thickness of her accent is almost make me laugh on the spot. I do my best to withdraw that humor deep inside and instead give her a pained smile.

"Yeah. This time it was my fault, though."

She takes a few steps forward, analyzing and inspecting me. She narrows both eyes and tilts her head to the side.

"So yer a hyooman, huh?"

"That'd be me," I say with a nod.

"Are ya dangerous?" she asks, eyeing the guard nearby. He's a statue.

She knows I can be. She saw for herself in the clearing. I notice that her stare seems to be reaching deep down into the depths of my eyes. She's searching for something in my answer.

"Not to you," I say calmly, "would you like to sit?"

That seems to be good enough for her. I notice some of the tension bleed away from her.

I take in a breath and reorient the chair, sitting in it with sigh. She trots forward a tad and looks around the room, inspecting the various items and objects of my abode. She looks over the chair by the window and ultimately decides to fall back onto her haunches before me. Her green eyes flit about over me for a few moments and we sit there quietly, just looking at each other. I purse my lips together.

"Thank you, for saving me I mean."

Her head tilts in the other direction. Her eyebrow quirks beneath her hat.

"I wouldn't have survived all that if you hadn't... you know," I gesture.

Her lips pull towards a corner and she nods, "well, nopony deserves ta go like that. Not even scary hyoomans eatin' critters out in th' Everfree," she ends with a playful smirk.

I give a small smile at the pronunciation but decide against saying anything.

"Sorry about the whole meat thing, I probably gave you guys a scare with that."

"Don't worry 'bout it, plenty'a creatures in Equestria eat meat, ain't fair to deprive Winona of what she'd eat in th' wild."

"Winona?"

"Mah dog."

"Ah."

She stays quiet a moment, then rises from her seated position and approaches slowly. Uncertainly. I eye her up, trying to understand what's happening. Slowly, she lifts her right foreleg towards me, extended.

"Mah name's Applejack. Pleasure ta meet'cha."

A... handshake? Fistbump?

I awkwardly raise my injured hand and gently take her hoof into my palm.

"Liam."

A strange sensation splays out against the back of my hand as I feel a pressure sink into the skin, like a giant unseen thumb pushing against my knuckles. We shake for a second but my gaze is fixed onto her grip.

"Uh... ya okay there?"

"Yeah, just... what was that?"

"A hoofshake?"

I shake my head slowly, staring at her hoof in my grip. She retracts slowly and I sit there befuddled.

"No, it felt like you were holding my hand."

She stares at me like I grew an extra head.

"... 'cuz Ah was."

What?

"Was that magic?"

She laughs, short and uncertainly.

"No, sugarcube, it weren't any magic. Ah just took yer 'hand' and shook it!"

The confusion must be spilling over my face because she laughs again, more loosely this time. I chuckle at the absurdity of it and lean back in my chair some, focused on her hooves. I look back up to her and blink away the odd sensation. How strange.

"Huh. Guess that's why you have doorknobs."

"What?"

"Nothing," I shrug, "just talking to myself."

"Ya sound like Twilight," she says with a smirk.

"Maybe. We're both 'scientists'," I say with air-quotes.

She laughs.

"The others... they're okay, right?"

Applejack nods and pulls her lips inward. She dips her head a tad and looks back up with a sincere stare.

"Yep, you had 'em occupied pretty well on yer own. That noise-stick ya had kept 'em focused on you," she says, probably referring to the rifle, "ya gave Fluttershy a heck of a fright, though. Pretty sure ya scared Dash as well, never seen 'er look like that before."

"Sorry about that. I wasn't exactly at my best when all that happened."

She smiles warmly.

"Ain't got nuthin' ta apologize for. Ah'm sorry we didn't do more ta help," she says with a more somber tone, eyeing my cast.

"It's alright, the whole thing was a blur, for both of us I imagine."

She nods. We sit there in that emptiness for a few moments.

"So, where'd ya come from anyway?"

I take a breath and bite my cheek. I let it out slowly. I need to get used to these questions. I'm a stranger in a strange land, and everyone is going to want answers about home.

"It's a long story."

"Ah got time."

Author's Note

Sorry for the short entry, I've been feeling a little pooped lately.
Hope you all enjoy!

Again, love to see comments, good or bad! Let me know what you all think!