Part IV: Portal Vision

Part IV: Portal Vision

Unable, and unwilling, to continue with attempting asleep, I get dressed as quietly as possible. The outside world had only the faintest traces of sunlight. I look at the time. Six o'five. I figure I still have some time left before either Twilight or Spike woke up, so I decide to browse the library.

Hoo, came the unexpected call of Owlowiscious. I jump slightly and turn around to find the brown owl watching me on one of Twilight's bedposts with a hypnotic gaze.

"Jesus Christ, don't do that," I hissed. The bird only responded with a hoo.

"You," I hissed again.

Hoo.

"You."

Hoo.

"Y--! Never mind," I scoff, not about to play games with a damn owl. He only blinks at me blankly. I tip-toe back downstairs.

I walk over to a wooden pedestal in the center of the entire treehouse library and pick up a lantern. Turning a small knob on the bottom, it illuminates with fireflies instead of a traditional oil fire. Marveling at the unorthodox contraption, watching the sparkling swarm of bugs flutter all around inside, I go over to a random part of the shelves. A trace of stinging is all that remains on the plethora of scars on my body. It's ignorable for the most part; I also didn't want to think about that bizarre dream at all. Trying to figure out those images was enough to give my stomach a knotted feeling, and that voice...It sounded like my voice, but, much deeper, and more metallic. Just remembering that sound makee my skin crawl.

Like the day before, the shelves are stocked full of novels and encyclopedias and history textbooks, all bound in multiple colors and embroideries. After skimming the spines of the books across wall, I randomly pick out one. It has a light green cover with a golden banner that read The Art of the To-Do List. I stare at it blankly, then I place it back and continue searching. After several minutes, a particular spine glimmers, catching my eye.

On one of the books' spine is the rough, golden outline of what appears to be a dragon that reflected the neon-yellow light from the lantern. Its wings are spread outward, as far out as they could extend on the spine of a book, at any rate, but the tail and hind legs merge into a comet-like wisp. Its head was angled up while spewing gold fire from its maw. I grab it from the shelf and inspect the cover. The hard outer shell of the book is a well-saturated shade of crimson with a black bar across the bottom. There is a more prominent version of the gold-outlined dragon image. Above and below the image are two, almost indecipherable, lines of text that read, or at least I think they read:

Radora Dracos

Homeland Of The Dragons And Their History

Sounds interesting, I think. I wonder where I can read this.

Turning my head left and right, I strangely don't see any chairs or sofas anywhere in the bottom floor of the library. At the far end of the room, there's another door. I walk up to it and find that it leads to the kitchen. There's a dinning table and chairs, but I don't think it would be very comfortable to sit in those for very long. I finally agree to just sit on the floor below where I found the book. I sit with my legs outstretched in front of me, my back against the plethora of books, and crack open the cover after placing the firefly lantern right next to me. The paper is slightly aged, containing only the lightest tint of old yellow, or maybe that's just the reflected light from the lantern. The cover page bore the same words and image as the front, only this time it was ink-black. There aren't any authors credited, on the front or cover page, or editing team, or publishers, or even a date of publication. Pushing aside the missing legitimacies, I turn the pages until I reach the first chapter.

So, I start.

~~~

Radora Dracos

I

Dragons are probably the most misunderstood creatures in the world. Many think that they are, always have been, and always will be, mindless beast that feed off of greed and rage. While this is not entirely the truth, I cannot condemn them for thinking so. Dragons can be a dangerous race if enraged or threatened. It was for this reason that the Dragon Wars were fought millennia ago, in the northern plains of the land known as Radora Dracos, bordering the southern edge of another land called Equestria. Oh, how far misunderstandings and miscommunications can be exaggerated out of proportion. While I won't recall anything specific of the wars, that you can research elsewhere, I will, however, say that every thousand dragon soldiers perished for every million pony soldiers from Equestria.

And it was from this war that dragons now have their fearsome, almost evil reputation.

But it simply isn't true. Dragons are more intelligent and loyal than the world could ever hope to realize! Nopony chooses to admit that dragons were once peaceful, loving creatures, helping their lands prosper and other lands grow. Instead, they choose to fall into the belief of the prejudices against the magnificent beasts.

That is, until something happened. None, not even I, who am writing this with my own levitating quill, know what caused the tragedy that befell the draconian race. After the Dragon Wars, the dragons' cities, including their capital, Volcannia, fell, their industry and technology crumbled, their minds, and their hearts, went primal. They abandoned their birthplace, most of them flying north to Equestria. And throughout the centuries, the dragon population has dwindled from perhaps millions to less than a few thousand across the entire world.

Radora Dracos, once a prosperous, beautiful nation, had been burned into what are now known as the Dragon Badlands, a land that can either be a scorching desert or a freezing tundra or a sea. Bear in mind, the Badlands are not that far south to be a tundra, nor too close to the equator to be considered hot enough for a desert, not to mention that for several weeks throughout the year in the Badlands, it rains endlessly, meaning these climates are utterly supernatural, and unexplainable. Any ruins have more than likely been melded back into the earth's soil after unforgiving centuries of extreme heat, fatal cold, and relentless erosion from the heavens.

It was for this reason that nopony had dared to even explore this dead world. That is, until I traversed the merciless past of the dragons. Since my colthood, I had always been fascinated by the draconians, their history, their legacy, their myths and truths. So, for the past two years of my life, I traveled throughout the skeleton of Radora Dracos. While the exact location of its official borders to the south, east, and west have been forgotten, the northern border is only approximately one thousand miles south from the San Palomino Desert. From what I could gather from my travels, Radora Dracos was a vast country, quite possibly thousands, if not millions of square miles all throughout the interior. There weren't any traces of any dragons returning to there former homeland, and even if they did, any traces were burned or buried.

Everypony, even my family, believed I was crazy to venture into the former heart of the dragon world, and maybe they were correct. My sisters cried themselves into exhaustion when they heard I would not yield in my attempt to brave the harsh wasteland. For the majority of two years, I had faced near death countless times. It is a miracle that I am even here, writing this now.

But my efforts were not in vain, for I had discovered, albeit by accident, an underground temple, crafted by the dragon masters of the past. All throughout this temple, there were murals, gigantic masterpieces depicting dragons of all shapes, sizes, and colors, sculpted from countless jewels that have lasted the test of time! They were images I shall carry to my grave, for my camera was washed away in a flash flood before I could stumble upon the temple. However, I can still describe them to you, cherished reader, who had the courtesy and curiosity to pick up this chronicle, since the images are still very well burned into my memory.

The first few of these murals displayed the many technological achievements of the dragons. One showed a dragon in silver and bonze armor, wielding a magnificent sword, one that would take several dozen ponies to lift. Another showed that dragons were experts in the art of weaponry, combining their natural born weapons with artificial blades and other tools created by dragon blacksmiths. A third mural showed a dragon pounding a new sword into shape with a massive hammer in the molten lava of a volcano. Truly, dragons were ingenious wizards when it came to weaponry.

The next set of murals showed Radora Dracos' society. Dragon's for the most part, were still solitary creatures for the majority of their adult lives, but come together for ceremonies, one of which involves shooting flames into the sky at night for a mind-shatteringly beautiful performance. In the same mural, it appeared as though the flames were conjoining into a parody of the Aurora Borealis. Some of the murals showed that draconians took care of their young, often depicting this through a larger parent dragon with much smaller drakes nestling under its belly.

The last set of murals intrigued me the most. To most of the world, dragons appear to be independent, unguided beings. However, one of the last murals told me otherwise. It depicted several dozen dragons, all blasting their fiery souls to a larger dragon that was perched atop a mountain. This dragon was distinguishably larger than the rest, with a pure white torso, head, and wings; golden nuggets were placed where its eyes would have be, and it was looking down on the dragons below it. It had the impression of a king, almost. Did the dragons have a monarch before their divine plunge from sanity? Below the mural, two words, decorated with more golden nuggets, rested. It read: Draco Rex.

After continuously studying every single detail of all of the murals, I left the temple, utterly satisfied, and traveled home. I wonder if somepony else will every be as bold, and as lucky, as I, Ouranos Black, was.

~~~

Wow, I think after finishing the chapter. Ya' gotta love history. And Ouranos Black? Pretty bad-ass name.

I notice that there is more light shining through the windows. I look at my watch, which says seven twenty-six. I can't believe I read for over an hour. I don't remember time passing that quickly whenever I read a book back in my world. My legs had gone numb since I didn't move the entire time I read, so I stand up and kick my legs around to get the blood flowing. After a few seconds, unfortunately, pins and needles attack both of my feet, making it unbearable to walk.

I hear hoof steps coming down the stairs. I swivel my head around and see Twilight making her way to the bottom, mane slightly frazzled from an apparently good night's sleep. She yawns slowly and opens her eyes, spotting me almost immediately. She gasps.

"Oh! Uh... I didn't know you were already up. Good morning," she says as she hastily tried to adjust her mane. Failing that, she summons a brush out of nowhere and proceeds to fix it.

I turn off the lantern, the need dissipating with the growing light, and reply, "Yeah, couldn't get much sleep, so I thought I'd come down here and do some reading."

She finishes brushing and continues down the stairs. "Do you do a lot of reading?" She asks as she passed me, I'm guessing heading towards the kitchen.

"Every now and then," I answer. "Nothin' like a good book and some solitude to make time go by, you know?"

The mare giggles, "I can relate."

We walk into the kitchen together. The sun is well above the horizon by now, though the air still trapped the chill from the previous evening. Birds can be heard chirping their songs which, to me, sound almost exactly like the ones back home. I remember waking up early every Saturday morning to watch cartoons with Susie, though we would sometimes get into fights about what to watch. This prompted our parents to come down stairs, very irritated by our loud behavior, and make us go back to our room until they were ready to wake up fully. A few crickets can also be heard continuing to chirp from last night. I hate crickets.

"Say, have you read this?" I inquire to the lavender mare, holding up the crimson book. She takes one glance at it, but she seems confused, almost baffled at the sight of it. Her horn glows and so does the tome as it floats over and stops in front of Twilight's face. She studies the book intensely, scanning her eyes across the front, back, and spine, and flipped through the pages. When she appears to have finished her interrogation, she still looks perturbed. The unicorn then looks at the title and mutters,

"Radora Dracos, Homeland Of The Dragons And Their History... Strange, I've never seen this book before in my life." She looks back at me.

I just shrug.

"Where exactly did you find this?" She asks with a raised eyebrow.

I jerk a thumb back behind me, at the room filled with books. "It just caught my eye while I was browsing. Here, lemme show you where." I walk back to where I found the crimson volume, but in its place instead is a purple spine. Now I'm stupefied. Twilight raises another eyebrow at me condescendingly. "I-It was sitting right there, in between the brown and grey books, I swear," I try to reassure her, but she just looks over to where the purple book is nestled and levitates it in front of her.

"Rabbit Mating Season, The Guide To Every Question You've Had About Rabbits Mating But Were Afraid To Ask."

I can't hold back the onrush of laughter that came from my lungs, completely knocked out by that book's title. I collapse onto my knees, not caring whether or not I'd wake Spike up. I just had to get the laughter out of my system.

After a while, Twilight can't help but join in, evidently finding the whole situation laughable. After a good few minutes of that, I regain what little composure I'm, able to muster after that, and say,

"I'm serious though, it was right there."

The unicorn rubs her head with a hoof while placing the purple book back to its rightful place after dropping it when she started to laugh with me. She then rubs her eye with the other hoof before saying,

"I'm not doubting you. It's just weird. This book never came in any of the deliveries I've received so far during my time as the librarian. At least... I definitely don't remember it. What's it about?" She questions, bringing the crimson book back up to her face and opening the cover again.

"It's just some guy who talks about the dragon race, saying where they came from, what they were originally like, basically praising the ancient dragons like gods," I remark impassively. Twilight's gaze remains uninterrupted on the text in front of her. "I only got through the first chapter. It's pretty interesting, I've gotta admit. I've always liked history and geography and stuff like that."

"Draco Rex?" Twilight mutters. I'm slightly astounded by her reading speed. That word only came up towards the end of the chapter, but it took be over an hour to get there. But, I shouldn't be surprised; she's a librarian. She most likely spends a lot of her time reading. After she appears to have finished, I throw in a quick question.

"Any idea what it means?"

She doesn't seem to hear me right away. Her face looks lost in thought as she continues to stare at the front cover of the book. "Hmm... What?"

"Draco Rex, do you know what it means?" I repeat.

"Oh, um, no. It's a completely different language, no linguistic similarities to Equestrian, besides maybe the letters." She casually hovers the book back over to me and trots back to the kitchen, though her brows remain furrowed in concentration.

"Mind if I keep the book for a little while?" I call to her.

"Be my guest," she answered. "Oh wait, you are!"

Smirking, I cracked my back and follow the mare into the kitchen, the book nestled in the crook of my right arm.

Draco Rex, I think. Sounds kinda like Latin.

She's already preparing the stove for breakfast. As she levitates a frying pan above the turned-one gas stove, a case of eggs fly out of the refrigerator right next to the sink. The lid opens up and two eggs hover out, then crack themselves on the side of the pan and spill their gooey contents onto it.

I feel even more confused than before. "You... you ponies eat eggs?"

Twilight raises an eyebrow as she turns her head and replies, "Yeah... What's wrong with eggs?"

"Nothing." I say, shaking my head to get the daze to leave.

Aren't eggs meat? Or, at least part of the meat food group?

"Well, would you like some? Do humans eat eggs?" She inquires.

"Oh yeah, I love eggs," I answer back, shrugging off the near cannibalistic thought. "Thank you."

"Great, 'cause that's all we have," she giggles awkwardly. The unicorn then resumes an air of bewilderment and intense pondering. The eggs are already spreading their deliciously bland, yet full-of-potential aroma throughout the entire room.

"Is there something wrong?" I ask, slightly uncomfortable from her nonmoving facial expression.

"Ouranos Black... For some reason, that name... I wonder if the princess would know it?" She murmurs, to herself, I think. Her attention trails back to the eggs on the stove, and seeing that they're done, gently scoops them up with a levitating spatula and places them on two plates. Then, she carries them along with some forks and knives to the table and sits down on one of the chairs, gesturing for me to join her.

"Do you have any bread?" I ask before joining.

She looks blankly at me before responding, "Um, yeah, in the pantry. Why?"

"It's how I eat the yolk." I respond as I take out a wrapped loaf from said pantry. It's white, which sort of disappointed me because I usually preferred black bread, but decide to make do.

"So, what makes the name 'Ouranos Black' so familiar to you?" I ask the lavender mare as I stroll to the table.

The unicorn was slicing a part of the whites when she answers, "It's just that I think I've heard it mentioned before, as a slip of the tongue from Princess Celestia during one of our sessions while I was at magic school."

"Your teacher?"

"Correct." She places a piece in her mouth before continuing. "I didn't think it mattered or meant anything, so I just forgot about it. But it resurfaced when I read that book you found." She jabs a hoof at the crimson chronicle sitting on the edge of the table, then at me. "What attracted you to the book?"

After coating the sunny-side-up egg in front of me with a generous layer of salt and pepper, I ponder for a few seconds. "I don't really know. It just kinda... stuck out from the rest, I guess." I placed a yolk-covered slice of bread into my mouth and chewed.

Tasty.

We continue to eat in silence for the rest of breakfast. After we finish, Spike walks groggily into the kitchen, rubbing a fist into his crusty eye. "Morning," he moans.

"Good morning, Spike," Twilight responds cheerfully.

"Morning," I answer, giving a slight wave of a hand after placing my plate and knife into the sink.

"You guys got any plans for the day?" He questions to the two of us.

I shake my head. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what I'll be doing in this world, if I was even going to stay here at all. Will I have to get a job? If I'm going to be staying with Twilight for the foreseeable future, I don't want to be a burden on her, especially since she's courteous enough to give me breakfast and a place to sleep. What would I be good at, anyway? I'm not that physically strong, so I don't know if I could work for the Apples on their apple orchard. I can forget about working on the weather teams right away. Animal care-taking? I doubt that would bring in any money.

Twilight is the first to answer the groggy drake. "Actually, there was something I've been planning since we got home from Applejack's last night."

The drake returns to the table with a bowl of what appears to be crystals. He takes one in a claw and crunches down on it as if it were an apple or something. "Oh, really?" He mumbles between crunches. "What?" I'm curious as well.

The mare wipes her mouth with a levitating napkin, and says,

"I've been thinking: we should get the girls over here later today  and I can try a spell I've been working on for the past few weeks. It will enable us to see Michael's world from what he remembers about it. We'll be able to see all of the features and history you know about, Michael, all of the images and sounds you've experienced and felt. Pretty cool, huh?"

My eyebrows are raised higher than they've ever been. That sounds boss! But instead of speaking that aloud, I reply modestly, "Sure does."

... depicting a distinct species of draconians that could last for quite a while underwater, despite the fact that dragons were always thought of as water-intolerant.

This was just one of the many untold abilities that the dragons withheld from the world. But my question is, why would they want to keep these secrets from the rest of the world? Why degrade the knowledge of their skills any further than it already is? Why keep the world that fears the dragons ignorant, keep it in fear?

I said it before, and I'll say it again: dragons are mysterious, yet majestic beasts.

~~~

I finish the fourth chapter just as the door to the library opens up, revealing five ponies trotting through. Getting up from where I sit on the bottom of the stairs, I greet the visiting mares from yesterday. Pinkie Pie had regained her curled-up puffiness to her mane and tail, and now she's actually bouncing instead of gently walking like the rest. Rainbow Dash is giving off and air of slight irritation, with dark circles under her eyes implying she had only just woken up. It is already noon.

The chromatic-maned pegasus yawns obnoxiously. "What was so important that you had to interrupt my mid-day nap, Twilight?" She growls at the lavender unicorn, who is finishing up writing something down on a peace of parchment by the podium. She then levitates it to Spike, who proceeds to quickly run to a nearby window, open it, and exhale a wisp of green fire at the rolled-up scroll, seemingly burning it to ashes. I know it's how Twilight communicates with her mentor, but it's still really odd.

"You'll see," Twilight teases. The cyan pegasus sighs exasperatedly, either out of annoyance or exhaustion, I can't tell. "I just sent a letter to the princess, asking her if she could make an appearance to what I have in store for you all today. Hopefully, she'll accept, but until I receive a response, make yourselves comfortable." This only further aggravates Dash, who starts to fly up and land on a windowsill to take another nap.

What a lazy... Even I don't sleep in that much.

As the other four get comfy, starting up previously interrupted conversations, Applejack approaches me where I return to sit. She has her stetson on again. The orange mare looks at me cheerfully.

"How ya' feelin', sugercube?" Applejack asks me as she sits on her haunches by the staircase.

Sugarcube?

I plainly shrug and reply, "Fine, I guess, and what about yourself?"

"Fit as a fiddle, ever since y'all gave me that heart-to-heart confession, thanks fer askin'." Applejack answers gratefully.

"More like heart-through-door-to-heart."

The orange pony chortles heartily. "I reckon yer right."

I put the book down next to me. "And how are the other Apples?"

"Bic Mac's got some more work t'do at the orchard, 'n Apple Bloom went t'go see her friends around town."

I scratch the back of my neck. "Apple Bloom's really worried about her friend, isn't she? What was it, Sweetie Belle?"

Applejack nods. "Eeyup. But, considerin' she 'n her Crusader friends have always managed t'help one another, I'd say we've got nothin' t'be worried about. At least, for the time bein', anyway."

I'm about to ask her something else when an obnoxious snore crashes my train of thought. I look up and see Rainbow Dash asleep on the window sill, although both of her right hooves are dangling over the edge.

"Is she always so... loud?"

Applejack follows my gaze up. "Who, RD? Yeah, she can be. And arrogant. And obnoxious. And a blabbermouth. And showoff-y. And hot-headed. And--"

"I-I think I got it."

"Right, sorry. But, that pony's brave, and you ain't ever met a more loyal than her."

I look back up at the sleeping pegasus, and I can see the beginnings of a trail of drool escaping the corner of her agape mouth. I shake my head and begin to change the subject from the snoring pegasus.

"Listen, Applejack, do the ponies around town--" I am interrupted by a burp. Apparently, Spike coughs up a scroll right next to Twilight, who ends a conversation she was having with Fluttershy to take the new parchment and read it aloud.

"To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,

I'll be there in just a second."

There is silence for a while, then a knock on the door, gaining the attention of everyone on the room.

"That was fast," Twilight stated, rolling up the scroll and placing it on the wooden pedestal as she trots to see who it could possibly be.

More like uncanny, I think.

The wooden door swings wide to reveal the tallest pony I've seen yet, taller than Big Macintosh. This one is a few inches taller than me, but enough so to make me glance upwards just to look into her purple eyes. Her coat is pure white, with a wavy mane and tail that were colored a light pink, green, blue, and purple. She wears a golden crown on her head that gleamed with sun-lit radiance. But what grabs my attention most is the fact that she both a horn and wings, wings that, I estimate, have a span of about ten feet. She stands at her full height, smiling down at the lavender unicorn, who is returning the expression. All of the ponies in the room, along with Spike, bow towards this monarch. I don't really move, partially because of my wonderment at her appearance, partially because I'm still sitting down and bowing would probably look awkward.

... And I don't really care all that much.

"Good afternoon, my little ponies," spoke the white princess, her tone regal, yet caring and soft. It made me want to trust her, for some reason.

"Good afternoon, Princess Celestia," replies the ponies in unison, except for Rainbow Dash, who is continuously snoring on the windowsill.

"Princess! Thank you so much for coming on such short notice," chimed in an overly-excited Twilight. "Can I get you anything? Would you like some tea, perhaps?"

"You're very welcome, my faithful student," Celestia replies cheerily, "and no thank you, I'm fine. Actually, I didn't have any royal matters to attend to today, so when I received your letter, I almost jumped at the chance for something to do."

"Great!" Exclaims the eager young unicorn.

"Although..." says the suddenly disheartened monarch, eyes downcast. Exhaustion set itself all over her features, almost out of nowhere.

"Is there something wrong princess?" Twilight asks concernedly. "I-Is the library too messy? I-I can clean it up, if you'd like!" In actuality, the room is practically spotless. I don't know what she meant by messy.

"It's not the room, Twilight, the room is fine," Celestia answers tiredly. "It's just for the past two days, there have been several... incidents across Equestria."

This is when Fluttershy approaches. "What kind of incidents do you mean, Your Majesty?" The pink-maned pegasus mumbles.

"I'm not surprised you all haven't heard; I've wanted to keep this from reaching the populace for a while longer until I could figure out what to do." Celestia looks around her loyal subjects before getting the courage to continue.

"There have been reports of dragons attacking villages and towns, unprovoked, throughout Equestria." At this, everyone gasps. "My soldiers are investigating these reports as we speak. I've spent the better part of two days flying to some of these cities to see for myself what happened. And unfortunately, I regretfully admit that these reports are quite accurate. All of the places I've seen were almost completely burned to the ground. As for the ponies living in these towns..." She trails off.

"Dra--... dra--... DRAGONS?!" Screams Fluttershy, quickly dashing behind Applejack to hide from the invisible dragons in the room.

"But it's nothing for you to concern yourselves with," the princess continues. "I realize it is alarming, but let me and my generals take care of it. The main thing I cannot fathom is why the dragon race would suddenly, and for no apparent reason, start attacking my subjects." She mutters the last sentence, almost to herself.

"Rainbow Dash!" Rarity suddenly shouts.

"BWAAHHAAA--OOF!" Came the response. What follows is Rainbow Dash falling from the edge of the windowsill and slamming into the ground full force, hooves comically pointing upwards. I can barely stifle a chortle at the ridiculous sight. One wouldn't normally think that a pegasus could be prone to falling, especially in such a comedic fashion. The outraged white mare glared at the crashed form of Rainbow.

"Jeez, Rarity!" Rainbow Dash shouted back, sitting up and rubbing her temple. "What in the hay was that for?!"

"You were snoozing away in the face of royalty, that's why!" Rarity indignantly barked.

"Well, ya' didn't have to scream at me like that! I was napping!"

"You're always napping, Rainbow. I swear, one of these days, you'll fall asleep and never wake up!"

"That's enough outta the both o'ya'll!" Applejack yells at the two. "Rainbow, show Her Highness some respect," She orders sternly.

Rainbow Dash gets back up and brushes herself off tiredly. "Uh, right. Forgive me, Your Highness." The pegasus bows to Celestia.

The regal pony princess only chuckles at the sight. "It's quite alright, Miss Dash, I can understand the desire to unwind." She then casts her gaze around the room, stopping when she spots me. I don't know why, but when she finds me standing in the room, I begin to feel nervous; the heat was rising to my face. Celestia slowly trots toward me and stops right in front of me. Wanting to be polite, I stand up to met her as she neared. We spend a few seconds scanning each others figures, she studying my bipedal form, me continuing to admire her baffling wingspan, which refused to rest at the mare's sides like Rainbow's and Fluttershy's wings did. Finally, she speaks first.

"You must be Michael," she says, watching me with warm, lavender eyes.

I only nodded in reply. "And you're the Princess Celestia I've heard Twilight speak so highly of." I curtly bow my head to her. "Nice to meet you, Your Highness."

"It is a pleasure meeting another one of Twilight's friends, as well." She raises a hoof off the ground. "Twilight explained through her letter that she had a guest living with her in the library, but I never assumed that guest was a nonpony."

"My kind is called 'human'." I reply. So far, despite her appearance, I'm not in total awe about this princess. For some reason, I just don't feel very impressed to be in her presence. I suppose it's because in my world, royalty and nobility have lost their meaning. Basically, to me, she's just another pony, except taller.

The princess acknowledges this by extending a wing to her lip in contemplation, her gaze never leaving me, which only makes me more uncomfortable. "Hmm, interesting. Well then, if the spell that Twilight mentioned to me in the letter will work, than we all will have a chance to see what your world looks like." She finishes with a smile.

Celestia then turns her head to her student. "Shall we proceed, Twilight?"

"Of course!" Twilight responds gleefully. I can tell she was anxious to show her mentor this spell. I wonder if the others can, as well. She probably spends a lot of her time trying to figure out ways to impress this princess. "If you all will please follow me down to the basement. Spike, can you lock the front door, please? I don't want anypony sneaking in and taking any books while we're down there. We could be gone for a while."

"Sure thing, Twi," answers the little dragon. He runs to the door with a key that manifested into existence out of nowhere and locks the door.

And so we venture to the basement. Twilight leads all of us towards the back of the room to another door that gives way to a descending tunnel. We follow her for about a minutes down a stone staircase, Twilight and Celestia in the lead, followed by the five mares and Spike with me tailing them. Finally, the stairs lead to a large basement filled machines that looked like computers from the nineteen-sixties in my world. But most of them have a thin layer of dust from disuse, and they lined the perimeter of the room, leaving a generous amount of space for all of us to stand around in. Twilight trots to one of the few bare walls and positions herself in front of the group. Celestia stays off to the side, the rest of us creating a half-circle in front of the pair. The lavender mare quickly glances at the towering white equine, and the princess winks encouragingly at her pupil. Something tells me they're closer than just teacher-student.

"Michael, if you would please step forward," Twilight orders to me, now with more confidence in her tone, "I can start the spell."

I oblige. But as I step forward, I began to feel too many pairs of eyes watching me. I get nervous again, but I don't let it show. I stop in the dead center of the room, Applejack, Rarity and the others behind me, Twilight and Celestia in front.

"First, I'd like to explain the spell to you," Twilight states, "in order for you to be aware of what will be going on. Alright?"

I nod.

"Good. I am about to cast a spell that will allow all of us here to see the images and sounds that you want to show us. You... probably won't feel a thing though, I swear, hehe..." Twilight laughs nervously, but my eyes widen. She made the slightest hesitation on that last part. I don't like that. I don't like that at all. My mind suddenly starts racing with all of the possibilities, all of the things that could go wrong.

What if my head catches on fire? Will my brain explode? Maybe my eyes will pop out of their sockets if she tries too hard or puts in too much magic, or however it works. Oh God...

Twilight looks back at Celestia, who again only nods encouragingly. The lavender mare takes a deep breath.

"Ready everypony?" They all nod. "Ready Michael?"

I can only nod curtly, still somewhat terrified.

Twilight closes her eyes and her horn initiates its intense purple aura. After several seconds of concentration, a light shoots out from the tip and engulfs my whole body in its glow. I'm not sure how I know, but I can feel it searching me, looking for the center of my thoughts and my memories. When the light finds what it was scavenging for in my neural pathways, two beams of light laser themselves out from my eyes and onto the wall behind Twilight. I hear all of the ponies gasp while Twilight ducks from the dual beam's pathway. As the light continues to shoot out of my head, all I can see is a tunnel of light purple leaving me. It doesn't hurt, but my eyes start to get irritated because they are being forced to keep open while the beams continued to stream from my brain. After maybe ten seconds, the last of the light leaves my system and I collapse onto my knees where I stood, rubbing my eyes and blocking any more light from entering. I feel a hoof on my shoulder after a few moments, followed by a concerned voice asking me,

"Are you alright, sugarcube?"

I make an effort to speak, but only groan in response, still rubbing my eyes. My whole body feels like the after effects of a roller coaster ride, mostly in my brain. After a minute of shutting my eyes from the outside environment, I finally manage to peek out, slowly creaking open my eyelids. What I see amazes me.

On the wall in front of me, where Twilight stood in front of, a huge, lavender-rimmed portal is flashing images of my world. It is about ten feet in radius all around, effectively taking up all the space on the dusty, wooden wall. Everyone in the basement is watching in wonder, including me. So many images are coming through the portal, I'm surprised that all of that was inside my head.

"My goodness," breathes Celestia. The others only watch in silent astonishment, mouths all agape.

"What's that?" Pinkie Pie finally asks me. She is pointing to an image of tall building that was the stopping point of the barrage of pictures. I'm even more surprised she managed to stay so quiet up until this point.

"That's the Empire State Building," I respond.

"It looks tall! How tall is it?" She asks me again, tilting her head, but her gaze never leaving the building.

I think for a moment, trying to remember. "In total, it's about... fifteen-hundred feet high."

The pink pony gasps at this. "That is tall! Oh, I wonder if it's as tall as Canterlot Castle!" She gasps again. "Maybe it's even taller! Normally, I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it with my own two Pinkie eyes, but there it is! Well, not really, because it's on the other side of the portal-thingy and it's only a picture, but still, WOW!" She jumps at the last word, and strangely, the sound of confetti popping and kazoos blowing appeared out of thin air from behind her.

I wonder what she keeps in that tail of hers...

Another image flashes in the portal. This one shows crowds of humans walking through Times Square in New York City. The ponies seem even more amazed at this sight. Celestia turns towards me to ask,

"How many humans live in your world?"

"Over seven billion."

"What?!" Came the surprised chorus of the ponies. I recoil slightly at the sound.

"Holy peep-holes, that's a lot of people!" Pinkie Pie cried.

"You said it, sister," Applejack agrees.

Rainbow Dash is the next to inquire something. "How can that many humans live on your world? It must be huge!" She exclaims with big ruby eyes.

"It's not just huge, it's gotta be ginormous!" Retorts Pinkie, who sprung from behind me, swinging her hooves in the air.

For the next twenty minutes or so, I explain some of the images and sounds that are shown to the ponies in the room. I give them as much information as I could, giving certain measurements of the buildings I can remember of, or explaining human culture to the best of my ability. While doing so, I come up a bit short on certain aspects, and it is then that I realize just how little I actually know of the diverse human nature. Either that, or it is one of the occasions where I do know things, but my brain won't feed me the information. I actually start to enjoy showing them my world, and they seem more and more eager to learn, especially Twilight and Celestia. Rarity would cry out in glee at anything she saw as fashionable, and Rainbow Dash would give some swoons when an image of fighter jets flew by the portal.

"Big brother!"

My head snaps to attention at the portal, interrupting an explanation I was giving to Fluttershy. That voice...no.

"Betcha' can't catch me!"

"That's not fair! You know I can't climb that high, Susie!"

Everyone in the room turns from me back to the portal. In it, the scene shows someone looking up a tree at a little girl with a pale complexion and auburn hair that went down to her mid-back sitting in a branch way up high. She is sticking her tongue out at us, except, not at us. At me. This is one of my personal memories. This one is when me and Susie were about eight or nine years old, and we were at a park, I think.

"Haha! Too bad! Doggy can't catch me!"

"Michael," Twilight begins, "i-is that...?" I don't answer, though. I am too focused on the memory.

Suddenly, the scene shifts. There's a group of kids, bullies, from what I can remember about them, looking at me, surrounding me and Susie.

"Your sister's a weirdo!"

"Yeah, weirdo!"

They start to snicker at me.

"Sh-shut up! Leave her alone, you... you... assholes!"

They stop snickering immediately. One of them continues,

"Ooooooooo! You said the a-word! I'm gonna tell Mrs. Robinsin!"

They run off in one direction. The view swings around to behind me, at Susie. She is crying, and slightly dirty from being pushed onto the ground by those assholes. She was clutching my arm like a teddy bear as she looks up at me and says,

"... Thanks... Michael..."

My ability for breathing practically left my body, I am so in shock at what I was seeing. These memories of Susie teasing me about my inability to climb a simple tree and of defending her from bullies were a lot to take in. I turn to Twilight and say with a dark tone,

"Turn it off."

The unicorn looks confusedly at me. "I... I don't know how. I didn't think of that! How could I have not thought of that!" She turns desperately to Celestia. "Princess, can you stop it?"

Celestia solemnly shakes her head. "I'm sorry, but I'm unfamiliar with the mechanics of this spell. You created it, Twilight, you should have been the one to create an emergency stop method if ever needed." She answers with authority, like a teacher scolder her student, which she is.

The lavender mare swings her head back to me. "I-I'm sorry, Michael, but I think we have to wait for it to end by itself."

I glare at the mare for a moment, then turn away in anger. Somehow, this spell managed to infiltrate my deepest, most treasured memories, memories I wished would remain buried for the rest of my life. I am tempted to leave when the scene shifts again, and I instantly recognize the setting, having seen it dozens, if not hundreds of times.

This time, the next scene is one I had seen far too many times: my sister's hospital room. Not only that, it's the last time I'd ever see it.

"Hey, Suze..."

No... I think. Please no.

My sister looks up at me from where she lays on the bed with tired eyes, though she still manages to smile; I imagined it was painful to do even that. Her head is bald from the chemo-therapy. Her skin is even more pale than it used to be, if that were possible. The leukemia was nearly finished with its work. Every single detail of that day is embedded deep in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to forget it.

Please, God, don't do this to me again... My legs begin to feel like jelly, but they still manage to keep me up. My right hand clenches itself tightly into a ball, shaking, not bothering to stop when my nails start to cut into my palm.

"This is... this is your..." Celestia stammers, slowly comprehending what she is seeing. She turns her head to me, and I;m sure she can see the pain in my eyes, being that they were moistening.

"How've ya' been since yesterday? They keepin' you comfy?"

Susie nods.

"Good... good..."

I walked over and sat on a chair next to her bed, watching her, and I knew I was smiling warmly to make her feel better.

"How's Mom and Dad?"

Her voice was so weak, so different from her usual lively, loud self, it killed me to hear it like that again.

"They're fine. Busy, you know?"

I hated my parents at the time for being "too busy" to see their dying daughter. That's why I always went to see her, to make sure she knew her family didn't forget her.

Susie smiled, and reached over with a bone-thin hand and gripped my hand, which was resting on the bed sheets, as hard as she could, which wasn't hard at all; it felt like a feather was holding on to my fingers.

"I really appreciate you coming here, Michael."

I chuckled. "You're my kid sister. It was no problem."

"You're only seven minutes older than me."

"That's still seven minutes older, which makes you my kid sister."

Susie only smiled meekly, and raised her other hand and gestures for me to get closer. I stood up from the chair and lean my head in closer to hers until we're cheek-to-cheek. Then, all of a sudden, she kissed my cheek. She'd never done that before. I bring my head back and look at her. Susie seemed even weaker than she did a minutes ago, if that were even possible.

"What was that for?"

...beep...

Susie's eyes closed ever so slowly.

...beep...

Time seemed to slow down as her hold on me gave away.

...beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

"Susie?"

No response, just the continued screech of that fucking heart monitor.

"Susie? Susie?! Wake up! No! SUSIE!"

I had broken down at that point in the memory. The last scene was me continually shaking Susie's body, trying desperately like a maniac to bring her back to life. Then the portal closed.

Back in the basement, my whole frame was shaking, my left hand brought up to cover my eyes from everything, and even that shook. I don't know how I'm able to stay so composed, because that was more painful than anything I've experienced, but one thing's for sure... it was Twilight's fault.

She tries to comfort me, tell me how sorry she is for making me go through that again, how it's her fault she forgot to make a failsafe. Applejack tries to help as well by patting my other shaking hand softly, yet to no avail. But I don't care for whatever Twilight is saying to me. I just wait until she finished. When she is, I slowly pull my hand away from my eyes and swing them to meet her gaze. At first her lavender eyes are filled with dismay, but then her pupils shrink in fear at what she is seeing and she retreats back a few steps. Celestia, who is also watching me, looks startled too. Applejack ceases her patting. I can see it in the unicorn's eyes, in their reflections. I can see my eyes, burning in pain and hate. But there is something else. Something off. Different. My pupils... they're different. They... they look almost like dragon eyes, and my irises are now gold. That isn't my main concern at the moment, however. Not wasting another moment, I quickly walk away up the stairs.

"W-Wait, Michael!" Twilight yells. I stop at the twelfth step and swing around threateningly. I give Twilight the death glare as I try to speak. My voice, though, is noticeably--frighteningly deeper and more metallic, like the voice I heard in my dream the previous night. I say to her -- no, I roar at her,

"Stay the fuck out of my head!"

And then I ran up the rest of the way up the staircase.