Against all logic, Elias could not bring himself to be even remotely freaked out as this little pony clopped up to him with it's face scrunched up in what looked to him to be an effort to look scary. However this had the opposite effect and he knelt and said the first words he'd spoken since he got here.

"You are fucking adorable."

As soon as the last words left his mouth, everything went quiet. The pony stood there, mouth open in shock as Elias reached out and scratched behind it's ears. He was sure judging by how easily it's face was able to emote, something equines of earth just didn't really do, that this pony was the one who had spoken to him. And, judging by her figure, she was obviously a mare. A mare that was now grumbling under her breath as she looked at him. He did manage to catch some of what she said however.

"...didn't feel so nice...buck you in the face..."

Elias simply chuckled and sat back and thought about the fact that since a pony was standing in front of him in quite the opulent color of blue and could speak with what could be immediately rationalized as sapience, he was not on earth anymore. With that cleared up, he only had a thousand more questions about where he was. This presented him with an incredible experience he never would have found on earth.

"Um...are you just going to sit there and stare at me?" the mare asked, watching him while tapping a hoof indignantly. It took him a second to realize she was waiting for him to respond or at least do something other than sit and stare.

"Sorry. Just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I'm in another world. It's pretty exciting to be frank." Elias replied as he extended his hand, "My name's Elias. You?"

The mare regarded him and his offered hand for a moment before she gripped it with a hoof and shook. "Im Midnight Rhapsody, but you can call me Midnight. This doesn't make us friends though. I don't want something like you in our cave." She said gruffly. Well they were on an island in the middle of who knows where, so it was fair to him for her to be guarded. He simply nodded and walked over to the edge of the trees.

"I'll make my camp here. If that's alright with you. I'll be moving on in the morning to look for fresh water." He said as he placed his pack down. Midnight gave him a strange look before entering the cave and placing a large piece of wood of it the block the way. He simply laughed at this. If him or anything else wanted through to get at her and whoever else was in there, that flimsy piece of driftwood would not help them in any way. He shook his head and started getting his camp ready when he turned and spotted something in the trees that immediately made him smile.

There hanging in a few bunches were coconuts. There were only two of them that were a bit more reachable, and what a treat they would be. Once he had his fire going using the still smoldering wood cigar, he set to climbing up this tree. Luckily he still had his hiking boots on, the spikes on the bottom helped great with keeping himself up instead of sliding down the trunk. Once he was up to right height, he used his hatchet to knock both down before slinging his arm around the trunk again to keep himself from falling back. Slowly and carefully he made his way down and set to cracking one of his spoils open.

What he hadn't counted on was that Midnight had been watching this and decided to make herself known as Elias sat lounging in front of his fire, coconut in hand as he took small bites from one half and drank the juice from the other.
He turned and noticed the dark colored mare licking her lips as she eyed the coconut. He looked at her and back at his feast before raising an eyebrow and offering her the half he had been nibbling on.

Greedily she snatched it from him and dashed back into the cave, wood once again in place. This gave the man another chuckle as he thought back to some of the supplies he had with him. This set him to planning and once he was ready, he began putting things together. He gathered a bundle of sticks and tinder and placed them at the cave entrance along with another, albeit smaller, wood cigar that was now smoldering. He also placed down one of his plastic bags of trail mix and a bottle of water.

Just because she was being on guard didn't mean he couldn't help her survive a little too. With that done, he made his way back to his fire and sat down to enjoy the rest of his coconut before he laid out his blanket and closed his eyes. It had been an eventful day, all things considered. It could only get more interesting from here.

* * *

The soft crackling of the fire and the sounds of the night lulled him to sleep while Midnight sat in the cave and watched from safety. She still didn't trust the strange thing that had so nicely offered food like that. She turned away from the makeshift door along with the wood and smoldering sticks it had given her. This Elias thing seemed nice but time would tell. Inside the back of the cave sat her sister, Seabreeze Star. She shivered under the makeshift leaf blanket Midnight had made for her, and with every shiver her sister winced. Her right wing was broken but splinted a bit crudely.

Midnight gave a quiet sigh in sadness for Star, and set about making a fire from what she was carrying. She had watched how that thing had started it's fire and she tried to replicate it a few times, but no matter what she did, it wouldn't start. She gave up and tossed the smoking bundle at the wood and upon striking it, it burst into flame. Midnight stared at it blankly before running a hoof down her face in exasperation.

Carefully she moved her sister closer to the fire and laid down next to her on the other side so she could keep her left side warm too. While Star slept, Midnight stared into the flames, watching them dance as she thought back through the events that had brought the two of them here. How were they suppose to know that the ship they were on would be waylaid by slavers. They had paid almost a whole hoof in terms of bits just for the tickets to travel to Maremuda.

Instead Midnight acted on impulse and had grabbed her sister and jumped overboard. Luckily they both washed ashore together, but Star had been knocked around by the waves as they came in and had broken her wing. Since then they had been surviving on the island as best they could. And sure she could show the thing outside where they had found fresh water, but for now they would wait, just to be safe.

She looked down at her sister and then back over to where the water and bag of what looked like trail mix to her, sat. Carefully she got up and grabbed them before taking her spot once again. She placed the water and mix down and looked at them carefully. The thing outside could speak well enough and judging by its use of every day items that everypony had, she knew that it was as sapient as they were. it walking on two hooves though like a minotaur worried her a lot. Was it native here? Had she and her sister encroached on it's home?

She shuddered at the thought and eyed the provisions once more before laying down and closing her eyes. The fire made the cave much warmer and she was able to slip into a more comfortable sleep and dreams of coconuts that teased her from a distance.

It didn't feel like very long at all until daylight had returned and Midnight found herself being nudged awake by Star. She had her muzzle in the plastic bag as she munched on some the trail mix before she swallowed and looked back to her sister.

"Oh good your awake, were these from the thing you were talking about?" she asked quietly. Midnight had explained the first meeting with the thing outside but she didn't know about the coconut or the provisions, so she nodded and explained what had happened.

"Nighty, I told you, if it's nice enough to speak to us and not eat us then we should be trying to help eachother. Being cagey like this could only hurt our chances." Star explained before unscrewing the water bottle cap with her good wing and handing it to Midnight. "Drink up and have some of that trail mix, its really good and really salty. I'm going outside to mingle."

At that Midnight bolted upright and looked warily between her sister and the entrance to the cave. "Are you sure? What if he's just trying to catch us and bring us back to the slavers?" she asked. Star just responded with a flat unconvinced look and walked out of the cave. Midnight rolled her eyes and followed after and exited the cave to find Star staring at the thing that had started packing up it's camp. It was also staring back and had stopped moving.

"Uh, hi. Are you a pegasus?" it asked her sister as it straightened up. Her sister smiled and looked up at the thing and replied with a rather pleasant "Yep, what are you?"

He chuckled and said, "I'm a human, though I imagine as this is another world for me, You probably don't have many or any if at all here." Star nodded and walked up to take a look at his little makeshift camp.

"Thanks for the food and water, oh and for the fire. That was pretty nice of you. Im Seabreeze Star but you can call me Star if you like." She said, as Elias nodded and finished his packing.

"That's a pretty nice name. So I have some questions if you'd be willing to indulge me." He asked, taking a seat on his now full pack as it squished down a bit under his weight. Star sat in front of him and smiled back nodding her consent for him to continue. Thus started a several hour long session of what amounted to twenty questions, but with twenty thousand more questions added.

He discovered he was currently in Equestria, though more importantly he was in the southern Equestrian seas. He was also regaled with their tale of almost capture and escape that led to Star's broken wing, which Elias offered to take a look at and after finding it was rather similar to bird wings, he adjusted and tightened the splint. While this did cause the pegasus mare a bit of pain, it was seated far better now and would heal in a more proper way.

They asked him just as many questions about where he had come from and what it was like to live there. He spent a while explaining the many things he had already done through his life so far and that after having done all of that he was going to hike off and get lost somewhere to enjoy something new, but before he could he had ended up here, which in his books was just as fortuitous as he could have hoped.

After they had gotten acquainted, albeit with some resistance from Midnight, Star set about explaining where the watering hole was that they had found. It was apparently a freshwater spring that ran off the natural Equestrian magic of the area. This was something that fascinated Elias as anyone in their right mind would be. From what Star had explained, Equestria had a veritable wealth of natural magical phenomenon that dotted their world. Each one was more than likely unique and operated in entirely new ways that nopony could possibly calculate.

As they walked through a path the two mares had made and hidden, Elias questioned Star as to how she knew so much, and she explained that she had graduated from Princess Twilight Sparkle's School Of Friendship earlier that year with not only a degree in friendship but a degree in Nature Magic Studies and Research. This almost immediately set Elias laughing at the notion of not only a school of friendship in a world run by pastel colored ponies, but the fact that he was lucky enough to be marooned with one of said ponies who had given him an idea as to what he wanted to do in this world.

While they headed off to find water, Elias set to planning once again, only more long term in nature. He wanted to track down another Natural Magic phenomenon, as this was a great start to what he could certifiably call an adventure. There was just one problem.

Getting off the island.

Author's Note

Another chapter down, and some progress made. Now we have a little context as to the two that Elias may just have to survive with. And possible plans for the future abound. I hope you all enjoy this, and once again let me know what you think and if there are any errors. Im always willing to hear my readers out on the constructive criticism front, for how else does a writer improve? Especially in new writing territory such as this. :P

-StormHoof